#I'VE REALIZED IT WAS ALL TERRIBLE STUFF. SAID I REALIZED IT ON MY NEW ACCOUNT AND SAID I DIDN'T WANT TO ASSOCIATE WITH IT

[scoliosisgoblin]

just got someone asking to collaborate on a Rick x reader on wattpad. I thought it seemed pretty cute (wasn't gonna say yes though), quickly checked their account and it's all pedo and incest shit between Rick and the reader. wtf.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hi sex witch! first of all, just want to say how cool this account is and how useful it's been for me :D as someone both very inexperienced and very autistic, the blunt way you give info is genuinely invaluable!

that being said, though, i have a question that might be slightly outside your usual.

i've recently gotten into my first "serious" relationship, and have found that i am TERRIBLE at asking for what i want. this has always been true (though i'm better lately), but i find it way more frustrating now that it's my girlfriend that i'm struggling to talk to. she doesn't seem to mind, but it can take me up to an hour of actively trying to get the thought out of my mouth (usually with some guessing on her part to fill in the details).

presumably, this will get easier with time. it's a very new relationship, and i went into it having never even kissed someone before.

but, since you talk about this sort of stuff on here a lot and encourage communication, i was wondering if you had any suggestions to make it easier for myself or her?

(even a reassurance that it will get easier would also be appreciated! it's stressing me out quite a lot)

hi anon,

I think you have the right idea with your guess that this is something that will get easier with time. learning new skills takes practice, especially if it's a skill - like communicating your wants and feeling capable of specifically asking for them, in your case - that isn't very developed. give yourself grace while you learn! it's frustrating to realize that the level of skill you desire isn't the same as the level you actually have, but it's can also be incredibly rewarding to watch that skill develop in real time with the help of a partner.

however, while you and your partner are figuring it out it might be helpful to have some loopholes to help ease the process and bypass the hour of decision making struggle that sounds like it could easily get frustrating.

might I recommend developing menus of sorts for such occasions? come up with a list of 5-10 options that you're generally okay with - for instance, if you struggle to figure out what you want to do for dinner, you'd come up with a list of meals you generally like or places you usually enjoy ordering takeout from. then, when you're struggling to make a decision, you might be able to say something like "okay, Option A isn't exactly right, but it sounds closer to the right thing than Option B and C. maybe Option A with some small alterations?" that way you have a starting point to make decisions from instead of having to figure out everything on the spot, and there's less guesswork for your partner.

you can apply that to almost anything - TV shows to watch together, activities to do on the weekend, ways to have sex, etc. lots of fun to compile together, and a useful tool to have in the moment.

[popculturebuffet]

Into the Bobbins Verse: Your Guide to the Works of John Allison

So this is a little side project that's been bubbling in my brain. So Next Month, grod willing, I begin a retrospective i've wanted to do since I started this blog that i've put off for various reasons: Wanting to do the comic it's a spinoff of first, loosing most of my copies of said comic, my terrible scheduling skills, etc. I will be covering the comic book Giant Days. All 57 issues across two volumes, all the specials all of it.

But while gearing up for this i've not only fallen in love with giant days all over again but John Allisons other myraid of works he's slowly been putting back up online. And it's great stuff: i've mad it a concious goal to both get the rest of giant days AND bad machinery in print and whatever else I can grabble before inevitably the number of books avaliable becomes too small and the prices shoot up.

So I want to share that love with all you fine people paticuarlly my friends and patreons, as well as have a nice catalogue handy of John's MANY works for personal refrence and for anyone to use.

