#sort of long

[princessconsuelapark]

SOME OF MY FAVOURITE BITS OF Karen Miller’s Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth

- Obviously the infamous scene of Ahsoka watching Obi-Wan and Anakin. “At least [Anakin] had Master Kenobi’s company for a little while. She was sure that accounted for [Anakin’s] relief. They cheered each other up, those two. No matter how dire the straits, Anakin and Master Kenobi always managed to find a joke, a laugh, some way to ease the tension and pressure of the moment. Between the two men lay absolute trust. Absolute faith.”

- The two of them getting so lost in each other, like only 10 pages into this book, that they literally forget that other people are in the room. (”They stared at [Ahsoka], startled, as though for a moment they’d forgotten she existed.”)

- Ahsoka telling Torrent Company: “No more dying. It's against regulations.”

- The Republic running the war like an absolute circus. They lose all comms, but ‘trust the force’ or whatever and go ahead with the plan anyway. Yoda gives battle orders that are “cryptic”. Anakin and Obi-Wan refuse to include others in their plans, which are “vague” and very much improvisational, driving Admiral Yularen to absolute despair in the process.

Yularen: when should we launch the battleships? Anakin: I’ll signal you Yularen: okay, what’s the signal? Anakin: Obi-Wan will know Yularen: okay, Obi-Wan, what’s the signal? Obi-Wan: we don’t actually have a signal, but don’t worry, I’ll tell you when Anakin psychically force-messages me Yularen: *starts mentally composing his resignation*

- Obi-Wan and Anakin making breakfast plans together. Like they actually decide what time they’ll meet and everything. In fact, Obi-Wan is willing to delay his own breakfast so they can eat together, because Anakin wants to sleep in (*have morning sex with Padmé)

- “Obi-Wan indulged in his own swift smile. Yes. They were indeed working in sync. And he realized then how much he’d missed this. Had missed Anakin and the way they could read each other without the need for clumsy words. [...] Working without Anakin was like working half blind.”

- Ahsoka and Rex’s relationship! He calls her “little’un” and she literally stands guard at his hospital bed when he gets injured. It’s everything.

- Both Anakin and Obi-Wan being (almost uncharacteristically so?) generous with their praise towards their respective padawans, and yet neither Ahsoka, not Anakin considering the praise enough.

- This is especially funny, considering Obi-Wan tells Anakin he should never “feel bad for being extraordinary” (which in turn has Anakin think “How could he be extraordinary and let Obi-Wan [hypothetically] come to harm?”) and that there is “no escaping the fact” that Anakin is “the most gifted Jedi the Temple has ever seen”, that sometimes he can’t imagine who he’d be today if not for Anakin, and god, this one makes me deranged: “I cannot deny this: knowing you has made me a better Jedi”

- Meanwhile, there is this one bit where Obi-Wan is super judgmental about Palpatine having a soft spot for Anakin, like I’m sorry, have you ever looked in the mirror, sir

- Anakin immediately getting attached to every single person he meets, and being very dramatic about demanding Obi-Wan help him save them all, which prompts Obi-Wan to proclaim in his head: “He’s as bad as Qui-Gon. Picking up strays...”

- When Obi-Wan literally spends minutes mid-battle just staring out a window, worrying about Anakin, and fucking Admiral Yularen has to be like ‘he is a very capable young man, you know, I’m sure he’ll be fine?’ This is only made better when 200 pages later, Anakin stares at a boarded up window, worrying about Obi-Wan, and a kidnapped scientist, who met them two seconds ago, has to awkwardly pretend she believes him when he claims he’s not worried about Obi-Wan.

- In fact, throughout this whole novel, Anakin and Obi-Wan do not stop worrying about each other, and actually most of their conversations start with ‘are you okay?’

- At one point Anakin reroutes an entire medevac ship to get Obi-Wan off-planet, then - instead of doing his job of escorting humanitarian aid delegates - calls ahead and orders a fucking admiral to escort Obi-Wan to the medbay. Then he calls ahead to the medbay to make sure they’re expecting Obi-Wan.

- Related: the scene where Obi-Wan tells Ahsoka off for worrying about Anakin and not focusing on the present, then proceeds to worry about Anakin and not focus on the present.

