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curious-menace · 4 years

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Riddler hug/cuddling Headcanons

so like. no excuse for this, its pure self indulgence but tbh id kinda like a hug so im imagining how these nerds might give me one.

warning, i got very carried away with writing.

Arkham !Riddler

oh boy arkham riddler REALLY needs a hug. he is probably the most touch starved of all the riddlers, definitely the most clingy. he is too afraid of being hurt, physically or emotionally, to be the one to initiate the hug and if you come to him he will absolutely fight it. at the start anyway.

he’s going to cry if you give him a decent hug. he’s been so high strung for so long that a simple touch like that is going to send him overboard.

it starts off with him a stiff as a board, tense incase he needs to run away. but once he realises you wont hurt him he’ll start to relax a little, he usually crosses his arms across your back, under your arms rather than over. he also likes to rest his head in the crook of your neck.

like i said, he’ll probably cry at some point, so he becomes tense again as his shoulders shake, he starts to dig his hands into your back for fear you’ll let go. he keeps burying his head into your neck/shoulder so you cant see how red his face and eyes have gotten. he’s embarrassed to be like this over a hug, especially around you.

after that he will always be in your space. he’ll want to lie across you on the sofa, sit in his lap/ him sit in your lap while he works on his computer and he literally cannot sleep at night unless you have at least one arm draped across his back ( but preferably let him curl up in your arms completely )

he’s quite boney tbh. when you hug him you can feel his ribs and spine, he really likes to press his entire body to yours. He also hugs quite hard so don't be surprised if you lose your balance when he runs to you.

Blacklight! Riddler

blacklight riddler used to be like arkham riddler, he was touch starved and desperate for affection. But unlike arkham riddler, he actually receives hugs on a regular basis.

He’s around 5ft8 so he is a great height for giving and receiving hugs. if you are smaller than him he likes to rest his head on top of your head , maybe give optional head smooches while hes at it. if you're taller than him he likes to press his face into your chest/neck, especially if this is a comforting hug. Your scent is calming to him

he hugs kinda weird. its always one arm over your shoulder and one under your arm. He also likes to sneak up on you, rest his chin on your shoulder while he’s hugging you. strange but at least they're warm and soft.

i've mentioned before he likes to sleep in people's laps, but he enjoys being big spoon just as much as little spoon. he likes having people sit between his legs but he is very fidgety, don't expect it to last for long.

he’s not clingy persay, but he does love sharing space with people. hes a “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” kind of person when it comes to personal space.

the only time he doesn't like hugs (rare as that is) is when he’s having a meltdown/implosion. SOMETIMES he likes deep pressure to calm himself but it should really come from something like a T-jacket or a weighted blanket. if you touch him when he’s like that it’ll just stress him out more. just use your words and give him some space. Later, when hes calm or if he’s feeling embarrassed about having a meltdown/implosion somewhere people can see him, that's the time he’ll want comfort.

BTAS! Riddler

this riddler is a bit touch adversed. he usually tolerates hugs in a social setting but just about. other people touching him, particularly people he doesn't know well , sets his teeth on edge.

its different with people he knows, however. he’s very casual with his hugs, and very happy to have You in his personal bubble. even if its just tossing an arm around your waist or shoulder as you walk, its nice to be near a comforting presence like you are to him. he’s fond of hugs that don't close you both in, even though he can usually see over the top of you, it makes him feel claustrophobic

hes pretty tall, you’d be hard pressed to be level with him so he usually hugs by putting his arms around your shoulders, maybe crossing his wrists at the back of your neck. as he is so tall, most peoples hugs on him will probably be around the waist. don't be surprised if he bends down to give you a quick peck or head bump while you're hugging him.

Its sometimes hard for him to spoon given he is quite tall, but he doesn't really mind what position you maneuver into to give him cuddles. he likes to rest against people while sitting on a sofa or lie with his head on your shoulder in bed

He gives good comforting hugs, he’s naturally very warm both in personality and temperature . lots of “oh darling dry those eyes” or “there there my love” with head pats and soft cooing . he wont even complain if you mess up his suit by balling your hands in the fabric or crying all over his sleeves. and he REALLY likes his suits.

can be a little patronising with the head pats but honestly, he is a gentle giant type guy, he doesn't mean to be rude, everyone is just so small compared to him he cant help but treat them like kids sometimes.

Original!Riddler

another tall lad, but he’s like one of those big dogs who doesn't know he’s big. He is friend shaped, gives excellent hugs that are very warm and all encompassing. you would feel very safe getting a hug from this riddler

the only danger is being squished a little. sometimes he doesn't quite know his own strength when it comes to hugs.he’s particularly bad at this while cuddling in bed. if he’s half asleep and you try to move away, he might reflexively latch on and inadvertently hurt you in the process. the utter horror of thinking he’s hurt you is enough to make him not want to be near you for a few days while he apologises profusely .

he is very lanky, his hugs can wrap all the way around you until his arms are nearly touching him on the other side. only a small risk of being suffocated.

he likes it when his partner jumps for him, into a hug so he can catch them and spin them in his arms. no idea why, guess he’s just a dramatic dance kid at heart. he also prefers to be little spoon with a special fondness for partners who completely wrap themselves around him like a warm, scenintient backpack

likes lying under a blanket on the sofa, his face pressed into your tummy with his arms around your back. you can use him as a table if you like, he wont mind. His back is always sore ( probably because he lies like this a lot) so he appreciates back rubs while hugging .

mooves around in his sleep too much to be constrained by cuddling. if you try and hold onto him it’ll either be like riding a bucking bull or trying to get out of quicksand, no inbetween. he sleeps like a dead man too so good luck waking him if you’re uncomfortable.

telltale! Riddler

hugs are few and far between. doesnt hug much, even at home. He likes to use hugs to show off or rather, show you off. he likes having some one pretty on his arm for casual, public cuddling as a power move.

has occasional nightmares about what SANTUS did to him and as a side effect of the LOTUS. this is one of the rare times he’ll tolerate and even expect to be held and cuddled by you. he needs something like the pressure from a good ,long hug to ground him back in reality, in the here and now.

in public he’s most likely to throw his arm around your waist or shoulder, quite possessive if i'm honest. he can be a little rough at times, gripping your shoulder or waist a little too hard when someone is pissing him off or making a move on you. he has left bruises but its never intentional. he’s a lot stronger than the average man and sometimes he forgets that.

in private he’s a little more relaxed. sometime he just likes to share space, like having your legs over him on the sofa. sometimes hes more demanding and wants you to sit in his lap with your arms draped over him.

He demands a lot of you, but never physical contact. if he wanted a hug he would simply stand and wait for you to initiate it. likewise, he’ll always ask for your permission before he comes into your space.

He likes to hug from behind and often picks you up off the ground, whatever way he’s hugging you. He likes to show off how strong he is despite being one of the shorter riddlers.

