#i have so many hills ill die on and ill defend them alright

[autisticlancemcclain]

What are your thoughts on autistic Lance and adhd Keith? I’m neurotypical so I don’t have a lot of knowledge on these things, but I think I understand some reasons why u have those headcanons. I’d love to hear a more in depth explanation though!

Alrighty, so disclaimer: I am an English major. Not a doctor. I’m not diagnosing anybody, and I'm basing my thoughts on my own experiences, opinions, and this one dope venn diagram I found from a bio-psychology student (@tfw-adhd ). So take that as you will.

When you think of ADHD, most people think of two traits: impulsivity and hyperactivity. That’s of course not all there is to ADHD, but they’re pretty major parts! And most people in the fandom consider Lance to be the poster boy of ADHD. But when I asked you guys who the most impulsive character of VLD was, only one person said Lance. Every other person said Pidge or Keith.

And I have to agree.

In a lot of our fics, we associate the ‘fiery red paladin’ with Keith, in his split-second decisions and crazy things he pulls off mid-battle that always work out for him and terrify everyone else. When I asked you guys for your input, many of you said that while Keith and Lance are both impulsive, Lance is only really impulsive when he’s competing, or trying to prove a point — like when he and Keith drove their lions into the ground trying to race blindfolded. Keith, though, is impulsive a lot, and either doesn’t assess the risks when making a decision or has a tendency to take very big risks without question (like Naxzela, or when he left the team to chase after Lotor).

As for hyperactivity, each an every single one of you told me the same thing: Keith has allotted a certain amount of activity for himself for stress release, and if he fails to meet this quota he struggles to regulate his emotions. He trains regularly because he needs it to feel healthy and happy. Lance, on the other hand, is prone to more stim-like activity (like the GIF that goes around every couple of months where he’s lying on the ground and doing that bicycle thing with his legs).

So impulse and hyperactivity, the most well-known pillars of ADHD — so far we have Keith as the poster boy for both, and Lance for one.

The other most popular sign of ADHD, I would say, is disorganization. That’s definitely a mixed bag — organization is really subjective. But when I asked you guys which of the two had the most disorganised fighting style — something you do with very little preparation, when you have to make split-second decisions with the information that you have and the habits you’ve already formed — most of you said Keith. A fair argument was that Keith has such a disorganized or chaotic fighting style because he has a sword, and that’s inherently kind of messy, whereas Lance’s sniping/shooting requires a specific sort of particularity that requires him to be organized and steady.

I would like to argue that that’s the whole point. The bayards are a reflection of the paladins. They summoned these weapons because that is what they use best, that is what suits their fighting style best. Keith gets the sword because although he has some training, his thoughts are all over the place — he’s picking up on a hundred little details at once, thinking not only about the fight he’s currently having but about the fight that’s going to be next. The sword suits him best because it allowed for his natural disorder to be a huge advantage, rather than a hindrance. Whereas Lance consistently summons a long-distance weapon, and even a sniper rifle — a weapon that requires you to focus on one thing at a time, intensely, until the threat is eliminated and you can move on to the next thing. I have no doubts that Lance is constantly hitting targets and noticing new ones as fast as he can, but the whole point of a sniper is that you are lying in wait and hidden because you’re so focused on your one target that you can’t be in the open because you can’t defend yourself.

This level to detail translates outside of battle as well, for both of them. When I asked you guys who was more analytical, 33% (ish) more people said Lance than Keith. The general consensus was that they both have analytical skills, but Lance is better with small and fleeting details (especially when looking at common behaviour — think of the Rover incident, where he was the only one to recognise the dupe for what it was, or even how he was the first to see that Shiro wasn’t quite right). Keith is better at choosing certain goals and trying everything he can to get those goals — like with his quest to find out about his past; he had several different plans that lead to different outcomes (finding the energy in the desert to matching the symbols on his knife to pushing the Blades for answers), and used the information he got to think and overthink about what he was going to do next. While Lance tends to wait for as long as possible with his information until he can come up with the best possible solution (hence why he didn’t act immediately on his suspicions for Shiro and instead made separate note of all the different oddities), Keith tends to use his information immediately and then use the reactions he gets to piece together more answers (the knife incident at the space mall is a pretty good indicator of this specific process).

