#most people tend to use only they/them for me and that's a bummer

[technoxenoholic]

i would appreciate if people who are able to do so would make an effort to make sure you're using xey/xem for me sometimes and not only they/them... thank u

[drdemonprince]

hello hello, i am autistic with my special interests being psychology and philosophy and because I'm super into activism and social justice issues as well a lot of my conversations with friends always go in the direction of talking about trauma and classism racism ableism, all the isms and i've had trouble keeping relationships because i'm a "bummer". i don't think im necessarily being negative or trauma dumping but i'm just talking about these things that i think about all the time that interest me and they just so happen to be very sad topics. while i know that i should embrace my special interests and enjoy them however i want i also am aware that constantly talking about sad things and everything wrong in the world is emotionally taxing and draining on the people around me. do you have any advice for helping to change subjects? i've tried talking about more light hearted things but they aren't my special interests and i get bored easily...

I relate to this a lot, and it's a problem I see play out in some of my relationships. Without meaning to, we sometimes get into a mutual downward spiral of only talking about bleak things.

My suggestion is to get you and your friends together for some activities. Not a video game that you can play passively while still discussing the looming threat of climate change or that horrible self-esteem ruining thing your dad once said. Challenging, dynamic, hands-on activities that either have to be discussed while you are doing them, or that are so labor intensive that they prevent you talking in depth while engaging in them.

many Autistics tend to be indoorsy nerds and so we miss out on the genuine bonding experience that is playing on a sports team with someone, for instance. You barely have to speak but you develop a real sense of trust in and gratitude for one another and learn to read one another on an instinctual feeling non verbal level. and you feel the genuine reward of accomplishing something with support, which is something many of us are not familiar with.

I'm uncoordinated as shit, i was in special ed gym, so im not saying it has to be joining the local intramural soccer team. It can be things like building a complicated lego set, organizing records or comic books, helping someone clean out their house, developing a wiki or database of some kind for a fandom or mutual interest, tending to a garden, volunteering at a soup kitchen, visiting a museum, babysitting someone's kids, power washing the deck, going for a jog, visiting an unfamiliar nature trail and documenting the plant life, giving someone a manicure, anything that is challenging and collaborative and ideally somewhat tactile (because most of us are really damn dissociated from our bodies and from physical space).

I used to really discount any form of connection that was not rooted in the exchange of ideas and really intense personal disclosures. I thought everything else was superficial, dull, and not "real". i was so incredibly fucking wrong. i love discussing complex topics and connecting over real raw shit with people but life cannot be all or only that. and there are real, valuable, loving connections to be found in getting a team together to tear down the sets after the end of a play, learning a complicated dance routine with somebody, having someone teach you how to sew for the very first time. and then talking about it. you wont like everything you try but some of these activities will hook you enough that theyll become an interest you can make pleasant conversation about too.

[mxopifex]

So this is Tabea. I remade her in Baldur’s Gate 3 after having played her in a very long running campaign. She is built on spite.

See once upon a time, say 2008, I was dating a guy who asked if I wanted to play D&D with his buddies. I did very much want to do that. I had never played before but I had borrowed the player’s handbook from the library and red them once, but I could never convince folks to play with me.

Now this was the tail end of 3.5 and the book bloat by this point was obscene. So rather than have me flounder around a giant stack of books like a confused baby I was passed off to the guy who was kind of a rules lawyer, but who could be relied upon to make me a character without it taking all night. (A bit of politics I only understood in hindsight)

He asked me what kind of character I wanted to play.

I said an elven ranger with a bow because early 20’s me was skinny and blonde and wanted to be seen as graceful. Plus I knew they had animal companions and that seemed neat.

“Anything a ranger can do, a fighter can do better.” Direct quote.

So my first DnD character was a fighter. I did not enjoy playing her, she was boring. Not an animal companion in sight. But luckily it didn’t sour me on the game.

Skip ahead ten ish years. I’m still friends with most of the people I played with that day, even the guy I am no longer dating. Mr. Fighters offers to GM a 5e game. He wants us to use rolled stats in order with a randomly generated race though. To keep us from just bringing out character types we’ve played before.

I get high a Dex and Wis human. The opportunity to do something very petty arises. See the reason Mr. Fighter liked fighter’s better is he tends to favor highly optimized DPS builds. So I build a ranger with two weapon fighting. I gave her colossus slayer. By the end of the campaign she had two attacks per turn, plus her off hand weapon, (she had a pair of magic scimitars) add in hunter’s mark and colossus slayer and she was regularly pulling in 40+ hp of damage a round. No sneak attack conditions. Only one spell slot expended. Just had to get in melee range, which the GM went to increasingly large and convoluted battle maps to slow her progress. I out fightered Mr. Fighter.

He called her the blender. She is my silly petty vengeance. She’s also a butch cause mid 30s Sharon has different taste now that I’ve embraced fully being queer. Still no animal companion cause 5e rules for that are kind of a bummer, but nothings perfect.

Anyway I sent the above picture of her covered in blood to him with the note “The Blender in her natural habitat.” He laughed. DnD is good.

[unsentimentaltranslator]

“Wait, why are the edgelords right about the people who make ‘translation is loss’ posts?”

