#on mobile so cant cut ask threads

[rpwithoutlimit]

Hello friends! Alex (or cherry) here! Or as people used to remember me as: @drapetxmaniia.

This is my nostalgia RP sideblog where I shall come now and then when the moment hits. My main blog is @cherryao3nova so that’s who I shall follow as.

This is a mainly a Multi-Doctor blog, with the 13th & 14th Doctors being my main muses. (About Muses) BUT I will also RP 9/11/12 & 15 when the muse hits

This blog will not be following the TimeLess child plot, this blog is also canon-divergent post Spyfall. She DID NOT deactivate the master's perception filter!! I do not see the doctor actually ever doing this!! - She would have knocked him out and ran. She'd have grabbed the Masters tardis, but makes sure to pick him up before the germans can come find him.

It is also a non-flux compliant blog - BUT, This is 'The Star Beast', 'Wild Blue Yonder' and 'The Giggle' canon compliant.

(I can be flexable with all this though if the plot requires it - i somewhat (kinda) know what happened)

I’m a giant Thoschi fan. I ship them together, but if you dont, then I do HC that they were at least VERY close in the academy years. (If not, you know, together during school.)

I won’t always use icons (cause im mostly on mobile) and can write both short or long paras, but I do mostly mirror. Im mutuals only, but you can pop into one of my Feel free to answer an open starter.

About me: Cherry (or Alex); 29+ She/They Enby/AroAce/AuDHD (Main (AO3) blog: @cherryao3nova old RP blog: @drapetxmaniia also RP icon blog: @iconsmadebyalex

Rp may be slow, I don’t always have the spoons/muse/motivation. I work from home and I’m a carer, helping my mom look after my dad. Also my adhd can cause me to jump from thread to thread, so please be patient with me, thank you ☺️ Writing verses under the cut.

MainVerse:This post may be subject to change (Mobile Post) ((each person is separate to each other in this verse)) The doctor is relatively canon, except for the little bits that i don’t agree with.

9th Doctor: Canon 10th Doctor: Canon 11th Doctor: Canon 12th Doctor: The Doctor does not lock missy in the vault, He has her on the TARDIS, yes she cant leave without him with her, but she has his tentative trust while on board and the TARDIS is always watching her every move. 13th: spyfall - she didn’t disable the perception filter - or let the master get taken. - knocks him out and takes him in her TARDIS before the Germans find him. (she can either stop his plan and then leave him with his tardis or have him stay on her tardis and travel with her.) - Or for more angst - just run leaving him to wake in his tardis.

This Verse does not go along with the Timeless child. Or The Flux. As far as the Doctor is concerned Gallifrey is still around. This blog is very Thoschei Friendly.

14th doctor: Canon

15th Doctor: Canon so far, but heavily my own HC/writing till we get more.

------------------

HopeVerse: written with immortaljackal,

and Layla’s relationships with the Doctors 9-13.

9th Doctor: (Canon) Relationship wise: the Doctor is best friends with her    10th Doctor: (Canon) Relationship wise: casual flirting starts, pretend marriages when traveling, platonic snuggling, platonic relationship - which get even more clingy after Rose. 11th Doctor: (Canon) Relationship wise: the platonic relationship grows, till he starts to realise that he likes-likes her, and then it turns Into pining till he actually gets the bravery to ask her out and by the time Clara turns up, they are together. 12th Doctor: The Doctor does not lock missy in the vault, He has her on the TARDIS, yes she cant leave without him with her, but she has his tentative trust while on board and the TARDIS is always watching her every move.  (...This has not been explored yet...) Relationship wise: the love grows. This doctor feels very lucky to have Layla. At some point he proposed. And they got married. It’s an adorable stage of the relationship. 13th: spyfall - she didn’t disable the Master’s perception filter. just left him as she gets away. Relationship wise: married couple, shenanigans, very in love, like gosh so cute. Dorks. This Verse does not go along with the Timeless child. As far as the Doctor is concerned Gallifrey is still around. This Verse also leans Quite a bit to EU Who

Flux is a no here as well, but 14 & 15 will follow the canon with the 4 episodes we have had so far.

----------------------

divergent verses: Any other verse that doesnt fit in these two, will be in this one with their own name. No i will not write the timless child and no i will not write the flux. I havent even watched 13's season 2 so i dont know the whole story there.

And a note on shipping: I will do so only if there is chemestry. And even if you do not wish to write master/doctor, the doc its still very soft for their best friend enemy.

