#this mostly seems to be about prime numbers

[reasonsforhope]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is, by some measures, the most popular leader in the world. Prior to the 2024 election, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held an outright majority in the Lok Sabha (India’s Parliament) — one that was widely projected to grow after the vote count. The party regularly boasted that it would win 400 Lok Sabha seats, easily enough to amend India’s constitution along the party's preferred Hindu nationalist lines.

But when the results were announced on Tuesday, the BJP held just 240 seats. They not only underperformed expectations, they actually lost their parliamentary majority. While Modi will remain prime minister, he will do so at the helm of a coalition government — meaning that he will depend on other parties to stay in office, making it harder to continue his ongoing assault on Indian democracy.

So what happened? Why did Indian voters deal a devastating blow to a prime minister who, by all measures, they mostly seem to like?

India is a massive country — the most populous in the world — and one of the most diverse, making its internal politics exceedingly complicated. A definitive assessment of the election would require granular data on voter breakdown across caste, class, linguistic, religious, age, and gender divides. At present, those numbers don’t exist in sufficient detail. 

But after looking at the information that is available and speaking with several leading experts on Indian politics, there are at least three conclusions that I’m comfortable drawing.

First, voters punished Modi for putting his Hindu nationalist agenda ahead of fixing India’s unequal economy. Second, Indian voters had some real concerns about the decline of liberal democracy under BJP rule. Third, the opposition parties waged a smart campaign that took advantage of Modi’s vulnerabilities on the economy and democracy.

Understanding these factors isn’t just important for Indians. The country’s election has some universal lessons for how to beat a would-be authoritarian — ones that Americans especially might want to heed heading into its election in November.

-via Vox, June 7, 2024. Article continues below.

A new (and unequal) economy

Modi’s biggest and most surprising losses came in India’s two most populous states: Uttar Pradesh in the north and Maharashtra in the west. Both states had previously been BJP strongholds — places where the party’s core tactic of pitting the Hindu majority against the Muslim minority had seemingly cemented Hindu support for Modi and his allies.

One prominent Indian analyst, Yogendra Yadav, saw the cracks in advance. Swimming against the tide of Indian media, he correctly predicted that the BJP would fall short of a governing majority.

Traveling through the country, but especially rural Uttar Pradesh, he prophesied “the return of normal politics”: that Indian voters were no longer held spellbound by Modi’s charismatic nationalist appeals and were instead starting to worry about the way politics was affecting their lives.

Yadav’s conclusions derived in no small part from hearing voters’ concerns about the economy. The issue wasn’t GDP growth — India’s is the fastest-growing economy in the world — but rather the distribution of growth’s fruits. While some of Modi’s top allies struck it rich, many ordinary Indians suffered. Nearly half of all Indians between 20 and 24 are unemployed; Indian farmers have repeatedly protested Modi policies that they felt hurt their livelihoods.

“Everyone was talking about price rise, unemployment, the state of public services, the plight of farmers, [and] the struggles of labor,” Yadav wrote...

“We know for sure that Modi’s strongman image and brassy self-confidence were not as popular with voters as the BJP assumed,” says Sadanand Dhume, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies India. 

The lesson here isn’t that the pocketbook concerns trump identity-based appeals everywhere; recent evidence in wealthier democracies suggests the opposite is true. Rather, it’s that even entrenched reputations of populist leaders are not unshakeable. When they make errors, even some time ago, it’s possible to get voters to remember these mistakes and prioritize them over whatever culture war the populist is peddling at the moment.

Liberalism strikes back

The Indian constitution is a liberal document: It guarantees equality of all citizens and enshrines measures designed to enshrine said equality into law. The signature goal of Modi’s time in power has been to rip this liberal edifice down and replace it with a Hindu nationalist model that pushes non-Hindus to the social margins. In pursuit of this agenda, the BJP has concentrated power in Modi’s hands and undermined key pillars of Indian democracy (like a free press and independent judiciary).

Prior to the election, there was a sense that Indian voters either didn’t much care about the assault on liberal democracy or mostly agreed with it. But the BJP’s surprising underperformance suggests otherwise.

The Hindu, a leading Indian newspaper, published an essential post-election data analysis breaking down what we know about the results. One of the more striking findings is that the opposition parties surged in parliamentary seats reserved for members of “scheduled castes” — the legal term for Dalits, the lowest caste grouping in the Hindu hierarchy.

Caste has long been an essential cleavage in Indian politics, with Dalits typically favoring the left-wing Congress party over the BJP (long seen as an upper-caste party). Under Modi, the BJP had seemingly tamped down on the salience of class by elevating all Hindus — including Dalits — over Muslims. Yet now it’s looking like Dalits were flocking back to Congress and its allies. Why?

According to experts, Dalit voters feared the consequences of a BJP landslide. If Modi’s party achieved its 400-seat target, they’d have more than enough votes to amend India’s constitution. Since the constitution contains several protections designed to promote Dalit equality — including a first-in-the-world affirmative action system — that seemed like a serious threat to the community. It seems, at least based on preliminary data, that they voted accordingly.

The Dalit vote is but one example of the ways in which Modi’s brazen willingness to assail Indian institutions likely alienated voters.

Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest and most electorally important state, was the site of a major BJP anti-Muslim campaign. It unofficially kicked off its campaign in the UP city of Ayodhya earlier this year, during a ceremony celebrating one of Modi’s crowning achievements: the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a former mosque that had been torn down by Hindu nationalists in 1992. 

Yet not only did the BJP lose UP, it specifically lost the constituency — the city of Faizabad — in which the Ayodhya temple is located. It’s as direct an electoral rebuke to BJP ideology as one can imagine.

In Maharashtra, the second largest state, the BJP made a tactical alliance with a local politician, Ajit Pawar, facing serious corruption charges. Voters seemingly punished Modi’s party for turning a blind eye to Pawar’s offenses against the public trust. Across the country, Muslim voters turned out for the opposition to defend their rights against Modi’s attacks.

The global lesson here is clear: Even popular authoritarians can overreach.

By turning ��400 seats” into a campaign slogan, an all-but-open signal that he intended to remake the Indian state in his illiberal image, Modi practically rang an alarm bell for constituencies worried about the consequences. So they turned out to stop him en masse.

The BJP’s electoral underperformance is, in no small part, the direct result of their leader’s zealotry going too far.

Return of the Gandhis? 

Of course, Modi’s mistakes might not have mattered had his rivals failed to capitalize. The Indian opposition, however, was far more effective than most observers anticipated.

Perhaps most importantly, the many opposition parties coordinated with each other. Forming a united bloc called INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), they worked to make sure they weren’t stealing votes from each other in critical constituencies, positioning INDIA coalition candidates to win straight fights against BJP rivals.

The leading party in the opposition bloc — Congress — was also more put together than people thought. Its most prominent leader, Rahul Gandhi, was widely dismissed as a dilettante nepo baby: a pale imitation of his father Rajiv and grandmother Indira, both former Congress prime ministers. Now his critics are rethinking things.

“I owe Rahul Gandhi an apology because I seriously underestimated him,” says Manjari Miller, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Miller singled out Gandhi’s yatras (marches) across India as a particularly canny tactic. These physically grueling voyages across the length and breadth of India showed that he wasn’t just a privileged son of Indian political royalty, but a politician willing to take risks and meet ordinary Indians where they were. During the yatras, he would meet directly with voters from marginalized groups and rail against Modi’s politics of hate.

“The persona he’s developed — as somebody kind, caring, inclusive, [and] resolute in the face of bullying — has really worked and captured the imagination of younger India,” says Suryanarayan. “If you’ve spent any time on Instagram Reels, [you’ll see] an entire generation now waking up to Rahul Gandhi’s very appealing videos.”

This, too, has a lesson for the rest of the world: Tactical innovation from the opposition matters even in an unfair electoral context.

There is no doubt that, in the past 10 years, the BJP stacked the political deck against its opponents. They consolidated control over large chunks of the national media, changed campaign finance law to favor themselves, suborned the famously independent Indian Electoral Commission, and even intimidated the Supreme Court into letting them get away with it. 

The opposition, though, managed to find ways to compete even under unfair circumstances. Strategic coordination between them helped consolidate resources and ameliorate the BJP cash advantage. Direct voter outreach like the yatra helped circumvent BJP dominance in the national media.

To be clear, the opposition still did not win a majority. Modi will have a third term in office, likely thanks in large part to the ways he rigged the system in his favor.

Yet there is no doubt that the opposition deserves to celebrate. Modi’s power has been constrained and the myth of his invincibility wounded, perhaps mortally. Indian voters, like those in Brazil and Poland before them, have dealt a major blow to their homegrown authoritarian faction.

And that is something worth celebrating.

-via Vox, June 7, 2024.

[zeropro]

can i kindly ask for a summary of how time is measured in your au? mostly the cycle/year stuff, im not sure if it's lifted from elsewhere or your own creation — either way i think it's really cool :) world building is awesome

very sorry if you've already gone over this elsewhere

Oh sure! I spent way too long figuring this out so i might as well explain it.

The cybertronian calendar goes in one direction forever unless a new Prime decides to reset it. Nova Prime reset the calendar when he declared the new Golden Age of Expansion, which is why Megatron’s canon Birthday is so small (1st cycle 012) as he was among the first Cold Constructed mechs onlined, and that started with Nova.

The only unit of measurement that we seem to have solidified is Vorns, which is 83 earth years (earth years=stellar cycle). The calendar’s cycles are measured by vorn, the first number counts vorn, and every 24 vorn the second number ticks up. after 24th cycle 12 it would become 1st cycle 013 and then 2nd cycle 013.

There…actually is no unit of time for the second measurement as far as I can tell, so I have no idea what to call it, but essentially you would say Megatron’s birthday as first cycle O’twelve, and people would know he was born 23904-ish years after Nova Prime’s calendar went in effect.

24 vorns is roughly 2000 years and every 500 dates on the calendar is roughly one million years.

I developed this calendar system based on the actual dates we do have in IDW1, I decided 24 vorns are when the calendar turns over because the war starts about a million years after Megatron’s birth and the canon dates for most of those events are in the 500s. I did have to ignore the single canon date set in the 51st cycle for this, but all the other dates are within the 1 to 14 range. And this is taking into consideration that the calendar probably reset some time under Zeta Prime (which is why the Battle of Sherma Bridge where Megatron and the newly anointed Optimus Prime allegedly duked it out for the first time happens in 2nd Cycle 087 even tho Megatron was beat up by Whirl in jail before the war in 4th Cycle 496). Some of the inconsistencies I also chalk up to some bots still using the old calendar. the only date I really cant figure out is 6th Cycle 356 being confirmed to be “half a million years ago” like?? Eh?? Ultra Magnus’ last fatality was pre earth pretty sure and that happened in the 3800’s (of nova’s calendar pretty sure). Maybe they missed a zero at the end of the date or something idk XD 3560 would make so much more sense for half a million years ago.

Also, 83 years is a long time and it does seem like they have smaller units of dating called chords and arcs but I just assume thats like days and months to us and I cant be bothered to figure it out. not enough info about it anyway. I’m sure one of those tracks stellar cycles and the other tracks cybertronian days.

i think the only other unit of time I've used is deca-cycles, just cuz I like how it sounds. a deca-cycle is about a month, or three weeks.

Megatron and Skywarp were constructed earlier on (012 and 023 respectivly), Thundercracker was constructed closer to when the matrix “ran dry” probably in the 100s, and Starscream was commissioned by Cryak at the end of the millenia, in the late 400s, after they’d stopped constructing seekers entirely. He must not have been more than a few vorns old when he met Thundercracker.

Starscream and Skyfire’s expedition would have taken them 40 on the calendar to get to earth, based on Skyfire’s shuttle speed. Starscream probably would have been able to make it back to cybertron a little bit faster.

I referenced this and this page of the wiki while working on this. Most of my worldbuilding is extrapolation from canon.

yes i did all this for one joke.

A few more timeline stuff: Megatron is about .7 million years older than Starscream, and Starscream is about half a million years older than the start of the war. The war lasted 3 million years before they crash landed on earth after which they went into stasis for one million years. Some time after they landed on earth, Shockwave successfully clones Sunstorm.

and in case you were wondering, sunny's serial code is referencing his Collector's Edition toy's ID number (089). SC stands for Seeker Class. they run out of glyphs slots after 999 so they sort them into batches. Sunny is the 089th frame built in batch 16. whether that means his frame was already built and left empty in storage somewhere and then repurposed by Shockwave, or Shockwave built him from scratch based on the blueprints and just continued the serial code sequence, I haven't decided. but either way, it means there was a finite number of seekers brought into the world and they dont even make up a whole united states city's worth of people. Lots of them are dead by now anyway. The whole cybertronian race is so small now they are all on first name bases with each other XD. But i digress, none of that has to do with time or calendar stuff, just thought it was fun.

thanks for asking!!

[mrsshabana]

𝐄𝐦𝐨 𝐆𝐲𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐨 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

꒦꒷‧₊ Content Gyutaro x genderneutral!reader, fluff ꒦꒷‧₊ Note A gift for @matsukaah based on a beautiful artwork she did ♡

"Is that Gyutaro Shabana?" You said in disbelief as you saw the familiar boy walking around the mall in heavy emo fashion.

Black nails, eyeliner, ripped skinny jeans, studded belts, and combat boots. He looked like he walked straight out of an early 2000s HotTopic ad.

This isn't how you're used to seeing him. No, at school he's usually dawning the same uniform as everyone else and keeps to himself.

He always seemed so shy and quiet that you never would have imagined this was how he dressed outside of class. Though it makes sense—the prestigious Catholic school would never allow such a thing.

Gyutaro only goes full out like this on long breaks, like summer and winter. Mostly because he'd get annoyed painting his nails every weekend just to have to rub it off before school started on Monday.

God, did he hate that school. He's only going because his stupid stepdad is forcing him to. But if it were up to Gyutaro he wouldn't be in school at all. He much rather start a band with his friends.

Not to mention the constant bullying he goes through. You wouldn't know it because you never hung around him that much, but he gets picked on almost daily. His unconventional appearance and his shy personality make him a prime target for bullies.

Sure, you were nice to him when you'd cross paths but it was never enough to make a significant difference or improve his shitty school experience.

So you could say he's shocked when he sees you approaching him at the mall, waving your hands like you two are friends.

"Uh... hey Y/N," he mumbles when you get close.

"Hey Gyutaro! I like your outfit!" You say with a cheery expression that would annoy him if it was on anyone else's face but yours.

His eyes widen like he can't believe you just complimented him, "Th-thanks... I like your shirt. D-Did you get it at HotTopic?" He asks shyly, not used to having casual conversation with someone as cute as you.

You look down as he points to the anime shirt you're wearing, "Oh, yeah I did. How'd you know?"

"I go there all the time, I've seen it before," he smiles softly and moves a strand of hair out of his face, revealing his red cheeks, "Um... they're actually having their semi-annual sale right now. Maybe... I dunno... we could go check it out together?"

"I'd love to," you blush, surprised that he wants to hang out with you, "Lead the way."

After that day you exchanged numbers and he'd always ask you to go shopping with him. You were the only person besides his sister who knew he was emo, so naturally he loved inviting you out with him so he wouldn't be so lonely.

Despite his intimidating appearance, Gyutaro was a sweet guy. Extremely shy, but super sweet.

He'd be too shy to ask you out on proper dates, only asking you to go shopping with him because he didn't want you to think he was weird or to know that he was crushing on you. But to his dismay, Ume told you exactly how her brother felt about you.

