Don't feel like writing today so here's a slight design update for Airi instead

Ashes To Ashes

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader

Request: ‘Please could you write a Fred Weasley imagine where you’re inside the burrow when Bellatrix sets it on fire and Fred runs in to get you out?? Thank you, I’m really loving you writing!’ For anonymous

Ps- i havent read the books or seen the movies in a while so I kinda went w the time it was fleur & bills wedding & intergrated it w that, sorry if its not what u wanted but I did write Bellatrix’s attack in x

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Today was the big day. For today was the the day where Fleur & Bill were finally to be wed. For their celebration to erase war from anyones thoughts, today they were just two kids in love, not undercover Order Workers. Today they were simply girl & boy.

“Oi Y/N hurry up, Fleur’s asking for you” Ginny shouts practically breathless as she runs past your room, trying to find Hermione for the bride.

You pick up the gorgeous bouqet that earlier today you picked up from the florist for the woman and made your way downstairs into the living room. As you take a closer look, you notice something is off. Fleur was standing rigidly still, looking in the mirror unblinking.

“Fleur, darling, are you alright?”

The woman remained silent, Y/N had no idea what to do, she’d never seen her friend so paniced, so immobile. Ever since Y/N’s sixth year (after the Triwizard Tournament) the two kept in contact, maintaining a solid friendship with the other, who wouldve known that years later Fleur would join the family that you had already been apart of.

“Its okay to be nervous.” You sit beside the Frenchwoman “Just talk through it” grabbing her hand you pull her down to sit beside you.

“It’z all so scary Y/N. I love Bill, I really do, but what if he realises he doesnt feel the same about me and leaves me there?” She faces you, eyes glossed over

That caused you to frowm slightly “Bill loves you more than he loves life itself Fleaur, everybody knows that he’d do anything for you just to see you happy- not many can say that they have a person like that.” You smile lightly, thinking about your person. “You constantly say how much you love him, so if you stil feel that for him, theres no need to be scared of getting married-These are the normal pre wedding doubts, none of them are true. Besides, I’m sure if Bill tried to run away from such a gorgeous and talented person as you, Molly would raise havoc and go to the ends of the earth to get him back.”

Fleur looks up at you, smiling, but with stray tears going down her face “Thank you Y/N” she throws herself forward and hugs you “It’s just a big step & I’ve been so emotional lately because of-“ she hesitates

A look of realisation dawns on you and you beam, hugging her once more but tighter “You’re joking? Congratulations!” You give her a peck on the cheek “Does Bill know?” You queried as she shook her head

“Non, I only confirmed it a week ago. Please dont tell anyone Y/N.” She looks at you with pleading eyes and you vigorously nod

“Of course. I wont say a thing, this is your secret. But how about we start getting ready for your wedding hmm.”

As Y/N started to do Fleurs makeup, Hermione rushed in with the wedding dress that her and Molly had been making final adjustments to, Ginny was running around frantically trying to get all the guests in the right places and seats. Once commisioning your help to shout at a group of loiterers to leave the premises because they wouldnt listen to the red head girl. All in all, after many hours, Fleaur was ready.

“You look gorgeous.” Gabrielle beamed at her sister

“Stunning.”

“Ethereal.”

“I might just steal you from Bill” you wink and cause her to laugh and blow you a kiss “I’ll go get everyone ready, you still have plenty of time to relax.” Handing Gabrielle the bouqet, you rush out of the room, which proved to be quite difficult in heels. But bearing through the pain, you get outside and see rows and rows of the fragile golden chairs set on either side of the long purple carpet. The supporting poles to the gazeebo top were entwined with gorgeous white and gold flowers. As you look to where there was supposed to be an enormous bunch of balloons, you frown to see it bare.

“George!” You shout getting his attention “Wheres Fred? You were supposed to the balloons up ages-“ you feel strong arms pick you up and spin you around, making you let out a shriek of surprise, thankfully not loud enough to get the attention of the others

“I’m here my love, disposable at your command.” He purrs into your ear, sending chills down your spine

“Put me down asshole” you laugh and turn to face him, before you could manage to say anything you were taken aback at how he looked. “You got a haircut.” You stated plainly and ran a hand through his hair as he put his arms around your waist.

“Correction, George cut my hair when I wasnt paying attention so ‘people would be able to tell the difference between us’” he wrinkled his nose

You stare at him, dumbstruck “As if the hole on the side of his head wasnt enough.” Fred laughs and says thats what he said “I like it, it suits you.”

Fred grins and kisses you, “Lets face it Y/N you like anything when its to do with me.”

You roll your eyes and hum in agreement “Thats because I love you Fred. But I will seriously consider breaking up with you if you dont get the balloons up as you promised.”

Fred gives you a small peck & jumps back from you “I’m on it!” and runs over towards his brother to finally do what he had to. You smile at him, reminiscing at how you managed to fall in love with such an idiotic man, yet you could never wish for more. Fred Weasley was truly perfect.

Shaking your head you turn back to the guests that were not where they were supposed to be before shouting “Get to your seats and away from the food please! Thats for after the ceremony!” You swat their hands before adding “If you dont know where youre supposed to be, go to Hermione and Molly, they will tell you.” You motion to the pair before walking around to make last minute adjustments.

The wedding ceremony went beautifully, Fleur was walked down with her bridesmaids: Gabrielle & Ginny. When in sight, she rendered everyone breathless, she was ethereal, the most gorgeous a person could possibly look. Molly teared up from the get go at the sight of her eldest marrying, many more joined in when they said their vows. You could not believe that the day of your friends wedding had finally arrived. Throughout the entire sitting down portion of the ceremony, Fred was holding your hand and rubbing circles on it, an assurance that through everything you went through- you were still together- still alive.

*

The loud music was ringing through the field, dancing bodies surrounded you, but you paid them no mind, your main focus on Fred.

“Did I tell you how gorgeous you look Y/N?”

You laugh lightly as you sway to the beat “No, I must’ve missed it the other ten times you said it”

“Well you do, absolutely bewitching, are you sure you didnt use a love poition on me? I never knew feeling this was possible.” He jokes as he spins you

“Must be my natural charm and charisma that got you so captured Fred.”

“Must be.” He mutters softly looking into your eyes. Fred was completely besotted by you, more than anyone had ever seen him be, he just knew that Y/N was perfect. The way that she’d light up any room she walked in, the way that she’d never back down from a challenge, and just simply how she made him feel. Dear Merlin he loved the girl. “After this do you fancy going away for a bit?”

You look at him sceptically “Planning out your murderous fantasies are we?”

He laughs and shakes his head “You’re impossible. No, since the shops closed I thought we could go away somewhere before everything with the war kicks off, I want as much time with you as I can get.”

“Oh” you forgot that the wizarding world was on the brink of war “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. But if you sneak George along i swear to Merlin I will live through my murderous fantasy & kill the pair of you.”

Fred chuckles again, before nodding “Promise, no George. I think he got an eyefull when he barged into our room without knocking.”

“Serves him right.” You mumble “I told him on multiple occasions to knock.”

The rest of the song died down and you stayed in Freds arms for a moment, before he was being wisked away to dance with Aunt Muriel, he held an awfully sour look as you giggled when she hounded on him to straighten his back, then saying that he was too tall.

“I’m a bit cold, I’ll go get a jacket then I’ll be right back” Y/N kissed his cheek & left to get back inside the burrow. Thinking nothing of it, she poured herself another drink, smiling to herself at how Fred would have to have another dance with Muriel. What an awful woman.

Unbeknown to the girl, a silver patronus intruded on the celebration to announce grave news. “The Ministary has fallen. The Minister of magic is dead. They are coming. They are coming.” Everyone scrabled to find their loved ones, to make sure that they were safe, but before Fred even had the chance to look for Y/N, everything burst into havoc. The gazeebo was now engulfed in flames, Death Eaters showing up everywhere to curse them.

“Y/N!” Fred shouted, frantically looking around for the girl “Y/N!”

He turned around and was greeted by a paniced Mr Weasley “Theres not much time Fred, I dont know where she is, you need to get to safety and leave. Now!”

Fred ignored his fathers protests and ran, dodging various spells being shot from either side. He had to find you, he had to know you were safe.

An abrupt crash jolts you back into reality, you get up to run and go outside but with a sudden ‘whoosh’ and black smoke- two Death Eaters appear infront of you.

“Shit.” You mumble & grab your wand, quickly dodging their spells you manage to knock one out & try to deal with the other. “You’re quite persistant-“ blue sparks shoot from your wand, the figure ran upstairs & you follow.

“And you’re associated with mud-blood scum!” A flash of green emerged from their wand that narrowly missed you, you grin

“You missed.” You kick a chair at the figure, momentarily distracting them to cast a spell “Stupefy! Petrificus totalus!” As the figure was knocked out & bound together, you walk over and spit out “Get a life, prick” snapping their wand in two.

In the middle of your fight, you had not noticed that the commotion outside had turned to an arsonists playground. looking through the window you call for Fred, hearing no response your heart stops, you leave the room & try to get down the stairs but now they were already engulfed by flames.

“Oh shit” you panic and shoot spells at it to stop the fire from spreading, but to no avail, it only got worse. Smoke was now clouding your vision, realising that if you were not to jump down you’d perish in this fire. Letting out a short breath, you hype yourself up for the leap of your life “You can do it Y/N. Come on” violetly coughing, you jump. Unfortunately landing a fair few stairs too high. Unbearable pain shoots up through your leg & you cry out in pain.

Sinking to the floor you couldnt even move, the pain in your arm and leg restricting you. This was it, this would be how you die. All alone, with no one to help you, no one to save you. In a burning house. Yet the only thought racing through your mind was ‘Is Fred safe’. Thankfully most of the fire was behind you, the staircase had completely gone up in flames however, the roof was begining to crumble down. A plank toppled down, narrowly missing you, but making the room next to you catch on fire.

As you were losing conciousness you hear a strained yell “Y/N!” You try to respond, but all that came out was a series of violent coughs “Y/N im coming, hang on!” You couldn’t see what was happening, i dont know if it was the thick cloud of smoke or the fact that you were breathing most of it in, but your vision blurred.

A faint figure emerged, breathless, trying to get through the flames & to you fast enough “Hey Y/N ive got you, im here.” You felt yourself being picked up & your body fell like a ragdoll. “Oh merlin dont die on me Y/N.” Was the last thing you heard before passing out.

*

The abrupt light and noise woke you up, yet you were unable to open your eyes, they were far too heavy for the little energy you had. Were you dead? Is this what death felt like?

“Stop pacing Fred, she’ll be fine.” You heard a voice say, however, unable to distinguish who it belonged to “shes a strong girl, the nurses said so.”

“Yeah they also said she’d wake up yesterday, so my apologies if I dont believe what they have to say.” He snapped

Fred. Oh yes, Fred. He came into the building to save you didnt he? So that answered your question of being dead. You were very much alive, but dear Merlin you were in unbearable pain.

“She’ll be up and about soon though? Her body was exhausted thats why shes sleeping so long right?” He continued, sounding unsure. Well if this is how they reacted to you passing out you wouldn’t want to know how theyd react if you died.

“And id appreciate it if I could sleep some more.” You croak out as you let your eyes open. Coming to face the whole clan of distressed red heads, Harry, Hermione & Fleur.

Fred snaps to face you and a look of relief washes over his features “Y/N” he whispers and rushes to your side hugging you “You’re okay. You’re alive. Thank Merlin.”

You try to chuckle, which abruptly turns into a wheze “I’m okay yeah, in a lot of pain but I’m fine.” Fred retreats from you, an apologetic look on his face.

“Come on kids lets give them some space.” Molly ushers everyone out of the room “I’m glad you’re okay Y/N” she sends you a smile and leaves the room for you and Fred to be alone.

Moments pass with Fred just looking at you with glassy eyes before he abruptly let out “You bloody scared me half to death!”

You motion for him to help you sit up “Oh I do apologise that me nearly burning in a fire scared you. I wasnt very happy about it either.”

Fred looks at you speachless, confused at how you can joke about it so soon. He remains quiet before letting out a big sigh and hanging his head into his lap “I thought I lost you.” He mumbles, barely loud enough for you to hear

“Hey, look at me.” You say and put his face into your left hand with the little energy you have “I’m okay, I’m alive. And so are you” he smiles faintly before you continue “Obviously as gorgeous as ever, so nothing irreversible happened.”

