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#its the meta streak

time-is-restored · 1 year

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okay like listen i know a lot of people have been talking abt this specific aspect of 3x3 already but. im just having a bit of a moment w the amount of lgbt ppl who saw trent's expression at the end there, and like. Knew.

like to be clear i am aware that at this point trent being gay is, at best, subtext + fanon. its incredibly beloved subtext, but its entirely possible that it could get blown out of the water in the coming episodes. but within the reading of trent being a gay man, seeing colin in that terrifying moment of exposure + vulnerability... that look says So much. its fear, its worry, its an instinctive protective response. its helplessness, its shame from feeling powerlessness, its the grim certainty that comes from knowing just how much is at stake.

(cw: discussion of homophobia + discrimination below. its long. i very much rambled.)

bc the thing that i personally keep coming back to is like. everyone on the team is colin's friend - his family, even, according to the themes of the show. the show is literally about the team + staff working together to break down their toxic/unhealthy behaviours and build up a culture of trust + respect. that's why i think it's so significant that while isaac is the one to use the word gay pejoratively, he's also the one checking in on colin when he gets moved to the bench. he's arguably colin's closest friend at the club! and that's not enough. the fact that the richmond club is made up of demonstrably good and well-intentioned people isn't enough.

don't get me wrong, its fucking terrifying + awful being closeted around ppl who are ACTIVELY bigoted and cruel and who u KNOW would be nothing less than awful to if u were out. but the uncertainty of being around people you love, and not knowing what would happen if you told them? of never truly being sure of your place in the dynamic, since there's always that risk hanging over your head? its exhausting, and terrifying.

because what if they aren't accepting? even avoiding the worst case scenario where his bosses (the coaches, higgins, rebecca - hell, even keely) don't outright cut his career short, he's obviously extremely aware of how being on the outs with the team could lead to his life being made miserable. he was harassing nate himself! and, again, putting aside the (very real! he's a football player! he spends half of his time in a locker room!!!) threat of physical violence, we JUST saw how quickly a member of the team can be shunned + labelled as an outsider (and in the context of this arc, i rlly don't think its a coincedence that trent, specifically, was the one to experience that treatment). and that's without even getting STARTED on the absolute nightmare britain's press + papparazi would be if they put a target on his back (the show has spared no gory detail for their treatment of rebecca + ted, after all).

this is the type of weight colin's been carrying around for the past three seasons. and trent, in that split second before he looked away and continued walking, must've felt it all right along with him. colin works for the fucking premier league in fucking britain. it's harder to think of a workplace LESS hospitable to anything other than the most cishetero, toxic, hyper conformist displays of masculinity.

and that's what fucking GETS me abt the reading where trent is gay! because in the exact same moment where trent would be feeling such a sudden sense of connection + solidarity w colin (you are not alone!!! im here too! i see you! i know you!), there comes the crushing weight of wanting to protect him, and not knowing if you can. trent may be a notoriously incisive + unflinching reporter, but w/ all of his power + armour stripped away now that he's no longer with the independent, it's damningly obvious that trent doesn't have anything close to real power at richmond. if they wanted to make colin's life hell, what could he really do to stop them? again: they're fucking footballers. he's only even allowed at the club on ted's word, a word which could presumably be revoked at any time.

i just. the fear. the guilt. the shame. and above all, the desperate, heart aching need to keep another member of the community safe, even with the odds so blatantly stacked against you both.

and like. idk. to me that is the point of this scene. i think whether you've been in trent's position, or colin's, or neither, the vast majority of us went through a very similar emotional journey when we saw colin exposed like that. love -> fear -> protectiveness. and its an urge so strong, ppl are (lightheartedly, for the most part) threatening the Literal Writers of the show! like, the fact that rn there are SO many people out there tweeting + liveblogging and threatening trent, threatening isaac, threatening the WRITERS - threatening literally anyone and everyone over the CHANCE that any of them will hurt colin/out him/expose him to homophobia in any way? like, yes, colin isn't real. but i'd like to hope that that solidarity is.

and just to be clear, ted lasso is ultimately a comedy show. while it has never shied away from frankly portraying dark subject matter, i don't think this story will have an unhappy ending. but if this arc comes with any takeaway at all, i just really fucking hope that its about how that solidarity is what we all need to embrace + run towards, rather than try and stifle. and that colin is fully + unconditionally supported by his community, whoever that may be.

#cw homophobia #ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso meta #colin hughes #trent crimm #can you tell im having a very normal time abt this episode and its reception.#[tears streaking down my face] so normal. comically normal even.

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nat20potato · 1 year

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Cant find the posts anymore but recently Ive read some meta about Xenk's hair, which we gather is already meaningful to the POC/Black community, but in a deeper canon aspect-Xenk was apparently a Thayan slave??? They werent allowed to shave their hair...

I think about this once a day. There's a fic out there that suggests Xenk shaves as part of his morning prayers/meditation, and I can not explain how many levels of...PUNK that is. Xenk keeps his hair. He doesn't hide his undead Thayan markings.

It means he wants the people he saved to know that they were saved by a THAYAN. Sure, to discourage people associating Thay with cruelty and evil and give refugee Thayans a better lot in life but also...that is the BIGGEST Fuck You to every person who made his life living hell when he escaped from Thay as a child. And by not shaving his hair despite being by all means a free man, the unspoken BLATANT statement to Red Wizards that their schemes are regularly thwarted by a former slave. Like. That is the HUGEST middle finger I could possibly think of considering his background while simultaneously being the noblest thing anyone could do. He's proving everyone wrong. He's going to CONTINUE proving everyone wrong. That streak of sheer bastardry takes my breath away. God I have so much fucking respect for him. Its so fucking PUNK. Imagine how much he relishes shaving every morning or cutting/trimming his hair like... I love him SO much.

#xedgin #Xenk Yendar #DNDHAT #DnD Honor Among Thieves

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most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer · 8 months

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celestial surveillance + some garden of eden parallels

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. - Luke 8:17 (NIV)

Over and over, we see how the bookshop feels safe/private while simultaneously being sort of a fishbowl, leaving its inhabitants quite exposed to onlookers. *garden of eden vibes*

Similarly, Aziraphale and Crowley tried to conduct a class-A surreptitious 6000+ year agreement/slowburn romance and yet their 25 Lazarii relationship is fairly obvious to others.

Reminiscent of how Crowley is painfully aware that nothing is certain and time is horribly finite, Aziraphale lives with the knowledge that anything he does or says can be used against him—or much worse, used against Crowley or others our little guardian cares about. Unlike his emotional support demon, however, Aziraphale was afraid Before the Beginning, before The Fall.

While Upstairs aren't the only ones watching, they have the potential to be the most dangerous threat (emphasis on potential bc they have to take an interest and also maybe stumble into important clues): The heavenly office overlooks the entire world. Where Hell had to send Furfur to the theatre with a camera, Heaven's got Earth Observation Files they can pull up to see what someone was doing at any point in history—not even St. James Park can keep you anonymous in the face of thirty-seven classes of scriveners/recording angels!

Aziraphale may tend to underestimate danger in general because of his misplaced hope that Heaven is truly Good, but in the same way that he can be both clever and stupid, I think he trusts Heaven and fears it at the same time. Why else would he be so worried about breaking their rules even when he knows they are wrong?

Of course, Aziraphale is also a courageous little bastard with a deity-defying protective streak! Despite Heaven's indoctrination, we see him navigating all sorts of grey area as he learns to 'blur the edges'. But he knows it isn’t safe to do that openly. He keeps this more human side hidden and tries not to think too hard about why doing good is wrong in heavens eyes. (lol other people's aziraphale metas are my main food group rn)

At the end of S2, we see him leave A.Z. Garden & Co. after tasting the forbidden fruit large oat milk latte, armed with his naïve/misguided 'knowledge of Good and Evil'. (and perhaps he knows he can't 'let the sun can’t go down' on him in Soho lest the the Metatron mete out death instead of coffees?) When Adam and Eve left Eden, Aziraphale and Crowley observed from above. When the angel and demon leave their own garden, we get the sense that they are also being watched.

(also idk if this is anything but Adam facing off against the lion while Eve looks on in the bg seemed a bit like Crowley watching Aziraphale walk into danger w the Metatron. could be a good sign since the lion gets turned into salami)

There are hints at the end of S2 that the watching is getting a little a spicier (at least I think they are hints haha): the bookshop windows are still broken during the last part of E6, further decreasing privacy; the zombies used binoculars to watch A&C from the Dirty Donkey under cover of darkness in 1941 but the Metatron just looks across the road in the light of day. And then there's the whole 'hefty jigger of almond syrup'.

#im watching you wazowski always watching #also i'm just thinking jigger -> jiggery-pokery = trickery?? that's got to be on purpose right? *admiral ackbar voice* ITS A TRAP #good omens meta #good omens analysis #the metatron #a.z.fell & co.#the garden of eden #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens s2e6 #the final fifteen #aziraphale #crowley #lol this started as a paragraph in the GO:Lockdown Aziraphale draft but it was getting too big so here we are #i'll finish it eventually but i just like looking at everything everyone else is posting sm and i get distracted #a.z. fell and co.

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splatsvilles-fashionista · 5 months

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Splatoon 3 Version 6.0 Patch Notes Breakdown

Been a little bit since I did one of these, but Nintendo released the Chill Season 2023 patch notes about three hour ago, and while in terms of balance changes this is one of the smallest patches ever, it's got a ton of quality-of-life changes, so let's dig in, shall we?

So let's start from the top. In terms of new content, this patch includes a new catalog, two new stages (Robo ROM-en and Bluefin Depot), two new Specials (Splattercolor Screen and Triple Splashdown), nine new weapons, two new multiplayer songs, the new King Salmonid Megalodontia, and eleven new Tableturf cards.

Additionally, you'll note that they're including a line about giving you one Sheldon License at the end of each season. This is actually really relevant to a change coming down in line, so tuck that in the back of your mind for later.

The balance changes are all buffs, but they're relatively minor, and only six Main weapons and one Special are seeing any changes this time around.

Starting off, .96 Gal is having its ink efficiency buffed by 8%. It currently gets 40 shots on a full ink tank, so I wager this increases that number by about 5-10, but it's 5 AM my time at time of writing and I am bad at math, so I don't know for sure.

Ranged Blaster's explosions get a 15% paint buff. Note that this applies only to the final explosion and not the trail, so it's not a straight 15% paint buff.

Dread Wringer gets a 10% ink efficiency buff, and since it currently has ten sloshes on a full tank, that increases that number to eleven.

And finally, for Main Weapon changes the Heavy Edit Splatling now paints more. Unlike the Ranged Blaster's paint buff this is a lot harder to gauge, but Heavy Edit's paint can be kind of spotty and inefficient, so this is undoubtedly a good thing for it.

After that, we've got only two points-for-Special changes.

Jet Squelcher and L-3 Nozzlenose both get some points shaved off their Specials, taking their Ink Vac and Crab Tank to 180p and 190p respectively. On one hand, I am biased and hate the Jet Squelcher, and I think this buff was completely unwarranted and unnecessary, but on the other hand I love the L-3 and want only good things in life for it, so they balance each other out, in my book.

And, for the final balance change of the entire patch, we've got a Reefslider buff, as it now makes you invulnerable during its startup 13 frames faster. The thing about this change is that like, it's a buff, and that is good, but the problem Reefslider has is not getting the Special off, it's that you very rarely survive the aftermath of using it, and this does nothing to solve that. With Triple Splashdown on the horizon I think things might be rough for this Special in the future.

And that's all of the balance changes! There being so few of them indicate two things to me: That Nintendo is overall happy with the the state of the game, and that they are wary of touching anything unless they have to. And one hand I get it, after all, competitive players are currently saying that there really isn't a meta at the moment, just picking weapons you're good at and playing well, and that's probably not an environment you want to shake up too much. But on the other hand, there are a lot of things like Line Marker, Undercover Brella, and Reefslider to name a few, that could really do with some sprucing up to help them keep up with the just the middle of the pack. I think raising the bottom bar a bit higher would be to everyone's benefit.

But we've got two Specials being added, so I suppose now's not the time to rock the boat too much. We'll see how things have shaken out come the mid-season patch in January.

But the balance changes are a very small part of these patch notes, and nowhere near the most interesting, so let's keep moving on.

Anarchy Series and X Battles are receiving a whole slew of changes, the most prominent of which are some new badge rewards for win streaks and attaining high X Rankings. Additionally, matchmaking in X Battles is being changed to more strictly separate people with high and low X Ranks, as well as allowing more team compositions. To cut a long story short, weapons have a set of internal values that the game uses during matchmaking to try and balance the team compositions. Matchmaking in high-power X Rank infamously takes a very long time, so I have to imagine that this change aims to speed things up by making the matchmaking more lenient on that front.

Salmon Run, in addition to the new King Salmonid, is getting some significant changes, starting with some changes to the Specials:

Kraken Royale and Triple Splashdown are being added to the pool of available Specials. Additionally, Mr. Grizz has finally agreed to always provide at least two workers on every team with a long-range Special to handle all the pesky Stingers and Flyfish. Be sure to thank your local union representative the next chance you get.

This change is particularly spicy. Your Salmon Run stage badges will now boost your starting difficulty on their respective stages, adding more incentive to play beyond the two superbonuses, as well as making the grind for future badges easier. This certainly gives me more motivation to go for those VP 400+ badges.

You'll now be able to tell what King Salmonid is present during each Shift, and the Salmometer will change to match it, as well. Can you believe they didn't change that when they added Horrorboros?

Also I am curious what this means for those Shifts where the King Salmonid was random. Will the Salmometer become a question mark? Are they not gonna do those anymore? We'll have to wait and see.

But this next change, is a big one, and it's for, what else, Big Run:

Big Run trophy requirements will now be set in advance, and no longer scale off top 50%, 20% and 5% player results.

I am in two minds about this change. On one hand, I always thought that people complaining about overfishers in Big Run were kind of petulant and entitled, especially when the rewards were as minor as locker decorations and badges. Maybe that's mean-spirited of me, but there was never a way for me to read it as anything but people demanding to be given the same reward as the people working the hardest without putting in the effort themselves.

But on the other hand, the 5% cutoff has been steadily rising as overall Big Run participation decreased, which is just a natural result of time passing and casual players falling off the game, nothing weird there, but this means that the top becomes more stacked, further disincentivizing casual players as getting even the bronze trophies becomes harder and harder for them. Giving the players much clearer and more achievable goals will likely serve to pull a lot of people back into Big Runs, and that is undoubtedly a good thing.

And hey, I said the rewards weren't worth getting upset over, and by that same metric, I don't think it's worth getting upset over more people getting them, either. All the better, if it makes more folks happy. And as for the people who do want to grind their hearts out, well:

There's still some recognition for that, too.

So that's the gist of the Salmon Run changes, so let's finish up with some miscellaneous changes.

Remember how I told you to keep that bonus Sheldon's License in mind for later?

Players who own every currently available weapon will now be able to trade extra licenses in for Shell-Out Tokens. In other words, that extra license serves as a failsafe so you don't lock yourself out of buying future weapons by spending all your licenses on gacha rolls.

