#I know I'm talking about stuff that happened 3 months ago like I'm an 80 year old looking back on the golden years

[skyelights-xox]

Can't stop thinking about Owl House Season and how batshit it is (by Season I'm talking about the period of time before new episodes drop, not the actual show)

Tumblr and Twitter popping the fuck off at all hours of the day. College thesis-level analysis posts on a single frame shown in a Disney commercial where TOH isn't even the focus. The breakneck speed at which fanartists post redraws of those barely visible frames. The crew posting cryptic tweets. It isn't even safe to go out during Owl House Season because something can and most likely will drop while you're out.

The most chaotic so far has to have been the one before Thanks To Them aired. The poster dropping and it ending up being the most BONKERS one we've ever gotten?? All the hairstyle and outfit changes. The gravestone implications. People joking that Flapjack standing on a gravestone was foreshadowing him dying and then being fucking RIGHT. The time everyone was convinced we were getting a scooby doo-esque chase scene in a graveyard, and the Huntlow fans were deluded into thinking Hunter and Willow were gonna get split up from the group and that's when Belos was gonna find them (this is friendly fire.) The fucking NYCC panel??????? Watching the livestream and them cutting the feed before playing the sneak peek, but leaving the audio on. The montage starting and all you could hear was music and screaming from the audience. We just did not know what the fuck was going on. Followed by people tweeting leaks only seconds after the panel ended???? Speedrunning the 5 stages of grief with every new tweet. That one asshole who dropped the screenshots of Hunter getting possessed on Twitter like 3 days out to the episode airing. Rumors of the entire episode getting leaked??? You just HAD to be there

[dw19791967]

That Feeling Part 3

Pairing: Dean x reader (eventual), OFC Tyler

Y/N POV and Dean POV

Warnings: language, unrequited love, angst, unwanted kissing, depression, anxiety, and feelings.

Trigger Warning: This fic contains discussions of depression and anxiety and feelings that go along with those. If that could be triggering for you I would skip out on this one. It is based on some experiences I have had in real life.

*All mistakes are my own!

I'm back (kinda) here's part 3. I'm thinking possibly two more parts. Let me know what you think!

-Layla

*I do not own this gif

Y/N’s POV:

It has been 5 months since one of the worst nights of my life. I started therapy and have been doing a lot better. It was kinda weird at first talking to someone about my life issues and past traumas, I spent a lot of time just sitting there trying to figure out what to say, especially since I can’t mention anything about hunting. But overall it’s been good. I’ve been taking better care of myself, spending more time with the boys, mostly Sam. Dean has been distant lately but I figured it was because he has spent so much one on one time with me the last few months. Sam has helped me start exercising daily (even though I hate it with every fiber of my being). I’ve lost around 10 pounds which is great considering I still eat a ton of take out. I’m starting to feel like my old self again. I took a break from hunting and started writing, that lasted a hot minute before I was tired of staying home. 

Being back in a routine was good, I feel good.

We are on the road currently Sam caught a case about missing bodies. One of my favorite things. They think I’m weird for enjoying the quiet of cemeteries, but I know it’s because the dead are easier to deal with than the living some days.

“Ok, we got four missing corpses. Gladis Bramford was the first, mid 80’s when she passed. They found her head a few counties over, still missing the rest.” Sam was typing away on his computer.

“Who the hell takes a head only?” Dean had a grossed out look on his face.

I laughed.

“Evidently someone had big plans, poor Gladis.” I poked Dean in the shoulder.

Sam rolled his eyes. “The strangest part was her eyes were replaced with red glass, they haven’t been able to figure out which funeral home she was housed at before entering her final resting place.” 

“So what do we think, grave robbers, ghouls, demons?” I asked Sam.

“Not sure, we will have to see after we check the head out.” 

_________________________________________________

Sam went to check out the head while Dean and I looked over the case files.

“You doing ok sweetheart? I know I haven’t really checked in on you lately.” Dean looked at me.

“For the most part yeah, I feel a lot better than I did. I think taking time to get my head on straight helped a lot, plus therapy.” 

“I’m glad to hear it.” Dean smiled at me.

I missed spending time with Dean. But I hadn’t pushed him, I figured he needed a break from me and I understood that. I can be a lot sometimes and he has his own stuff to deal with. It’s not easy being my friend. Plus after everything I realized I probably will never be comfortable enough with myself to be with someone. I’m in love with him and probably will always be. Knowing he’s here but I can’t have him is a hard pill to swallow but I’m working everyday to move past it. I know he deserves better and I know I’m not it. 

“You haven’t heard anything from that douchebag right?” he continued reading over the files. 

“He actually messaged me a few weeks ago from his facebook account. Asked how I was and hoped I was doing better. I ignored it and he kept sending messages, saying he was sorry and he was a dick, blah, blah, blah. I blocked him.” 

“What an asshat, he must have balls the size of Texas to reach out to you after the stunt he pulled.” 

“I guess so, I was upset by it but I’m moving on.” I smiled at him.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, you didn’t deserve that, any of it.”

“It’s ok Dean, I’ve accepted what has happened and I’m moving on. Choosing between a man and a bear, I’d choose the bear.”

“You don’t mean that, you just haven't found the right man yet.”

I scoffed. “Dean… I’m an overweight, loud mouthed, cursing, strong willed woman, who has extreme trust issues. I doubt I will ever find a man who is ok with that, plus I don’t think I want to put myself out there again, who knows what will happen.”

“Just have me greet them with my glock, I’m sure it will go great after that.”

I laughed.

“In all seriousness I hope you do find someone someday Y/N, you deserve the world whether you believe you do or not.”

My heart sank. The only man I want is right in front of me and he will never want me.

“Thanks De.” I got up to pat him on the shoulder.

“Where are you going?” 

“I just need some air.” 

“Y/N I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t, I just have a lot on my mind and need a break.”

He frowned.

“It’s ok Dean, really.” I gave him a small smile.

Once I was outside and had the door closed I broke down, I can’t keep doing this to myself.

_________________________________________________

Dean’s POV:

I didn’t mean to upset her. I was trying to give her hope. 

It has been five months since I saw Y/N break. I’ve never been so scared in my life seeing her crumble under the weight of the world. I had to step back, let her get her head on straight without me. I don’t want to get used to relying on her to make me feel better. She needs to take care of herself, not me. I missed spending time with her but I knew it was for the best. Plus I know Sam is a better influence. I’m no good for her.

My phone was buzzing.

Sam.

“Hey man.”

“Dean hey, is Y/N with you?”

“Nah, she’s taking a break.”

“Oh, ok. I was going to let you guys know the cops think it’s a serial grave robber, evidently this has happened before. From everything I’ve checked out, I don’t see a relation to a monster. Maybe we should just let the cops handle it?”

I sighed. “Yeah that’s fine, we can stick around for a few days to see if anything happens.” 

“You ok dude?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just worry about her.”

“I know you do, but she’s doing better.”

“I know man, I just feel like I’m losing her. I know I stopped hanging with her but I wanted her to be able to heal without me looming over her.”

“Dean, she probably thinks you need a break from her, you know how she thinks.”

“You’re right Sam, I didn’t think about that. God, I messed up.”

“She’ll be back man and you can talk to her, I’ll go grab us some food before I head back.” 

As Dean was finishing his call with Sam, she sneaked back in.

“She’s here now, talk to you soon.”

“Everything ok?” she asked.

Her eyes were red, she had been crying.

Shit, I’m an asshole.

“Uh yeah, Sam said cops think it’s a serial grave robber, it’s happened before. Told him we could stick around for a few days and see if anything happens. He’s grabbing food, and should be back soon.”

She nodded.

“Y/N I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” I got up to go towards her.

She backed away.

“It’s ok Dean, I’m just being over sensitive right now.” 

“No you’re not, I shouldn't have brought it up.”

“Dean it’s fine really, let’s just drop it.”

“I don’t want to drop it Y/N, I’ve been awful to you these last few months. I was trying to give you space to heal and it backfired. You think I hate you or can’t stand you. Neither is the case.”

“I understand Dean, I know I can be a lot. It’s ok.”

I raised my voice “But it’s not, I feel like I’m losing you!”

She began to cry. 

“Dean, I was doing fine, great even. Until I realized the biggest part of me was missing you. Sam was great at helping me, sure, but you told me you would stick by my side and you didn’t. I really get it. I’m annoying as hell. Everyone deserves a break. But you know I would do anything for you, hell I have and I know you have done a lot for me. And the fact is, I’m not yours to lose. So stop apologizing, put your big boy pants on, and move on. I’m not going to keep doing this!”

_________________________________________________

Y/N’s POV:

Dean took a step back and sighed.

He can’t keep doing this to me and I can’t keep doing this to myself.

I could tell I upset him.

I rubbed my head and sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I just don’t need to keep hearing your apologies alright, I get it Dean. You forget I know you better than you know yourself. I’ll be ok, please don’t beat yourself up.”

I moved to hug him. 

He held me in his arms.

Then spoke, “You know I can’t do that sweetheart, beating myself up is my number one hobby.” He laughed.

“Well you need to stop, especially when it comes to me.” I moved back.

“I just need to know it’s going to be ok Y/N, I know I messed up but I will be better. Promise.”

“I know Dean, I know.”

Taglist:

@hazel-eye-coffee-shop-girl-blog

@deanspinsterwitchs-readinglist

@pandasrdbest2341

[squeaksinc]

2023 creative year in review! 💦💦

The most stand-out thing to mention was this was arguably my most active and productive cosplay year...maybe ever? its incredibly uncommon that I can handmake 9 costumes in a year, but on top of that, 7 of the 9 were also custom designs, which is pretty wild.

costume-wise, i learned a stupid amount of skills and really pushed what i was comfortable with. IMO the best from the year are the collector, knives, pupet, and nekomancer at least just from a craftsmanship perspective. I try not to brag or be an ass, but I am genuinely very proud of those. they posed fun creative challenges that kept me engaged, and I'm happy with how they turned out!

the other side of the coin is although last year was my most dormant cosplay year, other crafts were super active....and the reverse happened this year _(:3」∠)_ i didnt really draw much at all other than making cosplay designs, and other physical media didnt get much time to shine either. I made some plushies, but they were lackluster, and I think I made maybe one unfinished figure lol. but I did try BJD making and loved it!! I made 4 this year and have plans to do more haha.

thats the upbeat overview, the readmore is going to be a more negative perspective so proceed with caution haha.

More than anything I wish i had more time to do art and build up Stitch in The Ditch/more OC work, but honestly this year was also objectively insane in the non-creative front. like i hit the worst patch of chronic pain i've ever had/found out my abdominals have been ripping themselves apart and bleeding for the past 10 years lol/had to go to the hospital like THREE!!!! goddamn times and now i'm dealing with the news i'm going to need abdominal surgery, got a teaching promotion/award, got my physics masters, utterly INSANE family happenings, had gastroparesis for 2 months and couldnt eat more than 200 cal a day in that time which caused all my blood levels to crash and i'm still reeling from it, and of course, have just been Cashually working goddamn 60-80 hours a week in an experimental physics lab in the background during all of this which is driving me to the point of madness- suffice to say i hit my limit like months ago lmao.

like looking back i know i should be happy and proud i did so much but i cant help but feel disappointed and wishing i had done better quality stuff. honestly, i know i goof about how hard work is, but its really really getting to me. i've always been happy with my ability to juggle so many things and preserve my ability to have a cool job, make cool things, and independently take care of myself, but work is month-by-month morphing into more of a monster thats just been suffocating everything else out. I really dont know what next year will look like, as i've been wearing thinner and thinner i'm noticing a trend where I just dont have the energy that I used to to do anything outside of my job.

I bring this up because on paper I should be happy with what I made, but I still feel like im in a stand-still. I made a lot of costumes, but tbh they were low quality/lackluster. like the number went up, but the quality didnt and I couldnt do much of any other art things. I couldve, and shoulve, been able to make much better work this year than I did, but it didnt happen as a combo of being snuffed out by my job physically and mentally.

in 2023 I got a head start/built up momentum from the beginning of the year that carried me through when things got insane in spring/summer/currently, but I'm already starting 2024 from a low point. yall. im so tired. im so goddamn tired. like its funny to goof about how much I do but its catching up fast and i think this is going to be the year when I just cant keep up anymore. Its hard to talk about since the "being crushed to death by your job" topic isnt one people want to engage with, and unless you're experiencing it first hand its hard to understand what living like that really means.

for 2024, i know theres no way I will be able to match this same number of costumes, but my goal is no matter what I want to start making things that are more solid on a construction level. fewer projects, more polish. also doing more non-cosplay stuff like world building and dolls would also be awesome. will that happen??? lord only knows. honestly usually these predictions/goals go haywire but this is also more of a response to external things outside of my control so ???? ??????? we'll see lads

[galaxythedragonshifter]

I guess a rant or something idk.

I'm just gonna be kinda ranting a bit, so this post is probably going to be extremely long, lmao. So apologies. 😅 Also, TW: lots of serious stuff like abelism, Aphobia, kidnapping mention, r*pe culture, ect. Please be safe and click away if any of these are triggers!

I also apologize for posting something so serious, but I needed to get a lot of my anger off of my chest.

I think one of the biggest problems in today's society is basic respect. I've noticed a lot of disrespect and needless Aphobia, abelism, racism, sexism, ageism, and a lot more going around in almost EVERY community.

A lot of it is just...needless insulting and just commenting unnecessary things that had no business being there. It's happening on Instagram and YouTube probably even more than ever recently (I don't remember it being as toxic as it is now), and people are just...rude in general.

People don't seem to know how to mind thier own business and quit insulting random people on the internet. Who cares if another person doesn't want to continue their bloodline? It's literally none of your business unless the person wants to disclose that information.

Who cares if someone is Aroace. Doesn't mean you have to be butthurt about it. "Just say you're single". How about you can it and leave people alone?

Someone on Instagram posts about their experiences being an autistic person? "You're not autistic. You can talk and function." And you're not a doctor, nor autistic yourself, but here we are.

Just a few weeks or so ago (maybe a month idk), I had at least two people badgering me online about me not wanting to continue my bloodline, and saying "just donate sperm." Despite the fact that I mentioned I was female twice. It had started out as an "As an Aroace, this is an absolute win" comment on a YouTube poll. I had gotten a few innocent inquires, and I politely explained, only for them to turn more "aggressive". (A more accurate way to put it would be "insulting") They were full grown adults too. It makes me really concerned that a minor is more mature than a full grown adult who should've known better.

It's super concerning that I know how to respect people's boundaries more than full grown hecking adults. It's terrifying.

On another post, there was a girl talking about her story where her parents had signed her up for a Wilderness "Therapy" Camp. She was kidnapped, taken to said camp, str*p searched, forced to survive in freezing temperatures, her shoes were taken so she couldn't run, she was told she was only going to be there for 7-10 weeks; she was there for 13, she was taken to another location for 3 months, than taken to a third location for 9, and was only able to see her brother in person for four days.

At least 80% of the comments were downright disrespectful and disgusting. "Quit making yourself the victim." "You were probably sent there for a reason." Ect. It's disgusting, it's disrespectful, it's invalidating. Sometimes I'm not even sure why people saying that stuff think it's even a relatively ok thing to even bring up.

People need to learn to (excuse my language) shut the fuck up, get off their high horses, and and get the fuck over it. People are acting like entitled assholes, and it needs to stop. They need to stop thinking that the world revolves around them. Because guess what, it doesn't.

Even further is the r*pe culture stuff. "Were they wearing anything provocative?" "Were they drunk?" Ect. Shut up. They never said "yes" in a confident and clear mind, so keep your fudging hands to yourself. Just because someone is showing a little bit of their kneecaps does NOT give you permission to touch them, grope them, ect.

Why do people like this feel the need to say things like this? Why do people feel the need to be invalidating other people's experiences and traumas? Why do they feel like they have the authority to control another person's decisions and choices??

(and these are the same people who call the younger generations "snowflakes" for fighting for better work/life balances and better pay to accommodate for inflation)

Again, I'm sorry for the slightly more negative post. I just felt that this issue needs to be talked about somewhere.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

What is it about BTS’ music (and them in general) that does it for you? I feel like you’ve mentioned before that you aren’t really a fan of many other, if any, K-POP groups, so I was just curious what exactly it is that attracted you to them? There are so many other talented groups out there, but it’s almost like BTS has a stronghold on the industry and K-pop fans. I’m a huge fan of BTS, but I’m also a fan of all of NCT’s subunits, BP, Stray Kids, etc., and in many aspects, they’re just as talented as BTS. So for you specifically, what’s so special about BTS?

I think there's been a misunderstanding here and maybe you're confusing me with someone else, but I don't remember saying I'm not a fan of other K-Pop groups. I think I actually answered a question a few months ago specifically about that. I do listen to other K-Pop groups and solo artists, it's just that I'm not talking about them extensively on this blog and I don't have the amount of knowledge on them, compared to BTS. It has nothing to do with them being talented, but me ignoring them because BTS is more special. I'll get into why I stuck with BTS, but before that, I'll explain how I decide to get into a group and it has nothing to do with a so called reluctance to K-Pop in particular.

I mentioned this before, but the previous band I really got into was Pearl Jam, way back when I was in college. Of course that meant my primary focus was on that band, but it also introduced me to grunge and the other bands that emerged during that period. I automatically got my history lesson, I had songs from other bands in my playlist, but 80 percent of it was Pearl Jam, 10 percent Nirvana and the rest were other songs. It had nothing to do with my reluctance or dislike of other bands. It was just that my mind was set for like 2 or 3 months only on one band and that was it. I couldn't get out of that. And then it slowly faded and I moved on to other stuff and I went back to my usual playlist which is more diverse.

The same thing happened with BTS. The reasons why I stuck with it and didn't grew out of it after a couple of months it's because they're an active group with an incredibly big library of intermedia content. That's what kept me here, not just the music. If it were just that, I'd have probably forgotten about BTS by now. Just look at the focus on this blog. I may answer random questions from a fan perspective, but the topics in my bio are the ones that actually interest me here.

