I Swear We Used To Be Able To Think Critically About Random GoFundMe Asks

So uh….some dude apparently recreated Adobe Photoshop feature-for-feature, for FREE, and it runs in your browser.

Anyway, fuck Adobe, and enjoy!

u heard him ladies

what does turkish delight taste like and is it worth the events that occurred in chronicle of narnia: the lion the witch and the wardrobe

@ninjago-valentine-exchange my contribution as the writer for Cole/Kai B! my artist was the wondrous @ninjapolis and their art is here.

fic is under the cut (i lost some of my work to the horrors of offline storage, but im still proud of what i salvaged and hope to revisit the concept later :salute:)

some content warnings for depression, smoking, references to smoking and drinking, some graphic description of nausea and pain, and a scene that can easily be read as following suicidal ideation or attempt

and also for, you know, killing kai before the fic even started whoops? :sweatdrop:

Boba Rewind

Shock & Denial

Cole rushes in, breathless.

Kai looks up with a lopsided grin on his face.

Cole's heart twists at his brown eyes, sedate and somehow predatory.

"There you are! Was wondering if I needed to go find you myself," Kai ribs him.

"Ah, haha," Cole gulps down air as he collapses in the chair beside him. "No, not this time. Just—huff—just give me a minute…"

Kai chuckles, humming a song he can't quite place. He's fiddling with something on a long ribbon. The shop door tinkles again, arrival or departure.

"Okay, right, let me grab my—our?—my drink, then," Cole wheezes, feeling his legs strain as he stumbles back to his feet, the wet grassy patches of his pants sticking to his legs. Did he really need to run the whole way here? … Looking at Kai's half finished boba, yes. He did.

Kai fluidly swings to his feet in a motion that makes Cole very conscious of how his own knees popped when he stood up. "Eh, I could go for a snack." He shakes his cup and, closing his eyes, drains the rest of it in one long slurp. "And maybe a refill."

"Oh, beautiful! I mean, wonderful!" Cole squeaks out as Kai grabs his (sweaty, so sweaty, why did he run here again?) hand and starts walking to the counter. His face feels just as hot as it did a minute ago.

"Hey, Kai, going on seconds?" the droopy eyed bobarista asks as she brushes off a chipped violet nail with her thumb. She's not wearing a nametag.

"Yeah, and another one for Cole here, and an almond tapioca pudding." He tilts his head as he looks at Cole sideways, "… and two tiramisus."

The white-haired girl takes a fresh cup and scrawls on it. "Same order, I'm sure. And for Cole?" she asks, lips curling up slightly at his name, and for some reason his head goes bright and cold as she speaks.

She's not looking at Cole, though. Her half-lidded eyes are focused on Kai, who seems to be very interested in one of many suncatchers turning lazily in the windowed corner. Their colored light splashes across his face as they twist.

"Uhhh," Cole stammers, "… number nine?" It's hard to think over the noise of the doorbells. (He didn't realize this place was so busy when he came in.) He flicks his eyes up at the menu, "with the chocolate syrup."

He vaguely remembers wanting to try that, at some point. He's stuck on the smear of red on Kai's cheek, stubbornly remaining after the light has moved on.

Kai catches his eye, grinning as he rubs it away with the heel of his palm. "Messy," he says, like it's a bit of a joke.

Really, it kind of is.

Pain & Guilt

Cole feels sick.

He feels like he'll vomit any minute: expel the acid traitorously trying to keep him alive. Purge himself of his digestive tract as it consumes itself, maybe follow it up with his heart and lungs. Take out all the living, beating, pulsing things and toss them out in a cardboard box.

His eyes are aching and burning and that's only because he hasn't slept properly in so long. (How long? It feels like forever.) Not because he's been crying. Definitely not because of the slowly disappearing cigarette hanging from his cracked lips.

"You know he wasn't supposed to have those either, right?" Lloyd drops down beside him onto the cracked pavement, concrete pebbles grinding under his shoes.

