#And more lovely war romances like Atonement

[guiltycorp]

Damn i really want to know tf happened in the writing room of arcane s2. Some of the downgrades were inevitable due to the show's corporate limitations (not being able to progress the class war story in a meaningful way, having to tie things back to league of legends in terms of making playable characters more appealing to well, play... rip Mel and Viktor in particular), sure. But i still feel like it's even worse than that? There are so many bad decisions that i couldn't even start listing them all... the characters, plot, pacing, themes, it's just such a mess? Even the dialogue writing, it feels much more mm Marvel at its worst i suppose. What i am most bothered by is probably just the straight up harmful messaging so um... Cycles of violence and abuse can be broken by individual decisions to become a better person! Got nothing to do with systemic oppression, living conditions, mental health issues, you can just conveniently ignore aaall the social context, live laugh love and then things get better automatically yep, oppressors famously stop oppressing you when you show them that you're harmless and won't put up a fight anymore. Literally three out of three suicidal characters dying to redeem themselves? Not even in a tragic/cathartic way but in a bittersweet 'they finally atoned for their mistakes' way? Groundbreaking lmao. Romantic relationship between Vi and Caitlyn including no communication about their biggest fight, just conveniently skipping to sex and getting back together - would have loved that if it was framed as the unhealthy fucked up thing that it is, skipping over Vi's hurt and her background to once again become a cop, her girlfriend's direct underling at that (!) due to her not having any other support systems... But nope that was our cute lesbian romance wrapped up, a good thing all around, not concerning at all. Jayce telling Viktor that what he 'always admired about him' was his disability and his deadly disease (??? from a character who spent the whole s1 and first act of s2 desperately trying to help Viktor find a cure? sure) and that those imperfections don't need fixing, just wtf truly. Magic bullshit was also weird, some implications of 'natural magic is ok, but achieving that power through other means corrupts you into a crazy robot bitch or just wilts your trees i guess', but tbh it was written in such a weird and inconsistent way that we can skip this one... Yeah actually a lot of things were just such a mess that I feel silly pointing to specific moments or lines I didn't like, I mean duh, it barely makes sense as a story at all... I am happy we have s1 which comparatively was a masterpiece, and i also really enjoyed s2 act1, i truly believed it would lead somewhere good at the time, my mind still kind of cuts off the story at that point when i think about it, that WAS the open ending of the show to me (is it possible that there were rewrites? targeting act 2 and 3? idk, wishful thinking perhaps). Despite my extremely negative feelings about this season's conclusion i remain glad that so many people appreciate the show regardless, it is clear that there was STILL a lot of love in the process of its creation (although i'd argue that even some of the visual aspects of the show suffered in quality, once again i have to wonder about behind the scenes mood of it all) and i get very upset when i see creatives online despairing over reception of their projects even when i'm absolutely in the disgruntled crowd hahaha... ...however yeah, this wasn't great In a world that increasingly grows more and more right-wing politically... we really needed something different i think.

[autumnrose11]

“That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.”

~ Juliet Ashton

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

[imagines--galore]

||I Will Always Choose You||

Summary: As a soldier you had expected to find yourself in dangerous situations. But trapped in the claws of a Homunculous who went by Lust and watching the man you love try to save you was on a whole other level.

Pairing: Roy Mustang x Reader

Rating || Genres || Warnings: T. Romance. Action. Angst. A bit of mention of injury so be prepared!

A/N: Sorry its late but I hope you like this! @smallartist08

Roy Mustang was not in love.

He had never been in love, and there was no possibility of him falling in love in the future.

Not when he had an entire country to think of. Not when he had to help make Amestris a country he would be proud to call home. Not when he had so many people to look after. His entire team. His best friend’s wife and daughter. The Elric brothers. Madam Christmas and the girls.

Most all of them were in constant danger, one way or the other. There was no time for him to be in love when he had to make sure he knew of their every step. Make sure they stayed safe.

Or as safe as the Elric brothers could be.

Those two boys got in so much trouble sometimes, he was sure they had targets painted on their backs.

But most of all?

Roy Mustang did not deserve love. Not after the bloodshed he had carried out as the Flame Alchemist. Not after all the innocent Ishvalans he had killed when he had been ordered to. 

He was ashamed of his actions, and deeply regretful that he had not stood up to those in authority back then. He may spend his whole life trying to atone for all his sins. Which is why something as pure as love could never be in his life. 

Not with how tainted his soul was. 

How broken.

But............the only problem about not falling in love?

Was that he was already in love.

With you.

Just like Riza and Maes, you had been beside Roy every step of the way.

You had been with him when he was stationed to the front lines. As a weapon’s specialist, and a liaison between the superiors and the alchemists, you had been in-charge of all the weapons that came your way. 

Mechanical and human.

And all the State Alchemists were seen as nothing more then weapons at that time.

You were to make sure that each piece of weapon stayed in shape, and you were aware of every alchemist and where they were stationed, what they were capable of, and how far they could go with the abilities.

As one of the best sharpshooters, Riza would often be found in your company. Not only because you were the only one she trusted with making sure her weapon was in working order, but also because there were so few women on the front lines.

It was nice having another woman around, someone the both of you could trust to watch each other’s back.

You had been walking around when you had first heard Roy. He was speaking to Maes, telling him of the guilt he felt for using his abilities to kill so many. All of this was spoken in confidant, and you were not meant to have heard it.

But you did.

And your heart went out to the poor man.

You had seen so many soldiers die. So many lives wasted.

And for what?

For a war that had started because the Ishavalan’s had revolted against the people who ruled them. Later you would come to know the true reason for the war, but even then, it didn’t sit right with you.

Riza had been with you, and when Roy and Maes had seen you standing there, she had reassured them, saying you would not breath a single word of it to anyone.

Although the next time Roy was given an assignment, it had no killing involved and only a few patrols. He had been confused at first, and after a little detective work on Maes’s part, he was told that you were responsible for it. While writing your weekly reports you had managed to surreptitiously add a few points that would make it seem that the areas Roy would be stationed at were in dire need of a cleansing. 

Of course, that was a lie.

Leaving Roy rather impressed with your clever wording, and quick thinking. He voiced it to you out loud, but what he didn’t say, at least not in so many words, was that he was sure that you had done so out of the kindness of your heart.

He had known of you long before you knew him. At least you were are of his existence, and that he was the Flame Alchemist. That was as far as your knowledge of him went until that fateful and unintentional run-in while he had been speaking to Maes. Roy Mustang knew exactly who you were and what you were there to do. 

He had seen you, a few days after your arrival. You were crouching down next to a dying Ishvalan, offering him some water. And you had stayed there, held his hand and spoke to him.

Most soldiers would’ve simply walked by the dying man. But not you. No, you stayed with him until he died. And when he did, you cried.

You sat there crying in the shadows for a good long while, until your tears had dried and you had composed yourself enough to walk back to your post. And Roy had watched you, a piece of his broken heart mending at the reassurance of your simple act of staying with a dying man.

That there was still kindness in this cruel world.

                                           ————————–

Your life had never been easy.

For one you were related to the esteemed Armstrong family. A cousin of the family. You had quite the legacy to live up to.

Your father had been a decorated army officer until his death in the Ishvalan War. You had been expected to walk in his footsteps. And as his only child, there was a lot of pressure on you. And given the fact that you were a girl, you had to work twice as hard. It didn’t help that your father made you aware of your gender every moment of everyday. And not in the most positive of ways.

You could never be an Alchemist like your cousin Alex, you had no desire to become a weapon like him. And you could never be as ruthless and heartless as your cousin Olivier. Even she had once stated that if you were to ever loose the kindness that radiated from your very being, you would loose part of yourself.

So you had decided to forge a path that worked for you. And though you had to hide your real nature while in the army working at the front lines, you had been lucky enough to find people you could be yourself around.

People you trusted had your back no matter what would happen.

After the war, you were personally asked by Flame Alchemist Roy Mustang to work with him. He had said he needed a person who could talk their way out of a situation without having a single shot fired. Translation: He needed someone who could speak to those superior them him without pissing them off. And once you were made aware that Riza would be a part of that Unit as well, you had agreed.

And while that was your initial reason for joining Mustang’s Unit, it began to change over the years as you got to know the rest of your Team.

Riza Hawkeye, your first true friend in the military. You had both shared your worries with one another, your hopes for the future. Talks that had brought the both of you all that much closer to one another. Close enough that you considered one another sisters.

Kain Fuery, the little brother you had always wanted, and since your own mother had died giving birth to a sibling who had never had the chance to draw breath, you saw Kain as your second chance. And given how you were almost always working on the radio, taking orders, sending messages and keeping updates on the latest going-ons in the military, he was always by your side to help however he could.

Vato Falman was your go to person when you needed to get a fact checked about history. He knew everything, and sometimes you would share your information with him to see if he knew anything about it. Not to mention the fact that the both of you would carry out long historical debates and discussions that you both thoroughly enjoyed, and ones that put the rest of your Team to sleep.

Jean Havoc had tried to flirt with you when he had first met you. But had backed off when you had given him a glare Olivier had helped you to perfect years ago. He was still a little afraid of you, but you both got along now. Enough that he would tell you all about his dating life, which you would critique him for quite viciously, much to the amusement of the rest of the Team.

Heymans Breda and you were partners in stealth. The both of you knew everything about everyone’s business. At least everyone who were important. But sometimes the insignificant tidbits the both of you shared did help once in awhile.

And finally there was Roy Mustang.

Your superior. The one who had brought you to be a part of his Team. He must’ve seen something in you that had him bring you in. Then again, he had seen something in all of them. And while you knew you were a valuable asset considering your way to talk yourself out of trouble as efficiently as any conman, you couldn’t help but hope for something different.

Which was utterly ridiculous because nothing could ever happen between the both of you.

You were his subordinate. A soldier under his command. Nothing more, nothing less.

Still it didn’t stop you from growing closer to him. To share your most deepest thoughts with one another. And while Riza was also his confidant, one you were aware of, there was something different when it came to the talks you had with Roy. They were more personal, and felt more like a conversation between a man and a woman, rather then the exchange of information between two soldiers.

And though you tried to stop it, tried your best not to, you couldn’t help but fall in love with him. Fall in love with the man with who regretted every life he had taken, who wanted to see Amestris become a better country. He had a vision, one that was just as grand as him, and you hoped you would be a part of it.

That you would be by his side when it became a reality.

And while it was hard to keep your feelings a secret, considering how they were always just simmering beneath the surface whenever you interacted with him, especially outside of work, they remained unspoken.

And since they remained unspoken, your feelings only grew stronger with each passing day.

                                             ————————–

Unbeknownst to you, Roy was in the same predicament as you.

He hoped that you would be by his side when he achieved his dream. Perhaps then his heart would allow him to do what he wanted for so long. 

To declare his love for you in that signature rambunctious style of his.

He had kept his feelings a secret from you for so long. Maes was aware of it. As was Riza. He only knew the latter because she had, in thinly veiled words, threatened to dismember him should he ever hurt you.