I don’t want any of the people I reblogged from under my old account, or any of the people I will undoubtedly reblog from under this account, to think I’m judging them for reblogging those posts. Those posts are the only point of view that non-translators on here tend to see, both because media translation is more interesting to the average non-translator than the majority of what we do and because while the tortured artist types are posting their laments on the internet, the rest of us are typically just getting on with our work. But “translation is sad because you can’t translate great literature in a way that fully replicates the experience enjoyed by those who speak the original language” is…not the best way to conceptualise translation for numerous reasons.

1. Most translators will never get to work on high-profile literature projects. You know that line in the song Don’t Be A Lawyer in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend where he says “Did you hope one day you’d find a way to spend four years working on a pharmaceutical company’s merger with another pharmaceutical company?” Yeah. And that’s not always a bad thing. “Translation is loss” is a romantic way of saying “if you work on prestigious literary projects, EVERYONE will have an opinion about the translation you did and many of those opinions will be the same kind of bitching that any high-profile creator has to deal with”. At most, I’d be willing to work on something like Marie Kondo’s books, where the audience is interested in the substance, not the style. Beyond that, forget it. I know what people are like.

2. Translation loss in prestigious literature is the kind that’s most talked about, but it’s one of the least actually consequential kinds. Not getting 100% of the original experience of reading a novel might be a bit of a bummer, but it’s not comparable to people dying because someone messed up a translation for an aircraft or a medical device or a bridge. It just isn’t. In my country, a dodgy translation of a treaty occupies the same place in our history as the smallpox-covered blankets in American history. That’s a tragedy. “We can be sad about both!” But you’re not.

3. Bridging the gaps between the two languages is OUR FUCKING JOB. If it was easy, we wouldn’t be hired in the first place. Academic study for translators is not supposed to be a fucking funeral for the source text (again, where would we be if translators in fields like aviation, medicine and construction did that?!); it is supposed to equip you with the analytical and problem-solving skills necessary to create the best target text possible. Which brings me to my final point:

4. If you’re a novice translator, the reason you find it so difficult to convey the source text in a way that is both accurate and natural is BECAUSE YOU ARE NEW TO THIS. You are going to need a lot of corrections at first. WE ALL DO. Some people never get good enough to translate professionally, just as not everyone is cut out to be a professional writer or artist or doctor or lawyer or teacher or pilot or athlete. That isn’t the profession’s fault. Every novice translator has to deal with a difficult learning curve and you can either blame it on the inherent nature of the profession or you can work on becoming the best translator you can be.

In closing:

 “ReAdEr i HaVe TaKeN LiBeRTiEs” NO FUCKING SHIT.

[murphallo]

Your thoughts on Chenford and their relationship moving forward?

Thoughts on 5.13?

i’m having a bad time lol

i’ve been ranting and raving about this in detail for the better part of two months so i’ll try to keep this to bulletpoints. i think the way they got together was rushed (yes, rushed), poorly written, and i think they cut the burn off before the part a LOT of people waited so long for (angst, pining, arc, plot whatsoever) i think it was a bonkers decision to get such a well set up ship together in the midseason bc they were just like “eh fuck it here is good” and i have no beef with people who are satisfied with how it went down but i think when people who are disappointed express their gripes on their own damn account, people tend to purposely misunderstand. examples include “how can chenford be rushed if they took 4.5 seasons to get together?” to which i’d answer a. we are not saying chenford is rushed we’re saying the way they got together was rushed. b. it’s funny to me how people think that investing years of time and effort and heart to a ship should make us LESS invested in how they get together. c. bruh i’m asking myself the same question it’s actually kinda impressive that they managed to rush a ship after that long.

as for the story going forward, i’ve kinda lost hope in 5b at least. it’s beautiful to see them so enamored with each other and i will watch the scenes and smile at them bc they are adorable in a vacuum but as for the big picture, i find the writing overall to be quite dumb lately. i find it dumb that their biggest boundary to being together was work and they solved that in one episode in the most boring way they could muster. i find it dumb that it seems like we did not get to see the team find out they’re together. i find it dumb that we were given no reason for them “taking it slow” and then giving in after a couple weeks even though that pre sex makeout was hot as hell ngl (see what i mean?? in a vacuum!!) i find many many things dumb and weird and even though the scenes give me buzz, chenford used to have chem and story for me and tho the chem remains higher than it’s ever been, the story has, in my opinion, been shot in the face.

last week with the work thing was kinda my last straw so i am taking a break from the rookie and watching the chenford scenes on twitter bc i was getting way way too hateful watching week to week. i’d rather be a positive presence in a fandom im in so i don’t go out of my way to stare my displeasure publicly, i only do to reach out to other people who feel the way i do and want to vent bc nothing starts internet friendships like a good bitching session. i do feel like because the relationship is hitting the gas like this, we might??? be on our way to the other shoe dropping and me personally………. my prayer is a breakup lol i’m hoping they break up and then we’re actually given some proper angst and pining (even though i think we should’ve gotten that BEFORE they went canon but what do i know) now… i don’t know what they would break up over with the work issue out of the way and it would probably be something, say it with me, DUMB, but i would be willing to consider tuning in again if my trust miraculously grew back lol so YEAH those are my thoughts.

if you’re happy with how they got together, i truly honestly do not care and i’m happy you’re satisfied lol at a certain point it all comes down to personal preference, and for me personally, it feels like they went out of their way to miss every box on my checklist which is a bummer bc i used to love literally every scene interaction and bit of writing between them and now… not so much. i still love them, and i love the first four seasons, i just think the writing took a huge ass stumble at the literal worst time possible. but it would take a stronger person than i to turn my nose up at gifs of the 5x12 makeout so if absolutely nothing else, at least i’ll always have that 🤡🤡

[ilovewebtoons]

Hii, I just wanted to rate some Webtoons I’ve read in the past.

