usopp drunkenly rambling about the veggie kids, talking about how much he misses them and reminiscing about how they used to play pirates together all the time. Sanji (a lightweight) interjects with "oh haha you used to talk to inanimate objects to make up for your lack of friends too? i had a pumpkin girlfriend for a week!" and usopp has to pause for a second and then explain that the veggie kids are actual children who just resemble vegetables ,,, and asks sanji "...do you wanna elaborate" (sanji runs away in shame)
bonus: the next time usopp sees sanji cutting up a pumpkin for a dish or smthn he yells "SANJI HOW COULD YOU DO THAT... SHE WAS GOING TO BE YOUR WIFE ONE DAY" (he goes red in the face and chases him down with a knife)
we learned in the recent quests that vidyadhara can indeed become mara struck under the right circumstances, but they're capable of molting and turning into someone entirely new, thus freed from the mara that once struck them ... but of course, along with the molting process comes the loss of memory.
so imagine a reader who was once great friends with jing yuan. the two grew up together practically, working in the cloud knights together, doing everything together. jing yuan, despite his newfound duties as a cloud knight, finds himself falling in love with you.
then, amidst one of the abundance wars, you are stricken with mara. he watches you go insane, just before you disappear. and then, somehow, you are gone from his life forever.
for years, he wonders if you perished on that battlefield shortly before he was dragged away from you. he wonders if you suffered. surely, with the insanity of the mara wreaking havoc on your mind, you had. but at least he can be confident that you would not have had to live through that for long... that's what he tells himself so he can sleep at night.
it takes the general so, so long to let go of what happened. centuries pass, and he's still not confident he can completely dash the thought of you from his mind when he sees a new stall open with a snack he thinks you'd like, or when he sees the tailor shops put out a new line of clothes in your favorite hue.
and then, one day, he sees a familiar face among the crowds.
jing yuan is so quick to rush to your side, trying frantically to catch his breath, to ensure that what he sees before his own eyes is you, not some vision made up by his mind, not a sign that he's succumbing to mara himself, but really and truly you.
yet you only give him a nervous half-smile, your form going stiff the second you see him. you bow politely, and ask if there's anything you can do for the general. you ask him if you've met before.
it's you, and yet it's not.
he lets out that small hum of his when he's trying to fight back the pain he feels. he puts on that placating smile of his when he's trying not to let his hurt show. and he shakes his head, though it takes him nearly a minute under your familiar gaze to do it.
"...no. forgive me. I must have mistaken you for an old friend."
For the last time, people who say "queer is a slur" are not attacking you for identifying as queer. And before you spout off about how I'm just a widdle baby gay who only thinks it's a slur because of "terf rhetoric," I do know the activist history of the term and why some people love it. Some of the people who love it and identify with it are my closest friends. That doesn't change the fact that the people of my rural southern hometown, not to mention my own flesh and blood, used the slur against gay and trans people for years and still do, and I highly doubt they were all "tricked by terfs" into using that as the primary insult for gay and trans people.
Queer is a slur. That's why it was used in activism in the first place. I reclaim the slur dyke, I literally identify as a dyke, but I don't shout and holler when someone tags a post of mine with "d slur" because I understand that it's not personal and that they're doing it for their own comfort. On that note, I often see the biggest shouters of "queer is not a slur!!" claiming that queer is a radically accepting political identity in the same breath. Dude, it's either a completely neutral identity descriptor or a radical political reclamation; it can't be both.
I'm trans, I'm a dyke, and though the modern definition of queer may apply to me, I don't identify as that. I'm sick of seeing the obnoxious kneejerk reactions to me setting one boundary about what I don't want to be called.
dad hasan first christmas!!!!!!!! all the traditions please please please please-
okay cause like here's the thing
Hasan has said before he celebrates like - not religious Christmas, but consumer Christmas (I do not have this quote but it was within the last month where he talked about it) so I feel like all of his traditions are like. based in things but not in a materialistic way. like.
🎄Hasan splurges on a good camera so that he can take 1000 pictures of his two favorite people in the world (you and your child), and the photo taking turns into a tradition. maybe there's always one that's the same, where it's the three of you sat in front of the Christmas tree.
🎄Hasan also feels like the type to put away money every month for his kid so that on Christmas he can give it to them. it also probably feels like "here's the money we're putting away for college" 💀 but I think it depends on how old they are (but it definitely starts on their first Christmas so it's stacked by the time they're allowed to take any money out of it)
🎄if you have traditions from your family, i think he adopts whatever you bring. maybe it's not even to do with your newborn, but as you're sitting at the end of the night, baby on your chest as you lean into Hasan, both sets of legs are up on the ottoman and you talk about how you can't wait to know if they like hot chocolate or eggnog more... or if they're a holiday drink person at all, and do they want to open gifts on Christmas eve or do they have more patience than you?