So for this guide i'll be going in a rough chronological order rather than release order, but 9/10 you can read most of these without having picked up another work. Before we can dive in though

WHO THE FLIP IS JOHN ALLISON

John Allison is a british author and very loveably weird man. He has a penchant for snappy dialouge, being unapologetically british in his settings and nicely bouncing back between slice of life, mystery and supernatual shenanigans, sometimes in the same comic. He's been at this since 1998 working primarily on the web with various web comics, cycling them out when he gets a new idea or when something has run it's course, breaking into print with his ongoing series Giant Days and since doing a few series there on and off. He's got a quirky sensebility and the bulk of his earlier work is set in the quirky english town of Tackleford before branching out to the small hamlet of Tregdin and the bustling real life town of Shefield. He is by all accounts a very nice guy, interacts with his fans regularly and is again a very deeply weird man in the best way possible, once saying he'd prefer any crossovers he does to be unexpected ones like Giant Days meeting Rom Space Knight.. and proving it by releasing his planned but shelved Batman Giant Days one shot to promote that books library editions on kickstarter.

So with that i'll be going in rough chronological order and telling you where you can read them.

DAS COMICS

Bobbins Classic:

Avaliable on Keenspot

I'm only mentoning this one for historical reasons as it was Allison's first.. and it shows. Bobbins dosen't look great for the bulk of i'ts life, only getting better when John switched to using Adobe Illustrator which while mildly dated, helped the art considerably.

Bobbins is an unfocused comic about a bunch of 20 somethigns working at a listings magazine in Tackleford. I'll talk more about it's cast in the next entry as their mostly just undefined blobs doing random shit: it's an early webcomic and thus has that throw shit at the wall and see what sticks sensiblity a lot had, with reality being loose, plot twists being thrown in and a lot of characters that go nowhere, with John having not quite figured out what he wanted. By the end he decided to abandon it leading to his breakout work. But more on that in a minute as for the strips anniversary.. he did a remake

Bobbins.Horse Avaliable At: scarygoround.com

Bobbins.Horse was intitally just a fun experiment: John went back to the original and wanted to fill in a major gap important to Bobbins sequel Scary Go Round: How goofy well meaning weird ray of sunshine Shelley Winters became best friends with the younger, wild and tatooed sass mouth Amy Chilton. In doing so he realized there was a lot of raw potetial in his old concept, and decided to do a bunch of comic strips. It's a soft reboot: parts of the original are still canon as John eventually found the format too limiting for how much his art had evolved, but it expands on loose concepts from a bitter young man into the detailed characte orinted stuff Allison would go on to make.

Bobbins.Horse is a good time and a solid entry point that follows Shelly and Amy. Amy at the time is a just turned 18 teen with a history of acting out caught in a divorce between her uncaring mom and doting but strict fater who dosen't know the real her. In the middle of writing a sex and the city style collumn, throwing a halloween party, dealing with Shelly's high school boyfriend she's outgrown and other shenanigans, are their friends and co workers: Tim, a sideburned decked soon to be inventor and gentlemen whose not intrested in Amy's obvious antics, Holly, SHelly's friend and local asshole, Rich, Tim's horny best friend and Ryan, Shelly and Tim's muttual close friend from high school, a wistful weirdo and layabout slowly getting out of the hole he's trapped in.

Bobbins.Horse is fantastic stuff, nicely segues into Allison's big work on which he formed the core of this unvierse and is one of my faviorites. Check it out. Also check out expecting to fly, a two issue comic allison did that's on his gumroad page (I'll link it in the next entry) that gives the origins of Shelley, Ryan and Tim.

Scary Go Round Found At: John's Gumroad Store

Scary Go Round was John Allison's big breakout work. The work that would help define his career. It defined his cast and who it didn't define it created. Scary Go Round is the swirling primordial core from which all of Allison's later works sprung.

It was originally intended as a full spinoff, with John not bringing his original cast back. This lasted all of one story before they quickly came back and his killing off Bobbins lead Shelley outraged fans enough to lead to a long and fantastic arc where Ryan, in his grief and with advice from a creepy old man, brings Shelley back from the dead. With this arc Scary Go Round had it's clear direction: A mix of slice of life and supernatual elements with Shelley, Ryan and soon Amy at it's core. Tim was at it's core at first but eventualy left.