Because the first time you came over to their house she said, "Brother won't shut up about you! It's Y/N this and Y/N that! I think he's obsessed with you. Can you guys just kiss or whatever so he'll stop talking about you all the time? It's like getting annoying."

Gyutaro's face turned red with embarrassment and he ran to his room. He can't believe his sister outed him like that in front of his crush! It's taking all of his willpower to hold back his tears. The only thing stopping them from flowing is knowing that it'll ruin his eyeliner if he cries.

"Hey Gyu... can I come in?" you say as you softly knock on his door. You don't get a response so you enter the room anyways to find him sitting on his bed with his hands covering his face.

He can't bear to look at you as he feels you sit beside him, the embarrassment he feels is overwhelming.

Gently wrapping your hands around his wrists, you move his hands away from his face and stare into his watery blue eyes. The amount of shame and fear in his gaze makes your heart ache.

So in a swift movement, you lean forward and kiss his chapped lips. His eyes widen but he doesn't pull away, instead leaning into your embrace as your acceptance feels too good to ignore.

Once you pull away you smile and move his long hair away from his face, "If I knew you liked me as much as I liked you I would have done that a long time ago."

And that's how your relationship with the shy emo boy began.

[ashe-smash]

Shameful/Shameless

All Might x Reader (sorta, it’s mostly solo)

Cw: Post Retirement All Might, male masturbation- fleshlight usage, fantasy, age gap (reader is 30-35, Toshinori is canonically 50+) Inappropriate feelings about a coworker? All Might is Bisexual, with a preference towards men- FemReader tho. Feelings of shame surrounding sex.

(Suggestive img under the cut!) 🫣 I’m embarrassed.

There’s a lot of things Toshinori had to put behind to be All Might. Even more to be the number 1 pro hero. 

Namely romantic, sexual and even platonic relationships. Familial would have too, if he had any left of that to lose. Now that he’s retired, it seems those things have seemingly started to come back around.

Some of it feels shameful, in a way he hasn’t felt in years. During his prime, he almost never indulged in bodily pleasures. Even if he had plenty of opportunities literally throwing himself at his feet. 

Sure, it’s not like he never dabbled in dating or sex- there was Dave for a while during his early years. Whatever he had going on with Sasaki. One time with an escort after he got hit with some awful aphrodisiac quirk. Self pleasuring was more of an obligation than anything, a quick wank in the shower. More than once, a surprise expulsion when he got a few hours of peaceful sleep. 

Suddenly the atrophied muscle between his legs have seemingly started to come to life again. It’s like he’s a teenager again. 

His mind and body just has time to think of that kind of stuff. It has nothing to do with the fact he has a new pretty coworker. 

The subtle itch of feelings towards you had been a surprise. Toshinori had assumed he was gay and while he definitely is attracted to men, it’s been a long time since he’d felt anything towards someone of the feminine persuasion. 

Maybe he just hasn’t felt anything towards the women he typically worked with, prohero women. Maybe it was just easier to not deal with that- not that there aren’t many beautiful examples out there. The pro hero world can be messy. (That’s not saying that pro hero men can’t also be messy, but women usually proved especially complicated.) 

You’re not a part of that, for the most part. You’re just his coworker, a teacher. Quirkless even. You’re bright and kind, maybe even a little shy, dressing in pastels and fun colors. A soft body that's meant to be come home to curled up on the couch. He felt something sinful the other day when he saw you on your knees, filing away papers at his desk. 

All Might felt like he was keeping a good lock on these feelings, especially around others. But somehow, it seems your students have figured it out. It doesn’t help that they seemingly tricked both of you into a blind date. Bringing temptation right to his plate. 

He is a gentleman of course, especially when it seems you weren’t exactly consenting to a date with him in the first place. But you’re oh so perfect, indulging an old man on the first date he’s had in years.  (Ever?) 

He tries not to think of the way the dress you’d been wearing bunched up around your thighs when he pushed the chair in for you. About how said dress was seemingly to match the color of his hair- did the girls manufacture that? Maybe you picked it of your own volition. 

He tries not to think about how the material clung to your chest when the two of you got caught in the rain. About how you pressed your thumb to his lips and placed a kiss atop of it. How you giggled after it.  Nor the actual kiss pressed to his cheek when he left you in the female staff hallway, bidding him good night. 

You were probably just playing along, mentioning how this was a complete violation by your shared students. But you did follow that with how you don’t mind sharing an evening with a kind man. That its not like you have been on any “dates” yourself in a while. 

It’s sinful, the way it all makes him feel. You’re far younger than him, closer to Aizawa and Mic’s age than his.

And yet, even after getting caught in the rain and a cold shower- Toshinori can’t make it go away. He was half hard before it, and as he towels off and reflects on it all- on you, his erection has grown to full mast. It’s like a hole in his heart has started to be sutured up. If only that would work for the injury on his side. 

Toshinori has to come to accept the fact these things aren’t going away. That he’s retired, that he’s allowed to just be a human again, not a pro hero- not the number one pro hero. And that he has a shameful crush on his coworker. 

And an even more shameful erection right now. 

There were times in his life he would just ignore it until it went away. But he doesn’t have to now. Maybe it’ll eliminate this little problem of his. (The inappropriate feelings he has for you, not just the boner.)  

So he gives in and digs out the fleshlight tucked away in one of his drawers. 

It was an embarrassing gift at the time. All Might used to get sent all sorts of random merch. As if he’d ever had been caught dead carrying around a fleshlight emblazoned with his bright branded colors so the company could benefit from some free advertising. 

At the time he chucked it into a box to be forgotten about, but he can’t deny it’s helpful now. So many years of harsh treatment have left his body worse for wear. The toy is easier on his hands these days. 

He shivers as he presses into the silicone. It and the lube aren’t warmed- not like you would be. Nonetheless, it makes him groan shamelessly. It’s like shoving his cock into this godforsaken apparatus lets him let go of any of those awful feelings of doubt. He can’t help but let his mind wander. 

Toshinori knows you wouldn’t be able to take him all the way to hilt like this. Would you let him treat you like this? Let him grip around those full hips and move you up and down on his cock? Like a toy, for little more than his own pleasure. 

Sure he’s not as strong as he used to be, but One for All was not his whole strength. He’d persevere to get the honor of fucking you the way you deserve. Fucking you throughly.

Would you want him to be gentle? Would you want him to be on top? You on top? 

Would you want it rough? He doesn’t think so, but he shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Do you assume he’s more dominant than he is? Maybe you don’t think that of him now. 

He lies back onto his bed, only stopping his ministrations to scoot to lay back on the pillow. Toshinori groans when the head of his cock bumps against the top of the fleshlight. He can imagine you groaning, wiggling away from an assault on your cervix. 

Maybe riding him isn’t such a good idea- 

You’d need thorough prep with his fingers and mouth. You’d need to be able to take at least three of his fingers to take his cock. Once wouldn’t be enough- would you let him make you come over and over just like that? Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise Toshinori if he came from just that. Or would you beg him to just push into your warmth instead. 

It wouldn’t take much begging, to be honest. 

His cock twitches hard when he pulls the fleshlight away from it. He needs more lube. You’d be so wet for him wouldn’t you? He rolls over, taking care of his bad side. Then he presses back into the fleshlight. 

“Good girl.” He whispers, hips flexing to meet the downward stroke of his hand. Pushes his face into his pillow and tries to imagine what you smell like if he was burying it against the cradle of your neck and shoulder instead. 

He's getting close. He can't tell if he’s been at this for minutes, or hours. The plastic of the fleshlight creaks when he squeezes it. 

The motions are almost out of his control, moving the toy up and down, pushing his hips up to meet it. Toshinori enjoys sex and other pleasures, sure. It was rare when he had it but, yes it was pleasurable when he did. But at this moment, it feels insatiable, like he can’t control himself. 

Maybe it’s because he simply has time to truly enjoy it, with his workload and responsibilities severely lessened. He can be just a man, and he can enjoy sex and maybe even intimacy. 

Even if imaging fucking your coworker is a little shameful. 

He uses his other hand to squeeze the base of cock, just to stave off the orgasm for a little longer. He’d probably only last a few shameful minutes inside you in all honesty. Hopefully he’d be satisfying enough with his mouth and fingers to make up for it. 

Would you let him come inside you? No- it’s for the best to be safe. It’s likely he’s entirely infertile at this point, maybe just once- Toshinori shudders. 

The baser of his instincts wants to be able to. Maybe you’d beg for that too. Oh fuck- He has to bite his pillow to stop himself from moaning embarrassingly loud when he releases himself into the silicone.   

Panting, he rolls back over to lie on his back again. He pauses to realize how easily he would have given into that. All Might’s handlers always stressed him about how someone was going to try to baby trap, whether he was sleeping with anyone or not. 

He hardly has that worry now anyways. There’s little chance anything with you will be little more than a fantasy. (There’s little chance he could even accidentally get someone pregnant these days.) 

Fluids overflow out of the toy, clearly Toshinori was in need of some release. Come drips onto his stomach. The blonde sighs, careful to not make a further mess. He picks up his discarded towel, lucky that he left it close enough to the bed. 

He might need another shower. Maybe he can wash the shame away this time. 

All Might has to look you in the face tomorrow, work alongside you, and teach with  you. He’ll have to tuck away that shame again, but he’s used to that. 

[soleminisanction]

Hi! I just read your thoughts on Robin and Damian and how his addition to the canon may have changed the reader's perspective on what Robin actually means.

You keep mentioning like, "Robin" adventures/stories and how Damian doesn't really have any? Aside from maybe Juni Ba's comic which I gotta admit is one of my favorites.

Would you mind explaining what exactly makes a Robin story a Robin story in your eyes?

I had to mull over the answer to this one for a bit, because it's a little hard to put into words. And I'm glad I did 'cause I wrote a whole like, 700 word post, mulled it over, decided it didn't really answer your question, and rewrote it better. And longer. This is so long. I hope it makes sense.

--

So, there's two answers to this question, one of which is obvious but doesn't happen very often -- and honestly probably shouldn't -- and the other of which requires me to explain another piece of the private meta-crafting that's been haunting my mind palace.

The obvious answer is: A Robin story is a story about being Robin. That is, a story which explores or interrogates either the purpose/nature of Robin as a role/legacy, or the relationship the character currently using said mantle has with that role/legacy. The Boy Wonder is a prime example, as it's fundamentally about Damian coming into his own as Robin by learning from his predecessors and drawing on their collective strength to overcome his personal demons, both internal and external.

Compare that version of the story to, say, the Son of Batman movie, which draws from the same time period and source material, but you can tell from the names alone that the focus is completely different. Robin in that movie is just a token thing, arbitrarily given to Damian to "teach him discipline," while all the real narrative focus goes to the drama around his parentage and the League. Hell, Nightwing's only really there as a hook to the main villain, Deathstroke.

Or consider that one obnoxious storyline from the New 52 where Damian sets up "fights" with the older boys. That also could've been about genuinely testing Damian's values against those who had come before, but instead it was mostly just a series of one-sided Reddit arguments where he destroys his opponents with Facts™ and Logic™ to prove he's the Specialist of the Special Boys and then Nightwing crowns him the Once and Future Robin. Robin, in that context, is just a prize to bolster Damian's self-image.

It's not that Damian couldn't have this kind of Robin story. Obviously not, The Boy Wonder is a thing, and fantastic precisely because it feels like something Damian has needed for a long, long time. But when you compare that one admittedly stellar offering to Tim's career -- built on a foundation of these kinds of stories and then sprinkling more of them throughout his 26-36 years (depending on how you count) -- or even to the handful that Jason got in his 5 active years, plus those that Dick got in the years right before the Nightwing transition and the flashback stories both of the later two have gotten since... it's a noticeable absence.

But. The vast majority of Damian's writers are clearly not interested in exploring that particular angle with him. They are, at the best of times, too enamored with the Son of the Bat or, at the worst, too enamored with Damian himself and how cool/edgy/badass they can make him seem.

And the thing is, like I said at the top, you do not want every Robin-leading story to be one of these naval gazing "what does it mean" stories. That would get tedious real quick, like how every new Batman writer feels the need to do their Grand Treatise on What It Means to Be Batman. But you need some of it, especially for a character like Damian, because of answer number two.

--

The second answer to your question is: A Robin story is a story in which the main character fulfills the role of Robin. And this is the one that's kinda nebulous and hard to define, because it means a lot of things. There's a certain amount of vibes to it, a level of "if you know it, you know it when you see it." So, here's where I need to bring in one of my other ideas.

DC has pretty much settled on six “core Robins,” five from the mainstream universe, one Elseworld. They’re the ones featured in the big anniversary cover that now serves as the article illustration on Wikipedia (even if it is bullshit that they gave Jason pants).

Now, I personally maintain that you can further sub-divide these six into two even groups: the iconic Robins (Dick, Tim and Carrie) and the idiosyncratic Robins (Jason, Steph, and Damian). Idiosyncratic (for those unfamiliar with the $10 word) simply meaning: unique, out-of-the-ordinary, and individual. They go against the grain, and that grain is set by the icons.

I don’t think anyone’s going to fight me on the idea that Dick is an iconic Robin, given that he is the original that the whole legacy split off from. Tim, meanwhile, is the character who not only ensured that the legacy would endure past the Dark Ages attempt to wipe it out, he’s the one who defined what the legacy meant separate from Dick and made it modern—if you have any pop culture conception of “what it means to be Robin” beyond short pants, pixie boots, and “Holy catchphrase, Batman!” it almost certainly came from Tim. Between the two of them, they've been active as Robin for 80% of Robin's 85-year career -- 50% Dick, 30% Tim. (Damian is sitting at 19% -- these totals will not add up to 100% because of career overlap.)

It is safe to say that the two of them pretty much define what it means to be Robin, and this follows with the way they often get used in the other Robins' stories as proxies for the role of Robin itself. (See: their portrayals in The Boy Wonder compared with Jason's, and basically everything Jason did to Dick and Tim during his villain era.)

(As for Carrie, I include her in this group because if you can read around the mild clusterfuck that is the DKR universe, she serves a role in that story very similar to the one Tim does in the mainstream universe, even while she’s bouncing between all the same legacy codenames and costumes that Steph has worn and also Catgirl and Batman.)

The idiosyncratic Robins, on the other hand, are those who deliberately break the mold in one way or another. This is not a criticism or a bad thing. Like shading in a drawing, the contrast between the icon and the idiosyncratic adds depth and complexity to the legacy -- think, the contrast between Clark, Kara and Jon vs. Kon, Linda and Chris, or Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart vs. Guy Gardner and Kyle Rainer. Or heck, Barbara vs. Cass.

But. This means that, by definition and design, the idiosyncratic Robins are in contrast with the role they're being written to fill. Think about how easy it is to tell when a writer is writing "Robin classic" instead of Damian, because of how completely out of character he is -- like in Batman Ninja. With Jason it's less obvious but if it goes on long enough you'd start to notice that he's missing his rough edges (as he often is in fan fictions). This should also be the case with Steph, like in all of her WFA flashbacks, but people don't like to acknowledge how much she's been tokenized and bowdlerized over the years.

With Dick and Tim though? They slip into Robin's role in any story perfectly, no matter how unfamiliar the writer might be with their specific character, precisely because they're in the iconic mold. This does not mean they are generic, because Robin does have a role in the narrative and certain set traits -- confident but not arrogant, witty but kind, capable but still vulnerable enough to need Batman's protection sometimes, a certain level of general optimism and youthful naivete, etc.

