#our stories are complicated

[veryintricaterituals]

I am Jewish, what does that mean?

I was born in Colombia on the 49th anniversary of Hitler's suicide, I was raised here but I lived in Israel for about four years. I am not white, I don't look white, and my first language is Spanish. I came back to Colombia three years ago because of the pandemic.

I grew up Jewish and swallowed all the pro-Israel propaganda, I moved there looking for better opportunities and somewhere safe where I could come out of the closet. It took me less than a month to understand where I really had ended up in. It wasn't so different from my own colonized third world country filled with violence.

I did my best, I voted against the current Israeli government four separate times, I worked with and was great friends with many Palestinians and Arab Israelis (there unfortunately is a difference), I went to protests, I donated blood, I donated food and money. I fucking hate Netanyahu with all my heart.

For two years I taught English at a low income school in Jerusalem where all my students were mizrahi jews (from Arab countries) whose families had been kicked out of various surrounding countries in the 20th century. When I spoke to their parents and grandparents they talked about Iran, Morroco, Egypt, Yemen, with such longing and they brought me the most delicious foods. (Two of my students were killed two weeks ago, kids, barely 18 now, much younger when I taught them, I remember them).

My great grandmother on my mom's side was born in Jerusalem and raised in Egypt until all Jews were expelled and she had to flee with my newborn grandfather. They ended up in Colombia because she spoke ladino (Jewish dialect that is close to Spanish) they were undocumented, without a nationality because Egypt had rejected them, they had to lie and pay for falsified documents in order to get a passport, I still have a Red Cross passport in my house with my grandfather's name that determines he has no home country.

My great grandparents on my dad's side were born and raised in Bielorrusia and had to escape with my newborn paternal grandfather from the progroms after they destroyed their shtetl, they tried to make it to the US but they wouldn't take any more Jews so they ended up in Colombia.

My great grandmother on my paternal side was born in Romania, at the age of 12 she got on a boat with her 15 year old cousin, not knowing where it would take them. Her parents had both died and antisemitism was on the rise. She was so afraid that they were going to send her back that she threw her passport (that said JEW in capital letters) into the sea when they arrived at the port of a country she had never heard of, to this day we don't know when her birthday was.

My maternal grandmother is Colombian, she was born and raised here, Catholic until she converted to marry my grandfather, and yet when I went looking up our family tree I found we came from Sephardic Jews that had been expelled from Spain almost 500 years ago by the inquisition.

There are less than 400 Jews in my city that homes over 4 million people. My synagogue has been closed since October 12th, our president has equated all of Israel with Nazism on multiple occasions in the last few weeks. The kids that go to our tiny Jewish school have stopped wearing the uniform so that they cannot be identified. Ours is one of the countries with the least amount of antisemitism in the world. Someone in my university saw my Magen David necklace and screamed at me to go back where I came from. I went online and saw countless posts telling Israelis to do the same.

I am Jewish, I am latina, I am gay. My story is complicated, my relationship with my community is complicated, my relationship with my country is complicated. My relationship with G-d is complicated, my relationship with Israel is incredibly complicated. My history is complicated.

I am Jewish. What does that mean?

#this is my story #jewish people are complicated #our stories are complicated #please reblog #judaism #jumblr #jewish #israel

[sarucane]

Stede Bonnet's Stories (S1)

My favorite theme (right now) in OFMD is storytelling, and how the characters' stories shape the narrative and one another. In OFMD, stories are how people connect to one another. How they figure out their place in the world around them, how they form communities, how they grow and change. Because stories are also how the characters come to understand themselves.

In the first season, Stede is the loudest and most determined storyteller of them all. He's literally paying someone to follow him around and write his story; he's built the entire ship and outfitted it to create a certain story; he's wearing mad, impractical clothes in a harsh climate to express his personality.

On the one hand, this is a dumb thing to do. The crew can't read the library he's provided for them; his clothes (and incompetence) make his first "raid" a disaster; the pirates are plotting mutiny very quickly indeed. And his attempts to "toughen up" wind up nearly burying the crew in a larger, imperial story of race and class.

On the other hand, it's an immensely brave thing to do. Stede doesn't really try to be "like Blackbeard." He doesn't disguise his accent, wear ugly clothes, or make an example of someone on the crew to show his "iron fist." He is trying to do something genuinely different. To be a gentleman and a pirate. To tell a story that hasn't been told before. And to create space for others to tell a story: when Wee John voices criticism, Stede hands over his own fabrics to the crew and encourages them to "express yourselves." Between the bedtime stories and Stede's lie about Nigel (which is revealed very quickly afterwards), the crew decide they'll try telling his "new" story with him.

At first, the weakness in Stede's story seems to be that he's telling it in the wrong place. That his fiction is too far from reality, which is going to crush his story (as so many stories have been crushed throughout history).

And that is a problem, and his misjudgments wind up with him being betrayed by pirates and almost executed by Spanish naval officers. But it's a solvable problem, with help.

