#general random crap (tm)

[the-bearer-of-bad-ideas]

beautiful

[leseggian]

hello and welcome 2 my pinned post. (studio audience goes wild). please read before interacting!

you can refer to me as c!! anyone else find eggs hot. this is my nsft sideblog to go on about my self indulgent nonsense and maybe get a response sometimes.

i am a non-binary lesbian and i go by any pronouns (which makes me far too powerful). i am 99% a sub but i am a vers (even though my service top content is a bit more rare to see).

most of my content is either going to be gender neutral, nblw, or wlw! my tagging system is somewhat of a mess so i apologize in advance.

guidelines for interacting with me

non cishet men can interact, unless i explicitly state in the post otherwise

anons are welcomed! but dms are mutuals only. feel free to tell me your fantasies hehe

sexting or rp is limited to mutuals only and if we discuss it before hand!

i don’t think i have to tell you this but i am very much a person. so be respectful and crap and don’t be a weirdo or you’ll get ignored/blocked

i’m not crazy about any particular pet names? i’m chill with most of them but i do like pet the most (this is probably very obvious LMFAO) so feel free to use whatever

do not send me content that’s in my “stuff that i’m not into” section further down this post

DO NOT INTERACT WITH ME WHATSOEVER IF YOU ARE: a minor (please do not be on kink tumblr), a freak (bigot, cis person into detrans, fetishizer in anyway, etc.), cishet, or just in general a nasty bitch. i don’t want you here and if you try to interact you will get blocked!

ok now for the fun stuff on what you’ll see on this blog!

stuff i’m into includes

monster ladies, monsters, even more monsters, aliens, oviposition, breeding, lactation, praise, Tentacles (tm), dumbification, body worship, size difference, denial/edging, overstimulation (yes both), obedience, general D/s dynamics other stuff i don’t know the proper terminology of probably

stuff i’m into but only if its in a very certain Flavor that is exactly my taste

transformation: minor altercations, not full blown turning into something else

hypno stuff: training/conditioning, no spirals or drones

bondage/restraint: hand restraints, leg spreaders, gags, but not fully on shibari type things

petplay: leashes, collars, being called “pet”, not very into puppy/kitten/bunny/etc-play

cum inflation: not extreme just give me a little pouch hehe squish squish

non-egg/live young pregnancy: has to be somewhat fantasy related and not like a Human Baby. and no birth

mommy (as a title) being used: not any md/lg shit

humiliation and objectification: in a loving way, not a sadistic way :3

exhibition: only if it’s in places where you would expect to see a naked person. aka not an office or uni

stuff i’m not into includes

dd/lg and all it’s variations, cnc, unsanitary stuff, bigotry-play, ageplay, feederism, vouyerism, pain, extreme degradation/humiliation, extreme size difference (i.e gigantism), other types of inflation, titpreg, free use (in the sense of random people i don’t know using me), impact play, sensory deprivation (once in a while though i’m into it), intox

ok i think that’s all. i’m pretty chill so i’m not taking this blog too too seriously. but i will be having fun :^). enjoy ur stay if you stick around !

[inexplicably-spookified]

missouri cave story

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Sexuality Headcanon: technically bi but waaaay too many trust issues (and trauma stemming from the curse) to be easily interested in starting a relationship Gender Headcanon: don't really have any beyond it would be funny if the reason she changed her name to misery was to do with Gender(tm) A ship I have with said character: i don't think i have to say this i'm probably fairly well known for it A BROTP I have with said character: this'd definitely be a while post-best ending but i think her and kazuma could potentially get along a little bit - conversing late at night about random crap because nobody else is awake and they both want some company or something like that. A NOTP I have with said character: i don't think people really ship misery with anyone, or at least nothing i've seen that wasn't a joke (and/or porn) A random headcanon: after the red crystal shenanigans she figures out how to control turning into her possessed form after it accidentally happens a few times, as a) a way to spite the doctor and heal from the incident by owning it as something she can deliberately do and b) a new way to scare the living daylights out of people because she finds it funny General Opinion over said character: (gestures vaguely at my blog)

[lemystical-puffle]

A3! Isekai AU Character roles

okay okay last post on this I swear (I don’t swear)

with help from the lovely @a3shitposter, We now have the main cast.

The Au consists of mainly Autumn troupe + Izumi, with some NPC’s. This may change in the future

keep in mind the characters general personalities are still the same, this is just AU background

Izumi Tachibana: The protagonist. Was just a patron at a restaurant in Vuledo Way before dying in an armed robbery. Was reborn as the Queen of the kingdom (insert some random kingdom name here) of mother of the story’s main love interest. In the original story, the parents die when the child turns 5 which becomes a big turning point in his life and helps him become the edgy protagonist all self inserts love. Currently has all memories of her past life and believes the best way for her to live is to stay without child

Sakyo Furuichi: Another protagonist, he was just going to watch a stage play where he ran into his former childhood best friend and first crush Izumi, and the two went to dinner to catch up and died trying to protect her during the previously mentioned armed robbery. Was reincarnated as Izumi’s husband, King of unnamed kingdom, and the future father of the protagonist. However, after his reincarnation he lost all memories of his previous life, and had them replaced with newly formed memories to fit his new surroundings. As far as he is concerned, he and Izumi have been married for 4 years now, and man does he want a child *See my Sakyo finds domesticity sexy* post*. 

Banri Settsu: Head knight, earned the title completely on accident and now flaunts it whenever he has the chance. Like everyone else, he had been reincarnated during the robbery. He had actually been right outside the building trying to pick a fight with Juza who just wanted something to eat, and ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time. He usually abuses his power by using his title as an excuse to eavesdrop on whatever drama is going on with Juza, and makes a lot of comedic commentary. Doesn’t have memories.

Juza Hyodo: Juza is the straight man to the Juban comedy duo, he being another knight who usually sticks with Banri to keep him out of trouble. He blackmails Banri a lot, threatening to tell their employer, or just spill to Sakyo, what Banri has been doing but stays quiet in exchange for Banri making snack runs for him. He’s overall just done with everyones crap. Doesn’t have memories but can faintly remember the idea of having a younger brother, and will flinch whenever he hears someone call him “big brother.” Oh also Banri x Juza is heavily implied

Omi Fushimi: Omi had been working part time at the restaurant to raise money for a new camera when he ended up in the same situation as everyone else. He works as a chef in the castle and spends his time off with Taichi, just chatting and getting that hot gossip *tm* until it’s time to get working again. He is still a total mom though, after many times comforting a distressed Izumi and caring for Taichi. Just like everyone else, he has no memories of his past life.

Taichi Nanao: Taichi Nanao was, just like the others, at the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up dying and reincarnated as a butler in training. Why was he a butler? Cause he become a butler? Because of the faint memory of high school girls simping over stoic edgy dark haired butler characters (it’s me, I’m girls). That said, he isn’t very good at his job. He always barges in during awkward of emotional moments on accident and is overall just a comedic wreck, but we still love him. He loves hanging around Banri and Juza and seeing them banter, or avoiding work by hiding in the kitchen and talking to Omi.

Azami Izumida: Azami enters the story halfway through, dying in a way unrelated to everyone else. But what is he revived as? The prince that Izumi and Sakyo were meant to give birth too. Azami had first been reincarnated as just some poor homeless child, but still has all of his memories of his past life (making him and Izumi the only ones with memories). Sakyo finds Azami and seeing him sparks something in his mind and he feels compelled to take Azami in and raise him. Azami only goes with because he’s in this strange world and Sakyo is the only person he somewhat recognizes. Izumi flips out because all the work she had put in not not dying seemed to have gone down the drain, and she and Azami team up to work together and keep anyone from dying and get home (keep in mind she didn’t know Azami prior. He introduced himself to her). Azami and Sakyo’s relationship mirrors the one they currently have. He really doesn’t want to be some edgy love interest, so he spends most of his time arguing with Sakyo about he doesn’t want to be hecking adopted, while Sakyo is just “You’re going to let me hecking love you or so help me I will murder someone.”

-Thats all!!! Thank you for reading! I really really love this AU and I am so happy that you all seem to love it too! I may hold off on posting about it though because I won’t want to overkill it and have people lose interest or only expect this content from me, but we’ll just see what happens! :), again, if you have anything to add, this is a completely open AU and I absolutely love anything anyone contributes to it!-

[quinndominion]

Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee

What follows is not the way preview posts are generally done, I know, but I’m not really a cc creator. Think of it more as a themed teaser post with the option to download some of the stuff if you so desire.

SBB

(Hulk Hogan up there for entertainment purposes only. I lengthened the hair, changed the outfit, and made him a 3d ‘stache, but the original base sim is still available on insim. Likewise the Sly Stallone base sim can be found on TSR. It’s actually a much better likeness than it seems here.)

LBB

Nolo contendere. Good, free advice to all comers. So went the smack talk (supplied by his ex-paralegal sister-in-law.) At the height of his powers, the only real challenge for Carlos Contender was himself.

Of course, all the greats must topple...eventually.

Added fat morph to LBB for...reasons. Doesn’t exactly match generic morph because I wanted it to look like someone who doesn’t realise he’s not quite as fit as he once was squeezing into the old trunks.

