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fumifooms · 4 months ago

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Dungeon lord Chilchuck

What would his wish as a dungeon lord be? What would he be like? Headcanons & speculation post for fun. But I’ll start with analytic lead up because that’s always fun for me, though feel free to skip and skim.

When it comes to what Chilchuck’s dungeon lord desires could/would be like we have mainly 3 hints: His nightmare, his succubus and what the winged lion says to him.

Why: — From what we see nightmares are based on the person’s worst fears and insecurities, both Laios’ and Marcille’s nightmare were closely tied to their dungeon lord wishes (Laios’ dream monster being summoned to crush the ghosts of relationships that represented the pressure to fit in and belong, Marcille seeking control over death and aging through magic to avoid loss), the fuel behind their desire/goal if you will. Fear and deep-seated desires are seemingly closely tied, something also supported by Thistle and Mithrun’s reigns as dungeon lords (Thistle proving his worth through fulfilling his given duty + protecting his loved ones, being listened to instead of having to listen, Mithrun escaping rigid two-faced elven society and living in a wonderland where he has no enemies and he’s loved, free from everyone he knew yet propped up by the person symbolizing his brother being chosen over him, the bastard child).

— I’ve talked about the significance I assign to the succubi often by now, but rundown: What we see of each character is all very telling if you care to listen, it shows not only someone’s "ideal form" but what they want from it. Izutsumi’s is familial, offering a hug and comfort, Marcille’s is romantic with a character she knows and loves, offering a kiss on a hand and a connection regardless of how distant it actually is, and Laios’ is platonic, arguable at first but then Laios’ fear of judgement is placated and he is offered the picture perfect friend group that accepts his interest (if you want my full look at Laios’ succubus go here). They take on the most alluring form, most ideal person of their victim, even uncovering deep subconscious desires, so precisely and effectively to the point it leaves victims physically frozen before the object of their desire. Succubi and the demon are themselves tied in lore and it’s easy to see how similar their core skill are. Succubi don’t give a good idea of what a character would wish for on their own but they certainly give hints on what they crave, regardless of how you want to read it.

— Last bit is self-explanatory. To placate Chilchuck and win his compliance over, the monster that reads your soul like an open book offers to give him something specific. But! It’s also important to remember that the lion isn’t offering to fulfill Chilchuck’s dream world wish here, it’s a second prize, because his goal with what he promised Laios is that they’d stay in this world, away from everyone and everything else. Chilchuck wants to get away but is kept back, and it’s here the lion placates him with "hey it’s okay! You can’t do that but I can still give you this! This is enough right? It’ll make everything easier on you".

What each bit says: — Long version in another post. Tldlr: His daughters and family are obviously important to him, and this reinforces that he takes on the role of protector a lot, he’s constantly worried for his party members’ lives and implicitly his family’s. Safety and stability, both economical and otherwise, are his core values and goals, and he berates both others and himself if someone fails on those fronts. Here, there’s the fear of not being enough, of not having been able to protect, and of course of loss.

— Chil’s succubi are obviously sexual, and not only that but agressively and straightforwardly so. It’s not like Marcille’s where there’s personality involved, all they do is give him sultry looks and pretty smiles before jumping on him. His succubi aren’t like Izutsumi’s, always the same exact person and appearance, so it’s not someone but an appealing general idea. The idea of a sexual being he can regard as simply a gorgeous piece of meat and a good time no strings attached. In my interpretation, especially with my reading of Laios’ succubus where even with deep-seated desires negative emotions can be too intense to effectively freeze a victim, I think this doesn’t contradict his character. Relationships have been painful to him in the past, in the succubus scene when his wife gets mentioned his immediate reaction is to yell "Don’t bring her up now!", like with his habit of drinking and as a tallman liking his senses feeling dulled, it’s about not having to feel emotions with how difficult they are to deal with sometimes and just feeling good, or at least not having to think, for a while. If a succubus showcases someone’s ideal connection with an ideal person, then Chilchuck’s is with a pretty person that doesn’t stir any negative memory or drama, someone low stakes and low maintenance that doesn’t require him to manage or talk out feelings because there’s none involved in the first place.

