hi! i'd really like to know whats the difference between social worker and the usual service? does the usual service got longer working hour(?) and can idols still visit their company yk like to discuss their schedule for after discharged?
hi!!
btw js a disclaimer, i'm NAWT a professional or well versed about conscription in korea. everything i say is js knowledge that i know from my parents/relatives/bsf so pls pls PLSSS take it all w a grain of salt
but social work is non-military work assigned to those who are not suited for the traditional military work that most soldiers go through. this may be because of mental health or physical health complications or for whatever other reason that makes said soldier difficult to serve on active duty.
this can mean working in an office, institution, district offices, civil service hall, community centers, etc.
so the usual "normal" service that soldiers go through vary depending on what branch they serve (roka, marine corps, navy, air force) but the general idea is that you're living in barracks with fellow soldiers and you're training in case war ever breaks out. once you're discharged, you're immediately put on the reserve roster so you could be summoned by the government if they think that you're needed for whatever it is. i'm not sure if civil service workers are exempted from that but they do go through basic training at boot camp so there's a high chance they'll also be on the reserve roster.
active duty soldiers are only ever allowed to go home during leaves so while social workers go home after working 9-5, active duty soldiers are still on grounds. so even when they're resting, they're really not.
the duration in which active duty soldiers serve vary (roka & marine corps: 1 year 6 months, navy: 1 year 8 months, air force: 1 year 9 months) but most people enlist in roka since it's the shortest (marine corps is known for being rlly rlly strict and difficult so no one really enlists for it) and those who are serving in civil work serve 1 year 9 months since it is "lighter" work compared to active duty soldiers.
and as for whether idols can visit their company, i have no clue LMAO i'm sure they keep in contact with each other but i highly doubt the idols want to see the company any more than they have to. i think their activities and plans would be discussed after they're discharged. kinda like a 'cross that bridge when we get to it' kind of thing? obviously i have no idea since i don't know how kpop companies operate and handle their enlisted members, this is just my guess lmao
this got a little length but i hope this helped!! again, i am NAWT at all whatsoever an expert or anything on this subject. if i learn more from my parents, i'll edit this post but again PLS. I'M A NINETEEN YEAR OLD UNI STUDENT IN THE US. i've never been and i don't plan on enlisting anytime soon so take everything with a grain of salt please and THANK YEWWW
tl;dr - if queerness is what's outside of the norm, then who and what gets to be queer in omegaverse? that depends! on what? the universe itself. but also the wishes of the person writing it.
also, omegaverse as a trope has vague norms, things that are associated with it in general. (not rules but markers?) if the thing you're thinking of would surprise you if treated as "standard" in a random a/b/o fic or book, you can probably queer code it!
very long version below! seriously, this is long for what it is, and I probably could have written more if the original didn't get eaten by my phone last night. (thoughts may be jumbled or repeat, sorry)
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One of the most fun things about omegaverse, for me, has become how it throws things in a box and shakes em around.
What's it mean to be straight or gay in our world? Which group is someone referring to when they say, "I'm attracted to women" or "I'm primarily into men romantically?"
Yeah, I know what it means in general, but what does that specific person intend with those words? I do think there can be a difference.
Omegaverse can help with questioning my real assumptions by nudging me to ask, "What does this mean in this context?" For characters, for societies, and for worlds.
What happens when the signals of who "belongs" in each group change? What shifts when there are more variables?
What even is straight or gay in omegaverse? Depends.
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First up: what does it mean to be attracted to a dynamic within a certain verse? Before that can be get answered, there's another question: how do people know what dynamic someone else is?
Is it based on visuals? The body type or shape? What they wear? How they move? Coloration? Height or weight? Are these seen as generalities or treated like requirements? Could a character tell someone else was an alpha while they're blindfolded?
Is it based on olfactory info? Are there scents that signal it? Does it work within arm reach, inside a comfortable conversation range, from across a room, from the other side of a busy street? Is it the same as someone's scent? Are there pheromones involved? Could a character figure it out even through a bad head cold?
Is it based on sound? Are there noises that only one dynamic makes? Is there something about a voice that serves as a tell? Has the society set things up where certain phrasings or pronouns are associated with a dynamic? Would a person wearing headphones know despite the blockage?