Okay. So far we’ve outlined a few specific behaviours for the paladins: Keith tends to be really impulsive, with chaotic decision-making skills and an ability to read the room very quickly and notice small, fleeting details. This is reflected in his bayard choice and the way he seeks out and analyses information. He doesn’t plan things out for the long term, and instead acts immediately on the information he has and forms conclusions that way. He has difficult assessing risk (or doesn’t take risk very seriously), is very focused on things he cares about, and when he’s understimulated or doesn’t make time for vigorous physical activity he becomes unregulated and emotional.

I would call that pretty textbook ADHD, although he certainly also has traits for ASD, and I wouldn’t write that off. But when I think of the more autistic of the two of them, I think of Lance, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.

Like ADHD, autism has some traits that are common in reputation: logic and routine. I went over analysis already with you guys, with the conclusion that Lance is better with small details. Not only is that a common finding among people with ASD, but I also think that Lance’s ability to read people and identify when their behaviour is off is a very autistic thing to do. I know that people think that people with ASD can’t read social cues or human behaviour, and in my experience, I find that it just doesn’t come naturally. I do often miss social cues that some people find inherent — like knowing when someone is bored/annoyed with me and when to stop talking — that lead to ostracization (something Lance also faces frequently and has anxiety about, as I’m sure you’re all familiar with in regards to the ‘7th wheel’ debacle). But it was because of this frequent problem that I learnt to categorize micro-expressions and really small changes in behaviour. I had to learn them, because I didn’t recognise them intrinsically. Like you guys pointed out, and like canon has made clear, Lance is very good at identifying these behaviours. He knows when people are acting differently, based on details that may be unnoticed to someone who doesn’t struggle to read social cues and as such doesn’t frequently analyse behaviour. Also, I think Lance may also use obnoxiousness as a defense mechanism — unlike Keith, who gets defensive about his struggles to appear ‘normal’, Lance tends to butt in and annoy people on purpose (like when he interrupted Allura when she was about to list the common traits of a blue paladin) so that he has more control of people’s perception of him. If he grew up struggling to understand why people found him weird or annoying, it would make sense that he would be annoying on purpose so at least he understands why people think of him the way they do.

Going off that — Lance frequently needs justification for things. He needs there to be a reason, he needs to explain things that may not be explainable. I didn’t pose this question to you guys, because I forgot, but I think Keith is more emotional and Lance is more logical, in only that Keith seems to allow himself to feel his emotions (he is the one to tell the other paladins that he is honoured to have served with them, he is the one to frequently and plainly express his anger or frustration, he is the one to outline to Shiro in no uncertain terms that he does not want to be leader because he doesn’t feel ready, etc. Keith is very in tune with his emotions and feelings, he just is also very uncomfortable with people and isn’t sure if he can trust them enough to express himself). Lance, on the other hand, frequently has to explain away his emotions. He feels strongly towards Keith and has a common urge to be near him or talking to him? It must be a rivalry, and he must do everything he can to keep this rivalry going so he can continue to justify his desires. He feels left out and abandoned? He must count himself as a seventh wheel and assign each paladin to a lion and a value in Voltron so that he has a reason to feel left out. He’s jealous of Lotor? He has to convince himself that Lotor is all, 100% evil, so that jealousy doesn’t come from nowhere. Lance does not allow himself to do anything without explanation. He has to have a reason for everything. Everything has to make sense. Everything has to be logical.

His struggle with his own emotional response to things mixed with his intense need to be loved and be social also leads to a lot of misunderstanding and mistakes within his relationships. When I asked you guys whether Keith or Lance is more likely to make a social blunder, most of you said that both of them are socially awkward but Lance puts himself in more social situations and so he makes more mistakes by volume. I’m of the same opinion. Lance wants to be social and understand people and fit in with people, he’s just not very…good at it.

