#this was stolen from someone on twitter ages ago but you know what they say

[pepperedflakes]

[werdlewrites]

ł ฿Ɇ₵Ø₥Ɇ ĐɆ₳₮Ⱨ - ₱₳Ɽ₮ Ø₦Ɇ

masterlist - ao3 - twitter @ djomamma

PROCEED WITH CAUTION. TW AHEAD

summary: The shock of its truth momentarily numbs the pain in her body–or is it the Creature itself that steals away her agony? She finds herself no longer tense from labor but broken at the mere thought of her baby being stolen from her womb. Fresh tears fill tired eyes, pleading once more for her child’s life with hands raised protectively over her abdomen. “She’s all I have left.” warnings: UNALIVING, loss of family, mentions of blood and potential miscarriage, no logan in this part wc: 2,703

Next part

They say Death walks among us–among the living. An entity never to be seen as They wear a new skin to blend in with the neighbors and the public as They bump shoulders in the streets. They wear the face of someone yet to be created by God’s hand. A soul yet to experience the bizarre wonder and grace of fingers dancing through the universe to pluck and pull. To morph and build another success–another failure. Another lesson learned. Another dream tarnished and bruised before Death sweeps in for another claim in their final moments.

Some say Death wears the face of a familiar when They come for you. 

A man spends his life on the peak of mountains constructed by ambition and desire. Constantly in need of a new high, no matter how tall his achievement grows. He’s searching for a moment to end the torment of his mind–anything at all. The applause of his success dies down in the glass room of his office, and the hateful voices return in the quiet. They call him a failure despite all he’s done. He’s not good enough–he’ll never be what his family dreamt of. And eventually, he makes peace in knowing he’ll never escape his demons–not in this world, anyway. 

The glass breaks, and he feels free for those few seconds soaring alongside the birds. And when the world finally goes dark and the self-doubt ends, the face of his mother appears through the night to greet him. She takes hold of his now still hand–no longer trembling from anxiety–and they walk onward into the afterlife, guided by stars.

Just down the road, an elderly couple lies in bed. Weak but joyous laughter fills their home as they travel down memory lane the best a fading mind would allow. A full yet simple life had been spent under this one roof. Watching their babies learn and grow, then having children of their own to carry on the legacy of the ones who came before. They’d pick up Grandpa’s sense of humor and Grandma’s most treasured cherry crumb pie recipe. 

Her hands had gone weak with time. No longer able to bake but full of bliss as other attempts would slide across the table for each holiday. Her husband still cracks jokes–but forgets he already made the same one twice an hour ago. Still, they laugh, because one night, as the two are tucked deep into warm comforts, Death comes. They wear the face of the other partner to give comfort, taking them by the hand to help them from the bed until their souls are intertwined once more. Their minds are cleared from the heavy fog of age with newfound strength in younger bodies. 

Their family promises not to linger in sorrow. Eventually learning to laugh again at Grandpa’s comedic timing.

On October 30th, 1951, a woman cries out for Them–for it. Her torso is stretched out over the bed, back arched with fingers gripping and tearing at old sheets stained with blood. Thick hair is matted and stuck to glistening skin, with sweat dripping from her brow. The woman’s voice has grown hoarse, her throat dry and aching for water that’s far from her reach. She’s left paralyzed by the pain of every contraction and isolated from the world–from any help.

But still, she calls. 

She screams into the night. Begging for mercy, pleading for life. 

A crimson hand roams along her swollen belly, sobbing as she envisions the chaos brewing within. A precious life coming to a slow end as another contraction tries to force the baby out from her womb. Labor had begun hours ago, and somewhere between the first ache and now, something had gone wrong–she could feel it tearing apart her insides. But it wasn’t her own body that she mourned for–it was the child she had yet to meet.

With shaken knees and trembling hands, the mother struggles to climb up and lay across the mattress, her back to the rickety metal headboard, and her knees spread for any form of comfort. She pushes again and again, yet nothing ever comes. Hope is flickering out like a dying star in this little cottage out in the middle of nowhere. Her screams fade as exhaustion takes over, her body nearly surrendering to what was beyond her control.

The flames of a nearby fire have gone low, leaving the room much darker than it once had been. But look closely, and you’ll see the slightest tint of blue just beyond closed curtains. She wonders if she’ll ever see the sun again. If she’ll ever get the life she dreamed of with a child she prayed for. She’s left in a daze as scenarios play out in her mind, unaware of the Creature that emerges from a nearby shadow.

The floorboard creaks beneath its weight, and she turns to meet the icy blue stare of familiar eyes. Golden hair is tied back, just as it always had been. He had always been unwilling to cut long locks but always seemed irritated by the way they hung in his view. He looks just as she remembers–a knitted sweater, handcrafted by his wife, and dirtied jeans from hours spent wandering through nature, collecting logs for another fire on a cold night.

“Sam-” His name weakly falls from her lips. Barely audible yet somehow heard as the corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. 

The distance between them lessens, and the closer he becomes, the more a delirious woman gains clarity. He’s full of color–full of life. Unlike the man she found lying out in the bushes with grayed skin all those months ago. The light was long gone from once brilliant and loving eyes. Death had taken him without warning–and now They’ve come to finish the job while in the skin of her deceased husband.

He uses caution as he takes a seat just by her side, fingers slipping their way to entangle with her own, and she’s too weak to stop him. “You wear his face, but you’re-you’re not him,” she says in a whisper, lip trembling as she drinks in the sight of a man she loved and lost. “I know you.” The woman spits in a bitter tone, her jaw tight and teeth clenched.

The smile once etched into mimicked features fades, falling to a flat line with eyes staring straight through her soul. Her heart breaks all over again, right before Death. Aching and yearning for the warm touch of her companion. Hollow and desperate for the joy this child would give. The only piece of him that remained.

“Show your face.” 

The Being provides what is demanded without hesitation. Skin and fabric peeled away like old paint to dissipate in the crisp air of autumn. Heavenly strands of gold break away like shards of glass to never meet the ground. Blackened smoke spills out from every crack, enveloping Death and expanding until it towers above her, nearly reaching the angular ceiling of a lonely home. The space suddenly seems much smaller.

There are no defined features left of the entity, only a shadowy figure buried beneath the haze with piercing eyes in the abyss of nothingness. The body, if it could be described as such, was littered with hundreds of thousands of stars. They flicker in and out–some bigger than others. Some brighter or a different hue. Some say it’s every soul collected in a single night–perhaps only within a few hours, maybe even one. It’s immeasurable. And when you stare into the eyes of Death, it’s the last thing you consider.

The shock of its truth momentarily numbs the pain in her body–or is it the Creature itself that steals away her agony? She finds herself no longer tense from labor but broken at the mere thought of her baby being stolen from her womb. Fresh tears fill tired eyes, pleading once more for her child’s life with hands raised protectively over her abdomen. “She’s all I have left.”

A hand much larger than her own lays across to nearly engulf her entire belly, thumb soothing along the marked skin. Nothing is said between the two. The mother is left in the torment of the unknown, while the Being has already worked its way inside to greet a sleeping baby–unaware of the danger. Her life blossoms within Death’s eye. A child growing into a woman unlike any other gifted soul stolen from this world and moved to the next. A child already born of darkness–burdened by Sight.

It’s unknown how it all came to be that night. Maybe Death had grown tired. Or was it perhaps some twisted connection? The mother doesn’t ask, and Death would never tell. But, by the morning of October 31st, Dawn Rosalin Kennedy takes her first breath–her first wailing cry–before falling asleep against her mother's chest. She’s finally safe and remains protected throughout her years.

She grows–just as They envisioned. Picturesque with pudgy cheeks and a dimpled smile as small fingers pluck wildflowers. Her mother tends to the garden just nearby, trusting in the universe that her only child is safe from any harm that may lurk beyond the treeline. And that trust does not go misplaced. The Creature has shown itself on more than one occasion. Sitting at the small dinner table in total silence unless spoken to–watching as the two girls eat a homemade meal.

Every visit They come bearing a new mask, and the girl sees right through it. An unknown man standing before her in the same field where her father died. A stoic expression set alight in the summer’s glow as the entity studied the child. Her doe eyes are on him–quizzical and bewildered until their true form is seen tall above the husk. The shadow of a monster–a God.

Her smile is full of innocence and love. Entirely unafraid of this otherworldly Creature and the heartache it brings. Dawn Rosalin can only see the beauty within it as stars burn brightly in the darkness. The girl offers out a dandelion in kindness, and Death instructs the body it wears to take it with grace, kneeling to her level with a gentle look in adoring eyes.

Time passes, and the child becomes a woman. She’s full of experience–venturing out beyond the grassy fields and into the city. The site alone of so many people was dizzying–the tall buildings sent her stumbling back in awe and wonder. Dawn grew to love this new world–yet always returned to that quiet cabin for the company that waited for her. And the value of that company grew stronger the sicker her mother became, and those city trips dwindled to non-existent.

Disease had wormed its way inside–eating her alive bit by bit. Her skin thinned and bruised, even after agreeing to receive treatment. It was an unstoppable monster, and Dawn could only point the finger of blame at the beast that began to linger in the home more frequently. Death was patient, but she was not.

“This is all your fault.” She would spit. Every slice of carrot was a little harder than the last, leaving indents on the wooden board. She chopped, crushed, and prepared dinner–hardly focusing and moving in a blur as anger took over. Dawn had become a storm–wrapped in unseen danger as she flew across the small kitchen, knife in hand.

The Being sits in all its mystery and glory–no mask used for comfort as the efforts were wasted on the girl with Sight. They have shrunken themselves to fit beneath the short roof, sitting quietly on a stool just at the corner of the room. Eyes built from galaxies follow after her on instinct–unblinking and focused, even as the mother shares an agonizing cough just in the other room–blood spit into her palm.

“You saved us for what?” Dawn says as she spins on her heel, facing the Creature without fear. “Just t’take her from me? You should have put us both out of our fucking misery!”

Death says nothing, nor does the stare break from her scowling features. Her hatred has been heard over a million times in various other situations. The denial–a lack of acceptance as all that is loved must come to an end. Babies, friends, neighbors, and strangers must all succumb to the darkness. Death is inevitable.

“ł ₳₥ ₦Ø₮ ₣₳₮Ɇ.” They speak in defense. Millions of voices echo and climb over one another, dancing through the painful air of a bitter winter. “ł ₳₥ ₮ⱧɆ ฿Ɽł₦₲ɆⱤ Ø₣ ₱Ɇ₳₵Ɇ.”

The girl would laugh in disbelief if she hadn’t been in so much pain. Every ounce of energy spent to hold herself upright. To stand tall against the tsunami threatening to crush her in its fury. Should she let it, she fears she may never stand again. “D’you see peace anywhere?” 

Death is slow to stand. And despite the smaller size, its form still towers high above the girl–once seen as an ant in its eye. The knife she flicked back and forth carelessly slips in through the hazy sternum as the distance is lessened. It stands with the hilt–her hand–nearly buried among the scattered souls. A constant galaxy spiraling and filling up before being released into the afterlife. 

Another cough–another gasp as the older woman struggles to breathe in her bed, and all focus lands on her empty doorway. Each time Dawn looks, she hopes to wake up from this nightmare and find a healthy mother smiling in her direction. 

Nothing ever changes.

“₴ⱧɆ ₩łⱠⱠ.”

The Creature earns another glare, though it goes unnoticed. All of its attention is on the space where a dying woman lies–simply waiting for her final moments. A final breath and a weak goodbye. The tears that build in the girl's eyes bring no amount of guilt for what is meant to be done. No amount of sorrow or empathy. But, as they spill, a ghostly hand wipes them away with a soothing touch.

“You saved me,” Dawn mutters through gritted teeth. “Why can’t you save her?”

“ł ₵₳₦₦Ø₮ ₵Ⱨ₳₦₲Ɇ ₩Ⱨ₳₮ ł₴ ₳ⱠⱤɆ₳ĐɎ ₩Ɽł₮₮Ɇ₦. ɎØɄⱤ VɆⱤɎ ɆӾł₴₮Ɇ₦₵Ɇ ₴₳Ɏ₴ ₣₳₮Ɇ Ⱨ₳Đ ₱Ⱡ₳₦₴ ₣ØⱤ ɎØɄ. ɎØɄ ₩ɆⱤɆ ₦Ø₮ ₩ⱧØ ł ₵₳₥Ɇ ₣ØⱤ ₮Ⱨ₳₮ ₦ł₲Ⱨ₮.”

A trembling lip stills and her hold on the knife loosens. Nearly slipping from her grasp as it hangs at her side. Realization falls upon her like that threatening wave on the horizon–breaking through her chest and sucking every breath from her lungs by the sheer force of it. Her mother was walking the thin line between life and death the moment labor had begun. Death simply extended her time to give her what she longed for–and what the child needed.

And now that extension had reached its end. Death does not wear the face of someone she loved like They once had. The Being appears in its true form–sitting at her side with Dawn on the left, clutching a frail hand. Peace had been made, though the emptiness of her loss weighed heavy on the girl. Her eyes were dry–tears swallowed up by the hollow dessert of her heart, just trying to survive another moment–a second.

It’s different this time. Different than the pleas for protection all those years ago. She begs for release in a voice that no longer sounds like the woman Dawn adored. Someone with nothing left as Death takes her hand and guides her from the bed. The soul pries itself from the host, unable to tear an entranced gaze away from the twinkling abyss, before her hazy form flickers and fades into the tiniest ball of light in the palm of Death.

“Where will you take her?”

Eyes study as the star slowly embeds itself into the darkness. Dancing through time and space with strangers and family, finally granted an eternity without pain or loss. “₮Ø ɎØɄⱤ ₣₳₮ⱧɆⱤ.”

The girl nods along in acknowledgment. Her fingers squeezing around the hand that no longer held her—no longer combed through tangled hair at night when dreams turned to ugly nightmares. No longer dug through the dirt to pull vegetables from the garden or flip through the pages of a favorite story. “I don’t want t’be alone.”

“ɎØɄ ₦ɆVɆⱤ ₩łⱠⱠ ฿Ɇ.”

[felassan]

Last week Mark Darrah did a Q&A video on his YouTube channel Mark Darrah on Games, called "15K Subs - Q&A". In case it's useful to anyone e.g. for accessibility reasons, here are some notes. The full video can be watched here [<- source link].

(Some of the questions answered were leftover from his previous Q&A video in this series from some time ago, during which time he had left BioWare and had not yet started his consultant work with BioWare.)

---

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the DA:D development era at BioWare & related topics

"I'm still consulting with BioWare."

Q. Were there any plans to make Dragon Age games in other genres, like an MMO? A. "Not really. What actually happened was during Joplin development, as we were being squeezed and people were being stolen onto other projects like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, I actually put a Twitter poll up at one point, just sort've gauging the interest. There was never any people against it, it was really nothing more than that, just to see what the appetite was for something like that. But no development was ever done." Q. Are you looking forward to playing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I mean, I'm not really completely on the outside anymore. I'm working with BioWare as a consultant. So when this question was originally asked I was on the outside. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty interesting thing to look forward to, I know a lot more now than I did then. So my answer I guess is not really relevant anymore, but at the time, yeah, I would say so."

Q. At this point would it be better for the Dragon Age IP to be sold off and taken by another studio such as Larian? A. "I don't think, first of all that's never gonna happen. EA doesn't really sell off IPs. I think that it's in a good place, it's got support from EA and it's moving towards its end." [meaning Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is nearing the end of its development cycle and moving towards ship]

Q. What happened internally at BioWare, [someone whose name was redacted by Mark for the video] started becoming more and more bigoted, and why does he have a beef with Mark? A. "So I'm not gonna talk about who this was, but I'll just answer the question. The reason why there's a specific beef with me is because I was the one tasked with responding to some of the drama that was spinning up, once it crossed the line where EA felt something needed to be done. I did a video about why it's sometimes the right answer to be quiet and not to respond to something, in this particular case EA decided that things had gotten sufficiently out of hand and something needed to be done. I was the one who had the very legally-approved language and was the one that was, as a result, responding to that."

Q. [a question regarding Dragon Age extended universe/secondary material, like the comics and novels] A. "At BioWare, there is a business development group who is responsible for looking for this kind of thing. Usually, well I guess always, there is a requirement of feedback, some sort of feedback loop. Depending on the exact property that might be everything from 'you will do exactly what we say and you're just work for hire' up to 'you have a lot of creative control and BioWare maintains some degree of veto power'. Typically, with BioWare, they're looking for deals where the cost is being carried by the people making the product, as opposed to by BioWare. This is not the case with all companies. The advantage of the studio paying for it is that you make more money, but you carry more risk, so BioWare goes with the more conservative way, where they're not spending as much, or anything usually, but they give away more profit on the back end."

Q. How has it been working on Dragon Age again? Did you miss it? A. "I don't know that I missed it when I wasn't working on it. It was interesting to be on the outside. It's very strange being back in the, on the inside again, because my role is very different. I'm not the Executive Producer, I don't have that direct managerial role, I don't have direct, I don't really have any hard power whatsoever on the project anymore, so that's definitely different."

Q. What's the best piece of advice you would give the Dragon Age/Dragon Age: Dreadwolf team if asked? A. "I guess this question, which was from before, isn't as relevant, I've given them all that advice at this point."

"Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be only on next gen consoles and PC, as far as I'm aware." [i.e., PS5 not PS4, Xbox Series X not XBone etc].

Q. Is this [referring to Dragon Age: Dreadwolf] a new beginning for Dragon Age? A. "Dragon Age is a weird franchise. It has had to reinvent itself every single time because of internal corporate pressures. This, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, like Dragon Age II, will be different from the games that came before it. I think that's fine. It's kind of become part of the DNA of the franchise at this point."

Q. What made you want to reach out to BioWare to consult on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "So I feel like that's been somewhat over-reported. So I have been doing consulting work since, in 2022, was when I started doing it. I was reaching out to different people. I knew where BioWare was when I first reached out to them. At the time they said 'no', and then I was like 'alright, fine' and I started working with some other people, and then things changed at BioWare and then they came and reached out to me when their situation was a bit different. So, I guess the short answer is money. The long answer was, I mean I have contacts there, I knew I could help them out, and I'm certainly interested in Dragon Age being the best game that it can be."

Q. How long is alpha to beta to release in general terms? A. "Almost unanswerable. It is incredibly dependent upon - the time from alpha to beta, well first of all there's lots of different definitions of these different phases, but the time from alpha to beta is the time of getting the content finished, and then from beta to release is more about getting your bugs fixed. Some games have thousands of bugs, some games have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of bugs, so these times can be highly dependent upon the game and the genre. If you're making something that's a competitive game that really needs a lot of tuning, then you want a lot of time in that beta period, ideally to get the game in front of people who're gonna play it, to really dial those knobs in as best you can."