Those rocks were part of a big rock once. Cole wonders if they ever miss being what they were.

"It's why I took 'em," he mumbles when Lloyd doesn't say anything for a minute. And it's true, and Cole never did figure out the appeal they held to Kai: not when all they've done for him so far is make him want to puke up everything he ate in the last week (not much) or give him a headache strong enough that the single dim, flickering streetlight on this block makes him want to bash his head against the curb (tempting).

He holds the little baby stub of a thing in his hand, watching the cherry end burn closer to his fingers: playing with his half-empty bottle with the other.

There's a distinctive klick klick beside him and he looks up to see Lloyd playing with the flint on a familiar lighter, reddish brown eyes locked on his. No cigarette in hand, just the look of a dog with a bone on his face.

"We haven't gone out much lately, the two of us," he says, almost casually, "let's change that."

Cole flinches as the cigarette burns his drooping hand and slips it in his bottle. Kai was always particular about where he dropped his stubs.

Anger & Bargaining

Kai is already half done with his drink by the time Cole sits heavily at the table, a trail of puddles between him and the door.

He shivers, teeth chattering as he rakes his eyes over the shorter brunette. Smaller but hardly dainty, his skirt and hoodie covering one of the strongest bodies Cole ever knew.

"Number nine for Cole!" the bobarista hoarsely calls out, lip rings catching in the warm sunlight filtering through the corner windows.

Cole stays seated, looking at Kai.

Kai takes a long sip, looking back at him. "Gonna get that?" he asks, the sound distant and muffled.

"Does it matter?" Cole breathes, his body rattling. Cold, or rage, or something else he doesn't want to touch. He can't stop drinking in Kai's face, the way it's too still and too calm and too quiet and too

"Drink for Cole?" the man calls out again.

"Guess not," Kai says, one hand fiddling with a long hoodie lace. "but your ice might melt."

"Fuck the ice."

"I'll pass."

Cole snorts, slumping forward to rest his head on the sun-warmed tabletop.

He can feel his heart thumping in his chest. A good thing, probably.

Kai rattles his cup and takes a longer slurp than before.

"Please don't go." He doesn't know why he says it (liar), forehead still pressed to the rapidly cooling wood.

Kai breathes deeply for a moment.

"COLE. NUM-BER. NI-NE."

"You should get that," he murmurs back. He sound sad, and that sounds wrong.

"Okay." He stands, turning to the scowling green-streaked man behind the counter.

Depression

Cole drags another breath through his burning lungs (poor lungs, they don't deserve this), coughing again. He doesn't have to look to know Lloyd is pissed beside him. Pissed and radiating fury like he's fueled by it.

"What," Lloyd hisses, "the hell were you thinking."

Cole doesn't answer. Honestly, he's trying to move as little as possible right now aside from the painful breaths he still needs to take.

"Were you thinking? Did you have a single thought for whoever was coming after you? For anyone on the team? For what Kai wanted!"

Cole flinches, curled up on the sand, eyes focused on the grains and seeing nothing at all. The moon is high and bright in the sky, and it watches over as a chill curls up along his spine and gut.

"Fuck," Lloyd sobs. It's a horrible whining noise, and as Lloyd drops to the sand next to him, Cole can only echo the noise, shaking.

There is sand and salt in places the First Master did not intend for there to be. He can feel it in his hair, and taste it on his tongue, and knows that despite the numbness seeping into his legs pressed against the rocky sand they'll still burn when he finally moves again.

Maybe he doesn't need to move again. He could be a statue, right here.

“Cole,” Lloyd starts firmly, but Cole can hear the tremors, “if you ever do that again,” and his voice cracks. “Don't do that again. Just, don't.” 

Cole swallows, “Copy that.” 

“And I'm still telling Nya.” 

Cole laughs roughly, “Understandable.” 

“I can't look at you right now.” 

“I'm sorry.”

Reconstruction & Working Through

There should be more to someone's life than a shoebox. There is more to it than a shoebox, but for what Nya and Lloyd have decided needed to personally filter through Cole? Shoebox.

