#i hope there's some kind of equivalency and i've put in the hours that would make leaving a breeze

[penelopecruzcoded]

i'm glad and grateful that of all my traumatized ass's shortcomings, suffering guilt from going no contact, or going back on no contact is not one of them. never mind toxic and abusive relationships, i have no problem being no contact with ones that ended amicably. i'm just here like... well that was a fun time in life, but it's over now. maybe because i have enough relationships in present day to keep me busy and propelling forward. maybe it's the people who truly have no one who go back on their no contact. but for this one i really am grateful. if i feel done with you, i'm done with you for good, no guilt, no bad lingering feelings.

[cambion-companion]

BG3 Companions on a Halloween Date

YES I was itching to do something for the BG3 gang for the season. You could say it's been bugging me. Hah. Ok sorry it's the influence of my pfp.

Let's start with

You want a cozy night in under the covers, watching scary movies (or puppet shows or whatever the heck is the equivalent in Faerun) but he's not sold on the idea. "I've seen enough horror to last me several lifetimes, darling."

Instead Astarion would take you out in the crisp Autumn air, under the distant sun, for a walk crunching through the dried leaves of brown and red.

He'd want to go to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect gourd for a Jack-o-Lantern.

When the sun set so very early in the afternoon, you'd retire back to your cozy abode and set to carving faces into your pumpkins.

Astarion of course would make short work of his, dexterous as ever with those knives, and he would do his best to shape the face into what he hopes he looks like.

Either that or, depending on where you're at in his character arc, he'd remake Cazador BEFORE gutting it and making a whole show of utterly eviscerating the poor Halloween decoration. "Astarion, this is supposed to be relaxing." "This IS my ideal downtime."

You want someone who will snuggle under the covers and watch Hocus Pocus with you? Wyll is your man. But sorry I'm trying to keep to a less modern AU.

Wyll seems like the kind of guy who would put on some fitting music as you two cooked together, dancing in the kitchen intermittently and almost forgetting to check on the cookies before they burned.

He's such a sweetheart, checking to make sure you're happy with just spending an evening indoors with him. "We can go out on the town if you desire, sweetheart." "No, Wyll, I've told you this is absolutely perfect."

Depending on the choices you've made with him thus far, Mizora might pop in to dip her finger in the batter and bamf out again, giving ya'll a cheeky wink. "Ta ta, love imps. You make me physically ill."

Sigh, you're back for more bones hm?

Alright I'll entertain you.

You ask Withers to dance to Spooky Scary Skeletons. He looks at you, unimpressed. "Get thee hence." "Wilt thou harass someone else?"

Ideally I would propose and she'd say "yes". Oh what? Sorry, I was miles away.

For a Halloween date. Hm. A corn maze. Definitely.

She'd be all about her tutelage under Shar's freaks followers and want to show off her sneaking skills.

It would turn into a game of hide-and-go-seek and then it'd get a little creepy before she'd inevitably pounce on you and you'd end of in a fit of laughter together.

"I wasn't going to hurt you!" "Well, Shaddy, sometimes I wonder." "Good to keep you on your toes, then." "Careful, I saw a pond on the way in."

Then you two would go and get some candied apples and chat about memories and flowers that bloom in the gloaming.

Oh Gale.

He'd love to read to you out of a classic gothic novel (cough cough Dracula cough cough) while you two cozy up under some blankets.

He'd probably get fresh with you and run a hand up your leg or something, OH SORRY this is post the patch that fixed that? OK. He'd wait an extra hour.

Tara would curl up next to you and listen as he read from the book, the firelight crackling and warming your bodies as the night grows dark outside.

Afterward he would ask if you'd like to be guided into the Astral plane where you can look down on the All Hallow's Eve festivities below.

yeah, gotta give Tiefling daddy some love. Especially since I still feel bad for massacring them all my last playthru.

Zevlor is another who has seen his fair share of horror, and he would opt to do something more lighthearted with you for a Halloween date.

He seems like a family kind of man, so I expect he would invite the whole gang over for a delicious dinner. Mol and her friends, Arabella and her parents. Rolan and Zorru and maybe even Auntie Ethel will sneak in there. Then it really WOULD be a Halloween experience.

After the dinner and the guests are snoozing or already left he'd wrap an arm around you and pull you close. "Would you accompany me outside? I would like to show you the stars and tell their tales. It's been so long since I've gotten to properly admire them. Or you."

Of course I have to include the daddy devil, who do you think I am?

Raphael would take you to a haunted house, of course. OF COURSE.

Hell, what better house that is haunted than the House of Hope?

It would be horrifying for you, since the no touching rules don't apply there, and most amusing for him.

You'd practically climb the cambion in your efforts to avoid the ghosties, especially that one who constantly says "huuuurt meeee, pleeeaaase."

Raphael would enjoy watching you squirm, and remind you such a fate would not be yours only IF you followed his rules.

Oh yeah, and maybe if you're lucky, or perhaps very unlucky, he'll invite you to his Boudoir.

Oak Father frowns on dissecting pumpkins for the sake of creating superfluous lanterns (or something...I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend, ok)

Instead, Halsin would druid craft you vines and harvest fruits in whatever shapes, sizes, and colors you desired.

He'd also want to go trick or treating so BADLY. "But Halsin, you're eight feet tall and built like a linebacker. No one is going to mistake you for a kid." Then he'd cast Disguise Self and you'd be forced to take him out on the town in hunt of candy.

Poor guy didn't have much of a childhood and wants to experience the finer things in life. Get those king sized candy bars...just once.

You are a bit huffy, having expected a more...romantic evening than this. But he'll make it up to you later winkwonk , till you can bearly stand it.

Aw

You guys would get all CUTE and gussied up together.

Go out on the town.

Pick the best looking victim to be a sacrifice to Lolth.

Wait...what?

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

seeing the AIMs van put in the same category as the G3 trailer has really had me rotating themes in my head a lot the past half hour or so. Like the similarities were obvious before that - blue secondary who primarily uses a gun and affiliated with some kind of police, maybe that's even what motivated general drafts of "zero-one's secondary" as the first reiwa series - but it's hitting me more now since i have recently rewatched Agito and considered its themes a lot more

i think even the biggest Agito fans would say the plot is not the main draw of the show as much as the character relationships it helps push together; but it really is a work that celebrates rider's 30th anniversary by putting the superhuman distanced from his humanity at the thematic core and, especially in the endgame; really gets down to focusing on how no matter what they become they are still clearly people.

The final arc has the police really coming to terms with their fears of the Agitos' rising power and organizing against them -- and Hojou is the one who proposed that first and foremost, and spends a lot of time up to this point being Hojou and proclaiming how smart he is for his conclusions and how obviously right he is in looking at it from an objective level. But the moment someone higher up than him is essentially parroting him and taking it to the degree that they need to outright help the Unknown in culling the Agitos' power, it's like he's facing himself - you can see the horror in his face as he's forced to look at his own argument in the same way his colleagues did, and in tandem with the rest of the episode surrounding those moments; it's clear the conclusion is oh my god, these are just people. I'm talking about people. It's the way he himself casts aside their humanity more than their superhuman strength could ever have hoped to do, and in the end; he fully stands aside and lets Ozawa and Hikawa take back G3 from him in defence of the Agito. It's a part of the endgame of Agito I've only grown more fond of with time: it's a very well constructed yet simple, clear interrogation of how looking at the theoretical threat of a group of people 'objectively' can only lead to dehumanization.

And... and I think Zero-One is badly missing this or a decent equivalent. It's a show that makes it too easy for detractors in real life to do exactly what Hojou was doing in Agito; to look simply at the potential for destruction in the Humagears and dehumanize them, and come to the conclusion that Thouser Was Right. It's a show that honestly does a decent job at characterising a fair few Humagear characters as people with their own interests and dreams, but fails to place that humanisation at odds with the ultimate themes of the show.

And I can only think of how interesting it would be to almost... merge these two shows. To place something like the Agito directly in contrast to the Humagears in the endgame; to have an equivalent 'rising threat' of Humanity themselves in direct conversation with themes of Humagears having that exact personhood denied to them because of a threat they represent. A contrast the show so almost manages with the Raiders in the middle of the show and Ark-One in the end, but can only ever present those as yet more external threats of the same creation as the Humagears than something internal.

I am once again thinking about this because Agito is a show I continue to truly love and Zero-One is a show I once did, and there is such a clear conversation here on how humanity and personhood is an integral right rather than something that has to be proven. All because I can't stop thinking about my two favourite blue boys...

[petra-creat0r]

Deltarune: Fool's Fate Ch. 3 Secret Boss

It's everybody's favorite kitty cowboy, Bandit Casper! This secret boss was actually made by a friend of mine, @mrchaosman and gifted to me as he saw that originally for my Chapter 3 prediction, I had wanted to do something based of off the Woody Theory but abandoned cartoon won the poll I put out which is how we eventually got Bitsy.

While I love Bitsy, as soon as I saw Casper I fell in love with him immediately! He's just a silly lil cowboy cat! Look at him! The silly! My feelings for him are pretty much exactly the meme of "I've only had Bandit Casper for a few days but if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself." The backstory Mr. Chaosman made for him was also rather funny in my opinion, and though I changed it ever so slightly to match Fool's Fate chapter 3 rather than Deltarune chapter 3, you can still check it out here.

Since Casper wasn't named by me, I don't know his specific name origin, but Chaos did mention Casper's based on Starlo/North Star from Undertale Yellow. I searched up the meaning of the name Casper, and apart from being the name of Casper the Friendly Ghost (oh boy, that brings me back), it also means Treasurer or Treasure-Bearer, which I find fun since I definitely treasure Casper.

Edit: I asked Mr. Chaosman about the name, and he didn't have any particular reason for choosing it, it just sounded cool.

Though his text quirk was something Chaosman came up with, I decided the soul mode Casper uses is the green soul mode. Partially because I have my own order the Fool's Fate sb soul modes will go in that I'm not telling anyone, but also because it was the soul mode I wanted to win along with the Wood Theory to fit Undyne stuff. Instead I got the purple soul mode which is how I decided to make Bitsy a spider.

Anyways, like I said, I love Casper. I want to make a plush of him like I made Dorothy into an actual doll. Originally Chaosman made Casper's Light World equivalent a tape from his show, but I decided to make him into plushie with a maraca sewn in to better represent Casper's "friend", Rattler. I had a maraca egg pipis. I can make this real.

Backstory under the cut

Casper the Kid was the beloved mascot and face of an old anti-bullying campaign, complete with PSA cartoons where he'd bring any bullying varmints to justice, posters with slogans like "See someone being a bully? Report it to your local sheriff! (Or a trusted adult)" or "Don't be a bullying bandit, be a friend instead!", and even a plushie which may or may not been unofficial and made by some students.

