#RL: lore and theories

[callmegaith]

your real honest opinion on David's character. GO!

I feel like this implies I've been trolling everyone for the past 6 years about how much I love this silly lil guy. Is there supposed to be a /j at the end of that, anon??

Bestie I would not put this much effort into a troll ever 😭 like do you think I sat there and made a whole comic series for a funny little gag??

In case this is genuine tho:

LONG READ AHEAD

cuz of course. You give me the chance to talk about David and I'll TALK

My real honest opinion on David

Paradise

Silly funny fella. Goofy as hell. I think you can read David's attitude multiple different ways in Paradise. To some he comes off as just an asshole

To others he's just a kid being a kid

I personally read his character as somewhat sarcastic and spiteful towards Jakob. His smile? Sarcastic. His "it's been a while brother"? Sarcastic. "I hope I'm not the one who died tonight" while knowing full well it ain't him? Sarcastic.

I'll talk about this more later when I talk about Mr. Rabbit!David.

David has the characteristics of most youngest siblings; He's annoying, he's childish, maybe a little spoiled and needy for attention too.

Not to jump ahead in this analysis and all but in Birthday, the box he needs has text on it that reads "hungry ghost", "ghost who is unable to be reborn" or preta. They're often spirits of people who died full of greed and jealousy. In Japanese, a preta is also "a spoiled child" or "brat"

Based on that information I thought maybe David was jealous of Jakob cuz he wanted to be the golden boy, ya know?

Tldr;

Paradise!David is just a funny lil guy who most likely harbors negative feelings towards Jakob who overshadowed him despite not even being there.

Mr. Rabbit

Who David is now. An older more mature David. Something clicked in his brain and he realized 'okay actually we're all fucked. Peace out guys I'm looking out for myself.'

Brown Rabbit:

I feel like he represents the last bit of David's naivety, innocence, and child-like spirit. The white rabbit (David from the future) sees that rabbit get killed from the window. He can no longer deny what's happening. The child within him he used to retreat to when things got bad is dead. There's only the white rabbit now

I feel like that's also something represented in David's masks

The older he gets, the more devoid of joy he becomes

He becomes more and more aware of his situation.

As a child, you have the blessing of ignorance. That's why the world feels like a safer more colorful place to you until you grow up and you can no longer protected and shielded from the world.

To me, I think that's where David's trauma comes from. His ageing and how fast he's had to grow up and become a man, despite his attempts to remain a child.

In paradise, it's likely he was still pretty much "fingers in ears going LALALALALA" with his eyes closed tightly.

Brown rabbit is all that remained of his ignorance, and now it's gone, leaving behind only the White Rabbit. The David that knows and acknowledges the cruelty of his life. A ghost of his former self.

Speaking of:

White Rabbit

What are we but the products of our traumas and life experiences.

The white rabbit, David from the future, is on a journey to save his soul and be reborn. Obviously, the goal of all the corrupted souls. There is a soul we know succeeded in that and was, in fact, reborn. And that soul is Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was the collateral damage in a battle she had no hand in. She is probably the most innocent victim in all of this family feud going on, and I think because of that, Jakob allowed her to be reborn.

Something he did not allow David to do. I think it's safe to say Jakob and David do not like each other. Seems like David's plans clash with Jakob's and so he has to be taken out of the picture, and yet, David always seems like he has tricks up his sleeve.

Somehow, David is able to go back in time to save himself. What happens after that? We don't know yet

You could argue that he failed and died in the blue cube memory of Birthday. Or that he is simply still out there rn waiting for his story to be told. Both are true cuz that's the nature of Rusty Lake.

David seems to be on his own grand journey, stuck in his own Paradox, desperate to find a way to he reborn.

The thing that stands out of course is David's corrupted soul, or rather, the many different forms of it:

This is probably due to there being multiple different David(s) from the paradoxes he's lived through.

But what is the White Rabbit David if the brown rabbit is David's reborn Asura? Is the white rabbit not his Asura too?

Hard to say. We never seen a corrupted soul take form like David's white rabbit one before, and even more than that, one that retains autonomy. After all, David had enough control over himself to write and leave Dale a letter, meaning he is fully aware of what he is doing. Yet he is prone to violence the way regular corrupted souls are.

It's likely the white rabbit is an advanced form of a corrupted soul, probably the last stages before rebirth.

That or.... Well.... It's just a mask. After all, in Paradox, David spoke with a regular human voice over the phone, meaning he was not a corrupted soul.

In that case tho, if he was already reborn... Why did he say he needed to escape his current "hungry ghost" state?

Obviously Paradox is the most unreliable game narratively cuz you're just going through Dale's jumbled up memories. It's likely he's just recalling an actual conversation he had with David on the phone at the time (which still makes no sense cuz that would mean at the time David was still a human. Or it means he's recalling some conversation he had with David at some point in his life, not necessarily Birthday. OR... That's just a memory the machine is feeding him and it never really happened. Point is, paradox can't be used as a fact for anything)

Timeline is fuuuucked when it comes to David's story so uuuh

We don't know where he is now, what actually happened to him, or wtf is going on with him.

What we do take from his whoooole story tho:

Conclusion

(you did it, chat. You made it this far into my rambly post!!)

David is a really cool and very interesting character that might not appear to be so on the surface. You only really get how complex his character is when you think of everything that has happened in the games. He has a story that is either left for us to piece together or is still not yet fully explored.

To me, David is a character born of defiance and rebelliousness, as well as the need for survival and self-preservation. He is someone who has challenged his own fate, knowing damn well he's up against higher powers, but still taking the chance to save his soul. He is resilient, and stubborn, and just won't accept his fate and die. He has challenged his position in the food chain, a rabbit who is meant to be at the bottom, proving that he should not be underestimated. To me, that's worth loving and admiring. AND IM CHEERING HIM ON! GO DAVID! GO! IM SO PROUD OF YOU MY SON!!

And that's my real honest opinion on David

Thank you for reading.

[ofieugogyshz]

I'm so mad

I had a dream about some kinda-epic anime movie and I guess it had crossovers and groups with x color association (like how idols have x image color? but not specifically limited to only idol characters)

and in this movie, otoya was part of it, and, at the very end of it during a climatic battle scene, as part of the red color associated squad, Lance joined up too, and both of them got to meet

the image was so clear and colorful and bright in my mind and i could have sworn i'd see gif and image set posts on tumblr if i didnt realize it was fake upon waking up.

also the squealing/screaming in me could NOT be contained when they both interacted. i was squealing and kicking and trying to hide my face while also cheering. all of the feelings at once. like. they just had THE CUTEST SCENE TALKING TOGETHER AND WERE BOTH SO CUTE IN THEIR ANIMATIONS HHHHHH

there were also other characters that joined up in each color-associated, at least 5 diff color squads (note: they were not called that in the movie/dream, but idk what else to call it) and 5 "original" characters for the movie (ie not from other media like otoya and lance are) and at least 4-5 characters per squad during the final showdown. and during a scene when they'd show the ones who made up each squad in like one of those dynamic flash group poses, silver also got the tiniest of cameos, but that was also probably my brain/consciousness coming alert and injecting him at the association of "red" and "son" lol.

sincerely so sad and disappointed that it was not a real thing. do you know how badly i would love to spam this blog and main with images from that scene?

[arkiwii]

Since you’re making your way through Lone Trail, do you have any thoughts about The Preserver, The Doctor, and their debate? I know some people were kinda disappointed with their inclusion over more RL.

i have. them thoughts

it was kinda hard to me to precisely understand what happened so I need to reread it all properly, it was like 5 am for me and my brain was so dead so I was pretty much experiencing the same breakdown the Doctor went through

people are disappointed about it, yea i know but i don't care!!! it's lore baby, and not like it didn't made sense. how it was related to Kristen and such was smooth and interesting. it wasn't rhine lab stuff but i really liked this part, it was seriously interesting and gave so much shape to the Doctor

anyway, if it's about making theories and such, uhhh. despite that i was able to call out endfield's setting being what's behind the door in the icefields, even tho i never cared or followed endfield, here i have smooth brain. i just enjoy the Doctor despite being literally us. they're an interesting character and they're so creature

[dulcebot]

hi, first of all i want to say how much i love your writing and hiraeth in general. i also want to start a blog but i'm reluctant because one : i suck at making graphics, i don't even know how picsart works and two; i have add, a form of adhd so i'm very scatterbrained and it's hard to organize my ideas. do you have some tips for me? also do you plan your lore and everything else in google docs or do you use something else? where do i start? thank you and keep shining bright 🪽

aaaaa hi friend, i really appreciate ur kind words and u know me... i love sharing tips!!!! but first of all i want to apologize for replying just now, i've just been really busy with real life and work :)

i know graphics are kinda a big deal and a good factor to uhhhh get attention but, in my opinion, as long as the writing hits, it will hit yknow? but if u think it's a necessity to have cute lil graphics in ur posts, i fear that the best thing u could do is to actually start playing around with an editing app :) personally i use photoshop for everything as that's the one program i've been using since forever (and i learned using it all by myself by clicking around and watching tutorials), but i've used apps such as gimp and photopea in the past and i've always found them easy to use :) even canvas could save ur day! and hell im sure picsart could help too if u just fool around until u get a feel of how it works!!!!!!

