#No more fucking infighting when there's better stuff to fight
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It doesn't matter who thinks who is more or less oppressed in the trans community, we have to lift each other up. Practice that classic gender neutral brand of feminism that calls for equality and doesn't point fingers at masculinity but rather acknowledges that we are all hurt by these dominant systems and strives to help us help each other. We don't treat people like objects, and we respect that other people's struggles are real too. Maybe consider the future generations when you're busy infighting. We've gotta make it better for them too.
#rants#I don't wanna see any more of my people discussing the semantics of transandrophobia when I know struggling transmascs.#No more fucking infighting when there's better stuff to fight#if you're frustrated please try to step back and do something nice#I know it's hard#I've failed many a time#but it's so much better in the long term to try not to dismiss each other
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It Will Come Back
Chapter 1, You Know Better
Two sides of a family fight for their own claims to the Targaryen inheritance. Amongst the endless infighting, forced pleasantries and PR scandals, Jaya Velaryon finds herself face to face with a demon of her past, namely Aemond Targaryen. Love and hate are not emotions easily unlearned.
Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist
Aemond Targaryen x Jaya Velaryon (OFC)
Warnings: 18+, dark elements, targcest (uncle x niece relationship) toxic family dynamics, drinking, recreational drug use, manipulation (I guess?)
Words: 5800
A/n: Please make sure you read the warnings. If any of this stuff makes you uncomfortable feel free to give it a miss 🫶 Also serves as my (very very late) entry for Week 1 of the literary prompts for @hotd-bigbang
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” -Wuthering Heights
6 years earlier...
Jaya leaned on her shoulder against the wall by the side door, waiting as inconspicuously as she could despite the fact she was dressed in a black crop top, skirt and pumps. Clearly, she had no intention of spending the evening at home.
She shifted her weight on her feet, pulled at the hem of her crop top and checked the pocket of her black denim jacket; pocket mirror, lipgloss, eyeliner, and the vintage lighter Aemond had slipped into her hands a few months ago. Every time she tried to give it back he wouldn’t take it. She smiled to herself as she traced her thumb over the engraving of a three headed dragon in the silver plating. He said he had found it in his father’s study years ago, but Viserys had enough of them to not notice that one had gone missing, apparently.
She froze when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs and through the hallway. They were too light to be Laenor’s, too quick to be Rhaenyra’s, too cautious to be Luke or Joff.
Jace appeared through the archway, a red blazer thrown over his shoulder, his shirt untucked and unbuttoned at the top to show off two chains, one gold, one silver. His perfectly white sneakers hardly made a sound against the hardwood floors. He tutted when he saw her.
“What?” she said, tightening her grip on the lighter in her pocket.
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Jaya had a few memories of their apartments at the Red Keep. She considered the humbly named Queen’s Lodge to be the only home she had ever known. The house sat on a large estate in the corner of Queen’s Park, not too far from the centre of King’s Landing, but removed from the noise and chaos of the city. The front looked out over immaculately kept gardens while the back of the house was for leisure, the patio, the pool and the tennis court beyond that. The side door Jaya and Jace found themselves passing through every Friday night led out to a small orchard of apple trees.
Summer was fast approaching but the night air was far from warm. Once Jace had locked the door from the inside latch and pocketed the spare key, Jaya led him down the barely visible path, down to a denser grove of older, taller trees, to the iron fence that bordered the entire estate. Jace hoisted her up and over the fence before clambering after her.
Where the daylight saw countless people passing through the park, the Velaryon twins walked through darkness and silence along the boardwalk, down to the gates that were locked every day at sunset.
Well, almost silence. Jace walked a few paces behind his sister, huffing and sighing pointedly.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Jaya said over her shoulder, a fact she reminded him of every week.
“I’m not going to let you go alone,” Jace said.
She tried to appreciate the intention, but having him dragging his feet behind her, constantly complaining when he could just stay home was frankly getting exhausting.
“I won’t be alone,” she said, checking the last few texts on her phone.
The first read, Here.
Which was soon followed by, Hurry up. It’s fucking cold :)
Jaya giggled to herself and looked ahead. The gate was coming into view now, and so were the two girls waiting by it.
They were both dressed in black, Sabby in a mini dress trimmed with lace, Alyssane in flared jeans, a Vivienne Westwood top and a pearl necklace.
“Did you not think to bring a jacket, Sabs?” Jaya grinned as Jace helped her over the gate.
“It’s strategic,” Alysanne said, “she’ll complain she’s cold and some cool, sexy economics student will offer her his jacket.”
“Politics,” Sabby said, reaching to help Jaya as she slipped down. “Gods, you must be the first person to ever say ‘cool’, ‘sexy’ and ‘economics student’ in the same sentence.”
From the park it was only a short walk to the bus stop, and a matter of minutes until they reached Conquest Street. Jaya loved it, the energy buzzing in the streets as they passed the pubs and bars, music pulsing from every direction, people laughing and shouting to make themselves heard.
From there she knew the way to Maegor’s Square without thinking. A few people lingered around the garden at the centre of the square and some leaned over the balconies in their aparments, smoking cigarettes and sipping expensive booze from mismatched glasses.
Then they came to the townhouse on the corner, with the emerald green door and the gold knocker in the shape of a dragon’s head. A bit on the nose, but their family were hardly known for their subtlety.
“I can’t believe you got us an invite to one of Aegon’s parties,” Alysanne hissed excitedly into her ear.
It was nothing really, Aegon wasn’t picky about the company he kept, and if anything, he liked picking up waifs and strays.
Jaya smiled as she checked her makeup in her pocket mirror. “Well, I am his favourite niece,” she said, smudging out the eyeliner in the corners of her eyes.
“You’re his only niece,” Jace grumbled.
“Exactly, no room for competition,” Jaya said, before applying another swipe of red lipgloss over her lips. “How do I look?” she asked the three of them.
Alysanne and Sabby immediately responded with praise that just seemed to float through her.
Jace tilted his head. For a moment Jaya thought she saw pity in her brother’s eyes.
“Beautiful,” he said, “you’re always beautiful.”
Jaya tutted. She didn’t mean her, she meant the makeup.
She tapped the knocker four times before being greeted by a haze of smoke, the smell of liquor and a slow psychedelic rock song playing from another room. The door had been opened by Arryk Cargyll, one of Aegon’s uni friends. He had a glass of clear liquid and ice in his hand and a cigarette hanging in the corner of his mouth. He hugged Jaya tightly and she beamed back, making a point to ask about his upcoming internship at Lannister Legal. He seemed impressed that she had remembered.
“Third year law,” she said to Alysanne and Sabby. “And he has a twin brother, Erryk. Politics,” she added with a wink. The girls giggled.
Jace settled for a quick handshake and a nod.
“Friends from school?” Arryk asked as he greeted the girls.
“Yeah, we’re all at Peremore’s,” Alysanne said, slotting herself beside him with a well-practised smile. They had another few weeks of classes before their final exams, but they all had their university applications confirmed.
Arryk led them through the bodies lingering in the hallway, into the kitchen and Alysanne began the usual routine of telling him what she studied– Politics, Psychology and Literature– and her plans to do Law at Vale. Sabby looked a little sour.
Jaya made herself at home, leaning against the black marble countertop, grinning to herself as Arryk suggested opening a bottle of champagne. He poured out four glasses, keeping one for himself, handing one each to Sabby and Alysanne. He went to give the fourth to Jaya then looked to Jace with a look of embarrassment.
“It’s fine,” Jace said shortly, “I’ll get myself a beer–”
“Jacey boy!” a theatrical voice called as the double glass door to the garden swung open. Aegon Targaryen swept into the room with a cold breeze, slapping his hand down on his nephew’s shoulder.
Jaya briefly glanced around the room, searching for another head of silver hair. Her heart sank a little when she didn’t find it.
The angles of Aegon’s face made him look severe, especially when he smiled, but it was countered by his wide violet eyes with a softer, sadder look. He looked at Jaya, with a firm hand on Jace’s shoulder, and smiled. She smiled back.
“Made it at last,” Aegon said as Jace shrugged him off. “I thought you two were getting here early.”
“No I told you,” Jaya said, nodding to her friends, “I brought guests.”
Aegon could turn charm on like a switch. His voice suddenly took on a richer tone as he introduced himself to the girls, shaking their hands and pressing light kisses to their knuckles.
Jace plucked a green bottle from the fridge and began to drink, scowling at everyone between sips.
“Could you at least look like you’re having fun?” Jaya muttered into his ear as he settled beside her against the counter.
“What’s fun about this?” he replied.
She supposed she knew what he meant. These parties weren’t always as exciting as she wanted them to be, watching other people get wasted, sitting through not-entirely-sober lectures from Aegon’s friends, which really just felt like they were getting off to the sound of their own voices. It could be quite intimidating sometimes, but this was just how adults had fun.
She had this vision that one day something would just click. All the boring parts of parties would seem fun, the drinks wouldn’t taste as strong, the mindless small talk with people she didn’t know would make sense, the music wouldn’t feel so loud.
For now she had her own reason for coming to Maegor’s Square every Friday night.
Her heart hummed when she heard footsteps coming from the hallway. A few voices muttered vague greetings which were met by a distant “hmm.”
“Why haven’t you got a drink yet, Jaya?” Aegon asked and she realised she had yet to take the champagne from Arryk.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped and a thrill slipped down her spine. Someone was looming behind her. She could feel his breath on her neck and the heat radiating from his body.
“She’ll have some of this,” a low but soft voice said, holding out a glass of red wine in front of her. She recognised his hand, the veins and the tendons prominent underneath pale skin. The silver signet ring on his little finger, engraved with a three headed dragon. The scent of his perfume, woody and green, lingering with the smell of tobacco.
Jaya took the glass with her fingertips, trying to hide her delight as she turned over her shoulder to face him. Aemond gazed down at her with a gentle look in his blue eyes and the corners of his mouth curled into a small smile.
“What is it?” she asked, bringing it to her lips.
“It’s Dornish,” he said, “you’ll like it.”
She wasn’t sure if she liked it, so much as she could swallow it without wincing, but Aemond always seemed so happy when she liked the things he gave her. His eyes were fixed on her face as she took three small sips, and wiped away the red imprint of her lipgloss on the rim. It was sour and it left a slight burn on her tongue. She muttered an apology about the lipgloss but he didn’t seem to mind, drinking from the other side of the glass when he took it back.
She kept her back to the others as Aegon, Arryk and the girls all became better acquainted. She stayed as close to Aemond as she dared, her chest a few inches from his, her neck craning to look up at him even with her heels.
“I missed you while you were away,” she said, fighting the urge to fiddle with the fabric of her skirt or the polished surface of her red painted nails.
Aemond’s mother liked to whisk her children away every year for a few weeks around spring break, usually to join the rest of the Hightower family at Honeywine Hall, an old manor house in the mountains. It sounded perfect, hiking, horse trails, swimming in reservoirs and trips into Oldtown. She lived as vicariously as she could through Aemond’s nightly phone calls and the souvenirs he had sent her, the postcards, the photographs and even a book he had found in a second-hand shop in Oldtown, a special edition of Wuthering Heights with gold lettering on a patterned cover.
She and Aemond exchanged any details they might have missed from their phone calls. She liked watching him talk, the way his lips moved, the bashful way he would avert his eyes from hers when he felt himself going off on a tangent. Equally she liked the way he watched her when it was her turn to speak, the brightness of his eyes, his almost smug expression and the smile lines in his cheeks.
“Oh!” she gasped, feeling her eyes going wide, “and I read Wuthering Heights.” Of course she had. She had devoured it within days of receiving the parcel from him.
Aemond smiled and her heart ignited. Most of the books she read came at his recommendation.
“What did you think?” he asked, trailing the tip of his index finger up and down his glass.
“I mean, you know how I feel about classics, and I suppose it was rather difficult to get into at first, but it was…” she gestured vaguely with her hand while she tried to think, before she settled on “haunting.”
“Haunting,” he echoed. “In a good way or a bad way?”
“In a beautiful way.”
His eyes were on hers, his lips settled into a look of calm content, perhaps even pride. She hoped it was pride.
“It was so vivid. I loved the longing and the hopelessness,” she said.
Aemond laughed quietly at that, taking another sip of wine and drawing the tip of his tongue over his lips. “I knew you’d like it, you love the doom and gloom.”
If she did, it was because he had taught her to. They liked all the same things, classic fiction, horror movies, cold weather, black coffee, quiet moments during loud parties when their eyes would meet in understanding, or recognition that they were two people whose souls were the same.
She had to bite down her fury with her tongue between her teeth when someone else came along to steal Aemond’s attention. Rickard Thorne, she thought the guy’s name was, one of Aemond’s coursemates.
Jaya’s tactic for parties was to keep moving. She took Sabby by the hand and nodded at Jace, suggesting they move into the lounge. Alysanne had firmly been lost to Arryk; somehow she had turned a conversation about paralegal internships into flirting and Jaya was rather impressed.
She felt like she was good at this by now, starting conversations with the young and beautiful of the city’s elite, most of whom were students at the university– and spending a lot of these parties by Aemond’s side, she had picked up enough to converse with even the most pretentious of politics students. But it was her birthright to belong in a place like this. She didn’t have the silver hair or the violet eyes, but everyone knew who she was before she could tell them. She could see it in their eyes as she introduced herself. You’re Rhaenyra Targaryen’s daughter.
Each venture into the kitchen came with a stop by the assortment of bottles on the counter, but she mostly stuck with the arbour red. When she couldn’t find any more bottles of that, she and Sabby found a sickly sweet rosé that was easier to drink.
She checked the time at midnight, feeling a pleasant haze fall over her. She could hardly stop giggling at everything, at Sabby’s struggle to pour a drink and ending up with more wine on the counter than in her glass, at the couples in the hallway trying to suffocate each other with their mouths and bodies. She wandered through the house without knowing where she wanted to go, and squinted at the head of brown curls buried into the neck of Loras Tyrell. Shit. Well at least Jace was having some fun now.
She ended up in the dining room at the front of the house. This seemed to be where most of the fun was happening. There was a black leather sofa by the door, where Alysanne was sitting between Arryk and Aegon. They were sharing a bottle of vodka between them and whispering into each other’s ears between swigs.
In the centre of the room was a vintage mahogany table. A small group gathered around it, spectating an apparently gripping game of chess. Sitting over the white pieces was one of the Tully brothers, and over the black pieces was Aemond.
He had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, leaning with his elbows on the table and swirling a glass of whisky as he considered his next move. A mischievous smirk graced his lips as he glanced up at his opponent, and raised his hand to move a piece. Their audience gasped and muttered amongst themselves in awe.
Aemond’s eyes met hers across the room. His hair had fallen slightly, the edges forming a curtain over his forehead. He smiled into his drink. This was his version of a few too many, challenging people to chess games and breaking out the expensive liquor.
She suddenly felt proud, then embarrassed, and turned back to the sofa.
Aegon was placing a pill on Alysanne’s tongue while Arryk handed her the vodka to wash it down. She winced but managed to swallow it.
Aegon caught Jaya’s eye. “Want one?” he asked, looking at her with his chin tilted down and his overgrown hair falling around his eyes. It looked less charming than Aemond’s, more messy than effortless.
The grin on his face made her feel uneasy. She had always been an observer of these habits, never a participant. She meant to ask what it was he had given Alysanne and the question was on the tip of her tongue—
“Zaldrīzītsos,”
Her head snapped back to Aemond without hesitation. He was turned away from the table a little, a dark, almost furious expression on his face. She wondered why, surely she hadn’t done anything wrong? He beckoned her over with a single finger but she was already walking towards him.
When she was close enough, Aemond wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. She burned where their skin met, especially when his hand came to hold her side, fingertips pressing into her flesh.
“Now,” he muttered into her ear and she shuddered at the sensation of his breath over her neck. “I want your help with something. Tell me you see what I’m seeing.”
She dragged her attention to the board and the pieces upon it. It almost felt like a test, but she had no intentions of disappointing him.
