#also being autistic played a big part too

[phalacrocoraxdreams]

i could have been such a ballet girlie (transmasc-coded) if my dad hadnt traumatized me maaaaan… couldve played sports too

[nekropsii]

Do you have any thoughts on Equius

Equius is a fucked up kid who has done a lot wrong, but he is still a kid. He reads as a startlingly real portrayal of a pubescent autistic boy with an unhealthy and shaky grasp of his budding, overwhelming sexuality, with a concerning amount of influence from the internet. He is the result of adults failing him, and exposing him to hardcore fetish porn at an age too early. This is a real kind of guy that exists. A very common one, who I have met, like, at least 40 of.

Like Eridan, he feels like a kid stuck in a pipeline — except instead of the alt-right pipeline, it’s fetishism and hypersexuality. He feels like a pretty solid example of how getting involved in NSFW spaces online as a child can both deeply fuck up your sexuality and completely destroy your perception of what consent is, and what is and is not okay. He doesn’t have a grasp on boundaries whatsoever, and while this manifests in ways that are quite honestly horrifying and uncomfortable — like constantly projecting his Caste-Play BDSM fetishes onto nonconsenting, unsuspecting individuals, and… The things he did to Aradia — I cannot help but view him as an autistic boy having a rough time of puberty who got groomed through the internet over-exposing him to pornography at an early age. He’s deeply sympathetic to me from that angle. Again, I have met this kid. Homestuck is fantastic at presenting characters that are exact archetypes of real people you have known, be it personally or not. People you would have either been close friends with in middle school, or terrorized by in a random chat room on the internet. Maybe they were even you! There’s a complete nonzero chance someone is reading this who has played the role of Equius in their youth, who is totally fine and healthy now. And if that’s true, and this describes you… I’m proud of your growth!

Back to Analysis- His ardent Hemoloyalty is fascinating, also. I’ve written about this before, but there’s something compelling and very realistic about how his bigotry comes from a place of deep insecurity, rather than pride. I find bigotry coming from insecurity to be more common than it coming from overt pride. Many fictional bigots have such a genuine ego to them, a fine layer of paint labeled Badassery, when for the most part real life bigots are total losers with nothing better to do than worry about… Where someone was born, or how much melanin they have, or what’s in their pants, or whatever.

I get why people don’t tend to be fond of him, but the disquieting parts of his character are both very deliberate choices and also shockingly… Earnest, in a weird, Hussian fashion. I’ve never quite seen a character with his traits get portrayed before. He’s easy to work with, analytically speaking, you just have to be willing to stick your hands in the uncomfortable muck that is messy teenage sexuality. Many aren’t willing to, which is fair! But many also mislabel his uncomfortable traits as not intentionally uncomfortable, or simply a product of Hussie being weird and wrong and having bad opinions. This… Just blatantly isn’t the case. Sometimes fiction isn’t comfortable on purpose. Big whoop.

I think Equius could’ve been quite a fine person, had he been given the room to grow up. He’s like Jake to me in the sense that he’s one of the only characters I genuinely wouldn’t mind seeing expanded upon more, provided he be taken seriously, and not completely sanded down.

Alas.

[thevirtualvalentine]

His favorite things 2 do w u !

ft: Atsumu Miya, Shōyō Hinata, Kozume Kenma, Ushijima Wakatoshi, & Kiyoomi Sakusa.

warning(s): tooth rotting domesticity, gn!reader + no pronouns used, nudity in kiyoomis (you shower together), nerd!shō (canon), autistic coded kags, established relationships. thrown in kenma bc I love nerds.

notes: hq has me in its cold slimy grip, sos. Divider by @dollywons !

Being a pro-athlete makes him oh so busy! He’s so grateful to have a honey at home who loves him.

ATSUMU MIYA … helping him redye his hair. Around every month and a half ‘Tsumu and you take on the task of making him a fake platinum blond. He can thank you for the correct mix of toners to rid him of that nauseating yellow hair.

While it may be about him, he’s watching you intently in the mirror. The way you take care of him and make him feel oh so handsome. He’s used to getting the job done himself, but he trusts you and wants you to be there for him in this small gesture.

During those 2 hours, the world is silent and it’s just you and him in your shared bathroom. You donning one of his old shirts and nothing else while you, “make him sparkle.” He really is a diamond in the ruff, in need of your polishing.

TOBIO KAGEYAMA… doing nail care together. While yes, it sounds peculiar, we all know how deeply Tobio cares about the state of his hands. They’re fundamental to his everyday life on and off the court. After watching him prep the night before a game by filing his nails, you asked him to let you help. “Here baby, let me,” you offered, taking his much larger palm in your own as you round out the shape.

It became a habit between you not long after, body doubling as you both take care of your hands or trading off doing each other's. It’s a simple thing really, but he can’t help the light smile that finds him in those moments. Tobio can’t explain in words why it makes him feel so loved.

But you know his true feelings as a quiet show functions as white noise in the background, his hand in yours prepping for yet another match. He appreciates the intimacy of silence together.

SHŌYŌ HINATA … watching One Piece together. Growing up, Shōyō didn’t have friends who engaged in his interests as deeply as he did. It took you 5 months into your relationship to realize he also liked the show because he was scared you might tease him.

It led to a deeper conversation about things you both liked and the two of you have been closer than ever. Engaging in each other’s hobbies even if you didn’t know what it was about.

Now, it’s a ritual you both do every Sunday when the new episode drops. It’s shared y/n & Shō time. A sacred pact of nerds that cannot be broken. He loves that you’ll share his love for life with him, even the nerdier things.

KOZUME KENMA … cooking dinner together. Even when he was playing volleyball in high school, Kozume did not care too deeply for his nutritional intake. Food was just food, a meal was another part of the day. Even with all the money he makes now, he's ultimately unfazed by high class food. Preferring those shitty frozen dinners he can make in the comfort of his apartment.

Then he met you on campus, and the day you cooked something for him he swore he would never eat anything again if it wasn’t made by you. Maybe that phrase, “made with love,” was true when it came to you.

Now he likes to help out, meal prepping here and there. He’s quite good at cutting up vegetables actually. He’ll watch or even stand behind you with his arms snaked around your waist at the stove observing.

WAKATOSHI USHIJIMA … work out. We all know volleyball is a big aspect of Ushi’s life. He’s constantly conditioning himself for the perfect physique. When he discovered that you had a similar passion for building and honing your body to its fullest capability, he was whipped.

He found it hard to be understood by others, but he really does just enjoy the simple things. Playing volleyball, working out, and coming home to you. It’s enjoyable to him to be able to do it with you and gives him greater motivation.

Every endurance run, you’re by his side and he certainly doesn’t mind altering his pace for you. It gets him a little worked up to see you sweating and out of breath though, but he’ll keep that to himself for now.

KIYOOMI SAKUSA … you guessed it, showering together. Because he grew up around sweaty boys playing volleyball all day, Kiyoomi knows not everyone is as concerned about their personal hygiene as he is. In a country full of Neanderthals, he wears the crown. But when he comes home from practice, there is only one thing he wants to do. Shower with you.

There’s something so intimate about you taking care of him in such a vulnerable space. He’s much bigger than you are, his broad shoulders from years of spiking looming over yours. Warm steam mixed with eucalyptus leaves fills his senses as you hum, scrubbing his body of any dirt from the outside world.

Your soft hands wash the tension from his body, your nails scrape against his scalp making him feel loved. He’ll never admit it but he says it’s because he likes to be clean, It’s truly because you’re the one cleaning him.

[homunculus-argument]

If you're on the autistic spectrum, you probably have at some point been a part of a group conversation discussing some subject, and you notice that some large key element of the subject has not even been mentioned. So you decide to be the one to bring it up, in case the other people present were not aware of this big important component at play. And when you do, the neurotypical people present start scoffing and roll their eyes, tell you that everyone already knew that, and act insulted and get sarcastic at you, and you have no idea what the hell that was about.

Anyway, if that's ever happened to you, I might be able to break this down. I have no idea if that's of any help, but here I go nonetheless:

Neurotypical people tend to assume that the things that they consider to be obvious are also obvious to everyone else. As their thought processes tend to consistently follow very similar patterns, this assumption is correct enough - in a room full of neurotypicals, everyone assumes that everyone else has noticed the same things, and assumes that they don't need to be clearly and specifically pointed out at all.

This kind of "obviously obvious" things form the invisible bottom layer of the way neurotypicals talk to each other. The top layer is what they explicitly say with words, and the second layer is an underlying message that they consider to be too obvious to say directly. For example, asking someone if they need help with something comes with the implied statement "I don't think you are capable of doing this on your own", and if the person being asked is clearly capable of doing the task on their own, it means "I think that you are so helpless in general that you might as well not even know how to do this, either", which is considered massively insulting.

A third layer comes from where and when something is said. Offering to help someone with something that you thought they should be able to do on their own is insulting enough in private, but doing it in public means that you aren't just telling one person "I don't respect you", you are making it clear to everyone who witnesses it that you want everyone to know that you don't respect this person, or that you don't think they're capable of any kind of a meaningful retribution for being insulted like that.

So, wrapping this all back together, sometimes when neurotypical people don't openly aknowledge something that's very important when discussing a subject, there's a chance that they're not oblivious to the importance of that specific component, but have simply all silently agreed that one would need to be an idiot to not be aware of it, and therefore it does not need to be brought up at all. So even when you are trying to genuinely make sure that you are all on the same page, you have offered to help them understand the subject - which they take as your way of letting them know that you don't think they're smart enough to do that on their own.

