#kids in fandom learn from adults just like everywhere else. be kind is i guess what i'm saying

[inevitably-johnlocked]

can we adress how toxic some of these self/harm and suicide fics are?? as someone who has struggled with these issues, treating them as just a way for the two characters to get together, or one character to be the savior who cures someone of their problems? I'm so frickin over it. continuing to put your partner in limbo by threatening this behavior when they don't give you enough attention is a symptom of something major. This is not something i like seeing romanticized. at all.

[CONTENT WARNING FOR ENTIRE POST: heavy discussions of trauma, suicide, self harm, depression, political issue mentions, and eating disorders. Please proceed with care. I am not cutting the post because I think the message is important, so scroll past until my icon disappears <3 Stay safe, My Lovelies.]

Hey Nonny

Okay, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here because you mention you DO have struggles with these issues, so I’m going to state right up front here and say I AM NOT DISREGARDING YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AT ALL. Your view of this topic is valid, and it’s not something I am ever going to say is wrong for you. 

I would like to offer an olive branch, here, Nonny, and give you an alternative take on this, because I’m concerned that perhaps you are still coping with your own struggles and in return, you unwittingly and unintentionally are coming off as unsympathetic to other people’s coping mechanisms.

I KNOW how hard it is to see another view when yours is the only one that seems right, especially after a tragedy or after dealing with heavy things. But all I am asking is for you to temporarily extend some empathy as I discuss my thoughts in this post, and I apologize in advance if I come off as dickish, because, again, it’s hard to see past your own feelings, and I tend to give a “firm but understanding” approach to asks like this. It’s NOT meant to call you our personally. Just asking for an open mind.

I will tackle this ask in a similar fashion to this post here, which talks about shipping vs fetishization so CW for that, as well as like this post here, where we discuss pet peeves. My assumption here is that Nonny is unsure about what “romanticizing” actually entails, and how much this ask is basically Gatekeeping Fiction 101, a thing that’s been going on since the beginning of storytelling. The ask is perceived by me to be emotionally unaware of how unsympathetic it actually sounds, and in turn can unintentionally upset people who engage in these stories.

First thing’s first, Nonny, and I said it before, I GET IT. I understand what you’re going for here, why you feel it’s toxic, and why you think it shouldn’t exist. Here’s the thing, though: what you’re ACTUALLY calling for here is censorship and gatekeeping because YOU PERSONALLY take issue with something, want the fandom specially curated just for you, because it PERSONALLY OFFENDS YOU. And that, it itself, is what’s really toxic, here. Just because YOU are offended, does not mean that it’s not helpful to SOMEONE ELSE, and it’s selfish to make such a demand of people.

Let me explain.

As I mention in the link above re: shipping, many people read and write fics to cope with the reality of their own experiences. Nonny, your experience is NOT the same as someone else’s. Your pain is NOT universal, and you DON’T KNOW what that author has been through; for all you know, they spent 6 months in-hospital after attempting suicide, and they are now simply processing their trauma through storytelling. 

Or, “continuing to put your partner in limbo by threatening this behavior when they don't give you enough attention” ? It’s a VERY REAL THING that ACTUALLY happens in real life, and perhaps it happened to that author, or they want to write an alternate ending to their pain.

Or, “one character to be the saviour who cures someone of their problems?” is something a suicide survivor WISHES someone did for them. Because they feel alone in the world and don’t want to be alone anymore.

These stories are simply escapism for people, either to learn about or share what these mental illnesses do to people, or are the “fantasies” of survivors, of their ideal outcome to their own tragedies. Coping with guilt over the loss of someone they feel they could have saved. The brutal truth about realty.

And sometimes, it is because some people need a good cry and a feel-good happy ending, because real life? Well, it rarely has those happy endings and so few opportunities to let us cry, and sometimes life is just easier when we view it through the eyes of fictional characters. Do you not want someone to save you sometimes Nonny? And I mean metaphorically here, too. Someone to just take all of your hellish burdens off those shoulders for one day. Someone who will come in to save you from yourself. I know I do.

And, well, sometimes, Nonny, it makes people feel less alone in this socially distanced world.

They’re not glorifying that issue Nonny. They’re telling their story.

Here are some thoughts:

Romanticization: Some trendy teen outlet selling a shirt with “mentally diseased” written across it.

NOT Romanticization: A character in a story coming to terms with a diagnosis of mental illness and learning ways to adapt. Their partner is involved 100% and they learn together.

Romanticization: Sherlock merchandise being sold with “I’m a high functioning sociopath” (not mention ableist as all heck)

NOT Romanticization: A character self-harms because of depression, and character B helps the character through their pain and together they get proper therapy and treatment.

Romanticization: Calling yourself “OMG I’m so bipolar!” because it’s trendy.

NOT Romanticization: A clinically depressed author, who survived a suicide attempt, wanting to tell their story through characters the world is already familiar with, and one that a touchy subject can be expressed and understood by other people, because they’re not ready to write the “real” book. Fandom is a safety net for them.

See what I mean Nonny? We don’t KNOW what kind of pain these authors have PERSONALLY been through, and to censor them from having their voices heard and their stories told is just not on for me.

And let me be clear: YES OF COURSE romanticization happens EVERYWHERE. I am not denying that. But your ask is coming off like EVERY STORY EVER WRITTEN is glorification of something. By your logic:

Disabled people shouldn’t write about their disabilities because they’re romanticising themselves.

The authors with medical degrees shouldn’t write realistic med-fics because some where in the world, ONE person MAY HAVE had a similar experience as Character A and B.

Someone broke their foot in ballet so they shouldn’t write a story about a ballet dancer who broke their hip because it may offend ONE ballerina SOMEWHERE in space and time who got sideline at the prime of their career? 

Stories about LGBT+ people shouldn’t be written because homophobes think it’s icky.

We shouldn’t write about wizards because it offends high school catholic pastors (an actual thing that happened)? 

How about cancer stories because kids die of cancer all the time? 

Non-fiction autobiographies about holocaust survivors is not okay.

Science books offend flat earthers, so we shouldn’t write those.

Books about the Big Bang and a 4.5 billion-year-old earth offends creationists, so burn those.

A now-adult child rape victim writing their survival stories to help get their often-in-power abusers behind bars are taboo.

True crime stories from detectives on those cases shouldn’t be told because they weren’t the victim.

Non-fiction in general because someone somewhere may have had that one singular thing happen to them.

How about coping with grief over a parent’s sudden death because I personally might find offense in that since that was a horridly traumatic experience in my life?

Do you see how progressively out of touch this argument is? (the answer to all of these: authors should be allowed to write them, because stories make us human). Your argument leads down the very dangerous path to censorship of books, the internet, and history... to have people only read and learn what someone else dictates, leading to... well.

I’m not trying to be a dick here, Nonny, I’m really not. But I think you’re really missing the entire point of fiction and story telling. I feel you’re failing in the empathy game here, and failing to understand what romanticizing really actually is. 

Whenever I get asks like this, I always feel like the Nonnies don’t really know much about pre-Ao3. I come from “early internet” fandom age, and I’m talking before tags existed. Back when I had to go buy a book at Coles and guess what was in it based on a cover description. No “amazon reviews”. No “harmful content warning” stickers. You just picked up that book, and sometimes you get a sweet story about a friends exploring an alien landscape, and other times WHOOOPS ACCIDENTAL ALIEN SEX I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR. And sometimes, it ended with a dark story about death, and the reality of coping with it.

Twenty years ago, books on the shelves at bookstores and libraries were the only place you could do your reading and they certainly do NOT have tags on them... Modern tagging of stories are a REALLY recent thing introduced probably no less than 15 years ago and was perfected by Ao3 (which was started in 2009). 

These days, there is no excuse if you only consume fanfiction on Ao3. Fics are tagged with proper possible-trigger tags 90% of the time. They have a VERY METICULOUS filtering system. You aren’t being forced to read the fics, you don’t have to read the fics, so use those tag filters, they exist for a reason.

So, with that in mind, I genuinely DON’T GET this attitude about people wanting everything sugar coated and saccharine by default. Especially when you can LITERALLY CURATE YOUR OWN CONTENT. Life isn’t sugar coated. And fiction shouldn’t have to be either. People tag fics with triggers for a reason.

As they used to say back in my early internet days: Don’t like it? Don’t read it. Don’t comment, skip, next story.

