#the dark brotherhood gets a lot of this too but i see it more often with the thieves guild and i think we know who to blame for that <3

[incorrectskyrimquotes]

the thieves guild is found family and i think a huge reason theyre a fan favorite for that trope is they like. talk to each other. and to you.

[dreamerinthemoonlight]

Of Memory and Brotherhood

Who likes angst with a side of Kaeya and Diluc reconciliation? Me! Who likes being an absolute bitch to her favorite characters? Also me. So have another fic that is pretty much just those two things.

Summary: Kaeya has a nightmare--no, an inherited memory of Khaenri'ah's fall. Diluc is there to help pick up the pieces

CW: Heavy angst, intense imagery, panic attacks, angst with a happy ending

Word count: 1490

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Kaeya walks through familiar-unfamiliar city streets. All around him are the tell tale signs of a civilization crumbling.

Soaring buildings, truly magnificent in construction, are torn down. Chunks of stone, pieces of metal warped beyond all recognition, are strewn across once smooth roads.

In between bits of rubble, there are bodies. Bodies of dark creatures, like the rift hounds that have recently begun to appear in Mondstadt, and bodies of people. Women, children, some crushed by the homes that once housed them, others mauled, sometimes beyond recognition.

It’s a familiar sight.

Once, it was a scene that frequently occupied his sleeping moments. His father--the first to leave him--had explained it as a generational memory, so that the last of their nation “would never forget how they fell.”

The elder Alberich had comforted his son, empathized. He too often saw Khaenri’ah fall. Such was their lot, he said.

Of course, then Kaeya was left behind and learned to suffer in silence. Granted, as a pre-teen, the dreams had a softer, blurry quality. Shelter for the innocent, he figures now.

Then he met Albedo, who had found a way to drive the dreams away.

Yet, now, he finds himself amidst his ancestor’s homeland, the memory now crystal clear.

Far in the distance he hears a child crying for her mother. Even further away, there are still sounds of combat. The soldiers of the nation do their duty, unwavering. Not unlike a certain red-head.

Yet, for all that he sees and all that he hears, he is a phantom in the world. Not long after appearing in this memory, he had tried to help a young woman who was bleeding on the street. She did not see him. She did not hear him. She was but a memory, one he was forced to see die alone.

Kaeya moves further into the center of the city, towards a golden palace and black tower that stands beside it.

Before he can reach it though, a sound like a hundred peals of thunder and the ringing of a gong, overlaid with the mournful melody of a lyre--a ringing requiem of power. 

Six--no seven--figure float above the city. One is a man, tall and stern. Another is a fair lady wreathed in violet lightning. And a third is a familiar face from his life in Mondstadt. Venti the Bard. Or perhaps he should say, Barbatos.

Kaeya pauses in the middle of the road and watches the divine figures. He watches as they pronounce judgment and shatter the city. As the city breaks and a nation cries out, backed by the pained song of the archon’s power, Kaeya is thrown back into his body.

Kaeya wakes and reaches for his vision.

He has to get out. Out, out, out. Away from Mondstadt City, away from the confinements of his room. 

He needs air. The wind. Somewhere else. Somewhere that could never be mistaken for the underground nation without a god.

Diluc stands underneath the great boughs of Vennessa’s Tree, taking a brief break from his patrol.

Despite the rumors of abyss mages in the area, he’s seen nothing so far. Not that that’s a bad thing, but vigilance never hurts.

At least under Vennessa’s tree, a place that is realistically holier than the Cathedral, there is safety. Safety and peace.

Or so he thought. A few minutes into his break a flash of white under the waning moon catches his eye.

Diluc takes a few steps towards the figure, squinting to make out more detail.

When he identifies the person his brows furrow. There’s no mistaking the tanned skin and dark hair or the scar crossing the man’s right eye.

Kaeya, of all people, is out in the middle of the night, shirtless and shoeless. If anything, it looks like he jumped out of bed, grabbed his vision and went for a run. Odd, because when Kaeya left the Angel’s Share earlier, he was most definitely inebriated.

It doesn’t take long for Kaeya to come close enough for Diluc to make out his expression. It’s one he’s never seen on the Cavalry Captain, not even in those painful days after his father’s death. The panic that has his breath coming in heaving gasps is contrasted by an eerie emptiness.

“Kaeya?” Diluc calls out softly.

Kaeya gives no sign of having heard him. Instead he trips on a rock, landing on his hands and knees. 

When he doesn’t get up, Diluc goes to kneel next to him. A glance at Kaeya’s feet reveals bloody soles. 

“Kaeya. Look at me.”

Once again Kaeya doesn’t register his voice.

“Kae.” Diluc’s voice is sharper, this time as his heart clenches in his chest.

He reaches out to touch Kaeya’s shoulder, only to be knocked backwards when his little brother latches on to him.

Diluc freezes. What do I do? Kaeya doesn't know it’s me. He can’t. He’s not in his right mind. What the hell happened to him? How do I help? Wait… why do I want to help? Archon’s wh--

The scarlet-haired man shakes his head and looks down at the man wrapping his arms around his waist, only to find Kaeya crying.

Archons what a mess.

Diluc gathers Kaeya into his arms and carries him to the tree, where he arranges them comfortably.

Kaeya continues to sob silently into his chest, limbs shaking with suppressed  emotion.

“Kae, I know you don’t like me all that much--and I really don’t like you--but you don’t have to hide from me. Let it out.”

Diluc’s assurances are all Kaeya needs to break. He can’t help but be glad that they’re at Windrise in the middle of the night, where no one can see the weakness in their Cavalry Captain.

After a while Kaeya’s tears stop and a semblance of self returns to his eyes, though none of the edge or the sass that is typical of him. Rather, it’s grief and horror that settles on his face.

“Kae, what happened?” Diluc asks when he’s more certain that he’ll be answered.

Of course, he isn’t.

Kaeya just pulls away and wraps his arms around his knees.

“Kaeya, you’re out here. I’m out here. Talk to me.”

“Why? You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. You’re a liar, but I don’t hate you. As much as I don’t like saying so sometimes, we’re still brothers. I’m trying to act like it for once, so let me damn it.

“I---” Kaeya pauses, giving Diluc a bewildered look. “I haven’t had Albedo make a new dose of the medication I use to prevent dreams. I tried to drink enough to prevent them but---”

“It didn’t work.”

“No.”

“Will you tell me about it? Sometimes, when I dream about Father’s death, talking to Adelinde helps.”

Kaeya’s eyes widen. Whether at the admission or the offer, Diluc isn’t quite certain.

“The remnants of Khaenri’ah are cursed to dream about the fall of the nation. I had them a lot when I was a kid. Not anymore, since I started taking Albedo’s concoction. But I ran out and the nightmare is clearer than ever. It was horrible, D. Watching the city be destroyed by monsters, hearing kids cry, watching the archons destroy it.”

Kaeya’s breath comes in short, shallow pants. Diluc reaches over to rub gentle circles into his brother’s back.

“Kae, breathe. It’s ok. You’re here, with me, not there. It’s just a nightmare. Not your memory. You’re Kaeya Alberich,” he tells Kaeya, using a similar litany to the one he’s used on his worst nights, when he comes perilously close to losing himself. “Spy, but also a Knight of Favonius and adopted son of Crepus Ragnvindr. You belong to Mondstadt as much as Khaenri’ah.”

“I’m Kaeya Alberich,” the younger man repeats. “Spy and Knight of Favonius. Crepus’s son. From Mondstadt and Khaenri’ah.”

The words seem to ground him, bringing him into the here and now.

“Better?”

“A little. Except now my feet hurt.”

“I wonder why? I’m taking you back to the Winery.”

Kaeya frowns. “Why?”

“Your feet are a mess. I want to go home. And I don’t think you want to explain to Jean why you can’t walk tomorrow. If you’re at the Winery, I can claim that you came over last night to raid my basement.”

“I don’t think she’d believe it.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Tell him the truth, a little voice in Diluc’s heart whispers. He’s family. He doesn’t deserve a bunch of excuses.

Fine. I’ll tell him.

“And I want to be there if you have any more nightmares. I think you’d do the same for me.”

“Heh. Probably. Sometimes I wonder why.”

“You know, I’ve been asking myself the same thing.”

Diluc stows his claymore under the tree--to be retrieved when he doesn’t have a 6 foot sibling to carry--picks Kaeya up onto his back.

“Hey D--” Kaeya says, voice soft and sleepy.

“Hmmm?”

“Thank you.”

A soft smile tugs at Diluc’s lips. “Anytime, little brother.”

[shiveringgroovy]

PART 3 HC ASKS

WHAT KIND OF COMPUTER DOES EVERYONE USE ipads/tablets are allowed im extending this to like phones and stuff i've just decided

errrm HEHEHE !! gonna do my favs for this :3

Sheogorath

not a big computer guy. probably has a fuckass nokia phone and has hit computers with golf clubs before.

haskill gives him a tablet to watch shitty youtube videos on

i know he fucks with really bad yt shorts

probably invented them tbh

Atsushi

has a phone and that's about it

uses agency computers for work and kinda hates operating them (they also kinda suck so yk)

Sotha Sil

INSANELY FAST RUNNING SETUP

like 500 monitors and LEDs and a see-through tower and a fucking gaming chair

blender king

probably built it all himself

he's insane

the electric bill is through the roof.

Fyodor (i actually despise him but it's funny)

so he canonically has the worst most diabolical evil fucked up setup known to MAN please get him to touch some grass i'm begging you

freaky ass medieval peasant that introduced HIMSELF to goreshit

discord is running somewhere there. trust me

Relmyna Verenim (did you guys know i like her)

also has multiple monitors, not as many as sil but yk

probably runs like super slow and she has to resist the urge to snap her monitors in half every time she tries to open up any program

minecraft girlie (i also hc her as trans she's very loser scientist transfem coded)

she spends most of her time in the field but she likes her computers to write down her stuff

Yosano

has a tablet and a phone

uses them sparingly, but talks to ranpo a lot over texts

Vivec

has the newest phone models. always buys them instantly.

they're a prick

probably has a fucking typewriter rather than a computer because he's pretentious

Ranpo

has a tablet and a phone, uses them much more often than yosano

he seems like he prefers to read on screens than books imo

it also makes more sense, he doesn't like carrying a bunch of stuff around so having a tablet would be convenient

will text people while sitting directly across from them

Dagoth Ur/Voryn Dagoth

has a flip phone and that's it

Jouno

bc he's blind, he's not a fan of technology all that much, but uses screen readers and speaks to type.

more of a phone guy!!

has cut a laptop in half before

Nerevar

doesn't believe in computers

Kenji

also doesn't believe in computers

Lucien Lachance

owns a laptop but never uses it

written mail type of guy

Q/Yumeno

would go apeshit on a tablet.

probably a really big art fan, so really uses them for drawing and games and stuff

someone introduce this kid to a pc with a drawing pad

also loves music, would be the only normal technology user on this list istg

Haskill

owns something for every situation

nothing too fancy tbh

has a home pc, a laptop, a phone, and a tablet

uses them all for his job and has them all labelled and everything

has games on his phone for sheogorath

Ivan Goncharov

it's cause you're always on that damn rock

hates typing with every fiber of his being

smashes shit. has absolutely crushed pushkin's phone before and pushkin almost shot him

uses laptops and pcs out of necessity, uses walkie-talkies for communications because he just likes them

Ocheeva

biggest spreadsheet fan of all time

has a laptop that flips into a tablet

she loves organizing things and presenting them to the rest of the dark brotherhood

they don't listen to the immense power of a girl with a spreadsheet. like fools.