— Once more, wife and family are important! He does long for his family, not only his wife but his daughters, and vice versa. This suggests not only that he wants good relationships with them but that he wants them to be with him, a family life. Far from the cut communication they all more of less have during canon, and perhaps far from their life pre-canon when he worked away from home a significant amount of time. We’ve seen recreations of people by the winged lion before with doppelgangers and monsters (naga), and though he claims he can make satisfying imitations, what we’ve seen is that they base themselves on the best memories of that person, like with Marcille’s dad, or twist behavior to be more pleasant, like Mithrun’s lover (and possibly twist appearances depending on the person’s view of them, but that’s Mithrun analysis). The line does suggest Chilchuck would want his family members as they are in reality and not idealized versions, but the circumstances are chaotic and urgent enough in the scene (and again the lion isn’t fulfilling Chilchuck’s wish but trying to make him content for Laios’) that it could just be the winged lion saying what he needs to to convince him the fastest possible, and like we see with Laios that can crumble to give way to deeper or more complex desires.

On top of that we just have general info on Chil. How does Chilchuck deal w his issues? What does he like to do? He likes alcohol and ignoring his problems. We have to remember there is a split between what someone would consciously wish for and what their soul uncontrollably irrationally craves. As always with Dunmeshi, there’s a narrative of irrational deep-seated desires vs active wants, what you crave vs what you strive for, what you dream of vs what’s actually good for you, the animal vs the human inside you, heart vs mind. Chilchuck craving a harem of hot babes in his fantasies but wanting his family life & wife back again is not mutually exclusive. You may crave becoming a monster and tasting what humans are like a little but still want to save the world & your friends more.

Btw can we adress the irony of him terrified of being the last one alive, of being left by his daughters and wife, of having left and coming back home one day to see everything gone or rampaged, yet not caring about dying of liver failure himself, knowing every time that he enters a dungeon there’s a real risk he may not come out. Die somewhere I can’t see you. I prefer leaving you than being left behind. He’s selfish and shortsighted like that… Chilchuck is selfless in many ways of course, but perhaps also due to his own relationship with his parents, he often undermines the effects he has on others in his relationships, both the good and the bad (he talks himself down about being cowardly and greedy yes, but never hints at his bad health habits, alcoholism and starving himself, may have affected his loved ones, doesn’t question his wife falling into a bad mood the night before she left, and talks about the possibility of dying here and there very casually, though obviously he tries his best to stay alive when it doesn’t concern his health).

Chilchuck king of "Let me just avoid and ignore my problems surely they’ll go away, things might work out and if they don’t well tough luck I’ll survive and I probably deserve it anyways". If I don’t look at it it will dissapear <3 Why care when you can simply not think about it.

You might not understand Mister "my love will stay strong through months of work travel and also 4 years of separation" and Mister "well idk my siblings and me are kinda strangers and my dad is dead but that’s kinda whatever", but typically relationships need some form of maintenance and emotional availability…

The actual headcanons finally

I kinda have 2 routes in mind for dunlord Chil and both of them are centered on "I care too much, i wish things were easy", so first is a lot like his succubi, it’s full on indulging in his guilty pleasures like alcohol and bodies and it’s to keep him in a constant state of thrill and euphoria and distracted, unfeeling about stuff that really matters. "Nothing matters except that I’m enjoying the moment!" vibe. He gets to live a life worthy of Dionysus, with alcohol and women and debauchery and like— never having to think again, never having to feel anything but pleasure again, never have to feel guilty or shitty or angry or sad. He has a harem and gets everything on a silver platter.

Breaking news demon magic-induced rush of euphoria and power still not enough to cure this man of his self-hatred nor his capacity for thought!! But in his case a state of euphoria is what he seeks I think, to kinda mask or replace the Everything Else.

The other is what I think closer to what canon suggests, with what WL implied too with "I’ll make you a new wife and kids like the originals!! 😊", it’s a (spoilers) Wandavision type thing where it’s a slice of life where he’s never at work and always at home and the family eats lunches at the dinner table together and everything and everyone at any moment is just. Happy. No issues. It was all a dream, this is real and everything is fine and your family is perfect and happy. I like to think the timeline would be wonky, his daughters would fluctuate in age, but he’d want to be there for what he missed, would want them to still rely on him and look up to him like when they were young, would like to forget that they’re now independent adults and the distance that grew between Chilchuck and his siblings is happening between them as well. Chil would want doppelgangers of his family imo, at its core just a general wish for a peaceful happy family life with no drama, no need to compromise, a little paradise of unconditional love and no consequences. It’s for sure straightforward, but Chilchuck is a man with straightforward desires…

But see Chilchuck is a greedy man, and he wants it both ways without having to sacrifice anything or expanding any efforts himself. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. I think playing with these two opposite directions and mixing and matching is most fun. Him leading a life where he indulges in all his worst habits while still having everything he wants… Him getting to have BOTH his wife and any woman he can imagine up, his life like two sides of a coin he can flip at any moment where he’s partying then he’s at home enjoying the quiet and his toddler daughters playing with toys on the carpet. Christ when you remember it’s all an illusion that’s terrifying, the doppelgangers and succubi from the winged lion playing chilchuck ping pong.