Over the comic a massive amount of new characters came in to join the crew: Hugo, a track suited sandwich owner and wannabe mogul, The Boy, Tim's hormonal shy assitant, Erin, Shelley's resentful sister, and Esther, a perky goth who would get her own series soon enough. We also got Desmond fishman, a literal fishman who despite the verse leaning more towards the grounded these days, sticks around and has gone on quite the journey.

The comic did well.. but started to slip as Allison started to loose intrest, in part because he was stuck with a large cast, some of whom he cared about more than others. Introducing teens to the cast was a good idea, but he admitted regret to not giving them their own comic and instead trying to mash the two groups together. He eventually ended things and came up with a few spinoffs. The first would be his first mainstream hit, the second his biggest mainstream hit and the third.. well it sure did happen.

Avalible: Three Web Issues are at scarygoround.com, print issues are avaliable wherever books are sold probably and in digtial on amazon and are part of comixology unlimited if your intrested in binging this one.

Giant Days is John's most succesful work. That's not hyperbole, he says so on his own website. It's also the one that brought me to the dance, having gotten the first volume digitally for only a dollar and quickly devouring every inch of his work that was around at the time.

Giant Days follows Esther to college, quickly picking up two new friends; Daisy, a naive and optimistc but wise puffy haired girl from a small town and Susan, a cynical detective/med student who never lacks a sharp quip. Joining them as they grapple with college are Ed, a sunny naive programmer with a hopeless crush on Esther, McGraw, ed's best friend and susan's former friend who it's complicated with and workman extrodinare and Dean Thomas, an obnoxious entitled ass who sorta oozed his way into the boys lives. Our cast deal with the ups and downs of University life.

The comic started with three more experimental issues that got the format down: tight one in done stories that made up a larger narrative and were more grounded slice of life shenanigans without the supernatural stuff of Scary Go Round or Bad Machinery. There were still some growing pains: the first issue took on a more scott pilgrim bent than any of john's other work and the third included Erin before John decided to not use her after all due to developments in other comics. Still it was set and he wanted to do the project: while it was originally set up as a failsafe in case his next flagship bad machinery failed, it was something he wanted to do, he just didn't have the bandwith to draw it himself, having moved on from illustrator mid scary go round. Thankfully he found Boom, found great creative partners in Lissa Tremain (for the first 6 issues ) and Max Sarin (everything else), and the rest is history. Giant Days is a wonderful comic with loads of character, gorgeous art, and a nice combo of one in done single issues that merge into one long epic.

Destory History:

Avaliable: ScaryGoRound.com

Destory history like Giant Days takes place in the gap between Scary Go Round and it's more direct sequel Bad Machinery. Like Giant Days it was made in case the big shifts with Bad Machinery didn't quite pan out. Unlike Giant Days Though while Allison returned to it once or twice it didn't take off. Following Shelley in London as she journeys thorugh time it only got one story that has yet to be fully concluded as Allison just hasn't felt it.

Avaliable At: gocomics.com or in print

Bad Machinery was John's first mainstream success and helped him get to giant days which in turn boosted Bad Machinery's profile despite BM's publisher, Oni Press, turning it down, a decision they no doubt regretted.

Bad Machinery takes place 5 years after Scary Go Round. Ryan and Amy are now playing support as a teacher and local antiques dealer (And to my delight a married couple), as is Erin as a local reporter. The bulk of it's main cast are precicious kids who debuted towards the end of Bad Machinery: Charlotte Grote, a spacey ragamuffin with a mind for mystery, her tough but kind bestie Shauna, the shy ,nervous and Imaginative Jack and Jack's best mate nad pain in the ass Linton. Joining them in the series proper are Mildred, a wild child with a scientfic mind, and Sonny, a shy boy of few words, and eventually claire, a girl with a lisp, some pyromania and a kind soul.

The kids would solve mysteries as they slowly grew, often with a supernatual bent while dealing witht he perils of growing up: rivalries, bullying, family drama, relationships, growing apart.. all the pain of adolsecnse that got increasingly grounded. There was still magical mysteries, but as the kids grew their problems did and eventaully they outgrew the format, with John ending the series. He's since returend to the former mystery kids giving three of them their own spotlights we'll get to. It's a great run and well worth your time if you like kids getting into shenanigans and danger, which I know is most of my audience.

