#and I KNOW it’ll get better and I KNOW everyone struggles with the transition into college

[patcharmyof1]

Hey guys real talk college is so fucking lonely🫠

[liyawritesss]

If it's not too much to ask sthandwa, do you think you could write a one shot with Nakia or Shuriri x reader of them going ice skating? I just thought it would be fitting since Christmas is almost here and I’d love to see how you would write that story ❤️.

ɪᴄᴇꜱᴋᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴘ:ᴡꜰ ɢɪʀʟꜱ

Characters: MCU!Shuri Udaku, Riri Williams, Nakia, Okoye

Type: Headcanons

Synopsis: In which you go on an iceskating adventure with your favorite BP2 girl!

Warnings: some cursing but overall nothin but fluff!!

A/N: now I normally don't do polyships and things of that nature because I myself don't have the experience of being in a poly relationship, and so to prevent from offending or causing unintentional harm I stray away from writing as such. So I hope that writing them as individual scenarios is alright.

Shuri Udaku

Shuri can’t skate to save her life, so this is an interesting experience for the both of you. Sure, Shuri is good at everything, and if its something she’s never encountered before, best believe she can be the best at it within the next hour. But ice skating was a challenge she never thought she’d have to come in contact with.

The moment she steps onto the ice in her skates shes already flailing like a startled bird. She’s desperately holding on to you, muttering how she’d much rather be at her lab right now, or how she could definitely redesign the skates to be much more efficient and stable. It’s miraculous how she was so panicked earlier, but now being able to hold onto you, she gradually grows calmer

Now if both of you don’t know how to skate….good luck with that one. Cuz all I can tell you is wear extra padding cuz there’s gonna be a lot of falling on your asses. But at least it’ll be fun for the both of you. And afterwards, Shuri will get you both hot chocolate, and you can just watch everyone else skate while you share a blanket under the falling snow.

Riri Williams

I’m not even about to lie to yall, if you don’t know how to skate, Riri is taking advantage of this heavily. She’ll disguise it as a simple cute date but one its revealed that it’s to the skating rink, you can’t help but notice the mischievous look in her eyes.

She gets you on the ice and all you can do is hold on to her and she relishes in that feeling. Riri is still gonna try to teach you the basics, but you're too caught up in the possibility of falling that all you can do is hold on to her. And maybe that was the grand scheme all along. The world may never know.

But if you do know how to skate, this is just a big ass game of tag around the skating rink. No matter how many times the supervisors tell you to watch your speed and be more aware of the other people around you, you two big ass children keep chasing each other around the rink. Its when you accidentally collide and knock a child onto the ground that yall are put out of the rink for the day. But hey, at least it was fun!

Okoye

Okoye is a pro at this. You would think that she’d dread the idea of going to the skating rink. She’s not exactly a people person, and with her mindset almost always on Dora Milaje mode, its already hard enough to get her outside for fun in general. But she surprises you with just how easily she slips onto the skating rink.

Of course, she compares it to the fighting style of the Dora, how its a matter of being graceful and going with the flow. You lowkey envy her seamless transition, but you can’t stay mad at her for long when she offers you a hand.

Okoye guides you through the skating rink while you hold on to her, and actually gives you tips on how to not be afraid of the ice. Ironically, watching you struggle so cutely and the pout your lips wear makes her smile. Perhaps you'd learn better in a more private setting, she thinks, as she starts to conjure up an idea on how to conjure up a private ice skating area on palace grounds. She’s sure she can convince Shuri to do it, and make the princess think it was her idea to do it as well.

Nakia

Nakia poses the idea to you while you’re walking in the marketplace. She sees a flyer for the skating rink and practically starts begging you to go, and how could you say no to her? Especially with her puppy dog eyes and her very persuasive words.

Both of you get onto the ice, and you’re immediately holding onto each other as if neither of you know how to skate. Nakia knows, for sure, but just wants to hold onto you because…why not? She also is the most encouraging, telling you that you’re doing amazing for your first time on the ice and also places kisses on your cheek for a job well done.

There’s nothing but shrieks of laughter and jokes spilling from Nakia’s lips as she tries her best to focus on staying steady on the ice with you. Yall are probably just gliding around the rink in your own little world, people staring at you and questioning why you’re on the ice if you’re not skating for real, but you two are too focused on each other to care.

If you enjoyed, please leave a like, comment, and reblog for others to see! And don’t be shy to send in a request!

[ccfever]

the fear of cc losing her touch is terrifying, and it feels irritational because logically, she'll come out of this slump eventually, but it's still like girl ... do you stay and try to turn the team around OR just pull a kobe and have 24/7 ball hog and stat hungry allegations until you can get a trade? the latter sounds horrible, essentially giving up on the team to serve yourself, but we're exploring all options at clark headquarters im afraid 😭

i trust her to figure out the answer that will help the team win. and in order for this team to win they need her to be a superstar. she’ll figure it out like all the greats do, my faith extends to that much. her game is not being a ball hog and saying fuck you to everyone else. her game is having elite court vision and shooting. setting up her teammates for success, and therefore setting the team up for success. these things will come in time, as she grows into the league. i know it’s scary because as much as we hype her up and say she’ll be amazing we’re also aware that the transition from college to the pros is tough and not everyone makes it out fine. jimmer fredette comes to mind lmfao

but the difference is the fact that cc isn’t just a one-dimensional player. and watching the games... a lot of the problems they’re having isn’t because she’s not as advertised. i just want to see her play her game in this level. if she struggles with it that’s fine, but please let her be her. i don’t think a coach will be enough to change who she is. mark jackson didn’t change who steph curry is. the greats know what makes them great. we need to trust her to do that much.

people need to understand that cc isn’t just this kid who’s wide-eyed about everything... she’s a competitor with a crazy feel for the game. if she knows sides isn’t using her right, or that she isn’t playing to her strengths, i believe she will be the first one to know that. and definitely the first one to do something about it.

this is what makes things exciting for me. i want to see how she’ll respond. this is her moment, and this is what separates the good players from the great players. let’s see what she does. it’ll definitely take more than two regular season games to get her feet wet, but i’m somewhat glad we’re getting this out of the way. it’s much better than living in an illusion for the first half of the season only to get the illusion shattered and get humbled around the middle of it.

one of the reasons why i’m such a big cc fan is her mentality and maturity. if those things are present... plus the amazing support system she has.. i don’t think one shitty coach is enough to make or break her. she’ll figure it out or die trying. she seems like the type. i’ll be around to watch her do just that

[sunnydaze03]

4/3/24- week one

i totally neglected updating this when i should’ve, but this first week has been breathtaking. i’ll get to the point- this is the absolute best decision i’ve ever made. for the past week, i’ve lived in this unwavering sensation of shock and awe. i got an email saying my package had delivered, and i sprinted to the mailbox, and i picked it up and it was tangible. like, physically there. my heart started pounding and i ran back to my room and cut open each box, and my hormones were there. and there i went, panic texting my friends because this is *fucking* real now and i can’t even process it. i waited about 10 minutes to take it all in before i put the first pill underneath my tongue and let it dissolve for the first time. and with that, it began. now, i do want to list off the things i’ve noticed physically, emotionally, and mentally because things have certainly changed, but please keep in mind i am only a week in on a relatively low dose; everything has been quite minor.

physically, i don’t feel too different, but i notice my body changing minutely. my skin is definitely softer than it was a few days ago, and my acne seems to have calmed down. the downside of that is how dry my skin seems to get now, and i feel itchy if i haven’t moisturized. i feel like my eyes appear brighter, but that has more to do with feeling a bit happier than before. besides that, my nipples seem slightly darker and it definitely feels like there’s some fat behind them that wasn’t there. it isn’t significant!! i can just tell something is happening. they hurt just the tiniest amount, but you can tell something is off.

emotionally! wow, this one is the biggest, i think. the night that i started hormones, my mind was just so quiet for what felt like the first time since i was a kid- or even just ever. it’s indescribable, and that is the best thing i could’ve asked for. it’s hard to say whether that came from me being on hormones for literally 8 hours or the relief of finally starting my transition. regardless, it was just bliss. i was giddy the next day. colors look brighter, problem-solving is easier, i feel alive and it’s a pleasure to exist inside my mind, generally speaking. now, i haven’t felt any uncontrollable emotions yet, though i can still get quite angry if i let myself, which i was hoping would not be the case. june lore, though- i perform music in our local circuit (vague on purpose!!), and i was really struggling to pull out the emotions from our show, but the first time i performed it for a crowd since starting hrt, i almost cried, and it felt amazing. i haven’t felt it since, though, and i wish i have, but i’m confident it’ll come back. emotions are one of those things that unfold at a different pace for everyone on hrt, and i won’t worry about it. all in all, it’s like this sparkly pink filter is constantly overlaying my life. it’s bliss.

finally, mentally. i’ve made a few revelations while being on hormones. the biggest is what i already figured would be the case: many of my problems regarding myself have improved significantly, partially because of the emotional aspect of hrt, and partially because i know i’m no longer fighting against testosterone further developing the things i couldn’t stand against myself. but my external problems haven’t gone. they feel so much easier to face, but they’re still there, and those problems are up to me to fix. i feel less prone to giving up, within the parameters of what hrt will allow. i have noticed that my depression isn’t just gone. it’s so much better, but it’s still there. i still know i can give up if ever i chose to, but now i feel even more obligated to hold on. it’s weird, last night was something of a dark one, but never did my mind stray too far- it’s weird.

i guess to conclude, the only thing i really have to add is that hrt is lifesaving. i’m not even sure i’d be here to type this right now without it’s intervention. i decided this myself, and i made it happen myself. i know now since i made it this far that i can’t stop moving. this is my life now, and no person or government on the planet can *ever* make me give it up.