Q. Why does Frostbite struggle with animation? A. "I actually feel like it's actually doing fine with animation. I think it's a content problem, not an engine problem, when it comes to animation in Frostbite. I think what you're seeing is what is being built. Now, that being said, Frostbite now uses ANT, which is the animation system built for sports, so it is different."

"I did watch Dragon Age: Absolution. I actually really liked Absolution. I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be for a non-Dragon Age person, because I'm not a non-Dragon Age person, but as a Dragon Age person I really liked it, I thought it was well-made, I thought it did something interesting with the IP."

Q. Have you added any new gameplay mechanics that you can talk about? [unclear if question was regarding DA:D or the DA games in general] A. "Not anything that I really remember, exactly, because, you know, it's a collaborative, for a AAA game it's a collaborative exercise, at least the way that I ran the project, so I wouldn't consider that anything that was in the games that I led was introduced by me, they would have been introduced by the team, or pushed for, or advocated for by people other than me, for the most part."

"In one of my videos, I said that Dragon Age: Origins went through lots of shifts in development. Yeah, Dragon Age: Origins was multiplayer two different times before it actually ended up shipping. Also, it was originally being built on the Neverwinter Engine, it shifted engines in the middle, so it had some big shifts. The difference being that, you know, back in the early 2000s, there wasn't as much scrutiny on development, there wasn't as wide of a pipeline for rumors as there is now."

Q. Is there going to be any new external/secondary media about Dragon Age? A. "I actually don't know the answer to that, that's not a room that I am in anymore, so that would be a question to ask BioWare."

Q. Where was this filmed? [The next DRAGON AGE: Behind the scenes at BioWare] How does it hold up comparing to what was announced at The Game Awards? A. "I think this is the video, the Dragon Age video that was filmed at a park in Edmonton. I think it was Whitemud Park, if it's the video I am thinking of. How does it hold up? I mean, it doesn't show as much, it's showing a little bit of content, it holds up fine."

Q. How difficult or realistic is it to have previous protagonists in a sequel game? Like Hawke in Dragon Age: Inquisition or letters from the Warden?  A. "It can, for Dragon Age, or any game that has a, or any game that has character creation, it is extra work, because you have kinda two choices. You either have to move to sort've default marketing protagonist. Well I guess you have three choices. Default marketing protagonist, or you have to put character creation right in the middle of the game flow, to allow people to create their character, or you have to have some way to move your protagonist appearance from game to game to game. Which, it would be the ideal solution, but that requires that your character creation remains relatively constantly from game to game. Which typically isn't actually the case."

Q. Why did EA cut BioWare's budget? A. "I assume that's to do with the layoffs. I do not have an answer to that question, but I put it in here anyway, so, there you go."

Q. Have you acquired new knowledge you can use for yourself consulting at BioWare? A. "It's actually been really useful, for me, so as a story-shaper, someone who develops my storytelling through the interaction with people, it's been useful for a lot of my concepts and philosophy, to bounce it off of people, and to be able to come back to things that I've thought about and even written about, even made videos about, and re-examine some of that. So absolutely, working with people has, for my kind of storytelling, has been helpful for me understanding the things I already believe."

Q. Any idea what the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Collector's Edition will entail, or how do you decide what goes in them? A. "I have no idea, I guess they'll announce it probably when they put pre-orders up. When you're doing a Collector's Edition, when you're doing a Digital Deluxe, any of those things, it's all about perceived value. So it's all about, how much more do we want to charge for this thing? How do we get that much stuff in the box so that it's worth it? Not worth it for everyone, because otherwise, that would just be the game, but worth it for some degree of people. Typically, for physical Collector's Editions, that comes with a bunch of little things and one big thing. Dragon Age: Inquisition went a different way and it gets its value through a ton of little things like a map, little things you put on the map, and a lockpicking set, and a whole bunch of little things, but it's all about getting over that threshold of this being worth it to some percentage of your audience."

Q. Do you have hope that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be good? A. "Absolutely, that's why I'm working with them."

Q. Do you think it's possible for EA to recover in the eyes of BioWare fans? A. "I'm not sure that it's possible for any multi-billion dollar publicly traded company to ever have a really great public perception. I think it's something that they should care about, but I think they would be better served by focusing on strengthening the perception of the individual studios. Let EA be the evil corporate overlord and then make the perception of the studios that they own as strong as possible. That would be the way that I would go."

Q. If you could go back and change Dragon Age lore, what would you change? A. "There was some stuff in the early Dragon Age: Origins [days] which was very much trying to address some of the tropey, problematic bits of magic from D&D, so teleportation, things that. I think we went a little too hard there, and I think leaving that door a little bit more open would be better. The other thing that I think that Dragon Age has been dealing with, but is sort've a problem is, the source of magic. So in typical vanilla D&D magic kind've comes from a million different places, so it kinda doesn't matter. In some other settings, magic comes from a single place, it comes from the astral plane or it comes from this crystal that people dig up and grind up and use to do magic. In Dragon Age you kind've have it coming from a couple of different places, but too few to be everywhere, and therefore it doesn't matter, but too many for it to be one. So you end up with this weird thing of like, are undead caused by the Blight, is lyrium a source of magic? Like, there's just a few too many. And so Dragon Age has been kind've collapsing that probability space down. If I had a time machine, I'd probably just collapse that probability space down in the first place, not necessarily put it in the games, but at least know where that space collapsed." Q. Aren't the only sources of magic Blight, blood or Fade? A. "It isn't, because you've got Blight, blood, Fade - well, okay, yes - lyrium is [Titan] blood now because that was Dragon Age collapsing the probability space. That's what I mean by Dragon Age is collapsing the probability space. It didn't used to be. I don't know if that was always the plan for lyrium or not. I don't think so, I think that was - yeah, no, I think there are Titans, Titans have always been in the plan, but I don't know that lyrium was always - I could be wrong, I could be misremembering."

Q. Are games taking longer to come out now, or is it just Dragon Age and Mass Effect that this has happened to? Why? A. "No, games are taking longer. The short answer actually has a lot to do with graphical fidelity, it's just the assets take longer to make. There are more things, like you didn't have as many steps in creating a piece of art in 1998 as you do now, you didn't have even the concept of materials or shaders or any of these things, so now you have all of these additional steps along the way. It will be interesting to see if, as, some of these techniques, you know, PBM and photogrammetry and these other things become more commonplace, if some of those costs come down. It hasn't happened yet, it actually just kept going up and up and up, you just changed the work that's being done, but that might be the end-state, where maybe costs actually start to go down again. I haven't seen it yet though."

Q. Can you tell us more about Sandal or do we have to wait until Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "No, Sandal is a character whose future will be decided by BioWare." Q. Can I assume that Sandal will be in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I wouldn't make that assumption."

Q. What did you miss most about working in AAA and how does it feel being back in a different position? A. "Like I said before, it's weird, because I am, my desk, the desk, if I go into the office the desk I actually sit at is the same desk I had before, but my position is very different. I'm not doing salaries, I'm not doing people management, I'm not doing reviews, but also I don't have final say on anything, I have no hard power in my position, it's just a consulting position, so it's pretty different. I don't know that I miss anything in particular about AAA, I mean there's a power in the giant team that you just don't see in the indie space, but there's an agility that you just don't see in AAA in the indie space, so I think there's pros and cons for both sides."

Q. Any thoughts on the idea that Mass Effect and Dragon Age have become too similar? A. "I would, so I did a very sarcastic presentation back in, probably 2017. They've always been really similar. They are BioWare games with a party, they've always been incredibly similar, so I don't think it's a problem, I think that they have their own distinct characters, they stand apart from each other. In the same way that I wouldn't say that Fallout and Elder Scrolls are too similar, but they sure are both Bethesda games, so I don't think there's a problem there at all."

Q. ​Do you have an opinion to share on why there's been no marketing yet for Dreadwolf? A. "I assume that means 'why hasn't there been marketing yet for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. I mean, there has, but nothing recently. The policy for much of AAA has become very much shorter, louder marketing campaigns. I think that there is a lot of power in that. I think that can be a very powerful way to go. Dragon Age obviously carries the fact that we did an announcement trailer back in 2018, but I think that's what's happening."

Q. Do you think it's possible for BioWare to split from EA? A. "No. EA doesn't let things go, so no. Could everyone leave and start their own studio? Sure, but BioWare will remain part of EA as far as I can tell. That's not how EA thinks."

Q. Should Dragon Age have more or fewer jump-scares in it? A. "I mean it doesn't have that many jump-scares, so... more!"

Q. Why did you decide to rejoin BioWare? A. "Like I said, I was consulting. I reached out to them, to look at the possibility of helping them out with some things. They said no, then some time went by and then they contacted me and said 'oh, actually yes', so, short answer is because it was what I was doing at the time. Longer answer is, I mean, definitely I am interested in Dragon Age being the best game it's capable of being."

Q. Do you feel BioWare could have done more to nurture the fanbase between releases, other than comics and novels? A. "Yeah, I do actually wish that there was an ecosystem to make little games, so, you know, you make the little, you make Final Fantasy Tactics, you make Dragon Age Tactics. You make mobile title - I mean there was the mobile game, the Dragon Age mobile game [Heroes of Dragon Age], that did really well, but yeah, I think there is an opportunity there. That is not the way that development works really at EA. It would've had to have been done by a different part of EA, and, so, yep. [shrug]"

Q. What do you feel about the comments that BioWare is becoming less writer-oriented? A. "I don't know that that is true. Definitely it went through a period of trying to focus more on different kinds of gameplay, like Anthem is definitely a game driven by its gameplay as opposed to by its story. I guess we'll see with Bowie what the actual truth is going to be, but I don't think that's what's happening."

Q. Is the next Mass Effect still in development? A. "Yep."

Q. Will Dragon Age go open-world again? A. "I don't know, I mean I guess that's always a possibility."

"I'm not going to comment on any things that have changed in BioWare's staffing, because, one, I found out at the same time as everybody else did, so I have no information, and two, I'm working with them, so I'm not going to give my opinion on that, so." "I'm not gonna comment on any layoff stuff."

Q. Would it be possible to give us the option to turn off the 'screen shake' effects after a critical or melee hit in Dragon Age games? A. "Yeah, I mean you do see that as an accessibility option in a lot of games now, so, hopefully."

Q. ​Mass Effect and Dragon Age have thousands of years in each of their respective lore/worlds, do you think there's a space for smaller and/or externally produced experiences that explore it more? A. "I do think there is an opportunity for that, I mean that's kind've where the comics and Dragon Age: Absolution and things like that have lived. You do have to figure out to control the IP somehow. Now you could go, like with KOTOR, where you just throw something back into the past far enough. Like go wayyy back and talk about 'where the Qunari came from' or something, but, I do think there's an opportunity there with some thinking. Now, will that happen? I don't expect so because that would require dev resources that don't really exist, or going to an external studio, which I don't think EA is gonna be particularly interested in doing."

"Yeah, I know. [the title] 'Dreadwolf' did ruin the whole vowel thing. Like, I'm also mad about that."

Q. Has there ever been discussion about adding more 'drama' to BioWare romances? I loved the conflict with Liara in Mass Effect 2 if you had romanced another character. A. "I'm sure that's a conversation that's happened somewhere. Often the characters are, each character is written by a different writer, so when they interact that can become a little bit more complicated, but yeah, there's certainly interesting things to be potentially done there."

Q. How involved are you as a Creative Lead on marketing titles? Do you have input into the creation of trailers? A. "Yes, usually there's some degree of input in trailers, but at EA they're usually done by a central group, so it's influence more than necessarily even veto. Probably the Executive Producer has veto power if necessary, but not direct creative control, they're done by a different group."

"I won't be working on [his game, High Tea on the High Seas] until my contract with BioWare is over, I expect."

"I love the modding community. We don't really support them very much, but I think there's a lot of power there for sure."

Q. Do you think BioWare should make non-linear games like Baldur's Gate 3 or stick with what they have always done before? A. "I think that there is, BioWare used to do more 'campfires in the dark', so more, like, 'I know you got here, but I don't know how', and I think that we should return to that more, at least for the side content. I think that the follower content is where BioWare's strength remains and will remain, and I think that deserves to be done in whatever way fits the storytelling that we're trying to do."

Q. Do you think the Dragon Age series should have more musical numbers in the game? A. "Yes I do."

Q. Is there any animosity between BioWare teams? A. "There has been, in the past. I don't think there is now, but there has been in the past, for sure."

Q. Do you regret allowing the player to kill certain characters? How much does that complicate future titles? A. "It makes future titles really complicated. In Dragon Age: Inquisition trying to find a Warden was like, basically they all could be dead, that's why you end up with mustache, Stroud, because literally everyone else could be dead. I don't regret it though, I think it's good to do that kind of thing when you can, it adds extra impact. You just have to live with the consequences of it."

Q. ​Is there room when AAA games are being developed for smaller projects to get made in the same studio? A. "It depends on the studio. Within BioWare, basically no, because the big AAA things just suck all the life out of it, but I've seen it work at some places where they have protection to keep the little things working and alive. So it's possible, but I don't think it could work at BioWare because I think they would just end up getting starved out by the bigger titles."

Q. ​Do you think BioWare is going to innovate, or are they trying to make something standard? A. "I mean all games contain innovation, so I'm not sure what your question is there, so yes."

Q. Was there any general reaction that BioWare had to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners?  A. "Nothing that I'm aware of. I'm sure that people watched it and had thoughts, but nothing that I've heard."

Q. Do you believe marketing campaigns that are started too early, with features that don't make it into the final product are deceptive and counter-productive because they create false expectations? A. "So I do believe in shorter, louder marketing campaigns in general. There are cases where ya gotta go out and ya gotta start building expectations for your title, but when you're out there for a long time, and you're showing gameplay, you're going to show things that end up getting cut. And I don't think, so, are they counterproductive? No, I don't think they are, because most people don't remember, they just remember they were excited, the thing they saw two years ago. They don't remember that it showed something that ended up getting cut. Do they cause a little bit of internet drama? Sure. But I don't think that they're counterproductive. I think in the cases where you have to do them, where you're repairing a relationship or you need to build up a new IP or whatever, they can be useful. Are you gonna get yourself into trouble? For sure, but, still worth doing."

"Shorter marketing campaigns are super effective, but there are cases where you need a longer conversation with your potential fans."

Q. Do you see Dragon Age as a franchises headed towards a linear end, or more of a world for stories that expand in different directions? A. "I don't know that we'll ever see Dragon Age kind've branch into a bunch of different things. So, like, will there be a main title that continues to basically be the line of canon, that's, probably, yes. That's probably what will happen. It is a franchise that is much more about its world than Mass Effect, and much less about its characters, so I get your point, but I don't think we'll ever see, like, several different parallel storylines going at once."

Q. Without a remake or remaster [of previous Dragon Age games] what would you pitch to onboard people in the Dragon Age franchise? A. "I mean hopefully Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is a perfectly reasonable on-boarding point. The games are designed to be able to be consumed starting with any of them, so hopefully that remains the case."

Q. Why did you not teach anyone at BioWare the true art of Twitter teasing and trolling before you left, because your skills was legendary, and it has not been the same since? A. "So I think, I only got to be on Twitter the way I was on Twitter because I was the Executive Producer, because I was basically the one who decided what information was public. Which is why you haven't seen me do that again."

Q. Does BioWare face any recruitment problems due to its primary location in Canada? A. "Primarily in Canada isn't a huge problem, primarily in Edmonton definitely is. We still live in this weird world of hybrid development so people are getting hired from all over the place right now, but yeah, Edmonton was always a problem for recruiting."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? [in YouTube videos] A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. There was talk about a "five game plan" for Dragon Age at some point. Was that ever a thing? If so, is it still a thing? A. "There have been lots of plans, so, sure."

Q. Will you continue your career in development after Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, or was it just a one-time return? A. "Yeah, I'm working with another studio right now as well, this is not my only contract, for sure."

Q. Will you be involved with the next Mass Effect as a consultant? A. "That's not my decision to make."

Q. What is the main thing you would change about how management works in AAA studios? A. "I think that question is unanswerable because management at AAA studios is different everywhere. BioWare uses a matrix structure, so they have departments, but they also have individual leaders. I would like to see more project-driven, like, I've talked about [his] 'hourglass' [concept] in a video before, where driven more through the product, but that being said, I'm not sure long-term how that would be for the people, so I guess, short answer is depends on the studio."

"Dragon Age has had the misfortune of always being seen as being inaccessible to the average gamer, so there's been a lot of corporate pressure for it to become more mainstream. And so it's been kinda questing for a fantasy RPG that is very accessible. Hence why, and then, you know, hence that's Dragon Age II, and then you know Dragon Age II's reception pushed Dragon Age: Inquisition to change some more. Dragon Age has never really been allowed to be constant. And I think it would actually be very good for the franchise to be allowed to be constant for a while, get some 'true sequels' [true sequels here refers to a specific thing Mark has previously discussed on his channel] under the belt. So, yes, true sequels are awesome, I wish that there were more of them and I wish that Dragon Age was one of them."

Q. Are Dragon Age and Mass Effect regarded as big IPs by EA? A. "Sometimes. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There was a time when EA had the, I think it was called like, 'The Big 12', Mass Effect was on that list, Dragon Age was not, so, sometimes."

Q. Do you feel EA has historically had unrealistic profit expectations for the Dragon Age series? A. "I can't really get into the way that EA does its financials. I think that there are, sometimes, EA wishes everything was FIFA and obviously that's unrealistic."

Q. Will the critical success of Baldur's Gate 3 influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and other future projects? A. "It's a bit late to influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Will it affect other future projects? I suspect so. I think it's gonna have a big impact on the RPG space, in some ways, for sure."

Q. Oh, is 'Bowie' the actual codename? Neat! A. "Yeah, Bowie is the actual codename. Did I just leak that? Well it is."

"The hardest part of a project for most people, myself included, is when you can't see the start anymore, and you can't yet see the finish, so with games with really long [development] cycles they can have a lot of trouble in the middle because you don't have the excitement of the beginning anymore and you can't see that it's finishing. So that can be hard. I think that is honestly one of the reasons why I think completion urgency has been on my mind so much, because this has always been kind of the case with BioWare with games, where you do a middle march in the dark, and so hopefully we find some solutions to that."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. ​Is it more accurate to think of the development cycle of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf as one game, or several? A. "Kind've something in-between. Definitely there have been moments where the game has pivoted to a large degree that it effectively has started over, but it hasn't always actually started over, and maybe that would've been better, so it's a little bit of both."

Q. BioWare office tour when? A. "I don't think that I can do that, but maybe BioWare will, you should ask them."

Q. Do you think the 'Frostbite is bad' narrative has been blown out of proportion? A. "Yes I do. I mean, yes it is not a perfect engine, no engine is. It definitely doesn't have the support levels that Unreal has, but it is a capable engine if you treat it with respect. The problem is, is that I think a lot of developers have not treated it with respect."