And to put this ALL into perspective, so that you don’t think I’m talking out of my ass, I’m going to reveal something here: Do you know what fics I can’t read, Nonny, because they trigger me? Eating disorders. That’s self harm, Nonny, in a very different way. But you know what? I know that those fics DO help other ED people so I’m not going to sit her and tell people NOT to rec or write them. And some of those authors who write those stories are processing their own ED through those stories, healing in their own way. And you know what I do when I see one of those fics? I don’t read them, move on, next story.

I’m sorry if you perceive this as me being harsh with you here, Nonny, and you DON’T have to agree with me and you can block me and never talk to me again, and I’ll understand. As I stated at the beginning, I’m offering an alternative perspective, and helping you to see that some people take comfort in these types of stories.

I think what this all boils down to Nonny, after all of this, and rereading your question a final time to see if I missed covering anything, is that (and feel free to shit on me if I am wrong here) I’m getting the impression – as an unprofessional outsider looking in – that you’re still struggling with your inner demons, whether you realize it or not. The tone and brashness of your ask has me believing this... It feels like it was written after a trigger-moment and you needed to vent AT someone because you are alone, and that hurts my heart so much. I truly hope you find peace in your mind, soon, and I hope you have someone to talk to professionally, or at least a friend. (tw under link, suicidal ideation discussion and links to phone numbers that can help you). I only wish the best for you, my Nonny.

Anyway. I welcome other people to chime in here, respectfully, and let me know if I have the wrong take here. Because I genuinely don’t think I do, but I am not a professional, so my entire thing that took me 3 hours to write here is probably moot. I’m especially interested (on anon in my asks if you’re not comfy with revealing yourselves) on thoughts from other people who have survived the original topics here, as well as any therapists and authors as well.

Take care of yourself Nonny. And please curate your own content for your mental health. Ao3 has an “exclusionary tag system” as well, please use it. *hugs*

#steph replies #suicide cw #censorship #self harm cw #chatting with nonnies #Anonymous #eating disorders tw #depression cw #romanticization #my thoughts #i am not a professional #long post

[paintedrecs]

For the fandom talk meme thingy: C (not trying to start drama I swear), I, K, R, and X. =D

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Hmmm, there are a few ways of answering this. One is by listing all my NOTPs, which would be excessively long and ultimately boring because it essentially boils down to “anyone else with either member of my OTP.” I monoship my primary pairings, so I’m pretty strict on what I do and do not like. 

(With the way fandom is now, I should clarify that NOTP means that I personally do not like a ship and I therefore go out of my way to avoid it - by muting terms, carefully filtering tags and search results, curating my own space, etc. It doesn’t mean I think the ship is badwrong or that anyone else should stop shipping it. It just means I do not ever want to see it.)

This feels a little less specific on that front, though, maybe more just: people like this and I’m meh about it?

So Allydia comes to mind. I don’t hate it, and if the Sterek’s good enough I’ll still read a fic with them as a background pairing, but I don’t ever like it as a romantic ship. While I ship Lydia with lots of different characters, including Cora, I’ve always seen Allison as straight, so I suppose that’s part of it? And I love Lydia & Allison as bffs - I see them as entirely platonic, like Scott & Stiles, so introducing romance just doesn’t work for me.

Another one is Sheriff Stilinski/Peter Hale. I...I don’t understand it. Unlike the last answer, this background pairing will prevent me from reading a Sterek-central fic.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

This turned into a complicated and kind of roundabout answer, so I’m putting the rest of the questions under a long-post cut!

I stopped frequenting tumblr for two main reasons:

that whole weird purge thing that made me think everyone was leaving, so I just gave up, which might’ve been premature cause it seems like folks are still going strong on here

the emergence of antis, specifically within the Voltron fandom (although they’re everywhere at this point)

There’s a saying in fandom now: 

“Why is the younger fandom generation like this?!??” “Tumblr raised them.”

For me, for years, tumblr was a really wonderful space where I had a lot of great conversations and read very thoughtful threads that helped me to learn some important things about myself, other people, and a world much wider than my own.

But I was an adult when I joined this site, and it really does seem like there’s a whole new crop of kids who have no actual context for ideas like social justice, the need for canonical representation in our media, and a lot of other things that eventually got folded into a big ball of disconnected rhetoric that they now fling as hard as they can at the heads of fandom creators who are committing the ultimate sin of creating content for ships they don’t like.

It’s late, and I don’t feel like getting into a whole Essay Rant about all that.

So on an entirely personal level, I quit running appreciatejack (my Check Please/zimbits/Jack Zimmermann blog) because someone sent me really vile hate for daring to ship Shiro/Keith from Voltron (two unrelated adults in a cartoon). It’s why I turned my ask boxes/anon/chats off on most of my blogs, and then eventually just...got tired of running them.

When I started up appreciatederek, I got a couple asks from people who wanted to know if it was going to be multiship or just Sterek, and when I said it was Sterek, they presumably went off to find other things they were into, because I never heard from them again. Y’know, the reasonable reaction. And then the rest of it was wonderful: finding content for it, and getting responses from people who enjoyed that content.

I thought appreciateshiro would be similar, but it was all so messy from the very start. The Sheith tag was FULL of hate. I was initially checking it every day, trying to find artists and writers and gif-makers to reblog and encourage and support, like I’d done in Sterek fandom, but instead I’d spend literal hours blocking people who came into that tag just to talk about how much they hated the ship.

Every day, I’d look for content for my OTP, and every day I’d come away from it angry and sad and frustrated. I never seemed to run out of people to block. And they never, ever seemed to run out of hate.

It was exhausting. It made me reluctant to go on tumblr at all. And eventually I just...sorta stopped.

So the answer to this question is more, I guess, “fandom made me stop liking tumblr, and in the process I stopped liking most fandoms.”

I’m sure you can kinda tell from the fandoms I’m currently the most invested in.

I love Sterek, and I will always love Sterek. Part of that’s the ship itself, of course, and part is because I had an incredible fandom experience with it. People within this fandom are still really great - always so welcoming and super excited about new content, even so many years on.

Otherwise, my current fandoms are kiiiiinda tiny:

Xanatowen (Gargoyles), which currently consists of exactly 2 people and 12 fics (3 of which are mine).

Trevorcard (Castlevania), which only has ~200 fics on AO3.

Taibani (Tiger & Bunny), which is an oldish fandom with only ~600 fics on AO3.

Remember, I came from a fandom that has SIXTY THOUSAND fics.

So while I feel very lonely and very sad about the low content levels in these fandoms, they’ve also given me the space to let go of some of my fandom hurt & anger and remember what it’s like to just...peacefully love something. I really miss just loving things and talking about loving those things and searching for other people who also love those things without running into....thousands upon thousands of people who HATE that you love that thing.

(Until I wrote all that out just now, I actually hadn’t realized how much this had still been hanging over me, or why I was so hesitant to come back to “reclaim” a space I’d once been super active and happy in. Essay over! Next questions.)

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Answered here!

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Answered here! 

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Found family. This is probably a big part of why Sterek was my first real fandom, because the idea of Pack makes it incredibly natural to build out relationships beyond just the central romantic pairing. 

It doesn’t have to be a werewolf thing, though. I’m honestly not hugely fond of the whole puppy piles concept - I’m less interested in “biological urges make characters literally physically all snuggle up together in bed” than I am in the actual build of the friendships, and the concept of choosing people who will become the family you’ve been missing for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s reconnecting with biological family, or maybe it’s discovering that your friends have been filling that space for you all along, without you even fully realizing it. (The concept of “home” is another big one for me. Home is where your heart is etc etc.)

And hey! Now I can pull back in another question from earlier: about “pairings” that I might not have initially considered. As I suspected, I do have more! Mostly platonic.

For instance: Derek and Sheriff Stilinski becoming bffs. I thiiiink I can probably tie my ABSOLUTE LOVE of this concept back to HalfFizzbin’s can't be hateful, gotta be grateful. And then Cupboard Love really has to be the source of ALL my alive!Hales feels, which also includes folding Stiles into their family.

Fic is largely responsible for building out Derek’s relationship with Boyd, Erica, Isaac, his sisters...making them into an actual pack and friends and family in the way the show never bothered. And frankly while I don’t like canon!Scott at all at this point, I love his friendship with Stiles in fics, and I absolutely believe Stiles and Lydia would be amazing friends once he got past his crush on her. I’d point to another fic here, owlpostagain’s will to follow through, as the ultimate source for major Team Human feels.

So yeah. I’m always going to be drawn to stories about family, in whatever form that takes, particularly if it’s one that’s a little bit off the normal white-picket-fence path.

