#emperor kai

[wassupnye]

Cinder has almost died on multiple occasions. This girl has basically looked death in the eye a number of times before the age of 17 and she lived to tell the story. Literally unmatched

[impossiblesuitcase]

You know the line in Cress where it mentions the rumour that Cinder "seduced Emperor Kaito and was now pregnant with a Lunar-Earthen-cyborg thing"?

Imagine if Kai was just a little more unhinged. He doesn't want Cinder to get captured and killed, so at a press conference he practically pulls the Peeta Mellark 'If it weren't for the baby' line. A journalist asks, "what of the rumour that the fugitive is carrying your child?"

And Kai, with a solemn expression, says cryptically, "these are hard times for all, for a number of reasons. Even for myself."

The world explodes. The EC military are freaking out because they can't risk harming the future heir, so the worldwide hunt for Linh Cinder is thrown in for a loop. Alas, Kai doesn't know that Cinder is Selene, so by implying that she is pregnant, Levana is even more determined to kill the two heirs to the Lunar throne and hunts Cinder even more viciously.

Meanwhile Cinder is furious and mortified. Thorne teases her endlessly about it ("I am NOT pregnant! We haven't even hugged!" "You were smooching him at the ball!" "That's different!!"). When Jacin says the line, "one more fling with your toy before he becomes Levana's property", she punches him twice.

Then when they kidnap Kai, she rips into him. "You made me out to be a teen mother! Do you know embarrassing that is?!" He rebuts, "I was trying to help you!"

One successful revolution later, the public are confused why there's no mention of this 'baby'. So in an interview, Kai is asked, "so, is Queen Selene pregnant with your child or not?"

Kai bursts out laughing. "Pregnant? Wherever did you get that idea?"

"...you confirmed it in a press conference."

"I never said she was pregnant."

He straight up gaslights them into believing he never said a thing. It's hilarious. And then when Cinder and Kai are eventually married and actually pregnant, the world is scared to believe it and be tricked again.

[winterczn]

the literal crown prince of the eastern commonwealth after his crush said no to going to the ball with him twice, ignored 6 of his comms, and didn’t want to go eat lunch with him:

video by rydrxve on tiktok!

[snowdropo-o]

Mm i love themm

[linh-cindy]

I FOUND THE BEST QUALITY ONE

[therealkaidertrash21]

Kai when Cinder didn't laugh at his joke:

[trains-off-the-tracks]

rude that the lunar chronicles ends

[winterrhayle]

Betray the moon as acolyte / On first and fierce affirming sight

[cosmicnovaflare]

Hello, I like your art..., could you do where Cinder and Kai are in the elevator where they almost kiss?

Sorry for taking so long, I had to redraw it a few times and then delayed it more after I experienced the feminine urge to sculpt an axe for my parrots. I technically did this two years ago, but here’s a new one because I don’t want to look at it.

[that-multi-fandom-hijabi]

prince kai, your highness, your ass was NOT slick asking cinder to the ball

[lexyvey]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔯 ℭ𝔥𝔯𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔠𝔩𝔢𝔰

“You’re even more painful to look at than she is.“

Redraw of the original that you can find here

Kinda messed up the shadows, but oh well. I didn’t really care enough to go back and fix it. Maybe I will later, who knows? Hope you enjoy!

[wassupnye]

Cinder and Kai give best-friend-couple energy, idc what anyone says

[impossiblesuitcase]

Cinder is jealous. She's jealous of her step-sisters. They have pretty clothes and soft hands and a doting mother. She has none of which. Her sister Peony is her only human friend and even seeing her in a ballgown sparks "envy" in Cinder, because Peony gets a dress and can go to the ball. Cinder can't.

She doesn't believe she could be pretty. She's too clunky, she's not curvy. She pins it down to being cyborg or just naturally inadequate. Cinder doesn't have nice clothes or fancy things. Kai gives her gloves and they are "the most beautiful thing she had ever owned." And then they are ruined, like all the pretty things in her life. She has to survive, endure, and with that she doesn't have time for prettiness.

But Kai's first impression of her is that she's "cute" and "pretty." He calls her pretty in public, and he calls her pretty in his private thoughts. "Your pretty new mechanic in the lobby", "the pretty young mechanic at the market." He finds her gorgeous with her glamour, and his "knees threatened to buckle" in her beauty. Everyone else thought she was gorgeous, but no one was swooning the way he was. The glamour had amplified the attraction he'd already had towards her.

Thorne, upon seeing a cyborg stumble into his jail cell, has the first instinct to flirt with her. Not recoil, because of her metal and skin, but flirt because she's a girl and that's his favourite pastime. And what distinguished her from the many other pretty girls he normally flirted with? To him, "her irritation made her prettier". Her disgruntled personality, who she is, is her prettiness.

