#I blame gone for my terrible taste in people

[all-hail-the-crows]

I've crumbled to the urge to reread Gone

It's both kind of nice and kind of sad that apparently I've always been obsessed with awful, misogynistic, murderous men<3

[jezabelle9299]

Broken Lungs S.R x FEM!Reader

CWs- Spoilers for season 5, depictions of asthma and use of a nebulizer, mentions of gunshot wounds, and health insurance not covering necessary medication.

Quick Infodump- Oxygen saturation levels should be 95-100%, lower than 93% should seek immediate help from a healthcare professional, and lower than 85% can cause severe damage to the brain because of a lack of oxygen.

Overture: Spencer is recovering from the knee surgery he needed after being shot in the field, when he sees a familiar face in the hospital being treated for an asthma attack.

A/N- This is based on my own experience with asthma, but it's different for everyone, so the relatability may vary with this one. But I was stuck at home all day because of an air quality alert so I did this instead of getting ready for the semester that starts in two weeks.

After one of his worst days in the field, Spencer ended the day in a hospital bed unable to walk. Hotch had been stabbed, and he had been shot. Both would be ok, and they were in separate hospitals to recover. The team alternated who would come to visit, and when. It usually took until the nurses kicked them out at the end of visiting hours, for them to actually leave. 

It’d been 2 days since his surgery, and the nurses had given him permission to walk around with his brace, on crutches. He’d never used them before, so he walked around the floor to the nurses’ station to get some more jell-o, and then around the hall back to his room. He allowed his curiosity (or nosiness) to get the better of him, occasionally glancing in at the people with their doors open, giving them a small smile or wave. Until he saw a familiar face. 

You’d worked for the FBI for a few years, working on the same floor as the BAU, but you weren’t in the field. You were sitting up in a hospital bed, playing solitaire in one hand, holding what looked like an oxygen mask to your face with the other. You looked up when you felt his eyes on you, and there he was, trapped in the doorway. You’d think you were hallucinating if not for the brace on his knee, and the crutches he was propping himself up on. He didn’t move from the threshold until you gave him a small wave, jumpstarting his movement into your room. 

You’d heard about Hotch’s incident, but you weren’t in the office yesterday, and since Spencer’s injury happened later in the day, you had no idea why he was here. You pulled the mask spraying (terrible tasting) medicine into your lungs from your face. You could stop for 30 seconds to see what he was here for. 

“Hey Spencer, what–um, what brings you here?” He hesitated, because you’d know since the 5th floor of the FBI building was the most gossip-ridden place he’d seen since high school. Yet he had no idea you’d be here. It’s not even as if you never talked, whenever he was in the office he’d stop by your desk to talk to you. He figured that you hadn’t gotten tired of him yet because he was gone a lot, although in reality you’d never tire of hearing his voice.

“I got shot in the knee, I’ll be fine, the real question is why are you here?” You’re sure it’s on government record, something Garcia could find in two minutes if she looked, but you still didn’t like talking about it. You knew it was stupid to be embarrassed of it, but you couldn’t help it. Every time it got brought up, you felt like the dorky character in a movie carting around their inhaler all the time, the butt of some cosmic joke. 

You preferred to think of it as an inconvenience more than anything. It didn’t come up often because you weren’t in the field, and when you needed to use an inhaler, you measured your breathing long enough to get to an empty bathroom or supply closet. You’d just blame the jitters that came after on too much coffee, and no one would ask any questions. This time, the inhaler wasn’t working, the next step in medication, a small machine similar to what you were supposed to be hooked up to now, wasn’t working either. So you drove to the ER feeling like you’d just run 10 miles, and they were making you stay 36 hours to give you stronger medication in intervals. 

“No reason.” You didn’t know why you even bothered with that response. Neither did Spencer, tossing you an apathetic look. He knew how squeamish you got when attention was drawn to something that made you look vulnerable, which is why he let it slide every time you walked into a supply closet looking flushed and panicked, with a soundtrack accompanying every time you took a breath, only to come out 5 minutes later with no supplies. 

 “Ok, really? Why would you even try it, you’re hooked up to a nebulizer and your oxygen saturation is at 90. What happened?” He was using the tone he only ever broke out for interrogations and proving Morgan wrong, but you still wanted to minimize the attention drawn to this not so glamorous piece of your life. You wanted Spencer to see you as someone he could date, even someone he could love, so this was not ideal to the image you’d been trying to show at work. 

“I have gross broken lungs. It’s really no big deal.” He laughed, but there was minimal humor behind it. Like he couldn’t even fathom you thinking this was ‘no big deal’. 

“I would venture to say you being in the hospital because you were unable to breathe is a very big deal.” While you loved when Spencer got a little bit cocky, you decided it would be more fun to make the little vein in his forehead appear again. So you tossed a vague shrug.

“Well I’d say getting shot is a much bigger deal. So why don’t you sit down, eat your jello, and tell me what happened to you, while I finish this thing.” He couldn’t argue with that, because at the very least he wanted you to feel better and the medicine currently going to waste while you were talking was the only way to accomplish that, so he relented. 

He didn’t want to move your things to the floor, but they were occupying the only chair in the room, so he made himself comfortable at the foot of your bed. He always wanted to be closer to you anyway. Setting his crutches next to him and opening the small cup of jello he’d somehow been holding this whole time, he reiterated his answer from before. 

“I told you already, I got shot in the knee, went into surgery, and now other than having to use these crutches for a while, I’m fine. Just need to spend a little longer in recovery before I can go back home to minimize the risk of infection.” He took a bite of jell-o just as a show of finality, like there was nothing more to say. Like a gunshot wound was not a huge deal. 

The whirr of the machine started to slow down, the medicine sputtering instead of coming out in a steady steam, meaning you could finally be done. You set it on the table by the bed, right next to your abandoned game of solitaire, and as soon as you set it down Spencer’s attention was back on your wellbeing. 

“Ok your turn, what happened?” 

“I’ve had asthma since I was a kid, and I just got unlucky today. It’s always worse this time of year, and my inhaler wasn’t really doing anything for me. Our health insurance plan doesn’t cover the more expensive meds unless I’m in the hospital, so here I am, for the next 36 hours.” You made a point to turn your exasperated expression into a cheesy smile, hoping to convince him to stay for just a little while longer.  “But the bright side is that since you're here I don’t have to play solitaire anymore. That was getting old fast.” You grabbed the cards, giving them a quick shuffle.

“So what do you say Vegas, are you up for a round of poker?” You hoped that would distract him from fussing over you, and luckily it did. He was satisfied you were ok, and the last thing he wanted was to push you too far, and for you to ask him to leave. So he let the smile take over his face. 

“Always. But i'm not going to go easy on you just because of your- what did you call them- broken lungs?” That got a good laugh out of you. Admittedly wheezy, but still one of the most beautiful sounds in the world to him. 

“Gross, broken lungs. And I wouldn’t dream of it.” You dealt the cards, already knowing you’d lose. You didn’t even know how to play poker. But word around the office was that most of your coworkers wouldn’t play with him since he always won. But you didn’t mind, you mostly just wanted someone to hang out with, and you were overjoyed that person was Spencer. He won, of course. Only gloating a little bit at how badly he beat you, and while you were dealing the second round of cards, you couldn’t help but vocalize what had been in the back of your mind for a few minutes now. 

“Hey Spencer, could I ask you a favor?” He had a mix of worry and willingness to help all over his face. 

“Anything.”

“Could you–not tell anyone in the office? Just. You know how they are, they would make a fuss about the whole hospital thing and it’s just not necessary.” 

“Where do they think you’re going to be for the next day and a half?”

You looked down like a kid who just got caught in a lie. “I kind of told Hotch I had a cold.” Spencer just sighed in response. 

“I really do think you should let them fuss over you. You deserve it, and you know Penelope lives for that sort of thing.” That you couldn’t deny, no matter how much you disagreed with him saying you deserved to be cared for. 

“Please, Spencer?” 

“Alright, but they might walk past your room in the morning. Garcia said she was coming, and you know she’ll drag at least one person along with her.” 

“Noted. I’ll close the door in the morning. Thank you Spencer, seriously, it means a lot.” You put your hand over his and it felt like every thought he’d ever had was gone from his brain at your touch. He couldn’t believe his dumb luck at meeting someone like you. Just to be in your orbit, to see and know you, felt like it could only be accomplished by divine intervention. Selfishly, he wished that you’d be staying a little longer, so that you could both leave together. Even more selfishly, he wished that you would leave with him, and come to his apartment. There he could take care of you, make you feel special until he could finally convince you that you deserved it. Deserved everything. 

You moved your hand to start tapping it on your leg, and while Spencer knew the side effects of respiratory steroids, he couldn’t help the nagging feeling that something was wrong. That maybe he did something wrong. 

“Is there something on your mind?” 

“No, it’s just the jitters. I used to get them so bad when I was a kid, my parents would have to practically hold me down. It’s like I have the energy to run a mile, but I can’t actually do it. I’ll calm down in a bit, but I’m probably going to get really rambly first.” 

“I’d love to listen to you talk, and I love being on the other side of a ramble.” It was just then that a nurse came in to ask if you were feeling better, charting your vials,  reminding you that you need to take your next dose in 4 hours, and telling you that an orderly would be in to set it up then.

Just when she was getting ready to leave she turned her attention to Spencer. “I’m sorry, but I am going to need you to go back to your room Dr. Reid. You both need to get some rest.”

He reluctantly told her that he would and just as soon as he’d come in, he disappeared again. He gave you a wave when he was gathering his crutches, but no real goodbye. You of course waved back, but you couldn’t help but feel disappointed. You really liked him, and you thought maybe he really liked you too. And yet, he only gave you a wave. 

All of the adrenaline moving through you, getting you all worked up finally won out, and stupid as it may sound, tears started to prick the corners of your eyes. Just as you closed the door to your room to get some privacy while you cried, your phone started to ring, and you couldn’t help but think; What now? You answered it without looking, and on the other side of the line was the person you wanted to hear from the most. 

“So what did you want to talk about? I have all the time in the world.”

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Y'know, if Lila was just a one-off character for Volpina and we never saw her again, a few tweaks in that episodes writing could have made it a good lesson about not letting your temper get the best of you, even in a situation where your anger is justified

This is in reference to the post where I discussed how terrible Volpina's lesson is and I agree with the proposed change. If Marinette has to be in the wrong here, that's the only way to make it kind of work. In fact, this is what I thought the episode was trying to do on my first watch. When the next season started with Lila gone, I thought, "Okay, so that episode was supposed to be about being the better person and having a more measured response when you've been wronged. I don't think it did that lesson super well, but I can see what they were going for and we'll give them some grace. Definitely one that I wouldn't just give to a kid, though. Way too high a risk of them internalizing a very wrong message."

I only gave the writers that grace because I assumed that Ladybug had truly humiliated Lila out of Paris off screen (remember, we only see Ladybug out Lila to Adrien even though Lila was lying to everyone) and that is a pretty extreme punishment for a teenager making a dumb choice. Even then, saying that Ladybug was in the wrong feels a little too victim blame-y for my tastes. Lila was the one telling the lies and using Ladybug's name for clout on a city-wide scale or possibly even a national/international scale depending on the Ladyblog's viewership. By telling those lies, Lila was harming Alya's credibility and presenting herself as a sort of authority on Ladybug, a position that she was going to use to her advantage as we saw with her manipulating Adrien. She was also putting herself at risk if Gabriel or other villains believed the lies and saw her as a way to get to Ladybug.

That means that the lies Lila told aren't exactly minor, victimless crimes like the lies Marinette and Adrien tell to hide their identities. Lilia's lies needed to be outed on the same scale that they were broadcast and there's no kind way to do that. It's going to have a brutal edge no matter how pretty the words are.

There are times when it's right to be "the better person" and let a thing go, but it's hard to view this as one of them because this was not a nuanced situation. There was no reasonable option other than issuing a public retraction and Ladybug didn't even go that far! She had a single, private confrontation with Lila and then let the matter rest. A better version of this episode might see Alya and Marinette giving a really mean retraction on the Ladyblog that they then feel bad about because they should have been more professional, but that's about it as far as possible improvements go.

