#anyway tossing this out so i can finally move on jfc

[wantonlywindswept]

Definitely True Facts About Commander Vertex #4

He's lost everything.

[forgotten Fox AU tag]

Bucket, for the crimes of having an excellent sabacc face and a hip that seized up when moving any faster than a light jog, was often stuck manning the Guard HQ front desk.

They didn't get too many natborns coming through these days, at least, now that the CSF were forced to do their own jobs and had taken over guarding the prison. The Guard was finally back to being a protective, high-level military force instead of doing all the domestic policing and drudgework they'd been relegated to. They were still beholden to the Senate, but things had gotten better since Palpatine died and Organa took office, even if some of the Dome's denizens still saw them as little better than droids.

So Bucket didn't have to deal with that--he could, he got his name from being able to fit his demeanor to whatever the situation needed it, swapping faces like you could swap a helmet--but he did still have to deal with the regular comers and goers. Thankfully, that was mostly clones, plus the new addition of the pack of Jedi healers that descended on medbay once a week.

Interesting bunch, the Jedi. A lot more personable than Bucket had thought they would be. Surprisingly calm up until you admitted to using a soldering torch to close an acute laceration. 

(It wasn't even a recent injury--it happened so long ago that it was already healed. But now Master Nema gave Bucket the stink eye whenever she saw him, like she was trying to determine how medically stupid he'd been in her absence.)

"--figure what they were going on about?"

Bucket snapped to attention as the exterior doors slid open, a placid expression settling across his features. He turned toward the voice--only to relax when he caught sight of the visitors.

"Just something about another shift in the Force," Marshal Commander Cody said, offering Captain Rex a shrug. "It's not as bad as when Palpatine died; nobody passed out this time, at least."

"Small mercies," Commander Gree observed, bringing up the rear behind them. He had four takeout containers cradled in one arm, and by the smell they were from the offensively good noodle cart that parked near the base of the Rotunda. Bucket took a deep, envious breath and decided he was definitely going there for latemeal.

This particular group of GAR troopers--along with Commanders Bly and Wolffe--were a familiar enough sight at Guard HQ. They didn't visit often, almost eternally deployed to the front lines, but whenever their leaves lined up they usually made an appearance. Bucket had never seen all five together at once, but maybe that would change now that the war was officially over and battalions were being called back to Coruscant.

"Commanders, Captain," he greeted, standing up behind the counter to salute. His second for the day, Kelari, hastily copied the action. 

Cody waved the formality away with the hand sign for 'at ease', nodding at the two of them in turn.

"Sergeant Bucket," he greeted. "And I don't think I know..?"

"Private Kelari, sir!" Kelari chirped. She was still painfully shiny, wide-eyed and awestruck as she stared up at the Marshal Commander, and Bucket allowed the gaping with fond indulgence. 

Kelari was one of their most recent acquisitions, part of a squadron that arrived after the death of the Chancellor. The group didn't have any direct experience with the war or the suffering that came with it, and the entire Guard were doing their damndest to make sure they never would.

"Private Kelari," Cody acknowledged, one side of his mouth ticking up. "Good to meet you."

Kelari beamed; Bucket shooed her away so he could get back in front of the security screens. 

"The Jedi up to shenanigans again?" he asked as he pulled up the admittance forms. 

Rex sighed, heavily, and Cody shot him an amused look.

"Let's just say," Gree said, "That it will be nice to avoid more half-coherent explanations on how the Force works now that the war's over."

Bucket snorted, starting to fill out the usual info. The Guard never got a Jedi--and with the reveal of Palpatine being a Sith, they now knew why--but he had to admit he was glad they never needed to deal with the often-inexplicable Jedi tendency to rely so much on some invisible cosmic power.

"Captain CT-7567," he recited idly as his fingers flicked across the keys, "Commander CC-2224, and Commander CC-1004, here to see --"

Bucket blinked at the 'reason for visit' box. 

This batch of clones had been visiting the entire war, either by themselves or together, whenever their rare leave allowed. They came often enough that if Bucket wasn't the one that would suffer the datawork hassle later, he would have just waved them on through. 

He was familiar enough with them to know that Cody's infamous scar came from a sparring accident, that Gree had three half-finished xenobiology research papers that he hoped to someday publish, and that Rex had been forcibly adopted by the CC clones without being allowed any input in the matter. He knew that Wolffe had three implanted teeth from multiple attempts at biting trainers through their armor as a cadet, and that Bly sometimes mixed up his letters and numbers and had almost been decommissioned as a result.

And Bucket had no idea what to put in the box.

"Sergeant?" Kelari asked quietly, stepping close to Bucket's side, "They're Commander Vertex's batchmates, right?"

The gentle nudge would have been helpful--Kelari was new, but she'd already learned what to do when another Guard faltered--except the intel she was working with was faulty. 

It was a reasonable assumption: Thire wouldn't shut up about his batchmates, so they were all known. Ponds had already stopped by to see Stone, the rest of their batch lost to the war, while Thorn's quietly deranged batch somehow managed to stay known but off the radar. Vertex was the only Commander whose batchmates were unaccounted for.

Except Vertex didn't have any batchmates.

Cresh Squad had taken heavy losses a couple weeks ago, and Bucket had been doing his own rehab with Patches in the medbay while they were still recovering. Commander Vertex had been there speaking quietly with the survivors, going between the beds with soft words and reassuring touches. It was clear that he'd done that kind of thing before, and when he'd finally taken a moment to sit down with Defib, Bucket had overheard their conversation.

'Good going with Whiskey,' Defib said gruffly. 'He would have camped outside the medbay doors if you hadn't talked him down. Tango's stable, but it's never easy to see a batcher get hurt.'

'No,' Vertex said, sounding tired. 'It really isn't.'

'Sounds like you have experience.'

Vertex was silent for a long while.

'My batchmates,' he said eventually, 'And my command. I lost them. They're...they're all gone, now.'

'Not gone,' Defib corrected gently, 'But marching far away.'

'Not gone,' Vertex had agreed, almost too soft to hear. 'Just marching far away from me.'

Patches was a medic and Bucket knew when to keep his mouth shut, and neither of them had mentioned anything of the conversation to others. Bucket was pretty sure the other commanders knew, too, but it wasn't like they'd go around airing someone's trauma like that.

Far too much trauma to go around for all of them.

Kelari nudged him again, and Bucket blinked rapidly, hauling himself out of the memory. He lifted his gaze from the half-finished form to meet Cody's eyes.

The Marshal Commander frowned.

"We're here to see--to see..."

Missing memories weren't that uncommon, in the Guard, but as Bucket watched confusion steal across Cody's face--as that confusion shifted into unease and then panicked alarm--he didn't think that it was just a Guard problem, anymore.

[cressthebest]

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 31

chapter 50: (15 chapters left)

1. oh SHIT the girls are fighting (sirius and regulus are at each other with nails and hair pulling)

2. “It's mean. It's nails and hair-pulling and brutal in the way only siblings can be. In mere seconds, they've both made each other bleed, and they don't seem inclined to stop there.”

i think the arena allowed them to do this, but they’ve been ready to go at each other like this for AGES. cause like, i want to go at my siblings like this sometimes. and then go watch tv together after

3. 😬😶 sirius just found out reg is a death eater

4. 😬😬 it was just revealed that reg did NOT in fact kill Coen. yikes dude

5. “"You're a fucking death eater?!" Sirius snarls as he dodges Yaxley's elbow.

"Yeah, it doesn't feel good, does it?!" Regulus snarls back ……

"How is this even comparable, you little shit?!"”

😭😭😭 plsss he’s so funny

6. damn, when sirius was fighting the others, he wasn’t going full force, cause he was having an emotional conversation. but he was still winning. and then he gets tired of fighting so he just in like two swift moves kills two people. jfc he’s scary.

7. “"I was going to lose James anyway, don't you get it?! I never even really got to have him! But you—I got you back. I had you back, and you took that from me. You weren't—you promised you wouldn't do that. How could you do that, after I—I begged you not to? And for what? Me? You think you did it for me? No, you did it for you. You tossed me aside, and it's not even the first time!"”

😧😧😧 holy shit, he just went right at it

8. “Grow up, Regulus."

"You won't let me!"”

😧 jaw on the freaking GROUND

9. jfc this fight is brutal. i think it would hurt less for them to just kill the other. cause like, these words hurt even ME

10. “"What I regret most isn't that you broke your promise, Sirius," Regulus continues. "It's that I wasted time caring enough to ask for a promise from you at all."”

yoooo wtf wtf wtf this HURTS

11. “”Let me guess, you told them only you could kill me? Something like that, yeah?"”

😭😭 sirius guessed it right and reg is like ‘😳 no…. i never said that. why would i say that?’

12. reg is like “😡😡😡 I HATE YOU” and sirius is like “liar ☺️”

13. i bet the entire hallow is on the edge of their seat watching this like the highest quality entertainment. no way has anything been this juicy in the arena for AGES

14. YOO WTF REG THATS OUT OF POCKET. HE JUST THREATENED TO HURT REMUS. MY DEAR, THATS YOUR FRIEND TOO! YOU CANT DO THAT!! LITTLE BITCH!

15. god, regulus is actually about to say it and just goes after regulus. like, hardly holding back. holy shit

16. “Sirius, for the first time, doesn't believe in his brother. Because Regulus wants to say Remus' name, and that would hurt Sirius more than dying by Regulus' hand.”

god, just stab me in the heart why don’t ya?

17. 😧 dagger raised above his head, ready to strike down in reg’s chest and just can’t. and then as he’s about to kill him, regulus says he loves sirius. good god, i’m actually crying so hard rn

18. “He can see it, suddenly. It does become clear, then, all at once. Regulus did trick him. He did fool him. Just not in the way Sirius was prepared for. He never imagined this at all.

Regulus never intended to go home.”

BAWLING LIKE A BIG BABY RN

19. “"Don't, please don't do this to me. Sirius, please just—please do it, or let me do it. Don't make me live without you, please don't, Sirius—””

YOU WOULD THINK THAT THE SADDEST THING HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID, BUT NO!!! IM SOBBING HARDER!! AND I HAVE A FINAL EXAM IN HALF AN HOUR

20. “It's horrible, because the arena has brought Regulus back to him twice, once when Regulus became a Victor and right this very second, but for Regulus, all the arena does is take Sirius away.”

BAWLING LIKE A BABY

21. oh SHIT james did not leave them a note this time

22. god, it hurts knowing that sirius doesn’t trust reg with a dagger. not because sirius is scared reg will turn on him, but that reg will kill himself

23. “"It has to be you, okay? It has to, because I don't want to go home if I'm not going home with you. I—I just don't see the point."”

that freaking HURTS

24. this entire chapter hurt like a fucking BITCH

[nightwingshero]

Full bingo angst answers for Wren please! 💋💕

Thank you, baby!!! Kinda hitting it where it hurts today, huh?

TW: Mentions of self-harm, alcohol abuse, and child loss...just kinda...it’s angsty. Sorry guys. 

💙 What would your OCs last words be (or if they’ve died what were their last words)? What were their final moments like? How did they die?

