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Your talk of pre new-era/klassic Loaden/railao has intrigued me >:3 and I wanna know more

Maybe some headcanons about them or their relationship? Or a bit of info about the fics you're writing?

Share as much or as little as you want! I'll be happy with anything lol

Thank you!

🫪 I have waited so long for someone to ask me about the truth and the light my OTP. Please, bear with me as I infodump; just today a friend asked me a single question about a single plot point in my fic and I replied by spending two hours writing what I can only assume was a couple thousand words on the topic. Buckle up, we're going on a journey.

First and foremost, one of the things which fascinates me the most about the pairing is that, to be blunt, Raiden is Kung Lao's God. He's not just 'a' god -- he's the patron deity of the religious order to which Kung Lao belongs. Kung Lao worships him as a deity, that's why he calls him Lord. Raiden is God, and Kung Lao is his monk in religious service to him, and that's at best gray and at worst potentially very dark and fraught -- have you ever seen the post about being God's Favorite Princess? -- and I think that's interesting and fun to explore. I think that even as loving and protective and merciful and kind as Raiden usually is, he'd have a very, very distinct lack of romantically intimate experiences which would result in missteps and even unintentional harm or abuse.

Of course, that really applies to any Raiden x Mortal ship, so why Kung Lao? I mean Liu Kang is RIGHT THERE, if we're pairing Raiden with one of his monks, why not, you know... the chosen one, who (unlike Kung Lao) has saved the world at least once, and ascended to godhood at least once? That surely seems like the more likely of the two monks, if that's the path we're going down, right?

Well... setting aside the fact that Liu Kang is so aggressively monogamous with Kitana in canon that I legitimately cannot imagine him with anyone else, there's also the simple fact that Kung Lao is more interesting than Liu Kang.

Yes, I said what I said! I can hardly believe it myself -- I didn't expect for Kung Lao to be my precious baby boy when I first started getting into MK -- but he is, as far as I am concerned, the deeper and more interesting of Raiden's acolytes.

See, Kung Lao is choked by his insecurities and sense of inadequacy. He is a disciple to greatness (Raiden), he is a close friend to greatness (Liu Kang), he is descended from greatness (Great Kung Lao), and he is an enemy to greatness (Shao, Shang, Shinnok, etc).

But Kung Lao isn't great. Normies like you and I might stand back and say that being the second greatest in the entire order of the White Lotuses and the Wu Shi Academy is still some hardcore shit and he should be proud, but from where he's standing, Kung Lao is wildly mediocre compared to the people he's surrounded by. And he knows it. He knows he has very little to his name to be proud of; that's why he introduces himself relative to his ancestor. The best he can say for himself is that he's the descendant of the Great Kung Lao.

Kung Lao wants to be great. He wants to live up to all these things "expected" of him. He wants to matter. He wants to be irreplaceable. Uniquely beloved and respected. In a lot of ways he shares the same pitfalls as Shang Tsung, and I could see him being equally as power-seeking and immoral under certain circumstances, but usually he is grounded by his position as a White Lotus and his faith and servitude to Raiden, and this keeps him on the straight and narrow. Perhaps he isn't GREAT, but he is still a part of something collectively great, and that something -- the unit that is his patron deity and his best friend/foster brother -- values him. And so King Lao goes through life pushing back the darkness of his insecurities. This is very interesting (and relatable) to me.

It also, I think, makes for one of the best versions of God's Favorite Princess that MK can even offer, because I think Kung Lao would welcome a lot of the aspects of a relationship with God that other people would find... off-putting, in part because of his devout faith and in part because of his insecurities.

Being with God is... codependent, albeit in subtle ways. Even before they became romantically involved, Raiden would have been very nearly Kung Lao's whole world, because Kung Lao is a monk in a temple monastery that worships Raiden. Raiden has the same role in Kung Lao's life that Yahweh (Christian God) would have in the life of a Catholic priest, except Raiden can be seen and touched and talked to so... even more present and encompassing. And that's BEFORE any romantic entanglement; once Raiden is his God AND his lover, that relationship becomes all-consuming.

And I think that Kung Lao would LIKE to be all-consumed by God, and he would also like to be the one to consume God's thoughts. He would like nothing more than to be uniquely treasured by God. If God is smitten with him, enraptured by him, dare I say in love with him, then he is ALSO a Chosen One. Different, perhaps, than the type of Chosen One (heir) that Liu Kang is and the Great Kung Lao was, but nonetheless Chosen.