From the moment they meet, Ed and Stede are at their best when they tell stories together. When they work together, they figure stuff out about themselves, they connect with one another and with the crew, and they find a way to write the third story in a world that tells them they have only two options (gentleman or pirate). They make ship into a lighthouse; they bring a kraken to life and finally beginning to understand it; Stede uses his ship's mast and Ed's trick to outwit Izzy; a treasure map yields actual 'treasure'; the ship is invaded by the English, but everyone emerges safe and alive.

But it doesn't last. Because the real weakness of Stede's storytelling isn't the context. It's that Stede doesn't believe it himself.

Stede is doing all this to try to be both a boy worthy of respect from his father, and a boy who picks flowers. He's still defining himself by the terms of the world he came from. By running away, not running towards something.

So, when Chauncey confronts him with his own "monstrousness," Stede believes him. It's all his insecurities come to life. And he believes Chauncey when he says Stede's "brought history's greatest pirate to ruin."

If all Stede will ever be is a "little rich boy," then he needs to stop trying to be something else. Because telling that story means hurting others.

Stede's wrong. Telling a story, even when you don't fully believe it, changes you and the people who listened to your story. And when Stede gives up on his storytelling, the causes and effects circle round: Stede told stories. As a result, other people told stories. And even if Stede stops telling stories, or tries to tell different stories, other people won't.

Stede lied when he confessed to Nigel's murder. Said he deserved to die for leaving his wife and family. But he doesn't die there, because Ed tells his own story about grace, and the crew takes Stede's mad stories as their own.

And because of what Stede did, Mary Bonnet was able to tell her own story, fully and on her own terms. And to believe in it completely. Ed and the crew were able to tell their stories, too--which comes near to an actual transformation.

In the end, it doesn't matter that Stede didn't believe his story. He changed anyway. He created space for other people to change, to tell stories that unraveled his own lies, that saved him from himself. And he awkwardly, finally, figured out what story he wanted to tell. His own truest story.

And to escape the truth he's accidentally been trapped in, Stede tells a story that inverts what he did before. At the beginning of the season, Stede was telling a story that no one believed. That only he even really tried to believe. But in the finale, he stages an elaborate fuckery to tell a story that everyone believes--except him, and the people who matter. Truth materializes from the fiction.

Stede's stories set so many people free. And in the end, when he's brave enough to lie his way to the truth, Stede's stories set him free, too.

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd meta #stede bonnet #blackbonnet #legit i could go on about this for agggges #just about every ep has a storytelling moment or 4 #there's all these nuanced ways the stories affect the plot and each other its so complicated and i love it

[godisasimp]

Kaslana family

Grandparents

Parents

Kids

Aunt

#this family tree is getting complicated #just letting you know that Sakura (CE) is technically the grandma but i can only use 10 pics (fuck Tumblr am i right ?) #technically kevin is like ancestor but uh fuck that he's grandpa that's enough #also if we take the non main story canon version of him he's also the uncle #but i honestly think that for our sake we'll ignore that #also technically Hare is Cecilia's kid since she was born from her stigma but like that's a bit more complicated #so she's just the weird one out of the kids #i think the Kaslana should chill with the kids tho that's getting absurd #they started with one and ended with five #honkai impact #honkaiposting #honkaimpact3rd #herrscher of the void #honkai kevin #honkai kiana #honkai durandal #theresa apocalypse #kallen kaslana

[logicpng]

I think I can with certainty say I'm past the halfway point with this. there's not that much random dialogue left to make up

I can only hope the switch works as intended on other computers, since a different timing left them mid-transition. it seems like it doesn't interrupt the bubbles switch but it's only if the menu switch/shell reset comes at a specific point before it 🤔

sakurascript is really weird with calling functions, but I Think if you call it as a variable ( %(function) ) it doesn't interrupt the script?? maybe??

[Image ID:

Two gifs showing off Vega complaining about the messiness of Windows' system32 folder, providing the user with a link to open it and see for themselves, and the right click context menu changing its color scheme alongside Vega switching to Rigel.

End ID]

#original #CaelOS #aster #aster ghost wip #I've ran so many times into wanting to do a Thing and it being outside the scope of what you can reliably do with YAYA/SakuraScript #or at least without involving external libs #you can do anything if you write external code and put it into a .dll it seems #but now that's outside the scope of my patience /wheeze #I'm hoping to test some of this with a couple people at least #I'm sure many things would've had answers if I was brave enough to step foot into an ghost dev discord server but. I am Shy #we figure this shit out on our own and die like men /j #and like I could've just stuck with the template and make it much simpler but NOU I need to make it NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED without actually #providing much function of my own or that good of a story #if any ukagaka devs read this pls be nice to us we're doing our best 8v8 #also I recently realized the terms 'ghost' and 'shell' are meant to be a reference to... Ghost in the Shell. I'm devastated /j #vega (aster)

[notbeyondbirthday]

When will humans figure out we actually do need to talk about and explore and channel our ugly, dark and fucked up parts into things that won't harm people or we WILL harm people? Violence sex and taboo isn't going anywhere, people are always going to do things they shouldn't and we're not going to be able to understand or deal with it if we never even allow ourselves to engage with those topics as ideas.