One thing Lance is good at, though, is routine, and about half of you agreed with me on that. Both Keith and Lance have several rituals/routines that are important to them (as previously mentioned, Keith’s training schedule is important for him to help regulate his emotions and keep himself stimulated), but Lance has more routines, and seems more particular about them. The best example would be his skincare routine, which he mentions more than once and expressed agitation when the routine was disrupted. Also, in the few canon shots we have of him sleeping, he has a very specific set of mannerisms (music, eye mask, sleep mask, pajamas, slippers, robe, must sleep for a certain amount of time for said 'beauty sleep') and complains both in the show and in other canon materials (like the Voltron handbook or the comics) when this doesn’t go as planned. Whereas Keith literally sleeps in his boots and seems to be fine dropping wherever.

ASD and ADHD are very similar. They share more symptoms/behaviours than they oppose, so you can certainly choose whatever feels right for you. But I do find it strange that Lance is almost always the one with ADHD and Keith is almost always the one with ASD, when in both fanon and canon (Keith is the impulsive one with poor planning skills, reliant on physical activity for regulation, low sense of danger and high tendency towards risk, low motivation for tasks he doesn’t care about; Lance is the one with all the wacky plans, who reads behaviour exceptionally well but makes frequent social blunders, specific about several rituals and routines, takes people at their word), their characters show the exact opposite. I just think that somehow in the start of the fandom, we switched them around and just rolled with it. But I love subverting fanon expectations, and I am happy to die on the ASD Lance and ADHD Keith hill!

[greatshell-rider]

SKELETAL ESCAPADES: CHAPTER EIGHT

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“Are you done yet?” BS1 (Banescale One) said, not for the first time.

“No,” BS3 (Banescale Three), the mage, answered shortly. “I could swear it’s around here somewhere. I sensed something.”

CS2 had its necro-animation puppet—the gecko—crouch lower behind the snow drift it had ordered it to go to. The skeleton’s pale bones were nearly imperceivable against the snow, but its purple aura of magic could still give it away. Especially with the banescale mage sniffing around for it.

“Still seems deserted to me,” BS1 said doubtfully, looking around him at the barren white field. “You’re sure the scout said their den is here.”

“Yes, and the magic I detected confirms it. If you would just give me the space to think—”

“Enough of this,” BS2 (Banescale Two) snapped, with a lash of her tail. “Snow must be confusing your senses, mage. And it’s freezing my scales. Deserted or not, we’re going in.”

“I’m not ready—” BS3 began to say.

“Then stay out here,” BS2 said harshly. “Do your silly little tests that please you so much. Danyr and I will take care of this.” The mage opened their mouth again, and BS2 sneered, “We’ll call you if we need back-up, alright?”

BS1 laughed, and BS3 snapped their jaws shut. They looked nervous and upset, but didn’t object as their clanmates turned towards the hill. Realizing their next move was imminent, CS2 called its sentinel back, the gecko scuttling lightly atop the snow the two banescale warriors had to slog through towards the lair. Once reunited with its fellow, CS2 had both necro-animations burrow back into the snow to avoid being seen, and pulled its awareness back to its own bones, to think.

But it didn’t have much time to do so. Before long, its outside sentinels sent another mental signal, and CS2 itself heard the sound of the two warriors blasting fire and using claws and wings to excavate the snow from the lair entrance.

It had hoped the dragons would keep flying past.

It had hoped they would fall to arguing and fail to finish their task.

It had hoped, even, that the conversation it had overheard would tell it that they were friendly dragons, that somehow news of Atomic confronting the clan chieftain-heir had reached the banescales already and they no longer had reason to attack. Though maybe such news had come, along with an order: make sure Atomic and Tibia had no home to return to.