So they hear this as you saying "I think everyone in this room is a fucking idiot, and I don't respect any of you enough to pretend otherwise, nor do I care who knows it." And that's why they get mad for no reason.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for acting apathetic about my chickens?

(CW for animal death/animal attacks)

I (14F) have had chickens my whole life. We usually have around 15~ at a time, and we get chicks that we raise around every 2 years. They live in my backyard, and me and my dad mainly take responsibility over them. I love chickens in general, but mine especially because I helped raise them. For a while, the chickens + my cats were my only friends. I just think they are neat.

Anyways, one big part of owning chickens is recognizing that sometimes they die. When the chicken is lucky, it lives 5+ years and passes from old age. Sadly, not all chickens are lucky. It is a garentee with having a flock of chickens that at least one will get eaten or attacked. If you have chicks, eventually you will end up with one that hatched sickly and it will die too. This definitely isn't a part of having chickens I like, but it's the truth.

I was talking with my brother (18m) about chickens recently and he brought up the time one of our chickens got snatched and eaten by a fox. He asked me if there was anything more we could do to prevent that from happening again, and I told him no, we've done everything we can. He then told me he hated that fox, and asked me if I did too, which once again I said no. More specifically, I told him that "I think it's sad, but obviously the fox was hungry. At least it got fed." My brother got flabbergasted, asking how I could say that. We had a bit of an argument on if that was an appropriate comment to make, where I ended up saying more or less the exact contents of the second paragraph. Now, my brother is insisting I don't care about the chickens and am heartless for thinking about them like that.

I disagree with him. I think you can acknowledge that death is a real possibility and still dislike death, and being realistic about bad things that can happen is important. I care a lot about my chickens. When they die, I dig a hole and bury them someplace pretty, and I always recite a prayer to them. They all have names, but truthfully I do forget them. I dig up worms for them as snacks, I hang up cabbages like piñatas for them to play with. They are safe, and I don't think being accepting about the fact they may die makes me bad.

Personally, I don't think there's an asshole here, but my brother does and I'm not completely sure. I would also like to add that I am autistic so other people struggle with reading my emotions, so my brother probably has good reason to think I don't care. I hope I wrote this written ok!

[beneathashadytree]

what are your favourite unhinged headcannons for the lads/lnds LIs please?🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽 like something that based on how they act in canon preferably but even if it's way left field, just something funny about them

I personally headcanon Zayne as autistic (my radar is going OFF) so I’m 100% projecting when I say that he’s definitely offended MANY superiors at university with his manner of speaking. This makes him feel absolutely HUMILIATED when he gets told off/reminded that not every takes his straightforwardness as a good thing. It’s why sometimes he often hesitates & rethinks his words with the MC; the Neurodivergent Struggle™️

Ever since he and MC started dating, he’s definitely caught himself looking in the mirror more than he ever did before. Not out of vanity, but merely checking in on his appearance every now and then. He’s more conscious of how he looks (in a good way!!) compared to how he previously viewed his body as simply a vessel before. Goes completely red when caught by them, and plays it off as checking for new scars (hint: there aren’t any this time).

Rafayel has a habit of making biting remarks as he gets all shy and defensive, but sometimes he doesn’t hear the double entendres behind his words until the MC smirks at him. Sometimes it’s purely coincidental and he goes beet red, other times he’s lowkey handing them bait to tease him. Maybe a small part of him likes it when he hears them say such scandalous things and joke around…

Delicate as his hands are, he’s got a pretty extensive knife collection. Super fancy too, like the stuff you’ll find at those oddly specific stores downtown where the single set of 6 pieces costs your left kidney and a leg. When he’s run out of inspiration, he sharpens them and takes VERY good care of them. This type of attention is also given to his beloved daggers and weapons of choice. Shiny = pretty is a very recurrent theme with him.

Xavier had gone through a phase where he was trying his best to adjust to life amongst humans, and that was when he was introduced to the wonders of pop culture and the entertainment world. So if he happens to hum along to insanely obscure songs that were popular a decades ago and somehow has every song by said artist memorized, don’t question it. He’s a multi-stan.

Being such a sleepy guy who’s barely conscious, Xavier has definitely skipped MANY relationship milestones with the MC by accidentally letting important words slip during phone calls. Whenever they call him and he’s just woken up, he just word-vomits/half-mumbles his way through his sappiest thoughts that come to him so easily (examples: “I love you so much” “Can’t wait till you marry me” and “Let’s buy a big house for our future family”)

This actually turned out to be more detailed than I thought it would be, sorry for rambling nonnie. This is practically a piece of writing on its own 😭😭

[kingmaxstatic]

In Defense Of Lanolin, A Post About Perspective, Flaws and Development. (Part 1: The Incidents)

Hey there everyone! It's time for another ✨Max Opinion Moment✨. Out of all of the IDW characters I think Lanolin is the character I've seen get the most hate. I'm not just talking about "I dislike this character" I'm talking I've seen posts where people act like Lanolin killed their family sort of hate.

Today I plan on defending Lanolin as a character! Talking about the main panels that caused this hatred and why I think she's... actually justified in her actions!

DISCLAIMER! This post is not meant to say "You can't DISLIKE Lanolin!". You're allowed to have your opinions of the character!

with all of that out of the way, let's talk sheep! Buckle up! Because this is a long one! (So long I might have to make a part 2)

Case #1: The Paddle Ball Incident

One of the earliest examples (comic timeline wise) was this set of panels! I've seen people actually seethe over these panels. Now I want to explain why I, personally, understand why she's taken the paddle away from her!

Lanolin is talking about important stuff here! Tangle is ACTIVELY interrupting the conversation by playing with the paddle ball in her face. Also, as an autistic person, I personally know how distracting those noises can be!

People also seem to forget that Lanolin, a few pages earlier, looks EXHAUSTED. That is not the face of a sheep that's well rested. Of course she's going to be irritable!

You'd be a bit of a bitch too if you were trying to talk about important stuff and someone was cutting off the conversation by fiddling with something really loud in your face! It's like if you were trying to present a school project you worked all night on and someone started playing a really loud video next to you.

Does this make Tangle a bad person? Of course not! She's energetic and gets bored easily (trust me girl, I get it.) but Lanolin isn't bad for being upset.

Case 2: The Duo Incident

THIS is the main reason a lot of people hate Lanolin as a character. Though in the timeline it's the second panel people will point to as justification for wanting this fictional sheep dead. This is the part of the post where I talk a LOT about perspective and justification.

Get ready for a LOTTTT of panel posting to add context.

SO Let's discuss the main perspective we see, Silver and Whisper's

Silver and Whisper know something is up with Duo, hell Whisper hits the nail right on the head when she instantly assumes Duo to be Mimic! This all happens after Mimic sneakily kicks Silver and Whisper notices.

Another event this happens is when Mimic basically leaves Silver for dead and what does he say after Lanolin asks him where silver is?

"I'm sorry I couldn't save him... the teeth... so big."

From LANOLIN'S PERSPECTIVE, Duo is the new guy, inexperienced and doesn't know how to deal with badniks and this one was HUGE. So from HER pov Duo did his best to save Silver and just simply couldn't. Of course she doesn't know that Duo is Mimic.

So what do Whisper and Silver do after they assume there's a traitor amongst them?

"We're Going Hunting."

Silver and Whisper don't first contact Lanolin or the others, they jump INSTANTLY to murder. The next panel we sees Silver and Whisper in in this arc is them camping in a bush, ready to shoot this Mimic.

Once again, I need to emphasize, they DID NOT discuss this with Tangle or Lanolin. They jumped to murder. This is a rash choice on both of their ends.

I also want to point out that Lanolin acted a lil playful and friendly... before she saw Whisper coming out of the bushes with her wispon.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize what Whisper is implying here. She wants to kill someone. Justified? Yes, Mimic is a horrible person who seems to only know one word, betray. But from Lanolin's perspective Duo is a newbie who's only crime was being inexperienced. She does not know Duo is Mimic.

She even asks "The Shape-Shifter? That's a big accusation. Do you have any proof?" She isn't saying "Whisper, this guy clearly isn't mimic." She's saying "If you have proof he's mimic, show it instead of shooting this person I assume is innocent.".

and Whisper responds "We will soon."

Whisper then walks forward and proceeds to grab Lanolin's arm and move it, if you have a keen eye, you'll notice it was the arm Lanolin was using to protect Duo.

A teammate is walking towards your other seemingly innocent teammate, accusing them of being someone from their past. They're carrying a loaded weapon and move you out of the way. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what would happen next. Someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed.

So what do you do?

You knock the person down.

What Lanolin does here is knock Whisper over before she does anything and attempts to reason why her. Before whisper then KICKS her legs, trying to knock her over. Thus starts a fight. I'm not gonna post the full panel because we already got the idea.

But afterwards Jewel asks "Hey let me get this straight, you tried to attack this dude based on an assumption"

And Silver is like "Yeah shit guess I was"

THEN Lanolin steps in like "Hey until you can like. think before you act you should stay away from us, kay?"

OKAY SO, TO EMPHASIZE THIS A THIRD TIME. Silver and Whisper decided to try and kill this guy before discussing with their team. Silver is a powerhouse and a well known powerhouse at that. "Yadda Yadda great power, great responsibility." and all that.