As a victim of abuse fuck anyone that thinks it's wrong to explore these harmful topics in stories...fuck you, genuinely. Stories help me process these experiences, it gives me a place to express myself where I don't have to worry about being palatable to the sensibilities of people who can't understand what I've gone through. Uncomfortable stories deserve to be told and must be told because this sanitized world you're imagining can't ever fucking exist.

Your discomfort/disgust is not a moral argument. And guess what! You don't have to engage with media that makes you feel that way. You're not obligated to examine it critically and justify your feelings about it, you can actually just decide it's not for you and that's fine.

You don't actually have to shame and make wild assumptions about people who do engage with it, either! An individual consuming media, in and of itself, is not an inherently harmful act. If it were, research and investigation and journalism and art and archiving would be inherently harmful, but they are not, they are necessary.

If we're going to discuss the ethics of consuming a piece of media, we need context. It is not enough to say, 'you laid your eyeballs on it, you thought about it, and that's the material harm!' No it isn't, and that reductionist, puritanical view really only keeps us from understanding where the harm is actually coming from. We need to do the work, people. Without nuance we can't address these broader social issues, we just create a neverending list of thoughtcrimes.

#self #yea idk why im talking about proshipping again lol #but i have been feeling lately that there is a certain breed of 'progressive' that would rather people like me never tell our stories #they would rather us be perfect victims and never have any complicated feelings about our abuse #and DEFINITELY never express those complications through media or art #then where the fuck are people like me supposed to go? #are we supposed to suffer in silence #just disappear? #struggle our whole lives to fit into a prettier narrative? #nah man. grow up. this is real life and it's not going away

[cozyforjate]

It's over! Everything hurts!! 😭 vs. Don't upset my gf. I'm not changing my path. 🤨

#spapel in 2x07 #these 2 #they promised complications and drama #and they delivered #relationships are quantum things #Lets see what our favorite nerds in love will do next #your move #this story is not over #mark my words my friends #spapel still has a long way to go #spapel #spock x chapel #spock and chapel #christine chapel #spock #star trek strange new worlds #star trek snw #strange new worlds

[uncanny-tranny]

You know, even if somebody was "turned queer" because of trauma, that is:

1. Not your business

2. Not something you should be interrogating them about, be you queer or otherwise (see point one)

Trauma is a deeply harrowing experience, and it's oftentimes something people don't want to share if they don't feel safe or comfortable. Creating environments where queer people have to both interrogate their queerness and defend themselves is simply hostile.

If somebody seemingly became queer after a traumatic event, what you do is support them. Likely the last thing that person needs is you barging in and demanding explanations and justifications before they're allowed to be queer and/or exist around you.

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #trauma tw #and if they later decide they aren't queer or have a different queer identity they can do that when they are ready... #...which will likely not fit into the timeframe that you might expect... #...because healing is just as messy as trauma and queerness is as messy as cisheterosexuality #because being a person is messy and complicated and it takes time to figure out #again my problem is the entitlement and possession people have over *other peoples* identities and lives #maybe my tone is harsh but i just find this hard to show compassion because it's often deliberate... #...as in a deliberate action toward the person suspected of being 'queer after trauma' #and not going to lie a big component of queerness for many is rooted in trauma #because of the violence of homophobia of transphobia of queerphobia #because we often are closeted and hide who are and we hear and witness what people think about queerness #and that's just the tip of the iceberg. queerness is beautiful. queerness can also be painful. #it isn't always happy times to be queer and our trauma is important and we deserve to heal at our pace #we deserve compassion. we deserve to exist. we don't deserve to have to justify and explain and placate #we are also entitled to our individual stories. we deserve to tell them *if* we want to and to whom we want to tell them to #there are aspects of my own story i will never tell. because i want it to be *mine* and i think i deserve that control over *my* story

[luck-of-the-drawings]

TRAINING ARC: START!! BOTHER YOUR GUARDIAN AND EXHIBIT ISSUES. NOW SOLVE THOSE ISSUES BY BOTHERING GUARDIANS. I HAVE FULL FAITH IN OUR HEROS!