AM (Maxis)

Thought we’d seen the last of Harry Barnes...but I could not bring myself to just pluck out a random sim with no other relevance. So, before he was the Chestertons’ chauffeur, Harry Barnes was an up-and-coming prizefighter who had won and then lost James (Stella’s father) a fair bit of cash. But never let it be said that James Chesterton holds a grudge. When Harry’s rising star crashed and burned, James gave him a job...driving his kids around.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING TOTALLY DIFFERENT (as the past inches toward present and future potential)

AF (adult female and all teens only Maxis Shape)

It wasn’t until I decided to go ahead and do the women that I realised separates would work best. And in the process I got a notion to use my Fight The Power sequence, but being my first dance anim it was absolute crap. So I started over from scratch until *ding-dong* I remembered that I still don’t actually need it right now. So this is as far as I got but I’m much more hopeful for the end product by the time I get back to Desiderata.

Also co-opted this outfit by SweetAmberkins and put ‘em on the needlecream boots. Only these 6 of their original 16 colours, though, because they matched pre-existing boot textures. And here you can see the rest of my accessory gloves’ colours.

TF, TM

Gavin and Vi were the natural choice for my teen pugilists.

Which meant Ginger and Rick got dragged in and put to use modelling fat morphs.

Speaking of which...

...Jack Bastard rides again. (Along with his ol’ lady from back when he was J.P. Slumlord.)

Dun-dun-dun

__________________

Didn’t occur to me to set up scenarios for the pregmorphs. AF only (I think).

Bodyshapes - BSOK’d (haven’t updated my files since 2011 apparently but I don’t expect the codes for Marvine/Beos shapes have changed); full-body only, categorised Athletic

Oh, and another thing which may render these completely useless to anyone not me: I really can’t stand the way the bodybuilder meshes’ super-thick necks jut up into tiny maxis heads, so my meshes actually match maxis necklines

Q_SBB_BoxerTrunks           Q_LBB_BoxerTrunks

Maxis Shapes - full-body categorised Athletic; bottoms Everyday & Athletic; tops Everyday, Athletic, & PJs

Q_AM-TM_BoxerTrunks      Q_AF-TF_btm_BoxerTrunks 

SweetAmberkins’ policy allows reuse of textures so I’ve included that outfit

Q_AF_SweetAmberkinsGymLaceUps

Michelle’s policy does not, so for the top mesh derived from this dance outfit from both FT and AL, I’ve only included the two maxis colours. (All other tops shown just for characterisation purposes.)

Q_AF-TF_top_FTDanceTopFullStraps

And, finally, the boxing gloves are derived from a TS3 object. All male full-body outfits come with and without the gloves meshed on - no chance of hands poking through. Only black and red, alternating on the 4 maxis trunks colours.

The accessory gloves work for all genders, Teen through Elder. The mesh has a natural curve and bone weights to curl more with balled fists - so it looks crazy in Bodyshop & CAS, but the fist overlays on DeeDee’s posebox work well for keeping all digits unseen in play.

Comes in the light maxis red and also blue, yellow, green, & black.

Q_ACC_BoxingGloves

[leianaberrie]

If you could rewrite TVD, what would you do about Bonnie Bennett storyline? And what would you change in general?)

I feel like if someone has asked me this question before but I tag like crap so I can’t find it. 

I could go either way. 

Small-scale with Long Shadows endgame: I’d make mostly subtle changes throughout the seasons, but keeping most of the main storyline (except season 5 which makes no sense and needs a serious revamping) and then making the big canon rift in the middle of season 6 with my storyline diverging from canon to become, well, Long Shadows. The subtle changes would be stuff like no Beremy cheating on Bonnie storyline. I’d still make them break up but it would be more of a “we were on a break” kind of confusion where the kissing happens after Bonnie feels that Jeremy is being emotionally unfaithful to her with his dead girlfriend (and it would be Vicky, not Anna because that never made sense). I’d make Jeremy’s confusion be more sympathetic, wondering what he lost with Vicky’s death. I’ll also have the kiss end their relationship - as a way of him saying goodbye to her, and also realizing that he’s so much happier with Bonnie than he ever was or would have been to Vicky. So it’s something that actually cements his feelings for her, while at the same time pushes her away. 

Long Scale. This would be massive changes like giving Bonnie parental units who are physically present. I love the idea of her father Rudy being an active witch (he plays Dead Fogg in the Magicians and he’s awesome in that role) and Rudy and her mom being a pair of monster hunting witches who spend more time jetting across the world than taking care of their kid. So they’re still neglectful parents but for a really cool reason. I won’t kill Sheila so early in the series, and when she does die, it forces Bonnie’s parents to return to Mystic Falls to take charge of the crap that’s going on in the town, which puts them at odds with Bonnie because Bonnie wants to protect her friends and her parents want to protect her.

I’d make Damon be more of a wild card/ trickster type character, and we’d never know which side of a conflct he’d land on. Instead of transferring his feelings from Katherine to Elena (literally in the same episode!), I’d keep him infatuated with Katherine, oscillating from trying to foil her plans in vengeance and being a puppy dog minion when she gives him the time of the day. 

In that vein, I’ll keep his obsession with Elena as projection of his feelings for Katherine (this is actually canon but the show never explores it) while having her in turn being constantly revolted by him, and only tolerating him because of Stefan. The Love Triangle (TM) won’t be Stefan->Elena<-Damon but Elena->Stefan<-Damon with Stefan torn between his love for Elena, his desire to protect her/her friends/family/town and his guilty loyalty to Damon, his obligation to protect Damon from the consequences of his actions. I’d make Stefan a far better man than he is in canon - someone who has relationships with every member of the MFG, who has actively protected and/or rescued each of them so that they have his loyalty and for Stefan’s sake, they don’t (try too hard to) kill Damon. I’ll keep Damon very separate from the core group of Barolena and have people mostly distrustful of him. At the same time, I’ll give Damon random acts of nobility (remember his a trickster, not an outright villain) so there are times when people trust him. How that works out for them will vary from season to season but there’ll be a constant theme of Damon not being entirely a good guy. 

At some point in time I will want Elena to betray Damon. Maybe he’s hiding from Klaus, the Travellers, a coven or wolf pack he’s offended. Elena is given the choice to turn him in or save the town, and against Stefan’s wishes (he’s playing an angle to save everyone), Elena turns Damon in. Probably after a sexy kiss  to twist the knife. Think Elizabeth kissing and chaining Jack Sparrow to the Black Pearl kind of betrayal. Stefan leaves to rescue Damon but at that point, he and Elena will become completely estranged.

I’d give more nuance to Katherine’s past, and stop trying to paint her as a villain for not wanting to be sacrificed for the Mikaelsons. I’d definitely end up killing Elijah for good. I’d probably turn Klaus into a human - he’ll be the Cure recipient, not Katherine. That would be a fate worse than death for him.

Back to Bonnie... I’d keep the Beremy changes I made in “Small Scale”. I’d play up the Luka/Bonnie/Jeremy love triangle and have her be in a relationship with Luka until he has to leave town when his father dies. I’d make Luka a member of the Gemini coven and have him return later in the show. I’d do one-sided Klonnie, with Klaus trying to recruit/seduce Bonnie to replace Greta and ending up just wanting to win her approval. He wins enough of her affection that she backs out of outright killing him, and it’s Bonnie who forces Klaus to take the Cure. No Klaroline because that never made sense.

I’d definitely keep the Travellers but I’ll make them make more sense, keep them as acolytes of Silas and generally make Silas more scary, make Silas not be a doppelganger and/or in love with some iteration of Elena. I’d tie Silas into the origins of magic/magical creatures with the Travellers being the servants who will reap from his return. Defeating Silas is what eventually leads to the Other Side collapsing. And this in turn will also have a ripple effect across the supernatural community because without the communion of witches, where does magic come from?

I’ll merge Kol and Kai’s characters and just have Kol be the person Bonnie meets in the Prison World, where he was sent after the Other Side was destroyed as punishment by some random coven. Naturally, he wants revenge on the rest of the Mikaelsons while Bonnie wants to prevent that because killing the other Mikaelsons is equivalent to vampire genocide. Oh, and I’ll still keep Elena’s sire bond plot line in season 4 and have it be acknowledged in story that she’s acting crazy, that the bond is abusive and skeevy, and that committing vampire genocide has serious consequences across the supernatural community. No Gemini, no twin merge and no heretics although I will delve into witch lore, especially with the Travellers. 

The final season will definitely have Damon be the Final Bad of the series. Remember when Elena betrayed/sold him off to some Big Bad in exchange for his friends’s lives? Well Stefan probably didn’t rescue him and/or didn’t rescue him in time. I definitely want a scene where Damon is once again about to face the consequences of his actions and he asks Stefan to help him and... Stefan just walks away. And because Damon is Damon, he decides that Stefan needs to be punished for this and chooses to just go full-on evil on everyone. He knows enough of where their skeletons are buried to unleash some previous seasons’s Sealed Evil in A Can on them. The Evil is defeated after several casualties (Stefan and Tyler, just like canon but also Jeremy and Matt because it needs to hurt) and Elena, Bonnie and Caroline finally get the pleasure of dosing Damon with gasoline and lighting him up. It ends with the girls moving out of Mystic Falls, as their own pseudo-family.

I went off on a tangent in this but I hope some of it made sense. :D

[dxmagedrose]

GET TO KNOW THE BLOGGER!

Tagged by: my lover @hammurabicomplex​ I’m tagging: anyone and everyone who wants to pick this one up! share with the class if you feel like it! tag me in it!!

