#tldr: it’s very boring and shitty I actually really hated it

[ghoul--doodle]

I just finished infinity train book 4 and im gonna ramble abt it in the tags so spoilers ahoy

I wont be putting this in the main tags i JUST wanna get my dumb little thoughts out of my head

[whumperooni]

I'd love to be mutuals with you but now really sure how to approach you off-anon.

I've been holding off on answering this one because I'm not quite sure how to respond without coming off as rude or bitchy or grouchy or stuck up or just straight up ridiculous

So pretty please take this as a general answer for everyone wanting to be moots and not just you, okay? I promise it's nothing personal (specially since you're a nonny and idk who you are anyways)

tldr; I'm a bad moot and if you wanna be a moot it has to happen naturally

But

I'm a terrible mutual, tbh. My online presence is flaky at best and I rarely look at my dash. I'm happy to chat with my moots if they reach out and I'm happy to interact with them...but I don't really approach them and I go through long periods of time where I miss their content because a) I'm too busy to be on tumblr, b) my fixations have shifted and I don't wanna interact with stuff that's not centered on them, c) I'm feeling particularly tired and/or angry and I'm off tumblr because I know I'm going to lose my temper and lash out at someone.

I try to be nice to people and I try to keep an open mind and I really try to let people do their own thing even if it bothers me. But the thing is?

I'm not a super nice person. I have a minimal tolerance for bullshit and I have a problem with general fandom fuckery. (Like across all fandoms- not just here)

I get angry at fandom and I get angry at my dash and I get angry at myself and, honestly, my presence in fandom is more like a stray cat that wanders in when they're bored or hungry and leaves when I grow bored or irritated by whatever drama is going on that day. I'm selfish and standoffish and, honestly, jealous of a lot of things and people too.

They're not awesome qualities to have in a moot. They're not awesome qualities to have as a person. I try my best to maintain a more positive vibe but, really, it's not always strictly genuine.

And the thing is? It gets tiring trying to pretend that I'm not rolling my eyes at every post on my dash. I'm too old and tired to pretend to like people that get on my nerves. I don't follow those people. I try not to interact with them. I blacklist their tags and I'll block them if they really get under my skin.

I monitor my circle and I do it in a way that's strictly selfish. I refuse to follow someone who sends me into a rant every other day and I'll absolutely dump a mutual if seeing their posts starts to get under my skin. I've done that before and, honestly, it hurt to do that because I did enjoy their content a lot and I thought that we could actually be good friends....I just didn't enjoy them or entertain those daydreams anymore once they decided to dump me like a hot potato.

I've been on all the sides of being a moot- bestie moots, enemies to friends to moots and back to enemies, casual headcanon exchanging moots, the moot that's been dropped because the other found more popular friends + more clout, and the moot that's dropped the other because they started shit talking about things that are Extremely Personal to me and I wasn't about to deal with that.

It sucks being a moot with someone only to find out they've dumped you. And, honestly? That's a veryyyyyyyyy likely possibility when it comes to being moots with me? Which I hate because people don't deserve that and hurt feelings suck and I don't want to upset anyone if I don't have to. But the thing is? I have to monitor my experience on tumblr or I will spiral and become miserable and nuke my chances of being welcome in fandom during an inevitable, public meltdown.

And that means....well that means that things just have to happen naturally?

(God, I'm so sorry I'm rambling but I'm trying so hard to explain myself)

Like. If you come to me and you're like "I wanna be mutuals with you. I wanna be friends" then I'm going to recoil- especially if we've never interacted before. For one, something like that is supremely uncomfortable to me. How can I say no without coming off as a bitch? It feels like a trap- even if it isn't, even if it's purely just enthusiastic and sincere- and I'm a prickly, hermetic person by nature who literally talks to one person irl on a daily basis...who also happens to live with me and is my boyfriend.

I don't seek out friends. I don't seek out relationships. I don't try to make something happen when it comes to people? It just...idk man I have to let it happen naturally or eventually it's gonna blow up in my face because I will feel restless and trapped and resentful. (Even if you literally do nothing wrong. Please understand that I'm a kinda shitty person, I work two jobs and I'm always stressed, and I'm bipolar and unmedicated. Please understand that I try and I'm not using these as excuses but just stating facts- my mental and emotional state are often shit and I lash out at people once my stress becomes too much...which is often these days. That this has happened to me before and I know myself and I'm trying to be truthful and not set up any rosy expectations just to disappoint anyone)

Like...if you still wanna be a moot, all I can say is to just...interact with me? Maybe I'll check out your blog and vibe with what I see????

But there are layers and layers of why I'm Not a good moot and there are layers and layers of reasons I'm not going to follow just anybody just because I'm asked.

I...I don't know. I don't know how to end this and I don't know if this makes any sense at all or if it's too much explanation or not but...

Just...don't have any expectations when it comes to me. I'm making no promises to anyone and I'm trying to be transparent.

I won't be mutuals with someone just because they want me to be. It's gotta happen naturally or it won't happen at all.

And I am sincerely sorry if it causes hurt feelings or if it comes off as rude or mean or bitchy or something. Rejection fucking sucks, you know?

But I have to look out for my mental and emotional health and, unfortunately, that means setting boundaries and limits and monitoring my experience very carefully.

So...yeah.

I'm sorry. I know this is probably super unsatisfying and I'm deeply apologetic over it.

But...yeah. That's that and I'm going to shut up now.

(Sorry)

[lassieposting]

Hi i havent read the books post-resurrection so im kinda lost on why you dont like phase 2 val? She was easily one of my favourite characters ever, she was flawed (and the books took time to acknowledge them) and relatable and still really admirable (intelligent, brave, loyal) and i really liked her and really appreciated that she wasn’t perfect unlike every other young adult heroines. What went wrong😢😢😢😢

Okay I'm gonna put this under a cut because I very strongly dislike phase 2 val and I know it bugs people who don't feel the same, so. Dead dove dont eat

Okay so first off, phase 1 val and phase 2 val are completely different people. literally. phase 1 val was based on an ex-friend of lardo's who used to apparently be involved pretty heavily in like, editing the books and "she'd react like this" or "val wouldn't say that", and that val she was one of my favourite fictional characters from when book one came out to the release of resurrection. phase 2 val is based on his whiny little girlfriend who likes to start shit with 14yos on twitter, and you can absolutely tell she is no longer the same person. so the long story short of "what went wrong" is "the original irl val's friendship with dirty laundry ended for whatever reason and he decided to retcon her entire personality to suit his gf"

Phase 2 Val, in my opinion:

Weak, like won't even fight back when she gets jumped bc boo fucking hoo she's so awful, bitch get up already, nobody signed up for ur pity party

Whiny. So fucking whiny. All the time. And she's the POV character so it's inescapable.

"Pacifist" but in a really pathetic virtue-signalling kind of way like "Oh, I've done such terrible thiiiiiiiiiiings I'm so awfulllllllllllll look how good I'm trying to be nowwwwwwww pay attention to meeeeeeee" kind of way, it was both boring and a massive eye roll. It's a book about magic and asskicking. Kick some ass. We're here for escapism not "realistic" whining. Yes, irl she'd be a mess. As an author it's his job to strike a balance between the "realism" he wants to portray and making his readers so depressed and done with his heroine that they quit reading, and in my case, he absolutely failed.

Everything must be about her at all times. Skug is having personal problems? Fuck him, they're about her now. Everything is about how it affects her, and her feelings, and be damned to the person actually having the problem. Fucks phase 2 val cain gives about anyone except herself: 0

Bitter and jaded. Which yeah I get why but it's like jesus christ what do we get out of reading about this? It's not even good bitter and jaded where it makes you empathise or admire her strength in adversity or whatever, she's just become a really nasty person with no redeeming features that I could see. Which? Landy outright said she's based on his gf? If your boyfriend is gonna drag ur entire personality through the dirt like that and write "you" as just a collection of incredibly negative traits...yikes.

Really ungrateful about the awesome life she leads? Which bugs me bc I fucking hate mundanity and knowing that all there is to life is fucking working and bad mental health. I would kill to live her life. All she does is moan about it. Like? Quit then. Fuck off back to being a mortal if it's that bad and live the shitty life you wanted to get away from in the first place. That way we'd get no more books, and quite honestly, thank fuck for that. But anyway, she needs to pick one, stick with it, and stop complaining about whatever she chose.

The girl wallows in self pity. And if someone else isn't indulging her enough, she'll wallow harder and louder and more obviously. Yawn.

Her POV is now so depressing to read that Resurrection literally tanked my mental health. I'm not kidding. I fell off the self-harm wagon, the suicidal thoughts came back, reading her dissociating would make me dissociate, I just did not cope whatsoever. Being in her head was just like being in my head during my worst points, and I hate myself, so naturally, I hate her too. Like I get why some people like phase two val. I get that her depression is "realistic" and that trauma does just make some people completely dislikeable and self-pitying, and if people want to read about that, then...sure. you do you, my dudes. But I live that reality, I am that person whose trauma made her a dysfunctional, isolated bitch, and I hate, passionately, having it infest the media I consume to escape.

Essentially if I wanted to engage with a bitter, spiteful, depressed piece of shit in her 20s who pushes everyone away and sucks at everything, I'd live my gd life. Yall see me tryna engage with my real life? Hell nah I'm on tumblr dot com burying my head up the ass of whatever fandom will force my brain to produce some s e r o t o n i n and that is what I need this series for

Also? The dynamic she had with skug in phase one? "Until the end"? "You save me, I save you, that's how we work"? Forget that, it doesn't exist anymore. I stopped reading after Midnight, because she was written like he was a coworker she could barely tolerate. They went from "Lardo confirms on twitter that they talked on the phone a bunch while she was in america and he'd always ask her to come home" to "she comes home and proceeds to blank him for five months while she sits in her fuckin multimillionaire's mansion feeling sorry for herself". Their friendship completely disintegrated, they were totally separated for most of the book, she's written as not giving a single shit about him. She treated him like dirt, and their dynamic basically felt like it was becoming "Local Man With History Of Gravitating Towards Abusive Women Makes Same Terrible Choices For Fifth Time" and? that was the point of no return to me. he supports her unconditionally, no matter what he's going through at the time, he's walked on broken bones to try and get to her when she was in danger, she can tell him anything and he'd never use it against her. I did not, for one second in phase two, believe she felt the same about him. tbh it felt like she could - and wanted to - drop him at the first opportunity and not even feel bad about it, and that's not the dynamic that made me so emotionally attached to phase one. i signed up for "until the end", not whatever bullshit phase two has going on.

