I liked the idea of Izuku being taken by the LOV so he could somehow get a perspective on why they, and villains in general, end up going down the paths that they do, but as of the newest chapter I'm like Nu-Uh, guess I'll think of smth else. Which there are: revisiting Gentle and La Brava, a one-on-one with Nana, one of the previous OFA users potentially being a villain at one point, the idea that the HC program Hawks was brought up in was potentially for gifted children of villains, etc.
oh man...i cant wait for izuku to have some sort of one-on-one chat with nana, which im certain we’ll get at some point. given that she’s shigaraki’s grandmother and all...and has a theorized family connection with izuku too. it’d be interesting to see nana - or rather, her vestige - and how she feels about all of this...
and one of the past vestiges being a villain, or even vigilantes is possible. people theorize that for the two silhouetted users (and honestly, anything is better than the bak-u-go theory)
Disclaimer: I don’t know which period of history ANY is supposed to be based off of… or whether literacy is common in their world. It’s kind of hard to tell when rarely anyone is shown to be reading/writing anything. I’ll change this to reading cause close enough. (I also don’t know whether they’re writing in hangul, chinese characters, or Japanese… So uh… *waves hand*)
Minsu did not like king Soowon.
But he remembered a time, an earlier, more innocent time, where the young lord would smile, and the whole world would spin around.
The young lord had beautiful calligraphy, or so Minsu would presume. Not that he knew for certain, as he only knew enough characters to read what he needed to, characters for rice, for wine, apothecary labels. Still, there was grace in the way Soowon’s brush glides across the paper, strength in the strokes, and gentleness in the curves. And to Minsu, that was beautiful. As was the ability to create meaning on a piece of paper.
“Are you interested in the history of Kouka?” the young lord asked, lifting his brush off the paper.
Having been caught staring, Minsu ducked his head with embarrassment.
“I… cannot read or write very well, Lord Soowon,” he answered, “I just thought that Lord Soowon has beautiful calligraphy.”
“I can teach you, then!” Lord Soowon smiled brightly.
“I… that wouldn’t be appropriate…” Minsu said, a bit hesitant. After all, he was but Lady Yonghi’s attendant’s son.
“I’m learning too, it’d help me practice. I’ll tell Auntie Chimin that you’re helping me with my studies. I’m sure she’d approve,” it was difficult to deny Soowon when he got a plan, and Minsu couldn’t help but feel excited about the prospect of learning alongside the young lord.
“Ah… Of course, this is an invitation, not a request,” the young lord said, ever cautious, “only if you’re interested, of course.”
It was a nice thought. Lord Soowon always asks. It was something that sets the young lord apart. Minsu saw no reason to refuse.
“I’d like that.”
“Wow, your calligraphy has improved so much!” There was genuine awe in the young lord’s voice. Minsu could feel his own heart swell with pride, just a little.
“It’s beautiful…” Lord Soowon traced his fingers along the trail of characters.
“Thank you, I’ve been practicing like how you taught me,” Minsu accepted the compliment humbly. There was no reason for the young lord to flatter him. Lord Soowon has always been the genuine kind.
“Keep this up, and you’ll be good enough to serve as an attendant for his majesty,” the young lord teased brightly.
At some point, the prophecy came true.
Things lord Soowon have said, Minsu observed, almost always came true.
There was a point, Minsu remembered, when he didn’t find it frightening… or loathsome.
“It’s a message from Princess Yona,” the king said, his voice cold, unaffected.
“Princess Yona… she…” The princess… Minsu was told that she and general Hak were dead. He was one of the few who knew what really transgressed that night, one of the few who was responsible.
“Yes, Minsu,” the king didn’t look at him, he rarely does anymore, “she’s alive.”
“How’s your writing?”
So shocked was Minsu from the news that he almost missed his majesty’s question.
“I’d like you to transcribe and deliver a message for me,” the king said, “your writing is better than mine.”
“Besides, you’d like to see Princess Yona again, don’t you?”
Sometimes Minsu remembers the warm summer days, where the young lord sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
“Wow Minsu,” he said, smile bright as the sun as he looked straight at Minsu, “your writing’s beautiful.”
Prompt: Time Travel!Yonhi playing hide-and-seek with Zeno in Hiryuu's era.
This...isn’t that...but I hope you like it anyway (when I saw your post about the heavens, this was basically finished and I was like yes).
1544 words, priest Yonhi au, time portals au, gen
Yonhi steps through the portal into quiet. Blessed, peaceful quiet. Images of destruction still fill her mind, but these are only the product of her own imagination, memories of a dream. The gods do not speak to her in the past.