Zero year!Riddler

his idea of cuddling is resting a body part on you. he might stretch his legs over yours, intertwine them while sleeping or use you as a pillow while he reads. Hes not great at being big spoon tbh; if you want him to do much more than just chilling there and letting you do the work, youll need to tell him.

like btas riddler, he’s a human furnace. he just radiates heat all times of the year. good for warming up in the winter, bad for not sticking to one another in the summer. He’s basically a big cat. cuddles on his terms, paws at you when he wants something and pushes you away when he doesn't.

thinks he’s a smooth mfer when it comes to cuddling and spooning. has 100% done that old yawn, stretch and slide an arm around you thing that all teenagers think is the height of sophisticated moves. it only works sometimes though, more often than not he’ll simply huff and drag you towards him from the other side of the bed or sofa and demand hugs.

hes another tall riddler. he likes to use his height to his advantage by hugging you around your head so you cant escape. he also likes to have a hand on your head and one on your shoulder, sort of like he’s shielding you from something. it can be nice but sometimes, you do need to see where you're going.

he likes to press his face into your chest/breasts just for badness. he has large hands so he can almost wrap them around your sides and back at the same time for maximum squish. he doesn't often press his entire body into you while you hug but when he does, oh boy i hope you don't have plans. you wont be leaving for a while.

he likes to cuddle in weird places. like you might be riding the subway and he’ll sneakily link his arm with yours and rest his head on your shoulder. maybe you're eating dinner and he’s trying to twist your legs together with his. maybe you're minding your own business on the sofa, he’ll try to slip between you and the cushions so you're practically sitting on him instead.

OH BOY THIS TOOK MUCH LONGER THAN I THOUGHT. WOOPS THERE GOES THE ENTIRE DAY.

lmao i had fun so i guess it was time well spent.

got anymore headcanons you want to talk about? wana ask me something specific about riddler? hmu with an ask, im always happy to talk about our favorite curious menace💜💚

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ranmanjuu · 4 years

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What about an mc that acts like a foreigner everytime a situation with the warlords becomes difficult?? Like nobus like "youll go to war with me" and theyll just make a weird face and act like they don't understand and speak broken thick accented japanese. Choose ur faves from the bunch ! Or whoever u have good ideas for ;)

ah, the Selective Dumbass. i made mc a foreigner, they’re fairly fluent in sengoku japanese. the character selection here’s Wonky ahaha one for each forces baby but y’all listen i have unfunctioning brains. also last foreigner mc i tried to avoid the stiff language (that can be taken as me making fun of foreigners) and i’m gonna try it here so like,,, please don’t cancel me i have a family to feed

oda forces

—mitsuhide:

you’ve pulled this off several times. all to horrible results, really.

that time he confronted you of your knowledge about him being a traitor, the time he practically told you to go with him during the bubbling rebellion, all the likes.

each time, you pulled a confused face at him as if he’d spoken some moon runes and switch to broken japanese. “i,, not know,,,,, what talk,, you,,,,,”

it’s hilariously stupid, since the two of you know that you can, in fact, speak language. mitsuhide was close to splitting his sides in pure amusement. and even with his metal mask on, he still let a foxy grin slip past.

“why, little mouse, did i not give you enough teachings it seems? perhaps i should give you more work to do.”

you knew in every possible way that he was as torturous a teacher as he is with his victims. and you desperately wanted out. but you’ve done so hard to dig this hole, the condensed spite inside your body said no.

“i’m,,, not know, still.”

you feel your braincells vanishing.

and he kept pushing, teasing. from that point on, he gave more homework for japanese and you’ve decided to dislike him for the rest of your life solely for that.

but hey! it gets worse.

that was only at the suface level, if the situation wasn’t too serious. but if it does:

the bitch uses your language.

he’s probably known by now what language you use, and will probably learn it just to know if you’re keeping any secrets. but now you’ve been utterly cornered. there’s no way to escape this now other than to bonk your head and get amnesia or just normal brain damage.

he still hasn’t lived that down.

uesugi-takeda forces

—yukimura:

perhaps the first time you used such a comical “strategy” (a poor excuse of one) wasn’t at the best moment.

it was when he found out you were the chatelaine of azuchi castle. the betrayed and conflicted look on yukimura’s face sent a wave of panic through you, telling you to not let the friendship you’ve built so strongly crumble.

and the first option you went with, is to scrunch your face. “you,,, uhh,, not s-sense make,,?”

“. . .what?”

you’ve done it, you’ve distracted him from the topic at hand. and you’ve also successfully drained 90% of his braincells. “what,, are you trying to cast a nonsense spell on me, boar enchanter,,,?”

even as he continues to jab at you, the hesitancy from pure confusion was clear.

“hey—! u-uhm. .”

you wanted to jab back in your own signature way, but then you realized you had to keep up the clueless persona.

“why’re you being so silly all of the sudden? i—”

“shhh! i—erm, not understand—?”

you managed to stall the discussion for another day. and he still remembers it, and also teases you at certain times.

misc. forces:

—kennyo:

the first time you met at the night of honno-ji, kennyo didn’t think much about your ‘defense mechanism’ by sputtering through the japanese language then promptly running off. he thought it was from just fear or something similar—he was, in his own words, a demon.

but the second time, he encountered it again in its fullest degree. he’d kidnapped you for ransom, and you were very scared, rightfully so.

and just like any movie villain, kennyo more or less explains what he’s going to do to you. and your reaction was to feign cluelessness, your once frowning face was now looking at him as if he were an alien.

“i,,, what,, you m-mean,,?”

now, kennyo knew you were a foreigner. his spies told him such. but once you displayed that you didn’t know language and what he meant (even if it’s fake, but he doesn’t know that yet), he felt a bit more guilty.

in his eyes, you weren’t only a chatelaine with horrible luck, being in this situation, but you were someone who already had trouble outside of his dangerous grasp.

and so, he explained it to you at least like,, 3 times in the most careful way he could. but you’re stubborn also, and you kept up the act, one that wasn’t,, even really good acting.

to an outsider’s perspective, it played more of a cartoon come to life.

eventually, he left with a sigh, and you still “”don’t know”” what he’s talking about.

whether or not he found out later,,,,, u pick :)

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #cyikemen #ikesen mitsuhide #ikesen yukimura #ikesen kennyo #*writing

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the-sanders-sides · 6 years

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inidan american (desi) logan

a sequel to this post because people asked for more and i decided that they shall receive (and also i love writing these)

fair warning, logans a bitter kid, and this isnt as positive and happy as romans post. ive experienced two different ways of being desi, one where i lived in fully asian and indian community and didnt even think id ever feel alone, and another where i moved to a place where i havent met another desi in like 7 years of living here in a 3 hour driving radius. in romans post i played into my first experience and how at home i felt. in the second experience, the one im in right now, i am much more bitter about who i am and not really knowing anyone who gets it anymore. so i play into that A LOT in this. so keep that in mind. (and he will get happier in a future part. m planning on making this into a series)

ok so first off. his name is logan sanders. people (mostly other indians) dont believe him when he tells them. he tells them they dont know indian history. they say they do. he tells them that the british fucked around (quite literally) in india for four centuries so of course english names would stick with that precise wording

sometimes when he’s annoyed enough and doesnt want to explain this for the millionth he defends himself with this russel peters skit (watch it, it’s hilarious) because it describes his family. to a T.

