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#{{this was from..... a few weeks back now?}}
daily-odile · 2 months
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sorry i was gone for a while i just got back from the mountains
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deoidesign · 5 days
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Thinking about vampires, death, life, and the space they occupy in between
#to be or not to be. that is the question#ty adam for being my model for dramatic vampire moment#musings on the thinkings about:#when to live you are required to hurt others. you must repeatedly ask yourself what the value of your life is#To sleep... perchance to dream...#ah. THERES THE RUB.#ok I actually couldnt come up with too many thoughts. I had a lot more while I was drawing this but I guess I put them in the painting LOL#reading that soliloquy and being like damn this is just like vampires#the reality of course is that the soliloquy is a debate over suicide and ultimately making the choice to live#even if just out of fear of the unknown#and vampires are about dying and then in undeath choosing to continue to live#despite the fear of eternity and loneliness and hurting others#theyre not the same. but like let me thiiink come onnnn I'm allowed to thiiink and have incomplete thoughts#I would have to write like a proper essay about this to organize my thoughts. this is the tags on a tumblr post.#anyways finished episode 79#working on patreon stickers for this month (and next month soon)#and working on book 4. taking a pause from episodes cause I've got 3 weeks of buffer now... UGH#I'm so mad that they changed it. it would have been 5 weeks before but it's fine it's whatever#anyways yeah taking a break from episodes to make my book now!#its good stuff.#and this painting is good stuff#banger after banger from me tbh#this was a little relaxing giving myself a couple hours to muse#it's necessary for my health and I always forget that til I do a painting...#I loved doing the little landscape in the background too I should do that more! I love how plants are just like whatever shape you want#like you can make up any plant you want and not only does that plant PROBABLY exist somewhere#a weirder plant exists somewhere too. so. literally whatever you want#ok bye again for a few days while I get back to work
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tapakah0 · 1 day
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royalarchivist · 7 months
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I love the QSMP. Not only has it introduced me to many amazing international creators, it's also introduced me to the French and Brazilian community, who are so sweet, funny, and chaotic in their own unique ways. I love seeing fans sharing their culture and learning from one another, and I myself have learned a lot this past year. I think it's incredible how QSMP brings so many different people together – all of us united in our love and passion for this project and its goals.
But passion can often evoke strong emotions, and these strong emotions aren't always positive.
The past few months, I have seen multiple waves of hate, bad-faith generalizations of communities, and racist remarks directed at fellow fans – especially those who are part of the French / Brazilian community. This kind of behavior is inexcusable, and is in direct conflict with the mission of QSMP, which is to break language barriers and unite communities.
We are a global community with a variety of people from different backgrounds. Miscommunications may occasionally occur because of cultural differences and/or language barriers, but we should use these moments as opportunities to learn and engage with other people rather than assuming the worst about them and starting fights.
Although certain issues can be resolved with communication, sometimes it’s better to block and move on. Avoid spreading negativity or hate, and save yourself the headache of interacting with people who are just looking for someone to argue with.
No matter what community we're a part of or what languages we speak, we're all here to have fun. Please remember to be kind to each other. We have more in common than we have in conflict.
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wiseatom · 5 months
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and if i said i had something non-acswy related dropping with the vague timeline of “soon,” then what.
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transk0vsky · 1 month
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This game is like the sand pest and I’ve been infected
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autumnally-art · 3 months
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with the hands of hope, we pull each other up
Dialogue from Episode 7 of "Chasing the Radiance Beyond the Blue Sky" (Airi 3).
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Image 1:
Airi: "...For example, look. Your hands are completely different from mine. Yours are spindly and elegant... while mine are round. Like manju, you know?"
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Shizuku: "..." Airi: "Which is why the little trick for me and Minori-- Shizuku?" Shizuku: "Please, don't say thinks like that. I like your hands just the way they are, Airi." Shizuku: "Because they're so kind and gentle. You use them to pull everyone in the right direction."
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Shizuku: "And I'm sure Minori felt the same way today. Also--" Airi, in flashback: "Here's a towel. Now dry those tears already. We're in this idol thing together now. But don't think I'm gonna let you beat me!" Shizuku, back in the present: "Even when I was feeling so awful, Airi, you were there to give me not just that fluffy towel, but also the courage to stand back up. That's why--"
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Shizuku: "That's why I like your hands so much. They're so kind, gentle, and soft. So please..." Shizuku: "...Don't forget the fact that your hands have given others quite a bit of courage." Airi: "Shizuku... I really wasn't expecting you to say anything like that."
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writterings · 8 days
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me with my 18 year old students that i teach at a college
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they-didnt-last · 2 months
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anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??
