#but everyone is nothing but nice and supportive

[14dayswithyou]

I literally have the most amazing and wonderful community in the entire world???? T_T In this essay, I will—

This is going to be raw and unedited because I want to get my initial thoughts out there before I forget n go back to crying /pos, but?? Yawl.... I can't even begin to find the words to express how appreciative and grateful I am for each and every one of you!! ;v;

I've spent the past few hours reading through everyone's personally written messages, then rereading them all again to let it all fully sink in. I'm being genuine when I say that I've never felt this loved or appreciated in any community before in my life.

Those in the Discord server might know about this already, but since the start of this year, I haven't really been enjoying myself (nor have I been as active) in the yandere VN community. There was far too much infighting between devs, parasocial communities, and toxic anons that ruined so much for me — so I withdrew from it all and remained in my own small bubble. Even then, I still got belittled, harassed, doxxed, and even became the target of Tall Poppy Syndrome by others; most of which nearly made me want to leave altogether, but the overflowing amount of support from everyone in the 14DWY community made me want to stay.

And even now, after reading all those heartfelt messages... I think it's permanently solidified the little space I occupy here on the internet :3

So... Yeah, long story short (and a story that will likely end up as its own separate Tumblr post gjskskjd), I wasn't enjoying myself at all in the yandere VN community... but I did have the time of my life in the 14DWY community. And it's all thanks to you guys.

I'm genuinely sooooo proud to have such an endlessly kind, social, and talented community; and I'm glad to have brought such an interactive and friendly group of people together over our shared interest in such a nice concept. 14DWY is essentially a labour of my love — and although I'm ultimately creating it for me and my silly interests — it's still something that I want to make worthy of you guys as well. All the love and support you've shown me and 14DWY motivates me to do my very best, and y'all deserve nothing less. So...

Thank you all for finding a comfort character in my Totally Normal Guy and his Totally Not Eccentric quirks. Thank you for all the insanely talented creations y'all make and share with me. Thank you for sending in your silly (/pos) questions and turning them into inside jokes and AUs for the rest of the community to enjoy. Thank you for talking with me and making this space a genuinely fun place for me to be in again.

From the bottom of my heart; thank you all so much. I really hope everyone has had an amazing year so far, and I hope 2025 will be as kind to you as you all were towards me.

I also want to give a big fat massive huuuuuuuge shout-out to Ashe / @flaneur001 my love (/p) for organising the 14DWY letter event on Discord, and for contributing so much of their time and dedication to the 14DWY community. You say you've only been part of the community for a year, but to me, that was a year well cherished and appreciated. The 14DWY community (and me especially) have all been so lucky to spend this past year with you, and I sincerely hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have. You've done so much for me, the community, and the 14DWY Discord server, so it's only fair that you get the recognition you deserve. So thank you, Ashe!! And a big thank you to everyone in the 14DWY Discord who participated in this event as well!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cryin and sobbin to do <3 /silly /pos

[average-mako-enjoyer]

After all the raw intensity of da2, Inquisition feels painfully bland. The narrative always teeters on the edge of saying something substantial, but then pulls back.

Oh, you're saying the Templars are killing everyone they suspect of being a mage or supporting mages? Well, they just need a good leader and everything will be fine!

Oh, so the first Inquisition developed the Rite of Tranquility, they used it to abuse mages for 800 years, and the leadership of the Chantry FBI knew about it all along? Well, don't worry, the good Cassandra will fix everything (just don't tell the abused mages that you can undo the Rite).

Oh, and by the way, that elf genocide thing? The destruction of the Dales? Well, evil avvar are to blame! And the elves themselves. They didn't support the emperor during the second Blight because the evil avvar captured the only one who could convince them, and, well, the emperor's son had to act, right? Everyone is at fault here, don't think about it too much.

It goes on and on.

DA2 pulled no punches when talking about authority, because the entire Kirkwall crew are underdogs (yes, even the Champion, who effectively bought their place among the Kirkwall elite, and everyone knows it, and even after the Quinary thing, everyone still treats them like a thug for hire).

