finally did a quick scribble of my mlp Volo design.

After not posting for what feels like- damn, I can't even say forever because I haven't been here that long, hm. Anyhow!

I'm not gonna make these blogs in Chronological order or anything, buuut I do wanna show you some of my ocs that'll make up the (current) main six in my story!

This! Is my pride and joy, my baby girl Moonhigh Swinger! He's the element of Sacrafice in my story, and sooner or later, I'll go further into depth about it, for now, though, this is just an introduction blog for them.

Moonhigh Swinger is an exiled Heir from the Lunar Empire. He's never told his friends about his home life that's quite obviously broken. He comes off as arrogant, ignorant, and short tempered. He's very introverted and prefers his time alone to tend to the schools' greenhouse. More often than not, he'll come off as cross.or accusatory because he's never exactly had the best social skills. In fact, he wasn't really let out into the castle yards. Nevertheless, he's a very strong magic user who does flaunt his passion for plants and magic!

I don't- typically draw the Cutie marks of my ocs on them, so💀 here's his cutiemark/element

Next up is Solemn Sunrise! She's also from the Lunar Empire, though from an extremely impoverished village. I do need to note this now because it'll be explained later: Solemn is not an Alicorn! She's a hybrid. In this universe, Alicorns are characterized as Ponies with unicorn horns and the wings of a mighty Pegasus. Hybrids only have the same magic strength as a regular unicorn!

Anyhow! Solemn is a very quiet and sheepish mare that may or may not be going through an identity crisis right now. She's not the strongest magic user. However, her immense knowledge about ancient spells and civilizations makes her an unexpected asset, especially when Solemn can speak old ponish with ease. She hopes to follow in her Fathers' footsteps in becoming a historian! Many folks find it hard to socialize with her, but she's very vocal around her friends! More specifically, Moonhigh and Cherry (who I'll introduce right after this)

She's the element of Empathy!

Cherry Lemonade is the Element of Hospitality! She's a pegasus that was raised in Western Equestria. She's firey and extremely proud of her pegasi culture, having moved from Cloudsdale to the flatlands when she was young. She comes off as blunt most times, but she means well. She works at a juice shop with her sister, Watermelon Limade!

This blog is running a little long, ain't it? I might split this into two parts, so that's what imma do! 💀 I don't wanna drag the intros along in one long mundane post so!

ACOTAR Halloween Costumes

Feyre & Rhys: They choose a couples’ costume that’s a little outdated but still recognizable. Last year they were Jack and Rose in the “paint me like one of your French girls” scene (Feyre wore a nude bodysuit and the necklace was definitely real). This year, they’re going as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. Feyre can mimic Sailor Moon’s attacks perfectly with the magic she got from Helion, and Rhys has spent hours perfecting his rose throw.

Cassian: Cassian alternates between two costumes, a soccer player and a pirate, depending on how much effort he wants to put into the costume. This year, Nesta said she wanted to see him in eyeliner, so it’s a pirate year.

He would do a couples’ costume if he thought Nesta would agree.

Azriel: Always wears his leathers instead of a costume, and everyone is so happy he actually attended the party that they make no objections.

Nesta, Gwyn & Emerie: The three of them are deeply committed to a group costume. This year they’re going as a trio of Pegasi, which Nesta and Emerie are worried will be cumbersome and too warm, but it was Gwyn’s idea and she’s very excited about it, so they start constructing their costumes in August.

Elain: Never really has a specific costume idea, and always comes in a pretty dress and a flower crown, but no one complains because she always bakes the best treats and comes early to decorate for the party.

Mor: Her costume is always all-out and very glamorous, and ends up being the talk of Velaris. They’re always very pretty but also go that extra level that makes everyone excited to see her arrive at the party. Last year she was a butterfly with functioning wings, and this year’s costume is a very carefully guarded secret.

Amren: Doesn’t wear a costume but comes to the party wearing so much gorgeous jewelry and fur that she ends up getting more compliments than anybody.

Lucien: Though Lucien doesn’t intentionally seek out costumes that make him look attractive, his costumes are always flattering. This year, trying to signal a desire for peace, he wears ancient Autumn Court attire, and the doublet and hose really draw attention to his finely muscled legs.

Vassa: She borrows a set of Illyrian armor and certain people can’t take their eyes off her all evening. She decides she will try and keep the leathers for as long as possible, partially for the freedom of motion, but also for other activities.

Jurian: Uses Halloween as an excuse to remake his clothes from 500 years ago, and inevitably gets asked where he found them.

Eris: Before he arrives at the party, he puts on his High Lord costume, which is an elaborate crown made of jewels and gold in the shape of autumn leaves and a special outfit made of the finest materials, refreshed every decade so that he’s ready for his position. For the actual party, he wears clothing in the style of whatever court is hosting, and makes sure to point out that he looks better in it than the actual citizens do. Many attendees agree with his assessment.

Tamlin: Takes his shirt off and calls it a costume every year without fail.

I hope we get more clarity on the lore/religion/species division of the ACOTAR world. Because I am so confused with it tbh. Like it doesn’t really matter, but it does. Because in TOG, we know so much about everything. I mean it took forever to get to that point, but it was pretty packed full of detail. In CC, we know EVERYTHING of every type of person that exists, the world, the planets, etc. 

In ACOTAR, it’s very... laissez faire. 

Like Nesta was labeled death for a while, but why? Because we didn’t see any of that power. We just know it was overwhelming and there was a lot. We also didn’t see her really being a death god. Granted we don’t know much about what a death god does, but we know more now because of the whole spiel with Lanthys. That a death god is just someone who is harder to kill. I’m assuming because of their non-corporeal form, maybe? Or... power. Nesta gets hurt a lot physically, so I doubt she could have escaped death or was invincible. So what is she? 

