the iron soldier grieves

hiiii . this is a low-formatting and iconless semi-selective multimuse primarily for interacting with friends. penned by albatross (they/them, 21+). feel free to follow first, but i don't always follow back!

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carrd.

mobile muse list under cut.

for instance, in the current state of aiva magic and its practitioners are even divided by the three districts. the land and sea districts both have a tendency towards magic drawn from religion (clerics, paladins) thanks to the heavy emphasis of the area's protection from the watcher. that said, it's also a lot more common to have bards in the sea district than the land district, since their practice of reverence to the watcher leans further away from anything organized like it does landside. in the sky, magic tends to come either from bloodlines (sorcerers) or from self-discipline and training to defend the islands (rangers).

and that's just one place!!

ephelion's affluent families are made up usually of people who value knowledge (wizards, artificers) and people who have some manner of inherent magic (sorcerers), and they've shaped the nature of ephelion's social politics to BE very magic and magic education centric. as such it's heavily rewarded to pursue wizardry or artificing for people who don't have any inherent means of using magic because low-level casters are then incentivized to be a part of the budding industrialization efforts by supplying their magical talents to keep machines running either via creation of spell circles or via directly funneling magic into machines to keep them working. religious, natural, and musical magic aren't nearly as rewarded because they're less predictable, and don't usually offer the same benefits as magic that can be studied and made tangible.

miri has by far the widest range of magic users thanks to its affiliation with the fey, but almost all of them HAVE a fey aspect to their magic because it's nearly impossible not to. magic rather than martial forces tends to power the authority there; guards and enforcers are trained magic-users and not usually fighters, save for some special exceptions. wizardry is the most common practice here as well because of the benefits one gets from attending the magic academy and serving the crown, and on the flip-side it's borderline illegal to practice druidcraft because that's seen as heresy against the mischief-maker's teachings as it's too closely affiliated with the heart of the old forest. at best it's usually punishable by execution. miri in general follows very alice in wonderland rules in this way.

hanazira doesn't have any singular formal means of education, on the other hand, and as such the practice of magic tends to fall more towards the methods of teaching and learning one can find among bards, druids, rangers, and sometimes clerics. that's not to say there aren't exceptions - certainly there are also some practices that DO teach more structured arcane tradition - but hanazira is unique like this because it's not really a single nation at all and more of an alliance of different peoples who came together under a single name for the express purpose of all being able to maintain their freedoms from the impending threat of a lot of their neighbors. so practices in general tend to be more scattered, and formal education is left up to each individual group, culture, and settlement, meaning magical tradition more inherently steeped in individual culture tends to thrive.

oskolda's magic, much like its culture itself, thrives upon the idea of deals and handshakes and contracts. many people want to claw their way upwards in its sort of proto-capitalist society, so becoming a warlock via the selling of a soul or some other material promise is altogether common. it's even possible for ordinary people to be able to get powerful enough on their own to then OFFER a warlock contract, giving a fraction of their power to the people who work for them. the god who presides over them is also, by a somewhat slim margin over the mischief-maker, the god who has the largest warlock-to-cleric ratio - though unlike the mischief maker's unwilling warlocks, people usually go into signing their soul away fairly readily to the wealth-keeper. as an aside, it's also not considered polite to point out the fact that so much of their magic comes from contracts. most people would rather pretend they're sorcerers who came by their powers inherently.

The instinct to deny comes quickly and sharply.

Ankita is more familiar than anyone with the way he looks—frail and reliant. Lilstele doesn't scoff at the notion of his physical independence like some had, nor does she openly insist on reliance like Alwin, but it doesn't stop Ankita from being reminded of both. He has only accepted that he must ask for help or for escort, and has not accepted that other people can see and react to his limits.

But he reminds himself that Lilstele has more of a reason to want to return to the underground with him. She did, after all, live there. If either of them is an uninvited interloper, it is surely Ankita, who has made the problems of these people into his own. It's he who is the selfish one for having wanted to act on his own, without Alwin's sometimes-suffocating presence as he comes into the new purpose he's found.