A safe little haven both security-stability wise and emotionally. Gets to have both the relaxing and the thrilling in any dose he wants, mixed or separatedly. What I’d argue he had pre-canon too: Can live it up in taverns away from home, stays away from home for long periods of time, and can come back to home aka the symbol of relaxation and safety whenever he decides to. Something he can leave and come back to at will, an anchor he can trust in (until it’s taken from him and his wife leaves. Or in his worse nightmare people rush in and kill his daughters). The ideal of a house and family to a working man, perhaps…

I think it’s fun to think on wether or not these desires would be interesting at all to the winged lion… In canon he seeks out "rare/complex desires", common simple things like I imagine riches, sex, substances and pleasure would be are boring to him, he’s eaten those so many times already. So perhaps he wouldn’t last long as a dunlord, the WL would want to eat him fully quick, can’t keep him interested or waiting long for a meager meal, too much effort raising the cattle and too low quality meat. By making it more twisted or layered Chil’s desire would become more desirable to the demon, it’s part of what’s fun with the third option to me. But whatever. Has he ever eaten a guy with this much repression and self-sabotage... Like trying to get the meat out of a walnut, enrichment…

Other dunlord Chil takes I’ve seen that are fun and good:

@feelo-fick and @pluvio-floret have a dunlord Chilchuck AU project dubbed "tragedy AU" where Chilchuck is said to be "on vacation", in a weird delirious state, only half-there half of the time… From which he doesn’t want to wake up </3 Quoting Feelo, this is why the vacation thing is only a half-joke cause he is 1) letting all his responsibilities go 2) indulging in himself and 3) "spending time with his family" <- lie but you get what i mean. Additional comments that have me vigorously nodding: because changing is hard why cant things just be okay right now without the effort !!! Life is hard he’s so so tired he just wants to feel good… he just wants life to feel nice and easy for a sec while he can learn to breathe again and lose the stress and trauma he’s accumulated…….. spoiler alert yes !!! in fact a depressed person can suck themselves into their job and lock out the world who wouldve thought !!!

And then Cabinette I know posted about his dunlord take once but I don’t have the link, in which Chil has a lot of nosebleeds because of mana overload which is fun and interesting to think about imo~

In dunmeshi, where characters get underground pockets of the world as their playground disconnected from everything outside and the rest of the world, it’s important to remember to face reality even if it has conflict and people with different views and stances from you, it’s something Chilchuck and Marcille and everyone needed to learn, and the thing with a dungeon lord AU is that you imagine a timeline where he fails to <3

A timeline where his dungeon lord wish is to desire nothing bc hope and want has only ever hurt him would also go so hard. Very universal thing though I suppose.

… And this is why a Chilchuck-centric Coraline AU is really really interesting and fitting and topical— Ok that’ll go in a separate reblog/post at @Fumiku I need to let this end

#Dungeon meshi #chilchuck tims #Analysis #dungeon lord chilchuck #Spoilers #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #Wish we could put just parts of a post under a ‘click to read more’ box that scrolls open and closes neatly #Bc 3/4th of the post is just extra explanation for ppl who don’t See The Vision already but like that’s not what i wanted most of the post #to be really gdbdg #Headcanons #You could say the family also represents something he’s built up with how own hands. If he has self-worth issues and thinks he’s a screw-up #in the virtue/honor and likability department especially— his family destroyed/killed also represents the one biggest good thing #he’s done/created crumbling also. Like his wife leaving without a word while he trusted their relationship this can hugely impact #one’s sense of identity and self-worth and what you’re living life for. In his case it’s not too surprising he turned to simple #physical pleasures for comfort and enjoyment. Like with tasting good food having moments feeling good keeps you going #He always focuses on the bad relationships bring and never the good aghhhh #The reverse of Marcille who often idealizes. They both ignore problems in their relationships in opposite ways.#What do you mean why do i bring up marcille. Okay yes this’ll get a marchil Fumiku short brainstorm reblog as well #Chilchuck is so… curse of having feelings and not realizing the extent of them. Underestimating how much you care #It’s either ‘i’m fine who cares’ or falling into the pits of despair and blaming himself n spilling his whole bag no inbetween #Dunmeshi succubus #Fumi rambles #boy that’s what this boils down to i suppose #Family angst “Hey I came back home from work and i’m tired so don’t talk to me about problems or anything k? I’m here to relax smh damn”#< unwilling to admit he has issues he should be working on or that some things are affecting others negatively #Chil you are so enneagram 6w7 <3

