#Yeah so adult xD

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

i started naruto a few years ago and made it to like the second arc in shippuden before stopping so i never made it to the kakashi backstory but....your notes compel me. tell me more.

okay so like take this with several grains of salt because the sum total of my sources here are "my understanding of the plot and characters as synthesized from the Abridged Revised Illustrated Edition my datemate's been writing me over the last two months", a handful of clips, and the only three (3) episodes of this 600+ episode show i've seen in my life, none of the three of which were relevant to the kakashi backstory

h o w e v e r

oh my god. my dude. my man. [holds him up like longcat] there is so much wrong with you and i'm enthralled.

so like here's the thing. here's the big takeaway that i'm understanding. this whole series is an ongoing exercise in generational trauma bullshit and everyone trying so hard to course-correct from their own tragic backstories that they accidentally set up their kids/students to have completely different but still somehow exactly the same tragic backstories, and naruto's chronic case of shounen anime power-of-friendship-itis is, i mean. yes it's him being the platonic ideal of Pure Of Heart And Dumb Of Ass but it's also a direct response to seeing ninja society's perpetual tragic backstory generator and going "this is bullshit, why are we even fighting? tell me what your side is, and i'll tell you what our side is, and then we can figure out how to make our sides the same side so none of us have to fight about it at all!" and honestly i love that but this ain't about him

so like. to explain kakashi we have to explain kakashi's father sakumo first. because sakumo was one of konoha's powerhouses, been on tons of successful missions, well-liked, well-respected, one of the earliest and loudest adopters of konoha's then-new and radical pivot towards a ninja being people first and disposable tools never ideology.

he really, genuinely believed in that.

except then he and his team went on a mission. and it went really, really badly. and he had to choose between completing the mission objective or saving his teammates' lives, and he chose their lives, because those who fail their missions may be scum, but those who abandon their teammates are worse, right?

... no, actually.

just because the ideology had been circulating and people were broadly toeing the party line didn't mean they actually believed in it, and sakumo's mission failure was already causing critical backlash.after sakumo made it back to konoha he was a fucking pariah for it. he was never officially reprimanded, but he didn't need to be if people went out of their way to personally spit at his feet, and... one day young kakashi comes home to find his father's body on the floor, wrists slit and suicide note devolving into begging apologies beside him.

this, as you may imagine, fucked him up, and didn't exactly predispose him towards believing the party line about the value of life.

he gets put on a genin team that was. basically the alpha build of the sasuke-sakura-naruto team dynamic. because it was him, and rin the healer girl with a massive crush on him who he never gave the time of day, and obito the Loudest High-Vis Uchiha Who Ever Lived who had a massive crush on her, and minato their teacher who was doing his absolute best to try and get them through to understanding each other, which is an Ordeal

because kakashi at this point has internalized that the party line is pretty lies for the gullible, that his teammates are only there to drag him down, and it drives obito nuts because that's the same exact bullshit that his family keeps spouting that he's rejected as thoroughly as a 12.9-year-old can, how does kakashi not see that it's bullshit? and there's rin who's looking at kakashi like i can fix him?? and getting upset when he doesn't let them in at all or even really visibly care that they're trying, and it's one hell of a dysfunction junction but minato is working on it.

... and then the worst happens. their team is caught out alone and everything goes wrong. rin is captured and obito's body is half-crushed under a rock and one of kakashi's eyes got slashed out and none of them are going to make it out of this, at this rate, until obito calls kakashi closer and tells him to take his eye. take the sharingan. he'd give him both but the other one got squished. kakashi will do more with it than obito ever did, so use it to save rin. please. and here's kakashi in the middle of field surgery on his dying teammate finally, horribly realizing that sometimes the win condition is, actually, protecting your friends, and he's already lost. but he can still try to save rin, it was obito's dying wish.

by the time he found her it was already too late.

the people who'd captured her had tried, poorly, hastily, messily, to seal one of the Tailed Beasts into her, and she was already dying. she had a demon thrashing in her soul that was tearing her to shreds around it and all kakashi could do was mercy kill her

and she thanked him for it.

and he goes back to konoha, sole survivor of his team, charred by the newfound comprehension of why you have to care and what it feels like to lose what you love and with obito's sharingan in his head and rin's blood on his hands and something in him that was already hanging on by a thread finally snapped.