But he would never hurt you. He would rather die then hurt you intentionally. You, the only source of light and kindness that provided some sort of comfort to his broken soul. So many times he had come close to just confessing, to let everything come out in the open and damn the consequences, but he never did.

He had very nearly confessed when he had broken down in your arms after Maes’s passing. The man who had been his biggest supporter when it came to his feelings for you, but he had stopped. He had no desire to associate such an important moment with the worst time in his life.

Though if he had known that a few short weeks later, you would be on the verge of dying yourself, he would’ve confessed to you right then and there.

                                             ————————–

The pain at his side was still near overwhelming. The back of his palm itched and stung where he had carved the symbol he needed for flame alchemy.

But all that pain was nothing.

Nothing compared to the horrifying sight of you in the clutches of the Homunculi Lust.

You looked like you had taken quite the beating, with multiple bruises and cuts littering your body, a majority of them visible through your torn clothes. And you had.

You had lost all control when you had heard Lust speak so proudly and boastfully.

About the Flame Alchemist.

About killing the Flame Alchemist.

But you were no match for an all-powerful creature. Despite your years of training and weapons mastery, she had you pinned against the floor, one of her deadly claws aimed straight at your heart.

Though she changed positions when Roy stumbled in, followed by Riza.

Now she held you in front of herself like a shield, her sharp claw ascending from above your heart to press the tip of it against your delicate throat.

You let out a sob of relief at the sight of him.

“Roy!”

You hardly ever called him by his first name. And just with that word, he knew how worried and scared you had been that he was gone.

“Put her down.” He growled, his thumb itching to throw a fire blast in the direction of the Homunculi. Lust let out a soft laugh.

“Do you really believe you are in position to make demands of me Colonel Mustang?” She purred, the claw wrapped around your waist tightening, causing you to whimper as one of your fractured ribs throbbed with pain. “I shall enjoy tearing your little plaything apart.” Roy gritted his teeth as you let out a painful cry, unable to help yourself as her hold tightened. Beside him, Riza was no better. Her grip on her gun only increased, finger twitching to pull the trigger.

“D-d-o-on’t lis-te-n to h-er.” You managed to call out hoarsely, loud enough for your words to echo in the blindingly white room. Another laugh for Lust, one that had Roy growling under his breath, the fire in his eyes burning just as bright as any flame he normally created.

“Oh my, even on the brink of death you wish to bring your Colonel comfort.” She turned you around so she could look at you in the eye. “Tell me, are you willing to give up your life to save his?” She cooed, smiling sadistically. Your head turned slightly, so you could look at him over your shoulder. The true intensity of your love for Roy Mustang finally sunk in, burning so bright that it prompted you to look at Lust straight in the eye and say one word.

“Yes.”

Behind Lust you caught sight of Alphonse rising to his feet where Lust had thrown him aside during their fight. His armor was hidden behind a wall of stone he had built, so Roy and Riza hadn’t seen him yet. His red glowing eyes found yours, and you knew what was coming next.

A smile pulled at your lips. “But today is not that day.”

Lust barely had time to react to your words when Alphonse suddenly burst into action, sending a wall of stone in her direction. She had to drop you to save herself from being knocked off her feet.

“Now Roy!” The scream had barely left your lips when you felt the searing flames of his alchemy rush past you and engulf the Homunculi.

Lust’s screams of utter pain echoed all around you. Alphonse quickly surrounded you with a stone wall before rushing to your side and shielding you with his body. 

Roy’s flames were intense. He was not holding back. Not when the image of you looking so broken, defeated and hurt was fresh in his mind. Not when the sight of you willing to die for him had his insides twisting in a painful way.

Despite the physical pain that had his body throbbing, it seemed nothing compared to the pain he was certain would ravage his very sense of being should he loose you.

And so he unleashed all that fear, anger and anguish in his flames, unblinking and unrelenting as the creature Lust screamed and screamed. Even Riza did not stop him, did not tell him to hold off. Lust was too dangerous to be left alive.

In Alphonse’s protective grasp, you felt your entire body trembling from the pain, but that didn’t stop you from lifting your head once Lust finally fell silent. Somehow, you broke free of his grip around you and managed to peer around the protective wall.

Only to be met with the sight of Roy falling to his knees, looking just as bad as you did. “Roy!” You whimpered, worry lacing your tone, as you tried to stand. But the twisted ankle did not allow you to get any further then a crouch.

“Alphonse, keep an eye on both of them! I’m getting help!” Called Riza as she all but sprinted away knowing neither you, Roy nor Havoc were in any position to be moved without medical assistance.

Roy was lying on his back now his eyes were on you, his arm outstretched,  hand reaching out towards you. “Y/n.”

You quickly began to try and crawl towards him, though seeing you struggle, Aphonse quickly took over, lifting you up and bringing you to lie down next to your superior.

As soon as you were there, your hands found one another’s. Your fingers laced together and you held on tight as tears filled your eyes, while his shone with relief. “Are you okay?” He asked, his voice hoarse as he gripped your hand tighter, if that were even possible. You shook your head. “Forget about me. Lust said she killed you. I thought you were dead.” The tears began anew as you looked at his smiling face, very much alive and just as handsome as ever, despite his injured state. He reached out with his other hand to wipe away one of the falling tears. “Its gonna take more then a Homunculus to take me out.” He said in that confident voice of his, prompting a tearful laugh from your lips. Now that the danger has passed, the adrenaline was beginning to leave your body and you could feel your head begin to grow heavy and fuzzy, your eyes burning as you forced yourself to keep them open.

But it was no use. Already your eyelids were drooping, and everything around you was beginning to loose coherency.

Seeing you struggle with staying conscious, Roy turned his gaze to Alphonse who was hovering over them, Roy smiled. “Thanks Alphonse. Thank you for looking after the woman I love.”

Those were the last words you heard before you slowly slipped into the sweet embrace of darkness.

                                            ————————–

The next time you became aware of your surroundings you were lying on something soft.

Mumbling incoherently, you lifted a hand to your forehead, only to be met with resistance given that your arm was in a sling. Your entire body ached and felt so heavy that you were sure it had been run over by a tank.

But the real reason behind your current predicament slowly returned as your brain began to wake up. 

Lust. 

Lust hurting Alphonse.

Lust fighting you.

Taunting you.

Telling you Roy was dead.

Roy?

Roy!

“Roy!” His name fell from your lips as you suddenly sat up straight, followed by a cry of pain as your still healing ribs protested at the sudden movement. You wrapped an arm around your abdomen, grunting in pain.

“Yes?”

Startled you looked up, your head whipping to the side, only to be greeted with the sight of a very much alive Roy Mustang lying in a bed adjacent to yours. You could make out another bed next to his, with Havoc snoring away. It was the middle of the night, the only source of light in the room from the small lamp Roy had turned on as he read a book.

And seeing him sitting there, bandaged and looking so much better from when you had last seen it, doing something as mundane as reading a book, you couldn’t help but let out a sound of utter relief as you buried your face in your hands. You didn’t cry, but you were rather close.

“Oh you bastard.” Your words were muffled, but he heard you, considering he let out a chuckle. “Not exactly the words a man who confessed to you wants to hear, but I’ll take it to mean you’re feeling better now.”

You sighed, before removing your hands and turning to look at him. “It took you nearly dying to finally confess to me. You really know how to make a girl feel special you know.” You said, your smile soft yet teasing as you turned your head to look at him. Roy shrugged. “What can I say? I have a dramatic flare. Its a big part of my personality.” He admitted, smirking at you as he carefully slid from his bed, wincing from the pain at his side.

Your eyes dropped to his abdomen as he sat on the bed beside you. “How’re you feeling?” You asked, worry lacing your tone as your gaze moved to his hand where the symbol for flame alchemy was now scabbed over. You couldn’t help yourself as you reached out and gently took his hand in between your own. “Well my side still hurts, and I’m sharing a room with two other people despite my rank and not being looked after by a hot nurse, but other then that I have no complaints.” His words prompted a gentle laugh out of you as you finally lifted your gaze from his hand to meet his.

To say you were taken aback by the intensity of his eyes would be an understatement. You held his gaze, even as he reached up to brush your hair behind your ear. He didn’t lower his hand. Instead it stayed there, moving only to gently cup your cheek, brushing his thumb against the half-healed cut where Lust had caught you with one of her claws.

“I know you’ll probably tell me off later, but when Lust told me that she had killed you.” Your voice trembled slightly at the memory. “Something inside me broke and I started to attack her, with no regard for my own life.” The admittance had you a cold feeling creeping down your back but you continued, your eyes dropping to his chest. “In that moment I realized that I didn’t want to live. Not in a world where you weren’t alive.”

You sighed. “What I’m trying to say Roy, is that you mean so much to me. And I know this goes against every military rule there is about fraternizing with your superior but I-I love you too.” The words were barely out of your mouth before he closed whatever distance there was and pressed his lips against yours in a gentle kiss. The gesture was so unlike him, that it had you staring at him in surprise once he pulled back.

He smirked. “I know, I’m that good.” He said, and though his smile was smug, his eyes were sincere and adoring as he looked at you. Shaking your head you leaned forward to press your foreheads together, noses just barely touching, a wide smile on your lips. “I’ll need a repeat of that to judge for myself.” You stated, prompting him to let out a laugh, before he moved to comply to your request.

However the moment was broken by the grumbling of a certain fellow team member.

“Would you two stop flirting? People are trying to sleep here!”

You couldn’t help it as you muffled your laugh by pressing your lips against his once more.

[fantasywater]

Catradora and Stolitz: Same Toxic Ship just Different Genders

This series has always felt like the Catra Show, and so much so that even Hordak never felt like the main villain. And nothing drove that point home more than season five proving once and for all that this series' moral line(or lack thereof) is really about a Villain Protagonist when the character that increasingly became a monster for four seasons still got everything she wanted in the end.   

Catra is the poster child for the moral bankruptcy of this series. 

I can't buy her ''redemption,'' or her relationship with Adora, because she went too far. 

Therefore nor can I buy the mental gymnastics that arise when she is the topic of discussion in the fandom. 

For four seasons I watched this character willingly and gleefully jump rope with the moral event horizon. Then she finally broke it to the pieces when she genocides the planet, and everyone on it, because of her sick, evil, obsession with being better than Adora.

Loved all this time my behind.

Catra was a vile person from her introduction, and just got increasingly more poisonous as the show went on. 

Season Five wants us to treat Catra like she was just a bad friend.

She just said a few mean words here and there, and therefore all she has to do is sincerely apologize then friendship can begin again.  

Here's the thing Catra wasn't just a bad friend she was an abuser and a fascist. 

She had multiple opportunities to leave the horde, and had no reason to stay in the first place, gleefully attacks the resistance, is the reason Angela died, tried straight up multiple times to end Adora’s and her friends lives, and was just an abomination to even the ones on her side etc..   

On the flip side we have Adora who doesn’t give a damn about Catra for four seasons. She’s too busy enjoying life with her real friends.

Try and recall, was there ever a moment where Adora was...concerned for Catra’s safety? Pining for her in any way romantically? Ever? Even once during the first four seasons? Because I don’t.

