A goodbye (but not a sad one!!!!)
I've been on antidepressants for almost a year now. This is the first year of my life in many, many years where I've been, genuinely, enjoying life. And, even in the moments where things are Not Great, I still feel great because I'm not constantly trying to off myself.
And it's not just the meds. I've been more in contact with my friends, I'm going out, meeting people. I'm getting the opportunity to be a young woman in my early twenties, to drink and wake up in the morning kind of regretting staying out late, but still having so. much. fun.
I still go to church, sometimes. Because it doesn't bother me anymore, because I can sit there, finally comfortable in my own skin, knowing that I know who I am and what I believe and that's enough.
And all of that has got me thinking: this is truly the only life that I have. There's no way of knowing what comes after this.
And I finally feel safe enough to feel really fucking great to affirm that there is no way that I'm going to spend the only life that I know I have denying myself of all the joys that exist in being a human being. I don't want to spend my days thinking of all the ways I was made wrong. Of all my shortcomings. Days of Making myself little, so He can be Great.
Which is why I think I'm ready to let go of this blog.
I created this space when I was feeling so much rage, so much sadness, and I needed community. And I got that, I truly did! I never really interacted much, but it was so great to know that I wasn't alone in my feelings.
This space means so much to me, because not only it helped me heal, but it's also proof that, yeah, I didn't think I would, but I survived.
I've been thinking of this for a while, and this post was supposed to be just this: a rant. But I feel like, in order to continue, I need to put some things behind, which includes my lovely blog.
I don't know if anyone cares, but I felt like I needed to say goodbye. I've been here for a while, and I've seen people come, and go, and I know I remember people and still check their blogs even when they disappear, so to anyone that might remember me and come across this blog:
I was here. I stayed, and it hurt so much, and I thought this kind of suffering would be never ending. And it wasn't. So I left.
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These were the concept pages I drew for my original writer in the @vashwoodbigbang event! Unfortunately they have disappeared on me 😅 and also bc god hates me I guess, the day I was supposed to post these, yesterday, saw me dealing with first a wifi outage and then a whole electricity outage so. That was fun lmao
Details about the drawings below since. I don't know if my writer will ever post the story, unfortunately 😔
So this was originally coined as a stardust au! I believe it was primarily based on the movie that came out in the 2000s (?), though I believe my writer was familiar with both the movie and the book it was based on. Honestly, it doesn't pull much at all from the story itself, just the general concepts of stars.
In this version, Vash is a star, and he decides to try and find his long-lost siblings (Knives and Tessla). In his search, he comes across a planet he hasn't visited before, and while he's descending to it, he's shot down by something mysterious that causes him rather permanent injury (not new; I believe he'd already lost his arm previously and he has all his scarring from travels to previous planets, this specific technology is just new to him).
He manages to crawl some distance from the resulting crater and is rescued by the odd pair of anthropologist Milly and journalist Meryl, who are tracking fallen stars on their planet in order to research them. Vash is horrified to learn that stars on this planet are rather brutally searched for and used for their power, so he tries his best to keep his real identity as a star secret.
In the next town, he learns about Star Cultists, who are the leading experts on stars. Our dear Wolfwood is one of them, and though he's a priest under the head of Chapel, he seems pretty jaded about the whole thing. He also spends some time poking fun at their visitor Vash when he stumbles on the doorstep of the church.
Unbeknownst to all, Chapel is the one who shot Vash down, and he suspects Vash is his target. When Vash, Milly, and Meryl skip town, Wolfwood is ordered to tag along with them against his will, and he begrudgingly forces himself into the group with his usual grace lol.
Through some shenanigans, including an interesting fight with Livio/Razlo who is a martyr (a human who ate at least part of a star and became consumed by it), the group all grows closer to each other. Naturally, Wolfwood and Vash hit it off with their usual ideology clashing and homoerotic team fighting. The tension comes to a head when both of the boys are drunk and attempting to stumble somewhere after getting kicked out of the bar, and with the help of liquid courage, Wolfwood admits to Vash that he's what's known as a "Star Eater:" a human that has consumed part of a star, and by some genetic luck, isn't consumed by it and instead gains some superhuman abilities so long as the magical tattoo (i forget what it's called off the top of my head fuck) that forms around the presenting star isn't broken.
Vash is understandably horrified. Wolfwood is confused by Vash's rejection bc he isn't aware Vash is a star; he's under the impression Vash is just some very talented guy Chapel really wants to feed a star shard in the hopes he becomes part of their superhuman cult.
Vash sobers up and manages to drag a very drunk and eepy Wolfwood to their hotel.
The next day is the turning point; the star cultists, including Chapel, catch up to them and confront Vash. Wolfwood has to learn very quickly that he'd been Wrong and Vash, in his panic, flies to where it feels most safe; the city's Star (storage area?? Idk). He ends up cornered there and, in his panic, accidentally goes nuclear trying to escape and blows up half the city in a column of flame. While he's barreling across the desert in an attempt to get away, he's trapped by a net the star cultists set up, made of the same shit used to shoot him down at the start, and he can't escape it on his own.