and the only thing he could think to do, the only way he could even parse that grief through, is to just... make himself into a living memorial to them. he started trying to live as obito. adopt his mannerisms, his interests, craft his entire adult persona around his memories of his friend like a grave offering, and quarantine the bleakly mercenary anything-to-get-the-job-done ice in him off into the hound mask he wore as part of konoha's black ops division, which he joined at the ripe old age of way too fucking young.

he uses the sharingan to incredibly brutally efficient effect, copying enemy jutsus and bringing them back until the library's overflowing with them. but in the end, no matter how many he can technically use, they're still just cheap copies. and so is he.

and in the meantime the uchiha are collectively losing their shit about this random outside kid having one of their eyes in his head and getting all kinds of dubious 'glory' with it, and oh, wouldn't you look at that, they have a prodigy too!

... yeah.

itachi gets shoved through the rank advancements on a timeframe of "whatever he did you have to do it faster and better." and then the kyuubi broke free. and minato and kushina died, and a fuckton of the home guard uchiha died, and suddenly he's the most able-bodied fighter in their clan overnight at age 11 and the uchiha pull strings to get him into ANBU as well.

and kakashi is his teammate.

kakashi is his teammate and kakashi sees in itachi a whole awful lot of the edges of the way kakashi used to be, sees itachi trying to live up to and embody the absolutely impossible ideal of the perfect ninja, and he tries so god damn hard to nudge him gently towards something, anything, other than that.

but in the meantime, the uchiha have been... scheming. with danzo, Guy With The World's Biggest Chip On His Shoulder About Not Being Hokage, who's been marinating in a paranoia spiral for years. danzo had tried to set himself up as kakashi's palpatine, and tried to get him to assassinate hiruzen, and kakashi hears him out, and turns right around and goes to hiruzen with it instead, and danzo is pissed. the uchiha are pissed. danzo warns hiruzen that they're almost definitely going to try again and they're gonna make the uchihas' little prodigy do it this time, and kakashi silently braces to have to fight and maybe kill his teammate he was trying so hard for, and then...

and then itachi, who'd been watching his clan get. worse. for a long time. finds his cousin shisui, his best friend shishui, bleeding out in the dirt, who tells him everything, tells him danzo tried to have shisui killed for finding it out, and it worked, he's dying, but he's not dead yet, so please. make it count.

.......................................... And Then The Uchiha Massacre.

and now itachi is one more person that kakashi tried to care about who got destroyed.

and then fast forward a little bit further, he's been retired from active-duty ANBU after a decade-plus of service because the sharingan is starting to burn him out, he's starting to lurch to a halt like unwound clockwork without something to Do, and... he gets given team seven. the worst of konoha's gremlin children.

a bitter, disillusioned loner with a chip on his shoulder and the skill to back it up, the healer girl with a crush on him that he never gives the time of day, and the Loudest High-Vis Pest In The Village.

you see where this is going.

kakashi who at this point has been coasting along by bouncing between mask-personae for years is now having to dynamically engage with life again because if he isn't present and actively responding to his team then there's a nonzero chance he'll turn around to find all three of them chewing on the drywall and he cannot default to scripted responses because they don't work on a pack of middle schoolers hellbent on squabbling til the cows come home. and it's kind of good for him?

but also, uh. [gestures broadly towards... Sasuke(TM) and the rest of the plot]

and yeah i'm not gonna get too much further into it because i'm not confident enough in my own comprehension of the timeline to do that XD but like.

hatake kakashi is a scarecrow of a man stitched together out of his dead best friend, a hunting hound, and his dead best friend again, who's spent his entire life behind one mask or another, who over the course of the series keeps surviving shit that by all odds he shouldn't have, or survives specifically because the people he cares about throw their plot armor around him before they die, and he has a personality mostly composed of the crumpled-up pages of the memetically worst-written trashy bodice-ripper novels ever published because obito used to love them and the inexplicable receipts of other people's love for him, and i want to put him in a gas station hot dog roller and perceive him.

thank you for coming to my ted talk XD

[totaldramafan-lauri]

Make Use Of Me (chapter 1, preview)

Dec. 7 EDIT: ONCE MORE, WITH BRAVERY THIS TIME. No more chickening out. You can read this thing FOR REAL now. Sorry for being weird, and now....sorry if this wasn't worth it. XD

O-OK...here goes....