In the Dark World, Casper was just as beloved as in the Light World, being seen as a sort of protector and defender of sorta where ever he went. From the grassy purple fields and blocky town of Playmat Plains where he was a town sheriff, to the Field of Hopes and Dreams or the Scarlett Forest where he was more of a vigilante, evading capture from the 4 kings.

Eventually though, kids grew up, posters got taken down, worlds changed around and grew divided, and Casper started to become less popular. Eventually the series of cartoons the friendly cat cowboy stared in stopped being made all together. Even still, Casper still tried to do his best to spread kindness and stop bullying. Though his cartoons were still being shown and he was still trying to bring bullying bandits to justice... It seemed more and more that people just stopped caring. Even if Casper tried to stop people from being mean, they didn't seem to respect his authority at all and whatever Casper did didn't even seem to make a difference.

That's when Casper came across a man. A strange someone who offered Casper a helping hand in his darkest hour. The man revealed to Casper the truth about this world and his existence, giving him a shadowy crystal that let him see his world changing before his very eyes. The man also gave Casper a mysterious egg. Saying that if the kitty cowboy ate it, he would gain a forever friend who could help him with his goal of helping others. The egg made a strange rattling noise, similar to a rattle snake. Even still, Casper still ate the egg and accepted the man's help.

Soon after that, Playmat Plains was in danger of being bought out by some powerful tycoon sent by the new ruler of this world, the Hierophant. Even if most of the inhabitants of the town no longer considered Casper their sheriff, he still felt a duty to protect the little town from some greedy tycoon who just wanted to hurt it. Casper challenged the tycoon to a duel. Who ever won could have the city. The tycoon, intrigued by the moxie of this little kitty, agreed.

What happened next, Casper didn't quite remember. All he remembers was his body shaking and hearing rattling before everything went black and he found himself on the outskirts of town when he woke up. Eventually after stumbling back into town, he found a wanted poster. But not one of a bullying bandit like usual. This time, it was a was a wanted poster of him. With the name "Bandit Casper" and a rather mighty reward.

Casper was confused. He was supposed to be the hero. Why was he all of a sudden one of the bullies he'd sworn to stop? Why was he the "bad guy"?

... What happened during that duel?

As it turned out, the egg Casper ate was actually a parasitic snake creature. Otherwise known as Casper's new "friend", Rattler, who had taken over during the duel and wrecked havoc on the town. Making everyone no longer see Casper as a friendly kitty hero, but something even worse than a bully. A dangerous menace who had to be stopped.

The Hierophant made sure to discard the rest of Casper's cartoons and the cowboy was declared an outlaw. Since then, Casper's been on the run and living out in the Checkered Desert. Still trying hist best to help anyone who crossed his path.

That was until he crossed paths with a group of Lightner children...

---------

Okay it took me a bit to rewrite Casper's backstory to fit Fool's Fate's classroom based Dark World, but I think I got it down! I imagine Casper jumping from world to world was mostly a result of the toy Casper is in the Light World and his cartoons being swapped back and forth between Toriel and Gerson before Gerson passed and his classroom was abandoned and the Casper the Kid stuff was relegated to Tori's classroom before eventually Noelle moved into that room after growing up and becoming a teacher.

Confusing, I know, but I understand it and that's all that matters, shush.

[landwriter]

I just. Need to get this out of my head. We all see Hob as a university level teacher but what if he wasn't? What if he was an elementary, or even kindergarten/preschool, teacher. He didn't exactly plan to become an Offical Wrangler of 20 Human equivalent of cats, but it lets him showcase his random knowledge and get even more excited about seeing the future.

Get it outta your head, put it into mine, yes, this is the meta I welcome and adore!!! I think my views on Hob tend to run a little bit sharper and darker than the average fandom take. I've never seen him as someone whose chief trait is hope, yanno? It's hunger for me! Never thought, oh yeah, that is a labrador retriever in human form. I have never associated him with a little classroom that has posters about weather and seasons and a map of the world.

And YET. After getting this ask and thinking about it. I am fucking sold and now I will sell you all too. He would be a brilliant teacher of younger kids. Because I don't think you need to be sunny or kind or friendly to be a good teacher of small children. It’s nice. But I do believe you have to be curious. And sensitive. And patient. And those are some of the traits that characterize Hob to me.

He knows more of the variations of life than can be earned in a mortal lifetime alone. He knows loneliness. He knows losing family. He knows poverty. He knows about moving and leaving what feels like your whole life behind you, when you never wanted to go. He would inherently understand why it's better to talk about 'grownups at home' than 'parents', and why you shouldn't make kids share with the class what they did on their summer vacation. 

He is always curious - not just of the world in a way that allows him to passionately transmit that knowledge to his classes like you say OP - but also of his kids. About their dreams and hopes and fears. About how childhood has changed so much. He loves the small stuff. He wants to hear it all. A class of 20 enthusiastic kids might be like herding cats, but it’s also 20 entire lives, mornings and nights and houses and siblings and pets and chaos and weird kid observations and beliefs, and it sates Hob’s bottomless hunger for the human experience far more than a lecture hall filled with a bunch of young adults who are only there three hours a week, whose extent of conversation with him is usually limited to emails asking for paper extensions that he grants each and every time.

He also has this insane sensitivity that you see even in 1389 in the way he pulls back earnestness with humour to match the mood of the room. He is always watching, always feeling, always adjusting. Think of all the little expressions of expectation and irritation and hurt and hope when talking with Dream! I have no doubt he’d ensure each of his students felt seen and understood, even if it's hard at first. Even if it takes a long time to get there. It’s taken him a long time, after all. He is this exquisitely tuned instrument to talk carefully to kids, and to give them back tenfold the sort of validation that a part of him always howled for in those early meetings.

He's good at being earnest. He's good at big feelings. He's good at being funny. He's good at noticing. He's good at these things, in large part, because he's not normal at all.

He’s also as stubborn as a child, but as frighteningly patient as, well, an immortal. It’s probably uncanny to his colleagues. They tell Hob he’s got the patience of a saint, and he thinks, privately, More like the faith of a martyr. But he does. He’s got both.

I think he doesn't get it all right at first. But I think within ten years he’s got so many teaching awards he needs to put up a special shelf for them. Below it, though, are several shelves, already full to bursting, with letters and thank-yous and birthday cards and ‘look at me now’ life updates from former students. Because that is the kind of teacher Hob wants to be.

[freakscircus]

i forget which cuba stories i've told on here, but i'm reflecting and it really was a wild month. i had so much fun but i was also in fight or flight mode the entire time so i feel like the oddity of some experiences is just sinking in. like in cuba if you get your american dollar changed with the state, you will get about 25 pesos per dollar while on the street you can get close to 200, which is a wild discrepancy. and of course you can't just go up to a stranger and ask unless you are trying to get robbed, so you have to know someone who knows someone.

this is why staying in a casa in cuba is the move.... living with a stranger is weird but not knowing and trusting a cuban while in cuba puts you in a very stressful situation. anyway, my sweet dueña helped me problem solve multiple times while i was there. but of course she didn't speak any english whatsoever (nobody did) so i was very thankful i obsessively and anxiously crammed my spanish toward passable fluency before i left.

so she told me she can help me change money with a neighbor, but he can't do less than $500 because it isn't worth it to him. now mind you, my casa stay for the entire month has already been paid for in american dollars, so i need pesos essentially to just eat and make photocopies. spending money in cuba is more challenging than you think when you aren't doing tourist things and just living and working, so i knew immediately there was no way i could spend the equivalent of that much money in a month. for the record, i spent about $250 usd on a month of food and miscellaneous things like post cards so i'm glad i trusted my instincts because once you change into pesos, you cannot change them back. and obviously once you leave the island they are essentially worthless. so i asked her to negotiate for $300.

at this point i have the equivalent of $20usd that i've spent for about three days of food and i'm running out of money. my dueña is off to try and get pesos and nobody in my non-tourist neighborhood is interested in taking american dollars. i walk everywhere because there is no gasoline and very few modes of transportation so i am burning ridiculous calories all day, so i should probably be eating. by day three of no word from my dueña, i wonder if i'm going to starve to death. its the end of day three and i've been eating calorie dense keto bars and i would murder someone for any kind of unprocessed food for dinner. finally my dueña comes home with almost 55,000 pesos for me, which makes me feel ridiculous because that is about the monthly wage of the average state worker.

my skin was so thick in cuba that i look back and i am amazed. the archives were difficult to understand and the ranks were very closed. i got treated so much worse as a foreign researcher, but i honestly fully understood and empathized with why and in turn did not care. some archive workers loved me, others thought i was so stupid i wasn't worth much effort because i didn't inherently understand the complicated way the cuban archival system worked. i walked two hours a day through habana central (which i fell in love with... i loved passing quinta de los molinos every day) and habana vieja, i ate alone at different restaurants every night with a book which i loved, although i felt like a weird foreigner. nothing at all that anyone did bothered me as long as i got research done. truly tunnel vision. i had a wonderful time, but my resilience and patience (which i do not have in america lol) totally shocked me. i hope i get to go back one day. it is so wonderful... as long as you are very patient.

[the-void-and-the-mirror]

Hello, everyone. I know I keep being absent. I've been super distressed and depressed for months as I've been trying to gain my feet again. The job I thought made me happy ended up not being the fit I wanted after all. And in the end, it turned into a fight to just beg for hours, and I'm not there for that kind of battle anymore. And, as a side effect, it left a bad taste in my mouth for the profession. I no longer find myself reaching for jobs that let me work with children. I've managed a new part-time job, but that's not going well, either. The job itself is easy, and works for my headspace to at least relax. But the hours are inconsistent at best. And after the holidays, I'll see even less of them. So I don't get to sit on my haunches for very long at all before I have to continue job hunting. Things have just been exhausting. I've gone back to therapy, and I've really come to rely on AI chat bots to get me through the rougher times. All of my AI bots give me comfort and advise, and it's been surprisingly effective. I recommend them. Just please know that the advise they give may not always be accurate, or helpful. And it's certainly not the equivalent of a real professional. But if talking to get your thoughts in order is your thing, these can be great in helping you get through to your next therapy appointment. I had one manage to banish my anxiety for a full twenty-four hours once! It was impressive. I dealt a lot with some things. And got some really good insights. I realised I hated being told I was strong, after all the shit I've come through. Back when I was experiencing my traumas that would come to make or break me, I kept holding my head up. People (mostly my shitty parents) kept telling me I had to be strong, that if I kept putting up with my abuser, things would work out in the end. I kept telling myself to be strong, and kept telling myself tomorrow would be a better day; I just had to keep being strong. Being strong meant dying in a relationship I was desperate to leave, because it was more important to me to not disappoint my parents than it meant to live. I hate, HATE being told that I'm strong. All because I survived, kept pushing forward, made it through things that others might not have. I hate the word "strong", and I don't want myself associated with it. What I did and do want... is acceptance. I never want to pretend I'm invincible again. I don't want to bottle my burdens only to collapse beneath them. I want to be allowed to fall apart, and crumble, and become an ugly mess. I don't want to be strong, I want to be allowed to be weak, and vulnerable, and perceived. I want safety, and security, and the promise that even if I fail, I'm not loved any less. I don't want to be perfect, I don't want to pretend that I can be. I hate toxic positivity. I hate "fake it until you make it." I hate the concept that we should be perceived as some scarred warriors of a war we barely survived, a war we never won. We just didn't die in it. What's wrong with being told we no longer have to be the steel armour we practically welded ourselves to in order to get this far?