She hadn’t meant to come back, not yet. She wants to see Hiryuu again—she will see him again—but she's still not ready. But when the gods sent that dream—when it followed her into her waking hours and she just needed to think but could not because the visions pressed too hard—she had to escape.
Ah, well, it’s not as if being in the past means she has to go to Hiryuu, Yonhi reasons as her head begins to clear. If she finds a quiet place to keep to herself, she can take all the time in the world to weigh her options...or at least until the magic of the time portals sends her back to the present. It could be anywhere from hours to days.
If she wishes to avoid him, the safest option would be to leave the castle entirely—but to reappear outside the castle in her own time might cause more trouble than it’s worth. None of the hidden quiet places Yonhi knows will be here in this castle...but they might have equivalents. The battlements have always been a favorite. Nobles and courtiers won’t bother her up there, but she can look out and see the whole of Kuuto and beyond.
In this time, it’s not much different. Kuuto is smaller by far—and isn’t even called Kuuto yet, she remembers from last time—and the roads leading to the castle are lined by wild open fields of yellow grass rather than lush green farmland. She wonders if the lands of the Wind Tribe are less populated in this era too.
Yonhi shudders, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off an imagined wind. The gods had sent her visions of a storm. Homes torn apart by raging winds, children swept away by rising waters, it would strike the southern coast of the Wind Tribe...more than two thousand years from now. She breaths to calm herself. The gods can’t force her to relive those scenes again and again, not here. Of course she can’t let them happen, of course she has to do something, but—
(there is a readmore here)
“Miss?”
Yonhi turns around. A familiar golden-haired young man stands behind her. “Zeno,” she says. “I suppose I should have known I wouldn’t pass unnoticed. Though it’s Shuten I’d have expected to see up here.”
“If Ryokuryuu wants to look out over the land, he just jumps,” says Zeno. “But miss...you’re not from the palace, but you look familiar. Do I know you?”
Ah. Yonhi’s last visit was her first time here in years, but it hadn’t been Hiryuu’s first time meeting her as an adult. This must be before that time. “Do you remember a girl from the future?”
“Oh! Miss Yonhi!” Zeno grins. “Of course I remember. It’s not everyday you meet someone from a different time. Why are you by yourself? If you couldn’t find the others, I can take—”
“No!” Yonhi pulls away as Zeno tries to take her by the hand. “I’m sorry, Zeno. I was actually hoping that no one would find me today.”
“Oh, hide and seek? We can play that game…”
Yonhi can’t help it. She laughs. “Zeno, I’m not a child anymore,” she says. “I just—I needed time to think, by myself. I couldn’t find that in the present—I mean, the future.”
“I come up here to be alone too, sometimes,” says Zeno. “If you don’t mind, Miss Yonhi, we could be alone together for a while? We don’t have to talk.” At Yonhi’s nod, he sits cross-legged on the stone floor, looking out over the wall. Yonhi remains standing—but in the presence of another person, the once-calming silence becomes uncomfortably stifling.
“Zeno,” she finally speaks up. “You were a priest, weren’t you?” At Zeno’s nod, she explains. “They don’t speak to me in this time. That’s why I came here.”
“...do you know why they don’t speak to you?”
“They did at first,” says Yonhi. “They screamed and screamed that I didn’t belong here, so loud I thought I would die. But when Hiryuu said he was happy to see me, they stopped.”
“Ah,” says Zeno. He looks down. “So it’s not...ah, nevermind.”
“In my time,” says Yonhi, “I’m meant to be the priest who advises the king.”
“You said something about that,” Zeno remembers. “Only it wasn’t you last time. Is it nice?” he asks. “Before Hiryuu, none of the four kings acknowledged the gods.”
“My king says all the right things, but he doesn’t believe, either,” says Yonhi. “I don’t think he needs to. He’s a good king,” she insists, “and the gods have never cared to direct the course of the kingdom. But they showed me—” She chokes back tears as she describes the horrors of the storm to Zeno. “They didn’t show me this so I could save people,” she says. “They’re gods. If they don’t want it, they—they don’t have to send a storm at all!”
“But you will!” says Zeno, wide-eyed terror on his face. “You will save them—won’t you?”
“They showed me so that I would tell the king! So that when it happened exactly as I said, he would finally believe!”