First thing's first: I am not expecting a lotta people to read this. I'm not asking people to read this. At this point, I'm making this mostly as a passion project, and if anyone enjoys it, it'll be a really cool bonus. My writing style isn't gonna be for everyone, and the characters I write aren't the most....popular characters in the CRK X Reader community, and I imagine this isn't really something a lotta fans'll be demanding more of.

This is LONG. This one chapter is 56 pages long. I am a VERY wordy writer,

So......why'm I posting this preview? Well....partially as an interest gauge for people who WOULD wanna read it, but...mostly as a motivator. As something to remind myself of whenever I get lazy. After all....I can't quit after I made the first chapter public, right? By doing that, I put myself out there...And, hey, I even tagged it, so, if by the off chance, someone did read it, I'm basically promising them more eventually.....

But, again, I'm not forcing anyone to read this.

Not only is it long, but.....This first chapter is probably my least-favorite thing I've ever written. By posting this chapter by itself, I'm testing to see if it does its job of making people wanna read the rest, cuz....right now, I'm not so sure how well it succeeds at that.....

This is the boring part of the story. It's a bunch of setup, and me jumping through hoop after hoop after hoop to just get everything started. I know setup is important and all, but....I'm already a very wordy writer, so....oof....There is some interesting stuff that happens, but it takes a while to get there.

I-I....kinda hate it, actually. The only reason I didn't scrap it is that I didn't realize I hated it until I was about halfway through it and the "good part" hadn't started yet. And I still spent a month writing the thing, so....I finished it.

I'm tagging this...as an experiment. If you wanna read this, go ahead. W-well, read my tags first, THEN go ahead. XD

All I can really say in this chapter's defense is that....I do try my best to salvage it. It's just setup, but I TRIED to make it interesting. And everything that seems like it didn't go anywhere, will later. This isn't the whole story, it's just the beginning of what's gonna be a BIG story. Anything that seems weird in this chapter, gets explored in the other chapters. This does set up a bunch of stuff that becomes important later (The friend character shows up later, the Colosseum becomes relevant later). This chapter is boring, but I tried not to make any of it pointless.

For the future: I'm aiming for five chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 will be a series of smaller vignettes that take place over the course of a few years, chapter 4 will be the climax, and chapter 5 will be something of an epilogue. After that, there will be two endings to choose from (which will make sense when we get there).

This probably won't be my favorite thing I've ever written, but it will be the most ambitious thing I've ever, and probably will ever, write. I haven't written something like this before, and it's all to flesh out this story and make it believable.

Right now, I.....I want to finish this. I'll probably still be writing this in February at the rate I'm going, but...at this point, I've put too much into it to give up on it. However, I'm STILL not completely ruling out the idea of my motivation dying before then. It COULD happen. So, what I'm planning to do is...setting a short-term goal of finishing chapter 3. After I do that, I'll post the first three chapters on AO3 together, and work on the rest. That way, even if I don't finish it, I'll at least have it over half done, and chapter 3 will end on a somewhat high note.

So, yyyyeah....Not a lotta people will read this preview. Overly wordy writing style + boring setup part of story + 56 pages long + assumed lack of interest for X Readers of this character (At least, I haven't SEEN many simps for her, m-maybe I'm wrong, I might be, I-I haven't checked any tags cuz I've been nervous, b-but it doesn't make my writing any better. In that case, this is my first time writing her so I'm trying super hard to do her justice >//////<)

I-if you wanna read this, and see if this first chapter does a good job of making you wanna read the better chapters, then...Go ahead.....

Some notes:

-This is still not the final draft. It's finalized enough for me to share, but I'm still not considering it finished. Even tho I'm working on chapter 3 right now, I STILL go back and edit this, even very recently. So, chances are, even if the story is finalized, small details and sentences are still subject to change. I know for a fact that there are still SOME placeholder bits in here that will change after I get some stuff cleared up. Recently, I even considered chopping off an entire section to make it shorter. I decided not to, but hey, it could still happen. I don't wanna waste anyone's time. The first chapter of a story, even if it's boring, is still very important, and I wanna make sure it's the best version of itself.

