#i really thought the union leader would have more to do with it

[thegreatyin]

oh wow this is. simultaneously way more complicated and way more simple than i thought it'd be

[ay0nha]

Don't Bite the Hand That Feeds | Lucius Verus Aurelius

SUMMARY: "Your brethren trust you, you are the embodiment of redemption.” They spoke around Lucius, spewing anything in hopes of saturating his mind.  “Where is your image of hope? Where is the person who will relieve you of the grief you share with your people? Where is your Empress?"

PAIRING: Lucius Verus Aurelius x f!reader (arranged marriage for political reasons)

WORD COUNT: 2.4K

WARNINGS: canon-typical things, not much, mentions of alcohol, old-timey language, Google-accurate Roman empire things, dancing, arranged marriage, talks of lineage, angsty-ish, quotes from various people like Nina Simone and Octavia Butler sprinkled into dialogue,  etc. 

A/N:  I quickly wrote this in a few days with the amazing help of @astrd00. This is just sort of an introduction to my fic idea so apologies if it's a little boring. Arranged marriage trope sort of colleagues to friends to lovers. Let me know if you'd like to be tagged for future parts. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE comment it really helps me to keep going! More to come, enjoy!

The Latin translates to: a water drop hollows a stone, not by force but by frequent falling.

Everyone clung to the fog of death in the air with stiff fingers, unwilling to let their proof of newly promised freedom go. They celebrated in the streets, disregarding the savagery that occurred only months ago. The public enjoyed the amnesia, looking to Lucius not solely for responsibility but as a new object to place culpability. 

Yet, the heaviness permeated Lucius’ marrow. He hid it well behind the mask of authority. Even a sharp eye would miss the way it restrained him, intentionally ignorant of a flaw in their new leader.

It might have even been seen as a strategic move, a way to humanize the gladiator who seemed to defy the Gods. Strategy outside the arena was new, different from the portrayed brute that dusted his hands with sand. What lay in his palms now was similar to that of a child’s heart, beating rapidly with a not-yet-known burden of life. It was heavy and warm, begging for unwavering loyalty from its possessor. 

Lucius remained delicate with his hold, but the heart wanted more from him. Strength and honor would soon no longer suffice. It needed sustenance worthy of devotion and destruction. His eyes were steady on this phantom heart until those around him required his attention. 

“Emperor—” A magistrate repeated, voice raising enough to tease an echo. The new title sat heavily on Lucius’ shoulders, contorting his body into a position that mimicked Atlas.   “Our suggestion should not be taken lightly, it is for the prosperity of your Rome.”

Scrutiny wasn’t found in his tone or bitterness behind the remark but rather in genuine regard. However, there was an intention behind the ownership of Rome, a hint at the generational promise.  

“The public can wonder, speculate, but they do not see beyond the issue.” He continued, watching the twitch on Lucius’ face. “You may not like the mere thought, but gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo.” The magistrate paused, his words lingering. “How much longer until Rome is hollow once again?”

“This order is a fallacy.” Lucius finally made contact, eyes surveying those around him. “There is a need for trust, yes. And yet, you ask for deception?” 

“You misunderstand us, Emperor.” Another member of the senate spoke, hoping to alleviate tension. “There would be no deception in this union, only fortification of the reigning; an image for the people to find themselves in.”

 “Your brethren trust you, you are the embodiment of redemption.” They spoke around Lucius, spewing anything in hopes of saturating his mind.  “Where is your image of hope? Where is the person who will relieve you of the grief you share with your people? Where is your Empress?”

—

You smiled through the wine-fueled chattering of the ceremony, appeasing those who had just witnessed your union, but your focus moved beyond the conversation and revelry.  Above you was a darkened sky that mimicked night. Rain poured down, tempting you to fall prey to its numbing hold. 

The Gods are favoring your union, you were told when the sky opened. Divine intervention.  

But you knew the Gods were fickle, always testing your will against temptation. It was a test sent for you, one that an elaborate wedding and an emperor declaring your shared existence hid well. 

So you ignored the call of the humidity, being dutiful to your new role as empress. People bowed to you and nearly cried at how beautifully you paired with your new counterpart. Even as you sat on the marble throne beside Lucius you couldn’t deny their exactness. 

“Don’t worry, they’ll soon pass out from the wine.” You spoke softly, eyes ahead at your guests as you spoke to your husband. His grip on your hand fidgeted exposing his anxiety.  

Lucius paused, determining if honesty was worthwhile. His self-awareness was enough to remind him how unfamiliar he was with the environment that consumed his senses. 

“It is for them.” You nodded ahead to the crowd. The room was hot from the amount of bodies swirling around.   “Remind yourself of this when their faith falters.”

Lucius looked at you, attention trained on your profile. Even with a soft veil over your features, you were so absolute. 

“I know my purpose here. You are still learning yours.” You continued. “All I ask of you is that when they falter you place your trust in our bond.”

“I will place it where it is due.” There was your gladiator. The defiance comforted you. 

“Those around you are untroubled by that; all they crave is to spit on the fallen. It doesn’t matter if you are one of them, they are quick to turn.” You sharpened. “Be careful; join the sinful and you will be remembered with spite and desperation.”

You spoke of hidden things, of politics that lingered like venom in the bloodstream of the empire. Lucius knew not to mistake your words for ulterior motives. You were direct in your vows to further his image of a new Rome, it was why you were chosen to be by his side. Your mind was clear. You read the room perfectly, unraveling every detail of what was inherited. 

“My legacy does not motivate me,” Lucius stated. His ears attuned to you and you only, enraptured in how deeply you spoke as if it was a common thought. “I will not look to them for fame.” 

“You will, conscious or not. And once you do, you will not be able to look away.” You smiled pitifully as though you knew something he didn’t. “Just as they watched you fight, you misunderstand the impact of what is before you.”

“You believe that little of me?” There was a swirl of censure in his chest despite the small smile pulling at his lips.  

“There is opportunity to win, but that is a fool’s goal—

“To win?” Lucius scoffed. “Even you have been mislead, then. Thinking that there is a conquest waiting to happen.”

“I do not wish to insult you.” Your thumb adjusted against his fingers. It was in your nature to be candid, but at times you placed your frustrations unfairly. You softened. “Your promise of growth will help amend this.”

Lucius wished to pull away from you. He needed to think, to be separated from the feigned festivities adjoined to love. This was love; love created not between two people, but shared by you and him for Rome. 

That was not to say you were birds of a feather. 

Your strengths were found in your experience. Although young, you were no novice to how to hold your chin high while delivering truths to the senate. You learned from your uncle, an official who raised you on the true meaning of government. You were clever. The public viewed you as such. You were of noble status and fit to stand before them. 

What you lacked was a specific connection that Lucius brought to the people. He was one of them, raised humbly, hands worn from the earth’s harvest and war forced upon him. Lucius spoke well to them, building comradery with every way of life. 

“I would never ask you to compromise your beliefs. I know better than to think you’d behave.” You teased at his rebellion, hoping the guard that was up would calm. “Besides, a well-mannered lover is an offense.”

 “We are not lovers.” It was sterile in tone but revealed emotions long since buried.

“And we are not enemies.” You were quick, reading between his words to find the insult. 

“My lord!” A raspy voice begged for attention. “My lady!” 

You stood, bowing politely to the affluent man before you. He took advantage of the night; jewels adorned every finger that pulled at the elaborate fabric of his outfit. 

“It is time.” The rasp withered when he lowered to speak to you directly. His arms went wide as if inviting a hug, but he spun skillfully to face the audience. 

“Time?” Lucius looked to you. 

The man boomed over the forgotten rain. ““It is time!” 

Standing, you didn’t release Lucius’ hand. There was resistance on his end, wanting to remain sedentary and silent to wait out the rest of the night. 

“Our dance.” You answered to his wide eyes. Your guests cheered, clearing space. “It is customary to rise together and move as one. It will complete the ceremony.”

He rose at your words, not much of a choice otherwise than to follow. 

The fabric of your dress swam behind you, kissing the floor with each step toward the middle of the marble floor. The dress looked like water cascading down your body, hiding each bend and swell of your body. Yet, it highlighted something else, something deeper. It was subtle but powerful, like the way a garden seemed to breathe life into a space. 

“May the rain create a river to fertility.” The man held a contagious grin that spread around the room. 

Prosperity and posterity.  This is what they wanted. Lucius alone was not enough. The bloodline was more important than a single figure. It hadn’t needed to be discussed as it was the obvious forethought for your unification. 

The officials of the republic were more concerned about your fecundity and frame than the knowledge you held. It was a typical belief, one that you expected. Your fingers itched to bring your willingness to support the new decree to play and if this was your path to it, so be it.  

You remained clinical at the thought. It was a means to an end rather than something to be meditated on. The way Lucius hardened at the man’s words told a story from another perspective where the political became personal. You did not miss the ring on his pinky that rubbed against a new gold one. 

“Does the great gladiator know how to dance?” Your voice flowed to Lucius only knowing the opportunity rarely presented itself. 

The music shifted from something fast-paced to something more melodic that would encourage you both to move swiftly but attractively. You knew your words would hit a nerve, but it was strategic to motivate Lucius’ hesitant hands. 

“It is a back and forth. A push and pull.” You guided your hand to press against his palm, meeting together as if you were to pray. “Just like the arena, no?”

Lucius’ eyebrows pinched together. Not out of curiosity or frustration. He was genuine in his response. 

“Rarely is a touch this…subdued.” Soft.  

“Shall I spin you in circles, then?” Your painted lips were easier to see now that Lucius was close. He saw as they rose through your veil with the quip. “Disorientate you to the point of submission?”

Your arms weaved behind your back still connected to Lucius’. The dance was simple, one practiced as children. There were very few steps and wistful gestures that even the familiar still enjoyed. 

“Those are my only options? Coercion or blind fealty.” 

It left little room for interpretation or defiance. The statement came without hesitation but held pent-up sentiment veiled by familiar poise. You vetted his blank gaze for proper determination of his upset. 

It was odd to see Lucius so close, your memory had failed to cast such a strong light on him. Once overgrown hair had been trimmed to only curl at the nape of his neck. Dirt was cleared from every line of his face.  He was still rugged, but you saw through the exterior to find a boy.  

A boy who had been stripped of child-like wonderment and care. Instead, he held his broad shoulders high and an expression that lingered from his exile. Lucius’ skin perked every time your dress acted as a barrier between the two of you, a warning that whatever you offered had to be earned.  

“I do not ask much of you, Emperor...” You put it simply, knowing your worth and wisdom. You needed to be promised his word that against anything you would be beside each other.  “...so I will not ask again.”

“You are not satisfied with the trust of the marriage alone,” Lucius stated his question like an observation. “You wish I promise myself to you in ways which I may not be able to provide.” 

“Able or willing?” 

Your faces were close, noses mirroring each other as you turned on beat.  You could feel the warmth of your frustration start in your chest, only to spread across your skin as goosebumps.  

“The past and the future press so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.” You spoke again before he could answer.  “You must decide where you belong.” 

The music returned to Lucius’ ears. Its melody weighed down your words, letting them settle deeply in his mind. His head spun with thoughts busy on reasoning.  Perhaps he was too guarded for his own good, but he’d gotten himself this far relying only on himself. He had held in a great deal. Often he felt he couldn't speak until the waters overflowed their banks and broke through the dam. 

Those around him garnered support, but this was different. You understood what freedom was; it meant no fear. Fear rolled right off of you. Fear was like a pet to you: something you picked up to get a better look at but that you soon grew tired of.

