#hindsight is a wild thing sometimes

[r0semultiverse]

witness him

[transchesters]

sam doesn’t know how he let it get this bad.

it’s just that… sam’s a chubby kid. it’s not even that he eats too much or doesn’t exercise -- they can’t afford to eat too much anyways, and dad is always putting him through some rigorous training or another. but he’s short for his age, and his body hasn’t figured out how to distribute fat and muscle.

it’s starting to piss dad off. he pushes him harder and screams at him when he’s too slow, when dean knocks him down too easily, when he gets winded too fast.

this is what ends up making sam hyper-aware of his size. so he starts to change things about his lifestyle.

it started small. he ordered less at diners. he ate small bites of the cold pizza dean brought home. he grabbed an apple before school and called it breakfast and lunch, then had a few spoonfuls of peanut butter for dinner.

it wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry. he was, to an extent. but he liked feeling hungry. it reminded him he was alive, because sometimes he doesn’t feel alive at all.

he’s fourteen when this started. he has no control over anything in his life. dad moves them from town to town without caring about the ramifications on his sons. dean bosses him around and beats him up, coercing him into sparring practice and ordering him to dig into whatever lore dad needed to know. he’s practically just a puppet for their amusement.

but there are little things he could control. like what food he puts in his mouth, and how much of it, and when. it’s not like he has any friends to notice that he doesn’t eat in the cafeteria during lunch. he’s invisible to them, and he’s invisible at home, too. dean and dad would only notice if he disappeared next time they needed information on how to kill a djinn or if vampires were solitary creatures.

it gets worse when dad’s home. dad, who drills him on the lore. dad, who coaches him on his right hook so he can take down a monster three times his size. dad, who looks at him like he’s a soldier. or perhaps a toy.

sam drops weight like crazy. dad tells him he looks great. dean stares at him more than usual like he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong. but he must be doing something right, so he keeps at it.

the first time sam passes out, it’s… a mess. he was on a run, because that’s about the only thing he can do to get away from the motel. but he hadn’t eaten at all that day, so in hindsight a run was a terrible idea.

he stumbles down into a ditch when his vision starts to go. he doesn’t remember falling to his hands and knees, nor does he remember vomiting up what little remains in his stomach. soon it’s just green bile and spit and he’s heaving and heaving until he can’t breathe at all.

he comes to just a few minutes later. he’s staring up at the sky, slowly growing dark. he’ll miss curfew. he’s not sure if he cares.

after that incident, sam tries to be smarter about this whole thing. he can’t go around passing out any time he has to run. he knows that any day now, john’s going to start bringing him out on hunts. he knows dean was his age when he started hunting. it’s only a matter of time.

so, trying to be rational, he starts eating a bit more. an apple for breakfast. a granola bar for lunch. maybe some toast for dinner, since he knows carbs keep you going longer.

no one notices the rings under his eyes. they don’t notice that his wrists are so small, a child could wrap their hand around them. they don’t notice that sometimes he only manages two bites of bread before he’s excusing himself from the table and hiding in his room.

—

sam is nineteen when someone notices. jessica moore, with her wild hair and her loud, wonderful presence, wants to have sex with him. and sam doesn’t know what to do, so suddenly he’s shirtless and jessica is staring at him like he’s a freak.

he’s out the door of her dorm room and fleeing across campus before she can process it.

sam thinks it’s over. he’s sure he’ll never see jessica again, that she’ll block him out and tell their friends to ignore him, too. but then she shows up at his favorite study spot the next day, sitting down across from him at the library. she sets a folder on top of sam’s laptop and smiles tentatively. sam looks down at it.

“how to cope with an eating disorder.”

they learn about it together. jessica tells sam about safe foods and asks what his might be. they eat in private, refusing offers to go out to eat with friends. she makes him salads and makes sure to buy organic, because sam says that even though it’s stupid and more expensive, it makes it seem cleaner. she makes him smoothies with tofu for protein and sam learns that he really loves fruit. at least, as much as he can love food.

sam has bad days. he has really, really bad days. one night, he discovers the momentary joys of binge eating. he eats an entire salad, a microwave bowl of mac and cheese, and a sleeve of oreos.

he spends the night hovering over the toilet, violently trying to expel every last bit of the filth he put inside himself. the next day, he stays in the bathroom. he doesn’t deserve to go out, to let jessica care for him. he tells her to go away when she knocks on the door, and the sound of him throwing up gets her to move.

but he has good days, too. one day, he drinks an entire smoothie, eats an entire salad, eats a few handfuls of trail mix, and in the end he doesn’t want to kill himself. he calls himself stupid for thinking this to be some sort of grand achievement, but jessica scolds him and tells him she’s proud of him.

and then jessica dies.

jessica is ripped away from sam by the foul monster who ruined his life in the first place. she burns on the ceiling of their apartment and sam hates dean for not letting him burn with her.

dean doesn’t notice that sam doesn’t eat for days after her death. he thinks it’s just a coping mechanism. or maybe grief. but at least sam is hunting again. at least sam is with him again. that’s all that matters.

—

sam is twenty-two when he’s possessed by meg. she takes one look inside his screwed up head and laughs.

“oh, sammy. it’s a mess up here.”

she lets sam be present, which is the cruelest thing she can do, and she eats. she eats so much goddamn food.

she goes to local bars wearing sam’s skin, downs several beers and orders two burgers. she takes one back to the motel room she’s camping in, and she eats it in front of the mirror so sam can watch. you could say she picked up a lot of tricks in hell. and yeah, she kills people with his hands. she makes him watch that, too.

call him fucked up, but the eating is worse. the eating is so much worse.

when sam spends two days after the whole meg ordeal locked up in the bathroom, the awful sounds of vomiting hardly being covered by bad tv, dean thinks it’s just because being possessed must have sucked.

—

sam is still twenty-two the first time he dies. he’s twenty-two when he learns that his brother sold his soul to keep him alive.

dean finally begins to notice, because sam doesn’t eat much of anything during his last year.

and when dean is gutted by the hellhounds, sam doesn’t eat at all. it’s not until ruby finds him, drunk and nearly emaciated, about to be killed by some demons, that he forces himself to try. he can’t very well bring dean back and kill lilith when the thought of eating a goddamn apple sends him spiraling.

so he gets stronger. ruby offers him her blood and he drinks it and he eats solid food for the first time in weeks. and when dean is back, and sam is hopped up on demon blood, things seem like they could be okay.

and then sam raises the devil. and dean doesn’t trust him anymore. he hits him and sam lets him. sam loses ruby, and he loses any semblance of an appetite he may have had. he only eats when dean forces him to, being stared down by his older brother in musty diners in the middle of nowhere. he shovels lettuce and tomatoes in his mouth to satisfy dean, and he keeps hunting.

—

sam is twenty-five when he throws himself into the cage. sam is a thousand years old when he’s pulled out, scarred and mangled, but still standing. something is different. his entire being aches less. he breathes easier, he hunts better, and he never feels hungry. he doesn’t sleep or eat and he doesn’t lose weight. he’s perfectly fine. he meets his grandfather and some distant relatives. he learns about his mother, even though he doesn’t care so much about that anymore. he’s reunited with dean, who is immediately put off by sam’s whole vibe. because he’s different. he’s wrong.

even though sam feels the best he’s felt in years.

and then death shoves his rotted soul back into his chest, and sam has never wanted to die more.

nothing is real. reality is slipping and sam can’t keep a single bite of food down without retching up bile and acid from the depths of his stomach.

—

sam is twenty-nine and one thousand years old when he starts the trials to close the gates of hell. he had been doing so good these last four years. he doesn’t talk to dean about it, but dean seems to understand that his brother prefers light meals with fresh vegetables, so he makes himself burgers and salads for sam.

but now, sam is doing something meaningful for once. he’s going to close the gates of hell, and he’s going to be cleansed in the process.

he has an excuse not to eat. he feels like he’s dying — according to cas, he is. so he downs a few spoonfuls of dean’s soup and tells him he isn’t hungry. which is true. it’s just not because of the trials.

the trials are good. they’re a gift from god. they rip out his insides and force him to puke them out.

and he’s ready to die to finish them. he’s excited to die, at the end of this. he will finally be free of his broken body and his broken soul and his empty stomach. he doesn’t care if he ends up in heaven or hell. at least he can just be done.

but dean isn’t ready for him to die. dean fights for him, tells him to stay, says all the right words to have sam let the trials go.

and then he still almost dies.

and when he comes to, he feels different. it’s hard to put his finger on, but he’s losing time. they pass fifty mile markers in the span of two minutes, and sam feels like he might be going crazy.

but at least he isn’t hungry, and he isn’t dying from starvation. he doesn’t have to eat, for some reason. he doesn’t think about why and instead accepts it as the blessing it is.

but then he learns why. dean tricked him into saying yes to some freak angel, and now kevin’s blood was on his hands.

and his body is all sorts of fucked up.

and his autonomy was taken from him once again.

so he retaliates the one way he knows how.

sam doesn’t each much at all these days.

[goosewriting]

Wherever you go, I go

summary: after reader and Cal are rescued from Bracca, reader questions whether they know him at all.

relationship: Cal Kestisx GN reader

warnings: none!, a tiny bit of angst sprinkled in there but mainly fluff

word count: 4.4k

A/N: i have the Cal Kestis Brain WormsTM and they will not leave me alone sdfsdfd this follows the first part of the game on Bogano pretty closely but not to 100% 

Navigation: Part 1 (you're here) | Part 2 | Part 3

(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)

— — —

You breathe in Bogano’s humid air deeply into your lungs as you stretch your back, stepping out of the ship onto the soft grass. The last 24 hours have been wild.

Around two years ago, you had ended up on Bracca, where you met Cal. You were both around the same age and Prauf had taken a liking to you both, so he had ended up introducing you to the redhead when you were new. They showed you the ropes of the place, how to properly use the machinery and tools, and pretty much everything you needed to know to be a scrapper. 

You had been dealt a bad hand early in life; it wasn’t without reason that you ended up on a planet like Bracca after all. You were on your own, needed a job, and the bounty on your head didn’t make it easy to hide, so you had to disappear. 

And yet, after everything that happened, you can’t help but think that it wasn’t all so bad, in hindsight at least. Because after leaving behind everything you knew, adopting a new name and taking the first ship to “as far as way as possible” from your homeplanet, it was like the universe dropped you right into Cal’s arms. Or at least that’s how you liked to think about it.