Personally, I thought there was only three death gods left: Koschei, The Bone Carver, and The Weaver. But that wasn’t the case. We also got Lanthys and everything in the prison, I’m assuming is labeled a death god, because Cassian mentioned the other creatures...Lubia and Annis. Essentially, they’re just powerful beings before the fae that all get lumped together I’m assuming. 

But are they not Daglan???? Is that a different species? Or would they not just label death gods as Daglan? It confuses me too that Amren got captured because they were hunting these ancient rulers when fae overthrew and that’s how she got thrown in the prison. But almost all of the creatures we know in there are just ones Cassian hunted down? Are there many in there? 

The Mother confuses me a little too, because according to text she spilled the cauldron to give magic and life to the known world, to Prythrian specifically. But did she predate the Daglan? Is she considered a Daglan? Does everyone believe in the Mother and if it’s only Prythrian specific, then... who the hell is she? 

We also get a lot more creatures outside of human vs. fae. We now have kelpie, pegasi, hounds, the Daglan, death gods, witches mentioned, nymphs, Illyrians... Is it just that anything that is not high fae is labeled lesser fae and fits into a category? Fae or other? 

But then who are the high fae really? What species do they belong to? Because we also get the mention of ancient fae, which seems to be different than the high fae we know now. 

I need Rhys not to be the only person who knows anything. Because he doesn’t have too much information. Amren doesn’t know anything conveniently. Like that’s why I really want Koschei to be around or Helion even, Beron even, like get me older people. Exchange information, because it’s driving me nuts. We’re four books in and we really still don’t know anything about Prythrian, or the culture of prythrian. We know a fair amount of the Night Court, but even so Nesta was the one who found so much more there in the prison. 

A lot of the themes of this book is about time, and the plot as loose as it is, is seeming to be shrouded in the past and the origin of fae and magic and creatures and things that were there but are no longer, hence the prison, hence the pegasi not being there, hence the hint of an 8th court, Koschei, Fionn, weapons lost, etc. So.... when are we going to know more? 

I hope to god we get some answers and not to just keep adding questions. There’s only 2 books left and 2 novellas as far as we know. 

Disclaimer how ever! I haven't finished the movie (kid I'm babysitting wants to finish it with me) so a quick recap will be needed -HB

IFJSOIJOFD Like.....I don't entirely wish to spoil it for u if u haven't finished it but, if u want a recap here u go! It won't be quick tho....there's too much to skip lol. The three pony races are separate again, Twilight and her friends assumingly passed away along time ago, and as things typically go, thoughts and beliefs changed, and they split up. Each race filled the new generations with propaganda about the others, Earth ponies saying Pegasi would snatch you from the air, Unicorns would fry your brains. Unicorns (and pegasi apparently) said Earth Ponies were dumb and smelled terrible, as well as the Unicorns calling pegasi brutes. Sunny's dad was big into history, raised her on the concept of the three pony races being unified. He studied Twilight's time and seemed to be quite fascinated with her specifically (this paired with his appearance is why I think they're related), and constantly gave Sunny hope about a brighter future when things could be like ancient Equestria once more. She writes a letter with her dad, telling the unicorns and pegasi to come to their town, and they send it off on a lantern. Fast forward, she's an adult now, her dad's gone (wtf hasbro, i loved him), and her best friend Hitch is now the sheriff. Sprout is also there, he's Hitch's deputy, and his mom runs a company that basically makes money off of the fear of the other two races, making products to "protect them" from Unicorns and Pegasi. Sunny sneaks in to stop this, makes a bit of a fool of herself, and Hitch tells her she needs to just...go home. She's about too, but a unicorn walks into town, enter Izzy! Izzy completely seems to ignore the fact all the Earth Ponies fear her until Sunny points it out. She gets caught in a unicorn trap, but Sunny goes against Hitch's orders and frees her. They go back to Sunny's house, then end up running off, in which Izzy informs Sunny that unicorns lost their magic a long time ago. They set off on a journey to the pegasus city, and Hitch goes after them, leaving Sprout in charge (uh-oh). They meet a pegasus named Zipp, after Izzy tells Sunny about something called "luminescence", which is a pony's sparkle, the happier they are the brighter it shines, and apparently only unicorns can see it? Anyways, Zipp has to disappear, and the pair get caught by two pegasus guards, who take them back to the queen. We get a view of the city, find out Princess Pipp is also a social media star, and we also find out that Zipp is Pipp's twin sister (They never said twins in the movie but I think Zipp's wiki mentioned that she's the older twin), and Queen Haven is not too pleased with the fact that a unicorn and Earth pony are in her castle. The three royals also flew in, while Sunny notes that they haven't seen any other pegasi flying. They get sent to "the dungeon", which is just a spa with prison bars. Zipp comes to see them, and Pipp comes by too. When Sunny inquires about the flying, Pipp tells them that only the royals know how to fly. Pipp leaves, Zipp ends up freeing them and shows them an old hanger. She lets them in on the secret that the royals can't fly either, and it's probably linked to their loss of magic. She also shows them a mural in the hangar, broken glass depicting Twilight's cutiemark, a pegasus on the right, and a unicorn on the left. The pegasus is reaching to a crystal, which Zipp says is the pegasus crystal, part of her mom's crown. They also discover there's a unicorn one, and Sunny figures that if they reunite the two crystals, they can bring magic back. They plan out a heist, making a fake crown to swap the real one with while the queen is busy watching Zipp's performance. However, two of them spook a director who's controlling the wires making Pipp "fly", Sunny discovers Hitch followed them, and through panic, they drop the crystal, and Pipp is left hanging, as the pegasi find out that their royalty have been lying to them. The queen ends up arrested, Hitch follows the trio, and just as they're panicking over the lost crystal, Pipp shows up with it, and has a bit of a

