#I cant imagine the guilt he felt in those 100 years

[smilesrobotlover]

Ok this has been bothering me all day. I saw a post talking about how Rauru and Sonia did more for Zelda than Rhoam did and… I’m once again going to defend Rhoam, cuz that’s a very unfair thing to say and a horrible comparison to make.

Rauru and Sonia helped Zelda with her time powers and learning about the secret stone. Rhoam didn’t help her with her sealing power. Why? Cuz he has no magic and he clearly wasn’t the one who had it. Her mother was the one who had the power and was the one to teach her. Rhoam had no idea what he was doing, he didn’t understand the magic, and he hoped that if she dedicated her life that it would awaken so that the calamity wouldn’t destroy their home.

Well he should’ve tried to help her anyways right? Well, yes it’s easy to say that, unfortunately Rhoam was put in a very bad position of being king with the looming threat of the APOCALYPSE!!!! I think it’s implied that Rhoam married into the family, since his wife had the sealing power from the blood of the goddess or whatever, and seeing how he’s Hylian, he wasn’t a prince from another kingdom since all other kingdoms in this world have small round ears. For all we know, he was a prince consort who was never raised to be king. We don’t know what he was doing before, but with his wife’s sudden death and the responsibility of protecting his kingdom, he didn’t make the right choices. Which isn’t an excuse, but in his position, it’s an explanation. Rauru and Sonia didn’t have an apocalypse threatening to happen, in fact, they were in an era of peace and the future seemed bright. Of course they had time to hang out with Zelda and have tea parties with her. They seemed to be relaxed and having fun, which makes sense seeing how there didn’t seem to be much of a threat to their kingdom, minus Ganondorf, but I don’t think either of them saw him as a huge threat, seeing how they were absolutely blindsided by him.

It’s implied in AOC that Rhoam shouldered all of the responsibilities of the kingdom, and it seemed that he was under a significant amount of pressure during the calamity. And I feel like he mostly did that so Zelda could focus on awakening her power. She didn’t seem to have many responsibilities as princess save for awakening her power and helping out the champions. She is barely 17 so it makes sense that she’s not ruling the kingdom, but I do feel like Rhoam did all that stuff so she could focus on the calamity itself. And I’m sure in his stress he grew frustrated whenever Zelda focused more on the machines than awakening her power. Which was not the right thing to do, but come ON the world is literally about to end and the ONLY piece of the puzzle they need is Zelda!!! Some people forget that she HAD to awaken her powers otherwise the world was going to be destroyed! And it almost was cuz they were awakened too late! They were in such an unfair situation! And it’s not fair to compare him to Rauru and Sonia who were not in the same situation he was in, who were lying around in the grass and drinking tea because the calamity wasn’t there.

Rhoam is such a well written character that acts the way you’d expect someone in his situation to act. And he has so much regret over some of the things he’s had to do to protect Hyrule. You can read it in his journal where he finally gives up and desires to act more like a father to Zelda, you can see it when he takes Terrako away from Zelda, and you can see it when he’s a ghost 100 years after everything is destroyed. He’s so guilty but he did what he thought was best so that Zelda could not have a throne to nothing, so that Hyrule will be safe. And there’s a lot of things he could’ve done better, but people don’t act rational under that much stress. Like come on, would you? Don’t lie you absolutely wouldn’t.

And this post isn’t meant to diss on Rauru and Sonia, I like them in their own ways. But it’s kinda dumb whenever people love complex characters and then turn around and hate on characters like Rhoam and make them completely one-dimensional when they’re not. Y’all are completely unfair to Rhoam.

#he’s not a tyrant or an evil person or an oath breaker or loved Link more than Zelda or an abuser or stupid stuff like that #give him a break #I cant look at the AOC tag cuz all I see are people being stupid about his character #I feel like the calamity happening was a wake up call to him in AOC #and he realized some things about Zelda and the Sheikah technology #and I’m AOC he seems to be giving Zelda some of the responsibility of leading since she’s leading the army now #like HOW do people hate him AOC you people have no taste #it’s sad cuz they didn’t seem to be talking to each other much before the calamity #and when Rhoam was going to just. hang out with Zelda #he wasn’t given the chance #I cant imagine the guilt he felt in those 100 years #losing quite literally everything #ok I’m done ranting about this #I’m so done with Rhoam slander it’s STUOID #ITS SO STUPID #totk #totk spoilers #breath of the wild #age of calamity

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, Se3, ep11 (part 1)

Breaking toxic bonds & accepting healthy ones isn’t a miracle. A bond that started with love could end up chained & toxic, another that started wrong could’ve become the joy of a life time. You can do it. Break the cycle of abuse & stand up for yourself, it is easy yet so difficult, you aren’t alone, tho, loved ones stand nearby cheering. Be kind on yourself, otherwise you’ll throw your life away. Life isn’t just happiness & joy, it’s also sadness & loneliness. Break free from the shackles that held you down. Embrace life & Live.

-Tohru’s “ I’m okay” mask is finally shattered! (the Importance of kyo’s rejection for her development):

This is the last part of tohru’s character development! The last few eps were abt her role in Akito’s redemption & their similarities. she staood up for herself & choose a path away from her mom while keeping her mom’s memory in a healthy manner. No more planning my life according to mom’s wishes, no more talking to mom ‘s picture 24/7. Now, I’ll plan my life & move forward even if it is with the guy mom said she cant forgive. even If it is without him, I’ll move forward. I love him so much, yet I won’t force our bond & let go. So easy yet so difficult!. tohru doesnt know anything abt kyo after her fall. All she remembers is his heart-broken face as he wept beside her. Those tears on his face, she caused them. He cried cuz it is too painful to see her hurt. She was a burden to him! tohru restored to her old coping mechanism of pretending “ i’m Okay” & smiling. She did so numerous times before. Always worked. No one noticed. Except him. Se02, ep7. he urged her to show her true fears. Now, she’s faced with a pain so big she can’t pretend no more. the pain of loosing him. She cried in front of yuki! The smile & chatting abt chores couldn’t conceal the running tears! Yuki’s first time seeing her like that. Se01, ep14, yuki wondered how could tohru smile after her mom’s death. She can’t pretend no more! She’ll have to wear her feelings on her sleeve! cuz it IS ok to do so! She tells kyo to give her a moment to compose herself. She couldn’t lie & pretend like she did with yuki. Here she either run away or just try to compose myself! I LOVE THAT! This way, whenever kyo/tohru fight or have any misunderstanding in the future as a couple, you’ll know tohru won’t just bear it & pretend, “ i;m okay” No! she’ll talk to kyo & express herself! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! It gives her so much strength as a human & I’m happy all the obstacles & set backs in kyo/tohru’s romantic journey has led them to be better ppl little by little to build healthier & more realistic love! 

-The mechanics of writing a compelling slow-burn romance:

1. Igniting the romantic feelings slowly: Slow burns don’t work with love at 1st sight. It must first sparkle naturally, slowly & subtly. Both kyo & tohru repeatedly stated they don’t know exactly when they first fell in love. The author’s decision to create an environment where the two live together is a genius way to start & nurture their romance quietly & subtly. Kyo was tricked to stay in shigure’s house while tohru had to stay cuz she had no home, Natural reasons that force the two to spend days together & get to know each other gradually.

2. Dynamics of their personalities: For slow burns to work, the two characters need to be similar yet opposites! Kyo & tohru are both kind, endearing, innocent, good at chores, independent & hardworking. They both have history with their mothers that is filled with love yet traumas. However, tohru is calm yet prefer maneuvering around subjects, can’t stand up for herself, reads ppl easily, tends to trust ppl easily & disregard herself. Kyo is fierce, strong, tends to distrust ppl, despite ppl loving his spontaneous character, he has hard time figuring out if they’re mocking him or teasing him, very straightforward with his words & actions. The similarities helps them understand each other, however, the differences creates chances to clash & come even closer thro various situation. Ex, se01, ep2, kyo apologizing for hitting her head with the table which created the situation where she needed to confess she always loved the cat zodiac! It is HER gush of emotions that struck kyo. ppl really want my friendship? the cat is loved? Thro those difference they learned to better themselves so they won’t hurt the other, kyo toning down his anger for her, tohru desiring to know him even more as he becomes even more awkward.

3. Creating natural, realistic  & convincing obstacles that prevents them from being together:  This is the most important part! Slow-burn is two characters in love & cant be together despite everyone wanting them to be! if the reason that stops them from uniting is trivial, stupid, one-sided, can easily be solved, then the slow-burn would be a fillery & no one would cheer for it! Takaya-san is a genius!

Kyo can’t be with tohru cuz he thinks (a) he killed her mom! we saw thr flashback, he could’ve saved her & couldn’t save her. It was a split of a second difference & he hates himsef for NOT trying! that split of a second also prevented from thinking of better ways to save her than holding her! it happened to fast, he couldn't think of a better alternative cuz this was his 2nd time loosing someone (b) his mom’s sucide being pinned as his fault created this immense guilt & defeated feeling that “ no matter what, I just cause death & misery! There’s (c) too!, he knew tohru! thinks she deserves the world & cuz he didnt save her mom, he watched tohru talk to a freaking picture for two years! heck! he is the only one who can see thro tohru’s “ i;m okay” mask, so in se01, ep 14 in the grave yard! kyo wasnt the only one who is sad! tohru was too! & kyo could tell! (d) her mom’s death is the reason tohru is accepting shigure’s offer to stay with them rent-free in exchange of doing housework! (e)? he saw her confess crying her heart out abt missing her mom so much that she imitated her dad! so tragicly sad! (f) he saw her die in his nightmare!! how can he accept her love,now? Perfectly orchestrated obstacles! 

Tohru, unfortunately, in the anime it wasn't that clear due to shortening her backstories & trauma in se03, ep6. But she too couldn’t see herself confessing love to kyo. Tohru is has low self-esteem, always thinks she’s a burden to others, an orphan who just wants her mom, so scared, lonely & sad! we the audience believed the mask! we saw her work her motherly charm yuki, isusuz, kisa & believe her issues are not that deep.  tohru wont cry for herself but shed rivers for others! grief is so ugly it broke her! I cant let go of mom, must keep her always in my heart, such a hard emotions to write & I believe 100% the director couldn’t understand her grief & decided to split ep6 between her, kyo, isuzu & shigure. But Tohru struggling to confess to kyo is no laughing matter. ppl who are grieving find it the hardest to live after the loved ones die. they wont mostly commit suicide, they are alive, but they arent living. they just go thro the motions & live for the sake of those around them but not themselves. Tohru deciding to confess to kyo is her deciding to live for herself.

4. Writing a perfect psychologically & emotionally packed climax: I dont need to explain how perfect kyo’s rejection of tohru in se03 ep9 was. How much we felt for him yet were mad at him. He we were “ ugh! kyo no!!!! I mean I get why you do that , but you idiot no! come back! poor kyo! He was just so sad & broken! OMG he’ll kill himself after finding tohru’s injured body!! he totally would! his nightmare came true! But Tohru reached him! she wanted him to be okay! he wont kill himself but still feels hella guilty! but so utterly in love with her that his instinct upon seeing her come to life after near death is kiss her! Perfect display of psychology & emotions! filled with right, wrong, sad, happy, guilty, innocent! basically so human~ As the audience you MUST have this mixture of feelings of wanting to hug him so bad cuz this boy has been killing himself for years now yet want him to stop & just see that he was a good boy afterall. Tohru is THE best girl & if the audience are cheering for kyo to be with her, kyo really deserves her! The only problem is for kyo to see that now.

5. The Perfect wrap up of all romance: If you make your audience suffer the slow-burn this long, you gotta reward them good! & Takaya-san delivered! Just like how the entire romantic story is realistic, the reunion must be as realistic too! Tohru is hurt by kyo;s words. Facts remain his words were hurtful to her. I love that was addressed! tohru gets to tell her side, too! If you love someone, you are bound to be hurt by them as much as be happy with them. Simply cuz they matter so much to you! you arent one person, but two ppl coming together. Kyo must work hard for this confession. Must run & chase her. Must earn her proper! He gets on his knees, I cant express how important that is! he is way taller than her, Imagine apologizing while she looks way up & he looks down? He gets on his knees & apologize like a man, for every mistake, all while not loathing himself. He aint going back to that deep abyss again. He did wrong by her & he is owning up to his mistakes. Give me one chance. I’m not gonna force you with persistence or guilt you into taking me. Give me ONE chance cuz i deserve it & no more. The choice is yours. She asks to confirm, he shows her, they kiss, they hug, they are rewarded with a blessing from the heavens! One of the most simple yet emotionally fulfilling confessions in anime!

- Hugs over kisses: (And her kiss hugs her & the curse was lifted):

Prince charming kisses the princess & she wakes up~ they live ever after~ except furuba is all abt “ eternal ever after is not true, real life is where the real love is”

Kyo kissed tohru once, she didnt wake up, she didnt even think he loved her back. didnt even remember the kiss.

Kyo hugged tohru once. se01, e024, He initiated it, tohru was all in tears, surprised, happy & so utterly in love. he called her name for the first time ever, for a brief moment, they both connected, they both comforted each other. The rain stopped, he became a man not a monster, she got him back. She got her kyo that she fought for with none other than kyo himself.

kyo hugged her again, se03, ep6. They both initiated it. He made the first move, pulling her just a little closer, she made the second move & hugged him hard, he transformed, it was a moment were they both connected, both so sad & broken, both feeling needy for the other, both desperate for the other, both just living the moment. the result is them coming closer, her wanting him more, him realizing her love, there is no escape. Admit it. she loves you. You can tell.