He laughs “Obviously.”

While in the room Fred filled you in on what happened, that after the Death Eaters showed up & they fought them off- Bellatrix Lestrange set fire to the burrow & he ran in to get you out. He told you that you passed out & that you had to be taken to St Mungos to treat your broken leg and the burn on your arm.

“The nurses said you were lucky to get out alive Y/N” he said lowly, not being able to bear the thought of your death.

“Im alive because of you Fred. Thank you.” You offer a weak smile “There were two Death Eaters in the house when it burned up-“

“Thats not on your concious to bear, Its on Bellatrix Lestrange.”

You nod, in all honesty you didnt feel bad that they perished in the fire- their downfall was their own undoing. But what was on your mind was the fire burn “When I’m better do you recon I’ll l have a cool badass scar?”

Fred shakes his head as he holds your hand, of course thats what Y/N is thinking about “‘course you will, It’ll become part of badass backstory.”

“Good” you mumble and close your eyes. After a long silence you relax back into your pillow, the sleeping draft & skelly-grow hitting you like a brick. You begin to mumble incoherent sentences

“Hey Freddie?”

He looks at your peaceful face, all calm against the pillow and responds “Yes my love?”

After a little pause of small mumbles, you ask “When I’m better, can we leave for our trip?”

“Whatever you want Y/N.” He smiles lightly & watches you drift off to sleep, hoping that ‘better’ would come along faster.

—————

Ahh okay hi! Omg this took so long to write, again sorry its not the actual bellatrix fire story, i jus forgot how it happened & when I remembered I wrote too much of it. <33

hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

So my life has gone to shit.. I dont trust anybody anymore, and honest to god I cant help but keep thinking of ways to end it. My mom keeps telling me how to feel about this whole thing, that I should be grateful that i got in finally to see a specialist. Reality is I dont even trust those subhuman animals anymore, and frankly they're gonna have to earn my trust. After 4 fucking years, my life, my future being ruined. My mental health going downhill, all for the second time now. Add on to that, I dont get any meds for the pain so this has pushed me into addiction now for a second time. I've been dehumanized and humiliated, treated with nothing but the utmost disrespect while being stigmatized for being mentally ill, transgender and a recovering addict for most of it. They ignored me for 4 years, my body is damaged, and frankly help just might have came too little too late. I wont just suffer through the next one, the next time this happens I'm gonna end my life, my suffering on my own god damn terms. Atleast I still have control over that..

Fuck the canadian healthcare system. Some days I honestly just want to start selling drugs, and fly to a country where I can just pay to play and get the best care in the god damn world. Cause 4 years now I've been telling them to refer me to a specialist, I've been telling them that it's probably crohns or some other GI issue. They need to do a colonoscopy and a scope to find it, so that's what I would ask for. I would never get it, so i more or less gave up on the healthcare system. They would leave me on the floor thrashing in pain for hours. Treating me like a drug addict in withdrawal when I didnt even have any opioids in my system. I would be lucky if I got an IV for fluids, and even more lucky if they pumped me full of a bunch of over the counter drugs and others that didnt work like gravol, tauridol, buscopan, zofran, and haliperidol. I would tell them each time, that this was the hundredth time they tried gravol, and it doesnt help people when they're screaming in pain. They treat the nausea. Its bullshit because I am in so much pain that its making me nauseous and until they get rid of the pain, the vomiting is just gonna continue. They always treat me like I'm full of shit, and when I turn out to be right and continue puking, thrashing and screaming in pain, they just get angry at the fact they were wrong. Our doctors and nurses are a bunch of sociopathic, apathetic adult children who in my experience take pleasure in watching you suffer. The worse I get the more they smile. They are so stupid, blind almost because if their stupid fucking machine says I'm ok then I guess it's all in my head. They only think that theres nothing wrong with me because theyve only ever done a blood test or an xray. Never ever once have they done a single test that would have found the issue, crohns cant be found just on a blood test. The emergency room doctors think it can be, my family doctor and everybody else I've talked to says otherwise.

On January 1st I was having another flare up, and they shoved me in the psych observation room because they genuinely didnt want to deal with me. They ignore me, and I keep going in because I want help. I dont want to end up relapsing again cause I cant take the god damn pain! But nope, I get treated like a crazy person now.. they did it against my will. And they even tried to take my phone and my keys. I was puking constantly, I needed water to keep hydrated and they left me for 4 hours, locked in, no meds, no help or nothing. So I just cracked.. I had nothing to barf in, to wipe my nose with, or to wipe the cold sweat off me. So I puked in every corner of that room, I puked beside the bed especially because a mop wouldnt fit in there. I pissed in the corner, I would hack up some phlegm and spit it all over the floors and walls, I blew snot rockets on every surface too! After a while some nurse came in and gave me a barf bag. I threw it on the floor and just continued to puke over every hard surface in the place. I was puking every 5 seconds I swear, and the doctor finally came in at 3 hours and 15 minutes. At 3.5 hrs they give me two pills. I straight up tell them there is no point in even taking them. I couldnt even keep water down and these people are stupid enough to make me take pills? Come on. You need to hold it in for atleast an hour to see even the most minimal affects. I was puking every 5 seconds, to the point that I puked before I took the pills, and I puked them out the moment after I swallowed. They had given me a fucking gravol tab, and some Ativan, the latter of which I couldnt even hold under my tongue long enough. I barfed it onto the floor when it was half dissolved. They come back with this clear liquid shit in a shot glass. I swallowed it right after I puked. The liquid burned my insides, and i puked that shit out even quicker. I asked them to give me IV medications for that exact reason, I always ask for IV medications cause its literally a waste of your time and mine to just pump me full of pills when I can't keep them down and they hurt my tummy as they dissolve. They tell me to just "breathe deeply and relax" and to "just try jayden, you gotta try", so then I try, and when they end up being wrong, and I can't take shit. They end up saying that I'm manipulating, that I'm drug seeking or I'm not trying hard enough to make it work. Absolute bullshit, over the course of 4 years I have quite literally told them what to do. I have multiple family members with this disease, and my grandmother was ignored like this too. She told me to ask them for a colonoscopy and a scope, and to ask them to treat the pain, not the nausea cause the pain literally causes the nausea. The sooner the pain is gone the sooner I can be normal and tell them what's going on. Instead I'm left to suffer in the worst pain a human being can feel. I get treated like shit and told it's all in my head. I gave up on getting a diagnosis in year two. I just want to shoot dope whenever the pain comes. Dope atleast takes it away, after all they would be giving me some of the strongest shit they have at the hospital if I was some boomer with a sprained ankle. It would take the pain away. Thats for sure. Being a mentally ill, drug using, autistic tranny they just see that. I get nothing. No help, no answers, not even some relief when my screaming can be heard far and wide.

I want to die right now, and I keep trying to think of a painless way to do it.. buying $400 worth of street fentanyl and slipping into a nice, peaceful opioid coma seems like a wonderful idea right now.. that would end the fucking suffering atleast..

I wont be wearing a colostomy bag. Colostomy bags arent sexy, they are fucking disgusting and you cant just be body positive when you have a fucking bag full of your own shit hanging off you, and your only way of having penetrative sex sewed up permanently and taken away from me. Not like I could even be a decent fuck for anybody at this point anyways. Its painful to shit, let alone anything else. I dont want to give up food either. I love food, food is literally my life and the only way I have to bond with certain people! Like my family for example. Nothing makes me just want to slip.into that coma more then the worry of the future.

Will I be sitting at a family gathering eating bland gluten free, dairy free, all organic 100% vegan fair trade horse shit on a plate while my family actually gets to enjoy the food I used to be able to eat? Moms spaghetti, grandmas meat pies, the baked goods, fresh tomatoes out of my garden and others. A good fucking steak even? Cause honestly a birthday isnt a birthday if I dont have my birthday meal.

I know for a fact my body is damaged from 4 years of suffering. I used to bounce back, now it takes the wind out of my sails for a month.

Needless to say, I just want to fucking die more then anything else. Positivity and anything I love is gone, and all that I have left is knowing that Alberta health services, coast mountain health services, providence health services, and interior health services have all fucked me in the biggest way humanely possible. So thankful for free fucking healthcare!!

You get what you bloody well pay for!!

this post contains spoilers for the miraculous ladybug new york special/movie. trigger warning for abuse, so be warned of that if you keep reading.

okay so ive watched the new york special two and a half times by now, so ive finally had time to sit on and reflect what ive watched. the argument that happens between chat noir and ladybug is perfect, and is something that needed to happen for their relationship to become stronger. let me explain.

first of all, and lets get this out of the way -- ladybug had every right to be upset with chat. im not trying to devalue her feelings on the experience at all. he had made a promise to her that he would protect paris, alleviating the pressure she has on her as guardian to protect it. hes her trusted partner, and she was relying on him to keep his word. him failing to tell her that he was no longer in paris was a breach of their trust, and therefore damaged their partnership temporarily. she had every right to be upset with him, and yes. he should have (and did) apologize. it was an apology she deserved, and she was not out of line for being upset with him.

now here is where i get into why this is such a perfect arc for these two, and why this eventually was going to and needed to happen. really, it all comes down to chat’s civilian life as adrien. i think a lot of the time when discussing adrien and his flaws, the fact that he is literally abused, manipulated and consistently gaslit by his father is left out of the conversation. his abuse and lack of parental care is what causes most of his negative traits to bubble to the surface and become amplified, and thats the case here as well.

so why didnt chat just tell ladybug that there was a change of plans and that he wouldnt be able to keep his promise that he made? well, he said it himself. he was afraid of disappointing her. however, this isnt the normal “disappointment” that most people are afraid of. you need to keep in mind that adrien doesnt know how real/healthy relationships work, which is literally the main adrien conflict in this special as well. nino literally describes him as a “baby chick just emerging from his shell”, and he isnt wrong to make that comparison. hes still fairly new to the real world, and has up until now been stuck in a world entirely made up of his fathers control and creation.

now keep in mind that the only “close” relationship adrien really has is with gabriel (at this point). gabriel sets unreasonably high expectations for him, and punishes him harshly whenever he doesnt meet said expectations. for example in the episode “captain hardrock”, gabriel is disappointed with adrien’s piano playing progress, and so he prevents adrien from seeing his friends at band practice (after he had already said he could go) -- as punishment in direct consequence of his disappointment.

gabriel has also literally threatened adrien on multiple occasions by socially isolating him, as well as doing a bunch of other awful shit to him when he doesnt follow directions or live up to his expectations. that is what chat is afraid of/thinking of when he’s afraid of “disappointment”. he isnt thinking of a healthy form of it, but rather the distorted and cruel form that gabriel has shown/taught him. and so thats why hes so terrified of ladybug being disappointed in him, and is why it may seem irrational to some people.

it is irrational to think that ladybug would ever react as harshly to chat noir as gabriel does to adrien, but he doesnt know that. all hes ever known is unhealthy relationships and reactions, and so him jumping to the conclusion that she no longer wants to be partners with him after this mistake makes perfect sense.

adrien is not a bad person. impulsive? yes. bad and selfish? no. he knew he was wrong, and he knew that he deserved to be reprimanded for what he did. his reckless behavior (encouraged by plagg) nearly cost the life of an innocent hero, and he knows that. its why the entire time he was in new york, he was too busy monitoring the akuma app instead of enjoying himself. he feels bad about it. he knows ladybug has every right to be disappointed in him. he knows it was wrong, but he was so afraid to tell her the truth because of the unhealthy expectations he has in his head (set by gabriel).

he both feels guilty and also expects that ladybug will no longer want to be partners w/ him because of this mistake. so much so that he just preemptively gives up his miraculous to save her the trouble of asking for it. marinette is the guardian now, and therefore she has the power to revoke it if she ever feels he can no longer be her partner. ladybug is disappointed in him and says she no longer trusts him earlier in the special, and so he acts on what he thinks will be the consequence. this is something akin to what gabriel would do, and is why he just accepts it as is and runs away without giving it a second thought. this is his reality living with gabriel. this is the type of punishment/reaction hes used to when people are disappointed in him.

and thats why hes so surprised to hear that ladybug still wants him as a partner, because he genuinely believes that his mistake was unforgivable and justifiable in him losing his miraculous. this is how relationships have always been for him, and so why would his relationship with ladybug (when he disappoints her) be any different?

