The Mountain Dweller

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The shinies walked in step.

Even when they didn’t mean to, even when they weren’t running drills or storming battlefields, even when GAR life fell away for a moment. Those moments always seemed to happen with them. They walked in step, even when they didn’t mean to. Not like marching. Not like war. Like familiarity, or home, like their feet don’t know how to move unless the other one is by their side.

They weren’t shinies anymore, but they still walked in step. Their faces blended into the rest of the legion now, no longer sticking out just a bit too far or standing just a bit too tall, as if they expected to be left behind before they could realize what had happened. They painted their armor together, in the 501st blues like everyone else did, but their patterns mirrored the other one’s. They have the same goals, without having to talk about it, and they’re both convinced the other one picked the dream - they’re following, because he’s a force of nature, because I can’t laugh without his smile.

They’re ARCs, finally, their armor still painted with eels and handprints and fives and memories, and still they walk in step. Jesse swears he’s never seen them on opposite feet, never seen a moment where one of them is confused after finding the answers in the other’s eyes. When they settle under the thin sheets for the night rotation, one of them traces the future into the other one’s skin and they whisper their promises in their ears. They don’t have to say them, they know them by heart, because they were made and settled before it was time to acknowledge that they were there. They walk in step, their heads tilted towards one another like they can hear the other one’s thoughts, like there’s an open comms channel between them that’s never closed and the only feedback is heartbeats and breaths and love. They understand each other better than they understand themselves. They walk in step, because there’s never been a moment when he hasn’t been nearby, because I don’t know how to breathe if he’s not there to show me how.

And then one of them is gone.

And the other can’t walk, can’t laugh, can’t breathe without him. The promises fade, the memories stab, there is no one to meet his eyes or smile at the jokes he can’t make anymore. He is shattered, watching his broken pieces on the ground and afraid to pick them up lest he cut himself. He’s traded so many of them to the other one that he can’t tell whose are whose anymore, but they all hurt. They found themselves in each other, and now the only way he can guess at himself is in the shadows where the other one’s pieces used to be.

He cannot walk in step anymore.

His feet must learn to walk alone.

*******

OUCH. I think it feels wrong to wish you a happy Clonetober Day 25 now, because it physically pained me to write this (want more? or to find something a little more lighthearted? go visit the lovely @clonetober for the prompt list).

Fives and Echo were my original duo, and though I've fallen hard for Jessix they'll always hold a very special place in my heart. Those two just understand the other one like no one else ever can; they'll happily trade the world if it means the other one will be all right. I think it's their greatest strength, and also their greatest source of pain. Fives builds his identity around other people. Echo's bravery is the kind to leap over bridges without a second thought.

And so....

@purgetrooperfox’s sweet Nocte in Pincha mayurasana/arm stand, potentially, possibly, maybe catching some sleep. 💤

Thanks again for letting me borrow Nocte, Leo! I love him 😍

Thank you @mzyraj 🥺

Im tagging: @kanawolf @one-boring-person @darkdjinnimenace @kesskirata @lorecraft @spanishmossmagnolia @marvelousmermaid @sgnjimmy @prettylilhalforc @velocibee @infatuatedjanes @jessie-writes-things @green-socks and everyone who would like to join xoxo

(Actually me. In that, it was drawn for me to be me. I think it’s pretty accurate.)

Thank you for the tag @grogusmum !

Lol this is pretty accurate- my family calls me “fountain of knowledge” for a reason 😹

It me.

I was really torn between one that said “my unyielding melancholy brings all the existentialists to the yard,” and this one. This one is almost too accurate though.

My entire personality

Thanks for the tag @theunforgivabletruths !

No pressure tags: @certified-anakinfucker

thanks leo 🥰

doodles, courtesy of me in geography

I want you to know that this is the only one I could find that wasn’t at least a little bit nsfw and I think I need to go reassess my life

I am basically Cutup.

This is my face 99% of the time throughout the day

Thank you for the tag my lovely @echoisbabe

this one sums me up pretty well i think lol

this me

i dont know how to can anymore

Omg ive never done anything like this lol thanks for the tag !

A somewhat spicy Codex. Happy weekend! Full image under the cut!

@anstarwar’s darling OC Poke in lotus/padmasana! Thanks for letting me borrow them, Sara!

Find my other clone yoga drawings here!

One of my service learning classes involved work at a local homeless community center, helping people write resumes and cleaning bathrooms.

Our instructor told us to expect to see the bathrooms trashed a lot–like you will clean the bathroom and immediately someone will wreck it.

And it’s not because they disrespect your work or don’t value having access to clean bathrooms or whatever, but because of control.

When you feel like you have no control over your life or your environment, your brain is going to want to assert control however it can.

Which results in trashed bathrooms.  It’s control exercised over the one small part of your environment that you still have the power to affect.

I see kids on tumblr using the language of social justice as cudgels on people who actually do care about and listen to them

or holding the creators within their communities to an impossibly high standard that they never apply to mainstream media properties.

I just see trashed bathrooms. ‘These are the people my voice will reach,’ they rationalize, ‘so these are the people I’ll hurt.’

Anyway, I thought I'd make a quick post explaining why I've been so vocal about the anti nonsense.

I'm very good at avoiding drama, and I've never been involved in fandom drama before. I learned a long time ago that arguing with people (in RL as well, but especially online) is a waste of everyone's time because it's extremely rare to change anyone's mind about anything.

My first inclination is just to ignore all the nonsense, like I always do, but every time I brush off the antis I get so many messages and asks from others in the fandom thanking me.

People are so scared of stepping one foot out of line in this fandom because they'll instantly be given some awful label and ostracized by the vocal minority who think everyone has to be just like them. Folks literally receive death threats and 'go kill yourself' type messages over fictional characters. Not sure how antis can claim to be morally superior when they're trying to harm actual people, but whatever.

That said, I've never had any faith in the pile of garbage that is humanity, but that doesn't mean I don't care about individual people.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I will make myself available to anyone who needs to talk about this kind of thing. You need support? Shoot me a message. You feeling the need to rant until your head clears? Need a shoulder to cry on? I’m here for it.

Rant ahead - Sunny’s losing her shit;

Let’s be clear; I do not give a good god damn what people have to say about me. I, like lovely Caco, am kind of a brick wall when it comes to most things that all of these proselytizers of discontent might throw my way, but I will. not. tolerate. people bullying the kind, gentle souls that are too nice to say anything back. I’m too hotheaded to sit there and let that shit slide, myself, so I’ve always got something to say about it and am happy to jump in in someone else’s stead.

Cowards. That’s all you are.

Caco and Sunny are right: you’re attacking real humans over fictional characters. Do you even hear yourselves?? This weird moral panic you’ve participated in on this platform has been incredibly damaging to those who can’t stand up to your BS.

If there's one thing Waxer and Boil know, it's that they will always look out for each other.

+++

We finally get to find out the specifics of the Poison Berry Incident during ARF training, and, years later, Boil gets to pay Waxer back. <3

Thank you so much to my amazing beta, @supersoldiervigilante!

And thank you to @elouanwrites for inspiring this fic and letting me pick their brain about what happens in the second part.