#I'm also very much known to be horrible with words to the point I'm good at saying the exact opposite of what im really trying to say

[flowerpatchhomos]

Wtf are these asks-

Like genuinely did I do something wrong because I'd very much like to be told if I did but either way dawg what

Coming back to this; if I've actually done something wrong, dont do this

Actually just fucking tell me, please my paranoia can't take it man

[cheeseceli]

I'll be waiting

Pairing: idol Bang Chan × Gn!reader

Genre: fluff, angst, friends to potential lovers, fic (1.6k words)

Prompt: "Even ten years from now, if you haven't found somebody I promise I'll be around. Tell me when you're ready. I'm waiting"

Warnings: for a short moment there's a bit of unrequited love, happy ending tho. Mentions of insecurity back to the trainee days.

A/n: the longest fic I've ever done, I'm kinda proud of it ngl

Patience might be Chan's biggest virtue, he thinks to himself. By seeing where he's right now and where he was ten years ago, he smiles. He couldn't agree more with that statement.

2014

He still remembers the first time he saw you.

Monthly evaluation. At this point, Chan should already be used to this whole process of the trainee life. However, that day felt particularly depressing to him. Hopeless, he would say.

He had found out that JYP was about to debut a new group. A girl group. And as much as Bang Chan tried to be completely happy for his friends who could finally try and debut, he had to admit he was somewhat jealous. Four years of training and he felt like he was heading towards nowhere.

Still, he tried to practice. He sang the song he would showcase so many times he reached the point of not even feeling the words leaving his mouth. He was so lost he also didn't notice the presence of someone else in the practice room. That is, until you clapped.

Chan turned his head towards you, low-key surprised. He recognised you as the child of one of the Got7's staff. He couldn't remember your name though. He doubted he even heard it at all.

"Sorry" you finally spoke. Your voice was pretty "I'm looking for my dad. Your voice is very beautiful though. You're doing well." And with a thumbs up you went away.

Chan couldn't help but laugh. Now that was random. He could barely process what happened. But you complimented him. It had been a while since he last heard a genuine compliment.

Somewhere inside his mind, he repeated his words nonstop, filling him with motivation and hope. He also was trying to remember to ask your name later.

2016

He did remember to ask your name after all. Y/n L/n. The pronunciation of your name was beautiful, almost like a melody. Honestly, after two years of knowing you, he could affirm that your existence itself was like a sweet melody.

You both became friends, good ones at that. He also found himself developing feelings for you. That was the saddest part of it all in his opinion.

Even though he hadn't known you for so long, he couldn't see life without you. To live without your horrible jokes (that he always found funny), without your sunshine-like personality (even though most people wouldn't describe you like that. Maybe you were his personal dose of light) felt like a nightmare.

However, it felt a bit cruel that he needed to live like that. He wanted to be an idol. You were the one who was his biggest incentive. Then why, to have a romance with you, could bring problems to his career? It was almost as if destiny liked to make chan suffer.

Pick one.

Happily, Chan was patient. So patient that he decided to wait for you as long as needed. He had hopes that any time now, you would come to him. And he would be ready.

Meanwhile, he focused on becoming an idol. He couldn't give up now, especially given the fact that he knew you'd be in the front row, cheering for him louder than everyone else.

2018

He kept his promise: he followed his dream, finally achieving the so exciting debut, and still waited for you, his crush developing into the most sincere love he ever felt.

However, you had other plans. Of course, you were still there for him. You were probably the one who got the happiest with the results of the survival show. You spent countless nights with him on the practice room and in the studio. You were seeing his dream come true in first hand.

But this time, there was someone else besides you: your current boyfriend. Chan really doesn't know why he didn't think this could've happened. Of course, you were dating. You were smart, beautiful and had so much love to give. Someone else would've fallen for you at some point. And it was unfair of him to expect you to be single, waiting for an empty promise.

The saddest part of it was that your boyfriend was a nice guy. It was clear he loved you. He even made an effort to love everyone who you loved, including Chan himself. You were happy around him.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Chan got the job, you got someone to love - someone who could adore you without being scared of the media - and you both still got each other in the end.

Maybe that was what Chan could have. It's okay, right?

2020

The downfall of Chan's patience at last.

Although you both were still as close as you always were, life was leading each of you in your own direction.

You had a job, he had a job. You had your friends, he had his members. You had your own house, he had the dorms. You had your boyfriend, he didn't have a partner. But it was okay because he didn't even have the time after all.

Still, he tried to fall for someone else during this period. Being in this industry for two years now, he had the opportunity to meet a lot of people. Some fancied him, some tried to take a step further in a somewhat relationship. Some even wanted to just have fun. Chan swears he tried to give in most of the time.

Needless to say he failed at every try. He couldn't come close to someone without wishing it was you instead. His short answers were compared to how sweetly he talked to you. He didn't even bother to call people or have long conversations. He knew it was only a matter of time until his mind started the undesired comparison.

Maybe it was what the job required. Maybe it was because of his lack of time. Han disagrees though. Chan remembers how his friend insisted on the fact that his leader wouldn't even try with other people. But it wasn't his fault either, as it was a subconscious thing. Chan's mind was still wrapped around you. And his heart wanted to disagree, but it all goes down the moment he finds out you and your boyfriend, now your ex, had broken up.

Although he tried hard to deny, he couldn't help but still wait for you. No matter if there was a light at the end of the tunnel or if it was only darkness. He would wait.

2022

Something in your brain has switched, and Bang Chan can't say he really liked the difference.

Of course, you were still the greatest person he ever met. You were still his sunshine. But it seemed like you were tired. Your conception of life and love wasn't as bright as it once was and Chan couldn't help but feel worried about it.

For him, who has loved you deeply for over eight years now, to see you giving yourself less credit and affection hurt him. He doesn't know why and when it happened, but your brain was trying to shut down all genuine feelings one could offer to you. You thought you were, maybe, undeserving of it all.

Honestly, to see you slowly losing your light has wounded Chan way more than all his past experiences: from his fear of failure to his disappointment upon meeting your ex boyfriend. Almost as an instinct,he tried to solve the situation. This time, patience wouldn't do.

Without even noticing, he started to love you more. To actually show you how he cared for you, to put his feelings into words and actions. At first, your heart tried to deny any possible affection, but it soon realised it wasn't possible. Not when Chan didn't even hesitate on showing the entire world how you were worthy of love. And not once he showed it as a challenge or a burden. He was by your side, and he never made it seem hard.

The best part of it all was that none of you noticed it. He started to open up to you to try and protect you,and you opened up to him in order to heal and protect his feelings. Maybe that was patience finally showing itself as a virtue.

2024

Ten years later, it finally happened.

Honestly, Chan was still a bit suspicious. There was no way he was actually seeing this, right? Maybe he was becoming delusional after all. Maybe he started to hallucinate because of his desires. But at the same time, it felt too real.

The way you looked at him, that is. It was just a normal conversation between old friends. Between gossips and laughs, there was absolutely no reason for you to look at him like this. So lost in thought, with this shimmer in your eyes that Chan knew way too well. He knew it because he had it too.

It was love. Not the one nurtured by friends or family. The one shared just between lovers. And he was so sure of it because he knew he looked at you in the exact same way you were looking at him right now.

He smiles. For a moment, you're a bit lost, wondering if you lost a joke or an important moment. That, however, makes him laugh. He couldn't believe he just saw you fall in love on the first row.

Ah, he's been patient. Now, he can't wait for you to realise what just happened. Either way, he knows with a smile on his face that he'll be waiting for you.

I promise I'll be around.

Masterlist | you'll probably like: summer with you

Thank you for reading <3 let me know what you think about it!

Taglist (open!): @yuyubeans @dandelions-143

Dividers by @dollywons

Credits for images 1 , 2 and 3

[ticklishbeans4]

Welp, since my friend has pulled me into it, Hazbin Hotel Tickle Headcanons! PT. 1!

This got really long so I'll make a part 2 soon lol

Charlie-

Lee-

Charlie LOVES tickles, adores them really!

It's her favorite way to bond with her friends!

Her worst spots are her belly, her hooves, her ribs, and her neck!

When she was little she got into tickle fights with her parents fairly often. She very rarely won, but she never minded.

She has a bright bubbly giggly type of laugh, sometimes snorting if she laughs hard enough.

Ler

She's a ruthless ler, shockingly enough, and super teasy.

I HC that her true demon form is like her dads, aka 6 wings, all for tickle attacks! >:3

She usually starts slow, in a not super ticklish spot, and works her way up!

Very verbally teasy, likes to sound out the word tickle if that word flusters her lee.

She'll use all tools at her disposal, but her favorite way to tickle is nibbles and raspberries.

Her most common target is Vaggi, at least until she get the other Hotel guests into her shenanigans!

Vaggi

Lee

She's not the biggest lee in the hotel, but she enjoys it from time to time

She only really lets Charlie tickle her at first, but slowly as she gets to actually like and care about the other members of the hotel, she lets them tickle her occasionally.

Her worst spots are her belly, ribs, knees, and hips.

She's got a loud laugh, and hiccups a lot when she laughs really hard.

Light tickles make her melt, especially light tickles on her neck or under her chin.

Ler

Evil. She is evil when she tickles others.

She doesn't tickle anyone but Charlie at first, but once she start tickling the others, they're done for.

She'd got nails, and she's known for scribbling them all over her victim.

She also loved giving raspberries.

Horrible tease, she's got all the classics "Coochie coochie coo!" "Tickle tickle tickle!" and so on.

Angel Dust

Lee

He doesn't really enjoy being tickled at first. He associates it with his work with Val, since I'm sure Val has made him do videos for that side of the tickle community.

But when he had to do those videos they always went to far and it would often be a very unpleasant situation for him.

Once he got more comfortable with the others he did allow them to pull him into tickle fights.

They'll go slow with him, no restraining him and keeping a close eye to see if he starts to show signs of distress.

His worst spots are under his arms (all of them), his feet, knees, and hips.

Prefers softer tickles, especially feathers.

Ler

He's much more comfortable being a ler than a lee.

He uses his extra arms to tickle his friends silly.

Definitely a big tease! He usually likes to point out how ticklish someone is, or ask questions like "Oh? Is this spot more ticklish? Or this spot? You're not being very communicative ya know!"

His favorite target is Alastor, cause he thinks the noises he makes are funny.

Charlie is his second favorite, cause she just accepts the tickles and barely even tries to fight back. Plus, he knows she enjoys it, so it's to play with her sometimes.

Alastor

Lee

Super. Crazy. Ticklish. Bean.

This poor guy was cursed to be the most ticklish guy ever.

His worst spots are under his arms, his toe beans, his belly, and his ears.

Of course he's stupid ticklish all over, but those are the worst.

He's got a bright staticy laugh, and if he laughs hard enough it'll break up into static or even pick up radio signals. Sometimes he'll even accidentally take the power out.

Teasing takes him out, poor guy can't stand the word tickle. Can't even say it.

Once the others find out, he's a goner.

Ler

He gives as good as he gets, and loves doing it.

His static will sometimes fill the room and tickle the others a bit.

He liked to treat his tickling like a show "And here we see our dear Charlie is quite sensitive on her belly! Care to make a statement about that?"

His shadow sometimes helps to tickle his victims, holding then down or attacking the spots that Alastor isn't getting.

He absolutely uses his tendrils to tickle his victims, he thinks it's hilarious to make someone scream with laughter.

Sometimes likes to tweak someone as he passes by because they needed to smile in his opinion.

[thegoldencontracts]

What's In A Bird: The Topsy-Turvy Ceremony

Many folks say that the freshmen of Night Raven College grow odder and odder by the year. And, of course, in this year, Riddle Rosehearts, Ruggie Bucchi, Azul Ashengrotto, Jade Leech, Floyd Leech, Jamil Viper, Silver, and one transfer student soon to arrive from Royal Sword Academy - Kalim Al Asim - will prove this notion correct for yet another year.

Length: 2.4k words

Notes: A fic of the sophomores in freshman year like I promised, at last! Here's to hoping this doesn't completely flop. Let me know if you'd like to be tagged!

This also serves as a kind of 400 follower special (not really though), I'm very grateful to everyone who's supported my fics, and feel free to send in any requests for this series! Anyways, on with the fic.

