#my family had an impromptu talk about my sibs new job and it was. not good

[cuddlebugzz]

:(

[mentalblabbermouth]

May the 4th hit me like a truck and i'm still stuck like a fly to a windshield 3 months later

(just posting notes from my ramble doc, i should just get the app at this point)

Man it’s lonely not having people outside of online spaces being just as obsessed with the same media. My sib and I have kind of drifted apart in terms of tastes in shows/fandoms and my folks aren’t interested at all. I don’t really have any friends in my hometown that I could just go on impromptu hangouts to the mall or park with, and the ones I do have their own long established clique and they’re into different stuff. It’s not like in college with living on campus, and all those friends are miles away. These days it’s hard to even find a free day. I think it really comes down to I wish I had someone to turn to and be like “this character connects to this and foreshadows this and did you know etc. etc.” basically infodumping but actually being listened to with the same amount of enthusiasm. 

   I want to talk about Star Wars, casual mainstream stuff I guess, like I’m late in the game but just started the Bad Batch and I got so excited hearing the narrator again. I used to watch the Clone Wars when I was little so it was a huge hit of nostalgia. Funnily enough I’ve basically gotten the highlights of the whole series through reaction posts, fanart, clips, and finally decided ok I’ll check it out after reading a fic (it was "Success Rate" on Ao3 btw). I wasn’t initially interested when the Bad Batch first came out until their personalities really started to show and of course sibling family moments. And I’ll admit the fandom space from what I could see on insta genuinely looked like fun from the sidelines. 

   The Dad Batch is so real, watching the very first episode knowing what happens later on and how much they grow it’s bittersweet and touching. Literally the moment Hunter sees Omega it’s like the remnants of the paternal Mandalorian instincts kicked in. This man was already set on becoming a father figure even if he hadn’t realized it. I just thought it was the fans doing their thing but no I witnessed it with my own eyes they’re all girldads and now I wish I got into the series sooner. 

   Also because I’m an animator at heart I love catching the little side glances between the brothers and the little quirks. For being voiced by the same guy, each of the Bad Batch have their own distinct personalities and mannerisms and I’m having such a good time.

   Omega is such a sweetheart, I don’t get how people could not like her! She’s literally baby and I know she grows up at the end of the series, so seeing how she started out she’s so small! She’s just a kid! She’s their little girl! They love her immediately and wholeheartedly! I didn’t know that in the first episode Order 66 just hits them like that, everything is confusing and chaos, the world they’ve known their whole lives is crumbling down. But they risk their lives and their freedom and return to Kamino for her! 

   The food fight scene was great, absolutely love how they’re ready to throw hands.

Nothing is more euphoric than finding a piece of fanart you remembered liking years ago but not remembering the artist so you go on a long search detective style and then find it! Yes it was Bad Batch content—I liked the occasional art even though I had never seen a single episode until now and I’m living rn absolutely delighted to find the piece was part of TBB Zine! Catching up on quality content now with context is healing rn (just in case the piece is by clone.enthusiast aka Bird on insta, forever treasuring this I’m smiling)-update: i think with the whole Meta AI thing the artist left Instagram and I'm so sad i can't find them.

Anyhoo, wanted to get that part out of my system. Been busy with a new job that's been so draining that I haven't finished Season 1 yet. Burnout has made picking up a pencil feel like holding a hot iron that it just hurts idk. Thinking of making a Tumblr blog just for professional art portfolio things since Instagram is now a hot garbage fire and lots of people are moving to Cara. I don't think i'll leave Insta myself since I've got mutuals there and there's still awesome art around. But yeah that's what's life been lately, if you've read this far, thanks!

[bywandandsword]

Ok so, just now for that last post the generator shot out ‘Simple Country Protagonist of Noble Birth’, and that’s essentially one of my OCs so here’s her story if your interested