But its hope had failed. Desperate wishes of the what-ifs and the could’ve-beens—CS2 was done with those. No more. No more of sitting around in its broken bones waiting for others, for dragons, to tell it what to do, how to react, when to hide under the shadows. The commands Tibia had left CS2 with screamed at its bones, a constant pressure on its mind that only grew to the point of pain. Obey, now.

Oh, CS2 would obey.

First situational command: Upon a creature of ill intent crossing the proximity ward and finding the lair, signal your master.

CS2 obeyed, shooting the message down its link to Tibia with all the force and urgency it could muster. The fae was almost a halfmoon away, still in the Ashfall Wastes, but by stretching its awareness far, far, it felt the alert arrive, felt Tibia’s shock and alarm at the signal.

It heard its creator say, “CS2? Tell me what’s—” But before she could finish the order, CS2, using the same stretchy nature of its tattered, magic-saturated, almost-independent soul, did something it had never been able to do before.

It closed off their mental communication, and for the first time in many days, its awareness was centered solely in its own mind and bones. The link to Tibia was still there, the magic that kept CS2 animated still leaking quietly to it, but for all intents and purposes, it was alone now. Just it, its servants, and the invaders.

CS2 received a signal from its lair sentinels the same moment it heard the exclaims of success as the banescales broke through the last of the hard-packed snow covering the lair entrance, and stepped into the tunnel.

“Hello?” BS2 called, a growl edging the greeting. “Anyone home?”

BS1 laughed. “I don’t care what Biaw sensed, let’s find it!”

“Let’s find you,” BS2 snarled, and by the weak moonlight streaming in through the open entrance, CS2 caught its first sight of her with its own skull as the banescale entered the den, wings raised, fangs bared, talons flexed. BS1 kept his back to hers, facing into the cave that now served as the hoard.

Second situational command: Should the creatures breach the lair, do all in your power to defend.

From the shadowy corners of the two dens, CS2 called its sentinels. The squirrel skeleton in the hoard darted down the tunnel into the nesting den, causing BS1 to startle and jump back, almost falling on BS2. The latter snarled and shoved BS1 off, yelling, “Watch it!”

As her shove sent BS1 stumbling, CS2 detached the bird skeleton from the tunnel ceiling and sent it in a dive at BS2’s head. The banescale’s figure blurred, then CS2 heard and felt a sickening SNAP and realized the warrior had smashed her tail into the necro-animation, grinding it into dust against the floor. Shock jolted through CS2—one sentinel down already?

But at the same time, BS1 staggered into the tunnel wall—activating the first of Tibia’s traps.

The dragon cried out as long ribs of elk and moose sprang out of the wall, lengthening and curling inward as more bone buried in wells into the dirt walls funneled into the ribs until they grew into a cage around the warrior, pinning him to the wall. BS1 gasped and yelled, beating his wings and tail in a panic, his legs kicking futilely as the bone cage had lifted him off of the ground. “Keud!” he called. “Help!”

“Shades,” BS2 swore, backing away from the trap and into the den, then jumped around, hissing, eyes sweeping the dark cave. “Someone is in here,” she growled, whether to her clanmate or to herself CS2 didn’t know. “Come out, trickster, if you want to play so badly.” She moved in deeper, but stayed away from the walls. “Show yourself!” She stepped into the center of the den.

Another bone trap activated, snapping upward from the floor like jaws, but again BS2 moved faster almost than CS2 could see, jumping up in a spin and lashing out with her tail, slamming through each protruding rib and snapping them like pine needles.

“Too slow,” BS2 sneered, turning another wary circle. “You’re going to have to try—”

Calling the two from outside, CS2 sent its three available sentinels—the last two still trapped inside the hibernal den, out of reach—darting at the banescale from different directions. One scampering around her feet, to distract her. One falling onto her face and scratching at her eyes, to confuse her. And the third leaping onto her sweeping tail to climb up and look for a loose scale, a patch of bare skin, any flaw in the armor CS2 could dig claws into and at least try to make the dragon bleed a little before she killed it.