dispute with her sister. They go off travelling together, later that night they sit around a campfire, banter, grow closer, and Izzy reveals she came to Maretime bay (Sunny's home) because she found a letter saying she had friends there, and Sunny realizes that SHE sent that letter. The next morning, group sets off to the forest that the unicorns live in, Izzy shows them her house and gives them unicorn disguises, then they go out into the town, and discover that all the other unicorns are super depressed because of the loss of magic. They also find out unicorns are superstitious, and there are certain forbidden words that make them do a silly little ritual because they think they'll get jinxed. They go into a tea shop, and catch eye of Alphabittle, an older bartender unicorn, who seems to enjoy making bets, winning games, and taking whatever the other unicorn bets. Sunny sees the unicorn crystal behind him, and challenges him for it, offering the pegasus crystal as her end of the offer. They engage in some intense pony DDR, and Sunny wins! But then her fake horn falls off, Alphabittle tries to take the crystals, then Hitch shouts out ALL the forbidden words, causing the unicorns to do the ritual and allow them to escape. They end up bumping into Queen haven, guards chasing after her, Alphabittle and some other unicorns appear, and Sunny convinces them to let her put the crystals together so they can bring magic back. But....it doesn't work. Sunny is disappointed as HELL and leaves with Hitch, but when she gets home, she finds out that there's a third crystal, one that her father put in a little nightlight he made, that displays little light sillhoutes of the three races. As she goes to inform Hitch, they find out Sprout has become A FUCKING DICTATOR, and essentially declaring war, wrapping all of Maretime bay into it. The duo go to warn the others, but surprise! The others came back to Sunny, and their respective groups are chasing after them begging them to come home. Sprout drives his war machine and his army to try and take out the pegasi, but when Sunny runs off to return magic, Sprout turns course to her lighthouse, Zipp and Hitch take on the robot with the others, leaving Sunny and Izzy to try and fix things. They get the crystals together....but it still doesn't work. The lighthouse comes crashing down, but Sprout's mom managed to stop him from killing anyone in the process, and Sunny is just pretty upset still- But then she realizes that it wasn't the crystals...it was the ponies, they had to be together for magic to exist, the crystals were just a small part of that. When this revelation happens though, the crystals rise from the wreckage, glowing, lifting Sunny into the air, and she's adorned with wings and a horn, but translucent and glowing gold rather than magic her fur. Magic is returned, the unicorn's horns work again, pegasi can fly again, and the three races decide to come back together.

In Affectionately Yours (and bunch of you other fics actually), you really build more upon Pelgian culture. Were there any specific things you took inspiration from when doing so? Sorry if this is something you've gone over before. I'm tired and could have very well missed it. Also, if you don't mind me asking, any interesting things you'd like to share about Future Built?

Developing Plegian culture is definitely one of my favorite parts of Awakening fic, it’s true. ❤ I tend to draw bits of inspiration from all kinds of sources, though it’s less for “this is an exact replica of something our world,” more “this has a real-world precedent.”  Even though Plegia’s official roots are probably drawn from ancient Egypt, I completely abandon that because let’s face it: Plegia as a nation has little to no resemblance to Egypt outside of certain stylistic choices like the eye design in the Heart of Grima. 

I’ve actually drawn a lot of inspiration from Judaism, since I see a lot of parallels between existing there.  Aspects like the lunar calendar, date transitions at sunset rather than sunrise, even the Day of Remembrance, all have real-world analogues in the Hebrew faith; meanwhile, Grima’s Night -- specifically the Grimleal celebration, not the Ylissean children’s festival that more resembles the modern-day celebration of Halloween -- takes inspiration from the Mexican Day of the Dead.  Other aspects like food staples, cuisine, and even technology for survival in the desert I drew from Iran: whereas Egypt flourished because of the Nile River, Iran engineered their own water sources called qanats, digging underground channels from the mountains to their homes in arid locations (which provided not only a water source, but a means for indoor cooling).

Also I never mind questions about Future Built, it remains one of my absolute favorite projects (and one I keep mulling over going back to, I just need to get in the right headspace for it):

Chrom is going to get the magistery clerks in line so they stop foisting their jobs off onto Robin and stressing him toward a breakdown.  This gives Robin significantly more free time, which he ends up spending in a variety of ways, including chats with Panne, a book club with Sumia and her ladies-in-waiting, and training with Sully (something he did not ask for but got roped into anyway).

Robin ends up becoming the Ylissean ambassador to Regna Ferox sometime late in that first year of stability, once he and Chrom have started reining in the nobles on the council and instated new members from among the commoners.  This makes sense, given how well he knows the social mores, but everybody ends up missing each other terribly -- enough that within the first week of his absence, Sumia writes him a letter; despite having no love for writing, Chrom writes his own along with her, and they send them together.  It’s a seemingly simple gesture, but a moving one to Robin who still harbors some deep-rooted doubts about his place within the royal family.

In her earliest years, Lucina is equally comfortable with Sumia, Chrom, and Robin -- because all three of them take are extremely attentive parents and take an active role in her care.  Chrom brings her to council meetings with him, Sumia takes her through the gardens out toward the stables where they keep the pegasi, and Robin brings her to the library while he works.  She’s held often, talked to almost constantly while she’s awake, and the instant she starts to fuss she has someone checking on her to see what’s wrong.  It’s rare for her to get to the point of crying while any one of them is present.

Lucina’s birth is what really starts helping Robin keep better track of time, and in doing so take better care of himself.  Especially when he’s acting as her primary caretaker (in cases where Chrom and Sumia are called somewhere while Robin remains in Ylisstol with the baby), he stops getting endlessly distracted because he has important matters to tend, like ensuring that Lucina gets fed on a proper schedule while he’s watching her; that regularity makes it much easier for people to get him to stop and have a meal, too, and often enough when he goes to meet the nurse there’s a lavish spread waiting for him, too.  It’s the first time he starts getting toward a healthy weight.