Kyo hugs her again today. He asks permission. No spur of the moment feeling. But a long lasting permission to be together. To hug. He wants to hear her acceptance of his cursed body. “ is ok to hug you? this body will cause you pain as it wont be able to fulfill your wishes of constant hugs & intimacy”. She responds, permission granted, for love, for hugs, for a life long acceptance of you as a whole. weakness & strength, sadness & happiness. I accept you all in better & worse! we’re invincible. Why? cuz we understand love isnt magic. It is a path for us to walk together~~~ reward curse break!

Every time kyoru are closer it is a hug. The one thing the zodiacs cant do. A hug. They can kiss. But cant hug. comes this Zodiac Ruler girl so lonely, away from ppl, so sad, meets a cat boy who comes to the house she’s living in, a house away from ppl, the boy is drawn to the girl, However, when the boy needed to leave, the girl was able to let go despite loving him, the boy comes again, this time wanting to stay, the girl accepts the boy. They both accept the realistic reality of life. Embrace the obstacles & the achievements, celebrates the weakness above the strength. Both so imperfect. Both so endearingly dumb! that’s why the girl’s hug broke the boy’s curse. The girl’s acceptance of the cat broke all curses.

Side Note:

Kyo’s confession is so kyo! so straightforward, so direct, & so physical. He’s on his knees, holding her hands, looking at her eyes. “ i want to be WITH you. If I’m gona live, I want to to do it with you & no one else! cuz I love you” that’s it. That’s all.  So sincere & so romantic!

it is crazy how different tohru & kyo are now after the confession! she stood confidently & happily & said “dont you know, I love you!” all while teasing him, her giggle is so girlish & cute! my girl is a happy woman in love! long buried the angelic mother image of se02! YES! also, kyo’s happy face is love! Dude! when was the last time he smiled so freely? Did he ever do that? He smiled in se01, ep4 with kazmua, but not like this! T_T. my son is healing~

Kyo’s “ i wont ever feel afraid if you’re with me” is a huge growth from his “ I want to protect her” mindset. Now he realizes it is two-sided mutual desire. She gives him strength as much as he does! <3

I dont like open eye while kissing, but here it is so perfect for tohru in this moment! cuz she spent days thinking kyo rejected her & even ran away as soon as she saw him, now he’s not only confessing, apologizing, admitting she is his life, but also kissing her signaling they’re romantic couple. kissing on lips is so personal, what more evidence she needs? still, her thoughts? “ it’s like a dream?” aww~~~ tohru~~~ my precious girl! she just cant believe all her suffering is over, now? She was just practicing “ i’m okay” smile & now she’s an official girlfriend to the man of her dreams? He just bent da kneeee~ go for it queen!

yuki’s face when tohru cried is exactly what I meant of “ allowing yuki to have strong facial expressions”! XD these types of faces humanize yuki so much into the teenage boy he is! Unfortunately the anime team only sees him as the pretty prince in most times. That’s why fave yuki is when he’s with kakeru. He becomes so un-princly as he should be.

Speaking of yuki, I see you anime team~ postponing his moment into next ep so him & machi wont be overshadowed by the long awaited kyoru!! While this defies the perfection of all cursed zodiacs breaking on the same ep making akito’s breakdown less perfect & poetic, I take it as the anime team admitting they underdeveloped yuchi & decided let’s give them more screen time & not putting them in close distance from any couple. A week later ep is enough with lots of time. I dont mind at all, I’m just saying more time after/while confession is not what i was hoping for~~ sigh~ At least I hope yuki would say sth along the lines” all this time I was looking at you, i realized i love you” to imply he was thinking of her as a lover not his kindness for someone he helped. I just dont want their love to be sudden simply cuz yuki needs happy ending. oh well~ I’m sure whatever it will be, the anime will give it utmost attention.

That sad moment when kagura wasnt allowed a moving image. lol. girl was given a still image that didnt even move with the breeze! T_T

Not gonna lie... the scene with kazuma & kyo was underwhelming. Why the wide shot? I mean you dont need budget for that. Just give me a closeup from the waist up with kyo head buried in kazuma’s chest. Dont need to waste budget on kazuma’s face, either.... do the old trick of hair covering eyes & show me glittery tears~  why the awkward shot of kazma towering in his own house! how tall is this man & why cant he he fix his roof?...lol

Also, shigure, you got scars man... who can hurt shigure? akito? gotta be her. I dont think hatori scratches...lol.. Aya? nah~ too busy with Mine! yup, akito... another steamy night? could be, she’s changed as he wish now. But scratching a face is weird while..um..kissing? a quarrel? but why? I bet she wants him now & we know he wants her....

More on part 2! especially abt the curse’s lore~

#Fruits Basket #Anime Only #happy paper #final season #part 1

[rendevok]

are you still working on plenty of fish in the sea? I love your art style and the story's so cute ^^

Hi, dear anon. Thank you so much, I'm glad you seemed to like that particular project! However, I regret to inform that i dont really intend to finish the story any longer. It HAS been a year now after all, so my style and interests have vastly changed.

Still, i do believe i owe it to those interested to explain the story as it would have played out (in fact i had a stream on instagram last month where i explained it some), so without further ado... here is the story of Plenty of Fish in the Sea...

-

The story had been organized into words & themes, as you may have noticed. So here is that list and then, my notes on the projected story that eventually devolve into my specific brand of storytelling and very poorly thought out (but cheesy) dialogue. Try your best not to judge me since it would have likely been altered and improved once i worked my way through it, and keep in mind i am 100% an amateur.

cover/prologue

drown/savior

waking up/scale

sighting/caught - (i made it this far in terms of finished/posted art!)

storm/plunge

marooned/together

wound/care

curious/weak

gift/open

missing/heart to heart

ship in the night/hostage

in knots/jailbreak

savior/drown (ll)

scale/waking up (ll) - ^these were intentional mirrors of the first 2 main parts

heart on a string

plenty of fish in the sea

Here are my notes that follow these themes:

The story with a prologue, wherein, a young Lance saves a young Keith from drowning, and Keith is left with the memory of a boy and a brilliantly colored scale

Ffwd to the future, Keith is a sailor (not a captain, sorry) who is secretly hunting this mer with the scales that are impossibly valuable (or so he’s been told his whole life). Sure being a pirate gets him some riches but nothing like what the whole tail of scales would! Keith is not truly sure why he’s spent so much of his life fixated on this scale, but he has. So he’s done everything in his power to learn about mer people (what little there is known) to be able to properly track down and capture this mer.

One stormy night he is disturbed from his slumber, called to the deck for help and soon enough he sees the cause for alarm - a mer has been caught in their nets while the storm tossed it about. And of course its not just any mer, it’s the mer. Keith, being Keith, does what he can in the moment - he attempts to cut the nets free of the ship (after all, this is HIS mer to catch), but not a moment after succeeding in his attempt, the sloshing throws him overboard, and soon enough, he falls prey to the violent crashing of waves, sending him into a chilly darkness.

When he awakens, he finds himself on a shore, and soon enough he realizes its an island - he is in fact, marooned. He does what he knows he should first- look for sources of fresh water and food. He has some luck with the food, though not so much with the water (that has him concerned but not entirely hopeless). In his wanderings about the island, he finds that he is not alone. The merman is there with him, which would be a curious thing, were it not for the nets he’s still tangled in and a wide gash across his back. He attempts to approach to appraise the damage more closely, but is met with the hostile hissing of the merman. Keith does his best to try and reason with him, but he simply does not want his help

However, Keith is not really one to let things be. Never has been. He finds his own food, and a small amount of water. He offers some to the mer (who has managed to untangle himself, though still very much injured) responding with only hisses and glares. Keith leaves the food within reach. This process continues for a day or so, before the mer finally gives in and accepts the food. Keith finally asks again if he can help. The mer declines.

So this continues- Keith offers what food he can, the mer picks what he wants and leaves the rest. After a week of this, the mer disappears from his spot, and Keith assumes he’s finally left, only he is met with the mer in a different shore of the island (the one he had been spending his nights)

Now that he is mobile he seems much happier (though maybe not 100% active). He talks with Keith, and Keith cant really do much about it. He asks him things about humans, showing much more interest in humans than his first impression let on. Keith has his own burning questions, but most of them stem from all that time convincing himself he wanted to find this very mer and skin him alive.... kinda hard to imagine doing when he’s becoming much more human. Lance (as he has finally given his name) finally admits he cannot leave because he is still recovering. He can fish for small kills around the island, but he cant leave and swim out in the open ocean just yet. Keith internally feels a stone drop in his stomach. If only he had such a positive future to look forward to.

One day, Keith brings Lance a handful of oysters to feast on, and during he finds none other than a pearl tucked in the muscle of his meal. He is less ecstatic than Keith, who offers how rare and precious they are to humans. Lance gives him the pearl, which he tucks away with the scale that he keeps tucked by his heart in a small container on a string. Keith smiles quite a bit after receiving this gift, and Lance is left to feel conflicting positive emotions over it.

One sunset, after a quiet day (from Lance, he hadnt been very talkative) Keith notices him resting over by some rocks, back turned to Keith. Keith approaches and before he can keep Keith from seeing, he sees Lance is playing with a blank spot in his scales. Keith knows just what is missing but he asks whats wrong anyway. Lance is nervous but he responds: He lost a scale. He was still very young, and he saved a human from drowning - something he was scolded for back then. Interacting with humans is forbidden, but Lance wasnt about to let some kid like him die. However, while not completely unheard of for mer, losing a scale so young was not a good thing. He often felt ashamed for that blank spot in his tail - a reminder that he was missing a piece of himself - and this was just one of those times. Keith sits close and offers his condolences, and continues to say that saving someone was very kind and heroic of him - he only wishes humans were so kind to him as child. He lived most of his life as an orphan, finding a mentor only to have him leave on a ship and never return. Lance is sad to hear this. He misses his family right now, sure, but he knows he will find his way back. He will never miss them like Keith misses his. Lance might have a missing scale, but its nothing compared to the love Keith has been missing nearly all his life.

And so, tied up in the depths of Sendak ship, Keith sits with his guilt. He got Lance caught by the most ruthless hunters out there and was helpless to do anything about it. And he... he thinks that he would rather see Lance free. He’s a person, and he cares more than anyone he has ever met. He has a family. His life is worth more than anything a king could offer for his scales. He’s irreplaceable - especially to Keith. But now.. there isn’t hope. He’s stuck, and probably falling for a merman whos about to get skinned alive. He sheds a tear, hoping beyond anything that Lance somehow manages to escape.

Not a moment later, someone bursts through the door: Shiro. Keith is shocked to say the least, as is Shiro, but there really isn’t much time to spare seeing as how he’s being broken out. Keith grabs his belongings from the corner and shuffles out with him to the deck, where they emerge into the fray. Keith can see that all the mer are being kept on deck in cages, and sets off, blazing a trail through the fighting to go and free them.

He breaks through every chain, telling the mer to leave as soon as they can, he finally makes his way to Lance, who had been set apart from the others. Its closer to sendak, who is crossing swords with shiro. He slices through the chain one last time, freeing Lance, who is startled and tries to speak, but before he can, keith is being affronted by Sendak. They lock swords, Keith pushed to the rail, barely holding off. Sendak suddenly hisses - lance has picked up a sword and swiped at the back of his legs. Keith thinks this is his moment to slip from this position, but before he can move, Sendak kicks the wind out of him, and sends him overboard. He crashes into the icy waves, quickly choking on the water and struggling to find which way is up. Slowly, he chokes, he sinks, and finally, he gives into the creeping darkness. He sees a faint flash before his vision fades to black and he loses consciousness. At least, he thinks, that Lance has a chance at freedom.

To say he is surprised he opens his eyes again is an understatement. The sun glares and makes his head ache, his lungs and throat are sore and raw from the seawater, breathing is painful, but he’s alive. The sun is suddenly not so bright, and when he tries to see why- Lance is above him blocking it out. It reminds him of when he had been saved before. Lance is saying his name and it’s like an angel calling to him.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Lance makes a confused coo “I’m pretty sure the last time, you were the one to find me.”

Keith lets out a small laugh, which is painful, so he smiles instead. “I was the child you saved. Thats what i was trying to tell you before...”. When he looks at Lance, even in his tired state he can see the wheels turning in Lance’s head. Keith sits up, to face him better.

“I didn’t know for sure until you told me you saved a human all that time ago. If you’re not convinced, I think this should be convincing enough” and he pulls his little bottle out to let it display it’s contents: the pearl, and of course, a glimmering scale, it’s beauty only rivaled by the tail it once was a part of, sitting a few feet away.

“You-”

Keith opens the bottle, and takes it out, to hold and admire in his open palm.

“For a long time, this was my only belonging. People tried to take it, to buy it from me. They told me it was worth more money than i could ever imagine, but... I could never bring myself to sell it.” He looks up then to see Lance stunned into silence. Keith smiles, in a sorrowful sort of understanding. “I’m glad I didn’t.”

He then holds his hand out to Lance, offering him the scale he said was like a missing piece of him.

Lance lifts shaky hands and settles them on Keith’s one, not touching the scale. Keith continues:

“Thank you, Lance. For saving me then, and now.”

After a long moment of silence between them (the shushing of the beach hardly audible) Lance finally speaks.

“I never thought I’d see this again,” he speaks quietly, as he stares down at his scale in Keith’s hand. “But knowing that you found it, cherished it, took care of it, and kept it safe.... I know it’s where it belongs.”

Lance gently closes Keith’s palm around the scale and kisses his knuckles. “Keep it,” Lance looks up, and when he looks into Keith’s eyes, its like he can feel his heart and soul pouring out, “and promise me you’ll think of me every once in a while.” Lance smiles rather sadly.

