#pretty old so ill be posting at weird times because i have a lot i havent posted

[shibesky]

pichu and pichu :)

[canmom]

the adventure of canmom at weird weekend (part 1)

is this 'adventure of' joke getting old? like I've already done the 'translate into scots gaelic' variant. it's not exactly an adventure if it's a half hour bike ride is it? ah fuckit

This weekend was the Weird Weekend film festival in Glasgow! it's the tiny kind of film festival with one screen and folding chairs - they did get their hands on a real beast of a projector mind you...

Look at that concentrated beam of pure film. Kind of awesome to actually see a lightfield intense enough to scatter off random bits of dust in the air honestly.

This is apparently the fourth time this festival has run - though as is often the case I'm terribly out of the loop and only heard about it when @birdfriender told me it was on lol. It's also only my third time going to a film festival (the previous times both being Annecy, a very different kind of festival). It was a great time: the organisers have excellent taste and there's a lot of deep cuts, and made some good friends among the attendees.

On Friday night I showed up for the opening evening of interactive film - this included a short film/video essay commissioned for the festival based on of all things the Goncharov meme (seriously...), followed by a brief history of interactive film including the amusingly ill-fated venture of a certain former Microsoft guy called Bob something (I really should have written this down), and then someone called Puke ("everyone’s favourite genderfluid body fluid") came out dressed like this to oversee the actual event...

...and we watched of all things Final Destination 3 with the DVD feature that lets you switch in alternate scenes at various points (mostly death scenes). This was actually a pretty good time since it was my first time seeing a Final Destination film, and there was a good energy in the audience (although it seemed like the film always picked the opposite of what we voted for - not sure if that's a thematic point or programming error lol), but I'm glad the rest of the festival was more obscure stuff.

On Saturday, the festival proper began! I am reminded of a certain line in Exordia, in which the alien Ssrin gives her assessment of humanity, opening with "You’re a species of gangly distance runners, adapted to sweat and throw stuff. You like watching each other fuck." And indeed, there were few films this weekend that did not offer an opportunity to watch someone fuck. That's art for ya babey.

Looking back the clear highlight was Louise Weard's film Castration Movie I: Traps, but more on that anon - let's start at the beginning. I ended up catching all but one of the films over the course of the weekend and there was maybe only one I'd call an outright miss, so great going in all.

On Saturday we opened with a pair of Hungarian films directed by György Révész, about an incredibly up himself intellectual-in-exile named Dr. János Bátky - the self insert of author Antal Szerb. the first film, The Loves of a Dilettante, sees Bátky going through a series of affairs with women around him - in each case abruptly ending the relationship because it doesn't conform to his specific fantasy. The reasons become increasingly absurd: at first Bátky wishes instead that his partner is a certain Countess, but when he chances to meet the lady herself, he refuses to believe she is who she says she is; at last another woman at the library turns out to be the secret admirer who has been sending Bátky gifts in the post, and he cannot stand to be pursued instead of the manipulative pursuer he fancied himself to be, and spurns her as well.

Bátky is very much the butt of the joke in this film, and the ending sees everyone pretty much done with his bullshit; at the same time, he is an entertaining character, with a nonstop patter full of literary allusions, bizarre tangents and dubious observations. Not so charming that I can quite see why all these women are throwing themselves at him, but that's the conceit of the film I suppose! The actor playing him, Iván Darvas does a splendid job of making this sideburned wanker come across as interesting enough to carry a film.

The second Bátky film, The Pendragon Legend was a major tonal departure from the first - and also featured a different cast, despite including a number of the same characters. (Funnily enough Iván Darvas returns, but as a different character.) This time, rather than a study of Bátky's foibles, we have a complicated conspiracy at a stately home in wales, tying in with biological experiments, immortal sorcerors and the Rosicrucians, assassination plots, affairs; the works. It ends up a lot of fun, although the sheer number of characters made it a little hard to keep track of everything. Here, Bátky is pulled in as almost an observer of all the shit going down, and comes across a lot more sympathetic as a result.

All in all, a pretty fascinating pair of films and window into Hungarian cinema. With both these films set in London and Wales but voiced entirely in Hungarian, it seems to present an amusing alternate universe in which Hungary is the language of the UK, but nobody knows where Hungary is. It's a very old-school 'from outside' view of the UK, full of tea-sipping aristocrats and walks in the park and intellectual conversations in a library - it's quite funny to me. I haven't seen a ton of Hungarian film (mostly animation), but everything I've seen has been fascinating, and terribly literary.

A whole lot of the films in this festival were restorations of various out of print films, and that includes to the next one, Treasure Island directed by Scott King. This film has absolutely nothing to do with Stephenson's book, instead referring to the island near San Francisco where mail was processed during the second world war.

The basis of the story is the historical Operation Mincemeat, in which the British constructed a false identity for a corpse and planted it to mislead the Nazis; here the story is transplanted to the American invasion of Japan, but the focus is hardly wartime intrigue, instead the psychosexual inner lives of the two Americans who are involved in constructing the fake identity for the corpse. One of them secretly has two wives, one a white civilian woman and the other a Japanese woman who works in translation for the military; the other habitually invites other men for group sex with him and his wife and has a whole lot of hangups about how he is not gay, and that corpse is not at all sexy thank you.

As the film progresses, both of them are increasingly struck by visions of the dead man talking to them and the line between 'reality' and fantasy gets blurrier. It's a very well crafted and engaging film; shot in black and white in 1999, it aimed to challenge the rather sanitised and straightforwardly heroic picture of the 'Greatest Generation' who fought the war, presenting a more 'warts and all' look with the sexuality and racism and so forth in full view. I found it very effective! And it was cool to have the director there, a bearded American guy who spoke very confidently about his intentions for the film - I got to ask a question about how he kept all the fantasy and more literal elements straight while scripting the film.

(Do you find that when you get a Q&A session like this, you really want to ask a good question? Because I do. It's very silly. But like if I am going to hold the mic and get the spotlight on me... sure I don't want to waste peoples' time, but also I kinda want to come off well lmao. If I can get people to go 'ooh that's a good question' I feel like I've won audience Q&A, a real thing that is reasonable to want.)

In the afternoon we got a massive block of trans films old and new. We opened with Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucubers featuring Holly Woodlawn; Jaye Hudson of the TGirlsOnFilm Instagram account (which I was not previously familiar with) gave an introduction, telling the story of how Woodlawn came into the orbit of Warhol's 'Factory', and reading out some funny anecdotes about her experience on set. As Jaye talked about it, at that point in the 70s, trans girls were kind of the flavour of the month and we appeared in a bunch of films at the time, of which this was one.

The film sees a girl called Eve Harrington moving to New York in pursuit of the dream of becoming an actress; there she meets a series of weirdos from taxi-driving nuns to 'Mary Poppins', the drag empress of a kind of roommate finding service who's always trailed by worshipful boys. Most of the film sees Eve trying to find an apartment and a boyfriend, and running into various 70s archetypes along the way: a werewolf (also played by Woodlawn in boy mode), political lesbians, a plant-obsessed hippy, and finally a taciturn amnesiac Russian woman and her brother, a little person in a cowboy outfit who does pro wrestling. It's an intriguing slice of the 70s and of New York in particular.

Apparently this film has long been out of print and only narrowly evaded being lost media, so it's pretty sick to see. (And honestly despite the long cultural shadow they cast, I don't actually know that much about the girls around Warhol's 'Factory', so I was glad to get a look in.)

Next up we had 'An Untitled and Perfectly-Legal Coming-of-Age Clown Parody Film' - not hard to figure out what film this is (The People's Joker), especially with the still and trailer right there, but while the courts in the US seem to have come down on recognising it as a valid Fair Use defence, the legal status is still a bit up in the air in the UK.

This one got a lot of buzz for thumbing its nose at Warner Bros.' copyright empire - and of course being part of a recent wave of trans girl directed independent films such as I Saw The TV Glow. It's a trans girl coming of age story built around the Batman milieu, and clearly by people with a pretty thorough knowledge of Batman's cinematic history and DC universe deep cuts (the final act involves a musical number with Mx. Mxyzptlk, played as a puppet, which I'm sure means something if you read the comics).

It's largely shot on greenscreen, with all kinds of mixed media and animation segments - deliberately going for a grungy, chaotic look where it doesn't try to match lighting and animation styles (there's a whole bunch of indepedent animators contributing brief segments here, much as in Barber Westchester). The story concerns Joker the Harlequin, a trans girl who finally moves away from her controlling mother after being drugged with 'Smylex' for most of her life; now in Gotham she can transition, have a dodgy relationship with a trans guy (who is also a version of the Joker, and - spoilers - a former Robin), and build an 'anti-comedy' club with most of the usual Batman villains before going to confront the cultish institution which controls all legal comedy in post-'cyber war' America.

The film's strongest aspect is, fittingly, jokes - throwaway lines about the casually dystopian setting ('drag was outlawed after the explosion at RuPaul's fracking ranch' got a big laugh); a running joke of namedropping cancelled comedians with 'before the unpleasantness, of course' 'of course'; the playful riffs on past Batman films. The core story, though, is a fairly by-the-numbers queer/trans coming of age about self-acceptance, parental mistreatment and finding community, and a bit of a satire on SNL which is perhaps more specific to the director's history - I get the purpose of this kind of narrative and I certainly needed it at a time, and wrote similar stories myself, but it's a kind of story I'm kind of increasingly tired of hearing. I don't mean to say it's bad for that - just it doesn't resonate the way it might have ten years ago.

Honestly, I think trying to make a 'trans movie' kind of paints you into a formulaic corner. A corner very deftly avoided by the next movie, Louise Weard's Castration Movie Part I: Traps. This was the theatrical debut of this movie, though it's been available to download on Weard's gumroad for some time.