PRESENTING. RANDOM DEEP DIVE WITH INDIGO-MUN AT 2AM ;

FIRST NAME Good fucking question… It’s (sort-of) currently Dylann! I was Kieran before that, though; it’s still used as one of my first names and I’m not used to Dylann quite yet bc I’ve just started using it. 

Indigo is one of my middle names though, and I’ve used it as an online handle elsewhere forever so I use it here now!  [ Fun etymology facts: Dylan(n) is a mythology name generally meaning “born of the wave” (aspiring diver & a water witch at heart). Kieran means “little dark one” bc of my love for horror, && I chose Indigo bc as a kid to be it was neither boy (blue) or purple (girl) and was both and neither as well as my absolute favorite color as this vibrant ass mystical color. ]

STRANGE FACT ABOUT YOURSELF hmmmmm…. I’m a horror lover at heart, so as a child (I wanna say 12), I was walking through an antique store (I have a few cool finds, I considered putting my other one as the fact tbh) and I turned the corner and I saw these two dolls staring back at me at the foot of the stairs of this antique building. my blood froze, and i felt my stomach drop. i got actual, physical goosebumps stumbling across these two creepy dolls staring back at me in the corner, and i couldn’t leave the store without them. perhaps the little painted porcelain boy would be somewhat spooky by himself if it wasn’t for the terrifying lidded gaze of the porcelain girl with the hairline fractures and slightly open lips. i cant look at her. i dont really find dolls scary, I like to find the spookier ones ones, and she makes me paranoid as hell. i keep her face covered and her up in my closet except for when i bring her out to show her off proudly as the spookiest thing I have but……. i dont really collect dolls anymore.  even thinking about her brings a fearful tear to my eye.  i don’t like to think about her for very long, but that’s why I’m so fucking proud to own her. ( YES — I’m THAT white person in the horror film )

TOP THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE ON A PERSON hhhhh a beardy jawline, high cheekbones, crooked canine teeth >:3c

A FOOD YOU COULD EAT FOREVER AND NOT GET BORED OF b.l.t.’s with avocado. ahhhh. my mouth is watering just thinking about it, oh my god. just a bit of salt and pepper???

A FOOD YOU HATE barbecue anything, i hate the taste of bbq sauce, you keep your nasty black goo to yourselves at the grill. twice in my life i have presented with barbecue pizza and both times i cried literal tears. why would you do such a horrible thing to a person? what kind of a monster are you? how do you sleep at night?!

GUILTY PLEASURE the sims. constantly. always. i’ve sunk thousands of hours into my households. oh also uhhhhhh i run two 80s horror blogs, one being a shitpost blog with occasional art of mine and one gremlin fanfic ship blog for horrible, terrible self indulgent fanfics i’ll get the courage to finish writing & post so i can be cancelled on tumblr for at some point. NO, i won’t link them. as i pretend they’re even all that hard to find, within a day i was found on both by someone i admire here a lot :’) ilu bby thnk u eternally for supporting ur local horrifying dumbass wtf

WHAT DO YOU SLEEP IN the same clothes i’ve been wearing all day usually, my sweats & long sleeve raglans or my hoodies. i like being cozy day & and out. and ugh. efoort. just throw me in a blanket in a cool room and im out.

SERIOUS RELATIONSHIPS OR FLINGS serious relationships with some openness or poly. i wish i could fling! just not exactly easy for demisexual autistics lmao.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN THE PAST AND CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WOULD YOU AND WHAT WOULD IT BE I think I would be adopted by my grandma as a kid. It would save me some trauma but mostly I think it would get my autism diagnosed way earlier and save me angsting all these years of wondering why & thinking it’s my fault I’m struggling so much and so loud and affectionate and different in a world that i didnt fit in the same way. 

ARE YOU AN AFFECTIONATE PERSON when i get drunk i text people how much they mean to me in my life. does that answer your question? ahhh. i’m sometimes a cuddle monster with friends, i message people with long texts about how much they mean to me, but I sometimes really don’t like to be touched at all. 

A MOVIE YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN FLYPAPER.  F L Y P A P E R.  FLYPAPER.  FLY, and, I can’t stress this enough, fucking PAPER. ( Though also Whole Nine Yards and both Re-Animator & Bride ). I have watched Flypaper already like, 5 times this week and I’m still not done, and the other movies have been on repeat for days in this household within the last year. In the past it has also been Donnie Darko & the new Nightmare on Elm Street.  roast me.

FAVORITE BOOK White Fang by Jack London. Have I actually ever finished it? No. Do I still own a copy I’ve had since childhood thru multiple dogs eating it, taking it to and from school, and highlighting and circling all the best parts of chapter one ever since I was a kid and it was too hard of a book for me to read? You bet your ass. If I ever need inspiration I just reread chapter 1. Although one of my other favorites was Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes. But White Fang is like, a weirdly personal text. We stan London’s writing in this household.

YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO KEEP ANY ANIMAL AS A PET, WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE FENNEC FOX!! I used to daydream about having my own named Shiloh when I was a lil kid. they’re adorable little things and i am obsessed. i mean, gimme any fox and im happy, marble foxes, red foxes… but I was obsessed with fennec foxes. Also tbh ferrets. I want a ferret.

TOP FIVE FICTIONAL SHIPS [IF YOU ARE AN RP BLOG, YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN SHIPS AS WELL] Rosa & @ninetyscnds‘s Luke, Rosa & @iimpulsivity is already screaming my name, Rosa & Constantine, Jesse & Andrea from Breaking Bad, and the joker and harley of 80s sci-fi Dan & Herbert from Re-Ani.  I am but a simple opossum. 

PIE OR CAKE Pie! I’ll take both pumpkin & melty apple over cake. also, cheesecake is more pie than cake soooo, pie wins.

FAVORITE SCENT my dogs / my blanket. :’)  It’s the most grounding smell in the world. 

CELEBRITY CRUSH oliver jackson-cohen, i’m fucking GAY and im angry about it. there i was, minding my own business, and i saw that asshole in a certain SHIRTLESS GIF and it AWOKE SOMETHING IN ME. dont talk to me about it, holy shit im obsessed with beardy men now god fuckkdafjaask i hate him why did he make me this gay i was perfectly fine being into girls but NOOOOOO him and his dumb hairy chest and sweet rugged face and I——  I also am obsessed with the archaeologist & television personality Josh Gates and may or may not be considering making a fan blog for him bc idk if my anthropology docuseries host is Dad or Daddy but i love him lots

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO I would go on a dive with anthropologists and archaeologists doing fieldwork research in the ancient cenotes of the Yucatán Peninsula. My actual dream job, catch me crying & fantasizing about being underwater documenting Mayan skulls given as offerings. Fuckkkk, I love anthropology so much!!  take me anywhere in the world to immerse myself into culture & archaeology.

INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT Introvert. I have a real life friend I see roughly once a month, and that’s it. Plenty of online relationships, I’m chatty, message me all day every day. but i dont do people well.

DO YOU SCARE EASILY I used to! Really bad. I don’t as much anymore. I do get paranoia a lot still. Having therapists telling you that the FBI could be outside your house watching you through your windows will kind of nervous. ( no google results for: yes hello fbi i am a writer please dont put me on watchlists i just have research i need to do for this idea im working on, would you like to try again? ) I have nightmares nightly but not they never make me afraid, they just make me feel like crap. jumpscares and loud noises and seeing people reaching into their pockets dont set off as many brain alarms anymore tho!! progress haha.

IPHONE OR ANDROID I like my android better bc of capabilities but meh

DO YOU PLAY ANY VIDEO GAMES My mom, her husband & I play COD for family game night, and Silent Hill is my life’s blood. I’ve sunken hours into Sims & Skyrim, and Norman Jayden from Heavy Rain is my #1 fictional character in existence, why do i love the druggie babies

DREAM JOB Oh… You’re asking me to pick? I’d love to be an anthropologist doing work out in the field. Underwater archaeology is peak, but I’m also heavily considering being a body recovery diver or police diver. I’d love to see myself in uniform someday, if possible. Just the thought makes me teary eyed & proud.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS fund my person creative & educational endeavors. get myself a spooky ass abandoned house to make my own home to create in, and travel to the world’s best dive sites. just live a mild life of education, creation & exploration. that’s the dream TM.

FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOU HATE dr. hill is a gross and whiny lil bitch this post brought to u by the miskatonic crew, how is everyone here an even worse bad guy than herbert west precious dan excluded talk shit get hit tho john winchester from spn and both walter white & todd from breaking bad are all in my crew of hated characters. i jusT…   the reani novel is difficult to read because i have to deal with this old sack of shit.

