#i wanted to play with the original text but. that sort of thing just skeeves me out way too much sorry. so im gutting it

[batsight]

Star Flower, loner, Medic of SkyClan

She/Her, cis bisexual

Mother: Turnip

Father: One Eye

Adoptive Father: Skystar

Siblings: Unnamed, all deceased.

Design notes:

-She is styled after the Pokemon, Ogerpon

-The plants are a physical part of her body. They grow out of her.

-She is the physical embodiment of The Blazing Star.

Story notes: [Abuse CW]

-She was born as a normal kitten to a traveling band of rogues who loved to trade and spread their music. Unfortunately, this band died out to a plague, one that nearly took her own life. Desperate to save his family, her father Carrot traveled to a set of tunnels in Sanctuary Lake rumored to house a reality-bending god. He asked the god for a cure, and the god asked for his eye in return. They made the exchange, and he retrieved a glowing, golden, five pointed flower. However, he was too late to save most of his family, so the entire cure went to his surviving kit. He wasn't expecting her to survive the night given her fragile state and the dubiousness of the exchange...

-But the next morning, she was perfectly fine- great, even. If a little... odd... were those buds growing on her paws...?

-It only got stranger from there. When Carrot ended up finding more cats suffering from the plague, just a few calming purrs from his kit seemed to have them ripe and ready to go the next morning. Carrot understood then what had happened- his kit had become the cure herself. And cats were starting to look towards them more, started begging for her healing, for anything. And Carrot had lost everything... wasn't it time to start winning stuff back?

-And so, the pair became One Eye and Star Flower, for recognition's sake. The two formed their own small group, filled with cats Star Flower had healed. Star Flower loved to spread her magic where she went, to save cats from the brink of death and be showered with their love and appreciation. They felt like they owed a great debt to her, and she enjoyed that.

-She was very close with her father, even if their relationship could be strained. One Eye loved her, but to an extent, he also used her. He grew arrogant in his success, believing he had become the accomplice to a god, and began to hold that over cats who fell sick. He grew desperate for control and Star Flower was his key to that.

-One day, however, her father's group encountered the early clans. They were just beginning to settle down, work out their new rules, and declare borders. But what caught the group's attention was the near murder of a young kittypet, almost mauled to death by proto-SkyClan's leader, Skystar. Unable to heal wounds with her magic, Star Flower managed to bring the cat to a twoleg, who took her away.

-Appalled by the cruelty, Star Flower took a great interest in Skystar's group, and witnessed several of his other crimes against his cats and the other groups. As did One Eye, who, seeing the early signs of a plague, had an idea to put this cat and the other leaders in their place.

-One Eye and Star Flower joined the group, with One Eye acting as a curious loner, flattering Skystar with praise. Skystar enjoyed his company, and so One Eye grew in the rank rather quickly. He also took a great interest in Star Flower and her abilities. After murdering Tom, who insulted the cats and attempted to attack them, One Eye took the chance to take control over the group, overpowering Skystar and using Star Flower's power to keep the remaining cats in line- everything is going to be okay, you'll get your cure... if you stay in line and do as One Eye says.

-This went on for a moon, of Star Flower holding her magic over the heads of her clients to keep their loyalty towards One Eye. She would be lying if she said she didn't feel pride at it all at helping her father.

-Ultimately, One Eye was overthrown and killed when Skystar came back with reinforcements from the other clans. The rest of the rogues they'd accumulated ran off, and suddenly, Star Flower was alone. She'd never been without her father, and running would mean abandoning his grave, which she didn't want. But... this place had been a home to her for some time now, and she needed a place to stay. SkyClan had taken all of the available territory in the area, anyways, and she was in no shape to brave the other territories or twolegplace. So she offered her power to SkyClan as a peace offering and asked for shelter in return.

-Skystar was still sore from the event, but he couldn't deny that having Star Flower as an asset would be beneficial to him in the long run. And around this point, his son Thunderstar had disowned him and split off ThunderClan from SkyClan. He felt that he was losing allies, losing family, and he latched on to desperate Star Flower very quickly- as a cat who would never disobey him.

-Skystar takes Star Flower under his wing as his new child, her new ward, instating her as a medic. And because she is loyal to a fault, she won't disobey a new leader so similar to her father. And so, he pushes her to do humiliating things in front of the camp, ranging from general chores like tick baths, to forcing her to run laps around camp with an injury if she took too long to work her magic. He would take out his frustration from gatherings on her and berate her over the most menial things. He would make her withhold her power to help anyone in the clan who had displeased him. And if Star Flower ever tried to stick up for herself, all he had to do was remind her of what she did, how she helped torment his cats by holding a cure over their heads to help out her father.

-This went on for years, Star Flower becoming more and more despondent. One night, there was a particularly stressful gathering, in which Skystar got into a territorial dispute with Thunderstar over a pack of dogs ravaging the territories. He lost the dispute, came home, and immediately took it out on Star Flower, shouting at and attacking the molly for "taking too much food she didn't deserve". And something in Star Flower finally snapped, and for the first time, she didn't save a life- she took one. And another. And another. As many as what remained in Skystar's soul. She was discovered taking his very last life in his nest, while she was wondering if she could pin it on the dogs. She escaped the camp, and wandered the territory for the rest of her life.

-Unfortunately, while she finally won against Skystar in the moment, it was history who decided the victor. Sparrowstar declared that they couldn't let a tragedy like this happen ever again, and doubled down on banishing rogues. Every rogue-born cat was looked at with suspicion from then on, and as the decades began to pass, Star Flower's story became twisted and bent. As the story is told, a rogue had infiltrated SkyClan's camp asking for help, but had manipulated and charmed the leader with her prowess and rose in the ranks just high enough to take him out and attempt to claim his spot. Her story was used as a cautionary tale against rogues, warning cats against those who would infiltrate the camp and rot it from the inside. Eventually, even her true name was lost to time...

Rotten Flower, Warrior of The Dark Forest

Skystar didn't hesitate to throw her in the depth of the Dark Forest when she died. She wears her mask constantly, trying to keep away from the sickness of the muck. She's embraced the false myth made about her, claiming to have killed a founder for power and prestige. But in reality, it's been so long that she's forgotten her family, her power, her name. She barely even remembers Skystar himself. Though she's admired in the Dark Forest for her achievements, she doesn't hang around anyone, and acts hostile to those who approach her.

Perhaps someone can help her remember who she truly is...?

[stephhannes]

internet deadtiquette

i only keep up with a couple of podcasts, one of them being reply all, and the most recent episode resonated with me. in the episode, they speak with a dad who lost his son to an aneurism, and he goes on to talk about how technology has been entwined in his grief. and i found myself a) feeling less alone in the way that i’ve been grieving, but b) asking myself- how has the internet played a part in my recovery?

i never thought about it, but technology has been such an intrinsic part of my grieving process. so much so, that it’s felt natural and normal- even though looking in on it, there’s something hard and unnatural about it. how do i balance broadcasting my grief in a way that’s palatable in 240 characters but not compromising my truth? (spoiler: i’m very bad at this). 

things were simpler when my dad died, because i didn’t once have to consider things like: “what statement will i make on social media?” “how do i respond to messages from people  haven’t talked to since i graduated from high school?” “how sad is ‘too sad’ to appear online?”

from the beginning, since nathan’s died, technology has been right there. the day that it happened, while we were still making phone calls to family and close friends, i was thinking about what my “official” public statement would be. how do i concisely convey that the love of my life is dead when i haven’t slept in hours and barely know how to say a full sentence? i posted a picture of that one entry in teddy roosevelt’s journal from the day his wife and mother died. “the light has gone out of my life.” 

that was the only thought i could conjure up that day. i accompanied it with a few short sentences- “the last day, my brain has been on a constant loop of thinking about that quote from teddy roosevelt’s journal after his wife died- “the light has gone out of my life.” yesterday, i lost the light of my life. my best friend, my brilliant, incredible, kind, adjectives fiancé has passed away.” 

speaking of the whole ‘contacting family and friends’ thing, do you know how awkward it is to send a facebook message to someone you’ve never talked to asking for their boss’s phone number? at some point in the contacting phase, i realized that nathan wouldn’t be at work on monday and that people would have questions as to where he was, so i had to do some gymnastics to figure that out. the company that nathan worked for had a very generic name, so finding the correct office phone number was kind of off the table. i couldn’t find his boss on facebook- but i happened to remember the full name of one of nathan’s coworkers- so i found her on facebook and messaged her. “hi, this is out of the blue and i’m sorry, but i’m stephanie, nathan’s fiancee. nathan passed away this weekend and we’d like to get in contact with your boss. could you please pass along a phone number or other contact information so we can? thanks in advance.” imagine waking up one day and getting that message from a stranger. 

when it came to contacting people, i only needed to tell my mom and the four friends i have. but when it came to nathan’s friends i wasn’t sure who all to contact. how do you decide who gets to know before a public facebook statement? will there be people that are angry that i excluded them? 

and then after the announcement came the condolences. i hate that i live a life where i’m easily accessible by people i haven’t talked to in years. but still, i got messages from people i graduated with and got texts from numbers i had deleted years ago. 

i’ve always been skeeved out by the concept of people writing on the facebook wall of someone who’s died. thankfully, only a couple of people did it- but i hated almost all of it. i think the thing i hate about this sort of public display of grief is that it’s so transparent, but here’s a life tip: not everything has to be about you. when people post these outward, shallow reflections on facebook, it’s to become a grief vampire, to get a pat on the back for “doing a good deed.” 

i also hate that i had to watch people speculate, publicly what had happened to nathan. someone who we went to high school with made some sentimental post about him and someone commented asking “holy shit. what happened to him???” someone else made a post asking people to pray for our family and rip. once again, someone else commented asking what happened. i get that this is a pretty innocuous exchange, but seeing it written out in a facebook post, being discussed by people who don’t know us well just felt like i was watching two people whispering about me right in front of my face.

the worst part was seeing a comment that said “RIP. at least he’s with (his dead ex from high school) now.” 

when i first saw it, i was so upset that someone would say that…in public…where i can see it. i was almost angry, but i didn’t have the energy to respond, since i was busy planning nathan’s funeral at that time. i told my friends about it, and one of them confronted the girl instead: 

“hey, your comment about nathan was pretty disrespectful and it upset his fiancee a lot. would you please delete it?”

“actually, what’s disrespectful is you messaging me. i didn’t even know he had a fiancee and she just lost someone so she’s going to take offense to anything and everything. i didn’t say anything wrong. besides, everyone knows that (his ex) was his first love and if it wasn’t for what she did they would still be together.” 

not only is she shitty in public, apparently she’s also shitty in private. 

it was so apparent to me that she literally knew nothing about nathan and was just trying to cash in on some brownie points to look like a good person to everyone else- but i was so deeply offended. 

my friend had to contact the person who made the original post to just delete the girl’s comment and that was the end of it. 

the one post on his wall that i didn’t hate was from one of his friends. i had never met her before, but i knew of her, solely because she used to send nathan snaps of her cat all the time and subsequently, nathan would show me the snaps and we were both in love with her cat. she made a sweet post on his wall, and i sent her a message telling her that i appreciate her words and also that we loved seeing her cat. she offered to add me on snapchat and continue to send me pictures occasionally, and that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s done for me.

you know what i didn’t realize would happen? the first time i posted a selfie after nathan died, a few people made “it’s nice to see you smiling!” comments. i’ve never been conscious of my instagram feed, but after realizing that people were trying to use my posts as barometers to my happiness- i felt a lot more claustrophobic when it came to my feed.

+++

when my dad died, the grieving process looked fairly linear. i was sad for awhile, and with time, it got easier. his death isn’t something that plagues me anymore, and it stopped consuming me pretty quickly. part of that was because i was pretty removed from my home at that time- he died right before school started so i was living on my own, pre-occupied with not flunking out of undergrad, not surrounded by pieces of my father. the only digital footprint of my dad was a handful of selfies we’d taken together, but other than that, there was no facebook profile, no online connection to any of his friends. if i wanted to access my dad, i had to work for it.

though nathan was fairly private and didn’t have an instagram or twitter that he actively used, there was still facebook, and still vague traces of him across the internet. 

i can’t stop doing things that hurt me, and the internet provides more things that hurt me. when my dad died, the only things i could do that would really pain me were listen to voicemails, and listen to songs that made me think of him. with nathan’s death, i can sit and read through all of our texts. or read through all of our facebook messages. or check snapchat and have it tell me that it’s been 45 weeks since i last received a snap from him. or have a facebook “on this day” memory pop up with a post he made on my wall ten years ago. 

i have these moments where i am so desperate to feel close to nathan again. and i try to scrap together every trace of him i have. physically, there isn’t much. i have some of his old clothes, and a couple of tshirts that smell like him- but digitally i have years of things he’s said to me, i have pictures- ones of us together, ones i took of him sleeping, ones other people have taken of him- i have two voicemails, i have one video. 

there’s something about having digital access to nathan that brought out a desperation in me. 

when i got back to our apartment from the hospital after nathan died, my brain was shattered into a million pieces, each piece trying to answer a different question. however, at one point in the hours after his death, i got fixated on one thing: where the fuck was his phone? i tore the sheets from the bed and scoured every inch of the apartment and it was nowhere to be found. i don’t know why i wanted it so badly, but when i realized that it was gone i was so stressed out. the phone must have been in his pocket when he died, it must have gone to the hospital. it’s probably gone. i finally fell asleep, my brain reset by the time i woke up and the missing phone was no longer on my radar. eventually, i just resolved that i wouldn’t ever see it again and that was that. a couple of weeks later, his parents and i went back to philadelphia to clean out our apartment and his mom decided to follow the phone trail again. the hospital didn’t have it- they said the organ donation people probably have it- the organ donation people didn’t have it- they said the medical examiner probably has it- and finally we got a bag of nathan’s belongings from the medical examiner: complete with phone, drivers license, and one earring.