In short, the role of Robin is a specific narrative niche that Dick and Tim (and Carrie) slip into easily because Dick created it, and Tim and Carrie designed specifically to fill it. Jason and Damian were created in contrast and conversation with it (Steph is another story entirely) and thus do not fill the role as easily, with Damian in particular being such a stark contrast that he borders on being the anti-Robin.

--

Again though, this could still work if Damian had more of the first kind of Robin story, the one that examines his relationship with the mantle. This is essentially how they make Cass work -- she's very different from Babs or any other interpretation of Batgirl who's come before or since. But she's also very aware of her legacy and often has stories about being in conversation with it, through her own self-reflection and also by playing off both Bruce and Barbara. Those stories, balanced with the ones exploring the unique aspects of her character, are what make her such a stand-out.

Damian really only gets stories exploring the unique aspects of his character, the Son of the Bat part. He doesn't get the stories he needs to ground him as Robin, to justify why he's squatting in a role that doesn't suit him and that he doesn't really fill in narrative sense. And while that would be fine if he wasn't in that role, as it is it's a bit of a sticking point for his character -- especially for people who actually, y'know, like Robin and don't really want to see those stories replaced with Son of the Bat stories. We can have both! I would personally prefer they be with separate characters, but still.

[aurelion-solar]

An Update on Hextech Chests

In the dev update released today, Riot Meddler & Pabro confirmed that Hextech Chests will NOT be returning despite the backlash from players.

"When we initially added them, we wanted to offer additional reward for time spent using something we knew many of you really cared about earning: skins. Over time, though, free chests unintentionally became the primary way to unlock skins and an increasing number of players ended up with substantial skin collections for free. This meant that purchasing skins directly didn't make sense anymore to a lot of players, because they were happy just waiting to get something eventually. That did lead to a great player experience, but it was not sustainable for League in the long term."

This is just insane to me. "Not sustainable"? Hextech chests have been in the game since March 2016 - you'd think Riot would've flagged this sooner, rather than taking almost 9 years to figure out it wasn't sustainable.

They're acting as if it's now a ridiculous concept that players are earning free skins for spending hundreds of hours playing their game. "They were happy just waiting to get something eventually" - you mean they were just playing the game normally as a free-to-play player and not buying skins? Skin shards are completely random, and there are over 1700 skins in the game, so the chances that you actually get the skin you want, or a skin for a champion you play, might not even be that high. Like I definitely wasn't planning on buying Mad Hatter Shaco but that's what I got by rerolling skin shards so it's not like they were losing out on that purchase?

It's just crazy that they admit that it was a great player experience that they have now taken away. Just like the Amazon Prime loot capsules (update: it was actually Amazon who chose not to renew this promotion from March 2024), the League Partner Program skin and chroma giveaways, and the free event pass tokens that you could spend on an event orb, skin border or chroma. Riot didn't mention this aspect, but I suppose with the new Battle Pass, most skins will not be getting an icon, border, and event chroma now. For example, Mythmaker Jhin received an icon and border, possibly because it was a legendary, but Nami and Jarvan IV did not. In the past, all skins in the event skinline would've gotten one.

Not to mention that this vastly reduces the availability of Mythic Essence, as there was a small chance to get it from chests. Now it's only possible to obtain it through their gacha system, meaning all the content in the recently revamped Mythic Shop is even more difficult to get. I thought this was strange because I thought Riot wanted to introduce the gacha system because mythic and prestige skins were becoming more common, so the gacha system would be for ultra-exclusive content. But then they've just made it harder for the average player to obtain mythic/prestige skins, and also the standard tiers of skins.

I could go on and talk about how legendaries have fallen off in quality, possibly to make the more expensive skins seem better in comparison, how the Battle Pass skins are mostly not even 1350 RP skin quality, and how exalted skins are just ultimate skins for ten times the price, and how Sett's exalted skin doesn't fulfil any kind of unique champion fantasy. But I'm too frustrated right now lol

TL;DR - Riot Games' monetisation sucks and they're causing a worse player experience for the average player

[keysnocar]

we repost just so i can move his etching

@ghotstx HERE im sorry for clickbaiting you here :)

Also I can’t make this up, I literally mixed up ur username w another person so..welcome.? Haha

@ghostbny

Anyway, I'm FINALLY getting time to add to my TF Prime Numbers AU, starting with a little Orion ref/doodle sheet. This mostly helps me get to know what kind of character I'd like this version of him to be. (and ngl the plot has been whooping me idk what's happening or why sometimes :() )

This is Orion! Or, as the other bots know him,"37." (I’ll explain it later gng)

Here, he’s been with the autobots for around four vorns, (since he was just over 13 vorns old.) 

His Weapon isn't the familiar star saber or Zeta Prime's Axe. This choice involves his 'childhood', as does his design. I kept his lovable boxyness (well i love it) but made him less detailed, with less armor in general- though specifically around the joints. This is mostly because I wanted him to be a smaller bot, with an emphasis on his agility and flexibility, rather than being a heavy hitter. (at least in his youth.)

The Matrix also has a bit of change in its functionality, use, and importance to the plot.

Both of which I'll expand on in a separate post.

DON'T BE MISTAKEN by my choices in drawing him, he's never without the face mask unless alone.

-------------------------------------------------

The little doodles I have of him are more so to solidify his personality while he's this age range, but this is dependent on what’s going on around him as well. His age has proven to complicate some of my plot, but since he’d bonded with the Matrix at 13, it made sense to me that he’d been gradually reformatted in that short span of time between that and joining the autobots by the Matrix . So he appears much older. (I’ll explain it later gang Ik it’s weird but its important hshgjfhd)

Since taking up residence in the main Autobot Outpost on Cybertron, Orion, or "37" works mostly in solo reconnaissance, scouting territories, or pathfinding for small teams on other kinds of missions. When on base. He focuses on compiling the small amount of data the Autobot faction has managed to gather or receive on any prominent threats.

He ‘moved in’ with the Autobots around an earth year after the ‘ Fall of Gold.’ (as many bots had not-so-fondly begun calling it.) This event being the night that Decepticon forces raided, and then destroyed the large informational hubs of Iacon. This included but was not limited to the Senate Hall, Multiple high class Universities, and the Records tower. To many this marked the true beginning of the war- as the attack and largely successful destruction of such a profound city solidified the danger of the rapidly growing Decepticon movement.  After Iacon fell, the other strongholds of the planet have been slow, but surely following.

In his free time, he’s always reading, thinking, filing, sorting, polishing, solving- 'doing' something. there isn't a spare second he's not busying his mind, or if he can't at least manage that, his servos. 

Orion is not social in the SLIGHTEST with new bots. (this being all of his Autobot peers)  It 100% creeps everyone else out when he attempts to be. (he's got these large, piercing, non-emotive optics that seem to stare past and yet into anyone who's got his attention- and WOW is it an alarming, unreadable, gaze to be caught in if you don't know him well.)

The rare moment or two he does find himself in a conversation about something other than strategy or information he'd gathered- others find his conversation.. lacking at most. It's not that he isn't interested, not at all. It's more so that any personal information he dares to give away may end up doing more harm to his goals among the autobots than good. It sure is a lot easier to keep your origins to yourself, if everyone's too intimidated or put off to speak with you.

It's mostly because of this, that he prefers quietly watching and taking things in, over putting himself into a conversation. It's simply how he's accustomed to and has been taught how to function. Observing and compiling, interpreting and mimicking.

(That being said he is still a ‘teenager’ so it sort of sucks trying to keep himself isolated.)

His more reclusive behavior tends to keep other bots from bothering him. His quietly observant posture and constantly active tendencies often leave the others assuming he's got no time for- or interest in talking.

 He sees all of this as a good thing, the first few vorns of living with the bots, as he’s committed to putting all of his focus on figuring out this weird matrix thing. More importantly, keeping the fact that it forced its way onto his spark and won’t come off-  a secret. (Not to mention he can’t afford to be distracted by bots he doesn’t entirely trust.)

But considering Commander Magnus and Medical Officer Ratchet have already been looking at him as if trying to remember something they’d once known- he might not be able to make that last.

…let's hope no one puts the pieces together on where he came from before he can figure out how to explain it.

Admittedly, this style has a different feel than the ones I'm accustomed to creating in- and trying to keep the characters to a consistent level of both simplistic and shapey is already proving to be a fun challenge. I’ve been working on this idea for a while, and I have a lot of other little details or broad stories to fill in. PLEASE I can talk and brainstorm about this all day. I've already got a google doc and MAD plotholes.

(Vorn = 83ish earth years, which I use interchangeably with an earth year for easier understanding, because of the long lifespans.)

[starryalpacasstuff]

Fire (1996): A Mostly Spoiler Free Pitch Because You Should Watch It Immediately

It's time for "An Indian QL bulldozed past my expectations and I am reeling in awe", Part Two!

A few days ago, @neuroticbookworm told me about Fire, an old lesbian Indian movie she'd been wanting to watch. Me being me, I promptly tracked it down and settled in to watch it.

Very loosely based on the 1942 short story Lihaaf, the movie follows Sita, a newly wed bride who is settling in with her in-laws, which is how she meets Radha, who is married to her husband's brother. Both in unhappy marriages, they find solace and company with each other, quickly falling in love. Length: 1 Hour 40 Minutes TWs: Homophobia, C-word mentioned once, some depictions of domestic violence Release: 1996

The is almost entirely in English, and while one generally expects Bollywood movies to be in Hinglish, it's definitely a conscious choice here, which does make me wonder if the movie was supposed to be promoted to a greater international audience. You can find it here on Youtube, most of the (very few) Hindi dialogues have hard subtitles. I think it's also available on Prime? It wasn't available in India though, which is odd, but I didn't bother investigating. Let me know if anyone can figure anything out about this!

Going into this movie, I expected a melodramatic, emotional movie with a bittersweet tone. I did not expect a biting, incredibly engaging movie with excellent satire, symbolism, discussions of chastity culture, and an incredibly sweet, beautifully written romance. And I was certainly not prepared for how incredibly horny this movie is??? Both in subtle tension and overt sex scenes. There's also partial nudity, which again, completely unexpected. If you're going taboo, go taboo all the way I suppose. It's also very well directed, and while I'm not nearly as good at identifying details like that as some of the people on here, I did pick up on some colour coding and interesting framing. It's just overall packed with little details that I think a lot of us would have a field day analysing.

Honestly, I could talk about the cultural nuances in this movie for hours. Contrary to my assumption about the reasoning behind making the movie fully in English, the movie seems to rely on the viewer's understanding of North Indian customs to deliver a lot of it's messages, particularly with its satire, more on that below. While I don't think it's necessary to enjoy the movie, it definitely does add some meat to the story. Then again, I'm a biased party, so it'll be hard to determine just how many messages may be lost to someone from outside of India without someone to compare notes with (this is me shamelessly trying to get you to watch the movie). Honestly, I'd be 100% down to write a more detailed, spoiler-including post that goes into the implicit nuances if people are interested.

There's two main selling points for the movie; the incredible way it shuts down purity and chastity ideology and the absolutely adorable relationship between Radha and Sita. The movie is set on ruthlessly tearing down and emphasizing the ridiculousness of purity culture. A lot of the messaging is indirect and uses metaphors, but there's also several explicit scenes addressing the issue. It's one of the main themes of the movie and I'm almost convinced the real reason it's titled 'Fire' is the sheer number of burns it dishes out on this subject. The romance portion of this movie is one of the thing's that completely defied my expectations. It wasn't sad and dramatic, it was heartfelt and silly and adorable. There's several scenes of the two subtly flirting, laughing together and just being lowkey in love. But that's not to say there's no emotional depth—they're also there for each other and are quite vulnerable with each other.

The movie used a lot of metaphors, but my favourites were the almost satirical representation of mythological stories. In a religion as diverse as Hinduism, every holiday has two dozen stories behind it and each story has two dozen versions, so it's to be expected that you'll find a number of problematic or otherwise kind of ridiculous stories in the mix. The stories were told completely seriously, but the context of the movie highlights their absurd facets in a truly brilliant way. I'm not going to give too much away, but I will say, it was a delight to watch the juxtaposition of the myths and the storyline of the movie, particularly it's ties to the purity culture discussion. You'll understand when you watch it. I'm not turning this into a Hindu mythology lesson (yet) but one interesting tidbit is that Radha and Sita are both names of mythological figures; namely the partners of two of the most worshipped avatars of the god Vishnu: Krishna and Rama respectively. And I was overjoyed to find that their names do have relevance to the metaphors in the story, particularly Sita's.

When the movie was first released, there were massive protests against it, I'm talking hundreds of people storming into theatres to destroy them and drive away audiences. I don't know what to say here beyond this, but what I will say is that I think Fire is an amazing movie that absolutely does not deserve to be lost to the sands of time. I hope you give it a shot, and if you do, tag me in any posts you make about it!

Tagging people who seemed interested in recs from my last post, let me know if you'd rather I not tag you!

@lurkingshan @impala124 @bengiyo @letgomaggie @winnysatang

@watertightvines @nutcasewithaknife @blorbingqls @twig-tea

@waitmyturtles @cryingatships @benkaben @usertoxicyaoi

@befuddledcinnamonroll @flyingrosebeetle

[apple-onigiri]

I can't remember if Vaugarde mentions this or not. So it's entirely possible that I'm wrong on this.

Stars seem like an odd case of only being vaguely forgotten about. Multiple times, the party needs to be reminded about them, but they can still stay at the forefront of people's minds. Like with Isa wanting to watch the stars with Siffrin.

But here's the thing about that. I can't recall anyone in the game mentioning the days of the week.

With our world. We have the days of the week because of the stars and planets. With how astrologically minded the island was, it's hard to imagine they wouldn't have something similar. So, did days of the week suddenly vanish from people's minds?

the reason for not mentioning the days of the week in the game is probably because the plot takes place during a singular day and there's both no reason and no way for characters to state it on a way that's natural. they do have them, though, in the dubiously canon way the twitter qna allows, since, as stated there, the defeat-the-king day is a tuesday! [x] it's an interesting topic, though, let me place it on top of my examination table. but uh. this got long, apologies ~(￣▽￣'')~

i think specifically the stars were forgotten because they were an important part of life and culture for the islanders, perhaps to the point of always reminding people of the island. kind of in the vein of how, like it or not, if i say cherry blossom, you will proooobably think of japan

but if we put things into perspective, we kinda realize that, even if they can be appreciated visually, stars probably weren't crucial in any way to any other country other than the island (other than sailors; we don't know how the non-star-related navigational tool situation is looking like in that era, namely if they have compasses. ding). days of the week, however, are a big part of life that lets you organize and plan. not to mention, it begs the question of if months would disappear too, and, with years being divided into them, would the concept of the calendar itself fade? well. probably not, especially with the island getting [REDACTED] relatively recently - can you imagine adjusting to a world without division of time in just a decade?

not to mention, the concept of a week in some way, shape or form appeared throughout history independently and in different lengths. which, yeah, a week is completely arbitrary length-wise, nothing in the stars sets up its length to seven days specifically. it just so happened that seven is the one that stuck ig. prolly smth to do w/ the smallest sizable mysterious prime number that adds and multiplies weirdly, but whatever!!! that's not the topic rn

i did need a moment to realize you might've also meant the etymology of the names for the days of the week because a. my native language forgoes the celestial naming conventions entirely and has mostly numerical names for them b. in english they mostly come from the names of nordic gods (thor - thursday, freya - friday and such) with only a bit of a planetary mix from latin (saturday - saturn for example) and some celestial terms for sunday and mo(o)nday

but speaking of, and as you mentioned, it seems both english in part and french all the way use with planetary/celestial names, from latin. or you'd think! because those planets were named after gods, after all, not the other way around! and that terminology for the days of the week only spread alongside latin, which in turn spread because it was the language of the roman empire that swallowed up the whole mediterranean and beyond, alongside spreading its influence even further along its trade routes

and all this lands us in the same hell dimension as pondering if characters in your fantasy setting should be saying something simple as "bye" because it comes from "goodbye", which is in turn comes from a very christian "god be with ye". does fantasy france use the same names for weekdays and, if so, is there a fantasy roman pantheon to take those names from through fantasy latin? as i said, hell dimension

i personally think that, regardless of All This, even if the names did originate from cosmos-related vocabulary and/or the island, they might either get reconstructed from people's routines (mostly-numbers-style like slavic languages do, for example), or even stay the same after the island's disappearance anyway. this is because, just like how people in real life don't really think (or even know) about their origins, people in vaugarde and other countries probably also wouldn't actively think about it, so the cultural context wouldn't matter. this isn't to mention the possible shifts between languages that might've linguistically distanced them from the original islander ones even further

this was a fun ask!! thank you so much for sending it ^^

[agirlisnoonesdoppelganger]

A Younger, More Beautiful Queen: Personal Thoughts

This is mostly my personal opinions on the YMBQ prophecy, but also sort of a meta about. Given that there are a fair number of names thrown around in regards to this prophecy, I wanted to examine all the characters I see as potential candidates and highlight which ones seem most likely to me. Keep in mind, these are my personal opinions, not absolute truths, and I have no problem with people feeling differently than I do. I will be talking about several characters, so be prepared for a pretty long post.