It wasn’t entirely obvious at first, they seemed to be pretty evenly matched, but then she saw it. A discrepancy in Tully’s game. She played through a few moves in her head, just like Aemond had taught her.
She turned her head back to Aemond with the beginnings of a smile. With his knowing look she knew she had it figured out.
She looked across the board at the Tully boy. “Checkmate in three,” she said.
His eyes widened and looked down frantically. “You’re bluffing,” he said, “you’re having me on, there’s no fucking way–”
“Do the honours for me, would you?” Aemond’s voice whispered in her ear, giving her waist a slight squeeze.
She couldn’t help but grin as she went to move one of Aemond’s pieces.
And suddenly Tully saw it too. “Shit,” he said. “Shit. Shit. Shit!” He tried desperately to counter with his Queen.
Jaya made the second move triumphantly, pitifully met by Tully’s attempt to save the game, but it was already won.
When she reached for the final move, Aemond’s hand wrapped around hers. “I started the game, only fair that I finish it, yes?”
She could hardly find the breath to reply. “Yes,” she uttered, letting Aemond guide her hand into her lap before he moved the final piece.
“Checkmate,” he said coolly, flicking over Tully’s King with his finger.
He would have won either way, but Jaya was happy to have even just a small share in his victory. But then with the game over, she supposed she didn’t have a reason to stay so close to him.
Aemond brought his face before hers, until the tips of their noses barely touched. “Good girl for spotting that,” he murmured.
His praise hit her like electricity. For a moment she thought she was going to lose her balance, bracing herself with a palm on his thigh as he brought both hands to her waist. She was steady. She was stable.
“How much have you had?” Aemond asked with a smirk.
“Gods, uncle, why do you have to sound so self-righteous?” she huffed, bringing her hands to the silky material of his shirt. She watched her hands glide over his chest, delicately and effortlessly. The top few buttons were undone, baring his neck. She thought about running her finger along it, down to the hollow spot in his collar bone. Or she could trail it along his jaw, over the sight hint of stubble she could see. Then she could let her thumb linger on his lip– Gods she loved his lips and the smile lines around his mouth.
A soft but startling noise brought both of their attention to the sofa. Sabby was here now too, but she was talking to Alysanne– no she was leaning over her, or was she trying to pull her up? Arryk and Aegon were on their feet, in some sort of argument.
Jaya frowned, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. “What are they–”
Aemond pushed her onto her feet by her waist. Now that she wasn’t sitting down she felt dizzy but she clung onto a chair to keep her balance.
Aemond was kneeling beside Alysanne and pulling her hair from her face while she was sprawled out on the sofa. Sabby was shouting at Aegon and Arryk.
Jaya felt more sober with each step she took towards them. She was hit with a boozy, sour smell and realised that the front of Alysanne’s top was drenched with what looked like water, but was trailing from her mouth. She was crying, and when Jaya got close enough, she saw her hands were trembling.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Jace’s voice bellowed from the doorway. He rushed forward and Aemond was by Jaya’s side before Jace could shove him away.
Jaya was frozen, even as Aemond curled his arm around her shoulder.
“She’ll be fine,” Aegon was saying, “she's just had a bad reaction, she can sleep it off.”
Sabby had Alysanne sitting up now. Her sobs were getting less frantic now, but it was hard to see her so clearly distressed.
Jace scowled at Aegon. “What did you give her?”
Jaya felt Aemond’s arm tensing tighter around her.
Aegon smiled. “Don’t worry, kid, wouldn’t dream of giving her anything too strong.”
She saw the way Jace’s jaw tensed at Aegon’s choice of words.
“Seven fucking hells,” Aemond muttered under his breath.
Her brother was on a knife’s edge, his fists clenching by his sides. Aegon seemed unphased at his silent threats.
Jaya pulled herself away from Aemond and went to Alysanne.
“How do you feel?” Sabby kept asking her.
“My head hurts,” Alysanne grumbled, cradling her forehead in her palms.
“Can you stand up?” Jaya suggested.
Alysanne lurched to her feet without warning, stumbling forward but Jaya and Sabby were there to catch her.
“There…” Alysanne groaned, but she was still struggling to find her footing. “I did it.”
“She needs to go home,” Sabby said, bringing Alysanne’s arm around her shoulders.
With one final seething glare to Aegon, then Arryk, then Aemond, Jace turned his anger to Jaya. “Why the fuck did you let that happen?” he hissed.
Her stomach dropped and she could only stare at him with wide eyes and furrowed brows. “What?” she uttered.
“Alysanne is your friend,” he seethed. “You should know better.”
He was right though. She had been the one to suggest Alysanne and Sabby come along. She had let Alysanne get close to Arryk and Aegon. She’d seen Aegon put a pill on her tongue and she hadn’t even questioned it.
Her eyes were starting to sting, like she wanted to cry but she couldn’t quite remember how. She just wished Jace would stop looking at her like that, his glare laced with venom and scolding, like she was a child, like he knew better. Jace always thought he knew better.
Aemond stepped forward to help Sabby carry Alysanne. “I’ll call you a car—”
“No,” Jace snapped, standing in his way. “You lot have done enough already.” He brought one arm around Alysanne and pulled out his phone with his other hand. He muttered something to Sabby and the three of them began to muddle their way to the hallway.
“Oh you’re leaving?” Aegon called after them with a dramatic frown and his hand clutched to his chest.
Jaya could only find herself able to watch and breathe in the stench of her friend’s vomit. The other faces in the room were hungry and curious. They all had their heads close together, whispering and gasping but not loud enough that she could make out anything tangible.
Aemond leaned into her and she instinctively met his gaze. “Are you going too?”
She realised Jace was stopped in the doorway, glaring at her expectantly.
Then Sabby’s voice called from the front door. Their car was here. They needed to leave now. Alysanne had to get home.
“Jaya can spend the night here, Jace,” Aemond said before she could think of something to say. “I’ll drop her off in the morning.”
Jace’s face fell as he looked at his sister one final time. Jaya gave him a small nod and then he was gone.
The house was surprisingly quiet once the front door slammed shut.
And of course there was only one person who was going to break the silence.
Aegon began laughing. It wasn’t a sound she liked. It was loud and obnoxious and cold. But the attention was on him at least and before long it was almost as if nothing had happened. Arryk grabbed some paper towels, Aegon was doing lines off the dining table, and Jaya was still standing in the middle of the room, letting the noise of chatter and the bass of a slow song float through her.
Aemond’s hand on her shoulder anchored her back into the room.
“I think you should go to sleep,” he said.
“But it’s early,” she groaned as he guided her towards the kitchen.
She hooked her arms around his elbow as he reached for a glass and filled it with water.
“It’s nearly one,” he said, handing her the glass. “Come on, we’ll get up early and get you something to eat before you go home. Sound good?”
She nodded as she tried to drink and ended up banging her teeth on the glass. Aemond chuckled softly, it was more like a hum in his throat. She had an awful feeling that he was laughing at her mistake.
He draped her jacket over his spare arm and led her through the hallway, up the winding staircase to the top floor. The house had three in total and because it was only the two of them living there, Aegon and Aemond had their own floors with a bedroom, an ensuite and a study— not that Aegon’s study was ever used for its intended purpose.
She loved Aemond’s bedroom with its dark wood floors, forest green walls, rows of bookshelves and the old record player in the corner. She went into the ensuite to wash the makeup from her face and the wine stains in the corners of her mouth, brushed her teeth with a spare toothbrush and changed into the t-shirt Aemond had pulled from his drawer.
When she came back into the room Aemond was only in his jeans, his shirt thrown over a chair, leaning by the open window and fiddling with a filter and a packet of tobacco. She was determined not to look at his chest, the lines of his abs, or the trail of silver hair running below the waistband of his jeans.
“Light?��� he muttered when he noticed her.
Jaya nodded and took the lighter from the pocket of her jacket. She tried to walk as straight as she could over to where Aemond was. He placed the cigarette between his teeth and leaned into her.
It took her a few tries to spark the light. She huffed at her own incompetence and dug her teeth into her lower lip, but her third attempt proved to be a charm. The flame bathed Aemond’s face with warmth and flickers of shadows over the angles of his face.
She watched, hypnotised by the way his chest rose as he inhaled the smoke, and the way his lips pouted as he turned his head and expelled it towards the window. Even then she could smell the smoke and feel traces of it burning in her nose and throat.
His eyes moved back to her. He smirked at her apparent fascination.
He offered her the cigarette and she frowned. He’d never done that before.
Her hands felt light and a little numb, but she reached for it, holding it between her fingers like he always did. But then she realised she had no idea what she should do next.
“Take a drag,” Aemond said softly. “But not too much, you'll make yourself sick.”
She brought it to her lips and started to pull the smoke into her mouth. Her eyes moved to his when she had reached the end of his instruction.
“Hold it.” The gentle commanding of his voice put her on edge.
She decided the taste and the sensation of the smoke wasn’t pleasant, but she didn’t dislike it.
“Breathe in…” Aemond said, his chest moving with hers as she inhaled the smoke, “... and out.”
As she exhaled she blew the smoke over Aemond’s face. “Fuck!” she giggled, trying to wave it away, “sorry, I just didn’t think–”
“It’s alright,” Aemond said with a smile as he took the cigarette back from her and brought it to his lips again. “How do you feel?”
She let her head fall towards her shoulder. She felt light and heavy. Happy and sad. Lots of things and nothing specific.
After another exhale of smoke out the window, Aemond took a step into her and leaned down to press a light kiss to her forehead.
Jaya’s chest felt tight. Her heart raced but she stopped herself from reacting.
She couldn’t remember when Aemond started to make her feel nervous. When they were kids they were inseparable, even though she was closer in age to Daeron and their parents were convinced she and Helaena should be like sisters. She followed him everywhere, asked him questions constantly and insisted they hold hands wherever they went. She adored him. She still did now.
She muttered a quiet “night,” and dragged herself towards the bed, wrapping herself in the heavy duvet and curling into the pillows.
She couldn’t sleep yet. The noise of the party hummed through the house, but what caught her attention was the sound of Aemond’s breath moving between his lips. She could still picture his face perfectly, the pout of his lips and his jaw.
She couldn’t help it. She opened her eyes. He was leaning against the windowsill, tapping the ash into a small tray before taking another few drags. She watched him until he stubbed the embers out and moved his hands down to the buttons on his jeans.
A thrill rippled down her front, down to her abdomen.
Stop it.
She quickly turned onto her other side, pulling the duvet up to her chin. She still didn’t let herself fall asleep. She waited with bated breath.
She followed the gentle thud of his jeans being tossed onto the chair and the sound of his footsteps. He let out a throaty sigh as the mattress dipped behind her.
And then she felt him, the warmth of his body against her back, his arm around her waist, pulling her into him, his breath fluttering against her loose hair.
“I’m sorry if you didn’t have a good night,” he muttered. She felt the hum of his voice between her shoulders.
“No,” she whispered, “it was fine.”
It wasn’t fine. She still wanted to cry.
Aemond’s hand started to trace circles over her stomach through the t-shirt. This kind of proximity had become a habit between them even after they had outgrown childish affection, lingering touches and delicate kisses. She loved it. He wasn’t this close with anyone else.
But she couldn't stop thinking about Alysanne, the grin on Aegon's mouth as he fed her the pill, or the look of anger on Jace's face when he left.
“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” she said.
Aemond froze, his hand paused, splayed across her stomach. It left her with a tight, restless feeling in her belly.
Then he embraced her, tightening his grip, almost squeezing her against him and burying his face into her neck. “Never,” he muttered, his breath hot against her skin. “You could never make me feel like that.”
For a moment his lips pressed against her neck. Aemond pulled away slightly, seemingly having done it by accident. Jaya was still, clinging onto his arm and holding her breath.
Until Aemond leaned in again to place a soft but purposeful kiss to her neck. It felt like she was being smothered, the weight of his body pressing into her side, his arm keeping her tightly against him, while her breath came through her nose and mouth with little huffs.
He began to trail his kisses up her neck, along her jaw, to her cheek, until she realised what he wanted. She angled her head back, enough for him to press his lips against hers.
He kissed her slowly, letting his lips drag lazily over hers as his hand crept beneath her t-shirt.
She gave a short whine when she felt his palm against her bare skin.
“Shh,” he cooed against her mouth, letting his tongue slip between her lips. He tasted sweet and bitter, like wine and whisky and smoke. He was still gentle though, and Jaya eased herself further into him.
She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but she must have fallen asleep at some point, no matter how she wished they could have stayed in a blissful mess of warmth, lips, tongue and teeth.
Tags (comment to be added to either)
General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya @dreamsofoldvalyria
Series taglist: @aemondsbabygirl @persephonerinyes @sirenangelroyal @qyburnsghost @adragonprinceswhore @boundlessfantasy @bouncehousedemons
#aemond targaryen#aemond targaryen fanfic#aemond targaryen fic#aemond targaryen fanfiction#aemond targaryen x ofc#aemond targaryen x oc#aemond targaryen x reader#aemond targaryen x you#hotd#hotd fanfiction#hotd fanfic#house of the dragon#house of the dragon fanfiction#modern!au#aemond targaryen smut#my fics#it will come back#hozier coded
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Ough maybe I'll write like. A full post one day but I'm having a migraine and. Ough this is not going to be eloquent. Anyways
I think a lot of you tumblr trans people need to go outside. Like I don't mean in it a mean way; but for me personally I was a part of irl trans community before I was on tumblr or had any online trans community and honestly a lot of issues people are talking about here are. Not a thing irl?
Like some sort of fighting between transmascs and transfemmes? That's not a thing in real life. Maybe it is a thing in real life but only when almost every person in the community is chronically online or something.
For the longest time I didn't understand the concept of transmisandry and I've seen it a lot on this webbed site. I was even like. Cautious of it because I know several irl trans men who after they transitioned and started passing started being misogynistic to pass. Or just misogynistic. So at first I was like wait is it like the incely Men's Rights Activism trans edition?? And then I read more and apparently transmisandry is. People not believing that trans men experience misogyny??? People thinking that trans men have the same standing in society as cis men??? Which is like. Have you Ever been outside. I want to apologize to some of my mutuals for being critical when y'all were posting about transmisandry I never said anything outloud but I was judging you in my mind. But now that I know what transmisandry really is I'm like. In my defense that's not a thing in non-radfem non-chronically online spaces. At least the spaces I've been to?? Like I believe you that that is something that's real and that you've experienced. But also that just sounds so unbelievably chronically online and stupid to me. Like what do you mean people think trans men don't experience misogyny. Do people think misogynists can sniff out trans men before they transition and like. Not be sexist to them?? Anyways.
And like. A lot of other issues that I would've expanded upon if my head didn't hurt like a bitch. Like those are some twitter ass problems. Like people not being feminist anymore?? Because they think all feminists are terfs???? Which is like. I know in some countries terfs have like. Actual standing in society and government and like. Are an actual threat. But like. In most places if you go Outside. Feminism is good and needed and terfs have no friends. They only can go on twitter and tiktok and shit. Most irl feminist spaces are. You know. Actually feminist. At least from what I've seen?? When I'm Outside. Anyways. I think a lot of you and I say that with all the love in my heart need to go Outside
And like I know that sometimes transmisandry is also a problem Outside. Sometimes trans infighting is a problem Outside. Sometimes terfs are a problem Outside. And if you experience these problems Outside its valid and I hope things get better to Outside where you are.
But a lot of you have seen these problems online and never ever went Outside and I think you should try it because a lot ofbthe time Outside is not tumblr and normal not chronically online people are Normal about stuff so maybe you should talk to Normal people yeah yeah. Fuck I'm hungry but if I get up my head will Hurt again. Anyways go Outside and also send me Beams of Get Better. Bye.
