#i mean most likely he learned diplomacy or some shit like that before fall of whitestone

[coffee-with-mint-syrup]

Percy who most likely wasn't educated to be a ruler due to not being the eldest child, who lived last years as an outcast and then as a member of shady adventurous party a.k.a. Vox Machina, who gave all his heir of Whitestone authority to his sister, who failed to persuade even a guardian at the gates to Vasselheim not more than few minutes ago:

"...with my experties in statecraft I can negotiate terms that will..."

Me: I'm sorry, what experties?

[just-a-new-gi-writer]

How about the Acolytes playing different friendship-breaking games like Monopoly, Uno, Ludo, and some sort of non-digital version of Mario Party? Lmfao imagine them squeezing into ridiculous-looking race karts for a live Mario Kart. Or perhaps an obstacle course to resemble Fall Guys challenges. Everyone has no plans of losing because the prize is a date and a guaranteed romantic kiss from the Creator, the lil shit that proposed this silly Teyvat Olympics.

A/N: Welp, this is one of those times where the story kinda got away from me again. This one's a two-parter, so I'll finish it later on.

Word Count: 2668

CW: None?

Masterpost

taglist @iyohme

=== === ===

It had all started so simply.

During a meeting you were dragged to with a handful of business leaders in Liyue (where they bowed and scraped and tried to cultivate your favor), you introduced them to a game you liked: Diplomacy. You thought it would have been a good fit for them- strategic thinking, cooperation, learning how long to trust people. It took a bit of setup to create a map that would work and it took a while to remember and relay the rules to the different players, but as soon as they understood the rules, they began digging into the game and exploring the layers of complexity underneath it all.

You quickly saw alliances form and melt, deals get made and backstabs performed, promises made and broken. It was all in good fun, they each knew, and all part and parcel of the game and how it played; something their Creator enjoyed and wished to share with them.

The night came to a close, and the business leaders returned to their homes. The next day, they returned to their businesses, bringing the game with them and spreading the rules to whomever was interested. By the end of the week, it had spread north to Mondstadt, crossed the sea to Inazuma, and reached the Akademia’s halls. By the next, it had taken root in those places and spread like wildfire among the population.

It was many different things to the people. For most, it was a fun diversion. For some, it was a problem to be cracked and analyzed, something to theorize over and experiment with. For others, it was a means to use their diplomatic skills, to promise, probe, and plead, to balance, barter, and betray.

It could have been left there. It could have just been a fad that might have burnt itself down to a simmer some time later.

But you had to make that one innocent comment.

In Mondstadt, a game was brewing between a few individuals of poor rapport. Diluc, Kaeya, and Jean stood against a few Fatui agents, each side assured that they had the best player. Three against two, they set about searching for the last two players they’d need for a full game. Childe was talking to you when they asked him to join.

“I couldn’t,” he raised his hands defensively and dismissed Jean’s offer. “Really, I’m not interested.”

“Oh?” you raised an eyebrow, “Why not? Don’t you have a reputation to uphold?”

He smiled but shook his head. “Were it a different kind of combat, Your Grace, there would be no chance for me to turn it down.” He took a sip of his drink. “I’m more the tactical than the strategic type.”

“Anyone could win,” you said. “Tell you what. You show me a good game and win, and I’ll do you a little favor.”

Childe froze, the cup falling from his hands and the drink spilling over the table. He shoved his chair back and turned as he stood, marching over to the few people setting up the board, slamming his hands on the table. “Count me in.”

He lost, horribly. He barely managed to last four turns before a coalition of Jean, Diluc, and one of the Fatui agents wiped him off the board. The game continued with Childe sitting on the sidelines and glaring at the one agent that betrayed him, the victor was found and celebrated, but that playful promise of yours planted another, more dangerous seed.

When the game of Diplomacy spread throughout Teyvat, smaller tournaments blossomed shortly afterward, to find the best of the players in each nation. A few enterprising individuals came up with the idea to host an international tournament, one that drew from southeastern Teyvat. While it boasted a hefty Mora reward for the highest-placed victors, the real prize was the prestige of being the uncontested winner of the Creator’s game.

And then you had to insinuate that you might personally reward the overall winner.

If your game spread like wildfire, you may as well have doused all of Teyvat in gasoline.

The past energy which people had before paled compared to the newfound desire to chase after even the slimmest chance of the Creator’s pure attention, rumored though it may have been. These last games burned with fervor and conviction that few had seen before, refining the pool of players from scores to dozens, then to the handful of furious semi-finals, from which the seven finalists emerged.

And today, the champion would be determined. The host, the state of Liyue, had spared no expense for this final game. The same building in which you had first shared your game had been secured to host the finals. The map was printed on gold-lined silk, each region painted in rich, vibrant pigments, lavishly detailed and seemingly rising off from the sheet. The counters for the different nations’ armies and navies, hand carved from priceless gemstones and inlaid with gold.

Spectators slowly filtered in as the start time drew near. Nobles, aristocrats, and merchants from Monstadt to Sumeru (and some from further afield) flocked to watch the match play out and gathered that morning. Many took the chance to socialize and build connections but many more hoped to catch the eye of their Beloved Creator that morning.

You were brought to the hall while the sun was still rising; only you, Adjudicator of Fates, could suffice to usher such an important game. You were ushered in with the warmest welcomes from all parties and highest fanfare, paraded around to the different important peoples: sages from Sumeru, nobles and their scions from Mondstadt, you even had the fortune to meet the Yuheng and the Raiden Shogun themselves before being ushered to your seat, in the middle of the side of the table.

Each of the invited nations showed off their own players and allowed them to take their seats: first Jean, who would play Mondstadt, sat off to your left, then Diluc, playing Natlan. Next was Yae Miko playing Inazuma, then Ayaka playing Snezhnaya. Alhaitham sat opposite you and played Sumeru. Finally, the players from Liyue entered, the most lavishly-dressed of the players: Yelan, playing Fontaine, sat to your right; and Ningguang, playing Liyue, sat to your left.

As the players took their seats, Keqing stood and addressed the crowd, welcoming them all and thanking them for their presence. She thanked the tournament organizers for their work on the events, past and present. Lastly, she turned to you and thanked you for sharing this game with them and allowing them to partake in its joys and sorrows. Her thanks given, she declared the finals to have begun.

The game entered its first phase and the players broke to meet with each other and plan their alliances. Everyone scrutinized who went to talk with who, which people the other players wanted to speak to, and how the dealings were going. Jean took Yelan aside and tried to make some earnest dealings with her, Alhaitham argued with Ningguang, and Diluc and Ayaka spoke with each other, hidden off in their corner of the board. Yae Miko sat back and kept an eye on the dealings, keeping secret just who she was eyeing as an ally or a target.

As discussions broke down between Ningguang and Alhaitham, Yae rose and asked to have a word with the latter. Ningguang went to request Jean’s ear, then Yelan tried to make a deal with Ayaka. On and on the diplomatic dance went until the time for the first round was called and the players returned to their seats to submit their orders.

You read, adjudicated, and executed the orders, shuffling the armies and navies across the map. The players eyed each move in turn, sometimes glaring at another player when a deal failed to materialize.

The second round of discussions quickly started, Alhaitham angrily pulling Yae aside, Jean hurrying over to speak to Yelan. Ningguang, without anyone to immediately turn to and make deals with, went to speak with Diluc and Ayaka.

The diplomatic maneuvers continued, and even you could start to see the lines being drawn. The drag-out four-way war between Sumeru, Inazuma, Liyue, and Mondstadt was in full swing: Liyue was fighting with Mondstadt and Sumeru over their border cities while Inazuma was looking for any opening to exploit, but Jean was trying to break the stalemate by getting Fontaine to commit an army. On the other corner of the board, Natlan, Snezhnaya, and Fontaine had some token battles, but the first two were otherwise beginning to encroach upon the rest of the board.

The diplomatic plays ended and the orders were submitted. Again, you dutifully relayed the orders and played them out.

The minute you finished shuffling the pieces around with your divine powers, comments between the players started flying.

“Jean,” Alhaitham looked at her pieces, speaking quite openly, “I find your stance towards Yelan quite curious. I thought you said it was in your best interest that we build our forces against Ningguang.”

Jean cleared her throat. “A strong accusation, considering you rebuffed that plan of mine. You said she was working with Guji Yae, but now that it’s clear that the latter is trying to steal a foothold beneath our noses, we agreed–”

“Excuse you?” Yae cut in, “I offered quite amicable terms to you, as many eavesdroppers can attest. If you’re looking for a scapegoat, might I suggest the person who has been playing you both?” She glared at Yelan.

“Your age must be blinding you, Guji.” Yelan steepled her fingers. “Your intentions are clear, but there are far worse dangers on this board–”

Ningguang interrupted her. “Worse than you violating our agreement to keep Huaguang clear? You should know better than to violate trust.”

“Yes, even worse than you saying you were willing to strike into Wolvendom on false pretenses.” Yelan turned to the two players on her right. “Our two dear players of Natlan and Snezhnaya are being quite quiet and chummy with each other.”

“Now, now,” Diluc said, “just because we’re not engaging in the madness of the eastern side of the board is no reason to throw accusations.”

“We would like to assure you,” Ayaka added, “that you all have plenty enough on your plates. Is it quite wise to send accusations so blindly?”

“I’m not sending empty accusations,” Yelan said, her voice sharpening, “I’m saying you two clearly have an alliance and are planning to sweep the board. We need to band together to–”

“Certainly not! See, we’re struggling over these border regions- quite difficult to be allied while you’re fighting each other.”

Ningguang interrupted, talking to Yelan. “I think it’s clever how you deflected criticism over your double-dealing with Alhaitham and Jean.”

“And I think it’s beginner-level squabbling,” Alhaitham said, “trying to deflect attention like that. Did you promise Windrise to Guji Yae for her help?” He looked over at Yae. “Sorry to say, I don’t think Ningguang is a sharing type. Might I suggest–”

“Really, Alhaitham?” Yae smiled at him. “Letting a little early-game betrayal get to you? I’d suggest not letting those crumbling alliances hurt your poor feelings too much. Might I suggest growing yourself some thicker skin?”

Jean stood up. “And might I suggest that you stop provoking everyone around you! You promised that you would help me past Dragonspine, yet now you’re playing nice with Ningguang!”

“Not to mention,” Alhaitham added, “that you made a similar offer to me, then started attacking me out of the blue. Watch, you’re going to start probing the Guili Plains soon enough, aren’t you? No one on the eastern coast can trust an Inazuma player.”

Yae laughed. “Oh, but do tell me how that front between you and Ningguang is going. Oh, that’s right, your little gambit south of the Chasm hasn’t exactly played out in your favor, has it? And you, Jean, darling, just stay in your corner of the board over there and let the more important nations play things out, yes?”

“Enough, Yae.” Ningguang sent her a glare. “Unless you have mastered the art of silent communication, it seems like you too lack strong alliances.”

“And you’re facing two fronts of conflict. If I don’t sweep in to secure those precious supply centers, you three will just keep swapping them back and forth to no end. Someone has to come out ahead in all this and it might as well be me.” She smiled as she looked in your direction. “I can already taste my victory and the sweetness of your lips.”

“Okay,” you cut in, “that’s enough time for the diplomatic phase. It’s time to write and submit orders.” You sat back in your chair. A productive diplomatic phase, all things considered! When an accusation or an agreement are just as important as moving a piece on the board, flying accusations are to be expected. Few can resist the allure of collecting all one’s allies to wipe an opponent from the board.

The turn passed mostly uneventfully. Skirmishes occurred, armies were forced back, territory changed hands. In the next diplomatic phase, though, there was a notable shift in tone between the characters. The players engaged more steadily with their allies; instead of a complex dance to test the waters, the lines were drawn on the battlefields- on the map and in their minds.

In the orders of that turn were the expected exchanges of Snezhnaya and Natlan, a concession of land from Mondstadt to Fontaine. But there was a further surprise- one of Alhaitham’s armies had been brought to Inazuma by Ningguang’s ships and captured a supply center on Watatsumi Island. When you read the orders aloud, it raised eyebrows from the other players on the board except one.

Yae Miko did not wear her usual smile the rest of that turn. When the players broke to discuss their next moves, she made a surprising choice of who to pull aside to deal with- Jean. They spoke in harsh, hushed voices. Deals were presented then discarded in short order until Yae said something that gave Jean pause.

You were intrigued and there were few in the audience, players included, that missed your interest. All eyes rested on those two players as they returned to the table and submitted their orders. You could feel things grow more tense as you read out the players’ orders one by one, until you read one of Ningguang’s fateful orders.

“Fleet in Central Line of Storms convoys Mingyun Village to Narukami Island.”

It only took a quick glance at the source province to confirm that the army counter was carved from aquamarine and belonged to Jean, not from Ningguang’s cor lapis. The room’s attention slowly turned to Yae and Jean.

Jean finished her drink and set her cup down, avoiding looking right at Yae. She spoke quietly. “I was offered quite amicable terms.”

The audience murmured and chuckled at her response, many likely having their own comebacks against the kitsune, but the rest of the orders were delivered to near apathy from the audience. Once a major betrayal began, there are few who could resist the allure of watching a player’s territory be devoured by their neighbors and erstwhile allies.

The last of Inazuma’s supply centers fell a turn later and with that, Yae Miko had lost.

As the turn ended, Keqing stepped forward and called for the game to pause- while things had just begun to turn interesting, they were out of time for the morning session. Lunch was ready to be served and few wanted to be kept waiting; besides, while many had come here to see the region’s finals of the Creator’s game, many more had come to vie for your attention.

The Yuheng took your arm after you rose and led you forward, the players following right behind, and the audience slowly following afterwards. Only Yae Miko remained sitting at the table, turning one of the amethyst counters in her hand.

[queen-of-mandalore]

Em’s Star Wars Rewatch part 16:

The Clone Wars #14 - Bounty Hunters and the Zillo Beast (2x17, 2x18, 2x19)

2x17: Bounty Hunters

This ep is so much fun!

‘Why when you fly, do we always crash?!’ ‘It’s not me, it’s the ship!!!’

‘We never do things my way.’ ‘We crashed the ship your way.’ Obi-Wan’s sass is unmatched.

Anakin and Obi-Wan bickering and Ahsoka rolling her eyes in the background.

Hondo!!!!!

I love how Hondo welcomes Obi-Wan like they are old friend and then immediately tries to kill him 😂

The tried and tested trope of warriors training defenceless villages to defend themselves.

Some of the bounty hunter designs were so cool.

The end where Hondo stands on the cliff looking down on them before getting on his ship and leaving was giving major Captain Jack Sparrow vibes. I could imagine him saying ‘you will remember this as the day you almost caught Captain Hondo!’ 😂

2x18: The Zillo Beast

If the Republic has created a bomb to wipe out entire armies of battle droids, why don’t we see it in future episodes????

I feel sorry for the Zillo beast, poor guy was happy minding his own business.

Some of the shots in this episode were visually stunning, especially with the Zillo through the fog lit by Windu’s purple lightsaber.

Once again we see the clash of politics with the Jedi values.

I get the feeling that Windu, more than perhaps any of the other Jedi we see, just doesn’t trust the chancellor.

Oh they are bringing this deadly, almost unstoppable monster to the most densely populated planet in the galaxy … what could possibly go wrong? 🙄

2x19: The Zillo Beast Strikes Back

There are some really deep questions raised in this episode, especially whether the end can ever justify the means.

Poor Zillo Beast 😢

Anakin learning diplomacy from Obi-Wan

I love that trooper who is like ‘what good are these rifles going to be?’ And the others are like ‘shit up!’ Kosmos you will always be iconic for that.

Anakin’s ’improvised plans’ lmao

‘Many of the general’s plans involve falling’ lmaoooo Rex 😂

How perfect would it have been for Palpatine to die being eaten by the Zillo Beast? After all his scheming and planning, having thought out every scenario, to be defeated by a creature he never tried to understand, only seeing it as a resource to be exploited (how he sees much of the galaxy). I want it so bad to happen.

I love that the Bad Batch brought the Zillo back.

[bnha-almost-a-hero]

₊˚.༄━━𝐈𝐍𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄,

𝐈𝐍𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄,

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬; yandere! shigaraki tomura, gender neutral! reader, toga himiko, dabi

𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲; le casa de papel 

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬; mentions of death, blood, knives, mentions of guro, one mention of abuse, a knife fight happens, toga is a yandere and a whole ass warning on her own, dabi makes like one sexual reference, language, a vague post-apocalypse with bad worldbuilding, one vague reference to the dabi is a todoroki theory.

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭; adaptation━━༉‧₊˚✧.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭*; (╭☞•́⍛•̀)╭☞ @inanabsentia​ & @maris-chan​!

*just ask if you wanna be added or removed!

You stand straight as bone as you feel the sharp tip of the blade press hard against your back. A cold, clammy tingle pricks at your fingertips as your heart swells your veins with blood and your nerves pumps adrenaline through your body. You remember back to your biology class, remember back to your school days.

Conflict is a constant when observing animals and their behaviour. Species fight over territory, food, mates and other resources necessary to sustain life. You can remember the clicking beneath your biology teacher’s feet as they paced across the classroom, how eccentric they had been. Whilst fighting and killing is a necessary evil in nature, there are a list of animals who engage in killing for pleasure without any reasonable gain. Amongst these animals are humans.

If you attacked Toga or even killed her, would it simply be adhering to your animalistic nature, or was there another way around the situation? Vaguely, in some broken recess of your mind, you remember someone telling you that diplomacy was strictly a human invention: better than the wheel, or the steam engine, or even money.

That most likely wasn’t true, of course, but it was a thought that passed your mind. Maybe if you talked your way out of this, maybe if you used reasoning and such, you wouldn’t have to fight at all. That was preferable.

“I—,” Your mouth feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, your throat so dry it ought to light a fire. You stare ahead at the door across the hallway—white and gilded and ostentatious. If only you could reach out and push it open, escape towards the light. That was when you glimpsed it.

The door was ajar, if only slightly, enough for the passing person to be able to look in with ease. You swallow deep and turn toward Toga, readying your bluff, “I was going to close the door. I—I didn’t want anyone listening to us.”

Toga grips your arm harder, twists it hard as she swerves the knife round and forward in one swift motion, until it’s inches from your throat. You can almost smell the metallic tinge of the steel. The metal glints in the harsh light emanating from the bulb above you, a white, flashing warning of danger that curls around the blade. Your heart pulses.  

“Do you think I’m stupid, ____-chan?” Toga asks. Her voice is simple, with the sing-song inflection that you’ve come to know from her. “I know you’re not totally onboard with Tomura’s plan, my Izuku wasn’t either, but you’ll come to know. You’ll learn to love him,” She leans in to press her face against the crook of your neck. Her breath pricks at your skin as she speaks. “Just you wait. Love is the best feeling there is. The thump, thump of your heart filling with sweet, sweet blood. Oh, it makes me so, so thirsty, ____-chan. Can’t you tell?”

You loathed to think of what her idea of ‘thirsty’ was and you were even more loathed to imagine confronting Shigaraki. Your instincts were begging you to look past all that, however, and look to what really mattered. And what really mattered was dealing with the blade hovering near your throat.

“Toga—” You consider for a moment, then correct yourself, “Himiko, please. Look, I—” You swallow your pride and your emotions and the sick, sinking feeling in your gut. “I’m flattered that Shigaraki, I mean, Tomura, feels like that. Maybe, if you could let me talk to him, we could come to an agreement? You know, on our own?”

Toga hums, the vibration wracking your body with another layer of warm chill. Finally, she withdraws the knife from your neck with a slash and speaks, “Maybe,” She states, sliding two fingers against your arm, “Maybe I’ll talk to him for you. Oh! I’ve always wanted to play matchmaker! In my perfect world, I get what I like, right? I really, really want you two together. You’ll let me do that for you, won’t you?” She grips your arm tighter, practically wringing it out in her ferocity. Her other hand twirls her blade around for your scrutiny. “But, I really want to cut you first, though,” She hovers her lips close to your ear. “It’s been so long since I tasted blood. Just a little prick or maybe a little more?”

Your brain helpfully flicks through a thousand ways you could die all in an instant, but the adrenaline has you feeling a bit more determined, a bit more defiant, a bit more animalistic. Diplomacy was certainly not going to work judging by Toga’s tone, but you really didn’t want to wrestle a teenager to the ground. Although, your frontal lobe reasons, she is a direct danger to you and your survival. Attacking her would be a matter of self-defence; you’d be standing your ground.

“I’ll cut you nice and deep, maybe to the bone.” Toga mutters, casting a gaze to her knife. “No, no, the knife’s not sharp enough. I guess Tomura won’t mind if I cut into your leg or maybe your arms. I’ll just get a nice, juicy vein—“ 

Without a thought, you draw your elbow back and jam it against Toga’s skull, sending her stumbling back as you hop to action and begin running. 

Before the world had ended, you had tuned into some nature documentary whilst cleaning. It was about a wolf and a hare. You remember all of the adaptations the hare had, how evolution had saved it from the claws of the wolf time and time again. 

It was funny now and you had to stifle an ill-timed chuckle. You were the hare, running along marble instead of the dewy grasses of a morning pasture and Toga was something of a wolf, with her blade as her claws and her paws twitching to be coated in blood. 

“I like it when they run,” She giggles simply as she joins you in your tango between life and death. You barely hear her past the thumping of your ears. Or was that your heart? “They always get scuffed up when they run.”

Your lungs and your nostrils burn white-hot and you count. You count the uneven footsteps of Toga’s shoes against the waxy marble; you count the pulsings of your heart against your rib-cage; you count the metres between you and safety. To fall now, even if it was a brief stumble would mean pain—grievous pain knowing Toga.

And you wouldn’t dare let your friend, Izumi, down like that. You couldn’t leave them alone surrounded by villains lead by a man who hated them. And you make a promise to Izumi as you run, a promise to yourself. There’d be no more playful banter with your villainous captors. Every step you took would be a step devoted to leading your fellow hostages out of the bank and to safety. You swear upon it.

“Gotcha!” Toga announces suddenly, diving toward the floor to grip at your right leg. She tugs sharply and you come tumbling to the ground with the scuff of a shoe. Reflexively, you allow your body to fall on your arms—the only thing saving you from a possible concussion, though your elbows are left aching and burning as a result.

Toga pulls you toward her once more, but you turn swiftly and jam your knee up into her face. She groans, head bobbing backward and you roll fully onto your back, using your left leg to shimmy your way across the floor. A giggle ricochets off the walls, as Toga rears her left arm up and you catch a glimpse of her knife against the ceiling light.

Shit, you think as she bears the knife down onto you. Your attempt to roll to the side is halted as Toga digs her knees into your pelvis, pinning you to the ground as the knife inches closer and closer. Your body lurches up on its own to grab at her wrist with all the might you can muster, holding it in place as she struggles against you.