Gaze flicking back to his hand, where the scale lies, Keith’s heart flutters at the implication behind his action, but stutters at the thought of Lance going away forever (as the words seemed to imply). He takes a deep breath, looks back into Lance’s eyes, their depths calling to him, as though this is the only moment he will ever have to express himself. Maybe it is. His hand reaches up to caress his face, and hold his gaze.

“You’ve saved me from drowning twice. I could hardly manage to forget you before I really even knew you. I’ve been looking for you for what feels like my whole life, and now that I’ve found you... you think i could somehow manage to not think of you every day?” Keith leans in, and kisses his cheek.

“I’ll always have a piece of you here,” he brings his closed fist to his chest, “right by my heart. I am the one who should ask to be remembered.”

“Though...” his thoughts trail as he looks down at Lance’s lips, “I selfishly wish I wouldn’t have to.” Lance breaks his stunned silence, hand coming up to hold Keith’s on his cheek. “Keith....”

Keith lets out a small pained laugh as his heart constricts, removing his hand to help replace the scale to its place in the bottle, and around his neck. He looks at it fondly and softly speaks, “There is this saying we have - about finding love - ‘There are plenty of fish in the sea’ -and it’s true. There are plenty of people I could learn to love, but... the one I want is you.”

The relief Lance feels upon hearing this has his heart swelling, pushing him forward to crash their lips together. Keith is startled at first, but quickly melts into the kiss, moving to wrap his arms around Lance’s neck. They kiss until Keith feels like he’s drowning again, though this time he’s not opposed to it.

And THAT, dear anon, is why you should never be afraid to ask questions. I hope this maybe gave you a little peace, a laugh, something to stir your little klancer heart.

#klance #mer!lance #POFITS #lance mcclain #keith kogane #please do not judge me i just want to repent for leavin yall hangin #fvld #asks #anonymous #long post #god im so sorry i literally do NOT know how to add the text break on mobile #is that even a thing anymore??? i’m no longer in touch with the tumbles

[vfdbaudelairefile13]

Misery Loves Company- A Violet Snicket AU

Meet Lemony Snicket.

Lemony Snicket was a prominent VFD agent in his youth. Alongside his then fiance, Beatrice Baudelaire, he and a few other members of his organization made decisions that would forever rip their secret organization in two. At the time, Lemony hadn't thought a simple sugar bowl and box of poison darts would cause so much chaos. But it had.

The schism was a big reason as to why Beatrice and their daughter, Violet, were separated. Lemony, who had to go on the run for a list of different reasons, was asked by Beatrice; someone who had yet to leave VFD and at the time, it seemed she would never leave, to watch their infant daughter. But since he was on the run, he had to leave where he lived almost immediately after Beatrice leaving Violet with him. He tried looking for her but ultimately gave up deciding to raise the young girl himself.

He spent the next thirteen years keeping himself and Violet safe from old enemies and VFD itself. But after hearing about the death of Beatrice and her husband, Lemony rejoins VFD in an attempt to help Beatrice's other children, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, defeat a wicked Count Olaf. This act unfortunately leads to his untimely end but not before leaving Violet with a head full of mysteries and unanswered questions.

《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》《》

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." That's all that went through Lemony's mind as he raced from the lumbermill to his home. This is bad. This was entirely bad.

His most recent attempt to help Beatrice's two other children had failed disastrously. Well, not entirely. They were safe, most likely being sent off to a new guardian right now but his identity had been compromised. Olaf had saw him. Olaf now knew he was alive.

Still being in the middle of the Baudelaire fire investigation, Lemony wasnt sure if Olaf, himself, had started that fire...but he did know Olaf had no issues with committing a murder...or two. He quickly thought of Violet and how much danger he has put her in...again. Hot tears started falling from his face.

He didnt mean to put her in danger. He was only trying to do good. He was only trying to help Beatrice's kids. A small part of him believes he should have just left them alone...they were resourceful children, they wouldve figured it out. He should have put VIOLET first. But a bigger part of him, knew that that was just his fear and guilt talking. This wasnt Klaus or Sunny's fault. This wasnt even Beatrice's fault. This was HIS. It wasnt because he had decided to help the Baudelaire children, no it was his fault when he convinced Beatrice to help him steal a damn sugar bowl. It was his fault when he went along with Beatrice and Bertrand's plan to...to...

"God dammit!" He yelled punching the steering wheel. He was racing home. He couldnt think of such unpleasantness right now. He had to get Violet out of danger. If Olaf now knows he's alive...he needed to take his daughter and run. He felt bad for Klaus and Sunny, but he had to put his daughter first. Part of him wishes he had grabbed them and taken them along. Maybe after explaining things, Klaus wouldnt fight as much. They did have that nice heart to heart on Lake Lachrymose. He thought of turning around and heading back towards the mill, but ultimately decided against it.

Violet had to be his main priority. HIS child. He will worry about the other two kids later. Right now, he knew Olaf would come after him.

Maybe he could call someone to come take Violet until he can fake his death again. But who? Everyone in the organization thought he was dead.

His mind began to race. Kit? No...she thinks I'm dead. Jacques? Fuck. He thinks I'm dead too. Monty and Josephine are both dead themselves. Larry and Jacquelyn would indict Violet into VFD which is the last thing he and Beatrice wanted for their daughter. Maybe the Quagmires could help him, he hadn't heard from them in awhile but maybe they'd like to help an old friend. Maybe he could ask one of his friends from Staind-by-the-Sea. They were all so close back in his apprentice days but he didnt know how to get in contact with most of them. Lemony felt utterly alone. His cruel mind flashed to Beatrice, she would have been the only person he 100% trusted his daughter with...but she was dead too. Her death had marked this whole new chapter in his life and there was no going back. He played his cards...now he had to sit there and wait for the game to be over.

Lemony has seen how determined Olaf was to destroy two children, he can only imagine the time and energy Olaf would spend on destroying HIM now that he knew Lemony was alive.

Lemony was alone on this one. He only had his daughter. She couldn't help him because he had to protect her. He had to protect her even if it meant sacrificing himself. He was crying big time now.

If he died what would happen to Violet? He knows Mr. Poe is useless but that's who takes charge of the orphans' affairs. He knew he was a better option than Mrs. Squalor. He was so glad that none of his enemies knew he had a daughter but he feared that would change if he died. Lemony wasnt afraid of death per say, he knew that one day it was to happen. He would take his last breath, he would see his daughter one last time. He had hoped to live a long life full, but as he raced him in his yellow taxi he could feel his stomach churn as if he knew what was to come next.

I got to get Violet out of danger. He told himself. When he gets home, he will send her ahead of him. She will go to the storekeeper's shop. They might be VFD but it was the only shop he knew to be open at this hour. Yes, he will send her ahead. He will stay and pack the essentials simply meet her. She wont like this plan, but she'll listen reluctantly. I will explain everything to her. His tears didnt stop for the entire drive home. He felt guilty that hed been lying to Violet, her whole life but more so these past couple of months. Once they are safe in a new motel, he will tell her EVERYTHING. What he does. Why he does it. Who those kids are. What he did to help make the schism a thing. He was going to tell her everything she wanted to hear and more. No more secrets. Maybe after he saves himself and his daughter, he and Violet can search for the two Baudelaire orphans. Lemony could adopt them illegally. Hed explain everything to Klaus and Sunny, too after what theyd been through they deserved it.

"Everything is going to end happily." He told himself in the midst of his tears.

Now I don't have to tell you, the reader, why Lemony was dead wrong. The Baudelaire case and sadly the Snicket case do not end happily, some would say the cases, even to this day, havent ended. People just cant find the three orphans and some nights I lay awake in my associate's small but cozy studio apartment thinking that maybe it's better that no one can find them. If they havent been found no one can hurt them anymore. Because although I would love to end this tale here with the false hope of a happy ending, the tragic tale of the lives of the two Baudelaire children and the Snicket girl has only just begun and is only a third of the way through.

I would love to say that Lemony Snicket makes true to his word that he tells his daughter everything she wants to know and more and that he successfully fakes his death in a very unreliable newspaper and finds the Baudelaire orphans and illegally adopts them keeping all three plucky youngsters away from Count Olaf and VFD but, alas, that's not how the story goes.

And for that reason, I will ask of you, one more time before the story takes a turn for the worst, to look away. Look away from this tragic tale before it is too late. Before you, too, get too invested in the lives of these orphans that you spend your life trying to find them.

#lemony snicket #violet baudelaire #klaus baudelaire #sunny baudelaire #count olaf #asoue #baudelaire orphans #beatrice baudelaire #esme squalor #vfd #netflix asoue #asoue netflix #asoue 2004 movie #daniel handler #beatrice baudelaire ii #asoue fandom #asoue fanfic #asoue movie #jacques snicket #kit snicket #misery loves company #olivia caliban #violet snicket #volunteer fire department #asoue fanbase #snicket file #quagmires #asoue au #quagmire triplets #violet snicket au

[ssocatherine]

100 OC questions - Answered!

@hobbithorsewhat you asked for this

1. What do they smell like?

Catherine smells like lavender all the time, she is obsessed with natural scents like essential oils and is constantly putting lavender oil on. Sometimes, she smells a little like cigarettes.

2. What is their voice like?

Catherine has a somewhat gravely voice, with a light Irish accent.

3. What is their biggest motivator?

Catherine is most motivated by the peace she finds in nature. Her way of life is that she believes that in life, do what you can. This doesn’t mean go and search for ways of changing huge things in jorvik or the world, she just focuses on helping who she can at the time.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

Catherine’s most embarrassing memory is when she was first learning to ride, she and Justin decided to take a little trail ride. She was so distracted staring at him, she didn’t see the low branch in the path and ended up hanging onto it with her arms when her horse walked right out from under her. Justin had to ride under her and lift her off of it due to her fear of heights.

5. How do they deal with/react to pain?

Catherine is a big baby when it comes to pain and has little tolerance. When it comes to emotional pain, Catherine is very good at hiding it and doesn’t expose her feelings to many people at all.

6. What do they like to wear?

Catherine really likes to wear leather jackets, sweaters and denim. She also appreciates lace. Most often, she can be found in a cozy sweater, jeans, her black leather riding boots.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

Justin was her first real friend on the island and he taught her how to ride and even convinced his father to sell her her beloved Thorn. She never stops worrying for Justin and often draws him in her sketchbook, wondering what he is doing.

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

Probably octopus.

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

Catherine sleeps on her side, tucking her knees to her chest and holding a stuffed lobster her mother gifted her as a child.

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

Catherine’s favorite food is undoubtedly corn beef and cabbage. Her mother used to cook this for her every holiday and eating it feels special.

11. What do they feel most insecure about?

Catherine is insecure about very little, but if she had to pick something she would probably say her hands, only because she has somewhat thick, calloused fingers.

12. How do they like to dress?

See question 6

13. How do they react to feelings of guilt?

The guilt will bother Catherine until she makes right what she has done wrong.

14. How do they react to/deal with betrayal?

When Justin betrayed Catherine she was filled with rage, and threw out many of the things she had drawn of him. Knowing what he went through now, she regrets it but probably would have done the same thing if it happened again.

15. What is their greatest achievement?

Catherine believes her greatest achievement is savings moorland stables. She can’t imagine Jorvik without it and still keeps her horses there.

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep?

Very cranky

17. What are they like when they’re drunk?

Catherine doesn’t drink, but if she did she would be very honest when drunken and probably reveal secrets she meant to keep to herself.

18. What kind of music do they enjoy?

Indie-rock and pop. She likes passion pit a lot.

19. Are they right or left handed?

Right handed

20. Fears?

Stable fires, losing her ability to ride, public speaking

21. Favorite kind of weather?

Fall, nice and cool and sunny

22. Favorite color?

Black and red

23. Do they collect anything?

Catherine collects gems and geodes and also herbs

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

Cold

25. What is their eye color?

Blue

26. What is their race/ethnicity?

White

27. Hair color?

White-blonde (light brown naturally)

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

Absolutely

29. Are they a morning person?

Yes!

30. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

A little bit of both but mostly organized

32. Pet peeves?

She hates when people hurt those who cant fight back like animals, and also unwarranted advice.

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

Justin’s jacket tbh

34. Least favorite food?

Tuna fish

35. Least favorite color?

Purple

36. Least favorite smell?

Cooking mushrooms

37. When was the last time they cried?C

Catherine doesn’t cry often but after Justin was arrested, she went home and had a good cry.

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

No

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

She fell off of a green appaloosa, her horse Flurry to be exact, and broke her wrist.

40. Do they have any scars?

A scar under her eye from a dog bite, and a cigarette burn on her upper arm

41. Do they struggle with any mental health issues?

Anxiety is somewhat prevalent but getting better.

42. Do they have any bad habits?

Smoking

43. Why might someone dislike them?

Catherine can be somewhat annoying in the fact that she doesn’t like to be told what to do, so if someone told her how to do something she might annoy them by not doing it that way or not listening.

44. Why might someone love them?

Catherine is very kind and devoted to those she loves. She is selfless and beautiful and dedicated.

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

Absolutely

46. Is there anyone they would trust with their lives?

Yes, though Catherine would trust her life to very few people they do exist.

47. Are they romantically interested in anyone?

Yes, Catherine is deeply crushing on Justin Moorland and has been since day one.

48. Are they dating/married to anyone?

Things between her and Justin are confusing right now, and she hopes that he makes a move soon because waiting is growing more difficult.

49. Do they like surprises?

Yes!

50. When is their birthday?

November 8th

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

Not really

52. Do they have any family?

Yes, a mother and a sister

53. Are they close to their family?

Geographically, no. Emotionally, yes.

54. What is their MBTI type?

The doer

55. What is their zodiac sign?

Scorpio

56. What Hogwarts House would they be in?

Hufflepuff!

