#and he ultimately ghosted her leaving her with her ruined reputation from his own actions
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people interpreting the "1950s shit" as "taylor doesn't want marriage and kids" instead of "taylor doesn't want to be a housewife and stay at home mother dependent on her husband" drives me insane. taylor has always been super vocal about wanting the former, she just doesn't want to have to stop being her own person with a career and dreams and talents! this is so basic and yet 80% of this fanbase can't understand it. (probably because they DO think getting married and having kids means a woman ought to stay home and behave herself and be a domestic servant 24/7. i can already see the concern trolling thinkpieces from "fans" when she goes on tour after having kids)
i will say there WAS a level of sexism in assuming every guy taylor dates is who she is going to marry and have kids with. not every person you date is going to be the "marry and have kids" with kind of person. even if you DO want marriage and kids, it is normal to date around and find the partner that you will connect with and trust enough to marry and have what is effectively a lifelong commitment with. like i see a lot of people scoffing that it would be sexist to remark on her dating life as if she's going to marry and have kids with every guy she meets just because she WANTS that, guys, so it's okay! no. it's fucking not. it WAS a weird "1950s shit" moment in itself.
ultimately, the "no deal, that 1950s shit they want from me" can mean a lot of things. i think the line is signaling taylor is done with input on her love life from strangers, no matter how well-meaning. i think "but daddy i love him" further shuts this down: she wants to explore connections with boyfriends who could become potential husbands without everyone screaming at him to marry her. because uh. that's really fucking weird! it's really abnormal! wanting to marry and have kids is one thing, having the entire world butt in and potentially ruin something because they're pressuring him to marry her asap is another.
there's definitely a weird vibe all around, and it sucks that taylor is put in this weird position where she wants marriage and kids, but every relationship has that pressure put on it right away. she doesn't get the chance to play it cool early in the relationship and feel out the vibe of it. & having every guy you date know tat you want marriage and kids before you can tell him yourself HAS to feel weird and invasive.
there's sooo much nuance in this that i kinda wish people would understand that a normal girl who wants marriage and kids doesn't have it blasted to the entire world, giving her freedom to explore each relationship on its own terms.
#like it keeps ringing in my head that matty took advantage of something pretty much EVERYONE knows about taylor#that she's wanted marriage and kids#he told her he'd give her that#and so she willingly left joe to explore that with matty#and he ultimately ghosted her leaving her with her ruined reputation from his own actions#idk! the fact it came up when she was twenty fuckin three that she one day wants to marry and have kids#was also very weird#we don't know her timetable on this#we don't know what she wants with travis#we don't know travis's own wants#let them explore it on their own#finding it cute is one thing#getting involved with their timetable for marriage and kids is another
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Xian Characters, Features, and Landmarks (Pt. 1)
Roodaka- Roodaka is the ruthless CEO of Vortixx Industries, having secured a practically permanent position there from a young age after she scaled The Mountain. A cutthroat business-dealer, she helps direct the company’s actions, oversees stocks, and surveys the occasional experiment or investment, providing a personal hand of involvement every now and then. She has done business with just about every major power in all of Xia, and is among the Powers That Be. With an eye for potential, she has led Vortixx Industries to the top of Xia’s arms-manufacturers, and is not just content with her current success either. Roodaka is an opportunist, and will and has back-stabbed others and crushed enemies for the total domination of Vortixx Industries.
She is cold-hearted and ruthless, and believes whole-heartedly in the idea that might makes right. Roodaka has been conditioned both by experience and by others that only the most powerful have the authority to lead; If one cannot prove their merit and mettle, then they are a liability and must be cast out, not to be trusted by neither peers or even themselves. Regularly Roodaka does puzzles and tests her intelligence, reflecting on and questioning her own progress. And despite being a noble, Roodaka despises most other aristocrats like herself, seeing them as pompous, lazy fools who have become atrophied from resting on their laurels. A sharpened wit is the key to victory for Roodaka, and she sees challenges as the ideal whetstone for her mind.