And I'll be honest with you. BTS's music is not special to me. It doesn't impress me, just like the majority of pop songs don't. I still like pop music, I listen to it on a daily basis. I'm not some stuck up purist that stays away from everything that's fun, but at the end of the day, if someone would ask me to make a top 10 of my favorite songs/artists/bands, BTS wouldn't be there. Nor Lady Gaga, Beyonce, The Beatles or whatever big name is out there that everyone knows. This has more to do with my personal taste and what I believe is the type of music that has an impact on me as an individual. Not an objective statement about the quality of that music. I like songs where I can clearly hear the instruments and I don't mind a 5 minute guitar or drum solo. Lyrics that tell a story, closer to prose. If I want a commentary on societal issue that is close to my own beliefs and the shape in which I want to hear that, I'll listen to Pink Floyd. If I want a story that could instantly make me cry I would play some Joni Mitchell, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel. If I want a good guitar solo, I will choose Prince, David Gilmour, Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix. I think you get my drift. That's were my affinities lie in terms of the music that I will listen to until I get old because it's the type that speaks to me. I don't even listen to it daily. I usually choose a basic pop songs playlist that can include BTS, other K-Pop groups and Western Pop.

And now that I got that big chunk out of the way, no, I don't believe BTS is the best out there and I don't think their music is the most special out there. I never did and that's not something that ever crossed my mind. Not even when I used to listen to them daily. They have good albums and others less than good, just as any other group. Their lyrics don't speak to me, but that's once again, a personal opinion. It doesn't mean I don't see why they have an impact on other fans and how they can be incredibly complex in some of the songs. I can give credit where it's due. I think they can put on some amazing performances and stages, without any doubt, but not all of them are. They're not perfect or special to me in terms of their music.

I think what contributed a lot to their success is their use of social media and the intermedia content. Big Hit was smart and knew how to use that in order to build a strong bridge between the group and their fans. As with other groups as well, but particularly with BTS, the parasocial relationship is crucial. Fans are not actively engaged every single day only because they like the music, but because they like the men behind it. Because they're nice guys and they're funny and cute and relatable and a miriad of other reasons which are clearly not just about music.

BTS has a stronghold on the industry because they made it big, including in the West, on a scale that other groups can now pursue as well. BTS didn't open the gates, but they clearly broke down some walls and made the door bigger. But this is just in terms of breaking out in the West and having that type of validation in mind which in my opinion, should not be the number one indicator of success or quality of music. BTS are the gateway to K-Pop. They are the mainstream and some fans get stuck at the entrance and others choose to explore other rooms. And perhaps it's difficult or they simply don't want to move on because the relationship with BTS is already deeply established and it's stronger.

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙰𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚣 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚜: 𝙺𝚒𝚖 𝙷𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚓𝚘𝚘𝚗𝚐

Disclaimer: In no way am I condoning, encouraging, justifying, promoting nor romanticizing yandere behavior or lifestyle. This is all a work of fiction and not meant to represent real life scenarios.

Warnings: Mentions of toxic relationships, stalking, murder, kidnapping, torture, mental manipulation, use of LSD, physical violence, mind breaking, sexual scenes and other yandere behavior. Read at your own discretion.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:

𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎: 𝙺𝚒𝚖 𝙷𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚓𝚘𝚘𝚗𝚐

𝙳.𝙾.𝙱: 𝙽𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟽𝚝𝚑, 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟾

𝙷𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝: 𝟷𝟽𝟸 𝙲𝙼/ 𝟻'𝟾 𝙵𝚃.

𝙰𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕: ■■■■□80%

𝙾𝚋𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕: ■■■■■100%

𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝙸𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢: ■■■■□90%

𝙾𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕: 𝙷𝚒𝚐𝚑

𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚛

𝙱𝚎𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝙰𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚢𝚜𝚒𝚜:

𝙴𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠 𝚘𝚏 𝚘𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚍𝚎𝚒𝚝𝚢/𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎 .

𝙾𝚋𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚞𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚞𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎.

𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚞𝚕𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚡𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 '𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝' 𝚘𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝.

𝙴𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚝𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗.

𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚍𝚜 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He was a lost and wandering soul when it happened.

It wasn't that he was depressed or unsatisfied with his life.

But for the longest time he felt....empty.

As if he was carrying a void that couldn't be filled.

Not even his favorite hobbies gave him joy any longer.

It was as if he was either tapping out tunes on the piano or splattering colors on articles of clothing.

They had no meaning whatsoever anymore.

Live no longer felt to have any more meaning to him.

He felt like he was merely an empty shell, just going through life but never actually living.

Coming out of an arts and crafts store, his hands were full of all sorts of acrylics and watercolors he had just bought.

A passing cyclist didn't see him and didn't really care as he slightly collided with Hongjoong.

Letting out a big "oof!" he stumbled onto the pavement underneath him, all his materials flying out.

Although he wasn't hurt much, he still let out a groan and tried to get up.

He was startled when a gentle hand reached out towards him, lending him some help.

Looking up, his heart somersaulted as he stared at the kind and beautiful stranger that was offering him assistance.

"Are you all right?" Her eyes were full of concern and tenderness for him.

Hongjoong forgot how to speak in that moment, too amazed and stunned by the beauty standing right in front of him.

Nevertheless he did take her hand, his body trembling nervously as soon as he had the first physical contact with her.

The woman shook her head as her eyebrows furrowed.

"Seriously, what a jerk. Can't believe some people honestly."

Hongjoong still didn't respond, instead he shyly began picking up some of the stuff that had fallen.

"Let me help you." She offered her help once more.

Of course she was faster and picked up most of the stuff because he had a huge scrape on his knee and he was limping slightly.

"Thank....thank you." His voice was barely above a whisper as he took the stuff away from her.

"You're welcome. Would you like me to help you carry them to your car?"

Waving his hand he adamantly denied her offer, assuring her over and over again that he was all right.

Before he could leave, the girl extended her hand once again.

"I'm Y/N by the way. Nice to meet you."

"Y/N...."

Her name repeated itself over and over again in his head even hours after she had left him.

Even as he layed in his bed and stared blankly at the ceiling, he couldn't keep the softest smile off his face.

He didn't know if he had drifted off to sleep or was zoning in and out of a lucid dream, but all he could think about was her.

He was up as soon as the sun rose up, flinging his blanket across the room as he ran to his desk and took out his sketchpad.

Right away, he began to outline her face, wanting the vivid image of her to stay with him should his mind ever dare to erase her from his memory.

Although he was satisfied with the ending result, it was still not enough for him.

He felt his goddess, his newfound muse needed more justice than just pencil to capture her beauty.

Watercolors, acrylics, oil pastels and even ink, there wasn't any art material that Hongjoong didn't use to create a portrait of Y/N.

Soon his studio was filled and covered with paintings of her and he couldn't be happier...

Until he realized how much he'd rather have the real thing right there in person with him, in his arms, holding her and never letting go.

He almost fell into a depressive state again, dreading the fact that he'd never see his beloved muse ever again......

Until he saw her once again, walking across the street from the cafe he was in.

He quickly sprung out of his seat and ran out the door, eager to see her once again and hopefully talk to her more.

Just as he was about to call out to her, he stopped when a male came up to her, hugging her ever so intimately and ruffling her hair.

Hongjoong's hand tightened into a fist, nails digging into his skin as his eyes burning with anger and jealousy.

"She's my treasure, I found her and I won't let anyone else take her from me."

Making sure they were unaware of his looming presence, he stalked them out, trying to find the perfect opportunity to strike.

They seemed to be going on some sort of date, which only fueled his anger.

Finally, after they both went their separate ways, Hongjoong followed the mysterious man home, not letting his chance escape.

As soon as the man parked in his driveway and got out of the car, Hongjoong cornered him.

Using his belt as a makeshift weapon, he wrapped it around the man's throat, tightening it until he cut off his air flow.

Although he put up quite a struggle, Hongjoong was so full of anger and rage that he kept him strangled until his body stopped writhing and layed cold on his feet.

Taking his keys, Hongjoong decided to go inside the house to see if he could find anymore information about his precious treasure, figure out where she lived and what not.

Finding a cabinet full of documents, not only did Hongjoong found her address but also ended up discovering the man he just killed was actually her brother, and not a lover as he believed him to be.

"Oh well. Mistakes happen." He justified himself.

"Besides, he still would have been an obstacle and might have come between us."

A week later and now he was waiting for her inside her house, not having any difficulty in breaking in.

His eyes would anxiously look at the time, waiting for her to come home from work like she would usually do at that time.

When he heard her car come up in the driveway, he took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves.

Y/N walked into her house as usual, throwing her bag onto the couch.

As she was about to turn on the light, she felt a hard blow to her head, knocking her to the ground, her vision suddenly turning black.

When she awoke, she was beyond startled by all the countless portraits and clay figurines modeled after her.

Her eyes scanned the entire room, somewhat frightened by all the countless images of her staring back at her.

She was so bewildered by the scene that she didn't hear the door open and didn't see the person who came in until she was jolting out of her seat when a hand placed itself on her shoulder.

When she turned around and saw who it was that was smiling at her, she couldn't believe her eyes.

"You......you're...you're..."

Hongjoong nodded. "Yes my darling. I'm the man you helped out a month ago. Which, by the way I'm still grateful for."

Cupping her chin with his fingers, he leaned in to give her a kiss but she backed away, which made him frown.

"Hey, it's not very nice to reject someone's offer of gratitude darling. Did they not teach you manners at home?"

When he reached out to touch her once again, she smacked his hand away, moving as far away from him as possible.

Although it didn't really hurt him, Hongjoong was disappointed that his beloved muse could actually strike at him.

"This isn't what I imagined or expected from you love. You're supposed to be gentle, serene, obedient and just outright perfect.... like the pictures surrounding you.."

Y/N put her hands above her face when he crept closer to her once more, but Hongjoong, who was deceivingly strong for his body built, quickly took hold of them and uncovered her face.

"But that's ok.......if a small lump of clay can be easily molded into a beautiful vase, I'm sure I can mold you to perfection."

Y/N shuddered at his words, and tried to writhe her way out of his grasp as he pulled her out into the hallway and dragged her down into what she assumed was his basement.

Using his strength to overpower her, he easily strapped her down into one of the chairs he kept there, binding her legs and hands down.

"I suggest you start familiarizing yourself with this place Y/N. This...."

With an eerily calm and somewhat sadistic smile, Hongjoong extended his arms to gesture around the room.

"Is where your training begins."

7 months.......for 7 excruciating months, Y/N had been kept in Hongjoong's house, 3 of which were spent inside his room of horrors.

She still didn't understand how she came out of there alive and in one piece.

There wasn't a single night where she didn't relive the torture she went through.

Slapping, canning, limbs stretched out til they were almost out of their sockets, head submerged in water til she nearly passed out.

One time she had resisted so much and pissed Hongjoong off extremely by slapping him that he strapped her hand down and smashed her fingers one by one, breaking them entirely.

Of course, although he helped her heal them as he did her other wounds because he didn't want permanent physical damage on his treasure.

It'd only serve to ruin and taint her perfect image.

But the worst for Y/N wasn't going through all the physical torture.....

Her worst nightmare was all the times Hongjoong dosed her on LSD, prompting her to start hallucinating horrible scenarios.

Her mind seemed to weaken with every dosage he gave her, it would slowly eat away every last bit of her sanity.

Which might explain why now she tried to be more obedient and pliant towards Hongjoong, doing everything as he said and exactly how he wanted her to.

Although occasionally she would still step out of line, he'd shoot her a glare and warn her about it.

"Do you want to go back down there? Did I not give you sufficient training?"

At the sole mention of being taken back downstairs, she'd immediately remember herself and portray the illusion he wanted.

Hongjoong seemed thrilled to finally have created the perfect model, his beautiful creation came to life.

He was absolutely head over heels for his lovely goddess, she was beyond perfect and ethereal.

Sure she still had a little bit of stubbornness in her, but that was easily fixed and she'd be his perfect little doll once more.

And he loved praising her and reminding her about it, especially when they were intimate.

"See love? I knew you would come to love me." He whispered softly in her ear, a low moan escaping his lips as he moved inside of her.

Kissing the sides of her neck, he panted softly as he came inside her.

"My beautiful and perfect goddess."

Months turned to over a year and although Y/N still played the part of a loving and perfect soulmate, she didn't know how long she could take it anymore.

Perhaps it was being locked up for so long, perhaps it was the fear Hongjoong instilled in her. Maybe she was tired from playing a role she couldn't keep up with anymore.

All that combined with the fact she was now pregnant with Hongjoong's child, her hormones going crazy and her mind worrying about what her future would be like had her ready to snap.

One particular day, she just about had it.

Hongjoong had been smothering her all day, constantly nagging about taking care of herself and not harm the baby.

Her blood was boiling with rage as he kept pestering her about it over dinner.

Having had enough, she got out of her seat and reached for the nearest kitchen knife and pointed it at her stomach.

"Why don't I just rip out the baby out then? Maybe then you'll be satisfied."

Hongjoong immediately got up and tried to take the knife away from her.

"Y/N! Have you lost your mind?!" He exclaimed.

"If I lost my mind it's all thanks to you!"

Even after Hongjoong managed to toss the knife out of her hands, Y/N still continued to struggle and smack her hands at him, beating at his chest as hard as she could.

"I hate you!" She declared before her fist tried to collide with his face, but Hongjoong being faster than her, stopped it from hitting him.

Outraged that his model was breaking down, he picked her up, not caring about her being pregnant and stomped his way back to the training room.

Y/N was already bursting into tears when he began strapping her down into the chair, protesting about it.

"You'll hurt our child you mon-."

Gripping her throat tightly, he cut her off from finishing that sentence.

"This coming from the one threatening to rip the innocent baby out herself. But don't worry, I'll make sure no harm comes to our child."

Letting go of her neck, he quickly took out a familiar vial and needle out of a cabinet.

Although Y/N tried to get away, it was no use as she was once again tied up and the sting of the fluids shooting up her veins, making her dizzy immediately.

Hongjoong only watched with a blank face as the drugs started to take effect.

Going back to the cabinet, he took out a folder and walked back to Y/N with it.

"Now.... I never planned to show you this, but I guess you left me no choice."

Even in her hazy state, Y/N could make out what seemed to be a picture of her brother, but she wasn't sure if it was an illusion or not

"Yes, that is your brother indeed. Took care of you when your parents died and you were very attached to him. Your only living relative right?.....or is he?"

Pulling out another picture, Hongjoong made sure to hold it up right in her face so she could clearly see the gruesome image.

"This is how I left him after I attacked him one night. You'll be proud, he put up quite a good fight, but as you can see......in the end he still lost." He actually had the audacity to chuckle as if it was an amusing thing.

Y/N wanted to scream, but her body wouldn't allow it.

She couldn't believe that her remaining family, the only hope she could grasp onto and help get her out of the mess....

Was gone, forever vanished from the face of the earth by the same monster who took her away.

She no longer had the physical, mental nor emotional strength to resist and fight anymore.

She allowed her body to succumb to the effects of the drugs, eyes closing as she fell into a deep sleep full of haunting memories and images.

When she awoke hours later, she felt absolutely nothing, only numbness.

Gently stroking her hair, Hongjoong leaned in and scanned her expressionless face, satisfied when she just allowed him to pet her as he pleased, no longer resisting his touch.

"Do you know who you are?" He simply asked her.

Without even so much as blinking, she answered in a monotone, almost robotic voice:

"I'm your soulmate, your muse and your goddess, and I love no one but you."

Hongjoong nearly bursted into tears. Finally after so long, after so many experiments and efforts, he finally created his ultimate masterpiece.

"Perfect......at last...you're absolutely perfect.

[awsugar]

Hey I’m gonna give my two cents to the conversation if it’s okay.

A month or two ago I wouldn’t said NO WAY FRANK IS ALWAYS GONNA PUT OUT ANOTHER ALBUM UNTIL HES 80!!! But recently I have thought a lot about how the reunion tour has been pushed back for so long and he hasn’t put anything new out (except bloodnun of course but I’m talking about frank iero and the… stuff) OR put anything old back into focus, like he could’ve done some sort of live stream or whatever playing the songs from heaven is a place. I DO think that he’s always gonna make music and some of it will show up on our radar in the form of some project here or there (like bloodnun) but most will be under the radar (like producing or writing for/with other musicians). I also think that the MCR tour will be very very difficult for him. Because of the still on going restrictions and because of his injuries and it being just a LONG ass tour with lots of people and big venues and like… not what he has been doing in recent years at all. And then the tour is gonna end and he’ll need to like chill for a bit and I honestly sadly think that he’ll be done with touring for a good while after. He’s been good not touring for well over two years now and making music hidden in his basement and he seems to be good with that so…. Obviously I don’t want that to happen I want a new frank album so bad! But I really think it’s a possibility that the MCR tour will be the last of Frank Iero touring musician :/ it makes me feel truly sad and scared

There’s of course always hope that one day he’ll just have another stomachaches moment and he has all those songs he just wants to put out for people to hear! Or maybe he’ll be so pumped up after the MCR tour that he can’t wait to go back on the road himself! Or maybe Danzig asks him to be in the misfits. Or maybe Gerard pisses him off enough to drop an entire album 3 weeks after the MCR tour … who knows

Sorry this was long and rambling but I’m seriously scared about no more frank music but it might just be the reality

ahhh no i agree like those are my fears as well :( i agree with basically everything you said

of course like you also mentioned, i mean the mcr tour hasn't happened yet. and that experience has numerous potential outcomes wrt frank's future in music. like the truth is we really have no idea how the mcr tour is going to effect his like thoughts and desires as far as solo (non-mcr) projects. but i do think that at present, his plan might be to sort of retire post-mcr. BUT OBVIOUSLY THAT COULD CHANGE. like i hope i'm wrong but if i'm not wrong i hope that maybe the mcr tour changes his outlook idk.

but yea same im just really sad and scared about it :( i mean ive gone over 2 and a half years now since my last frank show. but the thought of never going to another one again??? devastating. i know i should want whats best for him and wish for him to do what makes him happy, and i DO. like if retiring and living out his life with his family is what he wants and is going to make him happiest then thats awesome and i do want that for him. (although i kind of doubt that he could go the rest of his life without going on tour and not feel extremely restless). but yea at the same time like. we will miss him sm....and i cant pretend i wouldn't be like horribly upset about it

[trafalgaylaw]

Hey there.

