#me or this blog etc. Thank you” that wasn’t meant as a personal fucking attack.

[let-them-fight]

dear rwby fans,

sorry I don’t like your show and don’t want it on this blog because it genuinely makes me pretty uncomfortable actually! please stop spamming my inbox to this day ty

[nerdsideofthemedia]

I've come to terms with bb but I still want to know when it was decided to be endgame. I don't buy the "planned from the start" thing since everything in show points to the exact opposite. Maybe the volume commentary after the fact will finally put the matter to rest...or muddle things up further lol. given the likely possibility of them lying ) if it was planned from the start there should have been hints from the start they shouldnt have began hinting at bb halfway into the series ( and attempting to use bb being a same sex ship as a shield and claiming anyone who didnt see evidence just didnt see it because it was a w/w ship makes me roll my eyes "I recognize that BB is likely to become a canon ship. But given that it's a stupid-ass canon ship, I've elected to ignore it."

Have you ever gotten around to reading from start to finish the one giant post dedicated to you that goes into length about your harassment and it is now linked to in all my rwby post in the wordpress blogs, @megashadowdragon (yes, I am almost certain that is your actual real account even if my evidence is circumstancial)? Should I put a link to your tumblr profile too?

You've claimed to be in your late 20s, how the fuck can you be that old and still think it's acceptable to harass someone over a ship? and for months, no less. The only time you left me alone is when I had cut all means to do so. I shouldn’t have to do that. Have you been checking on my account every week for the last month to see when you could strike again? Get the fuck over it. BS sunk for good in early V6 (yes, the Renora/BB parallels are very clearly intentional and no, they didn’t change their minds mid-volume – that would have been likely impossible). V9 is starting in a couple of months.

If the writers told you every single hint they had to reveal BB, you would not believe them, so don’t bother feigning curiosity and pretending you’re open-minded. A person who thinks Adam attacked Yang and associated the word love without any planning on the writers' part is someone who could not care less about what the writers were trying to convey. A person who sees Yang getting associated with the ex and Sun getting associated with the unrequited love doesn’t think it says anything about story is naïve at best. And a person who keeps sending me to a goddamn post (that I’ve even quoted verbatim in one of my posts) that says “Like seriously if I was writing two characters that were only meant to be platonic, I would never write a scene like that. The implication of those words are too strong.” but tries to pretend this only applies to Renora and not BB is a deeply homophobic one. I have yet to understand how the hell you fail to see that that post makes actually a massive amazing argument for BB being planned from very early on. 

Nothing can be applied to Renora without applying to BB too. 

It wasn’t just the Renora scenes that were written by writers, the BB scenes also were, including the flirting and wink, the ship named Pride, the ex attacking and using the word love, yet classmate for Sun, Yang paralleling Pyrrha when they both helped the object of their affection in the dance arc, the Arkos/BB parallels in V3, etc. The writers decide everything. If they wanted Sun to fight the ex and not be associated with unrequited love, that would have happened. Don’t bother pointing Adam didn’t fight Sun when they were alone, that’s why he used the word classmate because the fight could have happened any way the writers wanted it to happen. If they wanted those 2 to fight (or with Blake) and use the word love, they would have.

The writers decide everything. If they wanted to associate Sun with the ex instead of the unrequited love or if they wanted to associate him with the word love instead of classmate, they would have. 

Instead of writing a post responding to all your nonsense for the 124539th time, 

let’s decide what to do with you. 

I’m guessing reporting you to tumblr is worthless because you harassed me using several accounts that no longer exist (mysteriouslypaleenthusiast, reallydelicateturtle, red2sposts, ravenstarsblog, violetcloudsworld, pleasantbarbarianfire, makofan and now lightningemperorsworld). Let’s not forget the multiple anons and the b@gmail.com and the m@gmail.com. Still, reporting to tumblr and see if they have ways to check it’s you and see what they can do about it, not off the table.  

Here’s my suggestion: you stop harassing the BB community (the entire community, not just me) and I let bygones be bygones. 

Or maybe, I inform your community (yes, I have also saved the usernames of the people you are constantly asking to bring down our posts because you can’t do it yourself – to be fair, neither can they) and let them know what you’ve been up to and how you’ve been using them to harass us. Unless of course, they already know, but they’re garbage so they don’t care. I may be willing to take a shot and find out.

Oh, and you can stop with the nonsense of being offended because I called you out on your homophobia. You don’t want to be called out on it, then stop being homophobic. For starters, stop harassing real LGBTQ+ people because your fictional straight ship didn’t become canon. 

If most saw it coming and you didn’t, then the writers didn’t fail, you did. Also, the hints didn’t begin mid-series, they have been there since the red fucking trailer. By the end of V3, a good chunk of the audience had called it. By the end of V6, almost no one thought BB wasn’t going to be endgame. 

You are one of the few exceptions. If that doesn’t scream volumes to you about your lack of understanding of storytelling/how much you live in denial, then nothing will. Live in “I’m right and everyone else is wrong” for as long as you want, but don’t ever bother me or anyone else ever again.

For the sake of honesty, I will say that I do not know if @megashadowdragon​ is the one behind the harassment of several BBers. I know with almost certainty they are behind mine, but I cannot be sure they have other victims since the patterns aren’t the same (at least, not the victims I know of). This been said, add them to the list of suspects.

I suppose I thank you for not being a complete asshole to me for the last 2,5 years, when I actually wrote the post that has you screeching for months. And now I say fuck you for being a complete asshole to me for the last 4 months because of a goddamn ship. Yet you have the fucking gall to pretend we are the toxic ones.  

TLDR: act your age (which you claimed is late 20s), and stop harassing people over a ship. No one owes it to you to pretend they did not see BB coming just because you didn’t. No one gives a shit about what you ship. Ship whatever you want as much as you want. Want to have an entire tumblr page just for BS? Go right ahead. What you cannot do is force your garbage ship down someone else’s throat. 

[jimines]

Whats actually happened between you and taemaknae? I read about it on the tea blog and still confused

This is an insanely long story so I'm going to put it below the cut so for anyone interested in this absolute shit show, continue on.

Essentially, I posted these headers about a month ago:

It was a set of like 8 colours and it was the first time I had ever posted any headers or anything. The issue nic had with these, was the ripped paper bottom. Because apparently you can trademark that. I had asked a (now ex) “friend” of mine if she knew where I could find the ripped paper effect because I had seen the effect on the header of her network blog and I had been trying to find a similar thing for months and google images never gave me anything good. She ended up referring me to google images anyways and after like an hour of dedicated searching, I found this ripped paper effect and used it. This ex “friend” went on to tell another friend of mine that I had "asked where nicole gets her resources for her headers" and then screenshotted my dm as "proof", which still confuses me because I never mentioned nicole there lmao. I've seen the screenshot.

Tell me where I said nicole. It was literally just a question born from seeing the header they had on their network lmao. I feel it’s important to mention I didn’t know this person ran said network at that time, which is why i said “these people”.

This other friend then came to me and just said my headers "may be seen as similar to nic's” and said she noticed it on her own and never mentioned my other “friend” approaching her. I was confused because other than that ripped paper effect that I know many people on tumblr use, I saw no similarities. Nic's headers are usually more complex and more than just a coloured background with a little effect in it. I just wanted to make some simple headers for fun because I was bored. But, regardless, I messaged nic about it to make sure she didn't feel the same way. I told her a friend of mine was worried nic might think my headers are similar to her's and I assured her that if she found them similar I would take them down, no questions asked. Nic told me she was surprised this friend brought it up and told me that it was entirely up to me if I found the headers similar. She never once told me she felt they were the same, never mentioned anything about them, she insisted it was up to me to do as I pleased. So, since I genuinely found no similarities, I left them up.

About a week went by and things between nic and I were fine, or so I thought, based off the fact that she was interacting with my posts, sending me cute asks and replying to a lot of my comments and stuff being kind and whatnot. Then, I decided to post a small list of my creations and the series I had running at the time. 

After that, all of a sudden I got an influx of rude hate anons:

To anyone I mentioned the anons to, they agreed with me, you cannot trademark circular icons. This anon also accused me saying “just the fact that you had an anxiety attack about it proves you copied them” Like no sweetie, it’s called three strangers walked into my house and I got anxious.

Despite me not seeing the issue, I messaged nic, assuming she wouldn't care about the icons (it wasn't like I was taking her exact work and copying and pasting them as my own) and that made her very upset. When she responded to me, she was incredibly heated and gave off the vibe she was waiting for me to message her about it. 

She said things like "this has actually been bothering me for a while", "i expected you to be able to read between the lines and delete the headers", "i don't know who that anon was but clearly they recognize my style". For starters, she never told me that she was annoyed with me, she was being very kind to me publicly. And I have no idea how I was meant to “read between the lines” of what she said especially considering how kind she was to me the following days. I also never accused her of knowing this anon, she just insisted it wasn't her and she didn't know them right off the bat. She also insinuated that I copied my gifs from others as well, which ticked me off because I made my 100+ layer psd myself thank you very much. But I kept my cool, and I told her I had no idea she felt the way she did, and I told her I would delete the headers (which i did as the conversation was going on), and that I would stop posting my icons and bringing attention to them because no one ever paid it any mind before that point. And I asked her “please tell me straight up the next time you have an issue with me because I am generally pretty dumb with social cues”, I have my adhd to thank for that. And instead of replying, she just blocked me. And conveniently, the hate anons stopped dead right after we blocked each other and I haven't received any since.

Also, these are the kinds of icons I posted:

Looks pretty generic and idk, universal, right?

Then, as I've recently found out today, she was in an "anti-loverjimin" groupchat with at least 2 other bloggers. 

Which explains why this all went and fell into place. I know who the two other bloggers are because of what happened two days later but I won't name them just yet, but these two people had been "friends" with me for several months. So, a day or two after nic blocked me, all of a sudden some good friends of mine were blocking me and not talking to me when I asked what was going on. I found out soon after it was because nicole and those two now ex “friends” of mine had taken old dms I sent them and were showing them to people. And I will go into detail about them but I won't name the people they are about for privacy reasons.

Before I move on, to clarify some lies nic has been spreading about me, I never once shit talked nicole to my friends. One of these ex friends also said I was trying to get people on my side. I would have reacted to this all very very differently if that were the case. I would be dragging everyone through the fucking dirt but I don't get off on drama or micromanaging what my mutuals do. My issues are with these people, if you're still friends with them that's your decision i could not care less. So, back to it, the only thing I said about nic was that she and I had a stupid small fight over icons and that she was spreading lies about me, based off of what nic said to jordan.

That exact message, or slight variations of it, was sent to anyone I interacted with because I didn't know if nic was going to stop at jordan or try and get to everyone I fucking knew lmao. Some of the people I messaged this to told ME nic had done this kind of thing before, that she has sent hate anons, launched hate campaigns, cancelled people, etc. Over stupid shit like icons lmao.

Here are some responses I received after I mentioned nicole:

And nic or one of her friends also took it upon themselves to send anons to that tea blog to blow shit up and named everyone and made it an even bigger mess when they saw no one was actively trying to fight me after the dms got out. 

I also love that in this following ask, they named my two “friends” that were behind the whole dm drama and backstabbed me, as well as two other people I never badmouthed, that story was twisted. But we’ll get into those details shortly.

And she also told people I clout chased big blogs and only cared about notes. At one point, yes, I did care a lot about my statistics. However, never once did I think clout chasing was worth my fucking time or energy, Nic is the biggest clout chaser on this damn site and there are receipts of that, ask jordan lmao. And I couldn’t give two shits about my statistics anymore lmao, much less anxiety that way. Do I still crave validation sometimes? Sure. But it's not a driving force of my tumblr experience like it used to be.

But, moving on to the dms, the first one was sent when I first came back to tumblr full-time and didn't understand why people self reblogged things, I found the pretence of self reblogging annoying and greedy and I complained about it and it was a comment fuelled by two bloggers that i would see sr a lot on my dash. But I never thought THEY were annoying, as these people are saying I did, it was self reblogging I found annoying and as you can see I have come to understand why people sr and I do it myself too. I didn't even know these two bloggers at this time either. That dm was cropped to hide the fact that this "friend" agreed with me and hid the date as well so it seemed recent, and was sent to one of the bloggers I mentioned as an example, someone I had since become good friends with. 

I didn’t befriend one of the people I mentioned there until mid to late June. That friendship is now over thanks to this drama and all the lies. The second friend of mine they went after was never spoken about in dms, they went and turned her against me through lies and manipulation so that friendship has ended too. And while those two were doing that, nic went off to try and turn jordan against me.

There was a particular user on here that I did say some nasty things about but we weren't friends, as many people have been made to believe. I was particularly mad at this person in those dms and was hurtful, I admit, and I have since apologized and owned up to all of it to these people. I did call them fake and/or two-faced. 

And what in the gassing me up bullshit was their response though lmao. I also sent this following dm before I even talked about the issue with this person. They urged me to continue and to name drop the person, and I stupidly thought they were trustworthy.

My reasoning for what I said wasn't unwarranted though, I don't make a habit of going around shit-talking people, unless they do something to me first. I vent when I am upset and this person had sent me a passive aggressive ask and then denied sending it when I asked and I thought that was just very fake, especially since she was so kind to me in dms before the ask came in. But all of these dms were cropped too to hide timestamps and responses, and in most cases, like those screenshots prove, these "friends" either gassed me up or egged me on to continue ranting or to name the people i was mad at and they had agreed with me on several, several occasions. Turns out they were trying to get dirt on me to use in their cancel campaign. But the point is, nic has made me out to be this horrible person that befriends "big blogs" (an overrated statement) and then shit talks them behind their back without remorse. Yet it was one person I said rude things about and I, again, owned up to it all and apologized to them the first day. I would've done it sooner had I a) remembered feeling the way I did all those months ago or remembered the dms themselves or b) felt that way still after meeting them. But neither is the case.

I find it really amusing though that these people wanted things to be kept quiet and didn’t want anyone they spoke to to talk to me about it because I was going to “out them on my blog” and “make a big scene”, then they three went and made it a big fucking scene and ruined my friendships. I’m familiar with this pattern of manipulation as it has happened to me in real life before and it’s the most childish bullshit to witness.

Before this callout day for nic, I had never once been directly rude to or about her, same goes for those ex “friends” that betrayed my trust and friendship. The fact that they plotted against me in a group chat while still actively talking to me and being all buddy buddy is just disgusting. Both of them were talking to me that day at the same time they were sharing the dms and shit-talking me to my friends. But yeah, that's my side, the untwisted side, of the whole story. I tried to be mature and talk to nic and when I didn't do what she wanted me to do, she blocked me and launched the hate campaign with dms and the power of photoshop. I’ve been hesitant to make any of this public because it was meant to be a silent ordeal but I’ve grown tired of her constantly publicizing everything without consequence while I remain silent like I promised.

[missnight0wl]

Believe it or not, but I still enjoy the story of HPHM – even in Y6. I mean, the Polyjuice Potion plot was really shitty, but still. And you know what? I’m not even mad about Rowan’s death. Admittedly, it’s probably mostly because I just don’t believe it was real… But in general, I don’t think it’s bad as a part of the story. Especially when you realise how it parallels Jacob and Duncan. And I don’t think that Rowan died purely to shock the audience (at least it wasn’t meant to be that way). I’m not even mad that we grew apart with Rowan in Y5, because it’s something that happens when you’re a teenager and your group of friends is expanding. What I HATE, though, is how it all was done. I hate that MC didn’t ever think why R wanted to kill one of their friends SINCE THE START OF Y5. I hate that we didn’t talk with Rowan in Y5 after our fight in the Library. I hate that we didn’t talk after they attacked us, and that we didn’t see how things turned out later between Rowan and Ben. I hate that we didn’t even mention Duncan when talking to Jacob after Rowan’s death.

Imagine something like that: you had the most amazing adventure at school, at work, or just in some other place. It was either thrilling, or funny, or whatever – simply a good story to tell at the parties etc. Therefore you (Person 1) decide to tell that story to your friend (Person 2). However, for whatever reason, that someone doesn’t quite pay attention to what you’re saying. Maybe they’re distracted by some problems, or they’re sleepy. Perhaps that’s just who they are. Still, they enjoyed the story enough that they want to tell it to Person 3 (who doesn’t know you). Unfortunately, because they don’t remember everything, they skip over some parts or even make things up to fill the holes. Perhaps they also forget to mention some detail about you that is important to fully understand the story. In the end, even though the punchline is the same as it was in the original story, Person 3 is just a bit confused because it did sound interesting, but not everything adds up. And that’s basically the problem with HPHM, especially since the second half of Y5, where Person 1 is the original writing team under Matt London, Person 2 is the current writing team, and Person 3 is us, the players. It’s a good story, but it’s written poorly.

That being said, it doesn’t have to mean that the story is doomed. I don’t think they’ll write anything, no matter how stupid it is. Because the thing is that a lot of the story was planned from the very beginning. I recall a post where London said that they knew how everything ends, what’s in the final vault etc. from the start. Then, it was only about getting there. Also, it seems like he worked on a big part of the story before he left after Y3.

He has to talk about Beatrice here because before Y5, we didn’t see much of Penny’s interest in her family.

Now, Rakepick wasn’t even introduced officially before Y4, yet, he put so much into her character that it makes him “the proudest”? I admit, if he talks about all of Rakepick’s symbolism, IT IS damn impressive. But it also means that Jam City can’t fucked up Rakepick’s story because it’s already done, and throwing it away would be plain stupid (also, if they’ll do it anyway – I’m so so sorry, Matt…). And you know, we already have examples in the game of things which makes sense in the big picture, but they were poorly executed.

New Ben. All of Y5 was for Ben about becoming braver. There should’ve been something at the end of Y5 which showed Ben that his previous efforts weren’t enough, and that’d explain his behaviour in Y6. I believe that Ben was supposed to try to sacrifice himself to protect MC (I explained it in details here), but for whatever reason, Jam City changed it. Still, Ben’s story is probably the same as it’s meant to be. We’re just missing a link which would explain his change better.

The Wizard in White. There were theories that he was expelled from Mahoutokoro as soon as he was first mentioned back in Y5. The thing is that those theories were based on the facts that he wears white robes AND that he was using incantations Fletcher didn’t understand (suggesting foreign language). In Y6, Dumbledore deduced that based only on the fact that he wears white robes – which is stupid. Even if white colour is not common in Knockturn Alley, I refuse to believe that Dumbledore would guess it so accurately without any indication that the wizard might be a foreigner.

Alanza. We needed a long time for her to reveal that Rakepick was at Castelobruxo. Why? Because the current writers weren’t listening to the original story at the part where MC finds out that Rakepick was there before coming back to Hogwarts. Still, they know that it’s important that Rakepick was there and that they need Alanza to bring it up.