when it comes to organizing my ideas and the aes lore, yes, i use google docs. and i wouldn't be here without my silly little almost yours, hiraeth docs!!!!!! i have that page structured in various sections (such as: basics, pre-debut, the aengels of the season project, members, endorsements, era tidbits, theories (rl and lore wise), yada yada yada) and i think that the only reason i haven't lost my mind over the mess i have written in there (because i'm also a little scatterbrained) is because it's actually organized. u could dm me if u want to see how it is actually structured in case u need visuals

i usually just info dumped my ideas in said docs (obviously under the correct section) without trying to make it fancy or make it make sense, because i knew that i would eventually go back to it and try to structure it into it making sense. idk if this make sense but what i'm trying to say is "info dump then make it pretty later" because idk i usually got exhausted when i tried to make my lore ideas to make sense in one go lol

and i think that's all! if u ever have another question please let me know bc i really like to help but if this wasnt helpful at all im sorry friend........ i will link u to two other asks i've gotten about ~joining the community~ and ~lore tips~ in case u ever need them. hope to see u soon <3333333

[spooky-somewhere]

ok sorry for posting so much about this but i have two theories on why (in the lore) real life was so short. they're less like theories and more like... fanfiction. but just stick with me here ok

theory #1: the players are growing tired of the game. they're nauseous, they're tired, they need to get out. they don't want to play anymore, they want to be out of the death loop. so they agree to kill each other as fast as possible. they set a hard time limit: nine days and nights (three real life hours, about the length of most of the sessions), and then everyone will be dead. then, they can rest again. it's so short because they wanted it to be.

theory #2: the players didn't have enough time to rest. this is grounded a little more in martyn's description of the life series. basically, between games, the players are rebuilt and allowed to rest. the average real life (hah) time between a life series, excluding RL, is 185.25 days, most clocking in around 200 days, except the gap between 3L and LL which was 105 days. the time between SL and RL was 108 days. that's far below the average.

simply put, the players were not ready to enter into a new game; they're nauseous, off-balanced. their sizes are wrong, they're not themselves. they're trying to remember who they are, like ren and martyn in the cave repeating the characters from 3L. it was so short because the watchers realized they'd made a mistake, so they told grian to make sure this one ends quickly. and he does, becoming the leader of the red lives club after dying twice.

those are my two lore theories for why this one was so short. obviously i know that it's short because it's an april fools episode but i can make it have lore. no one can stop me. cleo is my most specialest guy and i need her to win forever and ever

[demonsfate]

To be that guy, Jun was never confirmed dead before Harada said otherwise, she always just missing with an RL reason to her absence being that she wasn't played all that much according to play data they had from Tekken 2's arcade machines, though that's clearly a questionable claim for Harada to make since they did consider for Tekken 3 at one point given there's left over data for her, including a VS screen image, so it's clear they weren't going to give a fuck about that at first.

Still, doesn't change how Heihachi coming back is just...sigh inducing at minimum for me, like what's the point of Reina part adopting his moveset if you're just going to bring the old fart back like this was Dragon Ball and "that attack wasn't enough to kill me, Kaka-erm, Kazuya."?

I'm p sure it was confirmed that Jun could be in TK3 but they decided against it later in development. (I have my own theories as to why that was) and like we all know now, never trust a word Harada said. And I don't think that is a true statement because we have Asuka since TK5, which was all the way back in 2004. And like... Asuka just plays like Jun so lmao.

Whilst Jun was never officially confirmed dead, but like... when you have a character repeating that she's dead (Jin) and no one, nor the lore, challenging that statement - then most fans will indeed take it as her being dead. Iirc, the first statement to officially state she was missing and not dead was in the Tekken 6 artbook, which was probs around 2009? So like... I'm just gonna say that's when they decided she wasn't dead for real.

We can't trust anything the devs say (Heihachi is dead except he's not. Or how they keep changing their statement on Jin being a villain lmao. First he was always planned to be a villain, then he was a character leaning toward the dark side, and now he was an "almost" villain in tek6 lmao) So I personally believe Jun was indeed meant to be dead. What happened in Tekken 4 was probs just Jin seeing her spirit / ghost (as that was something Jun could do, and was even had a similar experience where her father's ghost came to her to remind her who she was in TK2) and then it was around TK6's time when they started feeling they might use Jun again, and therefore, decided to "confirm" she isn't actually dead.

Not that I care because obvs I fuckin adore Jun and I am SO VERY HAPPY she's in the games again! But I'm just sayin', she's still another example of a character who was "dead" but not rly lol

Honestly, I don't even get the point of Reina anymore AT ALL. Like not just her adopting his moves, but also her even behaving like Heihachi a bit, having outros referencing him, and then her whole motivation of wanting to avenge her father. Like... what's the point of giving him a secret daughter that's just Mini Heihachi if... Heihachi is gonna return anyway? Unless it's so we can have a Kazuya & Jin vs Heihachi & Reina showdown, then... I dunno!

[thoermp]

QSMP is getting more timey-wimey:

While there is the time travel theory about the server since the beginning and some weird time stuff is definitely going on, the last streams first really etablished on QSMP that though they are lifestreams, they don't have to be set in the real time.

It started with the missing Cucurucho poster while purgatory, when he still streamed. Probably only going missing two streams after when the stream ended in a cliffhanger with the appearance of Oscurucho.

Later Tubbo held his funeral for Fred and claimed the same day, after restarting his stream that this funeral was a few days ago.

And now yesterdays stream with the whole spawn decoration.

That all doesn't really seem impactfull. It isn't hard to understand that it is like a flashback to a few days ago. The concept is far known from the viewers. But: the QMSP had always a bit of a meta persective. The official twitter accounts being canon, the ARG and especially the beginning when the streamers first started in their streaming rooms recreated in minecraft (ahh, hope I don't misremember that...). So that it's happening in real time was kinda always established. You can't just go back in forth in time in RL. It doesn't play with the same rules as movies or books or generall scripted stories. Hell, you can't even skip time. A month stays a month. So that this rule is being broken in the last streams is something new and completly different. Did the admins just give up on the meta perspective to favor the current way lore is heading? Are these the first indications that the Federation has somewhat control over time? has the Federation just bad internet and it takes a few days for the stream to even reach the audience?

[chaosintheavenue]

Fallout Opinion Survey- Results!

Thank you so much to all those who took part! We had 421 usable responses in total :D

One quick note- the nature of the data this time around means that most of the auto-generated charts are usable as they are, which does mean this post will be very image-heavy. I’d be very appreciative if someone who knows how to write image descriptions for charts could add them on!

Without further ado, let’s get into the results...

The Basics:

Favourite DLC:

Dead Money- 115 (...nice) Old World Blues- 94 Far Harbor- 76 Lonesome Road- 53 Nuka World- 27 Point Lookout- 17 Honest Hearts- 11 The Pitt- 9 Mothership Zeta- 7 Automatron- 3 Operation Anchorage- 3 Broken Steel- 2 Vault-Tec Workshop- 1

Favourite faction:

Followers of the Apocalypse- 146 Railroad- 62 Minutemen- 45 NCR- 23 Kings- 22 Brotherhood of Steel (all chapters combined)- 20 Yes Man/Wildcard Courier- 18 Great Khans- 14 Enclave- 10 Caesar's Legion- 8 Raiders (76, Nuka World and general combined)- 8 Institute- 6 Chairmen- 5 Unity- 4 Atom Cats- 3 Mr House- 3 Boomers- 3 Freeside- 2 Responders- 2 Children of Atom- 2 Ghoul settlements in general- 2 Hubologists- 2 Tunnel Snakes- 2 And the list of those with one vote each: The Family, Think Tank, Reaver Movement, Ciphers, Broken Hills, Powder Gangers, Reilly's Rangers, Acadia, Goodneighbor, Underworld, White Glove Society, Omertas, Jacobstown, post-Legion Ulysses, Cult of the Mothman, 80s, and talking Deathclaws from Fallout 2

Favourite companion:

Arcade Gannon- 75 Nick Valentine- 53 Hancock- 39 Veronica- 38 Deacon- 30 ED-E- 26 Raul- 23 Boone- 22 MacCready- 13 Christine Royce- 12 Dogmeat (all)- 11 Fawkes- 10 Preston Garvey- 10 Charon- 9 Rex- 9 Butch Deloria- 8 Goris- 8 Cait- 7 Danse- 7 Piper- 7 Lily- 6 Marcus- 6 Rose of Sharon Cassidy- 6 Curie- 5 Porter Gage- 4 Dean Domino- 4 X6-88- 3 Strong- 3 Ulysses- 3 RL-3- 3 Ian- 2 Dog/God- 2 Codsworth- 2 Joshua Graham- 2 Old Longfellow- 2 Lenny- 2 Ada- 2 And the 'list of ones': Tycho, Katja, Follows-Chalk, Sydney

-

The Lore:

(other titles specifically mentioned in the final question: Metro and Doom)

Characters headcanoned as synths: The Sole Survivor (by far the most common theory), Sturges, Deacon, Preston Garvey, the Lone Wanderer in Broken Steel, James/Dad, Dogmeat, Three Dog, Parker Quinn, Charon, Courier Six, Tinker Tom, Zeke, Arthur Maxson, Father/older Shaun, Piper, Travis Miles, Mysterious Stranger, Caesar ('cause funny'), Joshua Graham, most Children of Atom, Desdemona, Myrna, Marcy Long, Mr Burke, Vault 76 Overseer, Trashcan Carla, Cricket, many BoS and Enclave members, Reaver Movement members, Redeye, Moira Brown, Dr Zimmer, Ranger Ghost, most birds, Arcade Gannon, Elijah, Lizzie Wyatt, Kellogg, Mama Murphy, Nat Wright, and Sierra Petrovita

(please note I'm not all that familiar with Fallout 4 lore, if any of the FO4 peeps here are canon synths then I didn't know about it lol)

Fan theories/headcanons from the final question that cropped up repeatedly (in approximate order of popularity):