That and Murder She Writes:

Avaliable at: John's Gumroad

Two one off stories john did that follow Lottie and Shelley. Shelley was largely absent from Bad Machinery apart from mentions of her, to help let the new main characters settle in, but was given a few one offs to show she'd become both a succesful author and Charlotte's mentor.

New Bobbins: Avaliable: Via Gumroad or John's Patreon

New Bobbins was an experiment that didn't quite work out, updating us on the old guard at the same time as Bad Machinery. Due to both pushing the timeline forward more than he wanted to for BM and getting all dramatic, John Quitely canceled this revival, but did bring it back to wrap up loose ends. In fact he intended to end his comics as a whole, only keeping giant days, but realized he coudln't part. This era also includes Mordawaa which is also on gumroad and I won't go into due to spoilers.

Epheimera

Avaliable: John's Patreon and for Heavy Metal Hearts and Flowers, Archive.Org

Various bibs and bobs I thoguht lost but... nope . YOuc an find most on john's patreon if you fancy and the graphic novel heavy metal hearts and flowers, which It hought lost, is on the internet archive.

Avaliable: In print or digital

Not super necessary to the lore but a fun side story about two friends documenting strange stuff. Need to read this one in full sometime.

Avaliable: First arc: in Print via Darkhorse or digital via amazon. Other Arcs: in print and online via scarygoround.com.

Steeple was like By Night a break from the usual group of Allison Regulars, with an all new cast following prelate Billie and her new friend Maggie.. who happened to be working for the chruch of satan. It started as a mini series at dark horse that john continued on his web site that dark horse printed, ending earlier this year when Dark HOrse decided they were done, though with hints john would pick up the characters again.

It follows the small town of tregdyn, where monsters rise from the sea, a preist hunts them, the local santatic minister thinks he's a super villian and his helper brian is a kind of werewolf. It's a return to the more supernatual stuff tha'ts fun, engaging and good stuff. It eventually firmly became bobbins canon, with Lottie doing a guest spot to find a missing shelley and shelley eventaully dating the local preist what hutns monsters.

Avaliable: Print and Digital

Wicked Things is the comics equilvent of a failed Pilot. It's still canon, but due to the independent publishing scene drying up slightly, it failed to get the sales to go to full series. As such it follows Lottie a few years after bad machinery, on the cusp of university.. only to loose it when she's framed for murder, this 6 part mini covering her working with the london police as the quirky kind of consultant you see again these days with Elsbeth or High Potetial. Had the series come just a few years later it probably would've been a big hit. Probably. Lottie gets aquitted but who framed her is left dangling.. and that becomes the catlyst for Lottie's next adventure

Avaliable at: badmachinery.com. Yes I know it's confusing bad machinery isn't on there.

After a pilot and the crossover, John went full hog into Charlotte's next phase of her life: at a crossroads and working as a barista, a meeting with new zeland immigrant Glenn, a careers advisor working the grind of the job to have a place to sleep, finally lights a fire under a restless Lottie. Quickly solving her bestie Clarie's school issues, teh duo head to sheffield, and Lottie quickly decides rather than be a detective to become a problem solver, fixing people's issues while trying to avoid finding a longterm solution for her life and dragging Glenn in as he's good at presnting stuff. IT's one of my faviorite thigns John's done, nicely evolving Lottie and CLarie, adding in glenn for flavor and even bringing back Dena. No one asked him too but it works out. The series is currently running through a direct sequel to wicked things, Wobbly Head and Solver as a whole stands on it's own well enough to jump righ tinto. Please do

Avaliable At: badmachinery.com

John Allison's latest pilot and what seems to be a bold new ongoing that's both a prequel and a sequel as Jack from bad machinery, who god already wasn't all that fond of, gets the short end of the stick again: he's sent back to the 90's, can't say anything about the future and is left stuck not remembering WHY he was sent there and with only a college age Shelley as an ally. It's a eerie yet still deeply funny work and I can't wait to see more of it at some point next year after Wobbly Head concludes.

