#Kel does Tumblr

[keldae]

I posted 420 times in 2022

That's 6 more posts than 2021!

66 posts created (16%)

354 posts reblogged (84%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@storyknitter

@keldae

@greyias

@alexsrandomramblings

@starknstarwars

I tagged 336 of my posts in 2022

Only 20% of my posts had no tags

#swtor - 61 posts

#theron/xaja - 24 posts

#xaja - 19 posts

#korin - 14 posts

#i love this - 13 posts

#thanks for the ask! - 12 posts

#korin/kira - 12 posts

#theron shan - 11 posts

#sorand - 10 posts

#reanden - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 113 characters

#i stg if you find a fourth platform i will publicly put your name on blast for all to see and know the creepiness

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

For Theron and Xaja: ��  keep your eyes on me—  just focus on me.  we’re gonna be okay.  ❞

The first thing Xaja was aware of was pain. Her head throbbed like a bantha was trodding all over it, and the rest of her body didn’t feel much better. She was sitting vaguely upright, she realized as she started to take stock of her battered self, trying to remember what had happened. One moment she and Theron had been walking down an alley on Nar Shaddaa – in hindsight, not their wisest move – and the next, they’d been swarmed by gangsters, too many for a pair of blasters and two lightsabers to deal with. Xaja groaned and tried to move her hands enough to wipe what felt like dried blood away from her forehead, and immediately felt panic rising in her chest when she realized her hands were bound behind her. “Shit,” she whispered, fighting down a whimper of pure terror.

There was a grunt from a few feet away, and then what felt like a booted foot nudged her shin. “Xaja?” Oh, thank the stars, Theron was here, and he sounded relatively okay. “You with me, babe?”

Xaja forced her eyes open, squinting in the dim light of the makeshift holding cell that she and Theron currently occupied. Slouched on the other side of the cell, his own arms behind his back, Theron looked awful – his hair was messy, jacket slashed up, and dried blood stained both his nose and his temple around his implants. When Xaja focused, she could see one of his shoulders looked to be painfully dislocated.

The worried expression around his eyes seemed to ease slightly when he realized Xaja was conscious. “Talk to me, Xaja,” he coaxed, making an effort to keep his voice level and relatively relaxed. “You okay? They hurt you anywhere?”

“... Not as bad as you,” Xaja finally said, swallowing back her fear as she gingerly tried to straighten her back against the wall. Pain and fear waged a war in her mind for dominance – for a moment, fear won out as she tried to pull her hands free of the binder cuffs holding her wrists immobile. The metal devices cut cruelly into her skin, tight enough that she didn’t have a hope of wiggling free. “Where… where are we?”

“As far as I can tell, still on-world,” Theron quietly said, frowning. “I don’t think these are Zakuulans who caught us – there’s too many aliens in the crew. Must be just ordinary slavers.”

“Could be taking Zakuulan credits if they figured out who we are,” Xaja finally answered, squirming despite the pain it caused her. “It… it wouldn’t take much for them to find Arcann’s bounty posting.”

Theron scowled. “All hyperlanes do wind up leading back to Zakuul,” he grumbled. “Can you sense anything outside this cell?”

Xaja closed her eyes and tried to reach out with the Force. A second later, her eyes flew open again as panic choked her voice into nothingness. Now she could register the collar on the back of her neck, suppressing her connection to the Force. And most Force-inhibitors could double as shock collars, in her painful past experience… She couldn’t stop the terrified whimper at the memory of her previous capture on Bandomeer, only a few short months ago.

“Xaja?” Theron sounded worried. “What’s wrong? Is it that bad out there?”

“I can’t… I can’t tell,” Xaja finally gasped out, fighting back a terrified sob. “They put a collar on me. I can’t… it’s blocking me…”

Theron swore in a language Xaja didn’t recognize. “Hate it when they’re smart enough to use Force-inhibitors. It’s okay, we’ll… we’ll figure something out.” He paused for a moment. “Xaja? Look at me, baby. Please?”

Xaja forced herself to register looking in Theron’s direction, panicked jade eyes briefly meeting worried amber before squeezing closed again. Every moment of Xaja’s lifetime of Jedi training seemed to desert her, leaving her panicking and vulnerable, in this dark cell, with her wounded boyfriend bound across from her, and with her access to the Force cut away from her. A little voice inside her head insisted that she needed to focus, to get her composure together and figure out a plan of escape, like any competent Jedi Master could do – but how, when she herself was bound so painfully tight, and when she couldn’t sense the Force at all?

“Come on, Xaja. Keep your eyes on me – just focus on me,” Theron’s voice cut through the cacophony of panicked noises in Xaja’s mind. “We’re gonna be okay.” She forced her eyes open again, frantically seeking out Theron’s gaze in the dim light. “There’s my girl,” Theron murmured in approval. “There’s my brave girl. Stay with me, okay? Just focus on me. Sorand and Lana know where we were, and Korin or your dad have probably already sliced into this sector’s security cameras to find out where we were taken. They’ll come for us. Just please don’t panic, babe. I know you hate being tied up and Force-blind, but stay with me. We’ll be okay.”

“I’m…” Xaja shakily inhaled. “I’m glad you’re confident,” she finally managed to whisper.

Theron seemingly forced himself to chuckle. “Hey, I’ve gotten into, and out of, way worse situations than this,” he said, shrugging his good shoulder. “If my arm wasn’t dislocated, I’d probably already be out of these binders and working on getting you free. Hell, we’d probably be halfway to fighting our way out of here already.”

But his arm was dislocated, and instead of freeing himself, Theron was occupied trying to calm a panicking Jedi Master who, frankly, should not have been so panicked in the first place at being bound, and in this dark, cramped cell, and cut off from the Force… Shame managed to cut through the panic enough for Xaja to take a shuddery breath, trying to force herself to focus. “We need a plan,” she finally said.