- Anakin being super attuned to Obi-Wan’s body. There’s a bit where he feels that Obi-Wan didn’t get medical attention for his battle wounds, then later on can sense Obi-Wan’s physical aches and tiredness, like his own

- How according to Bail, Obi-Wan stares at the Jedi Temple “as though it were a long-lost lover” and with “longing” in his eyes

- Threepio asking after Artoo when Anakin calls, to make sure he’s okay after battle, awwwwww

- Yoda having the biggest soft spot for Obi-Wan, his fave grandchild. He bonds with Anakin over forcing Obi-Wan to stay in the Halls of Healing. He invites Obi-Wan to tea. He sleeps in the comm centre, so he can immediately hear news on how Obi-Wan’s mission is going. He tells Obi-Wan he’s been drawn to him since he was an infant, because Obi-Wan burns in the Force’s light. They tell him Obi-Wan’s comming him and he’s like “Excellent.” Some very relatable stuff there, ngl.

- Anakin being super unhinged, in the most iconic way. He throws a chair out of frustration, sits on top of a table in the Archives, punches a wall because he’s angry, asks Obi-Wan what a tauntaun is, refers to his past self as a “meek little Padawan” (this has Obi-Wan losing it), gets so mad that Padmé’s not home that he breaks a laser turret with his hand, tells Obi-Wan to “just sit there and be wrong”, sends a whole hangar full of people home early from work, because he “prefers to work [on his ship] without distractions”. Like he is truly mad and I love him.

- Similarly, I adore how Obi-Wan is an absolute insane person during 75% of this book. Half the time he opens his mouth is to be unhelpfully sarcastic, the other half is to chide Anakin, like he is 5 years old, just before acting like a 5 year old himself. Some glorious characterisation there, Karen Miller, hats off, honestly.

- Obi-Wan praising Anakin to anyone who will listen and constantly making excuses for him whenever someone criticises him! This bit stands out in particular:

Obi-Wan: do you regret letting me train Anakin? Yoda: well, you did your best Obi-Wan: um, that’s kinda vague...? Yoda: you have to admit he’s a bit difficult Obi-Wan: EXCUSE ME WHAT DO YOU MEAN DIFFICULT Yoda: you know him better than anyone, surely you can admit he can be difficult Obi-Wan: *changes the topic, but keeps thinking about how Yoda is so so incredibly wrong, and how Anakin is the best*

- “You know, General, some say young Skywalker’s the crazy one, the reckless one, the Jedi most likely to go down in a blaze of glory. I used to say it - but now I’m not so sure. In your own quiet way you can be just as terrifying.”

- When Anakin leaves Obi-Wan alone for two seconds, so he just starts aimlessly wandering about the Temple, like some lost youngling or something

- Padmé having so much love Obi-Wan. It makes her so happy seeing him and Anakin smile together because good friends like that are hard to find !!!! She tells Anakin to bring him back safe from their mission !!! When she worries about Anakin, she sometimes also remembers Obi-Wan exists and is also in danger !! (No, seriously though, she is very cute about Obi-Wan this whole book.)

- “My Master would die before he’d let anything happen to Master Kenobi.” Ugh, that’s just. Yeah.

[so-am-smyme9540]

For the music ask game 2 (a song you like with a number in the title), 9 (a song that makes you happy), 13 (one of your favourite 80s songs) and 23 (a song you think everyone should listen to)! <3

Hi! Sorry it took me so long to answer this, I didnt get a notif for it :\

I searched literally all my songs amd none of them have numbers, so Ill just say Want You Gone from Portal 2 (cus thats a number!)

So many songs make me happy... Ill try to keep the list short. Two Moons by BoyWithUke (all his songs are bangers btw), Its Raining Somwhere Else from Undertale (my absolute favorite in the whole game), All I Wanted by Paramore (just want to scream this song sometimes), and Bullet by Hollywood Undead. Because while it may be about suicide (its structured as a note) it sounds happy, amd thats all I need.

I actually dont know what decade any of my songs are from, but The Most Mysterious Song on The Internet sounds like an 80's rock song. Its also just a good song.

Christmas Kids and Opposite of Flowers by Roar. (Roar in general are very underrated and if everyone liked them i think the world would be a better place.)

[hydrattan]

I was feeling agitated and artblocked yesterday so I decided to give my brain a rest by watching TV and then the next thing I knew these were in front of me

[humming-fly]

I love how Gerald was trying to keep Shadow from spoiling anything about the future meanwhile literally everything Shadow says and does around Maria is the biggest death flag ever

[gallusrostromegalus]

Might I inquire as to what, precisely, a Mustain't is? (Aside from a string of letters I hesitate to Google in that order.)

In October 2014 I went on a road-trip to the Driest Place In America.

