#Corruption Arc

[this-vs-that]

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[shy-raccoon]

The villain successfully corrupts the hero to their side and regrets it. Maybe the hero is releasing their repressed anger and they are far more brutal, sadistic and violent then the villain anticipated. The villain has to witness their new "partner" commit atrocities they wouldn't dream of. The line of who's the true leader of evil organization eventually gets very very blurred.

[tenaciousgeckos]

Aka corruption arc, but we don't mind :)

[whump-in-the-closet]

characters who have to redeem themselves. Except “redemption” isn’t what they expected. They begged for forgiveness and now their every action is monitored. They have to let everyone know that they messed up— they can’t go anywhere without the whispers and dark stares following them.

Once proud, they now walk with head bowed and never never make eye contact. They’ve leaned that much. They have scars where everyone can see, purposefully placed there as a reminder of what happens when they mess up. It doesn’t matter how much they swear they’ve changed, the blows come all the same. Casual now— just backhanded slaps and grabbing and quick orders to shut up—

they’ve learned their lesson. They don’t want redemption.

[elpeadro]

Part 1: The Good Ending

If the writers wanted CaitVi to be their canon OTP so damn bad, they had two ways of going about it:

THE BAD, TRAGIC ENDING:

While Caitlyn still loses herself to her grief and rage and becomes a fascist dictator, her fall from grace is much slower and fleshed out.

She still has her moment in the gardens where she admits to Jayce she understands how easy it is to hate [Zaunites], though she acknowledges those thoughts aren’t right (“I know, I know” she tells him as the fight goes out of her). The same goes for her seething to Vi after the attack on the memorial, “What kind of animals!” The seeds are there. A few days’ romp through Zaun with Vi isn’t going to undo a lifetime of learned classism, bigotry, and a sheltered, privileged worldview, even if she has a good heart.

Instead of springing the badge on Vi when they reunite in her home, she does it after the memorial attack, when it becomes clear that Piltover will be taking military action in Zaun.

Vi reacts poorly, of course. Rather than Caitlyn phrasing it as “you can show [Piltover] not everyone supports Jinx” because that is incredibly stupid when she says Jinx is a rogue agent at the beginning of the episode, she comes at it from the angle of harm reduction. They can’t stop the enforcers from going into Zaun on a manhunt for Jinx, but they can catch Jinx as quickly as possible and limit the amount of innocents caught in the crossfire if they (Caitlyn) are in charge of the mission. Between Vi’s knowledge of Zaun and Jinx, and Caitlyn’s resources as a Kirammen, they can fix things before they get really bad. (And Caitlyn gets justice for her mother in the process.)

Intentional or not, this makes Vi’s guilt issues even worse, because Caitlyn had the shot and would have stopped all of this from happening by killing Jinx - if not for Vi pleading with her. In an echo of Vander’s words, she internalizes the blame for the fallout and suffering about to come down on Zaun. It’s her fault for creating Jinx and preventing Caitlyn from stopping her.

So Vi takes the badge so she can “fix her mistake”. And just as in canon, it looks gross and wrong for her to wear that uniform.

**Extremely, extremely important to note that Caitlyn doesn’t weaponize the Grey to start. The thought of doing so doesn’t even exist yet. And with her team and Vi’s knowledge, she is confident they will catch Jinx.

Except they don’t.

Every avenue is a dead end. Tensions rise as Piltover demands to know Jinx is dead, so it can sleep easy at night. Zaun doesn’t take kindly to a militarized strike force stomping through its streets, especially once they learn Vi is one of them.

And so bit by bit, Caitlyn compromises on her morals. Holds the threat of Stillwater over people’s heads. Acts on that threat. Is rougher and more threatening with suspects and criminals. It’s all justified in her mind.

She has to do this; otherwise, things will get so much worse if the full wrath of Piltover comes down on Zaun.

The criminals she’s harshly treating are members of the chemgangs. They deserve no sympathy or mercy for what they’ve done to their fellow man, like Huck or the refugees the Firelights take in. Silco’s crimes are their crimes.

She can’t trust anyone else to handle this mission without making things worse. She tells herself that she hates having to do this, but it’s better than the iron fist Piltover is clamoring for.

(In her frustration and rage and grief and privilege, she forgets the lesser evil is still evil, and eventually there will be no difference at all.)

And so when Caitlyn feels she has no other choice, she weaponizes the Grey. It is controversial. Vi is horrified and angry, and perhaps Maddie or Loris get a fleeting “are we the baddies?” thought, but Caitlyn justifies it, just as she has done everything else. It is either this or total martial law, where so many more people will suffer. Vi’s guilt rears its ugly head, and she, too, is unable to recognize the rot that is slowly growing inside of her with each passing day, with each piece of her soul she sells to the machine that is Piltover’s ruthless oppression of Zaun.