Vault-Tec started the Great War

Alien involvement with the pre-war US government and/or the Great War

Horses are still around

Talking Deathclaws are still around

Occult/eldritch influence (e.g. the Dunwich building) is widespread

Charon is a survivor of Vault 92

Deacon is a founder of the Railroad and his 'real' backstory was another lie

Veronica and Christine reunite

Sarah Lyons is alive

Gen 3 synths and ghouls still need to eat, drink, sleep and so on

Ghouls only turn feral in specific circumstances (suggestions include prolonged isolation and relying too heavily on radiation instead of food as a source of energy) and it is not inevitable

International travel and immigration continues

Danse and Harkness were sent to the Capital Wasteland by the Railroad together

X person is actually multiple people- suggested for Deacon, Legate Lanius and Vulpes Inculta

The US is the either the only place that was nuked or the only place that hasn't rebuilt and recovered, and the rest of the world is just ignoring them and carrying on as normal

Cass is the Chosen One's daughter

Mama Murphy is the Chosen One

No-Bark Noonan is the Chosen One (lots of Chosen One theories popping up lol)

All subsequent Dogmeats in the series are named after the legend of the original Dogmeat

Father is not really Shaun

MacCready is lying about Duncan being ill (or one person even suggested Duncan existing)

Yes Man overthrows the Courier after being upgraded

The real Lone Wanderer died at the end of the vanilla game even if Broken Steel is installed, and the Broken Steel LW is a synth

Deacon once worked for the Institute

Deacon deliberately leads people to theorise that he is the Lone Wanderer to throw them off

Deacon is or was once a ghoul (also plenty of Deacon theories)

The Mysterious Stranger is a time traveller who protects the various PCs to maintain the timeline

Appalachia was turned into a barren wasteland by the nuclear trigger-happiness of the Vault 76 Dwellers (possibly interesting aside: my brother, who buys into this one, has gone as far as to theorise that the original Great War used very low-yield weapons and wasn't that severe on the environmental level (as far as literal nuclear war goes, that is), and it was the Vault 76ers nuking the hell out of Appalachia that triggered a continent-wide nuclear winter and sent the ecology of the wasteland into the state it's in in all subsequent games)

Glory is not a synth

The (in-game) reason for lore clashes and retcons is that the plot of each game is a retelling  of the story as it's passed around in the wasteland, so some details have been embellished or mixed up

I’ll be coming back to the theories from the final question at some point, but aside from that, that's a wrap! There isn't really much potential for me to play around with the data here like with the OC surveys, so this was more just me presenting the data as it came in without commentary. Still, I hope this is somehow interesting/insightful!

[keitheaverage]

Possible Theory/HC's relating to Vivinos' PBC series:

Minako is an unpopular g!rl who desperately wants to establish herself on the internet and become famous, but lacks the kind of "zing" that would draw any kind of lasting, positive attention to herself/her SNS accounts. Her "friends" are local bloggers who run subculture fashion accounts that she greatly admires (and envies bc of their massive follower counts).

While the others have these interesting aesthetics and even background lore for their respective online personas (not to mention lives outside of the internet, keeping them grounded to reality), Minako lacks any personal style or identity outside of wanting to be "internet famous;" but she does have drive, and she would do anything to reach the viral level of her friends. Anything.

(more below)

IDK if any of the other g!rls genuinely liked Minako at first or simply pity/tolerate her bc she's a fan who otherwise doesn't have much else going on in her life (I think they all warm up to her over time tho; VYT seems happy to include her while Gyaruko seems p down-to-earth and friendly despite her fame), but regardless they've all allowed her into their circle and they start hanging out regularly enough to form their "club." And they actually do have a lot of fun going out and doing stuff together!

Whenever the others take photos or make posts for their blogs, Minako is constantly goading them to include her and tag/mention her own SNS's. She starts buying and modelling clothing/makeup she's seen the others wear, sometimes she'll straight-up copy one of her friends' photos or looks. If they make a post abt a certain trend, she makes a v similar post the very next day. None of the styles/aesthetics her friends partake in really suit her, and she doesn't always look quite right wearing them; but if they worked for the others, it's gotta work for her too, right? But even her being associated with the other members of the PBC can't give Minako the online engagement explosion she's been waiting for.

(What comments Minako does receive aren't exactly positive. Less polite fans of Gyaruko, Charlotte, and VYT begin to heckle her for shoehorning herself where she doesn't belong. For being a fake. A poser. An obnoxious little copycat who needs to get her own life and stop piggybacking off of the others who actually know what they're doing.)

Things not going her way only serves to further fuel Minako's envy and contempt towards her clubmates. The others, meanwhile, continue to innovate and thrive, even being kind enough to offer Minako their help/advice on running her SNS's. It looks so easy for them (at least from Mina's POV); compared to her, they all seem to have a natural charm and creativity that keeps their audiences fixated.

She wants a piece of that pie so bad. She's been working so hard to get even a crumb of that clout while her friends feast on it right in front of her. It's too much. At this rate the only way Minako could ever hope to be as popular as her friends is if they all suddenly quit the internet or d!ed, leaving Minako w/ the mourning spoils of their fame and clout to flock to her instead...!

What to do, what to do...? 🔪💔💜🖤

[callmegaith]

From where did the information that David is 39 come from? And how does that make any sense?

Dev post

How it makes sense:

It doesn't. But I assume he's 39 in this life cycle, like when they die and they're reborn their age rests and this version of him has been alive for 39 years basically.

It's likely White Rabbit is a different age since he's a different version of David, most likely older, but since I can't confirm, I just keep him at 39 lol. (Fingers crossed for a fully grey haired David tho)

[prionguy-old]

hello enderwalk arg people

so i saw a cool thread from @/ranbeans on twitter and it inspired me. so naturally i spent five hours straight analyzing ranboo’s lore playlist

basically i think it’s a timeline of c!ranboo’s life, and it fits kind of eerily

everything’s below the cut (and it’s a lot) :]

prologue from starkid 

 - more clock references. it’s literally just an instrumental of a clock ticking

 - instantly you think of the ender text in that pic he tweeted. like that, this could relate to dream’s clock, or foolish’s clock (reading 10:33 always iirc) 

 - note that butler in tales from the smp: masquerade kept staring at a clock

 - it could also mean a theme of running out of time, or fighting with time

 - in the thread i linked, the person also points out that there are 23 clock ticks in prologue, and angel number 23 means that you are meant to be a servant

 - this would be his beginning

introduction to the snow by miracle musical

 - the first of many songs from the hawaii: part ii album on this playlist

 - i’ve seen that album described as an arg and i find it funny if ranboo just went no. my arg now 

 - introduction to the snow only has one verse, and the rest is instrumental

 - the whole hawaii album has themes of loneliness and death, especially loneliness for this song

 - it talks about feeling isolated, which gives hints about his childhood maybe?

 - the “you’ll live forever tonight” lyric also gives off a hopeful vibe, like that of a child

dream sweet in sea major by miracle musical

 - starts with a changed reprise of introduction to the snow

 - "Rather than trying to “live forever”, it seems that the time has come for something else" from the analysis of the first part in genius

 - odd because this song is meant as a finale to the album, but it's towards the beginning of the playlist (could mean that there was almost an ending of sorts early on for c!ranboo, like a near death experience?)

turn the lights off by tally hall

 - okay this one confused me when i was first going through, but when the timeline started coming together it made more sense

 - about adolescence, and being uncomfortable with growing up, so it fits with the timeline playlist theory 

 - also about phobias and stuff like that in a way?? hm

the mind electric by miracle musical

 - the song starts out in reverse, then plays the stuff from the beginning normally

 - feels like a rls honestly i wish he could use this song

 - it's about someone put in an infirmary and condemned to electroshock therapy because they're insane. fun

 - this is where the timeline started to come together in a way. as soon as i saw the mood get darker i remembered ranboo’s line from the festival i think? “don’t let it happen again” or something like that

 - because of this, if the timeline theory is true, at some point before he joined the dream smp he did something which caused him to be condemned

 - also this

 - the mind electric isn’t the only song where the narrator glorifies themself in a way, we’ll get into this later

 - also the rejecting fanatical views,, i am thinking about that theory that endermen are servants to the ender dragon. if c!ranboo rejected that, the consequences could have been awful

live and let die by paul mccartney

 - if i wasn’t sold on the timeline theory before, i am now. after the mind electric, the mood changes drastically in terms of ideology and theme

 - this specifically made me say “holy shit” because like. that verse means that when you’re young, you’re open minded and say “live and let live” which resembles the optimistic but lonely attitude of the beginning of the playlist

 - but then when the world fucks you over, you begin to say “live and let die.”

 - “live and let die” i take to mean as him no longer caring about the people around him. how before, he wanted to help others, but then the mind electric happened, and he just. stopped caring

 - fun right!! /s

ruler of everything by tally hall

 - there are so many clock and time references in this. we get it

 - "mechanical hands" when it says “mechanical hands are the ruler of everything” refer to hands on a clock, saying how time rules over everything

 - the narrator is talking back and forth with time itself in this, which is interesting because i believe he joins the dream smp in the next song

 - the narrator appears very insecure and looking for a quick way to appeal to everyone (like how c!ranboo at the beginning was trying to be everyone's friend)

 - this is the second song with the narrator glorifying themself out of insecurity. what are you trying to tell us about your character buddy

 - also we can’t ignore this shit

 -  i don’t need to explain why this scared me right. right

merry go round of life from howl’s moving castle

 - this is a change huh

 - god i haven’t seen this movie in years, but i saw looking it up that it plays at the beginning introducing the main character, sophie

 - this is before everything changed for her

 - maybe this is when he joins dream smp? and ruler of everything is him talking to dream prior?