Is it all of those things? None of them? A combo?
And then, which ones are associated with sexes instead of dynamics? Are the two similar or separated some way?
Why's it even matter?
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(disclaimer: this next bit is about people labeling themselves straight, gay, queer, etc. its identity markers, not behavior, that i'm talking about. i have thoughts about society labeling people in response to perceptions, too!)
Because, when people in our world say "I'm attracted to women," it's not like they mean every woman. But there's still a loose bundle of associated traits they're referring to. A capacity to maybe like some people out of a deeply diverse group. Things that, if they're missing or on another scale, the spark of attraction is less likely, maybe nearly impossible.
Before they can be attracted to a woman, they have a concept of which attractive people ping to them as women in the first place. Not in a demanding "you can't be a woman without this and this!" way, but in a "the traits I find attractive are things usually associated with people who are women" way. What are those traits, to that person?
(am I over analyzing this? yup! 🎊 i'm weird so it's fun!)
More importantly: if a person identifies as a specific thing, it's because it means something to them. There's some purpose it serves - either it adds to how they interact with others, or it helps clarify something about the self. In our world it's (hopefully!) impolite at best to tell somebody that they aren't who they say they are. Our labels hold meaning to us, and help us find commonality with others, and communicate which things we have words for.
(personal example: I haven't always used aroace as a term for myself. But my lived experience is definitely a closer fit to the aroace umbrella than the normative one. There could be someone very similar to me who puts a different word to their experiences, and that's fine. We would be focusing on different parts of our stories.)
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When it comes to labels as identity, within omegaverse, I think there's a number of directions it could go:
Attraction to sexes - male, female, etc
Attraction to dynamics - alpha, beta, omega, etc
Are there attractions present in the first place?
In general, I figure that the "main" labels say something about the attractions towards other dynamics. Just because of how important dynamics are treated in most things containing a/b/o tropes. Additional info comes in the form of labels within that umbrella.
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Looking at works tagged as omegaverse or a/b/o, there's some patterns, right?
Many relationships are alpha/omega, and the sexes of the people involved don't seem to change that.
In other words, it's less common to see a story where a male alpha is looked down on for pairing with a male omega. It's more common for there to be issues from other people if a male alpha is partnered with another alpha.
So, dynamic-based queerness is more impactful to the characters and/or the story. Queerness based on assigned sex may exist but might not be touched on. Things can vary based on verse, but it's what I've seen most.
That means that an alpha attracted to other alphas might identify as gay in order to signal that difference from the norm. Being into omegas as an alpha is normative, closer to what we see as straight, so anything that's not that? It's queer coded - if you want it to be.
Whether a male alpha who is interested in male omegas would identify as straight or not, is harder to put a finger on for me. It's part of why I think identity labels would say something about what the character finds meaningful.
This alpha could say they're straight if most of their attraction is toward traits connected to omegas. Or they could use gay if most attractions are towards masculine traits. Or it could be something else entirely!
(and this is all assuming that everybody is cis! adding trans characters, gender non conformity, identities outside of or beyond the binary? going into intersections between genders and dynamic and race and assigned sexes? shake that box even more! take nothing for granted! wheeee /excited)
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About umbrella labels and microlabels:
As a real world comparison, somebody can decide to say, "I'm asexual." That could be their one and only label - no talk on gender or sexes, no romantic attraction markers, just ace. There can also be somebody who says "I'm asexual" in one situation, but in another, they get specific. Demisexual homoromantic still isn't normative, and it's still ace, so they belong under that umbrella. So does someone who says "I'm aegosexual" and doesn't use the asexual label often. Each one is communicating something different, perhaps to various people at different times.
There's no reason why this couldn't be present in omegaverse, especially if there are six "common" options known to everyone.
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Where it gets really fun to roll this ball around in my head -
What if m/m and f/f are queer too but not in the same way?
Where do betas fall in all this?
Are there particular intersections that get specific types of stories told about them? How does that change the character's relation to their labels, both chosen ones and ones given to them?
For example: Do male alphas with male omega partners have a different experience than female alphas with female omega partners? What about m/m omega pairs versus m/m alpha pairs versus m/m beta pairs?