Apparently she's "less depressed" now and their relationship is "better" in the books published since midnight, which! might well be true. but I haven't read them and don't intend to, and she's gone from one of my favourite fictional characters ever (which! was impressive! because i almost never bond with the female lead - i normally get attached exclusively to the character i crush on, which would be skug here. val was the first female lead i actually cared about since xena! so im deeply salty about losing her!) to a character i? honestly prefer to pretend doesn't exist. i live in war era dead men/generals crackship land because that way, i don't have to acknowledge her or the fuckin character assassination phase 2 pulled on her.

so yeah, no hate towards phase one val at all. phase one val was awesome and flawed and gave me something to aspire to despite my shitty mental health and trauma, and if she'd kept her original personality she might still have been those things. but the original "real life" val is no longer involved (and doesn't talk to landy at all anymore, apparently), and the val based on landy's insufferable gf? i cannot get behind her at all ever, four for skug and none for phase two val cain bye

(tldr; you're not missing anything by quitting after spx)

[neeharlow]

Nee’s Bipolar Life: Part Two

A bit more about me.. and oh and my transplant. (tldr: I was created as a way to get money from the government only to be abandoned when I was born sick and that money had to go to medicine instead of shit for herself.)

First off, I will not be using any real names. To protect certain people who really don’t deserve it but I am, as much as I hate it, not a hurtful person. My birth mother I shall refer to her as Diana. Diana was 20 when she had me with my birth father, we’ll call him Hugh, was 17. An underage boy. But don’t for a second think she was taking advantage of him, no, he had a temper and he was an abusive prick. When I asked her why she hadn’t just beat his ass back she replied, “There’s a difference between fighting and threatening to kill someone”. But this isn’t about them. This about me. 

Diana came from a rough background. Her mom knew how to scam the government for money. She knew that if she got pregnant she would be able to get money for the baby. (She tried this several times with several babies, but I won’t open that can of worms) She and Hugh took off one day. Somehow managing to travel from Sacramento, CA all the way to Harlem, NY. Some where along the way I was conceived. My birth father being 17 was forced to return home once found, but he was refusing to leave Diana. So my grandparents paid to have them both brought home via bus ride. Now, they were both drug addicts. Heavy into Meth and Heroine. And you bet your ass she continued to do them all through out her pregnancy with me. Her mom of course, kicked her out. My grandparents, being saints, knowing she was with child offered her a place to stay. As I said before, they continued to fight and do drugs. My grandfather even caught her shooting up one day with heroine when she was well into her second trimester. But let her stay cause baby. 

Oddly her drug use didn’t seem to effect me, I was full term and healthy. After some nasty fighting my grandfather, (oh boy, wait until I get to that!! lol) cause he refused to put Hugh’s name as father on the birth certificate; I got to go home with Diana. Things were.. meh. She’d stay home with me while my grandmother was at work but as soon as she got home she and Hugh would go off and party. She was a shitty mother from the start. Oh and she was still on drugs. So needless to say my grandmother became my mom. Even teaching me to call her mom instead of Diana, which REALLY pissed her off. But bitch, what the hell did you expect? Anyway, a about a week or so after being brought home I became very, very, very sick. I turned yellow with jaundice which led them to find out I had a nasty thing called Biliary Atresia. Which meant if I didn’t get a new liver I would die. Her drug use caused this because it is a type of birth defect. Thankfully nine months later, I was taken to San Francisco where I received a Liver Transplant. Oh and a side note, when they opened me up my gall bladder wasn’t even fully developed. Was Diana waiting by my bedside scared when I came out of surgery? Of course not! She and her mom were too busy partying and seeing the sights in San Francisco! . 

Skip ahead to being back at home. A baby who needs constant care is really hard. Especially if you only wanted the money that came with having a child. So when I was two, she nonchalantly goes out to the garage where my grandparents were at the time and in a bored tone asks, “You want her?” like I was some old clothes she didn’t want anymore. Of course they said yes and adopted me. In the following years she had two more babies. My full sister, which yes, drugs fucked her up too, and then a half brother. My last memory of Diana was when I was four, she had come to drop off Christmas presents from my sister, who had already been taken from her and was living with her mom at the time. I went to hug her cause to my four year old self, she was still mommy. Confusing since I rarely saw her, but still mommy. She stopped me. “Don’t touch the baby.” she said. I instantly stopped and backed away. And that’s the last memory I had of her until I was told the whole story when I was 14. BTW, she had two more after this. All taken from her.

My grandparents raised me as their own. Hugh became my ‘brother’ but because this all went down when I was old enough to remember, I knew he was actually my birthfather. I loved my grandmother. She was my MOM. And since they legally adopted me she was legally so too. She died when I was 19. Medical malpractice and an infection when she want into have Gastric Bypass. Leaving me with my POS Grandfather. But that’s for another time. 

[alterofnaught]

What do you think of Kokichi's lies? Do you think he's a compulsive liar or that he just lies for fun/to get what he wants?

Apologies for being extremely long winded about this answer but I have a BS in psych so I love psychoanalyzing characters and my thoughts are kind of complicated on it. Mostly just because I think just calling it compulsive lying often causes people to ignore the purpose and intent behind Kokichi’s actions (which a lot of people do and act like you can’t discern any of his motivations because he’s a “liar” which I disagree with). And I think it also insinuates he only lies because of that and ignore the many reasons he does tell lies. But I do think there's an element of both to it if that makes sense. 

While it's pretty much impossible to tell completely in just the main game canon if his lying is an actual psychological issue solely because there is a genuine reason for lying (like abuse victims and cheaters are not compulsive liars they just end up telling lots of lies because of the situation and you could say that is the case in a killing game as well). But bonus modes pretty much confirm that lying is absolutely part of his personality even without the pressure of the killing game. But the fact he both lies for fun and lies for a reason are what make it hard to pin down. Nor is it something that is readily agreed on as a term at all since it's not in the DSM-V and there are varying definitions for what qualifies as compulsive lying at all. Compulsive lying is also a trait of lots of other disorders but those you literally could not diagnose him with based on how little we get in my opinion (for example ADHD which is a popular headcanon and I think it makes the most sense out of any major diagnosis associated with lying but still not canon in anyway just a pretty good headcanon) . 

Lots of the lies he tells are for a reason which some psychologists say compulsive liars don’t usually have. Compulsive liars lie out of habit. Which he probably does to an extent but there is purpose to most of them. Especially since a majority of his lies are about his talent and organization or the game itself. Which have definite purpose to them. Like the conversation he has during introductions with Shuichi always makes me laugh actually because like… it’s a secret organization of course no one else should know about it and why on earth would a leader of it just tell you about it. Lying about a secret organization just makes sense, that’s kind of the whole point of it being a secret. And while he does tell more outright lies, he isn’t the only one who plays up their talent or lies during his introduction. Being grandiose in a situation where you are with 15 other Ultimates that are also larger than life and have a talent that is supposed to be so incredible the country searched you out for it… really doesn’t necessarily mean he’s trying to play himself up for no reason. It’s a pretty impressive sounding Ultimate Talent for what he really is so it makes sense to lie about honestly. And his exaggerations about his organization seem to reflect more on his childish personality more than some need to sound self-important (since he never seems to be seriously insulted at all when he gets questioned on the matter) as well as him just keeping DICE a secret since it's supposed to be one. Even in UTDP him lying about his organization makes complete sense to me (and some of his Salmon Mode preferred answers actually make it seem like he thinks his lies about DICE are ridiculous/stupid which is why I think he makes it sounds over the top and evil so people just write it off and ignore it which is a solid strategy tbh). 

His lies in trials are usually setups to get others to slip up or drag the discussion to where he wants it to be. It’s excessive but just seems to be more of a comfort zone where he knows how to navigate things like that and at the same time can hide himself as someone who knows too much. Which again there is definite purpose and intent in those lies. 

Purely compulsive liars are not necessarily known for being manipulative or cunning and Kokichi can be both of those things. He does lie for gain and to fulfill his plans which makes it seem to be a bit more than just a compulsive habit. Manipulative behavior is more associated with what some categorize as pathological liars (or no difference but again this isn’t a set standard across psychiatry at all). Pathological liars lie for gain but often have very little empathy. That doesn’t fit Kokichi to me because despite his flaws he is incredibly empathetic. Which is something I’ve definitely seen people not understand about him because people confuse kindness for empathy. Kokichi can be a massive asshole which people equate to not caring about others feelings. Which is sometimes true. But empathy is more about being able to understand other people's feelings which Kokichi actually has a very strong talent for. He recognizes the feelings in his classmates quite well even if he doesn’t approach them kindly. He can tell how Kaede feels, he recognizes Kirumi’s desperation, calls out Himiko, and in that conversation with Miu he fully understands her feelings of wanting to escape. It’s part of what allows him to have Gonta and Kaito go along with his plans, he understands their emotions and can easily tell the way they will act based on them. He isn’t mean because he doesn’t care about others emotions as much as he is mean to get certain emotional reactions (that typically benefit him but also sometimes others or the group as a whole). 

Pathological liars also tend to hate the truth and hate being called out on their lies or just straight up believe their own lies. He also does not seem to hate the truth more just recognizes the truth is not always a good thing. There is no denying he respects the truth since in every trial he absolutely cares they get the right answer (minus the 5th of course). He also uses the truth as a weapon just as much as his lies at times. Like when he pointed out Kaede pushing the group too far or Himiko’s attitude to Tenko. Saying the harsh truths that other people are afraid of saying are just as much part of his arsenal as lies. The comic anthology isn’t canon necessarily but like I did find it interesting that when they were all trying to trick the Monokubs that they had to try and physically stop Kokichi from telling Monotaro (I think) that he was lying. So that definitely makes his lying a bit unique in that he seems to have no problem in calling himself out on lies. Which he does almost constantly in canon and Salmon Mode as well. He is incredibly nonchalant about being called out on lying from others as well. I also don’t think he fully believes his own lies even the one about enjoying himself in the killing game. 