First off, I want to establish what I personally think needs to be taken into consideration when determining the woman who brings about Cersei's downfall. Most important is that they actually fulfill the lines of the prophecy by casting her down and taking what she holds dear. I personally this refers to both power and Jaime, but it could also mean her kids. Next, how much Cersei suspects/expects them to be the YMBQ. GRRM makes it pretty clear that prophecies in ASOIAF often aren't what we expect them to be, so anyone Cersei expects is generally less likely, just like how Tyrion likely isn't the valoquar because Cersei believes it to be him. I also think a personal connection/grievance with Cersei is important. While it could be done without this, it's just more satisfying when it's personal. Lastly, I think it's more likely to be a pov character, but this isn't a quality that I feel is as crucial. With that out of the way, let's get to the suspects.

Starting with the ones I feel are least likely we have:

Margaery and Sansa

Margaery is probably the most obvious candidate for YMBQ, mostly because she's Cersei's prime suspect. Incidently, this is why she's also the least likely, imo, to actually be the YMBQ. Cersei is set up to be paranoid and somewhat delusional, especially regarding her prophecies, so in my mind, there's no way GRRM would validate her suspicions. Now, I'm not counting Margaery all the way out, but I think most people would agree she's a distraction for Cersei.

Sansa, on the other hand, is definitely a name I've seen tossed around more seriously. However, I personally disagree with that assessment. For me, this mostly comes down to Cersei's suspicions again. While we don't necessarily see Cersei blatantly associating Sansa with the prophecy, it's important to remember that Cersei doesn't get a pov until AFFC, after Sansa has left King's Landing. Margaery is absolutely the bigger, more obvious threat to Cersei at that point; of course she's focusing on her. In my opinion, there is absolutely no way that Cersei didn't consider Sansa a possibility for the YMBQ. Sansa was literally supposed to marry Joffrey and become queen after Cersei, and she's consistantly described as beautiful and likely to become more so once she becomes an adult. Plus, Cersei does seem to still consider Sansa a suspect in Joffrey's death, so I'd say she's on her mind. It also kind of justifies how Cersei treats Sansa (and Margaery), which feels uncomfortable, to say the least. Some of my issues with Sansa as the YMBQ also stem from differing beliefs as to where Sansa will end up, which I won't get into too much here, but personally, I don't believe Sansa's story will lead her to a place where she would be able to take Cersei down in any sense of the word. I kind feel like Margaery is Cersei's red herring, while Sansa is the audience's.

Next, the wildcards/left-field picks:

Arianne and Myrcella

Arianne definitely has potential, especially given her parallels with Cersei. Arianne is similarly ambitious and sexually free. The main differences is that Arianne is actually cunning, while Cersei just thinks she is, and Arianne has legitimate concerns about her birthright being taken from her, while Cersei is trying take power that doesn't really belong to her. Also, Arianne's mistakes do actually stem, to some degree, from being kept out of the loop, while Cersei just does stupid stuff and would no matter what. All in all, I think they make good parallels, and it would be interesting to see them go toe to toe. However, Arianne doesn't really have a personal issue with Cersei, and she introduced later in the series, which puts her lower in the list of suspects for me.

Myrcella is one of my favorite theories, even if I think others are more likely, if only because this would probably be one of, if not the most surprising to Cersei. Cersei would absolutely never see her own daughter coming, and that would be pretty enjoyable to see. Myrcella definitely has the ability take away people Cersei cares about, too, since Jaime is her father and Tommen is her brother. I can't speak about Tommen, but at this stage of the story, Jaime would definitely pick Myrcella over Cersei. What stands out with this theory is the poetic nature of it. Myrcella literally looks like a younger Cersei, but with a much nicer personality. Imagine being taken down by a younger, better version of yourself, the you that you could have been. That is genuinely interesting. My issues with Myrcella are that she's not a pov character, and she frankly hasn't been super important to the plot until the whole thing with Arianne, and that wasn't even her idea.

Finally, my three main theories:

Daenerys, Brienne, and Arya

Starting with Dany, she basically checks all the boxes. She's described as not just beautiful, but the most beautiful woman in the world on more than one occasion, she's a prime contender for the Iron Throne, and she and Cersei directly foil each other as rulers. Dany is definitely one of the stronger theories, imo, given everything we know about her. I think she even has the potential to take Jaime away from Cersei, as Jaime's recent heel turn and his ongoing struggle with his various oaths could prompt him to join Dany once they finally meet. She could also kill Jaime to fulfill this, but I generally think that "taking" Jaime from Cersei refers to him choosing to support someone else, not him dying. Dany also isn't really on Cersei's mind, so she would be more unexpected than some of the other options. I do have some issues with the Dany theory, though. Dany is absolutely one of my favorite characters, but I don't necessarily think she's the best choice for the YMBQ. She doesn't really have any personal connections to Cersei beyond disliking Lannisters in general, and she's unlikely to get one given that she isn't likely to be in Westeros any time soon. Cersei could very well be taken out and dealt before Dany even gets there. Dany also already has the PTWP/Azor Ahai prophecy. I love her to bits, but I think this propehcy can be about someone else. Mostly, I think that the other to options just make for a more satisfying narrative.

Brienne is another big one, given her connection to Jaime. Brienne probably has the most clear path to taking Jaime from Cersei. I mean, that's kind of what happens at the end of the most recent books. Jaime chooses to abandon Cersei to her fate while going to help Brienne. The Braime of it all is what really sells this theory and gives a lot more emotional impact than many of the other theories. It also ties into the idea of inner beauty over physical beauty and the twisted Beauty and the Beast theming that already surrounds the Brienne/Jaime narrative. Brienne is literally called, Brienne the Beauty, even if it's meant in a mocking way. Given Cersei's obsession with physical appearance, this would be one of the more surprising options for her. The queen part is a little harder to explain, but it could just be metaphorical or be referencing something like the Queen of Love and Beauty. Brienne is definitely on of my favorite theories, and my personal second favorite option, but it's time to move on to the final suspect.

Arya is a name I don't see brought up nearly as often as I feel like it should be. I'll be completely honest and say that I'm a little biased, as Arya is my favorite character and my personal favorite option for the YMBQ, but I have reasons for thinking she's an excellent fit. Getting the beauty issue out the way right off the bat, Arya isn't ugly. She's literally described as being extremely similar to Lyanna, known to be beautiful, in both looks and personality, so much so that when Bran sees a vision of Lyanna as a child, he initially thinks it's Arya. It also doesn't matter because we've already established with Brienne that the prophecy is just as likely referring to inner beauty. Moving on to more important things, Arya has probably the best narrative set up to fulfill everything stated in the YMBQ prophecy. She has a personal vendetta against Cersei that's been around at least subtly since AGOT. She has leadership/Queen in the North foreshadowing with Nymeria and her pack of wolves, and the Northern Conspiracy being centered around her (even if it's not really her). She even has a pretty good way to "take" Jaime. Arya's return to Westeros is likely going to involve Lady Stoneheart, which is exactly what Jaime is about to get involved with. The Lady Stoneheart plot is deeply tied to Jaime's promise to get Catelyn's daughters back to her. The sword he gives Brienne (made from Ice) when she leaves to find and protect Sansa and Arya is called Oathkeeper. If Jaime were to meet Arya upon her return, especially if he's with Brienne, it would make a lot of sense if he decided to fulfill the last oath he made and decided to protect Arya. Arya is definitely not someone Cersei would see coming until it's too late given how much she goes overlooked by Cersei from the start. I also think that it would be oddly poetic for a potential Lyanna reborn to take Cersei down when Lyanna herself kind of unintentionally ruined Cersei's life, first when she was the one Rhaegar ran away with, and then when she haunted Cersei's marriage with Robert. It's a sort "ghost you can't escape" situation.

TL;DR: I think there are a lot of potential suspects for the YMBQ prophecy, but some of them seem far more likely than others. Margaery and Sansa are too obviously Cersei's suspects and also don't necessarily hit all of the beats. Arianna and Myrcella are interesting but not relevant enough to either Cersei or the plot in general. Daenerys checks all the right boxes but isn't super satisfying option for the narrative. Brienne is the most satisfying from the Jaime/emotional perspective and has a good inner beauty misdirect, but doesn't necessarily fit completely. Arya, imo, fits the prophecy the best with foreshadowing for all of the elements, as well as a personal reason to go against Cersei and an interesting poetic connection. That being said, I'm not ruling any of the options out, and it could still be any of them by my count.

[my-head-is-an-animal]

The Climb

Summary: You're a scientist, an engineer to be exact. Called to a meeting you had no real right to be at, Optimus Prime takes an exclusive interest in you, but you can't help but ask yourself at every turn, Why?

Rating: 18+ 🌹🩸🍆

Story Masterlist

Chapter 17

Optimus felt silly, he didn’t know what he was supposed to say to Jane. The whole point of sharing his Spark, the initial idea anyway, was so that she would know him and the need for words would be non-existent. It occurred to him when Lennox was speaking with the Autobots, there was still so little he knew about humans, about their customs. If he wanted to be with Jane, he needed to learn, fast.

     She had been transferred to another room, mostly because Smith had been pestering the doctors and generally making a nuisance of himself, disturbing other patients. It was in the best interest of everyone.

     Optimus was able to talk to her better on a higher floor, the windows open and a gentle breeze circling her body. He’d heard she had been struggling with a fever recently, but they were unsure why or how to deal with it properly. Optimus wondered if the Spark had something to do with it.

     ‘Jane.’ He whispered, close to her. ‘I am here.’

     The rest of the base was leaving for the night and the Autobots were heading back to the hanger. It was as private as could be, but Optimus wished he could have sat on the hillside with Jane again. He wanted to speak to his wife in the place that now meant so much to them both.

     ‘Captain Lennox believes that speaking to you is a wise choice.’ He really didn’t know what else to say. ‘But I am unsure why. I believe it is a human concept, one I need you to explain to me in more detail… please wake up.’ The slightly quake in his voice was undeniable. Optimus figured if this was one of the only chances he got to speak to her, he may as well have made use of it. ‘I am uncertain of what will happen if you do not awaken soon.’

     Optimus looked around him, a part of him was very frustrated that she couldn’t talk back, this all felt silly and unnecessary to him. What was it really achieving?

     ‘Oh sorry.’ A voice came from the door of Janes room. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you, I was just checking her vitals.’

     ‘Of course.’ Optimus would rather know with numbers if Jane was okay.

     He watched the doctor who was looking after her, the way she was so gentle, never disturbing Jane’s body too much and… talking.

     ‘Alright Jane, things are looking good,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Looks like your hydration levels are back to normal, your muscular injuries are on the mend as well… and it looks like you’re on a good road to recovery. Keep up the good work.’ She smiled and made some quick notes before moving to leave the room.

     ‘Doctor.’ Optimus stopped her, she seemed nice and cheerful, but he’d heard from Lennox that she was also fierce enough to protect Jane from the likes of Smith. ‘May I ask, why do you talk to her?’

     The doctor smiled and approached him.

     ‘I’m glad you’re here Optimus,’ she said. ‘Talking to patients is something I’ve always done, it’s something I encourage all the friends and families to do.’

     ‘But she cannot respond. I do not understand the purpose.’ Optimus tried not to let his frustration seep in too much.

     ‘Well, it’s not for you.’ The doctor explained. ‘Our unconscious bodies are still aware of the things happening around us, noises and smells are powerful tools that can be used to help a patient find their way back to us. You’re not talking to her for you, you’re doing it for her, so that she knows you’re out here somewhere waiting for her to come back. And when she’s able to, she’ll wake up.’

     Optimus thought about it, there was still a lot he didn’t understand about humans, he hoped that Jane could be the one to explain things, but the doctor’s explanation made sense to him, enough that he didn’t feel as silly anymore.

     ‘Thank you.’ Optimus bowed his head slightly to show his gratitude.

     ‘Of course, let me know if you need anything. I won’t be far.’ The doctor smiled again and left Optimus with Jane once again.

     He took a moment and thought about what to say.

     ‘Jane,’ he started. ‘There are things we need to talk about, things I cannot hope to face without you. Your bravery is being questioned by those in command, I will defend you until my dying breath, but you must wake to fight with me.’ Optimus closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I miss you. I would like nothing more than to find you through my Spark, but please understand, we do not know what will happen if I disturb you for any reason. I am sorry if I have caused you such pain that you are unable to withstand our union, but I believed it was the right course of action. I would have given myself to no other. I love you.’

     Optimus had never said it before, it was a human way of expressing the depth of feeling for another, but again, words fell so far short or what he felt.

     Optimus remained almost the entire night and there was no clear change in her condition. He hated to see her this way, so helpless and unable to revive herself.

     He returned every night for a week to talk to her, hoping there would be some indication of change in her condition, but there was nothing. The fever was still present and the doctor couldn’t figure out why. Optimus worried that his Spark had set in motion events in Jane’s body that couldn’t be fixed.

     Captain Lennox was starting to get irritable, as was Jane’s friend Theo. Both believed that Optimus should have tried to make contact if he could. Theo, in particular, was insistent on it.

     ‘I don’t care that she married you and never told me!’ He yelled in the empty Autobot hanger, tears streaming down his face. ‘I just care that she survives! I need my friend back and you can help!’

     Optimus looked down at the young human, sighing and getting onto one knee, showing Theo the respect he deserved.

     ‘I am sorry that you feel this way,’ Optimus began. ‘And I am sorry that she never told you of us, but Jane’s responsibilities lay with something much bigger than you or I. Her focus needed to remain on climbing the ship, everything else was sacrificed.’

     ‘Except you.’ Theo whispered, his whole body shaking with grief and anger. ‘I’ve known her all my life, you knew her all of a few days and you think that gives you the right to care more than me!’

