fishy

^ 
 
Also @fishy for that HMM react.

Imagine this: you’re talking about me, a very hot topic, in gen chat. You type, “oh yeah, fishy is the actual fucking coolest! She’s awesome and I’ve never encountered anyone so great.”
 
You send the message.
 
Someone corrects you a moment later, reminding you that this cool motherfucker uses they/them pronouns, not she/her pronouns. What do you do?
 
Your first option is to be a dick. This option sucks. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
“Whatever”
“I don’t care”
“lol but fishy is only one person! ha ha ha ha”
“It doesn’t really matter, you know who I’m talking about”
 
Saying those things makes you look like a jerk. Don’t do those things. Those things are hurtful because you’re effectively saying “you don’t mean enough to me to be respectful.”
 
Your second option is to not be a dick. This option is great. We love that option. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
Editing the message to use the correct word
And then, maybe after that:  
Reacting nicely to the message calling it out
“Ah shit my bad”
“Oh sorry fishy”
“Thanks for the reminder”

The best analogy I can think of is when you use the wrong name for someone. Here’s another imaginary scenario:
 
You’re sitting around a table with your friends, maybe having some lunch or something, and you’re like “oh yeah Daniel and I went hiking last weekend.” your friend Timmy, who you went hiking with last weekend, looks at you and is like “you mean me?”
 
You know what you’re not going to say? “Whatever.” “I don’t care.” “Your name doesn’t matter, I get to choose your name based on how you look or sound.” “Names don’t matter.”
 
It sounds silly, right? You’d just say, “oh haha yeah my bad”
 
 
Being wrong can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am quite understanding of people using the wrong words. Society has trained us so that when you hear a voice like mine, your brain goes THAT IS A WOMAN. I understand that, and I try to be very forgiving. For some people, you may have never met someone who identifies like me or my non-binary comrades, and it’s a really weird concept to process.
 
Most of the people on this site don’t at all intend to be hurtful or harmful with their words in that way. Some of you do, and, disrespectfully, fuck you, but the rest of you are just uncomfy when you’re wrong. Making mistakes can make you feel so silly, and I know that because I make mistakes all the time.
 
We hear a lot of things like, “respect people’s pronouns!” and, like, yeah, do that… but we don’t hear a lot of discourse about what that looks like. Respecting people is about more than getting right on the first try every time.
 
tl;dr: Being disrespectful of pronoun preferences is a dick move. Fix the error and move on.

BGOSM

Christian Mingle has announced their retirement.

Lee Xin has announced their retirement.

Hey @BOG, I know we previously had efforts to provide updates on what was happening here. The Correspondent thread gets bumped every now and then, but all that happens is "yeah i could do it." People are getting antsy, and I think that we could relax the conspiracy theories by communicating what we're doing more regularly rather than, "yeah, we're working on it."
 
I went ahead and just wrote something. If we don't find someone to do it regularly, I'll just post my drafts here. This is my very first draft, and I suck at intros. Please leave notes for review in this thread. I'll post it in like 12 hours unless there's a vehement dislike of the idea.
 
 
 
 
It’s been quite a while since the Board of Governors has issued an official update on what we’re doing. Please note that these updates are for the purpose of the general VHL member to know what we are and aren't working on. Some topics that move on and off this list may not come to fruition–we may decide that, after careful examination, the idea isn't practical or has too many inevitable opportunities for failure. These updates are not intended to signal that we have everything about it figured out.
 
Frequency of these updates is to be determined. There's no point in posting weekly updates stating that concepts are still in progress, but the goal is to reduce the amount of unknowns with relation to what people are and aren't paying attention to. Anyway, without further ado...
 
The Meta
 
We have been in the process of discussing how to resolve the meta issue in the league since late October. Our goals for the project include creating a more well-rounded competition among teams, rather than a select few teams dominating the entire league because of specific player builds.
 
A challenge we’ve faced in our search for a good solution has been a resistance to infringing upon user freedoms in building their player. We’re narrowing potential solutions so that users still have control over how they build without allowing for the current issue to persist. We’ve advanced from the initial discussion phase and are currently looking at test sims that have been run by fellow board members.
 
VHLM Waiver Improvement
 
We are currently working through a proposal to update how the VHLM Waiver System works. Right now, VHLM GMs are required to manually post in player creation threads, which takes time, effort, and availability. The proposal for improvement consists of moving the VHLM waiver to the portal. This concept was proposed in response to a deep dive into retention.
 