It was a known fact among the students and staff of Night Raven College that every single year of freshmen was odder than the last. For the one-hundred years or so that Dire Crowley had been headmage, he had never once been proven wrong.

And it seemed as if the headmage would be proven right once more.

This year's freshmen were all an odd bunch, it seemed. Divus looked over them scrutinizingly.

"Have any of them caught your attention?" Mozus asked. "I for one find the notion that you've deigned to pay attention to the ceremony and ensure no mishaps occur for once much too good to be true."

Divus merely sighed.

"The ceremony's going wrong either way, no need to be so uptight about 'supervision', or whatnot. The pups'll turn out just fine."

Mozus scoffed.

"Even some of our incoming freshmen have more responsibility than you, it seems," he said.

"Like that one redhead?"

It was so odd how - despite red being a common hair color - they immediately knew which boy Divus was referring to. Oh, Dire was so magnanimous for putting up with all these peculiar students!

"All of you, get in line at once, or it shall be Off With Your Head!" said the redhead boy in question. Threatening to- chop people's heads off? How odd.

Dire knew his name; like the kind and attentive headmage he was, he always cared for his students!

Yes - Puzzle Flowershape. Something like that.

"Riddle Rosehearts, no?" Mozus said. Close enough! "He's a rather good student from what I've seen."

Come to think of it, why were so many of the freshmen wearing clunky looking collars? That was a horrible fashion choice, was it not?

Oh, well. Dire would put up with that terrible fashion choice. The things he did for his students!

"Those things around their neck'll really get in the way of their exercise!" Ashton scoffed. "It looks like I'll have to teach these kids the proper way to dress for maximum power!"

"It looks like those kids have no magical aura! The collar's a curse, now isn't that tragic?" Sam said. "I'll be there if those poor kids need any help undoing that curse of theirs."

"I do hope you'll provide the aid for free?"

"No promises!" Sam said, before looking at the students in curiosity.

A few seconds later, Sam pointed to two of the students in the crowd.

"Those two seem smart," he said, pointing first to a hyena beastman, then to a grey-haired boy. By sharp, of course, Sam was referring to business-smart. There was quite a difference between that, and academic prowess. The hyena boy only seemed to possess the second with those wide eyes of his, and the grey-haired boy, hiding behind two identical twins, seemed to possess neither.

Of course, Dire was a kind man. He'd give Sam a chance to explain his reasoning.

"Are you certain?" Dire asked. Sam merely nodded with a chuckle.

"Clever hawks hide their talons, you know," he said. That was true.

And, come to think of it, the boy's behavior still required observing.

"Hey there," said the boy to the Pomefiore Housewarden. "I got you that makeup you wanted."

How exactly had he acquired that brand? Dire vaguely recalled some talk of how difficult it was to acquire. Truly, he was such a good headmage, always listening to his students!

"Thanks," said the Pomefiore Housewarden in turn, handing the hyena boy a massive wad of cash. How- How had the boy already acquired that much money?

"Those wide, shrunken eyes are likely a product of a lack of access to food," Sam said. Come to think of it, the boy was, well, a hyena. Did that not mean he was from the slums? And, considering the ingenuity required to survive in the slums as a mage, well-

"You're quite right!" he said with a laugh. "But what of the other boy?"

Of an average, unremarkable height, and a frail stature, the grey-haired boy had lodged himself between two twins.

"We should be looking at those two!" Ashton said, pointing to the tall, muscular twin boys. "They'd be great for the basketball team with those athletic reflexes of theirs!"

It would be best to observe first before coming to judgments,

"Dude," said one of the twins, practically shoving the phone into the grey-haired boy's face. "Check out this rare pepe."

The grey-haired boy scoffed, pushing the phone away with a scowl.

"The only thing I'll be 'checking out' is the socials of our peers," he said. "And the picture of the dearest headmage looking at cat photos while a student is attempting to get his attention," said the other twin.

How- How had they even seen that? Dire would have to do whatever it took to ensure that photo for the sake of avoiding bad PR- er, avoiding the entirely false notion that he was anything less than a kind-hearted and diligent headmage who would never ignore his students!

"I think you understand what I mean now," Sam said.

"Indeed," said Dire. "To think, he'd so viciously use photoshop to make it seem as if I'd ever do such a thing!"

"You would," Mozus said. "I find myself more concerned with how exactly they attained that picture."

However, before any further discussion could occur, a shriek was heard.

"Ugh!" said one of the twin boys - the droopy-eyed one. "This is boring."

That was never a good sign. 'This is boring' was the last thing said before the ceremony had gone wrong ten years ago, or twenty-three years ago, or thiry-five years ago, or fourty-two years ago, or fifty-two years ago, or during one of those ceremonies over sixty years ago that Dire had forgetten about.

Out of all the phrases said before ceremonies had gone wrong, 'This is boring' was - by far - the most common.

"Hey!" the droopy-eyed boy said, eyes on that one redhead who was surrounded by students in collars. "You look interesting, Goldfishie."

"My name is Riddle Rosehearts, not 'Goldfishie'," said the redheaded boy, Riddle. "And you'd do well to return to your place in the line."

"Nah," said the droopy-eyed boy, flicking his pen and causing a vine to settle itself on the ground. "Hey, this stuff's pretty cool!"

"I will not stand for this insolence! Off With Your Head!"

A collar wrapped itself around the droopy-eyed boy's neck.

"H-Huh?" he said, pulling at it in confusion. Riddle smirked.

"I warned you," he said. So that was what he meant by 'off with your head'. "You've broken the rules, and now you must-"

And then the fire-bolt was hurled.

It was a terrible, terrible thing, catching fire on the conjured vine and spreading further from there, sending students fleeing.

"Holy shit, dude!" the droopy-eyed boy said, eyes sparkling with glee. "You really are interesting, Goldfishie!"

Riddle had been the one to send the fire-bolt? This whole thing was simply growing more and more absurd!

"I didn't send that!" Cried Riddle.

...T-Then who had?

"Dire," Divus said through grit teeth. "Our top priority right now is ensuring no one gets burned. We can figure out which naughty pup did this later."

That was true. There was a bit of panicking, to say the least.

Which was to say that every student was in a frenzy.

"We're all gonna die!"

"I'm too young for this, Lord Hades! Spare me!"

"Take him instead!"

"H-Hey, don't take me, take him!"

"Are you going to put out the fire, or what?" Divus said, tapping his foot impatiently. Dire could somewhat hear him over the sound of screams.

"What have you done, Floyd?" said the grey-haired boy. "From now on we'll all be labelled as delinquents!" "Hey!" The droopy-eyed boy - Floyd - said. "Don't blame me for that thing, Azul!"

Azul just sighed.

"Jade, was this your doing?"

The other twin - Jade - shook his head.

"I do look forward to seeing the face of the man who disrupted the ceremony in such a manner," he said with a laugh.

Those three were odd. But even odder was the raven-haired boy who seemed entirely calm in the midst of the mess, merely putting out the fire gathering around him.

"Hello there," he said without so much as a glance as the hyena-beastman approached him.

"Heeeyyyy there, bud!" The hyena boy said. "You seem- not freaked out."

"My name is Jamil Viper," said the raven-haired boy - Jamil - almost robotically. "Please do not concern yourself with my affairs. I am but a humble se-"

And all of a sudden, Jamil snapped out of his robotic little monologue, looking down at his hands in shock.

"Nevermind," he said, mumbling a smug "I'm free for now" underneath his breath. The hyena boy blinked in confusion.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Jamil said. "What's your name?"

"Ruggie," Ruggie answered hastily. "And what's got you so calm? Isn't the school on fire or something? Don't tell me-"

Ruggie flashed a conspiratorial grin.

"Did you start it?" He asked. Jamil shook his head.

"I didn't," he said. "This just isn't all that severe an emergency. We'll put out the fire with ease."

With ease? By himself? Was Jamil not a mere freshman? He knew naught but basic magic, certainly not enough to put out a fire as big as this one!

"Uh, putting it out ourselves?" Ruggie said. "Don't you wanna get like, the headmage or something- Oh, hey there, headmage!" Ruggie shouted in an attempt to be heard through the screams of other students.

Ruggie had finally noticed him, it seemed.

"Hello, esteemed students!" Dire said. "My name is Dire Crowley, headmage of Night Raven College, a-"

"Can you put out the fire?" Ruggie shouted. Why did no one wish to hear about his extremely important information?

"Yes, yes, of course," Dire said. "I will put out the fire."

But he didn't have to. Divus was already there, getting the students attention with the crack of his whip.

"Pups!" he said. "No need to panic. The fire will be put out shortly. Next time any such emergency occurs, I expect you all to follow the procedure constantly taught to you during fire drills instead of flailing around like blind chihuahuas."

A thin sheet of water was summoned upon the floor, Divus flicked his magic-pen. The fire was put out. Phew.

Floyd raised his hand.

"Yes?" Divus asked.

"What's a fire drill?"

"Keep quiet, Floyd," Azul hissed to him in what he likely thought was so quiet no one could hear. However, on top of immense magnanimity and diligence, Dire also had impeccable hearing. One of the many blessings of being a fae, before turning to the Octavinelle housewarden. "I apologize for any inconvenience you've been caused."

He knew he was going to be sorted into Octavinelle, didn't he? Azul was most likely correct about that. However, it would be rather comedic if he was sorted somewhere else.

"You'd do well to apologize to everyone, er- Floyd," said Riddle. "I shall take off the collar if you can prove you've thoroughly repented."

"Uh," Floyd paused, before going completely off-topic. "I think the guppy that's under the chair next to me leg should wake up."

Riddle looked at him incredulously.

"What in the name of the Seven are you blathering on about-" A glance underneath the chair next to Floyd's leg revealed a silver-haired boy, a thin shield of water conjured around him.

Smart.

He'd fallen asleep though.

Ruggie creeped over towards the silver-haired boy, shaking his shoulders awkwardly.

"You good?" Jamil motioned for him to stop.

"He likely has some underlying condition," he said. "I'd wager it's magically induced narcolepsy."

All the oddest freshmen, gathered in one place while the others celebrated the fact that they weren't dead. How- quaint.

A few seconds later, the silver-haired boy's eyes fluttered open, as he took a second to process his surroundings.

"H-Huh?" he said, before realizing what had happened. "E-Er, apologies."

"Please prepare yourself for sorting," Riddle said, voice much less snippy than it ordinarily was. "You've managed to wake up just in time."

"T-Thank you," said the silver-haired boy. The quiet sort, it seemed.

"You really ought to get back in line yourself, dearest Riddle!" said Azul, bearing a saccharine grin.

"The same would go for you, I believe," said Jade with a grin even more sickly sweet. Azul groaned.

"Tell Floyd that."

"Yeah, yeah," Floyd said. "I'm gettin' in line."

Azul glared at him. "And I'm sorry," he said, despite the fact that he clearly didn't want to. Azul looked at Riddle expectantly. Riddle merely sighed.

"I wouldn't call this thorough repenting," he said.

"Please remove the collar from my business partner's neck." Business partners? Was that was kids these days callhed their friends? Dire had clearly fallen behind on trends.

Riddle scoffed.

"Have him apologize to me personally first," he said. Floyd rolled his eyes.

"Stop talking' about me like I'm not here."

"I do believe that collar restricts your magic, dearest brother." And all of a sudden, Floyd had become the most positively contrite person to ever grace Twisted Wonderland.

"I'm so, so sorry," he said through sniffles. "I'll never do it again, honest!"

It was only when Floyd conjured a ukelele that Riddle finally backed down, removing the collar.

"T-That's more than enough!" he said. "I do hope you've learned from this."

But Floyd wasn't listening.

"Whoo!" he said, all contriteness gone from sight. Floyd was quite the good actor, thought Dire idly.

"Get back in line quickly, pups," said Divus with the crack of a whip. The students scrambled to fall in line.

Well then, at least the chaotic part of the ceremony was over.

--------

A few hours later, the sorting was over. And frankly, Dire was most interested in the positions of seven particular students.

"The Rosehearts boy was placed in Heartslabyul," Mozus said in the break-room, sipping on a cup of tea.

"No one was shocked by that," said Divus. "The sortings were quite obvious. Bucchi in Savannaclaw, Viper in Scarabia, Ashengrotto and Leech in Octavinelle, and Silver in Diasomnia. And that means-" he turned to Dire. Curses. "I won all the bets. Pay up."

