#cycling has become part of my personality oops

[pallanophblargh]

Taking in the golden hours on two wheels (of course.) The bikes get some aster flower crowns because ‘tis the season! (The flowers come from my garden of course.)

It won’t be long til these summer bikes are retired for the year, and then hopefully there will be plenty of snow to romp in on the winter bike.

[dearjjunie]

always (kang taehyun x gn!reader)

wc: 901

genre: angst, fluff, right person wrong time au

warnings: hint towards sex in the beginning (literally the tiniest hint), a lot of late night/early morning emotions put into this :,)

a/n: this is my first time in years writing a fic so i apologize in advance ! but i will be working hard to improve my writing in hopes to make you guys happy ! (even tho this may be angsty oops.) pls remember to like and reblog if you enjoy <3 mwah

he looks down at you laying against his chest, you look so peaceful he couldn’t even think about waking you up right now. moving your hair from covering your face as he kisses the top of your head “you deserve more than this” he whispers softly into the night as you shuffle and pull him closer, if he had it his way he would stay in this place forever. holding you close, saying sweet nothings knowing you won’t hear him or remember, but keeping hope that maybe his words will become a part of your dreams, that maybe it’ll be different next time. slipping away as quietly as he can to make sure you’re asleep, looking back one last time before he closes the door.

it always ended like this, with you waking up alone in a bed with memories of him still there. the slight dip and creases in the sheets that he left behind, the faint smell of his cologne still in the air, the tooth brush he left behind knowing that even after the cycle of push and pull continues, he’ll always be back.

it would start with a text, claiming it would be different, he changed, telling you he wanted you truly and only you. only to be left with nothing but the remains of his presence that he left behind, no matter how hard you try to stay away you come running back just as fast as he does. but you weren’t innocent at all, it was equal fault if not the universe itself for making soulmates meet at the wrong time.

maybe one day you can both get it right.

that’s the day you decided to make it work.

a few months later you’re laying in bed with your mind racing, endless thoughts of him, your future, anything and everything going around your head, things have been so good, the only thing you need is him. you groan as you fail to doze off again, not finding a comfortable sleeping position anywhere. ‘fuck it’ you say as you reach for your phone on the bedside table, praying to the universe this time will be different.

yn

why is sleep so uncomfortable

delivered 4:38 am

taehyun

why are u awake . it’s 4 am

delivered 4:40 am

yn

i could ask u the same lmao

delivered 4:41 am

taehyun?

delivered 4:42 am

do you wanna meet at our spot?

delivered 4:44 am

i cant stop thinking about you

delivered 4:44 am

taehyun

i’ll be there in a bit just wait for me at the tree

delivered 4:53 am

slipping on some comfy warm clothes and shoes, you start your way towards the tree that has become your designated meeting spot to get away from the world.

after a short walk you arrive, sitting on the ground with your back against the tree and pulling your knees closer to your body, you sigh and take in the view around you, checking your phone for the time that stares back at you. 5:12. less than half an hour before blue hour, the magical hour as everyone calls it. you wish with everything in you that was true, you needed something to work out right.

hearing footsteps and raising your head up, noticing the blue-haired male also in comfy clothes standing a few feet away from you, he walks over and grabs your hand to pull you up, with no words spoken you both start walking up the hill to your spot.

once you got to the top you sit on the hill with him following your actions, your eyes gazing over the city below. all those people with such different lives, everyone being different but always the same.

you feel his eyes on you, looking towards him as you tear up “i’m tired of this game, i want you. only you.” looking into those brown eyes full of stars as you admit what you’ve been holding in for so long.

he turns his body towards you and motions you to do the same, grabbing your face with both hands as he wipes your tears with his thumb. “it’s always been you, only you.” you let out a sob as you cling onto him, wondering how things got so complicated so quick, why it took so long for the emotions overwhelming you to break free.

he pets your hair as you pull away, looking deep into his eyes for any signs of hesitation, any sign that this was like the other times, only to find nothing but love and adoration. “i’m sorry i took so long, but i know what i want. you.” he whispers to you with sincerity.

you look over to the city again, seeing the blue hue over the scene in front of you, looking down at your phone as you get a notification, with him curiously doing the same as the time turns right in front of you. 5:53. you look back up at each other “i need us to be real this time” is all you’re able to get out before he’s softly pressing his lips against yours, this kiss is different from past ones, used to the rough lust-filled kisses. breaking away from the gentle kiss, you look into his eyes and smile for the first time that day “then let’s be real” he smiles and leans in for another kiss. today was the day you were both determined to stay.