First of all, I'm sorry I've haven't been here in ages. A lot has happened. So I'd like to apologise in advance for the rant that's coming, but somehow, this is the safest place for me to get everything out of my system. Feel free to ignore and hide this post, there is no pressure on you to respond, I'm not looking for interactions specifically, I just need an outlet. Some stuff may be triggering, but there'll be warnings here and in the tags, don't worry about that. I'm embarrassed, I was absent for several months and I don't even come back with a OP related post.

Without further ado, trigger warnings: cancer, death

Some of you may already know that I lost my Mom to cancer 5 years ago. Well, back in May of this year, I lost my dad to a cancer as well. I thought it was going to be the same all over again. Boy, was I wrong. Sure, there were a lot of similarities, but mostly major differences. Mom had no chance of survival, we knew from the start. She got into treatment against her will because my sister-in-law was pregnant and she was afraid that if my Mom died before she gave birth she might lose the baby... My Mom's will was never taken into consideration. She didn't want to fight windmills, she didn't have any regret and she was okay with the idea of dying.

For my dad, it was the total opposite. He wanted to live so bad, he didn't want to die and wanted to try absolutely everything. His survival chances were anywhere between 4 months and 5 years, we were on rollercoasters, treatments working and then not working anymore, promises of experimental treatments only to be told 3 months later that they couldn't get his full genetic profile and couldn't be sure if he could undergo the treatment. It happened 3 times. He wanted to try a last chemo but the doctors denied him it because he was already too weak to take it.

The other main difference, is that Mom's cancer didn't change her personality, but it did change my dad's. The problem is, except for my fiancé who noticed as well, no one believed me. I don't want to know if they were in denial or if he specifically changed his attitude towards me but I think the latter is more likely as I was the only one he lied to about the epilepsy.

When Mom was sick, I was incredibly surrounded and got flooded by support when she passed.

The moment dad got sick, I started getting blamed and questioned for almost everything, and I'm still receiving comments now. I got blamed for:

- not being there while my dad, who lived over 900km (convert in miles yourself weirdos, I'm french, we do metric system round here) away from me and didn't want my physical presence anyway, was having seizures, that he hid from me

- the fact that my dad chose to lie to me about his state (somehow my fault apparently)

- the fact that my brain put me in autopilot mode in the first weeks following his death to protect me and take care of all the immediate responsibilities as I was getting practically no help

- not holding a funeral while 80% of his close relatives literally said to me "if you do something I won't come"

- collapsing after 2 months

I'm being told to move on. I'm being told to force myself to feel happy. In the 5 years my Mom has been dead, I've never been told to "move on". All the guilt tripping lead me to feel ashamed of my grief and unauthorised to talk about it. They've taken the trust away from me. It's like I'm not allowed to remember him. I can't even look at pictures of him anymore, I just can't. And it makes me feel so sad. You would expect compassion and all you get is criticism. While I'm crying about losing my last pillar, all people hear is "there's no experimented adult left to protect her" and that is terrifying. I'm scared of almost everyone and not sure anymore who is safe to talk to. I'm afraid that if I talk about it, people will try to take advantage of my situation. Is because people think I'm an adult and don't need parents anymore? Is the difference of support I got because of patriarchy in the way we view mothers and fathers? Is it because I'm 25 and people's attitude change towards you at that age because they begin to expect specific things from you and call it your "quarter life crisis" to create a diversion about their peer pressuring? Is people's lack of compassion because they think he "provoked" it by smoking most of his life? Is it a combo of all this?

[fisherfurbearer]

I would absolutely live to hear about Future Plans and heritage fruits! My partners and I are looking at buying a house by the end of the year and I'm so excited at the prospect of a back yard to fill with food plants and gardening and everything! So I'd love to know more about someone else's plans!!

mmMMMMMMMMMMMMMM YOU OPENED THE CAN OF WORMS THE WORMS ARE OPEN THEY ARE EVERYWHERE NOW!!!! OHHHHHHH JEEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOTHING CAN STOP THIS!!!!

MMMMMM. I LOVE. DOMESTIC CROPS AND ANIMALS. SO MUCH.

SPECIFICALLY “heritage” varieties. The pre-industrial/commercial varieties that people lived on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, or even the stuff younger than that, it’s just...so!! Good!!!

You didn’t QUITE ask for this but this is where I’m going with it. I LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. The HISTORY of our domesticated crops (specifically fruits and vegetables, but mostly Tree Fruits!!!! But I’m also suuuuper partial to heirloom sweet potatoes/normal potatoes even though I don’t like the taste of sweet potatoes, they’re just SO FRICKING COOL and I want to learn more about other vegetables too) and animals is just....HOOOOO!!!!

Locally adapted,, perfect little....NUGGETS that just...perfectly fit their own SPECIFIC LITTLE NICHES...no matter WHERE you live, no matter HOW much space you have, no matter HOW good or bad your soil, NO MATTER WHAT, there is ALWAYS something to grow or raise, and we can thank so, so much of that to the incredible variety of heritage crops/animals (and methods of agriculture) out there. Mild, cold, hot! Lots of space, little space, no space!! Fertile, barren!! Every condition in every color and shape and flavor and size and ahhhhhhh!!!!! AHHHH!!!!

Hold onto your butts because this is one Hell of a Mega Ramble okay, there is so much to talk about here, oh man.

Some background, which you can skip if you want...!!! It’s a LOT and it get’s VERY NEGATIVE but also VERY GOOD AND HOPEFUL, it’s a real big story and it’s My Story and gives a lot of insight into Why I’m Like This but it’s okay to skip for sure!! Anyway:

I’ve been researching (i.e. writing literally 1.5-2k+ words nearly every single day) for literally 7 years now about all of my various Passions and Plans in life. Obviously breaks were taken due to Sad Times but no matter what I did, no matter what happened, I’d always come back to my dumb awful stupid notes. I have notes on my current laptop, my old harddrive, my SO’s laptop, my stepdad’s laptop, my SO’s OLD gaming laptop, my old netbook, my OLD OLD netbook, every phone I’ve had in the past 7 years (which has been like uhh...five? I have bad luck with phones..) and COUNTLESS pieces of paper and cheap composition books.

To call it research, it seems to silly. Writing these words here, to you strangers on the internet, I CANNOT EXPRESS TO YOU how VITAL these notes are to my VERY EXISTANCE.

I have been researching and writing and talking to folks and asking questions and LIVING AND BREATHING this stuff for LITERALLY, LITERALLY HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS if not ALMOST A THOUSAND OR MORE HOURS at this point!!!! If we were to actually SOMEHOW backtrack all the way to late 8th grade/freshman year when I first started dipping my toes into reptiles and fell in love with my first jumping spider that landed on my arm after I read Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak, after being so fascinated by the intelligent giant magic tarantula in the first book, and gathered ALL of my notes from then to NOW (I’m 21 now, if I was in college, I’d be graduating next May) it would EASILY surpass that. For YEARS in high school my family thought I was always playing games on my laptop, but really from the moment I got home to the moment I went to bed, I was watching lets plays with one side of the screen and reading, reading, reading, and writing, writing, writing with the other. For HOURS. Every. Single. Day.

Hell, this has been my most recent “Renaissance” of writing, after The Big Realization of earlier this year (I’ll get to that), and this is AFTER I went on a horrible depressed/manic rampage and deleted like 80% of my notes (that would have been from...hmm. This is what I didn’t delete, what Jessie recovered, and what I’ve added...so March to Early September, when Jessie switched my notes to a new program (I lost a lot of notes from lack of autosaving so now they’re on our nextcloud so I can’t lose them...but I’m too stubborn to use it still) and this is still like. A lot.

Keep in mind the average 10-11 kb file is 1500-1700 words for me. My biggest files (only of the ones I still have, on this laptop) are 40-60 kb. (Also these are Big Secrets that I don’t ever show anyone but Jessie, who I’ve been with now for almost 7 years, so this is pretty dang important to me and a big thing to be revealing.)

Current folder I’m usually saving to:

Nextcloud I don’t bother to use usually but probably should use:

Again, this is ONLY on my newest laptop, and this DOESN’T include the files I deleted a few months ago, nor the files I lost from February-early April after Jessie updated my computer and wiped my files, and I still have a BUTTLOAD left on my old harddrive from last year, but we never moved it up and I don’t feel a need to. (I’ve learned so much. So. Much. In the past year. I think I’ve matured a lot and really become more...Me. But I’ll get to that.)

Also doesn’t include the SEVERAL notebooks I’ve filled front to back this year (cheap $0.50 ones from work...I’ve blown through a couple biggish ones and I think 2-3 little quarter-size memo books) and all the receipt papers I have crammed into my work uniform...

But anyway why is this important? It really helps iron in just how HUGE this is to me. My future “Plans” aren’t just...it’s really important to me. Okay? I am but a humble stranger on the internet and my life and everyone elses’ respective lives are infinitely more complex than we can ever dare imagine one anothers’ existences to be, but just trust me when I say that I’m not pulling this from nowhere, this shit isn’t some sort of “fad” to me, this has been a long, long series of events and realizations and heartbreaks and so, so much pain that have finally led to everything kinda falling into place sometime this year where it hit me.

You see...all of my research topics followed a pattern. It went, in my rough memory, something like this.

It started with reptiles. Lots of reptiles. So many reptiles. I was so naive and young then and my sources sucked and I was very much a novice who dreamed of owning all sorts of cool reptiles when I got older, and of getting a gecko when I went to college. That was how it started and it went downhill from there. I branched off into gardening (I wanted and still want a blue tongue skink and had thoughts about how I’d grow a garden for vegetables and squashes and stuff for the skink and feeder insects) and THAT grew into this whole THING about raised bed gardening, square foot gardening, then into permaculture, which planted the seed for many things to come...and now I’ve ALWAYS LOVED BIRDS,, but when I learned that keeping CHICKENS was a thing (thank you Jennifer (Nambroth)!!!!!!!!!! Our emails back and forth are still saved forever, our talks about chickens changed my life and way of thinking Forever!!!) and I researched that, then I’d jump back to reptiles again, and back to chickens, then more reptiles, then chickens and QUAIL, or OTHER poultry,, and so on and so on. This beautiful fluid branching path that would always rebound on itself and I’d drop some topics, gain new ones, revisit old ones, learn what I liked, what I didn’t like, what were brief interests, and what were there to stay.

Some topics (chickens, new caledonian geckos, antaresia pythons, tarantulas, gardening...) would always come back. No matter what I did...they came back. As I grew as a person, I started to figure out what was important to me (CONSERVATION, animal welfare, reptile/invertebrate enrichment, vivarium design, combining art with animals, and did I mention CONSERVATION? and combating climate change/The World but that came later.) and while some of those points didn’t show up in my research until later...like my obsession with native wildlife/plants and domestic species...it never went away.

And as I grew older, outside of my research life went on, and I really went through A Lot in these seven years. Undiagnosed anxiety/depression all through high school, practically living in the guidance office junior/senior year, dealing with an emotionally abusive and animal abuser teacher for many years, living with my emotionally abusive/narcissistic mother, and eventually going to an amazing art college and having both the best and worst time of my life (Hahah!! Almost straight As and skipped a writing class with my amazing scores and was top of my class, Dean’s list first semester, in the Visionary Women’s Honors society, worked in the admissions office and did lots of cool things, but hahaha also really wanted to die and was Destroying Myself) and trying to get help while keeping it a secret from my mom...lo and behold of course she eventually found out about the Depression when I had to go inpatient near the end of my second semester, and she. HA, I can’t even cry about this anymore. She literally disowned me (took all my money, sold my car, cut me off of health insurance, made me pay my own hospital bills, refused to do my FAFSA for college anymore, dropped all support, and later when I had to come home because I relapsed again and the college made me go on a medical leave of absense, she threatened to kick me out and call the police [hilariously enough though the house was owned by my stepdad, not her, so she couldn’t do anything. Also I never did anything to her and she was just crazy and made up excuses. But yeah not fun trying to walk to work and being threatened over the phone that she was going to have me dragged out of work by the cops and not to come home, hahaha!!!!!! But then also when I did live with my neighbor for a few days she was apparently so distraught?? Haha what a weird person!!!! I haven’t seen her for three years now and it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me. Don’t mourn for me, it’s SO Much better now. Speaking of, she was a PETA-hugging ARA nutjob and if she knew what I was planning on doing she would’ve disowned me either way!!!!!!), and of course fighting to be able to move out and rent an apartment with my SO (I hate the word boyfriend. It’s been 7 years come January 11th, and we’ve been through so fucking much. And she [my mom...] and other people always made fun of him being my BOYFRIEND that that word is tainted for me...so Significant Other it is) and then being forced to live alone there for a couple months,, and then even after that, the fights with his family, the car accident in November, my mom ruining all chances of me going to college (keep in mind I had after leaving college, spent the next TWO AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS OF MY LIFE trying to make it so I COULD go back, spent all of my time, energy, hope, eVERY OUNCE OF MY BEING trying to do so,,, and she manipulated me and then lied to me and made it so I couldn’t), my rebounding depression, my Intensifying Aggression (terrifying. Developed when I was in college...I guess it’s some kind of rapid bipolar disorder, maybe triggered by me going on antidepressants in college, they said. But it was so long ago and they never knew the full story for a proper diagnosis anyway. But it’s gotten manageable and We’re Coping), the housefire on Christmas, moving Once Again to the new place and being told I can’t bring my 15 year old cat (he’s with my stepdad still now but it’s not okay.), the rats have to be in the basement, and oh yeah if you want to attend college again loans will be nearly 13% interest hahaha!!! and then finally just straight up breaking down in February and not leaving bed for DAYS and nearly committing suicide, just the real worst time ever, and my former therapist/psychiatrist place weren’t responding (turns out they discharged me!! haha kinda hard to make appointments WHEN YOU DON’T PICK UP THE PHONE and we DIDN’T GET THE NOTICE IN THE MAIL because our HOUSE WAS CONDEMNED and my mail was being sent to my STEPDADS an hour away!!!!!!!! Also really hard to talk to you when you BLOCK OUR FUCKING NUMBER and HANG UP ever time we fucking call haha!!!!!! Literally on the verge of suicide and not on my anxiety meds for MONTHS but hey sure that works too guys!!!!) which really didn’t help, and yeah it was really just the pits! Just the absolute pits, the Very Worst.

Now at this point I don’t remember exactly when/what changed, but SOMETHING did.

Leading up to February, I wanna say it was about October that I started getting kinda weirdly depressed, and I started REALLY tanking after the fire. After the fire, I had to move back to my stepdads within the night, and had to live without Jessie again and commute really far and keep the tarantulas a secret and in general be very alone and very sad. I started wearing down and it was getting so hard to just...enjoy. Anything. Even just taking care of the pets became difficult, and doing art or researching was impossible. I just...didn’t care anymore. I stopped caring.

On top of that, my climate grief and general feelings of Despair were at an all time high, and I just didn’t. Fucking. CARE. What happened next.

I spent YEARS of my life WEARING MYSELF TO THE BONE trying to get into college, the get back into college, to just try to do this thing that I was supposed to do, my ONE hope of having a career and a future that I probably wouldn’t even be happy with (I was an illustration major. I liked drawing. It’s what I was best at. But looking back, I wouldn’t have been happy doing it for a living. And Moore [no that’s not what my blog is named for, it just also happens to be my last name] was a great college but it just...wasn’t worth $30k a year with no cosigner for loans, even AFTER my scholarships) and my body and mind were wearing down and no matter what I did I didn’t care about myself, my animals, my partner, my life, nothing. I can’t explain how terrifying that is. Of all the time in my life, I think this was the worst. On top of my life problems, it must be said again that my climate grief and Misery regarding the state of our country and the world was also at an all-time-high, and I just felt...POWERLESS. Powerless and empty and uncaring and dead inside. I really wanted to just...drive off a bridge or eat a ton of pills (which I did do a couple times, don’t do that. Please. It’s NOT worth it.) and just stop Existing.

But then something just...changed.

I don’t know what it was, exactly. But I got SOMETHING back. SOMETHING “clicked”.

I’m crying a bit now. It’s so stupid to say, but I truly believe this is what saved my life. Realizing my purpose in life. That everything fell into place and finally made sense.

I’m going to be a bit more concise here but...basically...many of my passions and smaller aspects of myself all fell into place, so PERFECTLY.

It hit me that...ah jeez.

I will digress one more second. For those of you who don’t know, I have two Eurydactylodes geckos, named Vladimir (E. vieiliardi) and Estragon (E. agricolae). They are named for my favorite drama that we read in AP English, Waiting for Godot. It’s an aburdist theater play about two men who wait under a tree for someone (we don’t know who, just that his name is Godot) and that’s about it. Everyone had a lot of different things to say about that weird little book, but my take on it was that it’s supposed to be what happens to two men when they lack a “purpose” in life. Existentialism, and all that. They sit there and sit there and completely lose themselves just WAITING for this guy that they don’t even remember, they don’t even know why they’re there, and they do nothing to try and change that. The difference between existentialism and absurdism, however, is that absurdism specifically discusses this idea of a Chaotic Universe, this Lack of Meaning, this pointless quest of humanity to seek value and meaning in a universe without reason. It’s a fruitless effort, it’s Absurd! But the beauty of absurdism, this tiny idea that stayed with me in the goofy names of my geckos (I chose the names because I thought the play was amusing and I loved the characters’ relationship, which is Quite Gay and so Loving and Charming it warms my heart, and I loved that they called each other “Didi” and “Gogo”) and really held true to my own life. I DO NOT believe that THIS is why this change happened for me, but it’s ironic, no?

Back to Absurdism, Absurdism says... “here is this meaningless, Chaotic, RIDICULOUS universe. There is NO reason for ANYTHING, there NEVER will be, you DO NOT MATTER, you DO NOT HAVE A PLACE HERE. There is NO POINT to anything. So fuck it, and try to find one anyway.”

My original therapist did not understand why I found this so wonderful and inspiring. It’s so rebellious and selfish, I LOVE IT. To embrace the Absurd is to take the bull by the horns and flip it upside down! It’s to stare all of this dreadful pointlessness in the Void, and when it says “Why bother? Why care about these insignificant invertebrates? These ridiculous reptiles? These ABSURD apples???” and flip the bird both hands and say “BECAUSE I WANT TO, BECAUSE I SAID SO, BECAUSE I AM HUMAN, AND I CAN!!!” It’s...also more than that, it’s this long, defiant lifelong journey, this stupid, ridiculous journey of fumbling about trying to find one’s place in a cruel, vast world, and finding oneself in that journey.