#okay incoming rant about this series#i read the first book when i was 10 or 11 and i was absolutely obssessed with it. i read it so many times i had the entire story memorized#the issue was that i could not find the rest of the series anywhere. it was either sold out or out of stock#and then i found out that only the first 3 books had been translated into my first language so at that point i kinda gave up on them#anyway#flashforward to a couple of weeks ago#i was re organizing my bookshelf and on the back i found LYKY (is this how y'all are abreviating it??)#and remembred how much i loved it#and since i'm now fluent in english and was stuck at home recovering from a surgery i decided to download the entire series and read it#to find out what the fuck happened afterwards#long story short i read all six books in 4 or 5 days#and i haven't stopped thinking about them since#it's actually so funny how little information we have in the first book#i went all of these years thinking it was mostly a silly series about a boarding school for spies when actually SO MUCH happens afterwards#i can't believe i went all of these years unaware of zach goode's existence#truly character of all time#but also i can't stop thinking about how interesting it would have been if zach had come to hate the circle and his mom during the series#rather than before#make it a true enemies to lovers#and have us witness that portion of his character developement in real time instead of being told about it#like him slowly realizing through cammie and his time at gallagher that maybe what they were doing is wrong#i think it would have been very interesting to read#although let's be real it took me until halfway through book four to trust him and he was fully one of the good guys so..#but yeah i have a lot more to say but these tags are long enough#gallagher girls#okay i just want to add another funny anecdote about my experience with this series#my copy of LYKY has an age warning in the back recomending that readers should be above 13 yo to read it#and i distinctly remember finishing it and thinking the warning was kind of dumb bcs besides a few mentions of death and other heavier topi#nothing really happened#and now i realize it was a warning for the rest of the series not just the first book because jesus fucking chirst everything after
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seaweedstarshine · 5 months
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[just after having helped River make a getaway from a heist of an astatine lace shawl — the rarest substance in the universe — without her even needing to ask beyond a simple “hello sweetie” scrawl in the sky] [Eleventh Doctor] “I can see its worth — but Alice is right! What’s so special about a lace shawl?” [River] “Ah, well, lace, you see, is the traditional gift for a thirteenth wedding anniversary…” [Eleventh Doctor] “Wedding anniversary? Whose wedding anniversary?” [River] “Spoilers…!” *winks* [Thirteenth Doctor, reminiscing] “I love River.”
HAPPY THIRTEENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TO THE DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG!
Sources: Diary of River Song: The Furies, Diary of River Song: The Lady in the Lake, The Day of the Moon, Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #33, The Wedding of River Song, The Big Bang, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Many Lives of Doctor Who: Without a Paddle, The Time of the Doctor, Forest of the Dead, Let's Kill Hitler, Diary of River Song: The Wife of River Song, Eleventh Doctor Year Two: Physician Heal Thyself, A Good Man Goes to War, Eleventh Doctor Chronicles: Broken Hearts, The Husbands of River Song, Doctor Who Confidential: When Time Froze
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swordmaid · 4 months
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i am wide awake thinking about that post canon jb au again when I should be sleeping …!!! such is the nature of the jbrainrot…
#the whole setting is jb hanging out in the rock post war#and tyrion became lord of the westerlands / the rock is his but he’s off doing stuff in kingslanding and jaime is just filling in for him#atm . but after tyrion comes back his original plan WAS he’ll get married to brienne right away and they can move back to tarth or be#travelling hedge knights together or whatever brienne wants to do he’s down for it. but the important thing is that he wants to stay with#her .. so he’s using the time they have together currently to court her bc she deserves that at least !!#so jaime goes off trying to court and woo brienne but she just thinks they’re hanging out bc they got relatively close in the war#so jaime being touchy feely isn’t anything new. jaime making innuendos and being kinda flirty isn’t anything new either#but this time he means it LOL he’s like I want to kiss you SO badly and brienne will be like lol silly jaime (:#I was also thinking they’d help rebuild lannisport just bc it’s a time for healing now and it would be good for the people to get to know#jaime and the lannisters in general bc of how they would just used to sit high above the rock looking down on everyone#but now jaime is like. actively helping and being known and being with the people rather than just being that absent distant lord#also he’s thinking he might as well try and foster some relationship with the commoners to his house bc it’s for tyrion anyway#so he’s off doing that and brienne is tagging along bc she does not want to go home yet#she wants to stay with him and she’s helping out as an excuse to stay a little longer but she doesn’t exactly want to leave him#but how do you tell someone that and ignore the big glaring part that she’s actually in love with him and the fact that they both survived#the war is getting her hopeful???? u want her to admit that?? like a normal person??? no..!!