#also :) there was a certain part in that post that really grinded my gears and well. ill keep that to myself

[blubushie]

About that post about mental illnesses people don’t know how to not be obnoxious about—yeah. Like, on one hand, it’s great that people are more aware of different types of mental illnesses! On the other hand, I feel like it’s sort of being baby-fied to be easier to digest, which is not the way to go about it! I think the sense of “we should normalize mental illness” has been misinterpreted as “oh, we’re ALL a little OCD/ADHD/etc.” instead of “some people function very differently than you, be normal about it”, you know?

FUCKING OATH

"Oh that wayward tile is fucking with my OCD". Really. Because my deadbolt fucks with my OCD. In the sense that if I don't make sure it's locked five bajillion times before I leave, somebody is gonna break in and steal all my shit.

Genuinely hate that shit. Yes everyone is "a little" OCD/ADHD/ASD/whatever, in the sense that everyone exhibits symptoms of some kinda mental illness/disability sometimes. That's just part of having a brain. The difference is that when it genuinely starts to negatively impact your life, it becomes a disorder. That's why these disorders have names.

Like no, I don't have OCD because sometimes things being disorganised when they're supposed to be in neat fashion grinds my gears. I don't have OCD because I like my home to be clean and tidy. I have OCD—obsessive-compulsive DISORDER—because I'm convinced that if I don't check that deadbolt 500 million times then I'm going to forget it one day even though I'm certain I already checked it 15 times before bed, and then someone is going to come in and kill me in my sleep. I have OCD because I'm convinced that if I don't methodically clean the bore of my rifle until it reflects light the whole way through that she's going to misfire when I need her and I'm going to die. I have OCD because I'm convinced that if I don't act on my compulsions exactly when I get them that very bad things are going to happen, and that this will be my fault, and this happens so often that it negatively impacts my ability to function in the day-to-day. I have OCD because my intrusive thoughts will occassionally drive me to self-harm because it's hard to think about whatever horrid thoughts I'm having that day when I'm in pain. I have OCD because this doesn't happen to me sometimes, I'm like this ALL THE TIME. IT IS CHRONIC. IT WILL NOT GET BETTER.

Also "everyone with OCD is a clean freak". I'm not a clean freak or a germophobe. It's like people only know OCD as "people who insist their house has to be spotless" or "are germophobes". Yeah it's common but it's not all of us. Or even most of us.

[crescenthistory]

Hi baby!! How are you doing? I’m studying the last bits of my (finnaly😔✊) last exam on Monday!! I can finally see the light again (not being dramatic at all, never).

Im just curious and wanted to know your opinion about a certain ship! What do you think about DarkSun I think that’s the right name? Barty and James being a thing is something I discovered thanks to @ellecdc and I’ve been in love with it ever since! It’s such a fun dynamic to play with!!

Lots of love babe🫶🏻💖

hi my love<33 i'm glad to hear that, best of luck with your final exam!! then get yourself some well-deserved rest. i have a presentation on tuesday that i'm currently working on at godspeed, will update if i survive:,)

darksun is one of the names for james and barty, yeah! i usually just call them jarty or sunkiller<3 props to elle for putting you onto them, they're great!

sunkiller and bitchkiller (sirius/barty) have been some of my favourite barty ships to read for and mess around with, but so far i haven't really engaged with them as poly ships/reader inserts. most of my reading is actually non-reader insert on ao3:,) there are some fucking GREAT pieces for sunkiller, bitchkiller and my rare-pair-but-favourite prongsfootkiller

i would absolutely not be opposed to writing reader insert fics for them though! i would probably just be a bit picky with what kind of storylines i would write for them in order to maintain the original dynamic. the inherent rivalry/hatred between barty and james/sirius is a large part of what makes these pairings so intriguing to me, because you get top tier banter and internal conflict. if i was to do poly!sunkiller, i think the best way to go about it would be with an elusive black!sister!reader. one who has a troubled relationship with both of the brothers because that allows for tension between reader and both james and barty to keep that "we should be hostile but you're really fit and intriguing and fuck you but also fuck me" energy alive. with poly!bitchkiller i would probably try and achieve the same effect by having reader be a prefect in either slytherin or ravenclaw to grind both of their gears and perhaps open their eyes to enjoying women in power. or! my darling trope, post-prank bitchkiller…

in general, i am just a huge contender for the poly ships i write for to be more or less equal – i wouldn't want for barty and james/sirius to be whipped for reader but hate each other. i need mutual unhealthy obsession and rivalry 🙂↕️🙂↕️ i think i could make an exception for poly!prongsfootkiller because james and sirius are the epitome of best friends, so with them i think i could enjoy writing barty and reader being emotionally closer to begin with. two couples falling for each other, you know?

this is a long winded way of saying that i fuck with the ship and would most definitely write for them ! headcanons, blurbs or full-fledged fics, we'll see 🌝

[heretherebedork]

Not to dwell on the fanservice issues since I also cannot engage with that part of BL for similar reasons, but I am truly concerned that the industry still doesn't have a way for brand pairs to end without causing massive harm to the actors, both personally and professionally. Sometimes I think we've made massive strides in fanservice, but then I see all the massive brand pairs currently in existence and how companies have not figured out how to let these actors move beyond them. I'll try to avoid using specific names, but there are some HUGE brands at GMMTV right now that one day might want to branch beyond BL . And we have seen how the breakup of a certain GMMTV pair caused fan devastation, harassment of a new actor, and frankly something that isn't talked about enough - actors now have to contend with a loss in job stability and probably income. Sure, their personal fans and casual viewers (me) won't care - but I am not paying money to go to their fan meetings or brand events or their concerts, and those pair fans won't either. And companies seem to just be sticking their head in the sand and hoping they can recruit the next big thing before a pillar explodes.

Even in a less controversial moment, it was just announced that a pair is ending as one needs a health break. And, thank god he's getting one. But it's also insane that their careers are going to have to undergo fundamental changes and potentially job losses (aside from dealing with angry and heartbroken fans, of which I've seen many) because they might have new onscreen partners.

I can only think of a handful of examples (I'm specifically thinking Max and Tul but there are others I'm sure) where actors have been mostly able to end their specific brand partnership (or move to other projects) without imploding the BL universe. But in those cases, I never get the impression it's because the company has a well thought out safety plan that they've discussed with the actors to minimize the impact on their careers and move them in a new direction. It seems like the lucky few have great working relationships with their co-stars and are basically able to leverage either their personal friendship or stellar working relationship to put the brand pair out to pasture with very gentle hands.

There's other issues about fanservice that really grinds my gears, but in light of the fact I believe some pairs will be ending soon, this has really made me extra angry. It feels like company negligence is going to stab some of these actors in the back when they feel like it's time to fly the nest. And fans are enabling their poor behavior.

This is all a very valid worry and one that I definitely share. Fan's response to actor pairs breaking is extreme and the ones who are really dating are even worse. I think of MewGulf every single time and the vitriolic response that people had to them and it's just... so scary, honestly.

I still see people on the some of these shorts and posts lamenting an actor pair that did one show together and never planned on doing another and people expressing how heartbreaking it is that they're not still together and just... yeah.

And having no plan for ending these pairings and their careers after does absolutely trap these actors in a portion of their career until or unless they're willing to give it all up in order to move on to something new. Which is not how it should be! Fanservice is meant to be fun and compliment to the shows, a fiction for the viewers that they enjoy, not the end all be all of an actor's career.

And there are just... there are so many actors that, right now, if they announced that they weren't dating... they would be destroyed. Utterly. Completely and totally and people would be rending their clothing and screaming about true love and it just scares me.

Fanservice has a place but I think there has to a pull back on them.

I, admittedly, don't know much about pairs that have moved apart in the longterm but I've seen people still mad about short term ones and making up longform fictional excuses for them not being able to work together but still being in love and it's just... it's wild. It's scary. They are actors! Acting! I promise!

I don't trust anything until or unless they're not working together anymore. They have to not be working on any shows together before I'll believe anything because look at what the shipping gets them. The dedicated fans, the hugely defensive fanbase, people so loyal that they will look for any sign they're in love and buy every single fanmeeting ticket, music event ticket or piece of merch based on their relationship.

Truly wild.

[slimeciclecock]

need to clarify for my own peace of mind: most of these feelings are not because the actual person involved who didn't like what he saw even though he clearly stuck his nose where he shouldn't. It's completely fine to be uncomfortable (though his reaction was a bit aggressive)

this is just me being salty to that one fucking weirdo puritan post

purity culture so fucking stupid btw you can't hide behind a wall forever, if you go looking for shit you're obviously gonna find something and you can't police everything just curate your experience literally block a tag

also L moment "characters are an extension of ccs" no I think that's a skill issue that you made your dumb little oc exactly like you. change your skin and stay out of unwanted spaces

[itsadragonaesthetic]

Below is a post about all of the things I've noticed at 4 months on testosterone. Making this for myself and also anyone who is thinking about starting testosterone. This does get personal and talks about private and sexual stuff, as a warning. I would have loved for people to openly talk about it more when I was still deciding, so I choose to talk about it.