If we look at what the episode actually gave us, it feels like another Gamer situation. An episode that blames Marinette for impure motivations while ignoring anyone else's faults, creating a nonsense moral that just makes me mad. Ladybug-is-wrong-for-confronting-the-liar-for-impure-reasons is certainly a take. It's just not one that I'm ever going to agree with. To give a recent, real-world example, do people really feel that James Somerton was the wronged party because his many, many lies and instances of plagiarism were outed in a brutal public takedown? (Context part 1 & part 2, though part 2 is the one to watch if you only want to see why letting lies from respected sources go unchecked can be so messy.)

To be clear, I don't think that Lila's lies were Somerton bad in Volpina, but they were starting to go down that road and they arguably reached Somerton levels by season five. Fakes identities, almost getting Marinette expelled, using her lies to get social power from Gabriel, the list goes on, which is yet another reason to hate Volpina. Its nonsense moral is a big part of why Lila could do all of that. Ladybug should have outed Lila! Society suffered and will continue to suffer because she didn't. That's why you have to stop misinformation as soon as you possibly can, but that wasn't actually the moral of Volpina. The moral was that Ladybug was in the wrong for being mean to the liar. Maybe if she'd been nicer, then Lila wouldn't be so evil now which is a very gross moral! Volpina really does feel even more victim blame-y now that Lila is the new big bad.

That's a good segue to circle back and finish off my original topic: I gave the writers grace for Volpina until Lila returned and established that she'd never been publicly outed. At that point, Volpina lost any chance at me giving it charity. The lesson was worse than I thought and I was fully justified in hating it. It's one of the ones I use when I explain why I wouldn't want a child getting into Miraculous because the problem with Volpina's moral is pretty straightforward.

[desultory-novice]

I find it hilarious that kirby doesn't know how to read or write. Yet he completely understands the concept of money and how it works!

So... I had a lot to say about the "Kirby can't read" thing?!?

See, this struck me last time I saw someone bring up Kirby can't read as proof Kirby is a very young child. (1) Speaking broadly, we as a species tie age/intelligence to reading level, which, by my reckoning, is a holdover of the school system. (:cough: That or callous systems of oppression to deny various people rights based on things like money, land, freedom, gender, religion, race, etc :cough:)

A Kirby who can't read must be a Kirby who hasn't gone to school!

But wait... ..."School??"

[continued below...w/ pictures!]

-

Is there even "school" in Dream Land? Waddle Dees seem to get put to work serving the king or guarding treasure or swinging happily across train tracks ("Oh my god, he's got airpods in! He can't hear us!") pretty much from the moment they make their first "Wanya!" In fact, Wise Waddle Dee seems to have become "wise" because...he found a book? Now, he was able to read it, but how long did it take him?? Can the other Waddle Dees read? Was Delivery Waddle Dee (?) taught to read by Wise Waddle Dee? How long did it take them to acquire this skill? They've all been there for X amount of time...

If Dream Land and Popstar as a whole has no mandatory schooling -public, private, or otherwise - can we really judge intelligence or age based on the same things we judge them on in the real world?

Another thing that made me question the logic of age = schooling was, amusingly enough, deciding to finally check out a rather FAMOUS episode of the anime...

A shame that the, erm, "feel good" ending leaves a bitter taste in the mouth now.

Anyway, the reason I went to watch the whole thing in the original Japanese was because I spotted something of interest and had to confirm it for myself...

King Dedede (at least in the anime) can't read either!

Now, Anime King Dedede also has cartoon human teeth (?) drives a ridiculously sized car everywhere, and abuses his gay snail second-in-command for "comedy" + a lot of other things we very much doubt of our beloved game Dedede. He's also portrayed as comically dumb. A little sad that the anime uses lack of literacy as an indicator that "Oh, look! He's embarrassingly stupid!" (That whole episode was Escargoon's fault. Not that I blame him, given the way Dedede treats him, but you really couldn't have just read the book aloud?!)

Anyway - because I'm me and I love to overanalyze insignificant or discarded tidbits and try to find clever ways to re-apply them in various canon - I thought about this and considered, "Yes, indeed! Why WOULD Dream Land have traditional schooling?! Why would anyone without a specific interest in books have any need develop the skill of reading in this world?" What is there TO read, even?

(Helpful road signs? All visual!)

My interpretation, at least, is that game Dedede is intelligent, if flawed. Still, he builds robots! He's good at chess! But these "smart" things are no indication he's good at reading or writing.

The note sent to Kirby in Kirby Fighters 2? We don't know Dedede wrote that. Meta Knight, who can read (...or so we assume?!?! Maybe That Book Meta Knight Was Reading on the Knoll in the Opening Cutscene for Return to Dream Land and Return to Dream Land Deluxe is a picture book!) might have written it for the two of them. Although... this puts another funny, twisty idea in my head!

We gather that, regardless of Kirby's need to read, Kirby has terrible handwriting, as implied by Kirby and the Forgotten Land. (Planet Robobot as well as various merch shows us that Kirby's not all that good at art, either.) Which is excusable, since they're writing with little nubs! Meta Knight has nubs too, but he covers them with (magical?) gloves that somehow give them better grip??

With these pseudo-hands, Meta Knight MUST be better at both letter writing and art than Kirby! Except... do we know that for sure...?

I point you to a certain Star Allies picture where Meta Knight's mirror duplicate, Dark Meta Knight, is drawing peacefully alongside Adeleine, Ribbon, and Daroach. Adeleine aside, the rest are, y'know, decent! ...Except Dark Meta Knight, who is TERRIBLE. Maybe even worse than Kirby! But...if Dark Meta Knight draws as badly as Kirby, and Dark Meta Knight is Meta Knight's mirror world duplicate...

Do you see where I'm going with this...?

(I blew out all my art skills on Apologies. Take this Kirby Meta Knight tier scribble...)

Just imagine, King Dedede boldly dictating the duo's letter of challenge to Meta Knight for the knight to write down... horribly! And King Dedede, who can't read, has no idea it's written in "Nub Scratch," nods happily that their "flawless" letter should be sent to Kirby immediately! Meta Knight, who cares about his image, does not clue him in to the truth. Neither does Kirby, who couldn't read it even if it were legible. Meta Knight's bad handwriting remains a secret that goes with him to his probably very cool-looking grave!

...

As for how money fits into the low-literacy world of Kirby, it's not hard to imagine King Dedede being responsible for that! The man loves his shinies! Assuming he wasn't born with a king's robe and crown on him, we have to accept that he dressed himself that way because he likes it! He likes being/looking wealthy and in charge. He likes gold. Maybe not as much as a certain rat, but enough.

And what is a kingdom without its own currency? ...Or maybe all those treasures in the Great Cave Offensive came with price tags and Kirby's just dutifully reporting the numbers to us?

--

(1)Young/Child Kirby is fine, btw! Honestly, some more modern content, like the concert, have been skewing in a young Kirby direction, with Kirby needing to take a nap in the middle of the show due to how late it was. As an old school fan, I still prefer my Kirby to be something unfathomably old (yet forever young at heart) or something cosmic beyond our mortal concept of age while still somehow able to be a friend to all... but that's a Dess-Lore thing!

(2) Of course, Kirby (and by association, Meta Knight) aren't natives to Popstar - Kirby being a wanderer carried on a Spring Breeze - thus, Dream Land's lack of an education system wouldn't affect whether the two know how to read or write. But I believe the same "Why does reading matter on their planet of origin?" / "Why would they have such a system?" COULD apply to them as well.

...For the humor of it, if nothing else!

[ladiemars]

i’m leaving tumblr, and here’s why (with receipts):

so i’ve recently been informed that i’ve been accused of being anti-black by @ava-du-mortain. this person is blocked but they have watched my blog for years, made multiple posts about me, but also started going into the direct messages of people who interact with me calling me racist.

firstly: i am not anti-black. i’m not racist. or at least i try my best not to be, and correct behaviors that are. please read this post in full before making assumptions about me.

(and for the record: i am not, and never have been, @songofsoma, but pap seems to be accrediting some of her posts to me (as seen above). she is her own autonomous person who has made apologies and will make her own response to this on her own blog.)

i have never ever engaged in arguing with pap out of hope they would leave me alone (block and move on is my motto) but this has continued, so i feel the need to now since the harassment has gotten so extreme and ended so many relationships. already pap has also gone to the lengths to message two separate artists that i have commissioned and paid money to. this has caused these artists to either cancel their commissions, block, or unfollow me (though both refunded me and were very kind in their parting). i covered their users to protect them from harassment.

in addition, a ton of mutuals have unfollowed me and deleted my art from their blog. i hope it’s a knee jerk reaction to such a terrible accusation. and i hope they’ll read my side of the story below.

————

now for the accusations which have apparently warranted this level of stalking and harassment in response from pap:

first accusation: i spoke over poc voices.

my response: in october of 2022, pap was involved in harassing a small blog run by a POC for saying that nate was manipulative. this person romanced nate. it wasn’t a hate post.

for days, people in pap’s circle continued posting about them, and they were dogpiled by this friend group even after they apologized. as the dogpiling continued, i stepped in as a white person with a larger platform than them. i asked for their permission to step in and defend them. they agreed and thanked me.

this was the post i made:

i wasn’t trying to speak over anyone. i was using my platform to speak up in defense of a POC who was being bashed for talking about a POC character. however, i shouldn’t have done this. because whatever my intentions, ultimately i am a white person and it’s not my discourse to comment on. i was speaking out of turn. i’ve talked to POC friends since and they’ve told me this as well, and i listened to both them and pap, and i haven’t done anything like that again. so i’m genuinely very sorry, it was in poor taste, and i hope the fact that sort of behavior hasn’t repeated reflects the sincerity of that.

second accusation: in chapter 9 my fic, wants and wishes, they say i falsely accused felix of assaulting a white woman and then had him violently assaulted.

my response: this is, frankly, the most baffling accusation to me.

in chapter 9 of wants and wishes, frankie has a hickey on her neck from adam. when this is pointed out, adam deflects and says it could have been one of the other three members of unit bravo. the three boys begin to argue about who, other than adam, is most likely to have given her a hickey. at one point during the argument mason grabs felix by the shirt.

so a hickey that adam gave frankie and then tries to blame on the other members of unit bravo has been described as felix, a black man, being accused of choking frankie, a white woman. and mason grabbing felix by the shirt has been described as a violent assault. i really don’t know what to say about this, other than, to my knowledge, no one who has ever read wants and wishes has interpreted this chapter as that. including people of color.

i encourage you to read this chapter for yourself and then decide if it’s a black man being accused of assaulting a white woman and being violently assaulted rather than taking pap’s word. they linked the chapter but i don’t know how many people actually read it as opposed to just believing it.

also, what baffles me further: worse things happen to f in the games than having their shirt grabbed by mason? like, the fights with the trappers? getting injured in book 2? and murphy, who pap writes fanfiction about, actually violently attacks f and throws them into a wall so hard they can’t get back up in book one. but to my knowledge, pap has never called mishka out for writing a black man being violently assaulted, just me for having mason grab his shirt.

third accusation: i called a black person aggressive

my response: four years ago in the fall of 2019, i made an online friend. we were on and off talking for months, in the same servers, and shared some oc stuff together.

sometimes friendships don’t work. it happens with teenagers. i told them that me and some people found the jokes they made about other people’s OCs mean in nature.

i’m sensitive, i have autism, i take things literally by accident sometimes. i’ve grown up a lot since then, but when i was 18/19, if someone called my character stupid i wouldn’t realize it was a joke, and i would get hurt. when i communicated this, my friend disagreed that their jokes were mean. we stopped talking. later, i was accused of playing into the aggressive black stereotype by pap.

i was trying to communicate a boundary that i felt had been crossed in our friendship. i do not remember calling them aggressive, i haven’t seen any screenshots of me calling them aggressive, but this was years ago in 2021. i do know i called them mean for sure. possibly rude too.

i’m 22 now, i’ve been in therapy and learned about social scripts for autism, and if i were to be presented with this situation again i think i would handle explaining my feelings and setting my boundaries better. using words like mean aren’t a good way to set a boundary, they just make people defensive. but ultimately i can’t go back in time to when i was 19, so all i can do is grow from it and not do it again. and i haven’t.

and i doubt this past friend wants to talk to me, but i’m going to unblock them on discord if they want to me to make a personal apology to them for that. i’m not going to apologize to pap, the grown person who was not involved in this conflict between teenagers.

