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tobi-smp · 2 years

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How to watch the Dream SMP

So ! I’ve decided to take another stab at making a post laying out the options for new fans interested in the Dream Smp who don’t know where to start or where to look in the first place! We’ll be going over multiple options that will hopefully give people a rough idea of where they want to go depending on their needs!

at the risk of people scrolling past, I’m putting this under a readmore, so it can be updated as we get more information and so this isn’t an eyesore on the dash.

*This is an edit, discussing important information*

I’m leaving the majority of this post unaltered from when it was written, however I’ve taken the liberty to add information about the dream allegations directly under the cut. I’m doing this both to be informative and to express my own stance on the situation as clearly as possible.

I’m saying this under the cut because that way it’ll show up under every reblog of this post, instead of only being available in the edited version. It’s taken me a while to say this, not because I’ve been avoiding it but because I’ve needed time to process and chew on what I would actually like to say.

Dream, the real person, has been caught in a scandal that is at least partially proven to be true. He has confirmed himself that he has dmed several underaged fans, knowing they were underaged, and sent them to his snapchat to continue messaging him. The allegations beyond that are that he groomed these girls, including sending them inappropriate pictures.

There’s a post that has collected sources for this and several other (many related) incidents involving dream [Link]

[Update, November 20th 2023: a new victim has come forwards about dream, along with nsfw video evidence, tread carefully as this may be triggering [Link]]

I can’t say why this information hasn’t blown up the way that it should have. It might be in part because of the lawsuit currently on-going about said situation, it might be in part because of the fatigue involved with drama associated with dream, it might be that dream is a big enough name in the industry that people are afraid of the reaction they’ll receive if they Do speak out. I don’t know.

But what I Can say is that I have a responsibility to inform anyone potentially interested in the series so they can make informed decisions about what they want to do.

The dream smp is, ultimately, not the brainchild of one person. There are 30 odd people involved with the smp, some of the most popular of which were underage at the time the potential grooming was taking place. I would say that it’s not fair to lay the blame of the actions of one awful man at the feet of these individuals that had no part and no say in what happened.

I would Also say that the reactions from these other members are also very important, even if they don’t implicate them in the crime. The Vast majority of people associated with the server have made explicit efforts to distance themselves from dream. For some that’s been simply cutting contact with him entirely and refusing to associate with him (to interesting results on dream’s part [Link 1, Link 2]). Others speaking negatively about dream in a broader sense. And a select few who have spoken about these accusations specifically, albeit none of them in a very comprehensive way.

Is that enough? I dunno, I’m not the person to ask about the question of accountability vs privacy. I don’t know who’s Allowed to speak on it and who isn’t in regards to the court case, I don’t know whose avoiding speaking on it because of personal negative experiences with the kind of trauma that dream potentially caused, and neither does anyone else. [Link]

I can’t blame anyone who can’t involve themselves with any of the content or the creators that they associate with dream, I also can’t blame anyone who feels uncomfortable with those creators who Haven’t spoken up about the situation regardless of them not associating with dream.

However, personal comfort also isn’t the same thing as blame. At the end of the day creators need to be able to distance themselves from someone toxic and potentially dangerous when they personally haven’t done anything wrong.

That said, I Do also think it’s worth pointing out that that there Are several people who have either openly supported dream through this, or aren’t likely to ever say anything. including “the dream team” (meaning sapnap and george, his roommates and childhood friends) and badboyhalo. they’ve continued making personal content with him (Including buying a trump flag on stream as a “joke” [Link]), and in the case of sapnap and badboyhalo, they’ve openly supported dream while speaking about these allegations and speaking about other creators having dropped contact with him Related to these allegations [Link]

what does all of this mean for someone who’s potentially interested in the series? I don’t know. That’s up to the individual to decide for themselves.

I Will say, the majority of the options for viewing old content given on this post are not directly affiliated with the streamers, being channels dedicated to reuploading vods as well as compilation channels that intentionally break down the footage to make the series easier to digest. I will also say that none of the official vods channels that are linked are associated with any of the dream team.

but of course, dream himself will be in the content linked here. that’s inevitable and largely unavoidable. and if that makes anybody uncomfortable then it would probably be within their best interest not to dive any deeper into the series.

personally, I think anybody is within their right to avoid the series either for moral reasons or for their own personal comfort. I also think it’s possible to engage with the series without being held accountable for the actions the man on the tin. as a long time fan I won’t and Can’t engage with any new content, but I also can’t undo my connection to the story that I’ve sewn into my brain either. so I’m somewhere in the middle, “engaging” only through tumblr posts and ao3.

all of That said, I will be leaving the rest of this post unedited. I frankly don’t want to reread it at all, so if there’s anything below this point that is now ironic then it’s out of my hands.

2023 edit: Inniters stay winning [Link]

youtube

so lets break down some of our options!

1: Summaries and Compilations

This is the most Accessible time wise, which is obviously Very necessary in a series like this where watching every perspective just Isn’t Possible and dedicating yourself to one story line or streamer can still be a Very daunting time commitment.

But it also means sacrificing Detail. When you filter the events through a retelling that means that whoever creates that video is choosing what’s important to tell the audience and How that information is presented to that audience, which can warp someone’s understanding of the events. this is, unfortunately, an unavoidable aspect of this option no matter how unbiased the creator is trying to be. However, there are some options that are better than others. So lets lay them out.

- Blueberry TV [Link] Blueberry TV is a channel dedicated to telling the complete story of the dream smp through clips from All perspectives on the dream smp. They don’t do commentary of their own, they don’t summarize the events, they let the clips speak for themselves. This makes them a very Accurate resource that will give a more complete view of all of the arcs than watching any individual perspective ever could, but that also means that it’s still a pretty significant time sync Because it’s a trying to show you everything.

They have a playlist for season 1 [Link], season 2 [Link], season 3 [Link], and season 4 [Link] for their complication videos that cover the major events in each season (with 3 and 4 being the thinnest because there Aren’t many major lore events).

- The Dream Smp Carrd [Link] Like blueberry tv, this project attempts to make the entirety of the dream smp accessible by breaking it up into smaller digestible clips! Unlike blueberry tv, it does so through a series of playlists collecting those clips from different sources that are all linked together in an easy to follow hub of links organized by season!

this is still a Massive time sync, even more so than blueberry tv, but it’s also more navigable. it’s easier to pick and choose what story lines you’re Specifically interested in and digging into those at your leisure thanks to the dedication to organization! this is Especially useful for smaller creators and story lines that don’t get a much of a spotlight in the main story of the smp! such as the egg arc.

it does, however, stop at season four. though that’s understandable considering the circumstances Surrounding season four.

- Wilbur’s Dream Smp Playlist [Link] This covers wilbur’s story up to the end of season one, meaning the L’manberg war through to the end of the manberg v pogtopia war (november 16th 2020). This is an excellent summary for understanding wilbur’s early story line, especially to supplement his more recent streams as a newer fan. It is, however, worth noting that this is obviously heavily filtered through wilbur’s perspective and writing style, this will give you a complete look into wilbur’s story line but not, for instance, fundy’s or tubbo’s.

- Tommyinnit Main Channel Playlists [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3] Tommy has a few playlists with videos summarizing streams and story lines on his main channel! would I Recommend these? Not Really. they exist for entertainment value, and are made so inconsistently that they don’t really function as Summaries of any given story line, let alone his character as a whole. the exile videos in particular tone down many of the darker aspects of the story, which is part of what contributes to a general misunderstanding of that story line in the fandom. they exist and you can watch them, but I wouldn’t recommend Only watching them.

- Do Not Do This People who are familiar with the dream smp may have noticed a lack of or been expecting a certain channel to appear in this section. That’s understandable, it’s one of the most well known, it’s been used and advertised by multiple streamers, it’s theoretically the most accessible resource in the fandom.

it’s also the resource that has single-handedly spread more misinformation in this fandom than any other single creator or poster there is.

Evanmcgaming is a channel dedicated to making full summary videos for the dream smp, summarizing each arc himself through voice over with professional looking graphics in a Manageable amount of time. He has also outright admitted that he intentionally leaves out entire streamers from story lines when he doesn’t find them personally interesting and to including outright False information in his videos when he thinks that’d make his storytelling more exciting.

Evanmcgaming does not summarize the dream smp, evanmcgaming Rewrites the dream smp and presents that as summaries. this is an extremely important distinction, and one that he never makes in any of his videos. from the very first video all the way through he is tweaking every single bit of information to craft a narrative based on the story that he wants to tell, and this gets worse the further his narrative drifts from the reality of what happened.

This means cutting fundy fully out of the manberg v pogtopia war despite having been an integral part of it, this means telling his audience that tommy faked his own death to trick dream at the end of the exile arc when the reality was that it was a suicide attempt that he’d decided against last minute. If you’ve only ever watched evanmcgaming’s summary of an event, it’s very likely that you’re carrying misconceptions that change the entirety of how any given story line would be understood.

I don’t blame evanmcgaming for being a teenager that made videos for fun. I am, however, haunted by the fact that he is the most well known face in this niche, and that it’s very unlikely that anybody will ever try to do what he’s doing more accurately Because he’s as well known and endorsed as he is. there are streamers on the dream smp who have watched his videos to understand the lore, some of them have streamed this process to their audience. there is no justice in this world.

2: Full VOD playlists

This option is, obviously, the most Accurate, being the raw streams completely unedited. It is, however, the least accessible as far as time is concerned and it’s not an option for most streamers. Not many of the creators have dedicated VODs channels, and not all of the streamers who upload their VODs despite that upload all of them, and while there are fan uploads it can be difficult to keep track of.

And even besides that, the accessibility of this method fluctuates wildly between streamers because of Stream Length. There are many streamers who do many multi-hour streams that aren’t guaranteed to contain any lore. It can be really difficult as a new fan to know which 3-8 hour video has what you’re looking for and Where in those 3-8 hour videos you need to look to find what you need.

To that end, lets go over some of the best options that we have right now.

Dream Team Smp VODs Playlist [Link] This is a fanmade channel dedicated to collecting streams from the dream team (meaning dream, sapnap, and george), and they’ve created a playlist for all of the early streams on the server. At 35 videos, this covers the creation of the server up to the declaration of war on l’manberg. so if you want to understand the Early history of the dream smp, what set the stage for everything that came after it and the Very early lore (meaning the disc war) from the dream team perspective this is the way to go. this is all mostly pre-canon, but it’s a good resource to have!

Tommyinnit VODs [Link] - Tommy has a dedicated VODs channel where he uploads every single one of his VODs. He doesn’t have his own dream smp playlist, but that’s where I come in. - His streams are roughly on the shorter end, mostly averaging around an hour though the absolute high is around 2 and half and the low is around half an hour. - Tommy is Heavily involved with most of the story lines on the dream smp from beginning to end. He obviously Doesn’t and Can’t see everything, but he’s one of the very few perspectives that you can watch and get a general idea of what’s generally going on with the majority of the server. - However, while his individual streams aren’t very long (comparatively), his heavy involvement with the main story line on the server means that there’s quite a bit More to watch than some other perspectives. Currently we’re sitting at 178 videos in the playlist. - It’s also worth noting that tommy’s perspective will give you insight into dream’s character that you won’t get in full from any other perspective. If that’s what you’re interested in then it’s Most relevant during the exile arc, the disc war finale, the prison arc, and the prison escape.

Note: if Tommy’s perspective is appealing to you, but the amount of videos is overwhelming, then @zeta-in-de-walls has playlists collecting the plot relevant streams for seasons 1-3 ! [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3] This obviously means that you’ll be losing some content and some context, but it’s just a bit more digestible.

Technoblade VODs [Link] - Technoblade streamed on youtube natively, that means that all of his VODs are uploaded directly to youtube! Likewise, he has his own dedicated playlist for his dream smp streams. This makes him one of the Most accessible streamers out there. - That said, his streams do average out to be much longer than tommy’s, with the general stream coming out around two hours. The longest his streams get is 5 hours, while the shortest is around an hour. - However, techno preferred to only stream when he wanted to move his character or the plot forwards. So while his streams may be longer on average, he has much Less of them. There’s 39 in total, which makes it a much faster watch. - That said, for that reason technoblade’s perspective is both generally pretty central for pushing the overarching plot forwards, And very isolated. He’s involved in most of the major events on the server, but watching his perspective will give you very warped ideas about what’s Happening on the rest of the server Because he’s a very isolated character, especially season two onwards. which isn’t a bad thing at all ! it’s just something to be aware of while watching.

Quackity VODs [Link] and Wilbur VODs [Link] - Quackity has an official VODs channel, as well as a dedicated dream smp playlist. wilbur is the only streamer on this list that doesn’t upload his own vods, but he’s also been completely documented through fan uploads. - Quackity and wilbur have very similar stream times to tommy, though wilbur is more likely to have streams on the shorter end (half an hour to an hour) while quackity is more on the slightly longer end (one to two hours) - Conversely, the Amount they stream is more similar to techno (47 videos for quackity, and 32 for wilbur. - These two are both a sort of middle ground between tommy and techno! They’re both pretty central to the overarching narrative of the dream smp (like techno) while being more involved with other parties on the server (like tommy). Taken with tommy and/or techno’s perspectives they add more Context to the over-all narrative. - It Is worth noting that there was a large period where wilbur Did Not stream his perspective (for all of season two and a good chunk of season three), this was done for plot related reasons, but it does mean that you will be missing information about what his character was up to if you Only watch his perspective and nothing else.

It’s worth noting that niki has all of her lore streams directly available in a playlist [Link], fundy has his own VODs channel with a fan playlist for his dream smp streams [Link], and phil and tubbo both have fans attempting to collect all of their vods into playlists [Phil Link] [Tubbo Link].

ranboo also has an “official” VODs channel [Link], it isn’t run by him but it does appear to be uploading all of his VODs, however it doesn’t have a full dream smp playlist. It Does have a playlist for lore relevant streams that’s quite short [Link] and a playlist for every stream he’s ever done period, which is absurd and not recommended [Link]. That said ! there Does appear to be a fan playlist that pulled videos from a different VOD channel that attempted to collect all of his dream smp streams, though it stopped early 2021 [Link].

Karl Jacobs also appears to have a fan-run VODs channel, though it’s entirely unlisted. The twitter account associated with the channel links this playlist [Link] It’s incomplete and doesn’t appear to be in any sort of Order, but it’s there. Edit to say that there’s updated information for Karl Jacobs here ! [Link] courtesy of @jezily

I’m listing these separately because they all have Varying levels of accessibility (niki and fundy both make their perspectives really easy for fans to find, but you wouldn’t understand the major beats of the narrative by watching them. tubbo Would be a very good option for understanding most of the story on the dream smp if he actually backed up his own VODs, which he doesn’t), but they’re still Available and still worth looking into if you’re interested in the stories of the individual streamers !

likewise, just because I didn’t list a perspective here doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth watching, it just means that they aren’t Accessible. the best way to watch the dream smp is through the perspective you enjoy the most, so if you find a streamer you like then it’s perfectly valid to hunt down their VODs to sink your teeth into, it’ll just be a bit more work than the options above!

3: I want to watch Everything

So lets say your goal is to do the impossible and watch Literally Everything the dream smp has to offer indiscriminately. I wouldn’t recommend this but it’s a goal that a person could have. Lets start with the option that’s actually physically possible and work our way up.

- Blueberry TV’s Plot Playlist [Link] Blueberry’s TV’s plot playlist combines all of their compilation videos with individual clips to make a 405 video lore bomb that attempts to show you every single plot relevant moment on the dream smp in as consumable way as possible. It is physically possible to watch and would likely give whoever sat down to watch it a more complete idea of the dream smp than most people have. I don’t think I’d personally call this the most Enjoyable way to watch the dream smp, but it’s definitely the most Accessible.

- Dream SMP in Order [Discontinued] Playlist [Link] This is a playlist that attempted to collect Literally every single VOD available on youtube in order. They stopped somewhere in early 2021, frankly I’m amazed that they did this for that long. This is 964 videos long, this contains videos that are over 8 hours long. I don’t know why anyone would do this to themselves. some people may take that last statement as a challenge, and this option is for them.