In Tiger & Bunny, it’s Barnaby joining the Kaburagi family, and learning how to be a dad and a friend to his new husband’s daughter.

In Gargoyles, I’m completely obsessed with the (canonical!) idea of a family that consists of a man, his wife, their son, and the chaotically loyal fae babysitter/tutor/third parent. It is not a stretch to tweak this the tiiiiiiniest bit to turn it into a nontraditional family structure of a man, his wife, his son, and his fae boyfriend. Honestly.

In Castlevania, the fic that made me sob my eyes out at one point does something the show would absolutely never. It gives Alucard the time to rebuild his physical home while befriending the people in the little town that crops up around it. It’s about Trevor and Alucard falling in love, but it’s also about them making a place for themselves in a world where that kind of comfort and stability and friendship is so badly needed.

I think we all kinda need that in our world right now. So I love being able to find it in fic, for the characters who’ve grown to mean something to me.

#meme #fandom talk #long post #littlerosetrove #did tumblr seriously break my read more and stick it up in the ask section #i don't even know #thanks tumblr

[fallingin-like]

november 1

atlas by @purearcticfire / @pipedream-truths 

see which other fics i’m reviewing this month! / my review request post!

a magic au that features shapeshifters and a cursed neil, so immediately you know i’ll like it. this fic has some cool uses of italics, caps, spacing, etc. that creates a stylized story that helps build tone and gives the story a clearer voice. this was such a fun read and it gets very intense. this fic is incomplete.

[also! this review is formatted differently than all the rest, my apologies if it’s a bit harder to read]

okay so i really can’t review this fic without talking about the petty races. the rookie’s foot race is just so perfect for neil, of course he’d be obsessed with them. i think it was also an amazing introduction to this universe, and how different people can use their powers in different ways, the existence of potions, half transformations, what the transformations look like for different people. it’s such a fascinating was to learn and see how neil uses all these things in his strategy to win. we see that pegasi exist?? i’m so interested in learning all the intricacies of the creatures and magic in this universe. i really like shapeshifter!au’s, probably because i really want to be able to shapeshift.

i love reading about neil during these foot races, i feel so invested in his success, i’m excited when i see that he’s about to win, and heartbroken when he doesn’t. you are so good at conveying his experience during that second race. the way you write when neil is disoriented confuses me too, i’m lost in the orange and memories, and then of course, the curse. one of my favourite parts of this fic is the repetition of ‘blood of years, blood of tears, blood of fears’ etc. ugh it’s just so good, gives me chills. the curse causing his old wounds to reopen, the black blood to seep everywhere, the loss of movement in some of his limbs, it’s all so ominous and mysterious. i also like the way that you combine canon events with your fic, how neil meets hernandez and how that introduces him to the foxes. it’s so fluid and natural. the hatford grimoire is really cool too and i love that nobody else will be able to read it. makes me worry less for future neil’s privacy haha

the concept of being inside neil’s magic is so unique, seeing the bonds that he shares, how he mourns the bond with his mother. one of the things that has stuck with me the most about this whole fic is the forest that is introduced, with all of his bonds to the animals he can shift into, wow. i’ll get into this more when i get to that part of the fic.

although this fic is, for the most part serious, i admire your ability to lighten the tone. it makes it seem more realistic. the easy camaraderie between hernandez and neil like when he says ‘if i ever need a team of getaway drivers, i’ll know who to call first.’ and of course we get a glimpse of Neil Bad Ideas Josten when he says ‘he could just… run another race’

i really enjoy reading from andrew’s perspective, so it’s great that this fic does a mix of both neil and andrew povs. wymack having fire powers that correspond to his tattoos? oh yeah. the scene where kevin is first introduced is so well written, detailed but still able to convey the panic and quick decisions being made. and of course, neil’s race. it feels so typically neil to enter the race and actually win it, almost without the use of magic. and the consequences of the magic he does do is scares me everytime. i can imagine the black blood so vividly, imagine neil stubbornly not accepting the temporary paralysis of his legs. i can’t help but think, he must be so scared under all of that. the unknown of this curse, being trapped with unfamiliar people, the loss of his mother.

andrew and renee’s relationship is always an interesting one. i liked the way you used it, to introduce the characters and also establish the tone of these foxes. i thought it was super cute that the two of them ended up building tiny matchstick houses (and also it makes me really want to build a tiny matchstick house). it seems like such an andrew tactic to use horse tranquilizer. like boy, you’re wondering why neil has built up immunity to horse tranquilizer (which is fair and also hilarious),and i’m over here wondering why you guys are carrying around horse tranquilizer in the first place.

the concept of wymack’s key is really cool to me, it helps demonstrate what magic is capable of in this universe and also who wymack is. it being a sigil that can be transferred to any vessel? ahh i love it, and you know that this will be important later in the story. there’s so much anticipation to hear that neil is going to run for the foxes, i feel like that’s kind of a given, but it doesn’t make it any less exciting to see what’s in store for the team and what different events are offered at these competitions. i like the way you describe the shadows and that they’re alive and should be respected. also what in the world the annex is so cool, i am always interested in hearing about buildings with magical space that expands/contracts. is the building sentient? or do people have to use magic to expand it? neil’s thoughts in this annex are such a great addition to this chapter. ‘but this shop the annex-it’s a place to rest. that knowledge was a knife scraping against his ribs. his heartstrings tangled in a knot of want and need and he had no idea how much he would lose if he snipped it clean. when he cut and run… he should be scared of what lies behind that secret door. instead he paces in the back room, scared he won’t ever get to see it again.’ i love that imagery about the knife, i know how that feels. to do the thing that you know is self destructive because you want so bad. and in the midst of his inner turmoil, we have andrew, who breaks neil free of this. 

have you ever read ‘the rithmatist’ by brandon sanderson? it’s a really interesting book (i think it’s a series but i only read the first one) and the arimathean circle and every mention of runes reminds me of it. and we meet kevin! this first interaction between them is the best.

k-you still can’t do magic?

n-want to find out

k-andrew i thought you didnt break the curse

a-i didn’t

k-so you can’t do magic

n-fight me

I LOVE THIS. also: rosemary (love how it is repeated throughout the fic. it was something i really remembered and enjoyed. does that work irl too? bc goodness knows i need help w/ fatigue) and of course, ‘i’m training with kevin’, ‘for how long?’, ‘neil blanks his face. “til i’m the best”’ haha these boys. and then neil just goes and injures himself as much as possible in the arena. an homage to him blowing out his arms trying to score against andrew? or just neil being himself and not understanding that sometimes you need to stop.

renee being a bloodbender?? so perfect. it also reminds me of gluupor’s fic “no mourners, no funerals” where she was a heartrender. these powers fit renee so well, with the ability to do so much bad and so much good. ‘one more thing. are your parents still alive?’ i’ve read this fic twice now (on my third time) and each time this makes me start to sweat. because at this point we don’t really know what’s going on with nathan?? is he actually dead or has he convinced himself that he is dead and is secretly alive. i like the way that you had andrew dig through neil’s stuff while he was sleeping. sometimes i can find the way the author is writing their fic makes it hard for me to believe that he would leave his duffel alone. andrew being one-upped by neil’s gun? totally unexpected but it’s one of the only believable ways that this version of andrew would leave neil alone i think. this scar reveal was really good too, it adds suspense to the curse and i just really like when neil shows his scars off i guess.

columbia time! sometimes i can forget that neil doesn’t know the rest of the foxes and i really like his reaction to meeting aaron. he’s immediately concerned and i’m immediately interested in the existence of a face changer. faeries!! i really like that eden’s is faerie land, where it’s always twilight and it’s the perfect setting for the Interrogation that we all know is to come. also what in the world andrew and aaron just make a truth serum in like 0.2 seconds?? wild times. and, of course, neil shifts into a cat, both to escape this situation and to be dramatic. i am wondering though, why has he avoided shifting up until this point? is it because they think this may cause the curse to get worse? oh dang wait is it because the rest of the foxes don’t know he’s a shifter yet? also what’s with the time between aaron and andrew? what do they do during this time?

great scene with wymack and andrew. they have such a unique relationship, wymack is likely the first adult that andrew has trusted. and he’s trusted him with a lot. wymack has given andrew a place to be, a team to compete with, a job, and a family. the two of them are both just trying to keep the people they love safe and i think that’s part of why they understand each other.

wow something i love in general, not just in fics or as part of this fandom, is capable characters. it gets me so excited to hear how skilled neil is in his shifting. when we are in his perspective, it’s such an ordinary thing for him, he just shifts and that’s it. for andrew to say that neil’s shifting is like artistry? i’m so far gone right now. 