Q. Has BioWare ever thought about character DLC, for example the story DLC in Dragon Age: Inquisition was wonderful but much of what people enjoyed about the story DLC like Trespasser was reuniting with the companions. A. "Yeah, there actually, a bunch of stuff got discussed in earlier incarnations of Joplin and Morrison about doing, like, date packs, or very, very focused bits of DLC. I don't think that's still in the plan, but that was the plan at one point."

Q. What would you say to fans of Dragon Age that are worried about Dreadwolf right now? A. "I'd say keep paying attention, and hopefully BioWare give you confidence."

Q. ​Do Dragon Age: Dreadwolf leaks hurt any team morale? A. "It can, depends on the leak, it can, for sure."

[source and full video link]

Other notes from the video are collected under the cut due to length:

Q. What's something from Baldur's Gate 3 that may not be obvious to players that you've seen and said 'wow, Larian really figured something out that I wish we, BioWare, had been able to do'? A. "The big thing that Larian is doing that is missing from most other modern games is they are, Failbetter Games calls it 'campfires in the dark', which is, a lot of their plot scripting is based upon reacting to where you are in the moment as opposed to the path you use to get there. What that means is you can do almost anything, because the game doesn't really care how you did it. If you're Matt Mercer and you pile up a bunch of boxes and then teleport into a keep, and bypass the entire plot of getting in there, once you're in the keep, the keep is like, 'okay, you're here, I don't know how you did it, but whatever, we'll just go from here'. And, two things. One, it makes for incredibly robust scripting. The game is able to not fall apart as you do things that it wasn't expecting, because to some degree it's not really expecting things as much. Two, it's just letting you do much more as a result. Now you are giving up a certain degree of reactivity for that, but it's a very powerful tool that I think has been largely set aside by most other developers."

"I think there's definitely some interesting avenues to be taken with your party members having relationships with each other and interacting with each other. It gives them more life. It makes them more believable, that they're not just there waiting for you to come and talk to them and otherwise they're completely static. I think having them interact with each other definitely helps make them more believable."

"One of the, I would say, biggest mistakes of Dragon Age II is the fact that you always have to fight both final antagonists, regardless of which path you decided to do, and that's a decision coming from 'we don't want to waste our content. We want people to see this stuff we spent all this time on'. So some of it is about just being willing to commit to the concept of, there is content that people won't see. It helps, at least it helps me a little bit to remember that most people aren't gonna even finish your game, so arguably the end is a branch that most people won't see." "Honestly, to a large degree, let the creatives guide the way. If they're excited about writing it, if they're excited about scripting it, let them do it. Maybe you do a much simpler version [of the hypothetical cutscene being discussed, re: branching content and zots/resources], but you can still do it."

"I've never played a game of the Dragon Age TTRPG. How much was the Dragon Age team involved in the creation of the rules? Not at all. That was created entirely by Green Ronin. That was their system entirely and I think they've used it for other things since then. I like that it exists. I like that there is a, something that signals that Dragon Age is an RPG. Now I think I would be pushing to make a 5th edition supplement for Dragon Age, rather than a standalone RPG, but at the time, it was the right call, I'd say."

Q. As a producer, how have you mitigated decision fatigue for you or your team throughout closing a project? A. "So one of the reasons why I actually advocate so strongly for triage is that triage is a forum through which you can answer a lot of questions, especially at the end of a project, the closing parts of a project. You're not going to avoid making decisions. Finaling a project is making thousands of decisions in rapid succession, but you can take a little bit of the burden off individual team members by helping them with that decision-making, or when necessary making decisions yourself. Triage also lets you get a group of people together. Making decisions as a group, if you've worked together for a while, can be faster, can be less draining as well."

"I really believe in some degree of developing out loud. I don't know how practical Larian's style of, 'go into Early Access for three years and develop it with the community' is, for most studios, especially the publicly traded ones, but I do think some form of discourse with the community is incredibly valuable. Are we gonna see it? I hope so, but I do think that a lot of studios have developed a very secretive, private kind of stance. For good reason. It's a lot of work to keep this discourse running, to keep it from turning toxic, to keep the conversation going. I think it's worth it, but there's work there, for sure." [I think BioWare are a publicly traded company]

"I could be wrong, but I feel like we're starting to see DLC in singleplayer games be a thing of the past. It seems like it's fading away. I think we may not see very much [of this] three years from now. Will it then circle back around, come back around? I suspect it will, but that's what I'm noticing."

[on the game industry in general] "We've had a lot of layoffs this year, so definitely there's been volatility this year, but we have, as the industry has grown up, it has become more risk-averse, at least in the AAA space, it's become more expensive, things have taken longer, but you do see less, sort've pulsing - you see less AAA games shipping and then the entire studio being shut down. It does still happen, but I do think you are seeing less of it. I think it's partly just, becoming more and more a business."

"I do not think Mass Effect 3 will ever be open-sourced."

"If I was given a large budget and asked to create a 'Dragon Age Legendary Edition', I think if I was given that task, the big thing would be, I think for Dragon Age: Origins, you have only two choices. Once you start going in there, you gotta go so deep, that I would go remaster, and just pretty it up, and let all its warts be its warts. Maybe take another crack at the console controls, and like getting tactical camera on the consoles, if I could, but largely just prettying it up. Dragon Age II, I'd be really tempted to see if you could make Orsino an optional fight, otherwise, probably it's fine. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Hinterlands, actively pushing you out of the Hinterlands much more quickly, not cutting anything from it, but definitely making it more clear that there is a critical path, because the pacing is kind've off there. Reducing the amount of Influence you need to unlock things so you can get through it a little more quickly."

"Dragon Age: Origins was originally planned as one game with no sequels. That was the original plan, which is why the end of Dragon Age: Origins has weird branching epilogue structure, is because it was never intended to be a game with sequels. You're always going to, that's a lesson for the world, always assume that you're going to potentially have sequels. So, it's not that you should leave a bunch of threads, but don't make sequels incredibly difficult to have."

"Dragon Age: Inquisition basically only had eight spells because of console convenience, yeah, basically, it's designed around its console controls for sure."

Q. Was there ever a significance to the Amell [blood]line? Like the Warden and Champion being related? A. "I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, there are often things that are planned and then executed, but also things where convenient plot hooks are picked up and taken in different ways. So sometimes things are planned years in advance and sometimes they just look that way."

"As far as I can remember, Leliana's lyrium ghost was just a quantum thing. It's just because we wanted Leliana in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Leliana could be dead. I mean it kinda makes sense, because the only place that Leliana could die in Dragon Age: Origins was at the Urn, so, sure, the Urn did it."

Q. If Dragon Age: Origins ever gets a remake, would a lot more of the problematic elements be removed? A. "So that's, ultimately what it comes down to, I think if you did a Dragon Age: Origins remaster, you wouldn't, you would just put a fresh coat of paint on it and that would be what you would do. But if you start to do a remake, I think it becomes necessary to start to open up some of those conversations, and that could be a lot, which is honestly one of the things that probably is causing hesitation on doing a remaster, or a remake in that case."

Q. If a fan writes an incredibly good idea on a forum or social media, is BioWare banned from implementing their idea? A. "It depends. If it's just like, 'I put an idea out on a Twitter post', no, you're basically releasing that idea to the public by that kind of post, but we don't, but BioWare doesn't, so I guess no, I guess, short answer no, because in that case it's like, well you just gave that to everybody. If it's a bit of fan literature, nobody's reading it, it's just going in the garbage, so no, so in that case nobody knows what's in that piece of literature, so, no."

"Will Dragon Age: II and Dragon Age: Origins ever come to PS5? I don't know. I mean that would basically require a remaster of some sort."

Q. If you had free reign what's the coolest, most ridiculous thing you would put into a physical Collector's Edition of the game? A. "So, I did, on Anthem, I did push for this, and I wish we'd done it, I did push for doing, because we had the studio that made the physical versions of the Javelin suits for that one EA Play. I did push for a $55,000 Collector's Edition, where you got one of those suits. Obviously we didn't do that."

Q. Would you say it’s harder to import decisions in a series like Dragon Age or Mass Effect? I bet it’s harder when each game has a different protagonist. A. "Actually, so, Dragon Age is a little bit more self-healing because when you are playing a Mass Effect, so Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, a lot of what you care about is the interpersonal stuff. When you're moving from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age II, you don't really care about any of that interpersonal stuff, because it's a different character. I mean, you care, but it doesn't, the game doesn't need to reflect it. So Mass Effect has to deal with a lot more minutiae than Dragon Age does. Dragon Age just needs to deal with the big stuff."

Q. Would the Eclipse Engine have been better for Dragon Age: Inquisition even if it had meant the scope of the game would have to be smaller? A. "No, the Eclipse Engine was about ready to die of old age."

Q. ​Do you remember what the major aesthetic influences on Anthem were? A. "So, this is what I remember. Cigarette butts and coffee cups, so like, the abyss. No wheels. I actually think Anthem has a pretty strong identity. It looks like something."

Q. Who's decision was it to start using Frostbite? A. "I mean, the short answer is, it was the only politically-viable answer for Dragon Age: Inquisition, so, so I guess EA."

Q. Did you feel there was a large culture change when Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka left BioWare? A. "Not really, like a lot of it was basically already happening, as part, as EA basically started to impose its culture on, and also just the culture infiltrated over time. I would say that the cultural shift at BioWare happened slowly, not all at once when they left."

Q. I was really hoping for that Dragon Age tactical game. Any chance of seeing something like that in the future? A. "Probably not, I mean, it was a tweet, there wasn't anything behind that."

Q. ​If only there was a Mass Effect toolset. A. "Yeah, so I don't think you're gonna get, so a toolset with a game that is using Unreal like Mass Effect, that's much less likely, because you're gonna have to get a deal with Epic to do that. They might go for it, but yeah, that would be harder."

Q. I recently found out that The Last Court was made by an outside studio, and BioWare has brought in outside writers to work on Dragon Age before. Is that a common occurrence? A. "Yeah, it happens, for sure."

"Dragon Age II is pushing the Eclipse engine to the limit, it's basically the upper limits."

Q. Was there ever any discussion on showing Hawke and their companions visibly age over Dragon Age II? A. "There was, there was absolutely, that conversation did happen. We didn't really have any way to do it easily, but it was talked about."

Q. Dragon Age seems to have a much larger female fanbase than most gaming franchises, is this something EA has been cognizant of/interested in? A. "Cognizant of, yes, interested in, yes as well, though The Sims is actually even better. Understanding what to do about? No."

Q. What were your lessons learned from Mass Effect: Andromeda and why it went that bad? A. "I don't actually think it went that bad. It had a rough launch, so it kind've escaped a little early. That's probably its biggest problem. If it had released in the state that it was at within a month, it would've been a lot better received. Now it did also launch up against Zelda and Horizon, so, the number one lesson there is - when Dragon Age: Inquisition shipped and the Inquisition team was talking to the other team, one of the biggest things we said was 'don't use Inquisition as your baseline, it should be your worst-case', and a lot of the planning on Mass Effect: Andromeda was done using Dragon Age: Inquisition as the best case, so, what happened, basically its end got squeezed out of existence."

Q. What do you think about a Mass Effect: Andromeda remake? A. "Seems early, but maybe, some day. I mean it's kind've healed its perception to a large degree, kind've like Dragon Age II but for different reasons, it's not seen as as bad as it was seen at launch, so, I think there's a market there."

Q. Have there ever been discussions within BioWare of visual novels as a possible format for their franchises? A. "Yeah, it's come up, it's even been pitched. Hard for EA to do little things."

[source and full video link]

[crepes-suzette-373]

After seeing wavytam's theory, it occurred to me something. Judge said he wanted revenge on the other North Blue kings, with the implication that it had something to do with the former Germa Empire.

From the sound of it, this implies that the other kings somehow conspired together, and... I don't know, set the WG on Germa, perhaps?

See, when they talked about the Vinsmoke family having "conquered the North Blue". This seems to be talking about a ridiculously old period of time, since Yonji (or Reiju?) said that "at one time" (it says "during a certain era" ある時代の in the raw).

I'm guessing this must be talking about the Germa Empire from the past. It's probably not Judge's conquest of the 4 kings, or they'd have said "in my father's time". Even if the translation is wrong and it's someone else talking (in the anime, the one who was talking is Pekoms), ある時代の still implies something that happens ages ago, not just a few years or decades or so ago.

Brook said they "conquered the North Blue with military might", so I'm assuming this is why the other kingdoms don't like them for it.

Sure, if we believe the story at face value, what Germa did sounds terrible. Conquering territories sounds like tyranny.

Still, we now know from Kuma's backstory that the whole story of "Tyrant Kuma" is nonsense told to WG by the former king that he toppled. So did the other kings also went running to WG, told them a bunch of nonsense, and got Germa wiped?

Also, you know. This is not helping the conspiracy I had involving, ah, a certain historical figure. That certain someone was naturally disliked for "conquering the neighbouring lords by military might" *ahem*, but for the time? It was necessary. The nation is basically chaos, and so his conquest was intended to bring peace and stabilise the nation.

If the North Blue countries was also similarly in utter chaos, and Germa empire was what brought the wars to stop, I would sit here and laugh.

It's phrased differently but that certain someone's "slogan" was commonly interpreted in Japan to mean "unite/conquer the nation by military might".

I'm probably the only person who sees nonsense samurai connections here, so I'm most likely wrong, because by all the visible markers, Germa is based on the German Empire.

And since I'm already blathering absurdity here, I'll go ahead and mention it. The aforementioned historical person was infamous for setting things on fire, but arguably, what he set fire on was an establishment mired with corruption. A "purifying flame" so to speak.

Which brings to mind the "Garuda", the divine being who carries purifying flames. Is "Garuda" supposed to be Sanji's "final form"? That would be a slap in the face to Judge, if that were true.

I once alluded on Twitter that Sanji is very reminiscent of this trope of "the chosen one was thought to be a nobody, and becomes an outcast" that's increasingly becoming rather popular in manga and light novels (especially in isekai).

Basically the protagonist is actually the "chosen one", but due to various circumstances, their power didn't manifest correctly, or their power got stolen by someone else. As the result of this, the protagonist gets bullied, or gets chased away and suffers a hard life. Time passes, the protagonist eventually was able to come into their true powers, and well, the people who treated the protag poorly gets their asses handed to them.

You know.

It's just a shitpost, but suppose "Garuda" was some mantle/title that was inherited from that ancient era... the plot twist could be that Sanji is the "true Garuda" of Germa, whatever that ends up meaning.

Also even more plot twist would be if Sanji's powers were natural. Like, I once suggested that this was part of his modifications based on Lunarian template, but how crazy would it be if he was just naturally born with it?

[honeybeewhereartthee]

MY DARLING DOLLS 39

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PAST:MC

when you open your eyes you stared at golden one who's very close to yours. Her red hair almost covering all your view.

"..." -you.

"good morning, darling ~" the young lady of the tojou estate called out to you sweetly like you two have some special relationship or some sort. Her cheeks blushing with her orbs that's seems to reflect on you so clearly.

You quickly roll away from her like she's some virus.

"I'm not interested in human beings. Go away." You shoo her and she pout being rejected by you again. But her smile returns as she gaze at you with that lovestruck written in her face.

"Do you know your very much trying to imprisoned me cause of that bad taste of yours..." You cannot help but sigh as you rub the chill you felt from how she look at you.

"It's not my daughter fault your very much have your charisma at the max level." The old tojou who's watching the whole thing from the doorway commented.

"Father can I marry MC when I debut to the society (turn 18)?" The young lady went to ask her father the nth time with tearful gaze.

"IM NOT INTERESTED!!" you quickly denied. You have no interested with a kid you watch grow up since day one! Holy crap you cannot even imagine the twitter cancel nation if they know about this. This is so GOTTDAMN terrifying!

Even through you forget what Twitter mean, you cannot help but shake your head so much as you give a look to the head of the household that taken you in since a long time ago.

[ even in this place you have flings...] You heard a voice in your head spokes. You almost thought you went crazy for a moment.

"WTH." You mumble looking around where that voice come from. But making sure that lady is far away from you.

"are you really interested with that doll obsess maniac who don't even age a day?" You heard your being called names by the old tojou and you can't even disagree with him. His speaking facts.

"Ye! Why are you interested with me huh? Nothing good ever happened if you like me!" Your self negativity is at its finest. The old tojou sigh as he heard your WORDS.

The young lady chuckle at your words, amuse how charming you are at the moment and you give her a 'the heck' look.

"your very interesting. And I like you very much." The young lady says confessing to you once again.

"Sorry not interested." You quickly says which made her giggle even more. "Crazy...." You mumble.

"there's many suitors for you my princess." The old tojou commented. "You should choice another one." He added.

"but father! MC stolen my first kiss--"

[ AHAHAHAHHAHA. LMFAO the drama!] The voice in your head laughs as you dodge the hit that was thrown your way by the old tojou. "What?" -old tojou.

"I DONT KNOW WHAT SHE MEAN! I KISS NO ONE BUT MY FLUFFY CREATURES!" You reasoned out as you run away to another corner, away from that crazy dad.

"you seems to forget that I have saved your life." The young lady smiled so charmingly at you. "I have to give you a CPR to revive you... Don't that mean your life is mine now?" She give you a look that reminds you of a snake. "So marry me, ok? To take responsibility as you stole a kiss from this young lady." She added giggling like a villain.

There's laughter's in your head and you felt like your in a tight spot, the fluff around you isn't even helping.

SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THIS CRAZY LADY!

...

PRESENT: KANAME

"NO WAY! THERES NO WAY THAT HAPPENED!" Kaname screams as he slam his hand at the table. He want to flip the table and flip his hand to his ancestor. "I HAVE SO MANY RIVALS WHYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!" he cries he cannot believe this!

"what drama." Jun sips his drinks as he reads the dairy entre that they found yesterday. "The charm points of mc is so op! Ii Hiyori!" Hiyori chuckle as he cannot help but interested in the current entre. Kaname hugs his knees as he rock himself back and forth in the table, trying to comfort himself about what he just learn.

He cannot believe even his ancestor likes you! He really need a death note! ( He been watching anime with jun other than reading your journal entre)

[believemetheodore]

Colour me pink

Ted Lasso x Reader

A pair of pink shoelaces become a catalyst for change in Rebecca's life. Or, Rebecca learns to be brave. (Because I can't stop thinking about the pink shoelaces™️)

Warnings: None (let me know if you want me to add something)

(Photo from @_erinmckenziee on Twitter)

Rebecca has always dreamed of being braver than she’s ever been able to be. Her mother had called her brave for leaving Rupert. Sassy and Nora had called her brave for paving the way as a female football club owner. But she can’t say she’s ever felt courageous or valiant for doing any of those things. Bold, sure. Daring, maybe. 

Keely has often called her a lion, praising her for taking charge and taking what she wants. But Rebecca has never felt brave where it truly counts. 

With their relationship hanging in the balance, she let Ted leave, an ocean between them now.  They’ve been walking the line between friendship and something more for so long. With weeks worth of stolen glances, intimate evenings, kisses and whispered promises she’d been too cowardly to allow to see the light of day, she’s let him leave.  