Zeno takes a sharp breath and draws back. “The gods aren’t—they wouldn’t—” He takes a deep breath, then reaches out to grasp Yonhi’s hands. “But, Yonhi,” he says. “Your king isn’t the one who needs to know.”
The moment Yonhi reappears in the present, the vision floods her mind again. Most visions come to her in dreams or in brief flashes and that’s that. This is meant to overwhelm her, to drive her towards her default action: she is the king’s priestess, she must tell the king. And it almost worked. Zeno’s suggestion should have been obvious.
Yonhi goes to the stables and asks for the fastest horse they can give her. Her visions haven’t given her a deadline, but she reaches Fuuga by nightfall and knows it’s not too late. “I need to speak with the general,” she announces breathlessly. The guards at Fuuga’s gate offer her rest and refreshment first—the Wind Tribe’s reputation holds true—but at her insistence, they lead her inside.
In his late forties—of an age with the king—Son Mundeok is the oldest of Kouka’s five generals. Yonhi knows of his strength in battle and knows also that, unlike the king, Mundeok is a devout man. “Priestess,” Mundeok says. “To what do I owe a visit from Hiryuu Castle at such an hour?”
He does not speak devoutly to her. Mundeok has seen Yonhi at Five Tribes meetings, knows that her words to the king are her own and that she has never tried to show him the way of the gods. “General Mundeok,” Yonhi begins. “I know that to you I am not a prophet, but please, believe me.” Then the details of her dream spill forth. And when she finishes, the gods are satisfied. No longer must she fight to hold the visions back.
Mundeok rests a strong, gentle hand on her shoulder. “Priestess,” he says. “We are the people of the Wind. You should trust that we know how to weather a typhoon.”
“Not this one,” says Yonhi, shaking her head. “Please—” Mundeok pauses, then nods. “The villages on the southern coast, you have to get the people to safety. And—if there’s any way you can make them listen—the northern coast of Xing.” Mundeok has heard Yonhi lend her strategies to the king’s forays into Xing, has led those attacks himself. What will he make of this request? But he closes his good eye and nods.
“It will be done as you say, Priestess. Thank you.” There is a question there. Yonhi is the king’s priestess. It’s not her place to go to the generals herself.
“His Majesty sees every prophecy as the temple’s play for power,” Yonhi says. And he’s not even wrong. “He is a good king, I know he wouldn’t want these deaths, but—you know he doesn’t believe.” And if he believed afterwards, he would only resent the gods for using him. No one could win this game. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t let—”
Mundeok wipes the tear from her cheek and gives her a kind, fatherly smile. “I understand,” he says. She wonders how much he does. If he knew that the gods would use his people as pawns—but he listened, and that’s what matters. “Priestess Yonhi,” he says, using her name this time, “the Wind Tribe will always remember what you and the gods have done for us.”
She returns to the castle the next morning. King Junam may yet learn of the storm that strikes the coast of the Wind Tribe. But when he does, it will be for the strength of the people who survived it, and not because of the whims of the gods. Yonhi had believed for years that Kouka Kingdom didn’t need the gods’ guidance. Now, for the first time, she’s beginning to realize that she had it backwards. The gods do not deserve the people of Kouka Kingdom.
(Not sure if you mean any as in AnY or any as in “choose any fandom” but I’ve been getting a lot of Yona asks so I’ll pick a different one. So these are for MtG.)
2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP? Chandra/Gideon. I guess maybe it’s because I never read the novel that they were in together, but I just never got that vibe in any of the recent stories.
12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? It seemed like a lot of the fandom didn’t like the Battle for Zendikar block story, but I thought it was decent and it seemed to me like most of the complaints were from people who wanted a bad end simply for the sake of “it’s not realistic if the heroes always win” (which...might be true if it actually applied to the situation, but it didn’t).
23. Unpopular character you love? Xantcha who was a character in one of the novels from like...Urza’s Saga? I didn’t play the game then and I read her novel much later and she’s amazing. She was a Phyrexian who turned against her people and worked alongside Urza and she sort of had both good and evil characters trying to force her to be something she wasn’t, but she managed to find her own strength and her own self. And then she sacrificed herself to stop the Phyrexians. And Urza used her heartstone to create Karn which was cool I guess because Karn is also a cool character and it felt a little like she could live on but THEN, years later, they did that stupid thing where they said that Karn’s Phyrexian heartstone was what corrupted Mirrodin into New Phyrexia and it seemed like that was taking Xantcha’s legacy and throwing it in the dirt and that is one of the downsides of having many people over multiple decades creating the lore of a single universe. And she didn’t even get a card.