————

when people of color began pointing out stretches in pap’s evidence against me, they deleted the comments and made this post, telling the non-black POC who disagreed with them and defended me to straight up die.

so take that as you will.

i’ve made mistakes but i’ve never told any person who disagrees with me to die, even as a joke. that’s genuinely so fucked to do to another human when you don’t know what’s going on behind the screen.

————

conclusion: i really don’t understand why pap feels the need to go to such extremes over what happened in 2021 between me and someone who isn’t even them, or why they lied about the choking in that wants and wishes chapter. however i acknowledge my wrongdoing in involving myself in the race discourse surrounded nate, and again i apologize. truly, sincerely, deeply.

pap obviously doesn’t want me to grow from this situation or acknowledge that i might have since i was 19. but i’m going to try to anyway. fortunately i have POC friends both online and in real life who will call me out when i make mistakes like that nate post, and allow me to make amends and improve. and ultimately it’s their opinions that matter to me—not pap’s, or strangers online who have never met me.

you can believe i’m anti-black and unfollow me if you want. i understand. do whatever you need to feel safe in this space. that’s why i’ve been trying to do by avoiding this pap. i hope now that i’ve responded like they’ve wanted me to for years it will stop, but i doubt it. i’m sure they will tear this post apart in a response and call it insincere. there’s not really a point since i won’t be seeing it.

i don’t know if i’m ever returning. i love making wayhaven art but it’s just not worth it to stay in this environment.

final add on, tw for csa:

believe it or not i am a real person. so if you read this and still think i’m racist please just unfollow and block me. you don’t need to tell me, pap already has.

this whole thing with pap on tumblr has started to affect me in my real life. in february i started being treated by a therapist for five years of childhood sexual abuse from my father and i was using wayhaven as an unhealthy distraction from it. that’s why i wasn’t responding to the hate in my inboxes or the posts pap made. i’m in a fragile state and people around me were advising me not to because of that. but each time i ignored them their behavior would escalate, and now their messaging everyone i know that i’m racist and to not interact with me. it’s been really triggering in a lot of ways because i was shunned from my family when i tried to speak up and wasn’t believed. so i’m going to do what pap won’t and stop seeking out what’s having such a profoundly negative impact on me.

————

— mars

[randomwriteronline]

There are some differences that are funny.

His teeth are sharp, for example. And he bites into anything like an apple.

Onions. Lettuce. Wikis. Cauliflowers. Nanabs. Whole pieces of raw ham. Kebias. (He likes Kebias a lot now. Emmet thinks they taste like nothing.) Tamatos.

(He almost puked after that. Understandable. A whole mouth of Tamato Berry feels more or less like an incredibly tense job interview with Arceus. In a room where everything is on fire. And that room is your mouth. Emmet didn’t stop him because he thought it would have been funny as hell. It was! For the first five seconds. Then he started suffocating, so he helped him.)

Sometimes he will eat out of a hand. Without asking. Just assuming it’s for him. Many snacks have been lost to this. Elesa called it Zebstrika behavior.

Also the climbing. He can climb anywhere now. If Emmet points somewhere and goes, can you climb that?, he will just go and climb that. No hesitation at all. Absolute chaos.

Some differences are small.

Fidgeting with his wrist. Drawing circles on his shoulders. Praying. (They didn’t use to pray. The Dragons aren’t prayed to. They are invoked. It’s different). Saying things in another language. Making jams. Or pickled foods. Idioms nobody else has ever heard of. Sudden melancholies.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. I simply derailed my train of thought.”

(Emmet understands. In a way.)

Small smiles.

Some differences aren’t fun at all.

The brace for his back. The shortness of his breath. The holes in his memory. The strained muscles and pained joints. The food intollerances.

The scars.

(Emmet hates seeing them, but when he does he cannot look away. He hates it. Do they still hurt? It’s a stupid question, but he can’t help asking. The answer is always a wave and a half smile, a reassurance: No, no, they’ve all closed long ago - there’s nothing to worry about. Sometimes they do still hurt, though. Sometimes Emmet sees him gritting his teeth for them. There’s medicine for chronic pain in the bathroom cabinet. Emmet hates it.)

These are the things Emmet hates the most.

His brother does not have these problems. His brother should not have these problems. He should have come back and everything should have gone back to normal and settled back into what it used to be. Perfectly slotted onto the rails. But it’s different. Mostly for the worse.

(Emmet does not blame his brother, of course. He blames what caused all this. His brother is alive and happy for the most part. That’s good. Emmet is still angry at whatever ruined his brother’s health and body forever.)

Emmet is different, too. Mostly for the worse, too. Emmet did not use to have auditory hallucinations. Or difficulty sleeping. Or anxiety attacks. Or intrusive thoughts. Or eating disorders. Emmet did not use to bite the skin between his thumb and index hard enough to pierce when he felt angry. Or get so nauseous he couldn’t help but throw up when he was tense. Or hyperventilate to the point of fainting when he was somewhere he didn’t know with too many people. Or start screaming uncontrollably when he was scared. Emmet did not use to have his emotions linger so much and so strong after he was done feeling them.)

But Ingo is happy.

Even if his brother is more of a handful than he already was.

(Don’t ever say that again, Ingo warned him: Don’t even try to.)

Ingo doesn’t think it’s a burden, not at all - his brother is still himself, even if maybe parts of him are hurt irreparably just like he himself has been damaged, and he still loves him terribly; so he kisses his head and squeezes him tight in a hug when he doubts himself, and eases him back down from the exhausting intensity of his moods, makes sure to be his anchor to reality, to monitor his health just like his twin does for him.

And if Emmet has to lay on the cold kitchen floor with him to finally catch up on some sleep, so long as he has a pillow to sustain his bent spine with and a blanket to lay on so he doesn’t freeze to death, Ingo will not hesitate to oblige and narrate at length of his warden days until they both forget all their pains and changes as they doze off laughing softly.

[hiswordsarekisses]

A long time ago I was looking at a page in my Bible that started the New Testament and it had that written in big letters on the page. I had just started reading the Bible and I was just thinking about something and staring at page and the phrase “Last Will And Testament” came to me, and I thought, “Wow - God’s WORD is His “WILL!” I was brand new and blown away, and I was just so excited because it just seemed so special.

Since then I have done a few word studies on passages of scripture that have magnified that truth to me, but I have never seen anyone say it like the that so I kept my mouth shut. I thought maybe I was missing something because so many people who knew so much more about the Bible than me were always praying to know God’s will.

But the word “will” means “wishes, desires, preferred-will” - and that is the purpose of His Word - so that we will know His desires, wishes, commandments now that He had gone to be with the Father. Jesus even said that His spirit would come to us and remind us of everything he had told us. I mean, He knew that we would need to know how to maneuver through life according to the way He has so strategically designed everything to work.

It’s like the directions on the back of the macaroni and cheese box. They are there so that you will know how to do it in such a way that it comes out correctly and tastes perfect!!

If we do not follow the directions, it's not going to be perfect - it may even come out gross depending on what you have decided to do your own way.

And we cannot blame the macaroni and cheese people for making terrible macaroni and cheese if we did not follow directions. We had the instructions.

But many times we hear people either asking “what is the will of the Lord” or we hear the people blame the Lord for the mess in their lives who have not read the directions.

Many times we assume that God is like us - or surely God's will is this “thing” that I want so badly for it to be.

There are some things that are not clearly expressed in black and white (and red!) in His Word - but there is enough there to know His will on the most important things in life.

God may not have written in His Word who you should marry, but there is enough wisdom that He has promised to pour into you when you abide in His Word daily, to figure it out.

So many times when doing word studies I have found the words “law” and “commandments” also means “instructions” in many places.

“Finally, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to live in a way that is pleasing to God, just as you have received from us. This is how you already live, so you should do so all the more. For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.” 1Thessalonians‬ ‭4‬:‭1‬-‭2‬

“Receive my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold. For wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire compares with her.” Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭10‬-‭11‬

[outofcontexttokusatsu]

People have been giving you crap for not liking Kingohger, and trust me I don't agree with you, but I am at least glad you're still watching it and giving it a shot. You even praised a cliffhanger! So, be honest: Do you think it'll be crap (in your opinion) beginning to end, or do you think this is just a weak opening introduction arc or what? Also, do you think that, regardless of the series's quality, that doing non-set-in-Tokyo series will be a good step forward for plot diversity?

Going to assume these anons are all from you as well based on the wording (and if not I apologize to you and those anons but for sake of convenience I'm going to lump them all together).

Honestly overall I wouldn't exactly care that much people disagree with me about the show since I've spent enough time online to deal with people disagreeing with me about media (hell Faiz is in my top 5 and people still treat that show like the plague), but because Certain People I Won't Name wanted to start a massive argument over it and seem convinced that they can bully me into changing my mind for some reason I feel compelled to keep my rebuttals up.

I didn't go in WANTING to hate it, I've never gone into a show expecting or wanting to hate it beyond maybe Saber and even that I gave it a fair shot. I made my post about it to keep the running joke going (which I planned to do anyways regardless of quality) and when asked I made my points very clear, and at the point of the writing the first 3 episodes all have the very same reaction from me: the CG is ugly and genuinely distracting, the cinematography and general production of the show is very bad and makes a lot of basic mistakes that Sentai has never really struggled with before (seriously how hard is it to make sure the lights on the actors match the lighting of the environment?) because they're putting the fancy new tech first, the writing ranges from being decent (I do like Gira's gimmick of just pretending to be a moron want to overthrow Racules as a despot but so far little is done with it) to bland (Yanma and Himeno end up being pretty one-note despite attempts to add a new layer to them, Bugnarok and Racules are 1980's JRPG levels of generic BBEG) and even decently written/acted scenes are ruined by terrible editing or throwing in LOLRANDUM wacky and zany shit to them (DUDE HACKING BATTLE LOL) that takes me out of it.

If it weren't for the excessive flashy CG and cool new projection theater stage tech being front and center it'd be a painfully average Sentai show that is exactly why Sentai has been flopping in ratings and sales since Gokaiger, nothing new is being done and there isn't anything to hook a viewer, and the toys are kinda boring looking too. Especially after the moldbreaking psycopathy of Zenkaiger and Donbrothers, that we've gone right back to the same shit as always rather than keep pushing the envelope in the areas that actually matter is the problem. I don't even want to say someone didn't "get" Donbros (although based on some of the arguments people keep raising to me they really didn't) or blame it on sensory overload like my initial post, definitely a bad choice in hindsight but I was self aware about that, but this obsessive defense really makes just no sense to me at all.

I don't set out to make myself as the true objective arbiter of taste despite the jokes I make, and you shouldn't treat my words as such. I'm just some goofy (insert gender here) dork on the Internet who has some modicum of attention on themselves. Jokes(tm) aside I don't put myself above or below anyone else, I've been an avid fan of tokusatsu for ages and gotten particularly deep into it, deeper than the average person for sure, but I don't use that to build a pedestal for myself. You like Kingohger? Good, I'm glad you find something in it I don't. I won't attack or insult you for liking something I don't or enjoying something that from an objective standpoint is not good content, excluding maybe Ghost but even then you do you weirdo. But I've made my point and will continue to make my point until the show ends or I give up, and no outside force will change that.

