#<- this for personal art because i like making things hard for myself
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felassan · 3 days ago
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David Gaider on Fenris, under a cut for length:
"Fenris. Now, DA2 is a story all on its own but I'm not going to go there other than to sum it up as "we had just over a year and a half to make this". It's why I only wrote one follower, Fenris, and although it'll make his fans mad: I probably shouldn't have. Let me explain. The way we'd approach making the followers is brainstorming a list of concepts covering first the array of gameplay classes (and sub-classes) and then making sure they each have some skin in the game when it came to the story's conflicts - ideally having characters on both sides of the major ones. Why? You can't make a player care about the world, but you can make them care about characters who care about the world. It's the easiest way to provide hooks into a conflict, outside of it knocking on the player's door. Heck, it's probably better than that. Players will burn the world for approval. After that, we'd decide things like romances/sexuality. Then the writers would pick who they'd write. I always let my writers pick first. I figured they do their best work when it's something they're inspired to write... and they got so few chances at ownership, I wanted to give it whenever I could It's why I (reluctantly) let Patrick wrest Cole from my grasp in DAI, a character I'd created in Asunder. It's also why I let Jennifer take Anders in DA2, who I'd started in Awakening. In this instance, it meant I was left with the angry elven warrior character who nobody else appeared to want."
"It should have been my first clue that something was up. The second was how the artists had zero clue what to do with him. The art concepts were all over the place - from mages to crows to... well, even weirder. No matter how hard I tried to explain the idea, the artists simply didn't seem to get it Does this mean he was a bad character? Not exactly. Just an idea that probably deserved some re-examining. You can tell when an idea has a certain spark, and part of that is being easy to communicate. Sadly, there wasn't time for any re-examining even if it'd occurred to me. And it didn't, not yet. If it had, if I had time, maybe I'd have re-booted him as a templar. Someone pro-templar rather than anti-mage, who could give a personal hook into Meredith and give the templars some badly-needed humanity. But this falls into the shoulda-woulda-coulda category. I had a follower to write. Quickly. I struggled, at first. It was hard to get away from "Fenris hates everything, all the time". It felt very one-note, and I didn't know where to take him. My third clue, I guess. I also wasn't sure if I was the right person to write a former slave. I did know that couldn't be the center of his story. I did know trauma, however. How it can eat you up. How the hate and resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. How it can infect your relationships. Fenris's trauma isn't my trauma, obviously, but here I dipped into a more personal part of myself than I'd ever done before."
"It gave me the center of his story I was missing, but wow was it uncomfortable. In a good way, maybe. I likely wouldn't have, if I hadn't been so desperate. In a way, I think DA2 had some of our best writing *because* of the timeline. It was raw, with little time to sand down the interesting parts. I wouldn't have done the "Fenris doesn't talk to you for three years" thing if I'd known we were going to cut all the reactivity initially planned for the time jumps. When that call was made, I campaigned to cut the jumps to a year, but there was no time for the revisions it'd need. So, um. Awkward. I used to get asked where the name came from, and I... don't remember? Obviously it's derived from Fenrir, but I don't recall why we picked that. Someone pointed at Fenris the Feared from Joe Abercrombie's books... and I did read them, so maybe the name lodged in my head? Wouldn't be the first time. Casting Fenris turned out to be easy. He was the first time I requested a specific VA and got him. (The other times were Merrill and then Solas, my two "I want these specific Welsh actors, please".) Why? OK, if you must know, I'd played a bit of Final Fantasy XII. I heard Balthier. "Yes, that." 😅 And Gideon Emery was a delight, as it turned out. Consummate professional, and that lovely gravel in his voice... good god. Bite the knuckles. There was a struggle to find the voice at the outset where I did my best not to say "just pls do Balthier" but he found Fenris on his own and it was amazing. Overall, Fenris turned out better than he had any right to, considering the rocky start. He had a lot of soul, a vulnerability forged by pain that struck a chord with a lot of players, and I'm glad. Do I regret anything? Probably having him live in a corpse-filled mansion that would never update. That's a hindsight thing, though, as again the cut to reactivity over the time jumps came late. Outside of that, maybe letting the player give him back to Danarius? Poor shock value and a waste of resources because almost nobody took the option. Good evil options are ones that are tempting to take. And the lyrium tattoos. Interesting concept, but they're probably why you'll never see Fenris in a future DA. He requires a custom body, and the tattoos make that expensive. It's why I put Fenris in my 4th DA novel - the cancelled one. Don't fret, though. He died in it, so this way he lives on. 😉"
[source thread]