Whenever possible, Lucina always has at least one of her primary guardians with her in those first years of life.  When Chrom and Sumia have duties they need to tend where they can’t bring the baby, Robin stays behind with her; when there’s a diplomatic matter demanding Chrom and Robin’s attention outside Ylisstol, Sumia stays back with her to keep things running; and when there’s any kind of unrest where the Shepherds need major back-up in the form of Robin and Sumia, Chrom will hold the palace to ensure his daughter’s safety.  Once she’s a little older they will sometimes all leave together -- but whenever possible, they’d rather bring Lucina with them.

I’d love to read whatever you have in a pj au!

WELL, anon, ask and ye shall receive! One unfinished one shot coming right up!

Words: 2548

It was supposed to be DLAMP but like… its a single chapter so the only thing that happens is Virgil’s celebrity crush on Thomas sksksks.

Quick Taglist: @chelsvans @faithfulcat111 @holliberries @jemthebookworm @killerfangirl3 @stricken-with-clairvoyancy @treasureofpriam

Everything was great until Virgil started dreaming of the boy in the purple shirt spontaneously exploding in flames.

Well maybe “great” was too strong of a word. Virgil wasn’t sure anything had ever been “great” in his life. Not that he would admit that to anyone, because every demigod he so much as glanced at would have been offended by the very thought: Didn’t Virgil see how great life here was? How great it was to share a cabin with ten other kids who didn’t know the first thing about personal space, how great it was that he was dragged rudely from his dreams every day for yet another class on the ancient greek heroes that he had been going to since he was five, how great it was that he had mandatory sessions in the arena so he could get his butt handed to him in combat he never had any intention of doing for real, how absolutely, astoundingly great it was that if he stepped even a foot outside the perimeter there was a chance that something big, fast, monstrous, and specifically attuned to a scent that Virgil couldn’t wash off himself, was going to eat him.

But for a minute there, Virgil might have been able to convince himself that his life was “great”; Thomas Sanders, son of Poseidon, had stormed up to Olympus itself and then walked back out with an oath from the gods themselves that they would start claiming their kids earlier. Thomas Sanders, natural born leader, had convinced Chiron to support the addition to the cabins for the minor gods which meant that Virgil no longer had to squeeze his entire life into the two foot corner space of the Hermes cabin. Thomas Sanders, the most attractive demigod alive (objectively), had single handed fixed all the problems that had plagued the camp for much longer than even Virgil had been there for. 

So with a new cabin that smelled like fresh laundered sheets, the dripping of the River Lethe from the branched of the tree in the corner, and nearly too many mattresses and pillows crammed into the room, Virgil thought maybe he could get used to the changes. After all, he could stretch his legs out now, breathe easy, and sleep for as long as he wanted, considering there wasn’t going to be a Hermes kid stealing his things for fun, a Hecate kid lighting him on fire with a misplaced spell, or a Nike kid instigating a fist fight to prove how victorious they were.

And yeah, it had been a little frustrating getting to this point: godly wars weren’t exactly prime teenage experience. Virgil was pretty sure over half the camp needed a good therapist, but where were they going to find one of those? Demigods didn’t live to reach twenty five, much less gain a psychology degree after being kicked out of every school they’ve ever been to for monster attacks and open a practice for an exclusive clientele who really didn’t have the drachma to pay them. 

The gods sometimes had a bit of sympathy for them, but it was never going to be enough. Virgil knew it, but he accepted it. Some things just weren’t going to be fair in this life. One of those things was that his dad was a god who didn’t understand first world mortal problems.

But things had finally– finally– settled down. 

Thomas had made everyone lives better.

Virgil remembered the first day he had seen Thomas: he had been sitting on the Big house porch watching the rainfall in the thunderstorm forcing himself to stay awake because he was waiting for Talyn (a child of Demeter who had been assigned to help him to the medical ward after they had pretty brutally beat him in their sparring class) to finish chatting with Chiron. He remembered how the lighting had struck off in the distance illuminating and he had seen something, someone running along the hill. He remembered suddenly being wide awake and yelling for Talyn, Chiron, anyone, and they came flying at his calls.

He remembered seeing the shaky, weary, battered boy, collapse just feet from Talyn, with an unconscious satyr on his shoulder.

Compared to that Thomas, who had been scared and panicked and unsure, the new Thomas was completely improved. He knew pretty much every demigod in camp, chatted with the naiads in the canoe lake and brought donuts to the pegasi. With Talyn and Joan (his satyr best friend) he had grown to fit the prophecy that he had been destined with. Powerful and loyal.

Bonus points were that unlike everyone else, Thomas saw Virgil. He had never shied away from his dark, gloomy personality, his dismissive tone, his bored gaze. Thomas went out of his way to ask Virgil how he was doing, talk about the dreams that he might have had, offer him canoeing lesson (which Virgil always declined because water and him didn’t really….click).

When he was around everything was as close to great as Virgil had ever thought they were going to get.

Then he had the dream.

Dreams in themselves were nothing new: Virgil was a son of Hypnos, god of Sleep. He spent more time sleeping than he spent being awake. Even as a small kid he had known he was different, his dreams more powerful and he had the ability to change them into different things. It had taken years to hone the skill, and even then he still accidentally gave himself vivid nightmares. (Wild emotions and unresolved arguments caused him to forget the difference between reality and the astral plane he had a back door to.)

But of all his siblings he had the most control by practice. The only person who could upstadge him was Remy his half sibling with a natural talent for manipulating other people’s dreams. Mostly he used to watch the drama of the other kids in the camp, to weasel subconscious information from them and then feed it to the the appropriate cliques: Remy was responsible for the Aphrodite Cabin’s sudden success of setting up kids together, the streak of foiled pranks from the Hermes cabin, and petition signed by half the camp to put a starbucks in.