People act like Lanolin is banning Silver from ever being in the diamond cutters ever. But she's saying "FOR NOW you can't be one of us.". Until is a word that changes a LOT here. She's also saying "That's my vote." implying she wants the others' input.

Hell this is even more emphasized when Jewel says Tangle has a say in this! Lanolin is saying "Hey, I think Silver shouldn't be around until he grows more, what do you guys think?".

I do think Lanolin has flaws here, she should've tried to give whisper a bit more benefit of the doubt here, but Whisper shouldn't of ALSO jumped to murder. They're BOTH in the wrong here.

PHEW THAT WAS A LONG ONE.

Case #3: The X-Treme Gear Incident

This is the latest Lanolin panel that I've seen spark debate about her! Let's talk about the Diamond Cutters' roles in this arc!

They're referees! They're even called "The Restoration Refs" in issue 70! Basically, people who oversee the race to make sure everyone is playing fair and safe.

She's not doing this because she hates Sonic (okay maybe she has beef with Sonic), Amy and Tails. She's doing this because it was an active threat to everybody else and themselves!

Hell I want to point out that in the first panel of this case, she's pointing at Sonic. Who she has witnessed first hand clearly having a disregard to the rules and safety.

This then proceeded to almost get one of her teammates hurt.

So Lanolin calling Sonic a "Hazard" Isn't too far off. Do I think Lanolin is being harsh here? Yeah. Hell even the comic points out she's being harsh after the first panel of this case.

People act like she swiveled around to Tails and went "You suck as an inventor" and spit on him. She's calling the gear "faulty" and "hazards". Shes literally doing her job. I need to emphasize this. Is she being rude? Yes. But she's blunt and it's apart of her character. Tangle is gonna be naive, Whisper's gonna be distant, Lanolin is gonna be blunt.

Bonus Case: The Shattered Glass Incident.

Okay so this isn't one that I've seen people hate on Lanolin for but I... have seen the Anti-Lanolin squad be weird over this panel. Being all like "HA!! Not as perfect as she thought!" and "She's finally facing the consequences of her actions!!"

What actions?

Ah yes! Stopping Sonic from endangering more racers!

Lanolin broke the glass, yes. She acted quickly, yes. This wasn't her scheming and being like "Heehee!! Time to put all these people in danger for some reason!!"

Let's call it what it is.

A Mistake.

Something people are allowed to make, something Lanolin is allowed to make. This isn't some sort of "her getting what's coming to her" it's her realizing she fucked up. Let her make mistakes and let them BE mistakes!

But yeah, if you've read this all the way through, thank you! I had a lot of fun making this (despite how exhausted I am of the lanolin hate train). Hopefully I'll actually make that part 2! Because that would be more so me talking about Lanolin's flaws, her role, and her backstory! Things I like to discuss (I do not like being a hater).

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Haircut

Alex Blake x autistic!fem!reader Warnings: some innuendo, implied smut, gender presentation struggles, explicit language (let me know if I've missed anything!) Word count: 1.6k

Summary: You get a dramatic new haircut, and you're scared of what your girlfriend will think of it.

You sat awkwardly in the chair, tapping your foot, as the barber observed your hair from behind.

“All of it?!” they asked, raising their eyebrows at you. “You’re sure?”

You nodded quickly. “Every time I say I want it cut short, I end up with like a short bob or some other girly cut. I keep telling them I want it short, like a boy’s, but… that’s never what I end up with.”

The barber nodded. “I feel you. So…” They moved forward to frame your head. “I’m gonna take it in pretty tight on the sides and back with clippers, but I’m gonna leave you some length on top so you can fluff it up with product or style it up front like bangs, that kind of thing. Sound good?”

“Definitely,” you confirmed, smiling quickly. “That sounds great.”

You took a deep breath and looked in the mirror as they draped the cape over you and clipped it at the back of your neck. You heard the clippers buzz to life and met the barber’s eyes in the mirror.

“Ready?” they asked, holding them just an inch from your head.

“Do it.”

And that was it. Years of long hair, gone. You felt both giddy and terrified. On the one hand, you felt more and more yourself watching the hair come off your head. But on the other hand, it was a big change in your appearance. What would Alex think?

She always told you she didn’t care what you did with your hair but, well, you’d never done this. And then an awful thought struck you: did people play with short hair? You hated the feeling of your hair against the back of your neck, hated it getting caught, getting in the way, but you loved the feeling of Alex playing with your hair. Loved it when she’d run her hands through it and scratch her fingernails against your scalp. It was enough to put you to sleep some nights.

The barber touched up the lines of your sideburns and the fade at the back of your head, trimming the top so it laid just perfectly over your head. You’d never been to a barber shop before, but you’d been so frustrated by the girlishness of the salons, you finally caved and found a queer-friendly barber shop here in DC. You’d had high hopes that someone at a barber shop would listen to what you really wanted with your hair, not just what they thought you should want. And from the looks of things, your hopes were being validated.

“The cut comes with a hot towel shave, if you want,” the barber said as they finished up.

“Oh, uh…” you stumbled. “I mean, I don’t have a beard.”

“For the back of your head and neck?” the barber clarified, smiling a little.

You blushed, embarrassed not to understand the lingo of the barber shop.

“Um, yeah, sure,” you said, bobbing your head. “That’d be great.”

You wished you could bottle up the experience–the refreshing warmth of the towel, the cool brush of cream, the way the back of your head felt perfect afterward. And you did bottle it up in your mind to tell Alex. You wanted her to know how great the hot towel shave was, how much girls were missing out on.

When the barber spun you around in your chair, when you could finally run your hands over the soft, shaved down at the back and sides of your head, you smiled wide, holding your hands at your side so you wouldn’t stim too obviously.

You beamed. “It’s perfect! Thank you so much!”

You tipped the barber generously and made another appointment; apparently with hair this short, you needed to get it cut every month.

Now to wait for Alex. You didn’t know why you were so nervous. You loved Alex and she loved you. You tried to put yourself in her shoes. If Alex cut all her hair off, would you still love her? The answer was of course but also… you didn’t know that Alex would seem like herself without her long hair. It seemed like a part of her. You’d support if she wanted to cut it, of course, but it might take some getting used to. Maybe your hair would take Alex some time to get used to as well. If that was the worst thing that happened, you supposed you could live with it.

You’d been living with Alex for a little over two months now and, for the most part, had loved it. But you weren’t used to sharing your space or so much of your time. You loved having Alex around, of course you did, but it was hard learning not to be performative with her. With most people, even Alex to a certain extent, you felt like you were performing personhood, like if you said the right things and acted the right way, people would like you. You’d lowered your guard enough around Alex to know that she liked the not-so-palatable parts of you, as well, but it had taken a long time for you to let your walls down.

For the first few weeks you’d exhausted yourself trying to make conversation all the time, trying to behave the way you did on a date 24/7. Until finally Alex had put down her book one evening, taken your face in her hands, and said, “Darling girl, I am happy to hear whatever you have to say, but if you don’t want to say anything, your presence is just as sweet as your voice.”

You’d curled up at her side and read and not said a word except “I love you” for the next several hours. It wasn’t that your voice had completely turned off in the relationship, rather that Alex had given you the freedom to use it naturally, which was better for both of you.

So when you heard the door open and shut that evening, your voice snuck down into your chest and you could tell, just from the feel of it, the weight, it was going to be hard to get it back out again tonight. You were just so used to making yourself palatable and you knew that, for a girl, hair like this wasn’t palatable. So much of the way you dressed, the way you acted, the way you were wasn’t palatable to most people. Alex accepted so much of you… what if this was a step too far?

You pulled your sweatshirt hood over your head, hoping to hide what you’d changed for just a few more minutes.

“Hi, my darling girl,” Alex said, stretching as she put her go-bag down and kicked off her shoes. You couldn’t bring yourself to meet her eyes, even as your heart surged to see her, to have her back home. Your hands shook by your sides, and you knew it was irrational how terrified you were, but you couldn’t help it.

“Quiet day today?” she asked, sitting next to you on the couch. “You usually have so much to say when I get back from a trip.”

When you didn’t answer, didn’t even look at her, she frowned, starting to worry. She gently took your face in her hands and turned it toward her, eyebrows shooting up when she felt the short hairs at the side of your head.

“Hey,” she said softly. “What’s this?”

Alex slowly pulled the hood off your head and ran her hands along the shaved sides and back of your head. Her eyes were wide, and you couldn’t quite read them.

“You really cut your hair,” she observed, her fingers against your scalp feeling just as nice as they always did.

Your voice felt almost rusted as you forced it out, quiet and hoarse. “Do you like it?” You were scared to hear the answer.

Alex smiled, letting her fingers roam through your hair before grasping the sides of your head and kissing you, running her thumbs through your short, fuzzy sideburns.

“Sweet girl, I love it. It suits you so well.” She turned your head this way and that, as if to get a better look. “You look beautiful.” She pursed her lips, bending a little so you finally had to meet her eyes. “You look like you.”

“You’re not just saying that, are you?” you whispered.

“No, darling,” she reassured you. “I don’t just say things. You know that.”

This time, you kissed her, though not very successfully–you couldn’t stop smiling.

When you pulled away, she grabbed your collar. “No, no, hang on!” she exclaimed. “I need a proper make-out. I want to run my hands through your hair some more. The texture is intoxicating.”

