Jun 11
Post DNB Bridget
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Post DNB Bridget
Some of you have a weakness for liking posts with pseudo feminist language that, for no reason, is aggressive towards trans men and mascs without a second thought
Winx: Echoes of Magic
(Winx club reboot/rewrite)
Character introduction: Musa
Musa's mother had been her whole world.
From the moment she could speak, her mother had filled her life with music. She had taught her how to sing before she had learned how to read, how to recognize melodies hidden inside ordinary sounds, and how to listen not only with her ears but with her heart. Music had never been something Musa simply practiced. It had been woven into every part of her life because of her mother. Now, standing beside her lifeless body, Musa couldn't hear any of it.
The silence felt unbearable.
It pressed against her from every corner of the room, swallowing every memory of laughter, every song they had shared, every gentle correction when Musa sang a note slightly off-key. The absence felt so complete that for a moment she wondered if music itself had disappeared alongside her mother.
Her gaze remained fixed on the woman lying before her.
Even in death, her mother looked beautiful.
Her dark hair had been carefully arranged around her shoulders, and her expression carried a peacefulness that almost seemed unfair. Looking at her, it was difficult to believe that she would never open her eyes again. Beside her, Musa felt her father's hand trembling against her own.
When she looked up at him, her chest tightened.
Dark circles rested beneath his eyes, mirroring the exhaustion she knew was reflected in her own face.
Neither of them spoke. Words felt meaningless in a room like this. As the funeral ritual began, soft magical light slowly filled the air around her mother's body. The glow wrapped around her gently, illuminating her features one final time before her form began to dissolve. Musa watched without blinking, terrified that looking away would somehow make the moment more real.
Little by little, her mother disappeared.
The light consumed her completely until nothing remained except countless shimmering particles floating through the air like golden dust caught in sunlight. The particles drifted together in a slow spiral before settling inside an ornate golden urn waiting nearby.
One of the attendants stepped forward and carefully placed the urn into her father's hands.
The moment he accepted it, something inside him seemed to break. He wrapped both arms around it as though he were afraid someone might take it away and lowered his head. The sob that escaped him was quiet, almost painfully so, but hearing it hurt more than any scream could have.
Musa had never seen her father cry before. The realization made her throat burn. Around them, mourners began quietly leaving the room, offering sympathetic looks and whispered condolences as they passed. Musa barely noticed any of them. The walls suddenly felt too close, the air too heavy to breathe.
Before anyone could stop her, she turned and hurried outside. The tears gathering behind her eyes still refused to fall. Perhaps they were trapped. Or perhaps some stubborn part of her refused to let them escape because crying would mean accepting that this was real.
All she knew was that she needed to keep moving.
She walked without paying attention to where she was going. Familiar streets passed in a blur as she moved through the city, her thoughts too tangled to focus on anything around her. Voices blended into meaningless noise. Buildings came and went without leaving an impression.
Eventually, her legs began to ache and her feet felt heavy enough that continuing forward became impossible. A small playground sat nearby, nearly empty beneath the fading afternoon sky. The sight stirred something deep inside her, and before she fully realized what she was doing, she found herself crossing the grass toward the swings. The chains rattled softly as she lowered herself onto one. Slowly, she pushed herself forward.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
The familiar motion brought memories rushing toward her before she could stop them. This had always been their place. Her mother would swing beside her, laughing whenever Musa tried to go higher than she did. Her father would stand behind them, pretending to push one while secretly giving the other a stronger push just to start an argument. Their laughter would echo across the playground until all three of them could barely breathe.
For a moment, the memory felt so vivid that Musa almost expected to hear them again. Instead, she found herself staring at the empty swing beside her.
The sight hurt more than she expected. The tears still wouldn't come. She lowered her gaze toward the ground and gripped the chains tighter.
"Hey, you." The voice pulled her from her thoughts.
A boy stood a short distance away, studying her with an expression she couldn't quite understand. He wasn't much older than she was, but there was something oddly serious about the way he observed her, as though he were trying to solve a puzzle without having all the pieces.
After a few seconds, he walked over and sat on the swing beside her. Neither of them spoke immediately.
"Why are you upset?" Musa stared at him in disbelief.
Of all the questions he could have asked, that was the one he chose. Annoyance immediately replaced whatever sadness had occupied her thoughts moments before.
She had wanted to be alone.
"Leave me alone," she said sharply. The boy paused for a moment, and she thought he might actually listen. Instead, he leaned back slightly and looked toward the sky.