THIS NEXT PART IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PARTS!! first, love the idea of astral projections, it’s such a smart way to do this. but the best best part of this scene is when neil gets his chance to yell at kevin. i can’t imagine how much fun this must have been to write. and then we have neil, paying the price for using his magic to help kevin. i can’t read fast enough as andrew tries to find a way to get through the circle before neil drowns in his blood. are you kidding me, following such a lighthearted scene by breaking my heart. this is the definition of hurt/comfort, i think. we have the boys playing around, then almost losing neil, and we get to experience neil’s magic greeting andrew. ‘hello rock, for it knows him as the rock the curse breaks against.’ what a beautiful sentence. and andrew, leaving himself vulnerable to the world, does his best to help neil. ‘just andrew, breaking curses and breaking himself in the process.’ ahh you have such a way with words. it seems so simple. it’s so easy to read and it seems like it was so easy to write. like the words just flowed out of you and to me. all the imagery of the grove of neil’s magic is so wonderful, the wisps and bonds, and rock. it’s so interesting seeing this other side of the curse’s destruction. we learn more about andrew too, about his connection to curses, ‘maybe a curse isn’t so different from me, the world determined to break the both of us.’ oh my goodness andrew. also! i always forget that neil has his true appearance hidden!! bless the reveal of how he’s somehow even more attractive than we thought before. ‘neil rolls his eyes so hard he topples over’ i have this sentence bookmarked (i have the fic downloaded so i can read it offline) because i love this so much haha. 

okay so i knew that andrew had no magic because i’ve read this fic before, but the first time i did i was blown away! wymack’s fire whiskey is so cool! i’d be so interested in hearing if other people can do that with their powers. can andrew drink whiskey with renee’s magic and be able to do blood magic? 

this chapter has race day! i think one of the best things that you do with this fic is how well you explain the universe. you describe the magic without just telling us what it’s like, just letting readers experience it for themselves and learn new things as the story progresses. you don’t do this when explaining the relay. (and that’s a good thing) you are clear on how the rules work, on what the objectives of each team, and position is, who will be doing what, and how the game is won. by getting this out of the way, it allows the readers to really focus on what’s actually happening, and not trying to understand what everyone is doing. i am easily confused, but the relay was so clear that i didn’t have any trouble understanding. at the same time, you did it in a way that wasn’t boring. i’m so glad, because the relay was so entertaining. i was so invested, what an intense game, especially with so many players that are simultaneously doing different tasks. it’s different from exy, where the main focus is on where the ball is. you did a really great job with this part!!

renee and andrew’s text conversation was really cute~ and then you go and destroy me with the andrew/lola confrontation. hhhh i can’t describe how i felt reading this section of this chapter other than just asldjflaskd. bless andrew for his arimathean circle, i’m glad someone around here is using their brain because whAT IN THE WORLD NEIL YOU JUST GO WITH RIKO AND TURN INTO A RAVEN AND THEN USE YOUR MAGIC AND PASS OUT. everything is so wild and so crazy and then to end the chapter you have something funny??? i don’t understand how you can be so good at writing to do this?? i just absolutely adore neil’s texts. something about the lowercase, the lack of punctuation, and just his nonchalance about the whole situation. i really cannot believe that you were able to tie up this crazy amazing chapter so perfectly. 

the beginning of the final chapter dives right in immediately. i always like when fics have neil having nightmares while in the car, of course he does. it seems likely to me that he associates falling asleep in the car with his time on the run, and his body can’t help but fall back into the panic mode that it must have been stuck in for years. and yet now, andrew being hurt is one of his biggest fears, it shows the evolution of the relationship with him. and ugh i love the end of this scene, andrew’s fear is shown, even if you never directly describe it.

this next part is a shifting point in the fic too, when we see how strong the bond between andrew and neil is, when they share what has happened to them, when we learn that when neil shifts it stops the curse. also maybe i’m just going a little crazy from such a long review, but i don’t understand what happens when neil and bee introduce themselves? why does andrew laugh?? but man i love the death humour that you incorporate so seamlessly. deadline?? the best is that it’s wymack and he didn’t even mean it!! 

rosemary rosemary!! sooo cute. i also like the formatting for neil doing the meditating thing with bee, the new lines are so nice. it makes the words seem quieter? somehow it sets the tone better.

okay so any time before where i said that it was my favourite part? i was wrong. because neil shifting into all these animals? it’s probably my favourite part of this whole fic. the mannerisms he adopts while a different animal are really interesting to read about. i especially liked all the times when he sank too deep into the skin. with the crow, being distracted by something shiny, processing humanspeak, fully taking on the mind of a crow. bolting as a wolf. you also take this opportunity and have a lot of fun with it, which makes it fun to read. neil being a chihuahua? adorable. a ferret? cute! i feel like i remember him being a goat but now i can’t find if that actually happened. and the mentions of neil being a moose or zebra or cow oh my goodness haha i love it! cat!neil is something that makes me feel so soft. (also reminds me of idnis’ fic curiousity killed the cat. which i adore) i think that being a cat would be really fun. and oh, to hear that the curse still affects neil in his different skins. “andrew andrew you’re the only person i want to be around when i’m in pain the person i always want to be around’ i can’t even describe how this makes me feel. i love that you don’t have punctuation, it fits how i would think bond communication works. i read this and i get achy, it’s so much and i want so bad.

another thing that i remembered liking so clearly were the little bits that you have in all caps. they are perfect breaks in the chapter that feel kind of like a warning. you know something bad is coming. maybe you’re going to explain it in the last chapter what it is? it is obviously some sort of conversation. something found in the hatford grimoire? oh my goodness i totally forgot that we haven’t had much use of it, that must be something that’s going to be brought up again. ahhh. WAIT A SECOND IS IT TO GET US READY FOR THE FACT THAT NEIL’S BONDS WITH ALL THE ANIMALS HE CAN SHIFT INTO ARE GOING TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES. oh hold on anothER second is it conversation between kevin and neil when they were training? ahhhHHh

the whole showdown is so intense and so fast and so well written i don’t know what else to say.

‘renee eviscerates her.’ - do i even need to comment on why i love this so much? it’s one of my bookmarks. i don’t have any notes, just the quote. 

i’ve reached the end of what’s posted right now. i’m glad that there’s still an update to come, although i accepted that this was the end of the fic (when i first read it i had believed that the fifth chapter was meant so that you could insert the art that corresponds to this fic)

as you can tell, there was so much i enjoyed about this fic. there’s something about the way that you write that is so simple. i don’t have to try when reading. it doesn’t feel like i’m reading, i’m just following the story. it’s also such a well developed universe and i’m really impressed by how you were able to incorporate all of the magical aspects into the plot and explain everything so clearly without it being too obvious. this fic was funny at all the right times, and yet had angst like woahhh. you maintained a great balance between lighthearted scenes, seriousness, relationship/character development, and plot. i get so lost in reading this fic that time passes so quickly.

i really hope that more people find this fic, i think it’s such a shame that it doesn’t seem to be as appreciated as it should be. you can tell it’s something special though, with so many people bookmarking it. thank you so so much for writing this fic and choosing to share it with the fandom! i am so excited that there is another chapter for this, i’m sure that it’s amazing, regardless of how you think it seems. 

#atlas #aftg fic review #raelle writes

[gondalsqueen]

Chapters: 18/18 Fandom: Star Wars: Rebels Rating: Explicit Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla, Ketsu Onyo/Sabine Wren, Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios Characters: Hera Syndulla, C1-10P | Chopper, Original Characters, Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, Sabine Wren, Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Alexsandr Kallus, CT-7567 | Rex, Mart Mattin, Wedge Antilles, Ketsu Onyo, Jacen Syndulla, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Ackbar (Star Wars), Lando Calrissian, Jan Dodonna, Ahsoka Tano Additional Tags: Pregnancy, vague mentions of abortion, future character death in the background, Season/Series 04, Established Relationship, Oral Sex, Chair Sex, Table Sex, sex during pregnancy, chapter 2 has lots of sex, Secrets, the best pilot in the galaxy, flying combat, character injury, canon torture, flight of the defender, rebel assault, Jedi Night, Major character death - Freeform, Grief, Morning Sickness, Counseling, Masturbation, Dreams, Traditions, Space family, Inappropriate bets, Lothal, Shopping, down time, Space Combat, Battle of Scarif, Rogue One - Freeform, hammerhead corvette!, Yavin 4, Stardust - Freeform, Alderaan, Death Star, labor, Childbirth, domestic life, Lothwolves, Dogfight - Freeform, Hoth, did i mention babies yet?, Babies!, One baby, Work/Life Balance, Advice, Bounty Hunters, Capture, this story has it all apparently, Return of the Jedi, Second Death Star, Existential Anxiety, parenting, Breakups, wine and cheesecake, wine and cheesecake needs its own tag, battle of endor, Battle for Coruscant, forces of destiny: an imperial feast, The New Republic - Freeform, Quests, letting go, Travel, ask me no questions i'll tell you no lies, but one of these days you'll get a surprise Summary: The end. Kind of. 