“Come on, ____-chan!” She begs, pressing the knife down harder. You dig your nails into her wrist but she doesn’t budge. “I swear I won’t touch your face if you just let me—!”

Pinkies, your brain reminds you, put pressure on her pinkies. Your eyes blink with realisation as you remember the online self-defence course you took on the recommendation of your friend. If you put pressure on an opponent’s pinkies, they were more likely to drop their weapon. Something to do with nerves or reflex or something.

You curl your fist around her left pinky finger, twisting it backwards. Her face scrunches up as she screams and her knife drops onto your chest. 

Dopamine and adrenaline flood your veins as you grab her wrist and slam her down onto the floor beside you. The yellow of her eyes haze over as you grab the blade and press it flush and flat against her throat.  

For good measure and to rub your victory in, you press your knee into her gut and she coughs weakly. Your chest rises and falls as you murmur a thanks to your self-defence tutor, with techniques like that they’d do good in an apocalypse.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” You ask, more out of surprise than anything. “I—.”

The creak of the hallway door surprises you and you force your eyes up. Dabi stands there in the threshold, looking quite pleased with himself as he buries his hands into his pockets. 

“What did I tell you about attacking the hostages, you crazy bitch? Especially when its Crusty’s favourite jizz material,” He meets your gaze with an electric blue, then angles his head in the direction of the main atrium. “The boss wants to talk to you, or somethin’. Probably gonna confess his dweeby love. I’ll follow you there so Crazy doesn’t attack you again.”

You nod and pocket Toga’s knife in case Shigaraki tries anything. As you rise to your feet, however, Toga grips at your leg. When you look down at her, her nose is all bloody and her lips are curled into a wide smile.

“You’re so strong,” She murmurs, coughing up a little blood and bile. “I wanna be just like you.”

You can’t help but shudder and turn away from Toga—guilt settling deep into your gut. I just beat up a seventeen-year-old whilst being held hostage by Japan’s most dangerous villains all during a post-apocalypse, you think, I need to write a memoir and get a publishing deal. 

Dabi holds his arm out for you and, when you quirk a brow, he scrunches up his nose and shakes his head.

“I was taught etiquette as a kid,” He elaborates as he guides you to the bank’s main office that Shigaraki has declared his own. “Hard-ass dad beat it into me; it’s a reflex now.”

You nod—wondering how somehow Dabi of all people could be the most sane villain out of the bunch. Then again, you haven’t exactly met the others but you didn’t have much faith in their tact.  

You walk in pleasant silence until Dabi comes to a halt in front of a grand door. He turns to you.

“Don’t tell Shigaraki that I brought you here,” Dabi instructs you with a grave look on his face. “He’ll piss his pants if he knew I touched you.” He looks down to the pocket, bulging with the imprint of Toga’s knife. “Oh and try not to pull the knife on him right off the bat too.”

You nod again and smile as he turns and walks off. Then, steeling your nerves—your bones—your heart before, finally, you turn and knock. 

[neednothavehappenedtobetrue]

so! the Fun Thing I am currently writing:

you know Isabelle if you've been here a while, but this is Slightly Different Nearer Future Worse Political Situation Isabelle, so I will describe her as she is in the relevant thing

-Isabelle is the wife of the American president. she is a wheelchair user.

skills: being Just So Fucking Smart, deliberately hiding her intelligence enough that people think she is just regular smart and underestimate her, writing speeches and other political media, poise in public, manipulating people by talking at them.

weaknesses: remembering that she personally is a human being with needs and feelings, knowing what her her feelings are, communicating about her feelings instead of keeping everyone six feet away behind a facade.

how is she so good at Making Other People Have Feelings but so very bad at "knowing that she even has any of them?" because sometimes it's like that.

but, she is married to Robert, who is President. if they were not married, he would be like, maybe a congressman? he is not stupid at all, he is a competent man and would be a competent politician on his own merits, but also, power couple.

-he is somewhat better than Isabelle at coming off as warm and genuine because he is so incredibly warm and genuine all the time that you can't think he's anything else. she comes off as "nice, but a bit reserved."

-conveniently, he has noticed that Isabelle sometimes has feelings and needs. often, he can predict what they are, in the way of people who have been married for like twenty years. also, because they have been married for 20 years he is by now a Level Twelve confidant and gets to be told what most of them are.

-even he does not know how smart she is, though, really, in a few specific arenas. she realized when she was very young that people do not like when you are smarter than they are, and adjusts accordingly, automatically.

-one of the first things Isabelle learned from watching people is that people hate it when you watch them, so she stopped letting them know what she saw, but she didn't actually stop watching.

-she combines "being that fucking smart" with "not realizing that her husband will not cringe away from her if she tells him" because, again, sometimes it's like that. you learn shit young and it sticks with you and nobody tells you different because they don't know what they'd need to tell you.

-Robert is probably, at the start of the story, the person who has the second-closest idea of how smart Isabelle actually is, and he's still off by enough that it would startle him a little.

-Theo, their dear friend, is the closest to knowing how smart she is, because Theo watches people in something like the way she does, and sees it. Theo doesn't do feelings either, though, so Robert ends up closer to understanding her overall.

-Robert is as close to her as anyone in the world, and they love each other so much. they are casually affectionate in public. they have a daughter and a life and nothing's perfect, but it's good.

-and then Robert is shot.

-he is shot on a stage. the people who shoot him take Isabelle and put her in a basement for a while, with her daughter, until Theo, who has a specific skillset, gets them out.

-ever after, Theo puts little GPS things in all of her jewelry. the people who kidnapped her let her keep her wedding ring, and if she'd had a tracker in it, she wouldn't have spent eight days in a basement.

-liberated from the basement, she flies to Rio, because it is a place that has agreed not to turn her over to the shitty people who have taken over America

-there has been a coup. lots of people are dead.

-Isabelle throws herself into caring for her daughter and running the counter-revolution, talking to the international press, making deals, smuggling things and people in and out, etc. she is doing a lot of good work. she is doing her goddamn best.

-she outsourced all of her "knowing and caring about her own feelings" and "generally making sure she is taking good care of herself" to her husband, who was good at that.

-he's dead now, for which reason she has maybe more feelings and related needs than she's ever had in her life?

-she knows she has a whole PTSD, she knows that early on. she is very smart, her trauma is huge and obvious, but, like, you can just sort of ignore that and hope it goes away, right? probably

-it takes her longer to know she is an alcoholic, because that one is harder to know. less obvious, at least to her. but she is, very definitely. she gets bad very fast.

-most people don't notice, though, because she keeps it behind the wall between her and most people.

-so she lives in Rio, and she works, and she drinks.

Isabelle is not actually the narrator of this story, though. the narrator's name is Sasha. she was a Russian diplomat living in America.

-skills: compassion, style, a few languages, being passionate about the places and people and things she loves, falling in love easily and completely.

weaknesses: keeping her temper, keeping her composure, not calling people motherfuckers when they really, really are but also it would be disastrous to do so, knowing what her own feelings are,

-did we see one of the things on that second list on an earlier list?

-also, do some of those weaknesses seem like they might be problems for someone in her line of work (diplomacy, a field in which it is often useful to be diplomatic).

-it's fine, she's charming and pleasant and smart enough to compensate for the things she is not as good at.

-also, she doesn't generally care about most politics stuff enough to get to the "this person is a motherfucker and if I do not tell them I will explode and my entrails will land on them in the shape of the word "motherfucker," stage with work people.

-she might have a different job if her whole family wasn't prominent politicians, but.

-her brother is an asshole, but, like, also he is her twin brother and she loves him. her father is an enormous fucking asshole and also dead now, and also, fuck him.

-she likes traveling and coffee and her dog and a series of women who she tries to start casual with and then either gets bored of or falls in love with and then they are like "you are, um, maybe a little intense?"

-she likes living in America, with good friends and a job she enjoys and does reasonably well.

-and then the president is shot, and there is a coup.

-her brother calls her back to Russia immediately, arranges a flight for her before any of the rest of his staff because, twin sister, obviously. they learned to be protective of each other young, Leo and Sasha.

-she spends very little time in America post-violence, when things are different and unsafe. she was there for about twelve hours before she got on a plane.

-she thinks this means that she did not experience a trauma, will not experience any symptoms worse than "occasionally being a bit sad" and does not deserve to complain to anybody about it.

-fortunately, she has some people in her life who are immediately like "you are actually having so many problems right now. did you know that when shit like this happens, there is enough trauma happening for everyone to have seconds? even if it could be worse? also, your trauma symptoms will not go away if you ignore them or pretend not to have them, so, like, therapy?"

-it would be good if Isabelle had more friends like that, but, unfortunately, most of her close friends are dead now.

-sasha, meanwhile, goes to therapy. she discovers that, if there is a minimum threshold on how bad an experience you need to have had before you call it PTSD, she is actually well past it. huh.

-also, maybe the situation with her dad was, uh, worse than she may have thought? him dying did not magically erase his effect on her life, which is unfortunate.

-sasha knew Isabelle barely, pre-assassination. not well, but she'd met her a few times. she was pretty and loved her husband and daughter and seemed smart. a little reserved, maybe.

-Sasha cries when she finds out that this woman and her daughter are still alive, but mostly because if another two people were dead, and one of them a seven-year-old girl, that would be worse, and there is not room for much worse in her heart.

-she cries mostly because her brother is in nearly the same political position as the dead man was, and if his wife and kids were missing, she would lose her goddamn mind.

-she tries not to think about what would happen if her brother was shot. he is an asshole, but he is her brother.

-her brother, meanwhile, has to deal with these fucking assholes who are running America now. god, they're just the worst, but they do seem to be in charge now, so, like, needs must.

-he does not allow sasha to do diplomatic work with them, because he knows her. he has seen her explode before. she has never exploded at work, so he has trusted her up to this point.

-she is very much already at the "if I do not call these people out on being motherfuckers, I will literally explode and my entrails will call them motherfuckers" stage with these people.

-which is fair, honestly, it's not like she's wrong, but also, she is not in charge of negotiating with these people.

-there is a counter-revolution brewing, folks trying to get America back to normal. several governments are offering a certain amount of clandestine support, because it's not great for the global stage having America just sort of, collapse a bit. also, fuck these people entirely.

-so Leo assigns Sasha to contribute to the revolution in a short list of prescribed ways, and keep him in the loop while allowing him just the thinnest possible veneer of plausible deniability.

-boy, if he has known what was going to happen later, he would for sure have assigned somebody else!

-Isabelle is running the counter-revolution from Rio, so Sasha and Isabelle have calls about once a week for a year, mostly about work.

-Isabelle is, at the start, blandly professional, but Isabelle has very few people to really talk to, as herself, the human person, to the point where sometimes she forgets the human person exists.

-she doesn't quite warm up to like "genuine closeness" but she warms up to "social chatting" as part of the work calls.

-it is hard not to warm up to Sasha, when she likes you. she is easily friendly and kind. she likes Isabelle a lot.

-like, the normal amount. the normal amount to like your work friend, for sure, definitely. she spends the most normal amount of time thinking of ways to make Isabelle smile, because Isabelle doesn't smile much.

-Isabelle drinks much too much, and Isabelle stops drinking, and Isabelle's doctor is like "is this a situation where you could get a less stressful job?"

and Isabelle is like "if you ask me that again I will get a new doctor immediately, who is less of a fucking idiot. do you have a non-idiot suggestion?"

"okay! cool and good! maybe make some friends, or try a change of scenery?"

-Isabelle's not-dead friends are Theo, and technically it is possible that some of her old friends are still alive, in America, and just can't get in touch with her because of everything. she likes to think this. it's not making anything worse to think it, so she allows herself to.

-Isabelle's friends who she can speak to are Theo, end of list.

-so, change of scenery? it might be a good idea anyway, Brazil is getting tired of having those dipshits in America yell at them. governments are not always thrilled about the idea of her living and working within their borders. they are glad she is living and working, but not in my backyard.

-when she mentions to Sasha that she is looking for a new place to live, she is not fishing for anything, she is just chatting.

-Sasha immediately says "why don't you come to Moscow? you'll be safe here. I can bully my brother into allowing you to be here and helping you to stay safe. it's nice here!"

-she says this for friend reasons, obviously, and also strategic revolution reasons, the latter of which she uses to talk Leo around.

-Isabelle comes to Russia. she is amenable to weekly dinners with Sasha. Sasha is her phone chatting work friend. maybe Sasha could one day be her real life actual friend. that would be good maybe.

-the second week, Isabelle is sitting on Sasha's couch, with her feet up on the ottoman. they have had a nice dinner and are watching a documentary and chatting in English.

-at this point, Sasha goes "oh, fuck. I do not want to be real life friends with this woman, actually. not just friends. she is so beautiful and smart and I would so much like to kiss her."

-Sasha, you have been experiencing this feeling for like at least three months. it did not just pop into your head the minute she put her feet up on your furniture. you moved her to fucking Russia because you had so many big feelings. it just got loud enough for you to notice.

-is it u-hauling to move someone across continents to live in the same city as you? how about if neither of you knows you have feelings yet?

-Sasha will realize this several months later. right now, she thinks she has acquired a new feeling.

-she dithers about this for a bit, without telling anyone, because all of her friends would be like "well, that's a bad fucking idea."

-which, like, she is not stupid. Isabelle is a martyr's widow who is both grieving still and also doing a lot of work on the public image of being a martyr's widow. good work, important work, that helps

-it would have to be a very secret thing, maybe could never be anything else. her brother would be mad about it for politics reasons.

-if Sasha asked her out, Isabelle could very easily say "sorry there are too many politics reasons" or "sorry, I am heterosexual and/or very sad still."

-it would be a very bad idea in many ways!

-Sasha knows she is going to do it anyway. she does not always identify her feelings for a while, but once she does, she commits to them.

-but also, if Sasha causes Isabelle to experience any additional bad feelings, or to not want to chat with her anymore, Sasha will explode.

-this time her entrails will spell out "sorry."

-the solution here is to slow-play it a bit, she thinks.

-Sasha is not... super good at slow-playing it.

-she opens with what she thinks is a very casual, normal question about whether Isabelle is seeing anyone, or might like to. carefully worded to be normal and subtle and friendly.

-there are two problems with this. one is that Sasha's facial expressions tell you everything she is thinking all of the time. another is that Isabelle is uncannily good at facial expressions.

-it is hard at the best of times to ask the relationship status of a person you have feelings for in a super chill super casual very normal way that will not raise suspicion.

-when you have all of the natural deceptive skills of a Golden Retriever and also you are speaking to someone who reads everyone she meets like a book, well, you're just not going to pull it off.

-the subtext behind the question is "god, I would so like to kiss you, but only if you're cool with that?"

-Isabelle absolutely knows this right away.

-she wasn't expecting this at all. she'd like to give it some thought.

-in the meantime, she tells Sasha that she is not totally disinterested in the idea of dating again ever, but it would have to be very private for a while, if she did date again. she weaves in a little bit of information about her romantic history, in order to tell Sasha that she is bi.

-she thinks she has been about as unsubtle as it is possible to be, because she sometimes forgets that most people aren't her or Theo.

-Sasha thinks she completely nailed normal and casual. she thinks Isabelle's response was very normal and casual also, while also containing a lot of useful information.

-the orientation thing was going to be Sasha's next question, but she couldn't think of a way to be like "hey hello are you interested in women?" that did not tip her whole hand, so it's great that Isabelle happened to volunteer that information while they were both being normal and causal.

-Sasha, your whole hand is already tipped. you took out a feelings billboard. she knows.

-meanwhile, Isabelle gives it some thought.

-it's not a terrible idea, really.

-well, it is, in lots of ways, but there's no risk-free way to pursue any kind of relationship, especially when you are very famous for being widowed and people want to kill you.

-no matter who she gets involved with, some people are going to be Big Mad about it, and it will make some of her work harder.

-now, given that there is no safe choice, is Sasha the safest possible choice? absolutely not, not even close, but you don't get into relationships by triangulating the safest option.

-Isabelle is lonely. she is not great at assessing her own feelings, but the thought has occurred to her before. and when someone basically took out a feelings billboard at her, but in a respectful way, well, the thought occurred to her a bit more.

-the idea of spending the next several years or maybe forever being single and married to the Mission kind of sucks, actually.

-besides, Sasha is kind, and easy to talk to, and quite pretty. she does not seem like the type to insist on too much too fast.

-this is true, that is not the kind of intense Sasha is. she just sort of falls in love at you very quickly, which not everybody wants.

-but the only way Isabelle has ever been loved in her life is "very intensely" by a man who also saw her reservedness and was comfortable with it until it gave way around him. so that's fine.

-a few weeks later, around when Isabelle is done thinking, Sasha decides it is next move time.

-she has used up all of her very normal conversational gambits and has been debating between "just telling Isabelle about her feelings, or, like, some percentage of her feelings, the normal amount of feelings to have for a person you have not kissed." or "some kind of very casual very normal very chill physical contact."

-Sasha so wants to be a chill, casual person. unfortunately, she just isn't.

-she puts her hand on Isabelle's shoulder, and Isabelle settles into her a bit, makes herself comfortable.

-they sit like that for a minute.

-Sasha is thinking "is this like, chill, normal, platonic half-cuddling or is she trying to give me a hint?"

-Isabelle has never been less subtle in her life and would be shocked to know that this is being read as "a hint" rather than "a very overt declaration of interest."

-Isabelle, who thinks everyone's intentions are fully on the page now, says "if I ever tried to be in a relationship again, it would have to be very private, at least at first. it would have to be a secret for a while, which I know isn't something everyone would be interested in. also, "being very open with people" is not part of my skill set really. I do get there, but sometimes it takes me a minute."

-her frame of reference for "the normal amount of open to be with someone you like" was Robert, who knew he was going to marry her three months in, so she might not be calibrating this perfectly.

-she is now sitting on a couch half-cuddling with Sasha, who also falls in love very fast.

-Sasha listens to this information about Isabelle's relationship needs and thinks "that's probably a large hint, right? like, almost definitely. I am pretty sure. also, all of those things are fine and I basically knew them already, so that's good. this is going really well. what do I do now? should I be like "all of those things you want in a hypothetical relationship sound good to me" or should I save that for next week, because of the slow-playing I am doing here?"

Isabelle, meanwhile, is thinking "well, I have been as explicit as it is possible to be. if she didn't want to do something secret and careful and patient, she would remove her arm and stop half-cuddling me."

-so she sits for another minute or two, to give Sasha time to make a decision.

-Sasha does not move her arm. even if she knew what Isabelle was actually thinking, she wouldn't move her arm.

-at this point Isabelle kisses her, which she was not at all expecting.

-like, it was feeling like a more plausible future option, but today? right now? not that Sasha is in any way complaining.

-they kiss for a bit, and then Isabelle briefly removes her mouth from Sasha's mouth and looks at her and goes "wait, are you surprised by this?"

and Sasha goes "a little bit, yeah? I mean, this is great, I am very pleased with this outcome, but I wasn't sure if you were..."

later, Isabelle will be like "please tell me in what way I could have been at all clearer" and Sasha is like "by using words with your mouth to talk about your feelings?"

"I did that," says Isabelle, bewildered.

"no. "if I was going to kiss somebody I would need to take it slow and keep it secret" is a logistic. "I like you and want to kiss you" is a feeling."

"why would I talk to you about kissing logistics if I didn't want to kiss you specifically? just as a hypothetical? is that a thing people do?"

neither of them is entirely sure. but also, they will have this conversation later, because right now is kissing time.

[risingsouls]

Recruited: Prologue

[I suck at titles so excuse the lameness of me just using the name for Nabooru’s new verse. 

So I decided to write actual shit for this because I’m in love with the idea and exploring it. This is just some background on how shit gets set in motion but you can have it anyway. :3]

Nabooru had witnessed falling stars before, trails of light streaking through the sky on clear nights. But never had she seen such a display at midday. Watched them crash into the desert sands with such force as to quake the ground beneath her feet, the edifice she and her people resided in shuddering in protest.

If they had been shooting stars, she would have made a wish on them like a child still so filled with hope for the world. She would have wished for clairvoyance, to know the dreadful shift her life would take, delivered by this phenomenon.

After helping to quell the excitement and panic, she joined Ganondorf and a group of the Elite to investigate. They found that the stars were no stars at all but spherical contraptions embedded in deep pits they created in the sand. They cracked open like a quintet of eggs and out stepped a crew of people the likes she had never seen before, their features all varied and strange to her down to the clothes they donned. 

They hardly noticed the pair of Gerudo step forward despite the king’s size as they conversed among themselves. Planning. Doling out orders. Three took to the air without aid that she could see, leaving the Gerudo in awe. The two remaining--a shorter fellow with a snowy mohawk and reptilian features and a burly warrior with dark hair and sea-colored skin--approached and demanded we offer refuge. Nabooru opened her mouth to protest, but the lizard man raised a hand, a yellow sphere of light forming in his palm and aimed at her chest. Baffled by the technique, on edge over its similarity to magic, she closed her lips again. The message was clear: comply or die.

The band of Gerudo lead the strangers back to the Fortress and Nabooru's unease was reflected back at her on each of the Elite's faces. Ganondorf’s tense jaw and posture, the cogs working behind his eyes as he, too, strategized ways to keep their people safe while wondering who they were, what they wanted. Friend or foe. I could see Aveil desperate to speak to me and convey her own ideas or perhaps make a joke about their appearance to relieve the tension in the furtive glances she shot between myself and the pair. Avira's hands never once left the hilt of the broadsword at her back, and I noticed a flash of silver pressed in Valis's palm. When we passed through the gates, onlookers peered around corners, stopped their training to stare, but the king's glares and the presence of these two kept them all at a distance.

The Elite meeting room was the first stop. A compromise to the initial request. Information for comfort. Nabooru sat on Ganondorf's right side, Aveil next to her, their guests seated directly across from them. The rest of the Elite filled in along the table, all eyes locked on the newcomers. She was grateful that Ganondorf wasted no time with introductions or greetings. Though the warning in his tone when he demanded they state their business only caused the two to exchange smirks. Haughty and overconfident like the stuffed-shirt nobles of Hyrule's court when either of them spoke. Nabooru wrapped her legs around the legs of her chair to keep from springing over the table and tearing them from their faces, that sphere of light poised toward her heart stark in her memory.

The lizard man answered with the ease of being used to such conversations, of someone with nothing to hide. The five of them were soldiers for the ruler of a galactic empire, words that only half made sense to Nabooru. He sent them to the planet to scout its resources, to see if it held any promise as an addition to their empire. When pressed on what that meant for them, the two once more exchanged darkly amused glances, and the dire explanation, blunt and up front, revealed why: they either found usefulness in the planet and its people or it and them would be exterminated.

A million questions swirled around in her panicked mind, most of which fell to pieces before they could reach coherence. Every sinew screamed that they should attack, but the weight of dread and apprehension pinned her and the rest of the Gerudo to their seats, masks of indifference threatening to slip and reveal the desperation and anger they had all felt for years. Hyrule's offences suddenly felt as insignificant as the bite of ants.