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i think sometimes people forget that there's more than one way to be trans & that bigots Do Not Care what flavour of trans you are, they want us all dead so can we please stop arguing over things that literally dont matter and lift each other up instead of tearing each other down? im sick of this afab vs amab, tme vs tma, transmasc vs transfemme, the total erasure of transnonbinary & trans intersex individuals (or just nonbinary & intersex ppl in general). im so so so sick of all these new boxes we're trying to stuff each other in when elder trans ppl fought so hard against those boxes!!
for fucks sake, no one trans group has it any better or any worse than any other trans group, we just have it different, the transphobes want us ALL dead - whether its for different reasons or by different means, dead is dead. they dont care if youre tme afab transfemme or if youre tma axab transfemmasc or if youre a god damn clown fish. its all the same "agenda" to them.
im so fucking done seeing posts saying "trans women have No idea what its like to deal with....." or "TMEs fuck off! you're not welcome here!" or any of that shit because THAT is exactly how white supremacists get a foothold in. THAT is how we lose this battle. fucking THAT is how we get divided and conquered. they want us to split up into smaller groups and fight each other, they want us to be too weak to fight back and the way to do that is to wittle down our numbers & until they can get away with outright killing us in broad daylight (more than they already have) they have to make do with splitting us up and turning us against each other
im just sick and tired of all the infighting, you're either with ALL of us or you're with the white supremacists, idfc if you are trans yourself. we need all of us to work together and put our differences aside. it is not that fucking hard to sit yourself down and go "ok well they may not know what it's like to be me, but i dont know what its like to be them either" and realise that turning against other trans ppl just bc "they dont understand" is ridiculous and just a bad move when we're in the middle of a fight for our fucking lives. who cares who's "more oppressed" this isnt the god damn olympics, this is the fight for human rights and right now we need to focus on keeping all of us alive. save your petty irrelevant fucking discourse for when we aren't focused on trying to keep our community ALIVE
#bug talks#bug rants#this is inspired by being transnonbinary & experiencing transmisogyny as well as transandrophobia and they are both equally bad#& way too many of yall binary trans ppl seem to forget about those of us who Do experience what its like to be treated as both#ive been mistaken for a trans woman & a trans man more times than i can fuckin count#they are both insidious#but way too many of yall are too busy arguing over who has it worse and whos forcing who out of what space#yall dont even realise that its a community wide issue & people are guilty of this on all sides#but sure keep reinventing gender norms trans edition that's fine#and when we get our throats stomped on and our intestines pulled out by our mouths im sure itll Really matter whos tme or tma#which btw is a term that doesnt even make sense because any person on earth can be a victim of transmisogyny bc transphobes r idiots???#you cant tell who's trans and who isnt by looking at them and so even cis women and cis men and trans men and intersex folk can experience#transmisogyny so i dont understand what the point of that label even is
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I posted 3,407 times in 2022
That's 765 more posts than 2021!
59 posts created (2%)
3,348 posts reblogged (98%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@stardads
@thewriterowl
@materassassino
@blackkatmagic
@pridoo
I tagged 2,848 of my posts in 2022
Only 16% of my posts had no tags
#star wars - 1,944 posts
#dinluke - 1,170 posts
#naruto - 370 posts
#mandalorian - 263 posts
#luke skywalker - 256 posts
#clan of three - 191 posts
#din djarin - 148 posts
#clan of two - 132 posts
#video - 112 posts
#fashion - 106 posts
Longest Tag: 81 characters
#din doing something crazy that puts his life in danger to protect those he loves?
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
This is a TRAVESTY. There isn't enough Firefighter Din Djarin content ! So my brain is working on something and I may or may not have thought of Museum Educator Luke Skywalker- who works at a museum that is surrounded by a beautiful garden.
26 notes - Posted March 29, 2022
#4
Five times Mand'alor Luke revealed he was married and one time Jedi Knight Din revealed he was married. (Plus two bonuses!)
My second fic for @dinlukeweek!!! The prompt: Mand'alor and Jedi Master.
It's not all 5 +1 because I wanted to at least post on the right day but I will fix everything when it is typed up.
See the full post
30 notes - Posted June 18, 2022
#3
While I figure some stuff out for Prince!Luke and Consort!Din here is a snippet of the beginning of my Dinluke soulmate AU heheeheh
"In a fashion that would make Obi-Wan and Yoda disapprove, Luke would sneak into Coruscant and lay low with Han and Leia in their suite. And in a move that would make his father proud (he thinks), he would dress up as one of Leia's guards and would go to the Senate sessions to silently observe everything."
32 notes - Posted April 7, 2022
#2
When Leia and Han agree they are better off as friends than lovers, Leia goes to Paz and asks for the right to duel him for courtship. Paz is floored, fully not understanding, but agrees.
After a hard fight, Leia wins. After agreeing to the courtship, Leia hauls Paz by the armor and kisses his helmet. He is a fucking mess, still trying to catch up with everything.
Din and Luke are considerably unhelpful- Luke too busy laughing his ass off and Din busy holding his lover up so he doesn't end up on the ground. Din also quips on a congratulations and Paz is like "VOD!" nearly tempted to sock Din a good one but also doesn't want to let go of Leia- who is very pleased with herself.
70 notes - Posted March 28, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Ya'll heard of Consort Luke and Mand'alor Din but get ready for....
Diplomatic Husband Din with Prince Luke of Naboo. With arranged marriage trope!
Where Jedi and Mandalore are still around, Anakin doesn't turn to the Darkside but still fucks off from the Order to start his own and lives happily with Padme, and Leia is still a boss in the Senate (Will she end up with Han or get a Mando husband of her own? It is anyone's guess. Stay tuned). Luke lives on Naboo and serves there but is still a kick ass Jedi in his father's order. Every mando wants Din in their clan or wants him to fight for the Darksaber but he is just like 'leave me alone' so marrying him off is the only option to not start some infighting (don't worry, Luke chose him).
116 notes - Posted April 1, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
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Hunter x Hunter Chapter 161 - Face Off (4)
Let’s gooooo Bobopo died
It’s funny how they wanted to avoid infighting by taking fodders and end up with cowards causing infighting.
Anyway the poor guys have already been stuck there for a long time and it’s understandable to not want to face certain death
Killua min maxing is good
DODGEBALL, I remember this what the fuck moment and at the same time the joy of seeing dodgeball in an anime with high stakes. I miss playing dodgeball. I was shitty at catching the ball but I was very good at dodging. I always ended up in the last ones. I also wasn’t that bad at throwing and strategise on who to eliminate
Gon feels bad about Bobopo
8 members, noooow
we rarely see a head on 8 vs 8 (even if it’s more 1 vs 6 here) in anime too
I love this part of Hunter x Hunter
The number of the devil means more strength and less agility often. I just noticed the number of balls on their hands is the same as their number
Razor would definitely be bad in a direct fight. The highest number is 13 I think so it means he can only fuse two at once. Most of those are very hard to deal with and with the addition of Razor it’s a pain in the ass
I think Razor is the 14th devil
Who thinks getting hit on purpose is a good idea ?
Gon is a nice kid and person
Gon is quite right but Razor would reply you could fill in your numbers like he did, when you’ve no friends or ally, make them yourself (DIY friends, the nen ability)
I’m not pro death penalty but I won’t cry Bobopo either. He was technically killed by someone else serving their sentence though so don’t act like you’re better Razor
The cat is out of the bag
Bobopo was also dumb to try to mutiny against a monster like Razor and break the contract keeping him alive.
Anyway contracting death row inmate is kinda sus morally speaking
Anyway death row penalty is bad either way, justice making mistakes is a thing and one innocent life is one too many to be lost. I know I might want retribution such as death in some case but more violence won’t solve anything and I don’t want to live in a country that would allow such act to be carried out by justice. Finally, the justice system is there to avoid such things from happening again and death penalty has been proven to not reduce crime rates (and even increase some types of crimes) and it costs more than jail for life anyway.
Also you need to pay some people to kill other people and I’m definitely against that being a job.
Jail time is also pretty bad for most crimes because it just fucks people more and will just lead to committing crimes again. It’s not like serial killers fill jails too. Most rapists are out of them. Small fry thieves have no reason to just be imprisoned for their crime too. It serves no purpose other than cause pain and suffering to people who need help most of the time. Am I supposed to feel satisfaction from that ? Contempt ?
Anyway enough ranting on this, I’m just really annoyed by french politicians lately only talking about throwing people into cells like it will do anything and like it hasn’t been proven to lead to less safe countries. Jails are already filled to the brim
Hisoka just likes to talk and reveal important truths to people. He wants to feel smarter than everyone
Gon ? I never understood how this was supposed to be related to Ging. GI is in the real world --> Ging might be there more than if it was a virtual world ?
Togashi’s creepy faces are the bests
SHOCK then excitement
really a creepy kid this Gon
Goreinu having gorillas for a nen ability is quite funny
So maybe he’s a primatologue or maybe his wrestling involved very NSFW stuff (remembering Kurapika needed to taste and smell chains to be able to conjure them)
Also he conjures male apes ? pretty gay
FIGHT TIME
Gon seems worried
AH yes rule times
WHO DIDN’T PLAY WITH THE ‘CUSHION’ effect ?
seriously it’s a standard rule
GON !?! SEIOUSLY ?!?
Well of course he never played dodgeball with the 1 other kid of whale island but it’s not that hard. Well I can understand if it’s the first time hearing it
Weaker players of each team is out. Goreinu probably needs less focus too that way he doesn’t have to wonder about dodging or catching with three potential body but two
Razor leaves the first ball, he’s confident
Well Goreinu don’t jinx it
10 - Nice for dating but please don’t leave it to a stalker, good for careers too I guess
11 - I don’t like leaving my choices to other stuff, my destiny is in my hands and I’ll fuck it up of my own free will
12 - I’d love to just have these words everyday, I’d feel more confident. I would probably be unable to use them accordingly
13 - Worst thing, prize money for not taking chances
14 - I don’t like cutting off people from my life and anyway I don’t need scissors to do it if I need to. Would be good for victims of abuse tho
15 - I would never be able to come up with 1000 wishes (after a few years maybe)
16 - Nice advice tool
17 - Classic card, heal anything, quite efficient
18 - Drug or climax little devil, I perfectly understand getting good vibes from someone winking at me tho
Well one more chapter for today !
sorry for the prison rant
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An unfortunate side effect of terf-ism is that feminism has, for quite some time, reached a stalling point where you must either be mainstream feminist or you must be a radical feminist - except in this day and age, being a radical feminist means that you believe 100% in sex or gender essentialism and therefore are inherently transphobic.
And that's true now. But it wasn't always. I know because I saw it happen. I watched radical feminism become terfism. I watched the discourse go from "violence against women is perpetuated by the patriarchy" (reasonable; some good points to be had) to "trans people are the greatest enemy we face" (which just... what the fuck).
Radical feminism was once a useful extension of mainstream feminism. it asked important questions and followed them to interesting conclusions. If women are oppressed in all walks of life, don't men benefit from that oppression? Example, if a woman is socialised to be demure in a workplace, is her male colleague not benefitting from that socialisation? And if a woman fears violence from a man because of the prevalence of violence in our society, then do men not benefit from the violence committed by other men? Whether or not a woman has been raped, it is something she has been taught to fear - might all men not benefit in some ways from that threat that hangs over every woman?
And those are all interesting questions that entire books could and have been written on. But the issue that we now face is that radical feminism took these arguments and streamlined them all into one particular direction: that men are violent/aggressive as biological imperative and benefit from the oppression that they perpetuate against women. That men are the enemy. That they must be overthrown.
One half of the problem is that the exclusionary nature of their new direction is directly hostile to trans people; that this flawed ideology has been used to focus all their resources against a fight against a group who, even if they were an enemy to feminism (which they're not), it just would not be worth fighting against. The idea that trans women are men trying to hustle in on women's spaces is incorrect, but combatting it is also a huge waste of resources given the much more serious problems that women and feminism actually faces.
Which leads us to the other half of the problem: the resources. Because for about 5 years (in the public eye - about 15 years in feminist circles) feminism has been at war with itself. Rad fems are wasting so much time and energy arguing that trans people aren't real, and of course feminists have to argue back. There's so much less room for discourse when half your discourse is just asserting the fact that transwomen are women and transmen are men. It pulls focus away from the radical right, and it waters down discussions of other feminist issues. And it's correct that we do argue this, and trans people deserve their time in the spotlight, of course, but it's so incredibly frustrating that the attack on trans people is coming from within feminism, from the very people who should be allies to the cause. In fact, I would argue that a large part of mainstream awareness of trans issues comes from radical feminism; I don't think radical feminism has helped trans people or their acceptance, but it's certainly brought the issue to the forefront and into the sphere of public debate.
And while we're busy arguing over the right of trans people to exist, extreme rightwingism and fascism are gaining in popularity, and actual radical discourse of feminist ideals are being left in the dust. WHERE is the mainstream discussion of the predatory beauty industry and how it's disguised itself as feminist when actually it's anything but? WHERE is the shift away from the non-tradition, non-nuclear families and relationships? WHERE is the push within radical leftism to marry radical gender ideals with those on race, sexuality, disability, etc? There are a lot of "formerly radical" racial discourses that have made their way into the mainstream in recent years, especially regarding colonialism and it's lingering effects, and feminism is lagging behind because without radical sects exploring new ideals, it is very hard for new concepts to trickle into the mainstream!
I've seen some stuff around tirfs and the tran inclusionary radfem movement, but so much of it is still gender essentialist and so much of it is still trans exclusionary in many ways - and the tirfs that aren't either of that are consumed with infighting just for their right to exist and be considered trans-inclusionary. so again, no extra resources to deal with non-trans issues. It's a hangup of the direction the discourse has gone recently, and I'm not surprised to see it. I think tirf ideals are flawed to begin with - they've been heading in a bad direction basically since germaine greer went mainstream - but there's some concepts there that could do with working their way into the general leftist consciousness because there's some nuggets of truth in there that I'd like to see debated by a wider audience. But I think radical feminism is now just always going to be too closely associated with transphobia, both in people's mind's and in the idealogical base on which their beliefs are founded. It's a poisoned chalice.
What I really want to see is a new near-mainstream movement of far-left extremist feminist discourse unassociated with radical feminism; not because I think I'll agree with them but because I think it's healthy and needed for feminism in general and for the progression of gender equality towards a better future.
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I ain't Kenobi, but I say a nice family portrait with Lillithe and her bros (plus mum maybe?) would look majestic af, your style is so great btw! Me and my sis are dying to know more about the family dynamics as well, would you share more about them (their birth order, home life, history together, goals etc.) when you feel like it pls? Oh and sis totally ships Kenobi with your oc, but not the lovely lady. She ships your himbo oc with Kenobi! As a one sided attraction, creepy stalker case haha!
omg!! IM SO SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO REPY!! ♥️ thank you SO MUCH for this message im so honoured that you would even SHOW my art to your sister! what a ride!!! Make sure you say hello to your sister for me !!
Savage is the oldest brother- Maul is the middle child and Lillithe/Feral are the babies. Obviously, I headcanon that Savage and Feral live because I want to do cute twin stuff with Feral and Lilly. Plus it’s just more interesting to have all four of them interacting. Mother Talzin causes infighting due to her favouritism- Maul being on the receiving end of that. Especially considering Talzin tried to have both Feral and Lillithe killed- they much prefer the company of their Father, Viscus. Lillithe didn’t get to meet him until she was in her twenties.
Lillithe’s lore still a massive work in progress. However here is the short form....
Mother Talzin gave up baby Lillithe to Count Dooku to be trained. However after Maul’s death her studies were accelerated to the point where Lillithe was unable to physically put up with the demands of her Sith masters. Mother Talzin was very unimpressed with her daughter and orders her to be executed- but Dooku had other plans for the little zabraki girl. Much could be achieved through the desperate search for the Master’s favour, so he would keep her close. Under Separatist technical training she expanded their armies tenfold with hellish robotic creations the likes of which tore through the Republic’s ranks. In her teen years she builds a squad of droids who she uses for her own surgical purposes- expanding her field to include more fleshy subjects. Involving herself in projects more nefarious, hoping to catch the eyes of the Sith Lord, she had a heavy hand within project Algorithm. Lillithe, now a Doctor, quickly becomes top of her field and earned her a place within the Techno Union, the Empire, and later the Crimson Dawn after reconciling with her estranged brothers.