Ever since then, Cal and you became pretty much inseparable. In each other you found the friend and peer you needed right then. You were both pretty secretive about your lives thus far, but you knew that if there was anyone you’d trust on that heap of scraps, it was Cal for sure.

As time went on, you grew ever closer. You ended up telling him about how you had been on the run and needed to lay low for some time. Even if he didn’t tell you much about where he was from, you knew that if he wanted to tell you, he would, on his own time. And you were okay with that. You tried not to make up your own stories about him in your head, yet sometimes you couldn’t help but wonder. Whatever backstory your mind came up with though, never in a thousand years would you have believed the truth if he had told you, which you learned later and saw with your own eyes.

You think back to how that day had started and gone by normally, everyone working on their own thing. It was only on the train ride home that you noticed how weird Prauf was acting, and he and Cal were having a talk in hushed whispers, looking around nervously. You had made a mental note then to ask the readhead what happened later on, but you’d never get to that. 

From the moment the train stopped and Stormtroopers escorted you all out to line up, everything happened so fast; the Inquisitors talking about a Jedi traitor in your rows, Cal suddenly taking out a lightsaber, Prauf being killed, the whole train chase… Your memories are foggy, and you’re not sure if it’s because you’re having a hard time wrapping your mind around everything that’s happened, or if it’s because you understand exactly what trespassed, but are unwilling to accept it. For now, at least.

Cal had somehow managed to get you out of there, falling onto moving wagons, and ushering you to go on. He fought off the scary Inquisitor lady while you cowered away. Then a mysterious ship came to your aid, bringing Cal and you to safety. 

And now it turns out this Cere person needs Cal to go to a… vault of sorts? Because he is actually a Jedi, and needs to pass a test to help her on a mission.

Truly, what a wild 24 hours it has been.

Now on the swampy planet, you somehow convinced Cal to let you tag along. You really don’t want to leave him on his own right now, and to be honest, you also don’t want to be left alone with Cere and the Latero. You aren’t even sure yet if you can trust them. This whole situation is just… too much right now.

So off you go with Cal, making your way towards the first cliff in silence, breathing in the clean air and taking in the sight. Little creatures with big eyes hop around and out of your way, looking at you curiously. As you reach a drop, Cal jumps first, helping you down. 

When your feet meet the ground, you don’t let go of his gloved hand just yet. He gives you a questioning look.

“It’s the first time in a while that I’ve been off-planet,” you remark with a smile. “It’s so silent out here. I had almost forgotten what that’s like.”

“Yeah, it’s been a while for me too,” Cal says. “It’s nice out here.”

You two just look at each other for a moment, suddenly aware that it’s the first time in a long time that you’re alone, hidden from prying eyes. And there’s also the bantha in the room of Cal being a Jedi. 

“Thank you, by the way,” you speak genuinely. “For… taking me with you, and not leaving me behind.”

“I already lost a friend,” Cal says, and you see the hurt cross his face for a moment. “I wasn’t gonna let them take you too.”

‘Friend,’ you think, and bitterly smile to yourself as Cal turns and keeps walking, without letting go of your hand though. You look at where he holds you, heat starting to spread on your cheeks. You’re painfully aware that your feelings for him have developed into more. You’re not quite sure when it started, but they were solid. And as strange as it was, Cal being a Jedi suddenly seems like the last piece to a puzzle. Everything falls into place, finally making sense. It actually suits him, somehow. And you understand why he didn’t tell you. The memory comes back of how he fought with his lightsaber, and how good he looked while doing that. You shake your head, trying to rid yourself of those thoughts. You were actually planning on confessing at some point, but that just got pushed way further into the future. There’s more pressing matters right now.

You don’t want to force Cal to talk about his past or his abilities, but you do have to talk about what your plan is. Not entirely sure how to approach the subject, you start formulating some questions in your mind, trying to find the best way to word them. You don’t get to ask him though because Cal stops at the base of another cliff, removing his hand from yours, which you miss immediately. 

“This seems like a good place to meditate,” he remarks, more to himself than to him.

“Meditate?” you ask.

“Ah, yeah,” Cal says and kneels down onto the ground. “To, you know, connect with the Force. It’ll take just a minute.” 

And with that, he closes his eyes and starts evening out his breathing. You look at him for a moment, then decide to sit on a rock a couple steps to the side. It doesn't take long and Cal’s face starts twitching lightly, his brows furrowing. Wherever he is, you hope he’s alright. 

You watch him a little longer, then avert your gaze as you realise you’re just shamelessly staring at this point. Taking in your surroundings a little better, you take note of the rocks and their curious colouration, with several shades of reds and browns between the white layers.

Suddenly you hear little, mechanical steps approaching, so you stand up and turn around, your body getting tense in a fight or flight moment. But you immediately relax as you see a curious little droid approaching the two of you. It looks at you, then at Cal, and stands in front of him, seemingly waiting for the redhead to come out of his meditation.

Cal’s breathing starts growing shallow, with the slightest of whimpers, and you want to reach out to him, asking if he’s okay, but you’re not sure if it’s safe to interrupt his meditation. So you just sit next to the droid, who gives you a look and a beep you can’t quite understand; you’ve never been fluent in binary. 

With one last pant Cal finally opens his eyes and is met with your worried gaze and the droid. 

“You good?” you ask him.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he answers, and gestures to the droid with his chin. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, he joined in earlier. Looks like he was waiting for you to react,” you explain and the beeps sound like agreement to you.

“He says his name is BD-1,” Cal translates, then introduces you both to the little droid. BD gives another series of beep-boops.

“We’re looking for someone,” Cal answers, and BD beeps excitedly. “No, not you,” Cal says with a chuckle. “We’re searching for a Jedi. I think.”

BD jumps with a series of quick beeps, and hurries off.

“Hold on, you know the Jedi?” Cal asks and stands up. “Hold on!” he calls after the droid who is running ahead, and tells you to follow him.

You two navigate through the landscape of floating rocks and cliffs, following BD. He brings you to what seems to be a long abandoned hiding place. As you have to walk over a big pipe to get there, BD arrives first, and gets attacked by a rather ugly, maggot looking creature that was burrowing underground, and you see some sparks fly. Cal rushes to his help, getting rid of the creature and its friends with his lightsaber.

“BD! Are you okay?” you ask the droid, picking him up to inspect his leg, which is pretty busted. He beeps sadly. 

Cal joins you, taking a look at the droid to check out the damage, and you can’t help your heart skipping a beat at how he’s standing behind you, looking over your shoulder, and you feel the warmth radiating off of him. BD tilts his head at you for a second but you choose to ignore it, trying to convince yourself that droids can’t pick up on that kinda thing. 

“That was pretty brave,” Cal says to BD as he takes the droid from your arms. “And hey, I can help you with that…”

He brings BD over to a workbench, quickly fixing up the mechanical leg. BD seems to run some damage analysis as he stares straight ahead, then beeps at Cal.

“The vault?” he asks. “Yeah, that’s where we’re headed, too. Let’s go.”

“Uhm, what’s happening?” you ask, following behind the other two.

“BD says we have to go to the vault. He said he knows a Jedi, so, I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find them.”

“So… BD is a friend, yes?” you question further, lowering your voice so the droid doesn’t hear you.

“Yeah,” Cal answers, looking after BD that is rushing ahead to show the way. “I hope so…”

Trying to find a way out of the place, you two squeeze through a barely open door. There’s a hallway that could be your exit, but it’s blocked by some thick cables. You’re too late to notice Cal swinging his lightsaber at them; they’re clearly sparking. Before you’re able to stop him, he gets zapped and thrown back. You rush to his side.

“By the Maker, Cal, are you okay?” you ask, checking him for injuries. 

“I- I’m okay,” he groans, as he sits up. 

You’re about to give him an earful about being reckless when BD rushes to Cal’s side, offering a healing stim canister from a little slot on his cubic head. 

“A stim?” Cal asks as he inspects the vial. Looking up at you, he offers you the object with a lopsided smile; you’ve always been the one to patch him up. 

You playfully roll your eyes at him, taking the stim and stabbing it into his upper arm. 

“That’s better,” Cal sighs, and you help him get back to his feet.

“Thanks, little droid,” you say to BD, and he beeps happily.

“Let’s try that again,” Cal mutters, and you give his shoulder a squeeze.

“Without getting hurt this time, please,” you instruct, to which he chuckles, and you let him go. But BD is now holding onto his leg, beeping. Cal lifts him up and swings him over his shoulder, where the droid settles, and you see the happy little shimmy, which internally makes you go “aaw”. It really is an adorable sight. 

The three of you continue your journey to the vault mainly in silence. Cal makes a little conversation with the droid from time to time. You can’t understand everything but it seems that BD doesn’t remember how he got here.

At one point you get to what seems to be the last stretch towards the vault. You wonder how you will get across that narrow space, which essentially is just vertical, rough walls, in mid-air. You turn to Cal, about to voice your concerns, when you see that he touches the wall, and his eyes glaze over, staring beyond the walls into nothingness.

Is he… meditating again? 

You wait a couple of seconds, but he remains unmoving. Reaching up, you give his arm a gentle squeeze. 

“With persistence…” he mumbles, shaking his head slightly, seemingly coming back from wherever he was.

“Hey, you okay?” you ask him, stepping in front of him to have him meet your eyes.

“Yeah, all good. Just remembering old tricks…” he replies.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I just saw my… my old Master,” Cal explains with a slight shudder. “I was remembering my training, as a Padawan.”

Padawans. Jedi Masters. The Force. Those are all names you’ve heard growing up, but you never got to see one for yourself. You were too young to understand what was going on when the Clone Wars ended, but you did hear the stories. Some fantastical, others straight out of a horror holomovie.  

“Listen,” Cal speaks softly, taking both your hands in his, and your heart flutters as you look up at him. “I know this must be all so weird to you, and I promise I will explain everything. Just… I have to do this.”

“Do you though?” you counter. “What happened was awful but it was our ticket off of Bracca.” ‘We can start over again. Together’ is what you want to say, but it doesn’t seem like the appropriate time. “Why are you listening to a stranger?”

Cal hesitates for a second.

“It’s hard to explain,” he starts. “There’s just something coming from that vault, it’s like it’s calling out to me. I know you probably don’t understand, but please, trust me on this,” he almost pleads. “If anything is off, we’re leaving, I promise. But if there’s another Jedi… I need to know.”

You don’t trust Cere, or Greez. Maybe even BD, not yet at least. But you trust Cal. So you nod. 

“Just promise me one thing,” you insist. “Warn me when you’re about to meditate or think about your old Master. It’s a bit scary when you’re just… gone like that.”

