#do not offend my 4-month long hyperfixation

[nomgett]

I’m in the mood to remind u that dbda will probably never ever get another season and Charles and Edwin will never have an onscreen kiss :3

I'm I'm the mood to skin you alive, grease your skin with olive oil, stretch it, slightly toast it, use it as cling film. Then, rip each vertebrae one by one and tumble them in a rock tumblr until they look like pearls, make a necklace and sell it for millions as a prehistoric Neanderthal necklace. After wards, I will take the eyes and rip them from their extraocualar muscles, peel the sclera off like skin off a grape, then use the unclothed eyeballs in a fruit salad which otherwise consists of strawberries, mangoes, peaches, and the ashes of then last 7 generations on your paternal sides. I will promptly use your blood in a ritual to summon the gods of the underworld to curse your bloodline and every inanimate object you have ever touched to turn into orbees. After the local area has an orbee crisis, I will use said orbees to stuff your cleaned intestines and make it into a stress toy, and stuff your stomach to make a punching bag. I will proceed to pluck every individual tooth and fill your empty mouth with everything that maggots need to thrive. You will be known as the corpse with an ecosystem in the jaw area. I will also use said teeth and polish them. Then using the polished teeth I will put them in soap bars which I will gift to your already cursed family so when they use it, teeth fall out. Furthermore I will use the flesh off your limbs to train pirhanas to walk, so the world will go into a crisis wondering about this phenomenon. For days the walking pirhana armies will cause chaos and taint the sky red.

We still got most of your abdomen and some limbs to cover so stay tuned for more! :3

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Aita for literally forgetting my mutual? Twitter warning.

So about 4 years ago I made some new friends and acquaintances in a fandom I'm in for many years. They are very cool and intimidating, but this particular person is really the boss. She's a serious social media person and I just go there to shitpost. So I never got that close with her. Let's call her Dana.

In those years she and I barely spoke, we were never close, no real connection besides we're in the same fandom and we have a few friends in common. Dana posts everything on her account, it's like a normie account with tons of discourse and selfies along with all things pop culture. She also deactivates from time to time.

A year ago I made a new side account to talk about a new hyperfixation. Dana was also into that so she followed me along with some of my other mutuals. It's a small fandom so I made a bunch of new friends on this side quickly. Dana followed me but never interacted with me on this side, not even likes, I messaged her a few times and got a grand total of two replies.

I didn't really care about her attention, but just to curate my feed I muted her. This is where my memory is faulty. I have a habit of hard/ softblocking MIA or bot accounts regularly, I also do this to accounts I have followed but muted for a long time. Cause I get anxious.

And I may have softblocked Dana 6-7 months ago.

Cut to last week. I got a message from Dana saying she just reactivated and saw that I wasn't her mutual from my new account, what's going on. Not remembering anyone called Dana, I smartly replied from the notification, "Who is this?"

I'm not sure if she deactivated for 6-7 months soon after I softblocked or if she noticed the change just now. She was out of sight, out of mind. I can't tell you what she did.

Anyway I didn't get a reply, also I was busy and couldn't check at the time. Later when I checked the message in my inbox I saw the older messages and remembered The Dana. I apologized and tried to explain. She replied one lol. Nothing else.

Then a mutual friend asked if something happened because Dana was fuming a little at me in her priv and said something to imply she was really offended. I didn't want to know that, it's her priv, but I do and I feel bad.

So? Did it make sense? How much did I fuck up?

What are these acronyms?

[maxminspeech]

Halo: Infinite, and the State of Modern Gaming

So, before I write this, I want to offer a couple critically important pieces of context.

I am a neurodivergent (namely, ADHD and Autism) person, and will be looking at these games from this lens

I am a *massive* fan of Halo, and even despite the problems I'm going to mention having here, I fucking love these games, and will continue to do so!

This is exclusively about the multiplayer component of Halo: Infinite. It is not the worst offender in any regard I mention, nor is it unique in its shittiness, but it is the series I know, and play, and have problems with. While I will be viewing these problems and speaking about them using Infinite as a point of reference, it will not be the only game I talk about nor the only thing I reference.

So. Halo: Infinite. It's major additions to the series outside of the core gameplay additions and story are limited-time events, battle passes you use to unlock new armour pieces, weekly items, and a microtransaction store which contains unique items. And ALL of these, are in one way or another, actively harmful.

As an autistic person, I have an incredibly addictive personality, and can hyperfixate on media I particularly enjoy. Halo, as my favourite media franchise in fiction, is certainly one of my worst offenders! But because of this, and a compulsive feeling of need to "get everything I can", I drive myself absolutely insane.

In Halo: Infinite, the grind quite literally never ends. Every 3-6 months, a brand new battle pass is released, containing dozens of hours worth of grinding in cosmetics. In addition to this, a new cosmetic is added each week, and if you don't earn that cosmetic that week? It's gone. Permanently. And there's events, limited time things with similar permanent losses if you don't (or can't) play the game to complete the event in time.

All of these things are, to one form or another, spread across countless games. Maybe not in the same way Halo handles it, but still. Its battle pass is a more user-friendly of that seen in something like Fortnite (as in Halo: Infinite, you can always go back and buy old Battle Passes, meaning no cosmetic from it can be truly missed out on, a fantastic user-friendly addition which would mean infinitely (heh) more if events and weekly items didn't permanently vanish if you fail to acquire them), events are in countless games, whether to add new items or simply speed up different forms of progression, and new rotating items are a somewhat common thing in games, too.

