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writingoneout · 11 months

Text

Untilted Katamari Reflections

Preamble:

Content considerations for the following include:

Parental abuse

Bigotry

Worldly anxiety

You're welcome back another day if that's too much right now.

It’s fall of 2015.

You and your virgin college friends drink shitty cocktails called the “Slutty Will Rodgers.” They’re just Pepsi rawdogged with indeterminate amounts of grenadine and Captain Morgan. When you bought the mixers a Wal-Mart stocker yodeled “OOOOoOoooOH, maKIN sOMe DRINKS?!?!” and you knew it was time to leave.

We Love Katamari is on the Telly. It’s a sweet, trippy game you first bought to cope with high school. On Dark Fridays at 1am, when your inbox was barren and your balls were full, you’d drive to the empty gym downtown and sprint six miles. Then you’d come home and replay the firefly level until you fell asleep with your pug.

Your college friends are bad at the game, so they pass the controller. You’re playing the underwater stage. A spaceman falls in the pond of people gunk and stacked crabs. It’s going really well if you’re honest. You point to the screen and say “this’ll be Florida if Trump wins.” See Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Rick Desantis has big plans for Disney.

Your friends don’t reply because they soon won’t be virgins and their tongues battle each other’s. It’s a different game they play, one with fuzzier rules, but greater industry respect. You wish the campus gym was open 24/7.

. . .

Your skills as the prince are not inherent. You first meet him in 2005, when your dyspraxic hands can barely tie a shoe. Your parents catch you lose shit for the Toonami review of Me and My Katamari. They buy it for Christmas, hoping to steady your nerves while your father’s in therapy.

Dr. Flam is a Neo-Freudian hitched to your mom’s guy, Dr. Flim. She’s deep in your dad’s dream journal and makes him watch movies like Cool Hand Luke to really reign in his ego. He gets the DVDs from the Netflix site, then through the mail. As a family you watch your dad’s therapy films and reruns of Inyuasha.

In the waiting room you barely navigate the sticky ball through Namco Bandai’s Satoshi Kon parade. See Fig. 2. You’ve only seen adults express anger verbally, so when you mess up you grunt a lot and let out those Leopold Butters Stotch swears like “crap,” “shoot,” and “gosh darn.” You’re not particularly self-aware, so you probably just say “god fucking damn it” a few times and don’t remember. Years later you realize there was probably a secretary behind the glass watching you do all this.

Figure 2: Bwahbwahwabhbawahbwaaaaah.

Sometimes there’s a girl in the room with you, just around your age. She’s stuck while Dr. Flim teaches her mom about what dream snakes mean for her fear of male puberty. That's what he did for your mom, anyway.

You think the waiting-room stranger is cute, but you won’t admit you like girls yet, especially not to yourself. To cope with the cognitive dissonance, you do your weird shit louder while refusing to make eye contact with her. If you get real stressed you crank up the main menu track and yell “ahhhhh that’s so relaxing” while the “nah nah nah nahs” play through your headphones.

At one point the girl stands against a wall and stares at you with her arms crossed. You bet she thinks you’re cool, but she’s probably just annoyed and hopes you’ll notice, or maybe just ask if she’s OK. It’s probably good you don’t talk with her. You might ask something stupid, like if she's seen the roach corpse in the stairwell. It’s been there for a year straight, isn’t that crazy?

For better and worse, you power through your little game alone. Every time you lose the King of All Cosmos beats, shoots, and belittles you. See Fig. 3. It reminds you of when your own dad shattered your Harry Potter wand over the kitchen counter because you dropped a mini pizza.

Figure 3: The King of All Cosmos offers little constructive advice, all things considered.

You fail quite frequently. Eventually you drop the game because it’s getting stressful and you have the power to relieve yourself of the situation—not the Freudian lobby, just your fake dad.

II.

It’s 2012. PlayStation Network uploads The Prince’s primeval outing: Katamari Damacy. Within, Padre Cosmotic flaps his gums over too much hooch then slams his dump truck ass through the better part of our solar system. He dislodges every recognized constellation and even the moon itself.

Cosmos sends Prince to Earth—the last brick left in the shitstorm—to make slop of our planet and bodies. With the slop space itself will be made anew. The Good Son does as he's told, and every living entity experiences euphoric ego death within the bulbous heaven of the Katamari.

As a Real Gamer Teen you lose a lot less in this one. You really go in and fix Fake Dad’s mistakes, no problem at all. This is why a year ago you hailed “gaming journalism” as your calling. You write clean and play tight; should keep the lights on. It’s the most concrete idea you’ve had since 7th grade when you outlined a YA novel called Tooth Pocket. Even you didn’t think Scholastic would buy that one, though. It was just too hot for the book fair.

One day you’re cranking through FFVI and your real dad swings by, mad you're young. He grills your ass and says “I bet you can’t even tell me the biggest thing happening right now.” It’s some real “What’s a gallon of milk cost?” shit, he could mean anything.

Surprisingly, you can’t think of a good answer. You and your friends are actually pretty informed because John Stewart is still at the desk and y’all chime in every day. See Fig. 4. You also spend hours each week tearing through MSN slideshows in your Graphic Design class because the Photoshop takes five minutes. You’ve seen a staggering amount of the Syrian civil war.