Bram

mp3 player or a phone just for music purposes

pays for every music subscription known to man

last.fm ass bitch

[krisssssssy]

I saw your take on Ardyn's birthday placing him a Taurus. Any opinions on fandom sunshine child Prompto being born on October 25th. Making his sun sign a Scorpio?

I think he might have a secondary sign be Sagittarius. But given his codependency with Nox, maybe libra?

Idk what are your opinions?

Prompto 😭 So yeah, he definitely gives off having JUST a Scorpio sun (though he does have a little of like, a punk look to him, which feels Scorpio-inspired), and considering Sagittarius follows after, I do think having a few Sagittarius placements (or Libra) makes sense.

Especially if we consider how overly positive he is. Now, he could genuinely be a very positive person (which would be reflected in the Jupiter-ruled sign of Sag), but his tendency to hide his own past, his tougher emotions, and remain cheerful for the sake of the group dynamic - that feels more Libra.

ALSO. Being into photography does make more sense for someone with some Libra placements: Venus-ruled, more creative, and especially when you think about what photography is, which is often creating balance of light, dark, as well as balance with the objects that appear in the frame as well - Libra seems like a good zodiacal archetype that supports photography.

So Prompto would be a Scorpio sun, with either a Libra, Scorpio, or Sagittarius mercury, and then I believe Venus can only be up to two signs apart, so he's either a virgo, scorpio, libra, sag, or cap venus. I think Libra Venus makes a lot of sense. We also never see him get angry, like, considering his past and everything he's such a genuinely good person it makes me cry 😭 And the Libra Venus would also potentially bring up the codependency you mentioned.

I kind of think maybe his tendency to make silly jokes and bring levity to conversations is more of a Sagittarius mercury thing. And Scorpio as a sign is also a placement that tends to stay loyal to a few people, and Prompto seemed to latch onto Noctis pretty quickly when they were in school (in the brotherhood anime), and went to great lengths to secure their friendship (like losing weight, something he literally didn't have to do).

I also want to say, I like the idea of astrology existing in this world to color Prompto's personality, because he IS different from Besithia (and would have entirely different birthdays), they just share, really, a skill with technology, except Prompto's entire reason to use weapons is simply to assist his friends (more Libra things). Although being so friend-oriented does call Aquarius into question as well, but I think Libra as a sign has more of an interest in partnerships (i.e. Noctis being his best friend) versus Aquarius, which is more about the group dynamic as a whole.

Like let's say he's an Aries rising, which would be Aries in the 1st house, so giving him a more "muted "Aries nature, i.e maybe more impulsive, a little impatience, more childlike and innocent, and then that would be Libra in the 7th, so say Libra Venus in the 7th, and then a Scorpio sun in the 8th (an 8th house sun would be more "hidden" but also emphasize his loyalty, and willingness to risk his life for someone he is close to). Although then that would make him a Mars-ruled person, tho he is highly motivated...idk I haven't totally thought this through lmao, I just wanted Libra sitting in the 7th house, to emphasize his focus on partnerships/closeness, and that puts Aries in the 1st!

I haven't given much thought to the Chocobros astrological placements, except, I mean, Gladio is definitely an Aries with an Aries Mars lmao. And probably Aries mercury too, dude has NO tact.

I can't write anything more coherent about this than a ramble unfortunately lol. Although Prompto is my favorite character aside from Ardyn, so I have given some thought to this prior to your question.

[nicsnort]

Gravita Anima (part 37)

Nightcrawler/Fem!OC/Quicksilver Long-form romance and drama fic. All chapters have been posted on Ao3.

Intro (with link to Ao3 story) First Previous

Elle choked slightly as the dark emotions Lucy had swirling inside of her. She hadn’t realized how awful her friend felt. These weren’t new emotions. They had lingered for a while. How had she never sensed this in her friend before?

“I do understand,” Elle said carefully. “I can feel how powerfully you feel about this. And I understand. Some humans want us dead, but not all. You work for Senator Webb. She is against Kelly, are you going to tell me she is a mutant? Or is she a human that accepts us? We can fight against what Kelly has planned, but that does mean we have to side with mutants who would willingly harm humans to get their way.”

Reaching out to Lucy it was Elle’s turn to touch her wrist. “Besides, what would Hank think? I know you like him. What would he think of you joining the Brotherhood?”

She felt a swift mixture of fury, shame, and resentment surge in Lucy. “And what would Kurt think knowing you’re screwing your mission?” 

Elle’s lips tightened with anger at her words. But then she looked down in shame. The memory of Kurt the other day looking so despondently at the rose petals in the trash can surfaced in her mind. “I know what he thinks,” she replied with a hint of sadness in her tone. “He is hurt by it, and I regret that my relationship with Pietro is like that...but I can’t go back now and...it isn’t like Kurt and I are together…he’s just a friend.”

The defensiveness and ire left Lucy, leaving her feeling rather deflated and even more tired. She sighed and leaned against the chair. “...That is why I also hesitated to share this information with the X-men. You’re, pardon the expression, balls deep in the group. If I tell, they’ll know I told...and that brings up a lot more issues for you -- possibly pressure. How far do we take this with the...with Erik and Pietro?” It was better to use names than groups, she thought belatedly. “I stayed with Kelly for a year...I don’t think I can stay with Erik for another.”

After a pause, she leaned forward against the table, her tired gaze on Elle. “I feel the darkness swirling in my veins. I feel it in my head. It feels heavier than before and I don’t know how to fix it.” It was both a confession and a warning. 

“I would offer you a pick me up but I don’t think that would help in the long term...why don’t you try eating some good dreams? You can have mine for a few nights.”

It was a suggestion. Elle had always wondered if there was a difference for Lucy if she ate good dreams. Perhaps it would be good for Lucy to see the light of dreams a bit more often rather than the darkness of nightmares.

Lucy flinched at the offer, generous as it was. “No, not while you’re in the thick of everything. You need them too.”

Elle did not understand the rejection of her offer but she let it lay and switched topics. “As for a timeline. Let us see if we can’t figure out what this surprise is for the X-men. And if they have anything else in the works. Let’s try and get out in two months. Does that work?”

“Before two months...I can do that.” Or could she? Lucy was already falling asleep at work for starts and stops. Speaking of which, she polished off her latte and winced as it wasn’t something to be chugged. “I’ll see if I can get Erik to tell me more details...whenever he graces me with his presence again.” She rubbed at her eyes. “Can you keep it quiet from Kurt until then?” 

Elle bit her lip at the request. “I...alright, I will keep quiet to Kurt...I am going to ask Pietro about it. If I act scared and worried enough, I am sure he will let me know something...not that I am not scared and worried, but...well, you know.”

Though the food had no taste in her mouth, Elle finished her food. She needed the energy, after all. “Honestly, I wish you had waited to tell me this. I am training with the X-men tomorrow.”

Lucy nodded, a strand that had escaped from her bun falling against her cheek. It was a plan then, if not a compromise. Her eyes widened slightly at the mention of training. “I wish you had told me that before I told you about this!” It was almost comical and would have been if it wasn’t such a high-stakes situation. “Well...ok, at least we know Xavier isn’t the type to read minds without permission.” 

She wondered briefly if she could sneak in a nap somehow at work. “Where are you going to train? Hank and I went to some abandoned train station.” She commented lightly, feeling as though it had happened a year ago or more rather than days.

“I’m not sure,” Elle told her. “Maybe the manor? Professor X isn’t the most mobile though there certainly are options, and it isn’t like we need a lot of space. I will be surprised, I guess.”

She chuckled just a bit and finished her drink. “But you and Hank trained together? Do tell. That sounds invigorating.”

“That makes the most sense…” The deepest red appeared in Lucy’s face. “...It was intense,” she muttered before quickly switching topics. “Tell me more about your powers...you said you can make people fall for you?” 

Elle explained to Lucy what she did to Toad and reluctantly revealed what her whole training session with Frost was like as well. While time had helped her come to terms with her newfound abilities, Elle still was morally at odds with them. Taking away someone’s free will just wasn’t right. She could only see herself doing it in extreme circumstances...and she hoped that wasn’t coming soon with what Lucy told her.

Lucy was surprised and impressed. Her brows raised at the details about Toad and her jaw had dropped at what she had done to Frost. “I never imagined -- that’s amazing. I wonder what training with the X-men tomorrow will bring. I mean, it has to be something even better...right?” She shook her head in disbelief. “There has to be a way to shape and train your powers without all the...you know...enslaving thing.” 

“Hopefully, I hope that the Professor can give me some better insights. I don’t want to be fearful and hate these new powers...but part of me just liked it more when I made people happy about my tours.” Elle gave a bit of a sigh.

“I don’t suppose you would start training with the Brotherhood or something? Try and expand your powers. I am sure they would be thrilled to see you create nightmares...oh, that’s right, do you have a codename?” She chuckled just a bit. “You know, like Cyclops or Storm? I’ve been trying to think of one for myself...it is surprisingly hard. Empath is a bit on the nose, but I had a thought about Anima. The feminine form of animus or soul; also used in Jungian psychology to denote the emotional side of people.”

"Don't think it wise to train with them right now...A code name, though? Is 'Nightmare' too stupid?" She said dryly before giving a small smile. "Anima. I like it...just subtle enough for those that are intelligent. It fits you nicely. Anima...Anima." 

Lucy gave a soft exhale that sounded like a laugh. "Code names...seems a bit...immature...or late. Feel like people know me by now...and it implies we'll be in the heat of battle soon, though." And if there was a bit of emptiness in her tone, it was because she was picturing the sentinels.

“Yeah, Pietro asked me about it,” Elle replied with a roll of her eyes. “Thought I better play along. And if something does happen, then at least it is there. Honestly, Nightmare is perfect. It is on the nose, but it invokes imagery. But if you don’t like it, what about Bogey? Like the Bogeyman.”

For the first time in too long, Lucy laughed. “Bogey -- like boogers.”

Elle laughed at the joke. “Phobia? Melino? The Greek nymph that brings nightmares...I was reading up on Greek myths. Mare or Mara is the creature that brings nightmares…”

She was tapping her chin, trying to think, when her watch beeped. She had to head back for the next round of tours. “Shit, I need to get going.”