“I will,” he promises with a smile, giving your hands one last squeeze before letting go.

“So,” you say after a while, looking at the vault which is so close, yet so far. “How are we getting there?”

Cal gives BD a sly glance, then looks back at you with that stupid grin you’ve grown to love so much. 

“Heads-up: you won’t like this,” he says and suddenly leans in, and you freeze. His arms snake around your back and under your legs, lifting you off the ground like you weigh nothing. “Hold on!” he quips. 

And with that he runs towards the cliff end, and you do hold on, for dear life. Cal skillfully runs along the walls, jumping from one side to the other, until he reaches the far end and hops onto safe ground once more.

He chuckles as he sets you back onto the grass, but you have to hold onto his shoulders a little longer until you feel safe on your legs again.

“Please never do that again,” you mutter under your breath, and Cal laughs. 

“C’mon, we’re almost there,” he remarks, gesturing towards the large structure with his chin. BD beeps happily. 

You walk next to Cal as you climb the rather steep mud path towards the vault. Up close, it is much taller than what it looked like from a distance. Still, you’re not sure what you expected it to be, but there really isn’t much… It’s just a giant tower surrounding a smaller column. That’s it.

“Huh, such a fuss over this?” you ask no one in particular.

“Hold on, I think I can get it open,” Cal says, and reaches up to touch the front panel. Closing his eyes, he focuses, and you can feel a shift around you as well as under you, as the ground shakes slightly, and the panel opens, revealing a dark and narrow passage. 

You inspect the passage, but you can’t see anything through it; it’s just a black void, and it’s rather unsettling. 

“I think you should wait here,” Cal states, giving you a reassuring smile. “I’ll be right back.”

“But–” 

Cal walks into the void, BD still on his shoulders, and you circle around the column to catch him coming back on the other side to make fun of him thinking that would lead anywhere, but he doesn’t come out.

“Cal?” you call, but there isn’t even an echo of your own voice to answer you. 

With a sigh, you walk back to the side where the redhead left in, and you lean onto the opposite wall, waiting for him to come back. The wait grows longer and your patience thinner, and for a second, you think that you just got ditched on this swamp planet, and you hug yourself. No, you tell yourself, Cal wouldn't do that.

…Right?

After what feels like an eternity, but probably was just a couple of minutes, Cal and BD finally emerge from the void again. You all but throw yourself onto him, hugging his torso. 

“What took you so long!” you say into his chest. 

“Sorry, I…” he hesitantly hugs you back, and you can feel he wants to say something but is holding back. So you look up at him.

“What is it?” you ask. “Did you meet the Jedi?” 

Cal just looks down at you, studying your face with an unreadable expression, and if you weren’t so worried by his silence, you would probably be very flustered by his gaze and how close his face is to yours. 

“Things just got a lot more complicated,” is all Cal offers as an explanation as he takes your hand, pulling you with him, out of the vault. “C’mon.”

“Wait, what?” you ask confused, trying to keep up with his hurried pace. “What happened in there?” 

“This is bigger than we could have imagined, I need to tell Cere immediately.”

That’s all you got out of him all the way back to the ship. BD kept looking back at you with questioning beeps, but Cal either didn’t hear or ignored him.

When you finally make it back to the Mantis, you’re out of breath. Cal’s pace was relentless when he was in a hurry, and he did carry you across some of the walls like before without warning, so you were looking forward to getting in there and sitting down for a moment.

“You passed the test,” Cere calls from the entrance of the ship as you approach it. 

You beeline for the corner bench behind the round table, where BD hops on as well, and is immediately scolded by Greez. Cal introduces everyone to BD, telling the other two that he’s “with us” now. 

Sitting down, Cal starts explaining what he learned in the vault. Some guy called Cordova hid a Holocron with a list of force sensitive children in the vault. The only way to get it though is by following his path, and the next leads are on the planets Zeffo and Dathomir. 

You’re still trying to wrap your head around this whole ordeal, when Cal asks Cere why she’s no longer a Jedi. She explains that an experience changed her perspective (vague much?) and she cut herself off from the Force. But she believes that with the holocron they can rebuild the Jedi Order, and in that way fight against the Empire.

When Cere asks Cal if he’s on board with the plan, he’s about to answer, but then looks at you, and you can see in his eyes that he wants to do this. So you give a short nod.

They come up with a plan, deciding what’s the next step, and Cere and Greeze disappear in the cockpit. You find an empty cot at the back of the ship and take a seat.

Your chest tightens at the realisation that Cal isn’t who you thought he was at all. That maybe you don’t know him at all, actually. But Jedi or not, he’s the guy you fell for. Behind whatever it was he’s been trying to hide all these years, there was a personality that was just unmistakably and often unapologetically Cal. And he’s become too important for you to lose. 

And now there’s this mission. A mission where, if you got things right, the weight of the universe will be placed on his shoulders. And it makes you angry, because that’s just not fair. There must be other Jedis out there that could do it, right? To make it worse, and you’re aware this might be a selfish thought, it makes you feel inadequate. Was Cal gonna drop you off on the next pit stop? You aren’t exactly an experienced fighter. You doubt they’d have a need for a thief on the run from the Empire. Would you be just a burden to him? 

Cal, who survived the Purge of the Jedis, and will now attempt to restore the Order. And you, helplessly in love with him, probably holding him back, because you’re too scared to lose him.

Just as there’s a voice echoing in your mind, telling you that you’re not enough, you feel a dip in the cot beside you. Looking up, you’re met with Cal’s worried gaze.

“You okay?” he asks softly. 

You slowly nod, but it quickly turns into a shake of your head instead. 

“I just…” You hope your voice doesn’t betray you, giving away the tears threatening to spill. “Everything happened so fast, so much all at once. And now I’m left feeling like I don’t know who you are.”

Cal is about to retort but you quickly add, “Wait, I didn’t word that right.”

So he waits for you to collect your thoughts.

“What I mean is, we’ve known each other for some time now. And I understand why you hid who you are. I just can’t help but wonder if the Cal I know is the real Cal or not?”

You dare bring your gaze up to meet his, and your chest tightens at the hurt look in his face.

“Because I like the Cal I know,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself. “A lot.”

He gives you a smile, and you swear you can see the slightest shade of pink spreading on his ears and cheeks. 

“There’s only one Cal,” he says, leaning slightly to the side, softly bumping his shoulder into yours. “And he likes you too. A lot.”

For a second, you simply watch your hands in your lap, replaying his words in your mind. You see how his hand gets into your field of vision, folding over yours, and now your brain short-circuits for real. You look up to him, searching for regret or teasing in his eyes, yet you find nothing but affection and warmth. A warmth that spreads through your whole body, and has you taking a shuddering breath.

“So what’s the plan now?” you ask him after a while, giving his hand a squeeze that he returns. 

“Telling you the truth,” Cal answers. “And then you can decide if you want to actually be a part of this.”

“And if I say no, you’re just gonna ditch me?” you say with a playful scoff, but a slight panic still sneaks itself into your voice. 

“What? No, of course not,” he assures you. “I already talked to Greez. You can stay on the Mantis as long as you need. What I mean is… I want you to stay by my side. But I won’t force you to. We have a pretty ambitious mission, after all.”

“Fighting the Empire?” you ask rhetorically. “Been there, done that.”

“Wait, what?”

“Why do you think I have a bounty on my head, Master Jedi?” you say with a playful tone.

“What did you do?” he asks, genuinely curious. 

“Hmm,” you stroke your chin as if considering his question. “I’ll tell you after you tell me about your training and how you escaped.”

“Deal,” Cal says with a smile. “And I’m not a Master Jedi, actually. I only ever was a Padawan, an apprentice.” 

“Well you have some nice moves for an apprentice,” you chuckle. “And Master or not, you look good with a lightsaber.”

Cal lets out a strangled sound at your comment, face now several shades darker. 

You both turn when you hear steps approaching, seeing that it’s Greez. You instinctively want to remove your hand from Cal’s, feeling like you just got caught, but he doesn’t let you go. 

“Ah, I see you’ve found the bed,” Greez says. “It’s the only extra we have. We were counting with just one Jedi, after all.”

“Technically you’re not wrong,” you say, unable to meet anyone’s eyes and looking down at the floor instead. “We’ll figure it out.” 

“You’ll have to,” Greez answers with a smile as he doesn’t miss your joined hands, and turns to leave. “Come get some dinner, kids.”

Cal wants to stand up but you pull him back. He turns to look at you with a raised brow and you take the chance to plant a kiss on his cheek. You almost laugh at the surprise on his face.

“Wherever you go, I’ll go,” you tell him as you rise to your feet with a smile. “At least it won’t be boring, right?”