“Well, good news is, I’ve got a rough idea for a plan already, in case Sorand and Lana decide to take their sweet time in getting here,” Theron announced. "I have a lockpick in the top of my boot. I just need to… get it…" He grunted in pain as he tried to squirm his way to the hidden lockpick.

"And it's on your right side, isn't it?" Xaja asked, frowning in concern. "Your hurt side?"

"Naturally," Theron confirmed with a hiss of pain. "Fuck, that hurts!" He struggled for a minute longer, then groaned and sagged, seemingly taking a minute to focus on his breathing. "Okay… new plan. Can you dislocate your thumbs?"

"I…" Xaja frowned. "I can't say I've ever tried."

"Okay." Theron groaned and straightened back up as much as he could. "This was so not how I wanted you to learn how to escape binders. Do you have any give on your wrists at all?"

"Not really," Xaja admitted, trying to rotate her wrists as best she could. "They're too tight. I can't even rotate my wrists without it chafing."

Theron muttered a colourful-sounding expletive. "Dammit. It'll be really hard to talk you through it when you can't move much." He sighed. "Okay. Hang tight, I'll… figure something out."

"You're injured pretty badly, and I'm cut off from the Force and fending off a panic attack…" Xaja bitterly laughed. "We're kriffed."

"Not yet, we're not," Theron quickly said. "Besides, being the pessimist is my job. We'll be fine–"

The door to the cell slid open, and Xaja felt herself pale when she saw the four gang members standing in the doorway. Two of them wielded blasters, the third had a wicked-looking vibroknife, and the fourth had what looked suspiciously like the controls for her shock collar in his hand.

"... Never mind, you were right," Theron muttered.

—---------------------

See the full post

20 notes - Posted August 11, 2022

#4

Fall From Grace

The most important debate of Xaja's life, and she wasn't permitted to be involved. In the past, she might have railed against that restriction, loudly voiced her complaints -- but that had been before she'd fallen and had the weight of the galaxy thrust on her narrow shoulders.

Right now, Scourge and Doc were both in a closed meeting with the Jedi Council, arguing opposite viewpoints. Xaja knew Doc wanted her to go on leave and recover from her ordeal, while Scourge insisted that Xaja had no time before the Emperor enacted his terrible plans. Why me? she silently asked her hands as she waited outside the Council chambers, watching her pale fingers tremble.

If she thought too hard about it, she could still see lightning racing down her arm and off her fingers, arcing to whoever she'd been told to torture. No, no, don't think about it, she tried to tell herself as she squeezed her eyes closed. I'm not a Sith. I didn't fall, I was dragged down, and Master Orgus helped me crawl back up. I'm not a Sith… I can't be a Sith… 

She shuddered. She knew Master Kaedan at least considered her to be a fallen Jedi, little better than a Sith, and would probably vote to expel her from the Order that she had called home. Who else would agree with him? Maybe the Council would let her stay for healing before banishing her to the galaxy at large and eliminating a monster from the Order's ranks. That would be a small mercy, Xaja thought. And more than you deserve. Didn't you enjoy causing pain? Don't you want to track down the Sith who hurt you and make them hurt just as badly? That was a dark thought, but not an inaccurate one. Xaja flinched from her own dark mind and tried to focus on the Code. "There is no emotion, there is peace…" she whispered. "There is no emotion, there is peace… peace is a lie, there is only--" No! She flinched and tried desperately to banish the Sith Code from her mind. "There is no ignorance, there is knowledge…"

Hurried footsteps didn't make her look up, even when the footsteps were approaching her. She kept her eyes closed, trying to make herself unnoticeable, not wanting to see more judging looks or hear the whispers from the other Jedi on Tython -- the real Jedi, the ones who hadn't fallen and done terrible things at the Emperor’s bidding.

Then a pair of large, battle-roughened hands settled on Xaja's own fingers and gently squeezed, ignoring how she flinched and tried to pull back before she could hurt their owner. "Hey, short stuff," came a too-gentle voice from over Xaja's head. "You with me?"

Xaja opened her eyes, and immediately looked away from Jakar’s worried look. His concern made her heart hurt. She had to look as awful as she felt, if he wasn't teasing her like normal. "I feel like I'm in a nightmare I can't get out of," she confessed before she could stop herself. 

Jakar squeezed her hands again. "I came as soon as I heard you'd made it back alive," he said. "We were worried about you, Xaja. Are you… no, dumb question, you're not okay."

Xaja shook her head in agreement with her oldest friend's diagnosis. "I'm a monster," she whispered. "They're arguing over my fate." She gestured with her head to the Council chamber door.

"You are not a monster," Jakar firmly insisted. "You're my adopted little sister who just escaped from months as an Imperial POW. Whatever happened to you there, you're here now, and safe. They can't get at you here." He squeezed her fingers again, hard enough to make Xaja look back up. "I know you too well, Xaj. You are not a monster, no matter what they tried to tell you. The Council knows this too."

Do you know me as well as you think? Do you know what evil things I'm capable of? How much pain and suffering I can inflict? Xaja opened her mouth, then looked away from Jakar, shame making her eyes burn with unshed tears. "They made me do terrible things… they made me hurt people…" A tear escaped her eye before she could blink it away. "... They cut my hair," she finally whispered, her tone plaintive. Something stupid to be so upset about, when it was just hair… hair that had been to her waist, long and luxurious, before the Sith hacked it off to barely brush her shoulders.

"I see this," Jakar acknowledged. "It'll grow back, I promise." One of his hands left hers to run his fingers through the shorn locks. "It'll take time to get to where it used to be, but it'll get there. As far as everything else..." He sighed. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of this. And you don't deserve to be hurt for what they made you do while they were trying to break you."