Avaliable: in print and digital

Taking place around the same time as solver, GBBO reunites Allison and Sarin for a quick and breezy four part murder mystery at UK Bakery Tent. Shauna is invited to participate but soon witnesses an attempted murder with her new friends and fellow bakers Sunil and Jil. Now Shauna has to both try and solve a mystery before anyone else is poisoned, and not get eliminated while almost everyone around her is a suspect.

So there you go. A bunch of good poitns to start with, a bunch of great comics all outlined. Get out ther eand start reading and thanks for reading this

[egg-emperor]

I don't want to vent much here anymore aside from health update stuff but this ends on a positive note and might help some people so I'm dropping it on main

I've been noticing that a lot of people are very anti recovery in multiple ways and that anon seals it. like the people who have a problem with you and call you out for every little thing they can to have a reason to hate you never actually want you to improve and change for the better

they never want you to recover. they never want you to become a better person. they never want you to heal from harassment and pain they put you through. they don't even give you the chance to change and get better if they really do think you did something wrong

and they're like that when it comes to health as well as behavior, wishing people they hate won't recover from their health issues and deserve it just because they don't like them. as if good health and life is only deserved by those they like personally

their idea of "holding you accountable" for things they think is wrong is by turning everyone against you to try to leave you alone in shame and self loathing, or try to push you to suicide. they don't tell you what you did wrong or suggest how to improve other than backhanded condescending "you're horrible I hate you get therapy and touch grass" comments

because they don't want you to improve. all they want is a reason to hate you and get rid of you one way or other, so you're alone feeling terrible mentally and/or physically because it satisfies them and they get to keep hating and disguise it as morally correct and have everyone else hate you too

those people are not worth your time and stress. they don't want what's best for you. being hurt alone and isolated after people turn against you and try to hurt you, and fearing that continuing to post and trying to get to know more people will end up getting you hurt again, or that nobody will like you is no way to live. get out there do it anyway

and don't ever let them think you don't deserve to heal physically either. they pushed me to hurt myself and spiral into many self destructive behaviors where I was sabotaging myself and I kept letting my physical health get worse while feeling like I didn't deserve the help. I came to regret it and realized I deserved better. and so do you! call your doctor

I say this wholeheartedly instead of the condescending backhanded ways those people said to me while actually just contributing to the problem knowingly. you're not manipulative or selfish for acknowledging that you're hurting and expressing your pain and you deserve to get the help you need. I wish someone had said this to me instead of accusing me of just that

realizing this and thinking this way has helped me a lot. it wasn't thanks to them that I realized my mental health was getting worse and resulting in bad behavior when I was unstable last year and that I needed to make some changes, I noticed that on my own. all they did is push me to the breaking point. and I'm convinced that the stress contributed to my chronic pain worsening and my faints increasing lately too.

they act like they're trying to help when they tell you to get therapy and touch grass but then treat you like a criminal and tell people not to interact with you like you're dangerous. or they don't even try to disguise it as help like that anon and are honest about their intentions

but it was me who realized that I needed help and decided to pick myself up and fight to get better. their cruelty and pushing and pushing me until my mental and physical health got worse did the opposite of that and made me feel like I didn't even deserve the help for a while

but I decided on my own that it was time to make a change and I've improved mentally over time with a new more positive mindset that I'm trying to stick to. but then my physical health got worse and I finally starting seeing a doctor to try to find out what's going on