She has no intent of letting herself become weak and arrogant, and seeks to do more with her life and purpose than just a live a pointless, meaningless life of hedonism. For Roodaka, she wants something more; More than what the other rich fools on Xia typically have to offer. She has no intention of living and dying like any other fool, and for that she sees little difference between most of Xia’s upper-crust and its lower-class. Control is all Roodaka cares about, and she prizes the ability to strike fear in one’s minions in order to keep them in line.
Roodaka herself is not necessarily a fighter, and is thus often flanked by a trio of Exo-Toa Lerahk, machines she helped oversee the design and construction of. But even without her bodyguards, Roodaka is not entirely defenseless- She has access to a Rhotuka Gauntlet that allows her to spawn a wheel of energy, one that drastically mutates whatever target it comes into contact with. Roodaka possesses a cruel sense of humor, and has used her Mutation Rhotuka to dispatch enemies of hers, often leaving them to suffer their cursed forms as ruined outcasts of society. Roodaka herself is highly intelligent, able to read and understand others well, and is a master-manipulator and complex schemer.
Sidorak- Known as the ‘Visorak King’ in some sectors of Nynrah, Sidorak was once an esteemed, celebrated war general with a wide collection of medals on his chest to honor him. However, his boldness eventually got him in trouble with one of the Powers That Be; And incensed, the powerful individual had Sidorak exiled to Nynrah as a death-sentence. Stripped of his title, rank, and badges, most would have despaired and left themselves to die in Sidorak’s place- But Sidorak himself continued forging on, making a new path for himself in Nynrah.
He eventually came into contact with a pack of Visorak Spiders, and recognizing that the creatures wanted to be free from their Nynrah Ghost masters to hunt as they pleased, Sidorak offered them freedom. He defeated the Visorak Spiders before letting them know that underneath his command, they could have total freedom and impunity to hunt and kill as they pleased; And having been won over by his strength, the spiders obliged to Sidorak’s offer. Ever since, Sidorak has slowly begun to amass a Visorak Horde of spiders under his command, and has become an enemy of the Nynrah Ghosts for providing their creations an outlet with which to go rogue.
Now, Sidorak frequently roams Nynrah with his packs of Visorak spiders, leading them on hunts for prey. A bold, charismatic commander, he has won the loyalty and respect of his soldiers, and is now adorned with a ‘medal’ made up of webs, gunk, and other unsavory materials that he treasures as a personal token of comradery. Sidorak is a true commander, personally leading his armies into battle and fighting alongside them. He desires to help his Visorak spread and hunt as they please, and this has put him at odds with multiple Vorox Clans.
Sidorak is a skilled combatant and a brilliant strategist. He wears a breathing apparatus over his lower-face, covering his nose and mouth in order to protect himself from airborne pathogens and other contaminants. On his left arm, he wields the Herding Blade; A powerful artifact that can cast a brilliant crimson light that will summon and herald Sidorak’s armies to himself. As for Sidorak’s right arm, it is cut off at the elbow; Instead, it has a mechanical implant. Hovering slightly beyond this implant is a mechanical tri-claw that can shoot energy-beams from its palm, or Rhotuka that instill loyalty and obedience within targets. Sidorak can launch this cybernetic arm of his forward, latching it onto surfaces before using it as a grapple to pull himself forward with the electro-magnetic connection it has with his implant.
Turaga Dume- Once a lowly errand-boy in the Artidax District, he has since risen to power as a totalitarian dictator controlling most of the region. Dume is strict and harsh, believing in the evils of free will, and desires total control as a means of peace; He has command over the Vahki to enforce his will and the laws that he passes. Local powers frequently ally with Dume, letting him use his Vahki as a replacement for traditional law enforcement, allowing Dume a wide reach over Xia. He is the island’s head of security, and is responsible for cracking down on dissidents and punishing them, as well as brainwashing and encouraging the Xian population to become mindless, obedient workers for all of eternity.
