#this got long and ranty

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[zombiecowboy65]

See because we always talk about Jeremy riding that thang like his life depends on it but nobody wants to talk about Jean getting his well deserved weinering

Ok this wasn’t ur question but I’m gonna air my grievances . The day this fandom learns what a subtop is or simply stops trying to sell me this idea that Jean has to bottom bc he doesn’t know how to top (how hard can it fucking be 😭) (also it’s way harder to bottom imo but whatever) or that Jeremy kinda has to coach him thru sex like he’s a parent or that Jeremy is the one calling the shots and Jean is ASKING him to (which just feels like a cop out to me) (and it’s different if u like sub Jean ) (typing this caused me pain) (but like do u get what I’m saying? It’s like well it can’t be wrong to have Jean submit because he ASKED ) is the day I will maybe try to approach bottom Jean again.

Idk I think there is untapped potential in powebottom Jean , and my friend once sent me this meme of someone texting their partner that they were like . Going to ride them until they died or something. And the partner send back a fearful cat pic LMFAO. And was like this is jerejean. And I was like so true .

But yeah. And everyone’s got their own opinions but for the past year everyone was pushing bottom submissive Jean so hard and running with labels they didn’t know the definition of. So I kinda turned off even thinking about it , not because I don’t think they’re verse but because I knew the reaction it would get if I even put that content out there and I was not feeding a monster haha. Sorry if this literally sounds batshit insane.

(Also there was like this notion that he HAD to bottom for some reason? Like Jeremy also didn’t have an ass. And it wasn’t even like he wanted to bottom it was just kinda expected of him? Like every fic was like oh well we don’t have to fuck. U could just? Flip it around ? Like why does he have to bottom and why are u immediately jumping straight to anal sex lmfao)

(But again I want to emphasize I’m not saying he can’t bottom I just hated the approach of the fandom and like ppl can create what they will and I also can create the content I want but…)

[chocosvt]

got in trouble for reading a book (a physical book - not smth off my phone) at work cuz it was slow 😭

[catsandgoodbooks]

So. Punz and George. They're both very much defined by their relationships with Dream, probably more than anyone else on the server. It's hard to talk about Punz without bringing up Dream, and it's hard to talk about George without referencing him either. They have lives, of course, but Dream is always at the forefront of their minds. Punz spent a whole year of their life just waiting for Dream's escape; George dreams away the days even after the jailbreak in a fantasy world of his imagination where everything is perfect and he can be with Dream.

But they don't really have a relationship. They don't talk, especially not about Dream, because that would show that they cared, and George is trying to deny that to himself after the dethronement and Punz cannot allow anyone to consider even for a moment that they are on Dream's side or it was all for nothing. So the relationship they do have, weak and distant as it is, is based on bitterness and perceived betrayals and envy.

George doesn't really think about Punz much. If he did, he'd had to think about Dream, and not his Dream, not the Dream that exists only in his dreams now, but the actual, real Dream. The Dream who dethroned him without a second glance. The Dream he abandoned. The Dream locked away in an obsidian prison, rotting away as George sleeps. And George doesn't want to think about Punz. Not when it pulls him out of his dreams and makes him think about Dream.

When he does think about Punz, though, he's not exactly a fan of them. They betrayed Dream; undeniably, inexcusably, they did. They had his trust, and they threw it away for a little extra bit of money. George would never do something like that. Dream left first, after all. Dethroned George first and told him he didn't care what happened to him. Dream never did that to Punz.

And that's important. Dream never turned against Punz; they were the one who chose to betray him. Dream never quite trusted George the same way he did with Punz, and, in the period leading up to the dethronement, he let George in on less and less of his plans, grew closer and closer to his mercenary. George told himself it was because Dream wanted to keep him safe. After the dethronement, he accepted the fact that Dream just didn't care about him anymore, and that it had been a sign of that.

George tells himself that if he had been in the situation as Punz, if Dream trusted him, he would of never done what they did.