     It was clear to Optimus that no matter how angry Theo’s words made him, he needed to allow him to vent at the one person who he could blame for everything.

     ‘They say you talk to her every night, but what could you possibly have to say?’ Theo was touching sensitive nerves now. ‘You don’t know her.’

     Theo had seemingly run out of words. He wiped his eyes roughly with his arm and stormed out of the hanger, leaving Optimus with more doubts than he’d ever had.

     He returned to Jane’s bedside that night and told her all about Theo’s words and how awful he felt that he’d caused such pain. There was a vague hope that if Optimus spoke about the people she loved, she might have found it easier to wake up and come back to him.

I couldn’t see anything, the wind blew so violently that it forced my eyes to squint, occasionally I would see some kind of device, or sheet of metal fly passed, barely missing me. I knew I could hear screaming, but I couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. I needed to find shelter.

     My body was heavy, I couldn’t feel an injury, but my leg felt like part of it was missing, when I looked down it seemed fine, there was no blood or even pain, but the second I tried to use it, I would fall and end up crawling.

     I was sure every time I blinked, I could see space, like my vision was caught between this strange, raging, metal storm and the cold, silence of space.

     I couldn’t tell what was real.

     Surely none of it was, but then why did I feel the shards of glass and metal scratching my skin and my organs freezing when I closed my eyes?

     I limped in no particular direction, sometimes crawling if I couldn’t get up, trying to find somewhere to rest. I was so tired and weak.

     Suddenly a loud crack sounded from somewhere behind me. I turned, but saw nothing. Another crack from an entirely different direction. Was I in the middle of a lightning cloud?

     I turned in time to duck out of the way of a large sword hurtling towards me. It lodged itself in the ground not far from where I was, but soon began sinking. Something told me, I needed that sword. I launched my body towards it and grasped the handle.

     ‘OPTIMUS!’ It wasn’t just someone shouting for Optimus to save them, it was a war cry.

     The ground began to shake. Something was coming for me. More than something, probably a thousand somethings that I couldn’t do anything about.

     Without warning, I felt my body charge of its own accord, lifting me up to fight.

     I was suddenly holding a shield to go with my sword and found myself sprinting toward the sound of the war cry, yelling one of my own.

     It was Megatron.

     He cackled as I came running towards him, swinging his own sword down onto me. I lifted my shield and held my ground, trying to find an opening to strike back. Megatron’s swings came down harder and harder, I was weakening again, until finally, my shield was cracked, my sword destroyed and failure filled my heart.

     Wait, my heart. I didn’t have a heart. Why didn’t I have a heart? Where did it go? What was there now? Why would I assume something else was there? Why was I fighting Megatron? Where was Optimus?

     Wait.

     I lifted my hand to hover over where in my heart should have been, there was no pulse, nothing to say I was alive anymore.

     Another crack.

     Something had happened. Something important I needed to remember.

     Another crack.

     How was I supposed to live without a heart? Was I already dead? The wind. It was a metal storm because that was the last thing I remembered. The climb.

     I climbed thirty thousand feet to save the world. No wonder I couldn’t stand properly.

     Another crack.

     What was that?

     Another crack, but this time, I saw it. A streak of blue light whipping around me as if it were the thing that was containing the storm and me.

     ‘Why are you doing this?’ I shouted. Why was I shouting? Was it alive? Was it watching me?

     Suddenly the storm stopped. Everything froze. I could see it. I was surrounded by electric blue light. Housed by it. Caged.

     There was something memorable about it, something I’d once known.

     ‘Optimus?’ I frowned. ‘Where are you?’

     The storm began to clear, but the blue light expanded, like it was showing me more of what was inside.

     I thought initially it was some kind of breakers yard, but now it was more obviously images frozen in time. Battles. Each one contained someone I knew, Optimus. Each one also contained enemies I knew and some I didn’t.

     What was this place?

     ‘Nightmares.’ I whispered. ‘His nightmares?’

     I began walking through the only path I could see. A winding metal platform that showed me each battle Optimus had ever fought in and all the ways he was scared he’d lose.

     Eventually I was able to recognise each in his memories, but there were gaps, things were missing. Memories.

     ‘Where are the rest?’ I found myself asking.

     ‘What do you need?’

     I spun around to see Optimus Prime himself, standing tall and strong.

     ‘Optimus.’ I breathed, relief. ‘Where are we? What is this place?’

     ‘What do you need?’ He repeated.

     ‘I don’t understand.’

     ‘How do I help you?’ He stepped towards me and for a split second everything was clear.

     ‘His Spark.’ I breathed again. ‘You’re his Spark.’

     ‘I am your Spark, Jane Harding.’ He said, as if it were obvious. ‘But I don’t know what you need.’

     ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

     ‘You are dying. And I cannot stop it.’ He kneeled, his kindness and desperation clear for anyone to see. ‘What do you need?’

     I felt something heavy sit in my chest, I placed my hand over it once again. ‘My heart is gone.’ I whispered. ‘I need it to live.’

     ‘I can be your heart.’ Optimus said, immediately. ‘But what does a heart do?’

     I could hear the slight panic in his voice, maybe the situation was more dire than I realised.

     ‘It… it pumps blood around the body.’ I said, suddenly finding it very difficult to know anything about the human heart. ‘It does it at a rate the body requires. More exertion means more blood needs to be pumped, it does this via an electrical charge, not a big one, I don’t think. Actually, I have no idea of the right measurements.’

     ‘I can find out.’ Optimus nodded. ‘I don’t understand this body, Jane. I do not understand how it works. Everything I have tried, has failed.’

     I thought for a moment. ‘Can you wake me up? I can find out the information, I can help you stop me from dying.’

     ‘I’m afraid you are too weak to wake now.’ Optimus shook his head. ‘But I can send a message to Optimus. He can help us.’

     ‘How?’

     ‘In time, I can teach you, but for now, I must save you.’ Optimus lifted his hand and gently traced the tip of his finger around my face. ‘Sleep deeply, I will wake you when I am finished repairing your body.’

     Everything went black.

If you liked this, please consider supporting me ☕ thanks for reading!

[kale-of-the-forbidden-cities]

Della Vacker post

I made this doodle of her while i was supposed to be working on artfight refs, but not to worry! i finished those just in time today :>

notice the Vacker registry pendant and prime sources chain. Notice how anxious she looks!

and now for the playlist which will make more sense after you've read the headcanons. You don't have to think it's perfect or in character, that's okay, it's just stuff i came up with

and now under the cut is my 15 page google doc thoughts of Della Vacker, from when she started dating Alden to Legacy-ish?? warning i think they get worse as they go, don't focus on the stuff after book 1 time, i'm not sure if i like it as much as i do the other as far as writing and wording goes and stuff

if you do take the time to read this, comment on it as much as you want!!! it feels good when people point out specific parts hehe

TW: mentions of eating disorders and ~uncomfortable age gaps~

Alden and Della had sort of an arranged marriage, with Alden on Della's match lists when she was sixteen, and her parents saw and were delighted to see a Vacker as her number one, but Della tried to argue, saying he’s a hundred years older, but by the time Alden got his next list she was nineteen and invited to his Winnowing Gala. Della was standing among all these girls who were mostly at least 30 years older than her, and she was terrified. She didn’t feel good enough to be there. She felt out of place. But Alden’s parents seemed to really like her, though she couldn’t tell if that was because they actually did or if it was just because she and Alden were each other’s top matches. She felt super weird about it, and he felt weird about it too, but despite the age gap, they were kind of pressured into getting together. 

And at first it was sooooooo awkward. They didn’t feel comfortable around each other, and Della still felt like a kid next to him. Not to mention the sheer perfection of him, and the other Vackers. This is where some other headcanons start coming in, with Della not feeling perfect enough, and she began to develop an eating disorder. 

This whole thing is so stressful for her, but her parents are happy, and Alden seems happy, who is she to ruin it? She was once an enjoyer of gossip, but now she's part of it, there were speculations about her from the very first date with alden, and she's not used to it! She's not used to being in the spotlight! 

Della: (surprised) I'm... I'm in the news? 

Alden: Oh... Yes, that happens. 

Della: ... But I only just started dating you- is- is that even public yet? 

Alden: No, but we did go out yesterday... 

Della: ... but I'm not a Vacker... I can't... (trails off) 

Alden: ...

Della goes for a walk in Atlantis and feels everyone watching her, and she can't take it, she feels like she's crumbling under the pressure (even though not that many people were actually looking or saying or thinking anything bad, but she saw a few people glance her way, someone pointed at her and whispered) and she breaks down, tears start to well up, and she tries to get somewhere to be alone, but it's Atlantis, she can't just leap away, she has to go back the way she came, and she's crying and she can't breathe and people are really staring now and really talking about her and someone tries to come help but she doesn't think that's what they're there to do, she runs away, she's running through crowded streets until she finally makes it out, and once her bubble thing lets her go she sits on the ground and sobs.

And of course people saw this whole thing, and they were talking about her all over again, but this time it wasn't just speculation about her relationship with Alden, this time it was people saying she wasn't fit to be a Vacker, that she was unstable and unpredictable and mentally ill for... crying? Well then, she can't let anyone see her cry ever again.

And at some points she wishes Alden would leave her or break up with her or something but after the stories and stuff about her were published he just hailed her and asked if she was okay. And this was before she'd read them. He seemed to care about her, and Della just thinks she's bringing shame on him, but he assures her that she isn't, and it's okay, and that it will blow over and that there's no reason to worry.

She becomes very familiar with that phrase, and learns to take it to heart. She's okay. He's okay. Everything is okay. even when she feels like dying, even when she realizes she hasn't eaten in three days and almost passes out in public and she feels terrified whenever she goes out with him and everything feels like too much and goddamnit why won't he leave her what does he still see in her why couldn't she have just enjoyed her after-foxfire years normally why why why???

But then as Alden cares for her and he doesn't leave her and he smiles for real, his smile is so unlike all the pictures she's seen, it's so soft and small and hesitant and his eyes look so gentle and happy and oh prime sources, after three years she's really falling for him and oh no this is awful, she feels so conflicted. She wanted him to leave her but now she doesn't want to leave him. 

After four years they finally share their first kiss, and it's... real. 

It's by no means a long kiss, but it feels like forever, time slows as thoughts race through Della’s mind and she thinks oh no. And then they pull apart, and she's tearing up, and mentally beating herself up for it, which only makes her need to cry more, and she can't breathe but Alden doesn't seem to get it, he's confused, he looks hurt, he asks whats wrong, so she chokes it down and tells him she's okay, just... really happy. I get emotional, she says with a forced laugh. 

And she accepts her fate. 

She’s trapped. 

Unless Alden ever has a sudden change of heart, she can't go anywhere.

Della was raised religious, but it wasn't nearly as strict as the Vackers. That's another thing she has to get used to - she has to carefully learn every ritual, all the history she might need to know, she doesn't want them to think she's not good enough. She has to fit into this family, and if she's a square in a circle hole, then she'll just have to cut off her own corners to fit. 

She didn't really expect it to go this long - she had three boyfriends when she was in Foxfire, but they all went by super fast, obviously. And they were never serious. But Alden was serious. Her parents wanted her to be serious. the Vackers were serious. 

Alden and Della obviously took things very very slowly, mostly due to the age gap and how uncomfortable they used to be around each other. They'd kissed twice after five years of dating, and it still feels so... new. They're careful in public, Della isn't herself anymore. She used to be so much happier. Now she's an empty shell, and sometimes life doesn't feel worth living.... but she's okay, she's okay, she's okay. There’s no reason to worry. Everything is perfect! She learns how to force a smile when people begin speculating about her mental health again... and she's not eating. She doesn't feel perfect enough. She hates her body, her face, her hair, she hates how ugly she feels standing next to Alden, her boyfriend, though that word feels wrong on her tongue. Even after a decade, she still messes up, says the wrong things and gets weird looks and she feels like the world could swallow her up, she could get murdered and it would be her fault.

Alden of course notices this, because, duh, he's not blind, but he doesn't know what to do. He waits for a few months, trying to let it pass because he's not good with words and... maybe if he pretends she's okay, she'll be okay. he just has to believe it and treat her as he has been - he does care, he just doesn't know what to do. He's trying to believe, but it's getting so hard to pretend because oh god she just collapsed in the middle of the room and she's not waking up and he's not very strong but he can pick her up easily and take her to the couch and he sits by her as he waits for a physician and he's trying so hard not to cry, but maybe she's worth crying over, he's so scared for her. Pretending everything was okay wasn't what she needed at all. He should have done something.

Della obviously ends up fine, but she doesn't talk to Alden about it. He apologizes and asks if she's okay, and she assures him he is, she says sorry, she promises to do better.

And she’s okay. 

She takes a deep breath and forces herself to eat. 

To prove she’s okay. 

She even hides the scale from herself for a few months. She's okay.

Well, now that she knows her limits she can be even better than before. 

Time flies by, and Alden and Della are closer than ever. They're not as close as the average couple that has been dating for a year, even though they've been together for ten, twenty, thirty. They love and care about each other, but there's.... something. Della gets better! She makes friends with some of Alden's friends, Grady and Edaline. They're also much older than her, but she's older now, too, so age shouldn't matter like it did when she was nineteen. Still, she feels the need to be polite in the same way she is to Alden's family. Despite that, it's... nice to be around them. To have conversations with Edaline while Alden is out, to have friends! She hasn't had those since the world started to judge her! Nobody wanted to be caught up in that kind of drama. She meets Edaline's sister, and they get along even better! Until she runs into her in the street and they talk for a while, and then the next day there's a picture of them in the news! Juline is a bad match, how could Della forget how could she mess up so badly how could she be so selfish to want anything for herself, how could she have slipped up like that!!!

She apologizes to Alden as soon as she sees him, then stops talking to Juline. Edaline has seen the article, and while this kind of thing doesn't matter to her, she understands why it would matter to Della. She's observant. She can tell that Della isn't okay. She and Juline talk, and they agree to let her go without asking questions. She clearly doesn't need more stress. Della is anxious to talk to Grady and Edaline for a bit after that, but when she does, they don't even bring up her suddenly cutting Juline off. Della wonders if she should bring it up, but she doesn't want to start trouble. So she pretends everything is fine and resists the urge to ask Eda how her sister is doing. 

This would be the time where Della would start visiting the Forbidden Cities and learning how to defend herself - going to the human world is freeing, but it comes with its risks. She's cautious not to get caught, and she's careful not to get hurt while she's there. In the Forbidden Cities, nobody knows her. She learns both how to hold her Vanishing for a long time, but also how to resist the light passing through her with each step she takes. Humans definitely don't blink in and out of sight as they walk. She learns a human language (in my headcanon it's Spanish, which she later teaches to her kids, while Alden teaches them English). She’s interested in human culture.

Luzia gifts Everglen to Alden, and he has it rebuilt, because the pressure to make things permanent with Della is starting to grow - he's been in relationships before, and they've all gone by so fast compared to this one. He feels differently about Della, he's actually gotten to know her, he thinks he's seen her at her worst. Della hears the whispers about marriage and gets terrified. She could really be Radelle Vacker. It's not the name she tried on at thirteen, fantasizing about marrying into the family, just for fun. It's an actual possibility.