#jrwi fanart #jrwi prime defenders #jrwi pd spoilers #jrwi show #cw blood #okayokay tryin out this queue thing for the first time despite usin this webbed site since 2013. if all goes accordin to plan this should #post at noon tomorrow. in the mEANT TIME CAN I TAAALLK ABOUT THIS EPISODE PRETTY PLESe??? THIS SHOW IS SO FUCKIN FUNNY... #SO MANY BITS I WISH I COULDVE DRAWN.. THIS WHOLE SHOW IS SUCH A PERFECT CARTOON IN MY BRRAAIAIINN. VYNS whole deal with talkin to himself #wasnt his dealio like. he had like NO complications for most o the show before this. wats that one gravity falls scene with soos goin like #i knew it. im literally the perfect man. and then he raises his arms for a heavenly choir and a dove lands on him. thats vyncent. BUT NOOW #MY BOY COMPLICATED!!! THE OVERTHINKING THING IS SO FUCKIN GOOD AND FUNNY. MY BABY BOY CAN DO ANYTHING. HES SO GOOD AT BREAKING ROCKS #Oh and this doodle page also includes the winebago shenanigens after reuniting with tide. the DARTS remember the darts #remember when tide actually snapped at william for driving like a FOOL!!! LOVE THAT SO MUCH. i gotta draw tide more aauuughghghuhh #ohh my GOODD WILLIAMS BEEF WITH THE RABBIT N THE BOAR WAS SO FUNNY... THESE CHARACTERS ARE ALL SOO FLAWED #WILLIAM IS SUCH A LITTLE ASSHOLEE. VYNCENT IS STUBBORN BEYOND BELIEF AND REASON. DAKOTA IS PERFECT HES A LIL DUMB BUT HES SO SWEET AND KIND #AND OH MY GOD ONE MORE THING CAN I JUST SAY. bizly is such a magnifiscent dm. i remember sayin months ago that #he finds ways to stack impossible odds against our heroes while still leaving room for them to succeed. the pd hasnt taken a single W but! #theyre surviving!! theyre keeping it together! from meat planets to cartoons to other dimensions to fighting the GODS!!! pd is genuinely #such a delight to listen to. a comedy and a tragedy. a story of ragtag heroes doing their best to do good despite their own failings.

[mermaidlighthouse]

Having lots of feelings about the fact that the examples of whims Ed throws in Stede’s face are his ship that even if he didn’t fully design spent time thinking about and planning his secret passages and made a model of AND his wife a relationship he didn’t want even before the wedding and didn’t really have a say in that Ed watched have fever nightmares about…that it wasn’t a whim that made him not burn his face off….that Ed has never told Stede that he had a hard time from the moment he actually spent time with Stede imagining actually killing him let alone actually doing it…it’s almost like Ed is trying to attack/bring up the things he knows will hurt Stede the most and not admit to his own vulnerability…FOLLOWED by Ed attempting to lay the moving too fast at Stede’s feet like he didn’t consent and spend the majority of the day being completely fine…it’s almost like Ed still struggles with his self worth and he defaults to being a dick in order to push people away because he needs to know how far he can push the people around him before they stop loving him…….

But maybe I’m projecting….

#the complicated love story of the repressed gentleman and the famous pirate who hides his softness behind violence #this show is so good #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #ed x stede #stede bonnet #the gentleman pirate #edward teach #ed teach #blackbeard #our flag means death #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd

[transpanda-1]

Whilst we love Uendo dearly we do have to concede that they are unfortunately a bit hindered due to the case that they're in. 6-4 is enjoyable and we love the characters in it, but it's fairly obvious that the emotional connection between characters was very underprioritized in the writing of it all.

We mean, Uendo and Geiru don't even talk to each other the entire case, and both of them are the closest that case had to an emotional core. They're supposed to be surrogate siblings but their reactions to each other isn't allowed to exist.

Despite it being one of the more enjoyable cases of the 3ds era it also shows the big flaws behind the creation of those games

#chirps #uendo toneido #geiru toneido #ace attorney #augh we wish we had better mental health cause we swear we wanna explore this in our Uendo stories. bleh #Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice are great video game murder plot stories but kind of bad story story murder plots #we feel there's this obsession with making complicated murder executions when the actual meat comes from the character dynamics #you can have an honestly simple bare bones murder but make it fascinating because of the people involved

[thanatos-nightshade]

Im so sorry i played Our Life: beginnings and always and not only has it sucker punched me with bittersweet feelings of life and change and relationships but its also thrown me into brain rot hell of it. Im sorry if ocean boy cove floods your feed get it? Its a pun