57. What D&D alignment are they?

Chaotic good

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

Very often, and they’re often about her horses being stolen for some reason

59. What are their views on death?

Though she is scared of her own, she looks forward to what comes after

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

A crappy pun tbh

61. When bored, how do they pass time?

She loves to draw and listen to music

62. Do they enjoy being outside?

She would always be outdoors if she could

63. Do they have an accent?

Yes, Irish

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

Probably a grimace, she likes vanilla cake

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say?

She would probably tell her family she loves them, and tell Justin to have her horses and that she loves him aswell.

66. How do they feel about sex?

Catherine was somewhat of a promiscuous person back in Ireland and enjoyed the act but she has had other focus’s in Jorvik.

67. What is their sexuality?

Catherine is Bi but prefers men mostly.

68. Do they become squeamish at the sight of blood?

No, though she is a baby about pain she is somewhat fascinated with blood, sick as it may be.

69. Is there anything that they find really gross?

She hates mold and rotten food!

70. Which TV Trope(s) best describes them?

I honestly cant pick one!

71. Do they enjoy helping people?

To a point. Catherine does like to help, but she hates being taken advantage of.

72. Are they allergic to anything?

Pineapple

73. Do they have a pet?

Many horses and a few cats!

74. Are they quick to anger? What are they like when they loose their temper?

Yes, but she gets over things relatively quickly. When angered, she will go off in a rant and then storm off, possibly returning to go off again.

75. How patient are they?

Catherine is very patient

76. Are they good at cooking?

Very good! Her mother was a waitress and while waiting for her mom to finish her shift, Catherine often learned from the chef at the diner.

77. Favorite insult? Do they insult people often?

You idiot! Catherine says you idiot only when extremely angered

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy?

She will say hello to everyone and practically skips when walking and becomes very generous.

79. What do they do when they learn about other people’s fears?

Depending on the person, she will usually ignore them

80. Are they trustworthy?

Somewhat. Catherine is very kind but depending on the situation, she isn’t afaid to do what needs to be done.

81. Do they try to hide their emotions? Are they good at it?

Yes, Catherine often his how she felt growing up because her sister struggled so much she didn’t want to be a burden on her mother.

82. Do they exercise regularly?

Not really, except for riding.

83. Are they comfortable with the way they look?

Very. Catherine is beautiful and she knows it.

84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people?

Freckles, brown eyes, and especially height.

85. What kind of personalities do they find attractive?

She finds men who are kind and gentle attractive, especially when they aren’t afraid to be honest or afraid.

86. Do they like sweet foods?

Yes! Especially ice cream.

87. What is their age?

22 years old

88. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between?

Relatively tall at 5’7

89. Do they wear glasses or contacts?

She sometimes wears glasses just for fun.

90. Do they consider themselves attractive?

Yes

91. What is their sense of humor like?

She makes very dark jokes but also enjoys a good pun

92. What mood are they most often in?

Happy and content

93. What kinds of things anger them?

People who are inconsiderate

94. Outlook on life?

Be the change you want to see

95. What kind of things make them sad/depressed?

Hurt/dead animals

96. What is their greatest weakness?

Justin moorland

97. What is the greatest strength?

Justin moorland

98. Something that they regret?

Justin moorland

99. Biggest accomplishment?

Moving to Jorvik!

100. What is catherines favorite hobbies besides riding?

Catherine loves to paint, draw, and dance but most presently, she loves to practice shooting her bow and arrow.

#sso #star stable #star stable online

[iswearonmarcuskane]

Kickin’ & Screamin’ // Chapter 20

Title: Kickin’ & Screamin’ Fandom: The 100 Pairing: Kabby Tag/Warnings: Modern AU Setting, Kicking and Screaming AU, Kid!Delinquents Chapter(s): 20/22 Read earlier chapters on: AO3

Chapter Summary: what do you mean marcus and abby cant adopt 13 children??????

Chapter 20: There comes a time when you have to choose between turning the page or closing the book

Abby couldn’t figure out if she was happy or upset that this was the last practice of the season.

Half of her was jumping for joy. She didn’t have to deal with Marcus’ bullshit, she could have a shot without Jaha judging her, and she wouldn’t have to deal with Raven shoving grass down Miller’s shorts.

And the other half of her was gloomy. She wouldn’t get to give Marcus bullshit, she wouldn’t get to see Callie and Roan gang up on other parents, and she wouldn’t get to see Clarke happy like this until next season.

The decision was made as a ball went flying over Abby’s head, barely. Would it be detrimental to the team’s success if she called practice quits five minutes into it?

She caught a glimpse of Lincoln sitting on the bench out of the corner of her eye. Next to him were crutches and his foot now sported a boot.

Yeah, it would be detrimental.

Marcus gathered the kids in after helping Miller shake the grass from his shorts. The two coaches stood beside each other for the first time since the incident. But then they had stood on opposing sides.

Now, they stood as one.

“This is the last practice of the season,” Marcus stated the obvious, “and we’ve been granted the opportunity to play in the finals.”

Both of them could see the dread growing on the kids’ faces. They were probably imagining all the hard drills, running, and not fun activities they would be put through. If Marcus mumbled anything about running, Abby had silently promised to herself to shove grass down his own pants.

To ease their worry off, Marcus told them, “And no, practice won’t be like last Tuesday.”

“I won’t believe it till I see it,” the group heard Raven mumble. The kids burst into giggles as Marcus rose an eyebrow at her. She immediately offered a bright smile and added on, “And with that look, I believe it!”

The kids laughed louder this time and even Gaia shook her head with a smirk. Marcus shook his head as he rolled a ball over to Octavia, earning her eyes. He asked her, “What do you want to do for warm up, O?”

She smiled immediately. Everyone knew the answer before she replied, “Sharks and minnows!”

And so they played sharks and minnows. Clarke and Murphy started as the sharks this time, mixing it up with two instead of the usual one. Raven still didn’t get passed the first round and threw a fit to Clarke about ganging up on her.

Abby was pretty sure she heard Gaia tell her, “Suck it up, sweetheart.”

Given Raven’s temper and easiness to rile up, it was obvious she went after Gaia the next round. Surprising them both, Raven almost got Gaia out, but Gaia was able to recover in time. She made her way into the safe zone.

“I’m learning all your fancy tricks,” Raven shouted after her.

Gaia didn’t respond as she just smiled. And that’s when a light went off in both Marcus’ and Abby’s head. The whole time Gaia had been giving Raven shit for her diving in, Raven grew more and more determined to defeat Gaia. In result, Raven was learning to time her tackles. She was improving and Gaia was teaching her.

They both thought back to the many times Clarke and Lincoln had encouraged Octavia and showed her their nutmeg trick. They thought back to the time Lexa had instructed Harper, Monty, and Jasper one time at half when the two coaches argued.

When the two coaches couldn’t come together to coach their team, the kids came together and did it themselves. Both felt shame at the fact that the kids had to do it on their own, but now they didn’t have to.

Better late than never, right?

Too fast, practice was coming to a close. There was ten minutes remaining in their scheduled time slot. Usually, the two would let the kids end with a small scrimmage against each other, but Abby felt something else was needed.

She brought the kids together and they all sat around in a circle. Abby sat by Marcus and held a soccer ball in her hand. She held it up, explaining, “Everyone will get the ball once. When you get the ball, you’ll tell one thing you enjoyed most about the season, one thing you learned, and one thing you’ll miss. I’ll start it off.”

She lowered the ball and began spinning it in her hands as she looked around the circle. All eyes were on her but the pair that belonged to the man next to her made her nervous about her answer.

She cleared her throat and started off by saying, “What I enjoyed most about this season was probably seeing you guys grow into the team you are. It didn’t start off great, it never does, but you grew together and helped each other reach to the point you’re at today.”

She felt her nerves creeping in as her eyes flickered to where her daughter sat. Clarke offered her mother a soft smile, reassuring her that whatever she was going to say, Clarke would support her. Abby smiled herself and continued talking, “What I learned this season was that change may be scary, but sometimes you gotta take that chance for your best chance. And I’m glad I took that chance when I was finally convinced to do so.”

Abby felt a knee nudge hers and she looked over to Marcus, who offered her another reassuring smile. She gave him a small smile in response. She looked back to the kids and finished up, “What I’ll miss about this season is…you guys. When we had lost the semifinals, I felt a little lost. I wasn’t sure how to feel knowing I wouldn’t have been your coach anymore. You may annoy the shit out of me and make me regret getting out of the bed in the morning, but you’re my pain in the asses. I’ll be damned if someone like Cage rips apart this family.”

It was silent as Abby finished up. She felt a little embarrassed. She didn’t mean for the small activity to turn that deep but she felt as if she could finally summarize all the feelings she had kept bottled up the past few weeks.

“Yeah!” She heard Raven say, throwing a fist in the air, “Screw Cage!”

The kids all began to hoot and holler the saying and Abby burst into laughter. She wasn’t sure if they were the Delinquents or a Cage hate club. She was pretty sure they were both.

She rolled the ball over to her daughter, the chanting calming down. Clarke grabbed the ball and looked to her mother. Abby offered her the same smile and Clarke smiled back. She told her, “My favorite part of the season was winning a game!”

Abby smiled as everyone in the circle screamed in agreement. When they calmed down, Clarke continued. “What I learned this season was that I’m pretty good at defense and that I enjoy it.”

Her eyes had flickered to her mother but there was a soft smile on her lips. Abby returned the same smile. Clarke finished up by saying, “What I’ll miss about this season is making such an upset because when we win this Saturday, we won’t be the underdog anymore.”

The kids erupted into cheer again as Clarke rolled the ball over to Octavia. Octavia picked it up and set it in her lap. The cheering died down as all the eyes settled on her. She looked around before her eyes landed on her dad.

Octavia rested her hands on the ball and she said, “What I enjoyed the most about this season was sharks and minnows. I liked having fun at practice for once.”

Marcus felt the punch in his gut but Octavia winked at him as the other kids giggled. He didn’t feel the usual guilt those phrases had usually brought him. This time, it made him proud- proud of her for finding something she loved in the game.

She continued on by saying, “What I learned this season was that I can be a good player if I believe in myself like you guys believe in me.”

The line put a crack in Marcus’ heart. He had seen the support from Lincoln and Clarke. Theirs was the most blatant of the group, but he knew no one on the team wanted each other to fail. Her eyes had fallen on him, making his heart skip a beat. He always believed in her and he had always hoped she knew that. Her smile at him affirmed his thought.

“What I’ll miss about this season is playing sharks and minnows,” Octavia confessed. She shrugged as she said, “It was the first game that got me excited about being here. It was the first game I actually felt like I could play up to your guys’ standards.”

Marcus offered his daughter a smile as she rolled the ball over to Raven. He was proud of her. No matter the result tomorrow or any result in the future, he would always be proud of her. Nothing could change that.

“Alright! Listen up!” Raven announced as she snatched the ball up. She tried spinning it on her fingers and immediately dropped it. She caught it and slammed it on the ground, stating, “What I enjoyed most about this season was winning. Took five years but it felt good.”

The kids cheered in agreement and Raven smiled big. She spun the ball on the ground as she continued on, saying, “What I learned this season was that I can defeat Gaia, even if it’ll never happen again.” Her eyes found Gaia’s. “You’ll never live it down.”

The kids laughed as Gaia glared at her across the circle. Raven winked at her, smile just as big. She told the group, “What I’ll miss about this season is the fun we had. Even when Coach Kane was being a hardass, I made it my mission to throw a joke in here or there. I’ll take the punishments, but I was hoping after the third set of running you gave me, you’d realize my jokes were hints- hints to HAVE SOME FUN!”

The group laughed, including the coaches. Marcus wasn’t going to lie- he hadn’t caught on. He may have, but he ignored them. Raven was probably the fittest player they had on the team since that practice.

“And for a bonus,” Raven added on, “I’ll tell you what I won’t miss from this season. I won’t miss wearing those God awful rags you call ‘pennies’.”

Abby burst into laughter. The bluntness of her statement, the statement itself, the expression on her face, and Marcus’ offended look made the moment hilarious. She could feel the glare from Marcus but she couldn’t care. She offered Raven a thumbs up through her laughter.

Raven smiled bigger, her ego growing the slightest. She looked to Miller, finishing up by saying, “And I won’t miss Miller’s whiny ass.”

The kids burst into laughter, Murphy losing it the most. Miller was the only one not laughing as he crossed his arms. He tilted his head to the side and replied, “And I’m sure no one here will miss your big mouth.”

The kids laughed harder, Murphy falling back on the ground. Raven, not expecting the response, chucked the ball at him in response. He wore a smirk as he blocked it.

They went around the whole circle, making sure each delinquent had a chance to share their thoughts. Finally, the ball made its way to the last person. It slowly left Bellamy’s hands and landed in front of Marcus.

He picked it up as the laughter from Bellamy’s statement died down. He passed the ball between his hands for a moment as he watched around the circle. He began off by saying, “What I enjoyed most about this season, Raven,” he watched the color drain from her face, “was torturing you with wearing those pennies.”

The kids, including Abby, laughed as Raven pouted. He winked at her as he told them, “But seriously, what I enjoyed about this season was watching everyone grow as well, not even just the kids.” He looked over to Abby who immediately had glanced his way. He offered her a small smile down to her as he added on, “I grew and so did Abby. Hell, even Cece and Roan did. They only fought each other twice this whole season.”

The kids laughed at that but neither of the coaches registered it. They only registered each other as an understanding passed between them. Abby finally smiled back and broke the eye contact as the laughter from the kids died down.

He looked back to the kids and kept talking, “What I learned this season was-”

“The definition of fun?”