Louise Weard made herself kind of notorious for her previous movie, ten years ago, Computer Hearts, but even more so for her castration scene supercut at the Fantastic Fest '100 Best Kills' event a couple of years ago - something that has left her feeling a bit pigeonholed into castration scenes. Part of the joke about Castration Movie is then that it's eight hours (only half of that presently available) of trans girls being sad (emotional drama) without any castration until the very end of the movie. It doesn't even come up in the first half.

Technically, this is a four hour long movie - the first part of an eight hour long movie! - consisting largely of very long takes of naturalistic conversations shot on an incredibly grainy camera, now and then mixing that with musical montage and sex scenes. Something I'd raise an eyebrow at on description, and I want to kind of lead with that because like, no joke, this is legit one of the best movies I've seen; those four hours absolutely fly by. Incredibly sharp character writing, incredibly strong naturalistic acting - and unreasonably funny, just way too much.

The first hour or so focuses on Turner, an aspiring film director who spends his time working odd jobs at a film crew and increasingly torpedoing his relationship with his furry-artist girlfriend - someone he clearly isn't very compatible with and views with little actual interest, and his efforts to try and salvage the relationship ring false in ways he's clearly unable to see. But at every turn he doubles down and builds on his resentment and sense of emasculation, until he's picking fights with a living statue in the street and busting into his ex's room late at night.

Along the way we get all sorts of darkly funny conversations - Weard has an incredible eye for subtext and awkwardness, and can lend an ultimately very unsympathetic character like Turner enough sympathetic motivation to make his downward spiral completely human and convincing. It's both sad and terribly funny, perfectly pitched.

The punchline sees him posting to /r9k/ - and at this point we cut to a new story about 'Traps', the film's actual main character, a sex worker in Vancouver played by Weard herself, who is caught up with the drama of various partners and her own completely unresolved shit around transition to make her an entirely unsuitable would-be mentor figure to her friend Adeleine, who's kind of the deuteragonist of this act, cracking under the pressure of being the only one in the house with a shit but paying office job while her boyfriend gets top surgery.

The first act sets us up a frame to look at the second - Traps is a pretty messed up person, but in a deeply understandable way, and it serves in ways to show that the shit she's going through is not some unique trans girl thing but very much the torment of being a human. Desperate for connection and fucking it up, digging ourselves deeper while convinced it's the right thing to do. Along the way, we see her having various kinds of nasty sex, injecting DIY HRT, taking a bunch of cocaine, a trans guy getting top surgery, and various other fun things that I could never stream on twitch (or you bet I'd be planning a screening right away) - but it's also in many ways incredibly matter of fact about all this shit we get up to in a way that feels incredibly real.

It's a film that benefitted a lot from viewing with a largely transfem audience who would laugh at certain lines in the right spirit - I have no idea how this whole thing would come across if you aren't trans and don't know what 'agp' means (about the person saying it as much as anything) lmao. But if you are, it's like the film I never even knew I needed. It's way too real: from amusing setups like the polycule who has the access to DIY HRT trying to drag you into an argument about Dune before one of them wakes up and has a panic attack or daft conversations about boobs, to the pinpoint depiction of the kinds of neuroses we end up carrying from our shitty tenuous work, and of course the friction and fireworks of trying to care for each other when we're all burned out from carrying our own shit. Weard is fearless, and does seem to rather revel in being transgressive, but this is not edge for edge's sake.

And honestly this is 100% what 'trans film', if we can't help but have such a category, needs to be I think - a story heavily informed by the specific fucked up experiences of being trans but not like, About Being Trans(TM) in the way People's Joker was. Uncompromisingly honest (but with plenty of humour) about how we are, which is to say painfully human, rather than cheerfully painting the sort of freeing subculture we'd like to think we have.

I got to talk to Weard quite a bit on Sunday (ending up in a pub with her and a number of other mostly trans festivalgoers), and it turns out the slightly ludicrous length of the film wasn't even planned, with the original idea to edit it down to something like a standard 90 minutes - but when it became evident after shooting the first forty minutes or so that these long scenes were kind of absolute gold, someone (I forget who now) made the case that they shouldn't be cut down at all and to just go for the full behemoth. And honestly? They were fucking right. This did not feel like a four hour film, somehow. There were definitely other films this festival where my mind wandered and I kind of checked out a bit, but not this one.

As a chaser (ha ha) to that, we had Louise Weard's 'Unsee' segment, screened just once in the hour before the clocks change (which is in a certain sense lost to time, or at least that's the joke of this segment). An elaboration on the experience of presenting the castration scene supercut at the '100 Best Deaths' event, it dives into a reprise of that supercut before increasingly alternating with scenes of a kind of introspective monologue on how people reacted to that event and how far Louise herself started to end up feeling like the butt of the joke (even as random cis women accused her of being transphobic lmao).

As the video progresses it segues into an increasingly ridiculous sequence where two of Weard's friends step in (as substitute Louise Weards) reading out her essay of Lacanian film analysis on castration scenes in movies, while Weard (behind the camera) gives them directions to frame the shot to better show her cis ex's boobs. In between, more castration scenes! So many, most of them unfamiliar to me (funny moment when I finally recognised one and my brain was like hey! that's Sálo! and I found myself turning to face Violet with an excited grin before my brain caught up with that)

Among other things, the narration talks about the whole arc being a transgressive tgirl filmmaker who frequently faced some rather ridiculous accusations of being a transphobe or nazi troll (by TV Glow's Jane Schoenbrun, although it seems they have since made up), all in a time when it seems like a lot of her contemporaries in the transgressive film scene actually do seem to end up going nazi; the trouble of getting pigeonholed as the castration person, and so on - but also kind of playing with like oh, fifteen more castration scenes, that's what you want right? So many swerves, and the supercut was in fact very funny (I wonder if I find it easy to laugh instead of wincing since I actually have been castrated lmao), ending in a scene which is constructed to suggest Louise actually cut her balls off for the bit - though since she showed the prop penis earlier it was pretty clear that she didn't. (Yet..?)

It's a really clever bit and superbly entertaining bit of filmmaking, all told. I'm a full Louise Weard convert at this point, can't wait for castration movie part ii.

This post has gotten pretty long now, so I'll write up Sunday tomorrow. Do go watch Castration Movie tho, it's worth your time.

[jiraisupportgroup]

hi!! is it so wrong to be a young jirai?

i feel so young in this community and idk what to do.. it feels like if people knew my true age theyd shame me or something. i respect the lifestyle and have felt the most comfort here than ever, but im so scared of people finding out my age and just blocking me

There isn’t anything particularly wrong with being young and in spaces like this - a lot of older people just don’t want to interact with minors for their own comfort (& vice versa). I can’t speak for everyone but there’s a lot of reasons for this. Especially in spaces based around mental health (and even more so with Jirai Kei being a space which isn’t inherently recovery based).

A lot of older landmines will talk about or RB things that are sexual in nature & it can feel kind of weird or gross when people who are much younger interact with posts about that stuff. Some people are also afraid because technically you can get in actual trouble if you’re posting nsfw content and knowing that minors follow you / will see it - although functionally there are hardly ever legal repercussions for this. It can still feel icky.

A lot of older landmines also just have trouble relating to younger landmines - our struggles might be similar but there can also be a lot of differences it really depends on the situation. Like a 20 year old and a 15 year old dealing with even the same issues can look extremely different, and sometimes we just can’t relate. Also the language that we use tends to be a bit different. I notice that it’s much more common for younger people to use more heavily romanticized language when talking about certain issues and a lot of older people can’t really relate because a lot of us are at a point where we’re just so defeated and sick of it. I don’t know how to explain this without giving examples but younger people make certain things look fun and new and exciting and like a thing to do while some of us older people have long past that phase and it’s just like a crushing reality for us at this point. It’s not fun anymore. And seeing people have fun with it can be upsetting for a number of reasons. That’s not specific to minors it’s just kind of a trend I’ve noticed. (I don’t know if I explained that well at all)

Another thing (and idk if this is just me) is that seeing teenagers talk about the same issues we have / had as a teenager is genuinely gut wrenching sometimes. It can be really hard to watch young people go down the same paths we went down and just wanting to scream at them to stop and turn back but knowing there is not a single thing we can do to help them - it can feel extremely disheartening sometimes. Especially on Tumblr bc a lot of us grew up on Tumblr and our illnesses were heavily influenced by the mental health spaces we were in on Tumblr & I mean for me at least I can confidently say that it had a negative impact on my mental health as a teenager and now being older it’s like aaaa fuck I don’t want the vents or things I post being shown to teenagers who could be negatively impacted by it just like I was at their age. Real Catcher in the Rye moment.

& some people just don’t really want to interact with minors. The differences between even 18 year olds and 15 year olds are pretty big. I mean I’m 24 and like I don’t really hang out in real life with people under 19 just kind of naturally - like not in “oh you’re only 18 we can’t hang out” kind of way but we just genuinely tend not to vibe. But again that’s just my personal experience so it’s super different for everyone.

There’s also a lot of minors who don’t want anyone who’s over 18 interacting with them for similar reasons. Often times it’s protection, but a lot of minors find adults annoying or not super relatable, which is just as valid.

Tldr: everyone has different comfort levels. It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong or that people just automatically hate you bc of your age, it’s more so like the difference between teenagers & 20 year olds can be pretty big so sometimes they don’t want to interact with each other.

[qoldenskies]

if youre still doing the number thing, 8 34 35?

I AMMMMM IM ALWAYS HAPPY TO INTERACT!

8. Post an out-of-context spoiler from a wip.

i think ive already gotten this one but it was JUST when caged lungs was out, so here's some out of context things that happen in clipped wings. dont even worry about it

mikey jumps through a window

leo tries to throw hands and gets his ass beat COMICALLY

a door gets broken down at one point

donnie takes a nap and everyone gets all weird about it

raph chugs alcohol in front of the whole family LMAOOOO

have you noticed that donnie has gotten nosebleeds for three chapters in a row now? i wonder why that is :)

it snows.