User: "Wait wait how does he die in [the cancelled novel]??" David Gaider: "Gloriously, after taking up a cause he didn't believe in at first but then made his own, one that allowed him to rediscover what it meant to be elven." [source] David Gaider: "I’m not sorry about the novel cancellation. I’m the one who cancelled it. I am kinda sad we couldn’t make it work, though. Considering it was after I left the DA team, it would have been my final DA hurrah." [source] David Gaider: "From my perspective, it was kind of "well if you're never going to use him again, let me at least give him a proper send off" and the story required a glorious death... but I get that's not the story his biggest fans would want (which is Hawke + Fenris 4ever), so it's just as well." [source]
User: "You all did some incredible work with such a tight deadline" David Gaider: "I'm of the opinion that even if we'd had only another six months to bake, DA2 would be remembered as a classic and not either a flawed gem or underbaked sequel, depending on who you ask." [source]
David Gaider: "Just to clarify the "they're probably why you'll never see Fenris" thing, as it's spawned commentary: 1. It's the reasoning as was explained to me back then. 2. Obviously, if Bio *really* wanted to, they'd find a way around it. But it was a complication that meant he couldn't be included casually." [source]
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buildingunderstanding · 21 hours ago
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This is something I've been thinking a lot about, especially as someone who was raised Christian, who was raised under "thou shalt have no other gods" before me and "these other Pagan gods mentioned in the Bible or other myths don't exist at all".
"Worship" as a word and as a concept holds a lot of weight in the flavor of Christianity I was raised in. I was taught that actively choosing to go to work over being at church was an act of worship of money, but I was also taught that a lot of the ways Evangelicals or Pentecostals worship is incorrect, that it didn't count as worship because of how performative it is.
I was taught that worship should be personal and intimate and meant a personal relationship with God, but also that it had strict requirements, but thinking about it, I have a hard time defining what those requirements were.
In more recent years prior to my leaving the church worship was defined in sermons as "to ascribe worth or value to" and to be honest that scared and confused me. Was I worshiping my art because I found value in it? Was I worshipping my fandoms and fics because they brought me comfort and I held them as dear in my heart?
I didn't believe I could lose my salvation, but it did make me feel like a bad Christian. It made me feel like there was nothing I could ever do that would be enough to be worshiping God correctly or enough.
Then I met Loki and Apollo reintroduced himself to me and I found comfort in the idea of there not being a concept of sin. But I still struggle with the concept of worship.
If I was doing it right, if I was doing enough of it, if the things I did "counted", if I would be punished by the Christian God for trying to figure this out under the umbrella of Paganism.
Worship has kind of become a scary word for me and I often find myself looking for alternative ways to describe my relationship with these other deities. Oddly enough, "devotee" sounds less scary to me than "worshiper". It doesn't carry the emotional baggage that "worshipper" does and it feels more true somehow. I have candles I light and jewelry I wear that I have "devoted" or gifted to my new Gods. I have art that I have created with them in mind that hang on my walls that I consider to be gifts to them.
And while those things can be considered acts of worship...that's still a word that I'm trying to unpack. Some days it feels less icky or scary than other days. Today is a day where it feels scary.
It feels more comfortable to say that I lit a candle to honor Ares than it does to say that I did it in an act of worship. It feels more comfortable to say that I am holding space for these new deities than it does to say that I am worshiping them.
I understand that there are likely dictionary definitions behind the differentiation of the words, and maybe some people find comfort in having different words to describe how their relationships with the gods has evolved.
But for me it just adds pressure of there being a "correct" way to interact with faith, of doing worship in The Right Way or it won't count, or it'll be in vain and won't be accepted.
(I understand that there is to some extent correct ways of interacting with the divine, coming with respect and understanding and those types of things. That's not the type of correctness I mean.)
That type of fear isn't conducive to building a relationship.
I know it's up to me to curate my experience within the internet spaces, I know my struggle with words and concepts are my own and that I can't expect anyone to cater to my own issues. But sometimes seeing these sort of "being devoted to a deity is so much more than worship" is really disheartening. Kinda makes me feel like I'm back in Christianity being given vague and simultaneously very strict rules of what worship is and being warned against doing it incorrectly and earning at best silence from God and at worst some form of punishment.
There is a lot of unpacking and deconstructing I have to do and Loki and Apollo and Artemis have already been so helpful in that area and I want to continue on this journey, but it does get overwhelming at times. Some of that overwhelm does come from debates like this.
