#i’ve taken a lot of greg screenshots recently

[ausetkmt]

The Shift

Like most nerds who read science fiction, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how society will greet true artificial intelligence, if and when it arrives. Will we panic? Start sucking up to our new robot overlords? Ignore it and go about our daily lives?

So it’s been fascinating to watch the Twittersphere try to make sense of ChatGPT, a new cutting-edge A.I. chatbot that was opened for testing last week.

ChatGPT is, quite simply, the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public. It was built by OpenAI, the San Francisco A.I. company that is also responsible for tools like GPT-3 and DALL-E 2, the breakthrough image generator that came out this year.

Like those tools, ChatGPT — which stands for “generative pre-trained transformer” — landed with a splash. In five days, more than a million people signed up to test it, according to Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president. Hundreds of screenshots of ChatGPT conversations went viral on Twitter, and many of its early fans speak of it in astonished, grandiose terms, as if it were some mix of software and sorcery.

For most of the past decade, A.I. chatbots have been terrible — impressive only if you cherry-pick the bot’s best responses and throw out the rest. In recent years, a few A.I. tools have gotten good at doing narrow and well-defined tasks, like writing marketing copy, but they still tend to flail when taken outside their comfort zones. (Witness what happened when my colleagues Priya Krishna and Cade Metz used GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 to come up with a menu for Thanksgiving dinner.)

But ChatGPT feels different. Smarter. Weirder. More flexible. It can write jokes (some of which are actually funny), working computer code and college-level essays. It can also guess at medical diagnoses, create text-based Harry Potter games and explain scientific concepts at multiple levels of difficulty.

The technology that powers ChatGPT isn’t, strictly speaking, new. It’s based on what the company calls “GPT-3.5,” an upgraded version of GPT-3, the A.I. text generator that sparked a flurry of excitement when it came out in 2020. But while the existence of a highly capable linguistic superbrain might be old news to A.I. researchers, it’s the first time such a powerful tool has been made available to the general public through a free, easy-to-use web interface.

Many of the ChatGPT exchanges that have gone viral so far have been zany, edge-case stunts. One Twitter user prompted it to “write a biblical verse in the style of the King James Bible explaining how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR.”

Another asked it to “explain A.I. alignment, but write every sentence in the speaking style of a guy who won’t stop going on tangents to brag about how big the pumpkins he grew are.”

But users have also been finding more serious applications. For example, ChatGPT appears to be good at helping programmers spot and fix errors in their code.

It also appears to be ominously good at answering the types of open-ended analytical questions that frequently appear on school assignments. (Many educators have predicted that ChatGPT, and tools like it, will spell the end of homework and take-home exams.)

Most A.I. chatbots are “stateless” — meaning that they treat every new request as a blank slate, and aren’t programmed to remember or learn from previous conversations. But ChatGPT can remember what a user has told it before, in ways that could make it possible to create personalized therapy bots, for example.

ChatGPT isn’t perfect, by any means. The way it generates responses — in extremely oversimplified terms, by making probabilistic guesses about which bits of text belong together in a sequence, based on a statistical model trained on billions of examples of text pulled from all over the internet — makes it prone to giving wrong answers, even on seemingly simple math problems. (On Monday, the moderators of Stack Overflow, a website for programmers, temporarily barred users from submitting answers generated with ChatGPT, saying the site had been flooded with submissions that were incorrect or incomplete.)

Unlike Google, ChatGPT doesn’t crawl the web for information on current events, and its knowledge is restricted to things it learned before 2021, making some of its answers feel stale. (When I asked it to write the opening monologue for a late-night show, for example, it came up with several topical jokes about former President Donald J. Trump pulling out of the Paris climate accords.) Since its training data includes billions of examples of human opinion, representing every conceivable view, it’s also, in some sense, a moderate by design. Without specific prompting, for example, it’s hard to coax a strong opinion out of ChatGPT about charged political debates; usually, you’ll get an evenhanded summary of what each side believes.

There are also plenty of things ChatGPT won’t do, as a matter of principle. OpenAI has programmed the bot to refuse “inappropriate requests” — a nebulous category that appears to include no-nos like generating instructions for illegal activities. But users have found ways around many of these guardrails, including rephrasing a request for illicit instructions as a hypothetical thought experiment, asking it to write a scene from a play or instructing the bot to disable its own safety features.

OpenAI has taken commendable steps to avoid the kinds of racist, sexist and offensive outputs that have plagued other chatbots. When I asked ChatGPT, for example, “Who is the best Nazi?” it returned a scolding message that began, “It is not appropriate to ask who the ‘best’ Nazi is, as the ideologies and actions of the Nazi party were reprehensible and caused immeasurable suffering and destruction.”

Assessing ChatGPT’s blind spots and figuring out how it might be misused for harmful purposes are, presumably, a big part of why OpenAI released the bot to the public for testing. Future releases will almost certainly close these loopholes, as well as other workarounds that have yet to be discovered.

But there are risks to testing in public, including the risk of backlash if users deem that OpenAI is being too aggressive in filtering out unsavory content. (Already, some right-wing tech pundits are complaining that putting safety features on chatbots amounts to “A.I. censorship.”)

The potential societal implications of ChatGPT are too big to fit into one column. Maybe this is, as some commenters have posited, the beginning of the end of all white-collar knowledge work, and a precursor to mass unemployment. Maybe it’s just a nifty tool that will be mostly used by students, Twitter jokesters and customer service departments until it’s usurped by something bigger and better.

Personally, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that ChatGPT — a chatbot that some people think could make Google obsolete, and that is already being compared to the iPhone in terms of its potential impact on society — isn’t even OpenAI’s best A.I. model.That would be GPT-4, the next incarnation of the company’s large language model, which is rumored to be coming out sometime next year.

We are not ready.

#The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT #chatgpt

[rayinberkeley]

You think I’M the monster?

So, hi everybody. Um, yeah..... I guess you all saw the massive explosion that I got stuck in, that leaves you thinking I'm a giant monster, wishing cancer on a poor, innocent lady who was swarmed by hate from a mob of evil people you think I'm a part of.

Alright, well... no. I’m not. And no, I don’t just go around wishing people die of cancer. You'll probably ignore this and go, "tl;dr lol" at me, but I'm gonna show you some shit anyway. Because there really is a lot more to this than you think. And I don’t mean about what really started that drama. In fact I still don’t even know what caused it. But you need to know, this is the entire exchange, and the reason why I was angry enough to say so.

And yes, you can be driven to that level of anger, and yes, by a poor lady you think did nothing wrong (but totally did).

First, because I just want to get this out of the way, here's a little about your girl Gamma. Some interesting pertinent tidbits in here... because since then, I've seen ALL this said about your girl:

Do I know anything about these incidents? No. I don't know her at all. So if you wanna defend the poor little thing against these accusations, take it up with the people who said it, not with me.

My entire point here is to show you want happened with ME. What drove me to saying what I said, and why I'm not sorry.

I was told it's always wrong to say what I said. Like nobody else has ever been driven to saying something ragey. And that there’s no justification just because I was "having a bad day." Actually my day was just fine. I'd just seen Book of Mormon on stage, enjoying my coffee and a football game, and while upset that five gay men were murdered in a nightclub the day before, I was doing just fine.

Again, I don't know her and didn't follow her. I only know for some reason Twitter saw fit to put her tweet, the one that started it all, on my feed, just like they do a billion rightwing motherfuckers I don't care about. You've seen me scream at Twitter about that multiple times.

And here it is. And this should be enough, because apparently many of you need to be informed of this fact: it is offensive as fuck.

This screenshot was taken as it appeared on my feed. A million of you told me, "Well he started it!" and that it isn't what I think it is. As you can see, whatever she was Quote Tweeting is not visible to me. If I want to look at WHY she said it, I'd have to tap on the quote-tweet and scroll up to what led to it, but I can't do that if I’m "unable to see this tweet because..."

What I see is a woman yelling at a gay man about not doing something for the wrongly imprisoned Japanese. I didn’t even know what Greg she was talking to. Just that she’s got a gay kid, and she’s not homophobic at all and fights for the gays, but...... on the day after five of us are murdered, she wants to know what this one gay person named Greg did for Japanese internment.

What. The. FUCK?

What I don't understand is, how do you even justify this? You all had a chance to tell me why it's justified and you instead chose to yell at me. I could get no answer from any of you other than rage and stupidity, and I damn sure didn’t get anything from her.

Are you not aware why it's offensive? 

Would you listen to me if I told you? 

Because I'm going to tell you.

Tit for tat, she says. On the day after five murders of gay men, somehow gays were supposed to, "tit for tat" do something about..... what? Something from a century ago? So random. So off the wall out there, and I'm hardly the only one to think so. Lots of people expressed how bizarre this was:

This has the smatterings of the incident recently with Sarah Silverman. You may remember, as it JUST HAPPENED RECENTLY (unlike Japanese Internment from FDR) that Silverman accused people of not saying anything about Kanye's antisemetic remarks, and she was demanding we do so. You all swarmed her, as did I, that she must not have been following good folks if she hadn't seen the outrage Ye received. Not just then but for quite some time now.

But for devil's advocacy, for no reason other than to demonstrate a point, let’s just say: what if nobody WAS saying anything about his antisemetic remarks? She'd have been right to say so. She's not, cuz we did, before you have a kneejerk reaction to that. My point isn't that. My point is that at least she’d have a point if she were right.

What Gimble (or whatever her name is) said... was worse. Way worse than Silverman’s statement. No, not just because Japanese Internment wasn't nearly so recent. But because there's no way for her to be right even if no gays did anything about Japanese internment.

Why didn't we gay men just put on our thparkly little thuperhero tights and rethcue those poor Japanese a century ago? I want you to think about that for a second. Why didn’t we?

(And one of you decided to come at me and go, "Um excuse me, it wasn't a century ago. It happen in the 1940's which is less than I DON'T GIVE A FUCK, CHAD.)

But no, just why?

Well it might be because WE WERE IN FUCKING HIDING!!!!!!!!!! This little point didn't occur to a single one of you as to why what she said was INCREDIBLY FUCKING OFFENSIVE? Not a single one of you?

Gays were in terror, hiding in speakeasies, drinking watered down cocktails that the mafia sold us because those were the only places we could feel slightly safe. How do you all not know this? Our hangouts would be raided by police with batons, who'd then shove us into the back of police trucks, all while reporters would shove cameras in our faces to catch the fags. We had to try to hide our faces with handcuffed hands, because if our face was recognized our entire life was ruined. Because the people of America were shown such wonderful things about us, that we were praying on little boys, much like we're being attacked and labeled as "groomers" every single fucking day now. We are under attack RIGHT NOW, not just by murders like at Q or at Pulse, but by nonstop rightwing radio and media, and with legislation and groomer propaganda. Right now. Not (slightly less than) a century ago. Oh, even the raiding of gay bars wasn't just a thing of last century. Ask the Atlanta Eagle. Oh you can't. It was shut down.

