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maybankiara · 4 years

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NOTHIN’ LASTS FOREVER (WE BOTH KNOW HEARTS CAN CHANGE)

pairing: JJ Maybank x Kiara Carrera

prompt: pre-canon

summary: JJ decides to take his chances with Kiara the summer before they go to different high schools, which possibly ruins their friendship (and by an extension, the Pogues’).

word count: 5.3k

a/n: written for the first day of jiara july jubilee! this is basically how jj causes and ends kiara’s infamous kook year, full of angst and a sprinkle of fluff with some banter to match.

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They talked about everything, but high school was the one thing none of them wanted to mention.

The Pogues grew up together. Some more so than others, but at the age of when things are starting to get real, they were as much a family as they could be. Pope brought the sense of reason, John B brought the sense of home, Kiara brought common sense, and JJ brought nonsense.

It shouldn’t have worked, because all of them were people who shouldn’t have found friends in one other, but they did.

JJ can’t imagine a life without the three teens in it.

It’s a sunny afternoon, like most late august afternoons on the island, and John B’s dad takes them to the Chateau’s backyard, out to the marsh. Big John is a man JJ has come to think of as more of a dad than his own father, but he’d never say it – so when he tells the kids he’s got something for them to see, JJ doesn’t think twice. He follows the man to the back of his plot, excitement filling his veins.

He leans over to John B, who’s walking right next to him. ‘You got any clue what this is about?’

‘He didn’t tell me anything.’ The brunet glances at his father, making sure he’s out earshot, and then says for only his friends to hear: ‘I think it’s whatever he’s been hiding for the past week.’

‘The thing in the garage?’ Pope pipes in. He walks over until he’s right behind the two boys, Kiara at his side. ‘It has to be the thing in the garage.’

‘It’s a boat,’ states Kiara. She sounds confident to the point that all of the boys turn to her, the same question evident on their faces. ‘Y’all are blind.’

And sure enough, when JJ looks at where Kiara is pointing, there’s a boat there. It’s an old thing, flat bottom Carolina Skiff, 19-footer, JJ reckons. It’s a little beat up but looks decent enough, and if JJ’s right, then Big John must’ve spent the whole of last week fixing it up.

‘A boat?’ asks John B.

It seems like a dumb question (it is , thinks JJ) but it feels like someone has to say those words to clarify they’re all seeing the same thing.

Big John beams at his son’s words, hands moving from his knees as he crouches, patting the wooden front. ‘A boat. Actually, your boat.’

The words sound as if you means less John B and more all of you , so his son exchanges glances with all of his friends, licks his lips with a soft tilt of his brows. ‘Ours?’

‘If you want it to be.’

JJ steps forward and touches the wood. He’s always wanted to have a boat – his dad’s Phantom is a treasure he’s not allowed within ten foot of, and being able to just set out into the ocean, or even the marsh without anyone bothering him...

He looks at Big John with a wary grin starting to take over. ‘You’re saying that you’re giving this boat to us?’

‘You kids are getting older,’ explains Big John, talking to all of them. ‘I don’t want you hanging around my backyard all the time.’

‘So you gave us a boat,’ Pope notes.

‘Damn right, son.’

He takes them out of a spin, teaching them how to man it. JJ gets it the quickest because boats are in his blood, and John B and Pope each need a couple of repeats to get the hang of it. Kiara sticks to the side, saying hardly anything. between themselves, the boys figure she’s just not a boat person. JJ thinks there’s more to it, but doesn’t say anything.

They celebrate at the Wreck. Big John drops them off before work, promising them they’d get to take the boat to themselves tomorrow. It’s hard to say who’s most excited, but it’s easy to say who isn’t.

Kiara doesn’t sulk, but she’s quiet, and they’re not used to that. Her dad gives them something to snack on (Big John pays for it, because the kids aren’t Mike Carrera’s favourite people).

John B and Pope are the first to go, leaving with the latter’s parents. It’s getting quite late already and Kiara’s dad is still working the shift, so JJ decides to stick around. (He’s always thought Mike dislikes him the least.)

They munch on fries.

‘Why are you quiet?’ he asks. a fry lands in her mouth and they’d high five at their coordination, usually, and the lack of a high five is what bothers him the most.

She leans back in her chair, glancing at her dad, before averting her eyes.

‘Kie.’

Her fingers are on the fries, but she isn’t throwing them at JJ anymore.

He lightly kicks her leg underneath the table. ‘You can talk to me.’

What he means is i understand you better than pope or john b ever could , but he doesn’t want to say it out loud. He doesn’t want to admit it. He doesn’t want her to know how he feels.

‘I already have a boat, JJ.’

‘So?’ JJ frowns. ‘You’re pissed because you’ve already got a boat?’

‘ No .’

Kiara opens and closes her mouth a handful of time, licking her lips in-between. JJ sees her grow agitated, but he doesn’t know if it’s at him, because of him, or something else altogether.

She slumps into the back of the chair. ‘You guys seemed so happy to just have a boat. I looked at it and my first thought was i have a bigger one at home . And I couldn’t get as excited.’

‘So you’re pissed because you’re rich,’ JJ concludes.

‘Don’t say it like that! I didn’t mean it like – JJ, I wanted to be happy because of the boat Big John gave us. And I am, kind of. I’m excited that it’s ours. But I couldn’t stop thinking about my mom’s boat, and how I’ll never see the simple things like that as something great.’

‘Are you now pissed that we’re poor?’

‘JJ,’ Kiara warns. Her eyebrow’s raised and she watches him sigh, resigning his failed attempts at humour. ‘You know why I’m upset.’

i do , he realises. The atmosphere between them turns sombre, and JJ wishes there were more people in the Wreck. He plays with the fries in front of him, stuffing a few into his mouth.

Consoling other people has never been JJ’s strong suit – he’s mediocre at best. But it’s Kiara , of all people, so he plays footsies with her leg underneath the table.

‘Stop it.’

He does. ‘Come on, Kie. You’re one of us even if you could buy your own boat and not even notice.’

Kiara raises her eyebrows. JJ apologises.

‘Money or not, you’re a pogue. Things aren’t going to change once you’re attending that stupid kook academy.’

‘Cooke,’ she corrects him, quietly. ‘It’s the Robert Cooke Academy.’

‘Seriously, if you’re correcting me on kook bullshit, I’ll retract your pogue membership.’

He watches her face fall as if he didn’t say those words with a mischievous grin on his face, throwing a fry at her. JJ concludes trying to console Kiara is an absolute disaster, and he’d really like to be able to stop, but he doesn’t see anything else that could work.

Humour certainly doesn’t.

‘Look, as long as you’re hanging out with us, you’re one of us. That’s the whole deal. You might have money, but pogues aren’t about money, have it or not. Sure, you might not be able to relate to what it feels like for kids from the Cut to be on our own boat, but we can show you. as long as you want to hang out with us, you’ll always be welcome.’

At the end of the monologue, JJ takes a deep breath; he’s fairly certain this was the longest thing he’s ever said in one go, so he tells her that.

She laughs, a little bit. JJ figures it must’ve done some good.

He throws a fry at her and she catches it with her hand, then puts it in her mouth. She throws another one and she catches it with her mouth this time, and they’re back to playing the game from earlier. Her laughter is a little louder now, a little more cheerful, and he notices her shoulders aren’t as slumped.

It’s getting even later now, but JJ doesn’t leave. her dad’s still got some work to do, clean up, lock up, all that jazz, so the two teens make their way out of the restaurant. The air is fresh and they’ve both got a brisk walk to their feet, laughing louder than they should.

JJ likes this. He likes spending time with his friends, and he likes spending time with Kiara alone.

There’s a bench a little down the road, in the very middle of the street (and the Cut) and they sit down, side by side. They’re close enough that their thighs are touching, and JJ is acutely aware of the contact of skin on skin that their shorts uncover.

He glances at her and catches her gazing at the starry sky.

‘I can’t imagine a world where you’re not one of us,’ he tells her. ‘That’s why I think things won’t change when school starts.’

‘When I become a kook.’

‘You won’t, though. you’re a pogue.’ JJ looks at her, face serious, and hopes she can tell he means it. JJ Maybank might be a kid, but he knows loyalty, and he doesn’t give it away easily. ‘We’re friends. Friends stick together.’

The nod Kiara gives him is soft, reluctant. ‘What if we don’t?’

‘What if we don’t what ? Kie, there’s no pogues without Kiara Carrera.’

‘I’m not from the Cut,’ she says with a smile on her face, but sadness in her voice. ‘I’m not a pogue.’

‘You’re a pogue with a capital p ,’ JJ says then. He feels the fire in his chest, anger and excitement, and bitterness at the fact that Kiara is the one who keeps worrying she’s not one of them. ‘We’re the Pogues with the capital p . You me, John B, Pope. And – and our boat, the one we got today? That’s the Pogue boat. HMS Pogue . It’s ours .’

‘So we’re not pogues, we’re the Pogues?’

‘Hell yeah.’

Kiara’s face changes as she absorbs JJ’s little speech, watching him crouch on the bench instead of sitting on it. There’s confusion between her brows, then a smile in the wrinkles around her eyes, then finally laughter coming off her lips. Her hair’s wild today, in the way that is so like her that if someone asked, JJ would describe kiara as a pretty girl with curly hair and a nose for trouble.

He puts a hand on her shoulder, tugging at the strap of her top so it snaps onto the skin every other moment. ‘So, Kie. You a pogue?’

Kiara swats his hand away. ‘Will I be a pogue even if I become a kook?’

‘ Please . We’ll always like you, kook or not. Besides, you’d be the only one to be a kook and a pogue at the same time and that’s kinda cool.’

Her eyes lose some of the little concern he can see in the dark, and a reserved smile graces her lips. Something warm bursts inside his chest.

‘Thanks, JJ.’

He looks at her, really looks at her, and feels like he’s seeing her for the first time. The street lights on the Cut are orange and shitty and it makes her look a little orange, too, but he’s never before noticed the depth of her complexion, or how it’s gotten darker since summer started. He’s never noticed the quirk in the right corner of her lips, a slight tug upwards that makes her look like Mona Lisa at times.

He should look away, but his eyes are on her lips, and it feels like the warmth led to something brewing inside his chest.

bravery , he thinks.

JJ looks into Kiara’s eyes and they’re unguarded, soft, vulnerable, kind, all the things he loves about her, and JJ just...

He kisses her. It’s sloppy, and he almost smashes his mouth against hers because there was no time to think , and he freezes.

He fucking freezes.

Kiara pulls back, the same eyes wide and guarded. ‘What the fuck was that , JJ?’

‘Nothing,’ he quickly says. ‘Forget about it.’

He knows he should look away, but he can’t, he just stares at her and she stares right back and they’re both just like what the fuck is going on what the fuck do i do what the fuck what the f u c k

‘Pogues can’t mack on other Pogues,’ Kiara states, firmly.

JJ says nothing. He swallows the gulp in his throat with difficulty, finally averting his gaze. his eyes don’t sting; his chest doesn’t ache; his body isn’t overflowing with chills.

(All of those are lies.)

‘JJ, we’re friends,’ she says.

He doesn’t look at her so he looks up at the stars instead, wanting to see a shooting star and wish that he could take this moment back, or that he could grow a pair and not freak out like he’s doing right now.

A shooting star doesn’t come.

‘JJ,’ Kiara starts again. ‘You’re one of my best friends. We can’t – we can’t do this. What would happen with – with the Pogues, with capital p ?’

‘You’re right,’ he tells her, shaking his head. ‘It was dumb. Sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.’

‘I just...’ She sighs. When he finally stops avoiding her gaze, he’s surprised to see her looking into the distance. ‘We can’t mess up our friendship. It’s not just us – it’s John B and Pope, too.’

‘You’re right,’ repeats JJ. He places a hand over hers and gives it a light squeeze, until he’s got her attention. ‘No Pogue on Pogue macking.’

‘No Pogue on Pogue macking,’ echoes Kiara.

The rule’s set in stone that night, after a kiss they quietly agree to never talk about. JJ doesn’t talk to the boys about it and he knows Kiara doesn’t, either. The little rule they came up with got rid of all the tension that could’ve ensued from the kiss.

JJ knows she shot him down, but there are times when her words are a broken record in his mind, and he tries to figure out if there’s any chance that she didn’t. He doesn’t know. She was right, they couldn’t ruin their friendship, but JJ wonders if she meant it in the if we kiss more we’ll ruin our friendship way or if we are together and then break up we’ll ruin our friendship way.

In any case, it ends up not mattering, because their friendship falls apart regardless.

It happens slowly, over the course of early autumn, and begins the day school starts. The boys go to Kildare High, Kiara goes to Robert Cooke Academy. At first, things are fine – they spend more time together after school, at the Chateau or lounging on the HMS Pogue . But then school starts getting real, and more of their free time is taken away.

Soon enough, Kiara starts coming over less and less. It’s because of homework, mostly, or extra classes the kook academy is asking her to take. She’ll apologise and show up next time with some cookies in tow, and the boys wouldn’t think twice of it.

By the time October rolls around, they’re hardly seeing her anymore. She keeps being busy and so do they, but they make up for it by chilling in the few classes they have together, or during lunch hours. JJ slacks off most of the time, so he’s the one who gets to hang out with Kiara on the odd chance she’s got time when they don’t, but even that is not the same.

‘We miss you,’ he tells her the evening before Halloween. They managed to sneak some time together for the first time in over two weeks, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. ‘The boat kinda sucks without you.’

Kiara’s legs are swinging out of her bedroom window and she’s staring off into the distance. She says she misses them, too, but the tone in her voice is distant and quiet, and it makes JJ feel as if that’s not the truth at all.

i shouldn’t have kissed you , he wants to say, but he doesn’t. They agreed they wouldn’t talk about it. He doesn’t want to make her dislike him any more than she already does.

‘How are the kooks?’ he asks.

Kiara smiles, but it’s the ghost of a smile. ‘They’re good. Not half as bad as I thought. Sarah Cameron’s nice to me.’

‘They better be nice to you. We’ll kick their asses otherwise.’

The look she gives him lets him know she doesn’t agree.

JJ looks at her straightened hair, her little blouse that she usually wouldn’t be caught dead in, and at the flashy rings on her fingers. It’s seeing this that makes something click in his brain, and JJ just shakes his head.

‘I’m gonna go.’

‘Okay.’ She doesn’t stop him; doesn’t even pretend she wants to. ‘See you soon.’

JJ drops from the window, landing with a thud. His ankles hurt a little bit, but he’s a big boy who knows how to fall and how to take a hit. i don’t think so , he muses.

He looks at her and gives her a two-finger salute in goodbye.

No classic Pogue handshake. Nothing.

It’s the last time any of them talk to Kiara in real life. He wonders if the kiss has something to do with it, and he guesses it must, because things were okay before it. Kiara was the one who was the most upset about the idea of going to a different school, losing the three of them, becoming a kook – and now, JJ thinks that it was more her choice than anyone else’s.

There’s a piece of plastic that must’ve fallen off a car on the side of the road, and JJ kicks it. It doesn’t hurt, so he keeps kicking it as he walks down the street.

They all tried to keep her one of them. They all wanted her to stay.

She was the one who didn’t.

That night, JJ lets her go.

With time, the Pogues recover from the loss, mostly because it wasn’t sudden – a blind man could’ve seen where it was leading. September wasn’t off to a good start, and October was when things came to a cliff and jumped off of it.

Big John goes missing in February. Nobody has spoken to Kiara since the end of October, when the boys just decided to make their own groupchat, considering she hardly even checked the one with her in it anymore. This is where John B texts the two.

jombee [6:47pm]: guys i’m starting to get worried for my dad

popeye [6:48pm]: i’m sure he’ll be fine. the thing might be taking longer

jombee [6:53pm]: can you guys come over? jombee [6:53pm]: and bring some beer

me [6:54pm]: on it mister bee(n)

JJ is the first to show up, carrying a six-pack in each hand. pope comes a bit later, having picked up some snacks on the way. At that point, Big John has been away for four days, when he usually doesn’t leave for more than three.

‘Do you know where he went?’ asks JJ, through a mouthful of chips.

Pope darts a beer cap at him. ‘Be serious, JJ.’

‘I am!’

John B says he doesn’t know where his dad went; he doesn’t know when he should get back, either. The boys do a semi-decent job of keeping the atmosphere from falling into the dumps, but it’s not an easy task. Usually, Kiara’s the one who holds everything in place, who knows the right words to say.

Inadvertently, JJ glances at the spot on the HMS Pogue where she used to sit. Even though she hasn’t been here for months, they never put anything there, even if the rest of the boat is packed. It’s a space that’ll always belong to her, regardless of what happens.

Big John is declared missing three days later, when it’s been a week. If he was at the sea, they would’ve found him, or at least that’s what the authorities say. They have some hope, but the three Pogues are the ones who keep their necks out of the water, looking for the man.

They cruise the marsh, the ocean, everything they can find, for weeks. At some point, Pope is the first one to lose hope, and he says it to JJ only. It’s March, nearly April.

‘People are starting to talk,’ he tells him, while they’re waiting for John B to come out of the Chateau, resting on the boat. JJ’s got his hand in Kiara’s spot, and he doesn’t look at the boy next to him.

‘People have been talking since the beginning,’ counters JJ.

‘No, man, I’m being serious. It’s been two months. The chances that—’

‘Stop, dude.’ JJ turns to Pope, knowing that disappointment and disbelief must be clear on his face because he doesn’t bother hiding them. ‘Are you giving up? You can’t do that to John B, man. That’s fucked up.’

Pope shakes his head, leaning forward as he sits with his legs crossed. ‘I’m not giving up. I don’t even know what I was trying to say.’

‘Big John’s still alive and he’s looking for someone to save him. It’s gonna be us, because you can never trust the cops.’

The boy nods. John B comes to the boat a minute later. He’s got his shirt buttoned the wrong way, with the uneven holes sticking out. his hair is getting long and messy, the top now merging with the sides. He lost his spunk, gradually as time wore on; he doesn’t smile as often – none of them do. Life hit them and it hit them fast, some more so than others.

John B walks over Kiara’s spot and sits at the wheel, turning on the engine. ‘Ward Cameron offered me a job. To take care of My Druthers .’

Pope chokes on the beer he was drinking. ‘ That ’s the boat’s name?’

The brunet shakes his hand as he steers them out of the chateau and into the marsh, sighing. ‘It’s a dumb name, yeah.’

‘Did you accept?’ asks JJ.

‘I need the money.’

JJ sips his beer, recalling Kiara saying she’s friends with Sarah now. He wonders if they’re still friends, still as close as they seem to be. If John B ends up going to the Camerons’, maybe he’ll get to see her in the passing.

The thought leaves a bitter taste of envy on his tongue, and JJ downs it with beer.

