#and older whiskey has a lot of nuance that someone that doesn’t drink a lot of whiskey might not notice

[the-witchhunter]

Ooooo if we’re talking infusions

Baking spices work great, think Christmas and Thanksgiving, fall and winter, so pumpkin spice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, etc

Fruits that work great, orange peel, you want as little pith as possible and to check after a day or two, it can make it bitter. Granny Smith apple, but specifically the peel and brown sugar to sweeten the whole thing

Coffee is a good choice, coffee and vanilla, all legit

I have an entire handle of bourbon I bought and found out that I simply don’t like the taste of the stuff. Any recommendations on what I could make with it food or drink wise? I don’t want this sitting in my pantry till the day I die

[maaji-maji-majima]

some kissing hcs for Majima?(if u can make it nsfw)

So I'm in a weird place with this. I don't want to leave you unanswered but I know you won't like the answer that I give. It has been a long time since I was active on tumblr and I'm not sure when along the timeline headcanon became synonymous with fanfiction. I appreciate fanfiction authors for their creativity, but I am not one myself. I use headcanon in the older definition of "this isn't in the source material, but it is true in my brain". They are either random things my half asleep mind thought of while walking home from work or a character analysis. At the same token your ask had crawled into my brainmeats and won't leave. So again, I apologize that this most definitely is not what you're looking for, but I hope someone out there finds this to be an interesting read.

Without further introduction, here is a character analysis of our favorite pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin in regards to relationships and why the he desperately needs therapy as brought to you by a different pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin who got therapy but probably needs more.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, self harm, mental disorders, poor coping strategies, unhealthy relationships, random tense changes, not fanfiction

Spoilers for the whole franchise, but very specifically for 0, K1, and 5.

Abuse does weird things to people's brains. In Yakuza 0 Majima has barely been out of the hole for a year. He might no longer be suffering the actual physical torture he had been subjected to the year prior, but he is still directly in the hands of his abusers and being watched every moment. He is still in a cage even if it doesn't look like one. He is depressed and likely suicidal, but doesn't follow through with those thoughts because he is determined to make sure Saejima has a home to come back to. He is willing to endure just about anything to allow Saejima a chance to exact that final moment of retribution because Saejima is the one who deserves it and Majima doesn't feel that there is any possibility for forgiveness. In all likelihood he hasn't sought out anyone for a hookup or paid company for an evening due to a combination of not feeling like he deserves anything that feels good and the fact that he's constantly being watched. The year in hole means he no longer really has a concept of privacy, but he's worried that getting close to someone, even for a few moments, could put them in danger if Sagawa or Shimano feels like holding something else over his head. It isn't worth accidentally dragging someone into his own personal hell. He no longer lives for the present, he is only living for that far-off future that he hopes isn't just a pipe dream.

Enter Makoto. At first she is a stand-in for Saejima's sister Yasuko, but it morphs rapidly from there. She is the light and kindness and hope that he hasn't seen in years and she's being dragged into his bullshit. He knows in his heart of hearts that she doesn't deserve what she is being forced into, so his mind snaps into the immediate and does everything he possibly can to save her. This is is the hill he wants to die on. Maybe, just maybe, he can end his miserable existence with a final act of good and he feels that Saejima might just be able to understand. But because he no longer has any relationships in his life that are not strictly professional or the abusers he cannot escape, he has little recollection of what a nuanced relationship or even friendship is any longer. Due to circumstance she is also the only person that he cannot keep at arm's length, no matter how desperately he tries. So he falls for her and falls hard. But in the end, after everything they go through he does the impossible. He lets her go. She has a life and a future, whereas he has neither of those. What would she do? Become his ane-san? Have some temporary happiness before she realizes she has a target on her back for the rest of her life? No. Majima believes she deserves so much more than that even though it hurts him deeply. What is one more hurt on top of everything else? He's gotten extremely good at burying his pain.

Getting to Tokyo flips a switch in Majima's brain. Like many people with mental trauma who don't have access to therapy he falls into excess as a way of self medicating. He fits virtually everything on the hedonism checklist. Drinking? Yeah. Violence? Hell yeah! Promiscuity? Yeah, but I ain't judging. Drugs? Probably, even though it isn't explicitly stated in game. Everything from his shift in personality to his wardrobe has become, intentionally or not, a defense mechanism. He has escaped from all of his abusers except for Shimano and he refuses to allow anyone to gain that kind of power over him again.