She’s always had a knack for this, building people up just to let them down, too frightened-- or too selfish, to see where things might go. But it hurts more this time. Ted’s always been patient and kind, to a fault at times. He said he’d wait as long as she needed for her to sort out her thoughts, and now she’s worried she might have him waiting forever, her heart and her mind fighting at every turn, each day bringing new anxieties. She’s holding a winning hand but is too afraid to make a bet. 

He left a week ago, flying home to spend time with Henry and visit his mum before his charity event. He’d laid his cards on the table and handed her his heart in earnest with nothing but a gentle smile and a twinkle in his eyes. He loves her. He’s loved her for ages and told her just that, sealing his words with a kiss. She kissed him back, hoping that, like all the times before, her actions might speak louder than her words ever could, praying that his touch might silence her fears. 

She loves Ted. And more importantly, she loves him more than she ever thought it possible to love someone. She wants to be brave. All week she’s typed out text messages without pressing send, and let her thumb hover over the call button more times than she can count. She struggles to find the right words. What do you say to someone when I love you isn’t enough to encompass all you feel? How can three little words be enough when the other person deserves the world and then some? 

A year ago, she’d asked Sam to give her time to think. She liked him; he was lovely-- wonderful even, but she knew she’d never love him, not the way she wanted to be able to love someone anyway.  A part of her then always knew what she wanted to say. She had the words; she just didn’t want to say them. She knew from the get-go that what they had wouldn’t last. 

She’d been startled by his compassion, wooed by the excitement of it all and swept up by the feeling of being adored. She would’ve broken his heart, or worse, broken her own; by acting out a lie, forcing herself into a role, holding herself back, too afraid to hurt him. But breaking up with Sam wasn’t brave; it was decent. 

I hope all is well. Good luck tonight! xx

She settles on the phrasing, sending the text before she can overthink it. 

Got my good luck charms! The response comes quickly with a picture of his Nikes attached. It takes her a moment to figure out why those shoes might be so lucky. Pink laces, she realizes. The same pastel pink colour as the biscuit boxes he delivers to her each morning. Oh. 

She’d bought them as a gag gift before he left, not expecting him to ever use them, let alone like them. He’d invited her over to pick up her supply of biscuits to hold her over while he was gone, convincing her to stay for dinner and wine. She’d slipped the laces down the side of his folded clothes in his open suitcase, thinking he might not even notice the little pink double bow that had made its way into his luggage. In all honesty, she’d forgotten all about them. 

You found them. I take it you like them, then?

Love ‘em! They’re just what I’ve been needing. Thank you, Becca. 

I miss you. She lets herself confess. 

I miss you too. Lots. But now I feel like I’ve got a little bit of you here with me (I’m a lucky guy!) 

Good god, she’s not sure he could be more incredible if he tried. So effortlessly, he makes her feel special. Without trying, he sews up her wounds and worries. It’s impossible to feel like she’s too much when he loves just as much as she does. 

In all her years, she’d never thought shoelaces would be the catalyst for change in her life. For so long, she’s felt like she was bad at love. Too much, never enough, always afraid of being seen as silly. But never with Ted. Not when he accepts her love as eagerly as he gives his own.

It’s just past 8 pm in London. She doesn’t waste her time weighing pros and cons; instead, she makes herself a cup of tea in a travel mug, calling her driver for a ride to the airport. 

She doesn’t make it in time for the show, but with Coach Beard’s help, she manages to locate the hotel they’re staying in and tips back a gin and tonic while she waits.She’s grateful that Ted had booked the earliest flight back to London and cuts his night of celebrating short to try to get some sleep. 

He strolls in, crossing art deco marble floors, still wearing his pink-laced trainers. 

She leaves her glass at the bar with a generous tip, hurrying across the foyer, barely making it into the same elevator as him. 

“What floor?” He asks politely, and she can’t wipe the smile off her face, realizing he hasn’t noticed it’s her. 

“I’ll go where you go”. His confusion quickly turns to shock, his head snapping to look at her.  “Well, I’ll be,” he laughs, and she can’t help but do the same. 

He’s quick to press the button for his floor, his hand taking hers and tugging her close. “I was serious when I said I missed you,” she whispers. “Never doubted you for a second,” he says with a smile, light-hearted and playful, but they both know it’s the reassurance she needs. 

He squeezes her hand as the doors open, guiding her down the hall towards his room. The two of them are silent as he opens the door, and she sets down her overnight bag. 

When she turns around, the air in the room is heavy but not oppressive.  “I love you,” she breathes out, her eyes locked on his.  And he doesn’t leave her hanging, closing the space between them. “I love you, too”. Their grins not leaving their faces when their lips meet. 

Maybe she’s braver than she thinks, after all. 

[chem-24]

some thoughts on one of the datamined/leaked characters and Inazuma

Specifically, about this funky Aetherface-looking dude + some stuff about the Electro Archon got in too, somehow :/

(watch as this gets debunked into the ground when the Inazuma update is released)

What are the scraps that we know of him so far? Well, his name is “Kazuha”, and he’s going to be an Anemo Sword!

Yeah there’s been some prior misinformation about him being a pyro polearm (even I thought he was going to be pyro sword), but that was more just him getting confused with this other guy called “Tohama” (who’s also supposed to be Ayaka’s (arranged) fiancée? No idea how that’s going to turn out). Plus, you can see Kazuha’s Anemo Vision on the second pic here:

It appears to be an autumn motif instead, which is also pretty cool and can still tie into the wind theme

The second thing I did notice though (first being ooooo new pyro character) was that he looked like a samurai. It’s also why I had doubts about him being a polearm user.

*[Yes I know historical samurais have used bows and spears in the past. But even Japanese media pushes the “samurai = katanas” angle, and Kazuha strikes me as more of a “pop culture-style Japanese swordsman” than a historically-accurate one if you get what I’m saying.]

To digress a little; how’s Inazuma looking? Well, according to Zhongli: the Electro Archon, also known as “Baal” or “Raiden”, has issued a “Vision Hunt Decree” to confiscate her people’s visions and decorate them on the hands of a “thousand-armed statue”, as well as closing off the country. Furthermore, it is said that no one has received an Electro Vision in a year in-story by “the will of the Electro Archon”.

There is a runaway NPC from Inazuma to Liyue called “Atsuko”, who provides a tangible picture of Inazuma’s current state of affairs:

As pointed out in this reddit post, Baal’s actions are a parallel to other real life Japanese rulers such as Toyotomi Hideyoshi & Tokugawa Ieyasu; from closing the country and confiscating swords (visions) from the populace, up to melting all the swords to create a giant metal statue (that one didn’t work, but it’s the thought that counts).

**[my personal thoughts on this is that someone or something else has either succeeded or stole Baal’s position as the Electro Archon, which would explain the sudden extreme personality change.

Like, try to think of this in terms of the in-story timeline - the lockdown specifically happened a year ago; no one knows what’s going on inside Inazuma, nor does Inazuma know anything about the outside world. Thus, the Electro Archon shouldn’t know about ‘recent events’ like Venti getting his gnosis stolen or Zhongli’s “”death””, so her/their(?) current actions are definitely not influenced by what’s happening to the other Archons - this was something the Electro Archon decided to do on their own, independently of the Tsaritsa’s/Fatui’s plans.

Venti has explained before that anybody with a vision is capable of becoming a god, so the possibility is there. Hell, they may even be posing as Baal and hiding the truth of their ascension for some reason.

If you’re familiar with Japanese history, then think about how Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa came to power in the first place.

To summarize briefly: Hideyoshi was originally a vassal of another warlord called “Oda Nobunaga”, who united most of Japan. However, Nobu was betrayed and killed by another one of his vassals known as “Akechi Mitsuhide”, so Hideyoshi stepped up and finished the rest of the job.

After Hideyoshi’s death, Tokugawa (and 4 other men) was supposed to look over his son until he was of age to rule. But Tokugawa was growing in popularity at the time, so he stepped to take power himself.

So in the context of the Genshin story, perhaps the “Toyotomi Hideyoshi” and “Akechi Mitsuhide” figures are being fused together (aka: this person killed the previous Electro Archon and took her place). Or it’s a Stanley/Venti’s friend situation 2.0

Plus, it’s added dramatic irony to the whole ‘God of Eternity’ also being the god of lightning; something fundamentally transient and brief. Their so-called ‘eternity’ is as fleeting as a lightning bolt, or something.]

~

Anyways, back to Kazuha.

If we’re going with the implication that the Archons are responsible for giving out their respective elemental Visions (others have theorized about this too); then what does that say about Kazuha, who has an Anemo Vision (proudly displayed in full view too!) given by the God of Freedom?

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that Kazuha may turn out to be a “wandering vagrant” or “ronin”-archetype character; kinda like what Miyamoto Musashi does. A vagabond that wanders the land and maybe hides in a village once in a while, but never having an established home.

Of course, there’s still plenty of unknowns such as what his actual personality is like - but I think that with this, we can narrow down one part of his character concept at least.

Take another look at his character design: Kazuha is associated with “autumn”, which invokes the imagery “falling leaves in the wind from a tree” and “the passing of something”; possibly exemplifying Kazuha’s nature as a ‘wanderer’ who never stays in one place for too long, and perhaps the presence of a former/deceased master or organization(?).

Furthermore, Kazuha has very albino-esque features with white hair and red eyes, which could further indicate him being a “outcast”. Razor is another character with white hair and red eyes, and he’s very much an “outcast” from ‘normal’ human civilization too - what with being raised by wolves and all. (there’s also some people who think Kazuha and Razor could be long-lost brothers, which is kinda eeeeehhhhhhh 🤷 for me)

Combining that with the historical context of “confiscating swords = confiscating visions”, that would make Kazuha either:

A: a wanderer from the start, and thus far enough away from Inazuma’s capital to avoid the initial Vision Hunt order when it started

B: went on the run after the “Vision Hunt Decree” was issued

Either way, by refusing to give away his “sword” (vision), it would most likely make Kazuha a high-profile criminal and wanted target in Inazuma. Possibly with a bounty included too.

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

By the way, as some have already pointed out: some significant characters (interestingly, most of the gods) in Genshin share design similarities with other Honkai Impact characters (another Mihoyo-made game). For more examples, here’s official art of Fu Hua (a Honkai character) that makes her look suspiciously like Zhongli.

I’m bringing this up because some twitter users have pointed out that Kazuha seemingly looks like Fu Hua in her [Phoenix] battlesuit:

Is this just a coincidence, or does it really hold some deeper meaning? Personally speaking, I’d prefer that Kazuha stays human, but I guess another god isn’t too bad either :X

and with that design significance, my dreams of obtaining Kazuha as a 4* are flushed down the drain

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

#10: Felix, Part Two: The Episode Itself

Here’s Part 1

So, uh... here's the thing. I was going to divide this post into three parts, but I had to cancel the third part where I analyze the stuff involving Astruc defending the episode on Twitter, specifically a certain scene that really showed off some serious double standards in regards to the way Adrien is being written, because Astruc deleted most of his tweets regarding the episode. I wonder why he did that? I thought he wanted to expose himself publicly and interact in a peaceful way.

So yeah, instead of a big three-parter, this is going to be a two-parter, and I apologize for that. I might be able to do a third part if anyone has any screenshots of some of the tweets Astruc made after “Felix” aired. If you did, I would really appreciate it, but if not, it's fine.

Either way, let's just get this over with, because I have SO MUCH to talk about. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts about Season 3, Episode 23 of Miraculous Ladybug, “Felix”?

So we start off with what Gabriel does for half of his scenes when he isn't Hawkmoth, monologuing to his (possibly) dead wife, Emilie about how Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous will soon be his and all that crap. Sure, he's sent God knows how many Akumas after Ladybug and Cat Noir, and they've all failed miserably, but I'm positive he's getting close to his goal.

After he finishes cleaning his and Emilie's silver wedding rings that sadly don't allow them to transform into Ultraman Ace, Gabriel goes to check on Adrien, singing to a statue of Emilie (glad to see the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree), intending to tell him that he is Hawkmoth.

Gabriel: There is something important I have to talk to you about. I think about telling you every day, but I don't know how to find the right words.

Adrien: I think I already know, father.

Gabriel: But, how?

Adrien: I've noticed how close you and Nathalie have become. If she can make you happy again, then... as far as I'm concerned, she's already part of our family.

Yeah, apparently it's obvious that Gabriel and Nathalie are close or something, with how casually Adrien assumes they're planning on starting a relationship. I mean, it's not like Nathalie is close to Gabriel because she's his secretary or something like that.

Gabriel's response isn't any better, as he immediately jumps down Adrien's throat for daring to assume he might try to move on from his wife.

Gabriel: How could you possibly think such a thing?! Nobody could ever replace your mother! As long as she is still in our hearts, she lives on!

Even Adrien's face shows he's a little taken back by his father's brief outburst.

Part of me likes to assume that Plagg is trying to not break out into laughter at how crazy Gabriel sounds, while Nooroo is mentally questioning the sanity of his master.

Plagg: Wow! Your father's like a piece of tomme cheese, where the rind's so thick it's almost impossible to get inside the center.

Adrien: Don't be so hard on him, Plagg. It's been a year today since Mom... went away forever.

Oh my God, just say she DIED already! Why are so many kids' shows afraid to say the D-word? How can I cite an episode of Caillou of all shows as something that that actually talked about death to it's audience in a nuanced way?

It turns out that Adrien's aunt is visiting for the day, as it's the one-year anniversary of Emilie's “going away forever”. We also learn that the gene pool in Adrien's family is so shallow, a toddler could swim in it, because Emilie's sister looks exactly like her.

Even better, her name is Amelie. I bet the parents thought naming their kids Emilie and Amelie was hilarious for like three minutes.

And of course, she also brought her son, the asshole of the hour.

Someone cue the Imperial March.

So Felix is finally here, and of course, he looks just like Adrien. It's almost like the animators didn't want to create any new character models for this episode, so they thought nobody would notice if they just reused a few. Seriously, towards the end of the episode, we see Felix wearing the Cat Miraculous on his hand, and none of the animators noticed it.

So while Adrien is happy to see his cousin, Felix isn't. I'll talk more about it in a minute.

Amelie mentions that the wedding rings are actually heirlooms in her side of the family, so she naturally wants them back. Of course, Gabriel, being Gabriel, responds accordingly.

Gabriel: These rings are obviously very special to me.

Amelie: And they're very dear to me too, Gabriel. Those jewels have always been in the Graham de Vanily family, not the Agreste's.

Gabriel: We'll discuss it later.

“Yeah, yeah, these rings are priceless family heirlooms or whatever, but why can't you think about how important they are to me?”

Meanwhile, Marinette and her friends are planning on recording some messages for Adrien to cheer him up on this day, but Marinette isn't sure what to say before she decides to confess her love to him. I'm sure Adrien will get the message and return Marinette's feelings this episode... and Cliff Hanger will finally escape that cliff he's been hanging from for years.

Speaking of, Adrien and Felix are hanging out in the former's room where we learn that Felix's father passed away recently. We don't know how long, but with the way they talk about, it's clear the funeral wasn't too long ago. Keep this in mind.

So while Adrien leaves the room to get a chess board for the two to play a game of, Felix, for no reason, decides to search through Adrien's things and crush a piece of cheese that Plagg had been aging for two weeks. And here is the interaction that helps this episode go from mediocre to aggravating, just because of what they imply here.

Adrien: Listen, Plagg. Felix lost his dad not so long ago, he's probably not himself.

Plagg: I'm sorry, but there's just no excuse! You never touch my cheese, and yet, you just lost your mother not so long ago, right?

Yes. The show is actually implying that Adrien is better than Felix because Adrien isn't acting out because his mom “went away forever”. Keep in mind, we know that Felix just lost his father, while Adrien has had a year to cope. I'm not saying he can't be sad anymore, as everyone processes grief differently, but you can't set up Felix as a foil to Adrien just because they both lost a parent, as their situations are entirely different.

Oh, and when Plagg's statement upsets Adrien, it isn't because he's angry at Plagg for making the comparison, it's because he mentions Emilie. And this argument is never brought up again.

I still can't believe this episode is basically saying that even if you lose a loved one, that's no excuse to get emotional. This isn't just a horrible lesson to teach children, but it pisses me off on a more personal level. Why?

My grandfather died last year after a long battle with lung cancer.

He had been in and out of the hospital for a few years at this point, and part of me was relieved that he was finally free of the pain. I tried not to let it bother me, as I had already mentally prepared myself for the day he would die whenever he was readmitted to the hospital. But it was still painful to go through because he was so important to me. Instead of simply telling someone how I was feeling, I threw myself into my schoolwork in an effort to distract myself from actually confronting my emotions. After seeing A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a movie where the main character made peace with his father on his deathbed with some encouragement from Mr. Rogers, it made me think about how unhealthy it was to bottle up my emotions, so I started to open up more about how I was feeling. When I told my mom (who was his daughter) about why I was so conflicted regarding his death, she said it was completely understandable, as she had been an emotional wreck as well. I also talked with my therapist about how this was affecting me mentally.

What does this have to do with the episode? I don't think Felix had access to this kind of emotional support when his dad died, or that he tried coping the same way I did initially.

And the worst part is that this could have been used to teach people a lesson on how to cope with losing a loved one. Maybe Adrien could have helped Felix find a healthier coping mechanism, or simply help him open up emotionally, teaching him that it's okay to be upset when someone close to you dies, but that you just need to be honest about your feelings.

But no, rather than portray Felix's actions as a troubled youth lashing out because he's angry at the cards the world dealt him, Felix does several awful things this episode for no other reason than because he's evil, even though he has a good reason to hate Adrien and Gabriel.

So the very next scene, we see Felix has stolen Adrien's phone and is going through the messages that Adrien's friends sent him, but not before insulting his crush on Ladybug. I'm not sure if that's supposed to reflect the fandom's criticism of Adrien's crush on Ladybug, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Nino's Message: Hey, my dude! I'm not quite sure what to tell you, except that, you're my man, dude! And bros are always there for their guys!

Felix: (Mockingly) “Bros are always there--” blah, blah, blah! Moron.

Rose's Message: Unicorns have a saying: even when there's nothing but gray skies and rain, all it takes is one little sunbeam for a rainbow to appear!

Felix: Loser.

Max's Message: It's one hundred percent proven, you should feel fifty-two percent happier with a healthy dose of laughter. So Markov has uploaded a few jokes for you! Starting with--

Felix: Freak.

Chloe's Message: When my mother left for New York, I felt so sad. It felt like she was... (sighs) She came back, and I know how lucky I am. So, you can count on me, my Adrikins.

Felix: Chloe. Just as annoying as usual.

And that line right there is the only time Astruc actually liked writing Felix, as it gave him the chance to satisfy his need to insult Chloe.