[ananthologyofsouls]

The girl scoffed why did he think she could tell him. She didn't know if he was one of the Noah in disguise. "Nothing funny has really happened not since we moved, but then you probably heard about us moving. The only hyjinks we've had as of late was when we were sorting out the science division's collection in our old building, and how my brother brought about zombies." the-archetype-of-civilization

[connor6leapfrog]

Oh no the dox wasn't related to the petty drama, it was way before he became a youtuber and either way, I agree he didn't deserve that at all. I think it had to do with his old job as a game developer or something, and trying to take legal action against trolls?? I'd have to revisit the thread, but yeah, they leaked a sex tape. It's hopefully far removed from the internet by now. I kinda understand why Ohm is another youtuber who's identity is still a "secret" (his face is literally on goog)

Yeah I remember the Thread! Im Glancing at It Again Now. Forgot about the Cheating Bit, Honestly!

[makemerun]

M  A  K  E  M  E  R  U  N  :  independent  -  selective  -  private  blog  for  multi  -  muse  for  seven  ocs,  taking  inspiration  from  bts'  hyyh  storyline  .  written  by  adora  (  23  -  she  /  he  /  they  -  cst  )  .  est  .  april  2022   rules & muse doc . mobile rules + muse list below cut

muse list noah seo . river ahn . leo choi . kian moon . minkyu yoon . saros park .  inwoo seong .

guidelines

disclaimer ⎯ these characters are heavily based off of the narrative of BTS’ HYYH / The Most Beautiful Moment in Life storyline . inspiration comes from their Run and I Need U music videos, as well as the Save Me webtoon, and their Notes books . I do not claim to be affiliated with BTS or HYBE, this content simply serves as a large source of inspiration for me . as of now, this is a multiship blog, though that may change as things progress . I’m not used to single ship, but it may be needed with how each of these characters are interconnected, but we will see ! I am also open to interacting with other muses that have BTS face claims, currently not practicing exclusivity, but that is also subject to change . mature content and themes will be present here . sexual / suggestive content, mentions of drug and alcohol abuse, and mental illness will be things discussed in these muses’ backstories and maybe arise in threads . please do not follow if you are not 18+. content will be tagged accordingly, but please do not hesitate to reach out and let me know if you need any triggers tagged ! usual DNI criteria stands. don’t be a dick, I’m not here for drama though I know sometimes it just kinda Happens. if there’s an issue you have with me or something I did, I would appreciate it if you approached me directly and we talked things out. activity always comes in waves. I’m usually checking tumblr on and off through the day, but I cant ensure when I’ll be on . my discord is available for mutuals and you’re welcome to ask for it! I also answer threads in order of what I have muse for, no so much in chronological order just because it’s easier to write those replies and get back into motion then. thank you for reading everything! I go by Adora, I’m 23, of mexican descent, and I use she / they / he pronouns. I’m in the cst / gmt -6 time zone and tend to be more active during the evening. My main single muse blog is honeyfallen, and multi muse blog can be found peachciders. the psd I use for all graphics was made by somresources and my icons template was made by rpclefairy . the doc template i used for my muse info was made by tinytowns!

[hiemsx]

Hello, I'm Jess! I'm 29 and EXTREMELY slow to reply. In my old age, I've also become selective simply because I cant answer threads the way I used to anymore. See below for some important info:

I am mobile most of the time. I don't use icons and may require your help in cutting threads here and there.

Triggers will be present in threads. They will be tagged accordingly.

I am MCU only and my knowledge doesn't extend much further than that.

I work 40+ hours a week and also foster for a dog rescue and two cat rescues. I have more animals than I care to admit living with me that have been rescued and are waiting for homes. I RP for fun, so my replies come slow.

Asks are the best way to interact with me!

Any fandom is fine. Canon is fine. Aus are fine. OCs are fine!

Let's be friends! Ask for my discord 😁

[ofravensandgenesis]

For John, maybe?: “You’re holding back.”