Basically, what I'm trying to say about my opinion is:

And to get back to your point, I don't WANT the show to be shit beginning to end and I really hope it isn't, but based on opening perception and knowing who's behind the scenes I have low hopes for the show improving. Knowing me I end up just watching the entire show out of spite at some point but I really am going in each week hoping each episode is the one that changes my mind. Hell, I stuck with Kyuranger longer than most and that ended up getting pretty good when Houou showed up so maybe whenever SixOhger drops the show gets that kick it needs but as it stands now I couldn't say. As for the alternate setting offering plot diversity, see it's too early to make a judgement but I don't really see it. The different kingdoms are all so drastic from one another and the bizarro Final Fantasy-eques schizotech levels put the show in a weird place where paradoxically the setting itself doesn't really matter much, if the show were confined in one specific kingdom or at least had each kingdom separated into different plot arcs I could see it - which it may end up doing who knows - but the approach it seems to be going for seems to make it irrelevant. Even then, Adult Concerns will eventually rear their ugly head and the show will go through some shift to where the unique setting is dispensed with to end up with the same 8-9 filming locations we always end up in, again with Kyuranger that set itself up as a cool spacefaring action-opera and then we park our asses on Earth 4 episodes in and spend nearly the entire show there and the few times we DO go offworld after we just end up at the same quarry and stream we always go to.

[battlekilt]

Cody alone is an argument for ObiRex

After Cody found out that Rex and his blasted Jedi Ginger Bastard got inappropriately attached to each other, the Commander had been in a particular mood... that only Obi-Wan was the subject of because Cody certainly wasn't going to blame Rex—Cody just knew the Captain had been duped, the victim of a Jedi Mind-Control hand waving or some Force osik!

He had also found out that he couldn't find any of his slugthrowers! Blasted Kenobi knew him too well.

Ever since Skywalker had come to all-too calm terms over it, Cody had lost his ally in this particular campaign—Campaign, 'I don't think so, you bastard—get away from my little brother!' Not that Rex was little. He was the same height as Cody, though a little leaner under his armor. Not that most people would know that Cody damn-well knew that Kenobi SHOULDN'T become aware of that, but he had. Enough to make an off-handed remark one day. Out of nowhere.

Why Kenobi took pleasure in driving Cody to madness, Cody wouldn't know. But the pitied 'oh Cody' confrontations had only gotten worse.

After an in-field strategy session and Rex escorted Skywalker out, Cody saw the look and the smile on Kenobi's face; he needed it gone, and smacking the man in the mouth in front of the junior officers was considered bad taste... and grounds for a lengthy stay in Fox's stockades. Though, Kenobi might find a better punishment for Cody: he'll find a way to have a new rank created, just so he can promote Cody, again, SOMEHOW—after all, Kenobi was a space wizard... that vile, vile man.

Not for the first time, Cody grumbled under his breath and went unheard, "I should have swapped places with Ponds. Then I'd be dead… and this damned army would be Ponds's problem."

Never mind the fact that Seventeen had told Kenobi to get 'The Golden One' from the 91st. Before all this, Cody fretted that maybe Kenobi was supposed to pick Rex to be his Marshal Commander and Cody's stupid nickname just bungled that up? The thought that he might not have been the intended Clone Commander for General Kenobi used to secretly keep him up at night with questions about why Rex and not him...

WELL, at least Cody didn't ask that question about the Stupid Face. He would commit self-inflicted brain damage and transferred to the Tadpole nurseries himself. Him and Kenobi? What a dreadful response—Rex, foolish mistakes are for the young, but WHY this one? At least it wasn't Skywalker... never mind, both were terrible options.

Cody had looked away to gather their intel materials, and hoped that by the time he looked back, the General's focus would be—anywhere but watching the Captain talk with Skywalker in the middle of the busy encampment. It rained, it poured, Kenobi had one of the stupidest faces Cody had ever seen—he's seen a lot of stupid faces, he knows his brothers, after all. He'd be impressed by his General's level of stupid face if it wasn't directed at Rex.

Time to peel the face off of Kenobi.

"He's twelve, sir," Cody growled out between his teeth. He knew that age was much more linear to natborns, very defined and segmented, and they got tetchy about it in ways the Clones never did.

Whether it was his remark or the force which Cody 'handed' the datapad to Kenobi—he's told the Jedi over and over again, things like that wouldn't happen if he wore his armor like he was supposed to. Kenobi grunted, dropped his wind, and sounded like a crotchety old man to Cody.

"Cody, do be reasonable—"

No, Cody was not going to be reasonable on this matter. If General Kenobi wanted to exchange stupid faces with a Trooper and get in his plates, he should have chosen a DIFFERENT one than Captain Rex. Wooley was blonde, though darker, also an ARC, and sweet. Plus, he was in the 212th, so Cody could... chaperone them more. No, wait, Wooley was his only ARC—that would also be embarrassing.

Waxer? No, Boil would sulk. Maybe another CC? Wolffe? Wait... that would never happen. Wolffe always acted half his chronological age—so, like six—when he saw the stupid faces others made, and gagged like he was going to be forced to eat a plateful of Insect a la Skywalker. Gree! Gree would talk to Kenobi about boring things like... dead things, and his haircut would be the perfect revenge on the Jedi.

"—Rex has had his age advanced, just like you, besides—"

Cody didn't care—NOT his Vod'ika—NOT his Verd'ika!

Cody had to practically fight off too many others, so Rex would ask him to be his Ori'vod—Wolffe almost beat him too it, and Neyo had been giving Cody hopeful eyes, or at least as much hope as passed in those dead-soul eyes; Bacara was a much better choice for that creepy vod, anyway.

The General was going to embarrass him—not that he hadn't already. What was worse, word spread fast in the GAR, and Cody was already beginning to get the most misery-inducing missives from his brothers who shared wedding suggestions.

Gree had shown his obnoxiousness by self-educating himself about the traditions of Stewjonian tartan patterns. With Bly's help, who loved natborn fashion too much—almost as much as Fox's idiot Thorn, though Cody suspected General Secura had been in on the plans, Gree had even suggested patterns to show the merging of 'The House of Kenobi' and 'The House of Rex.' While his brothers broke into a debate whether it was Rex's house, Cody's house, or Skywalker's house—Cody noticed proposed lines of yellow-gold, HIS—how dare—212th gold, he swore he'd finish shaving the rest of Gree's head, including his eyebrows; he might even pluck his lashes, strand by strand. Fox had proved he could outperform them all, and even told that 'Silly Little Girl Chuchi,' who sincerely believed Cody needed a list of venues to vet for such an affair.

'An Affair!' — The Marshal Commander's frown deepened and his chin dimpled; it was a good thing the clouds had begun to part because there were no rays of sunshine from him.

"—so are you," the General said between his barely parted lips; Cody whipped his head around like the bastard had just invited another Separatist General out for tea. The obnoxious Jedi still muttered a soft expression of polite gratitude as he took the heavy field commpad.

Offended, Cody shoved his under an arm, extended a boot past the General, and growled as he passed, "I'm twelve and A HALF."

Sufficiently distracted, Kenobi missed Rex's smile, just before the Captain turned to walk away by Skywalker's side. The red-haired groaned, turned to follow his Commander back into the misty greyness, "Cody, six months is not really—"

"To YOU, six months isn't really anything. Not to me. I'm a Clone! Six-months is a YEAR to me," a petulant Marshal Commander shot back to a very exhausted General.

"So what you're saying is... Rex is twenty-four?" Obi-Wan grinned through his beard, an expression that only got broader when Cody dead-stopped, quarter-turned on him, and glowered before he returned on his forward march. Kenobi didn't know where they were going—he learned a long time ago to just follow Cody.

"That doesn't matter! You're THIRTY-SEVEN—"

"Did you have to announce that to the whole camp, Cody, dear? You've got quite a set of lungs—"

"YES! Everyone needs to know what a tankrobber you are. That is still a thirteen-year difference! That's older than I AM!"

"Not in six months, then you'll be thirteen."

"You will also be thirty-eight by then!"

"You remembered my life day! How thoughtful, Cody. I always look forward to your gifts."

Cody's stomps sent mud everywhere—fine, he'd given up. He was going to have to spend half a day when this campaign was finally over just to get the gunk out of his armor. Maybe he'll make Rex do it—just to keep the Captain from exchanging his stupid faces with Kenobi.

"Of course I remember! How do you think I remembered to get you those gifts?! By the way, don't look forward to them anymore. You're not getting any gifts from me this year, Kenobi! Or any other year! Not after what you've done."

"Besmirched Rex's good honor?"

"Watch it..."

If it wasn't for the blue sparkle in the Jedi's eyes shining against his back, Cody could have ALMOST believed the put-on sadness in the man's voice, "Don't worry, I'm truly wounded about the gifts. It's dreadfully disappointing, Cody. Oh well, Rex will probably give me something twice as big and thoughtful."

Over his shoulder, the Commander glanced, saw the too-pleased smirk, and was once again tempted to risk an extended vacation in the Guard's stockades; he could use the break, and he'd kill for a demotion.

"Maybe he'll get you something for that greying beard of yours," Cody growled.

"Oh, I doubt that... severely."

Something in the tone made Cody stop with only one leg up the makeshift steps, turn to Kenobi and ask with squinted eyes, "Why...?"

Far too pleased with himself and still gentled, Kenobi said, "I know for a fact that Rex is quite fond of grey hair."

Stunned, at last, Cody was left behind when Kenobi lifted the hem of his robes and ascended the steps ahead of him.

"I should have become a nursery Clone."

A few noted headcanons after the fact: — 1.1. Vod/Verd'ika ask another Clone to be their Ori'vod, an Ori'vod cannot ask. — 1.2. Age difference between Clones don't really matter for the Vod/Verd'ika and Ori'vod dynamic. It is about mentorship and kind of, "I take responsibility for this one." For Cody, it is, "I will murder my Jedi for this one." — 1.3. Cody got asked by A LOT of brothers and turned them down, hopeful for only one to ask him. Rex was stupid, didn't think he'd have a chance. It was Fox who corrected him. — 1.4. There is a special infliction when the Clones say Vod/Verd'ika or Ori'vod. The infliction signifies the Capitalized version, which is entirely unique to the Clones. It wasn't something they learned from their rare Mandalorian trainers. They made it up on their own, likely after observing how the older Alpha-class Clones mentored the younger Alphas. — 2. All Clones are on the executive dysfunction scale, aka, ADHD. Cody suffers from his own brand of rejection sensitivity. — 3.1. Clones love to state their age (chronological vs developmental) between whatever is convenient for them. Make a natborn uncomfortable? "I'm twelve." Someone tries to tell them they can't do something, "I'm twenty-four!" — 3.2. Yes, the HALF is VERY important to a Clone. — 4. "Stupid Face" is Clonese for someone having an intimate interest in someone or just any interest. Cody certainly had his own stupid face as he impatiently waited for Rex to ask him to be his Ori'vod. I need to write up my origins for where Cody's "Jedi Ginger Bastard" comes from.

[maroonagain]

Maroon Exists: the blog Topic: Friends

Hey, tis I Maroonagain. This is the first time doing this type of blog things, I heard it's good for me to write my feelings out like this from a parental figure, so here its goes nothing. A big ass issue used struggle with pure daily is Attention, Validation, and Social Skills.

I believed that, yeah, this is mostly on me, I dont really know how to talk to people normally or know how to carry a convo like a normal ass person. Shits been happenin my whole life, so would could blame me. So Imma tell you a tale on how my ass came out of the dumps and kinda got my life on track. I was heavly neglected back in my school years (3-12 apox), mainly because I was the weird kid that no one really liked. Most convos that involved me back in middle basically boiled down to this:

no one wanted anything to do with me. They hated my art, hobbies, lunch, hair do, humor, music taste, even my clothes. Getting validation was very hard at that point in time, because everyone just ignored me because I was the cringe kid. I was a very terrible talker, I struggled to say words right and often shuddered or break eye contact. Middle school just sucked. The only good thing about MS was the fact that back in 8th grade I got put into computer programing class. That was the only point in my life where I felt validated with others and had decent talks, mainly about video games and art which I'm into. It felt like the class was meant for me, because it was a class with a bunch of weirdos like me that didn't quite fit in with other peeps.

