#and like obviously if i traced even a single line I'd make it very clear I would absolutely not claim it as my own.

[2-kamikou-1]

hhhhh.

[skyblue-369]

When it rains, flowers bloom

A little disclaimer before starting: I know what you're thinking. I know it doesn't look so good. I'm not an artist (or a writer lmao), I just wanted to give a general idea of how I designed the character. Remember! Criticism is acceptable, just be polite.

(I'd like to put a "read more" link on the tunblr app but I can't. If anyone reading this knows how, I'll appreciate your help.)

Plus, bonus gif at the end of the post ⬇️

Word count: 1341

"Be one of you? A member of your superhero team or something?" asked the blonde girl, finally sitting on a cut tree trunk, because at the moment all of her energy had to be switched from her limbs to her thoughts. In her mindset it was already confusing that someone had broken her daily routine. Surely accidents happened before, like the time some ravens started chasing her because her hair looked like a nest, or the time she believed covering in mud was the perfect idea to become invisible at night and almost got caught. As i said, accidents happened, but never on this level.

Moreover, those six kids were offering her to change life nonchalantly, and she didn't know if she had the strenght to do it, not again. Although living for three years in a cave all by yourself can make you crave some company, Maria wasn't sure if becoming a superhero was the right path to take. It sounded weird in her head.

<p/>"I'd prefer to use the term family."

Luckily, Ben giggled at the comment and added a clarification that would make her change point of view. "Family" was the magic word because, at the end, wasn't it everything she ever wanted?

"Wait, so they are brothers? How? Oh wait, adoption...An orphan that doesn't know siblings don't always look the same. How ironic."

Just the idea of a family, of a mum, a dad, and brothers and sisters that couldn't be afraid or jealous of her was more than tempting.

She could tolerate to use her powers more often if it meant that her reward was love.

However, the sparkle in her eyes was blown away very soon. It seemed clear that the Hargreeves had different opinions on the matter.

For example Diego, who was standing far from her until now, snapped and pointed his finger so sharply against the girl that he could almost stab her. Maybe because he was literally holding a knife in said hand.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Not everybody agreed on this! We're already full of problems, don't you think? We don't need to add another weird kid to the list."

"He's saying that as if he wasn't one." Maria mumbled glancing at the only other girl in the room. She would rather speak Italian in order not to be understood, but there she believed she was in good faith because she wasn't mocking, just explaining her misunderstanding to Allison.

"Stop behaving like a jerk, Diego." Three caught the signal and replied, while getting off the table to protect the blondie, almost covering her view. Obviously One had to join the discussion. In fact, as Number Seven will explain to her the next day in the comfy living room of the mansion, Two's rage acts like a tornado. It is sudden and aggressive and destroys everything around it, especially Luther's patience. Moreover, It looked like One shared the same brain as his sister because they tend to agree on anything, but this time Luther's way of laying out words only made her facepalm.

"I don't know you, but for all of my childhood I had been wondering if other people with our kind of abilities even existed. Now that we found one, the least we can do is report her to Father."

"Are you listening to yourself, Luther? What childhood? If Father lays his hands on her, he'll make her suffer as he did with us, treating her like some sort of machine. We're doing her a favour."

The air was becoming thicker, both metaphorically and literally. The cave already had a little airflow owing to the fact that the entrance had to be hidden by two doors, which were a layer of plants and a sheet of iron.

Maria felt her breath even heavier. It was the first conversation when she wasn't just staring from afar since a long time. She wasn't used to talking, let alone arguing. She wanted to light the mood but didn't know how, and tried to find advice in Ben's eyes, still in contact with hers.

"Don't want to interrupt you guys or something, but shouldn't we be asking her? Anyway honey, how can you not get your boobs stuck into this thing? Tell me your secret!"

Who could tell that the miracle could reside in the only person who didn't speak a single syllable in the whole fight, if we count that Five was muttering to himself!

That kind soul of Klaus was laying on his stomach on the girl's floating bed, that wasn't so practical to sleep in. What would you expect from a net, "purchased" by some gentle fishermen, attached to the roof of the cave and decorated with some pillows?

In fact, the boy was having fun tracing the outline of its holes, while gazing at Maria through one of them.

The poor girl was trying to cover her almost flat chest with her arms, her blush fading into the orange light of the candles. Everybody seemed to empathize with her embarassment and fell into silence for a second.

"Not that she can really choose, Klaus. Tell me, how long did you think you could live like this?" Five was too serious to get distracted from his brother's nonsense and actually heard his only logical sentence.