this needed to happen, because ladybug showed him that whats normal for him isnt healthy. that in healthy relationships and dynamics, disappointment doesnt automatically lead to the harshest punishment. theres room to grow, theres room for apologies. she doesnt know chats identity, and so she couldnt possibly have known that he would react the way he did to her saying she was disappointed in him (and that her trust in him was temporarily damaged). she has a healthy relationship with her parents, and so this was highly surprising and abnormal to her (as it was to a lot of people watching). when she said she was disappointed in him, she obviously didnt mean it as “i dont want to be partners with you anymore”. she meant it as “im disappointed and hurt by what you did, learn from this and be better. dont do it again”.

in order for them to become closer partners, chat needs to learn what healthy relationships are like. and ladybug needs to learn how to articulate her feelings better. before this, she didnt really tell chat how much he meant to her. that could been seen in the first scene of the special with the rose and how she was dismissive of his declaration of friendship (and how much he values it). when theyre reunited, she makes sure to tell him how much he means to her -- because she realizes that she hasnt really done that.

in that way, marinette and adrien’s arcs arent that dissimilar to chat noir and ladybug’s. adrien needs to learn to get out of his shell and experience relationships that are healthy, and marinette needs to learn how to be clearer about her feelings. adrien’s social inadequacy caused him to make a huge mistake and renounce being chat noir. marinette’s inability to express to chat how much he means to her (as well as to adrien), leads to chat feeling as though the only way to own up to his mistakes is to give up being her partner.

overall, it’s kind of really amazing that both of the character arcs for both their halves tied into each other. i dont know if im making much sense, but the conflict between the both of them was just really good and is the type of ladybug and chat noir dynamic i was hoping for. hopefully from here on out they continue to develop together as people. a lot of chat’s impulsive behavior comes from fear of consequence (as well as freedom from consequence), and so this argument kind of made him (uncomfortably) face the facts. now he has a lot to think about and reevaluate, since ladybug basically proved everything he thought he knew about the way people should react is wrong.

anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk, i hope this made sense.

Do you have any headcanons/theories about One for All? Would love to hear 'em if you do. ^^

HM well lets see

i think for me to collect my thoughts we should list whats canon abt it first of all nd i’ll add on from there

so its a stockpile quirk obv,,,to branch off of that, i think that that means that u should be able to use the others’ quirks, not just the strength augmentation. like the other users’ quirks (if they had one) are also stored in one for all, but bc ppl usually arent able to handle more than one-three quirks, their bodies just wouldnt let them access the other quirks in one for all (which i think is also canon now?? midoriya’s gonna have like eight quirks or smth right?? poor fuckin kid hes gonna break SO MANY BONES)

its given down the line of generations; cant be forcefully taken but can be forcibly passed on. bc of that last line esp, i think there was a time where one ofa user was like dying after all for one tried taking it, and they had to pass on the quirk quickly. so they gave it to the next user despite the next user bein in denial that theyre dying and not wanting it. sad stuff man but idk why else hori would put that down bc obv that wasnt the case for all might nd midoriya,,,

hm lets see,,,

ok so. line of succession ig. and what i think their quirks were/are

obv that one dude had black whip, but im not sure where exactly to place him in the ordering,,,probably fifth but im not quite sure. i’ll put him fifth in here tho

so obv all of one’s brother was the first, nd his quirk was the ability to pass on quirks, which one for all latched onto obv. the quirk all for one gave him was a strength augmentation quirk. since most ppl can only handle 1-3 quirks, i think that’s why the showing off of the quirks in one for all stopped here (despite the other users’ quirks getting stored inside of it) until midoriya

the second user im thinkin probably had a fire quirk, bc in that one dream midoriya had, he was surrounded by flames, but obv that wasn’t the first user’s quirk. i think it would make sense, then, that it was the second user’s, bc then the first user knew him personally, which would make more sense why, when he’s showing midoirya his own memories, he’s also thinkin of his successor and his successor’s quirk

3-5 we know next to nothing abt tho,,im not quite sure what their quirks might have been. beside for the blackwhip dude, which im putting as the fifth user for now, idk much abt 3 or 4,,,

i think it’s possible that 3 had a quirk that was used to like illuminate stuff (cause once again, in the dream thing midoriya had, there was glowy stuff happening that wasnt related to the fire) but idk abt four. i think its possible 4 was quirkless and thus only focused on the strength augmentation part of ofa

anyway this brings us to the sixth. im sure he had a quirk but im not sure what it mightve been,,,i dont think he was family w nana so idk for sure,,a part of me wants to give him an empath quirk or an analytical quirk just bc heehee parallels to midoriya that way,,but i am not quite sure in all honesty

and then next up is nana. we know a lot abt her relative to the other users BUT i would like to add that i think the quirk she was born with was kinda like shigaraki’s decay. i dont think it was activated w touch tho, i think it was more vision focused, bc we didn’t see her eyes for a while, nd ik part of that had to be “ohh mysterious person who’s dead now” but another part of me is like “QUIRK HINT???” so yeah thats what im going with

nd ofc we have toshinori and midoriya after that, both of which were quirkless (supposedly,,when i buy into the dad for one theory, i think midoriya has the ability to hold multiple quirks at once, thus why toshinori or none of the other users seemed to be able to do much w one for all other than the strength augmentation and what their own quirks mightve been)

ANYWAY

i think the users all live inside of one for all still; theyre kinda restless spirits in the sense that their business isnt technically over until the world doesnt need one for all to be safe anymore, so they stick arnd

i think theyre talkin to midoriya but didnt talk to toshinori bc they only just figured out how to. like theyve just been taking a backseat to all this cause honestly when they tried, it seemed like all they could do was watch the future successors, but i think somehow they figured it out arnd the time midoriya got the quirk and toshinori was losing its embers

i think nana in particular finally figured out how to contact the living users during toshinori’s last stand against all for one; cause he kept thinkin abt her, and i dont think that was purely bc of the fight’s circumstances

anyway so using nana’s knowledge, they now can only communicate w midoriya (cause toshinori doesn’t have any embers left :[), which they do eagerly bc oh shit they can pass on their knowledge nd shit

but yeah. hmm let me think i think that might be it on my end

yea thats all i got so far, other than i like to think that all the users have a similar passion for helping people

thank u for letting me rambling i didnt know i even had this many thoughts on ofa djkfnjkfjnk i just think its interesting nd theres certainly a mystery there,,

but yea. we love them all

The Spider and The Bee

Gwen Stacy gets a car that turns out to be more than meets the eye.

(Yes, this is a Spider-Verse/Bumblebee crossover fic. Yes, this is solely because Hailee Steinfeld plays both roles. So sue me.)

on AO3

Gwen Stacy gets a car for her sixteenth birthday, and she knows that she really should be grateful.

Her parents meant well, she’s sure. And a lot of kids her age would kill to have a car of their own. But to Gwen, the car seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Finding parking for it is generally more of a hassle than just dealing with the idiosyncrasies of the New York City subway system.

(Plus half the time she’s navigating the city, she’s doing it via web-slinging, but her parents don’t know about that part, and if she has any say in it, they never will.)

The car in question isn’t exactly endearing itself to her, either. It’s an old-fashioned Volkswagen Beetle, the kind that she thought had died off decades ago. It looks well-maintained enough, but even Gwen, who is far from an expert on cars, notices that the radio never works and that it sometimes takes multiple tries to start. Her father lets slip at one point that it was obtained in a bust on a chop shop upstate, and honestly, it doesn’t surprise her. An ignoble origin for an ignoble vehicle.

Oh, and the Volkswagen Beetle is yellow. Not a nice, subtle, pastel yellow, either. It’s a bright yellow, a nauseatingly in-your-face yellow, a shade of yellow that reminds her of bumblebees and kindergarten crayons.

Gwen Stacy likes stealth, when she can get it, and this car is anything but stealth.

But she still uses the car from time to time, when where she wants to go is either hard to get to via public transit or off the map entirely. She lies through her teeth about how much she loves the car and appreciates having it.

She even gives it a name, as is their family tradition. She dubs it Bee.

Gwen tells her parents that the name Bee is because the car is the same shade of yellow as some species of bees, and that it’s also short for Beetle, and she’s not lying when she says it, not exactly.

But Bee (or B) can be short for a lot of other things, too. Like Beware. Or Beneath me. Or Below average.

And there’s also how the car always smells like honey, to the point where Gwen honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there was a beehive hidden away somewhere inside the car.

There’s also that, while spiders can kill bees, sometimes the reverse is possible as well. It fits how Gwen always feels herself tensing up when she enters the car, how she’s not entirely sure if she’s joking when she tells friends that that car will be the death of her.

But much as Gwen dislikes the car, she has to admit that it’s handy to have around sometimes.

There’s one night in particular where she just wants to get away from it all, and she drives and drives until asphalt turns to dirt, until New York City is just a twinkle in the distance. Once she’s sure that she’s well and truly in the middle of nowhere, Gwen gets out of the car, sits on the ground, and gazes up at the stars.

(She feels a pang of loss when she remembers how Peter always had the constellations memorized, how he would have pointed out stars in the sky and named them all until the sun had risen over them. But Peter wasn’t here now, never would be again because of her, and without his help she couldn’t so much as find the Big Dipper.)

It’s nice to have a moment to just sit there and relax. She doesn’t have to think about her life back in New York, about all the pressures placed upon her both as Gwen Stacy and as Spider-Woman. She can just take in the beauty of the stars and the soft, cool breeze that makes the trees gently sway in the wind and forget the rest of the world entirely.

That is, until she glances over at her car and finds that it’s not there, and that some sort of robot had taken its place.

...or rather, as she looks closer and notices the robot’s bright yellow color under the pale light of the moon and stars, that her car had somehow turned itself into some sort of robot.

Gwen stands up immediately and blurts out the first words that come to mind.

“Are you my car?”

She sees the transformation this time, sees the metal twist and turn and shift into place as what had been a robot turned itself back into the Volkswagen Beetle that she had grown to know, if not love.

“You- you can change back, it’s alright.”

It-

No, that doesn’t feel right. Gwen had already half thought of Bee as a “he” even before her personification of the car became so, well, literal.

He changes back into his robotic shape. His form is generally humanoid, with what looked like a face holding big blue eyes that were shining right at her.

Gwen hopes that she was right in thinking that this spot was in the middle of nowhere, hopes that it’s obscure enough that nobody else would see what her car had become.

“Can you understand me?”

Bee makes a strange noise, one that she could swear sounded a bit like a bumblebee’s buzz, and one that she definitely didn’t know how to interpret.

“Nod your head if you can understand me.” Gwen demonstrates, and Bee replies in kind.

Okay, so they have a language in common. That’s good. Just thinking about trying to invent a language that humans and robots could share is enough to give Gwen a bit of a headache.

“Can you talk?”

Bee buzzes at her again. She thinks she knows what that means, but she wants to be sure.

“Shake your head like this if you can’t talk.” Gwen shakes her head, and so does Bee.

That was... less good. It would be a lot easier if they could talk to one another about what was going on rather than just Gwen asking questions and Bee having to gesture out his responses. But then, nothing in Gwen’s life ever seemed to come easy.

“Are there others like you?” she asks.

Bee stays silent and still for a long moment.

“Or do you not know?”

Bee shakes his head without prompting and lets out a soft whirring noise that sounds a bit like a sigh.

Okay. So not only does she not know the big picture here, he doesn’t either. They are both utterly clueless.

They’re so screwed.

“That’s fine, that’s fine!” Gwen’s voice turns oddly high-pitched as she tries to reassure Bee, the palms of her hands raised and facing towards him. “We can work this out. I’ll help you. We can do this.”

Bee stands up, and Gwen realizes for the first time just how tall he is. He definitely couldn’t fit in her family’s tiny garage like that. And she feels small in comparison, tiny compared to this massive robot facing her, and she has a suspicion that Bee feels the same way.

Gwen’s heart races as she gets an idea of how she can prove to him that she’s not as incapable as she appears. It’s a risk, sure. But he had just revealed what had to be his biggest secret to her, and it felt right to reciprocate the gesture.

She doesn’t have her full Spider-Woman suit with her, hadn’t thought it necessary to bring it all the way out to the middle of nowhere.