His poor wallet was aching, crying out in pain!

"Fine, fine," said Dire, forced to cruelly rip those precious thaumarks from their home in his wallet. "Here you are."

Mozus sighed.

"This school is known as Night Raven College," he said. "I was under the impression that - despite their mischievousness, ravens are smart. Not foolish enough to start fires before the first day."

Dire merely laughed.

"Well, Mozus," he said. "Do recall the old adage 'What's in a name'? The name of the school won't change the intellect of our students!"

"Yes, yes."

"So tell me," he continued.

"What's in a bird?"

[wilwywaylan]

Happy Barricade Day where our lovely characters have fun in the park and go to a protest that goes perfectly well before going to the park and laying in the grass and everything is perfect and...

I had that idea floating around since Feuilly's week last year, and this is as good a Barricade Day drawing as any :D I call it the "Because" drawing because of the pose they used during the song "Because" in the movie "Across The Universe".

That one took "only" 19 days to do, and I'm very, very proud of it !!!

Bahorel's awesome shirt comes from @crow-songs-at-dawn.

Happy Pride, everyone !

That one also has a text by @crow-songs-at-dawn that goes with it !

--

Nothing or no-one could resist Prouvaire's puppy eyes. This was a well-known fact among the Amis : when their resident dreamer wanted something really, really badly, he'd use his ultimate weapon. Even R knew to stop ranting about the bleakness of life and the futility of the cosmos when those heterochromatic eyes turned to him. So when Montparnasse felt the puppy eyes turn on him, he crossed his arms and shook his head.

No. It's not happening.

Please?

A picnic in a park with all your friends sounds like a special kind of hell. Will I have to sign a petition?

Three, at least.

Oh joy.

Must you be so dramatic? It's just for an afternoon, it'll change from your usual nightly hobbies, I know. Montparnasse rolled his eyes and :

I'm not sure I'd enjoy spending all that time having Enjolras look at me like a disapproving parent, or lecturing me about something or other that really doesn't need to be his problem.

I know he can be intense.

He likes the sound of his own voice. A bit like - whatshisname - Alphabet Boy. Prouvaire cocked his head and tried to hide a smile.

You're just being difficult on purpose. You like R and don't even try to deny it.

Not enough to share a martini with.

You don't share martinis with me, either.

You don't like martinis.

I like you when you've had a few, though…

Flirting won't get me to say yes to -

But Prouvaire didn't let Montparnasse say another word before pushing him down on the bed and kissing him. They were still undressed and it was a sunny summer morning, and kissing Montparnasse was always one of Prouvaire's favourite things to do. Usually because it got his grumpy night-owl boyfriend to mellow out and smile. Ah, there was the smile he was looking for, along with a crinkle in those dark eyes.

Me trash-talking your friends turns you on a little, does it?

Only because I know you're not really serious.

Is that a challenge? Alright then. Someone really should tell Pontmercy that the entire "starving student with a heart of gold" aesthetic wasn't cool even when it was.

No-one says "cool" anymore, 'Parnasse.

Of course they do. What they don't say anymore is anything on the lines of "fantastic" or "amazing", or whatever else Mothman seems to have read in Pride and Prejudice. Or those wierd interjections Joly seems to emit like some sort of human shaped infrawave.

Prouvaire couldn't help but smile and placed a kiss on Montparnasse's collarbone.

You're horrible.

Promise, I won't tell them you find me hilarious.

I'm dating a criminal, I like to live dangerously.

I applaud your bravery. But I'm still not spending the afternoon with them. Seeing so much sweetness makes my teeth ache.

Cosette and Marius are adorable, I know.

Still amazes me she'd choose him, she seemed to be the only sensible one of your group. I suppose appearences are decieveing, she chose Eponine as well, after all.

So did you at some point, if rumours are true. Did Montparnasse feel the tell-tale signs of a blush creeping up his neck? If he did, he ignored them and countered with a cocky grin.

The same rumours like those who say you and Muscle Man had a burning romance before he turned his sights to the resident squirrel?

Well, you've seen the muscles Bahorel has, you can understand the attraction.

Hmmm… I've seen more attractive since.

Now who's attempting flattery?

Prouvaire managed to slip out of bed and out of Montparnasse's arms. It was soon going to be time to leave if they were going to be on time for the picnic. Everyone would be bringing a dish and he'd spent a good chunk of the previous evening making rice salad and some special brownies. Enjolras would frown at the extra ingredient but even he would eat some because he was nowhere near as tight-laced as Montparnasse tended to think. Rummaging through his drawers while getting dressed he found something he'd forgotten he ever had and threw it towards the bed, smiling as the other young man caught the object. And then turned those pretty brown eyes towards him.

How are heart-shaped sunglasses supposed to make me change my mind?

They're not, I just think you'd look really really good in them. You'll be turning heads.

I do that already.

Sue me for wanting to show you off. There came an almost amused laugh. This was a very good sign - he could read Montparnasse like an open poetry book and they'd be on their way to Montsouris Park together. He just needed a little more time.

Come on, get up.

Jehan. I'm not coming.

Please? Don't you want to see how verbose R can get after a couple of space brownies?

Does the man ever shut up is the thing I'm more interested in.

Bossuet and him have been known to talk an entire night, I've been witness to a few of those conversations, and Musichetta has said so herself.

Why are all the women in this friend goup attracted to wierdos?

Says the one who dated Eponine.

Better dating 'Ponine than, I don't know, Pontmercy. I'd have died of boredom.

Oh, you'd have found a thousand ways to spice things up. So, will you be wearing black, or black to our little picnic?

I hate you so much.

Montparnasse finally relented and got out of the messy bed and started to dig through his clothes. Those damn puppy eyes had won again.

I swear if Gavroche says one single thing about these sunglasses, I'm gone.

You get riled up so easy by a ten year-old.

He's extremely annoying. Perhaps Feuilly can take him on his next boring museum trip and lose him there. Prouvaire came closer and grinned, playing with the heart-shaped sunglasses on Montparnasse's nose.

You're finding less and less reasons to rag on my friends, it's funny.

Some are less annoying than others.

You didn't find anything to say about Courfeyrac, I noticed.

He wears a bowtie.

The audacity~

----

Happy Barricade Day, everyone :D

[caffeinatedopossum]

I need some advice- if you've been on my blog the past week, you've probably seen some stuff about me and my girlfriends. I'm gonna kind of word vomit about it because it's still not properly sorted out into a cohesive narrative in my head so please bare with me

After typing some of it out, I decided to make it into 2 parts. Idk I understand if none of you want to take the time to read something this long though.

Also tw, mentions of SA

On February 14th, one of my girlfriends and I were hanging out over call- I had two because my first girlfriend and I were trying polyamory. I'm gonna call the first girlfriend mimi- and I've been dating her for over 2 years now. The other I'm gonna call fish- mimi and I had been dating her for only a few months but I'd known her quite a while and we were very good friends.

Fish lived with their parents still, in what seemed like a very abusive and unhealthy environment, so mimi and I were arranging for them to come live with us. They had come to visit us in late November-early December and a few days into their visit was when we started officially dating them.

Skip forward to February 14th and fish suddenly starts telling me horrible things about mimi- that she's been using me, manipulating me. That she was doing the same things to fish and that she SA'd them while they were here. I started having a horrible panic attack- like heart pounding so hard you could easily see it through my shirt like a cartoon character. I thought I was going to die. Fish guided me through what I should do, though at this point I couldn't talk because I was too shaken, so they were talking and I was typing.

I ended up leaving my house, in the middle of the night, in the cold, by myself, with a few essential belongings. I went to a nearby gas station and hid in the bathroom, hoping to get one of my roommates to meet me there and idk, get me a hotel or something, at least for the night. I could tell I wasn't thinking clearly and I needed some space away from both fish and mimi for a bit- but that didn't end up happening.

Mimi came to find me at the gas station and I was terrified- I thought she would hurt me. Fish didn't lead me to believe mimi would hurt me (at least not directly) but you have to understand the situation triggered my ptsd, in which I was in this situation in the past and the other person very much would have hurt me. Me and mimi eventually went on a very long and talked about things.

She told me that her and fish had slept together while they were here and apologized and said she felt ashamed of it- I'm a sex repulsed asexual and had asked sex stay out of our relationship. That may seem like a weird boundary to have but they both agreed to this boundary of mine with no problem- and then broke it. Mimi also told me they slept together the first night fish was over at our house, before we had even started dating. We'd talked about it lots but we still hadn't made any decisive moves or invitations at that point.

[tastytoastz]

I just want to say that the most recent chapter, at the time of writing this, of your fic (where Pac and Mike travel back in time to a 2b Fit, forgive me for forgetting the name) had me so enthralled. I've said this before but I don't think there are nearly enough fics that thoroughly explore the absolute internalised homophobia a man would develop in a place like 2b, so to have a fic like yours properly portray it is like a dream. That chapter has been stuck in my mind since I first read it, and I've reread it a couple of times.

I can't get over how well you showed that he wasn't just angry, but genuinely terrified. I love the emphasis on him being above all just so fucking scared of that information existing out loud. It's such a good angle. And he's not completely dead shocked by the revelation, and jumps straight into denial, which makes it come across - to me, anyway - as if he has already been aware of this fact about himself for a while, like he knows, and he actively works to hide it everyday. There's so much implied in what isn't said . It leaves you wondering how long he's known, how much he thinks about it, if anyone else in his life has ever known, if he has witnessed first hand what happens to people like him (has he ever watched someone get killed for that while having slurs and horribly vulgar and vivid insults thrown at them, and tried his hardest not to picture himself in that position, as the victim?) ... And most of all you wonder what the aftermath of the interaction looks like on his end. Is he panicking silently up in that room, expecting a mob at his door by morning? What is he thinking, what's running through his head? What does he expect to happen now?

I just love the angle you took and how it was written, and that you decided to pick up the heavy subject matter and write it where a lot of other writers seem hesitant. It's so intriguing .

Thank you so much for this ask!!! I could go crazy over this chapter as well and point out so many details, I'm gonna get into some here, but not all (since I wanna keep some stuff ambigitous/secret still and cuz if i mentioned it all it would be a long post, but I will probably go deeper into some more things once the fic is over cuz I have so many things and smaller details I wan't to get into!!! ) (Also I guess if you want to keep thing ambigious and not 'peek behind the curtain' about some things with this fic don't keep reading)

I have seen some people say Fit's reaction to Mike's comment is with self-denial but honestly it's a lot closer to just being him denying Mike and Pac's words. He's not lying to himself, he's strictly lying to Pac and Mike, and I'm glad I was able to make that clear and people are picking up on it!

Not gonna go to much into it right now ( that's for later in the fic 🤫), but he's very aware he is gay.

As a queer person myself homophobia is sadly not something i'm unfamiliar with. I have experinced it directed towards me and I have seen it happen to other people. Meanwhile i've also done research about internalised homophobia as best I can. I know it's a heavy subject matter (and the fic has a lot of violence/gore as well, it's rated M for a reason) so I'm glad so many people are intrigued by the fic despite it (however I fully understand if someone would not like the themes and cuz of that won't read it). I'm hoping to portray it and handle the themes as best i can.

I also think it would just makes sense from a character perspective, you have a man who has been on 2b2t for years, surrounded by slurs for all lgbtq memebers and wathcing people get specially targeted for stuff like that, and that would fuck with you as a closeted gay person. Not only bring you fear of being "found out", but also adapting homophobi language to look less like "one of them" while also just ingraning it in yourself.

Fit's been told the person he is bad, and knows that if people find out he's gay there will be a lot of negative consequnces, so he hides it. And then here comes Mike, not only saying that he knows he's gay but also that "it's obvious" that he likes Pac. For Mike and Pac it's a factual thing they know, while they also know is dangerous to Fit in the wrong hands. They also think it's obvious Fit likes Pac beacuse they know what to look for.

For Fit it sounds like these random guys, despite his best efforts, knows he's gay, the other says he has photo evidence he's gay, and then said he is awful at hiding it. These two people could ruin his life and have him killed so easily. That's what Fit heard and that is terrifying.

This is also one of the reason this fic is only from Pac's POV becuase I want it to be as unclear for the reader what Fit is thinking as it is for Pac. You don't know how Fit thinks in the past, what ideas he has or how he looks at thing which I think it both intruging for readers but also terrifying. You never know what Fit's next move is going to be.