Their hunt for Jinx ends the same way as canon. It is here that we finally see the full extent of how far Caitlyn has fallen. 

“It’s her blood in your veins” is wonderfully perfect in its bigotry. There is no going back from this. Just as there is no going back when she hits Vi in the stomach with her rifle and leaves her behind as Vi sobs and breaks down.

Caitlyn accepts her ascension to dictatorship, even if some part of herself recognizes that Ambessa is orchestrating this for her own benefit. Again, she justifies it by telling herself if she doesn’t take power, someone worse like Salo will.

During the timeskip, Vi breaks down as she does in canon. Caitlyn is in some of her hallucinations, but a majority are of everyone she betrayed. Vander, her parents, Mylo, Clagger, Powder (not Jinx), Ekko, Benzo, and even her kid self all look at her with such disappointment and disgust, reflections of her own guilt and self-loathing. She sacrificed everything that made her Violet, and now she has nothing left.

Zaun doesn’t let her forget. They call her a bootlicker, traitor, the Kirammen attack dog, the Piltie pet. With how non-existent her self-worth is, she agrees with them. Her self-destructive behavior is cranked up to the max. The loudest cheers in the fighting arena are always when she takes a big hit or loses.

As time goes on and Jinx’s popularity grows, it’s a direct slap to her face that Jinx is portrayed as Vander’s successor and a revolutionary symbol/hero. After everything Jinx has done, Vi is still that much worse. Again, she can’t help but agree, and spirals even harder.

-

And so when Caitlyn and Vi stay together in the end, it isn’t a happy ending.

Vi comes back to her less because she loves Caitlyn so so much and more because she genuinely has nothing and nobody left. Jinx is gone. There’s no way she can go back to Ekko and the Firelights, not with what she did as an enforcer and the guilt weighing on her. Zaun hates her and sees her as just as bad as Topside. She’s all alone and beaten down by the world.

And so she decides to be selfish and return to Caitlyn, because that is the happiest she can be now.

While Caitlyn does care for Vi, their relationship is still toxic and abusive. Caitlyn was the boot stepping on the necks of Vi’s people for over a year. She hit Vi once; she can (and according to irl studies, is more likely to) do it again. She saw people like Vi as lesser, undeserving of clean air to breathe. She referred to them as animals, and that their blood made them this way.

Without being forced to reckon with and confront the mountain of bigotry she amassed and carried out over the course of her strike force and dictatorship, it is impossible for their relationship to be a healthy one.

(That is all without pointing out just how emotionally, mentally, and socioeconomically vulnerable Vi is by this point, and how desperate she is for something, anything to latch onto.)

So their story becomes a tragedy. Fitting in a way, given the conclusions to the two stories in season 1 are both tragic (episode 3, episode 9).

For Vi, the tragedy is watching a girl burning with revolutionary fire, a protector and defender, slowly lose everything and everyone she ever loved at the hands of the brutal, uncaring system that is Piltover’s oppression. How that fire is slowly snuffed out as she is beaten down time and time again, chooses wrong, loses someone else. How she betrays her deepest convictions while going through an incredibly emotionally fragile time in her life, and she thinks she’s doing the right thing. How she becomes the very thing she always wanted to protect others from. How she is cast aside the moment she doesn’t conform to her oppressors’ standards, is reduced from “one of the good ones” to “just like the rest of them”. How she is left with absolutely nothing after losing it all to the system she is oppressed by. How she ends up as a caged bird: the once revolutionary fighter now “content” to be her dictator’s lover.

For Caitlyn, the tragedy is watching a girl with a kind heart succumb to the corruptive nature of fascism. How she truly had good intentions of fixing things from within the system when she started, but was unable to recognize the moral decay creeping within her - because there are no good cops, no good enforcers, no good fascists. How she lies to herself and becomes more and more cruel with every action. How she is able to justify actions that were once nigh unthinkable as a deep, pervasive rot slowly spreads inside her, calcifying that kind heart into a cold, bitter thing. How she spits in the face of her mother’s legacy and uses her privilege to hurt the oppressed even harder in ways only she can. How she discards Vi, a woman she convinced to sacrifice every principle she believed in, a woman she loved, the moment Vi acts out of line in her eyes. How she is too inundated by privilege and class to recognize just how far she has fallen.

They could have been wonderful partners in another life. We see the potential good they could be together in season 1. 

But fascism has chewed them up and spit them out.

Will post and link part 3 (the disjumbled tonal mess of an ending we got) once written.

[naniguini]

When a character goes through a corruption arc and now they are going to hurt their cinnamon roll ally/friend/partner/etc. and you just have to deal with the feeling that can only be described as watching someone about to kick a puppy and not being able to stop it.