"You know," he said casually, "I'm going to become the strongest knight Eraklyon has ever seen.” The statement was so absurd that it caught her completely off guard.
"That's stupid," she replied. The boy immediately looked offended.
"It isn't stupid."
"It is," Musa argued. "My dad says only rich people and nobles become knights."
"Then I'll be the first exception." His confidence was ridiculous. What made it even more ridiculous was the fact that he genuinely seemed to believe it. The determination in his voice lacked any trace of doubt. For the first time all day, Musa felt the corner of her mouth twitch upward. The boy noticed.
A grin spread across his face before he turned toward her. "Fine. If my dream is stupid, what's yours?" The question struck her harder than she expected.
The small smile disappeared instantly. Musa looked away. The swings gradually slowed.
"I don't have one."
This time her voice sounded quieter, because it was the truth. She had never needed a dream beyond the one she already had. Whenever she imagined the future, her mother had always been there beside her. They would sing together on stage while her father played music behind them. It was such a simple vision that she had never questioned it. She had never considered another possibility because she had always believed there would be time.
Now there wasn't. The future she had imagined her entire life had vanished alongside her mother.
And sitting there beneath the fading evening sky, listening to the creak of the swings and the distant sounds of a city continuing without her, Musa realized she had absolutely no idea what came next.
The boy suddenly stepped off his swing and moved behind hers. Before Musa could ask what he was doing, she felt his hands connect with her back and, with a single powerful push, he sent her soaring forward. She hadn't expected someone his age to be that strong. The swing carried her higher than she had gone in years. Wind rushed through her hair as she swung forward, then backward, only to be pushed again.
Each push sent her higher, carrying her farther above the playground. For the first time all day, she wasn't thinking about funeral rituals or urns or empty rooms.
She was simply flying. A feeling she hadn't experienced since childhood began bubbling inside her chest. It started as surprise, transformed into excitement, and before she realized what was happening, laughter escaped her.
The kind she hadn't thought herself capable of anymore.As she laughed, the tears finally came.
They slid freely down her cheeks, carried away by the wind as the swing continued its arc through the air.
Musa cried and laughed at the same time. And somehow, for the first time since her mother's death, neither felt wrong.
Eventually, the boy stopped pushing. The swing gradually slowed until she was drifting back and forth in gentle motions. When she looked down, she found him standing directly in front of her. After a moment, he lowered himself onto one knee so that he could look up at her properly.
For once, there was no smug grin on his face. No ridiculous speech about becoming the greatest knight in history. His expression was surprisingly sincere.
"I don't know what you're going through," he said quietly. "But I know you're hurting."
Musa looked at him without speaking. "And I know you're going to be okay." The confidence in his voice sounded almost ridiculous, yet somehow she found herself listening.
"Maybe things won't feel okay tomorrow," he continued. "Or next week. But eventually they'll get better. You'll find something that makes you happy again.” He shrugged.
"And you'll find your dream." Musa stared at him.
Only minutes earlier she had been irritated by his presence. She had wanted him to leave her alone and stop talking to her altogether. Yet now, as she sat there looking down at him, she felt a strange warmth settle inside her chest. Not because his words magically fixed everything.
They didn't.
Her mother was still gone, nothing could change that.
But for the first time, someone had spoken to her as though there was still a future waiting for her. As though her story wasn't over. A small smile appeared on her face.
"Thank you," she said softly, the boy immediately brightened.
"The name's Riven, by the way."
"Musa."
"Pleasure to meet you, Musa." She rolled her eyes.
"You're still annoying." His grin only widened.
"Good."
That had been seven years ago. She had never seen Riven again after that afternoon. Life had continued moving forward whether she had wanted it to or not.
The grief never disappeared completely, but it changed with time. It became something quieter. Something she learned to carry instead of something that crushed her.
Her relationship with her father had never fully recovered. He still loved her more than anything in the world, but the years following her mother's death had left scars on both of them. The cheerful musician Musa remembered from her childhood had completely disappeared, he had done everything he could to raise her alone.
And because of that, Musa had gradually learned how to stand on her own as well. She had learned how to make decisions without her mother's guidance. How to trust herself. How to keep moving forward.
Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, Musa adjusted the strap of her travel bag and studied her reflection. A smile slowly spread across her face.