I love people. I love the ABSURDITY of humanity, of people, of myself, of others. A Huge part of my Future Plans has to do with People, and Community, and Changing my little patch of the world. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I know it can make a difference to someone and myself and that’s what matters.

Anyway back to the Clickening.

Around that time I had a moment like that. It was as if something in my mind was screaming at me, listen. You are here, and you have always been here to love animals, to love life, to make art, to tell stories with your art, to raise little sheeps.

And like that, it started Something.

I agreed to go to a local doctor, and was put on antidepressants. I’ve been on them since late February. I also got accommodations for work, so I have two excused absenses due to mental illness each month, which was good, because they tried to fire me 4 times now and they haven’t succeeded yet. (I’m DAMN GOOD at what I do, I’m just Sad and Unlucky and Dumb, but I’m doing a lot better now!!) I started taking all of the things I learned in the past many years and what I’ve learned about myself as a person (I won’t talk about it here but I’ve always struggled with my Identity [not gender wise, just...with my mental health and my mood disorder, it’s really hard to know What is ME and What’s The Illness) and it all started falling into place. My needle felting, my love for animals, conserving native wildlife AND heritage breeds with restoration grazing and positive impact forestry, utilizing my Overwhelming Charisma (in person I swear I’m quite a good talker! Way better than my typing here!) for education, outreach, and farmers market sales, my love for life and my fellow human beings and my plans to work hard to help feed my local communities and encourage sustainable agriculture and the dismantlemant of capitalism Love of our native wilds and backyards alike (I also have Big Thoughts about getting native peoples input as well, but I need to research that more and actually talk to people, but that would be in future years!!), and so, so many things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That started in late February/early March now, and since then I’ve still had Really bad times, but I’d say in the past mmmmm...probably since late July? I think yeah since about then things have really taken great turns. I’ve Matured a lot, really embraced who I am and what I want to do, and while I KNOW my plans are going to keep changing over time (tentative goal is to look for/buy our property in 2025!! That gives us 5 years post-graduation to settle down and see how things go, where Jessie will be working, where we’ll be living, how my mind changes, all of that!!) but I KNOW in my BONES in my SOUL that this is what I have always been meant to do. To raise things, grow things, and to Care.

ANYWAY WOW HAHAHA YOU SURE DIDN’T ASK FOR ALL THAT BUT THERE YA GO THERE’S THE BACKSTORY, THE FIRST HALF OF THE WORMS!!!!!!

TL;DR: I’m a sad sap who is now slightly less sad and has Big Plans that were 7 years+ in the making and I want to take all my Big Thoughts about exotic welfare (well, reptiles and spiders mostly, but sure) and also apply it to DOMESTIC welfare and Make a Dang Difference!!!!

Okay now I’ve become very burnt out, I’ve been writing for like two hours now? So this part will sadly be shorter, but I will definitely write more about it again if you or anyone else has questions or actually wants to hear about it.

Basically...the amount of These Plans that I am willing to let you folks know, is uhh...oh jeez where do I even begin, haha...

Well it started small plans (early years of research, when I used to think a small greenhouse was Super Wild and Crazy) but nah bruh we goin’ full hog, literally. My plans are to get a decent sized property, still in my state, and have a HUGE focus on Sustainability and Positive Grazing/Management! That means rotational grazing to IMPROVE soils!!! Thinning the woodlot and clearing brush for the HEALTH of the forest!!! Reintroducing blight-resistant american chestnuts to restore our forests and support a healthy wildlife population!!!! Using both honeybees AND cultivated native bees [did you know that’s a thing???? You can buy native bee cocoons, like raised humanely, and raise them for pollinating plants!! Like Orchards!!] and grazing pastured pigs and chickens under orchard trees, while also providing BUTTLOADS of native flowers and domestic tree blossoms for native pollinators!! All that great stuff.

My biggest focuses would be raising practical heritage livestock for sustainable agriculture and conserving heritage fruit trees, with a focus on apples and pears. I also want to grow a lot of mutually beneficial/low-impact perennial resources...think honey, maple syrup, nut trees, stuff like that! And I want to graze on pastures with native grasses and locality-specific wildflowers (check out Ernst Seeds, especially if you live in/near PA like I do!! Wow it’s so frickin’ cool) and focus on northern european short-tailed sheep (finnsheep, gotland, icelandic, leader, shetland, and soay) and small landrace American hogs (american guinea hog, ossabaw island hog) and the more recent but so full of potential idaho pasture pig. I also want to raise icelandic landrace chickens for utility (parasite/pest management, composting), conservation, and eggs. I also want to raise rabbits (silver fox crosses for meat, and french angora crosses for fiber! I have a dream of producing high quality tri color angora for spinners...three colors on one animal, and I want them to be especially great for fiber artists who want to raise their own fiber animals but don’t have a ton of space) and I have BIG orchard plans...SO MANY ORCHARD PLANS, HHHHHOOO YES....SO GOOD...also COPPICE WITH STANDARDS and FORESTRY and HOO YES!!!!! I LOVE SOME GOOD OL FORESTRY!!!

I think the best way to describe my current plans standings is that it seperates into a couple different “zones”, for my Current Ideas. This has taken months and so many countless hours of thinking, researching, and ironing out, and I’ve made so much headway in just this past week, but basically imagine this...

It’s mostly split into two pastures, the orchard, and the woodlot.

PASTURE 1

Pasture 1 would be the largest, where we would rotationally graze two primary groups of ruminants. Polled NES-T sheep (finnsheep/gotland) and horned sheep (icelandic/leader) with dairy cows (dutch belted) as well. Dutch belted for milk and specifically cheese production, and they would be grazed in front with the icelandics to help take care of the taller grasses that the sheep would avoid, and help keep the sheep a bit safer. All would be guarded by livestock guardian dogs. Group #1 of the icelandic chickens would be grazed behind them, to help break up manure and disrupt parasite cycles.

Pasture itself would be mostly a big bluestem/little bluestem/indian grass/switchgrass mix, with a good variety of livestock-safe wildflowers (small portion being nitrogen-fixers like tick trefoils and pasture pea) and seed-producing flowers for birds (wild birds and our birds!). Would be rotationally grazed 1-2 days at a time (avg. 3-4 days total) with a 21-35+ day rest period. Polled NES-T sheep would be moved to “silvopasture” (copse with standards, a portion of the woodlot, with coppiced trees for fuelwood/timber interspersed with standard-sized mast producting trees [would double as nut and persimmon orchard, and hog foraging in fall/winter!!!]) in the summer to help them deal with the heat. Summer would be the best time, as it’s after the spring predator pressure and before the acorns fall, which could be bad for them if they ingest too many. Rams and hogs would otherwise graze this land with much longer rest periods otherwise (more like 30-45 days or so).

PASTURE 2

Smaller pasture with similar planting, arranged ‘paddock paradise’ style for a small group of icelandic horses (SO GOOD, and useful!! Little horse hooves are much kinder to the forest than a UTV, and herding on horseback is less stressful for the livestock) and rotationally grazed shetland and soay sheep. Pretty simple, but important. Would also contain Icelandic chicken group #2.

ORCHARD

Worthy of a novel all on it’s own. I want to grow semi-dwarf heritage fruit trees with the fruit drop type synced to the rotation of pastured hogs (idaho pasture pig, american guinea hog, ossabaw island hog) and group #3 of icelandic chickens. Hogs would be in orchard spring-fall, and in the copse with standards fall-early winter. Hogs and chickens would be moved to a holding area during rainy times to help preserve the orchard floor and during winter, where we would also have a large waste management/composting set up for them to root and turn to their hearts content. Should be a lot warmer than the outside in the winter too, and I plan on it being in a high tunnel/hoop house so its covered.

I am ALL ABOUT pairing livestock with crops and encouraging multi-purpose acreage in general, so this is definitely one of my FAVORITE plans so far, and every time I revisit it, it gets better. I also want to raise BEES (honeybees, mason bees, leafcutter bees!!!) for honey and pollination. I also want to plant BUTT-TONS of native flowers and goodies for pollinators, as well as lots of seed producing plants and sunflowers for the chickens to forage for by themselves. These would be some happy livestock, for sure.

WOODLOT

Another huge part of the plan is that I want at LEAST 1/3-1/2 of the property to be Woods. Only a small fraction of the Woods would be managed for livestock foraging and more frequent harvesting (still looking at a good 7-10 year coppice cycle though for trees) and the rest would still be tended to, with the help of the local forestry folks, but it would be preserved for wildlife and low-impact timber and nut/fruit/sap collection.

The VAST MAJORITY of the farm would be multi-purpose acreage for both livestock AND wildlife benefit (and people too of course) and I truly, truly believe and KNOW it can be done. In fact it HAS been done, IS being done, in so many different ways by so many different people in different times, and I know that I want to be a part of it and I can make a difference and use my weird passions for Good and make a dang difference.

Ohhh jeez I’m real sorry I didn’t quite answer your question though but I hope this gives a little insight into what I mean?? And if anyone has Specific questions after reading this (if you make it to the bottom, bless your cotton socks, I’m so proud and also distressed) I can definitely answer them a bit better than this. And hopefully much less...whatever this is, haha!!

[the-firebird69]

Golden Gate Bridge Live Webcams | Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

All of a sudden I heard this news there is a naked corky on top of the Golden gate bridge of silent protest because you're messing with their social security plan to it off funds

And it starts wrestling or something it's up there and it looks like a bird and it feels around him and I'm trying to comfort him and we'll see the media flying around now I can come down now I'm going to talk to the media so just be careful it's a difficult time and they may try and help you down I'm doing a publicity stunt I didn't say we don't care you're not supposed to be up there and got to have to get more media SO garth is going to get more media. It's kind of going real slow which is good slow the better my friend I'm an army of them coming to look like you. I'm going to try and get out of there you put in prison or something or jail really they're going to bust you out don't make news twice a little thing that said oh wait a minute you got to try it on yourself social security money threatened and he goes like this wow I'm doing the job yeah people kind of farted I don't know it decided to make every Protestant deadly opportunity except for reality need people's help especially women they feed you and get you around without getting hurt and something amazed I say that's awesome you can find way out there and take time to get tired you can rest I already see what it says maybe some can help you write on your back this is down there Frederick so you need like an army of them I think I can get them out like zombies but they're alive and not zombies you can put in the movie if you want to I think it's a good movie idea it's a lot of movies that are like massively famous that are famous enough to make a non-alien like dollars a day so far it goes what is it about this movie idea so this guy was like memory problems like 50 first dates it's on the phone all right..... Just climbing down real slow time

Hera Zues

And we noticed something it's Silently asking for money

Thor Freya

And we have this huge whirlpool it's open. It's about 30 miles in the base and yeah it's going up and like a cold to about 80 miles and way up top it's starting to spread out cuz water is going up there might not smoke 300 miles the whirlwind is going very fast it's about 1500 miles an hour there's a lot faster than most holes it's going into the mouth at this point very fast too like there's this hole there and she really saw that happened it was period of 4 years it's been going on off and on sitting injected some uranium we're going to check first they checked and rejected some to heal the mouth area and it's working and they keep saying it's amazing so tons and tons going in there's a huge siphon it's massive and we don't supply it it's going to suck in houses and stuff that you don't have to grab anyone or the Joel and enforce with blob or anything it's just going to be them going they want to so they're out and they're doing it and they're going at it falling and screaming sometimes I want to message what do you think you're doing so I'm going down here

Things go now it's about 100,000 trillion NN. It's a hundred times more than we started at 10 times more than an hour ago it's just huge it's massive and somebody out there the word something might happen so bringing whiskey and partying in there talking that's a hype about it that's a very screwing around with each other some fights that's all squished together yelling at each other or whiskey I need to heal the pain

Gigantic crossword now it's not all corky there I don't know this we need to see the thing and it's drill down to the bottom this huge vortex and camera is down there the camera has been fed plenty of times for about 2 or 3 months and one month we'll get it or maybe it's it was tonight it says it it's giant no so we're watching it and as the flu just going in her face is becoming more okay and feel sweet I have a question it properly and I hung up from the other side

It's now 50 at the base in about a thousand at the top for real

cast everywhere, huge splattrrers and really the splatter pattern goes for about 500 miles it's a little worried that blood is going to be everywhere it's going to cause a problem with this damn bugs you start to think about it and I said that's not what you do from here Daniel take a look at no Thor Freya

[savrenim]

I'm so jealous of your gay elf murder bachelorette campaign that I now desperately want my own. Any recommendations on how to find people to play D&D with? I have several friends who are interested, but none of us have any questions experience (between my secondhand experience of reading about your adventures) so we don't know how to get started

oh gods so apparently I have A Lot Of Opinions and it got really long, so under the cut, also thank you for reminding me that I should probably properly type up the finale of Gay Murder Elf Bachelorette Campaign Book 1 because it was freaking epic and this is the one campaign that I can properly rant about on tumblr without worrying about spoilers

(I’m in three campaigns right now) (by complete accident) (on the one hand it’s a bad life decision in that I have zero free time anyways with grad school, but on the other hand it has become my sole social interaction with anyone ever and also coping mechanism for the stress and one good thing I do for me and, like, they’re not all weekly campaigns, so hours-per-week I’m devoting isn’t ridiculous) (and I miss my friends and it’s re-connected me with them and also has introduced me to upperclassmen in the department) (but sometimes there are character secrets and people who potentially follow me on tumblr so I can’t post the super long dramatic things about a character that I really want to)

OKAY SO HOW TO GET INTO PLAYING

I will be real, the three campaigns that I am in right now are the first time I’ve played DnD for anything that lasted longer than a week and a half at a summer camp type deal, like, arguably, this is my real first time playing DnD….ever. That being said, I’ve worked at gay theater camp for….six years now? And they do super intense super in-character LARPing that is far more roleplaying-heavy than mechanics heavy and has trained me to both have very good story instincts of, like, “this is how you make decisions that both fit with your character and support the narrative instead of oppose it, and either do not tear the party apart, or tear the party apart but for a very good and fitting narrative reason (i.e. if there’s going to be strife, make it mean something)” and in my opinion it is when you bring those sorts of instincts to a DnD game that you get the most satisfying story out of it. Character creation, team cohesion, and story and world development are all things that I do feel super comfortable speaking about because that is my literal jam outside of my math jam which is paying for me to be alive and stuff. So here we go.

There are a couple of questions that you need to immediately answer, the first being, “do you want to play Dungeons and Dragons, or do you want to start with a mechanically less complicated system?” Because there are a lot of pretty good systems out there that are high fantasy even (i.e. Dungeon World) that are a lot more streamlined in terms of “you don’t need to be as familiar with a set of rules in order to play.” That being said, Dungeons and Dragons is classic and is fantastic and I freaking adore it. (I will be completely honest, the only other two systems I know right now are Dungeon World, which is fantasy, and Mech Noir, which holy shit you are playing noir style detectives except in a SCI FI SETTING WHERE YOU PILOT MECHAS and the entire game system is around applying “adjectives” to people like, if you successfully roll against an enemy, you get to pick any adjective you can think of ever from “grappled” to “trusting” to “confused” to “located” and it just makes for such interesting storytelling)

which vaguely brings me to my first piece of real advice: you learn how to play best by witnessing playing happening. if you are a podcast person, I highly recommend either The Adventure Zone or Friends At The Table (or, honestly, if you have the time, both). The Adventure Zone plays DnD, 5th Edition, and it is a super quality family who are goofing off and having fun together and then the plot that arises is like “oh shit I am crying about a wizard named Taako, pronounced taco, how did this happen to me” and it’s great. The Adventure Zone is 100% the reason why I reached out to friends and was like “yoooo is anyone starting a campaign because TAZ has made me want to play again.” Friends at the Table starts with Dungeon World and it is some of the best storytelling and worldbuilding I’ve ever heard? And you will learn so much about how to set things up and go with the flow and the DM talks a lot about his process as offhand comments and you will learn so much. I’ve heard good things about Critical Role, but haven’t listened myself. But get out there, listen, and then don’t be afraid of copying things that you admire. Best way to learn.

If you’re going with Dungeons and Dragons, start with 5th Edition. 0th, 1st, and 2nd are all ridiculously unbalanced, 3 is “actually everyone uses 3.5,” or a combo 3.5/Pathfinder. While 3.5/Pathfinder is a great system and is what we’re playing both in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign and in the math grad departmental campaign, and was the game that I learned on, 5e is a lot more streamlined and they’re aren’t super picky exact rules for every tiny thing you could think of doing, which means you don’t need to be familiar with a vast system full of loopholes and counters and counter-counters to know how to effectively play the game. we don’t talk about 4th edition

Decide who is going to be the DM. There are sometimes comic stores that’ll run weekly or biweekly or monthly games of DnD, but those are almost definitely going to be less story-based and usually are one-shots? And if you’ve got a good group of friends, I recommend just playing with them and not trying to find an external group that you don’t know. I’m vaguely assuming that you’re volunteering to be DM because you’re asking? But if there’s someone in your group of friends who likes writing things or likes managing things or is interested, or if people want to take turns trying stuff out, go for that. The department group rotates DMs (and rotates games) just based on who has something written that they’re excited to try out.

You also might want to ask around to see if there are any people that you vaguely know, or that are friends of friends, who play. You’d be surprised how many people do. I’ve also seen blogs on tumblr sometimes going “hey, I’m running a Skype campaign and I need two or three more players, if people are interested fill out this survey and then depending mostly on times people are free but also what you say about what you’re looking for from a game I’ll pick the players?” or if y’all are in college there is almost always a DnD club somewhere, hidden semi-secret on campus, on the register to get club funding but under the radar because nerds. But you and your friends who are semi-interested will work just fine, as long as semi-interested means they’re actually willing to commit for a bit. So how do you get started?

Get the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and read them cover to cover. If you’re playing and not DMing, eh, skip this step, and have the DM do it instead, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide especially will walk you through how to set up things mechanically very well and if you’re going in blind it will be good to have gone through and read it all once. I’ve read the 3.5 DMG cover to cover several times, haven’t read 5e yet, I know that I didn’t like their storytelling tips, but read through it once to get an idea of what mechanics might look like, it gives very good starting mechanical advice.