[sabakos]

nekocolonialism

The boy's pointed, furry ears pricked up at the sound of the buzzer door and his greying, striped tail began to flick back and forth in anticipation. He dusted the white powder off his whiskers and pressed the intercom.

"Come in, Mr. Secretary-General"

The hairless, balding man's face was flushed as he stumbled to the desk where his impossibly adorable anthropomorphic adversary lounged comfortably. "You can't do this to us! It's not fair, we need more time to make the next payment. There were unforseen-"

The Viscount of Neko Holdings Unlimited private enforcement militia purred softly at his captive audience "I explained this to you, Mr. Secretary-General, this is out my paws. The Neko family appreciates your timely repayment right meow..."

"But the hunger riots..."

"Are an issue we gave you the means to deal with. Why didn't you deploy the cat-scratch fever in the most rebellious regions before they burned the milk distillation equipment? Are we to blame that your staff tried a diplomatic solution against our advice, to negotiate on our behalf for terms that were iwwelevant to us? But no, you know your own people."

As the catboy caught himself slipping into a shameful accent, the soft, sand paper tongue flicked out the last word like a hairball it had gotten rid of. To regain his composure, he elected to change the subject to a more lighthearted and familiar one: "Say, this used to be your office, right?"

The man nodded. The catboy batted at the globe perched on the edge of his desk. and it fell to the ground with an expensive shatter. The man winced.

"Oops. Priceless, right? Jade and sapphire. Well, maybe that could have lowered your debt a bit, if you hadn't already agreed to cede this city and everything in it to us in exchange for accepting your surrender. Mew York City? Hey, don't cry baby. I have a question for you. Why's this broken ball all colored wrong, anyway. The green part's all blue-colored, and the brown part's all green. Are people colorblind or something? Or just stupid?"

The man's face turned white. "It used to be like that! Before you showed up it was that color. There are pictures!"

The Viscount licked his paw, catching the tip of his claw "Now you're trying to lie to me. I don't like that. We've been watching you for a long time, you know. I know all about the little missile you launched at your own little... moon? Luna? Did I hear rightly that you used to call it a ball of cheese? Well at least you named one thing correctly. That wasn't green cheese either, though. I tasted a bit of it. Sorry for blowing it up by the way. That was my personal call y'know, we just assumed you had military fortifications there. But you never even settled it, did you? Truly a slave race, fit only to be ruled over."

The man's face turned from fear to impotence as he realized that he was going to be excluded from the remainder of this conversation, but that he would not be free to leave; the Viscount liked nothing better than the sound of his own voice. With a sudden twitch, sensing his prey's mind wandering, the catboy sunk a claw in the desk and dragged it across the metal nameplate to bring the secretary-general back to attention.

"Anyway, I distinctly remember when I made that call, that this planet was already those colors. Wasn't it? You did this to yourselves. If we hadn't come along you'd all be long dead by now, cooked, just like those fish you were too dumb to leave raw. You didn't deserve those. We still have some, y'know. Moved them offworld before we boiled the ocean to kill the dolphins and the cuttlefish, the only higher intelligences on this blasted planet. Salmon has become quite a delicacy on Neko Prime once we got the breeding cycles right. Tuna too. Unlike the breeding cycles of those human-neko hybrids. That project failed, the process is apparently very painful for the humans, and the only viable offspring are just kinda stupid catboys."

The man failed to fight off the urge to interject "You said those experiments were false rumors. Invented by the Humane Society! We agreed to the terms of the treaty! no human trials!"