Figure 4: Sometimes in Snapchat you draw glasses on your cat to make him look like Mitch McConnel. You wouldn't do that without this guy.

Still, you’re a little stumped. It’s the middle of a phenomenon native to moralist presidencies known as "a slow news week.” You actually ran out of war shit the other day and clicked through some slides about Pakistani wrestlers. The seniors who offered you Jack Daniels in the Whataburger lot saw it and laughed. They thought you were peeping dong in class. You really weren’t, but they didn’t believe you. They graduate certain you were bricked up in the Dell Lab over big guys in spandex.

“I don’t know,” you tell your dad.

He throws his hands behind his head, hard, like an orangutan chucking logs at a poacher.

“It’s the fucking carbon tax,” he yells. This comes as a surprise, you think, because that shit is last month’s news. It really didn’t go anywhere.

“Do you not pay attention because you don’t give a shit, or are you just a nihilist and think you can’t do anything?” You can tell in his eyes he thinks there’s a real answer. “Seriously, which is it?

You don’t remember what you said. You probably just stammered until he walked off.

A month later he picks you up from marching band. Your phone is dead, so he had to wait twenty minutes longer than anticipated while you found his car. He punches the rearview mirror until the windshield cracks then screams of how your birth kept him from New England.

III.

It’s 2016. A rockin’ MILF in the Psych department gets you really into Hamilton. See Fig. 5. Every day you wake up on the grind and blast “You Aaron Burr, sir?” through your shitty 7-11 cans. While cramming foreign language Quizlets and McGraw Hill Online you do this thing called “Hafilton.” It’s where rock up to “Nonstop” and quit listening just before Hamilton decides what he will stop is being a good husband.

Figure 5: Like Kojima, you know "MILF" is a mindset, not a factual inquiry.

It’s 2018. Your grades are notably better and you’ve snuck into the honors program. Like Hamilton himself, you really flourished at 19 and thought about running for office. You immediately abandoned this idea after remembering your allergy to recordings of your image or voice.

You cohabit with the Psych MILF, and she offers some advice: she’s really had her boots on the ground with this whole “clinical psych thing” and honestly, respectfully, she loves you, but dear God it might not be your scene. It’s taken a real toll on her and the friends, and she can’t imagine you going through that shit.

At 1am in your living room you boot up DOOM (2016) and listen through some Hamilton. Angelica is thirsty on main when you remember that you, yourself, could be a lawyer. You don’t have to run for Congress to fight the establishment. There’s just the common law, and it’s right there. You can just get your grubby little hands in that shit and work your magic.

. . .

It’s the last semester of undergrad. Your Western Thought professor says Hamilton wasn’t really a huge deal and really James Madison shat out the big parts of our faction-proof empire. Yes, there was, in fact, a civil war, but the caplock rifle worked it out. After the Federalist papers he has you read the Bill of Rights but no Supreme Court cases. There’s a lot of talk on negative liberties.

Just before finals, the learned doctor says your generation only has two things to worry about: the climate and the poverty. Yeah they’re big, he says, but they’re just two things. You’re crafty kids, smart as the framers, even.

. . .

The state decides law school is your jam and lets you come inside.

There’s the negative liberties but you actually read Supreme Court opinions when the big boys aren’t shaking fists for Valley Forge. They have you listen to Hamilton for context. You feel dirty. An LRW professor puts on the “I’m Just a Bill” video and your sectionmate with Ivy degrees gets really, really mad.

. . .

The Federalist Society has a comfy presence at your law school. Along with Big Oil they sling out free pizza to every Little Scalia with a rumbly tum tum.

On your way to class you hear what the pizza boys feel. They hate Europeans, those social democrats with the rotten armories and clumpy cash. The Euros, they think, give too much wiggle room for the mentally ill, and by that they mean they mean gay people and probably just women overall.

There are more than two things to fix, you think.

. . .

The pandemic hits. You and some pals start a Google Doc to stay afloat. It barely works. In the Zoom review for the property final your professor catches multiple people crying. "You don't have to be here," he tells them, “there are other jobs.”

. . .

A year passes. You’re in a niche public interest class you do all right with. The professor looks you and thirty-five others dead in the eye and says how sorry he is that law school is traumatic. You shed a single tear in your little window. You're pretty in the shit and haven’t worn pants to class in months.

Then public interest prof takes a big, big drag from his long, fat spliff. He spins his desk chair and baseball cap at the same time, never letting go of the joint.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s not your fault, really, but the world is fucked. It’s time to fix what your parents did.”

The next week he gives a practice exam where the best solution is to sell an old lady’s house to Nestlé.

IV.

It’s 2022. After throwing your whole gooch at it, you fail the bar exam.

You fall back hard into exercise. When you’re not slamming Barbri you’re at the gym binging curls and cranking the Chainsaw Man soundtrack. One night on the way to squats you finally hear “Black Parade.” Just like you, Mr. Gerry Wayland is stuck between global disrepair and the desire to write Funny Little Books.

