The Disability Coding Of Aphelios
Hey everyone! Today I thought I'd write a little post about my comfort character Aphelios; The Weapon Of The Faithful from League Of Legends!
Specifically I wanted to talk about the disability coding of Aphelios. For those who don't know; coding means the character is written to be an allegory for a life experience. It's about the closest you can get to canon without being necessarily canon. Many stories in magical fantasy universes use this technique. The most common reasons are for hiding from censorship and backlash, and creativity. I personally find coding way more interesting because of all the ways people can think to use magic as an allegory. But I also understand the importance of canon representation. Luckily, Aphelios does both!
So let's start with base main universe Runeterra Aphelios. To be able to talk to his sister and access her weapons he has to drink a special moon flower poison. This poison causes him immense constant pain. It also renders him mute. Obviously he isn't technically disabled. He can choose to not drink the flower (though that would be a dumb decision). But the fact he *must* drink it to save his people and it leaves him to chronic pain and muteness to the point of becoming numb to the world. That screams chronic illness's that cause pain.
Now many League lore nerds are always quick to do an "uhm actually" when you call Aphelios mute. But they're not thinking of the coding of it. Like I said earlier; fantasy stories using coding is very common for many types of minorities, not just disabled people.
My favorite example of disability coding is Hunter from The Owl House. Hunter lives in a world full of witches but he has no magic. He struggles at times but is able to find a way to navigate the world. He uses his palisman as a disability aid and makes do.
Now I'd understand some people not seeing this or just denying it. But what they did with HEARTSTEEL Aphelios basically confirms to me the disability coding was intentional (or at the very least something they're sticking with).
HEARTSTEEL is a boy band in the League musicverse. If there was ever a time to make Aphelios speak, it would be a boy band that sings. But no they didn't do that. In fact they understood the music verse is a more grounded universe (hinted to be our own even) so they made him CANONICALLY disabled.
When Aphelios was younger he had nodes in his vocal cords and they had to be surgically removed. Aphelios never fully recovered and lost his singing voice and the majority of his normal voice. He can't really speak above a whisper. In interviews he whispers to his sister Alune and she answers for him. (Someone teach this poor man sign language).
Another thing I find cool about HEARTSTEEL Aphelios is how he copes. Aphelios is the lyricist of the band. Kayn and Sett's verses are very in character for themselves but K'sante's fits Aphelios as a character way better.
"They wanna kiss me long good night with a rose
Hoping that the Eiffel falls, of course
You don't understand the life we chose
(On life support, life goes)
I need my silence, my privacy so I can heal
And even rockstars got feelings that they feel
In reality, this just repeats like a drill
Always"
This verse shows Aphelios struggle with being disabled. He didn't choose this life, but life goes on. The best part of this verse is that his friends are his voice. The fact K'sante sung his lyrics is very powerful. Shown in the music video, his friends metaphorically (and literally) saved him from drowning.
I can speak from experience that friends are very important. They really can help you through the toughest times and save you from drowning.
(I also feel it is important to mention; that while it's beautiful that someone sung Apehlios thoughts for him. It is suspicious they chose the ONE black champion in the band. The other two who sang solo verses got to have screen time all to themselves for their verses. K'sante isn't present at all for his verse and it is instead Aphelios and Yone.)
Anyway that was a little infodump about Aphelios and why I love his disability coding. I really appreciate that Riot are keeping him mute in all universes so far. (My worst fear is a legendary skin where he speaks.) Riot has stated that while champions are different people with different life experiences in the alternate universes that the champions will keep their core identities. They were mainly referring to LGBTQ champs in this statement, but disability is also a major part of identity. I'm sure it applies here too. Sona has also stayed mute in all universes as far as I know (she just uses aids like telepathy and text to speech).
Anyway see you all later on the rift where I will OTP HEARTSTEEL Aphelios and maybe some Sett support because I'm gay.