John B doesn’t end up seeing Kiara, but JJ does. It’s April, nearly three months into Big John missing, and he’s starting to understand Pope now. Hope is a difficult thing to keep when all it does is run away.

He doesn’t text her, because she’s changed her number. He doesn’t want to message her on social media, either – that feels vain and stupid , and the reason why he needs to talk to her in the first place is anything but superficial.

So JJ rings the doorbell, like a normal person would, instead of climbing the tree in front of her bedroom window.

Kiara’s mom opens. surprise is evident on her face when she lets him in, but she doesn’t ask questions.

‘She’s in her room.’

‘Thanks, Mrs. C.’

He walks up the familiar flight of stairs, toward the room he’s spent many evenings in, yet it feels as if he’s walking into an exam hall. His half-closed fist taps against the door two times, and he waits.

‘It’s open!’ comes from the inside.

JJ’s got his hand on the doorknob, but it falls, slick with sweat. He hasn’t heard her voice in so long that he’s forgotten what she sounds like.

It’s a blow after blow after blow, what’s been happening for the past few months. JJ needs something to bring him back some stability – something that in his opinion, is what only Kiara can give them.

Here’s hoping the Pogues won’t hate him for doing this.

He walks into the room and Kiara’s hunched over her desk, scribbling away into her notebook. her room looks the same but wrong , as if everything had been moved an inch to the right, or painted a different hue, or maybe JJ just hasn’t seen it in way too long.

Kiara looks different, too. She’s thinner now, and when she turns around and her mouth makes an ‘o’ shape, he notices she’s got some lighter strands in her hair, too.

‘ JJ .’

‘Hi,’ he says.

The JJ that is in Kiara’s room now feels like an entirely different person in comparison to the JJ that was in Kiara’s room in October. Hell, he’s never been further from the person on that bench next to the Wreck last summer.

Life’s a fucking shipwreck now.

So he sits down on Kiara’s windowsill, one leg to his chest and the other hanging out of the window. Kiara’s on her bed, at first, but she comes closer when JJ tells her about Big John. He tells her about John B giving up on his grades, on how he’s working for Ward Cameron to survive, how the boys are the only thing that’s keeping the Chateau alive now.

He doesn’t spare her the gritty details and he doesn’t ask about her. He’s not here to find out what she’s been up to.

When he finishes his story, she’s quiet.

‘Once a Pogue, always a Pogue, Kiara.’

‘JJ, I fucked up.’

He shakes his head, and he means it. ‘We can put that behind us. Fuck that, Kiara.’

‘Is it that bad?’ she asks.

‘What do you mean?’

Kiara hesitates, and it’s the first time JJ feels like he catches a glimpse of the kiara he fell in love with was friends with. She’s a little vulnerable, but she’s got the spunk, and she’s got enough to give to others.

She sits down on the windowsill, close enough that their thighs touch. They’re both wearing jeans this time, and JJ wonders, for a fleeting moment, if he’d feel the same as he did all those months ago if they were skin on skin again.

‘You must be out of options if you came to me, JJ.’ She looks at him with grave sadness in her eyes, and something that JJ recognises from the mirror, and wouldn’t wish upon anybody. Her chuckle is dry. ‘You don’t have to lie to me, JJ. I know you. You’re loyal to a fault, and you expect people to be the same, and I fucked up. If you didn’t need me, you wouldn’t look at me twice.’

JJ is quiet for some time, letting her words sink in. The breeze is cold and light outside, touching his face like a gentle, cold hand.

He missed Kiara’s window.

‘You’re right,’ he says, finally. ‘It’s bad. And I don’t – I don’t know if I would’ve come to you if I knew what to do.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Kiara offers.

JJ chuckles, and it’s as dry as hers was. ‘Yeah, I probably wouldn’t.’

They don’t talk for a bit. JJ finds himself enjoying her presence – it’s like going to a place you have both good and bad memories of, and you haven’t visited for a while, and the memories become distant, merging into one another.

He doesn’t know how he feels about her anymore. He knows he’s hurting, for more reasons than just one, and he knows that having her around will be better than not having her.

‘I can’t imagine what it must’ve took, to come here,’ she admits. ‘You’re not the one who should be asking me to come back. I should be begging you and the guys to let me come back.’

There’s something in her tone that’s almost yearning; something so intrinsically aching that JJ manages to read between the lines. It’s not an apology, nor an admission of guilt, but it’s as close as they’ve gotten from her in a long, long time.

‘Why didn’t you?’ he finally asks. It’s a question he’s had on his mind for months , and saying it out loud to no one other than Kiara herself, is freeing and daunting at once. ‘Come back, I mean?’

Her head bows and JJ thinks he sees a teardrop reflect the light on her cheek. ‘I thought you’d hate me.’

‘Kiara, you know the boys would’ve welcomed you back with open arms.’

‘Not them, JJ.’ She looks at him and her eyes are watery, and it feels like a blow to his stomach, even after all this time. ‘I thought you would hate me.’

i could never , he thinks, because he still remembers how she tasted like fries. But then he remembers the ache in his chest, the nights spent staring at her number on his phone screen wanting to call, just to hear her voice again, just to have her tell him things are going to be okay.

He didn’t want to be without her. He didn’t want a life without her in it. He needed her, same as he needed John B and pope, same as he needed the ocean, same as he needed to feel adrenaline rushing through his bones when things started going to shit.

He needed her to be his anchor, and she wasn’t there.

But JJ shakes his head, half at his thoughts, half at her words. ‘I could never hate you, Kie.’

Whether it’s the earnestness of his voice, or the way it cracked when he said her nickname for the first time in months, JJ can’t tell – but she lays her hand on top of his and gives it a little squeeze.

‘Thank you.’

He doesn’t forgive her right there and then, and neither do the boys, when he pulls up on his bike the next day with her on the back of it. There’s a lot of conversations, a lot of things that need to be said on both sides, but JJ keeps to himself.

He sits on the bench at the porch and watches it all unfold.

What he thinks about Kiara is something he can’t tell anybody. It’s intertwined with everything that’s happened in the recent months like vines on a branch, and he doesn’t want to undermine everything.

JJ Maybank is angry and hurting and broken, and every time he looks at Kiara’s face he thinks of the time when she was all he needed to get through the day but she wasn’t there for him. Seeing her reopens the wound all over again, yet he pushes it to the side in favour of growth, in favour of giving her a second chance.

Kiara was wrong, when she thought that his loyalty would be the downfall of their friendship – his loyalty to her is the only reason he came back for her.

They all need her, John B most of all.

It’s only when the Pogues are back to the original four, each of them lounging on their spot on the HMS Pogue , that JJ feels like the hole in his heart is starting to fill up. Kiara knows the right things to say when John B gets upset, or when Pope loses hope, or when JJ feels like he’s about to lose his shit. The Pogues aren’t the Pogues without her.

Eventually, he knows he’ll forgive her. For now, he’s just happy she’s back.

★

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writerofshit · 4 years

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Secret Santa:X

(This is half headcanon, half fic, all fun times and emotions)

(Shoutout to the Penthouse discord server for help on some of the gifts, would have been lost without you)

The last Christmas they have in the penthouse, Ryan brings up Secret Santa again. It’s partly a joke, partly a nod to the nostalgia that’s been eating at all of them the last few months. He brings it up when they’re all gathered in the living room, watching Gavin try and prove his stealth abilities in Hitman.

(“Just because you can be stealthy in a video game doesn’t mean I’m letting you come with me.” Jack had said at the beginning of it all.

“If I get silent assassin you have to take me!”

“This is your fourth run through!”)

Anyhow, Ryan brings it up, all nonchalant. “Remember that year we did Secret Santa?”

“No?” Jeremy says honestly.

“Before your time.” Michael says with a smile, patting him on the head.

“It was fun. We should do it again.”

(”Goddamnit!” On screen, Gavin dies again.)

The next day they have a meeting of all the ‘movers and shakers’, as Geoff has taken to calling them. He announces that Secret Santa is yet again a thing, and no, Matt, you can’t get out of it. There’s no budget, because they all have access to more money than they know what to do with.

They throw eleven names in a hat and go from there. Geoff calls first pick because he’s an asshole like that, and his choice picks next, so on and so forth.

“Just get your shit done by Christmas, and we’ll do it then.”

Geoff pulls Gavin, and only panics a little.

The kid has everything he could ever want, what’s he really supposed to do? He considers what he might need, ends up crossing ‘bulletproof vest and a helmet’ off the list because it feels a little impersonal. He could do liquor of some sort, but he suspects there will be enough of that floating around on Christmas day.

He considers a camera, knows Gavin is into that kind of shit, but he’s lost a lot of knowledge in that department over the years. The only person who knows enough is Gavin himself, and that kind of defeats the point.

He ends up going for a new pair of gold shades, because the old ones are pretty worn out after six-plus years, and he’s almost positive Gavin has lost them. (Probably in Ryan’s room, but that’s neither here nor there) He gets a pair that have diamonds along the arms, and even though they’re ridiculously expensive he thinks it’s worth it.

Gavin adores them, has them on within 30 seconds of unwrapping them. He pokes himself in the eye, and that feels like a bonus to Geoff.

Gavin pulls Trevor, and while he plays it off at first “Oh, this will be easy, I got this person for sure!” he absolutely has no idea what to do.

There’s a weird bit of time where he tries to get to know Trevor better. He learns absolutely nothing new, despite following the guy for almost a week.

There’s a night he lays in bed with Ryan, bitching about this whole thing. “What the hell do I do? This was terrible for me last time, why would you suggest this?”

He ends up calling Barbara from the Roosters to try and figure out something, who promptly makes fun of him for not knowing anything about the guy he’s worked with for years. She does give one bit of new information, so he goes with it.

He gives Trevor tickets to the next Motocross event, because it’s apparently something he’s into. He throws in a NASA t-shirt as a joke, a nod to the world Trevor left behind.

Both items go over well, Trevor immediately pulling the shirt on over what he’s already wearing. He won’t shut up about Motocross for the rest of the day, either.

Trevor pulls Ryan, which he’s immediately terrified of.

He knows Ryan well enough to know that there won’t be any serious repercussions if he fucks it up, he won’t get gutted over a poor gift choice. But he also knows he’ll get that weird stare Ryan does when he’s pretending to consider whether or not to hurt someone. Plus he won’t live it down from the rest of the crew.

At first he goes to Gavin for help, because apparently nobody is taking the ‘secret’ part seriously. Gavin absolutely refuses to help him, mostly for the laughs. He knows Gavin’s getting a kick out of watching him squirm over this, which is so unfair. Then he asks Jack for help, who just shrugs.

“You’re a smart guy, Trevor, you’ll figure something out.”

He does, sort of. He gives Ryan a 24 pack of diet coke (because what else?) and an actually beautiful rainbow knife. It seems pretty heavy duty, and he knows its right up his alley. He also throws in some earplugs as a joke.

“So you can tune out Gav’s idiocy whenever you need.”

“Come on, Trevor. I’ve had years of practice at that. The knife is gorgeous though.”

Ryan pulls Alfredo, and he’s not too worried about it.

Alfredo’s their go-to sniper these days, and a new sniper rifle seems pretty obvious. Maybe a gift card to Ammunation or something? It does feel a little lackluster, even to him, so he brings it up to Gavin one night, while Gav is still debating t-shirts from Amazon.

“That’s a bit boring, isn’t it?”

“You’re buying a NASA shirt for an ex-aerospace engineer. I’m gonna need you to rethink your stance on this one.”

“Nah. You gotta do something better for Fredo, he deserves it.”

Which. alright, then what the fuck is he supposed to do? He gets his answer the next week when he sees Alfredo on a motorcycle for the first time.

“I’m going to teach you how to actually ride that thing.” Which is good, a chance to catch up and hang out. Bad, because Ryan’s method of teaching is ‘learn by doing’ and does in fact result in shouting.

Ryan still gives him the sniper rifle, which he is far more excited about.

Alfredo pulls Fiona, and it’s the first time he marginally regrets joining the crew.

He’s got no fucking idea what she’d like, what gift she’d appreciate and not hit him over. He tries to be casual about asking around, hoping someone might have better insight. The rest of the crew catches on immediately, and they flood him with false information.

“She loves chocolate. Favorite Halloween candy, in fact!” Michael tells him, but the grin he has says otherwise.

“She mentioned something about wanting to learn a new language.” Jack says seriously.

“Get her an English to French dictionary, she’ll love it.” Gavin tacks on.

“French, yep. She definitely wants to learn that one.”

Lindsay is the only one who actually helps him. “She’s been known to enjoy a drink or two.”

By sheer luck he happens to walk into one of the thousand arguments Fiona has with Michael over the whole ‘Halloween candy’ debacle, and he knows immediately that's a bad route to go down.

He ends up making a gift basket full of liquor mini’s and various candies. He makes sure not to include any chocolates, and throws some extra blowpops in, just to be safe.

Thankfully, she does appreciate the thought he put in, and she says she’ll only share with Alfredo since everyone else is an asshole.

Fiona pulls Lindsay, and it’s not hard to figure out what she’ll like.

She considers something chaotic, the two of them wreaking havoc on the city together. It makes sense. She also thinks about organizing a ‘girls day’, getting all the ladies of the crew together to go out and fuck some shit up. There’s a lot of logistics involved in that one, including convincing some of them to be out in the field like that.

It crosses her mind to bring Lindsay to a shelter to play with cats, because if there’s one thing Lindsay likes more than chaos, it’s cats. That’s also a bit of a logistical nightmare, not to mention the strength it would take to pry her away.

In the end she goes with cat merch. It’s a basket full of goodies, including a mug with a cat holding a bi-pride flag, a dress with various cartoon cats on it, and a cat necklace that has her birthstone as the body.

It’s beautiful, and Lindsay just about cries. She too, immediately changes into her new clothing, and she drinks everything out of the mug for at least a month.

Lindsay pulls Matt, and at first she panics.

She knows him fairly well, but like... He’s a real weirdo, what’s she supposed to do with that? She wonders what games he could use, if there’s anything he hasn’t bought himself.

Her confusion lasts until she mentions it to Michael. (Only after he let it slip who he’d picked.)

“Are you fucking kidding me? Matt’s the easiest goddamn one!”

“Bullshit! Name one thing you know about M.att B.ragg!”

“He eats like shit! Give him a box of donuts and he’ll lose his fuckin mind.”

Her response of “Oh my god.” is barely heard.

She spends a week trying out different recipes, much to Ryan’s delight. He’s happy to play taste-tester while she finds the perfect flavor combination.

She winds up going with a double chocolate espresso concoction. Matt is, of course, super stoked about his cupcakes, and damn near has to fight Ryan off to protect them.

Matt pulls Jeremy, which is pretty much a slam dunk.

Whiskey is the obvious choice, one he’ll absolutely go with, thank you very much. Who said taking the easy way out never got you anywhere?

And it would have, if it weren’t for Geoff.

There’s a debate that happens about a week before Christmas, something about the necessity of going to the liquor store. Michael and Jeremy are firmly pro-trip, and Geoff just wants them to “stay home and do some goddamn work. Besides, it’s not like half of you guys aren’t buying each other liquor anyway. In a week I’m sure we’ll be fully stocked.”

Which, alright. Fuck Matt then, huh? He’d genuinely thought it was a good idea, a mix of thoughtful and practical.

He decides to pair the whiskey with- well, it’s kind of a joke gift, but at least he won’t be accused of only buying liquor.

He commissions a customized cowboy hat. Half purple half orange, split right down the middle. There’s a neon yellow buckle on it, and it’s the ugliest thing Matt has ever seen in his life.

Jeremy loves it though, thinks it’s goddamn perfect. He wears it for the rest of the day, and for the next heist.

(Michael is less enthused.)

Jeremy pulls Michael, and that-

That’s harder than it should be.

He and Michael have been doing this... Whatever the fuck it is for over six months now, and they haven’t goddamn talked about. Not really. They’ve had moments,sure, here and there when they’re both drunk and thinking far too much about it. Reminding each other that they’re happy, that this is a good time, wouldn’t change it for the world-

But there’s still nights they sleep alone and they don’t talk about why. They still don’t really mention it to anyone else, even if they all know. Jeremy still doesn’t know how to answer when someone asks what the deal is with him and Michael.

So it’s hard, right, to come up with a relationship- appropriate gift. Too jokey and he’ll feel bad. Too serious isn’t their style at all. Plus like… how’s he supposed to do that in front of everybody? Just because they know there’s something there doesn’t mean they need to put on a show.

He settles on the obvious, nice bottle of tequila and a couple of shot glasses. It’s not exactly personal, but it’s good enough to show the room.

Later, in a quiet moment they can steal away, Jeremy offers to take him out the next night.

“We’ll do the bar thing, just you and me. My treat.”

“Oh yeah? You’re buying my drinks all night?” Michael asks him with a sly grin.

“I uh- I’ll get your drinks for as long as you’ll have me.” and it doesn’t come out exactly right, but they both know what he means by it.

Earns him a smile and a sweet kiss, and that alone is worth it.

Michael pulls Jack, and he runs through a few options.

He considers buying her furniture, because he knows she'll need it when they all finally do move out. But Jack has a good head on her shoulders and probably already has that shit on lock.

He looks into custom shelving, for all the knick knacks she's collected over the years. He could get it designed in colors she'd like and shell out extra for lighting and all that shit. But she doesn't have a new place yet, as far as he knows, so that's kind of a bust.

He could give her what amounts to a gift certificate, an offer to pay for whatever she wants made, but that seems kind of… Empty?

There's the age old alcohol gift, but that's been done before, and is probably being done by almost everyone else.

He mentions to Lindsay how weirdly difficult it is to buy something for Jack, get’s zero advice but somehow helps her figure out the whole Matt mystery.

In the end he decides to help her out and piss her off, a little bit of a win-win kinda thing. He buys her a couple of new shirts, bold and flowery and almost as bad as Jeremy’s Rimmy Tim shtick. He hates them but he knows she loves them, so it’s worth it.

He tells her it’s because her old shirts gotta be falling out of fashion, an opinion she is not happy about.

But it’s fine, because he also gets her tickets to fucking Disney World, of all places. He even offers to go with her, which she absolutely takes him up on.

It’s more fun than he expects, and it’s a really good chance to actually spend some time with her. He hadn’t realized it had been so long.

Jack pulls Geoff, which.

It’s no secret that Geoff is a sentimental bastard when it comes to the crew. It’s exactly why he’d spent months talking to her about the possibility of selling the penthouse, trying to figure out exactly how everyone would react, trying to figure out how he would react to not having them all so close anymore. She spent countless nights listening to him wonder what it meant that he wanted his own space.