"Yeah, I did, pet. We lied to you. Not that it matters anymore. You belong to us now, and we don't need your cooperation anymore. Your whole planet makes, well made the pressure control valve for milk distillation columns. It's admittedly a great environment for it, right in the habitable zone for lactic acid synthesis. Your one purpose as an ecosystem. Catlord knows it's the only thing you were ever good at. but since you can't pay your debts, looks like we'll need to have someone else do it, it's just too much of a liability. There's even been talk of automation! But don't think we can just leave you alone. we can't let an atomic capable race just stick around, even one as useless as you. Loose ends and all."

The Secretary-General's face went blank as he realized the trajectory of the conversation was even more hopeless that he had first supposed.

The catboy's unblinking eyes turned soft. "I was thinking of taking you with me. Maybe play with you a little bit before you die. What do you say, old friend? Want to be the last human alive? Watch your stupid little planet blow to bits like that little model there? Or do you want to go out with the rest of them, just spoiled milk refinery equipment?"

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Baby Brothers - Faro's Telling

Warnings and Information: Uh… oops? Out of my 18+ Clone OCs, Faro was supposed to be my *ONE* OC who did not have a proper/creative backstory for his name out of everyone who appeared in the NTMYB story that has since spiraled into a series. But I had an idea. This takes place before NTMYB, so rather than break the in-house rule of using their names before they actually get them, or make up CT designations that will just get confusing (and I’ll forget later), everyone's dialogue gets color-coded. Apologies, and warning, for eyestrain. This will not be a regular story-telling method. Star Wars and real-world swearing. No Mando'a here. Narrative and stylistic use of italics.

Word-count: 2,633

Key: Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar, Fluke, Canvas

By Kamino's three moons, why did he have to get pulled out of the cloning tanks first? Now he feels like he's supposed to shoulder all blame and fault for his brothers until their training is completed. It's lousy. He never asked for this! And what's worse, is he has some of the most patience-testing batchmates possible out of this whole Growth Cycle… 

The whole of the Growth Cycle gets shipped out next year. Perhaps several hundred healthy adult men within a single Cycle (he doesn't keep track of the numbers) all fit and ready to fight for the Republic. Hundreds of batches of brothers. 

Batches of brothers made up of fives. 

"All four of you are going to make me gray before we're even shipped out…" he finds himself muttering as he tasks himself with taking care of them out of a sense of obligation. Of responsibility. Brotherhood. "Kriffing hells, stop it. We're supposed to be practicing for our weapons disassembly, would you quit messing with the other two?"

"I'm helping them! One of their parts got lost. Help me find it before the trainer sees!"

One of them is cocky and impulsive sometimes, another underwent a massive personality shift in the last two years that does not seem related to developing a unique identity, and the youngest two are so kriffing hard to separate. Second youngest can be easily distracted and just as unlucky as the third. The youngest… constantly breathing down his neck and inventing excuses to stay close. 

They get shipped out next year. They're all almost fully-grown, and none of them have Names. 

He's just the oldest out of choice. So he feels he has to be mature and steadfast and a teacher for his baby brothers… He takes the worst of it from the Trainers. Either because he thinks he has to as the oldest, and therefore the example, or because he’s made the scapegoat. For some reason it’s his fault that one brother keeps getting a DC-17 hand blaster and a DC-15S mixed up when they do drills on each model. It's his fault when the oldest brother after him loses his cool. It's his fault that the youngest are distractible and shy and never feel like socializing with their other Clone-brothers outside of their batch. 

It's his fault because he's the oldest. He's only trying to be a good example. He's only trying to take care of them. But he's got four baby brothers and only two hands to take care of them all… he tries so, so hard to, anyways.

Two hands that have been trained to do so much damage can only be so soft sometimes. 

But Maker, he's trying. He's been trying so hard ever since they were little and when "babying" was more acceptable. Well just because they're nearly men, it doesn't mean they stop being his little brothers. Because he was pulled out of the Cloning tube first, these four are his baby brothers; now, forever, always. 