...

Something had happened to Ezra out there, something he wasn’t ready to talk about until after this vacation was over. None of them pried. He was...different, in a lot of ways. Grown up. He finally believed in his own adequacy. With that confidence came an edge of brooding that reminded her of Kanan, though. Hera hoped he stuck around where they could support him, whatever he was facing.

In other ways he was still their Ezra—surprisingly predictable given all the time that had passed, and still the baby of the crew until they adjusted their thinking and changed the way they treated him accordingly.

To no one’s surprise, he and Jacen got along well. Their bonding mostly consisted of wrestling, with some sword fighting and a little chase for variety. Hera could have done without the just-before-bed play that infallibly kept Jacen awake and hyper. She didn’t say anything, though, because the two of them had a lot of time to make up for.  

Tonight Jacen was trying to push Ezra into Alexsandr’s small fishpond. Since Ezra vastly outweighed him he was failing, but he made up for it by practically strangling his opponent in the process — by accident, Hera was pretty sure. Really, Ezra had bought this when he picked Jacen up off the ground and threw him over his shoulder.

Oh, and that was a knee in the face.

“Ow!” Ezra protested. “Kid, you are deadly!” He twisted out from under Jacen and somehow they both ended up on their feet, facing each other. Quick as a flash, Ezra tapped Jacen’s shoulder.

“Hey!”

“Block me, then. Like this.” He showed Jacen how to bring his hands up in front of him and deflect the blows. Then he tapped Jace’s knee. “Got you! This is how you block with your feet. Try to tap my knees.”

“Your shoulders, too!”

“Sure, if you can reach.”

Hera watched her son eye a nearby boulder. She hoped he was planning to climb on it and not throw it at Ezra.

Then they both went at each other, jumping towards a shoulder or knee and dashing out again, blocking on one side and darting in on the other. Ezra went easy on Jacen, but he sped up as they played and Jace kept pace with him.

The whole thing ended when Jacen got sick of it, yelled “ATTACK!” and somersaulted across the ground towards his target. He bumped harmlessly against Ezra’s legs, but in the attempt not to step on him Ezra backpedalled and, with a whirling of arms, ended up in the water.

Hmm. Somehow they had both ended up in the water.

“Bathtime!” Hera called.

“It’s not!”

“It is, in fact, a solid hour past BEDtime.”

Ezra hit the shower in Zeb’s place while Hera scrubbed the slime off of Jacen in the Ghost’s fresher. Forty-five minutes later they’d finished showering, cleaning teeth, a snack that he didn’t ask permission to get, and teeth a second time, and they were cuddled together on Jacen’s bunk reading their nightly chapter of whatever novel Jace had picked. Since he’d gotten old enough to understand them, he’d mostly chosen from a children’s series of adventure stories about — guess what? — Jedi. Hera, remembering her own childhood, couldn’t blame him.

She read: “Shuyen closed her eyes and took a deep breath, reaching out to the Force as she fell. She could feel the air rushing past her. The wind whipped at her face roughly, but it wasn’t enough to hold her up…”

Sabine passed by the door and stopped to listen for a minute. “Are you reading Knights of the Old Republic to him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sending mixed messages, don’t you think?”

“He likes it,” Hera told her, aware of how defensive she sounded. “It’s a good story. Who am I to tell him what to like?”

Sabine held her hands up. “Fair enough. Carry on.”

Hera finished the chapter, the Jedi who had fallen off the cliff while being chased by Sith warriors arriving unscathed back at the temple. “That’s a good stopping place for tonight,” she told Jacen, smoothing his hair back. He’d started to grow it out and they were both learning how to manage the tangles that was causing, but right now it was clean and brushed and smelled like shampoo, and she breathed in the scent gratefully.

He nestled into to her side. “Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Is Rex going to come back?”

“No, baby, Rex isn’t going to come back.”

“But Ezra came back.”

“Ezra wasn’t dead, love,” she told him gently. “Nobody comes back from the dead.” She paused for a moment to let that sink in, then continued, “I know it’s hard. It hurts for me, too.”

“I like Ezra.” He was trying to think something out. Hera waited. “But...I’d rather have Rex.”

“I can understand that.”

“But that’s mean of me, right?”

“Well…” she answered as honestly as she could. “You don’t want someone to die. You just miss the person you love. I think it’s very normal. Probably not the best idea to mention it to Ezra, though. It might hurt his feelings.”

He nodded and she tucked him into bed with a song and a kiss. “Sleep,” she told him. “You are exhausted. Go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Jacen said around a big yawn.

Sneaking out of the room a moment later she passed by the open doorway of Ezra’s bunk and caught a snatch of conversation. “...her turn for a while,” Sabine was saying. Then Ezra: “Coruscant is good place to stay, anyway. We’re going to need to talk about defenses. Maybe exploratory missions, but that might be a bad idea. IF they even decide to believe me.”

Keep moving, Hera, she told herself. She went to the cockpit to give the monitors one last check for the evening and tried to remember that Sabine and Ezra were adults and it was perfectly reasonable for them to live on whatever planet they wanted to. But maybe, maybe, maybe she’d get them back for a while. It was worth hoping.

Ezra joined her a few minutes later, a mug of warm hubba juice in each hand. “Best place to watch the sunset,” he explained. The summer sunsets on Lira San were amazing, oranges and purples breaking through the thick cloud cover. Hera swung the copilot’s seat around for him and he passed her a cup.

“Two more days and then Lothal, right?” he asked.

“If that’s still what you want.”

“Yeah. Sabine says it’s changed a lot. I can’t even remember before the Empire came anymore.”

Hera smiled. “It’s a good place. Not perfect, but Azadi made it pretty welcoming even before the Emperor fell.”

“You guys were there a lot.”

“Second home, but it will be better with you back.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged, looking like his teenage self for the moment of the gesture. “Everything’s different, but it’s really good BEING back. I’m still trying to...fit in, I guess.”  

“Hey. You do fit in,” Hera told him, giving the chair a little kick to spin him towards her. “You’re one of ours. And Jace loves having you around. Chop and I are too busy to play with him as much as he’d like, and it’s been a while since we’ve had anyone else on the Ghost.”

“Yeah, Ezra Bridger, Jedi Knight, hero to six-year-olds everywhere.” He rolled his eyes.

Hera laughed. “At first that was the draw, sure. But he had a lot of...anxiety, too. He’d heard stories about you his whole life and he knew how important you were to all of us, and to have you standing before him in the flesh…” She shrugged. “But now I don’t think you’re Ezra Bridger, Jedi Knight. I think you’re his friend.”

“He’s really great, Hera. Thinks he can do anything. He...reminds me of you that way.”

She sighed. “He didn’t know you were a Jedi.”

“Okay.”

“He doesn’t know Kanan was a Jedi.”

A pause. “Okay.” Ezra didn’t push. Once he would have pushed.

“The hand game — those were forms,” Hera said. “Lightsaber forms. I’ve seen you practice them with Kanan.”

“Yeah, well…” Ezra ran his hand over the back of his hair awkwardly. “They’re kind of drilled into me, so I guess I just go there automatically when it comes to fighting. Is...that all right?”

“It’s all right,” she said, picking at the fraying edge of the seat cushion. “It’s good. There are so many things I’ve wanted to ask you about that.”

“About lightsaber forms?”  

She shook her head. “Ezra, I know this seems like a subject change, but...were you happy as a child? Or were you...confused?”

“What do you mean? I had kind of a rotten childhood.”

“Before that. When you were small, with your parents, and you could do things that nobody could explain. Did it confuse you or upset you?”

He considered her words carefully. “Let me think.” After a solid minute of silence, he said, “No. I heard things sometimes that I knew were true, and my mom said they were only my imagination. I think that’s not rare for kids, though. It’s just that in my case, they actually WERE true. The rest of the time, it was just fun to run and jump off of things without worrying about how I was going to land, or to know that people were probably going to believe whatever outrageous lie I told. Stuff like that. Hera… Jacen’s definitely Force sensitive. Does he use any of those abilities?”