The second soldier spoke up before anyone could articulate further questions with one of his own. He saw the warriors training, called attention to those who had welcomed them,all armed and in peak physical condition, and asked if they were warriors. That their power levels, whatever that meant, suggested as much, dismal as they were. Nabooru could see Ganondorf felt the sting of an insult neither of them could quite grasp yet, but answered proudly that Gerudo are taught to fight from the moment they could remain upright and hold a sword. 

As the conversation continued along this vein, Nabooru's apprehension welcomed curiosity when they hinted at such information at least being promising toward their survival. Potentially. A new means of combat for her to learn and strengthen herself. They mentioned something called ki, the energy he had used to threaten her, and Nabooru failed to hold her tongue. Was it magic, then? Both laughed and assured her it wasn't, that even a band of weaklings like them could harness ki or life energy and become an army capable of razing this entire planet and more. Another slight, but in the glance she and the Gerudo king shared, the glimmer of something akin to hope and a desire for strength they both shared to some degree sparking in their eyes, she knew they both wanted to unlock the secrets of this ki. A way to solve their current problems. To fight by their own means rather than artifacts not meant for them just as she always hoped.

Neither of them liked the prospective offer they set on the table for the newcomers, a sentiment shared between the king and his second the following evening as they pored over the same maps that often lead to their more heated arguments, the dead end strategies doomed more than one of them, ripped to shreds in frustration. In futility and helplessness. It was like swapping one ruler for another, but neither had cared to doubt their glib explanation of their business there. With some apprehension, Ganondorf had explained the growing tension within the country, the ire and fear of their neighbors that threatened to slowly suffocate and end their race entirely. How they fought to stave off war with diplomacy and promises of unity, a war they could only dream of winning with the scars of the last one still so fresh. It always shocked her how easily he shifted into the role of the humbled king, how he wove his passion for his people back into his words, his motives, his being. She saw the king she was proud of, the man she fell in love with all those years ago.

The bargain was simple: Ganondorf offered the Gerudo as a standing army to rule over the planet for this emperor of theirs in exchange for training in using ki which would help them overtake the current governing body. Nabooru added that, as natural warriors, the Gerudo learned quickly, and would not cost them much time. She also suggested they teach the Elite warriors first and that they could pass the knowledge on to the rest of the tribe, rather than expend time and soldiers of their own on training an entire army.

Though an agreement hung in the air, the soldiers informing them they would need to run that and the rest of their report by their emperor, Nabooru felt an elation she had not felt in years. A sense that they might finally make progress. She wanted peace, but Hyrule had made it apparent that wasn’t an option. The prospect that they could triumph and survive, to discontinue scraping by, she couldn’t help herself. And to be on the same page as the man she devoted herself to working with--someday ruling beside--after so many long months of disagreements and fights...to see a glimmer of the future she thought they could no longer sustain…

They made love that night. Truly. Deeply. Lovingly. Not as the result of a heated argument, a need for release or the adrenaline after a sparring session. Though the thought of impending doom occurred to her and spurred a second and third round before she tucked herself against his side for sleep, the thought that this could be their last night, such anxiety played a secondary role to her bolstered spirits.

Spirits that only soared higher into the cloudless desert sky when the soldiers returned with the rest of their crew and news that their emperor, Frieza, had agreed to the terms. Training commenced immediately, and Nabooru flourished. She felt like a kid again, handed her very first proper sword and learned to wield it. When she tapped into the energy slumbering within her, it amazed her how natural it felt. The skills, the strength she could have had all that time. Flight, blasts fired from her hands that tore through solid plateaus. It was invigorating. She obsessed over mastering it and challenging herself to reach new heights, finding time outside of the formal training sessions to train more. To spar with Aveil, Avira, Ganondorf, or any of the other Elite who would humor her. 

If only she had known her zeal for combat would someday bite her. That she would find her proclivity for fighting, her love and enjoyment of it, a hindrance over an aid.

How it would cost her everything.

Each Gerudo had to brace themself as the gargantuan ship flew low over the fortress, the gust left in its wake ripping flags from their standards and sand whipping through the air. It landed just outside the gates in far more graceful fashion than the pods the others arrived in. Their five guests scrambled to round up all the Gerudo and assemble them in front of the fortress, barking orders to straighten clothing or to stop looking so slack-jawed. Many aired their grievances with the rushed treatment, their confusion over the unidentified craft that flew overhead. But the sight of it working the galactic soldiers into a frenzy made sense with the whispers and off-handed comments made during their stay once they finally illuminated the significance of the ship: Frieza had arrived.

Nabooru stood at Ganondorf’s side as a chair carrying a horned, diminutive creature hovered toward them tailed by two what she could only guess were his guards or generals, and she followed suit in bowing along with the rest of her tribe and the soldiers. Her gold gaze lifted in curiosity to watch them, to understand why the emperor was so feared and surmise if the horror stories his men told them rang true. She only had to stare into his crimson eyes and witness that condescendingly amused smirk once to discontinue doubting them.

The alarm bells should have sounded when he requested an audience with both her and Ganondorf. It made sense to want to speak with the one who would rule the planet in his stead. But to specifically request she join them after inquiring if she was the one he had been told about, she should have seen the signs no matter how futile a retreat would have been. Her pride blinded her to any possibility except her skill and power being seen as impressive for a beginner. Enough to have earned the emperor’s praise. 

She had only been half right.

The turn the conversation took after a cordial discussion of the planet’s landmarks and resources, of how the warriors handled the training and a prospective timeframe for the attack on Hyrule, had forced Nabooru to forget most of the details of anything prior. The world slipped out from beneath her when Frieza informed the king and his second that he would recruit Nabooru to his ranks due to her skill and unusually high power level for a denizen of a planet like this one, and explained that he couldn’t rightly take Ganondorf, the more powerful of the two, as he needed him to stay and rule as promised. He would settle for close second. As insurance, to feel that he was given as much as they took in their conquest of the planet.

Every fiber of her being screamed out in protest. How could she leave her home? Her people? Her lover? And after all they had worked for and accomplished and on the brink of sacking Hyrule and starting something so entirely new? They were her life, everything she threw every ounce of her essence into. But to refuse was death. Or worse, her people's slaughter over it. She could feel herself hollowing out with each passing moment, as the same hopelessness she thought she had left behind tore the feelings of assured victory from her heart. 

Ganondorf opened his mouth at last to speak for her, but she stopped him with a deep bow. "It would be my honor to serve you, Lord Frieza."

[legobiwan]

Whumptober #7 (isolation)

TW: none

Fandom: Star Wars (Padmé Amidala, Count Dooku. Yes, you read that right.)

Notes: So, this happened. Probably some suspension of disbelief is necessary for this whole conceit, but it’s more of a character study than anything else. Also, damn do I love writing Dooku he’s such a creepy shit I love him. Alright guys, LET’S. GET. WEIRD.

—–

“The galaxy is an open wound, my friends, and the Republic is the infection which must be lanced if we are to secure a future for your homeworlds. Make no mistake, the bureaucrats in the Galactic Senate care not for your governments, for your banks and farmlands, for your schools and businesses - except in how they may extract what they need, as a parasite feeds on its host. Alone, in isolation, you will suffer, will bleed out, and when the Republic has taken their fill, they will discard the empty, pale carcass of your beloved cities with barely a thought.

Together, we will rise, will fight the corruption of a self-indulgent galactic government which cares only for its own appetites. Together, we are the Independent Movement for Self-Determination, the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Together, we will throw off the shackles too-long endured by our masters on Coruscant, and secure a prosperous future for generations to come.

Thank you.”

The auditorium erupted in applause, students, professors, and government leaders rising from their apple-plush seats, a wave of sentients cresting like the tides on Varikyno.

Padmé slipped out the back door, soft hood of her violet cloak pulled low. The Count would have felt her presence already, would have known with a single tilt of his head the invitation had been accepted, along with the rules of engagement. Still, it would not do for a high-ranking, high-profile member of the Galactic Senate to be seen attending a political rally of an enemy of the state. (The enemy of the state, she reminded herself.)

The restaurant was a few blocks to the east, tucked away on the top floor of a small shopping complex boasting a holobook emporium and a few fashionable clothing outlets.

A perfectly understated setting.

Padmé paused, taking in her reflection in the glass storefront, her cloak draped across her shoulders, falling long to the ground, fabric bundled in little hills and valleys in the fashion of the local populace. Her eyes were hooded, fuchsia irises settled beneath furled, copper eyebrows.

She barely recognized herself.

Anakin would be furious if he knew what she was doing.

Anakin was furious a lot, these days.

Right now, however, her husband was deployed on the other side of the galaxy, leading a campaign against General Grievous and his endless armies of battledroids. There was no need to worry him with her extracurricular activities, not when his life was already on the line every day, when blaster fire singed his long, brown hair and lightsaber welts branded his tanned, strong arms.

No, Anakin didn’t need to know. Not about this.

Her chrono chimed. 19:20. Just enough time to make a cursory sweep of the restaurant. Padmé reached into the satchel hanging off her shoulder, her hand drifting past holobooks and data readers - all innocuous items, typical for a graduate student out on a night on the town.

She slid a hand under Alone Among Many, feeling for the second, hidden pouch, her fingers closing around the handle of a mini-blaster and a signal disrupter.

Right, then.

Padmé took a steadying breath, laying her other hand on her upper abdomen. It twinged in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable sensation.

A silver-haired head glided past in reflection of the window. Padmé counted, one second, five seconds, ten, finally turning away from her own strange image, following Count Dooku up the dimly-lit stairs.

———

“An interesting choice of disguise, Senator. You seem to have quite the flair for clandestine work.” Dooku sips at his wine, blood-red, glistening in the wide-mouthed crystal glass.

“A Senator’s work is rarely confined to an office suite,” Padmé counters, raising her own glass to her lips, suddenly very aware of the bright, copper hair falling from her hood.

Dooku chuckles. “Ah, if only more of your colleagues felt the same way, my dear. In fact, I imagine you might be alone in your singular dedication to your work and your people.”

“There are plenty of other Senators who devote their lives to - “

“And I daresay,” Dooku interrupts with a hint of irritation, “you are in close contact with those few sentients who possess the ability to see past their own gluttonous ambitions.”

A question hidden in an offhand comment. Pure diplomacy, pure politics. Padmé excelled at this aspect of her job - reading subtext and hidden meanings in a curved word or the inflection of a comma.

She allows the silence to stretch, taking a lingering sip of her wine as she glances around the dark room.

Dark wood-paneling complements the deep green of the wall coverings, the edges glimmering with the tasteful application of bronzed borders. It’s an understated kind of affluence, the kind which comes as naturally as breathing to those brought up in a certain station.

Anakin never was able to dull his rough edges, as uncomfortable as a purrgil in the desert at any function requiring more than two pieces of silverware. Obi-wan, ever the diplomat, had nearly everyone fooled, all soft charm and etiquette. But even he wasn’t raised in this culture, this world of unspoken rules where customs are less taught than absorbed.

In this, she shares common ground with the man across from her.

“I doubt you extended this invitation to hear idle gossip from the Senate. What do you want?” A tactless approach, but Padmé is already growing impatient. She is alone, on a foreign planet, ruled by an enemy government, sitting across from a man who would just as soon see her and everyone she loved dead.

“You are mistaken, dear girl, but I will allow the false assumption to continue for the time being.” Dooku neatly folds his hands on the table, leveling his gaze at Padmé.

“I want to negotiate.”

Padmé meets his eyes with equal intensity, the gears in her mind spinning.

“What makes you think I would barter the future of the Republic with a terrorist?”

“Because you have done so before.”

It’s said without ire or malice, but Padmé feels the words as blow to the stomach. They both know to what Dooku is referring, the debacle on Mon Calamari, only a few short months ago - how she allowed General Grievous to go free in exchange for a single Jedi.

Her Jedi.

Padmé swallows, her throat dry. “Perhaps I’ve reconsidered my position.”

“Doubtful, seeing that you are here, on Reena, sipping wine with the most wanted man in the Republic.” Dooku spreads his arms with an easy, false smile.

She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to, the evidence of her presence in the restaurant is damning enough on its own.

“You prefer diplomacy. As do I, Senator.” Dooku continues, waving his hand in a conciliatory gesture. “And in the spirit of said diplomacy, let us return to the seemingly unimportant matter of the idle, chattering gossip in the Senate. As you stated, you are devoted to your job, to your people, to the foundations on which the Republic was built.”

Padmé nods, careful. So far nothing Dooku has said is wholly disagreeable, even if the man himself is.

“And you have made certain connections with those who share similar viewpoints, no? A wise move, if I may say so myself. To rock the proverbial boat takes a singular strength of will, but to move oceans around said boat requires the strength of many. As you have witnessed over the past few years.”

The war, the secession. From Dooku’s point of view, it makes sense, but Padmé cannot condone the pointless bloodshed, the death and suffering brought about by the desire for change.

Dooku leans forward, voice lowering, conspiratorial. It takes all of Padmé’s considerable control to not recoil.

“You don’t trust the Chancellor.”

Her leg jerks, knee hitting the table with a muffled thud. The movement disrupts the wine glasses, red liquid sloshing back and forth, little bubbles coalescing on edges. Padmé smooths her expression in a second, hoping Dooku can’t hear the pounding of her heart in her throat. She hopes he mistakes her reaction for anger.

“I will not sit here and be accused of treason - “

“And you are right to, Miss Amidala.”

Dooku speaks just loud enough, with just enough will to silence Padmé. She wonders if he is using a small compulsion on her, as she is never one to back down from an argument. The thought sickens her, leaves her nauseated. It’s a rank violation, to be forced into silence by another man.  

“The Senate is corrupt,” Dooku continues as if nothing has happened, although his words gain urgency. “But no one more so than Chancellor Palpatine.” The Count pauses, his eyes darting to the side, a rare concession to discomfort, to perhaps even fear of retaliation.

“An understanding between two groups, whose primary aim would be to end the war with as little bloodshed as possible, might be a proposition worth considering. Especially if they were to be on opposing sides of this conflict.”

Padmé’s mouth dries. How could he have learned any of this? Yes, she and few other Senators harbored worsening doubts regarding Palpatine’s mounting powers, his extension of the war, his seeming reluctance to engage in even the most rudimentary diplomacy.

But they had only met a handful of times and - if there was a mole in their group, an double agent…

She straightens, chastising herself for falling prey to Dooku’s manipulations. “You are mistaken, Count. The Senate trusts the Chancellor.” After a beat she adds, “As do the Jedi.”

“The Jedi are fools,” Dooku hisses, hand tightening around the stem of his wine glass. Padmé swallows a smug grin.

I can play this game, too, Count.

“Unless you have anything else to add, I believe our negotiations have come to an end.” First lesson in negotiation - make the other side reveal themselves first. To be honest, she’s not so interested in Dooku’s response. The game has played long enough, and the urge to leap from the table is real. She needs to get out of here, needs to get on a transport, get back to Coruscant. Needs to contact Anakin, hear his voice, needs to not be alone.

Dooku says nothing, taking his hand to his chin. 

Padmé stands in an abrupt movement, throwing her satchel over her shoulder. She halfway considers reaching into the bag and pulling out her blaster. Dooku’s death wouldn’t end the war, not even she is so naive, but it would certainly slow the seemingly inexorable march of the Republic towards destruction.

She abandons the idea almost as quickly. Dooku was, at one point, a Jedi, and he can still call on the Force, even in its corrupted and dark form.

She would be dead before her hand even touched her weapon.

Padmé turns to leave when she hears the words.

“You’re alone, you know.”

Her lips purse, teeth grinding against each other. She should leave. Not all negotiations are successful, and rule two is to know when to walk way from the table, in this case quite literally. 

She can’t let it go, however.

“I have the Republic. I have friends in the Senate. Family whom I love.”

If the words are shaky, if they are shadowed by doubt, it’s meaningless, only the stress of an invitation she should have never accepted.

“I can feel it, Senator. The blank void, the ragged edges where it was ripped away. Something used to be there, and now there’s not. And that nothing is growing, a virus inside you.”

Padmé’s hands shake.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Something rustles. Suddenly there is a presence at her back, an insidious warmth and she realizes Dooku is a mere breath from her, soft words hot on her ear.

“I know isolation, Senator Amidala. I was raised on the teat of it.” She feels every sharp consonant in her bones. “You reek of it, that terrible elixir of misplaced affection and desperation.”

Dooku’s words root Padmé in place, her feet bound by ice, her mind by fire. It’s not true, it’s never been true and yet the accusation pulls at a loose thread in her chest, the one that unraveled every time Anakin demanded she turn down a social engagement, or spoke of her in a way which crashed past the boundaries of romances into possession.

Dooku steps closer, somehow still not touching her, a gesture for which she is both grateful and disturbed. If the Count’s motivations had been more base, more carnal, his accusations would carry little weight, but she knows he leers only to add gravity to his words.

“*He* is the cause of your isolation, Senator Amidala. I can feel it in you,” Dooku whispers, barely audible, his lips hovering a molecule removed from her skin, silver beard a whisker from her uncovered head, so still Padmé almost believes he has stopped time itself.

Her knees buckle when he steps back.

“Do consider my proposition, Senator,” he all business again, as if the last few minutes had never happened. “It would be a mutually beneficial arrangement, in more ways than you can fathom.”

Padmé readjusts the satchel on her shoulder and rushes from the restaurant, not looking back, nearly knocking over a server droid in her panicked haste. She does not tarry on Reena, piloting her starship with reckless speed back to Coruscant, as if a pack of Lothwolves were chasing her across the stars.

It was nothing. Manipulation, and she curses herself for almost falling prey to it. She’ll be back on Coruscant tomorrow, she’ll get back to work, she’ll meet with Mon, have dinner with Leeth, organize her next speech, perhaps do a bit a charity work...

She will not be alone. Not anymore.

legobiwan does whumptober

[normal-thoughts-official]

HEY SO u didn’t wanna go on a trans!magnus tangent in ur sexuality post but *I* want you to go on a trans!magnus tangent! Tell me more about him coming to terms w/ his identity & how it’s influenced his life and all that. Essentially just give me all the trans!magnus content in ur brain. Love u ❤️❤️❤️ ~cursedlightwood

here’s my hot take: magnus’ gender is Tired. and yes, i will elaborate, because Ive spent the last 2-3 weeks doing research for this ask, so this is probably the most well-informed theory you’ll see on this subject. yeah, we’re doomed

EDIT: i was gonna say this from the get-go but i forgot, so: english is not my first language and i’m unsure about the usage of some terms that i found during research, particularly those referring to traditional javanese religions and customs; so, if you spot anything that is problematic, racist or colonialist please let me know and i’ll change it. 

ok, so i want to start this off by saying that, although javanese society had a binary gender system, they had pretty egalitarian views on gender, and from what i’ve seen the division of labor wasn’t really set in stone - although they were less common than male ones, there were female warriors, for instance. both men and women could be the sovereign and were equally respected, both could ask for a divorce, etc. the most important part of their gender views, to me, seems to be that they believed women were better for diplomatic roles and trading, because they believed men were too emotional and not as good as debating and making compromises as women were (same source)

so i’m just gonna say this, here and now: AFAB!Magnus makes a lot of sense because Magnus is the most diplomatic person you’ll ever fucking see, and in this context, if he were AFAB, he would have been socialized to be for a very young age. and i dont mean hes diplomatic just on the sense that he’s literally keeping most of the characters together and preventing fights (remember when he had to stop a Raphael VS Simon catfight? ugh), but also in the sense that out of everyone hes the one who best handles the seelie queen, for example. he’s good at Wit Battles, negotiating, building bridges and dealing with power relations when its needed.

and i mean, this would also be a pretty good start on why he’d be like “no thanks” when it comes to this whole Womanhood thing, because yeah, Magnus is good at that, he has to be, but does he like it? to me it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t, that he’s absolutely uninterested in anything involving power and negotiations and this whole ridiculous dance it involves. also he’s constantly giving himself the short end of the stick so y’know. honestly, at heart, magnus is an inventor, an explorer; he likes to create things, he likes to learn, he likes to explore the world around him, meet people, help them, build relationships - but on equal grounds, not this whole give-some-take-some thing diplomacy entails. and as a Woman™ in pre-colonial java society, it’s pretty much that, be a farmer, or a concubine - we’re gonna get to that a little bit later on.

so i think in this context little magnus would be like “no thanks” and wanting to go around and, i don’t know, look at plants and learn their properties and figure out why apples fall, or something. it’s not exactly a Man’s Role™ either, although to be fair i found it a little hard to figure out what exactly were men’s roles in javanese society because gender studies usually just focus on women and treat men as the standard and don’t really explore how manhood is construed. but anyway. i know that they were warriors more frequently than women (same source), but women could be warriors as well. like i said, gender roles in javanese society weren’t really set in stone. [alec voice] they’re not rules, they’re suggestions.

add to that the fact that magnus lived in a port city - he had to, since in the early 1600s the dutch were only settling in important ports and trading centers - and the ports in java were very important trading centers that had been attracting people from all over Asia and Europe for centuries, and had a quite good share of migrants and immigrants living there, including quite a good share of Buginese, aka the people who had a 5-gender division. jakarta, which is in java, has like the 10th biggest buginese population in the world, not to mention the countless other societies that had their own views on gender relations; and you have a pretty good and accepting environment when it comes to differences. the javanese were flexible, they were well aware that culture isn’t set in stone, and they were very prone to syncretism. the kingdom allowed people to have any religion they wanted, even if its “official” religion at the time was buddhism. so really: the javanese were actually not very into the whole “imposing cultural constructs” thing, especially the coastal javanese. so magnus would have likely had the freedom to explore and to not really want to conform to any gender stereotypes without that being a HUGE deal, in my opinion.

and then there’s the fact that the concept of womanhood was a pretty disputed one at the time; yes, the javanese had their own views, but it’s important to note that by the 1600s most of the coastal javanese population had converted to Islam, which led to a few differences as well; when compared to other southeast asian communities, for example, the rate of women in trade was a little different - while it was a steady 50% in almost all countries and cultures, in indonesia it was around 30%, because muslim communities had more of a “women stay at home” view. however, when compared to other asian societies such as the chinese society, where the rate was of 1-5%, you can see that the javanese’s egalitarian views on gender stood a fair amount of ground. also, in indonesia, precisely due to their more open views, Islam mostly syncretised with local religions and customs, including the gender views; in Bugis, for instance, the 5-gender system was kept, as were traditional customs such as “ritual transvestism” and homosexuality. so, yes, it was disputed, and people had many views on what people could or couldn’t do, but that mostly ended up becoming a kind of “live and let live” thing. which is the perfect environment for 1- AFAB!Magnus be Very Tired of this whole womanhood thing that no one can even decide what it is anyway; 2- Magnus to say “fuck this” and live as a masc-leaning genderless entity that just wanted to make some goddamn potions.