Facial hair grew my peach fuzz 5 times longer and stopped. It makes it easy and natural looking to put mascara or rubbing eyebrow pencil stuff on it tho. No true facial hair as of yet.

My voice FINALLY started to properly drop after 4 actual months of torture. I have had so much mucus in my throat ever since I hit one month but only recently does my voice sound much different. It's genuinely harder to talk higher.

My bumpy skin thing came back after years. As a teen, I had that skin condition that causes excess keratin in the hair follicles on some parts of your body but it went away when I was around 19 or so. Now it's back.

My acne is very much there but it's not too bad. Not nearly as bad as before i started all my meds, I must say. Considering I dropped nearly all of my acne meds shortly before starting T, this isn't that bad. Started as teeny zits and now I get maybe a cyst every week or so.

My skin is extremely oily but not much more than it was before I started taking meds for my original hormone and health problems. I'm just a naturally oily person. Again, my acne is much less than it used to be despite this.

I very much smell different. When I sweat a lot, it's more of a nice musty smell and not so much of that sharp onion smell. My pee smells VERY different. I'm not sure how to describe it.

My discharge is different, but not abnormal. Interestingly, it's more acidic. I thought it would get less acidic but nope it's staining my underwear.

The natural lubricant discharge has not gone away whatsoever. No vaginal atrophy to speak of.

Similarly, i haven't felt any cramping after orgasms. Maybe a teeny bit, but I think it's actually my intestines and this was always a thing before I started T.

I got some proper tummy hairs! I don't think I've gotten hairs anywhere else except my tummy.

My shoulders and back have skyrocketed in size. My muscles aren't more defined but they are bigger.

I haven't gained or lost any weight really.

Appetite has been pretty alright. I occasionally get sudden cravings but they go away once I get some protein in me.

Bottom growth has been slow and steady. I don't really feel it at all like I did in the first two months but it's a teeny bit bigger pretty much every week.

Sexual stuff has changed a surprising amount. Certain kinds of stimulation have totally vanished, and lots of fantasies of mine have become totally uninteresting. It's been like being a little teen again; just making random shit up and trying to find what grinds your gears.

Attraction hasn't changed much. It's perhaps slightly more intense. I get a small crush on at least one girl in every social space I end up in.

My hair is impossible to keep clean and seems thinner. Not in a balding sort of way, more in a general hair quality and volume sort of way. My hair is so oily that it just sits flat on my head. It's honestly only nice for a few hours after showering. And NO I don't wash it every day my hair habits have not changed in years.

I'm more gassy? I'm lactose intolerant and anti depressants mess with ur digestion but it's more noticeable now.

My chest is decently smaller. My chest was SUPER puffy beforehand. Rock solid all the time. Almost constantly in some pain from the swelling. My chest is still more solid than the average tit, but the fact that they're not just overripe grapefruits on my chest and they just feel like fat bags is CRAZY.

This has interestingly not made binding a lot easier. Binding, especially with tape, has always been a challenge for my super titanium tits despite them not being that big. I can't achieve a flatter chest, but it's slightly easier to shape my chest and just make it look like I got decent pecs with some chest fat.

I might add more if I think of it!

My unibrow is now even more unibrow. I would shave it but my hatred of the white patriarchy burns hot within me.

I don't really get cold anymore. I'm slightly tubbier now I guess but I was tubby sometimes as a kid and teen and I hated the cold. I keep thinking about how mild this winter has been but then I check the temperature and it's like 38 degrees F outside with a 35 degree wind chill and I'm like.......... huh...

My family says I've gotten stronger. There's been multiple instances where there will be a bin full of groceries or I have to carry a dog across a street back to his house and someone I know will be like "how did you do that?" I've been conditioned to never question my strength and just do whatever is possible so I don't notice it.

[arson-09]

I feel like a very good antithesis of the ACOTAR fandom is the Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss Fandom.

Everyone ships everyone there. Even when characters are asexual (ex. Alastor), most people generally agree that shipping does not form any basis of how it changes the canon nor have any real effect on real life. Even the creator of Hazbin Hotel has even stated she doesn't mind people shipping whoever and I think that's a very healthy fandom to be in.

There's also one group of characters called the Vees which are the villains and they've committed heinous crimes (like everyone has in the universe cuz they're in literal hell, duh) but there is a large portion of people who like those characters but agree they are bad 'people' in the eyes of irl morals. I would say that they are similar to Joker fans in DC, too.

As you can really tell from this post, I've grown up with a bunch of other fandoms. Which is why I think new fandom goers have such trouble understanding ships like Rhysta or other crackships or rare pairs. I believe Matpat made a video about this a year or so back talking about how fandom goers nowadays have a certain part of their personality (with the basis on the MBTI) that's not attuned to theory-making or being part of a fandom and I think that video can be used to analyse the difference between fandom ten years ago and now.

Here's the link to the video if you're interested, it's a really good analysis on mbti and how fandom spaces have changed: https://youtu.be/ILFfj2zYwHY?si=nCZcfAztcKX8HxNU

Side track: I really really miss Matpat.

i saw this, was going to respond and then forgor im sorry

honestly I have nothing to add, i am definitely adding that video to my watchlist! I also really miss matpat

The change in fandom, or rather in influx of these sort of people has been annoying but I must admit also entertaining. There's truly no better way to describe those people other than boring and I think that grinds their gears more than anything else.

[sweet-beezus]

Hiya!

I'm Sham, they/them, and I'm an ✨artist✨

Welcome to my b(l)og, I hope the water's nice :)

I mainly post OCs and reblog fun posts that I can rotate in my brain, fanart is extremely rare 'round these parts unless I'm reblogging some.

☆HUGELY anti-generative AI, I do not consent to my work being used to train any model and will block you if you so much as ask.

I'm a full time employee, so I'm usually INCREDIBLY busy nowadays! Alas, that means very little posting unless I find some funny posts to banish to my blog. I post and queue things at odd hours, so I may jumpscare you!

If you want tags to peruse, I have a few that might interest you!

▪︎#sham's art <- my art tag

▪︎#sweet memery <- my meme tag

▪︎#shamsbabs <- tag I use for bunching my OCs together, they are also tagged by fandoms and individual names!

▪︎#trope scope <- writing tropes that really get my brain factory gears grinding

▪︎#sham's favs <- thins it out to the things that make me giggle and live rent free in my brain, mix of both tags like a nice soup, though nowadays I tag anything as a fav... Might need a new tag-

#sham's inbox / #sham's trash posts <- for previous asks and my own silly posts, though these tags gather dust more frequently, since I never have an original thought other than about my OCs...

▪︎#other's art / #friend art <- art appreciation tags :)

I also have sideblogs!

@shams-kiddies <- OC art sideblog, it's better organized than my main in terms of tags

@the-mighty-phoenix <- Iliana centric sideblog, I thought about using it as an RP blog but it's now just another art archive

I have other sideblogs, but I'm not quite ready to share them yet, so stay tuned I guess-

☆My ask box is open, but anons are off! I will be deleting donation asks and messages, unfortunately my platform is not large enough to spread awareness nor do I have enough time to fact check each blog or enough money to donate. I hope you understand! ❤️

If you have any silly questions about my OCs feel free to shoot them my way! I revisit a lot of my OCs in a random rotation, so there's plenty to ask about and I love to yap about them. :)

DMs are currently closed due to spam, so it's only that silly ask box for now! I'll reopen them later when I have the capacity to chat!

☆Currently, I am not accepting commissions, since I have a busy work life and chronic pain (plus I don't even have a commission sheet set up, alas-), however I'm open to art trades and conditional requests if my burnout and schedule allows!

For a more competitive art trade experience during the month of July, you can find me on Artfight as ShamSpam!

I recently started moving over and archiving some of my writings to Ao3, you can find them here!

And for a currently WIP archiving of all my OCs (aside from my sideblog) I have a Toyhouse!

That's all for surface level stuff, I'll leave some more in depth looks about me and my work under the cut :)

I have no concept of a consistent social life or media presence, so I just post whatever and whenever I want to, usually mid afternoon for me because that's my time to Survive™ my day to day stressors. Whatever hits my dopamine reserves just right will probably end up here!

If Tumblr dies, I'm going down with it, I will not be joining any other social media sites!