Once again, thank you so much for the ask! I love talking about my fics so thank you for giving me a reason to!

[piosplayhouse]

Horse Isle 3: The Yandere Sim of Horse Games

(or, an extended study in how to hate your own playerbase as much as humanly possible)

(or, or, tldr there's pretty much no updated information on just how ridiculously bad this game is so here's a writeup on how I got banned and all the subsequent information I found during my time playing for documentation's sake)

Part I. The Backstory

My beloved followers will know that a few months ago I began playing Horse Isle 3, a horse-raising MMO surprisingly released in the year of our horse 2019 despite its 1997-era website and Runescape-esque graphics. Some of my play through (mostly just horse pictures) is chronicled in my tag #homophobic scum horse chronicles ¹ if you want to see how drippy my horses were before they killed me.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have endless respect for small teams of game devs that manage to create insanely impressive products-- which HI3's elaborate real-genetics breeding system, its main draw, certainly is. Coding is hard, modeling is hard, moderation is hard. Tip a coin to your local small indie teams that work hard to make incredible art.

However, HI3 is far from an admirable success story about a small dev team that triumphed over its obstacles.

The game is known for a variety of things, chief among them being the staff's rampant homophobia (which has earned it the moniker "the homophobic horse game"), hilariously uncharismatic mods (to the point where one of the main moderators, Connie, is mentioned by NAME in the majority of poor reviews of the game), the dev team's unrepentant rejection of criticism, and racism with a side of downplaying war crimes.

(Screenshots taken from Sitejabber, here)

Now, it's marketed as a game for ages 8+, which, as I've briefly talked about before, is unfortunately a rarity in today's hostile internet climate. I grew up on a variety of typical child friendly MMOs like ye olde Pixie Hollow and PetPet Park, and truly lament that so many of these have been shut down over the years. As such, I have no issue with strict rules or word filters in games, with the caveat that they are effective and genuinely intended to keep people safe. Kids are naive, and can and will say things that they shouldn't (I, for example, got kicked from a Minecraft server when I was 8 because I posted in chat that my mom told me sex wasn't a bad word. things happen). Filters are a very appropriate tool to aid manual moderation of chat features, especially in an environment where mistakes will be made.

However, HI3's, as shown below (words that are forbidden from chat are marked in red), are... questionably selective.

(Screenshot taken by Alice Ruppert, from here)

This appears to be attributed to the fact that along with having horrible moderators, HI3 also seems to have a remarkably horrible developer backend, which is a trend that you'll see pop up quite a lot in this post. Taken straight from the horse's (haha) mouth, the lead developer is the only person who seems to be able or willing to add to the filter list, and for whatever reason only wants to block the "most common inappropriate words"- because saying transgender is more of an issue than nazi and gulag I guess.

(Screenshot taken from Top R.'s Sitejabber review, here)

¹ I'm not sure how far this will reach out of my audience, and since people have already assumed weird stuff about me I thought I should probably clarify-- I'm not calling the game "homophobic scum" ghghg, my play through was focused on making horse versions of characters from a novel called "scum villain", so I took the scum and added horse (I actually have another tag for a different horse breeding game called "scum horse chronicles" so I needed to distinguish them easily but am not very good at tagging). That's it.

Part II. The Game

The game itself is, putting it simply, a mess at best and openly hostile towards newcomers at worst. The game's UI is comparable to your average petsite with 20 thousand things to click on but if you tried to navigate that while also watching the Pilgrim's Progress movie by Scott Cawthorn on 90% of your screen. This is a very good overview of what your experience first logging in will be like, with the added caveat that talking in global chat costs in game currency and that the game doesn't tell you this at ALL until you try to type in chat, and that depending when you log on it's entirely possible that you'll spawn into a completely dead town miles away from anyone who can help you, wilderness survivor-style.

To make things more complicated, information about the game is split between the game itself and the laughably horrible website/forums. Spectacularly enough, the forums, which provide vital game information and rule elaborations, cannot be searched in any way (not via Google or any hard-baked search bar) and are regularly purged by admins to erase evidence of scandals and poor moderation complaints.

Now, something you will find to be generally people's biggest issue with HI3 is their strict no "date-speak" rule, which sounds ok on paper but is worded *just* vaguely enough to give the moderators full jurisdiction over whether or not they think you're breaking the rules. Selective moderation is a major theme in the HI3 chronicle, but it is perhaps most documented with regards to this rule, because what the hell does "boyfriend/girlfriend talk" even mean?? Outside of vagueness, this rule has also been scrutinized extensively by others due to the fact that a pair of previous moderators were openly married with the igns "FrogLips" and "MrsFrogLips". I don't personally think this is super condemning, since kids usually address adults by Mr/Ms etc whether or not they know they're in a relationship, but regardless it's clear that the complete lack of elaboration on what this rule means can be easily manipulated to lodge any number of complaints against people.

(Screenshot from the Horse Isle website rules page, here)

What I will say, however, is that this rule would probably hold more water if the game wasn't literally about breeding horses.

You can pimp out your horses, you can pay others to breed your mares, you can put any number of special (real life currency-bought) amulets on your horses to make them more fertile/have twins/give birth faster. I paid $1000 to castrate Jiang Cheng. The word "stud" (which btw, is another word for a black butch lesbian) is used constantly. Perhaps most shockingly, horse inbreeding is very common and accepted among the community, to the point that it is explicitly mentioned and EXPLAINED in the game guide; the only penalization for it is that your incest product foal will have a lower intelligence stat. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel as though implementing and acknowledging that horses can breed with their own relatives is hmm perhaps more harmful than another player saying the word gay, but what do I know.

(Screenshot from the Horse Isle website game guide page, here (only accessible with an account))

Well, you might ask, after you breed and sell a horse, is there any way to put a brand on it so you know it's from your ranch? That's where the "prefix" system comes in. Prefixes are bolded titles that appear in front of a horses name in lists and in the overworld, and are described in the official game guide as follows:

(Screenshot from the same Horse Isle website game guide page as linked previously)

I think you can toggle them off if you don't want to see them, though I could be wrong. They're basically just 1-5 letter titles you can put on your own horses (nobody else's, importantly). There's no way to search prefixes, and you won't see them in game unless either a horse with a prefix is listed in auctions or you actually encounter someone in-game and see their horse.

In fact, I would learn later that not even the moderators monitor the prefixes, and apparently have no way to mass-delete them. At all.

(Image taken from an anonymous friend)

Now, it's not unusual that a game as complicated as HI3 would inevitably have a pretty taxing server-side code. Millions of multifaceted assets and features is really nothing to scoff at. However, the notion that your lead developer has to perform a manual search in the game's code to delete the equivalent of a stamp from every instance individually is hilarious. I'm not going to pretend to be a game developer, but there HAS to be a better way of coding a feature that intakes user-generated content that should probably be monitored regularly than that, right? Or, at least, there should be a robust filter system that could prevent any issues from occurring before they would need to be fixed so tediously. You might think.

On December 29th, 2022, I discovered how to register a prefix. It's very common to headcanon the characters I was naming my horses after as transgender, and I thought it would be cute to attach "TRANS" to my horses as a nod to this. However, a filter blocked the word. I was disappointed, but not surprised², and then tried to think of another word that was under 5 letters. To my complete and gay surprise, "GAY" was not filtered out, and henceforth, this worked as my prefix.

As you can see on the popup here, there are scant guidelines for what the requirements for a prefix should be. And, in this moment of apparently utter foolishness, I was under the impression that since "GAY" was NOT filtered out despite there clearly being a filter on this function, it was ok to register. Possibly it's not filtered because it's a synonym for "happy", I thought, which is also cute because I do like when horses are happy. Perhaps the staff had learned from their past criticism and had loosened the restrictions slightly because they felt restructuring was appropriate now that gay marriage is legal in the US, I imagined.

(My original post)³

What I could not imagine, however, was that the only reason the word wasn't filtered out, despite being possibly the most common sexuality-related word, was just because the lead dev couldn't be assed to add it to the filter list. And that apparently I was supposed to know this because it would lead to a permanent ban on my second offense with no warning.

² Hence typing "eat shit lol". Admittedly childish of me, but I didn't put a lot of thought into the post because it was just part of a casual silly live blog I was doing to blow off steam. The "if I get banned" tag surprisingly was not referencing "GAY", as I genuinely thought I was in the clear for that for reasons stated above, but because I tried to register "TRANS" and then posted about it online. You don't have to believe me, but I feel the need to defend myself since some people have wildly extrapolated that my actions were malicious instead of just a split second decision I made because I was bored one morning.

³ Despite the pop-up box saying that prefixes cannot be removed, they actually can at any time, given only that the person that owns the prefix unregisters the horse from it. The unregistering mechanic is for whatever reason not told to the player upon registering the prefix, but is mentioned in the official game guide linked above.

Part III. The Ban, The Report

I will preface this section by saying that I played the game normally. I do like being outrageous sometimes for my followers' entertainment, but I really don't like dragging random people into my antics if they aren't interested. Because of this, I really didn't interact with other players unless we were mutuals on some other platform. I rarely used the chat feature except to participate in server-wide events that required team participation, and I typically just explored on my own for fun. In general I think I was a pretty ok player, objectively, which lines up with my user trust score.

You see, the way moderators of HI3 allegedly keep track of rule breaking is through a "user trust score" with points added if you use features in the game, help people, etc, and points deducted if you violate rules. Anecdotally I've heard that around the -10 total points mark is when moderators put you on a sort of list to be monitored for suspension or punishment, which is pretty reasonable.

By the time I was banned, I had a score of +31. The -10 offset was a part of this debacle. The only thing I had ever done in the game which warranted any kind of violation was, as you will soon see, literally just naming about 30 of my own horses "GAY", a sin egregious enough to apparently offset about 200 hours worth of playtime with no issues.

Because of this, I was a little bit confused on multiple levels. For one, I had never even seen a moderator in game, nor been informed of discipline at any time before. On top of that, their permanent ban notification is extremely strange and vague. The text pop up when you try to log in just reads "Account currently banned -1 minutes ().", which is probably just copied straight from the server-side code for things and just wasn't translated into user-side comprehensibility. You'll also notice there is a "()" section in the notification, which I would assume is where they put the reason for bans, except for the fact that mine was completely blank.

The website which allegedly would hold more info just repeated a near identical code: "BANNED! -1min. Reason:".

So, with nothing else to go off of, I messaged support on the jankiest help center submissions I've ever seen on a website with this:

"Insisting" and "total disregard" are very strong words to use for a situation in which I just typed a word into a textbox because the game let me, I'd think, which is why I tried to reason with her. The prefixes mentioned in my message are well-known amongst the userbase and are much older and wider-spread than mine, so I would think that there would be at least some sort of precedent for this. The "geldings and yearlings" reasoning was mostly a joke, but also intended to express that the nature of an acronym (as the majority of prefixes seemed to be) is that it can be interpreted in many ways. Intent was thrown around a lot when I was discussing the issues of prefixes with other users, and it seemed to have been used to excuse previous behavior in situations where mods liked the users in question better.

I also cannot emphasize enough how much they did not warn me about my prefix being removed. When I logged in and saw my horses' names did not include it, I was suspicious that the moderators removed it just because of the history of their behavior. However, I had no hard evidence because they did not inform me at ALL. Not through in-game mail systems, not through server messages, not through the website. Complete radio silence except for the addition of an unexplained "-10" to my user score. I did complain to some people that I thought it was removed, but a combination of things suggested that it wasn't a huge deal, so I mostly let it lie. For one, I had over 100 hours of playtime and was mildly worried that one of my chat messages had been flagged without my knowledge. For another, my profile text had also mysteriously disappeared, probably because of a glitch, so who knows what could happen in this game. Lastly, I went to the prefix registry again just to check and hilariously enough, they didn't actually block "GAY" from the database. Yeah, they apparently individually deleted it from all of my horses, but couldn't be assed to add such an "inappropriate" word to their filter system.

So I just registered it again and publicly told people that I would do it again if the mods didn't actually tell me to stop. I didn't really care about the prefix because to me, the feature was purely cosmetic. All I wanted was transparency from the staff.