You just started an FLB yourself, actually. It’s spin on a Story Break episode you love. In your version there’s a fucked up civil war horse that moves like a spider and is covered in bugs. Rich people kill the planet then the horse gets lost in space. It’s compelling, you promise. There’s body horror and pirates dressed like Gorton’s Fisherman. See Fig. 6 It’s about the horrors of the contemporary world state. It’ll be fun.

Figure 6: An untapped horror icon. Imagine blood contrasting that yellow.

Big problem, though: you remember rich people love hiking. There’s no grass on Mars, not that good shit anyway. Would they really fuck all of it?

You edit. In the last few years, the real breathless ones, the oligarchs cash their tab. A cartel, they think, could really muscle those stragglers, the tragically common. There’s one city left with both breathable air and refugees. They level it. The few survivors are spread amongst the stars, so their loves and languages may die.

. . .

It’s the middle of Bar Prep Round 2. You and the patient MILF see Hadestown in the Big City.

There’s a juke joint on stage flanked by devil trombones. A sad little guy slinks in from the janitor’s closet. His name is Orpheus and, just like you, he’s a sad, short writer who likes a lady so much it comes out weird. He has a vision, he says, for a little ditty. It’s compelling, he promises, and shit’s gonna change. His love is functional and realized, worth the investment of a hardened woman displaced by capital’s torture. She believes him.

You cry because you know where this goes.

It’s just a single tear.

Don’t worry.

Nobody sees.

. . .

There’s this game you like, by some corporate anarchists who hate themselves. They’re Scandinavian, from the spot in Tallin where you stopped for a cruise. Every gift shop there had swastikas and gas masks leftover from the bloody years.

In the game is a liberal yacht MILF. She thinks you’re stupid but someone’s helping with your gun, so you’ve got that on her. And yet, she pins you, re your whole writing thing. See Fig. 7.

Figure 7: She sucked, but it still hurt when she left.

Your favorite Supreme Court podcast says the ocean’s last hope is other countries. But those countries’ people cry to the Disco game, and their ministers also bought The End of History. You meet them on the subreddit. You're all geeked out, waiting for the tide.

. . .

It’s the era of desert cradles. God thinks you’re disgusting, so he sends his better kids with a memo: the flood was too much work on his end, it’s time for something different.

“Just keep walking,” he says.

Your skin bares his figure. So do the corpses. You little birds among billions, gassed out and screaming, move to clean.

It’s 2023.

We Love Katamari is up on the PlayStation store. You sit with the cats and mow down some crabs. You don’t need it so much these days, but it’s nice.

There’s a Bar card in your wallet, just below your gym tag. There are two interviews in your Google Calendar. Good stuff might happen, hopefully soon. You crawl into bed and wrap an arm around your wife’s rib cage.

Everything matters and nothing is safe.

You are loved enough to sleep.

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rogueclonesftw · 4 years

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hello! i don't know anything about your OC's, but i saw your post. could you perhaps list all of them with a short summary? 🙏🏻💕

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry this took so long to answer. I moved house and it was A Lot. My OCs are legion so for the sake of everyone else’s dashes I’m putting this under a read more

These are just for the clone wars era I’m leaving the rebels out of it

Thanks for asking!! Feel free to ask about anyone if you want to know more.

fair warning this is long af

I’m splitting it into sections to make this easier

Heretics

Jedi

Bela Rant

Togruta Jedi Master and mother Master of four Padawans children. Not a favourite of the Council due to differences in interpretation of the Code. Had an ongoing feud with Qui Gon Jinn that lasted until he died. She died in the war ten years later and Col took over her command.

Alask Racor

Grumpy Twi’lek first Padawan of Bela, had two Padawans of his own but was killed by pirates before the second was knighted.

Reya Meraska

Alask’s first Padawan. A human from Jedha and compassion incarnate. Had an uneventful apprenticeship and grew up to be comparatively quiet compared to the rest.

Ben Edo

Reya’s first and so far only Padawan. The model of a perfect Jedi except for thinking their interpretation of the Code is bullshit. Would have made one hell of a politician if he could stand the Senate. From Dantooine.

Tol Koden

Alask’s second Padawan, a very polite Zabrak. Alask died when he was 17 and Jos took over his training. He and Ben are the same age and were raised basically together.

Jos Vel

Stubborn and opinionated Kiffar. Bela’s second Padawan. Had her own (equally stubborn and opinionated) Padawan and then took over Tol’s training when Alask died.

Harlan Konshi

Jos’s Padawan. Also a Kiffar. Would also make a fine politician because being raised by Jos taught him to argue. He’s a bit of a jackass but in a charming way. Like, he’s a prick but you still like him.

Azaana Tyl

Harlan’s sweet, quiet, shy Togruta Padawan. Jos laughed so hard when she heard about that. Harlan is trying to teach her self-confidence. The baby of the family.

Col Blackmoor

Bela’s third and most disastrous Padawan. The former Temple Problem Child (now Temple Problem Adult). Not that he spends much time in the Temple. Was so far out on the Outer Rim he didn’t find out there was a war on until he had to come back and take over Bela’s legion. The worst case of ADHD the Temple has ever seen.