Xaja just shuddered and looked down at her hands, unable to share in Jakar’s optimism. How could she tell her oldest friend that the Sith had broken her, and only Master Orgus' intervention had brought her back? "I hate this," she finally whispered.

"I know you do. And I hate that you had to go through everything that you did." Jakar gave her hands an upward tug. "C'mon. We're going to Corellia so Essi can get her hands on you, and so you have a chance to recover from--"

"I'm afraid that won't be an option, Master Forseti," interrupted Master Bakarn's voice. Xaja jumped as she looked up -- the Council had ended their session, and nobody looked happy. "Knight Taerich is back on active duty as of now."

"Against my recommendation," Doc muttered in a tone that was clearly intended to be heard by everyone present. "I'm still not clearing her for active duty."

"The needs of the galaxy outweigh the opinion of one biased doctor," Scourge dismissively said. "She's the only one who can stop the Emperor before he destroys us all."

Jakar shot back to his feet, protective fury radiating from him in the Force. "Are you insane?" he demanded. "Stop the Emperor himself? When she can barely function as it is?"

"She can still wield her lightsabers," Scourge shrugged. "She's combat ready. And would you rather have her go at the Empire now, while the memory of her wounds are still fresh, or wait until the memory is cold and old?"

Jakar opened his mouth to tell Scourge exactly what he thought, immediate presence of the Jedi Council be damned, but Xaja set her hand on his arm as she stood up. "Jakar, it's okay," she quietly said, trying to convince herself as much as him. "I'm okay enough for duty. And someone has to… to stop him." And I need to atone for what I've done. What better way to seek atonement?

"You are not okay," Jakar protested. "Masters, sending a recently-traumatized Jedi out on a suicide mission is cruelty, and asking for a disaster!"

"We understand your worries about Knight Taerich," Master Kiwiiks finally said, her voice low and calming. "But she does have the best chances of being able to strike at the Empire, and at locating the rest of the missing strike team. If the Emperor’s Wrath was willing to defect based off a vision of her, then we need to take that into consideration."

"And before you ask, you can't lead the Rift Alliance to do this task in her stead," Master Bakarn added. "The Children of the Emperor are a serious threat, and one that only you can deal with, Master Forseti. Knight Taerich simply isn't ready for that."

"No, but she's ready to go charging off and fight the blasted Emperor himself?!"

"Be mindful of your emotions, Knight Forseti," Master Kaedan interjected. "Corellian though you may be, you still need control of your own feelings. Your fear for your friend is blinding you to the needs of the galaxy."

Xaja looked away from Jakar’s furiously flashing eyes and looked for Master Shan in the group, who had been quiet so far in this argument. "I can have my ship refueled and ready to go shortly," she quietly said, and tried to not flinch when she saw the sadness in Master Shan's eyes, or heard Doc's frustrated sigh.

"Whatever support we can give you while you're on your mission, you'll have it," Master Shan finally said. "May the Force be with you, Xaja." She was definitely worried if she was using Xaja's first name and not a more formal tone of address.

It could start being with me any minute now, Xaja thought, but didn't voice that out loud. She just bowed to the Council and turned to Doc, who looked equal parts worried and pissed off. "Can you and Scourge get the Serenity ready to go?"

"Against my better judgment," Doc finally said. "Bloody Jedi," he muttered as he left, with a sidelong glare at the assembled Council. Scourge followed in his wake, uncaring about the angry doctor he was following, or the stares he got from the Jedi in the Temple.

See the full post

28 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

#3

So my roleplaying buddy Jonal and I went in on a commission from Danpur (on the Artists and Clients website, according to Jonal!), featuring our respective main characters in one of the sketchier areas of Coruscant during a story we wrote. We just got the finished art today, and I LOVE IT.

Xaja is mine, Jonal Bol'garra is the Mando who belongs to my buddy. And the amazing artwork is Danpur, who doesn't have a Tumblr, but his Twitter handle (for those still using the Other Hellsite) is @danpurnm.

(Ask nicely, and I'll share the story with you lovelies too. 😉)

32 notes - Posted December 9, 2022

#2

Common Interests

Tau was usually more strict with punctuality, Arn had come to realize over the course of his apprenticeship to her. She was notorious for being early for everything -- training, meditation, meetings with Master Gnost-Dural. And she expected nothing less than punctuality for her Padawan. But apparently meetings with Master Xaja were known to run for longer than expected -- especially where Lord Beniko and a stack of datapads were involved. Odessen's residents had gotten used to it over the past few years of the Alliance. Arn obviously hadn't.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the metal wall of the Odessen base, basking in the warm sunlight and trying to summon the patience that Jedi were legendary for. It wasn't nearly as easy as his old masters had made it out to be. Tau had been in that meeting for over an hour already. Arn was in his twenties, certainly not a child anymore – but that didn’t stop him from wanting to groan at how bored he was.

A cough from somewhere to his left drew Arn's attention from his own boredom back to his surroundings. "Excuse me -- is the Commander still in her meeting with Master Idair?" asked a low baritone voice.

"Yes, she--" Arn cracked an eye open and nearly squawked in alarm when he recognized the human man addressing him. If being around Sith (or ex-Sith, in Darth Imperius's case) made him anxious, being around the former Emperor of Zakuul himself was terrifying. His voice cracked with his alarm -- he had to swallow hard before he made even more a fool of himself. "Yes, they're, uh, still in their meeting."

Ex-Emperor Arcann, Tyrant of Zakuul and conqueror of the galaxy, nodded and politely stepped back from Arn. It was one thing to know in the abstract that Master Xaja had her old nemesis working for her, and quite another thing entirely to have him standing only a metre or so away! "You are another one of the Jedi that came from the Republic with Master Idair?"