I Love Yoo

The art is great and it used to be my favorite webtoon but after a while it starting dragging. The characters became more unlikable and unfortunately the webtoon lost its humor which I had considered its greatest charm. The issue is that chapters feel way too dense nowadays. Its a shame because I had been looking forward to see my ship develop. Reading the first ten chapters and then the last few shows how much the tone of the story has changed. The best part of the story was in my opinion the Gala arc, right after it the story took a tragic turn. But during it I interacted so much in the fandom and we made theories based on everything! It was so so much fun. I think the biggest bummer is seriously the tonal shift. 6/10

Sirens Lament

I remember reading this weekly when it had barely finished its first season. It was absolutely lovely. The art is breathtaking and the characters are beyond likable, I love them. I just want to root for them all. The ending (honestly the last few chapters) had me in tears and I was completely obsessed with the secondary couple (Tua and Pele omg). I loved it. If I had one criticism, its that after 2/3s of the story the plot started to feel a tiny bit dense at times but even then, just seeing the gorgeous artwork made up for it. 9.5/10

Lets Play

It started off fine, I loved the artstyle and was invested into the plot, and as someone who played a lot of games as a child and young teen, I loved the references to games! The sequence where Marshall began playing the game was, in my opinion, the best part of the entire story. I was reading weekly at the time and Lets play had become the webtoon I looked most forward to updating because of it. That changed once Marshall had finished the game though. What I didn’t like were the things that followed, especially the amount of sexual content. 5/10

Cursed Princess Club

This webtoon is amazing. I’ve been reading it since the day it was released and oh boy, its everything!! It has everything. Likable characters, great humor and an intriguing plot. I don’t even know what else to say. People tend to criticize the artsyle which was remastered in the physical copy, but I never had a problem with it personally. I have the least to say here because I just liked everything. Every decision the author makes, I like. And the plottwists make sense and she also builds up her plot over 100s of chapters, its crazy! Like you’ll be in chapter 100 something and she’ll call back to something said in chapter 12. And the chapters are long. I never feel robbed when spending my coins! 10/10

The four of them

Its a very refreshing webtoon. I love the characters and their development. And honestly, it never once bored me. The 4 main characters are very interesting, and you really just want them to succeed. When they mess up, instead if getting annoyed, I’d root for them to do better next time and learn from their mistakes. And after reading the comments, I can say that most felt that way. The stakes were also rather low which makes the reading experience a lot more chill than the other webtoons, a true breath of fresh air. My only criticism is that the chapter lengths vary to much, so when you’re buying a chapter w coins you take a bit of a risk of getting a shorter one that’ll be done after a minute of reading. Its an amazing story to binge though! 9/10

[adamsvanrhijn]

yes i agree w all of that!! i think it's actually one of the most interesting things tga is doing w/ oscar's storyline, the fear that once you define yourself as an "other" you're essentially cutting yourself off from mainstream society, where in actuality the power dynamic is flipped, and others are defining you whether you like it or not. i think beyond being an experience that many people can relate to, it rings true for the time period and the development of sexual identity that was going on (and assorted attitudes towards that among gay people that i've read about and seen in early gay literature, letters, etc). personally i find it affecting and "period-typical" in the actual sense lol. sorry for these super long asks... i have too many blorbo thoughts rattling around in my head

never apologize for asks... i am not great at answering them but i love them very much 🫶

yeah i think it does ring true for the time period which i appreciate. john is actually the odd one out here in terms of being more recognizable to modern viewers because he is characterizing himself in terms the modern viewer can understand.

side note, sorta kinda — i TRULY dislike how "period typical homophobia" tends to mean "there's homophobia, but only because the time period was homophobic! 👍" rather than "the homophobia is intended to be in line with that representative of the zeitgeist". (can i use zeitgeist in this context.) it's pretty cool to see a tv show intentionally (i assume) demonstrating the reality of the time rather than framing it only in terms the modern viewer can most easily recognize.

i am hopeful that that will continue and that oscar's arc will not see his reckoning with himself and his choices inherently reliant on him developing a more 21st century view of himself. that would be a bummer to me, and i would dislike the implications.

[totentnz]

For the sleepy dialogue prompt: 7!! :3c

Sleepy Dialogue

7. "Did you dream about me?" and "Just put your head on my shoulder." First is (implied) SilverV and the other is some backstory ft. Vincent!

"Did you dream about me?"

v clung onto sleep this morning, comfortably lying on her stomach with one cheek pressed to her pillow. she remained in this position in an attempt to drift off again. a futile attempt as it did not go unnoticed with her roommate - brainmate. "did ya dream about me?" his voice reverberated in her skull, low and rough at the edges as if his own dreams had chipped away at it. v gripped her pillow a little tighter, she really needed to wash these sheets. there was also weight on the mattress beside her; nibbles most likely. "wouldnt blame ya for wantin to go back to sleep." she heard the cockiness in his voice but it didnt frustrate her. he wasn't mocking her; it was flirtatious banter. "like that hm? so smitten with ya, spendin all my waking hours with ya isnt enough?" she lifted her weight up with both her arms, just to collapse back onto the bed, face first into the pillow. the weight also shifted but v did not think to look; this felt nice. "didn't tune in this time?" she answered, her voice slightly muffled by the pillow. "nah. i got some of your memories. bummer, your wet dreams are always so entertaining." johnny replied and there was movement again, it clearly wasn't nibbles since the size didn't fit but v wasn't connecting the dots. "there is plenty of sex in there, maybe one day you will get lucky." she shrugged and raised one hand to her head to scratch her scalp. "yeah, turns out you used to have fun sometimes." there was a certain tinge to his voice that v couldn't quite place but seemed familiar nonetheless. her brow knit together in confusion as the sudden change in tone threw her off. movement again, this time the weight was lifted from the bed. she open her eyes to scan the room for his figure. after a few moments the sound of nibbles scratching on her apartment door, asking to be let in almost startled her. disappointment or maybe regret settled into her chest now.