All of that are examples of a good story being told by an incompetent person. But I do not believe that they will pull out who knows how stupid things “because bad writing” – at least not when it comes to the main events (I don’t believe that R could be Voldemort, for example). In fact, I have to say, I’m always a bit... irritated seeing that argument. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t criticize Jam City. We should! You can find quite a lot of complaints on my blog, actually. But I always try to point out why things are stupid. That’s why I use shitloads of screenshots and write essays for a thousand words. Why I keep bringing up questions which should be answered. And honestly, I don’t really know how to react to people saying that Jam City will do something stupid because it’s Jam City… I mean, if that’s what you believe – you do you. But that’s not really why I’m here. I always try to show that HPHM can still make sense.

Also, I probably wouldn’t find it very motivating to improve if I was a writer at Jam City, to be frank. Like, people have no expectations, but they keep playing, some of them keep paying, so... Why would they try harder? Their salaries are probably the same, no matter how much sense the story makes. I mean, I get that it’s frustrating when they ignore things, and it makes constructive criticism harder, but assuming in advance that we shouldn’t hope for logical solutions won’t take us anywhere either.

Long story short: even if people think it’s pointless, I’ll keep analysing the shit out of this game because I know I’ll be right about the main events in the end. Even if the way Jam City gets there will be missing many explanations, will be full of pointless fillers instead, and it won’t be half as thrilling as it could’ve been. I didn’t want to offend anyone; I just felt the need to explain myself as to why I believe that my procrastinating makes sense. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but oh well.

If you made it here, thank you for your time and attention.

[rpbetter]

Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.

Hey there, Anon!

Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.

Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.

Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.

It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.

Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point

Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.

It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!

So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.

When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.

When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.

As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.

We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.

And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.

Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.

As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.

It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.

So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.

Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.

If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.

[angelicspaceprince]

Addiction (Alt: Smooch Me On The Goddamn Mouf Hax)

Author: Ama

Title: Addiction (Alt: Smooch Me On The Goddamn Mouf Hax)

Pairing: Scarabee/Reader, Ciarog/Reader, Escarabajo/Reader, Scarafaggio/Reader, Zhuk/Reader

Character/s: Scarabee, Ciarog, Escarabajo, Scarafaggio, Zhuk,

Word Count: 4, 107 words

Warnings: NSFW, a lot of eating out, smexy times, 18+ only please.

Tags: @imma-fucking-nerd, @im-eating-rn@im-eating-rn

Prompt: Beetlejuice thought the most beautiful sound in the universe was the sound of screaming. You are here to prove him wrong of that notion.

Notes: So, for those who don’t know, there is a discord group and we’ve come up with 5 different dons for Mafia AU Beetlejuice. Something was brought up about one of them being caught eating the reader out and being punished for it or something to that degree and I promised @realmonsterboyhours that I’d write a crackfic on it. Here it is. Enjoy. Also, thanks to @monsterlovinghours for helping me with Cia, check that blog out for more info on the boys as Linds has posted about all of them, including what they look like, personalities etc.

Buy Me a Coffee

Addiction (Alt: Smooch Me On The Goddamn Mouf Hax)

To say that Bajo had an oral fixation was, if anything, a massive understatement. The few times he licked your face, you figured that was weird. But when he finally got to your legs and spent hours marking up your thighs before even touching what laid between them? It was official. Boy has a leg kink and loved to use that blasted tongue of his.

Shortly after the two of you started banging, he developed a bit of a…. habit. You lost the need for an alarm clock because every morning when you decided to sleep in his bed or alone in yours, you’d wake up to the demon between your legs, drinking at your slick as you ride out your orgasm. Then he’d pull away, proudly tell you how many times you came in your sleep, before moving back in to finish what he claimed to be his breakfast.

At first, it only happened if you were alone or if you slept in his room. You knew it was a one-way ticket to being woken up in the best way possible. But, you had to give your other boys some loving too.

You didn’t think Bajo would actually attempt to sneak in, you figured he’d leave you alone to the others so then everyone got a share of time with you. Evidently, you were wrong.

You were confused when you woke up, your body felt hot and muscles relaxed, heat radiating from your belly as you come to realise someone was making a home between your legs. It throws you in a loop because you can still feel Bee next to you, not stirring, not yet, and yet there was a tongue lapping away at your juices as your body continues to shudder its way through its orgasm.

“3.” You hear a voice say with a snicker before the telltale sign of hands tracing nails up your thighs as his tongue slides up to start to pay more attention to your clit.

Bajo rolls out of the bed with a loud oof, hitting the floor hard as Bee’s leg seemingly comes out of nowhere and kicks him in the ribs. “Laissez la dame dormir ou je vous arracherai les membres.” Came his threat, voice still laden with sleep but commanding nonetheless as he pulls you in close.

“Oh, come on amigo, no es como si ella se estuviera quejando.” Bajo retorts as he moves to stand and make his way back to his position with your thighs wrapped around his head. Before he could even fully stand, he was tackled to the ground and pounced on by five of Bee’s shadows.

“I never said ya weren’t invited to watch, amigo. Settle d- Oi!” He tries to kick at the shadow trying to get a kick at his balls, failing when another catches his leg and manages to hold it still. “Alright, alright, get your damn shadows off me!” Bee merely hums to respond as he moves to press a small kiss at the base of your neck, keeping you press flushed against him.

“Good morning, cherie.”

“Morning. You gonna let him up?”

“No, I don’t think I will.” You look up at him, his eyes glowing with mischief.

“C’mon love. It’s too early for this. Plus I wanna sleep a lil more with you. I can’t do that with that in the background.” You point to indicate the continuous protests coming from the man on the floor, now being held on his stomach with his hands on his back as the shadows take shots at his ribs. Bee rolls his eyes and waves his hand to dismiss the shadows, anything for you.

“Ah, thanks for that!” He stands up and stretches. “Think I could have another taste, mi amor?”

“Get out Bajo!” The both of you shout, pointing to the door in sync.

~~~

You were certain that Zhuk was too intimidating a figure for Bajo to actually attempt to come in his room. But then again, Bajo was an idiot and would try anything if it meant time to have a taste of you.

This time, however, you didn’t wake up to pleasure. You woke up to pain. With a loud gasp as you feel your thigh erupt in a painful heat, you sit up just in time to see your small black cat who always slept with Zhuk no matter what anyone said dart off into the corner. You rip back the covers to see a very guilty looking Bajo staring up at you, thumb rubbing over your now slightly bleeding thigh. His back is weeping small amounts of blood, by the looks of it, your kitty wasn’t too impressed at the weird bulge that had appeared between your legs overnight and wanted to make her discontent known. “Morning maripos-ah!” He shouts out in shock as Zhuk grabs him from the back of the neck and silently pulls him off the bed and towards the door, holding him so he is a few inches from the ground as he kicks and struggles. Zhuk opens the door and very unceremoniously throws the smaller man out, causing him to hit the wall and then the floor with two very loud bangs. “Oi! I barely even got to six this ti-” Zhuk slams the door in his face before moving back to crawl up the bed and next to you.

“Does it hurt, roza?” His large hand grabs at your knee to move your thigh so he can see the small wound, already beginning to heal up as he rubs at the reddened area, moving his hand to cover every new bruise Bajo had managed to create.

“No no, it’s fine now.” You move in to rest your head on his chest, already starting to fall back asleep. “Five more minutes?”

“Of course tsarina.”

~~~~~

You knew by now that it was going to happen, regardless of who you spent the night with. Granted, he gave you time to allow your legs to heal after the last incident, mostly out of fear of what Zhuk and Bee would do to him if he didn’t. But, eventually, your legs healed up and you were able to sit properly again. Which meant Bajo felt like he had a free invitation to his favourite snack.

When you woke up, you feel warm and fuzzy, muscles relaxed with your pussy clenching. Your thighs are wet to your knees and your entire body just feels hot. You could hear the telltale sign of Gio using his cane, smacking down on someone who was clearly protesting his attack as he rants in angry Italian. “Idiota! Non puoi farmi passare una notte con la nostra ragazza, no, devi entrare e rovinarlo! Merda stupida per il cervello! Ha appena guarito! Il tuo pasto preferito, ti batterò nel giro di un centimetro della tua vita.” You turn to see a very angry Gio beating a dishevelled but clearly pleased Bajo, mouth and jaw covered in your slick as he makes a show of cleaning his mouth and fingers between each wack.

“Amigo, you’re just jealous I got our lovely little mariposa to orgasm on my tongue five times before you realised what was happening.” You roll your eyes as Gio starts his assault again.

“Gio? Baby?” You ask, purposefully making your voice small so both boys turn around instantly to look at you. “Come back to bed?”

Gio softens instantly. “Piccola, I will I’m jus-”

“Please?” You whine out. “Want cuddles with you baby.” You reach out your arms and start making a grabby motion with your hands. “Come cuddle with me, please?”

Gio seems to falter before dropping his cane and moving back to the bed, you scooting backwards so he has room to join you, his arms wrapping around you until he can trace light patterns on your back, your head resting on his chest with a small, content smile. None of them could really turn you down for anything and, in times like this, it really did work to your advantage.

“Think you can move on over there?” Bajo asks, standing at the edge of the bed, clearly keen to join in the cuddle session. You can practically feel Gio heat up with anger at this.

“Esci! Stupido, pomposo, stupido, figlio di puttana-” He shouts, causing Bajo to leave with a snicker before Gio changes his mind and continues to give him a caning.

~~~~~

By now, you knew nowhere was safe. You knew you’d wake up with the Spaniard between your legs no matter where you slept in the house. But, you figured, that if you slept with one of the others that you were protected from at least being over stimmed so early in the morning, to the point that you would rather spend the rest of the day in bed rather than leave your room.

Cia had pointed out that you had yet to share a bed with him, and he was right to a degree. The few times you fell asleep in the Irishman’s room, both of you had been drunk and he had quite literally kicked you out of bed, leading you to walk back into your room to sleep the alcohol off. Still. The two of you weren’t really drinking tonight. And perhaps Cia would be better at protecting you from your nightly visitor.

You woke up with a gasp, eyes instantly locking with a pair of mischievous hazel ones, a fire lit in them. You barely get out a grunt as you feel your thighs shake around the head of the man currently rubbing two of his fingers against your g-spot, tongue assaulting your clit as you continue to come loudly, eyes rolling in the back of your head. You feel slightly warmed metal teeth brush against your thighs as he pulls back to nibble at your flesh, damp with your slick as you pant, turning over to Cia. “You’re not going to stop him?”

Something flashes in his eyes. “And miss the show? Mo grá, you don’t know me very well, do you?” The smile he sends your way causes a shiver down your spine as you feel Bajo chuckle lightly against your skin, your head snapping down when you feel him move to bite and suck another mark onto your thigh, Cia’s hand grasping onto your chin and pulling it face him. “Ag dul chun bheith ina cailín maith dúinn, piscín?” You whimper as you feel the man beneath you slowly slide back up to run the flat of his tongue up the length of your pussy, groaning lowly at the taste.

“Ci-ah!” You grind up against Bajo’s face as his lips wrap around your clit and he starts to draw powerful sucks, causing your whole body to wrack as the already over-sensitive organ starts to take another beating. “How- How many?” You barely get out as Cia coos.

“Eight.” You hear Bajo say against your cunt, the vibrations making your eyes squeeze shut as you roll your hips. Towards him or away from him you aren’t entirely sure, but you do whine in protest when he pulls back, resting his chin on your thigh as he looks up at you with a wicked grin. “Creo que esta mañana es el día en que llegamos a los veinte. ¿Qué te parece mi amigo?” 

“20? I’m sure we can aim for more than that, can’t we?” You whimper at the number, shaking your head as Bajo moves back to push his tongue inside of you, wanting to have a taste of you straight from the source. “Hush, mo ghrá. Lig do Bajo aire a thabhairt duit anois.” Cia chastises as your head rolls towards him.

You move to protest. “Too many.” You say quietly. There is no way, on this progressively not to green earth, that you would be able to come twenty times at the hands of these two and survive. “Ple-ugh.” You gasp when you feel a sharp pinch at your nipples, Cia clearly not too impressed with your protest.

“Oh, don’t fight it now, lie back against me love.” He instructs, bringing you closer to him as you let out a small whimper, much to his amusement. “A piscín, an é go léir atá agat dúinn? Tar ar aghaidh anois, tá mé cinnte gur féidir leat a bheith níos airde ná sin.” Your cries become louder as Bajo’s thumb moves to stroke at your clit, fingers replacing his tongue as he massages at your g-spot, causing you to buck and whine.

“Oh, nuestro pequeño pájaro cantor. Cantas tan bellamente para nosotros.” You feel his metal teeth bite down on your thigh again, this time piercing your flesh as small droplets of red chase their way down to the bed, eyes squeezing shut as you try to focus on every single sensation.

“Keep those eyes open, darlin',” Cia reminds you. Your eyes snap back open obediently, “look at the way he's making your thighs tremble. Does it feel good, hm?” You turn to look down, eyes locking with Bajo’s as he just grins up at you, hand moving so his fingers pump slowly in and out as he continues to suck at the skin of your shaking thigh.

“I- uh. Feels. Hnn.” You give up on words, hips moving to roll in time with the movement of his fingers.

“It must, you can barely string two words together.” Cia comments in amusement.

“Can’t think.” You tell them, and it's true. The fog of your early morning haze has mixed with the fog of coming too many times, being brought back to that edge and Cia whispering in your ear was completely taking over all other functions. You couldn’t think, could barely string your words together, barely remember every word you hear the boys say to you, all that was left was to feel which just made you all that much foggier.

“Shh, pequeña. No pienses, solo siente.” Bajo says from beneath you.

“Falling.” You say with a gasp, hands moving to grasp at the bedsheets as your brain finally succumbed to the fog.

“Eso es, enamórate de nosotros, pequeño amor. No te preocupes Te atraparemos.” You whine as his thumb is removed from your clit, only to be replaced by his mouth, tongue flicking in between strong sucks.

You try to bite back your sounds, the last little bit of you wanting to fight back resorting to ‘you don’t deserve to hear how good you make me feel’ but you fail miserably as Cia’s hand starts to trace up and down your body, pinching at you to keep you on your toes, mind so distracted from everything you’re feeling, you almost miss what’s being said.

“-so soft, so sweet. Oh, leanbh, we might just make a meal of you yet.” Cia purrs in your ear, chuckling lowly when you whine loudly, hips bucking up into Bajo’s mouth. “Would you like that? To be feasted on?” His grin widens as you nod furiously, a strangled version of both their names passing through your lips between heavy breaths as you feel your body tense in anticipation for number nine, Bajo groaning when he realises you’re close again as he seems to start attacking your clit with more vigour, trying to bring you over the edge once more. Cia leans in closer to continue, breath hot against your ear as his hands hold your hips down to stop you from grinding up against Bajo’s tongue. “Oh, look at you, mo stór. So desperate to come again. Oh, little one, we're so hungry for you, hungry for your pleasure. Give it to us. Give in to us. Let your body surrender, sweetheart, there you go.” He coos when you shudder around Bajo with a broken moan, body twitching as Cia moves to bite at your neck, the same time Bajo moves to place yet another bruise to your thigh. “Ó, beag ardaigh, conas is breá linn go bhfaigheann tú teacht slán.”

A few seconds pass before you feel Bajo’s tongue lapping away the excess slick, only this wasn’t a cleanup. No, he was very pointedly warming up to make you come again. You protest with a whine. “One more, pequeña?” Your eyes flicker down to his. “Just one more.” You can handle one more? Surely? You nod once and that’s all he needs to delve back into your heat with a loud noise of content when he has your taste on his tongue again.

It doesn’t take long. You were nine orgasms in and your body was tuned ready for ten. Cia is instantly at your ear, murmuring lowly in a mix of Gaelic and English, slowly coaxing you to the edge. But your body doesn’t seem to want to go over, get you to the double-digit tally that both the boys insist you reach this morning. Cia, for one, is not giving up without a fight. “Come for him, darlin', he wants you to. Can't you see it in his eyes, the way he's begging you to drown him with it?” When you look down, Bajo does indeed look desperate for you to come once more, eyes bright and burning as he moans against your sex, addicted to your taste as his tongue leaves your clit to delve into your wet heat, thumb moving up to take its place. You let out a small whine, eyes not leaving his for a second. “Give in, ailleacht, come for us. Let us carry you over the edge."

That’s all it takes to tip you over the edge, words purred in your ear as your body convulses, a scream leaves your lips as you ride out a near painful orgasm being ripped from your body. You can hear dark chuckles from next to your ear and between your thighs before Cia whispers lowly in your ear, “Sin é, ceann beag, scread dúinn.”

When you come down from your high, your entire body is shaking, you can feel Bajo press gentle kisses down your thighs as he lowers them from his shoulders before he slides up your body until he is hovering over you. To your horror, his face is positively dripping with your slick, his giant shit-eating grin showing you just how pleased he is of that fact. “Buenos dias mariposa.” He greets before moving down to kiss you fully on your lips, making you taste yourself on his tongue before he not-so-gracefully falls to your other side, bringing you in close as Cia follows, the same look on his face.

“Maidin, álainn.” He purrs. You snuggle into his chest, Bajo’s forehead pressed against the base of your neck as he curls around you.

“I hate you both.”

“No you don’t.”

You let out a huff of air in annoyance when, yet again, Cia was right. But only just. “I’m never sleeping in this room again.” They both laugh because, again, they both know it's not true. “I’m sleepy.”

“Go to sleep, querida.” Bajo murmurs against your skin, pressing a kiss wherever he can place them. You can hear them both say something to you, but it’s all muffled as you slowly drift back to sleep in their arms.

~~~~~

Choosing to sleep in Bajo’s bed was always an open invitation for him to spend the entire night with his face wrapped between your thighs. You always chose your nights with Bajo carefully because of that fact.

Tonight, you felt like you just needed to be with him. You had all gone out to dinner and it was a rare case where everything was just a disaster. Orders were wrong, food was cold or just gross, wine was corked, everything that could have gone did go wrong. Bajo was a bit sour as it was his choice of restaurant and it had clearly gone downhill since the last time he went there for a meal. So, to soothe his upset self, you changed plans of sharing a bed with Bee to spend the night with Bajo.

As you expected, you barely got through the doors before you were thrown on the bed, shirt and bra having been ripped off in the hallway, and he was crawling up between your thighs, pulling down your pants and panties in one smooth, quick motion. You move your thighs to rest on his shoulders as he glides his tongue down your calf, over your knee, down your inner thigh before moving to lick a stripe up your pussy, groaning at the taste. “Finally.” He says, eyes flickering up to look at you. “Some good fucking food.”

That was it. You instantly unwrap yourself from him and move to the side, holding your sides as you laugh. “Nope. Sex is off. You did not just say that.” You can practically feel his pout as he slides up the bed to press his hands into the mattress, one either side of your head as he waits for the giggles to subside, eyes warm as he watches your amused face with a smile before moving in to kiss you deeply.

“Let me have my dinner?” He asks when he pulls back, causing you to giggle again.

“I can’t take you seriously now, Bajo.” You shake your head. “If you’re lucky, you can have me for breakfast again.” He hrumphs as he moves to lay next to you on the bed, pulling you close so his entire body is pressed up against you.

“Te amo, mi pequeña mariposa.” He says quietly against your skin.