 - or maybe im reaching who the fuck knows

 - but him joining dream smp to this song would make sense. it feels like a clean slate and starting over, which would match with how he doesn’t. y’know. remember things

 - which begs the question: if ranboo forgot everything from before this song in the timeline, and after that i’m assuming his memory issues started,, what happened to cause this?

 - i’d say the mind electric could have caused this, but it was awhile back in the playlist. so whoever he’s talking to in ruler of everything, which could very well be dream, i believe messed with his memory somehow.

killer queen by queen

 - c!ranboo girlboss arc canon??

 - i got lost here ngl. it has a very specific vibe that doesn’t match well with what i know of c!ranboo im sorry

 - but two songs later, i get a hint kind of which makes me believe this could be him burning george’s house with tommy

 - also this song is a banger and i’m pretty sure he put it on there to scare the crown arg people because of the “baroness” line /j

mr. bad guy by freddie mercury

 - literally just more funky villain vibes. i love this

 - no more angst only girlboss

 - since cc!ranboo has said he doesn't want to do a villain arc, i take this to maybe be how he sees himself?? credit to the crown arg discord for that idea they’re smart and cool

 - if that is true, i’d say this would be another song for the “glorifying oneself out of insecurity” list because the narrator is like. seeing himself as cool and The Bad Guy, even if he might not be

 - possibly the butcher army if the next song is what i think it is

ain’t no rest for the wicked by cage the elephant

 - i have been informed someone saw ranboo listening to and grabbing songs for this off of a playlist called "my villain arc" king i hate you /lh

 - in seriousness: the song is about how the world forces people into wicked roles for money. i am getting live and let die vibes, like how both blame the world for making them not care/do bad things

 - c!ranboo take responsibility for your actions challenge /j

 - this definitely reminds me of how when he gave techno his armor, he blamed it on peer pressure. if this aligns with that event, the last two would be burning george’s house and butcher army i think

i can’t decide by the scissor sisters

 - this is probably about enderwalk

 - i really hope it's about enderwalk

 - did mr ranboo commit murder?? manslaughter?? sir

 - i really feel like this is enderwalk or ive forgotten something

stardust crusaders from jjba 

 - thank god for jjba fans, i know nothing about this

 - apparently this is the main theme for jotaro, who's power i think?? is like moving faster than time

 - and his main villain thing is dio, who's power is stopping the flow of time

 - and we're back with the fuckin time references

 - this is pure speculation at this point, but maybe it’s like. him fighting against time in a way, which would draw back to ruler of everything

a mask of my own face by lemon demon

 - the song is about not wanting to take responsibility for their actions again

 - c!ranboo i am begging

 -  specifically this lyric

 - also this lyric draws back to the bidding, in which the singer wanted to be enough for someone and showed almost narcissism as a sort of "mask"

 - also just. mask can be correlated with dream or the masquerade, where the butler stared at the clocks

stranded lullaby by miracle musical

 - been awhile since we had a hawaii album song huh

 - and,, a memory reference.

 - that lyric is talking about forgetting things

 - the rest of the song is,, im not saying time traveler ranboo but time traveler ranboo (look at this post about that theory by my friend pspspspsp)

 - he's talking to a "you" this whole time, and i have no idea who it is lmao

 - there are mentions of dreams and stuff throughout, so i almost want to associate it with the prison visit, but then i think the next song is after the festival so i guess not?

 - might also be him losing the memory book

hidden in the sand by tally hall

 - this is, lyrics wise, a song about a man whose girlfriend left him for someone else and he's upset

 - but if you look at the music video, it shows a cruise ship, on which people are friendly with each other at first, but when it starts to sink, they turn on each other trying to escape

 - i am feeling a connection to c!ranboo's views on "choose people not sides" somehow

 - i feel like he's called people selfish in lore, but my friends and i are all ranboo kinnies so we cant fuckin remember. if he has, then yeaH this definitely correlates

now i’m here by queen

 - there's a very optimistic and nostalgic tone to this

 - this one’s barely annotated on genius so i don’t have a lot for it, but i feel like it's after the dream voice disappeared or something? timeline's gettin a little funky

 - it could also be right before the festival, as he used optimism as a shield there

& by tally hall

 - this. yeah. & deals with opposites, especially good and evil. the singer talks about how everyone sees the world from their own perspective and doesn't look from another

 - and that definitely ties back to how ranboo wanted l’manburg people, like tubbo, to see from techno’s perspective

 - i feel like this is right after the festival. it resembles a lot of ranboo's speech from then, where he basically told everyone “sides dumb. just vibe”

 - and then the outro changes tone, almost like a warning?? which. yeah. a warning to choose people not sides before doomsday, or else they won’t be able to stop l’manburg from being blown up

i’m gonna win by rob cantor

 - this song is about someone fighting their inner demons

 - sounds familiar!! looks directly at dream voice

 - specifically, the singer is optimistic about winning their fight with the inner demons

 - it seems kind of chilling to me though, but it's also late at night when i’m doing these notes so it may just be me

 - if the timeline theory is true, this is where c!ranboo is mentally atm, which tracks honestly

=), an unplayable track

 - ranboo why do you hate us

tl;dr: ranboo’s songs that he would use for lore playlist might very well be a timeline of c!ranboo’s life, from even before dream smp and that’d be super cool

if you read all the way through this just know i would die for you

anyways feel free to drop your interpretations of the songs in the notes :0

[lake-devotees-of-the-lore]

Greetings casual RL fans and theorists alike. Lake Devotees of the Lore here!

In the introductory post of ours we mentioned some RL related projects. Well, here comes the first one. Behold!

Grand Rusty Lake Analysis Mind Map

Link to a full map! →

Enjoy!

Here are some screenshots so you get the idea:

What is the map for?

This mind map was created for various goals:

- To help digesting the story of the series;

- To help representing different points of view on it (e.g. theories) with their pros, cons, points of disagreement and evolution in time;

- To help memorizing major and minor details and some trivia as well;

- And last but hopefully not least to be a framework for new theories.

What is a mind map in general?

It’s a scheme containing written thoughts and drawings that helps to understand connections between various things. We think it’s the best way to visualize and explain theories.

What is Miro?

Miro is a platform for different forms of corporate organizing and presentations. Mind map is one of these forms.

Do I need to sign up so I can use the map?

No, if you are just exploring while using a desktop version. However If you want to make or edit maps, you do.

For mobile devices a free app is required no matter what.

What games can I find on the mind map of yours?

Unfortunately, for now we’ve managed to map the original Samsara Room only which also isn’t technically canon. It took a long way before we understood how to organize this amount of information so for this experimental project we rather needed a truly experimental game.

However in the future we’d like to add all the Rusty Lake lore pieces including Paradox short movie, The White Door ARG and even official blog posts.

The map is way too confusing, how can I fix it?

First of all, you are highly recommended to read a short instruction on the main screen. It also suggests sections easy to start with.

It’s also good get familiar with the notation keys of the section you are going to explore.

The map is still confusing or inconvenient to use.

Then, please, let us know. A suggestion of how to fix it would also be appreciated.

What is the next game you are going to map?

It’s The Lake. For several reasons.

To set things up we’ve decided to map content in the release order which would help to better understand the historical background. And despite Rusty Lake wanting us to play The Lake after Seasons, it was accidentally released few days before.

Another thing is, we don’t really expect the analysis of the OG Samsara Room being much anticipated among the community so we’d better map the next part pretty quick and such short game as The Lake is ideal for that.

What about theories and content provided by the unmapped games?

For the historical background sake we originally planned to ignore everything we can’t see or know without playing the upcoming games. To pretend we don’t know anything until we rediscover it. It would certainly help us step aside from our current theories and recreate them as well as their alternatives from scratch.

However for those who're eager to immediately get all the answers (which seems a majority) this approach wouldn’t be so exciting to follow so we’re not sure yet.

Expect some compromise and definitely feel free to suggest your solution in the comments below!

How can I help with the project?

You can share your lore-related questions, theories, participate in their discussions, report bugs and broken links and also leave suggestions on how to improve the map and its experience.

Soon we’ll make a separate post where we’re hoping to gather as many questions related to The Lake as possible. Feel free to join us there.

Thx for reading this! We hope you will enjoy the map! Don’t forget to leave your feedback. It's very valuable for us at this stage. See you around!

[undead-toon]

General Skullgirls setting headcanons Part 1?!

Hey, some of you know me as undead toon mun and I've been working a very.....very long list of general headcanons about the Skullgirls setting and headcaons for this blog in particular. For this one, this is one out of a unknown amount talking about personal hcs featuring the default setting of Skullgirls. Some of these do apply to my AU, but this is a kinda sorta a general headcanons kinda deal. So, readmore time.

About the ASG Labs:

Given what canon lore we know about the Labs, I personally muse that Avian was hired due to his surgical skills and possible studies in Parasites and their host, making him ideal to head Lab 08. He's arguably the world's expert on Parasites but he's not one to brag. Dude just wants to help people.

Going by hints in the mobile game, its very likely both Labs sometimes "scope" Hospitals or war victims for future experiments. In cases like Peacock and Big Band and most of Lab 08, the modifications are fully willing.

More so a Peacock headcanon for all Peacocks, including my AU, but I see Peacock as some form of Irish/Russian or their SG counterparts. Dad was Irish, hence the last name. But her Hometown was named Rommelgrad and the Grad suffix shows up in Eastern European countries. About the city of New Meridian:

The City of New Meridian is strongly implied to be of some form of Italian or its SG counterpart. Therefore, New Meridian celebrates holidays like Carnival (or Mardi Gras here in the states).