Well, anyway, I assume Connie couldn't think of a comeback, so she just closed my report. I was annoyed because quite literally none of my questions were answered and she didn't even refer to anything in specifics. It would take less than 1 second to type the number of the rule I violated, but I guess that was too much work for her.

I tried to give them as many outs as possible to just apologize about poor communication, but they didn't even take the bare minimum. I would also like to mention that this support ticket process is the ONLY way to directly communicate with any staff. There's no ability to upload files or images on this system, and no email listed that you could contact. So essentially, there's no way to give actual evidence for anything you say even if you want to.

Kat, who is known as the slightly-more-reasonable-but-still-pretty-bad mod then picked up the case. Her response actually provided specific information, which made it leagues above Connie's, but still included some very strange elements for sure.

The notion that this game is intended for a worldwide audience is especially funny to me because you would really think if they cared about other countries they wouldn't violate their own rule one by using a slur for Europe's largest ethnic minority, but ok. It's a weird hill to die on considering how USA-dominated the staff's opinions towards rules are (Connie justifies the usage of a slur for Rromani people based off the opinion of a single roommate she had who reclaimed it, Joe defends a store in-game being called "The Gulag" because Americans don't think gulags are that bad (discussed and cited in the conclusions section)). But then again, picking and choosing what parts of other countries' customs you want to respect is very American, which is why I think they should add an extra star rating for its patrioticness on the website.

As I mentioned before, the prefixes I included in my response are definitely older and more commonly-used than mine, so I'm not sure how they wouldn't have seen them before. This comment also ties back to the suggestion that the moderators have very little control or insight over a distinct feature of their game, which is not a great thing to admit so casually.

Kat has a strange habit of immediately contradicting herself in the same paragraph, as can be seen here. "The glitches never happen and bugs were quickly fixed, but games still have bugs". "People that break the rules usually write in to ask what was wrong, but most people usually never ask". At this point I think we can confidently say that they don't even make an attempt to proofread any of their responses, to be honest.

Her 7th paragraph has one of my favorite lines in this exchange. "If we had to notify players every time we made moderator changes to their account we would spend 24 hours a day" is giving huge Yandere Dev "stop emailing me because I have to spend 24 hours a day reading all my emails instead of coding" energy. You really have to wonder why these people that seem to hate moderating so much are moderators.

You can tell by my response, but I do not like the use of "most" and "usually" in this at all. What's your standard isn't others' standards, and this is a topic which needs to be navigated gently, especially when kids are concerned. I never played the previous Horse Isles. I had no experience with the mod team, or with violations, or with anything because no one bothered to take five seconds to send me a message. No, I did not know that you would permaban me for typing a word that's in one of the most popular traditional Christmas songs in a place were only people who interacted with me would be able to see it. Most games would not do this. To take a lackadaisical approach to your literal job of community management because you want people to moderate themselves is contradictory to your claims of keeping children safe.

I will admit I was being a bit cheeky here as a subtle hint that perhaps they should take feedback, but I also would have taken a genuine response. I try my best to be as polite as possible to tech support staff because not everyone is! But they're people too and a simple thank you is worth a lot in customer service, even virtual. But Kat... you're not really giving me anything to work with here! If anyone reading this has feedback for how I could've rephrased things, feel free to comment them honestly. I actually ran drafts of these messages through a few people before sending them to make sure I was as concise and polite as possible, even if support clearly wasn't interested in reciprocating the effort ("following out rules using the the GAY to begin with"...?).

Part IV. The Backlash

I won't go too into depth in this section because it's more personal than documentarian, so feel free to skip to the next section if you want!

After this, the girlies were not happy with me. The one saving grace of HI3 that I've heard pop up over and over again is that the community is great. And a lot of users are! Don't think I'm disparaging people who play the game because I'm not-- it's a really fun experience with the right people. I was in a Discord server with a lot of people who were extremely helpful and kind.

However, within the community, there's also a pervasive culture of silence. According to Alice Ruppert of The Mane Quest, a lot of people will refuse to go public with their complaints about the staff due to fear of retribution, which I feel is unfortunate but understandable. There's a pressure to shut up and eat your food lest you be seen as someone causing controversy for the sake of it and ruining the sanctity of the game, which is an attitude explicitly encouraged by the staff (discussed more in the next section).

I liveblogged my entire correspondence with the support team to a group of other players for the 2 days I talked to them, and did have a lot of acceptance from people who appreciated someone speaking out. After the 2020 Mane Quest article, public information had sort of just gone dark as the community was pushed further into niche seclusion, despite things not improving at all. However, towards the end of my messaging, a group of people that I had never even spoken to or seen online before accused me of a variety of things ranging from "displaying my sexuality to children" (note: all I ever did was name my horses "GAY". I never once talked about my own sexuality in-game, nor did I say the word in chat ever) to "joining the server to cause drama" to "mocking the lgbt community by throwing around the word gay" (actually I'll attach a picture of this one even though I don't want to put people on blast in this section just because its so funny).

I think most of this can be attributed to the game having gained such a notoriety that longtime players, especially those with strong nostalgic feelings, have become completely desensitized to it. And this compounds with the fact that the game is so niche it doesn't yet have a good alternative to turn to to create a toxic cocktail where people tell themselves that they have to be loyal to the staff to play this one of a kind game-- and that anyone who doesn't follow them just doesn't understand. It's really sad, honestly.

Part V. Conclusions

I don't necessarily think the devs of HI3 are legitimately consciously homophobic-- unfortunately LGBT rights are still controversial amongst the largely southern and rural population of horse enthusiasts, and I could understand if they felt it necessary to skim the line towards conservatism to maintain a userbase. It's cowardly and dumb but it's not a sin to do what you have to do to survive in a capitalistic hellscape as cutthroat as the game industry.

However, what I do think the devs are is power-hungry and hypocritical. They have failed at every turn at community management because they're unwilling to admit they make mistakes, instead choosing to issue non-apologies like "[we] regret you guys got so upset and did not realize neither our true intentions nor motivations nor the whole situation [that we said it's ok that a player has a shop called The Gulag because it's 'not direct or violent']". To respond this way to a userbase filled allegedly with young children as a fully grown adult with a wife and kids is laughably out of touch. 'Sorry your fee-fees were hurt by our adult moderator responding to a serious complaint about inappropriate user-generated content with "lol", but actually you just misunderstood us and we're going to ban anyone who brings this up again' is the sort of response you'd see from the teenage mod team of an Undertale amino, not the supposedly responsible head dev of a 'rare oasis of kid friendly content'.

Telling an audience of impressionable kids that the fact that their feelings are hurt is their fault for not intuiting the intentions of 40+ year old adults is unbelievably toxic, and it's no wonder why people are so nostalgia-bound to feverishly shut down criticism about the games. They've been guilt-tripped into believing the mod team can do no wrong and any controversy, even if valid, that springs up is just extrapolated by people that haven't been laboriously groomed to know what the mod team wants to hear.

Countless times throughout my time researching and playing the game, the number one advice I've heard has always been "suck up to the mods or they won't do anything for you". It's crystal clear that the moderators care more about the joy they get from having power over some 200 users who will kiss their ass if they say a buzzword more than they care about you, your child, or the game itself.

It's essentially a model scam Kickstarter's wet dream, a game propelled to release and popularity by its singular defining feature and left to fester on the shelf as the only game in its niche market. Because of this, I believe there's truly no better way to describe HI3, with its messy backend, refusal to improve, narcissistic moderators, broken features, poor visuals, and inefficiency than as the Yandere Simulator of horse games.

[knockyasocksoff2022]

Some quotes from the actual Edgar Allan Poe that I think really fic BSD Poe.

This is just me rambling so it's all under the cut.

"From childhood's hour, I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone."

This would refer to BSD Poe's isolation from being an ability user and a person of great intellect. (I feel like people don't talk about how actually smart he is enough because he's constantly compared to Ranpo. But if he could even challenge Ranpo that means he must be way smarter than the average person, not to mention to create mystery plots that stump most ordinary people.) When he found Ranpo it must have been a relief to find someone like him, who shared his passion for crime mysteries, only to be humiliated by him.

~

“I remained too much inside my head and ended up losing my mind.”

“I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

“I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.”

“And being so young and dipped in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.”

These remind me of the six-year period he spent obsessing over his rivalry with Ranpo and plotting vengeance.

~

“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched"

“Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it wants. The way it stops and starts.”

And then of course, these give me Ranpoe vibes.

~

“The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.”

“Science has not yet taught us if  madness is or is not the sublimity of intelligence.”

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality”

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

These are just the ones I think fit his general personality. I really like the one about madness being the sublimity of intelligence for him because I feel like many people characterize him as just a really stuttering and shy person (and he is, sometimes, especially around Ranpo) but he's also more than that. He's smart and creative and a lovable dork. I wish there were more Poe-centric fics.

He's very aware of how intelligent he is. And he's proud, maybe even more so since his defeat to Ranpo because he feels being smarter than most people is all he has and that he must cling to that to become superior to Ranpo. He has great confidence in his novels, only worried about what Ranpo thinks of them, not the general readers. (I'm thinking of the scene of him on the roof after Ranpo uses his novel to trap Chuuy in the cannibalism arc.)

Not to mention that, six years ago, he dared to challenge Ranpo, who by that point was already probably well-known for being a genius detective (as the agency had been around for six years by that point). He most likely knew that Ranpo was very smart, though maybe not the full extent of his skills, and was confident he could best him anyway. His defeat thoroughly surprised him, meaning his confidence wasn't based just on arrogance. He actually thought that with his great intelligence, he could beat Ranpo.

Another thing (which mostly stems from my personal interpretations of the characters) is that he and Ranpo have slightly different types of intelligence. Ranpo is skilled in detective work, but not much else (like riding the train or navigating), but Poe I think has more broad intelligence. It makes sense because he has to be very aware of the world and what goes on in it to write convincing stories. 

Both are skilled at reading people (Poe would have to be, to write characters that seem authentic and engaging) but I feel like Poe is more eloquent (he's totally an overthinker), whereas Ranpo just says exactly what he's thinking with no filter, he doesn't bother with fancy words. Ranpo may be able to read everyone in a room and know pretty much everything about them, but he isn't as good at reading the room in the emotional sense, he just says the truth and doesn't care if he upsets people.

So while Ranpo is more skilled at detective work, Poe is a very creative person, who is more socially and emotionally skilled. He's aware of the people and world around him, (despite his being an introvert) not only specific scenarios, like crime scenes. 

He has a galaxy brain that's always thinking of new and increasingly intricate ideas for his novels. But he isn't as skilled in detective work.

Same for Ranpo, for all his skill in crime solving, he would have a hard time writing a novel because he understands how people think logically, and what motivates them to commit crimes, like money, anger, or other criminal motives, but not socially. So he'd have difficulty writing dialogue for characters that weren't exactly like himself or the people he's very close to. (This is based on my reading of Untold Origins, namely his first encounter where he explains to Fukuzawa why he was kicked out of his job and seems not to understand at all why the boss got angry at him for revealing his secrets and kicked him out.)

I love both Ranpo and Poe, and both are very smart, equally so when you compare them in their specific skill sets (Poe is just as skilled at creating new and captivating mystery worlds as Ranpo is at solving crimes). Neither is smarter than the other on the whole, just in specific areas.

My point is I just want to see Poe being shown in fanworks as intelligent as well. Like him helping Louisa with strategy maybe or him being at the agency when they get a job that Ranpo deems boring, and he helps Atsushi solve the case. Maybe one of the guild/ada members reads his book and is really impressed. Or He traps a criminal inside and it takes them days to get out

Oooh, it'd be so cool if someone wrote a fic about one of Poe's victims getting trapped in his novel and slowly going insane trying to escape the complex mystery, one based on their own regrets, just to torment them with guilt, and eventually starving, dehydrating or killing themselves. And imagine it being in the original Edgar Allan Poe style!

Sorry, for my rambling, I hadn’t intended for this to get quite so long. I was so nervous to post this. I'm always nervous about posting my opinions about things.

[nerdieforpedro]

A Sweet Night for All

Chapter Five of This is the Neighborhood Din Series

Din Djarin x Sierra Harris (plus size OFC)

My entire masterlist and blog are for readers 18+ MDNI. I do not consent to my work being used in AI, borrowed or plagiarized.