So DA2 had to be anti-authoritarian, but in Inquisition, you're the authority. You're the guy who judges people and sends them to their deaths. You're the guy with the castle and the throne. You can't make any substantive comments about the fucked-up system because you're the one who perpetuates it.

And of course DAI redeems Cullen as the "face" of the New Templars. You see, he just needed a good, lawful leader, someone to accept him and make him feel better. He will even stop being a drug addict if you ask him nicely! And yes, he will continue to tell you that you should probably abuse mages more than you do now, but that's only because he's worried about everyone's safety! He's not like those evil red Templars, no, no. He's a good one now.

DA2's message was, "Well, the system is fucked beyond repair. Every authoritarian system is inherently fucked, and there is probably nothing you can do about it. The only way you can participate in this meat grinder is to either turn the handle or accept that you're going to be ground. Or you can take the secret third option. See you at the end of Act 3.

The Inquisition's message is: "Authority is fine as long as its leaders are good people with good intentions. They will know what to do in the end. They will do the right thing. You just have to trust them!" And it's... yeah. At least, Cullen's romance is cute.

talking to cullen and elthina about ser alrik and not coming out of it an explosion apologist is insane to me. that anders waited 3 whole ass years to do it is a test of patience in of itself. if that were me i would have dropped an actual like straight up nuclear missile on these jokers.

[old-fandom]

I've had this Stancest idea for a while and I need to get it down.

Sea Grunk era, pre-relationship. Stan and Ford have feelings for each other but they haven't told each other. There's been signs here or there but nothing concrete. However, while out. Stan starts to feel courageous that even if Ford doesn't feel the same way, then he can at least be truthful.

So one night, Stan is trying really hard to tell Ford. It's not coming out right and Stan is very nervous. He can't seem to get the words out right but Ford stops him - tells him that he knows what he's trying to tell him. And Stan is so scared but excited. But Ford pops the bubble and says that Stan is gay (which isn't wrong but not what he was going for.)

Stan, seeing as his way out of this horrible conversation, tells him he's actually Bi. Ford does the whole, "You're my brother and I'll love you no matter what." And in an act of solidarity, Ford tells Stan that he's gay, which Stan supports (for obvious reasons). But that night, Ford is laid up in bed, tossing and turning. He's feeling guilty, horribly guilty. He believes that his own foolishness has costed Stan a life in which he could settle down with someone, be it man or woman. He spent all his time trying to get Ford back, he neglected his own self. And Ford always feel guilty for wanting Stans sole attention but he believes that he owes Stan this, to find romantic companionship.

So in comes Match-Maker Stanford Pines.

He spends all his time trying to get Stan to tell him what he likes about men and women. And Stan is reluctant because the only person he's really into is Ford. But he obligies because when he doesn't, Ford looks so unhappy and he can't stand unhappy Ford. He blames himself for making him unhappy. What Ford doesn't realize is that the characteristics for the different dates are all characteristics he likes about Ford, nerdiness, brown hair, glasses, kind of sophisticated, things like that.

Through out their travels, Ford sets Stan on a few dates with people they meet in ports. Stan, not wanting to make Ford unhappy, goes on the dates. They're nice and everyone is kind to him and he can't argue that they aren't his type, but he gets sad because he would rather be with Ford than these people. So when he comes home from the dates, obviously not super happy, Ford feels like he failed him, and the cycle continues of Ford feeling like he's failing Stan and Stan feeling guilty for leading these people on and only wanting Ford.

One date, Stan just can't go with it and ends of leaving early. He walks back to the boat and get inside their cabin but freezes, when he hears Ford moaning his name in the bedroom. He cracks the door open to see Ford jerking it with Stan's names on his lips, laying on Stan's bunk.

This is all the confirmation Stan needs before barreling his way inside and confronting Ford. They get through some very direct confessions and make passionate love in bed.

[chronically-ghosted]

Despite 2024, we still made it to 2025! Now let's celebrate that accomplishment!

Thank you to everyone who submitted to celebrate this fandom and the wonderful people in it! Fandom is about community, and we are nothing without it. I got the warm and fuzzies reading through all the lovely submissions so I hope you feel it too! Happy New Year!