#t-n talks #personal #our life: beginnings & always #olba #i love him so much i love them all so much i need to replay with all the dlcs and get shiloh to come to our wedding #because i named a fosh after him in like step 2 or 3 and i missed him and i dont care if he lied to us im sorry shiloh #come baaack #but also baxter what happened baxter we missed you so much youre important to us youre important to meeeeeee #everyones my friend now how do i have jeremy at my wedding but not shiloh? jeremy you should have made shiloh suffer tooooo #im so glad i got jeremy though god i felt for him so bad like genuinely what was wrong while he was mean to us #i just wanted to be nice and friends but also dont be mean to cove and im so glad hes mellowed out a bit hes really a good kid sometimes #i love them all so much dereeeekkkkk hes such a good friend god hes SUCH A GOOD FRIEND im screaming #and baxter baxter baxter baxter sometimes i dont think hes in love with us but in love with our relationship but also like #i wouldnt mind us three being closer because youre fucking important to me baxter just like jeremy #youre all part of this found family gay as shit now if i can be adopted then that means i can adopt you too!!! #god but seriously? like i expected to cry because of relationship love drama at first not because i was having #complicated feelings about being adopted and my relatiinship with my sister god ive never had an older sister really #and my siblings and i arent super close but im adopted and i dont think ive ever wanted something more than this family #this game man i just god my fiance was like “i dont think this game was meant to be so deep/intense” but like its a visual novel #novels are meant to invoke feelings and thoughts and discussion and reflection at least thats what i believe every story has a purpose #its up to us to figure out what its purpose is maybe not in general but to us what can we take away from it and god #it makes me want to hold onto my friendships tightly and reach out to everyone i knew/know #i have too many tags on here because of brain rot but i love this game and im so excited for the next one and i would love to download #like my log of the entire game so that i can recap everything at like my leisure #just cause im not gonna remember all my choices and stuff

[creatively-cosmic]

What up, Starry—You already know who it is! B)

Sorry about Tumblr being a buggy mess and crashing halfway through! I’ve experienced the frustration of losing writing due to crashes and it always sucks. But thank you for continuing to answer these questions and satiate my curiosity! Learning more about Missing Numbers is like reading a book that just keeps getting better and better and better with every new chapter. Also: don’t worry about the delays or how long responding takes! You come first and foremost. Your health/work/school/whatever it is ya got going on in your personal life, is infinitely more important than me getting an answer to a question. So please, take your time, as much as you need—I will wait.

(Also, young Red being just as much of a little shit as Blue was is surprisingly wholesome and I love that. And after seeing their heights I realized I’m the same height as Blue! That detail is not important in the slightest, I just thought it was funny.)

Anywho, let’s get into the meat and potatoes, shall we?

First things first: Y’all mentioned biology mechanics and the nature of Glitches? 👀 Well, guess what? I love that kinda stuff! My curiosity is piqued—please explain.

Second question though: What is Leaf’s Duty? What does she do and how do her powers(?) work? Are her abilities like how the move Imprison was in Fallen Leaf?

And third: What’s the relationship/dynamic between Leaf and Red? That comic y’all posted has me wondering what Leaf is warning others about.

That’s all for now though! Please take care of yourself. Have a good day/afternoon/night!

Ahh, thank you so much for your patience! its really appreciated,, im glad youve still been enjoying things- your comments (and your FANART OH MY GOD??) have still been giving us LIFE i truly cannot thank you enough!

Red and Blue’s childhood friendship and rivalry has always been something we’ve wanted to come off as just plain silly and enjoyable- I’m glad we’ve been succeeding in that, hehe. And Blue was actually originally going to be shorter (our height, actually), we just added a few inches to be nicer to him lol

Per usual now, we’ll keep the big stuff under the cut! It’s another long one: Consider this Leaf Lore Part Two.

For the Glitch stuff, we’ve been thinking and might make a BIG formal post going over all of Professor Maple’s speculation and studies, to make it a good access point for the worldbuilding of Missing Numbers. I can’t promise it’ll come soon, but! As a starting point, I do have a pre-written thing with information on different classifications of Glitch that should clear up a good bit to start with. 

Unless we get any sudden further realizations, every Glitch, Corruption, and Anomaly in Missing Numbers (and arguably in Pokemon as a whole) can fall under these five classifications.

Leaf’s duty is the main aspect of what we failed to touch on in your previous question. So, I’ll finish that part of the story. :) 

To answer your questions, we first have to establish how she got her powers. When Leaf died, she did not get to rest peacefully. Most who die in this world don’t. The afterlife for the fallen and forgotten is not pretty. It is not merciful. There is no heaven for the ones who do not matter to God. 

The Distortion exists in layers. At it’s lowest, the farthest from contact with the main reality, is a void of unused, scrapped, and null data. A graveyard, or worse yet, a dump where things that can no longer exist in the surface world go to rot. Unused data. Scrapped NPCs. Removed characters, Pokemon, items. 

Assets of old games that never carried over.

Leaf's soul was discarded here when she was erased from existence at the end of Abandoned Loneliness. Left to rot with the unborn Ghosts that had haunted them both with the intent to drag someone of significance down with them. Hoping they too might escape. That they might receive mercy through her. 

Unfortunately, Leaf was the unloved child. So instead she fell to their ranks, swallowed up by the abyss that was their resting place- thrust as far from reality, from her home, from her friends, from her purpose as feasibly possible. Still conscious. Still aware. Still suffering.

… Leaf was not one to accept things lying down. Leaf was a fighter. She hated injustice, unfairness. She wouldn’t stand for this. She wouldn’t lie down and give up. No matter how suffocating the darkness was. No matter how the bloodied hands tried to drag her further down. No matter how the chaos and corruption tried to break and dismantle her. 

