Thank you so much for answering all my asks, I get excited for each bit of new info you share (even the heartbreaking ones, LEON, poor thing, it wasn't nice but he really does deserve to act out...) I'm coming to the end of my haw reread (I've been slowing down because I don't want it to end!), and we know that Matthew, between the asg and that final game against Leon, is trying to get over the thing he finally acknowledged was a thing/a thing he wanted... what is Leon up to in this time? (And is there anybody worrying about him the way Brady and Taryn are for Matthew?)
you're very welcome, anon! i'm glad you've been enjoying! ❤
leon during that stretch is up to similar things as matthew, that is, trying to get over it. he's mopey, and he's sad, and nursing a very tender heart, but he's so sure the thing with matthew is over, so he's trying to focus on moving on. just the slow process of trying to let himself heal, which is tough, because on top of being heartbroken he's honestly still kind of worried about matthew, so trying to heal involves hardening himself toward matthew in a way that just doesn't come naturally to him. he's a feelings guy, he's not good at not feeling.
connor fusses over him a bit, obviously, and gives him a place to wallow with with company when he wants that. his other close buddies on the team can see that he's down about something but they don't know the details, and don't do a lot of prying, because leon shrugs off any questions and is honestly pretty good at distracting himself while hanging out with his buddies. the thing is, leon doesn't really need people worrying about him to the extent that matthew's people are worried, because leon is less of a mess lmao. the people close to him aren't NOT worried, because he is clearly bummed out, but it's a different kind of worry. leon has an emotional support system and he's leaning on it, and the people he's leaning on trust him to talk to them if he needs to.
he is not wearing the stl t-shirt anymore, though. he is leaving it in the bottom of his dirty laundry for the foreseeable future.
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Ros Vortalis trans headcanons
There are some remarkable trans Holland fics and headcanons, but can we talk about Ros Vortalis, whom all of his friends simply call Vor? Who, even when he’s _dying Holland calls Vor, to be expected, but also Vortalis which’s so much longer than Ros.
A bit of googling informs me Ros is “protector” in German, which’s chef’s kiss one hundred/ten no notes V.E. But it’s also, more frequently, a diminutive of Rosalind. Disclaimer before I start these that I respect and love! the headcanons of Makt as fairly gender nonrestrictive, with power being more of a defining factor of treatment. My Makt, however, is more complicated, with gender and gender transitions being imperfect but still a site where joy can be created, much like the rest of White London existence. Putting the rest of these beneath a cut with that in mind because as a trans person, I know some days I can’t handle transness as careful complication to be navigated and don’t want to inflict it on anyone unprepared. (Though, I promise! there’re fluffy as fuck nsfw Vor/Holland and Vor/friends headcanons in here to cut the angst.)
Ros retains a shortened form of his given namefor business purposes within the Shal—we know Shal means “market” in Red London, and I tend to think it means the same in White, such that when Holland calls him a “thug from the Shal” he’s referring to Vor being in the merchant/smuggling business. When he transitions, he’s relatively young and honestly to flagrantly demand a name change would be seen by too many as blood in the water. His greatest focus, always, is Makt rather than his personal happiness and he’d rather be burdened with the “nickname” Ros and be capable of rising in the Shal in service of becoming king.
There’re two ways of transitioning: the easiest and least painful is utilizing a spell similar to Astrid’s with Lila and stealing a face and voice. But that spell fades with death and though Vor understands that his body is likely destined for desecration once he’s gone as Makt’s people drain its blood and magic, there’s still this stubborn demand that they destroy a body without the face that made him shudder every time his child self caught a glimpse (he is so grateful for a lack of mirrors in Makt for much of his young adulthood.)
So he chooses the harder, excruciating method: finds a bone magician to permanently reshape his body. Session after session, over months traveling abroad on a ship with only the open sea and crew to hear him scream himself hoarse.
The first time they share a bed, Holland strokes along the broadened shoulders, runs fingers along the scars on his chest—eyes fixed on Vor’s all the while— and murmurs: “If they did not believe you would hold the throne, they were fools.”
“I’m flattered.” He’s bright-eyed, with that deep, rolling-sea laugh.