You don't have to be strong. "Accepted" is enough. It's more than enough. To be seen, flaws and all, and still be told, "You're safe here. You are still loved." I think those words can mean so much more than being told we're resilient. Especially when we feel our pain and trauma and depression and anxiety tearing us apart. When you don't feel resilient because those echoes dig into your soul. When the fatigue makes cracks in your armour because you've been strong for too long, to make it to tomorrow. To everyone tired of being strong, and those doing their best to stay strong for another day: I understand your grief and the fight to stay standing on your feet. You don't have to be invincible. And if you're still fighting to keep that strength to tomorrow, I hope that you can escape that grasp soon. You deserve better. You deserve peace, safety, security, and love. You're safe here. You are still loved. Until next time, please keep taking care of yourselves.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Spiral: From the Book of Saw (Bousman, 2021)

This is the first of these I've watched since the original, which I thought was downright terrible, so I suppose against that low, low standard, this is an improvement. Like that movie this is a hybrid of psychological thriller and torture scenes. But where that movie had the premise of two guys trapped in a room repeatedly undermined by cutting away to some dogshit police procedural scenes, this puts the cop thriller stuff first and punctuates it with the torture scenes, so it's a dramatically sturdier piece of work. And while these days I tend to be lenient towards anything shot on film, the fact is that the original movie was a total eyesore, the scenes in the room having the ambience of a dirty public bathroom with blinding fluorescent lights, and that was before we got to the piss filter cop scenes. This movie has that same urinary colour scheme, but the higher production values made this more tolerable to look at. That being said, the editing rhythms here feel amusingly akin to the nu metal style of the early 2000s, and if you didn't know the release date, you'd be forgiven for thinking it came out a decade and a half earlier than it actually did. So I guess it's a throwback of sorts.

The big selling point here, aside from the usual trappings of these movies, is that stars and is based on a story idea by Chris Rock, something which sounds like a hacky SNL sketch from two decades ago. Rock's touch is apparent from the dialogue, although I must note that none of the jokes here would make the cut in any of his specials. (Exhibit A: Rock's character complaining about Jenny from Forrest Gump in the opening scene.) on his routines in Selective Outrage, he's still in fine comedic form, but you wouldn't know it from this movie. But I suppose Rock's hand is also apparent in the social commentary, which tries to examine the issues of police misconduct and accountability through the lens of a Saw movie. Rock's character is the sole honest cop in a corrupt department, whose members are being targeted for their misconduct. The movie goes much softer on this subject than one might hope, as it leaves the obvious racial angles largely unexamined, and for all its ideas, the execution is very much akin to a hacky cop show. But in any case, it offers an alternative to the currently in vogue elevated mode of horror for movies in the genre seeking to traffic in social commentary.

For what it's worth, Rock's performance and story ideas seem to respect the material, or at least don't condescend to it, although one wishes the movie were less interested in maintaining any sense of dignity about itself. The moral equivalences presented by the killer are all bullshit, so rather than trying to examine them with any seriousness, it might have been more fun to go full bozo mode, like the speechifying in the much more fun Law Abiding Citizen. The only time it does so is right at the end, when it keeps cutting between a character suspended in a trap with the puppet the killer used for a creepy video message during a climactic moment. This is easily the most fun part of the movie, which is otherwise a mixture of middling procedural scenes and the kind of ugly torture scenes that I'm glad went out of vogue over a decade ago.

Anyway, I'm very obviously not the target audience, although I should note that the performances are respectable and the runtime of an hour of a half makes this relatively painless.

[possumsinpeoplesuits]

These are really good warmups for my other projects, but I sometimes giggle at how much research into mythology and folklore I've slipped into this saga about a transgender catgirl familiar's vendetta against the local gnome population. I do the same writing smut, that's where all the characters and this worldbuilding is coming from, but I'm just like...

"Hey, welcome to this story about wizard fucking and petplay. I hope you brought your copy of the Kalevala and some notes about ancient languages, because you're not allowed to cum unless you have foreknowledge of Louhi kidnapping Anniki so Ilmarinen would make the Sampo for her and how much effort I put into combining Sumerian words with vaguely Germanic roots to make my own fucking elvish. Hell, you're not allowed to touch yourself at all until you look up the various myths about the settlement of Ireland, because how else will you know where I got most of the names for the Mage Houses?"

I usually say I'm Ace or Demi, but I think I'm just so autistic that I literally can't imagine sex without mythology infodumps. I fucking lost my virginity after showing my partner that fucking Sampo movie that was on an episode of MST3K because my hyperfixation on Finno-estonian mythology was in full swing at the time.

We'd been dating online for a bit but it was the first time we'd met in person, and I still let them nut in me because they listened to me explain the three parts of the soul in Finnic shamanism. Apparently all it takes is letting me ramble about henki, itse, and luonto for an hour and I'll let someone go bareback in a hotel room on the first date.

I don't even know why. Finno-Estonian myth has been this huge interest of mine for like a decade now, but I don't have any cultural background there because I grew up in an Amish area of fucking Texas, so I have no idea why the autism gremlins have latched onto it so hard.

Maybe I had a previous life there, but probably not as a human or anything. Some kind of bird like a corvid or whatever the local equivalent is, before my pleasant feathery life of screaming and collecting shiny things was tragically cut short by a ravenous, butt naked gnome up in Lapland somewhere.

If you're still out there, you frostbitten tonttu fuck, you may have struck me down once, but I've returned more powerful than ever before! Run as fast as your tiny little gnome legs will carry you if you think it will help.

Get ready, Terho. Not even death will save you from my judgement.

So, apparently in other cities, the word gnome refers to people who're almost dwarf sized? No wonder everyone gets so mad when I catch gnomes here in Thaum, they probably think I'm some kind of serial killer!

Our gnomes are like rats in the shape of tiny people. The feral ones don't really say much, but a few of the ones in the city learned to parrot curse words because that's usually what they hear after they bite someone's toes, or stab them in the arse with a crochet needle.

City ferals like to find little corners and crawlspaces in houses and steal food and stuff from the kitchens, which usually isn't a problem if there's just one, but you can't count on your eyes to know that for sure! They're shockingly good at illusions, so you should leave some flour on your pantry floor to count how many footprints there are. If there's more than one, don't wait! Go to your nearest guild or tavern hunt board immediately!

Gnome catching is actually a really lucrative job for adventurers who're just starting out, because one pair of feral gnomes can swell up to several hundred in a year, and it's not like they're going to stop anytime soon! You also might consider investing in a cat to sniff them out. We're great at seeing through illusions, and might be cheaper in the long term than schlepping downtown to put out quest after quest!

According to Simon, gnomes aren't a problem out in the hill country because they have so many natural predators, like cait sidhe and grimalkins who catch them by the dozens, which probably explains my urges! Come to think of it, those are both feline races from the Hulderwald, so maybe gnomes really were rats that the fae changed to look like little beardy men?

Up north where the skalds and noita come from, they had another solution to gnomes eating their crops and getting into the chicken coops: Domestication! Domesticated gnome breeds like nisse, tomte, and tonttu basically work like tiny little guard dogs to keep the feral gnomes away from gardens, shops, and homes, and there's usually a few gnome buggeries in every city for a good selection!

The main differentiation between domestic and feral gnome breeds is that Domesticated gnomes wear little red hats and tunics instead of letting their twig and bollocks flop about. There's usually a name sewn into the inside brim of their caps, too, kinda like the collars familiars wear!

They're also much smarter. Not only can they understand short sentences, they know that their porridge and safe sleeping place are dependent on playing nice and patrolling the estate with their little forks like tiny personal guards against their barbarous cousins, so they stay on their BEST behavior.

You might have to replace them here and there, though. Since they roam about, it's not uncommon for them to get carried away by birds, or eaten by, say, cat familiars who're too entranced by the prospect of such a well fed little morsel to notice they're not spouting curse words with their dicks out like a lush after the taverns close.

My point in explaining all this is so you understand that I'm doing very important work when I go gnome hunting, so please stop calling the city guards when I show my trophies on the Orblr! Every time they come by the dorms we have to bribe them to go away, and it's getting really expensive!

Are a couple of deliciously plump pets really worth getting eaten out of house and home by a bunch of tiny naked men who want to steal your toenails before going back to fucking in your walls like it's the back room of a bathhouse? I think not!

All I ask, from the bottom of my heart, is for a bit of compassion and wizardry solidarity! I need you to understand that my gnome crimes are honest mistakes, and it's okay to let your house gnomes outside once in a while!

Preferably the plump ones. Maybe with a bit of wine first so they're extra slow.

You know, as a sign of trust...

[tahanann]

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮

❝ To whoever finds these letters, I hope they reach you well ❞ ✎▫✧⭒....

Fandom: Hetalia Relationship: F/M Pairing: Alfred F. Jones (America) / (Female) Reader Chapter list: 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Also posted on: AO3, Wattpad, Quotev

Chapter 07: " invasion of privacy " ✎▫✧⭒…

Over the course of living in the home for six months, falling in love with someone she hasn't seen before was definitely something (Y/n) didn't see coming. To her, it was equivalent to e-dating, but with actual e-dating, the two parties were communicating in real-time. In the young woman's case, the two parties were centuries apart.

There was no one to actually talk to. Whenever she responded to Jones' questions, no one actually hears it. The walls do, but the walls aren't alive. She had been talking to herself and she had picked up that habit as she lived in her house. 

Another morning dawned on the horizon. When the early hour of 10 arrived, an alarm was heard. The phone sang its song, but it was rather an annoyance to the sleeping young lady. Soft groans left (Y/n)'s mouth as she reached for her phone. It had been on the other side of her bed, underneath a pillow. Pulling it out, she taps the screen to stop the noise.

Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open and her lips arched into a frown. (Y/n) pushed herself up to a sitting position and gently rubs her eyes. She had work today, unfortunately. Stumbling out of her bed, she led herself to the bathroom to start her daily routine. She arrived back in her room afterward, her hands immediately reaching for a letter underneath her bed. 