Is it possible in the verse to see two people and identify them wrong? If a character sees a masculine looking alpha with a masculine looking beta, are they going to act differently on finding out that one of the two is female? Which option gets the most backlash, if any, and what does that say about the view of masculine females of that dynamic and who they partner with?
Does a female omega who is attracted to betas and alphas identify as straight? Does that change based on the preferred sexes? Would this person identify based on interest or on what they're not attracted to?
Is it less normative for a beta to be attracted to other betas, or to alphas, or to omegas? Would a beta who only is interested in betas be gay or straight? Would they use straight and gay similarly to our world, or in some other way?
If a female beta is self-labeled as a lesbian, for her personally, who does that include? Female alphas? Male omegas? Only other female betas? Are female omegas included? What is she communicating through her label? What does that say about how people in her world view "same" and "different" attractions?
Do people label their sexual or romantic or other attractions the way we would at all? Or is it so different within their society that the terms don't map, and the info shared is about something else?
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So, that was a lot, with no answer besides "depends! lol". But because there's no ultimate rules of what makes a setting an omegaverse setting, that means you can design it however you like, and then create or borrow terms to fit!
I'm pretty sure I've seen posts of crafted terms for things like "attraction to alphas" or "omega attracted to omegas" so those could help. I think it's also possible to use some of the same logic behind queer microlabels and create your own!
For example, isoeidyllic could label "a person who is romantically attracted to the same dynamic." I literally just stole the "iso-" prefix from Greek and added it to the word for romance. An alternative could be equiromantic? With equiro as a shorthand. (not sure if that's a word in another language but probably good to check!)
Or you could keep it simple and do a4a, b4o, and similar for people without multi attractions. I don't see anything wrong with using pan, omni, poly, and other existing prefixes for people with multiple attractions either.
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I haven't made terms yet, but I'd like to. The issue for me is that they'd all be unique to their settings. I keep making each one juuuust different enough where the definitions wouldn't fit neatly...if "what or who is an alpha?" changes, then the labels used to describe attraction to an alpha would also be different, or at least, organized around different ideals, right?
Quick examples:
setting 1: alphas can be any sex or gender, dynamic is signified by scent cues and pheromones, attraction labels are used to signal what one isn't attracted to due to the number of combos. (12 in total)
setting 2: alphas are masculine coded but can be any gender, dynamic cues are scent oriented with build secondary, so attraction labels are used to signal what scent families one is attracted to.
setting 3: alphas are considered male no matter their gender expression because dynamic has taken the "role" of assigned sex at birth, dynamic cues are linked to visuals and scent about equally, labeling is based on behavior rather than on identity.
Whyyyy do I keep making it impossible to reuse my own work? Though that probably explains why I'm researching the speed of wagon travel and technology levels by century and various biomes and what scent families are and animal symbolism, instead of actually writing...or outlining...or finishing character notes...hahaha.
I mean, I'm having fun, but setting 1 has been going through various changes since October of 2023 and I certainly can't write my scenes where the cast bond at a festival if I haven't figured out how people celebrate yet, or what clothes they wear during which seasons, or what foods they eat on special occasions, right? I should at least know in a vague sense...right?
Right??? 😭
(help i am trapped in worldbuilder limbo /affectionate??)
also: all of this was sparked by somebody else's post that showed up on my dash with no notes and I didn't reblog because I was at work with too many thoughts and now I can't find it 🫠
starting this with the disclaimer that im a newish player (started in march) and am mostly here for the story. and i'm not a destiny doomer and am in fact counting down the days for the showcase, pretty happy with the seasons ive played so far and deeply in love with the game's world and characters. i'm having a lot of fun, i'm usually pretty annoyed at how negative this community is and ignoring destiny players on reddit and twitter was probably the best decision i've made since i downloaded the game.
HOWEVER
(tldr: destiny is a great game but a frankly terrible product. also i will compare it to ffxiv bc it is my frame of reference, sorry in advance).