Many of my headcanons vary depending on the timeline thread (God I love the infinite multiverse M1K created for us) BUT I do have plenty that are pretty consistent across all (Klassic/non-M1K patterned) timelines, including but not limited to:

1. Kung Lao is the romantically/sexually dominant one, due to their combined hang ups. Raiden is generally acutely aware of the power imbalance between them, even if he doesn't FULLY understand it -- he's never been a human with a religious covenant to a higher power and so he can't say for sure how it feels but he can certainly extrapolate and assume enough to know he COULD in THEORY coerce Kung Lao -- and so he is reluctant to initiate anything. And while I don't think he consciously wants to dominate Raiden -- on paper he's quite happy to simply be Chosen -- I do think that he finds an IMMENSE amount of satisfaction in being the God Tamer. He likes having the ability to make God fold, even if he has no intention to use it beyond acts of affection. And so, between these two things -- Raiden's fear of becoming a coercive god and Kung Lao's desire to be uniquely powerful -- it generally is the case that Kung Lao is by far the dominant one. This is also exacerbated by the fact that...

2. Raiden is, for lack of a better word, shy. More accurately, he doesn't at all like the attention that comes from descending from his holy pedestal to take a consort, and it's not (just) because it borders in the sacrilegious. (Technically, as God, he IS the religion, so in theory nothing he does could be sacrilegious, but at the end of the day he's violating an edict of chastity that the entire monastery is bound by.) No, the real issue that, well... he's a God, worshipped by mortals. His relationship isn't just his relationship -- it's a holy example from on high. He is not simply navigating his own feelings and those of his lover; he has an audience observing him, and everything he does "must" be appropriate. He does not have the space to mess up or struggle or be in the way most of us do in our relationships... which is extra problematic because I think in most continuities, Raiden does not have relationship experience of this kind. Because of this, even once they've technically gone public, Raiden doesn't generally... engage in PDA, or really act like a lover at all, unless they are alone. It is only when they're alone together that Raiden becomes intimate and vulnerable.

3. Because this shyness limits the amount of affection they share, I think both of them are a little... feral?... when they have time together. Kung Lao moreso than Raiden -- Raiden is still a creature of immense self-control -- but like... I think when they get together away from the prying eyes of the world, and Kung Lao is in Raiden's arms, it's palpable, tangible, he can FEEL the way that Raiden is stopping himself from squeezing him tighter. Sometimes, when the occasion is particularly special, Raiden might even get a little bold when they're all alone. Initiate a kiss instead of just reciprocating it. Drop the L bomb instead of just reply to it. Kung Lao has far fewer trepidations -- while he starts most encounters off with a healthy amount of god-fearing behavior, I think once well-established romantically, it becomes pretty easy for him to cast aside religious respect in favor of unrestrained intimate desire, and behave in a way that is absolutely sacrilegious (but welcomed).

4. If Kung Lao ever ascended to godhood, he'd be the god of traversing three dimensional space, which sounds incomprehensible, so let me explain. Kung Lao's whole thing is, basically, violating physics. That's his power. He and his hat both absolutely move through 3D space in ways they absolutely should not be able to. Sometimes the hat at least pretends to follow the laws of physics, behaving similarly to a chakram, but oftentimes that thing shamelessly defies the laws of motion, guided purely by Kung Lao's willpower and spiritual energy. And he himself is Teleportation Boy; he is capable of opening portals and teleporting through them in ways that for the most part only highly skilled gods and sorcerers can achieve. And admittedly, as a mortal, he can only go a couple dozen feet, but considering the only other portal generators are typically folks like Raiden and Shang... Kung Lao has a unique skill to move himself and others through three dimensional space. (One of his Kameo moves in M1K is to teleport the player character, which in my case is generally Raiden, lol.) So if he ever ascended to godhood, that's what he'd end up deity over: three dimensional space and its traversal. Movement. That's his bag.

5. Okay, this one is a little out of left field, but it is my headcanon that in many timelines, Raiden has a womb (& the corresponding external anatomy). I am making a very specific choice to describe it that way instead of just saying 'trans' -- I do not think any variation of God!Raiden is trans, because that implies starting off one way and becoming different and I think any version of Raiden that has a womb started off that way. The Titans, Elder Gods, and (demi) Gods reproduce; Shinnok and Cetrion are Kronika's children in at least one canon (probably most canons) and Raiden is Shinnok's son in at least one. The gods are limited in number, beyond mortal comprehension, and presumably sexually reproduce. So it makes sense to me that, especially given how the majority of the deities are outwardly male, that some overall male deities are equipped for the other half of the reproductive equation, like... by default. I think that a fair few Raidens across timelines were "born" as a man with a womb. None of this "AFAB" shit, and no qualifiers or adjectives to differentiate him. This headcanon is brought to you by the combined efforts of my love of MPREG and my own status as a trans man. (Mortal Raiden also frequently has a womb, but I'm more willing to call his narrative a trans one. If he has a womb, it probably WAS because he was born wholly female and had to transition. But God Raiden? He's never changed a day in his life. He just... is, and he was never anything except what he is.)