Luckily he's found by Wolfwood first, who's decided he owes it to Vash to try and fix his fuck up, and using his superhuman healing, he manages to free Vash. Both are exhausted and ultimately rescued by LR, who's been tailing them.
Tbh my memory's kinda foggy... my writer only managed to share up to that first LR fight, so I don't remember exactly what's supposed to happen between here and the fight at the orphanage?? I remember Vash somehow finds out what happened to his siblings (a hella long time ago, Tessla was consumed by the people of the planet and Knives, in his rage, fuckin just annihilated everything, turning it into a desert planet, and has been laying dormant for the most part since then) and also we learn that martyrs gain better control of themselves, and the crystal growth consuming them stops, when in proximity to enough additional star power. Vash, as a star himself, allows LR to easily think as they did before they ate a star shard when in close enough proximity.
Anyway, fight for the orphanage, Vash shows up in time to see Wolfwood getting his shit rocked and his magical tattoo (I'm so annoyed I can't remember what it's called. My mind is supplying sharingan and i know that aint it) shattered by Chapel, who accomplishes this by running Wolfwood through with his cane. Vash, believing Wolfwood's dead (bc like. Lmao it's pretty hard to live getting impaled, like, fully), loses his temper and basically obliterates Chapel. He moves on from Wolfwood's body to try and dismantle the entire Star church so Wolfwood's orphanage can stay safe. In this process, he confronts a Doctor Conrad, who was behind the whole thing, the remains of Tessla, and somehow Knives?? I think Knives, sensing Vash's anguish, just tried to fuckin nuke everyone, and Vash stops that. I feel like Knives dies in this process somehow... I think it was by saving Vash from something Conrad made??
By the end of it, Vash is wounded and exhausted, and ends up being saved by Milly and Meryl, I think.
When he recovers, it's to find he's lost his ability to leave the planet; while still functionally a star, his power has greatly diminished, his hair is black, and he can't even hide his wings anymore. Last I knew, my writer was actually merciful and let Wolfwood live! Albeit as a martyr (thus the wolf form with the uncontrolled star shard bursting out of the hole in his chest you can see on Wolfwood's page lol). Luckily he's got Vash around, so he gets to keep his mind, if not his human form.
With Knives dead and the star cultists mostly dispersed and no longer able to fuck with the planet, the story ends with our characters getting to experience rainfall on the planet for the first time in centuries.
.......
I like the story :P I imagine it'd be a lot better written out in actual novel form by the person who'd actually thought it up than my shitass, too-long summary lol.
Honestly my writer was communicating up until like, a month ago?? And then they just.... disappeared :/ which is weird bc I checked with my mod for this event (shout out to mod sana, @pushclouds, you're an amazing mod and I appreciate the heck out of you) and they submitted literally every check-in. Honestly I'm more worried for them than anything, if anyone knows what happened to @lohikaar I'd appreciate anything you can tell me. I hope they'll publish this story whenever they can, I'd still love to read it in its entirety.
Additional shout-out to @priellan for beta-ing the story they shared with us, and for overall being a super supportive team member :D
Also they did assign me a pinch hitter writer since we have no idea wtf happened to my original writer, so I'll be doing more drawings :D priellan agreed to beta for them too, which I'm super happy about! And thanks again to mod sana for your hard work and arranging that so quickly!
An admittedly strange first big bang experience, but I don't think it was overall bad, and I'm excited to work on more stuff with my new writer :D if you read this far goddamn. Thanks lol. See you again for sure on January 1st! (I'll try to post other shit between then and now hopefully)
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NGL: Stuff like Brambleclaw being a terrible namer is like. really fun but also kinda hits with the 'he;s not some meglomaniacl villain hes just a shitty guy'. like. you could see squirrelflight finding that really endearing. IDK if this is some mastermind shit, or if i'm just reading wayyyyy to into this, but i like how you give characters that are pretty bad dudes very humanising qualities. Especially when they're silly/cute. Kinda reminds you that like. theyre like. a person. well. cat but yknow. and they chose to do bad shit, with influence from their past, rather than being inherently terrible. 👍
YEAH MAN, that's what I'm SAYING
Abusers, ideologues, and other terrible people are not masterminds. They aren't born evil. They're not inherently smart OR stupid. They can love, they can be funny and polite, they do things they believe are justified and want to be good people. They don't think of themselves as villains.
Evil isn't complex. It's really, really not. I feel like that's the #1 cause of confusion when I get a question like, "Why does this person do this malicious act, when it's bad/inconsistent/mean?" The answer is always simple;
They wanted to control someone.
They wanted something and didn't mind who they hurt.
Spite and short-sightedness.
Look for anything deeper and you will not find it. Heroics are complex, being a good person is ongoing and changes over time. We're in a constant state of growing. Malice is childishly simple; it feels good to get what you want.
With Bramblestar especially... it always goes back to what I said here, when talking about the idea of an Evil!Bramble. He's a person, and you ruin everything that's so interesting about him by stripping away that nuance. Squilf and Bramble loved each other, truly, and legitimately. He can be charming. He can be nice. He still hurts her. Reconcile with this.
He is not wiser for what he went through, as a child. His pain doesn't make him better. Man's just a jerk... that's it.
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