We reached a point where BOG members had said their piece, and we are collecting information and opinions from VHLM GMs, as they would be the primary population affected by the changes.
 
Career Point Task Revisit
 
There have been complaints (both old and new) about the career point tasks. This proposal just came forward a couple days ago, so not much has been done on this front.
 
We’re evaluating the career point tasks as they currently stand to determine whether they should be updated/returned to how they previously were. More to come on this front.
 
Additional Secondary Task
 
We received a proposal about adding a new secondary point task since trivia wasn’t running. Right now, secondary point task options include reviewing, VHL.com tasks (article, radio, and graphic), and press conferences. Although there are ways to reach cap each week the the current options, without trivia, these options may require people to complete tasks in formats that they’re not comfortable with. The goal outlined in the proposal is to offer more opportunities for forum engagement and connecting with people outside of your own team’s locker room/immediate vicinity. We are currently in the process of determining whether we should implement the proposed task, especially given the return of trivia.
 
Award Voting
Award voting is currently live! Woohoo! Offseason!
 
New Member
Spartan is ONE OF US

Hey @BOG, I know we previously had efforts to provide updates on what was happening here. The Correspondent thread gets bumped every now and then, but all that happens is "yeah i could do it." People are getting antsy, and I think that we could relax the conspiracy theories by communicating what we're doing more regularly rather than, "yeah, we're working on it."
 
I went ahead and just wrote something. If we don't find someone to do it regularly, I'll just post my drafts here. This is my very first draft, and I suck at intros. Please leave notes for review in this thread. I'll post it in like 12 hours unless there's a vehement dislike of the idea.
 
 
 
 
It’s been quite a while since the Board of Governors has issued an official update on what we’re doing. Please note that these updates are for the purpose of the general VHL member to know what we are and aren't working on. Some topics that move on and off this list may not come to fruition–we may decide that, after careful examination, the idea isn't practical or has too many inevitable opportunities for failure. These updates are not intended to signal that we have everything about it figured out.
 
Frequency of these updates is to be determined. There's no point in posting weekly updates stating that concepts are still in progress, but the goal is to reduce the amount of unknowns with relation to what people are and aren't paying attention to. Anyway, without further ado...
 
The Meta
 
We have been in the process of discussing how to resolve the meta issue in the league since late October. Our goals for the project include creating a more well-rounded competition among teams, rather than a select few teams dominating the entire league because of specific player builds.
 
A challenge we’ve faced in our search for a good solution has been a resistance to infringing upon user freedoms in building their player. We’re narrowing potential solutions so that users still have control over how they build without allowing for the current issue to persist. We’ve advanced from the initial discussion phase and are currently looking at test sims that have been run by fellow board members.
 
VHLM Waiver Improvement
 
We are currently working through a proposal to update how the VHLM Waiver System works. Right now, VHLM GMs are required to manually post in player creation threads, which takes time, effort, and availability. The proposal for improvement consists of moving the VHLM waiver to the portal. This concept was proposed in response to a deep dive into retention.
 
We reached a point where BOG members had said their piece, and we are collecting information and opinions from VHLM GMs, as they would be the primary population affected by the changes.
 
Career Point Task Revisit
 
There have been complaints (both old and new) about the career point tasks. This proposal just came forward a couple days ago, so not much has been done on this front.
 
We’re evaluating the career point tasks as they currently stand to determine whether they should be updated/returned to how they previously were. More to come on this front.
 
Additional Secondary Task
 
We received a proposal about adding a new secondary point task since trivia wasn’t running. Right now, secondary point task options include reviewing, VHL.com tasks (article, radio, and graphic), and press conferences. Although there are ways to reach cap each week the the current options, without trivia, these options may require people to complete tasks in formats that they’re not comfortable with. The goal outlined in the proposal is to offer more opportunities for forum engagement and connecting with people outside of your own team’s locker room/immediate vicinity. We are currently in the process of determining whether we should implement the proposed task, especially given the return of trivia.
 
Award Voting
Award voting is currently live! Woohoo! Offseason!
 
New Member
Spartan is ONE OF US

When I was looking through active threads this morning to write the update, I realized that we'd abandoned a thread concerning a mentorship program despite the fact that there was a lot of support for it. One of the biggest concerns with this idea is that we're losing the human element of creating & choosing a team–what if, in the case that we move waivers to the portal, we simultaneously test a mentorship gig? Thoughts?

okay i updated by adding a sentence at the end of that section to basically say "so we ARE THINKING ABOUT DOING THAT"

Imagine this: you’re talking about me, a very hot topic, in gen chat. You type, “oh yeah, fishy is the actual fucking coolest! She’s awesome and I’ve never encountered anyone so great.”
 
