#junkdata

[notmayfieldyucca]

FAQ

Q: Who are you?

A: I'm Mayfield Yucca, a Pokémon trainer and amateur folklorist.

Q: What region are you from?

A: I'm from Unova, Nacrene City specifically, but I'm Paldean on my dad's side. Yes, I'm that white boy in the family photo.

Q: Did you really win those conferences?

A: I sure hope I did, otherwise I owe a lot of people their prize money.

Q: What kind of folklore do you study?

A: I study folklore unrelated to Pokémon typically described as Legendary or Mythical.

Q: What kind of Pokémon do you train?

A: I train a variety of Pokémon, but not all of them battle. A lot of them do, but battling isn't for every Pokémon, and I understand that. Mac, my Slurpuff, just kind of lives with me and my partner.

Q: If you're such a high-ranked trainer, is your partner someone high-ranked too?

A: They are, but I'm not going to tell anyone on this hellsite. They have enough on their plate already.

Q: Which one of your Pokemon is your favorite?

A: None of them, I love them all dearly.

Q: Can we challenge you to a battle if we meet?

A: Sure, so long as you don't mind 5 on 5. My starter isn't exactly great around people...

Current Pokemon

Aero (Aerodactyl)

My starter! He's had a bad experience with humans, so I'm really the only one he's comfortable around. I don't tend to let him out in populated areas, only really in remote places to stretch his wings , mealtimes, and battles with dedicated lines-Pokémon in case he lashes out. He's a good boy, he's just scared of people.

Drippy (Cubchoo)

The...third ever Pokémon I caught? He's just a sleepy little dude who rides on my backpack or on my head most of the time. I've had him for over a decade so by all rights he should be a Beartic, but I guess he just likes being small enough to be a hat.

Pory (Porygon-Z)

My beloved malignant hunk of junkdata and the reason my phone bill is so damn high. They live in my phone most of the time, and are actively preventing me from typing anything too derogatory about them.

Rogue (Grovyle)

I just spent a year and a half in Hoenn doing research on their local legends, and all I got for it was this criminal damn Grovyle. I swear he's secretly a Dark-type, but all Grovyle can learn Fling so he's likely just a crook by nature. He hit me in the stomach with an Iron Ball when I tried to catch him originally.

Knuckle the Shooting Star (Cyclizar)

Fun fact, Knuckle was the first Pokémon I caught after I started dating my partner! He's got a scar that runs behind his right eye like a comet's tail from a nasty Dragon Claw he jumped in front of, but I think he likes having it, makes him look like a tough guy. He's kind of a mutant for his species? They don't normally learn Extremespeed, after all.

Barrel (Alolan Muk)

I met Barrel while I was in Alola, about my second year there. Some jerk had locked in her in an oil drum, and it took me and another guy and his Golisopod a few good whacks to get the top off and let her out. She's a good girl, and loves looking out for smaller Pokémon.

[fluttergail]

gloomkink

sad art acts as an entrapping machination ~um, think of the trap in SAW, splitting open the mind///mouth literally to gape the abyss out to an empty room, giving your corpse as study~ but i think it’s a simplification to dissect it as an easy singular loop, it’s more of an anglicized multilayer perceptron. 

if we take the six examples in this meme as alternate morbid vaines one might take in exploring sad art, you can trace how they might form the threat a Human Security System believes it has to strangle and respond to in constant checking and counting, ritual paranoias, OCD. 

__we crash an AU of Equestrian wasteland proportions, each point on the purple star creeps the circumferences in their split orbits__

Sparkle’s plunderphonics or sound collage is radial, target- a goal. The art is at least, on the very surface, an obvious and base construction or assemblage of junkdata, remnants of experiments - the closest in spirit to the viscera and bodily function of gore. Anxious tests performed on the still breathing, muttering deaths gathering dust in your library. Twilight fiction is often performed in the dead horse gurney, the word liminal dabbed in spite above a dying subjects eyes/

This is Biotechque: when morbid curiosity is mobility, motor and morbidity. 