I was having a rough year, very depressed from having dropped out of college for the third time. I decided a road trip was in order to re-set my brain and get a little distance. Being that it was October, and therefore all the campgrounds in the American Southwest were filled with people who have the good sense to camp in reasonable temperatures, I elected to take my parent's minivan so I could car-camp anywhere suitably isolated, and looked up some of the southwest's geographic extremes- the highest place I could drive to (Pikes Peak), the lowest place (Badwater Basin), and for fun, the Dryest Place in the continental US, which turned out to be the Pinacate Volcanic field just west of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. It gets rain maybe twice a century and has no standing water, despite being less than 100 miles from the gulf of California.

It's a startlingly beautiful and alien place. The ground is a deep chocolate brown to black volcanic sand, and in mid October, the rabbit brush is turning bright yellow as it shifts to autumn, the organ pipe cacti are a dark green and stand, partially concealed in the brush at exactly human height. The air is alive with birds and insects and bats at night. The stargazing is like looking into the eyes of God.

You get there by driving down a little dirt road called "El Camino Del Diablo", or "The Devil's Road".

I drove out about three hours from Glendale, AZ to get there, arriving at sunset, and felt a profound sense of peace. I stargazed, listening to the bats hunt and sing, and slept peacefully for the first time in months.

I stayed out there for three days, sketching and painting the landscape, taking strolls through this almost alien landscape, and enjoying the light and sound and total absence of human intrusion besides myself.

On the fourth night, it was a new moon, and I awoke in the middle of the night. Something was amiss, and it took me a while to realize it was because I could NOT hear the bats. I was sleeping inside the van with the rear windows rolled halfway down rather than trying to set up the tent, so I when I sat up, I looked out of the van's reflective windows to discover what at first appeared to be A Horse.

It was something between pale gray and bright white in the starlight, standing maybe a dozen feet from the van, sniffing curiously. It made sense- I was in the middle of mustang country and there was quite a bit of foliage in the area for it and it did look like a truly wild horse- lumpy where the bones were jutting out, dusty about the hooves and face.

I was instantly seized by the sort of paralytic fear Sleep paralysis is made of. I couldn't move. It wasn't quite looking at me because it couldn't quite see through the windshield into the shadowy into the shadowy interior, but I had the distinct impression that if I looked away, it would know, and get me.

I already had problems with horses. My beloved Aunt Helen's Prize mare tried to kill me on two separate occasions, and the year before I had to carry my sister-in-law backwards out of a slot canyon whilst reciting the Saint Crispin's Day Speech as loudly as possible to keep a mustang from trampling us to death.

This is approximately what it should have looked like:

Instead, it was... off. like trying to draw a horse from memory.

The waist tapered in.

The legs were slightly too long or the torso slightly too short, probably both.

The ears were Triangular.

The head wasn't quite right- Too narrow and the jaw wasn't heavy enough.

The tail was too long and arced unnaturally away from the body.

The neck arched.

The nostrils were too high and close

The mouth too long.

Whatever this is, a Mustang it Ain't.

I watched it from the back seat as it sniffed around the front of the van, curious with about the side mirrors. It moved around the van, nibbling experimentally on the front door handle. It came up to the side windows, sniffing like a dog, and it's breath didn't fog up the glass.

Finally, it came up to the rear window, which was rolled halfway down to let the fall night air in. Not even half a pane of glass and two feet of air between us, and I could clearly see it's bright blue eyes.

Horses have Elongated pupils to give them a wide field of vision, and eyes that rotate sideways in their sockets so the pupil remains parallel to the ground. Rather creepy to watch, especially the ones with blue eyes.

A real horse that was curious about the interior of the van would have come up to the window more or less sideways, and looked at me with something like this:

Instead, the damn thing walked up and faced the back window head on, staring back at me with this:

I'm not sure how long we watched each other like that, eyes locked. My eyes burned. I couldn't blink. My mouth was dry. I couldn't swallow. My throat began to ache. I couldn't make a sound. My skin began to twitch, like I was severely dehydrated. I couldn't move. My lungs burned. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I couldn't move.

Something was touching the side of my hand on the seat next to me. It's my water bottle.

The realization must have broken the terrible paralysis in the lower parts of my brain first, because by the time I consciously realized I could move again, I was already flinging my water bottle out the window at it.

The top was open, and splashed out the window at the Mustain't.

I've never heard such a scream out of an animal. Something halfway between the sound of unquenchable rage vibrating in someone's chest and the way rabbits cry out to God when the dogs catch them.

It jumped back, pivoting away from the van, snarling at the water bottle. I don't think you're supposed to be able to see All of a horse's teeth at once, no matter how angry it is.