“I love you too, you dumb fucking himbo.” You tease, laughing when he growls and bites down on your shoulder as a warning. Damn, this boy be feral and bitey.

The next morning, you weren’t surprised at all to feel him slide down your body, sending a wink your way when he notices you’re up as he positions himself, ready to absolutely devour you.

Misc Scene That Didn’t Quite Make It:

The first time Bajo went down on you, it was like a religious experience. It was a lazy Sunday with just the two of you in the smoking room when he got a glint in his eye and slowly slid out from under you and between your thighs. At first, you thought he was just going to mark you up a little again, his favourite place to be when the six of you snuggling is, after all, on top of your thighs and you never left without a minimum of six bite marks. But, it wasn’t until he was pulling away your panties with his teeth did you realise his end game.

You are certain he spent hours with his mouth glued to your pussy, as if he was trying to print the taste into his memory and sear the spots that made you cry out into his brain. He brought you to the edge over and over, pulling back when he felt you were close to watch you squirm and glare at him, nipping at your thighs whenever you protest.

When he finally let you come, you swear you saw stars. Your body arches as you scream, mostly in relief, hand having been weaved in his hair for at least an hour and a half by now pulling at his roots as it clenches, hips moving up to rock against his face as he drinks in everything you have to offer him. Your body finally laxes into the leather seat beneath you as you try to catch your breath when Bajo’s lips are suddenly against yours, hands-on your spread knees as his tongue works its way into your mouth so you can taste yourself mixed with him. When he pulls back, you can’t help it.

Slowly, you raise your hands to clap causing him to chuckle. “Wow.” 

He does a few small bows from his place on his knees between your legs. “Thank you, thank you! I’d like to think of myself as a humble man- ow!” He swats your hand away as you smack him across the back of the head with a laugh.

“You’re such a twit.”

“You love me.”

“Do I though?”

“Yes.” You roll your eyes at his cocky answer. “So…. did you enjoy yourself up there, dulce?” He asks with a grin.

“No Bajo, I had an awful time.” You sass causing him to laugh as he moves to nip at your thigh again as a playful warning. “Any chance for an encore?” You ask cheekily as his eyes flash, a giant smirk appearing on his face.

“For you? Of course, mi amor.”

[itflowsthroughme]

in hopes that if you need me, you’ll read me.

***TW: suicide, trauma, abuse***

I talk a lot about mental well being, practicing good habits, therapy, and general health, but I feel it’s long overdue to add a little context behind what drives me.

When I was 13 years old I attempted suicide. At 13 I decided to follow through with my plan and swallowed a handful of pain meds and went to bed that night with resolution. I woke up in the middle of the night disoriented and violently nauseous. The next 24 hours were spent vomiting, sweating, and in a surreal amount of pain, for I dared not speak a word of it to my family. I endured what I thought to be my punishment and played the role of a daughter suffering from the stomach flu. Life seemed pretty incomprehensible back then.

Then at 26, after weeks of contemplating, I found myself planning my own suicide again, reading and plotting out my options in the deep web. I’ll spare the details of the type of content one can come across in that state of mind, but there was one blog post in particular that I believe saved my life, a blog post that didn’t spare me the raw and honest details of the fate that awaited me if I followed through with my chosen plan of action. I thought about my then fiance, now husband, and how he would find me, and how I’d be passing my trauma on to him, my pain, my suffering. It broke me, it fucking destroyed all of me, I lost it completely. A complete destruction of my ego. Because if I couldn’t kill myself, if I couldn’t kill my pain or live with my pain, that meant I had to heal it- I think thats what terrified me the most, facing the demons.

Thankful for an amazing husband who stuck by my side, and was committed to my healing and recovery because without him I don’t know where I would be. I finally got some help and started to see a psychologist who diagnosed me with CPTSD: The difference between CPTSD and PTSD is that PTSD usually occurs after a single traumatic event, while CPTSD is associated with repeated trauma. My childhood was rough to say the least- from being raped at a young age, to being molested by uncles countless times, witnessing and being the victim of domestic violence, and being emotionally abused all in between, life became about survival at a very early age.

Therapy went on for months and I emmersed myself in my own healing, I no longer had the luxury to self loathe, anything but 100 percent effort was no longer an option. Since I wasn’t going to die, I was committed to being fucking alive. -I know about the shame, guilt, and the anger that weighs you down and consumes you. How everything you do, anything you feel makes you feel broken, how you feel like a bad person for not being happy, how it always hurts, and you just wish you could just be normal. I used to feel that way. I had to learn about how my body was wired to survive because of all the trauma I had endured, and all of the anxiety, depression, nightmares, panic attacks.. etc, where all associated with my fight or flight response. I was coping, I was hardwired to be in a constant state of panic. I educated myself on the neuroscience, on the physiological, psychological, and biological effects on my body. On top of the therapies, I watched the Ted talks, I watched the YouTube videos, listened to the podcasts, I took myself on walks, I got out in nature, I got really good at yoga, I started meditation, I started eating healthy, taking care of my body, anything that could help me not only understand, but aid in my full recovery. Im 30 in 2 weeks and the CPTSD symptoms are now pretty much non existent. I put in so much fucking work I think I will never not cry when I think about everything I have been through to be able to honestly say I’m happy, and the pain, the anger, the shame... they’re gone. I’ve found my peace, or atleast discovered how to find it.

When I talk about well-being, mindfulness, therapies, anything like that... it’s because small habits, all of the mindful effort, all of the consistent rituals have rewired my brain from being in a constant state of panic, to being in a constant state of self love and self healing. Every day isn’t rainbows and sunshine either, I will continue to spend the rest of my life healing, this I know, but instead of coping like I used to when I was scared little kid, I’m equipped with the kind of resilience that only comes from overcoming a certain amount of struggle. My own little badge of honor.

[simptasia]

for the ask thingy 1) fandom: futurama? (i recently watched the first episode bc i faintly remember u talking abt it - should i keep watching?) but if u dont wanna get into it or my mind was playing tricks on me we can always go for the classic lost :D 2) ship: kateclaire? i miss the GIRLS 3) character: daniel faraday (disclaimer as always u dont have to do all u can pick n choose :D)

thank you thank you thank you!

also i ADORE futurama, it’s one of my fave cartoons, yes keep watching! it’s so funny, i love the characters, it has great (and silly) sci fi concepts, and happens to have just really great tear inducing episodes/moments. so yes!! watch it!!

not just you, everybody, please watch futurama

annnnyways

Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Futurama

Favorite character: Fry. Bender is without a doubt the funniest character but Fry is my fave. He’s so endearingly stupid and I love how nice he is. He could have been the bland straight man protag for wackier personalities to play off but he’s a huge goofus. And he’s a trekkie! And neurodivergent! And pansexual! He’s a good boy, love that Fry

Least Favorite character: I’ve never really thought about it, like as far as I recall, I don’t remember anybody showing up and I’m like “oh geez this guy”. Oh wait. Fry’s ex girlfriend Michelle is a bitch but she’s meant to be. But like, she’s not even a funny bitch. Like Mom or Zapp.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Fry/Leela (this is a ship I’ve had since i was a kid, an original flavour OTP right there, I loooove Fry/Leela), Fry/Bender, Fry/Leela/Bender, Amy/Kif, Bender/Amy

Character I find most attractive: Leela. Even when I was a kid I found her attractive. Hot + the Matt Groening style doesn’t normally go together very well (even he’s admitted this) but it just works with Leela. Amy is cute too! And Fry is cute but that’s mainly his personality (and fan-art) doing that. I also happen to enjoy purple and orange a lot so Leela and Fry are inherently nice for me to look at. Yeah, Futurama pulls off attractive women better than The Simpsons does. (diff times, diff genres...)

Character I would marry: Aww, Fry

Character I would be best friends with: Oh, all of them really (tho Zoidberg’s smell could be a problem). Especially Fry, Leela & Bender

A random thought: Now I’m wondering if there’s a Futurama style Create A Character thing online, I’ll look later. Also, I know Jurassic Bark makes everybody cry but I just wanna say it made 10 year old me sob and I didn’t cry at fictional things as a kid. Like, very very rarely. Me being a big cryer kicked in later. So that’s a helluva thing. Power of dogs

An unpopular opinion: I don’t know... oh a lot of people don’t like the later seasons but I really like them! There’s some stinkers here and there (attack of the killer app and the butterjunk effect come to mind) but overall it’s still Futurama goodness. Oh and The Beast With The Billion Backs gives me a bad feeling in my tummy because it has this “polyamory is gross and creepy” vibe to it. Whether it’s intended or not, it just makes me uncomfortable. Other than that, it’s a good movie. Fry saying “Robots don’t go to heaven” makes me tear up.

My Canon OTP: Fry and Leela, number one cartoon OTP!!!

My Non-canon OTP: Fry and Bender, babey!!!

Most Badass Character: Well, Leela, obviously

Most Epic Villain: Hmm... I looked up “Futurama Villians” and Bender is on the list jajafklafkjs I love that. I wouldn’t call anybody epic, tho Mom is pretty powerful and malevolent. I’ll pick my fave villain: The Robot Devil

Pairing I am not a fan of: Zapp gets nothing, good day sir! I don’t know any ships I’m like Against tho. Some I’m squicked by, like involving The Professor or Zoidberg but like that shit is for laughs anyways

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): They picked the ball up later on but Hermes was a flat character for a while there. And remember how they forgot Amy is smart for like,,, ages. Again they fixed this later. It’s sometime I appreciate about the later seasons, they gave more focus for characters who were less explored in the original run (this show has like 4 finales, to be clear)

Favourite Friendship: Fry & Bender is Iconic and I adore them

Character I most identify with: Fry. Brainweird trekkie who loves TV/movies and has feminist tendencies. Love him

Character I wish I could be: I mean, if I had to... Bender? I mean, if I had to live in the super dangerous world of Futurama, I’d like to be a robot. Plus Fry and Leela’s lives are pretty sad :(

You gave me the option of LOST as well, so I’m doing that too

Favorite character: Hurley is my favourite. Indeed he’s one of my fave characters in fiction in general. (Daniel is just who I talk about the Most)

Least Favorite character: [insert abusive parent here], tho Anthony Cooper and Roger Linus are on top of the loathing pile. And y’all know I hate Christian Shephard so much. Keamy is also utter scum.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): This fluctuates so much but at this point who would I be fooling if I didn’t put Dan/Char first. Yes, I know there are bigger meals available, I’ll still lick the chocolate flakes off the floor. Anyways. Daniel/Charlotte, Daniel/Charlotte/Miles, Kate/Claire. After this point I wobble all over the place... because I ship so much. And it depends on my mood. Sometimes I’m just really in a Desmond/Charlie mood, other times i’m uwu for Jack/Kate. And so on. Just, take my top three. Tho honorable mentions to Sayid/Shannon and Miles/Richard, I’m very fond of them. And Desmond and Penny! Jin & Sun and aaahhh!! Basically most things canon and a shitton of noncanon. You guys know what I’m like with shipping and LOST!!! I’m posting the chart

Character I find most attractive: Bruh, this show is a bi & pan dream. I’m not good at picking favourites but Desmond, Charlie, Ana lucia, Charlotte are really “holy fuck” hot to me. And Sayid. And Miles. And Kate. Aahhh!! I’ll just end up listing almost everybody. If I had to pick one (1) LOST character to deem the Hottest, I’d pick Desmond. He makes my eyes glaze over. Desmond transcends all sexuality. Desmond is a living romance novel love interest. Desmond’s body is shown off a LOT... also he’s scottish. But man, I came to LOST because of one crush and left with at least 20 more. It’s a great investment!

Character I would marry: Sayid. He would make a wonderful husband. Just,,, just such a loving, gentle, respectful person........ and you KNOW he’s good with his hands. Daniel is a close second for much the same reasons, actually

Character I would be best friends with: HURLEY!!!!

A random thought: “Random Thoughts About LOST” could be a title for my blog, buddy. All the men are subs. There ya go.

An unpopular opinion: Oof, here we go. I love Jack Shephard! Though I have noticed we’ve gotten to a point where liking Jack isn’t a ridiculous concept in this fandom anymore. I don’t find myself defending myself/him as much as I used to. Also Hurley/Libby was really really cute. Yeah, I know she wasn’t around much before she died, I still believe in their love. Oh wait I forgot the big one: I fucking ADORE the LOST finale. It’s one of my favourite episodes and it’s not only not a bad finale, it’s an amazing finale, one of the best I’ve seen. It’s great television. The problems people have with it have never made sense to me, I personally love it!

My Canon OTP: Daniel/Charlotte (they count, they’re not an Official Couple but they’re in love! they count amongst the lost romances!)

My Non-canon OTP: Kate/Claire (i sometimes forget it isn’t canon because holy GOSH does this fire have a lot of fuel)

Most Badass Character: Sayid can fuck you up. That ankle thing

Most Epic Villain: Uhhh, Ben was a villain for a bit there

Pairing I am not a fan of: Kate/Sawyer springs to mind for being a very popular ship that I’m just not into. Like, it’s okay, they’re just better for each other as friends

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Michael, Walt and Sayid due to poor and/or racist writing. Libby, Charlotte, Miles just for missed opportunities. Actually I don’t think they screwed up Miles, he was mostly great, just he could have been used more. Like his powers, or delving into his trauma, his budding friendships with other people. it ticks me off that Miles doesn’t get given Reactions to Char & Dan’s deaths. The Science Team in general were underused and they barely felt like a Team. Anyways Michael Dawson deserved better. Season 2 just fucked up a lot of characters but it really did not treat Michael with respect. I can’t even explain how it’s bad, it just is.

Favourite Friendship: Everybody/Vincent. Hehehe, actually, here's what comes to mind, can’t pick a fave: Hurley/Charlie, Hurley/Everyone Kate/Every Woman She Meets, Jack/Claire is cute when it happens. Jin/Michael was A+. Thinking about it, I like every friendship in this show. Does Ben/Locke count? Are they friends? Well, their scenes are enthralling so there's that. I also appreciate all the lady friendships on this show. And with people who didn’t start as friends, so with everybody it had to grow in front of us and that’s nice.

Character I most identify with: Hurley, Jack, Daniel, Kate and Claire all hit. But Hurley the most, absolutely. Also I find Jack endearing because his emotional instability reminds me of my own.

Character I wish I could be: Claire. Not much would change but I’d get to fuck Charlie and Kate

Send me a ship and I will tell you:

Kate/Claire

When I started shipping them: I literally don’t remember anymore

My thoughts: The last third of Kate’s character arc (of not running anymore, of being responsible, etc) is dedicated to Claire. Kate went back to that island for Claire, not Jack or Sawyer. Kate and Claire remembered together and it was played with as much emotional resonance as the Charlie/Claire and Jack/Kate soulmate scenes. These two are gonna raise sons together. Restless, passionate!!! Honestly, these two make so much sense and get so many Moments, I forget this isn’t canon. Their actresses have amazing chemistry and just. Gosh, I love them

What makes me happy about them: They would be so good for each other! They’ll take care of each other and support each other and give each other kisses, etc. Also also I love their height difference. Oh, I enjoy the contrast of Kate who is more experienced and badass, and Claire who I feel is more naive and is very very sweet & sunshiney. (don’t take me for thinking Kate ain’t sweet and Claire can’t go off, though). I also enjoy how Kate legit looks/holds herself butcher whenever Claire is around

What makes me sad about them: Mr. LOST writers, how comes you had no canon bi people in ur show? Come back here, I’m talking to you-

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: where fic

Things I look for in fanfic: [looks around] h-hewwoo? ladies falling in love and fucking?? pwease?? i’m a fan of mutual pining. i like the idea of claire not realising she’s bi until kate makes her feel things and claire confessing her feelings to kate in a big ol’ cute ramble and then they kiiiisss, and then they fuuuuck. spare fuck, ma’am? femslash is very underdone in fandoms and lost is an old fandom so [pleading emoji]

My wishlist: oh i think i just made it. just content for kate/claire in general is a lovely thing. and makes me progressively stronger

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Jack for Kate, Charlie for Claire. Obviously

My happily ever after for them: Oh, I think I’ve made that clear. But overall? They’re married (emotionally, not legally. because Kate isn’t into that for personal reasons), they have two sons Aaron and David. Kate is a professional photographer, Claire does illustrations for children’s books. They have a nice house, they have lotsa friends, they are content

Give me a character & I will tell you:

Daniel Faraday

How I feel about this character: [mildly] Oh, I like him........ HOW DO YA THINK I FEEL ABOUT DANIEL FARADAY?? I’ve only gushed about him, analysed his character back to front, and frequently highlight his scenes and such for like a bagillion years now. But I do admit, I am just too subtle. It’s a real problem I have. ;) Anyways, that aside. Like they didn’t utilise his character as much as they should’ve/could’ve and he’s still perfect. With just 23 episodes (which makes me salty that Char is so underdeveloped in 20 episodes.) The writing is great, like in just The Variable they get a TON about Daniel across. Tho, we all know what really makes Daniel so great, the reason everybody loves him so much, is Jeremy Davies’ performance. Just. So good. I love Daniel, I adore Daniel. He’s that The Smart Guy science nerd archetype but he turns out to be way more than that too. He’s soft spoken and polite but with subtle hints of sass and bitterness for some extra flavour. I love how tactile he is and his constant hand gestures, it’s just great to watch this guy talk. And his life and backstory is very sad, like he has one of the most tragic backstories/storylines in LOST and thats. saying a lot. And I love good angst. I mean, I love LOST, so of course I do. But yeah, summing up: he’s cute, he’s smart, he’s a little funny, he’s tragic, he’s gentle and he just,,, wants to love and to make music. And he gets to have the life he deserves by the end!! Oh and the inherent value of a canonically neurodivergent character being well written, getting a good storyline and shown as being liked and loved, is just very precious to me

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Charlotte, Miles, Desmond, Charlie and Theresa (last one by way of canon and I’ve certainly put way more thought into it than the writers did. she’s part of his life so I won’t ignore her). Wow, five people. I’ve made Daniel the demisexual equivalent of a slut. [snorts]

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: Daniel and Penny getting to be brother and sisterly in limbo is such a cute thought, I love it. I also pay extra attention to Daniel and Richard scenes because of my theory. There’s also hintettes of a Daniel & Kate friendship in canon, it’s not much but I like it. I think if Dan lived he could have made easy friends with most of the characters but as it is, he really doesn’t get to interact with many people. He’s a rather insular character

My unpopular opinion about this character: i’ve picked up that some people think he doesn’t get jokes or that he’s naive. and i personally give him some naivety here and there due to a lack of experience but i also think he’s quick learner and he can be pretty adaptable 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: i really like how daniel’s story is already (thus my brain instantly jumps to dan/char kiss!!!) tho it does feel a bit like theres pieces missing. this would be due to that lovely writer’s strike that happened around seasons 4 and 5. there was meant to be more sci team content but then that happened. sigh. still, gaps and loose threads in the story isn’t a story breaker for daniel specifically. and i don’t mind things being left in implication or to the imagination. i don’t need to see everything. if it was handled badly with dan, i’d be annoyed, but it wasn’t. so... dan/char kiss!!!

