Y'all ever think about how bright a future Jason had? He had so many hopes and dreams, that's why I don't subscribe to the modern idea he was always going to grow up to be a villain, he was just a kid!!
This is now the 6th time I’ve posted some version of the ski trip photo! It is my Roman Empire lol
What if abilities changed the appearance of a Pokemon?
A master post of all the ability forms drawings I've done! It's been such a fun series to work on and it makes me so happy that it's brought you all so much joy!
I regret not starting the little additional descriptions earlier and I thought of fixing that but I desperately need a nap so nope.
I did fix the one that ruffled the most feathers though - quite literally! The Skarmory saga is finally complete!
I’m so serious, Star Wars as a whole would be significantly better if Cal Kestis found Huyang after Jedi Survivor.
Like, can you imagine these two nerds geeking out over sabers? Cal’s already got a habit of picking up strays, particularly historic Jedi Order droids.
Huyang being simultaneously appalled and impressed by Cal’s constant tinkering and creating the most ridiculously versatile seven-stance saber Huyang’s ever seen.
Huyang and Zee bonding over being so old, reminiscing over Jedi they both knew.
Huyang being with someone who actually loves the Order he served for 25,000 years.
More thoughts and imaginings below…
It’s a rare day when Huyang doesn’t recognize a lightsaber. Though these days it’s rare to see a lightsaber to recognize. But he recognizes the man holding it.
Far from the gangly youngling that came aboard the Crucible almost two decades ago, Cal Kestis now holds a lightsaber that is not the one he built then. It’s a mixture of components from the hilts of Eno Cordova, Cere Junda, Jaro Tapal, and even Santari Khri and isn’t that curious. Huyang amends his internal assessment. It’s not Cal’s first lightsaber, but there’s no doubt that it’s his, not with the way he carries it. Carries himself.
There’s no mistaking Cal’s intentions as anything but heroic. After all, he’s risking his life for an ancient droid stranded in the midrim in a galaxy swarming with monsters hunting any force sensitive with an unbled crystal and he’s looking at Huyang with genuine joy as he rambles about the Path and a High Republic droid that located his signal and getting to his ship so they can be safe, the droid on his back chirping just as animatedly.
Still though, there’s something about Cal…he’s got a scrapper guild tattoo on his arm, a weight in his eyes, a blaster on his hip.
And a Dathomiri charm on his belt.
And that’s the most worrying one, Huyang thinks as he follows Cal to his ship. Huyang sees the charm before he sees the woman who gave it to Cal, but they get to the ship, the Mantis, and to her before he gets a chance to ask Cal about it. She’s a Night Sister, the once sworn-enemy of the Jedi who looks a little too much like a padawan from long ago who turned the saber he taught her to build on the galaxy.
Huyang distrusts her immediately.
Then, Cal says her name is Merrin, she’s a Night Sister, in a tone that even Huyang can tell is an awed one, and that Cal is very much wanting to add but still definitely silently saying she’s the love of my life.
And that’s even more worrying, because Jedi don’t have loves of their lives, especially not ones who are witches that draw their powers from the dark side of the Force.
So, yes. Huyang immediately distrusts Merrin.
———
It doesn’t last long though.
Because Huyang likes Merrin despite all the reasons he shouldn’t. He likes her dry sense of humor, likes that even he can’t always tell when she’s joking. Only Cal ever knows. And he knows every time.
And even he, a droid, can recognize the way Cal looks at her, like he firmly believes that Merrin herself lit the stars with the green fire that dances on her fingertips. Can recognize the weight of the quiet way she murmurs to him, the meaning of her putting a hand on his cheek or shoulder.
So Huyang’s distrust very quickly becomes a healthy mix of fear and respect. He still doesn’t entirely approve though, make no mistake.
———
They’re en route to Tanalorr (and it’s been centuries since that name came up) and Cal shows Huyang his hilt with a proud grin, even if Huyang is simultaneously impressed and appalled at the sight of the most ridiculously versatile, seven stance weapon he’s seen in his very long career.
