#Well that’s one question solved

[mourningmaybells]

God I KNEW Damien being 22 when he entered the priesthood made me disgusted for a reason even if I couldn’t remember why. That’s younger than what’s allowed now and I didn’t account for seminary school. He was in seminary school during his teen years (Being in seminary school for 6-8 years doesn’t mean you’ve entered into the priesthood you work up to it and then they either reject or accept/ordain you). Usually it’s after college now and not at. 16.

Christ he should’ve been at the. I don’t know what teenagers did in the 1950s.

Edit: I made a mistake.

Jesuits take up to 10-14 years of seminary

thatd mean Damien was 12 years old when he started training. A lot younger than I accounted for, and a lot younger than what is acceptable today. For the love of god get him in a college first.

The date is not him being ordained though it’s the Ingressus (Entry to the Novitiate)

[yuri-puppies]

kiki floke to thistle scale of transracial adoptee coping mechanisms

[mukuharakazui]

hi everyone ^_^ meet my concubines

[shouldprobablybereading]

Hot take of the day is that I think sanderson not letting adolin murdering sadeas have any real consequences killed like 95% of interesting debate on the morality of it

[kikizoshi]

Hello, Kizo! you've also mentioned some of the interesting aspects of Gogol's personality I haven't thought about before. Like his pessimism. He is so constantly and desperately wants to seem excited, amused, thrilled, that he's managed to fool me. But it makes sense. "The only salvation from emotions is mine or smn else's death". He is quite pessimistic, just like Dost. And he's a perfectionist. He wants an absolute perfect freedom and nothing in between. Why is he like this, maybe trauma?

Thanks for the interesting asks!

It's neat to me that Nikolai manages to fool you. What I love especially there is that, like you said, while putting on that act he's so energetic, vivacious, and drawn very enthusiastic and animated. But when he breaks character, there's a stillness to him. His shrill tone softens into a meditative tenor; his grand gesticulations withdraw into intimate gestures; his stretched mouth and squinted eyes relax into the visage of a quiet, thoughtful, introspective young man. Harukawa expresses all of this beautifully with their drawings, and I just love it so much. The glimpses we see of the Nikolai under his mask are what made me fall in love with him in the first place--it's what makes his character for me.

One thing I really love expressed in characters like Nikolai is the 'sad clown paradox', which I think fits him pretty well. It's the playful jester character who's internally cynical. Nikolai creates a persona of a spontaneous, silly, horrifically brutal psychopath, but the scant few glimpses we get of him, we see a thoughtful and caring person, so much more and so much opposite just under the surface. I absolutely adore that duality.

I'm not gonna talk about potential backstories for Nikolai; I feel like speculation there is kinda pointless for me, since it could be literally anything. But, I can talk about Gogol's influence on him a bit.

Regarding this:

"The only salvation from emotions is mine or smn else's death". He is quite pessimistic, just like Dost. And he's a perfectionist. He wants an absolute perfect freedom and nothing in between. Why is he like this, maybe trauma?

I see a lot of Gogol's influence here. I'm not sure how much you know about Gogol as a person, so sorry if this is reiterative, but it's important context (and please take my cliffs notes version with a teaspoon of salt; I'm by no means a Gogol scholar). Gogol, at the end of his life--though probably during too--was very concerned with the purity of his soul. Why isn't something I can really comment on, but it seems to have culminated in him going to a radical priest, who advised him to undertake an extreme fast (meant for monks, I believe). Gogol then burned his manuscript for the second part of 'Dead Souls', and starved himself to death over the course of about twelve days (whether or not he meant to die isn't agreed-upon as far as I can tell, but that he died as a result of this fast is). All to reach a purity of soul he felt he didn't have, and couldn't get without drastic actions.

I genuinely have no idea if this story inspired Nikolai's, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. There are a lot of parallels, and if you replace Gogol's 'religious purity' with Nikolai's 'freedom', you get a similar tragedy. Both seem based on the belief "my mortal/inherent failures/limitations are holding me back from what I need". And rather than go inwards and seek clarity through introspection, both externalise their problems and try to "fix" themselves via grand--and painful--proofs of their "faith/conviction".

There's also the parallel with Gogol's priest and Fyodor, though I'm not sure how much it tracks. Fyodor does seem to have some influence on Nikolai, but it sounds like Nikolai was already on his path when they met... that's all backstory stuff though, so who knows.

Then there's still the missing piece of 'why', with Nikolai. Why does he feel he needs to free himself from his emotions? Gogol's motive makes sense several ways: fear of Hell, self-hatred, a deep, spiraling depression. It's understandable, it's human, it's relatable. But Nikolai's freedom?

That Asagiri chose 'freedom from emotions' to be Nikolai's pursuit isn't something I've ever managed to understand. I just don't get it. I can't connect it to anything. You hear about people wanting to be numb, sure, but Nikolai's wants seem more about being capable of doing anything, or proving that he can... And he said (paraphrasing) "in spite of happiness I choose free will," so at the very least Nikolai thinks he's capable of happiness, and it's just not as important to him as his "freedom."