The takes place in the 1880-90s. When the story starts, Simon’s been on the run for almost five years, dressed as a boy, and half the time she forgets that she’s not one. She spent six months riding up and down the river on the steamboat and got off in Missouri to find other work, hopping from job to job, always reading the papers for any news from New Orleans, and has gotten very good at pretending to be just another young man looking for work. She spent a few months riding the rails, with the vague notion of California or Canada or where ever, just always on the move. Margaritte’s family down south has gotten very powerful, and even more so when she married again, this time to an oil baron turned senator. Simon doesn’t know if Marg is still hunting for her, but isn’t about to risk being found. At the start of the story, she finds herself in Kansas, following a river she was told would lead her to a road, which she could follow to a railway, but either she’s lost or it’s way father than she anticipated, she’s almost out of food, and it’s late September, so it’s getting cooler than is comfortable for someone without a jacket at night. That’s when she sees a farm, miles away from anything, and all the residents are having their lunch outside, enjoying the some of the last few pleasant sunny days of the year. Well, this is too easy, Simon thinks, she’ll just take a bit of bread, a bit of meat and cheese, maybe a better knife, and be on her way with none the wiser, just like she’d done a dozen times in the last few years, she’s long gotten over any moral debate about stealing. Only this time after she grabs what she wants, an incident involving an insistent horse leads to her being discovered. The oldest son Michael (who has two younger twin sibs), wants to take her into town right then and hand this thieving boy over to the law. The father, an older man named Mr. Elias Blez, sees how travel worn and ragged the youth is, how he didn’t take anything but food, and knows that winter is almost upon them, and thinking they’ve been needing a bit of help around the farm anyway, makes Simon a deal. If Simon agrees to work for them as a farm hand until May, they’ll let him leave with as much food and supplies as they can spare and won’t turn him into the law. Mr. Belz also makes it clear that if Simon does try to run, he wouldn’t make it out of the county. It’s black mail, but Mr. Belz think’s its ultimately going to prevent Simon dying of exposure or worse somewhere. Simon, who doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice, agrees. Almost immediately, Mrs. Johanna Belz figures out that Simon isn’t a man, but Simon is like, “We already have an agreement, I won’t be treated any different because of this realization” (cause guess who doesn’t ID as a woman anymore but who doesn’t have the vocabulary to say she’s genderqueer!) and the family hesitantly agrees to let this weird half-feral runaway be. So, she helps them do the last of the harvest and the culling and the rest of the winter preparations. Michael expects Simon to rob them blind and run away any moment now. Simon is secretly glad to have a place to stay for the winter and actually grows to care a great deal for this family, though she still puts up the distanced grumpy front she started with. They go into town sometimes and Simon always presents as male. As winter goes on, Simon gets the first taste in a long time of what it’s like to be in a family again and all the feelings she’s suppressed start bubbling up. Once, after a long day, a family friend and his kids brings over some food, booze, and instruments and the two groups have an impromptu party. Simon gets shnockered and when she gets pressured and dared to sing something, she grabs the fiddle and preforms an old diddy her father used to play in French, then a piece by Bach, then a waltz. And once she’s felt the shape of French in her mouth, her first language, she doesn’t release it easily, the more she drinks the more French she speaks and the more the Belzs wonder how the hell a ragged vagabond they found stealing from them acquired training in classical violin and learned French. 

-

Flashback: Her full name is Marie Simone Madeline Lereau de Saint-Maxent, but everyone just called her Maggie. She got this absurdly long name cause she happens to be the eldest child of the wealthy merchant Saint-Maxent family, living in New Orleans. Her father is gone a lot for business and she’s an only child but she has her mother and tutors for company and spends most of her childhood receiving a strict, classical education, even spending a few summers at a boarding school in Paris. When she’s 14, her mother gives birth to her younger brother, Jean René, but she dies shortly after. Obviously everyone is devastated, but Father decides his children need a mother and, as was commonly done at the time, he marries a recently widowed woman with three children of her own, Margaritte. It starts out pleasant as it could be, but as Maggie ages, and Father refuses to change his will to prefer Margaritte’s children over Maggie and Jean, Marg gets manipulative and controlling of Maggie, though never towards baby Jean. The years roll on in this tense way until, when Maggie is 17, Father, Maggie, and two of Marg’s children catch the Fever. Father dies, but Maggie and the other youths recover. Marg uses this as an opportunity to force Maggie to sign paperwork denouncing her claim to the inheritance, and produces a forged will to back it up. She’s paid off the police and the lawyers to make it stick and threatens that if Maggie turned up dead, no one would know that she didn’t die from fever too. Maggie refuses and that night, men sent by Marg break into her room and try to drag her out, but she manages to get free of them, grab one of their guns, and kills one of the assailants. The others flee. She grabs as much clothes, money, and just, stuff that she can fit into a bag and runs. She catches a train that night to Baton Rouge. She’s still got the gun and the whole train ride, she’s processing wtf just happened and cleaning the blood off her hands and worrying about her brother and wondering if it was really fever that killed her father or poison, but by the time she gets to Baton Rouge, she’s together enough to think. She uses her mother’s maiden name, gets in contact with a friend, the son of a family servant, and rents a room in a low-key b&b and waits for the newspapers. Sure enough, they report that all members of the Saint-Maxent family had died, except the youngest, and that Marg find herself a fortunate and exceedinglyy wealthy new heiress. Her contact reports that Marg’s men are still looking for Maggie and offers to help her disappear. They sell what valuables Maggie brought with her, except the gun, she cuts her hair, starts going by Simon. She buys some of men’s clothes clothes, using enough money to bribe her way onto temporary employment on a steam boat headed north. 