It is a double edged sword, however. His depression and PTSD are running unchecked. In all likelihood he hasn't fallen hard on vices as a way to reclaim ownership off his own body. Instead it seems more probable that he is dissociating. After everything he has been through he doesn't care what happens to his body in the long run because it isn't actually his anymore. Risky behavior, which is practically Majima's middle name, is also frequently used as a passive form of self harm because the end result is either temporarily feeling better thanks to endorphins and adrenaline or permanently feeling better after embracing death. He could achieve a similar feeling by taking up jogging and chasing a runners high, but that takes more time and energy than chugging a handle of whiskey or goading some chump into throwing hands. Sadly even now admitting to mental problems by seeking help is fairly stigmatized in Japan and it was only worse in the early 90s. Can't have a problem if no one tells you it's there, right?

Then he meets Mirei. She's intense but not wild like Majima. At that moment in time she is everything he needs. Head strong, domineering, and very, very determined. She knows exactly what buttons to press to wrap him right around her finger. And he lets her take the reigns, lets her run his life because he realizes he was doing a terrible job on his own. Better her than Shimano, right? Doing something wrong results in the cold shoulder instead of a vicious beating, and doing something right leads to more than simply the relief of avoiding a beating. He decides that making her happy is enough to make him happy. Until suddenly it isn't. He never wanted to be a father, but even the idea that he could have been was enough to cause a fundamental shift in his entire outlook on life. He could have had someone to live for, instead of just survive for. But he had no say in the matter and didn't know until the decision had been made for him. When Mirei told him she had an abortion he snapped. He hit her. The one and only time he raised his hands against her. Disgusted with himself, and wounded by her decision, he left. If he was capable of that, he knew couldn't be the person she had been trying to mold him into. He realized he was nothing but a weight around her neck dragging her down. And so that day signals the end of their short marriage. He spends the next several decades drowning in guilt for his actions while still resenting her for her choice.

That leaves us with Kiryu. Poor, oblivious Kiryu. Majima's fixation is multifaceted but in no small part due to the fact that Kiryu is one of the few people strong enough to hurt him, but is the only one that doesn't want to. And Majima just doesn't understand. After everything, he only deserves to hurt, right? Saejima, Yasuko, Makoto, Mirei. Everyone who gets too close to him ends up worse for it, so why won't Kiryu and his sense of honor seek justice on their behalf? So he does everything he possibly can to wind up Kiryu enough to Pay Attention Damnit, Fight Me. But Kiryu's response is always just flustered awkwardness because he doesn't want like fighting, it's just a part of his job, like wearing a suit or answering a phone. To Kiryu fighting isn't a thing done because it's enjoyable, it's done because it has to be. But he's still the only one who doesn't flinch when Majima brandishes a knife inches from his face.

And then Kiryu is arrested and in jail for ten years. And ten years is a long time to build someone up onto a pedestal. Like only wanting to talk about the best of a person after they've died. The same thing happened with Saejima. Build them in his mind to what he wants or needs them to be since they are not there to actively correct it. The decade is pretty miserable, going through the motions and trying to not make waves with the bigwigs while terrifying the minions into obedience. When he hears Kiryu is being released it is like waking up again. He all but waits at the taxi stand at the entrance of Kamurocho on the day of Kiryu's release, all but vibrating with excitement. It's a fight he has been waiting on for a decade, too bad it was little more than a disappointment.

So Majima decides to bring him back up to spec in that very Majima flavored way. Small fights, big fights, surprise fights. Kiryu is still reluctant because he doesn't have a reason beyond Majima's dreamed up training program he doesn't actually want to be a part of. Of course this only leads Majima to do everything possible to get under Kiryu's skin, including sharing his personal vulnerabilities while disguising them as jokes just to cause fights, but Kiryu just kind of rolls with it which leads to confusion and frustration on both sides. After a while Majima starts to get into Kiryu's hobbies, like pocket circuit, ostensibly as another form of picking a fight. And he discovers he actually enjoys a lot of it. And they are both too dense and emotionally stunted to realize they're basically dating at this point. At multiple points Majima takes potentially lethal blows meant for Kiryu and the excuse that he is the only one allowed to kill Kiryu is very, very thin. He just can't quite admit out loud that he doesn't want to see Kiryu truly hurt because that's weakness and he is Not Weak (tm).