Favorite friendship for this character: it occurs to me that the people dan is friends with,, are people i ship him with. hey, it doesn’t cancel each other out: char and miles. also we don’t get much, or we get nothing but the implication of dan’s friendships with frank and naomi is also cute. also also daniel and desmond aren’t exactly friends (it’s weird, they meet a few times and it Means A lot) but the des and dan running thing is a fave

My crossover ship: i don’t really think of it like that...

[heathersgameoftag]

do you ever have issues with being fairly popular in the fandom? (feeling pressured, being treated like a content machine, anons who are too friendly, etc)

i don’t think so! i may be ‘popular’ in this fandom, but this fandom is fairly small in the grand scheme of things. i have 1500 followers, which is a lot (thank you!!!) but also not a lot to many other tumblr users out there. i just don’t think my audience is big enough to lure in creeps or anything.

any pressure i feel to make content is self inflicted. very few people have sent me asks saying ‘where’s the next chapter???’ and every time i voice my concerns about the speed of my writing people reply with reassuring comments saying that they’re willing to wait, which is very comforting.

BUUUUUT i have come across some.... less than pleasant people. story time !!!! (i don’t think this is all of them, the post just got really long lmao)

i’ve only had a couple of negative experiences, tbh. there was one follower who sent me far too many asks per day despite me asking users to not do that (i’m awful at answering asks and sending me like 8 at once, which this user did, doesn’t motivate me to give anyone good answers, only to clean my inbox out). this user was eventually blocked because after we got into a political argument, he came out with dumb shit like ‘reverse racism/homophobia’, i saw on his blog that h*tdiggitydem*n wasn’t racist, he was only “””joking””” (you gonna defend p*wdi*pi* next, asshole?). then he had the fucking nerve to tell me, a trans, non-binary person, that the attack helicopter joke was hilarious to him. he was a cis man. after that i stopped talking to him and answering his asks, and then finally blocked him when he bitched about me to one of my tumblr mutuals.

i think the only time i got publicly angry on this blog was when an anon sent me ask asking me about Rose and Violet (flower gfs’ babies) comforting Duke going through a relapse. the ask came across as odd to me, but i just assumed it meant Rose and Violet when they were older. even then, i avoided the idea of Duke ever looking for comfort with her children for an eating disorder; not when Rose and Violets aren’t old enough to understand what that even is. but this anon kept persisting with this idea ??? they did in fact mean when Rose and Violet were young, and that’s when i got really pissed. i would never want to discuss heavy mental topics with children - especially not ones that i’m struggling with. education is one thing. venting to a fucking child is another. the anon also had the audacity to say that they find someone who has a serious eating disorder being consoled about it “””cute”””. those who remember this anon will know i lost my shit. eating disorders aren’t cute in any way, sweaty. they’re fucking eating disorders. anyway, no matter how many times i told the anon to shut the fuck up, they kept on trying to defend themselves, and so i had to turn off anons for a bit.

other stories come about from my discord. there was this one user who right of the bat identified as a conservative, and spent a lot of time in the politics chat (which is only there to move political arguments away from other general chats. i’ve stated this before in the server). obviously me being a filthy gay trans commie i already didn’t like the person. tell me all the ‘we need to listen to all opinions’ bullshit, i don’t care. conservative beliefs actively harm minorities and the lower class, as well as enable far right movements. i have no tolerance for it. unfortunately i wasn’t as assertive then. i thought i’d be causing drama in my own server if i just banned them for that. so i let them stay, and instead waited for them to pull some clown shit. that did eventually occur. at the time, my friend, scott, was an admin on the server. he takes less bullshit than me, so when he mentioned to me that the person had voted for trump, i let him call them a nazi and ban them. as scott and i spoke about this irl (we were sitting next to each other) rather than in the server, some of the mods/a certain mod got confused and let them back in without consoling me first. me not wanting to go through more drama than the server already had at that point, i let them stay, and waited until they clowned around some more. and they did!! guess what, i had to deal with more trans/enbyphobia. i came onto the server one day and found they had been spouting some bullshit about listening to the other side when it comes to talking about gender (the other side would be transphobes) and i got rightfully pissed off. i, along with my girlfriend and some other members of the server, got into a long-winded argument with them, trying to get it through their thick skull that we’ve had to listen to transphobes for years, and we’re not willing to do that anymore. at least, i think that’s what the argument was about, it was a while ago and i cannot remember the specifics. anyway, after i came to the realisation that changing this person’s mind was not going to happen, i blocked them. to be extra petty, i went with scott’s original idea that he didn’t go through with last time they were banned, and put the reason for banning them as ‘begone, nazi’. it was satisfying, especially since they were saying to me that they don’t care i’m banning them, despite the main reason they were let back in last time being because they wouldn’t stop crying to one of the users about being banned. lmao ok nazi.

[kincringeemporium]

The Promised Party Cat Callout (Long Post!)

Here we go, y’all. I’m not gonna go all-out with the salt and vitriol typical of my longer posts, because... this isn’t about me being salty. This is about highlighting the issues with Mod Party Cat of the fictionkinfessions blog. 

Nor is it intended to bully or chase Party Cat off of Tumblr. Yes, this is a callout post; no, it’s not an invitation to attack the blog with hate or stalk their sideblogs. And no, it’s not just my personal opinion, which we will get to. 

This is intended to show Party Cat exactly what is wrong with how they’re running the blog and how they’re behaving. If they learn from it, good. If they don’t... then, they don’t. 

Last of all, we did gather opinions from both kin and non-kin in a survey. This isn’t meant to antagonize the entire kin community. In fact, the information from kin really helped to support this argument. Thank you to the kin people who did respond to the survey. 

(Btw, survey is still open: https://goo.gl/forms/lDoffQVVmELDo2EZ2 ) 

Obvious content warnings for dark shit apply. (Abuse, depression/suicide, etc.)

With that being said... let’s begin. 

The main reasons for the callout are these: 

Passive aggressiveness to or about other mods

Passive aggressiveness to anons/senders 

“Cutesy” or overly positive typing/behavior in serious situations 

Material that is generally improper for this kind of confession blog 

Hypocrisy

Majority of survey takers agreed with each other and with the points made in this callout

We’ll go one by one. 

Passive-aggressiveness to/about mods

(The bottom half of the mod page was linking to Party Cat’s other blogs and crediting some theme elements. Not relevant to callout.)

There isn’t a lot of information about the other mods or why they left; the general consensus on Maude is that they left because of school, but nothing about Kuroocrow. Now, why is this passive aggressive? 

There was no need to publicly say that there’d been a “catfight” (ha ha, funny) with Maude. We don’t know if Maude even gave Cat permission to say this. If not, it’s disrespectful. (Nothing wrong with saying they’ll be okay.)

What Cat is saying about Kuro is even more aggressive than that. “They refuse to do anything to help!” Okay. That could be true. There’s still no need to rant about it. 

“Ask them on my behalf what the fuck is going on with them!” Adding ‘on my behalf’ comes across as incredibly self-centered. And saying ‘what the fuck’ adds to the aggressiveness. Even if not intentional, that is how it looks, and it needs to be changed.  

All that needs to be said is something like this: “It’s just me, Party Cat! Maude is on hiatus, and Kuro is absent. If anyone knows what’s going on with them, please DM me!” There. That’s respectful and to the point. 

Passive-aggressiveness to Anons/Senders 

This section will be... long. 

So.. there’s a lot of overlap here with the ‘cutesy typing’ issue, but I’ll get to that later. I had to crop the screenshot to just this because there was so much that wasn’t 100% relevant to the callout. (Context for this post: Cat promo’d a kin server, an anon found some unsavory things happening in the server, anon warned Cat, and Cat said this.)

“...Seriously there’s like a few thousand people following this blog” is an unnecessarily rude way to say this. The point itself is legitimate and understandable. It really just need to be reworded so as not to come off as salty. 

Alright, I’d understand this one if there was anything in the blog description or about pages to warn people that the blog can get dark. Confessions about death, suicide, rape, incest, murder, violence, high emotional distress, etc are jarring to see when this blog tends to be lighthearted.  

While this anon does look a little bit defensive or offended, that’s so slight compared to the defensiveness of the response. Personally, I read the question as confused. (Y’all, who agrees with me? Who disagrees?)  

Cat... people don’t tend to expect very dark content on a blog like this, especially when there’s no warning, and they might not even bother to blacklist the tags you use because they don’t expect it. (That’s a guess. If I’m wrong, then smeone should explain it. ) There isn’t much of an answer here - you just answer their question with another question. 

So, okay, I agree with Cat saying that this ask is vague. And it’s not good to add “but” after something like ‘No disrespect...’ -- because “but” does negate whatever precedes it. 

Those are the only things in this screenshot that make sense. Now we’ll get to the things that are passive-aggressive. 

“Maybe it’s because...” Vague in itself. ‘Maybe’ gives you wiggle room to get out of this perfectly legitimate critique, instead of saying “Hey, I seem this way because...” 

“People keep asking me things without providing the barest amount of information...” People actually do provide information. Sometimes it isn’t enough. That doesn’t mean they aren’t trying, and they could be dropping the subject because of how you respond (nobody really wants to interact with someone being rude). 

“I just fill up the dead air with jokes!” Plenty of people do. And it’s fine... just not in this situation. When something serious comes up, you shouldn’t simply make a joke and move on. This reads like an excuse, and even a way to shame people. (”Oh... it was only a joke? Now I feel bad! :(” ) 

“And then people get more mad because... I don’t know!” This looks like you are blaming people for their feelings. People are allowed to feel mad. It’s never okay for them to send hate or be dicks -- which they’re not doing. 

“Nobody reads that page, lollerskates!!” This could easily be solved by a regular, repeated post linking to the FAQ. Or a regular, repeated post explaining why confessions sometimes aren’t answered. Or something like that. Just a bit more effort. 

Okay: “This blog is only for kin. We want to keep it within our community. If you have questions, check out this FAQ!” 

Not okay: “You have no business interacting! You don’t know anything!” 

That ‘sincerely’ isn’t very sincere at all. Most antikin will respect kin not wanting anti interaction on their blogs. Those that don’t are being dicks. And non-kin people who don’t have anything against kin are not at all likely to be hostile toward you, so being this hostile to them is unwarranted. 

It’s confusing that this community, in general, would like non-kin and antis to become educated about what kin is/means... then such an influential blog sends a message like this. Regardless of how people feel about Cat, she does have pretty decent influence and a huge following; it’s very easy for impressionable kids to pick up on this weird double standard. 

There’s nothing wrong with preferring to let someone else educate non-kin. There’s nothing wrong with pointing non-kin in a different direction. 

There’s a lot wrong with blatantly pushing them away like this. It’s rude. 

Inappropriate Cutesy/Overly Positive Typing 

Cat isn’t stupid and knows full well what this anon (same one from before) meant. There was no need whatsoever to make such a giant joke of the question. 

(Not to mention... why the hell would she tell everybody that she has so much medical debt and can’t afford electricity? I don’t know her situation so I can’t say it is/isn’t a joke too. It is something that could genuinely upset people, and some would even believe it. It’s a terrible thing to say.)

“:3c” Not harmful in itself. Just doesn’t belong in a serious ask. 

This anon meant a post in which they were venting about abuse... they were angry that a character had abused their kintype. Cat knew that, considering their abuse content/trigger warning tags. This response looks sugarcoated and mentions some random anecdote about a thing Cat does, which is not appropriate in a situation regarding child abuse. 

This was in response to something that was legitimately annoying Cat and breaking a blog rule. It does not look like an appropriate or effective way to address the issue - even looks immature. Did people take this seriously? 

Yes, this really is a tag on a venting ask about a real life abusive stepfather. A joke. In a venting ask... about an abusive home life. There is a tag saying ‘Your stepdad sucks’, which is good. A joke, though, is too far. 

(Apologies for a repeat screenshot - I saved this one for right now, for the sake of organization.) 

There is, as I’ve been saying, no need for this. It’s very strange to ‘roleplay’ and act cute when there’s possibly a toxic Discord server going around.  

When asked if any of Party Cat’s mannerisms were bothersome, one person said this: 

Others said these things: 

Inappropriate Material 

Shoutout to @queen-dragon-slut (damn Tumblr won’t link you) for getting me this screenshot. 

What the hell, Cat? This is serious -- this is even more serious than people sending confessions saying things like “Ugh, I hate this kintype!” or “Ugh! I hate that character!” This person actually endangered their own health and safety to force themselves into a ‘kin shift’. And it’s in no way Cat’s fault. 

However. 

To not even provide the anon with links to help blogs or any kind of resources, list some tags, and move on, shows an incredible lack of effort. Not only that, but I feel bad for this person. One note. That’s it. Nobody seemed to care that someone was suffering this badly, Cat included, which is, quite frankly, disgusting. 

Again, something this dark doesn’t belong on a casual confession blog (which is what your blog looks like it’s supposed to be). And again, it genuinely fucking worried me. Is this person okay? 

And it’s not even tagged. Not as ‘suicide’, not as ‘depression’, not as ‘suicidal ideation’, nothing. Which is what this is. This person feels like they’re not needed, like they’re pointless, which exactly what suicidal ideation does to you. 

You can’t DM an anon saying, “Hey, you alright?” You can, however, at the very least, link them to the help blog page. 

Mod Ryan, who is also part of the fictionkin community whether we like it or not, has seen: 

Confessions about incest 

Confessions about being abused otherwise 

Confessions about stalking and being stalked

People saying they liked to kill 

People saying they weren’t at all sorry for violent things their kintypes did

Asks saying characters or people should’ve killed themselves 

@queen-dragon-slut said about some of the suicide-ish confessions:  “ Tbh when somebody sends in a confession saying “I killed myself in my canon” it just sounds like they have some fantasies of wanting to kill themselves but cover it up by saying that their kin kill themselves and try to play it off. That’s not healthy.”

Hypocrisy: 

Alright. That looks reasonable -- but wait. 

The asks and other screenshots I just posted do strongly come off as suicide wishes, if not actual notes. 

Here’s what people had to say when asked if they’d seen Party Cat acting hypocritical. I did not even mention suicide asks or dark asks in the survey question: 

____  I wish I had time to say more but class starts in twenty minutes. When I’m back, I will add onto the callout with one more thing: that people feel Cat isn’t doing enough to help distressed anons.

Huge thank you to everyone who helped out with this! 

It’s something that people have wanted to say for quite a while, and something that should’ve been said a long time ago. 

Nobody should be demonizing Party Cat; there is a real person behind the screen. This should be a learning experience for her. Not an attack. 

-K 

[leggigoesabroad]

we were staying in paris to get away from our parents

Lyric from “Paris” by the Chainsmokers.  We (Rach and I) used to love the Chainsmokers until we found out they were trash humans who cheated on their girlfriends with no remorse, and instead we’ve followed the ex-girlfriends loyally since the breakups.  Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARY!! It’s 11:23 am here in Paris on Cinco de Mayberger and I wish I was in Philly holding that muffin and celebrating our girl, but hopefully I can be soon.  

I really shouldn’t be blogging right now because I’m sitting in a super cool cafe that is meant for working and co-working and I’m paying to be here, so I shouldn’t waste my paid time on blogging... but hey, I’m waiting for my Adderall to kick in and also I think this is the coolest concept ever.  It’s a super cozy space and you pay for the length of time you’re here.  It’s a little expensive but I have no sense of responsibility anymore.  It’s 5 euro an hour and that gets you access to the wifi, convenient plugs everywhere, and an all-inclusive self-serve tea and coffee bar.  I think it’s kind of genius!!  There’s snacks, bread, nutella, all kinds of tea, coffee, etc.  Takes away all the stress of posting up at a coffee shop for hours and wondering how much you need to buy to make yourself feel okay about using their space all day.  Kitty and I are personally very passionate about rental businesses/unlimited concepts like this, and I’m making a mental note to tell her about this so we can open one at home.  There’s a chance Americans wouldn’t go for it, but I think at the right price it’d be dope.  Of course, it basically reminds me of a bottomless brunch, and I’m pre-panicked I won’t get my money’s worth.  What if we served mimosas at our place, Kitty?!  Interesting.  I wish it wasn’t 3:30 am in Breck right now so we could discuss this.  

Last I left off I was on the train to Paris.  Vienna and Prague genuinely feel like years ago.  Such a weird trip, start to finish.  Not the kind I’d design on my own, but not NOT... just odd to be here mostly alone without a plan and kind of figuring it out as I go.  Not my style.  I got into Gare de L’est in Paris and figured out the Metro to Angie and Adam’s place around 7 pm.  Their 7-month-old is very French and goes to bed around 9:30 pm, so we bonded right away and she instantly took to me.  They tell me she’s mostly like that with all strangers, but I feel I’m special to her.  She cries when I leave the room!!  I had to sneak out to the cafe this morning because she was bawling when I went to my room after saying good morning to her.  Sweet angel.  Her name is “Thea” but they exclusively call her “Doodle” and it reminds me of our muff.  We ended up just hanging out all night on their couch and catching up, and then they got some pizzas and pasta from the place across the street for dinner and I ate All Of It.  The French don’t fuck around with their food (she says, shoving a shortbread cake coated in Nutella in her mouth between keystrokes.)  Had a bottle of wine and we stayed up until 1 am or so, just so lovely.

I woke up Saturday morning and braved what was admittedly freezing rain to walk to the local bakery Angie suggested.  Since they live right next to the Luxembourg Gardens I also popped in there, as it reminds me of the photo Amy and I took sitting on the fountain mirroring each other, back in January 2011.  I captioned it “The City of Love and Weight Gain” and steel trap Amanda remembered that ever since and recently posted a pic with the same caption, smh, she’s incredible.  Learned on this morning walk that my right black boot had worn through the sole, so my foot got soaked and I felt that “squidge squidge” with each step... so fun.  Went to the bakery and had a panic attack leading up to the order as I rehearsed what I was going to say in my head a million times over.  Eventually spit out “Je voudrais... trois croissants....deux pain au chocolat... et un baguette....s’il vois plait....” and to the girl’s credit, she didn’t immediately transfer to English upon hearing how painfully transparently American I sounded, and gave me the total in French!  I obviously had blacked out and couldn’t hear her, but the total was displayed on the cash register, so I paid and survived.

After lazing around a bit the rest of the morning, we all packed up and went across town to a Scottish bar that was playing the Tottenham game that Adam was interested in.  I love sports so I was happy to go, but man, soccer is dumb.  At one point one guy got a red card for lightly shoving a player after the play, and I almost burst out laughing at how that move disqualified him from that game and the next game, whereas in hockey that’s literally encouraged and we tally how many hits per game a player has.  Our friend Aaron came to join us!!  So good to see him, I think the last time I saw him was December 2016 right after I had moved to Denver and he was passing through town.  I remember specifically because I showed him my apartment, that first one in Uptown next to Kitty, and it was completely empty.  Back when I glamped all day.  He’s near fluent in French now and I find it attractive.  