Tomorrow she would leave for Alfea. The thought should have terrified her. Instead, it filled her with anticipation. For the first time in years, she felt as though an entire world was opening in front of her. Turning away from the mirror, she stepped out of her room and made her way toward the living area. The first thing she saw was her mother's photograph.
The framed picture sat in its usual place, carefully maintained despite the years that had passed. Her mother's smile looked exactly as Musa remembered it.
Today marked seven years since her death. The realization still hurt. Some wounds never completely healed. Her father sat in front of the photograph, quietly staring at it. Musa crossed the room and lowered herself beside him.
For several moments neither of them spoke. Then her father reached over and gently took her hand. When she looked at him, she was surprised to find him smiling. A smile she hadn't seen often recently.
"You know," he said softly, I'm so proud of you." Emotion tightened in Musa's throat.
"Dad..."
"You've worked harder than anyone I know."His voice wavered slightly.
Musa squeezed his hand. "I'm proud of you too."
He looked surprised.
"You are?"
"Of course." A small laugh escaped her, his eyes immediately became suspiciously shiny. For a moment, he simply stared at the photograph.
As though saying anything else might break him.
The conversation gradually shifted toward tomorrow.
Her father believed the greatest thing a fairy could become was becoming a Guardian Fairy. It was a respected position. Stable. Honorable. The kind of future parents dreamed about for their children.
As he spoke enthusiastically about all the possibilities waiting for her, Musa listened with a fond smile. She knew exactly what future he hoped she would choose.
A future devoted to helping their world. A future that offered security and respect. But when the conversation turned toward music, his enthusiasm faded. It always did.
Ever since her mother's death, music had become painful for him. Musa understood why. Yet a small part of her still longed for it. As her father continued talking, ignoring the topic of becoming a musician all together, another memory unexpectedly surfaced.
A stubborn boy with impossible dreams.
“You'll find your dream.”
The words echoed through her mind even after all these years. Musa smiled to herself. Maybe she didn't know exactly what her future looked like yet. Maybe she wasn't certain where her path would lead. But she knew one thing. She wanted that path to be hers.
Not her father's. Not her mother’s. Hers.
Life had not ended seven years ago. For a long time she had believed part of it had. But sitting beside her father, preparing to leave for Alfea and step into a future filled with endless possibilities, she finally understood how wrong she had been. Life had continued. And tomorrow, for the first time in a very long time, she was ready to truly start living it.
Thinking a little about how I'd fix this issue in Discworld - how Ankh-Morpork (and Vetinari) are responsible for basically every new technological or societal development on the Disc - and, apart from making Vetinari and Vimes just less OP in the later novels, I think the most practical solution is to just not have as many books set in Ankh-Morpork. I get why they are because we're so familiar with it and it's cool to have so many cameos of characters we know and love, but it creates this issue of making AM feel like the absolute centre of the universe since all the later books except the Witches are set there and practically everything important happens there. Sir Terry himself even said that it was difficult to juggle the presence of the Watch with any other plots he wanted to happen in AM because they would naturally want to interfere and take over, so just setting more of these kinds of plots outside of AM would not only avoid that conflict but also let us see more of the Discworld in general.
I think the easiest books to separate like this would be Moist's subseries since they could happen in pretty much any larger random city (and it's more or less a coincidence where exactly Moist gets caught and "executed"). You'd need the newspaper and the golems but it'd make sense that these ideas would've spread somewhat over the Discworld by the time Going Postal is set, similar to the Clacks system. You'd lose some opportunities for cameos but you could still do some if you wanted, similar to how de Worde, Vimes and Angua still appear in Monstrous Regiment. I'd most like to set them in the largest city in Überwald, that still has some connection to Überwaldian country life but is also kind of a more modern urban hubub similar to AM but different. You could take Lady Margolotta to step in as city puppeteer and manipulator since she's already established as similarly influential and clever as Vetinari. The tone of their confrontations would obviously be a little different but I think it could still work really well and provide an interesting contrast to Vetinari's (and Vimes') thing. And obviously, Moist's revitalization of the Post Office, the banks and everything else would still have a similar influence on AM as well, even from another city, because they'd obviously want to take part in the cool new thing.
AM kind of became THE quintessential city(TM) in Discworld and I find it kind of sad that we barely got to explore any other cities in the series to highlight the similarities and differences between them.
Small Kagami post - in regards to my rewrite/AU
It's been awhile since I've posted about the B-Team rewrite, lol
My friends suggested i post to this site again. Hello tumblr how are we