They annoy him, yes. But he loves them… and he loves them by protecting them before they ever set foot off of Kamino, when it will become impossible to do so. When he understands the risks that he will lose them - or they lose him - to war against the Separatists and all those who would oppose the Republic. Risks he is prepared for, but selfishly does not want to accept. 

These are his brothers. Come stormy seas or blaster fire, that will not change. Not even men like Jaccynn will change this. 

And Jaccynn is in a mood today. A particularly nasty one. "That was sloppy, CT-xxxx! Again!" 

"S-sorry, Sir! Yessir!" his middle batchmate pants, daubing his brow on the edge of his sleeve. His training uniform is soaked with sweat new and old. The training center stinks of musk and petrichor from hundreds of brothers engaged in hand sparring. He snaps all his limbs in starting position, but his knees soon begin to wobble. He's too tired to keep this up for much longer. "I-I'm upping keep as best as I can! I mean I'm keeping up!" 

That's been happening a lot more lately; the word confusion. But it's just subtle enough that the Kaminoans haven't caught on, or don't have enough of a reason to look into these reports. 

Words from the smuggled datapad from their classrooms come back to him. 

Possible brain injuries. Minor aphasia. 

His middle brother is likely suffering with minor aphasia, and there's nothing he can do about it. Except exercise yet more patience… patience that would not be shown by the Trainers. So he has to be creative and crafty with his words and his excuses when Jaccynn oversees their combat readiness. 

"Wait. It's been ten minutes since your last sip of water," he warns his brother, grabbing his bottle from the stack and bravely crossing into the combat mat's boundaries to take it to him, "And our brothers in the medical center keep reminding you that the reason you passed out last time was because you were dehydrated, CT-xxxx." Ordinarily he would not let another brother lean on him like this, having to fully support the tugging weight that threatens to take him to the floor like a bored child hanging off a parent's wrist who's too old for such behavior. But he makes exceptions for his batchmates. He has to. He sees his brother is not as fine as he claims between long, drawn-out pulls from the bottle. 

"I'll be fi-fine!" comes the unconvincing insistence after a particularly violent sway, "I'll begot this!" 

There's a loud snickering behind the two of them. "You'll kriffing what now?" 

"What did I say?" He doesn't get what's so funny about what he said, as usual. That is also a more recent problem. One that he just has to hope doesn't get any worse, or they might take his brother away from him and never be seen again. He can't let that happen. "What'd he say I said?" 

"Ignore him. Focus, brother. You're almost done, c'mon. Be ready as soon as I get off the mat." His brother has to focus. And the second oldest needs to get a hold of himself too, he can't just make these unfiltered comments out in the open. Not in front of this trainer who oversees the instruction of this Growth Cycle. 

The trainer who calls himself Jaccynn just sneers with disgust. He knows the water break was a clever tactic to stall his instruction, but he cannot delve into supplying punishments for interruptions the way he would like. So he goes about it a different way: giving the losing combatant no time to prepare himself. "Okay, now that you've had your cute little pep talk it's time to get serious… Ready. Set. Begin!" 

He's hardly had the time to brace himself to be laid out on his back, and the air bursts from his lungs in a harsh wheeze as the winning challenger makes his first and only move necessary to complete the round. He's so damn dazed that he can only grin stupidly up at the Clone brother above him asking if he's okay. 

The impulsive streak is rearing its head again. "Why that-"

"Sit your ass down, you're not a charging Reek." He pulls his brother back down with a fistful of his uniform. Retaliation is just going to spur Jaccynn on and take it out on more of his little brothers. He's sung this song and danced this dance for years now with Jaccynn. 

"But Jaccynn didn't give him enough time to get ready, I should feed him his teeth!" 

"I saw it too, mynock-brain." 

Though nearly fully-grown, the youngest are crawling on their hands and knees to avoid being noticed by the hired instructor as they try to get their brothers to stop arguing. To his memory, of all his baby brothers, these two are the only ones who have not fully abandoned this behavior when they're all supposed to be seated on the floor.