The Splatfest Battle Pro queue is receiving the same matchmaking changes as X, presumably for much the same reasons.

And finally, the most important change of all:

WANDERCRUST IS BACK!!! YEAH BABY!!!! WOO!!!

#splatoon 3 #chill season 2023 #salmon run #salmon run next wave

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icedragonlizard · 2 months

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Shadow Kirby headcanons

Shadow Kirby has a slightly lower-pitched voice than Kirby, and has less trouble speaking in big sentences by comparison. Because of this, you could be forgiven for thinking that Skirby is older than Kirby.

But in actuality, that's not the case. They're the same age. There's no age difference between someone and their mirror counterpart. Skirby is still a kid, he just happens to come across as seeming to be more cognitively/mentally mature than Kirby. He's also a kid that swears lol, something that Kirby absolutely never does and hates hearing it.

Skirby is less nice than his counterpart. In comparison, he's more critical and trollish. He has a mischievous streak. Although he's not a bad person by any means, as he generally means well, he just happens to be meaner than Kirby. His sense of fun is basically behaving like an edgy kid/teenager. He's kind of like an 'edgy Kirby'.

But despite being meaner than Kirby, Skirby can still be considered a hero of sorts, just to a lesser extent. He protects the mirror world. He's the best 'hero' that the mirror world has. Although Skirby is a tad more reluctant about his heroic role than Kirby is, and is generally more annoyed when something bad happens that warrants his attention. Compared to Kirby, Skirby is more harsh/critical towards people that have caused harm to his homeland. This of course includes the infamous Dark Mind and his ever so loyal servant, Dark Meta Knight.

Skirby and DMK don't get along. DMK didn't actually apologize for the events of Amazing Mirror, and even seems to want to try to continue doing things in Dark Mind's honor. Dark Mind is still alive as a weak little fragment that's toothless without someone enforcing its will, which DMK does as he still hasn't given up on his dark master.

But Skirby is capable of putting stops to future plans that Dark Mind and DMK might have. He's grown stronger over time and can use copy abilities just like his pink counterpart. Skirby can easily beat DMK in a fight, and often thwarts missions that DMK tries to do in Dark Mind's name. For now, Dark Mind coming back to rise as a meaningful threat again is not something to be really worried about.

DMK is still a pretty rude and brutal person despite his threat being kept in check, though. He's not at all irredeemably evil, as he does have friends (Kirby and the rest of wave 2) but he considers Skirby to be an aggravating nuisance. Skirby and DMK have many fights and arguments. Kirby sometimes visits the mirror world and is capable of ensuring Skirby and DMK ignore each other unless something really bad happens. Skirby does comply, but he still has distaste for DMK.

Shadow Dedede and Dark Taranza are also not friends to Skirby. Shadow Dedede is a rude, arrogant jerk that constantly wants to 'clobber' Skirby, and Dark Taranza is an utterly insufferable lunatic that Skirby wants nothing to do with. Both of them also seem to have plans to try to gain some power over parts of the mirror world, which Skirby will not allow as he'll fight them to stop that from happening.

So yeah, overall, Skirby isn't friends with DMK, SD or Darta. But he is friends with the more regular people in the mirror world. Regular mirror worlders appreciate Skirby for putting in effort to keep the mirror world as good of a place as it can possibly can, and many of them have edgy senses of humor to take well to his mischievous antics when there's no potential threat that's worthy of his attention.

Skirby and Kirby are friends! Kirby occasionally goes to the mirror world to visit, and Skirby is glad to show him what the world is like each time he comes by. Most of the mirror world respects Kirby for helping them out during AM! Skirby assures that he's their hero now.

Skirby sometimes vacations on Popstar. In one of his Popstar vacation post-Star Allies, he was given the chance to meet all dream friends.

For the most part... he thinks the other dream friends are cool people! When he learned that they were all a team, it made him a bit envious and jealous of DMK for joining them while he didn't. But the Jamba hearts entered the mirror world during Star Allies, and the place could've been harmed more if Skirby didn't stay home to clear it of the threat. Joining the dream friends was something he wishes he could've done, but knew that it was not practical to have done so.

For notable opinions that Skirby has on a few of the dream friends: he thinks Marx is the funniest person alive, he thinks Meta Knight and Dedede are so much cooler than their counterparts, and he's able to get along with Taranza despite the spider having resentment against the mirror world. Skirby was horrified when he learned about how Taranza's queen was corrupted by a dimensional mirror, feeling bad.

Although Skirby has mixed feelings about Daroach by virtue of him being close buddies with DMK. Sometimes, he feels like DMK is going to manipulate Daroach and make him worse. It also doesn't exactly help that Daroach sometimes steals things in the mirror world while visiting there to see DMK. Heck, Skirby even went to stop him in one of those instances. They don't hate each other, but they're a little bit at odds with each other. Skirby keeps a distance from him.

Out of the dream friends, the one Skirby likes the most is Marx. They are friends... not very close friends, but still friends! Skirby has an edgy sense of humor, and so Marx's funny business and antics are right up his alley. They've joined in pulling pranks together. It also helps that Marx trolls the absolute crap out of DMK and tells tons of emo jokes to make fun of him, which gets mad laughter out of Skirby.

Thanks to Marx, it even increases the edginess for Skirby's sense of humor, letting him apply that back into the mirror world, and fellow mirror worlders with edgy senses of humor can enjoy his new antics.

Skirby likes to have silly fun sometimes. Sometimes, he wishes he didn't have to be the best hero that the mirror world has, but nobody else there is willing to do that job. Someone's gotta keep the place safe, lest sketchy individuals living there will become far worse.

I think that's the gist of my Skirby headcanons! Thanks for reading.

#kirby #shadow kirby #skirby #kirby and the amazing mirror #kirby triple deluxe #kirby fighters 2 #kirby star allies #dark meta knight #dark mind #shadow dedede #dark taranza #king dedede #meta knight #taranza #marx #marx kirby

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unleashedsonic · 11 days

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@kirbyoctournament

( second image by @/miniiieevee )

ִֶָ 𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆★⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ

meet atlas, a friendly and excitable puffball from the planet sectra star! atlas is a puffball with incredible strength, who wields an axe about five times his size. he loves a good adventure and friendly competition, earning himself a bit of a cocky streak. it's all in good fun to him, though! of course, if his loved ones get hurt, that's a different story entirely.

after landing on the planet's surface as a baby, he was taken in by the bug-like inhabitants and raised as one of their own. during his young teenage years, atlas was chosen as the wielder for the sacred sword galaxia, and spent most of his years afterwards saving others and going on heroic missions with her.

but after years and years of fighting, years and years of losing loved ones, atlas came to realize he wasn't built for it. galaxia, who had never cared about her prior wielders, had watched atlas grow up and developed a fondness for them. she told them to leave her elsewhere for a new wielder to find, because she didn't want them to end up like her older wielders. after doing so, atlas returned home and took up the position of forge master alongside a close friend of his, and began creating weapons for the queen of sectra star's army and himself.

─ ⊹ ⊱ ☆ ⊰ ⊹ ─

nowadays, atlas resides on popstar with kirby and his friends, staying with his boyfriend meta knight and his crew in the battleship halberd.

but something lurks beneath the surface, crawling under the astral's skin. but i'm sure its nothing to worry about... right?

ִֶָ 𓂃˖˳·˖ ִֶָ ⋆★⋆ ִֶָ˖·˳˖𓂃 ִֶָ

#kirby oc tournament #oc tag #oc: atlas #haiii

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phoenixcatch7 · 8 months

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Why can't we have a batman is the spirit of Gotham au?

He already is, in meta, in character, in theming. Him and the joker. He is so very built upon what Gotham is made of, and Gotham builds from what he needs in turn, the setting of his story.

What if that is the reason he can take damage that would permanently ruin a physical career and come back? What if that's how he's managed to maintain his no-kill streak to such an extent? What if that's how he manages to maintain such high maintenance and all consuming identities?

For the heart and soul of a city containing all extremes, the richest nobility and the lowest of the poor, the cruellest villains and the most compassionate heroes, orphaned children and ancient lineages, a city rooted in fear and madness and grit-teeth determination and hard won kindness, what better choice could you find than Bruce Wayne?

But what if he wasn't alone in that? What if Gotham has sunk to such a low because its spirit is damaged and corrupted?

For the heart and soul of the cruellest city in the dc universe, the most unrelenting and uncaring, the one that practically laughs at your pain and suffering as you try to make it through another day, what better choice than the Joker?

#Batman v joker is yin yang up down left right it's the oroborus #Like it's possibly one of the most famous arch enemies of modern day lmao #Something something what if there was an actual reason b couldn't kill joker?? Like if joker died it'd kill him too.#Unbalance the incredibly fragile equilibrium b has spent decades fighting for #Like those threatre masks. Love theatre mask symbolism. But the batman is the smiling one and the joker is the frowning one #Its apathy vs compassion. Someone made a really good post about it a while ago but I can't find it ToT #But yeah imagine if b found out about the whole city spirit thing and freaked out it until he found out it was him.#Like full on possessive trawls through research and 'no I'm fine' to everyone watching and lying awake fuming and then it's all fine #Except now he can have an existential crisis because he never realised lmao. Idk maybe the waynes were infertile and he was a surprise baby #Maybe there's no hint he wasn't entirely human until he had the option opened to him.#Like he just thought all his weirdnesses were just from one of the various things he never got official diagnoses for #Which he still is! Some things were just supernatural lol #The kids are laughing at him but they've got the Gotham spirit of the protection which is how they're all (mostly) still alive lmao #Batman #Bruce Wayne #Cryptid batman #Gotham spirit au #Fic idea #Story idea #Batfam #Batfamily #Dc comics #Gotham #Dc city spirits

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randomfoggytiger · 8 months

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Mulder's Love Story, S1 (Part 1): Instant Camaraderie to Easy Friendship to Unbreakable Trust

My own meta thoughts down below~!

What hasn't been said about the Pilot? All I will add is that I never read romance into Mulder's actions-- just sheer desperation for a friend and confidante, so much so he grabbed onto Scully's good manners, quick mind, and fairness within their first interview. His openness was won with her mosquito scare, and his faith in her abilities was tested and won in the graveyard.

Deep Throat showed him what the limits of her patience were and what an incredible backup she was in an emergency.

By Squeeze he was both unapologetically territorial and afraid she was unconvinced by him and his "Spooky" theories, one step away from boxing the whole package back down in the basement to travel further up the floors. He was immensely relieved to find she was not only ride-or-die for the Truth but also perfectly capable of weathering its many unexpected twists, turns, and gray areas.

In Conduit, Mulder was not afraid or ashamed to show how raw and unresolved Samantha's loss still was; and even trusted Scully's final call to pull him back from the grave and the Morris family.

The Jersey Devil tapped into the territorial streak of Squeeze but with more stakes: Scully couldn't have a life and be as dedicated to the work as Mulder. He knew this, mourning her absence until the siren call of the next lead made him forget his manners and barge into her personal time (ala Elegy, Chinga, etc.)

Shadows was the first time Mulder invited Scully out on a little fun activity outside of work (the Liberty Bell) even though the tourist site was likely already closed. On the heels of The Jersey Devil and right before Ghost in the Machine, it's easy to read this as his attempt to firmly establish Scully as his little buddy in and out of work (like the deep friendship he had shared with Jerry Lamana ala the deleted script, here on @x-files-scripts's page.) Scully's "I'd settle for a life in this one" teasingly echoes her "I would like to have a life" and his "I have a life" from their previous case.

Ghost in the Machine was the first of many of Mulder's "pasts" getting exposed to Scully, i.e. Jerry Lamana (who had asked Mulder to be his best man at his wedding), Phoebe Green (who had tormented Mulder during their dating years), and Reggie Perdue (who had been Mulder's mentor), Bill Patterson (who had been Mulder's authoritarian teacher), Diana Fowley (who had-- and was-- a tool of the Consortium to reign him in), etc. It sets the tone for Mulder's repeated failed disclosures to Scully, which makes her feel lopsided and unincluded in his inner circle (this ep., Fire, The End, etc.)

Ice was a heavy-hitting game-changer: it's the episode that tested Mulder and Scully's trust by stretching it to almost impossible limits; and yet, they persevered and succeeded. From here on out, Mulder's trust in his new partner is unshakeable and unbreakable (except for a brief stint of drugged-up madness in Anasazi.)

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

#txf #Mulder's Love Story #S1 #x-files #xfiles #the x files #xf fanvid #Mulder #xf meta #meta #mine #analysis

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supercap2319 · 1 year

Text

World’s Finest

Barry Allen x Male Reader (Gender bent Powerpuff Girl)

Y/N floated above the Central City Picture News as he sighed and smiled softly. Nine months ago, he was the only person on the planet who had powers. Now, it seems like everyone and their mother had them. While it was bad, it was also good because there were people out there who were just like him, fighting the good fight.

Speaking of said people, Y/N could feel a slight wind at his back as he heard a whoosh behind him. He smirked and turned around to see a man about 6 foot 2, dressed in a red leather suit with a yellow lightning bolt symbol on his chest.

“So the rumors are true. You are real.”

“I’m feeling pretty real.” The guy in red pats his body down to check if he’s real. It’s cute and dorky and it lets Y/N know that this guy, whoever he is underneath the mask, is a total nerd.

Y/N chuckles lightly as the guy looks up at him and frowns. “That’s… an interesting… fashion choice?” It’s more of a question than a statement as he gestured towards Y/N’s getup. He wore fingerless hot pink gloves with heart-shaped outlines over the outside palms of his hands. Had a purple shirt underneath a green leather jacket and light blue spandex pants with black boots.

The flying man smiles at him. “Says the man who’s dressed all in red leather. You’d fit right in at a leather bar and club.” The man in red looked down and even though Y/N couldn’t see he was blushing, he could hear his heartbeat beat faster at that statement.

“So, you’re like me then? The impossible?” The man asks Y/N. “Because I just witnessed a guy who had control over the weather, and now I see you flying in the air like its nothing.”

“Sorta,” Y/N said. “It’s true that I am artificially made superhuman, but I didn’t get my powers in the particle accelerator explosion like the Meta-humans running around Central City.”

The man looks shocked. “You know about their name? Their nicknames?”

“Wasn’t that hard to name them. My father was a scientist, so I know a thing or two.”

The red man nods. “Who are you and why haven’t I ever seen you in Central City before until just right now?”

Y/N sighed as he floated down to the building the man was standing on. “I moved here about nine months ago, the same time the accelerator exploded. Before that, I didn't think I needed to show the world my powers. I didn't want to scare anyone, so I hid them. Now that other people have powers as well, I've come out of the closet, so to speak, to stop them.”

He nods again. “So, what do I call you? Rainbow man? Sugar, spice, and everything nice?”

Y/N chuckles. That was more appropriate than he knew. “You can call me, Major Man.”

“Major Man?” The man in red raised his eyebrows. “Somebody has a high opinion of himself.”

Major Man shrugged his shoulders. “When you can fly and are nigh invulnerable with super speed, laser-eye beams, supersonic screams, and ice breath, what else are people supposed to call you? Seems like a major list of abilities, don't you think?”