[chorusfm]

Liner Notes (January 13th, 2024)

Ringing in 2024 with a new newsletter. We have some thoughts on music out this week and some early thoughts on music coming in the first part of the year. Can it live up to 2023? We’re about to find out. If you’d like this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week (it’s free and available to everyone), you can sign up here. A Few Things * And we’re back! At the end of every year, I always find myself struggling with what to write about on a week-to-week basis. When the entire music industry goes into hibernation, and no new music is being released, I also tend to hunker down. I spend a lot of time reviewing albums I listened to during the year to prepare for building my favorite albums of the year list, and I like to look for things I’ve missed or spent less time with throughout the year. Oh, and listen to a lot of holiday music. And when I don’t have a lot of new things to write about, it’s more challenging to carve out the space to sit down and write knowing I don’t have a lot of content to mine from. So, it was nice to take a little break. November and December are two of my favorite months of the year, and this year was no exception. Now we’re into January, and I’m feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the new year. * We published our annual favorite albums of the year list this week. My personal list of albums, movies, TV shows, and other stuff can be found here. I listened to more music in 2023 than in any previous year, and the difficulty I had in choosing my favorite albums of the year showed the year’s strength. So many bands that I loved for years came out with albums that I feel sit proudly in their storied discographies. And so many new artists I discovered that I’ll be following for years to come. * A few quick hits to get caught up on things from the past few months: I’m exploring how I want to move this newsletter from Substack. I originally started using the platform for the backend because it was easy to set up quickly and would let me take my audience with me if I wanted to. And now I want to. Idiots run the company, and the latest Nazi defending is the final straw. No one subscribed will need to do anything; it will be a seamless transition. Once I move the newsletter backend over, I’ll start linking directly to the website’s archive for these posts, and that will be the place where new subscribers can sign up. And that’s a better way to do this anyway: keep everything in-house. I’ll have to build a new email template, so it’ll probably be a few weeks until I’m ready to move fully, but it is happening. (If you use the Substack RSS feed, please replace it with the official one.) * Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve (finally) been going through the archive of the Chris Demakes a Podcast to check out episodes from some of my favorite bands/songs. It’s quite good. I love how they break down songs, and I’ve heard stories from Blink-182, Sum 41, Simple Plan, Yellowcard, MxPx, and New Found Glory that I’d never heard told before about the making of some of their most iconic songs. It’s become my default “while making/eating lunch” podcast. * I finally moved from Deliveries to Parcel as my package tracking app of choice. The built-in Amazon integration is nice, and it actually works with all the major shipping platforms. It gets my recommendation. In Case You Missed It * Chorus. fm’s Top 30 Albums of 2023 * Jason Tate’s Top Albums of 2023 * Yellowcard Announce New Collaboration Album * Third Eye Blind and Yellowcard Announce Tour * Craig Manning’s Top Albums of 2023 * Adam Grundy’s Top Albums of 2023 * SCP Merchandising Closes Down * Garrett Lemons’ Top Albums of 2023 * Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties Announces New Album * Albums in Stores – Jan 12th, 2024 Music Thoughts * A lot of my music listening through December was holiday music. Of course all the staples, and all the pop-punk staples, but also just throwing on instrumental or piano versions of classic songs to have on in the… https://chorus.fm/features/articles/liner-notes-january-13th-2024/

[jessimari]

Mental State Manifesto

A majority of my blog posts had something to do with the mental state of the artists and authors, as well as myself. I’m not surprised, though, because I have always believed that taking care of yourself mentally is extremely important. I have always been open to talking about mental health with people because I think it’s crucial that everyone knows that they are not alone in how they are feeling. That if they need it, they should seek help because suffering in silence isn’t good. My first blog post was the Representative Work. I chose to speak about Pablo Picasso’s 1972 Self-portrait. The reason I chose this is that it was a self-portrait I could relate to. He had painted many self-portraits throughout his life, but it seemed that each year, the portraits started looking less and less like him. It seemed like his perception of himself kept getting more warped over time. The jagged pieces, which are meant to capture every angle of himself, distorted his overall image. I related to this because I feel like I have a distorted image of myself. Like I don’t know the true me because I give each person a different “part” of myself to see. Another blog post that speaks about mental states is my Musical Themes post. I chose five songs that had something to do with self-worth. Each song, in its own way, talked about how important understanding your self-worth is and how nobody should determine it besides yourself. It’s something that I have struggled with and something I’ve seen others struggle with. It’s important to remind yourself, especially on your bad days, that you are worth it, although you might not feel like it at the moment. That no matter what anyone tells you, you define your self-worth. The third blog post that leans in with mental state is the Poetic License post. For this post, I chose the poem Black Bird by Alina Stefanescu. It’s a poem about a woman leaving her husband and thinking back to when she was younger when her mother left her father. Like all poems, this is open to interpretation. To me, this poem represents how the memory of her mother leaving her father had been engraved in her brain, affecting her whether she noticed it or not. She remembers how it was when her mother first left her father, how it was bleak and sad, but over time it slowly got better. Because of that memory, she knows that it’ll be a struggle leaving her husband at first, but eventually, it will be okay. The last post that I was to speak about was my Three Transitions by Peter Campus post. While a lot of people might think that this video just shows visual effects and how they are made, I think the underlying message of this video is the relationship that your inner and outer self has. The inner self means the true you, outer self means the image you show everyone else. I genuinely believe that we offer very few people our true selves as a way to protect ourselves. Our outer self is almost like a protective shell we have, one that we show the world around us. Someone that’s more acceptable, that we can hide behind. I believe that the visual effects in the video were used to represent the inner and outer selves visually in an interesting way. I think that mental health is something that’s more openly talked about now, but it’s still not taken as seriously as it should be. Most people don’t understand that each person’s struggle with mental health is different than another and that our mental health is just as important as our physical health. Our brain, along with our hearts, is one of the most important organs in our bodies. If we don’t take care of our brains, how do we expect the rest of our bodies to be healthy?

[mxstball]

[GREYSCALE]

I cannot believe the Lorekeeper and the dear agreed to force us on such a meaningless trip.

Rayquaza and Zuki were on a mountain in front of a fire. The cozy heat combined with the cooling atmosphere relaxed the two of them.

Kiku scoffed. “‘Have some fun together. Be nice to each other. No bickering.’ Pah.”

Rayquaza scoffed as well.

Tell me about it. They behave as if they understand us better than each other.

“Right!? 2,000 years, and yet we’re still getting lectured at. Can’t catch a damn break.” Zuki leaned back and snuggled with Rayquaza. “Swear everyone keeps acting like when we first got married again: always being a hardass.”

Rayquaza chuckled, followed by Kiku. Afterwards, there was a long, solemn silence. The two looked at the starry skies 

So... I heard from Venus that you have decided to retire.

“For now, yes. After talking with the girls, I think it’s finally time that I leave and be with our children. Maybe it is finally time to catch up, you know?”

I see. Will you... feel at home there? Much time has passed since you have last stepped foot there.

“Mm.” She nodded. “I think so. Everyone was welcoming when I approached them. Maybe they have just been a bit more welcoming than I expected.”

...and you wish to keep the name “Zuki” as well?

She nodded again. “Yeah. I think it’s finally time that I hang up my old name. Perhaps it’ll help me transition to a new life.” She turned and looked at Rayquaza. “But for you, my molded Banana... you can call me either.”

...Must you always insult me like this?

Kiku laughed. “If it’s that easy to rile you up like this, maybe~. You’re still cute when you get angry.”

Rayquaza rolled his eyes but decided to abstain from talking back. She was having her fun, and it was nice to see her laugh for a change.

The two continued to look into the skies. The infinite starlight filled the skies. Everything felt so small in comparison -- their struggle... their anger.... Perhaps moving forward and leaving it all to the next generation was the best way to go.

“Rayquaza...”

Hm?

“This... is just so embarrassing but... Can uh... we do something? For old times’ sake?”

Oh? Do you wish to try your hand at Mega Evolution? And here I was thinking you would not ask.

She blushed. “Y--Yeah... Maybe riding on your back too? Just like back then?”

Rayquaza moved over and licked Kiku’s face again.

Once more, for old times’ sake.

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

My lovely wife made me a mocha to go with composing this weeks post. That combined with oxycodone, ice, and elevation are doing their job. I can focus well enough to get this done. 🤞🏼

Shelly Rosen: ”The way Google’s two-factor authentication system is designed, sets up poor and elderly people to be locked out of their accounts again and again, and without access to their email, they lose their welfare benefits, their housing, and struggle to find work.”

I’m not sure what Google can do to fix this extremely important problem. Take some time to read Ms. Rosen’s letter it lays everything out for Google. As a developer this is the kind of feedback you hope to get from folks using your software.

TechCrunch: ”Amazon this morning announced plans to acquire Roomba maker iRobot for an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion.”

Alexa, don’t vacuum the cat. This seems like a really sweet deal for Amazon. I can’t believe iRobot couldn’t fetch a higher price.

Los Angeles Times: “The California Department of Motor Vehicles has accused Tesla of false advertising in its promotion of the company’s signature Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies.”

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Tesla has been touring Full Self Drive for years and they’re no where near the desired functionality. Is it novel? Yes. Do I trust it? No way.

I can’t wrap my brain around the challenges the developers must be facing. And the icing on the cake would be Musk breathing down your neck to get it done. No thanks.

My idea of a better challenge would be tackling mass transit with electric motors and making it easier to travel long distances on electric trains and busses.

Heck, the eBikes business is really taking off.

Cartoon Brew: ”Dreamworks Animation has unveiled plans to release its proprietary production renderer Moonray as open-source software later this year.”

I’ve had a fascination with rendering pipelines for years and years. As far as I know Pixar’s RenderMan is still the Cadillac of rendering software but having an open source choice from a heavy hitter like Dreamworks is worthy of consideration, and it’ll be open so folks can contribute to it. Amazing!

When the git repo is made public you know I’ll be there poking around. 😃

Makes you wonder if Pixar will follow with RenderMan?

TechCrunch: ”Infowars founder Alex Jones took the stand today in a trial that will determine what he owes to the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting. Last year, Jones was found liable in a series of defamation cases brought by the parents of Sandy Hook victims.”

Alex Jones is a grifter. He has an unwitting audience of people willing to believe anything because they hate everything and everyone. Jones feeds their animosity with wild stories of the deep state and blood drinking Democrats to drain them of their hard earned cash. Who’s the vampire?

Vulture: ”It’s pretty well known and even darkly joked about across all the visual-effects houses that working on Marvel shows is really hard. When I worked on one movie, it was almost six months of overtime every day. I was working seven days a week, averaging 64 hours a week on a good week. Marvel genuinely works you really hard. I’ve had co-workers sit next to me, break down, and start crying. I’ve had people having anxiety attacks on the phone.”

I don’t think this is a new reality of the VFX business. Rather, a horrible expectation set by major studios.

Deadline: ”Even though Batgirl is in the final stages of post-production, Deadline has confirmed that Warner Bros. and DC Films will not be releasing the movie on any platform, including theatrically.”

This is a real bummer. I was totally ready for it.

As far as release platforms go, I was fully expecting it to appear on HBO Max. It’s the streaming platform I use more than any other. More than Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, and Apple TV. Each of those services has a place in my streaming lineup, but HBO’s ability to release new movies to streaming early is it’s real superpower.

The Washington Post: ”SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk’s countersuit to Twitter contains aggressive new claims about the social media site’s methods for tallying bot and spam accounts — as well as which accounts generate ad revenue — cementing the strategy the billionaire is using to attempt to back out of the deal.”

I suspect Musk will be forced to show up and pay $54.20 per share.

The big question is, once he owns it can he make it something better or will he lose an uphill battle?

How do you deal with bot problems and nihilistic American politicians hell bent on turning our democracy into a self serving dictatorship.

I’m sure Mr. Musk has some really great ideas. It’s the bad ideas I’m worried about.