🥶 nominate a person who made the year extra special

🌟 @cavillscurls nominated @kiwisbell 🌟

and my shoutout goes to the very special @kiwisbell. not only is she the most trusted beta, kindest friend, and brilliant writer, but most recently (and excitingly) the greatest collaborator and writing partner. meeting her—and meeting her in PERSON this summer—remain the highlights of my year. i’m not going to go into my dissertation on the importance and special nature of internet friendships, but just know that the light, creativity, and openness she brings to this fandom and to my life are things i will never take for granted. i am certain our next year will be better because she’s in it! I LOVE YOU.

(this is the attached photo and i HAD to include it 😭)

🌟 @bitchesuntitled nominated @beefrobeefcal 🌟

Hooooly shit. What can I say about Kiki that I haven’t already told her?! She is an amazing human being and I aspire to be like her. She is so kind even when others are not so nice. She’s one of the most creative people I know and I absolutely love when we get on a tangent in ALL CAPS ABOUT AN IDEA. She is so willing to help anyone and everyone- whether it’s a fic or a moodboard or you’re just feeling down in the dumps about something! I think she is one of the best people in this fandom and I am so glad to have her in my life ❤️ Also just a bit of a personal story to show the kind of person she is, when I was first getting sober I was worried about how I would handle July 4th because as an American it’s a very ‘Merica fuck yeah! Let’s drink! holiday and she checked in on me multiple times during the day and let me just ramble to her about different things so that I wouldn’t be tempted to drink 🥰❤️🥰❤️ So yeah, she’s a good egg.

🌟 @sixhours nominated @bumblepony 🌟

Hello m'dear, I have an entry for your end-of-year celebration. 🥶 I wanted to give a shout-out to @bumblepony who, in addition to being a talented and prolific fic writer, has commissioned sooooooo many artworks for other TLOU fanfic writers this year (myself included). She's a gem, and this fandom is so fortunate to have her. 🥰

🌟 @bluestar22x nominated @trulybetty and @morallyinept 🌟

Can't narrow down my pick for this to one, so @trulybetty and @morallyinept are both getting nominated. Both have been so kind and supportive of me and both are super talented writers. Thank you both for your kind words and sharing your wonderful fics.

🌟 @i-love-movies nominated @thegreenkid2 🌟

I nominate @thegreenkid2 with whom I had so many lovely chats about Pedro and movies in general sometimes for hours and very late into the night. I really enjoy geeking out together over so many different things.

🌟 @sp00kymulderr nominated @dieterbravobrainrotclub 🌟

Every member of the brainrot club, for being feral and silly and fun and thoughtful and insightful in so many ways. For making my year extra special. For making so many fun memories, and helping to lighten the mood. For your dedication to the man that is Dieter Bravo.

☃️ your favorite line of fic that you wrote this year

🌟 @bluestar22x - The Outcast

Favorite line: Guiding you into your future, like you had guided him home.

Fic: The Outcast

What makes it special to you: It's hard to pick one line from a fanfic I wrote this year, but I do love this line that ends my story "The Outcast". It's the first favorite line I thought of because it's simple and calls back to how it began. The fic is very themed around finding/discovering what you need with the help of another person.

🌟 @bitchesuntitled - Xerox

Favorite line: Jamie lets out a pathetic, “Oh d-d-dear,” sounding almost identical to Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, and audibly gulps while furiously nodding his head.

Fic: Xerox

What makes it special to you: I knew from the moment I started writing this story that I wanted Xerox!Pedro to be this inexperienced bumbling idiot and thinking about him stuttering out an “Oh dear” like Piglet cracked me up so much 🤣 It still makes me laugh whenever I see it/think about it

🌨️ your favorite memory from fandom this year

🌟 @sp00kymulderr had a favorite memory with @chronically-ghosted

We created the Dieter Bravo Brainrot Club in January 2024 and it has been easily my favourite place to hangout this year. I'm so glad that it exists, and I want to shout out: YOU, Taylor. The Dieter brainrot would not even exist without you. I love how we have spent so much time together this year spiralling over That Man. I love that I got to read so many of your wonderful fics about him, and scream about him with you. I love that we created a space together for others who feel the same way. I love being your friend.