(also very, veeeeeeeery long. see this as less of a "this is what i think about the state of the game article" post and more of a "i've played this game for 4 months, here is what i think about it" one.)
i dont even know what to think about the state of the game article bc i feel like im here only by happenstance, i dont care about what 95% of the player base does (that being, you know, the looter shooter part of the game) so for me the only bad thing is gambit's funeral
the whole more rewards thing simply doesnt work with me, it does not tickle my brain, im usually excited about stuff i get only bc it was hard and/or fun to get them. you will never catch me dead farming anything. you will, however, catch me dying 123123 times trying to solo spire of the watcher bc im too socially awkward to find a fireteam and overall allergic to using a mic🫠so, you know, i just dont care about 70% of that post. i acknowledge that.
but it DOES feel bad to see them go "oops, we couldnt make a new set of armor this time. btw, we arent making any of them anymore" like bruh, read the room💀is now really the time to not deliver on promises. esp when you go out of your way to shove micro transactions on our faces
it is fortunate that im also mostly immune to microtransactions bc they are all too expensive for me but they are just EVERYWHERE. i come from ffxiv and i dont even remember the store exists while im playing there. sure, ffxiv is subscription based while destiny is free to play but i'm sorry. ffxiv's free trial has more content than destiny's free to try ever will (i'd even go ahead and say ffxiv's free trial has more content than destiny ever will since destiny is fond of cannibalizing itself). especially now that they extended it to stormblood/lvl 70. depending on how much you play daily, you can spend months in ffxiv without spending a single cent.
i began playing destiny in march and immediately had to pay for shadowkeep bc what the hell was i even going to play after the first week otherwise? i keep trying to get my brother into destiny, but it is hella expensive, not to say anything of ridiculously confusing story-wise. the other day we had a big oof moment bc im trying to use dungeons to lure him in and didnt realize we had to pay for shattered throne or grasp of avarice. he didnt have the forsaken pack or the anniversary pack. i was out of money, he was only vaguely interested, and we only learned later that prophecy is the one free dungeon in the game. destiny is not free to play as far as real content is involved.
so it feels shitty to have the store shoved in your face SO much ALL the time. you have season passes and then events with their own season passes (so to speak) and then most of the cool stuff is also paid and like, ok, this is already bad, but you gotta remind me of them all the time, game? really?
it creates this massive dissonance between that the game is showing me and what i see from the many devs i follow on twitter. they are passionate people, they love what they do, i 100% believe they are doing great work within the structure they are in. but the game feels like a cash grab. its absolutely bonkers to me that the game goes out of its way to tell you that you can now buy stuff in its store. aren't you proud that now you can spend who knows how many dollars in this product of ours?? arent you??
????? okay?
and it's not just the microtransactions, it's the timegating too. my first weeks of destiny were spent with me having the thought of "god, imagine if it was like this in ffxiv. people would be SO mad squeenix would be apologizing until 2030" every other day. out of cores? too bad, you have a daily limit at rahool. out of prisms? same thing. like sir. i'm a new player. i want to at least have one set of armor masterworked. you are not convincing me to play more, you are convincing me not to give a shit. im broke af in game and out of game now lol congrats to me!
and there is more! want to do this weapon quest thingy for witch queen? too bad, not today. want to not be fool with stasis in pvp or pve? too bad, come back next week for more aspects. this chafes, yall. especially as a new player who barely has any idea of how any of these 1231231 systems work. you are not convincing me to play stasis next week. you are convincing me not to touch stasis for the next 3 months.
i will keep sighing and complaining about ffxiv's weekly capped tomestones but by god i've seen hell and it is not in ffxiv.
this state of the game that is basically telling pvpers and all four of us who enjoy gambit that they can't and won't do more feels like shit even to someone like me who actually likes gambit right now (i couldn't care less about maps lol) and who barely plays any pvp. where is all the money going? why are you shoving eververse on my face all the time then? why are you timegating me to hell in an attempt to get me to play more and spend more? why?
i do not agree with the idea that this money is going to marathon only and that is why there isn't much pvp development to speak of. that would be really stupid because destiny is bungie's main source of income and it will only be okay for them to not give a shit about it anymore when and if marathon becomes a hit and a not a moment before. however, i'm also a league player and even though i play much less now i've kept up with it and it's pretty obvious that after 10 years of being riot's only game league isn't the priority for the company nowadays. valorant is.
poor one out for legends of runeterra while we are here.