"Scostumato (Rude)! You have no idea how many things I had to steal just to give some colour to this room!" finally Maria managed to talk back and wanted to approach that old-young man. On the other side, Five's eyes were moving around so fast to analyze every piece of furniture, but could never stop to look at the blondie.

That's the change of subject that the "rescue team" needed to shot the final question.

"So what do you say? Wanna come?" almost sang Ben to sound more convincing, causing Four to laugh a little.

Maria told them without any frills how amazing it would have been to join them.

"I'd like to, but I respect every opinion, even Diego's..." these were her words.

They didn't show the complete truth, she was just being polite.

"Don't listen to him, he's always so grumpy." Allison tried to calm her down, while glancing at Number Two, who was already stepping outside.

"I'm going. Reach me when you finish this puppet show." he growled, right before putting in act his dramatic exit.

He was just moving the door when his hand was caught by Maria's.

"Where do you think you're going? We're deep in the forest, you'd get lost for sure." she gave him a lovable smile, mixed of concern and satisfaction, which made Diego freeze subtly. He felt trapped by some memories.

This allowed the girl to pass him, make a little turn and march backwards to see if everything was at its place.

"You have to go to the main road, right? Let me guide you myself! And can the last one who comes out turn the candles off, please? We don't want to start a fire."

One at a time, they all passed around the little lake avoiding to step into the water.

The only exception was for Klaus, who didn't care about the waterfall when he ran to the others. Turning off the lights didn't take a lot, he was just stealing a jar full of suspicious herbs.

"So, what's the verdict, my partner in crime?" he asked, hugging Ben from behind.

"I'll take it as a yes..."

"Welcome to our dysfunctional family, honey!" he shouted, as on the other side of the line the blonde girl crawled a little on herself, putting her arms around her waist. A golden tear fell straight to the ground, giving birth to a daisy.

She was leaving that place as if she just slept there for a night. She's never had a connection with it, really. The only thing that attracted her was the beauty of nature, which could be found everywhere. And then, all the good memories she wanted to keep were already treasured in her blue t-shirt.

Preparing to get childhood traumas with the Hargreeves be like:

(Kiernan Shipka looks so cute in this I can't)

[mysticdrabbles]

I'd love to hear your mental health headcanons!! Esp about saeran and Saeyoung. I feel like most people forget about Saeyoung bc saeran is arguably worse off but that boy isnt neurotypical in the slightest

Hello I’m back and the reason I’m doing this one first is because mental health sucks am I right okay moving on

Zen:

I’ve seen a lot of people suggest NPD but I personally disagree?

I don’t think Zen actually believes a damn word he says about how great he is, on any level. 

It’s 100% fake it til you make it. 

Only he figures he’ll never make it so he guesses he’ll just fake it forever ahahaha

And Zen shows literally zero trace of some of the other NPD criteria.

So, not NPD. And while he has at least a depressive episode in his route, I don’t think he has capital D depression either.

He obviously has his own issues that he struggles with, but I don’t know if any of them are like... diagnosable?

Although I did see someone (you can read the post HERE) say he could have Body Dismorphic Disorder, and I really liked their reasoning! But I’d never heard of that before so I can’t speak much on it myself.

Yoosung:

Yoosung has been diagnosed with both depression and anxiety

The RFA all practically forced him to see someone after Rika’s death. That’s when he was diagnosed and prescribed SSRIs. The medication helped a lot, and he’s doing a lot better now that he’s on them and has a therapist. 

I also headcanon that he has Borderline Personality Disorder.

I’m not just biased I swear

At first I thought I was but I’ve seen other people say this so it’s become official Mystic Drabbles Headcanon

I also headcanon that Yoosung feels kind of guilty about that one. 

Because like… his life is fine? Especially when he looks at people like the twins, who have gone through so much worse. He wasn’t abused or neglected as a child. He feels like he doesn’t have the right to be as “messed up” as he is?

He’s wrong, of course, obviously, his feelings and problems are valid too. But he can’t help how he feels.

Jaehee:

Is stress a mental disorder because she definitely has that

But like Zen, while she does have her issues, I don’t know if I’d label any of them mental illnesses? She’d possibly be diagnosed with some kind of anxiety disorder, but I think her symptoms can be vastly improved with some encouragement and support from loved ones.

Jumin:

I headcanon him as autistic because I am a sheep

It’s clear he has issues with interacting with and understanding others, but it’s not because he’s uncaring or cruel, despite what others say about him. He’s obviously a very caring and kind person. He truly seems like he just… doesn’t understand sometimes. But he is willing to listen when people try to explain.

He’s trying, and he’s clearly learned to function despite his hardships.