And then when he sees Marinette's message, he deletes it because... hell if I know

Again, this scene could have worked if it was interpreted as Felix saying stuff that he wasn't dependent on others for support and that he could easily power through life on his own, but nope! Instead, he hates Adrien's friends and only deletes Marinette's message instead of all of them simply because he's evil, heart blacker than Don Cheadle.

Felix continues to show how awful he is by dressing up in Adrien's clothes and—Oh, son of a bitch, SERIOUSLY? This is the SEVENTH evil doppelganger plotline we've had in THREE SEASONS! You're telling me this isn't doing the same thing over and over again, Astruc?

Yeah, so Felix records some messages to send to his friends that, once again, could have worked if this episode was actually teaching a lesson about dealing with grief.

“Adrien's” Message:  First of all, thanks so much for all your messages, guys, really. Sending me messages on today of all days... (angrily) to remind me how sad I'm supposed to be feeling? Why, that's great! Really, Thanks a lot!

But because nobody ever considers how Felix is feeling, it's never acknowledged, because that would actually involve writing him with complexity.

Gabriel gets a message from Lila, who recently became one of his confidants to spy on Adrien, tells him about the fake message, and decides to use the negative emotions felt as an excuse to get rid of his in-laws. No, seriously.

Gabriel: All this disappointment might just help us get rid of our unwanted guests.

To be fair, I'd probably do the same thing just so I wouldn't have to talk to some of the people I hate at my job.

And so, Hawkmoth akumatizes Alya, Juleka, and Rose into the Punisher's Trio, who are basically just their previously akumatized forms Lady Wifi, Reflekta, and Princess Fragrance. Because why would you expect anyone to use an original character model for this episode?

All joking aside, this development raises several questions. First, why wasn't Nino one of the Punisher's akumatized? He's Adrien's best friend, so shouldn't be just as upset as everyone else? Hell, the whole reason he was akumatized into the Bubbler in Season 1 was just so he could throw Adrien a birthday party after Gabriel said no. Then there's the fact that Chloe could have also been akumatized because she's just as close as Adrien, which is another wasted opportunity here.

Second, why bring back Reflekta and Princess Fragrance of all villains? It doesn't even make sense when you consider their motifs are based off of the circumstances that led to them getting akumatized in their respective episodes. Juleka became Reflekta because of her anxiety over easily blending in, so she got the power to turn everyone into an exact copy of herself so they could understand the feeling. Rose became Princess Fragrance when Chloe destroyed her letter and perfume bottle dedicated to the prince of a foreign nation, so the perfume bottle was the basis of her powers. At least Lady Wifi makes sense as the akumatized object this episode is a tablet used to record the messages to Adrien, but Reflekta and Princess Fragrance have nothing to do with the plot of this episode, and just feel tacked on. If it was just Lady Wifi or the Bubbler, I'd get it, but this just doesn't work.

Third, what exactly is this show's obsession with Reflekta? We saw in Reflekta's first episode that her powers had a huge drawback as if either of the heroes is zapped by her, she can't get their Miraculous, like what we saw happened to Cat Noir. Yet, this is the second time this season that Hawkmoth had the bright idea to bring back Reflekta (even giving her a giant robot to amplify her powers). At least Lady Wifi and Princess Fragrance's powers worked together well (Lady Wifi could freeze someone in place, while Princess Fragrance can brainwash them with her perfume), but Reflekta just feels like the odd one out here.

Fourth, and most importantly, why did we only get to hear the line “At your service, Princess Fragrance!” A single time this episode?

So the Punishers head to Adrien's house to take their revenge, but see Felix, still dressed in Adrien's clothes, and are naturally confused. Adrien pretends to be Felix by running away while laughing evilly (so not too far off from how Astruc sees Felix), while the real Felix and Nathalie put up a good fight against the Punishers.

And then... here is the moment that shows just how skewed Astruc's view of Adrien really is.

Felix pretends to confess his love to Ladybug as Adrien, trying to force a kiss on him, making Ladybug punch him in the face by claiming that the real Adrien “would never be so pushy”.

BULL. SHIT.

Yes, Ladybug doesn't know that Adrien is actually Cat Noir, but it's clear that this scene is meant to solidify just how Felix is far worse than Adrien because according to Astruc, he would never do that.

But maybe I'm being too hard on him.

It's not like Adrien has ever forced himself onto Ladybug, right?

I mean, imagine if the show just ignored something like that.

All while trying to teach kids the importance of saying no when someone harasses them.

Can you imagine if someone was that oblivious to their own hypocrisy?

I'm not saying that the lesson is a bad one, but you can't call someone out for doing something bad, and then ignore one of your main characters doing the exact same thing!

Even in the context of the episode, the comparison doesn't work. We know that Felix is only doing this to make Adrien look bad, and has no romantic feelings towards Ladybug like Adrien does. Felix knows what he is doing is wrong, while Adrien doesn't. Whenever Cat Noir tries to kiss Ladybug, he is never aware that what he is doing is wrong, and while he is almost always stopped from kissing Ladybug for one reason or another.

Like when the episode tried to compare two different characters reacting to losing loved ones when there are different circumstances regarding them, the comparison DOESN'T WORK.

And to add insult to injury, Cat Noir shows up just to insult Felix by implying he doesn't have a lot of friends because of the way he acts, because why would he? After all, he's a complete loser that nobody would want to be friends with, and if you like him, you're an idiot for thinking so! At least, that's probably what Astruc was going for.

Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, leading to a brief Mexican standoff, until Felix steals the tablet containing the Akuma, making a deal with Hawkmoth that he'll help out the Punishers as long as he gets the wedding rings. Do you hate Felix yet? Come on, do you hate him? WHY WON'T YOU HATE HIM, GODDAMN IT!?

This whole bit is completely pointless as Ladybug immediately finds a way to stop all four of them and de-evilize the Akuma.

And when it looks like Felix is actually apologizing for his actions this episode, it's naturally a ruse he put on to steal one of the wedding rings from Gabriel to give to his mom. Because why would Astruc even think of portraying him sympathetically, or at least have him learn a lesson?

So Felix stares out the window with an evil look in his eye (possibly foreshadowing another appearance), as Gabriel takes Emilie's wedding ring to wear for himself, and the episode mercifully ends.

It also means that I never have to watch this episode ever again.

Do you understand why it took so long for me to fully analyze this episode? Hell, it would have taken longer if Astruc didn't delete his tweets defending the kiss scene and how Cat Noir is totally a gentlemen unlike Satan, I mean Felix.

What else do I have to say about this episode that hasn’t already been said? Well, I do have one thing.

I’m not that big a fan of Felix.

I think he’s an okay character in fanfics, but I’m more indifferent to him and fanfics that ship him and Marinette together. I don’t know, maybe that’s because there are so many Felinette fanfics that are heavily seasoned with salt, or it could just be because I’m complete Love Square and Lukanette trash.

But just think about the fact that the scathing criticism of this episode was delivered by someone who isn’t that into Felix. That is how bad this episode is.

In addition to being an obvious mouthpiece for Astruc to yell at fans why they’re idiots for actually liking Felix, it does so by touching on delicate subject and trying to act like it’s easy to tell how Felix is worse than Adrien when the circumstances are nothing alike.

But the fact that Astruc takes a popular character just to portray him as a complete menace just to antagonize his fans is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

[nyerus]

The Absolute Clownery....

Ya’ll so someone actually tried to plagiarize TGCF?!!?

Gonna try to keep this insanity short but OH my god. Some people (possibly young teenagers; no ages were given on any profiles, so just please keep that in mind) on Instagram started promoting a work of theirs called “The Third Ascension”... featuring main character Xue Yuan, a crown prince who ascended to godhood and then fell from grace over 800 years ago, and meets a ghost king by the name of Ze Cheng....

If you’re thinking “well golly that sounds a lot like something we know” YEAH SDLFKJSDLKFJSDLKFJSD

The “author” wholesale ripped of TGCF and changed Xie Lian + Hua Cheng’s names (AND ONLY THEIRS, BTW). I really hope no one bought the fake books off Rakuten’s Kobo (e-book) site. You can self-publish on there, and the “author” also spared no effort to make fake reviews. Well. Some effort was apparently spared because they were all made on the same day and clearly fake as hell.

And yeah, they did tag @/scholasticinc on instagram -- you know, the children’s books publisher, with titles like “Captain Underpants” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog.” Please just. Take a moment to imagine a world where Scholastic would publish a Chinese xianxia novel featuring horror, gore, violence, suicide, sexual content, and psychologically distressing material -- just to name a few things! BUT APPARENTLY, no need to worry about the gay stuff, because the “author” so generously made Hualian’s romance into a bromance. Like. Legitimately took TGCF and said “everyone’s het tho!” No genderbending, just het-ification. Idk.

I really cannot. I’m moving on for my sanity’s sake. I’ve already lost so much time to how many hysterical breakdowns I’ve had because of this in the last hour and a half.

Meanwhile, the “artist” ripped off not only STARember, but various other fanartists. They have a slew of stolen artworks on their instagram even from artists like GEAROUS. Absolutely baffling.

However, Things Are Happening already, so we can rest assured. Because both of them have set their profiles to private, the carrd and wixsite they had to promote it are down, the discord server was purged (unclear if deleted, people tried to raid it and got kicked lol), and the books were taken off listings from Kobo’s sites. There are multiple sites in different languages though, so it will probably take a little bit of time to get them all down. Fans on Weibo have also been made aware of it.

What’s infuriating is the idea that these people profited off of stolen works, and had thousands of followers. The “author” has over 18k followers on insta!!! Like wth!? Surely amongst those 18k, there was at least one gullible person that fell for this and gave them money. Yeesh. If these people are indeed kids, then I hope they’re really young and stupid -- and that they learn from these. Parents please pick up your kids omg. If they’re adults, then I really do not know what to say.

Technically, it’s still a developing situation, and I don’t have more screenshots because things moved SO fast. By the time I was done screaming and processing the whole situation, telling people I knew, and reporting what I could, that shit was gone LMFAO!!! Fandom moved hella fast, thank goodness. I don’t know what’ll come of it, and I’m really just making this post to archive the fact that this happened at all because I’m not entirely convinced that it’s not just a stress dream I’m having right now.

This twitter user is doing a really amazing job of cataloguing what the hell is going on, so please check out their thread if you wanna see more: https://twitter [.] com/wwxwashere/status/1376948807729045512?s=20

Also rest assured that Suika and the other translators know about it already: twitter [.] com/yummysuika/status/1376952468899295234

Thank you very much to Otonozhin on the Suibian discord sever for bringing it to my attention, as well as others on there + the HOBL server + on twitter who helped spread the word and report all this.

[writingtoforgetreality]

I just want us to be safe – Chapter 3 (Andy Barber x Daughter!Reader)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter / I Just want us to be safe-Masterlist

Summary: After seeing the tribute post from Jacob, you were shocked to read the comments. Apparently, your little brother had been bullied by a lot of people. Their words were cruel. Why had he never told any of you? Was he hiding something? He was…

Words: 2,815

Warnings: language (duh), bullying, doubting, social media, Andy being one tired ass man (give him a hug already)

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

Arriving back home, all you wanted to do was go to your room & take a nap. Today had been exhausting. Dad & you had stopped by McDonalds, your guilty pleasure, but after this stressful day, you two needed some fast food. Laurie was already awaiting you. You greeted her & she asked if there was anything new. You had to disappoint her but assured her you would keep on working on it. Laurie told you to stop helping your dad with this case. She knew you loved this job but this case hit too close to home & she said it was not the best idea. Being the stubborn human being that you were, you simply said that you were doing just fine. That was partly true. Nothing would change your mind, you had to get this done, wanted to get this done.

Jacob was back in his room again. Dad, Laurie & you decided to knock on his door, wanting to talk to him. Not because of your assumptions but because you all wanted to be there for him. When he called you inside, he was a bit surprised that there were all three of you seated on his bed. Dad began with telling him that every single one of you was there for him & if he needed something, he should start opening up to you guys. Jacob nodded, not saying too much. Dad & Laurie left his room first. You wanted to make sure to talk to him alone, too.

“You know, Jay…If there’s anything, & I mean literally anything, you can come to me, yeah? I don’t know, maybe you’re not too comfortable to talk with them but I’m your sis. I care for you, do you hear me?” you were not this serious often but you needed him to understand that he had your full support. In that moment, you had forgotten about your previous train of thought.

“I know. Thank you, (Y/N).” he smiled at you. Not a full smile but you were getting there.

“Anytime.” & after that, you exited his room, closed his door & stood there for a second. Right now, it felt crazy to you that you genuinely thought Jacob was hiding something. Your mind was a bit out of place before but you could see clear again. You loved your little brother. He did not deserve to go through this.

Being back in the kitchen, dad continued working on the case. He repeated the talks he had had with the teenagers earlier that day. Nothing made sense.

“Still working on it, huh?” you smirked, trying to lighten the mood. Laurie was watching television, not really paying attention to what was on though.

“It’s just…it doesn’t make sense. Ben was liked by a lot of kids. He never had troubles in school, so why?” your dad was getting frustrated. Usually he knew solving a case could take way longer but the fact that it had happened in your hometown made everything worse. He wanted to find & arrest this piece of shit.

“Maybe we should sleep a night over it. Let’s try again tomorrow, with clear heads.” you reasoned.

“Just a few more minutes, then I’m heading to bed.” He said to which you went over to him & hugged him from behind. He gave you a kiss on the cheek & wished you a good night.

“Laurie? You coming?” you directed this question at her. She had already been looking at you since she had been listening to the conversation you had held with your dad. Something about calling her Laurie felt off. Did you want to say “mom”? That was weird. You had never had the desire to do so but it seemed like the last days had changed you quite a bit. Anyway, Laurie nodded at you, said good night to Andy & went with you upstairs. In the hallway you hugged her & told her to sleep well, her doing the same. After that, both of you went separate ways to your rooms.

Ridding yourself of your clothes, taking off your makeup, you decided to take a hot shower. Thus helping you with your thought process. You needed to get this off your mind, for the sake of your sleep. You stepped out of the shower, took a towel & wrapped it around your body. You took an oversized shirt, one of your dad’s you had stolen from him a while ago, & pulled it over. You usually slept in a shirt only, it was more comfortable that way. Not wanting to blow dry your hair, you just let it be as it was. You had bigger problems than blow drying your hair, for god’s sake. Deciding you still were not tired enough, you laid on top of your bed, taking your phone & started scrolling through your social media accounts. You were not active on any app at all, just checking in from time to time. Snapchat was first. Did anyone use this nowadays? All you did on that app was watching your friends’ stories. It was not like anyone sent you a private snap or something. After being done with that, you went over to Twitter. You mostly used this app to see your classmates posting shit they definitely would regret in the future. It was funny, really. Entertainment at its finest. You were glad that you were a “silent watcher”. That way nobody knew too much about you & you wanted to keep it like that. Last but not least: Instagram. That was your favorite app. You had a private account, of course, only letting people you knew in real life follow you. Your brother was the exact opposite. He had a public account, shared a lot about him, his hobbies, about his life in general. Not even once did you judge him for it. It was his life, he was allowed to share what he wanted to. Speaking of your brother’s account, you saw that he had posted a tribute to Ben a couple hours ago. Immediately, you liked it, thinking how cute it was of him to remember him that way. Honestly, you never checked Instagram comments. Most of the time they were filled with bullshit but this post was dedicated to a now dead classmate. Opening the comment section, you were shocked by the responses.

“We all know you did it. We know you own a knife.”

“Embarrassing…Acting like you were best friends smh.”

“Kill yourself, murderer.”

Tears started forming in your eyes. These comments scared you. Your brother had a knife? His classmates accused him of stabbing another 14-year-old? Not wanting to believe a single word, you checked out Jacob’s other posts, the comments to be exact. Your brother had been bullied for such a long time. How the hell did neither of you notice? Why had he never said anything? You were always so open in your family. Dad & Laurie always said that you could come to them if something was bothering you. While you were someone who expressed her feelings, Jacob used to keep to himself. You did think, though, that he would say something about such a topic. Kids were cruel, especially at that age. You had to confront him. Right now.

11:43 pm, fuck. Jacob was most likely asleep by now. See, that was why you hated social media. It was a distraction & suddenly you spent hours scrolling through your phone, pitying & judging people’s lives. Or you started growing jealous. Whatever, it was not a safe place. Back to the topic: Jacob was asleep, so was Laurie. Dad? He said he would go to bed hours ago. You knew him better, of course. Not wanting to wake anyone up, you silently opened your door, made sure your light was switched off & tiptoed downstairs. Thank god you did not have old stairs that creaked. From the steps, you could already see a small light from the living room area. So he was working still. Your dad, everyone, dedication at its finest.

“So you did lie about going to sleep.” you whispered & yet your dad jumped slightly, not expecting anyone in the room with him. When he looked over at you, he saw your arms crossed, a smile playing at the corners of your mouth. He then noticed your shirt, well, technically his shirt.

“Is that my shirt?” damn was he tired. He looked like he definitely needed some rest. Last night was short & he needed sleep to function the next day.

“It WAS your shirt. Borrowed it a while ago.” with borrowing you meant that you had no intention on returning it. You could not help it, your dad’s clothes were simply more comfortable & that were facts.

“Borrowed, sure…Anyway, what’s up, angel? Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?” he wiped his hands over his face, trying to get rid of the tiredness he felt.

“Y’know, I could ask you the same question BUT I’m not going to, you’re welcome.” you saw your dad rolling his eyes at you. Suddenly, you were being more serious. You did not walk downstairs for no reason.

“I was on Instagram & then I saw that & I just…take a look yourself.” you handed him your phone, the comment section of Jacob’s post open. All you did was looking at his face, waiting for his reaction. His expression changed. You could see the fear in his eyes.

“These were publicly posted, yeah?” to which you only nodded. “This one’s from Derek. I thought they were friends?” your eyes grew wider at his statement.

“Wait, wait, wait…THE Derek who was over a few days ago? You’re kidding, right?” you looked at your screen again, seeing that, indeed, it was Derek. What the fuck? What friend would write something like that under a post?

“What knife?” your dad asked into the room that had grown painfully silent. By now, you took a seat beside him, not feeling well enough to stand anymore.

“This has gotta be a joke. Why would Jay have a knife? And why would he take it with him?” actually, you wanted to put your earlier worries into words but could not find the right way to do so. You were not accusing your little brother of murder, nope. But given the circumstances…If one person stated shit like that, okay, brush it off, but his comment section was filled with people telling him they knew what he did. There was no way that he had not seen his comments yet. Even a blind man could see that something was wrong. That was cyber bullying & it was illegal. You just hoped he did not have a problem in school. Hating online is bad enough, having to deal with this in real life is even worse.

“I guess that means you were right?” your dad took a look at you, you being surprised. Right with what? You had not told him that you doubted Jacob or did you? No, you were certain.

“With talking to Jake again, I mean.” you let out a breath you did not know you were holding. Of course, the whole “Let’s talk to him” thing.

