#a united little family

[foreverinmyguiltypleasures]

A United Little Family CHAPTER 2

Rating: everyone

Characters: Rhaenyra Targaryen, Daemon Targaryen, Jacerys Velaryon, Lucerys Velaryon, Joffrey Velaryon

Characters briefly mentioned: Laenor Velaryon, Harwin Strong

(A HOTD fan fic made by me)

“Luke slow down, you’re going so fast!” Jace yelled as they were running down the beach.  

Luke didn’t slow down, and Rhaenyra could understand why. It was an extraordinary day, the sun was shining brightly on the water, there were no clouds in the sky, everything was practically perfect. 

“Jace” Rhaenyra called. “Look how happy he is, don’t spoil his fun.”

“Does that mean I can run too mother?” Jace asked.

“Of course my sweet boy, have as much fun as you want.”

Jace quickly ran after his younger brother, getting farther and farther away from Rhaenyra, Daemon and little baby Joffrey who was nestled in Rhaenyra’s arms.

“Joffrey is getting so big” Rhaenyra said happily. “Aren’t you my little baby!”

Joffrey babbled cutely.

“Rhaenyra…I can take him if you want.” Daemon was always hesitant when it came to Rhaenyra’s children. He never knew the right time to be his goofy, proud, fatherly self around them.

Rhaenyra smirked. “You better not drop him!” 

“Rhaenyra!” Daemon scoffed sarcastically. “I would never.”

She then passed Joffrey to Daemon, making sure that he was comfortable in Daemon’s arms. In return, Daemon passed Rhaenyra the blanket that he held in his hands.

Joffrey giggled with excitement as Daemon bounced him around.

“Mother come here! We found a good spot!” The two boys were much farther ahead of Daemon and Rhaenyra and were already starting to go play in the water.

“Boys be careful” Rhaenyra yelled.

Daemon adjusted Joffrey so that he could place a touching hand on his wife’s shoulder.

“They’ll be fine. Remember what you said, don’t spoil their fun.”

The two looked solemnly at each other before gently hugging.

“I know.” She smiled

Before they knew it, the three of them were already with Jace and Luke.

“This is a perfect spot boys!” Rhaenyra said excitedly. “Jace, help me unfold the blanket.”

While Rhaenyra and Jace were setting up the blanket, Luke could barely hold in his excitement.

“Mother, I want to swim now!” Luke was like a big ball of energy today, and it was hilarious.

“Settle down kid” Daemon giggled at the little firecracker who at this point was practically sprinting with excitement. “There will be plenty of time for us to do everything fun today.”

“Ok!” Luke shouted as he jumped into a pile of sand.

When everything was set up, Rhaenyra allowed her boys to go in the water.

“Race you!” Luke screamed to Jace and started running towards the waves.

“Hey no fair! You got a head start” Jace started running towards Luke.

Those two little boys running and playing on the beach was a truly happy sight to see.

“Well it looks like the boys are having fun!” Daemon said to Rhaenyra.

“I remember when you were their age you know.” Rhaenyra perked up at Daemon’s nostalgic words.

“You always wanted to take Syrax swimming with you, but Aemma always said no.” 

Rhaenyra laughed at the old memory.

“At least I had you to keep me company!” Rhaenyra said as she gave Daemon a squeeze.

“Yes, yes you did.”

“Mama” Joffrey babbled.

“Yes baby?” Rhaenyra said to her little boy as he was starting to walk over towards the water.

“Swim! Swim!” Joffrey said excitedly!

“You wanna go swim with your brothers don’t you Joffrey.” Daemon said to the little one.

“How about lets all go swimming.” Rhaenyra shouted, loud enough for the boys to hear.

“YES! Mother give me Joffrey so we can throw him in the water!” Luke screamed happily.

Jace pushed him under the water as soon as he said that.

“Boys be careful! Rhaenyra called as she picked up little Joffrey.

Daemon quickly took off his shirt and started running towards the water.

When he was halfway there, he turned around and stuck his young out at Rhaenyra while wiggling his hands on his head.

Rhaenyra couldn’t help but laugh at her silly husband. That was the man that she married.

Daemon launched himself face first into the cold water and hooted with joy as he felt the cool breeze on his soaking wet hair.

