#Whew I think that's all of them

[miyagi-hokarate]

There's this article from 1984 about the rise of villainous blondes in movies that I'm reading — and while it's interesting, all I really care about are the sections on The Karate Kid and interviewing William Zabka on the subject lol

First, great way to describe William Zabka's/Johnny's platinum bangs.

Reminder: this article released in 1984. So it's little squeaky-voiced Zabka saying this about himself.

Just LOVED the way this is phrased about the Cobras LOL (nooo don't forget about Token Brunet Jimmy 😭)

What I found MOST intriguing though is that Zabka apparently shares This about him and his costars:

LISTEN...I KNOW IT WAS FORTY YEARS AGO...BUT I NEED TO KNOW WHAT ZABKA, THOMAS, MCQUEEN, GARRISON, AND O'DELL WERE SAYING ABOUT THEIR CHARACTERS AND THEIR PARENTS SO BAD...I NEED THEIR THOUGHTS ABOUT THE COBRAS

[dilutedbeanibeans]

hey I redesigned them again

close ups under the cut

boy why are you so eyelash

[wrenkos]

perfect crime trio goes on an outing

[roomba-mangga]

thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.

what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).

in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.

best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.

[chronophobica]

part two of this

[valgeristik]

Переплелись мои корни в тесной братской могиле Скажу им: "Закончились войны", Cкажу им: "Вы победили"

I've found a new song (шиповник - 'dog rose') and, naturally, it made me think. a lot.

The whole song is something that fits botw Link specifically so well, but this piece in particular was inspired by the following bit of lyrics:

My roots are intertwined in a cramped mass grave 

I will tell them: "The wars are over", 

I will tell them: "You have won" 

(in the original text, 'mass grave' is more accurately translated as 'brotherly grave')

When it's all over, what does it mean to be part of a legend? What did it mean for those who came before you?

Link barely knows them, his time is so far removed from theirs, but his roots are intertwined in that brotherly grave regardless.

They are the closest of strangers, and no one's brought flowers to their graves for a while. Might as well.

(additional bits + closeup + song link under the cut)

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i have a book i got ages ago about flower meanings. I know it's all relative n they change from culture to culture etc but. One of the meanings for a dog rose is "prematurity"...as in, something happening too early. before its time

There is also a custom here that if you bring flowers to a grave, it has to be an even number, because an uneven number is for the living.

there are four in the bouquet, and three in Link's hair. I did put four flowers in that bouquet on purpose, but the uneven number in his hair was a beautiful beautiful accident

partial translation of the song (if u want a full one feel free to send an ask or something):

[...]

In underground bunkers 

Among the wreckage of weapons 

Soldiers of perished armies 

Wander with a bullet through the chest 

My roots are intertwined in a cramped mass grave 

I will tell them: "The wars are over", 

I will tell them: "You have won" 

My prickly skin is a sad memory 

I know more about death than you can imagine 

In reinforced concrete crypts, slugs live on mossy walls 

But I want to see the sky, I wake up to life

and also this. i massively ran out of steam so obvs its not the whole chain but yeah 👍

[jacksprostate]

Treatise on why No, the doctor just giving the narrator of Fight Club (full name) his requested sleep medication or sending him to therapy would not have Fixed Him

Firstly, saying giving him the insomnia meds would’ve fixed him ignores the reason he has insomnia in the first place. He is so deeply upset by his place in society that he literally cannot sleep. Drugging him to sleep would not change that. That, of course, is the easy, quick response.

But with regard to therapy? The biggest flaw is that it ignores a central tenet of the book. Part of what tortures the narrator and drives him to invent Tyler is that his feelings about this collective, systemic issue are constantly reduced to a Just Him thing. His seatmates ask what his company is. He’s the only one upset at the office. He gets weird looks if he says the truth of what he does. People will do anything in their power to pretend he is the issue, as an individual, because it is far scarier to consider the full implications of the systemic issues implied by what he is saying. Everyone treats it as if the issue is him, so he goes insane. He does anything to get someone to say, holy shit, that’s fucked up, what you’re a part of is wrong. In an attempt to feel any sort of vague sympathy and catharsis, he goes to support groups to pretend to be dying, because then at least people don’t habitually blame him for his anguish. 