They don't opt for shuffling along on their knees like most other brothers. His batchmates are far from being like most other brothers. 

"Cut it out, guys!" the second youngest pleads, using his body as a buffer between his oldest two brothers with the help of the youngest. Their faces are probably warm with anxiety as warm as their bark-brown eyes that implore them to get along. Privileges that come with being batch-babies. 

The four of them really, really test his patience, but he wouldn't trade them for any other Batch, deep down. These are his batchmates. These are his brothers. Maker help him if he ever stopped loving them so much… 

"Alright, alright, stop. Go pester him. I'm going to make sure he's okay." Privileges that come with being the two oldest means it takes just a few words to settle the others down. And, if you're annoyed enough, you make it the other's problem. Again, where these any other brothers but his batchmates, he would not be quite as tolerant of someone nearly fully-grown trying to share his shadow. "He's probably just had his bucket rung, again. Look at him, he's grinning like an Acklay. He'll be okay." 

The simple fact he's sitting up and laughing it off bodes mostly well, at least. Second and third oldest are now joking that the third has probably seen more stars than a spacer, and he's never even left Kamino yet. "You're setting a galactic record!"

"Hell yeah!" 

Maker, those two were certainly going to make him gray before he was ten. But at least the youngest would keep him softer and kinder. "Stop gnawing on your nails, little brother." 

"Sorry…"

"I'm not angry anymore, it's-"

He shakes his head rapidly. "It's Jaccynn. He scares me." That's fair enough, he concedes. Jaccynn hasn't exactly made himself a popular Trainer with the Clones. More than one Clone-brother has wanted nothing more than to feed him his teeth for berating them, or picking on the batch-babies. That seems to be his thing. Jacc hates that across most of the facility, younger brothers are often afforded a little more leniency. 

Cared for a little more until the next Growth Cycle is old enough to really roughhouse with the rest of them. They still can, granted; it's just that they don't want to accidentally hurt any of their brothers while they're still growing, still learning. 

"All you damn Clones look the same, how can you possibly tell who's younger than you?" 

It was impossible to explain how you just knew, or why exactly they did it, but of course they could absolutely tell who was younger than them even without being explicitly told. You're older than your batchmates by mere minutes. So when you age and grow and change as fast as they do, they have to find some way of establishing a sense of… normalcy. Maybe this was something that was passed down to them from the very first generation of Clones, or something that someone saw on the Holonet and really liked the idea of. 

A living sea of hundreds and thousands and millions of brothers, of course they'd behave a lot alike "traditional" brothers in some ways. But they're a lot more unalike than nat-born brothers… they don't tend to Name one another. 

"What about Fang?"

He scoffs, insulted. "What am I, a massiff? Pass."

"I dunno, you seem like an Axel to me." 

He shakes his head again. Someone else in the neighboring batch (below them) is considering that Name. It's bound to happen, but you try to avoid too many name duplicates within a Growth Cycle.

"Rachet?" 

That's not a bad name, but no. ("Stop chewing your nails or I'll have to hold your hand.")

His middle brother gives him a woozy smile as he's helped down to medical, again. "I think he's more of a… Ozone. Yeah, I kinda like it… That's a nice name…"

"Are you sure you don't want that name for yourself?" He offers as he helps his brother into a chair and lets a medic know that yeah, it's them again, who else? while doing his best to keep him upright. 

"I'llthinkaboutit." That's fine, he promises. Only half-jokingly he replies he's more concerned about keeping them in one piece on Kamino so they can go and fight for the Republic. "There's plenty of time to find names, little brother. Even if that's when we leave Kamino." Away from Jaccynn who mocks every last name choice. Away from the bounty hunter who's only training soldiers of the GAR for a promised sum, not because he genuinely wants to make any kind of difference. But because he must feel small without hundreds who have to listen to him, one of those types of people. "One day, brothers… we'll find Names, and I won't have to keep thinking of you by your favorite colors. I'll think of you by your Names. One day I'll stop sounding like such a jackass in front of the others when I have to refer to you by CT numbers."