Punz...doesn't have a great opinion of George, to tell the truth. They might of pretended to betray Dream, but George (and Sapnap, and everyone who was there and just watched it happen) is the one who actually did. George left. He left and didn't come back, didn't even show up for the arrest/execution (because that's what it really was, an execution, no use dancing around it). He didn't even go visit Dream in Pandora's Vault, even when he had every chance to, even when he didn't have a plan dictating that he absolutely could not do that. Not like Punz did.

Unreliable. Untrustworthy. Uncaring. Those are the nicest words for what George is, at least to Punz. Dream died, twice, and George was nowhere to be found. Just because Dream had been trying to keep him safe. To make sure people didn't try to target George to hurt Dream. And George just left, like that was an option in this game they were all playing, that none of them save Wilbur had chosen to play, like you could just throw up your hands and say "okay, that's it, I'm done" and leave with immunity, taking everything you've done with you. That wasn't how the world worked. And it didn't matter if George understood that or not, because it still hurt Dream, and that was what was important. Because what George did was a betrayal, and because they were already familiar enough with that to know how bitter it tasted. Because Punz had to constantly pretend and reap what they had sown and deal with this betrayal they had committed - not the one they were infamous for but the one in their heart and their brain and the way people looked at them and laughed with them and the way they had agreed to the plan and let Dream die and the sneaking suspicion they had, growing louder every day, that something had gone wrong and that they had to do something about it but that too would be a betrayal - but George didn't, just because he had been there earlier and knew some people longer. Because people trusted him more and he didn't have to prove how reliable he was and how much he hated Dream and all that.

And because George had Dream's love in a way Punz never could. Dream loved too freely, that much was true, but he flinches at every motion Punz that was a little too fast, a little too sudden, and makes sure to call everything a business arrangement, makes sure they're mercenary and client, makes sure to suppress any little trace of attachment that could get either of them hurt. And, even now, even after George has gone and left, Dream still loves George; Punz isn't too blind to reality to miss it. And they had kinder days together, back before everything went wrong; there were no kinder days for Punz, and there never had been.

Despite everything, they're two sides of the same coin: wishing for something that is no longer reachable, no longer possible, because things have changed and because people have changed. Because Dream has changed, partially due to the decisions they made, and there isn't anything they can do to go back to how it was. Not truly.

And neither of them really care about anything or anyone else. They're not here to fight for ideals or morals, they just want to keep the people they love safe and away from the people who would want to hurt them. They are willing to kill for it, but, because of who Dream is, and because that would put them in danger, they can't. They're not allowed to, explicitly in Punz's case, implicitly by Dream pushing George away. Because Dream wants to keep the people he cares about safe, and that can't happen if it looks like he cares about them or vice versa.

(It's only okay if Dream's the one getting hurt, after all)

[otgo-brooklyn]

MDZS Seven Deadly Sins!AU

[cheetahspy]

can we have the backstory of lottie?

Anon…my sweet, sweet anon, making my heart flutter with questions about my OC’s…I apologize profusely for taking literal months to answer, but please believe me when I say I genuinely appreciate your ask, and it seriously makes my day🤧 Lottie’s story is still wonky and a rough draft here and there, but I have a gist. Let’s get started! Ramble ahead-

Charlotte, aka Lottie, my self-insert for Matt Reeve’s Batverse!

She’s lived in Gotham her entire life (she dreams of escaping it, someday). She had a decent childhood, growing up in lower middle class with a younger sister and two hard working parents.

When Lottie was 13, her sister died from brain cancer, and when she was 17 her parents died in a nasty car crash (that escalated fast, lol). After a couple months of living with a family friend, she went off on her own.

The first few years of adulthood Lottie worked as a substitute teacher. She attended community college at the same time, working toward a degree in journalism. After getting her associates degree, she took a 2 year break from college to focus on work as money was getting too tight.

At 22, Lottie’s friend approached her about a new job opportunity: a receptionist at KTMJ, desperate and hiring immediately. Eh, why not? It was random, but the pay was higher and more steady than her current job. So she took up the offer.

(Yep, you know what’s next- the most cliche x reader ahh crap, but I live for self-insert cliches, OK!?)

