#I’m kind of stressing about it

[blurglesmurfklaine]

OKAY TUMBLR I NEED YOUR HELP MAKING A DECISION:

It’s kind of a long story, but let me set the scene.

It’s 2021. I am working on the South Side of San Antonio. Unhinged, unmedicated, underpaid and still looking for dates on a stupid app because idk I was bored and sad or whatever!

I match with this girl, let’s call her Alexa. We’re texting and vibing it’s all going well and we decide to meet up. The date does not go well in my opinion—she didn’t ask me any questions about myself, talked over me frequently, and just generally gave me the vibe that she wasn’t looking for companionship so much as like. an audience. Date ends, she says we should do it again.

Let me preface this by saying I KNOW I WAS IN THE WRONG HERE. But as you can guess, my passive ass was like: sure! And then proceeded to ghost. Because I am The Worst I KNOW OKAY

Flash forward to 2023. New job on the East Side. I’m working closely with the theatre teacher at new job. She is from out of state—same place Alexa is from. I don’t think anything of it. Then she mentions her former roommate, Alexa.

It’s a pretty common name right???? Surely it cannot be THE SAME PERSON I GHOSTED THREE YEARS AGO??? I look up on Facebook. It is.

Theatre teacher and I are very close now. We are working besties. I have been invited to her birthday party. Where Alexa may or may not be.

[stuckinapril]

friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me

[feelingtheaster99]

I know Beardsley already alluded to thing but it was really sad and powerful when Kristen tells Cassandra that she knows “chaotic is not cute.” And then Cassandra straight up tells her, “I can’t rely on you.”

And Kristen and the entire audience have to agree. It’s really humbling for me as an audience member but I’m guessing also for Kristen in that moment

[puppyeared]

its so hard to watch time pass when things like careers and assignments exist. what do you mean im supposed to take that seriously

[mylittleredgirl]

decided it’s time to cut myself a break when i “overreact” to something, because there’s basically always an impressive number of things in front of it that i’m not reacting to. which is probably true for everyone on earth actually.

[goldensunset]

you know how in school they’d always make you (still make you) like choose random topics to give class presentations on while everyone politely clapped even though they didn’t really care about your powerpoint on fungi or whatever bc they’re too worried about getting their own over with. tumblr is like if every single person in the room was paying full attention and was absolutely stoked about it and gave you wild applause and wolf whistles at the end. you can just get on stage and talk about coelacanths and you become a celebrity for a few minutes. like on tumblr it’s on your own terms so it’s like oh snap education is actually supposed to be fun

[shepscapades]

When i very first started reading this I was really excited xisooma was in it but was a wee bit disappointed in how littel he was, BUT I TAKE IT ALL BACK YOUR SERVING ME SOME GOOD STUFF!! Like like him and doc prioritizing each other and him seemingly getting closer with him and eaaaahhhhhhh thanks :>>

EEP yeah!!! Yeah, I’ve very much fallen in love with xisuma throughout this process. It’s been a joy to have him so prominent in this part of the au, and I love him so much, so I must give him the special angst treatment >:]!! If this is any consolation, Xisuma strikes me as someone who doesn’t SEEM as strong or intimidating or scary as you might expect because of how soft he speaks and how kind he is and how DERPY he is, but throw him in a stressful situation and he does a total 180. Let me just say that, if it were anyone else being slammed to the ground like that by a blood thirsty corrupted android, they would not be doing so well. Xisuma is strong— way stronger than he lets on, imo. He’s holding Etho back from doing who knows what, and I think that’s plenty impressive. HES EVEN ASKING IF DOC IS OKAY WHILE HOLDING ETHO BACK!!! Idk man I have a lot of feelings about him

I’m also really happy people are noticing him and doc prioritizing each others’ safety. It’s really special to me 🥺 I just think they should be research partners who care a lot about each other!!! That’s all!!!

[antiquepearlss]

Tangled The Series would have been very different if Varian were voiced by John Mulaney, huh?

[fumifooms]

You’re the resident chilchuck expert, so I was wondering about it there’s any canon evidence that he did smoke or drink alcohol when the kids were younger. I always thought it was something he picked up due to the strain of long jobs, when the kids were already older, but you seem to think differently and I was wondering if there was anything in canon that made you think that way!