This is musing on canon bits on my end, but while its confirmed New Meridian used to be part of a "Meridian Empire", its also confirmed that during Franz's rule, he tried to outlaw "Meridian traditions" So its very likely New Meridian was taken by force. In addition, these Meridian traditions still crop up in New Meridian and nearby cities, both to spite Franz but in particular are encouraged by the Medici. Its strongly implied that the Medici's good reputation comes from some form of preserving these traditions, in a way, reflecting how rl Mafia's used bootlegging during Prohibition to gain a sense of "respectability" by providing booze in local society.

New Meridian is also basically a does NOT have a exact real life counterpart, but if I had to guess, its likely based off a mixture of Menton, France, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Francesco. Its canonly described with "NorCal meets Mediterranean weather" and comparing it to real life California cities is the closest estimate to inspiration given the dev team is located in Los Angles but it wouldn't surprise me if there's elements of nearby Pasadena too, especially for Maplecrest.

New Meridian is on the more "tolerant" end of things, being comparatively liberal in regards to treatment of Parasite hosts, ferals and other canonly discriminated groups. There's apparently no apparent segregation, for starters.

Related, New Meridian is one of the places where there are envoys to other countries located, not like New York city, due to its cultural significance. About the Medici:

Lorenzo Medici is old as fuck. Man's seen the fall of the Meridian empire and the rise of New Meridian. He probably had a feud with Franz's great great great great great great great great parents. This asshole is OLD.

However, because he's used the life gem to extend his life so much, that without it, he's not just having his age catch up to him. Dude's rotting to death and its freaking him out.

While this is absolutely not set in stone, it would not surprise me if Lorenzo seeking the Skullheart to find a means of making his "youth" permanent. Rotting to death is just making this desperation to not die even worse.

Yes, he's aware of the risks doing so.

Among the Medici's many, many crimes, the short list is: Murder, Mass Murder, human trafficking, drug smuggling, weapons smuggling, slavery, assassinations, assassination attempts, illegal gambling, fraud, fixing games, running scams, bribery, possibly defacing property.... just assume almost everything that's a crime.

The Medici Mafia, Lorenzo in particular, often share the title "local person ruins everything" with Eliza and Double in the scale of how much bad shit happens because of them. About the Trinity

While Venus and Aeon are predominately goddesses of space and time respectively, I do hc that they also are goddesses of lesser known domains. Venus' are Space, the body, Love, Lust, violence and matters of Health. Aeon's are Time, but also the mind, memories, joy and horror, obsessions and matters of one's mental state. This is part due to Double's influence in Trinitism but also a natural side effect of the absorption of other culture's gods roles and belief.

Trinitism, while taking cues from Real life Catholicism and Christianity, also has a lot of elements of traditional Egyptian mythology religious rites and the like. Its a religion with a strong emphasis on Order and personal piety.

This is a purely speculative on my end, but personally, one of my theories on why the Trinity is trying basically kill everyone is twofold: In ancient Egyptian belief, it was believed Pharaohs, which Venus and Aeon at least, technically count as, were expected to rule over a Necropolis, a city of the dead full of other dead subjects. However, the Abyss takes more cues from Greek afterlife or certain interpretations of Sheol, so Venus and Aeon have possibly convinced Mother to basically kill everyone to drag them to the Abyss to get their Necropolis. It also has the bonus of intentionally screwing over Eliza.

Despite Double knowing the true nature of the Abyss, she helped with the idea of Heaven and Hell, one to drum up wishes for the Skullheart, and two, guilt and desperation makes people more easy to manipulation.

[eightyonekilograms]

That MIDI thread feels like I am reading a Deep Lore slapfight bitchfest, and none of it makes any sense. Glad it translates to you.

This is deep lore, yeah. Rambling, including #cw sexual assault, to follow.

The most annoying thing about this is that I agree with, like, 90% of what LS is saying (and obnoxiously implying). I actually have a pretty low opinion of MIRI: I think their research agenda is mostly useless, that they have contributed basically nothing of substance to the field of AI in nearly 20 years of existence, and that if superintelligence risk turns out to be a real concern (which I do not grant, I think it is possible but far from certain), MIRI will have done very little to help mitigate that risk.

This isn’t even their fault, per se. In the past, I have compared MIRI’s efforts to like if Ada Lovelace realized that computer hackers would eventually be a problem, and spent the rest of her life trying to develop theory and praxis around computer security. It wouldn’t have worked. No matter how smart she was, she just wouldn’t have been able to contribute anything useful: the availably knowledge in her day was just too far behind; she could not possibly have known what actual, realized computing was going to look like. That’s not her fault or impugning her abilities, it’s just the gap between when she was around and when the technology was ready.

Similarly, while I think we will have “strong AI” eventually, right now we have no idea what the architecture of that is going to look like. I have a high degree of confidence that it won’t be neural networks, RL, or anything else that’s state-of-the-art in the industry right now, nor will it be the weird-ass quasi-GOFAI formalism that MIRI’s research tends to emphasize. In my estimation, if and when strong AI emerges, it will be as a result of a complete paradigm shift, and all the literature MIRI has produced on the subject will be totally irrelevant to it.

The unpleasant reality is that there may not be anything we can do at the moment to meaningfully reduce AI X-risk (although I have trollingly suggested that advocating for worldwide Communist revolution might help). People in the orbit of MIRI don’t consider this possibility nearly as often as they should, for reasons about identity and institutional blind spots-- IME, in the past a lot of LWers tied up too much of their identity in “being the only ones taking AI X-risk seriously”, forgetting pg’s “keep your identity small” advice. And what happened was exactly what pg warned about: people really resist the implication that a big part of their identity, and the thing they’ve been passionately working on, is a waste of time. But it is what it is.

So, point #1 I agree with l-s on: MIRI is kind of dumb.

Point #2 I agree with l-s on: Peter Thiel is a goddamn Saturday morning cartoon villain. No argument from me there.

But it doesn’t necessarily follow from that that he has sinister motivations for donating to MIRI. I mean, he has also donated to climate change organizations in the past. Couldn’t he just be genuinely concerned about AI X-risk? Plenty of people are, especially in the Valley. Even if you think Thiel’s motivations are purely selfish, billionaires probably have just as if not more interest in reducing X-risk as the result of us: you can’t enjoy your spoils of capitalism if the world has been destroyed.

Frankly, I can’t see what sort of sinister agenda you’d advance by giving money to friggin’ Eliezer Yudkowsky. At the end of the day, the rationalists are just not that important. It’s a small number of weirdos-- many whom infamously have giant executive dysfunction issues! If you want to manipulate the world by handing out money, anyone-- lobbyists, politicians, the media, universities, anyone other than the damn rationalists-- is going to give way better bang for your buck. And Thiel, scumbag though he is, is a shrewd investor; it’s safe to say he knows how to allocate his dollars. The MIRI donations really are about the X-risk.

And I suspect l-s knows this: my reading of that thread was that she kept on Darkly Hinting about Thiel’s true motivations for donating to MIRI, over and over, until argumate got fed up and just asked her to state plainly what she meant, at which point she hurriedly switched the conversation to Kathy Forth.

And yes, what happened with Kathy Forth was incredibly shitty, and I’m still angry about it to this day. That’s agreement with l-s #3. Not only because of what happened, but also how in the immediate aftermath, several trusted people quickly used their platforms to slander her as having always been a liar. That was fuuuuuucked up.

But everything else about what l-s said/implied about that was just wrong:

- That and the Brent Dill affair around the same time actually did cause a bunch of reforms. The “whisper networks” were replaced with more formal processes at REACH, the Alumni Committee at CFAR was dissolved after that godawful memo, and a whole bunch of missing stairs and several generally awful people were banned from events. 

- My reblog was admittedly angry and reflexive, but her reply to me was projecting so hard it could illuminate the far side of the moon. I’ve already said I don’t like MIRI nor what happened, but I’d bet good money she dismisses equally serious problems in her own camp all the time. And trying to handwave that away by saying “well my group is much bigger so you can’t take sexual assault problems as systematic, but for your group I can infer all your evil intentions from one incident” is both groundless and despicable.

- Tying it to Peter Thiel makes no damn sense. What would he possibly gain from such a thing? That is l-s trying to lump together all the things she dislikes into one Vast Conspiracy and harrumph away any objections by saying that anyone pointing out how and why it makes no sense must be In On It. That’s QAnon-tier crazy nonsense.

[romioneficfest]

My Gift to the RFF Community

Good Evening/Afternoon/Morning to everyone who has read, commented, reviewed, and most of all created content for this inaugural fest. My Black scaly heart is almost beating normally for all of the excellent works presented for consideration and appreciation.

While the one who inspired this fest didn’t contribute (and ‘tis since RL is a pain in the arse right now for most people!) I’m glad so many did contribute their time and efforts to this fest. 84 total works were submitted, 77 of which are up for voting consideration.

1 more will be published, an unabridged version of one of the fics submitted. The creator trimmed it down to meet fest rules but I promised them I’d post the unabridged version once voting started. 

However, I wish to offer my gift to you, one from a special place in my heart - the old theory of what happens to the man who suddenly has almost everything he wants yet doesn’t need? Does it corrupt him, like the Invisible Man? Or is his character so resolute that it doesn’t affect him in the least?

Thus, I give you this fic, as to how I think it would progress.

Title: Windfall Prompt: Bonus Day  Author: Dragon Rating: K+ Brief Summary: Hermione comes home from work and finds Ron sitting quietly in his office, reading parchment. When he doesn’t hear her, which is odd for him, she goes to investigate. Ron shows her what has his attention.