Probably...man, knowing Wren, she’s gonna go down fighting and defending a loved one. She...Wren will use her Wrath to draw the attention to herself, even if she knew it was a battle she wouldn’t win--sacrificing herself to give the other person a chance. Her last words...would be deep and meaningful, something that would hit hard. She would either quote something with a deep meaning or something so pure from the heart...I could also see her saying “Free...I’m finally free.” Or maybe being excited to see her mom again. 

💧 What’s the worst pain your OC has ever been in? Mental or physical? What was the cause of this?

That’s a toss up between her father blaming her for her mother’s death/being mentally and emotionally abusive or the car accident and losing the baby. Both had Wren spiraling in very different ways, both still giving her nightmares to the point of insomnia some nights. Then also losing John later in life. It hits her hard to know that her life partner died sacrificing himself for their son, and that he’s just...gone. It’s hard for her to bounce back from it. 

🔷 Has your OC ever had to leave something behind or abandon something they didn’t want to? Have they ever had this happen to them? How has this effected them over the years?

There’s a locket, a gold locket with a tree on it, that her mother used to wear before she died. It was one of the things she held onto dearly after her mom died, because it was pretty much all she had. Her father got rid of most of Lily’s things, including the piano, and so Wren clung to it through her childhood, drawing strength from it. It “mysteriously” disappeared after her father found out about it, just a few days before she left for college. In turn, she stole her mother’s ashes to scatter them, but it still haunts Wren. It had a picture of the two of them together.

🔵 Has your OC lived through any particularly traumatic events? Does this event (or events) still effect them or have they tried to bury it? Is there a reason why this event is so traumatic for them?

JFC, where to even begin? Honestly, the cards are stacked against her in the worst way, I feel for her. The biggest ones would be abusive childhood, losing her mom, unhealthy relationship with college professor, the horrible car accident, the drinking problem that followed...Wren tries her best with it, truly. It still effects her, mostly through panic attacks (triggers) and her nightmares. She will fall into depressive episodes as well. Most of the time, she will bury it though, like, she’s guarded--if you’ve been through some shit, you could probably pick up on it, you know? But with anyone else, you can’t tell. She hides it well. 

❄️ What is (one of) their biggest regrets or biggest mistake they’ve made? Is there anything they can do to fix this or is it so far gone there’s no point anymore? Is this something they dwell on a lot?

Wren...Wren is on the path of learning what she can and can’t control, and it’s...going as well as it can, because she has such a control issue. She tries to tell herself to not dwell on the things she can’t control...but the thing with Wren is that she needs to feel in control. The biggest ones would be the college professor and the path she took after the car accident. Wren hates giving parts of herself for it to be taken for granted or advantage of. She also sees the alcoholic chapter in her life was a little too close to her father than she cares to admit. But well...you can’t fix the past. 

💦 Does your OC have any self destructive habits? Addictions? Urges? What is the cause of these or the reason for them?

Wren used to have a drinking problem, mostly because of an emotional thing versus having to have alcohol. She just used it as an outlet, but most of the time, it just lowered her walls and made her more emotional in a self-destructive manner--depressive, angry, and antagonizing. She would start fights, which is why she got in trouble and got her shit together. Wren internalizes too damn much, overthinking and jumping to conclusions based on her own observations because she’s not one to trust someone else’s intentions or words. While Wren isn’t judgmental, she’s very open minded and accepting--she can be quick to judge in cases where you’ve invoked her wrath. Did some shit when you were young? Who hasn’t, I still care and accept you. You just crossed and betrayed me? I’m going to make it my personal goal to make life hell for you-- She also has a tendency to use her wrath to push people away and then close off, hurting them both in the process. 

🌊 What is your OC like at their most depressive? In the middle of a breakdown? Having a panic attack? What are they like with dealing with anxiety and stress?

Wren during a panic attack starts with her not being able to formulate actual coherent sentences because her mind is going so damn fast, and her hands shake. Her muscles will stiffen, making her super tense and she shuts down mentally. Most of the time, she will curl up on the ground (in the corner of a room, etc) with her legs hugged to her chest, forehead against her knees. Mostly to hide her face and to make herself as small as possible and to provide herself some sort of comfort (sometimes she’ll grip her hair, too). If someone catches it (if they know what to even look for), they can intercept and help kinda deter it. But Wren internalizes, closes herself even more, buys a ton of whiskey or wine, and just sits with her dark feelings. They consume her easily, which is why she usually tries not to drink when she’s down, it makes it too easy to spiral. Wren handles stress the best she can, but she internalizes that too. Anything negative has a chance of coming out in the form of wrath, so she can be a bit...yeah.

☄️ Does your OC struggle with their emotions and trauma? Do they find it easier to open up to strangers or those close to them if at all? Do they tend to hide their pain from everyone?

Wren struggles hard. Like, she has a harder time coming to terms or understanding the why behind everything, and has a constant struggle with her desire to change what happened that her emotions and traumas don’t fully get resolved. She’s so desperate to be free of it, but there are times where she’s holding her own self prisoner for it due to guilt and heartbreak. She will never open up to strangers, she doesn’t trust people easily, you have to have earned your way close to her before she’s confiding in you. She hides her pain (or tries to) from everyone, including herself. You have to actively pursue Wren and be supportive consistently for that to spill from her mouth.  

📘 Write a sad journal entry, an unsent letter or short sad drabble. + bonus, give a theme!

A piece from Wren’s journal while going through therapy:

"I wish...it starts off normal, and it’s inconceivably misleading, but it draws me in anyway. Then...then its sneaking up on me, so before I know it, I’m in the deep-end, drowning in something dark and sticky, feeling as if it will become my second skin and suffocate me in the process. That’s when I start to hyperventilate, desperate and clawing to find the surface, but I can’t. I start crying, my chest constricting in panic. I turn...I turn and I see an open door, the inside is even blacker than what’s around me and I slowly start getting pulled back into it...and he just watches--laughing and taunting. I cry more, because there’s nothing else to do. Until the hand...it grabs me and yanks me back...I wake up then, screaming and panicking before the door slams shut. I take a shower once I wake up, because I can feel the hand, I feel the darkness on my skin. I don’t sleep most nights. Not anymore.”

🔹 Does your OC have any scars? What are the stories behind them? Do they have any mental scars? Talk about the effects of their trauma in general on their day to day life.

*Nervous Laughter* Scars....alright...so, Wren growing up would often resort to self-harm to cope, unfortunately. She avoided her wrists and opted for her inner thighs, aiming to hide the marks better. Once hitting college, she moved on from it, until the car accident. She started again once she spiraled, even using it a bit as she stopped drinking. It didn’t happen too often, just in major low points. She dropped it completely after she started going to therapy, learning to try and find healthier coping mechanisms. Wren’s traumas come out daily in the form of her having to be in control of herself and situation at all time. She’s the one driving, she makes her own choices, she sits on the outside in booths at diners and whatnot, having the option to leave when she wants. Wren hates feeling trapped and is super claustrophobic because her dad would lock her in the basement or her room for hours at a time. She buys a Jeep so she has the option to remove the top and the doors, everything in on her terms. You don’t touch her unless she wants you to, you don’t come visit her space unless she wants you to. Things like that. 

[seven-oomen]

Hi, Ben!  I’m glad your day went well and you’ve had good luck with your therapists so far!  Thankfully today was not as bad as they’d feared (hence why they had me come in early), so it was mostly just a very long day, but not an especially stressful one.  I spent most of it channeling my somewhat dormant Tetris skills to redo aisles to fit out all the new crap they’ve been sending for the holidays, actually.  Which I generally tend to enjoy, as long as customers stay out of my way (sadly this is not often the case.)  Hopefully since we’re past the traditionally worst days, and one of the managers is back from vacation, my schedule should go back to normal for a little while.

The new preview is adorable, even if my entire knowledge of Phineas and Ferb has been gleaned from Tumblr posts (I was always more of a Cartoon Network girl.)  I look forward to learning along with Peter.  XD  And I look forward to all of the cuteness, even if they are being idiots.  XD  (Poor Mel - “I think this is worse than high school.  How the hell is this actually WORSE than when we were in high school?  Jfc.”)

And I’m pretty proud of the mountain ash thing, too, even though I’m sure I’m far from the first to think of it.  XD  And may I offer the suggestion of back-seam fishnet thigh highs?  That way they could leave them on, and also offers the option of a garter belt.  And because I’ve accepted that I’m absolutely shameless for clothes sharing, I feel like their tops are some ratty old college ones of Peter’s that they found in the vault/Noah’s attic/Chris’ storage unit, that didn’t make it into any of the memory quilts.  They’re 90s tees, so they’re already kinda short and boxy, but they cut them off even shorter, trim the sleeves and remove the collar and open up the neckline until it reveals most of their neck and collarbone area.

Peter just comes home one day and Chris is bent over the island top making notes in a cookbook, the toe of one leather boot occasionally scuffing the floor, hips idly swaying as he works.  Peter’s eyes just lock onto him like a laser, fervently following a line from the pointed tips of his heels, up the seams of his stockings and the straps of the garters that hug and highlight every line of toned muscle, to the blatant invitation printed across the graceful curve of his ass, like it’s his own personal treasure map.  A herd of elephants stampeding through their living room couldn’t distract him from a view like that, so he sure as hell doesn’t notice the half-circle of mountain ash just inside the doorway to the kitchen until he quite literally faceplants against it.  Chris hears his noise of pain and confusion, and just nonchalantly glances over one shoulder like “oh, are you finally home?”

Desperately attempting to play off his reaction, Peter finally manages “It’s not nice to tease, Christopher.”

“Why am I getting full-named?  You don’t think I laid that line myself, do you?”

 That’s when Noah comes sashaying past in a matching outfit, closing the circle of the ash line before Peter can react, heels clicking gently against the wooden flooring.  He spins and hops up to sit on the island next to Chris, leaning back on his hands and crossing one knee coquettishly over the other, his cropped sleeves just barely clinging to those sturdy shoulders and doing absolutely nothing to conceal the flex of his arms, thigh highs cradling nearly every inch of those long, long legs, one heel tapping lightly against the island, smirk equal parts mischief and pure, unadulterated sass.

“What can I say?  We thought it was only fair that you get to at least look at your gifts.  We just weren’t entirely sure you deserved to touch."  He turns his smirk down to Chris, who’s got a nearly matching expression at this point, and Chris tosses his book off towards the far counter as he climbs up onto the island with Noah, and they proceed to make Peter both very, very glad that the island is more than big enough to fit two grown adults, and very, very irritated with himself for his own distractablility (though really, who could blame him?  he’s just grateful that Noah included a dining chair in the circle so he has something to collapse into.)  (…so I perhaps should have included a warning that I’ve had wine.  Sorry, not sorry?)