Objectively, he was probably a bad person but his love and fierce loyalty to the crew made up for that, in some ways, right? So how can he kick them out, how can he do this to them, he’s being selfish-

And she had just explained to him that he had to do what was right for him. That it was understandable. That he was right, they could all use the opportunity to be a little more independent. She was looking forward to having her own space, and in time the rest of them would too.

So when she pulls Geoff’s name, she knows she’s gotta lean into that a bit. She could get him some books, some puzzles maybe. He’d mentioned off-hand that he missed having the space for them, because the kitchen table was always covered in some sort of crew shenanigans.

She does get him those, because she knows they’ll get some use.

But the big thing is the collage.

She’s had pictures of the crew on her phone for years, dating all the way back to her and Geoff in a shitty apartment. She’s got some of Ray, curled up on the couch with a DS in his hand. Gavin and Michael wrestling one drunken night. Ryan, nodded off on the couch after a heist, face paint still on and a complete mess. Jeremy trying to teach Matt something resembling self-defense. Lindsay cuddling a stray cat she had taken in. Trevor and Alfredo in matching clothes, playing up the ‘twin’ joke that had been going around. Fiona in that bright yellow suit, modeling for her Instagram.

There’s one she gets at the last minute, gets somebody from the support team to take right before their latest heist. It’s all eleven of them, full heist get-up, masks and obnoxious fashion choices and guns tucked here and there. They’re in the boardroom, running through it one more time before they take off, and in retrospect, it’s probably the last time they’ll do that in that room.

She sets that one in the middle, surrounded by all of these moments from the last 12 years.

“For your new place, when you find it.” Jack says.

It’s beautiful, and it makes Geoff cry. It brings some sniffles from a lot of them, even if they all deny it.

Leaving the penthouse isn’t the easiest thing for any of them, but it’s the right move. After all, they’re still a family.

#ks writes #fahc #fahc headcanon #ragehappy #christmas in july yall #i honestly love this a lot and hope yall do too #jeremichael #tagging those boys for Reasons

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trillhouse-lh · 4 years

Text

Mask

The Avenue. One of the most prestigious clubs in Great Lake City, a local legend in the nightlife scene. Those who weren't living it up on the dance floor mingled near the bars, combatting the pulsing music with casual conversation and laughter. The atmosphere, as always, was electric; to one man however, it was little more than an annoyance. Just endless, meaningless noise.

He kept his distance from the throngs of partiers, seated at a booth with a glass of scotch-Johnnie Walker Blue Label, at $65 a shot-which he sipped at slowly, looking out upon the herd with disinterest. Practically attached to his side was a younger woman, a blonde bombshell of the caliber that most men would kill for. Young, shapely body, luscious lips, tight sequined dress that left little to the imagination… and of course, a head full of air. She leaned into the man's side, checking herself in a pocket mirror and freshening up her cherry-red lipstick. Once she was sure she looked perfect, she closed the mirror with a snap and placed it in her pocket book.

"I wanna dance," She said. Her boyfriend didn't respond, nor did he give any sort of indication that he'd heard her at all. The woman frowned and gave his arm a little tug. "Babe, I wanna dance."

"I heard you the first time," The man grunted. "I'm not in the mood." His companion gave an almost childish pout.

"But I am. You promised we could dance…"

"Later, then." He said cooly. The woman sighed and crossed her arms, giving the busy dance floor a longing gaze. The man didn't care. He simply sipped his drink, his attention focused nowhere in particular. Most would assume that his pensive stare was that of a man lost in thought, but that was far from the case… he was simply existing, present in body but not in mind, barely even cognizant of the beautiful woman latched to his side. She was meaningless to him, after all; just another idiotic young tart barely out of high school, all too happy to leech off an older, wealthier man rather than make something of herself. She was no different from those who had come before, nor those who would come after. Good for a bit of fun and nothing else… to be used and then discarded once he'd had his fill.

A toy. Nothing more than that.

"Babe, come on," She huffed, giving his arm another tug. "It's a nightclub! Are you really going to just sit here all night?"

"I said, no."

"But I'm bored!" The young woman whined; it was clear from her tone that she was starting to get frustrated with her boyfriend. "I want to dance now-"

"Go, then." He said plainly. "I'm not stopping you."

"Ugh!" She scoffed and turned away from the man. "You've been a real jerk lately, you know that?!" She waited for a response, but received little more than a vague grunt of irritation. "...Fine. Fine!" She snapped, pulling away and sliding out of the booth. "I'll go dance by myself, then. Come find me when you're ready to stop being-"

"Won't be necessary," The man cut in, leaving her words to die on her lips. "You go right ahead and enjoy yourself. I trust you'll be able to find someone looking for an easy fuck." She stared at her boyfriend in disbelief, as though she'd somehow misheard the man's words.

"E-excuse me…?!"

"Do I need to simplify it for you?" He muttered. "I'm tired of you. Fuck. Off." The woman glared at him in silence, her body quaking in indignant rage. Nobody had spoken to her like that before… what man in their right mind would reject her? She grit her teeth and reeled back, her palm open to deliver a forceful slap.

The man caught her by the wrist without even looking.

"Ow!" The woman hissed, trying to pull away from the man, but he didn't loosen his grip in the slightest. On the contrary, he only squeezed tighter, so tight that the woman swore she could feel her bones creaking. "Y-you're hurting me," She gasped. "L-let me-" Her protests faded to a faint croak as, for the first time since they'd arrived that night, the man looked her in the eye. His gaze was cold, empty, devoid of life… as though there were simply nothing behind those gray eyes. No compassion. No anger. Nothing. It felt like he was staring into her soul, daring her to make a scene. Finally he let go and the woman grasped her aching wrist, shrinking back under his icy gaze. She lingered only a moment before her lip started trembling and she turned, hurrying off to God knows where. Not that he cared; he simply scoffed as she ran away, and with that little annoyance dealt with he turned his focus back to the crowd. None seemed to have noticed what happened, or at the very least if they did they knew better than to do anything about it.

With that, the man simply continued sipping his drink as though nothing had happened at all. It was nothing new, after all… he'd kicked far, far better women than she to the curb before, and he had no doubt he'd do so again. It was all part of the game, and it was a game he knew how to play better than damn near anyone.

It was also a game that he'd grown tired of as of late.

He'd learned from a young age that the world's pleasures belonged to those willing to take them. It was something his father had quite literally hammered into his skull as a child… in truth the sole thing he was grateful to the piece of shit for. The strong came out on top, while the weak were rightfully trampled underfoot. So he became strong. He rose to the top while his father fell to the bottom… meeting his end at the bottom of a staircase, his neck broken after the drunk bastard took a tumble.

A tragic accident, of course.

Since then, he had come to live by those words. He rose to his station. Money, power, good looks, women, he had it all. That which wasn't given he was all too happy to take. Those who challenged him would soon come to regret it. And yet, through it all, he maintained his public image… that of a legitimate businessman, gentleman, and generous philanthropist. Because he knew how to play the game. He knew how to get what he wanted, and was willing to wear whatever mask he needed to do so. As such, winning over brain-dead bimbos like her was child's play. And much like a child's plaything, he was growing increasingly bored. Perhaps it was time to mix things up a bit.

The man scanned the crowd, his lifeless gray eyes flicking between the offerings with little apparent interest. The club attracted a fairly diverse crowd, from young to mature to everything in between. Some were there with friends, others to meet new people, and of course there were those just looking for some company for the night… hussies, as far as he was concerned. He had little time for them.

...Oh?

The man stopped, his gaze lingering on one figure in particular. He could see her through the crowd, standing at the bar in an attractive blue dress and a lovely pearl necklace. She seemed to be glancing around, as though looking for someone, and as she turned her head he took a moment to study her face. She was a beautiful woman, not too old nor too young; her makeup, while tastefully applied, was just excessive enough that it was clear she had something to hide. No doubt she was starting to show her age and feeling particularly self-conscious about it.

Next, her body language: she was shifting in place anxiously and looking around, chewing her lower lip with a forlorn expression. She was upset, clearly. Her hands? No ring. Unmarried and aging, how sad. Her drink? Cranberry juice, from the look of it… not a drinker. Recovering, perhaps. Still, very peculiar for a non-drinker to be standing around at a bar unaccompanied. Perhaps she was waiting for some friends to return? No… she looked too upset for that. Nearly heartbroken, in fact. As if to confirm his suspicions the woman took out her phone and checked the time, taking another futile look among the crowd before sadly putting it away. Though his expression remained impassive as ever, his mind got to work piecing together the puzzle. This woman intrigued him. He would have her. And in a matter of seconds, he'd worked out how. With that, he polished off his drink and slid out from the booth, flexing his neck before straightening out his posture. As he weaved his way through the crowd, politely apologizing to those around him, his lips curled back in a friendly smile and his glare softened into a gentle gaze that made his cold grey eyes almost seem like a sparkling blue under the lights.

He put on the mask.

The downtrodden woman stared idly into her glass, lightly swirling it and watching the cranberry juice ripple within. She should have known this would happen… he'd been so non-committal when they'd set things up, but she'd been foolish enough to convince herself things would be different this time. Well, no point in lingering here alone… she may as well pay for her drink and head home to drown her sorrows in a pint of ice cream. She tried getting the bartender's attention, only for some red-headed seductress to call him over for another round. The woman sighed again and took a sip of her cranberry juice. Typical.

"Guy stood you up, huh?" The woman was snapped from her self-pity by a low voice beside her. She glanced over, finding a stunningly handsome man leaning on the bar. He was tall and barrel-chested, with perfectly-styled blonde hair and a strong jawline. Clean-shaven. Well-dressed. Million-dollar smile. For a moment, she was simply taken aback by his sudden appearance,

"I… excuse me…?" The man raised his palm and let out a chuckle.

"Sorry if I'm being presumptuous. You just looked like you could use some company, that's all," He said. "I'd offer to buy you a drink, but…" He flicked his eyes towards the cranberry juice, and the woman seemed to snap out of her stupor.

"Oh, um… n-no, it's quite alright," She said with a small smile. "You're not wrong. On either front, sadly." The man frowned and shook his head in empathy.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Can't say I haven't been there myself…" He muttered before that charming smile appeared once more. "Well, if it's not too bold of me to say, anyone who would leave a woman like you hanging must be out of their damn mind." The man shot her a wink and her cheeks flushed a light pink.

"Oh, stop…" The woman said, giggling into her palm. The man chuckled again. She took a moment to study him, taking in his chiseled features and masculine physique. He almost felt like a model straight out of GQ, the epitome of class in addition to his naturally good looks. Not to mention that he seemed to be an absolute gentleman to boot… and, perhaps most importantly, he seemed interested. She averted her eyes and took another sip of her drink, her cheeks reddening by the second.

"You know…" The man said as he pushed away from the bar and glanced over towards the dance floor. "I may not be the guy you're here to meet, but-"

"Yes," The woman blurted out, to her chagrin; she clammed up as the man looked back at her with a cocked eyebrow and a smirk, and cleared her throat before continuing. "I-I mean… I'd love to dance, if you're offering." The gentleman smiled and gave a small nod.

"It would be my privilege. Shall we, miss…?"

"Lori. Lori Loud." She said with a bashful smile, extending her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you…"

"Chester Richards." The man said with a broad, gleaming smile. He took her hand gingerly and gave it a gentle shake. "The pleasure's all mine."

#sin kids #what she'd been missing #trillhouse #fanfiction #my work #chester richards #Lori Loud

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1076

Be honest, did Fifty Shades of Grey arouse you in any way? I honestly never felt the need to see a single page, hear of the plot, or watch any part from any of the movies tbh. I just heard from everyone it was full of smut and it was enough to turn me away from it. Then it got banned in my school which definitely helped in not having to hear anything about it again.

What does your sibling(s) call you? In third-person they refer to me as Ate, which is the honorific for older sister. But my sister usually addresses me simply by looking my way and starting her sentence/question from there.

Do you have any close friends that are the opposite sex that your significant other dislikes? I don’t have a significant other anymore but my ex used to be unnecessarily mean about some of my close guy friends. I didn’t like some of her friends too, but I always had some valid reason behind it, e.g. they were creepy around her, they were aloof towards me, etc. But she didn’t like some of my guy friends by the sole fact that they were guys and she didn’t trust them around me, and like it was just something I couldn’t do anything about tbh. It also hurt me, because I love my guy friends and it didn’t feel right that she hated and criticized them without even wanting to make the effort to get to know them.

Do you honestly believe everything happens for a reason? Why or why not? My life is the grand sum of what I make of things. Idk if that’s able to address the question, but that is how I see the world in general.

Do you believe in reincarnation? Why or why not? No. Doesn’t really sit well with me, simply put. I believe that when I die, that is it for me; same with all other living beings.

The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner? I guess The Hunger Games. I saw the first movie and fairly enjoyed it, but that’s it as far as my interest in the franchise goes. I have never had any idea what The Maze Runner is about, and I honestly keep confusing it for the Divergent series for some reason lol.

Has anyone you’ve known claimed to be psychic? I don’t think so. If I did, I probably have already made the conscious decision not to hang out with them a lot haha.

Did/do you believe them? If I did know someone, I would not believe them.

Is anything annoying you right now? It’s fucking Sunday evening and I am not in the mood to go back to work tomorrow. I’m also staying up late (it’s already past 11 PM) and I know I’m already going to regret this, which is annoying me even more.

Have you ever been ice-skating? Yes! So many times as a kid. We don’t get actual snow though, so some malls have artificial ice skating rinks for those who want to do so. From ages 8-10 my mom would drop me off at the rink for me to practice/play in for a few hours because she knew I didn’t like tagging along in errands.

Does the sound of rain at night help you sleep? I wouldn’t say it helps me sleep since I generally have no issues dozing off, but the sound does make me feel calm and relaxed.

Have you ever seen an albino person, in person? Yes, I had a classmate with albinism at one point.

Have you ever worn a pair of scrubs? I don’t think I ever have. I never had to.

Have you ever walked into a massive cobweb? Probably. Or, at least, shot my hand out in an area where I ended up feeling a big cobweb.

What would you say is your strongest felt emotion right now? Despair. Hahahaha. Give me a longer fucking weekend, universe.

Are you talking to anyone at the moment? No, just this survey.

Do you have trust issues? Well now I do.

Have you ever found an arrow head? I don’t know; I don’t think so.

Who is with you? It’s just me in my room now. Kimi didn’t enter with me, and I think he wants to hang out in the corridor for a bit tonight. He’ll knock once he wants to be in here.

What can you not stop thinking about? How much longer I should continue doing this survey because I need to get sleep if I don’t want to wake up cranky.

Do you forgive easily? No. I tend to hold grudges, and I’d rather be honest and straightforward about my grudges than lie to someone’s face that I’ve forgiven them when I know within myself that I still resent them. I feel like that would be unfair to them anyway so it’s grudges all the way for me.

In what part of your life so far, have you learned the most about yourself? Not sure there’s a most. I possess self-awareness so I continue to learn as I get older. < Yeah I gotta go with this one. In every start of a new chapter in my life, I always seem to pick up new details or lessons about myself.

Have you ever been in a fist fight? I’ve been in physical fights but no fists were ever thrown.

Are your ears pierced? Yes, they are indeed.

What did you last say out loud? Something along the lines of “Not yet? Alright” to Kimi when he decided he didn’t want to enter my room with me.

What are you waiting on? I’m waiting on Friday already -____-

Do you tell people when they get on your nerves? Not usually. I like expressing it indirectly, like having shorter patience with them or ignoring them completely.

Are your feelings hurt easily? This working girl has to sleep, lmao. Catch y’all soon. Okay, where were we... Yeah, I would say being sensitive is one of my main traits. It’s fairly easy for me to get my feelings hurt, and I tend to overthink/overanalyze the simplest of jokes or comments towards me.

What's the most expensive piece of clothing you have? Did you buy it yourself? I haven’t started shelling out when it comes to clothes; like I’ve mentioned before, most of my money goes to food and the rest goes to gas, lmao. My most expensive clothes are probably just my WWE shirts. The merch I own are of the biggest wrestlers during the time I got them, so it was their shirts that cost the highest.

Who is your closest platonic friend of the opposite sex? Probably Hans. The two of us don’t talk much at all, but we always bond super well when we’re together and I can count on him to give me honest, hard-pill-to-swallow advice. Angela has to be with us though, or else I’ll feel awkward and shy.

How do you think your first relationship shaped who you are as a partner now? Yes, but there are good and bad sides to it. I will always be thankful to Gabie for tirelessly encouraging me to try out new things, expand my horizons, and to be unafraid to discover what I am capable of. She was undoubtedly my biggest supporter, especially when it came to going out of my comfort zone. I grew a lot from my relationship with her, so much so that it has definitely helped shape me to be the much braver, risk-taker person I am today. I like who I am now, and I won’t deny that it was she who helped in bringing that person out of her shell.

Bad side...she made me say sorry a lot. For her, she could do no wrong; and even if she did, she was always able to flip a situation around to make it sound like it was actually my fault. And so I said sorry, a lot. For four years. And on my end, I don’t think I received a lot of the apologies I think I deserved. So these days, I get jumpy with people and always feel the need to panic and apologize for the smallest shortcomings. She also always wanted to win arguments. Getting her point across and me agreeing with it mattered more than actually resolving arguments and moving our relationship forward. Bad as it was, it taught me a personal lesson: I learned how to negotiate and communicate better in my other relationships because I wanted to avoid the toxic dynamic I had in my own relationship.

As sad as I am that I lost the relationship and as much as I continue to think of the things that could have been, these days I get sadder instead when I think of how much I allowed myself to be treated that way. Of course, I’m very aware that I had my own set of problematic traits too. I’m not saying I was the model significant other (I was far from it), but the main difference between us is that I was always striving to be better in the relationship. I wanted to address the issues she had with me and to try to be a better, kinder person from it, for her sake and for my own personal growth. Unfortunately, all my attempts at healthy communication with her was always met with, “I can’t change who I am because this is already me.” Anyway, I’m rambling and I’m starting to feel sad again. Next question! Hahahaha.

Who is your favorite protagonist of the same sex? Claire Foy’s Elizabeth from The Crown.

Were you popular in high school? What was your reputation like? I was invisible in freshman and sophomore years, High school was the start of a new chapter, and my track record with new life chapters was never impressive because I take longer than normal to adjust to new environments. By third year I reconnected with Angela, and she hung out with the popular kids, so soon enough I got pulled into that crowd. I’d say by the end of high school I was a solid point on the radar - it was also thanks to my open secret of a same-sex relationship in a Catholic school, if we’re being honest lol - but I never liked having the spotlight on me. I liked that I had popular friends, but I myself never wanted to stir up shit on my own. I was just glad to be constantly invited to soirées and underground parties, lmao.