In the bonus modes he lies for fun and because it gets him reactions he wants (it’s not really for personal gain or manipulation in Salmon Mode or UTDP). It still seems very purposeful to me and something he enjoys doing (the line about how he likes lying more when hanging with Shuichi for example or how his conversation with Celestia in UTDP makes it pretty clear he sees lying as a fun game). He hates being bored and loves outwitting people and just playing around to see peoples reactions in general and lies are the perfect tool for that. 

But there are some things I think point to it being a psychological issue still. His line to Kaito before he died about how he had to lie to make it through the game really makes me feel like there is more to it than just him messing around. It's definitely not just a tool for him to use others but one he uses as a coping mechanism for himself. And Keebo’s conversation with him in UTDP about how his lies keep people at a distance adds credence to the idea that he does use his lies to shield himself from other people in any kind of situation. So I also think it isn’t just for fun or to get what he wants but for his own benefit as well. But it’s not something he feels he needs to change as we can see in his Harmonious Heart answers or even his spiel about lying in the Ch4 trial- he sees it as a part of him. 

While he doesn’t ever get much of a detailed backstory in canon. He does have that line to Kaito about how they have very different backgrounds which I feel heavily implies that whatever his background was was lying made it easier. I don’t necessarily think he had a “sad traumatic backstory that explains away his shitty behavior” I do think it's at least implied he grew up in an environment where lying was beneficial. And Danganronpa making such a deliberate reference to a TV show about orphans with a clown motif with DICE makes it seem like him being an orphan is hardly a large leap. He also jokes that he wouldn’t be missed a few times which again is nothing definitive but hints that he doesn’t necessarily have a background of super normal/healthy relationships (DICE is also insinuated to be essentially a found family for him which isn’t a typical situation for most people). 

So I guess part of the reason I’m reluctant to just call it compulsive is because that insinuates it's uncontrollable and I don’t know if there is evidence that he simply cannot handle things any other way. His harmonious heart says he could but doesn’t want to. But there is definitely enough there I think to say that it absolutely is a defense/coping mechanism that he uses to his advantage in addition to just enjoying lying because it's a fun game to him. But also he says he hates liars and lies so often it makes me feel like he recognizes lying can absolutely be a bad thing and that he is self-aware. 

So my TLDR answer is kind of both? Like he definitely lies a lot of the time for his own gain and childish enjoyment of it but also uses them to hide his true self and intentions as well as shelter his own emotions. And it’s not necessarily the healthiest thing for him or people around him so I don’t think it should be written off as a non-issue at all. But the term compulsive liar and how it's typically defined doesn’t really cover his super complicated relationship with lies for me. Because in the end he was written to be “the embodiment of a lie” so it makes sense his lies have multiple and complicated reasonings behind them. I mostly shy away from calling it compulsive because of the insinuations that it is “out-of control” and I don’t necessarily think that's the case. Compulsive lying is just too loaded of a term without a clear agreed upon definition for me to like using (even though I don’t necessarily think its wrong to say it could be classified as such). I personally feel like calling it a coping strategy that can be maladaptive fits better. I don’t think his lying is always inherently a bad thing but there is no denying its not the best thing either. He does it because he both wants to and needs to and feels justified in it as well which is why I wouldn’t categorize it as something he has no control over. (End of excessive rambling because I could go on about how blurry the line is between a behavoir like lying being “normal” and harmful because that is a whole other thing I could go on about)

[ashen-laguz]

For the ask game: 6, 13, 16, 27, 30!

6: a game that’s changed you the most?

i'm not gonna get deeply into this both because it's a very personal thing + I have a friend playing through AI: The Somnium Files and I don't wanna spoil them, but i WILL say.

motherfucking ota. hate this bitch. terrible little dude. also one of my favorite characters in this game and a strangely important comfort character for me because the subject matter in his route hit one hell of a raw nerve i did not expect this game to hit, nor did i even realize it was such a sensitive subject for me

but it got me thinking about how i've been living my life tbh, and some realizations i had because of that have served as a bit of a wake-up call and a HUGE motivation for me to kick my ass into gear, improve as a person, and like... actually take more proper responsibility for myself, i guess.

im gonna die mad about the fact i have that lil simp of all characters to thank for this tho

13: a game you were the most excited for when it wasn’t released yet?

So I was REALY excited about Octopath when it was first announced - I'd been really craving a good RPG, the I was really digging the aesthetics, and I did really enjoy the demo! I was EXTREMELY hype...

Buuuut by the time it actually dropped, I couldn't afford to pick up a new game, especially one that no one else in my household seemed to care much about, so I just sorta forgot about it and stopped caring tbh. only picked it up recently

16: character you’ve hated most? from what game?

I have... issues with the characters in R*ging Loop in general (issues in that I find them boring AT BEST and the worst ones INCREDIBLY unlikable and uncomfortable) but I think the objective worst of it all tends to be saved for like,, "lets drop this plot-twisty shock value somewhere : ) " so you don't actually have to deal with certain characters being so actively unlikable for a good chunk of the time?

....Except Haruaki, since he's the protagonist, which meant the player has to stick with him the WHOLE TIME. fucking hated that dude. Like I'm down for playing games that have morally ambiguous protagonists, or even outright shitty people as protagonists, but the writers for the game need to have more awareness then the writers for this game had if you want it to not get really uncomfortable/feel unintentional

27: has there ever been a moment that has made you cry?

Admittedly, I'm not much of a crier - never really have been. I've been emotional enough over games where you'd expect someone to cry, but I don't think there's been any moments that actually brought me to tears?

Hatoful's BBL route got me close though. tldr I couldn't listen to Death Tone without feeling like I might tear up for the first several months after going through BBL my first time. also there's this BBL fan-animation that hits a lot of the emotional beats that ABSOLUTELY choked me up and idk if that one counts since it's not the game itself BUT.....

OH ALSO last time i ranthrough TTYD, the ending with Mario leaving all the partners and Rogueport did choke me up a lil bit but that was absolutely just the nostalgia blasting me in the goddamn face tbch, since that game really means a lot to me

30: a game that hasn’t been localized in your country that you think should be localized?

The original GBA Rhythm Heaven. I know, there's supposedly a good english ROM, but I cannot get it running without just a bit too much lag for it to be playable, but I really love the three rhythm heavens that are out in english!! I'd love to see where the series started

[shaekingshitup]

Shae’s First Date

For anyone who is bored: the most brief (that I can recap because ya girl is a lengthy heaux) summary of my first date goes as follows:

EDIT: THIS SHIT AIN'T BRIEF. SORRY NOT SORRY 🤷🏿‍♀️🤷🏿‍♀️ But I put a TLDR at the end.

I matched with a guy on Bumble who had some cool hobbies and some of which overlapped with mine. We talked daily for almost 2 weeks before we met up in person and the guy was a very big charmer/woo-er. Like if I was messaging this kid I was constantly laughing and smiling

Tbh this was a lil bit of a red flag to me becauae I'm like: "no one is this charming. Something has gotta be up" & I legit came up with a few different scenarios. But I chose to shelf them because people do that to me all the time.

Like I'm just a really loving person and I will gas people up or go out of my way to make them happy if I can and people always want to try me like that can't truly be how/who I am or if I'm doing it it's because I'm trying to get at that person and they are always wrong. All the way from best friends to new acquaintances I really just like when people are happy. I mean the world's shitty already, if I can make your day easier or put smile on your face I'm game!

So we're on the phone one night (stayed up to 3 am sacrificing my sleep talking to this dude 🙄) talking more about who we are as people, what we're looking for in an ideal partner, etc. I told him straight up both via call and via message that honesty is really important to me. I value honesty with myself and also with others.

So also in this late night call things got a lil spicy 🌶 🌶 I was honest and told him that I'm pretty much a blank slate. Never fucked/sucked, etc or had anything like that done to me. He was taken aback like everyone I share this with is. Apparently I'm some sort of unicorn 🦄 out here in these streets to all y'all hoes. He makes a comment about stealing a kiss from me the next night and I said "I might allow it."

But the point is. I told him what it was. I was honest. That's my truth.

I didn't tell him that I'd never been on a date/kissed anyone because he didn't ask. Maybe if I would've said something, things would've been different. But I can't "what if" what's already happened y'all!

SO, day of. We messagin and snapping. I'm allll ready. We're going to a drive in and I'd never been to one before so I'm excited. I'm also just committed to making this a good time because I easily get distracted and often don't stop to take my experiences in to experience them fully. So I said not today!!

I got snacks. All of his favs and some of mine. I brought drinks and a blanket. I looked good.

Like I said in my pre-date post: I didn't have any lofty ideas about this dude being my soul mate or anything but I anticipated a good time.

He picked me up at our designated location. My sister met him and got his license plate; because apparently I had enough sense to realize I didn't know this nigga but not enough sense to later realize I didn't know this nigga.

It wasn't gonna take as long to get to the drive in as originally anticipated. So we went to a local park and sat in the car and talked because the park was PACKED and ya know RONA!

It was somewhat awkward because it was our first time talking face to face. But we found a groove and I'm extroverted af y'all. So, I can get people to have a conversation.

Topics range from our days, music and conspiracy theories which he's really into. What kind? Like: Shakespeare wrote the Bible is one. A lot of people that we know from media aren't really the original ones that we were introduced to is another. Ya know like that Beyoncé is not the real Beyoncé. There's two Trumps. There's two Hilary Clintons etc.

So at this point sensible me is like: this can be the point where you go home girl. You're 5 minutes away from your place. You can just say this ain't workin and cut it short.

OPTIMISTIC/BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT GIVIN/NAIVE SILLY ME IS LIKE: well, I 100% don't agree with anything you're saying just because you're saying it. But ya know, I don't know everything and I'm not in the business of judging people-especially since we just met and I don't want this human to feel uncomfortable. So, okay. I don't agree. But I won't judge. Let's just continue on.