Uhhh…*clears throat* moving on…  I saw the post with those littering clips, and that would be hysterical to see.  Like, Chris doesn’t even have any cleaning products with him, he just tugs down his sleeve over his hand and starts polishing the guy’s side-view mirror and the driver’s side windshield while giving his not-threatening-you-but-I’m-definitely-threatening-you speech, while Noah just casually pulls out a ticket book and starts filling one out.  And oh god, that lady is lucky Peter didn’t put his entire foot through the door.  XD  It would be absolutely impossible to tell if Ben was being sassy or completely serious.  Peter would be so proud.  And why can I hear Julio screaming out "GOOOOOOAAAALLLL!!!” at the top of his lungs because they used to do shit like that as kids and he just can’t help himself?

And I love the idea of them watching stuff together (shows, movies, whatever.)  In the case of The Witcher, I feel like Derek would be part of the super into it group with Stiles and Allison, and they’d all be sitting there having intense discussions about it after each episode and somewhat wishing everyone else would be quieter.  XD  Anytime Chris or Noah tries to get up because someone needs a refill or a snack, Peter tightens his grip and sends one of the kids to get it instead, flashing his eyes and backing it up with a bit of alpha command if he needs to.  He rarely has to though, whoever he calls on mostly just rolls their eyes and mutters under their breath about how embarrassing the three of them are, but does it anyway.  The other two always make sure to profusely thank whoever it was, rolling their eyes with grudging acceptance at Peter’s antics.

Since this got unexpectedly long, and it is now later than I thought, I’m gonna try and wrap up.  XD  I hope that today is another good day, and that you have a good experience with the other therapist on Wednesday, too, no matter who you end up going with.  And I’m glad you’re enjoying what you’ve written so far, because everything I’ve seen of the next chapter I’ve loved.  Take care!  *Hugs!*

I’m really glad to hear your day was not as hectic as it could have been. Though I hope things further calm down and that the relief of your manager coming back will set things back to normal. Because it sounds like things have been brutal.

honestly, I’m loving every single second of your wine induced babble and kept giggling while reading it, so apology accepted but very much not needed please keep going XD.

Now it is kinda late here and I have my other therapy appointment in 12 hours so I’m gonna keep it short. But there’s another little preview and I wanted to share this gem. (I hope it comes across as cute.)

Peter’s face was currently torn between a look of disgust at said vegetables and pure adoration for both him and Chris and it was honestly one of the funniest tormented faces he’d ever seen on their mate. Far funnier then that time they’d locked him out of a make out session while at the mall. Back when they were teenagers and horny and sassy all the time and when they didn’t have children or responsibilities.

Hope work’s okay and you’re doing okay, me and Mo are giving you lots of hugs and encouragement at least. <3

[allforthecourtt]

rereading aftg with my dumbass opinions pt. 2 (tfc chapters 6-10)

pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

look guys! its the highly unanticipated continuation of my reread of aftg!

chapter 6 (aka. meet this MESS of a team)

“My mother's family is French." It was a lie that probably had his British mother rolling over in her sandy grave.”

neil really never misses an opportunity to remind readers that he fucking buried his mom on the beach huh?

“A liar who practices occasional honesty. Clever. Keeps people guessing. Very effective. I would know. I do it myself, you see. Come on, then. After you.”

have i mentioned how entertaining high andrew is? because he’s funny as hell

also rereading these are fun because Nora is incredible at foreshadowing just sayin

“Neil automatically reached for his seatbelt, but one of the brothers was sitting on it.”

how neil would be in the back of the cousins’ car if they let him:

“You?" Neil said. "You can't." Andrew's smile curved wider. "Ohhh, that sounds like a challenge. Mother may I?" "Your mother's dead. I don't think she cares what you do.”

HO HO HOLY SHIT NEIL

“Starting a fight was too out of character for who he portrayed "Neil” to be, though.”

“Consider this your official invite, you suicidal wretch. I'm bringing you to Columbia with us this Friday.”

awe suicidal wretch... glad they’re starting those pet names early

“I don't drink or dance," Neil said.

andrew: i kno u can

“Kevin doesn't dance anymore”

anymore? ANYMORE??? release the cursed events that led to him not dancing anymore Nora im begging you

“Are you bleeding anywhere?" Matt asked. "Nowhere vital," Neil said.

gskjgnsak god i stan this little asshole so much

“She said it gently, with the hint of a smile on her face, but Neil still felt the rebuke. It was subtler but somehow deadlier”

have i mentioned how gay i am for renee? because im very gay for renee

“Allison looked ready for a photo shoot with perfect platinum curls, spiked heels, and a skintight dress.”

im also gay for allison ngl

“I can move if you want to sit here," Neil said. "No, this is fine." She smiled, but it had a smug edge to it, probably because Seth was glaring at them like he could kill them with willpower alone. ”

lol remember how neil doesn’t think he’s attractive and yet in 0.1 seconds after meeting him allison is like “yes this idiot is hot enough to piss off the other idiot im dating”

“Personal favorite was when someone told the police we were running a meth lab out of the dorm," Dan said sourly. "Police raids are awesome.”

no offence dan but that’s fucking hilarious omg

that’s kind of like the time my residence floor had to get evacuated bc some kids hotboxed their dorm room

god i love uni

“The death threats were creative, though," Nicky said. "Maybe this time they'll follow through and actually kill one of us. Let's vote. I nominate Seth.”

pfffffttttt i love Nicky omg

also hahahahahah foreshadowing!

“It'll be fine," Andrew said. "I promised, didn't I? Don't you believe me?" It took a while, but at last Kevin visibly relaxed. ”

again this is why i thought they were fucking for like the better part of the first two books

“The dead look Kevin turned on Andrew today was the same look Neil saw in his reflection. When Neil stopped acting, when he stopped worrying about who was watching, when he let go of the lies that kept him alive, that was the only expression he could make.”

it’s fine i didnt need a heart anyways

this kid is 18 hes A BABY

the first time i read this i was 18 too and like jfc i was a BABY at 18 and so i neil

“One of us has to make it, Mom." It wasn't going to be Neil. It was obvious he was too stupid to survive without his mother if he let himself get into messes like this. But maybe Kevin could do it.”

sorry let me just wipe my TEARS off my fucking laptop neil honey what the fuck

“He felt distant as he watched them walk in. Maybe he was already dying, his stupid soul fading from his short body in preparation for a brutal end.”

neil we get it you have depression (me too bitch u aint special)

“Fuck running," Seth said.

now that’s a whole ass mood

“he didn't know how Renee could smile so warmly when she was speaking to Andrew.”

haha bitch just wait

“when he slept, he dreamed of his father waiting for him on the Foxhole Court.”

remember how at the end of the series his father is waiting on the court but neil wins??? god we love good storytelling

this is such a fucking wild chapter

could you imagine? coming back from the summer and your first introduction to this amateur from arizona is this neil josten level of sass? because i’d probably kill him

first years are bad enough but first years who dont care about other people’s opinions? the fucking worst

chapter 7 (aka. neil does NOT have a fun night out)

“It seemed Allison and Seth didn't believe in middle ground: either they were slinging vile insults at each other or they were making out in the locker room regardless of whoever might be around.”

that’s just how the straights are

“It reminded Neil a little of Allison and Seth, except without the desperate sexual undertones.”

i’ll just leave this gem of a line here

“His teammates held so little regard for him he didn't even have the dubious honor of being dead last.”

neil shading himself is actually hilarious how relatable

“Neil watched him do it, trying to remember the last time someone gave him a gift and coming up blank. That his first one should be from Andrew was unsettling.”

i actually love the fact that andrew bought him clothes so early on like andrew your gay is showing

“Neil debated how much damage the thick heels of his new boots would do against Andrew's face and liked what his mind came up with.”

i thank god everyday that these books are neil’s pov

“Andrew gave Neil another slow once-over and let go. "We're going.”

^andrew seeing neil w/o contacts (aka. the ‘i can’t think straight’ vine)

“Most of the men wore leather, half the women had corsets, and a good number of both genders were covered in buckles and chains.”

this... is a... gay bar

“Andrew saluted the bouncers on his way by and led the way into the club, bypassing the line entirely.”

i always forget the drinking age in the us is 21 but like this bar really dont care about their liquor license AT ALL lmao

“You think Kevin would risk his future over a night out at the club?" "What future?" Neil asked.”

WOW NEIL WAY TO BE A BITCH

“Neil hadn't seen Aaron get up, but he was waiting behind Neil when Andrew let go. Neil reached for Andrew with lethal intent, but Aaron grabbed the back of his chair and pulled hard enough to topple it over.”

why are the twins literally this gif:

real talk nicky kissing neil like that is horrible and really reflects poorly on nicky as a character

andrew for this entire chapter:

chapter 8 (aka. a hitchhiker’s guide to lying about your identity)

“I don't know how your conversation with Andrew went, but it didn't end well. Rumor has it you paid a busboy a hundred bucks to knock you out. Way to cut our night short.”

this is probably my favourite thing neil does in the entire series ngl

“Wymack grabbed his elbow and hauled him inside. He slowed just long enough to slam the door behind Neil. "Are you stupid or just crazy? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you between here and there? What were you thinking?”

Why does Wymack literally sound like my father?

foxes: daddy?

wymack: DO I LOOK LIKE

follow up:

kevin: daddy?

wymack: uh yeah

“I don't know what the beef is between you two, but it ends here and now.”

Wymack @ neil: tell your boyfriend, if he says he’s got beef that your a vegetarian and your not fucking scared of him

“Then correct me." "Give me a reason." "Besides the obvious?" Andrew said. "If I can't get an answer from you, I'll get it wherever I can.”

andrew:

“I'm—" Neil didn't want to say it, but the word was already there, broken and pathetic between them, "—nothing. I'll always have and be nothing.”

“He wondered for a moment if Andrew could handle the entire truth so calmly, but that was too dangerous and stupid to consider.”

“Hope was a dangerous, disquieting thing, but he thought perhaps he liked it.”

this is such a good fucking line like i am shooketh

chapter 9 (aka. neil is, like, really horny for exy)

“Are you stupid?" Seth asked. "Yeah," Neil said.”

what a fuckin MOOD

“Neil had almost forgotten why he liked Exy so much. He did his best at practices but these days he worked mostly to keep his teammates off his back. As Neil surveyed Kevin's damage, he finally felt inspired again. On its heels was a hungry, desperate rush.”

“Seth made as if to throw his beer at Neil. "His life is not more important than mine just because he's more talented.”

sometimes i really wish seth was actually given a chance to have some character development

“ "Maybe you're not as stupid as I thought." "Maybe I am," Neil said”

another big fucking MOOD

chapter 10 (aka. shocking: university is hard :/ )

“It's fun telling Kevin no," Andrew said with a wicked grin.”

why is andrew like this omg

betsy probably was like just looking for a chill job and was like “oh cool uni students? ill have to deal with like a lot of anxiety, sexual tension, depression and like confusion about the future, not to bad” but NOPE welcome to the fucking MAFIA WARS

“That wasn't so bad, was it? Andrew was convinced it would be a disaster. He put money on you hating Betsy." "Did you bet against him?" "Yes," Renee said. "It was a private bet between the two of us.”