The siblings get along FOR THE MOST PART. If Maul holds his tongue and Feral and Lillithe don’t absolutely fuck up the mission they get along. Savage is the glue that holds them all together (keeps Maul from killing the younger ones). Savage loves all of them so much but he will always have the biggest soft spots for Feral. Lillithe uses her inheritance Dooku left her to fund the Crimson Dawn.
her throwing credits @ the Crimson Dawn: ‘idk do gay crimes’.
BONUS SION X KENOBI bc you made me ship it. Sion would totally creep on Kenobi and seek him out just for a fun fight- he just wants a good duel and a challenge! What better opponent than the Negotiator!
#darth maul#opressbros#sith#feral opress#nightsister#savage opress#lillithe opress#zabrak oc#dathomir#star wars oc#nightbrother#zabrak#nightsister oc#dathomir oc#star wars the clone wars#tcw#Obi-Wan Kenobi#sion vidaar#kenobi#omg this god deleted so many times#count dooku#headcanon#dr lillithe talzin#zabraki#maul opress
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yo new mega man oc just dropped!! drum is a wily equivalent to roll the same way bass is a wily equivalent to rock. a handful of friends helped me think up a BUNCH of lore for her over the course of only about a day and i'm rotating her in my brain so hard at the moment
i'll put it under a cut for convenience's sake but if you're interested here's a whole lotta stuff about her :O
in case the name pun wasn't immediately clear they're 'drum and bass' the same way their equivalents are 'rock and roll' lmao. since bass' name was changed from forte in localisation, i'd name her piano in a theoretical japanese dub [for those unaware, piano and forte are the musical terms for quiet and loud respectively]
her job is basically to keep things organised over at wily castle number whatever, whether that's by doing housework or evading wily's taxes for him or telling the latest eight robot masters her dad brought home what to do. like how bass' role as a combat robot leads him to being a hyper-aggressive, short-tempered blood knight, drum's role as an organisation bot makes her a bossy and overbearing control freak
despite their similarities, and as opposed to their lightbot counterparts' sweet and healthy sibling relationship, drum and bass fucking HATE each other with the kind of passion only siblings can. they're always butting heads over trivial things like who should do the dishes or whose turn it is on the xbox or who treble loves more [it's drum because she feeds him scraps from cooking when bass' back is turned lmao]. the only people they hate more than each other are their dad and mega man. the whole wily family dynamic is supposed to be something of a sad mirror image of the light family, where instead of the siblings being best friends and having a loving, supportive dad who'll always be proud of them it's a more pessimistic situation where the siblings are at each other's throats over everything except their mutual hatred of their even meaner father figure
i promise there's more to her than just parallels to other characters lmao but as opposed to her dad's bitterness towards light driving every war crime he commits or her brother's unhealthy obsession with being better than rock, drum very quickly came to the conclusion that she is and always will be inherently better than a lowly servant robot like roll and unlike SOME PEOPLE IN THIS FUCKING FAMILY she doesn't need to commit acts of heinous unprovoked violence left and right to prove it to herself. if anything she's insulted at being compared to roll and gets angrily defensive when the comparison is made
HOWEVER. the lads and i decided that perhaps drum and roll could end up being friends somehow - not sure how that'd come about aside from 'one time roll said 'why are you such a bitch' to drum's face and drum was so impressed at the sheer audacity that she legitimately started to respect roll' but it'd be so cute if they had a big/little sister dynamic..... one day drum realises that despite her best efforts she's developed genuine affection towards the less shooty of light's brats and she's like fuck. okay. how did i get here. eventually she begrudgingly accepts that she and the kid are ride or die now and decides to make the most of it by teaching roll swear words
while drum isn't supposed to fight, she's equipped with a standard arm buster, and her own treble adaptor in case she desperately needs some extra firepower. she heavily relies on fighting smarter rather than harder, but she probably wouldn't be able to hold out for long against a stronger opponent like mega man, even with the boost from treble
due to them both having the adaptor, drum and bass can fuse together with treble [but not on their own]. in theory the combined trio would be a hell of a force to be reckoned with, but in practice since drum and bass hate each other so much they can barely hold themselves together for long enough to spit out a bullet hell pattern before their nonstop bickering either renders treble-boosted d&b immobile from their own infighting like the archie comics doc robot or causes them to fall apart completely because one of them wants to yell at the other more efficiently. if something does drive them to put aside their differences for a fight, though, watch out
drum has the same voice as malfina the demon witch [wife of clark from connecticut]
she would unironically use 'dweeb' as an insult. in general i think drum talks like the mean emo older sibling in a narm-riddled coming of age movie from the mid-2000s
she's lead guitarist in an edgy teenage garage band with mix and level, a friend's extremely cool and awesome ocs. sometimes she also does vocals, other times she brings her little sister the blonder of the light lab brats along and gives her the honour of scream-singing the lyrics to [BAND NAME TBD]'s latest hit, Shut Up Dad
#HELLO MEGA MAN COMMUNITY#zos draws#mega man#mega man oc#drum wily#zoriginal characters#PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ABOUT DRUM I LOVE HER SO MUCH#preferably direct questions to my main [zosonils] but i don't really mind lmao
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tov postgame drabblefic (3343 words)
“Raven?! Hey, Raven!”
Raven turns to smile at the little shrimp—who’s really more a jumbo shrimp now, with all the acne that comes with puberty—and waves. “Heya, Boss-man!"
Karol’s embrace draws a startled ‘oof!’ out of him, his blastia-heart creaking against his ribs. “You’re in town!” Karol exclaims. “And you didn’t say?!”
“I just got here, kiddo,” Raven says, patting Karol’s back—it used to be a pat on his head, but his head’s just about level with Raven’s now. “Damn, you’re getting tall!”
“You should’a said you were coming,” Karol grouses into his neck. “I’ve got a client I’m already late for across town.”
“Aww, that’s awright. I’ve got some time-sensitive stuff to get ta, too. We can join up after! Brave Vesperia’s still at the same place, yeah?”
“West corner across Saggitarius, yup!” Karol beams. “See you for dinner, then?”
“I’ll whip you up a Sashimi,” Raven promises.
“That’s a promise, pops!” Karol says, and dashes off. Raven scratches his messy hair and abruptly feels very self conscious about it. It’s just a casual nickname, old man, he don't mean naught by it. Relax.
After a fast-tracked meeting with Harry results in a tussle — poking gentle fun at the boy’s attempt at a beard earns him a “Your ass is grass, old man!!” and a surprisingly competent sword duel ensues — the young Master is turning into a proper Don, now — Raven subtly lets Harry disarm him and sprawls on the floor, dramatically defeated.
“Ohhh, these old bones!” Raven mimics being out of breath. “You’ve finally bested me, Master Harry. Do with my ass what you will.”
“Ugh! You’re so disgusting!” Harry is actually out of breath, so he still needs a bit more practice, but it’s leagues better than he was just a year ago. “A duel is an honourable exchange between men! Stop desecrating it with your jokes!”
“I don’t joke with my ass,” Raven says in his Serious Voice, enjoying Harry’s startled look before he dons his jester’s grin again. “Anywho, this old man’s got places to be, so! Toodles!”
“Wait! Raven! What the hell did you come here for!” Harry’s baritone is quite impressive when he gets proper angry. “Did you just come here to waste my time!”
“Never intentionally,” Raven promises. He’d dropped Flynn’s wax-sealed letter on Harry’s desk during their fight, and points to it as he nimbly leaps up to his usual open window. “There’s your homework, Master Harry! I’ll come by to collect it tomorrow at dawn, ‘kay?”
He leapfrogs out in time to hear Harry’s yelps of protest. “When did you put that there! God damnit, Raven!”
Raven’s grinning as he parkours his way away from Altosk’s headquarters and towards Brave Vesperia’s. If he sharply detours into Saggitarius tavern to catch up with the ladies (and the latest, juiciest gossip — who knew Heliord’s newest guild ambassador was trafficking drugs and possibly underage escorts? he did, now), then that’s just Raven being Raven, right? Karol’ll understand.
“I almost thought you wouldn’t come,” Karol says faux-lightly, when Raven finally makes it back a few minutes past midnight.
Aww, shit.
“Heeey, I promised, didn’t I? Business just stretched out a little.” Raven dithers at Karol’s knowing stare. “C’mon, you still up for a good ol’ Raven’s Special Sashimi?”
“Fish isn’t really fresh by midnight anymore,” Karol says drolly. “Unless you wanna go fishing at this hour?”
They’d only get sewer trash in Dahngrest’s polluted rivers, and the next best thing’s thirty minutes out, at the very least. “Ehhh—how bout a Beef Bowl?” Raven says. “Surely you got some cured meats in your pantry. C’mon!! I’ll teach you!”
“Aw, okay. I am pretty hungry.” Karol’s so easy to please, it’s both heartwarming and kind of sad. “I’ve tried making it before but I can never get mine to taste like yours did.”
“’S all in the seasoning, kiddo. Here, watch the master and learn!”
It’s well past two when they finally call it a night, bellies full and hearts warm; it’s solely because of this that Karol succeeds in wrestling a promise out of Raven that they’d talk more in the morning. See, Raven’s got orders to pick up Harry’s response to Flynn’s letter and hussle back to the Empire ASAP, but even he doesn’t have to heart to deny Karol this simple thing.
Ever since Brave Vesperia saved the world by ruining it, everyone’s been struggling to adapt to life without blastia and Raven’s somehow found himself smack in the middle between the two remaining powers: the Empire and the Guild Union. Former member of both and trusted by all due to his role in stopping the Adephagos, Raven’s got the privilege of being messenger boy between the leaders in lieu of formal meetings, due to the fact that a lack of blastia has made travel…immensely more time consuming.
He’s worn down all the possible routes between Dahngrest and Zaphias for over a decade; the presence or absence of blastia has not really affected Raven’s efficiency and timeliness, which, naturally, has made him an attractive player for both sides. It just sucks that this means he’s always on the go, never really spending much time in one place or another. The first six months couldn’t be helped, it was imperative that everyone get their shit together and master the essentials necessary in order to provide basic living to their respective citizens: barrier blastia had to be replaced with rotating squads of knights and guildsfolk trained to fight; food previously preserved by blastia now had to be kept refrigerated with imported Zophier ice, dominated by the Empire, which had to be kept from melting with salt from Weasand mines, dominated by Guilds; everyone had to coordinate and organise to secure trade routes and avoid conflict, etc, etc.
The next six months after that were peace talks and negotiations between what was quickly becoming independent kingdoms in separate countries. Sea travel had slowed the fuck down overnight, because blastia-fueled engines had become obsolete and everyone now had to rely on wind power, so every passing day each country was slowly but surely becoming more and more isolated from each other, and therefore gradually but surely more hostile.
Emperor Ioder ruled over the continent of Ilyccia with his aristocracy of nobles and meritocracy of knights, struggling to keep the Empire’s global standing while lacking the technology to enforce it; Tolbyccia was pretty much owned by Altosk, ostensibly headed by Harry, who was presently overrun with infighting due to the fact that the Union was composed of many, many guilds all clamouring for leadership, if not democracy; East Desier was dominated by the strong-spirited Palestralle guild and its current leader, Natz, whose militant-minded navy had quickly expanded toward West Hyponia now that the Union’s presence was months away by treacherous sea; East Hyponia was an oddly peaceful blend of both Guild and Empire, unique in its joint origin and therefore vocally neutral, though that was quickly becoming contested, and, hence, required Raven-the-Pageboy’s timely arrival to avoid it becoming a full out war. Ugh.
The Schwann part of him that still lived felt heavy resignation at the inevitability of violence—the first one to fall would be Raven, he knew, as no messenger could truly remain neutral in a tug of war between such powerful masters—but the more upbeat part of him was like, stop sweating the small stuff and just go with the flow. Shit always resolves itself one way or another, right?
Right?
“You leaving already?” Karol mumbles into his pillow when Raven rises at dawn; kid’s no longer the type to sleep deeply, it seems.
“Just visiting the young Master to collect his response letter for Flynn,” Raven promises quietly. “Go back to sleep, Karol. I’ll be back to make you breakfast before I’m gone.”
Karol eyes him tiredly but he manages a wan smile. “Okay, pops. I trust you.”
Raven feels goosebumps up his arm. Stupid blastia heart runs too damn cold. He heads out at a jog to warm himself up, since Dahngrest runs both chilly and damp at this hour.
Raven no longer sneaks into Altosk’s headquarters like he did when the Don was alive and Harry was a boy; for one, Don is no longer alive to vouch for his slipperiness and for another, Raven represents the Empire here as much as he represents the Guilds in Zaphias, and no one tolerates his antics as they did before, not with the threat of conflict so close to the horizon. He walks in through the front door and waves at all the folks waiting in line—Pecan, Cactus, Lima and good ol’ Walt; all familiar faces turning sour, as usual—and knocks politely on Harry’s door.
“Master Harry,” he sing-songs. “It is I, Raven the Great, come ‘round at last!”
“It’s been barely ten fucking hours,” Harry’s pissed off voice rings loud and clear through the door.
“Shall I come back at noon, then?” Raven asks diplomatically.
An explosive sigh. “No,” Harry mutters. “Get in here. And call Cactus in, too, would you?”
“You heard the Young Master,” Raven says, nodding at the aptly-named mercenary, with his spiked up armour and sharpened teeth.
“You don’t order us around anymore, traitor,” the prickly fellow spits and shoves past him, to whom Raven mockingly bows to as he passes.
Saviour of the world or not, it's no secret now Raven was a triple agent. The official story Harry graciously gave him is that the Don always knew about Raven’s split loyalty (which is true, probably) and trusted him anyway (which is true, too), so Harry and Altosk will continue to trust him as well (which is flattering, but increasingly doubtful). Harry's a good kid shoved into a position of leadership he's not very well suited for, but even Raven can't deny he's trying and doing better every day.
“Cutlass Cactus, I want you to deliver this to Sirena of Siren’s Fang as soon as possible,” Harry says shortly, handing the man a wax-sealed letter. “Wait for a response, but I await it at most a fortnight.”
“Understood, young Master,” Cactus says, thumping his chest at the honour. He takes the letter, glares at Raven, and makes his way out.
“As for you,” Harry says, “I have a question to ask you before I hand this reply over. A serious one.”
Raven feels his age and more. “Yeah?”
“Ioder is a good man. His dog Flynn is, too. I know this personally.”
There is no question here yet, and there are a fair amount of insults between the compliments, but Raven knows the heart of Harry, and he means well.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “They are.”
“But,” Harry continues, coldly. “Two kind heads on a hydra do not make it any less a monster.”
Raven hides a grimace by scratching at his sideburns. “The same can be said of the Guilds,” he says lightly. “Or of any organization grown large enough.”
“Stop twisting my metaphors,” Harry says shortly. “The question I wanted to ask is: what do you think the Empire's end goal is?”
And what is the Guild’s end goal, Schwann wants to counter, when the Guilds’ very existence rose out of violent rejection of the Empire? Raven, for his part, takes a deep breath and exhales it out as a thoughtful hum.
“I think the Empire was built to protect and manage blastia,” Raven muses. “And I think the Guilds were built to reject the Empire’ monopoly of them. But, well, there ain’t no blastia left, so… the Empire wants to micromanage what remains. And the Guilds do, too. Yeah?”
“So there can be no peace?” Harry concludes, tiredly.
“Harry,” Raven says, firmly. “Your grandfather, the Don, united the Guilds back when they were just a bunch of rowdy, armed assholes. Y’know how he did it?”
“By fighting the Empire?” Harry says dully.
“By uniting against a common enemy,” Raven insists. “By uniting against a common threat. The Empire is no longer the enemy—hell, think of the Empire as yet another guild. It’s just a group of rowdy, armed assholes. But you and they got a common enemy now, too.”