“Oh…” she laughed to cover her worry. “Yes.” She’d watched for signs all of his life and could give a detailed list of ‘yes’es ‘no’s and ‘maybe’s. “He’s always been good at picking up moods, but I think he’s just a smart, social kid. Sometimes he knows things that haven’t happened yet, but only in a vague way — he has a feeling that someone’s coming to visit, or he knows we’ll find something around the next corner. He can climb and jump off of anything and he somehow hasn’t broken a bone yet. I don’t mean normal child risk-taking. You saw him take a dive off the Ghost the other day. And then there are the animals that seem to follow him around like he’s some kind of magnet.”

Ezra laughed.

“...which I blame you for,” she added.

“How is that my fault?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet, but the similarity is striking.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“I don’t want him to be a Jedi,” she said more seriously. “I don’t even want him to be a half-Jedi, partially trained. The Force asks...too much. We know how that ends and I won’t give him up that way. But… if I refuse to let him train when it’s available to him, he’s just going to do it anyway, and he’ll end up doing it behind my back, without my support. Or running off.” She thought of her own childhood. “It’s not my place to hold him back if that’s what he wants.”

“Well...does he WANT to be a Jedi?”

“He’s six years old. Every six-year-old wants to be a Jedi.”

“He’d be good at it. Kind. Flexible. Reminds me of someone else I knew.”

“Me too,” she admitted. “That scares me.”

“Hmm.” Ezra thought about that. “There’s not exactly a trade school for Jedi Knights. The few of us left with any ability have no idea what we’re doing. He’ll probably end up using those talents, but using them in some other field.”

“Maybe. But I don’t want to keep him locked away from the world — locked away from himself — because I’m afraid.”

“Hera, you’re not afraid of anything.”

She sighed and stopped picking at the worn corner of the pilot’s chair so he could see her hands shaking. “That’s not true, and I have changed.”

Ezra frowned. “You want me to train him?” he asked. “Is that what this conversation is about?”

“Not...yet. Not now. But I don’t want anybody else to train him.”

“Luke Skywalker is talking about starting a school.”

“NO. I like Luke. He’s a good kid. But he doesn’t understand the dangers… He hasn’t walked that path, and he doesn’t know what it takes to guide your student safely instead of just following the rules.”

“Hera, I don’t know either.”

“That’s okay. Falling is fine as long as there’s someone to catch you. You would never let anything bad happen to him.”

“Hmph.” Ezra crossed his arms and looked out at the clouds, that stone expression on his face. “I wish I could promise that.”

...

From Lira San they traveled to Lothal. Hera let Sabine show Ezra the sights because she had something else to show Jacen.

The bombed-out Imperial hangar wasn’t hard to reach, despite being perched on one of the dolmens at the edge of Capital City. If you took a shuttle, that is. Hera parked the Phantom halfway up the mountain and made them walk the rest of the way because “it will be fun!” Forty minutes into the uphill hike, Jacen wasn’t finding it particularly fun.

“Why couldn’t we just FLY up there?” he asked, perilously close to a whine.

“Because we’re taking a nice hike together and it’s going to be more enjoyable to see if you make it there yourself than if you just fly up and park.”

Poor kid — his hair was a sweaty wreck. “To be clear,” he said. “I AM getting a real birthday party tomorrow, with friends and cake and stuff, right?”

“Padawan’s honor. Sabine even made you guys those robes and staffs so you could dress up as High Jedi. Though I still don’t know what a High Jedi is.”

“It’s like a really wise, powerful Jedi,” Jacen explained. “Kind of like a wizard.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“It’s from Rangers of the Force.”

“I didn’t know you could read books that hard.”

“I listened to it.”

“Oh. Okay. Look, we made it.” Hera climbed the short flight of steps and crawled over the rubble blocking what had once been the workers’ entrance. Then she waited for Jacen to do the same.

“Whew!”

“It’s cooler up here.” Jacen spread himself dramatically on the floor.

“Yeah, we’re out of the sun.” She handed him the canteen and waited for him to take a long drink. “You recovered?” He nodded. “Good. Come see what Sabine did.”

He saw the mural as soon as he looked up, and his reaction was everything Hera had hoped for. A shout, and he rushed up to get a closer look. “It’s you guys!”

“Yeah.”

“You look like heroes! Like you’re from a holoshow.”

“Sabine makes good art.”

His brow creased in that thinking look. “Were you heroes?”

“Yes,” Hera admitted. “We were.”

“Sabine,” he pointed. “Ezra. His head looks small in this picture. Zeb and Chop. Hey, look at these lothcats! There’s you. Where am I?”

Hera touched her mid-section in the picture, right on the buttons of her flight suit. “Here.”

“So I came with you when you were heroes?”

“Sure.”

“So I helped save Lothal?”

“Let’s say you were along for the ride.”

But now he was pointing above mural-Hera’s shoulder. “That’s Dad.”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“I don’t think I look very much like him.”

“Well, you’re shorter.”

“Hey!”

She grinned at him, but he shook his head and said, “Uh-uh. You’re sad.”

“Only a little sad.”

“You miss him.”

“Yes,” Hera said honestly, “but that’s not why I brought you here today. I need to show you something else, something… kind of secret.”

“Okay.”

Hera took a portable projector from her bag and placed it on the floor. “Come sit by me. Seven years old is big enough to see this.” They sat cross-legged on the ground and Hera switched on the projector.

“That’s Dad!”

“Yes.”

“What’s he got?”

Kanan was fitting together two metal tubes. He gave them a practiced twist, then ignited the lightsaber.

Jacen lost it. “WHAT?! Where did he GET that?”

“Hi, kid,” Kanan said to the recorder. “Thought I’d go through a few practice drills here, in case you ever need to see them when I’m not around.” He was talking to Ezra, but Jacen didn’t know that. Hera skipped past the part where he demonstrated the basic techniques and on to the segment where he showed the moves in practice by fighting ten combat remotes, leaping into the air, twisting, deflecting shots… He was using the Ghost’s hold as his staging area, which had irritated Hera to no end at the time because those remotes were firing live blaster bolts. The flip from the ground to the platform four meters above his head was awfully impressive, though, she had to admit.

“How did he DO that?”

Another of him and Ezra training together, both blindfolded, going through forms. Hera watched Kanan’s shoulder rotate as the blade spun, the twist of hips as he altered his stance. It was so familiar and so long ago, all at the same time.

“Mama, tell me.” He knew, but he didn’t want to say it.

“He’s a Jedi, Jace. He was raised in the temple on Coruscant and sent out to fight during the Clone Wars. One of the last Jedi Knights.”

“But...” he trailed off.

“I know it’s a lot to take in. Do you want to see a little more?”

“Yes!”

She’d edited this compilation carefully so they got no footage of actual battles. Next Kanan was tossing Sabine in the air over and over, a little Sabine — she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. He’d throw her impossibly high, and then she’d twist in mid-air, draw her blasters, and fire at a target. Jacen laughed. “Ah-ha, they’re good!” Another of that terrible competition he’d had with Zeb, where Zeb picked up Imperial speeder bikes and threw them at Kanan, who caught every one in mid-air. Okay, that probably wasn’t the best thing to include. One of Hera herself cradled in Kanan’s arms, the laughter near the microphone indicating that Ezra was recording.

“Ready?” Kanan asked.

“Go,” Ezra told him.

Kanan jumped up the Ghost’s ladder one rung at a time, tilted impossibly backwards, holding her. Hera from long ago shrieked in laughter. “I get five credits when I do this, right?” Kanan asked.

“Cheating,” said Ezra’s voice.

“I did TELL you I could do it.” Thunk, up another ring. Thunk, up the next. “See, what you want to do is bend your knees…” Kanan explained, annoyingly pedantic. “Then you absorb most of the shock, especially when you have to land rough.” He rolled at the last moment, still holding Hera, and came up on his feet on the upper platform, neither of them worse for the wear.

“Hey!” Hera-from-the-vid protested. “Warn me!”

“Okay,” Kanan said. “Roll up in a ball, I’m going to toss you to Ezra now so he can practice.”

“No, no, wait!” Ezra yelled. “Wait, let me put the recorder down!” The image went sideways and the recorder died abruptly on the sound of their laughter.

Jacen was watching with a wistful, half-jealous expression. “Nobody ever told me he was a Jedi.”

“Well…” Hera considered. “What DID they tell you?”

“Zeb says he could drink a whole gallon of milk in five minutes without throwing up.”