Dume has a stern, tall face, and angular shoulders, constantly walking with his back hunched forward and his arms folded behind him. He wears a clean, dark-red uniform, with a coat, hat, and black boots to match. Dume believes in total discipline over himself, and can be found frequently strutting the halls of a Vahki Hive, allowing zero reprieve in the face of his duties. He oversees all actions and data from his Vahki and frequently collaborates with Xian powers on suppressing riots, unions, and other forms of rebellion.
The Shadowed One- An ancient warlord and the leader/co-founder of the Dark Hunters. The Shadowed One has no known origin nor name; His earliest appearances were as far back as the War of Six Kingdoms, at least. Back then, he led a cruel mercenary organization known as the Dark Hunters alongside his lieutenant and co-founder Ancient. Centuries of success on various missions and assassinations have earned him Xia’s most powerful crime organization. The Shadowed One operates from within the Odina Fortress, having a hand in brutal murders, thefts, and other various crimes as he seeks to consolidate power for himself.
Prideful to a fault, he is a twisted and charismatic individual with a cruel sense of humor. In his quest for power, The Shadowed One has employed researchers and invested others in the creation of unique and dangerous assets for his Dark Hunters. Recently, he has attempted to gather the six fragments of Makuta’s Mask of Life, all of which are inexplicably on Xia, hoping to recreate the world-ending artifact. What exactly he has planned for it is unknown, but knowing him, it certainly can’t be any good.
The Shadowed One can conjure powerful eye-beams that disintegrate and deconstruct anything they touch on the molecular, even atomic, level, granting the warlord the ultimate offense. He wields a staff capable of summoning and creating crystalline formations that he can control and carry through the air as if by telekinesis, and The Shadowed One has used many gems to slaughter enemies or subdue them. In addition to this, he can conjure a Rhotuka; One that temporarily inflicts devastating madness of any sort onto victims. The Shadowed One is a skilled, experienced combatant, and with his skills combined with his powerful abilities, he is an unstoppable opponent.
He possesses one additional, terrifying ability as well; Those foolish enough to challenge The Shadowed One in his own throne room will sometimes find themselves unable to move from their positions upon confronting him, as if their own feet were attached to the floor. By the time his rebels realize this, it is too late- The Shadowed One will unleash his eye-beams, vaporizing them all as they cannot move out of the way. Whatever the nature of this invincible ability, it is the final seal on the apparent unstoppable power of the mercenary-king.
Spiriah- A brilliant and disgracted scientist, Spiriah was once a member of the Nynrah Ghosts. However, his own incompetence and poor handling of the Nynrah Incident, in addition to being somewhat negligent in containing the leak of VISORAK, led to his reputation being tarnished. Even so, he retained membership amongst the Nynrah Ghosts, until a botched experiment involving the Skakdi Clan of Zakaz resulted in them becoming far more dangerous, temperamental, and difficult to control than intended.
With the Skakdi incident as the final straw, Spiriah was exiled and disgraced from the Nynrah Ghosts. Cast out and bitter, Spiriah quickly found work from The Shadowed One, who was eager to employ his skills. Spiriah happily performed experiments with the intent of furthering the Dark Hunters’ power, proving his intelligence and hidden potential. With Spiriah clearly a viable researcher, The Shadowed One eventually entrusted him with Makuta’s notes, gathered from the Mask Hoarder’s abanoned lab by Dweller. With additional resources straight from Okoto, Spiriah set to work dissecting and discerning the very nature of Life energy itself, eventually implementing his findings into various experiments, many of which became Dark Hunters themselves.
Having turned his life around after his past failures, Spiriah went on to help lead experiments on the Kanohi Dragon alongside Vortixx Industries. However, he disappeared after going on an expedition to Nynrah, hoping to gather resources and intel; Attempts to locate him (or his body) have failed, and the Dark Hunter Tracker has been unable to find anything sufficient enough with which to track down Spiriah. Presumably, he has been killed by the Vorox- Or perhaps by the Nynrah Ghosts, who did not want their academic knowledge to be shared amongst the Dark Hunters, regretting their exile of Spiriah?