“After this, very little would stop you.” Fools have marveled at the extent of spells across his body, and inwardly he howls in hysterical laughter because there is very little to dull pain in Makt, and the shipboard pain was so vast it made everything else feel like pinpricks by comparison. He’s never bedded someone who would know that as intimately as the man who had done his damndest to use that same magic in stopping Vor’s fist before it connected with his face, and the admiration uncoils something deep in his chest. “Sometimes I’m certain I can’t keep it. One moment it will be there and then not.” He manages a farse of a smile “Foolish, after all these decades, but such is the weakness of your future king, Holland.”
“Lucky you would have an Antari to put it back, then.”
By the time he returned to London, voice rumbling deep from an expanded chest, people understood quickly to use “Ros” with the proper pronouns or see just how effective the runes on his hands were. But well…Ros is an easier shirt than Rosalind to slip into, but it will never sit comfortably. As he develops allies, he finds that Vor and Vortalis fit easier. And it becomes a good gauge for trust. Those who understand implicitly how painful his given name is and respect that, are people worth keeping. It becomes easier, as fewer and fewer people survive who remember Rosalind.
There are far too many moments to count when former friends or lovers try to use “Ros” as a weapon, with a little smirk that says: “You never said we _couldn’t call you that.” And he’s deeply glad he made a relatively small name fuss and provided only a small chink in his armor. (Those sorts of people tend, inevitably, to cause the use of his knives. As though letting them close and showing kindness is an invitation for open season. But such are the risks in Makt, and he is a man who craves touch and closeness. What good to craft the ideal body only to never have it appreciated. The way Holland simply…withdrew from people after Talya is something almost unfathomable. Whether they’re the closest of friends or both king and night and! king and beloved—which’s pretty much always in my head—there’s a deep, profound ache that he could never touch Holland enough to make up for too many years alone.
It’s the dimmest flicker every time he sees the “knight” and “Antari” masks slip, when Holland leans against his shoulder or puts his head in Vor’s lap, eyes half-closing at fingers in his hair. But, simply because the task is nigh on impossible, doesn’t mean he won’t do his best. Vor touches Holland Vosijk a hundred thousand times in those two years of rule—and so, so many more if they both survive—and is so very, very grateful he could take the touches the best of his lovers and allies offered over the last thirty years. (On a slashy front, can we also just talk about how, as a couple, there’s an incomparable way arousal and awe intertwine for Vor _every time Holland reaches out and shows affection: a kiss against his temple as Vor lets their foreheads rest together; a hand moving slow and easy down his back. To be trusted enough for the most guarded man he’s ever met—it took Vor _months to convince him to kill Gorst and he’s never had to work so hard or wanted so desperately for someone to say yes in his life—to touch him is such a valuable thing that he has immense responsibility not to break.)
Also in couple’s verse: If Vor has a small regret, it’s that the bone magicians are far more skilled with outward, above-the-waist presentation—because the best of them have not only done this for trans people, but for criminals etc. seeking a disguise. Thankfully, they had no trouble cutting him open to ensure he would never be with child—he doesn’t have the vocabulary for dysphoria, but the idea of his stomach rounded and heavy is one of the few things that can make him viciously soul-deep terrified. But the below the waist equipment well, it’s not a magic Makt has the luxury of learning.
By the time he meets Holland, it’s the very faintest of regrets: he has a collection of strap-ons for when he and a lover want to indulge in that particular fantasy—and is comfortable enough in his skin it’s an indulgence and not a requirement. It’s beautiful to watch lovers slide to their knees and take them in their hands or mouths or slide inside and watch them arch with pleasure. But oh, oh he wishes he could _feel it. It’s not a complaint worth voicing, and honestly after he becomes king, there’s very little time to indulge.
But one day, Holland comes back, smelling of flowers holding a box, tells the guards to wait at the end of the hall because he has crucial business from “the other London” for the king’s ears alone, which has Vor intrigued and concerned because he hasn’t come close to asking Holand to send a message. But before the concern can swell to anything beyond a flicker, he sees a flush so faint anyone would miss it who wasn’t watching. (Even before the Danes, Holland held his feelings and desires in an iron grip; Vor learned early in sharing a bed that Holland loathed the idea of being heard by those not his lovers when losing control: not merely a discomfort that could add spice to an evening, but viscerally, the way it would take everything Vor had to turn his back on an armed opponent.) This is pleasure, not business and he flicks his fingers in a silent command before they can even turn to look.
