crimeronan - Tumblr blog

[crimeronan]

What if Darius finds out about Grimwalker Alador?

i can't believe you guys have all just decided there's a grimwalker alador now. i didn't even make grimwalker alador happen!! i've mostly left alador to his own devices!! ...thus far!!

anyway i think darius should not find out about grimwalker alador because i think if he finds out about grimwalker alador then it's a hop skip and a jump to finding out about grimwalker mentor AND grimwalker hunter AND the fact that luz knew about BOTH OF THOSE THINGS and sat on her hands and didn't say a Fucking Word to Anyone.

at which point.... potential dalador angst becomes the Least of anyone's problems.

[crimeronan]

On the "Empress Luz acting scary with The Blights snippet" for some reason In my head as I was reading it, part of me was imagining Luz's accent sounding more like Belos when she's being intimidating and it's just now rattling around inside my head and won't leave.

IDK how malleable accents are, (I moved from the UK to Australia when I was like, 9 and I still sound painfully english) and at what stage these things naturally develop. But unless Belos was actively 'correcting' how she spoke... (the thought of which is its own potential bag of horror ) I imagine her normal speaking voice still being broadly as it was in canon.

Mostly because the thought hadn't occurred to me when reading most of the au and Hunter sounds just as american as the rest of of the isles, (sans Terra Snapdragon) but he wasn't really Belos' favorite now was he and probably got enough early instruction from non-Belos people to shape how he spoke. So I imagine aside from maybe the odd weirdly British pronunciation on some terms (ie Lef-tenant v Lou-tenant when referring to the rank, minor things like that, maybe the odd vowel here and there) they just sound like they did in canon.

But now here's the thought I can't shake. When Luz is being authoritative, and especially when she's using fear like in that snippet, as a tool Belos taught her how to use, even as she's trying her best to use it to be better than he was, she can't help but subconsciously sound like him. Application of force, threatening with force of law like that isn't in her nature, but she's been taught it by Belos and can do it well even if in almost all cases she hates the thought of it now, something so associated with him but also an indispensable part of "being The Empress".

Specifically in that scene I can imagine her normal speaking voice coming through for a moment as she talks about how biased she is and how much she hates The Blight all that anger is completely her own, genuine and honest, there is nothing of Belos in it...

Then her voice goes right back to BBC english when she mentions how that bias is legally irrelevant and she's right back into threatening absolute monarch mode.

you know what?? this is honestly spot-on for how i heard her in my head while i was writing it. the accent was definitely still american but there's a chipper, professional Icy Cheerleader quality to it that's all belos. luz having adopted his precise cadence and genial demeanor because it's the most effective way she knows how to be scary... Yeah That's The Stuff

and tbh it's entirely possible for her accent to slip into something more british. i know that i unconsciously mirror people's accents in conversation & am constantly worried that when i'm with my southern friends or irish friends or latine friends that they're gonna think i'm making fun of them when it's like. no i Promise this is just how i talk. probably another autism thing but i don't actually know if accent mirroring IS a common thing so.... mysteries!

regardless.... i can bestow a bit of this upon luz. between drawing on her memories of belos AND matching odalia's Smarmy Corporate Smugness, i think there's Easily some british in there. if hunter is in the room, he's definitely running mental numbers on the likelihood that luz will suddenly hear herself & Freeze Completely.

[crimeronan]

Oh, the great maker of trauma for the beans that are part of Princess Luz Au, heed my query and answer me:

Did Luz get any big bad evil guy energy or skill from being raised by the waste of space previously known as Belos?

I mean as we all know Luz is a precious bean, but I think she deserves to be a little evil towards bad people, like I assume that Hunter is already planning how to murder (or worse) Amity's parents, even if he isn't fully aware of it/is in denial that he is planning the horrors on the for making Amity, but I stay with me for a moment and imagine the verified cinnamon roll Luz Noceda Wittebane putting the fear of Titan into Odalia after learning that she abused Amity.