"Just put your head on my shoulder."

it had only been about a week since they escaped; from their childhood home, their parents and their torment. the final confrontation between their father and v had cost her an eye and him a wounded ego. the twins knew however that their tormentors would not just let them leave and so they had to stay on the move; be a pair of ghosts until they turned eighteen and would be truly free. their new way of living had already taken it's toll, they had nowhere to stay; all the homeless shelters were stock full and even if they weren't they couldn't risk having the badges called on them. "why cant we just stay with the doc? he helped us and he seems nice." vincent asked as he wrapped his arms around his body in an attempt to keep what warmth he had. v only replied with a grumble, she didn't like the thought; they were already in debt to him after he tended to her wounds. "he said he'd help us." there was hopefulness in his voice or maybe naivety; he truly believed his words. when his sister didn't reply he looked upward, scanning the lit windows and wondering what the people in their flats were doing. v had set down a piece of cardboard for them to rest on and finally replied. "dont trust him." she said. "who just helps someone without expecting anything in return?" her pessimism didn't surprise him but the answer was clear to vincent: a good person. his gaze was still directed upward and v indulged as well. "i wanna go home." he mumbled more to himself but it didn't escape her. the statement shot a bolt of unidentifiable emotions through her body. she cant go back. not to that place. not to those people. she had finally broken free of her prison and she would rather freeze to death on the streets than die a coward in the house she grew up in. vincent could felt her reaction; their bond had strengthened over the years of having only each other. v didn't believe in the esoteric side of twin bond but he could feel it every day: her joy lifting his own spirits, her despair deepening his own, her anger seeping into him. "we don't have a home." she finally spoke, bitterness radiating from every syllable; he could almost taste the bile. he finally looked at her again and his eyes were drawn to the dirty bandage wrapped around her head, concealing the wound where her left eye used to be. v noticed his gaze and turned away from him. he leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the cardboard, one hand grabbing hers to pull her down with him. she followed to sit next to him, huddling together. "we can find one. make one." v slung her arm around him, cradling his head in her palm and he allowed her to pull it down to rest on her shoulder. "tomorrow." she nuzzled the top of his head with her face. "get some rest, i'll keep watch."

[hexhomos]

Advice on how to enjoy Jayce outside of Arcane? I don't even like Arcane... But it seems no one remembers he exists outside of that for a decade previously

Im gonna be playing a bit of a bummer role here but........ Jayce focused stuff in fandom is very few and far inbetween. My advice is to curate your tl/dashboard/wherever to include the least amount of stress related to that subject, and if you feel like browsing the character tags is only making your outlook worse, give it a break. (Alternatively: when you do find something you enjoy, let the creator know about it! A comment or compliment goes a long way in terms of encouraging people and that's how you build a niche.)

There used to be a few more league jayce fanwork creators around but I've noticed a sharp decline and migration event since arcane, which isn't rly something I can do much about now nor can I fault them for it 🤷‍♂️

I tend to stick to myself or talk to the same 3ish people that understand what I like, and I'm pretty self-sufficient in that way; the most fun I have is coming up with story or AU concepts that I then throw in gdocs or scribble out on a canvas, and sometimes, if they're legible, I'll share them here for other people. I highly encourage everyone to try their own hand at hyperspecific interest crossovers or comparisons or silly fanart or bulletpoint AU fics that exist for your benefit prior to anybody else's. I'm a creator, and this is the main way I enjoy things. It may be different for you, but I think it's worth giving a shot! I believe the more of something you put out in the world the more it has a chance to take root and give back, but it has to start somewhere.

If reccomendations are what you seek, I can offer [ my fanfic bookmarks ] which contain a lot of jayce-focused works, and you can click on each individual author to browse a few more! (There are others, trust me.)

If you need starting places, try Dialectics and Reflectives or Total Organ Failure -- they set a really nice scene.

In terms of a bit more obscure but very enjoyable fanwork, heres an archive of og lore viktor/jayce art by Kyrrys, including a whole comic

You may also find great joy in Nesirch’s vikjayce twitter moment which has a loooot of 2019+ fanart! PLUS PART 2 (includes arcane)

And The Big Bad Jayvik Compilation, a sizable PDF of archived pre-arcane fic by Tyelperin

I wish I could offer a neater archive of jayce leagueoflegends overall, but it's not something I have ready right now. Maybe someday. When I next get back to you on this, I'll have a few textbased things of my own to add to the pile.