“Okay, fair point,” the man in red said. “That's certainly a lot of powers you have there. And you said you were artificially created?”

Y/N nods. “My father wanted to create the perfect little boy and accidentally created me in his lab.”

“So, you're not the perfect boy?”

“Oh, I am. Just with a super-powered kick.”

They both chuckle. “So, what do I call you, Speedy Gonzales? The Whoosh? The Red Streak? The Blur? Or the Scarlet Speedster?”

The guy chuckles again. “What about the Flash? I'm just saying that I think that’s a pretty cool superhero name, right?”

Y/N thinks about it. “Nah, I still prefer the Blur, Scarlet.” He smiles as the Flash smiles as well.

“Well, this has been fun, but I really should get going. I have work in the morning.”

The Flash looks surprised. “You have a job?”

“Of course, I have a job. Why wouldn't I have a job?”

“I thought this.” Flash motioned towards YN. “Was your job?”

“No, no, I do this because it's the right thing to do, but it doesn't pay my bills.”

“I feel that.”

“I'll be seeing you, Scarlet.” Y/N winked as he flew into the air. “I have a code name, you know?” the Flash told him. Major Man turned and gave him one last smile. “Don't care. Scarlet suits you.” Then he was gone, a bright energy trail of pink, green, and blue behind him as he flew out of the Flash’s line of sight.

The Flash grinned. “Cool…”

In his coms, he could hear Cisco laughing at him. “Ooh, someone has a gay crush.”

The Flash blushed as red as his suit. “Shut up, Cisco.” He speeds off the roof.

#x male reader #male reader insert #male x male #the flash #cw the flash #barry allen #barry allen x reader #barry allen x you #barry allen x male reader #grant gustin #Grant gustin x male reader #powerpuff girls

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controversial-blorbo-bracket · 9 months

Note

Too many Binghe haters jumping into the askbox so I'm here to represent Binghe lovers.

Luo Binghe is a fun, interesting character who suffers a lot from shallow readings. Which is ironic considering the main source of tension in his relationship with Shen Qingqiu, the MC - who is originally a reader of the novel in which Luo Binghe is the protagonist - is that Shen Qingqiu keeps reading him shallowly / expecting him to act according to some or other character archetype, and thus misses that Binghe is a complex person with his own rich inner world. Basically it's meta-commentary on how readers do a disservice to characters by oversimplifying them to just a few traits and/or their role in the story (SVSSS in general is super meta) but unfortunately not a few ppl read the novel and fell into those same trappings ^^"

It also doesn't help that Shen Qingqiu is an unreliable af narrator, which leads to some people insisting that Luo Binghe forced him into a relationship or is manipulating him or w/e... This is about a guy who waxes poetics about Luo Binghe's unparalleled beauty every time he lays eyes on him. Like cmon, he just has a lot of internalized homophobia and shame to work through, give him a break!! And the so-called 'manipulation' is half the time Luo Binghe looking vaguely disappointed and Shen Qingqiu going "wow! I cannot believe the most beautiful man in the world whom i love so much that i died for him twice and whom im dating is making me have sex with him! Luo Binghe sure is a master of emotional manipulation!" and other half the time Luo Binghe super obviously whining for attention which - canonically, its in the text - makes it easier for Shen Qingqiu to be honest with him.

But enough salt; reasons why Binghe is a top blorbo go:

The narrative (which btw is a real force in this world) is trying to make him into an iron-fist Ruler Of Everything but his greatest aspiration in life is to be a househusband.

Was supposed to be a protagonist of an uber-straight harem novel but threw heterosexuality out the window within 3 interactions with MC.

His love language is cooking! It's adorable but it'll also hurt u. (Binghe kept making three meals a day for Shen Qingqiu during the five years the latter was dead :) )

A big part of his arc is about learning to be vulnerable and show his sensitive side. (In general, one of the novel's major themes is toxic masculinity and how it harms ppl; I just particularly like how its explored with Binghe.)

A Good Boy (has been going through a corruption arc for 2/3rds of the novel yet it still took a cursed sword controlling his mind for him to start acting like the OG)

Lotsa delicious fridge horror around him being the narrative's favorite chew toy. Things only ever get worse for him and reality will warp itself to deny him a chance to heal while the story is in progress, because he has a Role and that role is ‘a villainous protagonist’.

But also u get to cry about how he was saved in the end by the power of just one reader loving him and wanting better for him. (SVSSS is also a love letter to fandom/fanworks okay :] )

Very powerful but also a nervous wreck. Tripped and fell flat on his face when proposing to his boyfriend.

Just in general him being clingy and whiny and a mess is mega cute (me 🤝 Shen Qingqiu)

This makes for a great contrast with him being a super OP nigh-unkillable demon lord btw. He could drown the world in blood but he's too busy crying Ghibli tears in his man’s lap.

Also I need to mention he's extremely funny about being nigh-unkillable too. Like, *gets injured* Shen Qingqiu: "We can have sex once u r better 😔" Luo Binghe: *popping broken limbs back into place*: "I'm better! :D"

Has a praise kink AND a masochistic streak. Apparently when Shen Qingqiu praises him and pats his head it's exciting, but when Shen Qingqiu scolds him and hits him that's also exciting.

Has the peak character design detail in the form of a demon mark on his forehead. Built-in kissies target 🥰 Also when fanartists draw it in different shapes to represent his mood? Absolutely delightful 100/10 no notes <3

Why do I feel like this man has Kenergy

#I could be totally off here but I’m getting the Vibes #not a poll #ask #luo binghe #propaganda #verycharismaticdragon

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veinsfullofstars · 2 days

Note

Your childhood friends au is so cute! Can I ask how poor lil Meta already got himself that big ole scar on his head? If he already got himself hurt his friends would be sooo sad!

Aw, thank you so much, anon! I’m doing my best to channel as much wholesome energy into this project as I can (at least for now, hehe).

As for Meta’s scar, well… I can’t say too much at the moment (got some plans for a bigger piece to explain it in full in the future, and I need to establish a few more characters and scenes first... so many ideas, so little time, y'know), but I can give this little tidbit:

He got it on the day he first arrived on Popstar, not long before he met his new friends…

(ID: A long vertical shot of Green Greens at night during a meteor shower, the navy-blue sky stained in dark tones of color, speckled and streaked with stars. Below, grassy hills and fields are laid out to our right, dotted with trees and thin pill-shaped structures, and a swathe of dense forest spreads towards the horizon on our left. A curling wisp of smoke rises from the center of the woods where something has apparently made impact. In the foreground, on top of the hill closest to us, a telescope - presumably Para's - lies knocked over on its side, and an upturned picnic basket spills snack foods all over a red-and-white-checkered blanket spread over the grass. Text bubbles wind down from the top around to the bottom, the speakers off-screen and unspecified, presumably family and neighbors of Dedede, Para, and Bow. Transcript below the cut. END ID.)

Sketch started 04/22/24, sketch finished 04/23/24.

---

Dialogue transcript:

“Hah… Is everyone alright?”

“Y-Yeah… I think so.”

“It didn’t hit anyone, did it?”

“No. It just passed overhead, thank stars.”

“Goodness, that was scary.”

“You’re tellin' me. When I said I wanna see the meteor shower up close and personal, I didn’t mean that close!”

“I didn't know shooting stars could fall out of the sky.”

“I don’t think that was a normal shooting star...”

“Look! Over there, in the woods! That must be where it landed!”

“Oh, dear, do you think we should- Wait. Has anyone seen the kids?”

“They were just here a second ago, weren’t they?”

“You don’t think…?”

“Dammit… Alright, c'mon, let's go! That can't've gone far.”

“Oh, Dee… Of all the times to go running off into danger…”

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whinlatter · 11 months

Text

author's note | chapter 5: the flock 🌊

here is the author's note for chapter five of Beasts! this week, the tide's rolling in on the greyback hearings, the press are determined to rock the boat, harry and ginny head for the (metaphorical) lifeboats, and madam pince is officially sick of ginny weasley's shit. all the usual behind the scenes writing notes, headcanons, fic and meta inspo and song choices below, plus a tiny sneak peek of chapter six... 🗞️

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut ✨

[ flock, n.: a number of birds of one kind feeding, resting, or travelling together ]

writing notes and headcanons:

the hearings – this chapter sees ginny forced to zoom out from her own (real) problems and start to confront developments beyond the castles: the trials/hearings, a broader politics and set of questions about justice and inclusions/exclusions from wizarding society, and the role of the media in that society’s political and cultural life. i wanted this chapter to feel like a wave building and building and breaking - narratively, i wanted a false break, with harry and ginny’s reunion, and the actual breaking to be with bill’s speech at the end (jury’s out on that one - also just made the chapter extremely long and a bit top heavy, which i might prune in an edit). but i was so excited to start writing this dimension to the fic more explicitly, because i’m really interested in taking up questions about the kinds of evil and darkness that linger after voldemort’s end, and how wizarding institutions do or don’t confront their own role in furthering kinds of societal divisions and discrimination that helped pre-dated voldemort and have survived him. it’s not that ginny’s personal problems aren’t valid or real, but that what i hoped for in this chapter is to take a step back and put what ginny’s going through into a broader context of a whole society coming to a reckoning.

the wireless – i’ve taken some creative liberties on the wireless, as we don’t really know how it works (this pottermore page on technology was far more frustrating than it was helpful lmao - if muggle wirelesses have been ‘modified’, are they still running on the same kinds of (muggle) technology, or on magic? how do they work!!!). i decided static must still exist lol, to add to this sensory experience of irritating omnipresent noise ginny experiences throughout this chapter. the lil opener about the shipping forecast i’m so attached to is a bit of a love letter to this very strange british radio tradition (i really recommend listening to a sample one, they’re so charming), but i liked it also as a window onto a possible touchpoint between muggle and wizarding society that the wireless itself symbolises. young ginny’s question to arthur about sea monsters causing waves, and arthur’s response (“there doesn’t always have to be a monster, you know. Sometimes, there are other things to worry about”) is me trying to play with ideas about wizarding hubris that young witches and wizards internalise but which prevent wizarding society from seeing its own blindspots and points of ignorance. also the shipping forecast is foreshadowing for the rest of the chapter lol (forth is the oceanic region nearest hogwarts; lundy is the region nearest cornwall, where bill’s from. don’t worry i think i’m obnoxious too)

on bill weasley – bill is probably my favourite weasley after ron and ginny. he could be a really nothing character, but instead he’s quietly a really strong and reassuring presence who is clearly widely admired and who has these really loving close relationships with other great characters. he’s empathetic and highly observant, he’s got a sense of humour but also knows when to be serious, and he takes his responsibilities to his parents and to his siblings very seriously. but he’s also got this other streak - ginny think it’s him being drawn to ‘glamour’ and ‘adventure’, but i see it more as him having a bit of a capacity to surprise, an edge, a real audacity, strong sense of self, and a belief in his own convictions. that neither bill nor charlie followed arthur into the ministry is i think very revealing of how the weasley siblings grow up seeing through the political institutions of their world (and what makes percy’s arc all the more heartbreaking).

bill and remus – this is such a personal obsession of mine lol, being a big fan of both bill and remus as characters in their own right, but i think bill and remus’ interactions in canon are small but really meaningful, and speak to two characters bound together in some way, even before bill’s attack. obviously they’re both young(ish) men in the order, reasonably close in age (at least, less than the age gap between remus and dora), and they both often play similar roles within the larger group of resistance fighter, including as peacemakers (to molly in ootp over percy, and to ginny in DH during the evacuation), and sage guides to the younger ones (remus examples too many to name, but on bill i’m thinking of him advising harry in pre-gringotts, sheltering ron after his desertion). they also, canonically, both have an interest in these questions about politics, beings and beasts the place of other species in the wizarding world, actually discussing the goblin Q together with arthur in ootp (remus on goblins: “if they’re offered freedoms we’ve been denying them for centuries they’re going to be tempted [by Voldemort]”) then, of course, after bill’s attack, remus is both a source of information and experience in the immediate aftermath, and has previously shown an interest in comforting victims of werewolf attacks and other wereolves (ootp in st mungo’s). i think they also have a mutual respect and quite a warm friendship, only glimpsed very briefly through harry’s narration. when mad-eye is killed during the seven potters rescue, it’s remus who consoles a crying bill at the burrow (‘Bill’s voice broke. “Of course you couldn’t have done anything,” said Lupin.’) remus knows bill is upset and offers to recover mad-eye’s body with kingsley to spare bill the task, but bill is insistent he wants to go, and the two of them agree to set off alone together. bill also seems to know about remus trying to leave tonks, and knows when they’ve reconciled: ron passes the info on to the trio through bill. then ofc when teddy is born, remus and bill have that lovely moment where bill’s trying to get him drunk to toast to his son’s birth when remus is absolutely elated. i think remus’ experience as a fellow victim of greyback, their age gap and remus’ credentials as a young man who fought in the first war would mean bill would both look up to remus a great deal and would motivate him to do right by remus in death.

bill and ginny – ginny’s admiration, even reverence, for bill, comes through so strongly in canon (harry even seems faintly amused by it, as it borders on hero-worship - “Bill doesn’t like him either,” said Ginny, as though that settled the matter, in OotP). i think if fleur had been with any other of her brothers, ginny might have taken her arrival better. little ginny wants to be charlie, but she also really admires bill and will follow where he leads (👀). bill sticking his neck out will (we’ll see) have big consequences for his family and for ginny. all i’ll say for now is that i think it means a lot that ginny spends this chapter trying to shield bill from the horrors of the greyback hearings, and then he takes her surprise and walks straight into the fire.

on the montgomery family - i wrote much longer versions of all the testimonies drawn from canon here (the montgomery family, parvati on lavender, bill on remus and his own attack). The montgomery family only get a brief mention in HBP, the two sisters whose little brother died after being attacked by greyback, and writing from the perspective from the parents of that child was honestly horrendous. i had to cut a lot of it down because it was just actually horrific and much too sad, too early in the chapter. but yeah sorry writing this chapter really made me realise how fucking awful the greyback stuff is. truly truly not children’s book shit lol

on parvati and lavender - i wanted parvati’s testimony about lavender to address the severity of her injuries after the attack, but it was also important to use this speech as a chance to explore how this friendship feels for those two characters. Harry’s narration is that of a teenage boy - he’s friendly with them both, but not close, probably has a bit more time for parvati than lavender, and he’s largely uninterested in both girls’ inner lives (and tends to dismissive them as silly, girlish and giggly). so it seemed important to explore their friendship as something rich and meaningful, and to put forward a version of lavender that, while shaded by her canon appearances, gives her a more well-rounded and kinder character assessment than the narration in canon ever affords her. hermione looking up to the dormitory steps as she listens to them, ginny and luna holding hands during - girls processing their friendships 2k23 babyyy

on hermione and ginny – as discussed in the last author’s note, this is me playing with how to write conflict between two female characters that’s true to their characterisation and their relationship’s dynamics, but that also has them both coming from a reasonable and understandable place but both exhibiting unhealthy coping mechanisms. ginny is avoidant, using humour, denial and distractions, and fiercely protective of the other gryffindors, trying to shelter them from exposure to too many emotional triggers. without spoiling anything, hermione has a different perspective; she wants all the information possible, she’s very interested in these questions of how this society will or won’t change, and the prospect of reform (she also, of course, has had her own traumatising run-ins with greyback), but, as ginny, harry and ron can all see, she’s not taking care of herself - she’s not allowing her any respite from the traumatising news cycle, and she’s also clearly showing signs of distress, isolation and PTSD, particularly the absence of harry and ron (especially ron, our real hero in this chap). i’ve found it so fun but challenging to write ginny’s pov when personally i’d probably be much more like hermione (want to know everything and obsessively follow the news lol). i really care about trying to write this arc in a way that feels fair to both characters.

