#We're at a 3 or 4 instead of a solid 8

[stardustedknuckles]

My migraines are usually silent and go away with sleep but I was in my coworker's car for too long with her air freshener and had my first "loud" migraine since I was 10 and convinced I was dying. I don't want to go to dog daycare. I shouldn't have to go to dog daycare right now, I should be resting at home. But I can't afford to lose the money and it's too last minute to call out anyway.

I am one again lamenting the design of the human body that results in a sharper sense of smell when dealing with migraine bullshit that gets worse with smell.

Mask, sunglasses, earplugs and it still won't be enough. I'll probably have to have a very small nibble of weed gummy just to stay upright.

[talisidekick]

The first time I came out as transgender, it was to my spouse, whom I'd been with for 8 years, and only married for 3. I remember it vividly, as it was the scariest moment of my life. I'd been through some awful things in my life, nearly died multiple times, had people even try to kill me. While those were scary events, nothing was as terrifying as sitting in the passenger seat of a Toyota Rav 4, in a broken McDonald's parking lot after a 4 hour drive on the highway, and shakily getting out the words: "I have something I want to tell you. It's important." and seeing the frown of concern on my partners face.

That frown only deepened when I added "It's okay if you don't love me after this, I don't expect you to as it's a lot." as I took off my seat-belt, and rested my hand on the door lock, ready to open that door and run. No idea of where I'd go, or what I'd do. Just knowing that if this went south, I'd get away as fast as I could. I probably should have phrased it better, but despite going over how I'd say this a thousand times, I'd somehow chosen those words instead, because the nervousness I was feeling told me to. Their response? "You're scaring me. What is it?"

My response, trying my best not to feel the tears trying to escape my eyes in that moment: "I'm transgender. And I'm scared that you won't love me after this."

Their response wasn't even a moment of silence. I just heard the intake of breath. I braced. I feared the worst. Their words hit like a brick:

"You dumb bitch. Come here."

I didn't expect them to hug me, but they did, and just asked: "What's your new name?"

I choked out "Accalia." because how could I not. And then, without missing a beat, they responded: "Take a drink and eat your damn nuggets." To which I then lost it and cried.

I came out, ingloriously, in a McDonald's parking lot. And now, the most touching moments of my life consist of:

Getting harassed in my spare on one of the worst days of my life, by my then friend, now spouse, with them proclaiming they'd take the cow tongue they were dissecting in Biology, and "lick [me] with it" if I didn't lighten up and smile for them.

The day I got married to the adorable dork themselves.

And

3. Confessing I'm a girl in a McDonald's parking lot over a 20pc McNugget meal and getting called a "dumb bitch" for worrying they'd leave me.

So just so we're clear, I'm not a smart, smooth, classy lady. I'm just a dumb dork. And nothing, I repeat, nothing, exemplifies that more than when I finally told my close friends 3 months later, after ghosting them for a solid 6, and having my best friends respond with:

"Called it!"

"Makes sense."

"Wait you hadn't figured that out until now?", and

"That explains it (the absence)."

Who all later clarified "We just figured if we gave you space, you'd figure it out on your own."

So if you think I'm an amazing person, please just remember that I'm the "dumb bitch" who was the last to know out of every one of my friends that I was trans.

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

status of babbit's life yeehaw

tl,dr: busy moving and a couple of other big life things that just complicate things, but well on the way to being back to normal! new fic chapters and better quality art coming soon.

tl,wr (too long, will read):

Helloooo what's up its me, Babbit. or Rabbit. or Bones. or Idiot Moron Menace Child, idk im not picky lol

i know a lot of you guys have been wondering wtf is up with my upload schedule lately and the extreme lack of even basic content and also i am extremely aware that i have not updated my fics in a few millennia and for that i am very, very sorry. this post is to answer a few questions you might have, if anyone was curious about the 'reason' instead of just the 'when.'

my family and i have had a hell of a year, y'all. like, jesus christ, i really hope things level out and calm down for a while once we're moved in to our new apartment bc god damn we are so tired. the list goes: 1. we got kicked out of the house we were renting-to-own bc we wouldn't be able to afford the new rate, so they gave us two months to find a new place to live (not long enough, it turns out) and then foreclosed to get us out. 75% of our belongings were still in the house when we had to leave. that includes all of our christmas ornaments- including the ones kept for decades, and the ones made by me and my siblings, and the fancy ones made from blown glass. 2. the first night out of the house, one of our dogs, freaked out by the strangeness of the situation, panicked and slipped her harness and ran off. that was over a year ago. we haven't seen her since. 3. my cat got very ill and became unable to eat. she passed away almost exactly a year ago. she had been 14-15, and had been my baby since i was maybe 8. 4. one of the tires on my dads car blew out. during the night, while it was parked on the curb so he could put the spare on in the morning, one of the in-tact tires was fucking stolen LMAO 5. we applied to rent at so many places and got rejected so, so many times. it costs money to apply, btw. we're talking like $200+. no, u don't get that money back. 6. i lost my job bc knowing i would have to work 8 hours at a job that stresses me out to the point of exhaustion (at a place where no one takes me seriously and would actively laugh at me when i try to express my need to step away for a minute) sometimes paralyzed me and made me sick to my stomach and made me feel unable to leave the house, and i called out one too many times. a day after my birthday, too! 7. just recently, like within the last week, my dad's car got fuckin totalled!!!!!

THE GOOD NEWS IS WE OFFICIALLY, FINALLY, AFTER A SOLID YEAR, HAVE AN APARTMENT!!!!! I'LL HAVE MY OWN ROOM AGAIN!!! THERE'S AN ENTIRE KITCHEN!!!!!!!

the 'oh god' news is we still have to move in, and replace a lot of the stuff that we just couldn't take with us when we moved out (mostly stuff like bookshelves, dining table, dressers, etc) AND get the few things we could cram into a storage center out and moved into the new place, which isn't a lot but at the same time is more than we can realistically handle on our own. and then, we have to get my mums cats (a pair of kitty sisters that we had to temporarily house with my aunt, who got tired of looking after them and let them outside to be outdoor cats a few months ago. yes, this was an extremely shitty thing to do, and we've been working hard to get them back safely) AND my gecko (who my cousin has been looking after, even tho feeding him worms freaks him out LMAO yes i plan on compensating him) moved in, as well... basically oh my god there is so much to worry about but at the same time it's nice to have to worry about it bc it means we're making progress sdkfhsjdkfhdsjfh

basically i am just so tired but so busy and also thinkin abt so much im so sorry for lack of stuff but i am so looking forward to being able to bounce back, pls stick with me, it'll be sorted out soon i think and then i'll hit y'all with some good stuff i promise!!!!!!!

anyway thank u guys i love u and appreciate u all for sticking around

[ilikemenandwomen]

I found an incorrect quote generator and had to put all of their names in aksjdka

These are the best ones I got :))

-

Lincoln: This is Thom, they’re… not my assistant, some other word.

Thom: I’m their carer.

Lincoln: Yeah, my carer. They care so I don’t have to.

-

Lon: Advice of the day kids, if you ever meet someone who calls Gatorade flavors the actual name of the flavor instead of just the color then they are a certified nerd.

Mel: Yeah but you have to specify, frost glacier or cool blue? You can’t just say blue because there’s more than one blue.

Lon: Blue and light blue, nice try nerd.

-

Thom : To everyone who has treated me poorly; I am sexier than you.

-

Peter: I want to wake up with you every day for the rest of our lives

Thom: I wake up at 4:30 AM

Peter: I want to see you at some point every day for the rest of our lives

-

Thom: It’s dark in here

Peter: Don’t worry dude I got this

Peter: *Stomps their feet*

Peter: *Skechers light up*

-

Police: You’re under arrest for trying to carry three people on a single motorcycle. 
Amelia, with Ron and Lon behind them: Wait, what do you mean THREE?! 
Police: Yes…three. 
Amelia : Oh, my God— What the fuck!? 
Police: Wha- 
Amelia : Mel FUCKING FELL OFF!

(I laughed at this for a solid 5 minutes I don’t know why)

-

Thom: *casually taking four stairs at a time*

Peter, falling behind, taking two stairs at a time: Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fu-

-

Lon: The waiter at Olive Garden has been grating my cheese for 6 hours now, waiting for me to say when. Customers are screaming. Three people have died.

Lon: I will not yield.

-

Peter : .. .----. -- / … --- .-. .-. -.-- (translation: I'M SORRY)

Thom : What's that?

Peter : Remorse code.

Thom : I'm even angrier now.

-

Peter , working at McDonald's: Sorry sir, we don't serve a McFuck here, so either you throw that one slice of pickle out or we're gonna have a McProblem.

-

Mel: All the sudden I got a random burst of energy, and I think it's my body's last hurrah before it completely shuts down.

-

Lincoln : WHOEVER CAUSED THIS MESS IS GOING TO-

Mel: It was me...

Lincoln : ...Is going to be forgiven because everyone deserves a second chance.

(Mel could do no wrong in Lincoln’s eyes <3 what’s that? He forgot to fill out a chain of custody card? Well who distracted him? He didn’t nothing wrong)

-

Thom : I’m not like other girls. I’m way, way worse.

-

Kind of NSFW but I feel like this is so them

Peter : We should get you to a doctor for a check up immediately. What if it happens again, and there isn’t anyone around to help you? What if it’s congenital? Oh my God! Was it me? Did I hurt you?

Thom : …You realize any other person that made their partner pass out on bed would simply feel really proud of themselves, right?

-

Peter : Don't go to the kitchen.

Thom : Why?

Peter : I saw a spider.

Thom : Well, did you kill it?

Peter : It has 8 arms and I only have 2, it's not fair...

-

Thom when he got shot:

Thom , bleeding out on the ground: Blood loss? No, I know exactly where it is.

That’s it for now but I can generate more if you want some :))

[manuelmakesartz]

Dubious Depths Present [US]: How I made a guitar tone for my fanmade Sonic track.

Hello there! This is my first ever post on this site.

Quick introduction: I am a hobbyist musician. Since 2022, I've been honing my skills in various areas, including mixing, producing and composing. I also have a good amount of music theory knowledge. My style is influenced by old cartoons and VGM.

Now that we're done with that, I'll get to what I initially wanted to talk about. On November 2023, I released a fanmade track, in the style of the American OST of Sonic CD. You can take a listen by yourself here. Since then, a few people have asked me how I made the guitar tone I used through Discord DMs. So, I decided to make a tutorial for it!

1. SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

Kontakt 7 Player or Kontakt 7 (as of writing this, Kontakt 8 has released already, so you'll see that one instead)

Session Guitarist - Electric Mint (it's usually 99 € but it goes on sale for 50 € every now and then, usually Easter and Christmas)

Any DAW

2. LOADING THE BASICS

Load Kontakt in a new instrument track in your DAW, and the "melody" version of Session Guitarist. You'll be greeted with the Paterns tab (if you feel lost, watch the official walkthrough). The default preset (1 Mint Pop) should be loaded:

Set the Plectrum/Finger switch to Plectrum and the Poly/Mono switch to Poly. You can adjust the vibrato however you like.

Next, open the Amps & FX tab and clear everything. Next, load the Distortion, VAN 51, SOLID COMP and IR REVERB effects.

Now, I'll cover the settings for each effect...

3. Distorion Settings

On the Main settings:

Distortion: 50%

Tone: 50%

Volume: 61.3%

On the EQ settings:

Bass: 25.5%

Mid: 59.8%

Treble: 0%

4. VAN 51 Settings

Set it to Rhythm and adjust as follows:

Gain: 34.3% (Hi Gain: OFF)

Bass: 0% (Bright: ON)

Mid: 48%

Treble: 0%

Resonance: 0%

Presence: 83%

Master: 28.4% (Crunch: ON)

5. IR REVERB Settings

Choose the preset 1 Short Spring and adjust as follows:

Pre-Delay: 16ms

Tone: 20k Hz LP

Mix: 60%

6. SOLID COMP Settings

Adjust as follows:

Threshold: -4.7 dB

Attack: 0.3 ms

Release: 1600 ms

Ratio: 3:1

Output: 3.2 dB

Mix: 100%

7. Guitar Settings

Our final step is to adjust a few things on the Guitar Settings tab. Head over there and do the following adjustments:

Pickup Selection: Bridge (Doubling: OFF)

Electric Signal (Tone): 48%

8. You're done!

Now you can use it however you like! I personally added some delay in the mixer channel later. Here are the results:

First, the guitar solo, isolated:

Second, the guitar solo, in the full mix:

That's everything! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! I will make more tutorials like these. Till my second post, have fun and go make some music!

[lamaenthel]

Tivaevae | Chapter Eight: Invisible Threads

Still struggling to emotionally recover from Master Obi-Wan's deception, Ahsoka discovers in the aftermath that twelve-year-old Boba Fett has been locked up among adults in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center. After convincing Chancellor Palpatine to grant him a pardon, she manages to secure his release on the condition that she serve as his legal guardian. Now, with the help of Master Plo and the Wolfpack, she vows to help him track down what family he has left.

| AO3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |

Fandom: Star Wars Characters: Ahsoka Tano, Boba Fett, Plo Koon, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Kanan Jarrus, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, CT-27-5555 | ARC-5555 | Fives, CC-1119 | Appo, Dexter Jettster, FLO | WA-7 (Star Wars), Shaak Ti, ARC Commander Blitz (Star Wars), CT-6922 | Dogma, Original Clone Trooper Character(s) (Star Wars), CC-3636 | Wolffe, Clone Trooper Sinker (Star Wars), Clone Trooper Comet (Star Wars), CC-2224 | Cody, CT-5597 | Jesse, CT-4860 | Boost, Aurra Sing, Tobias Beckett, Null-11 | Ordo Skirata, Kal Skirata, Original Mandalorian Characters (Star Wars), Original Droid Characters (Star Wars), Original Jedi Character(s) (Star Wars) Total Word Count: 123,000 Chapter Word Count: 10,275 Chapter Summary: Boba and Plo make a pit stop, Rex has a talk with Anakin, and Ahsoka learns a shocking secret about Rex.