Shimano's death and Kiryu's departure from the clan come as a whirlwind that destroys him all over again. He's left directionless. So he leaves the Tojo in an attempt to find his own way in the world, for the first time in over twenty years.

I think I need to call it here for now. I know I've left out Saejima and Daigo, among others, but I've been working on this for days and my progress has been eaten twice and I just don't have the energy to keep going right at this time. Maybe some day in the future I'll find the time and energy to write out the rest for all the other games.

tl;dr What Majima wants and what he needs are two different things. He wants to fightfuck, but he needs to be bear hugged into submission so that he can have that mental breakdown he's been carefully bottling up for over thirty years. He needs a good, ugly cry. And therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

[wonhaemonimoni]

"#swallows rant on meta yg" you do you, but i'd like to hear it if you were inclined to share :D

SO heads up for some salt and meta headcannon stuff, caveats that this is all from my perception which is inherently skewed towards what camera content i’ve personally seen and in what context i’ve seen it in, etc etc. this gets long, so i put it under a read more!

for those in the audience, the post anon is referring to is this, where yoongi mentions his thoughts changing as he’s gotten older, and talks about the importance of changing vs staying the same. this gets right to the heart of some of my gripes with... attitudes? around characterization, for yoongi especially.

from where i sit in the terrifyingly huge twt fandom, lots of folks (but not all!!!) tend to write yoongi as one of two extremes - either a bad boy tsundere, or a soft shy boy who’s depressed sometimes. i see the latter as partially a pendulum swing away from pre-dna and earlier takes on yoongi, which tended towards the former (more on this in a minute). this is definitely not everyone, and we’re blessed with TONS of amazing writers who write interesting and nuanced characters no matter which side of the pendulum they personally enjoy! if they enjoy a side of the pendulum at all!

my gripe lies not with them, but with the folks that talk about one as more ‘correct’ than another and flat-out deny the existence of either side. you see this especially in those “ao3 yoongi/irl yoongi” posts (where ao3 yoongi is like, drinking whiskey in a leather jacket and being an asshole, and irl yoongi is soft and doesn’t raise his voice or whatever).  nevermind that i can name maybe 4-5 big fics and big authors who probably popularized it, and i can also name tons of fics that have broken that mold since 2015. ‘ao3 yoongi’ has never been a monolith, and i’m saying this as someone who’s read a LOT of yoonmin especially lol.

not only do you see this sort of attitude, that one characterization is better or more correct than another, but in that lies outright denial that the other side exists at all. i see that a LOT in folks complaining about the ‘ao3 stereotype’ yoongi, saying that that kind of yoongi never existed at all, and i take issue with that. because, especially before agust d and mama 2016, yoongi WAS grumpy sometimes. sometimes he was kind of a dick. i’m not gonna name specific instances because i don’t wanna get bogged down in ~receipts~, but as stated above, this is my perception from what i’ve seen. he was (and is) also brave, and gentle, and thoughtful, and hard-working, but the yoongi we see now is not the same yoongi we saw in 2015/2016 - probably in part because an enormous weight has been lifted off his shoulders and because he’s doing better with mental health management. which is fucking incredible! i’m so happy for him!!

but when you deny the existence of a grumpier/whatever yoongi, you also deny the growth and struggle and change that some folks (such as myself) take comfort in. people change, and have a thousand thousand facets, and it’s not a sin to take inspiration from any phase of x member and plant it in a new universe and watch it grow. yoongi is and has been all of those things and more, and they all make for fun and fascinating characterization bases! 

i do think that some of the folks who see ‘grumpy yoongi’ (ig this is how im referring to *gestures vaguely* now lol) as something ao3 made up with no basis in reality came in after dna era, and so their first perception of the members is different from folks who were here before those big changes. and that’s completely fine, until you start giving one more moral weight or whatever. NOT TO MENTION that what we see is a carefully curated series of pictures and videos of the members (usually) aware they’re being filmed, so it’s absurd for any fan, especially fans who don’t speak korean, to claim that their perception of a member is any more correct than another.

you can write about, enjoy, any flavor of yoongi you want!! this is all just a fun fake game, and we all get different things from different characters, etc. just don’t put down something harmless that other folks enjoy just because you don’t enjoy it.