Remy could manipulate the astral plane easily but he could only affect those he slept near. He struggled to dance between the strings of dreams the way Virgil did. Virgil could find out what kids in Virginia were dreaming about but he couldn’t do much but watch them or turn his own dreams into nightmare realms.

They balanced each other out. Virgil was okay with that.

And Remy, despite having come to camp two years after him, had wanted to be cabin leader far more than Virgil. They had shook hands on it and called it a day.

When Virgil fell asleep he had every intention of just minding his own business. He rarely enjoyed dream walking–actually he had never once intended to go walking through anyone else’s dreams. Other people dreamed weird, strange things: sometimes nightmares, sometimes nonsense, sometimes in depth private things that Virgil wanted no part in.

His dream had started out normal: Virgil was lying in an empty meadow, staring up at made up constellations, and a soft, pleasant breeze echoing through the air. Virgil knew he was dreaming instantly because he had never been to a place like this ever before in his life and also because he was warm and cozy in his purple sweatshirt– one that had been ripped to shreds a decade ago on his lovely adventure to get to the safe haven that was Camp Half Blood.

Virgil had breathed in deep, always impressed with the details of the astral plane no matter how many times he had seen it. He felt like he was really there, the ground was hard under his body, he could feel the individual fibers of his jacket, taste the slightly earthy flavor of the atmosphere and the smell of rain that suggested a storm was coming soon.

The stars had danced in little patterns that Virgil had always found calming. This was his safe spot, his secret home, his escape from the prison that was camp without actually endangering his life at all. It was how he stayed sane.

He couldn’t quite put his hand on what was so weird about it that night, what had tipped him that something was off. But he had frowned and sat up looking around for the source of the unease that had come over him. 

The ground had quaked, rumbled, and then without a single warning crumpled underneath him. Virgil screamed, his stomach flung into his throat, his arms flailed for something, anything to stop his fall into the unknown black abyss. He grabbed the walls of the hole he was fall in but turned to sand in his hands. Thunder clashed over head, clouds swirling in circular hurricane-esque shapes. Invisible energy built up around his form, ripping and tearing at his body, pressing against his temples, pulsing angrily until Virgil could barely breathe.

He was falling.

And it wasn’t right, Virgil knew it wasn’t right. This was his homespace, his best protected sanctuary. Not even Remy could get in here without Virgil letting him in. But something, someone had gotten in and they were changing things without Virgil’s permission, and they were changing them more forcibly than Virgil could stop them. 

The blackness shuddered, echoing with noises Virgil didn’t recognize at first. Latin and Greek and English phrases from disembodied voices. 

“Thomas!” 

“Thomas?”

“Thomas, where are you?!”

Everything was so dark, Virgil hadn’t been able to see his hands, much less been able to brace himself for the floor that suddenly was under him akin to a bullet train running him over. The air was violently slammed out of him, and his ribs made a crack that he was sure they weren’t supposed to do. 

“HELP!” Thomas– that was definitely Thomas’s voice– screamed, “Someone! Please!”

Virgil tried to get up but his entire body screamed in protest, something warm and sticky coated the floor but Virgil couldn’t see was it was. He could hear Thomas nearby, hear the other boys stumbling footsteps. He tried to say something, anything, that would let him know that he wasn’t alone, but he couldn’t even inhale.

“Someone help me!” Thomas yelled, “Please, I don’t want to die.”

Without warning, flames exploded in the air around Virgil, searing hot and blinding. Virgil flinched away, smoke wrapping his head and strangling what little air he had. Blearily he managed to look up through the flames to see a figure standing over him, coated in the flames– no the making the flames. They rolled off him like waves of unbearable heat.

“Thom…as…” Virgil gasped, but he was wrong.

Virgil remembered him clearly: passive indifference as if he had never felt an emotion ever before in his life, a stiff lip and dull blue eyes, framed by black glasses and his hair neatly combed to the side. Flames licked his toned arms and Virgil caught a glimpse of something tattooed on his shoulder before the fire swallowed it up.

Whoever he was, he stood over Virgil, wearing a seared purple shirt. “Who is Thomas?”

Then smoke flared between the two of them breaking them apart like a curtain. Virgil squeezed his eyes shut trying to brace himself for an attack—

It never came. 

Silence.

Virgil dared peak up, and found himself sitting in his empty meadow, the stars dancing over head without a cloud in the sky. There was no sign of the upturned earth or the darkness, Thomas, or the boy in the flames.

Virgil ripped at the collar of his sweatshirt, forcing a breath out of his teeth. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that Thomas was in danger, Thomas had been yelling for help, Thomas needed help–

Virgil threw himself up and stumbled on his feet before he forced a doorway open and plunged himself into the astral plane barreling through dreams like there were Hellhounds on his tail. 

“Thomas!” Virgil yelled stumbling into the dream area he knew belonged to the son of Poseidon. His heart was beating so loudly he was sure it was going to explode. What if he was too late? What if Thomas hurt, or dying, or dead? What if Virgil didn’t make it in time–

He tumbled head over heels into Thomas’s dreamscape. Energy buzzed around him, angrily at the intruder, but Virgil couldn’t have cared less about it. He frantically darted forward to find Thomas, find Thomas, find him–

“Virgil?”

Thomas appeared to his left with a confused expression. Virgil let out an explosive sigh of relief, seeing that he was alright. No sign of panic, no sign of even a mild discomfort on him. Just a bit of confusion and worry.

“What are you doing here?” Thomas asked, “I don’t remember–”

Virgil took a calming breath again. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. He restrained himself from throwing his arms around Thomas. 

He was a dumbass! It had been a Nightmare! A fiction! Something made up based on his subconscious emotions and he had allowed it to control him. No one had been breaking into his dreamscape, no one had taken over his dream. It had just been him, being a dumbass.