“I hope you didn't lose much," Neil said.”

god why is he such an asshole at every opportunity i love him

“I can take care of myself," Neil said. "Watch me beam with pride.”

wymack is the best father in the world and you cant convince me otherwise

“There was one for every fall team with schedules printed on each. Neil kept the Exy one, tossed the rest into the trash, and buried his magnet deep in his pocket where he didn't have to look at the dates.”

neil “i only care about exy” josten strikes again with his great school spirit

“Palmetto State was facing Edgar Allan on Friday, October 13th”

that’s such a cliche and i love it

“He detoured around students toward one of Palmetto State's three dining halls. Two were for the general student body. The third was for athletes only”

lmao my school literally has one dining hall and it couldnt give less of a fuck what type of student they’re selling food too as long as they’ll pay $15 for chicken fingers

what kind of money does palmetto state fuckin have

like i get us tuition is a lot but jesus so’s mine and my school couldn’t be less fucked

“It was only the first day of school and he already had three assignments: a short paper, a fifty-page chapter to read, and a page of questions about said chapter. Neil debated for a minute as to which one sounded least painful. Five minutes later he was still uninspired, so he put his head down on his desk.”

1. MOOD

2. first years are so cute thinking that’s a lot of assignments i remember in first year being like “i have to read 40 pages thats so unfair :(” and now i’m like “ah sick only 200 pgs of readings this week? im gonna have so much free time!”

upper year history sucks ngl

“I'm fine," Neil said.”

neil knows exactly two (2) words and those are it

“You say that an awful lot," Matt said. "I'm starting to think you don't know what it means.”

overall thoughts:

the plot is pickinnnng upppp

i kind of forget how much world building happens in the first book but like its good

also i love neil literally hating everyone its so funny bc like bby these going to be your best friends just wait

anyways that’s all for now

part 3 will be the rest of tfc and then we’ll move onto trk if you guys still want more of this? let me know

love u all bye

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Making A Galaxy Far Far Away: An Aesthetic Photoset Tutorial

Requested by @geleixi (and varying amounts of time ago by @rockett-to-the-purple-moon, @thenameisgreed, @pizzaplanethq, and probably others who sent nice messages that I went “Oh, what a nice message this means so much I LOVE IT SO MUCH I’M TOO ANXIOUS TO ANSWER IT WRONG I’ll just do it later” and then promptly NEVER answered it.)

Brainstorming & Photo Collection

Picking a Color Palette

Choosing Images from Collection

Coloring

Textures & Effects

First off: I am not even going to remotely pretend like graphic design is a Thing I Am Better At Than Anyone Else, because that would be patently false and ridiculous, but I also get a fair number of Asks about making photosets/aesthetic posts, so here we are. I’m planning to do a separate one, maybe, for how I do the Cartoon Girls All Grown Up and Nancy Drew Dream Games series, because the “brainstorming and photo collection” part is so different that it inherently affects the rest of the process.

BUT I also feel like I don’t see a ton of tutorials that go through the brainstorming/finding images part of making aesthetics, and I tend to think of my Graphics Style(TM) as “DEEPLY Uninterested in washed-out faux sepiatone grimdark Tumblr Coloring?? + Not Good Enough At Masks To Do Negative Space Well,” which might be some people’s level of ~graphics design passion(TM)~ too, so. That’s the ride for which this ticket has been bought.

Brainstorming & Photo Collection

Obviously, the specifics of this are totally different for every aesthetic, but all of the GFFA/swworlds start from the same seed: Star Wars Aesthetic.

Star Wars itself has a very particular Lookque, imo: it’s not quite retrofuture, it’s not quite dirtpunk, it’s not quite scifi, even. There are the insanely sumptuous (and hella culturally appropriative) queens of Naboo and the ramshackle toppled AT-AT where Rey lives on Jakku and the not-even-subtle-at-all-jfc Nazi inspiration of the Empire and First Order and the straight-up millennial Tumblr witch Goffik look of the Dathomir Witches and Zabrak siths and the blue, blue water of Scarif. There “isn’t” a unifying aesthetic through Star Wars, and yet, as Gareth Edwards said, there’s a LOOK and FEEL to Star Wars: if you go a little too far to the left or right, it isn’t Star Wars anymore.*

*That said, this tutorial talks about Crait, which was invented by Rilo Jon, who went both too far left and too far right but mostly... too far-right. BA DUM BUM! Anyway.

So part of what makes Star Wars Look Like Star Wars, to me, is that it ISN’T ever Too Scifi. There’s a realism in all of Star Wars’ disparate planets -- their looks, anyway; like, talking about how Crait, in this case, makes NO ecological sense as a planet AT ALL is another post entirely. (IT MAKES NO SENSE.) It’s different from, like, Doctor Who, which I think revels in its “we can make these aliens and planets look like WHATEVER” more? Star Wars tends to be very like... “we want to use practical sets and effects.” Even for planets that only appear thus far in Clone Wars and Rebels? So it’s definitely part of the intention of SW’s Aesthetic.

ALL OF THAT TO SAY, my first step with each planet is to figure out the best way to represent it using as much real-world photography as I can and how best to channel the ~spirit of Star Wars~ in the graphic. Sometimes I fail miserably. CURSE YOU, NAR SHADAA. But most of the time it helps provide a Framework for the rest of the brainstorming and photo collection.

SO. FOR CRAIT. (For another example/totally different look and process, I wrote up a little about Haruun Kal on its post here.)

Crait has the definite benefit of appearing in one of the movies, so the first part of photo collection was to screencap TLJ. I took the caps using the 1080p digital release at a 20-frame frequency, so even once I deleted the aps that weren’t of Crait (moving the Canto Bight frames into a folder for Cantonica, of course!), I had like... 1500 images just from TLJ to start the brainstorming and collection with.

First, I trimmed down those ~1500 screencaps to 168 caps that were distinct enough from one another to give me a sense of “what happens” in the scene and, more than that, “What Crait Looks Like.” Then, because there’s additional canon material of Crait besides TLJ, I saved the unlettered images of “Star Wars: The Storms of Crait” from comic penciller Mike Mayhew’s blog @mikemayhew -- if those hadn’t been available, which they’re usually not for planets that appear in the comics (THANX MIKE MAYHEW!!!), I would have taken and cropped panels from the comic at both 100% and screen-fit/60% sizing that had utility for a graphic about planet scenery and not character.

THEN, I looked at Wookieepedia and MSW. Crait was based on the Salar de Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, so I Google image-searched that. There weren’t actually very many images of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats that I super loved, so I ended up saving images of other salt flats as well, particularly the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

THEN there was the issue of the red minerals, which were entirely fictional and not part of any real-world salt flat. BUT, there IS real red sand... so I saved some images of red-sand dunes (mostly Mui Ne in Vietnam). I also went through my Star Wars Stock Folder to find images of crystal caves and mines that I’d either saved for other planets in the past, but didn’t end up using, OR just saved because there are so fucking many crystal-based planets in SW.

Each of my big graphics series has its own Stock Folder for unorganized images that just strike the right Vibe~ and might be useful someday, in addition to every planet (or cartoon girl, or US state for the Nancy Drews, etc) having its own folder for specific/organized image collection.

My Star Wars Stock Folder:

So there were already a lot of crystals, star destroyers, blasters, and bunkers that were actually in snow but whatever it was white and crystalline, to work with. I added some workable Crait-like images from the stock folder to Crait’s collection, too.

AND THEN, finally, I LOVE the vulptices, so I searched for (and found!) some of the concept art and 3D modeling images from ILM, and I put those in the folder, as well.

I also saved this, hoping I’d be able to make it work because it’s SO CUTE, but I couldn’t, but here LOOK HOW CUTE:

And then, lest I stay in the image-collection rabbithole forever, I said, “OK, that’s enough.” I ended up starting to actually MAKE the Crait graphic from a collection of 272 images:

Picking a Color Palette

Obviously, the dominant colors of Crait are red and white, so the aesthetic had to be based in red and white. My first instinct was to make a duotone aesthetic using only red, white, and black/grayscale. Something like this:

Which... I don’t hate, or even dislike. It’s definitely more in line with popular Tumblr aesthetic, uh, aesthetics. But I usually don’t like landing on that kind of coloring because it ALWAYS, ALWAYS whitewashes people of color (and jeez, it even whitewashes white people -- look at the model in the fourth frame down on the left, or Luke in the bottom-left.) The “vibrance -100 + Selective Color Red>Red + 100″ always ends up doing the above example to, in this case, Poe: turning him into a licorice man.

So then trying to correct THAT either whitewashes the FUCK out of him/people in general:

(Toning down the red)

Or introducing other colors back into the graphic as a whole:

(Upped yellow and cyan.)

So I nixed that coloring before I even started. (These examples were made after the fact purely to serve as examples.)

I went back to the drawing board, AKA the Crait image folder.

But looking at the collected images -- especially the screencaps and the panels from the Storms of Crait comic -- I was struck by how much Crait also incorporates yellow and blue. (Note that I really, really wanted to try to include Trusk Berinato and Bail Organa... but we’ll talk through why that didn’t work out.) I LOVE @droo216‘s bright, almost jewel-tone edits which I 100% know I don’t have either the patience or skill to make, but I liked the idea of trying to make Crait’s aesthetics in a primary colors + black/white scheme.

Which I actually really like! (Again, made post-facto as an example.) But again, red vibrance DiD tHe tHiNG!!! to Poe and ESPECIALLY to Finn and Bail.

So a high-vibrance look emphasizing bright colors was a no-go. Besides, going back to the source material: high-vibrance and high-energy are the opposite of what the planet of Crait is about. It’s a dying husk of a planet, being killed slowly by its own ecology as the salt in its crust dries out everything beneath it, sucking up water until everything either evolves into living crystal-dogs or goes extinct (thank u Rilo for not including dune-worms, this is the one thing you did right). Crait wouldn’t be vibrant.

But... aha! It’s also distinctly layered. I’ve done three-panel swworlds aesthetics before, so I decided to do that for Crait, too: first a mostly-white graphic like the salt crust, then white+red+yellows in the middle, and finally a dark layer of almost entirely red like the mineral mines.

Choosing Images from Collection

With the color palette and “feel” decided (dying at the surface, then growing richer and redder and angrier as the photoset moved downwards), I was able to choose images.

NEKKID PHOTOSETS SANS ANY EDITING! XXX! But for reference to see both cropping and for reference on choosing.

TOP IMAGE, MOSTLY WHITE:

L-R, TOP-BOTTOM:

I saved this image from my dash at some point and have been tossing it into planets’ folders every time there’s a white-based color scheme. It almost got used for Ilum, but at the last second wasn’t. I felt like it fit the coalescence of Rey’s Force strength here, and also the kind of “last wisps” of Luke Skywalker, well.

“Lifting rocks.”

I’m actually still not 100% whether I should have landed on a vulptex here, but dammit they were one of the only good parts of TLJ. This vulpie baby is on the salt surface, looking out at the blinding sun, so she seemed like a good fit compared to the other caps of vulptices -- the ones loping on the canyon surface at the end were all very motion-blurry.