[atwistedandbrokentale]

Hear me out.. an inside out au where Fear takes on the role of Anxiety

While this is more specific to me personally, I believe that Anxiety can be classified as a type of fear. So the opposite can work, letting yourself being ruled by fear.

It would be really good angsty corruption au. Much like Sadness being drawn to the happy memories to make them sad, imagine Fear being drawn to take over Riley’s mind, still trying to make sure she’s safe but stressed and anxious. The angst would be immaculate.

Anyone else agree?

[neongalaxiie]

Villain slumped against their bean bag, dropping their gaming controller onto their lap and reaching for their soda. A long slurp of the drink and readjustment of the mic, and another match has begun. Villain leaned forward as they earned kill after kill, shouting to their team for some sense of coordination. Some people just didn't know how to play, did they?

Villain practically carried their team, but was eliminated by the end. They left the match, having enough of ranked games, and settled for a more relaxed mode.

Suddenly, the door slammed inward, hitting the wall hard enough to leave a dent. Villain sat up, sliding their headset off and saw Hero standing in the doorway, head down, with a shadow over their eyes. Their body was tense, their expression grim, and their fists balled at their sides.

Villain's eyes widened. "H-hero? What are you doing here?"

Hero raised their head just enough to peer up at Villain from the top of their glowing eyes. Their demeanor didn't change apart from a scowl. Villain swallowed.

Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

Then Hero broke the oppressive silence with a low growl. "Don't call me that."

"I'm done being a hero."

[gloomybadger4life]

Who would be the easiest?

Who would be the funniest?

@krista-kritical @chaosmagetwin @ballooo @hikaruthestar @wingchunwaterbender @ziezii @local-enby

[thepenultimateword]

Prompt #217

Supervillain slowly circled Hero's bound figure.

"Poor little Hero. All alone and no one to turn to. Abandoned by your team, kicked out of the agency..." Supervillain leaned in, the corner of their lip curled back in a wolfish smile. Hero's eyes widened. "What's your next mo--"

Hero surged up and kissed them.

Quick. Warm. Chaste.

Supervillain stumbled back, ears burning. "W-what..." They clapped both hands over their mouth, exclaiming muffled, "What are you doing?"

Hero cocked their head. "You leaned in. Weren't we leading up to the 'join me and I'll give you unimaginable power' speech anyway? I'm just speeding it up a little."

[mirohtron]

The villain had never seen the hero like this. Twitchy. Vulnerable. Volatile. Wide-eyed and not quite present.

Of course, after the media outpour, after the merciless backlash, after the mess that had went down between them and their agency, the villain had expected some form of pain on the hero's face, but not...this. Some look like they'd gone through a revelation that had ruined their life.

They got the compulsion to take advantage.

"I always knew they would do something like this," they murmured pitifully. They brushed slow, careful fingers under their chin. "But not to someone like you. Never you. You were always so... good."

The hero's eyes snapped up, suddenly cognizant.

The villain flinched back from the rage they saw, and just as quickly it flickered out in the hero's face and they were back to sadly staring.

A moment passed.

The hero said nothing, so the villain continued.

"Would you like to exact revenge?" they asked, gentler this time. "I could help."

The hero looked up again, wide-eyed, but this time interested.

The villain slowly raised their hand, careful not to spook, and touched their fingers to the hero's cheek. "They hurt you," said the villain. "You. I think that warrants some retaliation." They dropped their hand and the hero didn't follow it. The villain wasn't sure if they were cognizant of anything at all.

"Do you know the details?"

"Of what happened? No."

Silently, the hero tilted their head to the side.

"I don't want to take advantage of you," the villain told them gently. "I just believe your rage has been suppressed and smothered and doused for far too long. It's unhealthy, you know—"

"They threw me away," the hero said flatly. "Like rubbish. Because I found things." They tilted their head to the other side. "They sent people to me afterwards. Tried to get me to kill myself. When that didn't work they sent a hero."

The villain buffered as they processed this information. Of course they knew the higher ups at the agency liked doing terrible things, but...

"Just them?"

"Not just them. And not just the people."

The villain opened their mouth, considered their next words. But they were not sure what would give another seething head tilt and what would give the weakness they'd prefer.

"Not just them," the villain repeated quietly. They eyed the hero's stray hairs, the blood and dirt and cuts on their face. All their time in this job they'd never seemed to fit a place like this; a gloomy room, a star-lit sky, tall, looming, spindle-shaped trees. They raised a careful hand to tuck hair behind the hero's ear. "What would you like to do?"

"A lot of things."

The villain trailed slow fingers down the line of the hero's jaw. Slightly, so slightly they could've imagined it, the hero leaned into their touch. Their chest swelled . "Bad things?"