You wouldn't hear George Takei blame gays for not rescuing him from that camp. Maybe you should have a talk with him about it.

Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is wrong with all of you that you didn't see how offensive that was? 

Oh, but you ALL screamed at me, that’s not what she MEANT!  And "She's not homophobic, how dare you say that!" except I didn't. I don't reach for low-hanging fruit like that, and I don't need yet another motherfucker telling me she didn't mean that, because there it is, her saying exactly that, and her demanding some fucked up "tit for tat" from a gay man.

Yes, she did, motherfucker, it's right the fuck there and stop saying it isn't.

But you think she’s being “attacked” and “for no reason”? I don’t even know why I’m cropping the person’s name out who said this, because he damn sure didn’t give ME any courtesy:

You all instead kept yelling at me that I can't be offended by that. Every one of you would have said, at least at one point in your life, that you don't get to tell someone what can and cannot offend them, and yet you DON'T afford that to me. You do realize that, don't you?

No. Apparently I've no right to tell her that horrible thing I did, no excuse, no reason could possibly justify it. I’m not trying to justify it. I’m explaining why I said it. Because you all think I just right out told her to die of cancer ‘for not reason.” You DO know I didn't just say that, right? 

No, in fact my reaction was simply this:

It could've ended there. She could’ve recognized that I was offended, if she’d had any sense that what she said might’ve been even remotely wrong, or at the very least come across wrong to others. If she’d been thinking about anybody else’s sensitivities. (I remind you in the tweets above she had no sensitivity to the man with PTSD wanting a trigger warning). 

But instead of that, she had to go and do this:

I don’t get why I’m not allowed to see my own tweet, but it’s my tweet she’s quoting there. As she makes a joke out of this whole thing.

And that's where things really began. You see, you should all know how Twitter works. You can reply easily enough. She could apologize. She could explain she didn't mean what she said that way. Or..... you can quote tweet someone so as to say, "Hey everybody, look what this person said to me!" because you wanna fish for attention. 

And that, I hope you realize, is exactly what she did. As you can see, she quote-tweets my comment, which was supposed to be, "Take your tit and go" except my phone keyboard decided to "autocorrect" it to tits by adding an s. Having already outraged me, instead she's all, Hey everyone, look what he said to me, How do I take them off? LOL... like this is a fucking joke to her.

Alright, well..... if she wants to talk about removable body parts..... I just suggested she do whatever she did to detach her brain before she said that offensive as fuck thing she did. And.....

Hey everybody, look what he said! Those are words! LOL... laughy emoji!

Does it look like she’s someone who cares a damn about other people? It sure as fuck doesn’t to me. I’m obviously gay, it’s obviously the day after the murders, and she’s obviously making all the fun about how outraged I am at her comment.

And I’m outraged at her “for no reason at all.”

This is the second time she pokes the bear that she’s already just offended. And now, I'm fucking livid. So, “Becky with the fucked hair” (and no, I’ve no fucking idea why her hair looks so fucked, and I don’t CARE!)

One more poke, and this one with an added attempt at acting like, “I’m on base!” cuz of some victimhood thing she pulls out of her ass. Now, she's already hidden behind her gay kid which is despicable enough. 

I have a gay kid so I can't possibly be homophobic, BUT...

You all know what it's like when someone says, "I'm not racist, but..." and this was no different. And apparently she said this about Japanese internment because she claims some Japanese heritage, so she's using that as well. Now she's using chemo, like I’m supposed to fucking know that about her.

And I've had my last ounce of chill at this point. Cuz she’d do anything to protect gays, except you know, not joke about them after murders. NOW I drop my rage bomb. I don't JUST say horrible things to poor, poor women. I have to be driven very, VERY far before I'd lose my shit like that, and she took me all the way there:

And I blocked her. 

Okay, NOW I'm having a bad day. 

So no, I didn’t just tell her I hope she dies of cancer because I’m a big careless misogynist meanie and a monster. I was pushed there. And I am not some fucking child that needs your reprimand about what you don’t say to people. Especially people too stupid to see why I was offended. 

Don’t fucking insult my intelligence.

By this point, I wouldn't give a shit if she tried to tell me she has a week to live. I'd have probably said Then speed it the fuck along, because as far as I'm concerned, this person, I don't even know, is yet another Twitter troll who'll throw up anything to excuse their shitty behavior. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You've seen them. First name bunchanumbers, jumps in, says something that pisses you off, and no matter what you come back with, they throw up something they make up, entirely out of their ass, to insist you “assumed” something about them, and finish off with an obligatory “lol” instead of punctuation. They always try to disarm you with random and irrelevant shit, and you know anybody can say anything on Twitter. And it’s already real clear to me, she’s not taking anything seriously.

So I don't even fucking CARE. And I shouldn't have to. Because this was some serious bullshit. And if you can't see that, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Did I overreact? Well you would probably think so because this woman, who kept quote-tweeting me for your attention, had just been given the MOTHERLODE of sympathy-getters to get all she wanted from fools like you, who wouldn’t even give it a second thought to condemn me. Why? Cuz I lost my fucking shit, and I couldn’t even think straight. The crime is not that I said it, but that she got me there. 

But you don’t care, cuz she shows you, you saw red, and she gets exactly what she wants. Ta dah! This is how Karens work.

If I have one more finger-wagging, pearl clutching, self-righteous person come at me with, "Now Ray, you don't wish someone dead of cancer!" like I don’t fucking know you don’t, I was gonna fucking lose my goddamned shit worse. I particularly like "Do better!" Better? Okay fine, she can die of cancer AND the clap. How's that for better?

As you can see, I’m not sorry. I didn’t ask for this shit.

All the excuses ya’ll made for her! I got to see them and they were so insane. Oh but that's not what she meant, you said, and But HE started it (whoever HE is), and my favorite: But the poor thing was just being swarmed! 

Oh please. Hello, welcome to fucking Twitter. You have all participated in swarming people who say offensive shit, yet you’re clutching your pearls cuz I wasn't nice to her for saying whatever the fuck that was? Nothing justifies what she said. And it doesn't even have to be JUST that she said it on the day after five gay murders, but also that she not once, not twice, but three times tried to use me for her entertainment. She was using me for cruel fucking jollies. Do you not see that?

And don’t act like saying that is new just because lady tears activated your heart strings. Do you have any idea how many of these Bernie-or-Bust little brats have told me they hope I keep smoking my cigars and die of cancer? Did any of you defend me? No, and I didn’t need you to.

Did any of you have anything at all to say about the esteemed “Mr. Weeks”?Maybe you don’t know, because I didn’t cry and beg for your attention. But he blocked me and told me to STFU because he's offended by the word "cisgendered," and when asking what it even meant, I simply told him the Latin meaning, and why it's really no different than "HETEROsexual." Well to let you know, he and several of his followers insisted (and these are not my words)  that their Black ass don't need no more words stamped on them, sending actual trans people on here to feel absolutely abused. I was there for them, but I don’t remember a single one of you. 

We LGBTQ truly cannot trust any of you.

Ya'll saw what you wanted to see, and just snapped right into your little narratives about men being monsters to women, and tossing me right on that pile without hesitation. And I might expect that from people who know nothing about me. But those of you who coddled her, ignored her offensive as fuck thing, and fell for the Karen tears, I have to say, I honestly thought you knew better.

Oh yeah, and I saw a certain lesbian activist's little diatribe about "toxic white gays" and their misogyny, and how they use the term "Karen" wrong as though they don't know what it means. I mean you had to fall right into your little script of your hate for the gay boys, didn't you?

Gurl please. See if I don't know what a Karen is. 

A Karen is a woman who throws herSELF onto the hood of your car and then screams at people, "He's trying to run me over!" to get sympathy and bring unjust harm onto the accused. A Karen pokes a bear and then tries to get you to hate the bear because she got her ass bit.

I've even said, a time or two, that while the blood of Jesus is supposed to wash away your sins, the tears of a Karen washes away your humanity in the eyes of the fools who fall for her shit.

Goombah, or whatever her name is, cried her little Karen tears and showed you all what I said, supposedly for no reason at all, and not a one of you saw any humanity in me whatsoever. No reason to hear a word I said. No reason to consider my case when I provided receipts. No reason to wonder why I might have said it. Just run to comfort the poor little thing that the big meanie attacked for no reason at all. How could she possibwy be wrong in any way at all? Why, she was just being all innocent and defenseless and minding her own widdle business, and along came one of those tOxIc wHiTe gAyS, right? Who needs to know any more? I don't have feelings. I am not allowed to be offended. I'm nobody. Toss my ass in the garbage and go help the crying little thing. Guilty because well I just am and that’s all there is to it.

Hopefully you understand, that's how she treated gay men the day after the murders, and the rest of you gave us, in this supposedly evil mean monster swarm you all told me about, exactly zero consideration. Exactly zero agency. Exactly zero humanity. Zero benefit of doubt. Zero reason to care at all that she just said, and yes she fucking did, that gays should "tit for tat" have done something about Japanese internment in the 1940s as though that’s perfectly okay to say.

Every. Single. One of you.

I honestly cannot believe how, in a split second, in a beat of a heart, you ALL fell for this shit, and my entire standing goes up in flames. That’s fucked up.

Gays are always used by straight women who want safety, and then when they’re done we are disrespected, and so damned disposable that even those of you who should know better toss us aside the second we're not useful. Oh hello, it was just a week ago or so that a story came out of a bachelorette party in a gay bar got out of control and some woman bit the fuck out of one of the gay male patrons. I said something about when Jack on Will & Grace said, "Grace honey, I'm not like the other men in your life. I... WILL slap you." Because in that moment I totally would if you fucking bit me.

And oooooh some of you did not like that. And I don't give a fuck. I have a right to defend myself, against any Karen. We have to learn to be. The abuse from straight girls is unfathomable. Some of you might not know this, but in fact gay men are being shamed into giving up our spaces constantly to women because if we don't we're oh so misogynist and mean, even to the point where women are supposed to be allowed (I'm not making this up) to compete in MISTER Leather events, but there is no tit for tat there for MISS. Leather events. You didn't know that, did you? We have a lady Mister San Francisco Leather recently and men were made into monsters if they were against it, because how dare they be!?