Carrie in that gorgeous coat in homage to Harrison in Blade Runner makes me weepy, and those were some of the most beautiful shots in the movie. This one had a good balance of white and black, so it could be placed around any level “busyness” in the surrounding photos. Especially since I suckkkk at negative space.

I saved this image to the Crait folder like the day it was announced as a planet in the upcoming Episode VIII and given its first peek. I love it!

Hi, salt flats, and also Star Wars spaceships. I actually had a lot of trouble with the level of green in this image, but the ~essence of Star Wars is PEW PEW SPACE BATTLE, so.

This is an ice sculpture in real life! It reminds me of the vulptices and is cool as hell.

The Millennium Falcon! I toyed with different caps that showed it in actual battle, but the blue would have been hardest to work with in this photoset compared to the others below. Plus, now I can save a bunch of Falcon-in-flight pictures for use on planets that only appear in the novels or comics.

NECESSARY, ICONIC, PERFECT, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT HAPPENED ON CRAIT.

Fine, this is a snowy mountain and not a salt flat, but I liked the striations in color and gentle variations in grayscale.

 This was the palest/least Bright Blue sky of all of the Falcon screencaps from Crait.

I tried a few screencaps of Crait from TLJ, but I landed on using the full-panel image of Crait from Storms of Crait. It has the cleanest definition of the “planet from space” options we have of Crait.

This is a promo image, not a screencap. It’s a much crisper view of the ski-speeders. I love the vivid color difference.

The blue-and-yellow additions to the color scheme didn’t work out, but I did still want to include Storms of Crait. This shot had a little more blue in it than I would have liked, but it has Leia in a ski-speeder back before the salt caused them to rust out, too!

Remember when it seemed like the Crait battle’s new AT-ATs would be super cool and like, do more than stand there menacingly behind Kyle? Me, too.

POE! DAMERON! HAS! NEVER! DONE! ANYTHING! WRONG! IN! HIS! LIFE!

KYLE! HAS! ONLY! EVER! DONE! WRONG! IN! HIS! LIFE!

I tried out like five different tiny-frame-difference screencaps of the ski-speeders kicking up red minerals, and I decided that this one, with a clearly defined spray of red surrounded by white and bluish sky, suited the placement here best: there’s red in the panel to its left as the main color, but minimal red in the above- and below panels.

I wanted to include actual Connix, but she’s wearing yellow and only ever shows up surrounded in brownish-black darkness, so here, have one of my standard Fashion Rebel Officer Stand-Ins instead -- the red and white obviously played a part in picking this shot over the rest of the options from the photoshoot.

I LOVE this slightly mystical shot of a Rebel pilot slash astronaut on a rain-slicked salt flat. How perfect?!

As we get down to the bottom of this middle panel, I wanted to include more destruction and more presence of yellow and orange. This image has a good balance of “negative space” in the sky and salt flat, and then the explosion of Nodin Chavri’s ski-speeder (I think?) ties in well to...

Finn and Rose, post-collision. I wanted to include Rose, and the almost JJ Abrams-esque white starburst in the center of this cap is a good balance to the spray of red around a ski-speeder two panels above.

Luke on Crait in the Rebel Alliance...

And Luke on Crait in the Resistance.

This was a kind of “????” moment of characterization -- and general direction -- in TLJ, but Luke surrounded by red as an old man would fall right below Luke as a young man, on his first mission after the Battle of Yavin, when the three graphics were aligned.

I wanted to use the straight-up concept art of the vulptex, but the black around it was TOO black, if that makes sense? So I layered it over a darkened cap of the vulptex who leads Poe to Rey and freedom. This is one of the very rare shots that I use an edited base image.

Han and Chewie! I had to include Han and Chewie. The unlettered panels from Storms of Crait that show the mineral mines are stunning; I highly recommend heading over to Mike Mayhew’s page and taking a look. The detailing of the crystals is something I wish I could have captured better at this scale.

This is one of the red-sand dunes I saved! Crait doesn’t have any living vegetation, but the drama of the black, stormy sky and the red sand drew me in here.

Some CGI crystal caves... I saved these ages ago for use on Ilum or Dantooine, I think? (Same with what will be #11 below.) I don’t love using CGI, but I think the crags on these crystal growths suited the images from canon!Crait.

A screencap of the TIEs chasing the Falcon through the mines. This was honestly one of the most visually stunning parts of TLJ, and it’s so split-second that most people missed it AND most of the screencaps have a lot of motion-blur. I’m really pleased that this one came out so crisp, and I knew I had to use it as an “anchor image.”

Finn, full-on, in red. I’m realizing belatedly as I write up this tutorial that I showed Poe face-on and Finn face-on, but I stupidly chose to show Rey only from a distance. I AM A FOOL! A FOOL!

Aren’t these resin crystals amazing? The full-size image actually shows them surrounded by snow, by the tree-stump they’re on wouldn’t fit Crait, so I cropped in closer on this image than I did for most of the Crait set.

Another shot of the Falcon in the mines. I like the way the framing of white sunlight here echoes...

Leia’s face, a bright spot in the dark, watching out over the salt flat. :(

(See #5 above!)

And again, the homage of Carrie’s coat looking like Harrison in Blade Runner made me sad, so I THREW IN ANOTHER HAN AND CHEWIE. The mining equipment here shows more detail than in the screencaps above, too.

Coloring 

Like I mentioned waaaay above, in the intro: I never use set colorings for photosets. (Except Halloween Spookstravaganza, because jeez so many of those screencaps are like 240p VHS rips and it’s just not worth putting in Effort(TM).)

That said, I think one thing that I do differently than I see in most tutorials is this first step:

I ALWAYS start Aesthetic photosets by arranging the images and then *BRINGING THE CONTRAST ALL THE WAY DOWN.* This is especially helpful on photosets that include a mix of real photography, CGI screencaps or art, and/or comics panels, but it’s also just useful in general for photosets that use images from a wide variety of places.

The reason I do this is because it helps to “smooth out” the differences in light source, color balance, etc., that are part of the raw base images. For this set, it also helps to define the variations in color between very similar shades: the craters on Crait, the wisps of clouds, etc.

In some cases, I’ll do two layers of Contrast -50. For Crait, I did a later of Contrast -50 and then a layer of Contrast -15.

Then, I Select All > Copy Merged > [Turn Off Contrast Layer View] > Paste As New Layer.

Now, the “smoothed” version is placed as a layer above the raw layer. From there, it depends on the look of the photoset what I do -- sometimes, I leave it as-is, but I almost always lower the opacity on the “smoothed” layer until the level of contrast and balance looks consistent across the whole photoset. For Crait, I ended up with the “smoothed” layer set to Lighten 100%.

Selective Color time. There are two ways I usually start this: either one color at a time -- especially for Aesthetics like Pheryon that will essentially be monochromatic -- or, in this case, I looked at the balance of the three main colors that would carry through the entire Aesthetic.

REDS

Cyan -100 (This brightens the vivacity of the red.) Magenta +100 Yellow +100 Black +35

BLACKS

Cyan 0 Magenta 0 Yellow 0 Black +100

WHITES

Cyan 0 Magenta 0 Yellow 0 Black +100 -- This is NOT my usual setting for adjusting white, and since white is one of the main colors in the Crait Aesthetic, it might seem counterintuitive to make the white darker instead of brighter. However, this will help to make next step of color adjustments “take” on the white/whitish surfaces a lot more easily, and it will also help to balance out the bluish sky areas with the white background areas. (I’m not sure this explanation makes sense? But it’s what I did.)

Then, I Select All > Copy Merged > [Turn Off Selective Color Layer View] > Paste As New Layer > Either COLOR or HUE 100%.

“Hue” is more effective for smaller, more incremental color adjustments -- for BIG SWEEPING COLOR CHANGES, “Color” tends to work better. But it totally depends on the photoset! Try both, and see which you like better.

I feel like this is kind of the step where my process of making aesthetics stops being any different from most tutorials -- but this has been HUGELY helpful for me, a non-graphic designer-person, to be able to create a kind of “base image” that has very similar color values, brightness/contrast, and vibrance.

Sometimes this step helps to create really extreme color differences, such as in the Raydonia Aesthetic, and other times, I use it to just adjust one or two color-values so that there’s more consistency in, say, shades of yellow or shades of green, as in the Takodana Aesthetic, for which I just wanted to create a more cohesive palette of green in particular... it started out with a zillion greens, and I wanted to bring it all together into one “aesthetic.”

I think this step, and the reasoning behind it, are why SO MANY PSDs for aesthetics rely on a layer of either gray or sepiatone-ish set to Darken or Multiply as one of their key layers. But I’m just not about the grimdark life, and if I’m making an AESTHETIC OF A THING, I want the aesthetic POST to actually HAVE THAT THING’S AESTHETICS, you know?! I want to use the colors of the thing that I’m saying is meant to evoke the visuals of the thing!

Anyway. Now you have your BASE IMAGE. Often I’ll Merge All here, just for my own sanity.

Then I go in and make any other other adjustments on a “coloring” level that I think will help with the “vibe” I’m going for! For this Crait set, I definitely needed to bring the brightness up so that the white and red popped. However, bringing up the brightness also swallowed a lot of the detail in the white surfaces -- especially the planetary surface of Crait in that bottom-right space -- so I decreased the contrast again.

Brightness +70 Contrast -50

And then I go in for the macro-level adjustments of color using any mix of Selective Color, Hue/Saturation, and Color Balance that works. For Crait, that was more Selective Color, because since I had decided on my color palette, and it sadly did not include blue, I needed to start by taking out as much of the blue, cyan, and green that I could.

And I’m ngl, I told myself the WHOLE FREAKING TIME I was making this photoset that I needed NOT TO DELETE THE PSD RIGHT AWAY LIKE I USUALLY DO so that I could write up all the settings for this step.

But it was a reflex. And I deleted the PSD right away like I always do.

So suffice to say, I just futzed with the levels one at a time until the RED was brought up a little, the YELLOW was brought up a lot, and everything else was brought down and/or hue-adjusted to sliiiide into being yellow, red, or black/white.

Another Select All > Copy Merged > [Turn Off Selective Color Layer View] > Paste As New Layer > Either COLOR or HUE 100%. I think I also DUPLICATED this layer and set it to SOFT LIGHT 50% and then duplicated it again to SCREEN 50%.

I could have left it like this, but I am me and I am nothing if not Extra All The Time, so I opened up my folder of light textures (and other textures) and decided to Go To Town.

Textures & Effects

For your Aesthetic-Making Purposes, here are the three I used on the Crait set:

The first two were set to Screen 100%, and the bottom one was set to Burn 15%. I layered them in this order.

It still looked incomplete, so I decided to use this POWDR Element from Creative Market, which is actually like 5400x5400 pixels and which I’m not going to share here because I paid for it and don’t want CM to revoke my access or whatever, but it looks like this, only HUGE:

I also set this element to Burn 15% and moved it around the image until it looked the way I wanted it.