Insert Edward Nashton! He doesn’t think twice about newcomers, he never does…why would he?? Until of course, she starts trying to make conversation. …what? Someone’s trying to talk to him? And be friendly? And ask if he’s going to the coworker hang outs, as if she wants him there? It’s probably a prank, what other explanation is there? What a jerk-

Oh, wait no she’s being genuine. But it’s born out of pity, she doesn’t actually care-

Oh…she does care, like actually, and a lot…

Okaaay you get the gist. The two grow closer over the next two years, very slowly mind you, but there’s progress nonetheless because Lottie quite likes this introverted little weirdo.

Then the two years pass, and at 24 Lottie earns her bachelor’s degree. Almost immediately, she receives an opportunity to work as an investigative journalist for Gotham News. Caught up in her excitement, she takes the job without a second thought and even moves far across the other side of the city for it! …leaving a rather upset soggy white boy behind.

Lottie feels guilty, she didn’t want to make Edward feel abandoned! But it’s not abandonment, it’s just a new job…that doesn’t mean they can’t keep in touch and still be close! Unfortunately, for Edward, that’s exactly what that means. He should’ve known this would happen, just another person leaving, as always. Lottie tries to reason with him, but in Edward’s troubled mind, the bridge is already burned. So the two lose contact for quite a while.

Fast forward about a year and a half. Lottie stumbled across her own suspicions and has begun to look into potential corruption happening within the system. On her own terms of course, her boss is an ass.

It leads her down a rabbit hole, eventually stumbling across the Riddler’s website. She gets all these oddly specific and familiar cryptic messages, riddles and clues, and- oh my gosh is this-

No, of course it isn’t who she’s thinking! Why would it be him?! This…Riddler guy is an absolute maniac, going on about this “day of judgment” plan, with all these creepy followers feeding into it. Sure, Lottie agrees with him, to a small extent; the system is rigged and nothing is getting done about it- but he’s insane, Edward would never, it can’t be him-

Well, big womp womp because Lottie does find out Edward is the Riddler! Ohh the angst and conflicting emotions-! After so long they’re face to face again, but this isn’t the same man Lottie fell for…or maybe…maybe it is…

Aaaand…that’s about where they’re at, you get the idea, I’ve rambled enough for now :)

Hopefully I answered your question, lmao, I can’t tell if I went off the rails and rambled too many unnecessary details, or if I didn’t give enough information…I did a bit more than just backstory I think.

If you made it to the end, thank you for reading and taking an interest in my self insert cringe, I appreciate you😭 Let me know what you think, and if you want more of this content :)

Oh and hey, I have character hub! None of my ocs are public on there yet, but I plan to change that soon. If you want to follow it and keep updated on my characters, click here!

[piosplayhouse]

what are your controversial wwx views? 👀 (asking as a fellow controversial wwx view-haver)

In the grand scheme of things I personally think my opinions are pretty lukewarm but I got a lot of shit a while back for making a post saying that it's important to acknowledge that wwx has privilege as a male cultivator member of the gentry and certified genius, and that that's important because even though he knows that his position in society is extremely tenuous and that so many people are willing to fight to force him to lose it, he still chooses to stand up for those even lower in society (in that post I was thinking specifically of the women in mdzs, particularly the brothel women because they're basically never considered). And then? A bunch of people started shittalking me because apparently wwx is the most underprivileged character in the story? And he's lower status than even the non cultivating sex workers because he was homeless as a kid?

I'm also neutral-positive on Jiang Cheng and made the great sin of making a completely neutral poll asking for people's opinions on him correlating with if they grew up with siblings and got a bunch of accusations of being a wwx anti, rigging the poll, and misrepresenting the answers (the results of which were completely even btw) based off . The fact I used a picture of grapes as the poll banner. Yeah . Wwx was never mentioned in the poll at all also. You can probably still find all that shit if you search my username, anons were just fully accidentally pinging me and everything, it's why I don't name search any more even though I know some people make posts based off my ideas but are afraid of pinging me (don't be btw!!! Please ping me 🥺🥺)