#so she’s just staying and helping out bc a) it’s the sensible thing to do b) so she can bask on the sun that is Jaime Lannister#for like a few more days. weeks. maybe a month bc the weather is soooo bad in the stormlands rn 🙄😳#anyway jb hanging out! and everything is going well and good but jaime is now getting popular w the people and he’s also looking quite#rugged and handsome post war now that he’s thirty flirty and thriving and he also has a new scar across his lip that makes his#smirks even more ! rogueish … ! and he looks quite nice with the greying hair 👀 so now there’s gossips around him#not to mention he’s single too and I think if you were one of the heroes who helped win the war they’ll forget the kingslaying#man with no honor business so lo and behold brienne eavesdrops a group of ladies bc she’s a chismosa at heart and they’re talking about a#potential marriage for a lord lannister (!!!) and there’s going to be a big tourney held in Kingslanding for it (!!!)#and brienne remembers jaime mentioning the ought to go to Kingslanding in the next few weeks (!!!) and now she’s remembering jaime IS a#lord though not theee lord of the westerlands STILL a lord from one of the seven houses and he’s single and very eligible for marriage rn#and now she’s realising everything is returning back the way it was before the war where society rules matters and she has her own role as#now the evenstar bc rip selwyn and jaime has his own role too and the court is a whole different battlefield#one that she isn’t equipped in and even though she had found some new confidence in herself bc killing a bunch of ice invisible zombies#with your own magic sword will do that for you she doesn’t think (and she’s being objective not negative) she stands a chance in THAT
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mossy-paws · 4 months
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Art dump (PHIGHTING)
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Starting strong with this. Thing that a friend requested I saw, do I have regrets? No. Will it forever haunt me because apparently she has a shrine that she will not tell me about? Yes (ROSA I SWEAR TO GOD PLEAAAAaaaaSE WHAT IS THE SHRINE)
ANNND these things! These were style experience at and I honestly had a lot of fun with them LMAO, I was wanting to play with a more anime/manga-esc art style and it was pretty much so win :3
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There’s also sword, this may or may not be a draft for mermaid au sword idk just maybe
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(It was for a Twitter thing by the way! Just a small simple doodle I did for fun)
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vegaseatsass · 2 months
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You know, these past two episodes I was thinking to myself, Su Yin is almost perfect in every way, simply the ideal devoted, protective, loyal, dedicated sworn brother, call him Da-ge indeed!!!, but my one piece of constructive criticism is that he needs to learn how to give real hugs - he does a lot of manful shoulder clasping, but Xiaobao is a shivering chihuahua desperately in need of cuddles and body heat, you gotta HUG THAT BOY - but now I see that Su Yin's hugs are simply reserved for his horrible little gremlin of an imperial cousinwife.
#myatb#myatb spoilers#meet you at the blossom#lol jinbao zhaocai and su yin are all canonically part of xiaobao's nuclear family...#and all of them get horrible boyfs of their very own!#no sibling rivalry needed! husband destroyers for all#(zhaocai i'm manifesting this for you offscreen dw you're still included)#shaoyu thinks he's in a palace drama and xiaobao is the lowly concubine he can trample all over to his indomitable empress#baby you're not empress yet. wait for emperor your cousin to marry you first... or i guess to become emperor yourself if that ever happens#anyway i am making a micro post instead of trying to capture all the things i've been loving about these episodes#but i REALLY REALLY LOVE THIS SHOW!!!#i hate when the episodes end! give me more right now!!!#jinbao is number one at serving!!! of course random men would immediately want to possess him - he gets it!!!!#and ep7 but xiaobao is obvi very preoccupied by his whump but relieved madam jin at least is still thinking of her daughter as family#and i appreciate that su yin despite being so obvi in love w/ xiaobao isn't actually interested in forcing him to not feel what he feels#for huaien. he just wants him to be well. will he be angry when xiaobao hops right back into this guy's arms in a few weeks? idk!#but for right now it's nice to see him nonjudgmentally assuring him he doesn't have to magically stop feeling things for this guy#oh and xiaobao like 'i will be good from now on. i will just sit depressed in my room.' OWWIE#and practicing looking cheerful for his mom and dad in the mirror. OWWIE OWWIE!!!#dear diary
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tennessoui · 5 months
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18) waking up with amnesia au pretty please! I was delighted with how many of the prompts you've already done, it was a really fun bingo!
Best friends sibling = band au
knocking on the wrong door = actually name of the fic
Nanny/single parent au = Nannykin
Etc etc etc!
hello hello this was sent january 10!! hope you still want some waking up with amnesia au! this just demonstrates how long i can hold onto a prompt i have every intention of completing
(from this prompt list) (& this is the waking up with amnesia au prompt fill i did a few years ago when i first reblogged that prompt list!)
(3.5k)
(warnings: angst but not incredibly sad. more like. here there lies some future manipulation/mind fuckery because of angst established in this ficlet but not resolved in this ficlet but would be in the future)
(also warning: vader)
It is somehow both the hardest and easiest part of the day, every time. 
It is easy to let his feet turn in the direction they beg to go during all his waking seconds. It is easy to allow them to lead the way. It feels as if a great and crushing weight has been lifted from his shoulders the moment that he sees the pillars standing sentry at the entrance of the Halls of Healing. It is so easy to give into his body’s desire to allow it to find its other half.
It is almost harder to stay away, to pretend to be the respectful and poised Jedi master he masquerades as during those long moments of the day that he is not by Anakin’s side.
But what is infinitely harder than journeying there or keeping his distance is arriving. Is what waits for him within the Halls.