The music slowed coming to an end. Lucius removed his hands from your body but didn’t venture far. His calloused fingertips followed the seam of your soft veil to meet the laced end. Once there, he gently revealed your true manner. 

Your features were accentuated by an internal glow. There was no modesty in your gaze, it shattered any notion of strength. There was no insight into your emotions. What Lucius found was someone gifted. It was a marvel he hadn’t heard of you until you presented yourself as the wise option for him to marry. 

Although you ran in many circles, your name wasn’t whispered among the council. They didn’t believe beauty and wit could fit within the reach of a woman. Yet, here you stood. A new challenge to be accepted. Lucius resisted the urge to swallow quick breaths as if he were going to endure a blow from Viggo. His body agitated in preparation, but looking at you so wholly all he could muster was concession.

 “You have my word.”

[imsobadatnicknames2]

ok but i need the evrart claire essay

Okay just be warned that this is gonna be less of an "essay" and more of a loose collection of thoughts, and I don't know how fresh or novel any of these ideas are going to be when it pertains to popular Disco Elysium fan discourse because I don't really do fandom, you know?

Anyway, I think the most obvious factet of Evrart's character is how he very intentionally calls to mind a caricature of corrupt union leaders, the image of a sleazy mobster who only cares about his own personal gain but pays lip service to leftist politics and pretends to care about the interests of workers as a way to obtain and maintain his power. And I think a lot of people straightforwardly read him as such, because that's the way he carries himself and the type of character the game is riffing on. There's also the question of how much of Evrart's manipulative, duplicitous attitude is just how he normally acts and how much of it is him specifically acting that way towards Harry and Kim specifically, it's important to have in mind that your main character is a cop and that would definitely play a role in making Evrart go out of his way to be a bit more of a bastard and toy with you a bit before he decides to actually do anything helpful.

However, once you dig a little deeper into his characterization, it becomes clear that he's pulling a very interesting double bluff, because it becomes apparent that the shady mobster who only cares about his personal gain is an act he's putting on. He's very self-aware about the fact that he's playing the villain, he seems to actively revel in it, but ultimately, it seems like he does it because playing the villain is the way he gets shit done.

This is not to say he's not actually corrupt, or that he's not ALSO involved in all sorts of shady stuff and taking advantage of his position of power, but the game does make it apparent that on some level he DOES have the interests of the people of Martinaise at heart.

For example, it is textually stated that the harbor doesn't need a night watchman, and Evrart created the position specifically to provide a source of income for René. He knows the pension Rene gets is not enough for him to live on, but he's also aware that René is the sort of right-wing guy who would rather starve to death than take a handout (especially from those dirty union commies), so Evrart created a job position which pretty much involves doing nothing for a few hours every night so he could help him with his economic troubles in a way he wouldn't refuse out of principle. René hates his guts, ideologically stands against everything his organization represents, and is generally an unlikeable asshole and a fascist prick, but he's also a disadvantaged member of the community and that seems to matter more.

Even when he asks you to get the signatures to build the community center, which is definitely one of the most morally questionable things he does during the events of the game (as it will improve the community, but at the same time displace the people from the fishing village), his intentions seem to be ultimately good. Due to the very nature of his character and the act he puts on, it's purposefully hard to tell when he's being sincere and when he's being manipulative. However, if Harry's drama and empathy skills are high enough when he's confronted about it, you'll be able to tell that he's not lying about his motives for wanting to build a community center or about the fact that he intends to provide better housing for the people displaced by the project, and that he feels genuine rage about their current living conditions. It can still be said that he's ignoring their self-determination and essentially forcing these people out of their current homes, but he does seem to have good intentions and think he's doing a good thing for them in the long run, even if his methods are morally questionable at best.

In that way, the Union is an extension of him in this regard too. They're pretty unapologetic about the fact that they're openly operating as a crime syndicate, but the game doesn't give you any reasons to believe they're lying when they say they're doing it as a way to muslce out all the more dangerous gangs and crime organizations out of Martinaise, or that their involvement in the drug trade is at least partially motivated by a desire to make sure it's not controlled by more dangerous and violent crime organizations. Again, they're playing the villain as a way to fill that power vacuum and make sure more dangerous people don't fill that role (but of course, that doesn't erase the fact that, noble as their intentions may be, they're still involved in all these shady activities and turning a pretty substantial profit from them too)

Of course, on the other hand, just because the game seems to hint at the fact that Evrart and the Union are, deep down, a force for good, doesn't erase the fact that he's done plenty of bad shit to further his interests, and the game doesn't shy away from this. He's still extremely corrupt, his long-term plan to wrestle control of the harbor away from the company and turn it into a worker-owned operation (which *would* massively improve the material conditions of the dockworkers if succesful) involves endangering the lives of a lot of his own workers, he and his brother Edgar pass the position of union foreman back and forth between each other to circumvent the term limit and keep themselves in power indefinitely, and if you explore all dialogue options with the Deserter it's all but explicitly stated that they rose to power by getting him to assassinate the previous Union forewoman.

These are things that Evrart himself would probably rationalize as sacrifices that need to be made for the greater good. After all, it is implied that the previous union forewoman was also corrupt, except in favor of the company's interests, and might have even been a company plant. However, this doesn't make those things morally right. Good intentions nonwithstanding, it's clear that the Claire brothers are very "the ends justify the means" kind of people, they probably see getting the previous Union leader killed or endangering the lives of the dockworkers to overthrow the company that exploits them as "pulling the lever" in the trolley problem, which is extremely callous at best.

Here's where we get a little more into "disjointed thoughts" territory, but Evrart can also be seen as a critique of the limits of trade unionism and social democrat politics. Something that I completely missed in my first playthrough but was able to catch on during my second is that the people of the fishing village refuse to unionize, and as a result they don't get the same level of support and protection that the union provides to the people of the more urban section of Martinaise. This is apparently widely known enough for characters other than Evrart to comment on (I forget what character I learned this from, but it was definitely not Evrart). So it's clear that Evrart and the Union put their interests of the members of their own organization over those of other working class people, which is one criticism that can be leveraged against the way a lot of leftists seem to treat unions as the ultimate tool for worker class liberation.

Similarly, when Evrart tells you his long-term plans, it's clear that his ultimate goals don't involve complete worker liberation. As far as the game shows, he's a socdem who's still looking to work within the confines of capitalism. There are more radically left wing characters in Disco Elysium, but Evrart is the only one with any actual power to affect change, which kinda speaks to the lack of presence of more hardline leftist positions in mainstream politics. As someone living in Latin America, I kinda ended up seeing a bit of a lot of our currrent socdem politicians in him in that respect, I guess, but i'd need more time to articulate this thought properly, I guess.

Ultimately, I think Evrart is an amazingly crafted character. He evokes a well-known archetype of a shady, corrupt, power-hungry union leader, but he adds a lot of depth, self-awareness, and nuance to it and subverts that characterization in several ways. I think he atually serves an important role of ideologically challenging players who share the developers' and writers' political leanings. I think it would have been very self-congratulatory and autocomplacent to make the most influential leftist character in the game an unambiguously good paragon of workers' rights and working class liberation. By instead giving us someone who's an absolute callous bastard who definitely has a bit of blood on his hands, who's a socdem at best and a self-serving mob boss at worst, but can ultimately be interpreted as a force for good, and asking the players to decide what they think of him I think it brings interesting questions to the table of our commitment to material gains, what sorts of people we're willing to work with, and the sort of acts we're willing to tolerate, and makes the game a lot more thematically rich.

I also think a good analysis of Evrart is incomplete without an analysis of the ways in which he serves a a charater foil for Joyce, but I don't feel like getting into that rn.

[kissthesunandmoon]

To win her hand-part 2~

SMUT! MDNI

(Part one has only been up for about half a day but so far quite a few people seem to like it so I thought I’d hop straight on with a part 2, hope you enjoy. I am so sorry that it is quite long but I felt some build up was necessary, hopefully it’s worth it!)

Making your way up the stairs, your ears finally felt relief from all the obnoxious drunken chatter and cheering, with one final glance back you see your father drinking with the Yautja leader, apparently the two were really bonding over your new union. Truthfully you had genuinely asked Ka’Toah to head back to your room to get to know each other better, away from curious ears and prying eyes, but of course you couldn’t ignore that it was your wedding night. You knew that your culture and his were vastly different, but you could only assume that their traditions of newly weds were the same, what you couldn’t assume was, well…how they were in that department. Through the night of celebrations you had many of your people congratulating you, and most likely due to the drink, you had been let in on the fact that not only did many of your own kind desire the Yautja, but there were a number (higher than you had imagined) of those who had actually pursued them. Both women and men came to you to you telling you stories of their conquests with the god like beings, though you had never asked. Of course these were one nights stands driven by lust and pleasure so you couldn’t fully make your predictions from that alone, but there was one word that you had heard more than a few times. Rough. They were rough, and big. I mean it didn’t take a genius to figure the latter out, your new husband towered over you, he was tall and very muscular. With this in mind it made sense that they would be well endowed to put it politely, and the fact that they obviously weren’t human would account for their apparent roughness. The thoughts consumed you and you found yourself growing nervous, of course you felt comfortable and safe with your new husband, more than you had expected. But the thought loomed over you that you didn’t know him, or why he had even wanted to win your hand in the first place, you had no idea of his intentions and you had never thought to ask. Perhaps he would be rough with you, rougher than you could handle, you were sure he wouldn’t do it intentionally but he could very well end up hurting you. You felt the anxiety building like a knot in your stomach and a cloud in your mind.

The two of you soon came to the door of your room, and once entering you watched as his eyes wandered, curiosity and awe behind them. To call it a bedroom was an understatement with its impressive size, on one side was a large round bed, adorned with silk sheets perfect for the hot climate of your home. There were a few other typical bedroom items, a type of vanity, a seat, but it was none of these items that caught his eye. On the other side however, was something that only a princess could have in her chambers, it looked like either a very large floor level bath, or a small pool. He analysed the slight steam coming from it and he let out another, slightly proud purr when he recognised the heating technology was that of his own. Another generous gift brought to your people by his, a flawless underfloor heating system far more advanced than any created around the world. And of course, straight ahead was an arch that lead to a substantial balcony which like the rest of your room was made from a beautiful, slightly tan marbled stone.