Saying therapy would fix him ignores that his problems are not individual. They are collective. It’s the reason the entire story resonates with people! Something deeply, unignorably wrong with society, where people would rather blame you for bringing it up than try and address it, because it feels impossible. I don’t blame people for this, really, because it IS scary. It’s terrifying to sit and feel like you’ve realized there’s something deeply, deeply wrong, but if you say something, people will get mad at you since it’s so baked into everything around you. Or, even if they agree, it’s easier to deal with the dissonance by pretending it’s individual.

And it’s not like that’s not the purpose therapy and medications largely serve, anyway. Getting into dangerous territory for this website, but ultimately, the reason the narrator was seeking medication was because it’s a bandaid. A very numbing bandaid. For these very large, dissonance causing problems, therapy does very little. Medications do what they always have, and distract you with numbness or side effects. It’s a false solution. He is seeking an individualized false solution because he has been browbeaten with the idea that this is an issue with him alone, when it's plainly clear it's not. 

Don't get me wrong. Obviously he has something wrong with him. But it's a product of his situation. It is a fictional exaggeration of a very real occurrence of mental illness provoked by deep unconscionable dissonance and anguish.  There is a clear correlation between what happens and his mental state and his job and how isolated he is. 

The thing is, even if he were chemically numbed, I do think he would’ve lost it regardless. Many people on meds find they don’t fix things. For reasons I’ll get into, but in this case because even if numbed or distracted, once you’ve learned about deep, far reaching corruption in society, it’s very hard to forget. Especially if, in his case, you literally serve as the acting hand of this particular variety. He’s crawling up the walls. 

So why do people say this?  Well, it's funny I guess. Maybe the first time or whatever. But also, often, they believe it, to a degree. Maybe they've just been told how effective therapy and meds are for mental illness, they believe wholeheartedly in The Disease Model of Mental Illness, maybe they themselves have engaged with either and have considered it successful. Maybe they or someone they know has been 'saved' by such treatments. 

But in all honesty.... What therapy can help with is mentality, it's how you approach problems. For issues on a smaller scale, not meaning they are easier to deal with my any degree, but ones that are not raw and direct from deep awareness of corruption; these are things that can be worked through if you get lucky and get an actually good therapist who helps build up your resiliency. But when your issue is concrete, something large and inescapable? It's useless. At best it can help you develop coping mechanisms, but there is a limit for that. There is a point where that fails. To develop the ability to handle something like this requires intense development of a comfort with ambiguity and dissonance and being isolated and a firm positioning of your purpose and values and and belief in wonder and all the other shit I ramble about. The things that the narrator lacks, which lead him to taking an ineffectual death knell anarchist self-destruction path. Therapy, where the narrator is, full of the knowledge of braces melted to seats and all the people that have to allow this to happen? It fails. 

And meds — meds are a fucking scam. We know the working mechanism of basically none of them, the serotonin receptor model was made up and paid its way into prominence. We have very little evidence they're any better than placebo, and they come with genuinely horrific side effects. Maybe you got lucky. I did, on some meds. On others? I don't remember 2018. The pharmaceutical industry is also known for rampant medical ghostwriting, and for creating 'off-label' uses for drugs that have gained too many protests in their original use, then creating a cult of use to then have 'grassroots' campaigns for it to be made a label use (ie, legitimize their ghostwritten articles with guided anecdotes). 

The DSM itself is basically a marketing segregation plot. It's an attempt to legitimize the disease model by isolating subgroups of symptoms to propose individualized treatments for subgroups that are not necessarily all that separate. But if the groups exist, you can prescribe more and different medications, no? Not to mention, if you use the disease model, you can propose that these diseases are permanent, or permanent until treated, considered more and more severe to offset and justify the horrific side effects of the medications. Do you know why male birth control doesn't really exist? Same reason. They can justify all the horrible side effects for women, because the other option is pregnancy. For men, it's nothing. 