Harry looks at him sharply. “The Adephagos is no more,” he says, carefully, “right?”
“Not the Adephagos,” Raven says. “The lack of blastia. The lack of technology. The lack of creature comforts all of us got real used to. That’s our enemy now; the thing we all gotta pitch in together to fix.” Raven bows low to Harry, as low as he would to the Don. “I beg you, young Master: do not war with the Empire. Not now. See them as a business partner, instead.”
“Business, huh,” Harry says heavily, and then flicks his sealed letter in Raven’s direction, who catches it just before it smacks him in the face. “All right. Tell your Master we can’t afford a war, anyway.”
Something uncoils in Raven's chest. “You are my only Master, Harry,” he says, cheekily. Just like Flynn is his only Commandant, now.
“Ugh, the way you say it, you make it sound so gross,” Harry complains. “Get the fuck out of my room, old man. And call in Lima!”
Raven sends him a lazy salute and hops his way out, placing the important letter in his robe’s inner breast pocket. His heart blastia emits a small barrier shield of its own, using his life-force; this letter will remain pristine come rain, sleet, or snow, as long as he still lives.
“You’re up, Lima bean,” Raven chirps.
“You call me that again and I’ll break more than just your nuts,” Lima snarls, spits in his direction, and stomps off.
“And we used to have such fun together,” Raven laments. “What happened to us, O expert in nuts, Pecan, my man?”
“Careful, Raven,” the aforementioned Pecan murmurs. “Your jests are no longer in good taste.”
“Your fruit cocktail, on the other hand,” Raven says. “Mmhmm. Top notch, as always.”
Pecan gives him a wry smile. “I saw you buttering up Madam Teal and her girls, last night. They talk about Heliord?”
“Oh, you know me: promise me a free night of drinks and I’ll spill my guts,” Raven winks suggestively.
“Hmm…your costs run too high these days,” Pecan declines politely. “You’ll drink me out of business.”
Raven feels a mild pang of loss; he and the third-waiter-from-the-right Pecan used to be pretty tight. Schwann thinks it’s just how things go. Suck it up, buttercup.
“Next time I’m in town I’ll do you one free, fer old times’ sake,” Raven compromises. “Lemme know what info you want and I’ll get it for ya fer a Mabo Curry and a Don’s Special. Within reason, ‘course.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Black Bird,” Pecan murmurs. “But I’ll be waiting for you.”
Raven walks home with a heavy heart and on lighter feet. He makes a quick detour to the fish market, already bustling with a freshly caught haul; he haggles reliable ol' Fin for a kilogram of merflesh and charms Romelle out of a bottle of soy sauce and pays full price for a sack of white rice before finally making it back to Brave Vesperia’s HQ, just in time to catch Karol in the kitchen about to make morning coffee.
“Raven!” Karol’s smile is brilliant, and very welcome. “You’re back!”
“I promised you my world famous sashimi, didn’t I?” Raven says. “Can't have you saying this old man’s a liar!"
“I’d never,” Karol says honestly, and that, more than anything, is what makes Raven want to noogie Karol and maybe cry into his hair or something likewise unmanful. He settles for making that kid the most delicious dish of fish a Weekend Chef is capable of, and if he finds himself also making Karol his special Pork Stew to eat later, he tells himself it’s ‘cause the boy’s a growing man and not because Raven’s a sap at heart.
“So where ya off to now, Raven?” Karol asks, after they’re done eating and making the kitchen less of a mess. “If, um, you can tell me, that is.”
“Atherum,” Raven says honestly. “Flynn said his girl Sodia’d be there to collect whatever response Harry might have on the new moon, so, there I'll be.”
“The new moon?” Karol stares at him. “But that’s in no time at all!”
Raven gives him a wan smile. “Don’tcha worry, kiddo. I always get ta where I need to in time.”
“We should call Ba’ul,” Karol insists. “You’ll never make it otherwise!”
Raven doesn’t have the heart to tell Karol that it probably doesn’t matter how fast or slow his response arrives; in the end, it’s Harry actions from now on that will be his real response, regardless of what his letter says.
“Judith darlin’ probably has better things to do than be an old man’s cab,” Raven says lightly. “I’ll jes' hop on a merchant ship headed toward Atherum tonight; should make it just in time, if the weather stays fair. This time o’ year, the northern wind’s in our favour.”
“But what if merfish ambush you!” Karol protests. “Or if a storm’s brewing—“
“Tempest!” Raven sing-songs, flicking his hand. “Aw, man, I miss being able ta call up storms willy-nilly. That made me feel God-like, it did.”
Karol frowns at the interruption, but then his face turns thoughtful. “Can’t you still, though? Your blastia’s powered by your life-force, right? So your arts should still be working just fine.”
“Shavin’ a year or two off my life fer a light show is a bit too vapid, even by my standards,” Raven says sardonically. “Plus, I ain’t keen on folks realising blastia’s still useable if you use a human fer a battery.”
He can very easily see it happening in the future: folks trafficking humans for energy. Or, fuck, claiming prisoners of war for it—hell of a good reason to go to war, really, if it’s to dehumanize the ingredients you need to fuel your creature comforts. You justify your atrocities by framing it as necessary or even righteous; Alexei and Schwann used to do that all the time, no brainer. Honestly, this fear is one of the many reasons he’s made Rita promise not to share that part of Hermes’ research, despite the fact that human-powered blastia could solve a lot of the world’s present problems. Schwann’s too jaded to avoid thinking of all the ways it can go terribly wrong, and Raven’s too fucking tired of the parasite that is his heart to think of its more beneficial applications.
“People’ll find out eventually,” Karol insists, at once innocent and wise beyond his years. “Desperation breeds creativity, right? You should tell people about it so they know the risks involved, before someone invents it and says it’s a cure-all or something.”
“Ehhhhh,” Raven drawls. “I’ll think about it.”
He most definitely will not.
Karol drops it, thankfully, but then picks up the old tangent of, “I still say I should call Ba’ul for you. I’ve got the whistle and I was thinking of asking Judy to fly me over to Yumanju, anyway, since my next job’s over there. We could drop you off real quick, no worries.”
“The spa?” Raven perks up. The idea of running off to relax there after all this nonstop political bullshit is extremely appealing. “Really?”
“Really really,” Karol says, smiling knowingly. “So, you wanna come with?”
“Boy, do I,” Raven says excitedly. “Okay, kiddo, you’ve convinced this old man to defect to Brave Vesperia once again.”
“You never left, pops,” Karol says without hesitation, which warms the cockles of ol' Raven's heart. “C’mon, then, let’s head to the usual clearing. Ba’ul’ll show up within fifteen minutes after I call for him.”
“Wait wait wait! We should get Judy a gift first,” Raven insists. “The lady’s coming all the way over here for our sorry hides, we gotta say thanks proper-like!”
Karol blinks. “That’s a good idea! What d’you think she’d like?”
“I know just the thing,” Raven winks. “C’mon, kiddo, we got places to be!”
#karaii fic#tales of vesperia#still figuring out my raven voice and such#i wondered what the boy was doing after the game and here we are#=noodle shrugs= dunno where i was going with this
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Rebel Rebel (Part 1?)
Pairing: Janis Sarkisian/reader
A/N: okay this has been sitting in my drafts for months and I have no idea if I’m gonna continue this but fuck it???? Sorry for all the people who followed me for Barba lmao (I am continuing that don’t worry) but idk I just figured I may as well post this??? I have more of this written and I know how I wanted it to end but the middle is just not working and that’s why I never posted. But I just listened to Dead Girl Walking and I was reminded how gay I am for Barrett sooooo 😂 here you go? You’re welcome?? I haven’t edited this or looked at it since March so this may be a mess but... yeah
It was eighth grade, nearing the end of the year and you were anxious, unsure of why. Would your friends still be your friends next year? High school was going to be a lot different, you could just tell.
You saw your two best friends, Regina and Janis talking to each other down the hallway, where their lockers were, so you headed down there. Regina was probably inviting Janis to the end of year pool party she’d been planning. It was going to be so great to at least be with all your friends one last time, even if high school might take them away.
As you got within earshot, though, you realized Regina was being anything but nice.
“But are you a lesbian, Janis? I can’t have a lesbian at my pool party,” you hear Regina’s high pitched voice chirp. “You understand that, right?”
“Regina... I—“
“What? So are you?”
“Why are you asking me this? Did I do something?”
“I need to know. Don’t you get it? You not wanting to answer is pretty suspicious.”
“I am a space alien and I have four butts!” Janis yelled and ran down the hallway, leaving Regina to laugh. She makes eye contact with you. “Wow, I dodged a bullet with that, huh?”
“Why did you do that?”
“Don’t you get she doesn’t fit in? I mean, she likes girls, first of all. Second of all... she doesn’t get this stuff. Don’t you want to be popular in high school? I can get you there. We’re on top here. Everyone knows us. But this is child’s play.”
“But that was mean, Regina!” you said, your tone accusatory.
She shrugs her shoulders. “Sometimes you have to be mean to get what you want. And we’re not going to get it with her.”
“But she’s our friend!”
“Was...our friend. Don’t you care that she’s a dyke?”
You sighed, defeated. You wanted to tell her, no, you didn’t care... but you knew she’d stop being friends with you too. And her talk of being popular and being on top of the world... it sounded good.
You had many regrets about this day, and if everyone has a couple turning points in their lives, this was your first.
——
Regina was right, though. She got you everything you had thought you’d always wanted, but you never felt good enough and a lot of the time, you’re miserable. You’re constantly worried about your weight, whether you got enough instagram likes on your 1000th picture with the plastics, as you’d been dubbed, and whether or not you were dating one of the hottest guys at school.
Who would’ve thought the hottest guys were so dumb? You didn’t like any of them, really, and the second they asked to get in your pants, you dropped them like flies. So you’d gotten a rep for being somewhat of a prude, which Regina would sometimes scold you for.
Regina just got meaner as time went on, and sometimes you regretted not turning on her the first day she showed her true colors, when she’d sharpied all over Janis’s locker “SPACE DYKE” and even included it in the burn book she made over the summer once yearbooks came out. Regina would flirt with boys that she thought you or Gretchen liked, just to show you she could have them. Jokes on her, you didn’t like any of them, but you had to pretend or there wouldn’t be any gossip or any of the infighting that Regina seemed to love. It was the beginning of sophomore year now, and it was beyond exhausting.
And oh, the parties that started now! You hated them, just an excuse for everyone to get shitfaced and girls to make dumb decisions that made boys so happy even though everyone was too drunk to really remember them the next day. Regina is hosting one tonight, and here you are, in your skimpy, skin tight blue dress that you had to buy with babysitting money— since there’s no way in hell your mother would buy that for you. A sophomore hosting a party was unheard of, but Regina has a huge house and her parents went on vacation for their anniversary. She’d use whatever she could to her advantage.
All she wanted was to climb that ladder, and she didn’t care who got hurt in the way.
But here you were, dancing with the hockey player you were dating now... or was it football? You didn’t even care. You vaguely remembered his name was Mike and you told him you needed to go to the bathroom. You headed to Regina’s room and locked the door, thankful you got there early enough that there was no one trying to hookup.
You got lost in your phone for a while, and you found Janis’s Instagram profile. It was private, but there was her profile picture. She was so pretty now, not the awkward girl who tried to dye her hair blonde and wear pink just to fit in. She wore dark makeup in the picture and she wasn’t looking at the camera, and it fit her so much better. Even her hair, which she had let just grow out from the blonde she’d dyed it, looked great. You nearly send a follow request and then think better of it.
You remembered having hobbies, painting at Janis’s house until your hands were covered in paint, and you remember laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe.
Sometimes Regina was a good friend. Sometimes she was a great friend. She was there for you when your grandmother died over that first summer without Janis, and she held you while you cried... and you cried a lot. But sometimes she was mean to even you and it was exhausting. You know she cares about you, but you know she’d turn on you, too, if you gave her what she deemed enough reason to.
You can’t remember laughing like you used to in a long time. You can’t remember being passionate about anything for a while, either. The only time was in your classes, really, you loved chemistry but you had to keep it under wraps because if it got out you were too nerdy... well, that’s social suicide.
The thing about being a plastic was that you couldn’t be anything or do anything too extreme. You had to just be a shell of human being, a shell of a hot girl, just to appease everyone. The money you spent, or had your parents spend, on your bleach blonde hair and your makeup and your hot clothes and your nails and your purses and your shoes... and the hours you spent at the salon and the mall with Regina and Gretchen and Karen, it was completely exhausting. And then you weren’t allowed to have a personality outside of all of this, it was just, clothes! Makeup! Shoes! Boys! Parties! Popularity!
All things girls were supposed to care about, but really, there was no girl left in you to care anymore. You slip off your heels and lie down on the bed, remembering Regina holding you. That felt nice, her slender arms around you, her chin against your shoulder, and she smelled so good, like a hair salon and vanilla and cinnamon and... you just wanted to cry. Why couldn’t she be like that all the time?
The pillows smell like her shampoo and you inch up to place your head on them, ready to fall asleep, the bass from the speakers downstairs lulling you.
You awake twenty minutes later with your phone blowing up from Regina. “Where’d you go? Party’s not fun without you 😘” her most recent text said. Your eyes burn from the makeup you fell asleep in and you blink a few times before replying, telling her you were in her room and not feeling well.
“Bummer! I’ll be up in a few xo” she texts back.
You answer the door when she knocks, and you smile when she hugs you immediately. “(Y/n)! I’m sorry you’re sick! Did you drink something Kevin made? Because don’t.”
“No... I just... I don’t know. I’m sick of the parties,” you grumble as you pull away from the hug and sit back on the bed. She follows you, her pink dress clinging to her every curve, riding up a little as she sits down.
“Why?” She laughs. “This is what high school is about! You’ve gotta have fun. You’re only hot once.”
“But this... it’s not fun to me. It’s not fun to get wasted and have guys try and get in my pants and watch girls throw up.”
“But we can get everything we want. It’s what I always told you,” she says, rubbing your back, but her voice is hollow.
“I don’t have everything I want! I don’t even know what I want anymore, but I’m not happy. Are you? What are you getting out of this because I don’t understand.”
“Respect. Love. Fear. It’s all I ever wanted, really,” Regina says. “People either love me or hate me but they think about me. They think about you, too. Everyone who’s a sophomore knows us, and most of the upperclassmen do too. Doesn’t it feel good?”
You sigh. “I guess, sometimes, it does. But most of the time it doesn’t! I don’t like it, feeling like I have to do everything perfectly because everyone’s watching. And it’s only going to get worse because next year we’re juniors...”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m not entirely happy either. I don’t like Jack.”
“Then why are you dating him?”
“Because. Free popularity and all I gotta do is be seen with him.”
“But... doesn’t he ask for more?”
She laughs. “Sure he does! But you have to be strategic with that.”
“Right..." you say, slightly sarcastically. You didn't really know what she meant.
Regina places a hand on your knee. “I know it’s been hard for you. But it’s going to be okay.”
“Do you wanna... just lie for a minute? I know you have to go back to the party—“
“No, I can stay for you,” she says, smiling softly. There was the Regina you wanted to be friends with all the time.
You both lean back on the bed, and her arms wrap around you tightly, her chin nestling on your shoulder. Here, you were happy.
“It’s all worth it, all the fighting to just get to the top to sit like this with you,” she says quietly. “We could never be made fun of for this because we can’t be touched.”
“What?”
“Don’t you get it? I... I don’t know how to say it. Just... trust me, okay?” You nod, not sure what she meant, but then she’s leaning over and turning your cheek toward her and she’s kissing you.
Regina George is kissing you.
It’s a quick peck, probably because she’s not sure how you’d react but it’s still the best kiss you’d ever had in your life. You don’t make any rational thoughts in the next few moments and you’re not sure if she kisses you again or you pull her back in, but all of a sudden she’s on top of you and kissing you harder, and slowly, the confusion sets in.
It almost feels too good to stop, but eventually your brain starts working again. “Regina... I... are you okay?” you ask as you pull away. “Are you drunk?”