“How is he today?” he asks the moment he sees a healer—it does not matter which one these days. They must all know him by now, know the series of questions he demands answers to.
This time, the man he finds is healer Ramak, at least, one of the primary specialists on Anakin’s case. Rarely can Obi-Wan corner him. Ramak is incredibly busy both within the Temple and outside of it. He has numerous priorities. 
Obi-Wan really only has one priority. Often this puts them at odds. 
“Ah,” Ramak says, adjusting his robes. “Master Kenobi, hello.”
“Yes, hello,” Obi-Wan says. And then, “How is he today?” In case Ramak has missed his question.
“He is much the same, Master Kenobi,” Ramak replies. “As he was yesterday.”
Obi-Wan swallows. The words get stuck in his throat for a moment and he has to force them up past his teeth. “What does…what has he remembered?”
Healer Ramak’s face slides from reluctantly indulgent to pitying. It would grate against Obi-Wan’s rather impressive sense of pride if he did not already know exactly how pitiful he is. 
“Memories are not stored within the mind chronologically, Master Kenobi,” Ramak says carefully. Obi-Wan has heard this before. Obi-Wan could recite this speech. 
Obi-Wan listens to it silently anyway. Perhaps this time, Ramak will find the correct combination of words to explain his loss to him in terms he can understand. “Uncovering them again is not simply a matter of starting from the beginning of his life and moving forwards. We cannot simply recover and present him with all of his memories from age nine, from age thirteen, to now.”
Obi-Wan can feel a muscle tick in his jaw and he crosses his arms. Another healer crosses behind him, jostles him in their hurry to get to another patient. Differing priorities. 
But Obi-Wan only has one.
“It is like…” Ramak trails off, thinking. “Picture the rain. What do you think of?” It is much too transparent, what Obi-Wan thinks of when he thinks of the rain. He thinks of Anakin as a youngling. The ashes of Qui-Gon’s body had not fully cooled before the skies of Naboo had broken open in a torrential downpour, and the boy, padawan braid that was both his and Obi-Wan’s newly weighing on his shoulder, had escaped from the palace in Theed, ran outside with arms raised up in wonder.
“When you think of rain, you do not recall your memories chronologically,” Ramak says kindly, as if he understands where Obi-Wan’s mind has gone. “That is to say, you do not immediately think of the first time you experienced it. Our minds store memories based on their significance to us, the meanings they hold for us, which makes mind-healing to this degree incredibly difficult. Not to mention, not only was Knight Skywalker stripped of his memories, tortured, and indoctrinated, he was held for several months. Long enough for new neural pathways to form, new connotations and memories to take the place of the ones he lost.”
“Master, please,” Obi-Wan says. When he holds up his hand to forestall the other man’s words, it is shaking slightly. “Please just tell me.”
Will he recognize me? 
Will he hate me?
Will another day go by where he does not know me?
“He has a long way to go yet,” Ramak says finally, lifting his hand to stroke over his beard. “His time as Vader left scars—”
“His time captured,” Obi-Wan interrupts. “He was a hostage.” Ramak looks at him. Anakin, kidnapped by the sith, without his memories, trained to be deadly and taught to Fall, was more than a hostage. They both know that. Everyone in the galaxy knows the dangers that Darth Vader represented to the Republic.
Very few know that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker. It had been a terrible surprise. It had been the sweetest sort of relief too, to find him at all.
“Yes,” Ramak finally allows. “His time as a hostage left innumerable scars, Obi-Wan. Even after he regains all his memories, he will have a long journey ahead of him.”
“How is he?” Obi-Wan repeats, even though it is rather rude to cut the healer off. “How is he today?”
Ramak hesitates for a moment and then another, and his Force signature tenses as if at war with itself. “He requested to see you,” he finally says. “We’re not sure that’s a good idea.”
Obi-Wan’s breath catches in his throat. The Jedi saved Anakin Skywalker from the Sith five weeks ago, and though Obi-Wan has spent each of those days trekking from his quarters to the Halls of Healing and back, accousting various healers and Council members alike, desperate for any information they can give him…he has not yet been able to sit beside Anakin. He has not been allowed to talk with him at all.
It is for the best. That is what he’s been told and that is what he must believe. It is for the best. Anakin does not remember him. He remembers the word master—he does not remember that he used to say the same word with respect. With affection. He does not remember Obi-Wan at all.
He remembers his master, Sidious. He remembers his master on Tatooine. He does not—Obi-Wan doesn’t understand why he cannot remember him. 
Anakin has never once asked to see him. 
“I want to see him,” Obi-Wan says immediately, turning towards the wing where they are keeping Anakin. 
“Master Kenobi, it is not a good idea,” Ramak says, but it does not matter what they think is a good idea. It is what Anakin wants and it has been so long since Obi-Wan has been something Anakin wants.
Something of what he’s feeling must flash across his face, because the healer sighs and rubs at his forehead as if he finds the whole ordeal incredibly trying. 