Lena Sola

Col took her in after an incident with her former Master almost saw her kicked out of the Order. Col intervened. She’s still uncomfortable around most Jedi, but they’re working on it. Sweet kid. Kage.

Aden Jadus

Bela’s final Padawan, knighted just before Geonosis. Yes, she’s from Tatooine. No, that does not mean she knows Skywalker. Stop asking.

Not-Jedi

Vale

The oldest of the bunch, Reya’s Commander. Has enough Big Dad Energy to build a deck at 20 paces. Meat grills in his presence and the shinies all fear his disappointed frown.

Nill

Jos’s Commander. Deeply claustrophobic. A nice, likeable guy unless you piss him off. Caffeine demon.

Jax

Clone Commander and Col Wrangler in Chief, Col regards his Commander with barely disguised awe. He considers him his closest friend. For his part, Jax thinks similarly highly of Col. He likes to draw when he gets spare time (rarely). Grew up with Sonny and Cody. Very protective of Lena.

Crater

Professional Ray of Sunshine, the exact opposite of his twin. Crater and Crash grew up with Wolffe. Crater was assigned to Ben, and he likes his General, really, but the man never sleeps. It’s starting to stress him out.

Click

Professional Salt Mine assigned to the Galaxy’s Politest Jedi because apparently the GAR runs on irony. Makes Wolffe look like a ray of happy, happy sunshine.

Pip

The perpetual optimist to Aden’s incredible pessimist. Remains stubbornly cheerful by choice, because if he doesn’t laugh he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop crying.

Dexter

Professional Grouchy Bastard. Likes Harlan well enough but will absolutely tell him he’s full of shit. If Azaana likes you, Dexter will tolerate your existence. If you make Azaana sad they will never find your body. A training accident left him with scars and a deep growl in his voice that makes him sound angrier than he is.

Stitch

Col’s CMO and the only person Jax legitimately fears. Deeply wishes his siblings and General would get injured less and look after themselves more. Is willing to enforce this with sedatives.

Zip

The Right Hand of God (Stitch’s second in command). He who wields the big needles.

Layne

Cheerful but stressed Captain of a company of reckless idiots who really should know better but apparently don’t. He should be used to it. He grew up with Rex.

Trip and Tap

Two survivors of Krell reassigned to Col. Tap has a nervous habit of tapping his fingers. Trip can trip over thin air.

Jazz, Snap and Void

A trio. Jazz likes to wander off. Void likes to hide. Snap likes to complain they’re giving him grey hair from the stress of having them disappearing all the time.

Ray and Rico

The product of an embryo that split, Ray and Rico lived in fear of being culled as defects on Kamino. They’ve since left Kamino, but the fear hasn’t left them.

Lys

A tired medic who would like Dexter to drink something that isn’t caf please.

Tyke

The medic with the most agreeable Jedi (Tol). He barely has to bully him into seeking medical attention at all. Such a shame that his Commander seems determined to make up for it by being a complete bastard. If Click wants to get tackled in the hallway, that’s his lookout.

Rill

Has a particular interest in medical research. Or he would if he ever had the time.

Corrie

The youngest CMO in the GAR. Just barely 18, only on the field for six months and never meant to be CMO at all. But she’s the only medic Pip’s got left after that clusterfuck, so they’re all doing their best. She might be young but she will absolutely yell at a commander you see if she doesn’t.

New Dawn Crew

Not-Clones

Mira Vin

A female Kiffar former Jedi whose Master died on Geonosis. The Council were going to knight her and make her a General, so she told Windu to stick it up his ass and ran away to the Outer Rim to harass slavers and save “defective” clones.

Kell Vekarr

An Alderaanian former Jedi who was rescued from slavers as a child. Finally took the 20 remaining members of his command and ran when the rest were killed over Ando. Jaster’s boyfriend. Autistic.

Jaster Toran

True Mandalorian bounty hunter who was betrayed by a client and sold into slavery. Joined the crew upon his rescue four years later. Kell’s boyfriend. Autistic.

Riye Toran

Jaster’s older sister who joined the crew to look for him and then stuck around because she liked it there.

Volya’tar

Twi’lek former slave who freed herself and stole a ship. Pilot, mechanic and Mira’s best friend.

Pash Colton

Dyspraxic dyslexic Corellian with more brains than sense. An engineering genius who has wisdom as his dump stat. Also sometimes a smuggler.

Jaina Bell

Tiny and terrifying. Orphaned at a young age and grew up to be a smuggler, mechanic and pilot.

Ela

Nonbinary Lorrdian. Has a long horrendous Lorrdian name they never use. Joined the crew because slavers suck and anything that makes their lives difficult is a good thing. Stuck around for the people.

Black Company

Halcyon

An ARC Captain known for his green hair and endless patience. Considers Kell a close friend but calls him Commander regardless. Used to fight Rex a lot as a kid. Please let this man rest.

Bones

Halcyon’s batchmate and Black Company’s CMO. A cranky bugger, but that’s understandable considering what he deals with daily.

Pax

The peacemaker between his idiot brothers and everyone else for as long as they can remember. A chill guy, but even chill guys have limits.