[theschizotypalsolilquy]

Lord I hate that Unravelling Affairs fic so much😭😭. The pining and angst just felt too one sided for me (even towards the end I felt like Jimin was still the one who loved and yearned the most). JK's regret and want of Jimin felt lukewarm. I absolutely hate fics like that, and there's quite a lot of them, unfortunately😩

By the way what other similar fics can you recommend that you know (not cheating, but arranged marriage/forced proximity fics), or even just fics that you've read and loved. Any genre.

I'm bored, the Jikook ao3 tag feels so dry lately (not due to lack of fics but due to lack of QUALITY fics). It's a bummer that Kookministic and Sunnyjinx are updating so slowly because they are the ones carrying the Jikook ao3 tag imo🤧

LoL, hey that story is not everyone's cup of tea. Totally understand. I respectfully disagree about the pining part. You get a glimpse of JK'S thoughts when he is alone in his house before he signs the papers, and also his talk with Tae. I do agree the pining was one-sided when they were married, absolutely.

And ugh....you are so right about the quality of fics in the Jikook tag. There are so many where the plot sounds great, then you start reading and the author hasn't tagged certain things LIKE CHEATING. Or it's the same formula of JK being an absolute fucking horrendous asshole fuckboy and Jimin is the shy timid virgin who pines and pines and pines.

I saw an author arguing with commenters because they hadn't tagged JK with other people, and he's going through omegas like water, yet then they had the audacity to say things aren't as they seem and everything will make sense later. How can things not be as they seem when he is fucking random people at random intervals???

And look, I get it. I understand fanfiction etiquette. Don't say anything negative because these stories are a gift for us. And I try to follow that rule. But I think a lot of readers are getting fed up because some authors are lying about the plot and purposefully not adding the correct tags. Also, you get seven chapters in and all the sudden they are only posting excerpts and if we wanna read it all, we need to go to ko-fi or patreon.

That's why the stories I've recommended lately are a few years older. The tag was FIRE between 2019-2022. I rarely came across a bad fic.

I'm not a huge arranged marriage trope fan, but those tend to happen in the A/B/O stories so I'd search under Omega Park Jimin and Alpha Jeon Jungkook to find them.

Now, authors:

infinitetwinkles

Insideimarainbow

Naturallyvantae

Brewit

My Hope (CutesyMe)

Annie_vi and Charmander

hectorella44

peachywritten

Gylliweed

Shards of the Moon

Elilove

carameLIZed_sugar

ChimmyxKookies (chimmy_loves_kookies)

[dxsole]

I'm so happy to see you. — for Reaper!!

🥺 FOR REAL, FOR REAL? 🥺

Not Accepting.

No one's ever happy to see him.

And he's gotten used to that. Very few have ever been so sure of death, so accepting of it that they took his hand willingly. Most of the time he's meeting people on the worst day of their life...and he's often blamed.

The tears and the bargaining and the screaming tend to die down once he's explained...he harbors no ill will towards them. He wished they could keep living, in fact...he's only the messenger. The guide. The warm hand in your own before you find your path to the afterlife.

They could end the day with a nice conversation at least, but everyone needed to warm up to him first.

Yulia, thankfully, isn't on her deathbed. No, she's just a kind person who's secretly made his day with such simple words— honestly, being greeted a dozen times a die with No! Don't kill me! Don't let me die! is kind of a bummer.

"You'd be the first." He murmurs with a bark of laughter and a shrug. "Usually it's just screaming— can you imagine? 150,000 times a day I just get screaming as a greeting. It's ridiculous."

[bookoramaenderteeth]

The official history of Las Vegas states that the first gambling license was issued in 1931 to the Northern Club, kickstarting its way to become one of the gambling capitals of the world. These days, anyone visiting Vegas will be dazzled by the blaring lights of the casinos, the sounds of thousands of dollars being lost by hapless tourists, the smell of sweat and underlying corruption, the taste of whatever they eat in Vegas, probably hot dogs or something, and the touch of - ok, I’m not going through all the senses, be content with what you got. Where was I? Ah yes. These days you’ll see countless Vegas lights, but once upon a time there was only one light that mattered to anyone visiting Vegas, and that was the lantern Mama Motley used to hang above her door.

Cowpokes and wranglers across the state of Nevada knew Mama Motley’s reputation. Anyone passing through her tiny town of Vegas, from the most black hearted of thugs to the long arm of justice itself, knew they had to watch their step, take off their hat when they spoke to her and keep their noses clean. Rumor had it that Mama Motley had favors owed to her by everyone from President Sassafras to ‘Handsome’ Hank Burlap the outlaw. She could see through walls and across the desert. When Jed ‘Rusty’ Filigree shot Ezekial ‘Turmeric’ Gourd out in the middle of nowhere, Mama Motley was the one who got the long arm of the law on his back, just by seeing his face when he said good morning. When Hangman Hank lost his daughter to a pack of coyotes, it was Mama Motley who led the rescue party back to their den - and who wagged her finger at the coyotes until they sheepishly escorted little Henrietta Hangman into her arms. When the mail train down to Bigtree derailed and somebody needed to bring Lisa McGyber news about her ailing mother, it was Mama Motley who got on that horse, cool as can be, and rode thirty hours straight to bring her the doctor’s letter.

And it was Mama Motley who was responsible for all the gambling in Vegas today. 

See, one time, Mama Motley was bustling around her kitchen, as she usually was, flipping flapjacks to feed a few drifters she’d taken in out of the goodness in her heart, when someone came a-knocking on her door. 

“Reverend Biars, what a surprise, I do declare! Sit down, take your hat off, and I’ll slide you a stack of my famous flapjacks.”