“Mare...I like that.” She murmured. “Subtle. Short.” Lucy blinked twice at the sound of Elle’s watch as if she was awoken from a dream. “Oh, yes, of course. I should too.” Not that she was terribly thrilled to. “We’ll be in touch...keep being careful.” She stood and picked up her purse. “Two months.” It sounded like a prayer. 

~~~~~~

As Elle left, both women were unaware of the eyes on them.  Both women were fairly decent at spy work, but it was nothing compared to a professional who had trained in it for years. It was one of these professionals that made a note of Elle's company t-shirt but let her go. Right now, she was not his target. It was the well-dressed mutant whom he was following.

As she arose, the man continued to sip his coffee. It was not until she was out of the cafe did he move. He had seen which way she went through the window. Subtlety was key here. As he left, following a block behind Lucy, the man received a call.

"Yes?"

"It is ready. Give a location and bring her in."

"Cafe Dumont heading east down Washington towards the Senate offices."

_______

Next

Fanfic Masterlist

[fromtheseventhhell]

I think Catelyn is dead. She was dead for three days. Her body is decaying and crumbling into pieces. She can’t barely talk. Her throat is cut open. She is literally a vengeful ghost who rose from the river with dark magic to punish those who broke the sacred law of hospitality. She’s the archetype of wrathful mother who lost her children to war. Real Catelyn wanted to rest with Ned. Arya putting her down is not bloodshed, it’s the gift of mercy. There is nothing to be saved. Her role is to terrorise the Lannisters/Freys and be a foil to Arya, because Arya wants justice while LSH is all about blind revenge. Besides, Littlefinger is Sansa’s villain, she’s the one who needs to get rid of him. She’s the one who knows the things he did. It’s her role to overcome him. It’s Arya’s role to overcome LSH who’s willing to murder every single person who gets in her way. She will finally have peace if Arya puts an end to her suffering. She will know at least one of her children survived and Arya will take the role she needs as one of the protagonists and lead the Brotherhood North with Robb’s crown and then crown Jon. That’s a form of healing too.

My thing is that all of this gets presented as fact when it's actually things that fandom has decided on and considers canon, rather than coming from the book. Until we get the actual story we can't really just say "this is what's going to happen" because we just don't know and there's a lot of story left to tell. I understand if you think all of this is more likely but it's not written in stone.

Being brought back to life 100% changes and affects the person but it doesn't mean they're entirely gone. LSH might be a shadow of who Catelyn was but she is still very much Catelyn at the core, as seen by her motivations. She already knows that Arya is alive and is actively searching for her. George rarely plays his archetypes or tropes straight so her embodying that role doesn't mean that's all she is. And again, it would be a waste of her being brought back. George could've easily explored revenge with any other character or have had her not die at the red wedding and continue on a similar path. If he wanted to explore the impact of being brought back to life then that was already there with Beric. I don't see why it's unbelievable that he would bring her back for a reason other than to have her be murdered again.

I've already said what I think about Arya and LSH. As for LF, he is very much connected to Catelyn. His introduction was through her POV, his actions are heavily influenced by the relationship they had, she thinks about him often and gives us insight into his character, he contributes to Ned's death and a lot of the trouble the Stark's have, and even his interest in Sansa is rooted in his feeling for Catelyn. He is far more than just "Sansa's villain" and with the likelihood of him traveling to the Riverlands, there is a chance that they have a confrontation. His relationship with Catelyn has been built up far more than his relationship with Sansa so her helping to defeat him makes a lot of sense.

All in all, I don't think it's impossible that Arya gives her "mercy" but I dislike it for all of the reasons I listed and I think there's a lot more that could be done with her character. I think this theory about her only became so popular because it was a "simple" ending for her and fandom tends to default to the easiest solution. It fits but loosely, and only really because people reduce these characters to the most basic archetypes. Her getting a reunion with her daughters, learning that her sons are alive, and getting revenge on the man who caused her and her family so much grief is a lot more satisfying AND has basis in the story.

[nuwanders]

and 25. 🔥

sorry this is going to get mean

1. the character everyone gets wrong

where to start lmfao! to be fair i do think it's difficult with TES as the characters are so thin to begin with that there's naturally going to be greater scope for interpretation, but i'm just going to answer this question with the assumption that my opinions are objectively correct <3

some of the worst i think are delphine, astrid, nazir, martin (!), lucien, and cicero, big names in fandom and usually from either the main or dark brotherhood questlines (the DB by its nature tends to attract the annoying edgelords. some very cool people also, but you know what i mean... welcome to my twisted mind etc)

without repeating what has been said already by others, a more minor NPC who i feel gets misinterpreted a lot is muiri. she's not portrayed very often but when she is, fans lean too hard into the idea that she has this bloodthirsty, sinister side to her without taking the time to explore WHY someone who seems so meek and unassertive on the outside could be driven to doing what she does. muiri always struck me as someone a little young and a little foolish who hasn't really thought about her actions and is acting out of desperation. the more interesting depictions of her explore her darker tendencies with a subtler hand and take her character as a whole without isolating one trait from the rest.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

not sure whether this counts as 'common' but there's been a popular post circulating recently and it has the endorsement of some well-known blogs so i'm going to treat it as if it is. essentially the post was claiming that TES fans are guilty of ignoring parts of canon they don't like, including any and all attempts at 'grey morality', with an end product that is sanitised and lacking in nuance.

i had no idea who this post was actually aimed at but it seemed to me a classic case of ppl talking past each other about two different things. the only aspects of canon i see ppl regularly opting to discard are the bits that clearly reflect some gross attitude on the part of the writers, e.g. divayth fyr's daughters, racial phylogeny etc. people complaining about the poorly handled treatment of racism, war etc in a doyleist sense =/= people wanting to remove those parts of the lore from canon in the watsonian sense. i think it's disingenuous to treat ppl rightfully discussing the often insensitive writing as people wanting a more clear cut 'good/evil' dichotomy bc that isn't the case at all. if anything those who are the most critical tend also to be the most in favour of exploring these themes in greater depth.

nuance is good and all but one group seems to be saying "this attempt at nuance is actually ham-fisted and clumsy and not very nuanced at all" and the other is responding by saying "don't take away my nuance!!!!111!!1!!!"

but that's just my onion x

[alien-girl-21]

He tried so hard to be good but it still didn’t matter :((((

( well… almost! He did save the k4 world but he doesn’t know that)

I don’t know a lot about the dark brotherhood stuff but the stuff about them saying k!Luzu has darkness in him and trying to get him to give into it gives me a lot of thoughts yeah. Like Luzu is a chosen hero and in k4 he acts like one- but he does have darkness in him and when he finally gives in we see it more and more. It almost feels like he was doomed to a fate he wasn’t even fully aware of- like he was meant to be some dark villain by some greater force but he was just so Inherently good he never realized that… it’s just sad to think about… but still I think there’s hope for him yeah- that he can one day break free of that fate- I think that what ultimately did him in being a betrayal rather then the brotherhoods constant attempts to lure him to the dark side supports that. He seems to me like someone whose inherently rather selfless more often then not- which is not always a good thing but still admirable in the right times.

Yes!! It's like fate tries to get him to be the worst version of himself, but he always defies that, it's incredible. No matter what there is always good in him. And then, even during his campaign he wants to hire alexby to be the "bad cop" is he became mayor because he knows he's too nice, too generous, and he wants someone to put ik the stricter rules or restrictions. He's too nice!!! And that is like a double-edged sword, and even when he becomes evil!luzu he returns to being mostly good. Even when he cursed auron to being a lava creature he admitted he was wrong (even though auron betrayed him) and changed him back to a human being. He's so full of live and the world wants him to hate, but he never truly can. Even in kv when he's at his most evil while being mayor, he still cares about quackity, he says it hurts to be so mean to him because he loves him (platonically or romantically, that's up to you)

I just......k!luzu

[bladedwoe]

𝐔𝐍𝐔𝐒𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.

i love hearing little headcanons and facts about characters that aren’t usually talked about, so i threw this together. feel free to copy and do yourself!

WHICH WAY DO THEY HANG THE TOILET ROLL, OVER OR UNDER? Astrid has no real big preference. Whatever feels right in the moment with little forethought, but usually over.

HOW DO THEY SLEEP? DO THEY HAVE ANY ROUTINE THEY MUST DO FIRST? DO THEY STEAL THE COVERS, ETC? Astrid often sleeps on her side, curled up in the blankets wrapped tightly around her and preferably a loved ones arm around her middle for comfort. Before sleeping, she always lights a few candles in the room, she can’t sleep in full darkness just for caution reasons. She would like to be able to see whoever may sneak upon her and working so much in darkness, she knows the strength darkness brings to sneak attacks. She does also steal the covers though.

HOW DO THEY HOLD A PEN? DO THEY HAVE ANY WRITING QUIRKS? Since Astrid was hoping to be the child that would bring her family out of poverty and rise from their original social class, Astrid has neat cursive handwriting. She often writes slow and takes her time with it, allowing her words to freely flow onto the page, from a habit from her youth to make sure her handwriting is readable and perfect. She tends to relax her hand when writing since she learned that produces a better penmanship than really tightening up and gripping the quill/charcoal/whatever writing utensil.

WHAT TRADITIONALLY UNCONVENTIONAL FEATURES DO THEY HAVE? ACNE, CROOKED TEETH, UNIBROW, ETC ETC?* Astrid is very, very concerned about her appearance. A lot of it comes from her mother focusing on her appearance a lot and Astrid’s, since both Astrid’s personality, connections, and appearance all played a role in securing a husband or friends that are wealthy/a higher social class (nobles and the like). So she tries to fix every flaw and tries to stay as youthful as he can (despite me and others joking that she’s a m.ilf). She covers over her acne scars (though she didn’t get too much acne in her youth), covers up any wrinkles or scars. She has a few wrinkles on her forehead and around her lips that she attempts to conceal.

WHAT IS THEIR SHOWER ROUTINE? Astrid bathes more than anything and it’s an area of self care for her. While she is concerned with her appearance and takes times in the bath to apply creams, moisturizers, etc, she does like to sprinkle the heads of flowers in her baths and use a lot of floral perfumes and light candles that have a pleasant smell. She treats this as her unwind time and her “reward” for a successful job with a wine glass in hand. So usually her baths are long and she makes sure to wash through her hair thoroughly, wash over her body and clean up any dry skin she often deals with. She does really enjoy having her hair washed by the way.

HOW DO THEY DEAL WITH ILLNESS? She denies it at first, even if she has seen firsthand the other Dark Brotherhood members fallen ill with a cold, fever, or a stomach bug. She can’t be sick, it’s just the changing of the seasons. That’s why her throat is sore and that’s the reason for her headache. She works through it, going through her maps, her letters, and still plans out assassinations and sends out the members of the Dark Brotherhood to take care of a contract. She doesn’t tend to leave the sanctuary during this time though, since it’s usually during the time when the weather is so bad that it’s preferable to stay indoors. So she often sends out others to find contracts for the Dark Brotherhood (when they don’t have the Night Mother/Listener around, they used word of mouth and rumors of the Black Sacrament being performed to fill their contracts and meet the person). When her symptoms really restrict her work flow, she will rest and often she’ll stay in her room and in her bed until she is fully over the illness. Usually, her husband will be the one to give her meals, but she prefers peace and quiet and rest during her sick days.

ARE THEY A VISUAL LEARNER? KINESTHETIC LEARNER? AUDITORY LEARNER? I would say Astrid is a kinesthetic learner, but I think she’s more of a learner that works off of written instructions. Directions, a step-by-step method written out in fine print is the easiest way she learns. She prefers written instruction because she can refer to it later on, but for combat-related endevours, she prefers to learn it on her own. So that would be where kinethetic learner would be her way of learning with constant physical practice with something.

WHAT DO THEIR HANDS LOOK LIKE? Because of her concern of her physical appearance, she prefers to wear gloves and use ointments and creams to rid herself of her dry skin. So her hands are pretty soft for the job she has because of her preference with gloves. But if you look at her hands, you may spot a few pointy veins here or two, but she prides herself on having pretty youthful and wrinkle-free looking hands.

WHAT MUNDANE BAD HABITS DO THEY HAVE? DO THEY ALWAYS LET FOOD EXPIRE? DON’T WASH THEIR HANDS? CHEW WITH THEIR MOUTH OPEN, ETC? Astrid often can’t keep her temper under control and it can really be her downfall, same with her general paranoia and preference for having control over others and her situation. She will pick at loose strands on her clothing when nervous and will kind of really tense her face when concentrating, which only will add more wrinkles to her face over time. These aren’t really “bad habits” per say. She is generally pretty hygienic and cares a lot about how she looks to not have any outward bad habits.

HOW DO THEY USUALLY SPEND THEIR BIRTHDAY? Astrid won’t outwardly tell anyone it’s her birthday, btu the way she carries herself: her smirk, her confident posture, and her eyes that are telling something makes it pretty apparent. She never really cared too much over her birthday when she was younger, but she liked the attention it gave her. She liked the gifts and the attention her birthday brings. She says she likes to keep her birthday low-key to appear humble, and she does to an extent, but she does expect others to wish her a happy birthday, to give her something nice, and pay special attention to her on this day. She will often stick by the Sanctuary and host a little party with her Family, but she does partake in a little trip to commit a murder here and there if she feels like she has been at “home” for too long.