Okay, so... is there even enough space left after all that, for me to share info on my fic? So you even want to know about my fic after hearing my opinions on Raiden's reproductive anatomy? I hope so cuz the fic also includes some MPREG.

If you're still reading, let me try my best to summarize the fic I'm working on. It's a multiverse fic, so there's multiple timelines with multiple Raidens and multiple Kung Laos.

The primary antagonist -- and I guess the closest thing to a main character -- is a Kung Lao who was scorned by his Raiden. After three years together as an official consort, on the anniversary of their adjoining, they share a deeply intimate night together in which a lot of things happen. Not only does Raiden gift him a blessed amulet which boosts his power of traversal, but he also makes it clear that it's not simply an anniversary gift; he is giving it to him as a token of the fact he has decided to make their consortship more... official, from a human perspective. It's a token of betrothal, the functional equivalent of an engagement ring, a promise of love that has been certified on every level. Then -- while caught up in the romance and desire and feelings -- Raiden expresses his desire to spend eternity together, in a way that strongly suggests Kung Lao could ascend to godhood. (Just like Liu Kang recently did, within the fic.) The sentiment and desire is sincere; however, in the aftermath (and post nut clarity) Raiden becomes consumed with the fact he technically overstepped his own boundaries; the elder gods make such decisions, not him, and while he technically has the power to do such things as ascend a mortal, he doesn't have the authority.

Shamed by his own accidental lie -- the SENTIMENT was certainly sincere -- Raiden spirals down a path of extreme guilt. (Remember -- he doesn't have the space to fuck up this badly, including in his own head, because he is God and he is looked to on high.) And his management of this guilt is... deeply flawed. The extent to which he sees himself as having violated one or more covenants pushes him to abandon the relationship suddenly and entirely... the day after he promised Kung Lao eternity.

It isn't because it's what he wants to do; he absolutely doesn't want to. But it seems to him like the most appropriate thing for a patron deity to do: put a stop to this "problem" he's created. And not even with an intimate discussion as lovers; it is a godly edict.

You deserve better than what I have given you. You have been robbed of the chance to find a proper (mortal) lover. I believe it would benefit you to have a change of pace; I am sending you to the Wu Shi academy for a while. Away from me.

Expressed aloofly, with no sign of remorse. Inside, his heart is breaking, but he's a creature of supreme self control, and it was the expression of his emotions that got him in this fucked up place to begin with, so he doesn't fucking say that he DOES love him, that he DOES want to be with him, that he WILL help him to ascend so that they can spend eternity together because he DOES have faith in Kung Lao, he just... spoke beyond his authority, and he's sorry.

No, none of that. Just a detached-seeming statement that he deserves better (than God?!), the implication that he ought to find a mortal, and the information that he's being reassigned from the temple. And he doesn't handle it well; overnight he's gone from being valued, beloved, chosen to being dismissed, discarded, unwanted. Everything he knew and feared about himself was true, and every ounce of hope he ever possessed -- his God, his everything -- has escaped him.

Instead of travelling to the Wu Shi Academy, he seeks out one of the White Lotus's greatest enemies: Shang Tsung (and his buddy Quan Chi) and, in his grief and anger and resentment, barters a deal to form a sort of Trio version of the Deadly Alliance, and he helps Shang Tsung finally kill Raiden, on the conditions that (a) Raiden's soul isn't consumed and instead goes to Netherrealm to be tortured & (b) Kung Lao gets to claim his godhood -- kinda like how they steal his godly power in the MKII movie -- for himself. He can get them close enough to Raiden in exchange for those two things, and ultimately he does. He kills Raiden, takes his godhood, and then -- with the combined powers of the amulet and his newfound godhood -- he starts travelling from timeline to timeline, invoking Mortal Kombat in any timeline where the resident Raiden and Kung Lao are together, because he sees himself as having been used by Raiden and he extends this feeling to every Raiden and Lao pair he sees, convincing himself that any Raiden whom engages intimately with a Kung Lao is a villain deserving of death. And he successfully murders several Raidens, and steals their Godhood as well. (And let's his buddy Shang Tsung take one [01], as a treat, because this is also a multiversal Shang/Quan fic, teehee, and they e got their own multiverse drama going on.)

Eventually he's accumulated so many Raidens worth of power that he decides to start taking on multiple timelines at once, to expedite his mission of Raiden murder, and that's where the fic actually starts (all this was just back story for the prologue and first couple chapters): with four-ish different timelines of Raiden/Lao all coming together in a single mass tournament.