Without even discussing it the two of you instinctively made your way to your balcony looking over your home, the night air was still warm, the sky danced with the lights of the stars and moon, and the sound of vibrant chatter and festivities still hung in the air. You stood quietly for a moment, before he spoke in your own native tongue catching you a little off guard, “You are uneasy of something, Princess” you couldn’t help your smile at both the effort he was clearly putting in to speaking your language which must have been difficult for him, and of course the nickname. Although it was your formal title of course, it sounded sweeter coming from him. But of your smile faded slightly as you processed his words, it wasn’t a question, he wasn’t asking. He knew something was bothering you. You inhaled a breath trying to formulate a sentence in your head, you didn’t want any poor wording offending him. Before you could speak he turned to you, gazing down with gentle eyes, “Are you…having reservations of our union?” You didn’t even hesitate before you replied a loud “No!”, maybe a little louder than you anticipated. “Sorry…I mean no, that isn’t it” you said softer this time, before letting out a small sigh and averting your gaze to the ground. It didn’t take long before you felt a gentle finger under your chin, tilting your head back up to look at him, and you almost melted when you did. His eyebrows were knitted into a look of concern, but his eyes were probably the softest you had seen them, he didn’t push you but gave you a small nod prompting you to explain when you were ready. Taking another shaky breath you knew you owed him an explanation, you hated the idea of him thinking you were having regrets. “It’s just…how do I even say this?” You swallowed hard before continuing, your mouth suddenly dry. “I know now that intimate relationships between our kind are not as uncommon as I had thought, and I know that you would never hurt me…but Im much smaller than you and- I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous, I’m sorry”. You felt the sting of heat in your cheeks, unlike when you had locked eyes however, this was a blush born from embarrassment. You heard that familiar purr you were growing to love as his fingers moved from under your chin, to cup your cheek affectionately, his fingers grazing your hair and you looked up at him again. Once again he spoke in your language with great effort, the moment feeling too important to be communicated through a robotic voice, he needed you to hear him, even if it was slightly broken and his pronunciation flawed. “Do not apologise, I understand I am much larger than you, you fear it will hurt?”. You just nodded shyly at his question and he continued again, the back of his palm caressing your cheek as he did. “I will never do anything to hurt you, but I do not want you to be frightened, we do not need to cross that line if you do not wish to”. You put your hand on his, leaning into his touch, your heart feeling eased by his words, the fact that he was willing to remain without your touch for your own comfort was more than most of the men within your own kind would have offered. “It’s not that I don’t want to…I do, I just-“ you didn’t even know how to finish the sentence, and you didn’t have to. Ka’Toah watched you for a moment, before bending down and scooping you up bridal style and carrying you back into your room, he placed you gently on the floor near your pool. Before you could even process it, he began to rid himself of his armour, you debated averting your eyes but found yourself unable to, staring shamelessly at his now naked body. He then turned stepping into the heated water, then he held a hand out to you. Realising what he was insinuation your breath hitched for a moment, eyes never leaving his and slowly you mimicked him, slowly undressing yourself until you were completely naked as well.

You took his hand and stepped into the water, your size different apparent as the water which reached the middle of your chest, sat just above his hips. He slowly walked backwards with your hand in his until he reached the wall of the pool where there was a ridge to be used as a seat, he sat down and stood you between his legs facing him. You looked at him curiously tilting your head slightly, “We can get to know each others bodies without going all the way, how about we simply get comfortable with each others touch” he explained without you even having to explicitly ask. “Okay” you practically whispered, you stood and watched as his hand found your cheek once again caressing it gently, before it slowly ran down to your jaw and then your neck. You focused on steadying your breathing, enjoying the feeling of his skin. It was so different to your own, but the contrast was absolutely divine. His hands continued, running down your collarbones to your chest, he looked up at you for a moment before touching you there. He was asking for permission, you nodded and he didn’t wait another second before his hands found your breasts, circling your nippled with his thumbs and letting out a deeper purr than you had heard previously. You let out a small gasp, his rough fingers adding just the right amount of friction as he circled, you found your mind wandering, fantasising about how that gentle pressure would feel elsewhere.

Although his intentions were genuinely not to coax you into sex, you found yourself pressing your thighs together to ease the heat building there. His hands moved from your chest, gliding down your waist almost engulfing you with the size difference, those mischievous thumbs once again running down your stomach tracing light patterns. His eyes were focused on your body, memorising every curve, indulging in the softness of your skin. Soon his hands moved down to your hips, running over your outer thighs, you could hear him muttering in his language, you didn’t know what he was saying but from his tone, you could tell they were compliments. No limits to his curiosity he used his hand to gently part your legs, wanting to feel the soft skin of your inner thighs. First he dragged his fingers along the outsides once again with your heart already pounding, before finally they trailed to the insides once again trailing up and down. You figured he mustn’t have known that the inside of the thigh was an extremely sensitive part of a human woman, because his fingers took one particular high drag. And you couldn’t hold it in anymore, your body trembled and you let out a loud gasp, stumbling forward slightly having to steady yourself with firm hands on his shoulders. His hands had gripped you to steady you, and for the first time in a while his eyes met your own, looking slightly alarmed. It didn’t take long apparently though before he recognised the look in your own, finally less distracted by the feel of your body he took a moment to analyse your body, and he realised. Your heart was beating faster, but not like before, not from nerves. Your cheeks slightly flushed, breathing shaky, he could tell without a doubt. You were on fire from his touch, the look in his eyes shifted slightly to one a mix of curiosity and desire. Bringing his hands around the backs of your thighs he gave you a gentle tug closer to him, so close that your front was almost pressed against his own, after all with the height difference he was practically eye level with you despite sitting down. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t need words, neither did you. He moved his hands back to the insides of your thighs, trailing up and down once again, but each time he would go higher, and higher. Your breathing became heavy, your hands still gripping his shoulders as you looked down at him. He was teasing you. Just as it almost became unbearable, his hand trailed up and instead of dipping back down, he went higher. Finally pressing his fingers against you, you whimpered slightly eyes still locked in his. He waiting for a moment, as if trying to give you time to back down if you wanted to. But instead your body spoke on your behalf, as completely on their own accord, your hips rocked forward slightly. That was enough for him, his other hand came to wrap around your waist steadying you, and then he began moving his hand. His middle finger began to circle your clit, your body trembled again, the feeling was overwhelming in the best way. One of your hands left his shoulders to cover your own mouth, stifling yourself, but before you could get comfortable his hand at your waist flew up to grab your wrist. Pulling it away he shook his head, tutting at you leaning forward to put his face beside your ear “Now how will I know how good you feel if I can’t hear you?” He cood softly, he let go of your wrist and you wrapped both of your arms around his neck holding him close, keeping his head next to your own discovering you enjoyed his lustful words against your ear. His hand traveled back down, this time resting on your hip.

He continued circling his fingers a little faster now, your hips continued rocking and you didn’t hide your moans this time, he continued to growl and mumble in your ear. Various words of praise guided you through your pleasure, sometimes a little teasing, but you liked it “right there hmm?” “Does that feel good?” “You like that princess?” All of his words bringing you closer and closer, you grabbed at his arm between your legs, panting and gasping. He knew you were close, and he didn’t stop, his fingers worked tirelessly and finally without warning, the band snapped and you let out a strangled moan as you came, his fingers worked you through your orgasm as your moans turned to whimpers, and finally whines of overstimulation. You pulled back looking at him trying to catch your breath. But before you could even wrap your head around what happened, once again he scooped you up causing you to yelp slightly, climbing out of your pool with you in his arms, apparently not caring about the fact the two of you were soaked as he lay made his way to your bed, laying you on your back. He hovered above you slightly as you gazed up at him through your now slightly hooded eyes, he used his hand to brush some of your hair out of your face staring into your eyes. “Beautiful…” he whispered softly to you “We don’t have to do anything else, your pleasure is more than enough-“ he began, but before he could even finish you wrapped your legs around his hips, the fear of pain seemingly long gone from your mind.

He looked at you for a moment his hand gripping one of your thighs at his waist, he needed verbal confirmation from you. “Please” you breathed, your voice slightly weak from your high, and that was all he needed. He began slowly pushing in, you winced from the stretch, your eyes squeezing shut as you subconsciously held your breath. The arm he was supporting himself with next to your head moved to stroke a finger along your cheek, as his the thumb from his other hand make delicate circles on your thigh. “Breathe for me”. You let out a shaky exhale as he pushed in further and further until you were full, and then he stopped waiting for you to adjust to his size. Your hands wandered, gripping his shoulders, biceps, neck, chest-whatever you could find. He lowered himself so that he was almost flush against you, still running his hands along your cheek, your hair, your lips trying to soothe you. If he was honest, he was almost debating pulling out and scooping you up to cuddle you instead, he hated seeing your face scrunch up with pain, your slight whines of discomfort. But then just as he almost did, your face and body relaxed, your breathing steadied and your hands came to rest on his back. Testing the waters slightly, he rolled his hips, not too much but just enough to gauge your comfort. And he found much more, you let out a soft moan as he did so, your legs tightening and your nails digging into his back. And so he did it again, and again, each time pulling slightly further back, rocking his hips just a little harder. And soon, you were a moaning writhing mess beneath him. Your hips moved with him, desperate to feel him, and suddenly the talk of the “roughness” didn’t seem to scare you. “More, please” you managed between your moans, and finally he felt that you were truly comfortable enough for him to let himself go. Two of you losing yourselves in the pleasure together, you didn’t try to be quiet and neither did he. Just as you thought it couldn’t feel any better, he angled his hips differently, so that he went deeper and his pelvis rubbed against your clit. Your moans grew louder as you practically clawed at his back as you felt that familiar build low in your stomach, the new angle along with your nails also edged him towards his own orgasm. Lifting himself slightly he rested his forehead against your own, once again muttering sweet nothings as he felt you tighten around you. “There you go princess, that’s it, right there” and the sweetness of his intimacy collided with the rocking of his hips, and you came undone again. Harder this time, your back arched as your legs shook around him, moaning, panting and gasping. The sight and sound of you pushed him over the edge, as his hand reached under your back, pressing you into him. He let out a deep primal growl, not pulling out as he filled you. You weren’t sure if he could get you pregnant, and you didn’t care. You needed to feel him. Finally the two of you slowed your hips, you stayed there a moment before he finally pulled out. And quickly he sat up against your pillows, pulling you into his lap and against his chest, rubbing your back and running his fingers through your hair. He must have asked you a million times if you were okay, and each time you reassured him. You were more than okay, in fact as you relaxed into him coming down from your second high of the night you only had one thing on your mind. One more couldn’t hurt, right?

(OKAY so I am so sorry that this is so long, but I really hope it was worth it! Once again this is my first time with fanfic so I hope the smut was okay. Let me know if you enjoyed it, and if you want a part three or have any one shot requests!)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

On the discussions of leadership and leona finding fulfillment in the future, i’ve always found the times he’s stood out most in twst to be when he is mentoring someone. Subtly, never giving people answers but guiding them towards them, using language and examples they understand. We see it with ruggie, jack, jamil, all of savannaclaw and so many other characters.

which gets me thinking: what if leona becomes a teacher? he’d get the acknowledgment for his skills and ability he needs, but also be able to help improve sunset savanna by educating and equalizing the playing field for the next generation.

Ruggie’s dream got me thinking about it and now i can’t get it out of my head as a possible route to where he can get the things he ultimately needs to thrive.

Relevant posts: [ Does Leona need to be king to be happy? / Would Leona be a better king that Falena? / Catching up with him in book 7 ] [My thoughts on the book 7 part 11 Leona update is here!]

I agree that Leona tends to shine when he’s in a leadership or mentorship role to younger students! This occurs multiple times over, both in main stories (notably book 2, 3, 6, and 7), vignettes (his Camping Gear, Epel’s Union Jacket, etc.), and various voice lines (typically from younger students remarking on their admiration for him). He's actually really good at explaining things to others in a simplistic enough way and with realistic examples that slot neatly into their worldviews. I don't know that I would call it "subtle" though, there have definitely been times where Leona just outright tells others what to do or what's wrong with their way of thinking (mainly with Jamil in book 6, or ordering around his fellow magift/spelldrive team members). I think when you say "subtle", it's more like Leona has a way of leading others to acting in his favor, as he can occasionally have his own ulterior motives in imparting wisdom. (For example, he helps out the first years with mining for magestones so he can nap without being disturbed.)