And you were happy to oblige, even happier to oblige given that Alex truly couldn’t keep her hands out of your hair, tracing patterns into the shaved down as your lips roamed her mouth, her neck, as you pushed her gently into the couch, your hands under her shirt against the soft, warm skin of her abdomen.

“Hey,” she protested, giggling, as your hands made their way to her chest. She brushed your bangs out of your face, looking at you with so much love you wondered how you ever could have doubted her. “Why don’t you take me to bed, darling?”

And you didn’t even need your voice for Alex to understand you, for her to see how much you loved her, how much it meant to you that she loved you for you. You clambered to your feet and held out your hand to help her up, pulling her to your side and kissing the bottom of her chin. And as you led her to the bedroom, there were no words needed.

[shadowstarion]

ahem ahem aheeem..... ermmmm as a poly party enthusiast, would youuuu possibly have any more headcanons on the tadpolycule? 👀👀👀 thank you so much!!!

YES I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS. i’ll go character by character for headcanons and how i imagine different dynamics.

tadpolycule headcanons!

shadowheart is basically programmed to be non-monogamous and extremely repressed at the same time. it’s just sex and physical attraction with astarion and karlach until it isnt and then things get complicated. the idea of casual openness throughout the camp is comforting to her— clearly if they were interested in pursuing other partners that meant whatever they had with shadowheart wasn’t anything serious, right? she’s definitely closest to astarion and karlach but not at all opposed to fooling around with anyone else (maybe even aylin and isobel if they’re into it)

astarion isn’t sure about all this, but the lack of exclusivity is similarly comforting. he can make his own decisions about who he wants, what he wants, and when he wants it. he can decide that he’s craving a particular partner or type of play and he’ll have it damn near guaranteed. he’s showered in love from head to toe in every way he could possibly want it. the additional benefit to having flexibility in partners is that he never has to go without blood again, but he does have his preferences. shadowheart, halsin, and wyll are his top 3.

karlach has big feelings for everyone. shadowheart is her primary partner in the sense that their relationship is both romantic and sexual. when it comes to the rest of the group it’s usually one or the other; she has strong platonic bonds with wyll and gale that seldom cross into sexual territory, and sexual attraction to astarion and halsin thats more of an undefined grey area between romantic and platonic. she is also the group nicknamer; she will call you things and they will stick. shadowheart is shaddy or princess, astarion is fangs or stars, halsin is big guy or boss, wyll is prince charming, gale is teach

gale my absolute autistic legend does not even realize he’s included in whatever this is until it’s far too late. he can flirt yes, but being flirted with almost always goes over his head. gotta push my bladeweave agenda here by saying he’s ultimately closest to wyll, they’ve got some real friends to lovers/same trauma let’s kiss about it dynamic going on. as for the others i think he’s down horrific for shadowheart and halsin. has some weird sexually charged rivalry with astarion that’s mostly one-sided on astarion’s part. and karlach is just a solid bro

wyll is the group goody two-shoes without a doubt. he gets so easily flustered especially when it comes to astarion, karlach, and shadowheart. astarion flirts with him and poor wyll is a trainwreck, karlach is majorly physical once she’s able to be and it makes wyll’s heart race every time she hugs him, and shadowheart is so pretty it leaves him tongue tied. wyll’s a gentleman about everything too, he’ll give gale his coat as soon as he notices the wizard is shivering, insists that halsin take a rest and let him finish up chopping their firewood, etc.

halsin is the poly expert!!! he would absolutely be the one to give everyone else they language they need to discuss their relationships and boundaries. he’s the most sexually open of them all and doesn’t have any particular setbacks when it comes to sex; he’s happy to indulge anyone who wants him and let them indulge in whoever else they’d like. with halsin everything is super casual but intimate at the same time, all about pleasure and connection and enjoying life as nature intended. he’s the group service top and has definitely been called daddy at least once by everyone.

[canmom]

Comics mini-Comints: Dungeon Meshi

reread dungeon meshi through to the end. still such a great manga. here are immediate thoughts - if I end up having time and energy I hope I can write something that goes deeper!

ironically i was only a few chapters from the end when I stopped keeping up, but I was struggling to remember all the characters and context, so reading it through in one go was definitely an ideal way to achieve maximum impact there.

ryoko kui does a very elegant job of handling a transition from 'silly antics' to 'big dramatic fantasy' while still keeping the central thematic throughline - eating and being eaten, belonging to an ecosystem, the significance of sacrificing others to achieve your own desires. a lot of setups pay off in a way that feels meticulously planned - and of course the crux of the final showdown revolves around characters attempting to eat each other, of course the big payoff is a huge feast that symbolically unites all the conflicting factions. it is maybe a bit too neat and happy for my taste, but it's undeniably tightly executed - it never loses sight of what it's about. especially compared to something like Frieren, it's an incredibly coherent serialisation, up there with e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist.

kui's art style deserves all kinds of praise - it feels effortlessly simple, but it clearly communicates all sorts of different shapes and body types and it's really fun to see her play around with remixing the different visual elements when she switches the races around. in general Laius's autistic monster loving ways clearly reflect kui's own deeply felt appreciation for all the ways people and animals live (accentuated further by all the extra sketches the scanlators tuck in). in a way you could kinda call it like Parts Unknown the fantasy manga.

the stakes of the final conflict are interesting - there is much to be said about the framing of 'desire' and its fulfilment, of this occult idea of 'the infinite'. lots you could put in relation to other manga, and also buddhism. (in particular I really want to develop a comparison to Made In Abyss, there are so many parallels, it just might be too spicy for tumblr lmao).

one thing I really like about it is how much its fantasy dungeon-exploring setting owes to D&D and other TTRPGs, rather than videogames. monster ecology has been a fascination of that game since the early days of Dragon magazine, and Kui sharply zeroes in on some of the intrinsic conflicts baked in to that fantasy milieu, notably the lifespan thing, while smartly avoiding the traps of 'evil races'. there's some really fun nods to the weirder monster manual entries. and in a story with so many characters and factions, it does a genuinely incredible job of furnishing everyone with understandable, reasonable motivations, conflicts drawn from their context just like the monsters are explained by their ecology.

and one thing that I particularly appreciate is like... how much it is able to simultaneously understand and sympathise with a character and also show us how and why they'd rub others the wrong way. it's impossible not to like our main group, they're all such charming dorks and the manga leads you along with all the crazy rpg party shit they do, but at the same time you definitely find yourself thinking 'guy's got a point' in the kabru chapters lmao. I'm projecting hard bc i don't really know a thing about ryōko kui but laius def feels like the sort of depiction of having an autism that you can only do if you've lived it.

but yeah, it's a fuzzy ending where it all turns out well. but what's the deeper thrust of it all? there's a funny moment where marcille is like 'maybe in the end our journey is about learning to accept death' and the grouchy old gnome guy completely laughs this off as naive, because death doesn't mean anything. and indeed their big plan pays off, and falin does indeed come back just fine. but still, through all of this it asks you to bite the bullet that being a living creature means eating to survive, at the cost of other creatures, with the other side being that one day you too will be eaten. in contrast to this honest way of being is the beguiling fantasy of infinity, where all your desires are immediately fulfilled - this is shown as a dangerous path of corruption that produces madness and manipulability. having limits and rubbing up against the wishes of others, or 'doing things you don't want to do' as izutsumi's arc puts it, becomes necessary for having some kind of definition as a subject. the thing that makes the demon concrete as an entity is a desire, or appetite, that can't immediately be fulfilled.

of course we can connect this to the idea of narrative conflict. a standard advice for putting together a plot is to ask what each character wants and why they can't get it. wanting something implies movement. and indeed over the course of this story, we see that while having too many desires fulfilled too readily leads to incoherence and callousness, equally a character who is left catatonic as their desires have been eaten by the demon must be reawakened to activity by finding a new desire.

it's kinda Buddhist innit. neither the opulence of the palace nor asceticism. desires are what tie you to the world. but mixed with ecology: what a creature does to find the energy to live is what defines its lifestyle, its form.

this is probably where I'd start talking about entropy gradients and shit if i wasn't typing this on a phone at 1:30am lmao.

but yeah - it's a powerful move to go from 'D&D monster recipe show sendup' to 'living with the inherently violent nature of being an organism fated to live in a finite sum game' and yet Dungeon Meshi makes it feel natural and convincing, while remaining tremendously charming and funny throughout. ryōko kui is definitely some kind of genius, and I can't wait to see what her next act is gonna be. it's all definitely making me appreciate the act of eating a lot more.

next story on my plate is probably The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, which sounds like it will present a very gnarly thematic contrast.

[punkeropercyjackson]

🌊Percy Jackson headcanons🌊

Inspo from @jellyfilledeyes !!