Have you always known your sexual orientation or did something happen to make you realize it? I’ve always been icky about the concepts of dating and sex. I could never imagine being intimate with anyone, and sex isn’t the biggest priority for me in relationships. The only time it makes the most sense to me is if I did it with someone I’ve built a solid, strong connection with; a close friend that I could trust. Realizing those made it easier to accept within me that I’m demi, or at least dancing around somewhere under the asexual umbrella.

What was the hardest part of your last break up? Coming to terms with how shittily I was treated, during and after. By the end of our relationship, she made it seem as though talking to me and maintaining the relationship was a chore. Every mistake I made sent her into a rage, which always ended in me rapidly apologizing in tears. Then after the breakup, she simply wanted to cut ties with me. She was never willing to allow me to healthily process the situation, and whenever I had questions in mind she would answer them curtly, and not give me reflective answers or perspectives. I begged for a long time to have my questions answered and to allow myself the teeniest bit of closure.

I had such a shiny, sparkly, perfect, can-do-no-wrong idea of my girlfriend for our entire friendship; so to take my rose-colored glasses off was the hardest part of it all. But taking that hard step was also the first step to healing, so it brought some good too I guess. I just wish getting to the good and easy part didn’t have to be so painful.

What brought you out of the hardest period in your life? The awareness that I had friends who unconditionally care about me. Also if I’m being honest, the Christmas break. I realized I was having such a hard time with my breakup because I was also already dealing with work burnout and the pressure of being in a new position and trying to make as few as mistakes as possible – so by the time the Christmas break rolled around and I had two weeks of no work, it was enough for me to recharge, realign my priorities, and determine the things and people that matter and that I want to keep.

What's your favorite kind of smiley face? Idk, I guess just :)? I like keeping my emoticons simple.

Does anybody know your deepest darkest secret? I dunno if I have one.

Did you ever watch Rugrats? (the babies) I did, but I never liked it. I remember Rugrats very specifically because this was the show that would be on Nickelodeon whenever me and my sister would be woken up at 5 AM to prepare for school. It came before Legends of the Hidden Temple, which was a lot more fun to watch.

What about Hey Arnold? I caught it often because this was also an early morning show (it came after Legends of the Hidden Temple), but I was never into it either. I also never got to watch the episodes in full because the school bus would pick me up by the time this was on the air.

Do you like pep rallies? Idk what that is.

Have you ever had pneumonia? No.

What do you feel about surgeries? Do they worry you? The possibility of accidentally waking up in the middle of a surgery and being unable to speak out because I was anaesthetized scares me more than anything else. But since I’ve never had to have a surgery before, I imagine feeling completely terrified if the time ever comes for me to have one.

Do you play Minecraft? if so, feelings about servers? I don’t play it. I think I tried it before, but it just never stuck with me. The most I’ve gone with it is to watch several playthroughs by Pewdiepie. I have no clue what you mean by servers.

Do you read creepypastas? No. I’m familiar with some, but I never read any.

Do you think vlogging in public is scary? I feel like this survey contains snippets from many different surveys because I’ve definitely answered this question before...but anyway, I wouldn’t say it’s scary per se but I AM shy when it comes to these things, and I don’t think I have it in me to carry a camera around in public and directly speak to it.

Have you been to an escape room? Was it a success? Mmm no, doesn’t sound like my idea of fun either. I don’t like solving puzzles hahaha.

What social class would you say you're in? Middle class. We live a relatively comfortable life in this country.

Have you ever recorded a cover of a song? Nope. I have never recorded myself singing because it has never been necessary lol.

How do you feel about guns? Not a fan. If I needed weapons for self-defense, I’d get anything other than a gun.

What's the most traumatizing event that ever happened to you? The drunken rages I had to helplessly watch from my childhood years.

Are you faint to the sight of blood? Yeah absolutely. Like I’ve always felt bad about it but I was such a shit helper whenever my ex had her semi-regular nosebleeds. I did help, I just panicked and nearly hyperventilated every time I did so because of the blood HAHA

Do you like spicy food? Love them, but the food has to be meaningfully spicy for me to enjoy it - like curry or laksa. Spicy food shouldn’t just be dishes with sprinkled spicy powder as a finishing touch, because for the most part that just irritates my throat and it doesn’t allow me to appreciate the spiciness.

Do you have good dreams or nightmares more? I think I am back to having simply strange dreams. But in the last few months, my nights had. been regularly plagued with nightmares.

When was the last time someone insulted you? What was the insult? Idk it was probably something my mom said that I had discarded from my memory. I’ve gotten so much better at that now.

What’s your second favorite color? Baby pink/pastel pink.

Do you ever wish you lived in a different country? I think about this everyday. Yes.

Who’s the last person you “pounded” fists with? One of my uncles.

Have you ever been involved in an affair? Nope.

How many times a week do you speak to your boss? I talk to them everyday since we have a Viber chat. I wouldn’t know what tasks to do or prioritize without them, so we need to be in touch all the time.

What do you want for your birthday? I don’t even want to think about my first birthday without her...but anyway, mine and Cooper’s birthday are super close to each other, so I actually want to throw a small party at home celebrating our birthdays haha :) Cooper can get his own doggie cake and cupcakes, heheh.

Have you ever been to a masquerade? I don’t think so.

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? I’m sure I can think of a couple of people I know.

Who in your phone has a heart after their name? Angela.

Anything you’re avoiding? I wanna avoid work for the next hour or so. Then once I’ve done some recharging, I can continue with a few tasks tonight so that my workload can be just a bit lighter tomorrow morning.

After breaking up, what’s the worst? Depends on the breakup. < Agreed.

Does your sibling have a significant other? I don’t think either of them has.

Do you use Skype? Not since a decade ago. At work, we mainly use Google Meet. Some clients will use Zoom; one client uses Teams.

Are you a fan of acrylic nails? Not yet, but I do want to try it out someday just to spoil myself haha.

Name one happy song that describes you better than any other. Idk if I can call myself happy just yet...hmm. Paramore does have a short song/interlude called I’m Not Angry Anymore, and it’s a happy-sounding song with a very passive-aggressive message hahaha. I’d say that’s me right now. Some of the lyrics go:

“I’m not bitter anymore, I’m syrupy sweet I’ll rot your teeth down to their core if I’m really happy

Depends on the day, if I wake up in a giddy haze Well, I’m not angry, I’m not totally angry, I’m not all that angry anymore” and everything about it is so meeeeee.

Name one sad/mellow song that describes you better than any other. Forgiveness, also by Paramore. Sorry I’m in a music slump y’all. Only Paramore has been able to make my days the slightest bit better.

What is your most used pick up line? I don’t use those, nor do I like hearing those.

Do you like the taste of alcohol? Sure. I like strong mixed drinks the best, though.

What kinds of food make you sick? I don’t have a weak stomach when it comes to food. The only food that has made me sick are expired foods.

#survey #surveys

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sara-scribbles · 4 years

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Together: Mercenary

Jeritza/F!Byleth

Note: This is part of my Jeritza/Byleth one-shot series Together where they travel around Fódlan after the end of the game. Each one shot can be a standalone.

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It was very easy to slip into mercenary mode after so many years. The war had continued to sharpen her skills. Though the war had ended there was always a need for mercenaries even in peacetime. Perhaps mercenary work was written in Byleth’s blood; after all she had grown up with Jeralt’s mercenaries. It really wasn’t a surprise how quickly she fell back in place. Of course this time she was no longer part of her father’s mercenary band.

Instead it was just her and Jeritza traveling around Fódlan. Despite never having been a mercenary, he seemed to fall into place just as easily. It was a way of life that suited him the best. She could also think of a few others who would fit the mercenary lifestyle. However She had a feeling Jeritza did not want to add more to their simple two person team. Byleth was fine with that. Traveling with him was a mostly quiet affair.

Having arrived at a small village, the two split up. He went to the nearby inn to get a room, and she went to the local tavern. Taverns were the best places to hear gossip and get information. Stepping inside, the stale smell of booze assaulted her nose. It was dimly lit, and the windows provided little light with how dirty they were. There were already quite a few patrons nursing pints. The sun was still high in the sky, but it seemed some people started drinking early.

Settling at the bar counter, she gestured for the barkeep. “What can I get ya?” The man was missing a few teeth, but he seemed nice enough.

“I’m looking for someone. Heard he came this way,” she murmured while looking disinterested.

The man shrugged his shoulders as he wiped down the counter. “Haven’t seen anyone new except you.” She slid a few coins across the counter. “But I did hear that some bloke with a nasty scars on his face was seen lurking in these parts. Someone saw a shadow in the window of the old mansion at the edge of town.” He swiftly pocketed the coins.

“Thank you.” Standing, she left the tavern. The sun in the sky was setting as she made it to the inn. At least the place looked cleaner than the tavern.

The room was also fairly clean. Jeritza was busy sharpening his blade when she entered. “I have news on our target. He might be hiding out in the abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town.”

“Are you sure?” he asked without looking up from his weapon.

Taking a seat on the only bed, Byleth stared up at the cracked ceiling. “No. But it won’t hurt to check it out. Anyways, our hire doesn’t care how long it takes as long as we bring back what was stolen.”

Seemingly satisfied with his blade, he placed it back in its sheath. “Is this how you usually go about your jobs? It seems rather…unnecessary.”

“My father always gathered information before doing anything. He had a larger group than just us two, so he had the ability to do more.” Turning, she met his sharp gaze. “We’ll check it out once night falls.” Falling back into the mattress with a sigh, she closed her eyes.

Her body was used to sleeping on an actual bed instead of the ground from her time at the monastery. Sleeping on the open roads had taken a while to get accustomed to again. Even now her body craved the softness of a mattress to the cold, hard ground.

Without a word, he joined her on the bed. The two laid side by side. “I never considered how much you might need more people for a mercenary group,” he admitted.

Eyes still closed, she shifted to give him more space. “It does make it easier when you have certain people for specific roles. We’ll do what we can with what we have.” Rolling on her side to face him, she opened her eyes. “Why, are you considering adding to our merry band of two?” A knowing smile danced on herr lips.

His brows scrunched together, and his frown deepened. “No.”

A chuckle fell from her mouth. “Sothis forbid we add more people to our group.”

His hand sought hers and grasped it. “We’re fine the way we are.” Curling her body closer to him, Byleth closed her eyes once more. “Rest. I’ll wake you when we have to go.” His fingers intertwined with her own as she drifted off.

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The mansion sat on a large plot of land and was once beautiful at one point.. Though with the lack of upkeep, wild plants had grown all over the grounds. The front gate was barely hanging off its hinge and a portion of the wall was missing. Getting inside was easy enough, and more so as the front door was missing.

“It’s quiet…” Jeritza glanced into an empty room. “I have yet to hear anything except the rats.”

“We’ll split up. I’ll take the top floor, and you canvas here and the lower level.” The mansion itself was pretty large. A lot of the rooms were filled with debris, and parts of the floor and ceiling looked ready to fall.

Creeping up the stairs, she tried to avoid any spots that looked ready to break. Most of the rooms were empty except for a few rats here and there. A creak from nearby caught her attention. Hand on the hilt of your sword, she crept closer to the room. Peeking in, she didn’t see anyone. However she carefully walked in to survey the area. It looked to be a bedroom though most of the furniture was missing or broken.

A window was open with the wind gently blowing it. The creaking noise was coming from there. Shaking her head, she sighed. A slight rush of cold air was all she needed to pull her sword out and block the daggers aimed for her back. The man, Alfi, snarled as his daggers met her blade.

“Did one of those pigs send ya?!” His scowl pulled the scars that criss-crossed his face. For such a bulky man, he was light on his feet. She had almost missed him.

“They just want what you stole back,” she replied, not giving up as he put more pressure on his blades. With some force, she shoved him back. He stumbled into the hallway before righting himself.

His lips curled into something of a grin. “What did the rich widdle nobles miss a simple trinket? Can’t they buy more with ‘ere money?!” She lunged at him but he deftly dodged to the side.

“Just give it back and you can leave this place alive.” Ducking under his daggers, her foot met his side. He fell back against the banister. The old wood groaned loudly as cracking noises filled the air. Eyes wide the two had little time to move before the floor crumbled. The entire staircase and floor came crashing down.

Byleth managed to pull herself free from the rubble. Unfortunately so had Alfi. He had lost a dagger, but his other one was pointed right between her eyes. Her sword was still buried somewhere under the debris.

“Not much of a sword for hire are ya. Nice try, kid.” He raised the dagger to strike, but he let out a ghastly groan.

She stared at the sword that pierced through his heart from the back. Jeritza pulled the blade out and the man collapsed in the rubble. His blood seeped through the wood as his body twitched. Jeritza causally wiped the blood from his sword using the man’s body. Kneeling, he rifled through his pockets before pulling out a small pouch.

“You didn’t have to kill him.” She found her sword and put it back in the sheath.

He tossed her the pouch, which remained clean of any blood. “Hmm…” Opening it, she pulled out the ornate hairpin inside. Made of diamonds and rubies, it looked to cost a small fortune. “All for a hairpin?” He was unimpressed.

“It’s a family heirloom. It's the last thing the daughter has of her parents.” Placing it back inside, she eyed the dead body. “Father would usually have the body cleaned up, but...”

Jeritza didn’t bother to look as he headed out. “No one will find him. From what the innkeeper said the locals think this place is haunted.”

Following him, she walked past the dilapidated gates. “How did you find your first job as a real mercenary?”

“It’s…different from what I’m used to. However I don’t dislike it.” The one road leading to the mansion was empty. “As long as we can work together and there’s plenty of bodies to keep my sword sharp, I’m fine with this.”

“Good. We have all of Fódlan to explore in the process.” Side by side, they walked down the long road.

#fire emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #fe3h #FE Three Houses #fe3h imagines #fire emblem imagines #fe3h jeritza #fe jeritza #jeritza von hrym #fe byleth #byleth #Bylitza #Together series #scenario

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fatgirlsguidetodating · 4 years

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Blog: Bad Date tale 5. A date with a little extra.

NB: It's been awhile since I wrote a blog post but I really do want to get back into this. I had promised ages ago to write about some more of my bad dates as well as more of my guides what with this blog being called fatgirls guide to dating and all. So let me tell you all about this bad date. Though it’s testing my memory as it was awhile ago- like back in maybe 2016?- so I’m relying on messages to friends or my date sent at the time as well as my memory.]

Blog: Bad date tale 5. A date with a little extra.

Setting: Luna Park- an amuesement Park in Melbourne’s beachside St. Kilda.

Who: Zane. Late 30’s. Bit scruffy. Works in the music industry.

How I met them: He was Facebook friends with a good friend of mine and we often chatted on statuses on there before he sent me a message. After awhile he asked for my number, I gave it not really expecting him to bother with texting me but- clearly- he did.

What happened: We arranged to meet at Luna Park with thoughts of maybe finding a bar or something afterwards. I was about 5 mins early (something not common as I’m almost always late; I was born a few weeks late and have been late ever since). I wait 20 mins and am starting to wonder if I’ve gotten the day or something wrong (not outside the realm of possibility with me tbh) when he arrives. Except he isn’t alone.

With him is a young boy- I thought maybe 7, later told he was 9- who he is practically dragging and who looks incredibly sullen. “I’m so sorry, my ex had an emergency so I’ve got L today.” Zane tells me.

Until this moment I hadn’t even known L existed but I like kids and I’d honestly never met any kids who didn’t like me. “Hey L, I’m A, nice to meet you.” I say brightly. L just shrugged. Clearly the feeling wasn’t mutual here.

“So,” says Zane. “Who’s ready for some fun?”

He puts his hand up, I follow suit, we look at L but his hand remains stubbornly at his side. Oh boy. This is going to be a loooong day, I think.

We buy our tickets- it’s cheaper to buy the unlimited rides tickets if you intend to use quite a few rides rather than the single ride ones- and the teenager at the kiosk asks, “family ticket?”

Before either Zane or I can speak L says, “no!”

The teenager looks nonplussed but L elaborates anyway. “We’re *not* a family! My mum is part of it, not her.” He says gesturing to me.

Yep. This is really going to be a long arse day...

The ticket situation sorted we head inside.

“What’s your fave ride?” Zane asks me.

“Any ghost train type ones or roller coasters.” I respond. I look down at L. “How about you?”

He shrugs. “Most. I like dodgem cars.” He replies.

“You like the ghost train too.” Zane points out.

“Used to. It’s for babies now.” L says.

I wonder if I can go on the ghost train and some ghoul can kidnap me and get me away from this. But I’m determined to make the most of the situation. I’m not letting L, the 9 year old dictator, ruin a date I’d actually been looking forward to given my intense feelings about dates.

“But it’s fun to be scared.” I say.

“Only babies get scared on the ghost train.” L says.

Zane gives me an apologetic look, one that will become his default setting today. “Well let’s see.” Zane says.

So we go on the ghost train: Zane and L in front, me in the back. I must admit to being tempted to grab L throughout the ride to scare him but I don’t because I’m mature. I do stick my tongue out at the back of his head in the dark though. So maybe not *totally* mature then?

When we get off Zane asks, “that was fun wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” I say.

“No.” L says at the same time.

Zane gives me another apologetic look but I am determined still. At least, at this stage, I am. “So you said you like dodgem cars? Should we try them next?” I ask our little dictator.

“I guess.” L says. He is trying to look sullen or uninterested but it’s clear he does want that ride. Progress I naively think.

We get to the dodgem cars and it’s the same seating arrangement as the last (at this rate, I think a tad bitterly, I’m not going to get anywhere near my date) and as the little dictator looks at me I see an evil glint in his eye and I want to pull out of the ride because I don’t much fancy being chased around by the pint sized terrorist. But I’m not giving him the satisfaction.

So I get in my car and I wonder if it’s a little cruel/dramatic/immature for wanting to take the little bugger out? It’s not that I’m mad that there’s a kid on my date- I’m actually not- but rather that I’m fairly sure this kid is going to have people goose-stepping any moment.

There aren’t many others on the ride so I can’t even hide as L dictates where they go. “Get her!” He screams.

Get me they do. Though Zane doesn’t do it as hardcore as his little devil spawn wants as evidenced by his pouting and pointing out his dad “went easy on [her].”

L wants to go again and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been as relieved when Zane says not yet. Thank. Fuck.

“How about a roller coaster next?” Zane offers.

“I’m in.” I say.

“As long as it’s not that stupid baby one.” L says.

We wander over to the biggest roller coaster- the one that offers those great views of St Kilda and the bay and the city- to check if there are age/height restrictions. Sadly our favourite little dictator doesn’t quite make the grade and as a result throws what I can only describe as an epic tantrum.

“Are you sure we can’t go on? He’s so close to the minimum height,” Zane asks the bored looking worker.

“It’s minimum. That means he has to be that tall minimum.” The worker says slowly, like Zane’s an idiot.

“Sorry L, next time we come you’ll be tall enough.” Zane tells his son apologetically.

L isn’t placated at this.