Honestly, Catra wasn’t important to Adora until Catra showed up on screen. And then they both wanted to kill each other. Any moments of Adora thinking about Catra it was in the context of Catra being her enemy.

But I'm supposed to believe in their romance based on what? Catra's toxicity? Adora's nonexistent romantic feelings for pretty much the entire series?   

It seems in season 5 all Catra had to do was one act of atonement and out of nowhere, like Adora has been possessed by the ghost of Queer Rep, she suddenly can’t get Catra out of her head.

Also, note that Catra didn't save Glimmer because she realized her past actions were evil; no it was all for Adora's sake i.e. the person she is toxically obsessed with. 

Furthermore, the redemption in question is handled with the most condescending of kid gloves.

It seems like she was replaced by a clone for season five. She’s just accepted.

It's like seasons 1-4 didn't happen. The forgiveness was excessive and forced so we could be okay with this abuser/war criminal being chummy and romantic with her victims.

For example, Glimmer cries over her, kisses her cheek, etc... Yet Catra is responsible for her mother's death, the world ending, trying to kill her, war crimes against Bright Moon, etc. 

Then Entrapta also forgives Catra like it’s nothing even though she sent her to die, and apparently, she was in this hell space for a year.

But everything is supposed to be wonderful because an abuser ends the series romantically involved with her victim?   

When Adora said you made your choice and now live with it that should have been the end of any reconciliation either platonic or romantic. 

Even her flashbacks are of her being abusive.

You see her in one of them( in her so-called redemption season at that) scratching Adora's face to the point it left blood, and jumping on her stomach just because Adora dared to be friends with other people.

This was pretty much every childhood flashback they showed.

She would emotionally and physically abuse Adora, and then Adora would take her back.

This would continue even as young adults. It was a pattern(red flag) that Adora unfortunately didn't escape. 

But.....I always loved you,says Catra. 

For Adora's own mental health/closure, she could forgive, but only if she also makes it clear that she doesn't want her abuser/ex-friend back in her life.   

I could have tolerated that ending instead of Adora becoming a couple with her abuser. 

Basically, this Villain Sue ends the show getting everything she wants even after manipulation of several characters, genocide, war crimes against her own people, physical and mental abuse(especially toward Adora), repeated attempts at murder, and just being a complete psychopath to anyone within spitting distance of her toxicity. 

She gets to be pretty much abusive scum for four seasons, on top of actually doing the same thing Prime wanted to do, yet whiplash forgiveness and Lesbians 4 Evah is her ending.   

"So we're all just okay with this?", says Mermista incredulously of the war criminal Hordak. Good question, but then I remember you all seem to be okay with war criminal Catra sooo.....

Her mirror Hordak, according to the showrunner, is sentenced to Beast Island for his war crimes. However, my question then becomes where is Catra's sentence? Oh, that's right if you're Catra you get to be a war criminal in peace, and especially if you're dating the protagonist.   

It's also convenient that Mermista's was chipped, and therefore didn't get to say anything to the girl who helped bring down her kingdom with a smile on her face.

Funny how that worked out. 

It's even more convenient that her victims gave their lighting fast forgiveness.  

Can't have icky things like abuse and war crimes get in the way of that ending smooch you know.

I suppose we also just need to look at Angella as collateral damage while we smile as her daughter hugs and kisses her killer I guess.   

I also find it odd(since we're loving abusers) that Shadow Weaver point blank doesn't get forgiveness from Adora, and she even ends the series dead.

However, she defected to the hero's side in season two(regardless of any impure motivation), and stayed there and helped the protagonists until her season five death.

But Catra, who not only stayed with the conquering organization the Horde for almost the entire series while also eventually becoming their leader, was not only forgiven but also rewarded with a romance with her victim. Curious. 

The only way I can stomach her season five 'redemption', and lighting quick forgiveness, is if I forget the monster of four seasons didn't exist.

Problem is I can't do that. 

Why should I get any catharsis that the protagonists prevailed over Horde Prime when Catra is pretty much him with a sob story attached.

So it seems this show's message is no matter how much emotional and physical pain a person does to you it's okay to not only let them back in your life(damn your mental health I guess), but also enter a romantic relationship with them too.

It’s also hilarious that some of her fans say she’s Zuko.

No.

She’s what would happen if Azula and Kylo Ren were made into one character.

Titles the show should I have had:

She-Ra: The Story of a Villain Sue Antagonist That Gets a Happily Ever After With Her Victim

Another alternate: She-Ra: The Story of Lesbian Reylo or more current Lesbian Stolitz.

[balsamfir-fics]

a hope redefined (part 2)

Genres: angst, post S1 canon, more angst, romance, eventual smut, established childhood crushes to strangers to lovers, post-pining, becoming machine herald (sort of), dad!vik, political tensions, growing up, the human condition, some fluff

Pairing: Viktor/AFAB Reader

Warnings: series will have eventual smut, mentions of difficult pregnancy/injury/civil war. this prelude mentions spicy activities. she/her pronouns, but no use of YN.

Summary: Viktor shouldn’t be alive.

He shouldn’t have survived the blast of the Council attack, and even if he did his sands of time should have soon run out. And yet here he stands, part man and part machine, in a future he never planned for and an augmented body he never expected to have.

With no template to follow, Viktor forges a new path towards happiness as he grapples with reconciling the man he once was and the man he could become. Complicated as this path may be, he knows better than to waste an opportunity to spend his remaining years with you, the person he’s kept in his heart ever since you were children. Amidst the chaos of an antebellum Runeterra, Viktor finds his freedom, his future, and his family -- retelling these events through vignettes and letters to his daughter.

Chapters: Prelude | Part 1 | Part 2

Chapter Word Count: ~6.2k

Author Notes: Unedited. Threequel and final part to a hope never forgotten and a hope at risk. This can be read independently of its predecessors, though reading those first will better contextualize Viktor and YN’s relationship.

Little bird, my Robin,

I’m not sure if you quite understand what a charming little one you are. I admit your burbling is beyond my comprehension despite my best efforts, but even when you are cranky and tired and screaming at us at the top of your miniature lungs, I somehow manage to find you so precious. (Though, of course, your mother and I fervently long for the days when you will allow us to sleep; I have never known this depth of frustration and I was known, before you arrived, for terrible sleep schedules).

Mama and I, we have had quite the story. I’ll tell you about it one day when you’re better able to understand what I’m saying to you, but for now I want to get into the practice of writing you letters in the same way she had written and saved many for me. I will, of course, be much better than your mother at communicating the contents and intents of each letter to you in real-time, so that you grow up only knowing love and never knowing loss. For now, I write this first letter to you. You’ll learn about the things I will tell you later on again, in history books perhaps or in your studies. But it might be interesting for you to learn about them directly from me, as well, so that you may learn about how the things in history-books tend to have real impact for real people.  

Robins are cheerful little birds, signs of hope and promise after seasons of strife. You, my dear, were born in a particularly difficult season, one that Mama and I continue to live in now. To best explain the story of how you came to us despite all the odds, I suppose I should start at the very beginning.

Now that I think about how I’d like to begin describing these events to you, it strikes me that I’ll likely only give these letters to you when you come of age and maturity; I don’t think these are topics that you should learn when you first become reasonably literate. We will store these in a safe place for you, so that the pages are fresh and strong when you first look upon them; rather than crumbly, yellowed, and strained. 

I digress. Where was I? Ah, yes.

It starts, my Robin, with a disaster that builds into tragedy. In the midst of it all, I was blissfully unaware of what transpired; Mama bears the brunt of the emotional fallout from this time so you must always be respectful to her, because I unfortunately had been quite rude to her in the immediate aftermath of this disaster. I’ve been atoning it for it this whole time, my dear, but I do have a secret: I think you are a large part of my absolution, especially because whenever Mama is irritated with me these days she tends to look at you, see how much you look like me, and is a little less grumpy after basking in your company. Let’s keep it that way, little Robin.

(I fear that your feeding schedule and its interruptions to my rest have left my thoughts unsorted, I apologize for the side-tracks.)

When your teachers tell you about the attack on the council, take care to consider the events beyond words on a page or facts to memorize for a test. We have all been impacted by it, and you are here in part as a result of the things that happened that day. 

It was a tense time. I… was in very poor health, and near the very end of my tether to this mortal plane. Nevertheless, I came to the Council with your Uncle Jayce (who, at them time, was beginning to feel like a stranger to me despite our years of partnership), because he and I wanted peace in a world that seemed to disagree. Imagine! Me, a frail and deteriorating Zaunite, crushing myself under immense guilt, and Uncle Jayce, strong in body and conviction but wavering under the pressures of entire societies. But we were doing what we thought was right; Uncle Jayce had made choices I never thought he would make and we both were seeking the abundant optimism and encouragement we wanted to bring to the world through our research in our younger days.

I’m not sure what they’ll teach you about Jinx. It depends on how the future shapes itself. I’m inclined to think that we are all complex beings that are subjected to chaos both inside us and around us, and even choices we are confident in may have the ability to grow into monstrosities we never anticipated. That happened to your uncle and I; I believe this, too, happened for Jinx.

I’ll spare you the details that you will no doubt learn in school. It was a missile attack, and the outcome was devastating. This was especially so since in those fleeting moments after I spoke to the Council and relayed Jayce’ plans, he and I were filled with that hope we were once so aflame with (and this hope, Robin, was in spite of the anger we incited instantly amongst the Councilmembers). It was radiant, my darling, with the bright light reflecting the explosive aspiration we held in our hearts. As you will know later, of course, everything broke mere heartbeats later. 

————————————————————————————

The first thing Jayce noticed was shrill, all-encompassing ringing in his ears. He tried to brush it away with his mind, but his body did not obey this command. Then in a panic he realized he noticed nothing in sight; merely black and grey and clouds billowing. His heart seized; where had he been last?

Finally the picture before him came into focus, in streaks of visibility between billowing, noxious clouds.

The other sensations followed quickly after, assaulting his nervous system with acrid stinging in his lungs, shocks of pain in his body, and the increasing awareness of other sounds beyond the internal ringing. What were those? They were screams of anguish, of pain, and of terror.

As he tried to physically orient himself, Jayce realized he was not where he had been before. Wasn’t he standing? He’d purposely put himself between Viktor and the Council, if only to metaphorically shield his dying friend from the brunt of the Council’s fury. Where was Viktor? Where was —

Mel. Mel! Jayce scrambled to his feet, a feat that took nearly a minute in the confusion but felt like milliseconds. His mind quickly began to sort events into a timeline; he vaguely understood this to be a fight-response, a survival tactic in disaster. There must have been an explosion, judging by the jagged edges of curled steel and broken glass he could see in pockets of clear air. If there was an explosion, it was from outside, given the direction of debris and decay. If it was from outside — Jayce shuddered, all the while staggering forward towards where the window once hang — then Mel had been the first to be hit.