Where did the idea of worshiper and devotee being in different levels of worship? Those are literally synonyms lol
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suddencolds · 2 days ago
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a personal milestone 🥳 + author's note
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i finally made it 😭 (there is probably another 10k sitting in my drafts, but i have always tracked word count for this project as a sum of already-published installments)
also a (somewhat long) journal entry below:
This has been the main project in my life for almost two years, now (I started writing on 1.26.2023). It's my first proper attempt at a novel, and it's one of my first times ever posting original work anywhere 😭
It's hard to say how I feel now, perhaps because I feel too much.
Where to go from here? I considered dropping the series entirely before I hit the milestone because I was very tired. In a way, I felt like I had said everything I wanted to say. But I think I also love this series a lot more than I can properly verbalize.
To be completely honest, writing this series was so lonely. To work for so long on something that I could not show to nearly anyone irl (not family, not close friends, not peers, not strangers I met who I talked to about art); to spend hundreds of hours on something that I could only ever post to a small subset of people... all of that was very lonely. I'm sure other creatives have felt this way too.
And at the same time, hearing what people on snzblr thought became probably the most potent source of happiness in my life (is that pathetic? Maybe so.) I don't think this project was self-sustaining at all; I think to some extent, I wrote it because I wanted to hear people tell me that they liked it. I realize this is a terrible and unsustainable reason to create art, but that's the truth.
On some level, though, I kept writing because I loved Y+V. They've been at the forefront at my life for almost two years now 😭 I spent a long time teaching myself how to write them, and a lot of the themes & choices in the series are quite personal. Embarrassingly, I still want to talk about Y+V all the time.
When I posted to ask if I could send my unfinished/unpolished WIPs, some people reached out to offer to read them... and then I never sent anything over to anyone. I think a part of me could not get it through my head that people would be willing to read something completely unpolished, because... well, frankly, a lot of my drafts are just pretty unreadable; I typically only post things that I have already cleaned up. More importantly, I felt like sending my drafts to people—even people who had given me explicit permission to send them!—was selfish and troublesome.
On some level, I also felt the same about asking others to brainstorm with me: I felt like I was asking them a favor which I did not know how to pay back. Perhaps this is just another way in which I have been cruel/uncharitable to myself, but I never imagined people enjoying receiving my drafts. I could never convince myself that for those people, giving feedback/discussing ideas might not actually be a chore. I was always scared to make writing less of a lonely process because I could only think about how easy it would be for me to ask too much.
This is probably the most honest I've been about this particular subject 😭 I am not good at gauging what constitutes 'too much.' I feel like I can get carried away when someone expresses interest, so I try to preemptively position myself as someone who does not impinge on others... I think that even outside of this series, I have defaulted to this pattern of trying to give and trying not to ask. In that particular sense, I am perhaps to blame for my own loneliness.
Anyways! Recently, I've gone back to (tentatively) writing after months of not writing. I'm not sure if I will post another installment here (maybe if the drafts are 'good enough', I will?), but it's nice to write without worrying so much that what I am writing needs to be publishable/presentable.
If you have ever left tags/comments on my work, and you are reading this, I am grateful beyond words to you for keeping me company + for making me feel like what I was spending so much time on was a little more meaningful :') I always go back to reread them when I'm in need of encouragement. Thank you sincerely for the happiness. ❤️
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moonstruckdraws · 2 months ago
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Flowers & Stinging
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still life I just did in two hours
I think this is technically the first post of artwork I've made that doesn't include my sona or anything else from/inspired by those I know, and isn't fan art.
Huh.
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puppyeared · 10 months ago
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sleight doodley before i go to bed <3
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potatobugz · 1 year ago
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i submitted my lovely mouseboy Finnegan for the @ahatintime-oc-competition yesterday :D here is the art i drew 4 them!
for those unaware: he came from a dream i had once involving him and Snatcher But As A Bird; and i sorta just. added onto them from there. they're so sillay
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mercyluvsyouuu · 11 months ago
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People when fucked up media is actually Fucked Up and not just "haha silly little gremlin makes SEX JOKE?!?!🤯 so DEVIOUS..."