But then he remembers Cal’s Gathering, remembers the hyperactive youngling, listening in rapt attention, climbing all of the Crucible’s shelves, eagerly examining all the components, and rebuilding his hilt five times. So maybe he shouldn’t be surprised.
They’re making sure they’re seen at a busier spaceport on the other side of the galaxy from where they’re actually going, heading across the city to look for supplies they need. On instinct, Cal saves a Miralukan family from bounty hunters aiding the hunt of Force Sensitives.
Cal, Huyang learns then, is a very skilled fighter, effortlessly switching between forms and saber stances thanks in no small part to that ever-changing saber of his.
Merrin is at his side during the fight. And maybe Huyang doesn’t know everything about the Force, even after all those thousands of years, because her magick shields and makes light for scared children and so many other things the dark side cannot do, helping others the way Night Sisters never did.
The city is immediately swarmed with Purge troopers hunting a Jedi, so Cal, as easy as breathing, brings his poncho hood up and passes his saber to Merrin to keep safe with her in the shadows. She’s waiting for them on the Mantis, engines warm, saber safe, and bacta ready to patch Cal up.
And Huyang decides he adores Merrin.
Even if she prefers her magick dagger to a light saber. (He offers to help her make one. Cal’s eyes light up and he offers to help her make it spooky because he adores all of the things about her that scare everyone else. She laughs and declines).
———
Still, Huyang doesn’t exactly approve of Cal’s blaster, or the light saber stance he’s created around the uncivilized weapon, just as he doesn’t entirely approve of Cal and Merrin’s romance, no matter how much he likes the both of them. He nearly chides the young man a few times early on, because he knows better, knows that Jedi can’t have attachments.
More and more, Huyang wonders if that urge is just a result of his programming.
There’s a family that’s alive because of him and Merrin, both of whom, he noticed, protected everyone else around them even more than each other.
Merrin is changing what it means to be a Night Sister. Cal is doing the same with the Jedi. Huyang isn’t sure how to feel about that.
———
Cal’s created a blaster stance, he’s got a scrapper guild tattoo on his arm, and a childhood scar across his face from a soldier meant to be his ally. There’s a Night Sister he’s irrevocably in love with.
Still though, any peculiarities aside, Cal carries himself steady, wields the Force like any seasoned master of old. Especially when Merrin is at his side.
Jedi can’t be orthodox anymore. Not if they also want to draw breath, as organics must.
Besides, Huyang is a several thousand year old droid. He can adapt.
———
They reach Tanalorr, the refuge Cal is building. The New Order is nestled in the walls of an ancient temple.
There, Cal asks Huyang to tell him about the Jedi. Things he’d forgotten from history class because paying attention was difficult and it was over a decade ago. Things he hadn’t had a chance to learn. Going forward doesn’t have to mean forgetting after all.
The Mantis Crew listens intently to stories of Jaro Tapal, Cere, and Cordova’s Gatherings. Even Trilla, Masana, and Bode if they’re up for it. When Huyang tells the story of Cal’s gathering, Cal laughs too, even of he turns the same color as his hair.
Cal swears Huyang must run off of an ancient kyber crystal. He has never been disabused of this notion because no matter how talented Zee swears Cal is, Huyang performs his own maintenance thank you very much.
———
One day, Huyang explains to Merrin just how sacred a Jedi’s saber is. And Merrin remembers a nineteen year old boy tossing her his sword of light. And suddenly it isn’t only a treasured memory where he offered his trust and only weapon (to someone who tried to kill him three times), but the moment he handed her his life. He never said it, they aren’t quite that sappy despite what Greez says, and she never asks him about it. She doesn’t need to. But from then on, when Cal discreetly tosses her his saber to keep safe or hands her half the hilt and ask if she’ll practice sparring with him, she’ll understand what that means.
———
And of course, it’s Huyang who guides Kata through the construction of her first light saber. He’d stashed away a few components, kept them safe in his chest plate and pack all these years without ever knowing why. He’d chalked it up to his programming, but he knows now it was actually for this.