— — —

A/N: this may have the potential for a second part? if you'd like that let me know! ♥ // (screenshot is mine)

~~~~~

🐥 taglist: [more info in my pinned post!] @dybynyght, @galaxtic-writings (sorry for the late tag!)

[towriteloveontheirarms]

Dressed all in white (Sihtric Kjartansson x reader)

synopsis: When Sihtric and you meet life feels like a dream. Never in a thousand years could you have thougth such heaven could turn into such hell.

warnings: heavy angst, emotional manipulation, hurt/comfort but very little comfort, grief, physical violence, afab reader

word count: 3.1k

taglist: @hopelesswritergall @foxyanon @sihtricfedaraaahvicius

(If you want to be tagged for a specific character/fandom or in general let me know in my asks, comments or DMs)

A/N: This is probably one of my darker fics, so please know that it is completely okay to save this and read later if you currently aren´t in the right headspace. If you have recently lost someone close to you please know that eventhough it will suck and it is important that it sucks for a while it will get easier eventually. And if it doesn´t, counceling is always a good option imo

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

It almost felt like a dream now, thinking back to that evening. A beautiful dream you wish would have never passed. But every dream had to end sometime. The end to yours was Sihtric standing by the docks of your hometown after a months long stay, hugging you tightly as he kissed you on the forehead and promised to write as often as he could.

“Do not cry, my love. I will return to you before you know it.” It was the only consolation you got.

That and half of his lord Uthred´s crew. Amongst them, Finan. As Sihtric and you had grown closer, so had the Irish man and you, though in a far more platonic sense. Ever since that night you felt like the dream that now ended began. As you stand there, Finan´s arm around your shoulder. As you wave off Sihtric until the ship is barely a spec on the horizon, you allow yourself to reminisce about the night you all had met.

There had been word of a large group of Danes having come to town all day. No matter where you went you would become privy to whispers about the large group of men. How their leader was a Saxon raised by Danes nicknamed the Dane slayer. The rumours made your mind run wild with imagining how this Dane slayer would look like. All your brain could come up with, was the picture of a beast of a man. Tall, covered in muscles and scars with long hair and a long beard. A barbarian, in short. Which was all but not what greeted you at the tavern that evening.

Long before you set foot over the threshold you could hear the screaming and laughing and music. A big group of Danes had taken over the tavern and in the midst of them sat the Dane slayer himself, Uhtred Ragnarsson, with three of his seemingly closest men. Throughout the night there was an abundance of food and ale, men and women started dancing on the tables to the music and you were no different from them. Finding yourself pulled into a conversation with the Irish man and the Dane, shocked yet fascinated by their stories and in the end, being spun around by them to lively melody after lively melody, singing dancing and laughing until the very ungodly hours of the morning. The two men had you laughing until your tummy hurt and kept you on your feet until your legs ached. When the time came to go home, or rather to choose who to take home with you, your choice fell onto Sihtric. In hindsight you weren´t even sure why your decision fell on him, all you knew was that it was easy to decide. For some odd reason the Danes soul felt like it was calling out to you.

One night turned into many and your choice that fateful night only proved to have been the right one. Finan was sweet to you, but Sihtric was infinitely sweeter. After only a short while you had no room left in your small house for the heap of flowers that he gifted you, he never talked over you in conversation and made a point to include you as best as possible and the best thing was that he listened. He actually listened with great interest, storing each new thing he learned about you somewhere easily reachable in his brain. He was perfect, life was good for a while. If only he hadn´t followed Uhtred back to sea.

Not long after he had left, the letters he had promised to send stopped coming out of nowhere, even though he had just promised to marry you as soon as he came back.

Reams of miles away Sihtric thought and worried endlessly about the same, you had sounded beyond happy about his promise in the last letter only to then suddenly stop writing out of nowhere. That´s when he received a letter that would explain the absence of any writing in all the worst ways.

He was alone when he opened the envelope addressed to him. It´s contents talked about how he had left you behind pregnant, a fact that made his heart beat higher, the overwhelming happiness overshadowed the fact that you had not told him yourself or the absence of any communication for a moment. Only for it to end with his heart sinking into before unknown depths and his vision to veil with tears as he continued reading. There had been complications and you, as well as the child, had died. The paper is crumpled in his fist before he can read the expressions of condolences, he didn´t care for them anyway. The scream that leaves his lungs goes unregistered by his own ears, but it is heard by many others.

Little did he know that at approximately the same time a very alive and unpregnant you received a similar letter. Stating that there had been a disaster too cruel to recount to you, that there weren´t many survivors. However, Sihtric was not amongst them. Leaving behind only tear-stained nights and dreams of what could have been.

It felt like your life stopped the moment you had opened the envelope. An unending numbness filled your body. Each month you had known Sihtric converted to a year of mourning his loss and you weren´t sure what was worse. The longing and yearning for nothing more than to have him back with you under any circumstances, not talking, eating or sleeping at all or far too much. The inner coldness no matter how many layers of clothes or furs you wore, that only got worse the more the sun shone. Or realising that life had to move and allowing yourself to live again. Even in just small ways. The first time you actually ate, slept, went about your day as before, the first time Finan managed to make you laugh for the first time in what felt like forever send you spiralling all over again. But you allowed yourself to be comforted by the Irish man, who had a seemingly way easier time handling the news than you did.

“How do you do it?” You asked him one afternoon as you sat together.

“How do I do what?” Came the fairly confused question back.

“Be so fine to live on without him. Laugh. It feels like he took even the colours of the world away when he died.” You mutter the forgotten context into the room.

“Ah…” Finan makes a quiet sound of recognition, thinking deeply about his next words. “I believe it is because we all have made our piece with the fact long ago. Our lives were never quite as safe as yours, especially out on the sea, where every storm could mean the end if you are not careful.”

“Oh…” You feel stupid for your answer or perhaps even asking the question, but you didn´t know what else to say.

Silence settles over the two of you again like a stone slab.

“It is so hard to believe that he is supposed to be gone and I am still here, having to go on. He was so sweet; he did not deserve this.” Your eyes begin to burn, though you aren´t sure if it is from tears of the past or present.

“I know.” There isn´t much more Finan can answer.

“I love him so much still.” Your voice nearly gives out under the familiar knot that builds in your throat.

“I know.” Finan pulls you onto his lap, to lay your ear on his chest.

The gesture had always comforted you when you cried over the thought of Sihtric leaving one day. He had let you listen to his heart to remind you that he would always be there for you. If not in physical form, then in soul and heart.

“You need only to close your eyes and think back to this moment. Then you will know I am still with you.” Your Dane lover had rasped into your ear and for as long as you thought him alive you lived by it.

When you eventually met a new man, you couldn´t help but to compare him to Sihtric and find he was different in so many ways. Naturally. He was still nice and caring and funny, but even the beating of his heart was different to Sihtrics. Not only because it was there, but the rhythm it drummed against his ribcage was fundamentally so contrasting. The way his arms wrapped around you felt different and you have to confront the fact that things would never feel the same. Yet over time the strong, vibrant pulse began to drown out the steady beat you fell in love with. And so, when you allowed for people to enter your heart again, the wish of being able to be okay with living became a wish to share your life more intimately with the man than before. After all, he had made every effort possible to make you as happy as his former crew mate would have. And though you had sworn to only ever love one man, you were overjoyed when the man proposed to you. Or at least that was how you interpret the way your own heart, which had thawed entirely only shortly ago, beat a few deep pulses before returning to normal. The ceremony is arranged to be held by father Beocca at your future husbands house, your friends help you into the dress, braid flowers into your hair and do their best to calm your nerves and dry your tears. But still when it is time to leave for the ceremony, you are unsure if you are truly ready.

At approximately the same time a boat arrives at the docks. On it Uhtred, Sihtric and the rest of the crew. It had been so long, yet seeing the town made Sihtric´s throat tighten as memories of you flood his mind. He had almost obsessively studied the last letter containing information of your status and it had been too painful to return. But Uhtred was right. He couldn´t let that hurt take control over his life. So now he found himself wandering through the greenfield the two of you had spent so much time laying close, talking about everything and nothing all the same. The tavern you met at. Even just the town square and lastly… your home. Where, if it hadn´t already, all the colour would have drained from the Dane´s face. It felt like a hallucination at first. One that took away his voice and nearly made him fall to his knees. The desperation for the moment to be real wore him down as if someone had slit open his stomach, put boulders into it and sewed it shut again. He stumbles and almost falls multiple times, calling your name until you turn to see him.

“Sihtric…” You whisper and slap a hand over your mouth, getting the attention of the women surrounding you. The bouquet in your hands falls to the ground in favour of them grabbing and lifting the skirt of your dress to pull it up out of the way of your feet. The whispers around are drowned out by a high-pitched ringing in your ears and without having to think about it, your feet carry you towards the only man you ever loved.

Once his arms wrap around you it is like something shakes the fundament of the earth. The world becomes more colourful again, air fully fills your lungs for the first time in forever and the tears that burn in your eyes are for once uncoined by grief, yet the sense of longing, that had plagued your soul for so long, prevailed. The scent of wet wood and musk fills your nose, followed by the comforting undertones of honey and black pepper to soothe your mind.

“You are real…” Sihtric is the one to speak first.

“The much more pressing question here is how you are alive?” You answer, leaning back in his arms to look at his face as your hands cup his face. Even feeling the skin under your finger pads couldn´t completely convince you that this moment was real.

“Me? How are you still alive?” Sihtric´s eyebrows knit together tightly, the frown on his lips deepening further in confusion.

By now a small cluster of people had collected, watching the reunion and whispering behind their hands a small distance away. In search of an answer, you turn to them, hoping to find your future husband, so he could give an explanation, but he seemed to still wait inside. Unaware of what was going on. Unaware of what was going to happen soon.

“Me? You were the one that stopped writing first. And then I got a letter that said… It said that you...” It´s too hard to actually say the words, but Sihtric understands nevertheless.

He is just about to say something, when the door to your home opened and Finan stepped out, assumingly to look where you were, eyes widening at the sight of his friend. Yet there is no time for any more reunion feelings, as the Irish man is closely followed by your husband to be.

Sihtric´s eyes widen in understanding before yours do and you have a hard time holding him back, but the men just have too much strength. The Dane lands a hard punch in the man´s face, splitting his lip with his knuckles and drawing some blood. There are screams heard from the crowd and immediately a handful of men have to pull them apart before anything worse happens.