-

Simon doesn’t say anything more about it until almost February. By this point, she’s grown to love and trust the Belzes and their community and vice versa, Michael has grown to trust her too (especially after Plot and Hijinks), and when he stopped being a dick to her, she befriended him and has feelings for him but like hell is she going to admit it to herself much less anyone else. She’s starting to think this might be someplace she can stay, actually build a life, a home. Then Marg’s name shows up in the paper. I haven’t figured it out but for business reasons Marg has bought a house in the closest big city, maybe Kansas City or Dodge City? and is using it as a base of operations for a branch of her business. But that means she and many of her people are less than a stones throw away, practically breathing down he neck, and Simon just fucking has a panic attack. What if her step mother comes to their town? Are they still looking for her? What if someone identifies her? What if one of her men recognizes her? And what’s happened to her brother, who’d be about ten? Well, Mrs. Belz finds Simon clutching the newspaper, hyperventilating, and after that, the truth comes pouring out. Everyone is shocked. I haven’t actually thought much past this scene, where Simon tells her story to the very shocked Belzes, but Stuff will happen. The Belzes talk her out of just bolting for Canada, Simon will eventually encounter Marg again face to face after she rogues into the house for some reason. Marg has a delicate little pistol, but Simon still has that old blood stained revolver. Way after this, Michael will fistfight one of the goons, and the story will eventually be brought to light, but I have no idea how that will all play out or the consequences. 

[ficdirectory]

Blink (An AU Fosters family fic) Chapter 59

CHAPTER 59

Jesus is more than a little shocked when Frankie comes to his doorway and calls “Knock knock.”

“What is it, buddy?”  It’s after 7 PM, which means Frankie’s usually in bed.

“Moms say come down for ice cream if you want it,” she says.

Jesus comes out to the hall.  He hung up with Pearl a few minutes before.  She had insisted she would be okay and that she would call if she wasn’t.  So long as he has his phone on him, Jesus feels okay doing family stuff too.

“You’re up late,” he offers to Frankie, as she hands him a snack-size bag of Cheez Its and a small bottle of water.  He thinks it’s to carry while she goes down the stairs, but when they get to the bottom and he tries to give them back, Frankie shakes her head:

“I got those for you, buddy.  And I get to stay up because it’s the weekend.”

“Lucky,” Jesus offers.

He goes to the kitchen and sits down.  Everybody’s there.  It’s been awhile since they’ve all been in the same place together - or maybe it’s just been a while since they’ve hung out together and Jesus has been calm.  There are four pints of Haagen Dazs ice cream on the table: vanilla, chocolate, chocolate chip cookie dough and caramel cone.

Jesus gets that the idea is that two of them could share a container, but it’s super tempting just to get a spoon and dig in.  To eat one.  Or all four.  All by himself.

“Sit down, bud.  What looks good?” Mom asks.

“All of it,” he blurts.

They laugh, but it’s gentle.  He grabs a spoon and snags the caramel flavor.  He’s not a fan of caramel.  Probably, he’d go for any of the other flavors before he’d go for this one.  But he thinks about Isaac and how he talked about putting caramel on this big sundae he wanted to make, that he got the idea for by watching The Food Network.

Jesus wonders if that’s why The Food Network and The Cooking Channel are the only two channels he can watch without feeling panicky.  If knowing Isaac watched them is why they feel so much like coming home.

“You don’t like caramel, do you?” Mariana asks.

Jesus shrugs.  “Not sure…” he ventures.  “I guess I’ll see.”

He and Brandon end up splitting the caramel ice cream.  Jude and Mariana share the chocolate.  Mama and Frankie have cookie dough.  Mom and Callie share the “classic” vanilla.

“So, what’s up with the impromptu ice cream party?” Brandon asks.

“We haven’t had much family time lately,” Mom answers.

“You mean other than the week we just spent at Grandpa’s cabin?” Jude quips.

“That turned out to be quite stressful.  So Mama and I thought ice cream was less intense.  We just want to see your faces.”

Mariana and Frankie smile big at her, in unison.

“Do you like our faces?” Frankie asks beaming.

“I love them,” Mom insists, dramatically.