(That was probably for the best, really; she probably would have left it in the car, and she suspects that anything in the car has been crushed and mutilated beyond recognition by now, though if all she lost because of her giant robot car was the handful of emergency supplies she left in the trunk and the spare outfit and papers she kept in the glove compartment, that would count as a win in her book.)

But she does have her web-shooters, tucked under her sleeves, just in case.

Gwen shoots one web out onto Bee’s left arm, then another onto his right arm. The webs send her soaring upwards, and she leaps with all her power until she and Bee are face-to-face. She does a flip in the air as she descends, balancing on the tips of her toes for a moment before letting her entire feet hit the ground.

She takes a bow at the end of her little performance, though she highly doubts that Bee would understand the meaning of it.

“Bee, meet spider.”

Gwen isn’t sure of the exact meaning behind Bee’s excited whirring and buzzing, but she assumes it was some kind of positive feedback directed her way.

“We should probably head back in a bit, before my dad starts asking too many questions.” Gwen says. “But first, can I take a picture of you? I have some-”

Gwen laughs quietly to herself, partly because this whole situation is completely and utterly absurd, but partly because she knows just a few short months ago she never would have envisioned herself saying what she was about to say next.

“-some friends who might be able to help us. And I think the first step is letting them get a look at you.”

Bee nods, and Gwen dutifully pulls out her cell phone and snaps a photo of her robot car.

Gwen has a thousand more questions that she feels like asking, but she has a feeling that Bee doesn’t know the answers to most of them either. So instead of trying to get more information out of Bee, she just sighs and says, “Bee, let’s head home.”

Bee turns back into a Volkswagen Beetle, and Gwen steps inside, and she doesn’t feel quite as tense upon entering Bee as she usually did, probably because she knows now why the car had always left her feeling vaguely on edge, and it had nothing to do with it being old-fashioned or bright yellow.

They pass the time on the drive back to New York City in silence, because Gwen doesn’t want to risk people seeing her talk to her car and the radio still isn’t working. And Gwen begins to get a pit in her stomach as it dawns on her that she now has two huge secrets to keep instead of just one.

Because her life wasn’t complicated enough before, apparently.

i cannot STRESS enough how nuts this weekend is gonna be for me, in the best possible way

by no means is the the first weekend where ive had my fav things going on at the same time. like for gods sake i once met dove and saw jersey boys in the same damn day. but like...idk this is a different level.

meeting erich bergen is H U G E like i have to reiterate that. ive met nearly every celebrity i love since i moved to california, many of them multiple times, and ive now met nearly 400. but one of the highest people on that list is one of the people i couldnt cross off of it, until this week. ive seen him perform twice but only briefly. i thought maybe i could meet him after those performances but it didnt happen. but this is guaranteed meeting him. and ive had these tickets for four months so the fact that the day is finally here is...OOF.

like, we all know how much i love jersey boys. and ive met so many cast members of it. there are definitely still a few left that i havent met that id like to, yah, but none more than him. he was part of the movie which is where a lot of my love for it started, and hes like...my fav part of the movie. plus ive become invested in him beyond just jersey boys. also im lowkey glad im meeting him now as opposed to like 2 years ago cuz tbh im even deeper into jersey boys now. i was hype to meet john lloyd young but i dont think it was quite this bad. and that didnt really have to do with him, that just had to do with the fact that my obsession with the show still had to grow.

anyway. you have that ON ITS OWN. then we add DOVE to the mix. which, yknow, it doesnt matter how many times i see her, every single time is special. and the SETTING here is extra special. fan fest which was a blast last year, and they didnt even have descendants stuff then! you ADD descendants to it? its gonna be incredible. and its in disneyland. and a ton of my friends are coming. its like a mini d23. its one of the best possible settings to see her in, among doing other fun things and seeing other people. and like, every time i see her has always been precious to me, but ESPECIALLY post-mamma mia, cuz from then on its been so uncertain when id see her next, and there’d typically be a few months in between each time.

and honestly? every time i see her gets MORE special, as if to start off with they werent already incredibly special. because we become so much closer. seeing her at clueless was EASILY one of my favorite interactions with her, incredibly long and intimate. so knowing im gonna see her with that being our last interaction? like you know its gonna be great. i was already looking forward to seeing her in london but then i found out like a month ago that in fact id get to see her two months sooner IN ADDITION to it like!!! it doesnt get much better than that!!!

(HOWEVER there are no necessary guarantees of me meeting or even seeing her so i have to be careful. i have a pretty airtight plan in place but again, no guarantee, just cuz thats how these events go. that aside tho...)

so like...i feel like this is far more than any other combo of my fav things happening at the same time. dove and jersey boys are my main two. thats established. so it would have to be combining them to be an optimal weekend for me, yah? theyve been combined more or less like 3 other times: when i saw the show and two days later saw her at a book signing, when i saw her at build and then saw the show that night, and when i saw the show and saw her in clueless the following day. the first time was great particularly cuz that was one of my fav times seeing the show, but there was still a day in between so it was a little different (there will be a day in between here, but itll be fun. this time it was me working on a final like all day lol). the second time was great and build was one of my fav times seeing her but i also went into it not knowing if id get to MEET her, so the hype wasnt there. there was also a snowstorm so i was high key panicking that i wouldnt make it to EITHER event. it was also pretty rushed so we didnt get to talk much (tho, again, it was still great overall). the third time would have to be the best just cuz of how special clueless was, and how that whole trip was building up to the final night which was clueless, and the fact that the last thing we did prior to it was see jersey boys, not to mention my boy aaron (frankie) and i connected again, and it was possibly the best cast id seen at new world stages.

i cant put this ahead of clueless. but the COMBINATION is different. bc as much as i love seeing the show, obviously, this is meeting someone ive never met before who ive been dying to, and seeing him in a solo show with great seats. and yes theres a day in between, but you know what im doing then? seeing endgame with my friends at the el capitan.

i had a fun easter in disneyland but now i have 3 days of mostly just school and id give anything for them to be done with now. send tweet.

Saw a post on twitter talkin abt how reviews 4 detective pikachu keep saying it sucks cause u have to have knowledge of the pokemon franchise for it (which is stupid, but thats another can of worms) and comparing it to avengers endgame's 20 movie homework assignment - which isnt hyperbole. And i was thinking of all the folks who are like 'stop crying why dont you understand how sequels work'. And it got me musing on what marvel and disney have done here to basically guarantee that they not only garner huge profits from their new movies, but that they continue to garner huge profits on basically every mcu movie theyve made since 2008.

Like. MCU movies whether i like it or not are a huge part of being... social, basically. I dont give a shit about them, but i also have almost no friends and dont give a shit about communicating with people in a general sense. But every time a new marvel movie comes out, its fuckin all people talk about. It permeates everything. Ive seen the societal pressure to continue seeing these movies even if you dont care about them, *just* so you can be part of everyday conversation for a good few months. People RUN to see the movie as soon as humanly possible because people want to avoid spoilers so desperately they completely isolate themselves from the world. And, yeah, you can apply this to literally any movie in a popular franchise or any standalone heavy hitter - what sets mcu apart is that 20 movie homework assignment.

In looking up what movies are essential to watch before endgame, the absolute shortest list i could find was 8, and that was like, bare bones. Watching those 8 movies, if youre a newbie to the franchise, you still wouldnt know who the fuck most of the heroes popping up are or why the fuck theyre there. (I have general knowledge of marvel, but i never saw ant man, so even being marginally aware of the hero when i saw civil war and he popped up, i was like 'what the fuck, whyd they kidnap celebrity paul rudd?') In order to fully understand who everybody is, i'd say you have to watch at least the first movie of every individual hero's movie line. In order to have perspective on the inner workings of characters and what has happened to them so you can see where theyre coming from, youd have to watch *all* of it. Which, i mean, if people wanna do that, u do u booboo. Some people are in love with this shit. Some people wanna be able to, like, be part of greater society and talk to their friends. I get it. Youre not gonna be able to keep up with conversation as well if you dont know who a third of the characters even are. If your friends are big fans, you better be able to talk shop, too.

What im musing on is that, like, theres no way this wasnt fully intentional. Theres no way that disney and marvel arent aware of the social influence their franchise has, and no way they werent aware of how it would be from the beginning, just by watching social trends when huge movies come out. I mean, thats what your marketing team is there for, yknow. Its literally their job. The entire mcu line was carefully crafted to make sure youre not just giving money to their new movies, but to all their old movies, since its required watching and youll experience some level of social isolation if you dont. Yeah, other franchises have done this stuff too, having multiple sequals or breaking up their sequals into several parts to make more money. But - and i might be wrong, if theres another quite this huge, im just not remembering - not to the extent the mcu has. Not *20 fucking movies*, spanning several different storylines with their own sequels that are only intermingled juuuuust enough to be important. Imagine if all the disney princess movies were intermingled. Imagine if, in order to watch moana, you had to watch everything from, oh, little mermaid on, to understand whats going on.

And then, like the big bright maraschino cherry on top, if you complain about it being inaccessible, you get social backlash. Youre socially isolated and out of the popular loop if you dont see it, but if you take issue with everything you have to do just to get there, youre chastised by your peers. The only way to win is to give marvel lots of money, and thats entirely intentional on their part.

And yes, i know, ppl can pirate movies or read summaries. I am one of the ppl who basically live by doing that, so ofc i know. But i think we can all agree that reading summaries is absolutely not the same as seeing the movie first hand, leaves out a ton of details, and gives you none of the emotional impact of the situation, so youre still socially stunted - and theres absolutely a societal trend to some people to just experience the whole thing because it just feels right. Basically as a ritual. (See: people rewatching the LOTR trilogy before going to see the hobbit movies, just to hype themselves up and turn seeing the movie into a much bigger personal event, as ONE example among mmmaaannnyyy.) And pirating? Tons of folks are vehemently morally opposed to that. (I am not, but like, doesnt mean there aint a significant number of ppl who are.)

Its clever. And also kinda horrifying, in a 'capitalism is highly manipulative and insidious' kinda way.

Im 100% sure this musing is not new or groundbreaking in any way, shape, or form, and that tons of people have been well aware of it for ages. Its just interesting to think about.

Trivial Pursuit (Domark, Spectrum, 1986)

Gallup all formats chart, Your Computer Vol. 7 No. 1, January 1987

Trivial Pursuit the board game divides the world of knowledge into six categories; six wedges of cheese for six spaces in a wheel with six spokes. In pursuit of rounded knowledge from Trivial Pursuit the computer game of the board game, there seems no better framework to adopt than its own.

By the time 1986 turned into 1987, electronic games had become well established as a leisure pursuit in their own right. For the teenagers of the time, they had been popular in some form for their entire lives. The ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 had been out for five years, and increasing numbers of parents were being persuaded of their educational and fun value. That would carry on -- I got my own Commodore 64 several Christmases later. As discussed a few entries back, computer games were sold in the biggest high street shops. Meanwhile, sports are a familiar subject for AAA. Making games about subjects people already know well is an easy route in for an audience. Taking an already popular activity like football with its own set of defined rules and turning it into computerised form is an even more obvious thing to go for, on both the developers’ side and the players’. With that background, it is no surprise at all to find other existing leisure activities being successfully translated into computer games. The board game Trivial Pursuit was of a similar age to the Spectrum and C64, still in an initial swing of popularity which meant that an electronic version of it wasn’t trying to replace a well-established favourite like Monopoly, but offering an alternative or addition to the fun thing you’d recently come across. The computer game’s manual explicitly calls it a game that “the whole family (Mum and Dad included!) enjoy enormously.” On Christmas Day 1986, many British families must have gathered round the Spectrum after dinner for a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Computer science, particularly at the kind of price that was able to reach large numbers of game-playing households, had only advanced so far. This presented some technological barriers to recreating the Trivial Pursuit experience. Representing the colour brown, for instance, was apparently an unachievable task, and so the art & literature wedge becomes black. Still, Trivial Pursuit is a very viable candidate for transfer to computer form, comprising as it does of a series of trivia questions with a limited appendage of choosing movement and collecting tokens. So the dice also go, replaced by a random dart-throwing animation which captures a miniscule fraction of the tactile sense of ceremony, but mostly the game is intact. Expanded on, even, since the board game couldn’t offer musical rounds where listening to “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” is an essential part of the experience, or easily offer picture rounds. The one remaining issue is that of the mechanics of answering questions. I assumed going in that there would be some kind of multiple choice arrangement, but the actual solution is much more simple and elegant. The game just poses each question and then asks whether you got it right, Y/N? Players of the board game similarly get an answer written down and have to determine among themselves whether the player asked it answered satisfactorily, so why should a computer recreation of the experience be any different? The psychology of presenting an irreversible button-press and relying on players’ honesty in this way is nonetheless a fascinating sideshow all of its own.