this does not mean league is abandoned. it just isn't the focus anymore. it has a consolidated player base. people are used to how it works and how content (champions) is released. there is very little financial incentive to do more than necessary. whatever is going on with bungie is... honestly normal, even if it isn't fine by our definitions. and again, i don't think it's even marathon. i think it's the executives' pockets honestly lol because what does "we don't have the resources" even mean? i know hiring more people and throwing them at the game is not the answer for quick solutions. i'm not a gamedev, but i'm a webdev working in a startup. last year we had a small influx of trainee devs and it was HELL for a few months. i'm a junior myself and i was about lose my mind if i got interrupted one more time to answer a question from the trainees again. new hires mean everyone's work will be slower for some time. but the thing is that it usually goes back to normal. i havent had a trainee interrupt my work in months now. it feels pretty incredible.
so why doesn't bungie hire more people? it will slow things down for months and months but it will pay off eventually, right? except i don't know if that's true. are more pvp maps going to bring in more money? is not shooting gambit dead going to bring in more money? probably not. again, the executives' pockets are the issue here. what i think is happening is that it isn't worth it to hire and train more people to make content for something that doesn't bring in money. and we could argue about how pvp and gambit being healthy is good for the game, how that would bring in more people or make people play and pay more, yadda yadda, but i don't believe the decision makers at bungie believe this and they might have good reasons, so what can be done? nothing, i guess. it's not like i know better than them.
so, on one side, i understand why people might be a bit miffed at the game. it feels like a cash grab. it feels like is trapping you into playing. however, i believe you are still responsible for your actions and perfectly capable of not playing if you are not enjoying it. i wish the destiny subreddit would take a chill pill and touch grass bc those people are not okay right now. but i think it's disingenuous to act as if the game isn't ridiculously greedy. because it is. this game is greedier than league and league is super greedy already (and league actually is free to play, unlike destiny).
raging at the devs will not change this. harassing the devs won't change this. they are not the ones making these decisions, especially the devs you find on social media going about their day and taking care of their lives, which are none of our business.
in the end, you kinda have to make peace with destiny-the-product or you will have a miserable time playing destiny-the-game.
i've made my peace with it. i engage with the content that brings me joy and ignore everything else. and look, the state of the game wasn't all bad. it was actually fine overall. i still find it weird that it doesn't address the real issues people had with the season (deep dives doing triple duty as simple deep dives, exotic quest and catalyst hunting was the big oof of the season for me, honestly. sometimes i just want to do a deep dive and not get roped into whatever else is going on - or the opposite, i guess. i still havent gotten the catalyst) but i gotta believe they will take the feedback when making the next seasons/expansions.
and they are finally getting rid of the ridiculous nonsense that is acquiring stasis. right after i managed to drag all my characters through all of that, sure, but at least now i can finally delete my awoken titan and make an exo one because i won't have to go through it all again. and they teased changes to the seasonal model or at least how seasons work. i'm pretty okay with what we have now, honestly. if anything i just wish the story stuff wasn't so... short. there was also something about making sure new players are caught up and that made me perk up because, please, bungie. i'm trying so hard to get my brother into this game. help me out. please.
and, the most important thing for me, final shape will conclude the saga, no seasons necessary!
just that made the whole state of the game post worth it for me. once again, my condolences to pvp players and i will mourn you, gambit, but i'm here for vibes and the lore and story, and 10 years of league of legends made me immune to shiny things on the store and 2 years of ffxiv made me too lazy to be tempted by timegated stuff. you can not kill my joy in any way that matters @ bungie's executives
the one thing i wish bungie would change (since i believe the game is too deep into microtransactions to ever be free of it) is how they communicate with players. it's not even the frequency (we have twids, as the name says, every week after all) it's just... the tone. i don't want them to give a piece of their mind to the insane people frothing at the mouth on reddit and twitter and youtube, but it's like they are speaking to an imaginary player and the (normal, well-adjusted) players are speaking to an imaginary bungie. we are not in the same wavelength at all. riot and rioters speak more to league players. of all companies out there, out of all communities out there, and riot does it better.