1. Speed and smoothness of playing are important, which means that sometimes, if you don’t know a rule, you want to make something up on the fly and deliver it with a completely straight face. Everybody does homebrew. Rules are great because they keep things from devolving into chaos and they can settle disputes, but also, sometimes you’ve just got to make a call, and if you make it while looking like you know what you’re doing, everyone will believe you. Similarly, don’t make the same rolls, or the same number of rolls, for NPC characters as you would for PCs. For example, in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, when Iria was both directing a full assault on a hobgoblin fortress as well as had put herself on the special strike team that was going to sneak in and open the portcullis, the DM made ~one or two rolls~ to see how successful the Caedic units were at each of the points of Iria’s plan, instead of rolling a full battle between ~40 hobgoblins and ~80 elves. screentime is important; if you’re spending too much time on not-the-players, it gets boring for the players, so roll enough dice to decide what’s going on with a tad bit of luck and so it seems like other characters have rules that they have to follow, but you don’t have to let the rules dictate every single thing that happens in-world. you dictate that.

2. Character creation is how you set yourself up for success. Do not underestimate the importance of party dynamics. You don’t all have to be playing best friends or even people who get along–in Spelljammer, Marian and Djin had the character backstory of “ten years ago we were captain and co-captain of a vessel and for Reasons got into a huge fight over nothing and split and Marian took half the ship with her and she thought she’d never see him again but now oops they’ve both ended up jobless on the same station and Marian was already pooling as many resources as she could to try to put together a new ship and Djin arrived a couple months into this and needed the work so joined this ragtag democratic crew, but there’s a shit ton of tension.” This worked because we were snippy to each other in dialogue, when push came to shove, Marian is professional enough such that her whole deal is putting personal feelings aside always no matter what, and Djin takes the passive in passive-aggressive super seriously, so it never meant that the party was sitting around arguing for hours or refusing to cooperate. Meanwhile, I’ve seen and heard of campaigns falling apart because “there are two thieves and one really wants to get to do all the sneaking so they argue all the time over who gets to do cool stuff” or “the evil fighter literally just wants to murder everyone which means everyone else can’t get stuff done.” You can have intra-party strife and have it be interesting, but only if players are doing it cooperatively instead of being at each other’s throats irl. Rule of thumb: if the party dynamics are frustrating the other players, you are doing something wrong.

2.5 That being said, if a party starts to develop into bad dynamics, it is fixable without betraying character! For example, in the department campaign, I’ve been playing a super sheltered youngest child elf wizard from a super established Elvin wizard family (of, like, oh the arcanic postlines that let mail be sent around the continent? Grandpa came up with that theory. Schools of magic identified and classified originally? That was the Maewels) so Seraph is a tad bit privileged and a tad bit sheltered and is uppity sometimes. There was a fighter in the party who liked his alcohol, once missed a huge battle that the rest of us had to cover for him because he’d seduced two women at the inn we were hanging out at before the town was attacked, and typically did things like walk around in the morning with no pants on. And he proceeded to interpret Seraph’s increasing shock and disdain for him (or rather specifically, how upset she was the first time she saw him pantless) as “yeah all women go for me.” The party was vaguely splitting into “Seraph’s side and Silas’s side” so I decided to aggressively interpret one of the battles we went through together as a bonding experience and lo and behold Seraph’s feelings started to change over the next couple of weeks to “you might be an inconsiderate asshole but you’re OUR inconsiderate asshole so only we are allowed to rag on you” and she became one of his biggest supporters esp when they got to his hometown. All you really need is one super solid, proactive player in a party to make sure that things are resolved in a solid manner, so if you’re not the one DMing? Be that player.

2.75 Okay but if you’re DMing, have the conversation with your players as they’re designing their characters about point (2) because good party dynamics are easiest when you get it from the start.

3. Design encounters around the party. You don’t need a traditional setup of “a tank, a mage, a healer, and a thief” to have an effective and fun party. Maybe everyone wants to play a thief, great, design the scenario to be “you have all been contracted by the thieves’ guild to sneak into this party and assassinate this noble, you have three days to prepare and these resources, make a plan” instead of “this is a traditional dungeon crawl where you are fighting big scary monsters despite the fact that none of you are melee fighters.” Similarly, figure out what sort of stories and settings and aesthetics your players are interested in, and then play that game.

4. Make it personal. Ask people about their backstory and then incorporate stuff in. Notice what they become invested in and adjust your plans to include more of that. Give characters individual arcs that fit vaguely into the overall story, but also that they are the semi-protagonist of. Right now in Spelljammer, we’re all dealing with “so there are weird tears in the universe that Password, this Extinct AI we found and befriended, says are reminiscent of literally the entire universe ripping apart at the seams and are possibly why the Extinct went extinct, oh and some random lady gave us this artifact called the Eye and told us to hide it from the Blind King? And now his servants are hunting us? We are literally scav elves this is so above our pay grade.” Except going on as subplots, Algol is being hunted down by this evil overseer of whatever place in Echoside he originally escaped from, Leif got a stone that gives her prophetic dreams, Kimi has been super close to Password and Leif dreamed about them stitching the universe together, and Marian is dealing with an "oh shit I’ve accidentally adopted these three kids even though I don’t do personal” along with “oh god have I literally become the captain of this ship because I AM THE ONLY ADULT LEFT” along with some old friends from her past trying to reconnect just after we got a prophecy about how the last thing the Blind King would send to steal the Eye was someone we loved turned against us. So yeah, sure, there are big Adventure Plotlines going down that involve the entire party, but we’re not doing things just to do them, everyone is personally invested in this for their own reasons. So when you plan a big adventure, both plan places where individual party members get to start both for who they are and what they can do, as well as along the way keep an eye out for things that you can tie in for them.

5. Consequences matter. And not just stuff like “Iria got stabbed really bad first session and nearly died, now every time she goes into rage at the end needs to roll a fortitude save to not fall unconscious, and whenever she rolls a one same deal.” But also consequences like “you were really rude to this person and now they don’t like you and they are friends with the owner of the apothecary, who now also doesn’t like you and marks up prices behind your back” or "you let one of the patrol escape and now the whole army knows that you’re coming” or “you saved this kid’s life even though you were in enemy territory and now five years later he recognizes you even though you’ve been captured and is making sure that the party is taken prisoner instead of killed.” Make NPCs (non-player characters, ie characters the DM controls) recurring characters instead of people that you meet once, and have the way that the NPCs feel and then interact with the players change based on how prior interactions go. Have them care about things and have them remember. It makes the world feel a lot more real.

6. Preparing for a session goes petty much "how much do you like improv”. If you’re chill improvising, you want written down the stats of the monsters/enemies your players are potentially going to encounter, and probably a vague idea of goals, and then just play it by ear. Jeremy (the person running gay murder elf bachelorette and spelljammer) has I think at this point 13 “Books” written for gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, will write long descriptions of characters, settings, has maps drawn, has customized his own random encounter tables, has made his own homebrew system for how spaceship mechanics works specifically so that we could better piece together our spaceship with fantasy duct tape during the Death Races, and overplans every last detail all the way down to “has different musical themes that he’ll swap out and play at different times.” like, Iria has a Trauma theme that is played every time her wound starts acting up. He has collected music for books in advance. He has multiple different theme songs for each of the players in spelljammer. He writes notes about what NPCs are thinking so that he can reference it later. But that’s because he knows that he prefers the things he comes up with when he has time to plan things out, instead of when he’s surprised. He knows his own storytelling style. “eh, an outline and some monster stats” would not work for him the same way that I’ve seen it work for other people. You don’t have to put a ridiculous amount of prep work and writing time into being a DM, you need to figure out how much prepared material you need to run something comfortably, and then prepare that much.

6.5 Understand no matter what you plan, bits and pieces will probably be derailed, and be okay with that. Nothing is more upsetting than when a DM does not respect player autonomy and invalidates the clever things they think of, because it goes against their own plans. I think being a DM/running a story is sort of halfway “you’re writing a novel” and halfway “oh shit except this time the characters ACTUALLY have minds of their own” and striking a balance instead of dominating the narrative makes it fun. Also, it means you can throw in problems that you have no solutions for. During the Death Races in spelljammer, our battery started running out of plasma, which meant that the pressurization was getting all wonky, Leif immediately goes over and says “I have a spell called Reduce Object, can I cast it on the internal casing to try to up the pressure of what little plasma we have left” and Jeremy goes “uummmm sure if Kimi is over there to help you rewire the rest of the battery on the fly because you are SHRINKING HALF OF ITS PARTS” and then that held for three minutes until oh shit it was still low on plasma and Marian ran over and went “wait a second guys I have a Flaming Sphere spell except Jeremy, Jeeeeremy, I’m technically a plasma variety of Light Cleric, my ~god~ that ~gives me my divine magic~ is the collective of star dryads which live in balls of plasma, we’ve established prior in this setting that some of my fire spells are actually plasma spells, not fire, Jeeeeeremly can shove my hand into the empty battery casing and cast a flaming, 10-foot in diameter ball of plasma to try to give us a fuel boost” and Jeremy went “okay fuck it, stick your hand in the battery and cast a flaming sphere of plasma to give the ship a fuel boost, Leif, make another concentration check to hold the pressure.” and it did and we won the race the end we’re the coolest space elves ever. moral of the story: your players will come up with clever things. Sometimes clever things that mess up your plans. Let it happen, it’s more fun that way.

(Iris has come up with a truly heinous but potentially really effective military tactic that gay murder elf bachelorette campaign is actually a bit more delicate because it’s set in a larger world that Jeremy is running multiple other campaigns in and I’m still not sure if Iria is legit going to be a villain that I face off as a good PC one day, or if she’s a historical figure, or even whether or not this campaign is set in the past, but either way the history of this world matters? and the idea that I came up with has the potential to re-shape history? and I told it to Jeremy and he was quiet for a very long time and then thanked me for telling him and so Iria told Talvus in-character and we’re going to see whether or not in a couple of books this ends up changing the entire history of the world that he runs multiple campaigns in or something drastic like that, but hey, player wants to do something you haven’t thought of, “I didn’t think of that” is not a good enough reason to not let them do it.)

7. Decide if you want to write your own adventure, buy/find online a pre-written one, or vaguely do something in the middle. If you’re going for something pre-written, edits bits and pieces as you go to personalize it to your characters. I have a friend who just wrote and published something for DnD 2nd Edition? And it looks great? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229248/War-Wizards-of-the-Wasteland Even if you don’t play a pre-written adventure, reading a bunch of them will give you an idea of what preparing for sessions is like and what sort of information you should have on hand.

8. Don’t be afraid to make up home-brew mechanics, either for the whole party or for an individual player. Jeremy ran a vignette session called “Flight of the Kalla Tukal” in which we were playing a trio of orcs that had fallen through a tear in space and had just managed to get back and were searching for our tribe, which left without us. Except in his setting, orcs are a super psionic almost hivemind race? You meet orcs outside of radiation space sometimes, but they’re usually Not Coping Very Well with the fact that they’ve been cut off from their community. But the Kalla Tukal were still all linked together so we weren’t all going mad. then the other part of being psychic orcs meant that we could at any point attempt to do telekinesis or mind-control something, and the way that it was determined whether or not that worked is roll a d20, except we’re not trying to get 20, we’re trying to roll as close to each other in number as possible. There was one dramatic moment when two of us rolled 4’s or something and it was a critical success. but it was so cool to have that weird drift-comparability mechanic, and, like, the more people in our group that wanted to contribute, the more likely two people were to roll the same number. it was just?????? so cool??????? so if you want your party to all be psychically connected and be able to throw stuff with their minds I totally recommend that.

on a more personal/one-player level, in the department campaign, it has developed that Seraph really wants to be a research wizard like her family before her, and so the DM and I had a long conversation about the topics that she would want to research and a particular narrative impetus for her to start researching, and he came up with five or six new spells that Seraph will be able to invent over the course of the campaign, except because it’s experimental magic it’s going to start out with a 40% partial-to-total failure rate that will go down the more she tries to cast the spells, because hey, she’s working out the kinks. to me, it’s more than “oh this is a cool new mechanic,” it’s the DM cared enough to take the time to work with me and put what I thought was interesting into the campaign. and you have a lot of room to do that by adding your own rules and conventions and what-not. don’t be afraid to experiment, see what works, and then keep those mechanics around.

9. Start small. Don’t try to start with a whole huge epic campaign, you want to start by running a bunch of mini-arcs in different settings so that you get a feel for how to play and how to run things. This also gives you a chance to figure out how your group of friends plays, who is going to be the person that gives you the most scheduling problems, some of them might like the fighting parts more than the “come up with clever plans” or “interact with NPCs” parts, and this will give you an idea of who you actually want in a long-term campaign. Because long-term campaigns go on for years. Like, gay murder elf bachelorette is probably going to be a year and a half if Jeremy and I keep going at this pace? and that’s vaguely on the short side for something that Jeremy runs. A proper full epic campaign can be a huge time commitment, so start out with mini-arcs just to have fun and get used to stuff and because that is something that people will actually be able to commit time to.

I interrupt this long list of advice for another list of advice of potential ideas for miniature campaigns you could run for your friends. or one of your friends could run, if they’re interested in DMing:

COOL IDEAS FOR ONE-TO-FOUR SESSION MINI-CAMPAIGNS THAT I CAME UP WITH RIGHT NOW OR STOLE FROM FRIENDS WHO CAME UP WITH SUPER COOL THINGS

  —as mentioned in a previous bullet point, “you’re a group of thieves planning an assassination. this is how much money you have. each of your characters has one character connection in the city who can help you get items or forge a document etc etc. this is what the castle looks like. this is what you’ve figured out about guard shifts and security for the party. you have a week to plan. go” and then, like. somebody wants to try to pretend to be a noble to get in? fantastic. someone wants to try to seduce a guard? fantastic. sneaking in the traditional way? fantastic. all three at the same time. faaaantastic. it’s fun, it’s short, the way that you would prepare this is you would think about guards, defenses, patrols, maybe some of the nobles at the party are trained in magic or have weird special teams of guards and maybe have agendas of their own, and then what the actual ball itself would look like and maybe make a castle map, but the fun part of this scenario is the players get to be as creative as possible and I guarantee they will think of the coolest things and then you get to figure out how to react to those things in interesting ways to figure out whether or not they work.

  —okay this is a one-shot I have only heard legends about but everyone was playing a rock band of monsters who were about to give a super huge concert in monster city and I think someone had stolen a drum set or a guitar or something and they were trying to dodge paparazzi and get their instruments back but it was also ridiculous sex drugs rock & roll culture and a comedy one-shot that apparently was the coolest thing in the world, but you can’t go wrong if you start with “crazy monster rock band superstars”. during the sequel they went on tour to the human lands and I think wrecked a couple of cities.

  —this one is stolen from TAZ but fantasy WWE, the intro plot setup that is exposition in the first 10 minutes was “a friend of yours who is a famous wrestler just had her partner assassinated before the biggest match of the year, one of you has been asked to fill in for the match, another as the manager, and then the rest of you are trying to solve this murder mystery super quick because your friend is worried she’s the next target”

   —honestly any sort of “huge gladiator/fighting tournament but there’s drama and foul play going down behind the scenes” makes for a really good short arc. there’s a game that actually Jeremy invented that is played irl at gay theater camp called “bloodrush” which is such a ridiculous game, it’s….vaguely fantasy football except everyone also has daggers and swords and stuff and you are allowed to stab members of the other team but only when they’re holding the ball, although cheating is basically a requirement when the refs’ backs are turned, oh, by the way, the refs are vampires. there have been cases at camp where teams waiting in the bleachers for the next match enemy teams have crept up behind them and slit all their throats with foam daggers while the refs were watching the game, or poisonings, or just. anything you can think of, it’s gone down. my little brother once jumped on the biggest baddest counselor’s back, stabbed him in the shoulder, snatched the ball from him, did a front roll, and ran off, and scored a goal and that is one of his proudest moments of his life to this day, basically what I’m saying is you can’t go wrong with “bloodrush tournament” or whatever your own crazy fantasy sportsball game you want to make up and play.

   —“we are a bunch of archeologists who have a little bit of combat or magic training but not too much because mostly we’re archeologists and someone poked a button in a pyramid and oh god we’ve accidentally summoned an ancient race on monsters that feed on human souls, which also apparently there’s a secret military conspiracy that has been watching this site to try to stop these monsters and have come here to contain them but oops also are ready to murder ALL OF US because WE have human souls, now we’re trying to run and hide from both groups and figure out if we can find anything to banish the monsters again” (this is 100% stolen from a LARP written by a friend of mine) (I’m pretty sure same one who wrote the monster band one-shot, actually) (they’re a really good writer, okay)

   —PRISON ESCAPE. Think Guardians of the Galaxy 1. You can’t go wrong with a prison break game. character design will be so fun. I swear I thought of stuff like this separate from Jeremy. Jeremy’s writing a prison break game and has promised that I get to play Captain Jennijack, a genderfluid space pirate who totally woke up in this prison a week or so ago and doesn’t for the life of them know why they are here, there are, like, eight or ten possible things they could think of but they’re not sure which one they’ve technically been convicted of, and I am holding him to that.

   —Honestly, you have a book that you like? A movie? A TV show? One that you haven’t convinced your friends to watch yet? (or one that you have and they will recognize halfway through.) STEAL THAT, write and run a fanfiction game, it’ll be fun.

ADVICE PART 2: PREPARING FOR A LONGER CAMPAIGN ONCE YOU’RE COMFORTABLE DMING AND HAVE FIGURED OUT THE GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE GOOD CHEMISTRY AND DYNAMICS AND WANT TO STICK AROUND. I’m assuming you want advice for getting something vaguely like gay murder elf bachelorette to run, so I’m going to talk about broad story-based things that I think are important for setting up good stories?

10. Scheduling is key and what is most likely to mess you up. Pick your players carefully, pick people who are invested and who will turn up. If there are people who didn’t get along during your mini arcs, or who just had very different expectations of what the game should be like re fighting/mechanics and roleplaying balance, don’t put them in the same party. Picking a party isn’t about picking your friends, it’s about picking people who work well together as players, and whose playing style matches your storytelling style. You’re better off with less people but who are super quality players and share a vision with you and get along, than letting someone into the game that’s going to mess stuff up for everyone because of outside-of-game social politics. It’s just not worth it. Not when this might go on for years.