Tracyn and Carud

Two of the Nightmare Children. Their names are fire and smoke and they cause a lot of both, raising Pax’s blood pressure and driving Bones into apoplectic rage.

Isa

Jaro’s long suffering sister. Usually has to track him down to make him go to sleep. Has a weekly commiseration session with Ari (alcohol optional but recommended).

Jaro

Named for the Mando’a word for reckless and boy howdy is it accurate. The ADHD doesn’t help.

Ari

Rio’s batchmate and she loves her brother dearly but she is so done with his shit.

Rio

The last of the original Nightmare Children, ADHD disaster and source of most of Bones’s workload.

Kee and Jam

Nonbinary comms officers who bicker very cheerfully. Usually with each other. Often at high volume through the halls of the ship.

Torin

Gay artist baby.

Kol

Gay artist bastard.

Charly

Honestly he’s just here for a laugh and his brothers respect him for it. You’ve got to find your joy where you can get it these days.

Dys

Takes great delight in moving Set’s things just a couple of centimetres. Just enough to annoy him. Will deck anyone else who tries the same thing.

Set

Also known as Corporal Square Corners. Everything has to be neat and tidy. He was a godsend before inspections. Now he’s just the reason people have somewhere to sit.

Slip

Known for giving his trainers the slip and disappearing into the bowels of Kamino when they were doing training exercises he didn’t like and then getting stuck and having to be retrieved by Chase.

Chase

More like chase-ing his brother through the halls of Kamino to keep him out of trouble. There’s a running joke that he should have ended up in search and rescue.

Bright

Was he named for his bright red hair or as an ironic comment on his general outlook on life? Who knows? Not him. A pessimist if there ever was one.

Impulse

Full name Have-You-Ever-Heard-Of-Impulse-Control and no, he hasn’t.

Cuyan Squad

Sonny

A naturally blond, autistic, Force-sensitive Commander who survived Kamino by the skin of his teeth. Grew up with Cody and Jax. Hyper efficient Can, will and has broken people’s faces for saying shit about the Coruscant Guard.

Zak

Force-sensitive Captain who despises soup and has incredible claustrophobia. Good with kids though. Autistic.

Force-sensitive autistic Lieutenant. Quieter than Zak, and fully supports his vendetta against soup. Has his own vendetta against food that stabs you in the mouth.

Bang

Force-sensitive bomb-tech. Partially deafened in an explosion which also gave him some pretty intense scarring. Gets nervous when he can’t see people behind him.

Bit

Force-sensitive techie with a penchant for weapons modification and data slicing. Gives the best hugs in the squad.

Tink

If it’s broken Tink can fix it. The resident ADHD Force-sensitive techie. Has a tendency to hyperfocus on projects to the exclusion of all else.

Flow

De facto squad medic because he’s the best at Force-healing of the lot of them. He does not appreciate this, this is not what he trained for, you’re voiding his warranty, vode please. Dyed his hair purple because he could.

Edge

Thrill seeker with electric blue hair and boundless energy. The ADHD doesn’t help with the fidgeting, but he likes to go fast so Force-augmented speed is pretty great.

Ry and Cas

True twins born from the same tube, they’re the Fred and George Weasley of clones. They’ve got the red hair and everything. Judicious use of the Force makes pranks far easier.

Other

Caj, Chess and Blade

The brothers in charge of the homebrew alcohol. The taste is a work in progress, but the last batch didn’t make anyone go blind.

Rictor and Sike

Survivors of Krell who deal with their trauma in very different ways. Rictor is terrified of authority in case they turn out like Krell. Sike figures if he survived that he can survive anything and mouths off constantly.

Kano and Oly

Batchmates who were reconditioned separately (for nightmares and injury, respectively) and reunited upon Kano’s rescue. Oly had been with the crew for months by then. They both cried.

Sitrep, Conn and Sig

Three more nonbinary comms officers. A cheerful bunch who like to argue. Usually with each other. The problems started when they started arguing with their General.

Aran, Orar and Tay

Three heavy gunners who fight TJ a lot because the little twerp is asking for it (literally). Tay is relentlessly cheerful, Aran the exact opposite, and you’re lucky to get three words out of Orar in a row.

Ani, Mirdir and Dajun

Techies and mechanics who prefer wires to people. Mirdir and Dajun have known each other since birth and bicker a lot. Ani mostly ignores them.

Dane

A captain who finally snapped and told his General where he could stick his suicidal orders.

Sprint

Full name Slow-Down-There’s-No-Need-To-Sprint, a six foot ball of energy and barely contained enthusiasm. Usually found hurtling around the place at ludicrous speeds.

Crash

An anxious, autistic pilot who has never crashed his ship. He has, however, crashed himself into doors, siblings, training sergeants.

Rainer

A really chill guy who got shipped off for being too violent after a misunderstanding about a sparring match. TJ’s favourite sparring partner.

Likes to fight, does not care if his opponent could physically snap him in half. Sometimes he just has to beat his brain into submission via getting the crap beaten out of his body. Usually succeeds in provoking the heavy gunners into fighting him.