I actually really didn't like wwx in my first read-through of mdzs because I really related to teen lwj and felt very personally about the idea of overly pushy boundary breaking teenager attitudes, but I definitely grew to like him lol. I don't know how much that shows through in my posts, I think I've made a few comments about thinking that he was definitely a little bit of a dick as a teen but I don't know how controversial that is

So overall I'm sorry to disappoint, not very controversial opinions, but I've gotten so much grief for them anyways you'd think I posted some shit like wwx is my least favorite character in all of fiction 😵‍💫😵‍💫 there's probably more stuff that could be considered controversial but I'm so disconnected from mdzs fandom at this point that I don't really know what the general consensus is. I'd love to hear yours though!!!! Feel free to anon or message or whatever you feel comfortable with, I won't judge

[sparrowchute]

Hihi this is so random but I saw your tag on the green blue hetrochromia thing for Richtofen and I wanted to say that's actually a really old fandom trope! Back on DeviantArt I recall a lot of artists drawing Ed w/ green eyes but I believe at some point it was made cannon that his eyes were blue so people began doing hetrochromia...Though honestly I could be misremembering, all I know is that ppl have been drawing him with one blue and one green eye since at least 2011! :-3

WHAAAT OH MY GOD THATS SO COOL I was wondering bc I started seeing it around more often lately, but I had no idea where it came from :0 the closest thing that I cld even think of was that in Origins (I think it was Origins anyways??? i cld be completely misremembering) they accidentally made Richtofen's eyes green for a bit (or maybe it was on purpose who knows what was happening with Origins, Samantha was American for like five minutes bc of how little they knew what they were doing dfhgjdfgjks) and then immediately went back to blue :sob: It grabbed my attention bc a very similar thing happened with the Ace Attorney fandom regarding Phoenix Wright's eyes :> in official art his eyes seem to swap between blue and brown a lot, so most artists (myself included teehee) adopted heterochromia as a headcanon for him!! I'm a VERY long time cod zombies fan going on like?? 13 years now I think if my xbox's achievement tracker is to be trusted???? but im only recently starting to interact with the wider fandom for it and i am VERY quickly learning that ive got a lot of catching up to do :(( once my laptop is fixed though i am drawing SO MUCH OF THESE FREAKS AUGHH

[moony-balloons]

Just going to talk a bit about irl stuff for a minute, mostly to get it out.

So, 2024 was rough for me. I had a pretty stable job I'd gotten in 2020 that I quit in March 2024, actually pretty close to the 4-year mark. There was a time when I was happy at that job, but the burnout came for me and it got me good. Team was understaffed and we were in emergency catch-up mode for like 2 years, which is just completely unsustainable. My brain was frying and I was BORED -- like, staring blankly at my computer screen for 20 minutes at a time bored, but my productivity numbers were... not the highest but getting better, yknow? The worst part of it was that I was the only person assigned to handle incoming chats (customer-facing tech support position, I did chats and emails and everyone except me was phone and emails) and no one else really understood that chats. are. slow. but not slow enough for there to actually be time to tab out and work on a totally different problem in an email because by the time I got reoriented on what I was supposed to be doing on this email, the chat person responded, so I have to go back to reply to them again. repeat 4-5 times and I finally wrap up the chat and get all of that documented and then try for the 7th time to get started on that email and notice that one of my coworkers, inattentive that they are, didn't notice I had already pulled that email out of the pile and put my name on it, so it's done already and whatever work I did manage to get done was now wasted. 2 minutes between replies is a totally normal pace for a troubleshooting conversation between two people over chat but 2 minutes is just long enough that waiting is an eternity but not long enough to actually get anything meaningful done on a totally different task. yknow. and simply letting us work from home would have kept me there but that was impossible because This Job Can't Be Done From Home (unless it's overtime, you can do overtime from home on nights and weekends. impossible to do if it's before 5 pm on a weekday though. it would break the laws of physics.)

So I quit that job after months and months of deliberation and job searching, I hadn't found another job just yet but I had one that looked real promising, but more importantly, for the sake of my mental health I just Could Not Do It Anymore. like we're talking I took a week off for mental health and at like 8:15 am on the monday I came back I was in tears. But what kept me there for so long was largely a fear of the unknown, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, etc. I could get another job but what if that job is worse? It'll probably be worse. This job is good and I'm just a failure of a human and will never get anything better, nothing better even exists, what a ridiculous thing to even think.