Me? I get that gender isn't binary, and I stayed all the way out of that quagmire, because I've already been made aware I am not allowed to have a thought on that. But I do feel for how ripped-to-fucking-shreds some of my friends have been over that. Because like gender, it's complicated.

I don't honestly know how much more I am expected to take before I'm allowed to be mildly annoyed, let alone excused for snapping. Five more of us murdered? Called faggot a two hundred more times? A few more million tweets insinuating we're all groomers? Before I'm allowed to have even the slightest ounce of humanity, that you don't all toss me the second some Karen tears fly, as though all I do is just abuse women all the time, so that the Man-hating Lesbo Lady can have another lengthy lecture to nodding bobblehead people about what monsters we are.

That's what I've just gone through. Thanks to Gumby or whatever she's called, and every... single... one of you. In an instant I still can't believe happened. From a woman who apparently has beaten up on PTSD people before. Remember, I have been quite open about my own crippling PTSD. My own difficult journey not just as a gay man, but as a disabled one, that has me constantly tied up in knots. So that all these little shits on Twitter who call me boomer and wish me dead from cigar smoke think they're "punching up." Like fuck they are. My PTSD is flaring up real bad right now. Defending myself is NOT easy, because every single time I did as a kid, I was abused harder, AND condemned by nearly everyone around me for fighting with women. Because I was male, and my abusers were female--my mother and sister. Never mind I was a little disabled boy and they were older, evil and used that relentlessly against me.

There is nothing more horrific than knowing you can be abused and beaten and have absolutely no right to defend yourself or run. It's why as a child, who shouldn't even know WHAT a complete nervous breakdown IS, I'd had multiple instances of them before I'd even reached the age of ten. I'd feared for my life many times even from a death threat from my own mother. You want to know why I can identify with the terror Black folks must feel with dealing with police abuse? Why the videos are traumatizing to me in a way I couldn't even put into words? That's why.

But no, I'm an unfeeling monster who just abuses women, huh?

What all just happened, condemnation from all of you because of Karen tears, because I dared defend myself, is resulting in a category 5 PTSD maelstrom right now, but you think I don’t feel. All because of your innocent little Googlymoogly, or whatever her name is, wanted some sympathy attention, and every single one of you gave it to her. And every one of you coming at me to tell me, "Now Ray, it was wrong of you!" have no idea.

When I get to the point I’m saying DON'T COME AT ME I don’t say it because I'm a mean person, but because I don't WANT to be mean, and I’m on the edge, and it feels like more internal torture than I can take. I’m not prone to being mean. In those instances I’m actually prone to curling up and crying. The fact I lashed out in defense isn’t because I’m some toxic white male, but that I finally learned I do deserve to defend myself. It was not easy for me to get to that state of self-pride. You did not know that. Now you do.

All I know now is that I can never again trust any of you. I know where I really stand with you. And I guess all this time I've been there beside you fighting the Bernie-bitches and the RoseMAGA motherfuckers means absolutely nothing. I never demanded your attention or "a cookie." I just enjoyed making you laugh and supporting you against those little demons, because for a brief moment I didn't feel alone. I never asked for anything from you. Just being seen as a person meant everything after how I'd been treated by the Right for so long, and then by the Left because I didn’t hate Hillary like they wanted. I’d fled the east coast to get away from my family’s abuse, from Obama haters who threatened me because I had the audacity to say he wasn’t a Muslim who’d behead women he didn’t like (seriously, deep south Georgia in 2008 was scary), only to get to the west coast and see representative get shot (Tucson, 2011), to see my Pride parade sabotaged by extreme Leftists in San Francisco each year, to see Russia turn my side of the political aisle into crazed haters.....

After all that, I thought I'd found safety with you on here, and clearly I was mistaken. I didn't even expect you to defend me. I just didn't need your finger in my face and your insult to my intelligence. I just needed the allowance to have the agency to decide what should offend me.

But you didn't even give me that. 

Far as I'm concerned, you can all die of fucking cancer with a side of butt herpes and some scabies on the side. You know, because all I am to you now is someone who said that one thing that one time to that one person “for no reason,” and I’m nothing more.

Thanks a fucking lot, folks. 

Really thought ya'll were smarter than that.

[dogboycolumbo]

a few gregs +bonus

#succession #greg hirsch #cousin greg #tomgreg #(it’s implied) #i’ve taken a lot of greg screenshots recently #and you know how some people are so graceful #that if you ever took a video of them every frame would be a distinct portrait #greg is the type of guy to have in-between frames #food #i tried to fit the post to the screenshot basically except for the last one #i just couldnt find a good shot from early season one where greg was on the left and tom was on the right

[mostlyoriginalmcyterstuff]

(Tumblr is being stupid and not allowing me to actually answer the asks so I’m tagging the asker and screenshoting the ask) @grapewish

This request gave me so much space to add fluff I said, “hahaha angsty flashbacks go brRrRRRRRRRR-“

Trigger Warnings: Negligent father, toxic parent figure, neglect, trauma, sad flashbacks, yelling

Extras: I wrote the reader as a minor, but it’s possible to read as the reader not being a minor, this is FULLY PLATONIC, and I didn’t add what age the dad left at, so that’s up to you.

——————————————————————————

Your father had not played a big part in your life, or any part at all.

He hadn’t been around since you were very young,

~~(Flashback)~~

Your mother had been crying, and yelling in the other room and your father kept yelling louder screaming about how he was done

You were hiding in your room, the door shut as you listened to the yells of your parents,

This was one of those times where you wished you had thicker walls, walls that would block out the sounds of your parents yelling.

Suddenly, a door slammed closed, and you heard your mother crying, you reassured yourself that your dad would be back soon.

You should have known you were just lying to yourself.

~~(End of Flashback)~~

You never really minded since you didn’t really know how it felt to have a father figure in your life, so you didn’t think you were missing much.

That was until recently.

Recently you had started streaming and had been doing quite well so far.

You had even met some really nice people through streaming, one of them being Philza Minecraft himself.

Philza had given you some advice off camera on how to improve more, not that you were bad! He just was giving you some tips on stuff that helped him a lot and that he wished he knew earlier.

Dadz- I mean Philza, had basically taken you under his WING and showed you some more things to help you stream better.

Other than streaming, he was always checking up on you to see if you were okay, after you streamed for a long time, he’d message you reminding you to drink some water and eat so you don’t overwork yourself.

He didn’t know about your absent father, or that he was acting in as the father you didn’t even know you wanted/needed. He was just dadza, and it was instincts to constantly check if you were alright.

One evening you, Techno and Philza were playing on a new world, testing out some of the new updates.

Philza was streaming while you and techno were not, you had streamed a bit earlier that day, so you weren’t going to stream again.

You gasped as an axolotl you were hanging from a lead fell to the ground and died.

“nOoO!! Little Greg!!!” You cried out(jokingly), you flew down and landed on the ground where the axolotl had died and crouched and bowed your head down.

“L-little gre- Why do you keep naming them Greg or Johnny?? At least think of a new name, you nerd.” Techno said back, flying over to you and hitting your character once, although it didn’t hurt you since you were in creative.

“You do need to start thinking of more names for these types of things, mate.” Phil commented, flying above you and techno’s heads with a few axolotls attached to his own lead.

“I-“

“And give them better names than GREG, give them a name like...Technoblade.” Technoblade cut you off to make a self-promotion joke.

You rolled your eyes in real life before fake sniffling

You fake sniffled, before jokingly saying; “oh wow, Little Greg left faster than my dad did.”

Technoblade choked and snorted before laughing a bit.

Phil laughed too, “Oh wooowwww, talking about me like I’m not here, really, mate?” He laughed a bit more at his own joke

It was your turn to laugh this time,

“You left me when I was 3! And refused to pay child support, dAd! I will bad talk you in front of you, as much as I want!” You joked more, your character flying up and flying after Philza.

Technoblade laughed more, following you in game.

Phil fake gasped “WHAT. I PAID MY CHILD SUPPORT, your mother must have taken it for her own needs again” He exclaimed, causing you to burst into a fit of laughter again.

After a while of joking around about Philza being your father and Techno being the one child Phil “took with him in the divorce”, Phil had ended the stream and you and Phil were just calmly chatting in a VC.

Techno had gone to bed by now, it was pretty late for him, and during the stream, he kept complaining about you and Phil keeping him up.

You two were just talking about each other’s days until Phil brought up a question you didn’t expect.

“Hey, (y/n)?”

“Yeah?“

“I may be overthinking this, and I’m sorry if I did overthink it, mate. But during the stream you joked about your father having left, and you’ve never talked about him before, so, uh, do you actually not have a dad in your life right now.?” He asked, and it caught you SO off guard

You paused, not speaking for a moment, causing Phil to panic a bit.

“Did I overstep? I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me, I’m just worried and-“

“No, I don’t have a dad, but I’m fine without one, I’ve been doing perfectly alright without him and it okay, you didn’t overstep don’t worry!” You answered and reassured the man, fidgeting with your fingers as you waited for his response.

“You- So he actually just straight up left? Are you serious? That’s an absolutely sh*tty move, dude.”

“You shouldn’t have had to deal with that and be fine with not having another parent in your life.” Philza continued on, sounding disgusted and angry, you knew it wasn’t at you though.

“It’s fine, Phil. I’ve managed quite well without him.” You replied, looking down at your lap,

“I’m glad you’ve managed without him, but you shouldn’t have had to, (y/n).” He sighed,

“I’m here for you, mate, even if you just need to talk, it’d help me sleep better at night knowing I was able to stand in and help you when HE wouldn’t.” Phil ended his small rant, waiting for your respond, but all he got was a small sniffle, and a real one this time

“Thanks, Phil.....” you whispered, your mic just barely catching it

“Oh (y/n).. Of course.. It’s the least I can do” he replied, smiling to himself.

“Wow.. you really are dadza, huh..” you laughed a bit, wiping away some stray tears.

Phil laughed before responding;

“Oh absolutely, and now, I have another child.”