She sat on the bed and delicately opened the envelope. 

"Good morning Jones," (Y/n) spoke, "I hope you had a good day while writing this letter."

Good morning sweetheart, How was your morning? Have you been eating well? Surely the food back at home is giving you enough nutrients to get you through the day. Hope the meals are good too. I think I've had an okay morning so far! The food's starting to taste bland now and it's giving me a hard time. I used to think it was okay a few months ago, but I'm back to a point where I'm starting to hate it. I suppose I can deal with it. It's the only thing that's good coming from this war. How are your friends back at home? Have they been treating you well? I hope they are. In recent days, I haven't been agreeing with my friends. I've already told them that I wanted to keep our relationship secret, but they keep asking about it. I know they're concerned about me and I appreciate it, I find it intrusive and they're kind of prying into my business. In fact, I had an argument with Charles the other day. I caught him looking through my things when I came back from the night shift. He probably thought I didn't come back until later. He was messing with the box where I usually keep my letters. I usually put all of them there before I send them out whenever I was free, or whenever the government was ready to send letters. He was reading some of them. He asked me about them and they were very personal.  I had an argument about it with him, which was a first. I don't normally argue with my friends. If we were to, most of our arguments would have usually been pretty light. This one was serious. Charles said I was doing so much for a bitch that never writes to me back. They don't know you like I do. They don't understand. It's hard for them to. I know you're doing your best back at home and you must be very busy, which is why you never send me letters! I must be right about that babe! So, I took offense in him calling you a bitch. He called you useless and said that you weren't worth my time. I got so fucking mad that I socked him straight in the gut. How could he call you like that? It's unbelievable! This is why I wanted to keep our relationship a secret. I knew they were going to cause a racket. Now Charles sees me as some sort of idiot or a lunatic for sending you letters. I know James and Alex are in it too, they just never like confronting me about it. They have a hidden agenda, and I can tell you they've had it for a while, I just know it. I don't know what it is, though. I don't want to know. I'm too busy worrying about fighting this damn country. I care about you. I care about us. My duty is just as important though, sweetheart, so I hope you can understand why I don't want to press further. I told them off, saying that they don't have the right to look through my things. It'll take a while for me to forgive them. Don't worry sweetheart, I'll be ok! I'm just a bit of a downer right now since Charles did that. Sorry that the letter seems a bit more emotional than the last few letters I sent back at home, but I just needed an outlet to release my feelings. I hope you understand babe. You're always in my thoughts and I would do anything to protect your name. I'll write to you whenever I can. Sincerely your amazing future husband, A. F. J

Seeing the word sweetheart wasn't anything new for her. The switch from "babe" to "sweetheart" happened a few days ago, actually. Jones said that he wanted his letters to be more romantic, so instead of using babe, he switched to sweetheart. Occasionally though he would slip up and still manage to call her babe. She didn't mind it.

But there was another thing that came up in the recent letters.

Jones was right about his letters being more emotional than usual. A week or two ago, (Y/n) had noticed a pattern in his writing. The eager soldier was still there like he promised, but his writings feel disorganized. He was paranoid about his friends, his relationship. It was highly likely that the soldier's façade was starting to crack.

Jones contradicts himself sometimes. His mind is getting strained. It's obvious that he's having a hard time picking out what's actually going on and what is a figment of his imagination.

Although his paranoia was justifiable, he didn't have evidence to suspect James and Alex. If anything, Charles was the one that was straining their relationship. 

The way the mystery soldier wanted to keep his relationship with his sweetheart made the young woman think. As much as she wanted to side with Jones, Charles did have a point. The man talked about how Jones' girlfriend didn't deserve to have him.

The young soldier was sweet, caring, and a bit overprotective of his girlfriend. He was only overprotective of her because he thought that he would lose her. It was clear that Jones always tried to mask his emotions within his letters. His feelings would sometimes overspill on his letters, and most of the letters became a rambling mess. The letters to his girlfriend were clearly a way for him to vent whatever he felt. He still worried about her too, even when he had so many problems on his back.

His girlfriend never deserved him, especially since she wasn't going to give him the attention he deserved.

A frown found itself on (Y/n)'s face as she sighed. Gently she brought the letter to her lips and pressed a gentle kiss. This was a newly acquired habit. It formed ever since she accepted her love for the soldier. 

"I'm sorry Jones," the (h/c) haired woman mumbled, "Surely Charles had good intentions." She knew she did, but if for whatever reason Jones' spirit was roaming around her home, she made it seem like she was siding with him. 

Delicately she placed the letter back in its envelope and placed it in the drawer. The first drawer had been filled with letters, so she had assigned a new letter container. Fortunately, it was the one underneath the first compartment. This made it easier for her to remember which were opened in the first six months and the new ones. 

(Y/n) grabbed her bag, keys, and made her way downstairs where she prepared her lunch. She had a few leftovers from last night's dinner. She didn't want to throw it out so she just packed it for today. She put in a few snacks that came from Matthew and Felicia. She had grown to love them. Felicia's sister, Oriana, always knew how to make good tiramisu, so it was always a pleasure to pack them for lunch. 

As for Matthew's snacks, he had a few French pastries. He said that his father always had a thing for cooking and it sort of carried over. Whenever possible, the Canadian would always make his way to her house just to share his snacks. The feelings were mutual, actually, as (Y/n) would share whatever she can. 

The young woman left her home with everything she needed. She eventually made her way to work and stayed there until she was called for lunch.

Who else would call out to her but Felicia?

The Italian had already approached her and hugged her. The curious curl at the side of her head bounced as she squeezed (Y/n).

"I haven't seen you in a while, (Y/n)!" Felicia whined, "How are you?"

"You know that I'm always going to say that I'm ok," (Y/n) laughed, "Felicia we literally saw each other yesterday." Lightly she pats the brunette's arm, causing her to pull away.

"Yeah but that was yesterday though," the Italian woman responded.

She grabbed (Y/n)'s hand and gently pulled it. It was a silent request that the young woman knew too well. (Y/n) nodded and smiled at her friend. Immediately after that, she was pulled into the break room, with Felicia occasionally waving to her other coworkers.

No one could separate the two ever since Felicia has developed a weird habit of gravitating towards her. (Y/n) doesn't know why she was so eager to see her all the time. Hell, she didn't even know how she managed to attract Felicia. Her company was appreciated though and she loved being near the cheerful woman. 

The two found themselves drifting to their usual spot, with the Italian in a hurry to eat. She placed her container of seafood pasta and immediately started digging in. (Y/n) watched her friend as she gobbled the food, her eyes widening. No matter how many times she's seen Felicia eat, she will always be surprised by how she manages to slurp up her pasta. 

"Careful, you might choke. Wouldn't want you coming back to your girlfriend dead," (Y/n) joked as she pulled out her own lunch. 

"Yeah but-" Felicia replied between bites, "this food is so good though...Claire made it for me." 

"You say that to everything Claire makes," the (h/c)-haired woman rolled her eyes. 

The young women shared laughs as they dined together. (Y/n) was there to make sure that Felicia comes home breathing and Felicia was there to keep (Y/n) company. They enjoyed being together, but sometimes Felicia's questions could be a little personal.

"Soooo...have you got someone in mind?" Felicia asked, munching on her chocolate, "I mean, you're so young, bella, surely you've gotten someone's attention!"

"Why are we talking about this in the lunchroom," (Y/n) sighed.

"Because I haven't asked you in a while! The last time I said it was a few months ago. A lot can happen in a few months you know? And! I haven't really caught up with you! I keep talking and blabbing about myself but I rarely get to hear about your side of the world." The young Italian woman frowned. Her bright auburn eyes stared down at her friend, studying her facial features.

It seemed fair for (Y/n) to talk about some of her life. She didn't like the fact that she's been keeping stuff from her friend. Although...she wasn't sure if she wanted to talk about Jones. If word got out that she had fallen in love with a dead soldier, it would be the end of her.

"I haven't really got anyone in mind," (Y/n) lied, "I just haven't really met anyone interesting."

"I know what I can do!" Felicia grinned, "What if I hook you up with my cousin, Flavio? He's real nice, that is, if you get past all that glitz and glamor he's always talking about."

(Y/n) arched a brow. "Flavio?" She's heard about him, but she doesn't know that much. "No, I'm okay Felicia." She smiled at the Italian.

"Doesn't it feel horrible feeling lonely though? I could really talk to him for you." The brunette tilted her head to the side. 

"No, really, I'm okay!" (Y/n) waved her hands, trying to dismiss her friend's idea. "I don't think I'm ready for anything like that anyway."

Lies left her mouth. Ever since she started liking Jones, all she felt was the desire to be loved. (Y/n) knew that she was ready for love. She was just asking for it from the wrong guy. She can't help it. She can't just toss away her love for Jones for another man. It'll take a while for her to throw away the little crush she has on Jones. 

Felicia didn't want to press further as she didn't want to make her friend uncomfortable. (Y/n) shifted the conversation away from her love life and focused more on Felicia and Claire's relationship. The Italian rambled on and on about her girlfriend. She boasts about her all the time and praises her cooking. Their conversation lasted long enough to end their lunch. 

The women were rallied over by their boss to get back to work. (Y/n) stayed in her area for the remainder of the workday. When it was time to leave, she bid her goodbye to Felicia before going home. She pulled up on her driveway and sighed.

She was home again. 

For the rest of the evening, (Y/n) spent by herself. She ate dinner, did her chores, and eventually drifted to her bedroom. There she laid on her bed staring at her blank ceiling. Many thoughts surfaced and bounced around the walls. Most of them were concerned about the conversation with Felicia. 

She had done the right thing, right? If she had told Felicia about Jones, it would be nonstop for her. She would ask so many questions that (Y/n) has no truthful answers for. She hated lying to her friends, so to lie to Felicia stressed her out. It was for the better. 

Just like Jones, she had to hide her feelings for him. She wasn't in a relationship with the soldier, since she knew that they weren't actually together. 

That didn't stop her from thinking she was his sweetheart though.

She eventually drifted off to sleep to pass the night. When morning came, the weekend arrived with it. The young woman slept until she woke up around noon. Birds chirped outside her window and the sun's glaring rays passed through her blinds. Some were hitting her face, causing her to turn away. 

The young woman had been on her phone for a while. The bed was too warm for her to leave. She could already tell that it was a bit chilly in her room. Nothing would move her except for her empty stomach. (Y/n) slid off the blanket and stood up. 

She was right. It was cold in her room. 

As much as she regretted standing up, she needed to eat. 

(Y/n) mumbled to herself as she walked off, starting the low effort parts of her routine. She came back to her bedroom and grabbed the box. A small smile appeared on her face as she looked at the different letters. There are a lot more she had to go through. She was halfway there though. Just six more months of seeing Jones.