So I quit that job and panic and grieve it like it was a long term, rocky relationship. and it kinda was. May rolls around and I get another job, and guys you'll never guess what! It was worse, just like I was afraid of. I was able to do it from home but in every other sense, it was worse. I had to quit that one pretty quick ALSO for mental health reasons, this time more from the actual conversations I was having with customers than anything from the company or my coworkers. although a little bit from my coworkers because half the people who got transferred to me were people who I could not help and who needed to be sent to a DIFFERENT department and they'd tell me they had already BEEN transferred around like 3 times. and I hate that for them. but that does not change the fact that I do not have the ability to help them with this particular task and the people in the other department do. What made this one rough was that I was providing support for backup generators, which includes a lot of talking to people who are in pretty dire straits after a natural disaster who I was not really able to help because everyone else in the area ALSO needed help and there were a finite number of technicians in the area to schedule repairs with. I talked to old disabled people who needed power for their medical equipment and couldn't evacuate, I talked to someone who was dragged out of her bed at 2 am by the local fire department after her carbon monoxide alarm went off due to the generator being incorrectly installed and just pumping the shit into her house. Like. I can deal with people who are mad because they can't do their job because this product isn't working. I can't deal with people whose health and safety are at risk, especially in a situation where I don't have anyone I can send there to help. There's nothing I can personally do. At most, I can call the local repair place for you, but if they're already not answering their phone and their voicemail box is full then I'm not likely to get any further than you are. There was also the weird overt sexism, from women going "oh I'm just a girl I don't understand any of this stuff" and men going "you don't know what you're talking about, is there a man there I can talk to". Older folks from the sound of it, but like. ??? yall? what year is this.

Anyway I quit that second job in August and have been unemployed since and am losing my soul in the job search. And the longer I go without having anything new to add to my resume or anything to account for that gap aside from "uh I've been. playing minecraft..." the worse it's gonna get. I initially intended to try and grab some certifications but turns out? Those are expensive for someone on a $0 income. And also it's real tough to make myself basically do homework to study for a test if I don't actually have a deadline for this test.

I've found myself regretting quitting my job the first time last year, not that I can undo it now -- and yes they are hiring for my old position still, but after the response I got from one person who I asked to be my reference after I left, I don't think they want me back lol. (I don't think this person meant to be as mean as they were, but I had really looked up to them and their response was basically that I needed to work on my work ethic and it bothered some people that I got less done than they did and they linked me an article that was basically "it matters that everyone thinks you're a jerk, here's how to fix it". and then they were like oh but I saw someone with the name [name] spelled just the same way yours is and I thought of you, wishing you well! and, dear reader, that is not how I spell my name. we worked together for almost 4 years. it's fine. I clearly didn't matter as much to you as you did to me and it's fine.)

anyway anyway anyway. the goal was to get a job by the end of january but I blinked and half of that is gone already so fuck everything I guess, the real goal is by the end of february now but I'm trying to get back on the job application grind. however if I have to do one more "skills evaluation" that is just a series of the same 4 vague questions reworded 80 times I may go postal. do you like getting simple assignments? do you like getting complicated assignments? do you dislike getting simple assigments? do you dislike getting complicated assignments? do you prefer simple assignments? do you prefer complicated assignments? are you unhappy when you get simple a--

[crippled-peeper]

i suspect im hypermobile if it turns out whats going on with me isn't injury-related; or that I'm hypermobile ontop of an injury and (gasp) watch this:

see how i shut the fuck up and didn't compare my disability to yours which is very obviously more severe and far more disabling? so easy!!! wow!!!!! amazing!!! :|

as a disabled person i still have a lot of privilege with whatever i have going on. yeah it sucks sometimes i can get out of bed every day. yeah it hurts like hell and i feel like I'm dying but i can walk up stairs if i need to. yeah i use a wheelchair but only on the bad days/if its a longer outing.