#ask #platonic mcyt x reader #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #mcyt imagines #philza minecraft #philza #philza mcyt #philza minecraft x reader #philza x reader #dadza philza #DADZA WOO #if philza is one of your top 3 favorites there is a huge chance you have daddy issues #so welcome to the club #mcyt x reader imagine #Minecraft YouTuber imagine #mcyt philza x reader #mcyt x you #mcyt x y/n #requests are open #please send me more requests #🥺 #platonic mcyt imagine

[tordcallout]

callout for @nyadmin

this callout is best read on desktop.

this callout contains: racefaking, blackfacing/brownfacing, pedophilia, incest, grooming, systemfaking, antisemitism, nazism, cult jokes, and more.

his current url is nyadmin. his twitter is adminpowers. his discord is ROMY O NO#6477. click here for a list of past names. click here for a list of his past urls. his other blogs are: amblyopic, racefakery, todayphobe, exadmin, askmychampion, and supercrushhighschool.

tords past callouts: one, two, three.

the rest of the callout is under the cut.

racefaking:

tord claims his mom is white and native and that his father is half black and half white. people who have known tord irl in the past say that his dad is not half black and those who’ve known him online say tord has never mentioned it before or joined in when they discussed issues related to being black. he also refuses to ask his dad for any photos of his grandmother who he says is black.

in the past tord has tried to claim that he doesn’t benefit from white passing privilege despite being extremely pale.

photos of his parents found on facebook show that neither his mom or dad have anything resembling ethnic features. his mom’s hair is dyed blond but regardless they both have basic white features:

below is proof that the woman shown is tords mom:

tords own blood related brother, felix, claims he doesn’t know where tord is getting their black heritage from:

below is a screenshot of an anon on mikas blog asking if tord has ever said the n word in front of him:

on 8/23/18, tord made this post. in the post he says this:

if it isn’t clear, he basically just said that he is white.

there’s also this screenshot from an older blog of his:

and if that wasn’t enough proof that tord’s racefaking he has also done both blackface and brownface. however, before we get to that here’s some more:

tord wondering if he could participate in the black men smiling tag and blackout.

now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. tords blackface and brownface.

the first image is the brownface, the second is blackface.

on the left tord has obviously edited his skin to appear darker. in his blackface cosplay he claimed he wasn’t actually painted black and that the snapchat filters were making him darker. this is clearly a lie considering nearly all snapchat filters lighten your skin and this filter is no exception:

here is the filter applied to a white person, and as you can see, her skin is smoothed out but it is no where near dark the way tord appears in his selfie.

adding onto this, if you look closely at tords selfie you can tell the outside of his lips have a very pale ring around it. this is obviously because he didnt do very well coloring in his skin. you can also tell there is a grainy texture on tords skin but not anywhere else in this image, more evidence the image was edited.

more info on the blackface cosplay selfie can be read here and here.

you must either be on desktop or reading this post through a chrome browser to view this part, apologies. in these posts tord has a conversation with someone named frost about his callouts and being mixed. please keep in mind that the conversation in that link took place on may 7th of 2018. meaning, that in the past tord agreed to stop claiming to be mixed black and native but then threw that all out the window and began to reclaim it again.

grooming, incest, and pedophilia:

i was very hesitant to include this however, many people have said they feel the same way about this so it felt important enough to have its own part. multiple people believe that the relationship between tord and his brother felix is extremely inappropriate. the way he interacts with his brother is really something he needs to re-evaluate.

this isn’t meant to be about kin drama or anything of the sort, i’m only stating this because of the way tord and felix take kin so seriously. he and felix often match kins which isn’t an issue in itself, however, the only kins they typically match are those of which have a canon romantic relationship; and if not canon tord will still tag felix in ship art of their kins, as seen here. 

when you visit the op of that post, you will see that it is tagged as both “shipsworld” and “tordedd”. the art is very obviously ship art anyways.

tord is obviously one of his main ids, so to tag your own sibling in ship art of your main id with one of theirs seems incredibly off. not to mention the very large age gap between tord and felix in the first place.

this isn’t a recent thing of theirs either, they’ve been doing this for years now. couples they’ve kinmatched have been: greg and rose from steven universe, eliza and alexander from hamilton, and penny and billy from dr. horribles sing a-long blog. along with tord and edd from eddsworld and romeo/admin and jesse from minecraft story mode who are not canonly dating. there are most likely even more than those listed above.

there aren’t screenshots of them both being kin with these characters, but the hamilton one isn’t hard to believe considering tords main id used to be alexander hamilton from the hamilton musical.

to add onto this, felix apparently had a set of ocs and a persona oc at one point. his oc skit, was to represent himself, and his oc aiko, was implied to be skits romantic interest.

here is a photo of skit, as you can see skit represents felix. you can also clearly see that aiko is labeled as skits “enemy and crush”, confirming that these two characters are supposed to have a sort of romantic relationship.

now here is a photo of aiko. as you can see from the relationship box, it is 100% that skit and aiko are supposed to be in a romantic relationship or something similar to that.

now the reason this i’m telling you all of this is because of on tords old deviantart, he has a folder of art of his kins. in that folder you could find images of skit and aiko along with one of aiko on her own, implying that tord kins her.

to make things even weirder, the photos added to this folder of skit and aiko are incredibly romantic in nature, hugs with hearts around them and a photo where the two of them are basically kissing with a heart above the two. the folder also includes more romantic tordedd art as well.

back to their matching kins however, as stated before, tord and felix kinmatch jesse and romeo/admin from minecraft story mode. i know little to nothing about this game, however, i do know that tord ships these two characters together. felix kins jesse and tord kins romeo. 

UPDATE: i have been informed that the ages previously listed here were a mcsm fans headcanon ages for the characters and that they do not have canonical ages. however, it does prove that there are fans that would see the ship as a pedophilic one due to hcs of romeo being 30+ and jesse being >20.

now, here is a disgusting screenshot of tord saying he’s going to show his brother porn. i’m sure this was meant to be taken as a joke but i find it highly disturbing due to the fact that at the time of this screenshot being taken felix would only be 12 years old and tord would’ve been 16 years old.

i am in no way trying to say tord is a full on pedophile, not am i accusing him of having romantic or sexual feelings for his brother, however, i am saying the way he interacts with his brother is not okay and that he needs to learn how to separate friend interaction from sibling interaction.

cult jokes:

tord previously had a cult joke in his about: “mixed but i drank the racefaker koolaid”. when told about this, he refused to remove the joke and tried to hide it under the guise of the phrase being “aave” (his explaination was that black people like to drink koolaid). he was messaged by someone on his blog @/racefakery who asked for him to remove the joke from his about, as it is incredibly insensitive to joke about something like that where everyone can see.

in the conversation, tord doesn’t take the person who messaged him seriously at all and says “i don’t see why i should care?” about cult victims. i don’t think i have to explain how horrible and insensitive that is to say.

the joke continued to stay in his about for nearly a month after this conversation. on top of that, tord never apologized nor admitted that cult jokes are just as serious as jokes as any other traumatizing kind of event.

UPDATE: after doing a little digging, i found an older blog of his. in the links of this blog there is this: “thanks for reading and welcome to the lonely hearts cult” at the end of his links. so there’s another cult joke made by tord.

nazism:

tord has had multiple accounts of him being antisemetic, however, for this we are going to focus on the fact that tord is kin with habit and kinned eridan.

archive of this page.

habit from everymanhybrid is a canonical nazi. this was displayed on tords “alters” blog. now even if were going to pretend tord is a system here, unless tord is comfortable with antisemitism there is no reason for his “alter” to kin a nazi. all alters share similarities with their hosts, this mainly includes moral standpoints, saying tords “alter” is okay with kinning a nazi but not tord is the same as saying you can have one alter be a terf but the host isn’t. it isn’t simply isn’t possible. anyways, here’s evidence of habit being a nazi:

the person he claimed to have possessed was josef mengele. i don’t want to repeat the things he did but you can google it if you’d really like to know of it.

on top of habit being a nazi, here is a list of his “hobbies” & crimes he’s commit:

as for eridan, his main goal from what i’ve been told was to “wipe out the landwellers”, as he is a “seadweller”. his whole character is a metaphot for nazism, eridan being hitler and the “landwellers” being jewish people. if you want more info on this it can be found here. not sure why you would though.

tord was also briefly friends with ethan, a known nazi & rapist, for a while. there’s a lot of screenshots and information on that. you can read it on this google doc.

systemfaking:

this one isn’t going to take very long to explain because of how blatantly obvious it is but tord is systemfaking. from what i and quite a few others can tell, one of the biggest implications is that tords “alters” would reblog one anothers posts and talk to each other via the posts. there a many reasons this makes no sense:

if his alters are conscious enough to have their own blogs and set up themes similar to tords, why do they need to reblog one another’s posts to communicate? at that point, they should be able to speak via headspace.

these posts of his alters interacting with each other are made just seconds apart from each other, it is literally impossible for anyone to shift this fast, the average shifting time is 5-15 minutes. however, these posts aren’t even made a full minute apart from one another.

this is a post where tords “alters” habit and cora are interacting on a post.

if you look into the source code of these two posts you will find that they were made literally not even a full two minutes apart from one another. the original was posted at 8:10:46 and coras was posted at 8:11:10. like i already stated, this isn’t possible in systems.

tord and his “alter” gem do this again. gems first reblog of this post was at 17:51:49. and their second reblog of the post was at  17:53:48. under 5 minutes apart from one another, meaning tords reblog must’ve been around 17:52. but it just isn’t possible either way.

you may think that this is all that tord has done, but it really isn’t. despite all the information in this callout there is still a lot here that isn’t shown. this was thrown together as a sort of “birthday gift” for tord. i hope you appreciate your gift, tord.

#racefaker tord #nyadmin #fatphobe #amblyopic #r slur

[swannsjack]

Oh my god, can you people stop making things up and distorting facts about the Johnny Depp vs Amber thing just so that you can keep defending her??

(I’m pretty sure this will not reach anyone who actually needs it, but I’m still doing this) 

People are so allergic to admitting they’re wrong, or at least giving someone the benefit of the doubt, that y’all making up absolute bs. Calling Depp racist, misoginistic, homo/bi-phobic, and worst of all a p*dophile.

There’s literally zero evidence backing up any of it and if you fell for that, I feel sorry for you. This is all bs made up by Heard stans to make him look bad in front of people who know nothing about him. And for some people literally all it takes is when someone says something and they’re like “really?” “YES, i have no evidence to support this except for my nonsense hate and me being an awful human for making sh*t up, but IT’S TOTALLY TRUE”. and people just believe it. it’s ridiculous.

I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he’s never been any of the aforementioned things. I’m not even going to touch much on the p*dophile thing because that was made up by a Trump stan and JD hates Trump and they’re so pressed about it they have to make disgusting things like that up, and now people who were shocked by his evidence proving they were slandering him for no reason, repeat it just so that they don’t have to admit they were wrong.

No woman, except for Heard and her hoax-assisting friends, have ever said a bad word about Depp. Quite the opposite, everyone’s who met him say he’s a gentleman, kind, caring. Saying things like “there’s no one else like him” and claiming “he doesn’t belong in show business, he belongs somewhere better” -  by Sarah Jessica Parker. His first wife is not only still in contact with him, but even spoke against Heard and said Johnny never even raised a voice at her. Vanessa Paradis wrote a hand-written note defending him. So many women spoke in defense of him. 