You send the message.
 
Someone corrects you a moment later, reminding you that this cool motherfucker uses they/them pronouns, not she/her pronouns. What do you do?
 
Your first option is to be a dick. This option sucks. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
“Whatever”
“I don’t care”
“lol but fishy is only one person! ha ha ha ha”
“It doesn’t really matter, you know who I’m talking about”
 
Saying those things makes you look like a jerk. Don’t do those things. Those things are hurtful because you’re effectively saying “you don’t mean enough to me to be respectful.”
 
Your second option is to not be a dick. This option is great. We love that option. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
Editing the message to use the correct word
And then, maybe after that:  
Reacting nicely to the message calling it out
“Ah shit my bad”
“Oh sorry fishy”
“Thanks for the reminder”

The best analogy I can think of is when you use the wrong name for someone. Here’s another imaginary scenario:
 
You’re sitting around a table with your friends, maybe having some lunch or something, and you’re like “oh yeah Daniel and I went hiking last weekend.” your friend Timmy, who you went hiking with last weekend, looks at you and is like “you mean me?”
 
You know what you’re not going to say? “Whatever.” “I don’t care.” “Your name doesn’t matter, I get to choose your name based on how you look or sound.” “Names don’t matter.”
 
It sounds silly, right? You’d just say, “oh haha yeah my bad”
 
 
Being wrong can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am quite understanding of people using the wrong words. Society has trained us so that when you hear a voice like mine, your brain goes THAT IS A WOMAN. I understand that, and I try to be very forgiving. For some people, you may have never met someone who identifies like me or my non-binary comrades, and it’s a really weird concept to process.
 
Most of the people on this site don’t at all intend to be hurtful or harmful with their words in that way. Some of you do, and, disrespectfully, fuck you, but the rest of you are just uncomfy when you’re wrong. Making mistakes can make you feel so silly, and I know that because I make mistakes all the time.
 
We hear a lot of things like, “respect people’s pronouns!” and, like, yeah, do that… but we don’t hear a lot of discourse about what that looks like. Respecting people is about more than getting right on the first try every time.
 
tl;dr: Being disrespectful of pronoun preferences is a dick move. Fix the error and move on.

Imagine this: you’re talking about me, a very hot topic, in gen chat. You type, “oh yeah, fishy is the actual fucking coolest! She’s awesome and I’ve never encountered anyone so great.”
 
You send the message.
 
Someone corrects you a moment later, reminding you that this cool motherfucker uses they/them pronouns, not she/her pronouns. What do you do?
 
Your first option is to be a dick. This option sucks. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
“Whatever”
“I don’t care”
“lol but fishy is only one person! ha ha ha ha”
“It doesn’t really matter, you know who I’m talking about”
 
Saying those things makes you look like a jerk. Don’t do those things. Those things are hurtful because you’re effectively saying “you don’t mean enough to me to be respectful.”
 
Your second option is to not be a dick. This option is great. We love that option. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
Editing the message to use the correct word
And then, maybe after that:  
Reacting nicely to the message calling it out
“Ah shit my bad”
“Oh sorry fishy”
“Thanks for the reminder”

The best analogy I can think of is when you use the wrong name for someone. Here’s another imaginary scenario:
 
You’re sitting around a table with your friends, maybe having some lunch or something, and you’re like “oh yeah Daniel and I went hiking last weekend.” your friend Timmy, who you went hiking with last weekend, looks at you and is like “you mean me?”
 
You know what you’re not going to say? “Whatever.” “I don’t care.” “Your name doesn’t matter, I get to choose your name based on how you look or sound.” “Names don’t matter.”
 
It sounds silly, right? You’d just say, “oh haha yeah my bad”
 
 
Being wrong can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am quite understanding of people using the wrong words. Society has trained us so that when you hear a voice like mine, your brain goes THAT IS A WOMAN. I understand that, and I try to be very forgiving. For some people, you may have never met someone who identifies like me or my non-binary comrades, and it’s a really weird concept to process.
 
Most of the people on this site don’t at all intend to be hurtful or harmful with their words in that way. Some of you do, and, disrespectfully, fuck you, but the rest of you are just uncomfy when you’re wrong. Making mistakes can make you feel so silly, and I know that because I make mistakes all the time.
 