he grew up in a community with not very many asians, and knew no indians outside his family so he felt a sort of disconnect to his culture

while his grandparents and parents would teach him about indian culture, he felt so distant from it since he knew no one outside his family who was indian, and since he didnt have any siblings or any nearby cousins to hang around with

he had visited india once but he was too young to remember it properly or too remember his cousins

the closest mandir was an hour away so that also limited the amount of indian kids/people he knew

he barely knew hindi because everyone in his family spoke english, especially in public

he felt guilty over the disconnect he felt and would always try to bridge it but would never accomplish this because it he kept losing passion since he rarely saw other people like him in the real world and in the media and he didnt see the point of trying

this all changed in eight grade when he moved next door to the Kumar family in a north indian street of some south asian blocks in an asian community

when his family first moved, the Kumar family invited the Sanders over to welcome them

it turns out the Kumar’s had a son who was the same age as logan

“hi logan! im rohan kumar! but i like going by roman instead of rohan!”

this introduction pissed logan off

he was seething because why would this kid who got to have an indian first AND last name change his name to an english one! why didnt he see the value of his name!

he knew right away that such a difference meant they could never be friends

“im logan sanders, but thats all youll get to know about me because i see no use associating myself with someone as... well, ignorant, as you”

roman decides to whip out one of the swears his cousins taught him and whisper shouts “who are you calling ignorant, bhenchod?”

it became clear to him that this was new turf, and people on this new turf must be speaking hindi. and that he was the ignorant one if he couldnt talk in hindi. he made a vow to learn it as fast as he could to make sure this roman kid wasnt better than him

but, logan grits his teeth and says “you, and i know it must be true because you were too dumb to understand me the first time”

this evidently struck a sore spot in roman because he didnt fight back but just stalked away. logan smiled slightly, happy to have won that argument

logan asks his grandpa to teach him hindi and his grandpa gets super excited

they start lessons immediately and despite barely hearing it growing up, it’s as if his brain was made for this because he picks the language up amazingly fast and in a months time, while not able to speak back yet, he can understand most casual conversation

his first diwali in basically little india is the most magical thing ever

diwali at his old home was very quiet because there wasnt anyone around to celebrate with

everyone is so happy in this new home however. everyone is dressed up and all the houses are lit up and there are diyas everywhere and he doesnt want to admit it but the kumar’s have the best rangoli on the street and it’s because of roman and he knows roman did it because sometimes he’d stare out of his bedroom window while doing homework and have a perfect view of roman delicately working on it for two weeks

(the kumar’s front porch had been covered with tarp waiting for diwali to make sure romans precious rangoli wasnt stepped on or ruined. when it’s finally let up, everywhere where there could be art, there is. it’s insane how good at colors roman is, logan thinks)

diwali morning:

he fights his parents because he doesnt want to miss school for diwali because americans dont have a day off for it. his parents set the clocks in the house ahead to make him think he overslept so he would skip school. (logan didnt know that his parents had submitted an excused absence form for religious reasons and that the school was very understanding. he thought it would be like his old school where he wouldnteven bother trying since he wasnt christain and the school was lkinda discriminatory)

they spend the morning in mandir and it’s nice. for once he doesnt feel different from his peers because he goes to mandir and not church or synagogue. he feels at home.

diwali afternoon:

the afternoon is spent with frantic cleaning and cooking and digging around for the diya’s that were still in boxes, packed away from when they moved

logan offered to find them all to continue with a diya science experiment he started two years prior. his theory was that the diya’s were multiplying and there were more each year despite no one buying anymore

this held true, because even though he could only find half of their diya collection, it was somehow more than the entire diya collection of two years prior.

diwali evening:

theres a big potluck and everyone in the neighborhood is out talking to each other, looking at the decorations at everyones houses, eating samosas, and playing with sparklers.

logan feels content

he makes a new resolve to learn more about hinduism. if this is what ti was supposed to be, then he never wanted to be away from hinduism.

he looked at the metaphors and symbolism in everything and finally understood what his dad meant he told logan that hinduism is just science written in poetry and that string theory is written in the ancient texts

middle school in this new town is so much better than middle school in his old home. why?

a. doesnt get bullied for being a nerd

b. doesnt get called gay slurs

c. the classes are harder

d. much less racism

e. all of the above

soon enough, logans asking his grandpa to teach him how to cook Indian food

Logan spends the day burning dosas and making lopsided rotis

(eventually he gets the hang of it, and a he'll be cooking food for an infuriating Indian boy ;) ;) psst it's roman)

Speaking of boys

Coming out isn't an option for logan

He knows that his parents arent really religious enough to really look into hinduism and see that no, gays are not bad

But they are traditional and conservative enough to be homophobic

not homophobic as in spewing hate with the westboro baptist church at a pride parade

But homophobic as in "the gays are fine as long as they don't do it in front of me" kinda thing

So Logan stays quiet

the closet kinda sucks but i mean what can he do

it’s safer inside, and he as illogical as wishing is, he wishes that people would use their brains and realize there’s nothing wrong with gay

anyway

in school logan makes his first desi friend, who was dubbed as anxiety years ago and cant seem to get rid of the nickname and now has a whole complex about his name so logan doesnt know his name

logan and anxiety meet in the school library: logan studying and anxiety hiding

people dont like anxiety

especially non-indian kids

surprise surprise it’s an old buddy called racism, but anxiety’s story is for another time

(but even though no one really likes anxiety, whenever racist shit goes down, it has to go through roman)

so logan and anxiety become fast friends

and they make fun of roman (a+ bonding)

logan claims that roman is a hypocrite for changing his name to an english one while being so immersed in indian culture

anxiety doesnt dispute this, but says he has a past with roman

a past that involved getting stuck with the name anxiety

again, another story for another time

one day, when logan and anxiety are eating lunch they see roman destroy some homophobes who throw around the word f*g and keep calling caitlyn jenner, bruce jenner

logans chest surges

he’s all like “what?? emotions?? pride at roman?? is he better than me for being so open and standing up for what he believes in??”

gay panic basically

but logan masked it well and pushed it away

the next day roman comes to school with a pride patch on his jean jacket

logan feels like he cant breathe

logan is supremely jealous of roman.

he can be gay in peace

he can pretend not to be indian in a way that benefits him

and he’s not affected by stereotypes in the same way?? like what does this kid not have

and by stereotypes i mean

roman is the complete opposite of all indian and desi stereotypes: loud, flamboyant, theatrical

logan’s personality is exactly how the stereotypes are. he’s nerdy and likes science and math and it seems like he cant escape the stereotypes. they follow him. and he feels guilty that he likes science and math and is nerdy.

as illogical as it is, he wishes he was different from how he is

but logan later learns that there are more than just his perspective on being desi and that every desi kid growing up faces challenges about it that are different than his, causing them to experience being desi differently

and logan will accept that, in another story at another time

for now, he’s just bitter. and as illogical as it is, he wishes the world was better

and now, i shall tag some people who asked to be tagged and some other desi’s who loved this because i feel like you guys might appreciate this too. also i love u. desi famders squad up.