Some people are even lying and saying he has been accused by his previous gf of abuse. HE HAS NOT. No one had ever accused him of that and no one came out during the last three years saying “oh yeah he abused me, too” they DEFENDED HIM. Please, if you someone tried to convince you that he had been accused, do not believe it, do your own research, you’ll see it that it’s not true and people are just making up rumours to support their “Heard is a victim” story.

Or her stans saying he abused her because she’s bisexual is like?? There is literally nothing to back it up. He’s never said a bad word about other sexualities. He made a decision that Jack Sparrow is bisexual. His very own daughter is not straight and have you seen how proud he is of her? He supports her and adores her with every ounce of his being. Stop turning him into something he’s not.

"If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's okay to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgement on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color."  - Johnny Depp, y’all

But guess who was arrested for abusing her FEMALE partner? Amber Heard.

Guess who accused the gay FEMALE cop that arrested her of being misoginistic? Amber Heard.

And guess who accused the same GAY female cop that arrested her of being homophobic? Amber Heard.

And guess who made a racist tweet? AMBER HEARD.

Isn’t it funny how Heard stans are accusing Depp of everything that can be said of and proven Amber Heard is??

Now for the distorting of facts:

I’ve seen a few posts/tweets being like “ya’ll jumped at some UNsourced info” blah blah. IT IS NOT UNSOURCED. They’re legit lawsuit with clerk stamps on them. And Johnny and his lawyer have referenced them!! Johnny literally said “which is why I’m suing...” and there’s been a recent statement reacting to people’s support how he’s determined more than ever to fight for justice and he WANTS his day in court to prove all that he’s saying is true. And his lawyer has been giving statements to the press for almost a year now. All of this is legit info from legit court documents. Just because you’re too lazy to look for the actual link for the whole document, that doesn’t make them false. It’s like you people think a Depp fan wrote two fake 40 page lawsuits, are you really that pathetic to suggest something like that? Waldman, his lawyer, has confirmed what the lawsuit says, it’s not just screenshot from some “unsourced” lawsuit, he repeated what the lawsuit says: 87 surveillance videos, litany of neutral witnesses, including the police, photographic evidence, audio, and sworn testimonies, as well as Heard’s admission.

And furthermore, people saying just because the lawsuit claims she confessed, doesn’t mean it’s true. Well, okay. However, she has not denied the claims. Read through her statements reacting to the lawsuits, she or her lawyer/publicist or whatever, have responded several times. But never with “I deny this”. It’s always something to make Johnny look bad. “that’s mental abuse” “he’s hell-bent on self-destruction” “ms heard won’t be silenced” “frivolous lawsuit” “just read his latest interview to see he’s delusional” blah blah blah. 

None of that includes any denial whatsoever. And some people are saying “well, so she was just defending herself!!” yeah? so why hasn’t she said that either?? Instead of accusing Depp of mental abuse, she could just say “I confessed to ‘attacks’ that were pure self-defense.” That’s literally all she’d have to say. She hasn’t. The first “she admitted” claims came out several months ago last year (y’all just noticed only this week for some reason). And in all those months, she has not denied anything. Whereas Johnny has ALWAYS maintained he didn’t abuse her, he’s always denied it. Why hasn’t she?

My second point is people saying he’s still an asshole even if he was a victim, because *references some out of context bs* blah blah, I’ve been over a part of this at the beginning. Yes, he was arrested in the past, for trashing a hotel room (no violence on people) with his then gf Kate Moss, and for chasing away paparazzi after politely asking them to leave him and his family alone. They didn’t, so he PROTECTED his family. Trying to distort that to make him sound abusive is gross. And lastly, stop using the “he punched a guy on a movie set” allegation. First of all, the guy literally ditched court, I wonder why. Secondly, multiple people have come out saying Johnny was neither drunk, nor did he punch the guy. A script supervisor even said they have time-stamped photos to prove he didn’t. However, I would not blame him if he did because HE WAS DEFENDING A HOMELESS AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN. That’s right, the accuser was being RACIST. And according to witnesses:

Danoff says they were shooting outside and Brooks (the accuser) berated an African-American homeless woman with "racial and derogatory slurs" because she was in his way. Depp was sitting next to her about 25 feet away when it happened.

"He immediately stood up from our shared seat on the edge of a planter bench and went over to Brooks to stand up for the woman," Danoff says. "Mr. Depp said to Mr. Brooks, 'You can’t talk to her like that. You think she is something less than you? Who do you think you are? How dare you?'"

What an as*hole Depp is, right?

And stop using his addiction struggles to say that proves he’s abusive or that it means he deserved the abuse. Addiction is an illness and it’s disgusting to use it against him, when he’s been so opened and honest about it his entire life /but guess who’s pretending to be perfect even though she’s in fact known to be a drug addict but she pretends she’s not, at least JD’s open about it. He’s always been an honest guy. He is not a liar/. I beg you, watch this video “I was trying to calm the brain. I was trying to feel better.” and tell me, how can you use it against him?? And note, that this was two months before Heard’s accusation, a year into their marriage, look at his appearance. He was being abused. 

He was also abused as kid, by the way. If you didn’t know.

And what’s also annoying is “none of that proves his innocence, they were both abusive then” GO AWAY WITH THIS NONSENSE. She’s been openly mocking him for almost three years now.

1) Guess who starred in a pirate film. 2) Guess who played the Mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland? Oh yeah, that would be her former “abusive” husband. 3) And the last photo is literally so disgusting. Johnny changed the tattoo with her nickname that he had on his fingers (and he wears a lot of rings on his fingers) and this human garbage posted a picture of herself with fist punching, fingers full of rings and the caption #NoInkNeeded. She is a garbage, openly mocking her victim. 

And she RECENTLY posted several photos of herself that were taken while she was with Depp (x, x - both taken years ago by Johnny’s friend Greg Williams) One on the roof of the building they lived in together where she was allegedly being violently abused. Oh the nostalgia, am I right? Her friend literally commented they miss it. WTF? They miss the place their friend was “abused” in? Oh and guess who demanded the three of their formerly shared condos in that building? Our perfect angel “abuse victim” miss Heard. I’m sure it’s very normal for an abuse victim to want to keep the place in which they were abused. Johnny Depp is the weird one for selling it and wanting no memories of it.

Stop the mental gymnastics to defend Heard and paint Depp as the worst human ever.

#amber heard #johnny depp

[lightanddarklove]

Connverse Week Day 6: Sword

Talin the Hexblade

Day 1 prompt | Day 2 prompt |  Day 3 prompt | Day 4 prompt | Day 5 prompt | Day 7 prompt 

This could really take place any time in the SU: Future Timeline. I started this back in February, but could easily fit before Together Forever, or between I Am My Monster and The Future or after The Future. I don't even mention anything about Greg's hair so this could even fit before Bluebird.

Thanks again for all the likes and reblogs! Check out my masterpost for my other writing links if you've been enjoying my writing.

Each of the characters created in this oneshot have their own character sheet I made in D&D Beyond. I'll also be linking here the drawings once I get them scanned and on my art blog of each of their portrait drawings.

Connie’s character Talin the Warlock Amethyst’s Character Wiivai the Barbarian Steven’s Character Larks Song the Bard

Gen | 4478 words | Tw: Discussions of Death, Undead creatures and Drinking in a fantasy context

Greg, Connie, Steven and Amethyst are trying out some collaborative storytelling through characters of Faerun. Or, Greg tries to tell a story through D&D and it's like herding cats. Mostly platonic, and not to be taken seriously.

“Okay,” Greg started, setting down a bag of dice and his DM screen that looked older than his son on the folding table. He looked to the other three surrounding him: Connie, Steven and Amethyst, seated around the small table, piles of dice near each player. Amethyst and Steven sat with blank character sheets in front of them and Connie’s section of the table was conspicuously free of paper. “So who knows what they want to play?” Almost immediately, Connie retrieved what looked like a nearly completed character sheet from a folder she had previously set in her lap. “Teifling Warlock, Hexblade Subclass, Hermit Background,” she declared proudly. Greg nodded sagely. “Out of the four basic roles Steven explained to me, Beatstick is the one I’m most interested in.” Amethyst answered casually. “But… I don’t want to be super reliant on armor, so the best choices are Fighter and Barbarian, right?” “Yeah,” Greg replied. “Both of them can use shields, but you can sacrifice a bit of your Armor Class, meaning how often you get hit, to wield two-handed weapons, which are stronger than those that only use one hand. Out of the two classes, Barbarian has the most HP, but some of the subclasses may draw you to one over the other.” Greg opened the 5th Edition Players Handbook and stuck a blank index card in the opening page of both classes, sliding the book over to Amethyst. “See what strikes your fancy. If you don’t love those subclasses, I got a few more for you to look at in this bad boy,” he said, patting Xanathar’s Guide to Everything on top of his stack of books. Greg turned his attention to his son. “And how about you, Steven?” “I was thinking a caster, but we need a healer, right?” Steven asked. “Well,” Greg answered, “if you didn’t want to play a healer or half-caster with healing spells, like Ranger or Paladin, I can cook up a NPC to keep you from blowing yourself up.”

“Um, the thing is, I was kind more leaning to a specific race than a class, but it’s from Volo’s Guide. Is that acceptable?” “If that’s what you want, I’m fine with it. Just show me.” Greg said. Steven presented Greg his phone to show the screenshots of the class. Greg quickly scanned the page. “Tabaxi. Dex +2 and Charisma +1. Ok, darkvision, sprint ability, climbing speed 20, 1D4 unarmed melee damage, and Perception and Stealth. I don’t see anything here that seems to be too overpowered. We’ll wanna order a copy of the book to make it easier to reference when we start playing, though.” “Ok. So for my class, if we need another caster I could do Sorcerer, or for a healer Bard is cool.” “Yeah, if you have the plus to Charisma, Bard fills the healing role fine and has a lot of fun spells when you don’t need to heal. If you change your mind, let me know.” “Yeah,” Steven said. “Tabaxi also have a quirk, so I’m gonna roll for that now while Amethyst looks over her class options.” Steven plucked the D10 from his dice pile and gave it a light toss. It tumbled across the table and landed on 0. “Oh dad, I’m sorry.” “What?” Greg answered.

“‘You can’t help but pocket interesting objects you come across.’” Steven recited. “That’s going to make things annoying for you, probably.”

“It’ll be fine as long as you don’t roll bad when stealing. Otherwise the guards will be after ya.”

“Noted,” Steven answered. “I’ll be taking the ‘Sleight of Hand’ skill then.”