"This errand should not take long." Plo folded his arms and tucked his hands into his sleeves. "The Baleen travel depot has a wide array of electronic repair stores. We should be able to easily find this…" Plo turned to Boba.

"Seabreeze data filter," Boba supplied. "If you want to get the data off of that gauntlet without triggering the self-deletion protocols, we need to hook a Seabreeze up to it."

"Don't you know the codes?" Wolffe asked, exasperated and slightly sweaty from the warm Tog blanket he was trapped under. Ahsoka lay borderline unconscious on his chest, still out cold from a second dose of painkillers given after her arm was set.

Plo had done something with his powers to her broken bone so it had healed up solid, but the nerve regeneration sleeve hooked around her bicep was going to hurt like a dalgaan for the next eight hours. Togrutas being so damn touchy-feely meant that she would heal faster with full-body contact, though, so as soon as they'd made it into hyperspace Wolffe had shucked down to his blacks and settled onto the salon pod sofa with her on his chest before anyone could tell him otherwise.

"Obviously I know the codes, but if you want to do anything more than just look at the intel then we need a fucking Seabreeze," Boba snapped.

"I just don't see why it can't wait until we're back at Coruscant," Wolffe glowered.

"Because, Commander, time is of the essence." Plo's voice held an undertone of no more backtalk that Boba immediately recognized and snickered at. "We will be an hour at most, and then we will be able to start extracting the data while still in transit instead of having to wait many hours upon our return."

"Yes, General," Wolffe went a darker shade of bronze and he pillowed his chin on the back of Ahsoka's squishy headtail. She nuzzled him in her sleep and purred louder.

"Setting down now," Comet announced over the intercom from the cockpit. "Docking fee is paid by the hour, General."

"Excellent, Comet. One shall be enough. Boba, with me," Plo said genially.

"Sure thing." Boba stuck his tongue out at Wolffe before he followed Plo off the ship.

Baleen wasn't bad for a deep space fuel station. Certainly nicer than Eburnea, it was built into the side of a mined asteroid and reminded him more of the Coruscant undercity more than that neon-coated rust bucket.

"You said the Seabreeze is not a Mandalorian specific gadget, yes?" Plo verified, walking slow enough towards the shopping district for Boba to keep up.

"It's industry standard. Almost any electronic place should have a basic model," Boba replied. He kept a hand on the WESTAR in his pocket and an eye on Plo's back. Plenty of shitheads in a place like this wouldn't mind throwing a suckerpunch at a Jedi just for the sake of being a prick.

Ironically, he would have been one of them only a few weeks ago. He just had to go and get adopted by an overgrown tooka with a lightsaber, didn't he?

"I admit, Boba, there is a reason that I asked the men to stay on the ship," Plo suddenly said.

Boba glanced at him, instantly suspicious. "And why's that?" he asked.

"I owe you an apology," Plo replied. "More than one, in fact."

"Why?" Boba asked. He spotted a Falleen that had a shotgun dangling from his waist watching Plo closer than the average passerby. Boba hardened his stare and waited for the big lizard to make eye contact with him. When he did, the lizard at first snorted, blanched when he didn't drop his gaze, then started walking in the opposite direction. Fucking right, keep walking. Boba kept glaring at his back until he disappeared into the crowd.

Plo hadn't missed the exchange and had his face squinched up in amusement. "I should have followed up with your case instead of assuming that justice had been served." Plo stopped suddenly and bowed his head. "You have my sincerest apology for your imprisonment, Boba Fett."

"Oh." Boba felt his cheeks go hot. "Yeah. Uh, thanks." Boba looked around and patted Plo's side. "Bloody look up before you get jumped, will you?"

Plo straightened, chuckling. "I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I can take care of myself," he rumbled, then resumed walking. "The second apology that I owe is to your family, not you specifically."

Boba felt a weird tingle on the back of his neck. He turned around and squinted at the crowd but saw no one in particular. "Why's that?" he finally asked, looking up at the towering jetii.

"For Galidraan," Plo said softly.

Boba could have sworn that gravity reversed itself. His stomach did a backflip and his heart stopped at the name of the planet that had ruined his father's life.

Galidraan had been a shitshow. Back then Dad had led a sect of supercommandos that refused to bow to the pacifistic Kryze dynasty, but unlike the kriffing Death Watch they had morals and a code of ethics. They actually followed the Resol'nare instead of just talking about it and they'd stayed loyal to the real Mand'alor; Boba's ba'buir, Jaster Mereel.

After Jaster died fighting Death Watch, his father had taken command of the True Mandalorians. A few years later he'd responded to the Governor of Galidraan's call for aid to help put down an extremist uprising on his planet, but it was a trap. Death Watch had been running around commiting all of the acts that the fascist Governor was blaming on protestors, and he'd secretly contacted the Jedi to beg for help in stopping Jango Fett and the True Mandalorians' attacks on innocent political activists.

The Jedi had slaughtered almost every single True Mandalorian to a man and the Death Watch had taken care of any allies they had left on the planet. Dad had once told him when he was at the bottom of a bottle of tihaar that out of the eleven Jedi he'd killed that day, six of them were with his bare hands.

Back then, Boba had wondered if he would have killed all of the Jedi if he had known that Death Watch had already killed Gavin and captured Mama, or if he would have just let himself die.

"I was not present for the massacre," Plo said solemnly. "And it was a massacre by both parties, do not think that the Jedi are ignorant of their own responsibility. A horrible mistake was made that day by both sides."

Boba didn't dare move his feet. His locked knees were the only thing keeping him from falling up into the rafters.

"After Master Dooku returned to the Temple and gave his report, I made for the planet with a small task force in order to provide burial rites for the fallen and to return their beskar'gam to their families," Plo continued. "I was denied by the Governor, but I want you to know that I did try." Plo sank to one knee and placed a hand on his arm. "And you should know, Master Windu was the first to volunteer to accompany me."

Boba stared at Plo. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I believe that the time you have spent with Ahsoka and I has opened your mind enough for you to understand that we Jedi are but people, trying our best to follow the will of the Force," Plo said softly. "You have scars on your heart not just from what you have experienced, but from what your father endured at our hands." Plo stood and began to walk slowly again, keeping an encouraging hand on Boba's back. "I remember a True Mandalorian survivor of Galidraan that approached the Council a year after the battle. Her name was Kaisa Skirata, if I recall. A relative of Kal Skirata, who you do not seem to remember with any sort of fondness."

Boba balled his fists at his sides and tried to breathe normally.

"She informed us that the Governor of Galidraan had sold both of them into slavery after the Jedi departed, though she was able to escape. She wanted help in retrieving your father, but after the scandal the Council was hesitant to interfere in any more affairs outside of Republic space." Plo looked sadly down. "The Council voted against it, but I secretly asked a Jedi Shadow to assist her in her search. They scoured the galaxy together for about a year, if I am not mistaken, before parting ways. I was told that Lady Skirata returned to Mandalore, but the Shadow, Quinlan Vos, did not give up. He did eventually find your father, and he arranged for a group of pirates to attack the spice freighter he had been enslaved on. Jango Fett was able to escape, but I don't believe he ever knew of Quinlan's involvement."

"So the Jedi got him locked up and then freed him," Boba murmured to himself. "Fucking ironic, that." He felt that tingle on the back of his neck again and looked behind him; this time he was almost sure that he saw a glimpse of ghostly white skin and red armor.

He shook his head. He was imagining things. He had to accept that Aurra was long dead, and even if she'd survived the crash he wanted nothing to do with her. His eyes were open, now. She had never given a damn about him, she'd just wanted what he represented. She'd told him she loved him and then hurt him whenever he had reached out for her.

He'd been such a sniveling, needy baby after Dad had died that he'd latched onto the first thing that made him feel wanted. He was older now, he knew better. The conked-out tooka back on the ship had helped him remember the difference.

"Indeed," Plo agreed. "But I thought you should know. I always felt that I could have done more for your father. I hope that by ensuring that you are taken care of, that generational wound may begin to heal."

"That's, um," Boba cleared his throat and shook his head. He couldn't keep an eye on their backs if his head was in Cloud City. "Thanks. That's good to know."

Plo paused in front of a Proton Diva storefront that had a shimmering set of ray bars projected over its windows to keep out burglars. "I believe we are here," he said pleasantly.

Boba nodded. "I'll watch the exit," he said, turning to stand guard over the doorway.

"You may accompany me inside, Boba," Plo said, his face crinkling up again in a smile.

Boba shook his head. "We don't need to both go in," he pointed out. "I'll stand watch. It's fine."

"As you wish. I will be quick." Plo walked into the store humming under his breath while Boba kept an eye on passersby.

The mercs on the street were easy to spot from a hundred paces, they all walked with a little kick from the sidearm universally kept in their boots and had a look on their face like they held a grudge against the universe. Most of the people on the street seemed to be civilians, though, and mostly unarmed. Neon seemed to be the favored light source on this street, and it made an annoying buzzing sound–

"Hey, Boba."

Boba immediately spun and drew at the pleasant man standing in front of the Biscuit Baron next door. He kept the blaster under his jacket so the civvies didn't get spooked but the man could clearly see it.

"Keep fucking moving, chakaar," Boba growled. "We've got no business."

"Sure we do." The man slowly reached into his left jacket pocket and retrieved a small, folded pocket knife, maintaining eye contact and revealing the butt of an RSKF-44 heavy blaster in his holster. "I'm a friend of a friend. Name's Tobias Beckett." He grinned, showing off the gap between his teeth. "She asked me to give you this. Said you'd recognize it."

He tossed the knife to Boba, who caught it one-handed and glanced down. Thin, red, and with a wickedly twisted blade like a corkscrew, he recognized it immediately. Aurra had used it to carve her initials into his body a long time ago.

"You didn't cry this time," Aurra murmured into his skin, licking up the blood between whispers. "You're my good boy, aren't you Boba?"

"Now's your chance to dump your Jedi," Tobias continued, still smiling. "Come on. I'll take you to her."

Boba slipped the knife into his pocket and kept the blaster under his jacket aimed at the merc. "I'm good," he said flatly. "Now fuck off."

"Come on, Boba, don't make this difficult." Tobias took a step towards him. "The fuck have the Jedi ever done for you? You belong with your people, kid, not the goodie-goodies with laser swords." He took another step. "Let's get out of here. She's waiting for you."

"She ever fucking comes near me again and I'll skin her alive, you got that?" Boba snarled. The scar on his ass pulsed. "She's a fucking psychopath and a nonce. I don't want anything to do with her."

Tobias tilted his head. "Now now, kid, you don't mean that." He took another step.

"Take one more step and I'll put a new asshole in you," Boba snapped. "Fuck. Off."

Tobias sighed. "You're really gonna make me–"

The Proton Diva door behind him chimed and Boba turned around. Plo had a medium-sized box in his arms and when Boba had spun back around, Tobias was gone.

"What's wrong?" Plo quickly put the box down at his feet and put a protective hand on Boba's shoulder, looking around for the threat. "What happened?"

"Just a creep," Boba mumbled, slipping the WESTAR back in his pocket after switching the safety on. "I handled it."

Plo searched the street, then picked up the box with a sigh. "Stay close to me," he said quietly.

"Don't need to fucking tell me twice." Boba kept his hand on Plo's elbow and his head on a swivel as they walked back to the dock, just in case he saw red armor again.

Still tacky with sweat from two hours of PT and trying to ignore the throbbing ache in his temple, Rex reclined on his elbows and took a moment to appreciate the warm sun on his bare upper body. After a decade of black skies and crashing thunder, sunlight almost felt like a forbidden luxury.

"You up here, vod?" he heard Fives call out.

Rex sighed. He didn't resent his brother, but was it really too much to hope for just a few minutes of quiet? "East side," he called back, not moving.

Plastoid bootsteps echoed on the concrete, loud on their journey from the rooftop's turbo-lift to where Rex had sprawled himself in the sun. "Copaani kov'pelid?" Fives snickered, then tapped Rex on the head with the datapad before putting it on his bare chest. "I'll have you know that I had to cash in three separate favors for this. Blackout says hi, by the way."

Rex sat up and nodded, not really listening, and opened the uncensored report for the Hardeen op. He scrolled past the irrelevant osik to get to the crash that Ahsoka and Skywalker had been in while chasing down Cad Bane's ship.

On [32:04:980] at [01:40 GST], I and General Skywalker arrived at the Orondia Fuel Depot and positively identified Cad Bane entering a HCT-2001 Dragonboat-class Reugeot 905 type freighter. We engaged in a high-speed chase over the fuel lines [Ref: Page 14-21 for detailed damage report] that lasted approximately 15 minutes. General Skywalker left The Twilight to attempt to forcibly land the Reugeot 905 of Bane and his associates, Rako Hardeen [Obi-Wan Kenobi] and Moralo Eval. The chase ended after Hardeen [Kenobi] performed a pit maneuver that forced me to crash land The Twilight and threw Bane and General Skywalker from the Reugeot 905. I hit my head on impact and was unconscious for an estimated 5 minutes. Upon awakening I evaluated my injuries, determined I was able to safely continue, and immediately left The Twilight in pursuit of General Skywalker. I witnessed him unconscious on the ground and was able to repel Bane, Hardeen [Kenobi], and Eval, but was not able to take them into custody without putting General Skywalker at risk of immediate bodily harm. Bane, Hardeen [Kenobi] and Eval fled the chase location, and after General Skywalker regained consciousness, we determined that the suspects had fled the planet. We solicited repairs [Ref: Page 28 for itemized expense report] at the fuel station and left for Coruscant at [04:12 GST].