@sssixeyedrunt @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @caterpiller-tea @xxxbladeangelxxx @snufflesthegrim227 @cloudchaser7 @thelowlysatsuma

#logan sanders #logince #virgil sanders #roman sanders #desi #desi headcanons #sanders sides #mine #please love this #r #l #v

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spockandawe · 7 years

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So you’ve heard Spock is the actual literal devil

Have you heard that I’m a terrible person? A plagiarist? Have you been told that I’m only into transformers at all because I wanted to make this one random guy unhappy? If you’ve been told that, you’ve probably also been told that a year and a half later, I’m still making fanworks just to upset him. You might have even heard that shhhh, don’t disagree with Spock on anything, or they’ll hunt you down and harass you.

Right, okay. This is one hell of a saga that I will attempt to tell in as compressed a form as possible. It’s a lot. Years ago, back in HS, there was this one guy who policed the hell out of one of the character tags. I’m going to call him C. He’d pressure people not to make the content they were making, decry the hateful people reading with a malicious eye who thought the character would ever do anything bad (the character was a creep). And because being obnoxious wasn’t bad enough, if you didn’t cave to his demands, he just might do things like start whisper campaigns about how you support rape, casually out you as a survivor, cute little things like that.

This is not a story about that guy.

This is a story about C’s one-time attack dog, eventual boyfriend, and current ex. We’ll go ahead and call him R. I’ve tried real hard to avoid namedropping on my blog before, but could people find him from this? Probably. Have I stopped caring? Absolutely.

TL;DR, unsubstantiated accusations of serial harassment are a little questionable when they’re coming from someone with a years-long, extensively documented history of serial harassment and a personal grudge against me.

Cut for length.

Edit 7/2/2017: R has posted that he regrets making these posts about me, and admits that he said things that were out of line. And he’s stated that he’s going to try to do better in the future. I genuinely, truly appreciate that. I’m leaving this post up because there have been lies about me floating around for a while and I reserve the right to defend myself, but I really do appreciate that.

Oh balls, none of this makes sense without backstory (I’m so sorry)

If you think I suck or my work sucks, that’s fine! You do you, go enjoy the things that make you happy.

If you think I’m the devil because this one guy told you about my evil, evil past and all my terrible misdeeds, without anything at all to back up his words? You can ask me. I don’t bite, and oh lordy do I have receipts.

To be clear, R is totally allowed to hate me! I don't care. I don't care if he hates my writing, I don't care if he hates me as a person. But now he's escalated to spreading lies about me, and people are believing him, and I’m not enough of a doormat to let that just stand.

And I’m going to cheat a little. Here’s a memo with the cliffs notes version (not the original memo, I made a copy with C’s urls cropped out since he hasn’t attacked anyone in a long while). Warning, digging any distance into this turns up violent fantasies, violent sexual fantasies, creepy interactions with a minor, and lots more, it’s all really, really unpleasant. Evidence is thoroughly documented, please tread with care.

You would not believe how truncated that is compared to the reality.

Now, the worst of this came via C. Who has calmed down a lot these days, and I’m really happy that’s the case. Good for him. I hope his life continues in a direction where he doesn’t find it necessary to do this stuff.

Lucky for me, R was standing by to pick up the slack.

It doesn’t show up as much in the memo, which is mostly C-focused, but R was standing by C this whole time, defending his right to spread around private information about someone’s abuse history, sending nasty messages on the other guy’s behalf, and much,much more. it’s long, it’s awful, it’s unpleasant. R personally hurt people in some significant ways that I don’t want to link directly, for their sake. He expressed deep remorse a few times, but it never stuck.

Here’s my personal favorite quote from R. He’s speaking to the CSA survivor that C casually outed (with information given to him in confidence), and who they’d been running a long, long whisper campaign against, and who was understandably a bit upset over the whole thing:

oh go wank to your own tears [name]

#and get your sympathizers to help #nasty fucking people #maybe if you cry enough youll be able to go into second grade in the fall #ooc

Said, again, to a CSA survivor they outed and harassed. That person is such a sweetheart, and this screencap still infuriates me.

The first time I saw C pick a fight he had lots of friends. Shockingly, as he did things like loudly fantasize about how he wants to mutilate people and rant about how autistic people should die, those friends mostly drifted away. I know one person had a friend even help them stage a faux relationship-ending fight, so they could be sure they’d be able to completely cut and run from C. R stuck with him, though. Eventually they even started dating.

‘Spock followed R into transformers to harass him and stalks his favorite characters just to harass him more’

Then, transformers. Here, let me show you the first post (by R) that ever brought MTMTE to my attention. I spent years being aggressively uninterested in transformers, but this caught my eye

and honestly, ppl (adults too!!!) shipping someone who has the mentality of a child and is quite glaringly lacking a world of experiences and general understanding of things outside of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, with an adult, is just. very alarming and gross to me.

and honestly, the fact that there is a large portion of people who want him to become romantically (and sexually!!!) involved with either one of two fucking adults in canon, and hell, esp those defending it with ‘hes an adult too tho!!’ is really gross.

you can pretend all you want that hes ‘an adult’ because his body is, but theres no way jro didnt intent to code him as a child. stop fetishizing children lmao,

#pedophilia -/-/- #cygate -/-/- #if someone comes at me screaming ‘rule 38′ im gonna shove them in a locker

I didn’t know transformers, but I was pretty sure this was some straight-up bullshit.

(but don’t worry, he ships it now! no hypocrisy here, no sir)

It’s “really gross” to ship this adult with other adults. Mm. Given the reasonableness of the claims these guys have made in the past, and given their extensive history of harassing people over those claims, I hopped to the wiki to check it out. I read a bit about the comic and the plot, and all of it sounded so fascinating that I just had to give the comic a try.

Reader, I married it.

I shotgunned MTMTE 1-47 in two days, started doing fanworks right out of the gate, and I’ve never looked back. A lot of my art was cygate, because come on, the comic wants you to ship it so bad, my first readthrough ended with issue 47, and that was the first ship I’d ever read about for the series, even before I dove in.

Now, both these characters punch me right in the heart, in some painfully personal ways. Tailgate’s the more relevant one here, but I don’t even know if I could do justice to the emotions both of them give me.