And then there's the store. For all my rage and frustration, I'm going to give shockingly little time to the store. It isn't really the problem itself here, though its existence is the ROOT of all the problems here. Because the game and its multiplayer truly... isn't designed to be fun. Its designed to keep you playing. And that's a critical difference.

Video games shouldn't be designed so you come back every week to get a new item. They should be designed to make you come back every year, or 2 or 3 or however long you want, to experience the entirety of the game once more. To enjoy and love this story, these characters, all over again.

This change in video game design is led by the simple root of it all- capitalism. A need to make more money in as efficient a way as possible. Make people pay for a battle pass, and then while they're playing to complete the pass anyway, make sure they see the store and the items in it, make sure they see that beloved Halo 4 helmet is there, or that they've added a new skin. Whatever keeps people coming back, keeps looking at the store.

Because it doesn't matter if 5 out of 10 people buy nothing, if 4 out of 10 buy something and 1 out of 10 buys everything. Especially when they're this easy to turn around new items for.

I understand that this is simply how the game is played, but I must talk about it, at least from my perspective. Because as an autistic, neurodivergent person, this is simply, to borrow a term from Jim Stephanie Sterling, an accessibility issue.

Video games should be for everyone. I firmly believe this and will stand by it until the day I die. But that doesn't just mean playing the game at all. It also includes people getting to enjoy a game without it being designed to prey upon their neurodivergence, their love for an existing series, just to try and fleece them for all the money they're willing to spend on pixels on a screen.

I love Halo. And I love Halo: Infinite. It's campaign is a masterpiece of writing, environments, visuals and gameplay. It's soundtrack is sublime (having listened to it while writing this, even!) and I adore it even despite all of this. But I also will admit, I can feel like my favourite series in fiction doesn't love me back, with the way it's designed. This isn't to blame 343 Industries, its to blame Microsoft. The company that orders these changes and collects the money while the staff who make the games we love get all of the blame and none of the credit.

The video game industry is fundamentally broken, and the sooner we can fix it, the better. Video games need to be for all, that includes neurodivergent people, and even people who just can't play the game this week!

Honestly, I really enjoyed writing this analytical piece. I think I might do it more often on here, of other ideas I have in games, or reviews, or anything.

Thank you for your time, friends. I hope you have a lovely day! Here's a nice gif of John Halo to cheer you up after a pretty serious ramble c:

[leighsartworks216]

Oh, if it’s songs you need to listen to, then boy howdy, I got a request for you!

In lieu of the absolute tragedy I’ve asked for in the past, perhaps we could do a Warfstache x Reader based on Livin’ It Up On Top where the reader is still the DA, but it’s more of a happier piece where the DA returns to the egos after each of Mark’s adventures, and Warfstache heads the celebration for it?

~ 🌺

I am SO sorry this took so long. My brain unexpectedly switched from hyperfixating on egos to like 4 different fandoms and it hasn't switched back to egos yet

This isn't really based on the song (I couldn't get into it sorry) but you've been waiting so so long and my brain is kinda mush so here's headcanons on Wilf welcoming you back home after an adventure w Mark instead

Warnings: mentions of food and drink but it's not specified what

Masterlist

AO3

Acting as a main character in one of Mark’s stories is exhausting

Esp when you weren’t trained to be an actor

But you weren’t really an acting DA anymore after “the incident we don’t talk about”, so Mark dragging you along on make believe adventures was the best option

Sometimes you’d be gone for a week, other times you’d be gone for months

(One time you were gone for a whole year)

When you would be back was always relayed to the Egos, but sometimes Wilford knew before anybody else

They would get the message you’re returning tomorrow and Wilford has already been planning for a week off a “hunch”

He always makes sure your favorite food is prepared - everything from snacks to dessert

He sets up banners and streamers and large stereos, usually with help from the Jims

The moment you step into the door, you’re greeted with your favorite music, favorite food and drinks, and the man who planned it all pulling you into his arms in a bone-crushing hug

Wilf always calls you cute little nicknames too like ��sugarplum”, “sweetheart”, etc etc

When you’re finally released from the hug, he always asks how the adventure was and gave you absolute free reign to rant about Actor to him

All the while he’s looking you up and down, making sure you’re not hurt or actually too tired to have a party

He doesn’t even know he does it, he’s brimming with too much energy to notice

You’re never hurt, thankfully (God knows what he would do to Actor if you were)

But if he sees you’re too tired for the party he set up, he slings an arm around your shoulders and in a snap you’re both upstairs in your room, already dressed in PJs

The food and drinks (or maybe a copy of them? You still weren’t sure) also managed to find their way spread along your desk

Wilf would act as a little servant, bringing you drinks and food (if you wanted any) and making sure you were totally comfortable

He always beelines right for the dessert, cursed with the world’s worst sweet tooth

And you’ll hang out, mindlessly talking about anything and everything you missed or experienced, sometimes sharing bites of each other’s food

Everybody else (who cared to take part in the celebration) could rock it up downstairs all the while you relaxed upstairs

If you weren’t too tired from your long excursion, Wilf would drag you along into the party

He’d reintroduce everyone like you were meeting them for the first time, but everyone would play along and welcome you back

You’d have to say hi to Dark later; he hates parties of any kind, and Wilford can only drag him into one so many times

Some of the egos would give you hugs, but if Wilford thought they were lingering too long, he’d drag you to the next person and glare at whoever the offender was (He’s jealous shh don’t tell him)

You could eat, drink, dance, whatever until the sun came up

But Wilford would always stick close by, prepared to carry you upstairs and tuck you in when the exhaustion finally hit

Because no matter how much he loves parties, he loves you more

---

Tag List:

@writeawaythepain

@hyperfixat

@cryptidjester

@your-voice-is-mellifluous