And anyway, Lilstele knows the way better than anyone, but she'd asked to go with Ankita. From what little she's said of her family down there, it's not a surprising request—it's easier to not feel coddled by those close to him when he thinks they might need him, too.

"Okay," Ankita says. "You don't need my permission. You lived here once; I didn't."

The stiff response echoes harshly against the stone walls of the long path down, where many of the Skadë still remain. When Estrid had mentioned that there were people down there still afraid to leave, trapped by crime syndicates and criminals who were themselves still trapped, Ankita had thought of bandits in the desert, riding themselves up alongside whatever little, struggling communities they could find.

Ankita has never enjoyed taking up a fight for people who should be able to fight for themselves. But it hadn't mattered, in that moment. It hadn't mattered, because people could be dying. Because somewhere in Peshykor, someone had spent his final moments at the mercy of someone else who was hardly any better off than him, even though the path to Glintburn was open to all.

The Skadë in Dhandarim are not his people to help. But Ankita needs to know that helping is possible.

"I don't know what's waiting for you down here," he continues, sparing a glance towards Lilstele when he feels he can afford to take his attention off the stairs, as difficult a tool for descent as they have ever been. "Only that it must be bad if you're avoiding it."

Really, Ankita is no different. He could have turned tail and fled back to Peshykor when he had only one groundbreaking spell to his name. Now he has two, and he lingers here with the flimsy excuse that there is more work to be done and more pressing matters. Lilstele even presumably has some living dread that has kept her away—the only thing that drives Ankita's avoidance is a ghost.

"What, like a cult? Like an animal cult? Or like—I dunno. I guess it could be a get-together. Not sure why my mind went to cult."

It's not necessarily the most unusual thing in the world—but with half their respective duos missing and Mark's individual search turning up a bunch of loose ends, going to some weird animal gathering in the middle of the city seems like it might be promising in some way. At best, it's at least more likely to come up as being something.

He's itching to get this solved. Yun Lin isn't bad company or anything, but Mark's never really paid much attention to him because his presence usually means Pamela is around, and Pamela's usually a more pressing problem. Kadir seems to think he's alright, but Mark would walk forwards into hell before taking anyone's word as personal judgement, even his.

Man, I wish Kadir were here.

It's a strange thought to have. But he can't dwell on it now, when Kadir and Pamela are probably both… Well, there's no telling where they are or whether they're alright, but nothing involving anyone like them ever turns out good. They're probably not having a luxury getaway, at the very least.

"Okay. I didn't find anything like that," and he'd have known fully well if there was anything an ordinary person might've missed, "so I'll come check out your animal cult or whatever. Might be there's something attracting 'em. Sometimes animals and sensitive people can be drawn to, like, sites that produce specters 'n other stuff. Kind of unusual for 'em to gather around it, but you never know with these things."

Though he gestures for Yun Lin to take the lead, he doesn't trail very far behind. The need to keep an eye out is a rough habit that's gotten him in more shit than it's probably worth, but it's something Mark just can't let go of. Straightforward sort of guy or not, the fact remains that Yun Lin had helped Pamela try to kill him the first time they'd met.

It's also true that he and Pamela are just pawns to some stronger person's ends. Mark's been both the pawn and the stronger person, though, and being the pawn didn't mean less danger for the pieces he wiped off the board. You really can't trust anyone who's even a small part of the game.

the thing that's interesting about ukoku - that a lot of fanworks fail to truly genuinely grasp about ukoku - is that the reason he's an effective antagonist to the sanzo ikkou isn't because he's just aligned himself against him, or that he generally has fun causing problems and making people suffer. the thing that really sets him at a contrast to them is that he's absolutely willing to die, so long as someone is capable of seeing that through.

the sanzo ikkou are effectively fighting tooth and nail to live another day most of the time. none of them (even hakkai) are willing to accept an outcome that ends with any of them dying. but dying is and has always been ukoku's ultimate dream; he just can't imagine dying in a lackluster way. he goes through life very listlessly learning and growing and becoming more powerful without having any trouble or facing any obstacles, and so the only thing that would make life fulfilling to him would be meeting someone strong enough to kill him.