A/N: Characters/Verse-Setting: John Seed and Deputy Declan Rook, set in the Walk Away AU, in the Between Silence And Quiet verse. Minor mentions of Mary May Fairgrave and Deputy Joey Hudson.Summary: John tries to orchestrate a chance meeting to talk to that strange Deputy who chose to walk away. You’re holding back and John as a prompt from Chyrstis! :D Thank you for the prompt Chyrstis!! :D ♥Content includes: Cult content, John being John, manipulation, mild violence, etc.Ao3 link here, to avoid tumblr disaster formatting on mobile.————————————

“You’re holding back, Deputy.” John observed, his steps slow and methodical as he circled around from behind the other man where he stood.Not even a twitch. Not a look, a breath, or a word.Just silence. Silence broken by the pitiful little groans of pain from the crumpled heaps of booze-soaked trouble-makers surrounding the Deputy’s feet. Not even a broken bone among them, pff. Weak, as Jacob would so aptly call them. Foolish too, as John would term it. Too eager to vent their spleen and their wrath on any easy target—easy to target because it wasn’t mentally challenging to pick out who wasn’t a regular alcoholic here at the Spread Eagle, that was. The thought almost had John smirking. Almost. Had the drunken sops actually gotten to the point of swinging, well…it would’ve benefited the Project for John to take a punch for the team if only to be able to start the chain of actions to staple a battery charge on the lot. Then it was just a matter of slowly picking them apart until they were handing over the keys and deeds to their houses and lands to get out of the growing mountain of scandal and misfortune that would follow them from that point onward. Too foolish to step out of the noose they’d made, and too foolish to realize they’d woven the rope and tied it themselves—like shooting fish in a barrel.That was if he took a punch. They didn’t need trash like this in the Project, and their lands weren’t anything important. These souls were small fry, unworthy and uninteresting. Poor fighters, too. John had already known he could take them—and break them—in a fight.They hadn’t known that though. They’d assumed because he was some “fancy shmancy ass lawyer,” that he didn’t know how to raise a fist and fight. That he didn’t know pain.Oh, but did he know pain in far more intimate and detailed ways that they didn’t—and he could show it to them,—but no. They weren’t worthy of that revelation, that understanding of the power of YES.But Deputy Rook?Deputy Declan Rook.Deputy XiuYing Declan Rook.That was a soul who could understand. The silence surrounding him was too heavy with knowing, with something, with promise, to go unremarked on.The Deputy had kept his silence in the church too, then, on that fateful night.He’d listened to Joseph, strangely enough.Or. Joseph said the Deputy had.John disagreed. Jacob disagreed.There had been something in the Deputy’s face…that had been so very far away.The feeling of a soul that is disassociated from its surroundings and the going-ons of the moment.They all knew that feeling well.Joseph had dismissed it.But John? John couldn’t let well enough alone.That was why he was here now, slinking about the Spread Eagle on a Saturday night. He’d had good intel from his people about town that the Deputy had made an appearance at the bar, god forsaken well of poison that it was.That meant dealing with Mary May Fairgrave, however. As much fun as it was to rile her up, that was unfortunately an animosity he’d have to take a rain check on for another time. A crisp twenty dollar bill was enough to buy a few minutes of tolerance from her, when accompanied with a smile and a promise from John that he wasn’t here to cause trouble, simply to check on an acquaintance of his, and then he’d be out of her hair. That was a lie…but a good enough one that no one would hold him to it without looking unreasonable and biased. Not that being unreasonable and biased was unusual in this particular venue, sadly, but that was a well known, common effect of alcohol. One the two of them were both aware of. Mary May had scoffed, warned him not to linger longer than he had to, but had pocketed the cash. They’d done this before—and she knew well enough that he wasn’t interested in being served a beer for his money. All the more  She’d consider that a victory, a few worthless dollars taken from Eden’s Gate and in her pocket instead. Typical greedHis on-going issues with Mary May not withstanding…John had not come in under the paper-thin guise of intending to drink. No, he’d had a much more reasonable excuse of seeking out another potential member-to-be, who had not officially joined the Project yet. All the man had to do was play a part: drinking away his woes, his depression, his awareness in its entirety—a common enough ailment with a common enough response: poison them into submission until they thanked you for it, paid for it as a privilege. No one would question it.And no one would question John coming in to apparently try to reel the so-called “vulnerable” man in, hook, line, and sinker. All the sinners saw was the fact that the man had money, land, wealth. That was all they saw. That was all they assumed John saw too. Assumed that was what he was after, trying to “coax” the man further into joining the Project At Eden’s Gate. That of course had been more than enough to stir the ire of some of the locals. And with an off-duty Deputy on the scene? John had harbored no doubts it would lead to an opportunity to talk. Talk to this Deputy who had walked away…instead of breaking the first seal. Instead of heralding the Collapse.Joseph had been expecting the Collapse. Had been expecting the sinners to try to take him, the way that barking Marshal had.But the Deputy had refused.How interesting. Even more interesting was how swift the Deputy’s response had been, interposing himself between John and the rabble-rousers as quickly and naturally as falling rain. John had found himself staring at the back of the other man’s head, black hair trimmed close and neat, his silhouette a stark-edged shadow of a man imposing and broad shouldered, wrapped in a thin, grey cotton tee and denim blue jeans. It’d made him seem so strangely ordinary, like he was blending in when he should have been standing out, should have registered as a threat. Because he was a threat, no doubt about that.The drunkards had completely missed it. Unsurprising, the buffoons. They’d been startled, and then predictably mad, redirecting their anger to the obstacle that stood in the way of them indulging in their sins.It’d been the first time John had heard the Deputy speak.“Stand down.” Two words, quiet enough to be missed if the bar had been noisy at the time.Quiet…but not meek. Not weak. It was the quiet of knowing. Knowing just what one’s own self was capable of. The lack of fear that came with power…and clarity.The Deputy had found some revelation of his own at some point then, John was certain.The sinners obviously had not stood down, and had, predictably, taken the first swing at Deputy Rook, as John had expected of them, based on what he’d known of their character.He had not expected Deputy Rook to put all three men down with such quick and clean efficiency. No wounding or serious injury, just enough force to subdue, just enough pain to quiet.Beautiful. That had been a beautiful display of skill. Of violence, so pinpoint and precise, it’d been almost gentle. The Deputy had been moving so smoothly and gracefully, he’d almost seemed to slow down, moving just fast enough to anticipate the men flailing around him like they were extras in a slapstick comedy.It’d been too easy. Too smooth. Too pretty.The Deputy wasn’t even challenged by this.He was holding back.That interested John immensely.The Deputy’s head turned, just enough to catch John in his peripheral vision as John circled to one side. The moment was long, before the tension was snipped as easily as the Fates cutting a thread, and the Deputy looked away towards where Mary May was moving towards them with a scowl half a mile long. The Deputy pointed to the phone, and Mary May stopped, her glower fading somewhat as understanding trickled in. She gave a sharp nod, unhappy about all this not because of the brawl, but because it involved John Seed as all present company could tell from the dirty look she shot him before she turned to call the Sheriff’s Department.“Deputy.”The Deputy didn’t look at John, only barely moving his head again to draw John back into the periphery of his gaze, never looking at him directly, head canting a tiny bit to one side as if listening, as if to say go ahead, I’m listening.