The banescale flinched and roared at the skeletons’ attack, but recovered quicker, and CS2 felt the pain of yet more bones breaking and crunching into splinters as she stomped her clawed foot at the bird skeleton, bit down and flung away the gecko skeleton with her jaws, and slapped a wing at the squirrel skeleton on her shoulder, stepping back to let it fall to the ground.

No, CS2 thought, reaching out more of its magic to the skeletons. The bones quivered, but the pain it felt through them was starting to fade as the connections began to die.

“You done yet?” BS2 roared, jerking her head at BS1 still caged to the wall. “We’re dealing with a necromancer here!”

“I’m trying, I’m trying!” he said around a mouthful of rib. “Their Highness didn’t say anything about one of those!”

With no further attacks coming, BS2 stomped over to help break her clanmate free.

NO, CS2 thought, and strained to reach its fellows. It couldn’t do anything without them, its bones too broken to move itself, couldn’t trick the dragons into traps, couldn’t lure them away, couldn’t distract them long enough to keep Lamp and the eggs safe, it just wasn’t enough.

“There’s nothing alive here, like Biaw said,” she growled, digging at the base of a rib anchored into the wall. “It’s all pre-set traps, puppets. Nothing can actually hurt us if you weren’t such an idiot—”

CS2 poured magic into the shattered necro-animations, down the thinning links, begging them to keep going for just a little longer. It wasn’t enough. Little bones, tiny skeletons of prey creatures, stripped of flesh and hide, were nothing but flies to dragons, to be swatted away and ignored. Even as CS2 used every last drop of Tibia’s magic she had put into its bones to try and maintain the connections, it wasn’t enough. The grayness of exhaustion, of its mind losing consciousness, pulled at CS2, warning it it was using up too much of the magic needed to keep itself reanimated. The Dark loomed over it, poised to sink its claws into it and drag it away.

NO. NOT. YET.

The second situational command blazed in CS2’s mind. Defend the den from attacks, to the end. With all its power.

CS2 did something else it had never done before. One link remained, not between it and the other necro-animations, but between it and its master. Its creator. The dragon who continually fueled its ability to think and exist.

CS2 seized that link, and rather than send its awareness down to watch through Tibia’s eyes, or to send a signal, or to push more magic into broken puppets, it pulled.

At first the well of magic, the bright burning spot in the corner of CS2’s mind that tied it to Tibia, resisted. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. This wasn’t the rules of the game. It was master and servant, creator and creation. One held the power, and the other was given it. A hunter and its prey, the command and the obedience.

But CS2’s soul stretched. It no longer fit within its own bones, and it forced it to no longer accept those rules. CS2 sent claws into the bright spot of magic, digging into it, tearing and gnawing, until it felt that resistance bend, then break.

Magic flooded into CS2’s bones, at the same time pain ripped through its soul. It screamed, and then it stood up.

At the center of its blackening vision, where it could only just barely focus past the pain, it saw both banescales look up. BS2 warily stepped forward. Behind her, BS1 had one wing and part of his neck free of the cage.

You’re too late, CS2 thought, as the magic filled it up then spilled over, streaming out of its bones, flying across the den to all other sources of bone it could sense, which glowed in its vision a stark, vivid yellow. It grabbed the skeletons, its puppets. It ripped the failed cage out of the floor, then the third trap in the hoard wall. CS2 screamed again and stepped forward, off its ledge. Bones flew to it, shattered or whole, and kept it from falling. Bones stacked atop and wove around another, building a body up from underneath CS2’s skeleton so it could walk, stiff-legged and staggering, toward its targets.

BS2 didn’t hesitate but leapt back into the den, wings flaring, mouth opening to bare fangs as she hissed a challenge.

CS2 gathered all the bones, breaking them down and reforming them as it wished, and as the dragon lunged forward, it dove down her throat.