We hear a lot of things like, “respect people’s pronouns!” and, like, yeah, do that… but we don’t hear a lot of discourse about what that looks like. Respecting people is about more than getting right on the first try every time.
 
tl;dr: Being disrespectful of pronoun preferences is a dick move. Fix the error and move on.

Imagine this: you’re talking about me, a very hot topic, in gen chat. You type, “oh yeah, fishy is the actual fucking coolest! She’s awesome and I’ve never encountered anyone so great.”
 
You send the message.
 
Someone corrects you a moment later, reminding you that this cool motherfucker uses they/them pronouns, not she/her pronouns. What do you do?
 
Your first option is to be a dick. This option sucks. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
“Whatever”
“I don’t care”
“lol but fishy is only one person! ha ha ha ha”
“It doesn’t really matter, you know who I’m talking about”
 
Saying those things makes you look like a jerk. Don’t do those things. Those things are hurtful because you’re effectively saying “you don’t mean enough to me to be respectful.”
 
Your second option is to not be a dick. This option is great. We love that option. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
Editing the message to use the correct word
And then, maybe after that:  
Reacting nicely to the message calling it out
“Ah shit my bad”
“Oh sorry fishy”
“Thanks for the reminder”

The best analogy I can think of is when you use the wrong name for someone. Here’s another imaginary scenario:
 
You’re sitting around a table with your friends, maybe having some lunch or something, and you’re like “oh yeah Daniel and I went hiking last weekend.” your friend Timmy, who you went hiking with last weekend, looks at you and is like “you mean me?”
 
You know what you’re not going to say? “Whatever.” “I don’t care.” “Your name doesn’t matter, I get to choose your name based on how you look or sound.” “Names don’t matter.”
 
It sounds silly, right? You’d just say, “oh haha yeah my bad”
 
 
Being wrong can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am quite understanding of people using the wrong words. Society has trained us so that when you hear a voice like mine, your brain goes THAT IS A WOMAN. I understand that, and I try to be very forgiving. For some people, you may have never met someone who identifies like me or my non-binary comrades, and it’s a really weird concept to process.
 
Most of the people on this site don’t at all intend to be hurtful or harmful with their words in that way. Some of you do, and, disrespectfully, fuck you, but the rest of you are just uncomfy when you’re wrong. Making mistakes can make you feel so silly, and I know that because I make mistakes all the time.
 
We hear a lot of things like, “respect people’s pronouns!” and, like, yeah, do that… but we don’t hear a lot of discourse about what that looks like. Respecting people is about more than getting right on the first try every time.
 
tl;dr: Being disrespectful of pronoun preferences is a dick move. Fix the error and move on.

Imagine this: you’re talking about me, a very hot topic, in gen chat. You type, “oh yeah, fishy is the actual fucking coolest! She’s awesome and I’ve never encountered anyone so great.”
 
You send the message.
 
Someone corrects you a moment later, reminding you that this cool motherfucker uses they/them pronouns, not she/her pronouns. What do you do?
 
Your first option is to be a dick. This option sucks. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
“Whatever”
“I don’t care”
“lol but fishy is only one person! ha ha ha ha”
“It doesn’t really matter, you know who I’m talking about”
 
Saying those things makes you look like a jerk. Don’t do those things. Those things are hurtful because you’re effectively saying “you don’t mean enough to me to be respectful.”
 
Your second option is to not be a dick. This option is great. We love that option. Here’s what that option looks like:
 
Editing the message to use the correct word
And then, maybe after that:  
Reacting nicely to the message calling it out
“Ah shit my bad”
“Oh sorry fishy”
“Thanks for the reminder”

The best analogy I can think of is when you use the wrong name for someone. Here’s another imaginary scenario:
 
You’re sitting around a table with your friends, maybe having some lunch or something, and you’re like “oh yeah Daniel and I went hiking last weekend.” your friend Timmy, who you went hiking with last weekend, looks at you and is like “you mean me?”
 
You know what you’re not going to say? “Whatever.” “I don’t care.” “Your name doesn’t matter, I get to choose your name based on how you look or sound.” “Names don’t matter.”
 