We all went to an ex-pat bar after that and met up with Adam’s English co-worker and her friend who I found enchanting.  They’re both from Brighton and were just lovely, interesting, funny women.  We talked a little bit about the differences between England vs. the States and they said, “one thing we’ve always wanted to know - why do you have those huge gaps in the doors between your public bathrooms? You can practically see inside!” I said “I honestly have no idea and we all hate it too.  Ask me something else I can answer!!!”  We drank there for a while until Angie took Thea home because she was starting to get a little under the weather and fussy, and Aaron had a weird reaction to his IPA and immediately lost his voice.  Adam went home to Angie, and Angie’s niece who had just come in asked if I wanted to get dinner.  To be honest, I did not want to get dinner.  She is a little odd for a 30-year-old female and I didn’t have any idea what we were going to talk about.  Spoiler: I was correct.  She’s the kind of person who just won’t respond if she isn’t interested in what you have to say.  So we’d be walking along chatting, and I’d say something, and she’d just be silent.  Laaa dee daaa... she also lived in Versailles in college and is also fluent in French, and knew her way around very well, so I unintentionally just felt dumb and patronized.  We stopped at a place she wanted to go to for “authentic French cuisine”, blech, and I just got an omelette.  The menu was all in French and luckily I mostly knew what I was reading, but she didn’t even lightly offer to translate. Ha.  She eventually got more approachable and bubbly when we started talking about dating and her boyfriend and the online dating scene.  After dinner, to her credit, she thanked me for agreeing to dinner with her and humoring me on the choice of restaurant and walking together.  So maybe she’s just one of those people who doesn’t emote well but is kind and appreciative on the inside.  Walked home and went to sleep, again in silence.

Woke up intermittently and kept checking the Phillies’ score in the middle of the night, only to see a very sad ending... sigh.  At least Rhys and Bryce looked hot AF.  Angie and Adam are Nats fans but admittedly love both Rhys and Bryce.  I showed Adam the press conference of Bryce thanking Ned as a part of his signing, and Adam was THOROUGHLY impressed, so that made it all worth it.

Going to stay at this cafe for several hours and try to give Angie and Adam some space, as Angie thinks she and Thea are getting sick and I don’t want to impose more than I already have.  I may walk to the 6th later to visit the Hotel Raphael, Hotel Majestic, and the Peninsula; as ER has places in each of them and it would be amazing to see them firsthand.  Usually people on-site are very kind to me when I just pop in and say I work for ER, because it’s in their best interest to show me good service so I highly recommend them to my members.  Maybe I’ll splurge and have a cocktail or a short massage at the world-famous Peninsula hotel!!  TBD, the day is young.  For now, hopefully I accomplish my freelance work so I’m not a miserable jet-lagged shrew next week.  Wish me luck!! 

[zexalmonth]

Hello everyone! 

Some news before we begin, if you didn’t know this will be my last Zexal Month hosting, you can read the information here. Also @yaminoamber will also not be apart of the Zexal Month team, as she is too busy. So for this year, it will just be @pyrachan and I. Because of us leaving, Pyra will be alone for the other years to organise, which cannot be the case. 

In which case, If you would like to be apart of the Zexal Month team, feel free to send Pyra a PM. There are no real requirements for this, just to be apart of the Zexal fandom and be willing to discuss with Pyra prompts and information to keep this month going every year.

Now for 2018 Zexal Month!

For this third year, Zexal Month will be a tad different. I have organised 60 prompts. This time, all of you have your own free mind in what to do for selected days. However, every Friday will have a selected prompt, or theme (Mostly a fun game). Prompts include a saying or message which will then allow all of you to do whatever you like to participate. 

How you choose to contribute is entirely up to you.

For example, you could gif, draw, write, edit etc. The options are endless. Participating every day is not required!  

With these as well, feel free to mix prompts up together, use more than one a day or use any character from the Zexal series or manga. You can also use your OC’s if you would like, as long as they are related to Zexal. 

Rules:

DO NOT REPOST ART FROM OTHER SITES WITHOUT PERMISSION. This includes artists on tumblr. Do not take their work without permission. These include sites that most reposted art are found. (E.g Paintbucket and sites like it, pinterest, instagram etc.)

Respect everyone’s work, headcanon etc.

Please respect any OC’s, fan characters, self inserts etc. Even if you don’t like them, they would mean the world to the creators. I’ll be tagging as ‘zexal oc’s’ if you would like to blacklist that.

Please tag ‘nsfw’ things as they are. Or triggers if you feel the need too.

ALL PROMPTS AND INFORMATION UNDER THE CUT

Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd include regular prompt days.

Friday the 3rd includes:

All of your favourites, including:

Favourite Character Favourite Friendship Group or Friendship Pairing Favourite Episode(s) / Manga Chapter(s) Favourite Moment(s) in Anime/Manga Favourite Duel Monster / Non-Human Character (Barian/Astral etc) 

Plus any other favourites you would like to share. 

Saturday the 4th - Thursday the 9th includes regular prompt days.

Friday the 10th includes a special prompt called ‘BlahBARIAN’:

I originally got this prompt from writers digest but I changed it up a bit since it was fitting. 

A scene/s or anything that includes a character speaking a different language, speaking in a thick accent or otherwise speaking in a way that is unintelligible to the other characters. (Note: Be creative with the languages, it could be your own language that isn’t Japanese or English.) Such as, maybe each Yugioh series has a ‘different language’ and Zexal characters try and communicate with them.

Saturday the 11th - Thursday the 16th includes regular prompt days.

Friday the 17th includes a Yuma Day:

Since it is Tasuku Hatanaka’s birthday today, this Friday will be a tribute to anything and everything Yuuma.

Possibilities are endless with this one. Yuuma is in everything, shipping, AUs etc. Go for it. Favourite moments, things Yuuma inspired you about, Yuuma videos, fanfics, art and AU’s. Or if you would like to share any in real life Kattobingu life moments. Nows your chance!

Unfortunately Hatanaka has actually been said too taking a hiatus from his twitter.

Saturday the 18th - Thursday the 23rd includes regular prompt days. 

Friday the 24th includes a little fun game called ‘A Game of Reactions’. (This again was from writers digest but I thought it would be fun to try out). 

Writers digest originally said this: “A character’s reaction to something without explaining what it is. See if others can guess what it is.” HOWEVER, we could include the fandom as the ‘others’. Such as someone posts a picture from an episode and all of us guess what episode it came from, OR it can be as what it says there and do the content of for charades between a character and the fandom, or a character and another character.

Saturday the 25th - Thursday the 30th includes regular prompt days.

 Friday the 31st includes a phrase called ‘Duelling Opposites’. 

Again this phrase can be interpreted differently. You could switch personalities or decks, or even switching series. Consider this as a cross over prompt perhaps. 

REGULAR PROMPTS ARE AS FOLLOWERS

1. “Do you love me?”

2. “It hurts..”

3. “You are my world.”

4. “I can’t.”

5. “Help me.”

6. “There’s too much blood!”

7. “Do you know what to do?”

8. “Poison.. ”

9. “Are you cheating on me..?”

10.  “How can I if you won’t let me?”

11 . “You have to let go.”

12.  “What about you?”

13.  “How?“

14.  “You make me happy.”

15.  “Do you understand?”

16.  Timelessness

17.  Elementary

18.  So close, and yet…

19.  Sleepless

20.  Out of place

21.  Road trip

22.  "Have fun. Don’t die. Don’t kill anyone.“

23.  Pranks and Perspective

24.  “That’s not what I meant”

25.  Lucky day

26.  Going viral

27.  Table for two

28.  Shark attack

29.  “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming”

30.  Caught pants down

31.  “Howdy, partner”

32.  “What in the world did I agree too?”

33.  “Why did you do it?”

34.  Something special

35.  “May death find you alive”

36. ��A fishy situation

37.  Montages

38.  "Get down from there!”

39.  "I have cookies.“

40.  Getting lost somewhere

41.  A death of someone close.

42.  “Great, how are we supposed to get home now?”

43.  “I got the call last night…”

44.  “Did you hear something?”

45. “Please don’t do this…”

46.  “I wish I never met you.”

47. “You should think about what you’ve done.”

48. Past, Present, Future all in the same.

49. A Holiday Celebration

50. “Well, that was certainly awkward”

51. Baby pictures.

52. “Let’s pretend I didn’t see you do that”

53. “Are you stupid or stupid?”

54. “Call me now. it’s urgent.”

55. “Everything will fall into place.”

56. “Fight me, you attractive stranger.”

57. “Fuck’s sake, what’s your problem?”

58. “Kick his ass for me.”

59. “You’re pathetic. If I wasn’t willing to fuck you, no one would.”

60. Study partners

As an added bonus, I found this MASSIVE AU Compilation on Tumblr. Feel free to use it. http://hollandrhododendron.tumblr.com/post/116179859418/super-long-au-compilation

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me on this blog or even on my personal blog at @wendymoto.

Reference sites I found content for this month: 

http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts

http://bucketofprompts.tumblr.com/

We encourage anyone and everyone in the Zexal fandom to try and contribute or reblog others posts.

Let’s continue to enjoy and love ZEXAL for everything that it is and isn’t.

If you would like me to see them, please tag them with #ZexalMonth, #Zexal Month, #wendymoto. We will surely see and enjoy your posts as well.

I’ll look forward to seeing the posts you guys make.

Thank you, everyone. <3

With ‘zeal’ Wendy and Pyra. <3

[margridarnauds]

XVI. The Tower and XXII. The Fool please!

Thanks!

XVI. The Tower: Do you easily change your opinion on matters? What makes you lose faith in other people? Is there anything, or anyone you feel safe with?

Do you easily change your opinion on matters?

I don’t really think I change my opinion TOO much, at its base, if that makes any sense? When I’m around people, I do find myself molding myself into what the conversation requires, or at least shutting myself up unless it’s something that I find truly deplorable/can back up easily, but I think it takes a lot for my own personal opinion to change. Except for that one day or so when I woke up a conservative Methodist and went to bed as a liberal (alright I was “libertarian” but that went down the drain fast) atheist. That was a fun time. In my research, I try to keep an open mind, but I’ll own to my own confirmation bias. I can say “This is a good paper, you make good arguments,” but…do I fully accept it in my mind? No. But also I tend to see things more in shades of gray to a potentially annoying extent as it is, so when I change my opinion, it’s…not necessarily a matter of saying “This thing has some bad points” it’s “This thing’s bad points now outweigh its good points in my mind.” Part of why I ultimately chose lit over history as my focus was that I like that there’s not really a press for an Ultimate Truth in lit, in the sense that everything’s much more open to interpretation, whereas history tends to pressure more for definite ARGUMENTS. 

What makes you lose faith in other people?

It’s odd, because losing faith in people, for me, is rarely a matter of ONE single thing. I try to give people second and third chances, I tend to brush off that little niggling, “Something’s not right here” feeling, etc. So, when I finally lose faith, it’s a Big Thing, but it’s also not one that I can solidly put down to a single thing, which also makes it very hard when I’m trying to build a timeline in my head. Betrayal, lies, cruelty (though I do TRY to understand that people can have bad days, but…it doesn’t ERASE it, you know?), willful ignorance, finding out that they support things that I find personally deplorable, all the things that you’d really expect. 

(Funny story there: For ages I didn’t get crushes. Not one. Then, I got a strange…thing on a guy in my German class. Not a straight-up crush, but I LIKED him in a way that was slightly more than platonic. And I was like, “Okay, I’m bi instead of ace after all.” Then, I found out he supported Trump and he made some insanely transphobic and biphobic comments under the guise of “debate” because he was That Guy. /Crush, and that was basically the last time I got a crush on a guy. My brain just went “nein.”) 

It’s also really, really hard if I’d previously really trusted and looked up to someone and that happens. That’s really when I start wondering if there’s something wrong with *me* or if I’m over-exaggerating things to suit my own narrative. 

Is there anything, or anyone you feel safe with?

My dogs, my cats, my mom, for the most part, though she does have the little habit of telling my aunt things in the name of “family unity” when I had meant for it to be a personal matter. See: When I begged her not to tell my aunt I’m an atheist because my aunt is REALLY STAUNCHLY conservative, when I begged her not to tell her that I wanted to get out of the country because of the situation at home + politically, etc. 

Safety is a generally relative concept, anyway; I can trust that my mom and aunt won’t abandon me to be raised by wolves and will be there for me when I need them barring a huge catastrophe, I can trust that my mom can help me work through an anxiety attack and keep a solid 80% of my secrets, I can trust that my friends can handle my various eccentricities and questionable sense of humor, and I can trust that my dogs and cats will be with me no matter what because I’m the one who feeds them and gives them scritches. 

It’s all much less depressing than it sounds. 

XXII. The Fool: How much weight do you give to other people’s opinion? What is an adventure you were part of - or you wish you could be part of? Is there something you have an endless passion for? 

How much weight do you give to other people’s opinion?

I blame it on the bullying, but I have this odd…thing where I simultaneously have an “I don’t give a fuck” and “I give every fuck” attitude to people’s opinions. Like, on one hand, there’s probably not been a single feature of mine that’s not been ripped to pieces at some point. I mean, I had comics drawn of me having sex with my cats by my best friend at the time when I was 12 years old. It was a lovely, lovely period in my life. And, as a result, I think I developed a very self-deprecating sense of humor, as well as the idea that, well, I’ll be ripped to shreds no matter what, so I might as well express myself and damn the consequences. 

Well…that and being homeschooled for most of my high school years. It’s astonishing how much your opinions and interests can diverge if you’re not under the pressure to necessarily conform.  

But, at the same time, it also made me sensitive to personal criticism, as I have this idea that everyone hates me and is just being polite, that I’m really annoying, etc. One of the things that actually devastated me in college was reading teacher feedback, because even though I knew they were just trying to help me become a stronger academic, the thought that they might find me…wanting in some way stung. Especially when it was teachers that I really respected and looked up to. (Which, tbh, was all my teachers because I have a painful…thing when it comes to authority figures and trying to appease them and-Oh God I’m actually Peyrol minus the homicide, erratic temper, and questionable BDSM. That and our faculty was lovely.) I legit had to have my mom read the feedback, because I wanted to have it filtered and I was, like, worried one of them would say, “Rachel, you are a disgrace to the Humanities program and this school. This paper is shit. Goodbye” or something. 

I’Il often find myself softening my opinions or keeping silent if I feel like it could be dangerous, or if it might affect someone’s view of me, and I’m hyper-sensitive about, say, pauses in a conversation, because I’ll be like, “Oh, I’ve done it now.” And then in the next second, I’ll reblog, “FUCK OFF ANTIS” on my blog because, again, it’s a strange duality…thing with me. 

What is an adventure you were part of - or you wish you could be part of?

Oh, God, I’ve had some wild times. There’s the time that we were moving and ended up driving over a thousand miles overnight in a fifteen passenger van because we had 17 cats, two birds, and a bunny with us. And then had to travel BACK the next day because we had business to attend to back in our old place. 

OR the time that my late uncle lost his keys on a rollercoaster at Busch Gardens and so we ended up having to travel over three hours from where we live to rescue him, which is how we ended up meeting his boyfriend for the first time. 

OR the time that we picked up the youngest of our three dogs, Riley, when we ran into a curb less than ten minutes out, encountered various and assorted technical issues during the ~4 hours of the rest of the trip, and THEN when we were going back I had my hands nearly nibbled to death by an overeager puppy who was excited by the prospect of new friends. (This is how we met the nice old lady who gave me the money for the Toho 1789 + Riley is a sweet dog once he’s settled, so it was #WorthIt)

I really, really want to get out of the States, travel to different places around the world…see more musicals. Definitely see more musicals. I’m very aware of how limited my experience is, not having ever been out of my own country. (Unless you count briefly being over Canada when I was en route to Alaska, which I don’t.) I would love to go to Ireland and see some of the places mentioned in the various myths that I’ve read so much about, possibly embarrass myself by crying over Bres’ grave; I’d love to hit up the Tower of London or Versailles; go to either a Toho or Takarazuka musical in Japan (If and when my Japanese improves beyond「 アメリカ人です 」since I’d really rather be able to show my face in public). See snow again, maybe, since I do miss it.

 My old college offered study abroad trips to Oxford over the summer and I REALLY wanted to go, but, alas, it was insanely expensive + I wasn’t entirely sure about how much I would be able to enjoy myself if I had schoolwork to do, since I’d end up focusing on making that perfect rather than actually appreciating the trip. 

Alternatively: The Ghost Tour at Saint Augustine. I want to go on it SO MUCH. 

Is there something you have an endless passion for? 

Any of the musicals I’ve been lucky to get into (Especially. The one. You know the one. The one that I don’t even need to mention given that it consumes about 80% of my brain power at any given point), anything related to Irish Mythology, especially when it comes to my boy Bres, the French Revolution even though it also scares me because the scope of it’s so large and I never really feel like I make progress in it, female villainesses who can kill me and I would thank them (which is…a disturbingly large amount, actually). 

In general, I’m the type of person who develops special interests where I’ll become OBSESSIVE over learning everything I can about something and kind of latch onto it, so anything I’ve developed that for kind of goes here by default. 

And my dogs. Because they’re Good Bois (+ one Good Girl) and I honestly am not sure where I’d be atm without them. And my cats for tolerating my shit for this long. 