No. Matter. What.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And if there was one thing that defined Leaf even more than her bleeding heart, it was that her will was unbreakable.

So she climbed. Climbing over the damned- the forgotten- the spiteful- the vengeful- everything trying to hurt her and pull her down. Focused solely on escaping, on going up. Until things began to become more tangible. Until she could see more than black and red. Until there was light, and color. Until data became form- albeit still broken, chaotic. Numbers. Misplaced bricks. Impossible plants. Incomprehensible collision. 

Glitch City.

She broke through the floor of the second lowest layer of the Distortion, and though the surface’s light was still so far… She’d found solid footing. 

And here, though it may have been quieter… She wasn’t so alone.

The City had the odd few inhabitants. But the first that she met was a strangely familiar boy, a teenager that reminded her of someone she knew, but wrong. With a cocky, lopsided grin, unruly black hair, and bright red eyes. 

Someone who wanted out just as badly as she did.

Leaf and Red never knew each other outside of Glitch City. But during their time trapped there together as children, they were friends. Leaf wasn’t the first person Red befriended there… 

But she was significant. They were allies with a shared goal, after all, and if one of them could find a way out, they could get out together! They worked in tandem to find hope, grasp at an escape. Everything they could, as a possibility. They were friends, after all. Right?

Right?

… Leaf didn’t wholly trust Red. It wasn’t personal, but there were things that were risky. She could see the instability of corruption plaguing him, and she wanted to ensure her loved ones’ safety more than she wanted to escape. The greater picture was something that she could wrap her head around, even if it was hard to grasp.

Red was not the same. Laser focused on his goal and uncaring of the consequences, it was a factor that, over time, divided them more and more as Leaf realized the severity of Red’s condition, and began to think…

Maybe he was here for a reason. … Still, she tried to turn a blind eye. Let herself hope things weren’t that bad. 

The growing obviousness for his resentment towards Fire, though Red tried to hide it, didn’t help- her distrust towards him only grew, further clouded by her personal fears and dedication to protecting her loved ones.

And one day, while discussing a possible window for escape… She let a thought she’d been hiding slip. The final nail in the coffin.

Afraid for her brother’s life, and angry seeing how Red reveled in the idea of hurting him, she left him behind and didn’t look back.

From there, we aren’t sure of the exact details of how she escaped. But we know she had help on the surface- from someone a little too curious about the nature of the Anomalous, who was all too eager to free a willing entity. Professor Ace Maple (specializing in “anomalies”, and original to the Missing Numbers story!) helped free her soul. 

Of course, releasing a long-buried corrupted entity wouldn’t go unnoticed by the higher power that had put her there. But… It saw how careful she was. How she was now completely wary of all glitches. How she’d come to understand the dangers they posed to the world and the people in it.

So, the Almighty came to her in a Golden light. Extending an offer to her.

YOU CANNOT BE PERMITTED TO EXIST IN THIS WORLD AS YOU ARE.

THERE IS A REASON YOUR KIND WERE BURIED.

THIS WORLD IS ENDANGERED EVERY TIME CORRUPTION ESCAPES.

I MUST PRESERVE THE ORDER OF THIS REALITY.

BUT YOU, HEROINE, HAVE PROVEN TO BE SPECIAL.

I AM WILLING TO MAKE A COMPROMISE FOR YOU ALONE.

YOU KNOW THINGS I CANNOT PERMIT ANYONE TO KNOW.

YOU’VE SEEN THINGS I CANNOT PERMIT ANYONE TO SEE.

I CAN ALLOW YOU TO KEEP THESE MEMORIES, AND YOUR PRESENCE HERE, ON SIMPLE TERMS.

DO NOT SPEAK OF IT TO ANOTHER SOUL…

AND PUT THIS KNOWLEDGE TO USE.

YOUR SHACKLES WILL BE YOUR WEAPON. KNOWLEDGE. POWER. 

PROTECT MY WORLD. CLEANSE THE CORRUPTION. HOLD THEM BELOW.

YOU ALONE WILL SEE EVERYTHING, FOR YOU ALONE SHALL BE THE WARDEN.

BUT DO NOT FORGET WHERE YOU CAME FROM.

DO NOT FORSAKE ME.

… Of course she accepted the bargain. It was all beneficial in her eyes. Her complete freedom, and the ability to protect those she loved most in ways she never could have before. What happened in their childhood would never happen again now.

Thus, Leaf was blessed with her body yet again. Rightfully hers, and aged to grow with her. Though she’d never again be a Vessel, that was okay. She was something far greater now. 

The chains could Imprison any code they touched, and they were completely under her control. With these, she could fight and restrain any anomalies necessary. She was also given the one-of-a-kind ability to freely move between the Main world, and the Distortion… To ensure that no activity occurred in either that could allow the escape of something catastrophic.