- @fairy-rave [Link] Possibly the most powerful individual in this fandom. They have playlists for all of the Notable streams in the dream smp, intended to cover all of the plot relevant streams on the dream smp. They have playlists divided by season [Season 1, Season 2, Season 3a, Season 3b, Season 3c, Season 3d, Season 4] As well as one master playlist for All plot relevant streams, sitting at 905 videos [Link]

On top of that, they have playlists for Literally Every VOD They Can Find On Youtube In Order [Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4] This Comes Out To 1907 videos in total.

- @dream-smp-archives For some people, that’s just not enough. For some people, they need to inject the dream smp directly into their bloodstream. For some people, the dream smp archives is their only hope. This post will tell all [Link]

4: Tales from the Smp

What happens on the dream smp itself of course isn’t the only thing relevant to the dream smp. Karl Jacobs’ Tales from the Smp dives into both his own characters’ lore, as well as lore for the history of the land the dream smp takes place in and the gods that pull the strings behind the scenes!

I have a playlist with the full VODs ! [Link] @fairy-rave helped me recover two of them that had been seemingly lost :> thanks to them “The Masquerade” and “The Wild West” are viewable in full!

5: Animatics

The dream smp fandom has absolutely no shortage of animatics, animations, or pmvs, and if you’re interested in getting into the series odds are that’s what drew you to it in the first place!

That said, I have a playlist dedicated to laying out the dream smp story line in order through these videos (animatics, animations, pmvs, fan songs, etc!) [Link]

#dream smp #dream situation

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unexpectedbrickattack · 1 year

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What do you think is the huggability score of our main characters + Brick out of 10?

Putting this under a readmore bc this is some EXTREME Research happening here

Peppino: 6/10. Hes short and hes fat and warm and soft so theoretically he SHOULD be a solid 10/10. But he sweats easily and i think physical contact would make him explode so hes shakes like a leaf the entire time. He will not return the hug well but he WILL make an attempt. If you catch him at a good time, hes got the perfect hugs. But maybe bring a napkin or two.

Pepperman: 1/10. Hes too gotdam big. He would love to be able to hug properly but hes very. Wide. And if he does manage to hug you properly, you will end up directly inbetween his eyes and unnervingly close to his teeth. This is also assuming he Wants to hug people; hes got better things to do. Like sculpt and draw and do rich people things like vacationing on a yacht or gaslighting poor people. (The actual pepperman portrait for the boss fight is very cute looking and i give that a 7/10 just bc i can. Hes got a lil painters apron; the whole fit makes him look huggable)

Vigilante: 3/10. It depends on your tolerance for odd textures. Hes just cheese. Hes cheese! Hes a bit sticky; he never leaves residue but the stickiness can be a bit offputting. Hes remarkably dense, so hugging him would be like hugging a memory foam mattress; wonderful pressure pushing against u but again. The texture… He would be a good weighted blanket; thats not a hug but do what you will with this information

The Noise: 7/10. He is small 🥺 Assuming the hug is earnest and Not a ploy to lower your guard, you are just hugging a Small Person. And we (small people) give the best hugs you can possibly have. But only if you let us hug around ur neck and not the midsection; he (we) cant wrap our arms around that. Points deducted bc the noise is just a menace and hed use a hug as an opportunity to chuck a potion of Explode Your House and then ur house Explodes.

Fake Peppino: 10/10. He can change shape and density at will; whatever you look for in a hug, he can do it. Light? Hes as delicate as a flower. Tight? Coiled like a snake. Dont like the goopy texture? For the time it takes to make this hug happen; the texture is Gone. This man Loves Hugs and with practice, has learned to give the Best hugs. As long as u dont mind his face and the odd way his skin seems to warp and bend in front of you.

Pizzahead: 2/10. TECHNICALLY capable of good hugs. Tall, long arms, friendly disposition. Massive point reduction bc hes doing one armed hugs to try and befriend you so he can sell you on this pyramid scheme he just Knows ur going to knock right out of the ballpark. Weaponized Hugs. Put him in Jail.

Gustavo: 9/10. Hes a gnome. Hes hairy and short and he always ALWAYS goes for the arms around the neck bc hes like 3’ tall. He is strong and so all hugs are tighter than you expect them to be and that can be good or bad depending on ur preference. He is also Small and Compact so hes very warm :) Solid hugs :)

Brick: 5/10. VERY pet-able!!! Imagine a rat but just Big. Hes SOFT and hes got Luscious Fur and wonderful little rat hands. But hugs are either 10/10 (rat owners dream) or 1/10 (texture hell). Hugs can be suffocating. Brick does Typical Rat Movements which includes snuffling your head very rapidly. Whiskers tickle. Rat Hands tickle. Brick MAY nibble at your head (beware). You wont be able to wrap your arms around this beast which may be a dealbreaker to some. But assume that this rat both Loves and Craves little huggles, so he is always an eager hugger :)

Noisette: 10/10. All the positives of Noise but without possible mischievous intent. She may fall asleep in your arms since she will be forced to stay still for longer than 2 seconds. Its endearing though.

Gerome: 7/10. Hes like Clay to me, like a block of playdoh. Tough enough to keep his shape, but soft enough that it doesnt Hurt to hug him. Hes not very soft or comfortable BUT hes got Intent behind his hugs. Hed only hug someone if they needed to be comforted and hes Very good at that. Very solid and grounding hugs if youre willing to hug a Block.

Snotty: 3/10. Smelly. So fucking smelly. Ranked higher than Pizzahead just to spite that twink.

#answered #chattin #not tagging anyone 😭#what a silly ask heehee

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pfhwrittes · 3 months

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Not even 10 minutes since your last reblog

I need you to expand on the kinks for the guys please!

c'mere i love you. i love getting asks. this is going under a readmore because it's 18+ and i'm limiting myself to one kink for the boys each on this ask. i can and will expand on them and add more because who in this economy only has one kink?? not me that's for damn sure.

warnings: bondage, male submission, comeplay, orgasm denial / orgasm control.

-- okay okay so i already said that simon's a sadist. but here have another kink this man has. shibari. i mean good ol' fashioned tied up in stress positions shibari. yes yes, it's all safe sane and consensual (as ALL kink should be) and yes he has rope shears at the ready if you safeword out (or if/when he notices that your bound limbs are struggling with circulation) BUT the fact that you are squirming and biting back your noises as the rope settles in and bites at your skin ohhh my lord it gets him painfully hard. he doesn't gag you (never does) because he wants to hear you whimper, moan, sob when it all gets just too much for you.

-- come on a journey with me and imagine for a minute that price is the biggest sub that could possibly exist. no no, hear me out. that man carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, he is responsible for everyone on his team and wouldn't he just want to switch it off? he's desperate for someone to put him on his knees and tell him to be a good boy, and stay. that man is crying out for someone else to be in charge. it's not necessarily a sexual thing, he just wants to know that as soon as he crosses the threshold of whatever space the two of you share he is yours. his worries are yours, his needs are yours, his body is yours to use as you see fit.

-- i've said it in tags and i'll say it again soap is a disgusting possessive man and wants you covered head to toe in his spit and cum at all times. he will find you and top up his marks as he calls them every hour. he licks your face, your neck, your wrists. he comes on your stomach, your chest, your face and rubs it in. no washing off his marks now, that'll just make him cross and he'll pin you down and ruin whatever underwear you're wearing just to get the point across. he will absolutely soak your underwear in spit and cum and make you wear them under the rest of your clothes for the day.

-- look i've written gaz before as a sweetheart and pretty chill but we all know that still waters run deep. kyle "gaz" garrick is a master at orgasm control and denial. he will edge you over and over. he will ruin your orgasms just for fun. he wants you writhing to the point where you're nearly fighting him to demand an orgasm (he'll say no and he'll ruin the next two he pushes you into just to watch you burst into frustrated tears). god you're just so pretty when you're desperate and telling him that you'll do anything just to cum. be careful what you wish for... you might just get it.

-- taglist: @kaadaaan

#pfh answers #18+ mdni #simon riley x reader #john price x reader #john mactavish x reader #kyle garrick x reader #here be kink #<- you've been warned so if you don't want to see it block that tag #also go wild throwing more asks in the askbox #sr #jm #jp #kg

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droppingthesoap-n-cleaninghouse · 7 months

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Just getting into soapghost and idk where to get started? Do you have any recommendations or suggestions in general for cod i also dont have a game system besides a switch

oh man, okay, so! i want to preface this whole thing with: i have never played a cod game.

these two started popping up on my dash on tiktok, and then i hit up the tags on tumblr, and then next thing i knew i was making a whole ass other twitter specifically so i could thirst over US military propaganda

if you’re still with me anon, i will gladly rec some stuff! i’ve put all that below a readmore so i don’t fuck up anyone’s day with what will be a very long post lol

Recs below!

Tumblr blogs i HIGHLY recommend you follow: @cod-dump (some incorrect quotes type things, fics, and more!) @grimmzee (really cool comics!) @rusticfurnace (amazing art) @starrynights-and-rainyfandoms (super fun, incorrect quotes type stuff) @spectralarchers (i love everything they write, originally started following them bc they write a great clint barton, theyre currently doing this insanely cool "ghost is the fallen god of death" type story which is so fucking cool)

Awesome people on Twitter you should check out (just remove the space after the @): @ silli__lilli @ witchmeetsevil @ KhybersKrave @ ohh_ellie @ puppyghcst @ QueenieBGalore @ burningsou1 @ coshie

These are some of the ones i follow, it's an awesome mix of fics, art, headcannons, all of it.

Fic Recs:

fucking hot, Soap/Ghost, eventual Soap/Ghost/Price. Featuring Soap's daddy issues. which, like, same bro same

also just like insanely hot, soap gets called a dog and he's really into it.

this one is a series, and it does get kinda dark ngl. ghost is kinda fucked up in the head but soap is too so it's all good. definitely some under negotiated kink, heavily features ghost's inner monologue.

this is just porn tbh but it's SO good. and there's art to go with it!

this is an AU, but hear me out. it's a really good Pacific Rim AU. Soapghost, drift compatibility, what more could you want!

also a bit of an AU, it's a shifter AU. awesome story, super hot, my fave out of this one is The Price of Longing

hope this helps anon, i'm glad you asked!

#soapghost #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #cod mw2 #ghostsoap #call of duty #captain john price #mw2

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milimeters-morales · 4 days

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okay under the readmore is part 1 of a oneshot i wrote about an autistic miles morales for fun, but overlapped pretty conveniently with disability pride month at the time. Really self-indulgent, and i got some nice reviews on it and wanted to test sharing my writing on here for autism acceptance month ^.^

Content Warning: Miles does self harm a good amount in both parts without realizing, and thinks some pretty ableist thoughts (at least I think they would be considered that) about himself every now and then.

Word Count: 5k+

Pairings: Minor Milesganke, everything else is platonic!

Miles lets his feet dangle off the side of the building, his heel hitting the brick wall to a rhythm in his head. One two, swing out, one two, swing out, one two, shake-swing out, and start all over. He layed back on the roof, soaking up the last of the warmth from the sun and heated concrete. It was a common thing he did, this rhythm and movement, it helped him calm down or keep him from getting too bored. Too bored was bad, too bored was almost physically painful, but it’s not like he’d tell anybody that. Well, anybody besides Ganke. The other boy understood that perfectly well, it’s one of the many reasons they’re best friends.

He wasn’t sure why he actually did this though. But he didn’t like to think too hard about it, and he’s always got a lot of other stuff to do anyway!

Speaking of, Miles sits up, still letting his feet hit the wall and bounce off, when there’s a pained shout from below. Seeing a man in a dirty chef’s apron bending over with a hand on his back and a pained expression, Miles jumps down from the roof and lands quietly on the street in front of him.

“Do you want some help?” He asks him. The man nods his head to the paint buckets on the ground next to him, and Miles easily picks them up, barely registering the weight. The man walks stiffly and a bit hunched inside his shop, telling Miles to set the paints down on an empty table.

The inside was a mess. Napkins littered the floors and tables, sauces on the seats and counter, and a whole uneaten meal sat alone on the far end of the counter. Miles glances again at the man. He’s sweaty, exhausted looking, all alone in here going by how Miles can hear only his heartbeat, and he just hurt his back. There’s no way Miles would leave this man to deal with this mess himself.

“I’m gonna clean up these napkins so we don’t slip,” Miles tells him, already picking up the pieces. He wouldn’t slip of course, but the man definitely would if he wasn’t careful. “So, Mr…”

“Call me Bob,” the man says after putting the paints away somewhere in the back of the kitchen.

“Mr. Bob, how’d this even happen?”

Mr. Bob sighs and runs a hand through his short hair. “My kids invited their friends over, made a huge mess, left before I saw it, you know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Miles agrees, not knowing how it is at all. He throws all the napkins in the trash and was about to ask where a towel was so he could clean up some of the sauce mess, but Mr. Bob places his hands on his back again.

“Hey Mr. Spider-Man, how about you run along? My back is killing me, and I don’t wanna make you clean up alone,” he says, eyebags somehow becoming more prominent by the second. Miles winced under the mask and hoped it didn’t translate through.

“That’s nice of you, but are you sure? I really don’t mind,” Miles offers, making a sweeping gesture to the rest of the mess still in the store.

“Nah nah nah, it’s fine. It’s my kids who should be cleaning it up anyway. I’ll make them do it when they get home,” Mr. Bob explains.

Ah, okay. That’s better than the man just working in pain.

“Alright. Bye sir!” Miles leaves Mr. Bob inside the shop, and swings away to another rooftop. He wishes he knew more about treating bad backs though, he might have been able to help more! Maybe he could ask his mom? But wait, would that be an overly familiar thing to do for a stranger? Surely not, helping someone in pain is what he does nearly everyday anyway…but some people get real upset if he has to help them, and he just doesn’t know why. Ugh, so complicated, and for what?

Doing a few extremely low swings that end up sending him high into the air, he lets the wind press against him with each rise and fall. It’s like being smushed, or hugged just tight enough to make you so relaxed that you feel weightless. He gets dizzy sometimes, but in a good way, he promises. He wishes Ganke could feel this. He wishes a lot of people could feel this, actually. They’d be much happier, he’s sure of it!

___

It’s not like he’s… embarrassed, he guesses is the right word, to have to keep shaking his hands at his sides. It’s just that he gets weird looks sometimes when he does it. It’s not often at all, it’s actually pretty rare, but when it does happen, it makes a weird feeling curl in his stomach and around his throat, making it hard to speak, which is embarrassing. It makes him stutter, pronounce words wrong, makes him unable to focus on whatever’s happening, it even made him tear up one time. It’s different, when he just doesn’t speak for a while, because at those times there’s nobody pressuring him to talk or for an answer on why he’s “being weird”.

“Well?” the officer asks. She pointed out his shaking hands, and asked him why he was doing that. And Miles was going to answer her, he was! It’s just… the way she said it. It was like when he got caught drawing on his worksheets and the teacher made him throw the entire paper away and start over. Or his parents caught him sneaking small animals under his clothes into their apartment. Or when the kids at school would try and see what he was drawing by looming over his shoulder.

His chest felt kind of tight. Why did he even let her approach him? He tries to avoid as much interaction with the cops as much as he can besides calling them to places

“I… uh…” was all he could manage to utter. It felt like everyone was staring at him, even when he knew that it wasn’t true.

“Spidey’s still around?” Oh god, of course his dad is here. And approaching rapidly.

“Yeah, was trying to ask about the hand shaky thing, but he just froze up,” the officer explains, turning away briefly- Miles can feel the tightness just a little- shrugging with a raised eyebrow. She tucks her hands in her pockets and turns to look back at Miles. Great. The feeling was back.

“Oh, this?” His dad asks, copying the moment, making it much harder for Miles to not shake his hands. Thanks a lot! “My son does that, lots of kids do that. You don’t do that?”

Miles wants to run, so he does. Not like he needed to be there anymore anyway. He’ll go somewhere that calms him down so much to the point where he doesn’t even need to shake his hands.

___

Pavitr tightens his hold on him, arms a comfortable pressure on his waist. He nuzzles into the crook of Miles’s neck, humming when Miles lets out a happy sigh.