Della had been living in an apartment since her twenties, she never felt like she could handle getting attached to a house the way most elves do. Besides, she liked the limited space - there was less to do with it, less options, but so many ways to decorate and make it hers. Unlike everything else in her life. Just because she appreciates beauty and fancy things, well, it doesn't have to be big to be beautiful. That was her place of peace. But then... Alden suggested she move into Everglen with him, after it gets rebuilt. And how could she say no? She can't. She hasn't said no to Alden once in all these decades. Not like he was too sure of what to do, either. Their relationship was the best pace it could have been for the two of them. And so Della moves into Everglen, and... gives up her apartment. And Everglen is big. It makes her feel small and anxious. But she'll get used to it. One time she had to cross the house to get a cup of water in the middle of the night - it was so eerie. She kept a cup by her bed from then on.

Another thing she gave up was her trips to the Forbidden Cities. She still wanted to go, and definitely could have, but she just stopped being able to find the time to visit as frequently, and eventually stopped going altogether. 

Now that they were living together, of course, people found out and started saying things and making more assumptions about Alden and Della's relationship, things that Della did not even feel nearly ready for - and they're not even married! They don't even share a room, let alone a bed! She feels kind of gross when she thinks about it for too long. but she's okay. She's getting good at this.

Until, to "celebrate" or whatever, Alden's parents suggest a family gathering at Everglen. Of course, Della is there. She already felt uncomfortable around Alden's parents, so she didn't expect it to go that well, but she wasn't expecting the sheer number of fancy intimidating and perfect Vackers that were there - she felt like scum next to them. And with the way some of them looked at her, she might as well have been. She made herself eat so they wouldn't go making assumptions about her health or mental well being, but after dinner, she excused herself and threw it all up in the bathroom. It wasn't even on purpose, she just felt that nauseous. She couldn't stay away for too long, though, because this was Alden's house, and being Alden's girlfriend, she'd surely be missed. So she gathers herself and returns for dessert, which she isn't able to stomach much of. She didn't notice until that night, but Alden seems so... stiff. And unnatural. Around the rest of his family. He's smiling, but that's not his smile. Della knows his smile! And she starts to wonder if Alden ever feels like she does. Despite how much he truly seems to belong here. Unlike she does.... she's not good enough.

And then Alden stands up and says he'd like to announce something, and he talks for a bit, then he mentions Della and she's forced to focus and listen and she doesn't even remember what he said, just that he wasn't looking at her, he was looking at his parents, while talking about her, and then he reached into his cape and turned around and kneeled down and

“Della, will you marry me?” 

And she freezes up and everything stops and her heart pounds in her ears and she feels like she might throw up again and then she chokes up and looks Alden in the eyes and the tears come before she can stop them, but she doesn't stop them because.... people cry at proposals all the time. It's normal. It's... an emotional moment. That's why she's crying. She's just. so. happy.

So she covers her mouth with her hands and says what she knows she has to say.

“Yes.” 

Except it's muffled and squeaky and choked so she nods to get her point across, she slowly stands up and steps towards Alden, and something in his eyes changes as he wraps his arms around her. Understanding, maybe? He's just as trapped as she is, isn’t he?

She cries into his chest, but they're definitely not happy tears. She can force a smile and pretend they are, but that doesn't make it any better. For a moment all she hears is herself sobbing and Alden's heartbeat, pounding much too hard for someone who could be truly at peace. Then the applause starts, and she cries harder, making herself feel even sicker. But this is the first time she's let tears fall in - no, has it really been a year? Has it been more? Less? She doesn't know. But it's been a while. And it's all coming out at once and the rush of hands clapping is taking over but she has to breathe. breathe. breathe. Alden rubs her back, and she focuses on that, she focuses on his smell.

And she breathes. 

In, out. 

She’s okay. 

She’s crying, but she’s happy, right? 

How could she be anything but happy? 

She’s… engaged. 

To Alden Vacker. 

So many people would give anything for this. People would crash weddings for a chance at marrying Alden Vacker. The world envies her. She even loves Alden! And she knows she does!

So why isn’t she happy??? 

Where’s the feeling she’s been missing for so long? 

She stands by the door as the Vackers leave, squeezing Alden's hand as she nods and smiles at each of the Vackers leaving. She's never even seen most of them. She recognizes Alden's parents, and of course Luzia Vacker, Fallon Vacker, Orem Vacker, and a few others she's read about in elvin history. She really is a part of them now.

But she doesn’t feel good enough. 

Her smile falls as soon as the last ones leave, and Alden isn't looking at her, and they need to talk about what to do, they need to talk about what happened, they need to celebrate, they need to...

Alden speaks up first. 

And he says,

“I’m sorry.” 

And he walks away. 

Della stares after him, feeling the light pass through her. She doesn't know how to feel. Alden just apologized... for proposing to her? She should feel hurt, but... she gets it. She's sorry, too.

She goes back over to the table to clean up all the plates left there, with the intent of getting her mind off of things, but... it's a giant table. It's overwhelming. She sits down and takes a half empty glass of wine that isn't even hers. She takes a deep breath and releases it in a long, slow, sigh.

She doesn't even finish the glass, but she feels sick like she's had five or ten. Or, she feels like what she thinks it'd be like? She's never actually gotten drunk, but she knows it can make you throw up. In any case, she knows she will not be getting drunk tonight. She needs to keep it together. She's okay.

The next morning, they act like they normally do, but they both know of the unspoken tension, the hurt and guilt and shame because of that disaster of a proposal that neither of them wanted to do yet. Especially not like that, in front of the Vackers. Della used to fantasize about her dream proposal - it would have been somewhere beautiful, maybe under the stars, remote and quiet. Certainly not in a well-lit room with every Vacker looking at her. She imagined tears, but she also imagined being happy. She imagined looking into her lover's eyes and smiling softly, and kissing them. Not whatever happened last night. 

But who is she to complain...

For a week, they try to pretend everything is like it was, like it has been... But then they both realize that it will never go back. They can’t go back. So they start planning the wedding. And we all know how that went. 

If you look closely in pictures taken when Alina was trying to get Alden to run away with her, you might see a glimmer of hope and desperation in Della's eyes, mixed with the shock and anxiety that was there already. For a moment Alden looked like he was about to leave and go with her - but then he snapped out of it. He was being beguiled. 

Of course, it could have just been the angle of the picture that painted that look on Della's face.

The Vackers are all freaking out after the wedding, but most pin the blame on Alina alone, and most are pleased with the end result of it - and they almost seem genuine when they smile at Della now. For once she's done something right? Do they think she handled it well? 

And honestly? Della is much happier in the week following the wedding - it's their "honeymoon period," in which they mostly just stay in Everglen where it's quiet and the world can't get to them. They invite Grady and Edaline over for tea, but that's the extent of their social interaction. For a short while. Then they're expected to go back to normal. They have to go out to work, they have to talk to people, and of course endure the speculation on what other things they could have been doing during that time. 

Now Alden and Della aren't great at communication but at this point with all the rumors and expectations to continue the Vacker family line, they do have to talk about it at some point. They just.... might procrastinate a bit.

Until finally, Della is the one to bring it up. 

She asks if he wants kids and he blinks, then says he doesn't know. He asks if she does, because if she does, he'll go along with it, of course. But she says she doesn't know either. They sit there at the table for a few minutes, neither looking at the other. They're not used to talking or making decisions together. Most of their decisions had been made for them until now.

So they wait a bit longer, until the pressure from their families and society becomes too much and they agree that they do want kids, even though they're still not sure. Except they've never even slept in the same bed... so they start there. And it's nice, actually. They no longer feel awkward just being around each other, and sometimes they cuddle, without saying anything. They'll lay down, and by morning Della is curled up in his arms and they're sharing a blanket. It's nice.

But they know they have to take it a step further eventually... and there's a big difference between cuddling fully clothed and... having a child. The last time Della had ever done anything remotely sexual was when she was a teenager, and Alden has even less experience. They don't even feel comfortable changing with the other there. They don't know how they're going to do this.

Okay, so they think, "well, Grady and Edaline have a kid, maybe we should talk to them.” And so they do! Which is like, really big for them, opening up and communicating and talking about their relationship with someone else - it's big. And scary. But... they're in the same boat. They're in this together. And soon, almost a year after they said they would... They have a child.

Both of them are really scared, because they didn't exactly have the best relationship with their own parents or the best childhood, and when Della finds out she's pregnant, she tells Alden immediately, and... he cries. He tries to pretend he's just happy, but Della has pulled that trick too many times for it to work on her. She sits by him, takes his hand, closes her eyes, and quietly admits that she's terrified. She tells him her fears about not being a good parent, and Alden is nodding along. He feels the same. He takes her hand, kisses her forehead, and promises that they'll do this together. But they have to talk about things, just like they're talking now. Della touches his cheek, wiping off a tear, and says, "I like it when we talk like this. It feels good." she leans on him, and he holds her.

And Della learns to take better care of herself, because it's not just her. She's actually eating every day, especially since Elwin noticed that she was a bit underweight when he first checked her. She grows more and more anxious the more time passes, and is constantly hailing Edaline to ask if x thing is normal for pregnancy. Edaline helps calm her by telling her baby stories about Jolie. She even gives her some of Jolie's old baby things, and Della is very grateful. Alden is just as stressed, and spends lots of time taking care of Della and figuring out what to prepare. When it was too early in the pregnancy to really start setting up a room yet, he tried to baby proof the entirety of Everglen, which is obviously impossible with all the wide staircases and tile floors and fancy crystal and sharp corners. But he tried. He settled for baby proofing the part of the house where Alvar's room was going to be, right by Alden and Della's room, then adding a baby gate in the hallway. This was not his idea, he was still trying to do the whole house when Edaline had to stop him.

Grady and Edaline bring Jolie over a lot and she tells them all about all the stuff that used to be hers, and when they knew Alvar's gender they let her help choose names. Being a brutally honest child (I think like 9 or 10, correct me if I'm wrong) she made a face at one of the names Alden suggested.

Of course, preparing for Alvar wasn't the only thing stressing Della out. They tried to keep it on the down low for a while, but of course the world found out about Della being pregnant. And there were so many predictions and speculation and people were even bringing up her "mental health struggles" (not that she doesn't have those, but they literally just saw her crying in public once) and wondering how she could be a good parent and how her child would turn out as an adult. Edaline saw how this was getting to her and told her to stop reading them so she wasn't as stressed, and finally convinced her by saying it'd be better for the baby if she could like. chill out a bit. 

And then Alvar is born, and everyone cries, and yes, Della is stressed and anxious and scared but they are happy tears! She can't help but smile as she looks at Alvar, so small and fragile and she wants to shield him from the harsh reality of the world. Alden seems almost scared to hold him, like he's afraid he'll break him if he messes up or does something wrong. He sits down by Della so she can help him make sure he does it right. Grady, Edaline, and Elwin are there to help if needed. Jolie is at Brant's house (I believe they’ve met by now). Della closes her eyes and breathes, and the moment is so... perfect. really, truly, perfect.

For a long time, things are great! they really couldn't be better... Alden and Della aren't perfect at parenting, but they're doing their best. They're managing a balance between their work and family fairly well. Like I said, they're not perfect. They do mess up. A lot. And they're super hard on themselves. But... they're trying. Alvar is growing up fairly happy, and when Jolie is old enough, she (and sometimes Brant) babysit him sometimes. Alden and Della are closer than ever with Grady and Eda, and Jolie, too. For the Vackers, the Ruewens are the first example of a healthy family that they've gotten to see.

Now, they say all good things must come to an end. 

Della is the happiest she’s been. Ever. 

And then Jolie dies. 

Everything fell apart then. the Ruewens were like family to Della and Alden, and Jolie was almost like a daughter or niece to them. And for Alvar? She had been a part of his life before he was even born. His special stuffie belonged to her, and he couldn't even fully grasp the concept of death yet. He kept asking where Jolie was, and Della couldn't explain it to him. Alden couldn't either, he'd never been good with words. Della had to keep telling him that she went away and she's not coming back, trying to explain death while still reeling from the shock of the news herself. At one point she got up and locked herself in the bathroom for a while, away from Alvar's questions and away from everything. Alden spent most of his days in his office, working. Della, on the other hand, had to take a break from work for a while. She knew the moment she left Everglen, she would be judged for grieving, grieving wrong, not grieving enough - whatever she did, it would be wrong. And it wasn't even her child who died. She wanted to comfort or help Edaline and Grady somehow, but she couldn't. She couldn't even get out of bed for a while. Alden didn’t really know this, because he'd been sleeping in his office.

All of this really affects Alvar's little child brain, but we can talk about his trauma another time. The planting happens, and the Vackers are right at the front. Alvar has finally gone quiet, and he seems to realize that she's really not coming back. He tries to go over to Brant after the proceedings, but he's kinda... unstable. Alden tells him it's time to go, so Alvar gives Brant a hug and goes back to his parents.

Even though they got that bit of closure, they're still broken. There's a wound that cannot be healed. A hole that cannot be filled. Della's mental health plummets, and for a bit, there is nobody taking care of Alvar. He plays alone in his room until he gets bored and goes to his parents room, where Della is usually curled up in bed, thinking too much and not thinking at the same time. Alden comes in one night and lays down next to her, reaching out his hand like they did when they were still figuring out how to be comfortable together. Della places her hand on top of his, and they sit there for a long time. Alvar comes in and crawls between them, placing his tiny hand on top of Della's. The three of them fall asleep there. 

Slowly, they recover. In a year they're seemingly okay again. But nothing is the same. Della and Alden are more distant from both each other and Alvar. And the wound never healed, only scarred over.

And whether that feeling of something missing affected their decision to have another child is up to speculation, but they did have another child. Part of it was also because Della felt like she had failed Alvar, that she had let him down when Jolie died, and she didn't know how to talk to him or fix things. He wasn't doing bad in Foxfire, he was actually doing better than Della had. But Alden didn't seem to think it was good enough. Or rather, his parents didn't. Alden didn't really seem all that bothered by anything Alvar was doing. He had a habit of getting too wrapped up in work, especially after Jolie died. But Alden's parents sometimes hailed him or came over, mostly to tell him how disappointed they were in how he was raising Alvar. And Della heard them blaming her, a few times. But she didn't know how to fix it. And he was still a level one - surely he had time to turn out okay?

They end up having Fitzroy Alden Fallon Avery Vacker, whose initials they did not think through (Jolie would have thought about it). But this time they feel like they're having this child alone. sure, it's their second one, but there's still no one to just... be with them. Help them. Della is still anxious, but she has no one to stop her from looking at the news, no baby stories to look back on except Alvar's, though even his have turned sad. Jolie was there for so many of them... 

Over time, they become a lot stricter with Alvar. And as Fitz (and Biana) grow older, both Alden and Della begin trying to force them into perfection. Alvar is so different and so unwilling to fit into what their family is supposed to be that Alden and Della have all but given up on him. And for Alvar, well it obviously doesn't feel great to be given up on, which really only makes him further apart from the others. He feels out of place everywhere. At home he isn't perfect enough, he has too much of an attitude, he's placed last in priority. At school, he's a Vacker. He can't escape it. It's who he is.

Prentice's mind break (if I'm mathing correctly) happened while Della was pregnant with Biana. And Alden was never really the same after it. He'd never been very talkative, but he became more distant than ever. He barely left his office, kept forgetting to eat or drink water or sleep. He got better over time, but he still smiles much less than he used to.

When Biana is born, the public doesn't really know how to feel about her. Two children is fine, but three? Isn't that pushing it a bit? So Biana grows up with people asking everything of her, but half expecting nothing. She was so scared she wasn't even going to manifest (which is a bit unrealistic but with the way things were exaggerated, she thought being talentless was very likely. Della was also very afraid of this possibility).

The happiest years for anyone in this family were from when Alvar was born to when Jolie died. Things don't seem like they'll ever be better.