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❝ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 ❞ ─── ☾⏺☽
pairing: yandere!aphelios x solari!priestess!reader (LoL)
warning: non/con, fem!reader, possessive/obsessive behavior, mentions of blood/violence, religious/fanatical behavior, unhealthy coping mechanisms, minor drug use, implied kidnapping, implied forced relationship, semi-public sex, unbalanced power dynamic, runeterra au
notes: sorry besties, he's a 10 but he's bat shit insane. (so an 11) also any mention of 'her' is the moon goddess, not alune. (we're leaving that sweet summer child out of this.) and for those who aren't aware, phel can speak when not under the influence of noctum, but unable to communicate with alune, which is uh...great in this case. (also not me wanting to write a second part like how why help?)
You never thought you’d stare into the pale visage of the Lunari man the village whispered about.
The one with a vacant face but deadly occupation. Your naïve belief in your own safe keeping was nothing more than an illusion. The sun always faded below the misted cliffs, only for the moon to take its place above the mountain’s highest peak. An endless cycle of hierarchical dominance that rinsed itself in blood and repeated in constant turmoil. Tonight would be no different.
“Don’t come any closer.”
A failed attempt to embolden your voice beyond a meek plea. You stiffened at the thunderous closing of the temple door. A clambering echo vibrated through the marble floor and pillars, past the rows of worship, up to where you stood at the crest of the ceremonial altar. The remaining resonance rattled and sang up your spine, shaking the candle light pinched between your fingertips.
The figure sauntered forward, stepping into the drapes of moonshine filtering from the glass atrium above. Before you stood a deadly beauty; a handsome face rapt with enticing secrets. With a painted crescent that mocked your own solar marking of gold. His lips were a perfect horizontal line, and it was difficult to imagine the ability they possessed beyond lethal silence. His hallowed expression screamed danger—but there was no running away—not when the black abyss of his eyes invited you to stay.
Not as a guest, but as his permanent resident.
“I’m warning you. Take one more step, and I’ll scream. The guards will come and they won’t hesitate to kill you—”
Your voice went taut inside your throat. Your breath sewn shut against your lungs. The weapon he carried listless at his side drenched itself in various hues of red. Fresh enough to steam in wisps around the sharpest point of the blade.
He stalked forward. The clack of his predetermined steps quickening the pace of your heart. When he stood at arms length, you felt the coldest touch of night. The veins layered beneath your skin pounded, flooding every inch of you with mortal dread. It was sickening to think the flush of your flesh would only make the spill of it all the better. The ‘Weapon of The Faithful’—titled by his own blasphemous people—spoke true. His name…you wished you could cleanse it from existence.
“Aphelios.” You damned the name like a plague upon all of Mount Targon. “Murderer. Blight. Heretic!”
You jabbed and swung your candlelight in a pitiful attempt to create distance. His free hand quipped against it, sending it clambering to the ground, banishing the flame to the surrounding night. Creating a hazier veil of darkness where there was only one true light—his moon.
Out of sheer disdain, you attempted to slap his face in recoil. His unarmed hand caught you by the wrist, remaining still as you struggled to free yourself from his trained grasp. With force, he pried your hand open, palm exposed. He brought the skin of it to his stiff lips. Unmoving, he lingered there. His lashes fluttered closed; taking a moment of peace, a moment of prayer.
A moment for sanctum.
His eyes then winged opened, boring into you, through you. Body, bone and soul. And all you could do was tremble within them. Sinking without escape into those black depths of…nothing.
In one swift motion, he brought the blade upwards, slicing through the thin linen of your garments. In a precise vertical line, your gown split into two equal halves. The insignificant barrier between you and him slipped to the ground, splaying like rags at your feet. Your head pounded for you to scream, but your own voice felt lost to you. Knowing it was all meaningless.
No one would hear you.
No one would save you.
Weakened by the surmounting despair of it all, if he hadn’t already had a hold on you, your legs would have given to the earth.
“No—“ you choked out, eyes brimming with tears. It must’ve looked pathetic; the way you placed your only free arm across your exposed breasts. As if any decorum of modesty would spare you. “Please—just kill me. Do nothing else but that. I beg of you.”
Your final sob for mercy reached ears that may as well have been carved of stone. He stalked closer, forcing your lower back to meet the mantled altar behind you. He’d sheathed his weapon, and took both of your hands within one tight grasp, in case you had half a mind to oppose him. You dipped your chin, heaving through a prayer with mournful hics and sniffled utterances. His advancing weight forced your trembling legs to part, and slotting himself between, created a space where your faith could never exist.