WHAT IS ONE COMMON MISCONCEPTION OR INCORRECT FACT THAT COMPLETELY BELIEVE? Well, I suppose this might be a misconception: but she doesn’t believe in the Night Mother at all and the whole Listener system, mostly because the Night Mother hasn’t been around for a while to assist the Dark Brotherhood when it fell all over Tamriel, there was no chosen Listener and the Dark Brotherhood was left in shambles because of it. So there’s a reason why she’s skeptical. In general, she believes in odd beauty methods and ways to stay youthful. She has tried the blood method and believes it to some extent hat blood keeps one looking youthful. But she believes in many incorrect “methods” to keep looking young.

WHAT ARE THEIR RED FLAGS OR #CANCELLABLE TRAIT? Her whole want for control and to control others. To some extent, she sees people for their purpose and usefulness to her, even though she does seek for a sense of belonging, and her desire for power is her biggest red flag. She isn’t against manipulating others to get what she wants. The whole betrayal thing she does at the end of the questline can be seen as questionable.

ARE THEY THE TYPE TO MAKE A SHOPPING LIST, GET WHAT THEY WANT AND LEAVE OR DO THEY MEANDER? DO THEY TRY TO CARRY ALL THEIR BAGS AT ONCE OR BREAK IT UP? Astrid often tries to carry all of the bags herself or have someone else around to help her with that task. It depends on what she wants. Sometimes she doesn’t have many things in mind that she doesn’t need a shipping list, but other times, she does make a list. It depends on how much she needs really.

WHAT IS THEIR GO TO CURSE WORD? Astrid actually doesn’t curse too much. It comes from her youth where saying a crass word was seen as unladylike, so she often refrains from it in habit. She personally doesn’t see the use in swearing to get a point across, but she isn’t going to judge anyone else for doing so. She finds it humorous if someone swears a lot. Her go-to curse word is “damn” or “hell”.

WHAT DO THEY COLLECT? CANDLES, BOTTLES, COINS, SHINY ROCKS, ETC? Astrid likes to collect many things: skulls, shiny items, daggers with interesting cravings, different coins, and different looking wine glasses and cups. She’s the type to find something interesting and pick it up, she doesn’t collect one specific item.

WHAT IS ONE CONSPIRACY THEORY THEY BELIEVE IN? I guess the whole Night Mother not being real and the theory of her being another God/deity/whatever entirely. I can’t remember what Daedra people say the Night Mother might be, but she believes in that theory from the rough years the Dark Brotherhood went through without the Night Mother choosing a Listener.

DO THEY LIKE TO PLAN THINGS IN ADVANCE OR ARE THEY THE TYPE TO SHOW UP SOMEWHERE UNINVITED? Oftentimes an interaction, even a simple meeting, has a level of planning to it. Astrid does see the usefulness in planning things out, but she also sees the strength instinct can have in a situation. She does show up to places uninvited if she has a reason for it, but usually for that purpose. It’s often to seek someone or something out. Even if something seems natural, a meeting or whatever, there was a plan she has in mind for striking up a conversation than a circumstantial run-in. Astrid often is two steps ahead of someone, but she often underestimates the other person and gets too into her ego. 

WHAT’S ONE THING THEY THINK THEY’RE TALENTED AT THAT THEY REALLY, REALLY AREN’T? I think Astrid can be a good reader of people, she’s charming and often has the right idea, but I can see her being really charmed by someone, or underestimating someone’s strength, and being betrayed in the end without previous forethought. Or thinking she strung someone along and last second, they betray her. it’s all connected to her ego and her want for control. Sometimes she’s so confident in her abilities, in her charm, and prowess that she lulls herself in believing that she tricked someone and they are just naive. When really it’s the opposite and she was too blinded to look at it realistically to see the signs., 

[lunarlegend]

The Japanese Cultural Significance Behind Older Ignis’ Hairstyle

this is something i’ve touched upon a couple times before, but i felt like going a bit more in-depth and i have 24/7 blorbo brain, so here we go

for those who are unaware, the pompadour is a bit of an infamous hairstyle in Japan (taken from Wikipedia):

it actually first rose to popularity in the 50s-60s...

...and remained that way on and off up until the early 2000s.

(source is this article, which has a lot more great examples, but unfortunately is also pretty full of annoying ads, lol)

a lot of notable thug-type characters sported the pompadour hairstyle in anime/manga from the late 80s - early 90s...

...and the stereotype is still used in more modern anime, too.

but the way i first learned of the hairstyle’s significance was through the manga Shonan Junai Gumi (precursor to the more popular Great Teacher Onizuka series), where protagonists Eikichi & Ryuji...

...choose to purposely get rid of their pompadours so they can start trying to pick up women (it’s a shonen series from 1990, just bear with me):

but as soon as they step outside, they get challenged by some punks...

...and immediately fix their hair back up so they can participate in the fight.

it’s a huge statement on what it means to be a stereotypical “delinquent” in Japan (obviously taken to the extreme in this case for humor’s sake, but it’s a joke that’s intended to be immediately understood by the audience).

so, what does any of this have to do with Ignis Scientia?

of all the Chocobros, Ignis is definitely the most straight-laced. he’s had the responsibility of being Noctis’ caretaker from a very young age (six years old!) and prides himself on being the most practical of the group, making sure everyone eats healthy and stays out of danger. he drives the car, he manages the money...at 22 years old, he is wise beyond his years, and often joked to be the only true “adult” on the team.

but even as a teenager, Ignis looked far older than his age (pictured here at only 17):

quite the opposite of any of the thugs seen above, young Ignis dressed for his role as a servant of the Royal Family and never acted much like any “typical” teenager. in fact, in his Brotherhood episode, he’s already learning to take on some of the King’s parental responsibilities towards Noctis as Regis’ health noticeably declines...certainly not what one would expect of the normal adolescent experience.

Ignis didn’t really have a childhood (another topic i’ve frequently touched upon), and that’s part of what makes his post-timeskip hairstyle so interesting. instead of keeping his “cockatiel” hair from the main game or simply letting his hair stay down, 32 year old Ignis specifically chose a pompadour:

i’ve often seen it said that Older Ignis looks younger than 22 year old Ignis, and that’s absolutely true. but it’s more than just the softness of his features; it’s that Older Ignis sports a hairstyle you’d normally expect to see on a teenage punk.

given the very little information we have about the 10 Years of Darkness (laziness on the developers’ part imho, but i digress), i consider Older Ignis’ choice of hairstyle to be a significant clue to how he carries himself in the World of Ruin.

here is an Ignis who has accepted the consequences of his decision to wear the Ring, who has gained newfound confidence and stubbornly trained himself to navigate through an endlessly dark world. here is an Ignis who taught himself to hunt again, taught himself to cook again, who has honed his other senses to the point where he can fend for himself in a daemon-infested nightmare that would probably send a less-disciplined person running to their death. 32 year old Ignis quite literally rebelled against his own fate; he chose to survive.

considering that Insomnia is a Japanese city (based on Shinjuku), and that Ignis himself is from there in the original Japanese version of the game (no accent, born in the Kingdom of Lucis just like the others), i can only assume he would understand the cultural significance behind the pompadour hairstyle and what it represents. it’s also a lot of effort for someone who not only exists in a dark world, but who also cannot see himself...there is no doubt in my mind that Ignis chose this style on purpose.

and that’s why i find all of this so fascinating. especially considering what few details we are shown about each of the bros post-timeskip, here’s something about my favorite character that stands out to me as a form of deliberate symbolism and allows me to easily draw conclusions from it. to me it reinforces what a resilient person Ignis is, and it also fuels some of my headcanons that Older Ignis is less uptight and more confident (something that his younger Japanese version self struggles with).

it’s an aspect of Ignis that i feel is extremely significant, but i think has the potential to get overlooked by fans who are not familiar with Japanese culture, which is why i wanted to share it here.

[guiltycorp]

I'd like to clarify my thoughts on Diluc a bit! Only because I read a couple of fics and takes just now that made me realize how some people approach the ‘Diluc x consequences’ thing as if he really is completely in the wrong when it comes to Kaeya and should somehow atone for it? But that’s not how I see it at all.  In my opinion, however harsh his reaction to ‘the truth’ that Kaeya revealed was (and we still don’t know the specifics of that truth or how exactly their fight went), he would only have to ‘make up’ for it if he was now actively aiming to rekindle his relationship with Kaeya. However, Kaeya no longer has any official ties to him, so that means Diluc needs to actually want and pursue that reconciliation.  What I mean is that if Kaeya were, heaven forbid, his actual adopted brother (which he isn’t and never was) or still his younger sworn brother, then yeah, he’d definitely have the responsibility of returning Kaeya’s desperate attempts to get closer to him once more. But their sworn brotherhood was based on a lie, and while we don’t exactly know what Diluc currently thinks of their bond, he certainly doesn’t see Kaeya in the same light that he used to. They’re not even in the same structure anymore now that Diluc left the Knights. With that, Diluc technically doesn’t owe requital to him. He never even asked for any favors - he didn’t comment on Kaeya’s attempts to displace Eroch, he didn’t tell him about the secret organization he’s in, he never asked for Kaeya’s help with Darknight Hero stuff.  Do you remember how in the first Archon quest Diluc was happily working alongside Jean and not once asked for Kaeya? Even when it comes to working with the Knights, Kaeya isn’t his only choice of comrades. He accepts the help that Kaeya offers, and he easily agrees to work alongside him, but none of what Kaeya does actually puts Diluc in his debt. Diluc’s neutral demeanor towards him stings, and it’s weird that he neither rejects nor fully accepts Kaeya’s attention, but he’s not being overly mean about it either. The only reason why we all want Diluc to return Kaeya’s efforts or to at least to show some weakness toward him is because that would make for a nicer story! Personally, I REALLY want Diluc to bring up Kaeya in a conversation or for him to initiate for once, but that’s only because an unrequited relationship is too sad of a story arc for Kaeya. Plus there have been tiny hints that Diluc still cares a lot, so that’s likely where their future story development is headed after all (if genshin ever gets to it, ahem). It’s definitely frustrating when we don’t know his opinion, when both the game and Diluc himself avoid the topic so often, but what I’m saying is that a story where Kaeya’s relationship with Diluc is one-sided wouldn’t make Diluc a bad person either. It would be rather tragic, but I don’t think characters should be villainized for not reciprocating other characters’ overtures of friendship like that, and I hope this current trend will die just as the ‘Kaeya is sus’ trend died. And if Kaeya reached the height of his depression/inner-conflict and did something drastic (like, leave Mond, risk his life, go on a self-destructive bender, join forces with someone inadvisable, trigger some dark magic etc etc), it wouldn’t be Diluc’s fault or his responsibility. He might feel guilty for not doing something, for not being more honest if he does care, but that shouldn’t be his punishment or ‘consequences’ for his actions. Only a bit of irony for being too late when he had lots of time to resolve his issues with Kaeya sooner. The only consequences Diluc should face are maybe psychological repercussions for using torture methods on his enemies too often and a union strike from the workers of Angel’s Share.

[rocket-69]

Ramshackle: 01 - Honey

A tall man in a brown leather jacket walked down Main Street, waving to the citizens of Ramshackle. Jack* adjusted the six-pointed sheriff star pin above his breast pocket and shined it just a little. A simple star for a simple town, but still he was proud of it. He nodded and winked to one of the younger lady street vendors with her mother, salt and peppered with middle age.

“G’mornin’ Penny, Mrs. Cabrera.”

Penny looked up, her eyes wide at being called. Her mother elbowed her gently and handed her a couple of honey sticks to give Jack with a smile. Penny flashed a pleading look to Mrs Cabrera but then quickly took them from her mother and stood up.

“Good morning, sir.” Penny handed the honey over as her eyes lowered, distracted by the badge.

“Are those for me? Aw shucks, you shouldn’t have,” Jack’s teeth glisten. Penny’s eyes had trouble meeting his, though they would flick back quickly when she remembered. Her cheeks flushed, lips pouted with a strong pink tint against her tan skin. As Jack picked her apart in his head, his smile never broke. His blue eyes hid behind the protection of his sunglasses.

Penny dipped her head in a small bow, something picked up from the Asians no doubt.

“Why thank you, Penny.” Jack took the honey sticks and used his teeth to pop one side and start sucking the honey down. “Delicious as ever.” He stopped his patrol a moment to savor his free gift.

Penny turned the corners of her lips into a smile, pushed on by her mother.

“You’re a little shy, aren’t you Penny?” Jack tipped his cowboy hat toward Mrs Cabrera.

Penny’s face flushed red, stronger with her freckles. She laughed. “Mom’s always telling me I should make more friends.” Her voice pitched high and held there.

Jack laughed too.

“Welp, I gotta be back on my beat. See you ladies ‘round.” He winked again at Penny, then nodded gentlemanly to Mrs Cabrera for the last time. “Let me know if anyone causes you any trouble.”

Penny nodded hastily. “Yessir.”

Mrs Cabrera smiled.

Penny, or Lizard Deathshadow to xir friends, shook xir head like an etch-a-sketch. Xe caught a glance of Charlie and Spike turn a corner away from xem, and swung xir gaze straight up to the sky.

-----

The open sky hung over the nestled bowl Benji and Roy** raised Ada in. Scavenging was not the choice livelihood of most people in Ramshackle- shearing sheep, spinning wool into felt and yarn, knitting socks, tanning leathers into armor, or even just farming are all painfully labor intensive, but at least usually there’s some kind of yield. Junk’s value in the wasteland’s overstated. Hundreds-of-years-old clothing is fragile, often crumbling, broken down, eaten by moths or other bugs in the hope of gaining any kind of nutrition. In spite of shocking preservative techniques of the prewar, most food is also barely dust in the hands of a wastelander but still somehow stunk to high heaven. And as if that wasn’t enough, it was also always drier than the moon and about as nutritious.