I’ve talked previously about the strength of games as ways of presenting spaces. Trivial Pursuit has several spaces to present. One is the board, a recreation of a physical object with functionality retained and resemblance to the original object at the forefront. Another of its spaces is the more completely imagined room in which the question master paces backwards and forwards, surrounded by items to represent the different question categories. Sometimes it goes dark, giving the idea of an image being cast by a projector, the game turning into both test and lecture at the same time. Among the items in the room is a world map up on the wall. And what is a chart but a map of territory, of tangible or intangible space? The Gallup charts by which we are finding our way through the AAA journey are maps of their own territory, suspended between imaginary and real. SalesSpace, we could call it. In SalesSpace, the things that count are time and format and sales, and that’s what’s reflected in the picture of relationships between games that charts of SalesSpace show. In SalesSpace, board game recreation Trivial Pursuit and World War II shoot-em-up 1942 sit together in the same top ten. In SalesSpace, Trivial Pursuit goes between well-remembered arcade games Paperboy and Gauntlet along the route through the UK’s #1 games. Look along the right axes and what you might have thought of as very separate places turn out to be right next to each other.

One of the first things that’s obvious on playing Trivial Pursuit the computer game is its commitment to being as accessible as it can. It’s notable that it uses the keyboard’s arrow keys for directional controls, rather than QAOP or one of the other arcane combinations other Spectrum games tended to go for. Anyone was clearly meant to be able to turn up and figure out what was happening as quickly as possible, and that holds up. Admittedly if I didn’t already know the rules of Trivial Pursuit I would need the manual at hand, but that goes for the board game too. Past that, the basic action of answering trivia questions is fun, its questions are pretty well-pitched as easy but not too much so, and the attention to detail seems reasonable (I haven’t encountered any Hugh Jackilometresans so far). The choice of questions goes for timelessness, even more than the board version since the music question choices are backwards looking, presumably to keep the sound samples copyright-free. Where it doesn’t achieve that timelessness, the perspective on what has changed in three decades makes for intriguing wrinkles -- you could probably still ask “What was Mrs. Fawlty’s Christian name?” but not in those words. Trivial Pursuit is one of the most straightforwardly entertaining games I’ve played for AAA so far.

But is it art? It’s not a question that I’ve engaged with on this blog elsewhere, because it’s not very interesting, but it’s one that somehow doesn’t go away. An inferiority-complex-driven need to justify video games to outsiders as being art seems to have infinite lives. Worse, within some very loud pockets of game culture, that need sits alongside a vicious refusal to tolerate the kind of cultural criticism that art tends to get. Sometimes the same people are the ones saying both, and more. There’s no place for politics in games, apparently. Narrative events only ever happen inside the context of the narrative and not a wider context of authorial choice. Games should just be fun, OK? But, of course, the right kind of fun. The wrong kind of fun means a non-game, a phrase I became familiar with as I re-engaged with video games in the Wii and DS era and read NeoGAF, a gaming forum which was relatively open and welcoming (i.e. it was merely toxic rather than a seething hellscape). Wii Sports was a non-game. Non-games are successful games which are too popular and do too many things which games don’t do to count as games. In a weird inversion of the ‘how is this art?’ Turner Prize winner phenomenon, the mainstream audience sees non-games as a perfectly fine type of game and the enthusiasts proclaiming themselves at the centre of the culture completely deny non-games a place in the category. Not in the sense of them being too lowbrow, but of trying to define them out completely. Trivial Pursuit would surely have counted as a non-game. Which is nonsense, obviously. It provides an experience of a virtual space that’s dependent on the player’s actions, producing an emerging narrative within its bounds. I can’t work out a plausible game definition which wouldn’t include it without going absurdly narrow. Its selection of questions is a meaningful creative decision, illustrating and reinforcing what knowledge is seen as worth knowing. As for the wider art question, let’s just say that I have an equally tough time with any argument that identifies Frank Bruno’s Boxing as art and doesn’t do the same for Trivial Pursuit.

One of the more successful tactics of the kind of gatekeepers who talk about non-games is an appeal to history. They were here first. People who want something different than monolithic hardcore games are trying to change the rightful way of things proven by time. The whole idea of non-games has that idea of definition-by-precedent built in. Yet find the right maps and this appeal to history is revealed as not only bogus, but bogus even within the boundaries of its own arguments. Casual games and casual players have been here thriving all along. As 1986 turned in 1987, more people were going to their local high street WHSmith and buying Trivial Pursuit the computer game than were buying anything that has outlasted it as an emblem of retro gaming. The world mapped out by the games charts has always been a big one with room for many perspectives and interests. It’s not surprising, because it’s the same story for other media. And yes, other media have their own purer-in-the-old-days crews, too. Music discussions are crowded with talk of how things were better in the past when real music ruled. But significantly, it’s almost as common to see the response that there has always been music of different types in every era, even if it’s likely to be phrased as ‘there has always been disposable pop’ or something more derogatory. The narrative of aberration can’t stand when enthusiasts are engaged with the reality that refutes it. It’s much tougher for ahistorical nonsense to gain any credence when reality is a matter of public record, the charts that map history still accessible. But what if your medium has failed to keep its history up so well? What if the only history most get to see is filtered through the nostalgia and commercial goals of a specific set of winning viewpoints? What if Gauntlet is commemorated but Trivial Pursuit isn’t? Then the gatekeepers can just keep on pretending that the current version of what they don’t approve of is a new aberration, restarting their game to fight the same fights over and over again from a position of illusory strength. The selective retention of knowledge is anything but trivial.

Q: What was the UK’s best-selling computer game at the turn of 1987?

A: Trivial Pursuit.

Rick and Morty Season 3 Episode 6

episode breakdown....and by breakdown I mean me....im breaking down...into sobs and endless sadness and bitter impatient tears....its me. im broken down Stage 1: we see a combination of enlightened rick (er) and toxic rick (tr) trying to get through the trauma of whatever it is they have just survived. Tr would most likely start rampaging, cursing, breaking shit, and trying to kill off anyone around him in a homicidal blur until he calmed down, however er is probably in there wondering why they even did the stupid thing in the first place. Its not their place to meddle. They are an all powerful super being with highly superior intelligence, so why do they feel this horror and trauma for such a worthless gain? Together they neutralize into a 'drink until the pain is gone mentality' henceforth leading to our rick's alcoholism and ideology of the just 'dont think about it' mindset this is the rick we know. The push everything aside, drink, and dont think Stage 2: Tr separates. If you notice, the very first thing he screams when he wakes up is "morty", because naturally it is the first thing on his mind. He frantically searches for him and then calls him a worthless piece of shit, continuously bringing up how stupid and useless he is. This comes from his severe fear of detachment from morty if he were ever to become overly confident and decide he doesnt need his grandpas cool adventures or life style anymore. If a morty gets too confident, he leaves his rick and becomes a sociopath. Normal rick can relatively keep the urge to bring morty's confidence down under control, but tr impulsively spews it out, so damn afriad that morty will wake up and realize he doesnt need him at any moment. He constantly has to cry out and tell him that they need each other, in his own toxic way. Calling him 'a piece of shit' is basically begging him 'dont leave me' he has to make him think he needs him. got it? lets move to the next step of stage 2 tr constantly says things like "im a god" "im above this" "everyone around me is garbage" "you think normal people can do this?" so obliviously this is his narcissism and entitlement, but digging deeper it is also his sense of inner insecurity. now, you may say 'WHAAAT RENATA HOW CAN DAT BEEE?" well lemme splain. basically rick knows how smart he is, he knows how powerful he is, and he knows all the stuff he could do with this power and intelligence....but that's the thing, he really doesnt know all the stuff he could be doing, because he doesnt do it. running around in the toxic can, you can see him panicking, frantically working and running to make stuff and do things. He knows how great he is, but he has no idea how to use it or what he should be doing with it. Think about it, when someone tells you "ayy, your the smartest being in the multiverse and could probably cure the world of every sickness"....wouldn't YOU be a little overwhelmed? He has so much to live up to (an impossible amount) that he hides behind the idea that he doesn't care about any of it. He cant use his power to save the universe, so instead he claims he doesnt care about it. but deep down he feels bad, because he feels like everyone expects him to do something, when in reality theres way too much to do so, to sum up, Toxic Rick is made up of multiple other different things than just narcissism and selfishness and rage...just like toxic morty, he is also his burning insecurity in the fact that hes just a normal man, who happens to be the only person who could ever hope to save the universe....and yet he has no idea how to do it Stage 3: meet enlightened rick. You're thinking, "oh, so THIS is the side of rick that actually COULD save the universe if he wanted because he IS confident enough in his abilities, right?" well the answer is no. this rick doesnt have a flipping clue either. how would he? there is no possible way to save every single multiverse, but unlike tr, instead of letting it consume him in misdirected guilt and insecurity, he instead has (healthily) let it go. Hence the name, he is now 'enlightened' from the worlds problems because he has thoroughly let go of his human need to be the hero and instead surpassed it all in the 'i need not meddle' mentality. BUT. you might ask, "well renaaaatttaaa then why isnt this rick super healthy? why isnt he perfect? why does he seem so interested in getting his other half back?" welll my little reader I have some thoughts. Thought 1) er has no humanity, attachment, purpose, selfworth, or cosmic opinion in himself, the human race, or the universe. why? because he has officially decided that its all pointless anyway and most importantly (big dividing factor here) he is OK WITH THAT. he has accepted the fact that he has surpassed human attachment because he has accessed infinite realities and multiverses to the point where nothing he thought had meaning does anymore. To become fully enlightened, he has let go all of his family, emotions, and self doubts because frankly, he just doesnt give a damn. But in a healthy way? Hes just let it all go, unlike tr who insists he 'doesnt give a fuck' when in fact, he does give millions and trillions of fucks and it eats him alive with each passing day. thoughts 2) so why does er work to get the phone to connect and work at getting his other half back? well he says it right there in the episode when he and confident morty are sitting in the parking lot at school. He says "im accountable to my toxins, right?" he wants to rejoin because he knows that tr has all his intelligence, all his power, and all his guilt wrapped up into a big toxic package. What does this mean? Hes FUCKING DANGEROUS. thats what it means. er is so enlightened, that he knows letting tr do his worst will mean the end of the world. now, for a little while in the episode, he tries to reason with himself and say that he shouldnt meddle in this either, because why is tr any better or worse than he is? but eventually he realizes the truth that tr left unchecked, is bad news for everyone and not worth lying idly back to watch the universe(s) burn. Because yeah...they would all burn Stage 4: now lets watch these two adorable little super humans interact. tr sums it up perfectly when he says "this is the part of your pussy grandpa that keeps it real".....yup. Thats pretty much the whole concept. If youve been paying attention, youve probably already figured out that er isnt exactly as healthy as he thinks he is. The truh of the matter is just sitting back with your thub up your ass like "oh theres no hope in solving ALL the probems, so let me just not interfere at all" is a pretty effed up way to think. Without tr, he probably wouldnt do anything but stay at home with his family and like, build toys electric toys for kids or something. He wouldnt DO anything extraordinary for fear of messing up the fragile stuff of the universe. Tr reminds him what a waste it would be to live a normal life and ignore their vast power. however, tr doesnt know how to use it either, so hence, the fighting breaks out. basically, they just have no idea how to use there god-like intelligence, and it gets ugly for both. even er says 'that stuff is a part of us and we need to put it back.' he knows that in sense he needs it, otherwise his power will be wasted buuuttt.......tr doesnt feel the same way. tr believes that without er, he could possibly become a real man. a real human. a real person who maybe actually cared about things and didnt feel so 'above' everything and so detatched. like a god among people who couldnt really connect with anyone. he doesnt want to go back to that lonely life of being the only one in his realm. this is why he keeps trying to destroy him while er just wants to recombine. Honestly, er is in the right here, (obviously) because he can see the big picture of how they need each other. Also, fun snidbit, tr is clearly the fighter of the two....clearly....and the sexy maker too apparently.....hehe....good to know good to know.....ahem.....anywaaayyyyy but.....looky here.... here I bring you.... Stage 5:tr doesnt give a shit. he doesnt give a fuck, he doesnt give a....oh,....Beth's here?..... he....leaves. immediately. so, here is where we see tr's true weakness, and what er truly hates about himself. He can't even bring himself to be around Beth or put her in any sort of harms way, so he leaves the very second she walks in the door. what does this mean? it is tr, er, and our rick's one true weakness. Truth is, he really cant be fully enlightened and reach his maximum potential, because of his human attachment to his family. Tr probably feels so guilty about leaving Beth (even though it was probably his idea because he was terrified of hurting her) that he cant even stand to look at her. he leaves immediately even though he was technically winning. plain as day, he admits his own true weakness, he just cares too much about his family to ever become truly godlike and reach his full enlightened potential. tr is human, er is the god. but er can see enough of himself to acknowledge that he needs his human self to be a fully functional human being. to truly be...rick. Stage 6 (almost done) and here it is....the moment er truly finally actually comes to terms with the fact that his 'version' of 'health' was actually just what he thought was his true potential. But alas, because the machine choses your version of health based on what YOU think is healthy, this is the issue he realizes. he didnt become healthy, he became his full potential, minus the pain and limits of human emotion. but the truth is, a full, enlightened, god-like potential is kinda useless without compassion and empathy...isnt it? I mean, if you have the power to save, but you just dont care....then whats the point? He realizes that essentially a god that does nothing is no god at all, and even if tr is a toxic, guilty, confused, miserable man too overwhelmed by his own potential to actually fufill it, he will accomplish more than er ever will just because of that energetic will to survive and just flipping DO SOMETHING. he literally realizes in this one moment that he would probably never accomplish anything like this, not without that crazy, overwhelming, miserably human passion that tr harbors in his soul for his shitty life and shitty decisions. and this is when he knows that they have to reunite, just for the sake of not wasting his life. Stage 7: (my personal favorite) ah yes.....the climax of the story. where it all becomes clear. something I havent touched on yet (which i bet you thought i forgot about....you lil scamp) is why tr is trying to make the whole world toxic. Why? simple. he has mistaken his toxic qualities for his humaness. (which in a way is true, but he also got a bunch of bad shit that er probably spends most of his energy keeping on the down low) and so in tr's mind, he isn't 'toxifying' the world, he releasing people's true emotions and true selves. he releasing the raw humanness inside them so they dont have to deal with their superegos always judging them and telling them how to live. he is the id, in a way, freeing all the other id's from their superegos so the world can be a genuine, purely human world. However, obviously, without superego the people are monsters, hence the carnage of the toxified people. to him, this is his way of saving the human world by bringing out their true human nature. unfortunately true human nature is primal and disgusting, but shh.....dont tell him that.....poor innocent bean....look how proud he is.... so proud..... ahem....anyway back to the climax. so now er shows up again and starts talking, lets analyyyyze. first off, er has learned something very important.....its tr's one weakness that he displayed when best walked in, hes afraid of losing/hurting his family. So of course, he targets toxic morty. and er knows this because he doesnt care about morty WHY WOULD HE? there are millions and trillions of mortys. it is beneath his highly superior brain to care, but tr sees the little picture, and in the moment, he needs morty to support him. He needs to latch onto him. he needs the human comfort. he doesnt want to admit that, but he needs it more than anything else in his life. in fact, he needs it so much, he doesnt even think er has the balls to do it, because he thinks he needs it too....but thats just it....he doesnt. and he knows he doesnt need that human connection, which is why he knows he needs his other half back to need it for him and here we have the moment that literally made tears come..... "irrational attachments"......that line just really hurt me bro.....it hurt me good.....it got me right in the soul....yikes. too real. *sniffle* anyway, back to er's rant. he basically sums it up by saying "you are literally incapable of seeing the bigger picture" hence tr's irrational love and dependency for his family, even though er and tr both know there are infinite sanchez families with infinite different fates that they have no way in saving or interfering in any way, tr still for some reason feels emotion towards a morty that really isnt even THE REAL morty. but think about this....its the most insecure morty, right? the one that is the most insecure, helpless morty of them all....its the one that needs him the most. the one that is least likely to ever leave him....*more sniffles* so of course he cares about him. I mean....we've seen what morty is like without him.... i think rick put it best when he called him 'a tiny american psycho'.....which I mean, he would be, right? hes related to rick afterall. with just enough jerry to keep him insecure. at least jerry was good for one thing. and soooo....thats the wayyyyy the news goes. At the very end we see a reunited rick. he even says 'master of both worlds'...meaning he is once again human and god. id and superego, making one highly functioning ego. the rick we know and love. a beautiful mess. so the meaning my friends.....you really shouldnt hate the bad pats of yourself, because at the end of the day, its kind of what makes you....human. wow....this got really freaking long, and I didnt even get into my whole theory about our morty being evil eyepatch morty. (remember in evil eyepatch morty episode where rick says "a confident morty is bad news, ill tell you when youre older".....well I think we know what that means now) yikes....and i thought rick was a handful when he was cocky. so there you have it. Our bread and butter, our saint and sinner, our sexy grandpa and teenage rocker.....our super genius space alcoholic. our rick sanchez. a beautiful chaotic mess.  wubba lubba dub dub bitches.