11. There’s something really powerful about a story that isn’t about the Chosen Ones, but instead you’re just a group of people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and now oh shit it’s on you to save the world. Epic campaigns generally become epic, like, you invest that much time and energy into something and by the finale you usually are saving the universe, but be willing to start out not special. Let specialness develop.

11.5 There is also something really powerful about there sometimes being problems that magic can’t fix. Or that just aren’t fixable. If you haven’t read the Young Wizards series go read it and cry.

12. Write in arcs. This goes along very well with starting small, but have there be different parts of the campaign that are semi self-contained as you slowly build up to something bigger, this is also where you start dropping in personal arcs. Arcs also allow you to change up the feel of the game and keep things interesting and keep people on their toes. The Adventure Zone does maybe the best example of how to have self-contained plot-driven arcs that build to something eventually cohesive, all arcs with their own unique setup and flavor. (The Adventure Zone: Balance is a really great game and I really do advise you listen to it, it’s ~70 episodes but it will get you used to the mechanics of 5e, and holy fuck is it a story.)

13. Don’t be afraid to steal plot points from your favorite things. Hell, don’t be afraid to steal the entire plots of your favorite things. Especially if you’re worried about your own writing skills or creativity or whatever? Fanfiction is freaking great, and it’s fun; some of the best games I’ve ever played have been fanfiction of super obscure things that the writer has afterwards told me what it was fanfiction of and it was so freaking fun to go read/watch the original after I’d already played an even cooler version???? It’s also pretty easy to start out fanfiction and then through developing personal arcs and following party interest, ending up with a story by the end that is entirely original and you. So write fanfiction if you don’t have any ideas, or honestly, if your fanfiction ideas excite you more than when you sit down and try to write with a blank slate.

14. You’re not limited to a high fantasy setting. Honestly, standard high fantasy/dungeon crawl stuff has gotten pretty boring for me? (although the department campaign is pretty cool, but that’s only because it’s high fantasy but we slip in jokes like “Seraph marches downstairs in her pajamas and channels her mother to start yelling at the innkeeper about the utterly terrible customer service of getting poisoned, non-consensually, and that she would like to speak to the manager of the local thieves’ guild to lodge a complaint” because even though it’s high fantasy, it’s funny. TAZ does really good high fantasy too because of how they weave a whole bunch of other stuff in.) but, like, YOU CAN DO DND IN SPACE. you can do modern urban fantasy. you can go post-apocalypse. you can go post-high-fantasy-apocalypse. you can play a supernatural style game. it’s your world, make it whatever you want.

14.5 It is possible to play things that are mechanically the class in the book, but have a different interpretation in the setting. Or just to works differently in the setting. in spelljammer, elves don’t have gods, and I vaguely developed over the course of a couple of months an old belief system that was pretty old even when Marian was a kid that she just pseudo-learned and didn’t quite believe but is now revisiting, and the difference between divine casters and arcane casters is actually just “magic is vaguely a part of physics and most arcane casters are tinkerers who are doing it via weird cool gadgets or are pseudo-scientists/engineers in their training and approach to magic, while for divine casters it’s more of an internal, feelings-based thing.” I’m also very very excited because I have developed a super intense and specific lore that is canonically what elves used to believe and what Marian believes, but might not actually be how the world and death specifically works at all, so I’m bouncing up and down on my feet waiting to discover what’s going down behind the scenes with gods in that campaign, instead of it just being “oh yeah choose your gods from the gods in the book.” in the department campaign, Seraph is from a family of wizards and thinks that she is a wizard even though she is actually an arcanist, because the world doesn’t have words different types of casters esp niche types of casters yet. the DM and I are planning for it to be a huuuuge surprise now that she’s leveled up enough to have access to “arcanic exploits” which are at-will abilities that wizards don’t have, and it is going to be an in-character process of her discovering that she can do something that according to the known laws of magic she shouldn’t be able to do, and now oh shit she has to research it. even though mechanically, we’re going pretty much entirely by the book, the book doesn’t exist in the world! characters don’t know what players know! make it interesting to discover things that you as a player might otherwise take for granted!

14.75 make magic and fighting sound cool, and design how you describe it to be specific to the setting or the culture. in gay murder elf bachelorette campaign, the way that Caedic casting works is you first have to draw a rune in the air that then hovers there all glowy, and then you “thread the needle” which is projecting power through it in a very specific manner, I’m pretty sure that Surrians cast differently, magic works different in different parts of the world. having a melee fight scene? describe how people exchange blows back and forth or let them choose how their killing blows will look or just make them feel like badasses whenever they try to do a cool thing because it’s cool. I am used to playing magic/caster characters just because I generally am more familiar with magical mechanics than fighting mechanics and magic has always been more interesting to me but holy crud I have never had a fight scene so fun as the one when Iria had led a researcher from the Black Lotus Labs to a fae font that she’d found scouting in the woods and this seaweed creature eventually attacked them and she did a badass holding it off with her scimitar an then Vennikus, the researcher, tried to throw a cold iron knife at it but missed, and so Iria, who had been training in two-weapon fighting, saw the knife, did a front roll underneath the monster’s next swing, picked up the knife, exchanged a flurry of blows with the thing now two-handed fighting which eventually ended with her doing this super badass throwing both weapons in the air and catching them to switch hands, leaping on the things back, slashing so deep with her scimitar that it finally got through all of the seaweed and cleared it before it could get back to a weird, pulsating green heart, which then she drove the cold iron blade into all the way up to its hilt. which was so much cooler than “oh shit I rolled a crit on my scimitar hand and confirmed it and I guess that deals enough damage for this thing to die,” nah, I drove a cold iron knife into that thing’s pulsating heart and so that’ll be a scene that I never forget. Even when I miss Jeremy makes me sound cool because then when the enemies miss he talks about how good my footwork is or how well I’ve drilled to block these exact kinds of blows so the Surrian had no chance because my training kicked in type deal. it makes fight scenes more than just rolling dice, and thus easier to get engaged in.

14.8725 I swear I didn’t start out this essay as an “I’m going to sing the praises of Jeremy for several thousand words”

15. It’s always interesting when you have mechanical reasons for players leveling up. Or for what their classes are. That’s always a tricky one to balance, and it’s one that I’ve been doing aggressively as a player? And to be fair, if your players start out with young and fairly inexperienced characters, “I am gaining experience at doing a thing” is a perfectly good narrative reason to level up. You want to play an older character? One of my friends is playing a 150-year-old orc who was a Great Adventurer back in the day and retired to take care of great-great grandkids and is back in an adventuring party now but wheeee is starting at level 1 because they’re out of practice oh, and they have bad knees. There’s also always the option of “I hurt myself real bad and I’ve been recovering,” leveling up isn’t ~gaining new experience~, it’s slowly getting better through whatever your injury is. or just you can write this off as an unavoidable mechanical aspect of the game, eh, not that important, I just love it when tiny details match up. This isn’t actually an important point, I’ve kind of moved on to the “picky details that I care about” second of this advice rant.

16. Make the unexpected important. JEREMY GAVE ME THE MOST ADORABLE PET SPACE OCTOPUS AS A FAMILIAR AND I HAVE BEEN ASSUMING THAT VELO IS JUST VELO AND THEN JEREMY MADE SOME SORT OF A SIDE COMMENT ABOUT “YEAH VELO IS NOTHING LIKE YOU’D EVER HEARD OF BEFORE” AND YEAH DUH BECAUSE THE LIL’ BUDDY WAS SUMMONED THROUGH A MYSTERY SPELL IN A MYSTERY PIECE OF EXTINCT TECH BUT NOW I’M FREAKING PARANOID OUT OF CHARACTER THAT VELO IS SECRETLY AN EMISSARY OF RAT JESUS OR SOMETHING. but also just, like, nothing is cooler than “oh that tiny thing that happened when you were level 1 that you didn’t really think much of and it’s just been vaguely a thing you’ve carried with you for the adventure? turns out it was the most important thing in the world!!!!!” just. good foreshadowing. unexpected foreshadowing. it’s great.

17. Your players will invent stuff, either as a part of their backstory or as something that they’re interested in. Let them, especially if you don’t have a previously established canon opinion on the thing. This is 100% a self-serving thing of what I wants DMs to do when I’m a player of, like. I really love getting to write stuff into the setting, but also it’s because good improv means go with the flow. Someone says something? Work it in, oops, it’s canon now. This can be both on-purpose or accident; in the department campaign, I wanted to write in-character letters to an NPC in my backstory from the beginning, except goddamnit I didn’t want to have to deal with “and it’ll take a couple of months for the mail to travel across the country to get to them,” so I made an offhand reference in the email that I was sending the DM the letters of “can we say I just threw them in the arcanic postlines,” which then, like. After doing this about five times I sat down and wrote out the exact magical theory about how arcanic postlines should work considering how we’d said that they function in-game and the DM went “okay, sounds great, that’s consistent with how we’ve been dealing with these letters for the last two months” and that is why the fantasy world of the departmental campaign has a highly functional postage system. On the improv end of things, there is a beautiful moment in The Adventure Zone where the wizard just, in-character, teases another wizard about “ooooh, don’t want to burn your spell slots,” and the DM just went with it and suddenly it became canon that instead of spell slots being a behind-the-scenes mechanical thing that doesn’t exist in-world, it was a legitimate way that wizards referred to how much magic they could cast a day. Which I love so much, that’s so interesting for a high fantasy setting. Letting players add to the setting will bring in cool new things that you didn’t think of, and you should be open to it.

18. First priority is everyone should be having fun, and communication is key for that to work. Debrief sometimes after sessions. Ask people what their favorite parts are. listen to them chat about their theories. follow up on actively developing framework for the things that people think are fun. ultimately DnD is as much about friends getting together and having a good time as it is about telling a huge, epic, intricate, interconnected story, and the huge epic stories are a lot more fun if you’ve been having fun the whole way along.

All that all being said.

Don’t expect your campaign to look like gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, the way that I am playing in gay murder elf campaign is…..a bad way to play in a party? Being a conscientious player means being aware that the overall story arc isn’t just about you, it’s weaving together about everyone and there is always a part of me that is thinking about “is everyone getting equal screentime” and going “I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NPC JEREMY SHE’S SO GOOD AT FIGHTING OH MY GODS THAT MURDEROUS LOOK SHE GETS WHEN SHE’S FACING OFF AGAINST SURRIANS AND SHE DOESN’T THINK ANYONE IS WATCHING JEREMY I AM IN LOVE” and, like, actively going over to try to talk with her any time I had the chance to ever and insisting on sparring with her any time we had free time and insisting on having a bunch of scenes with Talvus of “oh my god Talvus help she said three whole words to me what does it mean” which made all this the gay mess that it was would have been something that I wouldn’t have done if there were other people in the party with other agendas; gay elf murder bachelorette campaign gets to be gay elf murder bachelorette campaign specifically because Jeremy and I realized “….wait, there are only the two of us, we can get as ridiculous with this as we want” and have decided to commit. Fully. But that’s not the sort of shit you want to pull if there’s a whole other group of people who just kind of have to sit and watch every time you want to go over and flirt with your murder-rival-who-will-maybe-one-day-be-your-murder-girlfriend before they can do the stuff they want to do.

(As a secondary warning note if you’re doing any sort of roleplaying and are playing a fictional character in love with another fictional character being played by a friend of yours, you better be on the same page as your friend as, like, one of you not having a secret crush on the other in real life because shit gets messy and then real life and character stuff starts to blend and it’s just. I have been there and done that when I was a 17-year-old Gay Mess and I feel like it is my responsibility as a 22-year-old Slightly More Responsible Gay Mess to warn you against that. Jeremy and I know each other very well and have for years and know each other’s boundaries and talked about triggers and boundaries before starting this campaign, which to be fair was more because as a villain campaign dark stuff is probs going to happen but we have talked about fictional romance too , but I would not play this intimately with someone I didn’t trust intimately. So keep that in mind when designing things?)

ALSO THAT BEING SAID

if you want a gay elf murder bachelorette campaign, there is a game called Monsterhearts that I have never played but heard about friends playing and they all freaking love it and there are a lot of undertones about dealing with mental illness and being queer and in the closet and the entire setup of the game is y’all are monsters in high school having love life drama and everything I have heard about this game is how remarkable it is combined with stories about the most ridiculous teenage drama, sooooo possibly after I have ranted for 8000 words about how to set up a functional Dungeons and Dragons campaign which the party and DMing advice still I think applies to any game Monsterhearts might be the game that you want to start with.

BONUS: ADVICE FROM JEREMY.

[aphroditeurl]

If I'm doing all the asks then so are you.

>.> fineeee

1. If you didn’t have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time?

Play video games, I’m not gonna lie about that. 

2. What’s your favourite piece of clothing you own/owned?

I have a black dress I bought for myself a couple years ago that makes me look like a badass Bond villain. And I look sexy as all hell in it. 

3. What hobby would you get into if time and money weren’t an issue?

I want to make custom dolls idk

4. What would your perfect room look like?

PINK i’m a fucking girly girl

5. How often do you play sports?

Never...I am not into sports. Watching others though is fun

6. What fictional place would you most like to go?

Diagon Alley

7. What job would you be terrible at?

Anything involving math. So I would make an awful accountant.

8. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance at winning medal for?

Being sick apparently...nah I’m pretty good at graphic design I think

9. When was the last time you climbed a tree?

I am afraid of heights so never

10. What is the most annoying habit other people have?

loud chewing, I will want to murder you I Promise

11. What job do you think you’d be good at?

Anything with animals, I have a passion for them

12. What skill would you like to master?

A different language. Being bi-lingual would be cool. I hate English. 

13. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on?

Oh fuck I want to travel. Even to places considered “dangerous”. I want to go everywhere, I have A NEED. I’m a sucker for those exploration videos on youtube. 

14. If you had unlimited funds to build a house that you would live in for the rest of your life, what would the finished house look like?

Firstly it would be a beach house because I love water and beaches. Secondly, it’d have at least four bedrooms, maybe six. And a full sized basement. I want it to look Magical As Fuck. For reasons. There will be an aquarium in it.

15. What’s your favourite drink?

Coke. The drink.

16. What state or country do you never want to go back to?

I miss Michigan a lot. I loved it there. 

17. What songs have you completely memorized?

A lot?? too vague

18. What game or movie universe would you most like to live in?

STARDEW VALLEY. Sustainable farming is sexy. 

19. What do you consider to be your best friend?

@sedris-the-meme-king

20. Are you usually early or late?

Early. Like twenty minutes early. Anxiety fuels me.

21. What pets did you have while you were growing up?

A lot of cats, a few dogs, hamsters, and a couple bunnies. I love animals.

22. When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

Relationship advice

23. What takes up too much of your time?

Depression 

24. What do you wish you knew more about?

Space law. Which is weird. The concept of space really scares me but it’s also a little fascinating. 

25. What would be your first question after waking up from being cryogenically frozen for 100 years?

“is my cat ok?”

26. What are some small things that make your day better? 

Getting random texts from ppl. 

27. Who’s your go to band or artist when you cannot decide on something to listen to?

Rihanna or Halsey 

28. What’s the best way to start the day?

By sleeping in a little longer

29. What shows are you into?

Anything that’s paranormal, pretty much anything on TLC, Gordon Ramsey is Good

30. Who has impressed you most with what they’ve accomplished?

@floating-in-the-dark for being a good bean 

31. What age do you wish you could permanently be?

18. That was a fun age dude. 

32. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch?

13 Reasons Why, Game of Thrones, I’m petty 

33. What would be your ideal way to spent the weekend?

Video games, ice cream, kissing, things of that nature, maybe going to the movies, exploring a haunted abandoned hospital, casual things you know

34. What is something that is considered a luxury, but you don’t think you could live without?

My phone

35. What’s your claim to fame?

Idk what this means???

36. What’s something you like to do the old-fashioned way?

Dating. I’m sort of a cliche geek ok. 

37. What’s your favourite genre of book or movie?

Horror for movie and fantasy for books

38. What have you only recently formed an opinion about?

God phoning. Non-pagans won’t get this. 

39. What’s the best single day on the calendar?

The first of every month because it feels sorta refreshing

40. What are you interested in that most people haven’t heard of?

Sexual education 

that’s a joke but I am also serious

41. How do you relax after a hard day of work?

I watch youtube videos and play some games, or RP

42. What was the best book or series that you’ve ever read?

The Maze Runner. Sorta corny but it was enjoyable. 

43. What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

California. 10/10 would go back. 

44. What is the most heartwarming thing you’ve ever seen?

“I would blink” out of context this makes no sense but it meant a lot to me in context 

45. What is the most annoying question people ask you?

“Are you SURE you’re __ age?” I am small, I sound 12, but yes I promise I AM TWENTY

46. What could you give a 30-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?

Harry Potter at any given moment. Esp Draco Malfoy. 

47. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

Tbh??? Move away to a completely new place that you have no connections in. That sounds crazy stupid but really, it was the best choice I ever made. 

48. Would you rather go hang gliding or whitewater rafting?

Whitewater rafting

49. What’s your dream car?

1967 Thunderbird bitches 

50. What’s worth spending more on to get the best?

Make-up, and bath stuff 

51. What is something that a ton of people are obsessed with but you just don’t get the point of?

Game of Thrones lmao

52. What are you most looking forward to in the next 10 years?

School. I can’t wait to start college in the fall. 

53. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been?

UP Michigan 

54. What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but just haven’t gotten around to it?

There are lot of ways to answer this. 

I want to try a ghost pepper lmao

55. What’s the best thing that happened to you last week?

I started talking to someone really sweet

56. What piece of entertainment do you wish you could erase from your mind so that you could experience for the first time again?

Undertale tbh

57. If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?

I’d work at a graveyard no joke

58. What amazing thing did you do that no one was around to see?

Absolutely nothing my dudes

59. How different was your life one year ago?

Extremely different and I sorta miss it

60. What quirks do you have?

I wiggle my mouth from side to side when I am in thought, I tend to rub my nose randomly, I walk on the balls of my feet

61. What would you rate 10/10?

@funkypanda

62. What fad or trend do you hope comes back?

I!! Want!! 90s!! Fashion!! Back!!