Luke saw Daemon being silly so therefore, his automatic response was to be silly.

He tackled Daemon in the water and started laughing hysterically as Daemon threw him the air in return.

Jace started to do the same but Daemon also threw him straight up in the air.

Rhaenyra was really truly happy in this moment because her favorite people on the planet were having fun and acting like a true united family.

She started to come in the water, slowly but surely.

Daemon gave her a glance and smiled.

“Your turn?” Dameon asked

“No no no Daemon don’t you dare!” Daemon started to pick up Rhaenyra, who was still holding Joffrey.

“1…2…” Daemon was about to throw Rhaenyra in the air but remembered that Joffrey was still in her arms. He then put the two down gently.

“I swear if you did that Daemon there would be no fu….” she realized that the boys were listening. “Fun…tonight.” she meant fucking.

“Oh Nyra relax I would never do that!” He gave the boys a silly look.

“Here give me Joffrey” Rhaenyra handed him the little boy who was squealing with delight.

As soon as Rhaenyra’s hands were free, Daemon pushed her into the water.

“Yes you got her!” Luke shouted.

Rhaenyra was angry with Daemon for doing this and ruining her hair. 

When she got up from the water and saw how happy her boys were, it wiped all of her anger away and melted her heart.

She started to laugh along with her boys which made Daemon smile.

All of the anger and sadness in the world could never have affected them in that moment. 

Everything was truly happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry for the long wait everyone! Writing is not my #1 passion so i don’t devote all of my time to it like other writers on here. Plus i have a life! Thank you to everyone who reads this fic! Especially: @grandlovescheme @dae-daetargaryen @russkaya-dusha @duchessofvolterra and @nyctophilic0vitnir

[autisticgayplushie]

mango the queer pride puppy!!! :D

[adobe-outdesign]

I’ve heard a bunch of people say that Duck should get a “revelation” of his own, seeing as Red Guy got his in the original short films and Yellow Guy got his in the TV series. However, this tends to overlook the fact that he actually already had his realization at the end of DHMIS 5—he just happened to die before anything could actually come of it. And the entire reason he has that moment of clarity

is because Red Guy was gone. and he missed him

[wllbyers]

I just keep thinking about Eddie's who has lost so much, lost so many people and how he tries to fill up the holes they've all left behind. We can see it in every relationship he gets into, trying to fill in the spot Shannon left behind not only for Christopher but for himself as well.

And then you have Christopher who is growing up jaded because in his eyes everyone leaves, just like his mother did. And so he's already going into the world with a "who cares" mentality because it'll all end the same way

And then you have Buck who is so desperate to get people to see him and to love him, that when he does, he holds on too tightly and too intensely because if he doesn't then they'll leave him too

And it fucks me up a little bit that these three are all dealing with the same fear of abandonment but dealing with it in different ways

[s0fter-sin]

09 soapghost au, ghost was a member of soap’s unit before roba and they were together until he was taken. when he comes back and takes up the ghost mantle, simon riley is declared KIA and the hope that soap had let kindle in his heart that he’d come back to him dies. he throws himself into training, into becoming captain so he won’t let down another soldier the way he let simon down

then he recruits ghost to the 141 and ghost sees how much he’s changed, how much harder he is; slow to smile, never relaxing and he realises how much he fucked up by never reaching out. he’d thought he’d be better off without him, without the shell of the man he used to love but he’d done nothing but hurt him

after the close call with shepherd, soap wants to get right back into it, wants to hunt makarov down for almost getting his sergeant and lieutenant killed and ghost is yelling at him to just take it easy and heal first when soap snaps back, “i can’t lose anyone else! not again!” and ghost just rips his balaclava off, showing his face for the first time in years…

and soap says nothing. he just looks at him, completely unreadable. ghost clenches the balaclava in his hand, waiting for anything; even injured, soap can still pack a mean punch and he’s waiting for it, almost hoping for it… but he still does nothing. just stares

“well? c’mon!” he growls, stalking in closer. “let me have it! tell me how pissed you are! that i left you alone! that i ruined you the moment i touched you! that you regret ever fucking looking at me! scream, shout, say something!” until he’s leaning over soap’s chair, chest heaving

soap’s hand lifts and ghost can’t help his flinch before planting himself, ready to be struck, longing for it, to be punished the way he punishes himself-

soap’s hand gently cups his cheek and he freezes, breath catching as his thumb caresses the snake bite scars on his lip; feather-light and reverent. just like he used to