(A-and yes, this means that I've finished chapter 2 as well. The reason I'm not sharing it is that, unlike chapter 1, it was finished VERY recently, so I might still need to give myself time to edit it. From what I have, tho, I do like it a LOT more than chapter 1. There are some parts of chapter 2 that I'm legit proud of.)

-Even tho this first chapter is completely clean, I-I should mention that....this fic is for adults. The full version, at least. Chapters 3 and 4 are gonna contain some light N/S/F/W moments (the "fade to black" variety, so nothing explicit) and there'll be other slightly racey comments here and there. Just a heads-up. I'm gonna be uncomfy with minors reading this.

Th-that's all? I-I think that's all.......O-OK, so......h-here goes..... E-enjoy....

[puccafangirl]

I'm sorry but it's just really funny to me that Bill, a character whom I'm very certain would've scared me as a child, is a fictional other of mine lol. But I guess that's kinda part of growing up when it comes to villain characters? XD;;

[sonchiildren]

Also, just adding this...I typically ONLY am writing Goten, Trunks, and Saiyo as kids (basically ages they'd be during and up to Super before the Super Hero stuff), I might write them as Teens if requested but otherwise their kids.

[faytelumos]

Find the Word

Thank you @serenanymph for tagging me! :D And again, sorry I went so long before doing this one, haha! My words today are ground, glass, grimace, gesture, and genuine!

ground

Ohrik smacked my elbow suddenly.

"Come on," he said, standing up. "Let's go outside." I stared up at him.

"Are you crazy?" I asked. "What if the clouds are open?" He rolled his eyes.

"Then we won't sleep outside," he said. "Come on." He grabbed my arm and pulled, and I had half a mind to dig in and make myself heavy so he couldn't drag me away. But I didn't want to draw too much attention to us by fighting. So I let him take me to the tent flap.

He peeked his head out and looked around. I pushed his head down and got on my tiptoes to see out, over him. It still looked cloudy outside. He turned and got his over-shirt and outer pants, but left the coat. I did the same, and we both put on our boots and went outside.

It was strange to be outside on Lakata. Normally, we didn't even work this day. Mom made tea and we played games or darned clothes. Everything was barely damp, no drips or bubbles of water clinging to the grass blades, no rivulets between rocks on the ground. Ohrik ventured out as if nothing at all was wrong, heading south through the grass. I looked up, picking out the Gate Mountain in the distance. The clouds above were holding for now. I went to follow Ohrik.

glass puddle

Glass basically doesn't exist in this story, so this was the closest thing I could think of. :3

The Run was supposed to be hard. That was the point of it. In order to be an adult and a member of society, a person had to prove they were capable. So they spent eight days alone, keeping warm and getting food on their own, and they won a fight against someone twice their size.

I checked my boots, making sure water was beading properly on them. It was truly raining again today, and water was coming down off of the trees in heavy, steady globs. In the forest, there were gaps in the ground between plants, where puddles formed before the water could drain into the rocks below. It was always best to avoid these, within reason. I wouldn't be able to dry my boots out here. But I had water-proofed them again before we left. It seemed to be holding up.

The forest felt much more dangerous without Ia or Toler. The birds weren't just singing now, they were covering up the sounds of cats. Every bee I saw seemed angry. If I stepped away from the [stream], it seemed I had to travel twice as far.

grimace wince (cw: description of animal kill)

I pulled out one of my mittens and put it on my left hand. Then I pulled out my knife and stepped forward. The lemming bared its teeth and tried to run at me, and I flinched back. It tried again, but its leg was stuck and twisted up by our snare. It had to be painful. The longer I hesitated, the more pain it went through. I took a deep breath and reached for it.

It twisted and bit at me, but my mitten kept me safe as I struggled to grab its nape. It hissed and growled, twisting and thrashing, and I finally clamped it down on the ground and pushed it back towards the base of the snare. But it didn't seem to untwist its leg, panting and squeaking at me. I winced, my stomach twisting. The poor thing didn't have a chance. It was just scared.

I grabbed the nape of its neck and held it tightly, bringing up the knife. I lined up the blade, wanting to make it quick and clean. It kept squeaking, an awful, loud noise, and I finally got the blade lined up right and sank it into the little heart. It went quiet, and I pulled out the knife and let go of it just enough to watch it. It wasn't breathing.