FANDOM THAT YOU WERE ONCE A PART OF BUT AREN’T ANY LONGER Supernatural :-)

… AND THIS CONCLUDES A DEEP DIVE WITH INDIGO!! //

[outofcontextkhmvs]

hi there! as someone who is relatively new to the kh fandom (i started watching lets plays of it in late 2017 bc ps4s are expensive) do you have any recommendations of iconic 2000s era mmds/shorts? like dumb series or something? i loved that shit when i was little and tbh i still do and id love to see some old Classics(TM) of the kh fandom. my fave that ive found so far is demyx likes his sitar

Alright so these are probably all going to be some level of inappropriate but it’s been so long and I’m not going to watch all of these again, but i can guarantee you there’s way too much south park in these videos:

Kingdom Hearts The Stupid FilesThis is a bit of a later era but all those videos making fun of Xehanort’s BOO RAY because BBS is just a really memey gamePwilliard has a bunch (kingdom hearts comedy, general amvs)

Kingdom Hearts Random Crap

Kingdom Hearts On CrackKingdom Hearts ChroniclesKingdom Hearts Crazy Files:For MMDs, theres a ton made by VentusWTHand some good ones made by ZexyVegasbut just in general MMD with KH models is so weirdly popular i’d wish that square enix would make a dancing spin-off like persona did, so just looking up Kingdom Hearts MMD will get you somewhere.Just look up a bunch of Roxas Hates ____ or saix puppy videos, there’s just so many of them. Or for just series in general, just looking up kingdom hearts + files, random, funny… you get the idea. Plenty of old series are dust though, so RIP…

There’s also the stuff like Axel’s Hips Don’t Lie or ____’s Bringing Sexy Back, and like the sora and roxas songs. man oh man. I’ve been working on a whole playlist of stuff I want to save, even. Amvs overall can be both easy and hard to find, but I’m sure if you watch enough you’ll be able to use your youtube recommendations to find more 

any followers can put their recs in the replies/reblogs

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E15 (Apr 24, 2018)

Hello hello hello! As @eponymous-rose​ is away doing Important Science, I’m covering TM recap duty tonight! Tonight’s guests: Marisha & Liam. Tonight’s announcements: 

This Saturday is International Tabletop Day! G&S is running special programming all day to celebrate.

VM Origins #6 is out at all available online comic retailers. The final touches are being placed on the comic collected edition; details to be released soon!

Wednesday Club airs tomorrow at 7pm PST.

826LA hit the $35,000 reward tier this week! This means Matt will be hosting another Fireside Chat soon. (Liam reveals that the vintage robe & a tiger ring Matt wore in the last chat were gifts from him after a certain jazz-hands-related event in the last campaign.) As a reminder, all donations are doubled up to $40,000 thanks to a generous critter matching donations. 

Pillars of Eternity is out in two weeks! Reminder that the characters of VM will be playable as voice sets in this campaign; the new portrait art for Vax was released this week. Check it out at versusevil.com/criticalrole! Liam extols Travis’s voice acting and the “finesse” in his performance and hopes that fans will be very happy with it.

Reminder: Dani Carr hosts Critical Role Recaps every week. 

CR Stats for Episode 15

48 natural ones this campaign so far ($4800 from D&D Beyond to 826LA!)

67 natural 20s so far, even without a Lucky rogue!

Over both campaigns & 51 initiative rolls, Ashley averages only 9.5 on her initiative rolls. :( However, she’ll be on Talks next week! Yay!

Beau is super into working for the Gentleman right now. As long as she makes friends in high places, she’s happy (in part because she knows they won’t last long). 

Liam doesn’t miss trap duty at all. (He’s enjoying being a screw-up wizard.) That said, he still enjoys watching Sam bring his magic touch to his old class. 

Beau fundamentally trusts that people will always act in their own self-interest, which is why she told Jester to take care of herself first. To Beau, selfishness & survival are synonymous--most people want to make sure they aren’t going to get caught or killed. That’s how she can trust untrustworthy people to work for the good of the group, and why she thought Caleb & Nott needed to be part of a bigger conversation.

Sam, of course, very briefly FaceTimes into the show with the knowledge that Liam called him a comedic genius. He wishes everyone to know that this is accurate, does a remarkable Howdy Doody impression, and leaves.

Caleb didn’t have any experience with the Zone of Truth spell before and paid close attention while it was being cast, but “nobody asked him any questions, so I guess it’s fine.” 

Caleb’s one-on-one with the DM hasn’t changed his playstyle or character interpretation yet, since it didn’t reveal anything significant. He does think it might have given Caleb a mildly different outlook on certain things/his mood a little bit, but no fundamental shifts yet. Beau’s one-on-one shifted her perspective a lot--she doesn’t respect authority at all, so being put in her place was a good check on her personality & took the edge off her wrecking-ball habits. Both Marisha & Brian talk about respecting someone willing to call them out on their crap.

Gif of the Week: this glorious thing by @scottc_miller on twitter. Poor everyone. Poor drunk Nott.

Beau is officially warming up to Molly. Awwww, my heart. “I don’t know if Molly’s warming up to Beau, but...” Brian: “Self-preservation, guilty until proven innocent...an optimist!”

Molly’s amnesia reveal hasn’t really changed Caleb’s opinion of him. He does trust that Molly told the truth within the Zone’s context, but he knows that may not be the whole truth. The only person who’s changed in Caleb’s estimation is actually Beau; Liam talks about a low score he rolled on an arcana check on the magical symbols, which Beau surpassed, and in the moment Caleb realized that meant Beau must have had some formal schooling. “A little checkmark went ‘boop!’ in a box.”

Beau is aware of her own terrible flirting with women, & Marisha references Beau’s strong preference to be in charge in her interactions. Marisha also talks about some of her Meisner acting classes/acting methods in how scenes are structured and it’s actually really, really cool. Liam segues into his first week in NYU at his very first voice acting class where they laid on the floor and did “pelvic thrusts” to loosen the diaphragm. Marisha recalls her college voice acting teacher telling her she was terrible and shouldn’t pursue voice acting because she spoke from the back of her throat. 

All of Caleb’s spells have been selected for RP reasons over functionality/utility. Liam knows it’s not the most optimal build &, as might be expected, doesn’t care in the slightest. You go, boo.

Liam and Marisha giggle over fighting such a classic old-school monster as a gelatinous cube. Liam honestly wishes Frumpkin could have been dissolved; Caleb emphatically does not. Marisha remembers finding the old cube mini with Matt which could be opened up so other minis could fit inside, and they sat in their living room for some time putting minis inside it. The pair that slays together stays together. Liam also remembers a Comic Con that had light-up gelatinous cube minis which he attended riiiiight after meeting Marisha. 

Fanart of the Week: this by @sephiramy! Look at how good everyone looks, awwww. 

Liam jokes that he personally excluded Quebec from the giveaways and it’s inexplicably hilarious, especially given Matt’s apologies for it on the regular show.

Beau’s hand going numb on the cube attack didn’t phase her at all; she’s still in the “adolescent” phase where she isn’t afraid of any bad things that might happen to her.

In re: screwing the DM with in-universe D&D choices: “Path of the Duck for the fuck.” 

When it comes to HP management, the rest of the party is trying to make sure they can get people up when they’re down, especially since Jester canonically dislikes healing. Marisha reflects on the last campaign where she & Sam often filled the blanks around Ashley’s healing, and feels everyone’s trying to fill a similar role now. Liam and Marisha would ideally like another healer, but neither Beau nor Caleb are paying much attention to maintaining a balanced party comp. 

The cat’s paw version of Caleb’s spell was always planned given his attachment to Frumpkin.

Liam talks about pre-stream puzzles from campaign one, including a complicated hydraulic puzzle that Taliesin’s dragonborn paladin sidestepped with one brute force elbow. He also remembers a child’s square puzzle that took “a group of adults an embarrassing time to solve.” 

Cast- and staff-wide digression into puzzle-shaming Gandalf for flunking the Moria door riddle. Gandalf the Grey--more like Gandalf the Bad at Riddles, amirite

Beau’s ability to solve the magic puzzle feels to Marisha like the lessons your dad makes you learn as a kid, even though you never think you’ll use them--(such as being made to learn to change your own oil despite thinking you’ll always use AutoZone), but then you end up using the skill later on and resent it the whole time. 

Caleb’s increased participation in discussions lately is an intentional choice on Liam’s part. 

Beau’s improvement in dealing with the rest of the M9 is due to her becoming more comfortable with them.

Caleb recognizes Fjord’s arcane power, but doesn’t question it at all due to the magical nature of their world. (Neither Liam nor Caleb trusts Fjord to be neutral good: “He spat saltwater out!”)

Marisha makes a great point about how everyone in a D&D party is by definition magical and special, but everyone in the M9 right now feels like they’re still discovering what that means. Liam points out that VM very much felt like strong, special people with greatness thrust upon them; M9 feels like a troupe of random carnies. 

Marisha on why she’s playing a human in D&D when so many possibilities exist: “Some people like playing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.” She likes going from an all-powerful half-elven archdruid prodigy to a schmo who can just punch things really hard. 

While discussing impostor syndrome, Brian quotes David Milch: “So much of the accomplishment in art comes not from the discovery of one’s gift but from its acceptance.” He likes that the leveling system supports the slow growth of a character in an RP sense and allows the character to learn and accept his or her strengths. He likes that it’s not straight escapism, it’s the combination of one foot in reality and one foot in fantasy.

Liam points out that since their group is very theater- and story-driven, they often use the leveling process to support story choices and character growth over class optimization. Marisha relates it back to the choices in Disney movies, where sometimes the protagonist discovers their innate power & embraces it in order to succeed, vs. where sometimes a protagonist must overcome an innate feature and rise above it in order to succeed. She loves that dichotomy. (Brian feels Scanlan represented similar principles in the last campaign.)

Liam’s favorite moment of the last episode was Sam’s small drunk goblin irritation. 

In re: the rising from the floor at the end of the last episode, Liam hopes there’s a way to talk their way out of any upcoming fight, since Caleb’s pretty tapped. Beau: “This is fine.”