i understand keeping the devs safe, especially after the clusterfuck that happened recently. but it's still weird that bad actors are the deciding factor when engaging with the community. i don't know what the solution is but it does feel pretty bad overall. and its hard to take bungie seriously when most stuff they spit out is riddled with corporate speak. very little of it feels genuine.
again, i love the game. i love the characters. i love the universe and i love how queer friendly it is. ive spent the last weeks soloing dungeons and having an absolute blast, even if spire is kicking my ass really hard right now. getting the new exotic felt magical. and i've spent an ungodly amount of time theorizing about final shape and reading, watching and writing about this game. getting new veil containment stuff every week and theorizing with the community is really fun. i got the first book of the destiny anthology and i love it so much. hell, the game got me to write fanfic and only two pieces of media actually managed that (pretty easy to guess the other one at this point). i love my time here. i'm not leaving unless the story takes a nosedive of epic proportions and no, i don't think lightfall is as bad as people say. in fact, it's the second best expansion and i will fight you on that.
but destiny is not a good product, not by a long shot.
Hello I would like to know more abt the queen bc what you've mentioned on discord is 👀
alright let's talk about queen regnant alaisine - not 'alisaine', no matter how badly my hands want to automatically correct to that spelling - mostly about the social turbulence that has surrounded her for the last fifty years
Lady Claremontine Alais was born the fourth of six children – not that it mattered. the moment she was born she was named heir apparent to the throne, due to succeed her father.
here is the law of Argent: the holder of the throne must be capable and educated in the arts of magic. many noble houses ascribe to the same, though it is not written into law for them. royal and noble magicians are enchanters and enchantresses, and they are afforded the most spectacular educations money can buy.
many of these noble families have physical traits tied to the magic that runs in their blood, and that is how they decide heirs from a young age.
the royal family of Argent exhibits silvered magic. this means that any magic-capable child descended from the royal house d'Argent will be born with silver hair and dark eyes that fade slowly to a ghostly white. (now it is known that not only silvered children exhibit magic, but only silvered children exhibit Argentaise magic and are thus eligible to rule.)
all children of the house d'Argent are titled lord or lady until such a time as they are made eligible to inherit another royal or noble title, or until they are granted land to call their own.
Lady Claremontine was, when she was born, the only one of her siblings who was legally eligible to inherit (her youngest brother Sevestre is also an enchanter, though he has inherited the title of duke; he will take the throne only if she leaves no suitable heir upon her abdication, removal, or death). she was raised with the weight of the throne on her shoulders, all eyes watching her in the many courts of Argent.
she was raised with the weight of guilt, watching each of her older siblings turn to tactics and warfare as a way to distinguish themselves, and each of them fall prey to the pride and hatred that fills Argentaise high society. now, many years later, she does not speak to those who survived. she cannot bear the social strain of being seen with them.
by the time she was twelve, she had a list of titles to rival the proudest of her father's court. by thirteen, she had added 'enchantress royal' to that, and solidified her claim to the throne, becoming in that moment Crown Princess Claremontine Alais.
at age fifteen, Crown Princess Claremontine Alais was symbolically wed before a royal judge to Cygnon, the second son of the duke of Emblesse. with their marriage, the duchy became a princedom, and as such Emblesse became the third of the royal courts (after the queen-city court and the court at Clarin).
at age nineteen, Crown Princess Claremontine Alais met her first husband for the second time. they were wed again, this time in a lavish ceremony held in the gardens of Emblesse. with this, her husband became Lord Consort Cygnon d'Emblesse et Argent.
four years later, Cygnon died – unexpectedly, suddenly – at the hands of a fever. Claremontine was quarantined from him for the duration of his illness; three months after his death, she bore the first of her seven children: Lady Letanie Cygnée, a silvered child, whose name she could not bear to say in full.
she cannot help but wonder, if she had been allowed near him, if she could have saved his life where the royal healers could not.
she knows it is useless to wonder. she knows that her presence would not have changed anything, except perhaps to kill her daughter sooner.
she thinks it is fate, now, that all the princes of Emblesse are dead. the land has returned to the hands of the royal family. she turns it over in her hands and catches the glimmer of greed in her younger brother's eye and, briefly, she wonders if the title is truly cursed. (she wonders – if she named him prince d'Emblesse, would he die, too?)
her mandatory mourning had barely ended when her father introduced her to her second husband. his name was Matthias. he was the third child of the princess of Clarin. he was magically gifted, though he did not display his family's inherited traits: he looked rather plain, she thought, for someone who missed out on royalty by being born ten minutes too late. he had straight brown hair and staid brown eyes and freckles. (his sister, though, wore the flame-bright eyes of Clarinese enchanters. perhaps she would have inherited no matter the order.)