Also, her snapping out of it after Odalia faints out of fear (and pain), and panicking that she is just like below only for her parteners to be like, 'nooo~ it was hot normal and perfectly sane thing to do'.

this answer Might be disappointing in some ways, mainly: i don't Think luz would be physically violent with them without provocation, and i also don't think she's likely to lose emotional control around them. she'd want to be just as poised around amity's parents as she always was around belos and always is around the coven heads.

HOWEVER. as for the questions of "does luz know how to be scary" and "did she learn that from belos": UNEQUIVOCAL yes. to both.

i've been wanting to play with luz in this space with amity's parents for A While, actually, so. have a little fic :)

-

"Oh, Amity is my pride and joy," Odalia says, placing a hand over her heart. "I taught her everything she knows."

"Yes, I did get that impression." The Empress smiles, rising to her feet. "It's incredible how much she's accomplished in spite of you."

Odalia's breath catches around a shocked, bitten-down laugh. "Your Majesty, begging your pardon, I believe you meant 'because of-'"

"In spite of," Luz repeats, very firmly. "It's fortunate that Lilith Clawthorne has taken such an interest in her wellbeing."

Odalia's smile doesn't waver, but it does remain frozen for several seconds before she says, "I suppose Amity feels the need to invent an adversary. Some great trial she overcame to earn her place here. It's understandable. Children often lack the foundation to understand the sacrifices their parents make. She had a very privileged upbringing."

"Amity has never spoken unkindly of either of you," Luz says, although this she seems to mean more for Alador, whose face may give more away.

She steps lightly down the stairs from the throne, joining the pair of them on the ground. "Amity rarely speaks of either of you at all, actually. That isn't why I've called you here."

Odalia's voice turns cool, corporate. "Then how can we help you, Your Majesty?"

"Did you know that Blight Industries has a higher rate of workplace accidents than..." Luz slides a folder out of her tunic, flips it open, and raises her eyebrows. "...any other company on the Isles?"

This time, Odalia's laugh covers something else. "That's - that's preposterous. Our workplace safety records are excellent. Why, we haven't needed a single intervention by the Healing Coven in... oh, is it three years?" She taps the side of her mouth, frowning. "Four? Five?"

"That's fascinating," Luz says. "Not even for a scrape?"

"Abrasions heal quite well by themselves, given time."

"Absolutely fascinating," Luz repeats. "Did you know that it's illegal to purposefully deny people healing services?"

Odalia scoffs, incredulous. "For scrapes?"

"I know," Luz says pleasantly, "I was surprised, too. There are a lot of laws like that, it turns out. Text on paper that hasn't been enforced in half a century. From what I understand, this one is a holdover from early Empire anxieties. People were terribly worried about not having access to personal healing magic anymore. So healing services had to be protected."

Odalia's smile has become more teeth than pleasantry. "What a fun little history lesson. I'm sure you know all sorts of facts about the early Empire."

"It turns out that it's very easy to put laws in writing," Luz says, "without the intention to enforce them. My father, may the Titan bless him, had precious little interest in the rights of individuals to be seen by healers. But this isn't his Empire anymore. And I find the topic just captivating."

Odalia has stopped trying to hide her impatience, now. "So you'll fine us for not having healers on hand to wave away every little paper cut. That's fine. I apologize for the oversight. We'll settle up and make sure that going forward-"

"Mr. Blight," Luz says, ignoring Odalia entirely, "would you kindly remove your gloves for me?"

Alador startles.

Odalia doesn't glance at him. Her eyes are fixed unblinking on Luz. She speaks through her teeth, nearly a hiss. "Don't feel compelled to do that, dear."

"I assure you, I can compel him to do that," Luz says. Then, in a tone that would almost pass for apologetic if it wasn't so practiced, "I am sorry to compel it of you. I try not to compel my subjects very often. But if you find it difficult to remove your gloves, my scouts would be happy to assist you."

The scouts around the base of the throne don't move. Odalia's eyes slide uneasily over them anyway.

"That won't be necessary," Alador says, speaking for the first time. He pulls the gloves off without fanfare, holding up his hands.