its not hard to accept when other people have it worse than you. it doesn't make you less """special"". god your anons piss me off 💀

I wish more people had the same attitude as you about other disabled people instead of automatically devolving into “if you think you have it worse than me in a single situation, you’re a violent ableist who’s just like a terf” lol

a lot of social commentary on this site about disability has transformed into having no connection to any real events or problems in the real world and are instead “theory” based . example: “if you think mental disability and physical disability are different, you’re just like a terf of disabled people!!!!” when historically these communities have ALWAYS had at least SOME degree of separation and nobody has fucking died from physically disabled people speaking about their marginalization

not everyone but a significant portion of the hEDS community on here falls into the same trap thinking that just because they’re physically disabled, they automatically know everything about physical disabilities, even ones they don’t have (or they ‘predict’ they’ll have later)

It does get very tiring having 250 of the same exact “zebras” telling me I am a evil violent ableist monster who should have my head exploded for saying spinal implants are a last-resort treatment

I am ironically one of TWO people on this site I know with a spinal cord injury and I never have called myself a fucking zebra or felt the desire to??? having rare deadly conditions isn’t a gender identity or an outfit I wear or a badge of honor. It’s fucking traumatizing. I lost my family. It’s not fun for me and I’m not privileged for it

[tasty-littl-snack]

Dang, Eugene apparently hated the job?? That’s insane but oh so funny. He really just said “see ya hoes. I’m finally free.” They all seem so fake and forced tbh. Watcher seems so genuine in everything they do, it’s why I love them so much.

Now I'm gonna put a disclaimer that my only knowledge of him not liking this is the impression I got from his goodbye video, multiple comments from fans on reddit that he's not been in their content for more than a year and that it came as no surprise to the fanbase. That's what I gather from people being genuine fans of that channel, and the annoucement video and Eugene's are the only two videos (not counting the phoning it in ep with shane but I didn't watch anything else) are the only content I watched from the try guys aside from one "rise and fall of the try guys" video from a commentary youtuber last year to understand what the drama was back then.

My impression from his video was "what the fuck were you doing in that channel for that long you are very talented individual I wish you the best".

I genuinely am not the person to judge if people are fake or not or what's more real or genuine. All I know about him is that he was a fan favorite and the only non-white try guy from the main four. With this consideration, firing him and telling the news outlets that "It was neccessary for Eugene to leave for us to progress" and making a joke about him being dead in the announcement video feels very fucking racist to me, especially because the video is headlined by two white men who are almost indistinguishable. That video feels fake to me as a non-fan (now hater) of the try guys, feels very cynical and a cashgrab. It did not make me want to subscribe and I am the most objective person to judge this just like many commentary channels who didn't know who watcher was before all this.

Now I heard that "this announcement was geared towards the fans" and the joke about Eugene being dead is kind of an inside one for the fanbase that I couldn't get being a bystander. That's fine, okay not for me. What I don't like is that the announcement video of watcher was also geared towards their greatest fans who have half a braincell to not be entitled. To me "goodbye youtube" is a cinematic masterpiece and I feel robbed of not being able to appreciate it fully because we had the racist virtoil spew on watcher for uhhh daring to leave youtube and say fuck the alghorytm. That's apparently bad when 2/3 of the cofounders are not white, but when 2/3 cofounder ceos are white and let go of the only non white one that's great and superb and what people want.

Like when you are parting ways with a man of color and hiring mostly white cast members and want your fans to pay money that's fine. If watcher wants to keep employing people (most of them who are people of color) and keep making content on the same level it was now and improve? Very bad because their video wasn't funny or something.

Ignoring the fact that it was in line with the last two making watcher episodes, and they had a very nice narrative of presenting the streamer in the watcher weekly + set with mood lights and as a nod to their first ever watcher photoshoot. They are sentimental guys! That was the point of that video, it was end of an era and I saw some of the choices for Eugene's parting video it was equally sentimental and genuine besides that one jab at sad couch video. Like fuck, maybe it is to you to me it's an expression of who they are and I think that Watcher really loves their fans they are just worse at PR and people will swallow everything if it's presented nicely and by two white men.