“Tomorrow morning? I mean…it’s not like I’ll be able to sleep.” you tried to keep your funny attitude but after hearing this…You were not in the mood for trying to fake something.

“At least try, okay?” your dad begged you, letting his face fall into his hands. He was scared, obviously, his son was being accused of a murder. Every parent would react the same way.

“You too, yeah? You need sleep, dad, I’m not joking.”

“Will do, angel. Thanks for showing me immediately.” He got up, gave your hair a light kiss & walked over to the stairs. Then he looked back at you, waiting for you to follow him which you did. He came with you to your room & watched you getting into bed. He sent you a tired smile before he slowly closed your door. Great, another sleepless night. College would be hell on earth tomorrow.

What you did not know was that your dad did not go to his & Laurie’s bedroom right away. He wanted to prove Jacob’s Instagram comments wrong. He wanted to look for a possible knife & since Jacob always slept like a rock, it was easy for him to search through his room. He started at his closet, went over to his writing desk, happy that he did not find a knife at all. His last idea was Jacob’s nightstand. There, he had to be even more silent, the possibility of waking him growing bigger & bigger. Andy was good at being silent though. He opened the drawer, surprised to find a white fabric in there. It looked like something was wrapped inside. No, this could not be. His biggest fear just became true. His son had a knife, not a normal kitchen knife, a KNIFE in his bedside table. The comments were true. At that point Andy knew he would not get any sleep tonight so he did not even try. He simply went back to work, not really paying attention. His thoughts were consumed by his son & his hidden knife.

The next morning approached & this time, your alarm did not wake you. You hade been wide awake for some time now. You got ready & went downstairs, not expecting anyone to be up this early. What surprised you was that not only your dad, also Laurie were already at the kitchen counter. Their heads snapped up as soon as they heard footsteps. When they saw it was just you, their faces softened a bit.

“Good morning?” it was more of a question, really. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“I found this in Jake’s room.” he pointed towards the counter. On top of it was a knife. The realization hit & your eyes shifted between them & back to the knife.

“No…This doesn’t mean anything, right?” of course it meant something & you were smart enough to figure this out too. Never, not even once in your life, did you want to be as wrong as right now. Before anyone could speak up again, Jacob stood a few feet away from us, looking at us with a puzzled look.

“Um, what is this?” Jacob slightly chuckled, not yet knowing what was about to happen.

“Why do you have a knife in your room? And why do your classmates know about this?” usually, your dad never yelled but today was not usual. Laurie sent a look towards Andy, telling him not to scream.

“I- I can explain, I swear.” he stuttered. Was this a hint? Was he planning a lie?

“Well, good luck with that.” you said emotionlessly. Everyone turned around to look at you. You were not someone who liked fighting or provocatively talking to someone but you where not in your right state of mind either.

“I- I bought it a while ago & wanted to show it to a few of my friends. It’s nothing, really, just cool.” he explained. So that was how teenagers defined ”cool”. Interesting.

“And the comments? I mean who even writes stuff like that?” your dad was growing frustrated.

“They’re kids, they don’t mean what they say.” & with that you shot him a glare, knowing damn well that kids do mean that.

“Uh-huh.” was all your dad managed to say. Jacob went over to the counter, ready to grab his knife again.

“What do you think you’re doing?” did he really think dad would let him have this knife again? He should know better than this.

“Taking my knife back?” oh man, he really pushed this.

“No! You’re not getting that back, forget it!” dad’s voice grew louder to which Jacob said he had to go to school. Laurie went over to him, hugged him & told him she loved him. Without saying anything, Jacob ran out of the door, visibly pissed.

“You shouldn’t have yelled.” Laurie told dad & he knew she was right. There was just so much that was going on in his head. The more time went by, the scarier this case got. Every person would see the clues. He was a suspect & you all knew that. What the hell were you supposed to do? You were a family, of course you would not accuse him. Your thoughts were running wild. It felt like you did not know your brother at all. Was he really able to kill someone? Out of anger, maybe? Anger because they had been bullying him? You were not sure anymore. You wanted this to be a dream, a nightmare, but you could not wake up. Little did you know that this was only the beginning of something way bigger…

~to be continued~

Published (08/05/2020) by Cathy

[lookwhatilost]

alright, so, i wanted to make one post about the cat person thing and be done with it forever, but my thoughts about it have been ping-ponging for the entire 7 hours of my shift because i tend to get lost in my own thoughts when i’m on service bar. and i need to vocalize or i will go crazier than i already am. so, let’s see, how should i condense a night’s worth of stream-of-consciousness into something vaguely resembling a post with a point? well, i don’t know if i can do that succinctly, so i’m shoving my best attempts under a cut.

so, the cat person story draws pretty heavily on these aesthetics that we’ve come to associate very heavily with nerdy misogynists. he’s the fedora tipper. he’s the brony with the friend zone complex. he’s coded in the way so that as a reader, it should come as no surprise that he’s the asshole, delusionally believing he’s a “nice guy,” and would call a woman a “whore” for rejecting him. but, as it turns out, the real robert in this story had a completely normal relationship with this woman who was several years his junior, and this toxic power dynamic thing is something kristen roupenian extrapolated from this guy’s instagram upon noticing he was a geeky dude who was previously dating a woman younger than him. the man who fit so neatly into the stereotype of how terrible men look, crammed into a story where he behaves terribly that’s meant to be cathartic for women to read about, was never a terrible man by any metric.

the reality behind the story almost feels like this bizarre, meta-textual commentary about how we all use one another in varying ways. or how we all fall into this trap of making these strange assumptions about other people based on something we’re projecting. or how we really have no way of knowing what the people around us are thinking. what bothered me the most when i read it was how emotionally difficult it was for the author feeling almost compelled to re-evaluate a relationship she remembered relatively fondly because it had been manipulated to fit this narrative of abusive power dynamics that had been foisted upon it with the basis of, well, nothing grounded in reality.

i wrote earlier about how my reaction to cat person was, and always has been, one of frustration from hearing female friends tell me that same story over and over, and getting irritated with them for repeatedly sleeping with men they had trouble assessing and being shocked every time when the bad signals coagulated into a clot of sheer disgust during sex. how i always wanted to grab them by the strings of their hoodies and yell “why are you so diametrically opposed to trusting your goddamn instincts? how have you not figured out that this inevitable result of hopping into bed with someone who’s making you uncomfortable?” knowing full well that i couldn’t convince them of this if they convinced themselves. relating not to margot, but a hypothetical friend that margot might have shared this story with. even that as an aside, there was this nebulous thing about it that bugged me, more that it echoing a story i was beyond sick of hearing, more than it’s shameless deployment of the m’lady stock character, more than reading it as someone who had been celibate for a year and not connecting with it as someone probably outside the intended audience. something about it just... picked at me. but i never thought too seriously about it. i ignored the annoying twitter discourse about it and didn’t find it compelling enough to actively hate so i basically just forgot about it

when i reread it this morning, my mind immediately went to thomas and milan (who is nb, but this example still works imo). they’re probably the closest thing to CatPerson_irl that I’ll ever encounter in my life. i used to work with thomas at b&b, just a profoundly horrible character from every angle. i’ve never met someone in my life who was easier to dislike. he was this 39 year old divorcee (though he looked considerably younger) who couldn’t go a day without using his ex as a punchline. his broader sense of humor came off like he’d stolen a master list of rejected jokes from South Park and married them with boomer comics. he vocally loved ben shapiro and pumping and dumping significantly younger women who weren’t aware of his geriatric status. milan, a 22 year old bar regular that I later befriended, was one of them. incidentally, milan is the same age that I was when I read that short story for the first time.

our mutual friends found it baffling that milan still spoke to him after admittedly feeling used and didn’t avoid the bar like the plague. especially thomas of all people, someone who didn’t even have enough self-awareness to hide his misogynistic ways and seemed to view everything with a vagina as a potential sexual conquest – myself included. we theorized that he had turned to pickup artistry after his divorce and we would all mock him relentlessly for it. but never did this in front of milan, who still felt some strange urge to defend him, even though they were in a relationship with someone else now and had no reason to do this.

the last thing on earth i want to do is concede that something as rotten as thomas could have anything resembling a soul, or depth, or charm, or goodness. but the more i think about it, the more i realize that i’ve had relationships of all flavors that have involved imbalanced power dynamics, and frankly, the jury’s still out on how i feel about them. i mentioned that part of my reason for revisiting it was seeing how i reacted to it in my post-andrew world, and i want to return to that thought.

some of you may remember the infamous story where andrew was drunk very early in the day. i was sitting with him on my couch and babysitting him, and he began getting very handsy with me. i told him that i was uncomfortable and to stop, so proceeded to undress before immediately losing consciousness and falling asleep on the couch. it was objectively not good, and while i struggled to process this through the sheer absurdity of it all, it was one of many incidents related to his alcoholism that would eventually lead to me terminating that relationship. but in spite of that, it’s hard for me to condemn him as a bad person entirely. he could be, it’s not really my place to weigh in on it. i look back on him and i feel a lot of good things, even with the awareness that he was a mean drunk who would frequently behave in strange, irrational ways in his inebriation. even if i could come to a conclusion, i don’t really know what that begets. i guess i’d be angrier at him, maybe, but i can’t say that it’s a useful thing to feel about something that happened years ago.

what really doesn’t make sense is how i feel angrier towards nikki, someone i confided in about this happening, who later forwarded the information i’d told her to this local abuser watch women’s group, saying that he tried to rape me. i was furious, and given a long list of extremely bizarre behavior, a lot of which involved removing most or all of his clothing before doing something strange, it’s hard to say that’s what even happened. it was a shameful moment for me, shameful that i didn’t see it as something that would indicate his future behavior, shameful that this information was being disseminated to people who knew we were together and knew we broke up. and i was angry at her for a long time for it, even if that’s not fair. and there are plenty of people who have done worse things to me than either of them, less legally defined as something like attempted rape (maybe?) and more vindictive than not being a friend to me in the way i need it, and it’s just shit i sit with and have this whole oil smear of complicated, contradictory, and not entirely rational feelings towards. and i feel sometimes that there’s this thing that happens in feminist or women’s spaces where it’s frowned upon to acknowledge how heavy this kind of confusion can be.

the “whore” at the end of cat person was meant to elicit a specific response, this kind of catharsis for a reader who saw it coming through it’s shameless m’lady stock character employment and feels validated through seeing it coming. this is what being a woman is. this is what navigating a dating pool in a world full of horrible men is. it shatters any lingering ambiguity or confusion that often comes with the territory of wondering if the revulsion is justified or just a mismatch in chemistry, or misreading of a room, and jettisons the idea that it could ever be more complicated than that. i guess that’s always what put me off about it. and i feel like that fictional story, juxtaposed against a real one it’s based on about unanswered questions that we won’t ever fully be able to hash out... something about that will always be more real to me.

[hikingmysteries]

The (”Mostly Harmless”) Nameless Hiker

Arguably the biggest hiking story of 2020, the tale actually starts a few years ago. Though we love researching and writing our own pieces for Hiking Mysteries, it is tough to top Nicholas Thompson’s article from Wired magazine. So, here it is, along with images.

A Nameless Hiker and the Case the Internet Can’t Crack

The man on the trail went by “Mostly Harmless." He was friendly and said he worked in tech. After he died in his tent, no one could figure out who he was.

IN APRIL 2017, a man started hiking in a state park just north of New York City. He wanted to get away, maybe from something and maybe from everything. He didn’t bring a phone; he didn’t bring a credit card. He didn’t even really bring a name. Or at least he didn’t tell anyone he met what it was.

He did bring a giant backpack, which his fellow hikers considered far too heavy for his journey. And he brought a notebook, in which he would scribble notes about Screeps, an online programming game. The Appalachian Trail runs through the area, and he started walking south, moving slowly but steadily down through Pennsylvania and Maryland. He told people he met along the way that he had worked in the tech industry and he wanted to detox from digital life. Hikers sometimes acquire trail names, pseudonyms they use while deep in the woods. He was “Denim” at first, because he had started his trek in jeans. Later, it became “Mostly Harmless,” which is how he described himself one night at a campfire. Maybe, too, it was a reference to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Early in the series, a character discovers that Earth is defined by a single word in the guide: harmless. Another character puts in 15 years of research and then adds the adverb. Earth is now “mostly harmless.”

By summer, the hiker was in Virginia, where he walked about a hundred miles with a 66-year-old woman who went by the trail name Obsidian. She taught him how to make a fire, and he told her he was eager to see a bear. On December 1, Mostly Harmless had made it to northern Georgia, where he stopped in a store called Mountain Crossings. A veteran hiker named Matt Mason was working that day, and the two men started talking. Mostly Harmless said that he wanted to figure out a path down to the Florida Keys. Mason told him about a route and a map he could download to his phone. “I don’t have a phone,” Mostly Harmless replied. Describing the moment, Mason remembers thinking, “Oh, this guy’s awesome.” Everyone who goes into the woods is trying to get away from something. But few people have the commitment to cut their digital lifelines as they put on their boots.

Mason printed the 60 pages of the map and sold it to Mostly Harmless for $5 cash, which the hiker pulled from a wad of bills that Mason remembers being an inch thick. Mason loves hikers who are a little bit different, a little bit strange. He asked Mostly Harmless if he could take a picture. Mostly Harmless hesitated but then agreed. He then left the shop and went on his way. Two weeks later, Mason heard from a friend in Alabama who had seen Mostly Harmless hiking through a snowstorm. “He was out there with a smile on his face, walking south,” Mason recalls.

By the last week of January, he was in northern Florida, walking on the side of Highway 90, when a woman named Kelly Fairbanks pulled over to say hello. Fairbanks is what is known as a “trail angel,” someone who helps out through-hikers who pass near her, giving them food and access to a shower if they want. She was out looking for a different hiker when she saw Mostly Harmless. She pulled over, and they started to chat. He said that he had started in New York and was heading down to Key West. She asked if he was using the Florida Trail App, and he responded that he didn’t have a phone.

Fairbanks took notice of his gear—which was a mix of high-end and generic, including his black-and-copper trekking poles. And she was struck by his rugged, lonely look. “He had very kind eyes. I saw the huge beard first and thought, ‘It’s an older guy.’ But his eyes were so young, and he didn’t have crow's feet. I realized he was a lot younger.” She was concerned though, the way she used to be concerned about her two younger brothers. The trail could be confusing, and it wouldn’t be long before everything started getting intolerably hot and muggy. “I remembered him because I was worried,” she added.

Six months later and 600 miles south, on July 23, 2018, two hikers headed out into the Big Cypress National Preserve. The humidity was oppressive, but they trudged forward, crossing swamps, tending aching feet, and dodging the alligators and snakes. About 10 miles into their journey, they stopped to rest their feet at a place called Nobles Camp. There they saw a yellow tent and a pair of boots outside. Something smelled bad, and something seemed off. They called out, then peered through the tent’s windscreen. An emaciated, lifeless body was looking up at them. They called 911.

“Uh, we just found a dead body.”

IT’S USUALLY EASY to put a name to a corpse. There’s an ID or a credit card. There’s been a missing persons report in the area. There’s a DNA match. But the investigators in Collier County couldn’t find a thing. Mostly Harmless’ fingerprints didn’t show up in any law enforcement database. He hadn’t served in the military, and his fingerprints didn’t match those of anyone else on file. His DNA didn’t match any in the Department of Justice’s missing person database or in CODIS, the national DNA database run by the FBI. A picture of his face didn’t turn up anything in a facial recognition database. The body had no distinguishing tattoos.

Nor could investigators understand how or why he died. There were no indications of foul play, and he had more than $3,500 cash in the tent. He had food nearby, but he was hollowed out, weighing just 83 pounds on a 5'8" frame. Investigators put his age in the vague range between 35 and 50, and they couldn’t point to any abnormalities. The only substances he tested positive for were ibuprofen and an antihistamine. His cause of death, according to the autopsy report, was “undetermined.” He had, in some sense, just wasted away. But why hadn’t he tried to find help? Almost immediately, people compared Mostly Harmless to Chris McCandless, whose story was the subject of Into the Wild. McCandless, though, had been stranded in the Alaska bush, trapped by a raging river as he ran out of food. He died on a school bus, starving, desperate for help, 22 miles of wilderness separating him from a road. Mostly Harmless was just 5 miles from a major highway. He left no note, and there was no evidence that he had spent his last days calling out for help.

The investigators were stumped. To find out what had happened, they needed to learn who he was. So the Florida Department of Law Enforcement drew up an image of Mostly Harmless, and the Collier County investigators shared it with the public. In the sketch, his mouth is open wide, and his eyes too. He has a gray and black beard, with a bare patch of skin right below the mouth. His teeth, as noted in the autopsy, are perfect, suggesting he had good dental care as a child. He looks startled but also oddly pleased, as if he’s just seen a clown jump out from behind a curtain. The image started to circulate online along with other pictures from his campsite, including his tent and his hiking poles.

Kelly Fairbanks works at the Army and Air Force exchange store on a Florida military base. She normally monitors the CCTV cameras for shoplifters, but if there’s no one in the store she might sneak a look at Facebook. It was a quiet moment, and suddenly the picture popped into her feed. There he was: eyes wide open and looking up. She recognized the eyes and the beard. “I started freaking out,” she says. It was the kind man she’d seen on Highway 90. The sheriff’s office had also posted a photo of the hiker’s poles, and Fairbanks knew she had an image of the same man holding the same gear.

She clicked right over to the Collier County Sheriff’s Facebook page and sent in two photographs she had taken of Mostly Harmless. She got a message back immediately asking for her phone number. Soon a detective was on the line asking, “What can you tell me?”

She told him everything she knew. And she shared the original post, and her photo, all over Facebook. Soon there were dozens of people jumping in. They had seen the hiker too. They had journeyed with him for a few hours or a few days. They had sat at a campfire with him. There was a GoPro video in which he appeared. People remembered him talking about a sister in either Sarasota or Saratoga. They thought he had said he was from near Baton Rouge. One person remembered that he ate a lot of sticky buns; another said that he loved ketchup. But no one knew his name. When the body of Chris McCandless was found in the wilds of Alaska in the summer of 1992 without any identification, it took authorities only two weeks to figure out his identity. A friend in South Dakota, who’d known McCandless as “Alex,” heard a discussion of the story on AM radio and called the authorities. Clues followed quickly, and McCandless’ family was soon found.

Now it’s 2020, and we have the internet. Facebook knows you’re pregnant almost before you do. Amazon knows your light bulb is going to go out right before it does. Put details on Twitter about a stolen laptop and people will track down the thief in a Manhattan bar. The internet can decode family mysteries, identify long-forgotten songs, solve murders, and, as this magazine showed a decade ago, track down almost anyone who tries to shed their digital skin. This case seemed easy.

An avid Facebook group committed to figuring out his identity soon formed. Reddit threads popped up to analyze the notes he had taken for Screeps. Amateur detectives tracked down leads and tried to match photographs in missing persons databases. A massive timeline was constructed on Websleuths.com. Was it possible, one Dr. Oz viewer asked, that Mostly Harmless was a boy featured on the show who went missing in 1982? Was it possible that Mostly Harmless was a suspect in Arkansas who had murdered his girlfriend in 2017? None of the photos matched.