There was a faint trace of wariness in the Deputy’s expression.He still wouldn’t look at John.That rankled most of all, and piqued John’s curiosity in equal measures.Why? Why was the Deputy acting like this? What reason did he have for these little eccentricities? Eccentricities that heretofore, had never been remarked upon? The odd stretches of silence in place of words, the select self-expression through subdued gestures and looks alone…the choices made, both then and now.John had to try something. “Declan.”That got the Deputy’s attention, enough for that pair of dark brown eyes almost darkened to black in how the light fell.John smiled, a little victory well worth the cost of this trip into a den of inequity. Nothing substantial, yet. But a foot in the door was all he needed.“Thank you for your services, Deputy, though if I might ask…why did you step in so quickly? Nothing had happened yet, and it is your night off, isn’t it?”The Deputy looked at John for a long, long, long moment…before tilting his head another inch to one side.It was vaguely infuriating in that the Deputy was clearly communicating something but John wasn’t familiar enough with the man to know what. An emotional state of being, and some form of sentiment, yes, not an indication regarding their surroundings or to draw John’s attention to some other event starting up around them.Why was he so quiet? The word from the grapevine had given no previous indication he’d been anything but an ordinary man in the day to day portraiture of his character according to John’s sources.John could hear the crunch and crackle of dirt under car tires outside—back up likely. What a short window of time that had been, the other Deputy must have been nearby when the call went out to dispatch then.He had time for one more question then. “Why didn’t you simply walk away? Just sent out a call and let your colleague pick up the job.”John already knew, it was why he’d staged this entire self-contained mess. Deputy Declan Rook was a man of duty, that much Nancy had been sure of.What he was asking, really asking, was why Deputy Declan had walked away, through the allusion of word choice buried in a seemingly innocent question.He could tell that the Deputy got it. That the other man understood, just by the minute shift in his expression as he looked at John.But still the Deputy said nothing.“Rook, you alright? Mary May called up and said you’d been in a bar fight,” Deputy Hudson said, the sound of her footsteps filling the silence in place of any answer Deputy Rook might have given.“Or rather ended one, from the looks of things,” She concluded, eying the pile of groaning men upon the floor.The Deputy’s attention was on Hudson now, shaking his head and giving her a little reassuring smile, as if to say no injuries, I’m fine, as are they, just a little banged up.How disappointing, and how strange.But the little furrow of Hudson’s brow in addition to the slight frown upon her face when she looked at Deputy Rook was more promising.