Half of his left ring finger and pinky are conspicuously missing.

If Luz is uncomfortable with this revelation, she sure isn't showing it. "Oh, that's so interesting," she says, leaning forward to get a closer look. "The Healing Coven keeps meticulous records, and I'm certain a partial amputation was never reported to them. You were born with all five fingers, yes? I'm sure Amity will attest to that."

"This was from an accident in my personal lab," Alador says, with the mechanical precision of something rehearsed. "The severed digits were not... salvageable."

"It's so amazing that you were able to make that determination," Luz says, "without even needing to consult the Healing Coven. You must be a very proficient magician."

Alador blinks.

"Regardless," Odalia interrupts, "it happened outside of Blight Industries. The company isn't liable. You haven't 'gotten' us."

"Do you ever test Blight Industries products in your personal lab, Mr. Blight?"

"Prototypes," he says.

Odalia makes a sharp, exasperated gesture. "Alador!"

"That seems like company business to me," Luz says, still pleasant, still conversational. "Now, I will be fully transparent, before you accuse me of anything with regards to prejudice - it is true that I hate you both. It is true that I've hated you both for a while now. If you feel like I'm targeting you because I hate you, then you're very astute."

Odalia's fingers twitch, threatening to curl into fists.

Luz continues, "However, it's also true that there is no bias where my judgment is concerned. Not legally, anyway. So it doesn't matter whether I hate you or not. Whatever I decide to do with you is the Titan's will. Government is amazing."

Odalia exhales sharply.

When Luz doesn't waver, she shakes her head. For the first time, her voice cracks - properly cracks. There's a tiny tremble in her hands.

"Amity won't forgive you if anything happens to us," she says - but there's no bravado, no power, only pathetic uncertainty. "Regardless of any... petty grievances she may harbor. Family is everything to a Blight. She won't forgive this."

"I know that," Luz says. "I promise, I have no intention of doing Amity any unkindness. It's not her fault you two have chosen to be what you are."

Another sharp exhale. Odalia's breathing is ragged, audible. She's clearly not a woman accustomed to fearing for her own safety.

"That's fantastic news!" she chirps.

Luz's smile is beatific, magnanimous. The serene expression of someone who's never questioned the divine right of kings.

"Unfortunately, I'm not wholly opposed to doing an unkindness," she says, "if we can't seem to reach an agreement. It's really up to you how this goes."

She looks from Odalia to Alador and back, tilting her head.

"So. How badly do both of you want to live?"

[crimeronan]

What does being Taylor Swift neutral look like in practice?

it's...... really..... not that hard to do.

when my mom or sister or casual acquaintances ask to put on a tswift album in the car, i go, "sure!" and pleasantly listen along. then promptly forget everything i just heard. i frequently encounter both positive and negative thinkpieces about her artistry and persona and history, which i largely do not read, but sometimes i do skim tumblr posts and think, "huh, this would probably be really interesting if i knew stuff about taylor swift." when my lefty friends discuss how they hate her guts i nod thoughtfully and when my swiftie friends discuss how she gets a worse rep than she should, i do the same. i don't add her songs to my playlists because i can't remember them and i don't feel much about them. i find her current tumblr and youtube album ad campaign incredibly fucking grating and it's testing my ability to maintain this delicate balance but i am Clinging By My Fingernails.

ultimately i am a blank slate for the world to project its taylor swift opinions onto and i find that this is an essential quality to have when navigating pop culture as a twenty-something boring-but-political american woman in 2024.

does that help.