The interruption had come from Murphy. The kids all giggled as Marcus raised an eyebrow at him. He glanced down at his watch and told the boy, “There’s still three minutes of practice left. Would you like to sprint for those three minutes?”

Murphy wasn’t fazed; he never was. Marcus wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or impressed by it.

Murphy told him, “But I’m having so much fun here, you wouldn’t wanna ruin that now, would you?”

The kids laughed at that behind their hands, knowing all too well that Marcus could turn into his hardass self if he wanted. The old him would’ve made Murphy get up and start laps. The new Marcus just smirked and replied, “You’re completely right and for the fun to continue, you can’t interrupt me.”

The kids laughed again as Murphy rolled his eyes. Marcus looked around the circle as his eyes fell onto Octavia. He continued his last sentence before he was interrupted, “What I learned this season was that I can’t coach you guys to victory alone, my tactics alone would’ve never got us this far. And yes, Murphy that includes the fun aspect Abby brought to the team.”

The kids laughed as Murphy rolled his eyes again. Octavia was shining with pride for her father, a big grin on her face. He saw Bellamy next to her offering him a smile as well. When they made eye contact, he nodded his approval to his father.

Finally, his eyes found the coach beside him that he was finally acknowledging as a coach. He still felt bad for his actions at the Reapers’ game. If he was honest, he probably always would feel bad.

He knew they had made up outside of Pike’s office but that was just between the two of them. The incident had been in front of everyone, mainly the kids. He needed to show the kids he was in the wrong and make up for what he had done.

She was watching him in a mixture of awe and surprise. She knew they made moved past the incident the other day at Pike’s office, but she never imagined Marcus would apologize and confess he was wrong in front of the kids.

It made her heart do weird things, like flutter, and it made her stomach do flips. She felt a surge of gratefulness for him and what he was doing. He was truly trying to make up for his mistake.

He winked at her, smirking inside as he saw her cheeks flush the slightest bit. He looked back to the group and finished up by saying, “And what I’ll miss about this season is the team in general. Like Abby said before, this is a family, one Cage can’t rip apart no matter how many times he’s tried.”

He examined the group and added on, “We verse Mount Weather tomorrow in the finals. Who would’ve guessed the Delinquents would’ve made it that far, let alone win one game? No one, not even us, not even you if we’re all honest.”

Everyone silently agreed as they nodded, looking around the circle before looking back to Marcus. He admitted, “I know we spent a lot of the season arguing and not giving you the attention you all deserved individually to help improve this team, but we can promise that your dedication to teaching each other, intentionally or not, has not gone unnoticed. I know for sure it inspires me to become a better coach for you guys in the future.”

Abby agreed completely. While the adults acted like children, the children acted like adults. They improved the slightest bit on their own. Knowing they could have improved a lot more this season overall gave the two coaches inspiration to make that commitment.

“And you know what you guys need to do so we can actually coach you?” Marcus asked, looking around the circle.

It was quiet for once. No outburst from Murphy, no joke from Raven, no complaint from Miller. Then, suddenly, Octavia’s voice broke the silence. “Win,” she simply stated.

He smiled and nodded at his daughter. “Exactly,” he replied, “we have to win. That way we can continue to be your coaches and make you into the players and team we know you can be.”

The kids all looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Abby smiled as she watched them. It felt like a turning point; it felt good. Maybe they could actually do this.

Marcus tossed the ball in the air once and caught it again, drawing the eyes back to him. “Yes, the odds are against us this weekend,” he told them, “but the last time we versed Mount Weather, they versed a different team. They versed a team, not our family. This weekend, they’re going to play a different team, and that’s our family. And they better be prepared because those delinquents then aren’t the same ones sitting here today. These delinquents have won, they have improved, and they have become a family. Mount Weather is in for a rude awakening.”

It fell silent as Marcus finished and set the ball down in front of him. All eyes were still on him as he looked around the circle. Finally, his eyes settled on Abby who was watching him with complete awe this time.

He wasn’t wrong. The two of them had created a tiny family with these kids. Anyone could make a team, all you had to do was throw a few players together; but, to have a family, that team needed to go through Hell and back together.

Granted their team spent an ungodly uneven amount of their time together in Hell, they eventually came out of it. And when they emerged from it, they had emerged together, as one.

At the same time, they looked out to the kids who were watching them. It was silent as the last remaining minute of practice faded out.

It was peaceful. Looking around the circle, Abby was proud of what they had accomplished this season. Win or loss tomorrow, anyone would be lying if they said what the Delinquents had done wasn’t incredible.

Marcus stood up, breaking the trance everyone was in, drawing the eyes to him. He smiled big and asked, “So let’s kick ass tomorrow, yeah?”

All the kids jumped up and screamed, throwing their arms around each other or in the air. The scene made Abby smile as the kids surrounded Marcus, placing their hands all together for a last cheer of the practice.

Marcus looked over his shoulder to her, nodding towards the circle. Abby didn’t need words. He wanted her in the cheer- she belonged there.

She got up from her spot on the ground and stood besides Marcus and put her own hand in with the others. Marcus smiled and looked around to the kids, counting down, “3…2…1…”

“DELINQUENTS!” They all screamed in harmony.

It was a joyous sound. It sounded like family.

The kids began to walk off, chatting about random things now. The coaches stood in their spots for an extra second, watching as the kids walked off the field. They looked over to each other and smiled simultaneously and began walking back to the benches.

Both were packing up their equipment as parents and kids began to leave the field. Clarke, Bellamy, and Octavia were off by the concessions waiting for their parents to get done.

Abby was just zipping her bag up when she felt the first drop of water on her arm. She looked to her arm and then to Marcus but he was busy zipping his own bag. She looked to sky, confused as no clouds were in the sky.

She shook her head and went back to zipping her bag. After a few seconds, she felt a stream of cold water hit her side. It made her jump and she looked down to her white shirt, seeing her skin showing through the now damp part of her shirt.

She looked over to Marcus again, but he was once again cleaning up, minding his own business. However, a jug of water stood guilty on the bench, a little too close to Marcus.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she went back to her bag. She kept flickering her eyes back and forth between her bag and the water bottle. Marcus wasn’t paying it any attention.

Reluctantly, she had to turn to the left to pick up an extra penny. That was all the time he needed.

As Abby was picking the penny up, she heard sometime being unscrewed. She snapped up and spun around, yelling, “MARCUS, DON’T YOU DARE-”

She was cut off as cold water was dumped all over her. Her hands came up in a futile attempt to block herself from the wave of water. It failed. She was soaked.

She had closed her eyes at the impact, shivering from the cold temperature of the water. Abby wouldn’t admit it, but the cold water had felt relieving in the heat. When she opened her eyes, she found Marcus standing there with the empty water jug.

“Whoops,” he said, “my hand slipped.”

She threw her penny at him, not amused at his little joke. He laughed in response as she looked down to examine herself. Her face paled in horror as she saw what she looked like.

Her white t-shirt had been completely soaked through, becoming see through. It was see through enough to showcase Abby’s hot pink bra. And when Marcus noticed it too, he laughed even harder.

Her head whipped up to him, eyes narrowing the slightest. She held her hands to showcase what he had done to her, asking, “You think this is funny?”

He was still laughing and laughed more at her question. It was an answer enough. Hell, it was funny. Abby was just annoyed she didn’t have an extra shirt to drive home in and she didn’t have a jug of water to throw on him back in revenge. Otherwise, Abby wasn’t pissed off about it.

She crossed her arms over her chest and told him, “I'm in a white t-shirt with a pink bra and I'm soaked from head to toe. Fuck you, Kane.”

He laughed more, running a hand through his hair. He looked to her as his laughter died down, slowly walking towards her. Backing up, immediately, her back legs hit the bench, preventing anymore distance between the two.

Marcus made sure there was no distance between them as he approached her. He stopped in front of her, examining her outfit again. She had flushed under his gaze and he smirked that smirk.

It felt like they were in his bathroom again. It felt like they were at the campfire again. Instead of shying away from the tension this time, Abby stood firm in her position, rising an eyebrow at him.

Her words echoed in his mind. His smirk broadened the slightest as he leaned down, whispering, “You wish.”

The movement had caused the two to press against each other, that friction from both nights returning. Just like before, it ignited those flames of want throughout them both. Both could read it in the other’s eyes.

Marcus found his eyes dipping down to Abby’s lips, spotting a water droplet resting on the bottom one. Without much thought, he reached out, his thumb slowly rubbing it off.

Abby’s heart rate picked up at the contact and she felt herself draw in her lower lip in response. His thumb was still on her lip as she did so, and she could see his eyes dilate in reaction. She also saw him lick his own lips.

His hand that contained the thumb that was on her lip moved to lightly grab her chin, tilting it up towards him. Not wanting to waste another second, he dipped his head down, ready to claim her lips once more.

Right before his lips touched hers, his voice rang out, asking, “Am I interrupting anything?”

Marcus stopped his advance, their lips achingly centimeters apart. He almost said, “Fuck it,” and kissed her either way, but he was sure that wouldn’t even be able to block out the annoying being that Cage was.

Marcus reluctantly pulled back and let go of Abby’s chin. It took all his will power to not pull her to him as he felt Abby follow his retreating hand the slightest bit, basically begging to not go. How much he didn’t want to.

He turned to Cage and cleared his throat, telling him, “Not in the slightest.”

Abby’s glare said otherwise. If she hadn’t already wished many car incidents where he would end up flat like a pancake on cement, then her glare would’ve wished that. Marcus was sure the glare now amplified to hitting him with her car off the Grand Canyon.

Cage tilted his head as he walked up to them, examining the two, eyes lingering on Abby for a moment too long. Marcus’ arm immediately wrapped around her back, his hand landed on her hip, pulling her to his side. Cage’s eyes saw the movement and watched it. After, his eyes found Marcus.

“You two seemed to have made up nicely from your little display the other day,” he commented.

“No thanks to you,” Abby snapped at him, arms crossing over her chest.

He feigned innocence and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Cut the crap, Cage,” Marcus replied. “We know you were involved in getting Indra’s team folded. We know you didn’t want three new teams in the league so you offered the merge of our team. We know you gave Nia an illegible player in hopes you wouldn’t get caught and destroy our chances of winning. And we know you were stirring up the pot between us, eventually leading to our fallout.”

Cage listened to the accusations but didn’t reply right away. Marcus was done with his shit, just like Abby was. There was nothing they could do about it without any evidence, but his ignorance to the subject was old news.

After the silence he smiled at them, telling them, “You caught me.”

“Are you that insecure?” Abby asked, “So insecure that you have to stoop to stepping around the rules and interfering with the league to benefit you?”

He shrugged and said, “I’m not insecure.”

“Bullshit,” she spat at him, “and you know it. If you weren’t insecure about your position in the league, Indra would still have a team, we wouldn’t have been merged, you wouldn’t have messed with the tension between us, and you wouldn’t have had felt the need to help Nia out for the semifinals.”

He didn’t reply right away as he watched them. He was wearing a coral suit today. The color didn’t flatter him at all.

“None of that matters,” he told them, “as you have no evidence to prove anything. You can’t get jack squat done about any of it.”

“We know that,” Marcus told him. He smiled at him, saying, “But we can win against you on Saturday and get you kicked out of the league anyways.”

Cage’s façade broke, anger seeping through. He took a step towards them, whisper-shouting, “I won’t be the one leaving the league after this Saturday.”

“And what illegal thing will you try this time to make sure that doesn’t happen?” Abby asked.

His gaze snapped to her. He spat back, “I don’t need to do anything illegal to win against a charity case.”

“No?” Marcus asked, ignoring the jab at their team. “Then why did you feel the need to do it before?”

He didn’t respond. He couldn’t respond. Anything he said then could be used against him. He just straightened his suit jacket and told them, “I can’t wait to see your resignation papers on Pike’s desk Sunday.”

“I can’t wait to see them either,” Abby called out after him as he walked away, “except they’ll be signed for you.”

He didn’t dignify her with a response and kept walking until he was out of sight. The two watched the space for a while before looking to each other.

“We gonna win this Saturday?” Marcus asked her.

“Fuck yeah.”

#kabby #kabby fanfic #abby griffin #marcus kane #the 100 #the 100 fanfic #lindsayisthecraic

[highfireiistarter]

♥ What’s the absolute best experience you’ve had in RP? -- and to narrow it down, I will say absolute best experience WITH...RUEN.

THAT’S STILL A LOT. Um. Gosh. I’m gonna narrow it down to RP with the Ruen character and not just the player. Cause if it’s the player, that’s like. A lot of stuff.

There are a lot of little comedic moments that I love with Ruen and Ilan. In the beginning when Ilan was still mostly an ass in public (and in private too 90% of the time), there was this scene we still laugh about in Limsa when Ruen was chatting up some potential clients to work with the Red Crows and establish them a bit more. This was on that kind of open spot just outside the Drowning Wench. I think at one point, Ruen jokingly asked Ilan to get him a refill, and Ilan was like, “Okay. Give me your cup.” And Ruen looked at him like he didn’t trust this but kind of slowly handed it over. Maybe because he had hope that this was Ilan’s Nice Thing for the Year. Who really knows? Anyway, Ilan took the mug and tossed it over the ledge. Ruen was just like… spectacularly dejected but also like, “Welp. I should’ve expected that.” at the same time. I really wish I had logs of it. My writing was a lot better back then, I think.