“Yeah, only part of that is true. And don’t try it.”

“Sabine said he loved you the very most, and he’d never let anything in the whole galaxy hurt you.”

She took a deep breath, willing herself to stay calm. “That is true.”

“And that he was a really good dad and he understood when people got upset or lost their temper and he wouldn’t yell at them.”

“That’s true too.”

“But he wasn’t really Sabine’s or Ezra’s dad, right?”

“No, but he...took care of them when they were kids. Big kids. And he taught them a lot of things.”

Jacen’s eyes lit with realization. “He taught Ezra how to be a Jedi! That’s why they were doing those slow moves with the lightsabers.”

Her kid was too smart.

But now he was mulling over something else. “...He was my dad.”

“Yes.”

“He never met me.”

“Technically, no, but he knew you were on the way.”

“How?”

“You know how you can tell where animals are, even the small ones? You found Alexsandr’s baby chicks when the rest of us were looking in the wrong place.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the Force, Jacen. He felt you like that before you were born. I’ll bet you guys had whole secret conversations, what do you think?”

Jacen shrugged, clearly pleased by the idea. “So how come you never told me he was a Jedi? And you COULD have told me, lots of times.”

There was the question she’d been waiting for. “Because it wasn’t safe, Jace. The Emperor killed all the Jedi, even the little kids. Only a few of them got away, and then they had to survive by hiding because the Emperor was still hunting.”

“But he died when I was little.”

“Yes, but being a Jedi is still not exactly safe.”

“You mean people are still hunting them?”

“No, I mean they’re still...heroes. Which is good, but it also means that bad guys don’t like them much. You have to learn to keep yourself safe when you’re a hero, and that takes time. I wanted to wait until you were big enough to understand that a little.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t want to be a Jedi.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. If you want to learn to be a Jedi when you get older, I’ll be right there with you. But I want you to understand that there’s always more to these stories than what you hear. And I don’t want you to think that fighting makes you a good person. I didn’t love your dad because he was a Jedi. I loved him because he was kind and funny and understanding, and he couldn’t bear to see anybody in pain without trying to help. And because he never gave up on people. I see a lot of those qualities in you already. You don’t need a lightsaber to be a good person.” Oh, great, now she was sad again.

And Jacen had picked up on it. “Were you scared when he died?”

“So scared. But what do we say?”

“Be afraid,” he said quietly, “but do it anyway.”

“Right.”

A wolf howled nearby, in the middle of the day.

“That’s a lothwolf?” Jacen asked.

Hera nodded. “I think they’re coming to see you. I don’t know why, though.”

“I do.”

“You do? Why?”

“They say goodbyes are over. It’s time for hellos.”  

#kanera #hera syndulla #jacen syndulla #ezra bridger #fanfiction #swr spoilers #next season #revelations

[yumeka36]

Being bullied for your hobbies

I didn’t experience any kind of teasing or bullying for my hobbies in school until my second year of middle school, which is, ironically, the same year my Pokemon fandom began. Unfortunately I went to a private and snobby middle school, and none of my classmates shared my interest in it. One reason could be that I got into Pokemon at an older age than most kids at that time; the majority of kids getting into it were around 7-10 years old while I was 13-14. So many of the younger boys at my school were into it, so of course, being in middle school where peer pressure is rampant, you were considered a nerd if you were older than them but liked the same things. All the girls my age were into boys, glamour, dating, the latest hit movies and TV shows, and other teenager stuff. So liking Pokemon and cartoons at my age was out of the question! As far as actual incidents of bullying, there was one girl in particular who would always mock my Pokemon obsession. She wouldn’t attack me directly per se, but she’d do it by making subtle comments in my presence. For example, she had a 6 year old brother who also liked Pokemon and one day when I brought my Poke-Dex toy to school, she said something like “Oh, my brother has that, but he’s 6 years old…the right age.” And another time when I brought a magazine to school that had Pokemon fan art drawn by artists in their late teens and I showed it to her, trying to prove to her that older teenagers like Pokemon too, she said “Well, they must have no life.” Then another time when I took a Pokemon book out of my locker, she tried to take it away from me and give me a fashion magazine instead.

There were countless other incidents like that with her, and a few with other students too. When we were talking about going to high school one day in class, and this other girl found out I like Pokemon, she was like “You’re going to high school? Drop the Pokemon” (wish I could tell her now how Pokemon is what helped me make friends in high school!) Then I remember another time Pokemon somehow came up in the topic the teacher was discussing and some boy blurted out “Isn’t Pokemon for preschoolers or something?” and the whole class laughed while I just sat there feeling awkward. I even recall a couple of my teachers saying Pokemon is stupid, and one time, when I had brought my Pokemon Red version to play on the bus when we were on a school trip, one of my teachers noticed it and, after confirming that it was Pokemon I was playing, he asked the girl next to me “You like Pokemon too?” and she said “No, I hate Pokemon!” Then he turned back to me and said, “Hear that? She HATES Pokemon!” I don’t think I responded at all and just continued to feel bad.

As you can see, compared to extreme bullying cases you hear about, this is pretty mild. I wasn’t being verbally or physically abused and no one was vandalizing my stuff or anything like that. It was just a lot of hurtful remarks which, at that impressionable age, inhibited my self-esteem and made me keep thinking something was wrong with me for not being like everyone else. Luckily I had a couple of friends outside of school who liked Pokemon and I could share my hobby with.

Thankfully I went to a public high school with thousands of students, so there were plenty of “nerds” like me who liked anime and video games. That, together with the fact that during those years, anime was becoming more well known as a form of entertainment for adults too, with anime DVDs becoming available everywhere and anime airing on TV via Adult Swim and Toonami, so that helped make it more acceptable to like by the time I got to high school. Surprisingly, despite covering my school notebook in anime pictures and wearing anime shirts to school, I don’t recall being put down about it at all. Everyone just ignored it, or, if they were anime fans too, they’d compliment my stuff. That’s how I made a lot of friends in high school actually. It was also around this time that I started learning how lucky I was in terms of having a mom who supported my anime fandom and didn’t put me down for liking so-called childish things. A couple of my friends in high school weren’t so lucky and were constantly being harassed by their parents for liking “cartoons” at their age. While my mom was always buying me the anime stuff I wanted, it baffled me how my friends’ parents would never buy them anime stuff for their birthday, Christmas, etc., even though that’s what they really liked. Some years later when I was in college and I was telling one of these friends how my other friends who like anime got accepted to these prestigious universities, she said she had to tell her mom about that – that she had to prove to her mom that you could be an anime fan and still be smart and do well in school. It made me sad to think that people were that ignorant.

Luckily my only account of bullying in school was when I was into Pokemon in middle school, and luckily I never had any family members put me down about liking the stuff I like either (since my family is basically just my mom and she has total respect for it, and the 2-3 other family members I have I’m hardly in touch with, but they don’t mind either). But besides school and home, there is another place where you have no choice but to interact with people who might not approve of your tastes: the workplace. At my first job at a greeting card/gift store, a few of the girls working there would tease me about liking anime, insisting that it was all hentai and I was watching perverted stuff. Of course I would try to tell them that not all anime is hentai, but they wouldn’t listen. I would even fantasize about how I would someday get up the nerve to tell them about the stories of good anime series I was watching at the time, like Nana and Fullmetal Alchemist, so they couldn’t keep saying all anime is hentai and may even get interested in watching it themselves (I never did get up the nerve though). But it wasn’t anything serious, just a few remarks here and there, and unlike being teased for liking Pokemon as a kid, I was an adult by then and I didn’t let it get me down at all. It was just a little annoyance.

Looking back on these incidents now, I have to say that it’s true that people act differently as a group than by themselves. Back in middle school, most of the girls acted alright when it was just me and them. Even that one girl who always teased me about Pokemon acted nice to me when it was just me and her. I remember we used to both get dropped off early to school before most of the other kids and so we’d hang out together and I’d be playing Pokemon and she wouldn’t have any snide remarks. Sometimes she’d even talk to me about it in a friendly way. But once the other girls were around, she changed her tune. Another girl even went so far as to act like she liked Pokemon too when it was just me and her, saying how she would have certain Pokemon cards I would tell her about. But then she’d make fun of it as soon as the other kids were around. And even among the adults at my first job, they wouldn’t make any hentai comments when it was just me and one of them, only when they were in a group. It really is interesting how people can be persuaded to act differently than they normally would when they’re in a group and they don’t have enough self-confidence to overcome peer pressure. Which is why I’ve always felt that “I like individuals, but not people so much.” Unless the thing that someone likes is immoral and by taking part in it they’re causing actual harm to others, I don’t think anyone should be put down for the things they enjoy.