Back in the dark, but this time it was warm, and moved. Wet, sticky, CS2 forced its way down, digging in a hundred claws into the fleshy walls when the tube constricted and rushing air tried to force it back out, the banescale doubling over and hacking, but failing to eject it. It climbed down, down, down, breaking itself down into smaller, denser pieces as the tunnel shrunk more and more, shredding a thousand tiny shards into the meaty throat until CS2 had no choice but to rip through the barrier into a space slightly more open, and found what it was looking for.

It clamped its jaws around the center of the dragon’s violently beating life, and dragged itself back up the throat and out of BS2’s jaws, ripping the heart out after it. Hot dark liquid sprayed out after it, coating CS2 in stickiness as it backed away to watch the banescale take a shuddering step, jaw opening and closing in a mimicry of breath. Wide orange eyes stared up at CS2 in terror, before the legs folded and the body collapsed to the ground in a broken heap. Blood pooled around its head.

CS2 wobbled slightly, disorientated in the sudden coldness of the den, then became aware of its second target. The banescale had half of himself loose, and as CS2 turned toward him, he wiggled free from the rest of the cage, falling to the floor in a graceless pile of flailing limbs. CS2 lunged for him, but he dove for the tunnel and it fell into the hoard, smashing its bones against the far wall from the force of its leap. That rattled its mind, sent dizzying waves of pain washing through it, but erupting from that pain, came anger. Even with all its power now, it still hurt. With all of this magic blazing out of it, still those dragons thought to beat it.

“Help,” it heard the banescale gasp as he staggered down the tunnel towards the entrance. “Help! Giaw, help! Help, it’s coming!”

And it was. Oh, it was.

First, the corpse. CS2 called it, and the skeleton inside the stinking pile of meat shuddered, then ripped free, gore-slick bones rushing to slap into place within CS2’s distorted skeleton. With them came something else, a glowing mist of orange that melted into the purple.

MORE, CS2 commanded, reaching out past the lair with its mind and touching each source of glowing yellow it found scattered across the snow-drenched grassland. MORE, it snarled, calling those bones to it as it pulled itself back upright, then shambled down the entrance tunnel after its fleeing target. The bones came, dredged up from the earth, ripping themselves free of dirt and snow old and fresh, flying to and adding themselves to CS2’s mass as it clawed its way down the tunnel, squeezing its bulk through the entrance to expand and cascade out onto the hill. More and more, CS2 sucked magic now tinged with red from its creator and used it to direct bones that were gray, bones that were white, bones that were little more than dust, bones that no longer sat together in complete sets, bones that had once belonged to souls of beasts both hunted and killer but now were only its own. CS2 built up its skeleton, bigger, taller, stretching it up towards the moons, toward those fake disks of light, until the land below stretched out wide before its senses, until the two tiny black dots it saw far, far below were only barely distinguishable from all the snow, and CS2 identified them: its targets.

Throwing open wings that curtained out the moonlight, CS2 slammed down two great taloned feet of bone on either side of the two banescales and roared.

No sound emerged.

Beneath it, the dragons cowered, having thrown their wings over themselves in a last desperate attempt at protection, huddling together in the snow. But they didn’t flinch at the sound. Because there hadn’t been one. CS2 tried again, putting all its pain and anger into the roar, but nothing, not even the faintest wind, came out. As if CS2 wasn’t even really there.

It raged, smashing wing and talon against the earth, beating at the snow. Bones shattered at impact and others flew to replace them. CS2 could strike the same fist into the hill a hundred times, and a hundred times whatever bones broke, CS2 could remake a hundred times over and replace again and again. But no matter how much magic it used, no matter the force of its frantic despair, its blows didn’t leave a mark. The bones broke too quickly. Other than the misshapen trails left behind by the dragons, the snow was untouched by its presence. Perfect, pristine whiteness shining under the moons.

CS2 sank back onto its haunches and lifted its forefeet, staring at them. Its wings, wings, sank to the ground, but only rested lightly atop the snow despite their bulk. As the anger slunk away—it realized, dimly, that the banescales were running away, but no longer cared—a new awareness crept over it. It, it had built its huge skeleton into that of a dragon. These were talons, not the short digging claws for a chipmunk’s paws. It had wings, grotesque and fragile without the folds of skin that lent the ability to fly. And a great horned skull to crown the mess, its jaws bristling with teeth molded from the skeletons of creatures CS2 couldn’t name any longer, so many times had it broken those bones down and forged them anew with others.