Mmmm… I do think the idea of Leona as a teacher is interesting, but I don’t know if that would feasibly work. I think we as the players can appreciate, say, the NRC staff, but in reality teaching is often a thankless job (though it’s a respected profession in Japan) where parents and/or the school board will blame you for students not performing. You also need to put in several (unpaid) hours of work outside of class grading, preparing lessons, going to meetings, etc. I don’t know that he would be satisfied with “grunt work” like that. I think he’d also have to go back to get his masters/teaching license, which means more studies 💀

I also think the scale of teaching is too small for Leona’s ideals. Yes, technically your lessons will have a continuous or long-term impact because your students might then graduate and go on to change the world thanks to your teachings. But, in my opinion, it better suits his grand ambitions to be the one establishing schools and then leaving others to run those institutions for him; he’d have a much larger impact (and more immediate results, which is what Leona is after) that way, similar to how it is portrayed in Ruggie’s dream. A single teacher, by comparison, can do little to change the system for the countless people who need it (for example, the starving children in the slums). Additionally, it’s easier for Leona to control his own projects as some higher authority, whereas it’s not do easy for him to control what students do once they leave his tutelage—and for Leona, bring in command is important (he had no vice dorm leader because of this).

I also have to wonder if teaching is really the right field for Leona to get into…? I think people often confuse “being good at something” with “liking something”. This is also true of many fandom depictions of Leona; fans tend to claim he’s just “being tsundere” when he acts grumpy around his juniors other nephew Cheka and that he secretly harbors great love for kids. And while I do love me a wholesome take, I just don’t see that 💦 His official profile states his pet peeve is “dealing with kids”; why would objective information from an official profile be a lie? His annoyance seems pretty consistent and genuine when he is assigned some kind of babysitting-adjacent task, and he acts like he would rather not if given the choice but has to anyway in order to avoid graver consequences for himself, a dorm leader. I don’t think he would want to intentionally sign up for a job that means he has to put up with kids on a daily basis—and especially rebellious teenagers that won’t necessarily do what he tells them to.

I guess the comparison you could make here is Crewel, who also seemed to be wild in his youth and also seems to dislike children and disobedience—yet somehow he changed careers from fashion designer to science professor. He had a lot in common with Leona, so I think it could be argued that Leona could still potentially go down the teacher path. If I recall correctly, Leona has also tutored Ruggie and helped him achieve okay grades in present day—so Leona has a track record with teaching. We don’t know for sure what could happen; a lot can change and the future’s unpredictable! But for now, I definitely still think Leona’s ambitions wouldn’t stop at just teaching classes; he’d want to do way more.

… Imagine the insanity of having a literal big-boobed PRINCE as your professor though 💀 I don’t know if I would be able to concentrate properly in that lecture…

[teojira]

[Marriage ceremony headcanons w/ Noa!] [commission!]

A/N: Thank you for commissioning me Fox ! Your support to me means everything and I hope this is good!

Summary: What marrying Noa would be like and how you both go about it.

Warnings: Noa x reader romance, very self indulgent and may be a lil ooc

Marrying an Ape is not easy, and you're sure you're the first human to have ever put those words together in a sentence and thought of them to begin with.

The ceremony is a big deal, it's you and the Eagle clan leader after all.

Human marriages have been lost to time, so there won't be any pretty dresses or suits, but you're still adorned with gifts and whatnot.

A lot of your accessories come from Noa himself, things he has crafted you in the courting process. Arm guards, necklaces, bracelets, all lovingly crafted by himself when he was ever away from you on scouting expeditions.

His mother and Soona help you too, get ready for their own customs that you may not be privy too.

It's apart of their culture that betrothed each give one another a feather from their eagle, to wear it almost as if it's a wedding ring, so they let you know to make sure to keep one handy for it.

Noa has a good bunch to choose from, subtly freaking out and thinking none of them are good enough for you, to which Eagle sun peeks at his master. It doesn't help, Noa just side eyes him all the more with a glare, smacking his lips.

Anaya is there to help him get ready as well, despite not ever going through the ceremony himself. Though he's mostly there just to lend an ear to whatever Noa needs to let off his chest.

I like to think Noa would ask you about your human customs, while yes, you're his mate, and this is firstly his home. He would never any to alienate you. He's more than willing to add in whatever you see fit. You're his mate, his equal. It's only right.

The ceremony takes place a little ways off from the colony, next to a waterfall. There's really no officator, nor is there a really big crowd. It consists of you both, Dar, Soona and Anaya, and a few other of the elders, who, while not fully accepting of the union at first, comes to their senses when Noa is adamant.

You've told Noa about vows about the speeches people usually make, and it scares the ape so badly to say it outloud just how much he cares for you. So you leave it for when you two are alone in the nest, it's more special that way you figure.

You and Noa exchange feathers, gently wrapping it around each other's arms. Your hands are trembling as you finally, and I mean, finally secure the knot.

Noa grabs your hands within his, intertwining your fingers together to the best of his ability due to the sheer size difference and pulls them to his chest, sighing deeply when you immediately move to brush across his scar, a smile on his lips.

He tugs you in, then pressing his forehead against yours as he cups your face, brushing the strands of hair away from it.

The leader is quiet as he soaks you in, your warmth, your scent, the feeling of you finally being officially his, in both of your worlds.

"Will you marry me?" You mumble, eyes opening ever so slightly to look up at Noa, and your heart is pounding so damn hard in your chest you fear you're gonna pass out.

"Yes." Noa answers without a moment of hesitation.

Now here comes the tricky part, kissing you in front of his family, the way humans do.

Lord help him, he's found echo fairy tales and he did enough reading to get the gist of how a marriage kiss should be.

It's a little bit awkward to situate you in his arms so suddenly, but the giggle you let out when he finally kisses you is all he needs in return.

Yes, both of you ignore the hooting in the distance.

[sivavakkiyar]

Sakai is coming up a lot more recently on here so I’d like to bring up a passage from his interview ‘when race burns class’:

A number of years ago, i was trying to help a group of young Chinese-American activists on an anti-racist campaign. This was an interesting case of how a pure "race" issue only fronted for class politics. Now, these folks were "paper Maoists" in every worst way you could think of – and all my friends know that i'm someone who has warm feelings for the old Chairman. Not only did they have what Mao once called "invincible ignorance", but were also arrogantly full of Han nationalism. They did have physical courage, at least. Their project was to protest the sports racism in the famous industrial town of Pekin, Illinois – which was originally named in the 19th century after Beijing, and whose high school sports teams were colorfully named "the Chinks"! (capitalism, what an ever-amazing civilization – what next? "Auschwitz! The Perfume!" ).

Every week a few carloads of young Asian protesters would arrive in Pekin to picket the high school and city hall, hold television news conferences, and keep the issue simmering in the news. You see, the small flaw in the campaign was that all the protesters had to be imported from New York and Chicago. There were only eight Chinese families in town, and all were refusing to have anything to do with the anti-"Chinks" campaign (not wanting to lose their livelihoods, homes, and be driven out of town by the controversy).

By accident, not in any political way, i had casually met two vaguely liberal young white guys there. One was a teacher in that very high school. The second was a UAW (United Auto Workers union) shop steward at the nearby giant Caterpillar tractor assembly plant, which was Pekin's main industry. So i thought maybe they could be persuaded to get some local people to take a moderate wishy-washy public stand, anything just to give the Chinese families some local community cover if they wanted to speak out (there was zero local support of any kind, including all the unions and churches of course).

When i suggested it to this Maoist group, there was a moment's startled stony silence. Then the leader barked, "We do not work with white people!" Discussion over. So, is this a good example of that error of "racial issues taking precedence over class issues"? i know some radicals might think that, but they'd just be getting faked out.

First off, to those activists running it, "race" was not what was central to their thinking. After all, if those Asian American dudes had really been into either "race" or anti-racism they might have started by organizing and working with the local Asian families. They might have tried to help find some survival strategy for these families, who couldn't just drive off into the sunset after each press conference (being an isolated Asian family in a heavy white racist scene is no joke, obviously). This is just a normal problem in anti-racist work, which folks had to deal with all the time in small towns in 1960s Mississippi, for instance.

It also wasn't true that those Chinese-American leftists "didn't work with white people". They did that all the time, when they wanted, and these Han nationalists even argued for the "revolutionary" nature of the white working class . What i came to realize was in that situation they didn't want any broad community support for the Chinese families there, or to let others into "their" issue. Because they had a really different agenda. Which was to get sole public credit for this and other anti-racist issues, so that their little Maoist "party" could vault into political dominance over the Chinese-American communities. Later, when they thought it necessary, they even used physical violence and death threats to drive other Asian groups away. They intended to be the people in ethnic power, in effect like replacing the tongs . These "paper Maoists" had a pure class agenda, all right, only it was a bourgeois agenda. Although they themselves might have honestly believed what they did was "revolutionary", they had anti -working class politics hidden by "anti racism" and left people of color talk.

And this Maoist group really did get their Andy Warhol-like "15 minutes of fame", becoming large in part because the more dishonest and destructive their "anti-racist" maneuvers became, the more support they got from white middle-class liberals and "progressives" (coincidentally?). i mean, from many white social-democrats, those white anti-repression "experts", academic leftists, etc. Those types that subject us to those endless droning lectures about "the working class" (which they aren't in and don't get, of course). As a sage comrade of mine always says, "Like is drawn to like" even if their outward appearance is very different.

This is a more difficult, easy to slip and fall on, even dangerous way of seeing things than radicals here are used to.

[silcobrainrot]

I was typing out a reply to this post and then I realized I lost the plot so bad that I didn't want to derail OP's point so here it is. OP's points that I'm reflecting on:

Zaun is a very fucked place with a very fucked system. He’s doing what he thinks needs to be done in order to at some point be able to rein it in and make it better. He wanted to give Zaun a fighting chance against Piltover. He wanted to make them equal. And in a place where there are no rules. And people talk with violence. You’re going to have to make some very awful choices in order to not only take control, but have enough power to fix it. He may not have been the one to change Zaun, but he’s raised the girl that could.

"but he’s raised the girl that could." SO fucking true and I wish s2 had let her. firing that rocket at the council was a promise to make their lives hell. i didn't need to see her as the leader of a movement but it would have been nice to see her enable and enact change just by being a powerful loose cannon. Act 1 almost gave us this but then she decided that Jinx was dead in ep 4 and then we don't see her do much of anything until she shows up to the battle in the finale. She could have spent the season being unhinged, having agency and making actual choices that have consequences for herself, Zaun, and Piltover (she was responsible for most of the inciting incidents in s1). The good consequences and the bad.

Let her run wild. Show her lose herself to her grief and anger and how much she misses him and how fucked all of this is. Then bring her back. Not in a redemption arc way, I don't think she needs that, but in a way where she finally understands what she wants her life to be. She mourns the loss, she comes out of her grief, she forgives herself for killing him because it's what he would have wanted, and for the first time ever, she gets to choose what her path in life will be. It's time to be her own person. She's not a hero, she'll never lose her enjoyment of violence and chaos, but she is no longer fueled by anger and hatred and vengeance.

Let Sevika use the stuff Jinx does on her own--avenging Silco and taking vengeance against Piltover--to lead a movement. Let Sevika struggle with keeping the people who worked under Silco loyal to the mission. Show us how Sevika got on good terms with Scar [the firelights' leader while Ekko was away] and what an alliance between the movement for change inspired by Jinx, and the firelights, could accomplish for Zaun. Bringing them hope that change is really possible. Getting them out of their homes and their "every man for himself" mentality and get them believing in something. Wanting more for themselves. Organizing. Community services. Shared resources. Fucking unionizing idk. We see so many of Zaun's worst people but there are normal people living in normal poverty just trying to get by down there, too. Show us the Zaun Silco had become so disconnected from due to isolation and obsession.