Now that you mention it I guess it’s true there’s no evidence he did. Smoking we literally only know he does at all because of one post-canon panel where he has a pipe, so no, maybe this stick-looking thing in the panel below too though, I’m not familiar with medieval blunts eh. We’ve only gotten one panel of him and his daughters interacting when he was younger so that’s not too insightful on that end, and every time we see him young and freckled it’s in a job context so again not really where we’d expect him to be drinking. The earliest proof (/heavy implication since we don’t see inside his cup I guess) is 3 years before canon when Laios hired him, where he’s at a bar, classily placed in front of all the bottles ✨

Yes alcohol is almost certainly a way through which he copes especially with stress, so if we go with the theory he started around when work got stressful, well… Chilchuck started working as a dungeon diver ~10 years ago so when he was ~19, making Mei, Fler and Puck ~6 and ~4 respectively, so from that draw the ‘stressful enough to start drinking’ line wherever. We don’t know what he did before that with any certainty, and it could be he did odd jobs, lived off mostly mutual aid and community work, or just focused on only raising the girls. Half-foots tend to be poor and I see a lot of that in Chilchuck specifically so I don’t think he could have afforded to not have some paying work though.

Alright, so then why do I think he did drink when the girls were younger?

I give a more complete rundown of the info we do have on his alcoholism & his family with panels and references + all the speculation I make from it here. But the most targeted and objective answer I can give is:

Of course there’s just very very little we know of Chilchuck’s life with his family, and I think that’s by design too. I think the details being up in the air is to allow more nuance of the topic, like, will trying to reconcile go well, is their relationship salvageable? We don’t know, because we don’t know. So the message of giving hope a chance even if it’s a long shot, that things could truly go either way, is more relevant, impactful and meta in that way. How long was he usually away for work travels into dungeons here and there? How did he act with them? All we can really do is "it’s likely that", it’s a game of which way we think it’s more implied. There’s no right and wrong answer, it’s all Marcille-like larping the events out.

My main reason for thinking he did is that his father died from overdrinking and Chilchuck is very aware of that. He mentions his death casually in the extra about their stance in alcohol and in his Adventurer’s Bible profile, etc. He acts towards the alcohol presumably the same way his father did: with abandon, uncaring for the health effects, probably happily too considering Chil says "dying doing something you love is a good way to go". Very nonchalant. So you see what I’m saying here right, wether he started early or late, his view of alcoholism is very influenced by what he saw of his father growing up, it’s something he’s always been aware of and saw in a mostly positive light, something that was inherited you could say. It’s something that was normalized to him from a young age. Regardless or where it goes from there I do think this part is pretty inarguable. If he views it positively and we know that in the present alcohol is his favorite food that he loveees, why would he have held out on it? Personally that all makes me think he started drinking very young, especially since I don’t think they limited alcohol to age as much as modern standards (and I mean, teen drinking is obviously still a thing). And here you could argue, maybe his father only started being more alcoholic later when Chilchuck moved out, or something! And to that there’s nothing I can say except I think that’s a strained theory, and that Chil might even have largely cut contact with his family after moving out (since he and siblings are listed as almost strangers and he doesn’t seem to have much emotional attachment to his parents, but also we know he rents out his place to "a relative"), but it’s true we have no evidence. "I’ve picked up the same unhealthy substance abuse as my father haha! No big deal right haha" repeated several times to me just reeks of intergenerational trauma, & the alcoholism gene as they call it. Like effortless sliding into drinking as if it’s second nature, it’s natural after all, it’s normal after all, it just makes sense, it makes you feel good and that’s what matters.

BUT from my interpretation then we have a whole other layer: Alcohol is of course not all bad always. I think he’s always liked alcohol and drank it on occasion and it brought him joy etc etc, but I think here the implication in the question is, how much effect did his drinking have on the family relations and how early? And that isn’t so much about when him drinking started but when the alcoholism started. Addiction is defined by a habitual need, that has negative effects from filling that need (physical, psychological, social, etc) and negative effects from withdrawal. If Chilchuck drinks to cope and he can’t not cope without it, that’s addiction, if it affects his relationships, if it’s a need he has, it’s addiction. Addiction can be very insidious or look very casual, and how much people around the person are affected by it is case by case. Cheerful drunks can be sooo annoying and uncomfortable though let me tell you. Drunks are drunks. And this sounds harsh, but even if people around them don’t mind drunks it’ll still have some effects here and there, living with one can be such a challenge, ily drunks good luck with everything much like Chilchuck you deserve good things 🫡　

Ok so with the dad thing and the "ok well maybe he’s always drunk casually but it grew worse with time around when he started working as a dungeon diver" precision made, the other bit of info we have that can inform this is that Chilchuck is on a harsh diet and that alcohol is a hunger suppressant. We know Chilchuck "used to be fine not eating for two days", that literally on screen to quench his hunger so it doesn’t keep him awake he goes to drink water, drinking is his instinct to hunger. Again alcohol is a hunger suppressant and if you want info on that the internet has a lot of research and anecdotes about it. He diets to be light enough to not trigger traps, so it’s something he’d have started after dungeon diving most likely. Between the stress and the diet, yes it’s extremely likely he started going harder on alcohol after he started working in dungeons. There’s arguments on wether two days without eating is less bad for half-foots than humans, but apart from smaller portions there’s nothing that indicates half-foots should get less than 3 meals a day. They need less food but that’s because their bodies are smaller: the need is proportional to the body, not smaller than others’ races, the % of need is similar even if the kg amount of food isn’t. There’s also a popular headcanon with support basis that half-foots run hot and have a faster heartrate and whatnot, and that points towards a faster metabolism rather than a slower one: a bigger need for eating rather than a smaller one. He has the same bmi, 18, as Mickbell, but perhaps because Chil is much taller he’s less intensely visibly underweight with ribs showing than Mick during the bath extra, it’s most apparent when he becomes tallman.