It felt like people understood me, as you can tell I got along with that class just fine, and, get this, I actually made A FRIEND that I TALKED TO. Crazy I know. At that point in time I hadn't had a friend sense 5th grade. Want to hear something crazier, he lived apox 5 minutes from me. He was the coolest dawg u wouldn't even believe omg. Every weekend or so I would come over to his house and play Smash or Minecraft it was the coolest. Overtime my friend status start to grow, I met someone from my classes who liked my art, found a kid who loved my weird ass humor. I kinda sort of improved on my talking skills, not by much, but I was improving, I still couldn't keep eye contact with people, but I was IMPROVING. Then I found someone, someone I had a crush on, someone that was so cool like my friend but nerdier and had really goddamn impressive art even of a middle schooler. She rocked my world.

Ofc she didn't know I had a crush on her for obvious reasons, but still, I really wanted to be with her. It seemed like my life was going up and I actual friends. I had attention and I had validation and people to talk to, that all I ever wanted sense the 3rd grade. It left like everything I have worked for from that moment payed off.

But when life giveith

life takeith away

I lost all my friends in a matter of one whole ass summer, why you might ask, well its simple. Most of my friends in the friend group where in 7th Grade, I was in 8th. And the two close friends that where in 8th, gone too. My friend who I used to play smash and minecraft with went to another school and never talked to me again. And the girl I had a crush on had to move to Oregon. The worst part of all of this? I never got her number, I was too afraid to ask. Life's a bitch, aint it?

So okay cut to 9th grade, I had to start back at square one with validation from others. I thought it'll be a walk in the park, just do the same thing I was doing before and I'll be fine. One issue though, you know those kids who though I was weird? Yeah they went to my school, they told other kids I was weird. I was back to being the weird kid that no one liked. Great.

Then for some weird ass reason they found out that I had a little thing called autism. Most people ignored me like the plague. My convo skills suffered and my ass was stuttering even more than I was used to. They called my interests shit, they hated my guts.

One person told me that I was a friend-less freak and that I would die alone.

For the record I wasn't miss-perfect goody two shoes either, I let this shit slide and I let myself get that bad because I was so knee deep in the lack of validation that I just gave up dude. Instead of focusing on myself, I focused on how the fuck I can make people smile and make people remember my name at least. But everything I did made people stay clear of me even MORE. So well yeah oops.

So half of the school year is left, what do I do? Sense I know my ass aint getting friends anytime soon irl and I'm pretty desperate for attention, where do I look? Do I look under this rock?

Do I check in a book?

Do I check in this cup?

I give up and check the internet, maybe that will help.

After searching for a while I found this little thing called Discord, a free program that helped people chat with others with similar interests. I signed the fuck up on that shit with no hesitating at all. My ass was talk to people no matter what. My user name was Waluigi31 and the first EVER server I joined was the pizza tower discord server. My ass was READY to make some friends, online or offline!!!! Of course it wasn't all smooth sailing, remember, my ass had zero social skills and knowledge of how tf friends worked, so basically my first day on discord boiled down to this:

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh. It's a start. Eventually I stared to adapt and grow and learn things on how this fabled mystical program worked. So I set up some rules for myself on a google doc so I remembered the do's and donts: RULE 1: dont @everyone that's annoying RULE 2: dont spam that's annoying RULE 3: if your under 18 do not go into 18+ servers dumbass, they are for mature ass people only (side note: even though I am 18, I still dont feel mature and act mature, working on that tho) RULE 4: KEEP ON TOPIC AND READ THE ROOM IF NEEDED RULE 5: dont fuck every 5 seconds that's annoying After that I was on my own, sure most people ignored me and my presence, but I was noticed and even liked, and that's all that mattered to me. I started to share art and people enjoyed that enough. Looking back on it.

yeah these where terrible sorry. BUT PEOPLE LIKED THEM AND THAT MADE ME FEEL ALL WARM INSIDE SO WHO CARES. Eventually I started to spread my legs and enter another server, it was a tf2 server, dont really remember much about it except that I met my first ever friend there. I don't really remember much about them but they invited me to another server then I met another person and they invited me to their server and then I met someone really important. Their name, Dem Apples. Their mission, start an minecraft smp. Apples was the first ever person that I truly interacted with on a daily basis, and was the first every person that I sort of kinda held a convo with.

I was still hella terrible at my social skills but, fuck, I was very validated and had actual friends that I could hang with. I made a truckload of new friends on that little smp server and it felt like I was part of a friend group, we even had inside jokes that no one would understand (thus moment). I spend new years with their asses celebrating. Then something crazy happened, well, 2020 happened lets be honest. The flu swept the world and everyone was locked inside washing everything they can so they cant get the measles. The outside world stopped, but yet the online world grew. My friendship with apple and others grew closer and I changed my name to waluigi31 to MarioGaming69, I wish I hadn't but here we are. My pfp was the Mario World small mario sprite on a gaming chair that I made in scratch because I didn't have a pixel art maker to work with besides shitty mspaint. 2020-2021 is where i felt my confidence start to grow with friends. Online learning sucked tho, that wasn't good, wish school was just canned for the year because of the fever pandemic but yeah, grades plummeted. I just watched old smosh the entire time.

Okay it's 11th grade now, my confidence is up, my talking skills are good enough, lets make some friends

3 months go by my ass still has zero irl friends

I'm out of options, I have no where to sit for lunch, I'll sit here I guess

Little did I know I just made the best goddamn move of my life

This is where I met the boys, a friend group to call my own. FINALLY. our asses did everything, you name it we did it. Went to the movies. Danced at dances. Went to Prom. Stole oranges. Dumped a fuckton of milk into the toilets. Called each other gay. Found a phone and found a fuckton of porn and said phone. We all lived life to the fullest and I felt as if I had people that actually cared about my ass, for the first time in my 17 year old life. I finally had that validation and attention that I've always wanted. But I got more than that, I made people who where weird just like me, and felt one with the group. I wouldn't trade that year of High for anything. Sadly they where all 12th graders and they all left after they graduated, but they gave me their discord group chat and we are still doing dumb shit even to this day, like watching family guy in a Tesla. If any of the boy are reading this, thank you for making my life not a living hell and making my 11th grade year the best High School year of my life. You guys still continue to bring big ass goofy smiles across my face. BUT THATS NOT ALL BECAUSE IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2022 I FELT LUCKY AS HELL AND DECIDED TO MAKE A FABULOUS TWITTER ACCOUNT

This was a terrible idea and probably made my mental health worse but GODDAMN did I make some wonderful friends on there.

(I love you guys btw your awesome) It seemed like life was starting to get good, until fall hit It started with a cough, my little sister was sick and we all thought it was just the flu or a fever, it was that season. Then she got worse, very worse. We had no idea what was happening to her or what this was, it seemed as if it was worse than a common cold or fever. My mom took her to the doctor and they couldn't tell what it was. Then in September 16th, My Mom and Step dad took my two sister to a Rodeo with some friends. My little sister passed out, they had to take her to the ER. Then they called. She had cancer. This hit me like a truck. They said it was very curable but we didn't know for sure. My mental health dropped, all focus went on my sister and everyone though I was fine so they ignored me, I wasn't fine. I was too far gone for fine. Something new came into my life that day, anxiousness. I started to get anxious about everything. What do people think about me, are my friends ignoring me, what if my art isn't good enough, what if I'm not good enough. At that point I needed validation for something else, to cure my anxious body and to rest my soul. Something that I'm still struggling to fix even to this day. I started to harm myself, I went to the hospital multiple times because of times i tried to kms or talked about killing myself. I was so scared and so depressed that I lost all control of my life. This led to me making the worst mistake of my life, meeting someone and them grooming me. It started with a simple message, then it went into manipulation, then they did sexual acts to me. I was 17 at the time. I was desperate for someone to love me and to have care for me. But one day I realized, I was getting taken advantage of. Without my friends and then bf I wouldn't have made that callout post and to finally be free from them (if you are reading this, thank you, I'm still grateful even to this day you helped me and got me through it). Their effects on me lasted until March when I finally started to talk to my therapist about it and finally get it taken care of. I lost some friends at that time. I'll never forgive myself for what I did. But I realized that its okay for this to happen and shit to suck sometimes, you have to take the bad with the good, and sometimes to get to the end of the shitty ass tunnel of gloom and doom your ass need to run fast and work hard to get to the light outside. After that I decided to improve on my social skills after a falling out I had with a friend, I realized FINALLY in order for a relationship to work, both parties must be involved and also maybe dont rant to the other party without waring. Idk how I didn't know both of those things before but here we are. I ALSO realized that maybe I wasn't a man or a woman, maybe I'm a little bit of both.

After that life started to get sweater, my lil sis got better and was able to get home, she's still fighting cancer but she's kicking cancers ASS rn, I'm very proud of her. After a tough break-up I found a new partner that was the most caring gal in the world (oh yeah did i mention i found love? Life pretty goddamn crazy I know). Met a new irl friend (mittens hi) and have been interacting with them almost everyday, they are fun as hell to talk to. Also met a some online friends too!!!!! they are swagballs. Got a job thats pays extremely well (19 PER HOUR!?!?!?!?!). Overall, shits been banging. I'm still FAR from perfect, today wasn't so hot and I realized that maybe I need to work on actually being mature and work on my mental health a tiny bit more, but I still have my sick ass friends by my side to help me out. Maybe my life aint so terrible awful and gay after all. Maybe it wasn't about attention or validation, maybe it was about my ass getting some cool friends to share some interest with and for them to make me smile and make me feel all happy inside. You shouldn't go through this weird place called life alone, grab some friends they will make a journey funner. Damn my parents where right Blogs are fun to write. That's all for today, needed to get that out of my system, love u all! Have a good Night, Day, Noon, Whatever Until next time!

Song recommendation: House of Wolves by My Chemical Romance Great ass song, love the guitars and the rhythm is nice. Its a solid 9/10.

[adleryoung]

I began to panic as I saw the failure of yet another attempt at starting a legacy and getting out of my prison. Not again! It was my hair cult all over again! But this time I would have the blood of an innocent femme and two teenagers on my hands!

I took deep breaths and tried to suppress the panic. This was a different situation. The hair cult had collapsed in my absence, but I was here this time. I could do what a true leader does, and save everyone. I just needed to get my thoughts together.

"Auggh!" I groaned as I grappled with the panic. How was it possible for everything to spiral out of control so quickly? And why did it have to happen to me??

No, I thought, shaking my head and forcing myself to breathe slowly. I had to focus! How would Vernier handle this if she were here?

Wait a second.

Rebecca had been living with Vernier! Vernier was associated with the coven! She could be next on the Wanted list if I didn't get this situation under control!

Suddenly the fog of panic left me. I felt calm, clear-headed, and decisive, just like Irenaeus before a battle. Only a few of my Ixies had gone to find Oak. There should still be plenty around to help deal with this problem. I summoned them.

"My young witches are under attack!" I briefed them, briefly. "Get out there and rescue Gretchen and Petunia! I don't know which is which, but they are the heavyset vixen and the, uh, bear or mouse or something. You remember them from the meet-up a few days ago. They are being harried by rabbits. Zap those rabbits. Hit them hard enough that they won't remember what happened. While they're unconscious, soak them with booze so nobody will believe their story, and they can't blame it on witches. If you see Burnside, tell her to head back here while keeping an eye out for intruders. Lives are at stake; move out!"

"Where can we find booze?" one Ixie asked.

"Move out!!" I commanded, and they buzzed away on their mission.

"I doubt that booze trick will work, my lord," Rebecca opined. "The rabbits of Bunkirk do not drink."

"All the more reason to suspect them if they come home stinking of rum," I replied grimly.

"What about Oonagh?" Rebecca asked.

