Pets: Two cats, Jack (grey/brown tabby) and Rose (black)
Big Three: Aquarius (sun), Cancer (moon), Libra (rising)
Aesthetic: Cozy, Creative, Spontaneous
Runs On: Coffee and Cat Hair
Most Used Phrase: "Okie dokie" or "Yup yup and away"
Warning Label: Certified Excessive Yapper
Background Music of My Life RN: "For Cari" by FLETCHER
Current Thing I'm Working On: Hidden Depths (funnybunny TADC fanfic) - MASTERPOST LINK / AO3 LINK
My Communities: TADC: The Last Act
⟡ my lore ⟡
Random Fun Fact: I'm left-handed
Music Taste: Polyjamorous, but Alt-Rock and EDM are my faves
Favorite Movie(s):
The Polar Express
Moana
The Goonies, etc.
Favorite Show(s):
TADC
Bridgerton
InuYasha
Frieren
Dragon Prince
Violet Evergarden
Carol and the End of the World, etc.
Favorite Videogame(s):
TLOU
Minecraft
Dead Island (franchise)
Dying Light (franchise)
REPO
Fields of Mistria
Resident Evil (franchise)
Hitman
LOZ: Breath of the Wild
LOZ: Twilight Princess
Jak and Daxter (franchise)
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, etc.
Favorite Youtuber(s):
Markiplier
Jacksepticeye
GameGrumps
penguinz0/Moist Critical
FunkyFrogBait/FunkyFrogPlays
SMOSH
Jacksfilms
POCHI SCIENCE
Black Gryph0n, etc.
Favorite Food: Baked Ziti
Favorite Drink: Arizona Green Tea or matcha coffee latte
Favorite Animal: Cats
Favorite Season: Spring
Favorite Type of Weather: Summer thunderstorm or a blizzard
Favorite Color: Purple
Favorite Number: 2
⟡ interests & hobbies ⟡
Things I Want to Learn:
Embroidery
Woodburning
Skills/Hobbies: Cooking
Drawing
Writing
Poetry
Photography
Video editing
Logo Design
Copywriting
Video Gaming, etc.
Other Interests:
Tarot
Astrology
Psychology
What I Believe In:
Women's Rights
Pro-Choice
Anti-Trump
LGBTQIA+ Rights
Anti-Artificial Intelligence
Mental Health Awareness
Travel and Cultural Appreciation
Empathy > Ego.
Projects:
I've Got Catitude (insta quote project)
Poetry book
⟡ hyperfixations ⟡
Music: OHB MUSIC STUFF
Fandoms, Characters & Ships: OHB HYPERFIXATIONS
⟡ interactive fun ⟡
Send me a song → I'll rate it
Ask me about my cats
Give me recommendations (fanfics, shows, movies, etc)
Need advice? Feel free to ask
Ask me about my interests or projects! I'll yap for ages
Ask for a tarot reading
⟡ the only rules ⟡
#1 Don't be a jackass
#2 Don't Spam My Inbox
#3 Don't Send Sexual Content (you'll be blocked and reported)
a lot of you really need to internalize that acting avoidant isn't cute at all and that it will cost you experiences and life outcomes if you don't change course
Thrown into a new adventure before anyone has time to recover, Pomni and Jax are forced to work together while their fallout after the gun adventure still lingers heavily between them. Caine's unsolicited attempt to "fix" interpersonal problems only makes things worse, snowballing into something neither was ever prepared for.
What begins as reluctant cooperation slowly gives way to trust, growing feelings and a confrontation with a past that refuses to stay buried. (A funnybunny fic, set shortly after the end of episode 6)
CHAPTER 17: OUT IN THE OPEN
Jax sat on the edge of Pomni’s bed, elbows resting on his knees. The lines under his eyes were thick and his eyes were sweeping along the room, taking in Pomni’s room.
He’d never been in her room before.
The bright red, blue and gold felt like such a sharp contrast to his own pastel colored room. The stripes of the comforter on her bed were deeply reminiscent of her jester outfit but the building block accents were sort of odd to him.
Her room was oddly…comforting.