That’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed your coffee or tea with your read. ☕️

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

So do you guys remember my post about Jedi meeting their birth families and being chill with it? 

I’ve been thinking a bit - a lot, for like a year - about all the headcanons around Jedi’s biological people, and there are really only two possible cases that seem to get explored: the pure of heart, flawed but loving, desperate parents who ‘had’ to give up their precious child to the Jedi and didn’t feel they had a choice (most commonly seen from the more Jedi critical parts of the fandom, but not always), and the horribly abusive no good parents at all who gladly dumped their baby onto the Order (which appears to be the way of some Jedi fans to ‘justify’ the adoption into the Order as legitimate, which really shouldn’t be the point because adoptions are just as legitimate without abuse factoring in).

What’s kinda sad is how little we’re willing to explore all the possibilities, maybe because we don’t want to be perceived as on the wrong side of the fandom by our own pals. We all deal with just so much bad faith discourse that we smooth out any sort of human drama and nuance to try and have clear cut narratives that are so black and white that they must prevent bad faith interpretations. Jedi have to be perfect pure angels that have never done anything wrong to be recognized as good, because we’re afraid that if we write them in an interesting way people will jump on the opportunity to accuse them of all sorts of stuff.

Well, I’m tired of vanilla fics and good guys vs bad guys when dealing with purely human everyday stuff. Bad guys are for the galactic battles, the epic clash of eternal forces. When dealing with how Jedi younglings come to the Order, we can have plenty of amazing, heart-wrenching drama and warm, happy moments where all sorts of good and regular people have different goals and meet and clash without anyone being at ‘fault’ or being to blame for it. I want to see (*sigh* to write) complex, difficult situations that can’t be perfectly resolved but where people do try and everyone feels like a *person*.

With that out of the way, what about:

- the unanimously proud communities, so honored that their daughter will represent their people and traditions among the Order, wear their clothing and bear their name

- the desperate mother with proud relatives, who doesn’t want to give away her child, but feels pressured into it by well-meaning relatives. The Master feels her reluctance and tries to reassure her, but she insists that it’s fine - and it is, she wants it to be, she wants to believe it’s for the best but it’s just so hard...

- Stass Allie’s parents, who saw their niece Adi GAllia go to the Order a few years prior. Their two families are influential on Coruscant, but with Adi already in the Order, do they need to send Stass too? Will people think they’re making a grab for power? Will Stass be better off over there, with her cousin? 

- Tiplar and Tiplee’s parents. How many children do they have, besides their twins? Is it easier to let your children go when you know they will be together? Did they make the Master promise they wouldn’t be separated no matter what? Did they dress them in matching outfits, or were the Jedi the ones to come up with that?

- the teenaged single mom who cries tears of relief when she realizes her baby will have a good life

- the single dad who can’t bring himself to let his daughter go, because she’s his whole world. The Master presses, not fully understanding, because she would would give up everything for the good of her Padawan, including her relationship with him if need be. The dad still says no.

- the struggling addict parent who is glad to dump that kid (but who still wakes up at night crying, cursing the Jedi, cursing themselves - who get their life back on track for their next kid, maybe? Who meets more Jedi and is thankful after all, or who never does and stays bitter, but better...)

- the family using the adoption for clout, and the consequences for the Order PR-wise, with the younger Jedi having to let go of the bitterness and the anger

- the communities with their own customs surrounding the Force that the young Knight or the wise Master’s inexperienced Padawan struggle to grasp and accept

- the happy parents who are mildly Force-sensitive themselves but didn’t know (or did know, and expected some of their children to be sensitive too), with the Master or the Knight pondering what their own life would look like as a civilian, maybe a parent themselves, maybe giving their own child to the Order like those are doing now. Would they do it? If they could met that hypothetical version of themselves, what would they say about the life they have? 

- the superstitious, incredulous or religious parents who are just glad to get a real explanation for the floating rocks, instead of all the theories and the judging and the gossip

- the ones who are desperately poor, and so very grateful, and the younger Jedi struggling with this, wondering if that’s why they were given to the Order as well. Struggling not to judge, because they wouldn’t be happy to give up their own younglings no matter what, right? Learning to be grateful, and understanding, and compassionate. 

- the parents who decide to give their child away against the community’s pressure, finding comfort in the Jedi’s genuine desire to support them

- the siblings struggling not to feel betrayed by their parents’ choice - and the jealous ones, the proud ones, the amazed ones, the ones who were just toddlers and spend their life holding onto faded memories

And on the flipside to all of that, what about:

- the Jedi who find a baby among dead bodies, like Mace and Depa, and are so thankful they could save this one tiny light

- the Knights filled to burst with warmth and pride as the three of them get this little toddler to giggle on the way home

- the baby who has been screaming in the Force for weeks, wanting to go home, and who finally gets to feel a presence caressing his mind gently, telling him someone is coming

- the Masters who hold the little ones at night, when those who miss their old home feel lonely or sad, rocking them and singing to them

- the Jedi who have their niece, nephew, cousin, or sibling arrive in the Creche, who call their birth family to reassure them that it’ll all be okay, and yes, ‘the child will know who I am, don’t worry, we keep our names. I’ll help them along the way, I’ll keep an eye on them.’

- the Knight who shows up somewhere and experience a supersonic boom because that’s the one, this little one will be his Padawan, he knows it

- the Knight awkwardly trying to comfort the parents, but she can see that they can see that the baby has already latched onto her, and she senses their turmoil

- the Master feeling that the child won’t be suited for the life of a Jedi, and saying that, even as it’s so hard to turn away from those sparkling baby eyes and that little mental tug 

- the Padawan balancing babbling triplets on his shoulders, because they’re from a species that makes a lot of babies

- the Master-Padawan pair visiting a child a lot during the transition period, and bonding with the other siblings as well

... Just... a mess of relationships and love on all parts, with understandings being reached, people finding peace and joy, and the opposite of all that, all acknowledging that there are no bad guys here, just complicated circumstances.

[lavenderwhore444]

Ah shit here we go again

Btw this is moth shigaraki

So imagine this you work at this place that’s like a zoo that has moths and other creatures ( u can tell I’m struggling) so ur coworkers were trying to get this baby moth inside it’s cage but it kept panicking and crying ( I think u know who is this baby moth) u went to see what’s up that’s how u saw the most beautiful moth u ever seen, you picked up the baby moth ( meanwhile ur coworkers were panicking) it just calmed down everyone was 👁👄👁 long story short u were now in charge of shigaraki, u took care of him feed him u did everything, until he was literally taller then u are ( moths grow up fast ok?) shigaraki was in love with u even when u had ur days off ( he absolutely hated when u had to leave home boy would throw tantrums) he would never let anyone touch him if anyone did they might of lost a couple of fingers, when u came back from ur break he would be attach to ur hip he would not let go not to mention he probably scratched the hell out of his neck so u had to deal with that, oh yeah he was overprotective of u won’t anyone touch u

Let’s just say u were super sick so u had to take a week off, u were devastated that ur not gonna be able to see shigaraki (u had to admit that u have fallen in love with him) so for now u were trying to get better, meanwhile shigaraki was losing his shit he thought u left him ( or dead💀 lmao) he couldn’t wait anymore so he escaped, it was easy finding where u lived since he memorized ur scent, u suddenly heard a noise come out of room ( u went to get some water or something idk sis) as u entered u found shigaraki, shigaraki ran to u and just hugged ( basically crashed u with his two sets of arms) he started to cry he wouldn’t let go, u got super worried and asked him what’s wrong, so he explained what happened then u suddenly felt super weak and almost fainted shigaraki was panicking asking if ur ok, u said that u had a fever thats all, shigaraki just put u back on the bed, shigaraki finally had the opportunity to repay u, he had read somewhere that sex can help ( it’s totally not an excuse for him to see u naked) he just wants to please u( his mommy 😏) his wings vibrated at the thought of pleasing u, let just say u had no problem with it. ( so when shigaraki is done reader flops shigaraki on the bed and fucks the shit out of him as a thank u gift lollll)

Kinks umm sub shigaraki whos eager to please and dom reader, this one hundred percent has a mommy kink umm I cant think of anything, this isn’t my best ideas so feel free to ignore this 😔😫

-🤡

Storms

Tomothura :) 🦋

I'm sleepy, and I want milk and cookies. Not to flex, but I only have to see my therapist every other week cause ig I'm just perfect.

Update I now see her once a week and have to take dbt a THIRD (?) time

I have a bad smell and taste in my mouth and nose from covid. It reminds me of meatballs but in the worst way :/

Warnings: masturbation, heat, vaginal sex, humping, loss of virginity (both parties), breeding, & mommy kink.

InteractiveFics

Master List

I have rewritten this six times. No matter how much I write, whether it's 100 words or 1,000,000 words, I can't create a smooth transition between y/n's like caregiver (?) relationship with Shiggy to a romantic/sexual relationship with him. To put it simply, I give up 💀 . HOWEVER, I did cook up another scenario in my mind, so even though I have strayed from the original blueprint, I will still deliver a moth Shigaraki fic to all of you <3

To those of you brave people who aren't scared of storms:

1) I envy you.

2) I apologize because I need y/n to be scared of storms for my plot.

Thinking abt writing a poly relationship with y/n shigaraki and dabi. It’d just be so cute.

On another unrelated note: why did I get put on the gross end of scent kinks (yes, those exist)? Instead of being like, “mmm sexy cologne,” I'm like, “Dabi reeking after being on a long mission and cuddling, so I have to smell him and get his sweat on me, ” like Claire. Control yourself.

It was a beautiful night. The only light around you was the moon, the stars, and dozens of fireflies. It was warm and calm, no wind, no rain, not even a chill though the sun had set. You walked further through the forest. Your friends had gotten tired and retired to the campsite. You, however, had chosen to wander some more. You found clarity in the woods at night.

You stumbled upon a beautiful pond surrounded by luscious green trees. Lily pads floated in the water, and frogs croaked. The number of fireflies had increased, and little fairy circles littered the ground (you were careful not to step in them). There was a little cabin up a small hill. It had wooden walls and small windows which stopped you from seeing the inside.

You checked the time, 12:55 a.m. As you walked back, it started to rain. Great. A little rain never hurt anyone, right? But then it began to storm. The kind of storm that knocked loose widow makers, that made the ground shake, and could cause mudslides. You had to get inside and fast. You were closest to the cottage from earlier, and the trees got thicker by your campsite. You ran back as fast as you could and knocked on the door.

“Hello? Is anyone in there? It's storming, and my campsite is too far away, ” you called.

“It's open, ” a voice called.

You opened the door and shut it quickly, not wanting to be out in the storm for a second longer. Then, you took off your shoes.

“I’m making tea for us, ” the voice said.

“Oh, it's ok. You really don't have to-”

“I didn't ask you, ” the voice said again, “just accept my hospitality, ”

You sat down on the couch and scrolled through your phone. Even though you had sworn it had 50% left, it was now nearly dead.