Zero

TJ’s perpetually worried brother. Really wishes TJ would chill. Dyslexic and has a recurring leg injury that won’t heal. Gets bored easily.

Brook and Storm

A pair of total nerds who get so engrossed in arguing that they don’t realise they’re about to walk into a tree. Frequently wander off and have to be returned.

Jai, Tala, Teek, Niko and Galaar

Five ARCs who got sent back to Kamino for telling their General to go kriff himself. Jai is Force-sensitive. Galaar is just a prick with a terrible sense of humour.

#zay answers #my ocs #oc masterlist #i will update the actual masterlists at some point but for now this'll di #please feel free to ask questions about my babies

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sprnklersplashes · 4 years

Text

the perfect partner (one-shot)

captain cygnet+captain swan

Very few people believe Killian can actually cook. He’s Captain Hook after all, terror of the high seas, the most cut throat pirate to ever hoist a sail, et cetra, et cetra. No one thinks that he would be able to whip up a mean casserole or being the best cottage pie to the potlucks at Granny’s. But life is full of surprises, especially in Storybrooke, a place where Snow White is a bandit turned schoolteacher, Little Red Riding Hood is a werewolf and the wife of Dorothy Gale, and oh yes, Captain Hook is an excellent chef.

And tonight he’s turning to Italian, stirring the rice once more before turning down the heat on it. He always cooks it from scratch, never store bought. Zeus only knows how many chemicals are in those things. On the rare occasions she cooks, Emma simply raises an eyebrow at him, reminding him that not everyone has the time to go out and buy ten ingredients or the patience to make something from scratch. Much as he loves Emma, he has to disagree with her. Especially since Henry introduced him to cooking blogs on the Internet, he’s found it simpler than ever.

He chops up a few more mushrooms than necessary before throwing them into the pot, fully aware that this is likely the first time his wife or his daughter have eaten a vegetable today and he’s determined to make the most of it. Hope has inherited many wonderful things from her mother, bravery, kindness, a sharp sense of humour, but she’s also inherited her mother’s eating habits and despite her swearing up and down she had a healthy lunch, he’s not entirely convinced. At fifteen, she's past her ‘butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth’ phase and the supply of chocolate bars in the cupboard is getting smaller each morning.

“Dad?” When he looks up, the girl herself is standing in the doorway, a small smile on her face that doesn’t hide her anxiety. He drops the spoon, barely remembering to turn the heat down more before turning to her. Since having Hope, he’s discovered an instinct that’s completely new to him after 300 years. A change in the way she walks or a crack in her voice has him standing to attention with all the discipline of his Navy days. It also doesn’t help Hope’s case that she tends to wear her emotions on her sleeve.

“Anything wrong, love?” he asks.

“No… well… I don’t know,” she replies, beginning to pick at her nails. “I need a favour.”

“What is it?”

“Well….” Her voice grows higher as she steps into the kitchen, her eyes looking anywhere but him as she bites her lip. “You know how I’m going to the dance with Melody, right?”

“Yes.” How could he forget? The entire Charming-Swan clan had been waiting with held breath to see when Hope would finally pluck up the courage to ask the little mermaid out. Emma was close to asking Melody out for Hope, since it had worked in getting her brother and Gideon together, but Snow had held her back, insisting Hope needs to find her path herself. Unfortunately, their daughter isn’t as gifted with charm as her grandfather is, nor does she have the blunt bravery of her mother. Hope spent weeks in wide-eyed friendship with her, the date of the dance looming closer with no sign of her asking, her nerves getting the better of her at every turn. Eventually, Robin intervened before anyone else could, and Melody agreed with the kind of perky enthusiasm her mother is well-known for.

All in all, it was an exhausting affair.

“Well… the thing is…” Her cheeks turn pink and then crimson and she folds her arms, tapping her foot against the kitchen floor. “Idon’tknowhowtodance.”

It takes Killian a while to work out what she said, but when he does, he’s a little taken aback by it. He’s sure he danced with her when she was young, and he always assumed it was in her blood, just like courage and compassion and magic. He thought it came with the Princess package.

“You can’t?” he repeats gently, sensing Hope’s embarrassment from her tight shoulders.

“Nope,” she sighs, shaking her head. There’s a scowl on her face and either anger or shame sparking in her green eyes, a look he’s seen more than once on Emma. She rakes a hand though her hair, attempting a weak shrug. “I mean it’s just… You know, dance class never really worked out for me. And I never really liked it anyway. And they didn’t like me.” Killian nods, curling his hand into a fist. Snow had insisted Hope take ballet and ballroom classes as a child, even though it became clear she wasn’t cut out for them. The poor girl still struggled with balance and rhythm and when every other girl in the class turned left, she went right. She lasted a few years before the two of them decided to put her out of her misery and take her out of the classes. He had never seen Hope so happy as when Emma asked her that. And while they couldn’t get an official diagnosis of dyspraxia, no one was surprised when it was suggested.

“They didn’t not like you Hope,” he reminds her now.

“I know, they just didn’t like my body and it’s lack of coordination,” she replies, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. “I mean this is kind of your fault when you think about it.”

“How exactly?”