“you’re as beautiful as the day i lost you”

[darkstar84]

A perfect family unit

[r4nd0mth0ught2]

I love how q!Cellbit and Richas sat on the ground to be close to q!Roier instead of sitting on actual seats

[seventh-fantasy]

friendships as marital ties (and other notes on relational ties) in mlc

this is sort of a third installment in the series of meta on 'mlc as an exemplar of constructing queer narratives out of chinese ideological frameworks' (1. jianghu as queer space and 2. how it manifests in li xiangyi) - focusing on the nature of relationships in it. (which I've briefly mentioned in the first one and finally actually getting to it!!)

-

I would like to first call attention to chinese ideological frameworks as a premise of queer reading in mlc. the goal of chinese philosophy is to explore the becoming of human, taking two broad paths of the (mainstream) secular vs. escaping the secular. (these two paths are not a strict dichotomy, and rather, are ever in flux and in conversation with each other.) as said by @markiafc too, chineseness is so much about the rigidity of structures, and in equal part, a desire to break out of them. thus, chinese ideological frameworks can very much offer a rich reading of queerness - that mlc, a story very deliberately structured based on chinese ideologies (more accurately, with good reasons for me to believe that it is as such), has managed to materialise.

if the conceptualisation of queerness is premised on a defiance against mainstream norms, then a reliable way to read queerness in chinese ideological frameworks can be to deconstruct it by the mainstream confucian frameworks.

in mlc, this is implicitly set up with its stage of wulin/martial jianghu. then it is further broken down by asking, hey wulin jianghu is still closely related to the hegemonic values and the mainstream structure of authority (historically, 侠 xia being politically involved says a lot about this), so what is the true meaning of jianghu? what does it then really take for jianghu to be a queer space offering comfort and freedom to those who have escaped to it - to be the space that allow the transcendence of rigid roles and labels? mlc took a step further to resist the proxy to mainstream values that wulin jianghu has become.

this is why there can be a very strong buddhism reading of mlc (suggested here, expounded in the A+++ meta by @markiafc here and here, and also what I've seen discussed by cnet as well), given that buddhism is one of the 'extra-secular' ideologies, alongside (philosophical) taoism. I've also touched on a taoist angle in this meta. both schools are articulated in different sets of languages, but ultimately convey a same ideal of what it means to be human and how to live well - that is, to resist the roles and labels defined by the norms.

so, back to confucian frameworks.

a lot can be discussed about mlc with it. but in the context of this meta about relationships in mlc, it's specifically drawing on how confucianism conceptualises social relationships with familial ties as a cornerstone, and how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self'.

as such, one of the things about mlc that has fascinated me is how deliberately it seems to ignore and reject the conventional familial ties (the kind by blood and marital ties). I've joked about how it is a miracle for me to love mlc as much as I do, as a prime dysfunctional family story enjoyer, despite none of its main characters struggling with any complicated feelings about their (biological) parents. but on closer examination, mlc is also making a comment on the model of familial-based relationships that dominates mainstream society - but through the absence of it.

with this, I want to talk about 1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties; and then 2) how it repurposes these ties in its own ways.

-

the five relational ties in confucianism:

father and son 父子有亲 - (natural) affection between father and son

ruler and subject 君臣有义 - righteous relationship between ruler and subject

older and younger brothers 兄弟 (长幼有序) - this is actually about seniority within the family; the order between older vs younger family members

husband and wife 夫妇有别 - differentiation between husband and wife (demarcated by the 内外 spectrum of gendered inner-external spheres)

friends 朋友有信 - trust between friends

logically inferred, all these ties are hierarchical and familial-based except for the last one: friends. ruler-subject is sort of an extension of the natural familial ties, while friendship is the inverse space of 1-4 (ie. you fall back on 5 to define a social relationship outside of the familial sphere that cannot be qualified as 1-4). while all are premised on mutuality, it is only no. 5 that is defined by a sense of choice and equality.

on the surface, 1-4 don't quite exist in mlc in particularly meaningful ways to the narrative or are even outright overlooked, and friendship is the relational tie most valued by mlc. we can tell it's true just by looking at the most meaningful relationships in mlc of difanghua. but at the same time, it is more nuanced. we can take a closer look at how the story plays around with most of the ties as part of a broader queer narrative.