“Stop it! Stop it this instant you two!” You scream repeatedly at the top of your lungs, yet it still takes a while until the spirits have been calmed enough to at least have the two men not struggle against the men parting them anymore.

However, there is no way to get an explanation from anyone as they continue to scream at each other from a distance. Spouting insults that you had never heard before in your life.

Then Sihtric silences everyone with three powerful yet simple words. “Make the square!”

There are protests from several of the men, but in the end, everything goes all too fast. You are frozen to the ground you are standing on, so Finan pulls you aside. Sihtric presses a kiss to your lips and mutters a promise that your brain is unable to register. All you can focus on is the weapons being drawn. Your brain doesn´t even register the hot tears that stream down your cheeks and stain the fabric of the dress. The first sound of the blades meeting each other, has you burying your face in Finan´s chest, resounding in your ears horrifically. You can´t stand to watch most of it, shaking and flinching with every sound of blades clashing or pained scream. You have to force yourself to watch eventually when you can´t deal with the anxiety and uncertainty anymore. Frantic eyes searched for Sihtric. Finding him, covered in dirt, blood and panting, but still standing and to your relief with a good chance at winning. Though you don´t allow yourself to cheer like the others yet. There is still too much shock in your bones, too many unresolved questions plaguing your mind. You manage to get so caught up in your thoughts, that you only come to, when the fight seems to be close to over. Luckily in favour of your one true love, which now stands above the man you were about to marry, a dagger you hadn´t noticed the Dane carrying before, to his throat. From the distance you can see the raw fear in the man´s widely opened eyes and rapidly rising and sinking chest, clawing at the Danes wrist to get him to let go of the weapon to no avail. That fear quickly morphs to relief, exhaled in a deep breath and relaxing facial features, when Sihtric puts the dagger into the ground beneath his head, the blade sticking out upright. Only to morph back into the purest horror just as quickly as before, when the first fist swiftly comes down onto his face. A crack can be heard when the knuckles make contact with the bridge of the nose, thus breaking it without even batting an eye.

Air suddenly floods your lungs in a gasp at the cracking sound, but silently find yourself cheering on your one true love more and more as time passes. Your own body doesn´t listen to you anymore. Your eyes are dead focussed on the sight of his fist making contact with the face over and over and over again, even long after the resistance had stopped and he had clearly won as his opponent’s face was nothing more than bloody pulp. It was gruelling, haunting to see, but your head would have refused to turn away even if you had wanted it to. So, you continue watching and watching and watching until it becomes glaringly clear that Sihtric is not going to stop anytime soon. You aren´t the only one to have that realisation, it glimmers in Finan and Uhtred´s eyes as well. The two men pull their friend off the lifeless body and you are by his side in an instant. Cupping his face in your firm, but gentle hands, your eyes searching his until they make contact and in the corner of your field of vision you see the way his chest rises slow down.

“You have to stop now. It is over.” You urge him in a sore voice falling to your knees in front of him. “You won. It is over now.”

The Dane looks deep into your eyes, allowing your voice and words to soothe him, yet the anger took the ability to think clearly or speak from him still. Finan and Uhtred let him go and you can fall into his arms again without a care in the world about the pristine, white dress becoming dirty as well. All that matters is feeling Sihtric in your arms now as you keep murmuring to him. His entire body starts to tremble under the familiar touch and so does yours. You squeeze your eyes shut and pull him in tighter. You have trouble believing your own words. It doesn´t entirely feel over yet. Fear still gnaws on your heart, that he could vanish from your hold to leave behind nothing but a cloud of smoke and the pain of being awoken from yet another dream tricking you into thinking things hadn´t resolved in your favour. Fear that it was real, but he would be taken from you one day once more. The two of you likely couldn´t be further from having won. Or else, you think, the tears that now flow freely down both your faces to wet the others clothes wouldn´t be so bitter.

[manicpixiemeatboy]

Scott summers being intensely hated by a large chunk of the X-men fandom is so wild to me but defending him is even wilder cause it's like. Yes of course he made mistakes yes of course he is frustrating sometimes but also like. Yeah, sorry the orphaned child solider with undiagnosed autism ( among other things ) on divorce number 4 doesn't communicate perfectly. You see why yes he could have navigated the "dead fiancé came back to life right after he moved on and was married to a new girl who turned out to be a clone of his dead fiancé who wasn't dead who then turned into a demon sorceress and also somehow involved is the man who biologically experimented on him in his orphanage as a child unconsented" situation better. He could have. But have you considered. Have you considered the fucking insanity of what you just recited. Have you considered that maybe . Maybe perfectly navigating that situation among the related that came after it was. Hard. I'm sorry hes mean you see they hit him with rocks as a kid and his dad left to become space famous and his adoptive dad/leader could read minds at all times and his kid like- essentially for his ability to be with him died in his arms. He's a little stressed. Yes.

It's actually so wild because people never actually slow down to examine the nuances of events and just expect a character to magically know the right thing to do, even in absolutely bizarre situations that a real human being will never have to navigate. Like, yes, perhaps with 20/20 hindsight and no baggage beforehand, he could have handled the "just got unfused from the ancient mutant villain Apocalypse and found after wandering around the planet with no solid idea who he was for months and has very clear trauma in the aftermath but his wife brushes him off (ooc) and so goes to Emma for therapy but she takes advantage of his mental instability and coerces him into a psychic affair after he told her no repeatedly" situation but no real human person has ever experienced this and thus there's no defined "right" way to navigate that clusterfuck. It's, ironically, a very human trait to mess up in a situation like that.

Cyclops is a deceptively deep character in the sense that SO MUCH has happened to him, but you'll find that no one ever writes the trauma from his previous life-altering event rolling over onto the next (unless it's specifically Dark Phoenix related) for a consistent story. Nor do people include the sheer amount of trauma compacted into this man in their judgment of his character/morality.

TL;DR: if people slowed down and summarised events to their core, they'd stop jumping down Cyclops' throat so much. Not saying he's perfect, but he's doing his best given the tools he's got.

[sm64mario]

Whaddup. Been a few months. I just checked and my oldest post on this blog was sometime in 2017 so hot freakin' diggidy it's been a while since I've made this. I've only broken character a few times but I figured I'd log in, do a little send off, make my closure.

Over 10k followers! Kinda wild for what was ultimately a roleplay turned gimmick blog where I pretend to be a polygonal plumber. I just really like SM64 Mario, yknow? He's like a weird creature. He runs around and punches things and jumps and goes "wahoo!" and occasionally manipulates reality or teleports and it's great. It's a great character for shenanigans. I leaned in really heavily into talking with the accent and in hindsight, maybe I would have toned that down nowadays, but it is what it is.

Should I deactivate the blog? Keep it idle like I have been? Occasionally pop in and reblog n64 content as it trickles in? Send random blogs asks to mess with 'em? I don't think I can be Mario 24/7 these days. I don't have the energy. I'm 21. and a half. EDIT: Keepin' the blog up! I was being a little melodramatic, in hindsight.

[too-much-gacha]

Sweet dreams 1/4

disclaimer: this switches between referring to MC as MC and referring to MC as you, also is this extrovert!MC? I feel like it isn’t but maybe? I’m not sure. Also also, this can be read as romantic or platonic. Except for Luke. Luke is strictly platonic.

It's pretty common knowledge that ever since MC started consciously using magic, their room at House of Lamentation slowly became something akin to a mage’s tower. Though not in a “mansion-size extradimensional space in a kettle” way, but more in a “prevents unconscious use of magic from affecting everything around them” way. In hindsight- a particularly useful feature, when one's aware of how easily magic slips from the human exchange student when they're asleep.

In the beginning, it was small things: the house smelled like melted chocolate, butterflies in the greenhouse would blink at you with their wings or nearby flowers would recite disturbing rhymes. Soon things escalated. House of Lamentation is filled with liquid and everyone jumps at Levi for summoning Lotan again, but it’s not him. The liquid is actually… blueberry jelly? And Henry is outside his tank conversing with Satan’s pencil case about the latest discoveries within curses and hexes and how they relate to raising the prices of brushes for dogs, and after an hour or two it’s gone. Or that one time when suddenly Solomon had to run around Purgatory Hall trying to catch various potion ingredients when they decided to crown Luke as their Princes of The Pot Garden and carry him around. Things got hectic during one of the retreats at Demon Lord’s Castle. The film glitches during one scene and now instead of a dramatic reveal of the murderer there's a seal spinning in circles and a giant goose is chasing Mammon and Asmo and honking about eating cement and stolen homework in the UwU-voice. They are no longer in the Demon Lord's castle but in the car park of a supermarket, or rather the castle is the car park. And Mammon starts screaming bloody murder when the goose catches him in its beak. Then everything vanishes and MC wakes up, assuring they were watching the whole time and didn’t fall asleep. The puzzle pieces started to fall together after that, and that was one mystery solved. But why was MC falling asleep almost faster than Belphie? Well, the poor thing developed something akin to athletic heart syndrome. With so many stimuli, events and tasks happening every day, it became a default to always do something, be somewhere, help someone, play games with Levi, go clubbing with Mammon, pet Devildom cats with Satan bake with Luke, stop Solomon from baking with Luke, tinker with Thirteen, tea at demon Lord’s castle and so many more. Neither of those things bothered MC, they enjoyed each activity, but it became a norm to the point that if MC did something by themselves or just simply did nothing they’d fall asleep. Fortunately, for an identified problem, a more or less optimal solution can be found and everyone has their own idea of what to do when “a wild asleep MC has appeared”.

Lucifer

You were lying on the couch in Lucifer’s study, scrolling through Devilgram, while you waited for him to finish work.

You were planning on playing a round or two of chess after he’s done, but then Lucifer hears a thud. Your phone fell out of your hand.

Lucifer would come and cover you with his coat before going back to his task. He can handle a little unruly magic

But ultimately, when little fire creatures start jumping out of the fireplace and dancing together in circles, he decides that maybe it’s enough for today.

He puts your phone in his back pocket and picks you up, carrying you to your room, careful not to wake you up. Little fire sprites following right behind him.

You get tucked into bed with a little goodnight kiss on the forehead

And maybe just maybe if he will sometimes finish the rest of the documents while sitting in the bed with you

or maybe he’ll just leave them be and fall asleep with you

Satan

A lovely afternoon in the cat café by the park, herbal tea, pastries, whimsical cats and…

And you fell asleep, just as Satan was returning with a new bag of treats

Cats were starting to swarm around you as if you were their personal heater

If you were at HoL, reading together in his room or in the common room, he might have waited a bit, but this was the middle of the Devildom, so it was time to head home, but not before he could snap the picture of you surrounded by cats and sending it to the Cats group chat

As he carried you on his back, he felt something drop on his nose. There was no rain in the forecast for today, but that was chocolate dripping from the pink cloud hanging right above Satan’s head in a comically cartoonish way. Great. Just what he needed

He gets you both to your room, both sticky from syrup

the cloud dissipated somewhere around the kitchen, but it didn’t take all the syrup with it