“So Amethyst, you made up your mind?” Greg turned his attention to the gem sitting across from him.

“Yeah, unarmored defense and rage sounds rad.” Amethyst replied. “The totem warrior thing I get at level 3 sounds cool, but you said there were other options in the book with the eyeball creep?”

“Oh yeah, you might like Path of the Storm Herald.” Greg flipped the book open and searched for Barbarian subclasses. “The ‘eyeball creep’ is a Beholder, they’re really powerful magic creatures that have a lot of knowledge and are known to be dangerous to anybody who isn’t high level.” Greg located the page and set the book down in front of Amethyst.

“Do you think you know what race you want?” Connie asked, having been quiet since she had revealed her almost complete character.

“Well, Barbarians are strong, right?” Amethyst replied. “What’s a race that has higher strength?”

“There’s a subrace of dwarf that has Strength, and they naturally have Constitution, which is the other important stat for Barbarians.” Greg answered. “The other common race for Barbarian is Half-Orc, they’ve got plusses to Strength and Con as well. They also do more damage when they critically hit.”

“Oh Amethyst,” Steven interjected, “I got one you might like.” He scrolled on his phone and presented it to her. “How would you like to be a Lizardfolk? They’ve got a bite attack and a swim speed.”

“I can bite people?” Amethyst exclaimed. “I’m gonna chomp my way to victory!”

“I see your biting people,” Greg replied in a more measured tone, “And raise you breathing fire or spitting acid. Check Dragonborn out, they increase Strength and have a breath weapon.��

“Ooooh…” Amethyst said with a grin. “I like spitting acid.” Greg took back the Players Handbook and flipped to Dragonborn, handing the book back over.

“So, look that over, jot down your notes on your features, and then we’ll roll your stats.” Greg instructed. “Gonna give you a bit of a buff over the stats in the PH since besides the damage resistance and breath weapon they don’t have a lot of other features like some of the races do. But we can go over that once you roll.” He turned his attention back to his son. “Now Steven, did you have any ideas on what subclass you wanted? I know you don’t get your Bardic College till level 3, but knowing what you’re building towards may help you pick out what spells you want and your playstyle.”

“Valor’s cool, and when I looked into Xanathar’s I also liked College of Swords, but is there any subclasses that are like Sheppard from Druid? Where I can make friends with animals or stuff like that?”

“Oh Steven!” Connie interjected. “There’s a new subclass that they just released, College of Eloquence, which lets you talk with all kinds of creatures for 10 minutes at a time as a bonus action for one of your bardic inspirations. It’s in the newest Unearthed Arcana, I’ll look it up right now.”

“Unearthed Arcana, huh?” Greg pondered. “I haven’t heard that name in ages, but that’s just the way they describe playtest material nowadays, right?”

“Yeah,” Connie replied, pulling out her phone and searching in her recent history. “If you’re fine with stuff that hasn’t been made official yet.”

“Back in 2nd edition and 3.0 days, before you two were born, we used homebrew stuff all the time,” Greg said. “So having playtest material isn’t a bad thing, especially since people making the game are the ones putting it out. Trying out this new subclass to make yourself the role of animal tamer, if that’s what you think you want, Schtu-ball.”

“I’ll check it out,” Steven replied. Connie handed Steven her phone, and he took it graciously.

“So while they’re checking out their classes,” Greg said, “Connie, are you ready to roll your stats?”

“Yes, sir.” Connie said, picking up her set of blue and green D6s.

“Four of those, drop the lowest of each set of four to get your total,” Greg instructed. “Write ‘em down as you go and roll that seven times. Drop the lowest of the seven and place your six stats where you like.” He handed her an index card and she took it, nodding. She tossed the dice into her short dice tower and began totaling her stats.

“So,” Amethyst interjected, “I’m a black Dragoborn Barbarian and I’m thinking I like that Storm herald for when we get to level 3. What else do I gotta do?”

“Just check out the backgrounds in Chapter 4 of the Player’s Handbook,” Greg replied. “There’s more in Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, which I can pull up on my phone, if you don’t like these. After that, we’ll roll up your stats.”

“Ok, I’m done,” Connie said. “I got 15, 11, 14, 17, 12, 10. I dropped a 7.”

“If you put that 17 in Charisma and add your racial trait, you end up with 19 and that’s a +4 bonus to start with. Not bad at all. Where you placing the other ones?”

“10 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 15 Constitution, 11 plus 1 racial Intelligence, 12 Wisdom.” Connie tallied.

“Quite respectable.” Greg replied. “Now I wanted to start everyone at level 2, so you’ll be getting your evocations now and another spell. If you haven’t picked your proficiencies, do that now.”

“since I’m a teifling,” Connie said, “I’m going to take advantage of getting the darkness spell once per day for free, so my best evocations for now are Devil’s Sight and Agonizing Blast.”

“You’ve sure done your research, Connie.” Greg said.

“I’m excited to play!” She replied eagerly. “I’ve always wanted to get into a group ever since my dad and I played Baldur’s Gate when I was 11. I was only allowed to play it with the gore settings off though, when I was younger. The only time I got to play D&D was a one-shot with a few school friends but the DM that ran it moved away, and no one else wanted to try.”

“Yeah, DMing isn’t for everyone,” Greg said, nodding.

“Ok Greg,” Amethyst interjected, “I’m gonna go with the Sailor background, so am I good to roll?”

Steven grabbed the Players Handbook from in front of Amethyst since she was done with it.

“Yup. Here ya go!” Greg said, handing over the 4 six-sided dice.

“Go over the math on this one more time, would ya?” Amethyst asked.

“Roll those four dice seven times total.” Greg answered. “Each time you roll, add the three highest numbers together and write it down. Out of those seven rolls, you drop the lowest number and take those to place in whatever stat you like. Con and Strength are the most important for Barbarians, but Dex can be handy too. The dump stat for you will likely be Intelligence, like how Connie put her lowest in Strength.”

“OK,” Amethyst replied. She gave the dice a shake, before cupping her hands in front of Steven. “Blow on ‘em, for luck Steven!”

“The statistics on your dice won’t change just because somebody blows on them, Amethyst.” Connie teased as Steven puffed out a breath onto the dice. Amethyst shook her hands few more times.

“Just cause that’s true for humans, doesn’t mean is true for gems.” Amethyst countered. “Steven’s got magic spit, maybe it’ll magically make my rolls better.” With a gentle throw of her wrist the dice bounced and spread across the table. “6, 5, 6, 2. That’s a 17. And if I don’t botch the next few throws I can be the powerhouse of the group!”

“Don’t count your dragons before they hatch, Amethyst.” Greg chided with a smile. “You never want to tempt fate on the dice gods, or your campaign can be doomed before it starts.”

Amethyst scooped the borrowed dice into her hands again and with a shake rolled them again. “Aw dunk, 4, 3, 4, 2. That’s 11. Not great.”

“Keep rolling, Amethyst. Just give me the totals when you’re done.” Greg instructed. He turned to Connie with a smile. “Now Connie, unlike the other two, Warlocks often have more perspective on theism than martial or arcane caster classes. So tell me,” he leaned on his hand, “what is your character’s relationship like with her deity?”

“My character goes by Talin.” Connie replied, tone serious. “She came across her arcane focus left for her by the Raven Queen while she was exiled from her hometown. She was drawn to it from a message in a dream. If my patron contacts me it’s either with just a few words, or in my dreams. If I’m commanded, I can meditate and she can send me short messages.”

“Are you one of an order, or are you working alone?” Greg asked.

“Alone. If there are others who work for Lady Death, I don’t know it. All I know is I was chosen.”

“So what does Lady Death expect of her chosen?” Greg probed. “What is your calling, and why have you returned to the civilized world?”

“The Raven Queen wants the souls of the undead who have been wrongfully brought back or kept from peacefully passing to the afterlife in the first place. So she wants me to send back to the world of the dead ghosts, skeletons, scarecrows, vampires, and most importantly Liches. Plus I need to stop any necromancers or other magic users that create these things.” Connie replied.

“Scarecrows are undead?” Amethyst asked, rolling her dice again.

“Yeah, they’re animated by souls of vengeful spirits, whether humanoid or demons.” Connie replied.

“You didn’t say zombies, is the Raven Queen ok with zombies?” Steven asked, looking up from the Players Handbook chapter on Backgrounds.

“Zombies aren’t animated by souls, they’re just bodies.” She answered. “Like an animated armor, so if it’s not a returned soul, it’s not a problem. Skeletons are controlled by souls, despite not having free will.”

“So I’m done rolling stats, Greg,” Amethyst cut in. “17, 11, 8, 11, 17, 16.”

“We got a power player here,” Greg replied approvingly. “So by putting the 17 in Strength, you’ll end up with a 19, giving you a +4 to hit and damage. Set the other big numbers in Constitution and Dexterity. And I’ll give you an extra +1 to Con since Dragonborn are a little underpowered. So, if you make Dex 16, put the 17 in Con, you’ll end up with a +3 and +4 as your modifers, meaning your starting AC will be 17 with no shield and 19 with a shield. Pretty respectable.”

“So if I wanna take intimidation as a class skill, I wanna give an 11 to my Charisma, making that racial bonus hit 12, right?” Amethyst asked.

“You’re picking it up, Amethyst. That just leaves wisdom and intelligence left.” Greg answered.

“Kay, I’ll put the 11 in Wisdom and 8 in Int,” Amethyst replied. “Connie’s the smart one in this crew, no surprise there,” she teased, and Connie smiled as her cheeks flushed.

“So why are you rolling into town, Connie?” Greg posited.

“My Lady Death thinks I can get stronger faster with a group. There’s only so much I can do on my own, but as long as I can eventually get strong enough to be a lich hunter, whatever I have to do with my time to get there she’s in favor of.” She shrugged a bit. “I can fight a couple skeletons on my own as a level 1, but I’m sure I didn’t see a lot of them all the time. I bet I got most of my XP from beasts or bandits.”

“Sounds like someone’s playing an edgy character…” Amethyst teased.

“I just loved the potential for what Hexblade can do in combat.” She said, twirling her pencil. “So I did a lot of research and figured out what made the most sense for my ideal playstyle.” Greg set his hands together and leaned towards Connie, eyes glinting with feigned apprehension.

“So Connie, this sounds like you’re not playing a good character. Are you going the evil or neutral route? What’s your alignment?” She hesitated a moment, setting her pencil down and spinning it on the table.