[crimeronan]

thinking INSANE THOUGHTS abt the possiblity of grimwalker!alador as mentioned by one ask simply for the insanity. odalia who payed off kikimora to find a way to replace her husband from the emperors own notes and liked what she found. que:

amity, with an OBVIOUSLY FAKE casual tone, keeps looking at luz with mild desperation: yeah.. uhm. i had dinner with odalia and dad earlier. dad was uh.. he had. a head cold? i think? i dont know, it was making him act- all weird. plus his eyes were.. purple? magenta? hunter colored. uh. yea-

luz, actually starting to grow her first grey hair as amity speaks, full body shaking like a chihuahua with stress: WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.-

👀🍿

luz, suddenly terrified of a possibility that she Thought had died with belos: amity, i, um -- i.... i don't, um, think.... you should go home again.

amity: Why Not .

luz: i think it's um. better if. you. um. abandon all family in service of the empire. don't mention my principles right now.

amity:

[crimeronan]

not all kinks are sublimated anxieties, but the readiness with which we turn our sublimated anxieties into sexual fantasies is one of the most endearing things about our species to me. like our brains are like, “hmm. don’t like this. i should jerk off about it.”

[crimeronan]

Hunter convinces Hooty to add large vents to the owl house :) Even if Luz doesn't actually need them there, now she and King have another thing to play with.

i often think about how when hooty swallows people, they appear to go into an eldritch pocket dimension that just looks kinda like an extra dusty storage room in the house. luz and king poking around the walls to explore like "the phrase 'bowels of the house' means something different here, doesn't it,"

[crimeronan]

other various autistic elopement fun facts about AU luz:

she was REALLY good at getting off the castle grounds as a kid. which is amazing because she was toddling on tiny legs and the whole palace is surrounded by a death moat. girlie how did you do it.

iirc it's offhandedly mentioned that she found the plant glyph in a garden and the ice glyph when she managed to get really Really far from the grounds.

this was not intentional. she would have been small and cold and scared. i think probably like seven years old.

hunter was almost certainly the one who found her. at like. nine years old.

also he has ABSOLUTELY been using tracking spells the same way a lot of parents use tethers for years.

luz is fine with this on account of trusting him implicitly.

hunter was the one who got in trouble whenever luz was gone long enough for belos to notice.

luz does not know how many times this happened.

hunter would literally rather jump out a window than tell her.

it's one thing for luz to know that belos abused him. Entirely A Different Fucking Beast for luz to know how often hunter got hurt over things SHE did.

nowadays luz would have to be under an Extreme amount of stress to straight-up bolt from a meeting or a petitioner

but she would Really Like To.

raine's frequent interventions when she's starting to Go sensory-wise are bc theyre really good at intuiting when luz is reaching A Limit.

let luz hide in the vents.

[crimeronan]

Saw the post about Luz just kinda, escaping through the vents when she needs some personal space at night.

Just imagining it was something she did as a kid a lot (before Belos found out and made her stop after a certain age, the specifics of that conversation not to be thought of well, all of the awfulness) because well, what adventurous young princess wouldn't explore the vents in her own castle.

Once Belos is gone she sometimes does it again when she's nervous or otherwise just needs to avoid people since who's going to stop her, and sometimes she does genuinely need to escape people, it being more frequent when Hunter isn't around to help her self regulate and she just needs to be away from people for a bit. Like a meeting ends and within seconds she's teleported with her staff into the vents. It feels safe and nice, even if it's a little dusty.

Furthering this Hunter knows this is going on, but he's still Hunter so he quietly has some trusted scouts actively making the vents quietly cleaner (all work being done when she's at Eda's and wont be disturbed by this force of vent janitors, who are mostly just going along with this since they think Hunter is slightly crazy and there's good overtime in it) just so it's all slightly more comfortable and fit for purpose.

Not that he thinks Luz will somehow crumble at the mere sight of dust in an airvent, but its an unspoken (but very much noticed and appreciates) thing he can do to make her more comfortable when she's struggling and he (or Amity) aren't around.

Naturally all the coven heads (aside from Raine) know is sometimes The Empress just appears and disappears at will in the castle.