Content Warning: Indirect mention of minor character death; Hermione giving serious cheek

‘What a bloody long day,’ Hermione kicked off her dress shoes and put down her satchel, appreciating the fluffy carpets under her toes. Dealing with law enforcement misconduct was always a pain. They needed different procedures on Bailiff and Auror interactions.

Broken from her thoughts by the lack of dinner smell, she looked around. Ron wasn’t in the kitchen, preparing dinner like he loved to do. The kids were still at Hogwarts, with another month’s worth of term left before they returned home.

She tossed aside her purse and went to their office, the one he magically and lovingly expanded so they would have room to work without getting underfoot while also appreciating each other’s company. Sure enough, Ron was in there, wearing the half-moon glasses he picked up last year to help with the small print reading he said to her, even if she knew already. It wasn’t like she didn’t have her own sets to wear as well since there were so many documents crossing her desk that had too much fine print to read comfortably after long hours at the office.

‘Ron,’ said Hermione. He hadn’t heard her walk into their home which seemed a bit odd. He hadn’t heard her this time, either.

She walked the five steps to where he was sitting in his comfortable chair and put her hand on his shoulder. He reciprocated and without saying a word, he handed up the three sheets of parchment up to her, saying nary a word.

Hermione scanned the first page and gasped! While she was never close to Aunt Muriel, she was his family and she would treat her with respect, even if she didn’t like her too much, not with how nitpicky she was with the women in the family. Angelina was the only one. Somehow they’d bonded and were fast friends. Hermione couldn’t understand it.

She flipped to the second page, reading the document and as she scanned the page, her eyes widened for every single subsequent line she read. She flipped it to the third before looking down and seeing her husband quite lost in thought.

She went back and re-read it all, making sure she knew and understood what she read. 

‘I’m sorry about Aunt Muriel,’ the bushy-haired witch said. 

‘I’m surprised she lived as long as she did. But even Healers couldn’t help her any longer.’ 

‘She is still family,’ Hermione put her hand back on his shoulder and squeezed. 

‘She wasn’t a favourite of mine, not like you or Dad.’ Ron took the parchment and put it back down on his desk. ‘What are we going to do?’ 

‘That’s up to you, Ron. It’s not like either of us is comfortable attending funerals anymore.’ 

‘Hell no,’ He sighed. ‘I should go. It’s the right thing to do.’ 

‘Why don’t you ask Mum and Dad what they think? If they say you don’t have to, then don’t.’

Tapping on the office window interrupted their conversation. ‘Wonder what else is going to happen today?’ Ron got up and went to the window, letting the small barn owl land on his wrist while sticking a leg out for the small rolled parchment attached. ‘Need a kip or a rasher?’

The owl hooted and Ron put it on the temporary roost where the owl could have a drink of water and a snack. ‘Does this need a reply?’ The owl gave one very long hoot. ‘No? Ok. Stay as long as you need. I’m sure you’re a bit tired.’

He unrolled the parchment and scanned the short note, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘It’s a note from Mum. She said that Aunt Muriel made all of her arrangements and, said there are no services since she said we’d been through enough.’

‘That’s surprising, the way she prattled about everyone coming to visit.’

‘Nah, she meant well, even if she was as cranky as Crookshanks.’

‘Well, he is very old, and so was she.’

The silence grew between the married couple, both lost in their thoughts.

‘We could move to a bigger house,’ he blurt out. ‘I know the kids aren’t home much nowadays and that we’re both still working entirely too much but maybe something closer to Mum and work might make things easier?’

‘Our house is fine, Ron. I’m comfortable here especially since most people don’t know where we live. We decided that issue years ago. While yes, I am well known and so are you, if not in the same ways, we don’t need an enormous country estate to flaunt our prestige.’

‘A holiday, perhaps? It’s been a little while since we were off work and away from here.’

‘We can do that,’ Hermione replied noncommittedly. ‘An extended Holiday might be quite lovely, especially if it is somewhere cold this time of the year.’

‘It’s the middle of winter in Australia right now,’ Ron smiled. Hermione returned it fondly, reflecting on that complex time in their lives when grief and rage along with relief and exploration fueled their time tracking down her parents. ‘You said you wanted to return. We could take the kids with us and let them see some of the sights.’

Hermione hummed noncommittedly.

‘What are you thinking, dear?’

‘Do you remember that memorable night about a week after we arrived in Australia?’

‘Which one? Most of them were memorable while we were in Australia. So you’ll have to remind me.’

‘We were in bed after,’ Hermione blushed, ‘and you said what you would do if you had a ridiculous sum of money. While the reward money from the Order of Merlin presentation was nice,’ she added.

‘It was enough to get you your engagement ring and have some galleons in a Gringott’s account,’ Ron added. ‘I think I remember that night now.’

Hermione ran her fingers through his hair. ‘Do you remember what you said you’d do if you had Malfoy money?’

‘You mean before they were bankrupted funding the coup, left destitute and so desperate for galleons Draco went to work?’ He smiled. ‘That part is a bit fuzzy, but then I do think it was half three when we had that conversation and I was about asleep.’

She smiled. ‘You said if you lucked into a stupid amount of money someday and that if we were comfortable financially, you’d want to help others.’

‘I’ve wanted to help others, Hermione. You know the shite I went through, with a broken wand, robes that were too small, clothes that were so short I showed inches of ankles, and those ghastly dress robes.’

Hermione stood behind her husband, rubbing his shoulders. ‘We’ll see to your parents first.’

‘Mum and Dad always come first,’ Ron said without hesitation.

‘And if they don’t want it or say they don’t? What do you want to do?’

‘Tell Bill to put some in there anyway,’ Ron answered.

‘And if the will has them sorted?’

‘I dunno, maybe a Holiday?’

Hermione was quiet, with Ron turning to look at her. ‘What?’

‘Hear me out on this. What if we took some of that windfall and were able to help kids in your situation so they don’t have to be hampered with a broken wand, or robes that don’t fit or can’t afford the books for the term?’

‘Well, the books have already been seen to. You took care of those issues years ago, once you started working.’

‘True but other supplies weren’t included,’ she added. She lifted the parchment and scanned the document. ‘Reading this as I think I am,’

‘Which you probably are,’ Ron added.

‘If we got with some of the rest of the family and asked them to chip in a little bit, say 10 galleons each, once, and with this, we could fund a Trust for underprivileged students.’ She took the glasses down her nose a touch, looking over the top of them at his befuddled face. ‘Imagine being a first-year student with a hand me down wand, hand me down robes, and tattered books. How much more do you think you’d have done if you’d had a set of nice daily robes, a wand that worked, or books that weren’t held together with sellotape?’

‘I thought there was a bunch of wands they used later for the kids who couldn’t afford one.’

‘And you know the lore better than I do – The wand chooses the Wizard. ‘

‘But there are things we need to do first,’ he added. ‘Like – ‘

‘Love,’ she interrupted, smiling brightly. ‘I don’t know if you realize, but the amount bequeathed is a vast sum.’

‘Vast?’

Hermione smiled. ‘Vast, love. Off the top of my head, and the current conversion rate of 10 pounds to the galleon, I’d say it’s –

’10 British pounds to the galleon? You’re full of it.’ Ron took them back and looked at the parchment. He muttered a few words under his breath, doing his calculations.’ He looked up from the parchment and his eyes were about to water. ‘Holy Fuck. Where the bloody fuck did she get that kind of money?’

‘I’m sure it’s been passed down the Prewett lines and with your Uncles perishing before marrying – ‘

‘That left Mum sole beneficiary – ‘

‘And Mum probably asked for Aunt Muriel to pass it over it to the kids.’

‘I imagine the Goblins liked getting their hands on their portion of the Estate. I get that’s how they afford the upkeep and everything but it’s bloody buggering hard to see them get 25% of the value.’

‘At least it’s not on the Muggle side. Theirs is 40% over a certain value.’

Ron looked back at the paperwork. ‘Well, I at least want to give Mum and Dad a Holiday. They’ve not been anywhere for themselves in yonks.’

‘Oh, I agree. And we can take a small one too. It still leaves us quite a bit to play with, I reckon.’

Ron sighed. ‘Growing up, I always wanted to have galleons in my own vault at Gringott’s. I didn’t like that we had to scramble to pay for things second and third hand, listening to Mum begging us to make something last ‘just one more year’. Ron turned his chair around and gave her a crushing hug, squeezing hard but not enough to make her wince. ‘It hurt, Hermione.’

‘I know and we’re not in that situation. We worked very hard early on, saved our galleons, lived frugally and modestly and here we are. The kids are happy and want for nothing, even if they don’t get all they want. We have some nice things, we travel a bit for pleasure, and we’re comfortable.’

‘It’s hard to let go of that mindset, Hermione.’ Ron looked up at his wife, smiling at her. ‘But if we can keep kids from going through what I did, I think it’ll be a big benefit and a tremendous help down the line.’

Hermione kissed Ron on the forehead. ‘Maybe we could speak with Parvati and Lavender and ask them how much a basic robe costs? It wouldn’t be fancy but something that the kids wouldn’t mind.’

‘What about regular clothes? Aren’t most kids in better shape than we were?’

‘It’s easy enough to pick quality things up at charity shops. Supplies shouldn’t be difficult to acquire as well. I’m sure if we ask McGonagall if there are students in need, she’d let us know.’

‘You think we can do this? You think we can make a difference in a kid’s life?’

Hermione knelt, holding her husband’s face in her hands. ‘How much did you appreciate getting nice robes fifth year and a new broom?’

‘Loved it,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t know for yonks that Harry told the twins to buy me new robes, the git.’