“Do you have a phone charger I could borr-” the lights flickered off, “never mind, ”

Here you were, trapped in a stranger's house as it stormed with nothing but a dead phone and no power. The stranger walked into the room, and your first reaction was to scream.

“Calm down. I'm not gonna hurt you, ” Shigaraki said, setting down your tea.

“You're- you have- what are- y-you have, ” you stuttered in shock.

“Yeah, I've got wings and shit. Calm down, ” Tomura said, taking a sip of his tea.

You sat in silence for a moment as you processed.

“I'm tomura shigaraki, ” he said, “if we're stuck here together while it storms, we might as well know each other's names, ”

“I'm y/n, ” you said.

“Pretty name, ” Shigaraki said.

“Thank you, ” you nodded, “so how long do you think the storm will last?”

“No idea, but here it can rain for up to five days, ” he said.

“Oh, ” you said.

“It’ll be fine. I've got food for both of us, ” Shigaraki said.

“No, that's not what I'm worried about. I'm just scared of-” thunder roared, and lightning struck. You nearly jumped out of your seat.

“You're scared of storms, ” he finished, “you can come sit next to me if it would make you feel better or whatever, ” he offered.

You nodded and sat next to him. Despite looking...strange, his presence was very comforting. More thunder and lighting caused you to jump. He wrapped one of his soft wings around you.

“You're fine, y/n. Don't worry, ok?” Tomura said.

Did he know why he was letting you sit so close to him? No. Did he know why he wanted to comfort you? Also no.

“You're wet, ” he said.

You nearly choked, “what?”

“I’ll give you some clothes while yours are in the dryer, ” he said, getting up.

“Can I come with you?” you said, “I don't want to be alone, ”

He sighed, “sure, come on, ”

You both headed up to his room, and he threw you some clothes. Shigaraki looked at you, waiting patiently.

“Well?” he said.

“I'm not gonna change in front of you, ” you said, cheeks glowing bright red.

“I don't know why you're making it a big deal, ” he muttered, turning away.

Truthfully he'd never seen anyone naked and had lived alone most of his life. When he thought about you naked or even just in your underwear, he felt strange.

“I'll be right back, ” he muttered, heading to the bathroom.

He had a strange urge to touch himself, so he indulged. After unzipping his pants, he cupped his hardening cock gently and hissed at the new sensation. It felt weird but good. So good. He wrapped a hand around it and started stroking it gently, nearly moaning out loud.

He turned on the sink to mask any accidental noises. He kept stroking for a while longer, stifling even more noises. Soon he felt an intense tingling sensation in his balls that seemed to grow stronger and spread throughout his cock. As he finally burst, his whole body relaxed, and thick, white sticky liquid shot out of his dick. It was foreign to him, but it felt wonderful.

Meanwhile, outside, you had heard everything. You sat on the bed awkwardly as Tomura came out of the bathroom. He took your wet clothes.

“The um dryer is just downstairs, ” he said, looking towards the floor, “if you want to come with, ”

“Sure, ” you nodded, following behind him.

With your clothes in the dryer, you both sat downstairs on the couch. It was silent until you decided to try and lighten the mood.

“So what um do you like to do for fun?” you asked.

“I like games a lot, ” he said, taking a carrot off a plate of vegetables he'd gotten the two of you.

“I like games too, ” you smiled.

The both of you talked about games for a while until you nearly passed out.

“Hey, head upstairs. I'll take the couch, ” Shigaraki said, noticing your eyelids fluttering shut.

“No, I don't want to take your bed, ” you yawned.

“Get upstairs y/n. I'm serious just sleep in my fucking bed, ” Shigaraki ordered.

“But-, ”

“No, no buts, ” he interrupted.

“The least I can do is let you sleep with me. Won't you crush your wings on the couch?” you said.

“Fine. If it makes you feel better, I guess, ” Shigaraki mumbled.

You both walked upstairs. Shigaraki found a toothbrush for you, and you got into bed with him. You slept back to back, but it was cold. No, frigid. He could tell by the way you were shivering. He turned towards you and held you with both pairs of arms. A wing draped over you, and he rested his chin on your head.

“Don’t make it weird, ” he grunted.

“Ok, ” you said, sleep clouding your mind.

By the following day, you had turned towards him, and you both were completely tangled in each other. It was still storming when you woke up. You pulled Shigaraki closer, savoring his warmth.

“Morning, sleepyhead, ” he said.

“Morning, ” you responded.

He stroked your hair gently, wings humming quietly. He flipped on the light, and to your surprise, it worked. The power was back on!

“I’ll make breakfast, ” you said, getting up.

He pulled you back down, “ten more minutes. You're warm, ”

Ten minutes turned into an hour as you dozed off again. You couldn't help it, he was warm, and his nimble fingers traced designs on your back. The bed was so soft, and so were his wings. After a while, he woke you up, poking your cheek.

“Can you still make breakfast?” he said, smiling down at you.

You looked so beautiful with messy hair and tired eyes. Shigaraki couldn't help himself as he traced a finger over your lips. He saw the blush on your cheeks and rubbed his thumb over your bottom lip.

“You have nice lips, ” he whispered.

“Thank you, ” you said.

He sensed your breathing pick up along with your heartbeat.

“Your heart is beating really fast, y/n, ” Shigaraki said, bringing his face closer to yours, “are you alright?”

“Yeah. yeah, I'm fine, ” you said, “don't worry about me, ”

He nodded, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

“If you say so, ” he said, getting out of bed.

You already missed the warmth of his body; it was still freezing from all the rain. How could the weather change so quickly? You followed him downstairs and began to make breakfast. As you were cooking, you felt him put one of his zip-up hoodies over your shoulders.

“You look cold, ” he said, “take it, ”

“Thank you, ” you responded, pushing your arms into the sleeves immediately.

It smelled just like him. This was your routine with him for the next three days. On the morning of your fourth day, the rain had stopped. The thing is, neither of you said anything. You just went about your day together like normal. The truth is, you liked it here. You were so much happier with him in his little house than you had ever been anywhere else.

“The rain stopped over a month ago, ” he said one day, “why haven't you left?” that definitely didn't come off the way he wanted it to.

“Oh well, I can leave if you'd like-”

“No. Stay, ” he said, “I want you here,”

He got up and wrapped both pairs of arms around you.

“Stay, ” he whispered.

“I will, ” you said, pushing your face into the crook of his neck.

He held you like that for a while, savoring the feeling of you in his arms. The months flew by. Soon the leaves turned orange and red and fell to the ground. Next, the ground was bright white from the snow, and tulips began to bloom in the spring.

‘Shit,’ Shigaraki thought, ‘its spring’

He'd been feeling strange lately, and after googling his symptoms, he realized he was going into his first heat. He googled many things that night, some disgusted him, and some did quite the opposite.

“Hey y/n, you should probably head back and get your things. You've been here a while, so I'm just assuming you're staying, ” Shigaraki said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“I'm alright, ” you smiled, tending to the little garden you'd started, “I've gone into town a few times. I have everything I need, ”

“No, really, I think it would be good, ” he said.

“Shiggy, if you want me to leave, it's ok, ” you said, standing up and stroking his cheek.

He loved when you did that. It always made his wings buzz happily.

“No!” he said, “I don't want you to leave, please stay, ”

You smiled, “I'm not going anywhere, ok? You don't have to be so anxious; I'm staying, ”

He nodded, “I just- um, ”

“Go on, ” you urged, combing your fingers through his hair.

“I um think I'm going into...heat, ” he whispered the last part, “and I don't want you to have to deal with that, ”

“I don't mind, ” you said, “if it's alright with you, I’d like to stay. I'll take care of you, ”

He smiled and wrapped both pairs of arms around you.

“You're amazing, ” he said.

You giggled, “so what even happens during your heat? Do you get sick or something?”

“It’s hard to explain, ” he muttered.

“How am I supposed to take care of you if I don't know what's wrong?” you said, pouting up at him.

He shoved his phone in your hand, “here, ”

You read the screen, eyes widening and cheeks getting hot.

You looked up at him, “so you um, ”

“Yeah, ” he muttered, “as I said, you don't have to stay. I’m serious.”

You took a deep breath, “I want to stay. I want to help you in any way I can, even if it means letting you take my virginity. Truthfully I’d be happy if you did, Tomura, ”

“You would?” he asked, “are you sure?”

You nodded, “I think I've liked you for a while now. Even if you don't feel the same way, I just want you to know that I'm okay with whatever you need to do to me, ” your breath hitched at the last part.

You'd never seen yourself as submissive. You never took shit from anyone. Shigaraki didn't see you as submissive either, even with all the things you’d said. When they mixed with your tone and personality, they sounded caring but not in a submissive sense.

You were dominant, but not in the way he'd always thought of it. You were like...

“Mommy, ” he whispered.

So soft and gentle. Calm and caring but independent and strong.

“Can I call you that? It just feels...right, ” he said.

You nodded, “um sure, ”

“Mommy, ” he sighed, pressing his face into the crook of your neck.

You reached up to run your fingers through his hair. Shigaraki groaned quietly.

“About what you said earlier, I like you too, y/n, ” he said.

You smiled and pecked him on the lips. After you pulled away, he pressed his lips to yours again immediately. He grabbed your hair, pulling you closer as you yelped in surprise. He laughed softly, starting to slip his tongue into your mouth. Tomura tried to dominate the kiss to no avail. Instead, he fell victim to the way you were able to move your tongue around in his mouth, leaving almost nothing untouched.

You pulled away, admiring the dark blush on his cheeks. He's so pretty.

“I'm sleepy, mommy, ” he said before yawning.

He picked you up and carried you upstairs. You laughed and kissed him on the cheek. He put you down on the bed and practically laid on top of you. He wrapped his arms around you, letting his wings act as your blanket.

“Goodnight, ” you whispered.

“G’night, mommy, ” he mumbled.

You awoke to something rubbing your thigh.

“Mommy, ” he moaned, “mommy, please. Please, it hurts so bad, mommy, ”

As you became more conscious, you realized that he was humping your thigh. He’d already made a sticky mess in his pants and on your own. You kissed him gently. Letting your soft lips contrast between the rough humping of your leg.

“Want, ” he moaned, “need to mate, mommy. I need to please, ”

“It's alright, sweetie, ” you said, pulling him between your legs.

He began humping your crotch, panting and drooling.

“Mommy, ” he slurred, “I want in. I want in you, ”

His wings had been buzzing violently ever since you agreed. One set of hands cupping your face and the other holding your hips in place as he rubbed his cock on your clothed pussy. You wiggled out of your pants with his help, and he practically ripped off his own pants. He pulled off his boxers and ripped off your panties. He shoved himself into you, nearly screaming at the way your warm wet cunt sucked his cock in. The way you clenched because he was big, so fucking big.