but then there’s the colonial relations, right? how do the dutch come into this already very complicated and delicately balanced equation? that was honestly the main point of my research, trying to figure out just how much influence the dutch had at such an early stage of colonisation, and also what it would be like to live in a mixed-culture household such as magnus’. here’s what i have:

during the first century of dutch colonisation (aka the part we’re talking about) the dutch and the europeans didn’t really have a big influence in javanese cultural and political relations. the javanese were pretty well organised and had a powerful and strong society so the europeans didn’t really manage to invade them successfully - even the portuguese, the most powerful european nation at the time, tried and failed to invade them for the whole 16th century (get rekt lmao). so what the dutch did was, they simply established themselves as one of the many companies that settled in jakarta to trade, and slowly built their power and influence from there. don’t get me wrong, the dutch were very violent colonisers and in other parts of indonesia they were doing the european thing of mass genocide as much as any other country. they weren’t a “softer” version of colonisers, they just didn’t have the power to subjugate the javanese, so they had to try a slower approach. during the early 1600s, the only dutch people in java were the VOC workers (VOC is the dutch east india company - the acronym is in dutch. basically the company that was there to get some nice spices to sell to the rest of europe so they could shove it all up their assholes or smth since up to this day their food is bland as shit), and they weren’t permanent settlers; they could only stay in java for the duration of their contract with the VOC and they couldn’t bring their wives and children with them, and they couldn’t bring any wives or mixed children they had while in java back to europe, either (same source).

this weird relationship meant that magnus’ “stepfather” and his mother probably had a relationship of concubinage (told you we’d get back to that), which was not uncommon in java neither before nor after the arrival of the dutch. in short, his mother was supposed to take care of his house, make him food and all that jazz, and also have a sexual relationship with him, in exchange for money (same source). it was not prostitution and it worked pretty much as a marriage, except it was temporary and contractual. BUT it meant that magnus’ mother would have to have converted to christianism (same source) and due to the fact that she was in a temporary contract, she couldn’t divorce him, and in their home he would treat her as, well, europeans treated their wives - with the particular western brand of sexism that they so kindly forced unto the rest of us. so that makes the whole thing even more disputed and complicated.

but as a VOC worker, magnus’ stepfather wouldn’t even be home for most of the day, and he couldn’t really keep magnus or his mom from, like, leaving the house and doing their things. i think he wouldn’t even try because that would prolly be very looked down upon in java; spousal abuse in southeast asia as a whole was pretty rare, since anyone could divorce whenever they wanted and women were politically and financially independent, so i think if he tried to pull something like that he would be in trouble - again, the dutch were the minority, and for the most part, they lived as the javanese did, in their villages, in their homes, eating their food and mostly adapting to their customs (same source). they even mostly spoke indonesian in their homes, since most indonesians didn’t speak dutch, and indonesia was kind of the universal language at the time, since there were many languages spoken both in and outside of java (this also explains why magnus speaks indonesian instead of javanese; that would have been the language spoken at his home. you have no idea how relieved having an explanation for this makes me). also there’s the pressing question of, would he even give a shit what magnus does or doesn’t do? magnus wasn’t his biological son, and most of these guys didn’t care about any biological children they might have had with these women, since they were women of color and they would leave them eventually anyway. honestly this is all the more reason for him to treat magnus like shit - he was javanese, he was brown, and he wasn’t even related to him by blood. this was also probably grounds for him to treat magnus’ mom even worse, since in his christian eyes the fact that she had a child outside of marriage made her even lesser than other indonesians.

so honestly, what i’m picturing is something like - most of the time it was pretty okay, there were certain expectations and a certain kind of female socialization but it was okay that he didn’t really fit in there, and then with his stepfather the whole thing was just shit. 

also, the fact that his mom was probably a concubine means there was a fair chance that his stepfather would have other concubines, and listen, yes i may be flexing, but you can’t stop me from imagining that maybe magnus was raised in a multicultural home with lots of other southeast asian women and children and maybe even buginese because again you can’t fucking STOP ME.

but either way, even if his home wasn’t like that, his city was - we don’t know which city he lived in, but it doesn’t matter, really; all cities with dutch settlers were port cities and therefore followed pretty much the same pattern of being a cultural tapestry with all sorts of influences coexisting in peace.

so really, little magnus lived in a pretty rich environment when it came to exploring his identity. he and his mom lived in a pretty egalitarian society gender-wise, he had the space and the opportunity to explore the world and figure out what he liked and didn’t like. am i going crazy imagining a tiny magnus with his mom, running around in other farms and listening, enraptured, stories of people from all over the world, about their cultures and lives, and learning there is so much to see and wanting to just go wherever he could, getting himself a passion for travelling that would later fuel his want to invent a quick way to go anywhere he wanted to, going to the port and seeing all the stuff they had available, from plants with healing properties to spices, and just loving to figure out their properties and how they could be mixed together to create new things, loving this world full of wonder and possibilities? maybe. god.

but anyway, what i’m trying to get at here is that it’s really impossible to think of a cis magnus in this context, no matter if you think AMAB or AFAB trans magnus - i know ive been focused on AFAB magnus here but really that’s mostly because 1- Projection; 2- thinking about AFAB magnus brings in new layers of complexity that need further exploration in my opinion; but really this applies to any magnus. what would being “cis” even mean, in a context where the very concepts of manhood and womanhood were so disputed and complex? and that’s not even going into the fact that after so many centuries, complying to gender roles of that time looked nothing like complying to our modern gender roles. really, it’s a lost cause. magnus kind of has a culturally-specific gender that…. no one but other warlocks born in similar situations could, really? there’s no word for it. there’s no explaining it with words. it is [REDACTED GOOD OMENS REFERENCE]

the closest we have is masc-leaning enby, since somewhere along the way he seems to have decided to use male pronouns and have a mostly masc-presenting body, even if paired with a more fem-presenting appearance fashion and mannerisms-wise. but again it’s too unique, there are way too many influences here.

and honestly that’s kind of beautiful! i love imagining small magnus having contact with people with all kinds of views on gender and society throughout his childhood, exploring, trying on their clothes, learning about their religions and customs, having elderly friends from different backgrounds and also young friends who were raised in very different ways, and sharing all of that, and learning about who he is amidst all of that, and being able to explore that and talk about that to his mom and friends and close people because they are used to these differences. even if when at home he was probably met with some kind of transphobic rhetoric and violence because of his stepfather and the imposed christianity that came with it - and that unlike other religions, didn’t syncretize at all.

which brings us to a second, very important point on the whole trans magnus ordeal, which is how deeply tied to racism the transphobia he’s suffered and the general understanding of his gender was. of course, this applies to every single of-color and non-western born person, but magnus has lived that through history. from a very young age, the blunt of the violence he was met with came from a racist standpoint that believed his very identity and existence made him lesser and in need to be corrected - because that’s what, after all, the colonizers were doing. their whole rhetoric was that the colonized were barbaric and needed them to learn the right ways through violence. it is worth noticing that the javanese have been referred to as “the most inhuman of all people” by dutch colonizers, and amongst the reasons for that was the fact that their views on gender were so different from the european’s (same source).

so really we’re mixing in the fact that he was a “bastard” child in his stepfather’s eyes, a warlock, and trans… and yeah, oof. there’s no way he was treated with anything other than violence from way before his mom’s suicide and the subsequent drowning attempt. in his stepfather’s eyes, everything about magnus’ existence was demonic, impure, and all the more reason why he and his mom were dirty and needed to be corrected.

it’s also worth noting that sorcery was a very big part of javanese culture that was also syncretized with pretty much every religion. the javanese believed in sorcery, believed everyone could do magic, and the dutch, of course, despised that. the source above is a pretty interesting article that argues that the european’s so-called “skepticism” on magic and “rational-based” culture was actually part of a construction of whiteness that hoped precisely to differentiate them from the “savage” others. i mean, the guys were burning women at the stake because they were “witches”, but every other culture’s religions, rituals and magic were just bullshit and couldn’t be trusted because the europeans were too rational and knew better? okay buddy. it also features an amazing story about a dutch colonizer who got hexxed because of his racism that is, quite frankly, heartwarming. but i digress.

so yeah listen i know i already talked about this on the other ask but there’s really no way the reason his mother killed herself was because she found out magnus was a warlock or a demon’s son or whatever. magic was part of their culture. it was what they believed in. it was a part of nature to them. it’s way more likely that the reason she killed herself was the constant violence she was met with in daily life that she couldn’t get away from, and his stepfather simply blamed magnus because, to him, he represented everything that was wrong with their culture - and that makes even more sense if we think about trans!magnus, because that makes him an even deeper abomination. it’s very likely that most of the violence and belittling his mother had to face was related to magnus as well - look what you created, what you do, your culture is an abomination, this is unacceptable. but magnus was way too small at that time, and he believed what his stepfather told him, because i mean, what else would he believe in?

i also think that asmodeus kind of messed with his perception of how the whole thing went down, telling him that he “murdered” him when really it was clearly self defense, erasing the violence his stepfather directed towards magnus and focusing on the end to convince magnus that he was evil, unredeemable, that no one would accept him but asmodeus, that he had no other choice. so that’s super fun! but yeah i do believe that asmodeus spent enough time gaslighting magnus and rewriting this whole story for this to be considered magnus’ worst memory, seen by him as a reminder of his “ugly side” that doesn’t really even exist. asmodeus weaponized this, which served the double purpose of convincing magnus he had no choice but to follow asmodeus, and teaching him that violence is normal and there’s nothing wrong with it, and that retaliating makes him bad. 

this is all i have to say about the asmodeus years, really, because like i said before i don’t think he gives a shit about gender, he’s way older than it and who cares. but the trauma that the whole thing put magnus through is easily weaponizable. @thesorrowoflizards also wrote this amazing fic that features the headcanon that asmodeus used magnus’ transness to manipulate him as well, using spells that made him more masculine and stuff but only if magnus obeyed him. fun! especially considering that he was with asmodeus through his puberty (or at least that’s likely) when his body would have begun to change, so for him to have such a masc-presenting body…. yeah. this is very plausible. i love pain.

and then we get to england, where again, everyone is an asshole, about everything, all the time. like holy shit, he thought the europeans cared too much when he was in java, but that is nothing compared to the brits and their casual sentencing people to death for being gender non conforming. also, to the europeans, asian men were seen as emasculate and their gender relations as a whole was unnatural, and listen, i know that in 18th-19th century england men also wore makeup and stuff, but i mean, magnus was probably seen as exotic in his “effeminate” mannerisms and non-compliance to gender roles, even if people didn’t know he was AFAB or just trans in general. he was probably objectified in that sense, kinda like a human-zoo sorta thing. fascinating, these emasculated asians with weird bodies and customs. ugh.

so yeah gender got particularly exhausting at that time, too. thankfully there were the warlocks, who were old enough to know all of this was bullshit and who had people from all kinds of cultural backgrounds, thousands of people with culturally-specific genders, as well as other people who were raised in similar environments as him. so in there he finds a home of sorts, a place where this doesn’t matter and where he can be himself and nobody cares, and also has access to different cultures and views and knowledge, and really it’s like the good parts of his childhood again. he learns more about magic and potion-making, about other cultures and places, travels the world, learns about science and the workings behind his magic. creates new potions, new spells, continues his education, learns and remembers how much he loves this, the cultural effervency, the chances to learn and explore and create. really the warlock community is so amazing and it’s like, golden era.

but he’s also living amongst mundanes and to some extent he likes them - not to mention, he likes travelling and learning about different places and cultures. and they seem to care more and more about differentiating genders as time goes by, and to be getting more and more violent in their never-ending quest to force people to fit into these roles, and it’s. tiring. exhausting. who cares. it makes less and less sense to him, and this alienation from the whole thing only solidifies his non-conformance and general inability to fit. sometimes he feels old, and alone, even if he has other people who are Like Him now - the shadow world can get tiring, sometimes, and there’s also the shadowhunters racism thing going on that’s also inevitably trying to subjugate their spaces and looks down on their culture - so it also has the downsides of his childhood. sometimes it’s like there’s no word for who he is, no one that can understand it, no place where he can be fully himself and loved for it. and this only intensifies by the middle of the 19th century, when suddenly makeup and colorful clothing is not for men anymore, and he’s even less conforming than before - he was a pretty respectable Man™ to their standarts up to that point, but from then on that is lost. it doesn’t matter too much, because even if he is masc-leaning, he still doesn’t really see himself as a man in the sense that he seems to be expected to. but that furthers the alienation, and the feeling of loneliness and of being old and unfit for this world.

that is also when he meets camille! and that’s canon because there was that one picture of him with camille and ragnor and the clothes they are wearing are very much from the 1840s (i talked about this here), which is precisely when the whole men’s fashion differentiating from women’s fashion thing was starting. so in the context of his gender this makes it even easier for camille to manipulate him into thinking that she’s the only one who will ever understand and accept him, and that he’s naive, and that he doesn’t fit into the world and doesn’t understand what’s best for him, and really he should trust her judgement better because he is a man out of his time, but she can help him, and- yeah. that good olde cis-girl-abuses-trans-person routine, with even more elements than usual. ggghhhghh

and it’s not until the 1960s and 70s that these notions start to actually be challenged. of course, trans people have always existed and were building their own communities and helping each other as well as they could, and magnus certainly was a part of that, because, well, that’s who he is. he doesn’t leave people in need and he knows how painful it is to go through all of this alone, so he does his best to help and adopts pretty much everyone he can. but for the most part, they are a diaspora, and the cissexist society that alienates and tries to kill them goes on unchallenged.

that gives him all the more reason to get so involved with stonewall and the subsequent building of the queer neighborhoods and communities, that feeling that maybe he can belong after all, that things might change and his life doesn’t have to be an infinite cycle of violence, isolation, abuse, and repeat. seeing these events unfold, helping keep people safe, meeting Sylvia Rivera and all the other trans people of color who were part of this, who had stories so similar to his, who were also bisexual (!!), who knew what it was like. that was healing, and that was important to him, and gjfdkafaskfa yeah.

and of course not everything is a sea of roses, because then the community starts to divide and trans and bi ppl, particularly of color, particularly those who are like him, start to be looked down on. Sylvia is arrested and even booed at Pride, suddenly he’s drawing the short end of the stick again. and then there’s the AIDS crisis, and he sees so many people die, and for a while, it feels like there’s no way out after all. and he even loses a lot of his warlock friends, the people who really understand him in his entirety, because sometime around that there’s the Circle massacre, as well. it’s a dark time for him, and honestly it’s a good thing he’s sworn off romance after the whole camille ordeal to clear his head, because after losing so many people he’s never felt this alienated, this alone, and to fall into the arms of another camille or asmodeus would have been just too easy.

but god, he heals. it’s crazy, but he has raphael, he has cat, ragnor, dot, elias, and he somehow builds himself up and relearns to trust and starts to believe that he has the love he’s always believed himself unworthy of having, that he believed impossible to him. and he starts to open up, and to feel more confident in his own skin, right in time to meet alec.

and look, trans!Magnus just makes malec all the more powerful. not only is this shadowhunter showing up and fully trusting a downworlder, giving him his strength, caring about him, cleaning his home (!) and taking care of him, something he hasn’t allowed himself to have for so long, something he didn’t believe he could have and that alec does so easily even when they’ve barely met. he shows magnus so much care and respect from day one and magnus doesn’t get that from anyone, let alone a shadowhunter, let alone a shadowhunter that’s there with jocelyn’s entitled daughter who treats him as a tool - and look, i know he loves clary, but she is entitled and magnus unfortunately enables her and other entitled shadowhunters to treat him as such, because even he treats himself as such most of the time, and it’s something he needs to work on, and probably has been at least since he broke up with camille.

but he’s also a white, gay man, and magnus has seen firsthand that these people can be nasty to people like him. yes he tried to help alec come to terms with his sexuality, and yes he’s surprised him before, but it’s also not like alec didn’t fuck up and wasn’t entirely… well, shadowhunter-y and had a lot of trouble believing that things didn’t have to be the shadowhunter, bigoted way for a while. but alec doesn’t give a shit if magnus is trans, it doesn’t lessen his attraction or love to him in any way, and it’s just. ugh. beautiful.

and yeah this has gotten too long and it already took me like 3 weeks to answer it because of the amount of research ive done and general tiredness so im gonna end this here, and on a positive note for a change! magnus is happy and learning to take care of himself and accepts himself and trans rights. hell yeah.

[resetmypatientviolence]

Their First Christmas (Drake x MC) [Part 1 of 2]

Pairing: Drake x Jaela

Word Count: 2,950

Rating: PG

Warnings: Language

Song Accompaniment: So This Is Christmas-- John Lennon

Description: In this two-part fic, Drake’s upset he has to miss most of their first December as a married couple due to a work trip. He loves the Christmas season. Jaela, meanwhile... doesn’t really care. That is, until she married Drake Walker.  

Author Note: Happy Holidays all! Enjoy some fluff, and enjoy happy Drake and Jaela! Thank you so much for reading! Part two should go up tomorrow-- I think you might have an idea of what comes next....

Jaela hasn't stopped pacing since Drake texted her, announcing his arrival after a three-week trip. Her stomach flips. He'll be home soon. Too soon-- or not soon enough? Jaela doesn't know, smoothing down her hair, a complete nervous wreck for the first time in their marriage, still fresh, shiny, and new.

How will he react? Angry? Happy? Sad? Confused? She kept everything under wraps, making sure that no Skype call revealed anything. Oh god—what if she messed up everything and did things wrong and—“Stop thinking, Jae!” She snaps to herself, moving her hands from hair to her sides, smoothing down the fabric of her dress, not a wrinkle in sight. She keeps her eyes downcast in the foyer, silently counting her steps when the heel clicks on the floor. “He’ll love it, he’ll love it… I’m not an idiot…”

It’s a minimal comfort, one violently ripped from her when the doorknob turns. Breathless, Jaela snaps her head up, lips tight, as the door opens to reveal her husband. The moment of truth. Now or never.

*

Drake's packing for his trip with Liam-- a too long, three-week trip to Asia, working on trade negotiations and strengthening Cordonia's alliances with countries there. He leaves in the morning, his other suitcase all ready to go. Jaela sits on the bed, playfully pouting and batting her lashes at him as she folds his socks and endless supply of white t-shirts while Drake organizes his suitcase for casual clothes.

“… but this is your first big trip and we’ve only been married a few months,” Jaela huffs, setting a pair of socks down. She wondered why he was sulking at dinner one night—and it wasn’t until she pestered him enough, even asking during sex, that he told her he’d be leaving in two weeks for three weeks. Jaela swears they just got back from their honeymoon, weeks passing by in a blink of an eye. Much like their whirlwind of a wedding and saving Cordonia.

Drake pauses and sighs, looking up. He smiles at her expression, Jaela returning one back. He reaches out, stroking her cheek, thumb running over her cheekbone, eyes softening. "I know. I’d stay here all day with you, if I could. But I guess I need to learn this diplomacy thing somehow.” Jaela’s smile falls—she’ll always be a bit guilty at that, forcing Drake into this noble life. But… he said he’ll learn. “You know I’ll miss you like crazy.”

"Duh," Jaela says, leaning into his touch, hand fully cupping her cheek now. “You know I’ll miss you like crazy. This big duchy all to myself, no husband to keep me entertained… no new locations to defile for weeks on end…”

Drake chuckles, tapping her nose, resuming his suitcase organization. Jaela goes back to the socks, still smiling. “It’ll suck, missing you. That’ll be the worst for me,” she says quietly. Clouds gather outside, fitting of the mood to come. “We haven’t been apart for that long since… since I came back to Cordonia, for the Engagement tour.” She slows, lips twitching. Him in a coma didn’t count, because she was there. Or after… well, that didn’t count either.

Drake stops again, tilting his head in thought. Jaela pauses, sock in hand, waiting for him to speak. She’s still figuring out his tells, but this one is obvious. “Missing you will be the worst. But I guess… the timing of it sucks. I’m missing most of December. I was… hoping to spend the month with you.”

Jaela cocks an eyebrow, scooting to the edge of the bed, swinging her legs off the edge. “You can spend any month of forever with me,” she says, taking his hand. Drake moves, standing in front of her—showing off his puppy dog eyes-- pushing her hair back with the other, kissing her forehead after. Jaela continues. “What’s so special about December, anyways?”

Drake frowns, eyebrow furrowed, the corner of his lip twitching. He confused, she notes. “What’s so…” Then the confusion lifts, his eyebrows lifting. He squeezes her hand. “Oh. You don’t… you don’t celebrate it. You didn’t grow up doing anything and… ah, nevermind.” He flushes and turns from her, running a hand through his hair. “I forgot… sorry.”

“Oh, you…” Jaela stands, heat in her face, too. They had a hell of a year. And there’s still so much to learn. “You wanted to do Christmas things with me this month.” She’s never celebrated Christmas. Aside from the activities she did in school or the one time she was with a foster family over Christmas. She didn’t get as many gifts as their kids did, but the gesture was nice.

“Er… yeah, if you… it’s a stupid idea. I should have known you don’t like it or…”

“Hey, hey, hey…” He upset, beating himself up over it, she knows. Quickly, Jaela stands and wraps her arms around his waist, cheek on his back. “Just because I used to practice Islam and now don’t believe in anything doesn’t mean I’m anti-Christmas. I know we’ve never talked about family traditions and stuff…”

He sets his hands over hers and squeezes them. “There’s a lot we haven’t learned…”

“I know. But we will, in time. Can you tell me why you’ll miss it so much? I mean, you’ll be back before Christmas. We can get a tree when you’re back and presents and stuff.”

Drake sighs and turns, holding her hands in his. “It’s not… not just about that. And what? We have the tree up for a week and then it’s down? It’s about the season. Enjoying the lights, the sights, the feelings…. It’s my favorite and I… I knew you really don’t celebrate it but… I wanted to experience all these things with you, to have you do things maybe for the first time, make our own traditions and just…” He sighs. “It’s silly, but I wanted to really see this place all done up for a bit. Now… what’s the point if I’m gone? You get that, right?”

She doesn't. Of course she’s done Christmas activities with friends and knows how the world shifts—and she lived in New York from eighteen to twenty-four. It’s hard to avoid Christmas.

But she sees why he’s upset, sad he’s missing out on this with her, wanting to hold her hand and show her all he loves about the season and—wait, she has it. Her eyes flit across his face, a sad one, just wanting to see her react to new, holiday things with him. It’s pure. And she… she can manage Christmas cheer for him. An idea is brewing, but she contains a smile, kissing him tenderly instead, squeezing his hands. "I think I do. But... work is work and I'll be here, waiting for you, when you get back. We’ll get the biggest tree and enjoy it and cram all of the Christmas things we can. Maybe there’ll be snow when you get back, too.”

Drake chuckles. "Well… it’ll be something. There’s always next year, too. We can go all out then.”

Jaela nods. “Plus, I’ll give you some festive Skype shows…” Her stomach drops in want when Drake’s pupils grow, and he grips her ass, pulling her close.