Of course, things weren’t perfect. The world and the people in it had changed since she’d been gone. It had been years. People would be different.

Blue, for one. It was hard to face him again. Tensions never stopped being high between them. They both remembered, after all.

She mostly just cared about her brother, now. It took her a bit to find him, idle at the top of Mount Silver. 

It was heartbreaking to see the emptiness in his eyes. Him barely acknowledging her. The realization that he’d never… He’d never looked for her. Never tried to free her. 

Never even mourned. 

She still loved him. She always would. He was her family. He was the only one who’d been anything like her.

It was okay that he got everything she had. It was okay that he’d completely replaced her. It was okay that he now had everything she ever wanted. It was okay that he wasn’t the one who looked for, found, freed her, instead of a complete stranger. It was okay that when he spoke it was soulless and objective and only reminding her of her duties. it was okay. it was okay. 

It was okay that he didn’t care. 

It was okay that he was living the life she should’ve wanted DESERVED that he was destined to.

It was okay that she had to protect him. It was part of her duty, after all.

She wasn’t bitter. She wasn’t mad. She loved him.

… And then there was Red- “Glitchy,” as she now called him, unwilling to give him the name that belonged to her brother. He never did give up on her. He was PISSED, mind you, that somehow she had escaped and left him and the others stuck down there behind- but he still refused to back down.

They were enemies now, though. As he grew more restless- and more powerful, much to Leaf’s horror- his imprisonment became a direct responsibility of hers. And as Professor Maple grew more curious about glitches, unknowingly bringing him closer and closer to true freedom, even though she felt indebted to them, she had to resist their studies. Warn them of everything- especially him.

“I thought you hated injustice. Don’t you think this is unfair?”

Still, she had to face him often. And even in his madness, and even in chains, Red could speak so… Persuasively. 

“If you could escape, why shouldn’t I? You have the ability to free me.”

“And I know you’re hiding me from the others. Don’t they deserve to know?”

“You knew as a KID that Blue was looking for me. Doesn’t HE deserve it?”

“I think you know this isn’t the right thing to do.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“But it’s okay. I’m not mad. I can be patient.”

“I’m sure you’ll come around.”

“After all, you’re just like me and you know it.”

#an important thing in missing numbers is that everyone is a victim. but nobody is innocent. do you understand me #everyone is as much of an antagonist towards each other as they are an ally #its a story about trauma and the effect it has on people and their relationships. #traumatized kids who grew up together. now adults struggling to find a reason why things have to be this way. #and they can only turn to the people who were there when things were darkest. but they also seem the only ones to blame #its all messy and complicated and painful and difficult and tragic tragic TRAGIC #and i think leafs story is the most shining example of these themes in mn tbh. im glad i could talk on the rest of it yayy! #missing numbers #please note and remember that mn is a very personal story and is about our emotions and thoughts before anything else #i get anxious about tumblrinas being tumblrinas so i feel the need to clarify that #me writing scared adults who were scared kids lashing out about it isn't me demonizing trauma and mental illness or whatever #its me venting and writing my own feelings in a dramatized form so i can grasp them in a more tangible way #its a very important thing to me. and it makes me very glad others can resonate with it. we're all in this bullshit together!

[platonic-qpr-selfshipping]

can't there be like, a platonic version of mutual pining? because that's what I feel like Mephistopheles and I would be like

#listen i loooove to imagine this #him being all grumpy when things dont go his way and acting kinda angry to also get me out of there because he doesnt know how to deal with #what he is feeling #he's like they are nothing else that A RANDOM HUMAN there's no way I want to get along with this person who always complicates things #meanwhile i enjoy spending time with him and try to be positive about it to not make our time together too much of a burden on him but #also constantly being worried that my presence is too annoying and that im hopelessly wishing for us to get closer #can see you what im talking about JKSJS #everytime he appears in the story my mind goes wild with this kind of scenarios #all i write is about you #self shipping #self ship #f/o #self ship community #f/o community #f/o gush #we're in the f/oing process idk if i should call him like that yet JKSJS #just like Yuri... who Im always looking at