They placed their fingers over the hero's throat to feel the inevitable swallow. "Yes."

"You'd be justified. All these years of overwork, crawling into your bed each thankless night, this constant persistence that you had to do better." The villain stepped close as the hero's expression twisted in pain. "I'd justify that. I think, anyone who isn't an idiot would justify that. Think about it." They cupped the hero's face with both hands, voice down to a whisper. "Think of what you could do to them with my help."

Something in the hero's eyes cleared. They leaned a fraction of an inch back, all the fog in their eyes disappearing.

The villain started to draw their hands back.

The hero caught their wrists in a vice-like grip. They were present. Their stare was fierce. "No. Not just revenge," they said. "I want them to feel helpless. Do you know how much I've contributed to their strategies? Their technological advancement? And yet they don't give me any weapon that's not years old. I want them wishing they could've been better, that this could've been prevented." They shook their head just slightly, and the hair the villain had carefully tucked back came loose to frame their face.

"I want them wailing for help," the hero said. They let go of the villain's wrists and touched their palms to their cheeks instead. "I want the city bending at my whims," they breathed, stepping close, "like I bent for theirs. I want them to resent me. I want them to fear me. I want them scared when night time comes, because they fear I'll pop out and steal them. Then they'll see. Then they'll see how great I am. How great I always was. How I was their fault."

For the first time the hero looked like they belonged in this gloom, like the night sky was rising behind them; a lethal backdrop. The trees behind them seemed to rise up, pitch-black silhouettes. A bloody, dirty face, angry, wide eyes, horrible words spewing out their mouth—oh, the villain didn't know how they never saw it.

They looked like they meant every word. The villain was aware of every inch of them, suddenly alight with fury, with potential, with the need to ruin and desecrate.

The hero pulled them closer, until they were breathing each other's air, and the villain wanted to see their mouth dripping with blood that didn't belong to either of them. Such wild teeth they had. Such a cruel tongue. Such eyes, such hands, such looks. "I want them," the hero said, "to forever regret me. I want to grow like festering mold in their memory. I want to be a parasite in their history."

"You're wonderful," the villain whispered dazedly.

The hero snapped out of whatever had overcome them. They let go of the villain's face and moved back.

The villain snapped out of their stupour, straightening. Back they looked, and the hero had returned to looking like a fawn, all traces of that destructive sadism gone. The villain clenched their fist to collect themselves, bit the tip of their tongue.

"It'll be a pleasure to help you exact your revenge," said the villain. They thought of new ways to take advantage of the hero. Thought, distantly, how they could amplify their terrible side. "But you have to trust me."

"That'll be work."

"I will have to trust you, too," they said. "And—don't wear these colours." They traced the collar of the hero's ruined shirt. "I've always thought black looked much better on you."

The hero looked at the villain. "Your colour."

The villain tugged lightly on their collar. Looked back at them. "My colour." They righted it and brushed off lint that wasn't there from their shoulder. "Now, to work."

The hero followed.

In ten months they brought despair to the city.

In twelve the hero had made the villain theirs.

[justasnailman]

Corrupt!Icarus stimboard

may cause unwanted stimming

Tw: weapons, unsettling imagery, blood, glitching, flashing

[i-looove-dillydallying]

I love fictional relationships where they make eachother so much worse yes I am talking about 12 and Clara

[fumifooms]

Monsters and Ghosts

Monsters & Ghosts, the monstrous siblings

The Toudens Dungeon Meshi Ryoko Kui

Red song lyrics (both fonts & shades): Animal by The Living Tombstone // Black background song lyrics: This is Home by Cavetown // The two dialogue bubbles, flighted birds & swallowing: Shut Hell by Yu Ito // Blue quote: Susan Ee // White background quote: Numbers 13:32, the Bible // “Burning shadows of human hands” song lyrics: Uncanny by GHOST // Brown-gold song lyrics: My Ordinary Life by The Living Tombstone // Orange quote: Mira Grant Last quote below: Stephen King // Last song lyrics below: Monster from Adventure Time.

[shy-raccoon]

A villain so powerful and brutal they drive the hero into villainy out of sheer desperation. A hero who's plans to stop the villain once and for all start resembling and then surpassing the villain's plans. A hero who dosen't want to hurt anyone except for the villain but who starts to justify more and more collateral damage as the years drag on.

For example, after years of the villain committing to many war crimes to count the hero is legitimately considering just nuking the Villains's capital city to get it over with. They can even justify it to themselves after all a lot of the capital cities population are the villain's rich supporters and henchmen (but far more are starving in the slums). Maybe the villain even finds out about this plan and is horrifed, They may be evil but even they are not foolish enough to resort to nukes.