Scavvers who spend too much time in their dark little holes will come out with a salvaged four hundred year old gun, an obsession in their eyes that’s only marginally better than the car nuts. At least they can sometimes get their guns to shoot, even if not straight. Don’t get any scrapper talking about weapons. Not a lot of good ‘perfectly functional’ laser rifles or ratslayers do without oil and plastic parts specially made for those models. Of course, if that’s a problem with weapons, then it’s also a problem with vehicles. Or so the knights say, as they take such inconveniences out of regular folks’ hands.

But in Ramshackle, the Brotherhood payed a drifter’s hard work not in the scrap they pull up, but the hours they delve. Scavenging was a job that people who weren’t there often or only there for a few seasons could go for. It’s a job that always had openings. Scavenging was for drifters. Nomad types.

Benji and Roy stood by the shoe tree, a long dead, dried out, remote husk. On every branch, every arm and finger, shoes hung. Hundreds. Thousands. Heels. Sneakers. Boots. Bound there and stiff from the desert’s elements. The drifters around the two of them shuffled about, signing in on a salvaged clipboard nailed to the shoe tree. A small shack was built next to the tree for use by the scavengers, stowing helmets, brightly colored vests, and loaner tools.

They sipped from a shared canteen, waiting on the paladin that’d be supervising them today. A few years back, a radscorpion had erupted from a junk pile burrow*** so now scavengers were given a babysitter- a guard.

The paladin was late.

Just as the two of them were looking to the rest of the scavengers to see if they wanted to head back to town, a white shape started down the mountainside. It made its way down a dirt road, trying to bring something large with it. It took shape as it got closer, a paladin in whitewashed† power armor walking an empty trailer back from sledding down the side of the hill. They watched him struggle with it, unable and, if they were honest, unwilling to help him. That suit of armor provided the hydraulic assistance required to wear it, but it also enabled the paladins who wore them to lift things most people could not.

Benji stowed the canteen and Roy put on his scavenging gloves, passing his husband’s pair over once his hands were free. The two of them poked into the shack, selecting the best of the helmets before the other drifters- who were captivated by the suit of armor currently. He was rolling a boulder away from the Sieve Mineshaft, the current focus after someone found some old mechanical parts deep in there, instead of the usual consumer good.

The landscape around Ramshackle was littered with dumps of home goods unconsumed by those who came before. How a world of such plenty could have suffered shortages and rationing spoken of by ghouls and collected histories confused Benji sometimes, thinking that just taking the discarded junk while it was still serviceable would have been of more use. But these thoughts usually ended as soon as the walk home with Roy brought them back to Ada and dinner.

“My name is Paladin Roland Furioso. I will be ensuring all your safety today, barring the standard dangers. I trust you all have had your tetanus shots? If not, my scribe Oliver will inoculate you with the vaccines we’ve produced.”

*Sheriff Jackalope “Jack” McNulty was born a third generation vault dweller, and as such never wore a blue and yellow one-piece suit, but still grew up with the habits his grandparents handed down. An avid recycler, an affection for tight interior spaces, and one of the few who still wore a pipboy.

**Short for Corduroy. His father loved embroidery. Benji is not short for Benjamin. It’s long for Ben.

***Or so the rumors went.

† A heat reflecting tactic. It is not said out loud, but many of the Lahontan Brotherhood Chapter’s power armor rigs have failing secondary hardware- including the cooling systems. Painting the armor white mitigates most of the heat absorbed over the course of one day, after which the paladin exits the armor and exposes the internals to broader air circulation. And usually takes a shower.

[hlizr50]

Update: The Raven and the Songbird

Chapter 6

A little pain relief for everything I've put you through

Read on AO3

When Azriel landed in the training ring he shook his head, exasperated with himself. Now that he was here, what exactly did he plan to do? He couldn’t very well find Gwyn’s room, shake her awake, and beg her to forgive him.

He took a moment to survey the ring, racks of wooden weapons, steel, shields. The Valkyries had grown from desperation to get Nesta on the right track to three females surviving the Blood Rite to a small legion of Illyrians, priestesses, and other fae. They would be outgrowing the space soon, and he pondered that as the stone glowed blue in the moonlight.

Gwyn had never spoken much about the Blood Rite, not that he could blame her. The Illyrian tradition was barbaric under normal circumstances, and much more so with Briallyn’s meddling – with the intention of killing all three of the females. Azriel couldn’t help but grin to himself.

How spectacularly had her plan backfired.

He had not admitted that Cassian was not the only one sleepless and mortified that week, but where the general was a barely-contained force of will and expression Azriel was schooled in hiding his emotion. He’d had to stay stoic – to find Briallyn and Koschei, to support his brother while his mate fought for her life. But his relationship with Gwyn had begun to develop by then, as well. Slowly. It was all he could do some days not to fly in and destroy them all. She had already suffered unspeakable horrors, and the possibility that she had been at the mercy of Illyrian males – bred with a thirst for blood and flesh – had been nearly unbearable.

When that general is finished hurting her she has to feel the soul-crushing terror of watching the next soldier take his place because you don’t come to save her.

He ran a hand through his onyx hair, remembering Nesta’s words. His shadows seemed to wither around him, drooping over his shoulders and wings. How had it come to this?

The shadowsinger sat himself down on the ground, knees drawn up. He rested his forearms on them and gazed at the ink-dark sky painted with stars. Much like his High Lord, seeing the stars had always been a comfort to Azriel – a reminder that he was free from the prison of his upbringing, that he had escaped and had replaced his father and brothers with a family that cared for him and showed him what love and brotherhood really meant.

His found family had grown so much in such a short time. He was grateful for that, for so many reasons. Rhys had emerged from Under the Mountain a broken male and Feyre had helped piece him back together. She had quickly become a glue for all of them, holding them tight and treating them with such love that Azriel was often awed by it. It wasn’t hard defending her, being dedicated to her safety as High Lady. She was far more than a monarch to him.

Then came Nesta and Elain, and what a storm that had been. Cassian and Nesta were meant to be since the beginning, but that path had been long and painful, and not just for his ears and the new… sanitation concerns for public living spaces in the house. Sometimes he was surprised that he counted Nesta as his friend. She had been intentionally hurtful so many times. How often had he seen the pain in his brother’s countenance because of something she had said or done? And yet now he understood her, maybe more than he cared to admit. She had been hurting and afraid and overflowing with self-loathing.

He had hurt Gwyn for those very reasons.

Gwyn.

He felt his shoulders and wings sag with the weight of Nesta’s questions tonight. Accusations thinly veiled as questions, and each one like a carefully crafted throwing knife plunged into his gut. He’d made her cry for at least the third time in as many weeks. Training and working to exhaustion, and not being able to sleep because of the worsening nightmares – nightmares that had cruelly transformed to remind her that he had abandoned her.

Even his shadows felt heavy.

The spymaster hung his head, shame like a blanket smothering him in summer heat. How could he ever forgive himself for causing that pain? It was a fate he had personally prevented, and now she was forced to experience it in her dreams. Because of him. Because he was a coward.

Azriel let his eyes drift closed and focused on his breathing. Sleep would not be an option tonight, and he could only pray that the priestess was sound asleep in the house, getting the rest she so desperately needed. Training didn’t seem to be in the cards either, as he sifted through the torrent of thoughts and emotions. He just needed to sit and think. And in the morning, he would speak with Gwyn as soon as he could. He would fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness if he had to.

“Azriel?”

The inky tendrils flitted to life around him at the sound of that voice. Cauldron damn him, of course she would find him now. But part of him was relieved to be able to talk to her so soon – that she was even here.

“Azriel, are you alright?” His heart squeezed at the softness of Gwyn’s voice, music to his ears – a sweet melody with harmonies of concern and kindness. How could she still be so kind to him?

“I don’t deserve to be asked that. Especially not by you,” he murmured, staring down at the stone between his feet.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Azriel.” Her soft footsteps seemed to echo in his head, a ringing alarm that she was coming closer. He didn’t want to run from her, but his heart was still racing. How could he face her inevitable rejection? He noticed her shadow fall over the space between his legs and when he looked up she was crouching in front of him, eyes shining with sincerity. “You deserve for people to care about you. And I do. I won’t just leave you out here alone when anyone could see the weight of the world pressing down on you.”

Gods, but wasn’t that exactly what he had done to her?

The shadowsinger had no air in his chest as he studied her. The expression on her face was difficult to describe – caring and teasing and scolding all rolled into glittering ocean eyes and the slightest quirk of her full lips. She rose and his gaze followed as she held her hand out to him, beckoning him to stand with her. It took more courage than he cared to admit to place his violence-scarred hands in hers, but their warmth spread through him like sunshine warming his bones as she helped him to his feet.

She didn’t let go, and that gave him the strength he needed.

“Nesta found me at the river house tonight. She had… a lot to say,” Azriel began as he saw color bloom on Gwyn’s cheeks. She looked down to their hands.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for her to –“ He squeezed her hands and she snapped her head back up to meet his gaze.

“I deserved every single bit of venom she threw at me, Gwyn. Do not apologize.” The shadowsinger looked down, then, unsure how to move forward or which of his many transgressions he should address first. So he asked, “Is it true? About the nightmares? That… that I don’t come for you?” He could feel the emotion catching in his throat, cracking his voice. His eyes burned as he looked back to the priestess. Her lips were pressed together as she tried to keep the silver lining her eyes from spilling down over her cheeks.

“Yes,” she whispered, lashes lowering as the silent tears fell. Each droplet was a nick in his heart, the guilt and pain salting those wounds. How could she be so strong, to endure this agony and yet hold the hands that caused it? He released one of the hands and lifted it to her face, hesitating with his fingers a breath away from her cheek. Azriel had his mouth open to ask if he could touch her when she leaned her face into his palm. He brushed at her tears with his thumb before bringing up his other hand, cupping her jaw.

“Gwyn,” he breathed, pleading silently for her to look at him. The shining pools that opened to him were so enthralling, depths shimmering with trepidation. Gods, what he would do to bring back the joy in those eyes. “I will always come for you. No matter what. And I will never be able to forgive myself that there might be any part of your mind or your heart or your soul that could believe otherwise.” He watched as she took a shuddering breath, but her eyes held his and he was emboldened.

“I’m so sorry, Gwyn. For all of this. I was a fool and a coward and I let my guilt and my fear own me. And it only hurt you.”

Gwyn’s hands covered the scars on his own as she pulled them away from her face, returning them to their place entwined between them. Azriel stayed silent and her head tilted as she studied him.

“What could you possibly be afraid of?” she released a hoarse, hiccupped laugh. The shadowsinger could only gulp down a breath and look toward the stars.

“I… I was afraid of the feelings I was developing for you. And of the pain I would feel when you would see all the things I have done and the monster that I am and run away from me. Or that you would be hurt because of this darkness inside of me.” His eyes had returned to hers and, while he saw understanding swimming there, her expression was uncompromising.

“Have I not been hurt already?” Her bluntness shocked him, and he felt the slightest twinge of panic that told him to run. Her fingers tightened like a vice around his hands and he saw her eyes darken, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Don’t you dare even think about running away, Azriel. Not now. I deserve better from you.” Even his shadows seemed focused on where their hands touched, intent on keeping them tied together.

She did. She deserved so much better. Better than what he’d done. Shame washed over him that he could have thought to flee from her. Again. He had already wronged her… too many times. But he had come here determined to right those wrongs. Azriel wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to give her what she deserved, if he would ever be good enough for her. But he sure as fuck was going to try.

“You’re right,” he conceded, that panic replaced by resolution and a faint, foolish glimmer of hope. “I’m not going anywhere.” She grinned softly and he thought his chest would burst from relief. They were still here, together, talking. They were going to figure this out.

“Why did you run, Azriel? If you care for me, like you say,” she demanded, that sea-deep stare piercing straight into his soul. “Why? Why are you afraid of me seeing who you are?”

He should have known that she would demand an explanation. Gwyn was strong and confident. She knew her worth and what she deserved, and him sharing the story behind all of his idiotic decisions was the very least of that. But he was not prepared, and he didn’t want to. He never wanted to darken others’ lives with his history.

“That’s… a long story, Gwyn,” he huffed, hoping that might be the end of it. But he saw her eyes, determination and challenge and fire blazing blue in the moonlight.

“We have all night.” She released his hands and gestured to the darkness around them. She would not be deterred, would not back down until she accomplished her goal. It was one of the many things he admired so much about her. “Should we sit?”

Azriel found himself smiling as he nodded, sitting cross-legged on the stone. Even though the impending admissions rang as a death knell in his mind, it warmed his heart to know that she cared so deeply – that she wanted to know the worst of him.

He had put her through enough, and he could relive his pain and push out his fear for this night, if only for her.

“I don’t know where to start.” He scratched the back of his neck, a nervous tick he was usually good at hiding. But then Gwyn – that sweet, incredible, special female – gathered his other hand with those long, pale, graceful fingers and he felt the tension ease. He looked at her, taking in the beauty and serenity of her features. Freckles were scattered over cheeks stained pink, an encouraging smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.

“The beginning seems like a good place, don’t you think?”

So that’s where he began.