“I will not hurt him,” Obi-Wan says quickly, and Ramak shakes his head, dropping his arms to his sides. 
“That is not the concern, Master,” he replies, but his shoulders have slumped. His forehead is wrinkled, but his Force signature has relaxed. He has given in. Obi-Wan has won. “I—”
But Obi-Wan has won. And so he has already stepped away, intent now on seeing his padawan. He leaves the healer behind where he stands, pushing through the doors of the wing and finally—finally to Anakin’s room.
He’d been so volatile at first, when he was still Vader. The Jedi rescuing him probably felt more like being captured. Without his memories of the Order, of the Temple, of Obi-Wan, he’d Fallen so quickly as far as anyone knows. Sidious had taken him and twisted him and when he was found again, he’d fully believed in the Sith doctrine. He’d killed two Jedi before he was subdued.
So when he’d been brought into the Temple, into the Halls of Healing, they’d outfitted him with Force suppression cuffs. Given him his own room in order to protect the other patients.
Obi-Wan knows he still wears the Force bracelets and collar, but there’s knowing and then there’s seeing.
The seeing part takes his breath away. It looks so wrong, Anakin, his Anakin, wearing the cuffs and the collar. 
Anakin, his Anakin, with yellow eyes watching him intently from the moment he enters the room.
“Anakin,” he murmurs, a reflex. The sounds are punched out of him.
He is thinner. His hair is greasy. There are dark shadows under his eyes. The skin around the collar is red, rubbed raw. He looks a thousand times older. Guant and hollowed out as if the captivity and the Darkness has leached away all of his youthful energy.
“Master,” Anakin says reproachfully. And it sounds—it sounds so much like him, like Obi-Wan’s Anakin, that he has the rather ridiculous urge to cry. Master, master.
“How are you feeling?” Obi-Wan asks, though it is a useless sort of question. He isn’t sure what to do with his hands. What to do with his tongue. He suddenly cannot remember the last time he asked Anakin how he was feeling. It was never a phrase that was part of their lexicon—for so many years, they shared a training bond. Obi-Wan was able to ascertain his padawan’s emotions with a gentle Force touch across the planes of his mind. More often than not, he was telling Anakin to search his own feelings. He was not asking him to interpret them for Obi-Wan’s sake.
Now though, their bond is severed and Anakin does not recognize him as anything more than another Jedi, another man who he once called master, and Obi-Wan stands across the room from him and does not recognize him either, save for all the ways that he does.
“Surely they have been giving you updates,” Anakin murmurs. “I know you have visited every day.”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan says because he will not lie to Anakin. He doesn’t think he remembers how. It has been—so long. Since he has last seen him. It is all he can do to stay standing now. To keep a respectable distance between them. To not fall to his knees. To not stumble forward and take Anakin’s hand in his own.
“What have they told you?” Anakin asks, and he tilts his head slightly. His golden eyes are as disconcerting as they are beautiful. They’re his. They’re his eyes, set in his face, and Obi-Wan has missed that face for so long. For months. He’d thought he’d never see it again, and he is just now realizing that he has no defenses left against Anakin. None at all. The boy could ask him for anything and he would fight to the death to give it to him.
The Force is in flux in the air around them, bucking up, riled, in a way Obi-Wan usually interprets as danger. But the Force could be screaming a death knell and Obi-Wan, in this moment, would only be able to hear a sweet cry of wild joy.
Anakin, this is Anakin. This is his Anakin and he is here. Back—partially. Back, incompletely. But back. Obi-Wan…he’d stopped hoping he’d ever get him back.
Instead of answering his question, he presses the backs of his fingers against his mouth to try and stop their shaking. Every day he has walked here, accosted the healers, demanded to know the latest. And he has never once realized how incredibly difficult it would be to lay eyes on Anakin. How incredibly difficult it would be to maintain his composure, to hold himself in. 
Anakin’s eyes glow gold, but Obi-Wan’s eyes are that of a starving man. All he can see is honey.
“Come here, master,” Anakin says, reproachful. “Did you not miss me?”
The words move him forward where his own feet could not. “Of course I did, Anakin,” Obi-Wan whispers. Hoarse, too hoarse. Too trembling and old, but it has been so many months. He had thought him lost forever. Dead and gone and one with the Force, and for the first time in his life, that had given him no comfort.
Anakin holds out his mechno hand, palm up, fingers slightly crooked. He’d built them that way on purpose, Obi-Wan remembers. At fourteen, he’d broken his index and middle finger in a duel, bones shattering under the blow of another padawan’s sabor. A lucky hit, an unlucky outcome. Though they’d healed near perfect due to bacta, they’d always remained slightly bent out of place. When he lost his arm to Dooku five years later, he’d fiddled with the replacement until the mech digits tilted the same familiar direction.
Obi-Wan stares at them, caught up in the tide of the memory.