-

1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties

mlc's rejection of mainstream relational ties can be best seen in fdb escaping from marriage. and it was not just any engagement with anybody but an engagement with the imperial family. he struggles with the prospect of being married to princess zhaoling, but generally, it's about the idea of complying to mainstream conventions and expectations that includes compulsory heterosexuality. all these point not only to a defiance against amatonormativity - the resistance of the traditional husband-wife tie, but also an irreverence for the ties of ruler-subject (the engagement being an imperial decree) and father-son (matters of marriage being sole decisions made by parents).

of course this is on top of how fdb's own biological father is a p-o-s, and the narrative gives fdb minimal struggles in this aspect, allowing him to sever this tie without looking back (I love it, yeap). along the same line is how lxy is an orphan, who came to gain important relationships that are built on natural compassion among people rather than innate, blood-based ties - even as llh. the sense of defiance from the narrative is especially stark to me considering that he could have a completely different familial-based life - as a son, brother, and ruler, if his biological family was still around. the narrative also deliberately treats his biological brother as a phantom, replaced with an older brother who he was bonded with neither by blood nor marital ties. on dfs's front, absolutely nothing is to be known about his biological family. his childhood history with the toxic patriarch of his life - who is not even his biological father - was afforded a clean break and closure.

we can keep going on, but that's pretty much the point.

ritualisation is one of the most important things of the confucianism school, especially to the honoring of these social relationships (and the officiating of social roles). the one ceremony/ritual we saw in mlc involving the main characters - or more accurately speaking, came closest to seeing - was the imminent wedding ceremony of dfs and jlq. even in that case, it was premised on non-mutuality with dfs being the unwilling, passive party. (fem-coded dfs? 25 marks.)

and that brings us to the next part.

-

2) how mlc repurposes these ties

that particular wedding ceremony gets hijacked by dfs and lxy/llh, and gets turned into an important milestone in their relationship. they consummate - what is on text - their friendship after a long time being more enemies and rivals than friends. it is a clear establishment of the trust they have for each other. and here it is where I circle back to the subject of this post: friendships as marital ties.

in this article, as a part of a feminist, egalitarian reframing of confucianism, there is a proposal for spousal relationships to be reframed as a friendship tie. (this aligns with the interrelatedness of the five ties eg. the ruler-subject mirrors father-son dynamic, with the confucian belief that rulers have an obligation to their subjects alike parents to their own children.) by doing so, it removes the functional, gendered differentiation assigned to marital ties, and shifts it to something equal, and independent of gender. you exalt the value of trust between spouses, instead of basing marital relationships on gendered roles. as such, spouses become more like friends, and conversely, friends can also become more like spouses. (romance not a prerequisite. it has never been about romance anyway.)

given that mlc has repeatedly applied marital motifs to llh and dfs's characters in their joint narratives, this opens up a reading friendships as a marital tie. seeing marriage as a bridge for strangers to become family, marriage in mlc becomes a metaphor for the chosen commitment and mutual trust put in by strangers/friends (non-familial ties) into the becoming of family. the blurring of lines between marital ties and friendship encourages a genuine space of queer experience that goes beyond any pressure for strict labels - of sexuality, and relationships as romantic, sexual, etc etc.

(note: despite the borrowing of a feminist concept, I strongly hesitate to call mlc a feminist story. it's a whole discussion - or debate - on its own. nevertheless, it is definitely a gender-conscious story that lays foundation for a strong queer and egalitarian reading.)