He found her after tripping over objects that should not have lined his path; objects that were pieces of the ornate Council desks, shards of glass, gnarled metal, and also people. He screamed her name, maybe, but he couldn’t hear his own voice. She was slumped over a section of broken desk at an awkward angle, but to Jayce’ relief she appeared whole, if not unconscious and likely severely injured. It was impossible, really, based on what he knew about ballistics and explosives and physics, but he would receive any miracles that the gods would allow. He thought to shake her, but managed to remember that this would be unwise — she might have internal injuries — but he checked for a pulse. With confirmation that she was, in fact alive, he yelled for a medic, before realizing his voice was not the only one doing so. Instead, Jayce then set his jaw and glanced frantically around the room.

The dichotomy between Mel’s relative lack of being harmed and the rest of the room was jarring; the hall was completely unrecognizable and nearly everyone in it had been sent far from their original seats. Then Jayce noticed an odd pattern in the path of destruction; the people closer to the window and the main circle of desks seemed reasonably intact, but the building and furniture in that same radius was most certainly not. Attendants and assistants, most of whom had been standing near the periphery and the elevators, seemed to be in much worse shape (Jayce found his stomach rising in his throat at the sight he saw, but stepped away in time to vomit further away from Mel’s unconscious form); but architectural structures there only saw streaks of soot and flame and far less impact.

A wavering light caught his eye, but he couldn’t be sure if it wasn’t just the reflection of flickering fire or something emanating from the golden patterns on Mel’s back. He ignored this, instead lifting Mel’s body onto his shoulders with as little disturbance as possible. Jayce brought her past the elevators, past the carnage and into an unaffected corridor deeper in the building. He lay her to rest by the wall, whispering for her to stay alive even if she couldn’t hear him, then stumbled back into the fray.

Viktor. He had to find Viktor; no matter what miraculous defense Jayce suspected Mel had mounted, Viktor had already been on the precipice of death.

Jayce first spotted the mangled remains of Viktor’s crutch; scanning that area, he found his friend crumpled beside debris. He quickly took stock of the smaller man’s injuries, wincing at what he recognized as serious impalement, but found Viktor’s condition reasonably safe enough to move out of the chaos. With Viktor’s impossibly thin frame in his arms (and taking care not to jostle the debris embedded into his friend’s body), Jayce struggled back to the corridor. Flashes of the terror around him seared themselves into his mind that night; he later remembered Councilwoman Kiramman lying beneath a frighteningly large panel of destroyed stone, or pieces of Bolbok lying far away from the Councilman’s main frame, but he focused on getting Viktor to safety before returning to assist other less-injured people with rescue.

He rode in Mel’s ambulance, of course, in part because Heimerdinger had materialized shortly after the blast to watch over Viktor. The rest of the evening came only in fragmented blurs; Jayce suspected a concussion, but considered himself to be lucky if that was the only injury he would get away with. He kept Mel’s hand in his and made it a point to be grateful for the fact that it was still warm.  

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The peace we called for was obviously fractious. We hadn’t known then that Silco was no more and that Jinx was behind the attack. Rather, I knew nothing. I only came to later, then promptly entered the darkest fury of my life as I only knew that I’d been betrayed by Jayce through your mother’s assistance. This, in hindsight, I regret, but nevertheless there will always be a part of me that wonders what might have happened if the Hexcore had been destroyed completely — and a part of me that secretly longs for that alternate universe to the suffering so many have endured since then.

Of course, I am now mostly grateful for that ‘terrible decision.’ My mixed feelings do not negate the very real truth that I can be your father today because I was saved by your mother and Jayce. I have decided to not let this gratitude go to waste, but it shall forever be a cautionary tale for others. 

In those first few weeks, Zaunites and Piltovans fought fiercely, though in smaller, renegade groups. We were all fearful that either side would escalate into all-out civil war. It was a very real risk, back then. With nobody sure who started what, and families vengeful for their own fallen, any slight overreaction could have blown up the whole powder keg. We hadn’t known that there were greater threats beyond, but we could only see what was in front of us, what was local. And yet we couldn’t remember, for some reason, the shared origins of our two cities. We only saw the differences and the hurt.

Many people made bad decisions then. In fact, I was quite worried about those that your Uncle Jayce might make with his power and influence. We are lucky he’d chosen to attempt peace before the attack, because even if Jayce struggles to find the right answer, he does, fortunately, try his best. It’d been his decision to offer Silco what he wanted, and in those early weeks, Uncle Jayce tried to hold to that as much as he could even in the face of dissenters. I imagine he was still reeling from his own sins, and trying to hold onto his own hope — or better yet trying to emulate Auntie Mel’s measured stances. Regardless, we had a fragile stability despite many citizens entering into altercations. Or should I say that the ups and downs averaged out to something more even? It seemed that every other weekend we were promised a war between the two cities, and there were many weeks where we came very close. I think it is a miracle that the many battles fought didn’t tip over into much longer, formalized conflict; at least, between our two cities. We knew it would not hold for long, however, and when your Auntie Caitlyn’s mother finally succumbed to her injuries a few weeks later, we were incredibly concerned. 

——————————————————————————————————————

You couldn’t recognize the woman before you. What happened to the little sister figure who you’d watched grow up? Where was the fierce, intelligent girl who (like you) sought to break free of the shackles of upper-class decorum and instead work for a better future? No, the person staring back at you from the printed posters around Piltover was someone hardened by loss. It was someone who cut their teeth on the blades of their own hurt, and used their pain to fuel their development.

Caitlin had always been a serious markswoman, but you would never have expected her to rise in the ranks so quickly. How much if her meteoric rise had been due to the absence of her mother’s influence, or her own dogged pursuit of power, you’d never know. She was too young to be a sheriff, you thought. Not because she was immature but rather because she should have had more time to enjoy her twenties. You supposed that there were much smaller spaces for leisure and entertainment in those times; though most life went on as a hushed normal at the surface, the simmering resentments and fears underneath were never far from mind.

While the cities had not yet sought the other’s total destruction, festivals and the like had been cancelled for safety concerns. Fewer people wandered in the streets without company, especially after dark, but people still needed to eat and to sleep and to live, so children likely hadn’t noticed the suspicion and concern in adults’ eyes.

You glanced to Caitlyn’s right, surveying her personal hire to her investigation team. Through your father, you’d heard more about this Violet — or Vi, though you’d never met her. You tried to ask Jayce more about what had happened in the weeks leading up to the Council attack, but he’d been tight-lipped and more concerned with preventing societal collapse. It wasn’t possible to blame him, however. Mel was still comatose, though stable, and you knew Jayce was trying to keep Piltovan warmongers at bay while tamping down his own grief and rage. He slipped every so often, particularly if it’d been a bad day and he’d come back from visiting Mel’s bedside. With Viktor long gone to sequester himself away in Zaun, you took it upon yourself to remind Jayce that the previous undercity was not a monolithic hotbed of crime and terrorism. Heimerdinger tried as well, but he, too, disappeared frequently — and you suspected he had gone down into the depths in his own efforts to rebuild peace.

He certainly had no time to tell you about a former prisoner he’d made a tenuous ally of, much less one that appeared to be the sister of the attack’s primary suspect. You squinted at the poster again, frowning in reflection of Violet’s own conflicted expression. Your gaze flicked back to Caitlyn’s hardened gaze, and you realized that both young ladies were wrought with their own grief. In Caitlyn, you saw the tortured guilt of someone who’d long argued with her mother and now broke under her father’s mourning. In Vi, you saw a clearly uncomfortable Zaunite looking for any opportunity to find the remnants of the little sister she once knew, forced to join the Piltovans who had tried to subjugate her. At least, that was the best you could come up with given the shreds of information you knew on this new Caitlin and this stranger Vi.

You had no immediate sympathy for the woman named Jinx, especially not within the first few weeks after the attack when you discovered Viktor’s dance with death and he lay, unconscious and severely injured, in his hospital bed. But your rage needed somewhere to go, and since you were by no means a fighter, you channeled your anguish into providing aid directly. It was just as well; wealth Piltovans were not in any mood for philanthropic deeds, especially if any mention of Zaun was involved — thus you had little fundraising to do. You stayed local in those weeks, helping the poorer Piltovans who might have been targeted in smaller skirmishes, if only to stay close enough for any news of Viktor’s recovery.

You hadn’t expected the extent of his anger when he regained consciousness, but you’d been equally as furious that he’d hidden his prognosis from you until he was finally on death’s door. Viktor directed most of his fury towards Jayce, who knew the risks involved and the threat the Hexcore posed, but you were still surprised when he decided to move out of Piltover and into the new Zaun in the middle of this odd detente.

On worse days, you blamed the mysterious Jinx for your woes, but over time — and as Viktor’s mood began to thaw — you learned more about her through Jayce’ intel grapevine. Now glancing again at Vi’s tortured expression in a fading Piltovan sunset, you considered the splintering of their sisterhood and recognize the heartbreak in that uncomfortable gaze. Could those two (and their team) accomplish what they set out for? You weren’t quite sure. Jayce insinuated that there was a relationship between the two Enforcers, but you worried that the overlap between their investigatory objectives might wear thin. You wrote to Viktor in his absence, relaying your thoughts, but he’d only given inscrutable references to a former mentor of his who he suspected of being involved with Jinx.

Lost in thought on the steps of city center, you didn’t notice when your adoptive father pulls up beside you. Heimerdinger patted your hand, leading you to jump back in shock, but once you realized who it was and settled your nerves, you picked up on the weariness in his face.

"She’s likely a bright young woman,” he sighed, shaking his head in sorrow. “Her sister, I mean.”

You balked at that. “You’ve met Jinx?”

“No,” Heimerdinger replied. “Prior associates, perhaps, but not her. I—“ He paused. “I remember when our two cities were one, and I’ve watched brilliant young minds in both triumph and fail under the circumstances they never asked for.” His expression grew long at that, and you realized he was thinking of Viktor’s own time under his care.

Your wounds still raw, you bristled. Your father knew about Viktor’s death sentence and failing health, and yet he never deigned to clue you in. He’d given you excuses that he was under Viktor’s instructions, but that hadn’t mattered to you. It shouldn’t have mattered to him, and you felt betrayed by your father’s discretion. He seemed to understand where your thoughts drifted, and remained silent for a few beats more.

“My dear,” Heimerdinger tentatively began again. “I am gravely concerned. There are more threats than those from between our two peoples.” He took your hand in his, patting yours gently. “There are those who would take advantage of our strife to bring both our cities to their knees.”

You told him he was being cryptic, and started for the gates of the Heimerdinger Estate. But his words remained in your mind, always at the edge of your uncertainty and concern, and it would not be till much later that the premonition he anticipated would come true. 

————————————————————————————————————————

But never mind all that; by the time you read these letters I hope we will be living in a vibrant, thriving world and not one besieged by war. Thus I turn to the silver linings from that period.