He read the pitifully brief section three times and let the datapad fall to his lap with a frustrated huff.

"Bad news?" Fives asked, peering over Rex's shoulder.

"Not exactly." Rex fished the top half of his blacks out from his pile of armor and slipped his arms inside. He'd been hoping that she hurt it in the crash, and because the mission was unsanctioned they were covering it up. There went that theory.

Fives raised an eyebrow. "Then why do you look like you just bit into a citron?" he asked wryly.

"It's–" Rex smoothed out the flat seam of his top half. "It's complicated."

"This have anything to do with her arm?"

Rex's head twisted like a parakeet to look at him. "What do you know about that?" he asked sharply.

"She's favoring it. Wasn't sure why, didn't get a chance to ask." Fives put his hands on his hips. "You think something fishy happened to it. Something went down on that mission that she doesn't want anyone to know about."

Shabla osikett'se, Fives was too smart for his own good. He had a light heart and a wicked sense of humor, which made it easy to forget that he was also sharper than the edge of an akul tooth. They didn't make ARCs out of idiots. "I didn't say that," Rex said quickly. He reached for his plastoid to keep his hands busy.

His brother rolled his eyes and sprawled on the concrete beside him. "Then why not just ask her about the report that she wrote? Obviously something happened that she doesn't want you to know about."

Rex flushed and kept kitting up. "Keep it to yourself for now, until I can find out more," he told him quietly. "If I'm going to investigate this–"

"Investigation implies a sanctioned action," Fives smirked. "You're not investigating, Rex, you're mad that your vod'ika didn't tell you that she was hurt and you want to know why."

Rex huffed and snapped his cuirass on. "Whatever you say, Fives." He punched him in the shoulder and stood. "I'll be back later. I've got a meeting with the General."

Fives put his hands behind his head and tilted his head back. "Have fun. Shab, I can never get enough of this. Sunlight."

"You're late!" Skywalker waved at him from beside a roofless speeder. "Let's get out of here, we've got a long flight ahead of us."

"General?" Rex checked his chrono and couldn't believe it. He was one minute late, yes, but more importantly, Skywalker had been early.

"How're we doing, Captain?" Skywalker asked genially.

"I'm doing well, Sir." Rex tried to ignore the anxious knot in his stomach. "Are, you, um, doing alright?"

"I'm great." Skywalker flashed a slightly manic grin. "You're going to like where we're going."

"Where's that, Sir?"

Skywalker vaulted over the edge of his speeder and started it up. One side was turquoise and the other was white, and it looked like it had been welded together from two different bodies. Rex had to wonder if it was actually sky-worthy, but he supposed he was about to find out. "You ever hear of Thirumagal?" Skywalker asked.

"Uh, no, Sir." Rex strapped in and braced himself for a Skywalker takeoff.

"It's a district about an hour away from here," Skywalker said, hitting the thruster hard enough to slam Rex back against his seat. "Biggest population of Togrutas anywhere in the galaxy outside of Shili."

"Oh." Rex thanked the tides that he had skipped breakfast since an hour of his General's driving was enough to turn the stomach of a rancor. "Why're we headed there?"

"I want to get a present for Ahsoka." Skywalker flashed him another grin. "Yeah, I know, we're not really supposed to do material possessions, but she's had a rough week."

"Can't argue that, Sir," Rex agreed.

Skywalker took a sharp right turn and dove through six vertical lanes of traffic to get to their exit. "Let's put some music on," he said pleasantly. Something with a heavy drumbeat, electric quetarras and Huttese lyrics started blaring out of the speakers. Skywalker took to the upper skylanes and hummed under his breath.

Rex alternated between looking at the city below and looking at his General as they passed over districts he'd never seen before. Now was obviously the perfect time to ask about Ahsoka's injury, so why wouldn't the words come out? He opened his mouth every few minutes to ask but immediately lost his nerve every time.

On some level, Rex knew half the reason was because he didn't actually want to know. He trusted Skywalker more than almost anyone else in the galaxy. As far as he was concerned, Skywalker was as much of a vod as Ahsoka was, though as their General he did have to keep a bit more distance from them for propriety's sake. The thought of that trust being betrayed in such a way turned his stomach.

On top of that, it just didn't make sense. Skywalker adored Ahsoka and she idolized him in return. He would never hurt her on purpose. Whatever had happened had to have been a terrible accident, and all Rex could figure was that it had been Skywalker's fault for them to both be so shifty about it.

He didn't like the way the general was avoiding his eyes, though. For all his smiling and joviality, Rex had noticed that he hadn't looked him in the eyes once since he'd picked him up.

Skywalker turned down the Huttese skonk music that he'd had blaring for the past hour and squinted over the side of his speeder. "I think that's it," he said casually before cranking their speeder out of the skylane and descending in a sharp diagonal through six lanes of traffic.

Rex closed his eyes and pretended he was in a simulation until the speeder evened out.

They flew over brightly-painted walkways that were lined with hundreds of free-roaming tookas. Vivid green and blue birds twittered down at the cats, safely out of reach on balconies and rooftops. Hibiscus and marg sabl flowers in every shade of the rainbow hung on garlands surrounding painted doors.

Skywalker parked in a cramped lot and hopped over the side of the speeder. He glanced back at Rex and snorted. "We've got to see about getting you guys some civvies for leave. People are going to think you're my bodyguard."

"Aren't I, Sir?" Rex asked wryly, getting out of the speeder.

"No, Rex." Skywalker clapped him on the pauldron. "That's not why you're here."

Rex felt sweat bead up on his temple.

"Come on. Let's find her something nice and then we can talk." Skywalker patted him twice then started walking.

Rex gave a sleepy orange tooka on the wall of the parking lot a scratch before following Skywalker around the corner and into walking traffic. The General took a sharp right down a flight of stairs that opened up to a crowded bazaar. There were countless stalls set up on either side of the labyrinthine walkway; artisans selling hanks of brightly-colored yarn, incense pressed into dozens of different shapes, intricately beaded caftans, colorful plants that Rex didn't recognize in handmade pots, and giant baskets of spices that made his eyes water when he leaned over to smell them. They walked by a kettle large enough to boil a blurrg in that smelled strongly of spiced meat and was manned by an ancient, hunchbacked Togruta man with no shoes.

"Hey, soldier boy!" a Togruta woman dressed in red silk crooned at him from a table full of crystal and stone beads. "Want a good luck charm?"

Rex smiled awkwardly and shook his head.

"No charge," she said, smiling flirtily. She had yellow skin, white markings like vines around her eyes, and violet-striped lekku that reached her knees. Tiny chips of quartz lay tied to a braided red net around her montrals.

Rex glanced at Skywalker, who was grinning. "Never say no to good luck," he snickered traitorously, then gave Rex an encouraging pat on the back and pushed him towards the table.

"Ma'am," Rex greeted her with a nod. He threw a begging look back at Skywalker, who gave him a double thumbs up.

"You got a sweetie, sweetie?" the woman asked, tilting her head at him with a smile. Her hand slowly stroked her left lek.

"No." Rex had no idea what to do with his hands.

"Well, then. Let's change that, shall we?" She fished through a pile of colorful stones and picked out a bright orange bead. "Do you know what this is?"

"A bead, ma'am." His hands were sweating inside his gloves.

He shot Skywalker another pleading look over his shoulder. The Jedi crossed his arms, smirked like a lothcat, and shook his head.

"Yes, it's a bead," she laughed softly. Her accent was soft and lilting. "Orange carnelian." The woman snipped off a length of red string and tied a complicated knot on either side of the stone, then sauntered around her table. "Our ancient armies used to wear it around their necks as a token to endow them with great physical strength so they could overcome their enemies."

"Oh," Rex said. "That's good."

She circled behind him, chuckling throatily. "It inspires bold energy and energizes the spirit." Her lek rested against his face as she brought the string around his neck and tied it. "It also stimulates passion and enhances fertility," she breathed into his ear.

Rex jumped a foot forward like he'd been poked with a nerf prod. "Thank–" he cleared his throat. "Thank you, ma'am. That's very kind of you."

She looked amused. "No, thank you for your service." She patted him on his chest before swaying back behind her table with a wink. "Stay safe, soldier boy. And good luck."

"Do you feel more fertile yet?" Skywalker deadpanned after Rex had practically run back to his side, feeling like he'd just been a part of something borderline obscene.

"I'll keep you updated," he replied, flushing puce. He had doubts about a bead undoing the surgery that the Kaminoans performed on the troopers to protect their intellectual property before shipping them out to war. Logically, Rex knew it was for the best; it probably was a bad thing to flood the galaxy with genetically identical men who could father tens of millions of half-siblings in a single generation, but he still resented the hell out of it.

"I'll be honest, I don't have anything specific in mind." Skywalker thumbed a silk scarf as they passed a stall. "Feel free to shout out if you see something."

I saw nothing in the Hardeen report that would explain her arm. Rex swallowed the words before they could leave his lips, though he could tell by the way Skywalker's shoulders stiffened that he heard him anyway. He needed to ask. Why couldn't he just shabla spit the words out?

"Did Ahsoka ever tell you the akul creation myth?" Skywalker asked suddenly.

"I don't think so, Sir," Rex replied.

"It's pretty sad." Skywalker trailed his hand over a collection of delicate copper chains hanging from a wall of hooks. "So it starts with Ashla and Bogan, right? The creator gods of Shili. They had four daughters. Sara, Aditi, Kali, and Tara. They've all got different… jobs, I guess, but Tara was the youngest and in charge of making different animals for Bogan to hunt."

Rex nodded without a single inkling of where the hell his general was going with this.

"So Tara comes up with all of these amazing animals – all of them have four eyes for some reason, I don't remember why that's important – and Bogan hunts them, but none of them are a real challenge. He's getting bored, she's getting frustrated because she's his favorite daughter and she's afraid he'll stop loving her if she doesn't impress him, so she asks her sister Kali what to do." Skywalker moved on to a new stall and started examining a rack of leather belts. "Kali tells her to make something terrifying that even a god would have trouble taking down, and then he'll appreciate her other creations more." Skywalker suddenly smirked. "Kali is the goddess of wildfires and change, she's a little volatile. And I think she was jealous of Tara, if I remember right."

Rex almost tripped over his own feet trying not to step on an ancient shunka that had fallen asleep in the middle of the crowded street.

"But Tara takes it to heart and creates the akul. In the myth it's as big as a mountain, so on top of having four eyes and a meat grinder for a mouth it also blocks out the sky. Problem is, it gets hungry and starts eating Togrutas while Bogan is on his way to hunt the thing. And Ashla, her mother, she made the Togrutas so she's upset, and when she intervenes the akul injures her and she has to run away and hide. She gives some of the Togrutas snakes to wear on their heads to scare it away in the meantime, and they're the only ones that survive the rampage. That's where their lekku come from." Skywalker leaned down to pet a black tooka bunting against his boots. "Once Bogan gets there, he rips the akul into a million pieces – that's why they're not mountain-sized any more, I guess – but he's so amped up from the fight and so pissed that Ashla got hurt that he punches Tara right in the mouth. He knocks all of her teeth out with one hit and sends her back to the stars. That's why Tara's moon is that little white one with the crater on it."

"Is that who Taarak is named after, Sir?" Rex asked. He stopped in front of a stall that had a selection of little leather pouches strung on cords, clearly intended to be worn around the neck. One with a lily stamped on the front caught his eye, though he knew Ahsoka didn't care much for them. They had some biochem that he couldn't pick up that smelled off to her.

"Yeah, I think so." Skywalker joined him in looking at the pouches. A friendly-looking Togruta man babbled something in Aagani that neither of them understood. Skywalker picked up a pouch with a marg sabl flower embossed on it. "This is nice."

Rex waited for him to continue, still confused.

Skywalker handed the Aagani man his credit chit and smiled at the pouch. "Bogan always regretted hurting Tara, though. He still loved her. He kept one of her teeth to make fangs for the Togrutas but he threw the rest in the ocean to make that island chain by the equator to apologize to her." He looked up at Rex and finally met his eyes. "How am I doing with this allegory thing?" he asked wryly.

Not well, since Rex had no idea what the hell his point was. "Sir?" he asked.

"Bogan loved his daughter. He didn't mean to hurt her, he just lost his temper." Skywalker accepted his credit chit back and pocketed the pouch. "She'll like this."

"I'm sure she will, Sir," Rex agreed.

Skywalker stilled and gave Rex a thin smile. "What happened between Ahsoka and I is private, but the important thing that you need to know is that it was an accident. I would never, never hurt her on purpose."

Rex felt a trickle of sweat trail down his spine like a cold finger. "General–"

"It was an accident," Skywalker repeated, and this time his voice cracked. "It will never happen again, Rex. I'll rip this fucking thing off before it does." He stared down at his mech hand, clenched in a fist.

"You gave me an order to protect her, Sir," Rex said quietly. "To watch her back when you couldn't."

"Not from me." Skywalker put his hand – his living hand – on Rex's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I swear to you, you don't need to protect her from me."

Rex hesitated. He wanted to believe him more than anything, but something just didn't feel right.

Skywalker's eyes were hollow, desperate. Whatever he'd done, it was haunting him. "Akay karase dar'hettir," he said quietly. "I swear, Rex."

"As you say, Sir," Rex said, making his choice with a nod.

Plo's lap was a comfortable pillow. It always had been, especially back when Ahsoka was still small enough to curl up into a little ball on him like he was a lilypad while he'd do his floating meditation.