"Is that why you call me Yellow?"

"What am I?" His youngest brothers look at him with wide, imploring eyes. These two have always been so expressive. "Me?"

"Privately: I'm Red," he answers with a gentle chuckle, "yes, you are Yellow." he tells him with a nod, and ruffling the soft, fluffy curls of the second and then the youngest's last, he adds "You're Blue. And Orange seems to be your favorite color. That leaves our dizzy brother over here as Green."

"Green's not a creative color for a Name…" he complains softly, dodging the pinpoint of light from the otoscope in the medic's hands as he tries to check the pupils. 

"What do I use instead then?" 

He whines softly and shrugs while he tries to swat the otoscope away. "I dunno… no-go-awaaay." (He's never liked how much they have to use the otoscope on him when trying to figure out the root cause of his confusion and word-swapping.) 

"Then for just now, I'll stick with Green, okay?" 

"Eh… sure." he concedes before he allows the medic to do his job with no further complaints, since 'Red' offers his hand to hold. He's already holding 'Orange''s hand just so he settles down. Three Kaminoans have entered the medical wings. They've always made him a little nervous, much like a lot of things; he speculates that Orange has a lot of masked nervousness…

"Don't think about the long-necks…" he whispers, nudging his youngest batchmate to turn his back on the Kaminoans. "Just think about us, or what you want your Name to be. Anything but them. You're okay. So long as I'm here." 

He'd make sure of it. For all of them. He's just minutes older than them, and he never wanted to be the oldest… but for them? Maker. As much as they drive him crazy, he'd probably burn down the galaxy for them if it would keep them safe. 

These are his baby brothers. And he loves them. 

Everything. He'd do everything again in a damn heartbeat. 

He just needs to make sure if he gets another chance, another life, that he does a lot of things differently. That he stands up to Jaccynn sooner, and defends his batchmates more. That he tells his brothers he loves them, not just showing them through acts of service or sacrifice. Apologizes to his superior officers for being so closed off and stoic all the time. Thank the other brothers who showed friendship and offered their help to the youngest of his batch. 

But more important than anything else is that he explains why his name is FARO…

Note from Frost: Don't have much of an explanation for this other than "creative exercise that I don't hate", taking the advice of just writing for myself on occasion, and exploring more of what made Faro tick. This ties in most directly to "Nice To Meet You, Brother" and "I Have No Mother, Only A Brother" within the OC "lore".

[Masterlist] [Clone OC Masterlist]

[elder-dragon]

I have a bunch of characters with no character slots yet but I've been wanting to talk about one of them all day so here we go!

The idea is that Bikki (Isekai Commander) didn't actually go back in time to the 1320s alone. Her two friends were also flung back in time but in different timeframes from her. Lily (nickname) is her Sylvari best friend and they've been sent further back, which means they end up in the Grove and lives there for several years before Bikki arrives in time for the personal story.

But the thing about Lily is that they are an Orrian Sylvari. Not just "lives in Orr" Sylvari, but they were born there. Sometime in the distant future after the end of the Dragon Cycle, a gardener from the Grove (another OC yet to be made...), takes it upon himself to find some way to ensure the future of the Sylvari race by trying to replicate the Pale Tree. It's a long process with lots of bullshit magic stuff probably and lots of work but it means there's new Mother Trees in different regions of the world, starting with Orr since, given what's been happening there, it's basically Sylvari land now anyway.

And that's where Lily comes from a thousand years in the future where Orr has a bustling Sylvari city and its own Mother Tree. And it makes things kinda confusing when Lily goes back in time because they can sort of connect with the Pale Tree through the Dream but it's clear they're not really hers? And Caithe, as she would be later when they encounter Malyck, is very suspicious about this whole thing given what she knows of Sylvari origins. But since there's not much that can be done and Lily knows better than to talk about the future, they just end up becoming part of the Grove until they end up joining the Priory and then go join the Pact when it forms and oops Commander is my best friend from the future? Also that Whispers agent is suspiciously avoiding us, I think that's our other friend—? And that's how they start on the path to co-Commander to Bikki.