The Rainbow Factory’s harsh noise is purity+ distraction andor bliss. Subsuming yourself to a goal like a target painted on your back, that small painful space between the wings. The meaning in the melancholia is a pursuit but unlike the careful chaos of Sparkle, it’s a tired, exhausting struggle in the name of somepony=an author maybe, loved ones, idealized self. If not quite a hero, you are positioned as protaganist. Solving a puzzle with trial [courting] and error [breakingup] until your shortwave radio produces nothing more then a tinnitus hiss, 

This is Fuzzing///Fuzzed: when the harm of the journey is supposed to reveal the destination.

The Apple Family slowcore is wallowing. Deep sunken boots, entrenched. Aware of missed solutions, somepony else will take care of it. Take care of your own. A peace in your place is supposed to relieve you of anything apart from the responsibilities you care about but that gash of mud in your head bubbles and spits up sick. Swap ethereal for ethanol. Intelligent stupor. Nothing other then the words of another to lull and sing you to sleep. There was never anything else. Were you comfortable? Settle in for a rest. You have so much work to do. You’ll have so much work to do…

This is Taphonostic: when it’s not the aesthetic, it’s the purpose. 

Pinkamena’s RNG is faux~eclectic. An attack on senses by pointing out obvious deep recessions in popular and niche art alike. Discriminatory analysis is as crass, rude and anti+social as a motive in murder. Spin the wheel and let colour theory debase tragedy anywhere. To cringe and to hurt and curl up in 2000s emo conteurs on your makeshift operating table b efore another’s number is up. You’re helping them, sadness is a happy emotion. Alas, your taste is enclasped in the jaws of the reverse bear trap, prying will only splay it so far. Her tongue flickers a nostalgia apparent to her. So, everypony else must too, right? Nevertheless, she persists. 

This is Common Scents: wafting the sicker smells to your friends, hold my hoof and let’s 

The Lil Miss Rarity muffles a barely audible gasp in polite delicacy. Hindlegs crossed, the plush flank settled, cushioned. A sharp wince: it’s the tea, darling, not to worry~ Fading failed staccato lines scratched and thatched in fresh red. When they slip up and glance, thigh exposure. An accident, dear, it was the cat. Pretty smirk. Squish, squish. The door shuts, just a moment. Whine, cross, uncross - thin, gaunt, canvas. Moan, mew. Just   there. Sink. Flush. Scratch, tear, scrape, up, up, up up  up   up   up. Tremor. Cross. Left to right. Right right right    right  righ ear ear perk   perk     parkparkparkpark   fflick. Cross.    Cross forehooves.   Ah, welcome back, darling. I’m afraid I may have burnt myself! Such a clumsy thing~ 

This is Intox Ket: the tragedy is the target. 

Flutter sees the h()les in others and re~creates, emulates. There is nothing to say of the mare who sees humans in the mirrors. dogs and deer, cats and fae. Plunderphonics is the method in of itself, memories reconstructed as genuine thought processes, Harsh Noise an alarming buzz of crickets legs jabbing her cheeks and crawling out heaving pants, Slowcore a repudiation on the same tragedies she obssesses over and lives in, brony cons, ashen kiss, RNG to manipulate the audience that she understands and flies to those other planes, trash can rolls, Death Industrial, unspoken, croaks out her disgusted flawless skin, no fur all hair, Electro~Industrial is a softly beautiful sehnsucht she stutters to an absent crowd and then hurls offstage 

This is TryPoppy: a below average tail, the lacking cannot speak to one another, only breeze. 

These are six main types of sad art consumption. None are hopeless, though then it’s a variable. You might see them in pairs of Active ActivePassive Passive respectively. I’d like to stop typing for now. 

[turntechcatnip]

A young...kid? Is alone in their bedroom. While technically it was sixteen years ago that they were given life (and thr33 sw33ps,) it’s only been about a month and some change since they were given this particular name.