“Mommy, ” he chanted, “mommy, mommy, mommy, ”

He lasted a surprisingly long time, wandering fingers finding your clit. He slammed into you, slapping skin and squelching filled his ears, but all of this was drowned out by his moans and whimpers. Finally, Tomura pushed you over the edge. You clenched and came all around his cock with a loud moan.

“Mommy, ” he sobbed, “breed mommy, I need you to take my cum mommy. I need you to let me breed you and make you all pretty with my kids, ”

“Yes, Tomu, go ahead, sweetie. Breed, mommy, ” you moaned.

He gasped and sobbed as an absurd amount of cum flooded your cunt. It began to ooze out of your cunt around his cock. He collapsed on top of you, panting as his cock softened inside of you. His heat was over. His need to breed you was met. He was exhausted, couldn't move to bathe, only pass out with you safe in his arms.

Over time you did swell up with his kids. He was so excited to start a family, to claim you with his offspring. If you had his kids, you were his, end of story. No one was allowed to look at you or touch you.

‘Mommy’s so pretty when she's bred,’ he thought to himself as he kissed your stomach.

[lululawrence]

Can u please be nicer on ao3? Maybe you should try answering people's comments

when i read the first line i was honestly flabbergasted and wracking my brain trying to figure out when in the world i wasn't nice on ao3 ever. because i honestly truly try to be nice to everyone always, even when i'm angry or frustrated or people are going after those i love and want to protect. if there was a time i WASN'T nice on ao3, i wondered if it was maybe because my comment had been misunderstood or someone saw me razzing an author i'm good friends with and they didn't get that we are close and i said what i did with so much love and appreciation, you know? like what??? did i do???

but then i read your second line. and please forgive me if i come off as rude in my response to this, because honestly i'm in a pretty bad spot mentally and emotionally in general right now, but PARTICULARLY today, and this ask triggered an anxiety response in me. so. i'm trying really hard to word this in a way to educate without being condescending or mean, but i might not succeed.

firstly, thank you for your comments i'm assuming you've left. i'm also assuming they were nice comments, in which case extra thanks. i'm sure i'll send you effusive responses on ao3 when the time comes.

secondly, please understand that sending an ask like this, on anonymous no less, is incredibly entitled. writing is not my profession, i receive no compensation for my works that i post for free online, and as a part of that it is not required of me to respond. i do my very best to reply to every comment i receive, but it is not always in a timely manner, because i have other priorities in my life. all of which leads us to my third point, which is:

writers do not owe you a reply to your comments. end of. there are no other qualifications or quantifying modifiers to be added to the statement. is it nice to be acknowledged and know your comment was seen? sure. but do they OWE you one? hell no.

in fact, i'd like to offer you a suggestion. a way of tweaking your thinking about the comments you leave on fics. instead of looking at comments you leave as being something that deserves a reply from the author, think of your comments as your way of paying the author for the gift of their time and talents that they have shared with you by posting their fic. that's how i think of the comments i leave for authors. i'm giving them my thanks for the words they've shared! i want to help THEM feel as amazing as they have made ME feel when i read their fic. in fact, my hope isn't necessarily a response from them, but instead my hope is THE GIFT OF THEM SHARING MORE FIC WITH ME. i'm a selfish bitch in that way and i always want all the fic to read. i never want that well to go dry. one way i can ensure that doesn't happen is by supporting authors and being kind to them and spreading all the love and excitement i can about their writing in the hopes that my words will inspire them to share more.

because whether they reply or not, i GUARANTEE they are seeing your comments. i PROMISE they are. and for all you know, your comment might be the one that keeps them writing even when their words aren't coming easily or when they are tempted to give up.

but, again, please remember that no matter what, these authors (including me) don't actually owe you anything.

the rest of this is going under a cut, because honestly my reply is already far too long and i have a LOT more to say now that you've gotten me started.

now, all of this in mind, i'll explain to you why i'm not great with keeping up with comments made on my fics the last couple of years. i don't owe you this explanation any more than i owe you a response to your comments, and i'm honestly not sure you deserve this explanation either, but i'll still offer it anyway. it'll help me feel better knowing i at least put this out there, whether you care or not, mainly because if i don't do that it will cause me greater anxiety having you possibly think i am not responding to people because i feel all high and mighty or that i think i'm better than the comments or whatever the fuck kind of motivation you're attributing to me to see my lack of a response as something "not nice" towards the commenters.

i'm not sure if you've noticed, but i put out a lot of fic. like a lot. a lot of words and shit. i love writing, it's often my therapy and a way for me to help keep my anxiety and depression and ptsd at bay.

now, more personal shit for you, i've got three kids ages 9 and under. the oldest has adhd which we have yet to find a med for that helps to the extent she needs without side effects that aren't healthy for her to continue with, she also has anxiety, AND she's extremely gifted and starting a new program at a new school, all in the midst of a pandemic. and all of those situations exacerbate her anxiety! huzzah! she's also dealing with the beginning of her tween growing up shit, which is great fun because it means where she used to be pretty damn understanding of her younger brother, she is finding it much more difficult to. because the second oldest? he's autistic with some pretty significant gross motor, speech, and socialization delays that have only been exacerbated because of the previously mentioned pandemic. PLUS he transitioned from his special needs preschool to a fully integrated elementary school for kindergarten last year and then had to deal with all the ups and downs of the switch from e-learning to hybrid to all in schooling when everything in him screams for a normal schedule he can rely on to keep his own anxieties and fears and struggles at their minimum. and that youngest child? he was born in january of last year. he STILL barely leaves the house and has only met other children in close range a couple of times because, once again, pandemic!

add onto all of this my own mental health issues, the fact that my husband ALSO battles major clinical depression, adhd, and anxiety, AND we live with my parents who have their own health issues, both mental and physical. i run the home for our house of seven. i keep this place functioning, fed, clothed, clean, and everywhere we need to be for all of our five million appointments every. fucking. day. there is a REASON i've been borderline burnt out for the last fucking year and a half.

now, for fun, i have fandom shit. i love it here, even if it is a dumpster fire on the best of days, and getting to be a part of the writing community is so very lovely. i adore it. honestly, it's because of those friendships i've built with other writers that i have been able to keep writing and have found just how helpful it can be for my mental health. but i'm REALLY. INCREDIBLY. BUSY. i hardly have time to get on tumblr for just a quick swipe through my dash most days. i put off asks so long i forget i have them. i don't have the mental and emotional capacity to talk to people on here or interact fully a lot of the time. but i do my best to do so and be kind while i'm at it even when i don't want to be.

then, on top of that? i also run fic fests like @wordplayfics and help friends run their own. because not only am i a writer, i'm a reader. i LOVE fic. fic has saved me soooooo many times over the past seven years that i've been here. i want to do what i can to support other writers the best way i can, which is to provide a space for them to create their works that welcomes and helps promote them, but also by doing my monthly fic lists and pocast highlighting what i've been able to read, reblogging their fic posts, and then commenting and kudosing their fics too.

sometimes i get really fucking down on myself because i'm so behind on replying to comments, but my brain is very much a "if you start this, you have to finish it" kind of a brain, and i feel even WORSE sometimes if i reply to comments on some fics and not all of them. but i do my best and reply when i can. i was actually really fucking proud of myself because i had a couple days to myself in june, and i spent hours replying to comments on 20 of my fics. when you have almost 150 fics (i think? i don't even know how many fics i've posted by now), that is only scratching the surface. but i tried and i was so so happy i did that many fics at once. it's exhausting, though, and takes a lot of spoons for me to reply to them in mass like that plus time consuming. so i tried to be happy with those 20 fics and the comments i responded to there and told myself that when i ha a moment to breathe, i'd go and work on replying to some more.

but see, that again causes anxiety and guilt. because i haven't replied to all of them. and that anxiety and guilt can cause me to put it off further OR to put off important things like feeding my children or getting sleep in order to finish it, so i have to make myself put things into perspective and ensure i'm doing the important things, like taking care of myself and my family, first.

and then, i have a moment where i CAN go ahead and reply to comments... but i also have MANY fics that are on deadline and i actually have a schedule. a SCHEDULE. for when i'm going to focus on which fics. i can spell it out for you if you really want. i made it back in APRIL to make sure i didn't sign up for too many fic fests because there are so many going on right now that i want to participate in, but i know i can't do all of them so i had to pick and choose. and when you are SO overscheduled and busy that back in APRIL you had to figure out what fics you would focus on at what time to ensure you got everything written when you wanted to through THE END OF THE YEAR, more choices have to be made.

for example. my writing time and time for myself came down to only one evening a week for ALL fandom things i'm doing and a part of right now once the kids were out of school for the summer. it quickly became apparent that for my own self care i needed more time, so i worked with my husband to find two other days i could carve out at least 30-60 minutes to myself to write every week. and i did. but if i'm already only getting that much time and have committed to those fics and fests and things that you're running etc, you have to choose am i going to use this time to try to squeeze in some comment replies? or am i going to write? and i choose to write. simple as that.

so yeah. see it as selfish if you want. see it as mean. you can honestly see it as whatever the fuck you want, but for me? i know that as soon as i possibly can and i can breathe freely for once and not feel like i am constantly drowning in my day to day life and am doing pretty well when it comes to my fic deadlines and getting started on those christmas cards i'm once again going to be making by hand for everyone on tumblr who chooses to sign up for one this year out of the KINDNESS of my heart and the love i really do feel for so many of you, then i promise i'll be on ao3 catching up and commenting. my friends laugh and make fun of me for it sometimes, because they will sometimes get 10-12 replies to their comments in a single day. they know that's how i work. i WILL reply to every single comment i get, no matter how old it is. but for the love of all that is holy, do NOT add to the anxiety and guilt i already feel over it. the only place that will get you is the ask/comment getting deleted if it's a good day, a fucking long rant like this one if it's not, and a block if it's a REALLY bad day.

if you're asking me to be nice on ao3, then i ask in return that you also be nice by not demanding things of people that they are not in any way obligated to give.

[bookwyrminspiration]

hello! just curious, how do you plot out your stories? (for example, what have you done to plan out the wings au? do you have it all in your head? do you plan it out on paper or in a doc specifically for it? do you just go with the flow? sorry if this is a lot of questions lol i'm just trying to convey my point-)

hello, synonym!! lovely to see you again! I'd love to share my process!

as I explain my personal methods (again, personal, just how I do things!), I'll use the wings au as an example because i know you've read it and it'll just be easier over all. but essentially, yes to all of the above, just with different parts of the story!

my progression is: chaotic doc, background (as needed), basic written plot, expansion on the plot, any other details needed, and then just write things! but don't worry, I'll provide more detail, i say as if i'm capable of being concise

(putting below a readmore for simplicity)

chaotic doc: so, the very first thing I do when i have a story is open up a doc, and write down everything i know about it in little bullet points and rambling sentences, just basic information with no organization. the organizing can come later, right now I just want to get as much of what's in my head onto the paper as possible.