After Dark: I Know What You Did Last Summer Edition

On transferring from the relationship between Vax & Keyleth to Caleb & Beau--both Liam & Marisha have had some disputes about everything that went down in the High Richter’s house. Marisha: “I wouldn’t use the word ‘disputes.’” Liam: “What would you use?” Marisha: “...Clarifications?” They both are struggling with how much their in- and out-of-game relationships have changed over the course of the two campaigns. 

The crew photoshops Liam’s hairy V-necked chest onto Marisha live. What even. How.

Marisha does miss some things about spellcasting, but enjoys watching everyone else struggle with concentration checks and saving throws. 

Liam and Marisha both enjoy building characters and then assigning the classes that fit their story, instead of deciding what class to play first & building a character to that.

Brief aside where both Marisha (not Beau) & Caleb (not Liam) talk about how much they love Jester. 

Liam discusses in- and out-of-player knowledge when it comes to Fjord. Liam knows there’s an eldritch horror behind him, but Caleb has no clue. Marisha sees him as the altrustic half-leader who’s hiding a lot. Liam hypothesizes that someone was about to die, and Fjord saved whoever it was by offering himself to Cthulu. Liam doesn’t think Fjord is good-aligned. Marisha doesn’t trust his smarts. 

Marisha tells a story about Taliesin’s hair at C2E2. They were doing group photos when a family with a little girl came up who asked Taliesin his favorite hair color. He answered “I’m really into the peacock fade with the blue and the fade into green and the purple and the emerald,” and the poor girl was a little overwhelmed. (Marisha once answered her second-grade teacher’s question about her favorite color as “iridescent” and feels the teacher was more impressed with her vocabulary than her color choice.)

If they were pulled into Exandria today, Marisha would like to be a wild magic sorcerer or a paladin; Liam would be a wizard. 

If the M9 were stuck in a cavern with no food, Marisha would eat Fjord first since he’s probably already a little salted. 

Beau’s martial artistry is inspired by Ip Man. 

Liam steps out for a moment after a coughing fit, then returns in order to stand very, very close to Brian. Close enough that Brian’s ear rests on Liam’s stomach. Close enough that Marisha feels left out and both of them cuddle on Brian’s lap to end the show. I’m glad I’m not kidding. 

See you Thursday!

[the-bearer-of-bad-ideas]

i weigh as much as 1377 pancakes apparently

[artyrogue]

Blind Date Gaming: Monster Race Okawari

Oof. Today's date reeked of mimicry, like I was going out on a night with a mockingbird holding a photocopy machine. Now, copying ideas and putting new spins on them is hardly new to the gaming industry (or any form of entertainment, really). Many decent titles and concepts came from such efforts, in fact! However, sometimes the new spins are rather odd choices. It's like taking the idea of a sandwich and tossing in soup. Do you want a stock-soaked PBJ sandwich riddled with noodles? Probably not, and that's kind of how I feel about Monster Race Okawari, tonight's blind date.

Looks kind on novel, right? There's some sidescrolling dragon runnin' at top speeds through different landscapes, some odd creepy things holding down the copyright date like it's a hostage. So what game does this emulate, you ask? Well, I'd say it sort of reveals itself quickly upon the game's start.

Nope, this looks pretty original, not at all almost exactly like any other majorly successful game boy game

So yeah, it's a Pokémon knock-off. The spin here is that, instead of fighting your little slave creatures, you throw them into auto-races. And by 'auto-race', I don't mean they drive little shriners’ cars around tracks all menacingly-like. I mean the monsters just...automatically kind of run with no real input from you. Like you wound up one of those cat toys and let them go. What fun.

Gotta watch 'em all!

You get to pick from 3 starters, just like in Pokémon. Let's check out our options here:

Okay, so you got generic snake, kawaii hedgehog, and definitely-not-Rhyhorn. Amazing. So, which to pick? Well, unlike pokémon, they don't have types; instead they have terrain rankings. For example, the snake is better in water, hedgehog best in grass, and I guess Rhyhorn could be good on ice? I dunno, I didn't really look much at the time. Each monster also has stats such as balance, jumping, and guts, but I couldn't tell you what any of those actually, y'know, do. Their HP is stamina, allowing them to run for longer periods. All of this is available for review in a totally unique stats page.

What amazing monster design. Definitely not something from a Lisa Frank sticker set.

Okay, that's well and good, but what of the overworld? After all, monster racin' is only half the game, right? What about the cool areas to explore and people to meet?

This is not building confidence

So the starting area is absolute crap. It's a city, for sure, but every single building looks identical and there are rows and rows of these houses. Interiors all look the same. I got so lost trying to find out where to go in the first 15 minutes or so. No one in the buildings has much to offer for progression (though I do wish I knew what they were saying...), but I eventually stumbled into what I assume is my rival and got my first pokémon. Err, joggimon. Whatever you want to call them. I went with the snake because it was so dang generic I felt bad for it. I named it a bunch of Japanese characters that vaguely looked like a snake so I could tell who it was in my party list.

What's this joggidex entry say? Well, Google translate seems to indicate 'It's always plotting things and playing pranks. When I'm bitten by a brood parasite, I get a good night's sleep.' Gotta love machine translations.

You eventually get shuffled to some generic field area where you can start enlisting other monsters to your team and leveling them up. Leveling is odd. Either you are completely outclassed by the random encounter (mostly due to terrain ranking) or you overtake them in a couple seconds and the game is like, "welp, good enough, have some XP". You can try to overcome the foes who are decent on the terrain, but they get perks you don't, like random speed boosts.

The lines mean speed! See?! This game has ACTION!

You, on the other hand, can swap between monsters on the fly, but it takes a few seconds for the current runner to stop and the new one to get started. Usually this means a loss, as once the foe is far enough away, the game counts it as your loss. Eventually enemies lose their stamina and can be handily beaten, but it's really not worth wasting time. Just grind on the weak, derpy-looking enemies.

Once I had a killer team of monsters, I ambled over to what I assume was the gym equivalent building in this game. I got into a few races against some new monsters, but with my ace runners, we overcame the lot of them. At least the terrain changed a bit, allowing me to get a minor taste of strategy (if you'd call it that?).

I'd better get a decent TM from this

Afterward, I was congratulated by my rival and left to go...somewhere? I have no idea. I wandered for like 30 minutes all over the copy/pasted landscapes and could find no way to progress. Probably somethin' due to the language barrier. I think I saw where I needed to go, but some idiot blocked me off and wouldn't allow me to pass. I slipped a 20 in his pocket, but the jerk just looked the other way. There goes my dinner payment.

There're also these random holes in the ground I can't seem to reach. Who built this infrastructure? ...Are the races in the sewers? (Cue repressed memories of Battletoads)

Guess that's the end of my journey here. This one was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. It seemed like it had potential, but the crappy map design, boring monsters, even more boring gameplay, and inclusion of brood parasites just made for a dull experience. This explains why I'm not going on another date with this title. It might be more fun if it got translated, but why bother? I'd rather take this Sprite of Passage and run. Hopefully faster than these loser monsters.

brings new meaning to 'time is running out!'

[trademarkblue]

I’ve been tagged by @like-a-whisper x

1. Nicknames: Blue, TM

2. Gender: Female

3. Star sign: Scorpio

4. Height: 5 feet / 153 cm approx

5. Time: 10:28pm

6. Birthday: October

7. Favorite bands: Frightened Rabbit, Jinja Safari, Radiohead, Art Brut, Bombay Bicycle Club, Animal Collective, Everything Everything, Foals, The Strokes, Violens, Washed Out, They Might Be Giants

8. Favorite solo artists: Astrid S, Owl John, frYars, Lucy Rose, Rae Morris, Tame Impala, Roosevelt, Mallrat, Pepa Knight, Baths

9. Song stuck in my head: "Nobody Compares to You" by Gryffin feat. Katie Pearlman

10. Last movie I watched: Prevenge

11. Last show I watched: The Twilight Zone

12. When did I create my blog: April 2011

13. What do I post/reblog: Ron/Hermione, general HP, a smattering of X-Files and Outlander and a few other random things that I find amusing or funny

14. Last thing I googled: yoga classes

15. Other blogs: A few, but not related to fandom. Does my LJ count? Please help me start the LJ revival!

16. Do I get asks: Yep. Crap, I need to answer those...

17. Why I choose my URL: Because someone stole TMBlue on here! The last thing they posted was a picture of watches, and that was 3 years ago... sigh. But, I see what the point of this question really was, and that's why I chose my pen name, I guess. Honestly? I don't really even remember anymore. It's been that long. I just love angst, and Ron's eyes probably played a part ha.

18. Following: skipping...

19. Followers: this kind of question makes me sad, so I’m skipping it (don’t think people should be concerned so much with popularity)

20. Average hours of sleep: 7

21: Lucky number: none... I like 7, 8, and 13, but who doesn't

22. Instruments: piano, violin

23. What I’m wearing: t-shirt, jeans, boots

24. Dream job: travel blogger; run my own cinema, cafe & cocktail bar

25. Dream trip: I have a ton but some specifically on my mind a lot lately are Iceland, Croatia, Antarctica

26. Favorite food: all the cheese, all the roasted vegetables honestly, tarts and quiche and ice cream, all the coffee, all the craft cocktails

27. Nationality: American... but Irish/Scottish ancestry

28. Favorite song right now: "Better" by Mallrat

29. Last book I read: Gosh... I uh, I never read. I tried to work through the fourth Outlander novel, and I'm always dipping in and out of HP audiobooks...