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apologetic-artist · 21 days ago

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After burning my fingers many times, eating too many breadsticks, and watching a ton of video essays, I've come to make an announcement...

COLIN IS DONE!!!! HERES A LOOK AT DA BOIIII :DDDD

IM SUPER HAPPY WITH HOW HE TURNED OUT AND I HOPE YALL LIKE HIM TOO!!! X33

He doesn't have a tail or outfit yet, but I don't really care right now. This was just for fun. Once I get more supplies and hot glue, I will make the rest of him.

Here's a 360 of his head under the cut!! (Ft. Kaleidoskull by Lemon Demon since i thought silence was too weird and awkward)

Ababababaabababa X]

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torchickentacos · 1 month ago

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Attempting to convince my mom to let me bring a new mac and cheese recipe for thanksgiving. Wish me luck

#I understand that new recipes are A Big Deal for southern families with holiday foods #but I just think that I’ve found a good one and everyone should be openminded!!!#‘but why would you change the one we always have’#well you see. I enjoy it when my food tastes.#and I think everyone else would too if you’d just trust me and my lack of measuring spoons.#I always make the pies. and when my grandmother watches me make the pies she complains about the amount of spices I add.#but when she doesn’t watch me put in a fuckton of spices??? when she has no idea???#best pie she’s ever had. she loves it.#people need to TRUST ME and just not worry about what I’m doing in the kitchen #unless I set a potholder on fire. which did happen once. then they can worry about it.#but do not watch me or police my recipes and spice amounts. go away 💫#‘but that’s too much-‘ WRONG. it is not enough

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orchideae · 1 year ago

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A little unpopular opinion on something I've seen happen more commonly throughout November/December and wanted to address quickly for my own blog: Please never hesitate to reblog anything from me. You see me reblogging a sentence starter list that you like? Go for it and reblog it from me directly without any pressure on you whatsoever to send anything into me before doing so. You like a GIF-set or musing that I reblogged? Nab it from me, it'll brighten my day to see that we share an interest in something. I like to see interaction between me and anyone who follows me. I like to see that little activity notification light up.

Honestly, it simply reminds me that we're all part of a community, and more specifically, a fandom that consists of characters and nations that we all came to love and then share that amongst ourselves. And honestly, seeing a reblog happen shortly after me but it's from the source, creates (in my opinion) an odd sense of chosen disconnect between people that can feel awkward, it's as if we're walking on eggshells as to not rub each other the wrong way. But what's wrong about going 'Hey, I see what you reblogged, I like it too!', it even gives you potential common ground to start a conversation. We're a community, and I don't know about you, but I like seeing people interact with each other beyond merely threads and notes. It's the little things that matter, after all.

#[ psa. ] seeing isn't always believing. and if you can't trust your eyes; you certainly can't trust rumors.#[ i feel like this whole 'reblog karma' rule has scared people so much into stopping with behavior that... ]#[ i think was healthy. interaction; no matter how small; makes it so much easier and comfortable for people to... ]#[ interact because you almost become 'familiar faces' through these tiny little asks. ]#[ the amount of times i've entered dms kindly/respectfully after someone's reblogged something from me-- ]#[ and the person and i proceeded to just gush about the reblogged fanart in question. or something similar. ]#[ which then makes any further ooc interaction so much easier and nicer-- the initial anxiety people may face is lessened. ]#[ because you've already found common ground. ]#[ like i don't mean to force anyone to reblog from me-- but it's like it's so obvious so often when people... ]#[ see something from you but then reblog it from the source. i dunno if it's just me but it feels odd. ]#[ it feels as if someone thinks reblogging from me would step on my toes or rub me the wrong way and i don't see?? ]#[ why that's a thing? it's so silly. reblog from me; feel welcome to do so. we all love this fandom. we all love our characters. ]#[ and each others' characters. it's why we interact; right? ]#[ any way. hi-- yes. i just mean never feel odd to reblog from me. if anything i encourage it. ]#[ i'll smile and nod at you in my activity; and you'll also pique my interest to be like 'hey! good taste 💙 ]#[ any way; i hope people are having a good weekend! ]