"Go get yourselves some dinner,“ he says for good measure, "If there is a foe Holland cannot protect me from, there’s little more bodies can do.”
When he opens the box…there are the usual straps but the cock. The cock feels like _skin. “The Arnesians-” and oh, there’s still so much contempt in those words “With their infinite supply of magic have learned to transmute. From earth to bone, and then something softer. There is an illusion for the Arnesians who want to forget the straps.” There were layers upon layers beneath that statement: neither of them wished, at least then, to go begging for scraps, but to _take a little of the bounty Arnes had hoarded,
“_Yes!”
Neither of them know how the illusion works: it is as mysterious as the fireworks Holland has seen that fool his eyes into certainty dragons fly across the unbearably vivid Arnesian sky. It does not matter; in those moments when Holland’s mouth is hot on skin, Vor is utterly, entirely certain Holland is swallowing down the cock he has always had.
It’s almost too much, leaves him speechless for the first time in decades, has Holland scrambling up and onto the bed even as his eyes are still glassy from watching the king come undone to wrap himself around Vor’s back until the world comes into focus again. “Is it only good once or-” he asks, finally and Holland’s smirk is wicked.
When he’s upending the Ost table and coughing up blood—, so much, too much kajt I hope Holland can take the throne because whoever these bastards are they can’t rule, the thing he clings to: more than “Stay with me"—though he _tries—, more than the raw panic in Holland _swearing—is the name. _Vortalis, he says when the table overturns—though it would be such a forgivable mistake to use Ros. Vor, he says while chanting stay and one of his blood spells. He will die as who he made himself, not as he was born.
The three threads of coherence for Holland are the blood spell. That Vor _has to stay. And that if he cannot be enough to stop this, he _will not let Vor die hearing him use the wrong name.
In verses where Vor lives, they both know the "thank you” when he wakes is not for the healing, though to be alive is a joy.
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Do you mind explaining how the lost woods work in CTB? I’m such a Zelda noob lots of in-game characteristics go over my head. Why are some people able to navigate them better than others?
I definitely don't have the most faithful interpretation of the Lost Woods, so you might have better luck with reading up on it on Zeldapedia or Zelda Dungeon.
The Lost Woods in CTB are a conflation of the Lost Woods found in games like BOTW and OOT with the Sacred Grove in TP. I've always figured that the Sacred Grove was the same location, just under a different reputation. As far as I can tell, that interpretation is not common.
It is said that the Lost Woods is both sacred and cursed, deeply imbued with magic that a common person could not comprehend. Anyone who enters is at risk of falling victim to the woods' magic, which might turn you mad, or worse. A common story is that adults who become lost in the woods turn into monsters like Stalfos.
It is said that children have free passage through the woods, though they are not necessarily safe. The magic could take a hold of them and they could be transformed into Skull Kids and may never be able to recognize their families again.
Those blessed by the goddesses can find their way through, which means that any Zelda and Link can eventually make their way through (as well as Lana, as she is a servant of the goddesses). How they may find their way through the woods changes depending on the person.
In CTB, it's mentioned that while Warriors can follow Wild or Hyrule through the woods, the paths they choose feels instinctively terrible to him. It's repulsive, though he can't say why. The same would go for the other two, and so on. Wild would still need to use a torch to get through as that's what the woods would require of him. Twilight, should he ever need to navigate it, would look for the sound of music to follow. In theory, every holder of the Hero's Spirit has a different way through the wood. If Warriors were to try Wild's torch trick, he would get lost. He can only navigate by trying to make a straight line from where he is to where he needs to be.
Ultimately, the Lost Woods protects the lands of the Temple of Souls, previously called the Temple of Time. There, the Time Gate is located from which the Guardian of Time is supposed to watch over the universe's tangled flows of time and try to make sense of it.
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