You didn’t want to look at him, or rather, you couldn’t. Tears scorched your vision and seared down the round of your cheeks. You flinched when he took your chin, raising your blurry gaze to meet his. In those darkest of pools, something gave. An insignificant speck of light gleaming into a faint existence. His lips moved, but there was no sound. Instead, you traced the words from the bow of his mouth.
‘Forgive me.’
Your heart clenched. Diluted blood spiked with fear drowned your consciousness. It left no room for thoughts to linger; whether or not you imagined even an ounce of sympathy reflected in those sedated eyes. Whether or not you imagined he said anything at all.
The entire world scattered away when he brought your face closer, and kissed away the tears staining the corners of your eyes. You fought to pull away, but he held firm, both your chin and hands locked in the cage of his fingers. From your cheeks, he skimmed his ghostly lips to your mouth. He muffled your protestive moans by filling up your mouth with all of his tongue.
He gave you the salt taste of your own tears. That, and the taste of something else. A saccharine flavor with notes of floral and bitter earth.
A reaction flourished; a slight tingle of your lips at first. It made his tongue feel hotter against yours, as parts of your upper mouth went numb. A stream of lukewarm paralysis seeped past your soft palate, filling every nook and cranny of your mindscape. Yet, the secondary symptoms didn’t stop there. An opposite wave traversed down your throat to your stomach, spilling fire throughout every layer of nerves. You clenched your lashes tight, shuddering a gasp into his open mouth.
When the pain settled into a dull simmer, you wondered briefly, had he felt it too? Had he consumed such a substance by choice? If that was a taste, what pain did he endure if he drank it like an offering of wine?
You didn’t want to imagine the terrible effects it might’ve had on his person. Not if it gave you even a single drop of sympathy. It was revolting enough his saliva was poisoning your pure sense of self. The fog of it sullying your inhibitions, stripping away your layers of moral preservation. To the absolute vitriolic parts of yourself, it made you consider…
What would it be like to be touched?
It was too sick and cruel of a thing to do to you. Since birth, you’d devoted your body and soul to your divine Goddess; The Golden Sister. You wanted to be disgusted by allowing the gift of yourself to become tainted by some awful man. No—he was worse than that. Or any word you could craft and cut the corners of your mouth with. He was, by biblical history, a Lunari man born from the cataclysmic eclipse of two moons. A day that marked the day of reckoning of the Solari faith and your people.
Your clouded senses and busied mouth made you unaware that his hand left your face to trail the mounds and curves of your body. A light touch drifting to your inner thighs. You jolted when a finger graced the sensitive hood of your exposed clit. Your thighs squirmed at his side as you attempted to jerk your knees. It did nothing and stirred nothing from him. Except bolster his conviction, tempting a finger lower, teasing your folds already glistening.
Although light-headed, you ripped your mouth away and nipped at his lip. It sprang forth droplets of blood, enough to taste his iron on your tongue. A trivial satisfaction.
“May you burn at dawn,” you condemned and spat at his lips.
Unflinching, he withdrew his hand and brushed over the blood mark you left. Sweeping it across his bottom lip, along with your saliva, he rolled the consistency between his fingers in private contemplation. Before he looked you dead in the eyes and stuck his fingers inside his mouth. Sucking and licking till his fingers dripped. Watching sent a lightning strike coiling down your spine.
He loomed his weight forward until your back met the altar mantle. With your palms pinned above your head, and legs coaxed wider. His coated hand repositioned down to your entrance, and you writhed with any strength your body could lend. His hold wrapped around your wrists squeezed, gentle in its reprimand. He leaned down to brush his face at the side of your cheek.
“Please…for your own sake.”
Your eyes widened at his frayed whispers stringing together. Breathing life into what seemed like an empty shell of a person. The frigid space between his mouth and your ear kindling with the slightest bit of warmth. It was what you feared the most. Forced to accept he was every bit human, with a horrid courtesy to use polite words and a pleasant, sickening tone. More insult to your injury. You wished he hadn’t spoken at all. Letting you believe in your mind that he was more aberration or phantom. Or anything else that carried not a single hint of a beating heart.