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satsuha · 2 years ago

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u know im back on my bullshit

#octopath traveler ii #octopath traveler 2 #satsuhart #temehika #hikari ku #temenos mistral #i thought long and hard about whether temenos is a catboy or a dogboy (hound)#and in the end i decided on arctic fox.#i have.... thoughts but theyre all spoilery thoughts like no literally no one can talk about why they like them without mentioning spoilers #ive been seeing it happen on twt for like the past 2 weeks #but anyway (spoiler) (spoiler) just trust me dude. theyre a good ship #it has nothing to do with the fact that ive liked mage warrior ships for the past 5 years. shut up #also i bought csp v2 and the shading assist... she popped off a little w that one ngl #but im still very angry about csp's terrible autosave function #like fun fact that first pic? i dont have it in .clip format anymore LOL #it also deleted the little pic i made about my ship taste but i didnt know and i deleted that tweet bc i was embarrassed #i mean it isnt a big loss i can remake it anytime but like. shaking fist at csp autosave function #tags are really quite dangerous im not even sure if theres a limit? ill stop here tho gn... i am working on a temehika fic 👍#octo2

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sonhogentil · 2 years ago

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Drew a scene from my gf, @napelf ‘s fic about her oc jodariel destroying a man, god forbid women do anything ❤

Patreon

#oc #personal art #gift art #its a rly good fic idk if she'll ever post it but take my word that it was delicious #u can trust me i have immaculate tastes

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pixlokita · 2 years ago

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Really wanted to draw mini you and ended up drawing this super mini self indulgent comic (I know it's not how the meme goes but eh :')) Hope you like it <3

Ay yo I gotchu, Toony 💖

#pix answers #Toony #aaaaaaa I love it tbh your art is always a blessing 💖💖💖💖💖#also fresh is always best 💖 bagel souls taste better than human ones trust me ✨✨✨#so cute so presh how you have little clothes #wait now I feel like just a bow tie is bad #this is how Freddy felt #i wish I had some bagels rn #or bagel souls #lovely #anywy 💖💖💖💖#lov it #thank you for drawing the goods I shall treasure them #pix doodles

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nejackdaw · 4 months ago

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Thinking about Celann and his ever present grief at the life he could have had, he and his wife and (he always hoped) their daughter. A life where he was a father--he'd hardly ever wanted anything more than that. So full of love he was ready to burst and needed somewhere to put it, wanted a life with his favorite girls.

Thinking about how the ever present desire haunts him no matter how deep he buried it. It keeps coming back, relentlessly, this anguish that he threw it all away. He could have had exactly what he wanted and he was stupid enough to abandon it all, and for what? Because he was upset? But then he always remembers how hollow he felt after the incident, like if you rapped him with a knuckle you'd hear he was just a shell. He forgives himself, then, remembers how wrong everything felt, and he thinks about all the time he spent desperately trying to make everything feel right again.

Remembers when he realized he was the problem, what needed to be fixed. Removed.

He abandoned the life he had and every dream he'd ever held close because he wasn't him anymore. Celann would never have killed anyone, would never have done... that. He was some other Celann, different, trying to make himself fit in the life of a man that no longer existed. And so he left.

And he has no right to ache so badly at the thought of what he gave up, no right to ache at the loss of a family (of two families, but he starts thinking that and breaks every time, so he's gotten good at simply skipping over the thought) when he was a killer--an adept one, a practiced one--that could mangle and maul and kill and do it again and again. What right does he have to still want that happy little dream?

But the dream is a ghost and it haunts him, is there every time he's out on a supply run and sees kids playing around the marketplace, sees women cradling infants and fathers carrying sons on their shoulders. (He reminds himself of the blood on his hands, is scared he might stain them with it if he reaches out to touch them.) It's there when he has a bag and his axe hanging from his hips and finds a girl crying for her mother, lost and separated, jostled by the crowd.

It's there as he calms her, kneeling on wet and gritty stone, hovering between her and the flow of the crowd so they give her space. He lifts her and holds her against his side with one arm and something in him weeps, feels something soft in him as her tiny weight settles and she starts chattering at him about the groceries she and her mother came to buy.