34. How much of your personal life/experience do you include in your fics?

ive mentioned it repeatedly before but i have a family dynamic that's extremely similar to rottmnt's, and that influences the way that i write the characters very heavily!!! i legit have an autistic older brother who was a straight A student for all of his school life and was instrumentally parentified due to our financial issues, an empathetic sensitive younger brother who is hilariously leftist for a 13 year old due to our influence and who's hobbies include gaming and cooking, and im a flamboyant adhd middle child with terrible grades (i dropped out LOL) but i get along with people pretty well/am super extroverted. i even have a queer parent who had some issues raising us early on because of trauma/recently developed chronic illness who spends most of their time sitting in front of the tv (they watch so much trash...... fascinating). and they also had some horrible taste in partners in their youth which is what lead them to accidentally having us. LOL

this is probably why i got so attached to it honestly. it's UNCANNY. i dont write them the exact same as my family dynamic, but im extremely close with my brothers so rottmnt is comfortable and familiar to me in a way that i havent really seen anywhere else. its most apparent in CVD because thats more humor-oriented pffthaha. but also i write leo with a lot of my verbal mannerisms and donnie with a lot of my brother's :)

35. What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

i looove caged lungs i feel like i popped off so hard with it (it took a month to write!!! ive never committed to something that intensely for so long before)... ngl im a little disappointed with how quickly clipped wings overtook it in hits/kudos but it is how it is

[st0rmyskies]

random question I thought of about the o!sky au- where is Wind at in terms of sex ed? In much to learn he tells Time about helping crew members with heats in a distinctly non-sexual fashion, and Time has to tell him that Wild’s heat is sort of a different situation, so it seems like he has maybe a limited understanding of the whole thing…? Also actually how old *is* he? Sorry if you’ve answered this already lol

To answer your second question: my hc is that presentation occurs later in puberty, between 16-19 depending on the individual and their life circumstances. I'm pegging Wind as a late bloomer around the late-18-year mark in this series.

To answer your first question requires some background on how heat/rut cycles and reproduction are affected by societal and economic pressures in each of the heroes' eras.

Holy shit that is NOT a sentence I ever thought I'd type out loud.

One of the things I find most fun to play with in this AU is the idea that each of the heroes come from eras of different but similar customs that are affected by unique societal pressures. There is a lot of potential for mixed messages and hurt feelings, especially in the beginning, as well as danger to some members of the party, such as in the Era of Legend or the Era of War.

Wind comes from a world not unlike Sky's where small islands of civilization are dotted across the Great Sea. These islands breed small but strong communities among which there are deep family ties. Land is somewhat scarce and the sea itself is pretty devoid of life which limits available resources, especially food.

Consequently, choosing a mate and choosing to reproduce has to be done carefully and deliberately among those in Wind's era. Monogamy is common and family units are typically small with only 1-2 children. Many but not all denizens of the Great Sea have to go far afield to find themselves a life partner to avoid family lines crossing too closely. Alphas tend to outnumber omegas in many but not all eras, and in Wind's time it's not uncommon for an alpha to choose the bachelor life rather than settling down with a family.

Wind would have been raised with a very traditional view of alpha, omega, and otherwise, with an understanding that heat and rut doesn't always equate to sex and reproduction but that it makes those instincts hard to resist. Like in Sky's era, omegas can help one another through 'innocent' heats because there's no risk of pregnancy, but a pirate crew is even smaller and closer to one another than an island community is. Tetra and the others would have no choice but to lean on Wind to take shifts to help though the illness of a heat cycle heat, but since he hadn't presented it would be perfectly platonic in nature. It also wouldn't start up the alpha-omega hormone cycle that dominates Wild's heat in Much to Learn.

In fact, across all eras, those that haven't presented can't really perform any sexual functions during another's heat or rut anyway. Most of the excitement and necessary physiologic changes are dependent upon hormone production that just doesn't happen prior to presentation. It's like being the sober friend babysitting all your weird drunk friends who are all touchy-feely and laughing about nonsense. You're happy they're having a good time but you're just not in the right headspace to get it, maybe, and honestly they're being a bit obnoxious...

In major contrast, heat cycles in the post-Calamity era are a bit of a free-for-all, as Wild's wildly promiscuous nature demonstrates. After the Calamity has settled down and life is beginning to return to Hyrule, little pockets of society are popping up across a vast, untamed countryside. It's been a minute since I've booted up BotW but I feel like in EVERY village and Stable Association outpost there are at LEAST two kids running around, often more.

Alphas in rut likely go and travel to sow their wild oats, as it were. Omega wanderers don't limit themselves to one partner, because why should they? Resources are abundant and civilization is coming alive again, so it's an era to rebuild and prosper. Although traditions and customs in the pre-Calamity era were quite different, Wild's free-and-loose living is a direct consequence of his version of the world.

[kozykricket]

well! about that mc live, huh?

im just gonna say right off the bat. you know that i am not a "mojang lazy" person. doesnt mean im not critical of them. gonna give my nuanced view in this post. itll be a long one!

so... first of all, i just gotta say like, changing to having more "drop" updates instead of yearly summer updates is... thank god. i didnt wanna see mojang become gamefreak with yearly, formulaic releases.. hell, im kinda thinking. they're probably working on the big updates in the background now, while they can still keep people (and corporate people) satisfied, by delivering drops of content. and the other ideas they have? instead of being hecked over by priorities as much... they can actually just decide like "okay, we have more than a year to work on the big update. we can fit it in, so it doesnt get delayed back to the next big update" ...or, if its something small, then it wont be held up from releasing by like... waiting for the next Big Update. for example, if we had the drop releases back in 1.16, we could've had the ability to break leaves faster with hoes... waay earlier, instead of having to wait for the full nether update to drop. yknow? or, again using 1.16 as an example, if they have more ideas for the content in the Big Update, they can decide "yeah, we can put it in!" like how the allay was conceptualized for 1.16 but they didnt fit it in because well, they have more time to work on it! they can have bigger scope! more flexibility! ...but they're clearly still going for yearly key-jingling of shiny new content, i can see. like, as usual, its something new that is entirely self contained and doesnt really effect the rest of the game. its avoidable. which like, okay... i get it. i get why mojang doesnt want to make the game feel too different for people who come back to it after a while, but like. i dunno. i feel like- okay how about i actually just go over the features individually ...i appreciate the biome being a fantasy biome. ive kinda just accepted that mojang disregarded any plans to ever have non-real-life biomes in the overworld, unless they were underground like the deep dark. but nope! we can have weird white trees with freaky tree monsters!!! so, thats very nice. and the mechanics themselves seem really nice and interesting, its overall a very well put together vibe. weeping angels are overdone because theyre GREAT monster types !! theyre AWESOME!! and attaching the mob to like, having to destroy a block? thats prob the most interesting way to defeat a mob like the creaking! great gameplay and the biome has really cool hanging moss on the trees, and the moss carpets climb up blocks... but therein lies the problem -- its very self contained. its like, mojang. you just gonna.. keep developing really thoughtfully designed sidequests?? i'd like to see the main game experience updated... but alas this is a DROP and not an UPDATE, to be fair. its just like ...the new biome gets ambient sounds, which no other overworld biome has. now that sets the bar higher for updating older overworld biomes to also have that. i wouldnt have wanted it before, but now i do. same goes for like, new mobs having better animation systems, yknow? i wouldnt have wanted better animations, but now... you gotta update stuff even more , for consistency. adding so much to your plate, mojang and ... why does THIS moss carpet get to be cool and grab onto blocks?? why cant they have updated old moss carpet?? i feel like they probably WONT update it ... because ill be honest, my first thoughts were "this all couldve been in the dark oak forest" hanging moss? would look great on the trees moss blocks on the ground? would be great the creaking? yea, i think it'd be spooky as a dark oak ent! thing is the dark forest already has a pretty unique kinda vibe and playstyle to it, being a biome thats typically dark and spawns lots of mobs, and also. has lack of sight due to the big trees (1/2)

[websurfshark]

season 19 was a let down 😭😭

spoilers below!

i’m sure that over a year of hype doesn’t help my case here but i really was expecting something a little better 😭

i don’t mean to be too much of a critic in this post and sorry if i seem like i’m complaining but man 🧍‍♂️ full review here we go

sarges death was expected and the character arc that simmons got from it was pretty well done , he was cool — sarges death did just seem kind of rushed but that’s probably also time constraints , nobody seemed super affected by it tho and that kinda put me off ☹️ sure the reds were like Sad right after he died , and grif + simmons had the moment at his grave, but it’s literally not brought up again ? simmons just gets to be a leader kinda and tucker doesn’t get told he killed sarge, nobody else brings it up after the climax?? not even during the climax as they fight meta again ?