 Thomas was fine, he was safe. And even if he wasn’t, there were people much more qualified to help him than Virgil was. They weren’t even friends!

“Is…is this The Office?” Virgil asked, desperate to get the voices in his head to shut up, “You’re dreaming about The Office?”

“I am?” Thomas looked around as if just realizing what was going on. “Huh, cool!” He turned back to Virgil with a quizzical look, “Everything okay? I mean, you don’t really visit me unless something’s wrong.”

“It’s, uh,” Virgil mumbled. He should have told Thomas. He should’ve said something. But Thomas was the Hero of Olympus, and could definitely take care of himself. Plus Virgil getting all panicked over a dream was like number one on his list of things-not-to-do in front of his celebrity crush.“Nevermind. Sorry for interrupting.” 

Before he could change his mind he turned on heel and threw himself from the dream with a vigur that drowned out Thomas’s yells for him to wait, stop, you don’t have to go! 

Thomas was great.

Virgil wished he had told someone about the dream. Wished that he hadn’t bolted from Thomas’s dream like that, wished that he hadn’t avoided the son of Poseidon for the next two weeks. He told himself it was nothing, and that the strange burn on his forearm had been from the Lava wall the week before. Two weeks turned into three, and then three turned to four without incident.

Thomas still offered him canoeing lessons, no one woke in the middle of the night screaming, no new campers with glasses wandered through the borders and caught fire. It was as painfully dull as living in camp had ever been.

Everything was great.

Then, on the last day of summer, Thomas Sanders went missing without a trace.

[Next Ask for the Percy Jackson au]

FoZ Notes 22

Okay, here we go, final volume of the series. Not likely to be much added value here, but I took these notes regardless, so I’m posting them.

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We open with a bit about Brimir and Sasha, showing he put the Lífþrasir rune on her to potentially avert catastrophe while really hoping he didn't have to do so. It seems to be implied he doesn't want to get Sasha killed, but it's ambiguous and could be taken as him not wanting to nuke the Elves or something of the sort. Looking back after reading the rest of the volume... I honestly have no idea how this is meant to be taken.

The narrative refers to Colbert as being one of the 'rare realists' of Halkegina. That's... morbidly comedic in how grossly wrong it is, but there you go: Colbert is supposed to be a realist in the pessimistic sense of 'that sounds too good to be true, so it probably isn't true'.

Vitorrio apparently already knows that the place Saito comes from is 'the holy land'. I... have far too many questions...

Vitorrio dumps on us a backstory about how Brimir being God or Jesus-analogue is a lie and actually Brimir came from Earth and all magical nobles come from Earth having fled from the technology-using humans who are our ancestors. This is dumb nonsense, but foreshadowed dumb nonsense. Much worse is Vitorrio randomly claiming commoners haven't awakened to their magical power as an inevitable consequence of 'the blood thinning', where returning to Earth is supposed to be a solution. HOW???

If magic is a genetically inherited thing where breeding with non-mages is 'diluting' magical blood and reducing the portion of the population who can do magic, going back to Earth with it's technophile non-mage population is the OPPOSITE of a solution to magic power fading. Furthermore, how did we end up with mages in a minority in the first place? Did the original mages actually run away with a massive population of non-mages? If so, why? Were they slaves? SO MANY slaves that Halkeginia is predominantly non-mages? 'cause if so I have zero sympathy for the population that became Halkeginians.

Furthermore, Halkeginia is FILLED with magical races! If Vittorio wants to make magical humans the default form of human and the narrative is going to invoke magical eugenics while making Vitorrio entirely amoral in pursuit of his goals, the correct solution is to fight to overcome human prejudice against elves and orcs and other demihumans and in fact attempt to institutionally encourage cross-species breeding between commoners and assorted magical species. It's not like this series has been shy about sexualizing eg Tabitha's dragon when she's in human form, so you can’t tell me the series is shying away from bestiality undertones!

But no, Vitorrio's True Plan For Real This Time is literally to conquer Earth in some insane, nonsensical attempt to Get Magic Back. And of course nobody calls him on this being utterly insane nonsense that cannot POSSIBLY accomplish his stated goal.

Okay, and he also wants to conquer Earth to escape the Wind Stone-based catastrophe, with eyebrow-raising logic about how surely nobles will survive it just fine and only commoners will die, but seriously the magic genetics bit is blatant, horrifying nonsense, and it’s Vittorio’s inner thoughts so there’s no room to headcanon it as a lie or something else that would excuse this awfulness.

Also Vitorrio magically gets to drain Saito's life force as a side effect of opening the door. No explanation or justification provided. Just... loldrama.

This conveniently causes Saito to go into an Expositional Flashback™ in which he meets Brimir again and Brimir conveys that he's trying to kill all elves everywhere because "we can't understand each other", with this somehow supposed to be connected to magic stone catastrophe stuff. So, you know, stuff we already knew that doesn't make any more sense than last time.

When we cut back to Louise and company, we learn they immediately screwed off to wring their hands over Saito's unconscious form, instead of fighting Vitorrio’s horrible plan. Really?

Louise is explicitly willing to DIE to prevent Earth from being invaded... but no one entertains the notion of eg killing Vitorrio to stop his nonsense. Nah, they're going to try to talk him out of his insane plan. Really?

Henrietta is now using -dono when referring to Saito. Are you kidding me?

Henrietta and Vitorrio magically recognize a relatively modern pistol as being better than Halkeginian firearms... by just looking at the pistol laying around. Not testing it and seeing it has superior performance, or even remarking on something like it being made of parts too fine for a smith to pull together so precisely. Just... magically knowing it's good on sight.

Vitorrio also reveals that Earthlings have somehow invaded Halkeginian in ages past via a never-before-established natural portal between the world's, and now claims he wants to hit Earth before Earth figures out how to harness the Void (Why he thinks non-mages will be ABLE to do so goes unexplained) and attacks Halkeginian. This is ALMOST like a sensible, coherent motivation, but requires ignoring how contradictory and insane the premise is.