“Did I fall asleep?” you ask drowsy

“Yes, do you want me to wash your hair? It’s all sticky from the chocolate.”

“Yes, please” he wonders if you registered what he said or was the reply purely automatic.

He washes your hair and does the same for himself. You wake up a bit more.

“To be honest. I’m having some munchies.” you hug him as he towels his hair. “Do you want some crackers and hot chocolate?”

Asmodeus

Nothing like a little self-care day with you putting on masks, styling each other's hair, painting nail–

“MC darling, you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fi–” a big yawn escaped you.

“Aww, I think somebody is sleepy” he accentuates it with a few head pats “I will run you a nice bath, and we can then snuggle up under blankets” you hummed in approval

He returned to his room to you sitting exactly the same, you even still had a hand raised mid-air like you were waiting for him to apply the next layer of nail polish, but the nail polish was applying itself everywhere but your nails

You fell asleep. You fell asleep!?

In other circumstances, he’d ask someone to carry you so he wouldn’t strain himself (gotta keep up the appearances)

But there’s no time for that if he wants his room and cosmetics in one piece and still useful

He picks you up bridal style and tiptoes to your room

He might then finish your nails, but he’d much rather snuggle up to you. He still needs his beauty sleep

Luke

Oh no! You fell asleep, better take the bowl with popcorn from your hands before both of you have a huge mess to clean up

To be fair, Luke almost fell asleep himself. The film wasn’t as interesting as you both thought it would be

But he knew what to do if you fell asleep, he had to ask somebody to take you to your room. Easy!

Except, nobody else was at HoL yet, and Luke heard murmurs from the half-empty bowl. The popcorn people were raising and arming themselves up

He can do it himself. He’s a big, strong boy. He doesn’t need other’s help. If Asmo and Levi can carry you, so can he.

He hooked his arms under your armpits and started dragging you off the sofa. Slowly, carefully so you won’t hit the ground. But the popcorn people started to breach containment, so he picked up the pace

Unfortunately, you were a bit too heavy for Luke and walking backwards did not help. He tripped on the edge of the carpet and fell, and you woke up when the floor met your head.

“Ouch,” you blinked once, twice. The popcorn army crumbled before Luke’s eyes, “Wow, would you look at the time? Come on Luke, we gotta get you to bed or Simeon will have my head”

You took Luke by the hand and started walking away, while he wondered what would happen if you hadn’t woken up. Would he be eaten by popcorn instead of the other way around

[impishglee]

sometimes i vaguely remember the attitude of like total derision towards like “emo teens” and how their mental health was treated like the butt of a joke. and also people saying things like “oh they’re self harming for attention” as some sort of insult which in hindsight is so fucking wild and why i was and have generally been intensively secretive about the fact that i self harmed for years.

the reality of it is i absolutely self harmed for attention. it was far from the only reason but it was definitely part of it. i was experiencing acute emotional distress and when i tried to express this to the adults in my life and had it considered as normal teenage angst and stress, it sometimes felt the only way to make the pain i was in seem real to myself and that i wasn’t crazy, i really was unwell. and while social stigma had me hide the habit regardless, there was some part of me that hoped i’d be found out and finally taken seriously.

why have we ever derided people, especially teenagers, for “attention seeking” behavior. there is a reason they are fucking seeking attention! why was making fun of whiny emo teens so acceptable? that shit was crazy!

while i find a lot of the placating “mental health matters” slogans and elevation of talk therapy to be a symbol of moral correctness and deluge of betterhelp ads extremely nauseating, at least i haven’t seen a joke about teenagers cutting themselves in awhile. I GUESS

[002yb]

@crezz-star

It’s disconcerting for Zoro to see his captain falter when confronted by their new crew mate. There’s no imminent threat that Jean poses, but Zoro recognizes the man's presence on their ship brings Luffy no small amount of distress. Jean is a challenge Luffy doesn't know how to confront or overcome. The emotional turmoil that follows in Jean's wake is a damning thing and Luffy struggles in an uncharacteristic way that Zoro won't ignore.

“Tell me and I’ll send him off.” Because Luffy is his captain and Zoro is his first mate. Because if Luffy asked anything of him, Zoro would follow through. He might not be able to soothe the nightmares that torment Luffy, but Zoro can banish the ghost that haunts him.

Jean’s resemblance to Ace is uncanny. Zoro is no stranger to being confronted by an unwanted doppelganger of a love lost - to be terrorized by guilt and regret personified. He has no doubt Luffy will adapt despite the discomfort, same as Zoro, but Zoro knows from experience the heartache will stay. A persistent thing even in its dullness.

Jean is his own man, but the ghost he carries with him in body and voice and fiery soul is someone else entirely. Luffy is blindsided by Jean because of it and it makes Zoro wince at how lost Luffy looks, how stricken - like he's floundering in open water, dragged down by a devil's fruit and regret he can't shake.

Sometimes Zoro wonders if his captain sees the artist at all or if all that graphite bleeds red like blood and fire. He wonders if Luffy relents to the man’s continued presence on their ship because Luffy genuinely wants Jean there or if it’s because Luffy can’t fathom turning his back even on Ace’s visage. Is it desire for crew or for his brother?

It’s been a rough adjustment since Jean stowed away to pay his respects and dues. The man is all gratitude and admiration and maybe that, too, is similar to Ace. Not in expression, but perhaps in intensity. There’s a lot that Luffy doesn’t say about his brother, but there are some sleepless nights where Luffy will choke out truths in the dark, his voice muffled by arms strewn across his face or by the breadth of Zoro’s shoulder.

‘He always called me ‘crybaby’.’ Luffy would say around breathy laughter, and Zoro would soothe him in the only way he knows how — with dry banter. A quipped, ‘You probably were,’ that’s followed by titters and a nostalgic, ‘I was. He hated it.’ And Zoro understands that in a way Luffy might not; in the way Ace did.

‘He told me he wouldn’t die.’ Luffy said just once, so quiet Zoro almost missed it. But he could feel the ghost of Luffy’s lips and the grief in how he butted his head to Zoro’s jaw, ‘I made him promise because I didn’t know what he’d do.’ And Zoro didn't know what to say; had no means of reconciling that sorrow to the memories he has, to the wild stories Luffy has shared or the tender sentiments Zoro has noticed, himself. 'He told me he'd stay if I needed him. He swore it.'

His captain and he have fought and bled for each other. They’ve gone on a lifetime of adventures together; they share their dreams, their triumphs and failures and burdens. Zoro knows Luffy, but those shared intimacies in the dark give Zoro a clarity he’d lacked.

Luffy's capacity for compassion is a terrifying thing. His empathy towards those who are hurting is just as great. Zoro is no stranger to the hope Luffy can breathe into punctured lungs, the strength he inspires with his steadfast faith and resolve. Zoro assumed it was one of Luffy's innate qualities. It's in hindsight that he realizes Luffy's compassion was learned: a crybaby pleading for his brother to stay with him, to fight and love and live and dream.

Ace is the first person Luffy ever saved; Jean is the latest and all his regard and respect is like salt rubbed in an open wound. 'Thank you for loving saving me,' only Luffy didn't - he has the blood on his hands and a scarred heart to prove it. Jean is a ghost sent to haunt him and it's painful because Jean is kind in a way Luffy isn't ready to accept.

But Luffy is willful. If he didn't want Jean, then he wouldn't be with them.

When Zoro thinks about it, he knows why Luffy chooses to keep the artist around. Jean fits with the crew, all dreams and ambition and steadfast will. Jean is finding his footing after the world left him scarred; persisting despite past hurts and finding purpose and joy in a liberated world with open skies and seas. He is the shadow of Luffy’s brother that Luffy never stopped wanting needing.

It's complicated. Grief is like that.

“He’s crew.” Luffy tells him. It’s the end of their discussion on the matter. Zoro doesn’t need anything more; he trusts his captain’s word. Luffy will work through his grievances.

One day Luffy will stop jerking his head to the side when he catches Jean in his peripheral, mistaking him for Ace and one day the disappointment at his mistake won’t be such a heartrending thing. There will come a time when the depth of Jean’s voice and the sound of his laughter stops being an echo of someone else, when graphite smudges stop looking like blood stains.

Jean might be persistent in that same way Luffy was with Ace. It’s not anything Luffy comments on or complains about, though Zoro notices how contemplative it leaves their captain. He doesn't doubt that perseverance will win Luffy over. History repeats itself in strange ways.

That aside, Luffy is a simple man at heart. Zoro sees it before it happens. He can't help the smirk that pulls at his lips because of it.

Zoro stands at Luffy's side overlooking the seas when a row of graphite beetles come marching along the railing, tiny feet leaving scuttled marks of graphite across the wood as they approach their captain. The way Luffy's eyes light up with merriment as drawings brought to life crawl across his fingers and up his arms is a wonderful thing no matter how seemingly commonplace. Laughter bubbles up from Luffy's chest alongside his awe and wonder and delight.

Zoro catches Jean sitting further down the deck, smile bright and maybe the slightest bit sheepish, misinterpreting the first mate’s stare for scrutiny. Jean makes another creature with that logia devil fruit of his and sends it across the railing. Zoro stares after it for some time, bemused until he realizes it’s a damn marimo (undoubtedly courtesy of the damn cook spreading falsehoods about Zoro's likes and interests), at which point Zoro scowls something fierce and Jean balks.

Everything is made right by Luffy’s renewed laughter though, by the width of his smile and the mirth in his eyes. His joy is contagious just like so much else about him. It doesn’t stop Zoro from smacking the pseudo-marimo out of Luffy’s hand and out to sea when his captain tries to torment him with it though — graphite pressed to Zoro’s cheek once, twice and leaving smudges across Zoro's skin all the while—

Both Luffy and Jean gape when the marimo goes flying, Luffy’s arm stretching out after it a moment later. That Luffy catches it at all is impressive; the guilt Zoro feels when Luffy opens his hand to a circular smudge from crushing the thing is somehow even greater.

Jean fits in with their crew well though. The graphite beetles congregate on Luffy’s hand, molding together into an even larger marimo and Zoro grunts despondently as his captain and their artist cackle at his expense. Some part of Luffy's smile might always be strained when he looks after Jean, but Jean shares Luffy's empathy and compassion. It shows in his patience, the persistent and tentative way he stays just within reach.

☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°☆

crezz-star's Jean: the artist, the muse, the sweetheart.

[hastalavistabyebye]

Holos #5

Ao3 version

Loving Ponds was easy. One of the easiest things Bacara ever did. 

Sure, the days could be long and lonely, especially when traveling from one warzone to the other, or just after a cease fire when it was time to count the losses and try to erase their presence as much as could be in a destroyed landscape, battered in black, brown and white. During those times, in front of his waiting paperwork or while keeping his troops focused and organized for that hard last stretch, Bacara sometimes longed for the familiar warmth of his lover. How many times did he wish to discuss plans with Ponds, to ask for his opinion ? The Lighting Commander had a knack for strategy, his mind sharp and logical, always seeing the broader picture in more details and reading it more precisely than anyone else. Sometimes Bacara would have given anything to rely on his lover and his hindsight. How many times did he hold on to the memory of Ponds’ smiling eyes, on the knowledge that he’ll see him right after this unending campaign was over ? Pushing through was so much easier with the promise of getting back to his cyare at the end of it. 

But that was just the way of the Marines. As much as he could curse the distance between each of their leaves, he didn't mind much. 