This is what it was, now. It stood atop a hill sheltering sleeping predators underneath a sky of glittering stars it, it had never seen, it had never known the winter constellations because it had died, it had been hunted and killed, its body, its body of flesh and fur and blood that once been its own shape and sensation, pierced and cut into by the clever talons of beings so much bigger, so much smarter than itself—CS2 was dead, and now it took its murderer’s form with all its magic, power stolen rather than innate or built, and this still wasn’t life.

The snowy ground might as well be as distant as those cold, staring stars and moons, because CS2 was not of this world. And this world was no longer of it.

Undead.

The pain was back, CS2 realized. It had forgotten it while still caught up in its fury, in the thrill of pursuit, of hunting those dragons, but it was never gone. And it was. So. Much.

Agony ate at the hollowness of it as CS2 sank back down into the lair entrance, magic seeping out of the bones shattered and reshattered along the same lines until there were no further cracks to break. The Dark was back, swooping across its vision in dizzying waves as it stumbled down the tunnel toward the hidden entrance of the hibernal den, suddenly desperate to reach it before the last of the magic evaporated.

I need, it tried to gasp, though it had no lungs with which to breathe and that hurt to know, I need to get there. I need to make sure.

That last burning command, the final situational, the ever-permanent. To the end, keep Lamp and my eggs safe.

It fell through the hole into the cold cellar of a den. How long had CS2 dug? There was no sensation in its bones. But no, no, the holes had been from when it had summoned all the bones in the vicinity, and that had included its two remaining sentinels. Their skeletons had broken through the wall of earth to answer its call, and now their remains were scattered somewhere outside in the snow or down in the lair, following CS2’s staggering path. Collapsed there on the floor of the hibernal den, that was almost the end, the Dark almost claiming it. But the master’s command drove it to be sure, and it dragged its skeleton forward, to lift its skull and see with the last of its clouding vision.

A guardian dragon, statuesque in the gloom, lay encircling his nest of sleeping eggs. Peaceful as snow.

Would the banescales have even found them? Would they have thought to dig deeper, upon finding an empty lair and hoard? Had the commands Tibia had given it been too hasty, too simple? What would CS2 have done, if it could have chosen?

CS2 was not alive, it could not even move, and it still had these thoughts, this awareness, these questions. And it made no difference, whether it had them or not. It didn’t matter, not to the world, not to its master, so the weight of them fell solely upon itself.

It was too much. Too much.

I did it, it sent to Tibia, without remembering it had closed the mental communication. I fulfilled your last request. I can rest now. I get to do that, at last.

And it was dark.

[im-fairly-whitty]

Hi! There's been so many asks about "what if _____ met ______?" from various universes/storylines, canon and otherwise, and this idea kinda leaped at me, just as a thought experiment: What if your Villain!AU crew met the Héctor from my villain version? ^_^; I imagine they'd either get along famously, or it might be putting two tigers on the same hill. They might quibble about each other's exact operational methods, too, but not much need to censor discussion! (Sorry if you're tired of these!)

Seeing the two evil Hectors side-by-side? This should be interesting. :) 

(I’m going to refer to yours as Swap!Hector for clarity.)

Villain!Hector (and Imelda for that matter) would be absolutely disgusted with swap!Hector.

Right from the very beginning there are some fundamental differences that  unnerve Villain. Everything Villain has ever done has been for his family, but more specifically so that he can be with and love his family. The thought that Swap seems to have been alright with leaving them behind (for so long that Imelda would become convinced that he no longer loved her) in order to make money would sicken him.

Yes, they both traveled with Ernesto, but where Villain grew homesick and wanted to return to Imelda and Coco (having decided that being there for them was more important than money) Swap decided that money was the priority and kept traveling with Ernesto of his own volition, even succeeding in gaining some popularity before Ernesto’s death.