And they're not bothering to invent new drugs without side effects. When they invent new drugs it's just because the last one got too bad of a name, or they can enter a new market. Modern drugs don't work any better than gen1 drugs. They still have horrific side effects. At best, the industry will shit out studies saying the old one was flawed (truth) so they can say this new gen will be better (lie). They're doing it with ssris right now. 

Fundamentally, the single proposed benefit of any of these drugs is that they numb you. To whatever is torturing you. It's harder to be depressed if you can't feel it, or if you just can't muster the same outrage. Of course, there is people who find that numbness to be helpful, or worth it. But often, it's stasis. For the people who have problems that can be worked on, it serves as a stopgap to not actually work on said problems. The natural outcome of the disease model is stagnation for those whose need is to develop skills and resiliency. It keeps them medicalized and dependent on the idea that they're diseased and incapable. Profitable. Stuck in the womb. 

I’ve been there. It’s easier, to wallow, and resist growth because it’s difficult and painful and unfair and cruel and you can think of five billion reasons to justify your languishing. But don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re just permanently damaged, no matter how nicely they word it, no identity or novel pathologization, no matter how many benefits they promise, especially if they swear up and down some lovely expensive medications with little solid backing and plentiful off-label usage and side effects that’ll kill you. Some days it feels like they want us all stuck in pods, agoraphobic and addicted to the ads they feed us to isolate the markets for the drugs they’ve trained us to beg them to pump us with. Polarization making it as easy as flashing blue light for go, red like for stop, or vice versa. I worry about the kids, for fucks sake. That’s a bit dark and intense, and I apologize. But I want you (generic) to understand, there is a profit motive. Behind everything. And they do not mean well. They do not care about your mental health or your rights or your personhood or your growth. They care about how they can profit off of you.

For those struggling with immovable, society problems, like the narrator grappling with how his job fits into and is accepted by society while his rejection and horror in the face of it does not, it can work about as well as any other drug addiction. Your mileage may vary. From what I've seen, recovering from being on prozac for a long time can be worse than alcohol. They put kids on this shit. They keep campaigning for more. Off label, again. A pharmaceutical company’s favorite thing to do has to be to spread rumors of someone who knows someone who said an off label use of this drug helps with this little understood condition. Or, in the case of mental illness, questionably defined condition. And like, damn, I know I'm posting on the 'medicalization is my identity' website so no one will like all this and has probably stopped reading by now, but yall should be exposed to at least one person who doubts this stuff. Doesn't just trust it. Because I mean, that's the thing right?

It's so big. What would it mean, for this all to be true? Yeah, everyone says pharmaceutical companies are evil and predatory and ghostwriting, but to think about what that really entails. Coming back to the book, everyone knows the car lobby is huge and puts dangerous vehicles through that kill people. What does it mean if the car companies all hire people to calculate the cost of a recall and the cost of lawsuits? No one wants to think about the scale that means for people allowing it or the systems that have to be geared towards money, not safety like they say. Hell, even Chuck misses the beat and has the narrator threaten his boss with the Department of Transportation. And shit, man, if every company is doing this, you think Transportation doesn't know? That they give a fuck? You're better off mailing all the evidence to the news outlets and hoping they only character assassinate you a little bit as they release the news in a way that says it's all the fault of little workers like you, not the whole system. Something something, David McBride, any whistleblower you feel like, etc. 

So I don't blame you, if your reaction is "but but but, that can't be right, people wouldn't do it, they wouldn't allow it" or just an overwhelming feeling of dread that pushes you to deny all of this and avoid thinking about it. Just know, that's in the book. That's all the seatmates on the flights. That's all his fellow officemates. It's easier to pretend, I know.