It started with Silco, despite how flawed his methods were and how they did so much damage to the Undercity. An evil he thought was necessary because he didn't know any other truth in life besides pain and misery. But it started with him, and it gets realized by his daughter and lieutenant. Sevika is probably the closest thing he had to a friend, who stuck by his side despite how much their methods were hurting the people they were trying to liberate. The people who worked closest to him, lived closest to him, and could see the flaws in both his methods and him as a man, finishing what he started.

But instead we get Jinx committing suicide and Sevika joining the council which. Jesus fucking christ I don't even want to get myself started on that bullshit. @wetnoodle thank you for the brain worm

[wizardpartier]

I really really hope that Lumon didn't just outright kidnap Gemma and fake her death, because I think that would be too over the top for Lumon and would make the show lose some of its subtlety. I think what the show has done really well so far is satirize the evil pharmaceutical companies that exist in the real world by just enough to be impactful. If severance was possible today, I think it really would appeal to enough people that the debates about it we see in the show would be happening, and corporations would be lobbying to be able to use it. Lumon is raised to a level of absurdity by their cult-worship as well as the science fiction to the entire severance procedure, but the underlying themes about worker exploitation are very true to life.

And while real life corporations are absolutely capable of doing this kind of heinous shit - see Coca Cola's murdering of union leaders in Columbia or the Boeing whistleblower who was likely assassinated with no recourse - the idea that Gemma - a random person who posed no threat to Lumon - was just randomly kidnapped (out of all the people who passed through Lumon's system struggling with infertility, why her?) - to me just seems like a reveal to make Lumon seem scarier and eviler.

A lot of people are resistant to the theory that Gemma ended up with Lumon because she volunteered for some experimental fertility treatment, and I understand that urge - it feels almost victim-blamey to imply that she volunteered for the torture she underwent! But a theme that I see the show playing with a lot is consent. Can you meaningfully consent to be severed and work for 8 hours a day as a completely different version of yourself, when the person who experiences the work is not the one doing the consenting, and the person consenting has no idea what they are consenting to? If Gemma volunteered in some capacity for whatever she thought she was going to undergo, was she able to meaningfully consent to that without full knowledge of what it would entail? I see this also reflected in the hurt and betrayed Helly feels when she learns that Helena stole her identity and had sex with Mark. She feels ownership over her body, even though it's a body she shares with Helena. Similarly, Helena is afraid to allow Helly back onto the severed floor, I think in part because she's afraid of not having control over herself, and Helly doing something that she doesn't consent to.

Alternatively, I'm also partial to the theory that Gemma really did die on accident in a crash, and Lumon cloned/revived her. I think taking things in that direction could open up an interesting discussion about corporate ownership of personal data and lifesaving technology. If Lumon cloned Gemma and instilled in her all her previous memories, because she had already signed away the rights to her genetic information or whatever during her fertility struggle, she may be functionally the same person, but Lumon may 'own' this new version of her. Maybe in Season 3, Gemma goes the the media to expose Lumon, only for the courts to determine that actually Lumon has the right to do whatever the hell they want because they created her?

All this to say, I think it would be more interesting if the show goes in a different direction from where I see most fans assuming it will :) I think it's already pretty clear that Lumon is evil, and I'd like to see an explanation for how she came to be in their torture basement that builds on existing or creates new interesting ethical questions.

[rosie-kairi]

I don't think I've ever really spoken in depth about how much I love Lauriam as a character, which is honestly a crime because out of all the Union Leaders I'd probably have to crown him as my number one favorite.

I love Lauriam not only as a character (pink, sibling plotline) but also as an example of how much prequels can recontextualize an entire character. While Ventus is also an example of this, I think we all knew that he probably had some sort of messed up past that landed him in the clutches of Old Man Xehanort. Marluxia, on the other hand, had absolute zero background to infer from his screentime. He was the villain, you're not really meant to think too hard about him and how he became who he is because he sucks and you hate him.

I don't think there were many people chomping at the bit wanting to get info about his past. Like, it would've been cool to get, but I don't think a background for Marluxia was necessary for the story at that point in time. His role was to establish the organization as a threat to Sora and the other guardians, and that was pretty much the extent of it.

And then Union X happened, and Lauriam entered stage right into a tragedy where his fate was already sealed. You look at Lauriam with his polite little smiles and cute little chibi animations and immediately think "what is this man up to" because you are already primed to distrust him on principle due to COM. Did not help his case that he was introduced in the cutscene immediately following the death of Strelitzia, painting a huge target on his back. Fandom reaction was hostile towards him before he was even fully on screen. Occam's Razor, the most obvious answer is the correct one. Lauriam is the obvious suspect because of his actions in the future, so he must be the killer. Literally him just existing in a scene caused more ire to build against him.

But then the Shift Pride cutscene happened. Then it was revealed that Lauriam and Strelitzia -the girl who so many thought he killed- were siblings, and that he was quite worried for her wellbeing, actually.

Every cutscene a clearer picture of who Lauriam is a person was painted, and soon you stopped looking at him with distrust, and it's replaced with the question of "What happened to you?". What happened that caused Lauriam, someone who has been shown to care deeply and immensely about the people he loves, someone who is willing to do anything for those people, become Marluxia? It became increasingly obvious that they were incredibly different people, even though Marluxia came from Lauriam.

And this isn't to say that there was no connection between the two. Lauriam seemed to be incredibly self-confident in his abilities, enough to be pretty steadfast in his resolve to square up with goddamn Maleficent of all people (even if he did get his ass kicked). There's also his very intense anger, as seen in the cutscene where Ventus confesses to being the reason why Strelitzia "vanished", as well as a bit in the scene where he's at Ventus's bedside.

This is all to say that Lauriam was not a necessary addition to the khux cast, he very well could've been swapped with a random new character and the plot probably would've worked fine, all things considered. But because it's Lauriam -the somebody of a character that has already been established to be a prick- it gives his whole plotline a hell of a lot more punch. If it was a new character, people probably wouldn't have been as distrusting of him right of the bat, the sibling plotline would be sweet, but because it's Lauriam and we know how he ends up in the future, it becomes a hell of a lot more tragic. How did the change happen? He's tragic because we know that whatever he does will lead to the outcome of him losing his heart and falling to darkness, something that is essentially the exact antithesis of the keyblade wielder mission statement.

Lauriam is someone who was made to struggle against the destiny that was written out for him with a neat pen and ink, and someone who was doomed to fail in every regard. He could not save his sister, he could not defeat Maleficent, he could not help Ventus, he could not keep his memories when thrown into the future. He couldn't do anything about it.

I realize this is all rounding back around to "the inherent tragedy of prequels" but it's true.

...and yeah that's basically it. I have a lot more thoughts about this guy but I feel like if I write anymore I'm just gonna sound completely incomprehensible bc I'm very tired. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to sparkle on

[laismoura-art]

Gays, gals and non-binary pals, the time has come, presenting:

°◇The Umgadi Girls!◇°

The Umgadi leader, Li Mei, was given the task of turning these four young women into true Umgadi warriors and, in the process, help them achieve their own personal goals!

Now let me ramble a bit (a lot) about their designs!

Li Mei wears a typical Umgadi outfit, the only thing is that I gave her her classic bandana but now adorned with silver to resemble other Umgadi hairpieces!

For the rest of the girls, I gave them the same outfit as Khameleon as I believe this outfit is for those on a lower rank.

🗡 For Suchin, I gave her bangs cause I think they give her a meaner look. The tattoos all over her are lilies, a common symbol of redemption and a nod to her family's history!

She seeks to learn more about her family's roots in Outworld (Seido) and gather more skills to become a better vigilante for Thailand!

🌺 For Harumi, I gave her a messy pixie cut cause I thought it would reflect well her "too much energy" personality! She also has a lot of flower tattoos all over her, to represent important people in her life, she has one for her parents, for her grandparents, for Cetrion and Kuai too! And of course, they are a nod to her clan!

She seeks to fulfil the Shirai tradition of becoming an Umgadi and earn her place as next Grandmistress of the Order of Cetrion!

Now, I find it interesting how much sun Tanya has on her design, from her Union of Light Skin to her powers, and even her golden colour palette adds to it!

And it had me thinking, Tanya is the best example of an Umgadi we have, so her design speaks not only about her, but also about the Umgadi as a whole.

So what if Delia is a Sun Goddess?

She's already "The Lady of Flame" it wouldn't be too wild if she became the Goddess of Flame, and what bigger flame we have than the sun?

@rasta-bot once said she could be a blacksmith Goddess that creates holy weapons, now imagine if she uses the sun as a forge!

Now you must be wondering why doesn't Li Mei have any sun motif on her? Or why Jade doesn't have a face paint?

🔆 My idea is that Tanya is not from Sun Do, but from another city in Edenia, and was raised by a different group of Umgadi with their own worshiping rituals (which include the face paint).

She was sent to Sun Do after proving herself to be the best of her group, now if she succeeds here, she gets the to perform her duties in Sun Do, closer to the Matrons Superior, serving the royal family itself and more importantly, being among the best of the best!

She seeks to become the best Umgadi warrior to ever exist and be remembered as such!

🍃Now, Jade is not from Sun Do either, she's a countess and her family is ally of the Osh-Tekk people and (thanks to her absent parents) she spent most of her life among the Osh-Tekk.

they also worship the Sun Goddess (though they call her by other name) and it was through them that Jade started to learn more about Delia and ended noticing some sort of mysterious connection with the Goddess, and thus came the wish to become an Umgadi. She decided to train in Sun Do to be closer to the Matrons Superior and find some answers.

She seeks to learn what is exactly her connection with Delia!

For her design, she has the sun tattoo (given by the Osh-Tekk) and her jewelleries are supposed to resemble Aztec (therefore Osh-Tekk) jewellery!

They are all gifts from Kotal, they are old friends and he likes to gift her stuff. Though it would be convenient for both their parents for them to marry, they never liked each other that way (plus, Jade is pretty sure he has a thing going on with that to-be Kytinn leader from the Arnyek island, she doesn't like D'Vorah one bit, but trusts her friends judgement...)

Oh yeah, and the Edenians have pointy ears too because I said so :P

Aaaaaaaaand that's it for now, folks!! :D

Questions and suggestions are very welcomed, I really want to make this AU grow!

An special thanks to all my girlies for being always so supportive to my ideas!💕 @mikka-minns @thedragonholder @madamealtruist @orbitinytheworld @rasta-bot @meme099 @moody-bloos

[elitadream]

thoughts on prince mario if him and peach get married? (way down the line of course lol)

how would he handle it all?

LOVE the thought of Prince/King Mario! ����👑

Quick tangent regarding the title itself: I have been considering the headcanon that in order to become King or Queen, a sovereign must share the throne with a spouse; hence why Peach was always referred to as "Princess" throughout her life despite being the sole ruler of her realm, and would be designated as such until the day she would finally announce her marital union with Mario. It would be the equivalent of calling her a maiden, so to speak!

Mario's royal title would only be in actual use after the wedding ceremony, but I imagine that most toads would already whisper it excitedly among themselves as soon as he and Peach would officially start courting. The words "future king" would be on everyone's lips, and he would inevitably hear those in a few hushed conversations while taking Peach on various romantic excursions in town.