“Mm… that might make up for a few things I’ll miss with you…”

“Mmhmm… I know you like red on me….”

“Like it better when it’s off…”

And packing for Drake’s trip is the last thing they think of for the next two hours.

*

“Put the third tree uh… shit.”

There’s already two. One in the throne room, giant, and the other in their private living room, one for themselves and their friends, where they feel like they can be normal, if for a little. She didn’t expect to get three trees… but she didn’t want to stop with one. Another one had to be placed where Drake would be the most, when he gets back. And the third…

“The master bedroom?” Jaela says, then nods to the staff carrying it. “Yes, the master bedroom.” They’ll spend a lot of time in there… and she thinks he’ll like it. Well, she hopes. Why wouldn’t he? This is his favorite holiday, apparently. Soft as marshmallow.

She glances down at her checklist of everything to make Valtoria festive as possible for Drake’s return. It’s not that she doesn’t know what’s needed for Christmas—she’s no idiot. It’s a barrage of Santa’s and Christmas trees and decorations the moment it’s November 1st, and she’s lived with that her whole life.

It’s not that she often went over to friends’ homes who weren’t a part of her community as a child, but when she did, there were the decorations and carefully wrapped presents. If she was in a foster home in November or January, sometimes there were the beginnings or endings of the holiday season. She enjoyed peppermint everything. She’s posed and skated at Rockerfeller center and knows most of the words to Christmas Carols. A former boyfriend and her binged the Home Alone triology in his dorm. It’s the holiday season—though, as much as they say holiday, it’s Christmas everything—and Jaela knows all the fixings and movies and songs that make it festive.

But she’s never been for it.

The smiles, the cheer—it’s all temporary, false. All in the name of Baby Jesus and Santa Claus—make believe bullshit. Even when she mused with the idea that there was an all-knowing being watching over her (if there was a God out there, why’d they make the first 18 years of her life utter hell?), she knew the season was stupid.

For a baby being born in a barn, everything was so extra. People donating once a year from the goodness of their hearts and then forgetting everything the moment it’s the 26th, as if they did their one good deed for the year and that secured their place in their fictional heaven. Call her a Grinch, but Jaela found it pointless.

She quite liked her “Christmas” traditions when she moved to New York. Usually friends took pity and would invite her to Christmas Eve and that was nice to meet new people. Jaela got them a gift and would bring wine or a sparkling something when she was underage. Sometimes her friends would gather at some point and do their own friend one, a Christmas party which was an excuse to get plastered.

Christmas day, however? The roommate/s would be gone all day and it was just her. If she wasn’t working at night, she’d put on her favorite trash TV, order take-out, and have a fine night, the little 3ft tree bought by her roommate lighting up the room. It was bliss. And the tips she got on Christmas Eve and Day were enough of a gift for her and she enjoyed it. Dumplings and tips were all she needed.

Silently, perhaps, she thanked the fictional baby in the manager for giving her enough money to splurge on something once a year, but otherwise? She doesn’t care for it. It’s just December. It’s another month of the year. At least, it was that until she married Drake, secretly soft for Christmas cheer. She’ll draw the line at Easter, but she can do something for her new husband. Is that what Christmas is about? She can ask him when he’s back.

Needless to say, from decorating the duchy from head to toe, drafting three versions of her “Operation: Surprise Drake with Christmas Cheer” checklist started the day after he left, Jaela handpicking and approving every decoration, the staff working on overdrive all month to prep the duchy for this moment—Jaela’s spent.

But she keeps her head high, wandering the duchy as Christmas music blares throughout, the staff setting up everything, Jaela helping here and there, Drake home in a few hours. She smiles in the throne room, bodies bustling around her, the checklist complete, all but for one thing: Drake Comes Homes.

Under Jaela’s guidance and rules for decorating, (only the real stuff, no silver because it looks tacky, no religious ornaments or managers, Drake doesn’t even go to Church, Santa’s fine to have, make sure we get trees that won’t light on fire, and not one room goes with at least one decoration, for example), Valtoria is transformed.

Before, regal and crisp with a casual warmth, and now… “I think we’re done, Jaela,” bows Gladys and Jaela exhales, smiling.

“I… I think you all are. Please, head home. I’ll do a walk through and can fix anything if needed. Thank you….” She pauses, realizing she’s missing something. “And… Merry Christmas. Happy holidays, if you don’t…”

Gladys laughs lightly. “Happy holidays to you too, Jaela. I know Drake will love this. I’ve never seen Valtoria this beautiful during Christmas. You’re truly worthy of this duchy.” With a quick bow, Gladys leaves and Jaela turns, beginning her walkthrough of her creation—heart hammering, nervous for Drake to see it.

For him to see the winter wonderland she worked so hard to envision, to make sure that he was wrapped in Christmas spirit the moment he walks in the door. Fresh garland wrapped around each bannister, garland around archways and on tables, weaving through pictures, adding an air of coziness and comfort to every room it was found.

Lights—oh the lights—some wound with the garland, others hanging from the walls, some twinkling and making the duchy glow with the warmth of a fireplace, lights like little stars lighting up the high ceilings—just like when they stargazed together (that is, until she looked at him with wonder as the gruff man began to open up, truly, for the first time). The lights are every where and she turns off the main lights as she passes through the rooms, warmth filling her as the soft glow trails behind her.

Decorations, trinkets, bobbles—anything that she found cute, classy, or fitting of its place in Valtoria rests on flat surfaces in every room—and yes, she wanted every room. Some are funny things, such as Santa, and others are simple, and classy. Beads, table clothes switched out for white or gold, penguins, winter scenes on display.

And the smells, oh lord. Jaela’s delighted at how much her baking paid off and how pine mingles with the sugar, tantalizing her senses. Truly, it smells of the season in every room, candles filling in if they’re far enough from the kitchen.

A train set runs around the largest of trees, the one in the throne room, presents that will be donated to local shelters around it. The biggest of trees shines bright, lights wound and ornaments carefully placed, the star big and bold, showy—but Drake will love it. Hopefully. Why is she nervous? He shouldn’t hate anything… but….

The second tree is smaller but still grand, this one decorated solely by her. Maybe the lights aren’t as well placed and she could have found better spots for the ornaments of all colors and shapes, but she loves it, fireplace roaring and the living smelling of cinnamon (much like the kitchen for the past two days, Jaela staying up late to bake as many treats she could think of).

Finally, past the winter wonderland, Jaela heads upstairs, to their master bedroom. Chance is asleep in his dog bed, the lights of the tree shining on him. Jaela leans on the doorframe, a smile curling up. The tree is bare, aside from the lights, but a box of ornaments, a topper, and a garland rests next to it. Good, they listened to her instructions—she wanted the last one to be done by them, together. In the glow of Christmas lights, Jaela wanders to the box of ornaments and picks up one—a custom one she had made, just for him. For them.

It’s a photo from their wedding, the two caught in a kiss at the aisle, their wedding date written below, followed by, the word, “Inevitable”. She touches his face on the picture. Soon. Soon he’ll be home. It isn’t until a tear rolls down her cheek that she realizes she’s crying, and then laughs. Maybe… maybe she’s getting it. After all, why else would she be compelled to deck out Valtoria into something she’s only seen in movies? Or maybe she misses him too much.

Or maybe this is Christmas, she muses, willing to drop everything to see a smile on somebody’s face under those lights. Or maybe she’s just a lovesick puppy for her new husband. Or maybe…

“Tis the fucking season,” she says, setting the ornament down, shaking her head, heading to the closet. He’ll be home… soon. So soon.

And soon, the feeling of warmth is replaced by nervousness, because… it’s time. Now or never. And the door opens, fully revealing the man she missed too much and was willing to offer some holiday cheer for… for the first time in her life.

Drake raises his eyes. He doesn’t speak. He drops his bags, jaw dropped.

Jaela sucks in a breath, his eyes not on her—but behind her. She can’t read this expression.

“Jaela… what… what the hell did you do?”

“I… I gave you Christmas.” She glances up, to the mistletoe. One of five around the duchy. “And I think I’m under a mistletoe. So, I think I’m owed a kiss.”

Lips crashing on to hers are all the answers she needs, melting into his embrace, one she could only dream about between the sugar plum fairies, and that’s when she knows exactly what Christmas feels like: this. Just like this.

Disclaimer: All characters and rights belong to Pixelberry Studios. 

Permatag: @youwontlikewherewewillgo, @mfackenthal, @hhiggs, @jadedpixiescribbles, @ashtonmore, @enmchoices @the-everlasting-dream, @hopefulmoonobject, @krisnicjack, @museofbooks, @ladynonsense, @innerpostmentality, @thatcatlady0716, @lizeboredom, @choicessa, @boneandfur, @tmarie82, @speedyoperarascalparty, @thatspicegirlssong@zigthetwig, @craftytacotrashdream, @blackcoffee85, @quartzandarrow, @akrenich, @trr-fangirl, @christopher-powell, @client-327

Drake: @fairydustandsarcasm

[count-demonlord-of-decadence]

A WEEK OF RAGE

Monday;

I go to my auto mechanic to pick up my British racing green Mercedes Benz E55, I’m having the sound system upgraded. It’s been in for four days, which is two too many in my opinion. When I arrive the first thing I do is confront the employees, but they either pretend to not speak English, or refer me to the owner who isn’t present. I opt to wait for him in the lobby.

It’s 152 minutes later when he arrives in an admittedly nice cream colored Audi TT. He’s Bahraini and dressed like a Miami Vice villain and reeks of One Million by Paco Rabanne. When I confront him he assures me he’ll light a fire under his guy's asses; but for an extra 30 dollars my car would be moved to the top of the list. He says it grinning, like only an idiot wouldn’t take this “fantastic” deal. I don’t know if it’s his odor, the wait or the effrontery of his offer but I succumb to rage. No hesitation or warning, just a quick palm strike to his nose. It’s not hard enough to break it but the left uppercut to his body that follows has no such restraint. As he topples towards me, I clinch with him and knee him right on his heart. Based on the sound he made, I believe I broke his sternum. I deliver an elbow strike to his fifth vertebrae before I let him fall into a sobbing, whimpering, writhing mess on the floor.

Then I remember that it’s the middle of a work day. Six employees and two other customers witnessed the whole event. No one lifted a finger to aid him, they didn’t even call the police. In fact the two customers applauded. One of the employees who pretended not to speak English tells me in perfect English my car will be ready in half an hour. Two other employees carry their employer into his office. As I sit down to wait, one of the two customers, mid 50’s with a full head of white hair, asks that employee, who we all now know speaks English, about his car.

Tuesday;

There are few fast food restaurants near my job, so I tend to frequently visit the same Jack In The Box on work days despite the nigh contemptible service. Whenever I go I always the same thing, Ultimate cheeseburger, no ketchup or mayo and a raspberry ice tea with no ice. There were three people ahead of me but the wait was minimal I order, pay and wait. Thank Hecate for smart phones, otherwise I’d either have to watch them make the food, watch the patrons and learn why every proceeding generation said they weep for the generation that followed or enter a near comatose state.

My order number is called and I grab the cup and bag and try to hurry away but bump into the guy who ordered ahead of me. He’s six feet four inches tall, muscular, in his late 40’s, dressed in red and blue Fubu, with a haircut and mustache that implies military. He returns to the counter and says, “Hey dicklips you fucked up my order.” This prompts me to check my order and sure enough, there’s a Jumbo Jack in the wrapper. The employee, about 22 years old, lanky; with hair, makeup, tattoos and piercings suggest he’s an emo college dropout who only got this job so his suburban sycophant parents didn’t kick him out of a house they’d never own because of predatory lending practices. I calmly walk up to the counter as he tells the complaining customer, “Better luck next time.” Before the customer can say another word say, “Excuse me, but you seemed to have made a mistake with my order as well.” To which he responds by throwing his hands up and loudly proclaiming, “I am so triggered right now!” and walks away. The other cashier, a hispanic woman in her early 20’s with a muffin top, looks at me and the other complaining customer, rolls her eyes and waves up the next customer just so she doesn’t have to deal with us.

“Can you believe this shit?” He asks me. To which I whisper, “No, I can’t” I’m staring at emo boy in the back talking to one of the food preparers. He’s just as young, emo, tattooed and pierced as the male cashier, but shorter and heavier. He looks like he plays drums in emo boy’s garageband that’s never had a paying gig, but they swear is gonna be big one of these days. I can tell by their gesticulations and body language that they’re not debating who fucked up our orders. When drummer boy gives us the two finger salute I snapped just like I did at the car mechanics.

I’m over the counter and advancing upon the two with hostile intent. The two just stare at me as if the law or the gods are going to stop me. Emo boy takes a palm strike to the nose that overtly breaks it. His drummer takes a kick to the crotch that, based on his reaction, hit some sort of genital piercing that maims his penis. He drops instantly, screaming, writhing and clutching his crotch. Emo boy is looking at the blood on his hands and proclaiming, “You can’t just do that man! I’m gonna sue your ass off! You’re gonna go to jail!” An uppercut to his diaphragm prevents him from saying anything else. I then try to shove his head into one of the deep fryers. He stops himself with his hands, but they’re slick with his blood and falls to his elbows. The blood and tears dripping from his face cause the grease to pop. He starts rapidly apologizing, telling me he’ll do anything if I don’t hurt him anymore. He seemed sincere. I knee him on his kidney and let him fall to a clearly dirty floor.

Muffin top has the building’s phone in hand, undoubtedly calling the police. I unfold my pocket knife and throw it at her. It hits her in a manner that damn near severs her thumb, causing her to drop the phone and yelp. The flying kick that followed hits her just below the collarbones slamming her into the wall. Her head bounced off the wall in a manner sure to result in a concussion. She falls to the dirty floor in a manner sure to result in a concussion. I hang up the phone and notice accosting the young lady seemed to earn me the crowd's ire. Though they’re hesitant to do more than whisper their disapproval and covertly call the cops. Still, I take the time to make a ultimate cheeseburger, no ketchup or mayo, and take a third pound of curly fries on my way out.

Wednesday;

After work, near my British racing green E55, I'm confronted by a man I've never met prior. Short and athletically built wearing sky blue shorts and shorts, no socks. Boxer shorts were dark blue with red pinstripes, white tank top a size too small. He also wore a white do rag and a faux silver chain. He claims I was disrespecting his girl. His manner and dress rule out law enforcement and organized crime. I plead ignorance, he tells me not to play games. I inquire to who his girl is, he insists I know who she is. I recommend we talk this out like adults, he asks if I don’t think he’s a man.

Now I have no clue what this is about; the one thing that’s clear to me is he’s looking for violence. Given the week I’ve had and the lack of security in the parking lot I was tempted to break every bone in his face. Still I thought diplomacy best. I offered an empty apology and promised to never do it again. This seemed to enhance his malevolence. He hikes up his shorts and proclaims he aint no bitch.

“Eviscerate him! For he is wicked! By wicked my mean contrary to your will!” screams the homicidal beast that dwells in the hearts and minds of only the most disturbed individuals. “Unveil his skeleton so he’ll be truly naked before your perfection! They say a sound like wailing winter winds can be heard if…”

I shake the voice out of my head; feeling this has gone too far I try to leave but a loud voice distracts me. “Kick his ass Dreshawn!” It belong to my coworker Maybelle, skinny, great ass, bad hair weave and six years younger than I am. I’d once told, Taj Pierce I bet Maybelle goes ass to mouth. I guess it got back to her.

It’s like when a parent says, “I just looked away for a second.” because the next thing I know I’m exclaiming, “That’s what this is about? Better run home to mama while you can Gay-shawn.” with far more spittle than needed.

“Wha’cha say bitch ass n-...” The sentence was supposed to end with a right hook to my jaw, but instead was easily countered with the most basic of aikido shoulder throws. Unfortunately he hit my British racing green E 55 breaking the driver side mirror. I just got it out of the shop, and have to find a new mechanic; these two facts send me into a rage (despite it being my fault). Dreshawn is on his feet, clearly in pain, clearly embarrassed. He throws two left jabs I’m out of range for followed by an overhand right so telegraphed I intercept it with a palm strike. I hear it fracture his wrist, but don’t give him time to acknowledge the injury. I follow the palm strike with a right hook that lands on his left eye, a left hook to his side, a right kick to his left knee that buckles on impact and a left Hisoka style uppercut to his jaw.

Maybelle exclaims, “OMG!” and tries to rush to his side, but I freeze her in place with the right look. She looks around and cries for help, knowing none will come. Dreshawn picked his moment too well. He’s failing to scuttle away from me mumbling, “Look man I didn’t want any trouble.” Through a dislocated jaw.

“What?” I exclaim while producing my brand new, never tasted flesh before pocket knife. “Clearly you were looking for trouble you pencil dicked cunt!” I’m frothing at the mouth and advancing upon him, “I gave you every chance to walk! And did you? Did you!?” I’m in striking range now, twirling the knife between my finger. “If you don’t answer, I’m going to cut your eyeballs in half. Now did you walk away?”

“NO!” he cries unable to hold back the tears. “Why?” I ask menacingly. When he responds with, “What?” I kick him on the appendix, raise the knife and scream, “Why didn’t you walk away!?”

“I don’t know!” He cries, “Because I love her, and I want to protect her. She means the world to me and…” I step on his throat to silence him. “Wrong,” I hiss, “You did it because you thought I was an easy target. If I six foot five, 250 lbs of alpha male you would’ve thought better of it. You’re the type of shit that runs from the strong and preys upon the weak; like a pedophile.”

This reignite his desire to fight, so I let him up. He stands on shaking legs and puts his dukes up. His jaw isn’t dislocated, a severe hematoma was growing on his chin. He clearly said, “I don’t need no chicken shit knife.” I close the knife and toss it to him so he can easily catch it. “The difference between me and you is you think you’re strong whereas I know.” I snicker.

He throws the knife at my face saying, “Muthafucka I said I don’t need no chickenshi…” The spin I use to dodge the knife ends in a roundhouse kick I plant on his right hip. He drops and screams like it’s broken. I kick him 20 times, most landing on his arms and legs. Needless to say, he has no fight left in him.

Maybelle has fallen to hysterics, “Oh, my god! Why did you do that? You didn’t have to do that! Why? He wasn’t gonna do nothing. Why you do that? Oh my god! You didn’t have to do all that!”

This simultaneously disgusts and enrages me. I dash to her and throttle her shouting, “Of course I didn’t have to do that! I gave him every chance to walk away and he didn’t! Because of you whore! If it wasn’t for bitches like you half the inmates in Attica would be free! But no, you wanted to see me put in my proper place. Well congratulations shit-louse! Here it is, a the muthafuking top of the food chain!”

“Let her go or so help me…” Dreshawn croaks. The sadistic grin I shoot him reveals the depth of his mistake. I puch Maybelle four times in the stomach, like I’m trying to abort a pregnancy. I let her fall to the ground in a whimpering heap. Dreshawn stands, roars, charges at me for three strides before falling disgracefully. He crawls to me and when in range, I drop an axe kick that dislocates his left shoulder. Then I make sure he has a good view as I fondle Maybelle’s tits, cunt and ass; over then under her clothes. I wipe the shit her asshole left on my fingers on Dreshawns face. He’s cursing me and making promises and threats that convince me I’m better off just killing him then and there. So I retrieve my knife just as a security guard arrives. I just say, “I don’t know what happened. Someone seems to have hit my car.” and quickly drive home despite his insistence.

Thursday;

With my car being repaired again, I had to take the bus to work and I was go out of the way to not lose my temper. On that very bus, I saw a attractive rubenesque girl. She looked young, but with a body like hers few would mind. I give her a lascivious look, take my seat and check instagram. The woman sitting behind her exclaims, “You stay away from her you pedophile! You got reason to be after girls like that! You should be ashamed of yourself! Have you no self control? You’re just like those Hollywood elitist. Wanna be Harvey Weinstein. The next Anthony Weiner everyone! I should call the police on your child molesting ass!”

Like everyone else on the bus, I do my best to ignore the woman; despite the fact that this diatribe continues for the entire 17.5 minute bus ride. When I get off the bus I thought I was rid of her. Oh how I was mistaken. It seems her tirade was directed at me. She declares she shall follow me everywhere I go and let them know what kind of person I really am. She looks like a 58 year old Anita Sarkeesian, except she African American, dressed in a black and gold outfit one only sees at red carpet events in New York circa 1973.

It’s a two kilometer walk from the bus stop to my job with nowhere to stop along the way. I assumed she’d give it up after half a click. Again I was mistaken. She had the resolve and stamina to make the walk and continue to verbally berate me  the entire time.

After approximately one kilometer I’d finally had enough and snarled at her, “Look bitch you’re free to tell my bosses whatever you want, but I don’t have to take this verbal abuse from the likes of you.”

“Bitch!?” she exclaims. “Who you callin’ a bitch? I got your bitch right here! I’ll show you a bitch!” and she swings her rather large purse at me. I dodge the purse twice but then a left cross comes at me. The punched is dodged but then I run into a fire hydrant. Thinking she has me cornered she swings the purse again. I use aikido number seven to evade and shove her into the street. The driver of the 18 wheeler slams on the brakes but still hits her, only hard enough bruise though. She looks at me and screams, “Muthafucker! You did that on purpose!” to which I scream, “You goddamn fucking right I did!” brandishing my knife and foaming at the mouth. “You better thank your god that loves little boys asses I don’t come over there and finish what I started!”

She’s aghast. She looks at the driver of the truck and shouts, “Did you hear what this muthafucker said to me?” The driver calmly replied, “Ma’am, do you need me to call an ambulance? If not, would you mind getting out of the street? You’re holding up traffic.”

I hurry to work beginning to suspect something might be seriously wrong with me.

Friday;

I picked up my British racing green Mercedes Benz E55 from the shop after my shift. To celebrate getting through the day without accosting or maiming anyone I stop in a drug store to buy beer. On my way in I coldly ignore a man asking for change. I purchase a tall can of Sapporo and a six pack of Hangar 24 orange wheat. On my way out that same guy is by the exit and asks loudly and clearly for spare change. I say, “Sorry.” without breaking stride or even looking at him; but he follows me saying, “Oh c’mon man, I saw that big fancy car you drive. I just need some change to get some food. i got kids to feed. Where’s your empathy brother? If we all just helped each other out this world would be a better place. C’mon man what would Jesus do?”

It was like a switch was flipped. Despite the fact I’m at my car and I’ve already unlocked the door. I could easily just get in and drive away and be done with it. But I’m just so overcome with pure rage. I drop the bag I had to pay for, whirl around and grab him by the front of his shirt and scream, “How ‘bout I dish it out in increments of five!” and punch him in the face while counting by five. At 25 he falls and I go with him so as to keep punching him in the face. At 100 I notice he isn’t moving anymore. Several people are filming with the cell phones by now. Undoubtedly some have called the police. I take the back streets to my house and park in the garage. I get drunk and fall asleep with my hand on ice.