They do this, sometimes, when the stress is becoming too much. Just hold each other. It works out great, because Pavitr loves giving hugs, and Miles likes getting hugs, and they have no problem being this close to each other.

Miles traces a figure eight onto Pavitr’s back, fingers feather-light on him. He doesn’t like pressure the way Miles does, says it makes him feel trapped and anxious, but Miles couldn’t disagree more if he tried. Besides the obvious bad-pressure, like a building and debris falling on you, there’s good-pressure, and that pressure is what Miles craves almost daily. It makes him feel much closer to whatever’s going on around him without making him hypersensitive to it- he can focus better, basically. The weight on his body is like a firm reassurance that he’ll be fine, that he’ll be safe, and that he’s… real. Not some mistake and about to float away into non-existence, or whatever.

He’s heard of weighted blankets, and has been wanting one for a few years now, but he’s always chickened out when it came to asking his parents. And it’s not like he can ask any of the other spiders, then he’d have to lie to his parents how he got it, and he’s trying to keep the “lying to your loved ones” part of being Spider-Man to a minimum. Plus, he just doesn’t think it’s that serious. It’s not like he’ll die without it.

Miles stops drawing the figure in Pavitr’s back and simply rests his hand on the back of his neck.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Pavitr mumbles into his neck.

Miles wishes they weren’t wearing their suits. He’d much rather feel the vibration directly on his skin.

“Nothing,” Miles answers automatically. The two are silent for a bit before Miles continues, “Oh, there was this cop. She kept asking me about this thing I do with my hands-”

“The stimming?”

Miles ignores the interruption and continues, “-where I shake my hands when there’s too much energy somewhere and I get all antsy.”

“Should’ve brought Hobie. He would’ve dealt with her,” Pavitr says, shoulders shaking lightly with silent laughter.

Miles rolls his eyes and raises his chin to rest it on Pavitr’s head. His hair was so soft, it was another thing Miles liked about these cuddle sessions, he guesses he’d call them. Pavitr was a good mix of soft and firm, like a foam cube in a gym or children’s play area.

“Wasn’t really her fault, I just got nervous. Thought she would call me weird or something,” Miles mumbles.

“Don’t they already do that? In the uh- the uhh… The news company with the musical instrument.”

“The Tuba?”

“Yes! That is the one, haha,” Pavitr giggles, “remember when they called you a clone of Peter?”

God, does Miles remember. Not only was it completely out of nowhere, it just didn’t make sense for so many reasons. One, how could a clone be a different race? Two, why would a clone be way younger and have no idea what he’s doing? Wouldn’t you want your clone to be just as smart as you and the same age, so when you died, it’s like nobody would notice? They even sounded different! People called him down just to try and rip his suit to see his face for days, causing fights to break out between civilians when someone tried to defend him. He couldn’t just fight back like usual, so all he could do was lightly slap their hands away or shove them off and swing away, and then just deal with his lowering reputation that came with “self-defense.” He was glad that there were a good few people, his parents included, ready to defend Spidey if they saw that happen in front of him, but it didn’t really matter. He really hated, still hates, the Tuba for that.

He can’t see the humor in it, but a lot of other people found it funny, so maybe it was just a him thing like it sometimes is… yeah, he's probably just missing something. Miles closes his eyes and says, “Yeah,” and relaxes again when Pavitr’s sensed his hold had gotten too loose and tightened it around Miles again.

He’d have to leave eventually, but he’ll enjoy this time while it lasts.

___

“Miles, stop that, you’re gonna get a cramp in your legs,” his mom scolds him lightly as he passes by her.

Miles looks down, and hurries to flatten his feet from walking on his tip-toes. That was always embarrassing to have pointed out, but at least he wasn’t in public doing that.

___

It was all too much. He thought coming to Gwen’s dimension would calm him down, it was much prettier than his and a huge inspiration when it came to art, so he thought he could come here after a particularly bad fight to just enjoy the sights and maybe draw them. But now, he can’t stand the sight of most things. He can’t even stand the feeling of anything. He was huddled on a roof, a dirty, disgusting roof, there’s probably dirt all over him now and his stupid suit- it’s too on him, he can feel it and the sweat scratching at him and trying to seep into his pores. The creases causing awkward pockets where the suit isn’t actually touching him, but he can still feel it, the thought of all the germs and dirt and god , the trash, the wet trash --

how would that feel?

--his body jerks violently and he falls to his knees.

He wants to yell. But even that would feel wrong. He’d feel his voice in his teeth for god’s sake.

He takes off his gloves, but he isn’t even able to enjoy the cool breeze hitting his now exposed hands because his nails, his fucking nails , they hit the concrete and scrape lightly. The feeling sends shivers down his entire body and makes him rip his hands away as if he had been burned, and bite down hard on his fingers. He can’t fucking stand it. He- it’s too much. It’s all too much.

nails on chalkboard

silverware scraping

that man coughing down the street

the smell of approaching rain

metal on your teeth

blood under your nails

flesh squelching in the rubble

sickening crunch

his breath on your face

digging in your skin

too heavy too close he’ll kill you he’ll kill you

His thoughts spiral, he can’t control it. One bad feeling, and he can’t stop thinking about the other bad feelings just like it, and it keeps going until his brain reaches the end of its list.

He hates this. He hates that his brain even does this, that it even thinks it’s the right course of action. Nobody else’s brain does this, he bets. Why is his so dumb that it can’t even realize it’s only making things worse?

Miles keeps biting on his fingers and starts biting on the rest of his hands when the feelings aren’t going away. He tries to him to his favorite song to calm down, but it doesn’t work- nothing is working-

Gwen is here, he vaguely registers in his mind when a black and white blur lands in front of him. She’s here, and she’s grabbing his wrists and pulling his hands out of his mouth, and she’s trying to hold him. He scrambles back, but she catches him and lifts him bridal style. Miles tries to kick out and shoves his hand in her face to make her drop him, but she holds on as tightly as possible. The pressure from her fingers digging into him is- good. Bad. It’s just more touch - he doesn’t want touch right now, he wants pressure-

holding you down you’re a mistake breaking your neck is so easy keep fighting keep fighting

“I know,” he hears faintly. Was that him, or Gwen?

He keeps thrashing in Gwen’s hold, almost escaping once when he bit her shoulder and started to scratch, as she hopped from rooftop to rooftop. It was all a blur, he could only focus on how her heartbeat was too loud, and the feeling of her fingers and just her being so close was confusing his stupid fucking brain, it was all good, but it was actually all bad because he didn’t want that now, it made it worse actually.

“I’m sorry, I know,” he hears Gwen apologize to him.

God. Someone end it. Someone cut him out of his skin. He can’t be here. He tries to wiggle out of her grasp one last time before he gives up and brings his hands back up to his mouth to bite down, to have any sort of control over anything he’s feeling.

“It’ll be okay,” Gwen whispers- still too loud.

He doesn’t really remember much else.

___

Miles rouses slowly. His eyes don’t open immediately when he tries, the crust is uncomfortable on his skin, and his limbs feel like they were made of stone. He turns his head to the side, only to be met with webbing. He moves his body slightly, feeling himself swing. So he’s in a hammock then. That’s fine, it’s better than waking up on the floor. Or that rooftop.

Wait, the roof, Gwen, he bit Gwen-

He sits up and looks out of the hammock as best as he can, quickly spotting the girl gently rubbing her now bandaged shoulder with a solemn expression. Quickly scrambling out and crawling down to be next to her, apologizing before he even hits the ground.

“Gwen, I am so sorry, I have no idea what came over me, I don’t know why I did that to you, I’m so sorry-”

Gwen stops him, “Miles, calm down, I’m fine, see?” She gestures to her shoulder, and his eyes trail down and catch her bandaged hand.

He doesn’t even remember that one, and that makes him feel even worse. Shame curls in his gut, makes his fingers twitch, he feels disgusting.

“Listen, you aren’t disgusting,” Gwen says gently, “you were scared and in pain, you might have been overstimulated. I know it gets really hard to control what you do. I’ve done, like, the same thing.”

Miles nods, not believing her.

“Seriously Miles. I’m not mad or anything.”

Yeah right. Who wouldn’t be mad after being bit and just… being forced to deal with whatever that was. Even he’s mad about it, because it never lasts. It always ends eventually, he doesn’t know why he was being so dramatic and violent when he could have just stayed still and dealt with it until it passed.

It’s whatever. It’s over now, and Gwen is clearly trying to move on from it. He shouldn’t make her more upset. Talking with her is already like walking a tightrope, lately.

“I uh, I wrapped you up in that hammock. Did that help? You said- well, not really said, it was more like… mumbling, that you just wanted pressure. So did that help at all?” Gwen stumbles through asking, fiddling with her hands and furrowing her brow.

Her question takes him out of his thoughts for a second. “I guess it did,” Miles says after a moment of consideration. He honestly wasn’t sure how he was feeling, but he certainly wasn’t feeling bad, so that’s definitely an improvement. He’d have to keep this hammock idea in mind, how did he never think of that?

And like the strings controlling her had been cut, her shoulders drooping and lenses closing as she breathes out a sigh of relief (look at what you did to her, Miles), Gwen reaches out to him. She stops right before they make contact, allowing Miles to move forward and finish the hug. Gwen hugs tighter, but in weird waves, like she doesn’t actually know how long a hug is supposed to last and keeps trying to part when she thinks she should. Miles loves it anyway, because it’s Gwen, and the last time she hugged him this tight was when… oh, nevermind that. He doesn’t want to think about that right now.

Gwen’s hug tightens again, and he feels the tension in his body slipping away.

___

The one thug that’s still conscious decides to try his luck at talking with him.

“So I noticed something…”

Congratulations , Miles doesn’t say. He doesn’t have the energy to speak to anybody for the night, and while people didn’t really like that because it also tended to mean Peter was ready to beat someone to a pulp, they’ve learned that sometimes the new Spider-Man was just… didn’t speak.

“Why are you organizing us by shoe size? And you got Har- um, gray tennis shoes wrong. He wears a size 11.”

A good save on the name reveal AND a correction so his order is perfect? Well mister, looks like you’re walking away scott-free tonight!

Just kidding . Miles smiles to himself as he picks up “Gray Tennis Shoes” and places him in between Blue Nikes (size 10) and Black Boots (size 12 and a half). He turns back towards the talking thug, pointing to his shoes, who sighs before answering, “Size 7. And a half.”

Miles smiles wider as he drags the cocooned man to the right spot, and begins walking away to investigate the den.

“Wait, you didn’t answer my question! Why are you organizing us like this?” The man calls out to him, trying to sit up but failing.

Because he overheard cops on duty making fun of the way he organized people by their hair color last time. He had to go for something a bit less noticeable. Obviously.

But Miles doesn’t say any of this, because he just doesn’t want to. Not like he had to answer that guy anyway.

___

Now, don’t get him wrong. He doesn’t have complete control over when he wants to speak or not, as much as he’d like to pretend he does to save himself some embarrassment from admitting it. And it seems to be both random and stress-induced, which is already bad when you’re Spider-Man. Most of your days are extremely stressful with worrying about the best outcomes, the best and most effective ways to save people in danger, time management because of school or a job interview or a party your parents threw that you cannot be late for again, the usual. The simple moments to help around are like a mini-break where he can take his time to breathe and get a second wind, so they’re greatly appreciated. Don’t even get him started on the power-naps he can sometimes sneak in if it’s a calm enough day with just the right temperature and breeze…

Off track. Basically, he can’t always control if he goes silent or not.

Right now, during the cleanup after a fight, where all the debris is moved to small piles for him and others to clean up, and any civilians injured are given medical attention immediately or taken away to hospitals, he can’t speak. The villain- which looked surprisingly too high definition- only stopped attacking after it heard a little girl screaming, and it was pulled through a portal by a red, blue, and white hand. Miles didn’t even care about a Rhino from a different dimension somehow turning up here, and what that could mean about the (worsening) stability of his dimension, he just wanted to curl up somewhere nice and dark, and sleep for fifteen hours.

But Spider-Man has a duty to the people.

He removes the last bit of rubble from on top of a woman’s car, tears in her eyes as he guides her away from the smashed vehicle. She’s certainly going to have to replace it, but she definitely has bigger things to worry about, like the glass sticking out of her arm from jumping through the storefront window to avoid the Rhino’s rampage.

That was pretty badass of you, he can’t say. He frowns. He wanted to make her feel a bit better. That’s one of the many drawbacks of this unwilling silence, it prevented him from comforting people in the way he knows best: talking their ear off until they’re too absorbed in (or annoyed by) his ramblings to freak out.

He sits with her in an ambulance that’s treating the people with more minor injuries. The paramedics are stretched thin, so he’s here taking the smallest pieces out of her arm while the paramedic is on her other side and checking for a concussion.

The woman winces.

Sorry, he can’t say, but he looks up with a sad expression to meet her own exhausted and tear-streaked face, and knows the message isn’t getting across.

He goes back to pulling the glass out. He can’t even apologize for all the pain he’s causing her.

Focus, Miles.

“Spider-Man, you’re alright?” The paramedic asks after the woman is cleared and sent off. The hospitals have been at their highest capacity since… ugh. He doesn’t want to think about it when he has something to focus on now. “Not a talking day?”

Miles shakes his head, already making his way to help other people.

The entire time he’s pulling more glass shards out, holding more hands through painful processes and anxious checkups, hugging more children and holding more babies as the parents are found and reunited, simply sitting with those too shocked to even understand what had just happened, not once does the barrier come down. The people look to him for words of encouragement, assurances that it’ll be okay, they cling tighter to him and hope he’ll say something kind to ease their fear, that the person on the stretcher will survive and heal just fine.

And it breaks his heart when people see he won’t say anything, it makes him feel so useless, what is he even sticking around for? He sees the hope leave their eyes, sees it replaced by grief, by horror, by nothingness. Nothingness is the worst, if you ask him. They’ve given up because he can’t even muster up enough strength to say a few simple words. It shouldn’t be this hard for him, Spider-Man, to say “you’re okay” or “take a breath” for god’s sake! If he could, he would yell until his throat was raw about how he was sorry for all this pain he’s only made worse. How everyone would be fine, just don’t look at the bodies! How they just needed to follow his breathing, and to follow him to the ambulance! Don’t worry about your destroyed car! How he’ll do better, he won’t let something like this happen again, how didn’t want this, didn’t choose this, he wants to tell them so bad-

But he can’t. So he doesn’t.

The probably-now-orphaned girl clings to his legs as they stand in front of a pile of rubble Miles hadn’t moved yet. He knew there were bodies (or what used to be bodies, anyway) under there, heard the heartbeats instantly stop while the Rhino threw the hunk of concrete so he could hold Miles down and slam his fist into his entire body. He thinks she was the one who screamed and stopped that Rhino for enough seconds to be taken away. There was blood splattered on the bottom of her frilly green dress, and all over her legs and shoes, and Miles just hopes she has family somewhere that’ll take her in.

He really should move her away from this. At least cover her eyes.

You’re a hero, he can’t say. And I know it doesn’t mean anything right now, but you’ve saved a lot of people, he hopes his look to her gets across. You saved me.

The girl looks up at him with angry eyes and a dirty face, clean lines created by her tears going down her cheeks. Some good that did, she’s saying.

Miles says nothing, because of course he doesn’t, and holds her hand as they walk to an ambulance. She needs that blood cleaned off her.

___

Miles sobs into Ganke’s pillow, wishing the boy would return from the nurse’s office quicker. It’s been a week since then, and now he’s finally able to talk. So of course the first thing his brain makes him do is cry so hard he can’t even breathe properly. Ganke was appropriately freaked out by his sudden crying spell, and went to go get an ice pack for him for the headache that was sure to follow.

The hiccups are bordering on painful now, his teeth and jaw aching from grinding his teeth so he doesn’t cry too loud when he needs to take a break from practically suffocating himself in the pillow. He can still see the blood on the ground, on the rubble, and on the little girl’s dress.

He closes his eyes and covers his ears, for a reason he doesn’t understand, curling up and sobbing some more into the pillow. He tries to dig his toenails into his other foot’s skin, the pain doing nothing but making him flinch. Maybe it just wasn’t the right spot to get rid of it, these thoughts. If he found the right spot, maybe even combination, his brain would focus on the pain instead of these horrible memories.