It would feel... odd, to say the least. Naturally, he would worry; fearing that he may not be remotely qualified to handle such a colossal responsibility nor have what it takes to rule a kingdom. But Peach would be quick to reassure him, reminding him of his great benevolence and noble heart. Of his undaunted courage and tremendous selflessness. Of all the things that really do make him a gifted and most wonderful leader. She would be there to assist and guide him, showing him how most administrative tasks are delegated to committees and that sharing the workload throughout the castle is very important. She would tell him this with a knowing smile, alluding to his less than healthy habit of always handling things on his own, and with her help, he would gradually become more accustomed to the idea.

To his own surprise, it would reveal to be a lot less intimidating and complicated than he had previously thought. The role itself would be fairly manageable, albeit monopolizing and mentally tiring on some days. Mario would come to miss the leisure and spare time that he once had in vast quantities, and seeing the reverence with which others would now treat him would leave him with a bittersweet and wistful sort of nostalgia everytime. But seeing the unfathomable love in Peach's eyes and the proud admiration in Luigi's would never fail to comfort him, and he would fulfill his duties with unprecedented diligence.

Throughout the years, Mario's reputation would only spread and gain in splendor, and he would later be known as the greatest king any realm has ever had. 🌄🏰

[bamber344]

New Beginnings

prev/next

masterlist

man this one gave me a lot of trouble. Sorry for the delay. in my defence I have discovered that there is a decent chance I may be depressed. Which. Makes a lot of sense with the things I've been struggling with lately.

HAH

anyways. Chapter time! Shoutout to my classes for actually putting me in a focused mood for long enough to get this shit done. all things considered I'm pretty damn proud of it. Enjoy!

CWs: discussions of child abuse, transphobia mention, implied sexual content, references to previous oofies (everything that happened with Steve, Jordyn's ongoing abuse, ect)

New Beginnings

Madeline scratched her head, looking at the back of Jordyn’s metal dome as she took in her new living space. Viv had called her yesterday evening, letting her know the whole situation, and that Maddie would be helping out. It made sense. This was generally what Maddie did as co-leader – when she was actually working, anyway – and she was wrapped up in this whole Jordyn business as well. It was just… awkward. She had no idea how to speak to the other woman. Every time they’d interacted, it had either been fleeting or Maddie’d had a specific goal in mind. Now she just… had to talk to her. Eugh.

“You like it?” she forced herself to ask, brushing her fringe out of her eyes. She’d been letting her hair grow out a bit more, though she was keeping the sides shaved. She even had a tiny ponytail going on at the back.

Jordyn shrugged. “It’s pretty similar to where I was living before. Only, I had a toilet and a shower in my room.”

Maddie frowned. “Must have been cramped.”

Jordyn stepped inside, tugging her suitcase along behind her. It didn’t look very full. “What have you got packed in there?” Maddie asked. Maybe there was something she could help her get; actually do her job, and all that.

She put her suitcase down and sat on the bed. “Uh, sleepwear, underwear… my armour cleaning supplies. Some books.”

Madeline cocked her head to the side. “No casual clothes?”

Jordyn shook her head. “I’m not allowed to leave my room without my armour on anyway, so… there wouldn’t be much point.”

Madeline detected a hint of longing in her tone. And fair enough. She knew exactly what it was like to be forced to wear clothes you didn’t want to wear; to long for a certain style, all the while knowing that indulging yourself would be met with brutal punishment. Maybe she and Jordyn had more in common than she originally thought.

She hummed, joining Jordyn on the bed. She still had more specific stuff to go over with Jordyn’s whole orientation – like where the kitchen was, the rules on food, laundry, etcetera – but she wanted to give the woman some time to acclimate to the new space first. Either that meant more awkward silence, or… talking.

“You, uh… You look good,” Jordyn said, staring at the floor.

“Hm?” Maddie questioned. If this was that old crush flaring up, she really didn’t want to stick around. Jordyn was probably a lovely gal, but Madeline had far too much of her own baggage to even consider doing anything with a trauma-case of Jordyn’s calibre.

“Healthy, I mean,” she clarified. “You’ve put on a bit of weight since I last saw you, and you have a bit of a tan.”

Oh. Well, that wasn’t too surprising. Madeline had finally found herself a job, working in a warehouse. It was good exercise for her lethargic body, and exercising more meant eating more as well. She was actually starting to fit into her costume again. The tan was probably just from walking to and from the workplace in the sun, though personally she hadn’t really noticed it. Apparently, Jordyn was keeping a pretty close eye on her. It made sense with the ‘crush’ theory.

“Thanks,” she replied. “I’ve been keeping busy. Uh, more than usual, anyway.”

Jordyn nodded, and silence returned, hanging over them like a thick cloud. Madeline swallowed. She needed to keep this conversation going before she lost her mind.

“So, how do you feel about everything? Moving to the Union and all that?”

“Excited,” Jordyn replied. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in the facility, with Father or the scientists always looking over my shoulder, coming into my room whenever they want. I still have my duties, and I still have to go in for reports, but… I’m excited to have my own space, y’know?”

Maddie smiled. “I hear you, there. When I was a kid, I wasn’t even allowed to have a door in my room. I had no privacy whatsoever, and with parents as strict as mine were, that made growing up… pretty difficult. Especially considering they were transphobic assholes.”

Jordyn cocked her head to the side, and Madeline predicted her question before she even asked it. She doubted de Vygon gave his test-tube baby a thorough education on queer culture. “What does that mean?”

She took a deep breath. This was not the turn she wanted this conversation to take, but that was just what she got for trying to share a personal anecdote. “Well, ‘trans’ is short for ‘transgender.’ It means I was born anatomically male, but I found out that doesn’t work for me, and decided to become a girl. ‘Transphobic’ means people who don’t like that very much, and would prefer that I stay as a boy, even though it was killing me.”

“...Does that mean you have a penis even though you’re a girl?”

The bluntness of Jordyn’s question made Madeline snort. She couldn’t even get mad; the girl was too damn innocent. “Yes. Anatomy is just anatomy. Gender is social, and doesn’t necessarily have to match up. You could be a man if you wanted to.”

“I don’t want to,” she answered surprisingly quickly.

Madeline smiled. “Me neither.”

“But… How was it killing you?”

Oh boy, they were really getting into it. Oh well, it was probably good for Jordyn to learn. “It’s… hard to describe to people who don’t know the feeling. But, it’s like, looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing someone who isn’t you, but not knowing why. You instinctively expect to see certain features, but they’re not there, and that discrepancy hurts. It’s being drawn to certain styles associated with the opposite gender, seeking out any way you can associate yourself more with the person you feel like inside. And the more you begin to notice the discrepancy, the worse it gets. Once you notice it’s there, you can never ignore it again. The only solace, aside from changing your identity to match your feelings, is total dissociation. And that’s no way to live.

“My parents wouldn’t let me dress in women’s clothes, or change my name or my pronouns, and if they caught me doing something like that, they would withhold food and… and beat me. It got to the point where I decided I would rather die than have to continue living as a boy, the pain was that bad. And the only way I’d get to live as a girl, as my true self, was if I did something drastic. So, I gave my parents an ultimatum. Either they accept me for who I am, or they never see me again. You can probably guess what they picked. I packed a bag full of the only feminine shit I could get my hands on, and I left and never looked back. It was the second-best decision I ever made.”

“Wow…” Jordyn muttered. “That’s… really brave of you. My dad does stuff like that too, but only when I do stuff to deserve it, so it’s not as bad. I can’t imagine ever running away like that. I don’t know how I’d survive.”

Madeline sighed, shaking her head. Try as she might to be apathetic, her heart fucking hurt for this girl. What a shit situation. “That’s the thing, Jordyn. No one deserves to be treated like that, no matter what they do.” She reached out and patted Jordyn on the back of her metal chestplate. “But you don’t have to worry about that anymore. You’ll be safe here. And you can see your dad as much or as little as you like.”

“Well, that’s not strictly true. I still have to see him every day for reports. But it’s okay. He’s my dad; I love him. Even… Even if he hurts me sometimes. I don’t just want to… disappear, you know?”

Madeline’s gut clenched. She rubbed her upper arm, over an old scar from a cigarette burn. It had been over 12 years since she last saw her birth parents. She couldn’t help but wonder what they’d been up to.

She cleared her throat. This conversation was getting a little too real for her. “Should we move on? I’ve still gotta go over some housekeeping stuff with you.”

Jordyn nodded. “Let’s do it.”

—

I sighed, staring across the kitchen longingly at the piece of toast Brianna was eating while I sipped my soup up through a straw. It had barely even been a week and I already couldn’t stand this liquid-only diet. It didn’t help that I was starved for two days before I could even start it. According to the medical team, I’d be allowed some softer foods in the coming weeks, but I wouldn’t be back to my normal diet for at least six. Hopefully, chilli and rice counted as a softer food. I was just lucky the break wasn’t bad enough that my jaw had to be surgically wired shut. Then I’d be screwed for months. 

Living at the Union was… weird, for lack of a better word. I thought it wouldn’t be any different from back at the facility, but clearly I was mistaken. I had to source my own food, for one. No one was cooking meals like back home. I asked Brianna, and she said that she mostly lived off of takeaway, and whatever ‘instant noodles’ were. That didn’t really seem sufficient to me. Father had provided me with a bunch of pre-packaged broths and soups for the duration of my recovery, but once that was over, I wasn’t really sure what I was gonna do.

At least the beds were comfortable. The sleep I’d had after Madeline had finished briefing me was the best sleep of my entire life. It was like lying on a cloud. The privacy was nice, too; knowing there was never any chance that Father could walk into my room without warning.

I was mostly passing the time reading, or drawing, or talking to Brianna, or trying out that ‘painting’ thing Vivienne had shown me. I wasn’t quite as good at it as I was with drawing yet, but I was confident I could get there with some practice. It was really relaxing, and it felt good when an idea started to actually form into a finished product. It would be nice to get to work out as well, but I still wasn’t cleared for strenuous activity yet. Thanks again, Mr. Beaumond…

Someone just entered the conference room. No, a group of people. Vivienne, Madeline, Ashley, and… someone else who I couldn’t identify with just my shadows.

Inspired by the way Brianna used her smoke powers, for the past week I’d been laying down a very thin cloud of shadows, spread out around all the main parts of the Union HQ. Anytime someone moved through it, the cloud sent a ripple all the way back to me, and I’d be able to tell where everyone was and roughly what they were doing. It took a bit of concentration to use, but with all of this free time, I was quickly getting the hang of it. It was just… a little overwhelming, being in this unfamiliar new environment, and having an eye on everything helped me feel more secure.

I got up, wandering over to the conference room to see what was going on. It must have been something important if Ashley, Madeline, and Vivienne were all there.

“So, the plan is to get you set up in one of our rooms for now. We might need to make some modifications to accommodate for your injuries, but it shouldn’t take longer than a few hours to do that,” came Madeline’s voice, echoing down the hall as I approached.

“Until then, you and I can go and grab lunch or something,” Vivienne said. “After you’ve put your stuff away, of course.”

“Thank you both,” said a familiar, husky voice. I froze right at the corner of the entrance, my heart pounding in my chest. “Seriously, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Well, if it wasn’t for what you did, we’d still be pretty much completely in the dark about this whole situation,” Ashley said. “This is the least we can do to pay you back.”

“How… is that whole situation going, by the way?” the newcomer asked. “Vivienne’s been keeping me mostly in the loop, but I heard-”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about that out in the open,” Madeline interrupted. 