My skin crawled a little. I didn't want to ever have to do that again.

gesture

"Ngas doesn't like me."

Ohrik groaned at this. "You don't know that."

I frowned at him. "Yes I do!"

"Fine, fine, what about Deez?"

I considered this. "Deez is strong," I agreed. "But I haven't talked much to him."

"I'm sure you'd get along," Ohrik said. He carefully examined the tuft in his hand.

"Doesn't he have a wife already?" I asked. Ohrik finally looked up at me.

"Oh, yes. That's right. Who was it?"

I laughed. "Sema. They married this spring."

"That's right," he mused, looking back to the grass. "How well do you get along with Sema?"

I laughed again, watching him. "Why do you mind who I marry so much?" I asked. He looked up at me again. "Who are you going to marry?"

"I don't know yet," he said again, and he swatted the grass away from him. I watched him turn his back to me and toe another grass patch.

"You're not thinking of marrying me, are you?"

"What!" he demanded, turning to look at me. "No! Ew!" I gasped and glared.

"What does that mean!"

"You're…!" He gestured to me, vaguely motioning from my hood to my boots.

"What? I'm what?"

"You're small!" he finally said.

"I'm just as big as Threem!"

"No, she's already gotten taller." I shook my head at him.

"Well, it's fine, because I wouldn't want to marry you, anyway."

"You'd be so lucky," he said, crossing his arms.

genuine clear

The rain and clouds above and the water below thrummed like a gentle static in the air. I let the spirit of it soak into me, penetrating the warm and protective clothes, through my skin, into my bones. Water was easy, it was unstoppable, it gave life, and it never hesitated. The blood of this world, forever cycling between sky and sea, the next life and the life before. Raindrops to rivulets to streams to rivers to the ocean, and all back again.

I slipped into river stance. Easy, strong, always moving, always changing. I flowed to rain catcher. To river father. River mother. Ocean pull. Easy, slow, and strong.

Threem began to sing. Her voice was clear despite the heavy rain. I followed my hierarchy, letting her voice and her words pass over and around me.

It did not take long for the birds to gather. They landed on the rocks, their massive talons gripping the uneven surfaces easily. Threem and I didn't pause as the first one approached. It looked between us, its black feathers puffed threateningly. A black beak, a girl. My stances turned me away, but I kept her place in my mind's eye. Another was approaching, on the opposite side from her. Gray beak, smaller, his black feathers smoothed and dripping. He came closer to me, his sharp eyes studying.

I'm gonna gently tag @those-damn-snippets, @surplus-of-sarcasm, @kaatiba, @afoolandathief, and @tildeathiwillwrite, as well as anyone else who wants to play, for the words hungry, messy, laugh, stomp, and blue.

[computer-einstein]

YOU WERE THE ONE WHO DELETED MY SAVE FILE!!!? I just 100% it!

Watch yourself in chem.

O_O;

...I guess I do deserve it though. My dad felt the same way when someone wiped his original Persona 3 file way back when. He's still mourning the fact that he lost his 'Absolutely Busted Lucifer' because of the save file deletion.

[ofieugogyshz]

me @ myself: you don't have to recycle your old oc if you don't wanna

me (cont): you can just make a new insert

me (cont): and you can just borrow your family f/os from other series

me: :0 i could be honey and mustard's kid for realsies...........

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

being in charge of a 19 year old is such a mood though thats me anytime im out with my old ancient elderly(18-19) friends

YES LOL

[victorluvsalice]

We've hit Fall Saturday in the Chill Save, and instead of more store times today, we instead have a party! Because Smiler needs to have more parties, and I wanted the specific rewards you got from this specific party. :D However, before we had party times, we had to get through a few things --

-->Firstly, Victor had to discharge again upon waking up -- wouldn't be good if he magically exploded during the party! He and Alice hung out with the cats for a little bit -- Victor getting a song from one of the kittens by the phonograph (as said kittens are very Talkative) and Alice giving Kelly some time with the laser pointer -- then I sent Victor to the mirror to make an important change. Not to his wardrobe --