‘But it helped, didn’t it?’

‘I reckon so.’ His face betrayed how he really felt.

‘If you’re worried about people connecting you with what we’re doing we can always put it in another name. We could call it the Muriel Prewett Trust.’

‘She’d go nutters if she knew it was named after her.’

‘So name it after your Uncles? Or Fred? Or Weasley Family Trust?’

An enormous smile broke out on his face. Ron stood, taking his wife’s face in his hands and kissed her deeply, showing her how much her help was appreciated.

‘Esteemed Directors,’ Hermione’s voice boomed in the Wizengamot. She stood in the middle of the floor, splendid in her Tyrian purple robes, a set of gold wands embroidered on the right chest and a Prewitt family heirloom brooch on her left. ‘I wish to broach the last bit of business with you before the term starts.’

‘Go ahead, Solicitor Granger,’ Kingsley’s voice echoed well in the chambers. He smiled, knowing what was about to be discussed.

‘A few months ago, the last of a particular family name from the Sacred 28 passed away from old age. Her heirs, with their blessing,’ Hermione looked up into the stands and saw her husband smiling back at her, ‘have asked to establish a trust for the students of Hogwarts.’

‘The school is properly funded for decades. Why do we require a Trust?’ The elderly wizard she knew all too well spoke first. ‘Hogwarts does not need a trust.’

‘I didn’t say the school, Mr Purifoy,’ she stared back at the old wizard who had previously been Chief Mugwump for the Wizengamot before retiring years prior. ‘I said for the students. The school is well funded. I verified the books before making this appointment.’

‘Go on,’ an elderly witch spoke up. ‘It’s time for afternoon tea.’

‘I promise to hurry, Minister Shafiq.’ Hermione looked around at the old faces and ancient robes. ‘The trust is for the students, for those in need. While many might bristle if it’s considered charity, there are those in need.’

‘No student has ever been turned away from Hogwarts, not in the centuries it’s been open.’

‘I realize that. What I am proposing is that this trust is for those students who arrive at Hogwarts with legitimate needs. How many students arrive at Hogwarts wearing second-hand robes, or a cauldron that explodes the first time they use it because the bottom is too thin? How many have out of date books because that’s all the parents can afford? Minister, we still have a few students coming to us who are the last of the War Orphans. These children have meagre means and no way to catch up with their peers. What I am proposing on behalf of the family is equity, not charity, but investment and philanthropy.’

‘Go on,’ another voice spoke.

‘These students, when they receive their letter for Hogwarts will include in their parchment parcel a letter from the Trust, offering to assist them financially, should they choose. The offering is a set of robes, all necessary supplies, a set of books, and a voucher for Ollivander’s to receive their first wand. Since we don’t recommend children having a duel for a wand, and the number of wands inherited from elders are limited, why not offer these students a head start to their magical education?’

‘That’s ridiculous! Everyone would leap at the chance to have someone else pay for all of their necessities.’

‘You misunderstand me, sir. No one person makes this decision, nor is it made lightly. Why would we make this offer to, say, Draco Malfoy, for his son when they are financially comfortable? These would be pre-screened before they receive their letter.’ She looked around and saw a few heads nodding. ‘It’s not equal treatment, esteemed colleagues, but equity, where those students in need of a hand receive it. While we educate them, we’re also meeting their basic needs and we’re building a better future for our way of life. The funds wouldn’t be thrown around for parties, or fundraising. No, this trust is self-funded by the family in question. And there are ample funds to last for centuries if handled properly.’

‘How many can this help immediately, Solicitor?’ Another voice spoke up.

‘Immediately? Ten students. That accounts for half the starting fund. For every student that doesn’t need assistance, the funds accumulate. Eventually, if properly managed and the one entrusted is bonded to manage the Trust, in 30 years, half the school could be seen to, given current enrollment figures.’

‘Half, you say? That’s a load of rubbish,’ Ewan Purifoy retorted.

‘Rubbish, you say? Since you grew up when being part of a Pureblood family guaranteed your position in society,’ a rumble erupted through the chambers, ‘there are dozens of children starting at Hogwarts who lack a quill or an ink jar. How much return on the investment would we receive to giving those less fortunate children an equal start? How much benefit would Wizarding society receive for these children coming to Hogwarts, not privileged but receiving the tools and supplies they need to prosper? I don’t see you opening your vault, Sir, to afford an opportunity, though you have the means.’

He harrumphed. ‘If the family in question wishes to bankrupt themselves on children who won’t appreciate the generosity of charity, who am I to tell someone how they afford it?’

Hermione bristled. ‘You stood aside when children died. You sneer at as charity is an investment in our way of life’s future. Wasn’t enough magical blood spilt for supposed Pureblood Supremacy? They are our future. You aren’t part of it, Purifoy,’ she pierced him with a hard stare, earning one in return.

A roar erupted.

‘Order,’ Kingsley’s voice boomed. He waited for the room to settle. ‘Motion to proceed on approval of the Fredrick Gideon trust raise their hands.’

Most members raised their hands.

‘Motion to dismiss?’ Two hands went up.

‘Motion is hereby approved. The Fredrick Gideon Trust for Hogwarts students is available as of 8 am tomorrow. Adjourned.’

Immediately Hermione was engulfed by strong arms. “You did it!” Ron spun her around.

“No Love. You did it.” She kissed him.

[briannaswriter]

I was told I should take the high road. I should just accept that Hillary refuses to speak with me again. I shouldn’t expect answers from someone who won’t give them - has never given them. At the same time, I don’t feel like I can genuinely let this go without talking about it in a format that isn’t DMs.

This is really long, sorry? But I wanted to get all of it out because I want to be free of it, I don’t want it to keep being an ache in my heart whenever I think about it. 

tl;dr at the end. Feel free to reply, idc, I’ll get back to it tomorrow.  

I met Hillary in a group called @/heroesrpg in about 2012. While I was there, I operated under two pseudonyms: Miranda/Isa and Bea. The why for that is a long story. I have nothing negative to say about Hillary here! She was a great friend who taught me a lot about writing and challenged me to become a better writer. I don’t think I would have gotten this far without writing with her. When I left heroes in about 2013, we didn’t keep in touch. I didn’t really stay in the RP world so I didn’t pay attention to it.

In 2014, I was invited to join Ashbourne at her behest. I don’t recall the specifics of how I found it, I think it was simply me reaching out to her again and finding out she was in a group which she invited me to join, too. I ended up playing a woman named Nadeya Khan who was in a ship with her that was later discarded. Later I picked up Shiloh Morgan, the best friend of her character, Adam, and later Mira Lowell, the elder sister of her character Meyer.

I won’t lie, these dynamics were a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing them.

I was upset that my ship with Nadeya and Adam was discarded (I have a distaste for Adam and the FC Ben/edict Cumberba/tch now, I’m petty, sue me), but I think it was more sucky when all threads with them trickled to a halt. To me, it felt like my character was no longer important because it wasn’t a ship, even if a friendship dynamic would have been just as interesting. I ignored this feeling.

I was sad to leave the group, but I was uncomfortable with an interaction from another player and feeling pushed aside in favor of other ships so I made the decision to leave.

I did keep in touch with Hillary, or I attempted to, but once we were no longer in a group together, we just sorta drifted. We didn’t talk for the longest time here and I forgot her url for a long time. Frankly, I’m not sure how I found it again!

We started interacting again in about September 2018 when I think I reached out to her. This eventually ended with the creation of @lethe-rpg where we could write about old time favorite characters - and we wrote so much in Lethe’s run. Everything from romances, to long-lost parent, to siblings, to best friends, to unrequited loves. We wrote nearly twenty characters each and over ten ships in the time Lethe ran from September/October 2018 to June 2020 when it closed. Or, I should say, we wrote all of these things in theory and a lot of it happened behind the scenes in DM’s between us. When we did write things, they would frequently reach only a reply or two before we had to move onto the next one because she didn’t want to finish the one before. I’ll fully admit that I found this frustrating after a while - but I found it difficult to say no to her about anything, or to speak out against her.

Not only was she my friend, but I very much looked up to her. I considered her a mentor as much as a friend, and her approval meant a lot to me. It meant agreeing with dynamics I didn’t enjoy

pushing for a ship between my character Wesley and ANY of hers. Even if it was already mentioned to her that I had an ongoing connection with another character. If I tried to make this dynamic a friendly connection instead, it was promptly dropped altogether.

trying to get a ship between Gemma and Nate when I mentioned point blank that I didn’t want a pre-planned romantic thing with him after his other one failed.

the fact that Gemma and Lily didn’t get like any interactions completed together until I relented a little on Gemma/Nate. Any mention of them was largely forgotten. Half the time, Lily was treated like a child who hadn’t experienced any pain. Not just from Gemma, but from Gabe and from Hillary herself, who seemed to think that my young FC meant nothing compared to the history I had written for this character. Lily in general was ignored until she brought Lachlan along and prodded him into a ship with Lily. Do you know how many starters I wrote on Lily that were ignored?

the fact that Pat/Kate were the oldest ship in the group but they had like one completed thread the entire time lol.

the fact that Odette/Kate were the oldest family dynamic in the group who had like three NOTES between them.

the fact that Odette/Orion became a ship later who were just... never written. I can be honest now, I found them boring and I’m wondering if she felt the same, or if the lack of writing made me dislike them. Either way, Orion became a drain on my Odette muse, just as the lack of Kate/Odette was.

most stuff with Odette makes me sad. I feel like I had really good connections for her that... didn’t work out, and maybe I took to long to address it.