Matthias was sweet, if nothing else. only when he came to the queen-city court did Claremontine discover that her new husband was deviously intelligent, highly specialized in multiple fields of magic, and used to playing kind and dumb to make people overlook him. he was called a strictor in Clarin, a sort of enchanter trained towards the development of new magic.
Matthias treated Letanie as if she was his own daughter. he taught her the kind of magic they only taught in Clarin. by the time she could walk, she could immobilize a full-grown man with only a look.
he brought her to the opera – the one pleasure he brought with him from his home. the opera, he told his wife, was the only place he could be himself, because no one else could see him.
Letanie was nearly two – Claremontine twenty-five – when her brother was born. Everett Mathyse was a lord from the moment he was born as silvered as his sister.
for seven years, they were happy.
she wonders if Matthias is still happy. if he died happy, at the opera he loved so much, or if he died screaming like the rest.
she still does not know the full story. she doubts she ever will. all she knows is that there was a fire – but a fire should not have been able to kill a Clarinese strictor. a fire should not have been able to kill her daughter, nine years old, leaning forward to get a better look at the stage, clapping, happy, smiling –
she wonders if Matthias is still happy. she can barely remember his laugh, now. she has two memories of him left to her: the portrait that stands in the queen-city court and the dark freckles splashed across her eldest son's cheeks in such a sick echo.
she remembers little of that mandatory mourning period. she remembers crying, often. she remembers calling Everett, her Ève, into her chambers and combing his hair and commenting on how brave he was. how strong he was. he would grow up to be just like his father, she told him. he would become a great enchanter, maybe even a strictor. maybe even a strictor.
it was after Matthias's death – at some point between his death and her moving on – that her father abdicated the throne. Claremontine, like every Argentaise ruler before her, was crowned under a regnant name of her own choosing: she picked Alaisine in honor of her mother, Princess Consort Alaisette, and all history before that moment was wiped clean.
Queen Regnant Alaisine was married again a month after the end of her mandatory mourning. this time it was to another prince, for another political purpose: Crown Prince Andrie Martin of Corant, a neighboring state, wed her as part of the symbolic union of Corant and Argent.
Corant became the fourth of the royal courts. there were too many for her to keep track of. they moved twice a year to a new home, always empty at first, always full of smiling staff that looked the same no matter where they were.
Alaisine has no proof that her third husband treated Everett poorly. she has nothing but her own suspicions, looking back on the sudden change in her son's behavior. he went from being a carefree and joyful child, eager to learn all he could, to being sullen and dark, lashing out at every turn. she called him into her chambers again to comb his hair when it grew knotted and wild in his prolonged mourning; he took one step into the room and shattered her mirror with a look.
she blamed it on his father's death at the time. she blamed it on herself for being distant after her remarriage. she blamed it on Helaire Andrion, her next child, and then on his younger sister Alais Martine.
Everett, age twelve, was named an enchanter royal. Alaisine watched on as her once-joyful Ève refused the title.
neither of her younger children bore the silver magic of Argent royalty. Alaisine, who was so talented and educated and yet unable to save her family from disaster, saw no value in it any more. she distanced herself from her children. she no longer looked them in the eye.
she granted Prince Andrie the freedom of law: he was also the landed Duke of Corant, after all, and she trusted him to make political decisions in her stead. she did not push back against his suggestions: to strengthen the central military power of Argent in the queen-city. to reinforce the borders, especially where they had been weakened by the Coranti annexation. to delegitimize the tristor-punitor-strictor system of Clarin, as it was clearly inferior to the enchanter system used by the rest of Argent.
he suggested an amendment to the law: that a royal heir must either possess magic or be the eldest legitimate child of their royal parent. that amendment sits, still, on Alaisine's desk. she has read it over too many times too count. she does not know, this many years later, if she will sign it.