63. What’s the most interesting piece of art you’ve seen?

anything @floating-in-the-dark has done

64. What kind of art do you enjoy most?

See above answer

65. What do you hope never changes?

Most of my friendships

66. What city would you most like to live in?

Londonnnnn 

67. What movie title best describes your life?

The Boss Baby 

68. What did you decide to do the work you are doing now?

Huh????

69. What’s the best way a person can spend their time?

Being kind to others

70. If you suddenly became a master at woodworking, what would you make?

Some really weird shit dude 

71. Where is the most relaxing place you’ve ever been?

UP Michigan lol

72. What is the luckiest thing that has happened to you?

Meeting my best friend 

73. Where would you rather be from?

Canada 

74. What are some things you’ve had to unlearn?

My temper, some bad habits that were formed from anxiety

75. What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

School, getting a puppy, summer

76. What website do you usually go on when you have time off?

Tumblrr

77. Where would you spend all your time if you could?

Japannnnn or South Korea

78. What is special about the place you grew up?

Everyone was a community. We all supported each other. 

79. What age do you want to live to?

100+ cause I fear death a lot

80. What are you most likely to become famous for?

The Biggest Baby Award

81. What are you absolutely determined to do?

Finish school and become a zoologist cause that’s the dream

82. What is the most impressive thing you know how to do?

I can code and shit????? idk

83. What do you wish you knew more about?

Space law

84. What question would you most like to know the answer to?

“will I ever be successful at anything” 

[yournewapartment]

So I'm a Canadian who will be moving to Scotland later this month for university and I'm wondering: Do you have any tips for getting settled in a new country? This will be the first time I'm buying my own groceries and not using student loans so budgeting advice is also welcome.

This ask has been sitting in my inbox for like at least a month... I’m so sorry! Some posts take more time to write then others. I actually have about four asks that are all essentially this same question, so I’m going to just combine them all into one post. 

As for budgeting... here’s my two cents, in terms of Minimum Wage.

Budgeting on Minimum Wage

Overview

The average minimum wage in the US is $7.25/hr. Even working full time at 40 hours a week, that’s only a profit of $290 before taxes. This is not a fair living wage! You are worth way more than this amount! I strongly encourage you to start looking for another job that pays better, look for something around the $10-$15 range.

While $7.25 is atrocious, thousands of people around the world support families on much less. If they can do it while supporting children, so can you! To live off a minimum wage budget you need to declare yourself independent. If your parents are still claiming you as a dependent YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DO THIS. I also recommend that you have the highest amount possible taken out of your taxes so that you get money back from your state at the end of the year, instead of being in debt to them.

What I’ve done is come up with a budgeting plan based off some made up factors and my own personal experience.

Housing

1. City life. Forget about the city! Apartments located in cities can be three times as expensive as apartments in small towns or villages. On top of the extra expense, they’re much smaller and have less amenities included. I’d much rather live in a one bedroom apartment with a dishwasher and a conveniently located Laundromat, than a literal closet with no windows on a fifth floor walkup. Look for apartments twenty minutes to a half hour outside of your closest city. Now you have the close conveniences of a city, with none of those pesky city prices that your budget can’t handle.

2. College towns. Shop around and look at apartments by local colleges. Large colleges with have apartment complexes within walking distance of the school grounds. Landlords know that college students have less money (you might even be a college student yourself) and adjust their prices accordingly. Even apartments next to ivy league schools are priced this way, so don’t be discouraged by the institution’s “prestige”.

3. Locale. Your safety is more important than your bank account. It doesn’t matter if you live in Section 8 housing or in an affluent suburb. Some apartment complexes and neighborhoods are just safer than others. I live in a heavily populated and upper middle class suburb, and the first year I moved in, a drunk woman tried to throw a beer bottle at my car. Thankfully this is the only time this happened to me, but it made me feel unsafe in my environment. Before signing a lease, walk or drive around your prospective home’s neighborhood at night. Take in the atmosphere, and make sure it’s one where you could comfortably run to the local supermarket at 10:30pm and pick up toilet paper.

4. Roommates. Living on minimum wage requires that you find one or two roommates to help split the rent. The more the better! Get together with your more responsible friends, so at least you’re living with people whose company you enjoy. There are lots of “roommate wanted” forums and message boards for you to browse on the internet, but always bring a responsible adult with you before meeting a stranger. Please. Bring your mom if you have too.

Food

1. Low-spoon food. I created this post a few months ago which offers lots of suggestions about cooking and shopping on a budget.

2. Online recipes. Here are some of my favorite online Tumblr cookbook resources.

- College Student Cookbook. Click here.

- Meals On The Go. Click here. (Not a cookbook, but super helpful)

- Broke College Kid Masterpost. Click here.

- Cooking on A Bootstrap. Click here.

- Good and Cheap. Click here.

- Budget Bytes. Click here.

3. I also regularly update my cooking on a budget tag.

Misc Expenses

1. Gas. Shop around and find the cheapest gas in your area. Avoid gas stations next to colleges, highways, and in touristy areas. Look into getting as gas rewards card from your favorite supermarket. I get 10 cents off a gallon with Stop & Shop every time I do a big shop.

2. Dollar store. Get to know your local dollar and bargain stores. You can buy everything from pots and pans to bed sheets there. These stores often sell bulk ramen for $1 and large cans of crushed tomatoes for 75 cents. That’s enough food for you to live off of for several days. When shopping, I make three grocery store stops to ensure that I spend the least amount possible on my pantry needs. I go Dollar Store, Stop and Shop, and then to my local organic grocery store. I’m going to make a list of things that I buy at Dollar Stores and things that I don’t buy at Dollar Stores soon!

3. Cable. We are living in the digital age- you don’t need cable television. Use Netflix or Hulu or whatever. It will save you tons of $$.

4. Internet. As far as internet speed goes, if you’re living with roommates you will probably need a higher speed. Living by yourself, choose a lower one. Most internet companies offer large discounts to new subscribers. These typically only last a year, but will save you serious money. Make sure to take note of when this discount expires, and contact the company before it does. If you don’t, they’ll begin charging you the full amount without notice.

5. Verizon. I just want to take a moment to talk about how much I love Verizon because they have literally saved me so much money in the three years I’ve been with them. After you sign a contract with a new internet company, they charge you a bunch of ridiculous fees like “activation fees” and “installation fees”. I called Verizon and was like “I’m a poor college student, I can’t afford this” and they were like “don’t worry, we’ll waive the fee”. I signed a two year contract with them that saved me $80 on a high-speed internet bill per month (my price being only 50.99 a month). After the contract expired I call them and they put me on a month to month, keeping the price absolutely the same. TLDR- get Verizon if you can.

6. Utility. Get on a monthly budget with whatever utility company services your new apartment. Although it may seem like the cheaper option, paying the actual amount of electricity you spend per month is the more expensive. It’s also unpredictable, and a minimum wage budget won’t allow for it. See this for more info.

7. Amazon. I buy a lot of my beauty, cleaning, and cat products online. Amazon offers Prime shipping free for a year with a student email address, and then offers it at a greatly reduced price after the year. If you are a student, snap up that free deal ASAP. If it’s in your budget, I’d greatly recommend investing in Amazon Prime.

8. Saving money. It’s so important to attempt to break way from the “paycheck to paycheck” vicious cycle. Living this way does not allow for emergency expense money, and trust me, sometime soon you will need emergency expense money. Your cat might get sick or your car may die, whatever it is, it’s always smart to have at least $500 squirreled away. I’m gonna level with you, things have been tight for my budget and I haven’t been able to save anything for the past three months. But this month I will!

Example Budgets

Full Time

Working with the $7.25/hr and 40hr/week model, here’s an example budget for living on minimum wage. That’s $1,160 a month without taxes.

Housing: Let’s say you’re sharing an apartment with two close friends, the rent being $1,500 without any amenities. That rent split three ways is $500 each.

Gas I commute twenty minutes every day, and I drop about $20-$25 a week on gas. That’s $100 on gas a month.

Food: I do one big shopping a month with my boyfriend. We drop around $180 and that’s including toiletries and soap and stuff. So maybe you’ll spend about $100 a month on all your shopping needs.

Cable/internet:  Hopefully you took my advice and skipped cable. Let’s say you’re paying around $50 per month for internet. Split three ways that’s $17 each.

Laundry: Hopefully you’re not like me and are only spending around $20 on laundry per month.

Random expenses: Because there always are some. Let’s just tack on another $100.

With everything added up, you still have around $290 left before taxes! That money can go into a savings account, and after several months, you’ll have that $500 worth of emergency money saved.

Part Time

Working with the $7.25/hr and 25hr/week model, here’s an example budget for living on minimum wage. That’s $725 without taxes.

Housing: In this case, you need to look for apartments in the $800-900 range. In my area, one bedroom apartments go for around $1000, so you may need to get creative with your roommate (I don’t think you could have more than one roommate in this situation). Buy dividers to split the bedroom or studio in half! Let’s say your rent is $850 with nothing included, that’s $425 each.

Gas You’re still looking at a large gas bill per month, so it may be more inexpensive to ride a bike or use public transportation. Let’s say you use public transportation, and spend around $50 a month on that. Or maybe you and your roommate can split gas expenses and share a car?

Food: Pinch those pennies! Use some of those budget cookbooks I linked above to help you cook healthy and delicious meals for under $4 each. See if you can only spend $80 a month on groceries.

Cable/internet:  Hopefully you took my advice and skipped cable. Let’s say you’re paying around $50 per month for internet. Split two ways is $25 each.

Laundry: Hopefully you’re not like me and are only spending around $20 on laundry per month.

Random expenses: Because there always are some. Let’s just tack on another $100.

That leaves you $25 to put in your bank account, if that. This is a paycheck to paycheck situation, and you will probably need to get another source of income to feel secure. But you can still do it!

[sugar-hearse]

I'm bored

1. Would you have sex with the last person you text messaged? Ok are we talking like a text text or like a snap chat message or an Instagram DM because if it’s text text then absolutely not although I actually have slept with him in the past because he’s my ex so 
2. You talked to an ex today, correct? Yes, see above comment hahaha. Mitchell texted me and I was just like WHAT DO YOU WANT 
 3. Have you taken someones virginity? Nope 
4. Is trust a big issue for you? Yeah :/ 
5. Did you hang out with the person you like recently? Saturday 
6. What are you excited for? MOVING TO MY NEW APARTMENT 
7. What happened tonight? It’s like one in the afternoon 
8. Do you think it’s disgusting when girls get really wasted? Only if they are stupid or puke everywhere 
9. Is confidence cute? To a degree 
10. What is the last beverage you had? My daily morning protein and probiotic drink YUM 
11. How many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust? Maybe like…4. 
12. Do you own a pair of skinny jeans? Yeah 
13. What are you gonna do Saturday night? This Saturday? I have no clue, I think I’m scheduled to work 
14. What are you going to spend money on next? Probably food or gas 
15. Are you going out with the last person you kissed? Nope. I wish. 
16. Do you think you’ll change in the next 3 months? Probably? I feel like I’m constantly changing 
17. Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything? Probably my mom or Krissy and Chloe 
18. The last time you felt broken? Like, last week hahaha 
19. Have you had sex today? Nope :/ 
20. Are you starting to realize anything? Not really anything I haven’t already realized 
21. Are you in a good mood? Kinda. I’m feeling extremely lazy today 
22. Would you ever want to swim with sharks? It depends on the situation 
23. Are your eyes the same color as your dad’s? No, they’re the same color as my mom's 
24. What do you want right this second? Delicious food 
25. What would you say if the person you love/like kissed another girl/boy? I’ve had this happen and I lived so it’s not gonna kill me even though it sucks but it’s like whatever, if I’m not with the person it doesn’t matter. I’ve also been cheated on and survived that so whatever, people like to fuck me over and mess with my emotions then so be it, I’m not gonna have them in my life, I deserve better. 
26. Is your current hair color your natural hair color? Yeah I’ve never dyed it 
27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn’t make you laugh? Absolutely not 
28. What was the last thing that made you laugh? I think something stupid on Facebook 
29. Do you really, truly miss someone right now? Yes, absolutely 
30. Does everyone deserve a second chance? Not everyone. But sometimes. 
31. Honestly, do you hate the last boy you were talking to? Yes 
32. Does the person you have feelings for right now, know you do? I have feelings for two people, one knows and the other I’m pretty sure is too dumb still to have figured it out 
33. Are you one of those people who never drinks soda? I technically can’t drink soda anymore, I’m not just “one of THOSE people"
 34. Listening to? Silence at the moment, surprisingly 
35. Do you ever write in pencil anymore? All the time 
36. Do you know where the last person you kissed is? Hopefully at work, otherwise he’d be a damn liar and also his Instagram story would be a damn liar 
37. Do you believe in love at first sight? Actually I kinda do 
38. Who did you last call? Like an outgoing call? Anthony. The last call I took was from work.
 39. Who was the last person you danced with? Katherine hahaha 
40. Why did you kiss the last person you kissed? Because I was dating him for a hot second 
 41. When was the last time you ate a cupcake? TOO LONG AGO 
42. Did you hug/kiss one of your parents today? No 43. Ever embarrass yourself in front of a crush?
 Ok when I first really hung out with one of my current crushes I got this like, turkey meal and I couldn’t finish it but I got hungry later and I was eating it with this dinky plastic fork and I looked like a cave woman eating this damn hunk of meat and I was like "I’m sorry, this is super embarrassing” and he said it wasn’t and so he told me a story of when he was embarrassed in high school and it made me feel better 44. Do you tan in the nude? No 
45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss? Hmmmm maybe. Probably not. 
46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night? No 
47. Who was the last person to call you? Anthony or my mom I forget which 
48. Do you sing in the shower? Sometimes 
49. Do you dance in the car? Sometimes 
50. Ever used a bow and arrow? I think I’ve like, held my dad’s bow but didn’t shoot it 
51. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? Uhhhhh ok well what counts as a photographer are we talking a professional or what because the last time I had my picture taken and it was planned out and shit was in Anthony’s car, he took my film camera and like, unbuckled his seatbelt and turned around in his chair and became a contortionist just to get a good shot of me driving and I swear if it didn’t turn out I’m gonna be upset 
52. Do you think musicals are cheesy? Yes, I hate most of them 
53. Is Christmas stressful? Yes 
54. Ever eat a pierogi? YES MMMMM 
55. Favorite type of fruit pie? Pumpkin DUH 
56. Occupations you wanted to be when you were a kid? Veterinarian and artist 
57. Do you believe in ghosts? Kinda, I’ve had some weird ass unexplainable shit happen to me 
58. Ever have a Deja-vu feeling? Happens all the damn time to me 
59. Take a vitamin daily? Kinda, I have this protein drink with all this stuff in it 
60. Wear slippers? No 
61. Wear a bath robe? No 
62. What do you wear to bed? A dress that’s too short to wear out 
63. First concert? Lauryn Hill when I was 8 
64. Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? Target for SURE 
65. Nike or Adidas? Adidas 
66. Cheetos Or Fritos? Neither 
67. Peanuts or Sunflower seeds? Sunflower seeds 
68. Favorite Taylor Swift song? None? 
69. Ever take dance lessons? Nope 
70. Is there a profession you picture your future spouse doing? Knowing me I’ll probably marry some artsy type, that’s all I go for, he’ll be some kind of musician or artist or writer or some shit 
71. Can you curl your tongue? Yes 
72. Ever won a spelling bee? NO ok we were just talking about this with my friends, I got the word “scared” and I didn’t hear it right and spelled “stairs” so I failed 
73. Have you ever cried because you were so happy? No actually 
74. What is your favorite book? Rant by Chuck Palahniuk 
75. Do you study better with or without music? With 
76. Regularly burn incense? No 
77. Ever been in love? I think so although sometimes I wonder 
78. Who would you like to see in concert? David Bowie 
79. What was the last concert you saw? Young Jesus at the echoplex 
80. Hot tea or cold tea? Cold 
81. Tea or coffee? Tea 
82. Favorite type of cookie? Chocolate mother fucking chip 
83. Can you swim well? Yeah 
84. Can you hold your breath without holding your nose? Yeah 
85. Are you patient? Not at all whatsoever 
86. DJ or band, at a wedding? DJ 
87. Ever won a contest? Yes I’ve won several writing competitions actually, and I won a contest where I got free Coachella tickets 
88. Ever have plastic surgery? No 
89. Which are better black or green olives? BLACK 
90. Opinions on sex before marriage? Fuck whoever whenever as long as you aren’t hurting anybody and it’s consensual 
91. Best room for a fireplace? Bedroom for sure 
92. Do you want to get married? Yeah it could be super cool to have a wedding but the idea of marriage is bizarre to me although tbh yeah, I would love to be married someday

[sstarkiid]

do all of the lovesick asks bitch. expose urself

wow, ok.

read more thing bc this is long and embarrassing

1: Do you have a current crush?

Two actually but who's counting

2: How long has your crush lasted?

Uhh a few months n then the other one is weird i can't answer that lmao

3: 5 songs that you have associated with your crush?

I'm……..not that sappy I can give u like one

Ice prince : Runaways by ATL

Space boy : Stars by Fun.

4: Do you think they've ever liked you back?

I mean. It's very likely.

5: Will you ever reveal your feelings to them?

Yea probably

6: What’s holding you back from making a move?

It's not that I haven't made a move but like. I am Fear.

7: Are you frightened by your feelings for them?

A lil

8: Do you think they could ever love you?

Maybe???? but i’m kind of an optimist

9: Do you love them?

Lol next question

10: Have you ever had a crush on someone you really shouldn't?

DEFINITELY. I CAN'T NAME ANYONE SPECIFICALLY BUT THE ANSWER IS PROBABLY YES.

11: Do you think anyone currently has a crush on you

...IT'S VERY LIKELY.

12: Ever had a crush on what you thought was a platonic friend?

Hi Jared

13: What would you do if your crush revealed they felt the same?

I'd probably need a second to process it but like probably hug ‘em idfk

14: Has your crush ever hurt you?

Nope!!!!

15: Have they made you cry by breaking your heart?

Nope!!!!!!!!!