“So, Jesus, what’s the verdict on the caramel ice cream?” Mama asks.

“Mmm…” he mumbles, around a mouthful.

“It’s good,” Brandon supplies.  

“Anything anybody wants to share?” Mom tries.

“Anything you wanna share?” Mariana raises her eyebrows.

“Well, now that you ask...has anybody heard Brandon’s latest song?’

Jesus smirks.  Even though he was sure it had been a joke, he went to B’s channel and found a song simply titled, Jude.  The music made Jesus think about a storm.  It was dark and angry but also kind of awesome.

“Me,” he raises his hand.  “It’s my new fav, bro,” he tells Brandon sincerely.  

“Thanks,” Jude complains from across the table.

“Hey, you should be happy.  You’re Brandon’s muse,” Callie reassures.

“Yeah, he wants to kick my...butt…” he amends, with a glance at Frankie.  “I’m really honored.”

“I wrote the song so I wouldn’t kick your butt, Jude.  You should be honored,” Brandon insists, digging the spoon into the bottom of the carton,  Then, he thinks better of it and offers it to Jesus, taking the spoon out altogether.

Jesus takes it.  Nods his thanks.

“What about me?  What did I do a good job at?” Frankie asks.

“You are an excellent reader,” Mama praises.  “Did you guys know Frankie’s reading?”

“Yeah,” Mariana nods.  “She, Callie and I have been working at it.  She’s really smart.”

“‘Cause I read all of Pinkalicious, right?” Frankie asks, basking in the praise.

“You did,” Mariana smiles.  

Jesus listens to Callie, Moms, and Mariana get built up for helping out, for working hard, and for good grades and then offers.  “Jude helped me out today.”

“We’re glad to hear that.  We always want you guys to support each other.”

“Well, Jesus came to me and told me.  Which seemed like it was kinda hard to do but he still did it,” Jude offers, licking his spoon.  

“No big deal,” Jesus insists, a habit.

“Um...yes, big deal,” Mariana counters.  “It’s so hard to ask for help and especially if you’ve known that you can’t for some reason.”

“Honey?” Mama asks, looking at Jesus.  “How’s Pearl?”  

“She’s okay,” he nods.  She’s not, but it’s not exactly conversation Pearl would want him having with everybody in his family.

“What’s wrong with Pearl?” Frankie asks, curious.  “Is she sad Gracie got hurt?”

“Gracie’s not hurt.  Somebody scared Pearl today,” Jesus allows.

“Like a bad guy?” Frankie asks.

“Yeah.  But she’s safe.  You don’t have to worry,” Jesus tells her.

“She should carry pepper spray,” Jude muses.

“She shouldn’t have to carry pepper spray,” Mariana objects.  “Just to feel safe walking around.”

“I think she actually does carry it…” Jesus muses. He seems to remember one of their earliest conversations involving Pearl showing off her lighted hat, and her mace.  “Can we stop talking about her when she’s not here, though?”

“You’re right,” Mama nods.  “Who else has something they’d like to talk about?”

Jesus gets up and walks across the kitchen to the printer.  He picks out a stack of plain white paper and brings it back with a pencil.  Starts drawing.

“You okay?” Brandon asks, as the conversation picks up again.  

Jesus half listens.  Nods.  For once, this isn’t an impulse-rerouting thing.  He just needs to draw.

Frankie’s claimed some paper, too, and a box of crayons from a drawer in the kitchen.  Jesus is drawing with one arm around his work.  Doesn’t need anybody seeing it and commenting.

He draws the outside first: plain, white, old.  Average.  No way to know what’s going on behind the closed doors or windows.  No basement windows at all.  Jesus has drawn the outside like it’s one of those hidden doors.  Or like a dollhouse front that swings open to reveal all the rooms inside just behind it.

This time, though, there’s only one room shown behind the front of the house:  he draws the outline of a pole.  Of chains.  Of a mattress in the corner.  Then, he shades as hard as he can with the pencil to convey just how dark it was. He uses the eraser to trace the word disappear as he’d spelled it Then: DISUPHERE.  The name Josh is everywhere, too, on every wall.

Brandon shifts in his seat.  Scoots his chair back.  Without looking up, Jesus puts a hand on his.  He needs him to stay.  He’s the only one with an eyeline to what exactly Jesus is drawing, and he doesn’t want to be alone with it.  To B’s credit, he just inches the chair in again.  Watches.  Doesn’t comment or make anybody else look their way.

When Jesus is done, he slips the drawing under the table and passes it to Brandon.  Brandon looks at it, and then at Jesus with raised eyebrows.