“No thank you Mama, I have something serious to discuss.”

“Surely something so serious can’t be hurt by enjoying some fresh flapjacks?” She held up a plate with her usual smile on her face.

Nobody could ever argue with Mama’s smile, let alone her flapjacks.

As he ate, Reverence Biars broke down what the problem was to Mama. It seemed that some folks from out of town had set up an illegal gambling circle, and were drawing some of the goodhearted folks into their midst.

“You know the people of this town like nobody else Mama, and I need you to find where these card-jockeys are, so we can run them out of town.”

“Well goodness gracious me! Reverend Biars, I’d be plumb gosh darn glad to help out with this itty bitty issue. You know me, I’m always glad to pitch in.”

And so Mama Motley conducted her search, using her usual methods. They were highly effective - dropping in to visit an old friend here, offering some children fresh baked cookies there, and within an hour she knew exactly where these gambling malignants were hiding out. The old barn down Cob’s Way.

Now, if Mama Motley had a flaw, and that’s a big If, it’s that she tended to try and trouble people as little as possible. “Why bother the reverend with these naughty boys?” she said to herself. “Let me go talk to them first. Can’t be any harder than when I persuaded that rattlesnake to stay away from my mule.” 

The old barn was all the way at the end of Cob’s way, well past any houses, and as Mama Motley approached she could hear music, not fully masking the raucous cries of layabouts, bummers, folk who were no better than they should be, and all the other degenerates who gambled. She didn’t bother to creep or hide her presence - that wasn’t Mama Motley’s way. No, she marched right up to the front door and banged on it heavily.

The music stopped abruptly. There was the sound of quick and startled movement before the door cracked open.

“Can we help you, ma’am?”

“I should think not. Let me in this instant, or I shall fetch the sheriff. I have some things to say to all of you.”

Her smile was as sweet as viper venom, and the lad at the door could no more stop himself from letting her in than he could stop the sunrise. Mama Motley made her way determinedly to the front to survey the room.

“You boys ought to be ashamed of yourself!” She called out, making eye contact with each and every foot-shuffling red-faced man in the room. “Playing with cards and dice, drinking, causing a ruckus - why this whole place is a nest of sin! What WOULD your mothers think of you?”

Nobody wanted to respond.

Mama Motley walked to the band which was frozen in the corner, unwilling to play.

“William, I’ve known you all your life. I watched you walk to Sunday school every day of the week. When you learned the banjo I was prouder than your mother, may she rest in peace. That time you broke your wrist and I splinted it for you, you told me that I was your favorite person in the world. Are you telling me you came and played that instrument of yours in this sinful place?”

Poor William hung his head.

“Yes Mama.”

“Well I hope you didn’t play any of those card-and-dice games I’ve been hearing so much about.”

“No Mama. I couldn’t learn how.”

“Good boy.”

She turned and looked for her next victim, but the room was clearing out already. Nobody wanted Mama to put them in the spotlight. She’d seen their faces though, and she’d remember. Ohhh yes, she’d remember who was there alright.

Only one man stayed in that old barn, and it was the out-of-towner who’d started this whole mess. His name was Richard, and there were almost as many stories about him as there were about Mama. They say that he was born to a winning hand on a card table, and that his first words were ‘Deal me in’. They say he died in a shootout once, but gambled with the Devil himself to get his soul back on Earth. They say that he could build a card castle with a whole deck of cards in less than ten minutes, and this last story is definitely true because he had one on the table in front of him as Mama stared him down.

“You the out-of-towner who started this whole mess?”

“I certainly am, ma’am, but I fear you have me at an advantage.”

“The name’s Mama Motley. Remember that name, boy. Now are you going to come with me to the sheriff, or are you going to get back out of town where you came from?”

“Oh ma’am, I don’t want to ever leave. This town has everything a humble card dealer like me could want - good drink, good music, and all the players I could ask for! Please, don’t kick me out.”

Mama blew on his card castle and knocked it down. “No can do, sonny boy. This town is a good place, there’s no room in it for gambling men like you.”

“Gambling? We ain’t gambling, ma’am. I invented some new games we’re playing. No gambling involved!”

“What are you talking about?”

Richard showed her the cards and dice in front of him.

“You see, there’s two games, the dice one I call Gunslingers and the Great Basin. It’s what I like to call a ‘roleplaying’ game, where we pretend to be bandits or sheriffs or anything else we want! And this one with the cards I call Devilry: The Gathering. You have these cards, see, resource cards and-”

The ringing slap which caught him around the ear knocked the rest of the sentence out of his mouth. Mama Motley loomed over him like a goat over a flea.

“Are you telling me that you ain’t been gambling, you’ve been a-bargaining with the DEVIL?”

“No, no, it’s just a fantasy game-”

“Well I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Out-of-town, I’d prefer if you WERE gambling, over this, this - Satan game!”

She marched back to town, whispering to herself over and over “I won’t stand for this no more.”

Wasn’t more than a day before Mama Motley had things arranged. A law was passed declaring any of these modern ‘roleplaying games’ illegal, and Mama Motley personally promised to tan the hide off anyone who was caught playing one of them. Local gamblers caught on to this quickly, and persuaded her that gambling, being the lesser of two evils, would siphon away potential roleplaying fiends in favor of more wholesome games, like poker or blackjack. She agreed, and from that day on was known to tacitly support local gambling dens, visiting frequently to make sure they weren’t playing ‘those devilish games!’