He removes his face from the pillow and bites down on his hand and scratches at the side of his face, his thighs, his neck, any skin he can reach. He finally feels the switch from “slightly painful and annoying” to “very painful, we’re in danger” like a gentle wave, and releases his hand from his jaw, letting out a weak cough of relief as he falls limply back onto the bed. His breathing makes it sound like he just ran a marathon, and It aches and burns like he just did too. A lot. His mind is blessedly empty and numb, he realizes, as his eyes struggle to stay open. What’s he fighting it for again?

Ganke. Right. Ganke was coming back with an ice pack for the headache that hasn’t hit yet. Stay awake for Ganke.

He inhales his friend’s faint scent from the pillow and sheets, and feels the dip in the mattress from where Ganke sleeps, a bit off center. Miles always tells him to flip his mattress, but he never does.

He faintly hears the door opening over the blood rushing in his ears, and feels a hand grab his own. The touch is gentle, but is gone before he has the chance to lean into it. There’s a welcomed cold sensation on his forehead, making him shudder and sigh.

And he’s waking up, the alarm screeching into his ear and making him groan in annoyance. He goes to smash the alarm clock, but a hand catches his before it could do any damage.

“Not this time man,” Ganke’s sleepy voice scolded from above, “we aren’t replacing that thing again.”

Above?

Miles opened his eyes, realizing he was in Ganke’s bunk. Oops. An apology was already on his lips as he peeked out from under the bunk, but it died on the tip of his tongue at the sight of Ganke’s bed-head, squinted eyes, and scrunched up nose.

“You good? Because I had to take care of your hand last night,” the boy asks with a yawn.

Miles looks down at his hands and his eyes widen in shock. His right hand was bandaged up in a white gauze, albeit a little sloppily, like Ganke was in a rush or something when he did it.

“Yeah, sorry if it looks bad. It’s just that I wasn’t really expecting you to break skin,” the boy tells him, “have you seen my glasses?”

“They’re on your forehead,” Miles tells him in a fond tone, “and thanks man. I know it’s weird-”

“Uh uhn, don’t start that now. It’s too early in the morning for me to talk with you about if anything’s weird or not.”

Miles shrugs and rolls his eyes. “It’s always too early in the morning for you,” he says as he tries to find his clothes to get ready for the day.

___

Dear Diary,

Haven’t been the best lately. It’s like i’ve only been hurting people and myself. I bit Gwen a few weeks ago, then i couldn’t speak and help people when that Rhino dude came, and last night i bit my own hand. I know it’s bad and gross, but it feels like it’s the only thing i can do sometimes even when i can’t really control it. And it works for me most of the time so it’s real confusing. It’s like i don’t have control, and then next thing i know i’m biting myself, and i’m calmer. Ganke says it’s not weird, just worrying, but i’ve never seen anyone else do it. Guess i never really bothered to look it up either because i know it’s bad. wanted to end this entry on a good note but i can’t think of anything. tomorrow is another day though so there’s that.

Part 2 >>>

#miles morales #spider man #spiderman #my writing #spiderverse #atsv #what tags do i use for this. like. i guess uh #atsv fanfiction #???#m&m posts #oneshot #not beta'd

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quantumshade · 1 year

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hi, i have to ask about gay coded rose/ten because im INTENSELY curious. i just finished a rewatch of nine and ten and i'm just sitting here starry eyed through ur sped-up chalkboard-aided lecture. PLEASE, enlighten me

thank you SO MUCH for asking, i will take absolutely any excuse to talk about this :)

putting this under a readmore because it got LONG.

a lot of this comes from a video essay by verilybitchie that i highly, highly recommend--it's changed a lot about the way i look at rtd era as well as "representation" in general. my friend @regenderate has also made a couple really well-articulated posts on this topic

but to try and put it in my own words somewhat, the doctor and rose's relationship is defined by touch. from the moment he grabs her hand in the basement of henrik's, saving her life, all the way to doomsday, with, "still just an image. no touch", and then their jubilant hug in journey's end.

which reminds me--the way they hug is something that's always really struck me about the doctor and rose. they grab on to one another as if when they let go, they will drift apart--which is, of course, what happens.

and when you think about it, their desperation to hold on to one another, to hug, to hold hands, to touch, feels very, very significant when you remember that the showrunner is a gay man who lived through the aids crisis and writes a lot about it. as @regenderate points out, there are a lot of episodes in series 1 and 2 where touch is not only the problem, but the solution. the disease in new earth is spread through touch, but at the end of the episode, it is cured through touch, through these people who have never known a loving hand or a proper connection with another person hugging, shaking hands, touching each others' faces.

gay people are told to fear touch, that kissing and sex are sinful and unnatural, that holding hands with your partner or showing affection in any way in public could lead to one or both of you getting hurt.

the doctor and rose do not allow themselves to be together because the doctor knows he will outlive her and believes that giving in and being with her, allowing himself to be happy, will only lead to more pain for the future.

there are other things as well, like how the doctor, before eight, had never kissed anyone on screen before, and it wasn't something the audience was accustomed to. the doctor was often kept so nonsexual to the point where, while filming the five doctors, one producer asked carole ann ford not to call the doctor grandfather, because it would suggest that at one point, the doctor had fucked, and he didn't like that. rose is the blueprint, the archetype, for the nuwho companion. she is there to represent the audience, to challenge the doctor on his deep-set opinions, to grow, to be his equal. she had the task of easing an audience of both new and old fans into a world where the doctor can be a romantic figure. she had to change things, go against the status quo, and, in my opinion, she did that excellently.

similarly, when rose meets the doctor, she is deeply ingrained in everyday life, in a job she hates, in an incompatible relationship, etc, and meeting him shakes all of that up. staying home on earth, going to work, being with mickey, all of those are things are expected of her. (i fully believe she and mickey were only in a relationship together because they were childhood friends and they felt like they should be-- they are incompatible as a romantic couple, which is the point, even though fans are always determined to blame the failure of their relationship on one or the other, but that's a whole other post) meeting the doctor, traveling with him, it gives her purpose, and it allows her to grow into the person that she always could be. that's a big theme in rtd era especially--everyone has the capability for amazing things, and they can and will thrive when given the opportunity to as well as someone to believe in them.

but mickey is representing the "safe" option, of a normal, heterosexual relationship, the one that she is expected to be in. jackie is disapproving of rose's new lifestyle (not that she's invalid for those fears at all, i'm speaking metatexually here) and is constantly hoping that she will change her mind and return to safety because the last thing she wants is for her daughter to be in danger. but once rose sees what's out there, once she glimpses her own potential, once she--and bear with me here--exits the closet, she couldn't possibly go back.

from parting of the ways:

ROSE: But what do I do every day, mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the traveling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away.

the final point i'll make here is that the doctor has been queercoded for a long, long time. they are neither straight nor cis. and thanks to billie piper sometime after jodie whittaker's casting, we know that rose would still be in love with 13 still, which i would have wholeheartedly believed regardless, but it's nice to hear it from the woman who played rose herself. even if they are visually/optically a heterosexual relationship, they really, really aren't, textually or otherwise.

this post got away from me. it got away from me bad. but this is something i think about a LOT. doctor who, and rose in particular, have been my special interest for a decade or so and as a dyke fan who spends a lot of time with other dyke fans, i have some pretty extensive thoughts on this kind of stuff.

uhhhhh feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions, like i said i love love love talking about this!!

#thank you so so so much for asking ily <33 #doctor who #doctor who meta #rose tyler #doctor x rose #doctorrose #ninerose #tenrose #delia.txt #meta

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snailythefan · 6 months

Note

Hi Snaily! How have you been? Im here for a pretty serious ask.

My boyfriend has been drawing for a while, I honestly think he's doing real good. But recently he's been feeling down about his art, he doesn't know why he should bother improving his art if his style is *basic* to some people, and it hurts a lot for him. He knows he should be drawing for fun and not force improvement to stress him out, but there's only so much I can do as his loving partner who doesn't draw at all.

So... what was it like for you, Snaily? When you started drawing many years back, how did you not feel like shit looking at how it could be better but you don't know how? What advice can you give to a beginner artist?

(You can answer this privately if you want btw, and ask me for his art if you need to see them. Much love <3)

hi peng!! always nice to hear from u! I'm gonna reply to this publicly because to be honest i can't resist to give this kind of advice to any and all beginner artists (but i am putting it under a readmore because as you know i love to ramble and this will get LOOONNNGGG and will Truly be The Ramblings of a Mad Man (gender neutral))

firstly, since I hear that he feels hurt by the idea that people out there might find his style "basic". That's a rookie mistake (that literally everyone makes when they start getting Serious about Art). The mistake being Caring Profoundly About an Outside Audience that's Ever Watching and Judging.

Which I literally cannot blame him or anyone for it, ESPECIALLY in this modern social media landscape where newer artists feel like they gotta get GOOD at the VIRAL RAT RACE so you gotta get that sweet, sweet validation in the form of likes, reblogs, retweets etc etc.

So that's my first tip I suppose: don't fall for the entrapment of being obsessed with getting any and all sorts of SWEET VALIDATION during your art process. This is hard to condition yourself to! I myself fall prone to it! It's actually kind of natural. Even if the validation you seek isn't online, surely you're expecting it from your peers or teachers or family members or whoever gets to look at your sketchbook (or you know, your medium of choice).

You want people to notice your art and all the effort you put into it. It's okay! DO welcome those who do!! But never NEVERRRRRR NEVERRRRRR commit the mistake of placing the value of your art on how much praise it gets from others. That's a one trip road on having an Absolute Bad Time. THE ONLY PERSON you should be looking to make happy with your art is YOURSELF first and foremost!!! Always!!! This is the Golden Rule!!!

So people (imagined or otherwise) think his style is """Basic""". Okay! That's literally not a crime anyone can arrest you for!! So what if you're LITERALLY starting and your art looks """basic"""!!!!!!! WHAT IS THE CRIME HERE!!!! CAN'T MY MAN JUST CREATE IN PEACE!!!! LET HIM COOK!!!!!

If he's starting out, i think it's pretty expected of him to just have a "basic" style you know? He shouldn't be ashamed of it! The best chef in the entire world right now didn't start making The Most Delicious Food To Ever Grace Anyone's Plate on DAY 1. They probably started with a goshdang sandwich. Many of them maybe. Until they could make the Perfect Sandwich even in their Sleep and only until then they felt ready enough to explore Further Possibilities In The Kitchen.

(Is this metaphor working? I sure hope it is!)

Anyway.

"How did you not feel like shit looking at how it could be better but you don't know how?"

Well that's a fun question because to this day I get extremely frustrated whenever I realize my Art Level isn't up to my standards. But THAT'S OKAY- even in my case!

If you're Serious About Art (as in, you LOVE making art) you'll constantly feel like you're having to catch up to artists that are doing MILES better than you. Which happens to everyone. Truly it's only the curse of having A Good Taste In Art (so you automatically Set Standards For Yourself based on what you personally consider Great Art).

So again, something to not be ashamed of. But also something to Learn To Live with. I get it!! I truly do!! You see some guy online who apparently is only 14 and they're already making compositions with complex perspectives and an amazing sense of color theory and you'll want to bite off your hands!!!! But you can't let that stop you!!

You're just gonna have to learn to Fail, Constantly. Failing Gracefully! Sucking At Art Again and Again!

You might think this conflicts with the Golden Rule (i mean, if you're not happy with your own art- then what's the point yeah?)

But it's all about Love babey. Loving the process of failing constantly, because deep down you REALIZE you're learning how not to suck little by little.

It's also an exercise in letting Spite guide you. So what if you're bad!!!!!! What if you've somehow committed the crime of being A Bad Artist!!!!!! The cops will never catch me fucker!!!!! SEE HOW I DESECRATE THE HOLY ACT OF "CREATING GOOD ART" AHAHAHAHA!!!! LITERALLY NOBODY CAN STOP ME!!!!! <- the attitude to Have. Yes you gotta be prepared to be Unhinged and to have active Disdain towards 4th Plane Entities that are probably judging your art quality. (Unless my experiences aren't universal and nobody else feels a salacious self-satisfaction whenever they draw something that looks like an affront to The Universe, knowing they can just Try Again).

Anyway those are the benefits of sprinkling a little Spite alongside all the Love for the process of Making Art.

At the start you might feel like you're only making bad art. So! Own it! unironically my life philosophy is that everyone should make more BAD ART!!! ARTISTS OF THE WORLD UNITE TO MAKE MORE BAD ART, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS!

that's for the mental approach at least.

So, what about the technical side? How do you actually take all those feelings of inadequacy and wrangle them into something productive that will help YOU get better at the art you want to make?

with the warning that i am a self taught artist so i might not the the perfect person to ask, but truly the most IMPORTANT skill you want to hone is OBSERVATION and COPYING WHAT YOU OBSERVE.

Basically you're gonna study the artists you like! You're gonna stare REAL HARD at the details in the art they make! And THEN. You're gonna try to copy THAT! Hell, you might even want to TRACE what they do at first** (**THIS ADVICE IS FOR PRACTICING. DO NOT TRACE AND THEN POST ONLINE FOR OTHERS TO GO "hey man wtf this is just you tracing X Artist" DO NOT!!! DO THAT!!!) just so you get a feel for what they have in their art that You Don't and learning how to slowly replicate that.

That's how I learned the ropes at least. Literally printing manga panels and then tracing over them during my Peak Weeb Years. Ah little snaily, how time flies. Another thing i liked to do was watch speedpaints of artists i liked but at like -2x speed. So it was a slowpaint and i could STEAL THEIR SECRETS <- another valuable art skill

Anyway, that's what I think it's the most important (to observe!)

...but also you might want to either take art classes OR watch a buuuuunch of tutorials on youtube for The Basics (basic anatomy! shading! values! color theory! perspective! gesture drawing!!!)

You feel like shit about your art? Fine! Then realize your life is your own and you have the absolute power to change that directly!! GO ON YOUTUBE AND LEARN THOSE BASICS!!!!!! don't be like me and struggle this much with perspective after years of making art!!!! (Though in all fairness, even those good at it struggle with it lol)

So! I am all out of advice for a newer artist.

TL,DR: YOU WILL SUCK A LOT AT FIRST BUT THE MORE YOU PRACTICE AND LEARN ABOUT YOUR FAILURES, THE MORE YOU'LL LOVE TO SEE YOUR IMPROVEMENT AND EVENTUALLY YOU'LL BE ABLE TO DO THE ART YOU WANT TO MAKE.

Peng if you could forward this to your bf i would be very grateful. Good luck to you two!!! Thank you for reaching out!! And remember!! Never give up!!!!!

#ask box #pengdaw2nd #*rips off shirt to reveal shirt underneath that says I LOVE ART AND ALL IT ENTAILS*

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focsle · 1 year

Text

Mutinies Aboard Whaleships

Hello! Here’s a long thing I spent my morning on about mutiny.

An 1840s illustration of an overturned whaleboat, with a skull and a crossed harpoon and lance over it.

With the often terrible conditions on board whaleships, one might expect mutinies to have been a common occurrence, but ones that led to bloodshed and taking command of a ship were actually very rare. Whalers who were unhappy tended to just desert at the next port. Others made their demands sometimes in the form of damaging the ship, or more commonly through work stoppages (which I wrote about more at length here). When it came to work stoppages, the Captain often acquiesced, as the unique pay structure of whaling meant that everyone was equally beholden to the success of the voyage. It was easier and more productive to hear out and try to address the demands of the crew than to resist and have a poor voyage.

There were however, a few notable violent mutinies that found themselves plastered over the newspapers. The Globe of Nantucket, January 1824, and the Junior of New Bedford, December 1857.

Alexander Starbuck, in his 1870s record of the history of the industry made a note alongside the Globe’s doomed 1822 voyage: ‘On this voyage and on this ship occurred the most horrible mutiny that is recounted in the annals of the whale fishery from any port or nation.’

Content warnings for Violence & Death under the readmore.