Especially not when his comm chimed familiarly in rapid succession, distracting him from seeping his energy drink. He fetched it from where it was lying next to his freshly completed report. His hope of having news from Ponds, who was the usual culprit for spamming his comm like that, was sidetracked by his surprised happiness at seeing Neyo’s name displayed. He loved receiving messages from his little brother just as much. It was rare to get so many messages in so little time from him, though. Even more surprising was the discovery that it was mostly holos. Did the two 91st Commanders mix up their commlinks ? Bacara knew they were supposed to be in a joint mission at the moment, so it wasn't as improbable as one could think. 

A little bit perplexed, he opened the conversation and was met with several pictures of Ponds without the top of his armor and bucket, followed by the message “You sure you really want that one ?”. It was definitely Neyo who sent them to him then, most likely during one of their breaks, going by the way Ponds was dressed. 

In the first pictures, the Lighting Commander was crouching in front of a green snake with hirsute scales. They were looking at each other steadily, practically nose to nose. Ponds had that light in his eyes. Bacara wasn't surprised at all to see him reaching to try and coerce the reptile like one would do with a tooka, in the following holos Neyo had taken. Ponds could be just as bad as a Jedi when it was about befriending any random wild animal that had sparked his interest. He thankfully wasn't prone to take a particular liking to beast bigger than him. (Which was admittedly not the case of High General Windu.) 

The Marine Commander huffed fondly at the rest of the pictures. Ponds had somehow managed to get the snake to coil around his arms. He had stood up and was visibly cooing down at it before beaming up at the holocamera. He was glowing like a star, eyes crinkling at the sides and dimples in full display. Some cloud high above was casting shadows on his side, not reaching his face yet. Bacara could have swear it’d never darken his skin, not when Ponds was shining stronger than the sun as he was. 

The Marine was smiling softly down at his comm, soaking up the sight of the holos, when he noticed how close to Ponds’ neck the head of the snake had crept. 

“Please tell me it’s not venomous.” He sent to Neyo right away, a defeated weight settling down at the bottom of his stomach, heavy like durasteel. 

“You know I will never lie to you, ori’tat.” Was the quick answer, thankfully followed a few instants later by : “The Generals are supervising.”

Bacara closed his eyes with a deep sight. At least the Jedi were around. 

Loving Ponds was one of the easiest things Bacara ever did, as effortless and paramount as breathing. But sometimes he deplored falling for a member of the Shebse batch. 

The snake is a Hairy Bush Viper.

[joltionizagamrr]

DMMD - Koujaku Route

My thots :)

To begin:

Character Design and first impressions: I LOVE Koujaku's character design- he's HOT. He's honestly so my type- a perfect blend of pretty and strongly masculine. His reputation as a ladykiller makes sense- honestly, his swag was so strong, it made me wonder if DMMD was made by a woman, lol. The game wrote him perfectly I feel like- he defintiley gave that strong impression of his authority as a gang leader, while also showcasing that side of him that is vulnerable and careful in his personal life. It was a very realistic portrayal of what he was meant to be.

First impression in hindsight to Aoba's POV: At first, I didn't understand why Aoba was honestly so weird about being around Koujaku. The fact that he would try to skeddadle at the sight of him, or would be so STRESSED having to talk to him-- I thought that might have been weirdly uncharacteristic. However, I couldn't be further from wrong. Aoba's reactions weren't THAT extreme, and were honestly kind of relateable (which is why I love aoba as a character so much) given the circumstances. This is his childhood best friend we're talking about- someone he shared a CLOSE tie to his whole childhood, he lost contact from him for a time period, and dude comes back to be a total hottie with the ladies AND a gang leader. Like, I wouldn't know how to act around him either LOL. I feel like sometimes when you have an extensive history with someone, relearning how to be around them after you have both changed is SO weird. It's not that Aoba didn't like him or hated him all of a sudden, he just needed a push to not resist that change. Obviously spending more time with each other, when choosing Koujaku's route, will easily help. Also, if you notice, Aoba mainly feels so resistant when Koujaku is out in public, around the ladies-- this is just an awkward situation for anyone.

Koujaku route scenes:

His scenes are SO realistic and honestly wholesome. He has a very positive bearing on his attitude, and playing his route realistically feels like someone id date.....except for *that* scene lol. The one problematic scene in the main storyline was a bit shocking for me, considering it wasn't even a bad ending or anything like that. It's kinda wild how aoba just KEEPS IT MOVIN after experiencing the most traumatic things in his entire life LOL. The way they wrapped up that scene and bounced back from it was well enough for me, considering I love everything else about his route :3

Character design:

Koujaku was one of the characters that strongly catched my eye, which got me interested in the DMMD series in the first place. He's very attractive, and i'm also biased because I like dark hair and tattoos lol. The way he smiles too is attractive as well- I love a fun upbeat type character!

Is he my FAV OTP?

NO! He's soooo close tho. Ideally, I want him, aoba, and ren to be in a threeway relationship ;w;!

[palmviolet]

how to cope with moving to another town for the first time?

im gonna be getting my master's but for that i need to move and it feels scary as hell

i am so late to answering this, so if you've already moved, then congrats, and i hope it went well! if not, right this way...

i've been in my new place about a month now and it's honestly been amazing. but i can say that because it now feels amazing in sort of hindsight? in that i had my ups and downs the first few days, stressed about my decision-making, missed the countryside etc. it happens. now it feels amazing. trust that you'll get to that point. and the things to keep telling yourself when these feelings creep in:

just sit with this feeling. it's okay to feel bad things. (something i'm working on lol i'm very much a 'everything is fine' person. sometimes it's not fine. and that's fine.)

life's about experiences. some of those experiences are stressful and bad. now you've moved you probably have a lot more shit to think about and a lot of shit to do literally all the time. maybe you'll be on tumblr less and going outside more — which is a dreadful prospect when you're thinking about it, but when you're doing it, you'll probably be doing it because you want to. which is one of the hardest things to accept about growing as a person, that our wants and fears will change. unfortunately, moving does change you. so–

main character syndrome it. make four moving playlists and a moodboard for your new room, sit there with your decorations and candles and the music blasting and pretend it's the opening scene to a movie. romanticise the hell out of it because you're growing into a new phase of life, you're going to meet new people, you're going to try new things — it's exciting. maybe tomorrow you'll try the food that will be your favourite for the next ten years. maybe you'll discover a new song to soundtrack your year. maybe you'll fall in love. world is your oyster etc etc

time might run linearly, but life sure as hell does not. you can always say fuck it and try something different. this is another thing that's comforting — that you're an adult, and you can genuinely do what you want. you hate your masters, hate your new town, hate the move? (circumstances permitting) move back! and if you can't move back, look at your life and see what you can change. maybe you can't quit your job but you can start saving to move away from your shitty roommate. you can delete instagram because watching 57 reels every morning makes you depressed and you can find a new place to study that isn't your own kitchen table, like that historic library around the corner you didn't even know was there. you can go to that social event alone and make a new best friend, or just a familiar face to smile at on the street. you can live.

the world is full of choices and that's terrifying but also so very very liberating. social pressure loves to convince us there's a linear narrative our lives should follow — a highly normative, conservative vision of nuclear success, watered-down but still very much present in liberal ideology — and it's simply not fucking true. go wild and follow your dreams and remember that nothing is permanent, very little is irreversible, and you can do what you want. so do what you want.

[antialiasis]

Speaking of R/B/Y-era rumours, @johtotimes just published a very fun issue going over some of the wild stuff that was getting spread around back then!

I'm particularly tickled by the Pikablu rumour screenshotted in the article:

It's similar to but not quite the same as the one that was on Mew's Hangout that I genuinely believed for a time (in that one, stated to be confirmed by Nintendo, you needed seventeen Pokémon at level 100, and I just never got there). It's very illustrative of the sort of thing that was going around, and the commonalities with the actual genuine Mew trick are uncanny:

There's a high barrier to entry: you probably can't just go try this right now. Maybe you've used a GameShark ever and then too bad, it's not going to work for you. Or you haven't completed your Pokédex. Or, while your team of six may be high-leveled, probably you don't have seventeen Pokémon that you've trained up. Similarly, for the Mew trick, you need to have not fought these two random trainers that you had no reason to avoid on your playthrough, and if you have - oops, too bad, you can't try it. So you can't prove it doesn't work, right?

You need to perform a secret arbitrary sequence of steps involving interacting with these particular random NPCs in very particular ways, ones that have no sensible connection to "Pikablu". They're just the key that unlocks it, for some reason. Similarly, the Mew trick, again, involves an encounter with Mew being unlocked by interacting in very particular ways with these two particular random trainers, for some reason.

You need to stand in this one very specific spot and then immediately use Fly to go to a specific place. In the Mew trick you also need to stand in a very specific spot, then move down and very quickly press Start to Fly to a specific place.

It describes some funky vaguely glitch-sounding behaviour, where you get this mystery item where trying to use it just acts like you selected Cancel, and when you talk to Oak it gives you recycled dialogue about a different item - juuust enough to sound kind of weird and spooky, but not like any kind of full-on memory corruption is happening. Similarly, the Mew trick involves little mildly weird spooky bits like that: an exclamation mark appearing above a trainer's head while you're flying away, your Start button not working for a bit, the Start menu popping up by itself. But there's no obvious apparent full-on corruption going on. All the visibly glitchy behaviour is subtle and temporary.

It was truly such a perfect coincidental storm of circumstances that happened to make it fall so neatly in line with all the rumours. In hindsight, there are of course also some noteworthy differences we can identify: most prominently, in the Pikablu rumour there's an NPC with supposed dialogue specific to this sequence, which would mean this would have to be an intentionally programmed easter egg with the prior random interactions as a very obtuse but presumably intentional trigger, whereas the Mew trick features no new NPC dialogue because it's simply a legitimate glitch that these NPC interactions happen to trigger. But not every rumour involved new dialogue, and legitimate glitches in games can also sometimes trigger unused dialogue; even with hindsight, nothing about the instructions themselves should have been a giveaway that the Mew trick was the genuine article in a sea of urban legends.

[thatdogmagic]

So, there's some posting going around, and after being alerted to what exactly is being made public, it's pretty clear I can't go with my initial inclination which is 'leave this alone.'

First things first:

a) I'm not going to fight any accusations of having done something potentially racist. I'm a white person raised very white; when I was made aware that the default ways I was responding to things were reading very poorly in the context of a white person and a black person, I apologized. No matter how I feel about what's happening *currently*, I still am sorry about it. I really hadn't thought of how it would come off until I saw it in hindsight.

I can't say for sure what all is being referenced aside from that instance. I'm not going to be the best judge, for the reasons mentioned above. The best I can do is absorb, apologize, keep learning to be better, and continue to chip away at the boneheaded 40yo white person shit.