This was relatively new behavior to her as well then, not just Deputy Rook choosing to be oddly silent in the moment. She didn’t understand why the Deputy was behaving so oddly either.She most certainly was not happy upon laying eyes on John himself though. He plastered on yet another smile, knowing exactly how this conversation was going to go down, her taking a statement, and the whole matter dwindling down as to yet another weekend dust-up to write up and add to the paperwork at the Sheriff’s Department.But Deputy Rook was hiding something. Holding back, as he had in the fight earlier. Holding back even as he was now with Deputy Hudson as they sorted out the aftermath of the fight.It left John with more questions than he’d started. But he had gotten a few new answers among it all.How interesting.

[sunandmoonrp]

Hello!

My name is Lena Kay. Well my character is named Lena Kay. Her creator lol me... I am 28 years old and used to rp on here all the time a couple of years ago but have decided to return. I might be a little rusty at first but bare with me! I am running off my computer, but may occasionally run mobile if I need to. 

A couple things about me. 

1. I do not have many rules just please do not try and become god... and also respect my girl Lena or I will cut this rp off. I am here to chill and escape reality sorta like playing a video game but all in text form. I AM NOT here to be pushed around or abused. This is a relaxing thing for me... if you become overwhelming I will give you two warnings before canceling the thread. So please dont make me be mean...

2. I am not an every day poster. When I am on I will most likely be on for a while but please be patient with me if I dont respond after a couple days. I still gotta work and pay bills after all. 

3. I am not good with technology so my blog is very simple. If you have a question ask me. Most things will be tagged for easy access but I understand that you cant always find things that way. 

4. Lets have fun. and I may add to this post if I need to make new rules or clear things up

[katekanekatekane]

I feel raw. 

(I also feel kinda sick, so I either am Having Emotions because im getting sick, or I’m Having So Many Emotions that i feel sick so that’s uhhh... annoying)

But old ass stuff has been coming for me lately and it’s a pain in the ass??

Like I read a twitter thread about stalking the other day and jesus christ it shot me right back. I hadn’t really thought about that being stalked had felt like in a long time and it’s so fucking gross. I remember being powerless and terrified and I felt for the woman talking about her experiences, I really fucking did. 

But that’s some old ass shit!!! I haven’t been fully bothered by my old stalker in like 4 years, those experiences are things that I’ve processed and aren’t part of my life anymore. Like... I don’t... need to worry about this..??? WHy must I have emotions about it?? Now??? 

And like... christ

Last night i was tag ranting because I always post on mobile and this site is a joke and i cant do stuff beneath a cut like this on mobile. And I... I worked through it all a little by ranting that way but I NEED to express why last night was so upsetting, but even verbalizing it is super draining and the idea of talking to someone else feels like a burden and I don’t want to put that on the people that I want to talk to... And ugh. Okay, let’s do this.

Last night.

I signed up for a risograph printing class. 

I was excited. 

I waited and splurged on it and I really want to learn riso.

Classes like that are socially scary for me, because new place, new people, new things,  but I wanted to do it, so I went out on the limb. This is also something that a younger, less healthy, me would have AGONIZED about before hand, but the me of today didn’t waste time worrying about ahead of time, because that’s not productive or useful. 

So, I go to the class.

The teacher seems nice.

My classmates seem okay. 3 out of the 5 of us already knew each other, so that makes stuff a little awkward for the other two of us, but whatever.  

I’m making small talk. Again, this is something that a younger me never would have dreamed of. Being brave enough to make small talk with strangers and to start conversations myself is leaps and bounds past the stuff I would have been able to do even a few years ago.

So, the teacher goes over the basics. I’m excited. Nervous, because my work hasn’t been super inclined to sitting down and shooting from the hip lately, but fine.

I start working.

I get excited about my project. 