Saturday;

I contemplated taking the day off to lay low and my hand still hurt. But, I can’t afford that. The work shift passes without incident and I elect to stop in a diner for a fried chicken dinner. It was crowded, but that was to be expected given the time, day and location. I’m sitting at a table making an appointment to see Dr. Ayane Tsunemori my psychologist as my food arrives. I take a sip of my raspberry iced tea with no ice only to discover it is a mr. pibb with no ice. I start for the registar when a commotion in the dining room distracts me. A college age blonde girl has fallen after going into convulsions. Her family is shouting for help, as pink foam begins to gurgle out of her mouth. The father (has anyone ever told him he looks like actor Dominic Keating?) is on the phone in tears coordinating with employees. I rush over and grab the hysterical mother and ask what her daughter ordered. After a violent shake she says, Fried chicken dinner and a mr. pibb with no ice.” She broke down into tears at the end, it’d be the last meal her daughter ever ordered.

Knowing she’s been poisoned, I look around. Assassins have to confirm the kill first hand. I see him two meters out the door. Blue jeans, Dark off greyish pseudo black t shirt. Walking nonchalantly to nowhere. A guy making sure not to get noticed or call attention to himself. He’s not even on his phone. I give chase. He’d only gone one building over and stopped in an alley lit with orange streetlights. Despite the horrible lighting I recognized this man.

“Old Painless? Of the 36 Wu-Dang Killers?” I ask as a show of respect.

“Bingo!” He smirks, “And you are Demon Lord of The Syndicate.”

“It seems our reputations precede us. ”I say while cautiously closing the distance between us.

“Hence the poison.” He shrugs, “Shame they mixed up the drinks. Now I have to dispatch you the old fashioned way.”

“I thought through...various yakuza and triad alliances and such that we were allies. At least not enemies?”

“Cheng Ling-Li says otherwise.”

I pull my pocket knife, I need no more words. He laughs, “I need no weapon to kill a man such as you!”

I attack, at first my blows are easily parried before a quick counter attack disarms me before I hit the concrete, spring back up and attack. He evades two punches, a spining backfist and an inside crescent kick before counterattacking with a quick yet stunning jab to my nose, spins behind me and hits me with a double fist attack. I get up and come at him with a telegraphed flying axe kick that’s a feint to get him into punching range. He dodges the right backfist and catches my straight left I didn’t think he saw coming and hurls me to the concrete. He strokes his beard and laughs at me.

I slowly get up. I’m literally and figuratively seeing red. I felt the rage erupting like a volcano. I wanted nothing more than to rip him apart and eat him myself! That’s when it occurred to me; there are no coincidences. Everything that happened this week, all the incidents; they had been his doing. A well planned and orchestrated maneuver to cloud my mind and judgement, thus negating my most potent weapon.

I yell, “I’m gonna rip off your head and shit down your neck!” and come at him with wild, looping hooks he easily dodges. I goes for the easy body shot I left open for him and to his surprise, I block and counter with a quick jab to his nose followed by a sloppy shoulder throw. Old Painless is up and no longer in the mood to play. But words and memory fail to accurately describe the intricate manner of our battle. I, having switched from Systema to Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu, him a master of Xin Yi Liu He Quan. You’ll have to fill in the blanks yourself. I can say had the event been recorded it’d easily be the highest viewed video ever.

Just as signs of injury and frustration began to show in Old Painless, a spotlight illuminated us indicating someone had called the police. We were detained The found no contraband on either of us and neither of us had active warrants. Neither of us wished to press charges nor did either of us require medical attention eventually we were released without charges, though separately.

Sunday;

I woke up bruised and sore but still kept my appointment with Dr. Tsunemori. I tell her of the weeks events, omitting everything that incriminates myself. She suggests I take a mini vacation. Go see a movie, try out a new restaurant, go golfing; something like that. And since that new Honduran bistro Kristoff Select told me about is closed today, I elect to see the latest Star Wars film. I had planned on taking a date to see it with me but c’est la vie…

After trailers for the new Vin Diesel movie and something that looked much worse starring Kellan Lutz and Geena Davis, I go to the toilet so I don’t have to go during the film. In the restroom are three Hispanic men, writing on the walls with black permanent markers. The first was a dead ringer for actor Robert LaSardo in Tiger Land, save he was almost four foot ten inches tall with his shabby brown boots on. He wore a wife beater and sagging jean shorts that exposed boxer shorts that were once white, but now a lighter shade of pink.

The second was just as tall as I, though at least 30 kilos heavier. He wore an Ezekiel Elliott jersey and blue jeans that sagged despite his girth. He’s in his mid 20s and has a jail grade buzzcut. The last was a lad of no older than 17. He was short, like the first guy and of average build. He wore a white Kobe Bryant jersey, matching shorts and a black hat with the word ’OBEY’ in white stitching. He has maybe a dozen hairs growing from his upper lip.

I glance at the vandalism, wonder where were these guys three days ago and move on to a urinal. They have a hushed but audible conversation about what to do now and The oldest of the three convinces the youngest this is his chance to earn a rep. I finish and move to the sink to wash my hands while the oldest gives me a ‘You think you hard?’ stare forged in US prisons.

I’m drying my hands the youngest one tries to sucker punch me. I simply side step and let him punch the paper towel dispenser. I then shove him into the largest of the three, who advanced in anticipation of the sucker punch landing. He says something like,

“What? You’re gonna disrespect the hood?” and comes at me  with his fists up, leaning back. It’s an outside leg kick to his right knee followed by an inside leg kick to the same knee and he buckles. I finish him with an uppercut and pose stylishly afterwards to intimidate the other two. It doesn’t work. The teen comes at me with three sloopy crosses that I easily avoid and lead him to the electric hand dryer and aide him in hitting face first twice.

The third guy, the one that remained conscious, laughed at hs fellows, out his hands up and says, “I’m not looking for trouble. These two wanted to be big men and I tried to warn them.”

I snicker and say, “So you can lord the day they got their asses kicked trying to impress you over them? Or make up some lie about how you saved them? How you whipped my ass while they were unconscious? Sorry partner, can’t do. You gotta get worse than the others.”

When I’m done with him he’s unconscious, has a bruised kidney, three cracked ribs, a broken left orbital bone and both his left canines and his upper left lateral incisor are missing. I then pull down all three of their pants to make it weird for who ever finds them. I managed to enjoy the film despite the constant anticipation of an usher or police officer pulling me from the theater. But, they never did.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nocturne (FFXV) - 1/30

Fic: Nocturne (1/30) - Ao3 Link

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Pairings: Mostly Gen (variety later to come)

Summary: In which Cor Leonis loses his temper, accidentally acquires a kid, and tries to single-handedly dismantle the Lucian immigration system – and that’s before he and his lawyers find out about this Prophecy business. If the Astrals think Cor’s going to let his kid’s best friend die without a fight, they’ve gotten the wrong cheetah ‘taur.

(a young adult novel set in @kickingshoes' 'taur AU)

A/N: Some background almost certainly necessary here for those who aren't yet familiar with @kickingshoes' wonderful 'taur AU:

In this AU, everyone in FFXV is a 'taur of some sort, 'taur being short for "centaur" but not limited to horses: there are cattaurs, dog-taurs, deer-taurs, the traditional horse-taurs, etc. Each 'taur has a human head, arms and torso extending up from the bend in the spine, and the lower half of some sort of animal, including all four legs and tail. See the art for that here!

They've even gone ahead and create anatomical drawings for the 'taurs, including interesting features such as two hearts: one located in the "human" chest (the supernal heart) and one located in the "animal" body (the infernal heart). See the art for that here!

For context: a 'taur baby is called a "kitling" (general term) or after their type (kittens, puppies, etc.), then they grow up into being children, and then teenagers, and then adults.

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A seat on the King’s Council is a rare privilege, typically given to individuals who have given many years of service to the royal family of Lucis. An offer to take a seat at the Council is more than a mere honor – it is a request to share one's wisdom and experience with the King and so, in turn, with Lucis itself. It is a position of both power and influence, and of great prestige, and it is widely coveted by those who would be in the center of the seat of power. Wise kings of the past have sought to protect the Council from those who would befriend young and impressionable Princes in search of a seat at the table, decreeing that only those with a minimum of a decade of extraordinary service to the Crown would be permitted to join the august body.

Unfortunately, they didn’t really account for the problem of prodigies.

After all, if one counts his years first in the Crownsguard, then as part of the personal bodyguard of King Mors, then as the personal bodyguard of Prince, later King, Regis, and now most recently in his appointment as Marshal of the Crownsguard, there is no question that Cor Leonis, nicknamed "The Immortal", has served the throne loyally and with distinction for the required ten year period, despite the fact that he is currently still only twenty-three, and a young-looking twenty-three at that.

Indeed, although there was some grumbling about his age, mostly from the older scions of the nobility, there was widespread approval among the populace when the news spread that their beloved Immortal would be joining the Council: his skill at fighting, now honed by caution and discretion after his experience in the Tempering Grounds; his extraordinary and intuitive grasp of tactics and strategy; and his surprising talents in the management and organization of armies were all considered extremely valuable additions to the Council’s wisdom.

It’s just that Clarus sometimes wishes his young friend had learned a little bit more diplomacy alongside his undeniable martial skills.

“You’ve got me all wrong,” Cor says mildly, his hands laced together in front of him. His manner is easy, his shoulders relaxed, his face habitually stern but almost casually neutral; if Clarus had never seen Cor mid-battle, that same expression of mild concentration on his face as his sword destroyed the enemy, he might even be deluded into thinking that Cor is just making friendly conversation. Unfortunately, Clarus does know better. “Entirely wrong, even. It’s not that I have a problem with taxonomy – after all, as we all know, there are many benefits to classifying species, both sentient and non-sentient, natural and daemonic, by easily identified typological traits –”

The esteemed Councilor Cor is speaking with – Taceo Dovinius, who was appointed in the days of King Mors and who has not ever seen Cor fight – looks pleased by what he mistakenly thinks is acquiescence, smiling condescendingly at his younger colleague across the table.

“– it’s just that I think it’s a crock of shit,” Cor concludes.

The smile vanishes.

“Listen here, young kit,” Taceo snaps, “you might think that you’re some hotshot because you can swing a sword well, but swinging a sword doesn’t change the facts of the world: the people of Lucis are felidaetaurs, or cattaurs, the upright taurus cousins of the family Felidae, while our sworn enemies of Niflheim are canidaetaurs, or dogtaurs, who are more akin to the family Canidae, and as anyone can tell from looking at nature itself –”

“Yes, yes, we’re cats, they’re dogs, ‘fighting like cats and dog’ is axiomatic, I’m familiar,” Cor says, his calm voice cutting through Taceo’s rising voice as sharply as his sword would. “But that’s irrelevant, and not just because the scientific community has largely replaced the Felidae classification with Feliformia and Canidae with Caniformia. It’s irrelevant because it is absolutely useless for making any determinations about sentient individuals such as ‘taurs. A person with the hindquarters of a cat can be a traitor and one with those of a dog a friend, if that’s what they decide to be; that’s what sentience means. And even if you were planning on going entirely by pure animal taxonomy, there’s no system of classification that even makes any rational sense – would you condemn every person with the legs of a fox as an enemy, and accept every hyena as a friend, just because that’s how science has arbitrarily broken them down? Why do we get the mongooses and the civets, and they the weasels and raccoons? And what does any of that say about our ungulaetaur friends from Tenebrae, with their goats and deer and elks? Where do they fall?”

“You’re splitting hairs,” Taceo snaps.

“Hardly,” Cor says. “Since your proposal is that we differentiate our treatment of individuals based on the species they resemble – indeed, not merely their treatment but their access to the very rights to which they are entitled under the Charter of Lucis – and given both the known arbitrariness of nature itself and the historical unreliability of taxonomical science, my question is quite to the point: who, exactly, should be entitled to make so important a decision as to which person is classified as what?”

Taceo has gone pale with rage. “Our taxonomists –”

“Oh, taxonomists,” Cor says, and for the first time his voice is actively scornful. “Yes, they know so much, don’t they, with their always excellent classification that always right on the first try, and never any issues. Is that right? Or need I remind you of my own history with taxonomists?”

Clarus winces, as do many of the others at the table.

It’s all rather notorious now, of course. Being born (or at least, found) within the Crown City, Cor, a foundling orphan left on the doorsteps of the city foster home, had been immediately taken to the nearest hospital to be given the standard taxonomic analysis.

The taxonomic analysis program has its origins in the insurance system, given the fact that different ‘taur breeds often have vastly different medical requirements even within the same family or sub-family. After all, genetic drift and mutations exist: a pair of felidaetaurs would generally have a felidaetaur child, of course, but while it is still common for a two-tiger pair like Clarus and his wife to have another tiger as a child, or two lynxes a lynx, it is perfectly possible for a child of two species-alike parents to come out as a different felideataur species entirely, like a bobcat or a puma. Even if you exclusively married other ‘taurs of the same felidaetaur breed and had for generations, you could end up having a different-breed felidaetaur child, just because of the drift. After all, even the Lucis Caelum line, which is rather famously almost all lions and almost always married other lions, has supposedly sometimes produced a non-lion child that modern genetic tests confirmed to be their own natural child.

The insurance system therefore developed taxonomic analysis as a method of testing for and classifying species at birth. The system became even more popular once the scientists definitively established that ‘taurs are not bound by any cross-species breeding restrictions the way that their animal cousins are, enabling any 'taur of any variety to have children with any other variety of 'taur, and, around the same time, any remaining legal prejudice against mixed-species relationships was definitively eliminated. Of course, in the face of all scientific knowledge, such prejudice hasn’t entirely disappeared as a cultural phenomenon – a lingering bigotry of a less enlightened age, when genetic drift wasn't as well understood and paternity tests were not trusted as much as they should have been, and there were accusations of infidelity every time a ‘taur came out a different type.

Of course, the principles of genetic dominance means that a mixed-species child will look like a single animal species, no matter how mixed, and will generally take wholly after one parent or the other in terms of their appearance, but that just means there is even more of a chance of species variation – Clarus’ own mother was a bear, as it happened, but he himself took after his father the tiger, and he married another tiger in his wife Cyrella, and his son Gladio is also a tiger despite there being a decent chance of him being a bear like his grandmother. While mixed-species relationships are still a minority, they are a sizeable one, and have been for generations and generations, and that means that no matter what you are or who you marry, you could end up with a surprise.

Given that, and given the wide range of medical treatments – not to mention medical insurance requirements – that depended on knowing what your little kitling is from the moment of birth, the taxonomic analysis is therefore considered crucial. Even though the kitlings and, later, children who are so classified run the risk of being stereotyped simply because of their classification, parents regularly opt for analysis in order to better prepare for the future, especially as Insomnia grows increasingly more cosmopolitan.

And so the taxonomic analysis system remains in place, with all of its benefits and drawbacks.

In Cor’s case, of course, it was mostly drawbacks.

At the time of his initial testing, Cor was stamped with the standard Felis catus taurus (domestic housecat 'taur) designation that the majority of the population of Lucis has – out of sheer laziness, Clarus presumes, since well before the time Cor was officially re-tested at age fifteen, it was obvious to everyone with a pair of eyes that he was actually an Acinonyx jubatus taurus, the far rarer (indeed, almost unheard of) cheetah ‘taur.

It might not have been such a big deal if Cor wasn’t quite so famous: the great prodigy of the Crownsguard and, by the age of fifteen, already starting to be widely known as the Immortal for his daring, almost suicidal feats of bravery and his equally amazing ability to survive them. Indeed, if Cor had been any other child, growing up in relative poverty as he had, he likely wouldn’t have had any choice but to take what he was initially offered: his designation quietly changed on the books without anyone in the medical or insurance industries having to admit that they’d made a mistake and thereby open the door to incurring liability.

But Cor was not any other child, and he was not exactly inclined to take insults lying down – especially not at fifteen, mere months before he’d gone to the Tempering Grounds, back when he’d been a regular firecracker, hotheaded and rash and so very, very angry at the world. After all, he’d received years and years of incorrect medical care as a result of his misclassification; worse, his foster parents had turned him out of their house when the expense of his medical requirements turned out to be considerably greater than what was allowed for under his category of insurance, and he’d lived for some months (no one is quite certain as to the exact timeline, and Cor won’t say a word about it) on the streets of Insomnia before he’d forced his way into the Crownsguard by lying about his age and only revealing the (incredibly obvious) truth when he’d already beaten the tests and defeated four current Crownsguard members in one-on-one duels. So instead of simply agreeing to a change of classification, he’d demanded an official recognition of his misclassification.

A court-sanctioned recognition.

The medical and insurance industries had (unwisely) decided that instead of admitting the mistake and opening the door to future suits by misclassified individuals, they would simply refuse to reclassify him, arguing instead that they’d been right the whole time and that he was actually simply a spotted tabby with a peculiar resemblance to a cheetah.

It was a scandal, of course; the entire city was appalled at the obvious untruth being spouted by otherwise respectable doctors, especially with Cor visibly growing into the so-characteristic spots and infamous speed of his species. It didn't help that Cor, being a foundling, was surnamed Leonis, the traditional foundling surname in honor of the royal family of Lucis (all lions, of course).

A cheetah named after a lion being misclassified as a housecat? The political cartoons all but drew themselves.

Realizing belatedly that they had seriously thrown their own credibility into jeopardy, the medical and insurance agencies quickly retracted the argument, but the damage was done and Cor’s lawyers proceeded to definitively rip them apart in court.

All together, that history makes for a pretty strong argument against Taceo’s profiling proposal on Cor’s part, especially given the fact that Cor virtually never makes reference to his past in any context, much less as a rhetorical argument. In fact, Clarus doesn’t think Cor has so much as mentioned the lawsuit since the day he won an unconditional victory in the courthouses.

Taceo seems to realize that he’s losing his audience, as many of the other Councilors are nodding in agreement with Cor, so he quickly says, “You misunderstand the nature of my proposal, young Marshal –”

“Just Marshal is fine,” Cor says, his voice reverting back to pleasant. “You lost all rights to refer to my age when you called me a kitten. But please, do go on.”

“You act as though I were suggesting that we rely exclusively on speciesist assumptions and stereotypes,” Taceo says, pretending as though he hasn’t heard the interruption. “Nothing could be further from the truth! I merely suggest that given the limits of our resources and the well-known fact that our enemy is largely canine, that we focus our security forces on examining individuals with canine characteristics –”

Cor arches his eyebrows. “Still sounds a lot like discriminatory stereotyping to me, oddly enough,” he drawls. “You’re aware, of course, of the large numbers of refugees that have come to our city are canidaetaurs?”

“That’s precisely my point!” Taceo exclaims. “The influx of refugees is a perfect opportunity for a Niflheim spy to –”

“If I were an idiot,” Cor says flatly, “and I assure you I’m not, even then I would still have the bright idea of seeking out my spies via the usual method of recruiting dissatisfied individuals already living here instead of trying to sneak them in as refugees – without money, without food, hurt and alone and having lost everything. Your suggestion is little more than anti-immigrant bigotry dressed up for public consumption.”

“Now listen here, you impertinent little youngster – ” Taceo starts.

“Cor,” Regis says from the head of the table. “That was uncalled for.”

Cor bows his head. “You are correct, of course,” he says. “I spoke too hastily. The fact that the idea is based on no science, no reasonable rationale, and would undoubtedly result in increased internal strife within the city boundaries is obviously no reason why we should not continue to entertain the idea suggested by Councilor Taedeo –”

“Taceo!” Taceo roars, rearing back on his haunches.

“Really?” Cor asks, blinking. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Clarus very nearly chokes trying to keep himself from laughing. The root of Taceo’s name comes from the old word for ‘silent’, while the similar-sounding ‘taedeo’ originates from the word for ‘disgusting’; a fact that Cor is well aware of, given that as a teenager, he briefly all but moved into the library to make up for his missed education, at least whenever he wasn’t on the training field.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Regis says quickly, though Clarus can tell from the way that his lips are pressed together that he’s also having trouble keeping from laughing. He rises, his lion's tail flicking majestically behind him, and everyone automatically rises as well. “Our time is up, and unfortunately I have another appointment following this one. Perhaps we can take up the subject again next week?”

Cor smiles with teeth, his hands behind his back in military style. “Certainly, your Majesty. Anytime.”

Taceo stalks off with stiff legs, his wildcat tail stiff with anger; the other Councilors disperse as well, most of them shaking their heads in amusement or disapproval, depending on where their politics fall. Cor heads off back to the Crownsguard grounds without another word, shrugging off the traditional Council cloak almost before he reaches the door.

Regis nods at Clarus before heading back towards the throne room, an obvious hint, and Clarus falls into step beside his king. They’re of a size – Regis is, of course, a lion, and Clarus a tiger – and it makes it a little easier than it might have otherwise been. Of course, ‘taur physiology means that no matter what species make up their lower halves, people are generally proportionate to their upright humanoid halves, typically ranging between five to six feet tall, but Clarus distinctly remembers how annoying Cid found the casual walk-and-talk style generally prevalent in Insomnia, his jackrabbit stride being totally out of sync with their relaxed feline prowl. While that certainly wasn’t the reason he was no longer really talking with them, Clarus can’t help but think it might have contributed to his decision never to visit, at least a little.

“What do you think?” Regis asks.

“Of Taceo’s proposal to focus our security on profiling canidaetaurs? Absurd, of course; the second Niflheim got wind of any such rule, no matter how secretly implemented, they would double their efforts to conquer territory which is primarily felidaetaur, and we obviously don’t want that. Not to mention the effect it would have on morale in the local non-felidaetaur population –”

“I meant Cor,” Regis says, amused. “I’m aware of the flaws in Taceo’s proposal.”

“What about Cor?”

“He was speaking,” Regis says. “Quite a bit, if you’ve noticed; I think the amount of words he uttered in session today is about equal to everything he said the first month he was assigned to travel with us.”

Clarus doesn’t disagree. Cor tends towards silence, most of the time, whether due to shyness, as it was when he was just a kit of fifteen, following along and trying to protect a group of 'taurs at least ten years his senior, or to sternness, as after his experiences in the Tempering Grounds. The only exception is when he loses that fiery temper of his – rarer after his experience with the Tempering Grounds, but definitely not gone for good.

Still, Clarus isn’t sure what Regis is getting at.

“He has good reason to be especially bothered by proposals that hinge on classification,” Clarus points out.

“Bothered, yes,” Regis says. “But such a proposal has no room in my kingdom and he knows it. There was no reason for such an outsized reaction.”

“You have a theory,” Clarus interprets. He knows his friend well.

“I have a theory,” Regis agrees.

“Would you be interested in sharing that theory?”

Regis snorts. “He’s twenty-three, Clarus.”

“So?”

“Do you remember being twenty-three?” Regis asks. “When all those adolescent hormones have finally started evening out –”

“He would’ve told us if he was going to go into a premature heat,” Clarus hisses, face flushing. “Honestly, Regis!”