“I Facebooked you,” Jesus says under his breath.  “For Mom’s birthday.  It was, like, six months before I got away…”

Jesus isn’t sure why but he just needs B to know this.  He’s seen the picture on the wall by the stairs, of all six sibs, including Mari holding a framed pic of him.  Has a feeling Callie took it.  Or was behind the taking.  That B was behind the asking her.  What they’ve never known is that Jesus - as Josh - had been behind the suggesting of it all along.

Brandon looks confused.  Then like he’s thinking hard.  Then he blinks at the drawing under the table.  The name on all the walls.

“That’s right.  God, that’s right…”  B looks like he’s seen a ghost.  Gets up and walks to the living room.  Sits on the couch.

Jesus trails him.  “You okay?  Sorry...just...I saw the picture on the wall, like a month ago?  Not that I hadn’t seen it before then, but that time.  Something about the timing of it got me.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t know it was you…” Brandon apologizes.  There are tears in his eyes.

“No.  Dude.  This wasn’t about you feeling guilty.  Not for me.  I just...wanted you to know that I really love that picture.  And it means a lot that you took my advice.  So it was kinda like I was here for Mom’s birthday, after all.”

Brandon pats the couch next to him.  “You were here for everything.  We always thought about you.  When Jude turned eight, I couldn’t not think about you and Mariana turning eight.  When I brought Callie to all her sixth grade classes,  I wondered who was going to take you to yours.”

Jesus sighs.  “Nobody.  I got there.  But, it helps...to know you thought about me…  I couldn’t think about you guys.  Not for a long time…’cause you know...it hurt too much.”

“Hey.  No judgment.  If you needed to not think of us in order to make it out, then I’m glad you did it that way.”

“I know living with me isn’t always easy…”

“It’s a hell of a lot easier than living without you…” Brandon offers, his voice thick.

Jesus pats him on the back once.  It’s tentative, but it’s there.  He has to do something.

“Hey…  What do you want me to do with this?” he asks, holding out Jesus’s drawing of super hell.

“Keep it.  Throw it.  Just don’t hang it on the fridge or sell it to a tabloid or bring it to Anchor Beach.” Jesus says.

“I might keep it...if you’re sure you’re okay with it…” Brandon checks.

“Yeah, I am,” Jesus nods.  “I don’t want it.”

“So how’s your - you know - feelings?” Brandon tries, nodding at Jesus’s wrists.

“I mean, they’re there…” Jesus admits.  The scarf is still in place.  He holds onto it pretty much all the time.  And it doesn’t leave gnarly indents in his skin.  Just the memory of a friend who loved him enough to make him something that might make coping easier.  “But I haven’t acted on anything.”

“How long?” Brandon wonders.  “Can I ask?”

“More than 48 hours,” Jesus admits.

“Jesus, that should have gotten you the entire pint of caramel cone!  You need to let me know these things before I ravenously eat everything in sight…”

“I can’t really see food as a reward for stuff, though.  Wrong context.  Kinda messes with my head.”

“Oh,” Brandon manages.  “Right.  Well.  Happy Two Days, then.  Just keep it up.  And know we’re here.  If you need us.”

“Yeah.  I know,” Jesus says.

--

Brandon goes to his room with Jesus’s drawing of the house.  He needs to put it somewhere before Jude gets up here.   Slides out the manila envelope he’s kept under his mattress since the day Jesus went missing.  Reaches to the bottom of it, and his hand closes around what he knows he’ll find.

Pale pink shoelaces that Jesus had begged for the previous year.  Brandon had no idea what third grade boy would actually want pink shoelaces, but Jesus had.  Mariana had a matching pair of laces.  They claimed it was for luck.  And Brandon had teased Jesus mercilessly for it.  But Jesus wore them to school every single day of third grade.  When fourth grade started, Jesus’s feet had outgrown those shoes.

“What?” Brandon had taunted him the Tuesday morning before his abduction.  “No pink shoelaces?”

“I don’t need luck,” Jesus shrugged, cocky like he could be sometimes back then.

But when Jesus went missing three days later, Brandon unlaced his shoes and kept the laces, knowing his brother needed all the luck in the world if he was gonna make it back.

Brandon touches them almost reverently.  He’s not in sixth grade anymore.  And he’s lived way too much real life to believe in magic, but they did mean something.  Part of Brandon still believes that keeping them safe had a hand in Jesus making it back.

Gently, Brandon slips the drawing of the house into the envelope, with Jesus’s lucky shoelaces.  Tucks it back under the mattress.

Then, it’s back downstairs to be with his family.