🌊Afro-dominican.Monoracial darkskin and super strongfeatured,he literally looks exactly like Poseidon the 'lightskin Percy' crowd is illiterate.Full name Perseo Isadore Jackson

🌊Autistic.He's also literally the protagonist of the neurodivergent abuse victims series,y'all's denial is deeper than the sea

🌊Transfem bigender.Any pronouns + A hoard of neos and was on estrogen for a while but got no surgeries for extra gender fuckery

🌊Afrosolarpunk and knows how to diy things that don't even exist,does activism/charity and goes to riots/protests,is a straightedge and listens to Mcr,Teezo Touchdown,Megan Thee Stallion,Alt Black Era,The Cure and Meet Me @ The Altar

🌊Cut ties with Annabeth by Boo.Percabeth is 'destiny' by virtue of cisheteronormativity and amatonormativity textually and book!Annabeth is a bad person who needs to leave her alone for both their own good's

🌊Weird/niche interests king.She's into obscure podcasts,indie games,underrated cartoons,cult classic movies and non-corny musicals

🌊Was a Warrior Cats and Bubble Guppies kid

🌊Huge Superfam fan.That's why they compared Jason to Clark Kent as a compliment and knows like all the lore

🌊Platonic soulmates by choice in every universe with Nico and Hazel.Them and Nico spent the year gap between Botl and Tlo bonding and in Son Hazel turned them into a trio and Sally legally adopts her like she did Nico.Percy is their eldest brother and pseudo-dad

🌊Super into kidcore as trauma coping and also due to autism

🌊Loves Cotton Candy Bang,double cheeseburgers with loaded fries and blue flan

🌊Queerplatonic best friends with Rachel and their connection came from her being autistic too and never meeting anyone like her before him.She's a trans punk like her too and helped her transition and she basically lives at La Residencia Jackson part time

🌊Sally opened up a family bussiness:Familia Jackson Beach Shack.That's where his money comes from

🌊Except for Nico's chronic pain meds and mobility aids,which he guilttrips Poseidon for

🌊And Hazel gets to live the happy friendfilled childhood he didn't with his help

🌊Lego lover,Animal Crossing and Pokemon understander and Hot Topic hater

🌊Only part of Marvel he cares about is Spiderverse and his favorite Spiderpeople are Hobie Brown and Gwen Stacy because they're too much like her not to be

🌊Nico got him into cozy horror and Hazel got him into MLP(his favorite ponies are Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and he knows Flutterdash is real and Wendell & Wild is his movie of all time)

🌊Unironically plays Fortnite

🌊His piercings are a standard eyebrow piercing,forward helix on both ears,a spider bite and a tongue ring

🌊Sharks are superior in his opinion

🌊Killed Luke and slowly did a revolution in the greco-roman mythos world with that as what got to ball rolling but it really hit when he killed Zeus a year post Hoo

🌊Supposed to have been Special ED to make friends and school easier but had a such a big meltdown when Sally offered at his 9 years old because his internalized ableism was already so bad and to this day they both regret it and wonder what could've been

🌊Underground shows and parties Percy's beloved

🌊Goes on petty crime sprees for fun and letting frustation out

🌊If Rick wasn't a pussy,his girlfriend would've been a sugary sweet but powerful asf black pastel punk girl who's got the same of sense of humor as him and undooms him from the narrative against everyone's pressured expectations(Ichihime dynamic is perfect for Percy)

[fishhjuice]

An In-depth C-Side Characterization Guide/Cheatsheet by Dottie Fishjuice

Greetings! I am very autistic and therefore knowledgable/cursed about C-Side, and i hope to curse you too. I at least to my knowledge has read thorugh everything provided to us and pondered on it, and now i will be sharing.

This was very much inspired by the analysis provided by @/arogustus and @/evil-urchin.

Everything I will say I will point (at the very least try) to point the source of, because i minored in Comparative Literature so this is how I do literary analysis. The smaller text inside parathesis will be my thoughts and speculations, and I will try to keep these at a minimum, trying to stay as factual as possible.

C-Side as a Whole

C-side is the representative band of the Splatlands region. In fact, it is said that "No band reps harder for the Splatlands than this trio" in Splatbase, not even Deep Cut. They are, aside from Riot Act (which is like C-Side 2), the sole splatband to be from Splatlands.

The Riot Act introduction tweet [by the wording of SplatoonJP] calls them "exemplifying Splatlands values". These values can be a sensitivity to fleeting nature of life, and an effort to be as chic and bold as possible [from Fia's translation of the Artbook]

They have at least been active for 8~ years, being active at the same time as Squid Squad (from Beika's tweets).

In the words of Big Man, "C-side has been making great music for a long time", and has served as one of the musical influences to Deep Cut. [X]

In the tweet presenting Paintscraper [by SplatoonJP, for this bit was lost in translation], they are characterized as a "tight-knit trio". This fondness is also portrayed in several of Beika's tweets.

Who else but Kiki would come back to a band they quit once? Well, I'm pretty sure that the guys who let 'em back in probs would too.

Paintscraper is based on a demo that Walter made. I heard that he played the guitar himself too. It's very silly and ridiculous, but it has a unique charm to it. If I get the chance, I'd like to share it.

(I believe this to be also evident in their music, with Beika and Kikura dueting in all of C-side songs, even Splattack which is originally a solo, speaking into their cohesion as a band and whatnot. Not to mention with Splattack, Uotora and Kikura basically enabled Beika's revenge quest. With the vocalists shouting "C-Side" in Headhammer and Paintscraper, they seem pretty proud of themselves too (which they are and ill talk about it), but this is more speculation than fact. I will get into things more in individual character sections.)

One of the only bits of characterization given by Nintendo to C-side is the fact they have 1) the ambition and 2) the attitude. [X] (I find their ambition to be underrepresented in fandom)

In their introductory tweet [by SplatoonJP, this part again not being translated to English] , they are said to have come from lower economic backgrounds and have no formal music education, making up for this with the said ambition.

As for their attitude, Inue himself has said "The members of C-Side aren’t a well-behaved bunch.". C-side has also been called rowdy, and rebellious.

The combination of their ambition and attitude seems to manifest itself in the form of insolence. It is said that "These three don't doubt for a second that they're the greatest band alive." (And I would like to emphasize "These Three", not only Beika)

That isn't to say their confidence is totally misplaced. They are said to have the most momentum to become the most popular band of Inkfish world [X] out of all, to the point they might have even inspired a counter-movement in the form of H2Whoa ("An Inkopolitan retort to the wild "Splatlands sound" folks were used to"). This is also supported by how the exact word Beika uses to describe Inkopolis is repeatedly used to describe H2Whoa both in their introduction and their Splatbase page, pretentious.

Not only that, Bait and Click (normal and mutation) could also speak into the recognition they get as artists, since the W-3 Cellist is said to recognize only the most radical of works [X]

As for their opinion on salmonid, although Beika uses the word "funny" to describe the salmonid arrangement, Beika calls the Deep Cut arrangement of Now or Never "funny" as well, which overall seems to indicate they have the same level of enthusiasm or respect for Deep Cut and Omega 3. It's remarkably positive language for Salmonid.

They also seem to be very well loved within Splatsville. Despite having no billboards or posters in Splatsville unlike Wet Floor and Squid Squad, the statuettes of their shrimpets are all over Splatsville, in a food stand during Splatfest and in Grizzco office. (It seems to me more like they don't need to advertise in Splatsville at all, people already know who they are, whereas they have posters in Inkopolis)

Another thing to support this is the fact is that trains that come from Splatsville seem to play Clickbait, which you can hear during Big Run [X]. For comparison's sake, the Inkopolis trains play Calamari Inkantation, so it can be said their fame is at least comparable to Callie and Marie.

Speaking of these shrimps, they are implied to be the kind of animal that spooks easily by Frye in her boss dialouge, talking about how "[Neo3] can't treat her eels like shrimp"

Murch's suitcase features an older version of the C-side logo, indicating he is probably a fan.

Although SplatoonNA calls them grungy in their introductory tweet, it is pretty obvious from the tempo of their music, their characterization and the fact they are self taught that C-side is supposed to be less of a grunge band and more of a punk band. For us who are unfamiliar with the difference between genres, grunge is more dark, nihilistic, wretched, angst-filled and anguished, whereas Punk is more rebellious and filled with fighting-spirit. Inue also calls their music "bright, easy to groove to, but still heavy". (I would personally love to see them being characterized as such)

The fact they have no sad defeat theme also probably plays into how C-side is supposed to be bright. The name "Learning Curve" also is a bit more hopeful/positive, possibly giving a glance to how their lyrics could be. (This could speak into their attitude towards their fame, which came after years)

Again playing into their ego, "Rinse/Repeat" seems to be imply something about how effortless winning is to them.

Their music is supposed to be intentionally (by developers) reminiscent of Squid Squad's. In the words of Inue, "We’ve also been keeping in mind the feelings of  "primary colors" and "impulses felt when starting something" from the first game." and in the words of Minegishi, "What was at the forefront of music in the first game was a fast, playful and summery feel using just a few notes. For C-Side, which plays a central role in the third game's music, we made the deep bass and upbeat melody stand out in their music while reminding the audience of the sound from the first game."

Interestingly, their music is also supposed to "counter" Wet Floor's.[X].

It is said that "They don't ask permission to cover other artists' tracks, and they claim their versions are better.". Although this brings up the question if they frequently cover other artists' songs, it is most likely refers to Splattack and Splattack only, as Beika feels the need to clarify why they covered Splattack.

And this is the end of the band section.

I will be getting into the very little we know of their individual characterization under Read More. This part will be a bit more speculative, and cannot be as factual due to the nature of how character analysis works. Your interpretation of these facts is just as valid. If you skimmed or scrolled this far, thank you so much for your time.

I will be going in the order of how much we know of these characters. Unfortunately because most we know about these characters come from Beika, in a way at times they are characterized by their interractions with Beika. I hope to not sound biased. Here we go.

Uotora

Uotora is a long spine porcupinefish.