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j-esbian · 1 month ago
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does anyone else feel like they need to Make Fan Content That Is Also Good And Interesting in order to make/keep internet friends so as to be worth other people’s time
#the internet is one big networking tool#genuine question because like. i know it’s unhealthy but i also feel like that’s kind of the economy created by the internet#i’m not advocating it and i’m also not trying to be self-deprecating#i was never great at art and i haven’t posted anything i’ve written in like 5 years#like for example. i put off making a dragon age blog for a while bc i don’t Do anything. even now that ive made it i feel like i don’t have#a leg to stand on to talk to my mutuals. we are always competing for attention on the internet#i’ve known a few people where like. i thought we were actual friends and not just fandom colleagues but i always felt like i had fo Prove I#Was Talented to keep them interested and like. again not healthy but i’m wondering how common that is#maybe that is just fandom colleague behavior and i misread the situation but uh#also to be clear i’m not trying to like. blame anyone or victimize myself#i’m mostly curious because i have seen people talk about how making friends on the internet is so much easier and i’m wondering#where that idea came from. bc i still think it’s hard. but i wonder if it’s easier if you’re one already posting Original And Interesting#Content. i mostly just make memes and meta at this point and it doesn’t get a lot of attention. which is fine#i’ve just found it markedly harder to meet people since i switched tacks#one of the reasons i burned out tbh. among other things. i’ve been picking writing up again but i don’t post anymore#honestly realizing this has probably bitten me in the ass before bc i’ve had friends who share stuff they’re proud of and i don’t jump on it#bc to me i’m trying to be like ‘you don’t have to prove yourself to me. i like you as a person’#but probably comes off like ‘i don’t care about the things you care about’. hm#mine
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magpiesketchins · 7 months ago
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✨art✨
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ladsofsorrow24 · 1 year ago
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one of the... weirdly good thing about AI art invading the illustration field is that now, whenever i look at art that doesn't cater to my weird fucking taste, i'm able to appreciate the efforts and creativity that are put into making the artist's own personal vision come to life
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01tsubomi · 1 year ago
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i'm taking the jlpt this sunday and had a stress dream last night abt it bc it sort of snuck up on me and now it's kind of a question of how much my actual japanese abilities will carry me (versus if i should've been cramming on flashcards this past month) but the listening portion is far simpler conversation than my coworkers and i have so. i think that maybe instead of "damn i should've been studying japanese" my perspective should just be "i speak japanese"
#a key part of the dream though was that i failed because i went on a motorcycle joyride during the 40 minute break and didn't make it back#in time for the listening section. the prompt for the listening section btw was to write an essay in english about kirishima eijirou#so i was like damn i would've totally passed#anyway hashtag classic maya but idk#i think i have a bit of a complex abt it bc i was studying for n1 (highest level) in college#but w the switch to online learning we stopped studying the stuff i really needed to work on (vocab and kanji)#and whatever kanji i knew how to write went out the window bc i never had to turn in written homework again#so i really let myself go there for a good two years but since moving last summer i've not only been having japanese conversations every da#i've also actually been studying kanji in my downtime at work#so i have picked up most of the study guide-type information just really slowly over time#i read a ton of manga in japanese lately and most shows on netflix here don't have eng subtitles but i'm fine without them 95% of the time#with the genre of shows i watch at least#so i've been thinking a lot lately abt what my end goal is w japanese studies because 'be able to consume all the art i want' feels like#a good place to be#i do think in the end the only thing between me and n1 is a lot of genuine hard work studying vocab and kanji and reading serious articles#so i feel like all 'sekkaku da shi' i've made it this far why would i just stop working at this point#those are just my thoughts though aaaa i know reading/vocab/grammar section is way more hit or miss#personal
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highwaydiamonds · 2 years ago
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Not a resolution - just maybe a bit of hope and intention to start out the year
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caffeinatedopossum · 2 years ago
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I feel like I'll never be a good artist because of my aphantasia
#its like it goes both ways... i love art but its so difficult because i cant make it spontaneously but making art helps me visualize#the things that i want to see#its the only way for me to see my alters or my inner world#and its the only way i can remember my friends faces even a little (i also have very poor facial recognition)#its my only way to imagine... my only way to daydream#my only way to see things differently#to see myself differently#and it hurts that its so limited#im scared to complain because im afraid people will tell me im just not cut out for art#or that i clearly dont really have it because i can draw#but i dont think they know just how much effort i put into everything. just how much it means to me#i feel like a terrible person and a terrible artist because i have to rely on reference images and tracing so heavily#i feel like everyone will hate me if they knew how much i rely on other peoples art to improve...#i dont want to do anything wrong i just want to maks thinge#i just want to make things#Its the reason i stopped showing people my art and the reason i dont think ill ever be able to profit off my art#even though its my greatest skill (still not saying much clearly)#im scared ill show someone something im proud of and theyll accuse me#id rather just keep it to myself...#do you know how hard it is to be proud of something or love something that youre ashamed to show anyone else?#idk this probably sounds incredibly stupud#im sorry if any of you actually read this