Coming to the Temple had been hard. She didn't know who or what anyone was, the smells were foreign and intense, and she didn't understand the colors that she saw so vividly around people in the Force. She was accustomed to the ones around her clan, but once she got to the Temple it was a tidal wave of overstimulation that she had no idea how to turn off. Plo had understood that, correctly pegging her Empathy almost immediately and shielding her constantly, and he'd let her caretakers know that they needed to do it for her until she was old enough to do it herself. Nobody else had thought to shield her besides Plo and Obi-Wan. His was the other lap that she'd practically lived in, as the Geonosian shaman had unfortunately reminded her. It was Obi-Wan who had found her when she ran out of quarantine, scared and hungry and alone and searching for anything familiar.

She had thought that she'd found it when she finally reached the aura that was the same color as her father's.

"Are you awake, little 'Soka?" Plo's talons scratched delicately between her montrals.

"Mm." She nuzzled his knee and spared a moment to wonder if Wolffe had eaten all the nerf jerky yet.

"Your commlink has been going off for the better part of an hour. I believe your Masters have become aware of my report on Geonosis."

Her eyes cracked open and focused on the flashing white light of her commlink, sitting on the holoconsole in the center of the salon pod. "Did you take that off of me?" she croaked. The words scratched her dehydrated throat on the way out.

"You needed to rest." Plo held up a hand and summoned the commlink. "But you should assuage your Masters. You know how they worry."

Ahsoka sat up on the sofa and took the commlink reluctantly, not missing the way he had emphasized Masters.

Her message center had exploded into shabla madness. She had messages from Anakin, Rex, Jesse… half the damn 501st actually, Cody, Wooley, even Fox wanted to know if she'd gotten Boba killed.

And of course, the bane of her current existence.

– [𝟶𝟺.𝟶𝟻.𝟿𝟾𝟶} – [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟷] 𝙹𝙶𝟽𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟹𝟷𝟶𝟹!𝙺𝙴𝙽𝙾𝙱𝙸> 𝙸 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝. 𝙸 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚢𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟸] 𝙹𝙶𝟽𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟹𝟷𝟶𝟹!𝙺𝙴𝙽𝙾𝙱𝙸> 𝙰𝚑𝚜𝚘𝚔𝚊, 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚏𝚎. 𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘.

Ahsoka felt a stabbing pain like a nail being driven through her heart. She'd been firmly blocking their bond since his dramatic return, but now she could feel frantic energy beating at his side like it had closed fists. She bit her lip and started typing.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟺] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙸'𝚖 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢���𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛𝚗. 𝙼𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚓𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚢.

She saw his typing ellipsis and quickly backed out before she saw his response, then went to Anakin's thread.

– [𝟶𝟺.𝟶𝟻.𝟿𝟾𝟶] – [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟹] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙷𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙽𝙴𝙳 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙾𝙺 [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟹] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁>~ [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟺] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁>~

She scrolled down thirty more pings, wincing the whole time.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟻] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙸'𝚖 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙰𝚁𝙵 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚗𝚘 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝. 𝚆𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚗𝚘 𝚏𝚊𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜. 𝙸 𝚒𝚗𝚓𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚖 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝚕𝚘 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚞𝚙.

Anakin's ellipsis immediately started flashing.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟻] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝚆𝙸𝙲𝙷 𝙰𝚁𝙼 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟻] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙻𝚎𝚏𝚝 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚞𝚜. 𝙸 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙰𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝. [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟼] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙱𝚁𝙾𝙺𝙴 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟼] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> ? [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟼] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝚈𝚎𝚜, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝚕𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎. 𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚎.

She could feel motes of his distress and guilt leaking through their bond, even over all of the light years that separated them.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙸𝙼 𝚂𝙾𝚁𝚁𝚈 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙸'𝚖 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢, 𝙸 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚎! 𝚆𝚎'𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗. [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙾𝙺 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙱𝙴 𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙴𝙵𝚄𝙻 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙶𝚞𝚗𝚐𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚊𝚔 𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗? [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝚈𝙴𝚂 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙴𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝙱𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗. :) [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> :)

"I do believe Master Skywalker is taking me to Naboo," Ahsoka smirked, closing her message center and crossing her legs underneath her. She'd have to get to the boys' messages when her eyes were less blurry, but Skyguy could at least update them.

"How delightful." Plo's aura flared out in rich copper affection-encouragement and he helped her slide the nerve regeneration sleeve off of her arm. "Master Kenobi very much enjoys the botanical gardens in Theed. Perhaps the three of you could visit one while you're there."

Ahsoka looked away. "I should go check on Boba," she said, getting up.

Plo hooked a talon in her belt and gently tugged her back down. "In a moment," he rumbled goodnaturedly.

Ahsoka picked at her cuticles until Plo pulled her hands apart.

"Boba told me that the shaman imitated his father's voice in order to lure him out of the sunlight," he said gently. "And that you had been trapped in some sort of Force vision. I presume it was to keep you pacified until they could insert one of those worms."

Ahsoka shuddered. "That makes sense," she mumbled, feeling her skin crawl.

"May I ask what your vision entailed?" His aura was still copper, giving nothing away.

She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it. Plo rubbed the hand he'd captured. "Was it Master Kenobi?"

She shrugged.

"I sense a great deal of turmoil in you, little 'Soka," Plo said softly. "What happened in your vision?"

I fear that his darkness is infecting you. The memory tasted like vinegar. What a damn joke. That bug knew nothing about her Master, nothing, and it had the gall to wear Obi-Wan's face while insulting him–

"Ahsoka." Plo's firm voice interrupted her thoughts. "I must be blunt with you. You should not have fallen prey to that trap so easily."

Her eyes snapped onto his face. It was steady, serious, and his aura had gone firm silver with trust-authority. "You are unbalanced, off-center, and you risked everyone's lives by going down into the catacombs in such a state."

"Master?" she asked, as stunned as if he'd slapped her across the face.

"I am saying this because I care for you, Ahsoka." Plo gently stroked a talon down her cheek. "But you have lost sight of the bigger picture."

Ahsoka's breath caught in her chest and she dropped her gaze, humiliated.

"It was unfair for Master Kenobi to have involved you in such a way in his mission. I have never disagreed with that. But Ahsoka, you are acting as though his one and only motivation was to cause you and Anakin as much pain as possible for no reason at all. His goal was to save the life of the Chancellor."

"But–" she tried.

"No buts," Plo said firmly. "You must not continue to obsess over this. You cannot release the anger and pain it has caused you because you refuse to close the wound for a reason I can't comprehend. What good does it do you to hold onto this anger? All I see is it compromising you. You need to be better than this. If not for your own sake, for Boba's. You are his guardian. He is depending on you to protect and support him."

Ahsoka stared at her knees and tried not to cry.

"I am not saying that you must forgive him for what he did, though I do encourage it. But you must move on. What is done cannot be undone, though I am quite sure that he wishes it could be." Plo opened his own commlink and showed her his message center. "Forty messages from Master Kenobi over the last hour," he said softly. "He's been frantic with worry over you because whether or not you want to believe it, he loves you very much."

How could he do that to me if he loved me? She choked on the question before it could escape, but Plo's aura went a deep purple with sadness-sympathy and she knew he'd heard it anyway.

Plo's aura lightened to orange with determination. He squeezed her hands and brought his legs up on the sofa to match her cross-legged pose. Facing her now, he took a deep breath. "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me," he said softly.

She repeated the mantra dutifully, following his lead into meditation.

"There is no emotion, there is peace," he continued. His thumbs stroked the tops of her hands. "What does that mean, Padawan?"

"That we cannot feel the will of the Force if we allow our emotions to distract us, Master," she replied.

"Yes. I want you to gather up all of the hurt that is festering inside of you and look at the source. Let the memories flow by you but look at them, Padawan. Truly examine them. What is the true root of this pain?"

She obeyed, watching the moments pass by her like she was skipping through a holoprojector. The blood from Obi-Wan's heart soaking through her leggings. Anakin howling and dropping to his knees. A raw hurricane of black-crimson agony-despair spinning across their bond that sucked the air from her lungs and blinded her with its intensity. Obi-Wan's head flopping on his neck when Anakin silently tugged him from her arms.

Cold, wet sand against her legs and Aada's head in her lap, staring at her with sightless eyes and blue lips.

She turned away. She'd seen enough.

"There is a wind within you, Padawan," Plo rumbled. His rich, warm smell intensified as she sank further into a state of meditation. "The tide of the Cosmic Force flows through us all. It is what makes our cells divide, it carries starlight on its waves. Open yourself up to it, dear Padawan, and let it bear the burden for you."

"There is no emotion, there is peace," she murmured. Her body tingled and her heartbeat slowed. The memories fluttered like they had wings and the flow of the Force guided them up and away from her. She watched them spin off into the distant glow of the galaxy and felt calm fill her up like warm water. They were not forgotten, but their distance made them easier to bear.

Plo was right. Plo was always right. She was poisoning herself and she had to be better. Her vod'ika needed her; now that she was more centered, she could feel Boba's quiet sadness echoing in the Force like a bruise. She'd been too caught up in her own self-pity to notice his distress.

"Good, Padawan. Very good." She matched Plo breath for breath and they quietly surfaced out of their meditation in tandem. "I am proud of you. We will do this as many times as it takes for you to heal. The hurt runs too deep for this process to happen overnight."

"Thank you, Master," Ahsoka whispered. She wiped at her wet cheeks, though she wasn't sure if the tears were from sadness or relief.

"It is my honor to guide you, little 'Soka." Plo leaned forward and embraced her. "Boba is in the hangar with the Wolfpack. They've been helping him refit the armor."

She sniffled. "Has Wolffe broken through the encryption yet?"

"There was no need," Plo smiled and leaned back. "Boba knew all of the passwords. We made a brief stop to acquire a data filter, but have made much progress since then."

"Have they found anything on the Cuy'val Dar?" she asked, hopeful.

"Wolffe is still analyzing the data, but not yet," Plo said regretfully. "We… we will need to discuss Boba's future if there is nothing to find, Ahsoka."

She nodded sadly. "I know. I'm not under the illusion that he can stay with me forever, Master."

Plo went green with sympathy-pride. "I know you aren't. You have been very mature and responsible throughout this journey, Ahsoka, even on Geonosis. I am impressed at how successful you have been in coaxing him out of his shell in such a short time."

"Thank you, Master. I'll go see him now." She got to her feet, bowed, and exited the pod, her heart somehow lighter and heavier at the same time.

Ahsoka was surprised by the music playing in the hangar. Not that there was music, no, but Wolffe usually just played whatever Master Plo enjoyed. This was music she'd heard before, but only from Rex.

"Is this skiffle?" she asked Boba, approaching on bare feet.

Her vod'ika's aura spiked out with white surprise and he jumped a foot in the air. He'd spread a blanket down and sat cross-legged with naked beskar plates in front of him, polished to a mirrored shine. He was in the process of rewiring something in the front of the cuirass. "Fucking tooka," he grumbled, going yellow with embarrassment before fading into bronze affection-humor. "Yeah, it's skiffle. My dad had a few mixes saved on his drives."

"Nice." She sank down onto her haunches beside him. Robert the Rancor and the little crocheted tooka doll had been propped up on a crate so they could watch him work.

"How are you feeling, Commander?" Mangle called from across the hangar on his own little blanket island.

"Shabla hold still, di'kut," Wolffe snapped, slapping the medic's arm in annoyance. He held a gray-tipped brush and looked to be carefully painting wolf teeth along the edge of Mangle's plastoid jawbone.

"Perfect, vod, thank you." She sent a tendril of russet gratitude in his direction. "Where are the others?"

"Comet's in the cockpit with Arseven going through metadata, Sinker and Boost are asleep in the bunkroom." Wolffe pointed at a beskar gauntlet plugged into a small, blue-green box that fed into a field data extractor. "I've got alerts set up for all the names we can remember. Between us and the other CCs we've got most of them keyed, but we don't know anything more than that and for all we know the names they used were fake."

"Good point." She turned back to Boba. "Plo said you opened up the drives for Wolffe."

"Yeah, well," Boba shrugged. "The cost of getting the beskar'gam back, 'lek? I kept my end of the bargain."

"Boba, that was never a requirement," Ahsoka said gently, then leaned in closer. "If I'm being honest, it was just an excuse to go get it," she continued in a conspiratorial whisper.

He flushed a dark, rich blue that was veined with copper, affection-contentment-happiness flowing equally together like three streams at the lip of a lake. "What kind of fucking Jedi are you?" he snickered.

"An unconventional one," she grinned, bopping his shoulder. "Runs in the lineage."

"Odd way to pronounce a disaster," Wolffe grumbled under his breath.

"What was that?" Ahsoka called.

"Nothing," Wolffe said innocently.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Ahsoka bit her lips and waited.

"Is it now?" Wolffe carefully put the paintbrush down and got to his feet, his aura going vivid orange with excitement-humor.

Ahsoka blinked porg eyes at her vod as he approached. "Need something, Commander?" she asked sweetly.

Wolffe bent in half at the waist and touched her forehead in a gentle kov'nyn. Her grin grew. This wasn't a delicate brain-kiss of affection, it was the opening salute of a spar.

"Please don't fuck up my soldering," Boba said tonelessly, his aura vibrating with golden humor.

"Wolffe, Ahsoka, I believe I made myself quite clear on our way to Kamino," Plo said mildly from the entrance of the hangar. He carried a small meal tray piled with meat sticks, grasser cheese curds, pink-shelled eggs, and a tea kettle. "If either of you damage this vessel because of your incessant need to wrestle, you will be writing a personal letter of apology to the Dorin Ambassador."

"Yes, Sir," they both mumbled, separating foreheads.

"Now, Wolffe, how is the data extraction going?" Plo carefully placed the tray down and took a seat beside Ahsoka.

"Haven't run into any deletion traps yet, and we're 95% complete." Wolffe plopped back down and picked up his brush again, a little gray with disappointment. Mangle patiently held still and let him continue his art project. "The Seabreeze panned out."

"No shit," Boba deadpanned, then put his soldering gun down and stretched his back like a tooka.