My tol awkward son, I’m proud of him

Seven:

Hahahahaha nothing about this boy is neurotypical

I mentioned before that he has at the very least Borderline traits, maybe not the whole diagnosed disorder?

He definitely has PTSD. For obvious reasons.

He definitely has bipolar disorder. He goes from laughing and joking and building a thousand robots while hacking into like NASA with one hand or something for the lolz because he can’t slow down enough to focus on one thing…

To talking about how he’s useless and nobody and shouldn’t even exist, and feeling so down he can’t get a single thing done.

He’s another one who’s done fairly decently at learning to function around his issues. 

(I headcanon this is partially because he’s done a fair amount of research on them. He likes learning when he’s interested, and he understands the importance of mental health care. It’s just really hard to implement said self-care when you’re actively feeling depressed/manic.)

At the very least, he’s learned to survive through them.

I’m proud of him too.

Saeran:

Saeran is another very Not Neurotypical one.

I already discussed him having BPD.

(Edited after the Ray Route: I’m now 100% sure this is canon. There’s no way they didn’t intentionally write him with BPD at this point, right?)

And it’s obvious he has PTSD.

I forget if I mentioned anxiety? But that too.

We don’t have a lot of canon instances of Saeran interacting with anyone besides Saeyoung, but I headcanon he has social anxiety? In his case, the fear of social interaction can come off as anger/standoffishness when he’s distressed.

(I also headcanon both of the twins get panic attacks sometimes)

V:

He has many issues. Feeling responsible for everyone and everything, his low self-esteem, believing he deserves to suffer…

But while none of these are mentally healthy, I think they stem more from him being a victim of abuse than a mental illness.

He might have anxiety too (GAD, specifically)

And, of course, the PTSD that stemmed from previously mentioned abuse. 

This is the most obvious one, what with the withdrawing from his friends, being increasingly self-destructive, and his obvious constant stress.

Vanderwood:

I feel like they have OCD? Mild enough that they can usually hide it, since it’s a pretty big weakness to be advertising in their line of work, but it’s there. 

They have subtle “quirks”.

Small things that make them feel more in control.

Like… if one thing is off in a room it doesn’t just bug them, they literally have to fix it. Maybe not immediately, but they can’t just… leave it. They know that even if they leave the room it’ll literally ruin their day, if not their life.

(They may or may not have had to stop in the middle of a firefight to straighten a painting once. They did.)

It’s different if a whole room is a mess. They still want to clean it, but it’s weirdly less… urgent? They would definitely feel better if they could. They would feel even better if they could scrub down everything completely.

(You may have noticed that they wear gloves? Yeah they may or may not be somewhat of a germaphobe, too. They are. 

Funny enough though, their cleaning habits are not really related to this. They can deal with the germaphobia much better than they can deal with the messiness.)

They’re also a perfectionist, although they’ve learned that not everything can be perfect and can usually deal with that if they absolutely have to.

It’s still really hard though.

And when given the choice they would absolutely prefer absolute thoroughness in everything they do.

[ganymedesclock]

(in response to a bit in your "haggar as altean royalty" post from today) You think that the mystery galra pilot from s2e9 might have something to do with (or could even be) Lotor too? (I'd actually started thinking about the possibility of that only a couple days ago, with your mentioning of them collecting scaultrite adding to my intrigue at the idea)

This seems like a tangent at first but I promise it’ll get to your point:

So one thing that VLD does very, very well in setting design is that armor, clothing, weapons, technology, and vehicles all have very clear specific aesthetics that denote exactly what organization things are built to. This can be pretty dang nuanced: for example, while the Blade of Marmora and Zarkon’s Empire have completely different aesthetics, both of them also read very clearly as galra styles. Both have more in common with each other than they do, say, Balmeran or Olkari styles.

There are also distinctive subsets within the empire. For example we can look at Thace and Haxus and know they’re the same rank even though Thace is the only one we hear addressed as lieutenant- Haxus was a lieutenant as well. How do we know? Their armors are a complete match:

Haxus, above, and Thace, below

They have the same emblem on the chest, the same black armor with pink highlights and paler shoulder ridges. Everything down to the style of ‘cuff’ on their bracers is a perfect match. The only obvious detail of difference is Haxus’s gloves enclose the hand, which makes perfect sense because we only see Thace on ships or at galra high command, and we know that gloves on space suits are usually retractable and seal or dissolve as needed. Haxus out and about on Arus or on the unsecured castle, would leave his gloves on.

Taking this back to your point about the Weblum Galra, Keith’s enigmatic erstwhile ally:

Here is WG, above, and Lotor, below.