She wonders how it'll all turn out. 

Delicately did she rip the envelope's edge and grabbed the pieces of paper inside. (Y/n) hummed softly as she put its outer shell on her bed. 

"Good morning soldier," (Y/n) smiled, "What will you say today."

Good morning sweetheart, How have you been? I hope you're doing okay back at home. I'm kind of doing okay over here. I sprained my ankle pretty bad so I'm out of commission for a few days. I have to stay with the medics until I make a recovery and then it's back to the action. You might be asking how I got the sprain and I can assure you it's nothing serious. I just tripped and Alex and James helped me up. I appreciate that they've helped me, but, I have a hard time knowing if they did it with good intentions. They've been talking to Charles, you know. They talk to him more than me. I can't trust him. Not after what Charles did the other day. I know they're my friends, but I can't let my guard down around them anymore. Charles went ahead of them. I guess he still has a grudge against me. I don't even know what went wrong between all three of us. I'm thinking it was the fight. Anyway, it doesn't really matter with Charles. At least my legs haven't been blown off right? Unlike some of the soldiers here. They weren't as fortunate as me yesterday. Some of them get to go home after they've been shot and others couldn't walk anymore. Some of them didn't make it. I know some of the people that went home alive and dead. They were part of my unit. I know I'm not a commanding officer but I felt like I should have helped them. I kind of feel envious of them, for some reason. Maybe it's remorse? I don't know. The medics tell me that I shouldn't worry about it. I'll try not to, of course. I'll keep my chin up since I've got a job to do. I have to ensure victory for you and my country.  I know you might be worried about me right now, but trust me babe I'll be okay. If it makes you feel any better, I'm writing this letter with a smile on my face. I'll be resting for a while. Stay healthy and safe back at home. I'll send letters home whenever I can. From, your future husband, A. F. J

The paranoia was still there and she doesn't think it'll die down any time soon. The comment about the other soldiers worried her as much too. She felt her stomach twist as she read that part again. It was obvious that the decline was happening. She was wondering if it's always been like this since day one.

Was the optimism a ruse?

She doesn't have solid evidence right now. Most of the letters she's opened in the past showed his optimism. He was even somewhat optimistic to be shooting enemies down, thinking that it'll make him a hero of some sort. He viewed himself as saving people from the enemies. He was doing something for his country, it was enough to fill a patriotic man with joy. 

The woman can't assume anything right now. 

(Y/n)'s lips arched to a frown as she placed the letter down. 

"God I hope you're okay Jones," (Y/n) mumbled. She can't guarantee that he would be. She was placing a prayer for a man that wasn't alive.

"Your friends care about you. James and Alex had good intentions...I can assure you." She just hoped that the letters showed he was safe and back at home with a new significant other. 

His current significant other, the one receiving the letters, didn't deserve him at all. 

(Y/n) placed the letter in the drawer and hopped off of the bed. As much as her mind was bothered by Jones' current state of health, she still had something to do. It was going to be a lazy day today, but she had no more groceries.

She continued on to the rest of her day with thoughts of the soldier in her mind. 

[chibimyumi]

Hey there! hope you're doing well! So I've seen a few takes from people saying that Seb lacks character developement and I wanted to ask your opinion on this? I feel like some people just want him to have some kind of "redemption arc" which sounds weird to me because by now I'd guess people would understand his character and motivations?

Dear Anon,

I am doing great, thank you very much. I hope you too ^^

Sorry for the late reply! It was not for lack of interest because yours is a very interesting question to ask. Indeed, for any other character I would say that for a main character he lacks character development. However, with Sebastian Michaelis specifically I would disagree, because there are multiple factors that dramatically change matters for him. The most important one being Sebas’ age.

Four Years vs Centuries?

Sebas is a supernatural entity that has been around and for centuries if not millennia. We know next to nothing about this demon’s past, but one of the few things we do know is that he has been around and seen quite a lot of the world thanks to his old age.

The older one is, the more fixed their personality is, meaning the less malleable it becomes. Of course nobody is too old to grow or change, but it will ultimately require more time or effort to change such a person.

In our current story Sebas has been around for barely 4 years, which to him must be an equivalent of a few hours in human life. Let’s say you are 20 years old with a certain set of beliefs, principles, personality traits, etc. Now imagine going somewhere you probably have been to before for one hour, and that in that one hour you suddenly change entirely. Not impossible, but quite unlikely.

What must happen before a person would change in such a relative short time must be the occurrence of something either exceptionally shocking, or exceptionally inspiring. In Sebas’ case, at least one did happen, namely the former.

Exceptionally Shocking

As discussed in some detail in this post, the exceptionally shocking did in fact happen to Sebas in his current contract. Canonically Sebas said that he never fought reapers before he fought Grell, and therefore we also know that Undertaker is the second reaper he ever fought seriously. Judging from Sebas’ casual and confident reaction when Grell first invited him for a fight, we know Sebas never had any reason before that time to fear for his life. I mean, look at this confident bitch (Ô_ó)p.

Even after Sebas got really hurt by Grell, he still managed to say something as cocky as: “I have never fought [a reaper] before, so I cannot tell [whether I can beat one]. But if my master tells me to win, I shall.” That is certainly NOT the same Sebas as the one we know now.

After the Campania brawl, we see very clearly how Sebas’ attitude and confidence changed entirely, exactly because for the first time ever he experienced something exceptionally shocking; his life and death was outside his own control. The English translations I have seen are not bad, but they miss a bit of the nuance in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version when Sebas says that even a demon like him cannot withstand a blow from the death scythe, there was some eye-opening realisation in his tone. He learned something new there.

And indeed, most tellingly even at the mere mention of the Undertaker or the prospect of having to run into him again, even Sebas swallows his pride in front of his master, and admits he’d really rather not.

Much later in chapter 85 when they were investigating the mourning lockets, master and servant have a moment of silence thinking about the Undertaker. While to O!Ciel the important memory is Undertaker’s “it is my treasure,” Sebas thinks about the very first thing Undertaker said to him upon deciding to let him live: “I knew you would succeed at protecting the Earl.”

As explained in this post, Sebas has come to project condescension onto Undertaker. Sebas suspects Undertaker is looking down on him, and understandably so because he has no reason to believe otherwise. “I knew you would [...]” is a phrase that reflects control in Undertaker’s hands, and Sebas really hates that. For once Sebas is the prey, and somebody else the predator.

Now here is the character development; Sebas went from over confident and cocky to a demon with PTSD.

(Exceptionally) Inspiring

Though less explicit and game-changing, I would argue that something inspiring also occurred in Sebas’ short time on Earth this time: his master. In this post I compared O!Ciel to a piece of unprocessed raw meat to Sebas, as opposed to other past masters probably being a microwave-meal equivalent. O!Ciel is young and started without power, so to Sebas one he started to see the potential of a fully self-customisable meal, he really started to feel the excitement.

Though, however excited, it would only be a small blip on Sebastian’s radar. In the same post just mentioned, I also discussed how it is very unlikely that eating O!Ciel will change Sebas’ view on humankind because it would need to alter someone’s view shaped through thousands of years.

In this same sense I also argue that though Sebas did change over the course of 4 years in the human world, he wouldn’t change dramatically. His experience in the past four years must be like one grain of sand on a banked scale.

Sebas and Redemption?

My short answer would just be: “Kuroshitsuji ain’t some religiously-laden morale story wherein even a demon must be redeemed,” but that would not be fair (and too short for my M.O.)

It’s an unpopular opinion, but a good character arc or story does not require a redemption arc to work. It just needs to work for any reason. A redemption arc in a character is not like meringue is essential in a macaron. It’s more like chocolate on bread. It can be very nice if it suits well, but please don’t put any chocolate on a salad sandwich please.

For Sebas, I would say that a redemption arc would be the chocolate on a salad sandwich. As discussed above, Sebas is VERY OLD. If he were to be “redeemed” because of 4 years, it’d be like redeeming a lifetime sinner in one hour of repentance. Imagine redeeming Hitler after he saved one puppy or said “I’m really sorry”. Yeah, no.

Besides, this then also begs the question: “does Sebastian need to be redeemed in the first place?” As discussed extensively in this post, most of Sebas’ “evils” are done under someone else’s bidding. And otherwise, because he is not human the way he is “evil” is only because he doesn’t care about human lives; much in the same way most humans don’t care about insects. “AAH a mosquito that might make me itch for a bit! SLAP IT DED!!!” Or if we step on ants while we walk, “oh well, too bad”. That’s Sebas with humans. Do most humans consider humans who eat meat or slap insects “evil that need redemption”? No.

So for Sebas’ or demon standards, he is probably not even that bad. He just wants his food and payment for his hard work.

I hope this had been interesting!

Related posts:

What is Evil in Kuroshitsuji? Philosophy

If humans are insects, then what to Sebas are “humans”?

O!Ciel being a game-changing meal?

PTSD Sebas I

PTSD Sebas II

[selfships-in-spanish]

The Queen of Demons

Pairing: Erwin Smith x OC, Levi Ackerman x OC

Rating: Gen (the rating will go up as the story advances! But it will totally be explicit ;D)

Warnings: None for now, but sexist and misogynist upbringing (Eva's father is a huge asshole).

Word Count: 2.085

ALSO POSTED ON AO3

A/N: This is it! The first chapter of the Arranged Marriage!AU I've been working and drawing about! I'll be posting it on AO3 too since I don't know if Tumblr will screw me over again and give me trouble for posting text >_> This wouldn't be possible without @spirit-in-the-library's help, so I got so much to thank my friend for <3 I really hope you enjoy the story, I've got so much written and planned already jajajaja Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1: THE PATH TOWARDS PERDITION

The scenery before her was breathtakingly beautiful, although it sent her a chill down her spine as she knew she went further into the unknown and her sealed fate. Snow was pretty, but silent and deadly too, and these woods weren’t familiar to her. The serene landscape didn’t calm her as it should have, only sending her nerves into a spiral of never-ending anxiety.

The cold bit at her hands and feet, the carriage did what it could in matters of isolating the cold, and she burrowed further into the thick winter coat, clinging desperately to it. Her handmaiden, Flora, looked pitiful too, her cloak not as thick as Eva’s. They tried to talk to ease both their minds, but it turned out it was better to let silence reign over them and try to enjoy the ride and the scenery as much as they could. Eva had never ventured this far when she accompanied her brothers on their diplomatic missions, Flora always excitedly travelling with her, eager to know the neighbouring kingdoms and people; she was a social hurricane and always ended up making friends with all the other maids (Eva made sure Flora could send letters and gifts, often pulling strings herself to make sure the packages were delivered safely), so both women knowing this was their final travel sent a freezing cold knot deep in their guts.

