HC: Things Ardyn Izunia did in the Citadel for the 10 years he spent waiting for Noctis:
Tried on all King Regis’s clothes
Drew mustaches on all the royal portraits.
Except Somnus’s, which he burned.
Drank all the wine. Not necessarily because he wanted it, and he can’t get drunk. But just in case they decided to celebrate once he was dead and the dawn had returned, he was petty enough not to want them to have anything good to drink.
Actually he left one really good bottle but he hid it with an elaborate series of clues revealing the location. Written in Old Lucian.
Ignis finds it 2 years after the dawn returns.
Made an elaborate comic about his life and the astrals, with crudely drawn stick figures, that he inserted in every version of the Cosmology AND all relevant history books.
Painted his own portrait and hung it up on the wall. His portrait depicts him giving finger guns a la Prompto.
Collected every single hat in the Citadel and tried them on. He didn’t like any of them better than his usual hat, so he went through the Royal statuary and put hats on all of the statues.
Slid down the banisters because why not, it’s not like anything can kill him, right?
Let a group of Tonberries move in to the library.
Threw some of the Royal China off a balcony for no reason other than to hear it break
Played board games with the aforementioned tonberries.
He usually won, but they were very good at checkers.
Made a batch of cookies and left them for the crownsguard and kingsglaive who were constantly trying to overtake him and win back the Citadel.
Of course they thought they were poisoned cookies, but they weren’t. They were just oatmeal raisin.
Literally put on some thousand thread count sheets and ran around like he was a ghost just to see if anyone noticed.
Recorded a video of himself and put it on YouTube with “Real Ghost Sighted in Citadel!”
Got into fights on the internet about old Solheim history. And Lucian history. And literally everything else.
Twitter.
Set up the world’s most infuriating, depressing and trollish Instagram ever. (“Look how lovely the former Queen’s crown looks on this flan!”)
Made an Instagram account for the tonberries.
Actually, other than his long ago past as a Healer, the tonberry Instagram account is the most popular thing he’s ever done.
Catches up on all his podcasts.
Starts a podcast.
Attempts to teach the tonberries to speak so they, too, can have a podcast. (It doesn’t work).
Fixed the elevator for Noctis when he came back. he does not want to have his final battle with a king who was still trying to catch his breath from all those stairs.
Writes a letter adressed to Noctis that basically says “thank you” in Old Lucian.
Leaves it where he doesn’t think anyone will ever find it, much less be able to read what it says.
Ignis finds it, and knows exactly what it says.
He finds the letter next to the wine.
The last three escalated quickly into the seriously depressing.
But most definitely Ardyn’s style. These all are fantastic!
At least once, he sat slouched on the throne swirling a glass of wine for like 17 hours.
Saw another post on the DS9 tag praising the scene in By Inferno’s Light where Martok and Worf totally respect Garak for going into the crawlspace despite his claustrophobia, and say how brave it is of him.
And it got me thinking about that douche who thought Data wouldn’t make a good captain in Unification because ‘You wouldn’t see a Klingon as a counsellor’ (or a … whatever his other example was) – and I’m convinced he’s 100% wrong, and that a Klingon is as likely as any other race to be a counsellor.
Really, it’s all tied back to the ridiculous assumption (which TNG unfortunately seemed to perpetuate at times) that every single Klingon in the entire Empire is a warrior (never mind that we’ve seen Klingon scientists and judges and more) and therefore lol don’t be silly they don’t have any mental health professionals of any kind. Yeah, cause that makes sense.
As if a Klingon counsellor wouldn’t see helping their patients overcome their mental illnesses as a worthy battle.
If Martok and Worf can recognise the bravery in fighting internal fears, then there’s no reason to think that other Klingons wouldn’t feel the same.
So in conclusion, I now really want to see/read about a Klingon counsellor.
“Tell me about your fear,” Dugath said.