Anyway, I guess I’m lucky that my mom always respected my hobbies, and once I got away from that snobby middle school, I met a ton of fellow anime fans throughout the rest of my school years, many of which I’m still friends with today. And at my last job and the one I’m currently at, I haven’t had any teasing. In fact, I’ve met many coworkers with the same interests. I even have a group of coworkers from my old job that I get together with sometimes outside of work to play Pokemon and talk about anime. And at my current job, I completely decorated my office desk with Disney, Pokemon, and other cartoon/game pictures and figures and nobody cares – most of my coworkers think it’s cool actually =) I really feel that during the past several years it’s becoming more and more acceptable for the adults of the new generations to like these kinds of things. If that’s the case, I’m very glad for it ^_^

*This is a revision of a previous post I wrote on my old anime blog. You can also comment on the revised post here*

*Crossposted from my main blog, Yume Dimension*

#animation #anime #editorials #fandom #fandoms #pokemon #video games

[acrispyapple]

50 more interesting questions

Rules: fill this out and tag at least one person you’d like to know more about! Or just fill it out! Or don’t! Answer only some of them! Make up your own questions! “What kind of requirement is that”, you ask? A reasonable one! Who am I to tell you what to do? Anything goes!

Tagged by @incorrectmidc i had this open for days and i answered a few questions per night lol @o0w0o and @deathbymidnightcinderella  <3

1. What kind of food can’t you stand? spicy stuff and umm food loaded with exotic spices / herbs

2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick? my mouse ending up double clicking after a year or so

3. Have you got any useless talents? i have way too much trivia and animal facts. plus random skills with no practical use. oh and playing the piano is also a useless talent for me since i don’t really “use” it

4. If you were really really good at one thing, what would it be? my answer isn’t an “if” thing lol. i have a really good memory. it really helps with mostly anything i do + it makes studying easier. but sometimes people think it’s creepy that i remember little things about them, they think i keep notes about them or something lol-- but i really do just remember.

5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking - umm neil caffrey (matt bomer) from white collar, nick burkhardt (david giuntoli) from grimm, daniel shaw (brandon routh) from chuck -- i seem to have a type haha. omg i forgot jo in-sung. i’ve always thought he was handsome! 

6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid? i was a pretty boring kid. i just read books, watched cartoons, and organized things. as a kid i’d look at my toys but never really play with them because i liked seeing them all set up nicely. i just kept collecting stuff i liked. the most i’d do that’s remotely active was play with my dogs

7. What is something you’re proud of? i do well academically and i learn fast. and somehow i’m proud of how i’ve remained the same over the years.

8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate? i don’t know if this is considered a character flaw but i really dislike poor manners haha. it drives me crazy when people open their mouth while chewing or if it’s too noisy. i die a bit inside. besides table manners and manners in general, i dislike people who are rowdy during inappropriate times.

9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower? both but to avoid stress sometimes i just want to follow. i’m a bit of a perfectionist / rule follower so i get frustrated a lot. i know not everyone is like a machine but it’s hard with my ocd lol. and no this isn’t just me saying ocd like most people when referring to certain things, i actually do have it and i have medication for it

10. What kind of student are/were you? normal i guess. i got along well with people, i didn’t fail anything, and i never rebelled or did anything wild. it was uneventful lol. i’m still technically a student now, but i see it more as an adult thing.

11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life? i’m sure everyone has one

12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion well it’s not a fear per se, but i have an aversion to most asian food, sorta? the smell sets me off especially if it has a bunch of spices or herbs in it. my nose is just sensitive and i get affected easily by strong scents. but i’m fine with japanese food, maybe some korean and chinese stuff. for fears, iono, i don’t think it’s irrational to be afraid of spiders and big cockroaches ><

13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable? a bunch haha but it’s mostly people associating them with me first. i’m not tsundere..... how dare they

14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties? i don’t think i’ve ever gotten drunk the way people imagine people getting drunk to be like. i remain the same except i get a headache. i don’t really change at all. and in parties i guess i just stay close to my friends. stranger danger lmao

15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone? umm no i do not. i mean i can trust them fine but i don’t think i can believe their feelings until they can prove it isn’t just a short time attraction. i’m in for long term stuff so i don’t really wanna waste time if it’s not headed there. but yeah currently in a long term relationship

16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends? having fewer friends makes it easier for me to update all of them without getting tired of repeating the same story over and over haha

17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak? always organized and no one’s allowed to touch my things haha

18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy i’ve always wanted a seating area near a huge window with a good view, bunch of pillows, earphones + music

19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday? nah i don’t think i can handle it. i’d probably go insane trying to control them and making them become my idea of what a person should be like

20. What was your favorite book as a child? the chronicles of narnia, still love it to this day because it’s really written well

21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES A FIDGET SPINNER DO -- yeah i’m sorry, i think it’s stupid

22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated i should have an answer for this but i totally forgot lol

23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose? since im in the midcin fandom i’ll just say byron

24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday? visit all the haunted places i’ve ever read about, and prolly explore old ruins. i was way into archaeological finds etc way back

25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat? i try to say it in the most courteous way possible. i can’t keep it to myself because it would bother me and my mind would just dwell on it forever but i also don’t like offending people haha

26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in? sTiCkY cApS in chat (but i stopped after a month okay, and i was 12)

27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for? typing in sTiCkY CaPs. kill 12 year old me pls

28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable? being kind and yet still firm when needed even when it comes to friends. i really admire people who don’t just blindly agree with their peers

29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.) people give me stuff with owls, bears, hedgehogs, or stars because i love them. i also love stationery and pens. i like getting different colors and i never use them. i just keep them forever haha

30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones? i know a bit of stuff from other languages but not enough to be proud of it. i don’t want to be a poser and claim yeaaaahh i speak this and that lol

31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside? city please. i hate the quiet countryside. it’s like if someone comes to kill you and there’s no one around and you’d be all “this is why i should’ve been in the city with people everywhere”

32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving? byron wagner from midcin. when i first started and i saw him i was all, ehh eyepatch dude. so edgy. lmao. i even purposely skipped him during certain events and i regret that now.

33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else? i don’t want to be the center of attention, i’d feel awkward

34. Favorite holiday? the usual, christmas and new years eve... but i miss having an actual christmas where it isn’t summer...

35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously? i always have a plan lol

36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.) hmm, i can watch something over and over with no problem. all good

37. What hobbies do you have? reading (but it’s mostly fantasy and sci-fi), watching crap, annoying my dogs, playing video games, making stories in my head. I WISH I COULD WRITE AND DO IMAGERY WELL. oh well

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have? the ability to moisturize instantly, one click. that’ll save me time daily

39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you that i like video games and anime lol. and that i’m happy to talk to them T_T

40. Something that took you way too long to figure out i still don’t know how to knife. how to knife~ i mean how to slice things or chop things or do anything in the kitchen

41. Worst injury you’ve had? is it considered an injury when you’ve had to get 4 major surgeries in a year? i mean i guess tending to / waiting for the surgery scars to get better can be considered an injury since it took a while and it was sorta a pain

42. Any morbid fascinations? umm, i can’t think of one

43. Describe your sense of humor i don’t really know lol. i make a lot of jokes and sometimes it breaks the mood for people lol

44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose? i really like princess stuff but the real medieval stuff would be dirty people who don’t take baths and really horrible stuff so maybe just the fantasy version of that + high speed internet

45. Something you are irredeemably bad at not rambling when i really like something. to the people who’ve ever had to listen to me whenever i got excited about something-- i’m sorry

46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through going to a nature retreat thing 3 months ago or something. i had no internet and it made me cry inside but i guess it was fine

47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.) i don’t really want tattoos in general so i guess the ugly one.

48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist? optimist

49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you? something that isn’t physical or shallow. i’d be really happy if people noticed my achievements or if they liked something about my personality-- or if they found me funny lol

50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you that i’m not nice lol because i keep to myself unless spoken to irl + that unimpressed scowl i always have. it’s like my default facial expression!

not forcing anyone to do it since it’s very long, just tagging for the sake of tagging! and i think most of the people i know have already been tagged? i’ve seen this tagged post done by most of them lol

@ashnable @nimmywik @captiveotomeprincess @otometrashcan  @princessdiarymdc @arimii @madamemalfoy21 @kinkymint @oh-my-otome

#tag game #personal #50 more interesting questions