But to his, and everyone else's, last names. I THOUGHT I might have to go into "Manage Worlds" to change this, but as it turns out, you can update a Sim's name right from the mirror. So everyone in the household is now surnamed "Van Liddelton," like their grocery store! :D I was very happy to be able to do that -- while I wasn't exactly UPSET with them all ending up with the last name "Always" from the web of weddings we've had in this save, I genuinely prefer being able to give them a name that reflects all of them. :)

-->With THAT sorted, it was time to get to chores! Smiler set up the party, then popped into the greenhouse to make some sadness alleviation lotion before heading back to their robotics bench to tune up Bugs and Elmer. Alice spent a little more time slathering Kelly with love (gotta make sure mama cat is content), then headed to the computer to start a new Playful book ("What's One And One And One And," a book on Wonderland mathematics -- think those Wayside School math puzzle books), and Victor bought a bunch of dyes and started making more candles to put in the store later -- before getting distracted by Shadow wanting some attention. Victor felt the love from the dog, then decided to continue "Play Dead" training. As you can see, Shadow's got it down pat! :) Good girl, Shadow!

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

All three Bengal kittens have been rescued

So I made a post yesterday about how I had to catch all the stray Bengal kittens I'd be made aware of and said that I'd hopefully post the full story when I had them all. Well, it's storytime!

So some backstory here: When I was 8-12 years old my parents and I breed and raised Bengals cats. Some of you are going to get the wrong idea from that sentence so let me assure you that we were VERY responsible breeders and also a very small operation. We only ever breed three Bengals (our "queens") and we did not keep any adult male cats at the same time to breed them with. Instead, we took them all the way down to West Virginia to the lady we'd gotten our first one from and she bred them for us. During those four years we were a business, Shanti had three litters, Rosie had two, and Diamond had one. They were not over-bred and the kittens were well cared for. In fact we even fostered a mother cat who we did not own, who had EIGHT kittens which we then hand fed and raised because the mom couldn't take care of them.

That was Crystal's litter, if you happen to have been here a couple months ago and seen my post about her when she died. Crystal was 17 when she died. Shanti was 18. Rosie was 14 and I believe Diamond was 12. Diamond and Rosie only died "early" because they had health complications that we could not fix despite all our efforts and it was kinder to let them go then let them suffer.

So. We love Bengal cats. LOVE them. However, we also know just how much it costs to get one and we knew we'd never be able to afford another.

Enter a longtime family friend who works in a nearby town and has known us since our Bengal cat raising days.

Three weeks ago she sent my mom a text with a picture of a BEAUTIFUL snow Bengal who she said was living on the streets. Nobody wanted her, this beautiful little cat. So, a few days later, I ventured out to investigate and see if this cat could be caught because I am the crazy cat girl and always have been (the friend who told us about the cat even said I'd "always had a way with animals").

I get there and find out two things very quickly upon meeting this cat. One, it is a BABY. Like, not a tiny baby, but 5-6 months old. And two, it is starving. Like, it's not just hungry, I can see and feel its ribs and backbone VIVIDLY. I am immediately in love and committed to saving this precious baby.

I try and fail to capture the kitten two days in a row (and like, when I say fail, I mean that I managed to pick it up and one day get it in a crate, I just couldn't zip the crate shut fast enough before it wiggled out). On the third day I meet a woman who works where I've been trying to catch the cat and she tells me it belongs to someone. I am skeptical, but I listen because I don't want to steal someone's cat, obviously. She tells me what house she thinks the cat is from and encourages me to find out if the lady who owns it will give/sell me the cat. In light of this I put the cat crate I'd been bringing away, but stay to feed the cat. And then I find out something else that's incredibly important.

There's another Bengal kitten.

As I'm feeding the little snow a beautiful little black spotted kitten appears and demands food as well. My brain says "Bengal" but I'd never had one like this so I take pictures to show my parents and check out later. My mom recognizes it as a charcoal Bengal and is immediately in love with it.

But, we were told the snow belongs to someone, so a couple days later on my mom's half work day we head over (in the rain) to ask the people in the house if it's their cat or not. We meet a nice lady with a little girl who tells us that she has no idea who's cat it is and it isn't theirs. She tells us she'd be happy if we took it, especially if it's starving!