If they end up discussing Ernesto’s murder, Villain gets even more ill at his doppelganger’s explanation of having spotted a bottle of formaldehyde in the liquor cabinet, and then having loosely connected the dots of a potential future murder. Villain had been scared out of his wits. He actually witnessed Ernesto drugging the glass right in front of him, and even after calling Imelda in a terrified panic he was only able to bring himself to pour Ernesto a drink in his own poisoned glass because he made himself beleive that the glass somehow wasn’t poisoned after all, that Ernesto would never do such a thing.

Had there not been pressing and immediate danger, Villain would never have been able to defend himself so lethally. The fact that Swap drew a much more abstract conclusion, and then went out of his way to carry out a completely different plan to kill his Ernesto with sleeping medication would chill him. Yes, Villain carried out many much more premeditated murders than that in the years after, but Ernesto was different. That had been the first time, back when he’d still been…innocent. Of course Ernesto needed to die, but Swap’s method was different and aggressive enough to make Villain uncomfortable at the thought.

While Swap seems to consider himself successful, Villain Imector would consider him an empty fraud, no better than Ernesto. They ask where’s his family? Where’s his wife? Where’s all the things he claims so grandly to value? That’s not success, they think, all Swap has is money, and that was never what drove Villain.

Villain was willing to live in poverty as long as it meant being close to his wife and child, he only later pursued his career when Imelda urged him to, and only succeeded because of her constant help. Villain Imector looks at Swap’s confidence with a kind of unnerved pity, seeing him as a cock crowing over ashes, a madman who has burnt his house to the ground and called it success. They think he’s completely insane, having become delusional after getting so far without the things he used to care about, so far that he doesn’t really even know why he’s doing any of it anymore.

Assuming that Villain Imector were able to remain composed up to this point, Swap might even make the mistake of telling the story of how his Miguel died. If he did, if Villain heard about the way that Swap locked himself in with Miguel, the way he’d tried to make it seem like Miguel’s death wasn’t the ultimate sacrifice, that it was just staying longer and that he’d offered him sweets and toys to try and distract him? Villain could consider this a cheap desecration of Miguel’s tragedy, and he would not let it pass lightly. (If this seems to reek of uncomfortable self-justification and irony, well, yeah. It does.)

That might be the point when Swap suddenly realizes that perhaps he’s made a mistake, when he realizes that perhaps he and Villain are not as exactly alike as he had perhaps thought.

Villain and Swap both caused Miguel’s death in order to preserve their reputations, in order to “protect the family,” but in Swap’s case this was something of an empty fear since his money didn’t actually provide for his wife and dead family, who all live in the crafts distract far away from him. Villain would see Swap’s actions as empty and vain, trying to protect only himself while hiding behind a family that he’d left behind as an excuse.  

Swap left his Imelda behind. Swap left his family behind. Swap hurt his family and Miguel for a fame and wealth that only partially accomplishes what he wanted.

And the Villains have very little patience with those who harm Riveras in any universe.

(The irony of course would be that the Villains would be completely blind to how they themselves have unknowingly harmed their own family over the generations, as well as the families of their many victims over the years. They might censure Swap for his wealth and riches, but they wouldn’t realize that they themselves have lost sight of the more delicate family relations under their care in their own quest to maintain the family reputation. The only difference would be that since Villain has most of his family actually under the roof he’s built, it’s much easier for him to justify.)

I’m not exactly sure how that meeting would end, but I imagine that it would be in Swap’s very best interests to leave as quickly as possible. Villain might get a little too uncomfortable at having to look at what he would consider a failed version of himself, (while in reality Swap actually represents the darker parts of himself, just without the nicer things that help him justify his actions. Swap is too many of his own lies out in the open for anyone to see.)

If push came to shove, Villain just might take a shot at Swap, after all, it would be two against one, since he never left his Imelda behind.