on harry and ginny – i finally let them kiss ok!!! and i even gave harry a semi (sorry). those two just write themselves. it was very very important for me in this chapter to have the two of them thinking together about the world around them, as well as providing each other with forms of emotional support that are valuable to each of them (quiet, careful, lots of physical contact, not overstepping or overreaching, balanced out by laughter). ginny is better practiced at this: harry is still learning, though he’s getting there. what i hope i’m starting to show is how these two people go from teenage sweethearts to two people in a marriage and a partnership. (also how do you know ginny’s in the grounds a lot in the mornings harry??? hmmmmmm???) also harry potter loves the sea it’s canon and he also has no chill and definitely would pick out a little seaside house for them both tomorrow if ginny let him. love u hjp miss writing your narration where i could take for granted that you’re very selectively observant and have you slowly realise things. ginny is too observant i have to work much harder to cultivate her ignorance lol

on ron and ginny – i really feel like you can tell in their parting conversation that i’ve been binging succession lately. the surprise at ‘love you’ is pure roy siblings without any of the you know, deeply-fucked-up-ness

on st andrews/anstruther/scottish coastal destinations – how does ginny know these places, indeed? a story for another time… (we’ll get there)

on arnold – ok confession time: i forgot about arnold when i mapped out this fic. wrote a ginny pov fic about magical beasts and forgot her literal pet. in my defence, on my re-reads i was always just thinking like, what is the point of arnold. also what tf happens to arnold. is arnold one of the fallen fifty? we do not know. (...) at a certain point, though, i realised that arnold is just like, a dumb fun pet an adolescent girl gets to play with, and that’s kind of the point. joy is worth something in its own right. so having remembered he exists in canon lol and had that realisation, i’m happy with how he’s ended up in this fic finally lmao. the story of his handover is still to come, but for now just to say i really like the idea of little bea taking ownership of ginny’s pet, this symbol of innocence and fun and happy girlhood.

on chapter titles – this one is for my jonathan livingstone seagull fans (👀 again…)

reading list:

on bill weasley:

up and down and barely made it over by cosmicwritings

Harbor by @greenhousethree

on postwar justice and trials:

castles by @pebblysand

on the sea:

Harry and Ginny at Shell Cottage (meta)

on neville and ginny's friendship:

Ginny and Neville: A Friendship Forged in Fire (meta) by @greenhousethree

on lupin among the werewolves:

It's Just What You Do To Get By by @evesaintyves

songs for this chapter from the playlist:

to anyone who has reached out to tell me they’ve been listening to the playlist - you are all the loves of my life and i could kiss you. i spend an indecent amount of time picking songs out for that damn playlist, and i really used this week’s to get me into the zone for writing different sections, so feel very attached to this chapter's song choices (also it includes one of my all-time favourite songs, nobody else will be there, by the national, which is an immaculate and underrated hinny anthem and maybe my favourite love song in the world)...

and a tiny sneak peek of chapter six... ❓❔⁉️

MEET THE WEASLEYS: THE WIZARDING WORLD’S MOST OUTSPOKEN - AND CONTROVERSIAL - FAMILY William ‘Bill’ Weasley may have made headlines after his recent pro-werewolf testimony before the Wizengamot. But Bill’s not the only Weasley unafraid to ruffle some feathers. Get to know the notorious family who are no stranger to scandal, with the Daily Prophet’s handy pull-out guide, Which Weasley?

#beasts #author's note #spoilers #fic rec #alexa play press by cardi b

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lullabyes22-blog · 1 year

Text

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Ch: 14 - Primal Scene

Summary: Zaun is free—and must grow into its unfamiliar new dimensions. So must Silco and Jinx. A what-if that diverges midway through the events of episode 8. Found family and fluff, politics and power, smut and slice-of-life, villainy and vengeance.

AO3 - Forward, But Never Forget/XOXO

FFnet - Forward, But Never Forget (XOXO)

Playlist on Youtube

Fanart, Meta, Snippets

Chapters: 1| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |8 | 9 | 10 |11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54

CH 14: Vi makes plans. So does Silco.

Cw: for rough sex with multiple partners in Silco's PoV. There are also brief mentions of underage sex in Vi's PoV. Nothing is graphic, and the activity takes place with a peer, but if such content offends you, please be warned!

Separate tw: for bloodplay, dubious consent, biting, mistreatment of sex workers, and violence/bloodshed. On top of that, another tw: for mentions of mental illness, panic attacks, PTSD and abandonment issues.

Step inside my heart, broken up Show you what it's like, only for the night

~ "Empty Love" – Tech Thieves

"It adds up," Vi says.

The drumroll of rain is swallowed up by her flat's old architecture. It is a two-story townhouse at Sapphilite Row: all folio-colored stucco walls and faded blue windows, calligraphed with marks of age. The place is simply furnished: a tiny livingroom, and an equally tiny bedroom. A colonial-style doorway leads to a balcony, its eaves dripping rain down into the cozy bakery below, where bready scents waft deliciously.

There is an earthiness to the neighborhood that appeals to Vi. Downtown is the curated surface of Piltover: glitzy and modern. But these districts hold a gritty pulsebeat similar to the Undercity. Generations of families living in the same block since the mercantile era.

Inside, the lights are off. A luminous streak glows through the bathroom's half-open door. In the clawfoot tub, Vi lays in the steaming water. Her hair clings wetly to her scalp. Her body, all taut muscle and whorling gearwork tattoos, feels pummeled from top to toe.

Thank Janna for Piltover’s water.

Clean, hot, unspoiled water.

In the past, baths were never Vi’s thing. Give her a hot blast under a shower any day. At the Drop, they'd had no bathtub. Just a rusty spray-hose with no pressure, and yet she and Powder had to jockey with Mylo and Claggor for its use anyway.

But in winters, Vander let the girls haul down the giant metal tub into the basement. They'd boil water and carry it downstairs in big pots. Then she and Powder would lock the door, strip right there on the cold tiles, and slither inside with happy shrieks. Vi still remembers Powder's blue hair plastered to her skull and crowned with bubbles. Her sister loved the sounds they'd make, tiny planets popping in her ears.

Buoyed by the water, her small body would float into Vi's lap. She'd let Vi check her hair for lice, then wash it and wring it out until it squeaked. Sometimes, Vi would sing to her—old ballads half-remembered from childhood. Powder was especially fond of The Wave-Soaked Maiden. Her eyes would go round and shiny, and she’d barely breathe for fear of missing her favorite lyric:

Behind her lips, her teeth were sharp/Much sharper than his knives/She said to him, "Come closer, sir/And I'll eat you alive.”

Each time Vi hit that part, her sister would kick her feet through the suds, squealing.

Powder was happiest in water.

Vi's eyes burn.

Caitlyn sits at the tub's lip. She is in a linen robe of the palest blue, the fabric sticking heavily to her skin in the bathroom's swelter. Her hair is twisted up off her neck; wisps float around her face. Earlier, she'd helped Vi to disinfect and re-bandage the cut on her cheekbone. It is minor, only three stitches necessary. Vi was told the scars will fade in time.

Caitlyn's fingertips trace the bandage on Vi's cheek. Her eyes are troubled. More than that—sorrowful. And that sorrow is hard for Vi to bear.

Six months without bloodshed. What a sweet six months they were.

"The whole thing felt preplanned," Vi says. "The Council greenlighting my visit to the Lanes. Silco agreeing to let me see Powder. I figured it was a trap to draw me out and start trouble. Then Silco sent his blackguards after me, and I lured myself out. I gave him the trouble he wanted." She scrubs the back of her head. "Silco knew I'd take the bait, too. He was ready. The blackguards, the rotties, the spiel. Everything."

Caitlyn's bitten lip telegraphs concern. "Now he's using your sister as leverage?"

"Leverage for something bigger."

"Three jobs, he said?"

Vi grimaces. "Vander always said bad things come in threes."

No way to determine what the jobs are. Vi doubts they consist of anything pleasant. She wishes she'd pressed for details. But getting brained with a tray did a number on a girl's conversational skills. No concussion. But the throb is her skull is like the mother of all hangovers.

She feels drunk. Worse than drunk. Stoned. Too full of thoughts she cannot digest.

Not all of them are hers.

After Vi was transferred from Silco's chopper to Piltover's yacht, she'd had a short exchange with the Councilor on board. Medarda. Even growing up in the cesspit of poverty, Vi knows that family name. The woman herself was polished in every sense: skin, hair, accent. Not beautiful like Caitlyn; she had the fascination of a piece of art. Stylized—that was the word.

Like all Piltovans, she'd made Vi feel like an unwashed monster.

You're safe now, she'd said, in affectedly soothing tones. In a spot of trouble—but safe.

My sister isn't safe! Vi snapped. I need help her!

You feel she is in danger?

I know so!

Without quite meaning to, Vi ended up giving the older woman the low-down on everything she'd seen. She'd told her about Powder. How her sister was stolen and warped by Silco. How the warping went beyond war or weapons.

Medarda's expression stayed inscrutable as a Sphynx.

I will see what can be done, she'd said.

That was the last Vi saw of her.

They'd remained docked at Zaun for an hour. Vi wonders what negotiations took place abovedeck. She imagines Silco and Medarda in a dialogue like a dance, each one jockeying for the upper-hand. Vi doesn't trust Silco. But she has no reason to trust the Councilors either. They are birds of a feather: all glittering masks to conceal their sharp-edged manipulations, and unless you learn to master their doublespeak, they'll slice you to ribbons.

The Pilties are just like Silco. Under their suave veneers, there is nothing but selfish spite.

Except Caitlyn.

Sweet Caitlyn. Straight-shooting as a rifle.

Since Stillwater, Vi thought of herself, in a ferociously single-minded way, as never needing anybody. She'd never, in her twenty-three years, had much trouble getting out of whatever trouble she'd gotten into. But with Caitlyn, there is no trouble.

Only a profound sense of sanctuary.

When the yacht docked back in Piltover, Caitlyn was waiting at the gangplank. She'd looked as ragged as Vi felt. They hadn't touched. But Vi felt something light her up softly from inside. The late hours of stress dropped away, the muscles locked into tightness loosened, and she felt himself melding back into the living world.

When they were alone, Caitlyn snatched her up in a hug that just about crushed the life out of Vi.

Or shocked it back into her.

Later in bed, they’d made love: slow, syrupy, breathless. But it was a struggle for Vi to stay present. Her pleasure was a clammy shiver, skimming her surface so she barely felt it, so intent was she on not thinking of everything else. Caitlyn held her close and smoothed her hair, whispering comfort. But Vi couldn't hear anything except the nauseous beating of her own heart.

That's when the shakes began. Her palms sweating. Her heart thumping in her chest. Figments of the past tapped Vi on the shoulder, clouding her mind with memories of Stillwater. Not even seventeen years old, chains clanking on her wrists, her feet marching in single file, disembodied voices dictating when to sleep, when to shit, when to shower. And the screams, too many to count. Screams from the midnight assaults, when inmates cornered each other in the shadows to settle a score or satisfy an itch. Screams from before that. The cannery doused in flames. Vander a slab of motionless meat on the pavement. Blood on Powder's elbows and knees. Powder's blood on Vi's knuckles, and the distress in her sister's cries—please Vi please don't go I need you!

She'd started hyperventilating in Caitlyn's arms. Had to wrench herself away and slam into the bathroom. She'd not realized she was going to be sick until the puke boiled out to splatter the toilet. Shivering, she'd knelt there, and begun to cry, one palm pressed to her mouth.

She didn't want Caitlyn to hear her. She didn't want Powder to think she wasn't strong enough. She didn't want Silco to know how thoroughly he'd rattled her.

Ironic.

Powder and Silco weren't there. She was all alone.

In the morning, headsore and heartsick, she couldn't meet Caitlyn's eyes. Instead, she'd asked about the Council. Were they angry? Was Vi going to lose her job as Peacekeeper? Or get tossed out of Piltover altogether?

Caitlyn informed Vi that they'd both been placed on formal three-month suspension. There would be an inquest into the blackguard’s death. Charges could follow if the investigation proved Vi had acted with malice aforethought. If found guilty, she faced termination from her position. If innocent, she'd return to work.

All told, Vi had expected worse. A boot to the rear rather than a slap on the wrist.

Yet beneath her relief sat an unease.

The Council should've been angrier with her for jeopardizing the Peace Treaty. Unless they'd anticipated this outcome. Planned for it.

Just like Silco.

At the Kiramman estate, Caitlyn's mother was furious. She'd called Vi a ruinous influence. She tried to talk Caitlyn into breaking it off with Vi.

It hadn't gone down well. Bypassing a number of smaller spats between the mother and daughter, it had escalated into a championship match, plenty of ammo on both sides. The mansion's elegant halls echoed with screeching female voices. Some of the words would've made a Demacian dowager drop dead in a swoon.

Vi stood frozen halfway up the stairs, with Mister Kiramman paralyzed at the bottom. Their glances narrowly swerved off each other like a car crash.

In the end, Caitlyn had left the estate hand-in-hand with Vi, a bag slung over her shoulder. It was heavier than her typical overnighter. An unquestionable symbol of moving out of one home and into another. Just her and Vi—a fact that had sent Councilor Kiramman into a secondary meltdown. It was disgraceful—Caitlyn was aristocracy—they weren't married—she should be focusing on her career and not playing around with a Fissure-bred girl.

Yet the more they had argued about it, the more Violet realized that Caitlyn had been building up to this move for weeks. The fight was just the well-timed shove out the door. And Mister Kiramman was surprisingly supportive; between the two of them, the Councilor had to pipe down.

Vi should've felt guilty. She'd never meant to wedge herself between Caitlyn and her family. But she was mostly grateful.

She'd wanted to ask Caitlyn to move in for a while. She'd just never plucked up the courage.

She could face down opponents twice her size. But how did you ask the sweetest girl in Topside to abandon her deluxe digs and cohabit with you in a one-bedroom flat? She could only interiorize it with a soapy, tongue-in-cheek narration. Share my creaky mattress and my messed-up life, Cupcake. Forget the riches. I'll take care of you.

Each time, she'd snorted it off as insanity.

Now, Vi glances at Caitlyn. Beautiful, kind Caitlyn. What if her mother is right? What if Vi is a ruinous influence? What if she's dragged her into something shady—again? What if she's safer far away from Vi, back in the comfort of her mother's home, and her lifestyle of immaculately tidy order?

Questions with no answer. Plenty of guilt, though. The familiar stew that nourishes Vi's deepest insecurities.

Her worst self.

"What are we going to do?" Caitlyn whispers.