The story pulled people in. Everyone, at some point, has wanted to put their phone in a garbage can and head off with a fake name and a wad of cash. Here was someone who had done it and who seemed to have so much going for him: He was kind, charming, educated. He knew how to code. And yet he had died alone in a yellow tent. Maybe he had been chased by demons and had sought an ending like this. Or maybe he had just been outmatched by the wilderness and the Florida heat.

It just wasn’t a normal story in any way. And, as Fairbanks said, “he was a good-looking dude,” which, she notes, might explain why so many of the searchers are women. In mid-October, one woman in the Facebook group posted a slideshow comparing his photos to those of Brad Pitt. “Actually I think MH looks better. 😉,” one commenter wrote.

The dude, though, seemed to have followed, to near perfection, the hiker credo of “Leave no trace.” None of the clues panned out. Nothing actually got people close to solving the mystery. An industrious writer named Jason Nark spent more than a year obsessively tracking down leads and then wrote an elegy to the hiker that began, “Sometimes I imagine him falling through space, drifting like dust from dead stars in the vast nowhere above us.”

Natasha Teasley manages a canoe and kayak company in North Carolina. As business slowed when the coronavirus hit, she started to spend more time online, and she started to fill the gap in her life with the hunt for Mostly Harmless. She sent flyers to the Chambers of Commerce in every city where people thought he might have come from, including Sarasota, Florida, and Saratoga Springs, New York. She tracked down details about every car that was towed out of Harriman State Park, where he likely started his journey. She scoured missing persons databases. I asked her what motivated her to spend so much time looking for a man she’d never met. She responded achingly, “He’s got to be missed. Someone must miss this guy.”

WHEN WE THINK of DNA tests, we normally think of their miraculous ability to give us a yes or a no. The unique thread of base pairs that make us who we are exists in every cell. So we take the genetic information found at a crime scene, or in the saliva on a coffee cup, or on the hand of a deceased hiker. Then we look closely at roughly 20 chunks, or what geneticists call markers, and we search in a database of collected samples to see whether the markers match. Imagine if a book, 1 million pages long but without a cover, washed up on the shore. And then imagine you could scan one page and search all the books in a giant database to see if that exact page appeared. That’s conventional DNA testing.

But DNA also can tell the story of human history. By running a different kind of test, you get beyond yes or no and into a million variations of maybe. The genetic markers in your body are closer to those of your first cousin than your third. And they’re closer to those of your third cousin than your sixth. There’s a little bit of each generation in each of us, from our parents to our great grandparents to the early apes of the forests of Africa. So now imagine that book, and imagine that instead of comparing one page, you could compare everything in the book with everything in all other books, to find similar words, syntax, and themes. You would need complicated math and pattern tracing, but, eventually, you might figure out the author. And so, early in the summer of 2020, the organizers of the Facebook group searching for Mostly Harmless’ identity sent news about the case to a Houston company called Othram. It had been started two years earlier and pitches itself as a one-stop shop for solving cold cases.

Othram’s founder, David Mittelman, is a geneticist who had worked on the original human genome project, and he was drawn to this odd case. The company asks the public for suggestions for mysteries to solve, and that’s one of the best parts of the job. “I like doing the cases from the tip line,” Mittelman told me. “Lab work for the sake of lab work is kind of boring.” If he could crack the hiker’s identity, he’d get attention for his technology. But there was something else, too, drawing him in, a riddle he wanted to answer. The hiker seemed to have found an internet family but had no connection to his real one.

Othram called up the Collier County Sheriff’s Office and offered to help. DNA analysis is expensive, though, and the company estimated that the whole project—from evidence to answers—would cost $5,000. The sheriff's office couldn't spend that much money on a case that involved no crime. But it would love Othram’s help if there were another way to pay for the work. And so three of the great trends of modern technology—crowdfunding, amateur sleuthing, and cutting-edge genomics—combined. Within eight days, the Facebook group had raised the money to run the analysis. Soon a small piece of bone from the hiker was on its way west from Collier County to the Othram labs.

The first step for Othram’s team was to extract DNA from the bone fragment and to then analyze it to make sure they had enough to proceed. They did, and so they soon put small samples of DNA onto glass slides, which they inserted into a sequencer, a machine that costs roughly a million dollars and looks like a giant washing machine made by Apple.

Unfortunately, it’s a washing machine that has a long run cycle. And it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the pages of the book you find are ripped or blurry. Sometimes the process is iterative and you have to tape fragments back together. So, as the sequencer spun, the Facebook hunters fretted that, once again, nothing would come of a promising lead. But by mid-August, Othram had a clean read on the DNA: They knew exactly what combination of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts had combined to create the mysterious hiker. A company spokesperson appeared live on the Facebook group’s page to detail the progress; posters responded with gratitude and euphoria.

Science sometimes gets harder with every step, though, and having the sequence was just the beginning. In order to identify Mostly Harmless, the team at Othram would have to compare his genetic information with other people’s. And they would start with a service called GEDMatch, a database of DNA samples that people have submitted, voluntarily, to answer their own hopes and questions—they want to find a lost half-sister or a clue about their grandpa. That collection of DNA has become a cornucopia for law enforcement. Each new sample submitted provides one more book for the library that can be searched and scoured. It was through this technique that investigators in Contra Costa County, California, found the Golden State Killer in the spring of 2018, connecting a DNA sample of the killer to GEDMatch samples of relatives. Just this past week, Othram helped law enforcement identify the murderer of a 5-year-old in Missoula, Montana, a case that had gone unsolved for 46 years.

It’s been over a month since Othram started looking through the GEDmatch database. It won’t say anything about what it has found, and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office is keeping quiet as well. But one source outside of the company who is familiar with its progress says that, while Othram doesn’t know Mostly Harmless’ name, it has found enough matching patterns to identify the region of the country from which his ancestors hail.

That isn’t sufficient though. Knowing for sure, for example, that his relatives came from Baton Rouge doesn’t mean Mostly Harmless came from Baton Rouge. His parents could have been born there and moved to Montreal. He could have been born in Louisiana and dropped on a doorstep in Maine. But, right now, the data scientists at Othram are combing through all the DNA samples in GEDMatch, looking for patterns and trying to circle closer to his identity. They’re most likely building out a family tree. Let’s say they found someone in GEDMatch whose DNA seems like a fourth cousin of Mostly Harmless, and then perhaps someone who seems like a third cousin. How do those two people connect? Through this sort of slow, painstaking analysis, they can get closer to an answer. Soon they might find his extended family, and then perhaps his parents’ names. And then law enforcement will be able to solve a case that has stumped them for more than two years.

They might get there, and they might not. A source familiar with the work suggests that the earliest we’ll get an answer is December. Unless between now and then, perhaps, someone reading this article or browsing a Facebook group recognizes his face. Or puts together clues that have eluded everyone else. Finally, he won’t be “Mostly Harmless”; he’ll have a real name.

And then, with that mystery solved, a new one will open up. Why did Mostly Harmless walk into the woods? And why, when things started to go wrong, didn’t he walk out?

[fatgirlsguidetodating]

My bullying hell.

NOTE: I know this isn’t a dating piece (I’m working on a couple of blog posts at the moment though) but I went walking near my old school, which has been demolished for housing although there’s a fight to make it parkland instead, and it brought back memories. I know most of us get bullied for something. For me that was often my weight but in this case it was more. I think this is why I can be so insecure, and sometimes too sensitive and needy. I contemplated changing initials on the off chance any found my blog or twitter but decided not to. Not once did they display an iota of regret. Even as adults they acted like mean girls do you know what, fuck them.

I know that for many people high school can be hell in parts. I know that many kids have been bullied in school. For me that part was almost the entire year of 8th grade, a year so horrible that I regularly contemplated killing myself, cried myself to sleep most nights, woke in the morning crying because God (despite my not believing in God) hadn't answered my prayers to let me just die, and just generally was completely and utterly miserable and totally alone. I remember one day, with my usual puffy red eyes in the morning, thinking how if it were possible that we only get a certain quota of tears in our lifetime that I must surely have used up a shitload of them. I remember mum, in tears with me, having to practically drag me to school. I remember countless meetings with the school social worker, the year co-ordination, the vice principal and mum. All this was because it had been decreed by the popular girl of the class that I was persona non grata. Nobody was allowed to talk to me in class or out of class- unless it was to say something cruel like about how I was fat. That was allowed. Tripping me over was allowed. Knocking my bag or books over so I had to pick everything up was allowed. Pulling my school dress or skirt up to laugh at my fat arse in front of the boys was allowed. But nice things? No.

There were only 2 people who went against this. On one occasion one of the boys who I had also gone to primary school with asked me if I was ok? Such small words. I managed to nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat. "Hang in there," he said. "It'll blow over." I had to hide my face behind my then long hair so he- and nobody- saw my tears. That one simple act of kindness meant more than he will ever know.

The second was when one of the girls I used to hang around with before the decree returned a book she borrowed from me. Her little sister had made a mess of the book. She offered to buy me another one to replace it. I said it was fine. I didn't need to be hated anymore than I was. She left me a note inside the book apologising and signing it with xoxo. I remember thinking how hollow it was given she hadn't spoken to me in a few months. But at the same time I appreciated it.

How did this happen? In an absolutely ridiculous fashion.

Something mean was written about me on a table: it said, in essence, my name is X and 1) I want to be TC’s girlfriend (ironic as he was my best friend), 2) GW’sbest friend , 3) I never have showers and I think there MAY have been a fourth one but I can't for the life of me remember what it said. I think I blocked a lot of that year out. My minds way of protecting myself I guess, like people often do for traumatic events.

As an adult I can say they were relatively benign statements but as a 14 year old they weren't. The thing was the popular girl, LA (now LH) decided that I had written them about myself. (Seriously!) Her reasoning: it looked "kinda" like my handwriting (it didn't) and it looked like it was written by my pen (one owned by something like half the class including, ironically, her). Interestingly a few months later one of the popular girls told me that she had seen her coming out of that classroom at one of the break tones not long before it was discovered. I'll never know who did it but the simple fact that the popular girl said it was me meant that naturally the class agreed with her.

So when she said nobody was to talk to me they all just did it. Not a single person stood up for me. I have felt lonely at many, many times in my life (haven't we all) but the loneliness of that one moment will never ever be forgotten. Even now I feel literally sick as I remember that moment. It was like one of those movies where you wake up from a dream and everyone's gone, and you are all alone. Or a dream where you suddenly become invisible and no matter how much you scream and jump up and down and wave your hands you remain invisible.

I had hoped that maybe my friends would have stuck up for me. I would even have taken them doing it not publicly but privately if they were too scared to disobey or too ashamed to be my friend in front of the popular girl and her best friend JB (now JI) my two tormentors. Like still hanging out with me at lunch and recess. The popular girl wouldn't know after all. But no. Even the girls I had hung with pretty much since the start of school when we'd made friends with me followed and I was suddenly cut off from everyone, completely and utterly alone....

There are some things that stand out from the next eight or so months, things beyond the pain and loneliness. Moments where the bullying was worse than the usual daily taunts. Like the time they soaked a bunch of tampons in water so they became nice and big and ran around the corner and threw them all at me. Because I found a spot to sit and have my lunch all alone day in day out. Technically, being at the front side of the school, near the road, it was out of bounds but I didn't care. On rainy days I got a bit wet but I didn't care- I even thought well maybe I'll get pneumonia and even if I don't get lucky enough to die from it I could get some time off school, away from my living hell. Sometimes I'd eat quickly- prompting comments from the girls about how fat people like me ate too quick- and then go to the library to hide in a corner and read. Being a bookworm over those eight or so months I got through even more books that I ever imagined I could.

I was trying to eat healthy (I was on a diet which, lets face it, I have been on for most of my life!) and I often had those little tubs of two fruits in my lunch. The girls would sneak around and laugh at my lunch. I'd be tripped over, had leftover bits of food thrown at me, was called fat and ugly so many times that even now I say it about myself and actually mean it. One day after PE I discovered my watch had been stolen from the box we put all our special items in. It was a Mickey Mouse watch I got from Disneyland that played music. I was devastated. These girls that I speak of were- surprisingly- not my two tormentors, the instigator of it all, but my former friends. I think that these girls, and the few boys who sometimes hung out with them, were actually crueler to me than the popular girl and her friend. I could never understand that. I still don't.

For almost eight months my mum battled with the school to have me moved to another form but they kept saying that the numbers were at maximum in each form. I offered at one point to take a lie detector test to prove I hadn't written those things. I spent way too many hours in the social workers office in tears.

At one point all of a sudden one of the boys started being nice to me. I lapped up the kindness, kind of like how an abused dog will still always want their masters approval. Every kind word was like a balm on my soul. He'd come and sit with me sometimes at lunch and we would talk and laugh. It was only when someone slipped a note in my locker- I suspect the girl who returned the book- telling me that he had been given a dare by the two tormentors to get me to sleep with him. Needless to say the next time he came to see me I said to him "I know what you're doing. I know it's a dare and you've been telling them everything I said!" (Probably one of the only times in my life I stood up for myself.) He didn't even look ashamed or guilty, he laughed and said "well I wouldn't sleep with a fat four eyes like you for no reason. You are pretty dumb for believing it." Perhaps the saddest thing was the fact that I contemplated not telling him I knew. Oh I wouldn't have gone so far as to sleep with him knowing what I knew but to just continue the ruse for awhile because he provided the only conversation in school hours, the only kindness, in all the pain and loneliness. But, ultimately, I knew being alone was better than living a lie.

My persona non grata status didn't extend to just my class. All the popular kids knew not to talk to me and to make fun of me or even spit on me if I walked past. One of them even tripped me up on the top of the stairs so I went flying down them, landing on my side so hard it was bruised and hard to breathe for ages. I never told on them. I knew that "dobbing" would just make my life worse. Though how they could have made it worse than that I will never know.

The worst moment was when I actually did attempt to kill myself. This is something I haven't ever told a single soul. My mum only found out I had wanted to kill myself a few months ago- not that I attempted it a couple of times- and she was devastated. But I never told her at the time because I saw how much it pained her to see me so unhappy. I couldn't burden her anymore. The night it happened was a Sunday night, the night before school started again for the new term. I was pretty naive. It was pre-Internet which, in retrospect is probably a good thing because had Google existed back then I would have found a way to do it. I took a packet and a half of Panadol. I thought surely that was enough. It wasn't. Not only did I not die, but I simply woke up the next morning feeling like absolute shit.

The turning point came about seven months in. A chance encounter in the library with one of the girls I'd gone to primary school with and I told her about what my life was like. She was horrified and said I could come and hang with her friends sometimes. Not all the time, she said, because they wouldn't like that but sometimes. I probably should have thought it a strange offer but needless to say at the time a little bit was better than nothing. So maybe two or three times a week at lunch mainly I would go and hang with them. I didn't really say much. I had always been shy but my ordeal had made me even more so. When people came up behind me and stuck crap down the back of my top or yelled "boo fatty four eyes" suddenly I would jump a mile. If I saw one of my two tormentors or any of their friends I would instantly start shaking waiting for what they would do or say this time. They soon learnt they didn't even need to speak, just look at me, and I'd be affected. So when my school friend said to me that I couldn't really hang out with them anymore because the others thought I was stuck up (because I didn't speak much) I didn't feel much emotion. It seemed to me that it was perfectly right. Why WOULDN'T they reject me too? Who would even WANT to be friends with someone like me?

Finally, FINALLY, after eight months battling the school by mum they let me move classes. Not to the form I wanted to go in as by then I had made a couple of friends through my childhood male best friend who lived a few houses up and I had known since we were three and who I spent most weekends and school holidays with along with my brother and his younger sister who were in the same year, but a new one nonetheless.

It was the middle of second period, I think, that I was moved. The class were in the science block so I'm guessing it was a science class but I can't quite remember. The year level co-ordinator took me in there and just said, "X is in this class now. She's been given the class schedule." Of course everyone turned to look at me curiously. I slipped into a seat in the back of the room and put my head down. At the desk next along from me were three girls. At one point they said my name and I looked up and asked "yes?" I was given a withering look. "I wasn't talking to you. X here has the same name as you." I was told.

The next period those three girls asked me to sit with them and asked plenty of questions. But then after lunch they told me they'd spoken to my main tormentor and knew who I was and what I did. Great, I remember thinking, I could never ever leave it behind me!

But, slowly, over the remaining few months in the year I began to make friends. There were four girls in my form who became my friends- to this day one of them remains one of my best friends- and from another form there were another two. The six of them hung around together and, as time went on, I became part of their group. There were another few girls in the form who sometimes came to hang out with us.

I was with two of them (both had the same name and it also coincidentally happened to be the name of my main tormentor) one day walking across the courtyard when my tormentor and her best friend (the girl who had been one of my close friends for years before this all happened and who's friendship with me seemed to threaten my main tormentor for some reason before the table incident) suddenly appeared. Apparently someone had written something in chalk in the girls toilet near the year ten common room (or it may have been year twelve then, I can't remember when the merger happened) about her and I was blamed. One of the girls stood up for me, pointing out there were many with her name including my two new friends. But no. It was definitely about her because it had her last initial or name. She tried to get in my face, telling me she knew it was me and I had mental problems etc but my two new friends basically stood in front of her. They were a bit tough and told her that she'd have to go through them to get to me. She chose to walk away.

Though she did get the popular girls in my class to make extra fun of me for a bit but all of a sudden it was water off a ducks back because I had my new friends. They did try and get them to abandon me, telling them what I had done but I'd already told them my side and all the pain- though I had edited it because it was too raw to tell the whole truth, in all its intricate and painful details that soon- and the attempts failed.

Soon it was summer and I spent much of it with my new friends.

In the next school year my old friends and my tormentors still would make smart comments or something when I walked past but the more I ignored it, the more I showed no reaction, the less they did it though it never totally stopped throughout my whole time at high school.

Teenagers can be cruel and girls I think the cruelest of the bunch. Sure teenage boys can be cruel too but girls are bitchy and that is much worse in my opinion. Boys might have a fight and then it's done with. Girls will just bitch and snipe and make you miserable. My tormentors never said sorry, never acknowledged I didn't do it. I occasionally see their names pop up as comments on mutual friends posts on Facebook and I look at their profiles and see how perfect their lives seem. Both are married, one has two kids, one has one. I wonder, when I see them, how it's fair that they get the perfect life and I don't. There is no sign of karma having ever gone their way for what they did to me. As for the girls who were my friends before the decree, I'm Facebook friends with a couple of them. We never really spoke again at school. But, with school far behind us and time dulling some of the bad memories and letting most people look back at their school days as the halcyon days of youth, and remember the good times not the bad, a couple of them are friends on Facebook. Only one have I ever really caught up with but another two I do talk to sometimes on there.