“What? No. I wouldn’t get drunk at my own party, what kind of slut does that? No, (y/n)... I want you. Didn’t that feel good?”
“Yes... but... you kicked Janis out of the friend group for being a lesbian. Why would you do that if you were gay? You always said she had a crush on you. Why would that have been such a bad thing?”
Regina sighs and flops over to the other side of the bed. “I’m not gay. I mean. I don’t know. I definitely didn’t know back then but I knew Janis just didn’t fit in even if we took away all of the gay stuff. But if we talk about the gay stuff... then yeah. I was confused. Super confused. I didn’t know if I liked you or her and I knew I wasn’t supposed to like either of you. And then I saw the two of you together and you just... you had something I didn’t have, just genuine friendship, and maybe she had a crush on you. Either way I was jealous. And I had to get the two of you apart.”
“Regina... that’s awful,” you say.
“But then I tried to be nice to you! I just wanted to be friends. I mean, I didn’t think I wanted to sleep with you or anything. I just wanted to be friends. Karen and Gretchen are just stupid and I just don’t feel comfortable enough around them to be like this. To let go of the persona.”
“You haven’t been entirely nice to me, Regina. Plus you started this off by ruining my friendship with Janis.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have done that, but I was so... angry whenever she was around. I just... we could pass for straight. No one would know.”
“Regina... I can’t,” you say, biting your lip and trying not to cry.
“Do you... do you not like girls? Is that it? I’m so stupid,” she says bitterly.
“No, Regina, it’s not that, I mean... I don’t know if I do. But it’s just... I’m tired of living like this and I don’t want to have this secret to worry about. All we need is for Gretchen to find out...”
“But she wouldn’t. And even if she did, do you think she’d cross me? Cross us?” She grips your wrists. “Please.”
You start crying and you know you’re not going to be able to stop. If the circumstances were different, you’d love to date her. You think. “Regina. I don’t want to be popular anymore, and for that to happen, we can’t be friends and we... can’t do this.”
“But—“
“If you want to drop it... then... if you want to give up being popular, being fake... then... then yes. Come out. Apologize to Janis. But I’m leaving, and I’m not leaving with baggage.”
She nods. “I... I understand. It’s okay. But I need this! They’d tear me apart if I came out and I can’t be... I can’t be outcasted. I’m exhausted, too, you know? But it’s... it’s better than the alternative. I hope you don’t come to realize that.”
“Regina...”
“No, it’s fine. I really get it,” she says, smiling. “But I’m going to have to spread a rumor, something so they don’t question why you left the group.”
“I know. Just say I’m gay. It’s your trick.”
She starts crying then, sobbing, really, and your heart lurches. You lean over to hug her.
“You don’t have to be so mean.”
“Yeah. I do. Because if I’m not it’ll turn around on me. My mom... she’d never understand! I just... okay. I understand we can’t... be seen together if this is really what you want. But can you at least text me once in a while? So I know how you’re doing?”
“Of course,” you say. You hug her one last time, and she kisses your cheek. You leave the house with your head held high but your heart sinks as you realize this is the last time you’ll step foot in there.
——
Regina is meaner without you. She is hostile to Gretchen and Karen, and you can tell if they adored her at all before, that’s completely gone and they follow her out of fear that she’d make their lives a living hell.
Maybe it’s because she did go on and start the rumor you were a lesbian. Fair enough. You weren’t entirely sure about that label yet but it gave you enough freedom to maneuver this without having lame guys hit on you anymore. That may have stopped anyway since you weren’t competing with Regina for hottest in the sophomore class... but at least it stopped.
“So... looks like she did the same thing to you after all, bitch,” a female voice says as you slam your locker shut. You jump and look to your left to see Janis there... and your breath catches. She was all the more beautiful in person.
“Yeah,” you frown. “But hey... are you mad at me?”
Janis scoffs. “Kinda. But I know you weren’t to blame now. I mean, she did the same thing to you! And I hate Regina more than I could ever hate anybody. Also Damien made me talk to you.”
“Damien?” you ask. “Wait... that guy in musical theater?”
“Yes...” Janis says slowly. “How do you know?”
“He’s really good! I’ve gone and seen every play. Like, and sat in the back. But I’ve gone.”
“Wow. That surprises me. But you did used to love that sort of thing in middle school.”
“I think I made you listen to the Mamma Mia soundtrack at least 80 times.”
“Oh yes. Wait... did you know that they’re putting it on this year? It's the spring musical."
“What?”
“Yeah. Maybe you could audition now that the plastics aren’t holding you back. You have like one day to make up your mind though. I do scenery. Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Where do you sit at lunch?”
——
It was an awkward reintroduction and the words are never spoken. Is Janis gay? More importantly, are you gay, or bi, or something? Does wondering if another girl is gay make you gay?
But aside from the utter confusion of possibly having a crush on your ex best friend, you’re enjoying life as an ex-plastic. You’re auditioning for the role of Donna, but even if you don’t get it you’re going to get a part since so few people actually signed up to audition. You’re drawing again, too, even if you were never as good as Janis.
Regina hasn’t texted you yet, but you’re thankful. If she did too soon you’d get pulled back from the progress you’ve made. But you’re also worried about her, and your heart lurches whenever you make eye contact with her at lunch and she looks away quickly.
But this was how life was going to be from now on, so it was time to get used to it.
#janis sarkisian#janis x reader#janis sarkisian x reader#janis ian#janis ian x reader#mean girls#mean girls broadway#mean girls bway#Yeah I made Regina gay#what about it???#that's my headcanon#no one in this musical is straight ok#idk i feel weird posting this but fuck ittttt
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July Roundup
Lifestyle:
I’ve been getting back into running this summer. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve done any serious running, and I have been made painfully aware of the differences in my body at age 29 compared to 25. My knees hurt more, I need to attend to stretching much more seriously than I used to. I’m coming at the task with better self-knowledge than last time, though; I know how far and how fast I’ve been capable of pushing, and I find an enormous amount of comfort and strength from that familiarity.
I’ve also been applying to jobs, a process which started as nauseatingly daunting, but has gradually settled into just a regular chore of the week (ideally chore of the day, if I’m to keep up with new years resolutions). Getting a resume mushed into a satisfying shape has felt nice, as has getting together a form cover letter that I know hasn’t hurt my chances of getting my foot in doors. Annoyance Boxes checked off, and the rest is getting familiar with the rest of the grind. Interviews have been and will be the same process.
Games:
I’ve also been playing a lot of Sekiro. I’ve always “liked” Fromsoft games, but it’s been rare that I’ve been able to justify the time investment. There’s an appeal in the structure, endless chances to bash myself against a problem until it clicks, being able to run drills when stuck or inadequate (and there is a hook in the inadequacy; nothing frustrates me more than being unable to Just figure out a solution, or requiring too much time to get there. I have a tense relationship with time and deadline pressure. Impatience is one of my greatest vices). So with school finished, I’m diving into this as a treat to myself. The systems are fun, and the camera is so fucking awful that I get unreasonably angry about it.
One thing I always do with these games that I think is anathema to a lot of their fans is to spoil myself on what I’m up against. In dark souls I would always have open area maps, rather than try to navigate the combat and exploration simultaneously. It put my mind at ease, I didn’t like the discomfort of the tension of untriggered surprise. And with Sekiro, I know roughly the zones I’m up against, I’m not above watching videos of the boss fights to learn the proper counters etc. No shame, no honor, that’s not what I get out of these games, really.
As with running, so with jobsearch, so with Sekiro, the method is diligence, the appeal is the pleasure of feeling my improvement over time. There is nothing more exciting to me than casually accomplishing something that I know would have annihilated me only a short time ago. I can finish 2 miles in 20 minutes, I want to get it down to 15. This also means the videogame tends to lose out on the priorities list—if I’m wanting to dedicate myself to practice, there’s almost always a different outlet that’d be better outcomes in the long run
very 8 of pentacles mood overall, lately.
Books:
I’m almost done with Pynchon’s Against the Day, which had taken up all of my Reading attention span this month. Unless it does something in the final 8% to lose me hard, it’ll probably clock in as my 2nd favorite of his stuff, behind Gravity’s Rainbow.
Anarchism as expressed against American mining companies, European empires, and the Mexican state; searches for a lost paradise city; warfare between schools of mathematics; the nature of Light. At face value, it feels closest to Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, compared to the rest of his work (I know there’s a lot of subtext and referencing going over my head with all of these in terms of both history and literature; I noticed a lot of reviews of AtD focused about the variety of genre style work that he’s pulling from in certain sections, nearly all of which is lost on me. It has, however, been very fun to me that I’m able to keep up with the mathematic academia infighting depicted in this). There’s a “fairy tales coming to life” quality to all three, if instead of Grimms’ stories it’s historical models of the world: Supersonic rockets wreck the flow of pavlovian cause & effect, the destruction of natural landscape in the course of linear surveying becomes a direct conduit for a massive influx of evil energy, quaternion mathematics casting time as real and space as imaginary allow a yogi to contort himself out of sight and into the imaginary plane. The aether is experimentally disproven in the beginning of Against the Day’s timeline, which doesn’t stop holdout engineers and mystics from working wonders with it.
It feels like there’s about as much going on in here as GR, but where GR is claustrophobically overstuffed (which is also part of the reason it’s a better book) and Mason & Dixon gets kind of plodding, the material here is given space to breathe, without losing momentum. It probably helps that the characters in this are a.) numerous, and b.) unusually solid as far as Pynchon goes.
It’s also got many great examples of something else I really like about Pynchon, which is that he is willing to commit 110% to incredibly stupid jokes. There’s an Elmer Fudd reference in here that completely knocked me on my ass.
Viz:
Watched the Bo Burnham netflix, which was mostly pretty good, though I’m completely out of patience for ostentations self-awareness or fake debate where the ~comedian~ who’s concerned about being ~white privileged mannn~ feels guilty he might be ~taking up space~, doesn’t know that he ~deserrrrves it~... out of patience because I already know what he did with that guilt (if genuine) — he didn’t scrap the project, he released the fucking thing anyway. What am I to do with this, Bo Burnham? Would you like my permission? Would you like an “it’s ok dude” from people of marginalized groups within your audience? Why am I watching along for a decision you’ve quite literally already made? I don’t trust displays of vulnerability before an audience of this size.
Also watched through I Think You Should Leave, which... sure it’s funny, and also very effective at making me uncomfortable, which is clearly what it’s aiming to do, but. I don’t really get why it’s got such a strong cultural draw within the online spheres I’m normally checked into. Saw some discourse about how the quotability is somehow distinct from regular memeing, which, alright get over yourselves jesus christ.
speaking of flavors of the month, watched 50 shades and lmao. I’ve been told by a trusted source the books are worse which is hilarious.
also speaking of flavors of the [century], S.O. and I have been doing a rewatch of pre-MCU comic book movies, which has been some fascinating anthropology. It meant, though, that we had to sit through howard the duck, an absolutely wretched film.
Other highlights so far: willem dafoe power rangers acting, the soundtrack on affleck daredevil (incl a fuckin choice Evanescence exercise montage), Blade & Blade II still hold up.
We’ve also made it to the final season of pre-reboot xfiles. Duchovny’s mostly gone from this last season, replaced largely by robert patrick of T1000 fame, who is a better actor but a worse character, dude’s basically just A Cop. The writing’s weirdly probably better than the last couple Duchovny seasons, but the show doesn’t work without him — his bad acting was the main thing keeping things together, the tone’s all off now.
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yup, it all goes below the cut
So I’ve been seeing a resurgence of ME content following the trailers for ME4 and MELE, which makes sense. But I’m a salty m-fer and I honestly am sick and tired of Mass Effect getting shit on for things that other game studies (looking at you fromsoftware) get praised for. So we’re going to unload a little.
The underpinnings of the mass effect universe is this huge extinction cycle, designed and perpetuated by the Reapers. As sufficiently advanced civilizations reach a tipping point, not unlike the great filter theory of space travel, these AI come in and wipe anyone out. This sort of cyclical storytelling, with pieces of the previous cycles being dribbled in throughout the trilogy, seems pretty similar to progression of Dark Souls. At the end of the Mass Effect Trilogy, many fans were upset by the ending choices: Destroy, Control, and Synthesis.
What are your choices in Dark Souls? At the end of the first game, the cycle ends and you, the player, get to choose how the world enters the next era. Does they cycle of undeath continue, or do you shatter the world and hope something new rises from the ashes?
How, pray tell, is that really any different a decision? And why is it when fromsoftware does this its groundbreaking storytelling, but when bioware does it we decide collectively its ‘just a shitty recolor of the same ending?’
I agree, there are some flaws in how they chose to animate the climactic moments of ME3. For one, the fleet assembly and space combat with the reapers above Earth doesn’t change much no matter how many/which allies you bring to the final fight. And of course, the ‘garbage recolor’ ending. And I agree with the premise that more than the color should have changed. We should not have had to wait for the still flawed Extended Cut ending to be released to see how Shepard’s final choice changes the end of the game.
We can also comment on what the crucible actually does. If it is some incredible power-source in need of direction - the citadel - it is a strange choice of weapon to design for your battle against the reapers. We could speculate endlessly on why the writing team chose this, but the real issue here is that there is very little in game context for how this comes about. We get a few lines from Hackett and Liara explaining the Crucible, but that’s about it. Surely there could have been more discoverable codex entries about it, perhaps on Eden Prime with Javik?
To be clear, I don’t actually have a problem with the end of the Trilogy. Sure, it has its plot holes, but I’m not actually too fussed about it. It felt like a fitting end to the series to me. Graphically a little disappointing, to be fair, but otherwise a fine capstone to the story.
I’ve actually read some comments and posts explaining that they ‘won’t buy the legendary edition because they won’t fix the ending’ and I.... Do you even know what a remaster is? I’m not buying the remaster because I think many of the new lighting choices detract from the story, and a reskin won’t ensure the graphics stand the test of time any better than the old ones. I’m perfectly happy replaying the original trilogy without a fancy graphics package that adds nothing to the artistic vision nor sets out any distinctive art style. A few years will see even these HD 4k graphics obsolete/dated, and I’ve spent enough money on Mass Effect as it is.
Moreover, I really hate what speculation and rumor I’ve heard about Mass Effect 4. First, I hate that it will be a ME4 and not an MEA2. This will take some explaining so bear with me.
I’ve seen videos of the original graphics and animations that caught so much flak for Mass Effect Andromea. Unpopular opinion: I don’t think they were bad, and I certainly don’t think they were bad in the context of Mass Effect. None of the games prior had flawless rotoscoping or anchoring. Even watching stock sheploo in the original trilogy is painful if you’re hoping for realism. If y’all want to play this game we can start sharing clips but suffice to say I’m personally convinced we can go tit-for-tat on awkward animations.
Moreover, I think Mass Effect Andromeda is the best Mass Effect game. Best gameplay, by far. It has all the hallmarks of a great sci-fi: new aliens, new planets, new villains. And while I understand some people felt the switch from overcompetent supersoldier Shepard to young-kid-with-daddy-issues-and-more-than-a-few-bad-bosses Ryder was jarring, I absolutely loved playing a plucky hero who lost their mentor before they’d even properly started training. It gave the game an urgency I loved, and to me Ryder felt like a much more relatable protagonist than Shepard.
The story itself is a fucking masterstroke. Hear me out:
So in Mass Effect, the twin plot drivers are infighting with council/alliance/cerberus ‘allies’ while facing down the threat of and advanced AI wiping out all organic life to preserve diversity and make way for the next ascendant race. In Andromeda, we’re met by the same bickering and infighting amongst our own faction, and the Kett. The Kett, for whom nothing is cyclical. Everyone must assimilate. Who shun technology and seek to eliminate biodiversity by ensuring all civilizations end with Kett. And instead of a well trained military commander and a ship of soldiers, mercenaries, and specialists in the sciences who grow to be respected players on the galactic stage, we get Ryder. Ryder and their crew of misfit nostalgia-driven rock-licking rule-breaking cereal-smuggling culture-vulture heart-broken multiple-amputee nervous-doctor neophiles who meet one alien and have to save all their races from genocide by a rogue Kett Archon. And the Jaardan? the long gone artificial life-forms who had the technological capability to be reaper analogs? They’re the life-givers, the gods of the Andromeda galaxy, seeding species and hope into the galaxy for the player to find.