Cole doesn't know why he's surprised, like he wasn't there when Kai was carefully hoarding away the surprisingly sturdy cardboard box all those months ago. Of course Kai was going to have his party favors of doom in his shoeboxes, they had to be used eventually.

Kai wasn't there to use them anymore.

There's not much in Cole's shoebox: a few trading cards, a familiar lighter. A Prime Empire NG+ cartridge. And a little metal bear, hanging on a long ribbon.

It's familiar, in a way that something he's never really seen before shouldn't be. But the ribbon seems like something he's seen in a dream, and the little bear feels warm and comforting in his hand.

There's a picture, too. Not a team picture or a school picture. One of just the two of them, blurrily taken from Kai's phone at a bad angle with worse lighting.

It's one of Cole's favorite pictures, probably.

That wasn't a great day for him either. He remembers being grumpy the whole day, suffering injustice after injustice such as: sleeping through his alarm clock, running out of milk halfway through his cereal; his shoes coming untied for the first time in a long time; the ice cream from the truck melting before he could even take a bite.

He's pretty sure it was a good day for Kai, though. He aced his test, right?

The truck had almost exclusively his favorites, his allergies didn't crop up despite the spring flowers. And he got that awful picture of the two of them.

Yeah, that was a great day.

Acceptance & Hope

Cole slides into the chair across from Kai. 

"I have no idea what this tastes like," he admits, shaking his cup slightly. "I never drank it that day after everything, and I never went back after. So, I don't even know if it was something I liked or not."

Kai snorts, absently scratching at the gouge on his cheek. "That is literally the easiest problem to solve right now, man. Just go when you're awake this time."

"It won't be the same, without you."

"I hope not. Besides, you barely know what this place is supposed to be like outside of a dream, anyway."

Cole breathes, rattles his cup to hear it shake.

"Did you like it?" Kai asks, the picture of shyness in a flavor unique to him. "My little bear?"

"Yeah," he sighs, "yeah, I wish I'd gotten to tell you before. It's totally sick, man."

Kai grins, "Radical. And, uh," he leans back in his chair, fiddling with his skirt, "you should try the tiramisu, I wasn't kidding. You'll like it."

"I'll take your word for it then." Cole gets up.

How your email finds me 🚬💀

And they were cousins!

Shoutout to the maned wolf, which is technically neither wolf nor fox but has its own genus called Chrysocyon! Why -

why are your legs so long?

I mean, intellectually, I understand that it’s because you live in grasslands and have evolved to be able to see over the grass, but emotionally… why? Are they?? Like that??? Surely there was a way to make your body more cohesive and proportional-looking?

The Bats finding out that Jason is alive because the fic Tim had read from the user JayRobin2222 when he was twelve and which had not updated in years gets a new chapter with an author's note that says "sorry for the late update! I died and couldn't get back to my computer to write this until now. I'm better now though, don't worry!"

the halo is a placeholder for a cooler effect, trust outfit is mostly what he was wearing pre-capture those ink cuffs represent magic sealwork that can effectively replace actual metal cuffs (only for the most part lol)

Oh I had sooo much fun on this guy's face. The expression is equal parts Disgust and Snarl btw, I think it works 🖤 I made custom greens for his hair bc nothing was quite right. And lots of brass and coppers for makeup and accents! also- there's claws now!!! and you can color them individually! heroforge has come so far i love it so much!

And here he is! My baby boy! mwah mwah His hair is black at the ends bc he dyed it a while back (inspired by a ninblr post that has escaped back to the nether for now) The mask is used when he's trying to disguise himself (either because he's super mixed and that's super dangerous in areas, or because he's the Warlord Garmadon's only child). also featured is more nail options and a sleeve tat! still deciding on what exactly but this one seems likely.

A demon simply called The Brother. It doesn't have siblings or any family, and it's ambiguous whether that creature itself is even male at all. It just keeps turning everything and everyone into broth.