The Shadowed One himself in unsure… Regardless, Spiriah was an innovative individual who could’ve unlocked many more forbidden secrets of Life had he not disappeared- Perhaps, with the proper resources, he could’ve even gone on to rival Makuta himself! Not that it mattered, because Makuta, too, has perished…
Trydahk- The leader of the Nynrah Ghosts and its ‘high priest’, Trydahk is considered the most brilliant and esteemed member of the group. His intelligence and work has helped spawn and pioneer multiple Xian inventions, including the lethal VISORAK, or the Zamor Launcher. The space-warping Trydahk Pods are named after the Nynrah Ghost himself, and he desires to unlock the secrets of reality at any cost; No matter how many innocent lives must be sacrificed, or how much destruction he must cause. To him, understanding everything is the only thing that matters, and Knowledge is his peace of mind.
Intriguingly, Trydahk has been around since the very inception of the Nynrah Ghosts, several decades ago. And yet, he does not seem to be any older than he currently is, despite his age back then meaning he should be dead by now. Who knows what experiments he performed on himself to allow this?
Nektann- A brutal Skakdi warlord, Nektann was named after the powerful Xian war-machines that plagued Zakaz alongside other machinations of destruction. An unstoppable brute, Nektann quickly rose to power amongst the Skakdi, challenging other warlords and defeating them in combat. Now, he has practically reunited the Skakdi clans back into one, promising his brethren glory and conquest upon the rest of Zakaz.
Tall and thuggish, Nektann is nevertheless cunning enough to have earned control over the Skakdi. He wields an ornate Crescent Scythe in combat, and is a loud and boisterous individual who will happily partake in carnage. Unsurprisingly, Nektann is seen as ‘undignified’ by other Xians, but he doesn’t let this get to him. He knows the Skakdi are looked down upon as modified ‘freaks’, but he figures that will change when he marches upon Zakaz and becomes one of the Powers That Be.
Nektann frequently rides to combat, leading his armies on mobile war-machines and vehicles. He himself rides a large one equipped with a massive grinder-wheel on the front. Additionally, he has a pet Muaka adorned in spiked armor. He got the beast after buying it off of the Dark Hunters, who themselves got it from Umarak on a whim. Nektann is proud of his exotic pet and likes to boast of its foreign, mysterious origins, but some Xians doubt the validity of his claims- They believe the Muaka is just another manufactured bioweapon, an assertion that greatly angers him.
#bionicle#bionicle rae#xia#roodaka#sidorak#dume#the shadowed one#spiriah#tridax#nektann#trydahk#nynrah ghosts#vortixx#visorak#skakdi
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MMO AU Concept/Recap: Lauriam and Brain
Given the fact that Brain and Lauriam are both pretty important characters in the MMO AU, and how watching the recap kinda reminded me of why I characterize them the way that I do, I figured I may as well compile a quick recap with new information sprinkled in here and there about how both of them act.
Lauriam is introduced very early on, before Ephemer even, as the first named Keykid we interact with. When we first meet him, he’s a pretty self-important jerk. After being assigned a difficult task by his Union’s Foreteller (Take out the new Raid Boss Subspecies that are popping up around the worlds), he tries to have the Player do the bulk of the work so he can come in and finish them off once they’re weakened. Ultimately though, the Player defeats one of each and every Raid Boss Subspecies before Lauriam can finish them off. This earns the Player Lauriam’s ire as he’s then assigned more menial and strenuous (yet less important) tasks as penalty for trying to slack off, while the Player is rewarded for completing a mission that could’ve very easily been above their skill level. He and the Player then have a somewhat petty rivalry from that point on, though the Player and Chirithy seem to be more exasperated by Lauriam than anything.
The both of them get involved in the Gummi Block clean-up, though with the Player getting involved voluntarily to help out Donald and Goofy while Lauriam (due to skipping out on the Raid Boss Subspecies), is sent to deal with massive swarms of Gummi Copters, under strict supervision, in order to clean up all the Gummi Blocks that are fusing with Heartless. Though he still gets upstaged when the Player defeats a Purple Gummi Hound. This time he isn’t punished (since the Foretellers weren’t aware of the Gummi Hound’s existence and so didn’t assign him to take it out), but seeing the Player rewarded irks him.