One thing that jumps out from the album art itself is that Uotora has their spikes out. Spikes of porcupinefish, which Uotora is, only stick out when they are are inflated and otherwise is supposed to lay flat against their body. You already probably know that these fish inflate themselves when they are frightened/threatened. Given this fact, it is very likely Uotora has an anxious personality. (This could be also be playing into Uotora's name in an ironic manner. Uotora, which means tiger fish, could be a play on the scary fish being scared themselves)

They must have a bit of an ego though, considering "These three don't doubt they are the greatest band alive."

They, along with Kikura, seem to support/enable Beika's conflict with Ichiya, from the wording "In the case of Squid Squad's Now or Never!, they [as a group] even claim to be the originators."

They play the guitar and the drums in the Uotora demo. Listening closely, you can seemingly vaguely hear Beika singing along, which speaks to their bond.

Speaking of bonds, the phrasing of Beika's tweet characterizes them as just as willing to welcome Kikura back as Beika was.

Who else but Kiki would come back to a band they quit once? Well, I'm pretty sure that the guys who let 'em back in probs would too.

Best guitarist in C-side. Sorry Kiku.

Kikura

Kikura is a peacock bass.

Peacock bass are said to be aggressive and "downright belligerent" (pointing this out since it would probably affect them the same way Finn being a betta affects Finn)

Apperantly there is still an ambiguity about this, Kikura is the owner of the high-pitched voice without any doubt. In the music for Splatoon that has multiple vocalists, the vocals are panned to only play in one ear and which vocals play for which side line up with the album art for these groups, which makes Kikura who is in the right lined up with the high-pitched voice. We are also able to infer this from Clickbait, in the call and response part of the song, the high-pitched voice only sings when the guitar is playing.

They are stated to be often late to the studio.

They are said to be known for their deep and edgy guitar riffs [X].

According to Beika, they at some point left the band but came back. Beika speaks fondly of this, implying a level of trust between the two.

Who else but Kiki would come back to a band they quit once?

The relationship between the two seems to go beyond this. Despite Beika writing the Triple Dip, they are barely in it, propping Kikura in the song. This also happens in Splattack, which is not only turned into a duet, but also is more guitar heavy, at times removing the bass sections [X]. (It seems to me that Beika likes to show off Kikura)

They, along with Uotora, seem to support/enable Beika's conflict with Ichiya, from the wording "In the case of Squid Squad's Now or Never!, they [as a group] even claim to be the originators."

Again, they are implied to have a bit of an ego, "greatest band alive" yada yada yada.

The tweet about leaving is not about Riot Act, since Riot Act is said to be "Hot on the indie scene", implying it is a new development.

Riot Act is a side project, which in popular music, is a project undertaken by one or more people already known for their involvement in another band, which SplatoonNA also points towards. So no, Kiki didn't leave C-side for Riot Act (but did steal Finn from Beika).

However it might be important to mention when asked about No Plan Survives, they with Finn said "We wanted to play as freely as possible".

Beika

Beika is an inkling. Shocker.

Despite their vague similarities the idea Beika is Frye's brother is contradicted by canon, as Beika implied from their tweets (and the fact that C-side acted as a musical influence to Deep Cut) is older than Frye, not younger. (I made a chart for this)

They are the lower voice for the same reasons I stated for Kiku.

From their first tweets, they come off as friendly/cool or at the very least make the effort to come off as friendly/cool (I use cool very loosely).

There is likely a delibarate effort to cultivate a positive persona by Beika, in how they seem to chastise themselves about how upset they have gotten and /or how they presented themselves with "I rambled too much last night." Another thing pointing at how Beika might be avoiding negativity is with how they seem to undercut their criticisms of Inkopolis scene by stating how they like Bottom Feeders and how they would like everyone to listen to their music.

They seem to be very invested in the music making process, as their first tweets are entirely about their music.

They seem to have the potential to be overdramatic sometimes, as they start their rant with the words "I'm typing this in a drunken stupor". Then again, they are drunk so take this with a grain of salt. (You know C-side lyrics probably go hard)

THIS IS ACTUALLY SO IMPORTANT: Beika does not make the accusation that Ichiya stole the song while drunk!! Please look at the wording!!

I've said this half a billion times this year alone, but Now or Never is a C-Side original.

"I've said this a million times this year alone" clearly shows Beika has made this accusation before.

Other than being very funny, the fact Beika can't seem to even remember Squid Squad's name seems to imply they are indifferent to it. The fact Ichiya is the only Squid Squad member called by name in their tweets goes to show it is Ichiya and Ichiya alone that drives Beika's ire. This is also supported by Beika's, although backhanded, compliment.

The tweet Beika makes before revealing Ichiya was their middle schoolmate is "If there's anything better than a late night meal alone, let me know.". This could very well be interpreted as Beika associating that feeling of loneliness with Ichiya.

It is also important to point out Ichiya did contact Beika.

He decided he was going to go to Inkopolis, and then after a little while, he told me that he had debuted with a band. I tried listening to them just to find out that their sound was so soft that it made my ink churn.

Along with "The Secrets of Front Roe" pointing out Ichiya is avoiding Splatsville "for some reason", it is more than reasonable Beika is not making up the fact Ichiya and them know of each other, and it is not a fit of baseless jelaousy.

While dissing Ichiya, they make time to talk about how they think their fans are cool and talented.

... Any of you guys would be able to make a song that's just as cool.

While doing so they also flaunt their talent, showing the extent of their ego.

I mean our song is this one 300 times better, right? Just wanted to make it clear that we're not trying to pay homage to it or anything like that.

The "You have some nerve to come crawling back home." is said in a very, very harsh tone in Japanese. The wording specifically seems to imply they are very upset at Ichiya leaving in the first place.

While Beika is a loser, they aren't seemingly the type to back down from a fight. Rather than apologizing, they simply say "I rambled too much last night." and go on with their lives.

--

And this is the end of it.

NOW. For a complete speculation,

From wording of "Who else would come back to a band they left" and their need to prop up and show off Kikura,

The fact Ichiya is self taught much like C-Side,

The fact Ichiya is avoiding Splatsville,

The fact Beika seems too proud of their work and very involved in the music making process

The fact C-side is characterized through their ambition

makes me think Ichiya more likely than not did steal Now or Never. It seems to me Beika's pride and ambition would not allow them to lie about a thing they didn't do. If i were to guess, from the fact C-side's Now or Never is a duet, it is likely song was written together before Ichiya took off.

Thank you so much for reading if you actually read this far. See you when Side Order Art Book demolishes all of this!!

[trickstergemini]

the bestest friends!!! they do a dancey dance

me n MY bestest friend @unoriginal-and-dumb being sillay on the blox last night…… we like these 2 so MUCH……..

sharing some of our headcanons we thought up with our big brains for kasper and lampert under the cut (most of them r mainly lampert related)

wiki says lampert was formed in a factory but it doesn’t say he was brought to LIFE in a factory. we hc that kasper “made” lampert as a child because he was lonely in ikea and had no friends. he drew a face on a lamp and the next day it turned into a boy yippee. they grew up together as best friends

kasper originally named lampert lamper, cause his name is kasper and he just replaced the kasp with lamp. when he came to life lampert was like no i think its lampert, not lamper and kasper was like ok 👍😁

they liked to play cars on the car play rug in ikea. kasper liked to race and crash them and lampert liked to send in the police and ambulance for cleanup. theyd play that over and over again it never got old

when they would play outside, they liked to set up things to look really pretty (like a nice stick and leaf house or dress up a really pretty doll) and then set it on fire with a magnifying glass (lampert liked the first part, kasper liked the second part)

kasper is korean-american and he had slightly lighter hair as a kid

both them ace and specifically lampert ace aro and specifically like romance and sex repulsed ace aro like if you stand too close to him he freaks out imagine if someone were to kiss him that would not fly. romance and sex r NASTY to him do not touch him

when lampert would hang out with kasper he would just stand very still in the corner of the room the whole time. not for any bad reason, he is just a lamp and does not see the need to do anything else than stand in the corner while he talks. when they hang out at ikea sometimes kasper starts talking to the wrong lamp because of this

lampert has a set list of facial expressions that show exactly how he feels. this is verging on not ok :) (his normal expression) this is not ok : ) or this : ( this is silly :] these are all fine :( :[ D: :D

lampert talks with a similar cadence to baymax snd also is politely blunt in the very autistic way. he states his opinion on something even if maybe its not a nice thing to say but he says it very politely (when eating food someone made for him that he really doesnt like: “i dont think i will be finishing this, it does not taste good. thank you! goodbye”)

[anim-ttrpgs]

Hey just wanted to say that the work you do is really inspiring. I think the TTRPG community has needed an urban fantasy noir sort of thing for a little while and I really like the direction you're taking it in. Looking forward to stuff in the future!!

Thank you! Basically all our projects come from a place of need, each one being something that we wanted to play ourselves, but either it just didn’t exist, or the people who did do it didn’t do it to our satisfaction.

Since it’s our blog we can toot our own horn a bit, and yeah, the TTRPG community did need Eureka. The whole idea originally came out of our dissatisfaction with investigation and mystery-solving gameplay in most of the other more well-known TTRPGs that attempt to tackle this genre, such as Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, and Gumshoe. They either make it too easy for bad dice rolls to get the party hopelessly stuck by relying too heavily of the PC’s skills, or make things difficult on the player by not giving the PC’s skills quite enough input, which can make efficient mystery solving very difficult across sessions with a whole week or more of real time in between them. (And it’s barely even worth mentioning that the most popular TTRPGs such as D&D5e and Pathfinder just plain cannot do investigative gameplay to any respectable degree at all.)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy’s Investigation Point and Eureka! Point system, whereby each skill check to investigate something fills a bar on the character sheet until the investigator gets a “Eureka!”, which can be spent to retroactively gain information from an investigation skill check that they previously failed, as well as many other specific rules that are too nuanced to go into here but that you can read about in the free version of the rulebook, are part of our answer to that. As you are putting the pieces together in your own mind, so is your character, and this system acts as a failsafe, but not a crutch, to prevent a single bad dice roll from leaving the party totally twisting in the wind.