The Klingon youth sitting in the chair across from him shuffled nervously, eyes downcast, before looking up at the older Klingon with a practiced sneer. “There is no fear,” the youth said. “I am a warrior. Warriors do not know fear.”
“Then you are a fool,” Dugath growled. “Fear is what keeps a warrior alive. Fear tells him that danger is near, and that his life is in danger. A warrior should not be ruled by fear, but neither should he deny it.”
The youth remained silent. “To admit your fear takes great courage,” Dugath said. “Perhaps more courage than leaping into battle against many foes: for the only foe you now face lies within you, where no blade can pierce.”
The youth’s lower lip trembled, but he stilled it with a supreme force of will. “I dream of the night on Vikoth Nine,” he admitted at last.
“The night when you won your battle honors? The night of which the others still celebrate in song?” Dugath asked.
“They should not celebrate what is not deserved!” the youth growled. “There was no courage in my killing of the Romulans. Only fear and luck. Why do they sing songs of my courage, when so many more courageous and worthy warriors remain unspoken?”
Ah, thought Dugath. Much becomes clear. The face of my enemy is revealed.
The old Klingon said a silent prayer to Kahless as he prepared to do battle against the troubles infesting the youth’s mind, as he prepared to use all his courage and skill to polish and sharpen the blade that was a warrior’s soul.
Ohhhh Kahless, someone actually wrote something based on my offhand idea from a few weeks ago?!
THIS IS FANTASTIC~! And exactly how I picture a Klingon therapy session ❤ ❤
100% certain han and lando once got married for a scam and forgot to have it annulled so they were technically married for several years and one day lando comes in and goes “real quick: are we solo-calrissian or calrissian-solo? also, i want a divorce” and han is like baby no where did i go wrong we can still fix this
#ostensibly it was for a scam but we all know the truth#they forget to get divorced until han is getting married again#do you think polyamorous marriage is legal in star wars#it has to be right#so han is accidentally married to like three people#and leia is kind of annoyed by this so he goes to lando#who doesn’t understand the problem because legally speaking he is married to a city-state#he solves a lot of problems by marrying them#he also creates a lot of problems but those are for future lando#not current lando who is currently explaining that he has built a complex tax scheme on his marriages#and his marriage to han is loadbearing#do you have any idea what this would do to his tax deductions han#it would destroy them#han hasn’t paid space taxes in years but it turns out he’s lando’s dependent and lando has actually been collecting a refund this whole time#han is offended and wants his refunds but lando is like no fuck you#if you did your own space taxes you’d be paying twice what i’m getting
Okay but if Han is neither living with Lando nor having <%50 of his supporting costs covered by Lando he wouldn’t be a dependent? Also spouses aren’t dependents, they are spouses, they get a personal exemption.
So what really would have to be happening here is that Lando is filing for them as Married Filing Jointly. And the only way for that to make sense without having any income listed for Han is if he’s claiming that Han is a stay-at-home house husband. Which is 100% more hilarious, if you ask me.
Especially because when Han and Leia get married that doesn’t change? Leia is off running the New Republic, so Han is totally home with Ben. And every April Leia and Lando have an epic game a sabac to determine who gets Han’s personal exemption that year.
those are the rules for federal tax law in america, on earth, where only human beings can be married to a single other human being at any given time
if we are assuming that in space it is possible to be polyamorously married to various forms of alien, humanoid and otherwise, with variable lifespans and definitions of intimacy, we must also assume that the rules around the tax laws created to incentivize marriage must also be different
‘married filing jointly’ makes very little sense for situations where you are married to three people who each have their own spouses who may not be married to you, and furthermore the tax status is only necessary if what you are trying to encourage is long-term monogamous relationships (which i don’t think the empire or the republic particularly care about). and dependency rules about co-habitation do not make sense for species whose biology or culture negates the possibility of co-habitation even in closely intimate relationships (and definitely doesn’t make sense if someone’s job requires them to spend most of their time traveling through space hauling cargo, or if the government has mandated they work on another planet for some unspecified period of time)
(there is also no meaningful definition of ‘annually’ in the context of space taxes, and therefore taxation periods must be defined per-planet as lived on by the head of household)
(we must also assume that each planet has its own tax structure, and therefore what we are worried about here are republican or empirical taxes, or as they are colloquially known, ‘space taxes’, the taxes you pay to the space government as opposed to your planetary government)
in theory we could assume that the space government simply doesn’t incentivize marriage, because why would they, but that doesn’t work for fic purposes. therefore the most logical reason for the incentive is liability. in that case, each marriage would define one person as the head of household, and the other as a dependent–with the head of household being the person who is legally liable for the other’s taxes and whatnots. if a HoH also has legal access to the assets of their dependents, in order to maintain the household, this creates a set of checks and balances (as it were).