10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie

It’s an addiction like any other.

Ten or twenty bucks will scratch that itch, but the high never lasts, and before long you’re craving the next hit.

And the worst part? Nobody understands.

Except just maybe a fellow addict… “Hello. My name is Glen, and I’m a domain name junkie. My last domain purchase was three weeks, four days and seven hours ago.”

That’s how I’d introduce myself to the support group. (You know, the one that doesn’t exist yet.) I’d stand up and tell my story to a circle of fellow addicts, who’d nod their silent support.

My own addiction started with an act of vanity — I acquired the .COM version of my own name. That was 17 years ago, and owning a piece of Internet real estate was novel and exciting.

But that first domain registration, like the first high from an illicit drug, set me on the path to dependency.

The Telltale Signs of a Destructive Domain Habit

Like many addicts, I failed to acknowledge my problem until it was too late.

For years I told myself buying domains was just a harmless hobby. Something to do on evenings and weekends to help unwind after work. But over time my hobby became a powerful obsession.

I’d wake up each morning with a head full of new domain ideas and a burning desire to check their availability. At social occasions, I’d sneak out of the room to browse domain resale sites on my smartphone.

And despite plans to become a savvy domain “flipper,” I was selling almost none of the domains I bought, instead keeping them for personal use.

Eventually, my behavior became more erratic. I would buy any domains I could get my hands on — .ORGs, .COs, even .INFOs.

One Monday morning I hit rock bottom when I found a dozen GoDaddy receipts in my inbox for domains that had no practical purpose. Worse still, I couldn’t even remember buying them.

These days I’m on the road to recovery, and my mission is to help other addicts.

So take a careful look at the list below, and see if you recognize any of these destructive behaviors.

If so, you might just be a domain name junkie.

#1. You Just Can’t Quit GoDaddy

When you’re a domain name junkie, you struggle to think about anything else. You spend every idle moment brainstorming cool domains for your “someday, one day” online projects.

And once an idea has surfaced, you simply must know — is the name already taken? It doesn’t matter where you are, at work, at home, even in bed. You have to know.

When you discover the domain has already been taken (the good ones usually are), you start the search for viable alternatives.

And once you’ve dived down the rabbit hole, you can hardly crawl back out.

#2. You Lie About How Many Domains You Own

When you start collecting domains, it’s fun to log in to your account and delight in the breadth of your online kingdom.

But one day you reach the point where that list of domains is a painful reminder of a habit that’s out of control.

When your partner catches you buying yet another domain and casually asks, “How many is that now?” you pretend you don’t know, or deliberately lowball the true number.

But of course, lying is a telltale sign your casual hobby has turned into a serious problem.

#3. You’ve Started Dabbling in the Newer TLDs

In the beginning (well, 1985), just six top-level domains (TLDs): .COM, .ORG, .NET, .EDU, .GOV and .MIL existed, but that list has since snowballed.

Today we have more than 1,500 TLDs including .COFFEE, .LAWYER and .PORN.

On the one hand, domains are more plentiful than ever, and even if your dream .COM is long gone, you have hundreds of other options for snagging a snappy name.

On the other hand,  who knows how much prestige these newer domains will hold over the longer term? Nobody wants to build their blog around the domain equivalent of a pet rock.

Some domain junkies won’t look beyond .COM, but if you’re exploring the murkier end of the market (.CM anyone?), it might be a sign that your hobby’s taking a worrying turn.

#4. You Tell Yourself You’re a “Domain Investor”

When your domain account lists tens (or even hundreds) of seemingly random domain purchases, there are two ways to explain it.

Either it’s the result of years of clueless impulse buying from a click-happy domain junkie with no more strategy than a half-blind pigeon pecking in the dirt.

Or it’s the culmination of a strategic acquisition campaign to build a valuable portfolio of undervalued digital assets for future sale.

Not surprisingly, most domain name “enthusiasts” favor the second version.

But deep down, if you suspect there’s very little method to your madness, it might be time to go cold turkey on domains.

#5. You Read the Thesaurus… for Fun

Not every domain you dream up will be available for registration. The truth is, most won’t.

That’s why a thesaurus is a domain collector’s best friend. In fact, uncovering snappy synonyms for your latest near-miss idea can be a lot of fun.

But if a thesaurus has become your favorite bedtime read (you know, just in case a cool domain idea jumps out) it may be time to seek professional help.

Because — wake up call! — it’s a reference book, not the latest Jack Reacher.

#6. You Secretly Stalk the Person Who Owns YourName.com

I was lucky. I grabbed my personal domain before anyone else could.

But if you have a popular birth name, or you were just too slow to the punch, your best options may already have gone. And that really stings.

Because when your name’s John Brown, telling people your treasured home on the Internet is TheRealJohnWBrown.info is plain embarrassing.

And that’s why you secretly stalk the person who nabbed your name online. You stake out their website, mentally mocking their pathetic efforts while waiting patiently for the right moment to pounce.

Because one day, they’ll forget to renew that domain and then, my friend, victory will be yours.

#7. You’ve Felt the Pain of “Lapsers Remorse”

Sometimes you see a domain for what it is — a dumb impulse purchase you’ll never be able to use or resell.

Maybe you tried to make money by listing it for sale at a couple of domain marketplaces but didn’t get the faintest sniff of interest.

So when it comes up for renewal, you do the sensible thing and let it lapse. You even feel good about your level-headed decision.

Weeks later, you casually check to see if anyone’s re-registered it and find it’s now listed on a “premium domains” site for $3,000!

Of course, just because it’s listed for thousands doesn’t mean it’s worth thousands.

But you can’t escape the feeling you let a valuable domain slip through your fingers.

#8. You’re Considering a Domain-Inspired Career Move

Sometimes you’ll stumble across a domain name that’s so good you simply have to own it… even though it’s totally unrelated to your work or hobbies.

The smart move would be to snag it and sell it for a profit to someone who can make good use of it. But like Gollum and that damned ring, you can’t quite bring yourself to part with it.

So your brain starts to explore a future possible world where you become the person for whom this is the perfect domain.

Sure it means throwing away years of hard-won experience and starting a blog in a new field.

But finding a domain this good must be a signal from the universe, right?

#9. You Lose Interest in Domains Moments After Buying Them

Once the buzz of snagging the name you’ve been lusting after subsides, a faint sense of regret can quickly follow.

“I can’t believe nobody bought this yet,” quickly turns to, “I can’t believe I just bought that.”

And the longer you hold onto a domain, the more money you rack up in wasted renewal fees.

The best way to take your mind off this painful predicament? Start scouting for your next domain name.

#10. You Have a Conspiracy Theory about Domain Registrars

Maybe this happened to you…

One day you check a new domain and find it available for the regular price. The next day it’s suddenly a “premium” domain, commanding several thousand dollars.

And you can’t help but wonder:

Did my search alert the registrar to the juicy potential of this previously unrecognized name?

You wouldn’t be alone in your suspicions. Type “do domain registrars” into Google and “steal domains?” is the top auto-complete suggestion.