So the next day I return with the intent to capture the charcoal and the snow. I find a little charcoal in the parking lot I've been working out of and put some canned cat food in a crate to try and lure it. It walks right into the crate. I lock it in. One kitten down. I don't catch the snow, but hey, I got one, right? I take the kitten to the local APL to make sure it isn't microchipped and it's not! So, with the blessing of the APL I take it home.

This little dude is the friendliest, chillest Bengal I've ever met. He was SILENT when I was driving him home. I have NEVER had a Bengal be silent in a crate. He is the loviest little guy you'll ever meet, so happy to be rescued.

For the next couple days I go back and continue to befriend the little snow, making up for what we lost when I tried to catch it the first two days and it got wary of me. Then, yesterday, I'm feeding the little snow, trying to catch her, when, out of nowhere-

ANOTHER charcoal appears. I am shook. I HAD thought that the charcoal boy looked different from the one I took pictures of, but... I figured it was the lighting/environment or something! I NEVER expected there to ACTUALLY be three babies!

And then charcoal 2 walks straight into the crate just like her brother did. I have no choice but to take her home and come back for snow another day, I cannot leave this other baby here.

So I bring baby number 2 home to my equally shocked parents. She is the feistiest little cat, the exact opposite of her brother's purrsonality. She is the embodiment of chaos- but she does love hugs and cuddles.

And then today, after praying, begging, PLEADING with God to let me rescue the cat I ACTUALLY WENT TO SAVE-

I caught the little snow. She has been so excited to see me the past two days! Running right up to me chattering away for food. She's such a precious baby. She wouldn't walk into the crate, but I felt like God was telling me it was time, so as I was petting her, I scruffed her (a harmless action, especially to a kitten) put her in the crate (a non zipper one this time) and slammed the door shut. Put her in my car and drove her home, promising her the life of a princess she's always deserved.

So now, two months after our last Bengal died, God gave us three Bengal kittens. Three beautiful, STUNNING, Bengal kittens who somehow, despite having been in the streets, love hugs and cuddles and pets.

There are two girls and one boy. The girls' names are Maraly (the spirited, fiesty charcoal) and Leeli (the precious little snow with a musical voice). We haven't settled on a name for the boy yet, we're debating between Kalmar and T'challa because both are kingly and both suit him. (I suggested Kalmar obviously xD) They're all safely contained in individual crates (not cat crates, we have old dog crates/pens and a big soft-sided cat pen that they're in) on our screened in front porch, so they're very safe. They can see each other, but they've been understandably distressed so for safety they're separated unless we're out there with them.

Like, I cannot stress how funny this is. God sent me after a little snow Bengal, then made the situation drag out until I'd caught the two charcoal babies. Then easy as could be I caught the snow, the one I was ORIGINALLY THERE FOR. And all this two months after we realized we'd never have Bengals again. God truly has a sense of humor.

[2024skin]

Crazy to be 20 years old and my mom casually mentioning that she was so glad i decided of my own volition that I didn't want to see my bio father anymore bc she knew that he and his mom were smoking meth when I came to visit but didn't want to tell me unless I brought it up cuz she didn't want me to have a bad impression of them 😭 that woman is a saint if I found out my baby daddy was tweaking in front of my toddler I would've poisoned his supply and sent them both to the graves from "overdose"

[r0semultiverse]

"you can tell how young a gamer is by this comment" I am 19.

YOUNG

The aforementioned quote for context.

In the words of Sabrina Carpenter please please please don't prove I'm right. 😂 /lighthearted

You do know it's called discord out of context, right? �� /lh

[loupy-mongoose]

So

Uh

In a world where Eirwen had never ended up meeting Timber's family...

The song “Open Up Your Eyes”, from My Little Pony: The Movie… kinda really works for such an AU....

WARNING: This contains the following; SPOILERS, for both the MLP movie (the link above mostly), and depicts Eirwen as an adult and in her mid-morph form. TEASERS for some elements from MOLD proper. CHILD ENDANGERMENT and allusion to CHILD ABUSECREEPY and UNCOMFORTABLE IMAGERY sprinkled throughout INJURY and BLOOD

and DEATH

This thing ends on a very sad and somber note, so... be aware of that, too.

I owe Eirwen big time....

It’s also EXTREMELY long lol.

A

I'm a terrible OC mom...

I'm so sorry Eirwen...