“We could try the other ones.” I offer. I know, I know- it is mean of me given L’s hatred of the “stupid baby one” but what can I say, somehow this kid brings out my petty side. If only he was like 99% of kids who loved me and who I got along great with.

“No! I hate this! I don’t like her!” L wails loudly.

“Stay here a moment.” Zane tells his son and he leads me a few metres away.

“I’m really sorry A. I knew he didn’t take the breakup easily but I didn’t think he’d be this...rude.” He says quietly.

As it’s considered poor form to tell someone their kid is a total brat and you want to put him in the spinning tea-cups, up the speed exponentially until the g-force is high enough for the little dictator to pass out I say it’s okay.

“It’s not. Look I’ll understand if you want to call it a day. We could go do something another time. A child free time?” He offers.

I hesitate. I want to take him up on his offer and escape before L orders “off with (my) head. But I don’t want to wave the white flag and admit defeat. At least not just yet.

“Let’s try a couple more rides?” I offer.

Zane’s eyes light up. “For real?”

I confirm that I am, indeed, for real.

So we go back to L. We go on a few more rides but many of the ones L wants to try have height limits he doesn’t meet. So we decide on a new tack- the carnival games. Over an hour or so we fail to win all the big stuffed toys and instead what I’m kindly describing as “plastic junk”, all of which Zane and I carry.

“Listen mate, one more try only.” Zane tells his son.

Cue tanty.

But Zane stays strong. L tries the classic carnival game of the clowns but doesn’t get what he wants to win.

By this stage it’s getting a bit cool and rains threatening. “I know we were going to go to a bar or something but, well, you know...” Zane says.

“It’s cool.” I say.

“We could go get something to eat anyway?” Zane offers.

L doesn’t like this plan because he wants a hot dog from the amusement Park despite his father suggesting we’ve spent enough money and we can get cheaper and better food elsewhere.

I don’t like this plan because I’ve had my fill of L. (My friends later say that I managed the whole date even with L carrying on was worthy of the massive glass of wine I poured myself when I got home.) So we go our seperate ways, with plans to go for a drink another time. A child-free time.

Outcome: We actually do have another date. A pleasant child free date with alcohol. However we both agree the chemistry that we had via text and chats over the phone isn’t there in person. But, for once, there’s a somewhat happy ending. We remain friends. At least for awhile. But then he got back together with his ex- our mini Stalin L would have been delighted after seeing off at least 3 challengers that I knew of- and he dropped off the face of the earth. Happy Facebook photos replaced his quotes about children and fathers. A quick check of my Facebook friends list just now confirms he’s gone, but I don’t know when exactly this happened.

#onlinedating #fatgirlsguidetodating #dating #lunapark #baddate #bad date #bad date tale #baddatetale

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lemondice · 5 years

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There are many people who play Magic: the Gathering as either a casual or competitive hobby, and there are many people similarly who play a great deal of board games, but despite both testing similar areas of strategy, there’s less crossover than you would expect. Magic players are often so invested in the many facets of the game that they would rather play more Magic than play a different game, while board game players see Magic as expensive and inaccessible compared to the games they play. Personally, I’ve played a lot of magic, having continuously played casually since I was 9 and having competitively played once or twice a week for a 2-3 year period in my early 20s. I’ve also played a ton of Euro-style board games over the past decade and developed quite a collection. So I thought it would be interesting to write about Magic from a board gamer’s perspective - how would it hold up if viewed as just another board game? I’ll be writing this assuming you know nothing about Magic aside from a general idea of what a collectible card game is.

First, I’m going to explain why Magic has been so successful and why it has lasting appeal. Second, I’m going to touch on a few of the most notorious negative aspects of the game of Magic, such as the financial cost and the luck factor. Finally, I’m going to list a few accessible ways to play Magic and describe how they would hold up as standalone board games.

Strengths

Magic: The Gathering has continued to release new content several times a year, every year for 26 years, and is currently selling more product than ever. Why has it been so successful? There are a few main answers. For one thing, there’s a great deal of strategic depth in any given game. If playing 1v1, almost every game features a huge number of decision points, any one of which might not matter but the collective whole of which will determine the winner. A multiplayer setting is similar, but adds in significant political elements and dealmaking. Even more importantly, with all those years of content, there’s a massive amount of strategic diversity. Hundreds of thousands of cards have been made, and the vast majority have been designed in an open-ended enough fashion that there are constantly new combinations that can be put together and played with. In addition, any one given 2-player game of Magic will typically last less than half an hour, giving it a big strategic punch in a short length of time. I’ve played more hours of Magic by far than any other game, and it’s precisely because of that incredible depth.

Barriers to Entry

This section is going to ignore things that might dissuade someone from playing competitive Magic in, for example, a store, since it’s beyond the scope of this article. I’m assuming you have a regular group of board game players or regular opponent and you’re wondering if Magic could be a fun experience for you.

Rules Knowledge

Magic has a reputation as a very complex game, which I think is partially deserved and partially undeserved. It is deep to the extent that because of the constant release of new material and the sheer number of decisions encountered in the course of any one turn or any one game, even players who make their living playing Magic frequently find themselves faced with challenging choices. On the other hand, compared to a heavy euro or a wargame, it’s very easy to pick up a starter deck, learn the basic rules of Magic, and play a simple deck at a solid level of skill. I think if you are teaching just the core rules of the game with simple training decks, I would give Magic a weight of about 2.0 on the Boardgamegeek weight scale. On the other hand, if playing a more complicated, full variant, I would increase that weight accordingly, but never going above a 3.0 or so - I think a couple that can handle Twilight Struggle can certainly handle learning Magic at its most intricate. Magic also has a reasonably good depth payoff for its complexity.

Luck Factor

The way you play cards in Magic requires you to draw the correct land cards from your deck. Because of this, if you draw too many land cards and not enough creatures and other spells, you will likely lose, and the reverse is true as well. As a result, even in a 2 player match between an incredibly skilled player and a fairly unskilled player, the unskilled player will have at least a 10-15% winrate. This might be anathema to a euro player where games feature minimal luck and player interaction, and the most skilled player wins 99% of the time, but it is also easy to work around in a non-tournament setting. Encouraging people to redraw their hands until they have a reasonable mix of lands and cards they can play would be infeasible in competitive, tournament play of Magic, but there’s no reason that something like it can’t be used for a group that trust no one’s going to use it to unfair advantage. Alternatively, especially when playing 1v1, it can help to view the game like poker, where any one hand can come down to luck but the overall win percentage never lies.

Financial Cost

Competitive players who enter a ‘Standard’ tournament (playing an optimized deck, but only using cards printed in the last 2 years that are generally relatively cheap) will often have spent $300-500 on their deck, and that isn’t even the most expensive format! Compared to a typical board game costing $40-80 dollars, a cost that only 1 person has to pay, that seems exorbitant - and it is. However, we’ll see in my next section that many of the ways to play will cost much less than this and will more approach the cost of a standard board game.

Ways to Play

I’m going to break down a few accessible ways to play Magic without necessarily needing to compete in a financial arms race - I’ll describe each and explain the cost, complexity, replay value, and preparation needed for each.

Pre-Made Decks

Wizards of the Coast has several lines of products that contain either a pair of decks or a set of several decks, all designed to interact well with each other and lead to a balanced, competitive game. You can buy however many of these as you have players, take them out of the box, and immediately play, either 1v1 or multiplayer.

Cost: $10-$30 per player, depending on the product line.

Complexity: 2.0-2.5, depending on the product line.

Replay value: Medium - you could certainly play many games and have each play out differently, especially with something like the Commander line of products. However, if you only play with your own deck, you may get bored of the specific playstyle of that deck after 5-10 plays, depending on the product.

Preparation needed: Minimal - 1 person needs to pick up a set of the decks and bring them.

Drafting

The way a booster draft works is that 3 booster packs are needed for each player. Much like 7 Wonders, the cards in the packs are drafted (each person is looking at a pack, then everyone simultaneously, secretly picks a card to keep and passes the remaining ones), so with 15 card packs everyone ends up with 45 cards each by the end. They use approximately half of those cards, along with some provided basic lands, to build a 40 card deck, after which you can pair off with various people and play a series of 1v1 games or best-of-3 1v1 matches.

Cost: $10-15 per player per draft.

Complexity: 2.5

Replay value: Low - after an evening of playing with one draft deck, you’re probably going to be ready to move on and draft again, so this can be an expensive form of Magic.

Preparation needed: Minimal - you just need 3 booster packs per player and about 100 basic lands for everyone, which you can buy for $10 or less and re-use each time.

Cube Drafting

The actual gameplay of cube drafting is identical to drafting. However, the biggest difference is that rather than each player opening 3 booster packs, each player forms their ‘booster packs’ by drawing 15 cards from a large common pool of cards (typically, the common pool contains around 360-720 cards). After the entire cube draft is over, all of those cards return to the common pool, so a cube is much more like a traditional board game - only one person needs to own a cube, and it can be replayed over and over unlike a traditional booster draft.

Cost: $100-300 to construct a reasonable, fun cube (there are infinitely many places to spend more money throughout this process of course) This is a total cost, unlike the others which had per-player costs - if you build a 360-card cube this way, it will work for up to 8 people.

Complexity: 2.5-3.0 (a cube will often end up containing a higher frequency of complicated cards with complicated interactions than a booster or premade product will)

Replay value: Very high - even a normal cube can be played over and over, and it’s incredibly easy to swap a small number of cards in or out of the common pool and completely change the player experience.

Preparation needed: A great deal - one person needs to foot the initial expense (or split it), research which cards they want to include, find and purchase all of those cards, and provide basic lands and possibly sleeves (if they have valuable cards they want to protect).

Hopefully this has encouraged some people who might be reluctant to dip their toes into the world of Magic. It’s got some drawbacks, but overall it certainly is an incredibly rewarding and deep game.

#gamedesign #mtg

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mvmadvice · 5 years

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MvM Bootcamp: Wave 666, the ultimate wave order guide

THE ULTIMATE MANN VS MACHINE, WAVE 666 GHOST TOWN GUIDE INCOMINGGG

I know it’s been awhile folks, but I’m back (briefly) with a down-and-dirty guide on wave 666.

Wave Order:

1. Crit W+M1 Pyros + Crit Bat Scouts + Crit Giant Demoknights

2. Crit Giant Soldiers + Uber Medics (one medic per soldier)

3. Giant Deflector Heavies + Giant Burst Fire Soldiers + Soldiers + Heavies

4. Tanks + Crit Scattergun Scouts

5. Giant Burst Fire Demomen + Crit Demoknights (small) + 1 Tank

6. Extended Banner Direct Hit Soldiers

7. Giant Heavies + Giant Quick Fix Medics

8. Tanks + 96 fucking Spies <----- HALFWAY POINT!!!!

9. Crit Huntsmen

10. Crit Rapid Fire Soldiers

11. Crit Burst Demomen

12. Crit Airblast Pyros

13. Crit Scattergun Scouts (not to be confused with part 4)

14. 1 Tank + Crit Heavies + Uber Medics

Yes, despite it all being one big waves, the bots still come in a specific order. I’ll organize them as “parts” (part 1, part 2, part 3, etc) since it’s all one big wave. Quick explanation of each part under the cut.

Part 1:

Aka the warm up. Just don’t let them get in close to you, and you’ll be a-okay. The demomen come in groups of four, and the little bots come in groups of I wanna say 10? I’ve never really counted because they’re not that big a threat.

Part 2:

The first time you meet Uber medics in the wave. It’ll be hard for Medic pickers to isolate the medics, since each giant soldier comes attached with one and they come as one messy group, meaning there isn’t a convenient place to put all your stickies/throw your gas to kill all the medics cleanly. Ideally, a good Sniper can take out most--if not all--of the medics. However, since good Snipers are hard to come by, you’re better off popping the medics as fast as possible. If you have a kritzkrieg Medic and a Soldier on your team, it may be worth popping kritz on the Soldier, since Soldier’s crockets can fairly reliably 1 shot Uber medics.

Part 3:

The Giants will always come as a pair. Ideally, you’ll want to kill the first pair before the second one drops, etc etc. The little bots can be annoying though, since the spam is super crazy during this part. If you have a medic, make sure your projectile shield is ready, because you can literally render all the bots useless for a short period of time. If you’re playing Engineer, move your sentry gun out of the way at the beginning of this part or get ready to wrangle it. If you’re playing Soldier, you can fire a few cheeky rockets early to try to damage the bots right as they hit the ground. Splash damage is your best friend during this part. Soldier, Demoman, and Sniper really shine here.

Part 4:

This is the easiest tank part (and also probably the easiest part of Wave 666 if your team is good at working together). If you have an Engineer, he can singlehandedly hold the bomb for the entire duration of this wave, allowing the other 5 players to focus down the tanks. Alternatively, if you either lack an Engineer or your Engineer doesn’t realize the power he has against a bunch of Scouts, dedicate ONE person to stopping the bomb. Some good classes you’ll see often that are good at watching the bomb are: Soldier, Demoman, Scout, Sniper (if he can aim), Pyro (if they’re not on the tank), and Heavy. Demoknights and Spies can also watch the bomb, but they aren’t nearly as effective. Phlog Pyros, Buff Banner Soldiers, and Carbine + Bushwacka Snipers should always be on the tank, not on the bomb. If you’re really struggling, try seeing if your team has enough tank damage. I’ll talk about tanks and tank damage more extensively in another post.

Pro tip: If you think you might be done with the Scouts and want to stop watching the bomb, press tab and see how many Crit Scouts are left. You’re done with Scouts (for now) if the number is 75.

Part 5:

The demomen (both the giants and the little ones) will move in groups of five or ten. This means that they’ll be grouped up very nicely with each other, but it also means that you can quickly get overwhelmed by 20+ giant demos all spamming grenades everywhere. They do, however, take a long time to reload, so if you want to get in a few quick Ubersaws, it’s possible with good timing (2-3 depending on how much you wanna push your luck).

This part is also pretty easy, depending on how much AOE (area of effect) damage you have. Basically, if you have a lot, the giant demos go down fast. If you have very little, well, it’s do-able, but you’ll need to be very efficient at rotating between the tank and the bomb. Oh yeah, did I mention that after 10-15 giant demomen drop, a single tank will appear? Yep! This tank has more HP than the tanks you just fought, so be careful. Ideally, your team will split in half and deal with them at the same time. If you have very little tank damage but a lot of bot damage, focus the tank first (I know, but hear me out). Since you know you don’t have a lot of tank damage, starting on the tank early will make sure you have enough time to get rid of the tank before you take on the robots. Most teams with very little tank damage will have a lot of robot damage, so you should be able to take care of the robots fairly quickly. If you have very little of either, I have to genuinely wonder how you got so far into the wave in the first place.

Part 6:

If you’re playing Engineer, you basically have to hide your sentry around corners to pick off bots before they can react to your gun. If you’re playing any other class, buy crit and blast resistance. Wave 666 is different from other modes in that you can refund your upgrades during the wave. The ending of Part 5 is very slow (a few crit demoknights filter in over a short period of time), so take that chance to get as much crit and blast resistance as you can. Let the sentry gun watch the bomb while your team goes to get upgrades. You’re gonna need it.

This part usually isn’t that hard though, overall, since most people have blast and crit resistance by now anyway.

Part 7:

As soon as the last soldiers spawn, the first Giant Heavy/Medic pair will also spawn. Try to clean up the soldiers before they drop. This is a pretty straightforward part of the wave. Kill the Medic (without letting it pop uber, or else it’ll go back to full hp), then kill the Heavy. Make sure you don’t have more than 2 pairs on the field at any given time, or your life will be hell and the wave will be over.

This part you’ll have relatively little control over, but don’t let the last pair touch the bomb. Usually, the first or second pair will be able to touch it, maybe let the third pair, but absolutely do not let the last pair touch the bomb. If they do, you risk having the bomb still in play during the dreaded part 8.

Part 8:

The spookiest and hardest part of wave 666 that everyone has told you about. Wave 666 is known for 2 things: being really fucking long and the ninety-six fucking spies that come at the same time to destroy your life.

These spies are NOT your normal support spies, which typically come in groups of two or three. No. These spies will swarm. There will be something like 10 or 20 on the map until you kill them all. They also drop money ($2 or $3, this is the part where even the best scouts will lose that A+ rating). But the most annoying, least known part about these spies is as follows:

They can cap the bomb.

You read that right. It’s extremely rare that they have the opportunity, since the tank usually gives enough time for the bomb to respawn, and the Spies will never spawn with a bomb, but if you do happen to have a bomb? Good luck winning this.

During this part of the wave, buy backs, crit canteens, and uber canteens are your best friends. If you’re a non-explosive class, you can jump on top of the tank. If you’re a Scout, please don’t do that if you already see someone up there. You can dodge spies with pretty good success, let the tank Sniper sit up there. Sincerely: a tank Sniper.

HALFWAY POINT IS OVER, SOMETHING LIKE 7 OF 10 TEAMS FAIL BY THIS POINT, SO IF YOU’RE HERE, CONGRATS! YOU’RE BASICALLY DONE!

Note for parts 9-14: These bots all come in a row, and don’t give you a break in between bot types, so you’ll often get a mix of two bots at the end of one part and beginning of the next. You might also start to lag due to the large number of particle effects now in the game.

Part 9:

Crit huntsmen. They’re pretty easy if you have a Medic and a Soldier. I’d argue they could probably hold the bomb all on their own if they don’t die. Snipers are really weak in the HP department, so they’re easy to burst down in groups. By now you should have more than enough damage.

If you’re playing Sniper, this is the last part of Wave 666 that you’ll be useful in until part 13 (since Soldier does your job better).

Part 10-11:

The Crit Soldiers from part 10 are very dangerous. You might want to dodge in and out from behind walls (the ones on either side of the main pathway are good, as well as the wall on top of the building in the middle. If you’re lucky, the bomb bot will go towards the right side (if you are looking from the hatch to the robot spawn), where there is a really good bottleneck corridor. Have a low quality screenshot from a recent game (ignore the icicle sentry buster).

This bottleneck is absolutely amazing vs the bots from part 10-12 because if you can get the bomb placement just right, all the robots will funnel in from the front.

Sometimes, you might get a cheeky flanker, but if you have an Engie or a very aware power class, they aren’t a problem.

The Demomen can be dealt with similarly as the Soldiers.

Part 12:

The Pyros are where your power classes start to falter. The best class against these Pyros is your Engineer. If you don’t have one, good luck. They’ll probably be able to push you all the way to your hatch, but if you have enough people alive (2-3) at any given time, you should be able to prevent the cap.

If you’re at the bottleneck, have one person above and the rest of the team on the ground. Ideally, your soldier(s) are smart enough to figure out that these Pyros know how to reflect and have perfect reflect timing, so they’ll position themselves accordingly.