30. Top Three Fictional Universes You’d Want to Join: Harry Potter. Do I have to name two more? Uh. Can I live in the unicorns and centaurs section of Fantasia?? Or maybe Moulin Rouge, or just a Baz Luhrmann world.

I’ll tag --- @wildegreenlight, @theperksofshippingromione, @remedial-potions, @hermionewazlib, @diva-gonzo, @aloemilk, @honouraryweasley12, @otterandterrier

[closedspeciesdrama]

Re: The Wendigo argument, there's this instability trait which is prevalent on the internet these days. There are a lot of very unstable young men and women who try to give themselves meaning and worth by deeming themselves "gatekeepers" of either political correctness or cultural appropriation. Down to a man the ones I've seen in CS and in other communities are typically insecure to the point of near-mania and with any number of mental issues. Gatorbite and VCR are like poster boys. 1 of 2

- The best way to deal with this sort of nonsense isn’t to argue with them which is ultimately narcissistic supply and a means for them to try and show how morally “superior” they are to their victim, it’s simply best to flat out block them if needed or ignore them. Might seem harsh but I have personal issue with the way they use issues of gender and culture to bully every community they touch and to intimidate younger people with threats of dubbing them “bad people” or public defamation. 2 of 2

(1)Citing “Windigo Psychosis: the anatomy of an emic-etic confusion” an academic journal by a group of anthropologists: “When the windigo phenomenon is considered from the point of view of group sociodynamics rather than from that of individual psychodynamics, the crucial question is not what causes a person to become a cannibalistic maniac, but under what circumstances a Northern Algonkian is likely to be accused of having become a cannibalistic maniac(2)and thus run the risk of being executed as such. It is argued that those so executed were victims of triage homicide or witch hunts, events common in societies under stress.” Hell just that alone should be enough. Algonkians and other natives were straight up murdered over a mythological creature that was used against them. No one besides Algonkians are in any placeto make a CS/adopt design based on something with such a dark historical context.(3)Looking beyond Wikipedia could have easily told you this. Also, no anon, you fucking idiot, the wendigo was a thing before the term “wendigo psychosis” even existed as a culture-bound syndrome. AND IF YOU PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER… usually “culture-bound” syndromes are inherently racist and untrue.

Didn’t vcr-wolfe get called out for something too tho like if you’re gonna be the 1# sjw for everything wouldn’t it be ironic to get a call out for a shitty thing you’ve done

OH MY GOD. that post is LITERALLY a whole fucking year ago. once again vendetta anons pull shit from their ass. that character isnt even a freaking adopt, and vcr doesnt even have a species and has hardly sold maybe 3 adopts in the last 6 months? maybe if yall weren’t reaching so far into the past for some petty bs we could stay on topic for once lmao

Wait is there any proof of them being white?? I’ve I beleive I saw vcr wolfe say they’re native or smth before. But the thunderbird thing is so stupid lmao in the Wild West tm a lot of towns only had like white people because natives were driven out. I mean depending on the characters setting. Plus there’s majority of white people. Thunderbirds aren’t like a wendigo, you can say it’s name and talk about it and it wouldn’t attack just you so I don’t see a problem lmao

I think the issue here is you’re going to have people from a culture saying something is offensive, but someone else from the same culture saying that it’s not offensive and they’re glad you’re taking interest in their culture in the first place. See: Every East Asian mythology based CS out there, basically. Literally there is no right or wrong across the board, nobody “wins”, and that’s just how life is. Grey morality exists, just let people make content they enjoy ffs.

I think the issue here is you’re going to have people from a culture saying something is offensive, but someone else from the same culture saying that it’s not offensive and they’re glad you’re taking interest in their culture in the first place. See: Every East Asian mythology based CS out there, basically. Literally there is no right or wrong across the board, nobody “wins”, and that’s just how life is. Grey morality exists, just let people make content they enjoy ffs.

People act like VCR-WOLFE’s word is law or something. I can see being passionate about causes and all but they take the cake for extremism. People should be allowed to make a character any race to fit their preferences or just their likes, of course within being respectful. I think VCR gets some kind of high and mighty buzz by going after people, especially us evil whites.

multiple poc: hey this is offensive. yall: uhm idk that sounds fake :/. one poc: yeah it’s fake. yall, digging your claws in: YOU SEE? WE WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG! THIS ONE POC HAS VALIDATED OUR RACISM FOREVER! *pterodactyl screech*

Is vcr wolfe a serious account or is it just some random asshole that enjoys stirring up people by being the dictionary image for the social justice warrior stereotype that literally everyone hates. I have seen them be a little weiner before (cue them accusing me of misgendering them), I would take nothing they say seriously because honestly they are a joke.

Why does this Wendigo shit still come up? This is the same as the sombrero Mario crap that blew up on twitter. Quit speaking for other cultures that you don’t belong to. Native American people have expressed both support and distain for the issue. A wendigo is a monster, why is making a monster be a monster suddenly such a taboo? You can white knight the subject to death, you aren’t in the wrong but you’re certainly not in the right either. If you don’t support it then don’t.

context: the wendigo was used as a slur and label for natives/Algonquins who were mentally ill (aka called them canibals; hence “wendigo psychosis”) and was used to justify their genocide so making an adopt out of such a theme isn’t taken lightly as this has a historic context you can’t erase (source: I live in the algonquin northeast) (½)mythical creatures such as vampires and werewolves come from a ton of different cultures and generally they’ve been reinterpreted so often that it doesn’t retain its origin context. here’s another point- the Algonquin people still exist. despite the mythical creature being used against them they are more than in the right to use it how they see fit. it’s sorta like how the lgbt community took back the word “queer” while a straight person should definitely not call a gay person “a queer” (2/2)

Btw the wendigo isn’t a legend ! It’s a tale told up north and is taken very seriously. The reason people don’t want you to use it is because saying the name is suppose to make you a victim ( aa I forgot I’m sorry ) BUT I still beleive if you do your research u should be okay like just don’t make it a xD murderer monster cannibal

The thing with a wendigo character is not everyone is going to see/research the full story of them, because they’ve been big in media for awhile now. Until Dawn, Supernatural, even My Little Pony. And tbh, it’s something that while drifting away from the original intent, does bring traditional stories to the homes of others, who otherwise would never know the term, or know of the monsters. Mass media is keeping our culture alive, even as we kill it ourselves by not letting others near it.

this just in: vcr-wolfe solely dictates what can and cannot be used from cultures in character designs

VCR is mixed actually lol

VCR-wolfe is actually half mexican. So maybe don’t be fucking racist?

Can we stop the “ insulting = I’m right” thing it’s so stupid. If someone’s discussing something or DOESNT KNOW you don’t have to insult them. You look like a jerk js ( this is towards the anon in the wendigo post about wendigo-psychosis). The person was just basically saying ‘fun fact’ no need to call them a fucking idiot jeez

Mixed with what? I’ve seen this argument on another drama site. If they are mixed, they are white enough to pass as entirely white. Even then your word isn’t some divine rule on what is right & wrong. VCR constantly leans on the “I’m mentally ill” schtick, maybe they should focus on themselves for a bit & quit badgering people that want to enjoy another culture. Geez would bringing back segregation make you fuckers happy, let start DNA testing before you can draw or create a non white character.

The anon about wendigo pychosis got their panties in a twist lmao. If we can’t use anything with “” dark historical context" or “ only ____ are allowed to use this” then we all might as well sick to our own religions and make nothing but what we’re born into/practice. So if you’re native and you make a nun rabbit prepare for a ass chewing ! :( keep whining about everything you just sound like a broken record lmao you “” fucking idiot “”

Wait so if vcr-Wolfe isn’t native what say do they got in it then??? If they’re Mexican/white ??? Why don’t they step down and let real native/mixed natives speak for themselves and not have someone gatekeeping their beliefs Jesus lord I LOVE when none natives try to speak for my culture

Multi poc people: this is bad y'all: SEE ITS EVIL Multi poc: its alright do your research tho Y'all: WTF THATS BAD WHAT ABOUT OUR TOKEN FRRIENDS SAYING ITS OKAY AAAA Get your head out your ass dude there’s two sides to the shit just because people back your opinion doesn’t mean you can use your poc friends as a way to wave it around. You’re being just as bad to diss other peoples opinions FROM THE SAME GROUP lmao

i’m ndn, and personally my opinion on the entire thing is, don’t make wendigo characters for profit in general, especially if you’re not ndn. i don’t even like seeing my brothers, sisters, and two-spirited brethren do it. it’s one thing to make one for personal use, and as long as you’re not making them uwu edgy wendigo doggo that eats people uwu then.. honestly? who cares. but stop making wendigos when you know nothing about the culture, or that many tribes have different lore on it.

also the entire thing of wendigo psychosis being a thing: false. that was a term made up waaaaay after the fact. the thing is, there are multiple tribes that believe in wendigo, many have different names for it, and there’s even variations born differently like wechuge. but the fact of the matter is that most people don’t even read in or pay attention beyond the edgy cannibal shit to know that a wendigo is pretty much a skeleton made out of ice in most tribal cultures LMAO not a fucking dog

the entire purpose of people saying ‘hey if you don’t understand it, don’t make it’ is so that you don’t make a mockery of our legends, lore, culture, and history. not so you can’t have fun. it’s like me making a black character and making them stereotypical and completely shitting on it, and then doubling back with the ‘oh i made a black character so i understand black struggles’ shit like. it’s not cute when you do it to any race or culture so stop.