I’m still not a fan of how R’s lies about me have edged me into needing to say this in public, but okay. I’m developmentally delayed. It’s been a rough ride. And Tailgate hits me in some of those spots so hard it just takes my breath away. I’ve got a lot of baggage over not being a real adult, and not in the funny oh-no-how-do-taxes-work way, more like an extended months-long meltdown my first year of college because I can tell that my friends are years ahead of me and I don’t know how to even start catching up, and just existing, as myself, is humiliating.

All of my relationship milestones have come painfully, painfully late. The whole thing is still one awful emotional bruise. I hate it, and I hate how easy it is to convince myself that yeah, of course you don’t actually deserve to be treated as an adult and you never will. Just look at you. So then it is unbelievably important to me that I can see someone someone who is like me, being treated as a legitimate adult, and being able to have an adult relationship.

Hearing that shipping someone like me is essentially pedophilia is the opposite of that.

But he ships it now, so everything is fine :)

Yeah, you know what? Another fucking receipt.

uGHGH im so tired of all the rabid cy// /gat// //e fans like even cy’s giving em a look like ‘leave my fucking child alone’

#i just #im hoping jro has some taste tho and doesnt make an adult date a child #and if not im hoping the outcome blows over soon bc im so tired of seeing people defend pedophilia #pedophilia -/-/-

Parental.

This continued even after JRO explicitly confirmed Tailgate was an adult.

Bonus ableism: shipping Whirl (another character who hits me way too hard) isn’t okay either. Even though there isn’t the excuse of ‘but he only lived three years--’ No, at that point, you’re saying that an adult who fails to adult correctly does not count, and isn’t allowed to have romantic relationships. It makes my skin crawl, and it is an issue which is very personally and directly important to me.

So some of my cygate was porn from the start (it’s what I write. it’s what I draw.), and some of the porn was made because I was upset over discourse that says someone like me needs to be treated as a child. I played with cywhirlgate too, because omg how could I not, and some of that was porn as well. It was ages ago, so I don’t remember the details for every little thing I made. But when I saw someone saying that Cyclonus and Tailgate had a parental relationship, I’m sure that helped nudge me in that direction. Maybe R thinks I should have channeled my emotions by starting a whisper campaign to exclude him from fandom spaces. But I think my way of working through bad emotions might have been a little healthier than that.

So when R accuses me of making cygate content to spite him? Half true. Just true enough to be real fucking dishonest. R spent a nice long time insisting that cygate was pedophilia. I channeled my outrage over that ableism into fan creations.

I didn’t attack him. I talked about him some – on a private forum, with people who’d already been aware of him and had been watching him and C hurt people for years, plural. I haven’t told people on tumblr any real details about him until now. And R still is happy to talk about how it was his toxic ex’s right to post torture/rape/murder porn vent fic about actual people.

Tell me, how exactly am I in the wrong?

Bonus pettiness: I posted some cywhirlgate porn. The next day, R vaguely whined about robot pedophilia and turned around and wrote some obviously-a-response cywhirlgate. Where it was super platonic and the text explicitly said it was super platonic and it even had platonic thigh nuzzling. With two “children” involved. Of course I turned around and wrote more fic of my own, because jesus h christ that made my skin crawl. You want to play this game? I guarantee I can write faster than you, let’s do this. (he did not follow through on that)

I’d also like to say that forgetting inconvenient little details like this is a thing with R. Hard to call me terrible for writing spitefic when you write it yourself.

A history of Spock’s personal involvement

Let’s backtrack a tiny bit. You may notice I am up to my elbows in this nonsense for no clear reason.

I was friends with some of the people C was taking shots at, and I was unfortunate enough to believe his original smear campaign about that one artist (I’m still ashamed about that). I cared about a number of people C was trying to hurt. I think one or two fanworks of mine upset him, but he already had loads of targets. I kept tabs on him and R, because anxiety is the gift that just keeps giving.

Eventually, C fantasized about wanting to put my former datemate’s hand through a meat grinder (ey wrote a fic that portrayed his fave in a negative light). And R defended his right to do that.

The person he posted about is still feeling the effects of that incident. I’m still feeling the effects of that. And it wasn’t even directed at me, just someone I care deeply about.

R has recently posted that ‘oh my goodness, C sure was awful, remember when he posted this thing about a meat grinder and how unreasonable it was?’ Thanks buddy, glad you noticed, now just go ahead and keep on blaming me for the aftereffects of what your boyfriend did, and what you defended.

After that, it was months before I could properly look away from either of their blogs.

C posted extensively about trying to track down the street address of his ~enemies~ (including the one whose genitals he fantasized about mutilating). He posted about how autistics should die. He had skype chats about wanting to do amateur brain surgery on people. All while posting very often about finding real addresses.

Yeah, it’s more than a year later, and every so often I get a stab of anxiety and have to head off to double check on what these two are up to.

I will repeat that C has been pretty chill lately. He’s got a career he’s aiming for. Good for him, go find success, please don’t slip back into being an internet bully. It’s sad and upsetting to see R echoing some of the early patterns of his ex, and it’s so strange to see me labeled as his own personal enemy.

‘Spock will totally come harass you too’ and/or various accusations of ableism

So there are some things I did in the mix in this history that I regret. Occasionally, I went out and flipped through the blogs of C and R’s friends, seeing if maybe they’d had said something in their notes, did they have any vagueblogs C liked, did they post about— It got unreasonable. I admit that. Anxiety was at the root of it, but it absolutely got unreasonable. And also it is a massive time sink, and I can’t remember the last time I bothered with it. I enjoy life much more when anxiety and paranoia issues don’t have their claws in me. This hasn’t been an issue in a very long time.

I came down hard on some of the kinfeels and system stuff too, which I do walk back a bit. C’s approach was… hahaha. It was something. And he was my intro to the kin and system paradigms. I saw R talking about C’s approach being unreasonable too, pretty recently. So that was an unfortunate bit of poison in how I processed the next people I met who did that sort of thing. I don’t do kin stuff, but I get it. And DID may not strictly apply to all systems, by the formal diagnostic criteria, but I’ve learned there are plenty of other dissociative disorders out there. And I met people who were multiples and who did kin things that weren’t these two guys. Which helped a LOT.

But the big one, hmmm. C wrote a fic. The idea was interesting, but the execution frustrated me. Everyone but the main lead felt so… flat. Everyone was constantly cruel to the main, for no reason. I saw a way to riff on the original text while staying true to its shape, and writing my bad emotions out is also a major, major thing I do to cope. Now, my big thing is that I should have asked before I remixed. I’d been thinking in terms of, y’know, transformative fanworks. Even with authors like Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice, who fought against fandom, people have still felt that it should be allowed, even against their wishes. So I wrote the remix. I gave full credit on ao3 in the ‘inspired by’ box, linked to the original with positive words, the whole shebang.