"She's already been arrested," I mused. "Even if I could break her out of jail, wouldn't that just prove her guilt in the minds of her accusers? I WILL find a way to set this right, but I need to make sure everyone is safe first. Speaking of which …"

I summoned more Ixies. "Go warn Vernier, and keep guard over her. At the first sign of trouble, she is to be brought here."

Next I turned to Chloe. "Why in Fuma's name was the testimony of a single irritating and unlikable child enough to persecute a harmless old baker who was well loved by the community, and three minors guilty of nothing worse than bad taste in fashion?"

"Oh we were naughtier than that, my lord," Chloe insisted. "We were blasphemous and irreverent at the very least."

"Those are crimes punishable by going to bed without supper," I retorted. "What's the penalty for witchcraft in the lowfolk world? I have heard that it's pretty bad."

"Burning at the stake, I think?" Chloe gulped. "I'm not sure they still do that … but then again, it's been ages since anybody was arrested for witchcraft around here."

"To return to my initial question," I snapped, "how in the Netherhells did it come to this in the first place? Why would anyone take Didelphis's rantings seriously?"

"Most people didn't believe her at first," Chloe explained. "But she just wouldn't shut up. She screeched her story at everyone she met. She would open windows and screech her tales so passers-by could hear. It was a two day long tantrum where she just constantly screeched her twisted, false narrative to the world at large."

"Didn't Oonagh have anything to say about this terrible behavior?"

"Oonagh said Didelphis was just being rambunctious, and that it was normal for children at that age to make up fanciful fictions to amuse themselves. She spent most of the last two days trying to spoil Didelphis, and the old possum showed an amazing lack of gratitude. Anyway, yesterday some rabbits were in town, and they heard the screeching and they pointed out that the child bore an uncanny resemblance to the old crone who lived by herself in the dell. Somebody else mentioned that there was no smoke coming from the crone's shack the day before, and somebody else said it was odd that a strange child would suddenly show up like that. Didelphis declared that she was the crone and had been bewitched by Oonagh with the help of the White Elf, the rabbits took up the cry, and the town went berserk. They started smashing windows and attacking people. The magistrate ordered our arrests to appease the mob."

"Why are the rabbits allowed to harass people outside of their trashy little town?" I demanded. "Why do people put up with them?"

"They aren't that bad," Rebecca insisted. "They may be drab and humorless, but they are very reliable and completely trustworthy. They're good at making things. Our smiths and wheelwrights are some of the best."

"All of that," Chloe agreed. "Plus their ideological unity enables them to gang up very effectively. It was the rabbits of Bunkirk who beat back the Shoe Cult and all its mercenaries. The surrounding communities were grateful, and also a little scared, so Bunkirkers are pretty much given whatever they want. Nobody wants to wind up on their bad side. They keep growing bolder with their actions, and if they get away with this, it will only get worse."

[lords-of-mayhem]

Rip wine glass 🫡🪦

🎤-🐈‍⬛

RIP wine glass, gone but not forgotten o7

awful // hole

Swing low, sweet cherry, make it awful. It's your life, it's your party, it's so awful. Let's start a fire, let's start a riot. It was punk. Yeah, it was perfect, now it's awful.

They know how to break all the girls like you and they rob the souls of the girls like you. And they break the hearts of the girls-

He's drunk, he tastes like candy. He's so beautiful, he's so deep like dirty water. God, he's awful. And they royalty rate all the girls like you and they sell it out to the girls like you.

You're ripe for the picking, it's so awful. You've got your youth, don't waste your money. I was punk, now I'm just stupid. Oh, just shut up, you're only sixteen.

If the world is so wrong, yeah, you can break them all with one song. They bought it all, just build a new one, make it beautiful.

social cues // cage the elephant

I think it's strange when people say, "you're the next big thing, you'll never fade." The slightest touch and first to fall. Sleight of the hand, modern goal.

Starry-eyed child left behind, choose your favorite vice. I don't have the strength to play nice. Hide me in the back room, tell me when it's over. I don't know if I can play this part much longer.

I don't know if it is right, to live this way. I'll be in the back room, tell me when it's over. People always say, "man, at least you're on the radio." Close your eyes, don't be afraid.

Take some of these, they'll ease the pain. Live fast, die young, pay the price. The best die young, immortalized. Starry-eyed children left behind to choose their favorite vice.

i really fucked it up this time // girli

Why am I like this? I got two left feet and I blame it on you. I find the dynamite and I make us go boom, boom, boom. And I don't wanna be like this, I'm tryna talk to my therapist.

In truth, I know it's me and all my issues. I hate when I come home and I put them on you. I promise will be the last time, that I do all the things that I said that I wouldn't do last night.

Then I lose my shit and I slam the door, and I ask myself, "what did I do that for?" I'm the damaged type, but it's no type for all of my hurt that I'm living, that I'm giving to you.

I swear I'm not terrible, I just get emotional. I end up feeling sorry for myself. I wanna cause a scene just to feel alive, maybe I'm only mean 'cause I know you're mine.

And I hate myself for making you cry. I know that I really fucked it up this time. Hurricane blowing through your town, I know it's hard for you to stick around.

right side of wrong // mick mars

Divide and conquer us all, yeah, the cities will fall. Let's burn it down. No more believing the lies and the people will rise, the sun's fading out. It's already too late, there's no turning back.

Voices are calling, it's been so long. Catch me, I'm falling. In the end, there's no right side of wrong. Keep on selling the dream while they're stealing the green, we're going nowhere.

The hate that's building inside, you learned from your parent's eyes. Let's change this somewhere. It's already too late. It's fulfilling, all through the hatred you're feeling inside. But you know that you'll find it so fast that it's making its way into your mind.

i got the boy // jana kramer (I'm never going to stop promoting country music)

I saw your picture in the paper, honeymoon in Jamacia. She's a lucky girl. You look so grown up in your black tux, from a ball cap in a pickup. Seems like another world.

You and me and our big dreams, falling in love. We were two kids in a backseat, all fearless and young. I got the first kiss and she'll get the last. She's got the future and I got the past.

I got the class ring, she got the diamond and wedding band. I got the boy and she got the man. Yeah, there's the old you that I knew. Fake IDs to get into those spring break bars.

Now you're cleaned up with a haircut, nice tie and shoes. If things were different and I had a choice, which would I choose? I got the first kiss and she'll get the last.

We each got something the other will never have. I got the long-haired hothead, she got the cool and steady hand. I got the boy and she got the man.

[bird-of-no-feathers]

Callakai

There used to be a great river that traced a path from north to south through the canyons that remained in its wake. I don't actually remember this river. The best I can surmise is that before my time, some great and terrible action or series of actions resulted in either a failure to flow or complete redirection.

I may never know what happened to it or even where it was exactly, but that's okay.

The river isn't the point.

What I'm getting at here is that what I know about the river is based on the idea of the river. For all I know, there never was any river anywhere at all.

I've never tasted its water, never felt it swell around me. I've never marked it out on one of the maps that I drew during my brief interest in cartography.

The river is gone now, but it's immortalised in the stories that people tell about it. It lives on as a concept.

One day, that too will be just a memory. We'll tell stories about stories about the river. Maybe the direction of flow will change. Maybe it will combine with other rivers that still exist. Maybe someone will fruitlessly search for its origin, overlaying maps until they identify a point thirty kilometers south of the mountains where groundwater accumulates.

Maybe one of my maps will be included in that.

But again, the river isn't the point.

The river isn't even that special. It's just the first thing I could think of to explain this concept.

My home, my city is deserted.

I don't even know if I can blame it all on whatever it was in the water. Maybe the sickening of our minds was just the last step in a series of endlessly worse decisions. The finality of our degradation of morals.

Maybe it didn't even do anything at all.

Maybe it was simply that we were cut off from everything and everyone until the extant dread made us turn on one another.

I think that thought scares me the most.

Because if the disease that so thoroughly brutalised everything was entirely a false creation, that means that I shouldn't be alive.

I accept that my hands will be forever soaked with blood, but I try not to consider that the blood could have been my own.

I could be one of the ones lying dead as a few scant survivors scrambled to claw each other to death faster and harder and more irreversibly than was necessary.

I don't actually fully know what happened, because I find myself at an age too young to be attuned to society yet too old to expect it to be done for me. Most of my information comes secondhand from Boston.

I haven't actually seen him dead. But I haven't cared to look. It's the tendency towards hope that keeps me from doing so.

I hope with all my heart that he somehow survived, though I know how impossible that would be. And while I haven't seen his limbs drenched in blood and snapped in half resting askew on a body that breathes no longer I can continue to hope.

I'm not strong enough to face myself otherwise. Because there's nothing special about me. Nothing that meant that I survived when others didn't. Everything about the situation comes down to luck.

Someone has to win the lottery.

But I might as well use the life I've stolen so unfairly from others more prepared to do what I do best.

I'll write.

Because the idea of a river is something so commonplace but unique that it's worth repeating, even as simply an aside in a moral tale about how to treat one another.

And with that idea of an idea of a river, comes the idea of an idea of a city.

One that disappeared so suddenly that the mystery of how might carry its existence in memory far beyond a time when all its buildings have been carried away as dust in the wind.

Or, at least, that's what I hope for.

Maybe they'll even remember my name. Maybe the story will be remembered in pieces, such that my name is attributed as the name of the city itself.

Surely that bears more remembrance than the piteous man who crawled out of that devastation with countless lives weighing on their soul.

Surely.

But though I know it's a selfish desire, I hope they do remember my name. I hope that they remember me.

I will not live to see it if they do.

[oh-my-10133]

July 8, 2023 12:14 am

10133,

Do you remember what happened the last time we fought over that guest room? I do. Down to the word, accompanied by every single gesture and your goofy smile, we repeated it. That night will never find itself produced again, however. Though the memories stay fresh in my mind, and oh how terrible it would be to see them fade, that was a much different time. Less than a year between then and now but there exists a contrast akin to that of one between decades. The delightfully cool, misty october morning air we awoke to has been switched with humid and hot july nights, I still have quite the taste for rather "asinine" memes though. My spot in bed, replaced with hers. You've come to realized that I could never provide you with the stablity that you so despreatly seak, in the romantic sense at least, I'll always be here. Sometime between then and now, you changed and I changed too. Like all young adults, we're simply trying to make our way through the fresh world that has been presented to us. Sometimes in the process, more realistically frequently, mistakes are made and I know we've both certainly made our share. I can't blame you though. I could never blame you and that truly is, quite possibly, one of my greatest flaws. Even after a rarther climatic finale, what should have been atleast, headlined by a devestatingly brutal betrayal, by the begining of the new year I'd came back. Rather simply, I'd missed my best friend and I couldn't stand to continue the charades any longer. Charades really had been a game I played so often with you. I'd get so angry with you, and for good reason too, but it always found a way to disapate much too quickly, especially considering what you'd done, and I'd have to continue with the angry front to satisfy what little moral compass I do possess. But then again, I really can't ever blame you.

There were times when I really did want you gone, wiped from the face of the earth with not a trace left. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty and I'm eternally grateful you stayed. And now we've made it to the present day, your final weekend.

In just over forty-eight hours, you'll be gone. Off to bleedin' Kansas (or is it Oklahoma?) with near complete radio silence for the next five months. A period of time in which I'll hold you as close in my heart as I hope you do me in yours. I can't bring myself to cry, at least not yet. The whole ordeal just doesn't feel real. The greatest ajustment will hit the group as a whole. To see someone so ingrained in our lives have to leave is quite a challenging experience. We've know it was coming, yes, but I've always thought it worse to possess the knowledge someone will leave than to have someone leave suddenly. Like a dark seceret that eats away at you until there is nothing left but the bare bones. You should know, I'm certain you do, there is a large collection of people, including many you wouldn't expect, that will miss you terribly. You won't be gone forever, quite thankfully, though that does not exempt me from experiencing a sort of bittersweet sadness. I am endlessly proud of you (the army is a huge thing!), but I'll miss you so terribly, just as I did when we'd get in our little squabbles.