[thenightisland]

unsolicited lengthy updates from the ghost that runs this blog

i couldn’t believe i hadn’t done one of these in 2018 since in 2017 so much was happening that i had to like five or six of them so let’s see what we have here

mm - second in command nurse/one of my best friends, the one who’s always cursed with constantly cheating death and people dying on her etc ch - staff nurse/one of my best friends, human version of pink champagne, pregnant rc - the techs’ version of a charge nurse/one of my best friends cb - the thriller novelist who inexplicably works with us, the one who nearly got killed on the unit last year there are others that’ll come up but i guess those are the main players

2017 was awful right up to the end. about an hour into 2018 things started looking much more promising, mostly from a personal life standpoint. which was the least it could do after 2017 ruined my christmas.

few weeks into the year cb finally came back. he’d been out five months. no one understood why he came back when he had so many other career options at his fingertips, and we certainly didn’t understand why he came back to the shift it happened on. and even more so i didn’t understand why he talked to me about writing, when he wouldn’t even admit he was a writer out loud to anyone else and certainly didn’t talk at length about it with anyone. he still wouldn’t talk about it, to anyone else.

rc nearly put himself into DTs at the beginning of the year, despite, you know, working in psych and knowing what that does to a person. which sometimes i wonder if that was his intention, to do lasting damage, bc that shit can kill you. he got through all of that ofc, and had done really well until these last few weeks, more on /why/ later

our hospital has a weird tendency to create odd romantic relationships that i swear are things forged out of a mash unit type of daily trauma. so mm is currently in a will they or won’t they arc - leaning toward will - with a guy who works up there. one of my med nurses who went 7-3 is most definitely with one of my techs which we all knew would happen. ch is engaged to a social worker who worked at our hospital at the time. our director married a tech. a house sup has a kid with a tech. the detox charge nurse met his wife when she was a tech and they both worked our unit. etc. i guess it’s bc we deal with such intense things every day and you literally do save each other’s lives. we always joke hospital relationships are an inevitability. that being said my situations with rc and cb should have been expected and yet here i am, the former esp, as we’ve been the hospital’s most popular pairing for ages.

i spend a lot of my time now breaking behavior cases rather than treating psych pts. behavior cases are people who aren’t psychotic, they’re just violent opportunistic assholes who have figured out how to go to a psych hospital instead of jail. treating psych pts is tiring but rewarding. breaking behavior cases makes you feel almost sociopathic bc you /do/ you have to break them. psychologically, i mean. physically all we really have to work with is a shot and a few hours in seclusion. so you end up doing these hannibal lecter style speeches and trying to come up with threats that sound convincing that you know you can’t follow through on but you have to make them believe you can. they keep taking these “pts” so i spend 90% of my time now breaking those cases so that they don’t keep hurting staff and my real pts. one such behavior case was responsible for rc getting attacked. it really is a matter of 98% mind games and movie villain speeches, since this large violent not at all psychotic “pt” no longer messes with me or any of my people after our discussion about his behavior. 

my nursing friend who died unexpectedly last year. her sister was bipolar, which i found out in nursing school, bc over easter weekend i helped my friend get her through a psychotic manic break. i didn’t remember her and she didn’t remember me considering the circumstances of our one meeting. so this past spring i’m prepping a pt to transfer to another unit, and it isn’t until then that i realize the sister had been on my unit all week. part of her paperwork said “off meds, having difficulty coping with upcoming anniversary of sister’s sudden death.” it was like seeing a ghost.

my friend’s mother died. we all adored her mom. she was an artist and a very accomplished one. we had to watch what became a ten year decline.

one of my high school teachers died after dealing with cancer for two years and while i wasn’t fond of her and didn’t mourn her, a death is still a death

cb was a night shift weekender, primarily. in march, found out why when i was on 11-7 he’d pick up shifts. and why he started picking up 3-11s when i switched to 3-11. and why he came back to the shift he got hurt on. why he came back at all. why he was finally actually /talking/ to someone about his life and background before he gone girled himself, and why that person was me. took mm pointing all of it out to realize i was the common denominator but i was always bad at math. 

i went to an island in south carolina for a few weeks in april and dreaded coming home since the vacation curse is 4/4. but nothing happened. thank god. i doubt i could have handled a fifth round.

my nursing class had another member die unexpectedly this year too. last year this guy was the one to post in our fb group that my friend/our classmate had died. idk if this is a the ring sort of deal, but now he’s dead, so the girl who posted about /his/ death should probably watch out in 2019. we have an awfully high mortality rate for a class that had like 22 people in it. much like the teacher, i wasn’t esp fond of him, but it is a bit creepy to watch a classmate die each year.

sometime in may is when the hospital started going to hell, i think. i have vague memories of regulatory agencies being around all the time and some of the doctors and assessors literally living there, pt rooms on one of the nicer units converted into bedrooms for them because yes it was that bad. one woman didn’t see her son for two weeks. it kept escalating to a point that our unit was constantly having meetings with the ceo bc things were that fucked up. they were taking behavior cases they should never have taken. there were so many employee injuries in 2018, and we all just kind of revolted when one such behavior case decked a med nurse in the face just bc he could [you know, the person with no psych history who had tried to murder his little sister prior to admission] that pt was supposed to be d/c’d to jail in two weeks. we had him almost two months. the unit looked like a tenement from the boarded up broken windows. we fought and fought and fought for unit safety and the staffing required to accomplish that. everyone was so goddamn exhausted that we started holding admission paperwork hostage like no it’ll get done when you give me the staff to fucking do it but two nurses in this nurses station with 80 volatile pts is not enough, and guess what four techs for that many pts isn’t enough either. i mean it was just every day fighting. i remember sitting on my tailgate drinking tequila one night with ch and us in tears bc our home was falling apart. and the day rc just said i don’t know how much longer i can keep doing this, sounded defeated, which he’s never defeated. there was a night me mm rc and cb just stood in the nurses station exhausted and saying we’ve got to get out of here. but we kept coming back, fighting for every last bit of progress we could. 

i’d been texting cb one weekend while he was at work, which was the only reason i had my phone on me which meant i saw the message from mm that said “what would 30mg of klonopin do to me” which was how i ended up with one of my best friends on my couch on a saturday night sobbing bc she had come close enough to killing herself that she had the already half empty bottle of vodka in one hand and the bottle of pills in the other. so i had to crisis suicide intervention my fellow psych nurse friend. so i guess good thing i was talking to cb about neruda and auden poetry bc i hate to think what would have happened that night if i hadn’t bothered to keep my phone on me like i do a lot.

and then about a month and a half ago it all came to a head. the dangerous understaffing reached its peak. four techs for eighty pts, which meant two techs for /47/ male pts, a unit of behavior cases, four or five pts who were on 1:1 obs, three admissions untouched, six more pending, and me alone in the nurses station bc i had to put my one other nurse /and/ the secretary on 1:1s that i didn’t have coverage for. i told them it wasn’t safe. i told them i was sick of having this argument every week. i told them that the last time i had to go to two techs on that male hall the week before that staff got hurt. well, three of my four techs were guys, who were stuck on the floor in a hold with a male pt and barely able to keep him contained like having to actively fight and i had to be out there for paperwork/supervisory purposes. that left my remaining one hall tech trying to contain the rest of the unit, since the others were stuck on 1:1s which effectively trap you. so an opportunist female behavior case came up from behind and started beating me in the head over and over and dragged me across the floor by my hair, got a lot out too i had hair coming out for /days/. so my one hall tech is trying to pry this bitch off of me and the staff on the 1:1s are dragging their respective pts up there to the middle of it so they could help bc my guys were still in a losing battle with the male pt. from there i remember mostly being in a blind rage and at some point admin et al came to the unit. and i know i yelled at them a lot and told them they’d better be glad i wasn’t handing them my keys and leaving. and our sweet grandma house sup told the ceo and nurse exec they could be house sup the rest of the night bc she was taking me to the er. our director had to be me the rest of the night. rc wouldn’t even /speak/ to her apparently. one of the social workers was telling her boss that if i left then she was leaving. everything was in an uproar. my nurse who had been stuck on the 1:1 was in the nurses station /sobbing/. the female tech told our director “i hope you know we’re staying for karen, not you.” cb was freaking out bc i texted him from the er and then was taken back for a ct and so didn’t answer and he had called ch terrified bc i wasn’t answering [i think the whole thing probably brought back bad memories for him, obv]. rc didn’t sleep for several days bc he was blaming himself and i had to keep telling him /the only way any of this could have been prevented was by them staffing us appropriately/ bc that’s the truth but he was still so fucking miserable and told mm “if this makes her quit they aren’t getting a two weeks notice from me i’m walking out with her”. in the wake of all this, the unit has continued in the same fashion of fighting for basic necessities every day, and mm is struggling running it in my absence with her already fragile mental health. everyone is kind of terrified about something happening to ch since she’s pregnant. mm is having full panic attack rage breakdowns at our director. when they had the admin meeting with everyone else who was there when i got attacked admin asked my team “how could y’all have prevented this” at which point all of them started yelling at them, and then admin wanted to know why no one called a code when i got attacked at which point rc straight up just yelled at the ceo /because there was no one to fucking call it/.  the nurse exec, who always liked me and was one of the few admin people with a conscience, quit in the wake of me getting hurt, because of the whole thing. and rc has been drinking himself to sleep off and on. 

so now we’re at this crossroads, mm ch rc and i. unsure whether to stay or go. and if so, where? our job is like a war zone idk how to be a civilian anymore, but the four of us have been talking like this place is killing us if this job was a boy/girlfriend we’d call this abusive and end it. if the four of us leave that guarantees the total collapse of what little of the unit will be left. it’s already struggling just with /me/ out [i’ve been out because of the head injury which those aren’t fun], let alone the four of us who have always kind of held the unit together. 

so what the hell are we supposed to do?

in theory 2018 didn’t feel as stressful as 2017 but on paper??? on paper it still looks pretty terrible???????????????

[aquarianlights]

It's okay to be.

Although the death of loved ones will shake the very foundational base of any soul home.

It is because the crave for physical hugs and reassuring words of comfort.

When they leave this world through physical form they are not entirely gone. They are here with us always with the ability to visit freely as we would them at their homes.

It’s okay to cry, to vent, to relive memories of your special moments. But do not live in the past and the ghost of someone who wouldn’t want you to torture yourself. Although your grieving process is your own. Surround yourself with loved ones and friends who understand and have loved n lived through it.

It’s easy to tell another what to do and not. But the purest truth is to follow your heart and be kind to yourself as your password love one would want you to be.

I hope this helps you. As they helped you throughout life.

Response from Killian: Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate this. You don’t have to read all of this. But this is for you and for everyone and then for you again, if you do. I really, REALLY needed to vent and really, really needed a distraction and, well, everyone knows what helps me the most, yeah? Whining, bitching, and ranting/tangents. It’s the one and only thing that keeps me from acting on my life threatening impulses. So. . .here is the product of the venting that just saved me from myself. Enjoi or don’t. Thank you so much for the note. I appreciate it, fam. This response is mostly for everyone on my followers list, btw. I, personally, believe in reincarnation based on our karma. My entire spirituality revolves around the afterlife and the theory of reincarnation and different planes of existence and nonlinear time and linear time coexisting. But at the same time, I also believe in spirits, ghosts, entities, and all things falling within the paranormal realm as I have had numerous experiences with them. But I do believe that the entities that still haunt this linear existence on our planet are trapped here because their karma was either at 0 when they died and not at a positive or negative number, which means that the fate aliens didn’t know whether to demote or promote them and are evaluating their linear timeline. OR. . .there is no room in the place that they have to demote or promote them to and no parallel timelines are appropriate for them. So they are playing a waiting game. And on a rare occasion, the demonic spirits that are here that have enough energy force to actually move things and hurt animals and people. . .those are people who have done such horrific things that their karma was so far in the negatives that they could not be forgiven and were not allowed another chance and are now rooted here on this hell planet for all of eternity with all of the positive energy and positive karma they accumulated from birth to death sucked out completely so that they are truly left to suffer---all alone with their own malice, unable to actually converse with or be touched by anyone ever again. I cannot think of another instance in which it would be appropriate for someone to be locked into this existence or in the purgatory stage where they have to wait and wait and wait as this noncorporeal spirit coexisting with corporeal beings until they can progress to a higher level of existence either on their current planet or a different planet or be demoted to a lower species on their current planet or on a different planet. It’s always rare to be born as the same species on the same planet. That would be very strange and make no sense with the laws of karma unless you had a pure 0 karma that you had somehow managed to balance out in the fate aliens eyes right before you died. No negative numbers or positive numbers in existence for you anymore. Everything cancelled out by doing good deeds for all the bad you’ve done thus far and making sure not to do TOO many good deeds and to balance out the good with the bad and so on and so forth. Which is close to impossible while living your life. Which is why I truly think the fate aliens would keep these people with leveled out to 0 karma in a purgatory stagnant state as a spirit for a while until they figured out whether to do the taboo thing and reincarnate them as the same species on the same planet and everything be the same. . .or to do something normal and push them up to a higher plane but only like. . .one level higher and barely higher. Maybe even keep them as the same species on the same planet, but make them have a much brighter future and a much nicer life, which is always a possibility with karma. When you progress to a new species with a new planet, you’ll always have a better life. And when you get demoted, you’ll always have a worse life. It just works that way. It always has. And it keeps going and going until YOU become the omnipotent, noncorporeal alien that controls all of non-linear time and controls all of the fate aliens that control all of the linear time and you are literally the highest level of existence possible and there is nothing higher and you just exist outside of time and there is no concept of time and you exist forever and always and never and everywhere and no where all simultaneously.

Those are just the basics of my beliefs.

And they have a scientific basis to them in many instances, but I won’t go into that. I wanted to explain that BECAUSE. . .

You said they aren’t really gone when they are physically gone, right? And that they have the ability to visit us as freely as we used to be able to visit them in their home, right?

I am under the impression that you meant through spirits, like. . .say, through feeling their presence even when they are not there. Through talking aloud to them and something happening and just somehow knowing it was them responding in some way because it is something they would do (ie; knocking over a certain picture of someone when you’re talking to them about them to remind you how much they don’t like them).

Stuff like that is what I mean by feeling their presence. You know what I mean, right? I don’t have to elaborate, yeah?

You aren’t talking about, say, through prayer or, uh. . .guardian angel or any of that religious bullshit, right? Because, uh, you must not have known me or looked through my blog for even 2 seconds if you’re suggesting anything christian/baptist/catholic/etc based. And I’m gonna be highly offended if you or anyone else suggests I pray to them when they’re gone or that they’re watching over me from heaven or that they’re better now with “god” or that they’re my “guardian angels” now and they are always watching over me. Like, oh hell no, don’t anyone fucking say that while this shit is going on because I will get set the fuck off and I will attack anyone who says that shit. I won’t get offended in the least if anyone says they are praying for me or they’re sending me prayers and that they’re including my grandparents in their weekly service or something. Anything of that nature is actually highly comforting to me and makes me feel very at ease and happy and respected and loved. But the SECOND someone tries to force their beliefs on me and just assume like all christians/baptists/catholics/etc do that everyone will love to hear that shit and be comforted by the “they’re in heaven now/god has them/they’re your guardian angels” bullshit. . .I will fucking snap and attack them. Those three things (and I’m sure other things that I haven’t thought of, too, along with the “you should pray to them” thing) are the LEAST comforting things I could possibly be told during all of this.

1. I absolutely do NOT want my grandparents to be in heaven, if there were such a place. I do not believe there is, but if there were, then there would be every form of every beliefs afterlife available and up for the choosing when you died. You’d just go to some sort of grim reaper who is a sorter and tell them which afterlife you believe in and you’d be put into that version of the afterlife, the good or bad or neutral depending on what your ending karma is, unless you believe we disintegrate into nothingness, then, of course, there is only one ending. But if my grandparents were to go to heaven, that would fucking be it. They would never get another linear existence. They would never get another chance to find happiness. Do you know the chances of people like my grandparents who were high school sweethearts, laid eyes on each other and had love at first sight, have been married for over 70 years, will die happily married to each other and never once have been unhappy together and it wasn’t fake at all. . .do you know the chances of people like that becoming partners again in their second life if they get sorted onto the same planet and are similar enough species (both humanoid or both animal or something like that)??? It’s high. EXTREMELY high. I want them to have the chance to fall in love all over again and live a brand new life on a brand new world and see brand new things. My grandma was raised by an alcoholic and was beat all the time growing up. My grandfather is as bigoted as they come and is insanely ignorant and never went to college. My grandmother never even got her drivers license and that is something she has always regretted. I want them to get the chance to live better lives. I want my grandmother to have parents or parental figure(s) she deserves as the kind, loving, amazing woman she was before Alzheimer’s. I want her to be able to go far in life and get achievements that she couldn’t make in this life because she got pregnant with my mother so early in life and they couldn’t afford to send my grandma to school because they were growing up during the great depression. My grandparents got married right after high school and had 8 kids. My grandma was a GREAT mother and did everything possible for them and sent them all to school and those who wanted to go to college or trade schools, she sent them. She helped them every way she could. My grandfather worked very hard and built houses everywhere and he loved it and was very good at it, but growing up in such a rough, terrible, long ago time and being as white as they come and being raised by people who grew up in an even MORE white era, he has always been your typical ignorant, says and does whatever he wants, bigoted, hateful towards everyone that isn’t white as well as women, white man. I do not want him to go to heaven because I want him to learn his fucking lesson and get his ass kicked by being knocked down a peg. I want him to have his karma so low that he gets demoted. He wouldn’t move out of their house so late because of the fact that “I’m the man!! I need to take care of my wife!! It’s MY house!!! I don’t care that I have dementia and can’t take care of her properly! Hurr durr I am a manly man and these are my manly man responsibilities!!!” and since he only had dementia and not Alzheimer’s, he was their power of attorney and wouldn’t give everything up. It wasn’t until he drove his car into a gas station pump while trying to go somewhere in Massachusetts for the millionth time (he lives in Florida, but my whole family is from MA and I’m the only “southerner” who polluted the blood line by being born and raised in Florida and only coming up to our home state of MA in the summers) that they finally saw something and he got his license taken away. But then it wasn’t until my grandma FELL after not being able to get out of the chair for days because she wasn’t talking, wasn’t eating, wasn’t able to go to the bathroom except on herself, couldn’t get changed, couldn’t hold herself up and was sliding out of the chair, etc etc etc coz we thought the Alzheimer’s had progressed so badly. All of their workers had quit because my grandpa was a terror at trying to take care of her “right”. And then it wasn’t until she ACTUALLY FELL that he called 911 and they took them both to the hospital and they found out he had advanced lung cancer and they both had a UTI, but hers was severe enough to cause her to almost die and they rechecked my grandma’s breast cancer and it had progressed. SO. . .they were FINALLY taken to a home by adult protective services. And he was fucking mad about that! And I need him to just be knocked the fuck down a peg in his next life because I am so goddamn sick of his bitching and whining about black people and looking down on women who have jobs and looking down on my generation because we can actually think for ourselves and him always watching the fucking news like my father and getting all of his political information from the corrupt sources there and spreading fake news and actually corrupting the polls and making the rest of us suffer by going to vote and also his inherent HATRED for the LGBT community. . . And I am going to have to DIE without either of them knowing I am transgender. Because I was too scared to come out to either of them before my grandma got dementia. My grandpa probably wouldn’t know what it was. And my grandma wouldn’t either. But I would want them to listen and understand and know that I’m going to be getting gender correction hormones that will change everything about me to correct who I am. And I wanted them to BE HERE to see the end result. . . . but I guess this shows me that I DO want to go through with HRT before my parents die. I thought about holding off until my parents die to do HRT, but this confirms that I need to do it before they die so that they can meet their son and know who he really is before they die. I don’t want them to die without actually knowing me. If my grandparents went to this fake fucking paradise called heaven, there would be nothing forever and, frankly, the stagnancy of forever in heaven with nothing to strive for sounds like my worst nightmare. To have everything that I could ever want is my worst fucking nightmare and my own personal hell and I wouldn’t wish that pain on my worst enemy. Sure, it’s great for a little while. . .but for an infinite amount of time that drags on and NEVER ends. . .??? That would be the worst and I would end up hurting myself just to FEEL something other than that euphoria that they describe. Just like in the movies where there are drugs and stuff that are manufactured at birth to be ingrained in humans that force them to experience nothing except happiness their entire life and have nothing except happy memories and have a filter in their mind that filter out any bad memories they may accidentally acquire and erase them. . . . there ends up being a HUGE black market that EVERYONE partakes in (even law enforcement) for bad memories and drugs that will make you feel angry and sad and depressed and suicidal and upset and confused and stressed and all sorts of things OTHER than euphoric. That is what heaven is. . .the worst place imaginable. I would not wish that on my worst fucking enemy, nevertheless on people I LOVE. The ONLY person I would EVER wish that on would be Trump. That is how much I hate that orange blob. And I would want it to be televised for all of eternity for everyone to see the constant breakdowns and struggles and eventual going insane. I would only wish that kind of inane punishment on the most evil person on the planet: Trump.