If you haven't guessed by now which me I listened to, you may be just as silly as I am 🙃🙃🙃

But obviously I continued on and that's what I call mistake #1

So we're driving to the drive in. I'm realizing we're kind of different in ways. Most notable is that dude was raised Jehovah's Witnesses and celebrates 0 holidays & I'm in love with Halloween and at least birthdays.

We miss the drive in entrance due to my poor navi skills & he decides to smoke before we pull in. He offers it to me and I accept. This is mistake #2

Ya girl hasn't smoked in 6 years. I tried edibles recently. But that shit ain't the same. I really just feel like I said I wanted to be present and then I smoked and I was tired and everything was kind of dull?

So I'm high and sleepy but still a lil excited because it's my first drive in!! We get there and park and the drive in is really just a giant protection screen we all park in front of. Lmao. 😅 Idk what I was expectin but not that. But it was still cool. It's 10 and this movie still hasn't started because the last one is still showin credits.

Dude says he wants to chill in the back but he's going to the bathroom. I AM SLEEPY. THAT IS WHAT WEED DOES TO ME. Plus I was on the phone til 3 AM. So I'm like imma close my eyes before this thing starts since it's already late.

So while he goes to the bathroom I legit laid down in the back on a pillow because ya girl is a sleepy heaux 😴

He comes back and pits the pillow in his lap and is talking to me because this movie ain't started yet. My eyes are closed but I'm listening and everything and he's massaging my shoulders and whatnot. Eventually advertisements about common courtesy come on and what not. But that's not important and I don't move.

Soo he says something I'M ASSUMING IT WAS ABOUT THE KISS (I don't remember y'all. I'm about to skimp on some of these details because that high was really kickin in and I was feelin foggy.) But, I said "I would allow it." And he kissed me.

It honestly felt anticlimactic as fuck. Yeah my mind is kind of foggy because of the weed so I feel like I wasn't as fully cognizant as I would have been if I was sober minded. But also, it just happened

I'm in my head af. I've never done this and I'm sure I'm shit at it but I'm trying not to be ya know? Dude's tongue is in my mouth. His hand is under my romper.

So, I'm a roll with the punches kind of human and the rest of the film we pretty much are making out (lowkey meh), groping (I hate this word) & watching Deadpool ( for people who needed that detail)

As previously stated, all of this shit is new to me. But, I'm also not a "prude". I chose not to kiss/fuck anyone prior to this because it was what I wanted for a period of time. I couldn't do much in the date department because I was just not approached often or by people I wanted to entertain. But the opportunities for all that physical shit were presented and I chose not to just like I chose to engage in those activities on this date. I'm real big on not judging nor regretting those choices because those were what I wanted at one point and that's it. Soo if you got opinions about what I was out here doin, keep em to yaself.

We ended up making out and I feel like it was cool.. but just not great. We did other shit minus actual fucking. But it all just felt pretty muted to me. Not bad. Not uncomfortable. Just not great and I think in hindsight it was because I a) really didn't know and have an established connection with this dude and b) I was high.

He really wanted me to suck his dick and I was really hesitant to do that. Not even that much because I was checking off a lot of "firsts' or anything like that but because I swore I was gonna be shit at it due to 0 experience and that was what I told him. Like, I wanna be good at shit and also I would like if the person I was hooking up with was actually enjoying being with me ya know? Is that not a thing? Y'all just be out here tryna get ya nut and say fuck it to whomever you with? Lemme be a unicorn then. 🦄

But anyways, I did this and he says like nothing. I'm in my head af trying to recall upon all of my BP smut I've read and trying not to suck at sucking (SO THANKS TO ALL OF Y'ALL WHO BE WRITING SMUT!!). After a few minutes the car turns off and Ryan Reynold's ain't talking anymore. Sooo I take this as a sign that I should stop and tell him as much.

He turns the car back on so we can still hear the movie & I'm pretty much like half watching the movie and talking to him like: "Soooo. I did that and I feel like I was right." To which he responds, "I've had worse," which is like ya know the compliment of the century and the most reassuring feedback you can give someone who is insecure about shit they've never done.

We still ended up making out and I gave him a handjob and finished the movie. I can't recall if it was at this point or when he drove me home but he basically implied that I was a liar and that is the shit that literally makes me wanna go back in time and tell former me to never say yes to a date with this nigga.

He drove me home and I was pretty quiet listening to Ari Lennox (💕) and thinking/processing. He gets to my place and we're talking now that we're parked and tells me that he thought I probably wasn't right about never having sex before. He told me I probably just had sex like 3 years ago and it had been so long that's why I said that and that's why my pussy is so tight.

So, I'm real life hurt. I like to consider myself to be someone who has a good character and I am really big on honesty.

So I asked him why he said that if I told him from jump what it was. He told me that his ex lied a lot and that he just couldn't believe me..

And I know for certain that his assumption was independent of any of my actions. He literally just told me so. He projected his insecurities onto me. But I'm a sensitive ass heaux and that shit still shook me. PBS raised me right. I don't be out here lyin & I don't like when people try to tell me who tf I am.

We pretty much just ended up arguing about the night and he was doing it on purpose because he thinks it's sexy when women are mad. But when I get mad, I get done. If I let enough shit slide and you have the audacity to try and flip my script, I will fucking write you out of it.

Then I looked up at the time and realized I was sitting in this car arguing with nigga for at least 25 minutes. So I was just like: bitch, why are you still here?

I told him straight up that when I got out of that car he could forget about talking to me altogether and he was like: "I'll let you know when I make it home."

I told him he need not bother because apparently I'd finally gained some damn sense. I exited the car. He left. He hit me up when he made it home but I just deleted the app and removed him off of snap because I meant that shit.

TLDR; Went on my first date with a conspiracy theorist I matched with on Bumble and he told me I lied about my lack of sexual history.

[max-anonymous123]

Playing Cards: The Solution to all your Problems with Random Stat Generation in D&D 5e

The other day I was playing D&D on discord, as you do, when one of my friends brought up their frustration with the default method of rolling stats in D&D 5e: the fact that RNGsus hates her. We commiserated briefly over the frustration of rolling shitty stats before returning to the game, but the thought stuck with me and I worked to solve the problem with my own innovative method of generating random stats. THE PROBLEM

The fun of rolling stats is getting something unique and having to work with it. Did you roll one really good stat and the rest shit? Did you roll moderately good results for everything? Did you get one hilariously low result and have to work out where to put it? All of this is fun and interesting, and part of that fun is the risk involved. Will you roll a coveted 18? or just absolute dogshit?

The problem comes when you actually DO roll dogshit. It doesn’t even need to be that bad, only worse than everyone else. If your highest roll is a 13, you’re just going to feel worthless compared to That One Motherfucker in your group who somehow rolled three 18s (you’d call hacks but he did it right in front of you).

Maybe you think I should just suck it up. I knew the risks going in, I made my bed, now I should lie on it. That’s all well and good for some games and groups maybe, where you can play your character with a death wish, die heroically and then bring in a character that you like more, but that doesn’t always work. Maybe the premise for the campaign is such that its really hard to bring in new characters. Maybe your group Doesn’t Kill Characters. Maybe you had a really cool character concept you wanted to play. Maybe you just don’t want to. All of these and more are good and valid reasons to look for an alternative that retains the fun randomosity of rolled stats without the chance of getting screwed, and thats exactly what this essay has to offer. (If your problem is that your players roll too OPly with their stats, then this article will also he helpful to you. That just isn’t a problem I personally have.) (Man I like to prattle on don’t I? TLDR: It sucks to roll badly when generating stats, here’s my better method:)

THE SOLUTION In a word: Cards. Dice have independent probabilities, meaning that what you rolled last time does not effect what you will roll next, but whenever you draw an ace from a deck of cards, that’s one fewer ace to be drawn in the future. 

Employing this simple fact, we can generate lines of stats that, while random, aren’t actually better or worse than each other. If you get one really good stat, all your other stats will be that much worse for it.

In this post I’m going to go over several different ways to generate stats with cards, depending on the personal preferences of you and your group: How wide a range of stats do you want and how much control do you want to have over them?

THE BASICS

Take a deck of playing cards and separate all the cards from Ace - 6. This will form the core deck from which stats can be generated (we’ll be treating aces as 1s for the rest of this essay)

The standard array has 72 points of stats, while your core deck has 84. You will need to remove at least 12 points worth of cards to provide a balanced deck (sometimes more, depending on your goals)

If you remove the extremes (1,6) from the deck, you will get more average stats. If you remove the moderates (3,4) from the deck, you will increase the chance of getting very high or very low stats

If you want to be able to deal out your whole deck into six even stat-piles, the number of cards you remove from the deck must be a multiple of 6.

If you are using a ruleset that has a chance of providing stats over 18, you may want to impose the rule that any stat over 18 is reduced to 18.

With these points in mind, you can modify my given methods to provide the sorts of stats you want.

THE GENERIC METHOD

This will generate completely random stats that will largely imitate what you would get from point buy, with only a small chance of getting below 8 or above 15. 

With point buy you have 27 points to spend, with scores costing one point per number above 8 and two points per number above 13, to a maximum of 15. This method gives you the equivalent of approximately 26 points of stats (average), with a possible stat maximum of 18.

Take your core deck and remove four aces, a 3 and a 5.

Deal out the rest of the deck into six facedown piles of three cards.

Add up the totals of each of your six piles to calculate your six stats, which can each be allocated to whichever ability you like.

THE FUN METHOD

The generic method is all well and good, but I personally like a bit more variety in my stats. The slow grind of raising your main stat from 15 to 20 is pretty boring to me, so I’m totally down with letting my players start with a base of 17 or 18, but I also love a good 7 or 6 to spice up a character. (One of my main complaints about D&D is I want my character to be really good and really bad at things from level one, but on a d20 a +1 is not too different from a -1 really, and skill checks are often just too swingy for me to feel my character's skills actually matter.) Anyway, with this method, expect your results to be both a lot higher and a lot lower, while still summing up to 72. You may want to rule that any player with a stat lower than 6 ( or maybe 8) should roleplay some sort of disability (either a real world one or a fantasy one) related to the given stat, e.g. missing hand for str or dex, severe illness or curse for con, raised by animals for int, impaired speech or hunchback for cha, etc

Obviously you should be touching base with your GM before using any of these methods, but that is particularly the case for this one.