he suggested an amendment to their family: Everett, he said, threatened the safety of their legitimate children. Alaisine agreed – reluctantly, but she agreed – that her eldest son's behavior was quickly becoming an issue. he reacted with violence to the smallest of provocations, including those from his younger brother and sister, barely walking at the time.
she suggested sending Everett to the court at Clarin, to live with his grandmother the princess and his aunt the heir royal.
her husband suggested keeping him with their family to serve as a magic tutor for their children – after all, who better to teach a royal enchanter than a royal enchanter? – and in the end, his persistence won over his wife's distance from the situation. he wrote up the legal work that would remove Everett Mathyse from the royal line of Argent and put him to work in service of his blood family.
Queen Regnant Alaisine signed it.
she was forty years old when Idonie Selene was born without magic. forty-three when Nicolas Aden was born without magic. forty-six when her last child, Robert Vincens, her Robinet, was born.
without magic.
she cannot look her eldest son in the eye. she sees him, sometimes, when he is teaching her children. she calls for him when a new curiosity is brought for the menagerie, because he is the only one she trusts to temper the wild magic she imports.
he calls himself a strictor. it is not true – he was not granted the title in the lands of Clarin – and every time he says it, it is like the twist of a knife in her ribs. she would beg him to stop if she had a shred less dignity.
but he calls himself a strictor, and in his voice she hears the echoes of Matthias, so calmly teaching Letanie how to kill.
sometimes, on dark nights, when her husband is away in Corant seeing to his lands, she covers all her mirrors and calls him to her chambers – and he is slow to respond, but he always comes to her, her Ève – and she bids him sit while she combs his hair as silver as her own. those are the only nights he calls her mother still. they speak of Matthias, and of Letanie, and neither of them cry.
Alaisine thinks she has forgotten how, in her sleeplessness. judging by the dark circles under Everett's eyes, he has done the same.
and then, when the sun rises, he is once again a stranger to her – as he has been since the death of his father.
and she looks at her husband, not knowing if it is his fault or not that her son's hands shake so badly he needs liquor to still them, and she wonders if it is fate that all the princes of Emblesse are dead.
she wonders, idly, innocently, if he would protest should she grant him a new title.
her face’s burning so hot there’s even smoke oh my godkgnsgskngs
FINALLY! satoshi vs kukui took forever to happen (but boy does the match live up to expectations!) and at the same time, nyaheat gets to battle gaogaen!
YEAH!!
I’m🥺🥺🥺 super soft already and the ep has just begun
I love bebenom/agoyon so so much it’s unreal
aww (c’mon gladio, you can do it!)
I’m so excited bc nyaheat vs gaogaen is so so good and very satisfying
hanako must be so proud rn😭😭 her champion son!
why are they so cute dksgjns
deino twins!
gosh I’m just so so glad hanako’s here🥺
KSJDGNSKGNSKN poor pikachu got all excited
fr his reaction kgjnskgs
let’s gooooo!!
the camera going from kukui to gaogaen all across the field to nyaheat and then focusing on satoshi’s eye... where kukui’s being reflected I. cannot handle this!! it’s finally happening the best match of all times dkgjngksn
like father like son,,,
that’s very impressive bc that was a lot of power
ah but he will!! soon enough!
finally managed to deal gaogaen some damage! satoshi and his strategies always pulling through
he🥺🥺 baby!!!
I love them all your honor I’d do anything for them
((((((((((((((((((((((((((’:
I’m enjoying these expressions so much skgnsdk bless the animators they must’ve had a lot of fun doing these
BABY!!!!! satoshi’s team is full of babies!
((((((’: truly, battling satoshi means this won’t be a boring battle, at all! I for one wouldn’t be able to catch up
the biggest baby of them all,,,, the b in UB stands for baby actually! ultra baby🥺
like. imagine attending this league as an spectator bc ‘hey! the first-ever league in alola! this should be fun!’ and then. there’s this kid who has not one, but two never-seen-before pokemon and one of them is an ultra beast dkjgnsgsk you go satoshi!
kapu kokeko, upon hearing this: hold my z-crystal
SJGSKJGNSKGNSKNGNS I ADORE this exchange with my whole being