"Er, uh, yes. Arn Peralun, Jedi Padawan. Tau -- er, Master Idair is my Master." It never hurt to be polite with former tyrants, especially when said former tyrants were powerful enough with the Force that Arn could all but feel it radiating from the other man, strong enough to make Tau look almost Force-blind in comparison.

"A pleasure to meet you, Arn Peralun," Arcann's voice rumbled. “I am Arcann -- although you probably already knew that.” He shifted his feet, looking as awkward as Arn felt -- but that was impossible. Why would someone as powerful as him ever feel awkward and unsure? "May I wait with you? I have some reports for the Comma -- for Master Taerich to see."

"Uhh…" Every instinct of Arn's wanted to tell the Zakuulan man to kriff off, or better yet, to run like hell to the opposite end of the base. But what came out of his mouth was "Yeah, sure, go ahead."

Arcann nodded his thanks and moved to stand a little further from Arn while he waited. His hands clasped a datapad in front of him -- one of those hands, Arn realized, was a cybernetic prosthetic. So the rumors concerning that, at least, were true. I wonder if his arm used to really be a Skytrooper limb? He couldn't stop himself from curiously looking over and eyeing the other man's left hand, just visible under the white sleeve covering his arm.

Wait, you're gonna make it weird. He sheepishly glanced up to Arcann's face, in time to see the former Emperor quickly look away from him, ears flushing red, much to Arn's surprise. Was he… checking out my own prosthetics? Had to be, unless he was eyeing up a Jedi Padawan for a fight. But would he pick a fight right here in the middle of the base?

"Dakot Seven," he finally said, making Arcann start in surprise. "My old Master and I were escorting refugees and got hit by artillery fire. He died, but I survived. More or less. Is that what you were wondering?"

Arcann hesitated, then nodded. "I am sorry," he rumbled. "You must get a lot of people staring at your cybernetics."

Arn forced himself to shrug. "So do you, probably." Between the scars on the other man's face, the cybernetic hand, and the notorious reputation, Arcann must not be able to go anywhere in the galaxy without being gawked at.

Arcann nodded in confirmation. "Korriban," he murmured. "I got in the way of a grenade." He ruefully chuckled. "There's very little that hurts as much as a field fitting for a prosthetic."

Arn winced in sympathy. "I can imagine. Dakot Seven, where I was… they don't use kolto, so it was cybernetics to fix everything. I mean, it saved my life, so…"

"That is definitely the important thing," Arcann agreed. "Zakuul didn't have kolto at all, although even if they had, it wouldn't have made a difference for me. That grenade took everything off in one blow."

"Ouch."

"I would say you have no idea, but you're probably the only person in this base who does." 

Arn nodded, then decided to indulge his curiosity. "So if they had to do a field fitting for your arm, was it a Skytrooper arm, or…?"

"The original one was," Arcann nodded. "I lost that one in a fight with Master Taerich some years ago. This one was made custom for me, after she finished beating sense into me." He rolled his sleeve up as much as he could to show off the gleaming black metal. "Doctor Oggurobb and his team are very good at what they do."

Suppressing his glee at finally knowing that Emperor Arcann had once had a Skytrooper arm, Arn leaned over to inspect the other man's prosthetic, briefly forgetting his fear. "They did good work," he agreed. “Maybe I should talk to him about upgrades for my own prosthetics.”

Arcann nodded his agreement, then gave Arn's cybernetic torso a critical look. "Yours look like they wouldn't need upgrades for some time though. The people of Dakot Seven know their cybernetics well, it seems."

"Well, when you can't use kolto due to genetic incompatibility, I guess you get good at cybernetics pretty fast," Arn shrugged. "Worked out for me, anyway. Just wish they'd had a kolto tank for offworlders when…"

"I don't blame you," Arcann quietly said. "Your wounds were earned with honour, though. Mine… weren't."

An awkward silence fell for a moment before Arn forced himself to chuckle. "Hey, you got those fighting Imps on Korriban. Coming from a Jedi, that's not bad." He suddenly paled and quickly looked around for either Lord Beniko or Darth Imperius. "Just don't tell anyone I said that."

A grin showed itself on Arcann's face. "Your secret is safe with me," he promised with a wink of his good eye. "If you would permit a question?"

"Yeah, sure." Having the former Emperor of Zakuul ask permission for a question was definitely not something that Arn had expected. But then, he also hadn't expected Arcann to be so quiet and awkward, or polite.

"I would be terrified at the idea of doing maintenance on life support cybernetics," Arcann admitted. "Doing maintenance on my arm is bad enough. When yours take damage or need maintenance done, how do you do it?"

"Honestly? It hasn't really come up much. My cybernetics are pretty tough," Arn proudly said. "If anything, it's my eye that gives me more of a headache. Agent Shan and Cipher Nine both said they'd help me with upgrades for that, though." He glanced down at his abdomen for a second. "If these did get damaged… I guess I'd just have to hope for a medcentre where the medics know how to deal with prosthetics. Or hope I'm near here, or Dakot Seven."

See the full post

56 notes - Posted February 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

GUYS

THIS JUST HAPPENED AND I'M STILL FANGIRLING OVER IT

61 notes - Posted April 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[that-seems-stupid-lets-do-it]

Welcome to EMPTY SEKAI. You have been living here for as long as you can remember.

(yayyy omoei crossover woohoo !!!)

[coffee-dere]

feeling very silly gonna commit atrocities later

also made this

Btw you (Yes, you) are welcome to join in on the atrocities commiting

(Commitation? Commiton? Is there a future tense of commit???)