He didn’t really know why, exactly, but it felt warm. It felt very…Pomni.
Yet he also felt uncomfortable, because he didn’t know if he was allowed to feel this comfort from her. Especially when he’d essentially ruined the life of Ribbit who came before her and actively bullied both Gangle and Ragatha.
He wanted to reach back out to Pomni.
He wanted to connect.
He didn’t want to be haunted by the past anymore, but debated whether he was worthy of such redemption in the first place. He’s no fool, he knows he isn’t a good person. He told Pomni as much back when they fought after the gun adventure ages ago.
Yet, here she still was.
Fighting against his very wishes to stop looking for more within him.
It’d been a lie.
She knew it.
And he knew she knew it.
Jax’s eyes slowly shift over to where Pomni is sitting, across the room on a red chair. His eyes lift up to her face, where her neutral expression softly slips into a smile.
He swallowed hard.
“See? For as much as you don’t like your own room, mine really isn’t any better,” she says, gesturing with her foot as she gently kicks one of the building blocks beside the chair.
“Seriously, what am I - a child?”
Jax has to physically bite back the natural banter. The almost involuntary desire to respond to her with “well you’re short enough to be mistaken as one.”
The silence stretches for a moment, and Pomni recognizes that her attempt to lighten things didn’t quite work as planned.
Part of her wanted to tell him it’s fine. They could always talk another time.
But she didn’t know if there would be a next time.
It had to be now.
She hoped being in her space would help him feel more comfortable. His room carried too many ghosts. Too many reminders of Ribbit, Kaufmo and the mistakes Jax never seemed willing to forgive himself for.
This was different.
This was her room.
No old memories lurked in the corners. No photographs hung on the walls waiting to drag him backward.
Just Pomni.
She hadn't invited him here because she had some grand plan. Truthfully, she didn't have one at all.
She only knew that every conversation with Jax seemed to happen on his terms, in his spaces, beneath the weight of his past.
For once, she wanted a chance to meet somewhere else.
Somewhere neither of them had to be haunted.
Maybe it wouldn't change anything.
Maybe he'd leave and spend the next week avoiding her all over again.
But if there was even the smallest chance he was willing to stop running, she wanted to be here when it happened.
Jax stared at the floor once again, and Pomni let the silence sit.
She’d learned by now that trying to fill every quiet moment with words didn’t work with him. Jax always seemed to retreat the second someone pushed too hard.
The problem wasn’t that nobody pushed.
It was that people got tired.
They gave up or walked away.
Pomni was starting to realize that Jax spent so long expecting people to leave that he’d started helping them do it. Like he was banking on the fact that people eventually gave up.
But Pomni broke the mold he seemed to set for himself.
His foot started tapping.
He folded his hands together in his lap, interlacing his fingers and squeezing them.
The tapping stopped, suddenly.
“You…you don’t get it.”
Pomni blinked, “What don’t I get?”
Jax huffed out a laugh under his breath.
It wasn’t amused.
It wasn’t even bitter.
It was tired.
“I’m the reason Ribbit is gone,” he said, “I drove her into abstraction.”
Pomni recalls their conversation from right after Jax almost abstracted himself. Where he talked about the past.
About Ribbit.
This is more than just being about Ribbit though, isn’t it?
Pomni didn’t want to be like “yeah you said that,” and accidentally subscribe herself to whatever opinion or thoughts he has connected along with that statement.
So instead she just stayed quiet, looking at him with what she hoped was soft nonjudgement.
Jax laughed again.
That same tired laugh.
“Not going to argue with me?”
Pomni tilted her head, “Huh?”
“You would've argued with me before.”
His eyes remained fixed on the floor.
“Told me it wasn't my fault. Told me I couldn't know that.”
His fingers squeezed together harder.
“Now you're just sitting there.”
Pomni frowned.
“Do you want me to argue with you?”
For the first time since speaking, Jax looked up.
Their eyes met.
“I…”
“I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to tell me,” Pomni explains.
“What do you mean?”
Pomni shrugged lightly, “If this was just about Ribbit, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
The room fell silent.
Jax stared at her, mouth agape.
Then, he looked away.