Vi's guilt curdles into shame.

We.

Already, Caitlyn is making Vi's problem hers.

She whispers back, "If I do the jobs, I see Powder. That's the short and long of it."

"It's a lot of short, and not enough long, Vi. Silco is probably—"

"Lying?" Vi exhales. "I know. It's what he's good at."

"It's not just that." Her fingertips retrace Vi's bandaged cheekbone. "He might have worse plans than blackmail."

Vi’s jaw hardens. "I know. But I need to know if the Council is in on it too."

Caitlyn's fingertips go still. "You think they'd go that far?"

"They had no issues using me as bait." A rottweiler set loose, as Silco described her. "They've got their own agenda. Same as Silco."

Caitlyn doesn't argue. But her voice is halting. "I don't think Jayce would condone it. Not to the point of Silco harming you as part of a larger bargain."

"It might not be Pretty Boy pulling the strings."

"The others, then?"

"The fancy one. The Noxian princess."

"Councilor Medarda?" A gentle smile tugs at Caitlyn's mouth. "She's not a princess, silly. Her family are warrior class. Nobility."

"Whichever."

Vi lolls back against the curved tub. Beads of moisture roll down her jaw.

"My point is," she says, "I don't buy her story about collecting me for cross-border security. Her yacht was anchored in Zaun for a full hour. I saw Silco's chopper through the porthole. Before Medarda saw Silco off, they shook hands. I'm positive they've made some sort of deal."

"You think you're a pawn in it?"

"Or Powder is."

Caitlyn falls silent. Her soft hands curve over Vi’s shoulders, fingers kneading, heels strong. There are knots the size of marbles buried there. The rest of Vi feels the same: a giant knot of tension.

In her mind's eye, dream-shocked, she can still see Powder's curled-up shape in the burning alleyway. Silco's silhouette looming over her with a knife. Then the scene recoalesces, not fire and filth, but liquid luxury. The skyscraper suite. The blue pool. Powder perched on the diving board, swinging a pair of doll-legs. Then diving into the water and climbing out, artfully gleaming, right into Silco's arms.

Her smile for Silco's safekeeping. Her needlework on Silco's handkerchief. Her art decorating his butterfly knife.

All wrong.

In Silco's tent, Vi was ready to kill him. For touching Powder. For taking her away. Taking Vi away from her, and locking her up in Stillwater. Her rage had filled the air. A haze that was nearly alcoholic—or its opposite. Alcoholics needed treatment for their binges. Vi needed to put a monster like Silco behind bars.

Or—if worst came to worst—put him in the ground.

She tries to dispel the thought. She isn't ready to go there.

Not yet.

Deliberately, she puts out her hand and squeezes Caitlyn's kneecap. The furor in her mind softens, a cleansing sort of calm. She relaxes beneath the waterline and Caitlyn's kneading hands. Her eyelids droop, growing heavier as the seconds tick by…

Caitlyn says, "Would it be better if—?"

"Huh?"

"Wouldn't it be better if you refused Silco?"

"It would."

"But you're not going to?"

"I'm not abandoning Powder again," Vi says sharply. "That's why I need to gather my own information. Find out if I can get close to Powder. Get her away from Silco. There's no other way she's coming out of this with her mind intact."

Caitlyn's mouth compresses. "You saw her at his headquarters?"

"In a pool."

"How did she look?"

Vi's gut aches in remembrance. "Like the usual."

"The usual? Violent? Manic?"

Vi shakes her head. "No, she—" She catches herself with a frown. "She looked more like Powder than Jinx. Older, but somehow... younger too."

"You're convinced Silco is hurting her."

For a shuddery second, Vi shuts her eyes.

"He has to be," she says. "He hurts everyone around him."

"He's kept your sister since she was a child." Caitlyn's voice is perturbed. "If that was... the nature of their relationship... surely our investigations would have turned up evidence of abuse?"

Vi opens her burning eyes.

"Same way the investigations turned up evidence he was a Shimmer-baron?" she retorts. "Silco has sneaky down to a science."

Caitlyn considers this. Then—"Have you considered a different possibility?"

"What?"

"That she and Silco see each other as family?"

A chill runs down Vi's spine.

Family.

Like Vander. Like Mylo and Claggor.

"He's going to great lengths to keep her close. It might be an ego thing. A way to assert control. Or it could be—in his own mind—justified. Jayce told me, during the parley, Silco seemed ready to yield to Piltover's demands. Then Jayce asked for Jinx, and he refused point-black. A week later, the Fissures declared war." A beat. "Maybe Silco believes she belongs with him."

Repulsed, Vi shudders. "A matched pair, huh?"

Caitlyn shakes her head. "Just... complicated. This whole mess started when you were children, didn't it? When she set off a bomb to save you all?"

Vi nods.

The memory of that night slices through her chest. Its mere mention is a minefield. She's shielded Caitlyn from all but the barest shrapnel of details. Caitlyn, in turn, has kept a strategic distance: part-concern, part-consideration.

Now she says something unexpected: "Maybe Silco sees himself as her rescuer?"

Vi recoils. "You mean kidnapper!"

"What matters is what he thinks," Caitlyn says, "not what you or I believe." Her palms curve over Vi's shoulders. "You know, when I was a girl, my family would go up to our summer home in the countryside. For me, it was bliss. I'd spend hours outdoors with my rifle, practicing on the posts around the grounds. By evening, I'd stumble back indoors, happy and absolutely filthy. My mother would lock me in the bath, and warn I'd not be allowed downstairs until I'd washed off every speck of dirt."

"A hard-knock life," Vi says, having a halfhearted go.

"One afternoon," Caitlyn goes on, undeterred, "I stumbled on the groundskeeper in the forest. I'd known him for years. We were like family." Her tone tempers. "He was... rogering one of the maids. They'd slipped out by the hothouses for more privacy. A countryside pastime, or so I gathered when older. Back then, I'd no idea what I was seeing. I was absolutely horrified." She sighs. "The Psychickers call it The Primal Scene."

Vi wavers a short laugh. "That's a Friday night in the Lanes."

"What?"

"Privacy's not a thing belowground. We grow up watching plenty of um. Primal Scenes."

Caitlyn is taken aback. It happens sometimes. She'll share an anecdote from her gilded girlhood, with the shyness of a child offering a glimpse into a box of trinkets. In return, Vi will offer anecdotes of her own: heavy as a block of lead clapped in her palm.

But not in retrospect.

Miserable as life in the Undercity was, Vi's times with her family still hold a rosy hue. Maybe because the way things ended was so much worse?

She still remembers being thirteen and vaulting rooftops back to the Drop with Mylo and Claggor and Powder, carried on a flying carpet of adrenaline. She remembers the first time she'd spotted two silhouettes in the ginnel near their home—Vander with one of the barflies. She remembers staring, bewildered, before her mind connected their shadowy movements to the act of sex.

She remembers recoiling, not in shock, but because Powder might glimpse something she shouldn't see.

Casually, she'd chivvied her sister and the boys away from the spot. They'd gotten cherry sodas and gone to the arcade. Later that evening, she'd been unable to look Vander in the eye, nearly to the point where he began to suspect she'd done something awful, and was terrified of spilling the beans. Of course, Vander being Vander, it wasn't long before he'd cornered her and forced out a confession.

They'd had The Talk soon after.

Not that Vi needed it. Most sumpsnipes picked up the facts of life early in the streets. By age eleven, Vi already knew all about fucking. All the ways to do it. How to make it good, how to fake it if you couldn't pull it off. But Vander's advice, imparted with a matter-of-fact intimacy, was different. He'd educated her, not about sex, but its consequence.

To this day, his words linger:

Never touch someone unless they've given permission. Otherwise, you're stealing their dignity. Never string someone along or play 'em for a fool. Always tell 'em straight. And most important: if you're going at it with a lad, always pay the Protection Racket. If he's not keen on paying, then he's not worth messing around with. You don't owe anyone your body. About the only thing you owe is the truth.

His parting shot was ambiguous: Be smarter than I was, yeah?

Vi had barely, at that stage, traded more than a few gropes with the girls in the neighborhood. But Vander's advice proved sound. She'd put it to use, two years later, when sneaking out of the Drop in the heat-shimmer of summertime, to meet Nao, an older cat-eyed girl with a lithe stride and a slow smile. She was a dancer at Babette’s. Spoke barely any Standard, but her coy aloofness made her wildly popular with the clientele.

To Vi, though, she was just plain sweet. In the evenings, she'd take up to her attic by the Old Hungry: a workshop full of sawdust and the slanting red rays from a neon signboard. She'd taught Vi all about kissing; how to coax the lips apart, how to tease with tongues. They’d practice and practice until the very air between them turned electric with sighs.

Two months in, they’d traded a whole lot more than kisses.

Vi remembers how she’d lost her virginity in that attic. Only it hadn't felt like losing anything. It had tasted sweet as candy and shocky as a thousand volts, but afterward somehow lonely too, like the world had gotten bigger and Vi's own place in it full of riskier twists.

Consequences.

Afterward, though she'd stayed sweet, Nao made it plain she wasn't looking for anything serious. She had plans to move to Bilgewater. Sooner rather than later. The Undercity's brothels were a dying breed. The tarts, even the most talented, had a short shelf life. Stop tricking and they'd be swallowed by the grime. But dare to dream big, and the gangs would come knocking.

Nao had ambitions, and a survivor's streak. As far as she was concerned, Vi was only a fun fling. Love was never even a question.

Keeping Vander’s advice in mind, Vi had played their parting cool. But her heart had felt like a bruised slab in her chest. She'd wept afterwards, alone in bed, having learned since childhood to do so in silence. Then she'd felt Powder's small body burrowing under the sheets, her big blue eyes seeing Vi's distress and understanding none of it—though now Vi thinks Powder might've understood more than she realized.

"Did you go someplace scary?" she'd whispered.

"No, Pow. Not scary."

"So why're you crying?"

"Just... missing mom and dad."

It wasn't remotely true. But it wasn't a lie, either.

Powder went quiet. Her small arms passed around Vi's ribcage, squeezing. "I'll always love you, Vi. Even if stuff gets scary."

Another wave of tears surfaced. Vi swallowed them. "Me too, Pow."

"To the moon and back."

Vi gathered Powder closer. "'Cause you're my little star."

Powder nestled her cheek on Vi's shoulder. "And this is our safe spot."

They fell asleep cozied together. And the world still felt too big, full of the twists and tumbles. Full of consequence.

But Vi had Powder.

Someone she could always hide under the blankets with. Someone whose love never had to leave town. Someone who she'd protect at all costs.

Her Safe Spot.

Caitlyn's fingers skim along Vi's jaw. "Perhaps you'll tell me sometime?"

The reminiscing must've shown on her face. Vi blinks. “About what?”

“Growing up in the Lanes.”

"You mean with the drunks rutting in the alleys?" Vi rears away in mock-alarm. "Dirty cupcake! No wonder you got locked up in the bath!"

"Ha ha."

She tickles Vi’s doubled-up right knee—a secret weak-spot. Vi ripples and torques away. Caitlyn’s impish fingers become a caress. Her thumb traces the birthmark there; a red splotch that Powder used to call a Bunny Mark, because it resembled the rabbit on the moon.

"Back to what I was saying..." Caitlyn says.

"Your sex-fiend groundskeeper."

"I certainly thought so. I ran to my father's study. I usually went to him first with trouble. My mother was always busy with social engagements. And she could be rather... reactive… if she felt I was in danger."

Vi tactfully says nothing.

"I'm not sure what I told my father. But he got the gist. He questioned the maid on whether foul play had occurred. She swore it was purely consensual. Afterward, my father requested she and the groundskeeper confine their extracurriculars to the staff quarters. I couldn't understand why he hadn't dismissed the man. I thought—he'd been attacking the maid. Hurting her. Afterward, I saw them laughing together. Like they'd been playing a game."

Vi makes a thoughtful noise.

"'Don't judge, Cait,' my father said. 'Grown-ups are complicated.' True enough, though it wasn't much comfort to me. Anyway, the groundskeeper retired soon after. My modesty was spared further outrage."

There is a beat.

Vi asks, "How's this relate to Silco?"

Caitlyn hesitates. "What I'm trying to say is... I grew up in a bubble of ignorance. You grew up surrounded by adults doing grown-up things. It's natural for both of us to fall back on what we know. To assume we understand who people are. Or why they do what they do."

Vi grunts.

"I'm not denying Silco is a terrible influence on your sister." Caitlyn takes a breath. "But if he does have genuine affection for her... you're in twice the danger."

"He'll do everything possible to keep her," Vi says. "And get rid of me."

"But you're still going after him?"

"Yes."

Silence drips between them.

Caitlyn swallows. "I don't want to see you hurt, Vi."

Vi scrubs a hand across her cheeks. They are tearless, but she feels the burn of chagrin.

"Look," she whispers, "I know it's a risky deal. Even if I get to see Powder, she might not want to see me. Or she might attack me. Janna knows, she's killed plenty of people. I know that. But I can't leave her, Caitlyn. She's—"

Caitlyn squeezes Vi's shoulder. "She's your sister."

Vi cranes her neck to stare. There is a gravity in Caitlyn's voice that matches the twist of her brows. Like she is acknowledging something she'd not fully come to grips with before, a deeper truth emerging out of the cracked shell of the old. Something beyond Piltover's and Zaun's binaries of good and bad, but belonging to a gray-zone of hellish difficulty.

Vi whispers, "My sister."

Caitlyn rubs her fingers together. They are already tired from massaging Vi's tension-packed muscles. She looks tired too. But her downturned eyes suggest more than the stress of last night's hide-and-seek, or the dressing-down from the Council, or the blow-up with her mother. The sight makes something tighten in Vi's chest.

Gently, she gathers Caitlyn's hands in hers.

"I'm sorry," she says. "This wasn't in the cards."

"'This'?"

"You moving in with me." Vi inhales in the clouded air. "I wanted to celebrate if it ever happened. Go someplace nice. Us together."

Caitlyn shakes her head. "I'm here because I'm glad to be, Vi. No celebrations needed."

Vi forces down a reflexive lump of stubbornness. "You deserve them."

"So do you."

She is still holding Caitlyn's hands. Now the delicate bones twist out of her grip, so Caitlyn is clasping Vi's. Her eyes are lit with a fevery glow.

"You deserve to have your family," she says. "Same way you deserved safety, and shelter, and a childhood."

Her voice seems to come from far-off, waterlogged and wavery. It echoes the sensation sluicing in Vi's chest.

"I'm so sorry," Caitlyn says. "I'm sorry for everything you went through. I'm sorry for everything you're going through now. It just… scares me when you keep it all bottled up. I understand there are parts of your life that you don't want to talk about. Parts of you that you're reticent about sharing. But I do feel they're the most important parts." She squeezes Vi's hands. "Your sister is tied up in all that. Or better put? She's the most important tie of all."

Vi's eyes sting. Twisting around, droplets skittering down her spine, she meets Caitlyn face-to-face. Precludes her own messy outpouring, or more of Caitlyn's gentle words, by pulling her close. The familiar smell of jasmine clings to Caitlyn's skin. Vi breathes it in, her heart throbbing in its cage.