[triptychgardener]

a third friendsim featuring whatever human children in hauntswitch should start off with joey and the other human protagonist[s] before actually getting into the thick of it [and maybe end with befriending calliope and also have a fight with crockertier mspar to the tune of carne vale because remember there is one awol splinter of mspar]

Iiiiii probably would need to replay the games in order to fully understand this. It's been quite a while since I played any of the game. Personally I'm not sure I would really Want to see a continuation of Friendsim at this point. I think (personally) the games started getting weaker when they forsook actually exploring the characters in favor of acting upon an overarching metastory. Part of it is just I feel like having a variety of authors in Pesterquest leads to some very inconsistent quality. I think Jade's arc is really excellent, Roxy's is for the most part wonderful, and there is a lot of good writing! But then you get stuff like Jane's route, or the disrespect given to Kanaya, and it just sort of made me unenthusiastic. And when it started getting to the end, where routes like Feferi's were basically nonexistent in favor of the metaplot... I feel like it defeated the purpose of having these little bite-sized character exploration episodes. I wouldn't hate to see like, a genuine sequel that follows more of a coherent story, but that feels more like the realm of fanon more than anything. I think philosophically Pesterquest is about sealing these characters in as their most, like, archetypal selves. The whole story isn't unaware of this, since MSPAR's whole thing is about solving people's problems and making friends. It's very much aiming to be a "fix-it," but it's notable that, like, a lot of it (especially the alpha kids) takes these characters as independent from each other, rather than intertwined. I'm not gonna pretend this is in anyway a coherent criticism beyond some light nitpicks and some mild hypocrisy on my part. I think after seeing what Vast Error did with the Friendsim format in Snowbound Blood leaves the original product feeling a little weak by comparison. Or the strong thematics that the fanmade Friendsim Volume 2 is dealing with. I think postcanon Homestuck's utter indecisiveness over the nature of fandom is part of why so much of postcanon swings between toothless and bitter, and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If they were willing to tell an actual story, I'd be interested.

[themadmanofbloomington]

In the long run for the adults it's better, and sometimes for the kids, if any, it can be too, I have slowly come to terms with my parents being apart, and how it has ultimately made my life better and worse, the part that made it worse wasn't the fault of the divorce though, it was all my dad's fault. I am both forever indebted to him and under compensated by him for his actions. If it weren't for him divorcing my mom I'd be stuck in the monotony of the church he was a pastor for, probably wouldn't realize my (lack of) sexuality, I'd still be oblivious to all the harm so many so called Christians were advocating for, I'd never have played half of the games I have now that have shaped me, wouldn't have made any online friends, but at the same time I would've had a healthy group of people who I could call my IRL friends, I'd still live in my childhood home, I wouldn't have had to leave my life behind twice, I'd still be close to the side of my family I care about.

i love divorce i love when people realize that they aren't a good fit for each other and get divorced about it. more people should get divorced

[lyss-overcomplicates-everything]

It's creepy when trees look like they have eyes that are looking at me-

TO YOU.

I find it comforting. I am being watched, looked after. If I die a horrible death then let it be around trees so that at least they can watch over me. If I cannot talk to anyone, the trees will listen and they will not judge. The best memories of my childhood are surrounded by trees that are looking. And if they are not kind, they are fair. You respect them and they respect you. Some stains in your jeans, some rips in your shirt, mud caked onto your shoes and smeared on your face and covering your hands? You call these, and the calluses, and the scrapes and bruises a price to pay, and not an experience to be treasured? Do you not see the beauty in nature as well as the ruthlessness? Do you not stare at the lake, at the mountains, at the sky, for hours on end? Do you only think of fear, and the worst that could happen? If so, I am sorry for you who does not know the comfort of being seen by the trees.