🌟 @i-love-movies had a favorite memory with @miss-mandalorian

This fandom gave me a lovely friendship with @miss-mandalorian which I cherish very much even though a big ass ocean lies between us and we have yet to meet IRL. She just recently set me the most lovely gift. 💖

🌲 your favorite piece of media you made for fandom this year

🌟 @i-love-movies is super proud of:

Gladiator 2 South Park! Pedros

"I made this set of Gladiator 2 South Park! Pedros. I haven't posted a lot of South Park! Pedro this year cause I didn't feel very creative. This one sparked some of my creativity again."

[crystallizsch]

Btw I love ur yuusha sm

HFJKDLJ HI THIS LITERALLY CAME NOT LONG AFTER THE LAST ASK AND IM ALSO JUST

you've been around since i started posting about yuusha and jamil if i recall correctly??? even still if not, your tags/comments always make me happy ajfdklsajf

it's always so motivating and i REALLY appreciate it so THANK YOU SO MUCH I'M REALLY GLAD TO HEAR YOU LOVE HER 😭💖😭💖😭💖

(*throws this here too as a thanks*) (they're purely platonic tho)

(kalim insisted on taking a pic with her) (jamil just always third wheels them)

[rust-official]

This time round trying emacs is different because I'm using doom (at the brilliant recommendation of one of my partners, mentioned above), which is kind of like one of the neovim distributions but for emacs. Good defaults that match what a 25 year vim veteran wants, enough customizability to fit to what I need. Like any massively complex piece of software, it's taken a lot of getting used to, and there's always more to learn. The doom docs say that learning emacs is an adventure, and I agree.

org mode is cool! There are some plugins that simulate it in (neo)vim of course, but nothing really manages to match org. The more I learn about org, the more I love it--it is always the marquee feature which gets me playing with emacs every time I've wanted to try it. Of course, the most basic features for outlining are state of the art, even among commercial outliners like omnioutliner, everyone knows that. But it also supports cool things like tables with integrated calculator support and exports to every format you can think of and and and. org's manual is hundreds of pages and it can do so, so much. And it's just one package!

Continuing from the above, neovim can't have a plugin that does everything org mode does, for a variety of reasons. It's too mature and has too many people working on it for a few loosely-associated plugin writers to be able to accomplish the same thing. Beyond this, even neovim just doesn't have the same extensibility that emacs does. Most of neovim is still written in C with a thin layer of lua for extensions, whereas the emacs philosophy is a small core in C and the rest in elisp--a lot like atom or, more recently, visual studio code--but using a real language, of course, and not JS.

evil mode is a far better approximation of vim than I was expecting. Just about every other vi mode falters and has bugs / missing features. I've not run into any such limitations or bugs with evil, again probably due to its popularity compared to the vi modes in those other tools, which are often an afterthought (or just removed / dropped entirely, like in the new repl for python 3.13).

The emacs philosophy is as it was 30 years ago when I first tried learning it: it still expects you to open the editor when logging in and never close it. As such it has better tools for managing lots of open buffers (I particularly like ibuffer, it mostly approximates vim's bufexplorer plugin, but it's missing a few things from vim or I don't know about them yet; will be looking at the manual).

There's seemingly a package for everything, and often a few different ones for the same thing. The "emacs is my operating system" mantra makes a lot of sense when viewed from this angle. Lots of things have good documentation, too, and of course, as I said above, so much more is possible in emacs than neovim.

doom's out of the box LSP support seems nicer than neovim's. I'm sure I could get similar results with configuring neovim, perhaps with more plugins or config, but things just feel more robust right from the start. I still need more time to evaluate this, as I've spent the least amount of time editing code. Mostly I've been focusing on editing documents with org mode and the occasional dabbling with magit for doing git stuff. magit is quite nice and very mature; I know it'll work quite well for managing code repos once I'm more comfortable with emacs as a code editor. I have lots of custom keybindings for neovim's LSP support that I'll need to relearn if I want to use emacs as my code editor.