Caitlyn's fingers brush the soft hairs at the base of Vi's neck. "I meant to ask you..."

Vi shivers. "Yeah?"

"The blackguard." Caitlyn falters. "You don't honestly believe—?"

"I killed him."

"You're not a killer, Vi."

Now the tears spill. Vi squeezes her eyes shut, cheek resting on Caitlyn's shoulder.

"I don't know what to think," she rasps. "I don't know who to believe. I know there's always accidents in a brawl. Hell, no one knows that better than me. But I also know Silco is a liar. He always has a line of shit." Her throat is a knot. "If he's lying about the—the blackguard—then it's just to knock me off-balance. And if he's telling the truth—" A gust of emotion shakes through her. "I need to take him down, Caitlyn. For everyone he's hurt with his games. Me. Vander. Benzo. Ekko. Especially Powder. I need to get her away from him."

Caitlyn startles her by slipping off her robe and into the tub. Water sloshes the tiles. Her bare arms enfold Vi, and their foreheads touch. Every time she does this, with that look of pure love on her face, Vi's doubts fade into the background.

"We'll find a way," Caitlyn says.

Vi nods, their heads together.

"Whatever Silco is planning against you…"

"I won't let it get that far." Resolve makes a bludgeon of Vi's voice. "I'm going to get Powder first."

"I'll help you."

"Help…?"

"I'll talk to Jayce. See if he can learn more about the blackguard's death. See if Silco is hiding anything."

"You don't need to—"

"Yes, I do," Caitlyn cuts in. "You don't deserve this on your conscience. Not after everything else. Let me help, Vi. However I can."

"You always do, Cupcake. I'm thankful—and so fucking sorry."

"Sssh."

Caitlyn tips her head down and kisses Vi. Her lips are pure warmth and her breath envelops Vi with a sigh that makes her dizzy with the sweetness of it, her whole body attuned to Caitlyn and nothing else.

Twilight glows through the rain-speckled window. Dust motes float around their twined bodies.

All those years Vi had never dwelt on comfort for herself. She was better at giving it to others. Reassuring Powder. Reaming Mylo and Claggor's asses. Rallying behind Vander. She never considered asking for the same, not from her family, not from any of her girlfriends. Not since she'd been a little girl, encircled by her mother's arms.

Home.

Shivering, Vi holds on to Caitlyn as long as she can.

It's where she's happiest, in the end.

***

Of all the nooks in his headquarters, Silco has taken a fancy to the Laguna Lounge.

It is on the twelfth floor: a cantilevered section that angles out from the skyscraper, all chrome and double-glazed glass. It is fitted with aluminum oxynitride. Sleeker and less heavyweight than traditional bulletproof glass, but twice as effective at preventing explosives.

The rest of the rooms on the floor are too barren. Too different from the neon-lit secrecy of the Last Drop. Only this chamber, with its glazed twilit eeriness, feels tolerable.

It is spacious: a lounge, a bar, a bedroom. The interior is an Art Noveau wonderland—ribbons of wallpaper in faded gold-on-blue damask, wooden floors glowing beneath a crystalline chandelier, and intricately carved furniture of black-and-gilt. Like most architecture in the Undercity, it's antique: installed around the turn of the century, and never upgraded since. But it's a good place to hold a private meeting, to fix a solitary drink, or to catch a cat-nap.

He's especially partial to the bath: a vast chamber that holds a seashell's inner-echo, all pearlescent green ceramic and bronze fittings. There is a glassed-in rainfall shower at one end, and a huge sunken-in tub at the other.

And, of course, water.

Clean, hot, unspoiled water.

After a long week, it's Silco's habit to decompress here. He's from a time when running water was a luxury. Now he indulges as he pleases. The steam makes a satisfied haze of his thoughts. The hot soak loosens his muscles. Under his breath, he hums The Wave-Soaked Maiden, his voice a languid glide:

Behind her lips, her teeth were sharp/Much sharper than his knives/She said to him, "Come closer, sir/And I'll eat you alive."

Silco is happiest in water.

In boyhood, he and Vander sometimes slipped off to the oxbow near the mines. Together, they'd climb the creaky train-ties of the broken trestle, and plunge in feet-first. They'd dunk each other with hooting glee, racing from one end of the shore to the other. Afterward, Vander would drift along the shallows, with broad strokes of his arms and legs. Silco would arrow gracefully to the deep end, transfixed by the psychedelic shapes at the bottom.

Take care, Blut, Vander would tease. Mermaids might snatch ya!

Silco nearly smiles.

Memory tightens like a chokehold around his neck. Vi's fist explodes across his retinas before it distorts into Vander's, the scarred ridge of knuckles wrapping around Silco's neck.

Except Vander is dead.

Vi will follow—once she's served her use.

Idly, Silco traces the mottling of bruises on his chest. His expression doesn't change as he contemplates his plans—or Medarda's attempt to blockade them. She's proven quite the chess-queen. In her natural milieu, she’s doubtless a social mastermind; plucking other’s desires like harpstrings.

Doubtless, too, she imagines their blood bargain the same. She’ll play Silco, not as a partner, but a proxy from the shadows. A cipher to keep her family matter from catalyzing a war. If there’s a screw-up, Silco will take a fall; if it goes smoothly, she’ll terminate their arrangement. In the first instance, she keeps her impunity; in the second, she severs the connection.

Silco is ready to play. Not play ball—play along. Her means will serve his ends. For Zaun, and its coffers.

But the real jackpot is Medarda.

On the yacht, he'd seen past her armature of glossy poise into a nucleus of raw neuroses. All the world's wealth at her fingertips, and yet her conflict is base. Mother versus motherland. Silco has known his share of outcasts. One of their most enduring pathologies is the breakage of identity, as war breaks a map.

At Piltover's zenith politically, Medarda is still, at her core, the daughter discarded. So much of her choices stem from proving her mother wrong. On being everything her mother is, and is not. That's why she backed Talis' Hex-tech; that's why she took the boy as a protégé. The Hex-Gates have transcended barriers. They have reshaped history. They have lent Piltover a touch of immortality.

Power in the guise of progress.

But power, on its own, is an incomplete identity. Negation of the inner-wound fills the true void.

Silco’s good eye narrows. He’s glimpsed the wound. He’ll trace it painstakingly to its root. Then all he needs is an opening. Something to slice through decades of emotional callus, so he can access the human beneath. And all humans are fallible.

Unlike monsters.

Shaking out a cigarette from the silver cigar case at the tub's edge, Silco lights up. His body in the fogged-up mirror is utilitarian. Taut and tapered, sinews visible under scarred flesh. A pared-down body, he thinks of it—everything superfluous sliced away. From time to time, he misses the spryness of his youth. But this is the cost of survival, and Silco wears it like a badge of honor.

Like the shrapnel wounds from the Day of Ash. Like the razor cuts from a Stillwater ambush. Like the chemical splatters from the mines.

Like the black-pitted ruin of his left eye.

From behind the half-open bedroom door, low sobbing ebbs. Silco's vantagepoint offers him a narrow vignette of crisp white sheets. Two bodies occupy his bed. One half is dark skin and sultry curves. A young woman; fast asleep. The other half is sun-freckled muscle and red curlicues of hair. A young man; weeping facedown in the pillows.

Both are Silco's regulars.

Not from the brothels, but his own network.

The Undercity is a hotbed of prostitution. In the mercantile era, the illicit trade thrived on the backs of boys and girls trafficked into slavery. Then came the Void Wars, and a never-ending crawl of bodies seeking sanctuary from the horrors of sorcery. Piltover became a magnet for well-to-do emigres. Their social shadows, the refugees, circled down the drain into the Fissures. In time, they became their own social strata: perpetual outsiders caught in a continuum of servitude.

Most fell back on the oldest profession of all.

By Vander's heyday, most Trenchers were hardened to the sight of naked bodies on display in the neon glare of brothel lanterns. For some, it was an attractive career choice—an alternative to the drudgery of factorywork or menial labor. For others, it was an escape hatch from the misery of living hand-to-mouth. They dressed the service up with pretty euphemisms: pleasure parlors, love menageries, botanical gardens.

The bottom line was human bondage.

By the time the Hex-Gates opened, the Undercity's sex industry had begun cooking itself down under the pressures of breakneck progress. Bodies were pushed beyond any semblance of desirability into the walking equivalent of meat-suits. In the clubs, girls ejected pingpong balls from their cunts, and boys shot high-velocity jism down their throats. In the street-corners, they descended on lone strollers like mosquitoes, a desensualized horde of high-heeled boots and leather-studded jackets whipped open to flaunt wares decked in piercings, needle marks and scars.

There was commerce but no carnal desire. Only the perversity of market forces; the insatiable appetite of capital. Nobody was getting off, but everyone was hustling to get ahead, get paid, get out.

There was no way out.

As the Hex-Gates yawned wide, the Undercity's future shrank, choking on Topside's hubris. By the time Silco took control of the Lanes, the sex trade had reached saturation point. If not for his commandeering of the criminal underbelly, the brothels would've gone belly up. Instead, through foreign business-deals and local back-alley bargains, Silco leveraged his influence to transform them into exclusive enterprises.

Today, every tart—whether lounging in the high-end saloons at the Promenade or plying trade in the slush-filled alleyways of Factorywood—belongs to a particular house. They are of varying quality, but each one has been remodeled from a den of insalubrious sleaze into a boutique establishment catering to a different niche.

From ale-house beer to vintage wine, as the Undercity saying goes.

There is Babette's, the oldest brothel in town, whose madam maintains cordial ties with every crime syndicate. There is The Vyx, the luxurious pleasure-house run by Margot, where local chem-royalty rub shoulders with foreign potentates. There is The Cream, which caters to tastes on the farthest edge of forbidden, its workers as talented as they are transgressive.

Each house has a unique flavor—like a slice of pie. Some offer only the tenderest morsels. Others serve a variety of platters. The dishes go by names that tie them to each establishment. Babette's workers have monikers like Sweetmeat or Angel Puff. The Vyx prefers tongue-in-cheek designations like Chastity and Prudence. The Cream has no names, only numbers—Six, Ten, Twenty.

There are many flavors of tart—but few who are truly exceptional. Those rarities are from Silco's own ranks.

The Eye of Zaun owns a share in every brothel, and a piece of every vice imaginable. And yet, he solicits no services from the establishments themselves. No pets or playmates. Not even rumors of a mistress.

Predictability leads to patterns. Men with patterns are targets.

Rather, Silco prefers a totem pole of trophies. None are locals. His talent is imported from Ionia or the allied continents. At the bottom are his Tarts on a Tea Tray. Floozies, flunkies and flings. Higher up, his Fleeting Fancies. Boys and girls game for a dirty weekend or two. Directly above are his Assets. Promising individuals groomed to serve his needs—businesswise and in the bedroom.

He runs them like his factory foremen. Staying apprised on their performances, paying their expenses, cultivating their skills—then dispatching them for special jobs. Some employ their talents in blackmail. Others infiltrate rival gangs. The cleverest spy on foreign powers. They pry political tidbits from Piltovan lips, glean shipping intel from Ionian diplomats, finesse battle strategies from Noxian warmasons.

For their loyalty, Silco grants protection.

And, for the right cost?

Freedom.

His latest Asset goes by The Maven. A former tart from Babette's, she'd left for Bilgewater’s brighter shores. There, she'd been a pirate lord's paramour for seven years, until he'd jettisoned her. She'd ended up back in Zaun: plying her trade as a lowly barmaid under the Vyx’s indenture.

Sevika had pointed her out to Silco at one of Margot's bashes. She had a good eye for pretty girls. She knew what Silco liked. She also knew how he operated. In the guise of kindness, Sevika offered to pay off the girl's debt. She'd been too ecstatic to question whose pockets were deep enough to cover the cost.

Until Sevika introduced her to Silco.

The girl had been petrified. But Silco was faultlessly polite—unlike most chem-barons who were content to win favors by force. The first week, he took her out to the Blue Note for drinks. She'd been braced for sexual demands, but he treated her as any woman whose company he was enjoying. The following week, he invited her to an exhibition of deadly orchids at Chross' hothouse. By the third date, she'd met half the Undercity's chem-royalty. By the fourth, she'd been gifted jewelry: an old-fashioned clasp necklace that stored vials of poison. By the fifth, she'd discreetly dispatched a shipping tycoon who was holding up Silco's Shimmer-cargo.

By the month's end, she'd moved into a penthouse suite near the Skylight Commercia.

On Silco's payroll full-time.

Tonight, she lolls splendidly nude in his bed. A siren's body: breasts to kill for, legs to die for. Long black hair and smooth skin have always done a number on Silco. No piercings: his distaste for body-art is well known. No tattoos, either; he reserves those for his war-dogs in the trenches.

The only marks on her skin are red crescents from Silco’s teeth.

Next to her, the boy sports the same marks. A brazen thing. He'd been a farmhand from the azure fields of Navori. After crossing a feudal lord in a rigged game of cards, he’d fled to Zaun. Silco had taken a shine to him right off. Big strapping hulks are always worth the taming.

He’d put the lad in charge of running errands for favored clientele. Before long, he was working security at the Vyx, and reporting directly to Silco on its goings-on. But a year of the good life spoiled him. He'd developed a habit of dipping into Silco’s coffers for petty cash. Silco had hoped he might be smarter. He keeps hoping one of them will possess a modicum of loyalty.

But no. He’s like the rest—and must pay the cost.

Now the boy sprawls facedown in bed. Sweat glistens down the undulant gradation of his spine and gleams off the curve of his reddened buttocks. His thighs and biceps are stamped with oozing red half-moons. Wounded pride is writ large across his features. He'd fought Silco every inch of the way, defiant and smart-mouthed—right until his mouth was too full of anything but cries and cock.

A tall silhouette appears in the bathroom door.

"In a mood, sir?"

Silco takes a drag from the cigarette, smoke pouring insinuatingly from his lips. "Past tense."

"Never past tense with you."

Sevika leans against the doorjamb. The carpet behind her is a war-path of debauchery: curls of used condoms, the butt of a half-smoked cigarillo, the gleaming curvature of a strap-on. Folded into a white robe, she resembles nothing so much as a goddess in a hellscape.

There is nothing holy about Sevika’s eyes. Only a gleam of half-lidded menace.

She dons the same look during the games with his whores. She goes at them without mercy—a dragon on a leash. That is part of the game too. Once Silco is done playing master-of-ceremonies, she retreats to the background, watching him savage his prey. Sharper teeth than hers; a more slowly savored cruelty. Yet all throughout, she keeps her distance, and her silence.

Only in the aftermath does she transition from one absolute to the other.

Sevika's eyes trace the bruises on his chest. Her expression shades a degree. "Hurts?"

Silco shrugs.

"I know goading Vi into an attack was the plan. But did you need to play it that close?"

"Best way to determine if she's worth the investment."

"Ever heard of keeping a mad dog on a short leash?"

Silco's smile is a flash of jagged bone. "What good's a dog that can't bite?"

A private joke; no joke at all.

Sevika smiles back, but her shadows don't dispel. Last night with Vi, he'd cut it close. Now, with Medarda, he's skating dangerously thin. Sevika is no stranger to his schemes. She also knows that in the act of laying each piece on the gameboard, he can veer from ruthless pragmatism to reckless ambition, so focused on success that he can overlook anything extraneous to the long-term goal.