~~~

Azriel was not proud that he could not find the strength to look at Gwyn as he walked her through his story, but he could still hear and feel her reactions. And he dared a glance at her from time to time, trying to read everything her eyes were saying. He told her about the cell he was kept in as a child, how little touch or affection or love he had experienced, and how the shadows around him seemed to move and react and speak. She clutched his hand tighter when he told her about what had happened to them, that his brothers had set fire to them to see how he would heal. She hadn’t said a word, but he smelled the salt from tears and felt impossibly soft strokes of her thumbs over those scars.

He explained his time in Illyria and the fearsome reputation he and Cassian had to maintain, simply to make up for the circumstances of their birth. And while Cassian had been brute force and power, Azriel was deadly calm, precision, intellect, terror. He admitted to her how he had hoped to find validation in his role as spymaster under Rhysand’s father, and that he could truly revel in his duties under the right circumstances.

“Those soldiers I killed in Sangravah,” he told her. “I would have enjoyed dragging out their deaths as long as possible for what they did to you.”

Gwyn’s hands were so gentle around his as he told her how much the death and darkness grated against his soul, and how he’d had nothing to tether him to the light. He talked to her about Mor, a waste of literal centuries. And then, somehow, he told her about Elain. Not that he’d loved her, because he never had. But that he’d felt entitled to her, like he deserved what his brothers had found with the other two sisters. That he was the third brother and she was the third sister and that was all that mattered. His entitlement, his lust and desire for the bond - as opposed to love for the person - just another ugly facet of his true self.

“So I suppose that brings me to you, to these past few weeks.” Azriel made sure to meet her gaze for this. “I panicked after the necklace, because I wasn’t prepared for what it would do to me to see that hurt in your eyes. And when I told you things would go back to normal I still didn’t know what to do. I thought distance would be best between us, because I knew you would be able to draw me out of myself. And that was dangerous.”

The shadowsinger’s throat burned with emotion when Gwyn smiled softly. He could see so much roaring in her gaze, but there was no sign of pity or disgust or fear. Azriel ran his free hand through his hair before resting it atop their other clasped hands. Wetness burned his eyes, but he didn’t care.

“When I found you in the rain that night, I could smell your tears and I saw your hands – split knuckles and bruised, swollen fingers. And,” he choked down his feelings even as the tears began their descent, “and I was torn apart with the guilt. It was my fault that you were doing that to yourself. I might has well have put those marks on you with my own two vile hands.” Azriel closed his eyes and let the tears fall – not many, but enough. The silence rang through his ears, his history hanging between them. He waited for the fear, the rejection, especially when she drew her hands away from his. But his eyes snapped open when delicate calloused fingers stroked his cheeks. Gwyn had risen to her knees to dry the wetness on them, her stare a storm of trust and understanding... and compassion.

“Thank you for telling me your story, Azriel,” she whispered. “I see you. You have nothing to fear. I’m still right here.” Then she smiled brightly, and he unraveled.

“Gwyn, I don’t know if you can ever forgive me – I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t. But I care for you as more than a teacher, more than a friend. You are a light in my dark life and these past few weeks have been miserable without you in them.” Her smile widened slightly and he reached out a thumb to catch a stray tear that had fallen from those precious, beautiful eyes. He felt his own grin pushing his cheeks against her warm hands.