One criticism I do have is that none of the emacs terminal emulators I've tried work well with vi keybindings in my shell; when I press esc to enter normal mode in the shell, the buffer for the terminal emulator goes into evil's normal mode. There may be a way to fix it, but I've not looked into it yet.

Am I going to switch? I don't know. I'm giving it an honest try, a more honest try than I have in the past, and having someone to ask questions is proving absolutely critical. I can't answer this question right now. Maybe? I cannot say how helpful evil has been with this. Modal editing is how my brain works and I don't think I'd be able to learn non-modal editing.

Given how @neovim-official hates me (see here) I have started learning @emacs-unofficial , using @doom-official and hence @emacs-evil-mode.

(this is not entirely a shitpost, one of my partners has been showing me around, largely for org mode but I've always been curious. Back when I got my start with Unix/Linux in the late 90s on a shell provider, emacs was the first editor I tried, but it was so slow to start back then that I switched to vim. How things would've been different for me if computers were faster when I started!)

[torahtot]

you can always tell when someone doesn't have maga men in their life and god it makes me angry.. "if you're nice and compassionate you can be the one woman that makes them realize women aren't mean!" my mom bent over backwards for my dad for 25 fucking years he has plenty of other women kissing his ass and it never changed anything. do you really think that before being radicalized they never knew a single kind woman? they were never friends with a nice girl? alt-right men's problem with women isn't just that they've experienced too many mean women and they need to be shown that women can be nice, it's that they think women are inferior and don't deserve rights and don't understand anything so you can do what you want with them. and it takes a lot more than being nice to show someone that you aren't inferior. this isn't a case of being nice even when it's hard for the sake of deradicalization, it's about spending every fucking interaction with someone trying to get them to see you as a human being with value and a functioning intellect while they just laugh and show you that's never going to happen.

i cannot stress this enough: random women are not just going out and Being Mean to men. ur average guy interacts with plenty of women throughout his life- close women amongst their friends and family, casual interactions etc. most people don't start out being shunned by women, they start out being treated as NORMAL. & when they show their disrespect in normal society, it isn't tolerated, but when they go to alt-right spaces (which they're pushed towards online) they're told they're allowed to be as horrible as they want with no consequences because they're entitled to everything. it isn't "women aren't welcoming and the alt-right is so friendly so i'll become alt-right," it's "women don't let me disrespect them and the alt-right tells me fuck them, do whatever you want, you're entitled to it all" and why would you choose the group where you have to be a normal accountable person when there's a group that will reward you for being a shithead who gives no fucks?

the alt-right can afford to be more friendly and welcoming because they can allow bigotry. this can't work the same way for progressive spaces because we can be as kind & welcoming as possible but at the end of the day we have lines where we have to say "this behavior/speech isn't allowed in this space," and for certain people, that just can't win against a space where you can be as nasty as you want. these posts always end with a disclaimer saying "of course being kind doesnt mean you need to tolerate their bigotries" but what they don't realize and what drives me crazy is that women not tolerating bigotry IS the "women are mean" that radicalized them in the first place. they perceive you pushing back on any bigotry or bullshit as you being a meanie and treating them like they're ontologically evil. the 'kindness' they need to be deradicalized is you letting them walk all over you.

idk what the answer is to deradicalizing them and im sure relationships are part of it but you can be as kind as you want and all it will do is destroy you ime. i cant stand to see people (who have never even successfully deradicalized any man by being nice btw they always speak in hypotheticals and not from experience) double down on telling women to do things that will see no results and only hurt them, especially when any woman who has tried can tell you exactly how it went

[mukuberry]

Sayonara End Roll really is the embodiment of "when you start healing, it gets worse before it gets better"

[demiboydemon]

How to be majorly disappointed, by me

Step one: find a cool Legend of Zelda-related book at the local used bookstore

Step two: get excited because that’s my special interest

Step three: check the back and see it’s about how various religions relate to the Zelda universe

Step four: get even more excited because I love both those topics

Step five: flip through and discover it’s all Christianity related and no other religions are even mentioned

Step six (the most important step): cry 😭

[street-corner-felines]

Zero Day (2002)

[featherymainffins]

Peace and love on planet Earth but if I see one more post NOT about recovery and, in fact, encouraging eating disorders in the ed recovery tag, I might just turn into a chimpanzee and tear everyone's faces off.