Alden is forcing Fitz and Biana to be perfect to protect the family legacy. Della is forcing them to be perfect to protect them. She knows how cruel the world can be. But her “protection” doesn't come across in the best way. At home, she subtly brings attention to all their little flaws, and when they go out, she makes sure they hide them all. When they cry, she gently tells them not to, that it's okay, that they're okay, everything is okay.

After Alden recovered from the mind break, he suddenly started talking to Alvar (who was struggling a lot with Neverseen stuff and depression and an eating disorder at the time) more. And he wouldn't let Della know what they were talking about. Della stopped trusting Alden. Not that she ever truly had, but this was different.

And Alden and Della grew further apart. Nobody would know, of course, since when they're out in public or when others are around, they act as in love as ever. But sometimes they go all day without talking to each other. Della spends time with Fitz and Biana, takes them places, teaches them how to survive in this family. She teaches them how to be the best version of themselves. They are 3 and 5. Alvar is at school most of the day, and out doing... whatever until nearly sunset. Della could ask, but Alden seems like he has it covered, so it doesn't really matter. She knows she's starting to be apathetic again, and she doesn't want to be, especially when it comes to her kids, but it's so hard not to.

But then Alvar enters the elite levels, and Alden starts spending more time with Fitz. He keeps him in his office all day, but then Della goes in once and Alden is alone. Where is Fitz? She asks him, and he informs her that he's at a friend's house. Where did Fitz get friends? She should be happy for him, but something about all of this feels so wrong. But she doesn't press further. If she shows that she doesn't trust Alden, will people use that against her too? So she doesn't even question it, and instead works on becoming closer with Biana, so Alden can't take her away, too. Maybe she's being overdramatic about it, but that wrong feeling hasn't gone away. Maybe it's just anxiety. Maybe she's fine. No, she is fine. It's not a maybe. She's okay. Their family is okay.

This also creates a divide between Fitz and Biana, who used to be close as little kids. But now Fitz is disappearing every day, and Della is keeping Biana away from him and Alden, and Alvar never comes home, except briefly during breaks and weekends, but then he goes to stay stars know where. Fitz and Biana have vastly different personalities. Biana has learned to be confident and defensive, while Fitz... well, he doesn't know how to act around people. He's learned to depend only on Alden, because nobody else trusts him and he can't trust anyone else. The golden years of this corner of the family are far behind them, and now all they have is perfectionism, distrust, and a facade.

Della thinks that by bringing attention to all Fitz and Biana’s little flaws and imperfections, by pointing them out in subtle ways, she thinks that will give them a chance to "fix" them before the world notices and attacks them for it. She tells herself she wishes someone had done this to her before she had to learn for herself to be perfect. 

Fitz started going to foxfire, and Della can tell he's not really okay. Did they ever get him enrolled in tutor sessions? Maybe that's where he's been going off to? She hasn't been paying enough attention. They used to have dinner together as a family every night, but then Alden got busy, Fitz started bringing his food up to his room when he started school and became swamped with way more homework than what can be good and normal for an eleven year old. So Della usually ended up sitting at the table with Biana after making some food. She figures this is a good meal to skip. Two meals a day is more than enough.

Suddenly, everything changes. Suddenly, Sophie is there, and Fitz seems so much less tired. He seems less stressed. He joins Biana and Della for dinner, and sometimes even Alden sits and eats with them as well. Things are far from perfect, but Alden is smiling genuinely again. Only sometimes, but it's there. Della decides she likes this change. But she also realizes something...

Fitz was always either away or sick, Sophie was in the forbidden cities, where there are lots of human illnesses (she knows from experience). Alden never told her why he had Fitz get up so early to talk to him alone, Alden never talks to her anymore, goddamnit- what was Fitz doing? Alden couldn't have found Sophie. He couldn't have, she knows for a fact he never leaves! He was meeting with the council right before Sophie arrived with Fitz, in her strange human clothes, and Fitz was wearing human clothes and prime sources, she's thinking about this too much and she can't breathe - this has been going on for so long?? How could she not have seen?

No, she needs to stay calm. She... needs to talk to Alden about this. He's been busy today, but she takes two plates of food to his office in the evening, gently opens the door, and sits by him. Alden clearly thinks this is unusual, but she can't tell if it's in a positive or negative way. But that's not important. They need to talk. After a few bites of food, she prepares the question. Were you sending Fitz to the Forbidden Cities? she prepares it in her mind, has it on the tip of her tongue, she opens her mouth to speak, but what comes out instead is...

“How was your day?” 

Alden blinks, like that's not what he was expecting. It's not what Della was expecting either. But she's not ready to confront his lies, she's not ready to face the reality of the danger Fitz was in for quite possibly eight years? And that's how Alden and Della end up sitting in Alden's office for hours, having the longest, most normal conversation they've had in years. They sit together and watch the sun set. Della leans on him. She missed having someone to hold her. Alden missed the feeling of being loved.

Alden and Della sort of work on mending their relationship after this, but they don't really talk about Fitz and what Alden had him do. Della never feels ready to bring it up, and eventually she puts the whole thing out of her mind. After all, Fitz is fine, it's like it never happened. But it did happen, and she doesn't notice the ways this affected Fitz because she's too busy pretending everything is fine and forcing him to do the same! Sometimes it's less pretending and more just. lying to herself. Trying to trick herself into believing. One of the ways she's done this for herself these past decades is telling herself that other people have it worse. If someone is suffering more than her, her pain doesn't matter. going to the Forbidden Cities kind of ingrained this in her brain more, as she saw people who were literally starving to death on the street, and here she was, living in this fancy mansion with a good husband - after all, he's not abusive or anything, and she really loves him. Things are just… weird, sometimes. And she sort of ends up passing this mentality down to Biana and Fitz? There's a time in Flashback where Fitz says it's only fair that all this is happening - because everyone else in the friend group had a really hard time at least at one point in their life, and usually over a long time - he's fine! He's had it good. How could he complain?

Alden went to Exile with Sophie in book 2, but nobody knew about it. Well, nobody was supposed to know, until Sophie transmitted to Fitz and got him all freaked out. All Della really knows is that he got hurt on a mission from the Council, and he really didn’t seem to want to talk about it. When she tried to ask, he used the “no reason to worry” phrase three different times in that conversation. He was clearly stressed and upset about something, but he convinced her to drop it. He ended up falling asleep in his office that night, but that happens sometimes. Everything was looking bright for everyone else, until the Opening Ceremonies. You all know what happened there, so i’m not gonna go into it, but when Alden’s mind broke, Della was devastated. As far as everyone knew, he wasn’t coming back. He was dead, they had a planting for him. She didn’t eat for days. Alvar was basically taking care of the whole family, because Alden was gone and Della spent most of her time by Alden’s side, trying to bring him back. Alvar tried to convince her to leave every day, until one day he snapped and yelled at her, he’s gone and he’s not coming back, stop hoping. It was the same kind of thing she had told him when they lost Jolie. 

But unlike Jolie, Alden did come back, and the Vackers tried to erase the phase of their life where he was gone. They wanted to pretend that Keefe was right, that everything had gone back to perfection in Vacker Land. But this kind of thing leaves a lasting effect. They were afraid to even talk about what had happened with Alden, for fear that he’d break from the guilt of being gone and affecting them like that. Della still visits his Wanderling sometimes, not to mourn, but... for some other reason. There’s something surreal about looking at the tree, knowing full well Alden is okay at home. 

Another quick thing I want to touch on is in book 3 when Alden and Fitz went to help with Fintan’s mind healing. Della and Biana spent the afternoon and evening together, trying to do fun things to take their mind off of things. But then they heard about the fire and saw pictures before Alden and Fitz had even come home, and they understandably freaked out. The fire had consumed half of Eternalia, how could they have gotten out? How could they be okay? But they were, and both Vackers were strangled with hugs as soon as they got back. 

Della went with Fitz and Biana to join the Black Swan, partially because she wanted to, partially because she felt she should keep an eye on them and keep them at least semi in line, and partially because she wanted to escape the world and their pressing stares. And Everglen, a little bit. Juline was there, of course, but Della didn’t really know it was her. 

When Squall wasn't busy and didn't need to rush home, Della actually ended up talking to her a bit. Della was a little more honest (key word a little) with her because she obviously wasn't like the general public - she's a Black Swan member. At one point Squall actually thinks Della is about to call her out on being Juline when Della tells her she reminds her of someone she used to know, and hey, she's a Froster, too! But Della seems genuinely unaware as she sort of explains what happened with this old friend of hers - she's a bad match, and Della was seen talking with her... and she felt like she had no choice but to cut her off. Squall listens, but only half processes it because she's waiting for the "you're Juline aren't you?" But it never comes. 

After Alvar’s betrayal, Della knew a lot of people blamed her for how he ended up. After all, how could Alden Vacker have gone wrong? It was clearly Della’s influence that caused this. And she blames herself, too. She gave up on him. She didn’t talk to him enough. This whole thing also made the distrust in the Vacker family a lot worse - either Fitz or Biana said in Lodestar that it was like their parents wanted to know everything they’re doing, every place they go. They didn’t trust them. Fitz and Biana were growing closer after everything that had happened the past few years, but Della and Alden didn’t trust them, didn’t trust each other. This led to a lot of arguments between them and the kids, maybe not screaming matches, but raised voices and slammed fists and fighting back tears. When Keefe joined the Neverseen, Fitz shut himself in his room until school started again. He got quieter, and started to feel like he couldn’t trust anyone, even his sister, who he’d been taught to keep secrets from at a very young age. Della wanted to fix this somehow, she didn’t want to lose them like she’d lost Alvar - She wouldn’t give up on them. But she ended up just becoming overbearing and seemingly nosy. She thought she was helping. 

If I remember correctly, the others got told that Squall is Juline in Lodestar when they came to pick up their kids from Rimeshire. Juline gathers everyone and says she has to tell them something, and when she reveals it, Della's smile drops faster than it ever has and she feels blood drain from her face. Juline never looks directly at her, and Della is panicking, thinking about how Juline must hate her. She wonders if she should try to push her away more, but... at this point what does it matter? Fitz and Biana already spend lots of time with Dex, and they just slept over at the Dizznees- she joined an illegal organization with them for stars’ sake! So... it's fine. It's okay for her to be here, at rimeshire, talking to Juline. The world is changing, and people have bigger things to talk about than Alden Vacker’s wife sharing a conversation with Juline Dizznee. As they leave Rimeshire, Juline meets her eyes and offers a small smile. Della nods in return. 

When Alvar had his memories wiped and returned to Everglen, Della was determined to help him. She had this second chance, she wasn’t going to ruin it. She wanted to really believe he’d changed. But then Alvar got his memories back, and in front of the whole world at the celestial festival, he told everyone how his parents had given up on him. Della and Alden were watching that entire thing, as the world watched them, and Della couldn’t breathe. She watched Fitz threaten to kill Alvar, and for a few horrifying moments she thought she was about to lose both of them. And it was her fault, wasn’t it? That’s what everyone said. They blamed her. Alvar blamed her. She wouldn’t be surprised if Fitz and Biana blamed her, too. 

Ever since what the world has canonically deemed the “Scandal at Everglen,” things in the Vacker family have not gotten better. Alden had been talking to Fitz about matchmaking for a while, encouraging him to pursue Sophie as a romantic interest. Eventually they do get together. Della tries to be happy for him, but she still sees this and thinks, maybe give them time. If she could go back, she would have wanted to enjoy her life before committing to the Match forever. She’s almost relieved when Sophie and Fitz don’t work out. She thinks it’ll be better for Fitz in the end. She knows he’s been isolating himself from his family, from the world after the Scandal at Everglen, which is understandable. They all seem to think he’s crazy. He’s seventeen, and he almost killed his own brother, right there. But Della was watching, too, and she saw that it was Gethen doing the manipulating. Using the right words, would they make Fitz turn out like Alvar? The thought still chills her to this day. 

I don’t really have a good way to wrap it up other than I don’t think anything good will be happening to the Vackers anytime soon (except Biana, she seems to be doing relatively good compared to the rest). But yeah those are my Della thoughts :) 

Lastly, art tags:

@cutebisexualmess @void-kill @lemon-girl-in-devil-town @keefe--sencen @tastetherainbow290 

@myfairkatiecat @awful-amateur @aspenaspenaspenaspenaspen @necromycologist @cosmxc-ars3hol3

[bakvrue]

a man's strength

izuku x reader

provocative imagery, strength kink, izuku and reader are married and in love (feverishly so), mostly fluff with horny sprinkles, for my lovely mimi, ~1.3k wc

The cheers from the audience echo through the back halls of the late night studio and you make yourself comfortable in the green room.

This isn't the first time you've sat backstage while your husband smiles and waves at the large crowd. The host, a newcomer who has just recently snagged the prime slot, ushers Izuku over to his seat but when he goes to sit the applause continues.

Who wouldn't want to keep cheering for the number one hero? But your husband plays it down, laughing it off coolly and thanking them before sitting down.

Izuku could barely talk on stage in your first year of high school, turning into a defective robot, but years of experience really does make all the difference.

The host, Lux Larson, plays off of the audience spectacularly. The topics they discussed before the show are a hit with the audience, and the banter they have with Izuku and their band leader is actually funny. It's refreshing.

They laugh like old friends and Izuku tells harrowing stories of recent rescues, he talks about being a husband and you. Pink dusts his ears when you're brought up but the conversation naturally moves on to talk about the new hero initiatives Izuku is promoting. And before long the interview is over.

“Mr. Deku, thank you so much for being here tonight.” Lux sticks their hand out and Izuku happily accepts, shaking it with a smile. “The grip strength on this guy. Wow. More with Deku right after this!”

You hear a buzzer and people on set start moving all at once and you're confused when your husband is led from his seat to the large open area. He still seems relaxed, he must know what's going on, but you don't.

Your eyebrows furrow, the smile on your husband's face is enough to make you suspicious.

A knock pulls you from your mind before you can start to theorize.

“Mrs. Midoriya, your presence is requested at the center stage.”

You follow the assistant through the maze of hallways until you're standing behind the cameras.

The large open stage now has a large sturdy stand holding a glass window. More are off to the side with a variety of thicknesses, and a dawning washes over you.

Izuku jogs over to you the moment he spots you, his smile is so big, he's so excited.

“Izuku, is this why you were practicing your punches in the mirror this morning?”

You cock an eyebrow at him and as much as he would love to bask in the playfulness of your voice right now, he's on a time limit.

“We'll be starting soon, I want you to be front and center to enjoy the view.”

“What do you mean enjoy the—”

A buzzer goes off and he kisses your forehead.

“Watch me,” he whispers softly into your hairline before he walks back to Lux.

The lights dim and a producer counts down until Lux takes over.

“Hello and welcome back! We're still here with Deku and we're about to see the Pro's strength in action. What we have in front of us is a single pane of bulletproof glass. Have you ever punched through glass like this?”

Izuku's hands are in his pockets as he leans down to talk into the microphone Lux is holding, “I've punched through many things but I can't say that I’ve ever punched through bullet proof glass on purpose.”

“I can't imagine any of us have either,” Lux laughs. “Normally punching through glass is very dangerous, and we do have medical staff on standby, but how are you protecting yourself?”

Izuku takes off his suit jacket and begins rolling up his sleeves as he says, “I'll be wrapping my arm with one of my quirks, it should shield my skin from loose glass and prevent me from breaking anything.”

Lux laughs, “Break anything? I don't think the studio can cover breaking you. Are we sure about this? Audience, what do we think?”