But, while that stands out as one of my favorite funny moments, they’ve just… had a lot of good serious ones. Again, I’m copping the hell out because I’m just saying this is ONE of my favorites and not my ABSOLUTE favorite because I literally can’t chose an absolute favorite. But when Ruen was healing and after everything that went down during Operation Oriens, there was a moment that Ilan was trying to be strong and there for Ruen even though he was struggling himself. Because Ruen had been through so much for his sake, and then it was all his fault in the end. And he was like. “Everything’s my fault on top of Ruen suffering to see to it that I got my revenge.” But, in the midst of his angst, he was able to be like “Alright. You gotta be strong for him this time!” And I think, because it’s Ilan, he still didn’t 100% communicate what he needed to in order to help Ruen then. Ilan’s… not good at communication. He either says the wrong thing or says too much without really saying anything. Ruen asked him if it was worth it - like, all of it. Everything he’d been through and the choice he made in the end not to kill his father, even though that kinda happened anyway. And, you know, Ruen probably needed to hear that it wasn’t all for nothing, but Ilan was just still in this state of “I am LITERALLY the worst person ever” and dealing with a lot of guilt. And he didn’t want to lie to Ruen. So he responded with:

“No. I do not think any of this, any of what I did as a result of what I thought… Even giving mercy at the end.“ He shakes his head sadly. "Not even the decision I made, a decision that ultimately meant little, doing what I felt I had to do… None of that. It is where I go from here. What I do. How I live. That is what I pray will make it worth it someday. If it can be done at all.”

Which. Was honest. On top of Ruen getting tortured because of his crazy and all the awful things he’d done… He was like NO, THAT WASN’T WORTH IT. Which I imagine sounded to Ruen like “You’ve suffered and sacrificed this much FOR NOTHING.” Which wasn’t what Ilan meant, but, you know. Ilan saying the wrong thing. It’s more likely than you think. A lot. But there was a really sweet moment that give me the tears and the feels in that scene too.

“I’ve hurt so many people. By my own hand. And…” he pauses, looking over Ruen guiltily. “And the people who have been hurt because of being close to me. One moment doesn’t make up for all of that. I cannot make up for all of that. But I can fight and I can live and I can keep you safe from here on out, like you’ve looked after me for so long. See to it that you grow old, see to it that you are happy. Heal your wounds when you are injured. Be what you lean on when you need rest. You’ve carried me this far.” Ilan smiles at Ruen, even as those tears finally spill. “Please allow me to carry you a while.”

So I loved that scene, even though it left some things unresolved between them. Um, and actually there was a scene recently where Ilan asked Ruen to come with him to visit his mother’s grave for first time since the whole incident in Oriens. Ilan had a hard time and said a lot of emotional stuff, and Ruen had a… a really serious panic attack? Simplified version of it, but Ilan carried him back to Drybone and was like “I AM SO SORRY. I SHOULDN’T HAVE ASKED YOU TO COME.” Anyway, they got to talking! This moment kind of brought a bit more of a resolution to the whole “was it worth it” stuff. At least between Ilan and Ruen. And his mother. Weirdly enough, it ties into the funny moment I mentioned first!

“Somewhere. The Shroud.” The memories seemed foggy and broken now. “An endless corridor.” Ruen’s ears slowly lowered over his head. “It went on and on. Cato and I fought through… I don’t remember. I just remember /that song/,” and it was damn near haunting at this point for him. “And fire. Her dancing in these… flames.” Ruen Nocs slowly sat up a bit away from Ilan, though their hands remained in one another’s. His furrowed as he thought about it harder.

Ilan Faust swallows hard at that, trying not to clutch Ruen’s hand too tightly. “…the Shroud,” he repeats. “It was… it was her? The song. The- the fire. Was she..? Do you know if she hurt? If she was in pain?”

Ruen Nocs got a little lost as he was trying to recount and remember, gaze distant though a small smile eased over his lips. “She was… smiling. I don’t think it–that I’ve seen anything like it. So beautiful. She was.” And he wasn’t even sure if she saw her as she was. It was all undefined images, but then it had seemed so tangible.

Ilan Faust feels the tears start to form again in his eyes. “Smiling. She was smiling,” he repeats that to himself until a smile of his own crosses his lips. “Do you think she forgives me?” the next questions comes uttered in a whisper.

Ruen Nocs blinked, awareness back in his gaze when he looked over at Ilan. He looked sincerely confused, canting his head to him. “She… never blamed you.” He said as answer, softly. And thus, there was nothing for her to forgive.

Ilan Faust ’s lips form a thin line as he nods, unable to speak as he’s trying to holding back tears of relief. But it’s not really possible at this point, and they come again. It looks almost like a weight has literally been lifted from his shoulders.

Ruen Nocs didn’t look away politely as he tried to do most of the times, not really sure if the other wanted him to see. Ruen reached out with his scarred hand, brushing the pad of his thumb over Ilan’s jaw and then leaned in, tongue slipped from between his lips to run in the line of the tears that fell. His other hand raised, cupping either side of his face as his odd kiss neared his eye, licking slowly just above Ilan’s eyelid before leaning away a bit. He watched him quietly.

Ilan Faust ’s smile is a weary but thankful one. He doesn’t shy away from the touch of Ruen’s hand or tongue, actually more leaning into it than anything. When his red eyes lift to meet Ruen’s blue one, he asks carefully, “Do /you/ forgive me?”

Ruen Nocs ’s lips lifted a bit at the sight of the other’s small smile. He leaned in against, pressing the bridge of his nose to Ilan’s so their foreheads and lips were nearly flush. He murmurs, “Never. I’m never gonna get that mug back, ya know?”

Ilan Faust manages a laugh through those tears and brings his forehead closer to lightly press to Ruen’s. When the chuckle quiets and the tears start to dry, he whispers softly. “It was worth it.”

“Well, I sure hope so. That was good ale, I’ll have you–ah, what was?” Ruen Nocs blinks a bit.

“Everything,” Ilan replies simply. “Thank you. Just… just thank you. For everything you’ve ever… Just thank you.”

Ruen Nocs ’s lips part in awe. He just searches Ilan’s features for a moment, before a different relief flushed his features again, eye still blinking owlishly before they averted slowly to the sheets, “Same… alright? I… for. You. Everything.”

That made me cry too cause I’m a sap. Because these dorks. They also had a chat recently-ER about Ilan taking a break after the clinic was established and Tuft’s theater company was off the ground to travel a bit with Ruen, to see things and do things that Ruen wanted to see and do. Mostly cause Ruen spent so many years following Ilan and trying to see his goal, however misguided, realized. And because he wants to spend time seeing the world and sights again and really, I don’t know, seeing them? Just in general.

So. LONG STORY LONG, these are some of my absolute favorite moments with Ruen-catte. I, uh, tossed up a read more in there cause. Yeah. SHIT BE LONG.

Tagging @r2ruen for obvious reason~

#best RP experience #tuftananke #ilan faust #ruen #WORTH IT #RIP Ruen's mug #oh god the feels #best worst catte

[the-emotional-stoner-blog]

Midnight Thoughts 1/11/18

Its midnight… and I’ve been drinking... and its sad… it seems that this is the only time that sometimes I feel like I let myself truly feel and think about everything going on inside. I try and talk to everyone about it, however, it’s never properly portrayed…

 I think its only officially been a year since I have come out to my family and friends… and can I truly say that I came out when I still hide who I am from most people. When I feel as though it isn’t everyone’s business. I’m not opposed to someone asking me and me being honest but I don’t know, lately there have been a ton of changes and a lot of things going through my head.

 I am working so hard on being me. And for the most part it works out okay. Majority of my friends know and are okay. To be honest no one honestly cares. However, again, as always there is always something bothering me. Sometimes my friends have said people ask, ive told them IDC, my family knows, go ahead… but that leads me to my next point….

 DOES MY FAMILY KNOW? Who honestly knows who is most aware of the emotional turmoil and battle going on in my head. Its not easy, and its not that its difficult just because of the life choice. I’ve tried, I’ve realized it, I have tried long and hard and for many years to suppress it. But I told my family, but what exactly is known.

 Do they hear one thing? Do they think one thing? Do they feel one way? Do they not? I’m so torn. I am trying to be me, and I am trying to be who I am. I want to be who I am. And I’ve never been happier. I don’t want to go out and live a gay crazy life, that’s not me. I can’t even imagine going to a pride parade. I’ve always said that my best friend would probably be the only person to ever get me there. Who knows….

 Gosh. I have so much on my mind, this is gonna be a mindfuck of a night for me. It always is. I put on a brave face, I walk the walk and I do the show. I know I am so much stronger than I give myself credit for. I can do things like traveling half way across the world for my own pleasure and benefit, and then I can totally freak out one night about what to wear when I am actually meeting other gay people for the first time…

 I am lost. And I know that’s life. Everyone is lost. But I try so hard to act okay, I try to seem like everything is fine. However, I got to believe that I’m pretty terrible at it because my emotions show…

 But I digress from the point. Was their a point? I mean this is my thoughts. That’s what I needed. I started this as an outlet for my thoughts. A way for me to release myself from the constant thoughts in my head.

 So lets go back to it all and lets break it down:

 Coming out;

 My sister: what can I say, she’s always understood me. From day one. And to this day I feel guilty that I didn’t tell her first. I feel the hurt she feels that I wasn’t able to come out to her first. It wasn’t that I couldn’t, I’ve always always understood that she would be okay with it. But it was was just something to me, something that I couldn’t say out loud at the time. Out loud to someone so close to me, someone that has known me their entire life, someone who grew up with me.... I know its okay, and I feel bad still… I feel bad I cant exactly talk about this life with her, and its not that I don’t want to… its just that I don’t know how, its something so crazy and so uncomfortable to me still that trying to explaining it someone so close to me and everything, it just… it makes everything more real, and maybe sometimes I still try to avoid it…

 I love you J

  My brother: what can I say about my brother. Aloof is an understatement. But in regards to me, that’s obviously why I am writing this, right. My brother, hes the kind of guy that loves everyone, and unless you literally destroy him, he will always have you back. I couldn’t imagine having a gay brother, its obviously not what you expect or want being the older brother, right? And I mean lets not add the fact that your best friend has most likely always made comments and that was why he always felt I needed “toughened” up, right? I’m not completely dumb, even your soccer friends, probably from the beginning… It’s not easy becoming everything everyone said you were. Did I ever really have a chance to come out, or was I just told that I was gay, ill never truly know to be honest (a battle I fight a lot). But hey, deep down I know my brother is accepting and loves me. But is it wrong of me to feel guilt and remorse. Guilt that I’m not that brother that can sit there and always just talk girls with him. Hey! I mean I still can, I still think girls are attractive…but I don’t know maybe not in the exact same wavelength.

 Its harder with my brother than my sister. My sister and I were always close. M brother, well we, we went through some shit and I did something pretty terrible I don’t like thinking about. I typically try and avoid it at all cost. Stupid third graders, right, who knew they wanted to “read” so much. I don’t know, I read into everything

 I’ve wanted to tell your best friend from me. I mean I kind of still feel as its something that should come from me, but at this point if its asked by anyone, idc, tell them. This is me, this is who I am trying to be. It meant no harm I know it didn’t, but even a simple t-shirt… it can send me for a spiral. Am I not the brother that was planned, the one that a big bro could think of future conversations about girls with.

 My brother loves me, my brother accepts me. I know that, and I am so grateful, but sometimes, sometimes I don’t think people realize that thoughts can run through anyone’s head. People the closest they are with can sometimes focus on one thing that bothers them, and then somehow magically portray that in every other aspect of life….

 My brother loves me, he accepts me, I am 100% certain of that. But I can’t help but have these doubts. These feelings. Probably for the life of me…. Its just something that who I am, me, as a person will constantly battle, I will always be my biggest antagonist….

 I love you S.

 My dad: I honestly don’t even know where to start with this guy. We are pretty different, and then on the other hand we are so much like each other. But you see, growing up, my dad, my aunt, his sister… they weren’t to accepting of gays. I mean if there was a gay theme my mom would make sure that my dad wasn’t around. So imagine that as me….. imagine that as a person who knows that…

 My mom claims my dad loves me no matter what. But at this point in my life, does my dad know that I am probably more into guys than girls (did you, the person reading this now?)? I know he loves me, he truly does. But this is a side of me that I don’t discuss. I don’t bring it up. Hell, I can’t imagine the day that who knows I meet a guy (unhopeful and don’t worry this is going to be a long long thought so we will get there) and bring him home and if my dad will accept it. Hey, I mean I brought a girl home and she was able to sleep with me (my sister couldn’t even do that till she was engaged!) Hell fucking no! Honestly, I wouldn’t even want a guy to come home with me. I would probably get a hotel! For two big reasons. 1) if my dad is not accepting of it than I am not dealing with that! 2) if my dad is (not) accepting of it but allows us, I don’t even want to place him in that positon.

 I’ve had some people lately tell me that I need to be selfish. Is this one of those instances? Am I selfish in the way that I don’t care, this is my life, this is me! Deal with it? But that’s not me! Its honestly not, I can’t do that. I can’t be selfish…. I think too much… I feel too much….

 I don’t know with my dad. There are times lately where I just want to flat out ask him “Dad, if I end up with a guy will you still love me. Will you be okay? Will everything be okay?” But I can’t, I am fearful. I avoid the situation. I avoid anything that deals with it.  And until I can talk to him, or until the day that I really have to deal head on with this situation (I magically have a boyfriend) than I will never know…

 I don’t know what to do with my dad. I don’t know how he feels. Its not a subject I plan to bring up… My dad loves me, I know it… will I be truly accepted is the biggest issue.

 My mother: oh jeeze, gotta take a deep breath for this one, didn’t expect that did ya. Usually mothers are your mom, they love you no matter what. But with my mom, I cant pin point it….its missing, there’s a big gap, and it sucks.