My whole body flushed with adrenaline; sweat pricking at the back of my neck. I wanted to throw up. There was no way I could mistake that voice, not after all of the sleepless nights I spent hearing him scream in my memories.

Steve Matthews was at the Union.

“Right, sorry,” he said. “So, can I check out my room?”

“Sure thing, uncle,” Vivienne chirped.

They were coming this way. In a few seconds, Steve and Vivienne would be rounding that corner, and I’d come face-to-face with him again for the first time since that night. What was I supposed to do? What could I possibly say to him after what I did?

I turned and ran back to my room as fast as I could.

—

Brianna gently ran her fingers along my belly, tracing the indented scar Father gave me after I lost the sniper team all those months ago. My body buzzed with the remnants of our previous activities; relaxation and fatigue clawing at me and dragging me into a restful nap with Brianna at my back.

I’d finally been cleared for strenuous activity again, which meant exercise and patrols and reporting to Father, but it also meant getting to work off my anxieties with Brianna. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been waiting for this. My jaw still hurt, so we couldn’t really kiss as much as I wanted to or try any of that other stuff with my mouth, but it was okay. Brianna could easily make up for it, and she said that my hands were more than sufficient. Honestly, I was mostly here just for this; being held, feeling her warm, soft body pressing against my back. It didn’t make the ache from my whip scars go away entirely, but it was much easier to ignore them with her arms surrounding me. It was easier to forget about everything eating away at the back of my mind.

My half-lidded eyes caught on something, breaking the monotony of the brown bed sheets we were lying on. A single red hair, resting peacefully on the pillow. There was only one person I knew in the Union with hair that colour. Come to think of it, Brianna had mentioned that she did stuff like this with Vivienne too, didn’t she? Imagining that made my lower abdomen tingle. I wanted to do this stuff with Vivienne, too. If only I didn’t have this stupid rule about not showing my face. Maybe I could ask Vivienne to wear a blindfold?

It was a funny idea, but not one I was ever going to follow up on. The only reason this happened was because Brianna initiated it. I was still far too nervous around Vivienne to make the first move.

Inevitably, thinking about Vivienne led to thinking about her uncle. Steve had now been living at the Union for a full week, and I’d been doing my utmost to avoid ever running into him. My cloud of shadows made it easy to keep track of where he was, but it didn’t stop him from spending time in the places I wanted to be, forcing me to hide away in my room, bored out of my mind.

I really shouldn’t blame him; it wasn’t his fault I was too afraid to go anywhere near him. On the contrary, it was entirely my fault. It was my fault he was wheelchair-bound, attending painful physical therapy appointments almost daily. It was my fault he needed help to get into bed, and onto the toilet, and with making food. It was my fault he woke up nearly every night, gasping and sweating from nightmares. It was my fault his life and body were irreparably broken, and I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I could barely even look Vivienne in the eye anymore; not after I overheard her explain all of that to Brianna, voice tired and heartbroken.

“Hey,” Brianna said, squeezing me tighter for a second. “What’s wrong?”

I blinked, and realised I was crying. I hurriedly wiped the tears away, sniffling. “N-nothing.”

Brianna softly kissed the back of my head. “Come on, you can tell me. I promise I’ll keep it a secret.”

As much as my immediate instinct was to deny, deny, deny, my helmet was in the corner right now, facing the wall. If I whispered, I could tell Brianna anything I wanted, and Father would never find out. Obviously, I couldn’t just… tell her what happened between Steve and me, but maybe I could… dance around it a little. Present a vague, similar situation to my own, and see if maybe she could give me any advice. If things kept going the way they were, I was either going to lose my friends or lose my mind; I needed some help.

I took a deep breath, trying to formulate my thoughts in a way that wouldn’t reveal too much. “What would you do if… if you were forced to do something against your will that really really hurt someone you care about, but they didn’t know about it? Like… they didn’t know it was you that did it. But the guilt is still eating you up even months afterward?”

A long silence passed, and my anxiety steadily grew until Brianna replied. “Damn, that’s a tough one,” she said. “I… well, I think an important thing to consider is the fact that, if you were forced, it isn’t your fault, even if it really feels like it is.”

“Yeah, but… I could’ve chosen not to…” I muttered.

“That kinda defeats the purpose of ‘forced,’ don’t you think? If someone told me that they would kill my family unless I did a bunch of horrible shit, it would be really fucking hard for me to say no to that, you get me?”

“I guess…”

“Either way, I think you should fess up and apologise to the person if you ever get the opportunity. I know it’s probably pretty scary to think about, but don’t you think that person deserves – if not amendments – at least an apology? Who knows, maybe they’ll understand and forgive you. And even if they don’t, at least you’ll have finally gotten it off your chest.”

I hummed, trying to take her words to heart. She was probably right, but even thinking about finding Steve and apologising right now made me want to curl into a ball and disappear.

Brianna sensed my discomfort. She wrapped herself around me even tighter. “You don’t have to do anything right now, Jean Shorts. You can just stay here with me tonight.”

I let out a breath, letting that comforting idea wash over me as I turned and buried my face against her warm skin.

Wait… what?

“Jean shorts?” I questioned.

“You know. Jordyn. Jordy. Jords. Jorts. Jean Shorts. It’s a nickname.”

If Brianna could see, I would have been staring at her in confused disbelief. As it was, I just chuckled and closed my eyes.

Jean Shorts.

She was so silly.

—

I found him in a common room, late at night when there was no risk of anyone else intruding. My armour and helmet were still back in my dorm, stuffed into the corner with the lights off so that Father wouldn’t see me leave, assuming I was sleeping. My shadows covered the light from the hallway when I opened the door, and from there I wrapped a mask of darkness around my face and crept through the corridors. I was dressed in nothing but my sleepwear; a tanktop and briefs. It was as vulnerable as I could possibly make myself without stripping entirely. I wanted this interaction to be on as even ground as possible, and I couldn’t do that if I was still in that horrible black cage, with Father listening to every word I said.

Steve had his wheelchair rolled up against the wall, watching a movie on the TV. He looked calm. Relaxed. I didn’t want to ruin it. My gut screamed at me to just turn and go back to bed. I grit my teeth, trying to resist. This needed to happen, whether either of us wanted it or not.

I cleared my throat, stepping out of the shadows in the hallway. Steve looked up, his brows furrowing when he saw my exposed form.

“Is… Is that you, Jordyn?”

Part of me expected him to still sound the way he did that night; raspy and weak. Instead, his voice was as strong and clear as it had ever been.

I nodded, the shadows around my head bobbing along with me. “Y-yeah.”

His brow unfurrowed, but his face remained unparseable and blank. “I heard you were staying here too. Though, you’re so elusive I was starting to think I imagined Vivienne telling me.”

I swallowed nervously. “You were… looking for me?”

He shrugged. “Well, I haven’t seen you since I was hospitalised. I wanted to see how you were.”

I ignored the implied question in his words, letting the silence between us fester. My feelings didn’t matter. I just needed to rip the bandaid off. “Listen, detective. It… I… I don’t really know how to say this, but…”

“I know it was you,” he calmly said, interrupting me. “It’s pretty hard to mistake that voice when you’ve got your helmet on.”

It took me a second to process his words, but when they finally hit, my stomach dropped. “What? Y-you… you knew the whole time?”

He nodded. “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell anyone. As far as Vivienne and the Union know, I was attacked by one of de Vygon’s agents.”

That made no sense. I could barely wrap my head around the concept. “I… why?” 

“I don’t know. I guess, I didn’t want to alienate you further from everyone else. What happened wasn’t your fault. It was de Vygon’s. It’s not like you did all that out of your own desire to hurt me.” He looked away, staring back at the TV screen.

“But… But, I crippled you! B-because of me, you’ll never walk straight again!”

“Because of de Vygon,” Steve corrected, though there was pain in his eyes at my words. “You don’t blame the gun for shooting someone; you blame the person who pulled the trigger.”

“I-!” I paused, absorbing his meaning. Something in the core of my being shivered; an uncomfortable idea starting to form in the bottom of my mind. “I… I’m not a gun, though. I’m a person. I’m his daughter.”

Steve sighed, glancing back over with his eyes pinching at the edges. The pity in his gaze made me want to throw up. “As far as he’s concerned, you might as well be. The way he treats you; it’s not how any parent should treat their kid. He uses you as a weapon, pointing you at his enemies and pulling the trigger.”

A gun. A weapon. Just some… thing to bolster his police force and do his bidding. Was that really how Father saw me? No, it couldn’t be.

I looked down. “I… I know he doesn’t treat me right. I know that I have… so much less freedom than everyone else. But, he’s still my father, and I owe him my life. Nothing will change that. Regardless of who gave the order, it was still me that hurt you. I could have decided not to, but I did it anyway, because he asked. B-because… I can choose. You can’t say it wasn’t my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve insisted.

“But-!”

“What would he have done to you if you hadn’t complied?” he asked. “No one else is listening. You aren’t wearing your helmet. You can tell me.”

…He was right. I could tell him. I could finally get the crushing fear of Father’s exact retribution off of my chest, and there was no way it could get back to him. But was that a good idea? I didn’t know.

But I’d come too far to stop now.

I took a deep breath, centering myself. “Th-there’s this… thing he does. I don’t know how he does it, but when he’s mad, he can make it so that it feels like my whole body is on fire, a-and I can’t move. B-but that’s usually for small things. If I refused to do what… what I did, I’d probably be banned from eating, and have to spend a few days in the penalisation room. He, um… He chains me up against the wall in uncomfortable positions, a-and then leaves me there for hours. O-or, he could beat me, or cut me. I- I know now that it isn’t normal, o-or good, but it’s just… how we are. It’s how we work. When I disobey him, Father hurts me. That’s just the way it is. If I really didn’t want to do it, I could’ve said so, and dealt with the consequences. I’ve been through them before.”

The anguished look on Steve’s face was like a knife in the gut. It wasn’t that bad, was it?

He rubbed his face, looking away. “Shit, kid. I’m so sorry.”

I sighed, trying not to think about that too much. “See? It’s my fault.”

He chuckled humourlessly, squeezing his eyes shut. “Jordyn. You were coerced into it under threat of fucking torture. There is no conceivable way it was your fault and not his. You wouldn’t have even thought about doing it if he hadn’t ordered you to in the first place. And it’s clear it’s been eating you up ever since. I don’t know what I can say to convince you that it wasn’t your fault, but clearly you came to me looking for something. What? Forgiveness? Absolution? You can have it! I know… I know the hurt isn’t gonna go away just like that, but I don’t blame you for what happened. I never did. It wasn’t your fault. You were just… a scared, abused little girl doing whatever she could to avoid getting hurt again. You’re still doing it. Because, if you think that it wasn’t your fault, then it’s his fault, and that’s a dangerous train of thought for you. So you’re taking the blame as much as possible to protect yourself from retribution.”

It felt like I could barely breathe. My cheeks were wet. “I… I don’t…” I trailed off. I didn’t know what to say.

Steve pursed his lips, looking at me like he could see right through the shadows and to the heart of my being. He sighed. “Let’s just… forget about everything, just for tonight. There’s no reason to hash it all out right now. Come on, sit down. We can watch this movie together.” He forced a shaky smile. “It’s good, I promise.”

I blankly nodded, stumbling over to the couch and pulling a blanket over my exposed form. It was weird to be out here without anything on.