-

it is to be noted that it is intended - and also beneficial to take the confucian framework of relational ties beyond face value. the framework offers what it believed to be the most fundamental social relationship dynamics, and sees room for extension and matching to other kinds of relationships (all if not, most). a relationship such as teacher-student, which is outside of the five ties stated, can also mirror the affection of father-son ties, albeit not in a literal and identical way.

speaking of which. fdb and lxy/llh.

indeed they're known by others to be good friends. fdb thinks they're good friends too - insists on it, and puts his best efforts in keeping it that way. but does it really go both ways? if it does not, then can it really still be friendship? my humble take is that, ultimately - weighing in with llh's perspective - this is a relationship that is not so much based on trust, and rather, based on an innate affection that is only unique to family. (in this case, not blood/marital-based but one that was chosen and built aka lxy's relationship with sgd.) in other words, less of a friendship, more of a familial one.

it is a lot clearer considering their relationship from llh's point of view: some brat you never wanted in your life came barging in, and whether he was going to bring any positive effect to your life was secondary to the tranquility - which you have carved for yourself in the past decade - that is so integral to your personhood. no way. but the moment you hear that he's family? well, that changes the game completely. even before learning about fdb being sgd's son (then beginning to take initiative in showing greater acceptance), it is apparent in llh that there was an instinctive resonance with fdb as his shixiong's nephew. (eg. he remarked to his shifu's grave about how alike fdb is to himself.) this is unlike with dfs whom he had taken a much longer time to build trust with. you do not apply trust - aka the quality of friendships - to family. family is something deeper, more instinctive than that. if fdb was never family, I find it hard to imagine given llh's personality, that he would have let some brazen, bratty stranger intrude for that long. (boy invited himself to llh's home, sat himself down eating the owner's dinner and nosing in his cooking abilities!!! ily bb but that was uncalled for 😭)

of course there are many more layers in their relationship. there is a substantial degree of their history as (unwitting) teacher-disciple: fdb is still healthy and alive all thanks to the existence of lxy as a spiritual teacher role model in his life, regardless it being one-sided or not. there is also indeed some part of friendship in it, especially from fdb's point of view. he sees llh as a kindred spirit who he could enjoy a life of freedom with for life. but llh never reciprocates. he knew this was short-lived. and so ultimately, the hierarchical layer of their relationship overpowers the equal one, where llh's treatment of fdb as a nephew/小辈 younger family member and a disciple is the one that sealed the fate of their relationship.

if (blood-based) familial ties are irrelevant in jianghu, then the closest proxy to a father-son relationship in the martial world would be a teacher-disciple relationship. lxy and his shifu are a clear, indisputable example. for fdb and llh, their teacher-disciple tie is murkier and not consistently applied. they were also never ritualised as teacher-disciple, and thus are not teacher-disciple in any official capacity as far as confucian ideas are concerned. yet in crucial moments, it is invoked by llh as a card of authority over fdb to get out of sticky situations with fdb. and there was their final scene together: in a moment of sincerity, llh gives the approval to fdb as his disciple - then entrusting fdb with the secret manual of his techniques, up until his final letter in which fdb was recommended to dfs as a successor to his martial abilities.

in an imperial setting, this would have been the relationship of an emperor and his crown prince that straddles both ruler-subject and father-son ties aka a tag-team of disaster. the teacher has an obligation to nurture his disciple as a successor to himself, and love him like a son too. on the flipside, he holds the final power in their relationship - withholding knowledge and feelings from the younger one. they are only equals in a way a parent-child can be. they are only equals as much as the parent allows. and this is how fdb got left behind in the dust of llh's departure. he was the child treating his parent like a friend, supporting him emotionally and begging to be loved back the same way he loves his parent - but the parent had a lifetime way ahead of him and stayed out of his reach, physically and emotionally.

llh and fdb operate with the trapping of a friendship but have always been family in the core. llh had known that way before fdb did, just like everything else he had known and put out of fdb's reach. because. fdb did not have to know. fdb is different and will forge his own path. and that's a kind of love llh has for him that nobody understands (in fact not even fdb himself) - one that is on a different plane from friendships.

by repurposing the framework of relational ties, mlc showed that the essence of familial relationships aka its intimacy and closeness can be independent from biology and formalised rituals. and it is important to myself for stories to say that people can build close ties and deeply meaningful relationships even without being born or ritualised into any.

-

then back to how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self' in confucian worldview: the roles you play in these relationships are intended to define you. there is no 'self' independent from it. while the concept of a social, relational self is fully rooted in reality, being locked into social roles can be a painful way to live - a way that llh has experienced as lxy the sigu sect leader. so, in order for lxy/llh to realise a sense of self that exists outside the norms, it inevitably points to another way that requires a cut from these relationships. that is then the buddhist (or taoist) answer of looking past attachments to the world such as the confucian idea of relationships defining your being. only with a dissolution of a sense of 'self', can there be true liberation.