The guy was still furious, and… that’s fair. I thought I’d written a thing on self-sabotage that was pretty sympathetic and compelling, and the self-sabotage actually drew a lot on my own personal history. But I gave the main flaws he strongly disagreed with, and I didn’t ask for permission. I get why he was/is angry over it.

I’ve been a fixture on their shitlists ever since :P

It’s remarkable, even while R posts now about ‘oh my god, remember how C wrote the creepiest things?’, I’m still the one who’s the the actual worst, for being skeeved out by the creepy things and finding a constructive way to deal with it. R’s controlling ex gets full freedom when it comes to vent fic, even when it’s about wallowing in torturing, raping, and murdering an avatar for a real person (the original one they harassed!), or punching someone in the face until they agree to be your friend (another artist these guys targeted). But R’s position seems to be that only C is allowed to vent (even if it’s genital mutilation fantasies), and I’m definitely not.

Oh, and R has now expanded this remix into me totally having a consistent pattern of stealing ideas and plagiarism and so many remixes that are obviously done as revenge on anyone who pisses me off. So that’s nice.

So R hates your writing. Is that seriously why this post exists?

Ha, no. Let’s look at the concrete things R is saying. Here, let me post a little sampling of evidence.

These aren’t just things he’s shouting into the void, people have responded saying wow, I never knew that! These are lies that people are believing about me. And then yesterday, June 30, 2017, he warned a friend not to disagree with my meta, or I’d come harass them. A friend I’m aggressively leaving out of this, just as I’m leaving out other responses, because these people don’t deserve to be dragged into R’s bullshit.

Let’s have bullet points. Some of these are the silly spock-is-bad-at-writing complaints. Those are here because this whole mess is pretty fucking depressing and the ridiculous claims make me laugh, but these are all things he says.

Spock is evil – You know what, he’s not calling people pedophiles, which is a step up. I’ll take it.

Spock is a plagiarist – I remixed one fic with full credit, said only good things about the original, and linked to it in extra places so that people would have extra opportunities to click through and check it out. I arguably remixed inappropriately, but that’s not the same thing. Words have definitions. If I’m a plagiarist, so is everyone who’s ever written a fanfic.

Spock is something something mean when people disagree – I don’t even know, man. I’m actually shockingly conflict-averse. Is this because I make walls of text and explain why I hold opinions at great length? I enjoy talking about a thing I love. I’m autistic, I’m hyperverbal, and this is my special interest, so is it that I talk a lot? That’s the best I can do. I’ve talked about things I disagree with on a private forum, in which case mister pot has had a lot of fun in public on twitter, not only talking shit, but also spreading outright untruths. Maybe he wants to rethink this one.

Spock will come harass you if you disagree – You need to back the heck down, pal.

Spock’s meta/fic/characterization is bad and they should feel bad – Hahaha, fite me. He won’t, because I can articulately defend myself at significant length, and his criticisms seem to stop at ‘spock sucks’, but hey.

Spock used ableist language about Whirl - I... what? This one confuses me and makes me laugh so it stays here. Also, holy double standards, batman.

Spock is only into transformers to harass R – I checked out transformers because I was pretty sure R was being disgustingly ableist (he was). I stayed in transformers because I adore it. I had to adore it a lot to make me willing to share fandom space with these two. My god, I have better things to do with my life than spend all my time on something that bores me just to annoy one asshole on the other side of the internet. I’d ask if he thinks I spent dozens of painstaking hours cross-stitching Starscream just to bother him, but….. yep, pretty sure he does.

Spock goes after all of R’s favorite characters to upset him – R latches on to just about every interesting and/or sympathetic character that shows up. When he was dating C, they covered most of the cast between them. I don’t care who R likes best because I don’t agree with his opinions. I tend to stay away from his opinions because I don’t like reading things that bother me. This is asnine. I’m only allowed to like the characters R despises, I guess.

Spock makes fanworks for things R likes just to make him see them – Oh my god, I don’t caaaaaare. I write about things that interest me, unless I’m venting. Say, venting about the way R and his ex have deliberately hurt a shockingly high number of people I care about. ‘Spock made rodistar because I liked it--’ I made it because I wrote a thing about their parallels, and shipping was the obvious next step. R isn’t that important to me. Promise.

This is just exhausting, man. The anxiety bugs had been dying down, and it had been ages since I checked out this guy’s anything. C, who drove the whole initial blowup that led to this, has been quiet and chill on tumblr. But R has learned from his ex’s old example and has been having fun spreading lies about me.

In conclusion

Some fun history.

R was 18 when he told a CSA survivor upset about being outed and harassed to wank using their tears for lube.

He was older than that when he defended C’s right to post about wanting to mutilate someone’s genitals (for the crime of saying C’s logic didn’t make sense).

He was older than that when he complained about that person’s spouse being ‘vicious’ for reacting badly to C’s genital mutilation fantasy.

He was older than that when he nodded along as C called autistic people retards and said they should die.

He was older than that when he talked about being happy that someone he disliked was triggered, and nodded along when C fantasized about that person drinking bleach.

And he was older than that when he defended C, his twenty-something boyfriend, against the thirteen-year-old that C had been having incredibly inappropriate conversations with, despite skype log proof and everything.

And despite all this, I’m still the bad guy, because I didn’t think what they were doing was okay. I’m the bad guy for being upset by C's actions, even though... R is now upset by C’s actions. The ways I responded to C were inexcusable. My only motivation is to hurt people. Every thing I did that ever upset them still means I’m terrible, even though R is saying this while he’s busy posting about how awful C is. And this all means that he needs to warn his friends not to catch my attention, or I’ll come harass them.

So, I’m tired.

I’m very tired.

I’m glad he’s trying to grow past that history. Good. Maybe he can do that without making up a story about how I’m unrepentant villain who lives for villainy and who only takes joy in causing him pain. I’m sure it helps him, because it’s a story that brushes aside the shit he did that he regrets, and makes his past less painful to think about. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with him telling lies about me.

I don’t know why I’m the one boogeyman he has left (I kid, it’s because I’m in transformers, and because he thinks I’m popular. he harps on it a lot, and it’s weird for everyone). I mean, whatever. I’ve aggressively avoided publishing drama details on here for a very long time. But there are two blog tags, miscellaneous other untagged blog content, three forum threads, and hundreds of pages of skype logs with hard evidence of this bullshit.

I’m pretty sure that if he tries to defend himself, one, he’ll place some blame on his ex. That’s fair. C was pretty darn controlling and demanding. But R is still absolutely responsible for his own actions, and is especially responsible for the harm he personally caused. He’ll talk about how it’s bullshit to pull up all these receipts from so very long ago. In that case, his receipts for me (whatever he even has) are equally old, so aren’t they null and void? No, because Spock is the devil. And it’s not so much bullshit if he’s clearly learned nothing, and has gone back to spreading outright falsehoods about people.