One month since you died for the--what--fourth? time? And that’s just if you stay within your linear timeline. You’d say you’ve been living on borrowed time for years but death hasn’t stuck yet.

Your name is still Davepeta--Strider-Leijon? It sounds about right, even if it implies your Bro married your lusus which is pretty hissterical--your handle is turntechCatnip because Vrwhiskers has a pesky NO DOUBLES!!!!!!!! Rule you feel honorbound to observe, and you have a variety of interests many reading are likely already aware of so we’ll skip the laundry list. You are a walking, talking, living amalgam of one part bundle of life-long Strider family trauma, one part diamond-broken half-feral troll, one part bird who doesn’t give a flip about anything else, and all parts bored. 

In some ways it’s poetic, that you are here, right now, sprawled as you are so you feel the sunbeam coming in through the window of this once empty room where so many things started three years ago--still too empty, if you’ll be honest. It’s not messy enough. But there was nothing left of Dave in this space when you arrived, and you haven’t filled that spot near long enough to even start accumulating that level of clutter.

So familiar, and yet, in many other ways, it’s utterly unrecognizable.

But it’s your life now, and considering you didn’t expect to live through dying, it ain’t half bad.

The problem is you’re desperately lonely.

[Davepeta is open for asks!]

[Technically a distant sequel to [Return to Roost]]

[magnicidelover]

i think ive internalized being en enbie, just adress me with total indifference towards gendered terms. use he, her, they, whatever other thing u want... xe... fuck it....

shotgun scatterblast of gender, junkdata generation of gender to produce anonimity, sidestep all this shit

[turntechcatnip]

Hello! Só, hows going living with.. Bro?? Are you living with him? 🤔

<View Mewssage History>

You decide to go back in after about half-past two, not at all surprised to find the place a dingy dark mess, especially outside the thin band of light allowed into the apartment from the opened hallway door.

The silhouette vanishes almost instantly, leaving the smuppet he’d been working on with a needle stuck in it’s plush nose lying across the keyboard of the still playing tunes.

Yup. Normal.

You opened the floodgates now, playing pin the tail on the cryptid and openly acknowledging your badly side-stepped elephants. Bro vanishing the second you enter the room isn’t that uncommon. Far too common, even if you can still feel the prickle of his attention between your wings, right at the back of your neck, meaning he’s paying attention to you. Probably up in the crawlspace.

He’d come down if you called, you know that. But he’d be grumpy as fuck if you didn’t have a good reason for it. The dude was jumpy at night.

Jumpy-er. 

In some ways the situation is not all that unfamiliar. It’s just stealth mode pushed up to 8 ¾ of the time. But just because you know he isn’t gonna ambush you as an exercise doesn’t mean your nerves entirely get it.

You think back to the message you answered before you left the roof.

TC: i dont s33 him around much if im honest

TC: as soon as he stopped n33din to hover to make sure i didnt end up fallin on my face he kinda went full cryptid

TC: until like a w33k ago

TC: now its only mostly cryptid

TC: anyway

TC: its weird

TC: i cant stand the silence so ill talk to myself to fill it and he cant stand being talked at unless hes in the right mood

TC: it works about as well as youd expect

TC: i f33l like i drive him into hiding sometimes

TC: straight up cant find the dude anywhere and he didnt fly the coop beclaws the keys are still there

TC: hes not much of a talker unless it’s quips and one liners or i push too far and you can guess i purrobably have and will push too far

TC: ive already pushed that glass right off the table n watched it shatter a couple times

TC: im online a lot recently beclaws i pestered him to the point where he snapped at me to go find a chatroom or somefang if i was so desperate to talk to someone

TC: there was a new pack of apple juice in the fridge later

TC: i think it was supposed to be an apawlogy

You know better than to chase him. If he was in the mood to be social he wouldn’t have flash stepped out of there like a cat outta hell. Plus it’s like. 2 am. Not that it means anything considering you are all but nocturnal and you aren’t sure he’s got any sleep schedule that isn’t pass out face first in a pile of smuppets when he can’t stay awake any longer.