“I don’t want to hurt you…not anyone, really.” Again, comforting yet noxious. And it made whatever was inside you throb so terribly. As if he could sense it, he reached for it. His salivated finger split through your folds, sliding into the heat of your cunt. It elicited a drawn out whimper as you felt the sensual brush of it against a bed of tingling nerves. Gradually revealing a hidden desire you hadn’t wanted to gratify him with.
“But you…and your people…need to accept what can’t be denied any longer.” He punctuated his words with each thrust of his finger as it curved into that crescent shape you despised so much. Yet, you couldn’t deny the way it made your most feminine parts unravel at the seams. ”No matter how high your sun rises, my heavenly moon will always eclipse it. And fill the sun with Her beauty for all to see.“
A hitched whine fluttered past your lips as he easily slipped a second finger. While the heel of his palm pressed in circles, spreading your arousal and stimulating your plumping clit. Your cunt unashamedly sucked on his long fingers, encouraging him to mold and form you into what he needed you to be—a conduit for the undying affections of his faith.
“You might not see it, but the divine path has been shown to me. The one that’s led me to you. You can feel it at least, can’t you?” He flexed his digits and plunged a third finger. Deeper than the last, fuller than before. Your hips rolled forward on their own accord, craving every bit of attention from his touch.
With deliverance, you answered the question with a wail and arch of your back. Your whole body washed its nerves in a blinding heat. His fingers curled and flexed at your hungry walls clenching around him. It pushed a gush of sticky fluid from your twitching hole into his circling palm. Coming down from the spasms, you sobbed at the humiliating response of your body.
“So you do feel it.” There was a hidden sentiment of relief in his otherwise placid delivery. As if he’d purged the last blot of doubt that restrained him. You swallowed a mouthful of whines as his probing fingers continued undulating inside you. “Your body…it’s begging to devour me in all its warmth. And mine, yearning to take all your bright stars and bathe you by moon glow alone. Wanting us—and only us—to become one.”
Without warning, he emptied you of his fingers, a filthy squelch following with it. You sucked in a gasp at the crippling cold he left you with. But he wouldn’t abandon you for long. Shifting in the dark haze above you, he unsheathed his length from his garments and pressed himself against your sopping cunt. He dragged his fullness against your swollen and slicked folds. He wasn’t even inside you, yet you felt an agonizing cramp fisting in your stomach.
“By Her orders, by Her design…” he spoke through tight whispers, strained by his own anticipation. Pressing his full weight down, he hovered mere inches above you, panting bouts of aroused breaths against your lips. “Let us Converge.”
You squirmed and bucked underneath him. “Nn…not with you…anyone but—!”
You broke off into a high-pitched cry as he stretched you open, filling you up till he bottomed out, and pressed up to the hilt of his hips. He silenced both of your newly coupled hymns with his mouth, and each lap of his tongue matched the tempo of his generous thrusts. The sharp, intrusive pinch died as quickly as it came—the insignificant remnants of toxin dulling bits and pieces of certain pain receptive nerves. A gift, perhaps, in this instance. He had also prepped you well enough to accept all of his adoration, as intended. Another gift, as someone of his ‘giving’ nature may phrase it.
Pulling away slowly, the tip of his head rubbed graciously against every ridge of your swelling walls, before languidly pushing back, going past where you seemed to end. Beyond your farthest points you hadn’t thought existed. Pressing and rubbing all your soft spots and cervix with careful deliberation.
Then again, and again, and again.
“Can you feel it…my devotion…” he groaned into your open-mouthed kisses, continuing to work himself inside you. You weren’t even sure if he was speaking to you, or through you to his false Goddess.
His free hand found the round flesh of your breast, rolling your budded nipple delicately between the pad of his thumb and index. The other hand, squeezing at your captured wrists, but never tight enough to bruise. He had you lulling in a spellbinding rhythm underneath him, your hands fastened above your head, and hair spilling over the opposite side of the altar. When his mouth left your full lips, he possessed the nape of your neck, sucking the delicate skin above your life line. Your mewls, laced with the chasteless sounds of his base squelching at your entrance, leapt your pulse to an unreturnable pace.
“So warm,” he moaned low, staving off a growing need to revel in his own whines of ecstasy. “This pure sunlight of yours…I’m blessed to be the one who takes it. And you should be too. What an honor it is to be of service to my moon.”