It’s different than what everyone else is doing, but I think I can make it work, and it seems like a fun thing to make. I’d rather try and fail to do something I find interesting and care about than just bullshit around and make art I don’t give a shit about because it’s easy.

Cool, okay.

So, I’m drawing and prepping longer than my classmates. My classmates were all getting up and starting to print while i was still drawing. That’s okay. I have two hours of class left, I can make this work. 

I prep my different colored masters.

I go up to the riso for the teacher to help guide me through my first print. I’m the last to start.

(also note all 5 of us are sharing one riso, so we’re all taking turns, and other people are inclined to wait around up close by the machine for their turns-- something that is socially kind of a nightmare for me because uhhh I don’t want to be rude and people waiting like that makes me inclined to rush and make hurried choices.)

I grab a stack of paper to print on. I notice, once the teacher has already loaded it in, that the paper is cut and stacked a little crooked, which seems like it could be bad. It’s kinda too late, printing is already happening. I figure, “okay, whatever. It’ll be okay. I don’t mind the colors being misaligned.”

Also, note, I thought I was playing it cool that I was a little nervous and anxious. I was apologetic and stuff, but not anything that out of the ordinary for a new student. But that teacher, bless her heart, was astute as FUCK and in the worst possible way. She kept comfortingly being like “it’s okay” but in a way that showed me that she clearly saw me as shaky and uneasy, even when I was keeping it together pretty well. Or I thought I was keeping it together. So that’s not a Great sign. I don’t love my weakness being visible when I wasn’t trying to be vulnerable. 

I finish printing color #1.

I go back to work on the next level color master. I’m hurrying a little now, the end of class is getting nearer.

Eventually I go up to print this level and the teacher rejects it. It’s the alignment is off. Shit. I wasted all that time and have to start over.

I go back and make another, the end of class is getting TOO close. We have like 30 min. The professor is both hovering a little and avoiding me, clearly worried that I won’t finish. I am RUSHING. I decide to ditch doing a third color. This next level is going to be mediocre and weird, but it’ll be okay. I’m stressing about the time wasted on the ditched layer.

I’m waiting to use the riso with the others. She gets me in between people because I’m so far behind. Which, while nice, puts me on the spot again and doesn’t feel great because I’m clearly the artistic runt of this liter. Which would be fine if it wasn’t being broadcast to everyone else and I wasn’t getting special pity treatment.

We do a test proof. It’s bad. The alignement is awful. But everyone is standing around me and clearly wants to get more of their own prints in and I”m behind and being a pain and clearly getting special pity treatment, I don’t want more special pity treatment or to take more time from my classmates, so even though it’s AWFUL I say to just go ahead and print.

The teacher asks if I’m sure. Her face is full of sympathy and pity and she’s watching me like I’m a wounded animal. She sees the  fragility that I’m trying to hide and I hate it. I know that part of anxiety is always over reading what other people are thinking and feeling but I could SEE it on her and that’s what really fucked me up about last night. It wasn’t just my brain, so I couldn’t just write it off as my brain. This woman was seeing things that I didn’t want her to see, and instead of politely ignoring them for my pride, she was treating me like a fragile thing. 

I say yes to printing because if this moment lasts any longer i”m going to have an anxiety attack.

I go ahead and print and the prints start coming out and look unsurprisingly awful. She knows this. I know this. The others looking on, sympathetically, know this.

She gives me a pity compliment. “Oh, it looks kind of cool like this. This is one of the cool things about printing--” 

All artists have done this. We’ve all tried to be gentle with someone who’s work is a mess and is falling apart and looks terrible but we don’t want to be mean or hurt them so we dig for pity compliments. Pity compliments, while well intentioned are the devil. That makes me feel a thousand times worse than if she’d said “Well, it’s off, but this is your first time. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

I’d rather admit defeat and learn from it than someone pretend something awful is good to protect my ego.

And to make all this worse, the printer starts messing up. It’s grabbing more pages than it should, and misprinting already misaligned pages. She gets me to feed them back through. It does it again. She has me do it again. This is awful. What was already embarrassing and terrible is being prolonged, and each time I get more panicked, which only makes this worse. 

One or two of my classmates join in on the pity compliments. I want to die. I thank them, grab my prints, and bolt.

The teacher stops me, “Are you sure you don’t want to do a third color?”

It’s 10 till the end of class and other people who are WAY ahead of me and clearly want to do their own prints. I say no. 