I am a self taught artist who only really picked up on certain techniques and styles in recent years, and every day is a new day to learn, so I practice all sorts of things when I can.

I mostly indulge in art and writing of my OCs, and the occasional fan art here and there when I'm in a particular mood, and everything (I would hope) is made with the love in my heart for my creations, from the 6+ hours of work on a digital piece to maybe a 10 min sketch of my OCs smooching from the confines of my canvasses.

We can ignore the musician part for now, at this time I haven't really delved too deep into making my own tunes aside from some really rough drafts, but eventually I will! I am a sucker for orchestral pieces, but I need to relearn music theory-

I have a few fandoms and things I like to participate or indulge in from time to time, so if you're curious here's a list!

Music Artists:

▪︎Josh Groban

▪︎Thomas Bergersen

▪︎Marcus Warner

▪︎Celine Dion

▪︎Phil Collins

▪︎Ricky Montgomery

▪︎Citizen Soldier

▪︎Marianas Trench

▪︎Other varieties of orchestrals, whenever they crop up

▪︎The classics from an edgy teen's childhood (Linkin Park, Evanescence, Disturbed, etc. also including Christian rock, it was unavoidable you could say-)

▪︎Also classic artists from before my time (Journey, Michael Jackson, The Bee Gees, ABBA, etc.)

▪︎Folk-y music, nothing specific in terms of bands so far, just whatever hits my brain just right

▪︎Very weird pickings from a variety of places, I'm honestly too tired to list most of them because I'm in and out of listening fixations like a pendulum- Usually it's a select handful of songs that don't have a tremendous impact on my liking for the artist, y'know? Aside from vibes-

Current Brainworms (fictional media):

▪︎The machinations of my own mind (my OCs <3)

▪︎Kingdom Hearts (KHUx era mostly and, again, my OCs)

▪︎Mystery Case Files

Things I Revisit Periodically:

▪︎Sonic the Hedgehog

▪︎ARGs/analog horror

▪︎Okami

▪︎Persona 5

▪︎Ghostbusters

▪︎Wizard101

▪︎Splatoon

▪︎Ace Attorney

▪︎Doctor Who

▪︎ABZÛ/The Pathless (later Sword of the Sea and Journey, potentially)

▪︎FNaF

▪︎The Dark Crystal

▪︎Various musicals (feel free to ask which ones! This includes concept ones too, there's way too many for me to list tbh)

▪︎Lego games (my childhood <3)

▪︎Celtic mythology (or mythology in general, I'm just obsessed with the Celts for some reason)

Misc. Items That Are Ever Present But Not Constant:

▪︎Sea creatures

▪︎Pond life

▪︎Dungeons and Dragons

▪︎Emotional catharsis

▪︎Tragedies

▪︎The concepts of grief, loss, and love

▪︎What the Tumblrinas call Whump Tropes™, I suppose

▪︎Phoenixes (for some reason)

▪︎Red pandas

▪︎Moss (especially in ball form)

▪︎Religious imagery/history (mostly the Mormon church, but others creep in periodically)

▪︎Tarot cards

▪︎Vincent Van Gogh

▪︎Ravens

I have SO MANY OCs I could talk about for hours, so if you ever see one that interests you don't hesitate to send me an ask about them!!

And I think that's all for now, I'll probably add stuff on if I ever remember anything I need to add-

Anyway happy browsing!!

[sparksbet]

I get the joke here but this post grinds my gears bc the reason for this is that these words were transcribed from a non-Latin script! In Hebrew or Arabic script, these words are written one way, but the variation comes from trying to represent sounds using the Latin alphabet that it wasn't designed for. (This is also why you get accented letters in various European languages and it's part of why English and French vowels are written so strangely, but that's a story for another time.)

This happens to almost any language when it's transferred between scripts, though -- look at the various ways certain Russian names are spelled in the Latin alphabet. Or at the many different systems for writing Mandarin Chinese in Latin letters before pinyin became the dominant one. It's the same principle, really. Jews and Muslims are connected here by using terms from Hebrew or Arabic even if they speak other languages (such as those that use the Latin alphabet) day-to-day. The fact that Semitic languages have sounds that aren't trivial to write in the Latin alphabet doesn't help matters.

Here’s my contribution

assalaam alaikum as-salam alaikum asalaam aleykum vs hanukkah chanukah chanukkah hanukah

[rpclefairy]

yessssss omg. I can’t tell you how disheartened I’ve been lately about essentially being left on read every single time i extend myself, looking to either plot or even just chat with people. old partners and new potential partners both.

and yeah, like you said, people are busy/have health issues/etc, but i do too and i’m still out here doing my best to at least communicate. it really grinds my gears when i see people i’ve reached out to countless times complain very publicly about no one writing with them or talking to them when i Know im probably not the only one they are putting on the back burner. ive started unfollowing these people and i think its caused some drama in certain circles, but what is the point of me following an rp blog that i wanted to write with if they cant even bother to respond to me ooc after weeks or months?

mental/physical health breaks are ABSOLUTELY valid, but to expect constant effort on your partners’ parts, and to never reciprocate in turn is Not Okay. relationships of any kind cannot be sustained like that.

disheartened is a very accurate word to describe it.

obviously no one expects dms to be replied to in 32 seconds or anyone to be online 24/7, but as a whole the community has taken reasonable sentiments like "it's okay to take breaks and be slow with replies" as a free pass to never to reply to anything and refuse to engage with mutuals.

i've lost the count of how many people i've seen on my dash complain about having no interactions or reblog those "i'm a forgetful rper but i still want to write with you" posts when i KNOW for a fact i have sent them dms to plot MONTHS before they never answered, i've sent them memes they never replied, i've liked their starter calls but my like went ignored as well as i have wrote them starters that are still sitting in my blog without reply for months.

like, at some point we all have to take responsibility for our own activity. we can't all expect everyone else to carry us because we're "oopsie forgetful".

not only it's draining always being the one to reach out it also tells me they don't respect my time and energy as if i don't have irl shit to deal with too. like, i'm writing this with a broken arm and a full arm cast on my dominant hand. but i still find time to reply to people's dms because i'm not the center of the universe and other's people's time and energy is valuable too.

and it is very disheartening not being treated with the same basic decency.

[catintheruemorgue]

annoying things they do

summary: small things these guys do that just grinds your gears a bit.

characters: oda, dazai, kunikida, twain, akutagawa, atsushi, mori, poe, ranpo, fittzgerald, steinbeck, chuuya, yosano, gin, kouyou, higuchi, alcott and lucy

these are all based off things i do or have inconvenienced my life lmfao i’ll probs do a part two with everyone i missed this just got wayyy to long lol next im posting being friends with double black 

Oda:

If you're wearing shorts and have bruises he will poke them when you're resting your legs on him. He’s silent about it too and if you yell at him he pretends to act like he doesn't know what you're talking about.

Will smack your sunburn but this one is actually an accident. He just wanted to pat you on the back because you're amazing.

Will space out when you talk too long, sometimes certain objects are just so… mesmerizing

Dazai:

Loves to jumpscare you the only exception is if it was a trigger. In that case he will just call your name and whip something at you for you to catch at random.

When you're driving he likes to reach over and honk your horn. It's almost caused so many roadside fistfights.

If he sees a dog in public he will bark and growl at it.

Kunikida:

Won’t let you on the bed without socks on. You could be sick as a dog and he’ll still enforce this rule.

Cleaning is hard because he has a hard time throwing things away. You'll spend extra time as he holds two identical pens, trying to decide which one he wants to keep. He’s learned to plan certain days in his schedule for cleaning now.

Won't let you turn up the music in the car and will keep it at a level that's so low it's annoying.

Twain:

Walks around the house shirtless but then complains about how cold it is.

Blasts his music so loud when he wakes up in the morning and it's always early 2000’s hits. It's not rare for you to have Pocketful of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield stuck in your head by 9 am.

Always has to climb something, this stems from his adventurous side. It's not really that annoying but when you’re in a crowded area and he runs off to go climb the tall statue, screaming at you to take a photo… Yes it is. Especially when children try and follow him and you're stuck receiving glares from the parents.

Akutagawa:

Will not let you throw any food products out. He tells you it's a perfectly good meal (even if it's not) and that he will eat it tomorrow. It’s sad because you know this stems from childhood but it’s still annoying.

Reuses the same gross, musty ziplock baggies. You keep buying new ones but he doesn't get it lol.  

Will tell you if your breath smells, hair is messy, outfit is ugly. He does not see an issue with this and it's nice knowing someone has your back but he doesn't have to be so rude about it..