But think about, how the response fits in with the themes of the book. The story, as a movie too. What drives the narrator’s mental breakdown? How would you handle being in his position? How would you handle being his seatmate? It’s easy to say you’d listen. But have you? Have you had any soul wrenching betrayals of how you thought society worked? How about a betrayal by the thing that promised to be the fix of the first? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t follow that gut instinct, saying follow what everyone says, that person must just be crazy, evil, rude, cruel, whatever it is that means you can set what they said aside?

For a lot of people, they can do that, I guess. Set it aside. Reaching that aforementioned state of managing to cope with the dissonance and ambiguity and despair is very hard. The narrator made the Big Realization, but he couldn’t cope. He self-destructed. Even when people don’t make the big realization consciously, they’re already self-destructing. It’s hard to escape it when it feels easier than continuing anyway. When it feels like the only option,

Would therapy fix the narrator of Fight Club? Would meds fix the narrator of Fight Club? No. He knows too much. All meds will do, by the time he’s in the psych ward, is spiritually neuter him. A silly phrase, but really. Take the wind out of his sails. 

Is he fixed if he doesn’t try to blow up town? If he just shuts up and settles in and stops costing money? If he still can’t cope with the things he’s unearthed? Do you see how this is a commentary in a commentary in a commentary?

Fight Club is an absolutely fascinating story because of this. The fact that it addresses the fallout of knowing. The isolation. The hopelessness. The spiral that results from a lack of hope. This is, I think, what resonates most with people, even if not consciously. Going insane because you’ve discovered something you wish you could unknow. It’s a classic horror story. Should our society be lovecraftian evil? I don’t think so. 

Do I think changing it will be easy? No. Lord knows a lot exists to push people who make these sorts of Realizations towards feelings of individuality and individualized solutions and denial and other distractions and coping methods. And to prevent people who make One realization from expanding on it and considering further ramifications. Fight Club itself gets into this; the isolation of men being a strict part of the role society shapes for their sex leaves them very vulnerable to death fetishes, in a sense, and generally towards self destructive violence. It helps funnel them away from substantial change and towards ineffectual change. Many things, misogyny, racism, serve to keep people isolated from one another, individualized, angry, and impossible to work with. Market segregation; god knows even appealing on those fronts has become such a classic ploy that companies do it now, the US military frames its plundering that way, etc. 

I’ve wandered a bit but ultimately, my point is this: Fight Club is a love letter to the horrors of critical thinking, and the importance of not falling into the trap of self destruction and hopelessness in the face of it. The latter is why Tyler was an anarchoterrorist instead of anything useful. The latter is why it was a death cult. It’s important to work through the horrors of critical thinking so you can do it, and stand on the other side ready to believe in each other. It’s worth it.

[ashmp3]

closing #heyteo 💌

i want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart who's ever tagged me in their posts! i can't put it into words how grateful i am for having such talented, sweet people around me that wanted to share their beautiful creations with me. i cherish them all and i hope yapping in my tags conveyed that. Honestly i could talk about them in great lengths (and mostly i did...) so this is why i feel like i think its right time to wrap this up - i feel bad when i can't sit down, talk my ass off and give my full attention to each and every single post. Sadly i don't think its possible for me to do it now which is why i am writing all this, with a tear in my eye honestly. I checked and saw i have 925 (and counting!) posts in this tag and first of all - that is CRAZY! I am so grateful you have no idea. I really, really cherished this little corner of the internet that i called my own so this is all bittersweet but i think it's for the best! Lastly, i don't plan on going anywhere just yet so of COURSE feel free to tag me in anything you think i shouldn't miss (especially Jeonghan and your selfies... of course) - you already know a block of tags will be coming your way! And for being my amazingly talented friends i wrote little thank-you notes for everyone that made #heyteo one of the best decisions i made on tumblr 💌 I appreciate you all SO so so so much!