Textures and effects aren’t In on Tumblr anymore, but I really like using them -- they add, not to be cheesier than usual, texture to an aesthetic post, and I think that they can also help less-skilled graphic-makers like me to hide any myriad of imperfections in coloring, sharpening, whatever. I’m an especially big fan of this noise element (set as a pattern on Screen), so I’m going to share it here even though I didn’t use it on the Crait set:

Most of my textures have been saved over the last literally twenty years since I started making fannish graphics and photosets, largely from defunct old LiveJournals, but there also used to some great sources for them on Tumblr and still are live sources for them on DeviantArt. Just search around and you’ll find what you want! :)

In conclusion, I think it’s infinitely more fun NOT to rely on premade PSDs or standardized Settings, but I also recognize and fully respect that if I made graphics differently, I would probably get easily 5-10x more notes on each post than I do. But I make graphics the way that’s fun for me, and I just try to learn a little something from every set I make. The GFFA Planets/swworlds in particular have been something that I started, originally, because I wanted to catch up and learn about Star Wars planets that I felt like I was missing because I don’t have any fannish history with the Old EU, and I wanted to learn about them in a way that helped me feel like I was engaging with the SW source material AND making the enormity of the canon more accessible to other newish or casualish fans, like I was two years ago when I started this aesthetic series. I like making aesthetics that are genuinely inspired by the aesthetic of the thing that I’m calling it an aesthetic of, so even when it ends up just looking like rainbow barf (CURSE YOU, NAR SHADDAA!!!) I’m having fun.

THAT SAID, here’s how the time breakdown for the Crait set works out:

TOTAL TIME INCLUDING IMAGE COLLECTION AND SCREENCAPPING: Est. 20 hours.

COLORING AND ACTUAL GRAPHIC-MAKING PART: 7 hours.

WRITING UP THIS TUTORIAL: 5 hours.

So, um, if you are so inclined, here is my Ko-Fi link. I post at least two graphic sets every week, sometimes up to 25 (usually during October).

I hope this was helpful at all! I had a good time thinking about my process in-depth like this, and I would love to get tagged in any aesthetics you might try making using a similar method! :)

[wobblegong]

I was going to squee about my space-cat but I just got shotgunned through the Chains of Harrow quest & subsequent orbiter thing so instead I’m going to spew my thoughts everywhere. I have too many emotions about this ok. WARNING: Massive story spoilers (for many quest lines), massive gameplay spoilers, massive worldbuilding spoilers, BASICALLY NOTHING BUT SPOILERS UP IN HERE. You probably don’t want to read this unless 1. you’re caught up on everything including 2. you dgaf and find me nattering about a game you don’t play interesting. (~2200 words.)

I. Gameplay/Mechanics

Chains of Harrow is VERY WELL DONE, jfc. I continue to be impressed by Warframe’s execution. Some previous quests weren’t quite ideal but this one... this one was on point.

(Shout-out to my game dev friend who does totally unrelated stuff and their ANGUISHED GROAN when I asked how they’d do the one bit with moving the audio around in their not-Warframe engine; they stared into Hell as they contemplated it. “But Unreal engine apparently lets you do it just fine.” It’s so fun to be reminded that one engine’s effortless task is another engine’s “the only thing that eclipses the suffering this would require is your hubris”.)

There were spoopy screen effects, not that I’m surprised– already seen plenty of demonstrations of what they can do when I get flashbanged or fade in/out of a menu. One section has you chasing directional audio aka heading towards wherever the sound is coming from. (This was the worst section for me, I had to pause three times to get my panic wrangled.) The talking-heads approach to story, combined with the setting, combined with a few lite-cutscenes & one interactive segment... was actually fucking perfect. I usually feel like the exposition-dumps are somewhat contrived and aggravating, but here I was SOLD.

If I had any criticism, it’d be that the spoopy starts wearing off like 1/3 of the way in and just keeps eroding until the end isn’t spoopy at all. It didn’t feel like a deliberate tone-shift, just that they ran out of jumpscare (which is what the spoopy is 100% made of) and didn’t really replace it with anything. I don’t consider it a drawback though... if it had actually been scary the whole way through I’d be a gibbering jelly. Also everything else going on is so fantastic that I prefer the lack of distraction.

I did laugh when the main combat section goes Ghostbusters: you have to trap a spoopy in a box you toss on the floor, complete with a glowy beam trapping said spoopy. Mild grumble because I wasted a dozen traps before I googled wtf to do in that section (hint: APPLY BULLETS TO BAD THING) but fine, if I hadn’t been accidentally lied to I would probably have tried that first instead of faffing around.

Final “boss” fight was indeed kind of a bear but I was warned beforehand that I was gonna get punched out like forty times so when I only got punched out thrice it was like all my namedays had come at once! HOLY FUCK DON’T DO IT BEFORE YOU’VE DONE THE GARA QUEST THO & GOTTEN AN OPERATOR AMP ON CETUS. This quest predates all that BUT THE AMP IS GOOD. EVEN A BAD AMP IS BETTER THAN NO AMP. So... hot tip, get your little shit a little piece of shit and be thrilled when you can actually kill the boss fight adds in under 12 hours.

Ok no I have one true criticism: BLOOD ISN’T RED WAX, WHY WERE THE BLOODY MESSAGES ON THE WALL THAT COLOR. Actually they were... really 3D... ... ...maybe it WAS wax? Where the fuck did the spooperson get so much red wax for writing creepy messages?

II. Story

So the story is that you get a haunted I mean hecked up transmission, it’s spooky; you go to a fucked-up empty ship and find one Red Veil chick just hanging out with her cat. She says a lot of baffling things and then forty ex-Red-Veil zombies/ghosts/possessed assholes try to murder you, ineptly. Ok maybe they’re less inept if they’re not going in ultra-slow-motion. (My god, I will never stop being happy that Frost Prime was my first frame. So good and useful when I’m going into shit blind.)

You haul RVC (Red Veil Chick) out of there and plunk her ass down in the Steel Meridian camp because I guess the factions like each other enough for casual favors like that. She says some more barely-less-confusing shit and very earnestly (there’d be dewey eyes and heaving bosoms if she wasn’t wearing a full-body-inculding-head suit) begs you to go find some relic. Off you go to another fucked-up empty ship! UNNECESSARILY CREEPY WHISPERS lead you to said relic, which was the thing Rell focused on for soothing because most sensory stimulation was too much for him. Wait, what? And then ASSHOLE MCINVINCIBLE tries to stick his hand up your ass like a puppet and if you’re me you sprint in circles for 30 seconds crying while the NPC frantically tries to get you out.

You go back to RVC and she does a seance. It works. To summarize/paraphrase including story bits revealed further into the quest line, Rell was one of the Tenno who got shunned out of the gaggle even before they all got Tenno’d. Apparently this put him in a position to discover what the fuck is in the Void, at which point he had his meatsack body killed so his mind(/soul/whatever) could be chained to his specific ‘frame, leaving him awake/conscious to keep doorstoppering the badbadnotgood, even while the other Tenno were off snoozing per the Lotus’ plans. A line of RVCs (Red Veil Chicks) were in on this and dedicated themselves to... looking after him, inasmuch as you can look after someone who shoveled themself into a robot that’s been chained up somewhere it’ll never see the light of day. They could talk to him anyways– I guess they were mostly there to keep him from going bonkers and maybe intervene if anything ever went wrong.

Anyways, that’s all fine right up until it isn’t; RVC & the Lotus determine that his transference fucked up and fragmented so you need to go Ghostbusters the creepy phantoms of this guy’s psyche. Collect them all while dodging ASSHOLE MCINVINCIBLE (and a smattering of forgettable mooks– fuck off Infested, I don’t care if it’s your ship) and RVC thanks you/tearfully asks you to take them back to where his ‘frame rests so he can die because THAT’S ENOUGH SUFFERING FOR ONE PERSON THANKS.

Nothing gets to be easy, not even that, so when you find the ‘frame and start snapping its chains it wakes up. RVC has about five seconds to go “thaT’S NOT RELL” while your little shit self scurries behind a pillar before boss fight! Red Veil operatives (except dead or mind controlled or who knows what) try to punch you out while some kind of awful red glowing tear pops in and out to fireball you. But eventually you snap all the chains and yaaaay Rell gets his eternal rest. (I’m not crying, you’re crying.)

III. Meta Story/Worldbuilding

It’s SUCH A THING to me that RVC casually knows what the Tenno are. I mean, ok, makes sense because the RVCs were so involved with Rell, buT LIKE. MAN. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS. THE “KIND OF HAVE A CLUE” PEOPLE STILL DON’T KNOW MORE THAN “IF YOU DISSECT A WARFRAME YOU WILL NOT FIND ANYTHING THAT EXPLAINS WHAT THE TENNO ARE”. Fuck, I think the RVC even dresses down the Lotus over it a la “fuck u, u say they’re ur kids but u suck and u never knew about Rell”.

They completely skate right past RVC setting up shop in the hyper-secret Steel Meridian HQ. “Yeah, no big, me and my ouija board are gonna hang out at the secret base of a completely different faction, which happens to be located like three centimeters from the balls of the genocidal maniacs they defected from. Sorry you keep seeing my kavat in the background of my transmissions.” W h a t . ?

...ok, side thoughts out of the way: OH FUCK OH FUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK THE MAN IN THE WALL

As of this point in Warframe’s existence (out of game I mean) they have done... not the WORST job defining the Void, but of course a lot of it hasn’t been written out. (Both because good storytelling and also because the writers probably haven’t gotten that far. :p) Things we do know:

The ship of people who got stuck in there was (afaik) 100% casualties among all the adults. Fuckers all went feral apparently? But the kids lived. Although they came out weird and dangerous (understatement). People do still go into the Void atm, generally via opening a portal on another planet. People... don’t always come OUT of the Void, although presumably they come back out often enough for the major powers to feel like it’s not a waste of time to ransack that shit. I don’t know where they stuck this lore but iirc there’s some kind of horrible THING in there that basically shoves some kind of hijacking device into you, if it catches you, and then it controls you forever. (IDK if dying gets you out of it or if it can just be like HA HA NICE TRY MEATPUPPET and get you back up. With how this setting is, could go either way.) This is why all the Void tilesets have a variety of mob types: the THING has been hijacking the assortment of factions that wander in. Like I said, people don’t always come back out during those expeditions.

So the first badbadnotgood hint I personally played through was at the end of The War Within (Space Lil’ Shit 2 Electric Boogaloo, Now With More Tremors). It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief, but while Space Dad is congratulating you, your Operator suddenly stares into the camera, eyes turning into voids, and a creepy voice taunts you, something about “don’t forget what you owe me kid” or the like. It’s a single line, but the way the camera snaps around (complete with some fucking over-the-top visual effects) & Space Dad catches your arm while you shake it off... thaaaaaat’s not a trivial hallucination.

Anyway. Among other things, during the Chains of Harrow the RVC is very fucking explicit about how Rell was grappling with/cockblocking a specific “vast and indifferent” entity that lives in the Void. Offhandedly, The Lotus dismisses this while mentioning that basically all Tenno have mentioned or claimed similar things. (RVC keeps on insisting.) Right before Rell finally dies, he asks who’s gonna take over his job if he stops, and the RVC coos that all the other Tenno will have to help now.