I angered your mother very much when I left for Emberflit Alley. I don’t know if we’ll be living there, or at your grandfather’s estate, or somewhere in between, but I hope that by the time you see this you will have been to my little laboratory in the Entresol. I have many fond and not-so-fond memories there, but all the unkind memories are long in the past now that you are in my world and my heart. Your mama visited me as soon as I allowed her to. I recall that reunion with great clarity; it was a very exciting few days back in each others arms, but after the excitement faded away we were still left to grapple with my guilt, her hurt, and an uncertain future. I sent her away several times after that, and moodily so, so if you end up rather impetuous I might be to blame for that part of your personality (though Mama is as well). Still, we’d been apart for so many years that we couldn’t help but keep gravitating back to each other even when we tried to stay away for safety, self-healing, and individual growth. Your mother says she wanted to have you as early as then, but I was in no shape for that.

You see, the reason I’m alive today is because of a peculiar technology and the greatest sin of my life. You’ll likely have seen one of my Hexcores by the time you read this, but the one I’m referring to was the first — and it was corrupted. I carry deep grief as a result of my stubbornness with that Hexcore specifically, and thus I promise to teach you everything I have learned from my mistakes so that you will never have to experience them.

With this one, something was gravely wrong. We hadn’t known that at the time, your Uncle Jayce and I, and it is only in retrospect that we know about the Void and its corruption of this specific Hexcore. Your papa was very foolish back then, little Robin, but I was also quite desperate. This Hexcore wanted to control me, to use me as its vessel, but at first I’d only seen it as a gift. I realized later that it must be destroyed; I asked your Uncle Jayce to do so but after that disaster — that tragedy — your mother asked him to use it to save me. And so he did.

It became a part of me then, a part of my survival and part of my story. But it couldn’t stay; I knew that it would consume me and then I wouldn’t be the papa you will get to know. I learned many things in those months, because I worked hard to figure out a way to stay alive but be rid of that corrupted Hexcore. That’s where I learned to be a surgeon of sorts, and I studied feverishly to find a way out of my predicament. I also continued with engineering, just like your Uncle Jayce, and through the technology we developed I made Blitzcrank what he is. In Emberflit Alley, I built a great many things to help our fellow Zaunites; some things to clean the air more affordably, other things to make work easier for weak bodies, and more to bring prosperity to those who had little of it. Some of Uncle Jayce’ Piltovan colleagues were not pleased about this, and even some Zaunites (who, you should never ever interact with, little one — stay far away from chembarons and their people, even if they are your fellow citizens) truly disliked my work.

All of this progress, however, was not enough to ease my concerns over the Hexcore. Yes, living conditions improved for others, but I never felt safe with that first corrupted prototype. And if I wanted a future — a real one, not just borrowed time — then I needed to be in control of it myself. So with great effort I replaced the void-touched parts with mechanical ones I built myself. That may sound scary, but living with the Void was much more frightening and I couldn’t bear with myself if it endangered your mother in any way. Besides, if you saw those parts you’d laugh; they were clunky and ugly, but by now they’re much improved.

You may have been told a number of things about that time period. Not everything you’ll hear will be the truth, from either your Piltovan or Zaunite friends and teachers. Remember that you are always welcome to ask me or your mother, and we will carefully tell you the truth we witnessed with our own eyes.

————————————————————————————————————————

Viktor was backed into a corner. What madness was this? The little Kiramman girl, emerging from the shadows with a hard look etched into the lines of her face, seeking to take him in?

He figured her investigation had turned up his name; Heimerdinger kept Viktor appraised of the topside Enforcers’ campaign against this Jinx, and he knew that it would only be a matter of time before the new sheriff in town connected the man called Singed to both himself and the blue-haired fugitive. It was odd, though, as it had been Caitlyn herself who had provided Jayce and you with a small vial of Shimmer when he stood with one foot through Death’s Door. She would have known about his involvement and his research and how benign it must be, but why would she have been looking for him now of all times, weeks after her campaign was well underway, and weeks after Viktor had sequestered himself in the Entresol with his golem, his tools, and his loneliness?  If anything, Viktor was grateful he’d made it a point to send you back topside when Emberflit Alley became suspiciously quiet. Having you by his side in this specific moment would have been disastrous.

As he surveyed the look in Caitlyn Kiramman’s eye, he knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to put the members of her own circle under surveillance if it would help move along her objectives.  He glanced to his peripherals, noting several cloaked Enforcers circling towards him at the end of the alley. Not ideal, but he would be damned if he was taken in on nothing more than a paranoid suspicion. Now was not the time to be separated from his work in Zaun; with a dogged sheriff on the chembarons’ tails, the innocent civilians of Zaun needed medical assistance without strings attached more than ever.

“I wouldn’t do this if I were you,” he warned, fingers tightening around the latest prototype of his Hexcore-powered staff. (‘It’s a deterrent, not a weapon,’ he’d told you when you first saw it. But he was decreasingly convicted in his own definition; whatever deterrent effect he’d hoped the Hexcore would have seemed not to be working as intended. “I am no traitor, and you of all people should know that.”

“Forgive my inability to take your words at face value,” Caitlyn replied steadily. Her finger remained on her rifle’s trigger; eyes still squinting through the scope. “First you run from Piltover, then I learn you’re one of her—“ The sneer in her voice made apparent to whom she was referring. “—known associates? You’ll need to come with me, Viktor, if you want any semblance of a topside future with Heimerdinger’s daughter.”

He flared up at that; how dare anyone threaten the fragile hope he held onto for decades?! His emotions ran wild and angry, and the Hexcore — damn, he hadn’t yet managed to completely purge his biomechanical connection to it still — responded with its own flicker of crackling energy. Viktor sensed the whole alley tensing at the sensation, and he knew then that there would be no saving his insistence that the Hexcore wasn’t a weapon of destruction.

“I fail to see how I might be a known associate if I’ve never met Jinx,” he replied. It took every bit of his personal pride to keep his temper stable. “So without reasonable suspicion, I believe I will not be joining you.” Movement to his left caught his eye. “And I wouldn’t take another step closer, if I were you,” he warned the Enforcer.

“I have no time to dance, Viktor,” spat Caitlyn. “Lower your staff, now!”

Viktor remained where he stood, amber eyes glaring out at her from beneath the dark fabric of his hood. He kept silent, attuning his senses to the several Enforcers eyeing him warily with weapons raised. He wouldn’t hurt them, not first, and not unless it was a last resort. What he feared was being backed into his final corner.

Caitlyn began to pull on the trigger, a minute movement that Viktor noticed through instinct alone.

So be it. He couldn’t be taken; people needed help and protection, not only from criminals within Zaun but from unwarranted topside aggression. He couldn’t be taken; he needed to continue his work on severing his physical connection to that angry, disturbing Hexcore — months imprisoned would impede any hopes of progress. He couldn’t be taken; his arrest, no matter how unjustified, would irreparably damage Heimerdinger and your reputations by association alone, and he’d worked too hard to let his family, topside or not, be taken from him.

When the Enforcers nearest him lunged, Viktor exhaled, closed his eyes, and allowed the Hexcore to release a burst of pure, radiant energy. Then he ran, ignoring the cries of surprise and fear and squinting past the blinding light he’d unleashed on his adversaries. He bounded past Blitzcrank’s hiding place towards the opening of the alley, beckoned along his golem, and darted into the nearby safe house he’d kept anonymously registered for this purpose.

You’d hear about this, certainly. But Viktor hoped that your faith in him would help you see past the propaganda and widespread fear, and trust in his character. It was a weak hope in fraught times as these, but Viktor hoped nonetheless. 

————————————————————————————————————————

Once I was confident that the void was gone from the Hexcore and it could be developed in complete safety, I let Mama stay with me for good, and I stopped pushing her away. She was much happier about that, but we were mostly relieved that I could stay alive, healthy, and strong without the corrupted core. Lots of things happened before then, many difficult things, but I was very happy to be safe for Mama eventually.

Even so, our relief was short-lived. The fragile peace we had was broken by external threats, and many bad things began to happen to everyone in Valoran. These problems are not yet fully resolved, I’m afraid, but everyone in your life is now committed to fixing them for the betterment of your future.

In the midst of the sheriff looking for me and everything being quite scary for the regular people in both our cities, Auntie Mel’s mother was incredibly cross with Uncle Jayce and how he responded to the big disaster. Remember, Robin, Auntie Mel wasn’t healthy as she is now. She was in the hospital, stable but unable to wake or to fully recover, and she was there for many months. Auntie Mel tried to save all of our lives because she believed in diplomacy and peace, and she saved mine even though I imagine many of the other Councillors wouldn’t much care about my life. But while your Uncle Jayce was very angry with Jinx, and very worried about Auntie Mel, Auntie Mel’s mum was even more angry. She wanted revenge, and in Uncle Jayce’ decisions she saw weakness. She interpreted that to be an opportunity; one for her people to exploit. 

It was chaos, little bird. Your grandfather stopped appearing in Piltovan public, too distressed at the warmongering he saw. In fact, your brave grandfather met me often, in secret, to help me care for the injured Zaunites and yes — sometimes Piltovans too — in all the fights that were to come. I, regretfully, had to fight too, as did your grandfather, but we did our best to only do so when the alternatives were worse. I hope that by the time you can read this letter that I won’t need to fight anymore; you deserve a future that lets children play in the streets and enjoy a life without fear.  Where was I? Ah — Ambessa. (That’s Auntie Mel’s mum’s name. I imagine she’ll be in your history books…)

Noxus, where Ambessa and Auntie Mel are from, is a strong but frightening place. I’m lucky I’ve never had reason to visit myself, but they are a rather proud, fearsome people who value strength immensely. Remember when I said that Ambessa saw weakness in Uncle Jayce’ decisions? Whatever Uncle Jayce and his colleagues said was what Piltover was saying, and Ambessa thought that Uncle Jayce was being a bit soft in trying to find the woman named Jinx. As unforgiving as Ambessa is, Auntie Mel is still her daughter; I believe in some sort of way, Ambessa loves Auntie Mel just as much as we love you (although Mama and I will never try to hurt thousands of people for you. You have our promise). Because Auntie Mel was very badly hurt, Ambessa wanted to catch the culprit and felt that a strong military response from Piltover to Zaun was necessary. When Uncle Jayce didn’t do this to the extent she expected, Ambessa brought Noxus down upon our two cities.

This was very scary for everybody; remember, lots of people kept fighting between Piltover and Zaun, too! But of course the most troubling part was that the very rich, very powerful, and often very corrupt were the ones who stayed the most safe through this all; they could afford better medical care or hiding places or all of the above. No, the people getting hurt the most weren’t even the ones behind what happened to me, your uncle, and Auntie Mel on that disastrous day. It was regular people, just like you and me and mum; people who just wanted to eat their meals and enjoy their time together in Valoran like every other day.

In fact, it was humans specifically who suffered most. Unlike your grandfather, or Councilman Bolbok, survival for these regular humans was very difficult. Many sick people were pulled into fights or injured on accident; they often weren’t strong enough to recover, if they didn’t have good health or money or a safe place to live beforehand.

Blitzcrank tried to protect a lot of them, but when I went to these people and helped stabilize broken bones or reattached limbs, it became very clear that what they wanted was their own strength — not to rely on groups with questionable incentives like the chembarons to keep them safe from Ambessa or Enforcers. I started using my new skillset to help them, too, the way I started to mend myself.