I type out the basic premise of the story or the few things I know about how I want it to go, the things I know I want to remember later, things I'd need to think about to set it up, etc. for the wings au, this was details like everyone's wings (things to remember later), how they got those wings and a sentence or two about what the world was like now (things I needed to think about to set it up), a little blurb about where the story would start. this is less writing details about the story, and more noting down the details I want to figure out later in the expansion. i find it works best to type this out because i'm a much faster typer than I am at physical writing, which allows me to follow the flow of my thoughts a lot better and go back and change things.

background: background prepares me for the next step, but the amount of effort I put into this section depends on how complex my story is. it basically means write down (we've moved to pencil and paper now, but this could be digital too if you prefer) anything you need to know in order to set up the rest of your story. what do you need to know in order to tell the story you need to and to get you where you want to be? for the wings au, the background was that the world had been overrun with monsters and everyone was living underground now. the neverseen had been defeated, or so they thought, coming back later. all these things that essentially prepared me to get to the plot. it told me where the story was happening and the emotional/physical environment everything else would happen under. if you have a more worldbuilding heavy world, this step might be a little more complex, or if there's something very specific with the characters you need as context beforehand.

sometimes the readers will be aware of pieces of the background, and it's even necessary for them to know--for example, you all knowing the elven world is in the middle of a monster apocalypse and living underground; if you didn't know, the rest of the story wouldn't make any sense. but there may be things you write down that are just for you to know, personal notes. for example, I have notes written about how the monsters came to be, more specifically, that you all haven't been made aware of and may never be. planning this out is for you, so if there's something you want to remind yourself to keep in mind while writing, this could be a good place. but now that we know the world we're writing in, we can move on

basic plot: for me, I struggle to figure out where to take a story, and if I don't have the basic concept laid out before I start writing, I ended up with really weird stories that completely deviate from what i wanted (I say this from experience). so I break it down into the bare essentials. literally as basic as I can be. there are five crucial parts of a plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. just those five. for each of those, i write--writing, because it takes more time (allows me to think) and feels more organized to me, but you can do it differently--just the general idea I have for each section. just as few words as possible. detail comes later. for the wings au I literally wrote "they get wings" for rising action. having read the wings au, you know just how simplified that is.

one things that might help is consider how you would explain this idea to someone in one or two sentences. you just want to make sure you have a beginning, middle, end, and the transition between them. from there you've got the skeleton of your story, and everything else can fit itself into this idea.

expansion: now that you have the skeleton, it's time to fill in some of the more essential anatomy. this is where you add the specifics. for me, i write this physically in bullet points in a journal of some kind. I take the first section, and write down how the story is going to start. where am I going to begin this journey. for the wings au I wrote "beginning: sneaking into breeding facility to destroy monsters. problem: caught/monster breaks loose." if you remember this is essentially the events of the first chapter but in two sentences. I'm giving enough detail that I know what I'm going to write, but not so much it's going to be stifling to follow my exact notes when I actually get to writing. this will be different for different people, so you may want more or less detail than I provided, I'm just giving an example of how I did it.

I continue this for the rest of the plot, but that doesn't mean every single little detail that will ever happen is planned out. I'm not patient enough to be super thorough with every little thing, so I go long enough until I have a solid understanding of what I'm going to start with when I'm writing, or just until I'm bored and can't deal with planning anymore. for me, that meant I was more detailed when planning from the mission in the facility to them getting to the abandoned gnomish village, as those would be some of the first things I would be writing about. after that, I got more vague and just touched on some of the key part of each of those five sections. I take those two/three words and turn them into two/three bullet points. I also didn't want to be too specific with the later details, because I knew i'd be influenced by things as I wrote and would be inspired to fill that out.

any other details: this is kind of any afterthoughts you might have or details you need to keep i mind that aren't necessarily plot. you may have a lot of these, or you may have none. for me, this was where I wrote down what kinds of wings and other animalistic traits each of the characters had (yes, I wrote them down again). it's not strictly plot, but it does affect the rest of the story. this is also where I write anything I forgot to when going through the first time, and then i can draw a little arrow pointing towards where it fits in to the rest of the story or is relevant (which is part of why I like the writing aspect, but this is entirely achievable on a doc). another example from the au is me writing "domestic" to the side and pointing it back to my notes about the gnomish village, because while it wasn't essential to moving the plot forward, i wanted to touch on some aspects of domestic live with the ten of them while they were there.

just write things: now that you have all this planning done (good job, you!) you can get into the writing aspect. you've already decided your beginning and know where you want to go, so this is the part where you just starting putting words on the page. it can be pretty daunting to just look at a blank page, so if you'd like, start a paragraph in. skip the first paragraph and just start in the middle of something else--you can add back what's missing later. I personally note things that I want to come back to inside [brackets like this], and that can be words, sentences, entire paragraphs. i use the square ones specifically because I don't use them in my writing unlike (these parentheses), and then I can search the document for them all at once and see all the places I need to go back.

this is also where the "just in my head" and "make it up as I go" part comes into place. you have a pretty good idea of what you're doing, but you're going to have ideas as you write, so sometimes you just follow the flow of your brain and write things you could've never even planned for. and if you're interacting with others as you're going (like I'm talking about theories with you all while writing future chapters) then you may be inspired by them to add things to the story. originally, I wasn't going to even have any messages from Bronte or Oralie, but now because I saw what some of the people reading it were picking up on, I realized the potential there and added them in on a whim

and sometimes when you get stuck, the best way to get yourself out of that is to just add something random, which can spiral off and affect the rest of the story. I've said it before, but the dragons were not planned. I'd actually seen a piece of writing advice months ago that if you're stuck, change the weather. so I was stuck and made a sudden rainstorm, but then I needed an explanation as to how things got so wet so fast because I'd mentioned clear skies earlier. so in my attempt to explain it, dragons came to exist. writing is a process, so don't limit yourself to everything you've written. you'll be inspired along the way, so try to take it in stride.

one final note: as much as you plan, this is not going to be a definite map for how the story will go. maybe something makes sense as you're planning it out, but when you get to actually writing it makes no sense as all and you need to change things. that's fine! this kind of a plan is just to get you prepared and keep you afloat amongst this ocean of words trapped in your head that you want to transcribe. if something isn't working, change it! in my original written plan for the wings au they weren't going to run away for a few weeks, instead sneaking out for an hour or two at a time over those few weeks because they couldn't stand being underground anymore, until Linh was actually the first one to make contact with a creature and realize it didn't immediately want to kill her. but because she's not the narrator of this story, I couldn't write it the way i wanted, so I gave that to sophie in the tree.

this is just my approach to my more complicated stories! for some of the really quick ones, I just open a doc and start going. this kind of thinking keeps me organized so that I'm doing the idea the most justice. but just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. if it does work for you, great! but if there are parts you need to modify for yourself, you are more than encouraged to do so. personally, if I could only chose one part of this process to rely on, it would be the basic plot. that's the key to everything for me, but for others it might be something different.

I hope this helps with whatever it is you're writing!! I wish you luck and look forward to seeing whatever it is (should you chose to share it, no pressure)!! if you'd like more of my process on how I write it consistently and update on a schedule, I'd be more than happy to talk about that too!

[incarnateirony]

In a previous post you said "what you’re looking at is how long the CW itself survives as an entity on its current trajectory." I was wondering if you could elaborate on that. It often feels to me like the CW can't possibly be making a lot of money since every time I see their ratings I'm surprised by how low they are compared to shows on other networks. It's also just weird to me how they often refuse to cancel shows even when the ratings are abysmally low. I mean that can't be a good business decision right? I've seen networks cancel shows with more than twice the ratings and support some CW shows get, saying the show just wasn't making enough money to justify keeping it on air. But then how is the CW able to fund these shows only for them to get such low ratings? Am I missing something? Do CW shows just make more money or are they so cheap to make that it just doesn't matter? And then there's the fact that they're having to spend even more money starting up new shows like that god awful powerpuff girls reboot everyone already hates since they've lost a lot of their most popular shows. To me it just seems like a recipe for bankruptcy but then again I don't really know much about this stuff so I was curious about your thoughts on it. Do you think the CW is close to its end? How much longer do you predict it'll survive?

Unless something dramatically changes, CW won’t make it past 2024-2025 season, and that’s being generous.

They get away with the low ratings, especially on CBS shows, by CBS as a parent company bankrolling them to air stuff long enough for syndication and to make enough streaming content for it to be profitable to CBS. However, if shows continue losing their streaming value, that’s bad enough. But it’ll also continue to need ad revenue, and CW has already been struggling to sell that for several years much less the noticeable drop in its value even within this given TV season (even calculating for the normal annual drop, I’m talking about within a single season/year). 

Broadcast TV and cable are already a struggling environment with the rise of digital and the drop of ratings. CW is further down in the descent and the largescale value drop doesn’t help. CW’s streaming platform for live isn’t worth crap. They’re already shoveling product out to HBO Max instead of, say, Netflix, to try to build the WB streaming network if you will. CW’s lost its netflix deal and netflix isn’t buying up their properties the same as it used to.

Eventually, CBS is going to see diminishing returns with better avenues (like CBS All Access or HBO Max with the cross deal) and stop bankrolling CW. Eventually, WB’s other far more successful platforms will become more relevant. Eventually, their ad space will be worth so little it won’t be worth keeping the classic lights on. Eventually, CW as a digital body will be overshadowed by the parent digital bodies.

Classic TV is already going to go belly up by the end of the decade. But CW isn’t positioned to be a holding in any major transition. Its parent company’s digital extensions are. As a delivery vehicle it’s going to be moot and at-best some extension/wing of a larger thing like a branch you can search on HBO Max. Branding, rather than being an actual existing product.

If fandom pulls its shit together and re-enforces wave 2 of boycotting all products live and digital, they can probably speed up its inevitable heat death by a year or two. It won’t be instant, that’s a long hauler thing. But rather than letting up and going back to streaming, just convince a new friend to join every day, and teach them to do the same.