Atsushi:

If he drinks he's one of those drinkers who will not let you take it from him. Keeps an iron grip on the cup. He finishes it no matter how drunk and always throws up. Thankfully he rarely drinks.

He stops to help everyone, literally even if they just look like they need help. You've been late to so many things.

Will eat anything. Once you made steak and somehow forgot about it. It was hard as a brick yet he still almost broke his teeth eating it. You think you saw some tears as he told you it was delicious.

Mori:

Listens to people's conversations in public and isn't afraid to comment, loudly, about it. You know it's loud because they either stop talking or try and confront you guys.

Comes up to stops fast and brakes so hard you feel like he does it on purpose.

Sometimes if he and Elise get into a “disagreement” he’ll try and rope you in to take his side and you always do, knowing it would probably give him more satisfaction if you chose to side with her.

Poe:

Asks for constructive criticism but will then argue with you about why you're wrong.

Always humming a song he heard Twain singing and then it gets stuck in your head too.

Will deny stupid things like why your favorite mug is in the trash or why he just let out rather loud scream in the bathroom. You know he's lying because he looks away and makes sure his bangs are covering his eyes.

Ranpo:

Will call you out on any lie even if you don't mean to lie you just forgot about some of the details.

Don't take him grocery shopping if you have a set amount you want to spend. He won't even sneak, he will just say he wants something and throw it in the cart.

Such a backseat driver even though he can't drive.

Fitzgerald:

Likes to act like he's still in his twenties and will somehow get the two of you invited to college parties where he will attempt to do a kegger in front of everyone. You end up being the one to hold him up and he always ends with a, “LETS FUCKING GO!”

Likes to ask for the senior discount even though he's not that old, he just likes to hear the women validate that he's not old.

It’s scary how he used to buy without looking and now will scream if the price on a price tag is too high.

Steinbeck:

Always looking at the grass for wheat to chew on. It's so cheesy when you walk into the city and he's got it sticking out of his mouth.

He gets weirdly intimate with nature and you feel like you're third wheeling.

Has the mentality that he has to provide for you because he is the man. He gets so shocked when he finds out you still want to work.

Chuuya:

Has a hard time making decisions you could ask him what he wants for dinner and his mind will just break.

Gets way too pissed at movies and will actually get up and walk away. Once you were kicked out of the theater because he wouldn't stop yelling at the screen. Another time he walked out you waited a whole ten minutes before you realized he wasn't coming back.

Sometimes activates his ability at night and it's so scary waking up to him floating halfway across the room.

WOMAN TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Yosano:

Will glare at you so intensely if you say something she disagrees with.

Always tries to rope you into drinking with her even if you’ve said no the past ten nights.

Will describe wounds or injuries in such detail and just won’t stop, almost like she’s trying to fuck with you, but she’s not.

Gin:

Claims to be nothing like her big brother but then will go on to make the same facial expressions and do some of the same mannerisms as him.

Will spend hours trying things on just to put it all back, leave the store and change her mind when you’re almost home. Then she’ll have you run back with her to buy it all.

Is used to sneaking around so scares you a lot. Also on the topic of being silent sometimes she just won’t respond, thinking you can just read her vibes / mind.

Kouyou:

Will judge what you eat, especially fast food but will try and steal a fry in private when you're not looking.

Will say things like, “Well that's just the way the world works.” If someone tries to share their baggage with her. You understand she’s had a pretty rough life but it's caused you to almost spit out your drink multiple times.

At functions forgets about you for about an hour while she mingles with everyone else, you could tap on her shoulder and she'll dismiss you like you're a subordinate. Until you clear your throat again you'll see the slight blush as she apologizes.

Higuchi:

She has no sense of privacy. If she hears a crash or loud noise she will bust down the door. It’s sweet but not when the noises are usually from you knocking all the shampoo bottles down again.

Horrible road rage actually puts you on edge to be in the car with her. She doesn't even have to be driving.

Likes to act like she's a professional at everything and people usually believe it because of her suit. It's so nerve wracking when she giggles when they walk away with false information.

Alcott:

Will agree to everything you suggest but you can only tell when she doesn’t want to do it when you’re currently doing it.

Yet she’s not afraid to grumble about how annoying it is when someone bumps into you and doesn’t apologize. It’s sweet but you’re left dealing with the situation if the person is aggressive enough to say something.

Always corrects your spelling or if you say something like “I could care less.”

Lucy:

Will fish for compliments in a very obvious way like, “Wow. Wish someone would call me pretty..” and then just stare right at you.

Kicks you so violently in her sleep but won't let go of you so you cant get away.

Constantly stealing from restaurants. You're banned from a couple restaurants because she got caught trying to steal a cup or salt shaker.

[marvelhero-fics]

Snowman

Series - Chapter One

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You’re a HYDRA assassin that’s worked closely with the Winter Soldier, to each of your dismay you’re reunited with Bucky after the blip. 

A/N: I haven’t posted in like 300 years, but I hope you guys enjoy this new series! This follows parts of TFATWS so expect spoilers! (Also I’m sure all the Russian is absolutely wrong, if you’d like to correct it please send me a message!)

Word Count: 1,815 (future chapters will be wayyy longer)

Snowman Masterlist || Full Masterlist

New York

2023

“So tell me about this-” the therapist looked down at her notes briefly, “(Y/N).” She finished.

Bucky paused momentarily, “No.”

“James, for these therapy sessions to be effective, you need to open up to me. I can’t help you if I don't know what’s wrong.” His therapist responded, laying her pen carefully on her small notebook.

Bucky thought for a moment, taking in the ambience of the room. What would he even say about (Y/N)? He hadn’t seen her in years. Bucky was kicking himself for accidentally bringing her up in his session last week. “I- uh-” he stammered, shifting his weight on the couch, “I met her in 2011. At least I think it was 2011. Date’s get kinda fuzzy sometimes, with all the cryo.” Bucky’s hand pressed against his head, feeling dazed as he tried to think back. “It was at the big HYDRA base outside of Moscow. We had to go on a mission together-” he was cut off,

“Did she work for HYDRA?” Dr Raynor interjected.

“Yea. She was an assassin too. She went by the alias the Viper.” Bucky pretended not to notice his therapist tense up. Anyone who knew anything about HYDRA knew who the Viper was. She was one of the most prolific assassins after the Winter Soldier.

“Tell me more about when you met her.”

“We were instructed to take out a terrorist organisation forming against SHIELD. Which was ironic because we were working for a terrorist organisation. But at this point SHIELD was being run by HYDRA and they couldn’t risk any slip ups, so they put 6 assassins on the job. HYDRA usually didn’t have their assassins working together, we were all too volatile. But we had to take out over 70 people in one night. It was (Y/N), a few assassins from the Red Room, and a few agents that HYDRA had trained personally, and me.” Bucky stopped.

“Where was (Y/N) trained?”

“At a secondary facility run by HYDRA. She was trained from a really young age. It’s all she’s known.” Bucky seemed somber. But his therapist continued,

“What happened on the mission?”

“Nothing. It went exactly to plan. The targets were taken out and we all left without a trace. But (Y/N), she- she kept trying to talk to me, or get to know me. I was the Winter Soldier. No one in their right mind ever tried to ‘get to know me’.”

“Why do you think (Y/N) did that?”

“She told me she was bored.” He replied bluntly.

Moscow

2011

The poorly lit conference room was filled with a myriad of assassins and officials. The only illumination came from old LED lights hanging from the concrete ceiling. The mossy green paint on the walls looked as if it hadn’t been patched up in years. The only new-ish part of the room was the large, oak conference table, surrounded by black, leather seating. It was difficult not to notice the red HYDRA symbol holding a spot on almost every piece of clothing in the area.

“TITAN terroristicheskaya organizatsiya, formiruyushchayasya protiv nas. (TITAN is a terrorist organisation forming against us.)” Kuznetsov spoke, “Izbrannyye budut otpravleny segodnya vecherom v Ukrainu dlya vypolneniya postavlennoy zadachi. Uberi ikh. (The chosen ones will be sent to Ukraine tonight to complete their given tasks. Take them out.)”

That was all it took. You stared at the file in front of you. You had read through it multiple times, going over every single name, every single skill set your targets had. You were more than certain you could complete this job on your own. But you had no choice on the matter.

Your eyes darted around, taking in the faces of the assassins that were to accompany you on your mission. Two youthful females, dressed in black leather sat next to each other. The older, grimacing woman behind them was Madame B., the head supervisor of the Red Room. You moved your gaze to the two agents in dark green uniforms and red, soviet berets. Neither looked particularly menacing.

You finally landed on the last assassin. His dark hair fell like curtains around his face. Gloomy blue eyes searched their way through the room. His sharp jaw seemed tense through his stubbled cheeks. He was large, extremely built. Covering his frame was an amplitude of black clothing and gear.