He’s probably wondering why you’re just standing there in the middle of the kitchen. 

Just go back to your room, kid.

[turntechcatnip]

Have you broached the whole gender topic with Bro yet or...?

<View Mewssage History>

You aren’t sure you really want to talk about this, but you signed up for this shit for a reason. Because you don’t have Jade. You don’t have John. Equius. Terezi. Rose. Anyone who you’d actually feel comfortable broaching anything even close to these topics with. And it’s not like you can talk to Bro about it.

TC: i…

TC: not really

TC: he knows im not dave

TC: itd be kinda hard to miss considering i flipped the flock out the first and last time he called me dave

TC: he knows my name

TC: and that im techniclawly a two-fur-one deal via some weird anime fusion birdshit

TC: and that her name was nepeta and some sort of alien beclaws duh thats kinda obvious

TC: but thats about as far as weve really talked about that

TC: like i said he didnt really get the whole sprite thing and im not sure hes got the patience to make it worth bothering with an explanation

TC: he doesnt really care about game mechanics other than none of it s33ms to matter anymore

TC: checked in long enough to shoot down my dreambubble theory before checkin right back out again beclaws even if he died hes def not dead now and flock i dont think either of us woulda dreamed up some of the shit ive s33n online

TC: it makes too much sense and none at all so fur my own mental health ive decided to assume its real

TC: anyway

TC: i dont know what he calls me in his head

TC: but he hasnt called me dave since so i think its aight

There’s a prickle of feathers at the back of your neck and you stop typing, stop the clacking of your claws against the extra large keys of the phone that you were using to communicate with these people who know too damn much and nothing at all. Standing at attention. Like you are being observed.

You check the time, and it’s definitely a smidge past too damn late.

About the time you’d expect him to come check on you, if you’ll be honest. There isn’t much of a moon tonight, but you can see the shadow shift by the door, and wave a hand acknowledging that you did in fact notice. It’s gone when you blink, satisfied that you aren’t in fact dead up here.

You think he gets worried in his own way when you’re quiet for too long.

You can’t blame him.

[turntechcatnip]

What’s ur fursona? Or are you your own fursona???

<View Mewssage History>

TC: i do have a fursona! its kinda me but a little diffurent its just MORE!!!

TC: beclaws id wanna go all the way mew know???

TC: sure i already got the wings which are purrty dope but just imaogine!!!

TC: swiveling ears!!! flicking tail!!! two of em even beclaws the more the mewrrier!

TC: majestic as flock whiskers!!! twitching nose!!! more feathers!!!

TC: meowby even gain back some of the height i lost

You fold your claws, and the chalk, into your overlarge sleeves, chewing on the inside of your lip but mindful of the sharpness of your fang. For all that you embrace the feline-adjacent behaviors you grew up with and you still could channel that wish-fulfillment into hand-made tails and paw-slippers, you aren’t actually part cat, and that’s something you always kinda wished was different. Even when you played with Jade for the irony, you always imagined yourself as a purrbeast, not a bird. As you are, you’re probably technically an avian? A feathery?

A featherbeast that was raised by a purrbeast that wants to be a cat. It’s such a tragic story in three acts. You would be jealous of Jasprose, if the thought of thinking of her didn’t threaten to make you sad, so you don’t.

Seriously, you’re all out of methods to modify-your-genome at this point, and the only means of achieving your calling is left in your own imagination. And your chalk.

Your eyes flicker to the smudged drawing over your bed, and can’t help the snicker at the red scribbled shades and hat you added on a whim.

Two cats is probably more like it.

[turntechcatnip]

Texas is probably as close as Earth gets to deadly Alternian sunlight. Do you like being outside?