@jeonwonwoo -> my angel and the reason i even made this tag miss zaynab! We would be here for weeks if i started talking about how thankful i am for your existence. My no1 source of Jeonghan gifs, someone who perfectly matches my freak - thank you the MOST! (And ofc you can still expect me to go on tangents under your gifs i mean... that's what this blog is all about!) Love you!🩷🫶🏼

@kimsuyeon -> my talented lili, with the most wonderful gifs that are just so YOU! Always so wonderfully curated and colored, your idol + era collection is for the HERstory books if you ask me. Thank you for sharing them with all of us. i am so happy to have you around and i am thankful that you have been one of Thee contributors to #heyteo 🫶🏼🩷

@pink-vacancy -> i think it wouldn't be wrong to call you my yuna and mina supplier 🤭 cherry yuna is for the history books and you are the biggest contributor to that fact! thank you so much for always tagging me and making my tag a tad bit spicier and sexier with the gorgeous, stunning women you gif! love you and appreciate you SO much 💌🍒🫶🏼

@scouped -> MAX you are such an integral part of #heyteo through your many sideblogs and i am always so so sooo grateful for it! i love everyone but of course i love svt just a tad bit more so seeing your sets always made me so giddy and excited 🫶🏼 again, one of the people that really pushed me to make this tag in the first place so i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. love you!!! 💖🌟

@vcrnons -> j!!! my dear sweet darling J that wanted to kill me on more than one occasion. thank you so much for tagging me and sorry for all the things i said under your gifs its like they hypnotize me... And ofc i am excited to be annoying under your tags in the future 🫶🏼💖💖💖

@scoupsies -> my naya funniest sweetest most talented darling... You've been thee highlight of my user tag - and i promise i will still be yapping under your gifs like how could i not?! you best believe i will be checking you blog so i don't miss anything because well that would just be devastating for me. thank you so much for tagging me i love you & appreciate you SO much!!! 🫶🏼🩷💌

@neonsbian -> my wayv supplier and source of updates 🤭 thank you so much vinnie, for always tagging me in everything so far & i always enjoyed seeing my twin yangyang in the tag (for better or worse) 💖

@no1boa -> lulu! absolute master of gifs thank you SO much for always tagging me in your dreamy, beautiful creations. honestly i will miss them SO much... so expect me to go through your blog like a morning newspapers and look for new sets 🙂‍↕️🫶🏼🤍

@taeiltual -> i always say this in the tags but every single company would benefit from a BexTM master class on editing! Thank you so much for sharing your works and thank your for tagging me 🤍🫶🏼🌟

@facethesuns -> em your posts always make me feel like ground is shaking... Thank you so much for tagging me in your stuff & of course i am excited to keep yapping in the tags in the future 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️💖

@ningtual -> MY SUNWOO SUPPLIER oh henna this is for the better or worse because my blood pressure rises whenever i see him... thank you for tagging me in your beautiful aespa edits (and nunulino...) love you mwah mwah!!! 🫶🏼🩷

@talksaxy -> even though we haven't been mutuals for a long time, whenever you would tag me in sungchan you best believe i would kick my feet and get giddy... thank you so much for adding a beautiful fawn touch to my tag! & ofc expect me to be in your tags either way, and yeah this kinda reads as a threat but you can't blame me really can't you... thank you sooo much. mwah! 🫶🏼🌟💖

@28reas0ns -> oh wwill first of all i want to say i love your vision and how we both sometimes make similar connections... You have such an eye for the aesthetics and it was such an honor to seen every post you made so thank you SO much for tagging me it truly meant so much to me 🫶🏼💖🤍💖🤍

@isabelleadjani -> first of all thank you for using it for its intended purposes (selfies!!!). and second of all thank you for tagging me in your beautiful, gorgeous gifs. You always go one level up and its so evident in the way you present your sets. I would still love to get tagged in your selfies of course thats a no brainer really 🫶🏼 Thank you so much & i really appreciate your presence on here 🤍🤍🤍

@junmail -> oh its been such a delight to see all the junhui in my tag (along with others of course) so thank you SO much for tagging me and sharing your beautiful gif sets with me (and everyone else)🫶🏼💖