“Play nice.” Your mentor spoke softly over your shoulder, breaking you from your train of thought.  

“I always do.”

~

Your padded snow boots ripped through the thick snow covering the ground. The six of you had hiked your way to the set point on your GPS systems, the clouds of snowfall covering your vision held the illusion that there were absolutely no structures nearby. A large helicopter had dropped the group a few miles out from the hideout to ensure nothing was compromised. The trek was in utter silence, fighting against the harsh temperature in mid February.

The waypoint became closer on your map, a tiny building slowly appeared in your vision against the foggy downfall. It was a small, wooden cabin. Everyone hustled their way through the unlocked door. It was barren, it held no furniture, no blankets, no means of any life. There appeared to be a few doors that led to small, empty rooms. The entrance only held a small fireplace, filled with old cut down logs that had been eaten by bugs.

The group quickly dispersed, you headed to one of the rooms alone, throwing down your belongings onto the floor. The bag you carried was mainly filled with weapons and ammunition, along with a very warm sleeping bag. You knew too well you wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, but you would need the extra heat for now.

There was no chatter anywhere in the house. Your mission would begin in 6 hours. Everyone was likely putting together their artillery. You decided to cozy up in your navy sleeping bag for a moment of comfort.

Someone had lit the fire in the lounge. A warm, orange light crept through the cracks in your door. The ambiance was strangely calming for a shitty cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Snow continued to fall against the tiny glass pane of your room. You weren’t a fan of assassinating in the snow. It was low vision, harsher climates, and it lessened the ability to move. Snakes weren’t creatures of the cold. Conveniently you’d been grouped with someone who called himself ‘The Winter Soldier’. I’m sure he loves the cold, you thought.

You’d heard a lot about him. Everyone had. He was the perfect assassin. He never failed a mission, his body didn’t reject cryo, every form of enhancement HYDRA had used on him had been a success. He was what every assassin had aspired to be.

Without thought, you grabbed the glass bottle laying next to you and walked off to the room the Winter Soldier had claimed for the night.

“Privet (Hello)”. You announced, pushing his door open with a creak. His head didn’t turn towards you. He sat on the floor, the sound coming from him indicated he was sharpening knives.

“Khochesh' vypit'? (Want a drink?)” You asked, motioning the bottle towards him.

He stayed silent for a moment. Finally he turned, looking up at you from his position on the floor. “What is it?” His dark tone asked back. The amber light from the fire crashed against his features. His strong jaw was covered with a dark stubble, his brunette hair tucked behind his ears. His most obvious feature was the hauntingly blue eyes that sat in sunken sockets, he looked drained.

“It’s vodka.” You stated, honestly. You were surprised to hear he wasn’t Russian, he sounded… American?

“You’re drinking before a mission?” He queried.

You shrugged. “Alcohol doesn’t freeze.” You sat down next to him. “Plus it takes the edge off.” A faint clinking noise announced as you placed the bottle on the floor between you two. He stared at you for a moment, before quietly going back to his knives.

“Wanna play 20 questions?” You interrupted the silence.

“No.”

“What about truth or dare?”

“I’m not 14.” the soldier replied, his eyes not leaving his handy work.

“How old are you?” You shot back,

“Why are you trying to get to know me?” He dodged your question.

“I’m bored.” You shrugged, taking a deep swig of the vodka. “And by my calculations,” you peered down at your watch, “we still have 3 hours and 27 minutes until the mission starts.”

He gave a shallow sigh, “93.”

“What?”

“I’m 93. How old are you.”

“93?! You were born in 1917?”

“Mhm. How old are you.”

“25. You look great for 93.” You chuckled.

“You look old for 25.” He jabbed back. His knife sharpener still grinding across a 6 inch blade.

“You flatter me.” You replied sarcastically. “So what’s your story? How’d you make it to 93?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Why would I ask if I didn’t want to know?”

Bucky looked over at you. “I’m telling you, you don’t want to know.”

“C’mon old man,  I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” You smirked. He once again, went back to his knives. It almost seemed as if he was trying to threaten you, pulling out larger knife after larger knife.

You huffed, opening your mouth to speak, “I was born in Hungary to a drug abusing mother, and an absent father. I was kidnapped and sold to HYDRA when I was 6. I was placed under the care of the Kraken. Not sure if you’ve met him, he’s this large guy-”

“I’ve met him.” Bucky stated, interrupting your spiel.

“Right, well, he trained me for years. Eventually HYDRA got involved again and I was tested on, experimented on, messed with, ya’ know, all that fun stuff.” You explained.

“Are you enhanced?” Bucky asked, almost as if he was actually interested.

“Yea. I have this whole snake venom trick. It’s great for up close combat. The experiments really should’ve killed me though. But maybe that’s what makes us so good-” Bucky looked over at the woman next to him, her bright eyes stared back at him as she spoke “ya’ know, the best assassins are the ones living off borrowed time. Because we’ve met death before, so we’re not afraid to do it again.”

Bucky quickly grabbed the Barrett M82 rifle next to him, his metal arm making faint whirring noises. “I’m going to scope out the base.” He stated bluntly. And with that, his large black boots walked him out the bedroom, and out the door.

You let out a faint sigh, creeping back to your room to sort out your weapons. You were sure it was something you said that scared him off. I guess at 93 you have to be living off too much borrowed time, you speculated. You absentmindedly set up your pistols, your mind not being able to wander from the Winter Soldier. Maybe annoying the Red Room girls would get your mind off it.

[osakasshitpit]

I love Final Fantasy XIV

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV, and after playing for around 180 hours, I haven’t even finished A Realm Reborn. Normally, 180 hours is an insane time frame for a game to manage and hold my attention. Persona 5 Royal was 180 hours of game time, and that was slowly outstaying its welcome. FFXIV must be doing something right, because just recently I went to a convention and bought a Y’shtola Keychain in a heartbeat. I haven’t had time to play XIV a lot prior to this, since I was stupidly grinding Praetorium for days and got burned out. I haven’t played much in 2 months, and Y’shtola only really has a minor role during A Realm Reborn’s Storyline. Despite that, I started in Limsa and Y’shtola stuck with me since then. I just had to buy that keychain. My girlfriend asked me about it and despite me staying away from the game after being burned out, I explained to her in great enthusiasm why I loved Y’shtola and why I loved the game so much. I think that’s the first time I really realized how attached I was to this world, these characters, this game.

I came to FFXIV after having played WoW from Vanilla through WotLK, after having barely ever touched a MMO since quitting WoW. Honestly, I was very skeptical of XIV but holy fucking shit did it ever win me over. They are completely different games, mind you, but that is a good thing in my opinion.

So here is the longest tumblr rant post I have written so far, I think.

To be fair, the first 20 levels or so were kinda slow. You get thrown into the deep end and get bombarded with lore and characters, terms and phrases that you don't understand. For fucks sake, the opening cutscene shows Louisoix fighting Bahamut front and center. Its this big, epic moment of sacrifice, but to someone who has not played 1.0 and who doesn't know anything about the lore, this just zips right past you. During the main story of ARR, they keep talking about Louisoix and how important he is, but you haven't even seen the guy because he died before the game even started. I only really realized this today, it took me 180 hours and a look at the wiki to connect the dots. It really is a slow burn, but that slow burn was okay because everything else was so fantastic.

While the world can arguably be more subdued than Azeroth in parts, there is still this distinctive style that I quickly fell in love with. It’s fantastical, but it still feels grounded. Part of that has to do with how the game introduces you to the world, and how the main story quests explain to you the lore bit by bit. I feel like much of the world design of WoW was down to “the rule of cool”. Now, I’m not saying XIV doesn’t have that, but I feel like XIV always goes the extra mile to explain why this cool shit is here. Everything you see out there in the world feels like it has a purpose, a reason to be there and an explanation on how it works. The factions make sense, the political conflicts you get entangled in are believable. I feel like I am kind of biased to be honest. What got me to play FFXIV in the first place was seeing that Viera are a playable race. I’m a sucker for Final Fantasy, not in short part to my memories of Playing Final Fantasy Tactics and XII. XII is still my favorite game in the series, and much of that has to do with the world, Ivalice. Viera were always my favorite race of the ones seen in Ivalice. Seeing as you can play a Viera in XIV, I just had to try. Thinking about it, XII and XIV have a lot in common when it comes to world building.