[inkpens-coffee]

The Orange Group 🍂🍊🥮

Yellow is up next… 💛

Art commissions are Open

[astralphobia]

so im playing an omori game on roblox, yeah? i was being kel, and this one person, dreams royalty, was one of the unbread twins. they were knocking people over n stuff, and eventually the surver was gonna be shut down in 30 min because it was old. we all panicked and dreams started getting along with me. we were jumping around, having a good time, yk how it is. then they started sitting next to me in the "were dating lmao" way, with making their character smile n blush.and bc i was being normal ol suit kel and not headspace kel, it looked sorta weird (especially lore wise). they never said anything, and it made for some cute screen shots

TLDR; i accidentally made a ship between kel and biscuit

huh

what

[wellhalesbells]

for the wip tag game, i have questions and they are all about what Big Damn Neutrals could possibly be

Hahahaha. Okay, well, definitely it is a placeholder title and if you thought that sounds like Zoe's "Big Damn Heroes" quote from Firefly, you are correct.

I didn't come up with that until way, way later in the fic's progression because I had no idea that was going to end up being my answer until I got to it.

This is essentially a murder mystery fic. A complete AU where Derek and Laura never left New York and, instead, Stiles left Beacon Hills (and you can imagine what it would take for Stiles to have no ties to Beacon Hills, yeah?) and became their emissary. Derek is still his season one prickly, closed off self and so it's Stiles and Laura who bond and become friends, become family, and Derek who orbits that relationship. Then Laura is killed and Derek and Stiles have to investigate her death together, despite only really having animosity between them. Stiles because Derek never even tried to get to know him and Derek because Stiles took his sister away from him.

It's very slow going with this one because the atmosphere is so specific and it's not often I can get into the right headspace for it but, when I can, it's one of my absolute favorite things to work on! I love how adversarial and full of tension Stiles and Derek's relationship is in this one - right up my dang alley!

Snippet:

Derek slips off his mattress, lands on the floor with barely a sound.  Would’ve been none if he’d taken off his boots.

Hands are already wrapped around his biceps like a vice grip before he can even straighten up, his space encroached upon faster than should’ve been possible.  Fingers dig in harder and there would be bruises left behind if there could be.

“You don’t get to die,” Stiles hisses.

“I’m not planning to,” Derek snarls back, angry for no other reason than that it’s right there, at the ready.  It always is, has been.

“She wasn’t either,” twists out of Stiles’ mouth, even though they don’t know that.

That could’ve been Laura’s plan for all Derek can guess.  His big sister, always an enigma, smarter than him, faster than him, first to everything.

Even death.

The silence is rent by a sudden sound like stripping wood.  His head jerks, neck cricking, to find the comforter from his bed being tugged through a too-small opening in the slatted railing along the side.  Yanking down, pulling, like an invisible sailor hoisting up a net, tickling the hair on his arm, slithering to wrap around his wrist, bind him there.  He snaps his head back and now all he can see are Stiles’ eyes, bright and glowing like the moon outside the grime-encrusted window.  He fights off a cringe.  “Stop.  Now.”

The comforter goes limp instantly, puddles innocuously at his feet.  Stiles’ eyes are dark and unknowable, his worried face shadowed once again.  He pulls in a shaky breath, loosens his grip on Derek but doesn’t let go.  “You don’t get to do that.  You don’t get to fuck off without telling me anything, wondering if — if — fuck you for thinking I’d let that happen.  Next time I won’t sit here like some patiently waiting fifties’ housewife.  Next time I’ll rip this city apart, find you, and drop you off the first forty-storey I find.  Fuck you,” he reiterates harshly.

“Fine,” Derek says, less because he means it and more because he wants Stiles to shut up about it.

In truth, they barely know each other and clash more than peacefully coexist.  Stiles has been with them — with him, just him now — for five years but he had always been closer to Laura.  An employee to Derek, family to Laura.  He’s younger than Derek, more bullheaded, more alive than Derek’s been in years and maybe that’s why they never really mattered to each other.  For Stiles to pretend that anything else is true now… well.

Derek knows it’s because he’s just lost everything he had.  An orphan, with one friend who had up and disappeared on him years ago, when they found him.  Then Laura became everything he’d been missing.  And it’d seemed the same for Laura.  Stiles didn’t have anything but Derek left now.  That didn’t mean Derek mattered though; it just meant he was the last one standing.

Just like it didn’t mean that Stiles mattered to Derek either and Derek had thought, more than once, since Laura died: Good, now he can leave.

And then had to fight against the ensuing panic that thought inspired.

He understood it, even if he didn’t agree with his own reaction to it.  They were each other’s people by default, by a shared love for the very dead, very gone Laura Hale, and when you had nothing else, that became a thing worth clinging to.

Pack.  Or as close to it as they would ever get.

“Get into bed,” Derek snarls.

Stiles sighs and rubs a hand over his face.  He sidesteps Derek, drags the comforter along the floor without care, and Derek hears the whump of his flattened pillow joining it on the floor.  Stiles tosses both over the stripped bed, says to preempt whatever argument Derek might have, “I don’t do top bunk.”

Derek heaves out his own sigh, stripping off his jacket and knocking off his boots.  He sheds the socks too and gets into bed with Stiles.

They haven’t done this since the night they found her body.  It hadn’t been a decision then.  They’d been too broken to think, too broken to do anything other than shake and blink, tears silently streaming down faces and Derek had sat on her bed for a half-second before tearing it to pieces, shredding it, the bedding mounted up and destroyed and across the room in a fit of destruction and Stiles had flipped the mattress, long gashes rent down the center of it, pulled him down onto it and wrapped his arms around him, holding him as less of a comfort and more of a restriction, to stop him from destroying anything else.