We've really had quite the run together. Through all of the ups and downs and bumps in the road we've come out still friends on the otherside. Though some times may have been rather painful, I wouldn't trade a single experience for the world itself. Every single one has been absolutely instrumental in shaping us each into the wonderfully, slightly delinquent, people we have become today. If only one take away should be found within this letter, it should be that I love you, forever and always, to the moon and back. Don't be a stranger.

Your fellow christmas tree enthusiast,

[redacted]

[the-firebird69]

Tonight a few things start rolling they're noticing that they are losing and they're getting bombed and they're getting destroyed and it's the morlock and the clothes. And they're noticing the max are doing it and then a lot of people are blaming us and it's not true. A few other things are going on these people are sitting here saying they're feeling assault and doing their job their Big fellas they're going out there and discovering that there's stuff is going missing and they're going out there and finding out that people are taking it and that they are losing their shirt and everything else. They are getting here tonight very badly there are five areas in each hemisphere that were wiped out top side and below and we did mention that they're big they're about 20 by 40 top side and below they're all about 100 by 30 miles by 40 miles roughly and it's huge those are huge systems and huge bunkers they're not ancillary they would not be the core which are on the islands but they are secondary to the core it's number two when it comes to size and power and production of weaponry and clones and they're gone. These guys here seem to be promoting Doomsday as the weapon of choice and he does little video as Christopher Walken and people don't like him for it and hate him and want him dead and it's been going on for some time now. There's another issue that is rising for these folks that is that they are breaking the law daily and people are going after them for breaking the law and they don't believe it and they're getting arrested all the time and it is a method and motif and the max are doing it and McDonald's and miscellaneous and of course we are and we're meaning how are you doing it. There's a third very powerful issue that is developing they are saying they hate my husband and they are faking it and we're going after those who say it no one can stand it anymore the difference is we're going after them every time. What they say is blasphemy it's bigotry no it's very hateful it's very evil and mean. And we should have stopped them but now we have to put up with it so going after them very hard. They're losing face they're losing people they're losing their areas and they're losing everybody's interest in keeping them around. Times are a waste of space it's a waste of time it's a waste of space and we're taking most of their territory people are leaving it behind they don't have the ability or manpower to clean it up and they don't think anyone does. Tonight they're going to hand over the letter in 13 minutes and we are going to tell you what it says in a moment and my husband thanks me and I thank him for the idea and he said it to me a while ago but he said wonder why it's called Martha's vineyard your name is Martha and I was laughing I said it's Martha Stewart and he said no no I don't think so it's got an aura and your sister was there and now I love it he's my boy my man so someday I'm going to grow up I'm going to be a really big man I can't stand it because he's saying he's not going to grow up inside but he already is and he's way too old so am I and we need to have a life and we will and they all say it and we believe them and it's going to be a lot of fun and he says I'm going to have to taste your wine but without the alcohol it's going to be hours because you're going to flavor and it's going to be fun because I can make that and I can sell it as virgin wine from Martha's vineyard and Nantucket and he says great when you get the boat ready to bring the juice over that's very funny that's how they do it

Hera Zues

It is actually an actor and he's going to bring it over and that's what they're going to do

Olympus

There's a lot of fun it always talking and arguing and he says how am I going to know I'm bringing it over it's kind of weird he's saying something and wants her to be in his life more so he's walking around alone today and he's thinking about it wasn't really sad but he thought this is terrible and now Ken can't make it and he's having trouble now but he needs to have something else happen other than this absolute mindless b*******

Thor Freya

[jooshthepunished]

TLOU Episode 3: "The Bill Episode"

Warning: Good God this one ran unexpectedly long and I have a lot to say.

We open on an extremely sour note. Joel and Ellie are by a river in the woods. Joel is building a cairn for Tess, who has just died in a fiery explosion because nothing can ever be subtle. This will also confuse anyone walking a trail any time in the future, because cairns are supposed to be trail markers, not Pinterest-trendy memorials. Ellie is sitting against a tree. She briefly muses about how she's never been in the woods and that there are more bugs than she thought there'd be.

They make an attempt to have the "Rules" discussion from the game, but Joel cuts her off saying "I don't want your sorrys." Ellie explains that she wasn't going to give any sorrys, but she's been thinking about what happened, and that nobody made Joel and Tess take her, "Nobody made you go along with this plan" (Except, yes, yes someone did. That someone was Marlene. Marlene literally made them. She leveraged supplies against them to make them do what she wanted done).

This is indeed the correct place, chronologically and thematically speaking, for the "Rules" discussion from the game, but we're gonna fuck around in Bullshitville, Massachusetts instead, I guess.

An unempathetic Ellie is fucking terrible. It's fundamentally not in Ellie's character to disregard how the death of someone could affect their survivor. Had I lived Joel's life up to this point and some little shithead had said this to me upon the death of who was essentially my wife (god this show is so broken), I'd have left her in the woods and gone on my way alone, immunity notwithstanding.

Ellie finishes her awful monologue with A.) victim blaming, and B.) needless deflection "...so don't blame me for something that isn't my fault." which is not really what Joel is doing by even the show's standards. This is just a random line connected to not very much, and this whole part makes Ellie look equal parts delusional and psychopathic, and I no longer like this version of her.

Joel just solemnly nods, because when your charge has gone categorically insane, has a knife constantly in her possession, and you have to sleep anywhere near her, you placate her as much as possible to survive this ordeal.

I'd also like to note that when they wrote and filmed this scene, they could not have known that Annie Wersching, the actress who played Tess in the video game, would pass away from cancer just three days after the release of this episode. But in retrospect, with respect to Annie's passing, this scene, as well as the previous episode's final scene leaves an extremely bitter taste in my mouth.

The unfortunate pair move along, hiking toward some version of Bill's Town that is not Bill's Town. I mean, it is but it isn't. It's a somewhat closer a match to the actual Lincoln, Mass. but it's not remotely anything like Bill's Town from the game. Bill's Town from the game seems more like a suburb of Boston than anything. Maybe much more like Brookline, Mass. than the actual Lincoln (If any of you are from Massachusetts and feel the need to correct me on this, please do, I've never been there). Personally I think it's a change they should have made in both the game's PS5 remake and the HBO series if they really wanted to make the geography and location more true-to-life. Otherwise it's a pointless change just jumping off of the name "Lincoln", which is never actually mentioned verbally in the game.

They have a sequence on the road. Ellie notes that Joel has come this route a lot because there are no infected around. Joel says it's people you have to watch out for. They have a brief discussion about a scar Joel has on his forehead for some reason. I can't even really see one, to be honest, but I'd assume it was a scar he picked up when his daughter died 20 years ago. This scene is meh and I'm trying to describe it as best as I can, but I can't get into it because I know what's coming and I have to save my energy. If you've seen the episode, you know what I'm anxious to get to discussing.

Ellie again asks for a gun, calling back to the previous episode, and Joel again says no. This little plot thread is annoying me, because it's foreshadowing Ellie's first kill (of a human) from the game and I just know they're gonna fuck this up so bad.

They stop at an old, dilapidated gas station. Ellie asks why they're stopping and Joel over-explains that he has a cache of supplies hidden inside.

They have a moment from the game here, where Ellie sees an old arcade cabinet and talks about a friend who knew everything about the game (alluding to Riley). However, they changed the game from the fictional "The Turning" with Angel Knives, to "Mortal Kombat II" with Mileena. Why HBO would go out of their way to license Mortal Kombat II instead of using the fictional one that likely came with the adaptation rights they already purchased is beyond me.

Ellie decides to take a look around while Joel tries to remember where the cache is hidden. She goes into another room where there's a hatch in the floor to a root cellar I'm not sure any gas station on the east coast would bother to build, but I could be wrong on that. The stairs have long since rotted away, so she carefully lowers herself down and sets a semi-convenient metal trashcan upside down so she can climb back out. She manages to find an unopened box of product placement tampons on a nearby shelf, which, quite frankly, good for her. As she examines the box of future blood push pops, she hears a noise that sounds like an infected somewhere in the dark cellar.

This is the proverbial gristle of a scene that I knew I would have to go through to get to the meat and potatoes of the episode.

Ellie shines her flashlight into the darkness (the ONLY anglehead flashlight in the show, by the way, this STILL ANNOYS ME), and it illuminates an infected trapped by fallen rubble. He's not a quite a clicker yet, even though he's making clicker noises, and he hasn't grown tendrils and died, so I have to assume he's only been there a little while. He still has one good eye, but the other half of his face is all shroomy.

Ellie squats down in front of him and flicks open her switchblade, waving it slowly in front of his eye. She rests the tip of the blade against his forehead. The whole time she's doing this, she has a murderous trance-like, dead-eyed stare on her face, like the one Jack Black gets in Tropic Thunder when his character is jonesing for his heroin.

Corporate needs you to find the difference between these two pictures.

She cuts a gash in the infected's forehead and stares at it for a moment, I guess gauging its reaction. It just kind of stares back at her. He must have used the mushroom hivemind to beam a homophobic joke into her mind, because Ellie then drives her knife full-beans into his forehead, killing him.

She Colonel Kurtzes at its dead face again for a second, before we cut back to Joel going over his supplies, which he's finally located. They manufacture a pointless tense moment where Joel is calling out Ellie's name, and draws his gun upon receiving no answer, before she walks into the room with her prized box of Tampax Pearl, worth game Bill's weight in gold by now.

Joel puts away his geocache, adding the M4. Ellie sensibly protests, but Joel explains that there isn't going to be much ammo for it "out there" meaning out on the road. I just think it's because Joel doesn't have a rifle of a similar platform until the end of the game where he takes an M16 off of a Firefly at the hospital, and the showrunners, for some reason, despite all the other changes, wanted to retain that aspect. This principal would also be true of Joel's Taurus Model 66, so by that logic they shouldn't take ANY gun, right? At least you have it for now. Maybe you could trade it to Bill for a few boxes of .357 Magnum to feed that revolver of yours? Big HMMMS on the logic here. It isn't very reasoned to me.

What an unfortunate scene for this unfortunate episode. This doubles down on making Ellie seem like a psychopath. She went full crazy like the quiet kid from school mutilating a gopher in the woods or some shit. It comes across like the writers are making her desperate to kill or something.

Again they continue on their hike into Lincoln, briefly passing by and discussing a crashed airplane. They have a discussion about Outbreak Day, where Joel breaks down a reasonable assumption as to how it got so bad so fast. It's clear to me and hopefully anyone watching that the showrunners want to draw a parallel between Cordyceps Brain Infection and COVID that just isn't there. I've decided to call this Lockdown Derangement Syndrome, where all of these media idiots insist the world somehow ended after COVID as if we're about to experience a Cormac McCarthy novel but for the reals this time I swear!

Joel holds up the hike and says he wants to cut around an area and go over the hill next to the road instead, because he doesn't want Ellie to see something along the road. Ellie goofs around, saying that since Joel doesn't want her to see it, now she's goooootttaaaa see it, and starts off ahead.

It turns out to be a body pit in a culvert along the road. Joel explains that not everyone killed during the first weeks of the outbreak was infected, and only a limited number of people were allowed to be transported to the Quarantine Zones because they had limited capacity, so they killed anyone they felt they couldn't take, because "Dead bodies can't become infected." It cuts to a long shot, with Joel and Ellie in the background. In the foreground is a skeletal body wrapped in a tattered green dress, nearby is a smaller body wrapped in a blue blanket that has little rainbows on it.

We match cut to a woman in the same dress holding a baby wrapped in the same blanket. It's 2003, Outbreak Week. FEDRA soldiers are rounding up the townsfolk of Lincoln and marking cleared houses. Someone watches them through a monitor as they enter his house. He quietly picks up a nearby shotgun as they pass overhead, saying that the basement looks clear, revealing that this is a sub-basement.

As they leave, he says "Not today, you New World Order jackboot fucks."

We have now introduced Bill. He's apparently a paranoid conspiracy theorist prepper who just really fuckin hit paydirt, didn't he?