Word Count: about 2.5k

Warnings:

Summary: Nosy friends show up and get a surprise from a Jedi. Din and Sierra come to an understanding. There's cuteness from Johnnie Mae and Luke because I wanted it. ☺️

Notes: This chapter is very fluffy. I dunno what happened but I like it. 🤗

Main Masterlist/Din Djarin Masterlist/ AO3 Link

The two of them entered Djarin's home unaware they were being watched.

“I just want you two fools to know that despite this being a horrible idea to spy on him you two each owe me fifty dollars.” Finn displays all his pearly whites with the shit-eating grin he has from the back seat of Poe’s 4Runner - ‘the most conspicuous SUV known to man’ as Finn calls it not because of the make or model, but because Poe insisted on painting it orange and white. It is his BB-8. Finn held his hands out as both Rey and Poe slipped money on his palms. “Who’s the woman though?”

“Her name’s Sierra. She texted him during work today. I thought he only checked his phone for emails about his son Grogu.” Rey shrugged, she was mad she was out fifty bucks, but this was entertaining and something to tease their team leader about tomorrow. So far, they’d only been able to sort of make fun of Din's lunches, but sometimes they smelled really good.

“I mean other than when you set him up with those DILF hunters, we haven’t seen him with anyone. She seems nice and he even did like a Romeo type thing on the porch there. Didn’t know he had any game.” Poe nods and Fin flicks the back of his head, the pilot rubs it and laughs.

A metal knock startled the three in the car. A man with an overgrown beard and a green beam stuck out of the top of it. “Hey. Your truck stands out way too much and I’ve never seen it here. What are you doing out in front of this house? Count of three numbnuts.” Poe looked closer at him and noted that one of his hands was metal, what kind of weird ass neighbor was this man.

The trio looked at each other and waved their hands, “No! No!” Poe decided to speak for the group. “Look we know Din okay! We’re gonna go, we had a bet that Sierra was a parent from his kid’s school or a team leader from another department. Clearly not.” Luke squinted his eyes.

“Drive now.”

“Yup, don’t have to tell us!” Poe started BB-8 and drove off. Watching as Luke’s eyes appeared to meet his in the rear view mirror. “How does he live near someone so creepy?!”

“And how does he know Din or Sierra?”

“I’m not finding out.” Rey huffed, this trip was a bust. She didn’t win any money and she was threatened by an old Jedi. This sucks.

Luke stood in the middle of the street, putting away his lightsaber as he scratched his beard. “What kind of strange people does the new kid work with? I know Mae said he seems alright, but…eh. Scared them off. I'll check in with Mae and the little one. I'm curious what they had for dinner.” The Jedi saunters up to Johnnie Mae's door and knocks. She doesn't answer at first so he knocks again and she appears wearing a white cotton nightgown with a black silk nightgown. Her finger is over her lips as she steps back from the door and curls it to beckon him inside. A kiss is shared between the two and she takes his hand to lead him to the couch. They sit and she speaks softly.

“Don't get in your head that you're having anything other than a hearty meal Skywalker.” Johnnie tugs on his beard. He places his cool hand on her thigh and runs his thumb along her skin. She points to the large chair next to the couch where little Grogu sleeps under a throw blanket. He'd fallen asleep waiting for his father to come get him. Luke nods and pecks Johnnie Mae's cheek.

“Only came to see what you had for dinner. Honest. Also saw some coworkers of the kid's dad outside. Weird bunch. Drove them off.” It's stated matter of factly causing the older woman to shake her head and stand up.

“I'll fix you a plate. It was mainly Sierra cooking for her new friend.” Luke follows her as she heats some food up for him and they sit at the table. They're comfortable, speaking in lowered volumes to not disturb the young boy. The hour has gotten late.

Meanwhile in Din's home:

Her host had put away the leftovers and made her some hot chocolate after giving her a short tour of the first level of the house. Sierra could tell that Din was proud, he mentioned it was his first home and was excited to be able to provide a safe place for Grogu to grow up. “I don't want him looking over his shoulder or wondering if he'll need to move anywhere.” She took this to mean that maybe there was a point where either Grogu or maybe Din had that fear. Pausing as he brought her back to the living room after showing her his office, kitchen, dining room, den, a half bath off of the den and a mud/laundry room. It made her think of how happy she'd been when she left her husband up until a few days ago when he showed up. The feeling that she was safe and could go to sleep without questioning if she'll be physically hurt or insulted. Din took Sierra's hand which made her look up at him, pulling her out of her daze. “I didn't mean to bring up-”

“Please don't apologize. Don't feel you have to dance around things you want to say because you think it reminds me of what happened. Plus now I'm curious what life was like for you and Grogu before moving here. I'll let you know if I'm okay or not Din.” They sit on the couch and continue holding hands as he describes to her the apartments he used to live in, back before he became a team leader with the bump in pay.

They weren't bad in terms of cleanliness or code violations, it was more so the activity in the neighborhood and violence which is why he moved out here to the suburbs. Din explained that it wasn't all the community, it was him too. In his younger days, before Grogu was born, Din ran with the Death Watch and participated in unsavory activities. He'd had a long-term girlfriend who enjoyed the lifestyle and drama. When she became pregnant, he focused on actually going back to school to get his degree in mechanical engineering. A subject that had long interested him but wasn't exactly a part of culture. It was when he was in school that she became distant and even after giving birth, didn't really interact with little Grogu much. At the time, Din thought she was just too wrapped up in what the Death Watch had going on at the time. It was only later, in raising Grogu over the years that he came to know what postpartum depression was. No one either of them knew really talked about any of that. In his exit from the Watch, his back tattoo with their symbol of a mythosaur had three horizontal red lines added through it. They represented tasks the Armorer had him complete before he could sever ties with them on friendly terms. Din was surprised when his former members offered financial help with him getting settled in a new place with Grogu. He still spoke to a few of them occasionally, even Paz, who he was sure the disdain between them was mutual, gave him parenting tips.

Sierra listened intently and wondered what she really knew about her friends and family, especially ones she wasn't particularly close to. Could they have backgrounds with twists and turns similar to his that led them to where they are today? Would they feel comfortable telling her? “You're the first person I've told all that to in a long time. Generally, I don't feel comfortable talking about myself this much.” She didn't mean to, his admission made her scoot closer to him and place her palm on his cheek. Her eyes and smile conveyed the same message her lips did.

“Thank you for trusting me with this Din.”

His larger hand covers hers as he closes his eyes. It’s been even longer since he last heard someone saying that they trusted him. The moment feels intimate and Din allows the corners of his mouth to form a small smile. With his eyes focused on her lips, that’s where he touches with his opposite hand tracing her full lips with his thumb. He knows, just knows that all of her is soft like this. Her brows furrow and with her lips parting, Din wonders if he’s exposed too much, not only through his words but his touch too. “Sierra, you’ve trusted me a great deal as well.” He recalls a few days ago when they met, their hug and conversation in the kitchen of her aunt’s home. She was under no obligation to tell him anything, but she was honest and vulnerable.

“I know. This is something, but can we just sit Din?” Dropping her chin, the science teacher placed her forehead on Djarin’s shoulder, lowering both her hands as he grabbed them. Looking up temporarily, she knows she'll be fine. Contact with Din isn’t to be feared. Sierra finds it welcome, she wants more but her mind is holding her back. Realistically it’s been plenty of time some would say, but they’re not her. She scoots back to ease her spine into the cushions on the couch but Din’s hand braces her back and his other arm gathers the hem of her dress under her knees as he shifts them over his legs and pulls her closer. “Um, are you sure-“

“It’s fine. I’ve got you. Relax and sit.” Sierra might not be resisting so hard if Din didn’t appear to be saying and doing all the right things. His forearm is now supporting her upper back while his palm is at the base of her neck. His fingers are scratching her scalp and he chuckles when she releases a quiet sigh. “Feels good doesn’t it?”

A gentle thump to Din's chest is the answer Sierra gives him, he’s wrong in a sense. It feels perfect and she wants nothing more than to stay like this. “Yes it does.” Finally relenting they remain cuddled together on the couch for at least half an hour, maybe longer. Neither of them were sure. It was serene. Nothing pressing or urgent. No interruptions, the two of them could just exist together.

Din had to wake her up to not only walk her home but to pick up his son who was likely sleeping as well. Watching Sierra walk in front of him with wobbly legs, gave him many ideas, ones that he was unaware that Sierra shared similar ideas.

At Johnnie Mae’s home, they were met with the sight of Luke sipping lemonade as he and Mae were watching ‘Law & Order: The Force Beckons.’

“Hey Sierra. Nice to meet you little G’s dad. I’m Luke from across the street. Old friend of Mae’s here. Kept our girl out late did you?” His graveled voice greets the pair as they step in and remove their shoes. Johnnie Mae is holding hands with Luke as Grogo sleeps opposite them soundly. Din’s taken aback for a moment. It registered that this is the man who lives across the street and is Ms. Harris’ gentleman friend. The same one who’d given his son a gift and them an interesting dinner conversation. Sierra wasn’t phased at seeing them together so it’s clear this isn’t new.

“Did you have a good plate of food Mr. Skywalker?” Sierra asks, her grin says she’s amused because she finds her aunt and her ‘gentleman friend’ for at least ten years cute. Luke stands and pats her shoulder before giving her a hug.

“Yeah. Your aunt always treats me well. You know that. How have you been kiddo?” He asks when he releases her from the embrace and holds her upper arms, careful not to touch below her elbows.

“Life sucked. But now it’s better, took time like many things. I adapted.” The affirmative grunt Luke gives has him leave it alone and turn to Din. Offering his hand, the single father takes it and gives the Jedi a firm handshake.

The two men keep eye contact during their greeting. Ending their stand-off, hands at their sides, they nodded to each other. An understanding was made between them. The unspoken promise had Luke step aside as Din spotted his son asleep in the chair across the room.

“Thanks.” Din gives a small nod to Skywalker before making his way across the room to scoop his son in his arms. Grogo stirs and looks up at his father, his eyes heavy from sleep. He smiles before drifting back off.

“Little G’s a good kid. Might have something to do with his father.” Luke plops back down on the couch next to Johnnie Mae with Din giving the grizzled man a small chuckle.

“I know. He's that best. We're going to head out, it's pretty late. Thank you Ms. Harris for dinner earlier and to you both for keeping an eye on him tonight.” Johnnie Mae waves him off and stands up to give Din a side hug to not disturb Grogu's slumber. The father walked slowly to the door and Sierra opened it for him, he had his hands full of important cargo afterall. Luke and Ms. Harris left the living room, opting to give the two some privacy. “Good night Sierra.”

Din’s eyes are warm as he watches Sierra’s face, “Good night Din. Ah,” Hesitating at first, she allows her fingers to glide up his forearm. He doesn’t pull away and instead remains still, appreciating her touch. “I-I’d like to speak to you tomorrow during lunch when you have time. Nothing important or anything just to-” His lips find her forehead and she pauses with a gasp.

“Just to talk. Trust me, I’ll have time Sierra. Good night and sleep well. I have to get this one home and tucked into bed.” His eyes linger on her as he steps out of the door, Din only looks forward to keep from tripping down the porch or the stairs. He has responsibilities and he can’t stay as much as he would like, looking back a final time before starting across the yard back to his home, she’s standing in the doorway, illuminated and waving at him with a smile.

Djarin feels a pang of languish while he enters his home and puts little Grogu to bed. He’s always been thankful for his son, his adorable menace, but maybe sometimes he would like someone beside him who he didn’t have to sing Spongebob to or Bluey. His large palm pats Grogu’s head and bats his curls a bit, he goes to take a shower and settles into his own bed, already excited about his lunch break tomorrow

Space Buddies 🚀: @readingiskeepingmegoing @604to647 @syd-djarin @yorksgirl @harriedandharassed

@survivingandenduring @katw474 @trulybetty @bitchwitch1981 @soft-persephone

@soft-girl-musings @tinytinymenace @djarinmuse @pedroshotwifey @megamindsecretlair

@littlemisspascal @r0guedr0id

Chapter Four Chapter Six

[olderthannetfic]

Re, this anon: https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/719669829313953792

Yeah, well... that's the point of a bunch of internet activists: they throw the stone and hide the hand, screeching that, if you're doubting their innocence, you're an imperialist racist who should never be allowed on the internet.