Damn it.
She’s right.
Of course she was right.
“When Kaufmo abstracted…” he started, voice quiet.
Pomni straightened up a bit, listening.
Jax had yet to bring up Kaufmo, despite him having been such a key part of their dynamic trio. Even if Jax and Ribbit were closest, Kaufmo was still clearly important.
“When Kaufmo abstracted, I remember thinking that was my fault too,” he continued, “That I should’ve seen the signs.”
His jaw tightened.
“No, that’s not it. I had seen them, I just refused to acknowledge it. After Ribbit abstracted, I chose to push Kaufmo away too - he reminded me too much of what, or…who…was missing.”
His gaze drifted to the floor.
“I couldn’t stand being around him sometimes,” he admits before laughing bitterly.
Pomni’s expression softens slightly.
“Which is stupid, because he didn’t even do anything wrong. It…it was me,” he murmurs.
“It was always me.”
Jax rubbed his palms against his knees.
“Kaufmo kept trying but he wasn’t nearly as patient as Ribbit was. He’d invite me to hang out but I would just keep blowing him off,” he continued.
“The last I heard from him before he abstracted was him telling me he might have found the exit. I laughed in his face.”
Pomni’s expression faltered.
Not because she was judging him, but because she could hear how much he was judging himself.
“Jax, you can’t blame yourself.”
Jax whirls on Pomni, hands landing onto either side of him. His fists bunched the blue and red striped blanket where he squeezed his fists.
“Yeah, easy for you to say. You weren’t there!”
The volume of his voice momentarily surprised Pomni, but she refused to back down.
“I don’t need to,” she said, voice calm and even, “Jax, you’ve spent every moment since then punishing yourself for it.”
Jax grit his teeth, “That’s not-”
“What’s the real reason you keep pushing me away? Is it because I remind you of Ribbit?”
“Tch,” Jax scoffed, “You’re nothing like Ribbit.”
Pomni raises her hands, palms up as she shakes her head.
“Ugh!” he exclaims, “Because you…you’re doing with me what I should have been doing for Ribbit. For Kaufmo.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“I was afraid of being vulnerable, so I pushed them away. I gave up on them so I didn’t have to face myself,” he clarified.
“I hate you,” he says, but there isn’t an ounce of bite to his tone.
Only pure, deep wounded sorrow.
“I hate that you won’t give up on me when I would have easily given up on you,” he continues, “I hate that you think I deserve you doing it.”
Pomni looks genuinely confused.
“Because you do.”
Such a simple answer, like always.
“NO, I DON’T!” he shouts, standing abruptly.
“I killed them, Pomni. They are gone because of me.”
“Jax-”
“That’s why I keep pushing you away,” he says, voice dropping down in volume, “I can’t accept your friendship. I don’t deserve it.”
Jax is heaving heavy breaths, fists balled at his sides.
Pomni takes a long moment to process his words and sit with everything he just admitted. The core of why he really kept pushing her away, over and over.
He felt unworthy of it.
“Jax,” she starts, voice soft so as not to startle him.
“I understand you’ve been through…a lot. I’m…I’m sorry about what happened with Ribbit and Kaufmo,” she continued, “But that’s not your fault.”
Jax scoffs, an almost disgusted expression crossing his face.
Pomni gestures around them, “We’re in an impossibly hard situation, trapped under impossible circumstances.”
“The last thing I’d want is for you to believe that my mental state relied on what you did or didn’t do,” she explained, her eyes never leaving his face.
His eyes reluctantly found hers, his arm coming up to rub the other in a self-soothing gesture.
“People make mistakes. It could’ve just as easily been you in Ribbit or Kaufmo’s place, it’s not like you had power over whether they abstracted or not.”
“You don’t know that,” he argues immediately, tone still carrying that sharp edge to it.
Pomni gives him an incredulous look, raising a brow in disbelief.
“You almost abstracted because I reminded you of Ribbit, Jax,” she countered.
Jax opened his mouth to argue more, but she cut him off.
“In that moment, Jax, watching you almost abstract? I was you,” she says, “I thought about all the things I did and didn’t do for you up to that moment.”