TL;DR: none of us are right, this is all for fake fun, write the fic you wanna read in the world.... but also, yoongi literally made a music video where he smashes a car as everything burns up around him lol let the boy have his fun persona

[ryanswaves-blog]

My Front Room Table

I’m writing this blog mainly for myself. I think it will be a lot of help to me. Its a lot harder to lie to yourself while writing. My life has also never been more interesting, so I hope it proves entertaining for those who do read this,

Ryan B.

My current Home.

I’ve always had a habit of Judgement. And Rambling.

Unfortunately it used to be a Judgement that would end up with me feeling superior about some imagined slight in their viewpoint, their laugh, a picture on the wall, their taste in music, and I’d have this terrible way of assigning someone a value because of these observations. At the time, it was the best tool I had to not internalize all this anger and let it destroy me.  Now i’m older and (hopefully) wiser, Judgement for me comes in the form of constant hypothesis’, and by making these observations, I have learned to socialise. I’m no good at reading body language, hearing the tone of friendship, or the cue of flirtations.  I don’t believe this will ever come naturally to me, and I will have to put serious effort into refining the tools I have developed throughout my life if I am ever going to have fluent communication with the Human race.

I don’t bother with small talk. It is not something I am good at. It feels too much like a farce that allows people the comfort of not getting a wrong answer or engaging in low key confrontation before you feel like it won’t damage the fledgling relationship you are building. There are many social tools like small talk. Many are unique to culture. I have mastered none. So I skip straight to the Front Room. Isn’t that how we’re supposed to be at the heart of it? Strangers come to your village of reeds and furs with shells on well crafted twine, sit down at your fire and regale you with their stories of the Ocean, the water that never ends, or with scorpion stingers from the Sands that swallow all and you laugh, dance, eat, drink (probably) and fall merrily asleep under the stars with traded trinkets and new friends. 

So very early on in my interactions with my new Human acquaintance, I will invite them back to my dwelling. In the past, this has been seen as blundering and clumsy by those used to the nuances of the western world, other times flirtatious, (and has ended with mixed results), but my fondest friendships have been forged in the conversation over the Front Room Table. The Front Room Table for most is where the Tea sits on the coaster usually paired by reading material (Bills, TV guide, or the dreaded Facebook scroll) and biscuits.

For me the Front Room Table is a focal point in my life. At the moment, it is attached to the Mast of the Lady Jane, and is the certified physical centre of my universe. It can also be lowered and matted for another berth. We all have our rituals of metaphysical alignment as we assign meaning or purpose to the order of our lives. The pattern of your comings and goings laden your 4 walls heavy with Emotion and if one looks hard enough it becomes very possible to find ways to communicate and connect with someone through observation, hypothesis and interaction of their world.

Move as they move, and if there is alignment, there is relationship. It can be a game of snap with 20 potential pairs a second and the chance that some cards in the deck will catch fire if they meet, or stain the table with the lifeblood of what could have been the journey of a lifetime.

This I find is Much more straight forward and rewarding than slowly picking each other apart with words as you dedicate a good portion of the interaction to appearing to do ‘The right thing’. 

This is a picture of me, trying to get away from small talk.

You can learn an awful amount from someones Front Room Table. There are tell tale signs of a persons routine, their habits and peeves can be hypothesized by the depths their coffee cups have stained into the varnish, the chips and bumps where it was kept in storage or moved with small accident, the crumbs of their last breakfast that defied the hasty palm brushing,small details which often lead to a bigger picture. Material can be a good indicator, but like with Humans, the material is usually circumstantial. I have had glass, Pine, Mahogany, and more than often whatever flat round stump comes along my way. The articles upon the Front Room Table can be a direct insight, or simply provide clues. Flowers and studying notes, A gerbil in his cage, a Combat knife and a bottle of Whiskey. How close to the settee is it, are the follicles of the carpet brushed aside by a pillow as she sits cross legged to write? Is that fleck of red paint on the leg a sign that there is an artist waiting to be born but without the esteem of himself will never come to be? Perhaps someone sneezed painting the last house and nobody noticed till the move. 