He gives her the same speech he gave Cal. And Cere and Jaro Tapal and Eno Cordova and thousands upon thousands of younglings before that. The speech he hasn’t given in over a decade. The speech he’d never thought he’d give again.
And as Cal listens to Huyang, watches Kata slot the pieces together with the Force he taught her to trust in, something in him heals. When Order 66 happened, Cal had only been a year or so away from guiding a group of younglings to Ilum for the Gathering, then onwards to the Crucible. It was a sacred ritual all padawans did at least once, one that Cal had been looking forward to. He never thought he’d get to do it after the Purge. It was just one more thing taken by the Empire.
But Cal gets to do it now. Maybe it’s not Ilum or the Crucible but in the ways that matter it’s the same.
Cal told Huyang once that if there hadn’t been a war, he would’ve begged to be first Jedi to be stationed on the Crucible permanently. Huyang had tutted that that’s not how things were done. But as his photoreceptors meet Cal’s ever-emotional eyes over Kata’s head and Cal’s lips turn up in a small, bittersweet smile, Huyang hopes that he would’ve allowed it in that other life.
Because Huyang feels complete again too, because this was quite literally what he was built for all those thousands of years ago.
———
Cal saves more and more force sensitives, brings them into the cradle of the world protected by a dangerous nebula that to them brings light, Gatherings become more and more frequent. Not as frequent as they once were, but enough. They’re not on Ilum anymore but there’s kyber crystals on Tanalorr and what good is an architect droid if he can’t design some skill testing puzzles for the younglings?
As a droid, Huyang can’t use the force. But even non-organics start believing in a higher power, especially ones like Huyang who spent all of their existence around beings powerful enough to make light itself tangible. So knows that when, inevitably, the Empire falls (they always do) Cal will help build an even stronger Jedi Order, one that will still be standing in several thousand years.
Huyang remembers every Jedi he’s ever built a saber with. But certain memories surface more often. He has no doubt that in several thousand years, Cal Kestis, will be one of those more frequent memories.
———
A few years down the line, Huyang is giving the speech again, this time as he helps Cal and Merrin’s children construct their lightsabers. Children who aren’t just Jedi-in-training but have green fire in their eyes and hands too, and always gather around to hear the architect droid’s stories of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Maybe some things about the Jedi way are changing, but the best parts are still around, still surviving.
I think. if there wasn't a war, if the Jedi didn't have to become warriors and generals and things had gone differently. Then Cal Kestis would be able to count the amount of times he had to use his lightsaber as a weapon on two hands.
He would not be a warrior. He would travel, he would explore. He would go to distant planets to find information, history, lost people. He would save animals and people and droids from danger and evils and he would find a safe home for everyone he helped.
That boy was not born to be a weapon. The tragedy is, he doesn't know how to be anything else.
'"Why the hell did I marry you?" Comfrey joked, raising her boot in an honest attempt to step on his.
Daisuke dodged it and spun her around. "Don't blame me for your terrible choices," he chuckled, and Macleod threw back her head in a fit of roaring laughter.
Daisuke grinned. He'd die for that laugh, that was a certainty. But given the option, he'd much rather live to hear it again.'
I have considered myself a writer my whole life. As a kid I spent my summers in writing camps. My sister and I would make up elaborate, highly involved and linear stories and would act them out with Barbie dolls or pet shop figurines. We would have entire worlds and plots that would last days or weeks. We’d beg mom to let us leave our toys out so we knew where we left off in our story.
In elementary school, when we finally began learning how to string sentences together and fill whole pages with our messy handwriting, I always found myself writing stories of the fictional variety. When the timers would go off and we’d have to show our work my hand always shot up. When it was time to go home I’d ask my teachers if I could take my paper home with me so I could keep working on my story.
It was in middle school that I learned that I could boot up the family desktop, open word and type my stories so they look like actual books. I found a friend who liked reading and writing as much as I did and we started writing things together. At first, we’d just write in our notebooks during class and swap stories on our bus ride home. Then, we learned we could have shared Google docs that we could write in at the same time. We would spend hours and hours writing together. One summer, it felt like having a job. I’d wake up at the same time as my parents did for work, eat breakfast, have a cup of coffee (I was thirteen and hated coffee but it made me feel like a real writer), and my friend and I would hop on our shared document and work until our parents pulled us away for dinner.