The Globe mutiny was unique and particularly haunting in that it wasn’t a result of boiling tension or displeasure on a difficult voyage. The instigator, a 22 year old boatsteerer named Samuel Comstock, specifically signed on the ill-fated whaler with premeditated slaughter in mind. His aim was to eventually kill all the officers, take the ship by force, sail it to an island in the South Pacific, and create his own Kingdom on said island over which he would rule (the last bit, as one might expect, did not work out for him).

In January 1824 near Fanning Island, Samuel’s 15 year old brother George was at the wheel, and made move to shake a rattle to relieve himself of his watch. He was harshly stopped by Samuel, who was plotting to carry out his plans that night and didn’t want anyone awakened:

“I had scarcely begun to shake it when Comstock came to me and said if I made the least damned bit of noise he’d send me to hell. This was very sudden and alarming to me his suspecting nothing I began to rattle but was thus suddenly checked by a brother in flesh but not in heart for if he had been he would have put away this wicked design thinking it would ruin me forever for little did he think I would ever get home to tell the fatal news.”

Samuel was accompanied by a handful of other mutineers, but it was he alone who did the killing, murdering the captain and officers by axe, by boarding knife (a three foot double-edged blade used for cutting blubber), by pistol, by drowning. In the midst of this bloodshed he returned to his brother George.

“After killing the mate Comstock came up to light a lamp at the binnacle. I then spoke to him and asked him if he was going to hurt Smith, the other boatsteerer he said yes he should kill him and asked me where he was I told him I had not seen him (although he had been aft talking with me) for fear if I told the truth he would kill him or go in pursuit of him. he perceiving me shed tears asked me what I was crying about I informed him that I was afraid they were going to hurt me he told me he would if I talked that way this rather silenced me from fear of myself.”

Rather than killing the boatsteerer Smith, Samuel, after his particularly brutal display of violence towards the commanding officers, effectively intimidated the rest of the crew into serving under him. Boarding knife in hand, he proclaimed ‘I am the bloody man and I have the bloody hand’.

A 19th c. whaler’s boarding knife.

George was ordered to be steward, and the rest of the crew was first commanded to clean the gore from the cabins. They operated under a set of laws Comstock put forth, as they set course for the Marshall Islands to complete his designs:

“That if any one saw a sail and did not report it immediately, he should be put to death! If any one refused to fight a ship he should be put to death; and the manner of their death, this—They shall be bound hand and foot and boiled in the try pots, of boiling oil!” Every man was made to seal and sign this instrument, the seals of the mutineers being black, and the remainder, blue and white.”

Tensions grew on the ship. One mutineer was hanged on board when Comstock suspected him of wanting to take command of the ship. And the other initial men who joined up with him (as well as, of course, the others who had played no part) also suspected that when they arrived to Comstock’s destination of Mili Atoll, he was going to destroy the ship and kill everyone who came with him. They landed on the atoll on February 14th, and three days later the other mutineers shot and killed Comstock. They sent a party of six of the crew (George among them, and led by the boatsteerer Smith) to secure the Globe lying at anchor, not anticipating those six might strand the mutineers on the island. Hastily, as soon as they got aboard the group of men cut the anchor chain and sailed away for help, eventually reaching Chile.

The surviving mutineers and two young lads, Cyrus Hussey and William Lay, were all who remained on the island. Tension also existed between the mutineers and the islanders on Mili Atoll, who were suddenly met with a group of castaways trying to aggressively impose their control over them. Ultimately, the mutineers were killed by the islanders after they tried to intimidate them. Cyrus Hussey and William Lay were spared. They were mostly kept separate from each other in two different communities on the island, where they lived mostly-peaceably with the islanders until they were eventually retrieved on November 25th by a naval schooner, the USS Dolphin, that was sent to rescue them.

“The Death of Samuel Comstock”. An 1840s illustration of Samuel Comstock falling back in the sand on an island, a cutlass in hand and a gunshot wound it his chest. From ‘The Life of Samuel Comstock, the Terrible Whaleman”

—

The other notable mutiny was that of the Junior, out of New Bedford at the close of 1857. This mutiny was more a result of ill treatment on board reaching a breaking point. The voyage was plagued with the usual bad luck, an inexperienced first-time captain, rotten food, and abusive officers. One man, a 24 year old boatsteerer named Cyrus Plumer, had a reputation of being rash and hot-headed. Prior to his signing on the Junior, he had been on another whaling vessel three years before where at one point he approached a fellow boatsteerer trying to get his support in staging mutiny to overthrow the captain and take the ship but, not finding it, deserted.

On the Junior, he found more support. On December 25th, 1857 Plumer encouraged the men (many of whom had had a bit too much to drink in light of the holiday) to take the ship that evening. The mutineers killed the captain and third mate, similarly as above, with a whaling gun, hatchet, a boarding knife, a blubber spade. The first and second mate were injured, with one taken prisoner by the mutineers and the other managing to stow himself in the lower hold for 5 days with a pistol with three shots, little water, and no food. A confession composed by the main mutineers in the ship’s log after the deed speaks to what happened after:

“This is to certify that we, Cyrus Plumer, John Hall, Richard Cartha, Cornelius Burns, and William Herbert, did, on the the night of the 25th December last, take the ship Junior, and that all others in the ship are quite innocent of the deed. The captain and third mate were killed, and the second mate was wounded and taken prisoner at the time. The mate was wounded in the shoulder with balls from a whaling gun, and at the time we fired we set his bed on fire, and he was obliged, for fear of suffocation, to take to the lower hold, where he remained until Wednesday afternoon. We could not find him before, but we undertook a strict search and found him there. We promised him his life, and the ship, if he would come out and surrender without any trouble, and so he came out. Since he has been in the ship he has been a good officer, and has kept his place. We agreed to leave him the greater part of the crew, and we have put him under oath not to attempt to follow us, but to go straight away and not molest us. We shall watch around here for some (time), and if he attempts to follow us or stay around here, we shall come on board and sink the ship. If we had not found Mr. Nelson the ship would have been lost. We have taken two boats and ten men, and everything that We wanted. We did not put Mr. Nelson in irons on account of his being wounded, but we kept a strict watch over him all the time. We particularly wish to say that all others in the ship but we five aforesaid men are quite innocent of any part in the affair.

Ultimately the mate did not keep his oath, making course for Sydney, Australia once the mutineers were out of sight in their boat. He alerted the shipowners of the situation, and word went round the globe. The mutineers were captured in Melbourne, February 1858, and brought to trial back in New Bedford. They were transported aboard the Junior itself, fitted out with prison cells to hold them. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court. In April 1859 Plumer was found guilty of murder, and Cartha, Herbert, and Charles Stanley of manslaughter. The others were pardoned.

Plumer objected to his death sentence in a statement to the courts, saying first that he was not the man who killed the captain. That he indeed fired a shot at him but missed, and another crew member, Charles Fifield later killed the Captain with a hatchet.

“[he] stated to another person that I ‘missed the captain but that he did not miss him’ and boastingly showed the blood on his guernsey frock saying ‘it was the captain’s blood, and that he was the butcher’.

Plumer said that in the trial this man ‘wickedly sworn his own crime on my head’. He also stated that he didn’t take life but preserve it, in sparing the other two wounded officers. Officers who he ultimately held guilty for the mutiny in the first place through their complicity:

“The real culprit—the most guilty person in my judgement—the one who’s contriving brain and intiguing heart were the instigating cause of the conspiracy and mutiny on board the Junior”

He found no sympathy and was sentenced to hang, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison by president Buchanan, and then he was later fully pardoned 15 years later by president Grant.

A daguerrotype of four of the mutineers after their capture in 1858: Plumer, Rike, Cartha, and Stanley, sitting in a line against the wall with serious expressions, the first three dressed in dark suits, the last in just a shirt.

—

These two mutinies garnered particular interest because they were so rare. Again because if people were unhappy they tended to just…ditch, rather than shed blood. And also partly because some captains also reacted with their own violence at the prospect of mutiny, and found themselves pardoned by their peers for it. An example of this can be found in an article in the New Bedford Mercury, Dec 18, 1849. I’m curious about captain Issac Hussey’s relation to Cyrus Hussey, if there be one, and if that experience informed his zero tolerance.

“In June last, while cruising in the vicinity of the King’s Mill Group of Islands, the crew of the Planter, led on by a few desperate fellows, refused duty, alleging as a cause that the ship had cruised long enough, and should go into port. Capt. Hussey refused to comply with the demands of the crew, whereupon they armed themselves with knives, handspikes, boarding knives &c. and threatened the lives of the captain and officers unless their demands were immediately complied with. Capt. H. endeavored to reason with them, and upon going forward to do so was met at the try-works and forced back. After several ineffectual attempts to induce the crew to return to their duty, and finding that they had determined to force the captain to return to port or take possession of the ship, Capt. H. ordered the ship’s muskets to be brought upon deck and loaded with ball cartridges. He then addressed his crew, stating his determination to maintain his authority on board if need be at the cost of life, and gave them a half hour to consider the matter and make up their minds whether they would return to duty. At the expiration of the time, he again addressed them, and finding that they still persisted in their mutinous intentions, he very coolly and resolutely informed them that he had determined upon the course for him to pursue—that he was a good shot, and that the first man who, on being commanded by him, refused to obey, would be shot dead upon the spot. He then took up a tried musket and calling one of the ringleaders by name, ordered him to come aft; the only answer to which was defiance. Capt. H. then levelled his gun and fired. The ball entered the temple of the mutineer and passed out the opposite side of the head, and he fell dead upon the deck. The same course was then pursued with another of the ringleaders, who with the remainder of the crew preferred returning to their duty to being shot at—and the ship continued on her cruise. The peril to which the vessel and crew were exposed by the conduct of the mutineers will doubtless furnish to the minds of all a sufficient justification for the extreme measures to which he was compelled to resort, and afford to him ample vindication by the laws of his country.”

It was a bloody world all around—oft times whales, sometimes men.

#awhalin

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high-dragon-bait · 2 years

Note

I need more banter with Cole.

DA:I didn't give me enough with Solas/Cole/Varric talking about becoming more human or spirit in any combination.

But also, Cole banter with all the DA2 companions.

He and Justice are so unique and Anders always has an opinion on everything.

Fenris would fear hate him, probably.

Merrill would be fascinated, I'm sure.

I just love Cole and I need more of his thoughts.

Ah, Cole. He is so hard but so much fun to write. I went with the DA:2 gang, and snuck in Isabela to make it all the LIs... However. I got a little carried away so this is long. Really long. My previous record for longest fake banter had 8 interactions, this has 28. The majority of you said not to put it under a readmore, just tag it, so I will!

These banters include 4-6 general interactions, one romance, and one post-adamant romance. Since Anders already had a post-adamant romance interaction with Cole in another banter, I posted an alternate version in the same vein as the one there, since I still really like the idea behind it, but the original execution bugged me.

Enjoy!

_____

Fenris

_____

Cole: You’re scared of me.

Fenris: As anyone wise should be.

Cole: Is it because of him?

Fenris: Danarius wasn’t the worst of them.

Cole: Standing, stiff, sore from the leash. Like that for hours, watching, waiting, wanting to leave. Danarius approaches the magister. A rival, he wants to impress him. End him. "I offer you a gift."

Fenris: What is this?

Cole: It's a boy. No. No, no, he's so young. Be punished if I move but I can't- I can't- too late. His blood is on my face. The demon growls, glowers and glows, and he's gone.

Fenris: Avert your gaze from me. Now.

Cole: But that's not why I'm here! I didn't want the blood.

_____

Fenris: Is it true you were a demon?

Cole: No. Not a demon. But I didn’t know what I was, and it made me wrong.

Fenris: But you killed? You murdered those mages?

Cole: Yes. I thought it was helping.

Fenris: I’ve traveled with an abomination, a blood mage, and Varric. Now, I trade them for a killer demon. Perhaps Hawke kept the better company after all.

_____

Cole: You were glad when the boy died.

Fenris: Be careful, demon. I know you can bleed.

Cole: Danarius said “gift” and you thought of something else. Something worse. When they cut his throat somewhere you were happy they couldn’t keep hurting him.

Cole (Cont.): It wasn’t a good glad.

_____

Cole: You don’t like mages, yet you’re angry. Angry for the ones I killed. Why?

Fenris: I don’t like weak mages running rampant and preying on the innocent. Those mages were where they belonged, where they were safe. You took that away.

Cole: But they weren’t safe!

Fenris: No, because you were prowling the halls. Slitting their throats while they slept.

Cole: I wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for the templars. The templar who locked him in a dungeon and forgot. If he hadn’t died, scared, starving, shivering on the stone.

Cole (Cont.): I killed. I killed and kill me back if I do it again. But templars made me forget what I was. Templars killed me first.

_____

Cole: Do you look at every man and see a king?

Fenris: What?

Cole: When a servant walks down a hall do you see him wearing a crown. Holding a sword? Does he kill those who disobey him?

Fenris: No?

Cole: Then why is every mage a magister?

_____

Fenris: Every mage is not a magister.

Cole: Yes! That’s good. You’re starting to understand, thank you.

Fenris: Every mage is dangerous. I am not wrong to want them where they can do no harm.

Cole: No. No. You get so close but flinch away before the truth can touch you. Like a hand on a hot pot.

Fenris: I see the truth clearly, spirit. You are not of this world, you cannot understand.

____

Cole: Spirits are reflections of the world, made from what matters. That's what Solas says.

Fenris: And you're telling me this, why?

Cole: You said I don't understand. I'm not of this world. But this world made me. Made me from what matters. That's what I am. I'm supposed to see.

Fenris: Fine. What is this truth I won’t touch, demon?

Cole: You want to blame magic because its easy. Because it hurt you and its loud. Magic didn’t hurt you because its magic, it hurt you because Danarius wanted it to.

Fenris: Of course I know Danarius was behind it.

Cole: Yes! Yes you do! But anything hurts if someone wants it to. Magic, blades, hands, words, and you know that too. But if that’s true, if that's really true, Danarius hides. You can't see him anymore. Any man could be him now. That scares you.

Fenris: …perhaps it does.

Cole: It’s okay! I can help.

_____

(Romance)

Cole: I stare at the fire, flames flickering. Eyes shut, trying, dreaming, wishing it would all come back. I can hear them breathing. I can feel their touch, tingling, lingering on my skin. Soft as their sheets, dark and red, but not the bad red, the red I want, the red I remember. Remember. Why did I remember?

Cole (Cont.): You want to stay, but then they wake up, and you have to go.

Fenris: I was a fool.

Cole: No. You think you were afraid but that isn't it. There was another life, lost, lingering, left behind. You had to learn and let go. You needed to say goodbye. That isn't your fault.

Fenris: It was. Yet they still forgave me.

Cole: They love you.

_____

(Post-Adamant)

Fenris: Go on, say your peace, demon.

Cole: Stairs, steep, steeper than the steps through Kirkwall. A spider, why did it have to be a spider? I make it bleed. Make it burn. I try. I don't want to die, but I'm me. I have to try to be me too, I have to- I have to- “Nothing could be worse than the thought of living without you” Maker, he won’t forgive me.

Fenris: I was wrong.

Cole: Yes. The thought hurt, but now its real. Real is worse.

Fenris: Hawke is gone. Nothing is real now.

Cole: Gone only means far, not false. What you felt is still real. Don't forget that. Please.

_____

Anders

_____

Cole: Why don’t you tell Varric why you’re angry?

Anders: He doesn’t listen. Or it turns into a joke.

Cole: My father’s barn burning in the snow. Eyes dead under a sunblaze brand. A glow raining over my city, the same color as the screams. Sometimes we care so much the care turns cold. Anger is the only warmth I know.

Anders: Sounds like you’ll put it better than I could.

Cole: No, it won’t help the same if its me.

_____

Anders: How are you here?

Cole: I walked. For a while I rode on a horse!

Anders: No, outside of the Fade? Justice said spirits couldn’t survive on their own, they need a host. A body.

Cole: I’m Cole?

Anders: But you’re a spirit! Here from the Fade. How can you be- you?

Cole: He sat in a cell. It was dark, he knew they forgot. His hurt was loud, louder than the shouting but the Templars wouldn't hear him. I wanted to help so I listened. He said he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be magic. He didn’t want to hurt. He didn’t want to die.