My fondest memories of a Front Room Table are those of my Nanas, which would have a stack of Sodoku books, 1 white & rose trimmed coaster in each corner, a TV guide, a mechanical pencil (which I would always break on purpose), Sweet gifts, and a Picture of my family. I loved my Nanas front table as it would usually be where I spent most of my time as a child. By 10:30 AM I would have completed a task that only I would know the point or conclusion, the result of which would be me being collected by my Nana for an early hometime. I didn’t mind this. I had made my point with unappreciated passion, and now I could walk home, play with the dogs (Mitsie & Susie) and sit at the front table eating Dairylea sandwiches and playing a game of Go that my Nan had modified so we could play with pens & graph paper. Life was good around the Front Room Table. 

There was nothing special about the Table itself. It was a standard Ply top until she bought a Glass & Aluminium table from Argos. It could have become anyone's. There is nothing special about most Tables, they are objects until we introduce them to our homes and imprint our lifestyles upon them. You can talk to your Table if you want, but it will never answer you.

If you mark its surface or place something upon it, you perform a change through action, and it will reply according to the laws of nature, as does all. Your Table will let you know because you will see. You can call that mark damage, and repair it to the best of your ability (or not). Those who see your Table will see this. It is up to them how they see you for the marks you make. Or you can leave it where it is and see what comes along later, allowing you to take muse in the shaping of your home. 

My Nana had learned hard lessons that gave her a cunning only available through earned Wisdom. I would never ‘misbehave’ around my Nana because she knew how to communicate with me. 

Here she is, teaching my brother Jack about the secrets of the best Fish & Chips. There is no photographer in existence that has the skill to catch my Nana smiling on camera.

Being from the generation of The War, her communication was usually Action and her actions would always carry a message of Love and care. Only now she is gone and I am older do I realize the weight of the Lessons my Nana imparted on me. My greatest regret is that I did not appreciate her more while she was still here, and that I did not spend more time with her. 

Her lessons allow me to communicate in such a way that speaking just cannot capture. It isn’t limited by the words you can say and it doesn’t allow you to choose the Validity of your ‘conversation’ through emphasis, side tracking, jokes and persuasion.  Observation, Hypothesis and the analisation of ones actions in their surroundings invites you into their world when nobody is watching, it lets you view their past before they’ve told it, It gives you a much better idea of the Human you want to know instead of who they want you to know. I’m not interested in faces, I’m interested in the Human interacting with the environment, their environment and how it reflects upon them. You can tell me you like music and list your favorite bands, or we could Jam and find each others groove. You could tell me your work, your studies, but I’d much rather start a project and make a Youtube video about it. We could talk for hours about Fun of all kinds. I’d much rather play.

I have found impossibilities and unhealthy paradox’s in the Western World’s communication  that make it very hard for myself to learn how to make healthy  bonds with other Human beings, and as a result I have a handful of friends. Many I do not talk to and have not seen in years, and some I have never met in person, but I remember all those who I have been close with and shared something special with. If any of my friends are reading this, I’m sorry if I don’t talk to you, but I don’t really know how to talk to other people. I’d much rather make the effort to meet up and make a memory than give you a digital thumb once every social acceptable interval.  If the friendship we have is true, I  will see you one day and we will pick up exactly where we left off. 

Your Front Room Table will change as you do with Time, and will tell you what might be going on in your life, at whatever point you decide to take notice of it. But you can’t lie to your Front Room Table, because it is an inanimate object and incapable of making its own decisions of belief. You can train your Front Room Table to lie to others however, whether through fear of judgement or lack of reciprocation, by keeping it spotless. I don’t trust Front Room Tables with nothing on them. It smells like a secret. It smells like Chemical polish and fretting. 

My Front Room Table at the moment has my Laptop, A Creality Ender 3 3-D Printer, a Software Defined Radio, A coaster with an Anchor on it, and my Notebooks. I have no way of taking a picture at this moment in time, but I will. I can’t be having this first post be a brick wall of text. 

It is Varnished Hardwood with a lovely routed round trim, a hole for the mast, and one side is collapsible. Its one of the nicest Front Room Tables that has been a part of my space. Its windy out at the moment, so the collapsible side is swaying against the boat. Sometimes when its like this I drop a dab of water on the top of the sway and see where it goes. Sometimes it makes patterns. 

I will treat this blog as my virtual Front Room Table. If you happen by, Please sit and see. We may have something to do. I may have something interesting to show you, and we might even get around to some serious talking.