Are registrars capable of dirty tricks like this? Maybe. It’s difficult to be sure.

But paranoid thoughts like these might be the first sign your harmless hobby is turning into a dangerous addiction.

Learn to Spot the Signs of Addiction Before It’s Too Late

Domain name addiction is real. And it can wreck your life if you don’t catch it in time.

If you suspect you might be addicted, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you visit domain registration sites several times a day?

Do you lie to friends and family about how many domains you own?

Do you often “binge” and buy multiple domains at once?

If so, you’re likely a domain name junkie.

The good news? With the right support, a full recovery is possible.

But you must take that crucial first step. Acknowledge your addiction.

So repeat after me:

“I’m a domain name junkie. And today’s the day I get help.”

About the Author: Glen Long is Smart Blogger’s operations guy and a recovering domain name junkie. He’s holding a “yard sale” of the best blogging, copywriting and content marketing domains that he’s collected over the years — go check it out.

The post 10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from IM News And Tips https://smartblogger.com/domain-name-junkie/

10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie

It’s an addiction like any other.

Ten or twenty bucks will scratch that itch, but the high never lasts, and before long you’re craving the next hit.

And the worst part? Nobody understands.

Except just maybe a fellow addict… “Hello. My name is Glen, and I’m a domain name junkie. My last domain purchase was three weeks, four days and seven hours ago.”

That’s how I’d introduce myself to the support group. (You know, the one that doesn’t exist yet.) I’d stand up and tell my story to a circle of fellow addicts, who’d nod their silent support.

My own addiction started with an act of vanity — I acquired the .COM version of my own name. That was 17 years ago, and owning a piece of Internet real estate was novel and exciting.

But that first domain registration, like the first high from an illicit drug, set me on the path to dependency.

The Telltale Signs of a Destructive Domain Habit

Like many addicts, I failed to acknowledge my problem until it was too late.

For years I told myself buying domains was just a harmless hobby. Something to do on evenings and weekends to help unwind after work. But over time my hobby became a powerful obsession.

I’d wake up each morning with a head full of new domain ideas and a burning desire to check their availability. At social occasions, I’d sneak out of the room to browse domain resale sites on my smartphone.

And despite plans to become a savvy domain “flipper,” I was selling almost none of the domains I bought, instead keeping them for personal use.

Eventually, my behavior became more erratic. I would buy any domains I could get my hands on — .ORGs, .COs, even .INFOs.

One Monday morning I hit rock bottom when I found a dozen GoDaddy receipts in my inbox for domains that had no practical purpose. Worse still, I couldn’t even remember buying them.

These days I’m on the road to recovery, and my mission is to help other addicts.

So take a careful look at the list below, and see if you recognize any of these destructive behaviors.

If so, you might just be a domain name junkie.

#1. You Just Can’t Quit GoDaddy

When you’re a domain name junkie, you struggle to think about anything else. You spend every idle moment brainstorming cool domains for your “someday, one day” online projects.

And once an idea has surfaced, you simply must know — is the name already taken? It doesn’t matter where you are, at work, at home, even in bed. You have to know.

When you discover the domain has already been taken (the good ones usually are), you start the search for viable alternatives.

And once you’ve dived down the rabbit hole, you can hardly crawl back out.

#2. You Lie About How Many Domains You Own

When you start collecting domains, it’s fun to log in to your account and delight in the breadth of your online kingdom.

But one day you reach the point where that list of domains is a painful reminder of a habit that’s out of control.

When your partner catches you buying yet another domain and casually asks, “How many is that now?” you pretend you don’t know, or deliberately lowball the true number.

But of course, lying is a telltale sign your casual hobby has turned into a serious problem.

#3. You’ve Started Dabbling in the Newer TLDs

In the beginning (well, 1985), just six top-level domains (TLDs): .COM, .ORG, .NET, .EDU, .GOV and .MIL existed, but that list has since snowballed.

Today we have more than 1,500 TLDs including .COFFEE, .LAWYER and .PORN.

On the one hand, domains are more plentiful than ever, and even if your dream .COM is long gone, you have hundreds of other options for snagging a snappy name.

On the other hand,  who knows how much prestige these newer domains will hold over the longer term? Nobody wants to build their blog around the domain equivalent of a pet rock.

Some domain junkies won’t look beyond .COM, but if you’re exploring the murkier end of the market (.CM anyone?), it might be a sign that your hobby’s taking a worrying turn.

#4. You Tell Yourself You’re a “Domain Investor”

When your domain account lists tens (or even hundreds) of seemingly random domain purchases, there are two ways to explain it.

Either it’s the result of years of clueless impulse buying from a click-happy domain junkie with no more strategy than a half-blind pigeon pecking in the dirt.

Or it’s the culmination of a strategic acquisition campaign to build a valuable portfolio of undervalued digital assets for future sale.

Not surprisingly, most domain name “enthusiasts” favor the second version.

But deep down, if you suspect there’s very little method to your madness, it might be time to go cold turkey on domains.

#5. You Read the Thesaurus… for Fun

Not every domain you dream up will be available for registration. The truth is, most won’t.

That’s why a thesaurus is a domain collector’s best friend. In fact, uncovering snappy synonyms for your latest near-miss idea can be a lot of fun.

But if a thesaurus has become your favorite bedtime read (you know, just in case a cool domain idea jumps out) it may be time to seek professional help.

Because — wake up call! — it’s a reference book, not the latest Jack Reacher.

#6. You Secretly Stalk the Person Who Owns YourName.com

I was lucky. I grabbed my personal domain before anyone else could.

But if you have a popular birth name, or you were just too slow to the punch, your best options may already have gone. And that really stings.

Because when your name’s John Brown, telling people your treasured home on the Internet is TheRealJohnWBrown.info is plain embarrassing.

And that’s why you secretly stalk the person who nabbed your name online. You stake out their website, mentally mocking their pathetic efforts while waiting patiently for the right moment to pounce.

Because one day, they’ll forget to renew that domain and then, my friend, victory will be yours.

#7. You’ve Felt the Pain of “Lapsers Remorse”

Sometimes you see a domain for what it is — a dumb impulse purchase you’ll never be able to use or resell.

Maybe you tried to make money by listing it for sale at a couple of domain marketplaces but didn’t get the faintest sniff of interest.

So when it comes up for renewal, you do the sensible thing and let it lapse. You even feel good about your level-headed decision.

Weeks later, you casually check to see if anyone’s re-registered it and find it’s now listed on a “premium domains” site for $3,000!

Of course, just because it’s listed for thousands doesn’t mean it’s worth thousands.

But you can’t escape the feeling you let a valuable domain slip through your fingers.

#8. You’re Considering a Domain-Inspired Career Move

Sometimes you’ll stumble across a domain name that’s so good you simply have to own it… even though it’s totally unrelated to your work or hobbies.

The smart move would be to snag it and sell it for a profit to someone who can make good use of it. But like Gollum and that damned ring, you can’t quite bring yourself to part with it.

So your brain starts to explore a future possible world where you become the person for whom this is the perfect domain.

Sure it means throwing away years of hard-won experience and starting a blog in a new field.

But finding a domain this good must be a signal from the universe, right?

#9. You Lose Interest in Domains Moments After Buying Them

Once the buzz of snagging the name you’ve been lusting after subsides, a faint sense of regret can quickly follow.

“I can’t believe nobody bought this yet,” quickly turns to, “I can’t believe I just bought that.”

And the longer you hold onto a domain, the more money you rack up in wasted renewal fees.

The best way to take your mind off this painful predicament? Start scouting for your next domain name.

#10. You Have a Conspiracy Theory about Domain Registrars

Maybe this happened to you…

One day you check a new domain and find it available for the regular price. The next day it’s suddenly a “premium” domain, commanding several thousand dollars.

And you can’t help but wonder:

Did my search alert the registrar to the juicy potential of this previously unrecognized name?

You wouldn’t be alone in your suspicions. Type “do domain registrars” into Google and “steal domains?” is the top auto-complete suggestion.

Are registrars capable of dirty tricks like this? Maybe. It’s difficult to be sure.

But paranoid thoughts like these might be the first sign your harmless hobby is turning into a dangerous addiction.

Learn to Spot the Signs of Addiction Before It’s Too Late

Domain name addiction is real. And it can wreck your life if you don’t catch it in time.

If you suspect you might be addicted, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you visit domain registration sites several times a day?

Do you lie to friends and family about how many domains you own?

Do you often “binge” and buy multiple domains at once?

If so, you’re likely a domain name junkie.

The good news? With the right support, a full recovery is possible.

But you must take that crucial first step. Acknowledge your addiction.

So repeat after me:

“I’m a domain name junkie. And today’s the day I get help.”

About the Author: Glen Long is Smart Blogger’s operations guy and a recovering domain name junkie. He’s holding a “yard sale” of the best blogging, copywriting and content marketing domains that he’s collected over the years — go check it out.

The post 10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/domain-name-junkie/

10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie

It’s an addiction like any other.

Ten or twenty bucks will scratch that itch, but the high never lasts, and before long you’re craving the next hit.

And the worst part? Nobody understands.

Except just maybe a fellow addict… “Hello. My name is Glen, and I’m a domain name junkie. My last domain purchase was three weeks, four days and seven hours ago.”

That’s how I’d introduce myself to the support group. (You know, the one that doesn’t exist yet.) I’d stand up and tell my story to a circle of fellow addicts, who’d nod their silent support.

My own addiction started with an act of vanity — I acquired the .COM version of my own name. That was 17 years ago, and owning a piece of Internet real estate was novel and exciting.

But that first domain registration, like the first high from an illicit drug, set me on the path to dependency.

The Telltale Signs of a Destructive Domain Habit

Like many addicts, I failed to acknowledge my problem until it was too late.

For years I told myself buying domains was just a harmless hobby. Something to do on evenings and weekends to help unwind after work. But over time my hobby became a powerful obsession.

I’d wake up each morning with a head full of new domain ideas and a burning desire to check their availability. At social occasions, I’d sneak out of the room to browse domain resale sites on my smartphone.

And despite plans to become a savvy domain “flipper,” I was selling almost none of the domains I bought, instead keeping them for personal use.

Eventually, my behavior became more erratic. I would buy any domains I could get my hands on — .ORGs, .COs, even .INFOs.

One Monday morning I hit rock bottom when I found a dozen GoDaddy receipts in my inbox for domains that had no practical purpose. Worse still, I couldn’t even remember buying them.

These days I’m on the road to recovery, and my mission is to help other addicts.

So take a careful look at the list below, and see if you recognize any of these destructive behaviors.

If so, you might just be a domain name junkie.

#1. You Just Can’t Quit GoDaddy

When you’re a domain name junkie, you struggle to think about anything else. You spend every idle moment brainstorming cool domains for your “someday, one day” online projects.

And once an idea has surfaced, you simply must know — is the name already taken? It doesn’t matter where you are, at work, at home, even in bed. You have to know.

When you discover the domain has already been taken (the good ones usually are), you start the search for viable alternatives.

And once you’ve dived down the rabbit hole, you can hardly crawl back out.

#2. You Lie About How Many Domains You Own

When you start collecting domains, it’s fun to log in to your account and delight in the breadth of your online kingdom.

But one day you reach the point where that list of domains is a painful reminder of a habit that’s out of control.

When your partner catches you buying yet another domain and casually asks, “How many is that now?” you pretend you don’t know, or deliberately lowball the true number.

But of course, lying is a telltale sign your casual hobby has turned into a serious problem.

#3. You’ve Started Dabbling in the Newer TLDs

In the beginning (well, 1985), just six top-level domains (TLDs): .COM, .ORG, .NET, .EDU, .GOV and .MIL existed, but that list has since snowballed.

Today we have more than 1,500 TLDs including .COFFEE, .LAWYER and .PORN.

On the one hand, domains are more plentiful than ever, and even if your dream .COM is long gone, you have hundreds of other options for snagging a snappy name.

On the other hand,  who knows how much prestige these newer domains will hold over the longer term? Nobody wants to build their blog around the domain equivalent of a pet rock.

Some domain junkies won’t look beyond .COM, but if you’re exploring the murkier end of the market (.CM anyone?), it might be a sign that your hobby’s taking a worrying turn.