They weave their way through the marketplace as they help each other--she tells him where he can find what he needs, and he silently curses the nords and their height as he tries to peer over shoulders to catch a glimpse of the woman she described--and that cold weight that's usually settled in his chest, his grief and remorse, lightens with every step. She's warm through his sweater and splutters indignantly every time the ever changing wind blows her brown hair into her mouth and he laughs, quiet and warm.

They check places she's already been, in case her mother doubled back looking for her, and take detours so Celann can fumble to place newly acquired groceries in the bag beneath her, unwilling to hold her over the side with his axe and equally unwilling to put her down, awkwardly shifting her weight as she laughs at him. He's silly for buying such expensive things, she tells him, and he light heartedly tells her Skyrim is silly for not having the things he used to use in High Rock. The revelation he hasn't always lived in Skyrim excites her to no end, and the rest of the trip is a Q&A of the sort only a small child can provide.

He feels warm inside, in his chest, where usually he feels vaguely cold at best, and for a moment he's reluctant to relinquish her when they finally find her mother, guided by the sounds of panicked calls of her name. There's a fond sadness as he sets her down on the stones again, and the woman looks at him oddly for a moment before the look turns knowing, though he's sure the conclusion she reached is slightly off.

She quietly asks if her daughter reminds him of her. He stands there silently for a moment, looking down at the little girl as she rifles through the things her mother's found.

He tells her yes.

#celann #fucking girldad #guy who wants small house white picket fence and 2.5 kids forced to become a murderer #cant live with the guilt and horror and becomes a man he cannot recognize in the mirror more at 6 #me thinking about this last night: he uses Adult Privileges to be tall and look out over the crowd #me writing this: his short ass cant see over everyone else #its fine enough when hes just in the fort like usual but then theres a crowd and hes like goddammit #anyway he has to go get his fancy ingredients because NO you CAN use that but it doesnt TASTE RIGHT #and so he has been banished to specifically get his own goddamn groceries #celann: im a cold blooded killer and i can never atone for the atrocities i have committed. i am incapable of good #also celann: 💞💞💞😊😊😊#the loss of self after the incident really fucked him up he doesnt know who he is #he keeps trying to categorize himself and neatly file himself away but the fact remains #he is both the old celann and a new one simultaneously #however he feels tainted by his actions and thinks of the Before as like a purer time and he is not a pure man #so CLEARLY he is not AT ALL the old celann and those good traits are gone #anyway he goes soft when theres kids just absolutely melts #like the only guy in the dg that can be trusted to watch a small child #also in case it wasnt clear when the mother akss 'does she remind you of her' shes assuming his daughter is dead #shes asking if her daughter reminds him of his own #delivering your typical celann angst and remembering when i said i should write happy things for him #unfortunately this has not happened yet the happy things just happen in my mind

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morangoowada · 5 months ago

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Tried darkening him, my man did not deserve to look caucasian

Ohhhh he looks SO much prettier, like it's crazy how you put some melanin in these characters and their design looks so much more hamornic and they stand out much more?? Melanin could save them... SO FUNNY THAT THE COLOR YOU USED IS SIMILAR TO THE COLOR I WAS GONNA USE ON MY REDESIGN OF HIM!!

#morangoowada asks #something that is my personal taste but bothers me a lot is how he just. has two braids and that's it. GIVE MY BRO FULL BRAIDED HAIR #I felt like making him with a lot of braids would match him much more. I still think about that redesign...#I still have the bare minimum of hope of finishing it one day because. those braids look so good...#but tbh i don't like interacting with the fandom. as a black person I don't feel... welcome in the environment if you understand what I mean #i would make a lot of redesigns if I didn't feel threatened in that fandom. trust me #sethos I love you this game doesn't deserve you 🙏🏽 i remember I was upgrading him before I deleted the game #ended up rambling A LOT. sorryy your edit looks really good 🙏🏽

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stars-inthe-sky · 5 days ago

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10. tell me about an insecurity you overcame.

It's been a while since I started freelancing for fun and profit, but the beginning of that journey is still a pretty big deal to me.

I'd previously worked at an agency for nearly three years, so I knew how to do client-based work, but I knew nothing about business development (or billing, or taxes, or client management, or admin).