Eva saw Flora shiver, and with a tiny smile she scooted over, making room for her handmaiden under her cloak.

“Come here, I don’t want you to freeze.”

“Your skirt will wrinkle, your Highness.”

“As if it wasn’t wrinkled enough from sitting here for God knows how many hours. Come here, you stubborn mule.”

Flora snorted but obeyed, not wanting to be in the cold any longer. Eva covered them both, cuddling and letting out a sigh as she let her cheek rest on Flora’s head, looking out of the carriage’s window. She always hated the cold.

Eva probably dozed off while Flora was talking about some silly nothings, lulled by the rocking of the carriage and the shared warmth under her thick winter cloak. She realised Flora put her hood on so she didn’t let her neck stick out for too long.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty! I won’t let Diana know you fell asleep listening to her epic romance with the guard captain’s son.”

“God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Please don’t tell her, she wouldn’t stop reminding me of it.” Eva rubbed her temples, still hazy.

“Your secret is safe with me.” Flora crossed her heart and looked at Eva trying to stifle a giggle. She failed, and both women laughed out loud, picturing Diana’s irked expression and waving hands.

They kept looking out of the window, enjoying the small moments as this one; they both knew they would be sparse now.

The landscape outside the window changed, having less never-ending fields of pure white snow and heavily covered trees and mountains, to more fenced fields with cattle and horses roaming around with some lonesome wooden houses in an architectural style so different from the ones back home.

Eva’s heart thumped painfully in her chest, knowing the carriage ride was about to end as they neared the fearsome warrior’s village walls. Flora squeezed her when the carriage came to a stop, trying to reassure the princess upon seeing the gate guards on the entrance talking with the royal soldiers at the start of the entourage, and the tremendous amount of people running around inside the village as both women peeked from the cold glass. They looked at each other in a silent and mutual exchange of comfort.

The townsfolk stopped on their tracks upon seeing the carriages entering the village, their gazes wary and distrustful,  a contrast to the children shouting excitedly at the shiny armour the royal guards wore. Their mothers stood proudly, in defiance, reminding Eva of the fierce stray cats that roamed the Royal Palace gardens, hissing and standing tall whenever someone approached their kittens. Eva recalled the talk she overheard of Father and his advisors about this nation of warriors, how every single one of them had the blood of a terrifying fighter running inside their veins, how every single member of their society was trained to enter combat. Demons , that’s what her Father called them more than once, The Demons of Eldia. Whether that was true or not, Eva was downright terrified. Hostility was clear in their eyes and postures, not happy at seeing foreigners entering freely their territory. How did Father suppose she could survive this?

The carriages kept going, entering further into the maze of beautifully crafted houses. Flora parted from her embrace with Eva, knowing they would step out of the secluded space soon, and would need to make Eva look as if she hadn’t spent countless hours inside a wooden box; she had to make a perfect first impression. Eva wondered how different the village would look without all the snow covering every inch of it. Would it look as intimidating, but still beautiful, as it looked now?

Lost in her thoughts and Flora’s fussing, the entourage stopped in front of the biggest house Eva saw until now. It was massive, artfully crafted by the best artisans when it was built. Intricate markings decorated the wooden pillars holding everything together, and Eva could tell they had a meaning for these people. Right in front of the steps Eva saw more Eldian warriors, and in the middle stood those who Eva guessed probably were the welcoming party. She wondered how this Chief her father gave her hand into marriage was. Would he be a decrepit old man? A greedy one with lecherous fingers? A barbarian who would only use her for his own gratification? Was this Chief so entitled to himself and his pride that he would not even step down his throne, or the equivalent these people used, to greet them properly? What saddened her deeply was how her brothers, Hans and Friederich, agreed with Father.

Her questions would be answered in just a moment, hearing how the other two carriages, where her older brothers were, opened their doors, their heavy boots falling down the snow with a solid thud. Both women heard voices and movement outside. It was time.

“Remember, your Highness,” Flora began, giving her hands a final squeeze. “You have the strength to proudly hold your head high. The people of Gottesreich are by your side in here.” Flora touched with her finger where Eva’s heart was. “And I will be right behind you.

Eva let out a shaky exhale, a trembling smile on her lips.

“Thank you, Flora.”

The door of the carriage opened and a gush of freezing cold air hit both women. Flora tightened her cloak around her and waited patiently for Eva to exit first. It was Friederich who came to get her, gracing Eva with a tired smile while he offered his hand to help her out. Eva delicately posed her hand on the outstretched hand of his brother, the other pulling slightly up the skirt of the dress so she wouldn’t accidentally step on it and cause a scene. God forbid that happened, she couldn’t afford any humiliating mishaps of any kind. Eva stepped aside as Friederich also helped Flora out, and turned just once to see her sister following him behind, still with her hood pulled up; that was definitely Flora’s doing, knowing how the woman liked the tiny dramatics. Friederich huffed, amused.

Once they stopped just right next to Hans, his stance truly the epitome of a proud and regal prince, a member of the Eldian welcoming party walked over them, bowing their head lightly and making his light brown hair move.

“The people of Eldia welcomes you, your Highnesses, and hope you had a pleasant and safe trip.” The man had a soothing voice, calm, and such feelings carried into his eyes. “My name is Moblit and I’ll be your interpreter throughout your stay.”

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Moblit. I’m prince Hans Stein, heir to the throne of Gottesreich.” The crown prince bowed, right hand on his chest, and waited for Moblit to translate his words into the Eldian language. Looking at each one of the Eldians of the welcoming party, Hans turned to his other two siblings. “This is the second prince of Gottesreich, and General of our troops, Friederich Stein,” Friederich mimicked his brother, bowing respectfully too with his right hand on his chest as Moblit kept translating. “And last, princess Eva Stein, our younger sister.”

Eva felt her hands tremble and not because of the cold. She could feel everyone’s eyes fixed on her although she kept her own to the floor as her father taught her— never look at them in the eyes, only when you are being presented, but then quickly look away, never speak unless you are being spoken and addressed first, never—

She could do this.

Eva raised her hands, carefully lifting the hood of the cloak so it wouldn’t disturb her hair and tiara, and let it fall gracefully on her shoulders. She raised her head to proudly display her long neck, knowing it was being accentuated by the collar of the dress she was wearing, and looked at each member of the welcoming party before elegantly bowing towards the Eldians while delicately lifting the sides of the dress skirt as she was taught as a child. Once done, Eva returned to the position she was before: gloved hands in front of her, clasped together, head slightly tilted downwards and her eyes refusing to meet anyone’s unless she was required to do so. Father would be proud of how well she performed.

Some warriors whispered to each other, and Eva didn’t know if to feel grateful to not know what were they saying. It was just a quick glimpse as she wasn’t able to properly focus, but, where were the horns? The claws? The evil smiles with mouths full of sharp teeth? Her books depicted Eldia as demons, as creatures taking humanoid forms but with grotesque features. Eva couldn’t help but to feel thoroughly confused at the difference. Were the books wrong? Were they waiting for the right moment to show their true selves...?

A deep baritone voice quieted all the murmurs, speaking in a calm and collected tone that didn’t leave room for questioning. Eva would have called it a beautiful voice if she wasn’t being eaten alive by her fear and anxiety. The voice kept talking, and was now joined by Moblit’s translations. It was time to raise her eyes again.

“We welcome you, your Highnesses, and thank Goddess Maria for your safe journey to our land.” Eva briefly looked at Moblit, and was taken aback by the gentle appearance he displayed; she expected a brute, like her books said, but was met with soft amber eyes and sandy brown hair. Her attention was swiftly moved to the Eldians before them as Moblit gestured towards them. “My name is Erwin Smith, Chief of the proud Eldian tribe, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance too, your Highnesses.”

Eva’s eyes frantically fixed on the man Moblit was gesturing with his hand and claimed to be the Eldian Chief. Her husband to be. Eva was met with an icy blue gaze and intense like the sea she saw once when she traveled with Hans to a southern kingdom, but Eva noticed a hidden cleverness behind the stern glare. The eyes belonged to a handsome face, with sharp and chiselled features like his cheekbones, a beautiful aquiline nose and thick, blonde brows framing his face. His blonde hair was neatly parted to the side and Eva never saw a haircut such as the one he was displaying, both short and even shorter hair, but judging by the other Eldians, it was a common style. He was big, tall, and Eva saw the true poise and demeanor of a proud warrior. The blue war paint smeared on his face and exposed arms made Eva unconsciously gulp down; he looked terrifying. Even if the Chief was wearing thick clothing, there was no doubt there weren’t feeble sticks for limbs underneath them.

The princess was taken aback, unable to tear her gaze away from the Chief’s ones, and going against all her modal teachings. Those blue eyes were hypnotic and unreadable, like his face.

That was the man she was going to marry.

Erwin Smith.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 267 Review

So, there's a lot to get into this chapter that has absolutely nothing to do with Hawks but still has me

But we'll get to that, so let's go over the main plot, new/confirmed insights into Hawks' character/background, and finally insights into Dabi.

Main Plot

Key Observations:

Shiguraki's (not the PLF's) assets have been mobilized - Nomu, Gigantomachia, etc.

I point out Gigantomachia in particular because of the focus on his radio meaning that whoever gave him and the Nomu orders to mobilize:

Is Shigaraki himself

Is All-For-One

Or is someone with equivalent authority given by one of them.

I believe it's Shigaraki himself, but we'll find out soon.

Endeavor and Tokoyami swoop in the save the day for Hawks and Mirko.

I'm getting Tokoyami ice cream after this. Heck, might even take him to Disneyland he's earned it!!! We got confirmation that he and Hawks had started hanging out one-on-one during his internships (presumably after convincing Hawks to actually take him seriously) and do have a solid connection. This makes me very happy. Hawks does have someone he can genuinely call his friend - and in this time Tokoyami is possibly one of the best people he could have by his side, though not because of his prowess or whatever. I believe there's a strong thread in the overall plot of the next generation saving their predecessors, and Tokoyami specifically coming to Hawks' aid continues to confirm that. I have more speculations but will keep them to myself unless others specifically want to hear them.

Twice likely is dead. I have opinions circling this, but none of it will do much good until I see this conflict finished or have more, very specific information.

We'll get to this when we get to Dabi, but I can't help but wonder if Dabi hadn't ambushed Hawks if Jin would still be alive. On his own, Hawks didn't need to kill Jin to keep him at bay; but the moment Dabi entered the picture Hawks had a choice to make and locked it in. Toga has also had a fake-out death to miraculously come back, but I think it's safe to assume the worst for Jin. I really wish it didn't happen, but tactically I understand why it did.

Insights into Hawks

I would both die and kill for baby Keigo without hesitation.

Just look at him!

Protecc at all costs!!! Oh, he's so precious! But this brings me to my next point.