Remove three 4s from your core deck

Deal out the rest of your deck into six facedown piles. Note that three piles will have three cards and three piles will have four cards.

add up the totals of each of the six piles to calculate your six stats, which can each be allocated to whichever ability you like. If any stat is higher than 18, reduce it to 18.

Note: this method is designed to give you a high chance of getting three really good stats and three fairly bad stats. If you want only two really good stats and not-quite-as-bad other stats, remove four 3s from your deck in step 1 instead.

METHODS FOR MORE CONTROL

Xtra Control Variant: Using one of these decks, deal out two facedown cards to each stat and then distribute the rest of the cards as you like, perhaps dropping five cards into one pile if you want to ensure you get a superstat. 

The catch is that any stat higher than 18 is reduced to 18, so there’s a chance you will over-commit and waste points. 

XXtra Control Variant: Use the Xtra Control Variant but deal the cards face-up!

Xtra Control but more linked to the character and with a chance of fucking you: Use the Xtra Control Variant but deal the stats in order (the first pile is STR, the second is DEX etc.)

-------------------------------------------

Anyway I hope you found this interesting. I think there’s a lot of potential in using playing cards for stat generation and I’ve only scratched the surface: it would be really cool to create some sort of stat generation mini-game!

I have other opinions on things, such as on racial stat modifiers and why they suck, so if this post does well maybe I’ll write about my solution to that too.

As always, if you use this with your group let me know, and if you have any opinions or counter-arguments I want to hear them. :)

[trustme-imachair]

The fallacy of a quick fix.

{I realize this is long and a bit rambly, skip to the end for TLDR no judgment here :) }

So recently I found out (through a great deal of research and review of past experiences) that I have ADHD. I had the common reaction to which any one has to any diagnosis, “WOW! I’m glad that this thing has a name and I’m not crazy. Please make it go away now.” And, well the more I read the more I find out that ADHD dosen’t just fade away. People get better at managing it, it becomes much less of a hinderance over time, but it never actually goes away. And it still makes life very hard. The over reaction to silly comments, the inability to exist in space or time, the lack of foucus on boring stuff, and the surge of emotion and focus that something genuinely interesting brings. It stays for the most part better off when treated, but it stays. And one of the biggest traps for anyone suffering from any kind of mental illness (or other unrelated problems) is once we start going down the road of self improvement we will inevitably come across a video with a title that goes something like “How I lost weight... WITHOUT EVEN TRYING!” Or “ How organizing your room will... FIX YOUR LIFE!!!” Or “THIS NEW DIET SOLVES (insert literally anything here)” I really hate this. For at least 2 reasons. Reason the first: it is super discouraging to see that the problem you have been really struggling able to be summed up in 15 minutes. It gives off the impression that the only reason that your struggling is because your stupid. Just schedual better, or eat better, or excercise. Reason the second: nothing in life is ever that easy. Life is big, it’s complicated, and it tends to be impossible to sum up in just ONE word/routine/diet. While you most certainly could have depression it does not necessarily mean that it is being caused by your addiction. It could be the other way around. Or maybe it could be neither of those things and the only thing that the addiction is doing is exasperating the depression that was brought on by the death of a loved one. AND IF it was brought on by the death of the loved one, then how are you supposed to “fix” this situation? What possible “solution” can you give? A diet? Is that really going to make you forget how much you miss that person? Is a diet really going to change that? I doubt it. The harsh truth is that there is no silver bullet. There is no all encompassing solution. What I belive philosophically has a dramatic effect on how I live my life. But it dosen’t make me excercise more. A great excercise routine might make me feel awesome, but it won’t change a harmful philosophy. Neo Nazies might be ripped and feel awesome, a fantastically caring nurse might struggle with food addiction.

TLDR version: Saying something that people really struggle with can be fixed super easily is kinda shitty. Saying that we can sum up HUGE problems into neat answers is incorrect. Feel free to struggle, feel free to fail and try something over and over. Just because it’s not working fast doesn’t mean it never will.

[sparklebitch]

Dan and Phil’s Impact

Okay this is going to be long and rambling because I’m trying to type it on my phone in the car and my thoughts are all over the freaking place and I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read the whole thing I’ll put a tldr at the end lmao.

So first of all I’ve been watching Dan and Phil since like? 2014~ And for a while there wasn’t a minute that went by where I didn’t think about them. Their videos got me through so much shit in my life. Even dumb video game videos were like my reprieve from real life. And yeah a lot of stuff was super cringy and I was definitely borderline one of those creepy people that wanted to know everything about their lives (obvs not anymore lol) but that aside they were such good freaking influences on me? I looked up to them so much and, sure, I have a lot of role-model-worthy people in my life, but no one like them.

Everyone around me is so aggressively religious (although a lot of them are totally cool about it and not bad peoples !! But the rest of them are total dicks) and I felt like I couldn’t... question myself I guess? About literally anything. I felt like I couldn’t question religion, sexuality, the things I liked, what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. It was like everyone’s lives revolved around church stuff and people were basically born knowing what they were going to do? And there I was, an awkward, sexually confused, homeschooler who had 2 friends that she wasn’t even that close to. I felt like I was the only one in the world like this. Everyone seemed to have a place in the world, except me. I often thought that maybe it was a mistake that I was in this world, that there was some cosmic screw up and that I was never meant to be born. I felt incomplete and it was so confusing and horrible. I was sure that that feeling was never going to go away. I had no one to talk to, no one to explain to me that it was okay to screw up. It wasn’t the end of the world to question things or yourself, everything was going to be okay. All I wanted in my life was for someone to tell me that.

Then I found Dan and Phil. And yeah, they’re two British boys on the internet that will never know who I am. But that’s okay. They don’t need to know me to have an impact on my life. I mean, who’s ever been impacted by a song? A movie, a book, an actor, an artist? The human race is always searching for someone or something to look up to. Religion, famous people, a father figure, a friend. Someone. And that’s what they were to me.

People didn’t understand what it was that I liked about them. And, if I’m being 100% honest, I guess I didn’t really know either. Sure, they’re funny, and the chemistry between the two is very compelling but there was just something about them that spoke to me. I loved them. More than I had loved anything in my life. I looked up to them, and listened to the things they said, listened to the things they believed it. Through them I discovered so many of the things that I love in my life. I started writing and drawing because of them! It’s crazy to think that I am the person that I am today because of them. I can’t imagine what I would be like if I hadn’t watched their videos.

There’s a lot of uncertainty in my life right now as I’m finishing up getting my General Associates and I’m in the process of starting a daycare with my older sister. It’s a lot for me to process because for the longest time all I wanted to do was get away from here. I wanted to go somewhere and be someone new. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized that’s not what I actually wanted. I love my family and my friends, I love living here (aside from the bigots but they’re everywhere so there’s no escaping them). What I really, truly wanted was to be myself. It wasn’t my family and this town that I wanted to get away from, it was the me that I was pretending to be. I just wanted to be myself, that was all. I didn’t care if it was in a big town with new people, i just wanted people to know me. I wish I knew this back then, then maybe I wouldn’t have gone into a tailspin when I was getting ready for college but hindsight I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I finished high school it was like I was paralyzed. I didn’t know how to make decisions for myself or do anything on my own. All I knew was that I was not straight, seemingly surrounded by homophobes, and I was very very tired. So, toward the end of summer my mom pushed me enrolled me at a community college near home (which I am grateful for lol) and then I was going to transfer to a university after 2 years. Things started to feel better after that. Around that time I also started taking medication for depression and anxiety and it has only completely changed my life. No longer am I the super quiet painfully awkward person who’s so afraid to say something wrong that she instead stays silent, not telling anyone about my interests or passions in fear that I would be ridiculed, hiding core parts of me while the whole world passes by. I was talking and making jokes, I wasn’t constantly terrified to talk to people or to even simply leave my house to go places. Things were better. I was happier!

But as the time for me to transfer to a university drew near that paralyzing feeling crept back into my skin. I hated my classes. I hated college. I was suddenly plunged back into the world of endlessly scrolling through social media and watching the same shows on tv over and over, isolating myself from everyone and everything trying to ignore the world around me. I felt like everything was hopeless again. I was only occasionally watching dan and Phil videos at this time, having very reluctantly grown away from them (it was a sad day when I realized that I didn’t care if I skipped a video or two. I literally cried that day). But I was bored then, so I started watching their videos again. This was around the time that dan posted his video on depression (that’s a while other long ass post I could make but probably won’t because I’m already tired of typing) and i damn near called my mom (even though she was just downstairs) on the spot to tell her what I was feeling. Hearing that there was someone else out there that felt like I was was enough. But not only that, he explained that recovery is not a straight road. There are twists and turns, there are setbacks. It’s not like I was going to get better and everything was going to magically be awesome all the time. Some stuff was going to suck. I was going to go through shitty times and that was okay.

Because of him, I ended up going back to the doctor and explaining that my meds weren’t working anymore, and I got it taken care of. I feel so much fucking better now than I did before, and I know that it’s okay if I don’t always feel this way. I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to a university and they were okay with it, provided that I finished my 2 year degree at the community college. And while some things still suck, and I’m still worried about my future and whether or not I’m going to meet someone and fall in love, things are absolutely positively 1000% better than they have ever been. And a lot of it is thanks to them. Obviously it was me who actually took the steps I needed to to get here, but it was because of their being my role model that I had the courage to get where I am today.

Dan and Phil have such a unique platform and following. They could say jump and so many people would (metaphorically ofc) jump off the cliff, me included. But they don’t do that. They use their fame to positively impact people. They use their platform to encourage people and talk about important things in life. They share things about their lives in the hopes that it will help even 1 person out there... and I’m not the only one who they’ve positively impacted. The number of people that owe everything to them is crazy.