Ahsoka shelled a pink tam-tam egg and bit it in half. She offered the other half to Boba, who took it after giving it a curious sniff.

"I thank you again for your help, Boba." Plo reached around her and squeezed his shoulder.

Boba smiled at his boots. "How's your arm?" he asked Ahsoka, poking it.

"All better." She didn't let the jolt of lightning that shot up her arm from his poke show on her face.

"That's good." Boba fiddled with the cuff of his canvas pants and looked at the datapad plugged into his helmet, his aura flooding a pale yellow-orange with anxiety-anticipation-indecision.

Ahsoka bit her lip, thinking, then glanced at Plo and silently projected a request to be alone with Boba through the shimmering thread of their Force bond.

"Wolffe, would you assist me in beginning the data transfer to the Jedi Temple?" Plo asked pleasantly.

Wolffe put his paintbrush down immediately. "Of course, General. Come on, vod, you can do my Geonosis report while you dry."

"I can?" Mangle raised an eyebrow that disappeared into the curls hanging over his forehead.

Ahsoka, who'd been wondering when the hazing would begin for Mangle, stifled a snicker.

Wolffe hauled the gauntlet and extractor into his arms. Plo winked at her and followed the troopers out.

"What's got you all fidgety?" Ahsoka asked softly once they were gone, falling from her haunches onto her rump.

Boba snorted. "You reading my mind again, Tano?"

"No, di'kut, I'm an Empath. I can see that you're anxious about something." Ahsoka watched him calmly and waited for him to take the first step.

Boba opened his datapad and turned off the music. "Wolffe doesn't have everything," he mumbled. "Not– I'm not trying to hide anything, it's not intel, it's… private."

"Okay." She sent a cool green wave of serenity in his direction until his aura slowed its nervous vibration. "You don't have to share anything that you don't want to, vod'ika. As long as it's not something that'll end the war, you're entitled to keep it to yourself."

Boba opened up a folder and brought up a holopic. In it was Jango and a dark-haired woman, both of them laughing out loud at something. The perspective was almost from the floor, like it'd been taken by an Ugnaught.

Or a child.

"That was my mama," Boba said quietly, going soft purple with sadness. "Kaisa Skirata."

"Your–" Ahsoka leaned in closer and stared at the holopic. She was pretty, with curly black hair that went to her shoulders and skin almost the same shade of copper as Jango. "But I-I thought you were a clone," she finally managed after a few moments of stunned silence.

"I am a clone, di'kut." Boba rolled his eyes. "She was Dad's riduur. She adopted me."

"Oh." Ahsoka stared at her. She was short, barely coming up to Jango's shoulder, but she could see how muscular she was under the close-fitting flight suit she wore. The woman was a warrior, there was no doubt about that.

Boba flicked to a new holopic, one with a toddler that Ahsoka would have pegged as a chubby clone cadet if not for his bright gray eyes shining through the screen like polished beskar. "And that's Cassus," he continued. The purple sadness in his aura deepened. "He was my brother. He was a month older than me. He wasn't a clone, he was Mama's."

And Jango's, clearly; his round little face spoke to the strength of those genes. "I had no idea he had a natural-born son," Ahsoka said softly, examining the holopic curiously. "What happened to them?"

"They died." Boba flicked to a new holo before she could ask how. Jango lay asleep on the couch, his head tilted back over the arm and his jaw wide open in a snore she could almost hear with two small babies and a third, larger baby asleep on his chest. All three of them wore matching pajamas with little fluffy banthas on them. The oldest baby was bald but the two little ones both had thick, luscious mops of black curls. Boba glanced at her and waited for her reaction.

"Who's that?" Ahsoka asked, pointing to the oldest. He was twice the size of the littles but he slept just like them, with his feet tucked under his body like a frog.

Boba bit his lip and scrolled to a new holopic. This one was of the woman, Kaisa, in full Mandalorian armor minus her bucket with a grinning baby Cassus tied to her chest and the bald now-toddler clinging to her back. He held the silver tooka doll in his hand that stared at them from the crate next to Robert the Rancor.

Ahsoka squinted at the boy and realized he wasn't bald, he had an almost invisible layer of white-blond curls sticking up from his head like a halo. Her heart skipped a beat; she knew exactly who he was, now. "Rex," she whispered.

"Tiarek, back then." Boba said quietly. "Mama named him that 'cause he was blond. She made the doll for him, too." He scrolled again. In the next holopic, Jango sat at a table with Rex on his lap behind a dense, nutty cake topped with two candles. Rex's cheeks were puffed up, preparing to blow them out.

Ahsoka gripped Boba's hand, feeling dizzy despite sitting down. "It wasn't just a few weeks, was it?" she asked.

"Three years." Boba flipped to a picture of the three boys on a sofa that had a large bite mark taken out of one leg. Boba was in Rex's lap and had a wailing Cassus's arm between his teeth. Kaisa sat off to the side, reaching for Boba with a stern look on her face. Boba smiled. "Mama stopped the kaminiise from gassing him and raised him with us. They euthanized the rest of his batch for coming out blond but she grabbed him before they could get him."

Ahsoka gaped for a few seconds like Hinata begging for pellets, too stunned to do anything else. "For being blond?" she managed after a few seconds. "They were going to… to kill him for being blond?" She was going to be sick. They'd killed his batchmates, and would have killed him all because of his hair color.

"Yep." Boba flicked to a new picture. Kaisa was holding up Rex and kissing his neck. Rex had his eyes closed and his mouth open in what she imagined was a tickled shriek of laughter.

"Why… why did he never say anything?" she whispered. "Why does he keep saying there was a training accident and–"

"Mama tried to leave with Cas when we were two." Boba shut the datapad off and flipped it.

"Why?"

Boba's shoulders slumped. "I don't know," he said quietly. "But something happened with her and Dad. They had a big fight. She tried to take us with her but…" Boba trailed off and shook his head. "I don't know, I was only two. It was storming and there was screaming and I don't remember what happened, just that it was bad, and then she left us and got on her ship with Cas." He was trembling. "Dad shot it down."

Ahsoka took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.

"After that it was just me and Tiarek." Boba smiled sadly to himself. "Reks'ika."

Reks'ika… Rex. Ahsoka put her face in her hands. "Oh Force, Rex," she murmured, overwhelmed.

"After Mama and Cas died, Dad put all of their things in a lockbox and kept it on the top shelf of his closet," he said. "He came home from a job and found us looking at them and he got mad." Boba's eyes welled up with tears and his aura bloomed deep violet again with the bruised tone of grief-regret. "I don't think he meant to hurt him like that but he… he smashed Tiarek in the face with the box." Boba touched his chin. "That's how he got that."

"It doesn't matter how angry he was," Ahsoka snapped. "He never should have–" she cut herself off and stifled her anger. Boba needed her compassion, not her outrage. She was his guardian and she had to be there for him, as Plo had reminded her.

There is no emotion, there is peace. She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, surrendering her rage to the Force at the same time.

"And then after, he wasn't my brother anymore," Boba continued. "He forgot me."

Ahsoka had asked Rex about his scar once and he said he couldn't remember, just that he was young. "Rex has hit his head plenty of times," she said after a few moments of spinning, trying to make sense of it all. "It's not like in the holos where you just get amnesia from bonking your head."

His tears finally lost their fight and fell from Boba's eyes. "I think they reconditioned him," he whispered. "He doesn't know because they made him forget. I… I don't know why. Kal told him that osik about the training accident while he was getting better and Dad told me to forget him because he was going to be a soldier again." His face crumpled and his shoulders slumped. "They took my brother from me and I don't know why."

"I'm sorry," Ahsoka whispered, knowing it wasn't nearly enough. She wrapped her aura around him like a warm copper blanket of safety-comfort and opened her arms.

Boba climbed into her lap like the child he pretended he wasn't and tucked his face into her neck, shuddering silently. His aura was throbbing like a wound with purple grief but there was also a thin blue ribbon of relief around the edges, and Ahsoka couldn't help but wonder how long he'd been holding that secret in.

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS Resol'nare: Mandalorian code Mand'alor: Leader of Mandalore (not just the planet but all Mandalorian space) Ba'buir: Grandfather Chakaar: asshole Osik: shit Copaani kov'pelid: need a pillow? Shab/la: fuck/fucking Osikett'se: shitballs ori/vod/ika: big brother/brother/little brother Akay karase dar'hetti: until the stars no longer burn (mandalorian oath) Di'kut: dummy OTHER NOTES I don't plan on going very deep into the Galidraan/Jango being technically the heir to Mandalore thing outside of a few infodumps for context, but just as an fyi, timeline's been adjusted to make it a little more logical. Jango was in his 20s when he took over the True Mandalorians (because like… this isn't Game of Thrones, a 14 year old ain't taking over a battalion of supercommandos, sorry), Galidraan happened 11 years before Geonosis, not 22, and he wasn't enslaved as long as he was in Legends. Legends canon time again 😎 so apparently the Kaminoans did try to genetically engineer infertility into the clones, but "clone prototypes displayed much higher rates of mental instability, poor unit cohesion, an inability to adapt and think creatively, and decreased aggressiveness in battlefield simulations." so in this AU they give them vasectomies instead to prevent the proliferation of their superior genome into the disgusting normie galaxy 😃 but of course, vasectomies are only 99% effective *coughs* DARMAN *coughs* INTRODUCING KAISA AND CASSUS WOOOOOO. Both are ocs created by Squid_Ink, she is letting me play with them because she is lovely and you should all go check out her fic on Kaisa's backstory Tam-tam: a blue and pink quail-like bird native to Felucia known for laying up to 8 eggs a day depending on the moon cycle Shunka: canid species native to Shili (the dogs in Ahsoka's village from TOTJ)

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

[popculturebuffet]

Based on an ask where you ranked the Disney Afternoon pilots, how would you rank the pilots of each of the newer set of Disney cartoons?The cutoff I'll use is starting with the batch from when Disney moved all their cartoons to Disney Channel in 2018,I'll simplify it by not including the ones after Owl House to cut down on it being a mouthful,Pilots are Star Comes to Earth,Going the Extra Milo,Woo-oo,Baymax Returns,Welcome Home(Big City Greens), Anne or Beast,Tangled Before Ever, and TOH's pilot

Tangled is taken out as I haven't watched that one. And to compensate i'll add in The Curse from Ghost and Molly McGee (Since I haven't seen Hailey's on it or hamster and gretel yet and i've only seen a bit of kiff's first episode) and for my own amusement (and because this is my answer so I can do what I like), Moon Girl Landing.

I"ll also say before this ranking that most of these are awesome first episodes that sell what the series is at that point well. Disney is really good at pilots and first episodes.

9. The Lying Witch and the Warden: Case in point this is the only one on this list that.. isn't good. It has good moments, but as i've talked to at length with many fellow owl house fans, paticuarlly @jess-the-vampire the pilot is very ...

It beats you over the head with it's theme of "BE YOURSELF. BEING WEIRD IS OKAY", when the rest of the series does a much better job of expressing it's messages way better. It also hurt Camilla's character and reputation SO BAD that her next two episodes had to go out of their way to explain WHY she sent luz to what came off as a metaphor for conversion therapy in the pilot, show it wasn't that, show she came back right after to help, and have her accept luz as is. The character as she is now is amazing but how badly the pilot botched the assigment with her still left an impact on the series and it's the only one hwere where something in the first episode had to be course corrected this badly.

8. Baymax Returns: A solid tv movie and a neat way to bring back our squishy soft boy. I've only seen bits of this series but it's pretty good which given who made it isn't suprising.

7. Welcome Home: this is a weird one as Space Chicken was the first ep aired and produced, so my first impression of the series.. isn't this episode. Still as an INTENDED first episode it's pretty good, sets up Bill, Cricket and Tilly well. I just slightly prefer space chicken as, even with Tilly being slightly off, it showcases the entire core cast.

6. The Curse: A really good opener that sets up who molly is, why she needs brighton to be her forever home, and who scratch is and why he needs a friend. I also love the scene with mollys family finding out about scratch.. and after the shock wears off all taking it in stride to his massive annoyance.

5. Moon Girl Landing: The most recent pilot here and it's up so high for a reason. This show is fantastic and the opening does a really good job fleshing both Lunella and Devil out while also having a throughly memorable villian that gives it real personal stakes. Sure we know the family rink won't be gone in the first episode, they spent the money making that setting, but the power going down in LES and so many people's livelyhoods being in danger gives realistic stakes to "Genius 13 year old and giant red dinosaur fight elctro daughter".

4. Anne or Beast?: Another banger. Ugly Ugly Hero is still a tremendous line and it gets across our core 4 incredibly well. Also we have a slug instead of betsy for some reason who I love only because I love slugs and snails. Such shrively little guys.. or big guys in this case. Where did that snail go? Whose his agent? Am I now his agent? It's remakable how fleshed out everyone is from day one in almost all of these. I mean granted as we've seen these aren't the PILOTS but even so many series still take time to get a grasp of the cast. Amphibia and what we're about to see had it day one. 3. Star Comes to Earth: While Star Vs had a weak finish i'll probably never entirely let go it had one hell of a strong start. Star Comes to Earth tells us everything we need to know about who star and marco are. Granted Marco being the "Saftey kid" never comes up again, but it served it's point: to show Marco's a bit in his shell and cautious but wants badly to not be the responsible one, and Star provides a way out of that. Also once again we have a gag that's damn perfect with "I'm a magical princess from another dimension". It's remarkable how in just 11 minutes they set up pretty much everything for season 1 and a lot of things for the series: Star's reckleness and how she has a pretty loose grasp on her magic but a great one of combat, marco's martial arts and safteyness, his awesome parents, star's disapproving mom and ludo and co. It's a snappy 11 minutes that really sets the tone for season 1. I really shoudl revisit it with a proper review.