Why is it a crime to make Wendigo characters but when some family lines (before me, I don’t care) wouldn’t approve of the use of nordic mythos no one bats an eye at adopts that play off them, or for that matter, movies and shows that paint them in completely inaccurate ways. You can’t close the mythos of one culture & make it untouchable while saying some are fine to take from, that isn’t how it works. 

VCR is mixed Mexican Navajo and saying a mixed person is basically white is just fucking ugly and racist as shit, holy shit

Nordic myth is white myth and white people are not in any danger of having their culture stamped out and then reinterpreted by their oppressors while they are punished for trying to access it, unlike, you know, Native American myth. Reverse racism isn’t real

‘nordic myth is white myth and–’ it’s still someone’s religion, so yeah actually it still stands, either all religions are sacred inherently and are off limits or none are and you can’t bitch and whine and moan and throw a social justice tantrum into that being untrue, people making shitty wendigo ocs isn’t stamping anyone’s religion out any more than marvel making a shitty version of loki is, they’re equally stupid but harmless 

Except there is a huge fucking difference between open and closed religions? Nordic pagan worship is an open religion. Native folk religions are closed religions. Christianity is an open religion. The Amish are, by and large, a closed sect. Sincerely, an nordic heathen who knows full well what people can take from my belief system

“Werehyenas can’t be made into species and characters because they appropriate African culture uwu~” The hyena and werehyena have a very similar negative connotation in African folklore by you don’t see them getting so butt hurt over them being used. I get so sick and tired of people saying you can’t base a CS or Character off of a fictional monster. I guess I should toss out my Church Grim OC because that’s an insult to English and Scandinavian Folklore as it guards a place considered sacred

literally no one is saying dont ever do it theyre saying be respectful, follow the originating culture’s traditions, and dont slap a native myth on a white character because its disrespectful to the culture you supposedly like so much youre pulling from them. entitled much?

"my friend finds this thing offensive! your friend doesn't find this offensive? stop tokenising your friends, also YOUR friends are WRONG!" so native voices only count when they agree with you? maybe accept that an individual can't speak for an entire group, and that people from within the same culture can have very different ideas about what cultural appropriation even is.

Everyone yelling about wendigos when they're ignoring the fact Sincommonstitches literally made a design based off the imperial rising sun (you know- rape of Nanking?? Children and women slaughtered?) and day of the dead (mexican holiday already shit on for $$$) guardians, sold them for profit, and then bitched in a journal when they got called out how they shouldn't have to deal with this and they need their fiance to handle their pr now lmfao

Keeping all this in one post, anything new sent in will be added to this post. While it is on topic, it is far from species related. 

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Review: Before They Are Hanged

by Wardog

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

Wardog tries not to sound too bitterly disillusioned.~

Still high from

my astonishingly gushy review

of Joe Abercrombie's first book, The Blade Itself, I recently embarked upon part two of the trilogy, Before They Are Hanged. If nothing else, it's an object lesson in why one shouldn't bandy the phrase "the best fantasy I've read" about without due care and attention. In short, then, the bad news is that The First Law Trilogy is not going to be the, ahem, fantasy masterpiece I thought it was; nor is it a cunning subversion of the genre or a profound meditation on the nature of the violence or any of the other silly silly things I tried to claim it was. In good, news, however, it's still okay. Well, better than average at least.

Relatively Spoiler-Free Comments

Following on at a fair pace from the events of the first book, Before They Are Hanged basically devolves into three probably connected but currently non-overlapping plot threads: you have Inquisitor Glokta fortifying Dagoska against the impending Gurkish Invasion, you have Colonel West on the frontlines of the war between the Union Forces and the Northmen and you have Bayez The Probably Batshit First Of Magi and his adventuring party (including the feckless swordsman Jezel and the thinking man's barbarian Logen Ninefingers) off on a quest for Generic Fantasy Artefact TM. All of Abercrombie's strengths are present: solidly drawn, generally morally interesting characters, crisp, sharp dialogue, exceptionally clear and vivid action sequences and a reasonable command of plotting and pacing (I was genuinely impressed when the war actually kicked off on page 187). Unfortunately, his weaknesses are also more apparent in this second outing.

Specifically, what seemed intriguingly and comfortingly generic the first time round now seems merely generically generic - the Traditional Fantasy Quest Plot, for example. It's engagingly written but it's still by far and away the least interesting third of the book. Subtleties of morality and characterisation also seem to have been lost: Jezel's redemption arc via a mace in the face is both abrupt and unconvincing; Colonel West, who was a minor player in the first book takes a more central role here but his self-disgust and his lack of self-awareness are portrayed rather clumsily, and Logen seems to have become the book's moral mouthpiece, a role which doesn't suit him and actually makes him come across as the oddest Mary Sue ever to grace the pages of fantasy fiction. Whereas all the other characters are just as much the sum of their flaws as their virtues, in Before They Are Hanged, it rapidly becomes apparent (and without giving too much away) that Logen's flaws, like his capacity for violence and destruction, are external to him rather than integral: this unbalances his character when set against the others, as well as making him significantly less interesting.

At least the crippled inquisitor, Glokta, remains as cool as ever. He's such a wonderful character that the book is worth reading for him alone.

In non-spoilerful conclusion, then, Before They Are Hanged is an above-average fantasy novel. To my mind it doesn't quite live up to the potential of the first but then there's a high probability I read things into The Blade Itself that weren't actually there at all. Nevertheless, it remains for the most part a well-written, well-structured and well-paced read that doesn't suffer too badly from fantasy-trilogy sag. It's won't change your life but it will pass the time effectively and competently, and Abercrombie has a real knack for action so expect some impressively bloody battles.

However, I do have some quite serious concerns / niggles that cannot be discussed without:

Massive Big Honking Spoilers

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As I mentioned earlier in this review, I felt that the characterisation suffered from being less nuanced than in The Blade Itself and this also applies to the book's depiction of morality. Specifically, what I really liked about The Blade Itself was its portrayal of violence. It's a typical low fantasy world so horrible things happen to semi-horrible people all the time and the book did a wonderful job of evoking the reality of that kind of society and that kind of violence. It was never gratuitously in your face about it but it was something Abercrombie did really very vividly. The Blade Itself seemed to be saying that a will towards power, violence and destruction is very much a natural part of being human - even the title, which I believe is a re-working of a quote from Homer which goes something like "the presence of weapons themselves is an encouragement to use them" seems to be concerned with the articulation of this idea. What made Logen so intriguing a character in such a world was that, as a brutal killer, he had essentially come full circle. The ultimate survivalist had become the ultimate moralist: a man who fought no longer for survival but for what he believed was right. However, in Before They Are Hanged, violence is portrayed - deliberately or not - as something very much outside and closed off from ordinary human experience: in extremis, West basically goes nuts and bites someone's nose off, Logen's barbarism is located in a spirit that possess him not within his own nature and Glotka, of course, continues to helplessly do unto others what was done to him.

I know we end up talking about rape a lot here but there's a really annoying nearly-rape in Before They Are Hanged that also ties into my concerns about the book's wavering moral compass. West is sent out to the front lines with the Crown Prince and an army of starving peasantry, where it is hoped the Prince can feel important and gather glory without ever actually encountering the reality of war. Needless to say, he's a complete waste of space and ends up taking the ragged army of ill-equipped and untrained peasants out to meet the Northman and everybody gets horrifically slaughtered, except West, the Prince, a random blacksmith chick and a small retinue of Northmen trying to oppose their war-mongering King. Then there's a lot of trudging around in cold trying to get the Prince to safety, during which time the Prince continues to be a complete waste of space in every conceivable way, showing no gratitude for those who are risking their lives to protect him or the thousands he just sent off to their deaths. Finally, West catches him in the act of trying to rape the random blacksmith chick, flips out and throws him off a cliff. Now, don't get me wrong. Rape is a terrible terrible thing. But the waste-of-space Crown Prince is also responsible for the deaths of literally thousands of people: surely that was the time to shove him off a cliff?

You can argue that Abercrombie is making an interesting point regarding the personal versus the political and that it is the small acts that affect us that individuals that spur us into action, rather than the huge acts that destroy the lives of thousands. But truthfully it just seems like typical fantasy novel inconsistency to me, and the incident says more about Abercrombie as a writer than about West as a character. As I have already written about at length in various places on this site, I hate the fact that fantasy writers tend to use rape as some kind of moral shorthand. In this instance (as in others), I very strongly felt that throwing out a casual rape scene as a way to convince us the Crown Prince really is as bad as we think he is, merely lessened the impact of his previous atrocities and implies an unhelpful moral equivalence I don't mean to get all Jeremy Bentham about it but surely Abercrombie is not trying to get us to weigh the attempted rape of one woman against the lives of thousands of peasants.