Had Vader ever looked down at his mechno hand and wondered about the imperfection? Had he thought to fix it once he had the time? Had he spared a thought for the black spots in his memory, the cavernous gaps in his past?
His fingers fall to rest against the sensors of the mech tips. They’re sensitive enough that he can see Anakin shiver at the touch. 
“Did you not miss me, master?” Anakin asks again, and his hand closes around Obi-Wan’s tightly, pulling him forward another few steps.
Obi-Wan nods, then shakes his head. Yes, he missed him. No, missing—missing is not a vast enough word. 
“You asked for me,” he hears himself say. “Do you—what do you….”
Do you remember me?
You must. You call me master. And you want me close.
But they pulled the memories of the word master from your mind days ago, and you hated me then. You did not want me near you. What has changed? What have you remembered?
“I wonder if they would treat any patient like this,” Anakin says. He uses his hold on Obi-Wan to pull him even closer, til his thighs brush the edge of the bed. “If it is the war that makes me special, if it’s my own power. Or if it’s you.”
Obi-Wan tenses. Him? He doesn’t—
“They’ve tried everything they can think of to trigger my memories of you, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Anakin says. When Obi-Wan tries to move back, take a step away, find the air in the room to breathe, Anakin tightens his hold and pulls him forward until the only option is to either topple over onto his padawan’s chest or sit on the bed at his hip.
He sits.
“They debated for many days, you know,” Anakin says. His mech thumb begins to sweep over the inside of Obi-Wan’s wrist. “If they should trigger the connections my mind has made to the word master. It’s a weighted word for Anakin Skywalker. Surely you know that.”
“I do,” Obi-Wan says carefully. When he tries to breathe, he can only do so shallowly as if his entire chest has shrunk to half its capacity.
“He was enslaved before he was a padawan,” Anakin explains as though Obi-Wan has not spoken at all. Maybe he hasn’t. For the past several months he has not been able to speak to Anakin aloud, could only talk with him in his mind—could never hear a reply. Perhaps he has forgotten how. “They were worried that after ten years studying under you, after two years fighting side by side with you, my strongest connotations to the word master would still be to slavery.”
Anakin ducks his head slightly, tilts it to the side to give Obi-Wan a small, private grin, as if the healers’ concerns are so unfounded that they are amusing. As if the concept that something could outweigh Obi-Wan’s importance to Anakin is so foreign and preposterous that it’s funny.
His smile knocks into Obi-Wan’s chest like a punch to the solar plexus.
“But they decided to risk it,” Anakin says. His voice is light as a feather. Airy and unconcerned. “Perhaps they should have started with smaller things. A light saber. A braid. A pear. A planet. But they wanted to re-establish my firmest conneciton to the Light as quickly as possible. And they thought that was you.”
Obi-Wan holds his breath, eyes leaping from their connected hands to the yellow of Anakin’s eyes. He has still fallen. He has not been healed. He is still—he is still—
“So they gave me back my masters,” Anakin pitches his voice low. “All of them, though I suppose I remember Sidious well enough. But they gave me back the Toydarian. And they gave me you.”
“They said you did not want to see me,” Obi-Wan whispers. “Why, Anakin, if you remember, why would you—”
“Because I hate you,” his padawan says as if it’s the easiest thing in the galaxy. “Because they could give me back Master Kenobi, but wherever Anakin Skywalker kept his love for you, it was not in your title. He hated your title.”
Obi-Wan flinches back so violently that his forearm slips from Anakin’s grasp. Before he can move from the bed completely though, his padawan’s hand lashes out and curls around the fabric of his tunics. 
“No,” Obi-Wan says because he must deny this—he cannot stand to hear it and not deny it. No, Anakin—there was love there, in the way he pronounced the word master. The way he looked at Obi-Wan: admiration shining in his eyes when he was younger, cooling off over the years into acceptance and affection. They had their arguments. They had their—misunderstandings, but Anakin did not resent him for his role in his life as his old teacher. His master. “You’re wrong.”
“He hated it more than he hated his actual slave master,” Anakin murmurs. Lightly, airily. As if his words are not landing devastating blows on all of Obi-Wan’s softest spots. “Do you know why?” “I don’t believe you,” Obi-Wan whispers because he doesn’t because he can’t. Because he’d have known. Because this is Anakin, this is his Anakin, but there are still cavernous dark spots and gaps in his mind. This is not entirely his Anakin. He is still missing things. Thousands upon thousands of memories and moments and learned contexts and—
“I think you know why,” Anakin says as if he has not spoken. Funny, as Obi-Wan had thought he was screaming.
“I assure you I do not,” he snaps, spitting the words out as quickly as he can so that his voice cannot break between the syllables.
“Because Anakin Skywalker believed til the day he died that if you had not been his master, you would have allowed him to kiss you. To take you. To be taken by you. Don’t you remember, Master Kenobi?” Obi-Wan tears himself away from the bed, from the boy in it. Just a boy. Not a man. Not when he was seventeen and drunk for the first time, slinging his arms around Obi-Wan’s neck and pressing his face into his chest, whining and begging and pleading—and not when he was eighteen either, bold and staring at Obi-Wan's lips, not when he was nineteen, on the verge of his Knighting ceremony and demanding to be given into.