“I care for you, too, Azriel. As more than a friend.”

He held that watery stare until she released his face. She stood up, brushing off her knees before reaching her hands to him again to help him to his feet. He tilted his head curiously at the determination flashing in her eyes.

“Here is what’s going to happen,” she began, looking down at her hands in his. “Before we pursue anything… romantically, I need to be sure that this isn’t something that will happen again.”

He opened his mouth to speak but she pressed her fingers against his lips. “We both have darkness and fear and I understand that. But if you feel it taking over, I need you to come to me, to talk to me. Because if I open my heart to you and this happens again – if you insist on shutting yourself off from me or deciding for me what I deserve or want – I will be heartbroken.” The confession left Azriel raw.

“What can I do, Gwyn? How can I reassure you?” He could hear the desperation in his own voice, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

“We are going to go back to how things were before this mess.” She had returned her hand to his and gave both a squeeze. A shadow darted down around them, as if to approve of the contact. “The way it was that led us to realize that we feel the way we do. And you are going to prove to me that we can have what we had before I found out about that stupid, lovely necklace. Do you think you can do that?” He could have fallen to his knees seeing the hope in those ocean eyes, mirroring the spark of hope inside of him. It was something he hadn’t dared to let himself fully feel with her.

“I will.” Azriel’s voice was low and rough. “I swear it.”

“And then we can decide what comes next. And I can prove to you that your hands and your darkness are just as important to me as the rest of you.”

He was grinning like a fool, he knew. He still had a chance, because Gwyneth Berdara was the definition of grace and love. And by the Mother he would not screw this up.

He felt more than saw her wrap her arms around his back, pulling herself into him. For a moment he was frozen by the intimacy of it – shocked by her initiation of it – but he quickly let his arms settle around her waist. He breathed in, pulling her tighter, and leaned his cheek on the crown of her head.

“Don’t let me down, Shadowsinger,” she muttered into his chest. He chuckled and dared to move one hand to comb through her hair. “I want to see… what comes next.” He wanted to see, too. He wanted to know what it was like to look to the future and see more than dread and loneliness and exhaustion. He could see it with her.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Berdara.”

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[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 9 - ao3 -

Lan Qiren was groggy with lack of sleep the next morning, but an evening’s contemplation of the Lan sect’s rules had put him back into the right mindset.

As a disciple of the Lan sect, he was entitled under the rules for his elders to remember do not disrespect your juniors just as he was required to respect and obey your elders. Pursuant to the rules, he should have the protection of his sect and their support, and if what he had was imperfect, it was at least something; for every Lan Ganhui that mocked him, there was a Lan Yueheng that encouraged him, and there were plenty of teachers that preferred him over all the others.

As for his brother – Lan Qiren should not hold his anger against him. He had been acting in the best interest of the sect, seeking to obtain benefits for what had been lost; he had thought throughout the trip that Lan Qiren had given up more than just his word of honor, but had refrained from punishing him accordingly. In the end, even his father had assigned him only to kneel, which was a milder punishment by far than he deserved for all his mistakes and insolence.

More than that, his brother was right: Wen Ruohan would be bound by his own word of honor and public reputation to treat Lan Qiren with dignity, and by endorsing the relationship rather than rejecting it, his sect was indicating that they would hold Wen Ruohan to his word. His father had appropriately expressed concern on Lan Qiren’s behalf, his brother had refuted those concerns with well-reasoned logic; it was inappropriate for Lan Qiren to take such an intellectual discussion to heart.

That he had – and that he had forgotten, even temporarily and in the privacy of his own head, the rule do not argue with family for it does not matter who wins – was merely evidence once again that Lan Qiren was inferior to his brother, who through keeping a cool head had enabled their sect to turn what could have been an embarrassment into a victory.

As for his father…Lan Qiren shouldn’t have been surprised, that’s all. Hadn’t years and years taught him that fathers only gave what they chose to give and no more? He had long ago learned that his father was kind and noble and equitable, concerned with all the Lan sect disciples (but for his dearly beloved eldest) in the same way and the same manner; being disappointed to receive that and nothing more was only his own foolishness.

(He only wondered, in passing, why it had been his father’s glacial voice that had scared him so, compared to the familiar warmth of his brother’s anger.)

So fortified and reassured, Lan Qiren returned to the regular flow of daily life at the Cloud Recesses.

It was not easy. As his brother had predicted, rumors about his sworn brotherhood with Wen Ruohan sprang up at once, and many of his fellow disciples were prone to staring at him when they thought he wouldn’t notice. The teachers handed out many punishments for breaking the prohibition about talking behind people’s backs, although with a certain leniency that made Lan Qiren suspect that they themselves toed the line of that particular rule behind closed doors.

The rumors themselves were split between those that theorized that Wen Ruohan had used nefarious means to entrap Lan Qiren and force him to agree to brotherhood – the Fire Palace was mentioned often, as were various theoretical misapplications of cultivation techniques of dark and unsavory natures – and those that skipped over the how of brotherhood and went straight to speculating as to the why, which typically also involved a variety of references to misapplied cultivation techniques, this time of the sort most often found exclusively in certain types of low-brow spring books.

Someone even suggested that Wen Ruohan intended on taking Lan Qiren to bed as a cauldron, which was the stupidest idea out of the whole lot.

“Of course that can’t be true,” Lan Qiren patiently explained to Lan Yueheng, who had come to collect his geometry book. As a gesture of thanks for his support, Lan Qiren had read the whole thing and sent an annotated list of questions and comments; Lan Yueheng had practically turned pink with excitement when he’d seen it and then secluded himself for two days to write a response. Lan Qiren still didn’t see the appeal of geometry, but he’d managed to coax Lan Yueheng into a discussion of the mathematics of music theory, an area in which their particular interests overlapped, and he had hope of a fruitful dialogue continuing into the future. “At least traditionally, cauldrons are individuals with high cultivation potential that has yet to be developed – raw natural talent, in other words, which can then be refined into strength for another. My inborn talent is only moderate, even low, and my progress is primarily due to good resources and hard work. So even if someone put in the work to make me a cauldron, they wouldn’t get much out of me.”

Lan Yueheng nodded, his brow wrinkled thoughtfully. “So your brother would’ve been a better cauldron than you.”

“…that is correct, but please don’t say it.” Lan Qiren quietly pitied Lan Yueheng’s etiquette teachers, and spared a thought to hope that his cousin’s children, should he have them, would take more after whoever he married than him. Even if only because Lan Qiren hoped to become a teacher himself one day, and he was sure that Lan Yueheng’s particularly brash and un-Lan-like bluntness would make for a terrible future student. “Perhaps it would be more helpful for you to think of it in the sense of energy transfers of heat? I’m already cold, so to speak, so he wouldn’t be able to draw out much heat from me.”

“Wait, if you’re cold and Sect Leader Wen is hot, would that make him the cauldron? Assuming you ever did dual cultivate.”

Lan Qiren pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s...not how that works, Yueheng-xiong. At all. I was merely attempting to use a metaphor to clarify the issue. Clearly I failed and only confused things further.”

Lan Yueheng shrugged. “At least you try,” he remarked. “And when you fail, you try again, doing something different. It’s better than the teachers who just do the same thing every time and blame you for being as bemused on the seventh repetition as you were on the first.”

Lan Qiren felt his ears go red at the compliment. “You’ve been here too long,” he reminded his cousin. “Your parents won’t be happy to see you spending too much time with me.”

“My parents don’t care. It’s my aunt and uncle who don’t like it. They say that people might start asking if I cultivate as a cauldron too –”

“Your parents listen to your aunt and uncle, so if they don’t like it, you shouldn’t disobey them. The rules say Be a filial child.”

“They also say Do not form cliques to exclude others, but that isn’t stopping the other disciples from playing favorites, is it?”

That was definitely one of the rules more honored in the breach, Lan Qiren thought with a sigh. But what could be done, when their elders did the same? The sect followed the example of its leader, and his father’s tendency towards favoritism were well known, albeit one that was widely indulged as a quirk rather than condemned as a serious flaw. 

“I will remind the teachers of that one,” he said. “Perhaps a refresher would be suitable, to remind people. But the rule are meant for your own discipline, not others, and – ”

“Just because other people aren’t following the rules doesn’t mean I shouldn’t, I know,” Lan Yueheng said with a sigh of his own. “I’ll go…oh! It’s getting late. Weren’t you supposed to go to the guest’s pavilion by the western watchtower already?”

Lan Qiren blinked. “I don’t have that patrol route in my schedule until the end of the week.”

“No, no! I was supposed to tell you! Lao Nie’s come to visit, and –”

There were rules against running in the Cloud Recesses, so Lan Qiren was slightly late despite his best efforts, but true to form Lao Nie didn’t admonish him: he only turned from where he was sitting in the pavilion and smiled, calling out, “Qiren! There you are!”

“Forgive –”

“Forgiven,” Lao Nie interrupted before Lan Qiren even got the first word out. Lan Qiren was relieved to see that there was neither food nor tea already prepared; he would have been mortified if it had grown cold while Lao Nie was waiting to see him. “And don’t bow, either. How have you been? Tell me people aren’t harassing you over the nonsense with Hanhan.”

Lan Qiren opened his mouth, then hesitated.

“Do not tell lies,” Lao Nie observed, grimacing. “Ah, Qiren! Sometimes your brother’s worse than useless. It’s a pity, really, I hadn’t realized – well. At any rate, I’ve been bothering him for weeks to tell me about you and he wouldn’t say a word.”

“He was angry at me for messing up the conference,” Lan Qiren explained.

Lao Nie’s eyebrows arched. “You mean the conference where the Lan sect got first place in both major events and then extracted serious concessions from the Wen sect in a completely unexpected and nearly inexplicable political coup that got the whole cultivation world talking in awe at your political acumen? That conference?”

“I lost face for him. He thought – well, he’d thought it was worse than it was,” Lan Qiren hesitated. “He’s not the only one.”

Lao Nie huffed. “People are, by and large, stupid,” he declared. “Don’t let them get to you. They’ll change their tune soon enough.”

Lan Qiren wasn’t so sure. “They say a reputation is like a porcelain vase,” he said, unable to conceal his worries in the face of someone actually expressing concern rather than curiosity. His dream was to be a traveling cultivator, and that would be much easier with a good name, which he had always had before – good, or at least boring, which was just fine with him. He preferred to be boring! It had never occurred to him that he might do something that would render him the subject of gossip; it had never happened before. “Once cracked…”

“Right now, there’s only some bored people speculating that there might be a crack,” Lao Nie said. His confidence was contagious; Lan Qiren couldn’t help but relax a little in the face of it. “No one’s actually sure about it, and they’re willing to hear otherwise – things aren’t yet so bad. Don’t worry. I’ve spoken with Hanhan about it already.”

Lan Qiren felt his ears burning in shame. “Lao Nie! You didn’t!”