Cole: I’m Cole.

Anders: Oh…

_____

Anders: Did Cole… did you have any family? Anyone you might want to see again?

Cole: No. His father beat his mother until she stopped, he hid with his sister in a cabinet but she cried. He kept his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, he didn’t want her to stay quiet. He only killed his father for them.

Anders: Maker!

Cole: He didn’t use magic! He used a blade to kill his father, a harmless blade. That’s all. It wasn’t magic. “I don't care, he goes to the dungeons like every other mage."

Anders: Cole I’m- I’m so sorry.

Cole: So was he.

_____

Cole: Varric doesn't hate you.

Anders: Varric?

Cole: That's why you won't tell him why you're angry. You think it will make it worse. He's sad, scared, scattered, but still your friend.

Anders: I know what Kirkwall meant to him. I know I destroyed it. He can't forgive me that easy.

Cole: No. Not easy, and not forgiven, not yet. "I want you to have this. It's a pillow. Hand embroidered by my mother. The only thing they let me keep at the circle." "Why in the world would you give that to me?" "You've been a good friend." He wishes he were better.

Anders: Tell him... tell him I do to.

Cole: No. I told you. It's doesn't help if its me.

_____

Cole: You talked to Varric!

Anders: Sort of. Not a lot of actual talking. Mostly we sat, and sometimes we drank. Better than avoiding each other in the halls, I guess.

Cole: We sit. The air here is wrong. The smells, the music, it's too wide, too new. Herald's Rest, why rest? Do we ever rest? They used to hang people here, by their feet, till they starved to death. Blondie sits across from me, how long has it been? If I just see him I can almost pretend... My cup, too nice, too clean, but a toast is a toast. To a new world, Blondie.

Anders: To a new world...

Cole: He missed you.

_____

(Romanced)

Cole: No, don't go there. I'll break your heart. That might kill me as surely as the Templars. But you wanted to, from the moment you saw them. You made yourself sound so wrong, why?

Anders: I needed them to know. I needed them to be prepared for the work it would be to love me.

Cole: You thought they would leave. That one day they would know you, know you, and they wouldn't love you. They never would've done that. It hurts you thought they would.

Anders: In the circle, love never lasted. That was by design, two mages got too close and the templars would intervene. I... I thought it was a matter of time.

Cole: They know. They only wish you had trusted them when they said they would stay. That you would let them do the work.

Anders: Maker, I hope some days I'm worth it.

Cole: You are, always.

_____

(Post-adamant)

Cole: A hawk sits on a branch. They fly, follow, leaving feathers where he can find them.

Anders: Stop it.

Cole: A dream. They're a dream but I can't see them, not until I forget. If I forget, if I'm him, just him, all him, then he might be me. He might know where to go. Forget to find. Follow and fly.

Justice: No.

Cole: Forgetting won’t help, not like that.

_____

Merrill

_____

Cole: Eluvian. “Seeing-glass” but it’s fogged, faded, forgotten like us. Who stood here before me? Before the blight, before our blood blotted over the history. Where did they go?

Merrill: Do you… do you know? Can you tell me their name?

Cole: No. I would’ve forgotten. I’m sorry.

_____

Merrill: Are you alright, Cole?

Cole: “Alright?”

Merrill: Are you safe? Are the people here kind to you? Are you… happy?

Cole: I’m not being cut, not right now, and I’m not sad.

Merrill: That’s not really the same thing, lethallin.

Cole: But isn’t it for you?

_____

Cole: The keeper was wrong.

Merrill: You didn’t know her. You shouldn’t say things like that.

Cole: Eyes. Eyes. Too many eyes. Staring. Judging. The hunters whisper and the elders doubt. How could I have allowed it? I let evil into our clan. They need to know. I need to show them. Show her. She will not do this.

Cole (Cont.): "Merrill is dangerous," I tell them. "She will remain dangerous until I guide her down a better path. Be weary of her, and if you see her, come directly to me."

Merrill: No, lethallin. That wasn’t how it was.

Cole: She said that too.

_____

Merrill: Cole, what I meant when I asked if you were alright...

Cole: Yes? I'm sorry. I don't think my answer helped.

Merrill: I meant- I guess- you're always the one checking up on the others. You're always the one helping so I thought, maybe, I could be of some help, if you want it.

Cole: But... what would that be? Helping the helper, that's not how it's supposed to work. That's why you forget.

Merrill: Well, lethallin, why don't we figure it out together?

Cole: Yes... yes I think I would like that. Thank you.

_____

(Romanced)

Cole: You didn't believe them for a long time. Why?

Merrill: Didn't believe who?

Cole: Hawke, when they said they wanted you, you thought it wasn't real. Why?

Merrill: Oh- well... I'd never had anyone in my clan show me any interest before. I'd only kissed one person before them. It was this hunter, young and strong, just got his vallaslin. So exciting! But later I found out it was a dare, prove his manhood by kissing the crazy blood witch.

Cole: That story makes them angry.

Merrill: I know. They told me so. Offered to go fight those boys for me, I said no, of course.

Cole: You didn't want to.

Merrill: We all have to be the bigger person sometimes, lethallin. That's what Varric liked to say after cards back in Kirkwall.

_____

(Post-adamant)

Merrill: Lethallin, can you... can you hear them? Do you know what they thought when it- happened?

Cole: Chains beneath the boat. Five birds bunched together on the cliff. Three in the hold. How could I know? One day there will be book with other names, other faces drawn over the words and a daisy pressed between the pages.

Merrill: I know you can tell me more than that.

Cole: Hawke is dead, I'm so sorry. Dead. Such a cruel world. Din. Better. Din is kind. Falon'Din, Friend of the Dead. Is that were they are? Varric said they ran. They ran and they shut the door. They didn't see...

Cole (Cont.): Broken dark glass in a Kirkwall hovel. Red ringed around my fingernails. Sitting on the floor, sharp, splintering, shredding my skin, but I stay still. I have a door. I have a door.

Cole (Cont.): If I tell you, you'll just want to do it more.

Merrill: I'm going to do it, Cole, telling me what they thought won't hurt now.

Cole: Yes, it will.

_____

Isabela

_____

Isabela: Hey, sweetheart?

Cole: Yes, Captain?

Isabela: Do spirits know about sex?

Cole: Yes. Spirits know a lot about sex.

Isabela: How would you describe it? In that colorful way of yours?

Cole: Hot. Hands holding tight. Door closed. Bodies close. If this is all I’m worth then I’ll be worth the world. My body is mine, it feels like fire and I am free.

Isabela: Oh, that’s not what I thought you’d say.

Cole: What did you think I would say?

Isabela: Something more like what Varric would put in a book.

_____

Cole: The scars are all in the same place.

Isabela: Which scars, sweetheart?

Cole: Arishok's blade on their skin. The silver slips shallow through them but I still feel it too. My face. My arm. My back. My legs. My- it slashes into their stomach, blood splatters and I try to- I can't. Fenris holding onto me. They're bleeding and I'm bleeding. They're hurting and I'm hurting. Once. Twice. Three times more around the pillars and then- he falls. It's over. They won... I'm free.

Isabela: So that’s what we’re talking about.

Cole: They would’ve done it again. They would’ve done even more.

Isabela: I know.

Cole: So do they.

_____

Isabela: Why do you call me, Captain?

Cole: It’s what you are.

Isabela: I haven’t been a captain for awhile. Admiral’s got a nice, sexy sound to it. Makes you think I’ve got a dagger in my hand, sharp and ready for your breast.

Cole: Wife. Whore. Daughter. Desire. The man on my ship smiles at me like he's picking which one he wants. I smile back. "It's Captain," I tell him. "You will call me Captain."

Cole (Cont.): I could call you Admiral, if it helps.

Isabela: Captain’s fine, sweetheart.

_____

Cole: Captain?

Isabela: Yes, sweetheart?

Cole: Do you like me?

Isabela: Oh yes! You’re cute, good with a dagger. You're even nice! That’s more than most men you’ll find out here.

Cole: But you don’t like me like you like them.

Isabela: Which is good for you. Most of them weren't worth the price of the room.

Cole: But you never paid for the rooms?

Isabela: Exactly.

_____

Cole: “Sweetheart.” You call me “sweetheart.” Why?

Isabela: It’s like how you call me, Captain. It’s the best word for what you are.

Cole: But my heart wouldn’t be sweet, Captain.

Isabela: Just who told you that?

Cole: The blood. It said it has to taste like salt and iron or it isn’t real.

Isabela: I… think it's okay to let words stay words sometimes, sweetheart.

Cole: But that’s never what they are.

_____

(Romanced)

Cole: "Well, if you ever want to do it again- wait, you aren't thinking of bringing feelings into this are you?" But you already were?

Isabela: Shhhh! Don't go revealing my deep dark secrets to the world.

Cole: You already brought the feelings, but it's different when it's just yours. Only you know where they are, like marking treasure on a map you keep in your pocket. But once they wanted it too... What if they dug up the treasure? What if they hated what was inside?

Isabela: Yes, yes, alright but why is it treasure? Is it because I'm a pirate?

Cole: Yes. You like treasure.

Isabela: I do like treasure.

Cole: But you like Hawke more.

Isabela: Hey! What did I say about my deep dark secrets?

_____

(Post-adamant)

Cole: I lie on my belly. Red stream flowing out from under me. How can the ground be so cold? Nightmare. Nightmare. No- no I won't die in a nightmare. I've been here before, done this before. I can die where it's mine-

Isabela: Not now, sweetheart.

Cole: There's a ship. There's a sea. There's birds in the rafters and there's me. Waves wash and whisper. I'm free. Captain, the helm is ready-

Isabela: Cole, stop it.

Cole: Safe harbors, Isabela.

#long post #dragon age #da2 #cole #dragon age cole

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night-dark-woods · 4 months

Text

Yet she had also decided that she felt a strange kinship and sympathy for it, this cornered, desperate god, making infinite sacrifices out of its people.

I'm on a "rereading Forsaken loretabs" kick and I'm rotating this line in my head. Mara constantly sacrificing herself and her people to protect the solar system as a whole. Her sense of duty. Determined and deadset on saving everyone and the thing is she does she DOES save everyone!!! But does that make it worth it does that make it right!!!

What got me started again was the last line on the loretab of this year's Dawning ship (Hiera Hodos - which also... thats the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, as in the Eleusinian Mysteries that Mara's throneworld is named for...):

And Mara walks alone, between the City and the dark outside.

Which made me think about this part of the Savin loretab (Title is also from this loretab):

Perhaps the Earth would be better off if the Traveler vanished or was destroyed, she thought. Even in the Reef, she felt as if she were living next to a torch held up in a dark wilderness, calling out across the galaxy to hungry things with too many eyes.

And so now I'm down the "Mara and her god complex" rabbithole again. Under a readmore because it's long:

If you have grace, then see our sorrows, but swallow back your tears. We were made to pay this price. I led us to our fate. (Archiloquy)

She feels this absolute guilt from the very beginning because she saw deeper meaning in a freak accident:

Because I asked us to leave, Mara thinks. Because something came out of deep space and killed the man next to me, and I saw the omen, and I said we should go. And now I feel like a coward. (Cosmogyre II)

And then you combine that personal guilt with her mother and Alis Li telling her she's responsible for what others think of her and that she is capable of more than those around her:

"It is one thing to have a particular power over people, Mara. But it is another to deny that you are using it." ... "Mara, you are an Auturge, a volunteer. I cannot order you to stop, and your work is exemplary. Are you putting anyone else in danger with your… art projects?" "No," Mara says. "Just myself." "False!" Li barks. "That is a selfish answer. You are now a symbol to my crew, a house god. If you were to die, they would lose something important, something Human that they have created out of loneliness and void. It would be an unforgettable reminder of the hostile nothingness that surrounds us. When you endanger yourself, you endanger that symbol. You are part of this mission's behavioral armor, Mara." Mara is thunderstruck. She's never thought about it this way. "All I did was take some captures. I didn't ask to be anyone's… mascot." "You presented yourself as a conduit to secret knowledge," Captain Li counters. "People made something out of you, Mara. Please take this from a starship captain: What people make of you, what they create of you—even without your consent—becomes a kind of responsibility. If the Mara they see when they look at you is good for them, then you have some duty to be that Mara." (Brephos III)

And you put all of that on the shoulders of an already self-important and borderline suicidal 19 year old who is convinced she's seeing secret meanings in things (and she is!!! Is the thing!!!) You cannot tell me she's not, given that her favorite enrichment activity is going on EVAs and taking off her suit in order to experience this:

The void boiled the water off her skin. Her body swelled with unchecked pressure until her undersuit forced it to stop. Alarmed cytogel crawled down her throat, hissing emergency oxygen: not enough. Her skin blued with cyanosis. She was bathed in the most profound emptiness. She recorded all of it at the neural level. The exquisite darkness. The sense of fatal independence from all things. There are those who will give anything to feel that void. (Brephos II)

And then after they are in the Distributary she keeps her idea of the duty of the Awoken to herself for so so so fucking long and plays such a long game and sacrifices her own people in that game to keep the Awoken from being truly comfortable in the Distributary:

"I have worked for many hundreds of years to arrange this outcome," Mara says, forthrightly, but without the courage to look Alis Li right in the eyes. "I have nurtured and tended the Eccaleist belief so that there will always be Awoken who feel uncomfortable in paradise. Guilty for the gift of existence in the Distributary. People who'll come with me." (Nigh I)

And all for the sake of her eventual goal of returning to the real world and saving the solar system that she is absolutely completely incapable of abandoning, regardless of the cost:

"Do you understand what you've done? Have you reckoned the full cost?" She has convinced tens of thousands of Awoken to abandon their immortality. She has deprived the Distributary an infinite quantity of joy, companionship, labor, and discovery: all the works that might be accomplished by all the people who will join her in her mission to another world. When she lies awake at night, seized by anxiety, she tries to tally up the loss in her head, but it is too huge, and it becomes a formless thing that stalks her down the pathways of her bones like the creak of a gravity wave. "Some infinities are larger than others," she tells her old captain. "I believe… we are here for a reason, and this is the way to fulfill that purpose." "And how much would you sacrifice? Your mother? Your brother? Are the Awoken real to you at all?" Alis leans across her pinned hand, viper-fierce, striking. "Do you think my people were made to die for you? "Not for me. For our purpose. For our fate." (Nigh II)

And she is so so so deeply aware of that cost, in Fideicide II Alis Li knows that "Mara knows the unthinkable value of even a single Awoken life," and she is so deeply deeply guilty about that. Like when she does tell Alis (and Sjur, eventually) we get to see her the most fucking vulnerable we ever do and GOD.