16: Why do you like them?

Ice prince is fun to tease idk we go back n forth a lot but he's also a softie n listen he's dramatic enough to keep up w/ me

Space boy tells u like it is and he seems kinda scary or not,, nice at first maybe but he's actually also soft !!

They're also both hot as hell oh my god

17: Do you think you'll ever get over them?

I mean. If I had to I would but...  I don't WANT TO.

18: Do you have 1 specific song that is strongly associated with a certain memory or interaction with them?

Mmm not really?? Not yet?? It'll happen dw

19: The moment you knew you had feelings for them?

We both got scared of the firework finale on the 4th and I squeaked and he like held onto me n it was really funny n cute n I was just like “ok this is a thing now great”

Uhh I was doing the typical girl thing where I send screenshots of a conversation to a friend only the friend is his sister so………..i blame her it’s literally all her fault

20: What would they have to do for you to stop liking them?

Murder someone probably

Or y'know

Something equally as shitty n illegal

21: Have you ever fallen asleep with them?

Yea. Both. Napping is cool.

22: Held their hand?

Mmhm! Both but like that's not that weird

23: Kissed their cheek?

Yup. Both.

24: Kissed them on the lips?

Yeah. Both. Actually.

25: Gone down on them/ they've gone down on you?

N O P E

26: Had sex with them?

Nuh-uh.

27: Where on your body have they touched you?

This is…. A weird question I don't like it

28: Does their touch set your skin on fire?

Fire.

Ice prince.

Fire.

HM.

29: Do you get butterflies when they touch you?

Ok maybe

30: Do they make you smile like no one else can?

Y e a

31: Does their presence calm you?

Mmhmm.

32: Does it make you go crazy being around them and not 'being with' them?

Not… until recently but---

33: Are you friends with your crush?

Both of ‘em!

34: Have you always been friends?

Uhh I guess w/ Ice prince yes but not the other one

35: Last thing they messaged you about?

One was abt a dog, other one was abt coming over to hang out

36: Best phone call with them?

Hands down any call when I've been driving so I make my brother talk to them instead those are always fun

37: Last time you hung out with them?

I. I literally started answering this in one of their houses.

38: Ever been drunk together?

I DON'T DRINK

39: Fondest memory of them?

The fireworks show n then probs a few days ago when we just drove around n talked abt stuff

40: Ever made a mistake with them?

Mistake??????????? i don’t make those

41: Regretted not making a move?

Every day of my life but also I have literally kissed both of them so which is the truth

42: If you could go back in time to that moment, what would you do?

Nothing ‘cause I'm a big baby

43: Do you think that would change your current relationship with them?

Nope

44: If you could get a 100% honest answer from them, what 3 questions would you ask?

ok first FUCK THIS QUESTION

Ice prince

Do u. Actually wanna date or am I just the most gullible person ever

.......................so how do you feel about polyamory

Do u actually hate the puns or do u secretly enjoy them I need to know.

Space boy

Are you aware that you can literally text me for anything at any time?? Bc u should be

Were you ever afraid to talk to me?

Will you promise to talk to me before doing stupid shit so that at the very least i can tell u that ur an idiot,,, but like. affectionately.

45: Did they wish you Happy Birthday on your birthday?

My birthday is in like another month and I didn't know either of them really last year so they better

46: Have they ever tried to make a move?

?????????

Idk tbh

47: If so why did you miss it?

‘Cause I'm clueless as hell

48: Have they ever been infatuated with a friend of yours?

Don't think so

49: Are they single?

Lol yeah they're definitely single

50: Where were you when you felt the most for them?

IT'S ALWAYS WHEN THEY'RE SLEEPING they both just look so cute n peaceful n I get all mushy n wanna protect them but I'm weak as hell so

51: Any specific place you associate with them?

Mmmm not really

52: Films that make you think about them?

Disney films in general

Marvel movies for Ice prince bc NERD

53: Have you picked up a habit because of them?

I don't think so but it's also not unlikely

54: What was your first impression of them?

Ice prince seemed antisocial and idk abt space boy we were like 5 yrs old technically so who knows man

55: Has it altered since then?

LMAO YES

56: Do you remember the first thing you talked about?

Probably musicals bc I can't shut up ever and he was confused

And uhhh no unless u mean like when we started hanging out bc it was candy

57: First time they touched you?

COLD

HE DID IT TO SPITE ME AND IT WAS FUNNY BUT IT WAS SO COLD HOW

And I'm 99% certain I made him high five me before we ever spoke bc I'm a nuisance

58: Have they ever lied to you?

Not that I know of

59: What are their eyes like?

Ohhhhh my GOD

really......clear?? that’s not like. a good way to describe em but u know when u look up at the sky and it’s like. wow there are no clouds!! n then u feel the breeze and it’s kinda cold but it’s not unpleasant it’s?? p nice??? like. that.

cool as FRICK like what the hell i’m actually jealous they’re a rly pretty nice shade n then suddenly it’s!!! different!!!! and it’s like!!!!!!!!!!!!! a surprise a v good surprise which is fitting u just gotta look a lil and he’s full of lil surprises

60: What are you most attracted to about them?

well,, for one they’re both hot as hell, so. that. in general.

if u know anything abt me i’m a sucker for pretty eyes

i also like the “soft but pretends to not be” because i think it’s cute they’re also really good to cuddle with

61: Can you see a future with them?

well i can’t see one without ‘em so something’s gotta give here right?

62: Have you sabotaged things between you two?

i freaking hope not

63: Why? What were you afraid of achieving? Love? Happiness? Content? Disappointment?

why does this thing assume you said yes to the above question that’s kinda rude

64: Could they make you happy?

already do

65: Do you dream about them?

if we’re friends and you haven’t appeared in one of my dreams and done smth weird or random are we actually friends??

side note does daydreaming count LOL

66: What's something that only you two do?

i don’t think i “gently bully” anyone nearly as much as i do ice prince also the only one who actually can cuddle w/ me properly in the summer i’m js

uuuummmm go on random drives in the middle of the night so tht zoe can make out w/ ppl instead of texting our sorry asses

67: Does liking them make you feel vulnerable?

you. have. no idea.

68: Have they ever given you anything?

food has definitely been exchanged and shared. i’ve stolen sweaters. uh.

69: Have they ever used you?

.........not that i’m aware of??

70: Have they abused and manipulated you due to your feelings for them?

nO WHAT TH E

71: Have you ever spent quite literally all day and night thinking about them?

that’s......a bit much i might be pathetic and somewhat desperate but like i do kinda have a life

72: Have you ever accidentally nearly walked into moving traffic cause you were thinking about them?

no but i’ve walked into walls because i was tired and thinking abt stuff so that’s a thing i probably have done

73: Ever worn anything knowing it would draw their attention to you?

YEAH LMAO I DO THAT ALL THE TIME IN GENERAL i like attention fight me

74: Have they ever made you feel so safe and content everything else slips away?

y e ah

75: Ever held you so close you could feel their heartbeat?

mmhmm

76: Truthfully do you think you belong together right now?

[taylor swift’s you belong with me playing in the distance]

77: Have they ever seen you completely vulnerable?

um. no.

78: Do you trust them?

i would trust all of my friends with my life

79: When you see them what feelings are strongest?

i just get?? really happy n i turn into a little kid i swear to god how does he put up with me

n he makes me feel really calm n content n just. good. u know.

80: Are they in love or interested in someone else?

d e a r l o r d i h o p e n o t

81: If they asked you to kiss them, would you?

in a heartbeat

82: Will they be in your life a year from now?

they BETTER BE

83: A moment where you so nearly gave into your feelings for them and did something about it?

i have literally kissed both of them and not because of dares what kind of,,

84: Do they know you have feelings for them?

i’m not exactly,,, subtle

85: Do you have a favourite picture with them?

no but i have favorite pictures of them

86: Your ideal date with them?

hey. concept. a double date. but like. instead of 2 couples it’s just me w/ both of them wow

87: What's their name?

it’s rly obvious that i’m talking about porter and connor fuck you

88: Have you ever been in their room?

i’ve been in connor’s but porter n i mostly chill other places

89: Shared a secret with them?

yeah but it’s not a secret if i tell the internet now is it?

90: Have they ever made you a promise and broken it?

don’t think so

91: Have they ever disappointed you?

nope!

92: Whats the most problematic thing about them, which you overlook due to your feelings for them?

uh. idk. porter’s kinda closed off to other people at first i guess that could be problematic. i’m patient w/ that shit so it doesn’t bug me as much idk

general relationships or lack thereof w/ other ppl tbh for both of them i think 

93: Have you ever had to compete for their affection?

no

94: For as long as they're in your life could you handle just being friends?

that’s what i do with p much everyone else but another way to approach this is if u couldn’t be together would u shut them out and the answer is no?? bc that’s kinda shitty

so yes

95: Ever looked for a sign to make a move?

every?? single second of every day but once again i have literally kissed both of them uh

96: What's standing in your way from being with them?

general anxiety

a single conversation

...lmao

97: Would you let them use you for sex?

this implies that,, they don’t care abt me and only themselves n they’re not really?? like that so?? it wouldn’t happen like that??

realistically knowing myself i wanna say no but i probably would which is Not Good i know

98: Ever had a bad feeling about them that's screaming for you to get out while you still can?

no. like. literally the opposite. wtf

99: If you could go back in time, would you avoid ever meeting them?

NEVER

100: You have 1 wish about them, what would you wish for?

that porter finds someone who makes him feel warm n fuzzy on the inside even if it’s not me

n for connor that one day everything is stable and everything is ok

anyway hey jared U SUCK

[latte-fairytaekwoon]

𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎! 𝙰𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚣 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚜:

𝙹𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚞𝚗𝚑𝚘

Disclaimer: In no way am I condoning, justifying, encouraging nor trying to romanticize yandere behavior. This is all a work of fiction and not meant to represent real life scenarios.

Warning: Mentions of toxic relationship, yandere behavior, self harm, sexual scenes, guilt tripping, gas lighting and other forms of mental manipulation are contained within this post. Read at your own discretion.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:

𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎: 𝙹𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚞𝚗𝚑𝚘

𝙳.𝙾.𝙱: 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟸𝟹𝚛𝚍, 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟿

𝙷𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝: 𝟷𝟾𝟼 𝙲𝙼/ 𝟼'𝟷 𝙵𝚝

𝙰𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕: ■■□□□40%

𝙾𝚋𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕: ■■■■■100%

𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝙸𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢: ■■■■□80%

𝙾𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝 𝙻𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕: 𝙻𝚘𝚠

𝚈𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: 𝙳𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝

𝙱𝚎𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝙰𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚢𝚜𝚒𝚜:

• 𝙸𝚗𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚢 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚏𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚘𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 .

•𝚄𝚗𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚝𝚑𝚢 𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝.

•𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

• 𝙴𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚍𝚊𝚕/ 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏-𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚒𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍.

•𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏- 𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Normal Yunho at first seems like your average guy. He's very sweet, caring, playful and his close, and very few, friends he has would say that he's full of energy and smiles.

He just radiates this sunshine personality that draws people to him, although they may not stay very long.

He met you through mutual friends and acted the same as he did with others.

Albeit it's true, he was very affectionate towards you from the start, which both surprised and didn't surprise his friends.

But that doesn't mean he felt love at first sight with you.

Yunho isn't one to get overly attached right away.....yet.

It happened gradually.

He became attracted to your confident, strong and bold nature, all traits which he lacked in.

But no one knows that because he's good at hiding it.

You were also a very compassionate and empathetic person, which sealed the deal for him.

He admired you from afar, not wanting to get close to you just yet.

However, he'd get pouty and insecure whenever another man would show intentions of wanting to get close to you.

He'd whine often about it and that's how you found out he had feelings for you.

You thought it was cute, that he was cute.

So you were the one who took the first step to start a relationship.

Although shocked, Yunho was extremely happy.

As a boyfriend, he is very devoted to you, putting you above everything else, including his friends, family and health.

Everything moves really fast with him. Example:you had your first kiss on your first date.

Yunho just doesn't see why you have to wait if you two love each other.

"I feel like I've known you my whole life."

Not even 3 months later and you were already sleeping together.

Yunho sees that was the moment he went to heaven......

And that was the moment when hell started.

Yunho started becoming more and more clingy.

Texting, calling you at odd hours, asking you things like where you were, what were you doing, who you were with and if he could go see you.

He usually makes you stay till very late at his place that you have to spend the night with him.

No other option. He insists.

Even keeps spare clothes for you in a drawer he set aside just for you.

Till one day: "Why don't you just move in with me? It'll be so much easier and I could see you even more."

You hesitated, since you were barely 6 months into the relationship and you already felt smothered by his constant presence.

"I don't.... I don't know Yunho.."

He panicked at your hesitation.

"Why...why not? Don't you love me? Is it because you don't want to be around me?"

You began calming him down, trying to explain that maybe things were going to fast, but that only made him get more agitated.

It was truly terrifying for you to see him hyperventilating and choking on his own breathing like that.

Hot tears were falling rapidly down his face as he began saying:

"Why don't you love me? Is it something I did? What am I doing wrong? Tell me!"

"Yunho you did nothing wrong. You're perfect the way you are and I love you just the way you are."

He sniffled and wiped his nose on one of his sweater paws.

"Do you love me? R-really?"

You nodded your head in confirmation. But Yunho was still sulky about something.

"But then.... wha-why not move in? I p-promise you'll like it."

He looked at you with such fragile and tender eyes that you could not refuse him. So you agreed to move in with him.

Biggest mistake you made.

Even though he had his eye on you for most of the day, it wasn't enough for him.

If you were even 3 minutes home later than usual, he was badgering you with questions like:

"Who were you with? What took you so long?"

And you're like "Geez. Let me breathe."

Don't say things like that to him. He starts feeling bad and responds with things like:

"I know I'm sorry, I'm such a pathetic excuse of a boyfriend."

It honestly broke your heart to hear him say such things.

But it also irritated you how jealous he got when you hung out or even talked to another man that wasn't him.

He'd latched onto you in public if he felt you were paying more attention than he liked to another guy.

Sometimes would cause a scene that made you run back home in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry! I just can't help it! Don't you get it?! They're trying to take you away from me!"

"No! You're just an overly possessive and overly jealous boyfriend and I can't stand it anymore! I'm leaving."

"Wait what?"

Yunho watched in horror as you began packing a small bag so you could spend the night somewhere else, and pick up the rest of your stuff later.

All throughout that, Yunho begged, cried and went ballistic.

He repeated for you not to go, not to leave him.

"Y/N you don't understand....you can't leave me... I'll die, I can't live without you.."

You merely rolled your eyes at that. No one dies of a broken heart.

So you just walked out the door and rented a hotel room for the night, unaware of the mess you were about to wake up to.

You woke up bombarded by texts and missed calls from Yunho's friends:

"What did you do to him?!" "You heartless bitch!" "I hope you die if anything happens to him!" "All he did was love you and you destroyed him."

Then the hospital called you: Yunho had tried to kill himself in the night.

Your heart stopped when you found out. You felt so guilty and you felt like a monster.

Without thinking twice, you ran to the hospital to see him.

He layed there, still unconscious from the medication they gave him to calm him down.

You stayed by his side, praying that he'd wake up soon so you could apologize.

He woke up and although he looked surprise to see you....he was only feigning.

Of course you'd go out of your way to see him.

You were bawling your eyes out and holding him close, scared out of your wits at the thought that you almost lost the love of your life.

Yunho apologized, but you hushed him with a kiss, saying it wasn't his fault.

From then on, you began blaming yourself for everything....

And he made sure to remind you not to test him again.

You thought that after that talk, everything would be back to normal and you two could be a regular couple.

How stupid you were.

Life with Yunho now was like walking on thin ice all the time.

You couldn't mention anything about him that made you slightly uncomfortable because he's belittling himself with such foul words, crying to the point of hysteria....

But the worst times are when he's banging his head on a wall hard enough to draw blood, or punching the concrete wall so hard that his knuckles end up bloody and bruised.

You have a heart attack whenever that happens.

You've been so traumatized by his previous suicide attempt that any harm he does to himself sends you in a panic and you're holding him to you, comforting him and reminding him that you love him and won't ever leave him.

Then happy Yunho is back, as if nothing happened.

And he always wants you to reaffirm your love after such ordeals in the bedroom.

Yunho never ever fucks you, no matter how messed up he is.

He likes to take his time with you, going down on you or teasing you with his long fingers before he's thrusting his cock deep inside you.

Always cums inside you, always. With no protection.

It's a reminder that you belong to him and him only.

And also because he knows there's a possibility he could get you pregnant.

Which is what he wants.

If you two have a child together, it would only strengthen the bond you two have and it's another reason to tie you down to him.

And that's exactly what happened.

You were terrified and tried to conceal it for the longest time, but Yunho isn't dumb.

He was elated when he found out you were carrying his child inside of you.

Which only prompted his obsessive nature to escalate.

He made you quit your job because he wanted you to stay home to take care of your baby.

Of course, that's just an excuse to keep you from leaving the house.

You two also officially got marriage, and that was it for Yunho.

He finally succeeded in bounding you two together for life.

As a father, he doesn't mind sharing you with your new baby daughter.

He loves and adores his daughter very dearly because she is a physical manifestation of the love between him and you.

But she's the only child you two are having. There's only so many people he's willing to share you with.

To others, he's a doting and loving father and husband.

In the eyes of an outsider, you guys are the perfect family.

But you.....you stopped fighting a long time ago.

You resigned yourself to accept that this is your life now and you'd better make the best of it.

You're no longer the strong, confident and decisive woman you once were.

Yunho made sure to tear that all down to the point where you simply just act in a way that'll make him happy and won't trigger him to repeat what happened years ago...

Especially not in front of your daughter. You do not want her to experience what you did.

So the question remains.....how do you escape Yandere Yunho?

Well....... you have two choices:

Either spend the rest of your life playing into his façade of a perfect relationship, that's the easier choice.

It certainly spares you the mental, emotional and physical strain of fearing when his next suicide attempt might happen if you do anything that'll result in him degrading himself or guilt tripping you into staying with him.

Or..........kill yourself. But keep in mind that if you do, he won't be too far behind from you. In the words of Yandere! Yunho himself:

"Nothing will ever break our bond, our bond is forever. Even in death, our love will go on."