Stitch, the person they're picking up a lot of their schlock from, is a master in this: they attack people, and the moment those who got attacked ask what they've done that's wrong or ask to have a one-on-one conversation with them, they shut everything down, screenshot whatever they received, block the person, and then go on Twitter whining about being a victim of racism because their words weren't listened to like the Gospel. Over and over again.

After the TOG racefaker scandal broke, I went through her blog and, just as I had expected, she too followed the same modus operandi: attack, screenshot, block, cry about being a victim of racism because people didn't let her insult them and demanded explanations about her ranting, wannabe-academic, posts.

They're not the only ones who do/did this, but these are the two examples of constant "harassment is good if I do it, but I'm the only victim and the others deserved it" cycle that come to my mind as of now.

When you're looking at End OTW Racism, you have to expect the same thing. They don't have answers, they don't want to have answers. This whole movement (horribly organized, horribly promoted, horribly everything) is nothing but a huge stroke of ego for its organizers.

You know how antis accuse others of being racist or pedophiles or whatever else because, that way, the accused cannot defend themselves? This is the same thing: if the OTW doesn't address their manifesto, then they're racist because they refuse to acknowledge it; if the OTW does address their manifesto, then they're admitting that they didn't care about racism until the moment they were called out on it and their concern regarding racism within the OTW is manufactured.

It's a win-win situation for them because, no matter how much you try, if you don't fully and absolutely agree with them, you can be branded as racist.

If you scroll through the End OTW Racism tag on Twitter, you'll see plenty of people (and especially the organizers), tweet stuff in the same vein as "I went to olderthannet's Tumblr and oof," not so subtly accusing all the people who raised valid concerns and asked valid questions of being racist.

I'm also not the first person who mentions this, but Stitch does seem to be heavily involved with the project, and even if they weren't, their words have been used to build the manifesto, and they amplified this crap through one of their Teen Vogue articles.

Now... not only Stitch is known for acting in bad faith, attacking creators of colors, branding them as Uncle Toms, purposefully making fun of them if they don't agree with them and sending their followers to attack and harass, but, just in April, they were being dragged because of another article they wrote, in which they compared writing fics about bad fictional characters to worshiping serial killers. Weeks before that, they were being dragged because their fanbase of antis discovered that their fics included incest, something that goes greatly against their preachings.

How big of a coincidence is it, that Stitch needed to have their image cleaned of all sins and suddenly a group of people drops a manifesto and hashtag about racism in fandom, founding a movement Stitch fully and absolutely agrees with and can rave about for days on end? A movement that offers very vague answers and plans, and those creators attack anyone who doesn't immediately agree with them, to the point that no questions can be ever asked about it?

Unless I'm shown actual evidence that Stitch isn't involved with this, nothing will convince me that End OTW Racism was launched for any reason that isn't to rehabilitate Stitch in the eyes of their chronically online audience.

--

[madhogthymaster]

This is Not a Review of In Stars and Time

Let us set the stage.

An entity known as The King has cast a horrible curse upon the land, freezing people in time. It's up to the Chosen One and her friends to save the day. After a long journey, the party arrives at the final town right before the final battle with the final boss. He awaits the heroes at the final castle which was once the house of worship to Change Themselves.

You, the player, are the second to last party member (who joined right before the cute mascot character) and you find yourself "blessed" with the symbolically relevant ability to loop in time - which you discovered after being suddenly crushed to death by a big rock with a sense for dramatic irony. Now, admittedly, the prospect of dealing with Groundhog Day related shenanigans might seem daunting, at first. Dare I say, it might even be emotionally and psychologically taxing, in the long run. However, do not panic! A volunteering social worker has already been sent to "assist" you with your predicament. You can trust them completely.

Now that we have dispensed with the formalities, let's get down to business to defeat The King. Use your newfound powers to help your friends navigate the castle, climb the floors, overcome the obstacles. Be ready to repeat all that several more times. You know the drill. Perhaps, if you do everything right, your buff boyfriend will finally confess his feelings to you.

Wouldn't that be swell?

Wouldn't it?

It would be nice.

It sure would.

...

There will be no additional plot synopsis, at this time.

As I type these few words of appetizing anticipation, I find myself in a predicament of my own: I played In Stars and Time and now I have to talk about it. I have many emotions swirling, dancing incoherently within the very fabric of my being. Feelings that I must convey to you before The Moment passes, you see. I'm not sure I can, though. I'm not sure I can steel my trembling hands for long enough to wax poetically about this being, without hyperbole, one of the best games I played in the past decade. A masterpiece with many juicy layers waiting to be peeled back, one by one. I don't have the energy to write the monstrous essay it deserves for all I want to do is sit in a corner and weep quietly for a few hours, trying to process it all. I'm sad not because it's over but because I can't experience it for the first time ever again. Which is an ironic statement considering the nature of this game, I realize. Allow me to try this again.

Let us set the stage.

In Stars and Time is is a cleverly designed title. The time loop structure works both as a gameplay and thematic device, a means to (purposefully) emphasize the monotonous nature of the RPG grind in relation to the protagonist's deteriorating state, cycle after cycle, play after play. You have your classic meta-textual musings about video games as well as a legitimately gripping tale filled with many twists and turns, good use of symbolism, salient points to make about Trauma and its effect on one's memory, the Fear of Change versus the necessity of it, and Depression. It all comes together by the end in a subjectively satisfying manner and...

...

And...

...

...I have to stop myself.

I'm reducing this deeply personal experience to a mere "review" and that's not what I'm here to do.

I don't know what I'm here to do.

Frankly, there are themes in this game I am not equipped to discuss, such as its intensely felt (and horrifyingly topical) commentary about Diaspora, the shared trauma of cultural displacement, a people fading away from memory like stars in the sky. That kind of analysis would be too much for a simple "review." if this were to be one, I would praise the game for being the best possible version of itself, the best version of a Time Loop story. One that perfectly applies the narrative tropes of the genre to its gameplay, plot, all that jazz. I would also state that it didn't reinvent the wheel of "Indie Gaming" and I could feel inclined to make obligatory comparisons to That One Game because that's the unfair standard by which everything MUST abide! No, I shall not do that. I need to rethink my approach. I am going to take a small break. In the meantime, please enjoy these unrelated GIF files of Christopher Lloyd from Toonstruck that I have lying around on the floor.

I had dinner with the family. It was a small, daily reminder that I am loved unconditionally. That I deserve it. Something that is immensely easy to forget. The meal was tastier than usual.

...

Back to it.

This is the brutally simple truth of the matter: there is a lot to love about In Stars and Time, with its writing, design choices, characters, nuances, big feelings. It has the potential to be a massive crowd pleaser and it would be well-deserved. It's got explicitly gay lore, as well! In case I didn't make it abundantly clear, this game is 100% queer. Every aspect of it, from the characters and the world they inhabit to the culture and its history, is built from the ground up as a queer utopia. You might recall, all the way to the first paragraph of this long-winded, amorphous ramble, I mentioned something about Change with a capital C. That is because the very concept of Change has been deified, becoming the base of a whole religion: an extremely inclusive, open-minded, progressive community that celebrates life in all its multi-faceted forms. A significant portion of its foundation is the magical technique of "Body Craft" which allows the user to literally transform their physical appearance into their preferred shape, one that better reflects who they are. Children are given many names, both male and female, for the purpose of facilitating their own change, should it occur. Literal and figurative transience lies at the heart of this belief system, meaning that about half the population is trans/non-binary, and queerness is normalcy. As a side note, I want to live in this world. Change is viewed as positive, in other words. In light of that, the arrival of a hostile entity with the power to simply stop all of existence from ever progressing by freezing everyone in place might seem like an easy metaphor to read. I assure you, the game is eager for you to make that assumption.

As I mentioned earlier, this story tackles Depression and it doesn't pull its punches when it comes to portray the more "inconvenient" aspects of living with crippling self-esteem issues. That's when the game became a masterpiece to me. I resonated with Siffrin (He/They), the protagonist. That's you!

Their struggle to navigate the constant torment of the loop is paralleled with their increasing mental and emotional instability. Intrusive thoughts overpowering their head, saying he will never be loved, that he's toxic and manipulative. There's the all too familiar frustration of not being understood by others despite not having tried to explain how you really feel to them, trapped as you are in your own head. Big issues are equated to "small" issues. I relate with most of this. Through the Time Loop allegory, In Stars and Time captures the Kafkian Horror of existing as a neurodivergent person who gets in the way of their own happiness. It's isolating, drives a barrier between your loved ones, makes you lose touch with reality. Sometimes you have good days, sometimes you have bad days. Everything eventually blends together in a sickening routine until you either drown or you start swimming furiously.

Then the cycle repeats.

It's too much.

You cannot do it alone.

You are not alone.

Let them in.

Let yourself be loved.

That is, in essence, the reason why I think so highly of this title. I related with the story and characters. Yes, it all comes down to the most obvious thesis statement in the universe. Yes, I probably didn't need to write so much about it but, regardless, I'm glad I did. I poured my feelings towards an Object D'Art onto figurative paper as I was processing them, doing away with any pseudo-intellectual vernacular in order to get to the soul of the matter. I expressed my emotions and I feel better for having done so. Now, I can move on. All that is left to do is to recommend the game.

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Go play In Stars and Time, I recommend it. It's good.

...

That's about it.

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You're still here.

...

......

..............

Go away, stupid!

---

A/N:

Thank you for reading this rather personal piece. The article was extrapolated from a thread I wrote down on the subject. You can read that here. I also typed about the official prologue to the game, Start Again, which you can view here.

As a reminder, I have a YouTube channel.

In Stars and Time was developed by Adrienne Bazir. Follow them on Twitter, Tumblr and Itch.io.

Tell the people in your life how much they mean to you, and have a good day.

[cerastes]

Whats wrong with Near Light?

It is completely clueless as to what its own point is.

"Maria Nearl" made an excellent job of portraying the capitalist bloodsport known as "the Kazimierz Major" as a soulless venture meant to sell dreams and deliver bloodshed, propaganda, and ad revenue instead. It is impeccable in its themes, to the point that Blemishine is in fact told that she is expecting far too much, by EVERYONE else, when she says she'll compete in the Major for the sake of House Nearl having a Knight Primus. Her closest associates end up supporting her not because they truly believe she's right, they support her because they literally don't want her to end up dead. Zofia, Vogelweide, Kowal and Marcin know there's no actual stopping Maria once she sets up her mind on something, so they choose to train her not so she can win, but so she can survive at all in something she's woefully unqualified for. There's absolutely no glory to be made. This is a vie for survival first and foremost.

Near Light then completely disregards all of this and makes Margaret Nearl, a character I really like, into a generic fantasy hero that Must Fight To Achieve Things. It takes the very grounded "meaningless fight for something" from the first event, which is completely in line with old knightly literature, and turns it into a shonen, which I found pretty, well, insulting. Victory equals successful ideals now, because she's Margaret "Kirito SAO" Nearl, so if she does it, it's Fine now. It spins everything into seemingly being honorable knightly duels (but we're the good ones), while giving a horribly passive centrist narrative to what was purely a criticism of late stage capitalism in the prior event. Margaret wants to change things systematically from within.. Which is just a load of hog-fucking-wash when we already established from moment one that the system is in itself flawed, corrupt, and a cesspit of maggots trying to eat each other. It makes you wonder if it was the same writer that wrote both events, because it sure as shit doesn't seem so, and if it was, did they get into NFTs in the meantime or subscribe to Infowars or Andrew Tate or whatever equivalent there is mainland China or something? It went from a clearly muddied look at a system that is inherently flawed into "Actually, if we win enough fights... We can begin the Change Everything castbar, it's pretty simple, actually".

And I bring up those particular shitstains because Margaret Nearl, VERY uncharacteristically, pulls off a "no handouts, let them pull themselves up by their bootstrings" in the event: She refuses to go rescue Pinus Sylvestris because "they can't be saved by those who already have true conviction, they must do it themselves"... Actually what the fuck? You see in Chapter 0, 1 and 7 of the main story that Nearl will go out of her way, risk her very own flesh, to rescue those who are hopeless because that's what she believes in, that's why she's admired, because she'll fucking pull through in these situations... And then she says this shit in Near Light? AND THEN, as if that wasn't enough, smashing a fucking broken thermometer over a salted wound, it is then stated in god damn Operators Files that she did rescue Pinus Sylvestris off-screen anyways, because whoever was responsible for "writing" this, and I'm being fucking magnanimously generous with that word, couldn't just have their cake, but also had to devour it wholesale in one single bite? Get the fuck out.