Stiles doesn’t touch him tonight.  He rolls towards the wall, back to Derek while Derek scratches at the ridge of his eyebrow with his ragged thumbnail, flaking blood under what little is left of it, staring up at the dark bottom of the bunk above him, wide awake.

•

He opens his eyes to sharp sunlight, rays that’ve had time to hone themselves, coalesce, and start stabbing at strategic places in the apartment.  Like the backs of Derek’s eyelids.  The comforter around him is rumpled up, bunched in places from a restless sleeper.  Which he isn’t.  He frowns before it comes back to him.

Laura’s bed.

Stiles.

He’d woken up earlier in the pitch black with Stiles’ forehead pressed into the valley between his shoulder blades, breath a warm and reliable puff through his thin t-shirt, his hand clenched on the hill of Derek’s bicep, snagging him, pulling him back against him.

Derek hadn’t brushed him off.  Though it had given him a moment’s pause, strange without the swell of breasts between them, fingers digging and pulling him close to an unmistakably masculine chest.  But only a moment’s; he’d been asleep again minutes later.

Wip list is here!

[wyrrdfox]

uhhh idk how this site works but here's kel ig

[onmytape]

Just wanted to say thank you for posting, it's been really fun sharing this whl playoff + mem cup journey with you on tumblr! I hope next year your kelowna rockets are the ones to go the distance 🤝 I'll be cheering alongside you!

thank you for coming along! i honestly wasn't expecting anyone to take any interest in my posts when i started this blog. i know bandwagoners are kind of cringe but i can't not be part of something and i had a lot of fun following new teams. let's do it again next season!

[kelmcdonald]

Fame and Misfortune page 33: Good luck, Everyone Below!

The City Between is also available to read here! https://kelmcdonald.com/the-city-between-story-list/

[itsjust-kathh]

I PAINTED KEL AND OMORI PLUSH

the sketch :)

please like and reblog please this took me 4 hours straight and i havent eated nor drank water please i am so tired

[keldae]

Make A Poll...

… your favourite female characters (no limits - as many or as little as you want) and see which your followers like the most!

Tagged by @greyias -- thank you! <3

Passing the tag on to @obvious-apostate @orangekittyenergy @miradelletarot @inyri @storyknitter

(and let me tell you, it was SO hard to pick ONE lady from each fandom I'm in, LOL.)

[curmemini]

does tumblr know about splatcon yet? it was a nickeloden themed convention that was supposed to happen this weekend in LA. They had Kel Mitchell promoting it on tiktok, they had the entire cast of Hey Dude, they had the voices of Dib and Gaz Invader Zim, the trio of Ned's Declassified, various guests from All That and other older Nick shows both live action and cartoon. They cancelled it the day before the convention was supposed to stat.

They started to issue refunds (everyone ive seen so far ask for one has said their requests have been ignored) and are citing "circumstances not panning out the way they were supposed to". Almost everyone I've seen who was involved as a gust or volunteer only found out via THAT post

(via twitter) From what I have seen, many of the actors and VAs were in fact knowledgeable of the event and were actually "booked", so it seems more like a dashcon-flop event.

[pineappleciders]

wowie! it's officially my 16th birthday!! i'm the same age as kel omori!!!

tysm to everyone, this is a lil emotional just because i think i've updated my age twice now on this page? meaning it's been close to 2 years now since i created pineappleciders. does anyone remember my OG basil pfp with the flowers or grass as the banner.

mooties followers followed ily all, i've made some awesome friends here and seen beautiful artwork. i rlly love being apart of a community like this, so far tumblr seems to be the best social media for me!! 600 followers away from 5000 is absolutely insane to me too. tysm to everyone i love you all!!!

remember your daily click!

[ryhmus]

Quotes that are wrong [STRANGER SPECIAL]

KEL and STRANGER are shopping in Othermart (This is STRANGER'S first time with a physical body and is unfamiliar with the concept of pain.

KEL;"Frut aisle."

STRANGER;*Just stubbed his toe on a corner* "The present moment is both eternal and painful."

KEL;"They got orange."

STRANGER;"Truly, it is worse."

HERO tries to practice flirting with OMORI so he can flirt back to MARI

HERO;"Hey, can I take your temperature? Because you seem pretty hot.~"

OMORI;"No thanks I feel fine."

HERO;"Oh...I see."

Basil; "I tried to write 'I'm a functional adult' but my phone changed it to 'fictional adult' and I feel like that's more accurate."

STRANGER looking at fanart of himself online.

STRANGER:"Why do I have animal features in this? Why am I kissing OMORI in this one?"

OMORI: "You think that's crazy try looking at Tumblr." *Looks at viewer knowingly*

Police cars are in hot pursuit of AUBREY and Kim in a little tykes car full of candy speeding down the street.

AUBREY; "They'll never take us alive!"

*Crashes the car into a railing. and AUBREY is doing the family guy death pose*

FLOWER; "Why would you think any of this was a good idea?"

ROWAN; "Probably because I'm a dangerous sociopath with a long history of violence."

*FLOWER stares at him in disbelief while the microwave is on fire*

ROWAN; "I don't know how you keep forgetting about this."

Aubrey;"But seriously, what is the real plan here that has to do with not fucking around?

Kel;"There is no plan that does not involve not fucking around. But we will make sure our fucking around will be applied in a constructive direction."

STRANGER; "That was the worst throw ever...Of all time."

KEL: "Not my fault. Someone put a wall in the way."

[woodchipp]

Looks like the OMORI subbreddit found me lmao. I was notified of it by an ask that seems to have disappeared (Tumblr being Tumblr, ig), so I'm including a screenshot of the ask here for posterity

Whether or not Omori's judgements are grounded in reality, they don't mean Sunny should kill himself.