Turns out Vitorrio somehow knows for a fact that Louise can cancel the Wind Stone catastrophe, but is withholding this information from everyone to try to force people into going with the Conquer Earth plan. This is dumb, but plausible human dumb. Much dumber is the narrative talking directly to the audience to reveal that Julio is being left out because he's totally unsuited to deception and is actually a naive innocent sort... in utter contravention of literally EVERY prior scene Julio was in.

The Romalian church steals a nuke from under the sea, and Julio magically surmises its principles and informs Vitorrio that it's operating on Void principles. So... Void magic is now supposed to just be atomic shenanigans? I'm pretty sure the narrative previously heavily implied they're quantum shenanigans and regular magic is somehow atomic shenanigans. Consistency!

Pegasi are apparently a thing in Halkeginia. I don't think such came up before and it feels like a poor fit, but it's been a while since I last read so I might be forgetting something is all.

It's now being retconned in that Saito being the Lífþrasir familiar means that A: ANYONE using Void magic will tap Saito's life, and B: he will die in a matter of days for no good reason even if nobody taps his life force any further. Really? That admittedly makes the earlier bit of Saito collapsing into an Expositional Flashback™ a part of this retcon instead of pure arbitrariness, but this is a blatant, stupid retcon that cannot possibly be reconciled with prior events.

Derflinger is continuing to absorb magic while 'asleep', which I'm pretty sure contradicts what happened in prior volumes.

Also, Saito is perfectly willing to attack Romalian forces in an attempt to stop them from using nukes... but people continue to completely ignore any possibility of attacking Vitorrio himself. What is this garbage?

We get introduced to the Vysendal, Tristan's royal flagship built to carry dragons for the fight with Albion... which we somehow never heard about the many volumes ago it should've cropped up in. It’s basically a fantasy aircraft carrier airship.

Three loud knocks followed by two quiet knocks is how Agnes announces herself to Henrietta, apparently, and it's apparently forbidden for anyone else in the Tristainian palace to use this knock. O...Kay?

Bizarrely, Henrietta is of the opinion Saito would never cause trouble without a good reason. Attempted-rapist Saito, you mean? The Saito who has picked fights with people over issues of ego? That Saito? Mind, she barely knows him to be honest, but that just shifts the issue elsewhere. Hell, she even describes him as 'not hot-blooded', which is just laughably wrong.

We get introduced to Château d'If, which is an Elven prison. This is a little confusing given Elves have always solved these kinds of problems with exile or murder historically, but okay. Really, I'm more baffled by the French-sounding name, given Gallia is Not-France and the Elves haven't previously had Frenchness to them. In any event, it's an island prison off the shore of Eumenes, which... seems unlikely...

Also, it's directly named after a real place. Oh, and the narrative draws attention to the French naming, saying the name means 'prison island's in Gallian... but doesn't explain WHY it's named in a language Elves sneer at.

We get explicitly told only Elves that have committed serious crimes, such as treason, get locked up here. You know, the kinds of crimes we previously got told got Elves exiled. We also get told the island has been nearly totally abandoned by the Great Will (for some reason...) so Elves can't use Ancient Magic on it... except apparently the guards can due to making contracts of some sort, in contravention of prior Ancient Magic mechanics.

... and now Guiche is joining in on the 'Saito wouldn't make trouble without a good reason' nonsense train. He actually kind of knows Saito! Not only that but he's repeatedly projected his own shitty behavior onto Saito! He's very nearly the last character I'd buy this belief from!

The 'Great Will' is supposedly a giant chunk of magic rock (I forget if this already came up or if I’m getting mixed up by having run across some spoilers in earlier note-taking), and it grounding arbitrarily accumulating spiritual energy periodically is what causes the Wind Stone disaster stuff. We get this info from Brimir, with no explanation of how he drew this conclusion.

The story also throws in a line about how even blowing up the Wind Stones with Void magic isn't a valid answer because yadda yadda exhaustion. Honestly, this looks like a Suspiciously Specific Denial, like readers raised exactly this possibility, and the author is going 'shit, that's a really good point, but I can't have my intended drama if that's a valid answer so I've gotta invent a reason why it isn't'. Because seriously, with the scale of destructiveness Void magic is capable of, particularly considering how much the story is playing it up... yeah, blowing the Wind Stones up really ought to be a valid answer.

Compounding this is that Brimir explains his plan to prevent the Wind Stone disaster was... to blew up the Great Will. And it apparently worked. So the story is just contradicting itself; which is it? Explosions aren’t helpful, or explosions are helpful? It can’t be both.

Oh, and there's drama about how Brimir tried to explain his plan to the Elves, but they refused to move their city away from the Great Will so he could nuke it without killing them, with Elven leaders saying that if the Great Will wants the world destroyed then so be it and Brimir also remarking arbitrarily that the city at the foot of the Great Will would be the only place safe from the Wind Stone disaster so the story is kind of implying the Elves are actually going 'well, we'll be fine, so we don't care if you all die'.

Anyway, Brimir was pushed over the edge into nuking the area because his home village was slaughtered by Elves while he was trying to talk the Elves into letting him nuke the Great Will. So honestly this is revenge in part. (No explanation is ever offered for why they slaughtered his village, incidentally)

We also learn Sasha killing Brimir was in response to nuking the Elven city, and that Brimir let himself be killed, at least in part to free Sasha of her Familiar runes so the arbitrary death-by-being Lífþrasir won't kick in.

A recurring thing in this final volume is that the Gandalfr boost for just holding a weapon lets Saito function in spite of being heavily weakened. As in, he literally cannot stand, and then holding a weapon let's him walk, and in fact fight athletically.