One of the weirdest things to acclimate for me was how FFXIV handles story. I was used to WoW, where story was basically non-existent and you did what you did to see numbers rise and to unlock now content you could do. You are basically never involved in the story of WoW, you are just kind of there for the ride. In FFXIV, you are the main character. You are involved in what happens at all times, and that is kinda strange coming from WoW. At first I thought I wouldn’t like it, but the game made it work in my opinion. I also didn’t expect there to be so much of story to begin with. Kind of ironically the moment I realized just how much there was to experience was when I went through Ul’dah and saw a blue quest. Now, blue quest markers mean there is some content you can unlock by doing this quest. A lot of these are kinda short, with a bit of dialogue and some bits of lore for you to enjoy and I thought this one would be no difference. After all, the hook is basically just to help this lady mourn for the death of a friend. What I got was a fabulous detective adventure that spanned over the entire continent, where in I had to help the worlds most manly detective uncover the secret behind a mysterious phantom thief. To say the least, this 21 quest long quest line brought be hours upon hours of joy and had me in stitches throughout. And it was completely optional. I don’t think I even remember a single moment from any quest in WoW that made me this excited for it, optional or otherwise.

Ultimately these are very different games that try very different things.

Dungeons and Raids were a different thing. I remember when I rolled a new character for WotLK and wanted to do karazhan because I used to like doing that raid with my guild back in TBC. I could not for the live of me find a group willing to do it, because everyone was way more focused on the new content, so they could get better gear. Regardless, it just wouldn’t have been the same experience anyways I fear, because the new gear from the new Dungeons outclassed the raid gear from TBC, so karazhan would be way easier and a much different experience. In FFXIV, every dungeon is level synced by default, meaning if a higher level character joins, they get basically downgraded to the level the dungeon was designed for. Couple that with the Duty Roulette feature and suddenly, there was always someone to do any given dungeon with. I remember when I had to do the crystal tower raids and thought “why would they tie main story progression to a raid, I will never find a group to do that properly” but low and behold, I found a group within 30 minutes or less and raided through the entire set of raids within a day. Dungeons and Raids are generally a very pick up and play thing in FFXIV. To be fair, dungeons got easier and more pick up and play in WoW too, but Raids were always the endgame thing where you had to gear up and learn to play. In FFXIV, much more lenient. No corpse walking required. I say this, but I have yet to do the Coils of Bahamut or any Savage Raids. I have only heard that there is plenty of hardcore raid content for those who want that.

That’s nothing to say about the actual gameplay. FFXIV is a tab-target MMO, like so many others, but it manages to keep this kind of gameplay fresh by introducing a lot of mechanics that make the game more active than the typical “I stand here and hit my rotation a lot”. For starters, most enemies have special abilities that you can actually dodge by moving out of the way. There will a area marker on the floor and everyone within that area will be hit. It starts out easy, but later dungeons really start kicking your ass with this mechanic. You really need to say on your toes. In addition, every class is extremely different. They all have special mechanics unique to them, special meters and resources they will have to manage during combat and so on. For example, a Red Mage (the class I’m playing currently), has two meters that fill up as you cast spells. They generally have two types of spells, white and black magic. Each type fills its respective bar. Once they are both full enough, you can go in and do a more powerful melee rotation. However, if one bar is fuller than the other, the other bar will fill up slower. Since you need to fill both, you want to balance that out. You get instant casts for spells after performing a damaging spell, and you have some spells with a short cast time and good damage output that you want to cast and then use the instant cast of to cast a more damaging spell that has a long cast time. But these short cast, good damage spells require a you get from casting a spell of the respective type. So, in essence, you want to balance your use of black and white magic, but you also want to use the proc you get from casting your white and black magic, which means you cast more of the type which inherently unbalances your gauges. It becomes this micromanagement game you play with your procs and instant casts, so you can go in and do the big, flashy sword combo. And that’s just the red mage at around 50. Every class has something like this, and it’s all unique to them. Learning a class is not just learning the rotation and spells you have anymore, it’s really learning how to effectively play your class. Also, positioning. Some abilities do more damage from certain positions, so you will have to dance around an enemy to hit all the sweet spots with classes like monks. These complexities get introduced slowly as you level up, so you have plenty of time to learn the mechanics. My favorite feature might be the class system itself, though. In FFXIV, you aren’t limited to one class for the entire duration of your characters career. You can, from a certain point forwards, choose any class you wish and level that up instead. You can freely switch between classes outside of combat, too. If you are dedicated enough, you can level them all up to max, even. This means if you don’t like a class or the direction a class is going in, you can switch. I for my part started as an arcanist, so I unlocked Summoner at 30. I played Summoner up to 50 but I was just not meshing as well with the direction the summorer went in. So, I switched to Red Mage and after some getting used to, Its now my new favorite. Arcanists are special, because you actually unlock two classes at 30, so I also unlocked Scholars. Scholars are healers and that became my main dungeon class, since queue times are way shorter for healers. This would be unthinkable in WoW, and love the fact this is a thing here.

If I had to describe it, WoW is an MMO with RPG Elements, while FFXIV is a JRPG with MMO elements. I didn’t know I needed that, but in retrospect, it makes sense. The thing that really killed my progress in WoW was that I didn’t have anyone to play with anymore. My friends all dropped from the game and while I generally like doing solo content from time to time, I’m pretty introverted, after all... MMORPGs are usually most fun with friends. Final Fantasy XIV is a JRPG first, an MMO second. There is so much to keep your attention as a solo player, its nuts. All my friends who play this game, play on a different data center, so I can’t even visit them. Despite that, I had a lot of fun in my time with the game.

My experience with the game was incredibly positive, and I don’t think it will get worse from here. Everyone keeps telling me how great Heavensward is. I just have to finish 16 more quests and I’ll be able to see for myself what the fuss is about.

Honestly, if I had to say anything negative, it would be how longwinded ARR is. I mean, its not bad by any means, but I can see how someone could be turned off by this huge storyblock. Worst of all is, after you hit 50 and reach the end of ARR’s story line, there are 80 quests before you can even start with Heavensward. Since everyone keeps going on about how great it is, it’s kind of annoying how long you have to work to even get to it. In retrospect, it kinda makes sense though. These quests are meant to be played over months and months throughout a update cycle and bridge the narrative gap between one storyblock and the next, but holy fucking shit why did it have to be THAT long. They even cut like 20 of the quests from this already insanely long quest line. What the fuck. This is supposed to be an epilogue to ARR and it feels like I played a whole fucking JRPG in between ARR and Heavensward. Oh well. Thankfully, they learned from this and made the post-story blocks shorter.

I will just say that I can recommend this game. You should give it a try. Just... try not to drop the game before it gets really, really good.

[ablednt]

something that really grinds my gears is when ppl pick and choose what si’s to condemn tho. like obviously there’s a hierarchy of harm on a large scale, w/ hp being rlly high up due to rowlings influence. but they’ll be talking about that while consuming lovecraft (whose antiblackness and antisemitism we can’t ignore just bc his works are public domain), jjba, star wars etc. and barring something huge like hp everyone is going to have different standards for what they can consume critically.

like i’ve watched white ppl harass black ppl for liking garnet from su bc THEY thought she was an antiblack stereotype + there are some black ppl who feel she is, it isnt a white person’s place to condemn black women who do like her. same w connie and going after desi ppl etc. like white ppl go out of their way to harass autistic poc who like media that other poc have issues with. how many times do we have to say we aren’t a monolith. nothing is above criticism but theyre outta pocket.

Yeah that's understandably really frustrating and I agree that the way a lot of media discourse goes is just bizarre given the double standards like most people don't want to accept that yeah at some point they're going to get attached to media that has problematic things in it.

Personally, the way I look at it is the harm done by the media needs to be measurable for a full boycott to be necessary. Like, with stuff like HP giving jkr and affiliated people money or free advertizing via fandom does measurable harm that's going straight to transmisogynist groups and efforts and in addition to that hp fans claim to be critical about said media but they only ever seem to do that about the transmisogyny and not the plethora of other issues within the text itself. Like, truly, deeply I don't care if someone still enjoys aspects of hp like certain characters or the different houses or whatever like so long as the aspects of it they enjoy aren't the blatant bigotry and they aren't giving it PR I am not going to care that's not what's doing the measurable harm.

With stuff like SU I honestly don't even think it's an issue for someone to post about it or enjoy it so long as they're willing to acknowledge that there's a lot of legitimately fucked up stuff in it (and of course, like you said, people of color almost certainly are fully aware of the negative aspects considering it literally targets them) and in the end it completely failed in the messages it ultimately wanted to send by adding in fascist propaganda. Like, personally, I'm always going to have a soft spot for the parts of it that resonated with me and that weren't particularly harmful and I also think it's okay to point out the places that it did succeed and resonate with people the same way that people do, like you said, with stuff like Star Wars which is just as heavy with its flaws (and marketed towards impressionable children the same way)

I also think we can really blame fandom culture for a lot of this issue just because the standard for enjoying something has changed so much like there is in fact a difference between "I enjoy this thing and sometimes I talk about it" and "I'm in the fandom, giving it pr, recommending it, and pouring money into it. This is my hobby." Like not that the latter is bad inherently but I really do wish people would like see the separation there.