I have been told by one friend– without checking around, so could be wrong, but– that once you’ve finished the Chains of Harrow you’ll periodically get jumpscared on your ship by a creepy asshole who looks identical to your Operator, but has a different (asshole) voice. Said friend randomly turned around once and what looked like their Operator was sitting on their nav console. And taunted them. Said friend sprinted down to the transference pod to make sure their Operator was in the right place– they were– but was pretty freaked out by it.

Obviously, we don’t have much more detail at this point, but uH. This is not painting a rosy picture of the shit lurking out there in the Void. To me this is pointing towards some kind of extradimensional horror that you really don’t want to draw the attention of... and we’ve gone and done that. Possibly even that the Tenno were lucky to scamper away the first time after it got to play with an entire ship of people (some guessing there, but given its asshole moves so far...) and going anywhere near the Void after that was about as wise as standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm while double-dog-daring Zeus.

I’m so excited to find out how fucked we are.

Given what the orbiter shit involved, the answer is probably very, and also creatively. BALLAS? WHAT?? WHAT?????

IV. Further Thoughts

I really would love to hear the perspectives of autistic folk. That said, I... more or less liked how the Chains of Harrow handled Rell? The quest established that he was very different; the other kids-eventually-Tenno ignored him, while his mother loved him (I’m open to other interpretations but everything I heard pointed to sincerity). He had the intelligence and agency to deal with badbadnotgood, and while the RVC had a certain maternal vibe she was pretty damn reverent when discussing what he’d done/was doing. Also (maybe most importantly in my reckoning) he didn’t get a happy ending, but he succeeded at what he was doing. By this setting’s standards that’s a rosier conclusion than almost anyone else gets.

Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m racking my brains for any parties that have known the truth of the Tenno and been kindly disposed towards them without getting all maternal/paternal. I’m coming up blank. (The fuck is with this setting and everyone treating them like kids btw? All indications are that they stopped aging so they look like young teens, sure, but all indications are ALSO that they’ve lived awhile time, even excluding their cryosleep! I’m willing to believe a certain amount of “their brain maturity stalled along with the rest of their aging so they have the hardware of a 13yo” but that wouldn’t undo living long enough to form a small civilization. SOME parts of teenagers not being like adults are hardware, but a lot of it is pure lack of life experience, which the Tenno have in spades by now. Also, you know, THEY PSYCHICALLY POWER SPACE NINJA ROBOTS, SHOW SOME RESPECT.)

...

And now I’m going to pass out to sweet dreams of tomorrow’s fully-grown space-kitty.

[saranel]

Tagging @mags-duranb, who asked (thank you for the interest btw, it was super sweet. Also, I love your art <3333) :)  I was gonna make a post anyway, but I wanted it to be a timeline photoset hence why I’m not replying directly.

I thought it was about time I gave you guys a nice long update on the purrito, since we have now officially reached 2 months of age as of yesterday!

To answer the requester’s question, SHE is doing just fine xD  That’s right, when we visited the vet about a week ago for the second round of shots, we got visible proof (or rather lack thereof) that we have a little girl in our hands.  This was only a couple of days before I made an insta post announcing the official name, because of course it was. Way to embarass me, kiddo.

So I’d like to introduce you all to Buffy, because hello, so dang pretty, look at that last pic that was taken only yesterday, and she’s also pretty fearless and resourceful, though not necessarily highly intelligent xD  Not a vampire slayer, but an ankle slayer for sure.  I generally post updates on her every couple of days on instagram.

Oh, and, just as a final note on the whole name thing, yes, we still call her purrito from time to time, as well as a thousand other nicknames ;) 

So! On to the update (and an extra... suprise?¿¿??) below the cut:

Buffy’s issues with food have gotten a lot better.  She used to be vicious about meals, meowing and pleading hours before her feeding time.  At first we thought we were perhaps feeding her too little, so we followed the general advice everyone gives re: how much to feed kittens, which is to say we just let her eat her fill.  She did not stop until her belly was so distended I had to physically drag her bowl away.  So we decided to slowly increase her intake whenever we saw she started to get skinny.  Which, given her Longcat status, was so. damn. OFTEN.  Seriously, if she looks malnourished in some pics, I assure you she’s not.  She just grows and grows like a damn weed.

Lately, however, since her weight has reached a healthy plateau, she’s gotten much better about food.  No screaming, no scratching, and she doesn’t really complain before feeding time anymore.  She still follows us whenever we dare visit the kitchen, but hey, it could be worse xD

Something I’ve never mentioned here is that when we first found her, her whiskers were very short and stubby, which we originally attributed to her being very young.  But eventually, we noticed that not only were her brow whiskers much longer, there was a lone whisker next to the stubby ones that was regular-sized, and the shorter ones looked almost... manually cut, if that wakes sense.  A bit of research led us to find out that sometimes, littermates may do this to a runt (bite them off) when they’re competing for mom’s milk, which... not only makes my heart ache for our little buddy, it starts to put her whole attitude toward food into perspective.

Long story short, we were prepared for the possibility that she may forever have issues with food, but she’s been improving constantly.

Other than the food issue, Buffy has grown into a happy, healthy kitty :) She’s up to date on her shots, and we took her to the vet only last week where we got nothing but good news.  

She’s very attached to us, especially me since I work from home and basically see her all day, and though she doesn’t complain and yowl when she’s left alone, she is super cuddly when we return home.  

Given her age, she’s incredibly playful to the point that we get more exhausted playing with her than she does xD She likes climbing all over the place and exploring everything within reach, always looking for new ‘lairs’ and stuffing her butt into every nook and cranny, she loves to chew on cables (which has led us to do some highly creative concealing) and often engages in what we call ‘Crab Dancing’ when she gets excited/territorial during playtime:

( I *****MAY***** have edited this.  Slightly.  For my own amusement.  It’s kinda soporific if you stare at it for too long)

We were glad to see she takes to new (human) acquaintances very well, and she hasn’t (yet) started wreaking havoc in our apartment.  She, has, however,  gotten very bitey during playtime, and it’s ALWAYS playtime, so we’re trying to encourage her to bite on toys instead of our fingers: it’s a sloooooooooow process.  There’s also the possibility that she’s teething a bit early so she’s just constantly looking for relief.  We’ve bought her a few special chew toys that should arrive shortly, and hopefully they’ll help.  Even if it’s still early for her, hey, new toys, amirite? xD

Still, she never lashes out to us in anger/anxiety, not even when we gave her a bath where she was visibly distressed (yes, I know it’s not necessary for cats, but we’d never cleaned her with anything but pet wipes since we rescued her; she needed at least one) and yet she never tried to scratch or bite us.  TL;DR she’s mischievous, but not aggressive outside of playtime.

She’s super long for her age and will most likely be a pretty long kitty when she reaches maturity.  Seriously, y’all, Longcat 2.0:

( USB stick for size comparison, lol )

I’m still bummed my theory that she was part Van doesn’t seem to be true (in my defense, she has something very similar to the characteristic Van spot on her nape!), but hey, less shedding xD She also has a permanent bald spot on her spine now (as we knew she would), where the vet had given her that shot that saved her life back when she got sick.

She’s a sweet little doofus, who thinks she’s really a parrot and likes to perch on our shoulder, and meows the whole time I’m in the kitchen because how dare someone in this household eat when she’s not eating too, and when I ignore her grey-green supplicating eyes she just curls up over my foot while I wash the dishes, and she constantly gets tangled up in our legs and waits for us behind closed doors, and she’s a friggin’ Duracell battery who does.not.tire, and she  tosses half the litter out when she digs, and she loves to take naps with us cuddled right over our chests so our heartbeat can lull her to sleep, and we love her.

Here’s to the next two months :)

Size comparison below, using my hand in both pics.  Then and now :)

Addendum:

Edit: You can keep on reading, but the story has a sad ending, unfortunately :(  

The above was the post I had prepared and was going to post yesterday on Buffy’s 2 month ‘birthday,’ so I’ve left it intact.  However, I would be remiss if I didn’t add this latest development:

For a while now, we’ve been discussing how to deal with Buffy’s inexhaustible energy levels, because we do have other responsibilities, all of whom also require a good night’s sleep, which as you may imagine, has been a bit rare lately.  There’s this saying that the only one who can keep up with a kitten is another kitten, but we were very reluctant to adopt another one, since we’re currently dealing with an imminent move and we weren’t sure if we could even afford it.

Well...................

I found and rescued Buffy.  My partner found and rescued this little guy yesterday:

Five things here:

1) NO THIS WAS NOT PLANNED THIS IS SO BEYOND UNPLANNED I’M WFSJKLSDFJSKDHFSDKJ

2) MY PARTNER DIDN’T EVEN FIND HIM IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD HE WAS VISITING HIS MOM ASJKFDHLSADGHFDDFAS

3) WE SERIOUSLY DON’T KNOW IF WE’RE KEEPING HIM.  SERIOUSLY.L

4) YEAH I KNOW YOU CAN’T REALLY SEE MUCH LMAO EVEN HIS WHISKERS ARE BLACK JFC BUT I DIDN’T WANNA SCARE HIM SO I DIDN’T USE FLASH

5) 31 FUCKIN YEARS WITH NO KITTENS AND NOW TWQO, TWO KITTENS WTFFFFFFFF ITS RAINING KITTENS PRAISE BE TO BASTET i guess?? wtffffffffff

*breathes into a paper bag*

I’m going to be even more reluctant to make any grand claims than I was when we found Buffy, because this little dude (this one is a dude, indeed) is in pretty bad shape.  Though she’d been abandoned, Buffy was very clean and hale when we found her, even if she was a bit small and underfed.  

This one though... poor little soot sprite is all skin and bones, he was flea-ridden until we took him to the vet, he’s filthy, he’s terrified and has a bum leg from some sort of accident.  We didn’t even have a plan yesterday when my partner found him, but we figured since we had a lot of leftover milk powder and kitten pate from Buffy, we might as well feed up this little orphan. 

It took some coaxing with a syringe, but he got a bit of milk down which got his appetite going and we were able to feed him some pate.  He actually ate a fair bit, which is encouraging.  We know for a fact he was abandoned by his mom, btw, she’s still roaming around the neighborhood but refusing to tend to him since he’s already older than 4 weeks (maybe 1,5 month old max).  Just two weeks younger than Buffy.  After he got some food down, we took him to our vet, who was reserved but cautiously optimistic even for the leg.  He made us no promises, of course, and he advised we prepare ourselves for the possibility that he might not make it.

We’ve now had him for just under a day and he’s been improving.  He was very scared at first, hissy when I went near him, and the first time I fed him at home, the new environment had stressed him out to the point that I had to use a syringe again to get him to eat.  And yeah, we’ve had to keep him isolated ofc to protect Buffy (and him, omg, she’s literally twice his size in weight, no exaggeration, and most likely a social dunce with other kittes, she would destroy him).  I’ll be able to give him a bath tomorrow afternoon after the 48hr clock on the flea medicine runs out, which is yet another reason we had to isolate him.  Today, he’s been getting less and less reserved around me and he hasn’t needed to be force fed once, he’s been downing pate like no-one’s business.  I weighed him earlier and found he’d gained about 40-50 grams, a number I offer cautiously as both weighings at the vet and today aren’t entirely accurate, because squirmy kitty.  Still, he’s gained weight, even if only a little.   