Yeah, idk. There's definitely something interesting there, though, that Nikolai's Ability gives him the freedom to do pretty much whatever (as Atsushi said in Sunday Tragedy), but he's so wrapped up in his own mind that he either can't see the freedom he has, or physical freedom is ultimately meaningless to him--which would make him seeking freedom through external actions an interesting failure to understand himself.

Then again, I don't know how honest Nikolai's being with himself, honestly. His whole "freedom" thing is an ever-moving goalpost. First it was torture people to death and kill himself. Then it was kill his best friend. Then it got so convoluted I won't even try to summarise it. And now he just seems lost. Giving Asagiri the benefit of the doubt and assuming this is intentional characterisation (and not just giving him plot-convenient reasons to take certain actions), Nikolai seems at best very confused (and trying to appear like he very much isn't). And, well, I'm confused too.

So yeah, all that's very interesting. Not sure how much of it was intended. Hard to tell with a character that gets like one scene every two years. And hard to tell where he'll go, considering how rarely BSD characters stay true to who they were past their debut.

Regarding the pessimism thing: ironically, I'd say Fyodor's pessimism is more optimistic in nature than Nikolai's. Because Fyodor believes in a world that can change. Fyodor believes he can make the world a better place, and is doing everything he can to achieve that. Nikolai, however, in his best case scenario, proves that it's technically true that complete freedom exists. But his world is still comprised of people in cages. It's cynical and oppressive, and his grandest hopes don't come close to changing anything for the better. I think that fits mostly very well with some differences I've observed between Dostoyevsky and Gogol.

[skymantle]

a lot of people joke about toby writing the "asgore and rudy went to the same college" bit from the alarm clock dialogue as breaking canon for a crumb of homoeroticism but. considering how noelle and dess do exist in undertale, and how rudy fell down shortly after...

hm. thinks about it all. it would explain noelle's immense strength too...

[coquelicoq]

well i've caught up on the double. which means i am depressed!!!! at least [redacted]'s death scene was homoerotic. (me fully weeping: at least this is being directly paralleled with a het lovers death scene. at least [other stuff i am redacting for spoilers but just trust me bro].) anyway to pass the time until 29 drops does anyone want to help me with a reference post i'm writing about the names of jiang li's family members? let's play a game called Name That Hanzi! wherein i give you an image of some hanzi and you give me text versions that i can copy and paste. i did my best but i hit a wall on this one. here's the image:

[ID: Screencap of Jiang Li from The Double showing her title card with her two names, Jiang Ruoyu and Jiang Li. The names are also displayed in hanzi. /end ID]

so far i've got 姜若雨 for jiang ruoyu on the left, but i'm not confident about those second and third characters (like those strokes are not even all in the right direction. but maybe it's the script?). and on the right we have 字 (zi, courtesy name), SOME CHARACTER THAT HAS STYMIED ME (help me studio audience), and 梨 (li).

(also sidenote is it just me who totally missed that she has a courtesy name? and that apparently it's li that is her courtesy name, and it's the other name, ruoyo, that no one ever uses? also sidenote of the sidenote the ruo character is the same one in her sister ruoyao's name. so maybe they have a generational name? their dad and his brothers all share a character as well (yuan, 元). their little brother bingji doesn't have ruo in his name though. so maybe not.)

[torybrennan]

show tempe gang crossover with the morris islanders would actually have been the best episode of bones ever. btw

[fandomchaosposts]

me 🤝 Lando

getting fucked over at the last possible moment

[ballwizard]

told my little sister if she solved a slide puzzle (4x4) i would take her and her boyfriend to the mall. professor laytons influence claims another soul

[istherewifiinhell]

[Laying dead on the floor] i would say i have a task complexity impairment which is that i can do things but if you put too many steps i will just give up no matter what. But i would like to say i used. MULTIPLE problem solving skills. And talked to two whole ppl. With general inquires and sounded so so normal and natural and casual yeah okay no worries. Its just the system that has fucked me.

[elegyofthemoon]

ok but do i want to actually sit and read through all the clockie animation stuff so i have better foundation for what i want to say? i guess

[dumbbullet]

had a nearly 2 hour long interview yesterday and when they asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years" i felt like crying

[jorvikzelda]

today i had this Vivid memory flash through my mind of kissing my ex boyfriend (this was like 2018) and i felt so viscerally fucking revolted and I gotta say. it is truly impressive that I didn’t realise I’m a lesbian sooner than fucking half a year ago

[master-missysversion]

Probably unpopular confession but as much as I love the relationships in the chibnall era and the rtd era, i dont think they had anything on the Moffat era relationships. And I don't just mean romantic relationships, I mean all of them.

I see people say a lot that the relationships between the 13th doctor and companions isn't strong enough but tbh I dont find them any less interesting and engaging than the rtd era relationships, but the moffat era relationships oh my god. They all drive me insane

[daz4i]

I'm a very quick logical thinker and have a lot of knowledge but also i am very stupid and don't know anything. hope this helps 👍