And then one last thing I think is important, especially with children's media that is going to inevitably be a part of actual children's lives is that we learn to actually discuss a media for both its flaws and its successes because I really don't think your average like 10 year old is going to understand giving something up completely without even fully understanding what issues people have with it it's much better, in my opinion, to be able to seize on a cultural moment and use it for discussion than the way a lot of people just instantly condemn things. Like Idk we can have nuance once in a while...as a treat.

[andmaybegayer]

Transmissions Part 2: The Clutch

Part 1 can be found here.

I tried to write a post about the entire manual transmission and it was like a light year long. We’re starting with the basics, we’re starting with the clutch. Specifically, a manual clutch from a manual car. Manuals are of varying rarity in different parts of the world. They’re quite common here in South Africa, Europe is somewhere in the middle, the USA and a few other places are on the rare end.

Manual transmission just means you have to change the gears yourself. The actual act of changing gears is pretty simple, you move the stick into the slot marked for the gear you want, the hard part for most people is not completely destroying the inside of your transmission when you do this. The reason for this is the clutch. I’m gonna put the diagram in again so you can see how this works.

If you try to just change between gears directly, you’ll have a bad time. The gearbox in your car has an input shaft (connected to the engine) and an output shaft (connected to the wheels), and a mess of internal gears that you can use to connect the two. If you try to change from one gearing to another while the engine is still turning the input shaft, it will be very difficult to keep the teeth of all the gears in sync, and you’ll grind your gears. Very old timey cars used to just make you force the gears into each other until they meshed, which is super bad and a good way to damage your gearbox. Eventually, to solve this, we invented the clutch.

A clutch is a mechanical device for coupling a source of power to an output shaft in a controllable way. Manual cars usually use a dry friction clutch between the engine and the transmission. This is literally just two big flat circular plates, one on the engine side and one on the transmission side. They are normally touching, but you can use the clutch pedal to separate them. They’re very grippy, so when they rub together they’ll quickly start to spin at the same speed, transferring power. They can slip against each other a little bit without serious harm, so if there’s a speed difference it’ll just slip for a moment until the transmission comes up to speed.

(there are other kinds of clutch, including wet (the entire thing is in an oil bath, common in motorcycles) or non-slip (the clutch plates physically interlock). We will encounter a form of non-slip clutch inside the gearbox.)

The only weird part in here is that you have a really fast spinning part that you can just slide around. That’s what the pink spline is for, it’s just a grooved hunk of metal that engages with the moveable clutch plate as it slides. Your clutch pedal is connected to a pressure plate with some levers, and that pressure plate is able to move the moveable clutch plate. Note that this shows the clutch with the pedal pressed down: by default the plates touch, and pressing on the clutch separates them. Below are a photo of the hole in the middle of a clutch plate and the grooved clutch plate spline, so you can see how those might fit together.

If you want to change gears, you just pull the clutch plates apart by depressing the clutch pedal, and then move the gear stick to your new selection. Because the engine is decoupled from the system, you only have to worry about how fast the wheels are going, and various systems I’ll get into when we talk about the manual transmission will prevent the gears from grinding. Then you let the clutch go back to its running position. As it slides back together, the friction pads will rub as they spin past each other (called “slipping the clutch”) and gradually bring the engine into matching speed with the wheels or vice versa.

You can get this wrong! If you are driving very fast and switch into a low gear, or you rev the engine before releasing the clutch pedal, then the mismatch will be too large for slipping to smoothly accommodate and your car will jerk as the wheels suddenly change speed to meet the engine. Over time you might learn the right amount of juice to give the engine to change into a certain gear at a certain speed smoothly if you want to be fancy about it.

When you do fuck up your clutch control and cause a serious slip, you can cause damage, which will typically burn your clutch. If you’ve done this you’ll remember the smell of the friction pads burning, it is distinctive. Do this too much and you’ll wear down the friction pads and it won’t effectively transfer power. Do this far too much and you’ll probably have to replace the friction pads or you may even damage your engine.

You can also intentionally slip the clutch, allowing the two plates to spin past each other at different speeds. This conveys less than full power/speed across the clutch, which is useful sometimes. You can use this to make a car move slower than the minimum speed in slow traffic. My driving instructor taught me how to “balance the clutch” which is where you can hold your car on an incline by putting it in first and gently manipulating the clutch to hold it steady by feeding a small amount of power to the wheels. This isn’t something you should really do in daily driving but it is a very good exercise to learn delicate clutch control so that you can take off smoothly, so I think that’s why he taught me it.

In my opinion, the clutch is the trickiest part of using a manual gearbox to learn. It’s not hard to move a shifter lever around and it’s pretty easy to learn when you’re meant to shift, but clutch control involves quite a few simultaneous movements and getting it wrong can cause loss of control or stall your engine. A weird clutch is a really hard thing to work around, the car I did my driving test in had an awful clutch and when the tester was driving us to the test yard she almost stalled because of it. It’s also one of the easiest parts of your car to break by treating it poorly, since you can only burn your clutch plates so many times before you have to get them replaced, so beginner drivers who know this are quite nervous about incurring a large repair bill.

Having a mechanical understanding of what the clutch does was really valuable to me when I was learning to drive, since you can reason logically around how to use the clutch rather than blindly following rules. It helped me, at least.

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: Mega Man Legends

Ah yes, a wonderful PS1 classic. Exactly what I needed. Exactly what I always need.

I played through three Star Wars games back to back: Dark Forces 2, Mysteries of the Sith, and Jedi Outcast. What I hoped to get out of these games was strongly Star Wars themed action adventures that were pickup-and-play. They were that, for the most part. But the levels were overly long, the difficulty uneven, and the complete experiences were mostly...exhausting. So when choosing my next game, I felt like I needed something more “reliable”. Mega Man Legends might be just what I was looking for...

I played the game as a teen in the 90s. It blew me away. Not sure I had played a Mega Man game, but I knew of them as 2D run-n-gunners. So to see a 3D Mega Man, with voice acting, cut scenes, and a full-fledged story was surprising. And it wasn’t like every game at this time were of this caliber. Resident Evil 2. Metal Gear Solid, and Ocarina of Time hadn’t been released yet. This game was blazing new trails!

Now...that’s not to say it’s a complete original. Tomb Raider had already shown the world how 3D platforming shooters could work. And much of MGL is RPG-inspired. Still, there was decent anime voice acting, and cut scenes. The graphics were doing the best they cool for 1997 on the PS1, and the art-direction is still a delight now in 2021. But what really always blew me away was how the buster-canon could be customized. You bought add-ons that boosted specific stats: power, range, fire-rate, and energy (clip-size). You could customize the canon with certain combinations to fit your play style or the situation. I’m really disappointed more games haven’t ripped this off completely (looking at you Borderlands!).

What I really love about this game is the freedom. That’s what makes all great games to me, a sense of freedom to enjoy the world presented. And I love getting to explore and find secrets. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed this game in the past and I’ve restarted it many times, but I’ve never beaten it. That changes now. I’m committed.

The controls (playing on Duckstation) kinda suck. You move forward, back, and left-right with the D-Pad. To turn (rotate) you have to use the shoulder buttons. It’s a precursor to the now-standard two-stick shooter controls of all FPS’s. But at this time, it was a complicated concert of actions to get around. Luckily, the environments aren’t too crazy: usually just straight hallways and large, open spaces. But some challenges are only challenges because of the controls. This is made more annoying by the fact that you can’t shoot while moving.

Well...you can. But only when moving forward or sideways. Not while backwards or turning. I think this is fixed in MML2--but not sure.

There’s a Lock-on button to help with the shooting, but it can occasionally focus on the wrong target. But even without the lock-on, there’s a pretty helpful auto-aim for targets mostly in front of Mega Man.

The difficulty pacing of the game is...well it’s bad. But that’s because as much as the game likes to hold your hand with tutorials and gameplay explanation, they don’t do a great job ensuring you’re properly equipped. I remember playing a few times and finding the first “bosses” to be brutally difficult. You basically go from exploring a short beginner’s dungeon to fighting three boss fights back to back. And these are not easy-going boss fights. These are “hope you’ve mastered these awkward ass controls” boss fights.