^ although sarges final moments were done very nicely and the va’s had a ton of emotion ❤️

along with that, wash’s acting was amazing as always

grif was characterized really weirdly throughout the first half of the season - i’m guessing they tried to make him the “straight man” of the group but it kinda fell flat because he just seemed irrationally angry every single time he spoke 😭 he kinda evened out as it went on tho so that’s better than nothing

Simmons was very kind this season that was interesting and cool He didn’t have a care in the world

animation was wonky at times but it was there - fight scenes weren’t monty oum style of crazy but they were creative with them and ill give them that! good callbacks during the fight

character callbacks were cool! i’m glad we got a little bit of kai (no reunion with grif tho so that sucks), dylan was there but she was kinda characterized weird, grey there, agent one (???) for some reason, 479er!!!!! she was well done and she fit really well into the plot!, no checkup on chorus life which was kinda sad (no lieutenants boohoohoo) some of the callbacks felt out of place tho

i don’t like how they handled tex cause even though it was cool she was back , i feel like we’ve done this dance a thousand times

also carolina quite literally came out of nowhere ?? how did she just ? drop from the sky what ??? LOL

absolutely no donut at all ? there was like one mention of him that i can remember ? lopez is just forgotten about back at the bases ??? i don’t know if the donut thing was something behind the scenes but Uhh

music wasnt up to par - they just reused old songs basically , the weird song that played during the “Memories” sequence wasn’t good

i’m not the hugest fan of the ais in general so i don’t think about them too much but i feel like sigma wasn’t characterized in the same way he was in the freelancer seasons — in pfl he kind of subtly manipulated maine into becoming meta etc etc but for tucker , he basically just like😭 tortured him WHICH IS PROBABLY CAUSE LIKE tucker knows This guy is evil Ahhhh!!! but still that was a little weird

no grimmons sad day for the rvb fandom - some scenes could be read as grimmons, like grif basically inviting simmons to go with him , i’m confused on why simmons stayed because simmons himself literally said One last mission ? so idk what he’s doing bro idk if he’s staying in blood gulch or what — grif just straight up leaves and like ? are they gonna see eachother again orrr ? what’s happening

the ending felt rushed and kinda weird - just vibes , i think i’m biased because i now realize that not a lot can beat the s13 ending , but even so , grif just kinda leaves and that’s the end 😭

i feel like we didn’t get a whole lot of conclusions for all the characters even tho that’s what was promised

overall i’m probably giving this a solid 5-6/10 , the season was overall very hit or miss in some aspects and scenes

ANWYAYS😭 don’t let my opinions take away from your experience with season 19! this is just how i felt about it after my first watchthrough and my opinions might/will change!

[dorkfruit]

i put this together using my computer's trackpad so the new year is already starting out . bad .

posts: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D

template

reflections on the year, my plans for the future, some studies i did, and wips for the next year all down below for those who are interested

tldr; we will be ianthing next year so watch out!!

oh dear lord it's been another year. 2024! can you believe it! i don't talk much on this blog because i have a tendency to talk too much, but it's my little new year's treat, so here we go.

RECAP

i started taking drawing "seriously" in December of 2020, starting to do studies and stuff, and each year since i've ramped it up more and more. this year, i did. a lot of studies. there's probably like at least 200 more in my folder now (not including the 300 days worth of gesture drawings i did), with things like painting, faces, feet, poses, etc. anything i was struggling with, i went right into studying it. my art has been mediocre for a pretty long time now, and it's only the past few months where i feel i'm starting to get the hang of it, which is exciting!

more importantly, i started posting a lot more on this blog. i really like documenting my progress, looking on where i was before and seeing how i've improved. everytime i draw some fanart, im like, oooghh i can't wait to show my (: followers (: !! lots of locked tomb art of course. i've been trying to nail the energy of the different characters, which is why i enjoy books so much, because you get a lot of creative control. drawing ianthe is my fav of course, cause she's my lil nasty, but also i enjoyed doing designs for characters i hadnt thought about before, like judith.

in addition to the locked tomb, we had some new fandoms that got brief moments in between iantheposting: Fear and Hunger, Postal, Faith The Unholy Trinity, and a couple of old ones too, like We Have Always Lived In The Castle and The Merciless.

i posted about 115 times this year, although most of those are shitposts LOL i love posting stuff on my blog and showing people my stuff <3

THE FUTURE

my plans? do more ianthe art, of course. ill be working on more studies, probably going to work on developing a style, and figuring out how to paint. i'd like to do more actually finished pieces, but let's be honest, it'll still be mostly shitpost doodles. i'd like to do more weird stuff. i've been messing around with some gore and NSFW near the end of the year, and it's fun to draw for me. i like idk art that evokes some type of emotion, especially discomfort, and so i find that type of art fun to do, so if you don't enjoy what i've done thus far in that direction, perhaps this isn't the blog for you. i really like horror media, and so i want to do some stuff like that too.

for specifics, i like western type art, a comic book-esque style i'd like to aim for. but i'd like it to be a little more. weird with it. i find comic books often draw all the characters the same, and make all the characters traditionally attractive, and that's boring to me so i'll have to work on finding a way to keep things weird, while also appealing in a graphic sense. the worst thing my art could be is bland and forgettable.

locked tomb wise... more tridentarii art. need to be really weird with it. i have lots of wips planned, like i have a whole page worth of just thumbnails, so i wanna get some of those done. also i had a few animatics i wanted to do. mostly stupid shit, once i learn how to do animatics, then we'll do actual serious ones. id also like to do more comics. i have some comics storyboarded out with my girlies, i like telling a story so, need practice on that. id also like to develop a way to consistently draw them, for convenience sakes, so i'm not fighting for my life every single time i draw these characters. oh and i wanna do some outfit stuff. i draw them in like. generic clothes everytime but i'd like to come up with a few actual outfit designs, that i can just reference back to. and, of course, more shitposts. lots of stupid shit in 2024 for sure. there was something else i wanted to say here but i can't remember.

ART

oki enough rambling, here's some IMAGES for yall to look at i know everyone loves to look at images.

began this year by warming up with gesture sketches (almost) every day. i started with 20 poses (30 seconds each), and then in november i was like. ugh my hands suck i need to get better at hands, so i switched to doing 10 hand sketches (60 seconds each). i want my art to be very energetic so it's important that i do these !!

anatomy studies of extremities because i'm flopping at those -_- ive gotten better with hands but they're still a struggle. i hate feet tho still

need to get my painting game up. i joined an art forum to get advice, and the biggest suggestion i got was working on my values, so i did various value studies. also lots of faces because my faces flop !!

random doodles to work on drawing from imagination. on my "sketchbook" pages, as i like to call them, i'm usually pretty loose and messy, since the point is just to be drawing so often these will suck, but that's fine. i don't think very much when i draw faces on here either so they end up being in my Instinctive Style i suppose you could say

ianthe wip. i was planning to do a few drawings based on the idea of her having Missing Arm nightmares, but the lineart was intimidating to me so i haven't worked on this one more yet /: also there was going to be a toontown gay homosexual toxic yuri comic that i was gonna put here with it but the page is way too long so umm guess that'll have to wait.

...

anyways. thank you for reading if you got to the bottom of this! i appreciate all the support that i've been getting lately (extra big kissies for the same like 5 people who always reblog my posts youre the best). and we will be ianthing soo hard in 2024 so watch out!!

[dailyfigures]

(not the same anon) i only saw the anime (not the full thing cause i hated it), ill try to keep the points neutral/factual & not let my opinion/bias shine through too much. heres some of the stuff that happens (spoilers obviously): 1. main character, adult man, works as a doctor. one of his patients is 16 year old idol Ai. she is pregnant. mc is obsessed with her throughout the show. when asked by a colleague if he'd hook up with her if given a chance he says yes. 2. a patient of his (i dont know her age, early/mid teens) is in love with him. she dies. 3. the doctor mc is killed. he is 'reincarnated' as Ai's child, while keeping his past memories, along with the teen girl patient i mentioned in (2.), now named ruby. mc is now named aqua. they are twins now. they don't know each others former identities 4. Ai is killed, which further fuels aquas obsession with her (it seems to be romantic since i believe he mentions being in love with her, her being his 'ideal woman' etc) 5. several teenage girls are also in love with him (while his 'reincarnation' is their age, he has the full scope of his past memories, making him at least 30yo in lived experience), while he doesn't seem to reciprocate their feelings (up to the point i watched the show at least), it's not treated as something he's against due to them being teenagers, moreso that he's too preoccupied with searching for Ai's killer. that's about it, im sure theres more in the manga & bits i havent seen, i personally really dislike the show but i'd understand if you were to keep up the figurines as despite those themes no actual incest happens to my knowledge (correct me if wrong or forgot stuff!), some of the designs are pretty i guess

thank you for taking the time to explain it to me anon! i'm sure there's good parts to it since it's so popular but yeah it doesn't sound like it'd be for me personally either.

i do find it hard to judge media like this without having seen it. i'm a big horror fan so i watch a lot of media that features things you should very much Not do irl but that doesn't mean all horror is inherently problematic. sometimes media is just an exploration of something fucked up without explicitly stating "this is Bad!!! Do Not Do!!!!" because they trust the consumer to realise that on their own.

having said that, oshi no ko doesn't sound like a psychological piece that explores the morals of incest and adult-minor relationships to me (from what i understand without having seen/read it! do please correct me if i'm wrong!). it sounds like it's just kinda very weird without challenging those themes much.

again, it's hard to judge that without having consumed it. i think i'll just leave up the oshi no ko posts i have and not add any more. i might have some in the queue so i'll remove those if i remember to. hope everyone is somewhat okay with that decision!

[lacefuneral]

happy TDOV! i haven't made a post in literal years because i always forget LMAO.

hi my name is Jay. i'm a transsexual (FTM) gay man. i'm a femme. my pronouns are they/them and ce/cer.

i'm currently 28 years old. i've been living as a man full time since 2015, when i was 19. it's been a long, weird journey. i went from presenting really masculine at first to meet societal expectation & to pass, to presenting more feminine, where i feel like myself. i went on (and off of) T, i had top surgery, and I feel like the last steps of my journey are full-body hair removal + getting my nipples tattooed into hearts, so I still have to check those off of the list. i have regretted nothing, and have become happier and more assured in who i am over time.

i'm AuDHD. I'm chronically ill. i'm physically disabled. i'm fat. i suffer from very severe OCD and CPTSD. and i refuse to be embarrassed about any of those things!

i write poetry, i draw, i collage, i take digital & traditional photos, i colorize other people's black and white photos, i sing, i voice act, i compose music, i edit videos. and no matter how hard life gets sometimes, i refuse to be a statistic. transsexual, you must live!