2. Going the Extra Milo: Speaking of things that need a proper review hot damn do I love this episode. Just thinking back to it, it does what a pilot should do and I know I keep repeating myself but that's because a good pilot is setup, showing you who these characters are (even if they can sometims be slightly off) and showing off the premise. In this case it keeps it simple: Milo meets Zack, who as a new kid serves as a perfect window into the weird shit that happens to milo.... while also showing us why he can be so chipper and happy despite the worst happening to him. The "How can you live like this scene" Is really what lands this so high, showing that milo rather than see his constant misfortune as a terrible thing.. sees it as having fun lifethreanting adventures every day. He gets to have an intresting life and Zack sees that being around milo is dangeorus.. but it's also a lot of fun. And that more importantly.. milo's one heck of a guy. Melissa also gets a lot of fleshing out as we both see her faith in milo via the side bet and her hustler nature. Had this show actually got proper promotion this would've been another hit on this pilot alone. Alas we got what we got.. and at least the two seasons we got keep this level of quality up.

1. Woo-ooo!: Look ya'll know I love ducktales, so you likely saw this coming.. but even loving me some ducks woo-ooo is just .. objectively the best on here. It does everything I said a pilot shoudl do while also having some really gorgeous shots like scrooge putting his money in the bin o rthe sweeing intro of duckburg. I'll grant it has more time than most pilots but really it does a LOT of it's character exposition in the first 5 minutes: within that we get who the boys and donald are and where scrooge is now, while the rest shows us who he was and will be again, introduces webby, beakley and launchpad and even sets up the series final villian. The second half adding in Glomgold is just gravy at this point. It's honestly weirdly LESS awkward than the rest of early season 1, where it seems they struggle more to find the shows identity while this.. shows they had the core of it from the start.

[danielfeketewrites]

How Eurovision 2023 Should Have Ended

Well, not quite. I just really want to talk about my favourites.

Because I've been a bit obsessed. This was the first Eurovision I actually watched. I didn't think this would be something for me, but as it turns out - I was wrong! There were so many amazing songs, iconic performance, etc.

The thing is, after re-watching and re-listening a lot of 2023 ESC, I realised that none of MY top 5 actually reached top 5. So that's what I want to share with you today.

But first - honorable mentions (actually turning this top 5 into a top 10)!

10. Lord of the Lost (Germany) - Blood & Glitter

Budget Rammstein is still some amount of Rammstein. These dudes just seem really nice.

9. Mae Muller (UK) - I Wrote a Song

Was she out of breath? Definitely. But still... The song is really catchy and the visual presentation was incredible. Didn't deserve the last place for sure.

8. Loreen (Sweden) - Tattoo

Basically everyone and their mum pointed out already how convenient it is for Eurovision to come back to Sweden for the ABBA anniversary... Still, Loreen has a beautiful voice and this was a solid song.

7. Käärijä (Finland) - Cha Cha Cha

Cha, Cha Cha, Cha Cha Cha Cha!

6. Alessandra (Norway) - Queen of Kings

She was a favourite of a friend of mine and I can really see why. Strong, beautiful voice. Powerful song. Nice performance.

And now, finally, my top 5!

5. Voyager (Australia) - Promise

I... really like this. At a glance this seems like a mix of generic synthpop and genric rock, but that crescendo! It feels so optimistic, so nice and fun. I have no idea why but this song just always puts a big, stupid smile on my face.

4. La Zarra (France) - Évidemment

I feel like instead of bringing generic popsongs, it's always better when Eurovision contestants bring something that feels specifically "of their nation". This is definitely a great example of that. Gotta love La Zarra's voice and presence. She's incredible.

3. Teya & Salena (Austria) - Who The Hell Is Edgar?

This is actually my favourite song of the whole competition. I've listened to it so goddamn much in the past few weeks. Also, I'm in love with Teya. And possibly Salena. They are amazing, incredible, and just overall iconic.

Just the creativity of taking a name of one of the most famous writers on the planet and turning it into... a beat? It's a song about getting possesed by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, but also about up-and-coming female song writers getting nothing for their work. I love Teya and Salena and I love this goddamn song.

Oh mio padre, there's a ghost in my body!

But, when we're talking performances, there are two that I would rate even higher than that...

2. Pasha Parfeni (Moldova) - Soarele şi Luna

This was where my vote went. I'm not even that into the song, but the performance is... well, spellbinding, really. I don't even know how to explain it. It's really the combination of both that works for me so well, I think.

And finally, my number 1...

Vesna (Czech Republic) - My Sister's Crown

Yeah, they're from my country.

But I genuinely thought they were incredible! An awesome, cool song mixing modern pop with folk music. An amazing, complex choreography. Singing in four languages!

And that's not even taking in account the messaging of the piece. Not just the call for female empowerement. But also the radical, pan-slavic yet anti-russian sentiment. And also - the hands! Specifically, the SOS sign that they are doing. Everything here has layers to peel off.

This was overall an incredible song and performance. Vesna is brilliant. It's a crime they didn't make it ito the actual top 5.

That's it! Those are my favourite performances and songs of Eurovision 2023. What do you think of my takes? Hot? Cold? Shit? Let me know!

Thanks for reading this!

[countlessrealities]

throw my rp blogs' URLs at you and runs away

Send a URL and I'll answer the following || Accepting !

{ for both @hvbris & @imprvdente }

Do I Follow Them? Chloé and I go waaaay back! Damn, how long has it been now? 3 years? Longer? Many seasons in any case x'D We've written a lot together, in several fandoms and verses and every single one has been a delight.

Why Did I Follow Them? If I'm not mistaken, she approached me from Fish blog for...uh, I can't even remember which muse of mine we used first and foremost. I don't think it was Will nor Abigail because I added them later 🤔 Well, in any case, I was presented with this amazingly solid character, written by someone who is so very talented in both writing and arting. I would have been a fool to turn her down! Fish is lovable in all her iterations, even the ones where she's anything but a good person, and she's incredibly versatile, which makes writing with her with basically all the possible characters really easy! Imagine my delight when I found out about the multimuse 😎

Do We Role Play? Do most human beings perceive the sky as blue? xD Duh. I don't dare to count how many threads we have (and yes, Chloé, I know that they aren0t many for your standards, but I travel at a whole different wavelength xD). We use basically all my main muses with plenty of theirs! We've built and discussed a lot of dynamics and each of them has a special place in my heart 🖤

Do I Want To Role Play With Them: Abso-fucking-lutely YEAH! Chloé is one of my mains and a dear friend by now, so I hope that we'll write together for as long as possible. Plus, there are a few interactions we are planning that I'm very eager to explore, so I'm looking forward to when my slow ass will find the time to get them started!

An AU Idea For Our Muses: Oh damn, we're already doing a couple of AUs and I'm kind of drawing a blank on more ideas. Off the top of my head? An AU where my Smith trio has supernatural adventures instead of sci-fi adventures (very much Ghostbuster like, as a vibe, but not limited to ghost) and they have to deal with Salomé in her demon verse or with Vampire Fish?

A Song For Our Muses: "Ticking Bombs" by Eyes Set to Kill for Rick & Fish, "Bring me to Life" by Evanescence for Summer & Salomé :3

Do I Ship Our Muses? YES, and that goes for all our ships, and we have a lot xD On this blog we have Salomé & Summer's high school romance, Bill & Salomé's arranged marriage, Rick & Fish's ex-spouse / current fuck buddies, Morty & Teen FIsh's embarrassing crushes on each other. And then there's a lot of platonic relationships (Bill & Noah, Evil Morty & AISHA, Morty & Fish, Summer & Fish, Mabel & Eve). And there's definitely more to come (special mention for Ivy & Harley 😎). But in any case, Y E S.

What I Think About The Mun: What good things can I not say about Chloé? I've praised her and her skills plenty of times. She's an amazing write, a wonderful mutual, a super talented artist and a great friend. I'm so, so, so glad to have crossed paths with her. Her friendship means a lot to me and she's been there for me when I needed it. Not to mention that they are one of my favourite writing partners, and I love every interaction we have, no matter how small!!🖤🖤

Overall Opinion: I could say a lot, but I'll sum it up like this: if you're not writing with Chloé, you're missing out one of the best RP partners you'll ever find on this hellsit.

Blog Rate: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10+

[celestialtitania]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thank you @kasienda for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

The current number is 51 and honestly? it still blows my mind.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

151,239, made up almost entirely of one shots lol.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

There's a lot of them but in recent years, it's mainly been miraculous ladybug, my hero academia, and the occasional percy jackson.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I'M HIS BEST FRIEND (no, it's me!) (MHA)

A Preposterous Predicament (ML)

Mind Outta Body (FT)

Ma Douce Souffrance (ML)

my colours on you (ML)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I'm really good at responding right after I publish a fic. It's afterwards that I sometimes forget to respond, or simply don't have enough time to respond. I always appreciate every comment I get though!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angstiest ending huh? A bunch of my fics are angsty but the one that I think ends in the most angst would have to be dance with the devil, drink with the demons, without it being outright whump lol.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Happy? Happy. Um....I'm gonna say party like it's your heroes' birthday just because there's a party and it's sweet and yeah lmao. It also has the wholesome family/friend vibes that keep me from forever being confused about the correct fluff to angst ratio.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've been extremely lucky and have been able to avoid it for the most part. That's not to say I've gotten no hate ever, but it was minimal enough that I pretend it doesn't exist. Fervently hoping it stays that way!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. Maybe. No. The idea has crossed my mind but I haven't been able to write it as of yet. Maybe I never will. Who's to say really?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Kind of? I did it exactly once. But not in the traditional way, it was more of a, "take the world-building idea of percy jackson and put it into a fairy tail quest" so I'm not sure if it actually counts.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. Or at least I hope I haven't!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I was asked once, many moons ago, but then they never got back to me, so I assume they dropped the idea.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No? Unless we're counting those fic fights/telephone things where one person starts and another takes over. There was also this one time, I was writing a fic with a few others but we never managed to finish, so I don't really count that one.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

All time? And I'm only supposed to pick one?? Next time, give me a tough question, will ya? Wow uh, I don't know if it's my favourite ship, perse, but it is the ship I've shipped the longest + one I've actually written for, so I'm gonna go with lovesquare. *shrugs* probably typical of me, but it was the only ship to get inside my head so badly that I've written over a dozen fics for them, instead of more gen stuff, which is my usual go-to otherwise.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Well, if we look at my gigantic list of unpublished fics, there's probably plenty of WIPs to choose from there. As for published, well I don't want to say I never will but yeah Forsake the Divine (If You Can) seems to be a pretty solid choice, if only because there are only 1 chapter and a half left to go and it's all outlined too, but I've kind of fallen out of the fandom (it's very dead) so idk if I'll ever manage to put it together.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Characterization is definitely a strong suit. And judging purely from my comment section, I feel okay assuming that I'm pretty good at making the emotional beats land too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Description definitely. It's been pointed out to me more than once that I'm so focused inside the characters' heads that I forget to interact more with the world around them. Nature wants to be incorporated and I'm working on that.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I hate it. It feels so strange to me to have a few words in a different language and then abruptly switch back to English. The only thing that I feel I have to do in another language though, is honorifics. Whether it be -san, -kun, or Madame, I think I get super extra about it. I once delved into such a rabbit hole trying to figure out what honorific even a side character uses, just for a throwaway dialogue!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ooh, officially? Fairy Tail. Unofficially, hidden in the depths of my laptop? Yeah, it was Percy Jackson. My childhood favourite that still haunts my thoughts to this day.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Ironically? This is the second time I've been asked that today and the choice is still just as difficult. Or maybe it's that my actual favourites are still unfinished and hence unpublished. For now, I'm going to say Enduring, it's the fic that was most different genre-wise from what I usually write, and I'm very proud of how it turned out. If I ever manage to finish it though, my favourite will probably be a life unlived or maybe I'm just doomed to never have a favourite, because there will always be something new I'm looking forward to reading (meaning I have to write it to be able to see it). Tagging (no pressure!) @shortmexicangirl @rosiesared @ck2k18 @heartfulselkie @coffeebanana @mdelpin @kiliinstinct @lady-charinette

[tropylium]

One math-related thing I still want to have a solid intuition for is, why does the series of docecahedron / icosahedron and 120-cell / 600-cell not continue in higher dimensions

the unique existence of the 24-cell in 4D I get, that follows naturally from the fact that the "belt" of an octahedron is a square — from which we can build a hypercube — while in higher dimensions e.g. the "belt" of a 16-cell is instead an octahedron and the "belt" of a 5-crosspolytope is the 16-cell, which do not already create some smaller polytope 2 dimensions lower; and in 3D, since the "belt" of a square is now a diagonal, wider than regular edges, what we get is then the rhombic docecahedron which is not face-regular.

Apparently for 5-fold symmetry though, this has nothing to do with bare combinatorics and there is instead some kind of a convexity problem where, three pentagons make a normal vertex in 3D and four dodecahedra do as well in 4D, but five 120-cells don't, and would create a hyperbolic tessellation instead of an elliptic one. OK but why tho? N-angles get exponentially sharper in higher dimensions in a way, we need 4 straight-angle vertices apiece for a square tessellation but 8 for a cubic one and 16 for a tesseractic one. So figures a mere 3 > 4 > 5 increase in how many pentagonal polytopes we're combining should not result in much less convexity?