Okay so now I’m going to go a little bit into labels. (Not too much tho I’m seriously tired of typing lol). Dan talked about them a lot in his video. An entire freaking chapter of it was dedicated to labels. When I was younger I knew that I liked girls. I liked boys too though, so I just shrugged it off as Really wanting to be friends with girls. I didn’t know what the word gay meant until I was like 12 because I was a very sheltered child. My parents never talked about it and the only time I ever remember hearing the word before then was when one of my siblings called another sibling “gay” at the dinner table. The only thing I knew about the word was that my parents Did Not Like it. While I eventually stumbled onto the internet and learned a Lot of things, and a lot about labels, I became overwhelmed. There were so many words with so many meanings, and lot of times people didn’t agree on what the literal definition was. (Like bisexual meaning Only men+women vs. just like.. more than just 2+ genders) So for a long time I identified as pansexual because.. I didn’t know what to do. And based on my experiences on the internet, being bi was basically saying that you were excluding people. Idk it was fucked. The label ‘pan’ didn’t really feel like it fit me either, but it worked for the time being.

Dan’s comments on labels really got me thinking. I don’t think I’m a lesbian, but I don’t really know about bisexual either. When he said that he loved to use the word queer it just.. fucking hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks. I literally couldn’t breath. And it’s not like I’ve never heard people use the word queer. Tons of people identify as queer. But it was just something about the way he explained it? And maybe it was just the fact that it was him explaining it because, as I said before, I look up to him. He has a huge impact on my life. Saying queer gives me comfort. It feels less... restrictive I guess, for a lack of better words. I don’t know if this will be /the/ label for me, but that’s not the point. There doesn’t have to be a label for me. I, no one, should have to be pressured into finding a label so that other people have something to call you?? Fuck labels. Fuck people who pressure you into picking one. You be you.

So, in conclusion (honestly I feel like this has all been so incoherent I apologize) I don’t want to hide forever. I don’t. I hope that some day I can have even a fraction of the courage that Dan has to tell the people that I care about who I truly am. And the first step is telling someone.

So, to everyone who sees it here, most of which probably know or don’t care,

I’m bisexual, bitch. And I use the word queer.

It took so much fucking courage for dan to post that video and I have crazy amounts of respect for that man. I’ve said it a thousand times already, but I’m going to say it again. I’m so. Fucking. Proud of him. And I know he’s probably going to get thousands of stories like this one (if he hasn’t gotten that many already) but I’m going to tag him anyway. @danielhowell , you’ve changed my life. You’ve changed millions of people’s of lives for the better. Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

Tldr; dnp mean everything to me, even though I’ve grown away from them, they have been and always be a big part of who I am and i am so fucking proud of Dan.

[swordbreakerz]

✨ for all of them, 🎥 for treasure planet and guardians of gahoole, 🍀 for 9-1-1 and penumbra, 📃 for unicorn chronicles, 🏳️‍🌈 for howls, treasure planet and legend of zelda, and 💎 for any ones you have facts for lol

you spoil me uwu

🎥 - ok for treasure planet, gotta be the 12 years later scene in the beginning and the zoom in to the spaceport, the way it transitions from jim reading under the blankets to him flying on his solar surfer is so chefs kiss, and just like. everything about to the spaceport lmao, fr guardians definitely the scene where soren flies through the fire and then blows up the pulley system to get rid of the flecks energy, bro when hes flying above it all holding the lantern before he dives down to save them? chills

🍀 - you know im on that projection shit w/ juno steel, ive truly never like connected with a character like that before and he’s really really helped me thru my recovery and transition lol, fr 911 uhhh ig buck or eddie? i havent Thought About It or like consumed it enough times yet to rly settle on someone but fr now,,, they

🏳️‍🌈 - ok for howls, Everyone Is Bi/Pan, howl is trans and autistic and i will die on that hill, fr treasure planet jim and cpt amelia are both trans and both of them + doppler are autistic, fr loz link is trans, autistic and semi nonverbal and communicates primarily with asl, post twilight princess zelda says fuck it and finds a way back into the twilight realm and she midna and link hang out, most of these boil down to everyone i love is trans gay and autistic because i say so lmaooo

📃 - OK SO. without like, spoiling too many plot points, our main character is cara and she lives with her grandmother. her mom is dead and dad is out of the picture. one day theyre getting chased by these people that her grandma knows and cara gets thrown into an alternate realm full of fantasy creatures using her grandmothers amulet. she meets a unicorn named lightfoot and a bunch of other rad people and basically, starts a journey to save that world from the Hunters. the Hunters are an organisation who specifically hate unicorns and want them all dead, led by Beloved, and cara and her friends have to try and stop them from entering the world and wiping them out. its sooo so so good and i highly recommend it cause i have no one to talk to about it please god

✨ - oh boy uh, well. im just gonna like list them out lmao

unicorn chronicles: i loved unicorns as a kid and read it when i was in elementary school, and over the years its remained just as compelling and well written as i remember and like. god the whole concept is so godamn cool and all the subplots that get introduced are fuckign fantastic and like all the different creatures are amazing i literally cant sing its praises enough

howls moving castle: must i have a logical reason? is it not to vicariously live my fantasy of running away to the countryside with a wizard boyfriend, his demon and his apprentice?? for real though, its such a fantastic story with beautiful visuals in the movie and wonderfully compelling prose in the book, and esp in the movie the whole time travel subplot with sophie seeing howl and calcifer in the past and then howl finding her in the future makes me go feral

penumbra: gays in space. need i say more? im a huge slut for gay found family and especially in futuristic space, and im a huge big fan of the lgbt utopia its created. like yeah capitalism sucks but at least im not gonne get misgendered in space starbucks, u kno? all the writing and dialogue is so incredible and the SOUND DESIGN GOD, alex i know u specifically can relate when i say i would kill a man for sophie and her incredible sound design skills, like dude the dance scene in man in glass p2 you can hear every single individual step they take and every swish of junos dress and i jusT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! god its so good, plus the whole the characters help me work through my trauma and repressed anger haha

911: this one is entirely your fault. so obligatory horny on main everyone on that show is so hot i want oliver stark to cradle me gently in his beefy arms oh my god. other than Men, the way it drives home the whole ‘you can’t save everyone, and it will kill you to try, so just focus on what you can do and keep living’ makes me so emo. the way it tackles big bureaucratic issues as well as closer to home interpersonal ones is amazing and i love how it shows people going through and dealing realistically with trauma.

treasure planet: again, who doesnt want to live in Cool Steampunk Space Travel Future? i really really love jims story and his arc, the way he deals with his trauma is uhh very familiar lol and his relationship with silver is like the ideal. the story is just the coolest concept and i love all the wonderful character design and animation, plus the soundtrack SLAPS and everything is beautiful

legend of zelda: ive been associated with this series from a very young age due to my name and as soon as i gave into my fate and looked it up for real i just kinda fell into it lol. i cant really tell you exactly what draws me to it besides ‘wow fun game!’ and ‘god i wish that were me,’ but like the absurd amount of detail thats put into each installment and the creative ways they retell essentially the same/similar story over and over is incredible

guardians of gahoole: so i had the same experience with this and treasure planet which is i remembered ‘oh hey this is a movie that exists and i cant clearly remember watching it, ill look it up :)’ and then it consumed my life for a solid 3 months. firstly this movie is absolutely gorgeous, the animation and framing is fucking stunning and the way they handled owls talking like people as far as the movement of their very inflexible beaks was amazing. it sort of has the same draw for me as warrior cats? secret animal society ft incredibly traumatic experiences and the characters dealing with it. like, the whole concept is just so fuckign wild and it works so well, i rly enjoy this niche genre.

💎 - alright trivia time, so guardians of gahoole is based on a book series and the movie only covers part of the first arc i think idk, BUT theres another series set in the same universe called wolves of the beyond that i devoured when i was younger! i didnt know they were connected for the longest time and when i found out i was :000, i still rly love wolves of the beyond and wanna reread it, as well as read the actual gahoole books. in the howls books, sophie is a redhead! also, markl is named michael and like a fully functioning young adult who ends up marrying one of sophies sisters. treasure planet is, obviously, based off treasure island but its so much better than the book dont bother reading it lol i tried and it was boring. there was plans for a treasure planet sequel that was fully scripted and cast but it was cancelled cause disney sabotaged treasure planet from the start with the shitty release and advertising and tldr we were ROBBED, also amelias concept was much more octopus like and while that wldve been rad im p glad she was switched to a cat for. several reasons lol. uhh i dont have a lot of Fun Facts abt the unicorn chronicles but for the longest time i thought there were only 3 books and then last year i found the fourth book by chance in a kitsch store and nearly had a breakdown i was so happy, like full on i started shaking and crying cause there was so much joy in my body i cldnt contain it.

thats all i can think of tysm ily, to anyone who read all of this bless u please watch guardians of gahoole and read the unicorn chronicles i will love u forever

[joemazzhello]

i wanted to write some sappy shit about how much Joe means to me so i’m putting it below the cut so you don’t have to burn your eyes reading it if you don’t want to because it’s very long and very cringy 

edit from after i wrote this: wow i feel awkward maybe publishing this because it made me quite emotional and it’s literally only been a month but i would def recommend to people to write out your feelings, this has helped me a lot. If you do, tag me in it because I would love to read your experiences with the movie, band, or the boys! 

ok so honestly i’m very new to Joe’s work (apart from watching Jurassic Park obvs) but he already means a lot to me so i’m just going to try and express this the best way i can.

Since I was 12(?), my friends have called me obsessed with men, which i don’t argue and i think is funny, because it’s totally true. I have a list of 41 celebrities I love on my phone and my billboard next to my bed is covered with magazine covers of some of these men. While i think they are hot, i’ve never felt the way about them the way i do about joe.

When I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody, I was not excited. I wasn’t a fan of Queen and the movie had been getting mixed reviews. Afterwards I thought the movie was good (far from the best movie ever) but it did make me want to listen to Queen. So thats exactly what I did for weeks, and when I got bored, I would watch the music videos on youtube, which led me to interviews. Then it went downhill (or uphill, depending on how you look at it).

I had known Rami from Night at the Museum (one of my favs) and had a crush on him in that movie (who didn’t). So I watched a load of interviews with him because I knew him which led me to loving the whole cast. Then Gwilym stood out to me because he’s more conventionally attractive I would say. I actually never had a crush on Ben (sorry) but I loved, and still love, the whole cast. 