Just a boy, just his boy. But never—never anything else. 
“Like I said,” Anakin but not Anakin murmurs. Anakin, but Vader too. “Wherever Anakin Skywalker kept his love for you, they have not yet been able to find it in my mind. I can only assume he loved you at all.”
Obi-Wan flicks his eyes over the familiar face, the beloved face. The stranger’s face. If it were anyone else sitting before him, he’d have a retort already on his tongue. He’d have raised his shields, gone on the offensive. There are few people left in the galaxy that can land a blow on him, and many have tried.
But this is not anyone. This is Anakin. This is his Anakin and this is something for which he has no defenses prepared.
“How ashamed did you make him feel for loving you, master?” Vader asks, tilting his head in cruel curiosity. “That he compressed all of it into something so small that a whole Temple of healers have been unable to find it?”
“Don’t call me that,” Obi-Wan snaps and this time he does not get the words off his tongue quick enough. His voice breaks in the middle of the demand, ribs cracking and parting to reveal the heart of him. “Not if—” not if you do not know what it means for him. For me. For us.
“Why not?” Vader says, and he raises his flesh hand to tuck a piece of greasy hair behind his head before allowing his fingers to fall to rest against his collarbone, ghosting against the Force suppression collar around his neck as if it’s a diamond encrusted necklace. “After all, am I not wearing your chains, master?”
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bmpmp3 · 19 days
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avanna time. avanna time.
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desultory-novice · 2 months
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Apologies AU - Good Ending Drop
Hey, everyone. It was my goal to finish Apologies in tandem with the Tournament, but for health reasons, I won't be able to as I planned. Because I tied the story to the tournament and don't feel like untangling it again and making everyone wait more, I'm going to give you all the ending spoilers, as I promised I would if I became unable to finish the story.
What I'm about to describe is THE Good Ending. The True Ending I had planned out almost from the beginning!
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In the main-verse...
Susie, who sees too much of herself in Adeleine, decides to take matters into her own hands to bring the girl's older brother back.
She takes the vial of Dark Matter Swordsman DNA that was harvested from King Dedede. Meta Knight catches up with her and argues against it. It's foolish, dangerous, and liable to be nothing but painful to all parties involved. But Susie anticipated interference and asked Zan to bodyguard her. When Zan arrives (late) to the lab, the argument has caused the vial to begin to react to all the negativity in the room. Zan recognizes its contents as Dark Matter and insists on calling Lord Hyness, who in his own quirky way, analyzes their problem and suggests that while the contents are too weak to survive on their own, a resurrection could be possible, using Void's powers to mimic a hive queen, supplying whatever creature emerges the power to survive on Popstar without burning up into ash...
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In the tourney-verse...
White-Haired Noir is at peace with his life and has come to accept the death of his precious little sister many years ago, but...a part of him still wishes to make Adeleine happy.
Using his fairy-born dimension sight, he discovers an Alternate Noir who is 98% percent compatible with main-verse Noir. This is the Purgatory!Noir from the Re_Birthday post. And he drags this unstable, utterly clueless Noir out of this peaceful void without his permission and secretly "volunteers"  the massively confused, un-alive but un-dead teen boy for the Kirby OC Tournament.
It is White-Haired Noir that is the "good" voice on phone and in Noir's head, encouraging rationality. His goal? Get Noir some friends. Get him to face up to/open up to people about his past. And get him caring about his life enough that he wants to live...! 
White-Haired Noir has seen what the main-verse Star Allies are attempting and knows that the odds of them actually bringing "Noir" back instead of just an emotionless monster are low without a compatible "Noir Soul" (haha) to inhabit the new vessel.
Over the course of many in-tourney events, including Noir learning to have faith in the sibling bonds he built with Gooey despite being Dark Matter at the time, learning to separate himself and Adeleine as individuals instead of clinging to her to his own neglect, privately opening up to King Dedede, who put the pieces together post-possession, about some awful stuff Noir put up with for years in secret from Raquelle's father (who privately loathed Neichel AND her kids and took it out on Noir) to "pay" for Adeleine's good life...
And lastly, using the power of wishes to interrogate if THIS Noir's true wish is to die and be free, to have never been born, to have had a normal "perfect" life, or if he simply wishes for a second chance to be with those he cares about... White-Haired Noir determines that Tourney!Noir is ready and reveals his plan to him. Noir confesses to him that he really does want to live and be with his family again and offers up his stronger soul for Susie and the gang's vessel.
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Back in the main-verse...
The experiment is a success! They have brought, well, something back. It is not quite like Dark Matter Swordsman in form, nor is it exactly a human boy. It looks a little bit like a spiky haired-Gooey.