[zkzm500a2]

feel like answering them but nobody ever asks so i'm going to pull a major funny and just answer them all here

1. yeah for the most part

2. my girlfriend

3. who doesn't

4. yes, not cripplingly so but definitely notably so

5. taken, i have a girlfriend who i love

6. gunshot to the head. 9x19mm or .45 caliber preferably

7. slice o pizza from my work

8. no, but when i was in high school i signed up for my school's CS:GO comp league and then never participated

9. not compulsively, but i do usually bite them off instead of clip them off

10. good question, probably back in elementary school. 4th or 5th grade

11. as in, do i have a crush on someone? or just a general positive opinion of someone? elementary school ass question. anyway i have a crush on my girlfriend whom i love

12. i've gone over 24, but never hit 48 (and don't plan to)

13. public figures yeah, but nobody i know personally

14. who doesn't

15. two cats :)

16. pretty neutral, not stoked about going back to work but definitely not bad

17. not yet, but i can see it happening

18. i mean i'm not arachnophobic but i think i have a normal human level of fear of spiders. i respect them and their space and go out of my way to avoid killing them

19. yes but only to shoot my past self in the head. oh and to see the Crab Nebula in person :)

20. my girlfriend's bedroom

21. work son!!! today's saturday and i have work tomorrow too

22. i've long said it depends on who i end up with

23. no i do not, i wouldn't be opposed to getting my ears pierced though

24. history and other social studies. i'm not a r/history guy but i've always liked it

25. isn't this also question 14?

26. some fuckin... gotdamn uhh... not much really

27. yeah

28. not that i'm aware of

29. yeah

30. my shoes!!! my work shoes fucking suck i'm getting new ones asap

31. yes. go ahead and guess who it is

32. yellow orange

33. nothing too extreme i don't think

34. hell if i know, i rarely remember my dreams. last one i remember involved a former coworker flirting with me and i was like "woah hey i have a girlfriend"

35. hard to remember. my mom, probably

36. i mean i give them out but only when reasonable to me. also i don't have such shitty friends that i need to give second chances

37. forget!!! i don't remember a goddamn thing

38. i mean statistically yeah but we're only six days in. 2023 was pretty solid for me though

39. Twenny

40. not completely naked but i have been in my backyard naked from the waist down before

51 (it jumps from 40 to 51 lmao). idk man i can't pick favorites. americans do be eating cheesed burger though

52. yeah but that reason isn't spiritual

53. drew a fake website named "i love you dot com" in ms paint and sent it to my girlfriend

54. i want to say no but my parents got together through cheating on their previous partners and they've been together the whole time. so like, in 99% of cases no

55. no i'm niceys :) i used to be a dick online but i've always actively tried to be nice in person

56. one guy, but at least twice

57. i mean i guess it depends on your definition of "true," but generally yeah

58. overcast and chilly is a go-to but i also love the sunny and chilly that comes after a storm in the winter or early spring

59. conceptually yes, but i would never want to drive in it

60. yeah

61. depends on the context of course but generally i'm into it

62. bideo games give me pleasure, but hanging out with my friends or my girlfriend makes me actually happy

63. i mean i'd prefer to keep my current name but in the event i had to, i have one in mind that i like

64. absolutely not, it's easy as hell

65. i'd be like "sorry i have a girlfriend. and you know this. she's all i talk about"

66. yeah

67. my girlfriend

68. how deep are we talking? probably my girlfriend though no matter how you define it

69. in a spiritual sense no, but it's still a helpful term

70. man i'd die for 20 bucks. but yeah there are several people i'd die for

70 horrible questions ... Fuck it

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents? 02: Who did you last say “I love you” to? 03: Do you regret anything? 04: Are you insecure? 05: What is your relationship status? 06: How do you want to die? 07: What did you last eat? 08: Played any sports? 09: Do you bite your nails? 10: When was your last physical fight? 11: Do you like someone? 12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours? 13: Do you hate anyone at the moment? 14: Do you miss someone? 15: Have any pets? 16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment? 17: Ever made out in the bathroom? 18: Are you scared of spiders? 19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? 20: Where was the last place you snogged someone? 21: What are your plans for this weekend? 22: Do you want to have kids? How many? 23: Do you have piercings? How many? 24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)? 25: Do you miss anyone from your past? 26: What are you craving right now? 27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? 28: Have you ever been cheated on? 29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry? 30: What’s irritating you right now? 31: Does somebody love you? 32: What is your favourite color? 33: Do you have trust issues? 34: Who/what was your last dream about? 35: Who was the last person you cried in front of? 36: Do you give out second chances too easily? 37: Is it easier to forgive or forget? 38: Is this year the best year of your life? 39: How old were you when you had your first kiss? 40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked? 51: Favourite food? 52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? 53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night? 54: Is cheating ever okay? 55: Are you mean? 56: How many people have you fist fought? 57: Do you believe in true love? 58: Favourite weather? 59: Do you like the snow? 60: Do you wanna get married? 61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? 62: What makes you happy? 63: Would you change your name? 64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? 65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? 66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around? 67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to? 68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? 69: Do you believe in soulmates? 70: Is there anyone you would die for?

[speedbooster]

Journey Through Archie Sonic - Part 2

The Rest of the Original Mini-Series

Making this a bit later than I intended, but life gets in the way sometimes-

Anyways, like I said a few days ago, I'm going to try to make this a weekly thing. If you wanna read the previous part just click the 2nd tag and you'll find it pretty easily.

This is going to be a bit disjointed until I can figure out a better way to do this, but that's enough stalling I think. So without further ado, let's jump right back in!

Sonic the Hedgehog Mini-Series #1 - Mar. 1993

This is honestly a pretty sick cover. I've never really been a fan of the western designs they used back then, especially with the stupid mohawk they gave Sonic which just looks wrong to me, but the way Robotnik is drawn here is... kinda awesome. He's very imposing, his hands reaching out to grab him while Sonic speeds off with Sally in his arms, not looking the least bit worried while the Princess is clearly not as certain they'll be making it out.

Solid cover. 8/10

Similar to the last issue, this is broken into a four issues in two parts. The first dealing with Sally trying to get herself roboticized so they can figure out how it works, and the second dealing with... fish.

Not going to summarize too much, but I do wanna go over a few things;

1: Apparently Robotnik is... actually a robot here??

Obviously, that doesn't stay the case since... well, that becomes an entirely separate character, but it's still really confusing to me because... he doesn't look like one?

Maybe they just mean he's a cyborg? Cause that would actually make sense given his design.

Idk, it's weird

2: Sonic, what the hell does that mean??

I mean, it's probably a reference to "Sonic Twosday," the promotional event they did in America for the release of Sonic 2, but it feels kinda forced-

3: WELL MAYBE IF YOU HAD EXPLAINED YOUR PLAN TO YOUR ENTIRE TEAM INSTEAD OF WORDING YOUR PROCLAMATION LIKE YOU WERE A COMPLETE IDIOT THINGS WOULD'VE WORKED OUT DIFFERENTLY

Like unless I missed something, there is literally no reason she couldn't have told them. They weren't being watched by Robotnik, and she left a note telling them she was planning to meet with him to discuss Robotnik returning the kingdom to her, so she could've just told them her plan, and asked them to retrieve her boots afterwards so they could've figured out how to undo it, but NOOOOOO

I get that this is during the gag era days and I shouldn't take this that seriously, but this genuinely irks me... so much.

#4: Sonic can not only swim but breathe underwater

Not going to give them too much flack for this, since this was still very early days... but it still feels wrong.

He also later on starts running out of air during a fight, and continues to talk which hurts my brain, but he does get it back by swallowing an air bubble, which is neat.

5: If this actually comes up in the main series, I will be very impressed

This could earn them at least 10 brownie points.

But that's it for Issue #1. Still a decent read despite my frustrations with the first story, though I think #0 was way funnier. Like no Swat Bots dancing in the fire this time, not as many dumb sign gags. You can really tell they were still trying to figure this out.

Anyways, time to move on to-

Sonic the Hedgehog Mini-Series #2 - Apr. 1993

This cover's alright. Doesn't really tie into anything going on in the story (At least the last issue had Sonic saving Sally, even if she didn't want to be saved), and the background is a little bland. But it's eye-catching and definitely has some charm to it.

I'll give it a C-

The story here is probably my favorite out of the whole mini, as this time we've got a story that spans all four parts of the issue, and has some nice attention to continuity which I did NOT expect.

The premise here is that Sally is about to be crowned Queen (kinda), hoping to use the magic of the emeralds atop her father's crown to keep them safe and maybe help defeat Robotnik.

Interesting that we're introducing yet another set of powerful gems here. I'm really curious to see if these come back later on.

Anyways, this is probably the only major issue I have with this story-

Whomst the shock are all these guys??? Since when does Antoine have anyone under his command?? Isn't like... the entire joke about him at this point that he's really full of himself but can't do anything right??? And literally every other issue in this mini has it be JUST Sonic's group in Knothole, so where did they even come from???

Anyways, the pig turns out to be a spy from Robotnik, who stole the Freedom Emeralds to scatter them around so they can't use them.

Also... apparently revealing you're a robot turns you purple??

(Insert William Afton joke here)

After this, the pig tries to blow them all up, but Sonic saves them with that bit of continuity I mentioned before.

They're actually referencing one of those joke pages from Issue #0, and they continue to do so throughout the rest of the mini. I really like this! It turns a one-off gag into actual lore, making it serve the purpose it was meant to by showing off his different levels of speed.

So now, Sonic has to team up with the other Freedom Fighters in each part to get the emeralds back. He technically worked with Sally in the first part, and now he's forced to work with Antoine here, Tails in part three, and technically Rotor in part four (though really he just repairs the crown after Sonic gets all the gems back). Still, it's a great set up, and it leads to two jokes that got small a chuckle out of me.

The first one being-

... like I wanna hate it, but I just can't. Especially with how Antoine is completely unaware of it for the rest of this issue. He genuinely was so lost in his own head that he never thinks twice about it.

And the second is during a revisit to that underwater cave from last issue (Meaning that either this is a different Chopper or they're never going to follow up on his report... which is sad)

Like I'd normally be questioning how they drew all that with only a green marker (when there's not even green on Sonic yet), but the "I should've noticed they only had four fingers" line just gets me.

... yeah, if you can't tell I'm not the target audience for this. I think way too hard about this stuff, so books that are just trying to have fun rarely work for me. But this is what won the poll-

Still I am enjoying these more than I thought I would. Even when the jokes don't land, they're usually so charming in the way they're told that I don't care.

There are a few more bits from part IV I wanna bring up that I liked.

Namely, RETURN OF THE STUPID SIGN GAGS

I missed you so much

Also, very cursed Sonic on the right there. Somehow they only miscolored one of his arms, and I hate it. But that's old comics for you-

AND THEY SOMEHOW DO IT AGAIN

And yet, I don't care because the swag on this Swat Bot as he deploys the trap is so funny to me. He even rhymes with Sonic's quip as he turns around to mock him! I love this guy!

I'm going to headcanon this is the same guy who was dancing in the fires of Uncle Chuck's chili dog stand in Issue #0. I shall dub him... Steve. Swat Bot Steve. My new favorite character.

Finally to end the issue we have this page which is just-

I mean do I even have to say anything? It's perfect.

He even popped in from underneath the usual THE END! thing on the last page so he could go on this rant. I love it

Finally, the last issue of the mini-

Sonic the Hedgehog Mini-Series #3 - May. 1993

This cover is... charming, I guess. Very Looney Tunes-esk, but still kinda... eh-

It gets ⭐⭐

This issue is also just kinda weird. The first two parts are extremely confusing-

Sonic gets cornered by Robotnik, falls off a cliff, and then has what I can only assume is a bizarre dream caused by a concussion because... I mean-

We start off with this, Robotnik curses him and his Uncle which then causes-

... I am so shocking lost rn. This doesn't even make any sense with the context from the rest of the issue

Chuck adopts Ivo after he loses his parents, and we get... this cursed thing.

I hate him. I hate looking at him. Please make him go away-

He steals some parts from Chuck's tractor, which causes him to nearly get run over by it, which he decides to blame Chuck for, even after his robots rat him out.

... I feel like Robotnik just invented a new form of cursing.

So he decides to make a mech out of every appliance in the house, Sonic beats him, and makes me even more confused as to how Chuck was responsible for any of this when the only thing he did was adopt him.

... I'm just gonna blame it on the concussion and move on.

The second story features Sonic pretending to be roboticized by wearing a bear trap on his face so he can trick Robotnik to do... something. I actually don't know what the plan was-

Something made even worse by the fact that both Sonic and Sally decide to trick Tails into thinking it's real, which he then decides to spread the word by making his own newspaper.

This feels completely unnecessary, and as it turns out-

IT ABSOLUTELY WAS

I can appreciate that Robotnik gave Sonic the job the Buzz Bomber wanted, and Sonic's little line here but like... WHY TRICK TAILS INTO SPREADING THE WORD IF YOU WERE JUST GONNA WALK RIGHT UP TO HIS FRONT DOOR SONIC!?!?

Like... poor little buddy did nothing wrong, and he gets to believe his hero turned on them for literally no reason.

Robotnik decides to test Sonic's loyalty by having him check out an alert at one of his factories, where we see a "Robot Chuck" being forced to make Crabmeats.

Now I was going to complain about this, especially since we later see Muttski who is DEFINITELY a robot-

But again, this is another way of showing continuity between issues. This is how Chuck looked in Issue #0, so this is how he looks here. And since I know this does get fixed in the actual series itself, I can give it a pass. It's at least staying consistent with its... inconsistency.

Anyways, Sonic runs back to Robotnik and tricks him into blowing up a Buzz Bomber Factory by telling him it was the coords for Knothole village, we get this little one liner as Buzz Bomber morns the loss of his entire family and Sonic leaves a bear trap on Egghead's rear, and that's the end of the mini series.

[FINIS]

Overall, this was a fun read even if it was kind of a mixed bag. Issue #1 kinda sucked, this issue was all over the place, but Issues $0 and #2 were a really good time, and gives me hope that this might not be as much of a slog as I was expecting

Next week, I start on the actual series. Hoping to tackle at least four issues, but we'll see how that goes. Thanks for sticking with me through this very long post.