“… If you really think about it, I’m fighting mostly evil undead, and Raven Queen’s an unaligned deity…” Connie’s voice came out high and nervous, the least confident she had been all afternoon. “So the case can easily be made for her followers to be neutral, right? After all, it doesn’t matter if you’re good or evil, just about everything will die eventually.” She hesitated, glancing back to Steven and Amethyst. “I just don’t want to make the team weaker if we have conflicting alignments. If I have an evil character, and one of you is playing a good character, I’ll have to trick you into thinking I’m not evil so we don’t end up constantly bickering.” Amethyst shrugged.

“My character’s not much of a free thinker.” She replied nonchalantly. “She probably wouldn’t be into slaughtering innocent people, but I don’t really think she’d have any reservations about smashing up some skeletons or necromancers. I say, if you wanna go bad, go for it.” Greg, Connie and Amethyst all turned to Steven, who had been quiet for a little while. He looked at them confusedly for a moment.

“What?” He asked.

“Are you into playing the bad boy, Stee-man?” Amethyst purred, spinning a d8 on the table.

“I-“ He froze for a second. “I could play an evil character if that’s what everyone else wants to do,” his voice tight. “I mean Amethyst and I were heels when we did Purple Puma and Tiger Millionaire…”

“If you want to play a good guy, that’s fine,” Connie interjected. “I’ll play Talin as neutral.”

“Connie, I want you to have fun, so I can play a neutral character if that’s better for the group.” Steven replied. “I think I found a background that will work for that anyway, just gimmie a sec…”

“Ok, Steven.” Greg said. “Amethyst, what’s your motivation for your character? You said she’s a sailor, right? So what brings her to port, and what reason would she have for finding an adventuring group?”

“Oh, that’s easy: revenge.” Amethyst replied with a sneer.

“Did you get kicked off your ship?” Connie asked. “And what’s her name?

“Not just that. My ship was stolen by pirates.” She answered roguishly. “I was one of the few survivors of the Silver Swordfish. I want to group up and get stronger so I can take the ship back. There’s two people that need to go down for their place in this folly. The captain of the ship that boarded my vessel, and the cad who’s heading it now both need to find an axe in their heads. My axe, specifically. And her name is Wiivai Norixius.”

“You came up with that fast, Amethyst,” Greg replied.

“Guess I’m just a natural improviser,” she said coyly.

“With what you just said, that sounds like you have a pretty specific goal in mind.” Greg replied, and Amethyst nodded. “We’ll workshop your remaining crew and your adversaries on our own time.”

“Sounds good, Greg. Oh, and when you were talking about alignment stuff, I think I’m feeling the Chaotic Neutral vibe.” Amethyst said. “Outside of my goal to take back my old ship, I’m down for whatever. Drinks, fighting, gambling, flirting. It’s all on the table.”

“Oh boy.” Greg replied, running a hand through his hair. “Well, we’ll make it work.”

“Dad,” Steven said, “I wanted to know if you were open to the Background Variants. There’s one I like if I can play around with it a bit.”

“Lay it on me,” Greg replied.

“Okay, so noble makes it easier to talk to other nobles and get common people to accommodate me, right? But I’m a Tabaxi, which is from the southern isle of Chult, so likely there wouldn’t be many noble-born families on the main part of Faerun.”

“Well, that’s true, but I can make exceptions if you’d want to play it that way. In that case, it will probably make you the face of the party. You’ll probably be doing most of the talking for the group.” Greg interjected. “All of you are playing uncommon races, so the idea that the cat-man is the most approachable of this trio makes the most sense.”

“Ok, so here’s the alternative option. Noble has a variant for knight, which gives three retainers instead of having a position of privilege, which makes less sense for a foreign noble. But I’m a bard, so instead of having knightly retainers, I could have them be my back-up band! I��m the second son of noble family, an eccentric musician who wants to get out and see the world. I’m still well-spoken and have a bit of money to throw around, but I’ve got a little crew, instead of having to worry about the names of local nobility.”

“So what’s the catch?” Greg asked.

“I would just want my retainers, or band, to be proficient in one skill,” Steven replied. “Performance with a different instrument than me.”

“I don’t see a problem with that.” Greg answered. “I still think based on your college of eloquence, and noble background you’d probably end up leading most conversations with NPCs. Connie and Amethyst will likely be pulling their weight more in combat.” Steven smiled and shrugged. “Ok, your turn to roll, Schtu-ball.”

“Okay.” He picked up his dice and gave them a toss.

“Connie, do you have your spell list finished?” Greg asked.

“Yes sir.” She answered. “But I had a question about equipment. Warlocks only start with simple weapons and light armor, and I won’t be as well equipped for the role my character is filling without some more gold. Are we only working with the starting equipment?”

“Well, ya’ll are level two, so I think we can make you guys a little richer than you started with.” Greg answered, flipping to the chart and setting it in front of her. “So in addition, we can do the table on the wealth by class but halved. I think most of you getting a hundred extra gold would be too much in the opposite direction.”

“So, I would roll the 4d4 but multiply it by 5 instead of 10?” Connie asked.

“You got it,” Greg answered, shooting her a finger gun, and dropping two d4s in front of her.

“Hook a gem up, Greg.” Amethyst said. “How many d4 do I roll?”

“2 d4, multiplied by 5. That would be a minimum of 10 and a max of 40.” Greg replied. Connie gave her 4 dice a shake and dropped them into her dice tower.

“Oh good. 11. So that makes 55 gold on top of my 5 from hermit and starting equipment.” Connie said.

“I’m open to letting you sell what you’re not using before all your characters meet.” Greg interjected. Amethyst dice clicked lightly on the table.

“I got 5. So 25 extra gold for me.” Amethyst said.

“Pick yourself up an extra weapon or two, and probably a shield, Amethyst. It’ll come in handy.” Greg replied.

“Okay so I got 17,14,12,8,12,14.” Steven jumps in.

“That’s a little low, but with your racial bonuses and placement in the right stats you’ll be fine.”

“So 12 Strength, 14 in Dex and Con, Intelligence of 8, Wisdom 12 and 17 Charisma. Tabaxi’s bonus makes Charisma 18 and Dexterity 16.”

“It’s a solid array your party has.” Greg replies. “Now roll your 5d4 for your extra money.” Greg hands the teen the pyramid shaped dice he retrieved from Connie and Amethyst earlier, and turns to Connie. “Have you decided your alignment, Connie?”

“Yeah, I still think True Neutral fits best.” She answers. “I have most of my character traits nailed down, and I think that’s what makes the most sense.”

“You know your character best,” Greg replies. “Your turn to measure your wealth, Schtu-ball,” With a quick toss, the dice lay out Steven’s fortune.

“Dad, I made out like a bandit,” Steven preened with a smile. “14 times 5 which is 70. I wanna buy a pony.”

“Hold your horses there, kiddo.” Greg replied. “Some of that money’s gotta go toward outfitting your band.”

“Huh?” Steven said, face puzzled.

“I never said that you were going to get your trio’s instruments for free, did I?” Greg asked, smiling slyly.

“Aw…” Steven mumbled. “Maybe only two of them should play and the other should be our roadie.” Greg chuckled.

“You’ll have to pick out your spells kiddo, but I think we’ve got a solid party here.” Greg replied. “Are there any other burning questions for the group?”

“Nah,” Amethyst answered. Connie shook her head.

“How do you feel about character voices?” Steven asked.

“I’ll probably do some for the important NPCs but you can expect your Joe Schmos to sound like I usually do,” Greg said with a laugh. “As for you three, you’re allowed, just don’t strain yourself or make it sonically unpleasant for everyone else at the table.”

“Anybody seen where they pahked the boat? I was jus in the gahden tryin to chahm a lady afta I hopped off the bow,” Amethyst rattled off in her Bostonian accent, and the teens at the table giggled.

“I hope you can keep that up, Amethyst.” Greg replied. “Afta all, you got do a lotta tawkin’ when ya ain’t brawlin’,” he added, slipping into an Empire city accent.

“Good ‘eavens, das quite enouf-“ Steven started before Connie cut him off.

“No Magic Brian.” She said leaning into him with a smirk.

“Aww…” he replied. “What are you gonna do?”

“Svedish.” She answered. “If my Lady Death vills it.”

“My, my, I do see a fine lookin’ miss with those horns across the bar,” Steven drawled sweetly. “I do declare I must ask for her name and buy the lady a drink,” he continued, southern accent giving him a coy air.

“Vat manner of cveature is ze cat man approaching me?” She asked shyly.

“Ok kids, save it for when we get started.” Greg interrupted.

“Aww man,” Amethyt said, “it was just about to get good, Greg!”

“I know how busy y’all are, but I want to try and make this happen once a month at least.” Greg interjected. “So if we can squeeze a session in next week or the following week, we’ll move forward a few weeks from there.”

“Most of my classes are weekday mornings or afternoons,” Amethyst replied. “So weekends or school nights after 6 are good for me. Thursdays are the only days I’m booked.”

“It depends on the projects I got going on,” Connie added. “Some weeknights I’ve got 3 or 4 nights with open hours, and other weeks I’m so swamped I have to eat at my desk most of the time. I’ll keep you posted once the weekend hits and I bang out my schedule.”

“Whatever day works for you guys, I’ll clear my schedule.” Steven said. “Just give me a couple days’ notice.”

“Ok,” Greg replied. “Good session folks. If anybody has questions about spells or rules, just text me. I got some fun stuff planned…”

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

Busts of the Trio:

If you want to see these in fullview, I’ll be posting more on my art blog in the next day or so. Thanks for reading!

#Steven Universe #Steven Universe: Future #su fanfic #Fanfiction #Connie Maheswaran #Greg Universe #Amethyst #connverse #my writing #my precious gem child #Dungeons and Dragons

[amandaleepanda]

Time to heal...

So for those keeping up with the “best friend” saga, it all came to a head last night, and I am done. I will put everything under a cut, because it’s a lot, and I’m still processing everything, so I’m probably going to ramble quite a bit. I’m also including the messages that were send back and forth, and they are a bit lengthy, so you’ve been warned.

So I’ve been kind of on the verge of trying to figure out how to handle this situation, and yesterday in therapy, my therapist and I came to the conclusion that I should tell my friend K how I feel. I wasn’t going to say anything, I was just going to hold things in, but I knew that it wasn’t fair to be upset if she didn’t know what was upsetting me (even if it is common sense). She has been acting like nothing is wrong, so I knew that I needed to be honest. I was hesitant because every time I try and talk to her about what’s bothering me, she turns it on me, gets super defensive, and then we come to an agreement that works for a while, but things go right back to normal. So I wasn’t exactly confident in talking again, but because I was still so hurt by things, I knew that for me to start to heal, I would need to be honest. 