[sammyloomis]

another diary/soul bearing thing under here so beware

ive been struggling lately with coming to terms with the fact i havent drawn as much as i wanted to while on summer break and i know thats a dramatic thing to say but considering i was so optimistic at the start of it and had all these ideas i wanted to do and have done absolutely none of them, and now im edging closer and closer to the start of my second year at uni, its a depressing thought

im trying to internalise what everyone says to me when i bring that up which is last year was a genuinly traumatic time and despite the fact it didnt seem to be effecting me in the moment, i think it might be catching up to me, so i shouldnt be so hard onm myself for taking such a long break

i spent my whole first year pushing out so much work and trying to make it the best i could do because anything other than perfect was a failure in my eyes, which is an awful mindset to have, and is whats been stopping me from drawing now because i know from trying in the last few days, the things ive been drawing havent been as good as i want them to be

it feels like all the optimism and self love i worked so hard to drill into myself is kinda failing me now, and im sure it’ll come back, but im kinda struggling

and not only all of that, but so much has changed and is in transition for me in the past month alone, all the uncertainty of that is getting to me

ive moved out of my childhood home as my parents are moving into a brand new house so i dont know if they next time i go there will be the last time i ever see my bedroom ever again ive moved into a student house which has people who leave mess everywhere and dont clean up after themselves and i knwoif i dont clean it it just wont get done and the fact i have to take proper care of myself for the first time ever

like my mum isnt gonna come up to my room and offer me a sandwich, and im not gonna go downstairs to find a meal already made

which again sounds so fkn dramatic dfghj but added on top of everything else, trying to keep myself fed and clean and getting out of bed in the morning because i know if i dont ill just stop completely

again, i kno every few weeks i just make a post like this which is super dramatic and shit, but i dont want anyone to feel obligated to read these, im kinda just spilling my guts into the void because i dont always feel comfortable putting this all on one person to help me deal with

im better at self regulating than i give myself credit for, and the weather being beauiful lately is defo helping hhh anyway, thanks for reading if ya did fghjk

[twstarchives]

Leona Kingscholar・Voice Lines

Additional Voice Lines: Gala Couture Event Card

School Uniform - R

Unlock Card “Why should it bother anyone how I look? Let me do what I want.”

Groovy “Hmph. Is my school uniform really that unusual?”

Home Setting “What’s up?”

Home Transitions “Ugh, I’m tired. Everyone telling me to get to class is so annoying.”

“Ruggie was lookin’ for me? It’s probably nothing important. Leave me alone.”

“If you’re bored you should just sleep all day. Think about how much time you could waste.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Why’re you staring at me? What, you wanted to see me? Heh, you’re so direct.”

Home Taps “A necktie? You seriously think I’d wear something that fancy?”

“I’m starvin’... Oi, go get me something to eat. Don’t worry, I’ll share if there’s any left over.”

“I don’t like restricting clothes. Who cares if I look a little sloppy?”

“Your life is something that’s almost entirely decided for you the moment you’re born. You’re not gonna get far with dedication alone.”

“Stop poking at me; it’s pissin’ me off. If you need something then use your words.”

PE Uniform - R

Unlock Card “I don’t like getting hot and sweaty, but I hate losing even more.”

Groovy “Well, my magift skills will get rusty if I don’t take it seriously every now and then.”

Home Setting “Like hell am I putting any effort into this class.”

Home Transitions “Other dorms challenge me all the time in magift. Obviously I have very good sportsmanship.”

“It’s so hot... I’m feeling like a cold bath. I wanna head back to Savanaclaw.”

“I like competitions. If you ever want to challenge me, I’ll take you on any day.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Strength training... hm. I don’t think it’d make a difference to me if I trained like that or not.”

Home Taps “Brute strength is way better than pretty-looking magic. But obviously the most important thing is using your head.”

“Ah, whatever should I do? I just hate doing things so feral like using fangs and claws to take someone down, but...”

“Jack? His stubborn side is irritating, but with a build like that he’d make a great magift player.”

“I enjoy the ‘using your wit to take down your opponent’ aspect of magift. I don’t really like the physical part of it.”

“My hair tie’s coming loose? Then fix it for me.”

Lab Coat - SR

Unlock Card “It’s boring having to do things you already know how to do. Classes are so tedious.”

Groovy “C’mon, stop followin’ me around like a little kitten. I hate being around kids.”

Home Setting “Let’s make it quick.��

Home Transitions “The Botanical Garden has the perfect temperature; it puts me straight to sleep. Don’t you feel that too?”

“You can tell what’s in something if you smell it, right? ...Ah? Must be inconvenient not having a strong sense of smell.”

“I’ve been looking for a good place to take a nap. Let me use the Ramshackle Dorm.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Why are you looking at me like that? Even I sometimes participate in class. Just depends on how I’m feeling.”

Home Setting (Groovy) “...Achoo! Oi, you left some kinda weird pollen in the Botanical Garden. Go get rid of it outside.”

Home Taps “Ruggie washes my lab coat for me too. What’s wrong with that? It’s convenient.”

“I hate the smell of chemicals; they give me a headache. Makes me wish I had the same nonexistent sense of smell all of you have.”

“You want me to help you with your work? Ha, you must really be stuck if you’re coming to me of all people for help.”

“There are a lot of plants back in my hometown you’d never see at this school. Actually, it’s just full of nature over there.”

“Knock it off. You’re going to get it if you keep playing with my tail like that.”

Home Tap (Groovy) “You reek of strong chemicals... Go take a bath or something and wash off that odor.”

Ceremony Robes - SR

Unlock Card “A ceremony? I hate formal things.”

Groovy *yawns* “...Oi, let’s go nap somewhere.”

Home Setting “My plans after this? Like I know.”

Home Transitions “You wanna know if I’m skipping today...? ...I’d be doing that if I could. Ruggie was warning me not to.”

“Let’s go and get this over with already. Ceremonies are just child’s play anyway.”

“Having to listen to all the teachers’ long speeches now... Hah. Just thinking about it makes me depressed.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Trein’ll blow up at me if I don’t have my hood on during the ceremony. ...Hah, it’s so annoying.”

Home Transition (Groovy) “Heh~ Even you can pull off these ceremony robes. Heheh... Don’t get mad, I’m just messing with you.”

Home Taps “No one’s gonna notice if one or two people are missing from the ceremony. Let’s dip.”

“Crowley always talks for so damn long. Doesn’t he know how to make things brief?”

“Savanaclaw will stay in line even if I’m not there. That’s what it means to be trained.”

“My ears are so pushed down... Why are the school’s ceremony robes made like this?”

“Yeah, yeah, we gotta go. You don’t need to pull me; I already know.”

Home Tap (Groovy) “You’re always so serious about things. Don’t you ever get tired? ...Ha, yeah, that was a stupid question.”

Dorm Uniform - SSR

Unlock Card “Calling out to me like this—you don’t seem to know fear.”

“I usually don’t let my prey slip by me... but I’m in a good mood right now. I’ll make an exception and won’t eat you.”

Groovy “I’ll show you what ‘leader of the pride’ really means.”

Home Setting “Savanaclaw students need to hide their vulnerable sides.”

Home Transitions “The Ramshackle Dorm is really nice. There’s no life or anything there so it’s the perfect place to sleep.”

“The ways of my dorm are simple. It’s a survival of the fittest. You better be careful if you don’t wanna get eaten.”

“If you need something then go talk to Ruggie. He’ll tell me if he thinks it’s important.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Are you curious about Savanaclaw? Alright, I’ll tell you about the dorm life here.”

Home Transition (Groovy) “For an herbivore, you’re really lax about getting near me. Aren’t you scared? ...Heh, you’ve got guts.”

Home Taps “It’s annoying how the feathers on my staff are swaying all the time... but they’re supposed to pay homage to the bird that served the King of Beasts, so I’d get yelled at if I took them off.”

“Where I live, scars are seen as a sign of bravery. They say the King of Beasts had a big scar going through his left eye too.”

“A vice dorm leader? In the past I let some people try their hand at it, but everyone who challenged me lost and gave up. So we don’t have one for now.”

“‘Why did I become the dorm leader?’ Isn’t that obvious? It’s ‘cause I’m the most superior.”

“Oi, stop clinging to me. I hate the warmth. And you’re not a kid anymore.”

Home Tap (Groovy) “I don’t have time for you right now. The afternoon hours are the perfect time for me to sleep.”

Duo Magic Leona: “Oi Vil, after me!” Vil: “Don’t order me around, Leona.”

Tutorial “Oi, let’s go. Come with me.”

Lv Up “Getting some support feels nice.”

“This isn’t bad, but I’m still not full.”

“No amount of power in the world is going to get in my way.”

Max Lv Up “Haha, it feels like the whole world has become mine. Keep devoting yourself to me and I’ll let you have a reward.”

Episode Lv Up “I told myself I wasn’t going to hang around herbivores, but I’ve been getting interested in you. I’ll keep on looking after you as long as you’re not causing trouble.”

Magic Lv Up “Wanting to stay with me while I’m practicing my magic is so typical of you. Most people would just curl up their tails and whine about it.”

Limit Break “Obviously I can do it if I try. ...I just don’t wanna do it.”

Groovy “You wanna see me actually being serious? ...Haha. It’s 100 years too early to show that to an herbivore.”

Lesson Select “Hey, sit in front of me. If I’m in the back I can sleep in peace.”

“This isn’t really something to think so hard about. I’m getting tired of waiting.”

“Everyone’s sittin’ side-by-side working together? I’m good, thanks.”

Lesson Start “Ah~ Boring.”

Lesson End “...That class was so boring; it was all stuff I already knew.”

Battle Start “I know how to fight with more than just power and fangs.”

Battle Win “Didn’t you know I was going to win?”

Other

Profile Quote “Life’s not fair, is it? Don’t you agree?” ¹

January 2020 Trailer “Before joining this academy, don’t you think you should work on that little roar of yours?” ²

Countdown Poster “If you want to see the light of another day, then curl up your tail and do as you’re told.” ³

Login Bonus “You’re here again? It’s a waste doing this everyday. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you that someday your efforts pay off.”

Player Birthday Wish “You don’t have to look at me with those pleading eyes. Of course I know it’s your birthday. Forgive me for not leaping for joy.”

Magic History

Good ★

“The king, huh...?”

“The weather’s nice.”

“I made eye contact with the cat.”

“Wish I skipped.”

“Struggling with an incompetent king...”

“Zzz...”

“I’m tired...”

“He was a passive king.”

“Finish this already.”

Great ★★

“Doesn’t everybody know this?”

“I don’t need the textbook.”

“What are you surprised about?”

Perfect ★★★

“It’s feral instinct.”

“Move on already.”

“Obviously.”

Special Lesson Perfect ★★★

“Why’s Crowley here?”

“Making a country thrive...”

“It doesn’t matter who’s here.”

Flying

Good ★

“I’ve been tired since this morning...”

“That all you got?”

“What a pain...”

“Easy win.”

“Coach Vargas is so annoying.”

“I’m starvin’...”

“I don’t wanna move around when I just ate.”

“Have Jack teach you.”

“I caught a bird.”

Great ★★

“I’ll just do it.”

“Too easy.”

“Watch.”

Perfect ★★★

“I could do this in my sleep.”

“Aah? I was asleep.”

“This is easier than walking.” 

Special Lesson Perfect ★★★

“Does he really have free time right now?”

“Look ahead and fly.”

“How long do you want me flying for?”

Alchemy

Good ★

“Just do it however.”

“Gold... Not bad.”

“I'm not in the mood for this.”

“Seems like something Ruggie would like.”

“Crewel...”

“The smell of chemicals hurts my nose.”