Middle school is a hard time for anyone and my friend and I had many hardships. Before high school, we had a falling out and we stopped writing together. After having someone to write with for so long, I realized that I had become codependent. I didn’t know how to have my own ideas without the validation of my partner telling me if they were good or not. I’d have a stroke of inspiration and then not know what to do with it. I went a very long time without writing anything. Around this time, I also had a lot of personal hardships like boyfriends and breakups and friend drama and academics, so writing became a lower priority in my life. At the time, it felt like this dream or wish, like if I just did better in school then I’d be able to write again. If I was just a better child then I’d be able to write again. If only I could bring my grades up or do my chores or be a better person then maybe I could write again.
Aside from the occasional short story for class or attempt at a writing prompt I saw on Pinterest, I didn’t write much.
When I started college, I started writing again. I decided that as an adult I could do whatever I wanted and the only person whose expectations I had to live up to were my own. And I wanted to write.
For the last few years I have been writing for fun. I even found some friends to write with, but I also learned how to write on my own. I write back and forth with my friends, create elaborate fictional worlds and peoples and faiths and politics… but I never really have anything to show for it. No linear stories, definitely no complete stories. Just a bunch of incomplete notes and concepts with no real products. Thus begins my identity crisis. I decided that I was not, in fact, a writer. Maybe I was just a story teller. I mean it’s true, isn’t it? I like to talk about these epic tales and I can speak about my characters as fluently as if I were talking about myself so yes. I must be a story teller. But to tell stories is a verb, an action. And who am I telling? My two friends? Not really, no. Sure we have our story that we work on together but what about all my personal works? Who are those for? Am I even a story teller if I tell no stories?
Would anyone even want to hear the stories I have to tell? I am a very lost… someone. An artist with no art to show for the immense creativity of my soul.
actually yknow what, no. this is not being limited to discord, yall get it too.
some general cooking tips (in which there is a brief senshi posession):
moisture is the enemy of crispy skin. pat dry with paper towel, and if you have the time and spoons, give a thorough but even coat of baking powder and let sit uncovered in your fridge overnight. this will dry out the skin nicely. for pork belly, create a tight foil boat so that only the skin is showing, and cover in salt to draw out moisture, repeating a couple times if necessary.
furikake seasoning, for the fellow rice lovers, is just nori (seaweed), sesame seeds, sugar, and msg/salt. you might have most if not all of these things already in your kitchen.
chai spice mix is just cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, & allspice.
pumpkin spice is just cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.
to cure your own bacon, you only need water, white and brown sugar, and a non-iodized salt - himalayan pink salt is not iodized, if you cannot find butchers curing pink salt. from there, you can add any seasoning/flavoring you want.
the truly adventurous may cook their rice in green tea for a fresh clean taste.
you can tell if a fish is truly fresh by their eyes - clear and bright is fresh, while cloudy is older or potentially has been frozen.
it's cheaper to buy a large block pack of ramen from your local asian market and repackage the bricks into sandwich bags, than to buy a box of individually packaged ones such as maruchan or top ramen.
when buying meat, look at it's fat content - more fat marbling usually means more tender + flavorful.
you can save onion skins and other vegetable scraps to make your own broth with. you can also save bones for this. mix and match ratios to create your ideal flavor.
bay leaf will always make a soup or broth taste better, but Watch Out (they are not fun to bite into on accident).
msg is, in fact, not The Devil, that was just a racist hate campaign against the chinese and other oriental races. it's literally just a type of salt. it is no more dangerous to eat than any other type of salt.
washing your rice is important because it not only improves flavor and texture by removing excess starch, but it also helps reduce any residual pesticides or dirt, or even insect fragments (please remember that rice paddies are essentially giant ponds that all kind of things live in and swim around. you should also be washing all your produce in general.)
please salt your cooking water for pastas, it just tastes better and you will be happier for it.
boiled potatoes are also improved by salt water.
if you hate vegetables, please consider trying them fried in butter or perhaps bacon grease. it is healthier to eat them fatty than not at all.
healthy food does not in fact have to taste miserable. thats a lie. they are lying to you. free yourself from your blandness shackles. enter a world of flavor.