Alcohol is something so important and omnipresent in his character that I have trouble believing it’s something that was part of only a small fraction of his life. It’s his immediate go-to, his no-brainer solution to a good time, I’ve sort of always assumed especially after looking at his family that it’s something he discovered decently young. Like he just acts like someone who’s always had alcohol to fall back on and started young idk. Alcohol is one of his 5 keywords. Alcoholism is very ingrained into his world view and life, his "it doesn’t matter" stance his ‘work hard play hard’ mentality his idea that the world is harsh so you get relief where you can, so it just makes sense to me that it’s always been in his life, if not actively then at least looming.

So yes, in summary, my take: Alcohol was always something he wholly enjoyed to an unwise level, but it could have been considered casual until he started working into dungeons and his need for it on a regular basis intensified. Alcohol has always had positive association to him as far as we see, so when it started being a problem he didn’t see it as such. To quote him, "I drink anytime I get the opportunity to". Why always? Approval of father’s alcoholism. Why alcoholism at all? Diet + stress & coping mechanism & emotional stunting + relationship issues, and she decided she had enough after they went out for drinks.

Conclusion

Chilchuck having drunk from a young age makes sense to me and it’s the strongest narrative angle I see on the table, but that’s objectively a me opinion, yes! There’s no evidence, moreso there’s canon basis and supporting info, but it’s all very left up to interpretation. I’ve made my own interpretations of things from the scraps we see, like everyone else making Chilwife and daughters content. Wether you have a stance on the topic or prefer to leave it vague in your takes, it’ll be a matter of what you think makes most sense, or what you’d rather believe I suppose (which is literally fine)

There’s a lot of subjectivity in even just setting up causal links like you probably noticed during this and I was careful with my word choices, because we’re just extrapolating from what we see and unless Kui states it explicitly from a reliable mouth all we can do is have informed opinions on most things. This particular interpretation is influenced by other details I’ve come to form about my interpretation of Chilchuck too, the more psychological and emotional sides of him and the timeline and how his marriage even happened, unplanned pregnancy imo. Like I hope you see what I mean, this wasn’t supposed to be a speculation post just a quick simple answer but there’s sort of just no other and concise but complete way with the subjectivity nuance to put "maybe it could be yes because of this but maybe it could be no because of this" haha

Edit: Wait the phrasing on this… Interesting. "In recent years"— This does imply that if not just his alcohol consumption increasing then the diversity and quality of it did, so either he indeed did start drinking more (not necessarily meaning he didn’t drink before) assumedly because of his wife leaving, or he started drinking other/more different kinds of alcohol maybe due to the union he formed + his experience gave him greater salary than he had previously (and no wife and family to provide money for), a mix of both perhaps.

[sanitymakesposts]

I don't like when people talk about politics in fandom spaces

I don’t like it when my puppy dog eats trash and gets a sick tummy dude it sucks. She only does it occasionally but I’m like woah dude what’s up with you and she just looks all guiltily at the trash can and I’m like oh aren’t you a little garbage girl and she’s just like… yeah…. I may be… you mind if I puke a lil….

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Feeling a certain way about that latest bsd interview concerning Akutagawa and the treatment he suffered

(that way is bad.)

[yorkiegregg]

On the topic of self-sustainability, I genuinely think a HUGE amount of us could benefit from this - just like in many other past situations - and especially now. The joys of being self sustainable is that you can go as deep into it as you want or just do a few things that make you feel involved or good!!! You could hone-in and build your own damn root cellar, then go the food preservation route and understand to not rely on big market chains anymore that are becoming more unreliable - or you could simply watch some people from afar who do partake in being sustainable and support them. You could understand food waste, you could contribute to making your own clothing out of your own harvested materials, you could simply have the mindset that - no matter what, there is a way… there is so much you can do. And so much of it, genuinely, will make things so enjoyable or otherwise so much more clear for you. Trust me.

[mars-ipan]

i think i’m one ‘o them relationship anarchy enjoyers

[rowlfthedog]

Having a very difficult evening, would any of you happen to have spare silly muppet images……

[skyward-floored]

“Being an adult isn’t that bad” CAR INSURANCE!!!

[transmechanicus]

I’m allowed one (1) vent of the colossal amounts of pressure my body and mind are under per month and i usually do my best to bury it in the early hours of the morning, so now that i’ve provided this valuable and important context:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA