#my mom's family came over before the genocide

[belovedblabber]

not to ‘weird feelings about my cultural stuff’ post on main BUT I am full of feelings about being part Armenian tonight, it’s the part of my heritage I have the most connection with/the most interaction with but even then I feel a lot of disconnect and even guilt about calling myself Armenian 

[girlactionfigure]

My mom bought me these boots from Zara in Denver a few weeks back. She could feel me sinking into a pit of rage, grief, and hopelessness. So, she came to meet me in Denver and upon landing, took me to walk the mall “just to get out and move through it.” My mother, a miracle, born to a father who was the sole Holocaust survivor in his family, knows a thing or two about battling anger and grief at a world fixated on annihilating Jews and our spirits.

 I've been intimately familiar with the horrors of October 7th since it happened. Like countless Jews, I've meticulously followed every gruesome detail of Hamas' well-planned and well-funded genocide attempt. Every despicable act of torture, rape, and murder – etched into my bones. On top of that, I follow daily the relentless onslaught of people and communities celebrating, erasing, and justifying the slaughter, while denying our right to defend ourselves. Watching old friends ‘like’ and share posts constantly which dehumanize Jews and lie about Israel, putting our lives further at risk. Contending with all of this over the past few months has been unbearable. Like many Jews, I'm haunted both awake and asleep. 

I've been debilitated, struggling to cope with all of it. How do we carry on in a country where so many wish us dead? How do we thrive in a place that dismisses our pain and disregards our countless contributions to society? How do I contemplate having children in a place where their lives aren't valued? How can I coexist with so many people who, at best, couldn't care less about the brutal murders of over 1200, the kidnapping and daily ongoing torture of hundreds more for over 119 days, while the world cheers for the rest of us to be annihilated? How do I sleep at night when all I can think about are the looming threats to Israel and the Jewish people, the treatment of our hostages, and the insidious web of hatred that constantly engulfs our existence? 

When my mom handed me these boots, I thought they might be fitting for Israel, but I didn't really dwell on it. I knew the journey would be grueling. And while I thought I already knew the gruesome details, walking through the aftermath is a different level of knowing. These boots tread through miles of hell – the remnants of homes ruthlessly attacked by a kind of evil I couldn't fathom existed. An evil that deliberately targeted communities of Israelis dedicated to peace, only to be met with beheadings, rape, burning alive, and slaughter.

 These boots tread through miles of desolation – the aftermath of thousands of terrorists and hundreds of so-called "civilians" perpetrating unspeakable acts against over a thousand innocent, peace-loving people. These vile rapists and murderers were the beneficiaries for years of those they heartlessly slaughtered. They were acquainted with so many of these good people, the very people they mercilessly killed. Several of these compassionate Israelis had welcomed these terrorists into their homes for years, offered them work opportunities, and tirelessly tried to help them lead a better life. 

These boots ventured through charred remains, blood-soaked grounds, and homes, bomb shelters, and once-beloved personal spaces and belongings torn apart, covered in bullet holes, reduced to pieces and char – all obliterated by hours of relentless assaults by terrorists armed with thousands of machine guns, fire bombs, and RPGs. Weapons funded, in part, by American and European taxpayers, whose leaders for years knowingly funneled billions into a terror operation whose sole objective is eradicating Israel and every Jew from the map before extending their genocidal ambitions westward. 

After coming back from our third trip to the massacre sites in the south, 

@JordynTilchen

insisted on me wiping these boots down before stepping into our rental, but the weight of what they carried was too immense. I couldn't erase the traces of blood and death that clung to them. Instead, I brought them home with me wrapped in several bags. These boots hold more than just grime; they carry the echoes of unspeakable atrocities and the silent cries of hundreds and hundreds of innocent lives ruthlessly tortured and taken.

 I've decided to give them a burial here, to acknowledge the horrors they tread through, the shattered communities and homes they traversed, and to honor the remains of the once-beautiful lives torn from existence that cling to them. As I do this, I promise to honor not only those brutally murdered and taken hostage, but also those who are risking everything to defend the rest of us. I promise to continue to do my best to not be consumed by what feels like a tsunami of hopelessness, but to pick myself back up and channel this endless grief and anger into meaningful action and resilience.

Eden Cohen ✡︎ עדן כהן

@edencohentweets

[falasteen7urrah]

i want to share a piece i wrote during the first black out i experienced in gaza during this ongoing genocide.

With the threat of the ground invasion looming around, all 30-40 people gathered. My aunts relative decided to share stories like ghost stories at a sleepover.

During the 2008 war there were two phases of the ground invasion. Phase I, IDF soldiers came in, they killed and bulldozed at random, they separated women and children and told them to run. They then shot at their feet, “for fun”. Phase II, in some Northern Gaza cities IDF soldiers went door to door rallying every male. My aunts SIL tells her firsthand recount of why her husband is scared. That he and her father-in-law were taken down to the basement in troves, stripped naked, blindfolded and psychologically tortured. Some of the techniques included that the soldiers would call out a name, bring them to a corner, shoot near them, again, “for fun” all while the rest of the men would believe they’ve been killed. They did this for hours, amongst other things.

Ground invasion would be more of a scare some nights than others. Some nights it felt like soldiers would be right outside the door. We joked about barricading the door but my uncle said that would all be for naught as the cement wall was a lot easier to break than the metal door. So unless we were thinking of how to barricade the walls, we were sitting ducks. Not that there was anything to be scared of, of course [insert eyeroll].

War, a testament of man’s faith.

Fear is interesting, throughout a war it manifests differently. Sometimes debilitating, sometimes a myriad of physical manifestations, sometimes only felt deeply when expressed out loud.

October 27, 20:00.

Gaza, a territory, cut off internally and externally. With the bombing of At-Tisal all telecommunication was cut off. A flurry of thoughts plagues your mind. I had family and friends in northern Gaza, I had family on the main road, we were located closest to the eastern border, would they sweep in from the north making us safe or will they come in through the entire border, how long will I have to mentally prepare myself before they’re at our house? Ten, five, three minutes? Will this be Phase I? Merciless killing, which actually when thinking of ground invasion sounds like the most attractive option.

Being a female there is one constant fear. Whether in a warring territory or the safest first world country.

“There’s never been any history of IDF soldiers raping any Gazan.” Oh, thank god. I feel so much better. Sarcastic of course, but also settling in a way. However, I don’t know how true that proclamation was, yet in the moment it was the most comforting thing to hear. So I don’t need to be punched in the face, good to know. My sisters and I talked a lot about that actually, being punched in the face, deforming my face to be unattractive, something women used to do in vietnam and other war zones to avoid being sexual assaulted…

Outside men were gathered, an old radio was pulled out, only one radio station was a available, it was in Hebrew. An old man who was imprisoned countless time and his young adult son began translating. They had invaded, they came in by the north. Al-Shifa hospital was now marked, the largest hospital in Gaza, the hospital I volunteered at the third day of the war, home to over 80,000 displaced. Would they bomb it now? In an hour? Leave it until the last day, keeping everyone in a unique state of fear?

My dad pulled out a Motorola phone from his backpack. Huh? We all looked around in our bags if we had an aux cord headset, my mom finally found one, we plugged it in and radio sound came to life.

Boredom comes with war. That’s not common talked about and probably needs a whole thousand words on it itself for one to grasp the blandness and boredom in war. How does radio work? How do landlines work? Sound waves?

What does a blackout mean? Not only no internet, no way of hearing or reading or seeing what’s going on, but no way of communicating with the people in Gaza. Family and friends, we’re cut off. We have no way of knowing who will live and who will die, which happens every night but there’s a difference when the essence of ground invasion plagues the air.

The radio played all night long, and ever night since.

What to say? We’re alive, we’re safe, nothing happened. Except stuff did happen, not the horrors of ground invasion just the nightly norm. People died, people are dying, streets and cities flattened beyond recognition, more homeless, more displaced.

I connected to the internet. More dead, more injured, more, more, more. Amongst them, a friend. Not having internet was horrible, but off from the world, but when you do connect and all you see is death, death, death you start to avoid connecting anyways.

[jewishvitya]

Can't remember if I ranted about it before, but I thought about it and got annoyed all over again.

There was this skit that went:

What your therapist says: "have you heard about generational trauma?"

What they mean: "your family is the problem."

And it's just one example, the video had several versions of this joke. But this part is such a misrepresentation of what generational trauma can mean. Generational trauma isn't just trauma caused by a previous generation, it's trauma carried over through generations.

My great grandfather was a holocaust survivor who lived through the camps. And after surviving them, he had nightmares and he was restless and he had anger issues. Our family always acknowledged and discussed the abuse, but never blamed him for what we saw as symptoms of PTSD. I grew up with that mix of compassion and understanding that he couldn't help his explosive trauma responses, but it didn't make them okay.

My grandparents also survived the holocaust, and they were kids at the time. They had to do better. And they did. But there was still trauma. Both the war and the abuse. Shame over our Jewish heritage. A desire to create distance from it and assimilate, become less of a target. Looking at visibly religious Jews and going "they're the reason it happened." Because they insist on being different. And there was fear and abuse that came with that.

And then the next generation reconnected to Judaism. That's my mom. She told me "I tried to do better than my parents, and you'll do better than I did." I'd call her a cycle breaker, only I don't entirely see it that way. Her hard work didn't make the trauma just vanish. It lives in me. But it's not as heavy.

My family carries trauma from centuries of persecution, pogroms and genocides. My family isn't "the problem." There's nothing wrong with my family. Not any more that there's something wrong with a person who can't walk steadily on a broken leg. It's just human.

I'm not saying it can never be the case that a family is the problem, but saying "generational trauma = your family is the problem" as if that's the default meaning, is blaming survivors for being wounded.

There's a very different kind of trauma that comes from broad societal harm, and I feel like people from families that don't carry this can't imagine what it's like.

It's not the past generations' fault that my family traumatized. Each of them did the best they could with what they had, and that's the tradition I'm continuing.

[shallowseeker]

Jack time travel fic idea

Mirroring Dean's speech to Mary in 12x01

DEAN (breathing heavily) Mom. Listen to me. Your name – your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, okay? You were born December 5, 1954, to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for, uh, work, and you bounced right along with him, and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas. MARY: How do you know all that? DEAN: Dad told me. March 23, 1972, you walked out of a movie theater – Slaughterhouse-Five. You loved it, and you bumped into a big Marine and you knocked him flat on his ass. You were embarrassed, and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So, you went to, uh, Mulroney's and you talked and he was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that – that you met – MARY: John Winchester. DEAN: August 19, 1975, you were married... in Reno. Your idea. A few years later, I came along, then Sammy.

///

Jack to Dean:

I know you don't trust me, but listen. You were born on January 24, 1979 to John and Mary Winchester. You say you're an Aquarius who likes long walks on the beach, but the truth is you really hate sand.

Your dad raised you in The Life, on the road with Sam. When you were 16, you got arrested for stealing and spent time in a boys' home. You loved it there.

You've had a gun in your hands for as long as you can remember, but what you really wanted to be was a fireman, a mechanic, maybe a rock star. Your favorite song is a tie between "Ramble On" and "Traveling Riverside Blues," and you always say that all music made after 1979 sucks. You've seen the "Untouchables" over fifty times and probably "The Lost Boys" even more than that.

You know 101 ways to make mac and cheese, and you don't know it yet, but you make the best Mexican Rotel casserole.

///

Jack to Cas:

I'm Jack Kline. I'm your...your...well. It doesn't matter who I am. Just know that I...I care about you. A lot.

Your name's Castiel. You're old. At least 4.543 billion years old, but you always say being an angel is like being old and young at the same time.

You’ve been a soldier as long as you can remember. Whenever you disagreed with your mission, Heaven tortured you. Gruesomely. You told me once that it felt like how the fish looked when it got blendered in Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo.

You know you caused the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and defeated the Romans at The Battle of Cannae. Sometimes, you were summoned to slaughter entire armies. Other times, it was to carry out genocide against all the children of the land.

You were there during the Great Flood, and when Gabriel led the slaughter of the Nephilim and their families. You told me once that you're terrified you've had human allies before. You're scared that you'll forget us, and your life will go back to how it was before, an endless cycle of war and death.

You raised Dean Winchester to Earth on September 18, 2008. That's why you decided to rebel again, maybe even for the last time.

///

Jack to Sam:

Your name's Sam Winchester. You were born cursed. May 2, 1983. Six months later, on November 2, Azazel infected you.

You felt that burden your whole life.

Your dad trained you to be a soldier, but your brother Dean was the one to raise and protect you. You spent most of your life hopping from one hotel to the next. It was crusty and horrible and you never felt like you belonged anywhere.

But you studied hard and got a scholarship to become a lawyer at the Harvard. There, you fell in love with the most beautiful girl, Jessica Moore...but then, Azazel came after her, too.

You'd never admit it to Dean, but after that, "My Heart Will Go On" by Celene Dion got you through some of the worst moments of your life.

You--you were the first one who told me that I could be good.

///

To Bobby:

"You dressed me like you! I like how you-you dresses better than the you that I knew. Not that I knew you. You were dead before I was born."

///

Bobby's face: 🤨

How Bobby dresses Jack:

[outpost51]

Pls tell me about the angels in your arsonists chronicles 👀

HI YES HI CAST ANGEL TIME I’m way too excited about this LMFAO

Anyway so! Angels! TL;DR of this post, Life Made angels from the clouds.

Why is this important?

W i n g s. The first batch of angels were seraphim, which have pure white or cream feathers and were pulled from cirrus clouds! Oh yeah, I went there. Why wouldn’t I go full weather nerd in this paranormal romance series c’mon!! Anyway, then came Thronim, Made at golden hour which stained the edges and in some cases all their underfeathers a bright, shimmering gold. Last came cherubim, who were Made just before sunset, when the edges of their feathers got stained with shades of dusty pink to rose gold. Listen I like my aesthetics, suspend your disbelief

The second batch came from stormclouds: dominatum have white feathers with brown and/or grey speckles; virtia have brown and/or grey feathers with a small-medium amount of white spots; and potestia have light to medium grey feathers with a blue or cinnamon sheen.

But what if different subtypes have a baby together?

Time for my favorite thing EVER: ✨ paranormal punnet squares ✨

Wing color dictates the subtype of angel, which will later determine abilities and career potential. Subtype is not guaranteed by parental mix, unless both parents are of the same subtype, and have that same subtype at least two generations back. A new subtype will not spontaneously appear in a family line, i.e. if two G3 seraphs have a child, who has two children with a G3 virti, the possibility for those children would be a seraph or a virti, but nothing else.

The Fae are really the only ones that said "oh we can have purple? we'll have a whole lotta that please!!” Minus the please because they’re major fuckin dickheads and the reason there are three gods instead of two.

And yes angels are only given a specific choice of careers according to their subtype, they are. Strict as fuck. It’s weird for how like gentle and soothing Life is that her brainchildren are so. Like That. ANYWAY.

Let’s talk social structure.

The hierarchy itself is like a two-tier cake, so you have everything in the high orders as more or less the same rank, and then everything in the lower order as more or less the same rank. High orders serve Sanctuary and low orders serve the rest.

The high orders are:

Sanctori make the laws. There are so fucking many of them and like 80% can be summed up as “mom said don’t fuck with the humans.”

Imperatori are the judges, there are no juries in Sanctuary. The “Supreme Court” of Sanctuary, aka where you go when you REALLY fuck up, is the Hall of Justice, presided over by the Seven. Current imperatori primus (basically maintains order and serves as the the tiebreaker vote) is Altael, and he is a Delight.

Iustitia are the jailers, they bring other angels to imperatori courts. They’re less cops and more like special agent bounty hunters. With swords. Big swords.

Custodia are caretakers of the holy holding tank, which is where MOST souls end up as long as they haven’t been bastards in life. It’s really hard to fuck up that bad AND YET sometimes people decide to commit genocide for breakfast.

Curatori are empaths and heart-healers. Imagine a therapist on steroids.

Aedifexi are the architects and builders, responsible for housing Sanctuary, maintaining the holy holding tank, etc.

And then we have the lower orders:

Ultori are those who cast out other angels. They do the imperatori’s dirty work.

Praesti are also known as justice keepers. They work with vigilisi (who are stuck at the borders and can’t go beyond) and go after Abominations that escape — to use a mass effect term, they’re basically Spectres.

Vigilisi, or veil watchers, patrol the border for Abominations.

Artifexi are the makers, tinkerers, painters, and other craftsmen.

Focari are those responsible for cooking, baking, etc. They keep Sanctuary fed!

Ultori are the exception to the lower orders serving the rest of the realm; they’re the executioners and thus seen as Unclean. And like the ultori, the curatori aren’t really “supposed” to be a high order and definitely aren’t treated as such, but they needed the authority in order to get where they needed to go. Aedifexi get their rank because they’re literally the backbone of society, there would be no bridges or buildings or indoor plumbing without the aedifexi. We can’t take the birdbaths away from the angels!!

So what happens to the angels who fuck up?

✨ they fall ✨

Naturally, because angels like everyone to fit in neat little boxes, fallen also have Special Titles:

Parvia are those cast out over minor offenses, technicalities, etc; their wings are left intact and they’re simply walked to the border. Bye, have a nice life, we also packed all your shit into this tiny magic box. Don’t open it indoors.

Mediocri are those cast out over nonviolent offenses, victimless crimes; their wings are broken but left attached, then they’re dragged to border and Fithum, Zegan, Stazor & Smith are contacted to come pick up their new case.

Indigni are those cast out over violent offenses; proportional to their crimes (according to the code set forth by the sanctori), their wings are shredded and they’re dragged to border and left for dead. FZS&S have a regular patrol that drives up and down the Veil in case they need to grab one before someone else does.

Nefasi really, really fucked up. Either someone died or a soul was destroyed; their wings are just torn off, and they’re taken to the platform outside the Hall of Justice, and they’re booted off the edge. Good luck! Only three angels have ever become nefasi, and only one has survived the subsequent boot to the back, but Phada is a story for another day. Ask me about vampires sometime >:)

[adudelol-reblogs]

undertale oc that i've never heard of before????

tell me NOW

-✨

LMAOO yeah rye :)

oh wow this got long putting this below a . read more <3

so. okay ive been an undertale fan since the game first came out right like i remember looking at the trailers for a new game releasing (2015) and so me and a friend, @scooky2 made ocs together! (Oh my gods scooky sun n rye are nine years old.)

but yes we've had them around for forever, snr (the oc group, stands for Sun aNd Rye, or Sun N Rye), are our ocs. Sun created by Scooky and Rye created by me. They've changed a lot over the past few years, but yknow, as all ocs do <3

So, rye is my beloved baby ray of sunlight . she's a trans gal (she/it/[redacted]), and lives near sun. she's adopted by a poly family, the smiths, and her social worker, stacy, is suns mom!

so thats how sun n rye met when they were. 13ish? Something like that

pretty much they've always been close friends, and sun has punched several transphobes whove been mean to rye LMAO

OH a note here: rye is pronounced like "Ray". She named herself to match Sun (Sunray, a ray of sun, etc) and i just find that so wholesome i love them your honour

Um. Pretty much when they're like,,, 19? 20? I don't exactly remember, but one day when they were walking on a trail they fell into mt ebbott into the underground

sun has a bravery? soul? I think? bravery yeah the orange one, and rye has the typical determination red soul. they kinda go through the underground like normal, until theeee undyne fight, where sun dies. rye freaks out and panics, causing her to also die BUT!

as the DT soul, she is sent to this voidlike place for a moment. in the distance, she can hear a voice talking to her, and it tells her to just believe in herself. and she comes back to her last save point!

rye loves her honorary sister, and so she leaves without sun and fights undyne. during this, rye feels like the only thing she can do here is to kill undyne to save sun so yeah . rip o7

throughout the story rye dies a bunch more times, and each time she finds herself in the void place, the voice getting louder and louder until one time she sees its some weird, melted goopy skeleton monster (gaster!)

i dont exactly remember everything said, but the point is during the first run, gaster built up his trust with rye, and when she fights asgore, gaster convinces her to reset (aren't you curious? find out what else could happen?) (you promised you would save me. how can you do that without learning more information?) (do what i tell you. don't you trust me? im showing you how to use your soul. your determination) all that kinda stuff

so rye agrees, resets and resets and resets doing dozens and dozens of different things -- genocide, killing everyone besides one specific monster, only kill this one, seeing how everything reacts. but the one thing, the one thing rye would never do was hurt sun

(don't you trust me, rye? killing sun might be the one thing that can unlock this information. trust me, she won't even remember it. she wont know it even happened)

the one thing rye would never was hurt sun, before.

sun.... it was always a quick, painless death. at least, rye hoped it was. rye still loved her sister, but... she needed to know after all, right?

eventually sans manages to convince rye that he remembers everything blah blah and that rye is being manipulated by gaster, that she doesnt have to do this

and rye, tired of the resets, tired of killing sun or hurting sun over and over and over stops. she fights against gaster, telling him to leave her alone and that she's not playing his game anymore

so, she finally gets to her pacifist route. she finally did it, but... there isn't enough human souls to break the barrier. so both rye and sun are stuck down here until frisk (who in our oc would is not a DT soul, since we have the lore that only one DT soul can exsist at once) comes down and the barrier is broken by frisk

thats the overall story done!

oh i totally forgot to mention this. but both sun n rye are humans at the start of this story. sun is part phoenix (oc monster race we have), and part giant (also oc monster race). she looks human though, and game-wise, is human with human stats in everything until around sometime in waterfall, where she falls off a cliff or something and nearly dies -- but the monster part of her soul unlocks and she transforms into her monster form (which is birdlike -- wings on her back, eyes change, feathers, etc).

rye, on the other hand, is human. but remember stacy? suns mom, rye's social worker?

stacy is part giant, and has been around since before the monsters were locked into mt ebbott. stacy had gotten away, just looking like a tall lady to most of the world, and every couple decades she has to move to get a new ID+keep up the act of being human since, after 50 years, how do you still look 20 LMAO

but yes, stacy is a monster. and she had given rye this one magical item -- that if rye was ever in serious trouble, yes, use this.

well, in the underground, rye went through several life or death serious situations, and had used the device -- it unlocks even more of the DT in her soul, transforming her into her monster form.

Rye becomes a medusa like creature, legs shifting into one long snake tail, and hair turning into a mass amount of snakes. when she was being manipulated by gaster, she learned that her human form did more damage to monsters, so she never used it often.

but once she realized she was stuck down here, she found out that the snake form felt more comfortable as long as she wasn't outside in snowdin (due to the cold). so she ends up spending most of her time in her medusa form, because well

i should say . snr are oc x canon. we made them when we were younger and idk that its cringe now cringe is dead etc etc but

but yes, oc x canon, and the canon characters? ...sans and papyrus. though sun and sans is romantic, rye and papyrus are a qpr :D

but yeah like i was saying . rye spends most of her time in her snake form because it also just makes sans feel idk like safer? that when she was being manipulated, when she was killing monsters, she did so in her human form and her snake form was her willing to be weaker yknow

anyways uh . wow this is long i just rambled

sorry if like none of this makes sense LMAO i didnt realized how long this is oh my gods

[popculturebuffet]

Superhero Valentine’s Double  Poll Winner Wedding Spectacular Part 2 of 2: Rogue and Gambit (X-Men Gold #30 and Mr. and Mrs. X #1)

Hello all you happy true believers! I’m jake I review stuff and welcome one and all to the second part of  my two part valentine’s wedding special. no need to see the first part mind you, these reviews are mostly standalone but both were selected by YOU fine folks via patreon poll and thanks ot a deadlock I coudln’t resolve due to voting myself, both get the spotlight. 

Last time I took a look at that time Aunt May almost married Doc Ock so he could steal the nuclear reactor Aunt May inherethed which went as well as could be expected of a wedding involving a younger man trying to swindle a vunerable old woman out of her money

Sadly our second winner dosen’t end in the shadow of a mushroom cloud but it is incredibly intresting and still involves children of the Atom at least. As i’ve said a few times on this blog I freaking love the x-men. Out of marvels’ MANY families of teams and characters, their my faviorite with tons of books having come out of the big M and the current Krakoa era being one of their finest.  I even tried retrospectivising one of my faviorite runs at one point but stopped both due to having too many other projects and a lack of intrest. Won’t stop me from trying again with another x-book at some point. So i’m pleased as punch to be back in the House of X and really delighed so many of you choose this one.

So before we get into the issues themselves we need to talk both about our lovebirds and about this era of X-Men. 

Rouge and Gambit have an up and down and down and up and sideways romantic history, which i’ve mostly had to research since the two’s constant will they or won’t they lines up with a lot of the gaps in my vast and redciulous knowledge of Marvel’s Merry Mutants: The 90′s Comics, X-Treme X-Men, X-Men Legacy (The last one i’m waiting to get a re-release at some point since Mike Carey’s run leading into it, which I have read, is really good). 

It’s a decades/years long tale of a sassy but sad inside southren belle who can’t touch people but can’ punch them through walls and a devil may care Cajun who accidently oopside daisy caused a genocide and can make things blow up real good, and the MANY MANY MANY things that came between them: From Rogue’s power, to Rogue finding out abotu the oopsy daisy genocide and leaving Gambit to die, to Rogue’s mom trying to seduce gambit to drive a wedge between them, to Rogue deciding to go with Magneto instead... which let’s be fair even if both are very sexy men.. I would too. Magneto is king of the mutants and the DILFS and I won’t take any objections to that. 

Point is their history is a lot, to the point writers just stopped bothering with it and shipped the two with other people for a while, Gambit flirting with Polaris and sleeping with his employers wife (He didn’t KNOW she was married to his credit), and Rogue dating Deadpool and Johnny Storm, aka winning out of the two. In fact had it not been for one mini series shortly before this, this wedding would not have worked. 

Said mini was Rogue and Gambit, a mini from the same era as today’s issues being reviewed where the two were sent undercover by Kitty Pryde to investigate a resort.. and since said resort used couples baggage as part of a nefarious plot, the two were forced to hash things out. THe result.. was immensely enjoyable to read, as the two adressed their long standing issues, while writer Kelly Thompson did a good job outlining the various “greatest hits’ of their realtionship for those like me who were less familiar making it accesable.  As a result by the end the two were back together, willing to give it one more shot and Rogue fully accepting her boyfriend had cats. Also Gambit has cats. As does the funko pop of him I have from All-New X-Factor. And yes they are adorable. 

So the two were in a good place. The same could not be said for X-Men comics at the time, which while not at i’ts lowest eb, that was the era before this, were still feeling woozy over here. The slow decline and attempted burial of the x-men is a time that still stings for the x-men: After AvX the books slowly dropped in quality owing to half baked creative decisions, letting known fuckup Brian Michael Bendis at the start of his rot as a creator run things, and not having a clear direction after the wonderful schism era. Things only got worse as Ike Perlmutter, aka the guy who nearly killed the MCU and drove edgar wright away from it with pure incomptence and arrogance, flexed what muscle he had and thus Marvel was forced to bury the x-men and the fantastic four , the x-men getting reduced to a small line with a terrible status quo about an inhuman cloud plauge killing them no one liked, and the ff scattered. All because they didn’t own the movie rights and he didn’t want to make more ips. Instead of you know focusing on making actual comics. It was a dark time. 

So a relaunch giving the X-Men a bigger spot in the marvel universe and taking the excinction angle away SEEMED like what we’d waited for... the x-men put in central park, given a major role and two teams: gold starring a bunch of fan faviorites and blue starring the o5 x-men, timedisplaced versions of the inagural x-men who’d changed a lot. And while it had excellent titles like X-Men Blue, X-Men Red, Iceman and Rogue and Gambit/Mr and Mrs X, for the most part the overwhelming response was rightfully

Most of the titles were forgetable disposable books that no one really cared about. And most disposable of all.. was the flagship book X-Men Gold. The premise, putting Kitty Pryde in charge of xavier’s school, was brilliant. But in practice it was just one long rehash of storylines told better: attempts to get rid of mutants via the goverment (and rather stupidly and hamfistedly with a deportation bill which dosen’t work for a number of reasons), sentinels that weren’t all that diffrent from before, and more. While Blue was throwing out fresh intresting ideas.. Gold was just giving us reheated leftovers with maybe one good arc. j

And the most reheated thing of all.. was Kitty Pryde and Colossus. Kitty and Pitor have had a likewise up and down back and to the left relationship, starting with the fact that when they first dated.. she was 14 and he was 19. I think I can best sum up my feelings on that with the following image

For the MOST PART it was just kitty hitting on peter and him being flustered but.. then you get this scene...

And it’s clear Claremont is treating this like any other romance and simply using the age diffrence.. as drama fuel instead of you know A REASON TO STOP.  He also had them MARRIED in Days of Future Past so you know.... 

Thankfully EIC Jim Shooter had the same reaction and demanded Chris Stop this, the rare time when editorial mandates saved a story. Granted being jim shooter he took it the extra step of writing a love intrest who conviently died in for Colossus during secret wars to facilitate said breakup, but still point is they broke up, we got Colosus Vs Juggernaut out of it and Wolverine was kinda creepy in how he treated things. All was well. 

The issue was after this it was portrayed as a straight up romance by most writers not realizing Kitty was underage, with Warren Ellis having Colossus come back as a vengeful ex.. then again this is the same serial sexual harasser who had kitty date a copy of himself so why am I suprised by this. 

Things really didn’t pick up again though until Colosus came back from the dead. X-Men: Even before we conquered death.. we’d basically still conquered death. The two emotoinally reunited under Joss Whedon.... because apparently serial creeps I once had the utomost respect for really liked the relationship between a grown man and a teenager. 

So the two were back together though since now both were adults, it was no longer creepy and life moved on... but this being x-men life moving on only lasted as long as the delays for astonshing x-men did and kitty soon found herself wedged inside a giant bullet in space. She came back, OF COURSE, and shortly after becoming solid.. they broke up because he became the juggernaut bitch. I’ts a much longer story i’ll cover some day as i’ts part of Kireon Gillien’s triumphantly awesome run on x-men, with a second thankfully coming next month, but point is they were broken up and his actions during AVX while possed by the phoneix further drove the wedge between them. 

So time passed and both.. just moved on much like our other couple. Peter dated Domino in a relationship I REALLY, REALLY liked as they had a nice contrast to one another but with real chemstiry and Kitty dated Bobby (his last relationship before coming out, something his solo series dealt with), and then of all people Star Lord because Bendis liked having her date peters for some reason. Point is by Gold BOTH had well moved on even if Kitty was single. 

Now I have a point for all of this... Kitty and Peter broke up but like Rogue and Gambit you COULD get them back together with enough effort. As you can probably tell by the fact the two aren’t married and Gambit stole their wedding, X-Men Gold writer Mark Guggenhiem put in exactly none. Like all but one arc of his run it felt like a greatest hits album as done by a cover band. Pitor wanted to get back together because shut up, Kitty didn’t because their relationship had been a mess for a while and they hadn’t done anything to reconclile, they got back together anyway.. and then DECIDED TO GET MARRIED. 

Fans naturally revolted. And usually when marvel hears us revolt over a decision their initial reaction is I’M NOT LISTENING LALALALLALALALALALALALA.  But for once, they geninely listened, and quickly scrambled to stop this trainwreck in time. The result is the issues i’m about to review, a glorious swerve that thankfully upended one of the worst decisions in X history into one of i’ts best and one of the best superhero wedding’s i’ve seen. So come with me under the cut, we’ve got a wedding to steal. 

X-Men Gold #30

The cover is beautifully drawn but... weird. Mostly because of WHO the artist decided to park in the foreground, especially our front row. The only ones in the front row six who make sense ot me are Illanya, Peter’s beloved sister and Kitty’s best friend she recently fully reconcliled with, Storm, the “happy” couple’s surrogate sister, and Rogue and Gambit, as a sneaky hint for the real ending since objectively the two really aren’t that close with either of the happy couple, with Rogue at most having dated Pitor breifly. 

But also up front we have Gamora and KITTY’S EX PETER QUILL whose apparently side eyeing her despite being with Gamora at the time? The hell? He was fully over Kitty. What. We also have Hank who was close to them once but at this point was not anyone’s faviorite x-man after various shady shenanigans: bringing the o5 to the present and trying to sell the team out to the inhumans just before this run being chief among them. And that god complex sadly would only grow as of late. “Sigh” I miss my blue boy. 

Also Doops up there which I get as a spacing thing but is just kinda weird as he’s another one of their exes just.. right in front row. Well okay he treid to be one. But still. It’s even weirder because Bobby, one of Kitty’s closest friends if yet ANOTHER ex but one she’s on good terms with, Warrren who was on a team with PItor for quite some time, and Rachel, another one of Kitty’s closest friends, are are alll in the middle and her excalibur teamates in Britan and Meggan are shoved closer to the back with the O5. It’s just.. weird is what i’m saying. Most of the guest list makes some sense but it’s all in this jumbled order just to get them into one group shot. Also Ben Grimm is there but he and Kitty were on the guardians for a while and I actually like the idea of the two being friends. Not because their both jewish, that’s stupid sharing a relegion dosen’ tmagically make you closer, but because the two just seem like they’d be fun pals. Their both scrappy, they have a signfigant age gap she can tease him about, and let’s face it, her surrogate dad is also an older man who smokes cigars and drinks a lot of beer and likes to punch people. Why WOULDN’T she and ben get along.

So we open with a recreation of their breakup from Uncanny X-Men 183, focusing on the line “Poetry.. from a man who said he didn’t have the words to express what was in his heart and soul”. The Dialouge’s the same too. My issue with this.. is we then cut to the same hill, now overlooking their wedding, set up for tommorow with Pitor talking about how insane his life is: travels to space, other dimensions.. “all dwarfed by the miracle of meeting you” A GENINELY heartfelt and romantic line which gets a call back to that statment “Poetry.. from a man who didn’t say he had the words”. My issue here is more we REALLY didn’t need the flashback. It makes it feel very GET IT GET IT instead of just using framing and that call back to tell the reader it’s that call back and simply letting longtime fans get it and fans who hadn’t read the issue enjoy the moment anyway. It’s a problem with guggenhiem’s run: while he’s usually not so on the nose he constnatly trots out important past stuff just to try and drum up feelings instead of making them his own. And as shown from this exchange he had the capablility. Kurt and Rachel’s relationship while far from perfect also shows he had valid romantic ideas.. he just couldn’t execute them. So the two head down to Harry’s Hideaway, one of my faviorite x-locations. It’s a local pub and thanks to being close to the mansion and Harry himself being a very nice gentelman, it was a frequent hangout of our heroes with Harry not giving one iota of a shit they were mutatns as a decent person should. We also get some really fun character interactions that make me wonder where THIS Mark Guggenhiem was the entire series. If he coudl do this why didn’t he the whole damn series? 

We also see Remy and Rogue for a second with the procedings having marrige on the cajun’s mind. Rogue brushes it off as more thinking about the honeymoon. Look Anne Marie it’s gambit.. his mind is 50% sex 30% stealing and taking things and 20% loving you. The man can still multitask. 

Lockheed’s also back.. apparently he was gone. 

But he does bring some guests i and apparently the current x-stable forgot about: his family. Yes LOCKHEED HAS A FAMILY. And it’s freaking adorable. Steve Orlando if your listening.. please bring them back. 

So after that Illyana takes Kitty out for a private drink. Sadly i’ts not a “I love you marry me instead” as shippers would hope, or anything given Shippers are STILL waiting for SOMETHIGN after Kitty came out as bi given the amount of subtext between the two.. and my bi ass is still waiting for someone to explore that, again steve.. please?, but instead is trying NOT to tell Kitty this is a bad idea. Which it is. Kitty being Kitty dosen’t let it sit and wants to know what’s up with her best friend not being excited about this marriage. So we get this. 

Okay the reasoning.. is flawed. I get what they were trying to say, as it’s what a lot of fans myself included were saying. It’s what I said a few paragraphs ago: the two hadn’t really put in any work to rebuild the relationship after going through a LOT of stuff: Kitty tutored time displaced versions of her older friends, nearly married a space man, lead the guardians of the freaking galaxy, dated a closeted gay man, got brood implanted in her, and left and rejoined the school, not to mention came back from space to find mutantkind ravaged by a horrifying plauge.. AGAIN. And Pitor was the Juggernaut, found out his sister was the reason he WAS the juggernaut, became an x-force, dated domino, came back to the x-men and had to win his friends back for some reason despite being possed because that era equated possesion with the person doing this of their own accord, and I don’t have a last one. They’ve both been through a lot and when they did get together last time.. it was because he just came back and the emotions of that. And they never truly adressed the reason they broke up last time either, Pitor having a savior complex. There’s a lot of baggage and time passed and no attempts to actually deal with any of that, just two people desperate to feel something and are fast fowarding to marriage in the hopes that’ll make them happy. 

Instead it’s “ehhhh you shouldn’t be together because it shoudl’ve happened by now”. For one, bold of Yana to be the one to say this when she was part of why they broke up: Kitty didn’t trust her after coming back, and was tired of Peter’s self sacrifical nature, and him combinging BOTH by becoming Juggernaut in Illyana’s stead caused Kitty to leave him. And guess who planned for him to do that out of love as part of some messed up attempt to make him not care about her any more? I’ll give you a hint: she has a giant sword and is also bisexual as fuck but no one’s done anything with it. So yeah maybe don’t bring up problems you helped cause. 

More importantly Kitty’s right. It usually went off for good reasons: she was underage and he coudln’t have a full relationship with her as an adult when she wasn’t one, she moved on , he became a super villian, he died, she moved on again, she merged with a giant space bullet, she broke up with him for vallid reasons he has , again not yet actually dealt with. As of this writing he hasn’t dealt with his deep abdiing guilt complex. Being on and off isn’t the problem, her being way too young and claremont way too stupid, and various writers dramatically ripping them apart has and again while Gambit and Rogue went through the same they took actual steps to deal with it. Kitty hasn’t. It fees like Gug didn’t realize WHY people wanted these two to break up and thus had to make up a reason when the fans had been YELLING the reasons at him for over a year at this point. This is no one likes this run: while I get placeholding for Jonathan Hickman is a rough gig, the other person doing this, Cullen Bunn actually TRIED. He still wrote stories and character arcs and had actual plans. Guggenhiem just wanted to relive his childhood and did so poorly. 

So the next day Nightcrawler helps Pete with his bowtie and reveals he’s going to ask Rachel to marry him after the wedding. Which would be geninely romantic.. if A) they hadn’t started dating during this run during a time period of months and B) if she wasn’t written off after this and the two had interacted at all since this era. 

We do get some heartwarming moments that can’t help but make me tear up slightly. First we have Kitty and whose helping her get ready: Her mom, Stevie Hunter, her secondary surrogate big sister who was brought back for this run in one of the handful of good ideas mark had, and Storm... as Kitty puts it..

It’s incredibly touching even if the wedding it’s for is about not to happen. Speaking of which Logan whose not there because his status at the time was “Continuity Clusterfuck” does at least watch the procession

Which is also what I say anytime one of my ships becomes canon so I can relate. 

At the venue, Storm makes the weather purdy, awww and 05 Jean and Scott talk about how fucking weird their lives are

I.. really miss these versions of the characters and I really regret it took TWO runs to get them right and by the time they did Marvel still got rid of them. I mean it streamlined things for Hickman so I get why they did it but I can still miss them and wish they got to krakoa. We also get a nice moment with the actual happy couple. 

Then the wedding happens, complete with  Rabi who gives a beauitful speech i’m speeding through because while nice.. it’s not while we’re here. It does make me think the ending changed at the last second. My best guess is Thompson was already tapped for a full ongoing to replace Rogue and Gambit and editor jordan white, realizing they had a mess and an opportunity talked to Thompson and Guggenhiem. and with Gugg almost out the door he really had no reason to argue, Thomspon probably said Eff Yess and here we are. Hence why the issue is mostly written as them going through with it.. till this happens

I trimmed it down for fair use, but you get the gist. Everyone is sad at the reception, while outside it Pitor and Kitty have a heart to heart. The Phasing was just a rush reaction but Kitty really can’t marry him. As for why i’ts more “Blah blah blah I don’t know why but we can’t because the writer dosen’t get whyt his is stupid. “ I covered this well enough before, this scene is more of the same.  Also Illyana feels guilty since this is her fault. This isn’t why your all here.. no.. what’s next is and we get a GENUIELY awesome, romantic and heartfelt scnee. Observe. 

The art here is impecable, has been all issue but here especially having Rogue haszy in the foreground.. and then slowly come into view as Gambit leaves it, as his vision is clear: not on himself.. but on her.. and their future. 

It’s a truly beauitful moment, Remy realizing why wait after all this time, Anna Marie going with it and thier friends turning the worst moment of their lives into one of the best. And it made me cheer.. and as I said I hadn’t really followed their relationship. I didn’t really care about them as a couple and hadn’t read their recent mini, I did AFTER this for context. But before it it was still geninely a charming swerve and after.. it’s so fucking beautiful. Two people who have had a lifetime of strife and realized they can’t be without one another.. finally making it offical. ANd it fits both: Rogue’s life is a massive series of unexpected: from comaing her boyfriend to working with her gay moms most hated enemy to loosing her powers, gaining them again, gaining a diffrent set, and to making out with both magneto and deadpool in the span of a few years in and out of universe, having her boyfriend propose and use someone else’s wedding fits. And as for Remy, being a charming rogue with a flair for the dramatic, STEALING a wedding, proposing in front of all their friends despite immense risk of rejection and without a hint of using it to pressure her or make her feel bad, and doing so for all the best reasons.. it’s truly charming. Please don’t undo it marvel we’re begging you. 

So with that we get our vows and if my heart hadn’t melted enough...

So they kiss, and thus the two are a couple! But there was a bit more to it than that. So as an added bonus i’ll also be covering part of the insuing series the two shared, Mr and Mrs X’s first issue. Not the whole thing as it dovetails into the first arc of the series, but since the issue covers both the two getting read with their respective bridal and groomal parties and the reception, it only felt fit to include it. Soooo

(Most Of) Mr and Mrs X #1

So we open with another beauitufl bit of romance talking about space, stars colliding it’s good stuff but i’ve skirted fair use enough for once day. Let’s get to the meat of it. A few hours before the wedding Gambit is getting ready with his Groomal Party which consisits of Storm, Wolverine (Laura Kinney), Scout, and of all people Gambit. For those less familiar with Remy in comics there’s a valid reason for each one: Storms one of his closest friends, the two having met when Storm was magically turned into a child, and Storm getting back to the X-men lead to him joining his friend on the team. How she got that way: Siege Perlous it’s a long story. How she got back to normal?

As for the rest, Laura is also one of Gambit’s closest friend. While I haven’t read the solo series their close in he also popped up in All New Wolverine and the friendship has held fast sense, Scout is laura’s clone/little sister, and he’s likelywise protective of her and Gambit.. apparently they became friends after Gambit accused him of murder when he first showed up? I dunno man the X-Men are weird and even I don’t know how the hell everything stacks up. Still makes more sense than Kitty giving her ex-fiance front row tickets at least. Bling, a former student of gambits also shows up to make the rings. Oh sorry I spelt that wrong Bling! shows up to make the rings. Laura also asks if Gambit would like a calming stabbing while the fact this team talks stabbing at all tells Bishop he choose wisely. 

Meanwhile Rogue and Illayna are looking for some old tech to use, with Rogue needing it both to do the kiss.. and for tonight. illayna nearly wretches but Rogue points out she ASKED. She can’’t unask. Plus what did she think was going to happen tonight if not some sexy times. 

Meanwhile Rogue’s team is madeup of Psylock(Betsy Braddock) , Jean, Pixie, Yana, Bobby and Nightcrawler. Psylocke and Rogue have known each other a long time and been on MULTIPLE teams together, including their longest stints with the x-men, Jean was around during the 90′s and while not on the same team still saw Rouge often as they lived in the same place, PIxie and Yana.. I dunno, and as for our two men in the group... well they explain it. 

Also Rogue you’ve been an x-man long enough to know that all of you having to storm a castle is not just likely it’s probable. Though weirdly enough despite how chaotic the rest of their lives is X-Men weddings are a real coin flip: Sometimes nothing goes wrong and the most you get is emotional upheavel like today or nothing at all like Jean and Scott’s weddings.. and sometimes Havok breaks up with his girlfriend at the altar for someone else and she has a mental breakdown over him cheating on her and you know, dumping him at the altar. You just can’t tell ahead of time. 

Jubilee is also really fucking adorable here as she’s acting a lot like her much younger self as she excitedly tries to get Rogue something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. The old is touching, Betsy giving her the antique earrings she’s wearing (Since as Jubes points out borrowing is a diffrent thing), Jean freshly picks from flowers for new and Illanya brings Kitty’s veil in for borrowed. That just leaves something blue.. and while as Kurt pouts later he could be something blue.. someone else steps in for it. 

The bridal party give them a minute. Turns out Misty was there as Abigail brand as she wasn’t going to miss the mutant wedding of the year. I mean her minon melted the would’ve been groom once, there’s history there. She didn’t even bring a plus one... mostly because the urn filled with what of Destiny’s ashes spilled on her in her awesome after death prank would’ve been a dead giveaway. 

But i’ts an excellent scene with the two: Rogue is rightfully supscious, especially since as I said Mystique once tried to seduce him while pretending to be a teenager just to break them up, so it’s not like she HASN’T done evil schemes to meddle in her daughter’s life. But Raven has grown: she just wants to be there for this, and for her daughter. No evil schemes or attempted simulated statutory. Just watcing from a distance sincce, you know not many people would be happy having Mystique there. If you think Kitty, Peter, Rogue and Gambit’s previous romantic entaglements are complicated, try the mother of one of the brides. 

So we find out at the altar the thing Rogue was getting was a power dampener. Hurts like hell but she wanted a kiss at her own wedding.. and the honeymoon. And so their married.. again and we get the reception. Gambit has already called in favors for the honeymoon and despite Jubilee’s justified worries he’s just going to visit new orleans again, he’s a romantic. And i’m with him, i’ts a shame they don’t realize that. Rogue meanwhile is on a shit ton of painkillers with Beast mocking her for asking why there wasn’t a better version of a mutant power go bye bye machine. So the two take off and get off...

IN SPACE!

And i’m not saying the get off part to be cute.. the following dialouge implies they’ve been at it for SEVERAL HOURS. God damn. I wouldn’t expect less but god damn. Gambit does make plans to go surface side, if nothing else than to give rogue a break from the collar.. but not before she makes ANOTHER attempt to break his pelvis with round 7. After that Kitty calls them, is shocked their naked, but has a mission for them, we’re off on our other plot and that does it for this review. If you all ask nicely enough I may cover this series in full at some point it’s excellent. For now though let’s leave the happy couple to their space battle. 

If your curious where they are now they’ve been happily married since, both serving on Excalibur (and thanks to Apocalypse, yes that apocalypse, Rogue can now touch people again without killing them), and now on seperate teams as Gambit has stayed on Excallibur while Rogue has joined the new team of X-Men though Remy still visits the treehouse, their new hq, plenty.. and has poker games while his wife isn’t there because it’s Remy. So a toast to the groom to the groom, to the bride to the bride and may you always be satsified. Thanks for reading. 

Two more bits of buisness for those who stuck around. First if there’s an issue or arc of x-men you want me to cover join my patreon! 5 buck patreons get a review bolted to the schedule every month: no matter what other slippage may happen, this review WILL get done, as well as a seat at the table deciding what I review in my polls each month. Patreons get to pick one of the options every time so join as soon as you can to be in the room where it happens Join by next month and help me pick a sonic Uk story to celebrate sonic month, join my april to help me pick an episode of a teen superhero show to review. And if you want to vote in the currently ongoing poll to pick an early Danny PHnatom episode feel free. Links are bellow and happy valentine’s day. 

Patreon

Poll

[gpsoftun]

This upcoming Sunday, my family has the simple but cherished pleasure of going out for lunch together on behalf of our queen and matriarch. I frequently think about Mom describing her reaction to my eldest sister’s birth. How it did not dawn on her until that moment that she now had a responsibility for the rest of her life. No, not until my sister came of age but for Mom’s entire life. Since then, for better or worse, that’s a realization she’s put into practice every single day. I relate to that mindset where my princess niece and little prince nephews are concerned. As I am an anomaly that does not reflect my pre-adopted background, Mom is an exception to motherhood, not the rule.

Unlike their paternal counterparts, mothers are bestowed with celebration and praise well before and long after their designated May holiday. The black community particularly takes the adoration to borderline biblical idolization. This is due to the notable absence of fathers among black Americans. Since they almost always wind up as the sole caregiver- often supplemented with government assistance- they’re in the perfect position to endorse their own worship. They influence their children and onlookers to see them as these heroines of womanhood doing it all and scooping up full credit for any glimmer of success obtained by their offspring. This control of the narrative along with having mainstream media in their favor take attention away from the fact that non-widowed single mothers are not actually arms-wielding warriors for their children. At best, they are atoning for picking a poor mate and failing to provide a functioning two-parent household or stable co-parenting situation. Again, this is the best case. What no one ever wants to talk about are the displays of anger exhibited by single mothers who have to bring in an income plus interact with very dependent little ones who, after a hard day’s work, they will often view as nagging vermin with the nerve to expect an affectionate greeting at the front door. Not to mention the revolving door of, often abusive, men these women expose to the impressionable youngsters. In addition, these mothers are notorious for numbing their woes with substance abuse, violent behavior, and the emotional abuse of projecting their countless failures and wasted opportunities onto their children. This is what causes the depraved generational cycle of promiscuous teenage daughters desperate to have a man in their lives to not end up alone like their own mothers and to make up for not having a strong father involved in their upbringing. Then there are sons so brainwashed into undeserved devotion to their mothers that they grow up spineless, unskilled, lazy, and incapable of being real fathers to the, often numerous, children they sire.

Recent events in the US have cast an even darker shadow on Mother’s Day. So much overdue rage and debates have reignited in the courts and on the streets alike over Roe v. Wade that a civil war appears inevitable. In the midst of this, how does no one see the twisted irony in devoting an entire holiday to a vulnerable child’s executioner? Since 1973, it has been legal across these United States for pregnant women to view the developing baby as a miraculous gift or inconvenient garbage to be tossed no differently than a soiled tampon. Literally, every single one of us born after 1973 are mass genocide survivors of the most dangerous battleground on the planet for any human being- the womb. This is not true because every woman will abort their child but because every woman *can* abort their child. While all children are at the mercy of their parents’ mood swings, harming a born child is condemned for the heinous act that it is. An even more nauseating fact is the number of beaming women accepting gifts this Sunday for the offspring they decided to keep. Meanwhile, they discard the unfortunate ones from their minds as easily as they dumped their butchered remains into a rubbish heap.

What is Mother’s Day for some is very much Murderer’s Day for too many others.

This is legal.

This is abominable.

This is factual.

This is every. Single. Day.

For those of you with humility enough to wonder what makes you worthy of the slightest praise in May or any day? Bare minimum? When your children announce they’re taking you out and your first concern is hoping you will have enough time to get their laundry done.

[warm-starlight]

My thoughts regarding SnK chapter 139

Read at your own risk because my thoughts are all over the place and incoherent. 😅

So when the spoilers came out i innitially cringed a bit because of how cheesy the leakers made it sound due to the salt lol. After Korean raws came out, i liked the images. The art is phenomenal! After reading the official translation i am in love with it. ❤😭

It was so incredibly bittersweet, just like Isayama promised us.

The entire EreMin dialogue was heartwrenching and i said that if Eren pulls a Lelouch i will apologize for hating his character so much post TS. So i guess i have to apologize.

This dude was willing to turn himself into an absolute monster to ensure his friends have a bright future ahead of themselves. He believed that with him laying down the foundation and dirtying his hands to the point of being irredeemable they will be able to ceize their own future.

The story he told about Ymir and her motivation explains few things: Why she protected the king with her body, why she kept building the titans even after Eren seemingly freed her, why killing Zeke stopped the rumbling and why Eren told her "You're not a got nor a slave. Just a human being". He felt how strong her love for the king was and realized she is just a poor girl who was bound by her feelings.

Then we go to the talk about Mikasa and Eren reveals he has been in love with her that whole time, but kept it within because he knew their love is impossible, because he will have to die for their sakes. He completely bares his soul to Armin revealing his selfish, pathetic, Human side which i absolutely loved btw! But despite that he asks Armin not to tell her about it as he wants her to be happy, never wondering what if.. This also confirmed that the scene in 138 was in fact their shared dream and not "mikasa's delusion"..i hope antis die of embarassment now haha.

It is also revealed Mikasa's choice that time in 138 will lift the curse of the titans. Ymir was waiting for a girl who is deeply in love to show her how to break free and let go of her loved one.

This was what led Ymir to smile and finally free herself and remove the curse from the world.

It seems that everyone got their little talk with Eren, except Levi and Pieck. I think Eren was not sure what to tell Levi or maybe because Levi is an Ackerman, getting him to the paths was too much effort, considering he could only access Mikasa's mind only moments before his death.

In the end all their friends acknowledged his sacrifice (not the genocide!). Annie and Jean calling him suicidal blockhead for one last time made me sad and nostalgic. Annie showed she cared about him since trainee days... 🥲

Now we get to Levi's final goodbye and this was the moment i started crying. This man... He suffered so much, lost Everyone, destroyed his body just to make sure their deaths had meaning, but in the end it was all worth it, so he gave them a soft smile while shedding tears. Don't get me started on Hange being front and center ashdnkhdudjndnkxh

The warriors reunited with their loved ones, FaBi got to see each other again and their suffering also ended..

Armin's scene was such a great callback to trost arc.

It was sooo good. Also bonus Annie blushing at her husbando.

Three years later we see Queen historia with her beloved child who is now free from the titan curse, being happy and soft. She is probably much better mom than her own mother was

But she is also a Queen of the country who has become like a fascist dictatorship. 😬

Despite that, she retains her kindness for her friends, sheltering Jean's and Connie's families from the Yegerists. She is a strong, independent woman.

She writes her letter and tells Armin and co even if Eren was right about one side not being able to live in peace until the other is wiped out, he left Paradis in *their* hands, meaning Herself and The alliance. Which is why i believe the peace negotiations would go successfuly.

I am really digging Armin's speech here. Armin has been a chad this entire time heh.

And so we see Levi chilling in a wheelchair in Onyankopon's country, living the life, until a plane flies by and Onyankopon gives him that look. And he looks somewhat sad.

An anon pointed out that the bubble of "They'll want to know what we saw" being placed on Levi's panel is so poetic, because from 115 Levi only saw Hange and followed her lead to free humanity and i agree.

And finally we see Mikasa sitting by Eren's grave, waiting for everyone to join her. Her clothes and longer hair indicate she indeed became the same normal girl she was before she met Eren. She misses Eren, it's normal, but a bird comes by and wraps a scarf around her, making her smile and look happy which gives just the right amount of sweetness to the story.

My only complaint about the story comes from Bias. Yeah, Isayama killed Hange for seemingly no reason, but i think the reason was simple: He needed to portray two characters who love each other letting go of each other, of their dream to remain together forever for the sake of the world and create a parallel between Ymir and the king and Mikasa and Eren. As i said earlier, Hange didn't do it for fame or recognition, she did it so humanity could keep surviving and so Levi could see the world without walls that he talked about in front of her in uprising.

I think no matter what happens, Levi will Never forget them as long as he lives just like Mikasa will never forget Eren.

So i guess that's it.. I sincerely am grateful to Isayama for not letting me down with his story, for creating amazing, relatable, Human characters, for sending me on a rolercoaster of emotions every month and it was so many emotions from depression, to thrill, to happiness, to anger... 🥲

I think just like the editor said i will reread the story from the beginning and with the ending in mind. It should give me a whole new perspective!

Oof this got long. If you are still here, thanks for reading.

[glitterandmoondustofficial]

Lost And Found

Characters: Law, Lammy, Heart Pirates Rating: Teen Warnings: Language, PTSD, Depression, and Anxiety mention Notes: I know this has probably been done a million times but it’s my turn (: AO3 Link

~~~~~

“Where are you going today, Cap?” Shachi grinned at Law. Law shrugged. “Wandering?”

Law grunted. He watched his crew walk off the Polar Tang. Not at the actual port, of course. Submarines were suspicious enough, let alone one sailing with a black flag. They found a quiet little beach to disembark safely. Law looked back at Shachi. “You know what they say about assuming things.”

“Pawn shops for coins, then.” Law rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m going to find some good grub.” Shachi rubbed his stomach for emphasis. “Want to come with? Or have you decided this is going to be a day where you ignore your own advice and not eat?”

“You’re being rather annoying this morning,” Law quipped.

“Just worried about my cute junior,” Shachi cooed at him. Law rolled his eyes again. Shachi patted his back with one hard pat. “I’ll see you later, Captain. Enjoy your day.”

Law muttered his thanks before adjusting Kikoku. He watched Shachi walk off of the Tang for a moment before sighing and moving to leave the submarine himself.

Shachi was not wrong. Law planned on wandering the island and then probably going to look at coins. Simple pleasures, Law supposed. After a life of whatever in the hell his life has been,  it’s nice to have some form of hobby that doesn't involve violence or medical procedures…or both.

Law walked off the Tang and along the beach, watching the sea hit the shore. He watched a tiny crab scurry from the sand to the sea in some hurry that only crabs could be in. As he walked further down the beach he noticed that people were starting to appear. It looks like he made it to the public beach. Law made a disgusted face. He supposed it was time to look in the town, lest he be surrounded by a bunch of fun-goers.

Law made his way to the port town. Nothing special about it. He wondered if his trip would be fruitless. He might have gone to an island with no new books, no island-specific coffee, or worse, no new coins. He huffed. He wouldn’t know until he actually looked.

His shoes made a tapping noise as he walked on the stone ground. People walked past him, completely unaware of who he was. Or maybe they just really, really didn’t want to acknowledge who he was. Either way, Law didn’t care. He was on a mission. Buy stuff.

He walked past food stands and restaurants, not paying them any mind. He wasn’t in the mood for food, and no one seemed to be selling any quality coffee. He continued walking, looking for anything interesting. He caught sight of a bookstore. Finally. Maybe this place would hold his interest.

He adjusted Kikoku and walked towards the shop. He was almost smacked with the door when someone decided to exit at the time he tried to open it.

“Oh! Sorry!” The woman apologized.

“Whatever. It’s fine,” he grumbled.

He looked at the woman. Her light brown hair was in a braid. Her gold eyes met his and they stared at each other silently.

Of all the things that Law expected to find on this island, this was not one of them.

He stared at the ghost in front of him, not sure what to do. He swallowed bile in his throat, everything coming back to him at once. She looked like her. She looked like his mother. He took a deep breath and looked her over again. No, too much of his father. She looked like Lammy would have, had she had the chance to grow up.

“Law?” The woman spoke up and Law’s ears started to ring. It couldn’t be. “Law?” Her voice grew more anxious. “Is that you?” She knew him? Is that really her? He let out a shaky breath and felt himself reach towards her.

Law snapped back to reality and withdrew his hand. Of course she knew him. He was Trafalgar fucking Law, the Surgeon of Death. He looked at the woman’s face and noticed the tears running down her face.

“Law, it’s you isn’t it?”

“That’s not exactly a hard thing to figure out. I’m sure my bounty poster is everywhere.” He tried to sound calm but his voice was shaking.

“That’s not how I know you. That’s…” she trailed off. “You’re alive! You’re-”

“In the way,” a flat tone said from inside the building.

“Oh!” The woman said. “I’m so sorry. We’ll get out of the way.” The woman took Law’s arm and started to drag him away. Law was so stunned by the action that he didn’t fight back at first.

Once he realized what was happening he pulled his arm back swiftly. “I don’t know who you think you are but-”

She turned to look at him, tears still flowing down her cheeks. “You remember me don’t you? I’m Lammy. You’re my brother.”

Law felt nauseous again. “Lammy died,” he snapped. “She died in that fire.”

“I didn’t. Almost did, but I didn’t. I was saved.” Law eyed her, not believing a word she said, but as he did he noticed the all too familiar white splotches on her tan skin, just like him. Just like his splotches. But still - there’s no way she was saved. It was genocide. They set the hospital on fire on purpose. It was to kill everyone inside.

His chest tightened and it was hard to breathe. He felt a cold sweat run down his face. Anxiety. PTSD. His vision was blurry for a moment until he felt a hand on his forehead.

“You’re hot,” she said. “Come on. I’ll take you to my flat.”

She started to drag him off again and this time he couldn’t find the strength to fight back. Before he knew it he was laying on a couch in a small apartment with a cold washcloth on his forehead.

He stared at the ceiling and then over to “Lammy,” who was reading a book in a chair across from him. He narrowed his eyes at her and felt himself become nauseous again. He felt hot, like a fire was lit under his feet. He smelled smoke and corpses. He swallowed down bile again. He needed to get out of here.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, not looking up from her book. “I know that look. That’s the “I’m going to run” look patients get.”

“What, are you a doctor?”

“Yep. It’s natural, isn’t it? I mean, Mom and Dad were.” Law sat up, the washcloth falling into his lap. He looked around the apartment. Not much to it, honestly. It looked very bare. “And you became a pirate captain, interestingly enough.”

“I’m still a doctor,” he said automatically, not thinking about it.

They stared at each other for a moment, scrutinizing and analyzing each other. Law realized how much this woman looked like his mother. It made him want to cry. An old buried ache in his heart that was long repressed.

“I can’t believe you still have the hat,” Lammy spoke up.

“My sister got it for me.”

Lammy smiled brightly. “Ah, I suppose that makes sense. I don’t have anything from that time.” She sighed and closed her book. “What’s with all the tattoos?”

“You did just state that I’m a pirate captain,” he said flatly.

Lammy chuckled. “Yeah. How exactly did that happen?”

Law narrowed his eyes and his skin prickled. “Why would I tell you that?”

“Ah, you still don’t believe that I am who I say I am.”

“You think I’m just going to believe anyone who says they’re my dead sister?”

“How many people know you have a dead sister?” She questioned.

Doflamingo, he thought to himself, very aware of the fact that this could easily be a trap and he was already shit out of luck. What an idiot he was! He was so easily taken away by some random woman because he had a little PTSD. He should be better than this. When was the last time he made a fool of himself like this?

“How about I tell you what happened?” Law didn’t answer so she took that as permission. “The hospital was set on fire and I was dying. Well, dying faster. I passed out from the smoke, knowing that I was about to die alone,” she frowned and rubbed her arms. “The next thing I knew I woke up in a bed by a window with a curtain blowing in the breeze. It smelled like honeysuckle. A nurse walked in the room and started taking care of me. I asked all the normal questions. “Where am I? Where was my family? What happened?” And the like. She didn’t answer any, she told me to wait for the doctor.” She went silent.

“And?” Law prompted.

Lammy blinked. “The doctor came to see me eventually. He told me someone had pulled me out of the hospital and took me to another town near the shore. The doctor had heard about Amber Lead and was trying to work with anyone who could help cure the poison. Turns out he was too late,” she said bitterly. “Everyone died.” Law didn’t say anything. “I was sick and dying. I couldn’t get out of bed and I barely had a voice due to all the smoke I inhaled. I felt like whatever had happened was just a bandaid on a bullethole. I was going to die. Amber Lead was going to kill me. And I was miserable. I endured too many surgeries when I was so young.” She sighed. “The doctor performed one last surgery and I was okay. I wasn’t dying anymore. Something about it being in my liver.” She shrugged

Law swallowed. “And after that?”

“I helped the doctor in whatever way I could for saving me, but over the course of the months I was there the Navy ran raids, looking for people from Flevance who may have escaped, and as you are well aware, the scars never faded.” Law looked at his hands and the white splotches on his skin. “So, I found my way off the island. I stowed away on a cargo ship, eating scraps and sharing space with rats. I hid pretty well for a recovering, sickly eight year old girl. I would stop at an island, stow away on another ship, and then do it all over again a few times until I found an island where I finally decided to stay. Found an orphanage. Stayed there. Went to school and got the best grades so I could do everything on scholarship. Became a doctor and found myself on this island. Uh, that’s it, I guess.” She sighed. “I suppose it’s not believable and sounds like any story book tragedy. I mean, why would anyone save me when they were killing everyone else and…”

Law tuned out her anxious rambling and stared at her quietly. He let out a breath, starting to become far too emotional for the cool and calm captain of the Heart Pirates. What if this wasn’t a trap? What if she was who she said she was? What if she really was Lammy? What if what if what if…

“If,” he spoke up and interrupted her. “If you’re really Lammy,” he continued slowly. “Tell me something I would only know.”

Lammy frowned. “Well, let me think that far back. It’s been years since we saw each other and I barely remember anything it was so long ago.” She tapped her fingers together. “Do you still collect coins? Do you collect the Sora comics? I remember us reading them together.” Law frowned and his bottom lip quivered a bit. “Uh, let’s see, you once got in trouble at school for bringing a frog to your class photo.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. He breathed in through his nose. “Okay.”

“Do you believe me?”

He wanted to. He so badly wanted to. “If I did, what would you do?”

“Uh, hug you, I guess.” She cleared her throat. “I heard about a Trafalgar Law becoming a pirate captain, but I thought “no way, that’s not my brother.” However…it is you and-”

“What’s my middle name?” He interrupted her.

“What?”

“What’s…our middle name?”

Lammy blinked. “Duh, I suppose that would’ve been the easiest way to figure it out. It’s “D.””

Law didn’t mean to make a tiny pained noise that came from deep within his throat, but he did. It was Lammy. Who else knew that secret information?

Lammy smiled softly. “Want that hug?”

“Shut the hell up,” he said, holding every emotion back and failing spectacularly at it.

Lammy walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Law immediately held onto her. Lammy was here. His baby sister was here and alive.

He blinked away tears to the best of his ability. He heard Lammy sniffle and his heart ached. He dreamed of this. He had prayed for this knowing that it would never be answered. Life was cruel and painful and yet she was here, crying with him.

They held onto each other crying, letting their pain out. Their hearts were bare for one another. Law had never felt this much joy and hurt at the same time. His head and heart were racing. He felt light headed and nauseous. Of all the things he ever counted on happening, this was one he knew was never going to happen.

After long minutes of crying like he hasn’t cried in years, they pulled out the wine. Lammy asked him what happened and he told her. He told her cautiously, but he told her. Of a twisted fate marked with pain and suffering. He told her how he escaped and of The Family. He told her about Cora-san. He told her about how he survived with his three companions for so long.

Lammy nodded. “A lot has happened to you,” she giggled after a moment. “And you became a criminal.”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

She shrugged causally. “It’s your life, you did what you wanted so that’s what mattered. You’re happy now, yeah?”

Law took a sip from his wine. “Ish.”

“Ah, yeah.”

“What about you?”

“Eh.” She shrugged. “Could be worse. Could be better.”  She paused. “Tell me about your adventures.”

Law raised a brow. “Why?”

“What do you mean “why?” Because I wanted to hear what’s out there!”

Law chuckled. “Okay, I’ll tell you some.”

Law told her about the many islands and adventures he had been on, leaving out the more…violent parts. He didn’t need his sister to know everything about being a pirate. She listened eagerly, her eyes wide like a child being told an exciting bedtime story. They finished the wine together and were laughing by the end of the bottle.

“That all sounds amazing!” She exclaimed. “I wish I could see the world like that.”

Law hesitated for a moment before swallowing. “You could come with me.”

“Huh?”

“You could come with me.”

“To be a pirate?” She squeaked. Lammy looked at him with wide eyes. “I-I don’t know. I mean, we’re together again after so long but…to become a pirate…”

Law frowned. “You’re right. Never mind. I don’t want to put you in harm's way. If you stay here, I know where you are and that you’ll be safe.”

Lammy sighed slowly and nodded. “Yeah.”

They went silent. Law looked out the tiny window. It was getting dark. It wouldn’t be out of the question for someone to spend the night somewhere and off the sub, but it didn’t feel right staying over. Yes, they were reunited, but they were still strangers. It had been over a decade since they saw each other, they had no idea who each other were anymore. In fact, Law was sure that if Lammy really got to know him, she’d turn him away.

Law placed his wine glass on the coffee table and stood up. “I should probably head back to my ship.”

“Already?” Lammy frowned sadly. “We just…” she trailed off. “I’ll walk you to your ship.”

“You want me to let my sister walk alone at night?”

“I’ve got tiny safety weapons,” she pouted. “Besides, this island is safe, there’s never any issues here.”

That she knew of. Law thought to himself. Who knows what the government and Navy could be covering up.

“No, Lammy. I want you to be safe at home.” He reached out and ruffled her hair. “I will write to you.”

He watched tears fall down her face. She stood up and hugged him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her and frowned. He didn’t want to let her go again, but their lives were so different that he had to. He needed to let her live her own life and let himself live his own life.

Eventually they said their goodbyes and Law walked home alone. He was a mix of emotions that would certainly keep him up all night. He barely acknowledged anyone on the sub, stating he was tired and wanted to go to bed. He slinked into his room, placing Kikoku against the wall and throwing off his clothes. He laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, no longer willing to let his brain function for the rest of the night.

~~~~~~

“Where did you go yesterday? You disappeared.” Penguin asked Law early the next morning while they stood on deck.

“Nowhere,” Law grunted and sipped coffee.

“Okay. Why are we leaving so early?”

“Because I want to.”

“Okaaaay.” Penguin eyed him suspiciously.

Truth be told, he wasn’t wanting to stick around anymore. He didn’t want to leave Lammy, but he knew if he didn’t it would be harder to let her go. There was only so much heartbreak he could handle, and he’s had enough in his lifetime.

The crew was either coming back from a long night and/or getting ready to shove off. Law sipped his coffee and stared at the island. This was best. This was what was best for him and his heart.

He closed his eyes and sighed. He turned and leaned his back against the railing.

“Captain,” Bepo came up to him. “We’re ready.”

“Okay, let’s go and get ready to sub-”

“Waaaaaaiiiiiitttttttt!!!!” He heard a faint voice from behind him.

He and Bepo looked at each other confused before looking behind him.

A tiny figure was running towards the sub with a suitcase trailing behind them.

“Law!! Wait for me!!” They waved at him.

Law blinked. “Lammy?! What the hell are you doing?!” He called to her and ignored the various “Lammy?’s”  and other such things the nearby crew members muttered to each other.

Lammy didn’t answer, she kept running and dragging her suitcase behind her. She heaved and puffed when she made it to the side of the Tang.

“I’m,” she took a deep breath. “Wow, I am so out of shape. I’m coming with you.”

“…” Law stared at her wide eyed. “What?”

Lammy took a deep breath and walked up the ramp to the deck. She looked around the deck and then to him. “I’m coming with you, brother.”

“Uh, Captain?” Bepo said anxiously.

“Why?” Law asked. “Didn’t you say-”

“I know what I said but…but screw it! I want to be with my brother! It’s not fair that we went through everything we did but can’t actually be around each other because of silly rules like “pirates are criminals!” If I have to become a criminal to not be alone anymore, then I will!”

Law stared at her while everyone else stared at him. Law looked around and then back at Lammy. He snorted. “You know this means I’m your captain, right? You have to do what you’re told.”

“Oh…well, whatever! Who cares!” She grinned and rushed over to hug him.

Law wrapped his arms around her with a soft smile. There was various confused voices that surrounded him but he’ll answer them later. For right now…he’ll just let himself be happy with his sister.

[rohirric-hunter]

The day it really came home to me that I had to get away from my ex-parents was the day my ex mom said -- I was excitedly talking about some human cloning moral dilemma we'd discussed in my human genetics class, and she said, "Well, some normal people don't have souls, you know."

I said, "What?" because I was certain I'd misheard.

She said, "Some people are just born without souls. They're not really people."

I said, "I -- I don't think that's --"

She cut me off and proceeded to tell me all about some true crime documentary she'd watched where some teenage girl had snapped and murdered her entire family in various horrifying ways. According to her, no one with a soul could have done that. She wasn't a real person.

I didn't say anything, because I realized at this point it would have been extremely dangerous for me to let her know that I thought that was a psychopathic thing to say and dangerously close to the way many groups historically justified genocide, and how else do you respond to that? But it all started to make sense, the weird weight put on behavior and always saying the right words and acting in the right ways, and the casual and weirdly situational racism: a long time ago, probably, she had coped with some issue of human depravity by deciding that some people simply weren't really people, because real people, in her mind, were not capable of certain acts of evil. And that definition of not-people had expanded over time to include people who committed lesser and lesser crimes, people who offended her, people who simply looked a way she didn't vibe with, and probably more. I knew I had to get out, because it was only a matter of time before I, an imperfect human who regularly makes mistakes, fell into the category of not-people. (If I hadn't already. She and I hadn't had a generally positive relationship in years at that point.) I couldn't afford to risk someone with power over me deciding that I wasn't really a person.

Anyway I was reminded of this now because I saw some idiot on this hellsite making that exact argument, that people who commit certain atrocities only do so because they're not really people. You can't call some people "people" because they're just soooo bad.

Listen. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. It's not as bad because this is just some Internet Asshole and not like, my mother, but I would still like to extend a heartfelt fuck you to people who believe that. And I hope you get better. I hope you realize how horrible that is and stop, because maybe now you're thinking about genuinely bad people, but you know what that leads to? Bigotry. Especially against neurodivergent people. And soon you'll be justifying all sorts of horrible things because "It's not human rights; they're not really human." Stop, please for the love of God stop while you're ahead.

[lonewolfel]

Theron Appreciation Week: Day 2

Prompt: Relationships

Gen

Characters: Theron, Satele, Jace, Senya, Lana

@theronshanweek-official

Theron walked into a rundown bar on Nar Shaddaa. He ignored the blinking light on his datapad. Theron was ignoring all the messages from Jace. After the he left the Republic he had received messages about how he was a coward and a deserter. He didn't want to deal with that. Granted he was working with Lana “will allow you to be captured and tortured by Revanites” Beniko so maybe he deserved it. After all the only reason he was here was because of the Sith. But no he wasn’t a traitor. Jace was so blind to his duty in the Republic military that he couldn’t see that Saresh was turning the Republic into the very thing they were fighting against. Perhaps Theron should feel hurt that his father chose the Republic over his own son, but he was used to it. You have to be with a Jedi mom.

Theron had never really been close to anyone beside Master Zho nor did he do relationships. The closest to a friendship he even has is with Lana and that was saying something. The closest to a relationship he had was with Darth Imperius. Three years ago they put whatever relationship they could have had after Yavin on hold for their respective factions. Theron thought that they could possibly have that relationship when he left the Republic, but her death was announced soon after. Lana reached out to him soon after about forming this Alliance against Emperor Arcann and Zakuul.

His goal was sitting in the back of the cantina. His target one Senya Tirall. Former Head of the Royal Guard’s Knights under Valkorion and Captain of the disciplinary knights division. Lana wanted to know if she could be recruited. She wore a black cloak that obscured her in shadow.

"Care for a drink?" Theron asked. He leaned against the chair across from her with his arms crossed.

Senya looked up at Theron allowing him to see her face. She had pale skin with two seemingly stone objects imbedded in her forehead. She had blue eyes that reminded him a lot of Satele. There was a steeliness to her eyes. The eyes of a woman who has seen loss and war. Yet there was something else in her eyes that Theron couldn't recognize that seemed to take the same place as Satele’s emotionless Jedi eyes.

“Aren’t I little old for you?” Senya Tirall asked. Her face was hardened as if prepared to fight. Theron shrugged.

“I’m not here for a social call, Tirall.” Theron said. With her steely blue eyes she analyzed him. Finally she got what she seemed to want. Her eyes softened slightly.

“Your Lana’s contact.” Senya Tirall said. Theron nodded before sitting across from her. 

“Yeah.” Theron said with a shrug.

“What’s your name?” Senya Tirall asked.

“Theron Shan.” Theron said bracing himself for it. For the “like Grand Master Satele Shan” or the less common “like Bastila Shan and Revan”. Yet that never came from the knight. Senya nodded her head and looked away from the former SIS agent. 

“Well, Theron Shan.” Senya Tirall said calmly. “Your here to see if I am really going to defect to the Alliance.” 

“It’s hard to not be suspicious of you.” Theron said simply. “After all, you hunted down, imprisoned, and killed those who did defect from Zakuul. Why should we believe?” Senya took a deep breath as she prepared to answer.

“I’ve come to realize that this war is wrong. I understand your skepticism in me, but I reached out with sincerity.” Senya said. Theron frowned.

“Let me guess. It was Arcann’s ordering of the massacre of the Scions not the hundreds of planets destroyed in both the Republic and the Empire that made you realize this. Not the genocides of innocent people.” Theron said letting his anger get the better of him. Theron wasn’t stupid he knew that he did horrible things in the name of the Republic, but he knew Senya’s file. She had led her own fair share of massacring innocent lives. Theron would like to think that he would never cross that line. Senya’s eyes hardened in determination and sadness. 

“I won’t pretend I didn’t my own damage to civilians. Your right the massacre of the Scions is what convinced me, but I had thought I was doing the right thing for Zakuul.” Senya said meeting Theron’s gaze. He couldn’t help, but wonder if Jace may come to the same realization as the knight. Probably not. 

“Not the galaxy.” Theron said

“No. You have to understand that I will do what is needed for my family and Zakuul. I have recently found what my family needs and Zakuul needs are not always the same.” Senya said 

“So what did you choose?” Theron asked already knowing the answer. There was a reason that he saw so much of Jace and Satele in the knight after all. Senya would choose her duty to Zakuul over her family every time. 

“Zakuul.” Senya said quietly. She then met Theron’s eyes with her determined ones. “I will save Zakuul and my family.” Theron nodded having gotten what he wanted from her. He stood up.

“I’ll talk to Lana. If she wants you to join she will contact you soon.” Theron said. He turned around and prepared to leave. 

“Do you have a family, Theron?” Senya asked. This question shocked Theron still. He didn’t turn around to face her.

“No.” Theron answered honestly. “I know better than to.” 

[glitxhwayventeen]

Lonely Hearts Club

Seokmin: Chapter 3 (I Wanna Know)

Characters: Seokmin x female reader

Genre/Warnings: multi-member au (different scenarios), werewolf au, fantasy, angst, fluff, genocide mentions, runaways, mental illness (depression implied), sexual mentions, crying, mentions of death, mentions of violence. Any others will be put as warnings when future chapters are thought up/written.

Author’s Note: Your girl is in some serious fucking pain but she managed to get another chapter out because she couldn’t sleep! So low and behold, I give you a decent chapter for DK

Please remember that all of these chapters and the content within them are a work of fiction! They’re just for fun/entertainment!

Bold= Dialogue Italics= Thoughts

🥀 & ☁️

Lonely Hearts Club Master List

Chapter 3: I Wanna Know

You were in heat for a few more days. Seokmin stayed with you the whole time and took care of… your every need. Though he looked worn out, he didn’t complain once. He liked that you let him help you. And he was hoping now that your heat was over, you’d let him in a bit more.

Your legs felt like jello, your hair looked like a birds nest, your skin was covered in variously healed bruises. You were a mess. But it was still time to go back to the pack. You made a promise and you always followed through with your promises, even if you were in a horny induced daze when you made it. You were just hoping they wouldn’t know, or at least, wouldn’t make a big deal out of what had happened.

Seokmin helped get you back to your feet and get dressed, putting your arms through your tank top and putting you in your shorts one leg at a time. He had already managed to get himself together as he had woken up earlier than you had. He figured you’d be in worse shape than him after everything… everything you’d been through and he wanted to be sure you were as okay as possible before you started your journey back home.

“There we go, all done!” He chirped after finally buttoning the last button on your jean shorts.

He took a step back to look at you. Aside from the bruises, you physically looked pretty normal now that he had helped you tame your ridiculously tangled hair. But he knew the pack was gonna smell you. You smelled like him from the week of animalistic sex sessions you two had been having due to your heat. It was unavoidable. He knew they’d all know you two slept together the second you walked through the door. He just wasn’t sure how you’d react to their inevitable and unavoidable teasing.

You quickly looked down after you had seen your reflection in one of your buckets of water, “I look like a walking disaster.” You muttered.

“It’s not THAT bad…,” He failed miserably at reassuring you, “But it doesn’t matter anyways, we’re mates. It doesn’t matter if we slept together or not. We would have eventually anyways” Seokmin tried to reason, bringing himself to walk up to you and hold your small hands in his large ones hesitantly.

“They’re all gonna make fun of me.” You pouted at him, looking down at your feet and smiling a bit in embarrassment.

You had never really taken the time to look at him before your whole mating fiasco happened. You had done literally everything in your power to avoid him at all costs so you wouldn’t catch feelings for him. But now that you had spent a good portion of time alone with him, you realized just how much bigger than you Seokmin was. He always seemed so… subservient around the pack that you never really gave his physical appearance much thought when it came to size. He must’ve been almost a foot taller than you, and now that you had seen him shirtless and naked, you also knew just how much muscle he actually had. He was MUCH larger than you had thought. Even his feet looked like they could crush yours with one fast stomp.

He held back a giggle at your cuteness before he spoke up, “They won’t make fun of yoooou. Especially because you could EASILY beat most of them to a bloody pulp with your special wolfie powers and all.”

“Aya! They’re not special ‘wolfie powers.’ They’re just my normal powers. And it’s not my fault you guys are more diluted forms than me.” You chuckled, playfully smacking his toned chest with your hand.

He cocked his head to the side at your statement, “Is that how it works? The longer the line the less of a wolf you are?” He asked curiously while bringing the back of your hand up to his lips and giving it a chaste kiss.

You almost laughed out loud at his question before you remembered that he didn’t grow up with other werewolves. He was a bitten wolf, not genetically a wolf. You remembered that Seungcheol had told you that no one in his family had ever been a wolf before him. He probably had no clue how it all worked, especially since his pack wasn’t always the best help when it came to educating each other on important matters. You felt a little guilty for thinking he was just being sort of dumb. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know anything about it. So you held back your little outburst and nodded instead.

“Yeah basically. I mean, most genetic lines now can still obviously transform, but they’re still not…” You tapped your chin with your index finger for a moment while thinking of the correct words to explain what you meant, “As much of a wolf as me.” You decided.

Your mate was watching you intensely, listening to every word you said closely, as if he was learning the most important information he’d ever need to know,“I’m honestly probably more wolf than I am human. But most modern day wolves are more human than wolf, that’s why it’s relatively easy for them to assimilate into human societies and blend in.” You informed him, the both of you gathering the rest of your things and making your way out the cave to the path leading back to the forest.

“But hiding our eyes isn’t always easy!” He interjected with enthusiasm you found oddly cute, “If we get too emotional, the potions disintegrate and our real eye color shows. So it’s not really SUPER simple with us.” Seokmin responded, grabbing your hand closest to him and interlocking your fingers.

For a moment, you wanted to pull away from him and push him for initiating the sudden contact. But you also promised him that you’d give him a chance and that you’d try to be the best mate to him that you could be. Plus, the warmth of his hand felt… kind of nice on yours. So you kept your hands together, giving his fingers an involuntary squeeze that made Seokmin’s face light up.

“I suppose you’re right. But really, as long as a wolf can keep their shit together, they can seem very human. When my people were still around, we were very obviously NOT human. We couldn’t be even if we had tried.” You casually let out, skipping over a large rock in your way.

“What were your people like?” He questioned, genuinely wanting to know what your life was like before you lost everything. His pack had tried to ask you before, but you’d always clam up and make up some excuse to leave the conversations. He was hoping with it just being the two of you, you might actually be okay with sharing some more personal information with him.

You waited a moment before you spoke up. What WERE your people like? It had been so long that you hardly even remembered anythings about them. You usually tried to push away all the thoughts of them because remembering all you lost hurt too much. But when he asked you the question, it was like everything came rushing back to you all at once.

Your family, your tribe, your traditions. You remembered how the tribal elders used to let you sit in on council meetings because your father insisted you needed to know everything there was to know about running the tribe. It made you feel so important when he did that, like you were his pride and joy. You thought about all the times you had sat next to your mom as she cooked up potions and remedies in her old stone cauldron for the healer to use on the sick and injured. She always cared so much about everything and everyone around her, you always loved to help her help people. And you could all but see your 11 big goofball brothers running up to you holding their latest hunting prizes with the most giant toothy grins they could muster. Those dumbasses, they always made the most of life. You missed them so fucking much.

Everything started swirling around your head and it made a huge smile appear on your face with watery eyes at the thought of your early life. Seokmin took notice and felt a bit proud of himself that he had made you that happy, you had never beamed a smile that big before in front of him or his pack.

“My people… they were… they were just-” You paused, “They were just the most amazing family a person could ever ask for.” You started, wiping away a sudden tear that had fallen down the side of your face from the memory of them, hopefully before your mate could notice. Of course, he still saw, but he said nothing because he knew it would upset you.

“They were always just sooooo happy. I remember every night was basically like a huge party. We’d all dance and sing around the campfire, there’d be elders telling stories and offering the young words of wisdom while the parents would scold us for interrupting anytime anything got cool or surprising.” You sadly laughed, “We were all just… one big happy family. Even if I wasn’t actually related to all of them. I can’t really explain the connection I felt to them… it was just as strong as the one I had to my biological family.” You sighed, finally reaching the edge of the forest and finding the proper trail for the both of you to set towards home.

He could hear the pain in your voice as you spoke of your past life. You must’ve really missed them. But there were so many questions he still had. What about your actual family? Did you have brothers or sisters? What kind of life did you have? How did you sleep or eat? Where did you come from? But he knew he shouldn’t ask so many at once, he didn’t want to overwhelm you or hound you with his thoughts all at once. So instead, he asked just one question he knew he should probably know the answer to: “What- What happened to them?”

His words made you halt your movements for a second. Remembering that day wasn’t something you liked to do. In fact, you went to great lengths to avoid the memory. It haunted everything you did. Every minute of everyday was plagued with the thought of their demise. You had nightmares every night. You saw their hallowed faces in every person you met. You smelt ash and burnt flesh more than you smelt anything else. Their screams were still stuck to your mind like gum on the bottom of a shoe. It tore you apart to think of it. But still, you knew he deserved to know. You’d want to know if you were him.

“They were… they were massacred.” You sadly shrugged, biting your lip to keep yourself from letting sobs out. He stroked your hand in his in an effort to soothe your sad soul. You took comfort in his small affectionate touch, it grounded you and pulled your tortured mind back down to the conversation you were having.

You took in a deep breath, “It was just any other day, at least, to me it was,” you gulped before you continued, “I was helping my mom with some new herbal remedies for some of our sick warriors when suddenly we heard this loud BANG. My mom wasn’t a wolf, in fact, back then no female was. Well, no female but me that is, but that’s beside the point,” you shook your head and tried to get yourself back on the topic at hand.

“I could feel the vibration under my feet. It was a cannon, but we didn’t know that then. They weren’t really used in our part of the world, they’d freeze in the cold weather and couldn’t always light at the altitude that my village was set on. But somehow, the Cossacks found a way to make them work… they always found a way…” you stated flatly, looking up to the sky out of respect for your fallen family.

“They were upset that my pack had killed some of their soldiers that had hurt a group of women in a neighboring tribe. So they punished us the only way they knew how: by brutally murdering everyone and setting everything they could on fire. Fire’s one of the few ways Icyan wolves can actually be killed. They killed almost everybody. As far as I know, Cyrus and me were the only ones who got out.” You swallowed back the lump stuck in your throat as you and Seokmin continued onward to your destination.

Now this question really worried him, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted answers to it. But he, again, wanted to know more about you and how you got to him. He’d figure it out eventually, might as well try to get it out of you today while he had you going already.

“Can you- can you tell me a bit about him…?” He almost whispered, afraid to say it any louder as he didn’t want to upset you.

“W-What?” You asked for clarification.

“I- I Wanna Know more about… him… Can you tell me about him?” Seokmin stuttered out. He was still unsure if he should’ve said it to begin with, but he couldn’t help it. He had to know more about the man who had you crying constantly over him.

You turned your head to look at him, “About who? Cyrus?” A bit of fear crossed your face as you attempted to confirm what he asked.

“Y-Yeah. He was your mate. And Jun kind of explained what you told him had happened to him the other day, but I don’t know much about him. Like how you two got out. Or why he died…” He looked you in the eyes and say that tears and immense sadness had began to pool in them, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to! I just figured… that it would be better to get it out in the open now…” Seokmin bit his lip as he waited for your reaction/response.

“Cyrus was… Cyrus. He is- was… my best friend.” You sighed defeatedly out loud before you continued, “He always took care of me. He imprinted on me right after I was born, so he was always there for me.” You started, still trying to find the right words to emphasize what he meant to you. But it was hard, you weren’t very touchy feely like Seokmin was. Feelings were all new to you, so you weren’t sure how to share them aloud.

You didn’t want to upset Seokmin by speaking too fondly about your past mate, but you also couldn’t help the pang in your heart you felt Everytime you heard Cyrus’s name. Part of you wanted to never speak of him again, another part of you wanted to never shut up about him. Your mind was full of conflict but your heart was full of sorrow. How could you possibly ever forget Cyrus enough to have a new mate? How could you ever emphasize how important he was to you when Seokmin, your current lover, was holding your hand? How were you supposed to pick and choose such things when your heart was pleading for a break?

“Wait- he imprinted on you right when you were born? I didn’t know that was possible…” he lost steam towards the end of his sentence and started to mumble while rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

“Oh no! It wasn’t like that!” You stopped him before he could get any further, “See, Icyan wolves start to shift really soon after birth, like only a month or two after. So it basically means that we’re able to phase our entire life. Cyrus was only five years older than me. He acted like an older brother to me until I hit 16 ish. But that’s when it all went wrong…” You held back a whimper that was threatening to spill past your lips.

“But the day everyone was killed, my dad and the other wolves came to defend out den. I was hiding in the hut while my mom was trying to do a protection spell. But they had killed most of our warriors already when they tried to save their families. We’re very protective of the ones we love” you sniffled slightly, still trying to hold your emotions back but obviously failing miserably.

“Cyrus came to find me after his family was killed. It was his instinct to protect me first, even though he loved his parents, they had each other still. And I was his mate, that’s how we work, mates and children before anyone else. He came into our home and tried to comfort me. We all thought we were gonna die. They had already killed my brothers by the river bank, it broke my parents. They saw red. But they knew I was still alive. So, before the Russians stormed our hut, my dad told Cyrus to take me and run as far as possible for as long as possible, so he did. After that, we were alone, but we had each other. It was like that for a few years. But then… I turned 16 and everything went to hell.” Your lip trembled and quivered with guilt.

Your current mate whined at your sadness, he wanted to help you, but he knew there was nothing he could say or do to make you feel better. So he just kept rubbing the back of your petite hand and giving you his full undivided attention. You had heard his whine, but you knew it was just because you were upset, so you gave him a small depressed smile before you kept speaking.

“Well you know that he- well that he’s obviously dead. Otherwise we couldn’t have imprinted on each other. But I’m sure you want to know… why he died” you mustered up all the courage you could before finally explaining it all to him, “He saved me. I fucked up. I was spotted by some towns people and he took the fall so they wouldn’t take me instead. Our wolf forms were similar. All Icyan wolves are white, we can just have different patterns to us. The villager that spotted me didn’t see the black spot on my head, he just saw a huge white wolf. They followed me back to our den and they were met with him. He refused to let me go. He was a telepath and he was an alpha. He ordered me to hide and he told me he loved me before he gave himself up to the angry mob.” You stopped walking and let the tears brimming your eyes freely fall.

Seokmin stood in front of you playing with your hair sweetly, trying to give you something to ground yourself and distract you from your heartache. It killed him to see you that way.

“I couldn’t- I couldn’t refuse his order. He was- he was my alpha. So I had to stay and watch them take him back to their town. I left after that to try and find him, he never told me that I couldn’t. But by the time I got there- they- they-” you sobbed out while bringing your shakey hands to your face, “They had already started torturing him. There had been reports of two huge wolves in the area and they thought he would lead them to me if they hurt him enough. But he never did.” Seokmin pulled you into his chest as you cried, barely able to breathe as you convulsed into loud whimpers and wails.

“I- I felt everything. Every cut they made, every punch, every hit. Because I’m of my shaman bloodline, I felt everything he felt, I- I’m an empath. He figured out I was in the crowd and just kept telling me that he loved me telepathically. That it wasn’t my fault. But- But how could it not be- be my fault?” You stuttered as you gripped onto Seokmin’s shirt for dear life, “I got him killed!” You all but screamed, crying into your mate’s chest so hard he was worried you’d pass out.

Seokmin just let you cry. He couldn’t imagine the guilt and pain you must have been feeling. He just held you and shushed you and told you that everything would be okay. But how could you be okay? You lost everyone in the most awful ways possible. No wonder you didn’t want him around before. If he were you, he wouldn’t either. He wouldn’t have wanted to risk losing MORE people.

He knew you thought it was your fault, but it wasn’t. If the roles were reversed, he knew you would’ve done the same thing as Cyrus. Just like he always knew that if push came to shove, he’d do the same exact thing your past mate had done to save you. You were his whole world, he’d never let anything or anybody hurt you if he could help it. He’d defend you with his very last breath if it meant you got even a second longer to live.

-

After a while, your breathing evened out and your sobs became just tears. Seokmin pulled you back up from his torso to look you in the glistening eyes. He quickly wiped away any water that had streamed down your face in the process. He really wanted to just kiss all your tears away, but now wasn’t the time for that.

“I’m so sorry (Y/N). I wish I could take away your pain. But I can’t. The best I can do is promise you that I’ll always be here for you.” He assured you, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ears.

“Even if I start crying over my dead mate?” You tried to sound sarcastic, but you honestly felt too weak to. It probably came out as more of a whine to him.

“Even if you start crying over him. Or if you miss him. Or even if you just want to talk about him. Or any of them. It’s okay. I understand and I’m here for you, no matter what.” He pecked your nose softly and gave you the most loving eyes you had ever seen.

You couldn’t help but pull him into a sweet, thankful kiss, attempting to show him how grateful you were for him with your actions rather than your words that always seemed to fail you. Once you pulled back, you realized just how tired you were. Seokmin seemed to pick up on it to because, suddenly, you were in his arms being carried through the woods bridal style. You gave him a look of uncertainty, he just nodded at you and gave you a loving smile, signaling that he would be okay to walk back the rest of the way to the house with you in his arms.

You wanted to protest it all for his sake, but your eyelids felt too heavy. So instead, you just snuggled your now swollen face into his chest and let the darkness take over, feeling safe in his arms and knowing he would never let anything bad happen to you. For the first time in a long time, you felt like maybe everything would be okay.

(Updated 9/17)

[crystalstar8]

Knights of the Night (chapter 1)

Chapter 1

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 2,426

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing... 

              Catalina gazed out of the window as the city flew by. Full Moon, by the Black Ghosts was playing on the radio. She wondered what her apartment was going to look like. She should have listened to her mom when she told Catalina to take a trip out here to set it up before school started, but she never found the time. She had been too busy saying her goodbyes to friends who didn’t care about her leaving.

               The taxi finally entered the small town of St. Briggs. The sky was dark and bleak; when Catalina pictured California, she didn’t imagine this. She was hoping to see a different environment, but it kind of looked just like Michigan. It would still be a change though. Hopefully a good change. This was one of the most highly recommended performing arts schools in the country and Catalina was looking forward to a fresh new chapter of her life.

               She was dropped off at her apartment building and the taxi driver asked if she wanted him to help her carry her bags up the stairs. She said no and hurried to pay him. Catalina somehow managed to drag her bags up the stairs on her own, breaking out in a sweat and making her twenty-year-old back hurt. The apartment was lightly furnished already, the bare furniture from the last student still there. So Catalina started unpacking her clothes, toiletries, and bedding. Once everything was unpacked, she looked around at her new living space. It was small, only three rooms: the bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and a kitchen connected to an empty living room. She’d have to get a couch, and maybe a TV. Or she could just save her money. Yeah, that sounded better. She would usually just watch Netflix on her laptop anyway.

               Speaking of her laptop, she pulled it out of her backpack and flopped onto her bare mattress, opening it up. Classes started in a week and she needed to review her schedule and figure out what materials she needed. Her dance class stared back at her from her schedule on the computer screen. She was most excited for that one.

               Catalina sent the schedule to her phone and then closed her laptop. She decided now was a good time to explore the campus, if only to check out the dance studio.

                 It was chilly here, the wind coming off the water brisk and wet. Her hair frizzed up and she mourned the fact that she only packed light clothes, expecting the typical California weather. She should have realized that Northern California would be pretty much the same as where she lived before in Michigan.

               Despite the gloomy weather, the campus was beautiful. It was bustling with students and their families, taking tours and lots of pictures in front of the old buildings. She glanced at the wrinkled campus map in her hands, which she had printed out back at home. The dance studio was closer to the back of the campus, so she trekked through all the freshman and found herself in an emptier part of campus. The buildings here were very old. Big willow trees grew between the buildings, their leafy curtains giving those spots a sense of privacy on the lawn. The dance studio was in a building that looked like it was a refurbished, converted old house. Catalina walked up to the porch and tried the door. It was unlocked.

               Inside the house, it was a bit more modern. There was a tiny lobby and then a hall where there were bathrooms. Then past that was the studio. The door was closed. Catalina reached for the doorknob but paused when she heard music coming from inside. The music stopped, then started again from a previous spot. It continued like this for several minutes, Catalina standing there listening to the same part of the song over and over. Finally, she decided to put whoever was inside out of their misery and she opened the door.

               The guy inside stumbled on the move he was practicing, startling and spinning around towards the door. His chest was heaving and he was sweating, staring at Catalina with wide eyes.

               “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. The guy seemed to snap out of it and he went over to his phone, which was hooked up the speakers, to pause the song.

               “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone to come in here. Usually it’s pretty quiet in the dance hall when there aren’t classes.”

               “Well, I wouldn’t count on that today,” said Catalina. “There’s a million freshman and their entire families out there. It’s only a matter of time before they find you.”

               He giggled and said, “I forgot it was orientation day. My name is Jimin, by the way.”

               “I’m Catalina. This is a really pretty campus.”

               “Yeah, I guess,” said Jimin. He went over to his dance bag and pulled a towel out, wiping his face.

               “I guess?” asked Catalina.

               “I mean, I grew up here. Everything in this town is old,” he said.

               “Oh,” Catalina then realized that she had interrupted him in his practice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I know how it is when you’re in the zone. I’ll get going-“

               “No, it’s okay! Honestly, I was about to pass out or something if I kept going,” said Jimin. “I just couldn’t get this one move, and it was driving me crazy…”

               “What was the move?” asked Catalina, stepping further into the studio. “Can you teach me?”

               “I mean… I don’t know if you can…”

               “Try me,” said Catalina. Jimin led her to the center of the floor, facing the mirror. He walked her through a complicated move, which led into a jump turn. He broke it down and Catalina followed, nailing it on the second try. Jimin then did it at full speed, perfectly.

               He turned to her with wide eyes.

               “That was the first time I did it right!” he cheered. Catalina clapped along with him.

               “Sometimes all it takes is breaking it down again,” said Catalina. Jimin narrowed his eyes.

               “So, you tricked me?” he asked in a playful tone.

               “Into getting the move right, sure,” Catalina grinned.

               “Well, thank you. You’re pretty good,” he said.

               “I’m majoring in dance, so I should hope so,” said Catalina. “I’ve only been doing it since I was four.”

               “You’re majoring in dance? Me too!” he said. “I’ve never seen you here though. Are you a freshman?”

               “Yeah, this is my first year here,” said Catalina. “I heard the dance program is really good.”

               “It is. It has a good variety too. I’m taking a hip hop class this semester. You should take it with me, if you have room in your schedule.”

               “I’ve been dancing ballet all my life, I don’t think I’d be very good at hip hop…” Catalina scratched the back of her head. Jimin shook his head.

               “No, that’s a myth! Teachers only say that about ballerinas who don’t care about learning other things. I’ve also been doing ballet my whole life but I’m learning a lot of new things here, and I really love it,” said Jimin.

               Catalina laughed and said, “I guess you’re right. I should…broaden my horizons, as my mother would say.”

                 Catalina left the studio that day with a new number in her phone and a more hopeful outlook on her upcoming journey through college.

                 The next week passed in a haze as Catalina readied herself for classes and thought about furnishing her apartment some more. She never did furnish it, but at least she made the bed and filled the fridge. She also got into the hip hop class with Jimin, which she was excited about. She was ready.

               Finally, the first day of classes came and Catalina woke up bright and early. She got dressed; she knew these first few days were going to be the only days she would bother with anything other than pajamas, so she actually made an effort to look cute. Her first class was French, which, honestly, was going to be torture. She needed to learn French to reach her ultimate goal, so it was a necessary evil. It sounded pretty, so maybe it wasn’t the worst language to learn.

               When she got to her French classroom, it was already pretty full. She found a few vacant seats in the back of the room, which she took. There was still one behind her, so she wasn’t actually all the way in the back. That was something her academic advisor had told her – don’t sit in the back. It was supposed to be a subconscious thing where the closer you sit to the front, the better you do in the class. Catalina didn’t know if that was actually true, but the front seats were all taken and she was used to sitting in the back, so here she was. Second to last row. It was a start.

               Catalina pulled out her notebook, a pen, and her phone. She had a text from her mom.

 Mom: Are you settled down okay at the apartment? How is campus? Did you make it to class okay this morning?

Cat: The apartment is good. Campus is pretty. I’m in class right now. Everything is going great. I even made a friend.

Mom: a friend?

Cat: yeah, he’s in the dance program too. We’re taking a hip hop class together.

Mom: This is great news! Is he cute?

               Just then, the professor walked in and introduced herself. Catalina let out the breath she was holding, glad she didn’t have to answer that. That was one of many reasons she was so excited to move across the country. Ever since she came out as bisexual, her mother had been trying her hardest to get Catalina a boyfriend. Sure, Jimin was plenty cute, but that’s not what Catalina was here for. She’d just really rather not talk about her love life, or lack thereof, with her mother.

               The professor mostly just went over introductions and the syllabus, which she passed out copies of to the class. Then she took attendance. A few names in and the door opened. A boy walked in, his eyes wide as he scanned the room for empty seats. He spotted the one behind Catalina and sped towards it. The professor eyed him.

               “I guess you came just in time, since I just started attendance. I do not take absences lightly in this class young man,” she said.

               “Sorry,” he mumbled. The professor grumbled and handed another syllabus to the person in the front row before continuing with roll call. When Catalina handed the packet back to him, she caught a glimpse of the new guy. He looked only half awake, his hair a mess, bags under his eyes and rumpled sweats. He didn’t have a backpack, only a notebook. Catalina winced in sympathy. He was going to have a hard time in this class. He reminded Catalina of herself in high school. She was a new woman now though. Things were going to be different in college.

               “Catalina Cruz” was called and she raised her hand in acknowledgement. The guy behind her answered to “Jeon Jungkook”. After class, Catalina turned around in her seat and smiled at Jungkook, who still looked frazzled.

               “First impressions are important,” she said.

               “Ugh, I know,” he moaned, sliding down in his seat. “I slept in…”

               “Yeah, she probably hates you,” said Catalina. “You’re doomed.”

               Jungkook covered his face. “Don’t say that!”

               Catalina laughed and said, “Dude, I’m kidding. You’ll be fine.”

               Jungkook let his hands fall. “I just think it’s stupid that I need a language class for my major.”

               “Everyone needs a language class. What are you majoring in?” asked Catalina.

               “Film. What about you?” he asked.

               “Dance,” she said. The two of them got up and made their way out of the classroom. “I came on a scholarship too, so I can’t really afford to fail any classes.”

               “Yeah, no scholarship for me, but my parents will have my head if I fail anything,” said Jungkook. “They’re paying out of pocket for me and my brother.”

               Catalina giggled. The two of them walked over to an empty patch of grass under a tree, where they sat. “Do you live on campus?” she asked.

               “Nah, my parent’s house is right around the block, I’m just gonna live with them until I graduate,” said Jungkook.

               Catalina hummed and nodded. “You’re lucky. I have an apartment that’s going to drain me. I can’t even afford furniture,” said Catalina. “Actually, I should probably try to find a job…”

               “Oh! My aunt owns a tourist shop up in the mountains and she needs weekend employees for tourist season,” said Jungkook.

               “Tourist season? Summer is almost over,” said Catalina.

               “There’s a big ski resort up there. It gets pretty busy once the snow comes,” said Jungkook. “You should take the job with me! It’ll be so fun, we can explore the mountains.”

               “Ehh, I don’t know how much mountain climbing I’ll be doing, but the job is kind of perfect,” said Catalina. “How far away is it? I don’t have a car.”

               “I mean, I have a car, but there’s also a hiking trail that gets you there, which I’ll probably be doing, cause’ it’s more fun,” he said. “It’s not that far, like, a few miles?”

               “A few miles? That’s far! That’s a long walk!” said Catalina.

               “Oh, come on! I backpacked for five days once, that’s about fifty miles. And I’ve heard stories about people who backpack for weeks,” said Jungkook.

               “Okay well, you may be super fit and sporty, but I’m not-“

               “What were you majoring in again? Dance?”

               Catalina shoved him. He fell over, laughing hard. Catalina scrunched her nose to contain her laughter. “Oh shut up! Okay, I get it. Hiking might be fun, but not every time,” she said.

               “No, I’ll totally drive us to work every now and then,” he said. “I’ll call my aunt tonight about the job. Here, give me your number so I can tell you what she says.”

               Catalina typed her number into Jungkook’s phone and then handed it back.

               “Anyway, I’d better get going. I don’t want to be late for another class,” said Jungkook. “I’ll text you.”

               He got up and walked away, waving. Catalina waved back. Two new friends. And they were both so much nicer and more genuine than her friends back in Michigan.

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

PAPER TRAIL FAN ART: Coralie The Tomboy Princess

--------------

Credit for Paper Trail goes to Lynxgriffin

Credit for Undertale & Deltarune goes to Toby Fox

-------------------------

first I want to say that even though I really did want to go on a type of hiatus where I wait until a few months to post some stuff on here, and until then I can just check out other stuff by other people on here and heart their work, and even send asks to their tumblrs.

but while reading Paper Trail AU Comic,

and well I’m still in the middle of reading it

and I plan to read and fave all of the pages in one day.

but I guess I will still make sure to take a break when needed, you know like get some food and do some other stuff too.

I did do another fan art of a dark world Asriel, that has red clothes on.

I think I will post that version another time, maybe...

unlike Ralsei,

Coralie doesn’t have a heart pattern on the front of her robe

but instead has the Delta Rune symbol on it instead.

The Meaning of the Name Coralie,  Is Maiden.

I also decided to have the tags for this to have Coralie be a Deltarune OC,instead of a Paper Trail OC....well technically she is, but she is just a Fanon OC and I’m not sure if there will be a Red version of Ralsei or not. but who knows if there will be a Red Ralsei or not.

the “Dead Name” of Coralie, would have to be a  Anagram of Asriel,

but Coralie had long threw away her Anagram-Asriel name.

I also want to mention that  the name Asriel,

can be both a boy and girl name,

most names are gender neutral.

turns out Asriel is both a Boy & Girl Name.

as for how Coralie looks without her hat,

I would say a Younger Version of Toriel but with longer hair.

I do suspect that Undertale Toriel might not be as innocent of a goat mom as we are made to believe.

and I believe that she does know about the Resets

as well as the theory that she and Sans have been working together,

that she has been killing the humans that came to the underground

and sending their souls to her ex-husband...

and all the lost items of the humans that came before Frisk,

were given to Sans from Undertale-Toriel, to hide around the underground outside the ruins, the only two that were missing

were the red ribbon and knife,

which the only reason why Undertale-Toriel might not of picked up the knife is because it was made of plastic.

I think that the Monsters in Undertale, might be allergic to plastic.

so it makes sense why she left that alone, but could of made a plan to try to get it later by getting gloves.

but she couldn’t find the red ribbon.

not a lot of fans have to agree about this theory about Undertale-Toriel.

but I believe King Asgore is innocent from the deaths of the human children that fell in the underground.

I don’t believe any of the human children made it past Toriel,

and were all killed by her when they tried to leave to go out of the ruins.

this would keep happening, even to the point where Sans came into the picture and she trusted him to take the human souls to her Ex.

Sans most likely left that out of his story to Frisk, on how he met Toriel.       

leaving out parts about Toriel giving him containers that contain the human souls.

even if Deltarune-Toriel can be a bad mom at times,

 like not noticing that Kris is unhappy or how their side of the room looks that might give some clues that something is wrong.

or that her own son might of cheated at the video games they played together with Kris, most likely giving them the knockoff game controller.  if you check under Asriel’s bed you will find out that it will say that there is a knockoff game controller with the normal controller.

Deltarune-Asriel could of at first been a jerk to Kris,

but over time started to act like a caring older brother to them.

I can’t help but view Toriel from Undertale AU,

as suspicious, after realizing that she has known about the Resets the whole time, and that is why when the Player/Frisk gets ready to leave in a Pacifist Timeline, she asks us not to come back.

and that if we choose not to go live with her, as her adoptive child.

she will make another hint that she knows whats going on.

Toriel in a Pacifist Timeline, knows whats going on

and the reason why she doesn’t show up unless it’s a True Pacifist Run

where we befriend everyone, is the only time she does stop the fight between Frisk and Asgore.

she doesn’t do so in the Genocide or Neutral Timelines,

only in the True Pacifist Timelines.

almost like she knew...not everyone has to agree with this,

but if the Canon Toriel is secretly behind the deaths of the humans that came before Frisk showed up, then it would make sense that she hides this out of guilt.

she grew guilty and even went as far as to place the full blame on her husband.

it is possible that Canon-Toriel from Undertale is really a Clone of the Original Toriel, who left Asgore after he declared war on humanity.

but how could Toriel have seen Asgore commit into the act of killing the humans, if she had never returned until stopping Asgore and Frisk’s fight in the pacifist timeline...?

the answer is that Asgore never took the life of any of the humans,

even if Toriel did mention that if Frisk/Player left the ruins,

Asgore would kill them, but Asgore never killed any of the humans.

at least that is my theory, I believe the true culprit was always the caretaker of the ruins aka Toriel, also known by Papyrus as Asgore’s Clone.

in the Fanon AU of Undertale, Toriel could be innocent of such crimes.

but in Fan Headcanon, I believe Toriel of Undertale is the true culprit of the humans who lost their lives.

so if this theory is true, the best version of Undertale-Toriel

would be the ones in the Fanon Undertale AU.

it’s really fine that not many agree about the theory.

anyway I want this to be the last drawing I post until in a few months.

I do plan to post this at the other place I post fan art at too.

if Coralie had a home,

it could be in the Dark World in Asriel’s Dorm at College.

so if Asriel does come home to see his family,

he might end up bringing the Dark World that Coralie lives in with him, as well as Coralie.

of course Coralie is a Fan OC,

this is still suppose to be a Paper Trail AU Fan Art.

  if Coralie was truly all alone in the Dark World she was born in,

with no other Darkeners but her around,

then it might of been a very lonely life for her.

I think Coralie would be a inch shorter than Ralsei.

I’m not 100% sure if there will be a Red Version of Ralsei,

but if there was one and it was going to be another boy,

who might be called “Strawberry” I think it would be interesting.

I don’t think I ever seen a Red one, but if there was one,

maybe they work with Knight...?

but not of their free will.

I also want to say that I don’t mean to seem to break my promise about not post anything until in a few months, but I wanted to draw this fan art

even if it is of a noncanon character that I named Coralie.

I just wanted to draw a Red version of Ralsei.

anyway once again Coralie is not canon, so please do not misinterpret.

I think I will sign off for a bit,

and then go back to reading Paper Trail once I sign back in.

I’m just gonna go watch the Resident Evil Village Walkthrough,

and also eat some food too.

so I’m just gonna hope that this time for sure will be the last post until a few months....and I will just check out other stuff on tumblr.

if I’m not back in a few hours, I will back tomorrow.

so see ya later and stay safe everyone.