I will get better. they don't want me to believe I can but I've been getting better mentally as challenging as it can be at times and I hope that has been showing in my behavior. I have anger issues and I get stressed easily but I've been working on controlling that and have been feeling calmer and more at peace

my biggest issue right now is my physical health but I feel that my mental troubles causing anger and stress have contributed to the chronic pain increase and faints from being overwhelmed by it all. so it emphasizes to me that I need to be kinder to myself and not let anger and stress consume me

and now it turns out my hate anons are anti recovery in the physical health sense too. but I'm not going to let that stop me, I deserve to get better no matter how much I'm hated and told to die. those cruel words mean nothing to me anymore with my new more positive mindset. I know their intentions and I know I deserve to get better

now the more people try to make me feel bad about myself and work to isolate me so I feel trapped in it, and the more they tell me I shouldn't recover health wise and should die, the more I want to fight to keep thriving and proving that I'm stronger than that and that they can't bring me down!

I hope I can inspire others do the same because it's really a terrible place to be when people make you believe your existence is the problem and your behavior and mental health can't improve, or that you don't deserve good health and that the only solution is to be isolated or to die, it's not true. you can and you do.

[shy-the-schizophrenic]

Well, I'm finally manic. I've been stuck in a depressive episode for seven months. I couldn't write at all. I was so apathetic. The only thing I could do was complain on my blog about my boyfriend. Well good news guys. Life is looking up in alot of ways and there are some downs. The ups. My relationship is amazing. I stopped splitting on my boyfriend. He really is the best thing to ever happen to me. Even my sister finally said she wants to meet him because she's seen how much I've changed and grown up. Besides that bout of splitting on my boyfriend. Yes that still happened but the way I handled it was way different than how I would have in the past. I don't degrade him, call him names, yell at him. I'm not mean to him just because I've split on him. I'm distant as hell. I don't say things I don't mean anymore because I've lost so many people by doing that. I wrote on here. An anonymous blog. Also my work is improving. I'm taking it seriously. Going in 4-5 days a week. Working an actual shift. In just a week and a half of consistency I've made more in a week than I ever did in a month. It's awesome! In my new place I have a little fridge in my room and for the first time it has food in it. Paid for with my own money. My boyfriend has been helping me with alot of stuff cuz I was struggling financially. But now I'm good again! If I keep doing what I'm doing ill be perfectly fine when it comes to financial struggling. I made a new friend. She's the one helping me with all this. This whole move and meeting her triggered my manic episode and it's great. I feel amazing. Things feel good. It's been 2 weeks and I haven't fully unpacked until today. I started my period and took the day off. So I finally made my room my little home. It looks fucking awesome. I feel comfy here now. It feels like my space. The roommates are really awesome. They are a lesbian Trans couple. Some people would be weird about it but so far they are the best roommates I've ever had. I like it better living with women. Every man I've lived with after leaving my mom's house was a nightmare. I've moved seven times in two years. Every single place was terrible. Not the place, the roommates. So I'm glad to have good roommates now. Okay so now the bad news. My mom might have uterine cancer. I had an episode in the car on the way home after being told that news. Everything just hit me at once when I realized there might be a timer on my mom's life. Something I've kept myself awake at night thinking about. I've heard the prognosis is good but when I freaked I didn't know that. My life with my mom flashed before my eyes. In my head every memory was coming out and playing at once but I can see all of them. Every good thing, bad thing. Then I thought of the fact that our relationship is messed up and so much time has been wasted not being in her life. Then regret that I wasted that time over stupid shit, but it wasn't stupid shit. They were legit reasons to be angry with her. The things she's done wrong were wrong but I forgave her but a tiny percent of me wishes she would take accountability. Only now I can't want that because why would you want to make a dying person, your mom, feel any worse than they already do knowing they are dying. So I have to let it go. Stop expecting that long talk and just let go and be in the moment. Yet it hurts that I no longer can expect it. It's a mess I know. I don't know what to think about it.

[foxglove03]

Back home and a curious misery has made its way over me. The quick succession of events that were menial in all the right ways has me stuck here. I'm unchanging. My parents moved out of the house I had lived in my whole life three months after I moved into my university. I can't even remember all the particular emotions that would've felt familiar to me in my old room, my old house. The unhappiness is new in the sterile walls I've only become familiar with in a few years.