(mobile users. this is a video 👇)

(forgive the shoddy compilation lmao i'm recovering from a concussion rn; i just made this quick on my phone)

anyway. i have a lot of miscellaneous interests. right now i'm very hyperfixated on OFMD so you'll see that a lot. (as well as other things Rhys Darby is in; i've been a fan of his for 17 years.) but i also like Twin Peaks (and Dune 1984 lmao), Star Trek TOS/TNG, Red Dwarf, various video games (i'm playing disco elysium right now and really enjoying it!), and I also reblog a lot of shitposts and pretty art and imāges of créatures (🐇🦌🦋🐙🦞)

i run @transmascore (which has been on hiatus since forever and needs a major rework to fix linkrot etc.) which is an art, positivity, and resource blog for transmasculine people which is intended to be interacted with by any gender. i made transmascore after being frustrated by "positivity" and "-core" blogs for trans men that were filled primarily with cis art, cis words, and cis bodies. i also made it as a place where people who are not transmascs can learn about us and engage with our art. and as a place that is firmly distanced from transmisogynist/manosphere transmasc """"activism""". it is also intended to be a time capsule, data to be collated and archived for future transgender people to find.

i also run @guyfemme which is a similar project about documenting queer effeminacy and the femme identity, particularly in gay transmascs when possible.

when i'm feeling better i want to work on designing things, making more art in physical mediums, making zines, and researching how to open an online shop. these are all tasks i've been procrastinating from since like. 2019.

anyway i hope everyone has a good tdov. smiles

[obscureother]

self insert ref sheet

this is one of two self-inserts I have. They use xhe/she/they, so don't worry too much about pronouns. She's pretty flexible, nonbinary probably Demigirl or fem leaning something.

this is Moe. I'm exposing her/me, as she's been a pretty known OC of mine amongst my friends and family, but I figure. . ill prolly be ok. whatre they gonna do? goof on me for liking old men? i goof on myself for the old men i would love on.

She would be one of those "well she looks like any other brunette neko/fox girl" things, except she's fockin' GREEN. so that's why I never showed her before.

🌑

For the quick version of lore or things:

once only referred to as "s/i 1" but now exposed or known as Moe with tag:

🌑 obscure s/i: 🦊

fox alien

nonbinary (xhe/she/they)

oc/self-insert combo

shapeshifter (to some extent)

fire powers woosh 🔥

minor healing (lick your wounds om nom)

gets hooked up with all the f/os, even the worst ones

The Baby™ of the group (but she's really 20 y.o. yall.)

🌑

For the long version of lore or things:

Moe is an extraterrestrial. She looks simple yes, and she kind of is visually. I made her years n years ago in junior high, there's a whole story to how she exists, but basically I saw fox girls (like the nekos but foxes, i never remember their names. . not kitsunes, but??) when I was small and I thought they were cute, so there she is. She's a fox-girl alien thing. She shapeshifts and has a lot of kooky abilities, like minor healing, fire elementalism, and sounding like a M a n . She has weird vocal chords that give her a wide variety of fox noises but she can also mimic people and instruments n stuff. She does fox stuff too. No she doesn't shit sparkles out her butt, I just thought it would look cool on the ref for the time being.

Their eyes aren't really that big btw lmao, i just goof on them because they got the big brown eyes look most of the time. truly "🥺??" moment. They have normal size eyes lolol.

They have other forms, I just didn't draw them here. The other one they use sometimes is just called "anthro," which is just your basic fursona-lookin' thing with the same colors n all of their fox form. Their forms, however, can only stray from some kind of fox monster so much and they don't work like normal shape-shifting i dont think. theyre goofed.

Moe wasn't entirely made for selfshipping. I was too young to know what that was, but she is kind of an oc/self-insert hybrid. She's very adaptable given her lore can land her anywhere, so she doesn't have one universe she's "canonically" in. She goes wherever I want her to go. But because of that, she evolved a lot of lore and alternate versions/outcomes of her life including those where I was like "fictional person go brr" and threw her in there.

They do have relations to s/i 2 (who ill edit onto this post later sometime, they'll be revealed later.) Consider her their "younger sister" or something.

They go with all of my f/os, unlike s/i 2 who only really gets shipped with or interacts with a couple of them.

yes, you technically saw them once on some 🌑 buck the crocodile 🐊 posts, but she wasn't colored so i didnt worry about her then.

🌑

one could ask questions of or for her if you want to, tho. she's got lots of lore to get into if you care to read of them. that goes for s/i 2 when they come out too. there you go tho, one of the self-inserts for the obscure.other.

[ninacytosis]

For the time lost

Summary: Zuko wants to erase every reminder of his past mistakes, and Katara will take him on a journey to, quite literally, heal both of their scarrings.

Contains: Angst, Fluff, Katara has burns scars from Aang's first attempts to firebend, Katara tries to get over her resentment towards the FN, Zuko doesn't hate Azula.

Dear reader: I hope you enjoy it! <3 Let me know if you want me to continue posting.

Find chapter one here.

Find chapter two here.

┊┊┊┊☆┊*🌙*┊☆┊┊┊┊

Chapter Three

To Katara’s surprise, his scar looked pretty much the same as before. After greeting her, she got a look up close and searched for a different color, texture, or size. Maybe it was smoother? Her thoughts kept meditating on this new information while she followed Zuko through the palace.

Zuko stopped walking and turned to her. “You're so quiet today... Not complaining, though" he smirked.

The place was a bit different from the last time Katara visited. The walls, once filled with portraits of the former Fire Lords, were left with paintings of birds and rodents; some pieces were pale and ill-looking, and, to her surprise, others were unbelievably adorable. Every part of the palace seemed to be made with such delicacy, it made her wonder how much respect people had for the royals. The marble floor felt like floating through the hallways.

“How old is this place?” she asked Zuko.

“Maybe two hundred years old” he replied, with a doubtful tone. “But every now and then it got redecorated. My mom was really into gardening, so there were a lot of floral decorations until I was like twelve.”

“I guess you’re into hawkpards” she smiled. “I’ve seen like five paintings of them so far”.

“Oh, yeah… We got a lot of those in the back garden. Oh, I got to show you the turtleducks in the front!” He grabbed her shoulder. “They’ve grown so much since you last came”.

They both rushed to an open space in between the castle. It wasn’t a front garden technically, but Katara didn’t want to ruin the moment. He was so excited to take her there. And the turtleducks were beautifully bathed in the golden sparks of the setting sun.

“The little ones were born by the end of autumn”.

Her eyes followed the furry little guys as they approached Zuko’s feet. He seemed annoyed, yet patient, while their little peaks pinched his pants. He proceeded to sit down and surrender to the attack. Now the turtleducks looked at him expectantly, Katara guessed that they were pet recurrently by him.

“No treat today,” he said, in a high-pitched voice. “But we got visits. Greet Katara!”

She chuckled. Zuko’s silliness always got to her, she could tell he was comfortable if she paid attention and saw through all his awkwardness. The water that had golden sparkles some minutes ago, was now in a purplish tone, the sky was getting darker. Two guards walked in their direction with small lamps in their hands. She imagined they lit them up themselves. How cool that must be.

“The visitor’s room is ready, my Lord” one pointed out.

Katara guessed both the guards were about thirty. By the looks they gave to her, she guessed they still weren’t used to having waterbenders around. To even see them as allies. She tried to convince herself some progress had been made. Some years ago, it was hard to tell if the Fire Nation guards saw her as human. Now they’re just weirded out, she can’t really blame them. She’s feeling odd herself, trying to turn off her flight or fight mode. Trying to hold eye contact with them, because she doesn’t want to seem snobby. Trying to look at Zuko, to remember nothing bad will happen. Weirdness is progress. Weirdness is not cruelty.

“I’ll take her, thanks for letting me know” he replied. “You can go now”

With a small flame in his hand, he led her to one of the upper floors. It was a pretty place, but it felt so empty. All she could hear were their steps and the whispers of the guards. Probably they talked all night to avoid getting asleep.

"My Lord" she tittered.

"Oh, shut up" he sighed. "I can still hear Toph laughing about it."

They arrived at her room. Katara noticed a penguin plushie on her mattress. She turned to Zuko and scrunched her face. After seeing her funny covers and blue walls, she realized what he was trying to do.

“I thought it would feel more like home” Zuko whispered. “Is it too corny?”

“I love it” she giggled.

“Come here” he asked her. Katara walked to the window and saw the moon rising from mountains.

“Now, that’s too corny” she mocked. “Thank you, I feel like I’m royalty too”.

“Well, technically you are a royal of the Southern Water tribe” he squeezed his eyes.

She rolled her eyes. If she was a princess, her “castle” was a giant whale skeleton. But she couldn’t complain, it felt more sacred than most homes. And it showed her people’s historical resilience, something that would transcend centuries more than her desire for a fancier house. For a second, she feared she spent too much time in her mind and ignored Zuko’s presence.

“We’re such a diplomatic friendship” she whispered. Zuko laughed, still looking through the window.

“You know, back at the garden, I noticed you were a bit shaky” he admitted. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure” she nodded.

“Do you find it scary to come here?”

“Of course not” is what she would’ve answered to most people. Four springs have passed since the war, and even in the war, she wasn’t the type of person to hide from Fire Nation guards. It would be unlike her to fear a threat that it’s not even there. And as much as it didn’t make sense to her or anyone else, she felt her heart race when a guard looked at her for a little too long, she lost her breath when a firework sounded a little too loud. She was afraid.

“I… think so, Zuko” she answered. “Sorry if it sounds ungrateful, I don’t mean to show prejudice towards your people. I bet your guards are highly honorable and your friends here are nice. But it’s hard to see these walls and walk through this city without getting a bit sappy, you know?” she sat on the floor. “I think that’s why I usually don’t come here often”.

“I know what you mean. Well, that’s one of the reasons it’s so hard for me to go to the South” She leaned her head. “I’m ashamed, for my nation, my ancestors’ actions, and my own. I see all the empty houses and the little kids in your town and it makes me feel so unworthy of being a king.”

He covered his face with his hands and sat next to her, both on the cold wooden planks. Katara caressed his hair, gently, not really sure how to say what she thought of Zuko. At least, she didn’t know how to deliver it in a way that convinced him that he was a good person. A compassionate, caring, noble person. She put her head on his shoulder.