Buffy can tell something’s up, since we basically had to move her litterbox and feeding area and haven’t let her in that room since.  It’s been... an adjustment xD But she bounces back admirably fast, she didn’t even bat an eyelash at the change; she’s just curious to discover what we’re hiding from her, obviously.  She’s probably heard him meowing, too.

We honestly have no clue what we’ll do with him.  Taking it one day at a time.  He might not make it at all, and even if he does, he may never get along with Buffy, in which case we’ll have to give him away for both their sakes.  I’m not gonna lie, money is a concern.  Research tells me at their age and beyond the cost isn’t prohibiting, not even double that of a single cat.  So if he doesn’t require any costly meds, we can afford him, especially since Buffy can now eat dry food (and so will he in a couple of weeks).  This, again, is all hinging on a) him not having any serious, contagious illnesses, and b) him and Buffy getting along.  In the long run, we know it would be way better for Buffy to have a companion to play and cuddle with, but we have to be realistic and prepare for the worst for now.

Soot sprite is a little cutie, he has the softest, most plaintive meow and there’s even hope for his little leg down the road (though honestly, that’s the last thing that concerns us; even in his current state, he’s perfectly mobile).  His eyes, too, should get better with time if he grows healthier. 

SO WE’LL SEE.  RN I am beyond stressed and reserved, but also kinda hopeful. *sigh*  

[salt-sass-and-lyrium]

Long post, tw mentions of child abuse

So here’s this thing that’s been  bothering me

As much as I dislike (well dislike is the wrong word, more like ‘prefer not to deal with at this point in time’ ) children, I dislike shitty/lazy parenting anymore

Story time:

I went over to my cousin’s house on Saturday so she could do my hair. Not my preferred option but she does a decent job and is cheap and Mama’s on a budget so. Anyway, cousin’s house is really more accurately my great-aunt’s house, and there so many fucking kids. And they’re all young kids. The oldest might be 12? But there’s like 8 of these little shits.

And while I’m sitting there, mind my  own business getting my hair done, I just keep seeing my cousin do what I can only describe as “shitty parenting”. Example, one of the kids, granted one of the older boys, was hungry. It was about 8am at that point, so understandable he wanted breakfast. He asked his mom if he could have something for breakfast. I heard him, even with my headphones in, so I know she had to have heard him. But, she pretends like she doesn’t. So, he repeats himself. And again. My cousin SNAPS at him, screaming “WHAT?!” and he repeats himself “Can I have something for breakfast” and she just ignores him.

Red flag number one, right?

Eventually, kid goes and tries to make oatmeal. Now, these are fucking kids, and oatmeal, even instant, is finnicky and easy to turn into a sloppy mess. He’s never made oatmeal before and doesn’t know how. Instead of walking him through it (Boil some water in the microwave, put the packet in a bowl, pour the water, a little bit at a time over the oatmeal) she just starts screaming at him for not knowing how. 

How the fuck is he supposed to know how if he’s never been taught? Okay, whatever. Red flag number two.

While this is going on (she’s still doing my hair, mind you) the younger kids (about 2 and under) start getting up and moving around. They’re still in diapers, still learning to really walk and climb stairs, etc. And JFC she and my other cousin (the other mom) just fucking screamed at these kids.

Actually, let me back up a second. The house is gross. The house is a fucking mess. I’m not one to tell people how to live, but I grew up with a neat freak, so seeing just... filth, around kids, practically babies, doesn’t sit well with me. Anyway, there’s a lot of random shit floating around, and babies being babies, of course they gravitate towards it. Young kids (most of whom can’t even really talk yet) are gonna grab whatever they can get their hands around. If they can pick it up, they will. It’s just how fucking kids are, right? So needless to say, when there’s so much junk, of course the kids are going to get into shit. Cousin had a box of some packets of something (not sure what, think it was some hair products) on the stairs. Kids are climbing the stairs, come across a box, pop the lid off of it and start dumping it out, picking up the packets of whatever it is, tossing them, etc.

Now, a normal parent would probably take the box and put it somewhere where the kids can’t get it. Instead, cousin (who’s doing my hair) starts screaming at the babies, and gets one of the older ones to pick everything up. She does, and, being like 2 puts it back on the stairs because that’s the only place she can reach. And of course, the babies get back into it, because they’re fucking babies.

Rather than just take the box or let it go, cousin just screams at them. Over and over each time they get into the box. “WHY WOULD YOU GET IN IT AGAIN?!” Idk, because they’re like 1? 

Red flag number 3.

One of the babies is just screaming. Not that anything is wrong with her. She just stands on a chair (mind you this is a baby so I wouldn’t have fucking let that happen) and screams. Like, top of her lungs shrieks. No one seems to think this is out of the ordinary. This goes on for probably 20 minutes or so, ear splitting screaming (presumably for attention) and no one does anything, until I’m like

“Uhhhh...” and guesture towards said baby. THEN my cousin picks her up, gives her some kisses, and then puts her down a few seconds later. This seems to appease her for a bit, then she starts screaming again.

Red flag number 4

I should note, there’s not a toy in sight. Just junk and kids. So, they’re probably just fucking bored.

I feel like ass and I’ve gotta work in a few hours, so I’m mostly just trying to block the situation out. Things calm down for a little bit, until cousin gets into a just violent screaming match with my great-uncle, over a phone charger, iirc. Like, the kids are just sitting there, while they’re screaming, shouting obscenities at each other, slamming doors, making threats and so on.

Again, this doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for anyone.

Red flag number 5.

I should take a minute to note that a lot of this isn’t really out of the ordinary for me either, as I grew up in a similar environment. BUT, if there was a guest over, even if it was family, my mom was suddenly the most loving parent in the world. Everyone was on their best behavior. I’m a guest, this seems to be normal behavior.

Now, let me rewind for a second. Most of the kids are still in diapers. Some are kinda potty trained, but not really enough to be out of diapers. So, they poop on themselves. It happens. They’re babies. I realize this is the case because I look up and some of them have grabbed clean diapers and are walking up to the mom’s wanting to be changed.

Do they get changed?

NOPE.

Red flag number 6

Apparently, leaving them in their diaper is going to ‘make them get tired of shitting themselves’. It’s also going to put them at risk for infection, especially the girls. Not to mention diaper rash and sores. The kids get more insistent, and I go “Uh, do they need to be changed?” and they finally spring into action to change them on the fucking dining room table. No towel or blanket down, nothing, just changing dirty diapers on the dining room table. Alright, not everyone can afford a changing table, nbd. But still. So she changes them and I’m expecting her to go get a towel and wipe down the table. Does she?

NOPE.

Red flag number 7

So while I’m processing that little gross tidbit, my cousin, decides she doesn’t feel like walking up the stairs to get scissors and a flat iron to finish off my hair so she starts screaming at one of the older kids to get it. Now, given how the rest of the house looks, I can’t imagine her room is any neater, and the kid is having trouble finding them. So, rather than go upstairs and find them herself, she just starts berating him “Are you slow? You must be fucking slow! The scissors are in the drawer! You’re just slow, aren’t you??”

Spoiler alert: Scissors weren’t in the drawer

And the kid is growing more and more upset because he can’t find it in the places she’s looking. Instead of entertaining the idea that she may be telling him to look in the wrong place, she just shouts insults at him. After a bit, I guess I start to look visibly uncomfortable, so she shuts up, and goes and finds the scissors (not where she was telling him to look, of course). Doesn’t apologize at all.

Other minor things:

We had a metric ton of rain that weekend, so there was flooding and warnings of flash floods. The older kids see this on the news and are understandably scared. No one bothers to tell the kids “That’s not in our area, don’t worry” (I eventually check and inform the kids of this, and you could see the relief on their faces).

I hate when people don’t pick up kids properly. My cousin kept picking up the babies by the fucking arm. And I don’t mean pulling them to move them out of the way or something, I mean lifting them from the floor to the table just by the arm. They’re too heavy and too wear for that, you’re going to fucking dislocate her shoulder

The mom’s casually talking about a gang shooting in front of the kids, in graphic detail. No one seems to think this is out of the ordinary.

One of the mom’s talking openly about drugs (granted, just pot) in front of the kids.

The sheer amount of profanity. Now, my mother - to this day - doesn’t swear. Very very very rarely slips up and swears (seriously she doesn’t even like the word ‘lie’. We have to say “fib”. Even to this day, as adults) . Even when she’s screaming, the odds of hearing a 4 letter word come out are pretty much nil. So, hearing a parent just drop swears in front of the kids, many of whom are still learning to talk, is amazing to me.

I got there at about 7, left after 9ish. No one had been given any food or water during that time. I watched one of the younger kids walking around grabbing random cups and drinking from them, essentially scavenging for food. Didn’t raise any eyebrows on anyone but me. One of the older kids was begging me for my McD’s breakfast sandwich (I thought I was coming down with something, also I was still eating it, so I said no). Mom hears the kids begging for food, for my food, but still made no attempts to feed them.

And it just... doesn’t sit right with me. I’m sure the kids aren’t being starved or anything, but... how fucking lazy? You have a kid begging you to change their diaper and you laugh and refuse. THEN when I say something, you change them on the fucking dining room table, without wiping it down before or after. You can’t be assed to pick up a box off the floor, but scream at the kids for getting into it? You have kids asking for food and you just ignore them? JFC. 

This (the cousin who was doing my hair) is also the same cousin who I had this exchange with a few years ago:

*I wouldn’t give her son (who’s notorious for breaking shit for no reason) my DS to play with, because 1. he breaks shit for no reason 2. I was literally currently using it* Cousin: You need to stop being so mean all your life Me: I’m not being mean, I just don’t want to give something expensive to a kid who’ll probably break it Cousin: *doesn’t argue the ‘probably break it’ point* Well, what are you going to do when you have kids? Me: Who says I’m gonna have kids? Cousin: Well, you have to have some kids? Me: ... Why?

And mother of God the uncomfortable silence.

I hate that it’s viewed that people are just supposed to have kids. Why? Why is everyone supposed to have a kid. We’re not exactly hurting for global population. And it’s not like my cousins wanted kids. All of them were accidents. ALL of them. But they had them anyway because, well apparently you’re supposed to.

Which is bullshit. There’s more to life than shitting out babies, not to mention: some people just should not have fucking kids. My mother was one of those people, she’s just not a person capable of much affection, or patience. Two things that are pretty key when raising a child. (Also she apparently hates infants and is freaked out by pregnant women - despite being pregnant at least 7 times herself - but that’s a story for another time). My cousins are those people. They’re young, they’re too concerned with themselves, and don’t seem to grasp that you actually have to pay attention to kids. You can’t just ignore them until they go away. 

Anyway, idk how to wrap this post up, but let me stop ranting