Viewed from the front, comparable shots of the upper body:

Again: WG above, Lotor below:

As people have pointed out, their armors are not a direct match for one another. However- they share a particular unusual color scheme that we have seen nowhere else in the empire: the primary color of the armor is black, like the lieutenant uniform, but it’s backed by slate blue, and while any glowing spots are the empire’s standard purple-pink incandescence, flashing and details alternate between vivid orange and royal blue.

The silhouette of the helmet is nearly identical between them- and radically different from the foot soldier’s helmets. We have not seen helmets for lieutenants or commanders, but the scientists working on Zarkon’s armor have similar lines, as does Zarkon’s headpiece. The scientists’, Zarkon’s, and the soldier’s headgear all make an M-shaped line on the forehead, compare the shot of WG threatening Keith above to the soldier helmet, as thoughtfully modeled by Allura.

The only similar helmet we see to the open faceplate design donned by Lotor and WG is an Altean helmet, and not the paladins’ or Coran’s, but specifically Allura’s helmet:

Much of the uniqueness that causes WG and Lotor’s suits to stand out is that they are incredibly unusual: heavily evoking the lines and shapes of both the standard empire, and Altea. The royal blue color so prominently appearing would even be easily achieved as a mix between Altea’s cyan and the violet associated with the galra. 

Ergo? This is hybrid armor, very likely evoking specifically Lotor and his divided, Galra-Altean heritage. A curious decision on the writers’ part, considering Lotor is very likely the son of Haggar and Zarkon- both people who are all too eager to wipe Altea and any trace of it from the universe. It would seem decidedly odd for their son to be poncing around in even adapted, partial Altean aesthetics.

But then again, just from the trailer and writer’s comments, Lotor is very unlike his father- but probably for his own survival, has gotten very good at packaging himself as exactly what his parents, and the empire, want and expect out of him. The Altean aesthetics blended in carefully with the empire’s not only creates a unique look for Lotor that can denote things affiliated with him, important for a major player taking the scene, but could very well be an act of Lotor sneaking in potentially “rebellious” sentiments under a veil of imperialistic zealotry. 

Comparing Lotor and WG specifically to one another:

Lotor’s armor, from what we see, has very little orange. Just on his collar and elbows. The royal blue, and its slate-blue backing, utterly dominate. In silhouette, the armor is sleek and streamlined, featuring a long cloth piece that may be a kilt, pants, or something added on to give it the silhouette of an overcoat.

Most things in imperial aesthetic tend to be spiky, warm colors and dark ones. Lotor’s use of primary cool colors is jarring in contrast, especially to his father’s primarily wine red ensemble. But Lotor, as “this little fellow” is already a pretty jarring departure from his father- and has not a trace of Haggar’s gold-and-tyrian-purple hues, either.

On WG, there is more black and neutral gray, and less blues- and a lot more orange. Like Lotor’s, it’s not very bulky, but unlike Lotor’s it features a lot of flared outward points- the pauldrons, the thigh armor. It shares many of Lotor’s peculiarities and Altean aesthetics, but there’s one major glaring detail here that Lotor probably doesn’t have, given the position of fabric on his armor:

WG features a pair of calf-mounted jet boosters. Boosters in general are rather rare from what we see- limited pretty much to the paladins and Zarkon- and Zarkon specifically is the only one whose boosters are on his legs rather than back. WG, with more warm colors, spikier armor, and that very obvious homage directly to Zarkon’s own armor, seems closer to the standard empire than Lotor.

This is emphasized by physiology- WG has larger, clawed hands, typical of a galra, while Lotor’s hands are slim and very humanlike- or, rather, very Altean.

To me, the takeaway is: Lotor and WG are very obviously, powerfully connected to one another, and WG in particular is directly connected to Zarkon. However, they’re very different people- the color and shape language used for them is very different. 

Furthermore, weapons are used a lot to tell us about character identity: the revelation of Zarkon’s status as the former Black Paladin went directly hand-in-hand with the revelation of his weapon- the black bayard. Said bayard even specifically changes its shape when it passes into Shiro’s hands.

WG wields a gun. Lotor uses a sword. Neither have any obvious ability to take the other’s form, and neither are seen carrying the other- even when having a sword would blatantly benefit WG (they would not have needed to wait for Keith and his bayard to come cut them out of the cockpit they were trapped in)

They’re different people yet two of a kind, and I doubt one is subordinate to the other- it’s ambiguous if they’re even working together at this point, considering Lotor seems canny enough that if he had a lot riding on getting scaultrite, he would not let WG go do that alone.