Especially since that would undoubtedly only make Wen Ruohan even more angry…

Lao Nie laughed and put his hand on his head, rubbing it lightly. “I did. Not in your name, but rather his own – do you think the Wen sect wants to get a reputation for being led by a man with an unhealthy interest in noble-born children? It’s in his interest to get this cleared up as much as you.”

Lan Qiren felt the tension rush out of his shoulders all at once. That hadn’t occurred to him, but now that Lao Nie had pointed it out, it was clear enough.

After all, for all the talk going around about Lan Qiren, it was widely agreed that he was clearly the victim in whatever scenario they’d thought up, whether through having his oath extracted under torture or by force; even among those who theorized that Wen Ruohan intended to use him as a cauldron, the reputation Lan Qiren might get would be, at worst, that of a seductive flirt who couldn’t be resisted. Lan Qiren’s brother had scoffed audibly the first time he’d heard that, saying that such a rumor would naturally be dispelled the moment anyone came in contact with Lan Qiren for more than a moment, and in all honesty Lan Qiren agreed with his assessment. He had the classic Lan sect looks, yes, but so did many others, and he had a demeanor as stern as a schoolmaster, giving off the feel of an old man even though he wasn’t even of age.

Meanwhile, for Wen Ruohan, the consequences were undoubtedly more dire – if he was said to have a taste for boys, especially noble-born ones, the other sects might be afraid to send their sons around him. It was a different reputation by far than his taste for torture, or his supposed use of dark and forbidden cultivation; those would make people fear him, while lusting for children would only make people disdain him.

Still, Lan Qiren wasn’t sure how exactly even someone of Wen Ruohan’s cunning would go about fixing such a mistake – and that was putting aside why he would make such a mistake over Lan Qiren in the first place. He hadn’t had a chance to explain to his brother his theory that Wen Ruohan had acted just to irritate Lao Nie, and in the end he’d decided it wasn’t worth drawing his brother’s attention back to the subject.

Besides, if Lan Qiren could figure it out, with his notorious inability to understand interpersonal affairs, then surely his brother was more than able to do the same. It wasn’t as if Lao Nie were being shy about it…

“Hanhan said he had something in mind,” Lao Nie was saying, shaking his head. “He usually does, I find, and each idea’s more awful than the next.”

Lan Qiren shifted a little from one foot to the other. “If you know he’s awful, why do you…” he hesitated. “I mean, you call him – an endearment.”

“Oh, he’s a little awful, no doubt,” Lao Nie said, sounding rather fond. “But as long as it’s not my sect, what do I care? Anyway, Qiren, you shouldn’t worry. If there’s one thing you can trust with Hanhan, it’s that he takes care of anything associated with himself.”

Lan Qiren didn’t really like the fact that he was now counted among that number.

It didn’t seem all that safe.

“Though of course that doesn’t protect him from you,” Lao Nie added, suddenly smirking, and Lan Qiren blinked owlishly at him. “Apparently, you’re a very talkative drunk.”

Lan Qiren’s face burned red.

“And effusive, too! According to Hanhan, even after you forced him down in his seat to keep listening to you, you kept waving your hands around while you were talking and knocking things over; he had to pin you down to keep you from destroying things by accident.”

That would explain the marks on his arms.

“Apparently, you didn’t appreciate him doing that and kneed him right in the –”

“You really think he can make the rumors go away?” Lan Qiren hastily interrupted, rubbing the back of his neck a little as if it would make the heat of hideous embarrassment go away. That tallied up a little too well with the physical evidence to be anything other than accurate. “There’s – a lot of them. And I’d like to have a clean reputation.”

“You will,” Lao Nie said, thankfully distracted from his mortifyingly plausible story. “Anyone who meets you will know at once that you’re a righteous and upstanding person.”

Lan Qiren liked that better than the way his brother had put it.

“It’s just that you haven’t had a chance to make your name in the cultivation world,” Lao Nie said. He sounded sure of himself. “You’ll do wonderful things one day, Qiren. I’ve no doubt.”

“I don’t want to do wonderful things,” Lan Qiren said, scowling. “I just want to travel around and help people.”

“Yes, I know,” Lao Nie said, and he sounded fond again, just the way he did when he was talking about Wen Ruohan, or even Lan Qiren’s brother. Truly, Lan Qiren thought to himself, the Nie sect had no idea how lucky they were to have him as sect leader. “Really, Qiren, it’s like I said: don’t worry about it. Now come, tell me what you’ve been studying recently.”

Lan Qiren had promised himself that he would reduce the amount of time he spent with Lao Nie on his occasional visits to the Lan sect, not wanting to risk inciting Wen Ruohan’s unreasonable anger and jealousy any further.

He would need to assign himself an appropriate punishment for breaking that promise, he thought, and sat down to start telling Lao Nie all about the work he was doing with one of his teachers on comparing the origin points of the various Lan sect rules, as well as his experiments on arrays to enhance open-air acoustics that would, he hoped, eventually be inscribed on all Lan sect instruments to increase the range and impact of their spell songs.

He even mentioned the possibility of a joint project on the mathematics of musical theory, and for whatever reason he thought Lao Nie looked especially pleased about that.

He didn’t think about Wen Ruohan at all.

[aicidos]

to me it's painfully blatant noctis has dealt with depression most of his life. i realized that, as much as i reference it in passing comments, i'm not actually sure if most ppl look at it under this lense. so, to keep everyone in the same wavelength (regardless if you agree or not w my interpretation), i'm gonna ramble abt that under the cut👍

   - he's around 5-6 years old when the first signs start manifesting, due to the alienating feeling that comes with his father's absence. the accident he suffers at 8 years old is a deeply disturbing event (his earliest and nearest encounter with gore, violence & death) that, post-coma, makes noctis significantly more somber and distant for a child his age, even to his own father. during that recovery, he witnesses the empire's invasion of tenebrae and experiences incredible distress from watching luna fall behind. all these images sit with him heavily, and the insomnia he develops messes up his sleeping pattern from here on out.    - he starts showing a tendency for isolating himself during middle school. he feels as though kids only approach him for his status, and so he makes excuses to avoid interaction (that one scene in brotherhood where he straight up walks out from a conversation under the guise of going to the toilet). later on, the isolation habit would take on more complex reasonings.    - he moves out at 15 years old, and, although the privacy provides some relief, it still feels lonely. frankly, it’s escapism and further isolation. noctis reaches a severe depressive rut during highschool. he struggles finding the energy to function properly, and it's not only evident in his demeanor, but his apartment too; it's filthy and dark, bagged trash and clothes everywhere. he hardly ever cooks anything substantial, and when he does, it usually goes wrong, which just discourages him further. he’s constantly fatigued, which oftentimes gets reduced to simply being “sleepy”. to noctis, every day is a struggle of “what can i bring myself to accomplish?”, and his efforts usually go to academic work (i mean, he graduated on top of his class), making him too mentally tired to muster more energy for royal training/duties.     it also doesn't help his royal duties start increasing at the same time his father's health keeps deteriorating. seeing all the sacrifices he has made for his people and knowing he will be the one to take up the throne after his death makes him feel so... unprepared and useless, because noctis is aware he can barely function, let alone take care of himself at this point. even with that level of self-awareness and constantly wondering “what’s wrong with me”, noctis doesn’t realize (nor has the tools to know) he’s depressed. ashamed of over-relying on others, noctis refuses to reach out, even within his closest group (ignis, prompto, gladio).    - as we know, mental illnesses don't always manifest in 'tasteful' ways. depression makes him avoidant until he's forcibly backed into a corner, where he's prone to outbursts in which he finally speaks his mind. it also makes him have a tunnel vision of sorts, where he's so fixated on thinking it’s all his fault + his own suffering, he overlooks the periphery. which, for someone as kind, sensitive and empathic as him (something the game emphasizes a lot), it all later comes to make him feel extremely guilty and selfish: chapter 10 is a good example of this.    - his worst™ depressive episode comes post-altissia, his self-confidence at its lowest. destruction everywhere, luna is dead, ignis got injured in a life-altering way, and noctis feels like he can’t protect a damn thing. it’s a lot to unpack so i won’t get into it on this post, but just know he’s literally miserable, grieving, dealing with survivor’s guilt and giving it his all despite how the chemical imbalance in his brain feels like it’s trying to kill him, along ardyn and the stupid little prophecy.

all in all, his behavior is very often misunderstood as lazy and whiny, which is, uh, understandable at best and reductive at worst (mostly reductive), but. it's also heartbreaking to me, because noctis is trying his best to the energy and resolve he can physically muster. and it's still not enough.

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I love your Marcien art. It's so cute. Got any more head cannons for the ship.

THANK YOU!!! and yes i ABSOLUTELY do!! these are mostly about how i imagine the beginnings of their relationship...

As you can no doubt tell, I ship them in an "everyone lives" AU because I'm a sap. The Dark Brotherhood plotline concludes not too long before the Oblivion Crisis ends, and my HoK, Suzy, introduces Lucien and Martin to each other pretty much immediately postgame. Suzy knew they were both really shaken up from their near-death experiences and could probably use a friend, but she wasn't expecting them to hook up!

It's absolutely top secret for a long stretch. Martin keeps finding ways to smuggle Lucien into the Palace (thanks to his Chameleon spell), and comes up with a lot of elaborate excuses to leave the Palace every so often and spend a night with Lucien some place elsewhere. Martin is very, very stressed-out from the sudden responsibilities of becoming Emperor and the adrenaline from sneaking around is a very addictive way to cope with that.

After being in the Akatosh Chantry for so long only to be upgraded to Emperor, Martin has had very few opportunities these past ten-fifteen years to really let loose and be himself. He likes keeping Lucien around because absolutely nothing Martin does could ever shock or offend him.

Admittedly this gets a little out of hand while they're still in the "sneaking around" phase of the relationship, and Lucien unwittingly becomes an enabler for Martin's drinking habit. Martin is an undisputed heavyweight drinker and I think Lucien just kind of assumes that a Dragonborn is magically immune to alcoholism side-effects. Spoiler alert, that isn't true.

Suzy doesn't become Sheogorath (a different OC does), but she does spend a vast majority of her time postgame wandering around Cyrodiil, helping people rebuild and heal after the Crisis. As a result, she actually doesn't see Martin all that often-- maybe one visit for a few days every couple months or so. It takes almost half a year for her to catch onto hey, wait, something's up with Martin. She talks to Lucien about it, he comes clean about their relationship, and they stage an intervention with Martin so he can find some healthier coping mechanisms.

Martin is able to find a workaround for Lucien to get public approval by making him a Blade-- that way, Lucien gets to walk around fully armed without being tackled by guards. Lucien is honestly very excited about it; even though Suzy is the Listener nowadays, he's still been plagued by paranoia regarding a future betrayer fiasco and his ability to escape the noose a second time, so he appreciates the excuse to leave the Brotherhood in Suzy's hands and switch careers.

i'm always happy to gush about these idiots. my previous marcien headcanon post is HERE for anyone who missed it!