That’s it for interactions between them until a couple updates after Ephemer and Strelitzia are introduced, when Strelitzia saves him from a Morning Star and the two quickly become friends as a result. The fact that his new friend has a crush on the Player exasperates him to no end, but he tolerates it because Strelitzia is his friend. The two of them wind up going on a ton of comedic misadventures together. Until one night, Strelitzia saw fit to warn him about the Keyblade War, the end of the world, and explained how she knew of it as a Dandelion. Lauriam, while enraged that his friend had kept this from him for over a year, was more disturbed by the fact that he’d be stripped of his memories and placed in a dream. So, he plotted to kill another one of the Union Leaders and steal their Book of Laws. There was one issue though, Strelitzia knew that Ava hadn’t chosen him. So, even though he’d rather not, Lauriam ultimately took Strelitzia’s life and her book of laws, leaving his friend to bleed out in a dark warehouse.
He regretted his choice, unable to sleep that night and plagued with nightmares until the eve of the Keyblade War, where he ascended to the Unchained State. There, he encountered Strelitzia’s heart, wandering the Unchained State as a ghost, a mere remnant of her former self, thanks to her Chirithy unchaining her before she could fade completely. However, what little was left of her was gradually slipping away. Partially to atone for what he had done to her, but mostly to keep her from alerting the other Union Leaders to the existence of a traitor, Lauriam welcomed Strelitzia into his own heart, where she fell dormant, obtaining the power to wield a second Keyblade, Strelitzia’s Keyblade. And so, he set off to meet with the other Union Leaders.
When Ven wonders why Strelitzia isn’t in the Unchained State some time later, Lauriam claims that she was struck down by Aced, whom, of all the Foretellers, had garnered a Reputation of killing powerful wielders from other Unions and weak wielders from his own in his endless pursuit for power. Had the Player not witnessed Strelitzia’s demise and known that Aced was not in the area, he would’ve gotten away with Strelitzia’s murder.
Brain had been a Wielder for four years by the time he entered the Unchained State. He once had a friend from each Union, and ran experiments with them to try and master alchemy, or to invent new potions and elixirs. Also, “Brain” is just a nickname, his real name is Minerva. Unfortunately, one of them was ultimately cowed into sabotaging an experiment to try and kill the others to prove his own loyalty to his own Union following Aced and Invi’s clash. Brain ultimately survived, but his eyes were permanently damaged in the incident. By consuming Panacea’s, he can get his vision back for an hour at a time. One day, he encountered said backstabber, defeated him in battle, and let him live, deciding that being forced to live with the embarrassment of failing to kill a blind kid would be a far more appropriate punishment than death.
He immensely dislikes the Foretellers, since their petty squabbling got his friends killed, and was more concerned with avenging his friends than staying alive. Ava had to get on her knees and beg Brain to take on the book of laws and become a Union Leader.
Despite this, he does wind up becoming a close friend of Lauriam’s in the Unchained State, though that’s mostly because he manages to antagonize the others due to just how abrasive and confrontational he can be. Though he doesn’t go to the extant of starting fights, he is usually the one to object when the others are doing something shady.
This winds up backfiring when one of the Nightmares Lauriam made for his army winds up getting spotted by Ephemer, and everyone instantly assumes it was him. When he asks Lauriam to vouch for him, Lauriam instead throws him under the bus, and he’s forced into hiding due to avoid getting killed.
Having been betrayed a second time, he hides out in the ruins of his old alchemy lab, too dangerous for any Wielder to pursue him to but safe enough for him to survive there. Eventually, however, he runs out of Panaceas and decides to just waste away and wait for the end. This is when the Player stumbles upon him, and gives him some much needed and much appreciated help. The two decide to confront the Union Leaders (and Lauriam) together.
Brain stays up at night following Lauriam’s and Ven’s banishment, feeling like he should’ve done something to save Ven. He stops objecting to Ephemer’s more shady courses of action following said banishment out of fear.
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