@doyeons -> BELLA!!! first of all. thank you for sungah and seohyun gifs that was kinda legendry don't you agree. Thank you for amplifying frommy gifs in my tag they made me so crazy but also... i am very thankful 🙂‍↕️ And you best believe i will still be under your posts like a pathetic little guy. Kiss!!! 🫶🏼💖

@eightshotamericano -> elly my local jeonghan enthusiast i want to thank you for tagging me in your posts i really enjoyed them always 💖 and i appreciate you for thinking of me, love you!🥹🫶🏼

@seonghwasblr -> I know there wasn't many but i still want to send my virtual thank you card for including me in your beautiful gifs of jeonghan my darling maja i really appreciate it!🫶🏼💖

@jeonwon-wonwoo -> maddie thank you for tagging me in your lessera gifs back in the beginning of the year - it was so sweet of you! 🫶🏼💖 again, a huge thank you to everyone who’s tagged me in their posts. it truly means a lot, and I’m so grateful for each and every one of you who’s taken the time to include me. I appreciate you all more than words can express 🥹🥹🥹🫶🏼🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

[dulcewrites]

Olga Orozco, from Engravings: Torn from Insomnia: “To Destroy the Enemy,” // Anne Carson, The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides // Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica in Dune // Olivia Cooke and Tom Glynn-Carney as Queen Alicent and Prince Aegon II in House of the Dragon // Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale // Wenzel Tornøe details // The Trojan Woman

Cassandra Devereux, Queen Consort of the Seven Kingdoms // Queen of Ash and Bone // Queen of Grief

[venriliz]

thank u for all the birthday wishes i got from u yesterday and today! (i got almost 40 asks if not more wtf °-°) ❤️ i've been overwhelmed in the best way possible hehe :>

[erregiulydraws]

“Let’s go on and on together forever“

[boxwinebaddie]

if you don’t mind me asking, how in the everloving fuck did you get mercury AND arsenic poisoning?? is that common??

siiiiiiiiiiiigh.

so, no...thankfully, my dear, sweet darling:

i don't think it's terribly common, ( neither was the arsenic i guess, but i'll get into that ) but it is when you're stupid as fuck like me.

because i am too lazy to type it all out again and don't have it in me to be eloquent ( i am saving that for writing about the boys, now that i, thankfully, can coherently write again ) i will send you the synopsis that i sent elite sickfic style dr. ana ( god's fucking angel )

**it's the updated, more articulate ( give or take ) version because i tried to explain it to the girls the day i got home ( take it easy on them please, i couldn't text or call and gave them quite a fright, ily girlies ) unfortunately, i was still not super good at making words and processing things, so i wrote this now that i am functioning better.

sorry for spooking you all about the parasite; long story short, it was not as deadly as i thought -- I DID, HOWEVER, STILL HAVE A VERY NASTY BACTERIAL INFECTION, LIKE WHEN I SAY NASTY, I MEAN VERY, VERY, VERY BAD AND I WAS FIGHTING IT CONCURRENTLY WITH THE PARA WHICH MADE IT SEEM A LOT WORSE, VERY ASS!

but long story, medium:

alright! gather round kids --

it's uncle nina story time.

tw for gross medical stuff / me being in mentally ill hell

anyways, looking forward to sharing my writing with you all again and answering my asks if we still care!

love you and hyh,

metal head uncle nina

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Could you write a little bit more on Endurance

Hey, thanks for your prompt! Endurance is getting to be quite the old DotU lotura one-shot, but it seemed like a good challenge for writing in past tense again. So, here we go!

Endurance Part 2

Princess Allura stood in the entryway of the large room, holding her sleeping baby tight in her arms, face tense, her golden hair straggling curls down her shoulder. “Are you sure the Garrison is…safe?” she asked quietly.

On the walk through the Galaxy Garrison, various officers eyed Allura with a mix of horror and pity as she carried the bastard child of Crown Prince Lotor of the Drule.

Keith turned back to her, waving his hand. “These are quarters for royalty and ambassadors,” he said. “Fortified against airstrikes, earthquakes, and especially evil Drule princes, alright?” His face softened. “We won’t let anything get to you here.”