And, for those I didn't know back in 2017, I started down that whole road in the first place after getting very unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired after like four months on the job. It was never clear exactly why, but I'd thought things had been going well, and that was a pretty gutting Thursday afternoon.

I'd also just gone through a job search, so I knew there weren't many positions available in the region that would be a fit—and that the most recent thing that had seemed to be a great fit had, uh, not been. (This was before remote/hybrid work was a real norm, even though my agency job had functionally been hybrid and taught me to work effectively as such.)

But when I'd gone through that previous job search, a couple of people I spoke with had mentioned maybe needing some freelance capacity down the road, and perhaps I should get in touch once I got settled in the job if I was interested. So I reached out to them, without mentioning the rest, thinking I could at least bridge the gap while I figured out what the fuck to do. Both had solid projects for me where I learned a bunch quickly, made some money, and was excited for more.

And then it just kind of made sense to keep seeing about those kinds of opportunities—both because I liked the client-based work and flexibility, but also because it quickly became apparent that it'd be harder for any one person or institution to fuck me over in the same way.

Plus, one of the people who needed a subcontractor turned out to be a great mentor and reference; I don't think I ever told him quite why I'd decided to go all-in on freelancing full-time, but I have thanked him repeatedly for some truly foundational early guidance as well as a couple of projects he helped set me up with. He's semi-retired now but I'm still using some of those templates!

Anyway, I networked my way into a couple of additional early projects and finished 2017 with about the same overall income for the year that I had had in my agency job for 2016. (Not the fuck-them one, the one I got laid off from because, well, that was a bad end-of-year for anyone working in Democratic politics, much like this one.)

And the rest is history: I've been self-employed for about 7.5 years now and, while the constant hustle and inconstant income/workload have their own challenges, I think I've landed in a pretty secure (emotionally/professionally) place about the whole enterprise.

#ask me ask me ask me #stpauligirl #about me meme #freelancing for fun and profit #having been let go from full-time work twice in six months i can say that the agency people were INFINITELY kinder #i wasn't the only one in that situation and they gave us nearly a month heads-up plus an extra month of health insurance #it turned out our boss had forgone his own income for a few months to pay the rest of us that year #and like they just ran out of money and work to do. it wasn't shocking tbh.#and it had already been apparent that what work there was wasn't using any of the skills for which i'd been hired #and i *did* get to keep my electronics. that 2014 laptop lasted me until early 2023!#so anyway if you have to nix someone's job that's the way to do it #i've mostly lost touch with those folks but i don't have a bad word to say about them #whereas the fuck-them situation had me with a sour taste in my mouth around an entire state for like a year #incidentally not that long ago someone i'd worked closely with for YEARS at my anchor client was networking #and mentioned being put in touch with [x] who apparently had been working at the fuck-them place at the same time as me #should he let [x] know we'd been working together? did i want to pass along a hello or anything?#i very quietly said 'please don't.' and after a pause and because i liked and trusted THIS guy added #'he fired me out of nowhere for unclear reasons so i'd really rather not be involved further.'#i mention this because the guy at the anchor client had no idea. by my design.#but also because i've worked really hard to be confident and good at what i actually do and how i do it.#anyway fuck them

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creepyscritches · 9 months ago

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My mom is going on a cruise w her bestie to a lot of European countries she's not seen yet (hasn't been to/lived in Europe or Africa since shortly before I was born). She asked me what gift I'd like and tbh I just really loooooove spices and flavors I dont have the opportunity to discover/try here, but like 🤔 not sure if customs would bar her from bringing spices home. Maybe a cool rock or smth instead as I seem to be collecting small stone animals when I travel lately

#Creepy chatter #trying to recall all the countries... It's a 16 day cruise and only 2 stops have 2 days spent there #2 days in Stockholm :D #My mom is the one that taught me how to cook so like lol our tastes are very similar. I trust her spice senses unquestionably.#She met my dad when they were living in Germany but she spent a little over 2 years living in Egypt in the late 80s early 90s.#After they came back to the states she never went back to other countries really so this will be very good for her I think :)#Always good to leave USA and get a reality check on what the international world is like. the US is so....lol....not real abt so much #Oh you know what I'd also be down for nice olive oil if spices don't pan out. 🤔 Not used to people going on trips lmao. Girl we were poor

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unbearable-lightness-of-ink · 3 months ago