I do believe that, to this day, it has affected me. Just writing this is affecting me: for instance I'm feeling a bit sick, my hands are a bit shaky, and I feel like I want to have a bit of a cry. (Yes- I still have tears left despite those eight long months. The human body can be, I think, up to 65% water. I swear back then my percentage was much lower because of my nightly crying myself to sleep.) But I feel good having written this, having gotten one of my stories off my chest. Sure there are others in my life I may talk about in the future but this is one that shaped me. For instance I know I can be a bit of a needy friend, wanting to see friends more often, wondering when I haven't heard from them in a certain amount of time if I've been replaced or done something to make them angry or upset. I take things way too personally, am far too sensitive about things said or done, I overthink things. And I have no self-confidence at all. I don't see the good in me. Outside or in. When someone gives me a compliment my first reaction is to laugh at them. Especially if they say something positive about my body. I look at them and I say, "are you blind?"

If you take anything from my story please let it be this: kindness doesn't cost a thing and just a little bit can truly make a major difference in someone's life. Bullying- whether it's a child, teenager or even an adult- can really fuck someone's life up. And words- like fat four eyes- can do just as much damage, in fact I would argue MORE than hands. Words CAN hurt. Words can linger in a person's mind years and years after they have been said. They can affect the way they live their life and choices they make. They can reverberate in a person's brain for years. So please be kind. And if you are lucky enough to have kids teach them that too. Because- especially with the proliferation of social media in our lives- words can lead to people taking their lives. That stupid little childhood singsong retort to insults "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a load of utter bullshit. Words- just like actions- can kill. Bullying can kill.

[onisiondrama]

Patreon Stream 11/26/19

Sorry I’m late on this. Notes:

The video starts mid conversation. I think Greg is talking about the recent Joker movie. I only figured that out because one of his Patreons keep randomly saying “Joaquin Phoenix” really loud. Greg’s comparing Arthur Fleck to himself. He says Arthur goes through the same shit he went through and they look the same. Says he has the same hairdo, white man, 8 years older than him, trying to be an entertainer but everyone hates him. “Jesus christ this sounds so familiar.” He says he felt personally attacked because Joaquin acted the same way Greg acted in his old videos. (I can’t tell if this is a joke.)

He says people called him “the Joker of Youtube” (I think he’s getting mixed up with the “villain”. People used to call him that after New Media Rockstars called him “Youtube’s Perfect Villain” back in 2013. I’ve personally never seen anyone call him the “Joker” of youtube.) He says he didn’t understand it because he wasn’t Heath Ledger, he just imitated him, but when the new movie came out it he felt exposed. He said it felt so personal.

A Patreon suggests Greg was the inspiration for the new Joker and Greg says he doubts that. He says he thinks a lot of people go through these experiences and the Joker in the comics pre-dates him and he was always a failed comedian. He says just the way Joaquin played the joker felt personal. He says this was the first time he felt like someone understood him. All he needs is the traumatic brain injury and that would have been him.

Says he knows someone with mental illness that takes a lot of medication and if you combine that person with him you’d get Joaquin‘s joker.

Greg talks about the plot and says every piece of it was mind blowing. He says it was one of the greatest films he’s ever seen. He says the Christian Bale series was gold and the Joker movie was platinum. He says it’s because it’s so relatable and real feeling.

Greg says not a lot of people know a scene in Joker seems like a personal attack on David Letterman because Joaquin went on his show years ago and he was made fun of. Greg says it was really bad, he was shitting all over Joaquin. (btw Greg keeps pronouncing Joaquin as “yo-kwon” even though all his Patreons have been pronouncing his name correctly this whole time. Thought I’d point it out.) He says it’s one of the most uncomfortable things he’s ever seen and Greg took that as Joaquin telling David Letterman he wants to kill him.

Greg says when he was in the air force these guys were bragging about “double fucking” a girl he knew. He says he thought the girl was great. He says it didn’t bother him that they were bragging about double fucking her, but they said she had pancake nipples and that made him really mad. He says he likes big nipples, but she was embarrassed, publicly shamed for her body. He says he wished he could tell her she was great the way she was, but he couldn’t because he was married.

A Patreon says she noticed a lot of guys with long hair have tiny nipples. Greg disagrees. He says when somebody gets top surgery, their nipples look smaller so he thinks it’s a flat chested thing. (lol um they reduce the size of the areola during the surgery, which is why it looks smaller)

A Patreon brings up a tweet Greg made about people from the UK changing their accent because he’s fucking them? Or something? One of his sexual tweets. Greg says he got some upset messages from Patresons about that. He says it’s satire because he’s laughing while he’s tweeting it. He says he likes it when people who are “in a position of anger” get mad when they read it. (I'm not 100% sure what he meant by that, but I think he’s saying he likes making people that dislike him angry.)

A Patreon says people hate Greg, but they pay him and watch his while streams to comment on them. Greg says he hasn’t been reading hate.

He says he’s been lucky on twitter because he’s been generating buzz. Greg says his twitter is all inclusive and he’s gotten offers from guys because of his sexual tweets. He says a guy gave him his instagram.

Someone randomly asks if anyone remembers Ray William Johnson. A bunch of people say yes. Greg says RWJ got sued and lost. His Patreons ask about it and Greg says he was sued by a copyright company. He says people think they have more copyright protection then they do. He says they think it’s fair use, then they lose their case.

They talk about Madame. Greg explains the situation to a Patreon. He says it’s harder when they use someone else’s music because music is more copyright protected. (she was claimed because of his music, according to him. Idk the details.)

Greg says he purchases a license for his background music for videos. He says it’s usually cheap. He suggests Digital Juice. 

Everyone talks about times their videos were claimed because of music. Someone asks about manual claims. Greg says when you do that Youtube will respond and say “we’re feeling concerned about this claim so can you please back it up with documents”, then he does and they move forward.

Greg says Youtube used to make a lot of money off of stolen copyright content. 

Greg says the golden age of Youtube was 2007-2009, before he made it. He says it was like a community back then.

Greg says before Youtube, he would upload videos to videos.google.com and a lot of other places. He says he did well on google’s video site.

Greg says when his videos get blocked in countries now he doesn’t care.

Greg says it’s crazy when you root for the bad guy in a movie. He says he loved the joker movie. He thinks everyone that's been bullied by normies can relate. Someone asks what a normie is and he says it’s someone who had everything handed to them. (lol Greg trying to use modern slang always hurts)

They keep going on about how real it was and how great it was. Says it tackled mental health, blah blah.

I forgot to mention this before, but Greg says his hair is greasy because he put Vaseline in it??

Greg says someone sent him a hit list of his Patreons someone made for people to harass them. He saw Lizard Queen was on there and he felt bad because she’s not a supporter anymore. He says she must be pissed for still paying for pledging to him.

He explains the hit list more and some Patreons say that explains what happened to them, they got messaged. They don’t care, they say their minds aren’t easily changed. A Patreon says a lot of them (patreons) have been going out there to show how ridiculous they (people on twitter) are being and they don’t listen so why should they? 

Someone says one of the antis twitters were banned for harassment. Greg says he never gets banned, but when he reports people they get banned because he actually reports threats.

Patreons continue to talk about harassment and Greg says if you don’t read things from people you don’t follow you’re good.

[ruffiorocks]

Good and Bad on Supergirl, a matter of perspective

People comparing Lena and Lex haven't watched this show at all, or are simply watching selective scences.

I'm thoroughly convinced many of these fans aren't composing thoughts of their own.

Notice how when one personal states an opinion on Twitter suddenly there are also these people who were 'thinking the exact same thing'.

E.g. "Lena KNEW Kara was claustrophobic" - I saw one person tweet this and then suddenly lots of people jumped on the bandwagon and all agreed 🤔🤔 the thing is, we never saw a scene where Lena would ever have known that information.

It's the same as people saying Lena set the fortress to attack Kara with Kryptonite, Lena has no idea what the fortress would do, she had never seen it's tech before, personally I think it was a bit daft she was able to use it by that's another story. All Lena did was change the security system so it saw Kara as the intruder. Remember this took place not long after Lena had been held in a forcefield by the fortress, Lena would only have thought the same prison that held her would hold Kara. Lena COULD NOT have known it would have Kryptonite. Do you know was responsible for Kryptonite being at the fortress at all and part of the security system? That would be either Clark or Kara. But one person said Lena KNEW and suddenly the bandwagon was full again with people claiming Lena 'tortured' Kara, when she clearly wasn't arsed by it at all.

Now, for Lex and Lena, they just AREN'T comparable at all.

Lex is a xenophobic, insane, genocidal, narcissistic murderor. Lex Luthor believes HE is above everyone else, he believes he should be in charge, that due to being a Luthor he should be running things. He was jealous of Superman because he was the 'man of tomorrow' and now Lex was no longer on top. He wants to destroy all alien life on Earth and doesnt care who he kills on his way to do it. He is so obsessed with Kryptonians he wanted to destroy a planet of them! RAO even Lillian Luthor tried to take out Lex because he had gone to far!

Lex is all for Lex, in the last episode he said he was the good guy, Lex probably does believe that but just because Lena said the same thing doesn't make them the same.

Lex thinks he's the good guy, but he's all a our Lex and what lex wants, his motivation is to be better than others, to be on top to be in control.

Lena believes she's the good guy to, but her motivations are completely different. Whereas Lex wants to murder every alien on Earth and doesnt care who he kills as long as he is on top Lena isn't like that. Lena's primary motivation is to PREVENT people from hurting each other. This is the exact opposite to Lex. Lena doesnt happily go around shooting people to get her way, if she does hurt someone you can see how it effect her, how she isn't detached from it in the same way Lex is.

The point is everyone, good guys, bad guys and all those inbetween think they are doing the right thing.

Kara, Alex and Jonn were the 'good guy's' but look how the DEO treated aliens?

Kara thought she was the good guy when she killed parasite, but he was just an innocent man called Rudy being used as a host, Kara made the decision to kill him rather than capture him and try and find him a cure. But she thought she was the good guy.

What about when Kara let Lex fall to his 'death' ? She thought she was being the good guy, but was she just getting rid of the problem? Smiling immediately at the crowds after lex 'died'.

Alex thought she was being the 'good guy' when she shot Kara out of the sky with a Kryptonite bullet (or she was there, I forget). She also think she's the good guys every time she gets gun happy and shoots an alone rather than taking them in.

Jonn thought he was being the good guy when he murdered Manchester Black. I mean at least Jonn acknowledged it even if his remorse lasted for less than 5 minutes. But he thought he was doing the right thing, that he was the good guys, but was he? Was killing an already disarmed man heroic? Apparently to everyone it was because he's a superfriend.

Maxwell Lord thought he was the 'good guy' his motivation wasn't villainous like Lex, he saw that Earth was being invaded more and more and wanted to find away to stand up to them without having to rely on Supergirl. His methods were wrong, but his motivations made sense, especially after the Red K incident.

General Lane thought he was the 'good guy' his motivation was to protect Earth from aliens, he took it to the extreme but he believed he was doing the right thing.

Ben Lockwood thought he was doing the right thing and after seeing his back story you could see his motivations and sympathise with him. He thought he was doing the right thing to.

The point is everyone on this show, hero and villain or inbetween believes what they are doing is the 'right' thing, that they are the 'good guy's'. But that is a matter of opinion. Both the heroes and villains on this show have their motivations and methods which includes killing on both sides (regardless of what Kara says since we know this 'no kill' nonsense was made redundant ages ago).

The show mostly portrays the DEO and the Superfriends as the ones doing the 'right thing' and being the 'good guys' when in fact sometimes we see that they aren't actually always right of doing the right thing, but they always think they are.

Kara thought she was doing the right thing by keeping Mon El with her and not telling him to go and help his people. But was that the right thing? Or was that Kara not wanting to lose her boyfriend? Kara talked a big game about how bad Daxam was with Rhea and Lar Grand but the solution was sitting right next to her and she decided suddenly that the slaves and people of Daxam didn't matter if it meant her boyfriend had to go. But it was framed as Romeo and Juliet, when in reality Kara and Mon El were both being selfish and it led to Rhea invading. Rhea had no intention of staying on Earth until she thought that Kara has stolen Mon El.

That's just one example, and I know those that love Mon El will see it in a different way, but the right thing to do was for Mon El to step up and go help his people and for Kara to at least advice him to.

But being 'good 'is a matter of perspective. It must not be forgotten that however you see Lena or her methods, she has been the reason the world has been saved many times and she's the reason that Kara is still alive.

But in no way is Lena at all like Lex! Not at all!

[roseskulls]

isa’s actual bio is long as hell and also in a really weird format idk why I did that to myself but anyways here is the quick and dirty of it! also here is her pinterest board.

isa lived in a small town in nebraska pretty much all her life until she came to lockland. she was raised by her (horrible, neglectful) mother alone until she was six and her mother abandoned her. isa’s mother was the type to ignore isa when it suited her, leave her by herself for days or weeks when she decided she didn’t want to be around her anymore, leave her with pretty much nothing to eat and a eviction notice on the door until she decided to waltz back in. isa didn’t know why her mother never loved her, she didn’t know what she did wrong, but eventually her mother just stopped coming back and isa was taken by the police and given to her grandmother because her father has never been in the picture

her aunts and grandma literally never knew who this man (her father) was either??? like literally no one knew who he was and everyone was honestly convinced that even isa’s mom didn’t know for sure either if you know what i mean (she was a bit of a hoe tbh). i have a headcannon that he’s a rich guy, like Hella rich guy but he doesn’t even know isa exists tbh, he thought her mother got an abortion and isa has never met him. also on that note, isa’s mother left her and started a brand spankin’ new family in the surburbs. she’s married and has two beautiful children. isa found out around the time she was sixteen and just,,, some part of her froze over i’m not gonna lie. because apparently that horrible woman was capable of love, just not love for her. 

isa was taken in by her grandmother (gemini or gem for short) and aunts ( persephone and venus) and pretty much raised by the three women above their family shop. her aunts and grandmother were pretty much the only people who understood her

the sosa’s owned a fortune telling shop that also sold new age merchandise like crystals and talismans etc. isa actually comes from a family of ‘psychics’ (like her aunts are fortune tellers, her grandma was one, her great grandma was one, etc. the only one who really broke the pattern was isa’s mother) so she was always kinda surrounded by weird things and told weird things.

she worked front desk at her family shop since she was about six (kinda illegal but yk dkjdskj) and was the worlds worst receptionist for years and may still be (she might be working for a cousins new age shop here in lockwood maybe folks because i love that for her) for a while was  the world’s worst secretary too. after she graduated high school she worked for an actual businessman who owned an art exhibit and was a major douche canoe. he literally was the worst person, cheating people out of their art, being an asshole, hitting on isa inappropriately multiple times. she hated him with a burning passion, so she broke into his house, stole a bunch of his shit, and decided to move cross country in an rv to leave the scene of the crime. she just enrolled in uni for art last semester because of that, like she stopped in lockwood, figured it’d be as good a place as any to lay low for a while and figured she finally might try the secondary education thing because hey now with all this stolen money she can afford it. she’s kinda always lowkey on guard and dodging the cops but she’s mostly sure she’s not gonna get caught at this point. tbh isa has little fear of the police, more on that later folks. 

anyways isa was bullied pretty heavily during school when she was younger because she was different. she didn’t really act or dress like the other kids did so they picked on her until isa basically put a stop to that by pretending to cast a spell on a girl who was bullying her. she used pigs blood (that her grandma brought her to their local butcher to get, we love a supportive family) and some really impressive acting for an eight year old in her little performance (her grandma and aunts also helped her come up with the spell for that if that gives you any idea of what kind of family they were sdkjds) so yeah people left her alone after that pretty much for the rest of her school career.

so yeah never really had many friends through school, a bit of a social pariah, you know how it goes

isa’s closest confidant was actually her grandmother growing up and she died a couple of years ago. it hit isa really hard. she didn’t cry at the funeral, and she hasn’t really cried since, and??? you’d never be able to tell because isa doesn’t really Emote but she’s kinda wondering wtf is wrong with her at this point

isa is absolutely planning to reunite with her aunts as soon as things die down. she’s just temporarily in lockwood until the police officially close the case. 

CLIFFNOTES

born io salma sosa! has gone by isa since her aunt venus gave her the nickname as a kid though. uses she/her pronouns although she doesn’t fully identify as a girl.

Isa true love is art. she sells her art and you can pretty much consistently catch her doodling. she’ll draw these kiddos and give them little doodles of themselves.

Speaking of doodling, lets talk about doodling on things you shouldn’t (what a smooth transition amiright), Isa is lowkey a graffiti artist. She’s one of those people who thinks that art shouldn’t be contained and that it should be free, so she tends to spray paint and draw everywhere. She has yet to get caught, but she has probably caused a bit of a fuss around town considering that Isa’s art tends to be creepy to say the least. She tends to go for the gory and freaky over the pretty. and recently since moving to a bigger city than small town nebraska people actually care? like people tend to take pictures of it, put it on instagram and twitter and the like. Isa’s actually made quite a name for herself in the online community, with people commenting on her art and discussing it (kind of like banksy but nowhere near as big). They tend to refer to her by a few different names (scythe, tweek, creep, etc) and they have really yet to decide on one. Isa, being the troll she is, occasionally joins the online debates for fun (if you were wondering, Creep is her favourite)

Honestly Isa is a bit of kleptomaniac as well (she used to steal out of necessity (so she’d have clothes without holes in them or art supplies yk, and she still kind of does that, but sometimes she also does it for fun), and she doesn’t actually have the healthiest relationship with her emotions (which is what tends to happen when you know, trauma happens shout out to her mother) but like catch this girl at therapy over her Cold Dead Body, she’ll die before talking about her feelings she really will

Like I said earlier, the Sosa family are psychics and sell new age retail (you name it they have it and they’ll at least try to con you into buying it.) that said, honestly, they aren’t real psychics. One of Isa’s aunts (Venus or Aunt V) knows she isn’t and has gone full con artist with the whole thing, and the other (Persephone or Aunt Percy) thinks she can really see and sense the future which is just a whole other thing but ANYWAY isa is kind of in between them. she doesn’t fully believe in everything but she will charge you a twenty to read your aura yk

apparently chaotic evil according to a test i did one time so there’s that. also an aquarius

has the emotional range of captain holt but like if captain holt was a tiny latina yk

also only 4″11?? not even five foot?? amanda arcuri is tiny af y’all

fun facts: loves aliens, is bi as hell, is also a vegan, very liberal as you might guess, has picnics in cemeteries and might lowkey seem kind of emotionless but i promise she wants to be your friend. truly doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, just likes to mess with people. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS ;

exes 

friends 

a muse (someone who lets isa draw them all the time tbh)

party friend (someone who will go clubbing and drinking with isa, a true ride or die who’ll help her try to break into area 51)

enemies (someone who hates isa that isa is just kind of ??? about because isa doesn’t understand conflict a lot of the time tbh)