"It's about second chances, Neil."

i've broken multiple (6) bones before and i know that shit never really stops hurting. i mean yeah at some point the break heals but the bone will ache and pulse wih pain for like no reason at all

so here this: one day, neil doesn't get out of bed before andrew. neil... doesn't get up at all? andrew blinks his eyes open, ignoring kevin's blaring alarm in favor of looking at neil. neil's still in bed next to him, body tightly curled and face twisted with something andrew doesn't like.

andrew gets up and carefully shuffles out of the bed without disturbing neil. it's clear he's awake, but for some reason he's still in bed. usually on the days that neil indulges in losing his run and staying in bed, he's quick to be out of the bed before andrew, or quick to follow after him. but here, here he's still in the same position as andrew stands over him, observing.

"neil?" he asks. on neil's bad days, he half beats himself to death with exy and runs himself into the ground. he does not however, stay still. something, is wrong.

"hurts" is the grumbled response from under the sheets. it makes andrew's fingers twitch with a need to help, do something--or maybe he's just craving a cigarette. he wishes he could go back and kill everyone that had hurt neil, but he can't. so he doesn't voice this.

instead, he asks, "what do you need?"

"pressure--you on top of me. i don't--it aches. yes or no?" neil grates out. clearly he think's weight on him would help, andrew doubts it. neil knows better than to use andrew to hurt himself, though, so he nods.

neil roll onto his back, leaving himself in a supine position. andrew climbs him and lays down, nearly chest to chest save that andrew is a bit further down with his ear to neil's chest. he listens to the steady heartbeat, lets it soothe the part of him hissing at the contact.

He would never call them that, of course. He wouldn’t even in his head. But there’s something there nonetheless.

These scraps show up in ways that are shockingly good morals for someone who is filled with shades of gray and darker.

He never opened a brothel like every other crime boss in the Barrel. Even though we can certainly assume that makes good money, he didn’t touch it — even before he even knew Inej and her story. He never participated in the trade of peoples’ bodily autonomy. I’ve heard arguments that this is due to his touch phobia, but that wouldn’t really make sense, because in order to run a brothel he obviously wouldn’t have to physically participate as well.

He believes that fathers must love their sons until Jan Van Eck proves him wrong. He was willing to bet on it — and he LOST. He believed a parent must love their child so certainly, and he was surprised and disgusted that even that was a line people crossed.

He doesn’t harm young children — or he at least avoids it as much as possible. He scares them and threatens them into compliance — which yeah is a shade of gray morality for sure. But he doesn’t harm them, and he doesn’t kill them, and he rarely offers people his age or older the same mercy.

He also has certain morality for how to treat people that work for you. In the beginning, when Jan Van Eck has kidnapped him, Van Eck calls him and his methods violent. Kaz points out that most of Van Eck’s ships never come back, that people who worked for him died on those ships, and tells Van Eck’s to not speak of violence when that is something he does. He’s not denying his own violent nature, but he’s clearly showing an opinion that that is yet another unjust action Van Eck takes, and also shows distaste at the hypocrisy of it.

To further prove show this point, in chapter 26 of SoC, if I remember correctly, he is looking for Pekka Rollins in the cells, BUT once he gets there he realizes it’s making him late to meet the others, and that they could all die without him performing his part of the heist, he feels guilt, and so he restrains himself from actually wasting time murdering Pekka and goes to continue the heist. Now, he’s already very bonded with Inej and Jesper at this point, so that makes sense, but even though he is somewhat less bonded with the others crows, he still thinks about wanting to get his whole crew out safe. I feel like this ties into treating his workers/crewmates with a form of respect/equality/responsibility.

So, for a man who has so little regard for his shortcomings (until Inej), who kills and takes advantage of peoples’ foolishness and darker natures and doesn’t give it a second thought, there’s still something in there. Maybe you couldn’t call them morals in the traditional sense, but there’s a sense of justice there that still shifts his actions.

yeah, sadly. gen ai was built to be addictive. I know a lot of people (not necessarily saying the majority of them, but a lot of them), who talk to ai like it’s their friend, struggle with mental health issues and are lonely. and then there are always these “morally superior” people who say “well just talk to real people, just find a friend” and it’s actually not different from “oh you’re homeless? just buy a house! oh you’re depressed? just be happy!”

sure, you (general you) could say “there are people who want to be your friend, especially in online space, just reach out” but I don’t think these people understand that for those who are struggling with mental health issues, waking up and getting out of bed can be a challenge. reaching out to people and talking to them are not something they can “just do it”. ai was built specifically to be “easy” for them. the same applies to people who struggle with mental health issues and turn to ai for fanfics, people who struggle with mental health issues and have ai write fanfics for them, people who struggle with mental health issues and talk about their blorbos and their fic ideas with ai, or people who struggle with mental health issues and ask ai to be their beta reader. ai was built to be convenient, easy, accessible and addictive for these people. I’ve already seen this happen to so many people in my life.

and I promise you, the last thing these people need is for the internet mop to harass, mock and insult them. you (general you) are not making a single thing better by resorting to being a bunch of bullies who find a shiny new noble excuse to harass people whose struggle you know nothing about.

AO3 team will NEVER contact you via your fic’s comments section!!!!!!!!

if you get a comment from someone claiming to be from AO3 in any way, shape or form, IT IS A SCAM.

if you get a comment from someone claiming they work with AO3 and that your AO3 account has been compromised or restricted somehow and that you must contact xyz or open a link they give, IT IS A SCAM.

they want to hack your account and/or steal your credit card/personal information (because the link they want you to click on will require your login info and/or your other sensitive information!!!!)

*the same scam tactic can be seen on tumblr where these scammers claim to be someone from tumblr team too

DO. NOT. FALL. FOR. IT!!!!!!

here’s AO3’s official statement about it

Not only do i like to make plans, but i's also something i kind of have to do to picture the place and make it plausible and accurate - escpecially if i want to make a comic.

That plan fixes the mistakes i made for the lounge one i did last year. I still believe the lounge looks like this somewhat, but i picture it wider now, the room was too small. Making those plans i had to remember that a usual exy team can fit up to 30ish people in it, so common rooms had to be large, each locker room should be able to fit ~15 people and so forth.