Lots of people didn’t like that. People who hadn’t known why I was doing what I was doing thought I was doing very bad things to the people I tried to help; they didn’t understand the benefits of mechanical augmentation and thought I was trying to change people into something they were not. Uncle Jayce was very uncomfortable with it as well, but we didn’t talk much then so I didn’t have to hear him argue with me about it. I was trying to do what he and I wanted all along; use Hextech for the betterment of society. But I understand; progress can be scary and foreign and it was even difficult for us to have Hextech accepted by the public. I didn’t expect most people to accept physical modifications that quickly, but I did often think that many disagreeable opinions were driven by fear and uncertainty.

Mama, you must understand, did the best she could to accept and comprehend my work. She did really well; even if she was unsure about man-machine supplantation, she knew that I was only trying to help people who wanted it. But I made her really mad one day, Robin. I learned a lot that day about how I might perceive my life’s work and discovery, and how others might as well; it was an important experience for me, and I was deeply humbled by her.

Well, I say this now. But I was just as mad at Mama back then. Adults aren’t perfect or smart most of the time, but we do our best. 

[dragonagecompanions]

Could you do like a head cannon for like 1920 noir inquisitor companions/romances

You have to listen to this while you read.

Cassandra: She's a hardened murder cop with a hidden love for romance and no mercy for the criminal underground. She wrote the book on playing by the rules, but when things get tough she'll stab the book and do what's right.

Varric: Sometimes an author has to know his element to discover the truth. Few people would expect the renowned serial novelist to be caught dead in a speakeasy as seedy as the Hanged Man, but with a pencil behind his ear (and a hand always ready on a pistol with his lover's named carved into the barrel) he's always on the hunt for a story.

Solas: A bartender more comfortable with spirits than people, the elf behind the bar at the Dread Wolf is a hard man to read. Good for stiches in a pinch and no slouch in a fight when it suits his fancy, he owes no power in the city alliegence-- and no one knows his end game.

Blackwall: It takes guts to fake your way into a gang like the Wardens, but Thom Rainier's in too deep to back out now. With a dead man's name and street rep to keep the dogs at bay the hardened enforcer can only try to atone for his past-- and fight for a better future.

Vivienne: Very little is known about Madame de Fer, owner and operator of the more exclusive brewery this side of the Tevinter boarder, except that her gin has never seen a bath tub and the Templars don't bother her supply.

Any resemblance to the renowned socialite Vivienne the Enchantress is rarely commented onl; those who do rarely repeat the mistake.

Sera: With the gang warfare, the police cracking down on the littles and the templars hunting any unregulated booze for their prohibition on alcohol someone has to look out for the little guy. No one is really sure who Red Jenny is, but everyone knows that the street kids and pick pockets and beat down element knows her name-- and she is always watching.

The abandoned warehouse on the dock is her headquarters, full of her ill gotten gains and home to the fences who turn it into cash. Nobody starves and everyone profits. A tidy business, yeah?

Dorian: Everyone knows that there is more going on behind the scenes of the Halward Pavus Memorial Library than meets the eye, but no matter how many times it's raided the head archivist is always completely above suspicion. Books and learning are all that linger in those hallowed halls--please try to be quiet on your way out.

But everyone knows that at night Dorian Pavus puts down the index carts and hard backs to pursue his true passion-- and that the Tevinter will pay up to four sovereigns for a fresh corpse*. Medical science is varely stumbling into the light, and if his books on anatomy -so accurate as to be used as reference during surgeries- then the long hours spent on the dissecting table are well worth it.

The Iron Bull: Someone needs to make sure that the beer, wine, whiskey and gin finds its way from hidden distilleries to the thirsty patrons of the city's illicit watering holes. The Chargers are the best, expensive but worth the money to get things where they are going. With a sapper from the wars on tap rumor says they have their own tunnels under the city, but no one knows anything for certain. He runs a clean crew, dependable and honest. Madam de Fer makes frequent use of them.

And if The Iron Bull also reports to the higher ups in the Qun, the north side gang just waiting for a chance to take it all, that's his own business. Straining loyalties may bring it to a show down, but for now he's willing to ride the knife edge.

Cole: No one can really remember when the fortune teller's shop opened at the edge of town. One day it was simply there, mysterious and festooned with gauzy curtains and wreathed in fragrant incense. The nug motif is...a little odd, sure, but tame compared to the figure behind the crystal ball.

It's hard to see his eyes behind the wide brimmed hat, and those who do meet his gaze can't claim to enjoy the experience. But Cole has a way of getting into your head to the deepest thoughts and secrets waiting there and finding the best solutions. Whether he can see the future or not, enough people are willing to try to keep the doors open.

For now.

(I really couldn't figure out the romances. Hope this serves!)

(*in Canada and the US, the resurrectionist movement was still going strong into the late 1950s!)

Mod Fereldone

[gainesha]

BSG rewatch notes, cont'd (spoilers, obviously):

I had a bit of trepidation about Season 4, whether it was going to be all over the place, not just with the plot and mythology, but also in terms of how characters behave, and it kind of is. but it also dovetails with something this season excels at: namely, the near-mania of getting the rug pulled under you. the main thrust of the season is the Cylon civil war and the bumpy road towards Human-Cylon alliance. add in the reappearance and mystery of Starbuck, the reveal of the Final Four, Baltar's rise to spiritual power, and no wonder our leads all feel like nothing makes sense anymore, that they can't get a handle on things, because everything that anchored their world and their relationships evaporated. it's too bewildering, and - i hate this expression, but there we go - feels prescient and even more true to our current apocalyptic times than the post-911 world in which BSG aired.

it is why Adama's oversized reaction to events in the last couple of episodes (especially Tigh's reveal) feels apt and adequate: you can only do so much not to lose your marbles, and sometimes only shouting to high heavens and getting slobbered drunk suffice. it is heartbreaking to watch Adama shrink before our eyes from Old Man into an old man. and it feels even more heartwarming and imperative to hold onto the people near and dear to you, even if they seem like completely different or not even human anymore.

I wrote in my last rewatch post that Adama and Roslin are the cutest. scratch that. it is one of the best romantic relationships ever depicted on TV. amidst all the craziness and operatic high-concept nonsense, their slowly-built and foundational affection and trust towards each other is incredibly real. I love that the show doesn't sacrifice how both of them can do and say horrible things, especially Roslin, just because they are endearingly lovable together. the three episodes leading to mid-season cliffhanger depicts their resolve to choose each other so, so wonderfully: Adama's choice to wait for her in a Raptor is the pinnacle of romance, the simplicity of "I can't live without her", EJO's smile before he hugs her, and when she comes to console him later.

Faith is a high point of this half-season, from Roslin's conversations about death and grief, to the Cylons wrestling with the same, and trying to give or receive comfort in the face of personal annihilation.

the final act of Revelations is gorgeous, from the music to the euphoric or bittersweet reactions in the celebratory montage, and then of course the kick in the gut with that desaturated, cold and desolate Atonement-style tracking shot.

[hall-of-the-pyromancer]

Yo idk if u answer asks or not but I just wanted to let u know that I really enjoyed ur posts about ch 387 and Rei. Seeing the reactions to that chapter really disappointed me because people insisted she was only concerned for Touya although she literally said otherwise. To me it felt like at the very least she does care for Enji. Anyway, I noticed in your post you said that Enji still loves Rei and I found that interesting. I just wanted to ask why you think that and what do u think their relationship was like in the beginning. No hate just curious on your thoughts <3

Hey, first time doing these :D

First, lemme set the record strength. It's OK if you don't like Enji(not saying you anon) nor wanna forgive him but the way Enji haters on here just spew hate about the man and spread misinformation frustrates me. People trying to say his murder-suicide is him still acting as a hero gets me too angry.

He refused to let Dabi die alone but he didn't wanna drag anyone else in their matter. Dabi went after so many people to get at his father, especially with trying to make a 5 km radius fireball. Stopping your son from killing so many people by facing him is being a father. And it's not like he knew the others were coming. He's faced with a growing problem in front of him.

If Enji died, even if it completes his arc, Dabi wins and Enji can't continue to atone. That's why the others stepped in and saved them both. And guess what happened later? Enji used his body as a shield to save his family from the Twice clones. Wanna say that's not him being a father like he should've been?

And as for your actual question anon. Maybe it's not a complete romance but I definitely think he has affection for Rei. Remember, he still remembered Rei's favorite flower even 20 years later despite being told once. His screams at Rei to run away wasn't a hero saying to run, it felt more personal to Enji. He panicked and looked horrified that Rei was there because even her ice wasn't enough to save her from the fire. Sure it might be his guilt talking but I think it's more.

Sure, it was a quirk marriage but I definitely think Enji loved her in some way. Before he went off the deep end, I think Rei was his anchor. Someone to help him but it wasn't enough. Before the whole War started, he wanted to give her space to heal. Even Rei probably loves him given that the flower she got from Enji was a hint that there was some form of love even if the marriage was arranged. She gave him strength even in his worst moment and came through to save him and Toya.

Maybe my answer isn't enough to some but I genuinely think there's some love between them.

[summercreolefanfictioner]

Lady Christa of the House Sakamaki (Game of Thrones AU)

(moodboard + plot headcanons)

Lady Christa of the House Sakamaki. The White Rose of Westeros. She Who Has Retained Her Innocence. The Bearer of the Forbidden Child. The Mother of the Shadow of Death. The Symbol of Purity. The Woman Who Moved Ships and Started Wars.

Christa was a cheerful young girl, the fairest of them all, and was often thought of as a darling of the Sakamaki household bcos of her grace, kindness, and beauty

in fact, the elders held high hopes for her bcos she was beauty, grace, divinity, and everything in between

it even got to a point where men across thousand sees and living somewhere far far away would sail to Westeros just so they can see her and give her presents as a form of courtship

she appreciated them all of course, but Christa mostly treasured her alone time, sewing patterns on dresses, basking in the warmth of the sun as she lays on the grass in that one hidden spot of her rose garden

other times, she's often seen in the library reading books; but it wasn't about romance tho, they're more on battles and wars since Christa was always told that women are only to tend to their husbands and make sure to serve them well

basically she was a "fine lady"; a princess on her own right

but that was then... before she became an empty hollow shell of the lady she used to be

once upon a time, Christa fell in love with Karlheinz and everything was so easy because she had mad respect for her older cousin and the things he did to become the king of Westeros

despite Cordelia's snarky remarks and heated glares, she endured everything for the sake of the love she's been desiring

but tragedy was a slow bitch crawling at the back of her head bcos Christa would soon bear a child named Subaru and it was the last straw the Church had and Seiji almost tried to abort the child

Subaru still got to live on with Christa always wanting to shower his son the love he couldn't get from other people

after all, the Church hates his existence; some of Karlheinz's underlings look down on him in disgust; Cordelia would also try to kill him on multiple occasions if it weren't for her husband

"I will always love you, Subaru. Always."

but Christa felt herself slipping away bcos Karl wasn't always there to defend her from the accusations of being this "harlot of a snake who stole my husband and forced herself upon him" scandal

not only that, she kept hearing people say that Subaru was only a ruse to make Christa useful for his reign, and that she was nothing but a plan

it was tragedy to find out that Karl didn't love her. not even a bit.