“What? No-”
“See?” she interrupts him again, smiling.
“What were you going to say just then? That it’s not my fault?”
Jax is speechless.
The revelation of her words opens his eyes to an undeniable truth. Yes, he was just about to tell her it wasn’t her fault.
Never would Jax have considered himself similar to Pomni in any way.
She wasn’t trying to excuse his actions, whether past or current, but she was trying to give him the freedom of moving on.
Of being able to accept that what happened, happened.
He could let the past swallow him or he could use it to be better. Not just for others, but for himself too.
“Ribbit and Kaufmo aren’t here anymore,” she continues softly, “Punishing yourself won’t change the past and it won’t bring them back. Right now, the only person that needs to forgive you is yourself.”
Jax opened his mouth but nothing came out.
His eyes darted away from hers immediately, searching the room for something, anything, to anchor himself to. The building blocks near her chair. The stripes on the comforter. The gold trim on the rug.
Anything except Pomni.
Anything except the truth sitting between them.
His jaw tightened.
"No," he started weakly.
The word lacked conviction even to his own ears.
"There has to be..." he shook his head, "You don't understand."
But the argument was already crumbling.
Because for the first time, Jax couldn't figure out who he was trying to convince.
Pomni?
Or himself?
The room felt unbearably quiet.
Every excuse he'd carried for years suddenly sounded exhausted.
Every justification felt worn thin from being repeated too many times.
For years, he carried the guilt because it felt like the only thing he still had left of them.
If he stops blaming himself, then what?
Ribbit is still gone.
Kaufmo is still gone.
Nothing changes.
The thought should comfort him.
Instead, it only makes him feel tired.
Jax’s expression breaks then.
Gone is the hardened, disgusted with himself glare - replaced by something utterly heartbroken fundamentally.
His eyes shine with unshed tears, mouth pressed into a wobbly line that trembled.
“Pomni…” he whispered, his voice cracking slightly on the word.
Pomni continues looking back at him, offering a small sympathetic smile up to him.
“...Pomni, I-I’m sorry.”
She stands up from the chair, “It’s okay.”
Jax falls to his knees, covering his face with one hand while the other supports himself as he hunches over. Tears fell freely now, dripping to the floor in soft plops.
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” she says, closing the distance between them.
She wraps her arms around him, her chin resting on his shoulder.
“I’m right here,” she whispers, “I’m not going anywhere.”
There’s a brief moment of surprise from Jax at the contact, but he relaxes relatively quickly. He doesn’t push her away this time.
Instead, he brings his own arms around the jester.
He squeezes her, his hands gripping the back of her outfit tightly.
Like her presence was grounding him.
In essence, it was.
“I’m sorry, Pomni,” he repeats.
She shakes her head, eyes closed as she squeezed him a little tighter.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Jax sniffles, allowing himself to rest his head on her shoulder.
This time of Pomni in awe over the red orb in Caine’s chest. With permission, she touches it. And possibly either nuzzles her face against in, finding it to be buzzing like Caine’s own version of a heartbeat. Or kisses it ;3
In case anyone finds it helpful because mobility aids are horrifically expensive and inaccessible…
And for those people who have access to mobility devices but might benefit from a second chair they can abuse without risking expensive damage…
Erik Kondo has made a website, Open Source Innovations, that details plans for DIY wheelchairs. These wheelchairs can be made from common materials like wood, plastic, and pvc. They are lightweight and can be custom fit to the user allowing from the same degree of movement you would get from a custom chair. And they are durable and easily repairable. (he has been stress testing his latest design by dropping it down stairs, dropping it out of a car, launching it across a driveway, and throwing it off a deck). Its 12lbs and I think he said its was in the $200 ish range for parts.
He also is working on cheap, open source, accessible designs for beach chairs, off road chairs, motorized attachments (think smart drive), and so on. Plus he skateboards in his wheelchair. Cool dude, helpful info, pass it on.
It's incredibly sad people have to resort to this, but it's a damn good resource. Use it. Spread awareness. Maybe one day people with physical disabilities won't need DIYs like this. But until then, reblog and share.