[nanomooselet]

Elendira the Crimsonnail (II)

It's within your right to care not at all about any defence I mount of Elendira in Stampede. This is profoundly not my wheelhouse and I'm no fan of the creepy little girl archetype myself - but I think she's not going to stay as she is forever, and I think she serves a thematic purpose. Whether that justifies the new backstory for her is, of course, up to you.

Right. I'll need to start with the fact that in Stampede, Knives hates women. Oh, certainly Knives attacks and kills a lot of people - after all, his stated goal is the genocide of the human race - and many of his victims are men, since they typically make up the majority of fighting forces. But with them he's eliminating a threat. He's efficient about it. They're dead or at least incapacitated before they know anything. Think the Plant technicians, the MPs in July, the patrol officer outside Jeneora Rock.

It's when he targets women that he's hateful. Rosa's people didn't have to die like that. Knives drew it out for fun and let Rosa live with witnessing it. Similarly, he hated Luida so much he went for the throat bare-handed. He didn't get to Meryl, but Knives was so determined to harm her that it took Vash a few tries to redirect his attention while she fled. Let's also not forget that his abuse of Vash is centred around trying to destroy all influence Rem, a woman, had on his brother. Knives is openly contemptuous of human women in a way he simply isn't with men - Meryl is a "disgusting parasite", Luida a "witch".

You'd think championing Tesla and the dependent Plants (whom he refers to as female) would check him some - but it doesn't! Because they're defined by helplessness. They can't argue or tell him he's wrong, nor can they leave him or hurt him or take Vash from him. I'm sure he cares about them but, well, he cares about Vash too, and we know how that works out.

And thus of Knives's closest followers, only Elendira is afforded a place among their ranks. No others allowed. I have a feeling it'll be a little more gender-balanced once Legato steps in (he's got an entirely different flavour of hang-up), but that's for the future.

So why is Elendira the exception?

For a start, she's more directly attached to Dr. Conrad than Knives himself. Conrad seems to treat her as his companion or child, though she doesn't seem terribly fond of him or inclined to respect him. She is loyal to Knives, enough to recoil from Vash for being a "traitor".

In addition, she's Knives's partial clone. Knives is extremely self-absorbed, and she does look like he did as a boy. On a creepier note, she looks like Vash, too.

She's also not human. From what I can tell, rather she's a sort of an Independent/dependent Plant, a hybrid of their characteristics. Her body has proportions similar to the dependent Plants when they're unfurled, except on smaller scale and without the "petals" - large head, big eyes, long hands/feet, slender body - and, like them, she lacks sexual characteristics (so, she's arguably not a woman either - but put a pin in that). She can survive outside her case and doesn't need to eat or drink. However, her Gate seems too weak to afford her the toughness and regenerative abilities of the twins. Which probably explains why she reacted the way she did to a relatively minor cut.

I think her genetic makeup might be why she hasn't grown beyond "childhood". She isn't a child, she's a fully-developed adult. It's just that she's got the proportions of a fully-developed adult Plant, which look childish to a human. And might explain why she flat-out murders Roberto for being unable to look past that and see the threat she represents.

Anyway, I imagine, for Elendira, the problem is that the whole fact of her existence brings with it... expectations. The most obvious:

Elendira is almost certainly an attempt by Dr. Conrad to further his "atonement" by recreating Tesla to give her another chance at life. He probably treats her like one, anyway, even if not consciously. (Whether or not she has any part of Tesla integrated into her is an interesting question but not relevant - it's an emotional thing.)

Yet Tesla remains a silent victim. It's her tragedy. That's all she ever got to be and all that she will ever be. Elendira simply isn't Tesla - might even have come to resent Tesla, because this poor little girl no one ever got to know has overshadowed her entire life. She's a sibling El can never surpass. Forever perfect because she never got to be enough of a person to disappoint anyone. It's no wonder Elendira hates being pitied if it means being reminded that Tesla, born an Independent, is a standard she falls short of - but all the ways Tesla was superior didn't save her from the fate she suffered. She isn't Tesla. She can't be Tesla. She refuses to be.