Then as I started to actually get into the band members, John stood out to me. I definitely think John is the best member of Queen. I love his songs and his skills are amazing. Don’t get me wrong everyone in Queen is amazing but I think I can just relate to John a lot so he stands out. Anyway, that meant that when I watched the movie again, I stared at Joe the whole time.

After that I was just gone with Joe. Any interview you watch he stands out as funny, kind, intelligent, and so passionate about what he does. I went down my usual route of what I do when I find people attractive. Watch any interview ever, screenshot all the pictures I can find, follow the stans on tumblr, and put them as my background on my phone. But seeing the love for the cast and the band on here, I felt more love towards Joe than any other celeb I’ve crushed on and I finally caved, making this sideblog, going further than I have ever gone before for a celebrity crush.

This year has been a pretty shitty year for me. I’ve been so stressed for it to not work out leaving me feeling pretty depressed and feeling like I’m stuck. Nothing serious, but enough to make me feel low most of the time. I mostly feel as if I have nothing to look forward to in life.

Now this is going to be very cringy and cheesy and I know me in 5 years (or maybe even a week from now) will hate myself for writing this (thats what secret sideblogs are for right?) but seeing Joe with his passion and laughter has made me think a lot about who I want to be. Unlike any other celeb I’ve crushed on (out of 40!) I can see myself having a future with someone like Joe, and he has reignited my want for family and someone who loves and respects me (also he’s really hot). I am not a huggy or touchy person and I find it hard a lot of the time to think myself wanting to be cuddly with someone. But when I think of Joe I can imagine me being like that, just wanting to be as close as possible. Mainly, that dastardly picture of him with those little boys has wrecked me about a million times thinking about how I want my future to look. He has been through so much recently but continues to laugh and smile which really inspires me. While I would love to be with Joe, the most important thing is he has reminded me of how I want to live my life and what I (hopefully) have to look forward to.

With that cringefest over (r/sadcringe am i right) I wanna say thanks for the support on this blog and lets hope I don’t just get over Joe like all my other crushes but honestly I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Also if you read this whole thing you are crazy and I love you.

TLDR: I love Joe with every fibre of my being 

[janiedean]

Why don't you like Harry Potter?

I could reply ‘because it’s not a given that anyone would like it’ but if we want to be specific (SORRY ANYONE WHO LIKES IT TAKE IT AS MY PERSONAL OPINION):

I tend to not care about things where the protagonists are teenagers and in high school (asoiaf is the exception and the teenagers/children aren’t all of it and they’re not in high school) in general and HP is basically that except with magic

I am absolutely not into **magic** stuff when we’re discussing fantasy - I like lotr and asoiaf and discworld (which is satire/trope subversion anyway) and I have other exceptions but stuff like WIZARDS AND WITCHES AND STUFF is one of the things that I can care less as far as fiction is concerned

I find it really too simplistic in plot conception and execution, like I read maybe a bit of it and I couldn’t get into the style whatsoever because I thought it was nothing special

I watched like movie four and a part of two and I fell asleep during both for how little I could care

there is like one damned gray character in those books/films - ONE - and I’ve been hearing discourse about whether he’s GOOD OR BAD since I was in middle school

I’ve been withstanding snape discourse since middle school excuse me if I can’t stand it anymore

my friends back in the day couldn’t talk about literally anything else so if you didn’t care you either were uncool or you just had to listen to them harping about it when I was just like CAN WE TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE

they also proceeded to spoil me the entire thing at least for the main stuff so why the hell would I be interested if I already know everything and excuse me it sounds like the least interesting chosen hero story in existence to me at least

(no honestly harry is such a Chosen Hero trope in all the worst ways like sorry I really don’t care)

I’ve read/seen so much shit with the same moral which was better written and conceived that I’m nowhere near interested in getting into that, too

I really don’t care about wizards under the age of eighteen (and over the age of eighteen it’s... a very selected choice)

I can’t stand that this fandom is so entitled that they got eight movies, one play, the books, THE PREQUELS, I don’t even know how fucking much extra canon and so on and THEY HAVE TO KEEP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT EVERY OTHER MOMENT and the play was shitty, and the prequels are cash grab and the movies sucked and HERMIONE’S DRESS WAS PINK AND NOT BLUE AND THAT WAS A PLOT POINT THAT I HAD TO SEE DISCUSSED FOR ANOTHER THREE YEARS LIKE WHY DO YOU FUCKING CARE WHAT HERMIONE’S DRESS LOOKS LIKE, never mind that y’all have such a large fandom you can find virtually any pairing or ship or kink in it but of course I only see wanking about stuff when my favorite fantasy series is a perpetual yuletide fave, my otp has twenty fics half of which are tied to me somehow and got one shitty movie after years which sucked ass but of course AFTER EIGHT MOVIES THE PROBLEM IS *HERMIONE’S DRESS*

the harry/hermione vs ron/hermione shipwar that people still can’t let go about wanted to make me go murder people back when I had to read discourse about it oN LIVEJOURNAL, ON TUMBLR, ON FB AND IRL at the same time

the fucking snape discourse

the fact that people can’t seem to tag their posts with hp assuming that everyone likes it so I had to blacklist that, snape, hermione and idk how many characters just to make sure that shit wasn’t on my dash anymore and I still see it

once I said that I wasn’t gonna read it anyway because if I did I’d only care for some of the adults and I knew they were gonna die since everyone spoiled it for me already and then someone had the disgrace to say ‘if you liked theon in asoiaf you’d probably like snape as a character’ and I had to go through four hours of anon wanking about SNAPE DISCOURSE when I didn’t even know how to reply and my experience with this fandom is ALWAYS like that

I find it utterly boring and predictable and I can’t care less

also: let’s get it out of the way that I watched fantastic beasts with friends who dragged me and I didn’t dislike it actually I thought it was cute and GUESS WHY IT WAS BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS AN ADULT AND DIDN’T GO TO SCHOOL and it was touching somehow more serious themes than your usual trite YA stuff that the original is, and obviously the fandom is so full with discourse I’d never even touch it with a ten foot pole but it also shows people can’t seem to read/interpret anything related to HP in a sane way and without realizing that IT’S NOT ALL BLACK AND WHITE GDI, same as apparently they can’t let go of the fact that they have to put poor snape in one specific box instead of admitting that assholes can do good things for a good cause without meaning they aren’t assholes and be fucking done with it already. I also have no ill will towards poor jkr who has decent political views and only made money out of doing what she liked but which I have a feeling is a way better adult writer than YA writer but she never will have the chance to because if she gets out of the HP sphere no one cares about what she produces and/or doesn’t get it (guys I had to read there wasn’t racism talk in FB when it was set in the US like what did you think wizards not being able to marry normal humans was standing for).

but tldr: I find it a bunch of YA re-heated tropes put together in a way that can work for kids and was very smartly put together but is not really greatly written and does not work for me and I can’t give less of a fuck about the original series especially about teenager protagonists, the fandom is the incarnation of walking discourse, I hate that everyone seems to assume that you have to like HP and that it’s impossible that you might actually not give a fuck, I hate that I’ve had to hear HP discourse/talk since I was nine years old ie for the previous twenty years of my life, I hate that I can’t seem to escape idiotic discourse even if I try to get it out of my way and ah I forgot, I can’t anymore with people fighting bloody battles over freaking hogwarts houses and ah wait again I hate how in any small fandom in existence you won’t find a lot of things but THE HOGWARTS AU HAS TO BE THERE and if you don’t care for it you’ll have to read it anyway while being bored out of your mind because you really just don’t care for that setting.

ah, and I’m sick tired of having to justify the fact that I don’t like HP to about everyone I know irl because apparently it’s impossible that I can, you know, not like something that everyone else likes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

again: I don’t mind discussing it on my terms and with people I know who also know I’m not interested in reading or watching it, but I’m really sick tired of seeing it everywhere after twenty years of telling everyone I don’t care. I mean. twenty years. I’m glad people enjoy it and I’m glad it got people into books and I absolutely don’t want to tell people they shouldn’t enjoy it because I can’t get into it - it’s their childhood and their favorite series and I’m sure it was great for them same as the stuff I liked was good for me - but it doesn’t mean I actually have to like it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[jojen-hewitt]

“Better luck next time.”

Bank Robber AU for @ambiguous-eyepatch for the Valentines @aftgexchange!

I had a lot of fun drawing these and I hope you like it! 😃

I realized too late that this wasn't exactly what you meant by your prompt, sorry about that, but I hope it's still okay!

The rest of my mini-fic/headcanons/ramblings about this AU are below the cut:

Okay, so right off the bat I got a little carried away with this AU and its way longer than I thought it'd be, so tldr version; Andrew and Neil are rival thieves who sometimes help each other out. Neil gives fake names, Andrew finds him interesting. Two finger salutes are used back and forth. The others make appearances. Neil's a little shit to Riko. Totally impractical, illegal, and very convenient scenarios ensue. Exactly what you'd expect from what was supposed to be a Bank Robber AU but turned more into a Cat Burglar AU. Again, sorry about that!

So, *rolls up sleeves*

Andrew, Aaron, and Nicky are a gang of thieves (Aaron is the tech/medic guy, Andrew's the thief, Nicky is usually the distraction/get away driver). The three of them have been doing this since the twins were in high school. ("It's expensive raising two twin boys as a single parent. Especially when one has expensive tastes in cars and the other wants to be a doctor!" "For the last time Nicky, stop telling people we're your kids!!")

Although Andrew has been doing this on his own for a while (it's how he got himself thrown into juvie)

Neil takes to becoming a thief after his mom died. They still went on the run because they stole from his father, so he thought that would be the best way to keep up some kind of income. He changes name and appearance to avoid police and his father (heads up now, this is the last time Nathan's mentioned, didn't know how else to add him).

Neil threw his outfit together at a thrift store (Orange was the only colour of bandana left, ok).

Andrew of course bought nice, expensive, dark clothes that can blend easily in a crowd. Also to make him look ninja like, not like anyone but Nicky would dare to admit it though.