#4. You Tell Yourself You’re a “Domain Investor”

When your domain account lists tens (or even hundreds) of seemingly random domain purchases, there are two ways to explain it.

Either it’s the result of years of clueless impulse buying from a click-happy domain junkie with no more strategy than a half-blind pigeon pecking in the dirt.

Or it’s the culmination of a strategic acquisition campaign to build a valuable portfolio of undervalued digital assets for future sale.

Not surprisingly, most domain name “enthusiasts” favor the second version.

But deep down, if you suspect there’s very little method to your madness, it might be time to go cold turkey on domains.

#5. You Read the Thesaurus… for Fun

Not every domain you dream up will be available for registration. The truth is, most won’t.

That’s why a thesaurus is a domain collector’s best friend. In fact, uncovering snappy synonyms for your latest near-miss idea can be a lot of fun.

But if a thesaurus has become your favorite bedtime read (you know, just in case a cool domain idea jumps out) it may be time to seek professional help.

Because — wake up call! — it’s a reference book, not the latest Jack Reacher.

#6. You Secretly Stalk the Person Who Owns YourName.com

I was lucky. I grabbed my personal domain before anyone else could.

But if you have a popular birth name, or you were just too slow to the punch, your best options may already have gone. And that really stings.

Because when your name’s John Brown, telling people your treasured home on the Internet is TheRealJohnWBrown.info is plain embarrassing.

And that’s why you secretly stalk the person who nabbed your name online. You stake out their website, mentally mocking their pathetic efforts while waiting patiently for the right moment to pounce.

Because one day, they’ll forget to renew that domain and then, my friend, victory will be yours.

#7. You’ve Felt the Pain of “Lapsers Remorse”

Sometimes you see a domain for what it is — a dumb impulse purchase you’ll never be able to use or resell.

Maybe you tried to make money by listing it for sale at a couple of domain marketplaces but didn’t get the faintest sniff of interest.

So when it comes up for renewal, you do the sensible thing and let it lapse. You even feel good about your level-headed decision.

Weeks later, you casually check to see if anyone’s re-registered it and find it’s now listed on a “premium domains” site for $3,000!

Of course, just because it’s listed for thousands doesn’t mean it’s worth thousands.

But you can’t escape the feeling you let a valuable domain slip through your fingers.

#8. You’re Considering a Domain-Inspired Career Move

Sometimes you’ll stumble across a domain name that’s so good you simply have to own it… even though it’s totally unrelated to your work or hobbies.

The smart move would be to snag it and sell it for a profit to someone who can make good use of it. But like Gollum and that damned ring, you can’t quite bring yourself to part with it.

So your brain starts to explore a future possible world where you become the person for whom this is the perfect domain.

Sure it means throwing away years of hard-won experience and starting a blog in a new field.

But finding a domain this good must be a signal from the universe, right?

#9. You Lose Interest in Domains Moments After Buying Them

Once the buzz of snagging the name you’ve been lusting after subsides, a faint sense of regret can quickly follow.

“I can’t believe nobody bought this yet,” quickly turns to, “I can’t believe I just bought that.”

And the longer you hold onto a domain, the more money you rack up in wasted renewal fees.

The best way to take your mind off this painful predicament? Start scouting for your next domain name.

#10. You Have a Conspiracy Theory about Domain Registrars

Maybe this happened to you…

One day you check a new domain and find it available for the regular price. The next day it’s suddenly a “premium” domain, commanding several thousand dollars.

And you can’t help but wonder:

Did my search alert the registrar to the juicy potential of this previously unrecognized name?

You wouldn’t be alone in your suspicions. Type “do domain registrars” into Google and “steal domains?” is the top auto-complete suggestion.

Are registrars capable of dirty tricks like this? Maybe. It’s difficult to be sure.

But paranoid thoughts like these might be the first sign your harmless hobby is turning into a dangerous addiction.

Learn to Spot the Signs of Addiction Before It’s Too Late

Domain name addiction is real. And it can wreck your life if you don’t catch it in time.

If you suspect you might be addicted, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you visit domain registration sites several times a day?

Do you lie to friends and family about how many domains you own?

Do you often “binge” and buy multiple domains at once?

If so, you’re likely a domain name junkie.

The good news? With the right support, a full recovery is possible.

But you must take that crucial first step. Acknowledge your addiction.

So repeat after me:

“I’m a domain name junkie. And today’s the day I get help.”

About the Author: Glen Long is Smart Blogger’s operations guy and a recovering domain name junkie. He’s holding a “yard sale” of the best blogging, copywriting and content marketing domains that he’s collected over the years — go check it out.

The post 10 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re a Domain Name Junkie appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/domain-name-junkie/

The struggle

Apparently there are things that I can do to get free from my torture. Im not sure what exactly but My life is like a continued subliminal message. I think there is a list of goals from years ago that i must complete. I always make a list of goals its just something that i did since i can remember. it became a habit it helped me stay focus at times i would use a list of goals to escape reality and imagine . There nothing wrong with a 17 or 18 year old boy shooting for the stars. But i dont think i should be tortured for setting goals that generally take people there entire life to achieve , that was something i did to keep myself driven rather i obtained it or not i programed myself to keep my motor running so even if i accomplish a small goal then ill never settle and get content. As long as youre chasing something then you will always have a reason to grind. I have a chip on my shoulder i know noone thinks i can achieve most things that i desire but its not about them its about me. I hate to be doubted i enjoy proving people wrong. But as far as what i personally write down thats between me myself and god. That not for anyone else , the torture deprives you of having a personal relationship with yourself. I think i can obtain a certain amount of money to be free but being 21 years old living with my mom and no car. Life is forcing me to grow up and how can you exceed under these conditions. Life is hard as is but everyone you know being able to read your thoughts and see your actions multiple personalities giving you signs not knowing whos trying to help you or whos trying to hurt you .... trust me they will force your family to advise you wrongly. Electronicaly they will harras you they will make your card decline when you having money in your account they will torture using social media netflix vedio games .......How can you get anything done??? Mental toughness is a must. Im under the impression that you can get free by doing some gay shit , not gonna happen ... Or maybe i  can get free by Having sex with someone ugly and or Fat. Im not sure some of these things may be a set up to make my conditions worser. Oh yeah im pretty sure i can get free by getting someone pregnant but in my opinion thats simply just not a good choice due too my life conditions .... basically they are trying to force me to do a bunch things that i wouldnt and its weird and unreasonable I dont feel i deserve any of this. Oh yeah and i think like females get points or paid when i look at there butt or if i think they are cute or like any positive thoughts about there apperance Im under the impression that they will get paid or get points if i have sex, or approach them in any kind of way. I think my evil ex is out to make me have a baby and is like paying or bribing females large amounts of money. I dont want any kids at this moment in my life. Ive been extremely lonesome and i really want people to talk to that cant read my thoughts or see my actions i want genuine relationships with people i want people to be real actually get to know me grow a bond with me rather if it is a relationship or not. There is a piece of me that wants to have a girlfriend but there is also a piece of me that want to figure out what i like in women. My variety in taste varies im not the kind of guy that is 1 dimensional, i like women of every race as far as lust and attraction. I don't know how to explain it but i like what i like when i like it. I feel like the attribute that i am mostly attracted to is the way a woman carries herself more than that i love being able to communicate and also being able to learn from someone that i could also teach or help. I mean we all have desires im not really sure but thats why i want to live more so i can experience more. there are some things that i may like but i dont know that i like because i havent encountered a woman that will show me. I want more experience with dealing with women and people in general. The crazy ex was my first love and because of that i dont really seek for love or havent really ill be honest im afraid of getting attached so i wanna learn more about me i dont want to be tide down to one girl unless she made me feel that way. How a female acts and how she makes me feel when I'm alone with her will determine our future. I dont ever want to fall in love with a thot or even be serious with a women with no morals. I dont  have a problem with thots .... Im down to have fun ( ill fuck a thot with no hesitation) but as far as me building a bond for the future (relationship terms) I gotta set a standard for myself. Sometimes people fall in love with the presence of someone while they are blind to who they really are. If a women wants me to be with her, i need to know that she respects herself and that shes loyal. Ive never cheated on anyone so its only fair that if im going to be willing to curve someone , i need the girl that im in a relationship with to have the same energy when i say im serious about an individual then i mean it. My reputation reflects that. I dont see myself being in a relationship anytime soon but once i gain more experience figure myself out then ill set out for a women but i wanna be sure. Right now im young only 21 years old i just want to kick it. I dont want a bunch of people spying on my life and judging me.  I just want the torture to be over with i want to have fun and enjoy life . I dont want to change who i am for anyone i want to be around people who will except me for me I want to be able to change my mind i dont want to be mentaly enslaved. I wonder who was this punishment meant for and are they running around freely happily living life while im forced to go through things i dont deserve. I know alotta people had to betray me for me to get in this position . If they had plans of killing me they might as well let me live a happy life .... its not like i deserve to die as it is. Ive been praying and i truly think there is way i can overcome this i just have to remain faithful to god and be strong. Its possible that if i get a car and find my own place that i could possibly get free. I dont know for sure im trying to figure it out . My evil ex wants me to marry her i think thats a way to get free as well but i dont think i would ever do that i have my reasons ... more than enough . she continues to torture me everyday for years i guess she wanted me dead she really is obsessed with torturing me. Theres really nothing i can do so i try not to think about how my ex and all my friends betrayed me. Ive talked to god about all of them and i let go of all that anger .... i still dont trust any of them i as i shouldnt they are responsible for what im going through if i act like they are worthy of my trust that would be dumbest shit in the world. They know if it were vise versa i would have never did anything of this nature im not perfect but im loyal. Real niggas are at a All time low ... if i come accross a Real women there is no doubt that ill be a real nigga to her. I know nowadays everybody faking like they real I truly believe fake bitches deserve fake niggas. You reap what you sow .... most females got like 3 or 4 niggas on they line until youre willing to focus on 1 how can you exspect 1 to focus on only you?? Ill have more respect for a female that lets you know they not serious rather than faking like they real  you cant be a wifey type and a booty call option for multiple niggas either you a real bitch or you aint. Like i said before i aint got no problem with thots just dont be acting like you cuffable .... you may be cuffable , just not cuffable to a real nigga thats loyal. Im the kind of boyfriend that is committed i put myself under pressure 24/7 im not saying im perfect but as far effort goes im going to always give my all. Im down to build with someone , i may not always be able to ball how i want but im most definately gone go hard for my shordie. I see females be in relationship with niggas that over use them im the type that feels bad when i need help from my shordie i develope a husband mentality i feel good being able to provide. I also have time periods where i may be doing bad and ill seek for help but deep down im telling myself that i have to repay / or surprise my significant other 10 times better just to show them that i apprieciate having someone there for me. I love it when someone shows me that they care about what im going through even if its in a small way. Im the kind of dude that like to dress up match colors and shit , take pictures and capture moments . Im from chicago so the power couple movement is highly desired. Privacy is a must though i really dont like everybody in my relationship. I like to fuck alot especially if im in love. I like to chill and id say im more of a on the phone kind of person but not always sometime i prefer texting. I like nudes but im more of the kind of dude that wanna see selfies and your outfits and shit i wanna feel like youre dressing up for me. I cant be in a relationship with somebody that doesnt suck dick , im not saying i wont get involved but its damn near a must on some long term shit. Even though i dont want a relationship they are more suitable for me because i like to eat pussy and im not finna just be eating anybody pussy i typically eat out my bitch. Im not saying a female has to be my bitch for me eat her out but me eating out a bitch thats not my shordie is rare like the conditions either i gotta be extremely horny , or drunk or sometimes ill just do it because i wanted too 9 times out of ten she either super sexy to me or the freak in me kicked in at the right moment. But generally im not eating that mf unless i feel like that pussy belongs to me period. I like to fuck so rounds are pretty regular in a relationship. I feel like i need a friends with benefits ive been so introverted because I have no privacy and being spied on makes me uncomfortable so i havent had no pussy in a long time but this sucks cause im attracted to so many females around me when im out in the world or im at school. I hate that im being tormented and tortured i just want to be free to live a private life. I dont have intentions on playing with anybody heart but i just want to fuck women and get money like every other dude my age. In that process if i come accross someone that makes me want to cuff then ill try it out but i feel like i shouldnt have to be forced to do any of the things that they are asking.