NOT. AT. ALL.

so Christa descended into madness, struggling to love Subaru while convincing herself that her son had nothing to do with what Karl did to her

and while it was true that Karl intended to make her his second wife so Subaru can inherit the throne in case the triplets were useless, Cordelia had to use Christa as a peace offering for a neighboring country so they won't wage war against them

the Church used this plan to rebel and gave Christa to the Mukamis in hopes she won't be able to return in Westeros

she later on ends up being imprisoned along Laito, who knew where Subaru went (even warned Kou that Subaru will come after his head)

and while they did share a bond bcos of Subaru and their blood, Christa knew Kou was planning to kill Laito if she didn't tell where Subaru went all this time

hence why Christa knew Kou poisoned her prison meal so it would look like she killed herself in the process

she gladly accepted her death to save Laito bcos she wasn't able to atone for her sins against Subaru and his ruined childhood

Laito would later on bury her body under the Weirwood tree and plot his revenge against the Mukamis

her death will be the main reason the Church and the Mukami house have been anxious for Subaru's return

STORY MASTERLIST

[attonposting]

I think it's really important to distinguish that even a light side romanced-the-Exile Atton isn't motivated by goodness for its own sake. He has a stronger sense of responsibility than before, yes, and he'll get involved when the whim strikes him - and a light Atton will have more of those occasional chivalrous, or maybe just cocky, impulses than the keep-your-head-down man he was at the start of the game.

But he's still a scoundrel by nature, horribly jaded, very comfortable with problem-solving via murder, and he believes in neither the Jedi Code nor the pursuit of atonement. His morality is more Exile-centric than anything else, as in “I'm going to do this to protect them” or “I guess I'll do this stupid dangerous thing because they'll think I'm cool.” Love doesn't make Atton a better person, but it puts him through the motions (and if reciprocated, it'd make him a happier one, which would at least improve his behavior a bit.)

All in all, it's something where I think the game's alignment system can be misleading. People look at Atton mirroring the PC's alignment with that big beam of light behind him and go “he's a good guy now!” But nothing in-game really supports that. Does he approve of a LS Exile's actions? Yes, even if it confuses him and he's tsundere about it. Would he do the same thing in their shoes? Nope – that's why he's so inspired by them. Because they went through the same shit he did and still held onto the things he couldn't. Because he fought alongside Jedi in two wars, watched the pacifists cower as the galaxy burned and watched the war heroes turn into psychopaths, and he doesn't trust it at first, but this carved-up shell of a Jedi, the one who pulled the plug at kriffing Malachor V, is the closest thing he's ever seen to what the Jedi were supposed to be. Atton's portrait is gonna be pretty dang light sided while he's ranting at your Exile that all the Jedi who died on Malachor deserved what they got, and he means what he's saying. The game can stick him wherever on that bar it wants, but it's not serenity and goodwill that fills him, it's a messy morass of poison he's been choking down for years.

His arc is more about ceasing to run from himself, sorting out his feelings and his fears, and finally being able to move forward than it is about redemption. You figure he already had his big worldview shift years ago and made zero attempt to make up for any of what he did or mirror the grace he was shown, and, like... Atton's motivations start and stop with the Exile. Everyone else in the party has some other allegiance or some further goal that shapes their path. Bao-Dur wants to rebuild the planets destroyed in the war. Mira wants to reunite the families it broke. Atton wants to help the Exile, and if they're a lady, he wants to get together with her. That's all he wants out of life... unless he goes dark side, which gets ugly real fast.

While a dark Atton crashes straight back down to the bottom of the bar, I think the lightest Atton realistically gets is the grey background with a dusting of blue at his feet. It's like Kreia says – his potential lies downward. Dark Atton is terrifying, a proto-Sion, a hollowed-out obsessive shell of a man who can only feel anything through tearing Jedi down to his level. Light Atton is just a guy.

It's for this reason that I have trouble seeing him helping to rebuild the Jedi Order as canon implies. He never stopped hating the Order, and he has no stake in it anyway, only you – heck, if you look at becoming a Jedi as the pivotal moment in all of the Lost Jedi character arcs, Atton's decision to become a Jedi is so he can better protect the Exile. It's only a personal choice inasmuch as he's decided this is how he can live with himself, offering his life to someone who's truly proven to him that they're worth it. He's got nothing else anchoring him, to the point where I think he really is better off with the Exile than left to his own devices, even accounting for the influence warp and the probable imminent death. And I think it's telling that Kreia will only predict his future when he has motivations that don't include the Exile.

[wizardingworldlibrary]

Minerva McGonagall (2) Masterlist

part one

A Birthday For Kitten (fanfiction.net) - Hogwarts Duo albus/minerva G, 12k

Summary: The staff of Hogwarts decides to throw Minerva McGonagall a surprise birthday party. Albus asks her to dinner to get her out of the castle while they prepare...romance blooms and when they come back surprises await...

A Cup of Tea (fanfiction.net) - My Dear Professor McGonagall G, 3k

Summary: Minerva's birthday, a cauldron of Pepper-Up Potion, and a few cups of tea to improve the mood.

Autumn is a Time of Change (ao3) - wasureneba G, 2k

Summary: Minerva's birthday is 4 October. Although autumn is thought to be a time of death, it has always been a time of beginnings for Minerva.

Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (ao3) - Squibstress minerva/snape E, 34k

Summary: If war is hell, Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall are in the Ninth Circle. During Snape's awful year as Headmaster, he and Professor McGonagall draw closer as they are forced into a desperate arrangement.

Fools Rush In (ao3) - Squibstress albus/minerva T, 12k

Summary: At nearly 100, Albus is surprised to find that he is, very improbably and most inconveniently, in love.

Growing Entanglements (ao3) - apricitydays minerva/pomona T, 200

Summary: Minerva has a crush. Pomona has something else.

Manual Transmission (ao3) - Ms_Anthrop minerva/snape E, 9k

Summary: Severus Snape was never one to lose a bet, but then, neither was Minerva McGongall...

"Are you willing to increase the wager?" she repeated, and he was startled to see that her emerald eyes gleamed with a cunning, predatory anticipation.

"That depends," he answered slowly, not above dragging it out a bit. "What are you offering?"

Masquerade (ao3) - FairyQueen (etoilecourageuse) G, 200

Summary: It had been quite a while since Minerva McGonagall had last attended a traditional Masquerade.

Minerva's Birthday Surprise (fanfiction.net) - kidarock G, 10k

Summary: UPDATED AND COMPLETED! Minerva is looking forward to her 70th birthday but it seems everybody has forgotten!Why are the staff acting so strange? How will Albus make it up to her?

Tatters (ao3) - aspionage T, 10k

Summary: In which Severus and Minerva pay a visit to Number Four Privet Drive. Takes place during chapter 14 of A Patchwork Family.

The Art of Self-Fashioning (ao3) - Lomonaaeren M, 283k

Summary: In a world where Neville is the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry still grows up with the Dursleys, but he learns to be more private about what matters to him. When McGonagall comes to give him his letter, she also unwittingly gives Harry both a new quest and a new passion: Transfiguration. But while Harry deliberately hides his growing skills, Minerva worries more and more about the mysterious, brilliant student writing to her who may be venturing into dangerous magical territory.

The Cat and the Parasol (ao3) - songquake minerva/sybill E, 8k

Summary: Sybill Trelawney adjusts to her appointment as Hogwarts’ Divination Professor.

The “Mrs. Clauses” (ao3) - Shanone minerva/poppy G, 591

Summary: Minerva has a holiday tradition to fulfill for her Gryffindor cubs. Poppy helps.

To Some a Gift (ao3) - kelly_chambliss minerva/snape M, 6k

Summary: After Voldemort's first defeat, Severus has a great deal to atone for. Minerva finds a way to help him.

Worth the Wait (ao3) - Kittenshift17 sirius/minerva E, 3k

Summary: *ONE-SHOT* Sirius Black had been trying to sweet talk his way into Minerva's knickers since before he'd had any business fancying girls, let alone fancying a witch like Minerva. Ten years, he'd been wanting to ravish the witch, and this year for her forty-fifth birthday, he might just get his wish.

Yellow and Gold (ao3) - sdk minerva/pomona G, 200

Summary: At a Halloween gathering for the professors at Hogwarts, Minerva has a hard time controlling her gaze.

[lacreni]

Speaking of picrews if you looked at my drawing of Kaios and were like 'man how is this funky five-foot-nothing old man constantly getting laid':

I am SO BAD at drawing

He's a celebrity

He's marked by a cool, sexy goddess

He makes this face:

I made picrews of all the Champions but in the meme they're going to be tiny so if you want to see everyone big they're below the cut.

Ollie and Rai, the cutest and most excited to meet you! I might photoshop Rai's eyepatch a little bit to make it cuter and green. She loves shiny trinkets and embroidery.

Xeria and Gwotbir: child traumatizers extraordinaire. Xeria is supposed to be chubby and Gwotbir is basically a brick wall, so just unskinny them in your head. Fun fact! Xeria is wearing a piece of Zabri's old vestments as her neck scarf.

Cira and Veq: they don't know you but they already hate you. Veq should have a little lion nose but when I put it on it was too cute, lmao. The dogs tags and jackets are from their time serving in the army.

Camrys and Nejen: the WORST to make in any picrew. For Camrys I have an obnoxiously specific idea of what his horns and glasses and default expression looks like, so I switched to a tiefling maker but he came out SO YOUNG. I shall need to tinker more. When it came to Nejen, every picrew either made him too human or too dragon so his icon is just going to be played by this photo of a horned lizard, lol. I might photoshop a little suit and a hat on him.

Chesa, Champion of Atera (goddess of luck) and Maja, Champion of Varn (goddess of war). They're in lesbians with each other <3

It's been mentioned a few times but there are a LOT of younger Champions we haven't met yet. These two cuties are my favorite of the whippersnappers. Chesa is the MOST PRECIOUS SMOL BEAN and Maja will kill you if you look at her wrong. They don't get to work together often, so they make sure to get in a lot of hand holding and smooches when they do.

Efren, Champion of Uena (goddess of the mind) and Lynn, Champion of Risa (goddess of healing)

Efren and Lynn are both Champions that specialize in helping people rather than fighting, but Efren is an absolute cinnamon roll while Lynn was trained by Rai and has the same 'listen I don't want to kill you but I do have a Very Big Knife and limited patience' approach to dealing with difficult cultists. They've met and are friends, but they don't usually work together.