Part 13:

The Pyros will soon trickle to a halt and some Scouts will start to mix themselves in. Be careful, these Scouts do a lot more damage than the Scouts from part 4.

Part 14:

A few minutes after the Scout’s start spawning, a tank will spawn. This tank is even tankier than the tank from part 5 and drops very little money when you kill it (but that doesn’t matter, you’re basically done anyway at this point). At the same time, the Heavy/Medic pairs will also start to drop, so it’s just a giant fuckfest of crits and panic.

Be warned: robots can cap while ubercharged. If you do not have a Demoman, Pyro, or another class that can disrupt a bomb drop, make sure to pop the medics’ uber before they reach your base.

If you’re playing Sniper, this is the part of the wave that you get to be useful again, because your charged bodyshots will 1 shot the uber medics, preventing them from popping.

If you beat all of that, then you’re done!

Congratulations!

You get to feel accomplished that you beat wave 666.

Make sure to keep an eye out for some in depth analyses of the harder parts of the wave, along with some class guides for wave 666.

#mvm advice #TF2 #tf2 mvm #mann vs machine #mann vs machine advice #mvm boot camp

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icewindandboringhorror · 5 years

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hmmm’st....Another group of replies since I’m trying to keep up with my inbox better this year !! (I know #3 is missing, I accidentally mislabeled them and skipped straight to 4 and don’t feel like re-editing the photos lol )

1. “What would you recommend doing with a 1x1 ft square of tapestry-eqsue fabric ?” (question typed out in a shortened way/some words left out)

Hmm, I’m not really sure! I always have problems with tiny squares of fabrics since I often like.. am in love with the colors or texture or pattern or etc, but at the same time it’s too small to actually serve as a really substantial part of the outfit lol, so I usually just use them in small ways for accents? Squares are really good for making collars out of, since you can just cut a hole in the middle and put your head through it and it’s done lol, but you can also tuck them into shirt collars or belts so they hang out a little and just serve as a pop of color or something. If you don’t mind cutting it, you could also turn it into little strips or change the shape, make it into a small pocket/bag, wrap pieces around the arm or tie it around boots as decor, tie the cut up buts together to make it into a longer piece of fabric then use that as a belt or sash or headband, etc. Idk, I have trouble with small fabric bits as well, but maybe some of these ideas help!!

(other answers under read more so it doesn’t get long)

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(note: sorry to everyone who's questions I had to shorten when re-typing them here, I hope I abbreviated them okay and didn't leave out anything you saw as very important! The full message is still shown in the images above and I just wanted to save myself a little time on the typing aaa!)

2. “Sorry this is random, but you seem like a very nice and thoughtful person. Hope you have a happy new year”

Thank you!! I always try to include one or two of these nice ones in here just to continue to show appreciation for people who send me kind things! Even if I don’t respond to all of them (since I feel really awkward just like.. publicly responding to a ton of compliments lol), still know that I really appreciate it! I hope you also have a great year, anon!

3. accidental mislabeling error means free space for cat image

4. “will you do more videos? vlogs, tutorials, explaining your art, games, podcast, anything? sorry if it's weird to say, but I just really enjoy listening to you speak!” (question typed in a shortened way/not fully quoted)

Possibly? I just can’t think of many things to make that would work well for me?

vlogs: I don’t like to do vlogs anymore because of my mental illness and becoming more anxious about showing my face or daily life in public. Though I do enjoy aspects of the “lifestyle blogging” sort of content, like I think it would be cool to be able to make easy videos where all I do is sit down and talk about my hair or something for 20 minutes lol, or etc., but I guess as I get less comfortable with showing myself, I tend to stray away from stuff like that?

(this is also why I’ve been shifting more towards like... costumes, art, world-building, making games, etc. as opposed to outfits/personal style/personal life type content, since I feel much more comfortable being framed as more of a ‘detached and faceless creator that shows some personality but is still mostly obscured’ than ‘open personality that posts selfies and talks about their life extensively’ or etc. Obviously I still post personal stuff like questions and thoughts/opinions and cat images and etc., but less so.. like I don’t even remember the last time I posted an actual selfie where my face wasn’t obscured by costume makeup or something lol..)

I would absolutely still do stuff like “room tour” or “what’s in my bag” videos, or like a single video showing my usual daily routine or something,, if those were ever requested of me/interest was shown in them.. I’m okay with small one time “lifestyle” genre sort of content. But anything too invasive or long term (daily/frequent vlogging, or like “story time” videos) I think I would get uncomfortable with lol.

tutorials: I’m not really sure what I would do tutorials on? If you want me to make a tutorial about something, feel free to let me know something in specific! My main problem is that I don’t feel like there’s anything unique that I do that there aren’t already 100 other tutorials for, so I’m never sure what I should make those about. I get occasional asks with people saying “do a makeup tutorial” or “do a sculpting tutorial” or something, but they don’t ever say WHAT SPECIFIC makeup or what SPECIFIC thing they’d like to see me explain, so then I’m still left alone with vagueness and unsure what to do lol!

art explanation: Same kind of goes for the “explaining your art” thing like, what art? Explaining what specifically about it? You mean worldbuilding? Or sculptures? etc.?? I’m actually always happy to make videos for anything people want to see (since I enjoy the process of making them, usually), but I just am never sure exactly what to do. But if I had specific prompts I would be glad to explain something though! Videos are fun, I just never know what to make them about lol

games: I would absolutely love to do let’s plays/game videos or something (I assume this is what you meant by just saying ”games”??) since I enjoy games, and my whole thing about not being able to relax (I feel guilty about playing games (or any other leisure activity) unless it’s working towards something, I have to have a way to justify the activity being productive, which is why I rarely ever play games despite liking them a lot lol..but if I made videos or etc. it would feel slightly more worth the time/effort).. But seeing as I’m fairly lower income I really don’t have much money to buy games, and I don’t have a very good computer situation lol. I would need to have money to fix my current computer, and a few other things, etc. etc.

Idk, it’s something I think about occasionally and that would be extremely convenient for me and my current situation (in terms of having something simultaneously low effort/relaxing/ suitable to my needs/mental illness/physical issues, but also that feels productive at the same time), but it’s also a very weird genre of stuff (idk if I’d feel comfortable being anywhere near the broader “games” community ghggb), and I would need a little money first lol..

podcast: I would never start my own podcast because I have no idea what I would even have a podcast about, and I also don’t have any friends who do that sort of thing (podcasts usually have multiple people, right??). I would do one with someone else or something like if a close friend asked me I guess, but idk... I couldn’t ever see that being something I start by myself?? Especially since I don’t know anything about them or what equipment or programs are required to edit together the audio, I’ve only listened to a few of them every once in a while, etc. am not really tech savvy in the field of like. how podcasts work ggh. So that’s probably the most unlikely one out of everything you listed, sorry!!

As for other stuff, I’ve thought of answering questions in audio form instead (so rather than writing them out here, I’d just make a video (though not with visuals, since I don’t like filming myself talking..maybe I could put footage of cats over the audio though lol) of me going through my inbox and answering things, since I feel like typing takes me so much longer than speaking, and sometimes it’d be more convenient).

I’ve also thought about just like.. talking about world-building stuff, like.. rather than writing out a post, I can just ramble about things or something,, but I’m afraid I’d get too disorganized, so it’d probably only be good for answering questions about specific things (which I don’t really get questions about worldbuilding stuff that I could have enough to sit down and answer in a video lol.. I think I’ve gotten two so far?? which I already answered in text posts).

So idk, maybe those could also be ways to hear more of me talking? If I used audio more often to answer things or discuss things (like answering asks that way) rather than typing.. which would save me time anyway lol.. But I just feel unsure about it since it seems.. weird.. like.. some people might just want a quick answer to their ask and not have to skip to a certain time stamp of a video and hear me talk about it for 5 minutes lol..

But anyway, yeah, feel free to offer specific suggestions or support towards anything mentioned if it’s really something you want to see! I really appreciate that you even watched the silly little vocabulary video and especially that you actually enjoy my rambling lol (I sometimes feel annoying when I speak), and I hope I can make something sometime!! I just have trouble deciding on what content I should be making or etc., but maybe I’ll try to find a few more things I can do where I’m actually talking!

(also thanks for hoping I feel okay! I am a little bit better, but still sick lol)

5. “Hope you feel better (emoji heart that I can't type on a computer)”

Thank you!! It’s been really stink to be sick the entire first month of the year lol, but hopefully I’ll be better like.. by mid February at least!!! With how goal focused I am, it’s been like... utterly evil to not be able to start the year off well and get all of my to-do list stuff done.. I’m finally at a point where I’m finishing a few things again (like this post, and a few of the worldbuilding things from a week ago or etc), but I still can’t stop myself being.... deeply annoyed, by my loss of time and how much I feel like I should have gotten done already aaaAAA.

Especially I REALLY WANT TO DO another costume soon!!!! I have some laid out in my closet that I hope to do, but I keep waiting until I’m feeling better, since I’m afraid of having some random sickness related health problem in the middle of getting dressed and then having to like.. show up to the doctor while I have elf ears on and half a horn on my head or something ghghggh...

But anyway, I can’t do anything to change it now, so the best I can manage is just to kind of.. ignore my losses and move forward and try to be as productive as possible from now on! I really hope I can still get some of my main goals (like the game, costumes, music, worldbulding stuff) finished in reasonable time, even if I basically lost the entire month of January into a void lol. Sometimes you just lose an entire month of time... life is just Like That and you have to move on and make the most out of it I guess!

6. Would you ever like consider selling your outfits???? I have an extended non violent larping thing coming up and i really love your outfits!

I might actually! I mentioned it before I think like, months ago, but i have a LOT of clothes I really want to get rid of, it’s just that it’s SO daunting. I’ve sold clothes before and it took hours and hours of effort, and you have to constantly keep up with it and track sales, and on top of that I really underestimated shipping prices (especially making the mistake of shipping internationally on one of them I think), and I ended up making no profit and actually losing $70 just from paying people’s shipping that I didn’t charge them for (which for me and my financial situation is.. A LOT.. like.. I do NOT have that kind of spare money ghghh).

This time I want to be careful about it and also I’ll have to charge a lot more (which of course, I feel guilty about since I have Bigg Money Anxiety and wish everything was free for everyone all the time gghb), and also it’s hard for me to find the time and energy to take literally hundreds of photos of hundreds of items and then list them somewhere and etc. etc. etc.

BUT to cut down on that workload I’ve thought about actually just grouping them into outfits or like, groups of clothing that all match each other or etc. and selling them all together (so that I don’t have to photograph and list every individual item), and additionally that way I can maybe just do one batch at a time like.. maybe sell two of them a week or something, instead of all at once.

Maybe just buying a certain size of box/envelope thing and stuffing whatever I can into it and selling them all for a set price like $40 a piece or something. Which to me sounds extremely expensive I guess since I’m someone who would never have $40 to just spend on clothing lol, but I really kind of can’t go much lower than that if I want to allot for shipping and not make the same mistakes again as last time (and definitely not allow people to buy internationally unless they pay me like.. $50 extra or something, which would be ridiculous lol).

But anyway, especially since I have a few things I could really use money for (paying my guardians back for recent medical copays, and for my cat’s vet visit a few months ago, and also I have to fix the battery on my computer or buy a new one, etc.), I’ve thought about trying to do that soon! Maybe sometime in the next month I can start listing some themed clothing groups/outfits/etc. and sell them at a slower better pace for me (like one group a week or so). I’ll definitely post about it if I do!

7. (this one will have to be shortened a lot since it's so long, but I'll try to just type the main parts I'm replying to) “Are you making/would you consider making a story with your fantasy worlds? Like a book or a zine or youtube videos where you roleplay as the characters and make them talk to the viewer or each other? If you don't want to create plot, you could just do characters seeking to educate humans bout their cultures or something. I used to scroll past your posts since I'm more visual when it comes to fantasy, before realizing how interesting they are and I feel like your ideas need more playing out and exposure. ALSO, how do you feel about collaborating with other people on creating art? Or just being art pals and sharing ideas/plans/etc.? I just read your FAQ about collaborations so I understand the terms and my offer to be art friends still stands!”

-- About whether I’ll make more things with my world:

Thanks so much for the very nice message!! Worldbuilding stuff is one of the most fun creative activities for me to do, so I always appreciate it when people discuss it with me and etc. (not that I don’t also appreciate compliments on sculptures and costumes and etc., those are great too! But I guess because world stuff is something I’m so much more personally invested in yet also never get to talk about lol, anytime anyone sends me anything related to characters or worlds or etc my brain is instantly like !!!!!!!!!!!!! O v O !!!!!!!!!!! ghgh).

I am actually making a game like I may have mentioned a few times, which though it’s more character focused and doesn’t really have a plot/broader story (it’s basically like a dating sim except without romance/dating, but it has similar mechanics in the sense that the main goal is to get to know characters in the world and do tasks for them and etc.), it will include a good bit of things that have do with my world, seeing as it like... takes place there.

And since each of the characters have their own backgrounds and etc., they’ll of course speak about various world-related topics. Like for example, one of the shop-owners you can work for is an elf from outside of the elven alliance, and another shop the player can work at is owned by a set of twins who were formerly part of a royal family within the alliance, so those characters (when getting to know them and doing quests for them and etc) will of course have different perspectives on the world and talk about some of the stuff that’s been brought up in my worldbuilding posts, just obviously in a more personal/casual way, since it’s dialogue rather than me writing exposition infodump posts.

Like for example, the fact that alliance elves and non-alliance elves often have very different takes on the main elven religion, meaning if it comes up in conversation, both shopkeepers would give different dialogue relating to it, etc. Which since every character has their own unique situation and heritage and etc. (the game is set on a popular market street in a large global city, so here it actually makes sense for a bunch of different species to all be in the same place and etc.), I think could maybe expose players to a lot of the central worldbuilding concepts, depending on which shopkeeper they go with.

Obviously characters aren’t going to just be doing unnatural exposition dumps about the extensive background of the world or something lol, but even just naturally and playing through a character with neutral favor (meaning not unlocking any special positive/negative dialogue options/etc), you’d still be able to get at least a few tidbits about the world. (especially since some character’s conflicts stem from cultural/worldbuilding factors, so it’s not unnatural for them to bring it up if that’s like.. something that seriously impacts their life lol.). It probably wont expose people to Advanced Lore like the time gaps or obscure types of magic or etc (well.. depending on which shopkeepers you talk to hbhbb), but it could help with some of what you’re talking about.. In the sense of it being a more accessible visual medium that, while not the MAIN focus of the game, does end up covering some of the world background information through natural dialogue.

(always feel free to send an ask or something if you have any questions about the game, I never talk about it but every time I start to my brain unlocks and I have to stop myself from like.. saying literally every single thing about it ghgbhj)

Other than that though, I’m not currently working on anything that actually involves my world. I totally get what you mean though, and I’ve often tried thinking of ways to make it more accessible and etc (shorter posts, more clear topics, more visual elements, etc.), but it can be hard for me to work within those constraints when it already takes so much time for me to put those things together. It’s like I have so much planned out in my head, I kind of just want to get it out there however I can, since if I spend too much time deliberating about it or etc. it will become an endless task lol..

Ghhbh I actually have an extensive background in acting out characters, I’ve pretty much walked around talking to myself in different voices and etc. for my whole life and am used to like acting multiple characters at once and improvisational storytelling things (this is still what I spend a lot of my time doing lol.. I just.. walk around my house having conversations out loud pretending to be random people.. Especially when doing chores, like washing dishes or etc. is more fun if you pretend you’re a group of travelers working in a weird little elven restaurant bickering with each other the whole time hgh), but idk if that would be something I would do for videos. I feel weird about being on camera personally, even if I were in costume. But it is a really good suggestion since that is something which would be much much easier to produce than like, doing a full animation or writing a book or something lol.

I have thought of reading my worldbuilding posts aloud/ doing audio versions of them, so that people could just listen to them instead of reading them (there would be no visuals like.. just black screen or something with audio of me reading it), but the way I write is like.. hard to read back? I love to read out loud (one of my favorite activities to entertain myself is to actually find random text I’ve never seen before and see how well I can sightread it. Especially random medical articles with a lot of words I don’t know in them lol, it’s fun to just try to go through a new text fast in a convincing narrator voice or something, scrambling to mess up as little as possible), but I find that I have to modify my writing in order to read it that way (I’ve attempted to make a worldbuilding audio thing before, this is how I know this lol), so it’s almost like I’m writing a whole second version of the post, which makes it take longer?

I could modify my writing style (less having things in parentheses and etc., side sentences that occur in the middle of main sentences and break reading flow, etc.. Like this one lol), and have thought about writing in a way that would be easier for me to read back, but it’s just a whole thing I’d have to plan. I’ve definitely considered it though, and could pursue that idea further if people were interested or something!

I’ve also thought of writing dialogue out between characters as a method of worldbuilding (not a story, but more like a script) since I think that’s a good natural way to convey things or give snapshots of moments in history or etc... but like.. That would just be more text so it wouldn’t really solve the problem lol. I could do audio reading them I guess, but since I’m more used to improv stuff, idk how I would do trying to read actual already written lines, even if I was the one who wrote them, it would definitely be something I’ve never done before lol!

I also just think doing smaller things could help, and anything interactive. Like shorter posts, especially with more visuals in them, typically get seen more, and then stuff like me making a game or other condensed things.. I’ve thought of making like.. a character selection screen, not an actual game but kind of like a dress up game where you get to choose your background from the different species in my world and then dress them up a little or etc. but that would be a LOT more work than it seems probably lol.

A lot of social media is just a combination of luck/the right connections, quantity, and consistency especially. I’m sure if I could do a short post a day or a drawing of a character every other day or something and reblog them a lot, then more people would see the other things I do as well and etc., but it’s just... very difficult for me to operate that way since it’s so inherently antithetical to my personality and how I work lol (I tend to be more of a.. .. ‘stay isolated working on things and barely post anything for 3 months then post 10 things at once out of nowhere before going inactive again’ type of person ghbh.. which is like.. horrible from a Social Media Strategy standpoint).

(Oh also, I still have no idea what a zine is even though I've seen them around and looked at a few and even looked up the definition of one to try to understand them hhghgg.. I’m still not exactly sure like.. what qualifies as one or how I would make a world-related one lol.. so this is why I didn’t really go into much detail on that specific suggestion of yours since.. I’m Uneducated Fool )

But anyway, Idk if I could do acting videos, but I could do audio reading of posts or other things, and I am at least in the middle of working on a game which heavily involves elements of the world, so maybe that counts for what you’re talking about!