THIS IS SO SWEET. WAHHH....

yeah i really like the idea of luz knowing her way around the castle vents. and it's something that hunter is privately grateful for, bc it means she has a lot of secret outs in terms of potential danger. and also, perhaps More Importantly, it means she has a place to disappear to that isn't Fuck Knows Where

it's been pretty firmly established but idr if i've ever properly used the term - luz in this AU (and arguably canon, but less textually there) is Very prone to autistic elopement. this being how she ended up in the isles in the first place & something she's never really stopped doing.

it's not conscious! hunter knows it isn't conscious and has never resented her for it. but he's been responsible for Looking After luz since he was way too young to be responsible for looking after luz & he Knows how far she can get if she's upset.

hunter having the vents semi-regularly cleaned is so cute. i'm sure he's neurotically attuned to luz's health and probably put together that she sneezes a lot more and gets a lot more head colds when she's in the vents a lot. hunter voice so help me you WILL dress warm and breathe clean air when you're in the hell ducts or so help me-

[crimeronan]

"when does amity technically join the AU polycule" greatest thread in the history of our time, locked after 4838378 pages of DTR debate,

[crimeronan]

guy who sees two other guys going through a weirdass enemies to lovers arc and is like "god I want what they have" and immediately falls in love with them both

[crimeronan]

this does not apply if you wear exclusively leggings. Those things tear all the time you need like a million on standby

[crimeronan]

[crimeronan]

Imagining Luz practicing for this interaction with Amity’s parents with Hunter because she wants the intimidation level to be Perfect and so it ends up being a lot of Hunter trying to coerce her to threaten bodily harm because her sweet face isn’t as intimidating on its own as Belos’ mask

hunter keeps being like "you have to make it clear that you Can and Will kill them" and luz is like "I ABSOLUTELY CAN'T AND WON'T THOUGH???" and hunter is like "okay, well, if we're speaking technically here, then Technically it's 'you can but won't.' you can threaten and kill whoever you want forever"

luz: this is NOT making me feel better about wielding my power!!!!!

hunter: do you want me to do it???

luz: no. i can do it. there's no point in being empress if i can't intimidate people doing real harm.

hunter: but do you Want me to do it.

luz: ....you really wanna do it, huh.

hunter: SO MUCH-

[crimeronan]

A surprisingly helpful bit of social maneuvering I've figured out from trial and error: Throughout your life, you are going to need things from people. Often, it's going to be on a deadline. And when that deadline passes, you generally want to know what's going on. So, you need to ask them.

There are two kinds of people, broadly, in this situation. The Shameless will tell you what the holdup is, with absolutely no regard for if the reason is "good enough". This is actually very helpful, because you get the real reason immediately, and can start working on a solution.

The Ashamed is trickier. People who are Ashamed are people who were often told they were giving excuses when they were trying to explain, and they'll often avoid you until they solve the problem on their own. This causes them and you a lot of stress, and often takes a lot longer to solve.

Long term, the strategy for dealing with people who are Ashamed is to provide a supportive environment where they're comfortable sharing any problems they're having with getting things done. But, there's a way to at least partially short-circuit that:

Provide an explanation for them.

One example might be "Hey Susan, I noticed that I don't have your report yet. Are you busy with other projects?" The readymade explanation signals that you're willing to accept an explanation, which is the big anxiety point.

Sometimes, you still won't get an honest answer- especially if the honest answer isn't "good enough" by the standards of the person who traumatized them. But, I've found that it often at least gets you a lie that lets you give them some slack or work around the problem.

Let's say that Susan has actually completely forgotten that she needed to do the report. She's horrified at herself, and completely unwilling to admit the real problem. But, she can now safely reply with "Sorry Jennifer, I've been swamped, and it got lost in the mix. I can have it to you in two days. Does that work?"

From there, so long as Susan gave an estimate for when she can actually do it, she and Jennifer can hash out a solution.

It's not a perfect solution, but it works astonishingly well for how small of a change it is.

[crimeronan]

what have you done to us all that when Alador's missing digits were revealed in that fic snippet, my first thought was "ah, has Odalia made arrangements to grow a replacement business partner if something happens to the current model"

HACKING LAUFH. IM GONNA WAKE RAFI UP HELPP OH GOD

the INTENTION was not "odalia is for sure gonna kill her husband and make a grimwalker of him" but given how that whole relationship already is..... well.....!