And I personally have always been really autistic about folklore, which is where Eureka’s unique approach to playable monsters comes in. No RPG had ever really done certain monsters to my satisfaction, particularly vampires. Folkloric vampires have a great deal of quirks and weaknesses that usually get cut from any sort of vampire media because they’re too “silly,” but I disagree. I want them all, and so when a monster is playable in Eureka, it’s its own unique experience, unlike playing anything else in any other game or even within Eureka. (I am very, very proud to say that a number of V:TM veterans have said that Eureka does vampires much better than V:TM itself.)

Not every playable monster in Eureka is 100% strictly folkloric, which was a bit of a struggle for me, but ultimately the small exceptions that were made make the RPG better, so I can’t complain, especially because we managed to weave some pretty cool themes into all of them, which I will touch on more when I finally get finished writing that big huge post about, well, Eureka’s themes.

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is kickstarting from right now until May 10th! Back it while you still can!

If you want to try before you buy, you can download a free demo of the prerelease version from our website or our itch.io page!

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

You can also support us on Ko-fi, or by checking out our merchandise!

Join our TTRPG Book Club At the time of writng this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is the current game being played in the book club, and anyone who wants to participate in discussion, but can’t afford to make a contribution, will be given the most updated prerelease version for free! Plus it’s just a great place to discuss and play new TTRPGs you might not be able to otherwise!

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[caffeinelemur]

Stolitz Communication Styles

I feel like I need to talk about this.

Stolas’ high education and verbal gymnastics, versus Blitzø’s lack of equivalent education, dyslexia, and difficulty expressing emotions, especially through words. Because it plays a huge part in why they haven’t been, and still aren’t, communicating effectively. Also both of them are neurodivergent as fuck and communication is a bitch for us anyway.

Specifically, this is a dive into that different classes/mindsets dynamic, leading up to a look at that text conversation at the end of Western Energy, and how it leads into their possible growth.

From the very start of the series, Blitzø shows that he has difficulty with writing/spelling and prefers verbal communication. (Even if we look outside the instagrams, which are not technically canon.) The first episode has the billboard that was entirely speech-to-text and not proofread, (he’s too uncomfortable writing that big of a message out, and he thought it was easier to just say it, and was thus not equipped to proofread or edit it, as that would mean he was capable of knowing how to write it out correctly in the first place), his text messages and notes are generally short and often full of typos and phonetic spelling, and his whiteboard is usually covered in doodles and small attempts at writing that varies in levels of spelling prowess. He uses pictographs to help in proving his point or explaining his thought process. He has trouble expressing himself verbally, as his true feelings are expressed through actions, but his direct, vulgar, and often angry or insensitive wording and tone make it difficult for most people to see past this to his actual true feelings, (not to mention he often lies to others and to himself about those anyway). Issues with tone and blunt speech are a big thing with neurodivergent people, autistic and ADHD people especially, of which I think Blitzø is both. Stan an AuDHD king.

Stolas is rich, highly educated, and spent much of his life, especially early on, reading books instead of socializing. His house basically doubles as a library. He said himself that he “loves words”, and got excited about reading legal documents. He uses flowery, posh language and carefully talks around other people using this skill. His emotionally abusive past, both with his father and with Stella, make him a careful people-pleaser, and so he’s constantly giving others the upper hand in a conversation, more give than take, in attempts to not anger or have his intentions misunderstood and then incite said anger. A common thing in both abuse victims and neurodivergent people, especially autistic people, which Stolas clearly is. He does also have issues with tone and knowing when he should and shouldn’t say certain things, and he can often misunderstand others’ points and questions, and then answers or responds too bluntly or literally. Hashtag Just Autism Things.

Blitzø is an imp, the lowest class alongside hellhounds, and was raised in a circus. He clearly did not grow up wealthy in any respect (as his father resorted to selling his son and stealing from the fucking Ars Goetia so quickly, though that could also be attributed to just being living trash), nor is he particularly affluent now, as his small apartment has literally one bedroom, for Loona, and he sleeps on the couch. He outright says he can’t afford art classes. He hasn’t had the same level of educational opportunities as Stolas. On top of that, he’s also dyslexic, based on how, when he does write, it’s either written phonetically, as he would say the word, or he gets letters flipped around. He can write coherently, he’s not illiterate, but usually only when he tries really hard. He mixes capitals and lowercase in the same word sometimes. He’s even worse at texting than he is at writing by hand, with many typos, and resorting to text-speak abbreviations and emojis to lessen the amount of time he has to take trying to type shit out, and, again, doesn’t proofread.

Taking all of this into account, Blitzø is not going to understand a lot of what Stolas says when he uses larger words and talks around a point, especially since, unlike Stolas most of the time, Blitzø is very direct and uncensored when he talks (as in, no brain-to-mouth filter, but also he uses vulgarity in place of more eloquent speech), and when he is trying to say things with actual forethought, he ends up stuttering and has trouble finding the right words (ADHD brain fail ftw), and then gets angry at himself, and occasionally takes it out on others too (poor Moxxie). Stolas tries to talk around the point and backtracks his own words even more in stressful or emotional situations, giving more ground to the other, and this difference in stress response plays a part in their misunderstanding and inability to see from the other’s perspective.

In the first episode, during Stolas’ inopportune phone call, Blitzø thinks he’s being insulted when Stolas uses the word “grimoire,” because he doesn’t know it and always jumps to this conclusion, then has to get Stolas to stop using flowery language to talk around the point by telling him to “stop using your fancy ass rich people talk,” and Stolas has to change the way he’s been speaking to be more direct and clear. (He doesn’t retain this information for later, sadly).

All of this, to talk about the post-Ozzie’s text conversations. We know several things now:

1) Blitzø is not good with spelling and is more comfortable using pictographs to make his point, which you can’t do in a text. He’s also uncomfortable with honest emotional expression and has problems with tone.

2) Stolas uses overly flowery and complicated language to express himself, leading to paragraphs of talking around the main point in an attempt to explain his meaning, often to the extent that it’s extremely unclear what the point is that he’s actually trying to get to. This gets worse when he’s trying too hard to express himself or is thinking too much about the other person’s response.

3) They both have little experience with conversation of an emotional nature that’s not coming with some sort of protective front (Stolas’ open-ended people-pleasing statements, Blitzø’s use of false anger and vulgarity to push people away), so when they do try to say something without the mask, the other is unequipped for the change and misunderstands the intentions, especially when it’s through text.

Blitzø is uncomfortable with writing and especially with texting, and so says very little, using short abbreviated text-speak and emojis to express himself, like he would with his drawings. Stolas overexplains and writes paragraphs of vague statements and loquaciousness in an attempt to get a point across. These are very different approaches to the situation, and from the other’s perspective they come across differently than they intend, due to the conflicting communication styles.

So.

In the text conversations we see in Western Energy, Blitzø says very little, and doesn’t initiates the conversation. Stolas sends walls of text, overexplaining and going back and forth on his intent and the purpose of the text.

Now, we know that Stolas is trying to give Blitzø space and options, and clearly cares a lot about his feelings, and is going out of his way to make sure he’s comfortable with the situation. In doing so, he gives him several outs, minimizes the entire experience at Ozzie’s at his own expense (and therefore Blitzø’s, but he doesn’t understand that yet), and pokes at the idea of talking emotionally far too soon for Blitzø, who is freshly re-traumatizing himself from said experience at Ozzie’s.

Stolas, from his own perspective, is giving so much and getting very little in return (a common theme in his life). He would see this lack of reciprocity in communication as lack of interest or being upset. A common thing irl, it’s easy to read a “K” after a long emotional message as a negative or indifferent response, regardless of the other party’s true feelings. (Which is possibly why a lot of people get upset on Stolas’ behalf in this moment, thinking Blitzø doesn’t care as much about Stolas as Stolas does him. It’s a common thing to experience. It’s not true, though.)

Meanwhile, Blitzø already hates writing, is bad at expressing himself in general, and reads into everything as negative. He thinks that when someone says something he doesn’t fully understand that they’re insulting him or making fun of him, or he misunderstands the intention and wording to be an insult (tonal and indirect or vague speech issues), like with that first phone call with Stolas, the “that’s what she said” joke Loona made, and Crimson’s mention of hearing things about him. He has a lifetime of evidence to back up this thought process. He is constantly demeaned and insulted by larger Hell society, and was treated as unworthy and lesser since childhood. He also just fucking hates himself and blames himself for everything. He’s not gonna suddenly gush his feelings, especially over text. He’s also gonna read into others’ words extremely negatively, until the true meaning is explicitly explained to him. Which isn’t very likely in a text conversation, when he’s not going to ask for proper clarification and the other party can’t tell that he’s misconstruing the intention and so doesn’t know they need to explain more anyway.