Her heart sunk, even as she managed a weak smile. “Of course, but, um. But that’s not what I’m worried about.” She stepped in, daring to pull back the blanket around her sleeping baby, revealing his chubby lavender cheek. “I’m worried someone will take my son from me. Maybe from the Alliance, or—or maybe even King Zarkon will find us.”

Keith sat on a chair beside the large bed, tiredly leaning his jacketed elbows on his knees. “Princess,” he said gently. “No one’s gonna take the kid away. People here are just, you know, concerned about your health.”

“I’m fine,” she retorted shortly, breath hitching. Her wrist still crinkled with a bandage from her IV, her eyes bagged with exhaustion. “The hospital released me, didn’t they?”

“It’s not just your physical health we’re all worried about.”

Allura’s eyes burned with tears as she held his gaze before breaking away to ghost toward the well-built, white-painted crib by the bed. “You don’t think I can do it,” she said. She leaned over to settle the snoozing baby on the crib bed, tucking in his little arms with the blanket before pulling away. “You don’t think I can emotionally handle being a mother and coming back to Team Voltron, after…all that has happened.”

Keith bit his lip. “I don’t know, can you? I mean, this is a lot to work through for anybody.”

She ran a hand absentmindedly over her still-slightly swollen stomach, the empire waist of her dress wrinkling beneath her fingers.

She knew Lotor would want her to play weak. To play the innocent, helpless victim, to save herself instead of speaking the truth—that they had willingly loved, willingly created life together.

(But maybe there was a third way? One that would give her power to help Lotor escape from prison?)

And then her eyes hardened, her fingers clenching into her dress with determination. “Don’t worry, Keith,” Allura said. “My fever made it hard to think for a bit, but Lotor didn’t break me. I’m ready to prove to him and the rest of the Drule empire that Voltron still stands.”

---------

Several days passed in the whirlwind of settling back onto Earth, with Princess Allura more confidently carrying around her sleepy, giggly baby son. He leaned his heavy cheek against her shoulder as she held him tightly to her.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Hunk whispered to her as they walked down the darkened hallway, with a set of guards trailing behind them. “I mean, it’s Lotor, you know?”

“I know who it is, Hunk,” she said, eyes determined. On that day, she wore full royal regalia, the color returning to her pale skin as it flushed with health. Her long, pink skirts slid quietly against the stone floor. “But I need to do this. I need it for me, you understand?”

Hunk glanced over at Keith, who flanked Allura on the other side.

Keith raised his hands helplessly, waving to Allura, as if to say, She has a mind of her own, don’t look at me.

Allura’s heart skipped beats as they passed cells with various Drule warriors crouched in the corners of their cells, yellow eyes trained on her curiously and inspecting the baby in her arms—clearly of Drule heritage.

The closer they approached Lotor’s cell, the greater the security. Hunk called out, carrying a blaster, “Look alive, people. This here is Princess Allura, and ain’t no one allowed to even look at her the wrong way, you got that?”

Garrison soldiers flurried around them, raising additional weapons to circle Princess Allura protectively.

And then they stopped at the final prison cell, cloaked mostly in darkness save for a glimmer of light from a flickering, nearby fluorescent light.

“Okay, princess,” Keith said tensely. “This is his cell. Whatever you wanna say, you can say it, and then we’ll get you back upstairs for dinner, alright?”

“I’m okay, Keith,” she said distantly, readjusting the baby in her arms.

And then she stepped forward, peering into the cell, skin chilling in the damp cold.

Her heart stopped.

Lotor sat on the dirty floor, his powerful limbs heavily shackled and simple tunic streaked with dried mud. His matted white hair streaked against a sweaty, bruised cheek as he glanced up at her. His yellow eyes widened, the cat-like pupils dilating in relief at the sight of her before tightening in fear. “Allura,” he whispered.

Her voice wavered as she stood before him, skin chilling in the damp cold. “That would be Princess Allura of Arus to you,” she said, voice wavering as she raised her chin. “Kneel before the mother of your child.”