This is what brought me to a theory I came up with a long time ago: that Lotor and WG are siblings, and that the reason why Lotor and only Lotor was sent for is that WG at present is somehow disgraced, exiled, or even simply ignored. Considering how ambiguous it is that Zarkon would ever really even need a royal heir or want to acknowledge a successor as more than a temporary stand-in if he’s injured, he would probably never bother with two of them. If he potentially got, say, a pair of twins when he was expecting a single child, it seems likely he’d just focus on whichever one more aligned with what he wanted.

Again, in both armor and physiology, WG seems more “conventionally” galra. With the helmet off, they would likely resemble Zarkon at least a little more than Lotor does, considering Lotor looks, if anything, even more obviously Altean than his mother does. This is the main reason, combined with the out-of-the-way, dire straights they seem to have gotten themselves into utterly without backup, that WG reads as disgraced or cast out to me- not allowed to completely shed their connection to the empire and Zarkon’s insignia on their armor, but certainly not given any resources or help, or anyone watching to make sure they aren’t in danger.

Because seemingly, WG would be the favored candidate over Lotor, and yet, Lotor’s the one hailed as the prince. 

This might seem a little Zuko and Azula, here- but I’d challenge that. 

Because again: there seems to be some small act of rebellion here. Lotor isn’t just by pure happenstance taking more after his Altean lineage- when Haggar is not obviously acknowledged as Zarkon’s consort and hides most of her hair by tucking it in her robes or beneath her hood, Lotor has grown his hair out… and the first thing he shows to the empire is that hair, letting it tumble dramatically out of his helmet.

After that, seemingly, Lotor makes a habit to leave the helmet off.

Historically, Lotor has also been very interested in Allura, and very unhappy at the idea of people trying to kill Allura- which is bound to create some conflict if he retains this in VLD since Haggar is quite inclined to seeing Allura dead without damage or delay.

If Allura is tied very directly to the side of Haggar’s history she’s doing everything to ignore or destroy evidence of, she is not going to like Lotor doing anything like sniffing around Allura, or waffling on orders to kill her.

WG, for all of seeming more conventionally galra in some ways, is still wearing those Altean characteristics- the color, the shape of the cuirass- loud and proud. WG, the “more galra” of the two of them- is the one gathering scaultrite, a mineral used in Altean technology, seemingly exclusively- a mineral that, like luxite for the galra, responds only to Altean energy.

And WG being where they are suggests that they did something to make their parents very unhappy with them. Potentially, if WG isn’t just silent by psychology or birth defect, it’s very possible Zarkon or Haggar were displeased enough to silence them by force.

Like Zuko and Azula, we have a favored sibling and an outcast sibling- possibly even an outcast sibling who was scarred traumatically by their parents. But unlike Zuko and Azula- it doesn’t seem like Lotor and WG were turned against each other.

Because again- they read very much as two of a kind. While, outside of general empire aesthetic, there is almost nothing to tie the to their parents. WG has Zarkon’s booster configuration and the long ‘skirt’ on Lotor’s uniform may evoke Haggar’s robes, but neither of them wear even a scrap of either Zarkon’s wine red-on-black or Haggar’s tyrian-and-gold. The only obvious thing Lotor’s wearing from Haggar is again, his Altean white hair, which sounds to me like a bit more of a subtle “screw you, mom” than anything admiring, considering Haggar doesn’t like having her hood off and letting people see any more of her hair than just the bits framing her face.

Another twist to the “Zuko and Azula” implications- it seems like WG, the ostensible Zuko, would be the one in the position to be Azula instead- the favored child who’s more conventionally galra, who seems to lean more towards Zarkon, who’s athletic and fighty and a hell of a good shot.

Lotor, conversely, is Altean, and historically, Zarkon hates him and derides him, calling him a failure or accusing him of “whining”. Historically Lotor has been a very sentimental person, exactly a quality Zarkon blasts as weakness.

But wait a minute here.

So we have a highly talented, stoic hotshot who’s somewhat aggressively self-sufficient, more warm-toned, but who despite promise, was kicked out of the organization they represent, quite possibly after getting into a big nasty argument with an authority figure. We first find them in the middle of nowhere.

And the less-favored candidate who is a hard worker and still good, but not as good, but picked up to fill the space- coincidentally a kind of sensitive person who’s very interpersonally aware and inclined to picking up new allies from people around them. Who stays behind, but is probably not doing so good, still sort of living in the shadow of their predecessor. They are also blue-toned to their counterpart’s warmer tones.

They’re probably going to end up bickering a little and also working together, and in a place to move into a position of power given the sudden absence of the black-themed leader figure of their group. One of them uses a sword and one of them uses a gun.

Sound familiar...?