b) re: ableism, the sad irony of the screengrab posted is that I was having an autistic meltdown at the time (which, no, is not an excuse). Use of the r-slur, in reference to myself, is a very sure sign I'm in the middle of one, reaching for an impact word and choosing a really terrible one. Like the verbal equivalent of hitting yourself, giving voice to what are, yes, at root, ableist thoughts that live in my head about my own diagnosis. I can and do get very frustrated with my autism sometimes, especially when I 'fail' to learn fast enough to manage it (read: fail to prevent a meltdown).

I'm also genuinely sorry people had to see that, both people in the chat and now, everywhere. I did, yes, delete it because I hated it being there, and I didn't want especially that to be the footprint I left on the server, if it was ever repurposed/the channels weren't recycled (brief note on that later).

Anyway yeah it's something I really need to work on. And it's disheartening to see it cherrypicked when everyone there was aware of the context, but yea; if you see some really wild shit from screencaps, please keep in mind that a lot of it has already been extremely cherrypicked/context is going to be missing. If the whole conversation isn't present, ask to see it.

That's the heaviest stuff that needed addressing.

The accusations of character theft are another thing, because that involves Ependa, and a conversation I had personally with Jackal that was settled amicably a year ago. Or so I thought.

It's the one conversation I did think to save in its entirety, because I just-- had a feeling it might end up being in the cherrypicked pile, or removed from the record entirely. I didn't expect to have to need it this soon, but here we are.

So here it is, in its entirety:

All of that is true, on my end. I was the one who told Ependa to go with a darker complexion on Lacey, and it really didn't quite occur to me at the time that it'd be much of an issue. It should have. The characters are distinct to me in a variety of ways, but as said in the screengrabs, it's a small pond. Past that, if there was more we could do to differentiate then it wasn't discussed with either of us, and we were both open to making further alterations as-needed.

This is not the first time this conversation has been had among werewolf creators, fwiw, or the first time we've had to chat amongst ourselves about potential crossover. I've had to have a similar talk with another artist I know and respect because there were a few too many similarities going on with a set of pieces I was already working on.

Ependa had to recently have that conversation with Trashasaurus (which I'm paraphrasing a Ependa's request), re: commissions that had requested a character that had taken a lot of visual inspiration from both Lin and Toska. She'd noticed Toska's traits and vibe and wasn't entirely comfortable with it, and upon learning they had been requested asked Trashasaurus not to take on those commissions anymore. Trashasaurus agreed and that seemed to be the end of it, save to drop some warning about the 'Lacey talk' which-- well. See above. That's it, in its entirety.

If Ependa wants to post the logs of her conversation, she can, but I'll leave that up to her.

So, that's the heart of the matter at the moment.

It's yet another fallout of yet another failed project by yet another group of artists. It's a tale as old as time, and I would've really loved to have not given it fuel, but the r-slur thing backed me into a corner and needed to be addressed. And if that was being addressed, then others things needed to be addressed, too.

The thing about character theft, though-- yeah, IDK. If there was a problem, there was a year to solve it, and the offer made to post publicly about the oops/acknowledge it right there in that moment was genuine. So far as anyone knew, this had all been settled, and any time it was brought up after there were a million assurances that it wasn't an issue.

Last: I deleted my presence on the server because I a) wasn't sure if it was going to be repurposed and wanted a lot of very personal conversations/old images removed if that happened, b) was frankly concerned about something like this happening; cherrypicked conversations getting tossed up online if things got any worse. I used undiscord, which deletes chronologically, because deleting everything is easier than finding specific conversations/image files.

Because the worst of the fights happened last, well. Yeah it's gonna look like I'm deleting the worst parts first.

I also wouldn't have willingly agreed to be on a server using third party logging software/deleted message retrieval plugins, either, had I known that was in play, but that's a 'live and learn' moment for me, unfortunately.

Anyway that's it, that's all. I can't tell anyone how to think or feel about any of this. I'll be here and will continue to post art, though, for those who still feel like sticking around.

[doodlyreone]

Smiling Friends at Pony Town Memories ADVENCHA!!!

Part II

An experimental bit to compensate for my always delayed screenshottter phone and archiving ponytown instances to doodles. I roleplay as Charlie and these are the highlights of my interactions with a Pim kinner, @mellowvisions .

I have no screenshots because I had no time. I was busy like mad yapping against the dude that approaches us, pestering us about wars on bread. But see, this is the thing that ai chats could never give me. It would never annoy the living hell out of me and spontaneously create an episodable moment of Smiling Friends.

Dude I was livid when some rando approaches us and ruined the vibe of our hangout. See, me and Pim- Pim and I are doing our own thing, minding our own business and stuff and like I was really getting into our conversation when this guy comes to our spot, invades our space, pointing at us with his large finger and insisting on us joining the war. War on bread of all things. And man, I couldn't stand him and his voice and his reasons and I'm honest to God clenching my fist under the hand-warmer pocket of my hoodie. I shut my mouth and like internally hope that this guy just take the obvious hint that his presence is so unwelcomed. When he disregards Pim's words and keep insisting himself, I just know it's a sign I have to bark back.

(Although he was a pony, I turned him to a human and uhh pretty privileges revoked. Also he is gun shaped just because. He was chill actually and like let me know in whisper that he's sorry if he have gone too far but like it's all good fun and sometimes we need any excuse to just ramble and fight. Dude we're literally arguing about wars on breads wbahaha. Hatin on his character not the actual person)

I step into his personal space, nose to nose, eye to eye, we're breathing each others air and debating and I don't even care about the words he mutters back, like my brain filters out all his nonsense. My mouth is just running and like I just fucking exploded on him because I was so done with his attitude like he will literally never leave us alone because he doesn't see how unlikeable he is.

(I kept all the misspellings and missing words because it adds character and funnier that way-)

I don't even notice how much I'm clenching my teeth at the moment. I was seething with rage and just sternly looking at him to make sure he won't dare to come back. Adrenaline is running wild with me and I was shaking. I really don't know how to continue the conversation with Pim now and I was so frustrated at him. My mood felt a lot less heavier when Pim made a jab at the guy. Man, hindsight 20-20, that was stupid. Guy was talking about wars and he could've got a gun with him. Like I mentioned that to Pim and like we discussed how differently that could have gotten if that was the case. As much as I was so sure like our conversation would be dead by then, it did not. It seamlessly flows into another topic and I was engrossed again that I just don't care about the guy anymore.

(Charlie big scary dog privileges!!! Also yeah after that, we talk about how we are both simultaneously in character and out of character at the moment because his points are borderline iffy and you know how ponytown goes, specially in the 18+ server, they really be saying the wildest things haha)

UNTEXTED VERSIONS UNDER CUT:

[weareweirdpeople]

not a vent but diabetic shit because why not I want to share my experience

I have diabetes. I've had diabetes sense i was an elementary schooler on the way to middle school. Diabetes fucking sucks and it runs in my family. Because of this, and the fact that my family refuses to call it a disability despite it literally being a chronic illness, it has taken me a while to realize I do infact have a disability.

in hindsight, I am "lucky" that my mom raised me restricting lots of "unhealthy snacks" (non health foods. My mom viewed fucking cheezits as unhealthy and she came from a family that was even stricter with 'healthy' foods.) This meant that when I got diagnosed with diabetes, I would be prepared for the fact that now they weren't just rare treats my mom was learning to be ok with. Now they were aparently dangerous to my health and I could almost never eat them again.

My uncle has severe type 1 diabetes and my mom used to try to help him manage it, but he's a grown man whos never taken good care of it and does what he wants. So now that I had diabetes she was going to are sure I definitely didn't end up like that. This means that even if he himself brought all the kids a sweet treat, depending on my blood sugar I wouldn't even be allowed to have it. Most of the time she didn't want me to have it. This all went down with covid and I got to live with my diabetic father. The plus side was that the restrictions where pretty much gone, and I just needed to manage my sugar. The bad part is that I was fucking terrified of pricking my finger. It would take me hours to pick my finger, and my dad would be pissed. It slowly became very normal. I also had to learn how to take pills and open a pill bottle.

A while later now that I'm living with my whole family, I still have great care over my diabetes. I say great care as in how my family views it. I have the best a1c, I have the most consistent blood sugars. Personally I'm happy I can do that while having major depression but it makes me sad at the same time. It just pisses me off. Anytime my sugar is high I'm asked "what did you eat? What did you eat today? What was your sugar this morning?" I have an anxiety disorder. The doctors and google have told us that stress and anxiety can heighten blood sugar. Every time its about what I at. If im super sleepy? What did I eat? Whats my blood sugar? If im super anxious? Whats my blood sugar? Is it low? What have you eaten today?

My mom has always been focused on my diabetes. I low key hate it.

But in hindsight some of her ideas and things she let me do were so bad that its actually funny. Like holy shit mom, that was wild.

She at first wanted me to count all of my carbs. Every time I ate. All the carbs. She wanted me to check my sugar everytime I ate and then based on that it would determine what I was allowed to eat.

Then there was the point in time where she let me run around outside all day without eating lunch and sometimes even breakfast or any water until my sugar dropped crazy low and I was dizzy and shaking, and then id go outside again right after it went up. She doesn't like me reminding her of this because she says it makes her feel like a bad mother and that she was distracted. Im pretty sure the only constant meal was eating was dinner.

one time during Easter when we did an egg hunt my siblings got eggs fully of candy like normal. But my mom was running late on candy shopping so instead of giving me candy eggs, she made me get the special eggs she made, thinking they had zero sugar candy. They were fuckkng almonds. Unsalted Almonds. What. The. Fuck. I have never let her live that shit down, because who gives their kid fucking almonds as a treat??? Diabetic or not, unsalted almonds???

I was very very upset that year to say the least. My mom has always been stingy with any candy of any sorts. Even before we knew I was diabetic I was only really allowed 1-3 prices of candy from a holiday at most, and only after dinner. My Halloween candy especially would either go bad or she would eat it as well and I would not get much of it.

And after diabetes? Keto everything. My mom wanted to find as much keto stuff as possible, and I get it. We have a diabetic household, but she didn't do that shit until I got diagnosed with diabetes. I am happy that by now shes pretty much stopped all her restrictions and the keto stuff, she's still really diabetes focused when it comes to my mood and doesn't consider it a disability but that's okish.

Hilariously j don't have type 1 diabetes. Or type 2. I have a genetic mutation, and have had to convince multiple people that no I don't just have type 2, no I didn't not get diabetes because of my eating habits have you fucking seen me I am a god damm stick and even if I was fat that doesn't mean shit, no I cannot just eat fruit instead of candy that's not how diabetes works you peice of shit.

Long story short, i don't get a CGM or an Insulin pump. I actually make too much insulin, and dont really absorb it all and a CGM is to expensive... that means I just have to watch my sugar and take my pills indefinitely and I can't check my sugar too much because then I'd have to wait for my refills to get done because American health care fucking sucks ass.

lol diabetes sucks, stop being assholes to people with diabetes.