In his new room - in his new house - Jason searches up for a circus performances and stares at them for hours. First, he watches at them mindlessly, unconsciously curious, and then, he starts to take notes.
He is a street kid, and everything about him screams of that. So, he is nowhere near the grace of these performers on the screen. His arms are not that strong, too, but he is agile, and his legs are much stronger - he can think of something.
He can be just as good as the boy he is replacing.
It is not like someone tells him to match Richard Grayson, and it is not like someone admits that Jason is here to replace the first Wonder Boy, but Jason heard Bruce's conversation with Dick earlier. It was meant not for his ears, but it doesn't matter now.
"So, now what, you exile me, and bring a boy to replace me?!"
Jason is not mad. All of it ‐ adoption papers, the manor, the school - is much more than he ever thought he would get in his life. Being replacement doesn't sound as bad anyway; especially, if his brother is so cool.
So, he makes notes on circus performances and slightly chopes his hair. They are much curlier than Dick's - he has more of a wavy ones, and the only ever look that way, when they get long; his childhood photos with short hair looks too straight - but the cut does its magic.
The next day, Bruce compliments his hair absentmindedly and is positively surprised by his new moves on the patrol, asking where he learnt it from. Jason lies about not remembering, but his cheeks are flashed, and his smile is all about teeth. He can't wait to show it to Dick once they finally get on a mission together.
Expect, when they do, Dick just nods and mutters a light-hearted "good job" before leaving to talk with his team. And Jason knows Dick doesn't want to be mean - he gets it; no one feels good about having a replacement, especially the one that seems so cheap in comparison - but he still cries that night in his pillow, feeling himself a little kid, even if he isn't one. Even if he never was.
Jason wonders if his own replacement would make him understand Dick.
But Jason never gets replaced.
No matter the taunting voice of the Lazarus Pit in the back of his head - that sometimes sounds suspiciously like Talia's; you remain unavenged and replaced - and his own intrusive thoughts that spiral in uneven lines, Jason doesn't think Tim was ever meant to be his replacement. Being replaced means to match the person that was meant to be left behind. And no one asked Tim to be like Jason.
If anything, memory of Jason was thrown under the rag, hidden and locked securely in heads of those who survived. And if they brought Jason up, then it was always an example of what Robin shouldn't do: run away, disobey, and allow emotions to consume you. So, not much of an exemplary original. More like an opposite.
Jason feels an urge to explain that to Tim once; when they sit together on the rooftop, almost like a proper family, instead of broken pieces of someone's idea of a one.
'You could never replace me,' he says, and the instant it leaves his mouth, he knows it came out wrong.
Tim rolls his eyes.
'Yeah, dude. Whatever.'
'No, I mean—' He grits his teeth, scrapping slightly the back of his hand. 'I mean... You could never replace me, because... Because you were always better.'
Tim freezes. His big blue eyes shift in something more confused, and it is almost as if he is not sure how he needs to react — to protest? To agree? To thank him?
Jason doesn't know what to do, too.
He wants to say: it is easy as that, babybird. They wanted to have someone who would have nothing in common with me — someone who could help them to forget about my existence, about the existence of the failed Robin.
But he can't make himself speak again. And he is not sure he wants to stay any longer to hear Tin manging to put his thoughts in the words; he is better than him at this, too, and he almost always sounds convincing.
So, he leaves.
In his room - in the building he owns now - he ruffles his outgrown hair, fluffs up the white streak, and passes by his only remaining photo with Bruce in the frame, on the shelf under the stolen tire.
He still does this semi-circus move in his fights - almost frozen in the air, with his back arched - but he doesn't expect anyone to compliment him anymore.
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