2. To say “god has them” scares me. It downright scares me because I see the catholic/baptist/christian god as this scary, horrifying omnipotent presence who is cruel af to everyone and will punish everyone without mercy and without discerning who is deserving of punishment and who isn’t (noah’s ark, anyone? before you [note: these are all general yous, not personal yous] jump on me, if you all don’t know me... which, ...if you’re reading this and you ARE going to jump on me... you probably SHOULD know me first...lmao... you don’t wanna jump on a stranger and look stupid by being horribly wrong about this. . .but before you jump on me, I grew up and was raised roman catholic. i went to a private catholic school for almost all of my adolescent life right into my teenage years. I have not only read the entire bible, I have been forced to pick that horrible fictitious book apart piece by piece in religion classes over the years as I grew up. So don’t go telling me I need to read the fuckin’ bible just because you’re gonna be big mad about me having opinions that are harshly different than yours lol). This guy is someone who will usually not answer prayers and who will rape people, impregnate them, leave them with the child to tend for it themselves and not pitch in AT ALL. . . (not even gonna pay child support, my home boy? damn cmon fam). . .and will gladly allow everyone to be mass manipulated and will not stop them from using his/her name for horrible, horrible things when he clearly should have the power to do so. And what about his other son who he fucking betrayed and banished? Yeah, fuck this guy (or girl). And he apparently traps all these people up in this horrible place for eternity and gives them no options except to be happy and have all the things so that they have nothing to strive for and nothing to want for. . .nothing to keep them going, nothing to ever feel, no reason for existing, no reason for waking up, no reason to be happy except for the fact that you do feel happy and it’s all wrong for so many reasons that I don’t even want to elaborate any further because I’m going to get a fucking panic attack thinking about it because if I start to convince myself of the possibility that all afterlives are real---which means heaven is real and that is the ONLY way heaven can be real is if they are ALL real from EVERY belief---then this fucking awful place exists and tons and tons of people have fallen for the trap and are literally trapped there forever and ever and ever. . .and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And because my mom’s side of the family is all catholic. . .they will all choose that afterlife, too, when presented with the choice of what afterlife to choose. . .oh god oh god oh god. . .my mom. . .my mom would choose heaven. . .oh god oh god oh god. . .I don’t want to think of them all suffering like that. That is the ultimate version of suffering. I can’t even imagine. . .oh my god. I need to stop. Immediately. Moving on......

3. To say my grandparents are my guardian angels is just...... wrong. I would not want a guardian angel. Ever. I used to find this creepy even when I was a sheltered, ignorant, brainwashed little catholic schoolboy. I felt it was so goddamn creepy when my parents and the priests and nuns at school (our classes were taught by nuns and our dean was a priest) would all say that “[x] guardian angel is watching over you so you need to make them proud by being on your best behaviour. But when you get into trouble, don’t hesitate to say a prayer to them. They will save you.” That was like. . .big brother stuff to me before I had even read 1984 or ANYTHING Orwellian in general yet. It was big brother before I knew what big brother actually was. It was scary and intimidating. It was like I was being watched all the time and I couldn’t have a moments peace and I couldn’t be alone ever. I always felt eyes on me and I could never move around or talk to the voices in my head or the hallucinations I saw like I needed to (which were always both thought to be imaginary friends by everyone, including counselors and my parents, until I got older and they never went away and more appeared and everything became much more vivid and frequent). It was torture. Christmas has always been my all-time favourite time of year because it was the one and only time my parents wouldn’t do anything bad to me ever and were over-the-top kind to me and loving and it was like they were totally different people in front of our entire family and friends. It was so much fun being with everyone, seeing all the sparkly lights, playing with friends, fireplace, the cold weather finally getting there, decorating the tree, decorating cookies, presents, stockings, festivities. . .so many things!! But you know what was always awful about Christmas when I was little and still believed? Santa Clause. It felt like he was some guardian angel watching over me for that entire month. On the 1st of December every year, I would become hyper-paranoid and hyper-aware of every movement I made, everything I said, everything I did, and every interaction I had. It was awful. It was torture. That’s what it feels like to have a guardian angel. Pressure. Constant pressure. And then I’m always thinking about them, too. Like. . .don’t they have better things to do than just constantly watch me? What, are they just sitting there all day and all night with binoculars way up there looking down at me unblinkingly? Are they right by my side as a noncorporeal orb of energy waiting to defend me at any turn? Whatever it may be, I feel like I am being watched 24/7. And it feels like I’m not the only one because they have to be watching over other people they were close to, too, right? So, how do they do it? I overthink it and get panicky and end up talking to them no matter where I am and I end up having breakdowns and/or panic attacks. And with no valium left to calm me down. . .I have nothing!! For fucks sake. Hearing my grandparents may be magically turned into slaves. . .that’s not something I look forward to. What, so. . .they get two options. They either get to be eternally happy and do nothing for eternity. . .or they get to be eternally happy and be a slave to the system of heaven as a guardian angel for eternity. Hmmmmm. Choose your poison, I guess! Fuck heaven and the concept of heaven. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.

SO. . .as you all can see. . .those three things are EXTREMELY unsettling to me and TRUST ME when I say that, YES, I see the alternatives and the way that you people who worship/believe look at it. I know. I’ve been there. I was that brainwashed little roman catholic boy for the longest time. I was roman catholic for more of my life thus far than I have been my current spirituality which is my own that I do not have a name for since it is no particular religion or belief system and involves a LOT of different beliefs from belief systems around the world, as well as stuff I’ve discovered from my own experiences, as well as stuff from science. The stuff I’ve put down here are only regarding the afterlife and are only the bare skeleton basics of what I believe. But, TRUST ME, I know the opposing side. I don’t need any of it explained to me and IF IT IS EXPLAINED TO ME, whoever does it will be promptly ignored and blocked (and, yes, I can block anonymous people) unless you are just being SO ridiculous and SO stupid and SO ludicrous that I have to post it so that my 4k+ followers can all get a laugh out of it like I did. I’ll be sure to get a laugh out of all the religious nuts in my inbox after all of this is said and done, but I’m sure I will ignore most of them. But if one strikes me as PARTICULARLY hilariously ludicrous, I will be sure to post it for everyone so that you can all laugh with me. I promise. I won’t let you guys down. Haha. But I do not need it explained because, frankly, I could probably explain it a LOT better than any of you. But I would explain it in some words that are, er. . .not very pretty. :) So you all do not want me to explain it. Trust me. Trust me. TRUST ME.

*****And trust me when I say...... EVEN IF YOU EXPLAIN IT TO DEATH TO ME, IT WILL DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING EXCEPT MAKE ME HATE YOU AND HATE WHICHEVER RELIGION [read: cult] YOU ARE A PART OF AS WELL AS MY FORMER RELIGION [that cult being catholicism] EVEN MORE THAN I ALREADY DO. It will do nothing more than make me have an even deeper hatred for religions everywhere and it will certainly reinforce the idea that people who believe in these things are generally horrible people who want to force their beliefs on me. You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t force it to fucking drink, bitches.*****

SO

Back to the topic on hand.....................

I SAY ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL OF THAT.............................

Because

I do not think my grandparents would still be present. And I say all of THAT and explain all of that in detail [the 1, 2, 3 thing] because I wanted to make it VERY clear to EVERYONE here because the vast majority of my followers are not people who speak to me on the daily like people on FB do, so you all do not know my trigger point with religion and how bad flashbacks happen the second anyone forces their beliefs on me in general or the second anyone forces their beliefs on me during a tragedy/painful time. I will lash out and instantly attack ANYONE who does anything like that and I wanted to make it HYPER-CLEAR for everyone and ANYONE that that is a thing with me and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get that off my chest. . . . . .Venting is the only way I survive through things. I always need to vent in order to not harm myself and to not off myself. Writing ALL of this out allows me to write the pain off and to keep my impulses at bay and really think about things before acting on these horrific self destructive impulses.

So I really do need to write all of this AND post it. Otherwise it’s not fulfilling if I just erase it. Then the pain comes back. If no one reads it, then the pain comes back.

ANYWAYS. . .

I don’t think my grandparents would still be present for even a little while because I think they’re going to be promoted to the next planet and I know my grandma is going to be a humanoid species and is going to have a better life than she did here. . .but idk about my grandpa. I hope to fuck they find each other again. I really, really do. Their love is strong enough to transcend the boundaries of reincarnation. Or maybe my grandpa will be reincarnated on that planet as a domestic animal of some sort and my grandma will adopt him (or her if he gets reincarnated as a girl) and she (or he if she gets reincarnated as a boy . . .or maybe they have third or fourth sexes on this planet? or maybe only one sex? hmmm) will live happily by herself with her animal that is my grandpa and they will just have this special bond that you hear of in journal articles and they will live together until the animal dies or something and then maybe my grandpa will have good enough karma that he can come back as a humanoid and then they can be together in some capacity if it is not too late. Maybe he can be her adopted child. I doubt they could be lovers because of the age thing, but it’s possible after he gets old enough in their world to comprehend and understand what love between people with that kind of age gap means and be able to consent properly. . . Hmmmmm. You never know.

I just don’t think they will still be here. And if they are?

Well. . .if they are. . .that’s kind of unsettling for me with my belief system. I would rather not feel their presence ever again so that I know they passed on to their next life. If I feel their presence, then I know something is wrong. And if something is wrong, it will take my focus off of school at a very inconvenient time in my pre-med program when I need to be kicking it into high gear more than EVER. And it will kill me because I will just be having breakdowns and panic attacks and losing sleep ALL THE TIME over the fact that they’re not okay and that something is wrong due to the fate aliens not allowing them to pass on for SOME reason. And then I would be spending time researching ways to help loved ones pass on to the afterlife or to gain good karma in the spirit world in order to move on. . .instead of using the time to do research for surgical things for school. It would terrify me if I felt their presence in that way. :(

I know that is supposed to be a comfort, though, so I very much appreciate that mention and I very much appreciate that though. All of that excessive explanation and elaboration is moreso geared at my pack of followers who need to be informed during this time of grieving that that is the wrong way to go about helping me if they want to help. . .which I really hope they do. Not many people have come forward to help. . .and that kinda kill me. . .so I’m just hoping more people come forward with support and help like this because this was extremely kind and extremely helpful and I cannot thank you enough. Seriously.

That is VERY good advice to not live in the past regardless of actively thinking about the memories. . .I actually did not think about or prepare for that. I noticed I have been, uh. . .recalling a lot of memories with them or at their house lately. I’ve been telling stories left and right irl and through texts. I have never really done that before. Not about my grandparents. . .Hell, I JUST did it with this post, didn’t I??? Wow. I feel like I’m one of those people that are going to get stuck in a loop of thoughts if I’m not careful. . .I have borderline personality disorder AND schizo-affective disorder which both lead to insanely bad paranoid thoughts and catastrophic thinking issues. I had both under control until my pain medication for my fibro and ehlers danlos got stripped from my for 2 weeks and until it became an issue to get it. . .and I had it under control until my grandparents decided to uh. . .y’know. . .get lung cancer and breast cancer and get life threatening UTI’s and drive into a gas station and basically start dying way sooner than expected and to screw up the plan that my mother and the rest of the kids had. (They didn’t choose it; I’m just joking. I deal with things with sarcasm and humour. Which I believe is going to be frowned upon during their death. . .) 

It was expected that my grandma would pass first and it would be swift and painless due to the Alzheimer’s. My grandpa wouldn’t last long after that because he would basically die of a broken heart. I’m not exaggerating or joking. Some old people legitimately do die of a broken heart when their loved one passes on. My grandpa would be one of those people. But my mom planned on taking him in and having him live with them and things would work out because my grandpa can mostly take care of himself. My grandma cannot. . .and if grandpa goes before her. . .my god, she’s going to be so panicky and so lost and so confused. Whenever he leaves the room, she gets extremely panicked and starts screaming his name and begging people to go check on him to make sure he’s not dead from this or that. He’s the only thing that keeps her grounded in reality with her Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t know what day it is, she doesn’t know who she is or what her birthday is, she doesn’t know who her my mom is, she doesn’t know who I am and I am her favourite niece/nephew in the family. . .but she knows exactly what her husband is doing at all times and she knows where he is and she knows if he has eaten and if he has taken his medications and she reminds him when to take his meds and all of these things. She could be lost somewhere, but if he’s there, it would be okay. Honestly, it never seems to matter where they are to her, as long as she’s with him nowadays. To him, it matters a fuckton. Everything matters. But with him going first. . . if my grandma doesn’t have that grounding thing in her daily life. . . . . .I have no idea what would happen. Because she won’t remember he has died no matter how many times they repeat it to her. She’ll be asking every hour or so, I’m sure. Probably more often than that and the workers at the home will have to keep repeating it to her over and over and over that he is dead and she will keep having to experience that trauma over and over and over. That’s............ that’s torture. I can’t imagine that. . .Whereas, if grandma went first. . .it would be peaceful. . .grandpa would grieve and eventually die of a broken heart and we would have the funeral in Massachusetts where they would be buried right next to each other. My grandpa wants to be buried under my mom’s “Nana” (idk how they’re related but my mom has always called her Nana and never by her real name. So idk.) so that he “can look up her skirt”. That was always his wish. So he gets the plot below hers. And my grandma gets the plot next to him. I cannot imagine being buried alone like that. . . .not even when I’m dead. I would have to be buried WITH my partner, not NEXT to them. Fuck no. One of my biggest fears is being buried alive. The fuck NO. Even after death, that’s not happening. But I’m not getting cremated either. I’ve already signed up with two organizations to have my body donated to medical students for study and to have my brain donated to a prestigious brain mapping organization which they will take ANY brain. Infected ones, ones with mental disorders, ones with issues like Alzheimer’s or Down Syndrome, from high IQ’s to low IQ’s, from people who have Ph.D’s to people who dropped out of high school, anything. They’ll take anything because there is absolutely nothing we cannot learn from examining the human brain piece by piece. And the fact it has to basically be fresh is a HUGE problem for brain mappers because the demand HIGHLY outranks the supply. And eeeeeveryone just LOVES to be an organ donor so everyone just immediately puts down organ donor on their card and never even THINKS to sign up for brain mapping or to have their cadaver sent to scientists for medical advancement or medical students for teaching purposes. Why the fuck save only a few fucking people who are going to die soon probably anyways when your organs may reject in them anyways. . .when you could literally use your own corpse to teach people who are alive invaluable things that can help them learn to help and to cure more and more things and more and more people. Why save only a few lives who will die shortly after you save them and may even reject your organs immediately and render them useless. . .when you could save thousands. . .millions. . .billions. . .maybe even be the basis for saving the entire human race? I have always said no to being an organ donor. I know vulcans and every other race in Star Trek has a problem with this phrase and even Spock himself has had a problem with this phrase in the series and has had discussions about it with Kirk, but I still believe wholeheartedly in it: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And I know people are groaning and saying “Well, Killian, what about when you are one of the few?” Glad you asked. I am not going to say that I will selflessly suffer and die as a self sacrifice because that is not what my human body will allow me to do and that has been proven via multiple suicide attempts and by chronic pain. I know exactly how my near death experiences have all gone. I know exactly how being extremely uncomfortable goes to me. I know exactly how my body and mind deals with physical pain. I know exactly how my body and mind deals with the prospect of my own death. My flight or fight response kicks in almost immediately when my body starts to feel the effects. The problem being. . .I cannot remember a single time that my mind/body has ever chosen the “flight” response for ANY instance. My body/mind has ALWAYS chosen the “fight” response so whenever I start to feel it and it sinks in that I’m going to die or COULD die, I will fight for survival with every breath I take. I will do everything in my power to stay alive, even if it means taking people down with me. Even if it means compromising my principals. Will I use organ donors to save my life and still have the “fuck being an organ donor” principle ingrained in me? Yeah, most likely. Albeit I cannot predict that, I can certainly predict that based off of the fact that that is an instance that I generally act hypocritically. I am a HUGE hypocrite in those regards and I am well aware of it and I am quite okay with it. I don’t mind being a contradiction at all. I’m not harming anyone; I’m actually helping people. In every instance in which I am extremely hypocritical, I am never harming anyone. So it is perfectly okay for me to be contradictory like I am.

Anyways.... I went off on a tangent like that because I started to get bad feels and started to feel down so I thought I would distract myself with writing about something different for a second. . .And it worked. I feel back to normal. Ahh, the powers of venting and bitching and whining. The powers of a good tangent. Beautiful.

And yes I do believe it is INCREDIBLY important to surround myself with loved ones. . .but I’m not sure I know many people who have gone through the death of someone close. I know one person---who I happen to be in love with---who has lost so many people near and dear to her. I feel I can go to her. . .but I don’t really have anyone irl. I mean, I live with someone who has lost someone close to him. But I don’t want to burden him by coming to him and venting to him over the loss of my grandparents when it is probably insignificant to his loss and his problems. I need to learn how to deal with things better, but I guess the steps to dealing with things better is to experience things in the first place. This is something I have never experienced. Not close people. To experience death of people you’re not close with and strangers is one thing. . .but to experience the death of people you’re close with. . . .that’s something I have never gone through.