I didn't say that. In fact, I wanted to emphasize how absurd it is that Sunny's irrational and suicidal self-loathing makes this much sense.

The game's failure to provide solid evidence against the arguments Omori makes is a fault of the writing itself, not Sunny.

His arc is about him coming to grip with what he has done, not where he grows to be a good person. Sunny being a good friend or something isn't really important to whether he should live or die.

We don’t really get to see if Sunny really changes beyond getting the words alone out. Because that’s not the point of the game. The entirety of the game’s narrative is about finding the courage to take the first step toward real healing; it is about the act of grasping what is real, to face in the direction of reality and therefore pain, suffering, and loss, but also happiness, growth, and change. But we only get to see the initial act of facing in that direction. And that’s what makes the game so powerful, is that it explores a process that is often so overlooked or seen as just a vehicle to a different, better story. But as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. What we see is the first step, and barely that.

Why should I be invested in said arc if the game gives me no reason to root for him? That literally was the point of the post the OP linked.

Sunny feeling bad for the shitty thing he did just isn't worth getting invested into. It's a start, sure, but if he takes a roughly 25 hr game just to muster up the courage to confess to a crime, and he does so only for his own peace of mind, why should I want him to reach his peace of mind in the first place?

Mind you, this is not the same as "I want Sunny to kill himself." What I'm saying is "OMORI wants me to care about Sunny, but doesn't put in the effort to give him any sort of personality, so why should I care about whether he kills himself or not?"

I actually agree with the OG post on the claim that Sunny is an extremely passive character [...] it’s incredibly frustrating to watch, which is kinda the whole point.

"which is kinda the whole point" Never heard that one before.

I understand the point just fine. In this case, my issue is that the point is conveyed very poorly.

Sunny has lost the ability to externally express himself, and doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn't know what to do, but he can run circles around his bestie while the latter's having a breakdown just fine! weeeeeeeee

Or so it would seem. The entire point of Headspace, as far as narrative function goes, is to demonstrate that Sunny in fact is taking very active internal steps to enact real change

Source?

Headspace was literally constructed to prevent any sort of change. it isn't shown significantly changing over the course of the game either.

Whether you believe spirit Mari or the backstage trio of Kel, Aubrey, and Hero were real or just a manifestation of Sunny’s mind,

The Backstage trio definitely isn't real, though.

they nevertheless demonstrate a significant overhaul taking place within Sunny and therefore a significant amount of character development!

Source? Any examples?

What is that even supposed to mean? What, should I consider Omori randomly seeing whatever that black-and-white apparition of Mari is supposed to be at North Lake solid character development?

I've previously explained why Headspace doesn't really matter much and why Backstage makes no sense story-wise, but it seems like I'll have to reiterate.

I'm not going to care about Sunny just because of what he thinks or says (and he doesn't even say much lol). What defines you are your actions. Sure, Sunny can say he'll miss his friends and dream about them all he wants, but if his love for them isn't backed up by what he does over the course of the game, I won't be inclined to believe in it.

Likewise, Backstage doesn't demonstrate character development to me. It's just Sunny shoving words of comfort he wants to hear at the moment into his friends' mouths, which is what Headspace was. The only thing that's different is the sprites.

What's the point of having your character trying to kick an addiction and framing said addiction as a bad thing only to have the character indulge in that addiction once again and frame it as a good thing at the end of the story?

By the way, I love that the comment's rebuttal to my first gripe - that Sunny doesn't do anything in real life that counts as actual character development - is basically "he changes on the inside!", which misses the point that he doesn't do anything substantial in real life. peak

The tragic irony of it all was that a depiction of someone suffering terribly was criticized for not being a “model” depiction of said suffering - as though there’s some kind of standard unit of measurement for that. I think in similar fashion, Sunny takes a lot of heat by players precisely because his situation is so extreme.

I love when people make no attempt to actually engage with what I'm trying to say and instead create an entirely different argument in their head because it'd be easier to argue against.

I'm not criticizing Sunny because his situation is extreme. I just don't like him because the game doesn't give you much of a reason to and because his actions towards the people we're supposed to see as his closest friends throughout the story paint him as very unpleasant at best. That's all there is to it.

Also, I've never seen The Whale. Looking it up on TVTropes, though...

lol. lmao, even. rofl, if you will

Let’s be honest here: even if you struggle with some kind of mental health issue, you probably won’t - hopefully won’t - really be able to understand what Sunny is experiencing. That doesn’t make for a very relatable character!

Yes, because I've never committed manslaughter.

I'm not one to measure how good a character is by whether they're relatable or not. In fact, I despise the notion that a character must be relatable in order to be well-written. However, in this case, I need to ask - if Sunny isn't supposed to be relatable, what is he supposed to be? Again, why should I care about him?

Unlike Charlie, who is apparently nice to people even when they treat him like dirt, Sunny doesn't have any notable character traits besides his mental illness. We're repeatedly told he's nice and supportive, but he's never shown doing anything substantial for his friends other than being "the baby of the group" before Mari's death, nor do we see him trying to be supportive to them after it.

Sunny makes no indication that his friends must accept his apology or that he expects their forgiveness,

but the secret ending shows that he did in fact forgive himself.

And everyone he hurt by letting them believe in Basil's lie are glossed over, but hey, who gives a shit about these people, right?

Aubrey’s reaction and her pushing Basil into the lake is a great example of this; a very similar scenario plays out, only potential tragedy is avoided. Does that still make Aubrey a killer? Is she solely to blame for the push, even if it was fully intentional?

"Is she solely to blame for the push, even if it was fully intentional?" Yes. What kind of question is this?