I don’t want to take more time from other people. The piece is already ruined. She gives me a pitying look. She’s sympathetic. 

Others start printing. Good. Good. 

I went and hid in the bathroom for a minute to take a breath and cut down on social stimulation. I’m trying not to cry. I promise myself I will make it to my car before I cry. I wash my hands and fix my hair and pretend I’m okay.

I made it to my car.

But, okay. I know that, in the scheme of things, that this night was nothing. It was a little mess up that shouldn’t matter. But it hit a nerve.

What is the nerve?

Treating me like a weak, fragile thing. 

I’ve been that weak, fragile person that she saw. But I thought that I wasn’t that anymore. I thought that I knew that I’m not. 

I have come so. far.

But that didn’t matter. How much better I am now didn’t matter at all. 

Me as I am now, to her, was the same as the weaker, more fragile person that I once was. She didn’t see the trembling, or the stuttering, or the sweating that I would have been doing 4, 6, or 10 years ago. She didn’t notice that I tried to make small talk with her to alleviate the awkwardness of last night, and didn’t see how much better that was than the lip biting silence and shuffling that I would have been doing a few years ago.

My strong was her weak.

And she fucking saw me.

That’s the worst part of all this.

If she hadn’t noticed, that would have been totally fine and perfect. Or if I had been reading too much onto her, I could have gone home and been like “nah, that was on me.”

No.

She saw my anxiety and fear and reacted the WORST possible way that someone could react to me and it made me want to disappear.

I would have taken her pretending not to notice. I would have taken her actually not noticing. Hell, I would have taken her being rude or openly hostile and cruel. But pity. JESUS CHRIST, pity. Pity means that she doesn’t think I’m strong enough to handle being treated normally, and that makes me want to vomit. She saw me, and she saw weakness, she saw fragility.

I can scream all I want about how strong and solid I am now, but that doesn’t matter a fucking inch because what she saw is so telling.

Regardless of what I think I am, what other people see when they looks at me shows what the world sees. What those not measuring by growth see. 

And I... I know I have weak moments. I know that I have moments of fragility or open anxiousness or being obviously sensitive.

But this moment was barely on that scale. I was doing pretty well for me. I thought that I was doing okay.

But she clearly didn’t think so.

So that’s uhhhh awful.

And seriously, she was super nice. I’m not upset with her. I’m just upset, and upset with myself.

Nothing has changed, I’ll keep trying new things and pushing and trying to be brave. But this hurt. This hurt a lot.  

I was really knocked down a peg. Didn’t realize that I needed to be knocked down but uuuh apparently I did. 

So

I’m okay. 

I’m just sore. 

But I’m okay.

(Or I will be.)

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Cheating in online games is an ever-present problem that infects the likes of shooters, MMOs, and open-world crime simulators—and just about everything else. Now a rising tide of cheaters seems poised to threaten mobile general knowledge tester HQ Trivia as it continues to explode in popularity.

The daily trivia game attracts millions of players to battle for real money 12 times a week by answering 12 multiple-choice questions sent via live video stream. In recent days, though, the app makers have been locked in their own battle with sites like HQuack. These bot sites use optical character recognition and Google to try to figure out the answers to the game’s questions and feed them to players before the game’s ten-second timer is up.

Bots like these are still imperfect—HQuack advertises only “up to 82 percent accuracy,” which is often not enough in a game where a single wrong answer leads to elimination. But if and when they work, they have the potential to ruin a game that’s becoming a bona-fide phenomenon.

Running the numbers

To see just how much of a problem these question-answering bots can cause, look no further than the 3:45 HQ Trivia game on Tuesday, February 6. Of the 786,883 who started the game, a full 9,046 answered all 12 questions correctly, a number host Scott Rogowsky confirmed was a record. Each of those winners got a grand total of 23¢.

For context, just a week before, in an exceedingly average January 31 game, a playing crowd of 798,796 had been reduced to just 81 winners, who each won $30.86. That’s a more than hundredfold increase in the win rate, from 0.01 percent to over 1.1 percent.

It’s probably no coincidence that the AI bot at HQuack happened to get every single answer right during Tuesday’s show. The week before, the site had barely launched to the public and had yet to hit the mainstream via an Outline article. (There are anecdotal reports that a reusable extra lives bug may have also contributed to the record result.)

You can see the HQuack effect even when the bot misses a question or two. On a Thursday, February 8 game, 11,581 players managed to answer the first 11 questions correctly, just as the HQuack bot had (the bot actually missed the second question about the Olympic logo, but it was so simple that about 98 percent of the playing humans managed to get it right anyway).