<View Mewssage History>

Between the wings and the horns and your coloring, you can’t leave the apartment. You know that. Whatever weird pocket dimension you fell in looks to be no different from the Earth you grew up on, aside from the fact that the niche that was Bro’s younger brother, Dave Strider, doesn’t seem to have existed. That means no trolls. No carapace. And especially no random bird people. There’s no reason to think someone wouldn’t take one look at you and go ‘what the fuck’ and lock you up in some lab somewhere.

That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the sanctity of your own roof.

TC: bro doesnt like me coming up here tbh

TC: someone could be across the str33t with a telescope spying on a poor lil catbirdtrollkid and call the government or somefang

TC: which would be a hassle if nofang else

TC: but

But you miss the wind. You miss the shade of the trees. You miss the light of the dual moons. You miss running with Pounce, your fingertips lightly touching the ground, claws digging into loose earth.

TC: betw33n the strider albinism and a nocturnal cave dwelling troll im purrty sure if i get into a fist fight with the sun id lose no contest

TC: shades are nonnegotiable during the day though unless i wanna burn my eyeballs out

TC: i dont think the sunll roast me like a turkey but i dont think i can regulate heat as well as i should so noon is kinda off limits but the bookends of the day are prime gargoyle time

TC: dawn and sunset are aight but theyve got some baggage to them

TC: i mostly like coming out here at night

TC: i think id go crazy if i couldnt go outside at all

[turntechcatnip]

Yo, Davepeta. Been out flying since you crash landed back into the land of the living?

<View Mewssage History>

TC: did you know that wild birds with compound fractures seldom fly again???

TC: i cant find a reliable statistic but thats furom wildlife rescues who actually kno what they are doin and not just usin some quick n dirty wooden dowels that bro found covered in dust in the attic and some tape

TC: i mean im not just a bird and magic sprite shit had to count for somefang in the beginning but

TC: it might still be too soon

TC: espurrcially since i would i n33d to throw myself off the building or at the very least furom the broadcast tower if i wanted to test it and idunno bout mew but im not quite ready to throw myself into metafurical sun again

TC: sides bro would purrobably kill me

You look out over the darkened cityscape. At the distant light of helicopters responding to some traffic accident. Listen to the sound of sirens in the night. The shadowed buildings are dotted with lights, some bright, some dim, but all evidence of other lives moving on around you.

Would it even be safe to fly here, even if you could? In the middle of a city of concrete and glass and lights that never truly sleeps? If you assume this shit is real, and not some dying fever dream as the black-hole stretched your final moments into an eternity, then you have to consider the consequences of flaunting your alien nature in a potentially mundane as hell city and all the lovely baggage that comes with it.

...Bro’s paranoia might be getting to you.

[turntechcatnip]

Are you injured? How are you holding up?

<View Mewssage History>

TC: not gonna sugar coat it it was purrty bad for a while

TC: bro bandaged the bites up and then stuffed me full of his freakishly endless supply of instant noodles and goldfish which thanks to sprite bullshit helped stop the leakage stabilize and start processing the damage

TC: i might as well have b33n a furreakin mummy there was no good way to deal with clothes that are clothes but were also a part of mew???

TC: at least hes had expurrience dressin wounds

TC: ...anyway

TC: the broken wing was the weirdest pawrt

TC: bro debated taking me to the vet for that but we both agr33d dr google would have to make a housecall instead

TC: the whole fang was awkward city

TC: it’s b33n thr33 years since--

TC: it still made me f33l like a kitten again

TC: not really in a good way either

TC: more in the mew cant control even the tiniest thing and have to rely on your lusus to do litterally everyfang way

TC: n even if bro was allergic to the merest chance of my busting a s33m its not like i could expect him to wait on me hand n paw

TC: not that he ever said anyfang about it

TC: its just

TC: complicated

The worst part wasn’t the injury, if you’re honest. 

You’d barely even felt that. Which actually was the problem.

For days you couldn’t feel much of anything at all. Or move, unless driven by pure undiluted panicked adrenaline shots. Or do more than just chill on the futon or your bed unless you annoyed Bro into moving you. For weeks, even if you made it to your feet, you would probably end up on the ground because you were wobblier than a baby deer without your wings to check your balance, and everything felt the slightest bit off.