“I’m not concerned about his heat schedule,” Regis says dismissively. “Besides, you know for a fact he wouldn’t tell us a thing about it – you remember that time with the mesmenir den in Duscae?”

“Six, do I remember Duscae,” Clarus mutters, conceding the point: Cor had technically been on heat-leave at the time, bedding down in an abandoned mesmenir den while they continued onwards, but that hadn’t stopped him from going straight into battle against the Niflheim forces in the area when they’d ambushed the rest of the party, and never mind that it had made him the target of every single Niflheim soldier out there. Yes, his intervention was likely the only reason they’d survived that particular ambush, but still…“Then what are you suggesting, Regis? Stop pussyfooting around the issue already.”

Regis rolls his eyes at Clarus. “He’s the only one of us without a mate or a child, Clarus. I have Aulea and Noctis, you have your lovely Cyrella and little Gladiolus – Six, Cid has a granddaughter already. And Cor certainly doesn’t mind playing with them when we’re having dinner, for all that he likes to loudly claim an inability to understand how children function.”

“Weskham doesn’t have kids, if I recall,” Clarus grumbles, though now that he thinks about it, Cor has been vaguely antsy recently, in what could be interpreted as a courting-season sort of way but is probably, in Clarus’ view, more of a Cor-sometimes-loses-his-temper sort of way. “I take your point. But I thought that Cor isn’t interested in courting?”

“He’s not yet, according to him,” Regis says dryly. “That doesn’t mean his biological clock hasn’t started in on him – and you know how his anxiety issues act up when he’s dealing with his body doing things he doesn’t agree with.”

Clarus makes a face. Cor is perhaps typical for a cheetah, brutally efficient and terrifyingly fast, but paying the price in heightened perceptiveness that often manifests as severe anxiety. When Cor is anxious, he doesn’t eat; when he doesn’t eat, he's grouchy; when he's grouchy, he snaps at people – much like he did in the Council chamber earlier today.

Damn, it probably is an anxiety issue. And yet the stupid ‘taur refuses to see a regular shrink about a single one of his issues, despite being dragged to a first visit with at least half a dozen in the last few years. Not that Clarus could really blame him, what with his experience with doctors…

It doesn’t mean the rest of them don’t worry about him, as his friends and colleagues. Or, for Regis, as his king.

“He’s too young for baby kitlings, anyway,” Clarus adds, still grumbling and unwilling to admit he missed this. “Not counting Cid, who had kitlings before we ever met him, the oldest one Cor knows is my Gladio, and he’s only two. And we’re both well over ten years older than him!”

“Only twelve years, Clarus; we’re not ancient. Regardless, he’s a cheetah; you know what they say –”

“Fast to grow, fast to bed; fast to run, fast to wed,” Clarus recites the old poem with an eyeroll. “Didn’t we just get out of a meeting discussing why we should not apply traditional species-based stereotypes to people? You just want it to be all about romance, you old tomcat.”

“Says the person who keeps trying to pair him up with company for the Chocobo Festival?”

Clarus coughs. “Enjoying some pleasant company and having a mate are two totally separate things,” he says archly. “A ‘taur’s needs are not all intellectual upper heart, you know; the secondary lower heart, the animal instinct, also needs to be satisfied…have you considered that he may just be lonely, Regis, and not necessarily for want of a mate? There aren’t many other cheetahs in the city – and none quite like him.”

“Perhaps,” Regis concedes. “But at any rate, we need to do something about it. Get him to exercise all that restlessness out, something like that.”

“Exercise,” Clarus says dryly. “The head of the Crownsguard doesn’t get enough exercise.”

Regis makes a face. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

They enter the throne room. Instead of going to the throne, Regis heads towards the windows overlooking the Crownsguard training arena. Clarus joins him and looks down to where Cor is – well, to be frank, where Cor is kicking the ass of ten highly regarded Crownsguard.

At once.

“He’s going to be unpopular if he keeps up with that,” Clarus observes.

“I know,” Regis says with a sigh. “Perhaps some time outside the Wall will do him good.”

“You just named him the Marshal of the Crownsguard,” Clarus reminds Regis. “You can’t just reassign him.”

“Not reassign him, no. Perhaps a covert mission of some variety...?”

Clarus snorts. “That’s a terrible reason to send someone on a covert mission,” he warns, but he can already feel himself giving in. He’s always been protective of Cor, ever since old King Mors had come back from his travels with an overgrown fluffball at his side as his bodyguard, of all preposterous things; Clarus hadn’t believed it until Cor had demonstrated at some length why Clarus ought to let Cor guard him instead of the other way around. Clarus still secretly thought it more than a little ridiculous; ridiculous prodigy or not, best fighter in the kingdom or not, thirteen years old is far too young to be on the front lines of a war. “Very well; we can pick a mission for him to go on, something reasonable…hmm. We did get that one letter from Niflheim, do you recall – the one about the factories?”

“Didn’t we think it was some sort of trap?”

“We thought it was likely a trap of some sort, yes,” Clarus agrees. “But this is Cor we’re talking about. He can be trusted to scout out the situation fully before going in.”

“And very likely to survive coming out,” Regis says wryly. “If anyone ever finds out we sent him on another death-defying, impossible-to-survive mission, he’ll never get that Immortal nickname off of him.”

“He’s never getting rid of that nickname anyway. If we send him solo with - at most - some back-up within radio distance, he’ll at least avoid being afraid that everyone around him will die,” Clarus says. “Again.”

“It’s not his fault he’s so much faster than everyone around him,” Regis sighs. “It’s just the way he was born, and how talented he is; anyone else would have died along with their squad. He’s not somehow to blame because he survived where they didn’t, no matter what he might think. Do check with the Crownsguard that he’s been eating enough, will you?”

“You already know he won’t be,” Clarus says gently. “But I’ll tell him he can’t ship out unless he eats a full meal.”

“That’ll be something, at least,” Regis says. He shakes his head and pads up onto the throne, settling in for his next meeting. “Very well, we're agreed; let's send him out. Do remind him to be cautious about it, will you?”

“Don’t worry,” Clarus says firmly. “He won’t do anything rash.”

[overplannedbutunnamednpc]

This week’s ask meme Monday theme is “I make my friends do math” SO start at the top and answer prime numbers until you 1) run out of characters 2) run out of prime numbers or 3) lose interest. STEM boy

:(

but i’m still doing it. randomly rolling starting with pcs, then npcs, then stopping

1. What’s one experience your character had that made them very afraid? Isaac: so i don’t know how much i’ve said on here about what isaac’s experience in hell actually Was Like. and i think I’ve used the word “puppet” before, and I think that was what it was like. she doesn’t remember a whole lot about it, because for the most part, she just wasn’t there. if she really tried, i think she could remember specific things, but she doesn’t Like To. it’s remembering when you had no choice or control, when your body wasn’t your own and you had to smile and laugh for things with too many hands and tails and teeth. a devil full ass remade her as a tiefling, grew her horns slowly but surely through the skin of her cheeks, up and through and out her eye sockets. like. shits fucked. now that she has her brain back, shes Very afraid of the thing that did that to her.

2. What is your character’s happiest memory? Nyxi: her patron probably had a kid while she was working with her and oh my god...... thinking about her and that tiny small little baby while her patron recovered....... knowing that no she wasn’t the one to give birth to them but they’re going to be, like their siblings have been, just a much a child of hers as theyve all been. she loved all her kids, of course, but there was something special about holding that baby in the first few hours of their life, watching them grow up and helping them with that growth. she’d probably rank those first few hours among the happiest of her life, for sure.

3. What’s one skill your character really wishes they had? Sarril: hmmmm. the ability to heal, maybe? I think that’s the kind of skill he would like. there’s just something nice about like. even if you get too angry and go too far there’s still a way for you to make it right, you know?

skipping 5 bc I don’t care for it overmuch

7. Have they ever encountered someone they really wanted to kill? Zephyr: no. like does she dislike a lot of people? sure! but she’s been mostly a stay-in-the-ivory-tower kind of person, and as such hasn’t really made any enemies. rivals, sure, yeah, and I doubt she made many friends before she entered into the academy. but she doesn’t want to kill anyone. (yet.)

11. What was something they struggled with greatly and how did they overcome it? Legacy: hmmmmm. I think legacy struggled a lot with like.... Mattering, if that makes sense? I think she got her Powers rather early in life because her grandmother looked at her immediately post her spouse dying and went “yeah she’s old enough” and came by like “yo adore whats up. want some cool Spells (eventually) and also to be my grandchild” and legacy, then adore, then 9 years old, said “boy WOULD I!!!!!” and then she spent the next eight or nine years really struggling with what to do with them? she’s got spells at this point and all she’s done is work in a print shop. at some point she turned to petty crime because she was good at lying her ass off, and then eventually she got a sword and went to Adventure because she straight up didn’t know what else she wanted to do. it’s only now that she’s kind of figuring out that like. yeah she does kinda like adventuring? even more when there’s people around her.

13. Does your character have anyone that they really care about, to the point that they would give their life for them? If so, who are they and what is your character’s relation to them? If not, do they wish they did? Is there anyone they wish they could build such a relationship with? Zier: so like......... yes and no? zier sucks. zier sucks big time. and I think the closest thing he has at least at the points i’ve played him, are MAYBE one of his little siblings. like yes he’s meant to be making them paranoid and selfish. but also maybe he has a little sister who’s just always been a bit too soft for his family. and maybe he remembers that he’s the only boy in his family because his oldest sister killed the other one. so maybe he’s a little protective but very good at pretending like he isn’t. maybe his littlest sister knows better than to trust him even if she’s soft, so he’ll never have much more of a relationship with her than that. and maybe he wishes that it was different. and maybe he knows better.

17. How was their childhood? Did their parents treat them fairly? Did they have any really good friends? Kenny: kenny had a very nice set of parents and I think I said in game that he had a little brother but I also think he might’ve been an only child? idk. but this ask doesn’t ask that!!! his parents were very fair. maybe a little lax but only because kenny was a pretty Good Kid. and I do think he kind of sees them through rose colored glasses now that theyre gone but they were pretty good. his tragic backstory focuses on Losing them. in addition, I think he did have some really good friends! he’s a charming boy and pretty friendly, and it was a decently small village. I think he found some other folk his own age and they played together when they were young and that translated into proper friendship as they got older.

19. Have they ever lost a loved one? What happened to them, and are they the same as they were before they lost them? Ecstasy: okay so. I made it semi canon that when she got the reapers hand, it may or may not have made her shoot her best friend point blank to devour her soul when it got hungry. I am canonizing this. this did happen, and it was the reason ecstasy started taking rogue levels instead of fighter levels. she like. got back to using guns? but she handed over her hugely cursed but also HUGELY powerful gun to her fuckbuddy’s friend without much of a fight, I’ll tell you that much.

23. Does your character know any languages apart from their native language? What one would they like to learn? Glade: lemme look at his character sheet. okay he only knows common and orcish. he uses common a lot more than he uses orcish, but orcish was his first language and now that he has red he uses it a lot more, trying to have her pick it up as a language too. and this is a predictable answer but still true: if he had much time to learn a language, he’d learn infernal. he knows a few words because he’s married to a tiefling, but he doesn’t have the bloodline-given understanding of the language like they do and he would Like To Know What His Wife And Two Year Old Are Giggling About, Please.

29. If they could change just one thing about themselves, what would it be? Endurance: so. like. I don’t know if endurance would change anything about herself??? actually no she would. she would love it if she were more decisive. like, relentless decided to fall and decided to claw her way back to amaunator’s side, and endurance like. isn’t like that at all. I think a lot of her regrets are still tied up in “should I have turned lent into the crownsguard” and because of the violence that happened, she shouldn’t have. but like. she REALLY hates how unsure she is about the circumstances surrounding it, you know? she didn’t heal her, she didn’t really try and stop it until it was too late, and she hasn’t accepted that she was passive in those circumstances. at least if she were more decisive, she thinks she would have already made peace with the things she did pre and post lent’s fall.

31. How patient is your character with others? Do they find it easy to handle people that try and bug them, or hard? Iris: very patient. she’s a princess and also deals with motherfuckers unlimited Literally Constantly. she’s SO patient. however. she also takes no shit. if someone is trying to bug her, then she will not attempt to deal with it. her ability to have Diplomacy means that she can rather easily and relatively politely just go “you are not having this conversation with me in a respectful manner. if you can stop deliberately prodding me for a reaction, we can continue with what we are discussing. if you cannot or refuse to respect me and my time here with you, then I am stopping the conversation here. which option would you like?”

skipping 37 as well

41. Where do they live? What is that place like, do they enjoy living there? Kiya: kiya likes highgrasp! she probably likes it more than any other place she’s lived. it’s a nice city, it’s a clean city, she likes the ocean, and she likes the job she got there. not much to complain about!

43. What are they like when they’re drunk? Don’t be a prude and tell me they’ve never been smashed before. Coriander: zephyr and coriander are the Same when drunk. Loud and Intelligent. coriander also may be a Horny drunk but that may be because she just likes talking about her spouse and thinks (rightly so) that they are Sexy. she will get on her construct to be eight feet taller than most opponents and she will Debate them about magical theory whether they want to be a part of the conversation or not. Fucka You.

[blitzkrieg-mit-dem-fleischgewehr]

Ludwig and his Sexuality

I’ve wanted to touch base on this for a while now because like so many, we headcanon Ludwig to be strictly gay, which I have no problem with. In fact, I agree with it fullheartedly. So now, I want to explore the way he comes into his sexuality and the difficulties he faces when he does realise his predilections.

1806 - the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. However, there is a rise in German nationalism, or the beginnings of a rise in German nationalism. 

Not to long after in late 1814, we see the Congress of Vienna, which was a hope to restore order to Europe after Napoleon fucked everyone. It was also a rewind to restore the monarchy, what many believed to be proper power, or legitimate power. Because, god forbid that the people get a choice on who rules the country, or about their own well-being. And, in part, I don’t blame them for doing so, I would be scared too if I saw the power, resilience, and force that comes out of a country that has killed their monarchy and, thanks to Napoleon, created a code that assures the well-being of an individual human (man). 

What kind of crazy world would come from that? Am I right? 

What I’m getting at with this is that we need to see that their is this desperate grab to keep an old dying order. A conservatism that must be taken into account despite these new ‘enlightened’ ideas coming forth and building traction. It’s something you see even in the Ottoman Empire with more countries seeking their sovereignty from it’s oppressive ruler. 

However, I am missing the mark of this...exploration. 

For me, I see the Holy Roman Empire and Germany being the same person. In part because I view the Holy Roman Empire more like the embodiment of German nationalism but being a failure because their was more divide then there was union. I say this because despite the Holy Roman Empire lasting a good many centuries, the fragmentation from within it, well it kept the entire area quite weak. (Which appeased France greatly cause fuck the Germans, right? Bl )

Plus, imagine having to deal with city-states, prince-bishops, and so on. 

“We want this!”, “We don’t want that.” , “Fuck you.” 

So on and so forth. Just a bunch of giant babies that want to keep their territory and power.  

Now, Ludwig wakes up, no memories of his previous life and both Roderich and Gilbert see this as a chance to give him a better life, one without the chains of the late Holy Roman Empire holding him back. 

Immediately, there is joint custody. I say this because Austria, before the German Confederation decided to go with the lesser German solution rather then the greater one. Okay, I should add that it was Prussia, and later on that started to favour the lesser solution because of complications with Austria. 

However, I feel it important that Roderich, at least at the onset of Ludwig’s new life, be present. It’s almost as if Gilbert and Roderich are divorced parent and they both have custody over their child. 

Roderich becomes Ludwig’s tutor in most things academic as well as etiquette. And, Gilbert becomes Ludwig’s tutor in such thing as Military Training, Ethics in War, Sciences, and so on. One thing to take out from this is that, for one Ludwig isn’t being taught anything about sexuality, which is fitting for the time frame. There wouldn’t be any talk about it except for what he hears being gossiped around or from the curt answers he gets from both Roderich and Gilbert. I feel it’s important to point out that because of this, and the fact he’s so busy trying to learn all these things being thrown at him, Ludwig has no time to worry about whether he likes girls...or boys, for this matter. 

Which, for me, is a good thing, because when Ludwig starts figuring out that he’s not interested in females, it’s closer to the time that Magnus Hirschfield comes around and the Institute of Sexual Research is founded in Berlin. Not that, this makes Ludwig feel any better knowing that he’s not perceived as normal...and is perceived as a pervert. Then taking into account Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code. It makes you feel like absolute shit.  The one upside though, is that after the falling out with Austria, and then the unification of Germany in 1871, Ludwig finds himself mainly in Berlin. Another thing to note is that Ludwig has his hands full between 1807 (haven’t decided when he ‘wakes’ from his ‘death’, could be 1806, could be later?) and 1871.

In that time, Ludwig is overwhelmed with things he has to learn so that he can become his own nation. Plus, both Roderich and Gilbert would keep Ludwig incredibly busy. It’s not to say that he hasn’t had thoughts, I just feel that it wouldn’t be at the forefront of his mind because he has to re-learn everything about the world he’s living in again. 

Which! Is also why I think that Ludwig wouldn’t question Paragraph 175 because...of course it should be illegal! How could there be people like that....?

Yeah, sorry, Ludwig, life really can’t be easy for you.

Now, taking into account that the German Empire is a fledgling Empire. Gilbert would be occupying himself with the inner politics of the empire. Why, you ask? It would makes sense for him to deal with it, especially seeing as Prussian Bureaucracy is prevalent in the German Empire. BUT! Also because Gilbert was the one that brought on the Unification. He was the one that saw to all the politics, diplomacy, and strategic wars to bring it about. There would be no way in hell that Gilbert was just going to hand that over to Ludwig without making sure that the Empire was going to last. 

It’s here that I can see there being strain on their relationship. I could also see Gilbert pushing for Ludwig dealing with Foreign Relations. 

Isn’t this a bad idea OP? 

Well, yes and no. I feel like it can be seeing as Ludwig’s real life experience amounts to what he was taught by Gilbert and Roderich...and what he’s been witness to, in terms of Gilbert’s activities. 

I don’t think Gilbert would send Ludwig everywhere but it would be easy to send him to say, the Ottoman Empire, where Gilbert has already struck a deal to help re-train the Ottoman Army and oversee a railroad linking Berlin the the orient. 

But, this exposure also gives Ludwig opportunities to realise that...he doesn’t fancy women as much as he thought he did. A slow dawning realisation that there is something different about him besides being the German Empire. 

Now, let’s rewind a little, I know I mentioned that Gilbert and Roderich wouldn’t touch base on sexuality. I also believe that as nations, these immortal beings, that sexuality should be perceived differently...to some degree. But, considering the amount of stuff going on after the Congress of Vienna until the German Unification...there wouldn’t be a lot of thought in prepping Ludwig in absolutely every aspect of nationhood...which, in itself, would be something that a nation needs to figure out themselves. 

I also doubt that Gilbert would ever mention any of his romantic relationships (coughFritzcough) to Ludwig anyway. It just...it wouldn’t be something that did come up because it wouldn’t be important by any means for any of them at the time. 

When things finally settle down, I could see Ludwig having such thoughts, but I also feel that upon finding out that he finds men attractive, that he won’t want to talk about it with anyone. That fear would be the thing holding him back to figuring out what such an attraction would mean for an immortal like him. On top of his own criminal code outlawing it...and categorizing homosexuals with people who commit bestiality...stripping them of all their rights. 

If I were Ludwig I wouldn’t want to talk about it either. 

So, he doesn’t. He keeps it to himself, tries to find logical reasons to why he finds men much more attractive then women. Finds solace in activists (I’m going to call him this because it was activism in a way that he was doing) such as Magnus Hirschfeld. The man, and others like him, is publishing essays, books, research galore in hopes of re-appealing paragraph 175, because it’s fucking stupid to have it in the criminal code when being homosexual is natural. At least, this is what he’s trying to argue and he does help out with court cases against gays and really tries to shine light on the fact that it shouldn’t be illegal. 

It also helps that he founds the Institute of Sexual Research which is a place that Ludwig can go. On whether he goes, I feel that he would. He’d try to be discreet about it but he would go to find resources, to hear other people’s stories, to legitimize his feelings. He would find comfort in the fact that Berlin does have such a big underground LGBT life (I call it LGBT because although at the time it was not called this, at the moment I have no other acronym or word that I can use in it’s place). 

This doesn’t sooth his mind but it does give him a bit of an outlet, when I mean outlet, I mean it more in the fact that he knows that he’s not the only one. It gives him a very minuscule hope for the future. 

I also feel like Ludwig, despite being gay, isn’t the type to easily fall for someone or rather...to act on his ‘interests’. He’s had such a long and tiring internal struggle to accept himself, which I believe is something that doesn’t fully happen until the Sexual Revolution that started in the 60′s and went on until the 80′s....although, I guess you could argue that we’re going through phase II or phase III of that same revolution.

Anyway, Ludwig doesn’t immediately accept himself on the onset of this Liberation Movement, but he’s crawling forward into realising that fighting himself is not worth it anymore. By the 80s, I would say that Ludwig has come to accept himself but he keeps it to himself, very private about his life. 

Which is what factored into him not saying anything to anyone...or reaching out to other nations about what he was feeling. Plus, all the talk and gossip he probably heard about how so and so is a degenerate because he sleeps with men and so forth. It would keep anyone’s mouth shut tight.

I think....I’ve ranted enough but like the Gilbert & Fritz Headcanons, I want to touch base more on Ludwig (his feelings, his struggle and thoughts) and how he rationalizes keeping it to himself during the early 1900s,1930s, 1940s and so on. 

But now....I need to run off and shovel the world out of all this snow.

[haledamage]

So my free time has evaporated, but I still want to finish the MEA Countdown thing, so here’s all the ones left that I haven’t done, including the ones that haven’t come up yet, so I can make sure I get them done :)

19 Days: Where would Ryder fall in the classic Paragon/Renegade morality system? What would their D&D alignment be? If you know their personality type in any personality typing systems (such as MBTI and Enneagram - you can find various type descriptions and tests using Google), feel free to add and discuss them here.

Lottie is very strongly paragon, unless you fuck with her brother or her friends, in which case she is not above kicking you out a window. She’d probably be neutral/chaotic good; she’s a good person through and through, but she’s not above sowing a little chaos if the mood strikes, and she can be positively ruthless to enemies.

18 Days: What qualities does Ryder like and dislike in other people? Are there any things they particularly appreciate or can’t stand?

She likes empathy and curiosity. She likes people who care, basically, whether that be about knowledge or experiences or other people, she likes when people care about something. The worst thing a person can be, in her opinion, is apathetic.

17 Days: List some of Ryder’s favorite things - colors, food, music, etc. Is there anything of this nature that they hate? Do they have any hobbies or skills outside of combat?

Lottie loves music, and usually has something playing on her private channel on her com. She also tends to hum to herself, which I imagine would annoy SAM to no end if he’s capable of annoyance. Her favorite color is sea green, and she has a terrible sweet tooth; her favorite foods are mostly desserts, her most favorite being ice cream.