It’s such a perfect inversion of the original trilogy while still preserving the genre and the universe they had already built. It’s fucking brilliant. And I’ll never forgive them for abandoning it, nor will I forgive the fans whose vitriol stopped the project in its tracks, and killed any hope of a second trilogy.
Honestly, I don’t care if you agree about MEA, or the ME3 ending. I know this isn’t a common take among bioware fans. I just... I’m so fucking done with this franchise and this fandom. I’d like to think my mutuals and the other blogs I follow have level headed positions on this stuff (possibly more level headed than my own salty takes these days) but I honestly wonder why I’m even on this platform some days. It doesn’t spark much joy anymore. I hope no one takes this personally, I certainly don’t mean this as an attack or criticism of any of my followers but damn, I’ve got a lot of feelings tonight and almost all of them are negative...
#long post#really long post#mass effect critical#bioware critical#fromsoftware critical#sort of#fandom commentary#god I'm tired#I should just be in bed but I wanted to read#and I found some interview with mass effect devs#I just wanted to read some new stuff on one of my favorite franchises of all time and it was completely ruined by all the 'hot takes'#and even the editing of their words painted this unnecessarily negative picture#and I get it#they aren't even close to perfect games#and AAA studies shouldn't release games with as many bugs as is the norm#I know that#don't think I ever pay full price for a shitty buggy bethesda game anymore#haven't bothered with them since oblivion was new#but I just....#I feel like theres this dirth of critical thought#or coherent standards#when we talk about art in any form#and it kills me inside
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Au where Lance was separated alone at the end of s1 (and also without Blue). And it's been long like 2-3 years (and 2-3 weeks/months cause uhhh space time shit) and Lance comes back with scars and maybe a missing limb only to find there has been infighting and separation and fuck all and guys please it's been a really harrowing long ass years, you all are tearing the family apart
You know I actually kind of had a similar idea to this like a while while back. So I am going to take some bits and pieces of it and adapt it to this!
Also this is long...so more under the cut!
So at the end of season one when all the Paladin’s fall out the Castleship and wormhole, Lance ends up just in a random spot in space, though unlike Pidge there is nothing around him at all. Blue shuts down because of everything, so Lance is just...stuck in open space. But he does decently try to problem solve to one get a line of communication with someone, or two get Blue up and running. He knows some minor engineering stuff, cause it’s standard for all pilots to have basic understanding of how to fix things on their ships. Blue being a alien ship with a conscious, throws a wrench in that a little, but Lance still tries. And he is very careful to stay close to Blue at all times, and have some kind of tether connected so he doesn’t float off into space as he works. He is doing all he can...which...admittedly is a lot of begging Blue to just wake up, because like she isn’t an Earth ship he knows how to work with.
But as he works and tries different thing, suddenly the middle of nowhere open space he is in...just like...cracks open. And it’s happens to so when Lance has untethered himself to move to a different spot. Meaning he gets sucked right in, before he can grab on, and his jet pack is too weak to fight the pull. (Blue doesn’t get sucked in because she is too big). Lance get’s sucked in to the cracked, and dumped into a sort of pocket dimension. It’s this crazy forest alien jungle like place, filled with, as Lance quickly discovers, lots and lots of dangerous things that have it out for him. And the crack pretty much immediately closes behind him...leaving him stranded.
For a while (like the first few months), Lance main goal is to get out of there or get communications going. He finds a lot of things from other alien ships that have crashed there, no other friendly life-forms though. And he does what he can, and working out the best plan to get out there. But as time passes, and passes, and the tally he makes in his tree top base group to being uncountable...Lance shifts more to just surviving. Try get communications to work less and less, and he stares at the sky less and less. Why do the same thing that does work over and over again. And he just tries to survive.
On the other side of things, it doesn’t actually take the Paladin’s terrible long to find Blue Lion once Allura rescues everyone. They track Blue’s signal to the spot in middle of no where space. Coran gets a little freaked out, because it is actually a section of space where ships are known to just go missing and no one knows why. Aka...the space Bermuda Triangle. So the Paladins find Blue, but no Lance. Like there is just so signal of him, his suit would still have enough enough power to broadcast a single, no matter what. But there is just nothing. And Blue refused to leave the spot she is at, and is just sort of staring out into one fixed point is space. And all the Paladin’s sort of have this scenes. of “We can’t leave this place.” Like it just...feels wrong to them, so they stay as they try to figure out what happened to Lance.
A few days pass, and suddenly like the point in space that Blue Lion had been staring at opens up. Like tears open, and everyone just kind of stares at it. Coran and Pidge taking readings and scans off it, cause like they have no clue what it was (and maybe it would explain what happened to Lance.) It stays open for like an hour or two, then it starts to close. And as it starts to close, a tiny little ship...thing, comes shooting out, and Blue Lion moves for it. Suddenly Lance’s Paladin Armor signal is back up and running, giving all sorts of damage and other readings, and Blue returns to the Castle.
Everyone rushes to Blue’s hanger, just as she sort of spits Lance out. (Not really, he kind of stumbled out and collapsed into a roll in relief that his plan worked (or you know maybe he’s dead)). Everyone kind of cautiously race towards Lance to where he was lying in a heap on the floor. Because his armor looks like he has been through some stuff...like a lot for the maybe week or so that he has been missing. And Shiro is very much picking up on the fact that they need to not completely rush Lance. But as they approach, Lance slowly shits up, and turns around...and...
Holy quazinack, he has scars that are visible healed and old looking. And he’s thinner, in a way that was both clear he had been stranded for a while...and like he aged a bit. Also one of his eyes is completely messed up, and is missing his whole left hand. And he looks pissed as hell as he gets up to his feet.
“It’s been years, and you guys just now decide to save me.” He spits out angrily as he sort of stalks forward with a pretty visible limp. And everyone is confused, because it’s been like maybe two weeks, what the hell is Lance talking about years. They had only been there for like eight days since they found Blue lion. What in the world does Lance mean...years. However when Shiro asked, it just kind of makes Lance bit more angry, before he drills in the point that he was trapped in the place for like three years, trying to get out, or get a communication line, and trying to just survive, and barely managed to escape through the crack in the sky that was only open for like a handful of seconds. And Allura is quick to explain, no it’s only been like a couple of weeks, and the crack had been open for a few hours...and...
Coran quickly jumps in a loud statement of “pocket dimensions!” And how that was probably what Lance experiences, and how it was a (conspiracy) theory as to what happen to this area of space. That there were pocket dimensions slipped into, and disappeared. And because they were little random pockets, the rules of physics and speed of time might be different in them. They open up occasionally to release energy build up, and suck in new matter partials to keep existing. Explain that must have been what Lance experienced, and that they should really get him to a healing pod, to get fixed up and make sure there aren’t any adverse effects. Coran quickly just sort of guide Lance away before anything else can happen, and helps get him into a pod while everyone follows behind them.
Form there everyone kind of gathers themselves, and figure out what happened. Coran runs all sorts of scans on Lance while he is in the pod, that was actually working hard to fix what it could. (It couldn’t fix of a lot of Lance’s old scars and injury, but works to realign bones that healed wrong when broken, and fixed his joints and limp.) Finding that yes, Lance actually had aged a few years, and experiences a different flow of time. Allura runs some quintessence tests, to realize Lance had experience something different than normal. While Pidge and Hunk pour over the reads from the crack the opened, to find some stuff that didn’t exactly align with stuff they know about science. Shiro and Keith help out where they can. All in all they figure out that yes, Lance experience something all together different from their universe.
They all try to put together a presentation to explain to Lance once he gets out of the healing pod. Lance is a bit better when he get out, though still a bit hostile and mad that it took so long to get rescued. Everyone presents what they have to him as he eats a meal Hunk made for him. It is a lot for Lance to take in, and he does have some trouble letting go that he was abandoned for so long, because it’s just so hard not to feel that. Even knowing he was experiencing time a different rate. But he goes to room and rest and just try and readjust.
It takes a while for things to even out and sort of “go back to normal”, but it does eventually happen. Not without a few bumps in the road. Lance had some abandonment issues that surface from time to time, and become rather use to fighting for himself. Not to mention a whole a lot of trauma that happened to him, that he doesn’t talk about much. Sometimes Lance will just seem to snap over nothing. Everyone does there best to adjust to him, and be what he needs, and make it know they would never abandoned him. They kind of make sure he is never alone on a mission for too long.
And yeah...
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I have an Irish ask! How did the regional kings hierarchy work - was there a high king irl? How did you rule, and what over, and how did you get to be high king, if so? (From - a descendant of the Kings of Desmond, but very confused about what's shit, and what's legit, in Irish History?
Kingship in an Irish context is an endlessly complicated topic, and it seems like for every question we get, someone’s written or plans to write a dissertation on it. You accidentally tripped over a landmine when asking me this one. Which is DEFINITELY not your fault, I don’t resent you for it, it just means you are getting a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG answer.
But. Anyway. Kingship. I will preface anything I say with the acknowledgment that I am a mythological literature person, not necessarily a law/contracts/history person. Also that, tragically, there are a LOT of law tracts that remain untranslated. (And a lot of things. In general.)
So, this is…complicated, since a LOT of the work in the legal tradition revolves around the notion of kingship (seriously, my closest friend in the department is a legal scholar and we have had some long bitchfests about how much attention is paid to kingship VS the common people, simply because…..guess who was paying for these manuscripts to be made? Yep, it ain’t Farmer Cormac. The single most important thing you can ever remember about these texts is that they were made by and for an elite audience); you have a lot of kings in a fairly condensed space, and it gets to the point of whether we should even really properly translate rí as “king” or whether a more generic term like “leader” is actually more accurate, though it IS cognate with Latin “Rex” and Gaulish “Rix.” (Aka “Vercingetorix”, “Cunorix”, “Asterix”…all the most important “Rix”s of the ancient world.) So. Kings. Definitely kings. But not really in any way we would generally consider “kings” to be. Fergus Kelly estimated that there could be as many as 150 KINGS throughout Ireland between the 5th-12th centuries (17), which….on a relatively small island that holds only about 5 million people in the present….**150**.
Traditionally, the idea of a singular high king of Ireland was….okay, so you have a LOT of guys who claim to be “King of Ireland,” but there’s a question of how real that power actually was, how much power they ACTUALLY wielded, and how stable they actually were. And, on one hand “King of Tara” is generally taken to be synonymous with “king of Ireland”, (hence the Uí Néill’s LONG claim to power), but there are a lot of issues with that one, and it’s something that’s a matter of debate, not the least because it seems like the Uí Néill…..might have influenced the literature ever so slightly as a way of bolstering their own claims (Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, 215). Basically, no evidence that the kings of Munster paid tribute to the kings of Tara before the 9th century, making the claim that the King of Tara = King of ALL Ireland doubtful.
And….well, I’ll let Bart Jaski explain the title of ardrí (high king), since he’s the man with the big book on it: “To keep up with [the political developments of Brían Boru’s victory at the Battle of Clontarf], the annalists of the tenth century introduce the title ‘high-king’ (ardri) as a title of recognition or flattery to denote a powerful king who achieved a remarkable domination over others. In later historiography, the old kingship of Tara came to be regarded as the ‘high-kingship’ of Ireland, which is both an anachronism and an inaccurate estimation of what the kingship of Tara meant, both in pre-historic times as in the documentary period. The title of rex Hiberniae given to the kings of Tara Domnall of Cenél Conaill and his grandson Loingsech does not lend support to the existence of a ‘high kingship’. as they were apparently subjectively awarded by partisan annalists and others.”
Fergus Kelly was more to the point, “The king of Ireland (rí Érenn), who figures so prominently in the sagas, is rarely mentioned in the law-texts. Though the idea of a kingship of the whole isalnd had already gained currency by the 7th century, no Irish king ever managed to make it a reality, and most law-texts do not even provide for such a possibility” (18).
Charles-Edwards disputed this conclusion in Early Christian Ireland (okay, technically, he disputed Binchy’s conclusions, but this line of thinking), discussing some further references to a single king of Ireland binding the other kings of Ireland to him, as Conchobar was said to have done with the men of Ulster, as well as the legal term tríath, with a line from an 8th century law text being “He is a burdensome tríath who penetrates Ireland of peoples from sea to sea” (519). Liam Bhreatnach suggested in his article ‘Ardrí as an old compound,” as the name suggests, that the term itself, while little used, is old. I can’t get ahold of it at present, but I’m going to presume he did make a solid case, given that Carey, Jaski, and Charles-Edwards all cite him, and they are all careful, respectable scholars. What John Carey would point out in “From David to Labraid” is that actually, several of those early references were in fact to the Christian as opposed to an earthly deity. AKA “The ULTIMATE high king, the highest of kings” (pg. 21-23). Something suggested by Carey in that same article is that the Church MIGHT have promoted the idea of high kingship as a way of appealing to kings who would be interested in it in exchange for their support of Christianity; a quid pro quo.
Basically, the question of the extent of the high king’s power, both in a Christian and pre-Christian context, is HIGHLY controversial and something I reckon will never fully be satisfactorily resolved, not the least because it also has the misfortune of featuring two favorite, perennial topics of many Celticists: Etymological arguments and kingship. What I think we CAN gather from the debate is that it was very far from a SOLID title, more a matter of individual monarchs as opposed to stable dynasties. Medieval Ireland did not have a Versailles and a Louis XIV, there was not a singular sun king who decided their fates.
Now, in general, kingship was not necessarily held with the same iron grip that you would see with, say, the Plantagenets in England. Primogeniture was not necessarily a thing here. You did have to be a nobleman to be king (Sorry, Farmer Cormac, you’re out, get back to your field, peasant), and you had to be descended from a king in either the first or the second degree to be king, but you did NOT have to be the firstborn son. If you have seven kids and the youngest is the only one who is qualified to lead….yep, Junior takes the lot. So, that’s the first thing. There’s a section of Mac Firbis’ Great Book of Genealogies (which is a LATE text, but includes basically a scrapbook of older material) that references that exact scenario. Youngest can take it, eldest can take it, eldest PROBABLY has a higher shot of it because…older, more time to be groomed for the kingship, more time to gather people loyal to him, etc. But. Like. All of the kids have a shot, and depending on where they’re fostered off to, their foster families will very likely support them if they want to make a bid for the kingship. (Irish dynastic politics were VERY turbulent.)
A king is elected to the tribe through the popular acclamation of their major clients/family members; their power, while it is something that is expected to some extent, is not a GIVEN to the same extent. (Jaski 212). Which. Is where the role of tánaiste comes in, which is a late development, but it irons things out so it’s like “Okay, when the old fuck dies, this dude is king.” In a literary context, this is also why Bres’ kingship is kind of doomed from the beginning. Because it’s the WOMEN of the Tuatha dé who support his kingship, not the men.
And, of course, even if Junior does take the throne, that does NOT mean that his brother’s kids are out of the running when Junior dies (or, more to the point, they might try to speed things along and arrange for a “hunting accident” to happen.) Because of the three generation requirement to maintain noble status, there was quite a bit of infighting (Jaski 197), as different offshoots of a given high king will want the throne in order to maintain their noble rank. Knives Out: The Medieval Ireland edition.
One story that deals with this is Echtra mac nEchdach Mugmedóin (Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedóin), which discusses how the future Niall of the Nine Hostages, born the son of a Saxon slave and the king of Ireland, hated by his stepmother, and the youngest of the lot of the sons ends up taking the kingship anyway. (Answer: He’s down to sleep with an old hag. Who is also the sovereignty of Ireland. And is like “Okay, that was some good D, here’s how you get the kingship now.”) Now, this is primarily a literary as opposed to a historical story, but…..well….that’s where a lot of our stuff for this. Does come from. For better or worse. And I’m not just saying that because I’m currently procrastinating on working on an edition of that very text.