here’s the problem with a phone that’s been dead for two weeks: you need the passcode to turn it back on. i’m pretty sure my fingerprint unlocked his phone, but i had no idea what his passcode was. 

here’s the second problem: his passcode was at least 6 characters long. the only thing i knew about it was that it was more than four characters, and i know that makes it exponentially harder to try to guess or use a program to guess the passcode.

there wasn’t necessarily anything i knew i wanted off of his phone, but i wanted answers as to why he died, and i think part of me thought i could get answers from his phone. but a bigger part of me knew that i wouldn’t get any answers, so i gave up. 

i factory reset his phone. it’s no longer in my possession. 

cracking the phone case wasn’t the only technological rabbit hole i went down. the day i finally got into nathan’s laptop, i remember texting one of my friends, exclaiming “I DID IT! I HACKED INTO THE MAINFRAME!”

nathan had two computers, a laptop for personal use and a desktop that he used for work and gaming. 

once again, in my pursuit of trying to find answers, i thought that maybe his laptop would tell me something. i don’t know exactly what answers i thought his browsing history could illuminate, but maybe there would be something there. however, i had very low expectations as to what i’d find- nathan browsed the internet in a very strange way. he’d do this thing where pretty much every link he clicked on or everything he did he’d do in an incognito window. inherently i knew his chrome history would be pretty bare. nevertheless, i was determined to get in.

much like his phone password, i also didn’t know his laptop password. the only thing i knew was that his password hint was the same for both his laptop and his desktop. after setting this mystery to the side for a week, it hit me. the summer i moved to nyc he went away for a week, and when he left, he gave me the password to his desktop so i could use the big monitor to watch netflix or game to entertain myself while he was gone. 

i had to go through old SMS messages that had been saved on my macbook to find the text with the password. and i found it. and if the password hint was the same for both of his computers, then the password had to be the same, right? right.

i did it. i hacked into the mainframe. 

and like i suspected, i found nothing. nothing suspicious in his search history, no shady messages on reddit, no word documents, no weird facebook correspondences. 

the only thing i found was a snapshot of the last moments before he died. the last webpage he’d opened that night was at 11:02pm. i called 911 at 11:11pm. for some reason, gaining that perspective fucked with me. 

+++

i started this blog as a way to vent. i wanted to keep a record of what was going on in my life and how i was coping. i am a container of stories about nathan, and i wanted to make sure that i wasn’t forgetting things. i spent so much time in the months immediately following nathan’s death forgetting. i forgot what his laugh sounds like. i forgot exactly what his hair smelled like. i wanted to try to forget as little as possible, and by having a written record of the thoughts and memories i have of him i felt like i was gaining a little bit of control over the situation. but now that i have this audience, sometimes i find myself trying to make sure that i filter myself appropriately. i have to discern what memories i want to keep for just the two of us, and which ones i want to share. 

pretty shortly after nathan died, i started a note on my phone called “things that are too fucked up to tweet right now, but maybe revisit in a few months?” 

the list included such hits as: 

sarah just got me a “promoted to fiancee shirt,” do they make “downgraded to widow” ones?

y’all ever go from planning a wedding to planning a funeral? 

my fiance being dead means i now have two urns to take holiday pictures with

GREAT, now i have to change my emergency contact AGAIN

i used to have a ‘segment’ on this blog where i’d post the messages i had been sending to nathan’s facebook- and eventually i had to stop. mostly because i realized that the messages were truly just this very honest and raw expression of my deepest grief- i usually only send him messages when i’m feeling the most upset. that’s one of those things that needed to be kept for just us.

+++ 

it’s strange, the way the internet has become one of the biggest coping mechanisms for me. even though it’s introduced a whole shitload of inconveniences, it’s given me a lot as well. one of my favorite things that happened was a handful of his friends sending me facebook messages with either pictures of him, or a memory of him, that’s the one instance where i’m glad to be easily accessible. my favorite thing about having the internet on my side this time around is feeling less lonely. when i listened to that episode of reply all, i heard so many little things about someone else’s grief that i was also experiencing. sometimes you ask yourself if you’re grieving properly, if what you’re doing is weird, or okay- and hearing that i’m not the only one processing things in the way that i do gives me that little bit of reassurance that i’m doing alright. 

+++

you wanna know the worst thing my iphone has done to me? i was scrolling through my camera roll, and i accidentally swiped up on one of the pictures. apparently photos will now show you “related photos” to the one you swipe up- and for some reason the algorithm decided one of the photos related to the one i swiped up on was a picture i had taken of nathan at his wake. i can’t believe steve jobs’ ghost would blindside me like that honestly.