For question 12, though, HQuack’s algorithm suggested that Karl Marx was born with the same name as a famous ketchup, and over 8,800 of the remaining 11,500 players agreed. Only the 2,000 who knew the correct answer was Henry Kissinger (born Heinz Kessinger) ended up winning the prize. A similar pattern of seemingly HQuack-led answer grouping could be seen in the final few questions of Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime edition of HQ Trivia, where the bot and its loyal players eventually fell to a question about the Reimann hypothesis.

On Feb. 6, a record 9,000 HQ Trivia players got this final question right to win a share of $2,500…

…there’s a strong chance most of those players were looking at a page like this one from HQuack, which gave them the answer through Googling.

For the final question of a Feb. 8 HQ game, HQuack suggested that Karl Marx originally shared his name with a famous ketchup…

… a huge majority of the remaining players followed HQuack’s advice, missing the correct answer this time.

HQuack sometimes misses relatively easy questions. Despite this wrong answer, over 98 percent of players got this right as Question 2 in an HQ game.

HQuack’s Google-based algorithm can be misled, too. the New York Stock Exchange is actually owned by ICE, though the NYSE acronym likely shows up more often in Google results.

Dedicated HQ players are beginning to notice this growing problem. “Will this even be worth it if they cant [sic] cut down on programs googling?” Redditor Vikemin1 asked somewhat rhetorically on the HQ Trivia subreddit this week. “There’s really no reason to keep playing this game until they find a way to take care of the bots,” redditor cbooz added by way of answer in another thread.

Where trivia cheaters come from

HQ players have been manually speed-Googling their way to HQ wins for a while, and a numbers of hackers have talked up their own automated methods for finding answers since December at least. But it was the recent launch of HQuack (and similar sites like the members-only HQHelp) that seems to have upped the prevalence and effectiveness of HQ cheaters.

HQuack creator Jake Mor told Ars the site started as a simple program on his computer, Googling questions and giving confidence intervals to the possible answers based on the number of results. After throwing the program on a website for his friends to use, Mor told Ars that “word of the site kind of just spread.”

Mor wouldn’t tell Ars how many people are using his site these days, but he told The Outline last week that he was already getting “a thousand unique visitors a week” a few weeks ago, and that he’d been seeing “20 percent day over day growth.”

Mor says he doesn’t make money off of HQuack and never intends to. “This just started as a side project out of curiosity,” he told Ars. “I never expected it to pick up the way it did.”

And while he acknowledged that the site “may have played a part” in recent record-setting win rates, he said he doesn’t want to destroy the legitimate HQ experience. “If it does start to truly ruin the game, I think I will take it down.”

Fighting back?

While HQuack and other automated tools are prohibited by HQ’s terms of service, preventing people from using them would seem difficult as a practical matter. After all, how can the app tell the difference between someone who just knows a lot of trivia answers and someone who’s being told a lot of trivia answers by a website? Even pattern-matching algorithms could be thrown off if players just go against the bot every so often. (HQ has not responded to a request for comment from Ars.)

HQ’s best protection for now might be the bots’ imperfection—with the aforementioned 82 percent accuracy, HQuack will be perfect or near-perfect for some 12-question games and then miss four questions in a row on others. Mor says HQuack currently has the most trouble with “double questions” where the answer requires knowing two things at once (One recent example that tripped up HQuack: “If you capitalize it, what Disney character name doubles as a healthcare program?” Answer: Chip).

Changing up the question formats could help too. While a bot can search for the answer to a text question pretty easily, questions based on pictures or audiovisual snippets could prove more resistant to simple Googling. Google also struggles with more abstract questions like “Why did…” and relational questions like “How close is [place] to [place]” according to HQ bot maker Stephen Cognetta.

But Google’s question-answering algorithms are getting better every day, and more sophisticated AI approaches could perform even better at the game. In a world where IBM’s Watson can easily beat Jeopardy champions, a multiple-choice quiz app seems like easy pickings. And with HQ offering real money for winners 12 times a week, the incentive for hackers to continue to try to beat the app will remain high.

HQuack creator Mor, though, doesn’t think you should count HQ out of the battle with the trivia bots just yet. “There are still other bots attempting to do the same thing, but I trust that HQ will figure it all out,” he said. “They’re a really smart and capable group of people.”

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