It sounds silly, right? You’d just say, “oh haha yeah my bad”
 
 
Being wrong can feel awkward, but it doesn’t have to be. I can’t speak for everyone, but I am quite understanding of people using the wrong words. Society has trained us so that when you hear a voice like mine, your brain goes THAT IS A WOMAN. I understand that, and I try to be very forgiving. For some people, you may have never met someone who identifies like me or my non-binary comrades, and it’s a really weird concept to process.
 
Most of the people on this site don’t at all intend to be hurtful or harmful with their words in that way. Some of you do, and, disrespectfully, fuck you, but the rest of you are just uncomfy when you’re wrong. Making mistakes can make you feel so silly, and I know that because I make mistakes all the time.
 
We hear a lot of things like, “respect people’s pronouns!” and, like, yeah, do that… but we don’t hear a lot of discourse about what that looks like. Respecting people is about more than getting right on the first try every time.
 
tl;dr: Being disrespectful of pronoun preferences is a dick move. Fix the error and move on.

I don't really see a need for this, especially considering that we intentionally don't have a tpe opportunities channel in the main discord. i get notified when you post new fantasy zone because i follow the subforum... i've thought it weird that we have a ping list, which creates more unnecessary work for you, when the exact same functionality is already built into the website

I mean I like to keep everything organized. I could see about doing a single post for all 3 leagues in the VHL forum to make it easier. Also, thank you. I know guessing the score is very difficult so I tried to do something easier / harder sometimes to spice it up.
 
 
1. Finding that middle ground is something I try to do. Sometimes I notice that the week will be very easy or very predictable and try to select other games. Sometimes its tough to tell. I check the standings as my reference but that can only go as far. I will try to make it competitive. Some harder questions like I've done during the season will try to get the number of people down.
 
2. I think I will implement what everyone is saying and cut it off on Thursday. I will have to make sure that all of the LRs will get pinged for this. Maybe there could be a fantasy zone channel in the discord so I can put it there and have a ping role? Just seeing what could work.
 
3. So I would do Fantasy Zone - Week 1 - Form and then for the results do -> Fantasy Zone - Week 1 - Results (separate thread in the VHL fantasy zone). This way I'm making it so that all 3 leagues will be there. I'll do all the work and you would only have to check the 1 post instead of 3.
 
 
Life does get in the way sometimes for me. Sometimes I'm unable to get the post out until late in the week. This season I will try to be better about that. I apologize for that.
 
Moving forward, I can stop doing those types of questions or cut it off sooner. It's tough finding questions for 3 leagues each week. I try to have some variety but it definitely catches up to me.

Yeah but the @Spartanstill makes it better.
 
I mean  yeah, I agreed with this later in the post. So I agree. @Spartan
 
Where exactly does the line for excessive pinging go anyways? I shouldn't try to find out.

the survey is not well made but a vhl census could be kinda interesting tbh

Congrats to the Ottawa Lynx! Great season everyone. Now it is time for the payouts.
 
1 TPE
@Moon
@Dabnad
@youloser1337
@Beaviss
@Jason
@ng1291
@Mongoose87
@Minion
@Telkster
@Dom
@Scurvy
@McWolf
@Alex
@TheCHEESE
@BOOM
@FrostBeard
@a_Ferk
@jaredc7
@npuBeT
@Alesime
@chikn
@DrunkMonkey23
@Blakemac22
@lemonan
@dasboot
@MetalToday
@Jack Feriancek
 
 
2 TPE
@MexicanCow123
@JB123
@Arce
@Bulduray_1
@Tate
@Frank
@Zack
@Berocka
@fromtheinside
@Squidward0
@Lemorse7
@atw2592
@UnkemptCL4PTP
@Kisslinger
@WranglersSuck
@Gaikoku-hito
@LanerDUST
@DrunkMonkey23
@OrbitingDeath
@Daniel Janser
@Ahma
@jRuutu
@TheNeonShaman
@Steve
@Ledge
@NineIQ v2
@CowboyinAmerica
@fishy
@Bojovnik
@Matt thunder
@GreenGato
@wcats
@Mr_Hatter
@DollarAndADream
 

i way slowed down on this book but i still have it and am making progress
 
bumping this thread with this tweet. enjoy
 

So….. all that time and that BOG tag was a bit wasted. It appears that somehow in the translation from CSV to ratings only the 15-gap was retained, it just got simmed 6 different times so hey, sample size I guess haha. I’ll try to fix it later.

It's twice as long as the other career PTs, and it's due before your player retires, which means it's technically incomplete. Also, for someone like me who can get very wordy and into details, it ends up being massive. I didn't mind the other career PTs at all compared to doing the biography, and I particularly enjoyed my veteran presence article.

golden.
 