So, on the question of “How to rule.” The main relationship was between an overking-client king. So, let’s say that I am an underking in….IDK. Munster. What can I say? I like Munster. I’m not even a pronvincial king, but I’ve got my tuath, I’m chilling out, I’ve got my cattle, I’ve got some Nemed-class people with me, I’ve got a bit of land, and a couple of those people we don’t really talk about because they’re not important (Aka “Commoners, slaves, etc.” The people who do the work that the more privileged classes CANNOT do, like chop wood.)
Now, let’s say that you’re a provincial king, King of Munster. Your father’s just died, you’ve become king, or, alternatively, you’ve beaten the shit out of the other candidates, and you roll up to my people. Now, I could probably fight, but like. That’s a way to. Die. And maybe I do want the protection that comes from a Lord-Client relationship, since, hey, that DOES mean that you’re responsible for me. And if the King of Connacht rolls up and is like “Hey, I want to attack you and steal your cattle” you can roll up and be like “Hey, want to die?” Also, if one of your OTHER subjects kills a man in my tuath, you are expected to mediate, with me taking a hostage from your court until everything’s resolved, and you and I both getting a part of the resulting settlement (Kelly 23). And, of course, I’ll support you as well. It’s a mutual client relationship, just….an inherently uneven one. Most of the powerful subject kings, who were free but still subject to an overking were related to that king by a shared kinship, but there was a double edged sword: I support you, and then your brother Eochaid comes to the throne, I’m up Shit River with no paddle (Jaski 206). If I’m particularly useful/powerful to you, you might even foster one of your kids with me, so I can support him politically later down the line. (And also strengthen the relationship between our two peoples; that kid is going to be more mine than yours by the time that his fosterage is over, he will call you athair and me datai; one is a more formal term meaning “father,” [cognate with Latin pater and English father] one is more like “dad” and is cognate with the Welsh dat. Which seems to be related to….yep, the English diminutive dad.) Peter Parkes rather magnificently talks about this system as: “Clientage dressed in a false plumage of kinship: Cuckold consanguinity.” (”When Milk Was Thicker Than Water?”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 6.3, pg. 606)
So, what would happen there? Well, the system of overking-client king was held together much in the same way as the relationship between individuals would be, ie through hostages. The giving of hostages is something that was EMBEDDED in the legal system. So, you and I would proceed to haggle over who I have to hand over. Now, I don’t want you to take someone too important, you will want to take the most important person you can. I’ll try to get you to take my third cousin twice removed who I might see once every few years, Conall, you’ll try to get one of my kids. And, let’s be real, since you have the most power in this situation, you’ll probably fucking win. “He who has the sword makes the rules”- NOT an official medieval Irish legal statement, but it might as well be. Now, it should be emphasized that hostages were HIGHLY respected and treated well, there was no particular stigma against someone who was a hostage at some point, and you do have accounts of hostages eating at the king’s table, in a position that denotes a degree of intimacy and companionship. And a couple who are brutally executed or maimed when their kings broke the terms of the agreement, but, hey, only a 2% murder rate or so; very good for the times. It could be that the king’s son had a role when it came to making sure the hostages were cared for. But there’s not been all that much work done on it and a lot of this is being remembered second hand from a PhD student in our department who did a STELLAR lecture on the topic; if and when he decides to formally publish it, I’ll probably make a big deal over it. Because….this shit is IMPORTANT.
This is also why it’s Niall of the Nine Hostages. Because that’s how many peoples he extracted hostages from, that is a sign of his power as a king. You could NOT be king of Ireland without hostages. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Like, how are you going to be sure that your supporters are going to stick with you? And even if they do, where’s the signs of your authority? Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously?
So, a king of Ireland’s reign would be held together by a similar system, whether it’s provincial or the famous ardri. A high king would take hostages from their client kings as a way of showing off their power and authority, and they would probably show them off when making a circuit of their territory. Your ancestor would definitely have had a group of hostages taken from the athech-thúatha, or client peoples. The Triads put it slightly more succinctly: “[220] Three things that constitute a king: a contract with other kings, the feast of Tara, abundance during his reign.”
Now, again, this is an idealized literary context, but we’ve discussed the first one, the contractural nature. The feis Temro, or the Feast of Tara, was something that a High King of Ireland HAD to do as a way of securing his reign, and in the early days at least it seemed to involve some sort of marriage/sexual ritual with a representative of the goddess of sovereignty, a living embodiment of the land, and it would involve imbibing some sort of drink offered to him by her as well. (This is why Eochaid Airem HAS to marry Étain, because he needs a queen to have his feis Temro and become a king. This is also why Niall of the Nine Hostages secured his reign via sleeping with aforementioned hag.)
And there were a number of different taboos and responsibilities tied to said kingship. For example, in The Tidings of Conchobar Mac Nessa, it is said that “Now Conchobar himself used to give them the (the feast of) Samaim because of the assembly of the great host. It was needful to provide for the great multitude, because everyone of the Ulstermen who would not come to Emain in Samain lost his senses, and on the morrow his barrow and his grave and his tombstone were placed.” The Adventures of Nera also features Medb and Aillil throwing a feast on the day of Samain for the entirety of the province. Baile in Scáil features Conn rising every day so that he can go onto the ramparts of Tara with his druids and poets to defend it from the possibility of otherworldly attack. Another obligation was “the Prince’s truth,” the idea that the king, when giving out judgements, should be able to INTUIT the true answer. Giving a false judgement = ruin for the land, everything goes to shit, the harvests fails, cattle die, aliens invade (okay….maybe not, but like. it would be cool if they did), the king of Leinster steals your wife, etc. until the bad king is replaced. (It has been SUGGESTED that that might be the reason for some of the bog bodies. Possibly.) He also HAD to go out with a retinue when he was out hunting, a king who didn’t lost his honor price, same as if he’d used an instrument of MANUAL LABOR (the horror, the shock) (Kelly 19). For what it’s worth, I do know of at least one case in….I believe the 16th century where a woman claimed that the king was the father of her child, there was no one who could dispute it since he was alone, he took a shine to the child anyway, and BOOM heir. Which further shows one of the social dangers of a king on his own.
More specific ones to each province are laid out in the Book of Rights, which Myles Dillon did an edition of in “Taboos of the Kings of Ireland”. An example (chosen at random) includes, “The five prohibitions of the king of Munster: to hold a court before celebrating the feast of Loch Lern from one Monday to the next; to spend a wet autumn night before winter in Letrecha, to camp for nine days on the Suir, to hold a meeting at the boundary near Gabruan ; to hear the groans of the women of Mag Feimin in their oppression. And his five prescriptions : to despoil Cruachain at the call of the cuckoo; to burn the Laigin to the north of Gabair; to chant the Passion in Lent at Cashel; to travel over Sliab Cua with a company of fifty after pacifying the south of Ireland; to go with a dark grey army on Tuesday across Mag nAlbe.”
Either way, in Ye Olde Days, there was definitely an element of protecting the people of the region from the possibility of supernatural attack. That would obviously die down a little with the coming of Christianity, I don’t know whether a king in the 15th century, for example, would be expected to keep to it that rigorously, I lean towards “no” personally since this is generally talked about as an outdated custom, but it remained a popular trope in medieval literature. Dillon himself points out that, given that many of the taboos mentioned in here were only recorded in the 14th century, they were likely considered to be an odd, antiquarian quirk. That being said…..it’s ALL tied into the kingship, the idea of the king being tied to a certain series of obligations, the mutual relationship between king and people.
Now, if a king failed in his duties and taboos, he could be ousted. Like “you fucked up, buster, get packing.” Some examples of kings who lost their sovereignty include Bres mac Elatha (my BOY, my SON, my ANGEL, my…..little piece of shit), who was satirized by a bard (this is why people REALLY tend to underline the power of bards, because like. This was an ACKNOWLEDGED power of theirs. They were held in a heady mix of respect and fear for this one), Fergus mac Roiche (didn’t lose it because of incompetence per se, but did hand it over to Conchobar, and the men of Ulster, inexplicably, liked Conchobar more, which….their mistake but.), and Congal Cáech (whose bid for king of Tara was, according to legend at least, ruined by an unfortunate bee sting. In his eye. Whether he was actually king of Tara is something that seems to be slightly disputed.) People often will ask me, when I mention how much I love Bres, why I love him so much, and I feel like the answer to that….there are a hundred answers, depending on my mood, and this is NOT a Bres post, but the one most relevant to the overall topic at hand is that he really experienced the full kingship experience: The rise, the fall, the absolute tumultuous political reality of a 9th century king, albeit a fictionalized one.
Bibliography:
Carey, John, ‘From David to Labraid: Sacral Kingship and the Emergence of Monotheism in Israel and Ireland’, Approaches to Religion and Mythology in Celtic Studies
Charles-Edwards, T.M., Early Christian Ireland, Cambridge University Press
Dillon, Myles, “Taboos of the Kings of Ireland,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History,Literature, Vol. 54
Jaski, Early Irish Kingship and Succession, Four Courts Press
Kelly, Fergus, A Guide To Early Irish Law, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
Mac Cana, Proinsias, Celtic Mythology, Littlehampton Book Services
Parkes, Peter, ”When Milk Was Thicker Than Water?”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 6.3
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On why being dark makes Worm a good power fantasy
Okay I have a tendency to pointlessly and circuitously ramble so I’m just gonna leave a TL;DR up here: Worm shows that the most powerless people in the most hopeless situations can still make a difference through perseverance.
So here and there I’ve seen posts going around (not gonna search and link the various posts I’m referencing in this post, it’s 2 AM and I’m lazy) about why everyone should shut up about people liking lighter works, and how Steven Universe is a great work of escapism because it lets people experience a world where compassion can win wars and make the world a better place. I’m not gonna argue about whether lighter or darker stuff is better, the point of those posts is people can like what they want (also see that one comic I’m not gonna link where stories are balloons and someone makes a heavy iron balloon and drops it into a pit and someone stuck in the muck grabs a hold of it; you know the one).
But that stuff HAS been making me think about why Worm is a good escapist fantasy in a number of ways. My analysis of the Parahumans stories has been kind of sidetracked by the amazing analysis by the We’ve Got Worm/Ward podcast, all that stuff about characterization and themes and shit, it’s great, but all that stuff plus the YBUTTing (You’re Being Unfair To Taylor, basically dismantling her moral justifications and pointing out the negative effect her moral choices have on her and those around her) kind of make you forget the childish, sadistic appeal of a story about a girl who cuts people’s eyes out and is Completely Justified in doing so and also Extremely Clever like a seasoned D&D player. And that stuff is fun, even if it gets less so after too many rereads. (Seriously, I’ve listened to the audiobooks so many times now, I’ve lost count.)
But one thing Matt and Scott and the reddit commenters have discussed is the usefulness of horror story elements as a way of establishing stakes, which brings me to my point: It’s really fucking empowering to see a nerdy teenage girl take down invincible serial killers and bully god to death when she seems like she should have absolutely no way or right to do so.
Like, one of the reasons One Piece was always so appealing to me, something that sort of faded with the power creep and repetition of the same story beats over and over again, is how satisfying it is to see Luffy and pals take down warlords and tyrants a thousand times stronger than them through sheer force of will. What right does this punk-ass kid from the East Blue with stretchy powers have to take down a powerful Fish-Man, or a lightning-slinging self-proclaimed god, or a seasoned undercover assassin with a thirst for blood? But he does it anyway! He works out and trains and shit, and basically wrecks his body sometimes, and in the end, after a lot of screaming and punching, those guys are gone, and he’s still here! Because they had the audacity to hurt his friends, and he and his pals will fucking bully reality into doing what they want if it means stopping people who do those sort of things.
Now the thing about Taylor Hebert is she isn’t strong, not physically. This bullied kid never got super-strength or web-slingers to swing around on, nor the charisma to make quips and piss off the local mad scientists. She’s clever, but not enough to build a laser gun or a giant robot. She controls bugs. Wowee. Like the Stretchy Man, she should by all rights be underwhelming to deal with, but somehow she always seems to make it out alive, her enemies leaving without the eyeballs or prosthetic foreheads they came in with. (Don’t worry, they both got new ones, it just took a while. Well. Not Valefor.)
And that’s cool in a vacuum, but in the Parahumans universe? That’s an accomplishment. The Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine, the horror as stakes, they’re like an uphill battle against a bigger, steeper uphill battle. And Taylor has bugs. She can’t chop Leviathan in half, and if she tries (which she does, to a degree), she risks drowning, being crushed and paralyzed, and being thrown headfirst into a concrete floor all at the same time. So she slinks around the Endbringers, too far away to be stepped on, giving CPR to the fighters wounded in battle; she plots against the Nine and probes for weaknesses, even if it means risking herself and her teammates. She beats the shit out of the genius killer mannequin man, not with fireballs or hundred-ton punches, but with spiderwebs and glue, and in the end, after being wounded and exhausted, tens of people are alive because of what she did.
To compare this to Steven Universe, or the opposite side of Skitter’s coin, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (though sadly SU is a better comparison because on top of the positivity it handles things like abuse and trauma) (woe is me that I’m too lazy to write crossover or toneswap fanfic, between Worm and USG by the way, if you want to do that for me, be my guest (Also a Freaks and Geeks mashup, Worms and Germs)), it’s enormously encouraging that Steven is ultimately able to stop the onslaught of genocidal space empresses, not by punching them, but by appealing to their humanity, a task that his upbringing and challenges completely prepared him for. Doreen Green, in a world of angsty heroes and villains and murder and trauma, can befriend her enemies and stop them by suggesting more fulfilling career goals, or end centuries of interstellar war with a chalk board and a day or two of diplomatic negotiations.
And that’s appealing especially today because a lot of people feel tired of fighting and knowing that no amount of talking or empathy will stop transphobes and Trump supporters from making the world a waking nightmare. And plenty of people are tired of stories of Hopeless Bleak Despair, and want a little compassion in their lives. I get that, I truly do. I enjoy those stories for the same reasons.
BUT, Worm means a lot to me right now too. And it wouldn’t be the same without the pain and suffering. Scaring the Slaughterhouse Nine out of Brockton Bay wouldn’t seem like such an achievement if we didn’t see Brian cut to pieces, doomed to permanent PTSD, while the Undersiders lie paralyzed on the floor, subject to Bonesaw’s torturous whims. The defeat of Behemoth would seem a little more predictable and boring if the Avengers pulled it off in an hour, without hundreds of dead heroes (and thousands more who died in past fights), infighting, and the threat of an ally destroying all of India in a misguided attempt to stop the beast. Mannequin running away from a super-puncher or a fireball-shooter wouldn’t feel like the accomplishment it does coming from the scared teenage girl whose only weapons are some squishy bugs, a knife and baton, and some craft supplies.
Worm presents a world where suffering is everywhere, where the where traumatized, hopeless people can fight and fight and endure endless pain, lose loved ones and body parts, be given just little enough power by those that seek to exploit and hurt them that they shouldn’t be able to fight back, to leverage nothing but pepperspray and spiders against dragons, and, after all that struggling and fighting and pain, actually make the bad guys stop hurting people. (it’s like that Chesterton quote in Coraline that people misattribute to Neil Gaiman, about how fantasy shows us how dragons can be beaten.)
And it’s an upsetting and exhausting story to read, especially binge reading or listening, and it ends in genuine heartbreaking tragedy, yet somehow the victory seems like one of the most earned wins in all of fiction. Nobody should be able to defeat Grieving Golden Jesus or Superdense Hurricane Godzilla, and that’s why it’s so empowering when Taylor Hebert fucking does.
Isn’t that just as reassuring, in a world that seems so hopeless right now, when we all feel so powerless, so tired of struggling? I think so.
#Parahumans#Worm Spoilers#Mild One Piece Spoilers#Steven Universe Spoilers#Mutilation.;#Mild Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Spoilers
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