You wanted to hate everything about it. The way he kissed you, the way he moved inside you—but you couldn’t. Every stiff and engorged part of him pressed almost lovingly against your most vulnerable parts; but that wasn’t the proper word for it. His affectionate caresses were zealous in origin. Not even for you. And boderlined a hedonistic doctrine you couldn’t describe. It would’ve been better if he were a man of barbaric qualities; rough and brutal. Not purposeful and diligent and—dared you admit it—tender. If he were the former, then your disgust could be justified, and your body would refuse him in its own rightful way. But it defied you, the lecherous thing. Insisting you melted beneath him and reduce to nothing but a drenched mess. Completely at the mercy of this Lunari man’s act of worship.
“Are you finally realizing it now? How generous my Goddess is compared to yours.” He abandoned the curve of your throat. Within the flush of his face, his eyes were suppled in absolute vindication at your shameless image. “How willing you are to accept me—to accept Her.”
“N-No…I’m…not…I won’t,” you pried your tongue for words.
He drawled out a quivering whine from your mouth. His body picking up to an impassioned pace, rutting into your sweltering heat. Tethering on his own abandoned pleasure. Your legs pushed themselves wider, opening yourself up more for him, drawing him deeper to pound against the tender knot growing in your belly.
Choked moans tightened in his throat. Your radiance gripped him with conviction, burning him so divinely from tip to base. Dragging him closer to your complete consummation. His fingers caught the contour of your face, tilting your head back. Your already swimming eyes rolled to follow, and watered at the sight of your Solari Goddess. Carved out from the temple wall, her sacred marbled gaze met your disgraceful expressions.
“That’s…hn…alright. You can lie to me. I’ll—we’ll always forgive you. But can you say the same for your deity? As she watches her little sunlight being pleasured by the moon’s devoted weapon. I—ha…doubt it very much.” An airy laugh cut through his thick moans intertwined with yours. He continued, inhaling and exhaling his words, raspy and down right broken. “It’s—almost our time…as reverence…your insides…with all of my…”
You couldn’t refuse the vile implication of his words. Not when his thickened, throbbing cock lapped achingly against your muddled core. Your blood boiled, draining out from your collapsing bodily veins to well up inside your stomach. Applying a pressure that made you want to burst into unmendable fractals of yourself. And you did—that tight knot broke in an instant, dilating your insides in a blaze of heat. Flooding you so wholly, you almost forgot to breathe through your delirious sobs of release.
When the smooth ridges of your walls clamped down, you heard it first as a moan of afflicted surrender on his part. Then, the cock buried inside you pulsed. A stream of white-hot fluid poured into you, shooting well past your cervix, bathing your womb with his warmth. But he didn’t stop there, continuing to indulge. He pumped and pushed the concoction of unified fluids till it poured past his base, and dripped in milky heaps from your hole. His pelvic and abdominal muscles shuddered as his hips rolled slowly but needingly, nursing himself through his over-stimulating climax.
From your tearful, half-lidded gaze, you witnessed a wet glisten in his own eyes. Whether induced by overwhelming pleasure or pained remorse, you would never know. You didn’t want to know.
It didn't matter.
They evaporated the moment he blinked again.
When the heaves and pants subsided, only the echoes of your whimpers remained. Unfastening his grasp from your wrists, his icy hands cupped your sulking face, idly running his thumbs across your soaked cheeks.
“I understand your pain. Believe me, I do. But no amount of tears will keep the celestial cycle from shifting in the moon’s favor. Like any phase, there will be a moment when you won’t hate me as you do now. You might even come to...love me.”
The way he paused made it seem he had no sense for the word. Or what the difference was between what was love and obsession. The look he possessed didn’t instill solace, either; his eyes mere slits of black against his porcelain face. Promising the moment you dared turn away from him, the back of your neck would bleed.
”I swear to you. From this night on, you’ll burn brightest by my reflection. And only my reflection. So long as there's breath and blood in this body, I’ll protect your sunlight from ever fading in the hands of anyone less deserving than mine. By cosmic fate, you’re my entire purpose, my entire existence...” he bent and kissed the solar marking painted on your forehead. “My orbit.”
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