Though personally it really doesn’t matter much to me if many people see my world stuff or etc., since really all the fun is just that I sincerely enjoy coming up with ideas and creating worlds and etc., even if I’m not doing anything major with it ( making a book series or comics or etc. I don’t feel like worldbuilding has to be working toward another project, and like that it can just be done for it’s own sake as a hobby), I still truly appreciate the sentiment and that you enjoy the world enough to give suggestions and etc. for stuff like that!! I’m going to keep at it however I can just because I love doing it so much, no matter if anyone really pays attention, but it is always unexpected and very meaningful when people like you engage with the content, so thank you for that! I’ll continue trying to make things and be productive and maybe use a few new ideas here and there just so it’s easier for people like you who tend to be more visual with things. I want to avoid leaving people out, and try to make a variety of things that can cater to more visual people as well or etc.!

-- About possibly being art friends or working together:

Well you said you read the collaboration FAQ, so I’m under the impression that I no longer need to answer that part of your question lol, thus I’ll just continue on with an answer assuming you know all of that information!

I’m always up for it I guess! I’m not sure about collaborating since I know nothing about you, and also don’t know where you live (remember I mention that it’d be much easier to collaborate with people I live closer to so we don’t have to like.. skype or some other weird digital method of communication in order to talk about ideas. Just since that sort of thing can get so lengthy, especially if it’s an actual project being taken seriously, I’d rather speak to someone in person and be able to work on it alongside each other better). If I got to know you for a few months and thought I could trust you/know we have a similar vision/don’t clash creatively or personality wise, AND we also lived close enough to meet at least occasionally, then yeah! project collaborations could work. If otherwise, then unfortunately it might not work in that regard. : U

(OH also if we’re a similar age?? I forget that people on the internet can be way younger than me.. I have nothing against younger people (very against the weird overly-simplified generational stereotyping ggh), but I would just feel kind of weird being an adult (early 20s) working with a minor who’s like 13 years old or something. I would be happy to talk about things from time to time and help with ideas or something, but actual like.. long term collaborative projects like writing a book together or creating and selling a game or something may be strange just due to us being at such totally different stages in our lives and etc. So, to collaborate on projects or even just communicate frequently about them or etc. I would also prefer we’re a similar age range (you’re somewhere from like 19 - 28 yrs old or close to that) ghhbh)

As for just talking about art though, that could work fine probably! Since it would just be casual discussion and less serious than full on project collabs or etc., you wouldn’t need to live near me or etc. Though of course I would still need to know about you first (especially politics and stuff like.. I don’t want to get 50 long conversations in with someone only to find out they hate trans people or are a huge racist or etc. I always like to establish that ahead of time or at least have some idea of a person’s leanings.), and understand your personality a little.

I am pretty socially anxious and due to health problems and stuff can sometimes be bad at replying ( I know some people expect instant responses, whereas I usually reply in a day or two ( depending on how long the message is)), but I also don’t currently have any friends to talk about world-building stuff with really or who care much about that sort of thing, so I’m always open to having conversations about stuff like that!

Especially if it’s a low-pressure causal sort of thing in the sense of like “hey let’s just see if we get along well conversationally and if we don’t then no hard feelings”, etc. One of the main reasons I’m often afraid to talk to strangers is that if we end up NOT getting along and I decide that I want to stop talking or etc., I’m afraid they’ll get mad at me or lash out at me or something. I prefer it when the expectation is set ahead of time like “we can both walk away at any time and should feel free to openly communicate how we feel about this conversation at any time. if we wouldn’t make good art friends or have trouble communicating then that’s fine and we just respectfully stop talking”. Which sounds like.. very common sense but.. I've talked to a few people in the past who struggled with communication and would be passive aggressively mean to you about it or something like that instead of just being open about them not feeling like talking anymore or etc., which is always a confusing situation to be in and I’d like to avoid it!

Anyway though! I can’t promise anything since I don’t know you and am cautious about new people (I don’t want to be like “OH sure we’ll be best friends!!” before I even know you and set up false expectations), but I’m definitely at least open to talking, especially about world-building stuff, if we’re compatible and respectful to each other and etc. And am also open to collaborations, under the right circumstances like what I’ve mentioned. Thank you again for the very nice set of asks!!!! I hope you have a great day, anon~

And that’s all for the reply post. Thanks to everyone who sent in asks about stuff!!

#replies

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giganticactus · 5 years

Text

9.20.19

The last three years have felt like an absolute eternity.

On this day, three years ago, my recovery began. Three years ago, I was a shell of a person barely functioning enough to brush my teeth more days of the week than not. I hated myself to the point that I couldn't bare living life as the person I was. There was nothing about my personality or my mind that I did not despise. I had zero goals or hope or dreams for the future. I couldn't see my future beyond only a few days ahead. For a long time, I didn't want to find it.

My personality was a dark ball of depression and loneliness and emptiness. In constant need of an escape. In desperate need for help. I considered myself, no longer human, for a large chunk of 2016. There was no personality or humanity in my body. I was truly nothing but a combination of debilitating mental illnesses. I was living off of nothing else but guilt and codepency on a person I was in a very toxic relationship with at the time.

On this day three years ago, I broke off that relationship. It was the fourth day in a row which I didn't have suicidal thoughts. I felt that I truly had a 1% chance of surviving myself without her. I decided that I had to take that chance while it was in front of me. I had to let go of the one person who I knew was holding me down.

For another two months, I did nothing but sit at home, focused on avoiding triggers and finding ways to cope with the triggers. I played video games at all hours of the day, I forced myself to limit the food I ate while making sure I did still eat, trying to eat food that wasn't pure junk. Drank water as often as I thought about it. Focused on the parts of me that I hated most and tried my best not to hate them.

I realized, in the beginning of my recovery, that I had to build myself back up into a human being again. I had to recreate my personality and my relationships and social skills. I had to create motivation to get anywhere in my physical life. And it dawned on me. If I have to build myself back up, why would I go back to the person who put me onto this position in the first place?

The qualities that I wanted most in the person I wanted to be were: motivated, and didn't immediately run away from anything bigger than a mild inconveinece. I wanted to face challenges head on, I wanted to want to overcome obstacles. I've always been such a lazy person by nature that I wanted nothing to do with anything that wasn't completely easy to me. As I slowly built this person over the coming months, I got a temporary job working at Walmart over the holidays.

That seasonal job at Walmart that I spent 40 hours a week at for six weeks, was the best thing to happen to me in my recovery. It was just challenging enough that I was able to thrive from the challenges. I got my first hint of customer service skills, I worked as part of a team, I made friends. I learned a lot of responsibility and I rode my bike everyday to get there. But the number one thing that job did for me, was give me a sense of purpose. People relied on me. I had a job to do and I didn't have the option of walking away from it. I had a purpose. I hadn't had that feeling my entire life. And I must say, I was pretty good at it. I learned things pretty fast and honestly the only negative quality I had at that job was that I lacked a sense of urgency. But it wasn't hard to work around, and it definitely improved in the weeks I worked there. Two of my biggest fears were handling difficult customers and answering phones. Both of which I had to endure, and nine times out of ten they turned out well. I always had other people to fall back on as a safety net if I messed up. I was only eighteen, and the youngest worker in the store. Everybody looked out for me when I needed it and gave me a little push when I needed it as well. That job gave me a completely different outlook on the working industry and who Walmart is as a company. Both, in very positive light.

After that job ended, I was unemployed for five months. In that time I went back to my previous habits after my recovery began, but I was also a little more diligent about looking for another job. I had a small lick of motivation to find another purpose, but had trouble finding work that was close enough to ride my bike to, and would hire me with only six weeks of work experience.

I was hanging out with a friend of mine that April. He brought along a friend of his that we went to high school with. This friend was a shiftlead at my favorite place to eat. He asked me about what I was doing at the time, and when I told him I wasn't in school and didn't have a job, he told me that his work was desperate for hires. I was unsure about it, mostly because the store was a two and a half mile trip from my house, and the idea of riding my bike that far everyday sounded just a little bit like a real life horror movie. I told him I would think about it and he gave me his phone number for when I made my decision. A week later, he set up an interview with his manager for me and told me when to come in. I rode my back at two o'clock in the afternoon in early may to this interview where I was hired on the spot.

2017 was a year of recovery. I continued to build myself up and find habits that made me happy and healthy as I could be. I was truly the happiest I've ever been, in 2017. My depression quickly withered to a pebble because of this job and the friends I made. Riding my bike was great exercise, and I worked at a salad restaurant and was eating good healthy food. I was honestly of top of the fucking world.

In March of 2018, I met a boy. He was filling in from another store while we were short staffed. He was big and he was goofy and about as friendly as a stranger can get. Something about him drew me toward him. I knew from the day we met, that he was someone special. After a few days of chatting and working together, we and two other worker friends of mine hung out after work one day. He was the last one I brought home that night, and when he learned in to kiss me, I though "fuck it", and it was the best "what's the worst that could happen" decision I've made in my entire life.

We dated for one year and two weeks before breaking things off for complicated reasons. It wasn't a good breakup (if those exist), but it definitely wasn't a bad one. After we got out bearings and thoughts and feelings sorted, a week later we met up for the first time again to talk. Things weren't awkward, but it was sad. After that, we decided to remain friends for fear of losing eachother. There was a short period over the summer that we lost touch, while I was on my bender, but a month later we got to talking and hanging out again. We are in a very good place right now and see eachother often, once or twice a week. He is my best friend. And while the idea of getting back together has been kind of the elephant in the room for the last few weeks, for right now I'm enjoying the time I can spend with him.

My health and happiness fluctuate a lot. I currently just got out of a deep depression pit myself, due to denial of an environmental stressor I've chosen to ignore for nearly a year.

What truly matters, is doing my best. Finding what works and what doesn't. Keeping myself as far away as possible from where I was three years ago. The number one thing, is learning to love who I am. Changing the negative qualities that I can, and accepting the ones that I can't. Taking actions to keep myself as healthy and happy as possible while maintaining relationships and a shitty career.

I'm endlessly grateful for where I am today. I'm endlessly grateful for the journey I had to take to get here, and for the opportunities and decisions I will have in the future.

Right now, I'm finding reasons to be happy. Holding onto the people around me, finding balance between things I have and want and need, and finding goals and hope for the future. I am doing really good right now, recovering from my bender. I realized this time last year, that I will be in recovery for the rest of my life. And I know that its okay. Recovery means coming up from the down. The journey ahead looking better than the path left behind. I'm endlessly grateful.

Overall, I'm fairly happy. I have family whom I love and love me. I don't have many friends but the few close friends I have are extremely important to me. The situation at work is going better than it has been, and I'm currently looking for a second job. I've moved out of my dads house and hope to move out on my own pretty soon. Things look good right now. I have hope. I have things to look forward to, I have a better hold of saving money, and have a million things I want to save for. For instance, buying a new car and taking trips to Colorado to hold me over until I can eventually move there.

Recovery is a process I'm well familiar with. Rock bottom and I are old friends that I plan to never reunite with.

One last note I want to leave, is a message to the person I left on September 20th, 2016.

I see you. I see you as a human being. I see you as a human being with struggles. When I think about who you were three years ago, I see a human being.

I remember everything. The words said, the feelings felt, the anger and love and hatred shared. The memories and experiences, I remember it all.

I know now, especially after a similar friendship I had this past summer, what our relationship looked like. What it really was. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I saw a certain comment on social media that hit me like a train. And I had a whole new perspective to the situation.

I've always known what you did to me. How your words and your actions affected me. I know how codependent I became. How much I dreaded the idea of living life without you. How much I hated you some days and loved you on others. How desperate I was for your attention and the empty feeling I had whenever you would push me away. How grateful I was for the times you were there.

I've realized lately, of the impact I had on you. While I've never gotten your direct take on everything, I do now know some things. I know that I put you into a harmful situation. I trapped you in a spot that any action you took could become dangerous. At a young age, another person depended on you in a way that no person should. I realize now, the pressure I put on you. The damage I had to have caused at the time.

I don't know your true intentions of the time. I don't know what you thought or how you felt. I know that you hid a lot from me. I know now that it truly was for the better of both of us. I expected far more from you than I never should have asked. I see it now. I see the intensity of the impact it must have had.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I did. I'm sorry for everything I said. I'm sorry for putting you in that situation that I depended on you so instensely. I'm sorry for the pressure. I'm sorry for the despair and desperation. I never should have done that to you. I'm truly, insanely sorry. I don't blame you for a single thing. I forgive you for any hardships caused. I'm sorry for any hardships I had caused you and your family. You didn't deserve it. I'm sorry.

#tw: suidice #tw: mental health #me #you #9.20.19 #9.20.16 #2016

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cosmichorror-yt · 5 years

Text

The Horrors of Copyright Laws - Blog By Matt

Context:

Before, this was written for the purpose of becoming a video, but decided to just make it a blog post. I wanted to shine a light on general internet freedom and Article 13 that recently passed.

History:

Alexander III of Macedon commonly referred to as Alexander The Great, was a ruler of ancient Greece. In 331 BC, he founded Alexandria in Egypt where The Library of Alexandria was built. Estimations show that 40,000 to 400,000 books, scrolls, and other documents were contained, with a staff of over 100 scholars at its height. It was once the centerpiece of all works of fiction, non-fiction, Christian, Pagan, and scientific knowledge. The library accepted all works of both religion and science. With something such as the great Pyramids still standing today, it's easy to wonder why such an important and historical place is nowhere to be found. Most believe it destroyed by burning from unsupportive heretics (religious extremists who might've believed it was ungodly to spread science). It's important to note that it was also allegedly accidentally burned by Julius Caesar in the midst of an ongoing civil war during the time, which may have been the only reason it burned, but most would beg to differ. Some very few documents from the library were actually collected and distributed across the world over time, and those documents dictated how technologically advanced we are today. Imagine if it was never burnt down, let that thought sink in. It's really interesting to think about how advanced human civilization could've been. All of the now-coined science or sci-fi may have been something already discovered and invented 1,000 years ago.

Why do I mention this ancient legend? Well assuming it was indeed destroyed mainly by heretics, it shares an important lesson to not let the knowledge get in the wrong hands. Dogma, the ideas and rules that are created by controlling and manipulative authorities, is the most likely culprit judging by the repeating history of man where a king, royal family or set group of people restrict freedom of thought, persecuting anyone for having opposing opinions. We saw it during the Middle Ages with the Templars, and we're seeing it again in the modern era on the Internet. Without dogma, knowledge flows free like a stream of water that travels from land to land, providing the nourishment of learning and free-thinking. But alas, like a dam of that stream, dogma stops us from advancing as a species.

And here we are...

Today's metaphor of the destruction of the library is corporations and governments of the world restricting society's role in having fair access to tools that enable us the ability to learn and project what we've learned onto those who wish to learn as well. In 2012, the internet faced a colossal censorship threat. It was a bill advocated from Hollywood in the US Congress called SOPA, an acronym for Stop Online Piracy Act. If passed, it would’ve literally criminalized piracy and using copyrighted content. Meaning it would’ve destroyed many websites, careers, and lives. The maximum penalty for sharing copyrighted content would have been 5 years in prison. Imagine being forced by the Government into an orange jumpsuit because you shared unbought music on your Youtube account. Not only would content creators be at risk, but we’d also all be in a predicament because everyone’s favorite Youtube channel would be taken down. The bill never passed thanks to huge online campaigns that stopped it from happening. The sad thing is, it’s going down again with Article 13 being passed as a law in the European Union. Businesses working with the Government are much more relentless when it comes to passing these bills, more so than we are trying to stop them, and that has to change now. While copyright laws protect the works of artists, they also result in restriction of internet freedom of expression for many professions such as movie critic, game reviews, and people who do music covers. Most Youtube content creators rely on using copyrighted content to build their own niche up by using clips, sound pieces and images with credit given to convey or explain a point. The resolution is to not punish content creators who use copyrighted content as long as credit is given. We should instead allow websites to plugin an option prior to the upload of an artist’s work that allows them to type in and select credit is given to a certain copyright holder they used content from, eliminating the process of blocking content that contains copyrighted content and giving a percentage of the creator's revenue to that holder, but also allowing the creator to add in their own way of making revenue like convenient merchandise plugins, donation buttons, and subscription programs.

Consequences:

In consequence of Article 13 passing, Youtube will be included in the collection of countless sites forced to implement upload filters of content that may or may not be infringing rights of an original owner. Meaning European musician YouTubers who make covers that sound like an original song or European movie critics who use footage from the movie they’re analyzing will automatically have their videos stopped from uploading with some message popping up saying something along the lines of “Your upload has been rejected as our algorithm determined your video does not meet our copyright guidelines”. This results in these content creators having to redo their entire video, editing and checking it perfectly to make sure they are absolutely no chances that the upload will be rejected and even then the algorithm probably won’t function properly and will falsely detect their STILL is copyrighted content in it, once again resulting in the removal of the video you may have spent weeks putting together. This reminds me of some of my own videos that have been demonetized automatically for allegedly having dubstep music in it when it’s an Amnesia video with only Mikko Tarmia’s soundtracks from the game in the video. Youtubers shouldn't have to have their channel's revenue at stake because a robot can't function properly. Add onto the fact viewers in the EU who want to watch an American Youtube video that breaks Article 13’s rule will be unavailable in their country, leading to millions of Youtube channel fanbases dying off because most channels used copyrighted content before they knew this law would be passed, and this would result in the loss of millions of online careers, entertainment and the opportunities alike.

Going Against The Agenda:

While it’s a good practice to treat your work like a business, in some aspects, amateur content creators like myself shouldn’t get carried into the impossible requirements a real business has like buying countless licenses and not being able to have an individual opinion or needing to be ‘politically correct’. If individual artists and indie groups avoid anything potentially copyrighted or controversial, it will be an easier decision for laws to be passed that dispose of channels that do have copyrighted content (even if credit is given). And this subject can easily be applied to anything relating to the conflict of people’s freedom, corporations, and governments. That makes the whole censorship thing seem more like a small step into eventually controlling entirely what society sees because people aren’t vocal enough to catch attention, consequently brainwashing the rest of the people into believing absolutely anything a business or government desires them to believe. Article 13 is the tip of the iceberg of a bunch of censorship problems we’ll face in the near future. It’s going to get much worse if we don’t start showing that we will never stop expressing free thought and freedom to use copyrighted content with credit being given fairly, without giving in to control from organizations. Too much professionalism is also a problem on Youtube seen from a lot of Youtube celebrity channels that intentionally act and react just like mindless corporations would act to consumers. Clickbait, misleading headings, being overly dramatic, and emotional manipulation for money are Youtube's version of scandalous corporate strategies. As a result, this will taint free-speech, individualism, opinions, shock value and creativity with a business-minded agenda which focuses purely on grabbing your attention and emotionally manipulating the audience into giving them money and views somehow. Not only does it endanger freedom of expression, but it also waters down the good aspects of the classic Youtube we know and love into a grayer environment where natural, relatable content that easily entertains us becomes tasteless, talentless content that lures the audience into misleading content designed for revenue. The problem is that there is constantly new laws being passed such as Article 13 in Europe that has made it impossible for content creators to get noticed or even be allowed to build their own niche because it may not be ‘appropriate’ in their country. Advertisers who cherry pick the most family-friendly videos also make it hard for content creators who want to do their own thing, because their certain type of content may not make any money as they rely on revenue-focused corporations who won’t touch anything remotely controversial with a 10-foot pole.