So, he isn’t going to initiate a text conversation unless it’s for a serious reason. He clearly doesn’t use it as a method of conversation as much as a quick way to get in touch with other people and exchange information (ex- his seemingly “impossible to misunderstand” text to Loopty in C.H.E.R.U.B. & his conversation about the portal with Millie in Seeing Stars). In Blitzø’s eyes, Stolas says "hey this is/isn’t happening", and he says "ok got the info" and he moves on from there. Information exchange. Then Stolas starts trying too hard, after Ozzie’s, to take his feelings into account without fully understanding Blitzø’s feelings to begin with, and starts backtracking and talking around the point again. He already got Blitzø’s reply, but then backtracks, which doesn’t give Blitzø the direct information he needs, leading to him misunderstand the proffered options as a dismissal instead of a clear confirmation with the option for him to refuse. Blitzø already is going to have issues reading/fully understanding the long wordy messages Stolas sends, he isn’t going to understand the nuance that Stolas’ specific phrasing is trying to say, and is going to see a “but you don’t have to/only if you want” attempt at giving him autonomy and boundaries, as a “don’t/I don’t want you to” full negation.

Stolas is also downplaying their experience at Ozzie’s, which is not only negating his own traumatic experiences with being shamed and insulted (not the healthiest mindset), but also minimizes Blitzø’s feelings and experience then as a result. Blitzø is going to see this as confirmation that it wasn’t as important/emotionally painful to Stolas as it was to Blitzø. Stolas making light of a situation that started a breakdown for Blitzø just proves to Blitzø that he’s the one overreacting, and that Stolas does find him less important, as the entire situation was already about Stolas valuing him less, in his eyes.

Stolas trying to overexplain and backtrack in the lack of access to Blitzø’s own thoughts is hurting them both in this situation. None of his pushing and flip-flopping is going to make Blitzø more eager to initiate a conversation or respond more, especially through a form he’s uncomfortable with using. And this makes Stolas feel unheard and undervalued, which leads to him try even harder, which leads to Blitzø shutting himself off even more, and so on. A lovely miscommunication feedback loop.

And knowing all of this is what makes that last text so important.

Blitzø initates the conversation for the first time. He writes what is, for him, a full sentence, with an emoji. He’s expressing himself as best he can, and is showing his actual feelings in the message. He’s going out of his way to say something to Stolas.

Which then… Stolas overwhelms him with more emotions and words. He’s not comfortable with emotional conversation and too much at once would freak him out, and the immediate upfront honest thoughts Stolas sends in the wake of Blitzø’s own emotional expression aren’t what he necessarily needs or wants to deal with, especially so soon after that worldview-shattering realization, the following guilt spiral, and the subsequent opening up that the first text is.

Yet he then, in spite of these hurdles, starts to reply.

But he gives up.

We don’t know for sure what he was going to say, but an easy read of his thoughts would be: he tried to express his feelings again in some way, was failing to do it right, was overwhelmed with feelings he didn’t know how to handle, and angrily gave up. Probably cursing himself out for even trying.

It’s not callous or uncaring or lacking reciprocity. It’s the full opposite. He’s trying so hard, but failing again. He cares so much and is incapable of expressing it verbally and unable to receive similar care in return.

Look back to the other time he tried this hard to write something emotional. The letter for Fizz. The love letter. And see how that situation went? He got overwhelmed, angry at everything and at himself for thinking he could try at all, and it all ended in fucking disaster. That he blames himself for. That he hates himself for. But here he tried to do it again anyway, while thinking, again, what happened to Stolas was his fault. That one message means so fucking much.

To Blitzø, the idea of visiting Stolas in the hospital was out of the question entirely, and him being asked to so immediately and candidly would make his guilty brain fall over itself even more. He’s never been allowed to visit his loved ones in the hospital, and the entire reason they were hospitalized to begin with was because of Blitzø, so how could this situation be any different? He wasn’t allowed to visit Fizz or Barbie, people who at least at one point he believed cared about him, so he’s definitely not going to be allowed to visit Stolas, who he already thinks doesn’t really give a shit.

That text was the best he could do at that time.

To really communicate effectively, these two need to sit down in front of each other and actually explain where they’re coming from. The lack of knowledge of the other’s position and situation, both in their past and currently in this relationship, is hurting them, and making understanding each other more difficult. The class difference and the differences in upbringing, despite both having garbage fathers and fucking meeting each other as children, are impeding their understanding and view of the other. Both Stolas’ obliviousness toward the actual differences in station and opportunity between him and imps as a whole, and inability to realize Blitzø’s personal difficulties with communication (based in the same place he’s blind to), and Blitzø’s (valid) disdain for the upper class and his view of the stronger, and especially of Stolas, as too good and important to bother with him and too powerful to feel actual pain, are the things they need to fucking address.

Blitzø already got this worldview fucked with, between seeing Stolas worry so much over his daughter, and then actually getting badly hurt. He now knows Stolas can care, and that he can feel pain, and that makes him at least peripherally aware that he’s able to be emotionally hurt.

By Blitzø.

Stolas, meanwhile, is vaguely at the point of comprehending he holds more power in their dynamic because of their differences in status, and him holding the key to Blitzø’s entire business and livelihood. He now knows Blitzø didn’t think he wanted anything other than sex, because of his hasty and overly selfish attempt at keeping him around. And it was a sex deal! He realizes he was wrong for holding that over Blitzø and that his actions and words in the past helped cause the misunderstanding that he didn’t care for Blitzø past getting sexual favors.

Stolas is gonna try to fix this power imbalance by giving up the entire premise of their current relationship, in the vain hope Blitzø will understand and then reciprocate his actual feelings, while Blitzø is now vaguely trying to actively prove he gives a shit about people, even while unsure of Stolas’ feelings toward him, and the result of these intentions clashing is gonna be a goddamn mess, unless miraculously they can communicate around the inevitable misunderstanding.

Please somebody let them explain themselves and have the other fucking listen.

They both love each other, but are fucked up from trauma and are neurodivergent, so they express themselves differently and can barely figure out their own shit, let alone explain it to the other. Get therapy and try new communication styles.

But they are slowly learning. They have the tools and ability to figure this out if they both try. It’s not futile. It just might take some fuck ups and more time to fully get there.

Sincerely, an AuDHD emotional abuse victim that sees themself in both of these idiots and wants to scream.

[johannestevans]

i wanted to write a BIG essay on disability in House MD but the thing is that as it goes on the show plays and delves with the themes a bit differently - like in s1 they begin to introduce some addict stuff but not too much, and much less of the big grapples with house's own medical agency etc by his friends and coworkers

so i think i'm gonna do an essay series, set up some main themes around disability and autonomy in house

the first things will obviously be about the nature of house's own disability, firstly talking about his physical disability - yes, the lack of mobility from his leg and his reliance on his cane, and also the chronic pain that that comes with, but also specifically noting that house became disabled later in life and was previously extremely physically active

while the themes of house being an addict are extremely overstated because of the us' manufactured opioid crisis and its dehumanisation of addicts due to its racist and eugenicist "war on drugs", it's also noteworthy that he used to exercise all day every day on top of fucking and playing with substances on the side. no one minded this because his "addiction" to exercise was fun and sexy and healthy, bc he was making his own pain-killing substances rather than taking a pill

and then also talking about house's mental health issues - evidence of his autism and the way that people hate specifically his autistic traits, even when they're not actually causing them problems, and the way in which house masks and performs certain emotional responses, but more so like. his depression and his loss of identity as a disabled man, and his difficulties being OKAY with his disability when everyone around him hates disability

so apart from that evidence, the points of house grappling with this stuff will be:

house bonding with other disabled patients - in cases of chronic pain, lost physical mobility, and also mental illness and/or neurodivergence

and house specifically understanding disabled people's perspectives, or thinking about the PRACTICAL needs of the person they're treating or engaging with rather than what society cares about or what the hospital thinks is "appropriate" or "proper"

house bullying abled people for being Weird

times where house makes commentary about the injustice of the system (when he points out that the hospital is designed not to treat the poor, chronically sick, etc)

house being anxious and defensive of his own bodily autonomy (eg when ppl are trying to control his pain management or force him into systems that don't work, take over his medical autonomy, in general try to physically control his behaviours)

esp bc season 1 culminates in the stacy episode where we find that like... so much of house's trauma is not just being disabled

but the fact that stacy OVERRODE his desires, waiting for him to be put into a medically induced coma so that she could make "the best" decision for him and literally being the cause of his current disability. esp bc like...

she specifically went for the middle ground that he rejected, she was NOT a doctor

and in so doing she. invented his chronic pain. like there's a reason that in that same episode, we see the volleyball player who gets an amputation and is able to go back to sports - yes, house is a lot older than that volleyball player, but like

if he had either treated the infarction successfully or just got an amputation so that he could later work with a prostheses, house thinks he would have done much better

and so much of his TERROR around trusting others - not just stacy but wilson, cuddy, anybody else - is because of that. the one person he loved and trusted overrode his desires and created the hell he lives in where he's just in constant agony and he hates it, and the worst part is like

everyone tells him it's his fault. no one cares about what stacy did to him, that she manipulated him. every day they tell house how terrible it is that he does that to others, but when it's what happened to him and he lives in hell, it's on him because he's Mean and Too Autistic and he should just Stop Being In Pain etc

god it kills me.

BUT YEAH i think. season by season is gonna be a lot better to track the development of these themes and the way they shift and change from season to season - also idefk if i'll be able to stick with like. the last three seasons bc they just suck so ba dhfskjjgh

BUT WE'LL SEE