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so anyway I really did start compiling a kinyarwanda/english dictionary/grammar guide out of all the random resources i've been hoarding on my phone (it doesn't have to be great, it just has to be better than searching multiple different files every time I'm looking for some obscure vocab or grammar detail) and one of these resources is some PDF uploaded to the internet archive and it's... not great. from the writing and contents it's clearly

old (my guess is mid-1900s. I don't remember colonial and post-colonial Rwandan history specifically enough to guess well here, but based on some of the typos, it was done on a typewriter and then scanned with OCR)

intended for missionaries (some examples of actual sentences in the "translate this" exercises include "I praise God because He saved me and He gave me peace and joy" and, I shit u not, "The blind man cannot see the Word of God, but he can hear and he can know the love of Jesus." it's. well for one thing this is basically useless vocabulary for me, and also it's cringe af)

written by someone who was not a linguist (at one point instead of just saying "if T is preceded by an unvoiced consonant, it turns into D" they give you a list of every unvoiced consonant and then recommend that you invent a mnemonic phrase to memorise the list?! why?)

written by someone who was shit with pronunciation (legit so many places where they're like "there's no way to describe how this sounds, you just have to ask someone to make the sound for you" my good bitch the phoneme might not be in english but I could describe it just fine. skill issue.)

but the thing that's really killing me about all this is that every time they try to explain tonal vowels or phonemes that aren't in english, they tell you to "ask an African to say it for you."

an. an what now? an African? babe there are approximately 1.5 billion people in Africa. Africa accounts for about 20% of the land on earth, it's the second-biggest continent, and it has an estimated two thousand living languages spoken throughout the continent.

and kinyarwanda? it has maybe 15-25 million native speakers, depending on which source I trust. it's spoken (almost*) exclusively in rwanda, which is the 9th smallest country in Africa--and that roundup includes islands off the coast of the continent. It has the second densest population in Africa but it still only has like 13 million people in it. and it's a very unique language. its closest relatives do not have the same phonemes that kinyarwanda has, and its closest relatives are also spoken by relatively few people. I don't know enough about kirundi to say much but I do know that it doesn't have the same vowel tones in all instances and it doesn't have some of the same consonant clusters. and the more widely spoken related languages that you're more likely to stumble on someone who knows how to speak? they're even worse for a reference; ask someone who speaks kiswahili to pronounce kinyarwanda for you and they will not pronounce the difference between, say, umuceri (rice) and umucyeri (berry), or the tonal difference between words like umusambi (floor mat) and umusambi (crested crane).

so, like. it's just absolutely sending me, this random white lady who was obviously a colonialist missionary, bothering to make a whole language guide to teach me how to proselytise in kinyarwanda, but along the way she's like "just ask an african--any african--how to say this" lady less than 1% of them are going to know this language but go off i guess

*almost because there's the diaspora of rwandan expats and immigrants in other countries plus the banyamulenge which is a whole aspect of it that has so much fraught history on all sides that I won't even try to say something intelligent about it, it's totally not my place/something i'm educated enough about, but to my knowledge most of them speak dialects that are more or less dissimilar to kinyarwanda; kinyamulenge and kinyabwisha are not the same as kinyarwanda. take it from my munyamulenge coworker who could never pronounce the difference between c and cy

#i meant to write a snappy salty thing but i kind of just got going #like. i am scavenging this because it's one of the few things I can find that includes verb tenses charted out #and past tense suffixes are a bitch #but it's also like. i do not trust it. anything i don't personally know already goes in a file to be fact checked #legit this thing tried to tell me that 'komera' is a phrase you use to say 'excuse me' if you cause harm or witness harm #like if you see someone have an accident I guess?#newsflash that is NOT what it's used for we have words for that we have mbabarira and ihangane i just like #look if any rwandan is on here and wants to correct me please do but i cannot imagine any scenario in which komera means excuse me #imagine you knock someone over and instead of saying any variety of sorry or excuse me or oh yikes i hope you're okay you say 'tough it out #like i know 'tough it out' is not a literal translation of komera but it's contextually a good translation in certain circumstances #not all obv but whatever #anyway this is. i wish anyone in my household also spoke this language bc i'm dying over how absurd this stupid reference is #kinyarwanda #languages #we'll see how long before I realise that there's a reason it took samuel johnson that long to write a dictionary #granted he didn't have ctrl+c/ctrl+v on his side sooooo i have that #tw colonisers #i guess idk if those phrases from the book are like triggering to anyone but they put a sour taste in my mouth at least so

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