“You are not your father, Zuko” she mumbled. “And the Water Nation’s door will always be open for you. Not only on the North, by the way”.

“About that… I know all these traveling to the North might seem weird to you”.

“You’re Zuko, you’re always weird” she bumped his arm.

He disapprovingly shook his head.

“Anyways, I thought I should tell you I went there to get rid of my scar” Zuko stood up. “I’m so tired, you probably are too. I’m going to my room.”

“So you’re just gonna drop that bomb and leave?” Katara raised her eyebrow.

“We can talk tomorrow. I promise” he walked to the door. “Good night, Katara.”

[weather-cluddy]

(Replied as a new post to avoid the character limit)

It doesn't bother me at all! This sort of question is something I've been turning over for quite a while, actually. I tried to make a post pointing out comparisons between non-paired prisoners, because I feel like people focus too much on number pairs without considering other thematic parallels, even with Milgram pointing some out (Eg: Shidou-Amane, Fuuta-Kotoko, Haruka-Muu, Yuno-Kazui). It stalled around Muu though, because it turns out that's a whole lot of entries, and also I wasn't sure that people would be interested in a post that's dozen of paragraphs long (though still much less elaborate than this post, of course).

Personally, I think Mikoto and Haruka have a lot in common and share many themes, but I hardly ever see it brought up. Some of it, I think, is the fact that Haruka's trauma gets a lot of focus while Mikoto's mostly implied, so there's a lot of people who don't look beneath the surface. So they just get slotted in the boxes of "sympathetic" and "unsympathetic", meaning fans miss the similarities even when it's them doing literally the same thing (Like trying to kill Es to protect their self-worth).

But at the end of the day, we have two people extremely afraid yet dependent on other people's opinions of them, whose every interaction is shadowed by the after-effects of their early-childhood trauma in a way that seems "cute" or harmless at first but really isn't, who committed premeditated murder because they saw it as the only way to make their lives bearable, who have artistic inclinations but can't find the self-confidence to pursue them, who are dealing with mental illnesses they have no (healthy) frame of reference for, who are okay with being used and abused (even physically!) so long as people approve of them...

Well, I don't want to drop the entire essay on the intro part. Onto the first section!

(I didn't particularly mean to organize it like that, but the two sections basically came out as Bokukoto- and Orekoto-centered, respectively. Funny how it worked out.)

Children and adults.

What are Haruka's goals? To be loved and cared for, even if it means taking on a subordinate role. To have his weakness acknowledged yet not be shamed for it, to be have his strengths bring joy to those he loves yet not have people ask more of him than he can give.

What are Mikoto's goals? To be a good, responsible, capable person and have people acknowledge him as such. To have his efforts rewarded, even if it means overexerting himself. To find conventional success and prove to those he loves (his mom, in particular) that they needn't worry for him.

In other words, Haruka wants to be a kid, Mikoto wants to be an adult. Haruka wants to be protected, Mikoto wants to be admired.

Why this difference? Well, I see two possiblities. One, Haruka has a golden past to retreat to, a time when he felt loved and safe. Mikoto might not have had that, or he might not remember it: after all, DID forms from trauma very early in childhood, as early as 5 years old and generally no later than 10. And of course dissociation itself tends to make remembering difficult, even before actual alters get involved.

So, Mikoto most likely doesn't remember any 'good old days' he could yearn for, either because he was extremely young or because they never existed. His only option, then, is to place his hopes on the future.

The second thing is that, in spite of Mikoto most likely having earlier trauma, Haruka is far more obvious in his dysfunction. Pretty much every person he meets will at least walk away with the feeling he's kind of weird, if not worse. This only manages to reinforce his feelings that he's inferior to everyone else, and that that's an inescapable part of his being.

Meanwhile, Mikoto can trudge through life well enough to believe that achieving what he wants is within his reach, even to be expected. Surely if he works both hard and smart, he can accomplish his goals without problem. He can get a good career if he just focuses on what he's good at, choosing 'efficiency' over his interests. And he can get everyone to like him, if he just remembers to always, always be nice to them, no matter how much he'd rather not. Then he'll reap the reward of succeeding at life!

That's just how things work, right? You put in the effort to treat others well, and your reward for doing so is to have other people do the same for you. That's the basis of society! And that's also how Mikoto makes himself feel safe. If his own actions determine other people's actions, then he can stop bad things from happening to him by just not doing anything that would invite punishment. Everyone knows monsters only eat the misbehaving kids!  Just follow the rules and everything will be fine.

(That's another big difference between Mikoto and Haruka: Haruka knows he can't do what's expected of him, so by the start of Milgram he's pretty much given up on the idea of ever being accepted or sucessful. Mikoto does believe he can cut it, but that brings its own kind of helplessness: he can never stop striving with all his might, because if he ever does fall short his self-esteem will crumble to pieces.)

The trouble is, sometimes even when you do follow the rules, other people just... refuse to reciprocate. Why is that? Did you do something wrong? Well, you can't exactly go up to them and ask. Now that would certainly be a faux pas! Clearly the only choice is to figure it out yourself by ruminating on it. All night long. Hey, remember when Mikoto said that he wouldn't be able to sleep if Kotoko didn't wish him a happy birthday? Sure sounds like somebody who worries a normal amount about gestures that might possibly be snubs.

But another convo I'd like to bring up is one with Fuuta, where Mikoto shows up unprovoked to tell Fuuta that being upset about being kidnapped is dumb and childish and will get him nowhere in life, and anyways he's just doing it for attention.

This seems a bit OOC, doesn't it? Mikoto basically never criticizes anybody. When Yuno basically calls him fake to his face, he just laughs and calls her a straight shooter. When Haruka said that he's been avoiding Mikoto because he's scary, he just shrugs and goes, that's fair, I'd have done the same. Hell, even knowing that Kotoko tried to beat him half to death, he still goes to congratulate her on her birthday. So what did Fuuta say that was so much worse than all of those?

The problem, really, isn't what Fuuta said or did to Mikoto, but how Fuuta behaves with everyone. Mikoto can put up with being openly disliked; see his interactions with Kotoko. But seeing somebody so brazenly ignore the rules he's based his life around, now that affects him a way that goes beyond Mikoto as a person.

If you asked Mikoto, he'd probably say that it's because he's sad to see somebody younger than him waste his potential with such stupid, meaningless stubborness. But really, it comes back to the fact that "nothing bad will happen as long as you behave" is one of pillar's of Mikoto's life. So how is he supposed to handle seeing somebody misbehave constantly, repeteadly, and still do just as well as him? What's that supposed to mean? Do things not actually work that way? Was he just being taken advantage of? That can't be. If being nice doesn't ensure that you'll get treated well, what does? He endured so much pain because it was supposed to pay off someday. Were all his efforts so far just make-believe, a kid hiding under the blankets thinking it'll do anything?

No, no, no. It's the others who are wrong. All his suffering until now was meaningful and helpful. He knows what he must do and he's not going to stray from the right path. Those who do are just bringing punishment down onto themselves. And while he's not capable of consciously acknowledging his anger, he can always try to share some "friendly advice" about what happens to those who fight against forces greater than themselves. You can't win those battles. He never won, so of course you can't win them. Stop struggling, it's for your own good.

(Amane-Mikoto parallels? In my Haruka-Mikoto parallels post? It's more likely than you think!)

Saviors and weaklings

You might be thinking that the title says it all, really. Haruka is a weakling, Orekoto is a savior, those are opposites, the end.

Well, yes, but it's not quite that simple.

Haruka in the second trial has also taken on a protector role towards Muu. This is a fairly uncontroversial reading, so let's go take a closer look at their similarities:

-Both Haruka and Orekoto put emphasis on Es not scaring/stressing their charge any further.

-In both cases, what they're looking for is acknowledgement from the one they're protecting and a sense of being useful ("Rely on me, praise me with your song, I am your savior")

-Haruka says that Muu is the reason why he can be who he is now. The same could be said for Bokukoto and Orekoto: without the latter, the former would not be able to remain his current self.

-At the same time, the 'saviors' need their charges, just as if not more than the other way around. Haruka's life has revolved around the concept of mothers since basically forever, and we literally don't know a single thing about Orekoto outside of his role. Honestly, considering he only seems to come out during stressful situations, it's possible even he doesn't know who he is outside of being Mikoto's savior.

Even the structures of Metamorphosis of the Weak and John Doe are similar. Consider:

-The interrogation starts with the prisoner being fairly unthreatening. Mikoto is rather nervous at the start, but as soon as Es starts pretending to entertain the idea that he really hasn't committed any murders, he calms down significantly. -The prisoners feel safe thanks to Es' temporary affirmation, but this is soon swept away by Es themselves. Even as the prisoners become more and more obviously distressed, Es presses on dispassionately.

-Eventually, they become totally overwhelmed by emotion and attempt to kill Es. Haruka is stopped by Milgram's rules, Orekoto isn't.

-At this point, a different prisoner makes their appearance, whether physically or just in conversation, and the rest of the drama revolves around them. In John Doe it's of course Kotoko fighting off Mikoto, after which he's literally unconscious for the rest of the VD (except for one line), and instead the remaining time is dedicated to Kotoko and her deal.

For Metamorphosis, it's when Haruka proclaims that Muu is his real mom and starts talking about their relationship. In both cases, there's a clear shift in focus from the OG character themselves to how their actions would affect Milgram overall (Kotoko offering to stop Mikoto if he attacks again, Haruka threatening suicide).

Well, we can probably agree that Haruka is a savior of a sort. But can we close the circle and bring the comparison back around? Is Orekoto also a weakling of a sort?

To answer this, we'll need to define weakness. For this, I'll actually refer not to Haruka's voice drama's, but to Muu's. Namely, this part in Queen B:

"Es: (…) One-sided violence and mistreatment… I’m sure it was difficult to handle. It’s not unreasonable to come to the conclusion that murder is the only way for a weak person to get out of that. That’s exactly why I forgave you." Muu: Yeah… If I hadn’t done that, I could have died some day."