Part of Sevika's duty as XO is to keep him grounded. Physical stimuli worked best once: a fight, a suckjob, a fuck. It did the trick years ago, when he was just Sil from the Lanes. Sensation had kept him steady; no time to think. Afterwards, played out, he'd actually sleep through the night.

But Sil is long dead, and with him the stupid simplicity of the mind-body dichotomy. Silco has resurfaced with different appetites entirely. Sensation lends no sense of splitting. More a depthless hollow space, that can never be filled. That space being his mind.

It's taken Sevika time to understand what’s returned wearing half Sil's face—and to suit his desires accordingly.

Flesh isn't enough. He needs to taste blood.

"If it were me in that tent—" she warns.

"You'd have tried killing me straight off," Silco finishes. "Fortunately, we've passed that stage."

"And Vi?"

"She's passed too." A shadow-smile. "With flying colors."

One-handed, he beckons. An old shorthand: Time for business.

Cued, Sevika perches on the tub's edge. Her robe is half-open. He can see the curve of one breast, the groove of muscle down her stomach. Unlike the whores, her skin is unmarked by bites. But he knows exactly where the scars sit on smooth bronze skin.

Ownership has different modes. So do secrets.

He and Sevika don't speak. They sign. In mixed company, the Eye of Zaun prefers his language clean. Not in the sense of no profanity, but in the sense of direct orders. Everything is subtext; everything is between the lines.

All the better to strangle loose ends with.

Sevika warns, You're taking a lot of risks.

Playing nursemaid again?

Just reminding you of limits.

Silco draws on his cigarette. The ember flares in the steam like his bad eye.

Limits are a byword for denial, he signs back. Zaun's had its fill of that.

Zaun's had its fill of corpses too.

He nixes this with a jet of smoke. The blackguard’s death was unfortunate. But consider the payout. His family will receive lifelong compensation from Topside. Meanwhile, we now have the Council's ear—and our demands squarely addressed. The next step is securing the means to make them stick.

Through this bargain with Medarda.

And Vi. Silco lolls back in the tub, watching her through the glitter of mismatched eyes. She will remain in Piltover for three months. The administrative suspension will keep her out of Zaun's borders.

What if she stirs up trouble off-duty?

The Council will hold an inquest into the blackguard's death. The runaround will keep her busy.

And the Noxian warmason?

Three months will give our Maven enough time to learn his patterns. She'll pass his progress on to Lock. But I need you to keep her focused. This man and his cadre are a brutal bunch. If she falters, they will kill her without hesitation.

Sevika's jaw grits.

Silco knows she would prefer a simpler problem set. Something more straightforward than a tangled network of intrigue. There are too many variables when spinning a circle dance.

But that's the price with a nation stake.

Sevika signs, You think Vi will be useful?

She's the right resource. Unattached. Neither ours, nor truly the Council's. Swain is clever. If we use our own men to pick his agents off, he will notice a pattern. A wild card like Vi will keep him guessing. We want him focused on what's happening on their side—while we work to obscure what's happening on ours.

Lots of costs to consider.

If we play this right, so are the rewards.

He proffers his cigarette. Sevika accepts a drag. She smells of him, in his robe, and underneath she smells of sex. But her stare is devoid of the usual post-fuck glow. Only wariness inhabits the darkness. His XO can go months on an even keel. But all the while that streak of stubborn good sense simmers away.

No choleric displays, but if she's got a point to make, then she'll be hell-bent on making it.

She's dangerous, she signs, You realize that, right?

She's reckless. She has so much rage, she can't control it. Even if it's in her best interests.

I mean Medarda.

Silco crooks one eyebrow.

That's twice she's trapped you into doing what she wants. Now she's even drawn you into this business with Swain.

Their business benefits Zaun.

But do you need her alliance more, or does she need yours?

The cigarette dangles from Silco's fingers, smoke spindling in the steam. What are you implying?

Sevika is quiet for a moment. They’ve shared all the flavors of hell together. But their roles remain ironclad. Her territory is the brass tacks, and he seldom encroaches it. Likewise the big picture remains shadowy, even to her.

That is Silco's sole domain.

Sevika's eyes consult his face; she takes the gamble. You've made a killing out of getting people to work for you. But the Medardas are in a league of their own. They've finessed deals between nations while we were struggling with gang warfare. They don't kill for real things like territory or survival, either. They kill for status. I'm not saying you can't handle her. But it's worth considering whether you should.

You think I'll lose my grip?

Try your head.

Silco takes a lungful of smoke, and with the same hand reaches over Sevika's left shoulder—the cigarette’s ember sings perilously close to her temple—and balances it on the ashtray by the sink. Their eyes meet. Sevika's body-language speaks sparingly. But her frown is always frank. She's frowned a lot these last six months.

Gratitude is not in Silco's vocabulary. Everything comes down to cost and reward. But Sevika deserves a modicum all the same.

His palm aligns with her jaw. She meets his stare steadily. But he feels the kick of her pulse. It's a soft touch; an IOU for acts and words not soft at all.

"The day I give them a chance to take my head," he says, "is the day you make Zaun's bed in the next fresh grave."

"I hope that's not the end-game, sir."

"It's a starting point."

"Meaning?"

"Means what it means."

His thumb strokes her mouth, copping a feel. Sevika's sigh becomes a hum. Her own shorthand: Yes.

They don't kiss. Still balanced on the tub, Sevika leans in. Her black locks disentwine from her top-knot. Damp tangles unravel around Silco's face, doused with the aroma of smoke and sweat and brightleaf. She presents her breasts. Her nipples are tight rosettes. The left shows a faint calligraphy of Shimmer-veins, luminous in the half-light.

Silco cups the breast in his hand, feeling its soft heat. Takes the nipple between his teeth. She shudders as his tongue whorls along its pebbled surface. She likes it rough, but only if he lets her choose how hard. In that, she has nothing in common with his whores. Her body doesn't cater to his tastes. Her desires aren't tailored to his.

Right now, that's what Silco needs.

With the other wet spidering hand, he traces the inside of her thigh. His palm grasps her cunt—a tender pooch hidden in dark fleece. She is burning-hot and sopping-wet. The sensation startles him every time. She is everywhere scarred and solid. But between her thighs is a dirtysweet secret of purest silk.

Sevika's lips part; she expels a low hoarse moan. Her breath comes with small catches, like beads through a string. Watching her come is always intriguing. It starts with the same brute intensity as when she is slamming down foes. It ends with the softest rippling tremors, like when she is falling asleep. The sharp topography of her face melts. Her eyes go half-lidded: from ready to fight to dreaming of sunlight.

And when she turns her head six degrees to the right, she becomes almost beautiful. Full of tiny tells of truth in a business of its opposite.

Right now, Silco needs that, too.

Sevika gives a sharp cry as she convulses, thighs clamping around his rigid hand; her second cry is softer, her body unraveling into relaxation.

Silco withdraws his fingers. They are dripping wet.

"Better?"

Snorting, she shakes her head.

"Still?"

"Gets this way before the curse hits," she says. "Every nut makes it worse."

“Poor you.”

"Or them."

In the bedroom, the boy and girl lay curled together. The disturbed silence in the bathroom has roused them.

Sevika signs, Time to send 'em off?

A not-quite-smile twists Silco's lips.

He nods.

Sevika cracks a sharp whistle. The whores jerk. The Maven sits up, pushing the dark hair out of her face. Her drowsy demeanor morphs into an enchanting smile.

In Va-Nox, she calls out, "War das genug oder willst du mehr?"

Lazily, Silco crooks a finger.

She obeys. Her long legs sashay-stagger toward the bath. She kneels by the tub, hands in her lap, demure as a pussycat. Between her breasts, a pendant gleams. Silco’s gift; bearing the Eye’s insignia. She is seldom without it except when undercover. In the lamplight, it becomes a sly erotic adornment.

"Du hast mir so gut getan," she purrs, "dass ich Monatelang krumm herumlaufen wird."

Whore-bluff, but she says it with such sincerity. Silco’s lessons have worked wonders.

Playing along, he tips his chin toward Sevika. "Wer ist besser," he asks, "sie oder ich?"

"Wenn ich mich für einen entscheide," Maven rejoins smoothly, "verliere ich den anderen."

Silco's notched lip curls. A good answer.

That's why he keeps her around.

Gracefully, Maven joins Sevika on the tub's edge. Her hands span the breadth of Silco’s shoulders, expertly kneading. She knows well enough to avoid his neck. In a wrong mood, he can invert from stillness to savagery. But not here. Here, no inch of Silco's skin counts as a vulnerable spot.

These nights are about a different need entirely.

In Standard, Maven asks: "Shall you have my report?"

Silco nods.

She is a polyglot both off and on her feet. Fluent in the arts of Demacian, Shuriman and Piltovan—i.e. in the cunt, up the arse, down the throat. The latter two are Silco's favorites of long-standing: less mess, and more peace of mind. But Maven speaks real languages too. Her Va-Nox is impeccable. So is her Efric.

It's a convenience for Silco: pleasure and practice in one place. It also makes her a useful scenery prop during meetings with foreign envoys. Her pretty ears stay pricked for exchanges in the background.

"Our Noxian warmason," Silco says. "Is he enjoying the scenery?"

She nods. "He visit the Vyx. I service him with another girl."

"Serviced. Anything of interest to share?"

"He write a letter."

"To?"

"His wife. To tell her he will be… be away."

"Why to his wife of all people?"

"She is... she is... Wie sagt man schwanger?"

"Pregnant."

"She is pregnant. He will be a father. Five years."

"Months."

"Month bedeutet Monat?"

"Hm."

"Oh, das ist leicht zu merken." She smiles a little. "He will be a father. Five months. So he write a letter in Efric. He write second letter in Va-Nox, with address to Piltover."

"Where in Piltover?"

"Bluewind Court."

"Their diplomatic quarters?" Silco muses. "Interesting."

"I made copy of both letters. I already gave to Lock."

Satisfied, Silco nods. The plan is in motion. The variables are volatile, but their motivations are predictable. In that predictability, Silco can employ safeguards.

And for the rest?

Wildcards.

Coyly, Maven whispers, "Soll ich den Jungen wecken?"

Silco glances back at the doorway. The boy lays still, framed by the oblong glow from the bedroom lanterns.

Silco's smile shows the barest bite.

"Noch lebt?" he calls out.

The boy shudders. His eye, red-rimmed, peeps out from a disorder of curls. Silco brings the cigarette to his lips and takes a drag, but never removes his own his eye off the boy's. Watches the flush creep up his face, a rising tide of adrenaline.

He's always relished the effect his mismatched stare has. How it can turn a burly swain into a jellified mannequin.

Hoarsely, the boy says, "What—what d'you want?"

"You. At my own time."

The boy is too petrified to move. None of the Eye of Zaun's playthings are under illusions of his compassionate nature. But they are paid to take him as he is—a monster with a penchant for pain.

Silco snaps his fingers. Reflexively, the boy jerks to his feet.

He crosses over, with an inebriated side-to side that echoes the Maven's stagger. Silco smiles grimly. He's had them both every way to Sunday, but his body's no musket. He's got a spare round left. Blame a three-week deficit paired with the side-effects of the new Shimmer-strain.

He'll reload, discharge, and get back to work.

That's another reason the Laguna Lounge is convenient. His toys are delivered ribbon-wrapped to his doorstep. His crew stand guard outside. They escort the guests in and out at a moment's notice.

No imposters stealing in. No assassins sneaking out.

His office at the Last Drop was less ideal for assignations. Especially with Jinx skulking in the rafters. Or hiding under his desk. Or stealing into his closet.

His child was naturally gifted at spy games. Silco's lessons had perfected the rest. The problem was that once Jinx became adept at spying, she weaponized it for her own ends. During wharfside negotiations with rival gangs, she'd creep along the rooftops to eavesdrop. During his meetings with Marcus, she'd hang from the rafters. During her Night Stalker phases, she'd even pounce on unsuspecting guests in the VIP lounges.

It could be quite inconvenient, as when someone would lean in to speak with Silco—only to leap away in a shrieking apoplexy when sludge dripped from the vents to splatter their heads, while a disembodied voice boomed—"Keep your cooties to yourself!"

Sevika branded Jinx a possessive freak. Silco begs to differ.

Deep down, his child is a sensitive little body. Vi's abandonment left her fearful of a reprise. In the early days, Silco had to finesse his way around Jinx's moods before even contemplating a block of uninterrupted adult-time. He still remembers the first—and only—time she'd caught him in bed with one of his whores. Eleven years old and honing her skills at sneaking about (the girl crept like a phantom!) to pop up at his door with a cry of "Boo!"

When she realized what she'd stumbled upon, her face cycled through a dozen shades of scarlet.

The Psychickers call it The Primal Scene.

Silco calls it a bloody nuisance.

Girding his hips with a sheet, he'd primly escorted Jinx to her own room. In the morning, he'd found her cross-legged with a pile of trinkets. She'd X'd out all of their eyes with tape, and refused to meet Silco's own. It was mystifying. She wasn't an ignoramus—by eleven most sumpsnipes knew all about the bats and bees.

So why was she so silent?

Later, Silco heard that someone had dumped a bucket of corrosive chemicals on the whore. The boy leapt out of the way—barely. His hair was badly scalded. On the rooftop, the perpetrator had left a calling card. A monkey-face spray-painted in neon green.

Jinx never hid her handiwork.

Sevika told Silco to punish the brat by lopping her hair off. She needed to be taught that actions had consequences. Except there seemed no bigger consequence than Jinx herself. Later that day, Silco found her in their quarters, gripped by a fit. That was the only way to describe it—a fit. Mother had them from time to time. Her eyes would darken into black-noise. She'd start throwing books and glasses and candles. She wouldn't speak except in garbled shrieks.

In those moments, she was a stranger. Nobody Silco knew at all.

Jinx's fit was different. A dirge of despair so pure it couldn't survive except as rage. A rage so familiar it was like a cracked mirror. A reflection of all Silco’s old cuts. She didn't respond when he called her name. She threw toys and trinkets helter-skelter. She thrashed and snarled when he grabbed her. Her sharp little teeth sank into his wrist.

Flesh wasn't enough. She'd needed to taste blood.

It took hours to calm her down. She'd wept and babbled and wept, before subsiding into exhaustion. In the morning, Silco opted to stay at their quarters. He'd made Jinx's favorite confetti-sprinkled waffles. Handled her gently, using soothing tones. At last, between cheerless bites of breakfast, Jinx had at first evaded, then equivocated, then yielded the truth.

Was she frightened by what she'd walked in on last night? Nope. Upset? Ummm... maybe. Why? 'Cause Vander never had anyone over. Correction, child. Vander had plenty of boys and girls over. They just handled their business in the ginnel. Well—why do you have boys over? Grown-ups have needs. I'll be grown up soon. So you will. So you won't need more friends, right? My lovely, you misunderstand... Will you leave me? Why would I do that? 'Cause he slept there. Slept where? My Safe Spot.

Jinx's Safe Spot.