On screen: Yeah, they gotta earn their lives. [Some fakedeep shit about needing to be devoted enough to their own cause and beliefs] Off screen: Oh I saved them anyways lol, I need to Look Cool.

It's not good writing, g, I'll tell you that fucking much, and it makes me upset because it's a character I like in a setting I love.

Of course I'm not going to like if they Kiritofy a character they had consistently written real damn well prior to an event meant to star her.

It makes me mad because the ultimate resolution of it all is a very cowardly "I Will Now Improve Things From Within" yeah okay and Suzaku was right in Code Geass too, right? Jesus fucking christ, man.

Bottom line, it all feels like they set up something incredible in Maria Nearl, right up until the very end, when Fan Favorite comes out of fucking nowhere to save the day, and then her event contradicts the key tenets of her character thus far to boot.

So you'll have to forgive me but my opinion on Near Light is not particularly positive because it became a "Wow look at how COOL this character is!" kinda shonen shitshow when we had a very "The system is inherently wrong, the solution is not at all simple" sort of seinen narrative going on. It should be telling when Mlynar embodies a more scathingly apt take on the sides Maria herself did not cover in her event towards the narrative than whatever the hell they decided to tarnish Margaret with. It's like the Twilight of Wolumonde writer handled Maria Nearl until the end and then they put the Sword Art Online writer on for Near Light.

It's not because I dislike Margaret Nearl that I feel this way. It's because I like her and they did her dirty. But sure, wau cool horse dom wife mommy or whatever.

[everythinglucymaudmontgomery]

A Few Words in Defense of Poor Robin and the Time She Was Living In

It's been really interesting to read everyone's vitriol regarding poor Robin. I remember reading this book through at least twice before and never thinking of Robin as anything other than a fellow prisoner of Jane's. Is she a good mother, by no means, but I've always felt that she's doing the best that she can under the circumstances.

I think that her life is a literal living hell. She has a husband across country that she desperately loves but most likely thinks despises her because I KNOW she despises herself. She is forced to be a social butterfly by her mother and she can't even express her emotions by crying at night in her own room because her mother will be able to tell and will find some new creative way to torture her and, by extension, Jane. Her daughter whom she loves fiercely, evidently looks just like her father and is a constant reminder of what she lost/threw away. She is playing a part in a horrific nightmarish play just to survive because she doesn't know what else to do. At that time, and under those circumstances, I don't doubt that she sees living with her mother's horribleness is her best option for providing for Jane. I can't imagine how many times she has most likely visualized running away with Jane by herself but most likely is more afraid of the two of them starving to death and NO mother ever wants to remotely consider that option.

I'm also pretty sure that the time frame for this book is sometime in the 20s/30s. According to the website for the Canadian Museum of History, Canada was among the most profoundly affected countries. So add that to Robin's fears for their livelihood.

And please let's not forget that, for all of Robin's faults, Jane does not doubt that her mother loves her. I have more to say in defense of her and Jane and their secret ways of expressing love but since I don't want to give away any spoilers to those who haven't read it yet, I will refrain.

Another thing that I have found is very interesting about how Maud wrote both "The Blue Castle" and "Jane of Lantern Hill" is that she writes more strictly from one point of view. As common as that is in many books, one thing I always liked about the Anne books was that you got all of these wonderful insights into the minds of other characters. I have seen it a precious few times so far in Lantern Hill.

The reason I point this out is that most of how we are seeing Jane's life play out is from the perspective of an 11 year old. Don't get me wrong, a very perceptive (at times) and wise beyond her years, 11 year old, but an 11 year old, none the less. They are not known to be the most broad minded of people and have a tendency to color the world with a narrowness that can alter reality to some extent. We do have to take a lot of her experiences and outlooks with a grain of salt giving others the benefit of the doubt at least.

I have often found it very difficult bordering on impossible to read books from other time frames without being influenced by the modern sensibilities and customs I am used to. For example, how could Cinderella's stepmother get away with taking her own house away from her after her father died and treating her like a slave? Oh wait. This was not the 21st century, orphans were not looked at the same. In fact, most people looked at orphans as if it was THEIR own fault that they were orphans, like losing your parents makes you a bad person and not worth time or pity.

Am I excusing Robin's behavior? As a mother, NO. Do I think the grandmother should be excused. HEAVENS NO! But I do try to put myself in their shoes as much as I can and remember that this was a different time and place. Not to mention, as a sufferer of mental health issues and knowing that that was something that was not touched with a ten foot pole back then and good lord knows what genetic predisposition they had in that regards on top of living through WW1 and the Great Depression AND the Spanish Flu Pandemic!!!!

Anyway, I hope this makes some semblance of sense to my dear fellow lovers of L.M.M. It's been so interesting and enlightening getting to hear the different thoughts and outlooks from fresh readers of this little known but wonderful book.

[oddbunny]

Another Gael interview found in an ancient comment thread. GQ 2012, I believe.

Star of such major art-house hits as Y Tu Mamá También, Bad Education, The Motorcycle Diaries, and Babel, Gael Garcia Bernal has spent the past decade chiseling out an impressive résumé of provocative, politically engaged movies that speak to audiences around the world. His latest, Pablo Larraín's No, which debuted this weekend at the Cannes Film Festival, is no exception, recreating the moment when widely feared Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was shockingly ousted during a 1988 referendum by a brilliant marketing man (played by Bernal) who retooled his own soda-pitching prowess to get out the vote.

···

GQ: You're basically a Cannes vet at this point, right? Is this your sixth time?

Gael Garcia Bernal: There must be another time that I came. I think it's the seventh year I've been here.

GQ: Fair to say you're pretty comfortable here.

Gael Garcia Bernal: Yeah. And one thing that is wonderful about this festival is the fact that once the lights come down and everyone's in the cinema, we're all equal. And if the film's a good movie, everyone hears about it no matter what.

GQ: How do you pack?

Gael Garcia Bernal: Well, the first time nobody gave me clothes at all, but now my good friends at Dior send me stuff, and with that I'm sort of good. They give me a tuxedo to wear, and a couple of suits and things. That's fantastic because you can get kicked out if you don't dress up. I've been kicked out once.

GQ: You're kidding. When?

Gael Garcia Bernal: I came to a screening, and I was trying to go in with not a tuxedo suit, but, like, just a jacket and a made-up tie, and they said no. Impossible.

GQ: Fair to say you're not a fan of that aspect of Cannes.

Gael Garcia Bernal: Well, I'm a fan of now, since I'm still caring about those things. But one thing I must mention is that the parties used to be better.

GQ: How so?

Gael Garcia Bernal: When we brought the movie Deficit, we had a party from midnight until eight in the morning. We brought friends from Mexico that played music and everyone was dancing full-on—a complete blow-out. So much fun. God. Deficit obviously didn't win any awards, but the Hollywood Reporter did name us Best Party.

GQ: Distinctive.

Gael Garcia Bernal: I'm very proud of that award. Yeah.

GQ: Let's talk about No. You mentioned how word gets out when there's a good movie, and this is definitely one of those moments. Why do you think people are responding to this film?

Gael Garcia Bernal: Because it's a good one! Its complexity is immense. It's a highly intellectual movie and a very moving film as well. It deals with a universal issue, which is the relationship of a person with politics and power.

GQ: But it's also about using ad language to sell human rights as a product.

Gael Garcia Bernal: Well, there is a clear warning in the film. Because we think that democracy can change a lot of things, but we're being fooled, because democracy is not the election. We've been taught that democracy is having elections. And it isn't. Elections are the most horrendous aspect of democracy. It's the most mundane, trivial, disappointing, dirty aspect of it.

GQ: Because it's turning voting into a commodity.

Gael Garcia Bernal: Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols. Let's not give the electoral process so much importance. We have to be cynical about it. Let's give importance to the real democracy that's constructed on a day-to-day basis. That's my hopeful perspective on it. But my realization while I was doing the movie was like, ****, the electoral process is really horrible.

GQ: Are you a politically active person? After all, your daughter's name is Libertad.

Gael Garcia Bernal: Well, fortunately that is a well-known name in Spanish, so it's not like all of a sudden calling someone, I don't know, Mountain.

GQ: But it must have been on your mind somewhere, right?

Gael Garcia Bernal: It was. It was. I mean, it's possibly the best word ever, together with Love. My daughter is incredible and she really symbolizes that.

GQ: At this point, you are such an international star, but you still seem very committed to making films in South America. Is that important to you?

Gael Garcia Bernal: Well, it's important because it's the best place for me to fly—I feel like I can play more roles. I can kind of get a more biological grasp on what's being done and then, I can play around more. In English, I'm a little bit limited. I speak English as a second language, and that's a little limitation that I have to work around and I have to use it to my favor. So, yes, that's why I end up wanting to do more things in Latin America.

GQ: You started acting at a very young age, and starred in a Telenovela when you were a teen in the late '80s. Since No was made with vintage U-Matic video cameras to recreate the visual flavor of the late '80s, was it crazy to see yourself shot on low-grade technology again?

Gael Garcia Bernal: Well, I wasn't aware of the technology when we were shooting the soap opera, since I was very young. But I must say that one great surprise that happened is that before doing this film, we'd talk about how horrible it was to do soap operas and how horrible that video was. But when I saw the movie, I was like, man, isn't it strange how all of a sudden this format seems so nostalgic and filled me with longing for that time. It's just kind of like, wow, this nostalgic feeling—looking at how light comes into the window and everything. It gave me a good feeling. This horrendous video feels so romantic now. Who would have thought?

[mochiwrites]

I NEED TO GUSH ABOUT YOUR EPIC AU

though i will admit i haven't heard of epic the musical at all, DO know what to expect since I've read the odyssey before LMAO

scar as odysseus and grian as penelope is just PERFECT, the emotion and conflict and THE FEELS of the first two chapters, GOD scar's yearning to go home and see grian is soAUGHSDSH

i remember needing to read the odyssey in highschool and my lit teacher always mentioned "odysseus is known to be very eloquent" and "he and telemachus have a way with words" LIKE YES SCAR SUITS THOSE TRAITS SO WELL AND HE'S BUFF LIKE A GREEK HERO TOO???!!?!

im patiently waiting for chapter three in my enclosure rn thank you for your service with your fic

-🦋 (a different butterfly anon if youve encountered one before LOL)

UWAHHHH THANK YOU SM💕💕💕

insert my plug of you should totally listen to epic the musical bc it's really really good and fun :D /silly

I remember when I was first coming up with the au and trying to assign character roles I almost put grian as odysseus on instinct since I'm a grian centric writer WHEEZE but then I decided to do something a little different and put scar as odysseus instead :D

he just ???? fits odysseus SO well with the natural charisma and this whole question of humanity vs monstrosity (a theme that is EXTREMELY prevalent in the musical that I am so normal about). and as one of my friends pointed out, his character is a bit reminiscent of secret life scar which hehehe I am so leaning into more as the story progresses on <3

and sobs, scar's yearning for grian... I'm really emotional about it. I've always been a big believer that scar is down horrible for grian and so very in love with him but in this au???? I get to turn that up to eleven and hehe I love writing scar in love with grian <3 esp when they're MARRIED. it's a new sort of yearning !!! he's not yearning to be in a relationship with grian--he's yearning to return to him ;w;

I'm also really happy with grian's placement as penelope (as if he'd be anyone else WHEEZE) but he just,,, fits it so well. he's clever and stubborn and uwawawawa

don't you worry, I've already got a google doc open with the next two songs pulled up >:D I think I've managed to strike a good balance between working on thesis and then doing my own creative writing so I might be able to manage semi-regular updates :D it also helps that these chapters aren't my typical word count for chapters? the first two chapters were both 4k and 4k is a lot more manageable to write than 7k WHEEZE

I've also got a clear goal of what I want to accomplish in a chapter, so that helps too hehe. over all I'm buzzing with excitement; I adore epic the musical sososo much for so many different reasons and being able to combine my two hyperfixations into one is so cool :3

I'm really glad others are enjoying it too :D <33