The audience cheers and your husband has the audacity to turn and wink at you.

Lux points their finger at the audience, “If he breaks it's you guys that are footing the bill!” The producer hands safety glasses to the two on stage and Lux pats Izuku on the back before backing up. “Whenever you're ready!”

The band gives him a drum roll, “Now kids, don't try this at home.”

He gives you a half smile as he turns to face glass in front of him. The drumroll gets faster and so does your heart, pounding in your chest as wisps of black whip curls around his hand and wrist.

He pulls backwards, the muscles in his back causing his shirt to strain as he pushes them to their max. Electricity crackles in the studio as he punches. His fist collides with the glass, and you watch almost in slow motion as the glass cracks and gives way. His punch goes clean through, an almost perfect circle missing from the center of the shattered glass.

You gulp, realizing just why your menace of a husband wanted you up here. You shift your weight hoping the spark inside you doesn't turn into a raging fire.

Izuku is talking to Lux, probably talking about the breaking points of bullet proof glass and replaying the slow mo footage of the break.

You can see it playing on screen, and while the two of them are interested in the way the cracks in the glass all converged to a single point, you're too busy staring at the bit of forearm not concealed my black whip. Thick, powerful ropes of muscle…

You refocus on the two talking, Lux is pointing out a rip in the seam of Izuku's shirt, to which your husband decides to rip the shirt even further, pulling at the threads until they break.

Now shirtless, he lines up to punch a new piece of bullet proof glass. This one is three times thicker than the last.

His body braces again, but this time you can see every muscle tense in his back. His shoulder pulls back, and he thrusts his fist forward. The glass cracks under the force as his tricep bulges. He plunges his fist harder and deeper, feeling the glass resist him before it breaks to his whim.

The crowd claps at his strength as you struggle to stand. Your cheeks are heating as you watch the replay. The slow motion video shows just how easy it was for him. Like a knife slicing through butter.

You step back farther into the shadows behind you, covering your face. And Izuku knows. He smiles at you and you hope and pray to god that he does not come over here, that the cameras don't record the absolute hunger that must be sitting behind your eyes.

The third and final pane of glass is moved into position. A level eight. It's eight times thicker than the first and made to withstand 5 shots of an ak47.

Izuku once again braces himself for the punch, his bare back glistening under the hot studio lights.

His fist closes, and he presses it against the glass focusing on his breathing.

A drop of sweat trails down his back and he pulls his arm back. He breathes deeply before unleashing his power on the glass.

His fist collides with the glass. The force pushing and bending the thick glass around his arm, until it snaps and shatters.

The leftover shape reminds you of what a drawing of wormholes look like, except this one is broken to pieces in the deepest part of the pit.

The pure raw strength of your husband is enough to break through the strongest of security measures. You feel dizzy.

You reach your hand out towards the wall behind you and look at your monster of a husband. He's laughing with Lux before they send the program off to commercial break.

Thank god the dressing room has a lock, if you'll even make it that far...

[jovial-thunder]

Pre-alpha Lancer Tactics changelog

(cross-posting the full gif changelog here because folks seemed to like it last time I did)

We're aiming for getting the first public alpha for backers by the end of this month! Carpenter and I scoped out mechanics that can wait until after the alpha (e.g. grappling, hiding) in favor of tying up the hundred loose threads that are needed for something that approaches a playable game. So this is mostly a big ol changelog of an update from doing that.

But I also gave a talent talk at a local Portland Indie Game Squad event about engine architecture! It'll sound familiar if you've been reading these updates; I laid out the basic idea for this talk almost a year ago, back in the June 2023 update.

We've also signed contracts & had a kickoff meeting with our writers to start on the campaigns. While I've enjoyed like a year of engine-work, it'll be so so nice to start getting to tell stories. Data structures don't mean anything beyond how they affect humans & other life.

New Content

Implemented flying as a status; unit counts as +3 spaces above the current ground level and ignores terrain and elevation extra movement costs. Added hover + takeoff/land animations.

Gave deployables the ability to have 3D meshes instead of 2D sprites; we'll probably use this mostly when the deployable in question is climbable.

Related, I fixed a bug where after terrain destruction, all units recheck the ground height under them so they'll move down if the ground is shot out from under them. When the Jerichos do that, they say "oh heck, the ground is taller! I better move up to stand on it!" — not realizing that the taller ground they're seeing came from themselves.

Fixed by locking some units' rendering to the ground level; this means no stacking climbable things, which is a call I'm comfortable making. We ain't making minecraft here (I whisper to myself, gazing at the bottom of my tea mug). 

Block sizes are currently 1x1x0.5 — half as tall as they are wide. Since that was a size I pulled out of nowhere for convenience, we did some art tests for different block heights and camera angles. TLDR that size works great and we're leaving it.

Added Cone AOE pattern, courtesy of an algorithm NMcCoy sent me that guarantees the correct number of tiles are picked at the correct distance from the origin.

pick your aim angle

for each distance step N of your cone, make a list ("ring") of all the cells at that distance from your origin

sort those cells by angular distance from your aim angle, and include the N closest cells in that ring in the cone's area

Here's a gif they made of it in Bitsy:

Units face where you're planning on moving/targeting them.

Got Walking Armory's Shock option working. Added subtle (too subtle, now that I look at it) electricity effect.

Other things we've added but I don't have gifs for or failed to upload. You'll have to trust me. :)

disengage action

overcharge action

Improved Armament core bonus

basic mine explosion fx

explosion fx on character dying

Increase map elevation cap to 10. It's nice but definitely is risky with increasing the voxel space, gonna have to keep an eye on performance.

Added Structured + Stress event and the associated popups. Also added meltdown status (and hidden countdown), but there's not animation for this yet so your guy just abruptly disappears and leaves huge crater.

UI Improvements

Rearranged the portrait maker. Auto-expand the color picker so you don't have to keep clicking into a submenu.

Added topdown camera mode by pressing R for handling getting mechs out of tight spaces.

The action tooltips have been bothering me for a while; they extend up and cover prime play-area real estate in the center of the screen. So I redesigned them to be shorter and have a max height by putting long descriptions in a scrollable box. This sounds simple, but the redesign, pulling in all the correct data for the tags, and wiring up the tooltips took like seven hours. Game dev is hard, yo.

Put the unit inspect popups in lockable tooltips + added a bunch of tooltips to them.

Implemented the rest of Carpenter's cool hex-y action and end turn readout. I'm a big fan of whenever we can make the game look more like a game and less like a website (though he balances out my impulse for that for the sake of legibility).

Added a JANKY talent/frame picker. I swear we have designs for a better one, but sometimes you gotta just get it working. Also seen briefly here are basic level up/down and HASE buttons.

Other no-picture things:

Negated the map-scaling effect that happens when the window resizes to prevent bad pixel scaling of mechs at different resolutions; making the window bigger now just lets you see more play area instead of making things bigger.

WIP Objectives Bullets panel to give the current sitrep info

Wired up a buncha tooltips throughout the character sheet.

Under the Hood

Serialization: can save/load games! This is the payoff for sticking with that engine architecture I've been going on about. I had to add a serialization function to everything in the center layer which took a while, but it was fairly straightforward work with few curveballs.

Finished replacement of the kit/unit/reinforcement group/sitrep pickers with a new standardized system that can pull from stock data and user-saved data.

Updated to Godot 4.2.2; the game (and editor) has been crashing on exit for a LONG time and for the life of me I couldn't track down why, but this minor update in Godot completely fixed the bug. I still have no idea what was happening, but it's so cool to be working in an engine that's this active bugfixing-wise! 

Other Bugfixes

Pulled straight from the internal changelog, no edits for public parseability:

calculate cover for fliers correctly

no overwatch when outside of vertical threat

fixed skirmisher triggering for each attack in an AOE

fixed jumpjets boost-available detection

fixed mines not triggering when you step right on top of them // at a different elevation but still adjacent

weapon mods not a valid target for destruction

made camera pan less jumpy and adjust to the terrain height

better Buff name/desc localization

Fixed compcon planner letting you both boost and attack with one quick action.

Fix displayed movement points not updating

Prevent wrecks from going prone

fix berserkers not moving if they were exactly one tile away

hex mine uses deployer's save target instead of 0

restrict weapon mod selection if you don't have the SP to pay

fix deployable previews not going away

fix impaired not showing up in the unit inspector (its status code is 0 so there was a check that was like "looks like there's no status here")

fix skirmisher letting you move to a tile that should cost two movement if it's only one space away

fix hit percent calculation

fix rangefinder grid shader corner issues (this was like a full day to rewrite the shader to be better)

Teleporting costs the max(spaces traveled, elevation change) instead of always 1

So um, yeah, that's my talk, any questions? (I had a professor once tell us to never end a talk like this, so now of course it's the phrase that first comes to mind whenever I end a talk)

[paperlifted]

A Turtle By Any Other Name...4!!!

[Season 1 tally] [Season 2 tally] [Season 3 tally]

We're on the home stretch now - a season 4 tally of names used by the turtle family in TMNT 2003.

As is the usual rule, this includes all direct addresses, names given to a third party, and names dropped during the pre-episode narrations. It also includes the names the turtles use when referring to themselves.

• Season 4 was the Leo and Don show and, accordingly, they fairly smashed the name-drop record. Prior to this season, Mikey is the only turtle to have broken over 100 namings with 103 in season 1 and 109 in season 4 - this season, it was 117 for Leo and 146 for Don. This of course has a lot to do with Leo's extended period of not even remotely always being in control, and Don's special 3 episode mutant outbreak arc wherein people were pretty much always either talking to him or about him.

• Poor Raph is left in the dust - a mere 62 mentions! Someone needs to put that boy in a situation, stat.

• Mikey gets the lone Father this time, during his rematch with Clagh: "I don't think so - my father taught me better than that."

• It was surprisingly painful to find Leo dropping way, way back on his usual references to Splinter during his post-Exodus angst arc; even when he does address him, it's often as the stiffer 'Master'. After his time with the Ancient One, however, he starts using Master Splinter and sensei again.

• Interestingly, he didn't start using full names for any of his brothers until after his return either.

• We shed a surprising number of nickname staples, honestly: no Fearlesses, no Brainiacs, no Mikes, no Dads, only one Raphie(-boy).

• On the other hand, Raph came out swinging with a much more colourful range of one-off nicknames than usual: Hotshot, Mr Sunshine (Leo), Einstein (Don), Psycho Boy (Leo), Sneezy (Don), Master Leo (guess). Laughing Boy also made a reappearance for Mikey.

• While seasons 1 and 2 do a lot with the Don-Mikey matchup, seasons 3 and especially 4 start to lean a lot more into playing Raph as a grumpy foil to Mikey's antics, so Raph continues to overtake Donnie as the prime Mikey namer. That said, Mikey is still Don's most-referenced family member by a fair margin.

• Leo and Casey do a lot of bonding this season, even getting several solo adventures together, and it's pretty visible!

• There's one more season to go, but I think we're landing on Leo consistently preferring 'Don', Raph mostly preferring 'Donnie', and Mikey just kinda doing whatever. April also seems to lean towards Don at least sometimes, while Casey usually goes for Donnie - fitting for both his casual personality, and for being Raph's buddy.

[gffa]

Hello there! I was wondering if you could help me with some comic recs. I've been looking to read the Batman's-lost-in-the-time-stream stories specifically the ones where Tim tracks down evidence of Bruce not being dead (blowing up the LoA and losing his spleen in the process etc), but I find it tricky to pin down the exact comic names and numbers. I figured asking was worth a shot since you seem to know your way around the various continuities. Thank you! 💙

Hi! I will freely admit that I had to Google a lot of this, because I haven't read most of those comics since they originally came out and my memory is fuzzy, but I do think I can at least point you in the right direction. The majority of what you're looking for re: Tim is going to be in Red Robin, but a lot of this storyline spilled over kind of everywhere and crosses into several smaller event storylines, but as best as I can remember/find: (Note: These are all comics from around 2008-2010, so when you go looking for them, keep them separate from a lot of the current ongoings that have reached these numbers again. XD)

Bruce "dies" in the Final Crisis mini-series

Portions of that story also spill over into Batman R.I.P. 2008 (Batman vol. 1 issues #676–681). For memory, it's a separate story from the fight with Darkseid that "killed" Bruce, but aspects of it are intertwined with that main story, so feel free to skim if you want.

"Nightwing: The Great Leap" (vol. 2, issues #147-153) is part of the Batman R.I.P. storyline that will lead into Last Rites and Battle for the Cowl

The final issues of the Robin vol. 2 series, issues #175-183, are also part of the lead-up to the Last Rites storyline (and then part of the main storyline itself)

Last Rites is spread out across Batman #682-685, Detective Comics #851-852, Nightwing #151-153, Robin #183

Okay, for Battle for the Cowl storyline, there's a lot going on, but you can read the three issue mini series (Battle for the Cowl #1-3) and then kind of pick-and-choose what you want from the tie-in oneshots. I'm not sure how important most of them are, if you're just here for main Batfam drama, but the DC fandom wiki has a good list of them all.

This leads us into the Batman Reborn storyline, which is Dick as Batman and Damian as Robin and there's a lot of comics going on at this time that are dealing with the general fallout but not necessarily specifically about Bruce being lost in time. But I really liked this era, so of course I'd recommend reading it anyway.

Red Robin is where you're going to find the "Tim really looks like he's having a mental breakdown and goes off to find Bruce" content that you're looking for, those issues are the prime material for it, just that there's context spilling everywhere first before you get to them.

Batman and Robin from 2009 is Dick and Damian's side of everything that was going on--they do have other stuff they have to deal with, they're fighting against all the usual cases in Gotham popping up, but the "Bruce is lost in time" story does have a lot of context here as well, that Dick actually is doing research into this as well.

Early on in both of the above two comic runs (within about six issues or so) was an event called Blackest Night where all the dead came back to life and it's mostly about that, but the Batman tie in issues had Tim coming back to Gotham and the issue was raised of, "wait, why does Bruce's corpse look all wrong?" and people start to believe that Bruce is alive. I'd say read the two Batman tie-in issues for sure and at least skim the main Blackest Night #1-8 for anything Bat-related.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1-6 is Bruce's side of his "death" and eventual return.

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home is the follow-up/aftermath of that and is spread out across several oneshots and the order is generally: Batman #703 (prelude) --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batman and Robin #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Red Robin #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Outsiders #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Batgirl #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Catwoman #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Commissioner Gordon #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Oracle #1 --> Bruce Wayne: The Road Home: Ra's al Ghul #1 --> Batman: The Return #1 (These are NOT issue #1 of their given series, these are all separate oneshots--aside from the Batman #703 prelude, of course.)

@fantastic-nonsense also has a really great context-laden post here about the storyline of them searching for Bruce and is very helpful to understand all the moving parts! If I missed anything major, hopefully she or someone else can step in and give us issue numbers. I know that's a lot of comics to throw at you, but it kind of goes to show that this is how some of the Bat-storylines used to have more of this kind of stuff, where they had big, sprawling events and everything kind of spilled over onto everything else. I don't miss having to buy a zillion issues to keep up with a storyline taking over my favorite book, but I do miss the interconnectedness of stuff like this, when it worked, it created storylines that genuinely were game-changing in the Batman franchise. Hopefully, this helps and if nothing else you can know that you inspired me to go pull out some of these runs and reread them to refresh my memory. (Even if I'm still mortal enemies with Grant Morrison, they wrote a lot of the comics that were at the height of my interest in DC. XD)