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

#ever sit like a corpse in your own body? #im doing a job i wasnt designed for. theres this funny thing we do in academia where we beg for money. write in consise phrasing why we #deserve funding. what it is about our project what it is about our personhood that makes us deserving. what we're doing in our present to #give back and ensure a better future. and i can pull together a description of a nervous kid who couldn't read but loved to learn anyway. #who didnt kno how to hold proper a conversation until college and so tried and got better at ppl. who wouldnt let a language problem get in #the way of information gain. who cares about making complicated info visually digestible. and that's a nice story. but it falls apart when #projected into the future. what r u doing for the future? im just trying to continue existing #dont u want to help other ppl like u? sure but i dont have anything nice to say to them. does it ever get easier? no. it probably never will #ur brain was not built for reading. sometimes things r just terrible and u have to accept that. develop a crippling mental disorder or do #something where u dont have to read. see. not helpful. bad attitude. im just too full of blood and broken glass. all my achievements r #stained red and it hurts to look at them. to get myself to function i have to squeeze so tight i can feel the strain in my head. and even #then its not enough. do u kno what its like to spend ur whole life building something only to watch it burn to ashes in front of u? just a #broken machine rotting away underground where no one will see it. but dont let things fester. speak up if somethings wrong. and say what? #lmao i wrote this last night and then today when my advisor was like: hows it going? do u feel like u have enough time to get everything #done? and i had the gall to be like *voice strained high to prevent crying* its alright i think ive got enough time. bc yea technically i #think there r enough hours in yhr day that if i really tried i could get it all done. but that doesn't count the time i spend laying with #thr absolute desolation of my mind. so no. there isnt enough time bc im not doing well. but there's nothing he can do abt it so ya kno #whats the point in talking abt it except to say ya sorry im such a wretched miserable person. i dont kno how to fix it. my enthusiasm is #hidden under layer upon layer of pain. i burnef out before even getting here and im only making it worse #but whatever ill see my therapist Tuesday #unrelated

[pepprs]

one year ago today i got some of the worst news ive ever gotten in my life so far. i am so lucky because the news wasn’t as bad as it could have been and also on the scale of things you could get bad news about it’s basically nothing like it’s not even a big deal compared to other things ive experienced let alone other ppl. but it was fucking horrible. it came out of nowhere. it defined the last year and it changed my whole life. there’s no point to making this post there’s no point in acknowledging it with other people around bc quite literally not a single person on this planet cares / is still hurt by it to the degree i am and im not saying that bitterly it’s simply a thing that is true of the situation. but i feel the need to acknowledge it on here not for anyone to sympathize or whatever but bc ive been documenting all the fallout of it on here / vaguing abt it multiple times a week for 52 weeks lol and i want this to be part of the record. but it’s like. damn. it’s been a year since it happened. but more importantly i SURVIVED this year. i survived. im still here. and even though im still wounded from it and can’t see all the good that came from it right now (though i am definitely aware of a lot of good that has come from it!) i am growing and changing. i might never fully heal from it (though maybe i will!) but one day this will not hurt as bad as it does. i am going to try to hold on to that.

#purrs #delete later #NOT to use this phrase knowing what it connotes. but what if you came into my life and the instant i made eye contact with you i knew i #wanted to get to know you and you became a role model for me in 4.5 days and then i spent 4.5 years clinging to your ankles and developing a #(possibly delusional / one sided) psychic bond with you and we were part of each others stories and you changed my life foreveand helped to #shape my heart and helped me find my wings and learn to fly and then one day in july tou revealed that you got another job and had been #searching for the last 6 months and you were abandoning us just as i was finally coming into my own in my most vulnerable moment and the #implication of this (because of your personality / lifestyle / whatever) is not only that we would no longer be colleagues but also no loger #in each others lives basically at all (also this is because of my own mental illnesses and our complicated relationship dynamic btw) and i #sobbed harder than i ever sobbed before in my entire life right in front of you and you told me to stop crying because it was making the #decision harder but that only made me sob harder because i love you and i still love you. and we were both girls #<- again. NOT what this is. just punchline of meme reference

[doctorbrown]

Everyone in the X-Men universe has the story of how their powers first awakened/manifested and Doc's would absolutely be something along the lines of because he wasn't allowed to have a pet, he took to feeding one of the friendly stray dogs around Hill Valley when he was a boy and some of the local bullies (probably the Tannen of his generation, lbr) doing as the delinquents of the time did, started going after this dog and without thinking, Emmett is rushing forward to save his little canine friend and just full on stops time, lowkey panics but not enough to stop him from grabbing the dog and bolting as far as he can until the effect wears off, leaving the bullies very confused and extremely freaked out. And so begin the rumours, naturally.

And no, he absolutely cannot tell his parents, especially not his father, but young Emmett knows something is up with him so now it's time to start sneaking off and doing some sneaky scientific experiments to figure out just what the hell that was and how he can do it again/control it.

#i love superpowered aus. i love the xmen. i love origin stories and the initial manifestation of powers. i love the consequences and #complications that are born/arise from said powers #because doc's would have something to do with dogs - whether that or a driver just isn't watching where they're going #doc @ this stray dog: this is our secret okay? #or it'd be a last-ditch attempt to protect himself without realising because he was working on something with disastrous consequences #&; a great idea can change the world 「 hc 」 #this man though still becoming a great scientist - eventually a teacher at who-knows-where #trying so hard for so long to fly under the radar #it's probably what makes him even more eager to leave hill valley for university tbh because yes good a fresh start someplace far better #idc how on the nose it is it's just so perfectly fitting for him #lending to all sorts of shenanigans #and obviously i'm a sucker for time/space related things in any capacity - i'm here after all hahahaha