These two first meet at the Hernandez Museum in Arizona. Neil tries to steal a painting; Andrew whacks him in the gut with his poster portfolio before grabbing the painting and high tailing it outta there, (Not before he gets a fake name from Neil (probably Stefan)),

"Better luck next time." *two finger salute*

As Neil moves on to South Carolina, sometimes the orange gets recognized, so the papers have taken to calling him The Fox ("Really, Matt? That's what they call him?" "Yeah, you know, orange face mask and he's a thief. Dan came up with it. Makes sense if you ask me.")

Side note, Neil is Matt's new roommate and Matt has no clue what's going down, but accepts that his roomie runs at weird hours and prefers to keep things surface level in conversation. They're still bffs during the day when their schedules intersect.

Dan, the investigative reporter interested in this string of robberies, lives with Renee next door to the cousins, those shifty looking guys who are always angrily whispering in German at each other and coming and going at weird times, but Nicky seems nice enough and Dan thinks Renee has a thing for Andrew, (she does not, they just spar together once a week, and Renee may or may not teach Andrew some lock picking techniques... maybe), so they let it go. 

Allison is a close friend of the girls and owns some of the valuables/buildings that get targeted. She's sort of confused when some of these items return a few weeks after Dan reports about them stolen, with a fox sticky note attached

(Neil may steal for a living, but he feels bad when he finds out some of that stuff is hers, so returns the more sentimental items. Andrew does not.)

Kevin is the detective trying to catch these thieves with his new partner - Andrew, who uses info to get a good location/hit or cover his trail. (also puts that criminal justice degree to some use).

*I debated making Kevin a security guard but liked the idea of Andrew being his partner while also being the criminal they're trying to catch dynamic better*

Kevin eventually joins up with Andrew's crew because Riko (Kevin's old partner, also on the robberies case) just took things way too far and sort of snapped, almost injuring Kevin. He won't take part in the robberies himself, but he'll help give a lead or distract the attention of the other officers when Andrew needs it. (He just wants Andrew to help keep him from Riko again.)

Kevin takes his job very seriously, but when he finds out Neil, an old childhood acquaintance, is The Fox he warns him to run before more trouble starts up with Riko (Neil does not, he's found a life here, even if some of its a lie, and he's gonna fight for it).

Kevin starts drinking around this time. (seriously, all he wanted was to be a good detective like his mom and dad, now he's covering for two thieves he's supposed to be apprehending for lord knows what reason)

Seth is a security guard who Nicky takes great pleasure in knocking out (he overheard the guy said some shitty things about gay people while they were staking out the place earlier)

Erik is the cousins' international seller.

Wymack is the police chief/commissioner and doesn’t get paid enough.

Now back to the thieving.

Neil keeps running into this guy at his heists and it turns into a sort of one sided rivalry of Neil trying to case the joint before Andrew gets there.

It barely works, Andrew always beats him there, but he gets better at it. (and someone would be lying if they said Andrew doesn't wait sometimes to see if the Fox shows up)

Neil's taken to calling Andrew the Monster because Allison hates whoever keeps stealing her stuff (also, getting hit by a portfolio tube hurts, Andrew, of course he's gonna think you're a monster at first) but after one time he hears Aaron yelling over Andrew's earpiece, he extends the title to "the Monsters".

which is also roughly when Andrew gives him some sort of name in return to Neil's alias (Chris this time around) because this has been going on for months now.

Andrew eventually makes a deal with him to help each other out because this thief is a train wreck and is gonna get them caught eventually (Andrew will keep the police off his tail and Neil just has to help Andrew with some of the trickier robberies).

Andrew tends to chat a little with this weird Fox named Alex or Stefan or Chris or Duncan or whoever he is today, just 'cause these robberies have started to bore him, but this,

this guy is something interesting

And they start to learn little seemingly inconvenient things about each other

("Oh, there's knives in those? Good to know." "Your mom's dead? Same for my brother. Paid for my car." "Favourite color is grey actually!" "You're more a raccoon than a fox." "Actually my family never celebrated holidays. What brings you to a jewelry store on Thanksgiving?" "I don't like being touched." "Tell your friend that I can in fact understand what he's saying in German... And fuck him too." "Ice cream is the best goddamn food in the world and I will gut you for saying otherwise!")

... Ok, last one is more context than verbatim, but you get the point...

As he gets better, Neil starts to leave little fox sticky notes behind with insults towards Detective Moriyama (because fuck that guy, he keeps bad mouthing The Fox in the news and saying it'd be easy to catch "an amateur like this flea"!!)

Kevin and Andrew have mini heart attacks when they find them ("why agree to my protection when you clearly have a death wish?!")

Eventually, Neil has perfected the art to the point where he can get the item/money before Andrew arrives, but against his better judgement (and the screams of his mother in his head to "Just run! Run! Get out of there while you can!") he stays, even just to leave Andrew with a new fake name.

One of these nights Neil almost gets caught by Riko on patrol, (who is still rather enraged by the last note; how does the Fox even know about his daddy issues?), so he has to change his appearance last minute to not get recognized on the streets.

Matt is the most surprised by the new auburn hair and blue eyes, but again, he rolls with it. Recommends that his girlfriend's roommate is really good with dying hair if he wants to mix it up again though.

Andrew and Aaron get into some trouble (*cough*Drake*cough*) so the Monsters are out of commission for a while.

Neil feels slightly responsible (somehow his tip off to Andrew leads to it, I don't know).

They haven't seen each other since that night.

Andrew eventually gets back into the swing of things ("Andrew are you sure..?" "Yes Nicky, now get in the fucking car.")

One night Kevin gets him a tip off about an opportunity at the EVRMR Private Bank (inside info from Jean who just so happens to hate working there and the Moriyamas, who own the place).

So as Andrew makes his way to the roof, he hears something below (hurried foot steps from all too familiar worn out shoes below) and he takes a glance and sees a flash of orange.

And there's that bothersome shadow who was only supposed to be a brief distraction from routine,

but now he's got a slightly new look and what appears to be a duffle full of what's supposed to be Andrew's cash.

Neil senses eyes on him and sees a figure on the roof and just knows.

Cue two finger salute. "Better luck next time!!"

And he's gone.

(Andrew still checks the vault and finds a fox sticky note that says 'Abram')

*cue Aaron's screams of annoyance and Nicky's demands to know if this guy is at least hot if they keep letting him take their marks*

(Kevin probably is downing a vodka bottle somewhere, but that's a given)

Next day, Riko is out for blood. Jean eventually quits and goes to work at the Trojan Bank.

Later, Dan decides to throw a house party for reasons (maybe a successful article? Matt got a promotion? A doomed attempt to get Renee and Andrew together?)

Renee calmly asks Andrew to come and he agrees for the sake of free booze (also Nicky has been making annoying puppy dog faces at the door ever since Dan asked him and he had to say no)

He's bored and tired and hates that his boss and Kevin are there

(Dan spends so much time hounding the police station for stories that Wymack has essentially adopted her)

Then Matt comes in with a quiet, auburn haired roommate called Neil.

That's when things start to get interesting.

[filthyjanuary]

1, 3, 5, & 6 :)

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

I genuinely never in my life have understood Destiel shippers, like imo Supernatural is very much a show where a) romance has no place in the plot and every time they’ve devoted any time to romance, it’s been Bad (Sam/Amelia in S8 is a good reference point), and it would just be super OOC for both characters for it to ever be a thing. Also have you seen Dean Winchester at all? His mental state is a mess and he would be a shitty boyfriend. Also ever since the writers started pandering to shippers, Cas’s characterization has gone out the window, he’s bland, whiny, has lost all his badass potential, and serves no actual plot purpose. I also genuinely do not understand people that ship MCU!Stony at all. I’ve heard there’s actual shippable content in the comics which is cool but in the MCU there’s nooooo basis there, the movies did fuck all to really develop their friendship except for maybe the end of the Avengers, they retcon that friendship all the time, and really they do nothing that leads me to believe they have anything other than a working relationship. They’re both much more shippable with other characters too (Steve with Sam, Bucky, and Thor, Tony with Pepper, Bruce, and Rhodey) so like I don’t see the appeal at all. Also Bughead is tbh the blandest, most uncharistmatic ship I have ever canonically seen. There was no proper buildup, and they were just filler kissing for half the season, and people are just nutting over it because Betty is so bland they can self-insert onto her and live their “bad boy” fetishes out through her, and ever since it became canon both Betty and Jughead’s characterization has gone out the window and their entire storylines have ceased to exist unless they can inevitably be linked together.

Tldr I hate ships where the actual characterization for individual characters has to go out the window to make them work.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

Oh man so many times. I had blacklisting stuff so even if I have notps or things i don’t like blacklisted, I get tempted to click anyways so I’ve just unfollowed people, including irl friends lmao, for putting ships/characters/opinions I don’t care about on my dash. Also this isn’t really a fandom opinion but it gets tied into fandom opinions a lot. I unfollow people that actively and repeatedly put ace discourse on my dash. It’s not a conversation I’m a part of and once you’ve heard both sides, it sort of just gets really petty and hurtful so I unfollow people who actively put really mean-spirited discourse related stuff on both sides of the issue on my dash.

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

KLAINE. Oh my god I initially was a Klaine shipper and sort of started to get bored of it once Blaine transferred to McKinley and the writers turned him into another stereotype instead of keeping him unstereotypical like he’d initially seemed like when he was at Dalton. I still low-key shipped it until the Klaine shippers became truly intolerable and annoying and loud and smug and sort of ruined the entire show for me so I checked out because they were obnoxious and tbh nothing angers me more than an entitled fanbase. It’s the number one way to get me to check out of a show. It’s what pulled me out of Supernatural when I took my three year break, it pulled me out of Teen Wolf, it certainly pulled me out of Glee, and it’s definitely pulled me out of other ships before and definitely will again. 

The conspiracy Larries also made casually shipping Larry depressing so I checked tf out of that ship in like 2014 also.

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I don’t think they’ve ever made me enjoy a pairing I’ve previously hated. They do make me consider ships I hadn’t really thought about before in new and interesting ways, so I’d say it’s possible I’ve become less ambivalent about ships because of fandom but if I outright hated a ship, I don’t think I’ve really ever turned around and started loving it. I’m very secure in my opinions like that.

THANK YOU THIS WAS FUN