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bfpierce · 3 months ago
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#life is hell btw.#like sorry I’m being miserable this is a fandom blog lol but like#accepting my brother is alive but I’ll never really get to be with him again has been rough idk#and that’s just the latest thing there’s so much going on right now i don’t even know where to begin#i guess the thing is that with my brother he’s the only person in my family who likes me#like he’s the only one who really cares about me and tells me that and shows me that#no one else really likes me because I’m weird and hard to be around and stuff but my brother loves me#and he’s been struggling for years we both have but he’s had addiction problems and helping him has been hard but he was doing so well#and it’s hard to explain but it gets to a point where you can’t force help on them yknow#so you just have to resort to mourning while they’re still alive#I’m sorry i know that’s evil but there’s only so much i can do and I’ve done it all#I’ve been mourning him for years and now I’m mourning again#and i just feel awful#and i know it’s selfish to think this but my birthday is next week and it’s like he’s the only one who spends the day with me#my family will always have dinner with me and stuff but my brother knows i have no friends and it makes me sad being alone on my birthday#and he’s ALWAYS made an effort to be there on my birthday and spend the day with me no matter what#and now he’s in jail and will be in prison probably for the rest of my life#idk and really this is just one of many catastrophic things going on in my life i just need a break#and my breaks are immersing myself into my books and shows and movies#so thank you everyone for all the work you’ve been producing lately i know ot sounds silly but getting to come home and read your guys fics#and look at all of your art or even just reading your posts takes away so much of my stress and feeling of impending doom and helplessness#idk i just wanted to say I appreciate you all so much#please like if you read this though i can’t really talk about this stuff with anyone i just need to be heard
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theabigailthorn · 21 days ago
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any philosophy on surviving fascism? or building local power?
I'm going to start by staying alive, and then I'm going to look around my local community and see what charities are working in the area that I might be able to help out with. I'm gonna give more money to the homeless. I'm probably going to speak less and listen more, for a while. I'm going to pay even closer attention to grocery store prices. I'm going to make art, even if it's not as big and grandiose as I would like to, and try to dedicate myself to the creative principles of it rather than maximising career success. I'm going to comfort my friends who are afraid, and accept their comfort for all the things I'd hoped to do that I might not get to anymore. I'm going to go to the gym because it's good for me, even though a healthy future seems hard to imagine. I'm going to remember that I'm still young. I'm going to remember there are younger people who look up to me. I'm going to listen to older people who didn't get everything they wanted and still turned out happy. I'm going to read.
And I'm going to remember that even if every trans person on Earth were rounded up and killed tomorrow, a million more would be born the next day.
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neverendingford · 7 months ago
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#tag talk#because of all the artists I follow and the art I see I'm able to muster up some art when the muse sings.#so thanks I was able to sketch something for the guy I'm getting to know and maybe will be dating at some point#was thinking about whether to call him cute or not and I think yeah I do think he's cute.#I've been using all my brain power to min-max the interactions we've had without jumping too quickly into the deep end#which is why I don't call him my boyfriend because we've only met irl twice but I think there's no reason why we won't escalate to dating#provided I can not fuck things up#prolly not healthy to have the mindset that I'm responsible for whether things go well or not#not healthy to have the mindset that I'm a stick of dynamite and if I screw things up it'll all blow to shit.#idk. I still feel that way.#we'll see.#either way he's my in to a whole other friend group of coworkers and their friends since we got matched by a coworker/friend#my coworker his friend so I have higher hopes since it's not an online match.#he seems pretty cool and I'm doing my best to spread out the interaction and not get too caught up in his dms#and I was the one to be like “yeah this hangout has gone pretty long” because I know I tend to drag things out longer than they should go.#even if the other person is engaged it's functionally great to make a lunch date last the whole afternoon into the evening.#we both have things to do so as fun as it is to hang out for five hours I'm trying to keep emotionally healthy.#enough distance to keep perspective on things.#my last relationship the other person pushed for more and more hangout time and more and more closeness and I think that's what fucked it#I need to keep my distance to stay emotionally healthy#and honestly? I'm proud of myself for learning that and keeping it in mind.#I've had some hard experiences to learn that lesson but now I'm going to put it to good use and maybe get some dick again.#it's deadass been since October. deadass halfa year since I got dick.#I fucked someone more recently than that but fucking and getting dick are not the same thing.#anyway. new relationship. wish me luck.
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