We hear Haruka argue something similar after Es tears him down, asking "So what should I have done!? Was I supposed to give up on myself too!?" So we could say that a weak person is somebody who's trapped by their circumstances, somebody with the deck stacked so far against them that they have no choice but to take extreme measures.

I think that's pretty much how Orekoto views his own situation. Looking at his parts of MeMe, most of the what-if sentences basically come down to "I don't want to do this, but I can't not do it either". We also have lyrics like "It’s like what’s wrong isn’t wrong" and "Is this selfish?", showing that Orekoto is also full of self-doubt about this being the right thing, but doesn't see any other choice. After all, "Hurting it, holding it down, it doesn’t change anything, does it? Ahhh, It’s the same anywhere I go".

Like Haruka, nothing he tries seems to work and he's desperately trying to survive in any way he can. Whether this "death" is on a purely emotional level or if, like Muu, it's hinting at suicide ("Maybe it’s ok to try to keep on living"), he needs to get away. It doesn't matter anymore if it's "good", so long as it works.

Of course, I'm sure Orekoto wouldn't take well to the idea that he's weak. His breakdown in John Doe was, of course, because of Es pushing Bokukoto, but his rant was almost entirely focused on how weak and pathetic Es was. It seems that in that he resembles Fuuta (who was, after all, the first prisoner to try violence): when he's scared, he tries to intimidate the threat to feel safer.

(Of course, there's something to be said for Haruka also despising his own weakness, even if his reaction to it is to worship others for being different rather than project this hatred onto them.)

(And while we're in the topic of Fuuta, it's worth noting that he's also part of the overall protector theme spanning several characters. He even relates to Haruka and Mikoto directly, in that those two are the ones he picked as "weak" people he needed to look out for)

Muu and Haruka, even before the second trial, they were both weaklings and saviors of the weak (themselves). But this doesn't apply to Mikoto, because the roles are split between the alters. There's a clear separation between the 'good', pitiable, socially acceptable Bokukoto and the 'bad' and violent Orekoto. And you know where else we see something like this? Haruka's MVs.

This is most obvious in Weakness, where the separation is at its starkest, to the point where many people didn't think Haruka's younger self was him at all. Basically, every bad thing in the video is attributed to older Haruka. Li'l Haruka plays happily with his maybe-sister, older Haruka attacks her. Li'l Haruka pets his dog while his mom smiles by his side, until older Haruka bashes its skull in. And of course, in the end older Haruka is so consumed by hatred that he chokes his terrified younger self to death. Not the first time he attacks him(self) either; back at almost the start, older Haruka shoves him into a crayon puddle, with the camera making sure to show kid Haruka's terrified expression and Haruka's cold glare.

(I want to point out the dog scene in particular. Specifically, how the younger Haruka is horrified to find blood on his hands even though he never actually laid hands on the dog. This is quite reminiscent of the scene in MeMe where Mikoto becomes afraid of his reflection's evil expression and falls backwards, only to have the devil card fall on him and corrupt all the water into blood. But an interesting difference is how, while Mikoto not remembering is just a literal retelling of events, the same shouldn't apply to Haruka. And if the girl is the same age in AKAA and in Weakness, suggested by the fact she's dressed the same in both, then she couldn't have been playing with same-age Haruka either.)

In AKAA this divide into a good, young Haruka and a bad, older Haruka is less stark, presumably because after a forgiven verdict Haruka feels less disconnected from his past as a 'good kid'. It's not gone, however. We do see his younger self kill fish and a butterfly, but the harder-hitting murders of the dog (and possibly the girl, it's hard to tell) are left to his 17-years-old self. Not to mention the sequence when his mother opens the door, which is probably the part where Haruka is framed in the most threatening way across the entire MV. That too shows us only the current Haruka, notable because just seconds before it kept switching between the two of them.

At the same time, there's also a disconnect in Weakness between current Haruka and his murders. When we see him killing somebody he actually killed in real life (that is, the girl and the dog), it's followed shortly by him waking up in his bed, framing it all as just a dream. This is very similar to how in MeMe the second scene shows Orekoto killing somebody, with the third starting with Bokukoto gently waking up, completely unaware. There's of course also the line "I’m probably just having a bad dream, I need to wake up soon", which only drives it further home.

Well, I think that wraps up my points. To TL;DR it, some themes to consider are: fixated on past/fixated on future, giving up/trying too hard, dependence on others, wanting to feel useful, black and white thinking re: oneself and viewpoints warped by childhood trauma.

For a bit of extra fun, I'd like to note some shared visual motifs between MeMe, Weakness and All-Knowing and All Agony. There won't be much meaning analysis from me here, so feel free to supply your own.

Music Videos

(Some of the screenshots repeat, that's intentional)

Surrounded by eyes: Most obvious in Weakness, but the Hanged Man in Mikoto's shirt (and less obviously, the Magician) also show something similar.

Water turning into blood: This one is somewhat dificult to show in still screenshots, but it's present in both MeMe, Weakness (when one of Haruka's teardrops fall onto the water) and arguably AKAA as well.

Red skies with a moon visible: Interestingly, this one seems to be associated with younger Haruka in Weakness (most obvious at the very start, when he and older Haruka switch rapidly, with the scene outside the window also changing). There's one very obvious moon in a red sky near the end of MeMe, but there might be another one shown in the Fool card. Lots of Mikoto's cards show circles in the upper corner of the cards (but interestingly in the Hanged Man it's at the bottom, near their head, like an halo). Whether we can consider them all moons is up to speculation, but few of them match the color scheme anyways. Speaking of which, while Weakness almost always uses grey/blue moons with red skies, there are two exceptions: when Haruka is shown killing the dog (blue sky, red moon) and in a piece of official art that shows a red moon on a red sky.

Confusion between indoors and outdoors: If you notice, literally everything in Weakness happens indoors, except for the bits where Haruka is floating in water. Even the forest has floorboards, except for a single scene. The opposite also happens: we see kid Haruka out for a walk with his mom, but they're still inside the house, with the city just being images on the wall. Meanwhile, the mindscape in MeMe shows a ruin (no walls) on an endlessly extending sea and sky (natural-ish settings), but it also reflects the structure of Mikoto's house. So is it inside or outside? Looking at the shoes, both Mikoto and younger Haruka are dressed as though they're outside, but older Haruka is wearing slippers.

Reflections not matching "reality": Note how neither Mikoto nor the coffee table show up in the water in the second image, or how the paintings go from having no reflection to having each other's reflection, with those facing the wrong way. The fourth and fifth images are also an interesting example of the reflections not even matching each other, even though the timing and framing suggest we're still looking at the same scene.

[mxrp-official-steve]

MXRP RE-BUILD BETA IS LIVE

And as you look upon the body, you hear something you didn't expect; a heartbeat.

THE BACKER-EXCLUSIVE BETA IS GOING LIVE! PHASE 1: GROUP CHATS

The ever-powerful Hex has finished up all we need to launch the initial beta of the MXRP 2023 REBUILD in all its (unfinished) glory. As stated before, though; this phase of the beta will be primarily focusing on group chats in order to test chat functionality, stress test network connection, and gauge reception to the new stuff we have cooking. It will also be exclusive to those who backed the original Kickstarter, the previous Patreon, and the CURRENT patreon prior to this post going live. Once I hit post on this, I'll be shooting all of you your beta codes. Slowly. (Because there's a lot of you and I have to do it one by one).

THINGS TO NOTE:

As the site is still in dev, pretty much everything you see is subject to change. The visuals aren't final (we've actually discussed something internally that we're not ready to speak on yet in regard to this, but I'll announce if we end up doing it), the settings menu is a little sparse, etc. In one weeks' time, I'll be posting a survey to collect feedback for me and Hex to shovel into our slavering maws and guide our hands going forward.

As this is a functionality beta, several features are currently a little fuckity wuckity (don't work). These include:

Quirking

Chat User editing (IE, acronym, name, color, etc). Site admins can change someone's defaults if they really, absolutely need it. It's a top priority to get patched in after the beta starts though.

Kicking (Kind of redundant, and the logic is weird. Hex is getting to it later)

Bbcode does not reflect live in the editor, but it does render in messages.

Certain parts of the new in-chatbar formatter don't work right (Blockquotes, etc)

The beta will also be updating periodically, as Hex will be patching features in as we go along.

For those of you who have a Beta Code from the old Patreon:

Go on your Patreon account and click Community, from here navigate to Direct Messages. You should have one from a now deleted account that looks something like this:

(This is my beta code but i own the site so uhhhhhhhh steal it from me I guess who cares ill generate myself a new one.)

For those of you who have a Beta Code from the old Kickstarter:

Check your emails- like, not recently but check 'em. Somewhere in there you should have a message from Kickstarter containing your beta code! If that fails, check your Kickstarter messages themselves! You should have a beta code!

If you encounter and wish to report a bug, or have a feature suggestion and can't wait for the survey, please use This Link! (Click the green NEW ISSUE button!)

Welcome back, MxRP-

No, welcome back MSPARP.

EDIT: I FORGOT OOPS HERES THE LINK OOPS FUCK

[the-chaos-crew]

okay this is gonna be SUPER different than most of my posts but god ding diddly dang it I'm frustrated so hear me out

I had a bad childhood, like a really bad one, as far as I know since I was 6 but my dad and older brother think I probably was affected by the insane shit since 4yrs old. which if you don't know is pretty fucking young. and that traumatic childhood lasted until I was about 11. that's a pretty long fucking time for trauma to build up over time.

now because of this shit childhood, I developed the coping mechanism known as dissociation. I often feel like I'm in a dream or I'm watching someone else live my life and it's really really weird. now sometimes though, that dissociation is taken to an extreme. and extreme where I just suddenly BLIP lose several hours or more of time and I have no memory of it.

my IRL friends have told me that during these periods of time where I just black out, I act completely differently or my behavior shifts suddenly

I've tried denying that this is a thing and at one point I did consider Dissociative Identity Disorder. I snapped out of it of course cause I'm too young for that to start disrupting my life, right? yes my abuser is gone, she'll never return, I mean how could she when she is in an urn sitting on a shelf now. but, I'm a teen now, and in therapy, I should be fine and healthy now right?