The three-quarters of mattress Silco had allotted for her nightmares.

Oh, Silco realized.

She'd had a bad dream, and he wasn't there. She'd wanted comfort, and he'd shut her out. An unfamiliar emotion—remorse?—curdled his gut.

Under a gentle palm, Silco smoothed her hair.

That spot is yours, he said. For as long as you want it.

And you—?

Me? A bittersweet smile touched his lips. Always.

Jinx pounced tearfully into his arms. But he still remembers the look on her face. The dread that he'd turn her away. Abandon her altogether. To Silco it verged on unthinkable. Yet it was also a reminder of Jinx's fragility. Like all fragilities, it must be handled with care.

Afterward, he'd never allowed a stranger into his and Jinx's quarters again.

So: yes.

The Laguna Lounge is convenient.

Nearly as convenient as the tub, large enough for four heat-slicked bodies. Nearly as convenient as the buoyancy of mass in water; effortlessly malleable. Nearly as convenient as the soundproofed tiles, absorbing the reverberations of the boy's and girl's cries.

Water sloshes everywhere. Their shapes are joined in a twisting chimera. The boy is trapped between Silco and Sevika. Two dark bookends with his body like a pale parenthesis in between. Silco grips him back-to-front, shoving slowly up the boy's ass. It's a doddle: a lubricated sheath, and he is already nicely loosened up.

Silco isn't particularly gentle about it. Just steady. The boy begs and bleats through every inch of it. His spasming shoulderblades cut into Silco's chest. Hips jerking forward, grinding back, again and again. Meanwhile, the Maven guides the boy's pretty wrapped prick between Sevika's splayed thighs. It's only sporting. All evening Silco left it untouched, even as it stood stiffly upright against its owner's belly. Twice, it had splattered the sheets with spunk from everything Silco was subjecting him to—ever the bridesmaid; never the bride.

Now its patience has paid off.

Silco feels the moment Sevika takes the boy in—a subvocal tremor through his chest and out of her mouth. Bracing her strong elbows against his shoulders, she rolls her hips, a hypnotic sway. She knows exactly how to move, how to match the changing rhythm. A born fighter; just one syllable short of a natural dancer. Meanwhile the Maven displays her specialty, slithering frictionlessly in between bodies, soft fingers here, softer tongue there. Everything she does is slow, deliberate, exquisite. Eager to earn her tip.

That's another reason Silco keeps her around.

Lazily, he withdraws, all that hot flesh slipsliding, only the flared head clutched by the taut ring of muscle. The boy makes a begging sound, swaying backwards instead of forwards—and Silco knows he has him. He slams back in, a snapping swivel that makes the poor bastard shudder all over, mouth loosing delirious croons.

The rhythm is all Silco's now. He rides into the boy from behind with rapid, brutal, merciless thrusts—every upstroke shoving the boy's cock deeper into Sevika, knocking sharp cries from both their throats, a jittery tenor to a jarred contralto. They are each in a zone of single-minded greed now. The boy scrabbles frantically at the tub's surface, bracing himself. Sevika grinds back against him without mercy, taking what she needs. She is rigid from top to toe, a dark flush blotching her skin, hands clutching at the boy's shoulders, before reaching across to reflexively pluck at Silco's.

Silco shoves in deeper—the boy howls—and reels Sevika in by a fistful of hair at the nape of her neck. Again, they don’t kiss. He bites her throat, gnaws the humid crook where her pulse throbs. Between them, the boy is already starting to spend, with breathy helpless sounds like a virgin overcome.

Not that Silco gives a toss either way. He redoubles his thrusts. Slick skin on skin, the boy's crucified body just a proxy now. A meat puppet dragged along for the ride. Grunting with frustration, Sevika rocks against the softening heft of the boy’s cock. He’s finished, Silco is nearly there, but her own body is lagging behind. On a rare impulse of generosity, Silco reaches around the boy's torso and wedges a hand between her thighs. Her clit pulses between his pinching fingers. Her thighs spasm; she comes with a sharp oversensitized snarl.

A moment later Silco yanks the Maven in, sinking his teeth into her shoulder. She shrieks, the boy sobs—and Silco seizes up and spills.

Afterward, the whores lay sprawled like corpses in the tub. Their pretty faces are glassy-eyed; pretty bodies splay-limbed. The bite-marks turn the bathwater a delicate pink. Neither one is good as dead. But they are no longer good for much.

Idly, Silco gestures for a towel. Sevika obeys. Climbing out, he dries off, the water streaming off him. His movements are insouciant despite his nudity. Snipers in the shadows; assassins in the corners—these are seldom his preoccupations.

The deadliest killers lurk in plain sight.

Humming, Sevika comes out behind him. Devil’s Got the Blues. She still has license to touch him—but she won't. Once the games are done, they both expect permission for such things, unspoken but stark.

Instead, she relights his half-smoked cigarette, passing it over. Taking a lungful, Silco exhales a satisfied stream.

"Well done."

It's shorthand for: Get them out.

Fully-dressed, Sevika oversees the whores' departure. She rarely considers these tasks any different from patrolling the streets. Something done for the maintenance of order. Part of her role as XO. If she harbors any further complexity of judgement, Silco has never witnessed it.

And Silco, who has entirely too much complexity in his life, approves.

The Maven is seen off with an affectionate pat to the arse. Giggling, she kisses Sevika's cheek, then imparts a more respectful nod to Silco. His crew will keep him apprised on her progress with the warmasons.

Before the boy can follow her out, Sevika stops him.

"What now?" he asks, almost a whine.

Sevika replies, "The Boss wanted to tip you extra."

A glint of greed enters the boy's stare. Even without past misadventure to disqualify him, this barefaced show of self-interest is enough to pass the sentence.

In the corner, Silco snaps his fingers.

On Pavlovian reflex, the boy turns. The moment he does, Sevika seizes his arm, yanks it taut, and snaps. Howling, the boy drops to his knees.

Silco, calmly dressing, and preoccupied with locating a missing cufflink, spares the barest glance.

"Remind me," he says to Sevika, "what spoils a good fuck?"

"Dying," Sevika replies.

"And what's the reward for disloyalty."

"Dying," Sevika repeats, and gives the boy's arm a vicious twist.

He screams, a high keening wail.

Silco crooks a finger. Sevika desists.

Half-dressed—red shirt, black trousers—Silco threads gold cufflinks through the buttonholes. There is no anger in his movements, but that means nothing. The monster has stirred awake. It inhabits every lineament of Silco’s frame. It is in his body-language; slow, measured, precise. In his voice; the smoothness abraded down to a slither. In his eyes; with their dark gleam of ruminant bloodlust.

As he said—flesh isn't enough. He needs to taste blood.

"You," Silco says, "were skulking at the outpost near my suite yesterday."

"I-I was just—"

"Spying for someone. Your camera obscura is in our custody."

The boy's breath hitches. The exact sound he makes whenever Silco grips him by the bollocks.

"Can you say it?" Silco’s voice holds the softness of bloodstained velvet. "Can you give the name of the one who bribed you?"

“I—”

“Because I think you should say her name first. It makes matters simpler. Don’t you agree?"

Defeated, the boy says, "M-Margot."

“Dear Margot. What’s got her so curious about my private affairs?"

The boy swallows. His eyes pass over Silco's face, like fingertips tracing for seams in an impenetrable mask. There are none.

He dares, "Jinx."

The silence stretches tight as a noose.

Hastily, the boy says, "Margot and the—the chem-barons want to know her whereabouts. So do folks on the streets. They say—"

"Hm?"

A tiny vein beats at the side of the boy's neck. "They say she's dead. You hid her bones."

"To pick my teeth with?"

"In exchange for—for the Hex-gem."

Silco trades a glance with Sevika. Her expression shows disgust but no shock. Caught up in these infernal games with Piltover, Silco’s attention toward his inner-circle has been remiss. Now they're creeping in from the corners, eager for gaps in his armor. That's the trouble with politics. Every moment one faces a forked road; a choice between two theoretical extremes of risk.

Meanwhile, the real nuisances are closest to home.

In the mirror, Silco arranges his hair, slicking it back with pomade before shaping it with a comb. The routine task is a backdrop for black plans. When he's done, he resembles any well-heeled Topsider ready for a night out in town. Not that a Topsider could so much as knot his own cravat, let alone dress in a half-minute without a manservant's assistance.

Silco is no Topsider. Not even a pale imitation.

Zaun plays by different rules.

One-handed, Silco gestures. Sevika's blade juts out from her prosthetic arm, a glowing-hot flash. Before the boy can react, it cuts a lightning arc across his throat. There is a sound not unlike butter on a hot skillet. A gaping slash appears across the boy's throat. The torn edges sizzle.

His eyes widen in shock. Then they glaze over, and he slumps. Blood oozes from the gash. Not much. Sevika's blade was so superheated it cauterized the wound. She knows Silco's distaste for messes.

Pity the chem-barons missed the memo.

Sevika grabs a handful of tissues from a box on the sink. Kneeling, she wads them into the boy's seeping throat. Then she seizes him under the armpits and drags him away. Outside, Lock is waiting with a body-bag. The corpse will be delivered back to the Vyx—and straight to Margot's doorstep.

No shorthand necessary. The chem-barons will get the message.

Stay away from Jinx.

Jinx—who is asleep in Silco’s suite.

Nestled under the blanket, she is radiant in repose, girlish and soft-looking. In the old days, lamplit, she used to put Silco in mind of the Celestials from old myth. Real flesh; warm and living. And yet somehow otherworldly too.

Without sound, Silco glides past the bed and lays his silver smoking case on the dresser. He snaps it open, clicks the hidden compartment, and stares spellbound. Blue fractals of light suffuse the ambient dark. The Hex-gem glows like a stolen comet.

Glows like Jinx.

She's won him a nation—and this gem was merely a means to that end. The prism to channel the mad colors of Jinx's pure rage, and set Piltover ablaze. As if Jinx herself is the spark of magic; the gem only amplifies her power.

Power.

The word is Zaun's lifeblood, and Silco possesses it. Destruction incarnate. Beauty inviolate.

He holds it in his palms. And it thrills him.

Terrifies him.

Because when absolute power manifests, there are no ifs or Buts. It is all or nothing. That's why Piltover is eyeing up his affairs, while the chem-barons sniff after his secrets. That's why Noxus is angling for alliances in the guise of conquest. Same as Bilgewater. Same as Ionia. Same as every other bastard vying for a piece of the pie.

With two fingers, Silco rubs the skin at his left temple. His bad eye burns like fire.

Like rage.

A kingpin's throne isn't won with mercy. It is seized with savagery—in deed and reputation. For years, Silco has fed both with fresh blood. He is adept at playing his enemies, and preying on what they hold dear. In the Promenade, jukebox musicals play Mack the Knife to allude to his ruthless rise to the top. In the Sumps, they don't sing at all; they whisper from firsthand accounts.

He's never concerned himself with going too far. The essence of power is going further than anyone else dares.

Politics is different. One's sway must be more diffuse. For that, it's critical to keep a finger on the delicate pulse of his city. Silco's cadre of spies—tarts, pickpockets, hustlers—play a vital role.

But they aren't the crux of his success.

That is Jinx.

To Piltover, she is the catalyst of carnage. To Silco's network, a tool for chaos. But for Silco, she's been a prophetmaker. The girl who broke his empire, then resurrected it. Whose genius cracked the code of magic; whose artistry unlocked the secret of warfare.

She'd made the Eye of Zaun as much as he'd made her.

Same way she'd remade Zaun—from a slag-heap into a metropolis. Once, the Undercity’s social psyche was one of self-defeatist apathy. Chem-barons ruled the roost while Enforcers wielded the bullet, leaving the ordinary Fissurefolk in the cold. Their homes were cramped, their lives short. They scraped together enough coin to buy themselves a bell or two of relief each night. Some sold tools and trinkets. Others sold themselves. But each one coveted the rarest commodity of all: change.

Jinx is change.

For the commoners, she embodies decades of pent-up emotion run rampant. With every bomb, she knocked Piltover's pride down a peg. She unleashed hell above, and they cheered her to high heaven below. In the taverns, chem-punks even composed Get Jinxed with all the pathos of an anthem.

Jinx wasn't a hero so much as a daredevil. And they adored her for it.

Now Zaun is free.

And Jinx has vanished.

Silco has no right to mourn with the masses. And yet he does. Because Jinx isn't gone—and yet she remains so altered in herself, so discombobulated by everything she's endured. Almost six months, and Silco still isn't certain whether she is floating towards recovery, or going deeper around the bend.

Since Zaun's birth, she's gone from loose cannon to loose end in a single agonizing blast.

He stares at himself in the dresser mirror. His good eye is a black hole, the bad one a red pit glowing balefully. She's won him a nation—and broken herself in the bargain. Now Silco must keep his own end. Keep her safe. Safe from Vi, from Piltover, from the threats looming and the nuisances swarming.

Safe from herself?

"Silco?"

When he turns, Jinx has shifted up on one elbow. Neon beams slant from the blinds. Her heavy-lidded eyes hold a feline gloss. A pang goes through Silco. A night spent scheming, and yet the moment he enters the suite, his senses are so full of Jinx that he filters out almost everything else. As if the world, inside and outside, goes mute.

Sanctuary in the eye of chaos.

"Sssh," he soothes. "Go back to sleep."

Her gaze flickers from the smoking case to him. "Where’ve ya been?"

It is as if she knows.

(The Bilgewater dogfight to threaten Vi.)

(The Piltover yacht to bargain with Medarda.)

(The Laguna Lounge to sodomize a pair of whores.)

"Nowhere in particular."

"You smell like a cathouse."

As if she truly knows.

Except—no. It's just Jinx being Jinx. Irreverent, brash, bratty: a collection of volatile impulses distilled down into a fierce purity of heart. She's never, Silco thinks, known a moment's vice in her entire life. Even with blood on her hands. Her every desire is hers, and burns purer than any magic.

Whereas Silco is all vice. All secrets, shadows, scars.

All for her.

He smiles, barely. "How, child, are you so familiar with Eau de Cathouse?"

"Pffft. Like I've never been hit over the head with a fancy cologne bottle." She stares for another second, scrubbing the hair back from her slit-eyed face. Then as if she's flipped a switch, suddenly she is leaning forward, holding her arms out, hands starfished.

"Stay?" she whispers.

Silco hesitates. He is too wired to lay down. Dawn is creeping against a skyline whose contours shimmer. Zaun beckons. So much business left undone. Scores in need of settling and ledgers in need of balancing.

But Jinx...

She needs only him.

Without quite meaning to, Silco removes his coat and stretches out slowly on the bed next to her. Sighing, Jinx nestles closer. Foreheads together; fingers entwined. Her warmth spills like water into the parched dryness of his body. In the mattress's declivity, their shapes meld together.

"Stay," Jinx whispers.

"Always," he whispers back.

By degrees, Jinx drowses off. Her arm holds him in place; her breath makes a moist hot patch across the curve of his throat. On his feet, a touch that triggers nothing but a violent reflex. Here, it’s the most soothing sensation he's yet known. The only one he needs.

His and Jinx's Safe Spot.

Home.

It’s where he’s happiest in the end.

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