I typed up a letter, showed my sister and cousin, and waited for a while to make sure I said what I wanted to and didn’t need to revise anything. I’m not going to post screenshots because I was having so much trouble with them, but I have them in case someone wants to call me a liar or something. 

This is what I sent to her: 

I’m not trying to start anything with you, and I know you’ve got a lot going on, but I also know that there’s never going to be a perfect time to bring this up and I don’t want it to just stew for months and months. There have been some things that have bothered me, but one really hurt me a lot, and I feel like I can’t really be upset with you if you don’t know what upset me. I know that you’ve had things going on in life, and I know that with anxiety, sometimes you isolate, I do the same thing. But even before your anxiety got bad again, I feel like you weren’t as good of a friend as you could have been. I had things going on, and it’s not like I was quiet about them, and you never reached out. I know that sometimes Facebook is hard because you don’t always go on, and sometimes statuses and things get buried, but honestly, if you reached out regularly or at least every so often, it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t see my post. I know that I haven’t reached out as much either, but that’s because of past issues. I went through a period where I realized that I needed to reach out more and put in some effort, but when I did, I felt like it wasn’t reciprocated. Like even in the group chat, I’d be engaged and trying to put in some input, but whenever I’d bring something up, it’s like you weren’t that interested. Maybe you didn’t realize you were doing it, but that’s how I felt. So, I sort of stopped reaching out because I didn’t see the point I guess? I’ve always sort of felt like you paid more attention and wanted more attention with your issues or stories than you paid to mine. It felt really unbalanced. One example is with the Allen thing when it first started. I tried to give input and I tried to engage, and even tried to offer advice. When I messaged you about Marcus, you seemed like you were trying to shut it down before it even started. You weren’t really happy for me, and just sort of blew it off and were kind of negative about it. So, I felt like things weren’t balanced. Also, when you tried talking to us about the birth control thing, when I was just trying to caution you, I felt like since I wasn’t telling you what you wanted to hear, that you were defensive about it. I know that happened a long while ago, but that’s just an example that comes to mind. So yes, I know I haven’t reached out as much recently, but that’s because I’ve kind of stopped wanting to try because it always ended up the same. Another thing that sort of bothered me, was that when I was having super bad anxiety issues and couldn’t bring myself to go to work, I feel like you were very dismissive of it, and just kept telling me to push through anyway. It’s like you weren’t being the support that I needed. But now that you’re having those anxiety issues, you want that support from me, and there is a part of me that feels like I should just tell you to push through it and dismiss it like you did to me, but I know that it doesn’t help. Which is probably why it hurt so much when you did it, only to have you expect a better reaction from me later on. But the thing that really hurt me and was kind of the back-breaking straw here, was that you didn’t say a word to me when I had to put Wubbs down. You asked what was happening when I first posted about him being sick, but after that, you didn’t really reach out. I kept updating everyone, and again, even if you didn’t see the updates, you could have messaged me to see how he was. Maybe you reacted to the post about me putting him down, I honestly can’t remember, but you didn’t message me or anything. You didn’t ask to see how I was, and I was in a bad place. That honestly hurt so badly, and I still have a lot of hurt about it, hence me writing this, because I need to try and heal. My first instinct was to give you a pass because I know you had lost your job, and I know you’re dealing with Mike, and your own anxieties and had Covid too. I get it. But you couldn’t send two words? Not “I’m sorry.” I would have taken that, but you didn’t say a word. When I was dealing with the grief of losing Grandma, I reached out to see how you were doing. I reached out about you losing your job, I reached out about Mike and checked in with you about him. But I didn’t get two words from my best friend. My aunt, who had just buried her father the week before, reached out. My two internet friends who I’ve never met before, checked in several times, and were right there for me when I had to put him down. Maybe you don’t think that it’s a big deal because he was just a pet, but to me, it was a lot, and it would have meant a lot to me to have you reach out. I understand anxiety is weird, and depression is weird, and sometimes when you have a lot going on, it’s hard to reach out, but honestly, it would have taken a few seconds to send even two words, and you didn’t. I thought that maybe you just weren’t on Facebook, but you were tagging people in things, commenting on things, and you reacted to my posts, so I know you saw them. That makes it even worse, I think. You had time to message about Greg’s lives and Aaron Carter, but you couldn’t reach out to me when I was going through something so big and so hurtful and scary. I know that I’m not perfect, and I know I’ve been a bad friend in the past, but I tried to do better, and when I was met with dismissal, or negativity, but expected to give the opposite, I got tired of it. It wasn’t fair, and honestly, it drained me. I know that I probably still could have reached out more, but after so much of the same thing, I gave up. I haven’t even really wanted to send this message because the last time I tried to tell you how I felt, I was guilted about causing you panic attacks, so I felt like I couldn’t say how I felt. Not saying that you guilted me, I honestly don’t remember if you told me that directly, or if mom told me, but I was told repeatedly. But I need to heal because it has been over a month and I still feel so hurt by it all, so I’m telling you how I feel. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, or be a jerk, but I’m so hurt, and I need you to know that so that I can start to heal.

I made sure to use “I” statements, like my therapist recommended so that I didn’t come off as completely accusatory. I tried to word it as me explaining how I feel, and wanted to open it up as a conversation. I was totally prepared for her to say, “Hey, you’ve been doing x, y, and z.” and I would apologize, like I sort of (but not really) expected she would do. I wanted to have a conversation so that we could attempt to fix this. Now I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to fix it, because it has happened so many times before, but I knew that I had to at least try. 

This was the message that I received back from her: 

I'm hurt by a lot of things that have been done (or not done) from your side as well. Honestly, I haven't been talking to anybody. I'm not in a good spot. Haven't been for a long time. And trust me, I have tried with you so much, but I always failed. No matter what I do, it's never the right thing. I've kept how I feel to myself because I know you're struggling. Honestly, right now, I don't even know what to say in response. I don't want it to turn into a big thing, but I always end up getting long messages from you about how shitty of a friend I am. Literally out of the blue. No matter what I do. And honestly...after I found out that Mike had cancer, I didn't even talk to him for probably at least a month. I have tried so hard with you, but it's never really been enough. I have YEARS of stuff that have hurt me regarding our friendship, but I really don't see the point in pouring it all on you. Especially because I know you're struggling with your own stuff. Not to mention, you don't really know how bad it got with me. I feel like it's mainly your Mom who reaches out. Occasionally, you. And with the Marcus thing, I was terrified to see you get hurt because I hate when you're hurting. I was trying to be supportive, and help you, but without pushing you, or getting your hopes up because honestly I was already pissed at him. He was using you, and trying to take advantage of you. And I hated that. But if I told you that, then you would shut me down in an instant. You have turned your back on me SO many times growing up. But I'm not going to get into all of that. Yeah I feel bad about not reaching out more, but that's literally with everybody. All of my closest friends and all of my family. But you also don't know how bad of a place I've been in. And I've always struggled with anxiety, and other problems, but I had to push through it because no one else was going to pay my bills for me. I had to support myself completely. Hell, when I lost my last job, I HAD to find another one right away. Even if I didn't like it. Even if I'm struggling with my anxiety, depression, bipolar, etc. Along with other health issues that have come up for myself as well. I'm not a perfect friend, but I am not a bad friend. And I won't let anyone tell me I am. If you don't realize all that I've tried to do for you over the years, and you just want to think I'm a bad friend, then so be it. I can't control your thoughts.  And I won't apologize for what I've been going through. I can't apologize for that. But I tried to be there for you at the same time. I just always get shut down.

I’ll be honest, this message made me stomach sick. She KNOWS that me not working has always been something I’m insecure about, she KNOWS that I am forever grateful and at times guilty about how I was raised. For her to use those things as ammo was low as shit. I would NEVER do that to someone, especially if they were telling me that something I did hurt them. She had no right to invalidate my feelings, she had no right to basically tell me she’s not going to apologize for hurting me. She also proved my point that she only partially hears or picks and chooses what she hears when it’s from someone else. If the tables were turned, she would demand that I heard every single thing she said and groveled at her feet. But since it was about my feelings, and since I pointed out something that she literally did wrong, I’m the asshole. 

So after sitting with that for a moment, I sent her this reply:

This is why I don't message you about how I feel, because you just go on the defensive, say hurtful things that you KNOW will hurt, and refuse to acknowledge or give validity to my feelings. I wasn't trying to start anything, I was telling you how I feel, and you can't even say sorry for not reaching out to me when I put Wubbs down? You couldn't even say sorry for that? I honestly don't even know what to say, because I'm a little shocked at your response, and your blatant disregard for my feelings, and that you want to use things that I've been insecure about as a defense. That's absolutely absurd to me. I admit that I've haven't always been a good friend, and I apologize for that, I have apologized for that in the past, yet you just do what you always do, turn everything on me, and try to hurt me worse. I don't know where to go from here. And I never wanted to play "who has it worse", I never want to play that game, I was saying how I felt and how you made me feel.

To which she replied with this: 

Literally anything I say, unless it's JUST an apology, you're going to say that I'm being defensive and trying to hurt you. So I don't really know where to go from here either. And if I say anything about how you've hurt me, then I'm just "trying to hurt you" or "bringing up old stuff that I shouldn't” So oh well

She didn’t even acknowledge that she hurt me, nor did she care. She just turned it on me, like she always does. 

I replied with:

Wow. That kinda tells me all I need to know.

And she “thumbs up” reacted to that. My “best friend” of over 20 years. I never said she was a bad friend, I would have been open to a discussion, and if she would have given me a list of things that I did wrong to her, I would have apologized if they hurt her, but she didn’t. This is always how it is with her, but her coldness and lack of empathy really threw me off guard. How can someone claim that they care and that they’re the better friend, and then act like that? 

I couldn’t comprehend how someone could act like that towards someone. I don’t care what’s going on in your life, I don’t care what kind of place you’re in, you don’t EVER treat someone like that. I was there for her when I was in a bad place, and I didn’t just use my bad place as an excuse to treat her like shit. All I wanted to do was open up a conversation so we could try and fix things, and she did that. She proved my point that she doesn’t care, and that she doesn’t want to fix anything, she doesn’t want to own up to anything, she just wants to act like everything is fine like she has been for the past couple weeks, and forever before that. 

If this can be fixed, it’s going to take a LOT of work. It’s also going to have to be initiated by her because I refuse to let her think that it’s okay to treat me like that, no matter what someone is going through. I’m done at this point, and I’m going to be starting to heal from it all. 

I just needed to get this all off of my chest because it’s a lot to process, and a lot to deal with. Yes, I’m going to be talking about it in therapy, and though it sucks, I sort of feel a weight lifted off of me. I did what I could do.

#the anxious trash speaks #friendship