Rasse, Champion of Shura (goddess of atonement), and Jian, Blessed by Isata (goddess of ceremony and ritual)

Rasse is Orin, which are a four-armed yeti-type deal, so I probably shouldn't have tried to make her in the same picrew but she came out really cute. Jian is her Companion, and if he looks a little like he might be about to cry it's only because he realized he's out of cigarettes. These two are the oldest of the young Champions, both in their thirties. Much like Kai, Rasse had a whole family before she took up divine arms. Much like Camrys, Jian was training to be a priest before he became her Companion. Fortunately they are NOT in a torrid romance. Jian calls Rasse 'Big Mama' and views it as his solemn duty to make sure she always gets home safe to her kids, atonement of sinners be damned. If only he felt that kind of protectiveness about his lungs...

Picrews are from iamthetwi's creator here: https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/111486

[quietwingsinthesky]

Unpopular opinion, people who get mad when others ship companions or literally any other character with doctor because it ‘gets in the way of Thoschei’, because the doctor wouldn’t love anyone but the master, are a bit not smart. Because the doctor is the doctor. He can love anyone. Him loving a twink won’t get in the way of thoschei.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

oh, so strongly agree. hell, it’s not even a thoschei specific thing; this is a cross-ship, hell, cross-fandom issue that only makes the experience worse for everyone involved. people on the side of a particular ship get a fandom experience that becomes more homogenized and echo-chambery as they push out and bully anyone that disagrees with their ship, and everyone else doesn’t get to participate in a fandom they love in a way they want to without feeling overlooked or in worse cases, actively harassed by others.

and not to get on my soapbox about this, but i’d be remiss not to point out that this entire idea. this concept that somehow a character can only be allowed to be a part of one pairing and any other pairings with them are sullying them. it doesn’t just have its roots in fandom ship wars, this is an import of a culturally christian idea that a lot of people aren’t unpacking when they come into fandom because here, they can weaponize it, they can use it to “win” a ship war. frankly? gross. this is not a belief we should be reproducing. it perpetuates the belief that people have to remain “pure” romantically/sexually for a partner or else they’ve committed a sin that they must atone for.

(or, in fandom, when people are confronted with say, a canon love interest or other ship in the way of theirs. well. right now i want you to remember all the fic you’ve read and tally up how many had characters in amicable relationships with their exes (canon love interests or not) and how many had exes that were out of character bitches just to make it easier to break the pair up. that’s how it manifests, and it’s no secret that this goes hand in hand with misogynistic bashing of female characters.)

honestly, maybe i’m just polypilled, maybe it’s the multishipper in me, or maybe i just have a life, but it’s ridiculous to act as if characters are a limited commodity and shipping them with one person prevents them from being shipped with another.

AND its doubly ridiculous for both halves of thoschei when they are both canonically polyamorous AND thousands of years old!!! these are not characters who would in any way conform to the straight-laced standards of a monogamous romance in any universe!!! it is, canonically, a thing they are constantly having weird little scuffles about! the fact that the doctor keeps falling in love with other people is like!!! a factor in their relationship that irritates the master so so much that she used it against them one time to try and destroy gallifrey (clara hybrid moments)!!!

the doctor has loved so many and so much. and the master. well, honestly, we don’t think they know how relationships work but sometimes they don’t kill people on sight and that’s kind of like romance <3 but my point is. yeah. ridiculous notion. they are not confined to anyone’s interpretation of shipping them, whether in canon or out of canon.

sorry oh god i definitely got on my fucking soapbox about that jesus

[unpopular opinion rating]

[rainofaugustsith]

It's weird, since walking away from SWTOR I've more or less fallen out of love with Star Wars in general. I think part of the frustration is that unlike Star Trek and other space stories where they actually strive for peace and progress - Star Wars is always just that. Nothing gets better, no matter what the characters do. It gets depressing. And the more you see the lore, the more you realize they've been on this same hamster wheel for millennia.

In SWTOR, the fact that your character just went back to being a faction lackey and mindlessly killing the other side after working so hard for peace, grey areas of understanding, etc. was depressing. What the fuck was the point, even? I do think the original three films still stand alone because you get a really good story on atonement, the Little Guy winning and the Power of Friendship, without the fucked up lore. I'll always like SWTOR pre-Onslaught and the EU. The rest of it? I think Disney's: - complete abandonment of the far better EU, lore and characters,

- insistence that the people who deliberately estrange kids from their families and press them into military service for life, and look the other way about slavery are the Good Guys! - what they did with the sequels (ie. abandoning Rose's character; being too weak to go for the Finn/Poe romance and claiming a two second kiss in the background was "LGBT rep," what they did to Luke, and don't get me started on how much I hate K**o Re*) have been enough. I've had no desire to see anything beyond the first season of The Mandalorian.

[briefobservationdreamer]

Kingdom Hearts Characters: Lea/Axel

What I think of the character: So many thoughts about him. Axel was a really fun villain in Chain of Memories and a pretty interesting morally gray character, being the devious assasin throughout his time as a Nobody but was friendly, fun-loving and had a soft spot to him that still made him likeable. However, he did a lot of awful things and deeply hurt a lot of people, but many of them get overlooked once he gets recompleted as Lea and I don't think they should be. I don't take issue with him being a flawed character as long as he learns and fixes his mistakes, but he has a lot of work to do to atone and earn trust and forgiveness. Giving him a keyblade might be fanservice but it was a good way to make him self-reflect, discover what's most important to him, show his determination to fix his mistakes and bring back the friends he lost by his own actions. Unfortunately that potential was lost in KH3 and he didn't really do anything for the war or to atone, he mostly became comic relief with a couple of emotional moments. Xemnas destroying his keyblade and beating him up was just the final insult to his arc. And I think that's a shame because he definitely deserved a character arc and deserved to be more than comic relief. While I don't entirely hate him, I can have a lot of trouble forgiving him for the things he did at times. I do really like his chakrams and keyblade though, and I've always loved fire powers and had a soft spot for characters who use them.

Headcannons:

How he got those teardrop tattoos. We know Saïx gave them to him to help him stop crying, which I like though I wish it had a slightly different context because it's not healthy to discourage crying. Maybe as a charm to wipe away tears, or ward away the need for them? I like to think it happened soon after they became Nobodies, with Lea struggling to cope with everything that happened, especially if Saïx got his scar just before that.

The manga showed that, despite being an extrovert who tries to befriend everyone and taking it upon himself to be the big brother to his group of teens, he isn't as socially smooth and can be a bit more awkward than most realise. He's surprisingly particular about personal space and being touched, and isn't comfortable about physical intimacy with just anyone, only people he's particularly close to. The games kind of hint at this too, so I'm not sure how much this counts as a headcannon, but I'll put it here anyway.

Has a magical connection to the sun, but far more subtle than Isa's connection to the moon. It makes his fire magic easier to use when outside during the day.

Relationships:

Roxas and Xion: I like the idea a lot, and the dynamic is cute. However, what I think a lot of people don't realise is that the relationship is not as wholesome, innocent and harmless as it appears on the surface. Axel used deception and force to keep them with him in the Organisation, and while none of the options were good, it was still toxic and manipulative, and he hurt a lot of other people for them as well. What he did in Days and 2 wasn't healthy, and it isn't cute seeing a grown man do those things because he was obsessed with keeping a pair of vulnerable children. I don't ship Lea with either of them because of the age gap, he's more of a big brother in the role of guardian.

Isa/Saïx: I like the dynamic a lot, and they play off each others strengths and weaknesses very well, and I'm really intrigued by their story. I take huge issue with Axel replacing Saïx and abandoning him when he needed him most, and it's the thing I find hardest to forgive Axel for. I am glad they were able to reconcile, but I wish Lea had taken more responsibility and done more to make up for it and show he really cared about him post recompletion, because there was no excuse. Also no, I don't ship them partly because of what I just said and because I'm not big on romance in general. I just like them as best friends/honorary brothers.

Kairi: It was nice to see them patch things up in KH3 and Lea trying to make amends. It's a shame KH3 was had too much going on to expand on this more, I like to think that Kairi was able to give him some much needed emotional support, help him come to terms with his past and process any guilt he feels about what happened.

Subject X: This is definitely a retcon and sudden thing to bring up now of all times, particularly with Axels many conflicting motivations, but I do like the idea a lot. It adds an extra layer Lea's and Isa's story and motivations, makes things more tragic. It also gives a personal perspective to enhance how messed up the human experiments done by Ansem, Xehanort and the other apprentices did really were, instead of just being facts and figures. Because it's one of many motivations Axel eventually abandoned, despite him claiming not to have given up, its a bit difficult to say how he really feels about it with the "content to miss what's gone" quote from his secret reports in Days. It could be taken to mean he gave up and stopped caring, which would have made his actions and situation with Saix make a lot of sense. But it could also mean he still cares and wants to look, but is 'content to just miss her' for the time being and isn't letting it dominate his life and stopping him appreciating what is going on in the present, which is a healthier attitude to have that is also in line with Lea's personality. We don't know what their relationship was like yet, but I hope they find her in the future.

[dangermousie]

I am reading North Queen by Nicola Tyche, first of a romantic fantasy trilogy. It’s an enjoyable read even if not groundbreaking but one thing is driving me nuts - it’s a trend in too many romantic fantasy series so I am going to use this to complain about it.

Our heroine, Norah is queen of blah blah who doesn’t have memory of anything before she was found in the woods by her hunky captain Alexander and brought back. But she’s prophesied to end the evil Shadow King who her fam hid her from.

Guess who is her endgame OTP? If you said “shadow king,” congrats you read a book in the last decade or maybe just heard of the word “book.”

Why does it drive me mad? I mean the Shadow King himself a fun character and far be it from me to not ship something because it’s unhealthy.

Because once again our FL has a choice between a hunky sweet dude who is her long term boyfriend (even if she doesn’t remember him, she’s drawn to him all over again and they are adorable together) who is devoted and fought for her and searched for her AND a dude who executed hundreds of FL’s own countrymen and then kidnapped and dragged and menaced her and plans to murder her.

I am sorry what the fucking fuck? I love fucked up dudes who did a ton of bad stuff when they live and die for FL and/or when they can atone and when playing field is emotionally equal - see Aaron Warner Anderson from Shatter Me aka my fave YA series dude ever. Man has a kill tally list the size of war and peace and is fucked enough that any therapist of his would need a therapist themselves. But he loves Juliette more than life and does anything to protect her. I can see why she picks him (not to mention she can hold her own with him.) Or a situation where it’s a harsh medieval reality and you will go with the one who can protect you and people kill each other all the time so life of peasants does not register as a consideration and not like you have other choice (see any Pargeter or Penman or Chadwick novel.) Hell, I ship Thorfinn and Groa in Dunnett’s King Hereafter and he gets to marry her after killing her previous (also arranged) husband - but that is an authentically medieval novel with medieval attitudes where they are people with attitudes of that time and are compatible to boot and Dunnett is a hell of an author.

This series is basically a glorified romance with modern attitudes and a sweet compatible guy waiting as another option. Fine she gets over king’s treatment - no accounting for taste - but the fact that she’s clearly not gonna give a fuck he murdered hundreds of her countrymen and go mmm hot is off-putting as fuck!!!!

This trend in fantasy romance lately drives me mad so thanks for reading my rant…