The rest, as we say in Vegas, is history.

[gas-stxtion]

//ok yeah time to outline some thoughts about jack being placed in foster care.

first, obligatory disclaimer: i haven't read volume 4 yet, so volume 4 and its revelations about jack's family mean fucking nothing to me rn. (not to say that i'm going to completely disregard those details once i get there or just say they're *not canon* somehow, but that these are my thoughts *for now* and i'll adjust them as needed once i get my shit together and read volume 4.)

content warnings: this is all about abuse, especially very violent physical abuse, both between romantic partners and directed at a very young child. tread lightly. also talk of drug use and addiction and alcoholism. this post is a goddamn bummer.

jack's father, william, was a white nationalist and an extremely, brutally abusive man, especially to his son. i've thought a lot about *why* that is--not that there's ever a *good* or *logical* reason to beat a child, of course, but also abusers aren't inhuman monsters with no logic behind their actions. there's a reason jack's father was Like That, and yeah sure a lot of that definitely relates to the far right bullshit but still-

and i'll be upfront that i don't have answers for everything that was wrong with jack's parents and their background, but i'm sharing what i've got now.

anyway, jack's parents were both addicts--his father was definitely an alcoholic, and i'm sure his mother, charlotte, had addiction problems as well. based on the references to meth being a huge problem in town, we can probably assume they might've been on meth, but i'm not so sure on that for these two in particular.

at the very least, i don't think jack's *dad* was on meth, because i get the impression he was seen as *better* than a lot of people in the community to some degree, at least up until his wife left him and his kid was taken away and put in foster care. the specific drug isn't super important for this particular post, but i'm putting a pin in this for future reference. we'll get back to that at some point.

ANYWAY, jack was not the only child in even just his kindergarten class being subject to horrific abuse at home. it's a widespread problem in this community, based on the (often joking) references in the series. sure, beating your kids isn't condoned, but this town also doesn't exactly *condemn* it either, and as long as you aren't *open* about it, most people are generally content to look the other way. same for spousal abuse, both of which were happening in this household.

jack's dad was always a piece of shit btw, but over time he definitely got worse. and y'know i hate to say it, but i think jack's birth was one of the factors that made the situation worse. william was elated to have a child, up until said child wasn't immediately the perfect, obedient heir he'd been hoping for.

jack was *too sensitive* and *annoying* and william became less and less patient about that as time went on. making matters worse, jack's mother was hit *hard* by postpartum depression, and she withdrew emotionally more and more as he grew. not to say she was never present, but there was a very noticeable distance between jack and his mother that grew worse with time. her postpartum depression and her addiction fed into each other in a vicious cycle as she got worse and worse and both were left untreated.

and jack's father was... not patient in dealing with that. his wife wasn't performing her duties as a wife and a mother, and he had too much on his plate already to worry about picking up the slack. jack was left alone quite a bit as a child, often having to fend for himself or risk starvation. and when his parents *were* around, they often argued (even if said arguments tended to be one-sided).

eventually, william began drinking more and more, and these arguments grew more and more common. finally, though, when jack was three, william got violent with charlotte. to her credit, she fought back just as hard, but that escalated the situation and made it significantly worse, and jack was caught in the crossfire.

as the years passed, william grew more and more violent towards his wife and child, often brutally attacking them seemingly unprompted and then denying them medical attention so they wouldn't tell the doctors anything. jack's mother became more present and *there* for him, but it was primarily for her own survival. if she was a good mother, she wouldn't be beaten. (now i'm not saying she didn't love jack, but just that she had to care for him in a way she wasn't equipped to, or risk more abuse.)

things escalated and escalated, and then when jack was around six years old, william tried to kill them both in a drunken rage. he didn't succeed in the end, as a neighbor heard the commotion and called the police. jack and his mother were taken to the hospital, and his father was arrested. he'd finally gone far enough that the community wouldn't look the other way anymore.

jack's father was charged, but he ultimately was released and just... left town without a word. he didn't want to face his old community and see what they thought of him. jack hasn't heard from him in nearly twenty years, and he's happy to keep it that way.

jack's mom stuck around for a bit, but after a month or two, she just... vanished. without a word. all she left behind for jack was a little food, a little money, and a note apologizing for not being a good mother to him. jack hasn't heard from her since either, but he still has her letter to him.

it was a couple of days before anyone realized something was wrong, as accustomed as jack was to taking care of himself. eventually, though, *someone* realized that this six year old had been alone for two days. and ultimately jack was taken in by the state. there were efforts made in the early days to locate his mother or other relatives, but none of them were successful. so, he was placed with a very nice local family, assured that he would be adopted any day now. who wouldn't want to adopt him after all?

... that never happened, but it was a nice thought if nothing else.