 My mom, she means the world to me. I am a mommas boy. It is something I learned a long time ago. I love my mother. I truly am my mother. From looks to a lot of how I act. I love my mom, a lot. And I’ve experienced a lot with her, heck one of my second times out of the country was with her and her and I were stuck in a room with twin beds… so yeah we got close…

My mom loves me… but sometimes, sometimes I don’t know if she accepts me. I avoid the gay stuff with her just as much as my dad. Its funny sometimes, the person you are least worried about ends up being the worst. IT doesn’t help my mom has constantly talked religion and how she wishes she raised us more catholic… I’m sorry to say mom, even before I accepted this, I really wasn’t religious, don’t believe in that crap and I have another view point that works for me, and that’s all I feel….

 And then its funny, because I feel as though my mom is the only other person that I have come out to more than once. I can remember calling her drunk one time while I was traveling. And I talked about how I was worried about things and dad. And she said dad would always love me. But for some reason it stuck with me, and bothered me…. There was something off… was she truly telling me that Dad accepted me, or was she trying to convince herself that she accepted me? Honestly, sometimes I don’t know. My mom tried to guilt trip me into going to church for Christmas. I told her no, it was hypocritical, and that’s not including this side of me. But that’s also another factor.

 My mother… I told her once, “Mom, I told you and dad this side of me because I wanted you guys to know. I wanted you to be able to ask me questions. I am extremely uncomfortable about this. I probably always will be. But I told you this because I wanted it out in the open and I wanted to be able to talk to you guys.” However, I still feel as though that wont work… she will always ask my sister (my brother, ha! He would probably not know. Sorry S).

 I love my mother, a ton. But, honestly….sometimes its hardest with her. I was her baby. I always dreamed of a normal family, just as she probably did. And its changed, and her baby isn’t what she expected… the baby is far from what she expected..

 I love you mom, I really do, but I don’t know, your social cues, and the way you act, it tells a different story… and its hard to tell…

 My parents:

 They bother me…. I told them. And ever since then its never been brought up, maybe I am grateful for that? I mean hell, I probably wouldn’t want to talk to them about it. But hey, seriously! Your son just told you a huge part of his life, a huge part that’s probably attacked him as a whole, and made him depressed at certain points of his life… I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what I truly wanted… But I don’t know… I told them, and I don’t bring it up… I don’t want to… and it still makes me uncomfortable… its an an uncomfortable positon and stage in life….

 My friends:

  Honestly cant complain… they have been the greatest, the best and a huge help in this process and changes as everything goings on.

 ALRIGHT CHANGE OF FOCUS!!!

Relationships…. I think my sister got upset with me.. she was talking about marriage and life beyond where we are now, and I just casually made the comment saying “yeah, I don’t think I will ever get married.” It was just the look on her face wtf? Why would you say that? Whats wrong with you? But she left it at that, and honestly, I am happy, because that’s what I want.. to not confront it…

 But lets confront that thought head on!

 I have no hope! I truly truly truly don’t believe there is a “happily ever after for me.” I don’t trust people. I don’t trust the gay world. Hell, I’m not that much better. I keep secrets just as much as any other person does..

 But from my view, from my sights, and thoughts, and experiences with the gay world. Its worse than the straight world. And I am by no means making it seem like being straight means the world is all yours. But idk, god, guys think girls are superficial. Try being a guy trying to find a guy, then you will know what superficial truly means…

 I’ve seen, I’ve heard, god fucking dammit I have been an issue, and guys cheat all the time. What hope does that leave me with. What hope do I have for a relationship? God, to be honest, I am petrified of ever even having a relationship.

 I made a comment to my best friend once, “A, I am either going to end up with someone way too good for me, or I wont end up with anyone at all…” It’s a weird thought, and even as I write it I honestly don’t know if I truly understand it. But its something I feel. I have felt this for so long…

 I am trying… and I am working on it… I am working on me, and I am working on meeting other people “like” me. I want to be me, and I want to live a life where I am me. I don’t know what to expect. I am terrified. And I am pessimistic beyond belief…

 I have so much crap constantly running through my head… I have so many thoughts… so many feelings. Things that I keep bottled in… Things that I let myself try and deal with, and battle… I’m letting people know (Even if I don’t know you) who I am and what I am going through, and the thoughts inside my head.

 This is going to be me, this is going to be the person I want to work at being. IT makes me feel better, it makes me feel whole… it makes me feel human..

 ­

I am pretty sure knowing me that I talked about a lot. And I digressed a lot. And I’m sure I really didn’t get 100% of my feelings out there.  But hey it’s a glimpse right, a 5 page glimpse into my life and thoughts…

 This is me….this will who I always will be…

 And maybe, just maybe the true question in the end of all this is: Can I truly accept me?

~ the-emotional-stoner

#emotional #stoner #the #emotionalstoner #theemotionalstoner #sad #late #midnight #thoughts #latenightthoughts #night #drinking #wine #beer #gay #pride #lgbt #lgbtq #depressed #2018 #life #family #friends #parents #sister #brother #glimpse #innerthoughts #raw thoughts #raw

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Speaking of my dumb story ideas, I’ve been thinking some stuff to flesh out the Cathedral Game’s setting! RANDOM IDEAS AHOY LONG POST AHOY

* I’m thinking I need to make some concrete ideas for the villains maybe. When I first had the dream that inspired this all, it was just some sort of ambiguous ‘demon army’, kinda like a mindless zombie plague or i dunno, maybe the demons were sentient but they were all evil except for florin anyway? It was a more boring cliche kind of enemy than I usually write, with no moral grey area. Just an endless wave of foes that would justify the setting where everyone is stuck living inside a church and you have to defend it and try and turn it into a little town. And I guess if we had to have a 100% evil enemy with very little character development then it makes me less uncomfortable if theyre some sort of supernatural nonsentient plague instead of a bunch of people born evil. But then Florin existing as your sidekick was like the first part of the dream and it was never explained why he was the only non evil, completely sentient demon. Plus now I have a different zombie-themed story so mindless plagues would be samey. PLUS... welll... I need to stop being all ‘because I saw it in a dream it is somehow a cosmic message that it has to be in the story and can never be changed’. Kinda the point of being awake is that i can look at things more rationally and plug the ol plotholes, yo!

* So anyway, the idea I had was that it would... just simply be an actual army of actual villains with actual motivations and moral ambiguity. I was thinking maybe the setting could be like the perspective of civilians trapped in-between a civil war between two countries, just trying to survive and hoping that the promise of reincforcements coming to evacuate is actually true. The gamneplay of holding the fort and constantly gunning down enemies could be even more depressing when you know that not all of them are necessarily evil, they’re just soldiers doing their job. Maybe its ambiguous whether your country or their country shot first, maybe its like their country is suffering from some form of recession or illness or lack of resources and they’re only trying to conquer this other country because their families are dying at home? Maybe its some form of religious conflict, or maybe its even something with a very villainous dictator running the show but the people working underneath them are just normal citizens forcibly drafted into a war they dont believe in. There’s a whole pile of different possibilities for moral ambiguity, yo! Not sure yet which would work best, hmm...

* Might possibly be an opportunity to use a character I’ve been sitting on for a while but couldnt find a story that suited her. After I played Fe: Awakening I felt really uncomfortable about how the game treated Excellus as if he was hateable only because he was ugly and ambiguously gay/transgender. like.. he’s a horrible jerk of a villain yet the plot really overfocuses on insulting his appearance and gender rather than retaliating against the things he actually does. Made me feel sympathy for a jerk I never wanted to feel sympathy for! So I kinda ended up being inspired by the wasted potential and thinking up an idea for a similar character who actually IS sympathetic, and has the ambiguous LGBTQ aspect properly explored as a plotline. I think it could actually be powerfully sympathetic to see this villain who’s constantly degraded and misgendered by her teammates, and has a lot of reason to believe the worst of humanity. Someone who could switch sides if shown some basic decency by our heroes, maybe? And I felt it could be good if she did have a very similar personality to Excellus, just like a good version of it. She could still be a comic relief egotistical person, but not a murderous monster. And the ego could be like... sad, because she’s purposely trying to act unaffected and secure and like she loves herself, when really she’s being treated like shit and doesnt know if she deserves it or not. And I was thinking also possibly she could be a greedy merchant type character, like Anna? (also from Fe: Awakening) That could be the role she takes in the town once you recruit her, she could be a savvy businesswoman badass! Playing rune factory 4 makes me appreciate how cool a trader character can be, Arthur is so neato~! He talks about it like its the most amazing job ever, I just feel like it could be even cooler if we had that passion along with a more goofy greedy personality. Like ‘hahaha im only in it for the money’, but no, she really has this kinda cheesy cute reason why she does the job, she just really enjoys meeting new people and being able to change the world a little piece at a time. It reaffirms her faith in humanity after all she’s been through. (Tho also she’s still a total badass, since she was a former general of the villain country, after all!)

* Oh and I was thinking of a really tragic alternative route for her if you don’t recruit her. You could fight her multiple times throughout the game and then when you get to the final one and she realizes there’s no escape she suddenly drops the comic relief act and it gets really somber. I was thinking maybe she could have a mentor type character or a friend or a love interest or something? Or some other something she was trying to keep safe all along, some reason why she still had hope, some reason why she was fighting for an army she didnt believe in, just to save up enough money for... some sort of life goal? I dunno, maybe she has a sibling who’s in the hospital and she’s trying to save up for treatment, and then on the day of the final battle she gets a telegram hearing that they died and she wasnt even there to say goodbye. (And the death would somehow be directly caused by the player’s actions, thus determining whether you recruit her or not) So even though every time before she always flaked out like a coward with a comedic quip as soon as it looked like she was losing, now she just doesnt have anything else left to lose. This time she WILL NOT LET YOU redeem her, she will not let you SPARE her, she doesnt even speak a single word in the entire battle. Her difficulty spikes immensely in this fight to the death, and she only cracks a smile and gives a parting quip once you’ve dealt the final blow. And I was just imagining it could be EXTRA depressing combined with her plot of facing predjudice for being transgender! She’s spent most of this time being treated by the other commanders as ‘sir [name]’, gritting her teeth and bearing all this degredation, trying not to stand out too much. But in the end now nobody else is here to put her down, all those other ‘brave knights’ are the ones who ran away like cowards and left the ‘coward’ to take the last stand. And she doesnt care if she dies anymore. So she hangs up her armour for this fight and instead decides to go out in all her finery, wearing the dress she’s kept locked away in her trunk the whole time. Walking onto the battlefield like a bloody bride, and being one hell of a monster boss battle despite missing all of her platemail. A whirling dance of death! To go out smiling! To maybe make her family proud, and if she can meet them on the other side she could do it with the face she always wanted to wear.

* ....basically make it super depressing so you regret your actions and go back and see what the other option leads to. But also so badass that people wouldnt regret seeing the scene, yknow? And this might be the height of her character arc, kinda, but she’d be able to have whole new character arcs if you choose to recruit her. And you can make your own badass battles with her now! * Not sure tho whether maybe the family member/mentor/whoever might die either way though? That could fit the bittersweet found-family themes of the game, pretty much everybody’s someone who’s lost their biological relations and found new people to love in this new community. It could just be like... the choice between this person dying tragically and causing merchant-general-lady to commit suicide, or them passing away naturally due to their illness after saying goodbye to her, leading to her joining the heroes to try and prevent tragedies like this. * A possible other EVEN MORE tragic idea I had- an alternative where this person has already been dead for a long time before the start of the story, and the villain leader has been lying to merchant-general in order to keep her working as their minion. So the player choice would be like... you can reveal it to her and purposely send her into a suicidal spiral as an attempt to destabilize the enemy forces and win an important battle. Its a complete dick move, yes, but it could save the lives of all your family and friends! But then if you believe that this merchant-general is actually redeemable you could like... do the same thing but with different motives, in a different way. Reveal it in less of a sadistic, tactically-planned way, and more of a ‘no seriously this is why you cant trust your boss’ way. And she’d be likely to actually believe you if you’d been befriending her before now. * Or perhaps maybe her sibling died years ago and she heard about it but was unable to accept it, since it was her only reason to keep on going. Maybe she feels guilt that she was too busy making money to try and save them, and that meant she wasnt there to hold their hand when they passed away. So now she keeps on hoarding money for no purpose at all, except because this routine keeps her going. And she keeps writing letters to someone who’s already dead. * buuuut that might be too similar to Malachi’s plot, since he has memory problems regarding a tragic event in his past. Though it was his own death rather than a family member’s! ....actually I dunno, maybe a twist could be that he’s actually her lost sibling? That’d kinda be wrapping things up too coincidentally though. But on the other hand it could be an interesting plot to explore his relationship with his newly returned biological sibling, compared to the adoptive relationship he’s been developing with Florin. RIVALS FOR TINY BABBU’S LOVE! Buuuuuut I also liked the idea of Florin’s death being very far back in the timeline, and he’s been sleeping underneath those ruins for over a century. It could be cool to have him experiencing a lot of things for the first time, and to get a perspective on the past before the war...