"No," Mara says, with her heart in her throat, with trepidation bubbling in her gut. You cannot keep a secret buried like a vintage for so many centuries, and then unbottle it without any ceremony. "The boon I ask is your forgiveness." Then she explains the truth. She tells Alis Li what she did: about the choice Alis Li would have made, if Mara had not made her own first. It's only an extension of what Alis has already deduced. When she's finished, her ancient captain's jaw trembles. Her hands shake. A keen slips between her clamped teeth. The oldest woman in the world conjures up all the grief she has ever felt, and still it is not enough to match Mara's crime. "You're the devil," Alis Li whispers. "I remember… in one of the old tongues, Mara means death. Oh, that's too perfect. That's too much." She laughs for a while. Mara closes her eyes and waits. "You realize," Alis Li says, breathing hard, "that this is the worst thing ever done. Worse than stealing a few thousand people from heaven. Worse than that thing we fled, before we were Awoken—" "Please," Mara begs. "Please don't say that." Alis Li rises from her chair. "I'll support your fleet," she says. "I'll use every favor and connection I have to get your Hulls completed and through the gateway—and I will do it so that I can hasten your departure from this world. I will do it out of hate for you; I will do it so that every good and great thing we achieve here will ever after be denied to you, you snake. No forgiveness. Do you understand me? It is unforgivable. Go. Go!" "I'd be very glad if you didn't tell my mother," Mara says. (Nigh II)

The last line there fucking kills me. "I'd be very glad if you didn't tell my mother." God. And then when she is brave enough to tell Sjur, to try again after last time backfired so fucking spectacularly, Sjur forgives her:

"I was first," Mara says. And she explains the missing half, the first half of the sentence: I made the rules and initial conditions that deceived her into believing she herself had decided It ends like that, where the rest picks up. Sjur Eido looks at her in expressionless silence. Sjur Eido's hands stroke the seam between Mara's skinsuit and the glassy petals of her helmet. Long ago, this woman betrayed her oath and went to serve the Diasyrm, a woman who cried out in anguish at the curse of physicality and the possibility of suffering. Long ago, this woman threw away her whole life to punish the highest crime she could imagine: the denial of transcendent divinity to those who might have claimed it. "You're the devil," Sjur says. "You're the lone power who made death. You allowed the possibility of evil. You might be responsible for more preventable suffering than anything that has ever existed." Mara cannot shake her head or even nod. "Well," Sjur says, "if you hadn't, none of us would be here. I guess I don't see what else you could've done, if you cared about those we left behind. If you wanted us to be able to go back and help in the fight." She leans forward and very gently kisses the inside of her helmet, where it meets Mara's: in her mind, in that place that is bound to all other Awoken, Mara feels the touch of gentle lips. (Tyrannocide III)

And like, those chapters also make me lose my mind because of the twofold meaning of the title- Tyrannocide because she is killing Oryx, yes, but also because she herself is dying. The self-appointed (and only ever real) Queen of the Awoken:

We are risen from man and fallen from heaven. We are made again in the fall. What was once us will not ever again be us. I am the uncrowned ever-Queen and my only diadem will be the event horizon of the universe, which is my dominion. By falling, I will rise. (Palingenesis II)

"Mara, with all my respect, all my genuine gratitude for bringing us here," Esila sighs, "who died and made you Queen?" Mara says nothing. But she thinks: Everyone, Esila. All of us died and made me Queen. (Revanche II)

On the day the Fallen struck, Mara was proclaimed Queen. It happened swiftly, though after no little debate among the people, for everyone was afraid of a monarch who could speak to their thoughts. Yet they feared more to deny her power and sovereignty, for they had come between worlds in her name. To refuse her would be to refuse their choice. (Revanche V)

And the thing is that she is their queen in such a real and tangible way like she made them she made their fate she can sense every single one of them and feels their deaths and at the same time as she is sacrificing them for The Greater Good she would do anything to save them:

Mara crawls through compartments choked with vaporized coolant. She keeps low and clutches the breather to her face. All she can think of is Kelda Wadj's last message and the data attached. "Mara. The paracausal effects are strongest around you. Whatever's happened to us, you are the locus. I cannot overstate how subtle and how important this discovery might be. Mara, when we use radioactive decay as a trigger for simulated bombs—bombs that could harm Awoken—the trigger atoms are a thousandfold less likely to decay near you. People are literally safer when you are around." She has to get into the riot. She has to protect her people. A horrible groan vibrates through the habitat structure, and then, with an apocalyptic shudder, something tears off the Reef. A ship. A ship is leaving. Mara has failed. ... She rolls onto her back and stares up into the swirling vortices of coolant, seeing faces, futures, the lives she has just lost, the lives she might yet lose. She brought her people here to die in the sense that she brought them into mortality—but she never wanted it to happen quickly. (Revanche IV)

And she keeps losing people and losing people and losing people. So many of the Distributary Awoken defect and go to Earth:

Nasan purses her lips. "I want them to understand that you are—that you—that you are good. That you aren't what they think." Seeing Sjur bristle, she holds up her hand. To her relief, Mara makes a slight warding gesture as well. "And if they know that and still wish to live apart from us on Earth, that's fine. That's their choice." "I don't need them to understand that," Mara says softly. There is the faintest husk of grief in her steady voice. (Chords of Meaning)

And then she loses Nasan too and she comes back as Orin and the Traveler has taken yet another of her people from her (and brought them back wrong!):

"Woof," Sjur Eido says when she sees Orin for the first time, "Mara's gonna hate this." She crosses the detainment cell to get a better look at Gol. "Figured this might happen eventually, but I'd always hoped…" She pulls at the nape of her neck, then gives a little half-shrug: well, what can you do. (Queenslaw)

And then she loses Sjur when she is taken/killed by the Nine:

"This was on her body, Your Grace." A strange coin lay at the center of Abra's outstretched palm. Mara took it between thumb and forefinger and held up it to the cosmos with dainty contempt. Weregild, she thought. Powerful grief filled her chest, as thick and caustic and heavy as unset concrete. (Oathkeeper)

And she turns to Orin for assistance with that and then because of that (!!!) loses Orin again as well:

On the day that Sjur Eido dies, she receives a call from Mara Sov. "I would ask for my boon," the queen says with shaking voice. It is the first time she dares to trust a Guardian. It will not be the last. (Debt)

On the day she leaves to find the Nine, the Techeuns name her Orin the Lost. (Synesthesia)

And then she answers the question Alis Li asked her so long ago about whether she is willing to sacrifice her brother (a resounding, grieving, determined yes):

Mara will begin the end of that Queen's brother today. She knows what that means for the fate of her own. An eye for an eye. She must think now of the fate of entire cosmos—and of her tender, half-assembled answer to the cold sword logic of the Hive. She must not grieve. She must not fear. (Tyrannocide IV)

And then at the Battle of Saturn all of this loss she has been dreading and yet causing for millenia finally comes to fruition and she then will have a good long time just sitting with that in Oryx's throne world:

This is the moment of absolute sacrifice, the incarnation of Awoken doom: to give up their lives in defense of the world they once abandoned. The sense of their great dying rips at Mara like a sob. (Tyrannocide V)

It's just like. Such a classic and compelling and well-executed examination of do the ends justify the means? (Seth Dickinson at it again! In so many ways Baru is Mara is Baru is Mara!!!) Every one of her actions led to this point, to defeating Oryx, and was that not worth it? And yet how could it ever be worth it?

I think especially the outside perspectives from Earthborn Awoken & Guardians are really interesting on that front because while they still have the connection to Mara - "However, there was always in their souls an itch, a vector pointing to a distant place in the Asteroid Belt, where their Queen still dwelt." (Revanche V) - they did not choose to follow her and they do not have the same loyalty:

Zavala:

"She was a charlatan," Zavala says, quietly. "Fighting a war that existed only in her mind. Dragging you all behind her. Any of you who will admit that are welcome in my City. But I will not take in whatever conspiracies she left unfinished. If you come to us, you come to join the City." (Refusal)

Arach Jalaal:

She speaks. "Earthborn. Did you mourn for her?" He thinks she will know if he lies. "I respected her, yes, but I despised the way she seemed… entitled… to us all. I never regret choosing the path I did. I was Awoken to continue the search we started long ago. The quest for worlds worthy of our lives." (Fleet)

Master Rahool:

We long feared that if it were intercepted by her Majesty your Queen, it would be denied or manipulated to serve some need of her own. (Of Earth and the Reef)

Mara is just such an incredibly compelling and complex and interesting character and she is so stubborn and full of herself and self-righteous and she saved the solar system and she doomed her people to mortality and she's always right because she has to be and because she makes it so and she keeps secrets from everyone and has lost more people than many people ever meet and she has felt every single one of their deaths. She is everything to me.

#my posts #loreposting #hi. im sooo stable and normal about this character.#im sure there are more things i missed that would fit really well in here but ive been at it for like. 4 hours lol.#i also have a separate sticky note with a truly unhinged number of petra and sjur lore tabs. god.#do i dare put this in the main tag. i dont have a separate tag so i think i have to for organizational purposes.#destiny #mara sov

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24-05txt · 8 months

Text

Got tagged in a writing train on Twitter so I thought I'd share the snippets here, too! First two are already posted and are just my favorite parts, the last two are teasers of projects I'm VERY excited to share. Links and snippets under the readmore 🌟

Figure Study

Ghost asks Soap to draw him like one of his French girls, in not so many words. Things devolve from there.

John slides his sketchbook onto the desk, then slowly—so slowly—leans down, puts his elbows to his knees, and runs his fingers across his scalp.

Deep breath in… Slow breath out.

When he can lift his head again, Ghost is still asleep in the same position he was before, as if he didn’t just make John the victim of the biggest display of trust since a cat showed a human their soft underbelly.

“Fuck you,” he whispers, and glares at the man in front of him. Ghost doesn’t so much as twitch under the scrutiny. John considers waking him up again, and this time he gets as far as standing and taking a single step over to the bedside before he hesitates. He keeps fucking realizing how much bare skin is on display, and the revelation attacks from a different angle every time, always catching him off balance. Ghost’s head is level with John’s abdomen and he wants to know what Ghost’s jaw would feel like pressed against his palm. He wants to know quite desperately actually, and after a moment John realizes that he’s not only staring, but that his hand has lifted up to Ghost’s shoulder, coming up to cradle his face like it’s already made the decision to do so without Johnny’s conscious input.

He holds himself still for a breath, thinking hard. Then, gently, he cups Ghost’s jaw in his palm. Stubble tickles his fingertips like a greeting and all the thoughts he has swirling around fall silent.

His mind is blank; the room seems that much quieter for it.

Then Ghost sucks in a slow breath, shoulders rising. His eyes crack open for a moment, then fall shut. They open again when he turns his face into John’s palm, brows furrowing slightly like he’s confused. John’s heart thuds, blood running cold, but he can’t bring himself to move.

“Johnny…” Ghost's voice is low, thick with sleep. His lips brush against the skin of John’s inner wrist. John can’t move, can barely think, but manages something he hopes resembles a smile.

“Mornin’ sleepin’ beauty. How’s yer nap?”

“Mm…” Ghost blinks once, twice, closes his eyes and sways dangerously forward, leaning into John’s hand. He can’t help but brush his thumb up the bridge of Ghost’s nose. Blonde lashes flutter in response. His heart thuds again. “Goin’ back to sleep.

“If yer gonna take an afternoon nap in my bed like an old man, at least put some pants on, hell’s bells,” he chides, mouth running of its own accord. (It’s for the best, really. Otherwise, he might just spend all day making Ghost’s lashes flutter with a finger on the bridge of his nose.)

Ghost hums philosophically and tries to press his entire weight into Johnny’s palm—he really does seem intent on sleeping that way. John’s heart is in his throat now, throbbing painfully; he feels like he’s just run a mile, like he should be out of breath and gasping but he’s just standing in front of his Lieutenant, cradling his face in his hand, like an idiot.

To Lie Down With Dogs - Ch.1

Soap finds a stray dog on base. Obviously, he investigates.

He’s woken up from some night-terror or another, (he won’t bother himself with recounting the details when he knows it’ll only make his shoulder ache and his chest tighten in panic) and even thought the sky is still closer to black than blue, he decides to take himself out for a walk. It usually helps to get some fresh air, remind himself of where he is and where he most certainly is not. Finding a conversation partner also helps, but it’s both too early and too late for that.

He gets one foot through the door before he spots movement out of the corner of his eye and nearly has a heart attack. For a moment, there’s a man crouched in the shadows bracketing the light spilling from the door. Waiting for him, mere meters away. Before he can do much more than pull his knife, it steps close enough to take shape.

A dog, not a man. Big enough that it has to be the same one he saw not too long ago. Its head is lowered warily, tail limp, but it doesn’t bark or growl or try to bear down on him any. Its eyes are reflecting the light, glowing a flat, sickly green, and the whole thing is fucking creepy. He can’t stop staring. (He wonders a bit if he’s still dreaming.) After a tense moment, he remembers reading somewhere that making eye-contact with dogs isn’t a great idea—canine-speak for ‘wanna have a go, mate?’—so he turns his head just a little, watching the dog from his periphery, trying to calm his pounding heart. (Dream or not, Soap doesn’t want to get bit.)

If it were so inclined, this would be a good time for it to try and take Soap down. There aren’t many other people awake, he’s out on his own, and he’s just as good as turned his back to it. Great going, Sergeant MacTavish. Ghost would have his fucking head.

The dog just looks up at him for a moment, standing less than a meter away. It doesn’t even blink.

Then it shakes its head, pointed ears flapping, and trots away. It passes in front of him—close enough to reach out and touch, like he and his knife aren’t a concern in the slightest.

Soap half-thinks to follow after it to find out where it came from, and is graced by the mental image of his forearm caught between those wicked jaws, gleaming eyes flashing red. He thinks better of it, and lets the stray wander off into the dark.

HAUNTINGS I: Architectural

WIP I want to talk about so so so much. Very self indulgent. Summary from my notes:

Soap is assigned to a safehouse in Mexico while assisting Mexican Special Forces with investigating a Cartel's movements. During the events of Las Almas he returns to the safehouse to seek the assistance of the residing ghost who tried to warn him of Shepard's betrayal.

He doesn't fall asleep so much as he passes out on that cellar floor. Dragging himself to the upstairs bathroom once he's awake is possibly one of the hardest things he's ever done, least of all because he still can not compel himself to leave the skull on the floor where it lay. He sets it on the toilet seat while he tends to his hands, tediously pulling each splinter, cutting out the one firmly embedded in the heel of his palm. Afterward he very nearly bathes in antiseptic solution, would drink it if he thought it could do him any good.

Then he steps into the shower, turns the knob as hot as it can go, and scrubs himself raw. He spends the rest of the hot water sat on the floor of the tub, knees pulled to his chest, making eye-contact with the man sitting on the lid of the toilet.

As the water starts to run cold and the grimy, itchy sensation finally recedes, he takes a breath to speak.

"How did you know Shepard would betray us?"

"He killed me." The ghost that used to haunt this house has scars that turn one half of its mouth into a tooth-bearing grimace, and the other into a gruesome smirk. It's a natural blond, with pale lashes that frame dark eyes and shaggy hair slightly too long to be in regulation with the drab tac-gear it's wearing. It could have been handsome, under different circumstances.

"What'd you do?" Soap asks. He doesn't have the energy to gentle his voice and the question comes out harsh, accusatory. The ghost frowns.

"Loaded question…" it mumbles, which is so patently ridiculous that Soap's humor cycles right back around to rage.

"Oh, aye? Is it? Cannae imagine." For all that it's still raining outside and the water is still running, Soap's tone is dry as the desert. The ghost's frown turns into a scowl.

"No, you can't," it says sternly, anger quickly overtaking the calm it had been presenting before. "You didn't get buried alive under a foot of fucking concrete—"

"You didnae have yer heid minced by a bloody poltergeist for a week straight, get shot by some two-faced slimy bawbag, nearly drown in sewer water and trek for two fecking hours just to shove your hands in a stranger's emaciated corpse on the off-chance of getting some help!" His voice strains at the end of his sentence, out of breath and fuming, but he's not done yet. "There's nobody! Ah have nobody on my side right now—Graves took the base, Rudy and Alejandro could be dead, Price is halfway 'cross an ocean and fucking Shepard is behind it all—that schemin', stinkin'—" his words become garbled, choke him, and his eyes sting even under the spray.

Lost and Found - Ch.?

Zombie AU, also SUUPER self-indulgent. First chapter is posted, but here's the current summary:

Running into a lost kid in post-outbreak Colorado makes a scouting mission infinitely more complex for our favorite duo.

“Well, I'm just going to check your vitals real quick, alright?” the nurse has shuffled closer while he was distracted, and is reaching one hand toward his wrist. He can't really be bothered to protest, so he just grunts and lets them take his pulse.

They do a few more things with his arm, but he struggles to pay much attention as the painkiller starts to drag him under again. He doesn't know when they leave, but he knows they're no longer prodding at him when Soap pushes through the curtain.

“Hey there, Ghost.”

It's a struggle to try and fight away the haze enough to force his eyes open and his face toward Soap, but his efforts are well-rewarded by a clear view of the other man's stupid lopsided grin.

“They got you good, aye?” Soap lifts a hand to his face, and Ghost cannot for the life of himself stop his eyes from fluttering closed as Soap slides a finger down the bridge of his nose. When he finally gets his eyes open again, Johnny’s smile has widened to a blinding grin. “Like a wee bab right now, you are. Off yer fuckin’ head.”

Johnny's thumb traces the shape of his cheekbone and the words go in one ear and out the other; he can hardly be expected to focus on both things at once under these fucking conditions.