[zukkacore]

This is kinda stupid bc it’s not a cringefail excited gushing abt IYWD it’s honestly more like. Been feeling very insecure bc it’s just like SO earnest n raw n putting it out there was rly scary n like im proud of it I super am and everyone has been really kind

but also I feel so weird being so vulnerable I feel like maybe too easy on Porter bc me and my silly 8 Jaces Porter loves every Jace this is not to meant to be taken as like. That’s enough. That’s an excuse. In my mind it’s just as bad. I don’t know if that translates. That like. Yeah soft soft yearning longing yearning IYWD but there’s also something like unendingly cruel or tragic abt it too? Does that come across? It’s like. The memories are love to a degree, but tbe love didn’t change anything even if it existed. they’ve been dead since the beginning. There’s no changing what happens. Is it charitable to even assume love was there at all. Am I being too hard on myself. Am I too close to the project. It WAS very soft and that DOES feel like a strange project tho throw into our fun little mutual circle in which we love to watch these old men be awful to each other

[moonshine-nightlight]

I'm loving your writing from the werebear story and I was wanting to discover more of your writing. What's the fiction you're most proud of writing?

thank you! i'm glad you enjoyed it!

thats such a sweet question. I'm definitely most proud of Nothing's Wrong With Dale because it took lik 2 years to finish the draft and its the most ambitious story i've ever completed. The characters are really precious to me and so is the world i built. It's even longer than i expected and i'm just very proud of how it came out!

If you're looking for something shorter, my novella, Don't Shoot the Messenger, is also one i'm very proud of. The draft/second POV version is available for free, but i also self published it as a novella less than a year ago and so it's also extremely special to me. its the first original story that had professional editors help me as well so i feel like it has extra polish and refinement to it because of that. It'll always be the first physical book i ever published. i had dreamed about publishing for so long and didnt expect it to happen for years if at all. I'm incredibly proud of it.

both are available on tumblr and AO3 (DSM is AO3 users only since i published it)

[buthappysoverrated]

[soaps-mohawk]

Is it bad that I don’t want to give birth? Like, I told some of my friends and family that I don’t want to give birth and they told me that I’d change my mind and I told them I wouldn’t and they get mad at me. I told them that I’d adopt kids instead to give them a home and living family but they say that doesn’t matter and count because they won’t be biological.

That's not bad at all!! I know a lot of people that feel the same way. Hell, I feel the same way. I don't want to give birth and I'm very against having children. I've known that pretty much my whole life since I was old enough to conceptualize children and parenthood (very young as a woman growing up in America), and I was always told I'd change my mind someday.

Well, it's been about 20 years and I haven't changed my mind at all. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. The constant societal pressure that every generation has gone through of "you have to have children otherwise your life is meaningless" has very much been challenged as of late with plenty of people realizing your life doesn't end as soon as you're old enough to have children. A lot of those people pushing that narrative shouldn't have had kids in the first place. The world would probably be a lot better off if people that didn't want kids but were pressured into it by society just hadn't given into that pressure.

There's plenty of neglected, abandoned children, and children in foster care that deserve love and support. So yeah, if you don't want to give birth, then there's nothing to feel bad about. You've made that decision and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is only recycling the same societal pressures that probably made them have children they didn't want.

And if anyone says adopted or fostered children don't count, then kindly say fuck them and don't speak to them again. Same with people that say IVF or children born of surrogates. Just because you didn't give birth to your child no matter the reason, that doesn't make them "not your child." Hell I know there's people out there that say C-sections aren't "giving birth" because it wasn't natural.

Yeah, fuck those people and do what you want. It's your body, it's your life and they can either get over it or get out of your life 🤷

[dark-twist-fairytales]

staring at some old posts like 'i have regrets'.