My final irritation has nothing to do with morals, merely time-wasting. One of the three plotlines, as I have mentioned, is a Generic Fantasy Quest. However, when the party arrives at its destination the Generic Fantasy Object they are seeking is conspicuous by its absence. This naturally ends the book on a note of self-conscious anti-climax. Although this is ... I suppose ... interesting in theory it is, in practice, as you might expect, anticlimactic i.e. massively unsatisfying. I read pretty quickly but nevertheless Joe Abercrombie essentially just made me about 200 hundred pages for absolutely nothing. It seems there's only one thing worse than a Generic Fantasy Quest Plot and that's a completely pointless Generic Fantasy Quest Plot. Grrr. I'm sure it'll make sense once placed in the context of the final novel but that doesn't excuse the fact that it renders a third of this one hollow.Themes:

Books

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Joe Abercrombie

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Sci-fi / Fantasy

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Joe W

at 10:28 on 2008-06-19I'm looking forward to your analysis of the last book (which I can lend you, if you want)

SPOILERS of Before They Are Hanged BELOW

I share a lot of your criticisms about this book- in particular I also disliked the resolution of the Generic Fantasy Quest Plot.

I'm in two minds about Ladisla's death. I don't mind West killing him for the rape attempt; I can quite happily see it as the straw that broke the camel's back. I can quite easily see why you'd kill a man for that, but not for willful stupidity that leads to thousands of deaths. After all getting to do the latter is one of the traditional perks of being royalty- it was idiotic but not actively malicious.

What I didn't like was how much of a caricature Ladisla was- I could have lived with him as simply being utterly crap, but the rape attempt took him straight from crap into wilfully evil. I'd expected some sort of twist to the character and then was disappointed when it panned out just as I'd expect in any other book.

I will note in reference to one of your other points. that I don't think the Bloody-Nine is a spirit external to Logen; I think that like West he goes batshit in a fight- it's just that Logen tries so hard to divorce himself from the berserker that he no longer even self-identifies in that state.

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Dan H

at 13:52 on 2008-06-19

What I didn't like was how much of a caricature Ladisla was- I could have lived with him as simply being utterly crap, but the rape attempt took him straight from crap into wilfully evil.

That's usually my problem with the Obligatory Fantasy Rape Scenes. It's so often used as evidence that a particular character is zomg teh evil. See my recent article on /Age of the Five/.

As for the Bloody-Nine, I've only read the first book, and I was certainly *concerned* that there was going to be a "big reveal" to the effect that Logan was effectively controlled by an external spirit. If it remains ambiguous throughout all three books, then that's a lot better than I was expecting.

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Wardog

at 15:02 on 2008-06-19I do actually have The Last Argument of Kings - I was so passionately in love with TBI that I rushed out and bought both sequels. I'm giving myself a break to try and get over the fact that they're not what I thought they were and enjoy them for what they actually are - but I'll certainly be embarking it upon it in the next couple of weeks. But thank you kindly for the offer.

I know what you mean about Ladisla; everything about the character, and the way he's dealt with, annoys me. Being idiotic is, as you say, a traditional perk of being royalty BUT it's like he's deliberately set up so that you want somebody (probably West) to just freak out and kill the guy. I remember thinking to myself as I was reading the bit where West literally begs him not to throw away probably the war and all of those lives, "kill him, West, just kill him now." And, of course, he doesn't. He just grits his teeth and respects the institution of the monarch as, living in a heredity monarchy, you probably would. So that's why the rape-triggered freak out irritates me particularly. But, yes, you're right - it's also just depressing to have a cardboard cutout in a world otherwise by populated by quite interestingly flawed people. Even Arch Lector Sult - who is basically hand-rubbingly evil from toes to nose - is *interesting*.

About Logen ... mmm...I'm not sure. Perhaps you're right that it's just a psychological trick he's developed to protect himself from the truth of what he really is but it seems to me that the narrative seems to hinting otherwise. I mean, there's that scene where they're all sitting round the campfire confessing their mistakes (Bayaz talks about his love his master's daughter and all that stuff) and Logen talks about the time he killed his best friend and didn't remember doing it, and gives a long list of similar incidents. Also when the narrative describes Logen in extreme beserker mode it does differentiate between Logen and this other force, The Bloody Nine. Maybe you're right and it's just a rhetorical trick and you probably know since you've read the last book but even if it is just a metaphor it nevertheless isolates Logen's violent identity as something other to who he really is...

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Arthur B

at 12:31 on 2011-04-11Oh dear. I just tried to read this one and failed horribly. Maybe it's just that I left it over a year since reading the previous one - but then again, they weren't published that close to each other, were they? - but it failed to grab me early on. I tried to give it a fair chance and told myself I'd read up to page 100 and see if it had grown on me by that point, but it turned out to be a serious struggle to force myself to even get as far as page 50, so I gave up.

I think part of the problem was how utterly transparent Abercrombie is in his use of cliches and cheap shots here, combined with how shallow and simplistic the situations he constructs is.

The major example in the section I've picked out: you've got West briefing the generals and the Crown Prince on the situation in Angland, and the prince and both generals are all such over-the-top cartoons that West might as well have been briefing General Stickupthearse, General Flouncey-Dandy, and Crown Prince Totalfuckingdisaster, with Marshall Basicallyagoodsort looking on approvingly. The characterisation is so heavy-handed that you can't really take anything away from it beyond "these are the characters you are supposed to like, these are the characters you are supposed to hate."

I didn't even get to anything about Bayaz's wizardy quest, and I had this sudden epiphany where I realised that I had completely ceased to care about said quest. I didn't care about any of the characters I remembered from the last book at all. Maybe that's a consequence of leaving it so long to read book 2, or maybe that's why I left it so long in the first place: I just didn't

care

any more.

[dragonboyteeth]

Wolf son and tiny wife? I'm intrigued, tell me more :3

*screams internally* I was writing a really long response to this and my computer crashed while I was just gaining steam!!!And I'm too lazy to try to recreate it rip

Anyway... "Wolf son" refers to my main OC Raskaal, who actually has no direct connections with wolves at the moment but in past versions he has had varying amounts of wolfness and one time he was even full on furry (which did not work well and I changed it back quickly). I’m considering fleshing out my world’s pantheon a bit better so I can make his patron deity a wolf. I’m just too attached to his wolfy connection. 

His tiny wife is Faith, who he does not actually marry for a very long time. She is also not my OC-- I would tag the original creator but she isn’t on tumblr. However, we’re close friends and she has given me permission to write about Faith within the context of my own stories. Anyway, Ras is very tall and Faith is very smol so next to him she looks absolutely tiny. People who see them actually have a bad habit of assuming that Raskaal is older than Faith (which is not helped, at all, by a complicated time-travel plot after they get married where by the time it gets sorted out Ras actually is older than Faith). So these random strangers will shame Ras for “robbing the cradle” or being a sugar daddy (even though he’s poor af) and he will try to ignore them because he knows he’s not doing anything wrong but he doesn’t have the time or the motivation to try to explain himself to every self-righteous dumbass he comes across but then Faith will start ranting at them about how they should think before they judge (and after the time travel plot! she actually starts yelling that age is just a number! which is actually contrary to Raskaal’s own beliefs [they were only a couple months apart when they got married and after Time Travel the age gap made him very uncomfortable for a long time]). The very very worst is when Faith is running around super hyper on a caffeine high when she’s already an energetic person (making her look younger than she is) and Ras is having a bad day for depression so he can’t give her distractions like he normally does and some stranger will say to Ras “get a better hold on your daughter! she’s totally undisciplined!” and then Faith will blow up into an extra salty (and loud because she’s still on a caffeine rush) rant and the whole time Ras is trying to hide in his coat bc he didn’t even want to leave the house today

But that is actually pretty far beyond the point I’m trying to write at this point (I’ve only got three chapters, badly written, and on wattpad no less, rip). Raskaal actually goes through a lot of crap before he even meets Faith. I don’t actually want to explain any of that right now because it feels like Spoilers but I can tell you that he has a sister! They are actually not related by blood, but they found eachother when they were both hurting and trying to make it on their own in the adult world at a young age and they adopted eachother. They get an apartment together and they never live separately again, even after Ras and Faith get married and start having kids. Goldwynn is the best auntie, after all lol. Anyway she is a nerd and reads too much and she is also Raskaal’s voice of reason (and Faith’s eventually) and actually if it wasn’t for Goldwynn not only would Raskaal have never met Faith, he would probably have wasted away in his dark room and never come out and/or committed suicide before 18. Goldwynn gets a lot of crap for this arrangement though. Her “friends” constantly give her that Pitying Look TM and give her the same talk about how Raskaal is walking all over her and not giving her the chance to live her own life and,, they’re not entirely wrong about Ras being a burden and unhealthy and how she shouldn’t always do everything for him (I forgot to mention that at the beginning of the story all the relationships between any characters are deeply flawed and unhealthy but don’t worry there is a ton of character development) but her “friends” are actually not intending it the way she needs, if that makes sense, because they are misinterpreting the relationship really bad. They all assume that Goldwynn and Raskaal are sleeping together, as it were, and that the “sibling relationship” is either a lie/cover-up or a kink and it infuriates Goldwynn that they are seen that way because she’s acearo and Ras truly sees her as a sister. (Honestly if Ras managed to make friends with a guy people would probs try to out him as gay... idk why but the way I write Society in General seems to be really fond of getting the wrong idea about his relationships??)

I have so so so so SO much more to say but I’m still sick and I can feel my brain starting to wander so I should probably stop here before I accidentally drop Spoilers but if you have specific questions!  I would love to keep talking about this!!

[the-bearer-of-bad-ideas]

percocet would be such a cute baby name if it wasnt a drug