Lotor exhaled, a mild horror in him that she would visit his prison cell, and he slipped forward, his bound wrists crunching against the stone to drag himself toward the bars. His voice broke hard as he rasped to her, “I cannot bow to you properly in these chains, for my waist is anchored to the wall. Release me, and I will bow to you then.”

She pressed her lips together tightly before narrowing her eyes. “You are not to be released,” she retorted. She hid her trembling fingers in the thick blankets around their baby, who cooed in his sleep, his white curls ticking her chin. “You are to stand trial for your many crimes, against not only me but also against the Alliance. It is unlikely for you to receive anything less than the death penalty.”

Lotor tilted his head, searching her eyes to understand her ploy. An old mischief rose in him. “Would you mourn for me, princess?”

Yes, her heart cries.

“No,” she said shakily. 

“Then why do you appear to me now?” he demanded.

Allura licked her bottom lip before saying as if in royal decree, “It is so that you know what you do not have, for I remain the Princess of Arus, and this child of mine will be raised in Arusian ways of peace and diplomacy. He will never know that his father was a son of Zarkon, and the legacy of your bloodline will never corrupt his heart.”

As she spoke, her words growing with fervor, she enacted her plan. A key—a single key to a scout ship she’d filched from the flight deck of the Garrison—slipped down the inside band of her skirt, falling onto the floor. For his eyes alone, she darted her gaze to the stone, stepping forward to slide the key just under the bars, where no one but him would see.

In his chains in the corner of the cell, Lotor’s eyes brightened with tears. His fists clenched with anticipation. “So, you have come to deliver news of my impending death, then.”

She swallowed hard before backing away, eyes burning. “In twelve hours, your trial will begin. And I will not be there. Instead, I will sit upon the great balconies of the Garrison, dining on my favorite dishes and reveling in the peace and finery due my station—all the things you denied me while I was your captor. And I will not see your trial or your death. So this is a goodbye, once and for all, Prince Lotor of the Drule.”

Allura turned away, eyes burning in want to turn back around and wrench open the jail cell—unchain Lotor and hold him just as tightly as she held their son—

Lotor’s voice rose with a halted laugh, his chains clinking as he secretly grabbed for the key while wrapping a hand around one of the heavy cell bars. “Oh, you wicked woman!” he called to her in a ragged boom. “Whether in chains or circlets, you still order the very stars of my universe. I will die a happy man, knowing that I am reflected in our child. I will live on, through you.”

His scarred fingers tightened upon the additional key, clamping down as hard as his mind held to the additional information she had given about time and location.  

Keith gently grabbed onto Allura’s shoulders. “Come on, princess, let’s get you out of this terrible place.” He leveled a hard glare at Lotor. “And away from this trash.”

Allura managed a brief glance backward in worry as the guards guided her away, a slight hope rising in her as Lotor leaned his forehead against the bars, staring back with earnestness.

And his old, tell-tale calculation.

[potato-sauce]

Guysssss what transformers show should I watch?? (I just finished transformers prime and it was really good and i watched G1 already)

Imma put the year they release because I remember some of them were released with the same name but im not sure what ones

(These are the ones I'm torn between if you have more suggestions comment them or somethin I dunno)

[lightsaroundyourvanity]

what a satisfying freakin episode. i keep thinking about how everyone vividly discussing the potential of blake as a leader this volume was dead on like!! this is what she’s been training for her whole life romantic bookworm that she is underneath it all. she is so ready. and ruby even turns to her for advice!! im really impressed with the was blake is being approached and treated by the narrative

[slashersweethearts]

honestly gotta say one of my favorite things abt yvieliv is the way the way the insanely overt flirting/tension between the two of them (the former being like entirely yvie @ liv) goes practically entirely unnoticed by the whole rest of the group bc like. it does not register as anything noteworthy as far as yvie is concerned. like ofc she's calling liv babygirl and making other much fruitier comments. she talks to all of her friends in a way that borderline if not outright would constitute harassment 😭 so that could literally mean nothing!