Only one wing was broken. But the other might as well have been dead-weight regardless. Like something was short-circuiting your nervous system. Something you never did run into as Davesprite.

Then again, you’d never had a wound run black as Davesprite either.

Nothing was ever quite right as the yawning void ate at your insides, centered on the one wound that showed no signs of healing.

[turntechcatnip]

Davepeta! Are you alright? That seemed like a nasty crash landing...

<View Mewssage History>

TC: crash landing…?

TC: oh 

TC: that

TC: yeah

TC: polly on a cracker its b33n over a flocking month since then huh

TC: sprites arent built to die easily

TC: the blood aint really blood its like energy???

TC: lose enuff of it and you just poof pendant time

TC: grounded to the itty bitty little living space pawrt of the whole magic spirit guide fang

It happened, once. The second time you cheated death.

As Davesprite you just respawned from your pendant some in-determinant time after you finally collapsed. You’d had to regrow your wing somehow. Jade didn’t talk to you for a week after that because you scared her so badly. Even with her space vision she couldn’t find you.

As Davepeta...

You aren’t sure you would have wanted to test it. Not when you had two pendants hidden under your robe. Two pendants. Two kernel sprites. Two lives-become-one on the line.

Maybe you would have reformed separately.

Maybe you wouldn’t have reformed at all.

The game was over.

You did your job.

TC: luckily it didnt come to that 

TC: i think i furreaked bro out though

TC: he didnt really get the memo on the whole sprite thing

[turntechcatnip]

Sorry you're lonely :( Are you at least feeling better from when you got there? You looked in pretty shit condition

<View Mewssage History>

TC: im not actually alone tbh

TC: bros always around somewhere

TC: hes just

TC: not the optimal interaction fur fillin the social n33d if you catch the updraft

TC: but im not s33in giant talking hopbeasts wanderin around so i guess im not in the red quite yet

TC: wing aside im f33lin much better meow dont worry B33c

TC: sprite healing meant food and time took care of most of it

Most of it.

The dry, night wind feels like it’s knifing through you.

Your side is starting to hurt.

Maybe you should go back inside.

You close your eyes, pushing it to the back of your mind.

Just a little while longer.

[turntechcatnip]

Davepeta, I saw that black-sludge-oozing gash in your side. That cannot be good. Are you sure you're alright now? Why hasn't that healed yet?!

<View Mewssage History>

TC: im not gonna question how you saw that

TC: or why yall seem to know so much in general

TC: game shit is weird so even game adjacent shit has to be weirder

TC: and it cant be pawrt of the game or i wouldnt be

TC: well

TC: like this???

TC: anyway

TC: yeah im feline

TC: it healed

TC: the bite itself did anyway

TC: im not in the mood for a p33p show here but ya gotta trust me my hide is spotless underneath this here fabric

TC: it still hurts though

TC: like a ghost pain

But that ghost pain feels really fierce when you think about it. At least it doesn’t stop you from moving anymore.

TC: thats one of the hypotheses ive thrown out there if im being honest

TC: lord english had those huge chonkin fangs and looked kinda snakey

TC: but youd think any venom woulda killed me by now or gotten filtered out

TC: its either venom or somefang wrong with my kernel sprite

TC: beclaws theres def somefang wrong with my kernel sprite

TC: could be both flock if i know

TC: any access i had to game shit faded within the first couple days i landed here

TC: im just glad i didnt completely fall apawrt mew know?

You almost did.

You REALLY don’t want to think about that.

About why you...

You look down at your hands. 

Why you can no longer see them in the dark.