“It’ll work if you just mix it.”

“I’m getting hungry.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Let’s take a break.”

“Pay attention.”

“I wanna sleep in the afternoons...”

“Ah, the pot scorched.”

“Finished.”

“Is this enough already?”

Great ★★

“You didn’t even know this?”

“Don’t make light of me.”

“I’m tired of this.”

“Feels like my nose is acting up.”

“I did this last year.”

Perfect ★★★

“I’m bored.”

“I want an actual challenge.”

“I can do this without even thinking about it.”

“Do that later.”

“Need some help?”

Special Lesson Perfect ★★★

“Teach, explain this.”

“I don’t even have time to sleep.”

“Oi, smoke! By your hands!”

“Crowley’s real pushy.”

“I just have to do this, right?”

References from The Lion King:

Life’s not fair, is it?

You might want to work on that little roar of yours

You shall never see the light of another day

[ahsokasshoto]

Names and Faces

Star Wars: The Bad Batch fanfiction

No romantic relationships;  Omega, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, Echo, 99, Nala Se

1999 words (I really couldn’t have just added one more, could I?)

Ao3

Summary: Imagine growing up on Kamino, dysphoric for a face that you see reflected back at you not only in the mirror but in everyone around you. Imagine what it would mean to be finally be seen as different, knowing that people were finally seeing you as you saw yourself.

Omega deals with growing up trans on Kamino, and how to later tell her newfound family this important piece of her identity and history.

TW: non-graphic violence between the first and second breaks, and mentions of/hinting toward dysphoria throughout

It was an okay face, she supposed. If she looked at it from a certain angle. And squinted a bit. The jaw was too set and square; nose too wide and flat; hair too rigid. But the eyes….the eyes were good. She had to learn to like this face. She was stuck with it.

“The hell are you looking at, Question Mark?”

The jeering voice shook her out of her thoughts and she winced. She’d been daydreaming in the middle of the cafeteria while staring directly at another clone. Again. He stepped towards her, brows knit together in a familiar fury. A group of clones stood behind him, backing him up. “I asked you a question, Question Mark,” he hissed, using the snide nickname some of the clones had branded her with. She was always disappearing for tests or riding the heels of Nala Se. No one quite knew what to make of her. To them, she was a big question mark.

She stood and looked into that face, her face, reflected back at her. She tried to keep hers neutral as she said sternly, “That’s not my name.”

**

The other clone smirked. “Well, what is it then, Question Mark?” He took another step toward her, those copper-colored eyes still menacingly afire. “Or is that just another question mark for us, too?”

Fortunately for Omega, those questions would have to wait as the cafeteria was suddenly abuzz with excitement. One of the clone troupes was back from a mission. “It’s the weird ones,” Omega heard another clone whisper. “Aren’t they called the Bad Batch?” another clone responded. “Don’t you mean the sad batch?” the clone who had jeered at Omega scoffed. But at least he was distracted for now, and Omega hurriedly made for the exit when she saw him.

It was that face, the one she’d seen countless times on countless people, but it wasn’t the same. His hair fell over it, and the dark ink of the skull pattern caught the bright Kaminoan light, making it look all the more shadowed. And with him were three other clones, each with equally unique faces: one with thin, hollowed cheeks and a crosshair tattooed over his eye; one which stood taller than the others, a twisting scar spread around one whitened eye; and one wearing high-tech goggles, face buried in a datapad. She’d never seen anything like these clones before.

The one with the skull tattoo turned on his way to a table and caught her eye. He gave her a small smile and nod before turning back to sit with his team. Omega could not stop her heart from fluttering.

"Who were those clones, Nala Se?"

Nala Se blinked slowly at her. "To which clones are you referring?"

"The ones who didn't look like clones. Big guy, one with goggles, one with grey hair and the one with the skull on his face."

"Those are the clones of experimental unit 99."

"Experiments?" Omega looked down at the cold machinery which poked and prodded her skin. "What kind of experiments?"

Nala Se moved some sensors, made some notes. "Nothing that concerns you."

Omega was not deterred. "Why do they look like that? Because of the experiments?"

Nala Se paused, all but sighing as she turned to look into Omega's wide, curious eyes.

"Yes. Aberrations in their DNA enhanced traits desirable in soldiers. We further enhanced those traits manually."

"Wow." Omega leaned back. "What can they do?"

"Enough questions for now, cadet. Just relax."

Usually, the sensations of the metal sensors on her skin brought on a dysphoric discomfort that would stay with her, sometimes for days after an examination like this. But today, her mind was far away, imagining the face she'd have if she could be different like Experimental Unit 99.Omega was still lost in thought as she made her way back to her bunk. It was late, and she hoped the other clone cadets would all be asleep. But her hopes fell when she heard heavy footfalls behind her.

"Well, well, well," sneered a familiar voice. It was the cadet from earlier, his crew still lurking behind him. "If it isn't the big old question mark. What are you doing out so late? Huh?"

Omega could feel his hot breath in her face. She glared at him. "None of your business."

But the other clone merely smirked. "I saw you looking at that sad batch clone earlier. You know what I think? I think you're defective," he said, jabbing a finger at her chest, "just like them. That's why they have to do so many tests on you." He tugged at her shirt. "Why don't you show us, Question Mark?" He lifted her shirt up and punched her in the gut. It knocked the wind out of her and she fell to her knees. She had barely time to throw her arms up over her face before a foot was coming at her head. The other cadets stood by and laughed. One may have even added some kicks of his own; there were so many, she couldn't tell, and she began to grow faint and dizzy. Finally, one of them said, "I hear footsteps. We'd better get out of here!"

They took off running in the opposite direction of the approaching footsteps. They were moving too quickly to be Kaminoan. She dared not look up as they grew closer.

"Are you alright?" said a soft-spoken voice, filled with genuine concern. She'd never heard that kind of voice on Kamino, not even from Nala Se. She risked a tiny peek, and found herself looking up at another clone unlike any she'd seen. His body was slightly hunched, his face wrinkled, but he looked at Omega with some of the kindest eyes she'd seen on Kamino.

"I...I think so," she winced, struggling to sit up. The clone reached out and offered a steadying hand, which she accepted. "Ow," she winced again, feeling a sharp pain in her ribs. She hoped they weren't broken; that would be difficult to hide from Nala Se.

“I’m 99,” the clone said kindly. Omega perked up. “Like Experimental Unit 99?” she asked brightly. 99 chuckled. “The Bad Batch,” he said fondly. “They had to go through this too, you know. At least, before Wrecker got too big to scare everybody off.”

She looked up at 99, wide-eyed. “Really?”

“Not all regs are like that, though. I’ve known some good ones. It’ll get better.” He smiled at her, but she still looked dismayed.

“I don’t know. I’m different, too. I don’t look like it, but I….I feel it.”

99 gently helped Omega to her feet. “Well, if you ever need someone to talk to about it, come and find me. I’d better get back to work, though. What’s your name, by the way?”

Omega smiled, and took a breath. The last letter. The last she’d ever be considered a question mark. Once the name passed her lips, there would be no going back. But she was ready.

“Omega,” she said proudly. “My name is Omega.”

**

99 had been right; things did get better once she told Nala Se she was transgender. “Most intriguing,” was all the Kaminoan woman had said, blinking those huge, taciturn eyes. She had begun production and administration of puberty blockers shortly after that.

Omega continued to meet with 99 through her transition, and the two became fast friends. She especially loved hearing his stories about the Bad Batch. The attack by the Separatists on Kamino was a devastating blow. She attended 99’s funeral ceremony, along with several regs. She looked over them all. Most did look pretty regular, but she noticed a couple, one with a hand painted on his armor and one with a tattoo of a five on his head. They must be more experienced troopers to have such marks. 99 had been right, Omega thought. Not all regs were bad if they could pay their respects to him.

People still treated Omega differently, but what no one realized was that every snide remark about her hair or her soft features or her clothing was a point of pride and power for her. They were finally seeing her as she saw herself.

And the next time the Bad Batch saw her, she could look back at them with a face as same but different as theirs.

**

"Tech, how's it going with that datapad?" Hunter said in a low voice. He, Tech, Wrecker, Echo, and Omega wandered the surface of Bracca, searching for a particular piece of machinery.

Something caught Omega's eye: a shock of color stuck out against the rusty brown all around them. She knelt down for a closer look. It was a small flower, delicate purple petals reaching through the junk for a chance at sunlight. It was beautiful.

"Nothing yet. The latent charges in the rest of the machinery here must be skewing my tech as much as your senses, Hunter." Tech shook his head. "My screen is like a big, blank question mark." The words jolted Omega out of her reverie. Her mind was suddenly thrust back to Kamino, when those words were slugged at her as much as fists were. Her chest grew tight and her heart began to pound.

“Omega?” Hunter heard her panting as much as he sensed her panic and was at her side in a moment. “Omega, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Her thoughts were racing; it was difficult to focus. “I....I just….” Big, splotchy tears began to spill. Everyone had stopped now to look at her, concern lining each of their faces. “Question mark. That’s what people used to call me, back on Kamino. Before….before I….” She couldn’t finish before choking out a sob. She turned away from them and ran back in the direction of the ship. Hunter made to follow, but Echo placed a hand on his shoulder. “Give her some space. If she wants to tell us, she will.”

The crew arrived back at the ship some time later to find Omega waiting for them. She looked at them solemnly, almost sheepishly. “I’m sorry I ran off back there,” she said quietly.

“That’s alright, Omega. Is everything okay?” Hunter asked gently.

Omega took a deep breath. “When I was first growing up on Kamino, I knew that I felt different, but I didn’t look any different from everyone else. I didn’t want to be a soldier. I didn’t want to be like them at all. I’d be taken away for tests a lot, and no one knew what to make of me. I was just a big question mark to them.”

She looked down at her hands. “Now when people see how different I look, it makes me happy. Because they’re seeing me as I am. A girl. I’m transgender,” she finished, and risked a glance up at the group. The members of the Bad Batch were all beaming at her with immeasurable pride.

"Wow," Wrecker whispered, his good eye wide and sparkling with admiration.

"Thank you for telling us, Omega," Hunter said earnestly, kneeling down to look her in the eye.

"We are so lucky to have you," Tech piped from behind Hunter.

"Absolutely. You may not have wanted to be a soldier, but you're brave and strong as one," Echo said.

"But way prettier!" Wrecker added, and they all laughed.

"Thank you guys," Omega said finally, wiping the tears from her eyes. "No one's ever understood me like you have. I couldn't ask for a better family."

"Me neither," Hunter replied.

"Here, here!" Tech agreed.

Wrecker couldn't take it anymore. "Oh, bring it in!" he cried and he wrapped his arms around Tech and Echo and sandwiched Hunter and Omega between them in a group hug. Omega’s heart swelled to know that she finally had a place and a family to which she belonged. Where she could be free to be exactly who she was meant to be.