The other timelines, who are defending against murderous Kung Lao and his Deadly Alliance Trio, are:

- A Titan Raiden, who met murderous Kung Lao early on in his mission of death. Murderous Kung Lao is not his responsibility to stop, but he's also doing things that Titan Raiden can't condone and really kinda wants to stop; as a result, his "compromise" to try to protect other timelines without actually interfering in other timelines is to host the tournaments himself, in his timeline, so that he can at least keep murderous Kung Lao adhering to a handful of fucking rules. Murderous Kung Lao hates Titan Raiden more than any other Raiden (except his own) because Titan Raiden represents Kung Lao's inescapable mediocrity under Raiden's shadow: Kung Lao might have accumulated enough stolen godhood to border on Elder God type shit, and yet even then, there's a Raiden more powerful than him. Titan Raiden hates murderous Kung Lao because murderous Kung Lao took away Titan Raiden's Kung Lao -- who basically was his Keeper in the way Geras was Kronika's Keeper -- in a way that can't be fixed without winding back the hourglass. (Think about in MK11, when Dark Raiden trapped Geras in the bottomless sea of blood to drown forever; something like that, where he's not DEAD, but functionally gone in a way worse than death.) Titan Raiden can't justify winding back the lives of every person across every realm just for the sake of him and Kung Lao, so he lives knowing that somewhere out there, Kung Lao is suffering, and he can totally fix it... but only if he's selfish in a way that he cannot allow himself to be. Every day he has to make the choice to let his Kung Lao suffer, and he loathes murderous Lao for it, but he's also the most morally ascended of all the Raidens in the story, so he shows murderous Kung Lao a tense mercy through most of the story, until he finally crosses one too many lines.

- A Raiden and Kung Lao who have only recently become official consorts, after running around in secret for a couple months. Until murderous Kung Lao comes for them, their biggest impasse is Liu Kang, who finds the concept of God engaging intimately with their disciple to be immoral and abusive. His own faith shaken, viewing Raiden as coercing and using Kung Lao, he tries to stop the relationship up to and including with violence towards Raiden, and for a time is recruited by murderous Kung Lao to fight against his Raiden, though he does eventually realize his anger is misplaced and that his Kung Lao, from his timeline, is happy with Raiden.

- A Dark Raiden whose Kung Lao, Liu Kang, and Fujin all ended up dead and revenant'd. To this day they continue to follow and torment him, even though the Shang Tsung and Quan Chi of his timeline, who orchestrated it, have largely been taken out of commission. Aimless except for orders from long ago, the revenants' only real goal is to torment their Raiden, and they do a pretty good job of it; he's tried nearly everything short of (re)killing them or killing himself in order to escape it, and at some point settled for alcoholism. (Think MK Legacy Liu Kang alcoholism, not Bo Rai Cho alcoholism.) I'm pretty sure (demi) Gods can still get drunk but I do imagine it takes significantly more booze than a mortal to do so. Murderous Kung Lao takes advantage by recruiting the revenants to his own purpose, with help from his own Shang and Quan Chi.

- A mortal (M1K adjacent) Raiden and Kung Lao who are childhood sweethearts and newly betrothed; they're on the younger end, 18 (Lao) and 17 (Raiden), and like a significant portion of my graduating class, they have themselves an unplanned teen pregnancy. It's a little bit of a problem just cuz, like, teen pregnancy, but overall it's a joyous occasion... until murderous Kung Lao shows up to drag them into a tournament. They -- Kung Lao, especially -- insist that Raiden might be a Kombatant but the unborn child(ren) in his womb sure as shit aren't, so the tournament has to be postponed until he gives birth, which incenses murderous Kung Lao so much that he has his twinky doppelganger killed and rev'd out of sheer spite, which is the first of many lines he crosses that eventually gets Titan Raiden to actually DO something, and not just try to mediate.

There's technically one more timeline with a Raiden and a Kung Lao but that one is just a jobber who dies really early on in order to set the stakes of the tournament -- they don't really have their own story, at this point.

The actual fic covers the mass tournament -- the timelines coming together, the tournament being postponed due to mortal Raiden, all the interpersonal drama from the various timelines, the tournament itself, and Titan Raiden finally taking action. There's also subplots for Shang Tsung x Quan Chi in most of the timelines in the fic, and the Titans for two of the timelines are a Shinnok and Cetrion pair who used to share a timeline as Elder Gods, before they revolted against their mother. Just like how at the end of MK11 Aftermath the timeline splits into two based on the possibility of either Shang Tsung or Liu Kang winning, their timeline split into two based on whether Shinnok or Cetrion ended up taking over the Hourglass. Now they exist in different timelines, but they collaborate. (I wanted at least one good ending Shinnok, and I'm also a sucker for, uh, twincest. Not gonna lie. We're living our truth out here.)

There's definitely more I could prattle on about, but honestly I'll be shocked if you even read everything that's already here, cuz goddamn have I info dumped. I'm afraid to even find out what my word count for this answer is. 🫪 This is what you get when you ask a man about his religion. I am very normal and well adjusted when it comes to my blorbos, can't you tell?

#ask and ye shall receive #mortal kombat #raiden #kung lao #laoden #railao #liu kang #quan chi #shang tsung