I also wanted to refer to Horcrux as she/her even though I knew it was Kachur. can't stop me.
 
l o l  horcrux cared more about being misgendered than i do
 
I think this says a lot about you, and don't undermine my statement
(p.s. i slowed the podcast down to 1x and your voice is much lower than I thought it was. also you talk slower than i thought)
 
lol @ the spartan part. the horcrux v spartan feud was hilarious from my viewpoint. she messaged me, unprompted, not even after an argument between the two of them, telling me that she was trying to get spartan banned. all i could do was laugh
 
fuck you. you know what for.
 
how ironic that she was on that website. sometimes people tell on themselves and you don't even know that they're doing it.
 
-------
 
i've laughed a lot about the fact that we got played like fiddles. i was asking mod team jokingly if we could ban horcrux after various situations where she was causing problems. i was close enough to the situation that i saw what she was doing in public spaces, dealt with the situations, and gained her trust (at least for a time, she probably added me to her shit list near the end where i stopped giving her the benefit of the doubt). the whole thing feels so maniacal that all i knew how to do was laugh. how else do you react to a spectacle like the horcrux personality?
 
since then, though, i've had some time to step back and really think about the impact that the character had and on how many people they impacted. I'm a naturally giving person, with time, information, energy, etc., and i got really lucky to have not been sucked in. when she first joined, she was messaging me non-stop, and we developed a relationship about the fact that we were both queer. that was cool for me even though her energy was, like, a lot, in a way that i didn't really vibe with. we established that initial connection so easily, and, like so many other people, i got the same stories of a deeply traumatic past and a view of someone who very clearly was unwell. i think, just because of my own past and experiences with people like the person we thought horcrux was, i got lucky that my little red flags flew up and started vigorously waving–not from a mod sense in that this person wasn't who they said they were, but a self-protective series of flags that told me to get the fuck out.
 
i don't want to say that i'm an empath because everyone i know who claims to be an empath is next-generation satan. i will say, though, that it hurts to know that people were suckered into this person's shtick. it's so easy to pull people–especially good-hearted people–into a facade to bait emotional sympathy and energy. i really hate knowing that a wide range of folks that i know to be really great humans were manipulated & taken advantage of by this person.
 
it also sucks, jardy, to hear you regret so much of the time and energy that you gave this person. you said multiple times that you felt like a dummy, like you got played, but i don't think it's fair for you to hold that against yourself. we as humans shouldn't expect ourselves or anyone else to constantly have protective shields up. I think it's an admirable quality to feel confident and comfortable enough to navigate life without being on high-alert all the time. it says that you're not cynical or closed off. i understand that you feel responsible for "falling for it" or "not being watchful or perceptive enough" or "not seeing the signs," but it's really not fair to you for you to hold yourself responsible for other people's actions. horcrux did you wrong, and regardless of who that person actually is, their actions can't be undone. they did what they did, and for what reason, we'll never know.
 
i want to have sympathy for horcrux/kachur. i think i said this on the podcast i did with sam–i hope they get the help they need, because i really do think that there's something, even if not what they told everyone, that this person needs to think about and work through. a happy and healthy person doesn't do the thing that horcrux did, creating a persona and extracting information and energy and time from people. at the end of the day, you did what you thought was right, and i commend you for that. i hope that they understood the value of the friendship you gave them.

okay so this is what i learned on why the word rural sucks, science supported: 
when you write out the word rural by sound, it's just "rrl."
the english "r" sound is really unique. there's a symbol that we use for it in the phonetic alphabet, but it's not a true representation because the sound is actually made in like three different places in your mouth
so we take this sound that's already difficult to make with your tongue in a stupid place in a stupid way and we say it twice in a row. you gotta say it two times, you can't just squish them together or it's not the word rural. but we have a super weak vowel between the two r sounds so you don't even get any reprieve between the two r sounds
then we get to the l sound. because fuck vowel sounds in this word. we skip them. fuck vowels (not actually, vowels are really great and english loves those mfs). there are two different kinds of l's in english. one that's made with your tongue all the way up by your teeth (like in "light") and one that's further back in your mouth. the tip of your tongue is a little further back and you gotta make this weird shape with the back of your tongue to get the sound to move around the right way. 
the word rural is three nasty ass sounds that are made from the back of your mouth, all back to back, with no reprieve between them
 
source: @fishy