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

Hi! First of all, congrats on your recent achievements in the kitchen! That was a massive amount of food you prepared.I have a question, I hope you don’t mind. You’ve mentioned preferring to mill your own flour a couple of times, and I’m wondering what are the advantages of that for you? I’m guessing it might have something to do with freshness or quality? I’d love learn more about this from you if/when you have the time and energy to talk about it. Thank you!

thank you! and i don't mind answering, no problem.

there are multiple advantages to milling your own flour, but most of them only really matter to hardcore bakers. you can choose exactly what type of grain you want, you can grind it super fresh and keep it from going rancid as it sits in your pantry - which all flour will, eventually, especially whole grains.

the bran and germ of wheat and other grains contain oils, and once the berry is cracked in the mill, the countdown to it going rancid starts. so you could purchase a big sack of whole wheat berries for a low bulk price and keep it fresh by grinding it in small batches.

you can also use it to grind whatever kind of weird, fancy grains or legumes that you want to use. have you seen that fancy black "forbidden" rice in the store? you can't buy that in flour form, but you could grind it yourself and make some black rice bread or whatever else you want. you could try different beans, heirloom corn varieties, etc, though you can't mill oilier things like nuts or seeds, the machine just isn't designed to process it.

however, none of that is actually why i personally grind my own flour, lol.

my mom has been wheat/gluten free for just about as long as i can remember, but she doesn't have something as severe as celiac disease, she just can't handle more than a tiny amount of wheat without it making her sick. she could probably have a slice of pie with a wheat crust about once a month, but not really any more than that.

so when i started cooking and baking ~ten years ago, i tried to cook gluten free for her. back then, there were a lot more gluten free options than there were ten years before that, but not nearly as many as they are now - and i don't know if you've ever tried baking gluten free, but it's a pain in the ass.

gluten is a protein that binds flour together, so when you're baking without it, you have to add other types of sticky things to keep it from crumbling to pieces. but it still tends to crumble, and you can't make the typical sort of bread items that you knead or allow to rise. the flours and binders are also usually a lot more expensive, so i would make regular wheat baked goods for me, which means i'd have to make two versions of things. that was exhausting.

it was all such a fucking drag. then somehow, i actually can't even remember how, i discovered that my mom could easily tolerate this ancient variety of wheat called khorasan, or kamut (a brand name). if you've heard of spelt, emmer, or einkorn wheat, this is a bit similar; it's originally from egypt, and it has a different type of gluten that is apparently easier for some gluten-sensitive people to tolerate.

i can't explain the science of it, but my mom can have unlimited amounts of kamut without any problems. it bakes almost exactly like typical wheat; you can't get a perfect baguette or pasta out of it, but i've made bread, muffins, rolls, flatbread, bagels, cinnamon rolls, pie crusts, scones, english muffins, and more, and it has a lovely nutty flavor. it's not as light as white flour, of course, but it's golden in color and isn't as heavy as that really dark brown you get from hard red wheat berries. i find it to be a really nice medium - it's more substantial and nourishing than featherweight white flour products, but it doesn't have that "kind of a bummer" quality you associate with whole wheat.

another great benefit is that it's PACKED with protein and fiber! one cup of kamut berries has 28 grams of protein and 20 grams of fiber! it's an amazing food.

so back when i started baking with it, you simply couldn't buy kamut flour, so i asked for a grain mill for christmas and found a source where i could buy 25lb sacks of kamut berries. (which was azure standard, if you're interested. i was able to get 25lbs for ~$35. you can also get it in smaller packages from bob's red mill.) i typically milled all 25lbs at once since it's a bit of an ordeal, packed the flour into baggies (about 5lbs fits in one gallon ziplock), and stored it in the fridge or freezer to stay fresh.

nowadays you can find kamut flour online, though of course it's more expensive than regular flour. however i still have a bunch of grain that i bought ~4 years ago before my health tanked, stored in a bucket in my pantry, and it seems to still be good, so i'd like to get it ground up and in the freezer before it goes rancid.

so that's the whole answer! it's kind of a long explanation, but i figured i might as well be thorough in case it's useful information for anyone. :)

eta: for anyone with a wheat sensitivity who might want more info, the official kamut website has a page discussing how many people with wheat sensitivity can better tolerate kamut and studies on the matter.

[preemshots]

johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction! 

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis. 

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself: 

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos. 

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs! 

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that. 

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi. 

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it. 

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v. 

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that?? 

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again. 

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence. 

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something. 

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into. 

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.

[you-are-so-much-better-than-that]

Ok so we're avoiding talking about b*&n b$gs, which honestly is a bummer because I have really good options for those questions but fine. Here are some very boring questions about other things:

1) What is your favourite kind of chair?

2) Would you rather be highly skilled at one thing only or have a small amount of ability in multiple things but never be able to learn more about any of them?

3) Do you have a secret handshake with anyone? Have you ever had?

🙃💖

Ok but now I'm curious about your beanbag questions? Do you have an entire category devoted to them and them alone? Perhaps I will allow one (1) bean in the form of bags related question in future.

1) So I live on my couch's chaise, so if that counts as a chair, then that. I want my legs way out in front of me. If that doesn't count, then give me one of those ugly recliner chairs. I'd never have it in home, but it is objectively the most comfortable. And if get to have my legs stretched out. Having said that, I am about to shell out $400 on this beauty

It would be used as an indoor chair in the middle of my living room. It is a conversation piece, no? Most people would have you believe this is an outside chair, but I want to swing in the comfort of my own home, okkk?

2) I think I'm currently the latter. I tend to pick up a skill fairly quickly, find out about a different skill, get excited about that, and move on to it. I would love to be able to focus on one thing and get really good at it, and I'd like that thing to be in the DIY or construction field. I'd love to build a cabinet or something, work with wood.

3) Yes! Yes I do! One of my very good friends has a different handshake with every single one of us in the group. It is how he greets us and will go down the line to say to each of us with our specific handshake. He's a riot!

Howl I can't tell you how excited I get every Friday morning to wake up and go straight to your page to sign myself up for questions! I love this and I love you!