The Next Chance:

It’s all a battle between old people who don’t understand the cost and the younger generation who understand that these laws harm internet freedom greatly. If it weren’t for Article 13, Google could just to turn Youtube into a platform that highly encourages individualism and intellectual, detailed, creative, and even shocking content, but they can’t now and wouldn’t anyway. And will Google ever get to do that now? We could only hope that it would even work, ads make Youtube billions each year so it might be too late to switch gears regardless of set laws. Ultimately, it's up to the people to be vocal about this very slippery slope of an issue. It’s up to us in the future to elect the right people before laws like these get passed.

#article13 #copyrightlaws #copyright #article12 #freedomofspeech #youtube #youtuber #netnetrality #google #coporations #coporateagenda #consumerism #businesses #individualism #creativity #freethought #horror

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annawitchcarnival · 3 years

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Does Once Upon a Tower Facilitate Meaningful Play

Once Upon a Tower is a mobile game in the mould of an endless runner, that I’ve been playing on and off the last two weeks. It's got a fairly addictive loop and some interesting concepts regarding its core topic of princesses. My objective here is to discuss how this game facilitates meaningful play.

Core Loop

The core loop of once upon a tower comes down to planning the path you’re going to take, moving to execute that plan, and then dealing with the obstacles on that path.

Planning Your Path: The first aspect of the loop requires the player to observe her surroundings. Which blocks can I break? Where are the enemies? Are there any fireflies? The game is very deliberately laid out in a single flow path, where the character can only go down, which creates a linear force on the player, and doesn’t leave things as open ended as in a multi directional movement system. This makes planning your path essential, but also very simple and easy to follow for players.

Moving: Next the player has to attempt to execute her plan. Usually by moving into a potentially dangerous situation or taking an unknown leap of faith. Either way the player needs to start swiping and execute her course of action.

Solving Obstacles: While planning and moving are the bread and butter, once you encounter an orc or a fireball then you need to move from passive planning to dexterous action. You need to swing your hammer at the right time, or move out of the way fast enough. The difficulty of the game relies on the precise timing of this step in the loop.

Mechanics

The core mechanics of Once Upon a Tower are: Move, smash with hammer, gravity, a grid space, breakable and non-breakable platforms, and an obstacle. An interesting aspect of this game is its very simple control scheme. The player only needs to swipe in one of four directions for all of the interaction in the game, from moving, to hitting enemies, to buying items, it all relies on the direction you swipe. If you’re swiping toward an open space, you simply move. If next to an object, you hit it with your hammer.

Move: Moving is the most direct mechanic of them all. Merely move your character from one place, to the next place.

Smash: If the player swipes against an object, then that object is destroyed. There’s no health, or conditions. If you’re adjacent to it and you swipe it, it is removed (assuming it is an object that can be.)

Gravity: If the character has nothing underneath it, then she falls. She will keep falling until there is something underneath her.

Grid Space: Everything on the map is laid out in a grid. The map is only a certain amount of tiles wide, and every object takes up some amount of tiles (usually only one). The player’s movement is strictly tied to this tile setup, and will always have a position related to one of these spaces.

Platforms: The player needs to stand on something, and she needs to be able to change her environment somehow. If the player had no platforms, she’d fall forever. If the player only had invincible platforms, the player would merely be navigating a narrow path with no effect on the game in any discernible way.

Obstacles: The final ingredient is the challenge. The player needs something to actually test their skill. The game features several different obstacles, but it only really requires one. Be it a roaming orc, a crawling spider, or even the moving pistons.

Other Mechanics

I will create a quick table of all the additional mechanics I could think of, with a brief description of each and how they interact with the core mechanics.

There are more mechanics in the game, however this should give a wide range of the types of concepts that are introduced. Each additional mechanic feeds into the core loop and its core mechanics. The spikes and crabs make gravity more stressful, fireflies add a new way to approach formulating your plan, items add more ways to solve problems. Planning becomes more strategic and varied, moving becomes more dangerous and distinct, and obstacles become more difficult and unique.

Meanwhile there are a few mechanics that tie each run in the game together. The princess outfits create a reason to build up those fireflies. The high score gives players a reason to go as far as she can in each run and compare themselves to how she’s gotten better.

Dynamics

While I described some minor dynamics that arise from each of those added mechanics, there are larger scope dynamics that arise when all of these are put together and the most important one that informs most of the game is: what the player wants to accomplish with each run? This question gives rise to additional dynamics, but it will always come back to this question. The answers I found are: Wanting to get the most fireflies or wanting to get as far down as possible. Once the player has decided which she’s gonna prioritize for a run, then all further decisions come back to this idea.

Firefly Collection: If the player decides to collect as many fireflies as possible, either for a better high score or for more princess costumes, then there are several dynamics that arise from that goal.

First, when the player is acting on that first part of the core loop, she is probably going to plan her path toward as many fireflies as possible, and killing as many enemies as possible. The player's path should lead her as close to the danger as possible, because usually that’s where the points lay.

Furthering that, the player will end up playing a slower, more calculating game. She’s going to need to be close to the enemies anyway, so she’ll have to play it safe to survive and collect.

When it comes to items, she may tend not to buy anything because she only wants to collect as many fireflies as she can. Even if it might help her in the long run, it might seem better to hoard as much as possible.

Getting Further: The other option for the player is to ignore fireflies and focus on getting as far down as she can.

Instead of planning for fireflies, the player will plan for safety. Instead of risking anything, you’re going to avoid as many enemies and obstacles as possible. This dynamic I think is somewhat unfortunate, since it prioritizes avoiding fun.

Items in this player’s case are not something to be ignored. If you have fireflies, then you might as well spend them on boots to avoid those dastardly crabs. Or bombs to use for areas that might be too difficult to avoid.

Of course these two primary dynamic choices are not mutually exclusive. It should be noted that getting further down does increase your firefly count usually. And maybe a player is only going to risk it for some fireflies, the ones that are easier. Maybe the player will spend some money on boots because she thinks it will pay off in the long run more than anything else.

Aesthetics

The aesthetics of this game focus on a casual and friendly experience. The visuals evoke cartoons, the sounds are simple and the pace is tailored toward people with only a few minutes to spare at a time. The emotional draw is from passivity, the slightly engaging interaction from a simple world with simple themes and ideas.

Sensory: The game is pleasant enough to look at. Its characters are simple, low polygonal models of princesses and fantasy creatures. It features bright colours, which gives the game a sense of pop. This colour scheme was designed to ensure the player can always follow what is going on, what she needs to look for and what she needs to avoid. It's no accident that the most bright objects are the moving fireballs. Elements that would be the hardest to track.

Genre: The genre I think most accurately describes this is platformer. It is always progressing in a linear direction, there is a distinct lack of a “realistic” flow of the level design, and of course the character literally uses platforms throughout the game.

Emotional Response: This game primarily focuses on submission. Submission arises from a more simple experience. It is focused on a player base that does not have a lot of time or thought to be put into their games. Its goal is to induce a sense of repetition, which is enforced by repetitive gameplay, and a lack of complex decision making. This is usually the primary emotional response all mobile games tend to evoke.

Narrative and Themes: The game has a simple narrative. The player is a princess stuck in a tower, about to be rescued by a noble hero, before he is burned to a crisp. He drops his hammer into the princess's room and the princess decides to save herself for once. The game likes to advertise the last fact. Its central theme is promoted around this flipping of the traditional roles. It never delves into anything deeper with this rather distinctive feminist theme, but it is a feminist theme nonetheless.

Meaningful Play

The idea of meaningful play revolves around its two components. Are the actions in this game discernible and are they integrated. This game's actions are both easily discernible and adeptly integrated. However, I do not find it provides as much of a meaningful gameplay experience.

Discernible: As discussed Once Upon a Tower has a very simple interaction with the player. Swipe to move or smash. When the player swipes, you know exactly what is going to happen, cause there’s only two things that could happen. The player moves to a new tile or removes an obstacle from the game. When a player picks up an item, the character changes appearance slightly. When the player grabs a firefly, it flashes the top right corner and increases your count. All of the actions are easily discernible and remarkably identifiable.

Integrated: While the game is certainly discernible, the integration is harder to nail down. On a single run, it is integrated, you move down, enemies are removed from the game permanently, items stay with you until you use them, and failure means your game is over. Between the individual runs, the primary connecting tissue is your firefly score, and the princess costumes. Given a run that only lasts about five minutes, the integration is an aspect that feels weak. This isn’t anything new, most mobile games are designed with minimal integration for a grab and drop play session experience.

Why it isn’t meaningful (To me): I personally don’t find this game very meaningful. It has a certain lightness to it. A lack of depth, akin to watching sitcom reruns. The idea of integration to me should go beyond the scope of players actions impacting the game state. While it certainly reaches the mark for a game that can be mildly entertaining, I find it hard to find any investment in it, to actually derive meaning. I’ll address the target audience for this, because obviously, it doesn’t seem to be me.

This game never provoked any emotional response from me, never builds anything that made me strategize, nothing connected me to this world, nothing made me think or feel. If integration doesn’t include what a player takes away from a session, doesn’t rely on the thought or emotional response of the person interacting with it, then its integration is still meaningless.

Why it is meaningful (To other people): This game does provide meaningful play to some people. It’s audience was meant for people who only have spare minutes between their daily life. It was not created as high art meant to be thought about for years, and some people can find meaning in those simple pleasures. The integration is only important in those short moments, and building up to a high score or new costume can provide meaning to people who really enjoy those elements. What the game does well is create a short little adventure for somebody's favourite princess character, and that is certainly meaningful to somebody.

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robonomics · 3 years

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Robinhood vs. Wall Street

Yesterday, social media and the news was full of thoughts about the stock market. It all had to do with shares of GameStop and what happened with it over the last couple weeks.

GameStop is pretty clearly in a shitty situation as a going concern. It’s has billions in sales, but hasn’t had a profit in a couple years. Unless it changes it’s brick and mortar business model will cease to exist. It’s main business is game sales after all: just a piece of software that can be digitally transmitted. As a result, the shares have been heavily shorted by tons of hedge funds, making it one of the most shorted stocks on the Street.

Many retail, or mom and pop investors, didn’t see the picture that way. Some even thought that bringing on a new member to its Board, a guy originally from an online pet supplies company called Chewy, would revamp the model back toward profitability. They started making bullish bets, both buying the stock and placing call options. Nothing unique here. Then they went and sold their idea like a salesman on a popular Reddit forum for traders call wallstreetbets. Again, nothing unique here. However, something was different this time about this particular idea. It actually caught on. It then lead to a short squeeze for the hedge funds. What’s that? A short squeeze is where a short position loses (the price of the stock went up), and the seller of the short position has to buy out stock at a higher price than they expected because the options contract ended and they have to deliver shares to the person they borrowed the shares from. Just like that, the little guy outplayed the big guy. It may have had something to do with the fundamentals.

But this is where things went awry. That wallstreetbets forum at some point figured out that if they collectively work together and place tons of call options and buy shares of the stock, it would continue for force another short squeeze come the next Friday expiration (options always expire on Fridays for whatever time period they last, whether weeks or months). Because the stock was so heavily shorted, unlike most other stocks out there on the market, it wouldn’t take much pushing up of the price in order to create a snowball effect. More sinisterly, the faceless, nameless people using Reddit openly talked about how they wanted to manipulate the stock in order to force another short squeeze. Then another. Then another. Unlike normal market manipulation, where a single or small number of people with large leverage push their weight in order to drive a stock’s price one way or another, this was being done by a huge number of little guys. And they weren’t being quiet or tacit about it. They blatantly said what they were doing.

The price of GameStop’s stock went from $17/share on the first day of trading in January to $347/share by January 27th. Nothing at all changed about the fundamentals or information pertaining to the company’s future performance in this time. Sure, maybe some investors became aware of the information about the stock that they didn’t know before. Hey, who’s looking at GameStop on a normal day anyways? But we’re not blind, and the Reddit forum wasn’t quiet about it either. This was pure and unabashed market manipulation. Not even speculation! Just flat out pump and dump. Seeing how high the wave can ride and get out before it crashes.

In the last two days, broker trading platforms, like mine at TD Ameritrade, put a stop to trading in GameStop and various other “meme stock” securities, the group of heavily shorted positions favored by people on the wallstreetbets forum. Volatility was too high to deal with, and I suspect they are worried regulators will soon be down their backs for allowing it to happen, given the high risk that mom and pop investors lose it all, and possibly then some, when the bubble eventually bursts. The brokerages took a beating yesterday for it. The target of all the outrage was Robin Hood, a relatively new brokerage app that is popular with Millennials and retail investors. It’s reputation is for hosting mostly unsophisticated investors attracted by the ease of the platform’s design, making it easy to buy and sell stocks, and importantly options, with zero commission fees. People on the Street refer to stocks popular on the platform as “Robin Hood stocks”, a snub at the stupidity of the cheap investment that only gains in price because of retail investors buying name brands that they know, completely detached from the fundamentals of the company’s future earnings prospects (Hertz, airlines, Nokia... GameStop). I understand that I now sound like a Wall Street snob without the income to back it, but after 20 years of researching stocks and understanding how they work, the analogy to ignorant investors during the Dot Com bubble of the late 90′s and early 2000′s shows why Robin Hood stocks are named with such disdain.

Anyways, retail investors, and populist political pundits were pissed that Robin Hood halted trading. (Robin Hood specifically halted buy or call orders, but not sell orders, which is a fair criticism, but that’s not the main focus of the outrage). The reason: this was the little guy getting even with the big guy, and the so called democratizing force in trading, Robin Hood, caved to the evil hedge funds. While I certainly love a David win over Goliath, this is not the same, at least there isn’t publicly known proof or evidence yet to confirm the suspicions. First off, people who can afford to trade in options tend to be well capitalized given all the margin requirements necessary. Sure, they are still a retail investor, but they aren’t struggling for cash to begin with. So David is usually doing fine financially to begin with, even though he isn’t even close to as big as Goliath.

Outside the comfortable lifestyle most of the traders likely already have, it’s not clear why the particular Goliaths they went after were targeted. Citadel, Citron, Melvin Capital, and the other hedge funds that lost billion from this appear to be grouped together as bad simply because they are hedge funds. What did they specifically do? Well, they are accused of a host of things, but none seem to be specific to them, just to hedge funds generally. It’s an attack on their status. Now I’ve hear a few accusations about these hedge funds, Citadel in particular, front-running orders; that is, having a buy or sell order sent to them to broker a deal for, but then doing the exact order request for themselves and then doing it for the order that was placed with them in order to take an extra cut of money on top of the bid/ask spread they get for commission from their market making activities. Confused? Look it up. Anyways, they are accused of front-running, which is illegal. They were even fined for it in the past by regulators ($700,000 for what I expect was a lot more in profits). Citadel is certainly not playing fairly. They are an evil goliath. The others, I don’t really know, and have not researched too far into.

What I mostly see though, is public justification for one bad act because of the past bad acts of another (Citadel), or another group (hedge funds generally). The little guy got it’s chance to attack the big guy for all the years of its parasitic behavior. And while I don’t have too much sympathy for the goliath hedge funds in this story, I don’t likewise think the traders here are members of the Boston Tea Party. Why is it bad when a goliath manipulates the market, but not when a group of small investors do it? Is it just because of the concentration of wealth? I assume it has to do with the redistributing effects of wealth from the goliaths to the victorious Davids, but the story hasn’t quite ended. The manipulation will eventually stop it’s momentum, and once it does, the people who will be hurt most are the late comer mom and pop retail investors who can’t get rid of their losing shares quick enough. Then the wealth transfer ends up benefiting only the early arrivers, but screws over all the late players to the game. Hell, there’s a good chance that hedge fund will be able to spot the top better and place put orders magnifying their gains on the crazy volatility in the shares. So in the end, it may just be ignorant Robin Hood investors who get screwed because the smarter small players fixed the game to their advantage.

How’s that for democratizing trading? On that point, the whole idea that Robin Hood was wrong for stoping trading because of it’s goal to “democratize trading” is stupid. Robin Hood is new to the game in the brokerage industry. Fidelity, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, etc. have all been around for decades. Just because a new player entered the market with a slogan to democratize trading doesn’t mean they did anything revolutionary. In fact, the only thing they did of note was be the first to introduce free trades. Otherwise, everything they do has existed for years. Marketing to millennials better than the existing firms doesn’t mean you’ve democratized Wall Street, it just means you’ve gotten more people to join the club than previously existed. And the club was open to anybody to begin with! So the cries about how they halted trading is anti-democratizing wall street is dumb. To me, it’s a fair attempt to pull the punch bowl as the party gets going to prevent the sloppiness and ensuing hangover the fun lovers have blinded themselves to in the heat of the party.

But we will see how things go in the coming days. I could be wrong.

I’m most interested to see what the SEC and DOJ do with this. Market manipulation is illegal. But is it really market manipulation if a large group acts? Sure, there is always a tidbit of truth to the original decision to buy or sell an eventually price manipulated stock, but we know this wasn’t fundamentals driven trading. But how do you go after a group of nameless, faceless user names in a chat room who’s identities are potentially difficult to come by? There’s a strong chance that silent observers of the Reddit forum got in on the action, so how do you know if they tacitly agreed to the collect action or not? Importantly, how do we stop this from happening again? It may make it scarier for short sellers to pile so heavily into stocks in the future knowing that a group of mischievous investors working together can force a massive snowballing short squeeze on small stocks with relatively low trading volume.

I wouldn’t care so much about this event (so what, a bunch of hedge funds lost billions; I’m not particularly upset). But the strong favorable reaction towards blatant market manipulators upsets me. One bad act is not remedied by another bad act. Two wrongs don’t make a right. That whole thing. I think people have conveniently blinded themselves to what happened because of how good the story of the little guy beating the big guys sounds. But in this case, the little guy is also doing a wrong thing. So they shouldn’t be celebrated, encouraged, and heralded for it. After all, they were simply acting in a way that made them rich, for all the convenient societal righteousness they may claim. But alas, maybe they see themselves as modern day Robin Hoods (even though the “poor” they’re giving to happen to be themselves).

I’m sure there will be cool interesting articles that come out of this event in the future. Maybe even a sweet documentary or episode in a mini series. I’m eagerly awaiting to see what they have to say, especially from an author who actually understands how stocks work and can explain what’s happening from anything but a politicized view.

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