Catch you on the flip side!

[steamishot]

T-22 days

8/18: plans changed -> hung out with just SC at her place

8/19: WFH together with LG at a cafe (my first time ever WFH at a cafe)

8/20: watch didi with matt

8/21: carbone lunch with matt

8/22: rubirosa and comedy cellar with matt

8/25: othership with T

8/26: switzerland

9/6: last dinner with T

9/7: last brunch with S&I

9/8: last hot pot dinner with LG

S & i decided to take a rain check on sunday. the initial plan was to go to A's place to visit her and her baby. however, because the commute is an hour long (includes train, bus, walking), i didn't want to risk being in a storm on the way home. there was 50% chance of rain during the day and the heavy storm was scheduled to start in the evening/night.

instead, we hung out at her apartment. got to use the pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. i'm feeling lighter about the move, so it was really nice to have girl time. i hope we have more opportunities for 1:1 time in the future, instead of only with our SOs.

LG cooked me a fantastic italian dinner on friday. it was probably the most "romantic" gesture someone has ever done for me in the kitchen LOL. she had just returned from italy and made zucchini pasta with freshly grated cheese, and two types of crostinis. i was surprised by the amount of effort she put in, given that we've only really seen each other <10x. however, she seems overall like a high effort type of person. i was impressed by how well she maintained her apartment despite only being in NYC half the time. and at age 40, she started ceramics, signed up for swimming lessons at the YMCA, and just told me she's also doing a local spanish language learning class. i have admiration for her and definitely think "i wanna be like her when i'm 40".

i'm now feeling like a visitor on an extended vacation. i'm grateful to share these special moments with new(-ish) friends. a lot of the times while i was here, i really yearned for the comfort of old friends/family. however, now that i'm leaving, i know i will sort-of miss being uncomfortable LOL. i think i'll definitely incorporate some of my NYC lifestyle into my new LA lifestyle (i.e. putting myself out there more instead of staying in my comfort zone). i'm happy to have made 3 solid friendships (S, T, K) during my time here, and hopefully LG and i continue to keep in touch.

matt's work: he just completed his last day (night) at work last night! he's been in a much happier mood recently. things have been less chaotic and calmer since the job search ended. he'll have the next 1.5 months off before starting his new gig. i don't love that we'll most likely be together 24/7 from now until moving back, like literally <10 ft apart. but it is the last hurrah of surviving in a studio together for 4 years!

my work: work hasn't been overly busy, but has been constant. i may be PMSing but i fear that i've been coming off mean/condescending to A who i am still training. i'm trying my best to not let my frustration spill out in my emails and to continue giving her grace. sometimes i question if i'm expecting too much from someone new. this gave me a taste of what being in management may look like.

ceramics: i considered making more bowls and asking the studio or LG to ship it to me in LA if they aren't fired in time. i tried throwing on saturday and my mojo is gone. i decided i won't make any more things, but can go in and practice (maybe). i plan on buying one ceramics piece made by someone else in the studio as a souvenir.

fridge cleaning: we're keeping the contents in the fridge to a minimum and cleaning out the freezer. yesterday, i made an oxtail beef noodle soup. today, i'm making fish congee with the leftover frozen rice.

grocery stores: i used to always go to TJ, but have recently transitioned away from it. there would always be so many people (3 lines) and the process just became completely over stimulating to me. my fav grocery stores now are mr. beet and whole foods. i really like mr. beet for no frills produce. it's about a 20 min walk so it's an excuse to get steps in. i'm a fan of whole foods now for seafood and certain fruits/cheeses!

[kariachi]

Did a whole post trying to work out gold clutchrates both during a Pass and an Interval given numbers from various Pern sources as well as just statistics around various factors like infant death rates and such. So, greens.

We have so little information for greens. I know there's canon shit but this is, honestly, just for my own use, especially given to my knowledge the canon shit comes with a nice side of 'retconning reproductive numbers for greens and golds both' which... If I was worrying about canon for this I would be grumbling and mathing but right now I'm focusing more on the fact that all evidence leading up to these retcons implies that greens and golds have very different breeding strategies- with golds clutching less often and putting more care into their clutches and greens rising more often and putting less care in.

With this is mind, one can assumption greens probably lay more eggs overall than a gold of similar genetics. That way there are higher odds of having some eggs hatch without having to invest in care. One can also assume that the clutches are normally smaller- in the first place because it would make more sense, if you're breeding more often, that you want to invest less energy into each clutch, and in the second, because a green is probably about a quarter the size of a gold at best and like fuck is she holding as many eggs as one.

So, those are our parameters. We're otherwise working off the numbers in that other post- golds during an interval lay 20 eggs every 4 years, golds during a Pass lay 30 every year.

So, first off we want to ensure the greens are producing more that 20 eggs per 4 years, or more than 5 eggs per year. That's a solid quarter of 20 for a critter a quarter the size of a gold, so if we were going to match we could just let them Rise 4 times more often than golds and we'd be good. But we're looking for a higher number- remember we're trying to make up for the fact that green eggs aren't getting tended much if at all. So, we're probably looking at a minimum of Rising 5 times every 4 years. That would give us 25 green's eggs for every 20 gold's eggs, with green's clutching about every 9.6 months.

Where things get more complicated is during Passes. During a Pass we have golds Rising every year with 30 eggs per clutch. Now, we do get the benefit of, if the golds are having half-again as many eggs per clutch likely so are the greens, so likely the green clutches would go up to 7 eggs each. Except, the highest numbers we have for a Rising a year for greens in 4 times, which would leave them short of the projected number. And we know they can't be Rising more than 4 times as one of the songs seems to imply that it's months between Rising and clutching.

(Though that same song is, odd. 3 months to clutching makes sense, 5 weeks and then the hatching is fine, but that 'and in a month, who seeks' is, weird. Like, does it mean that a gold should take a month to recover before joining the Queen's Wing again? That training of weyrlings shouldn't begin until after their first month? Something the fuck else? We don't know.)

Anyway, it we bump that number up to 8 eggs per clutch during a Pass then they just barely keep ahead of the golds at the expense of more effort on the greens' part. But then, there's enough of them that biologically it probably doesn't hurt so bad.

On the other hand, if you instead say 'fuck it' and have golds producing 30 eggs every other year (which is, nicer but I don't think supported by statistics (and the canon is... *glares at every Anneconsistency*)- but then who care about that shit besides me and again, this is all for my own poking and prodding), then greens only have to produce at minimum 16 eggs a year to beat them out. A green laying 3 clutches of 7 would top that easy (21 eggs a year), even 3 clutches of 6 would (18 eggs a year). The ones who rose 4 times a year would knock that shit out of the park. (24-28 eggs a year)

That feels, it feels a lot better, yeah... I might be able to work with that going forward...

So, yeah. I, don't know if I came to a decision for my own shit but, reasonable numbers I think. During an Interval greens average 6.25 eggs per year with about 9 months between Risings while golds average 5 eggs per year with 4 years between risings. During a Pass greens average 18-28 eggs per year with 3-4 months between Risings while golds average 15 eggs per year with about 2 years between Risings. Or greens average 32 eggs per year with 3 months between Risings while golds average 30 eggs per year with about a year between Risings. Depending on how you wanna do it.

[theghostpinesmusic]

I'm taking a few days off from writing for work/research/etc., so it's time for some more jam write-ups! I really like doing these, but it starts to feel like work when I've already been downstairs in the office staring at a screen for 6-8 hours on a given day.

Fortunately, I've been out hiking for the last two days and don't plan on getting back to the grind again until Tuesday, so for right now it sounds super-fun to get exceedingly caffeinated and write about Goose!

I've got some posts in the queue about their recent Capitol Theater run (in April) as well as one follow-up on Phish's Sphere run, and then a few "throwback" posts, as lately I've been watching video of a bunch of Goose shows I attended in person in 2022 in Colorado and Ohio.

I'm gonna start with this "Drive" from 4/7, though.

I'm not sure if I've ever covered a "Drive" before, but it's been a consistently huge jam vehicle for the band since before I started listening to them in fall of '19. Like a lot of Goose tunes that I have covered before, though, "Drive" has gone through a few compositional changes over the years.

In my admittedly human and flawed memory, there have been a few different ways the song has been played since 2019. First was the "two part" version, that features most of the composed portion of the song, then a jam, then a short instrumental/vocal bridge, and then a "second jam" (not unlike "Mike's Song"). The quintessential version of this arrangement is probably the Buffalo '19 version, in case you're interested. Somewhere in the last 2-3 years, the bridge and the second jam went away, replaced by a single jam that started from the funk-styled ending of what had once been the "first" part of the song. Even more recently, the song still only has one "part," but it usually ends with a swerve into a minor key, that kicks off the improvisation.

This particular version came three songs into the band's four-night run at the Capitol Theatre in April, a surprise run of shows announced and played as a prelude to summer tour and as an introduction to Cotter Ellis, the new drummer. 4/7 was his first show in front of an audience with the band, and I was able to watch it live from home, as the band streamed the whole run for free over YouTube. The first two songs of the night, "Flodown" and "Rockdale," were both solid takes on those songs, but stayed inside the box, as they usually do. So I was excited when the band launched into "Drive" next, hoping to see Cotter go deep with Goose live for the first time. The result was this 31-minute monster, which is probably my favorite jam from the whole run, despite there being many, many other highlights from the rest of 4/7 and the following three nights.

The first thing you'll notice is that two-guitar Goose is objectively better than one-guitar Goose. I love when Peter comes out from inside his Keyboard Cave to play with Rick, like the camera captures here at 2:45.

As is typical for this arrangement, Rick takes a regular solo at 4:40 or so, setting up the transition from the song to the jam proper at around 6:20. There isn't a key change here initially, but the tempo slows down a little and things get generally more mellow. Peter (I think?) switches to a tone that sounds a ton to me like the one Trey uses on "A Song I Heard The Ocean Sing" and the lights kick into We're Going To Weird Town mode. I really like the way the two guitars are playing off of each other here, instead of the usual, where one takes over playing rhythm and the other guy solos.

Trevor in particular seems to have leveled up through playing with Cotter, and to my ears he's the one holding things down melodically here, while Rick and Peter both play around him.

One thing I've noticed pretty much immediately (see Ted Tapes 2024) is that Cotter's playing seems to have made the rest of the band more patient than before when it comes to exploring these mellow, downtempo spaces. And that's for better and worse: as I'm sure I'll talk about more at some point, I do find myself missing the kinds of balls-out, rockfest jams and sets it often felt like Ben's metronomic, power playing drove them to. At the same time, the first few minutes of this jam seems to be the vibe of a lot of New Goose's improvisation. And, yeah, I love it too.

The pace starts to pick up a bit around 9:30, coinciding with a camera shot of Trevor rocking out. Pete starts chording more and Rick starts layering melody playing over top of that. Then, Cotter switches up the beat at 11:00, which definitely gives this "Drive" more...drive.

Sorry.

The trilling/wah pedal combo that Peter busts out right before 12:00 is a brilliant addition to the proceedings, and Rick matches it shortly with some trilling of his own. The crystal-clear tone and the distorted tone together here sound incredible. This is the kind of jamming where Cotter's jazzy, light(er) touch really adds a lot.

I loved the light setup for this run while watching over the streams, finding it to be a neat, scaled-down version of the setup for December's Goosemas (probably on purpose?), it really shines in particular during this part of this jam. I'm selfishly hoping they keep it (or replace it with something even better) until September so I can see it in person.

I can't overstate how great and essential to the feel of this jam Peter's chording/wah combination is from, like, 14:00 until 16:00. It's a thing he does a lot during two-guitar jams, but it feels way more powerful and central to the sound of the band here than usual.

To me, the entire jam to this point, from 6:20 on, is a slow, patient build on a particular theme and sound, and it works wonderfully. And then, without significantly changing the feel or the direction of the jam, Rick caps things off at 16:12 by suddenly ripping into this perfect riff that feels like it must have been composed ahead of time. It's ridiculous. Trevor is absolutely crushing the bass here and Cotter's cymbals are perfectly accentuating what Rick is playing and it's fucking nuts.

This is literally the first jam the band has played this year and, watching it live, I put a note in my setlist that said, unironically, "Jam of the Year 2024?"

Then, just as things are winding down naturally around 17:40, Cotter changes the beat up again to something faster, as if to say "Hell no, we aren't even close to done yet!"

Trevor continues being an absolute monster as we switch to Heavily Distorted Funk Mode. Peter's strumming goes from chunky to downright evil. Then he turns his guitar into a 1980s computer because why not? I'm not sure what effect he uses here, but it reminds me of the lightly-distorted Robot Tone that Trey used a bunch with Phish in summer '21. Whatever it is, it prompts Rick to jump down and start playing his looper, which in turn prompts Peter to move from guitar to the xylophone patch on his keyboard. Again, things get weird.

They stay in this groove-driven, loopy space for a few minutes and we get to hear Trevor go to town again in the meantime (seriously, he's my favorite player in the band lately). Then, around 22:30, Rick turns off the looper and starts quietly soloing over the groove. I really love his otherwise clean, reverb-y tone here.

Around 25:10, Rick starts to play variations on a really blissful, major-key melody and it starts to feel like the jam is building to a big finish. It feels even more that way when Peter switches to a clean piano sound, moving us into classic Goose Peak Jam territory, and at 28:45 Rick takes to the finish line with a huge high note. From there, we get a little complimentary shredding, and then the intensity builds and builds until it's almost comical (the lights turning to smiley faces at 30:30 really puts it over the top in the best way), and then we get a big ol' rock-and-roll ending without a return to "Drive" at all.

And that's the story of how New Goose obliterated my brain twenty minutes into their first-ever show together!