“You made me,” she replies, breaking out into her trademarked sarcastic grin, covering up any insecurity. She gestures to herself as if to prove her point. “This dyspraxic mess is entirely your fault.”

“50%,” he responds, laughing along with her. “You’re only half me. But… you still want to dance with her?”

“Well, yeah.” She bites the inside of her cheek, her face turning the same kind of pale pink it normally does when she thinks about Melody. “I want her to have a good time. And don’t-” She adds just as he opens his mouth. “Don’t tell me that we’ll have a good time no matter what. It’s a dance. I want to dance with her.” She looks at the ground, now biting her lip and resuming picking her nails, faster and deeper this time. “So… can you teach me?”

“Oh, Hope,” he says. As if she’d ever need to ask. “Use your little talking device to pick a song. Then I’ll show you how to dance, Cygnet.”

And when she smiles at him, dimples and sparkling eyes and laughter, it makes the 300 year wait for her worth it.

She flicks through her phone and turns on a song about Christmas lights, guitar strings and lovers and sets it on the counter, the music filling their kitchen.

“Good girl. Now you take my hand. Now, normally the man leads but in this case-”

“Such heterosexual nonsense” she sighs dramatically, tossing her head back at the tragedy. She pulls her long, black hair into a ponytail and takes his hand.

“Indeed,” he laughs. Thankfully, he’s found ways around that after more than a few dances with men in his past. “What I was going to say was that since you did the asking, you’d be the one to lead. So you be you, and I’ll be Melody.”

“Oh, Dad,” she scoffs, her eyebrows shooting upwards. “That is really gross. On about every conceivable level, that is gross.”

“Just for tonight, little love,” he reminds her. “Now, that means your hand goes on her back…” He directs her hand as such. “And her hand will be on your waist.” He does so as well, bending down to meet her height. Hope is gifted in many things, but height was not one of them. In fact, he’s fairly certain Melody is a head taller than her. That should be interesting. Normally Hope would be laughing at him, but now her brow is furrowed and her jaw set as she concentrates. It’s a little surprising; he of course knows how bad Hope’s crush on Melody was, but he never thought it would be more than a schoolgirl fling. Yet with how seriously she’s taking this, it might just be. “Now you find the rhythm, Cygnet, and you guide me.”

“Find the rhythm?” she echoes sceptically. “I don’t think the rhythm likes me very much.”

“Trust your gut, Hope,” he tells her firmly. “No matter what else, you’re a pirate. You’ll find it.” Hope closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and begins moving, taking them in a slightly jerky and awkward dance around the kitchen.

“Sorry,” she winces. “That was your foot.”

“It’s okay love, keep going,” he says, watching her count the steps in her head. “Hope you know you will also have to look at her at some point, right?”

“I have to do what now?” she asks. But she lifts her eyes to his, identical to her mother’s and grandmother’s, and filled with uncertainty. While she still stumbles and missteps, she’s better than she was before; her movements more smooth and even though there’s a lack of confidence, she counts out loud less. She even manages to spin him out and under her arm, even if she has to stand on her toes. “Is this good?”

“This is great,” he tells her. “You’re getting the hang of this.”

“I hope so,” she says, her smile falling.

“Hope?” he asks, hair pricking up on the back of his neck.

“I’m fine,” she says, even if her face says otherwise. “Just… this is kind of our first date. I want it to go well.”

“And it will,” he says firmly. “One thing I’ve learned, Cygnet, is that it’s not the night you spend, it’s the people you spend it with.” Hope smiles, softer now. It’s times like this he allows himself to think he’s doing good here. “I’ve spent some lovely nights with the most dreadfully boring people, and some chaotic and wild ones with the most amazing person imaginable.”

“That better mean me,” a voice comes from the doorway. While it does make them both jump, he’s put at ease in the next second. Emma leans against the door, exactly the same way Hope did, a smirk on her face and her hair wet from the rain outside. “Otherwise we may have some problems on our hands.”

“Who else would I mean, love?” he asks. She strolls into the kitchen, shaking her head in amusement.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Emma says, gesturing to the two of them. “That was cute, what you two were doing.”

"Dance lessons," he explains. She nods, stepping back with amusement on her face, particularly when she looks at Hope.

“Actually,” Hope begins, a gleam in her eyes. “I have a better idea.” She lets go of Killian and runs to Emma instead, pulling her onto their makeshift dancefloor. When she pulls Emma towards him, it’s obvious to anyone what she’s planning. “You two do it.”

“Not that I’m complaining,” Emma says, her voice soft and laced with laughter. “But what is this accomplishing, kid?”

“I learn better by watching,” she explains, sitting up on the counter and holding her phone. Normally he’d scold her for sitting on the counter, but with her smile and the pleasant air about their kitchen, it feels a shame to break it. Killian shares a look with Emma, both aware that her reasoning is flimsy at best, but neither one of them has it in them to say no.

“What do you say?” Emma asks, grinning and holding out her hand. “You want to show the amateur how it’s done?”