Adri tells Cinder that if she can't cry, she can't feel love. She does love, she loves so much, but she doesn't have time to grieve her sister or her anonymity or her freedom when she has a revolution to start. She has to tough it out.

When she's bound up in Kai's arms she feels safe, delicate, "almost like a princess."

Cinder pretends she doesn't have a crush on Kai because having a crush on a celebrity is "preadolescent," the trademark of immature, lovesick teenage girls. How can she be girly when she's a grimy mechanic? She "doesn't know the first thing about makeup", because do you think Adri would have ever let her buy some to try? Would Cinder have even bothered, believing nothing could improve a cyborg?

She dreams of "going to the ball and dancing with the prince." And when Iko teases her, Cinder says, "we all have our weaknesses". It is a weakness to be in love, because someone like Kai couldn't love her. She imagines being at the ball, "jealous of the girls who swooned to catch Prince Kai's attention." Jealous that they can be open with their attraction, jealous that he would pick them over her.

But he loves her. And when he does, she can't process the feeling "of being desired". She wants to carve 'C + K' into a wall, then berates herself for such "whimsy." Because deep down, she's always wanted to be wanted, and that truth is her weakness. But war doesn't last forever, and soon, she has no reason to hide that. There's no reason it would be a weakness.

Cinder is comfortable in baggy cargo pants and messy hair but she also dreams of wearing a beautiful ballgown. She loves her coronation dress. She calls the empress crown 'stunning.'

She never becomes obsessed with frills or glitter, but she slowly leans into soft, pretty things. She has a necklace from Kai and her engagement ring. It's sparkly and yet, Cinder, the so-called 'tough, aloof tomboy' thinks it makes her metal hand look "elegant". Maybe she starts wearing bracelets and earrings because they don't bother her when she isn't working on something mechanical. She doesn't even notice until Thorne jokes that she wears more metal in jewellery than the whole metal of her hand.

Maybe she buys herself a new set of tools with pink and blue iridescent handles simply because finds them pretty. Maybe when her friends tease her about how in love she is, she starts to acknowledge it.

Cinder is not some stereotype of a leading female character who is strong and as such cannot be feminine or soft or emotional. Was she given the chance to be?

Let her be soft. Let her be delicate. Let her pretty.

[winterczn]

Some of My TLC Head Canons That Just Make Sense | Part One

1. Thorne complained to Kai about the whole soap situation and Kai actually changed the soap in prison to be less ‘drying’ for the skin. *Cue to Cinder facepalming.*

2. KAI IS A CAT PERSON AND I WILL NOT ACCEPT ANY CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

3. Winter is abnormally calm around wild animals and insects. While Thorne and Kai are freaking out, Winter is just there petting a snake and offering a bear some tea.

4. Kai’s go-to drink is tea, and Cinder’s go-to drink is coffee. She drinks so much coffee in a day that Kai gets genuinely concerned for her so he offers her some tea instead but Cinder refuses and proceeds to aggressive sip on her 8th cup of coffee that day.

5. Winter named every single animal at Scarlet’s farm. TELL ME IM WRONG.

6. Wolf also has a weird obsession with bread.

7. Sometimes, Jacin gets stumped with his school work and Cinder does research on it and helps him out. He passed with flying colors because of this.

8. The entire crew would be swifties — emphasis on Kai and Iko — if Taylor Swift existed during their time. (Jacin would feign nonchalance whenever a Taylor song comes on but when he’s alone, he would blast the album Lover in his headphones. Winter caught him dancing to Taylor once and promised she wouldn’t tell anyone.)

9. Winter has like a 50-step hair care routine and she totally dragged Scarlet into the whole curly hair girl routine thing. Scarlets hair has never been healthier and Wolf loves playing with it.

10. Kai is very interested in philosophy and would read tons of books + do a lot of research about it. Cinder would listen to him ranting about it, sometimes stopping to make a joke, usually resulting to them laughing so hard they end up on the floor.

11. Kai’s favorite number is eleven. One because it represents intuition and two because he just likes the way it looks. Everyone was a little confused at first but eventually just went along with it.

12. Iko and Winter (our delulu queens) get bored sometimes and creates very complicated plots and characters in their heads with each other. They have a lot of inside jokes with each other because of this.

[spherical-empirical]

the way the name "Kai" means ocean/tides and the name "Selene" refers to the goddess of the moon, the moon and the ocean have been kindred spirits for millennia, two balanced halves of a whole, the pull of the moon creates the tides and influences the ocean's movement, the way Kai's life and choices were influenced by Cinder's re-appearance and he followed her even when the world condemned her SCREAMS INTO FIST

[therealkaidertrash21]