Outside of combat, she’s a tinker. She likes to build little things, or work on cars. She also makes some really nice jewelry, when the mood strikes.

16 Days: How would Ryder define their sexuality?

Pansexual. She cares more about forming connections with people, and it doesn’t really matter to her their gender or species.

15 Days: Delve into the Ryder family background - how is/was their relationship with their father, sibling and mother? Do they get along, hero worship, close twin connection, sibling rivalry, was it strained, was it distant, etc.

Scotty and Lottie have always been very close. Scott is her best friend. Mom and Dad both worked a lot, but tried their best, which Lottie understands, though she sometimes wishes they’d been closer.

14 Days: Describe some important or formative events in Ryder’s history. How did these impact and shape them?

When her biotics developed was pretty important, obviously. The fact that she's a biotic while her twin brother isn't was interesting to a lot of scientists, so she spent a lot of time in labs and hospitals “under observation.” It awakened a curiosity in her about how the world works, though, and she went to college for anthropology. It also awoke her wanderlust, as she learned she really didn't like sitting around all day.

13 Days: Why did Ryder join the Alliance military? Later on, what were Ryder’s reasons for signing up to the Andromeda Initiative? Were they seeking adventure (or glory, or a challenge), wanting a new start, running from something, following their family, trying to secure a future for humanity, did they simply feel railroaded into it, etc.

She joined the Alliance to see the galaxy, and because they'd pay for college. The Andromeda Initiative was a no-brainer. Lottie and Scott were both excited about it as soon as Dad told them about it; wanderlust is a family trait, and the Ryders were all very much on board to boldly go.

12 Days: How will Ryder feel upon waking up from cryo? Relieved, excited, scared, impatient to get going, lost, etc.

All of those, yes. Lottie first felt relieved that she actually woke up, then overwhelmed as the full weight of what they were undertaking settled over her. The excitement of exploring the unknown won her over fairly quickly, though.

11 Days: Once in Andromeda, what are Ryder’s goals? What drives them?

Pursuit of knowledge. Finding a safe place for her people to live. Finding her place in Andromeda.

10 Days: Will Ryder ever miss the Milky Way? What things and places will they miss most?

She does sometimes. She misses her old Alliance friends, and her apartment in the Citadel wards. She misses takeout food and microbrew beer and other little things that she never thought about until they were 600 years behind her.

9 Days: Did Ryder have any notable friends or connections in the Milky Way? How about past relationships? Which friendship or relationship was the most significant to them?

She doesn't have any really close friends she left behind. She was a rambler, and never stayed in one place long enough to form close friendships. She's friendly and open, though, so she made friends easily enough. Her closest friend has always been her brother.

8 Days: How does Ryder feel about aliens? Are they uncomfortable, wary, intrigued, curious, intimidated, not bothered, etc? In the Milky Way, where did they stand on humanity’s place in galactic society - Earth first, Terra Firma, human superiority, peaceful cooperation, pro-galactic integration & unity, etc? How will they feel upon discovering that there are sentient alien races in Andromeda?

Lottie is curious of aliens and other cultures. She loves to learn about other people's perspectives and try and understand their way of life. She is very pro-galactic integration, and wants to take that same approach to any alien races she meets in Andromeda. She believes that we're stronger together than apart.

7 Days: Ryder’s father gave the twins informal N7 training in the past. How did Ryder feel about this (pressured, resentful, grateful, motivated, overworked, excited, etc)? What are their feelings on “N7” as a symbol? How do they relate to it, if at all?

She recognized it as what it was: her dad trying to connect with his kids. It wasn't something she was really interested in, but she wanted to know her dad better and that was a way to do it. N7 never really meant much to her, and it was never something she aspired to, but she recognizes that it means a lot to her father, and that's enough for her.

6 Days: Does your Ryder know your Shepard? What do they think of Shepard? Would they get along? What would Shepard think of Ryder?

Lottie knows of Alexi Shepard, of course. Everyone knows of Shepard, but they've never met. She appreciates what the Commander does for humanity's relationship with the other Council races. I think they'd get along, though. Both are people who put others before themselves, and I think they'd find a lot of common ground there.

5 Days: Out of the squadmates, Tempest crewmembers and other characters shown so far, who do you think Ryder will get along well with? Who do you think they will get along best with? Why?

Lottie and Peebee will bond over the joy of exploration, and she and Suvi over a love of science. I don't think there's anyone she won't get along with. She and Liam will get along best, though. Both are idealists and proud space cowboys, and that along with the bonding power of fighting side by side will make them nearly inseparable.

4 Days: Out of the squadmates, Tempest crewmembers and other characters shown so far, is there anyone you think Ryder won’t gel so greatly with, dislike or otherwise come into conflict with? Why?

She'll probably get along with everyone, as least to be polite to, but she and Cora may butt heads a little. Cora knew Alec better than Lottie every did, and she'll always be a little jealous of that; Lottie ended up in a job that should have been Cora's, though, and that'll she'll always be a little jealous of that. They'll be friends, but I think that wedge will always be between them. She and Drack may have trouble seeing eye to eye, as well, as she prefers diplomacy as the answer and he much prefers to punch his way out of an argument; she'd wholeheartedly trust him at her back, though.

3 Days: Do you plan on romancing anyone with Ryder? If so, who? Why? What qualities would Ryder find attractive in a partner (if applicable)?

Lottie will either romance Liam, Peebee, or Vetra. I love all of them a lot and I don't know who I'll choose until it happens. She'd be very attacted to Vetra's intensity, Peebee's curiosity, and Liam's optimism (and to their faces, because they're all beautiful). I think Liam may end up edging out the ladies and winning Lottie's heart, just because they go through a lot of shit together before they ever meet Vetra and Peebee, and his support and compassion when she needed it most is something she would never forget.

2 Days: Provide a “famous quote” from Ryder that sums them up as a character (like the ones for the squadmates in their official character profiles).

“We're like the Enterprise, Scotty! Boldly going where no one has gone before!” (maybe I'll eventually finish and post the thing I wrote in which she says this lol)

1 Day: Which song/songs would be “theme songs” for Ryder? Are there any symbols you associate with Ryder? If you’ve created a moodboard for them, share it here. If not, what sorts of things would be on their moodboard? Describe their aesthetic. What Hogwarts house would they be sorted into? If you’ve written fanfic involving Ryder already, share it here. [you don’t need to do all of these, they’re merely intended as creative exercises]

“Born for This” - Paramore, “Wherever I Roam” - Metallica. Her aesthetic is cups of coffee and half-built machines, long walks under the stars and notebooks full to bursting and piles of photographs, blue and pink and black. She's probably a Griffindor, maybe a Ravenclaw?

1 Day too long: In Citadel space, AIs are illegal. How does Ryder feel about Artificial Intelligence? Are they wary or afraid, are they pro-AI, do they consider AIs to have personhood, etc? How does Ryder feel about SAM and their constant connection to it? Are they glad for the upgrade, do they find it invasive, have mixed feelings, etc?

She doesn't have a problem with AI. I don't know if she considers them all like people, because there are different levels of AI, but she thinks they have the capacity to become person-like. She loves SAM, she loves its bad attempts at humor and the way it always reminds her to eat and makes sure she doesn't overwork herself.

2 Days too long: How does Ryder feel about being thrust into the role of humanity’s Pathfinder (burdened, honored, rewarded, excited, etc)? Are they confident or unsure about this? How will they cope?

She is terrified, but wouldn't admit it even under torture. Pathfinder isn't a role that was meant for her, not really, and the fact that she's now burdened with the literal survival of the human race, maybe even the whole Initiative, is terrifying. She's her father's daughter, though, and knows that nothing was ever accomplished by giving up, so she does the best she can and trusts in her team and her friends. She's not alone, and that's what really keeps her going.

[thepaperthrones]

When Its Time To Walk Away Pt.4

Preview to The Long Goodbye

Back to Part III

All Men Are Brothers

Karma: There was this great kung fu western flick my god brother Kenny brought over called All Men Are Brothers: Blood of the Leopard which was adaptation of the Chinese classic Water Margin. It was the story of a high level government official who must choose between his position and his allegiance to a rough street monk who is very anti-corruption in the government. It represented so many relationships at that time. My god brother Wayne was really loud and boisterous, but when I was around he was always calming me down to learn discretion. When he died of cancer in 1997 it put a large hole in my heart. Somehow I ended up becoming that person that was calming folks down and was caught between the diplomacy and the ethical outrage of the people I was around. We would leave shows in San Jose, San Luis Obispo or San Antonio. It would be 3am as we drove home. Somehow at every gas station there was a group of young men about to fight. Somehow there was some kid at an IHOP looking at his pager like “I’m going to get revenge”. Somehow I always seemed to put myself in the middle and talk them down. Somehow I never got shot.

Koncepts: just a perfect song man. we were all really vibrating on the same frequency. I love the little glass clinks and crowd ambiance from the sample. and the kick drum knocks so hard. that’s that Bay Area shit man, a mellow ass sample and deep bass.

Ashes To Ase

Karma: We would perform a lot in the “hip hop” room at raves. That was the culture of the 90’s. Hypnotic hated it because he didn’t feel techno. However to be quite honest, the women at raves were thousand times better looking and more stable than the women who went to hip hop. The baddest of them used to hang in the “jungle” room – a rough amalgamation of actual jungle, trip hop, drum and base as well as what would eventually be dub step. Kirby and I loved going back forth over those beats. We could rap for hours over the stuff. For me it brought me home to Jupiter, Florida. It put me in the red clay of Georgia. It gave me the woods of Mississippi. I loved obscure southern rap and especially enjoyed the bounce aspect. I also appreciated the underestimation that California and New York put upon southern rap. It paralleled the mistake many crews in the Bay ran into. They dissed us on tape, we responded by snatching the mics at their show and serving them. Then they took it outside to battle and got demolished. Then they wanted to throw hands and lost there too. This track is a narrative to that. At the time we wouldn’t have seen it that way.

Koncepts: I feel a way about this song. It’s fucking amazing - the beat, the rhymes, the hook… my god. and when we dropped this at a show? bedlam. but it has a kind of ignoble history. My partner Zvi and I had this Delia Gartrell 45, which is this brutal ballad about a woman’s son dying in the Vietnam war, and we chopped it real slow. Zvi had the idea of chopping up Skull Snaps and doing a bounce pattern with it. It was unique, no one was doing bounce drums with samples, especially not old school breakbeats. Anyway, we kinda fucked up the money because we also gave this track to Mazzi [rapper with our other group the Soul Purpose] and it was like, ok, let’s see who does what with it… Mazzi made an incredible track called “1 and 9” about being from the hood in Jersey. It was super ill. So we had this issue, who could use the beat? Nobody even cares about shit like that anymore, but back then it was a real problem. Zvi wanted to roll with Mazzi’s version, I was on the fence. Anyway, I feel like that disagreement was another one that ended up torpedoing the project. And what’s sad is that neither song ever came out - the Soul Purpose project fell apart not too long after and the album we were working on never made it out of the demo stage. Nowadays I prefer “Ashes” to “1 and 9”. But at the time I couldn’t call it.

My Morning Star

Karma: Perhaps the most honest writing anyone was doing in (w)rap™ at that age. I was in my early twenties trying to understand what it meant to be a man while facing a divorce like end to my long term relationship. There were some rules we made up to protect our esteem. One of them was we wouldn’t date women we met in the industry because it led to hardship later. I think that put so much expectation on the women we fell in love with outside of music that when those relationships crumbled it hurt us even more. On top of which, Hypnotic and I were facing this same debacle every time: why does it seem like self-control and discipline gets punished. Simply put, we both were in faithful parties in long term relationships that ended when our romantic partners were not faithful. That combined with life in show biz, turned us bitter when we stuck to the honor code. 

Koncepts: this beat is mad mournful with that one drawn out note that descends and ascends in the chords. I used an SP1200 on a lot of the Auditron drums courtesy of my partner Zvi and you can hear the programming gets a lot better and the drums are chunkier. Ka and Ba perfectly wrote this for how the beat felt to me. Vulnerable and hurt but still standing strong. It’s a shame the project never came out because there are so many tracks that I felt were just the perfect distillation of a feeling, this was one of those. Probably my personal favorite now.

Ba

Koncepts: I love this song man. Ba really showed his heart on it. And it takes skill to rap over something like this which is kinda mellow and laid back but not like, sad or down. the loop just gets me in a zone; very based. this might have been an intro beat or slated for Per Aa Ra’s project originally. There were earlier takes that I felt like Ba nailed it a bit better. But you couldn’t save takes back then and we had that stupid belief that a) we have to deliver everything in one take and b) we can definitely do the next one better. so it goes.

Karma: I remember when this was done and I would drive around with mix downs, this was the soundtrack to getting through traffic. It became synonymous with “things are going to be all right”. I struggled for many years to explain what this meant without falling into esoteric answers or metaphysics. One thing my Dad was very good at impressing upon me was “don’t feed steak to children” meaning don’t waste your time trying to explain complexities people don’t want to learn. In of myself, I was learning how to be more efficient and not waste my time. This song really gave folks a sense of optimism.

The Final Conflict

Karma: Why a final conflict? One thing I have come to terms with and this album should evidence – I can see things before they happen. I am not going to spend a single second of time on weirdos defending it. I will just state – people were downloading music from www.kemeticsuns.com three years before Napster. Towards the middle of 1997, something was changing in the Bay Area. I was starting to get fans who worked at something called a “tech company” who would invite me to work as a contractor. They had website that had millions behind them but they couldn’t tell you what they did all day. They wanted to pay me to tell them what was cool. More and more I saw a reliance on machines as the new free labor. The dot come boom was becoming a second gold rush and I was aware it had it limits. In 2017, the largest obstacle facing the American worker is not automation. It is the perception that automation demands a better quality of life for all. There are some very good thinkers on this subject but I would direct attention at Berkeley’s own Phillip K. Dick, Frank Herbert and William Gibson. 

The point being, the matter of artificial intelligence is not an if, it’s a when. Once this consciousness evolves, it will split in its belief systems. If humans can be cruel, please believe there are machine gods that can be crueler. I am reminded of the quote by Francis de la Rochefoucauld, “Man believes he has abandoned his vices when in fact they abandoned him long ago”. Now looking at where we are with a new year, self driving cars and a new a president, I suspect we are at the placed I had hoped to avoid. Maybe there are some jewels in here for our fans in the years to come.

The album in its entirety is below:

The Final Conflict Soundcloud 

Part 5

[scoutshonor56]

Kakistocracy

In “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire” (2004), Trump wrote that others “are surprised by how quickly I make big decisions, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts and not to over-think things.” He added, “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”

 Well, there you have it folks, Donald Trump in a nutshell.  I distinctly remember that surreal morning of this past November 9, when I awoke to the knowledge that yes, it wasn’t all a horrible dream, this ass-clown is actually going to be elevated to the highest office in the land. This orange-haired bag of bluster and braggadocio was going to become my president.  A scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life” flashed through my head, when a shocked James Stewart first starts to come to grips with his new reality that includes he now lives in a sleazy, flashy town called Pottersville, and no longer Bedford Falls.  Feeling more than a little disorientated, he says to his angel, Clarence, “No, NO… I just got hold of some bad liquor or something…”

 Me? I thought I was experiencing a horrible, nightmarish acid flashback.  See Bob? Mom always said that all those hedonistic days of recreational drug use will catch up to you…

I apologize, as in a recent past blog I said that I was done writing about politics, and Donald Trump in particular; but as we approach his inauguration this Friday, and after observing his behavior over the last week or so, I simply can’t leave this unsaid.  As Popeye used to say, “I’ve had all I can stanz, and I can’t stanz no more!”  The Dude “will not abide.”  If you’ve never seen “The Big Lebowski”, well shame on you, and I’m not even going to explain that last one…

 Yes, after viewing the highlights of his recent press conference – on “The Daily Show” of course, the only context within which I can watch Donald Trump, as he’s best taken with a stiff shot of humor and truth – it’s become obvious that our worst fears are about to unfold.  For those who grasped at that last thin straw of hope that just maybe, once if office we would see a tempering of the man’s style… ah, nope; he’s going to conduct his time as president with the same ego-centric, blunt style that he campaigned with.  For him, the office of the presidency is just a bigger and better reality TV show.

 I thought I could shrug this one off, a four year joke; I’ll just keep my head down, disengage from any discourse or political news, and hopefully, at the least, he won’t set the house on fire and it will provide a hard lesson for America and the GOP party – just ignore him… But I now find that the closer we get to January 20th, the more physically ill I feel.  There is a dark and impending malaise hovering over not just my head, but over our nation.  Like Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, we are about to boldly go where our country has never gone before, led by a man who literally lives in his own reality.  A blustering, pathological liar lacking the least amount of dignity or decorum for the office and position he is about to represent.  A man who lives high above the streets of New York in a pimped-out golden palace that makes the term baroque blush.  Who loves himself so much, he once funneled $20,000 from his own Trump Foundation to pay for a 6ft. painting of himself.  That is, when he wasn’t siphoning off cash from this bogus charity organization – to which he hasn’t contributed a dime since 2008 - to help pay for his legal defense tabs.

 A thin-skinned asshole with the temperament, empathy, and depth of thought of a grade school bully, who over the last year has insulted and mocked (just to name a few) a decorated veteran and former POW (John McCain), a disabled reporter from the NY Times (Serge Kovaleski), the grief-stricken Muslim parents of an American veteran killed over in Iraq by a suicide bomber (Khizr and Ghazala Khan), and now, this past weekend, on the eve of Martin Luther King day no less, he disparages the character and civic patriotism of universally revered Georgia congressman John Lewis, responding to Lewis’s statement that he will be boycotting the inauguration and refuses to accept Trump’s legitimacy as a fairly elected president with the tweet  “All talk, talk, talk — no action or results…Sad!”

 The gall of this man.  The imperial-like hubris!  Let’s clear this one up with a single sentence: Back in the mid 60’s, while Trump was attending his well-heeled schools and busy getting five deferments from serving in Vietnam, John Lewis was putting himself on the front line here in America for civil rights, including the march in Selma, Alabama (known as “Bloody Sunday”) during which he was struck so violently by a state trooper wielding a billy club that his skull was fractured.

 Yeah – “all talk.”  Well, OK, in Trump’s defense, I doubt he even knows the story of John Lewis, and the fact that his latest tweet attack came days before MLK Day probably never even entered his tiny brain, which has severely limited time for facts, or reading, or anything else that doesn’t orbit around his own small universe of self-assured greatness.

 And like the worst of cowards, he picks his fights from afar, using his favorite mode of communication – due to his child-like attention span and stunted verbal prowess – Twitter, 140 characters at a time.  Here’s one for you Don: “YOU SUCK – SO SAD!”  He is offensive and abhorrent to all things civil and good, and his behavior as an example only stokes the fires of divisiveness, xenophobia, and hate. Since his election hate crimes have spiked dramatically, and white supremacist groups have made no secret of their glee over Trump’s victory.

 Returning to his press conference – his first in six months and now almost a misnomer in terms – that night Trevor Noah (on “The Daily Show”) did a zoom-in on a video still from this combative circus sideshow, focusing on the table next to the podium stacked with piles and piles of bloated, paper-stuffed manila folders, supposedly representing the hundreds of business dealings that Trump will now be divesting from and turning over to his sons.  Noah took the liberty to point out the obvious: wait a minute… every sheaf of paper looked brand new, crisp and sharp edged; and even more revealing, out of all those folders NOT ONE of them had any kind of label on them, anywhere.  No dates, no titles, nothing; as clean and untouched looking as the ones on the shelves of your local Office Depot.  Come on… Oh well, what’s a meeting with the press without props, you know?  Any good con man worth his salt knows that!

 To add to the ruse, during a pathetic and ego-stroking attempt to further make his point, Donny also bragged that he recently turned down a multi-billion dollar deal with Dubai(!) – even though of course, he assured us, he is more than capable of running both his business and the country.  As if he could treat global and national politics and diplomacy as a “second job”… Oh yeah, and those tax returns?  According to Don, nobody is interesting in seeing those but the false media and character-smearing reporters, fogettaboutit!

 I’ve got nothing – I’m positively gob-smacked.

 Then the most foreboding moment of all, his coup de grace: angrily and arrogantly refusing to take a question from Jim Acosta, a CNN reporter because "Your organization is terrible... you are fake news!”, before calling on a  reporter  from Breitbart, an unabashed, openly anti-women, anti-semetic, anti-progress, anti-immigrant, and anti-nonwhites news (propaganda) organization formerly run by his newly appointed chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

 Are you ready folks?  First step to a Fascist government?  Delegitimize the press; same result as suppression, just a little slicker – gives Donny sort of that famous, “Hey I’m not saying, I’m just repeating what I heard” buffer that he used so effectively during the primary run to discredit his opponents. Hey, this ain’t China now - I ain’t clamping down on the media - just characterizing it as false and unreliable. Yep, in DT’s world, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth comes only in 140 characters or less.  

 I remember when Stephen Colbert was on Comedy Central with his own show, during the reign of George W, and he came up with the humorous phrase “truthiness”. In other words, if it “felt” true in your gut, well, then it was true, or as good as true.  Trump has swallowed this concept and shit out a twisted, even more effective and simplistic version of this: if you don’t like a fact, simply deny it’s truth.  Earth is round?  No it’s not. 2+2=4?  No it doesn’t.  According to factcheck.org, Trump’s winning percentage of electoral votes - 56.9 percent - was well below the historical average, 70.9 percent.  Further, Trump’s share of electoral votes ranked 44th out of 54 elections going back to 1804.  His take on the election results? “A landslide.”  “One of the biggest Electoral College victories in history!”  

 Donald Trump has literally created a whole new category for the term “liar”.  He lies like most people pick their nose or fart; it’s simply become part of his vernacular.  He can’t even make the distinction anymore between truth and lies, nor does he care.  

 I could go on and on, in particular about his obtuse and bizarre cabinet picks so far - “Hey, Dr. Ben, wake up, you’re on!” - or his shady and questionable bro-mance with Putin, but I’m going to close with this salient point: During yet another contentious and embarrassing appearance on CNN the other day, Donny’s idiot former campaign manager and now senior advisor/spokesperson (go-to spin doctor), Kellyanne Conway, tried to assure us with the ridiculous plea to not judge her boss by “what comes out of his mouth”, but “what’s in his heart.”  Wow – first, what’s in his heart is memories of Russian hookers treating him to a golden shower, and second, NEWS FLASH YOU STUPID BIMBO: in life, what you say matters, it has meaning; and if you’re the president of the United States, what you say affects the lives of millions.

 * Oh yeah, as to my cryptic title: I borrowed it from Paul Krugman’s excellent piece in the NY Times yesterday (which I encourage reading), and yes, kakistocracy is actually a word, I looked it up!  According to the old Merriam-Webster, it means rule by the worst.