“Nothing I’d love more,” he tells her, pulling her close and listening to her laughing. He twirls her around the kitchen, slightly aware of Hope capturing the moment on her phone, Emma’s blonde hair flying and her laughter getting harder as he dips her. Emma’s not a perfect dancer by any means, but she is the perfect partner. Less elegant and poised, more rough and reckless, but beautiful and brilliant all the same. He’s equally as charmed by her now as he was in Midas’ castle.

And if Hope captivates her date in the same way, which she will, then she has nothing her worry about at all.

#ouat ff #captain cygnet #killian jones #hope swan jones #captain swan #emma swan #ouat #i came up with this idea 2 years ago and finally wrote it bc i didn't want to study *dances*

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vantablade · 4 years

Text

❚ ⋮ ☆ 013

TWs include: abuse (psychological and physical), particularly from a mother, internalised ableism and ableist abuse.

Due to Nocturne’s deafness in one ear, and her half-blindedness, her natural center of balance is affectedーespecially when we consider her dyspraxia (due to her Autism Spectrum Disorder), which essentially affects her spatial awareness, resulting in what appears to be clumsinessーbut, at this point she’s been half deaf-and-blind since she was nine years old. Before that, she had already begun rigorous training; it began as ballet and ballet-adjacent methods, with occasional sword-fighting. After her injury, which simultaneously damaged her eye and the nerve in her ear (hence why any sort of hearing aid won’t help), her studies and training were set back severely. She had already had difficulties learning how to dance, struggling to emulate physical instructions due to her dyspraxia, and had faced a lot of shame and punishment because of her apparent clumsiness and slowness. Her intelligence was berated often. All of her progress seemingly became undone by her injury, and ironically the person who inflicted it on her punished her for supposedly becoming weaker.

Due to Kazumi’s extremist, unforgiving natureーand her repeated dehumanisation of Nocturneーthis only made her training for the next nine years even more brutal. It implemented more combat techniques, including sparring (which, considering Kazumi’s unrivalled strength, was more of just a Curbstomp Battle), including a far, far more rigorous dance routine. Nocturne is an incredible dancer, and due to that she does have a better sense of balance and spatial awareness than she would have naturally. But she earned it through blood, and tears, and years of unrelenting abuse disguised poorly as ❛training❜. Many people might not even assume that Nocturne is deaf, or dyspraxic, or otherwise affected by her disabilities, and even though she’s visibly blind, people can take for granted just how much has went behind being able to ❛pass❜. Where most people are doing the bare minimum every day, Nocturne is always, always using 100% of her energy just to survive ❛normally❜. She has, due to her mother’s influence, internalised this idea of always having to seem powerful, in control, never weak, and so she is rigid and highly critical of how she appears. But it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting, because she’s always in pain (due to her back), she’s always focused on two things at once, she’s always enduring. To get her to admit this is a Herculean task.

Of course, in the line of invisible disabilities, it is not just her dyspraxia (which isn’t so much a disability as it is attached to a disability) that affects herー her ASD impacts her understanding of social systems, severely impacts her energy in social situations, and has a negative impact on her general mental health due to a constant feeling of alienation, of separation. I personally refer to this as the Changeling Syndrome, wherein that she feels, always, out of touch with everything and everyone around her, as if she’s functioning on a different wavelength from even her most intimate companions, and that she is always on bated breath waiting for someone to bring her out of the world she so clearly doesn’t belong in, and bring her to a place where she can relax and feel normal. She rarely sleeps, but when she does, it’s usually brought on by social exhaustionー spending hours around people, trying to maintain the performance of the unflinching Captain, stoic and strong, around everyone. Her loved onesーparticularly Amandine, Orun and Chamーdo get to see a softer version of herself, but even that can feel a performance, because there is always some aspect of herself she’s keeping quiet. Whether it’s the pain (physical or otherwise) she’s enduring, the exhaustion she feels, the constant balance she is enforcing on her physique, the hyper-vigilance of her surroundings and the philosophical/psychological weight of everything she’s doing and what it can amount to, the ever-present fear that her mother will come back for her... it’s all internal. How would she even begin to put it into words?

Her ASD, in part, is why she bonded so quickly to Orunー as opposed to Amandine, whose friendship with her took several years to feel comfortable inー because he was aware of his own ASD and far more eloquent in its symptoms. He recognised Nocturne immediately, and he helped put a name to at least one of her experiences. Amandine is incredibly intelligent, but she never got as much exposure to the mental diversity of people, instead she was taught only what was ❛relevant❜ to her careerーfor example, she knew about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and could, in a sense, diagnose Nocturne with it (even just from the incident that happened when they met)ーso she never learned much about ASD. Orun's lack of prying, but also his ability to give her some sort of sanctum in a diagnosis, made her feel... close to safe.

I won’t always refer to each and every one of Nocturne’s internal machinations in a threadーbecause it would become repetitive, or it would make them very text-heavyーbut understand that these are at all times something she has to consider. Nocturne is convinced that, if she slips up, even once, she will be destroyedー and, in doing so, everything else will be too.

#HEADCANON. ███ 夜曲 ⋮ character development.#HEADCANON. ███ 夜曲 ⋮ codex.#I told you I'd write something... yes I am posting it Today but I wrote most of it... Yesterday #so it's a win

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