I wish my person could be there for me more than she is. I know she said she was going to try to walk away from me more because she can’t be where I need her to be in regards to being okay and her mood and her tone of voice and being snappy with me. . .but I really needed her to . . .moreso to. . .put all of that aside for me for however long this lasts (probably a few months) and just not get a tone with me anymore and try to keep her mood matching mine or keep her mood UP like I normally do even if it’s fake and to never snap at me and to just, above all, be there for me at all times. Just. . .selflessly be there to listen, as a shoulder to cry on, someone to snuggle. . .basically just. . .a friend who is going to put aside all their agony and pain for me for a few months and go to other people other than me when they need to get a tone, get angry, get snappy, cry, vent about their issues, and have massive mood swings. It’s asking a lot, I know. It wouldn’t be asking a lot if it were just for, say, a week or something. But the fact that it will probably be at least 2 months. . .and right now has no set end date. . .that’s asking a LOT of her. . .and I know that. I do. I was just sort of hoping. . . .I was hoping that, since she is my person. . .that she would do it. I don’t know why I got my hopes up and allowed them to be crushed like that. That was stupid of me. And it’s not her fault at all! The fact that she’s going to walk away from me from now on whenever she gets a tone/needs to get a tone/starts to get a tone/wants to get a tone, whenever she wants to argue or engage me for any reasons, whenever she wants to take her anger out on others, whenever she wants to vent her frustrations, whenever she wants to snap at me/anyone/everyone, whenever she wants to bring other people’s moods down to her level, . . .she’s going to walk away for all of that. . .But since an assortment of that usually happens on a daily basis, that’s going to hurt. A lot. To have my person have to disengage from me and walk away every day probably in the middle of a conversation. . .That is going to be truly painful for the first few weeks of it. But it is most definitely better than it continuing the way it was because I got SO close to actually attempting suicide the other night simply due to her. Nothing else. I mean, everything else was there. . .but it was just sort of. . .there. . .it wasn’t new, it wasn’t bothersome. . .it wasn’t a big deal. . .it was all just there as per usual and were all just big reasons to die that outweighed any reason to stay alive. But I was solely focused on the reasons she was constantly giving me on the daily, whether they were directed at me or not. It was awful. Being someone with borderline personality disorder and not being able to control my life-destructive-level impulses is horrifying for me and everyone around me and everyone who knows me. So for her to support me in this way---the only way she can right now---is exactly what I need. I’m hoping that maybe when my grandparents do actually pass and we all see how I actually react finally and I will actually need her there more than anything (I think. I just don’t know. I may want to be alone and may shut everyone out or may even run away from home and sleep in my car or on the streets for all I know.]. . .maybe she will start responding how I need her to the day after as well? I fully, 200% expect her to respond with total and complete support that day/night. I expect her to watch me for suicidal behaviour, watch me for cutting, stay with me if I need someone to hold me, stay with me if I need someone to talk to me, stay with me if I need someone to just.... watch Friends with me all day or something equally lighthearted, check in on me emotionally (or literally if I’m okay enough to be left alone) every hour or less, to give me lots of hugs, to be EXTREMELY sensitive to everything going on regarding me, to not get any sort of mood or react badly to anything and I 200% expect her to show support and love and radiance and kindness and not any of the normal snippiness and darkness and sarcasm and hatred. I will be absolutely shattered if she tries to bring me down to depressed or suicidal like she normally does. Absolutely shattered and at that point, I’m sure that will be it for me. I 200% expect her to try to keep the mood jovial as much as possible even if she is not feeling okay. I expect her to do everything she can for me. I expect her to get things for me and basically, uh. . .be my maid for the day? HAHA. Okay, no, I don’t expect THAT last part. Just kidding! I do expect her to fetch me water and shove it in my face to remind me to hydrate, though, because I will be dehydrating easily that day and I do not want to end up in the hospital that day because I would surely get admitted to a ward if I were there ad talked. So having bottles of water shoved in my face every once and a while would be extremely helpful so I kinda expect that of her, too. But. . .also, not, because that’s not totally common sense? Whereas the rest of this is? Idk. I just need her to be..... an amazing friend and I need her to cry with me, laugh with me, hug me, hold me, pet me, be there for me, listen to me vent, listen to me ramble about pointless things, not interrupt me, just. . .listen to me go on and on, even if she doesn’t understand me while I’m crying, listen to me tell stories even if I tell them twice because I probably will because I will WANT to tell them twice to make it seem more real that they happened at all,. . .I really need a listener that day, all day. Someone to snuggle and listen to me. I may even need someone to sleep in my bed with me that night. I may even expect her to sleep in my bed with me that night, permitting her boyfriend allows it. Not like we haven’t slept in beds together since they got together. It’s not a big deal. He doesn’t mind at all, despite the fact we are ex’s. He’s a very good boyfriend and knows her well and knows me well and knows our past and trusts us both. I’m his little brother in a sense of a platonic relationship where I am not blood related to him and the girl is my ex girlfriend, but moreso. . .my person, my platonic soul mate, my best friend. We are all friends and I consider them family. I’m 100% sure he would allow her to sleep next to me that night and I’m partially sure he would let her hold me till I fell asleep that night, given the circumstances and the fact that I do not have a partner to do that nor do I have my therapy dog here to do that for me. . .which kills me. I’m missing having both at this hard time in my life. I will be getting Echo soon, but I probably won’t be getting a girlfriend or two any time soon. Especially not before my grandparents pass on...........sigh. So I need SOMEONE to hold me while I fall asleep that night. . .and I hope that my person will do it.

At least. . .this is all in theory how I am going to react. I don’t actually know. It could go the opposite and I could end up being completely silent, getting angry at her and everyone else, and shutting out the world in my room in the front room and just asking everyone to leave me alone for the day and to not get offended when I ignore each and every one of them. Or maybe it’ll be a mixture of both. One first, the other late. Or back and forth, back and forth, mood swings. . .? I just don’t know. I have NO CLUE.

But you’re definitely right. Surrounding myself with loved ones is the most important thing. I want my mom to be apart of this and I want to be able to support her but I probably won’t even get to see her until the funeral. . .if I can even make it.

Okay. . .well. . .now that I’ve exhausted topics to go on LONG tangents about. . .. . I’m gonna stop ranting now. . .I really do think I’ve exhausted my distraction topics. . .

Thank you SO SO SO much for sending this to me. You have no idea how much it meant to me to get this yesterday. Seriously. You are a godsend. I do not know how to thank you. <3 

[tirkarokujo]

Was making a writeup about single player in fighting games for my twitter, but it got way too long, so now it’s a blog post. Incomprehensible armchair game design nonsense under the jump

Anyway heres my long tweet thread about fighting games, namely the single player portion, from a guy who wants to make one himself. If this was an actual article it'd probably be called "what fighting games can learn from Cuphead" so yknow thank christ this is just a tweet thread- oh fuck, what do you mean this is a tumblr post now? Well I’m still gonna spare you from that motherfucking storm so you better be thankful.

One issue thats plagued fighting games is how eternally niche the genre seems to be, even when they have occasional bursts into the AAA space , interest tends to wean until they just cruise along by enthusiast hype, never reaching the same level of interest of other "esports" games. This lack of ongoing interest persists for obvious reasons, namely that losing in a fighting game just feels bad. Compared to something like overwatch or mobas, you can't blame your failures on your team, nor can they carry you, yadda yadda, u heard this before 

To a newbie, jumping into fighting games feels impenetrable just because losing feels so bad. But guess what? You gotta get your butt kicked to improve, just like most things in life. Often its just incomprehensible why you're losing so much, and while the clear course of action is to go online for some hot tips, the path of least resistance that we’ve seen exhibited by most players is to just give up after playing a while. This is of course mainly a problem if the first thing you do is hop onto online matchmaking, which ideally you really shouldn't. But is there an alternative? Well, the first solution is to find local peeps to play with, but if that's not an option? Why of course, there's the great beast known as

~single player modes~

Yes, arcade mode, story mode, training mode, challenge modes, you name it, as fighting games have progressed, so too has the multitudes of single player content become more complex and fleshed out. Nowadays it’s basically vital that your game has ample single player content, SFV stumbled out the gate without it, so you need yo single player fix.This is basically the entire subject of this blog post, so it pains me to say they also suck ass. all of them, every last one of them, they all suck. there isn't a single good single player anything in any fighting game ever made, no not even that one, nor that one, sit yo ass down, they're all irredeemable garbage and here's why 

To use an example of the archetypical fighting game single player mode, I'll go over the story mode from Street Fighter V; Things uh kinda happen and you do a couple canned matches against the CPU. ok i wow i dont remember anything from that story mode at all, what the hell. Ok I think FANG does stuff and Rashid is there and then Karin gets way more screentime than anyone expected and Ryu is also there sometimes. Hey, what happened to that Necalli guy, wasn’t he supposed to be important? What happened to that. Wheres Necalli. Where...where did he go....

But anyway, for the gameplay portions, you go through a bunch of uneventful and really easy CPU matches that are just sorta thrown in there, you're guy A, there's guy B, go fuck em up not like they're gonna attack back its so easy even a 6 year old can do it. And hey don’t think your favorite game is off the hook either; There's the single player mode of DBZ too: Go across the map, level up your characters, and fight a bunch of really easy clones. Blazblue? Really complicated plots happen and you do uneventful battles to spice things up occasionally.

Most of these story modes, despite their differences, all mostly follow the model of "plot happens, play a round in the game against the CPU to unpause the plot." So what's wrong with this picture here? Well let's break it down from the beginning: 

Fighting games have complex core mechanics, this is undeniable, but they're also just like any other game. In something like a platformer, level design is key. Surely you've seen all of Miyamoto's insight into the thought that went into level 1-1 of super mario bros. So much thought and effort was put into such a simple level bc the levels in platformers are strictly designed to work within the confines of the games mechanics, and require their usage as necessary. An important part of this is teaching the player through the level design itself, slowly and naturally. When you first boot up SMB, level 1-1 just assumes you know fuckin nothing about video games and you suck at life and everything, so it teaches you the mechanics through the subtle nuances of the level, there's a goomba, you better jump over it, if you try to touch it, you die, but thats ok bc little progress is lost, lesson learned, oh man i bumped by head on a flashy block now theres a mushroom, should I touch it, better jump over it, oh shit i cant better brace for impact aaaa oh wait i just grew bigger instead, mushroom good, etc etc 

My point is, the level is designed around teaching you the very basic mechanics without needing to bring up the manual or read a text box. This is generally considered fun to play. The game mechanics and the level designs love eachother and are in a healthy relationship

fighting game story modes on the other hand, do not like the fact that they're attached to a fighting game. They're the ritzy theatre kid while the mechanics is a guy who replaces a good shower with a can of body spray and wears 2 sets of sunglasses and skateboards everywhere. In my life I have never seen a fighting game story mode, or even arcade mode for that matter, that felt like it was actually meant for the game it was attached to. I mean sure, you get to play against the CPU on occasion, but so what? You're not gonna learn terribly much besides getting the basest feel for your character via peeking at the command list and finding what various ways u can dunk on the CPU that wouldn't work against a human to any capacity. The game doesn't teach you the mechanics, but thats ok bc u dont really need to learn them. They’re just kinda there. The single player is toothless and generally works independent from whatever game its a part of. They don't take advantage or do cool things with the games unique mechanics or moves, you're just left in a room to beat up a CPU for a while until the silly plot trucks on. (Guilty Gear in particular seemed to have realized this and just skipped the middleman by making the story modes just straight up movies with no gameplay at all, not that I can blame em.)

So yea the story modes suck ass, but hey, that’s not all! What about stuff like training modes and challenge/tutorial modes, this is where it's at! At thats, true, it’s usually in supplementary tutorials where the mechanics actually get to shine, so already it has that over the story mode. And yknow what, I get it. This is where most of the innovation tends to happen. With every new fighting game I always see some new bragging point about how incredible the QoL improvements are. Wow! the new UNIEL lets you record savestates in training! Wow the new GG has matchup data! Wow Skullgirls goes over high level concepts overlooked in other tutorials! It seems like every week there’s a new anime fighter that breaks new ground in terms of how helpful and advanced the tutorials are, and how they teach you the ropes in a controlled environment and everything. This is where the magic happens. This is where you learn practical setups and combos and situations and shit. And yknow what? All these new innovations are mindbogglingly good and impressive. So what's the problem here? Well it's all handicapped by a minor drawback...

it’s uh....well it’s all kinda boring, really. Also you can breathe easy now, this is the part where this post stops being a copypasted tweet thread, so maybe it’ll read a lil better.

But yea, main problem, all that stuff about super advanced tutorials, it’s just...it’s not very fun to play. Or really, it’d be more apt to say that they’re not -as- fun to play as they could be, and it doesn’t have to be that way. Because as they stand currently, all those tutorials on footsies and wakeups and combos and setups and mixups, no matter how basic and dead simple you make it, it’s not gonna change the fact that it’s not gonna hold the casual player’s attention for long. It doesn’t matter how much you dumb down the game or introduce comeback mechanics or what have you, it all doesn’t matter unless the player is continuously playing your content without it feeling too much like busywork. So what’s the solution here? Well, it’s gonna require taking inspiration from other games instead of other fighting games, for one. Speaking of other, non-fighting games, hey, I hear Cuphead is pretty cool! *Children cheering in the distance*

Cuphead is a run n gun shooting them all up game from last year and one of my personal favorite games of 2017. And yea sure, it’s nowhere close to the first game of its kind, but it does display something, and that’s HUGE breakout mainstream popularity, despite its foreboding difficulty. Most of this can be attributed to the impressive art style of course, but it wouldn’t have endured had the core gameplay loop not been up to snuff, which of course it is, or else I wouldn’t be talking about it here.

The reason I bring up Cuphead in my blog post about fighting games should be clear; Despite the entirely different genre, I’d argue it still bears much in common with fighting games, namely what the single player portion could be in a perfect world. While the gameplay loop in Cuphead and tutorial/challenge modes in fighting games follow the same mechanical loop, which can be grossly simplified to “throwing yourself at the wall repeatedly until you can climb”, in Cuphead this rarely gets boring and tedious, while hassling with fighting game challenges feels like pure busywork. While that seems anecdotal, I can 100% bet you that there’s more people who played Cuphead to completion than people who got even kinda decent at your favorite fighting game...well, accounting for ratios and all that.

So what’s the big difference? Well sure, you can say that Cuphead has the advantage of much simpler mechanics, but I think the real key to success is just simple presentation. When you get down to brass tacks, the weird and wacky bosses you face in Cuphead aren’t much more than patterns to learn and habits to form, not unlike any other fighting game tutorial. Just like a fighting game tut or combo challenge, you’re probably gonna fail and restart like 50 times until you get it right, and then you move onto harder challenges. By the end of the game, I became so good at parrying that the game felt it necessary to have a boss pattern that does little else but fill the screen with parry-able attacks, which I easily overcame like it was second nature. So what makes Cuphead so consistently fun and replayable while doing challenges in the lab has more, uh....niche appeal?

It’s all context, really. Sure, it seems superficial, but its just objective fact that fighting a dragon with its own health bar and everything that wants to kill you dead with its fire breath is gonna be more fun than beating on the same helpless CPU 50 times until you beat on them in this exact specific way. Just imagine if Cuphead worked the way fighting games did- There’s no big funny bosses to kick your ass, it’s just a series of separate execution challenges you pull off over and over again to a Mugman with infinite health, and the win condition is to pull off the required series of jumps and shots a boss fight would normally require of you. Doesn’t sound too fun, does it?

In essence, what I propose here is just slapping some story context and maybe a health bar onto what a normal fighting game would consider a “tutorial” or a “challenge.” Yeah, it’s superficial, but so what? It’s a god damned video game, giving some emotional attachment to practical concepts should be key here. 

Right now you probably notice my observations on “Story modes” and “Challenge/Tutorial modes” are two gigantic puzzle pieces that fit suspiciously well together, and that should be obvious; Take the meaningless fluff of story mode and the oppressive academia of the more practical modes, hold em up real close like and tell em

This is what I’d like to call the “fruits and veggie shake” approach to game design. For most fighting games, you have a direct segregation between these fruits and veggies, like to the point where they’re not even in the kitchen, the fruits are in the living room and the veggies are in the attic of the next house. So statistically while plenty of the playerbase will eat up those sugary fruits, they’re probably gonna ignore the veggies, which is a crying shame bc they’re good for you and will keep you healthy in the long run. Fruits are stuff like story modes, arcade mode, tekken ball, all that stuff, while the veggies are all the more practical shits that all the anime and indie fighters like to brag about.  And if you’ve ever made a veggie shake, you would know that the fruit flavor always overpowers the vegetables. The kids don’t even know they eatin they greens, it all just tastes like fruit!

This is a groundbreaking approach to game design as exhibited by a select few classics such as DAMN NEAR EVERY OTHER GAME GENRE EVER MADE which is a winning formula bc its fun, and fun things are fun, why do I even need to explain this? Getting at least moderately good at a fighting game shouldn’t feel like an academic course, it should at least be tricking my dumb as shit lizard brain into putting all that time into learning it so I can wipe the dumb grin off that Boss That Teaches You About Footsies’ face.

The only game I recall that came the absolute closest to this is, weirdly enough, the tutorials for the Darkstalkers Resurrection HD re-releases that came out a long time ago. It was an extremely minor touch, but every one of the character tutorials sorta contextualized the challenges you were about to take with a threadbare story, mostly having to do with a suspiciously similar recolor of your chosen character talking to you about needing to practice or whatnot. It only amounts to a few lines of dialogue in a text box, but it went a long way into giving me enough of an emotional connection that led me to 100% all of the tutorials, which is a lot more I can say for damn near every other fighting game trial mode. These trials weren’t easy either!

People also like to bring up the tutorial in Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, which had you going through a very gamey representation of the core mechanics framed in the context of Sol Badguy vs Jack-O’s wacky cast of minions, which yknow, is a good step in the right direction. But I think we can go further.

For a basic setup here, let’s assume there’s a character in our hypothetical Good Fighting Game that has a crouching fierce that takes the form of a sweep, which in turns also chains into a standing fierce. Not much combo potential, but it allows you to recover faster so you can set up additional offense. The opponent will have to block low to guard, and the additional fierce will keep the chain safe on block. So sure, you could include that in a combo challenge, but we can also spice it up a bit for increased engagement:

So in this situation, let’s have a boss character that encompasses many of the core concepts inherent to a certain characters fundementals; For some convoluted reason, his brand of martial arts makes it so he’s invincible from all forms of attack besides down below, and if he does guard down there, he’ll immediately do a short ranged counter-attack unless you do the follow up standing fierce. After doing that enough times, Boss McAsshole will catch onto what you’re doing and adjust his strategy by acting defensively and crouching down. Thankfully, our character here can perform a very fast and near instant airdash much lower than other characters can; You can take full advantage of this and drain the Boss’ health quicker by doing this special airdash and attacking with an aerial fierce on the way in, which acts as an overhead, and finishing with a knockdown combo.

And yeah, this boss is rough and tough, but you’re at least slightly more likely to take up his challenges so long as you get the satisfaction of slapping that dude in the balls to his doom. It’s more satisfying to finally defeat that swamp-assed dragon in Dark Souls IIII than it is to just do the required canned inputs that would result in defeated said dragon but removed from its context. All it really takes is putting the flimsiest bit of context or story or whatever to what you already have in the trial modes, just reworked to be a bit more gamey. Take that GGXrd Rev tutorial and attach it to something with an actual health bar or something, or lock entire story content behind a combo trial contextualized as a dance recital or something. Imagine unlocking a new character, and the first thing it does is put you through a story sequence where they need to overcome a stage or enemy that requires using their specific tools in practical ways, so you have a good feel for the character if u ever feel like picking them up. Yeah fighting game mechanics are more complex than other games, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take those lessons from simpler games and apply it here. Your average Normie McBoremie is perfectly willing to get they ass whipped dozens of times over for the sake of seeing the next boss or lines of dialogue, people don’t dislike hard games, they just don’t like BORING ones. So stop being boring! FUN THINGS ARE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN

anyway, while this wouldn’t entirely solve the issue of newbies getting discouraged from getting bootybumped online, it would at least give them better frame of reference as to what needs improving when the supplementary content designed specifically to go over the core fundementals they need to improve on are at least mixed together with the mild amusement of the antics of your fighting game’s canonical universe, or I don’t know, SOMETHING. I dunno. Anyway don’t read this bc I plan on this being the main philosophical backbone for my own fighting game, which will take the entire world by storm and yours wont, so HAH.