And then there's this asshole.

(Vash is of course the perfect precious boy, but I'm talking from Elendira's perspective.)

We don't outright hear how Knives talks about Vash to his followers, but Elendira gives us a hint. She calls him a traitor and won't allow him to even touch her. We know Knives is obsessed with his twin to the exclusion of anything or anyone else (ask Legato) - and I suspect he sought replacement in his followers… but you know how it is when you're around someone who's really hung up over an ex? (Again whether it's romantic or not really doesn't matter, he's Very Normal etc.) Knives hates every single choice his brother's ever made but it's painfully obvious that he'll never love anyone else. For Elendira, that's another sibling setting a standard she'll never reach in a game she didn't sign up to play. She isn't Vash. She can't be Vash. She refuses to merely be a replacement for Vash, who hurt Lord Knives so deeply.

So fuck all that, right?

Given the scanty details we've been given, I can easily imagine her deciding she won't play anymore. She won't be Tesla. She won't be Vash. Instead, she'll carve out her own identity. Tesla didn't get to grow up, so Elendira's an adult and nobody's victim. Vash is a sentimental idiot, so she's the woman who kills without pity.

I can also easily imagine her going to Dr. Conrad and leaning on him to make improvements after the Punisher defeated her. She already wears lipstick and colours her nails, along with wearing a pink dress - experimenting with her presentation - and uses very adult, aggressively femme body language and articulation.

In short, I get the feeling Elendira dislikes her look as much as the fans do. And she's going to try and remedy it at the earliest opportunity.

@ultraviolet-cello

Part I

And one more important detail.

[lieutenantbiscute]

Heheheh DBH pony/anthro au go brrrrrrrr

No but in all seriousness drawing furry shit is helping me get out of my art funk rn! Hope you don’t mind the pony’s guys ;;

[bambeebirdie]

Your honor they are silly and a family

Part one

[foreverinmyguiltypleasures]

A United Little Family (navigation)

Chapter 1 (Tumblr)

Chapter 2 (Tumblr)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chapter 1 (AO3)

Chapter 2 (AO3)

[nychthemeron-rants]

I am so close to making a Hazbin AU where Angel is Niffty's dad because making this post and THIS vvvv

Fucking image made the idea go from "huh, funny coincidence" to full on brainrot.

[chubs-deuce]

@miicycle and I bring you today: the Mrs Cuddles comeback nobody asked for but we ended up loving a lot anyways-

Mona sees a lot of herself in this cursed little doll - thrown out left to fend for itself and nowhere to go... little does she know that it's secretly a particularly edgy and malbehaved twelve year old child with a serious authority problem stuck with a curse.

Mona normally is really averse to children and would never want any of her own, but somehow this little brat just kinda stuck around even after they break her curse and she goes back to being a "normal" 12yo kid again.

Raph was absolutely against even letting her inside and doesn't trust the doll farther than he could throw it, but he does trust Mona and if she says she has it under control and will deal with any arising issue and problem, that's enough for him to make an effort to make it work.

[speedwayy]

"[The Beatles were] like... They were like a single person. It was an odd phenomena, in fact, that they seemed to move together and think together. It was almost like a little family unit.”

Eric Clapton, Living in the Material World

“They were twisted on the floor, their shirts and pants were open, their shoes were off, and they were moving in perfect time, like one animal. She heard the sound again and realized that one of them had moaned, or maybe they both had. Half of the shape on the floor was her husband, but if someone had put a gun to her head and told her to pick which, she couldn’t have done it.”

Twins, Bari Wood

[unknownmothergoose]

inflorescenic alters: two or more alters that are connected and either cannot or simply choose to not function without each other.

examples include; two unrelated alters that always co-front together. a team of alters that all share the task of gatekeeping. two alters that consider each other siblings, and refuse to be separated.

this is a term for CDD systems please credit if used i do not consent to reuploads to archives, pinterest, or wikis

[ID: the left image is of a four stripe flag with even stripes in the shades green, gunmetal blue, pink-tan, and lavendar. in the center, there is a hyacinth emoji with a thick black outline.

the middle is a four stripe flag with even stripes in the shades green, gunmetal blue, pink-tan, and lavendar. END ID]