To be clear, a lot of the lies he told about me were told a while back. Weeks to a few months to a year. I was letting it sit, because I’d really, really hoped this was over. Yesterday, June 30, 2017, he warned a friend not to publicly disagree with my meta or I’d come and harass them.

It’s been three years since I first saw him doing this. I’ve watched him hurt a lot of people, and I’ve watched him admit, multiple times, that he has hurt people. I thought he’d learned to stop following these toxic patterns. Apparently he has not.

Edit 7/2/2017: To repeat the edit up above, R has said he regrets posting these things about me, and that he's going to try to avoid slipping into this in the future. I very much appreciate that.

#drama tag #abusaa tag #tw: all #i can't list them all it's too many #just tread with care

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drinkshaming-blog · 7 years

Text

>Gamzee: Transport eggs.

You illuminate the path ahead of you, unwavering in your light as you gingerly carry a large, padded basket full of eggs towards one of the incubation caverns. Your bare feet pad softly against the rocky ground, dark stone tinted a hundred colors from sweeps of blood and paint running through the crevices. As you walk, you sing to the basket under your breath.

Ahead, the entry you remember is gone, as well as several of the murals that were beside it. You stop and frown. Your memory isn’t that bad, is it?

“Gamzee!” calls a voice from down the tunnel. “Ataki’e!”

You look up and wave in greeting. “Ataki’la, kenna.”

A troll a few sweeps older than you, Datayn, approaches you, carrying an armful of failed eggs. She nods to the wall where the entry should be. “Eylna te hariek’a juni pate, ah, saulo tog’una fabrei ne’gi, tellai.” Her expression darkens momentarily. “Temai’e herum herei te taki’e kureti aue.”

Your eyebrows lift and you study the wall, or rather the unwieldy rubble that makes up the wall. It’s difficult to tell where there’s been a recent collapse because there are so many old collapses-- there’s an old saying that goes hariek’a hennei kala re’ue ni’a, or ‘every wall of the caverns is made of someone’s ruins’. Datayn says eight jades and forty eggs were lost to a collapse three nights ago. You turn your gaze back to Datayn with a soft smile. “Auwae. Malai, malai, kenna.”

She smiles back. “Malai, malai, tellai.”

“Reke’te aue hyeni’el keji keia unelli te orema?”

“Paela taei ke me’ei.”

“Fa’ele key te jyre’kl te haeme’ai saulo taki’e?”

“Ah, raenu keai ke’ea ne’a dayn, melliaku.”

“Ta, auwae. Kelli’a ieneta ue!” You carefully rotate one of the eggs in your basket.

“Ieneta ue,” she echoes, nodding towards the failed eggs in her arms. “Temai’ilee kaki morei, shereya, Gamzee.” She laughs at her own joke and allows you to adjust the rhododendron in her hair before she continues on her path and you alter yours, turning right at the next fork to make your way to another incubation cavern.

As you walk, you check your messages, scrolling through a couple notifications about various projects you’re collaborating on (and sighing softly at your conversations with Tavros and Karkat respectively) until you reach your conversation with your supervisor.

GAMZEE: no worries, motherfucker GAMZEE: youll get a chance to see these legs again sooner or later haha JAREED: |et’s aim for ‘sooner’. GAMZEE: sure thing :o) JAREED: you are hard at work, i assume? GAMZEE: be up and carrying some motherfucking eggs around right now actually JAREED: oh! are you, uh. |uminescent? GAMZEE: yeah haha i lights all up whenever shits dark GAMZEE: helps a brother get around easy JAREED: that’s pretty hot.

Your smile widens. Motherfuck, for all the respect he doesn’t have for you, this thing you’re doing with him feels pretty good.

GAMZEE: you think? JAREED: yeah, the who|e g|owing thing, as we|| as the makeup stuff you wear. JAREED: and you. you are beautifu|. GAMZEE: haha damn thanks GAMZEE: thats all some nice shit to hear from a motherfucker as you GAMZEE: which, here cant make no judgements cause i dont all talk to so many highbloods JAREED: you are the first jade i’ve spoken to as we||. GAMZEE: really? JAREED: yes. i have heard stories about friends of friends who have had… encounters with jades, of course, but it is difficu|t to discern how much of that is pure boasting. JAREED: i think most tro||s want to find out what it’s |ike. GAMZEE: wow GAMZEE: that mean a brother just got lucky or something? JAREED: yeah, i got to see you for myse|f. GAMZEE: all kinds of motherfucking good shit that be haha GAMZEE: this fucker getting to talk at ya such how, shades and looks and everything JAREED: nothing you say makes sense. it’s cute. GAMZEE: haha aight JAREED: it’s because you speak that backwards jade dia|ect, right? it’s very exotic.

Does he think you’re speaking in the mother tongue? Does he think that’s the mother tongue?

GAMZEE: sure GAMZEE: so this all you tryna make a story for ya friends friends to gossip at, if ya catch? JAREED: abso|utely. i want you.

Oh, man. This is obviously intensely objectifying, but fuck it’s nice to be wanted. Why don’t you fall in love with people who fetishize you like Jareed does, again? (Because you would and do choose real, all-consuming, unrequited love over someone fickle who actually wants you any night. Which is a miracle unto itself.)

GAMZEE: thanks :o) JAREED: i’|| try to find an excuse to visit the caverns soon. GAMZEE: oh aight JAREED: is the new diet for the mother grub working out? GAMZEE: yeah shit be going down right as rain yo

You hear singing and see flickering light ahead, and shut off your palmhusk, checking on the eggs instead of paying attention to the new message vibration. Before long, you find yourself cutting through an enormous cavern where rows of jades are hauling on lines and handling levers to move huge vats of genetic material (a job far too delicate for machines- one off-temper unit and the entire gene pool could be poisoned). You walk down one of the lines as they continue to sing, and stop beside one particular troll.

“Yo, Kerede,” you greet him.

The jagged scar on his face twists as he smiles up at you, continuing to haul in time with the song. “Hey, brother. How’s the night treating you?”

“Some fine shit, tellai. You?”

He shrugs as much as he can. “Got stuck hauling, but we having a good time here.” Something catches someone’s attention; they raise their hand and call for the others to stop. The motion pauses and several trolls hurry over to check out whatever’s wrong with the slurry. Kerede steps away from the line; you decaptchalogue a skein of water and hand it to him. “Thanks, man. You going to the festival this week, right?”

“Yeah, motherfucker just heard of all that,” you reply. “Gotta pay respects and shit. Been a while since the last big event, anyway.”

“True, shit’ll be nice.” Kerede carefully pours some water over the back of his neck. “Anyways, I’m near finished with the inseam on that hat for ya’ friend. Probably be done in a night or two, depending how busy I am. Having a nice time with it.” He finishes dousing himself in water and holds out his arms invitingly; you carefully hand your basket to him and stretch.

“Damn, aight. Thanks. Anything a motherfucker can do back at ya?” you ask.