the person in a marriage defined as head of household must therefore be someone that the dependent trusts to be able to keep their shit in order, and the person defined as a dependent must be someone the head of household trusts not to totally bail on them with a bunch of federal property. who’s who therefore becomes a personal choice between the married individuals.
if we assume this stacks, then let’s say person A is married to person B, and person B is also married to person C. if person A is HoH in the first marriage, and person B is HoH in the second marriage, person A still gets access to all the assets of person C as the dependent of their dependent. this means if your husband is thinking about marrying some fucking rando, you’re incentivized to make sure everything is on the level so you don’t have some shady motherfucker with complete access to your assets, or alternately, the ability to make you legally liable for serious space crimes. this is the primary disincentive for fraud–marrying someone who wants to commit fraud is a fast track to either getting all your shit stolen or else ending up in jail for a crime you didn’t commit.
alternately, if lando is married to han, and leia is married to han, and lando and leia are both HoH, things get theoretically complicated. things can get split up according to various formulas, or one of them (leia, it’s leia) can claim more limited benefits in exchange for giving up the majority, as well as surrendering access to han’s assets or liability for his dumb horseshit (”don’t look at me, call his husband, i’m not responsible for that dingus i just have the option to be. you think i want access to his checking account? he’s got three dollars and a pack of gum in there.”). marriage in that case is more a matter of having familial access to your spouse (hospital visitation, etc).
the majority of incentives (in the form of exemptions, credits, etc) would be for the HoHs of dependents who do work the government particularly needs done, because government contractors are the ones the government is most worried about bailing off to nowhere planet with a bunch of stuff. a liability-based system makes it possible for the space government to go to their spouse like “hey… your husband took off with all our shit, pay up please”. therefore having certain kinds of dependent would alter the type of HoH someone is in order to determine what benefits they receive and what liabilities they are assumed to have taken on.
that’s the logic i used, anyway
There could also easily be multiple layers of government levying taxes, not just the Republic/Empire. There could be people demanding your money at anything from the city level (somebody‘s gotta pay for all that stuff Vader ripped out of wall with the Force while fighting Luke in Cloud City), to the national level (somebody’s gotta pay for all those dresses Padme wears), to the planetary level (somebody’s gotta pay for Padme’s dresses: THE SEQUEL), to the system level (somebody had to pay for the Trade Federation to equip combat robots with walky-talkies), all of whom have their own arcane sets of rules about Space Marriage. Lando’s marriage status is a complex 3-dimensional legal web across four jurisdictions.
There’s one planet where Han is legally married to the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive. It’s a long story.
the fandom: Stan faking his own death was a deeply dramatic, tragic scene in his life. The symbolic death of his self, the severing of his old identity in the service of rescuing his brother, his old life gone up in flames as he watched, knowing that he could not turn back now. Of course, the question of where he got the body raises even more possibilities, all likely to be unpleasant at best–
Alex Hirsch: Stan put a straw dummy in the car, yelled “I’M STAN PINES OH NO MY CAR” and pushed it off a cliff.
┏( >o<)┓I may be human who makes mistakes but I am not a mistake! And neither are you! I’m not sorry!!! I am thankful for the people who support me!!!!!
Plot Designing 