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5 HCs AU: When Sita tries to call upon Bhumi Devi to swallow her up, nothing happens.

1. It is–not quite nothing, a rumble from the earth whispering Not yet, my daughter; but it is not the rest that Sita has wanted for so long. 

Around her, courtiers and commoners whisper alike of Maithali’s failure with as much surprise as satisfaction: now, at least, they can silence the lingering guilt at their part in their queen’s exile. Certainly she was to blame all along, and their King’s decision above reproach. 

Sita does not speak again, but turns to leave, head held high.

2. She goes back to her cottage in Valmiki’s hermitage, the only place–other than an abandoned hut in Panchavati–that feels like home. 

Some, Sita knows, might urge her on to giving up her life: but fire had let her pass unscathed, the son of wind spoken in her favor, and earth her mother forsaken her. Why ought she to imagine the waters might be any different?

In the back of her mind, faint but fixed, is the throb of anger; her husband’s wrath might threaten to destroy the world, but Sita’s is a thousand times more destructive. Lanka learned that lesson all too well; Sita closes her eyes and prays for peace. 

3. Kush might be the elder, but Luv the bolder, and Luv the one who asks her at last one night.

“Would you have left us?”

A mother’s instinct almost brings No, of course not to her lips; but Janaka’s daughter does not lie, no more than she hides from hard truths. 

“Yes,” she says. 

“With a father we scarcely know?”

“Your teacher’s stories–”

Luv scowls. “Are just that.” His mouth curls up, just as it did when he was five years old and refusing to eat his dinner. “You would have left us.”

Sita sighs, and holds out her arms to him. “And I never will again.”

4. “You might have been princes,” she reminds Kush, who should have been heir to Ayodhya. “You might have taken your rightful places.”

He only snorts. “And rule the same louts who scorned our mother? Never.”

She does not dare admit that she is proud of him, but her smile betrays her nonetheless.

5. Sita is tending to her garden when she hears footsteps approaching, coaxing weeds to take life elsewhere; she looks up to find her husband peering down at her, clearly awkward and somehow not yet out of place. His clothes are stark; his head is bare, devoid of the crown. She wonders if Bharata was convinced to take it at last, or if Lakshmana obliged instead.

(She knows too, enough of the ways of ruling to know that a king does not simply wake one morning and renounce his throne. He must have been planning this, moving the pieces into the motion, since the day she and the boys had departed Ayodhya forever.)

“Forgive me,” he says, and Sita, who had half-feared she would never be able to do so, feels her rage ebb at last. 

Beneath her bare feet, the earth hums her contentment. 

😂😂😂

19th Century Literary Heroines as Responses to “I Love You”

Emma Woodhouse: Who doesn’t

Eleanor Dashwood: I know

Marriane Dashwood: Thanks!

Jane Eyre: A horrible decision, really

Lizzie Bennet: *laughs nervously*

Catherine Morland: *laughs hysterically*

Margaret Hale: YEET

Fanny Price: I’m sorry

Anne Elliot: *finger guns*

Catherine Earnshaw: If only there was someone out there who loved you

😂😂😂

But also, why would you send "good"?

this thread absolutely killed me

Read the notes 😂😂

a question to the skate board side of tumblr

how do you guys get the boards to stick to your feet when you jump?

Just curious-- what makes the 2009 Emma adaptation a work of art?

*cracks knuckles* *pulls out color coded binder* I’m so glad you asked.

I’ve seen a lot of Emma adaptations: Clueless, Emma (1996), Aisha, the other BBC series (the one with Kate Beckinsdale and Mark Strong), Emma Approved, and of course, the 2009 BBC Miniseries. The 2009 version is my favorite, it always has been, and it always will be. Most of that comes down to characterization, but it is also about the way it captures Austen’s story magnificently though language, set design, costuming, and music.

Keep reading

Take a moment to say thank you.

Thank you that I am alive.

Thank you that I am healthy.

Thank you that I am able to pursue my passion.

There may be darkness. At times, I may be tempted to give up.

But I don’t.

And not even the strongest of flames can burn this undying gratitude of mine.

For I will always be thankful.

~Nic A

Me on Tumblr app after finally reaching the end of a long post I wasn’t interested in:

ajab silsila-e-mohabbat toh dekho;    ye uska deewana            wo iski deewani.