What about her upbringing

"Her upbringing" can only excuse so much. At some point, a Freudian Excuse stops being an excuse, and Aubrey pushing Basil into the lake was that point. The game doesn't bother delving into her upbringing much either, so, again, why should I care?

and, not nearly mentioned as much, Basil’s own continued choice to keep the truth hidden and allow people like Aubrey to remain in unnecessary pain and suffering?

Aubrey didn't even know the truth when she attacked Basil, though. She just flipped out at him for no reason.

It's easy for the player to grow attached to the main character because they're playing as them. Summing up Sunny's character traits as, in the critique's own words, "#relatable traits," is unbelievably disingenuous. Sunny isn't just "depressed and quiet." He is a traumatised child who is borderline neurotic and suicidal.

Okay. Aside from him being traumatized and being the protagonist, why should I care about him? These are not enough.

Trauma does not constitute one's personality - it informs it. I've said as such in the post the OP linked, and yet everyone seems to omit it in their rebuttals to my arguments. Convenient!

Sunny obviously cares about being forgiven by his friends, that's kind of the reason why he lied in the first place?

Oh yeah, he cares!

In the sense that he was more concerned with losing his friends' love than what they might think and/or feel about the truth, which is why he went along with Basil's lie. He cares only in terms of how it affects him.

It's more so... you know, that Omori was wrong and that Sunny's friends will forgive him and love him regardless? 

...The whole point of the true ending is that there is no definitive answer to whether they forgive him or not.

I'm kind of starting to doubt whether the people lambasting me for not understanding the game actually understand it themselves.

Oh, but of course

It’s not that Sunny didn’t go through a “legitimate character arc”; it’s that he went through an unconventional character arc

that post calls sunny an empty husk of a character yet refuses to analyze him or read into any of his actions beyond complete surface level and instead opts to demonize him at every opportunity. complete media literacy failure in understanding show don't tell. wild.

Anyone who can spend 70% of a game in the depths of a single character's complex, ever-changing psyche and then say that character is a husk concerns me

His development is certainly nuanced, but to say it’s nonexistent you would have to play with a blindfold. 

If I'm being honest, the more OMORI fans insist on the writing being too Unconventional™/Nuanced™/Complex™/Symbolic™ for people to understand and that everyone who has problems with it is lacking media literacy, the less believable and more obnoxiously pretentious they sound.

Also the words of encouragement Sunny receives during the Omori boss fight are all in-line with the characterisation of his friends and the overall narrative of the game, something the author of that critique happily omits.

That... wasn't even the problem I was talking about?

"There's just a problem with this, though - Sunny's friends offered him their support without the knowledge of how Mari actually died. They were convinced that Sunny is struggling with Mari's suicide, not that he's wrestling with well-earned guilt over committing manslaughter. We don't know whether they would've supported him all the same if they knew the truth, and the game doesn't provide an answer either since the group's reactions to Sunny's confession are left ambiguous." "Simply put, Sunny is twisting his friends' words, taking them out of context to make himself feel better. The support Sunny received is built on a lie."

I don't think anyone in that comment thread took the time to actually read my post. Unsurprising.

”Every character in Omori is an empty husk, because I’ve never played the game!”

I've seen this refrain pretty frequently. The funniest thing about this is that I was a fan of the game myself until I scrutinized its writing a tad closer than I used to and consequently realized how dogshit it is.

Well, whatever. I've said what I wanted to say.

[the-kinfesssional]

the list of kins starts now with probably one of the bigger ones being

Pokemon- 34 kins (stretched across fictionkin, ockin, and otherkin)

Cookie run- 32 kins (four ockins the rest are canon somewhat)

Dream smp (the bad source)-22(one oc kin the rest are damp and adjacent kins)

hermitcraft- 10 (All somewhat canon kins, sept doom guy who is non canon but heavily headcanoned as being two peoples dad)

genshin- 4 (aether, scaramouche, Lyney, n venti. weirdest combination ever)

sanders sides- 4 (one oc the rest are canon)

regretevator- 6 (roblox games are fun)

cult of the lamb- 1 just the lamb

yandere sim(gods help us these sources)- 1 (ayato, the male stand in for the yandere main character)

the binding of issac- 1 (Azazel, lil demon guy)

Omori- 4 (kel, basil, omori, sunny)

yo-kai watch- 1 (casanono)

Henry stickman series- 1(Charles)

RTGames miitopia playthrough- 2(magical john and chat)

food fantasy- 2 (Coffee and chocolate)

kid Icarus games- 2(Pit and dark pit)

stardew valley- 3(elliott, shane, and krobus)

IB- 1 (Garry)

the amazing digital circus- 1(Jax)

FNAF- 3(Vincent, fnaf movie mike, and jeremy Fitzgerald from a altered rebornica au)

john doe- 1(john doe)

Danganronpa(the gods do not hear our pleas for it to stop)- 4(ockin, shuichi, nagito, kiibo)

vocaloid- 2 (Len and KAITO)

Kirby- 4(Kirby, Marx, Taranza, Meta knight)

Legend of zelda series- 7(JUST A BUNCH OF LINKS and one sidon)

Mario series- 1(Luigi)

splatoon series- 1(Ockin replacement for agent 8)

Wild kratz- 1(Martin)

Phighting(another roblox game yay!)- 6 (One noncanon/ockin the rest are from the source canonically)

phoenix wright ace attorney- 1(Phoenix)

the ugly duckling analog horror somehow- 1(younger version of the ugly duckling)

the stanley parable ultra deluxe- 2(Narrator and timekeeper)

don't starve- 3(Wilson, Wes, and Webber)

Mystreet/diaries(?)- 1(Zane Ro'meave)

that should be it, sorry for the long list we have alot of sources... -🕯️🐑🗡️

Intresting, and that's ALOT of kins.

/lh

Also dies I can't include every single one of your sources . Stupid Tumblr tag limit