All the drinking seems so logical, a healthy response to an unhealthy series of emotions. I used to use alcohol as a social tool. It would allow me to be able to have uninhibited conversations with people I liked or that I wanted to like me. While in Ireland for the past few months, not being around anyone I'd want to look smooth for changed the way I drank. I did it the same way I had done it during the summer, just to pass the time. My roommate would make vague comments of wasting my own money on alcohol if I was going to lie in bed drunk every night. I did get her to promise me to buy me alcohol once we got back to the U.S. I knew deep down this feeling would find me eventually, even years before I had drank at my high school grad party three days before the ceremony. Drinking is all wrong in my hands. It's chosen me improperly and I can't stop. There's so many things I want to change. It's so hard to hate your family because there's not many options after that. They aren't the type of people you can just run through.

I was thinking about the CSH song "Will You Please Pass The Milk Please." I couldn't remember the title of the song till my best friend who showed it to me reminded me of it. The song which is another example of a music-esque monologue with this sort of vignette into his relationship with his father We imagine people must act egregiously to be hated. You can harbor negative feelings after living with action after actions levied against you. I'm gonna go out and say that I don't think hate should always have such lofty criteria. I don't even live up to that in my own life but those are my principles. Can I never be angry at my father because I believe that he is intelligent, cares, and provides? Why must I let my negative thoughts about him also live in conflict with my head's conditions? It's like this self indulgent need to manufacture tension, when I can really just let go. The hate can live with everything else, even take precedent over affection. Any struggle's all me. I don't have to just love everything.

Yesterday after I had gotten into an argument with my dad and left the house, my mom asked me to buy chicken broth. The type of arguments we get into usually aren't too personal. I think personal conversation is something he's unwilling to engage in.. He won't ask meMy friend who was driving me around didn't need to go to the store and by the time I asked, they were all closed. When I came back home and told my mother I hadn't gotten it, she said to me, "Ava, it seems like the only person you think about is yourself." Being that ticked over chicken broth was a bit ridiculous, honestly. I thought about the vodka bottles in our pantry I had all filled with water in three months, the bottle of wine I stole from her and chugged until I realized it was only 9%, the dozens of bottles of vodka and wine deteriorating in an Irish landfill out there. I wish she could know, I could shove it in her face or something. Everything is just so meaningless that even a big dramatic occasion would't seek to satisfy what I'm looking for. I don't feel like I can really feel anything as much as I want to. I'd feel anything, even the really low terrible stuff. It's all water to me, neither here nor there in importance. Cold, stiff, and all the same.

If this seems weird or you know who I am, this is all really elaborate method acting and is not real and you may think the artwork of this account looks like mine but it really isn't I stole it from someone and this is not me. Look at my artwork if you don't know me, follow this account no matter what a maladjusted idiot I am! I'm fun! I like things! look at my music taste ooooh!!!! Also I always use #diary and that's causing people who are pro-ana showing up in my for you. the first thing my mother said to me when I got to see her after re-entering the country was I've lost a nice amount of weight. This comment has driven me insane so pro-anas be gone and get wrecked, ya know. I think I will hate myself for writing this but I do not care. I'll draw dogs for everyone, all you sick fucks who keep liking just two of my posts, love you all. Writing as a fun little pastime over my winter break to a 99.999999999999% anonymous group I think is just self indulgent enough to keep it fine. No one's reverse image searching my work anyway. Might Just start doing stuff just for Tumblr too.