He thinks about that for a moment. “Oh, I been working on some fancy dress for my palemate’s wriggling day in a few perigees here, could use some patterned silk for a shawl kinda thing.”

You nod. It isn’t repayment for his services, that isn’t how things work down here; it’s a way to keep busy, to keep creating, to help a brother. And this sounds like something you’d enjoy in your free time. “What size you thinking? Might need to find some help getting dyes and all.”

“Well-” A call goes up for workers to return to their places. “Shit.” He hands your basket and water skein back to you and repositions himself beside the line. “I’ll message you the details, okay?”

“Sounds good, brother.” You smile at him. “See you.”

He returns your smile and you’re on your way again as the singing starts back up.

Some time later, you see seashells dotting the walls of the tunnel, most broken into a few pieces by centuries of pressure at least. A few jades are carefully digging some of the shells out of the stone. They must be on break. You watch them gently scrape at the insides of the shells, presumably to make sure they’re the type that can be used to make a certain rich fuchsia pigment. One of the trolls calls to you and asks if you’d like some dye from these once it’s been treated. You say yes, definitely, and thank him-- without stopping; you’ve wasted some time already and you don’t want these eggs to cool down too much.

A few minutes later, you’re humming softly to yourself and the eggs when a smaller troll, barely younger than you, falls in step beside you. There’s something strange about the shape of her torso, not distinctly noticeable but undeniably there; she herself was killed in a collapse not too long ago. She’s holding a basket of eggs as well, you notice as she amiably joins in with the words to your song. “Cover your crystal eyes, and let your colors bleed and blend with mine... Making, uh-- motherfuck, forgot the lyrics.”

You laugh. “‘Sup, Ellane?”

“Thirsty as shit,” she replies frankly.

“Mm, I feel ya. Should check in with Ya’alei? Motherfucker might got something to spare,” you suggest. Ellane nods. “Mine best friend got me all fed couple nights ago,” you add, some pride in your tone.

She cocks her head. “Who?”

“Karkat.”

Her eyes widen, a grin playing across her face. “The cute cerulean who was here like last week? He is, so. Oh.”

You give another soft laugh, keeping an eye on your basket. “He’s the only cerulean you ever met, sister.”

“Yeah, but I’ve seen them in movies. He’s motherfucking cute. Have you ever met another cerulean, anyways?”

Shrug affably. “Nah, I ain’t. Got a good point.”

“Was he the one you went out with?” Her gaze traces the colorful shapes on the cavern walls as she moves past them.

“Yeah.” You smile at the memory.

“Sweet messiahs, that must have been so cool. How was that, anyways?”

“Some miracle shit. Brother took me to see some wildflowers and all, we sat around most the night. Hardly wanted to come back.” There’s probably some totally obvious note of disproportionate happiness in your voice.

She quirks an eyebrow. “So are you pale for him or what?”

“Yeah,” you reply simply. The two of you reach the entrance to the incubation cavern and head inside, navigating around clutches of eggs to find an open space. This area is tinged with the sulfurous smell of the hot air channeled up into this chamber from the boiling wells deep below. You step over one of the naturally occurring vents that line the wall of the cavern, feeling its intense heat on your legs-- it reminds you of the sweeps before the game, when you were the youngest troll in the caverns and your relatively diminutive size made you the perfect candidate to lower yourself down into the vents and locate blockages or problems. It reminds you of crawling for what felt like weeks through narrow winding tunnels, sometimes having to press your back and feet against the sides so you didn’t fall, of scraped shoulders and skinned knees and damp clothing, of a parched tongue that painfully juxtaposed the air so humid you thought you’d suffocate, of heat rashes and ambiguous chemical burns, of having to grope your way along the wall through total and inexhaustible darkness.

Motherfuck, you wish you had your bioluminescence then. Maybe you’ll go back down there sometime. You smile and continue to follow Ellane, breaking your trance with “Sorry, what’d you motherfucking say?”

“Does he know?” she repeats.

“Don’t think so,” you say as she sets her basket down and lays a thick cover out in a wide, shallow depression in the cavern floor. “Ain’t trying to make it known, but ain’t tryna hide it neither.”

“Are you gonna make a move?”

“Nope. Motherfucker ain’t any way, like, available for that feelings shit, nor interested in a brother. Just friend shit.” You set down your own basket and start transferring the eggs to the cover.

She examines one of her eggs and then sets it aside with a little sigh. “And you’re happy with that?”

“Sure thing.” You smile down at the eggs. “I love him, ya know, don’t need nothing back. Brother knows I’m there for him, that’s the best I motherfuckin’ need.” You know if he knew how you feel, he’d try to cut ties with you; you know it’s bound to happen sometime. But he’s here for now, and you’re happy with that, and the little pining lump in the center of your chest just reminds you how good you felt when he was yours. And that’s not a bad thing. You squint at the ceiling, trying to fit words together. “It’s, uh. You know, tou’na leiva, for a motherfucker, like takalou na’e hekemai? Reke ali’i jeya fe’all, gaiye pala he works shit out. It all... hennai ali’e ta, last time. Kinda, um, ehuwei te’a. Miracle shit.”

She gives a little nod. “Ah, I got you. Ca’ali te, brother.”

You adjust an egg in the clutch with a laugh. “Yeah, ca’ali te.” Ellane reaches over to you and wipes at what you assume is a spot of smudged paint near your jaw, starting to hum another song. You quickly check your messages again; before Kerede’s recent message about the shawl for his moirail is one from Tavros, which does hurt a little, as fresh wounds tend to do. You smile, at her in thanks and at yourself for being able to help Tavros out as well as you can.

The mineral deposits in the incubation cavern glimmer as you and Ellane make your way out, the light from your bodies reflecting against the crystals, and you take a moment to take in the huge murals that illuminate the walls nearly as much as your bioluminescence does. They bear lines of scripture, depict messiahs and cavern workers and flowering trees and moon cycles, scenes of violence and kindness.

The caverns are beautiful, you think for the hundred thousandth time over the course of your life, all decked out in centuries’ worth of paints and stardust stains in every color imaginable, all full of siblings in their own paints and flowers and stardust singing songs and performing ancient rites and lighting their paths with the radiance of their own bodies. Making inks and baskets and clothes purely for the love of making. No wildflowers could be this vibrant, you think. You work hard, all of you, scraped shoulders and blistered palms and crushed ribs, hands grasping blindly in the dark, purely for the sake of creating something good, and you have. Here, deep beneath the surface of Alternia, is the garden of the sun.

These caverns must have been a lifeless place before the Faith was born-- you can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for your people back when they were really slaves. And without the Faith, they still would be. Without the Faith, you can only imagine that these caverns, here beautiful, the garden of the sun, would be dark and empty.

You like to think that you’re like the caverns.

#prayers #longpost //#slavery //#death //#claustrophobia //#fetishization //#casteism //#more people being attracted to karkat //#blood //#ask to tag //

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