[peacefulworld2003feelthegroove]

Long post oops

Tbh I may make a shift in plot to make the violent ending Simon gets to be more of a bad end- not necessarily uncanon but not the solid and only ending. I, as a schizophrenic person have ahard time feeling comfortable making Simon out as violent (even as he is- everyone is. Everyone has the ability to become violent) and I like exploring him better post-crisis. I've been revisiting over and over in my head tye fallout of not going through with an over the top suicide plan, and the way that I actually enjoy the development he takes, and the choices he's forced to confront if he survives, having thought he wouldn't live longer then the evening in the morning. Simon is a charicter who puts off everything until the edge, so using what was going to be the end to his story to instead force him into a corner and reflect on his choices, not in a way of loathing but in a way of action, is a lot more rewarding.

I don't want it to seem like I'm avoiding the grit, I don't want to be like a shallow "fix it fic" but as a schizophrenic, who has mentally ill friends, and has been there both talking people from the edge, and have them in my thoughts while they're in the hospital, both Cain and Simon are very relatable charicters, and in full honesty, I think its more realistic to have him build himself up to a peak, to be ready to make that first step to lead to his very last, and get entirely derailed and left in a cloud of smoke to pick himself back up- suicide no longer even that much of an option, and force himself to live, instead of waking up every day to die.

I just think it's better. Simon is also a very morally complex charicter. I don't want people to think he's an asshole. He is, but there's nuance to it. I don't want people to think he's a total deadbeat neglectful father, but he is. But also, there's nuance to it. And Simon doesn't want anyone to think that either, while simultaneously knowing it's true, which is a big part of the crushing guilt he bears and forces him to continue a cycle of neglect of himself and his responsibilities. I think him dying before he can help himself is a waste of writing and makes the tragedy baseless and without weight, and I think it dead-ends cain as well, both of them are written very much as foils and mirror images, so the loss of the other is a loss of the self, and makes the story hit a field of static nothing.

I want to turn Simon's hatred of his eldest son because he sees too much of himself in him, to a love and care for him, because he sees too much of himself in him. I don't want him to ever stop being afraid of seeing himself in O-ten. But I want his fear to transform from cowardice to anger. He's scared because he hates himself, he's scared to see his son become himself because he knows where that path leads, I want him to take a sheltering stance.

I don't want people to think Simon hates any of his kids because he's some kind of cartoon abuser drunk who preaches about the devil if they don't do weird menial labor tasks like he's some kind of stariotype for a person who's never faced abuse to gawk at. I want to make it clear that Simon chose to label himself as a father, in a society that no longer crowns that label, because he was jealous as a kid of the people with families, that he wanted to be a father but didn't understand what it meant, and like all things in his life, when interacting with something that scared him, he ran away from it. Simon hates his kids because they're more like 3 week late math homework he knows he won't finish, and he knows won't be worth enough points anyways. He's afraid he's too late, he's afraid that having no family at all is better than having himself ever be a part of one. He's convinced the only thing to do is die- and having his kids get attached to him further than the fond memory of a 2nd grade teacher would be setting them up for sadness. He hates his kids because every time he sees them he's reminded of the fate he will die, and they will greive.

Simon started his life as a child always told his shortcomings were a personal choice, and he's grown up to crave pain and hate because being a better person and letting opertunities to add pain (of his or others) to the world pass by is just more taxing. He was taught, like all children, that the act of grief can heal. Crying when scared can help fix the issue, and like many people stuck in depressive cycles, his brain chases grief and grieving, desperate to reward itself for not fixing an issue but thinking it's halfway to nowhere.

In no world is Simon going to become less psychotic. He's an ugly schizo in a way not marketable as a slasher nor as a victim, he's scary out of secondhand concern and he makes bad decision loudly. And he will never stop doing that. Healing isn't about becoming less mentally ill, I just want him to realize whatever shit he wastes away doing every day isn't fixing the issue, and he got far too comfortable with being uncomfortable.