I watched it run into the night for some distance, it's pale body visible against the black sand and the dark gray shadow of the ancient volcanic cone it was headed for.

When the blood stopped pounding in my ears, I could hear the bats again.

I debated leaving right then, but I didn't want to get out of the van with that thing in the area, nor litter by leaving the water bottle out there. I also had the awful idea that if I left now, it might somehow be able to follow me home. I ended up staying up three hours to watch the sunrise, shaking and trying to figure out if I'd woken up from a vivid dream, if my meds had stopped working, or if that had really happened. I didn't dare move until I actually felt the temperature rise, before stepping out of the van to grab the bottle. I had my camera ready- I was still using a DSLR back then- to take pictures of the hoofprints, to show how close it had gotten to the van.

No hoofprints.

Beetle tracks in the soft sand around the van, and the clear foot-and-wing prints of a bird that had hopped around then taken off. But no hoofprints.

I went over the entire campsite with the tent broom, to make sure I removed every scrap of evidence I had ever been there, including my footprints, grabbed my water bottle, and drove the three hours back back to Glendale, then decided to do seven more hours of driving to Moab, Utah just to put more than 500 miles, the state line and at least nine things that could be considered "running water" between me and the Mustain't.

-

I still have that water bottle. It has a dent in the bottom from hitting something, but that could have happened at any time. Strange thing though. I can't drink that bottle dry. I'll have it on me, drink whatever I've put in there- water, juice, iced coffee- and eventually feel like I've drunk the whole think and that it's empty. But I open it up and it's still at least a quarter full. I drink that. I get thirsty. I open it up again. ...and there's always a mouthful left.

Not sure what the side effects of drinking from a bottle cursed by a Mustain't to always have some left are, but it lives in the Emergency Breakdown Kit in my car now, just in case I meet another one.

---

(I'm a disabled artist and make my living telling stories, please consider supporting me on Ko-Fi or Pre-order the Family Lore book on Patreon)

[egophiliac]

bring back zooterkins, the best 17th-century swear word

I don't normally do Just Characters Swearing, but. ...this kind of wrote itself and then wouldn't leave my head. it comes from both a piece of character-writing advice that has always stuck with me, and also my conviction that Leona is 1000% funnier as a character if his dialogue has to stay G-rated. let Kalim say fuck, but don't let Leona say bastard.

(I'm sorry)

[hinamie]

oversaturate

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[intercrusher]

ill-timed lovers

[toneelspeelster]

[lazylittledragon]

you know what fuck it we’re doing dadstarion

[diminuel]

Picking up children in the woods is a perfectly normal way to expand your family (if you're a pirate).

--

Another installment of Stinky Child Ace~ You can read the first part here!

(About Crocodile being referred to as "Wani": he's already known as the Warlord Sir Crocodile, so it's best to use an alias and hope that nobody in this quiet, peaceful village will make the connection. And if they do, that they'll keep quiet. Which they most likely will, considering that they must have noticed Dragon's return to the Monkey family home.)

Sorry for style inconsistencies X'D

Next part: Dragon finally comes home!

[blorbosinmyheadcentral]

This came to me in a vision

[breesperez139]

Dc x Dp Prompt #6

“I’m a twin”, Damian said one night. He could feel the narrowed eyes of his family drilling holes on his back in disbelief. Not that he could blame them. Damian had never so much as implied being raised with a companion, much less a sibling.

“I had a brother”. Damian paused to recollect himself. He had not said his brother’s name out loud in over 8 years.

“His name was… Danyal”. Damian hated the way his voice wavered, but he could not help it. Danyal was everything to him, his other half. Their heart beat as one and when one heart stopped beating, the other one died with it. At least until his family put his heart on metaphorical life support without ever realizing.

“Where is he now?” His father asked, voice filled with knowing grief and a hint of betrayal. It had in fact been 6 years since Damian first showed up on his doorstep.

“Up there”. All eyes shifted towards the specific star he was pointing to. “Right before he died, he promised me he’d guide me from the stars. Unfortunately, the stars are not visible in Gotham, so my brother is unable to be of much help unless I leave the city.”

“Your brother is Polaris, the North Star?” Tim questioned warily, most likely in attempts to not offend him. Damian was aware of how stupid it sounded, but Danyal had promised, and his brother never broke his promises.

“Yes. Danyal is with the stars now, just as he always wanted”

[anna-scribbles]

and what if he was happy!!!

[moggettt]

I used to think it would take a monster to put someone in a place like that office. Especially if the person was himself. But we're not monsters, Mark. Not real ones.