I told my therapist about how these black outs in my memory freak me out and I just cannot keep ignoring it anymore, and my therapist told me to talk to my psychiatrist cause she might know a bit more and be able to help me

you wanna know. what my psychiatrist said? what she said about this very worrying and distressing thing that affects my life and relationships?

"you're fine, it isn't affecting you that significantly" (while I was there crying cause I am honestly scared about whatever is going on) "it sounds totally normal to me, everyone gets a bit more extreme in their emotions"

LIKE WHAT. LADY. AUGHHHFHFFHH

she completely waved off my concerns.

I don't try to get into discourse in stuff I'm not even a part of, but fuck man. this is what mental illness fakers are really doing. "erm endos aren't taking resources away erm uh" BRO. MY THERAPIST KNOWS OF DID, SHE KNOWS THE ABSOLUTE SHIT I WENT THROUGH AS A KID. and yet she isn't too sure about going anywhere in that realm of possibility other than me dealing with dissociation above the average for C-PTSD sufferers. why? because my therapist has dealt with one too many fakers trying to be fucking debilitated like I am, without the actual debilitation part!

my psychiatrist is waving my concerns and problems away because she knows that a lot of kids of my generation are just saying this shit for attention or clout or to validate their delusions

mental illness fakers are making it so no one believes the people who are actually struggling and it's making me pissed off. I DONT WANT TO LOSE HOURS OF MY LIFE TO SOME OTHER FACET IN MY BRAIN. I WANT TO GET HELP FOR THIS SHIT. BUT NO ONE WILL FUCKING BELIEVE OR LISTEN TO ME.

I WONDER. FUCKING. WHY.

okay. rant over. sorry. I'm just super fucking pissed and I just want help for whatever the fuck is going on with me dude

[jaydawne]

Samuel Ramblings

As concluded by the poll, I shall now ramble about Samuel on as much as I can that I haven't mentioned yet already. So, without further ado~ Here is Even More Info™️ about Samuel under the cut (WARNINGS: Mentions of; Purposeful misgendering/deadnaming, physical and verbal bullying, obsessive behaviours [potentially parental yandery], death of a loved one, very long ass post)

So, I've already given a basic rundown on Sam in general, but now you get his

~Backstory~

(I'll get to his other interests and such in another post probably, this got a lot longer than I thought it would) So, Samuel essentially grew up in a household where he was very much loved and cared for, however the way said love and care went was a biiit, askew to say the least. His parents were very helicoptery, wanting to know everything going on with him at every given moment, even going so far as to pull him out of school in order to keep a closer eye on him and teach him things themselves (It is at this point that I think I might have accidentally made his parents kinda yanderey, but without the whole killing thing. Not sure but I'll add that to the warnings/tags anyway just in case). Admittedly another part of that was because Sam was often bullied for his appearance, the other kids finding him to look too weird to be normal, calling him mean names, excluding him during playtime, stealing his food, general mean little kid stuff, but it still didn't really excuse pulling Sam out of school altogether. They even went so far as to put a tracker on him so they'd always know where he is. They're also very in denial about Samuel being trans, calling it a 'phase' and insisting that he's still their 'precious little baby girl' no matter what he says or does. Luckily though, it wasn't all horrible all the time, Samuel had his uncle, Boris, and his little cousin Brody, who had the same heterochromia as him, just in opposite eyes. Boris was a wonderful uncle, he adored and accepted Sam and always did his best to tell Sam not to listen to anyone who tells him to be anything other than himself. Boris taught Sam many things both fun and practical, like how to play a guitar, lock-picking for just in case purposes of course, basic self defence and cooking, anything he could that he thought Sam might need to know in the future. He knew Sam's parents wouldn't teach him anything that would help him survive away from them, so he wanted to do everything he could for him so that if Sam were ever able to get out, he wouldn't be completely unable to help himself. Brody, meanwhile, adored Samuel, and wants to be 'just like him' someday. He's pretty much more like a little brother to Sam than anything else, and he thinks his big cousin is just the coolest ever, and often refers to him as 'Samsam'. They were practically inseparable whenever Samuel came over, also cheering and hugging each other tight when they saw the other. It always made Boris smile to see them so close. Unfortunately though, things couldn't be this happy forever, because when Samuel was 10, something happened to Boris that caused him to pass away (I'm still undecided on what that is, either illness or car accident), meaning Samuel no longer had a safe space he could go to, and Brodi had to go live with his grandparents who live outside of the US. Thus, Samuel was alone, but he wasn't out of hope. He'd had enough. So, he did the only rational thing an 10 year old could think of: he ran away from home Psychonauts anyone? No? Okay then- Admittedly, it did take him a while to do so, but he managed by the time he was 11, and had also taken out the tracker so they couldn't find him. He took a lot of measures to make sure they couldn't find him for a while at the least... This is how he ended up coming across a junkyard, intending to lay low there for a bit until he figured out how he would earn money in order to live on his own. At least, that was the idea, until he ran into a pre-mutation Repo Mantis (who I will be calling 'Manny' as 1. he is not a mantis yet and 2. I yoinked the name from @/rottmnt-risuum , go read their comic it's so good, just mind the gore if you're not into that). Luckily, however, instead of kicking Sam out, he decided to make an offer; Sam can help out in the yard in exchange for cash and a place to live until he's able to make it on his own, to which Samuel accepted. Manny may be a greedy guy, but he ain't the heartless type to leave a kid to rot.

 From that point on for the next roughly 2 years, Samuel would help around the yard, doing tasks that are reasonable for a kid his age, and if anyone were to give him any trouble for any reason, Manny would handle it and add some compensation to make up for whatever it was Sam had to deal with. He may seem like the kind of guy to not care a lot, but he has a pet kitten and kept her even after she mutated and tried to eat him for crying out loud, he has some softness under that Brooklyn accent somewhere, and sure enough he'd grown to like Samuel, becoming a sort of surrogate father/uncle figure to him. Somewhere along that line Samuel was somehow also able to procure HRT and start on that, but how it happened I will never know. It's a show with talking turtle ninjas that have magic I don't have to be logical about things ALL the time.

Soon enough, when Samuel was 12, he managed to save up enough to get himself an apartment and was even able to get into a school and find a relatively okay job that didn't know he was not 14 because he sorta kinda lied on his resume- It was worth it though, he was glad he did it. He was finally able to be independent and not need to rely on others help to get a better life, but he will always be grateful to Manny for everything, and still visits him at least a few times a week either to just hang out or do favours, like fixing something or taking care of Mrs Nubbins, in exchange for being able to scrounge around for parts that he can use for any projects he's working on either for practice or to get one step closer to his dream of being a mechanic/technician. Manny only ever pretended to keep score of how many favours Sam could cash in. As far as he was concerned, Sam could take anything he wanted, within reason at least.

Of course, this doesn't mean Samuel is completely free. He still needs to be wary of his parents, as they're out there looking for him. They almost did find him at one point, but he was able to move somewhere else before they did, but he had to change his contact details and other such things in order to keep them off his trail. It's a song and dance he'd have to go through generally once or twice a year at least, three or maybe four if he's unlucky. He doesn't have a lot with him, so it makes the process easier, but it's never any less nerve wracking or stressful, not to mention expensive. But he's been getting more and better jobs, and eventually he didn't need to lie about his age on his resume anymore, which was a huge relief off his shoulders if he were perfectly honest. He still got bullied at his new school though, again for his appearance, which was unfortunate.

 His main bullies were these two guys, Kyle and Lyle, who sometimes had one or two other guys with them to join in on tormenting Samuel as much as they could, calling him him things like 'freak' or 'monster' or 'failed Frankenstein' (which Sam often wants to correct that Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster), even going so far as to beat him on the odd occasion. Safe to say, Sam can't really catch much of a break. That is, at least, until one night he sees a video of his employer's kid, Baxter Stockkid, making yet another one of his videos again. He goes to the Stock 'n Shop in order to stop Baxter from doing anything stupid that would get himself into trouble with his parents, only to end up meeting April from school, and two very green very three-fingered people that are very clearly not human despite their cosplayer claims. They are very clearly not cosplayers, he can smell the turtley-ness on them. He's more intrigued by them than freaked though, finding them rather cool and interesting. After that whole situation is over and done with, Samuel ensures that any video footage Baxter might have taken of the turtles is erased in order to protect their secrecy, and also put up a firewall to prevent any of such videos being released in case Baxter had any backups somewhere he didn't know about. It was after this that Sam and April actually met up properly and started to bond, earning Samuel his first friend of a similar age group, and also someone who can and will stick up for him when Kyle and Lyle try shit, which he greatly appreciates but also tries to discourage as he doesn't want her caught up in his shit. It's not long after that when Samuel, while rummaging around Repo's junkyard, he comes across Donnie for the first time. It catches them both quite off guard, but after a moment Samuel recalls Manny mentioning some troublesome turtles stealing that movie buggy he'd found a couple weeks ago, and figured that this terrapin likely is not exactly on friendly terms with the mantis mutant. Thus, he warns Donnie of when Manny would be doing his rounds and that he should get what he needs and go before he's caught before leaving himself as to not draw attention. Skip to a week later, April decides to properly introduce Sam to the turtles and cue recognition and mild shenanigannery, solidifying Samuel as a friend of the turtles. Aaaaaand that's about it! For the most part that is, this is just up to being properly brought into it, there is still a bit regarding his time with the turtles, let alone his change in species and whatnot. That can be for another post on another day, hopefully not several months from now-