Mira/Andreas is a dynamic I blame myself on. I did feel sorta like I wasn’t getting anything written with her old ship, and I think me and the mun were drained on it, so while Mira was on hiatus and the mun for her last ship, Clark, was debating letting him go/killing him off, I didn’t mind discussing a new ship. I wanted this ship to be a slow burn, I wanted proper closer on the last one because it was a good ship and the mun is a good friend. This was handled with so little tact on her part, we were instantly hitting ship dynamics from the beginning and I found it callous. I dragged out replies just to avoid it. A shame, because I loved the dynamic, but the way it was handled put a bad taste in my mouth

she wanted an August/Delilah ship? Which I didn’t really want, but she’s really good at convincing you bit by bit that it’s a great idea. When I finally jumped onto this ship and flung myself into it, we got like two notes into it and nothing. Are you seeing the theme yet?

I got nothing against Arthur/Cora because I loved writing them, the only thing I did dislike is how rushed they were and how little I got to explore some of the Riverborn aspects of Arthur’s story with Cora. Also a pregnancy happened hella fast.

But I did have something against the Meadowes dynamic altogether: we had so many pieces of it to use that were never written. I failed sometimes on my part, but a lot of it was Hillary getting easily distracted by something else. Cora/Faolan were rarely written beyond the first reply to a thread. Gabe/Faolan were often two notes in and done. Faolan/Alistair lasted a bit longer, I was impressed. Gemma/Lily was mentioned above, but I’ll also mention how often she tried to take pieces of Faolan’s history and twist it to be her character’s pain without any consideration to previously discussed lore or connections. It wasn’t even about a connection anymore - it was about making her character the focal point. Look at how the Daniel Bisset, Aurelie, and Gabe things turned out: half of the plots were twisted to benefit Gabe’s momentum in the story, and the pieces of angst that should rightly lingered on Aurelie were shifted to the side. I didn’t even write that ship, and sometimes looking at them made me feel like a discarded sweater, but they were cute. Anyhow, this is long, moving on.

Faolan/Saby. I literally almost forgot about them, but like... Legit, I’m glad this ship ended because Saby was wholly too dependent on Faolan’s feelings for her, which he couldn’t even acknowledge because he was still in love with his two centuries deceased wife. Was this handled gracefully, did we get to slow-burn some of their stuff in writing? Sometimes. But again, they weren’t really written, and the ship was pushed and pushed, even when I wasn’t really interested in writing it because I didn’t want a ship for him yet.

Aliza/Tien was twisted out of me piece by piece, prodding at the parts of the Aliza/James connection I found uncomfortable (like the murder, like how difficult it was to plot after a point) until Tien seemed like the best answer. This was late enough into Lethe that I woke up enough to cut the ship off and drop the dynamic. In hindsight, I regret letting this even get so far.

Jonas. Just... most of the things written with him lol because he was constantly pushed onto my characters and others. Jo was hinted as a thing, Wesley was hinted as a thing, I think Nate was at one time. It definitely opened my eyes to the fact that she wanted a ship and that dynamics outside of that were largely ignored.

Do you know what it was like to put your heart into a character / story that was ignored ENTIRELY because she didn’t ship with them? Do you know what its like to be excited about a friendship or sibling or parental dynamic that... stopped getting written because your friend only wrote the character for a ship and the next shiny thing attracted her attention and instead of letting the character go, she made you think the next reply was right around the corner? Do you know how many threads we wrote that didn’t go anywhere, and how thrilled I was to write them still because I thought each time it would be different?

TL;DR: if it wasn’t a ship dynamic, it wasn’t written. If it was a ship dynamic, it was sometimes written. If you weren’t doing any of those things, you were ignored.

TL;DR 2: Do not misread this, please. I understand that RL comes first, I understand that dynamics change, that you’re allowed to change your mind. But do you realize how often I was strung along, or how often I was shoved aside? How hard it was to keep a character going sometimes because their big connection was only important for about a week?

and biting my tongue when my own feelings were callously ignored

when we wrote a ship between Selene/Gabe which was later discarded for a ship with Aurelie which had a much better chemistry, but was handled with little tact for my own feelings as I received constant updates on how their ship progressed, and also how the friendship we developed between Selene and Gabe was just dropped altogether - as it was with Adam/Nadeya so many years ago - instead of revamped to fit a changed dynamic as we discussed ooc.

when I would message her and be ignored unless it was about one of our ships

like the fact that I became an admin in Lethe to help her out and eventually the burdens of handling it were on my shoulders. I don’t mind this, but when it came to asking her for help on simple matters (sending me the psd for banners when I switched computers and no longer had it, posting a bio, skimming a post so I could verify it was okay to post, plotting out future events, posting unfollows/follows for people) or asking if she could write something from an admin post, getting a “sure! I’ll do that later!” and then finding out it wasn’t done for a week until I sucked it up and did it myself. We addressed this eventually, but Lethe ended shortly afterwards. 

So. That’s how the last two years have gone, and lord knows how much I’ve forgotten. Hillary and I wrote so much over the last two years, and we definitely grew close. I thought we were beyond just writing friends, that we might have been real friends (after all, we sent christmas/birthday gifts to each other. Hell, I still use the mouse pad she gave me).

I ignored the way she ignored me if we weren’t writing something interesting. I ignored the way she didn’t care about my characters even passively until I shipped with her in some form. I ignored how it felt when entire sections of a back and forth DM was ignored if she didn’t care about the character. I ignored how she refused to write with other people because she disliked their FC, or she didn’t want to write with the mun, or she found the character boring. Half the time, she found a character boring because she didn’t bother learning about them, and the moment she did read about them, they were intriguing. I ignored how she belittled my other ships with other players because “oh I don’t think they click” or “imo that one is boring” or tried to poach those characters to one of her ships. I ignored how she made me feel like a part-time friend sometimes and her best friend other times. 

I ignored the way she didn’t help with admin problems even when she knew admin duties were taking a toll on me as people demanded more and more from me. Not even when we discussed ways to handle things on both our parts to make it easier and promptly ignored them the first chance she got.

She made me feel so important when we would headcanon things. It felt like my characters were important, and that I was a good writer with clever ideas and intriguing characters, and that writing her was reaching a pinnacle that others couldn’t reach. She never said this, I’ll give her credit for that, but I have to admit, I felt like my characters didn’t work out unless I had a connection with her.

The last few months were eye opening. I had already spent the last year frustrating from her lack of leadership as an admin, and anger for the way she ignored people’s feelings even when it was pointed out and gave the bare minimum when interacting with other people, and sadness for the fun dynamics we had discussed but never wrote beyond the posted biography. When Lethe ended, I was ready to let it go and move on, I said my peace about my admin things and letting the characters go meant a fresh start. To me, we were friends REGARDLESS OF BEING IN A GROUP TOGETHER OR WRITING TOGETHER. You don’t talk about ooc things and ic things as much as we did only to stop talking the instant you’re done writing together, right?

Wrong. She didn’t even help us close the group that she created, or helped us discuss things with members who weren’t sure what was happening. I gave her time, just short messages about random things because I wanted her to know that I didn’t hold Lethe’s end against her, that we were friends anyway. Those messages were ignored. I gave her more time and then after nearly a month or maybe two, I finally messaged her on tumblr with a brief snippet on how thankful I was to know her because she helped me as a writer, and apologized if I implied Lethe ending was her fault (which I still agree that it wasn’t entirely, it was a situation handled callously and frankly I still think people should have considered that Hillary was barely 3% of the admin team at the time since Ally and I were shouldering the burdens of everything else). I mentioned how I felt like our friendship was being ignored because we weren’t writing together, and how I had thought after nearly two years of talking that we were friends enough to chat once in a while at least, but if we are only RP friends, let me know so at least I don’t have to fucking think about it.

Do you think that got a response?

It didn’t. She didn’t log into discord to chat about it or something else, she didn’t respond to the message, nothing. She quietly unfollowed me and then blocked me. She unfriended me on facebook, I feel like that’s answer enough.

I’ve known her at least eight years and while some of those times were brief, the last two years were most certainly not. And not only does it make me angry that I’ll never know whether she just dislikes me, or whether I made her uncomfortable, or what, I’m also just... really upset that I lost an eight year friendship. There’s only one person I know longer than her and I had hoped that, if not real friends, then we would still be able to meet up in another group together someday. Now it’ll never happen again, and it devastates me. I can count my friends on one hand and I thought, you know, that she was one of them. It feels like a physical blow whenever something comes up on the dash that involves her. I feel so stupid for thinking we were friends when she showed me her priorities in Ashbourne, when she showed me in little pieces here and there throughout Lethe. I feel stupid for writing this entire thing and crying about it. I feel stupid for assuming.

And I don’t know how to talk about this in a way that’ll let me say goodbye to it because I do need to let it go, but I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose my ability to write because she’s been such a big part of the writing journey for me.

So here it is. Eight years of friendship summed up in however long this is and here I am, trying to let go - and still a little part of me hopes she’ll see it and reach out about something, anything. And a bigger part that’s angry and doesn’t want to talk to her ever again because I don’t want to do this another time.

tl;dr:

I miss my friend Hillary, but also she’s kind of a shitty friend who only seems to care about people when they are writing with her and I’m an idiot for thinking anything else when I’ve had eight years to learn it. Likely if she did find this post, it’ll be misinterpreted in every way until I’m not only an idiot, but also I’m a bully who didn’t give her time and space, who pushed things on her she didn’t want, who she pitied. Because it just occurred to me now how easily she can warp the truth, how she can prod things bit by bit, until it fits just how she wants things to look that’ll benefit her the most. I love my friend, but I’m done. No matter how much I miss her, I deserve more than to be the butt of whatever joke she wants to say to make this sound cool.