The FEDRA soldiers depart the neighborhood, victims in tow, as Bill again watches from his security monitors. He stealthily exits his sub-basement to make sure the coast is clear. He sweeps the house, sweeps the front porch (not with a broom), and finally, seeing that there is no one and nothing around, takes off the gas mask he's been wearing to reveal that he's clearly in his early-ish 40s in 2003. Oh God.

We're in it now, guys. Now it's been revealed that everything we've seen promotionally about Bill has been a misdirection. The Bill that bears a passing resemblance to the one from the game is the PRE-TIME SKIP version of Bill. Big ooferino, my guy. He'd be in his SIXTIES during the events of the game. What a god damn waste. But don't worry, THIS Bill will NEVER have to do ANY of the cool shit we see game Bill do. So I guess it's okay, right?

Bill starts off on a prepper montage, going around town gathering supplies to fortify the area. He fills barrels with gas, raids the Home Depot of various materials; Duct tape, plastic sheets, a bunch of bundles of Romex, etc. While in the Home Depot the power shuts off. "That was fast" he says.

He rams the gates of the natural gas plant and turns a big valve. He stops on his way home to procure many bottles of wine and spirits from the liquor store. Then he fixes up an old industrial-sized generator in his backyard, which he must have converted to run off of natural gas. He chops firewood, lays traps to defend his perimeter, and tends to his vegetable garden. We see that he's an excellent cook. It's a whole thing. In fact the cooking thing will come back later.

Superficially, this montage isn't so bad, but like everything original to this series added by HBO it's just pointless and doesn't really serve the story. What's this part saying? Bill is a well-organized survivalist. We knew exactly the same thing when we were playing the game, while the main story was progressing. The main story isn't progressing here, it stops the main story dead cold for 45 minutes.

I'm gonna glaze over some stuff to finally get to the gist of it.

One day, a few years after the outbreak montage, Bill finds a man in one of his pitfall traps. After scanning him with one of the magical Memberberry devices from the game, and some trepidation, Bill invites the man in, lets him shower, gives him some clean clothes, cooks him a very nice rabbit dinner paired with a $14 bottle of Beaujolais (I'm not saying it wouldn't be good, but come on! Pull out the stops!!), and they form a romantic connection over Linda Ronstadt and sleep together.

A few more years later, the man, Frank, feels cooped up and overbore by Bill, who doesn't trust anybody else and only seems to prioritize the house they live in. They've become a couple. Frank wants to fix up the neighborhood, make friends, and a build community, but Bill is resistant to it. Frank forces the issue by telling Bill that he's already met a nice couple in Boston over the radio and he wants to invite them to dinner to discuss supply trade. This couple turns out to be Joel and Tess. Over dinner they discuss a trade deal, Bill's fortifications, and how they won't last as long as he thinks they will, and they warn Bill of raiders, setting up the scene that happens later with a bunch of raiders. At the end of this scene we learn that it was Frank who made the radio code we saw in the premiere, the one where each decade of music means a certain thing like danger or new supplies, and whatnot.

During the next scene, the one with the raiders (we see Frank set up the gun Ellie takes later), it's AGAIN a few years later (2013) and raiders are attacking the neighborhood. Bill gets shot pretty bad and Frank does some redneck movie surgery with whiskey and a butter knife to dig out the bullet. Expecting the worst, Bill tells Frank not to be alone, to call Joel and Tess to come stay there with him, and Bill passes out from the pain.

NOW HERE'S THE PART! HERE IT IS!

It's now 10 years later. Frank is sitting on the porch in a wheelchair, and calls for Bill to bring him inside. Frank is suffering from some debilitating disease like ALS or Multiple Sclerosis, it's only implied. We get a little homage to My Left Foot with Frank struggling to paint a portrait of Bill through his condition.

I just wanna say they made these dudes up to look OLD, like Mid-60s old. It's nigh-impossible not to draw a visual comparison between Bill and Carl from Up, they made his hair so square and grey.

Frank is tired of his debilitating state, and he wants to end his life. He discusses his last day with Bill, who is understandably very emotional. Frank wants to get dressed up, get married, and have a nice dinner, where Bill will crush up a bunch of medications and put them in Frank's wine, and Frank will drift off to sleep in Bill's arms for the last time.

So that's what happens. We get a montage where Bill takes Frank for a walk, pushing him around in the wheelchair, they put rings on each other in front of the piano where they fell in love, and Bill cooks the same rabbit dinner, where he serves the same Loius Jadot Beaujolais-Villages. After dinner, Bill brings out a bottle of finer wine (I think it's a Brunello from Col d'Orcia, that's what I'm talkin about, boyeee), into which he crushes Franks meds (If you're going to poison your husband, use a Brunello). Frank drinks his glass all in one gulp, and Bill pointedly does the same. Frank realizes that the bottle was already open when Bill came to the table, and deduces that the entire bottle was already spiked with pills. Bill confirms that it would be "enough to kill a horse."

That's right, kids, if you're gonna bury your gays, dig two graves.

Bill explains that this "isn't the tragic suicide at the end of the play. I'm old, I'm satisfied, and you were my purpose."

Frank says that he doesn't support Bill's decision, that he should be furious, and of course what HBO wants the viewer to feel: "From an objective point of view, it's incredibly romantic."

They lie in bed together one last time and drift off to sleep.

This would almost be touching if it weren't such a goddamn pointless deviation from the main story. They gave this to us AS A FILLER EPISODE. Before I finish the breakdown of the next scene, I wanna talk a bit about these flashbacks. Both gay and Libertarian stereotypes are at play here that the media just will not let go of. Bill is a Democrat's version of a Ron Paul Libertarian; mother's-basement dwelling, paranoid prepper with Gadsden and segmented snake flags up in his workshop (that's a funny faux pas, because the segmented snake is a Statist image by design; "Join or Die"), you can imagine him posting to message boards about 9/11 conspiracies and secret Fascist deep state takeover of American Government. This is a man who is also a deeply closeted homosexual who enjoys Linda Ronstadt, fine wines, and 5-star French cuisine. I'm not saying it couldn't or doesn't happen, but the way Hollywood writes, they're using the music, the wine, and the cuisine as a poker tell to let the audience draw conclusions about what those things signify. Do you need to be gay to enjoy any or all three of those things? Absolutely not, but the show uses them

When Frank comes into Bill's life, they lean HEAVILY into suburban domestic gay stereotypes. Every kind you've seen from sitcoms to dramas, where one man is the husband and the other is the wife. Frank settles neatly into a role as the wife of Bill. He makes Bill do things he might not otherwise do; jog, eat relatively healthy, socialize. Don't think I didn't notice Frank and Tess go off to have "ladies time" while the "men" sat and bullshitted about galvanized wire fences and "I know I guy who knows a guy who can get you better fences."

Is this offensive? I couldn't say. I'm neither gay nor necessarily a Libertarian. But they are absolutely tired tropes that the game organically avoided. I'll talk more about Bill and Frank from the game after I close this episode.

Joel and Ellie reach Lincoln. Joel punches in the gate code, and they walk to Bill's house. It seems unnaturally quiet, the flowers on the porch are wilted. Joel opens the door tentatively, as if he's used to knocking. They walk in. There's signs of no life. Candles have burned themselves out and left a mess of wax on the hall tables, everything has a light coating of dust. Gun drawn, Joel calls out to Bill and Frank and receives no answer. He tells Ellie to stay put, and she asks "what if they're gone" (heh, ay Tone, someone read the script). Joel brushes her off and begins to search the house. Bill and Frank's last dinner is still on the table, flies buzzing around it. Ellie finds a letter in the living room with a Chevy key on top.

We rejoin Joel as he knocks on the bedroom door. He tries the knob, but it's barricaded. He goes back to Ellie, who is sitting at the dinner table reading the letter. She says that it's from Bill, and it's addressed "To whomever, but probably Joel."

Joel bluntly asks "So they're dead?" and Ellie confirms, reading some of the letter out loud. It dates their suicide as August 29th 2023, relatively recently, maybe? I'm not sure of the exact timeline of the show down to the month and day. The house seems as though they've been dead for weeks, being all dusty and the food still on the table being rotten. Anyway, the letter explains that they left the window open so the house wouldn't smell, Joel is welcome to take anything he needs, and leaves the code to the sub-basement bunker we saw at the beginning of the flashback. It goes into a more personal diatribe, but I'm just gonna skip it because I'm still disappointed over how Tess' death was handled.

Joel checks the garage, where he finds Bill's Chevy S10 pickup. He checks the engine compartment and has a little moment when he sees there's no battery. Then he checks the garage fridge to see the makings of a makeshift lead acid battery.

He goes back into the house and makes Ellie show him her arm. THEN they FINALLY have the "Rules" discussion from the game. After wasting a goddamn hour of our time.

They go into the bunker where Ellie oohs and ahs at all of Bill's cool shit we barely got to see him use. They discover that Bill has a danger system kind of like the bunker from Lost where he has to reset a timer every few weeks or 80s music goes out on a loop over the radio. Ellie again asks for a gun and bemoans that "there's a wall of them" and Joel again says no. They raid the house to gather supplies, take showers, change clothes, Ellie finds a fucking gun (Frank's gun) and hides it from Joel, because they have to undermine any significant or impactful character development from the game and make it somehow worse.

They hop in the truck, Ellie puts on some Linda Ronstadt instead of the Hank fucking Williams track from the game go fuck yourself very much, and they don't even have the "Bye bye dudes" iconic moment from the game. I guess I should be thankful because they'd find a way to fuck up even a small iconic moment like that.

This episode is as dead as Bill and Frank, so I can talk about their game counterparts now.

It just seems to stand alone as effectively its own story with no greater impact on the series beyond "this is where they get a car/this is where Ellie gets a gun". There was a point to Bill's character in the game beyond "he got Joel and Ellie a car," but his story has been expanded to greatly reduce his role to just that.

When the game introduces Bill, it wastes no time in showing you his capabilities and priorities. The very first thing he does on screen is save Joel, and lead him and Ellie to safety. It's obvious that he's well-organized and structure-oriented, he would have to be to live on his own. When Joel says that he needs a car, Bill has a lead on a car and a battery, albeit reluctantly and cantankerously. But it's also obvious that he's alone. When Bill is loading up shotguns to take on their mission, he talks vaguely about someone he used to run with, he refers to this person as "a partner." But he's talking about him as if Joel has never met him, and it seems Bill has known Joel and Tess for years by this point. Bill concludes his story about this partner with a bitter closedess, saying that after his partner abandoned him, he realized it's better off to be alone, because you can't depend on people.

Those familiar with literary tropes might recognize Bill's partner as a Posthumous Character. Particularly in this case, a character who is only ever talked about in the past tense. This trope is used wonderfully in this stage of the game. After the trio fight their way out of the highschool, when it's discovered that someone had taken the battery Bill had a lead on, they cut through some neighborhoods and take shelter in a house where Joel and Bill start to butt heads, and a corpse is discovered hanging in the living room, looks like it's been there for years. Bill gives a look of shock and recognition. Joel asks "What, did you know this guy?" and Bill reveals that this is the partner he mentioned. "My partner" is said emphatically and pointedly to make it clear what it means to him, and Bill is obviously trying to keep his emotions in check through an absolute sudden tragedy. It's a brilliant scene and fuck does W. Earl Brown do WORK.

Actually, to get the full scope of what the fuck I'm talking about, if you haven't seen it, you should watch it.

This scene is SO MUCH MORE IMPACTFUL than the overindulgent drama HBO conjured up. Subtlety is nearly ALWAYS the key to a good emotional set up and pay off.

You need to understand that Bill is Joel, gone wrong.

He serves as a reflection of the man Joel is in danger of turning into; A bitter man surviving alone, who pushes away anyone who tries to get too close. Bill is the version of Joel that he's leaving behind over the course of the story to become the man he is by the end of it.

This episode really wastes both Bill and Frank to the detriment of the whole show.

But they got a car, I guess 🙄.