He was right, though. Everything he said made too much sense. I just… didn’t know what to do with it all, crushing me from the inside until my lungs collapsed. But, in the meantime, the movie was pretty good. Distraction would have to do for now.

Taglist: @steelandblood @sapphicwhump @urnumber1star @alsolucakairomi @thataquaticwhumper

@iamheretohurt @anoyedartist @dontyoubleedoutonme @seastarblue @lettherebepain

@bacillusinfection

For a second I thought i'd actually written Maddie POV where she doesn't mention Rosie even once but then I remembered how Rosie is implied in the line 'it was the second-best decision i ever made' (the first-best being proposing to Rosie lol) She really never leaves Maddie's mind even for a second.

Hope y'all enjoyed! let me know what you thought in a comment or reblog! see y'all next time for one I'm very excited for ;)

Seriously I've been planning this next chapter for fucking months. be there or be square

[corishadowfang]

GIVE BRAIN A HORSE-- (I'm joining the horseposting, haha.)

---

            “…Master Brain.  What is that?”

            Brain, for his part, didn’t seem particularly concerned with the situation.  He wasn’t even looking at Sigurd, calmly petting the—the creature he’d apparently decided to lead into Headquarters.  “A horse.”

            “…Right.  I…suppose I can see that.”  Sigurd had the vague urge to rub his temples.  Or shake Brain, maybe—but then, he supposed he probably wasn’t supposed to do that to a Union Leader, so vaguely-strained questioning would have to do.  “And…why is it here?”

            “Followed me.”

            “From where?”

            Brain finally looked at him and grinned, smile just a little too sharp for his liking.  “Don’t worry about it.”

            …He was going to have to file an incident report later, wasn’t he.

            “Master Brain,” Sigurd said, trying very, very hard to keep his voice level and failing, “you didn’t…steal this, did you?”

            “Not as far as you’re aware.  Her name’s Lux, by the way.”

            “Master Brain—”

            “She belonged to Romulus and I owed Remus a favor.”  Brain shrugged, like that was a normal thing to do, but Sigurd guessed he didn’t really know what the Union Leaders had done on their off-time.  (It was such a strange image that it threw him for a moment.  The Union Leaders, engaging in petty theft and pranks?  It didn’t fit the image that had been built up in the stories.)

            “What would Master Ephemer think,” Sigurd started, trying to get his train of thought back on track, “if he found out you’d stolen someone’s—”

            “He’d help, probably.”  Brain tilted his head, looking thoughtful.  “Maybe not successfully.”  Gently, he tugged on the horse’s halter, and it took Sigurd a moment to realize he was bringing her closer, wait no he didn’t know how to act around horses—  “She’s not going to hurt you,” Brain said, face crinkling in amusement that seemed sincere rather than the strained sort of thing Sigurd usually saw.  “Look, just pet her.  She’s pretty gentle.”

            The horse nosed his shoulder with a quiet snort, and Sigurd side-stepped a little, hands pulled in.  It made her nervous, apparently, because she pulled her head back quickly, ears flicking and hooves tapping an unsteady sort of beat.  Brain shushed her, and she calmed quickly, but Sigurd stared at her with trepidation.

            …Of all the things the Union Leader had done, this was probably one of the strangest.  He’d ditched meetings, harassed the Founders, and generally tried to stick his nose in places he probably shouldn’t, but those all felt some degree of normal.  Frustrating, but Sigurd knew how to deal with that.  He wasn’t sure he knew how to deal with a horse.

            But he looks happy, something in the back of his mind whispered, and—so he did.  Brain wasn’t watching him; his expression had gone soft, hand carefully stroking the horse’s muzzle.  He looked more relaxed than Sigurd had ever seen him.

            He could feel something in him crumbling, and he knew he was going to regret this later, but he sighed, his whole body sinking with the sound.  “Well,” he said, resigned, “do we need to find somewhere to hide her?”

            Brain glanced at him, head cocked and eyes narrowed.

            “…We’re just taking her to the meeting, aren’t we.”

            (It was almost worth the odd stares and whispers throughout the meeting to watch Brain introduce the horse to his new-found friends later.  Almost.

            The fact that Brain apparently didn’t know how to ride the horse, however, felt a little more vindicating.)

[lullabyalikpoptarot]

Jin and RM Dynamic Reading

Alright, time to get to these two. I am fascinated to see what these two can give me energetically. As one is the oldest and the other the leader. I would feel I would get a lot of mature and stable energy, but we will see what comes up.

Overall energy: Hmm, this is interesting, not what I was expecting, but interesting. This energy gives me a bit of a tug and pull dynamic here. So we start with the conjunction card, which indicates two people coming together, for what, not sure. It seems like there is a strong union or united front they could have.

But then we go to the hanged man, which to me is passive energy, not really able to do anything. This just gives me they may not be able to be around each other, due to the Military or other circumstances, so it seems both are being reflective about things right now.

Jin's energy: Not gonna lie, just saying it, I am seeing romantic vibes from Jin, I don't sugar coat sh** people. I don't care if some of ya'll say I promote ships. I go with what I see. I don't filter my readings. I am not saying there are romantic feelings, but I get undertones of it, take it or leave it how you like. But he got the knight and the knight of cup, this just gives me romantic vibes and energy, sorry, if you would see these cards, you would feel the same, so he's got love for him, but there could be this need to defend him for something. He seems to admire him and there is some loyalty he has for him. It is like there could be some need for him to be there for Namjoon in times of need, or he is always there for him.

He also seems like someone who will defend Namjoon and have his back no matter what. I see him making some sort of gestures towards him as well, not sure what that is though. I mean, the knight of cups in this deck is holding flowers, not sure how else I can take that lol

He also has the student archetype card, so he is someone who learns a lot from Namjoon, but also someone who observes him and tries to learn a lot about him, but also maybe he tries to emulate how he goes about things.

I see him competition for his affection or there are obstacles to getting to him. Like is he trying to win him over. I am not trying to make this like he wants him, but I can't see this any other way, sorry. Now, we have the Tower, things crumbling, structures falling about, maybe even breaking conventions. There could be chaos around them.

Now, with the 6 of wands, there is this desire to win for him and get some sort of recognition, maybe he wants to be admired or recognized by Namjoon. Maybe he likes his praise and affection. But Jin is very prideful, so he will try hard to get what he wants. I am just going to stop there.

Namjoon's energy: He seems a bit more restrictive. He got the Hermit card, which he may feel alone right now, maybe he is dealing with some anxiety. I feel he misses his people and being around them, including Jin, because this is about their bond. So, he may feel a bit alone.

He also got the Vampire card. It seems Namjoon thrives on being around people. He can't really be alone, so he struggles, maybe he has addressed this to Jin and maybe this is why he wants to help him.

With the Queen of Wands, as I mentioned, he likes to be free, be in the spotlight, to shine, to creates and with this devil card next to it, he is restricted from that energy, which causes problems for Namjoon. He struggles to contain that energy. How this fits with Jin, not sure.

The Queen of Wands can also show he is an inspiration to Jin and he is a bright and warm presence to him. It is like he may brighten his day. Now, with this 7 of swords, there could be some manipulation with him, but also, I see this as him hiding himself and not wanting to show his vulnerabilities, but also a struggle to be himself and be free. This could affect his bond with Jin.

There is a need for him to release all these heavy thoughts he has and to move forward. It seems a lot of thoughts weigh him down. I feel he seems to try to hide parts of himself he doesn't want to show which creates problems for Namjoon. I see a bit of inner turmoil with him, and this may have to do with his dynamic with Jin, since this is their dynamic reading.

So, decided to pull some advice cards to get some more clarification. Jin got the Cow Spirit, which states, the miracles are endless. This is a good time for time, a prosperous time, so he should stay in a positive, upbeat energy, so when he is around Namjoon he should spread that energy towards him, since he may need it.

For Namjoon, they gave me two, which makes sense, he needs more guidance, he got Squirrel Spirit, which states believe in yourself and Armadillo Spirit, set healthy boundaries. Hmm, the first one means he should work on being more confident and to not hide himself too much, even his flaws. I guess he may not want to share that with Jin, but if he opens up more, he would feel better and not feel too confined and restricted.

For the other one, either he should say no more, or maybe not lean on others too much, or he needs to have a balance, either he restricts himself too much, or overshares and depends on others too much, but then he may isolate himself on the flip side. So, he may need healthier boundaries on that. He may have this strong dependence on Jin, so he may need to work on not having that too much and learn to lean on himself a bit more.

So, this took me where I didn't expect. It wasn't that hard of a reading though, so I like that, this was interesting though. Anyway, if fans can help elaborate more on this that can be helpful. Because I am more of a music fan, so don't have much insight to their bonds as of now and don't remember much about these two from the past.

[imthepunchlord]

Which power would you give to peafowl and bee?

Peafowl I would work with something related to vision. For if there's one thing that really stands out for peacocks, it's the eye motif.

And there's a lot you can do with a power around vision.

It could be a power of foresight, see the future, the closer the closer the more likely (which peacocks are tied to foresight, looking to the future). You can just straight up call it Clairvoyance.

You can do an alternative take to illusions. Whoever meets a Peafowl's gaze gets trapped in a daydream of their own making, unaware of reality around them. Where Fox does illusions that they control and all can see, Peafowl has no control what people see, and no one else can see what others see. It can be called Fantasy. Additionally, peacocks are tied to maya, which is Sanskrit for illusion/magic.

Peafowl could have a power of mind reading, meet the eyes of another and get to "see" their thoughts and intentions. Could be Mind's Eye. It could also be a nice nod to the third eye chakra, which does match with Peafowl a lot in terms of symbolism and themes.

Peafowl could have something related to truth. You see what is true. You see someone's true colors. You see through illusions. You see what is hidden from you, like ghosts.

Lastly, Peafowl could have something related to hypnosis. Hypnotism through eyes is a thing that's done in media (though usually with snakes).

But given the many eyes to gaze upon you, it could be done. It could also play off a Peafowl's beauty, they're allure, how they can charm and bewitch someone.

Any of these ideas I would take for Peafowl and I think would work well. Some of these can even work off Mayura being a more out in the open.

Now for Bee, I take the stance that they should've done something related to team work, working with others, a fellowship/community, connection with other life. That to me stands out so much more than bees stinging. That's very surface level when diving into what bees are tied to, which I'll give them, there is a Hindu bee goddess (Bhrami) who stings a demon to death.

But over all, bees are more about togetherness and communication. To be kind and open minded, but take no bull.

One idea I really like that canon did bring in, was working with a magical swarm of bees.

And they could do various things for you, as you are their director. They can swarm to cause a panic (but not actually sting as that kills bees), they can gather intel and you can spy through them, they can be used for long range communication and act as little animated flying walkies, they could mass restore, they could prompt plant growth for psuedo plant manipulation.

The catch to this pretty OP power? You got to be a good director of this hive. If you are a terrible leader or a terrible person, these bees will unionize and leave. And they will not come back. No matter how many times you retransform, your hive is gone, at least until Pollen thinks you're worthy to direct them. So until you grow and change how you are, you are powerless as a Miraculous user if your bees unionize. Could call this Hive Mind to work off a community working as a big unit.

The other option would be to just straight up doing plant manipulation, though I would like to have it be that plants are resistive to you if you lack compassion for life. This could be Pollination to work off Pollen's name.

Between the two, would lean more Hive Mind, but if some think that's too OP, Pollination still works well. Both meet what I want for Bee, something related to teamwork.