Sudden laughter sparks something sharp and warm in his chest, and he fights his eyes open again to realize his face is securely cradled in the palm of Johnny's hand.

“Och, I'm sorry. Gowan, back to sleep with ye. I'll leave you be.”

Every cell in Ghost's body must be acting in tandem for him to react as quickly as he does, grabbing Johnny's wrist before he can get more than a step away from the cot he's laid in. He yelps, maybe; Ghost is more concerned about the look he's given as Johnny turns back toward him. Something about the expression makes his chest clench.

That's all! If you care to ask any questions or want to know more feel free to ask I love to chat about my AUs and shit lmfao.

#cod:mwii #fic.txt #ghost #john soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #ghostsoap #soap #fanfic #cod fanfic #cod fandom #wips #wip weekend #cod angst #cod au #hurt/comfort #wolf at the door au #existance after death au #figure study #lost and found

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beesmygod · 1 year

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HI EVERYONE: TODAY'S PAGE IS LATE.

im calling my shot too early, but i've spent the last 2 days getting my ass beat by lupus symptoms. im feeling so much better. the page is coming.

BUT in the meanwhile: i wrote this long post about why i left Hiveworks

ill put it under a readmore here on tumblr in its entirety:

intro: dont get your hopes up

look, i’m going to be straight up with you: there’s no messy drama or fallout that caused this. no juicy deets or salacious rumors to slurp down. you know if this were the case, i would have erupted across my various social medias in a frenzied rage with all the delicacy of a bull in a china shop partly for entertainment purposes. instead, this will probably be a boring at best navel gaze where i try to walk the line between pragmatically trying to explain why i left and moral grandstanding. because leaving abruptly looks weird externally, i do actually have to explain why instead of just mysteriously leaving during a period of time where i am being an obnoxious asshole. a combination of disdain for the current cultural zeitgeist and a growing culture of disrespect toward audiences has culminated in my online behavior devolving into the online version of grabbing people saying stupid shit on the street and shaking them very hard. this is something an insane person would do. i know.

the commodification and increasingly blatant commercialization of an art format that could once arguably be compared to other amateur transgressive arts (ex: underground comix, tijuana bibles) is borderline heartbreaking. not to be too dramatic, but i want to start smashing things like im a monster from the rampage arcade game to scare the NIMBYs away before they start building escape rooms where the fetish web comics used to be. there is no place unspoiled by the poison of advertising and sponsorships. except…

youtube

trying to make money in comics is a fool’s errand. go make furry porn commissions if you want to make money doing art! you’re completely out of your mind if you go into the arts to make money. full on detachment from reality if you choose comics. they should commit you if you choose web comics.

at hive:

i think people have a wildly different perception regarding the popularity of A Ghost Story so i have approximate data to give people an idea. having culled the SHIT out of my analytics results to remove bot traffic, i think i have relatively accurate results, i get about 1000 unique visitors a month (generously rounding up lol), about half of them are regulars, and 10% of them donate to patreon (this is, imo, an unfathomably large amount lol. shocking and humbling. thank you for your continued support of me in spite of [gestures]). i feel like a small comic 99% of the time, but man. 1,000 is a big number. i can at least reasonably assume, i’m PRETTY sure, that i was a comparatively small comic in hiveworks.

my monthly payout was roughly $100 a month (and merch sales, if applicable) and their services included web site help, dealing with any merch sales, and site hosting in exchange for running banner ads (which have been a fixture on web comics since the conception of google’s ad program; remember the homestuck bidding wars??). banner ads felt like a small and reasonable compromise to be included in something that felt like a weird pipe dream. in certain circles, a hiveworks invitation was a stamp of quality with prestige; i was very aware of the company i was invited into keep and was initially pretty concerned with how my presence reflected onto them and their work. i was going through some serious brain problems due to a deeply stupid relationship and, as a result, i did my best to keep my head down, stay out of people’s way, and focus on not bringing undue shame to something i was well aware i was completely unsuited for. i had (and frankly, still have) no idea why i was chosen as i had not applied. i cannot stress enough that i was under no delusions as to the quality of my comic lol. my perception was that someone had stuck their neck out to make a special exception for me and i was constantly on the verge of fucking it up and humiliating them.

it was a very off-balance exchange extremely in my favor, and i was aware of this. especially since, being frank and honest here, i was bringing absolutely nothing to the table for them. i don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but its a reasonable conclusion that i was more trouble than i was worth, given the infinitesimal worth.

the vast majority of hiveworks readers completely bounced off my comic, which makes perfect sense given the hiveworks audience is i think more interested in the genre they primarily host: fantasy and magical realism. in comparison, “a ghost story” is a slow, slooow burn about federal bureaucracy and being insane with extremely amateur art; i know what i am! and that’s fine! but i became a little resentful (and i tried not to! honest!) after 7 years of perpetually being put on a back burner. it felt like i was being strung along for reasons beyond my comprehension or as the baseline of acceptable awfulness for the website’s quality. someone has to be the “worst”, objectively. it’s not a great feeling to know it, coming to terms with it i think was much healthier than trying to fight it. it was a really good driving force to keep my mind off the nightmare of my life at that point and improve my art a lot.

AGS’ irrelevance was underscored by it being mentioned once over the course of 7 years on official social media networks, upon which a great deal of importance was placed. but frankly, there is nothing worse than dealing with the guy who sucks whining for the spotlight as though they are clueless as to why they are getting the shaft. so i simply achieved enlightenment by getting over it and realizing where i was in the hierarchy and how lucky i was to have so much shit done for me. i was (am, unbelievably. it never gets less wild when i sit down and really think about it) making enough through patreon that the $100 became my monthly fun money while i lived in oregon. it was welcome, but not essential.

a lot of real life, awful things happened that suck and couldn’t be avoided: one of the main points of communication and organization became terribly ill, COVID happened and obliterated shipping and manufacturing rates for apparently all eternity, uhhh the fabric of reality began to unravel lol. it’s been a terrible couple of years. i want to underscore this stuff so that people understand i was not wronged greatly in the grand scheme of things.

there are things that started to chip away at me over time, which made me question if i was a good fit at all. genuinely: the only thing i want to do is to try to live happily within my morals doing what i love to do. even and especially if it means living very broke. that’s the exchange i’m consciously choosing to make when i pick up the pen every day. due to the generosity of the people who support me or have supported me at any time (special shout out to adam, who puts up with this shit for some reason), i am able to do that. i contribute a proportional amount to the household now but tried to be (was??) 50/50 or 25/25/25/25 when i had roommates. i don’t want my one unyielding selfish choice to be anyone else’s burden.

i was told by another artist in hiveworks that my confrontational behavior could be a poor reflection on the brand, which became the tipping point in my choice to leave. to be clear, no one in charge told me this, but even conceptually i was not comfortable representing a company that i felt i was a member of out of obligation or inertia. i didn’t belong there and my presence was an active detriment instead of a tolerated nuisance.

anyway:

when the offer to leave was presented, i didn’t feel regret, or anxiety, or upset at all. i felt a placid sense of relief. i COULD leave. that’s TRUE. i had been kicking it around on my private twitter for a few months going back and forth with myself over what was more important to me: being able to take care of myself financially or doing something about my own hypocrisy that kept me up at night. if my incessant argument is that advertising based commercialization is a societal poison, then i need to put my money where my mouth is. and if i’m consistently annoying, i need to leave as a courtesy to everyone else.

i don’t regret my time with hive at all, but the overarching transformation from a collection of cartoonists to a brand is not where i want to take my art. i can’t bring myself to work even within the proximity of seven seas, a deeply abhorrent company. i am completely disinterested in wasting time or energy worrying about “the algorithm” because i don’t make comics for the computer’s sake and recognize that there’s a finite number of people interested in web comics in the world and an even more finite amount of money to spend on luxuries (because none of us have any money lol). i don’t want to repeat the familiar cycle of lamenting the death of art as we know it every 6 months.

people who are choosing to spend their limited funds supporting me are making a deliberate choice to elevate my presence in their life. i want and need to keep this in mind at all times, because it drives my attitudes toward what i want to choose to focus on. i want to keep my art (“art”) free with additional goodies being as reasonably priced as possible in the hopes that in this way we scratch each other’s back. making money drawing comics is a ridiculous privilege granted to me by people willing to sacrifice their time and money to me; i need to be thinking more about all that i have instead of worrying about what i don’t.

#hiveworks #webcomics #webcomic #web comics #a ghost story #ags #Youtube

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azems-familiar · 1 year

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i am like two thirds of the way through this spyscrapper oneshot. and it is TWELVE THOUSAND WORDS LONG. i was originally calling it to be like... 10k max. hahahaha. i should never be allowed to estimate word counts etc etc. anyway, should probably cap at around 15k, and have a snippet:

[under a readmore because Long]

Merrin sighs, disapproval etching itself into every word she speaks, frustration bleeding into the Force around her, green-gilt and vivid enough to taste. “Bode, part of the reason I left is because I could no longer watch him destroy himself for a chance to exact revenge on the Empire. You are the first person, aside from Cere, who has been able to reach him through that haze.” That- he- “Now there is no one who can. And that is your doing.”

Bode goes quiet, looking down at Cal on his shoulder - the younger man has curled a little closer in his sleep, the furrow between his brows finally smoothed out. He looks relaxed in a way he so rarely is, and even if it’s just because of utter exhaustion, Bode has spent enough time around Cal to know how rarely he touches people casually, how apart he holds himself. He’d known he was an exception to the rule, but to have been allowed closer than nearly all the rest of the crew - Cal’s family - it doesn’t seem possible. But Merrin’s aura is shot through with just how deadly serious she is, and he remembers-

(They’re on the Mantis on their way back from Jedha with Merrin newly along for the ride, and Cal is noticeably drooping, sand on his shirt he hasn’t bothered to brush out and his hair half out of its bun and shadows under his eyes. Bode can’t remember seeing him sleep the several days they spent on Jedha, exploring the desert ruins and attempting to save Brother Armias, and he has to admit he’s concerned - the prep for the Coruscant mission had involved rotating sleep schedules as they made their plans, and every time Bode had been up he’d noticed Cal was still awake, sipping caf and studying comm traffic. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but the more time they’ve spent together on Koboh the more he’s realized Cal catches catnaps rather than truly sleeping, often being out and about in the dead of night. It’s foolish of him, but one of the things Bode has picked up about Cal Kestis is that no matter how put-together he’d seemed when Bode slipped his way onto his team, he’s a young man running on revenge with a reckless streak a parsec wide.

When they’d boarded the Mantis to head for Jedha the last time, Cal had, somewhat awkwardly, told Bode they didn’t have enough bunks for him to have his own - the available one apparently belonging to Merrin, who Cal had described with a great deal of fondness as being willing to raise the dead to protect her space - and had offered Bode his, then spent the next two nights not sleeping until Bode had said he was fine with sharing. After several weeks in hyperspace travel all told, they’ve gotten used to the arrangement - Bode has to admit he’s sleeping better than he has in a while, and it seems like Cal is more likely to actually lay down when there’s someone else… and that gives him an idea. Bode isn’t tired now, on account of having actually gone to sleep the night before, but Cal is sitting at the table staring at his empty plate and has been for several minutes, unmoving. Bode exchanges a glance with Merrin, who has a resigned expression on her face, and then stands up, abruptly, leaning forward to swipe Cal’s plate from in front of him.

Hey, scrapper, he says, and Cal startles a little and looks up, eyes finally focusing again. Bode dumps the plates in the sink and turns back to him. I think I took some blasterfire while we were out in the desert - could you give me a hand? I want to get some rest.

Oh - yeah, of course, Bode, Cal says, pushing himself to his feet and leaving a hand on the table’s edge to keep his balance. He’s wavering, a little, but he seems determined to ignore that, all bleeding concern in the Force. You were shot? Where? Why didn’t you say anything?

Back of the shoulder, Bode says, and it’s even true. He hadn’t said anything because it was a minor injury and he knew it could wait until they left again - but he has to bite his tongue not to point out the astounding hypocrisy in Cal’s question. That won’t help matters right now. Like it’s an afterthought, he adds, Hey, you should let me check you out once you’re done with me, return the favor. Just in case there’s something you missed.

Cal shifts his weight, clearly unsure. I’m fine, really, he says, and Bode softens his face, steps closer to him and catches Cal’s arm in a gentle grip, guiding him back towards his bunk.

Please? he murmurs. You took a hell of a lot of heat defending the safehouse. I’m worried about you, Cal. The words are bitter on his tongue for how true they are.

And Cal melts into him, all warm and doe-eyed despite the grime and the exhaustion. Hey, no, don’t do that, there’s no reason to. Merrin and I handled it just fine, we’ve been doing this for years.

I know, he says, and lies through his teeth. Of course there’s a reason to worry about Cal, the kriffing idiot can’t seem to go more than three days without coming back with some injury, and Force above and below, Bode hasn’t seen him as just another mark for too long. Humor me, would you? I want to get some sleep, and I’ll feel better about it if I know you’re around.

This is the breaking point, when Cal might realize what he’s doing and back out of it - and for a moment Cal regards him quietly, studying his face, though what he’s looking for Bode can’t say; a piece of ginger hair falls into Cal’s eyes and Bode has to swallow down the inexplicable urge to brush it back behind his ears. And then: Alright, Cal says with a nod, and starts walking towards the bunks again, of his own volition this time. Whatever helps, Bode.

Thanks, scrapper, he murmurs, and casts a glance back over his shoulder at Merrin. The nightsister is still sitting at the table, her dark gaze fixated on them, on him, and her expression is inscrutable for all that her aura writhes around her like an unsecured transmission. He doesn’t quite know the meaning behind the tumultuous emotions he can pick up on the edges of, but she gives him a single, deliberate nod, and then she turns away.

By the time they get back to Koboh, he’s forgotten about the strange interaction entirely.)

There’s a hell of a lot more meaning to that look now, all of this on the table, than there had been at the time. He’d been the newest member of their crew by years, and yet he’d fairly easily accomplished something apparently even she couldn’t - getting Cal to actually take a break. And that wasn’t the only time he’d done it, of course, just the first time in front of her; after they’d gotten out of the Lucrehulk, every time they’d gone through something harrowing, every three days on the regular when Cal had stopped dumping milk and sugar into his caf and was just chugging it straight, Bode had convinced him to at least sit down and rest in a booth at the saloon. Nine times out of ten that led to Cal falling asleep on his shoulder and being carried down to his basement room, and that, at least, had been enough to keep him functional, although unhealthily so.

And now… Bode traces his eyes over the freckles smattered across Cal’s nose. He doesn’t have the right to intervene in Cal’s personal affairs like that anymore, assuming Cal would even let him - which he doubts, considering how angry Cal is. (He’d been a thing to behold, fighting his way through the garrison - even injured and exhausted his aura had been fire and magma and molten kyber, pouring out from him into his opponents as he strode through them entirely untouched. All that wildfire-rage had been focused directly at Bode, and he aches that he’s the cause of it, that whatever bridges he didn’t burn himself are ash all the same, but damn is he glad he got to see it.) And that leaves Cal still a reckless fool who refuses to take care of himself and is burning himself up at both ends, but now without someone he’ll listen to to help mitigate some of the damage.

Bode… still can’t bring himself to regret the choice he’s made, or to apologize for it. It was the lesser of two evils - and isn’t he good at finding those? ISB or Inquisitorius, willing or unwilling, alive or dead, what is his life but a tightrope between the lesser and the greater? - and he has to put Kata’s safety above all else, he’s a terrible enough father without adding negligence into the mix, but he still hates what it’s led to. And he hates the galaxy, a little, for forcing this choice on him.

He can’t quite bring himself to look away from Cal.

“... I think you understand what you must live with now, yes?” Merrin says, after some time. He doesn’t move. “Good. I can bear this no longer.” There’s the sound of rustling fabric and movement, and he can sense her slipping around the couch to the small kitchen. “Are you hungry, Kata? I think I am going to make myself a snack, and you are welcome to share.”

#ramblings #jedi survivor #spyscrapper #bode akuna #cal kestis #merrin #my writing #i am however having so much fun with this fic. so there is that

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