[olderthannetfic]

Sorry for the borderline traumadumping but I've been so fed up recently seeing posts from people who are supposedly proship ...But don't support people who like RPS/RPF. I got harassed and suibated really terribly for years and across multiple accounts for posting my RPF works of a small Youtuber fandom. The people who harassed me still once in a while make posts mentioning me, saying how happy they are that they forced me to delete, and how proud they all are of chasing off someone so disgusting, and how they hope I've not only deleted my accounts, but also died. I haven't drawn or written anything substantial in the years since then because it feels like everything I make is horrible. Even if I do create something, I cant post it because I'm terrified someone will recognize my art or writing style. These people cyberstalked me and my friends, raided our Discord, pretended to be friendly with us to get screencaps for a completely false, out of context callout, and have ruined my ability to trust anyone online. I haven't talked to anyone new or made any new friends because I'm terrified its going to be one of them just trying to find my new accounts. I live in constant fear and paranoia of one of them randomly deciding to find me again. I have been hospitalized for suicidal ideation compounded by the trauma of their harassment. I can't see the names of the Youtubers involved without feeling physically ill, lightheaded, and nearing an anxiety attack. I don't understand how anyone could do this to another person and think they're still the good guys. I'm shaking as I type up this ask, recalling all the horrible things they said to me, but antis will never realize that they are the ones who are in the wrong, so proshippers need to step up and support each other. If you're proship but you are anti-RPF, this is what you are enabling, all over shipping stuff that the youtubers involved never even knew existed. To everyone on Tumblr, PLEASE support your fellow proshippers who like RPF, even if you think it's yucky and weird.

--

I don't understand how anyone could do this to another person and think they're still the good guys.

Because monsters are still regular humans, and villains all think they're the hero of the story.

--

Yes. Fans who dislike bullying and censorship need to take a firm stance on this. I don't care about the term 'proship'. It's full of idiots. What I care about is full and unreserved:

Don't like, don't read

Your kink is not my kink, and that's okay

Ship and let ship

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3

[sschmendrick]

Just going to rant for a little, if you want to stick around.

For a little bit of context, we have to do a self-portrait video in english for monday morning. It should be between 1 and 3 minutes and while I'm still wondering what I should say I was sort of singing/raping aloud a few songs that I like and the more I try to get the lyrics right the more I realize that I speak a very bad english. As in I don't think it's intelligible. I try to take into account all the critics english-speaking people have of french people's pronunciation but it gives my speech a weird pace, it's all broken and sloppy. And I know that it is stupid to think that I can manage to sing (let alone rap) in a foreign language, however I can't stop thinking about how I really appreciate this language and I can't even use. I mean the few times I've spoken with english-speaking people they didn't understand what I said or I had to repeat a few times and try other words and just embarrass myself until they would understand. I can't have a full conversation. I can't speak. And I guess you could always say that, well...since I'm french it's natural that I have an accent but I don't want to give into the terrible french accent that people like to imitate. I want to speak this language it's supposed to be spoken, with the right pronunciation. And when I hear other people speak in english with accent, even strong accent, they have a sort of confidence I do not possess. Their words flow no matter what. Anyway it's just pushing a little more weight on my shoulders and I can't not obsess over it because well it's everywhere.

It's a crescendo of thoughts. I think I just have to work on it and repeat it again and again but the more I repeat it the more my pronunciation changes and it's all over the place, and I'm mixing up obvious stuff and it's horrible to hear. So I keep trying and it doesn't work. So my motivation begin to falter. I keep hearing all my mistakes and they are the same from a few years ago, I didn't improve. And then I wonder why, why do I keep trying ? From my experience people don't understand me anyway, and what is the point ? It's not like I'm ever going to speak with a english speaking person, or anyone that doesn't speak french it seems. I'm not going to study abroad with covid still going strong and even I'm never going to work abroad because why would anyone employ someone from abroad when they have someone that can do the same job in their own country.

And it's the same with music. When my thought started to derail I went "maybe I should play music with some people, it will distract me and I get to not be alone" but I'm not good enough to play with people and for it to be enjoyable and not just the exact same thought process but with my ability of playing music rather than speaking english. And also I don't know anyone who would play with me and my classmates were really cold to the idea when I presented it to them.

Anyway, some news : the painting is really starting to look good, but it didn't have the desired effect. Instead of distracting my mind, it's giving more space to my thoughts, and this kind of stuff happens so...wasn't my best idea.

I guess it is one of my dumb thoughts.