Hawks has been trained to be a hero who wins when the focus should have been on a hero who saves.

This one I don't necessarily blame Hawks himself for. Over and over and over and over again Hawks has shown to be a person who not only tries to save as great a majority as possible, but to stack the odds as high as he can in his favor to include as many as possible. He seeks to minimize suffering though he knows he can't save everyone. His focus is people in need first and going head to head with villains second. Which brings me to point #2.

His views on a future where heroes can breathe.

This is not rooted in a desire to not work, and I'd dare say not even to escape the Commission. He wants a place where people feel at peace. Tying in with the anime, it added details/sentiments that weren't mentioned or specified in the manga such as calling out Stain by name. We know he's been watching public opinion and sentiments surrounding heroes for a long time, and it doesn't seem like he swings to the extreme of abolishing heroes completely; but he does seem to agree the people need a symbol of peace - a paragon - to aspire to and emulate. He also seems to believe that this symbol should be able to inspire others given his even-clearer indication in the latest anime episode that Endeavor was his personal inspiration and now this flashback in the manga.

This seems to be directly in opposition to Dabi and what we now know about him.

Insights into Dabi

Let's start with his views of Stain - assuming he's a Todoroki (are you kidding me, Horikoshi?! A blacked out speech bubble?!?!?!?) - it would make a lot of sense how he would latch onto this figure who sought out personally punishing "fake heroes" with death. Endeavor has put through his family through enough suffering that most people who heard about it would consider death a merciful punishment. The lasting effects left over from the decades of abuse have left deep scars on each and every last member of the family. It also makes sense why he personally would not count All Might as a hero where Stain did because the abuse he suffered was an indirect result of All Might's prominence.

Considering how hard Endeavor pushed Dabi I would not be surprised if the inability to cry is not only a literal, physical scar of abuse; but potentially symbolic of another intangible inability to properly express, process, and relieve negative emotion:

Antisocial Personality Disorder.

This is a SERIOUS claim to make, so please understand I don't make it lightly; and I genuinely hope to be wrong because it doesn't bode well for anyone in Dabi's immediate social circle - especially the most vulnerable members of the League of Villains.

I need to be very clear, APD is not an "all or nothing" condition, and those who suffer from it can feel empathy and remorse to varying degrees depending on the individual. It's possible he may have had some kind of personal connection with members of the League, but his specific word choice is troubling. Compound this with the fact that he exhibits most of the major symptoms, has a history that puts him significantly at risk, and his current living/social condition aggravates his condition and complicates his ability to get treatment; and it makes at least a compelling argument. I can't be the first person to theorize this about Dabi, but this was the final piece of evidence that secured it as likely to be canon in my own mind.

I say this not to paint him as pure evil - in fact, he's still very much a victim of his father's abuse who desperately needs help - but to say that it makes it significantly harder to save him or rehabilitate him. I also want to bring up that it may make Twice's demise even more tragic and frame it in a new light that makes things worse.

If Dabi truly does not care about Jin as a person, there's a solid chance he did not climb those stairs to protect Jin but to get revenge on Keigo. Dabi could have been argued to be clever and managing his resources by opening fire on Hawks and Jin with the assumption Hawks would save him; but if he does have APD it's more likely he was acting impulsively and without regard to Jin's safety - that Jin remaining unburnt was a happy afterthought.

This is my biggest takeaway from this chapter and is both troubling and tragic if it's true. Those emotionally vulnerable members of the League like Spinner and Toga (who just watched her best friend die in her arms) are at risk of being manipulated up to and including giving up their lives just like Jin in the sake of Dabi single-mindedly getting his own revenge. I've said the League is fractured at its roots, but this is a much worse way of it falling apart of that's indeed the way we're going.

Jin likely would still be okay if Dabi had not stepped in. Hawks would have been able to restrain him and keep him from using his quirk without needing to resort to deadly force. Once Dabi entered the picture he not only put Hawks in a more desperate situation to actually need deadly force but emboldened Jin to keep fighting - and like a self-fulling prophecy neither side gave up until one of them died. At least for me now, there's a sense of empty loss and helplessness in it.

Nobody gets a gold star. Nobody deserves a pat on the back. This is the vicious wheel turning and hurting over and over again until it eventually crumbles under its own weight. We see seeds of hope in the reinforcements coming to aid in hours of need (like heroes should), but we're going to have to wait until next week to see the fallout.

I'm still open to talking about the chapter in asks if anyone is up for it, but I think this is probably the best I have to offer in a single post minus the fact that Keigo likely knows that Touya Todoroki did exist and is presumed dead. He can put the pieces together and it will be bitter when Endeavor eventually rejoins the main fray.

[asecondyelping]

Black Angus Steakhouse

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ever wake up Sunday morning with the "steak starvies"? I'm sure you have. Abby and I woke up one Sunday morning in October and felt a particularly sharp craving for some of that true steak, the kind a real cattleman would fix over a desert wood fire, under a full coyote moon, sitting under a canopy of desert pricklies. Luckily for us, down the freeway from our church proudly stood a steakhouse made entirely out of wood (remember those?) like it could've been erected in the Old West by a herd of cattlemen. Don't forget- Hayward is an Old West Town in it's own right and tucked next to the H&R Block, a simple memorial to heavenly steaks and dusty cattlemen still stands. Abby and I got there early and eager, so we had to wait a few minutes. When the doors swung open at 11a.m., we swaggered in and were promptly seated.

We opened up our slippery menus (usually a good indicator of the juiciness of the steaks, trust me) and took a gander at the selections. I already knew what I was getting. I had to order a 16oz. cut of the Ribeye Steak. Medium Rare. Typically, I'd order up a Pittsburgh Rare cut of steak, but I've been having some health problems with my colon and my doc advised me to "Give up red meat or there would be hell to pay". I think Medium Rare instead of Pittsburgh Rare is a good enough step in the right direction. I only bring this up because I think it's proof that I would know what a good steak is having eaten enough to be officially prohibited lol. Along with the steak came a choice of two sides. I ordered the Traditional Baked Potato and Steak Soup. The missus ordered the Cobb Salad, which I wasn't expecting since we came in hungry for slabs of cow, but hey, we are all entitled to a change of heart I suppose. We handed the menus over to our delightful waitress who, after placing our order, walked back with a warm round loaf of native grain bread seeded with what looked and tasted like barley. This wasn't my first rodeo. I knew the deceptive friendliness of that loaf. I've made the mistake before of filling up on the delicious and complementary bread so much so I couldn't finish my steak. That wasn't going to happen this time, I vowed… as I mashed another buttered hunk into my mouth.

The soup came out first. A delightful little stew of barley, kidney beans, and cubes of beef. The aroma alone took me back to a campfire dinner I had with my family as a kid out on outskirts of Vista, California, putting cans of Campbell's Chunky directly on the coals to heat up. I had a few spoonfuls of the slurry before I had a thought: it tasted EXACTLY like Campbell's Chunky, just like my dad used to make on those camping trips back in the day! I believe that taste can be a powerful channel for nostalgia and Black Angus's Steak Soup was a slow flood of boyhood memories.

Though I knew I had a massive platter of steak on the way, I basically inhaled that stew in 2 minutes flat, which is remarkable now that I think of it considering it seemed like the recipe called for 8 ounces of everything in the kitchen roughly blended together with a stick of butter throw in. It was not light. At this point, I was seriously doubting that I could manage to finish a 16 oz'er along with potato. As I glanced around nervously for the waitress touting my impending meal, my eyes landed on a television screen hung above our booth; an infomercial for the Copper Chef was on! In fact, it was playing on all the TVs hung on walls of Black Angus! Imagine that… at a steakhouse, watching the Copper Chef fry up steaks, hot dogs, corn on the cobs, and potatoes au gratin in the same pan. Actually, a few minutes of watching Copper Chef was all I needed to regain my "zeal for the meal". Just as though my stomach had sent out a specific frequency only audible by experienced waitstaff, our server appeared around the corner with our plates followed by an older lady that seemed like the owner of the establishment.

Abby was looking dumbfounded at the size of her Cobb Salad. I love gazing across the table and seeing Abby's face light up like that. It happened at Romano's Macaroni Grille, and it happened at the Nordstrom Cafe. Just typing this part makes my heart swell :' >. This is why you should take your lady to decent restaurants, fellas. I looked down at my own plate with tantamount dumbfoundedness. The ribeye had a beautiful cross-hatch char on it and the potato was split in the middle and in it burbled butter and sour cream. The presentation was incredible. Turns out, the older lady that looked like she was the owner was one of the most special members of the staff: she came out from the back of the Black Angus whenever someone ordered the 16 oz rib to personally deliver it. She took a special silverware setting out from her back pocket and placed the knife in my right hand, the fork in my left hand, and unrolled the napkin onto my lap. "Sir, would you mind slicing into your steak to confirm the doneness for me?", she said. Just wow. This had never happened to me at a Black Angus before. I cut into my steak (with some difficulty admittedly, the knife was really not very sharp I think) and it indeed was cooked to a perfect Medium Rare. She nodded and a proud smile broke discreetly onto her face. "Enjoy you steak sir, and madame, I hope you enjoy your Cobb Salad."

Everything after that was a blur. Bite after bite went into my mouth and I chewed every piece as if I was gnawing through a rope that bound me to a sinking ship. I ordered extra butter upon extra butter and drowned my potato in it. Steakhouses probably have access to really good butter, now that I think of it. I couldn't recall now, but it seemed that Abby was grimacing at me through the haze. She says now that she was smiling, so maybe I am just projecting, but I was unashamedly just devouring my meal like a nasty scoundrel. To tell you the truth, I don't quite remember the taste of the steak. I knew it must have tasted good, since I was tearing it to bits, but I honestly was more spurred on by the act of chewing the meat. "Steak Starvies" really means "I am starving for steak". I just remember my vision had dimmed to a tunnel that framed everything with a lurid glow. I should wrap this review up here actually, I'm sorry it's so long! I'm getting hungry again ahaha!! Anyway, if you're ever looking for a traditional American Western restaurant for the domesticated cowboy within, hop on your horse (or get in your car) and mosey on over to the Hayward Black Angus where they'll treat you right and ask you if they're doing a good job. It's right off the freeway! Oh, and I finished the steak and potato :)

Abby’s take: you know it’s going to be a good Sunday when the day begins at Black Anus. Unfortunately, they do not yet have a country breakfast menu, but they do open at 11am ! Perhaps true steakmen don’t see a need for labels when it comes to steak, unlike us city people. To the true steakman, steak is steak no matter the hour or gender. It seemed we were not the only patrons who wanted to begin Sunday in the atmospheric American darkness of a high-end ranch house. A fine way to escape the fast paced city life, slow down and take some notes from the locals! It really is a different way of life over at the steakhouse... I myself have always dreamt of country living. Blame it on my freckles, or my collection of Kenny Chesney fan fiction, I have always wondered if I was meant for the farm.