But the problem, it seems, is that I just wasn’t prepared. I double-checked a shop before going into the fights and found I was able to upgrade my health points by about 3 notches. I bought a health flask, and upgraded it as well. And then I was able to buy buster parts to make my canon  more formidable. This time, each boss fight was...not easy--but not frustrating. I didn’t fail any of the objectives, and found I could take a few risks without fear of losing. So now I’ve made it a point to constantly visit shops and grind some Zenny for upgrades.

This is where the RPG-ness comes in. While you don’t earn XP and level up--money (zenny) can be used to purchase health, armor, and weapon upgrades. You can also find weapon upgrades in the “dungeons”. Not all combat happens in dungeons. Much of the fighting has been above ground, in forests and towns.

The dungeons are pretty simple. They’re basically on grid-layouts with hallways leading to a variety of open rooms. It would be super easy to randomly generate these kinds of levels. And while I get some Zelda vibes from the treasure chests, the dungeons lack any sort of creative puzzle solving or unique tools and obstacles.

Given that the story of this game is that “diggers” (treasure seekers, tomb raiders--whatever you wanna call em) are exploring underground dungones/vaults for riches, the game could have easily been about finding islands with dungeons and exploring them. I mean, this game could totally function as a Sea of Thieves, and be infinitely playable. But I’m not sure games as such were really in the minds of designers at the time. So instead they created something more linear and story-driven. Which totally works.

Speaking of story--it’s silly. Mega Man is a “Digger” that goes around looking for refractor power sources. It seems this is a post-apocalypse world where oceans have risen to engulf much of the mainland (climate change warning??). To have power, the new cities that have formed must scavenger power from subterranean labyrinths filled with hostile robots. But while the Diggers appear to be generally well-meaning, there are pirates who seek power for power’s sake.

There’s a legendary abundance of energy called the Mother Lode. Um...Ok. It’s supposedly underneath this specific city that Mega Man and friends just so happen to crash land at. So Pirates have begun attacking the city to claim it. One of them is a girl named Tron Bonne. While she works with her pirate family and their army of super cute lego-looking robots, she develops a crush on Mega Man after he saves her from a tiny dog. It’s kind of an interesting development as you see signs of the pirates and Tron before the invasion truly begins. 

Beyond that, there’s not a ton of plot development. It’s really more character driven. Not super complicated characters, but people trying to live their lives while pirates bomb the library (why the library??).

I’m hitting the point in the game I reached when I first played as a teen. That first time was the furthest I’d ever gotten. So once I’m past that, it’ll be all new territory. I can’t wait!

While playing this, though, I can’t get Elder Scrolls out of my mind. I’ve really wanted to play through Morrowind or Oblivion. That thought has made me wish MML was open world like ES.

[tricksterreformed-a]

✩  INTERVIEW WITH THE MUN  ✩

➊ How many ships do you have on this blog?

          I don’t know, let’s count! I’ve been writing some super fun GabrielxBobby stuff with @multimuse-rp, and that good (complicated) GabrielxDean shit with @awaywardboy-andhisangel and actually... that’s all the canonxcanon ship stuff I’m writing right now for some reason. But that’s not all the ships!  Fulfilling a years long dream (for me) @daedaluscried and I are writing GabrielxAri and she has also indulged some excellet (unrequited) GabrielxEve content, @thxwxlf and I have dabbled in some GabrielxKekipi, and @inferniangod has been kind enough to write GabrielxIfrit with me. 

          I’ve discussed, but not actually written GabrielxSam with @smmie, and I think @hellsmother and I are on track to write some GabrielxRowena (but if I’m not sure I should probably check, whoops).  So that’s six total, eight if you count these last two.  Plus a handful of others where Gabriel is just flirting at people and waiting to see what happens.  Nothing has to happen, he’s just like that.  But something could happen with any of them.

➋ Have you ever roleplayed with someone that just left an unforgettable impression on you?

          Of course!  I’ve been doing this for 10+ years and people have made all kinds of impressions, some amazingly good and others downright awful. I can roll through some nicknames/first names only and proably only Anti will know who I’m talking about because a lot of them are from our shared history on gaiaonline!  I could go on and on about every single one of these people but here’s a quick ‘n dirty list instead: Noir, Kathy, Mariah, Moose, Lyss, Berry, and @daedaluscried!  I’m still occasionally in touch with three of these people (one more often than the other two) which I think is kind of wild all things considered. There’s also some not so good impressions, like guy-who-started-nice-and-then-harassed-me-for-nude-pics and the-person-who-broke-my-trust-and-caused-me-to-stop-writing-smut, but i have put them far far behind me.

➌ Which of your ships on this blog is the fluffiest?

          The fluffiest is probaly Gabriel and Ari now that we’ve gotten into the emotional core of the relationship on both ends.  Which isn’t to say that it’s not a spicy ship with a helping of angst, but... I’ve written more hand-holding with them than with any of the others and I guess that’s my definition of fluff. Also I suspect the gratuitous hand-holding will continue even once they’re past the language barrier. So... FLUFF.

➍ Would you say you’re a decent role player or do you have any self doubts?

          I think I’m a decent writer but my roleplay skills vary depending on the day.  I understand how to set a mood and (usually) how to string a decent sentence together but sometimes the craft that goes into bouncing off of another writer and giving them something to bounce off of in return eludes me.

➎ Have you made lots of friends on this blog?

          More than I expected too. But when I set this blog up I thought ‘those days are behind me now’ so... one would be more than I expected.

➏ What’s the one thing you especially love about roleplaying your muse?

          WRITING THE JOKES!  And not just the verbal jokes he makes, I love writing jokes into my narration! Meta jokes! Dick jokes! Bad puns! All of it! I love it!! I also enjoy the way Gabriel interacts with the world around him.  He rarely just stands in a scene and talks, he’s always moving and gesturing and doing stuff. I also love writing his dialogue, even when the things I write make me squinch my face up with shame. He just says stuff sometimes. 

➐ Are there any people you’ve been to afraid of approaching?

          NOPE!  I’m not afraid to reach out. Approaching people is the easy part. You send a meme, you make an ooc comment, you tag them in something, you hit them with an ask or an IM or whatever.  And if they don’t answer that’s a-okay!  Their choice, I’m not hurt or personally offended. What I’m afraid of is what happens after that part if they do answer.  I can usually BS a thread until I find the point of the thing but IMs and asks? Y I K E S ! Now there’s an expectation for me to be cool and witty and have good ideas instead of just mediocre ones. Very scary. The reason I don’t send IMs.

➑ Give us a rough estimate: How much time have you spent on your graphics? (icons, theme, banners, promos, etc)

          My icons/graphics are a visual representation of me learning to use G.I.M.P. and I think you can... very clearly see the learning curve.  More effort went into those old fuzzy icons I have than the new, crisp ones. Plus moodboards and other stuff?   My guess is 40+ hours.

➒ Got any memorable threads on here? Care to mention a few?

          Well now I wish I had thread tags.  Thread tags would be a lifesaver right now.  Anyway, I am once again shouting out @awaywardboy-andhisangel and our original GabexDean thread that has since spiraled and gotten very, very interesting (it’s not over, I just like it).  And @divinitatemxsanguis who has allowed me to indulge in writing Gabriel with Loki post all the betrayl and murder. They have a special place in my heart so thanks for not judging me! I’m getting ready to write the conclusion/endcap to a sad thread with @isclcphobics involving Talia, Gabriel, and a grave. Plus the thread with @downwillow where Gabriel is human and Micheal has forgotten him. And a shoutout to @daedaluscried for our thread series that I have affectionately dubbed the ‘The Nanny’ series ft. October and Gabriel.  Every thread has been a delight.

          I also have some stuff I’m really looking forward to getting into, specifically with @hellsmother​, @cursebcund​, and @magaprima​.

➓ What were some of the most frustrating moments you had with your muse’s interaction with another muse?

          One that’s on me: sometimes I know that a moment in a thread calls for some emotional vunerability, and often when those times roll around the Gabriel voice I use to write dialogue goes all quiet and resistant and just wants to make jokes.  And either one of two things happens, either I write the joke and cringe because I know now the thread is going to go way off track because obviously the other character won’t be thrilled/is about to shut down and shut up. Or I force some emotional vunerability out of him and it never quite sounds right to me.  Sometimes it’s natural, but sometimes he just won’t do the thing and it frustrates me!

          One that I’ve encountered from someone else: sometimes people will try to force a certain motivation or trait on my Gabriel based on their perception of canon/a past interaction they’ve had with another Gabe as portrayed by another RPer. This really grinds my gears because if you want a Gabriel with that motivation to critique/praise/fight with then go find one! I garantee someone out there plays him that way! There are a lot of us out here doing this! I’m not going to change my portrayl for you!!