* ALSO ANOTHER POTENTIAL CHARACTER IDEA * Another enemy recruit maybe! I seem to be going in twos, I made two demon characters and now two redeemy people XD The idea I had was that this could be just a random soldier that you keep as a prisoner, and have to decide whether to execute him or not. It can be hard to keep prisoners of war when you’re stuck in this seige situation and you barely even have enough food to keep your own teammates alive! Tensions could run high because you’re choosing to keep this guy alive when its making things worse for us all, plus we cant really trust him, seriously?? He surrendered but maybe its just a trap to infiltrate us! He claims a sob story of his country being forced to invade us because of famine, and being drafted against his will, but can we trust anything that comes from the mouth of one of those scum?? And then there’s the question of what exactly you’ll do with him if you think he cant be trusted! Are you able to execute him in cold blood? Do you set him free and hope this decision doesnt come back to bite you in the ass? Do you try and execute him while pretending you didnt- setting him loose in the forest to die of exposure or at the hands of his own former comrades...?? And its very annoying because the entire time he’s insistantly begging you to kill him, and generally being a huge downer! :P This is what convinces you to spare him, if you pick that option. It starts off as just ‘I’m gonna spite you, I won’t let you die if its what you want’, but eventually you realise he really never wanted to be part of this war, and he’s weighed down so much by his sins that his pleading for suicide was completely genuine. There’s no spy plots, he was just a simple farmer thrown into battle with nothing more than the clothes on his back and the sharpest pitchfork he could salvage from the wreckage of his old farm before it was torn down. The famine ruined his business and he had no way of surviving unless he sold his land to the army, to be bulldozed and turned into the site of a new weapons factory. And even after that he ended up forcibly drafted when things got even worse, losing what little livelihood he’d managed to scrape together again. He doesnt have a home to go back to, he just wanted to die on the battlefield, and by all odds he SHOULD HAVE! This is the condition of this latest round of ‘soldiers’, nobody even wastes armour on them, theyre just disposeable fodder to be mowed down as a distraction. What shitty luck, that he just happened to get captured by some bleeding-heart fools who refuse to chop his damn head off! So basically I’m imagining him like a Nanu-esque depressed grandpa who’s kinda sassy sometimes but also really really needs a hug. And like... model prisoner, to a comical degree. When he comes to terms with the fact he aint gonna get killed no matter how much he begs, he’s just like ‘dammit i cant help but help’. He’s just a normal good guy at heart, he’s not really on your side so to speak, he loved his country but he didnt agree with them wanting to wipe out your country either. he misses how his country used to be, and he doesnt know anything about your country or whether its any better, he doesnt have much hope. But when he’s stuck with nothing to do all day, he just cant help subconciously falling into kindly grandpa behaviours! Gotta clean up this cell! Hey, do you want some cookery tips, mr guard? Oh whoops, mr guard you dropped the cell keys, here have them back! Hey this bar over here has poor structural integrity, I tried to rope it back together with a braid of my own back hair! All the time he’s trying to trick you into agreeing to execute him, and being a total sycophant agreeing with everyone who says he’s evil. CMON IM TOTALLY EVIL, PLEASE STAB ME, I’LL BAKE YOU COOKIES! And then as time goes on he just becomes less of a prisoner and ends up making friends with everyone, winning the trust of even those who opposed him the most at the start. All entirely unwillingly! Agreeing with all their oppositions so hard that they stop opposing XD He ends up just pottering around doing odd jobs as a janitor/groundskeeper type guy, even ends up being the one in charge of keeping the keys to the jail he started off in. Somehow the most trustworthy man in the whole town, cos he’s the one person who will never say he’s trustworthy! His humble goodness just shines through~! And he could help out a lot cos he has inside info on the enemy army, and is able to give a sympathetic perspective of the everyday citizens’s life, and just how much dissent there is, how few people are willingly cooperating with the war and how they can find allies and destabilize this regime based entirely on fear instead of loyalty. He’s like a ray of hope that changes everyone’s perspective on this big seemingly-inpeneterable all-evil army! A grumpy suicidal ray of hope, who never shuts up about how hopeless it is! XD of course, eventually he’d be able to find new reason to live in this own, and make friends, and have hugs and joy~! But it’d be a hard journey! And a journey filled with a lot of ‘geez grandpa stop joking about suicide holy shit’ *disciplinary hugs* * Tho actually I dunno if a farmer would be a good career choice for him, I just picked it cos its the easiest to imagine him losing his livelihood in the war. His career in the town would be being this janitor kindly advice man/treasurer sort of guy, but i dunno... if he was a banker before then that makes him too similar to general lady :P ...maybe he was a janitor on someone else’s farm...? Honestly I would love an excuse to have a badass sympathetic janitor man and go on a bit of a small rant about how service work is very physically demanding and deserves a higher minimum wage yknow. RESPECT JANIGRAMP ... actually the name Jani is a good name his name is now jani it is law Jani the groundskeeper, because jani the janitor sounds dumb. SYNONYMS!

* Thinking of ideas for the fictional religion I’m gonna create for this world! Its more fun if we have a completely fictional set of traditions that’re just a general metaphor for topical questions about real life religion n stuff. And it would sidestep the problem of plots accidentally seeming like theyre ‘oh this one religion is evil and false’, when really the point i want to make is about how people of all religions are capable of perverting their faith’s peaceful teachings and using it as an excuse to wage wars. hell, athiests have done the same thing! ‘this religion is inherantly evil bwaaaah’ stuff IS athiests using their own beliefs as an excuse to hurt others. Thats the kind of athiest I never want to be! I completely respect religion and I think that we can never have an answer as to what’s true about creation or an afterlife, we can never know until we die. I don’t believe in heaven, but I dont think I have absolute proof it’s wrong, and I dont care about proving myself right or converting people. I feel inspired when I see people draw strength from their religion, even if I don’t believe in it! Lots of great things have been done in the name of different religions, just like lots of terrible things have. Human beings are great and terrible things, human beings make choices. This doesnt tar everyone with the same brush of whoever made the wrong decision, just because they believe in the same gods! ....man, sorry, I went off on a mini rant there. But yeah, what I hope to do is to have religion as a framing device and discuss some problems with certain so-called religious people, but also show the positive side of it via the protagonists. I mean, the whole point is that you’re living in a church, after all! The idea is that you’d hear a lot of horror stories of other people acting very ungodly in the name of god, both in the enemy army and in the hidden secrets of people in your own country’s government. But the goal is that you see all this hellish stuff and you still choose to be a bastion of what you believe is good and true, you learn from these mistakes and try and make the true sanctuary that everyone was seeking when they fell into the traps of those other monsters. And also I was thinking it;d be like the protagonist’s exploration of being agnostic, after her faith was shaken from her original church being destroyed in this war. She was the only survivor, maliciously left alive by [currently unnamed main villain rival guy], who wanted her to suffer the grief of knowing she’d failed her role as protector. But instead she travelled onwards and found this other church full of defenseless people that need a new guardian, and she is FUCKING DETERMINED to never fail again! It started as just seeking revenge against that evil overlord, but instead its become about protecting these new people and regaining her faith in humanity. And that doesnt necessarily mean regaining her faith, that’s up to the player. She has a journey of realizing that some things about her former church may have actually been corrupt, and that she was just blindly following instead of making her own decisions, She has her hero worship of her dead comrades dismantled, and has to come to her own conclusions about what’s right and wrong in the scriptures she’d learned, and what she’ll do as she goes forward. Its up to the player to decide whether she regains her faith or decides to become an athiest in the end, or even remains agnostic and decides she isnt able to find an answer yet, but either way she will still be forged into a true blue hero, no matter the reasons behind it! I wanna make all options an equally good ending, its just a personal choice that changes some scenes but not necessarily the course of the story.

* Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah! Religion ideas! I was considering possibly the legend could involve something about ‘an absent god’. The traditions say that humanity failed the creator long ago, and they left us behind because of it. The direction of all religion is based around this idea that we are inherantly born sinful, and have to do certain things in order to appease our ancestors’s sins and bring the gods back. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to create multiple sects of religion that’re variants on the same original holy text, that’s something that fictional religions dont tend to do for some reason. In this case it could be different perspectives on how exactly god dissappeared, and what exactly god saw as our sin, what on earth we have to do to make up for it. And I was thinking that the idea could be that god shattered into a million pieces that were scattered across the world. This leads to territory wars over places that’ve been determined to contain remains of god buried beneath the earth, and people invading indigenous civilizations in the name of holy tasks to dig for these relics. Power struggles over how many god burial grounds your country owns at any given time, controversy every time a digging operation fails to find a crystal. Pieces of god being used practically as currency, used to power magical weaponry in these wars... lies and deceit over fake godstones that no-one can prove you don’t own... * And this way even though magic does clearly exist in this world, it leaves it ambiguous whether religion is true, and whether any of the different sects is more accurate about the true will of god. It would seem reasonable that athiests exist here even when magic exists, thats usually a problem in fictional settings, you have gods right out here in the open yet some people still dont believe in them? XD It’d be like... yes maybe all these crystals that grant magical powers are actually fragments of an absent god. Maybe they grant those magical powers because of the reasons scripture tells us. Maybe if you bring them all together you can meet god and be granted one wish, maybe you could end the war. Buuuuuuuut.... maybe there’s just a natural crystal that grows underground and grants magical powers. Maybe nothing happens when you put it all together. Maybe it’s just like how people considered electricity to be unpredictable divine punishment before we learned how to harness it for ourselves.

* And there could be like... sects of the religion who believe god chose to leave us out of shame for our sinfulness, sects who believe a certain group of humans betrayed god and shattered them, thus holy war is justified against that country. Perhaps even sects that believe that god being shattered was a positive thing, that god chose to give fragments of their power to humans so they could choose their own destiny. (This is considered as scandalous as satan-worship in-universe) And there’s a related sect that believes that humans only even came into existance after the shattering event, that shattering into pieces was how god granted sentience and free will to the angelic servants we used to be. And this has permenantly corrupted us, thus the sin that we need to undo in order to retun god is... individuality, in all its forms. I think these are the ones who had the very extreme fanatical members who ran Malachi’s former church, and committed various atrocities including his murder. (Though, again, this doesnt mean that the viewpoint is inherantly evil. Just the people who took it from ‘tranquility, enlightenment and fealty to fellow man’ to ‘LITERALLY NO INDIVIDUALITY EVER’) ....hmmm, actually the morality system could be even more complex if I nail down a set of different factions of the religion and let you choose between all of them in the end. (or choosing none of them, or choosing your own interpretation) And there’d sorta be a fanatical/critical morality bar too, which determines whether you get the good or bad ending. In this case ‘critical’ would be the good option, I mean it more like... ‘I’ve analyzed everything about this scripture and come to my own conclusions, I won’t do anything immoral out of blind belief unless I actually have reasons to agree that it’s the right choice’. Aka how any normal good person decides on a religion to follow. And the fanatical side would be leaning towards never questioning. So sometimes you would have to like... take options that would seem like ‘the bad option’. Dont just blindly agree with everything that points to a particular faction viewpoint, that’ll lead to badness! Sometimes you have to question things, take it from the perspective of a character who is discovering their own faith, rather than a player who already knows from the beginning what option they want to pick.

* Man this has got complicated lol, I’m starting to ramble!

* Anyway, i was thinking this would explain what the ‘demons’ are, in this world. Normally humans can only use magic by using godstone as a power source, demon is a universal term for all creatures that are made of magic and can use it infinately as part of their very being. They’re considered unholy and must be destroyed, because they’re ‘imprisoning’ a shard of god inside them. And its really unfair because its a complete and utter random chance if someone becomes a demon when they die, you can live your entire life thinking you’re a normal human until the godstone in your heart activates and saves your life. Your life which is now ressurected in a monsterous form and can never return to your old family. The traditions say that it only happens to people who are sinful, thus they totally deserve to be slain, of course! Oh, and I think the main evil army guys would be using demons as weapons, which is part of why the anti-demon sentiment is like... even worse than usual in the protagonist’s country. Its incredibly depressing because demons are completely sentient, and the only way they become mindless battle monsters is if they’re tortured beyond breaking point. The same way you’d reduce a human to that state. But the protagonist starts off not even knowing that demons can talk until she meets Florin, she’s only ever seen these demonic ‘soldiers’ that’re really just whipped and beaten prisoners chained together and thrown towards the enemy in the hope both parties kill each other. “Yeah but why do so many demons ally with the empire?” *florin looks into the camera like he’s on the office* And I was thinking maybe a more positive religious interpretation of the existance of demons could be that they’re actually angels instead. (Yeah, even if this religion is very different its gonna probably have a lot of similarities to protestant christianity since that’s what I was raised in. i dont feel comfortable critcising someone else’s religion that I’m not personally experienced with, yknow?) ANYWAY SORRY FOR THAT ASIDE Yeah, there could be some very rare pro-demon religious folk who believe that those who are reborn after death are actually chosen ones rather than sinful. These fragments of god blessed certain people who were pure enough in heart to earn the power to be able to enact god’s love to the world. Because even though god is in pieces, god very much wants to forgive us. These magical beings are sent as god’s messengers to help guide us on the right path to redemption. That’s why they have such great powers of creation! (though others would say its destruction...) A single plant demon like Florin could watch over and sustain an entire forest, revive it from drought and become a cornerstone to build a whole city around! Though even this faction isnt 100% correct or incorruptable, there are those who’d interpret this as demons having a DUTY to do that. There are rogue members of this faction who enslave demons just as much as the people who use them as weapons. I was thinking a plot could be that Florin almost gets suckered in by a band of these guys, he’s just so overwhelmed to find anyone who doesnt hate demons! But they want to imprison him and force him to grow their crops forever until he dies of exhaustion, because that’ll mean he’s ~happily fullfilled his purpose and rejoined god~. I mean, if he says he doesnt want to, thats just so sad! That means this pure angel has been corrupted by humanity’s sin, he doesnt know what he’s saying! * man i have so many ideas aaaaa

#cathedral tower defense #sorry long post #i need to nail down a set amount of factions for the religious war and think up names for them and stuff #and like... countries #and which countries have how much of each faction #i think the main villain army would be like a totalitarian state where one religious faction is enforced by law #but for everyone else country doesnt equal faction #i think to make the scope of this thing small enough to fit with a mostly self-contained story in a single town... #it would be best to keep it to just two countries- enemy guys and the protagonists's country #maybe mention other countries in passing to add flavour tho #like 'we were supposed to get humanitarian aid from [place]' #and maybe the protagonist is new to this country actually? maybe her entire country was taken over by the villains rather than just hometown