[turntechcatnip]

Alright, so walking AND flying are non-negotiable. Which means you're pretty much trapped with what many people would consider the most controlling version of Dirk Strider (and that's saying something because we've got HAL) and that's worrying even if he IS trying to be better now, so umm… how you holding up, there? Need any help? *proceeds to send tons of cat toys to the apartment to satiate the boredom*

<View Mewssage History>

You check your phone, looking for the next message. And then the next. And the next. Your feet swing idly dozens of stories above the streets far below.

Okay fine. 

You’re going to actually do this.

You’ll start tackling these ones.

It was sort of inevitable anyway, especially with you droppin’ his presence into casual conversation like that

TC: im holdin up feline

TC: additional toys would be appureciated espurrecially if you can find a durable scratching post beclaws i can file down my nails but thats no fun if ya f33l me and like none of the others ive found short of just shredding boxes comes anywhere near scratchin the itch of a good ol fashioned cave wall or a tree and im starting to eye the concrete up here like damn

TC: bro never bothered to replace the TV or the xbox so like im criminally low on non internet based activikitties though i do wonder if my claws wouldnt get in the way them controllers are made fur human hands not troll and im purrty sure i have troll hands

TC: tho i gotta clear something up here

TC: i wouldnt say he was ever really controlling???

TC: not in a you better do shit this way or else im gonna micromanage everything you do way

TC: it was more a hes gonna do whatever he wants to do and you better deal way

TC: which to be fair isnt much better for a kid who doesnt really know any better or have any agency or ability to do shit his own way and younger me kinda took it as gospel and yeah i got shit to unpack that im kinda doing my best to ignore right now but

TC: pounce was kinda worse about that t33b33aych

TC: shed grab me by the flockin neck and drag me back inside the den by force if a curious kitten got too adventurous and ive b33n pinned and growled at fur bein reckless and yes threatened with t33th but it was her job 

TC: like i say he doesnt like me up here on the roof

TC: but does he stop me???

TC: no

TC: im turnin into a real life gargoyle and he does nuthin except make a passing comment about telescopes or helicopters the one time he was in the room as i headed up

TC: i could purrobably even leave if i wanted to go out walking tbh

TC: hed argue with me

TC: id likely drag the most words out of him in said argument than ive gotten in a w33k and purrobably the most f33lin out of him

TC: and if im being honest the semi-chaotic curious af kitten in me is tempted to actually pull that birdshit just to see what happawns

TC: but i sincerely believe he wouldnt stop me if i pushed back

TC: whether thats beclaws he doesnt care enough to stop me or beclaws were both avoiding the hell out of anyfang even remotely resembling confurtontation is up in the air though

TC: i dont plan on testin it beclaws i think hes right this time

TC: ...

Control huh.

TC: i dont know if bro ever wanted control of anything much less the life of another person

TC: the only thing he was remotely anal about was the training and...

TC: games done so thats a nonissue

TC: i havent s33n him draw his sword once since i got here

TC: not even when i managed to sneak up on him

In a twisted way you miss it. The training. And it isn’t something you like to think about. About how you’re pretty sure you loved him for it because that meant he’d pay attention to you you you.

Maybe some of that birdshit you spouted is the result of an internalized need to defend your brother. Maybe some of it is steeped in a cultural clash between parent and lusus. (Bro might be a shit parent but part of you wonders if he should have been a lusus instead.) Maybe some of it is just what you desperately want to believe, and you aren’t a thirteen year old anymore. You’ve died too many times. You’ve watched him die in front of you and you--

You didn’t--couldn’t think about him before. About that choice you made about the One Thing you could fix, and questions, so many questions that ate the hell out of you for three long years, kindling to your fires of self loathing.

Questions you could ask now, but don’t. And maybe that’s okay for now. You have time.

Time.

Stolen time. Locked away here in this world-that-should-be-dead.

Time.

For the longest time, you didn’t think he cared about you at all. You have some evidence to the contrary now, and that’s more than you’d ever expected to get considering in every glimpse you’d seen of that moment you always chose to leave him dead. Because it was your job.

...and yet here you both are. After.

Playing cluckbeast. Seeing how far you can push until one or both of you chicken out and dance away.