There's a surprisingly clever moment during Tabitha and Saito's escape where she summons some water to use it as a reflective surface to check around a corner. It's just a variation on using a hand mirror to check around corners, but if characters had been using magic in this kind of way the whole time I'd be a lot more willing to overlook the series' many, many flaws.

We get told the Knights of Parterre are good at casting spells undetected... no explanation for how this works... and that Tabitha has mastered this skill, too. Ambush spellcasting is a neat idea, admittedly, but the context this is being invoked in is just confusing to invoke it in.

There's a bit about Elves being helpless if they can't complete magical chants. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure previously part of what made Elves scary-powerful was that Markey needed to chant and Elves did not. Certainly, I remember for sure that Markey were chanters the whole time, which is conspicuously failing to be mentioned in this volume...

Aaaand now the story is saying Saito being emotionally moved by his rescuers (Louise not being among them, note) is helping to power his Gandalfr abilities, trampling on that whole 'powered by love' thing. Really? Like, it’s a dumb plotpoint, but undermining it by making emotions-in-general provide power has a lot of thematic and practical problems.

Vittorio's other name is Serevare, apparently. I presume that's his personal name, though it's not actually clear. I don't think this has been alluded to before. In any event, him spending a night praying is able to make mountains rise from underwater. 'cause Void magic. The exact justification provided is that he's specifically manipulating the magic Stone with Void magic, but this just raises obvious questions about the potential to use this capability to address the Wind Stone catastrophe, since those are also magic stones of the exact same sort. Sure, Vitorrio is lying about being unable to deal with the crisis, but nobody within the story notices this. Even with how low my opinion is of the intelligence of these characters, I can't suspend disbelief over this. It's a gaping hole in the argument Vitorrio is using to coerce Louise into helping him invade Earth. The story HAS to address this, and it doesn’t, instead stacking on drama scene after drama scene even as it rips out their foundations as they’re being pushed.

We get told Gandalfr powers can't actually compensate for lost vitality (even though that's exactly what Saito has been doing for a while now), but Derflinger can do so. (Never mind that he was re-acquired only minutes before this claim) Gandalfr powers can 'only' make Saito light as a feather. Yeah, just ignore this nonsense, it's just a crappy attempt to say Saito is even closer to death than ever before without actually impairing him in combat scenes any.

You remember how Derflinger has Convenient Magical Memory Loss? Yeah, while he was 'asleep' he got rid of that. Gosh. How convenient. And no, the story isn't going to try to explain why he didn't do this sooner, or explain how he knew how to do it now. Admittedly it's completely in-character for Derflinger to create problems for no actual reason while claiming to be helping... with the qualifier that's clearly not meant to be part of his character.

This is dumb and arbitrary, is what I'm getting at.

"Wow, even swords can cry." "No I won't, because then I'd rust." Wow, that's actually a great exchange that legit got me to laugh.

Holy crap, the story also remembered about crow familiars being used as serial scouts. That last showed up, what, 15 volumes ago?

Vitorrio apparently deliberately aims the portal at a US army base. At least, that's how Saito's internal narration presents it, but I'm pretty sure this is just the writer talking directly at the audience. This is presented as a sensible and intelligent course of action, which is confusing given I'd think Vitorrio would want to get his entire army on the other side before they had to face resistance. Even considering how intrinsically dumb his entire plan is, this is just confusing.

Turns out the Gandalfr killing their master makes Void magic go away. Because Reasons. So naturally Louise has committed suicide-by-Saito, to save his life. I cannot express in words how thoroughly I hate this stupid, monstrous, lazy culmination.

Then the story doubles down on the stupid, lazy, monstrous writing by having Derflinger commit suicide to revive Louise.

Bafflingly, Louise mourns Derflinger. I honestly cannot think of a single even marginally positive interaction the two had to justify this response. Like sure fine I can buy her feeling grateful for his sacrifice -ignoring how garbage everything about the sacrifice and its leadup is- but the story has her reminiscing about how he was 'always helping' and all. Conspicuously, where Saito flashbacks to a bunch of Actual Prior Events when mourning Louise's death, Louise doesn't name even a single incident in which Derflinger was helpful. So the writer can't remember any such moment either, and just hopes readers won't notice the lack.

Also, in literally the final volume, the place Saito was originally summoned finally has a name: Austri Plaza. Uh. Sure?

Cattleya gets convenient 'secret Elf medicine's to cure her incurable condition. So never mind that bit of respect I had for the series.

Louise permanently awakens to wind magic, because of course she does.

The elemental siblings show up, and we get told they're... vampire-human hybrids??? What? Did that crop up before and I just totally forgot?...

Oh, and Louise and Saito go live Happily Ever After in Japan after a bunch of drama is wrung out of Saito intending to first stay in Halkeginia and then more drama was wrung out of him deciding to go home even though it meant being separated from Louise. The story conspicuously fails to address how this could possibly work out well; Louise has pink hair, and is unlikely to completely avoid using her magic. She’s going to end up on an MiB dissection table in no time flat, frankly, not live happily ever after. This isn’t even touching on how messed-up it is for Louise to throw away her life in Halkeginia to follow Saito back; she has responsibilities of myriad sorts in Halkeginia. Heck, so does Saito at this point! Whereas back in Japan, the story has consistently indicated Saito’s parents are literally the only people who will notice or care about him going missing.

For that matter, there was this whole thing with Siesta, Louise, and Saito working out a three-person relationship, and while I found it cringe-y and was dubious because of the likely motives, this is just throwing that out by summarily cutting out Siesta. And also trashing the creepy, stupid crap with Tabitha and Henrietta loving Saito for no actual reason.

This ending is awful and antithetical to what lead up to it on so many levels.

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So that’s it, I’m done taking notes on this series. I have a few things I’ll be saying in the coming weeks, but the note-taking is done, finally.