[aroaceofthesea]

Fuuck my cousin isn't coming to the extended family lunch next month

[nataliedecorsair]

I wanted to give you some of Pticenoga's Borderlands AU backstory, how she was raised by Shade and before starting her shenanigans with Vaughn.

Plus a bonus comic about how she decided to set up a meeting for Vaughn and Shade, but didn't tell Vaughn who is supposed to be there x) Mostly because Vaughn has met Shade before in his macabre World of Curiosities museum and thought that Shade is too weird for him. Well, that's the kind of person that would raise a feral harpy siren, gotta deal with it!

When she was very young, nothing bothered her much as she was just a wild baby exploring the world x) And Shade was a good father figure to her. However, as she grew older, she realized that she doesn't really "fit in": yeah, Pandora is a crazy planet, but not every person there is crazy. There are plenty of "regular folk" like Shade or other people from their town - and many others. And she was frequently called a monster, a mutant and many other things by the regular kids and even adults. She was wild though, could bite them or fight with them in a pretty feral manner, and, even though she protected herself, it didn't help the situation much. She wasn't crazy enough (and too small) to fit in with the psychos or bandits, was "too human" for actual monsters living on Pandora, and for a long time she had no idea she was a Siren, as even for Sirens she looked too different. Only when she hit her teens, she was able to confirm that she is one, started using her powers, and in her human form she could see the full extension of the glowing pattern she had on her skin. She still, however, didn't know why she wasn't born "normal", and there were no older Sirens around.

At some point, she decided to become independent and live on her own. Her "wild" upbringing was helping that a lot, and she felt fine being away from people. She'd still visit Shade frequently, of course, and at some point she'd even met Zer0 and could hang out with him for some time. As Zer0 is a mystery himself, they had some common ground between them (though constantly listening to his haiku were exhausting xD). Sadly, Vault Hunters attract attention, not always positive, and that was the reason why she got spotted by a big bandit gang (could be the beginning of Vallory's gang, but before she took over). And local scientists like Tannis already declared that there may be some connection between Sirens and the Vaults. And they noticed that she's a Siren, but also pretty young (and dumb). After the first Vault on Pandora was opened, there was plenty of weird and valuable stuff around, but it wasn't so easy to get it when you're just regular bandits. And when Eridians, the aliens that are guarding the Vault, are everywhere. The Sirens like Lilith were too strong for them, and hiring a Vault Hunter is expensive, so they decided to wriggle into her favor and use her to gain access to the area. She didn't know she was dealing with bandits first, she naively thought it's a rare case of nice fellows just wanting to be friends and such, plus the Vault could have answers about her origin, and the new "friends" confirmed it.

At some point, she realized she was being used, and got into a fight with the bandits - and lost, as there were too many of them, and she had too little experience, and they knew about Shade. She got kidnapped and told that she'd do everything they told her to do, or they'd kill Shade, so she had to obey. She helped them to fight the way to the Vault and get some of the riches, and during the process she felt that she really does have a connection with Eridians - they boosted her powers and helped her to get free, and kill every presenting member of the gang. She was worried about Shade though, so she left immediately to find him before the remaining members found out what happened and could harm him. But she was too late - the water source in their town of Oasis was poisoned, and every single person there died. Except Shade though - he lasted longer, but dehydration made him insane, and he turned corpses into the stuffed dummies he could talk to (though she didn't have much of a problem with this part). As she was gone for at least several months, he didn't believe she's real, and she had to adapt to the new reality.

She never got back to the Vault after that as she felt it was a source of more trouble than anything good (in her view, the price was too much for a bunch of physical stuff).

That lasted for years, and became a bit easier as her powers, enhanced by the Eridians, wasn't only serving the destruction,  but could eventually "heal" some part of Shade's mind, so the moments of clarity became more frequent (she didn't know it's the reason, though). And you still need money, whether you like it or not, so, when Shade decided to use his World of Curiosities as a spot of illegal deals and smuggling, she didn't resist, but would watch over him in the shadows in case something goes wrong.

Eventually, she calmed down and just embraced herself. And, after some time, she met Vaughn, whose personal struggles she could sense right away, as she had to experience "being different" herself.

[rimster]

funny to me how many of us have childhood memories of red dwarf despite it being one of the horniest shows ever