[gristlegrinder]

already not looking forward to the discourse on reddit about what the next story update’s going to include just btw. because people are already mad about the idea that there might be living mursaat.

but like… the mursaat are a group that believe they have to fight tooth and nail for their survival— they’re exiles from nayos. they committed horrible atrocities to try and defy the flameseeker prophecies. it’s why they take the seers’ betrayal in the war against zhaitan so personally. even if the titans are tearing them to shreds, it is fully believable that a small handful of tyrian mursaat are lucky enough to run like hell, and smart enough to not say anything about it. that’s what they do. they hide in the shadows.

and arenanet has confirmed that this did in fact happen. at least two mursaat survived, at least long enough to get away— we just don’t know what happened next. (whether those mursaat would ever go back to bava nisos, or if this is just laying groundwork for future expansions, is another question).

i actually think it’s way more interesting if the mursaat are still alive by the skin of their teeth in extremely limited numbers than if every interesting elder race is completely extinct and we’re never allowed to see them in the flesh ever again. i think that’s a more interesting way to explore history, acknowledging that there are rarely clean breaks between “then” and “now.” the ancient world still breathes if you listen closely to it. ruins are what you make of them.

that doesn’t contradict the prophecy heralding the burning of their city and the deaths of their people. that doesn’t even contradict livia’s actions in siren’s landing! when she says that the mursaat are extinct, she could genuinely believe that all tyrian mursaat are dead with lazarus (unaware of any more survivors— besides mabon, who doesn’t count). if there are surviving mursaat outside of high-ranking white mantle overseers, those who would know (mabon, realistically) are unlikely to share that information with the woman who has vowed revenge against them. or even with isgarren, when their relationship is already fraught with tension from their shared history and the slaughter of isgarren’s people.

not to mention we don’t even know if we’re getting tyrian mursaat in this update. there are non-tyrian mursaat! we could be dealing with a bunch of bloodstone ghost mursaat! maybe it’s just mabon coming back from the dead! maybe everything we’re going to learn about the mursaat ruins will exclusively come from lore books!

this is not coming out of nowhere. they’ve been setting this up since secrets of the obscure and i am really, really excited to see where it’s leading!!!!!!! i think it’s a really fun way to play around with some of the established worldbuilding and flesh it out further! but if i have to see one more post about how getting new mursaat content during the janthir expansion doesn’t make sense(????) i’m going to explode

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

I have been told many (many. many. many) times that my glasses+contacts would be covered if I just had better insurance! And I feel like a lot of people don't understand that. that's not true. so I am going to explain how much of my eyesight insurance covers (op pls tell me if you don't want this on your post)

My family's insurance covers about six months of contacts per year! If you do your math correctly, this means I'm stretching a contact twice as long as it is supposed to last. I do not recommend this, mostly because it is unsafe because the contacts start drying out and will dry your eyes out.

I used to not wear contacts! I used to wear glasses, and if we spent no money on contacts, I could get a new pair of glasses every year. This may seem like an abundance of glasses! However, I have needed glasses since kindergarten and my prescription gets significantly worse every year, meaning I can't really see with year-old glasses (or year-old contacts, actually).

You may be asking why I don't use glasses anymore. While I'm not going to show you pictures of me as a child, please trust that every single one of them is a picture of me with glasses that had tape on them. Cheap glasses are prone to breaking, especially when owned by children who are required to do PE, and we couldn't afford to fix them every time I tripped and fell on my face. I have had glasses break from dodgeballs in my face at school. They aren't as sturdy as you'd think!

So yeah, I just stretch my contacts out until my eyes sting, but it gets worse! Because if my eyes are irritated (pink eye, eye infections, etc), it's not safe to put contacts in. If my hands are particularly shaky, I can't get contacts in. If I'm sick and my eyes will be closed for awhile, it's unsafe to wear contacts. So what do I do?

I wear an old pair of glasses. Which I can't really see out of.

At the moment, I actually do have new contacts and new glasses, because my mom works ~10 hrs a day and had some pocket money to spare for my eyesight.

I am the only one of my siblings who has ever had new glasses and contacts at the same time, though there's 4 of us total and all of us have bad eyes. This is because my eyes are getting worse at a faster rate than the rest of them and because we have a little more money than we used to. However, their eyes are still getting worse, just not as fast as mine. And they should be able to get things for it too.

wheelchairs and canes and glasses and hearing aids and every single other mobility aid should be free btw and if you disagree i hate you