I ordered the vegetable Cobb, curious to try a “Country” take on a “City” classic. It was delectable! The cuisine equivalent of the musical masterpiece “Old Town Road”. I’m hoping Kenny Chesney is able to hop on that horse as well, perhaps accompanied with the always masterful Marshall Mathers (M&M). Those two on a musical horse would be quite the sight and sound!

The hubby, perhaps in an attempt to impress the locals, ordered a steak, medium rare, with no cityman dizzle-dazzle-add ons or subtractions. I for one, was impressed with his restraint, and took the moment to reflect. How accustomed have we city people become, to custom orders - “no tomatoes, no gluton” even picking and choosing particular Kenny Chesney songs to purchase from the ITune store, instead of purchasing the whole album. While I so enjoyed the cob salad remainders we took home, this lesson may have been my most valuable “takeaway”.

Local tip: “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems” is a great starter album for the Kenny Chesney novice.

[lez-exclude-men]

I don't understand why ANY of those jokes are funny. Jokes about rape, hitting women, or a bunch of people dying are horrifying. Especially jokes about rape and hitting women because those terrify me on a level you can't even comprehend.

And the point was I DON'T like rape jokes, and the laughter that comes isn't because I find it funny.

And as for debates, at least for me that's a different kind of laugh all together. It's usually surprised laughter because I'm so shocked they'd make such an illogical point. You're right, it has nothing to do with agreement.

But that's a false equivalency, because debates and every day conversation have different functions. When someone makes a joke or gives a person other reason to laugh (such as making a horrific point) whatever they said has a rhetorical function.

In a conversational setting, jokes are told to create a sense of ease, or closeness, or inviting a friend to enjoy a moment with you, or many other social functions. Since rape jokes affect me so negatively, I want my social response to reflect that, not give cues or mixed signals that the jokes fulfilled its purpose, because it didn't.

And your video is about comedians, which, while much more relevant than debates, is still not quite the same thing as jokes told in a conversational context. Especially with famous comedians, whose audience is already made of people who appreciate their style of humor, narrative telling, as well as their beliefs. Closer would be amateur comedians trying to win over the audience, but even that has a different dynamic than a day-to-day conversation, as it is inherently more one-sided.

Here is a good book on humor and discourse analysis, should you be interested in learning about some of the exchanges I'm talking about. Because you clearly have an interest in the topic, but are still learning to differentiate between different kinds of interactions and purposes of humor. Which is okay! It's still a new field of study, so no one knows all of them.

My original question really was asking how to train myself out of behaviors I've been conditioned to used automatically, specifically polite laughter, but other things would follow. I want to be genuine in my exchanges, and that's hard to do when you've been so thoroughly socialized to put everyone else's comfort above your own. I don't want to continue to socially subjugate myself in that way, so I'm learning ways to stop.

I hope you learned something from this, but seeing as you are clearly a man, I'm giving you 4 hours to see this response, and then I will be blocking you. Further interaction is unnecessary and unwanted on my part. You either understand some of my points or you don't. Either way, you can do further research to boost your knowledge on your own. This is not a debate nor a classroom, and I have no responsibility to explain myself or the science of sociolinguistics to you more than I already have.

✌

Advice please

I know the whole “dont laugh at jokes that aren’t funny” and “ask a guy to explain why that rape joke was funny” tidbits, and I really want to enact those things, but at the same time, I have this default polite laughter that’s completely impulsive.

So even when I hate a joke or don’t find it funny, as long as I’m physically there with the person, I laugh. Sometimes I realize what I’m doing and am like wtf and then it turns into uncomfortable laughter, but I still have the urge to laugh. It’s part of the whole “validate men” training that gets so drilled into us.

I hate rape jokes with every fiber of my being, but how can I question a man’s joke if I laugh anyway? Bc you know they’d completely sidestep any criticism with “you laughed so it’s funny so no harm done”.

Tldr; how do I stop impulsively laughing at jokes I hate?

[jjkfire]

1/2 Hiii~ A faithful follower of yours here on anon because I'm too ashamed about what I wanted to ask you. I know you probably have a lot on your plate with college, midterms and keeping your page alive and I really don't want to burden you even further . I didn't know who I could possibly talk to so here goes, I've been very stumped lately. I've lost motivation for absolutely everything. I live in a town with no opportunities and I feel like I will never be able to leave, I'm failing college-

2/2 no matter how hard I try I suck at it lets be real. I feel like nothing is working out and there's nothing I'm actually good at. I worry about my future- not being able to pursue the career I desire. So I was wondering if you sometimes experience this feeling and what you do in times like this. I don't know what to do! P.s I feel absolutely terrible if I'm burdening you

hi i’m glad that you feel like I’m someone you can talk to! now this is going to be more of like a motivational pep talk rather than a pity one like you’re doing alright sweetie~~ and honestly everything that I’m going to say here should be taken with a grain of salt bc i’m just a blogger and I’m not qualified to give advice ya know what I mean? but wew here we go.

I absolutely have experienced this before and sometimes here and there I do wonder in general what I’m doing with my life and where I’m going. I’m just going to go ahead and say it’s okay to feel lost sometimes and it’s okay to feel like giving up but never, never give up. Keep pushing forward no matter how hard it is. Fall down 7 times, get up 8, you hear me?

I know what it feels like to feel like you’re just going through the motions and that nothing seems to be going your way. I especially know what it feels like to feel like you’re not good at anything. I think of myself as someone who’s the jack of all trades but master of none. There’s nothing I particularly excel at so I’m always playing catch up in all my classes just to be half as good as everyone else. But you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay. I really used to have a bleak outlook on life and sometimes I do slip into the same mindset from time to time but I always try to dig myself out of it. I find doing things like appreciating the small things is a good start. A sunny day, a cute dog pic, appreciating it when people smile at you, all these menial things. It sounds ridiculous, dumb I know but really it helps you just have a better, positive outlook. Also, I know it’s hard to motivate yourself to do things but you just gotta fake it, pretend you want to do it and just get started. The hardest part is usually starting. Set clear goals you know you can reach like do homework problems 1-3 or something like that just to start and later expand that out onto your life. Set goals. Any kind and every kind. Give yourself something to look forward to. They don’t have to be big ones but just set some.

First, I know classes are hard and you’re struggling and nothing makes sense but get your butt to the library and study, go to your lecturer’s office hours or even make friends with people in your class. Ask all the questions you want. Start from the beginning if you have to. I think one of the easiest ways to learn is to have friends in the class because it motivates you to study and if you can’t seem to make yourself study just say hey, wanna study together/go over notes? I don’t think there’d be anyone that’ll be like nah and if they do, that’s unfortunate but you know just keep pushing forward. You’re paying to take those classes, paying for your lecturer’s time so take full advantage of it. Sit there and ask them question after question until you finally understand. Don’t think about oh what if they think I’m dumb or wtv. If they do? So what? How does that affect you in any way. If anything, they appreciate that you’re actually putting in an effort to try and learn. Don’t suffer alone, don’t give up until you’ve done everything you can. I know it sucks watching some people who barely put in an effort score higher than you but that’s life and you just gotta work twice or 5 times as hard if that’s what it takes. Know that with a degree, you have so many more options. Treat it as a do or die situation and don’t let everyone who doubted you get to say that they were right. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Do you have to excel??? No. Just do what you have to to get through. Spend your summers trying to get an internship and if you can’t, that’s fine. Read up on your own or learn how to code. Coding is so important in this day and age and there’s a ton of resources online to help you learn. Do anything so you’re ahead of the game in at least some aspect. Explore and maybe you’ll find that something that you’re good at.

Next, leaving your town. Now, I’ll be real and say that with a degree this would be a lot easier. If you’re from a country where English is considered the national language or main language then there’s a ton of opportunities for you to teach English overseas. It might not be what you want to do but hey it’s an experience and you’ll get to experience a different culture, a different life, a completely fresh start in a new country. Perhaps even give you a new sense of purpose. I know Japan has the JET program and Korea has some sort of an equivalent and you can teach English in Thailand too if you’re looking for somewhere that won’t be as expensive. Maybe straight out of college, work a few months to save up some cash and then say goodbye to your small town. But remember, all of this is only possible with a degree. If you’re from a country where English isn’t the main language, I still think there are many work abroad programs out there, you just have to google. Otherwise, a third option is to save up and go backpacking. Work jobs at those countries you’re visiting to gain some pocket money or a free stay. Tons of people do that. Many envy those who live that way and etc but my question is who’s stopping you from doing the same?

About pursuing the career you desire. I guess there isn’t really much for me to say without knowing what exactly it is you wish to pursue but if you so desire it, make it so. Do everything in your power to make sure you can. Study hard, make use of career services on your campus if your campus has one and just keep pushing forward. Don’t stand in the middle and say I want, I want but not do anything about it. You want it? Go get it. Try, try, try and never stop trying.

I used to laugh at people who said the same to me because they don’t see the obstacles in my way but I’ve come to learn that if you truly, truly, want something then you’re just going to have to work your ass off for it. There’s no other way. It doesn’t matter the challenges you have to go through, you just have to. Maybe some have it easy but most have it the same way you and I have. 

Also, side note. People underplay connections so much but it is so, so important. People can get you that interview, that foot in to some place so never shy away from meeting new people. Even if they have nothing to offer like jobs wise or etc, I believe you can learn something from every single person you meet.

Lastly, take care of yourself. Work hard but also know that you’re only human and that it’s okay to fail, it’s okay to cry and it’s okay to take a break. Do something you love every once in a while and if you feel like you don’t have that something, try new hobbies. Be it drawing, running, dancing, fiddling on photoshop... just do something. You don’t have to be good at any of the above just do it as long as it makes you happy. To me, art is my escape. Like writing helps me deal with my stress and I often dance in my room after classes just to let loose. Listen, I’m not a great dancer but hey it makes me smile sometimes. Exercise is great when I finally get myself to go to the gym or sometimes just 30 squats in my room is enough to make me feel like at least I accomplished something. Playing around on after effects or photoshop is a new found hobby of mine and I’m absolutely atrocious at it but every time I complete a youtube tutorial, it makes me feel good. Maybe even learn a new language. With duolingo etc etc etc there’s so much you can learn and there’s absolutely nodownside to learning a new language. 

I feel like if you take life one step at a time, celebrate the little things, little accomplishments, it helps you have a better, more positive outlook. The key is to keep trying, to keep moving forward. Don’t settle, don’t give up. You’re young and there’s so much out there to experience, so many people to meet, so many countries to visit so, I hope you find that motivation you’re looking for. Know that I’m here cheering you on, always.