After some tense questioning of the emotionless, memoryless, unresponsive goo, it...suddenly seems to awaken. With the voice of a deeply shaken and scared young boy, the violet-eyed blob questions the mad scientist, cultists, and masked man surrounding him... Where the hell is he? And where are his little brother and sister?
Meta Knight welcomes Noir back to the world of the living.
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Later, after Noir has time to dress himself in an appropriate scarf, Adeleine and Gooey are brought in and it is a happy and tear-filled reunion all around as Noir confirms that, while this form is strange, it's not dangerous and he's not in pain. He is then re-introduced to King Dedede, whereupon it's revealed that even though Noir likes him, he's still a snarky teen punk at heart, as he sasses the king horribly. (Dedede has gained another kid, but at what cost? XD)
...And that's it.
That's the ending to Apologies I've held onto for nearly a year.
For reading through all that, here is a short comic I drew a while back of the reunited family having a snowball fight in White Wafers.
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(Not to unnecessarily over-explain the story but because the comic is a little vague, I have to tell you that no, Noir does not ever return to human after his revival. I meant it when I wrote in several places that their parting on Shiver Star was the last time they'd see each other "...in this form." This is merely meant to depict a moment in which Adeleine, seeing her brother alive and smiling and laughing and having real fun for the first time in so long, is able to imagine his old self smiling and is at peace that her brother is finally free from the hurt and misery he bore up with for so long.)
(...And yes, he has a long, silly tongue just like Gooey. Which is why he hides all but his eyes behind the scarf. Gotta keep up that cool older brother look even as a little goo creature! While Noir can't become human - frankly, he doesn't miss having a human body, given the stuff in his adolescence and being over-stressed, underfed, under-slept and just overall sick all the time in his later teens - he does eventually acquire the ability to shift into his old "Swordsman" form for short bursts of time.)
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(Lastly, you might wonder how I could have had this exact ending in mind from almost the beginning when so much of it is tied up in recent posts like the tourney? ...Well, originally what was going to happen to allow Noir to be properly resurrected into the Dark Matter Goo body is that the Dream Rod from Star Allies was going to appear in response to a grieving Adeleine's wishes to see her brother again, bringing Noir-as-Swordsman back. At least for a LITTLE while, as it would be revealed that with Zero dead, Noir, who was entirely composed of Dark Matter at this point, couldn't survive on Popstar. Every moment he was there, his body was burning.)
(Still, he lasts long enough to have one final talk with Adeleine that helps heal him from the torturous events of DL 3 - in which we learn a highly disappointed Zero drove Noir to the absolute breaking point, shattering his mind and his newly regained soul. Adeleine also tells Noir she has finally realized everything he did for her during their childhood and apologizes to him for not seeing it before. With dawn on the horizon, Noir asks to look over Adeleine's sketchbooks with her before the end... He dies one last time, peacefully, while Adeleine finally gets to properly mourn him.)
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(Then, all the "main-verse" sections proceed to happen as stated above!)
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(...Okay, okay. One last thing. There was also an alternate ending planned where Magolor, taking advantage of the fact that Merry Magoland was built on a nexus point, finds a way to reunite Adeleine and White-Haired Noir - still a teen in this version - using his theme park as a union point, as special birthday gift for Adeleine.)
(I was kinda fond of this one for reuniting the timelines, but it opened up a lot of questions such as, if Magolor made it so that Noir and Adeleine from two different dimensions can see each other as long as they're both in Magoland, could others from the WH Noir-verse see the main-verse this way? It invited too many questions, so that's why I scrapped that one and just let White-Haired Noir grow up instead.)
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#Apologies AU#Noir Fontaine#PS: going to be on posting hiatus for a bit#To make a long story short this is the fourth(?) time in a year I've had serious wrist pain. And it's BOTH wrists this time ._.#Possibly carpal or radial tunnel - which I don't want - so I'm cutting out all drawing and non-work writing for a few weeks#But I'm tired of the same ol' song and dance of putting the happy resolution off again and again and again...#...and I'm worried about getting distracted playing catch-up when I come back so ...You get the ending NOW!!#(Want to keep this post clean so all you get about the background stuff in Noir's adolescence is heavy context clues)#(Speaking of background things - after 02's destruction Raquelle's damaged soul is left wandering the void...#...she is salvaged by Drawcia who is herself part Dark Matter and has been 'repainting' discarded Dark Matter shells)#(Mistaking Raquelle's memories of '...girl...painting' (Adeleine before she was attacked) she assumes she is an artist and...#...makes her a brand new body out of the remaining dark matter and adopts her under the name (yes) 'Vividria.')#(Vividria and Ado meet in Star Allies and though Vivi has no memories they immediately become super close once more!)#(Adeleine doesn't know it's her but Noir will eventually put two and two together - though he doesn't press the issue)#(So yeah! Things basically end happily for most everyone!)#(As for Neichel and Rim they probably ARE watching from heaven - sorry Noir!! - and happy to see their kids happy!)
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