#ideally this project would be for free but i can't survive out of the love in my heart in this capitalist system 😭

[goldxnfemme]

So I've been thinking for a while about a project to provide affordable - which I realise is a contextual concept, but more than usual, you know - therapy to people in the lgbtq+ community here that want/need it, as I am a therapist and that's a community that's severely neglected in this field, but I'm not sure if it'd be something people would be interested in.

[olderthannetfic]

Nonny: my true, real passion is, as far as I can tell, writing. I love writing, and I love politics, and would love to be a handyman for gender-affirming reasons: but despite all of this my dayjob is currently and for the foreseeable future as an engineer for the military industrial complex. I definitely empathize with the growing up poor - or at least, eldest child of a lower middle class family, where a career of passion just seemed like self-indulgence. I don't think it's impossible that [1/?

having a stable job, income, and barrier against stress will unlock passions and ambitions you were previously too busy just surviving or chasing shorter-term joys to know you had. The good thing is that you can pivot away from using your degree far easier, once you have it, than you can get back on the degree track (although I'm not saying that you can't become an engineer if you don't go to a 4 year university right out of highschool). What I'm trying to do with my STEM dayjob and my [2/?]

repressed passion for writing is to be my own breadwinner and subsidize my own artistic projects in my off-hours. It's not ideal, but it's the most workable solution I can think of right now to have some stable off hours and a roof over my head during which to write. Granted, as a practicing novelist Franzeska may have some counterpoints to share. [3/3]

LOL. The biggest point I will share is that I am extremely privileged. I don't have the kind of family money people are going to immediately imagine when I say that, but I inherited a house from my mother, which is where I currently live, rent free. I'm also home to try to get pregnant while I still can, which is not the most genius move in terms of $$ but is how logistics are working out. (In other words, that's why I'm parked at the family home, not off getting a job some place.)

I do not know how much money I will make since I'm just starting out. I work in the selfpub space where there are no advances, but you have the potential to keep a lot more of your royalties and control the trajectory of your career better. There are other big advantages to this space, but back to the point:

I didn't know I wanted to do this when I was 20.

I always had the idea I might "write a novel one day", but it was on the same level as your average verbal teen the English teacher liked in high school. Everyone like that—and a lot of other people—grow up thinking they have a novel in them. I didn't take it that seriously because it did not deserve to be taken seriously at the time. While working other jobs, I did occasionally take a stab at writing something, but I never got very far.

It wasn't till I was in film school, in the summer in between years, in my late 30s, that I figured out I wanted to be a novelist for real. Genius timing, me! But honestly, other timing would not have happened because part of the change was me finally gaining enough skills passively to where writing something long was possible and fun and part of it was me discovering a section of the industry that I actually liked. That section was not only unknown to me 10 years prior: it did not exist.

Traditional publishing is good for bragging rights. It is not all that good for BL if you're an English speaker in the US. And don't give me that Red, White, And Royal Asshole Author song and dance: that's YA (ugh) and, according to friends who actually read it, the same weaksauce version as most BL-adjacent things from mainstream publishers.

The kind of work I always saw myself doing was more like the career of Jordan L. Hawk who has multiple mystery+sff series with a case-of-the-book but ongoing interpersonal stuff, central m/m, but other types of side ships.

I published my first novel at 40.

I'm pretty sure I can eventually make good money at this, and I'm pretty excited about developing these characters and their world. I'm also excited about developing the niche of "m/m romance" and about finding ways to connect it with the concept of BL because it's starting to sprout less romancey entries, and nobody is sure how to classify them since the English-speaking world lacks good vocabulary to talk about this (well, outside of fandom of Asian things). I have So Many Thoughts about BL as a type of queer literature and how we need to be able to label it separately from other queer literature without shame or pretense for the good of all queer lit. The big thing that's holding people like us back is discoverability, which gets worse and worse on Amazon, but we can build community-based tools to improve that and level the playing field.

Anyway, what kind of writing career people should seek really depends on what types of thing they'd be good at writing. If you're more of a literary fiction type, you're still looking at traditional publishing because only that has the level of gatekeeping and the marketing reach you want for your type of book. However, I'm going to guess that 99% of the people reading my tumblr are more like me and aspire to write trash romance or trash mystery with side romance, perhaps with SFF or historical elements. The time has never been better to do so!

A couple of years ago, I attended GRL, the industry conference for m/m trash, and it was quite helpful for getting a sense of things. Not that anybody needs to go there to start writing or selling books, but I'm glad I was able to go.

If randos reading me are interested in a writing career, I really suggest they check out what's going on on Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's all-you-can-read platform. Low-priced amazon ebooks outside of the program are also good to look at. Yeah, yeah, Amazon Evil Boo Hiss, but with past disasters with some of the indie options, this whole market niche is on amazon right now and will be for the next few years. If you want to play, that's where you have to go.

The default popular formats right now seem to be like $3.99-ish for 50-80k novels, preferably in series. Parts of it are more series romance (different couple each book, some gimmick to tie it together). Parts of it are more Dresden Files But Gay.

TBH, another factor in me wanting to join the pro space is that I really like the length of old pulp novels and 1960s mystery novels and such, which was more in this long novella/short novel range. I like the style of story that this length is suited to. I don't especially like the shapes of story that fit better in 100k or 400k even though I love series with a zillion books.

The selfpub ebook revolution has allowed for massively more flexibility in length of work and price point than in the past. Kindle Unlimited also opens the door to a more fic-like experience because it's an all-you-can-read program. I'll take a chance on way shittier authors than I would if I were even paying the $3.99, never mind $15.

I don't want people to quit their day jobs, but there are exciting things going on in this space that are worth checking out if you're interested in original BL. If you like extremely trashy het, especially with tons of sex, this is also a good space. If you write f/f or other non-BL queer things, you're going to have a much harder time finding a paying audience in this space. I'm not saying it's not there, but it remains to be developed, and traditional publishing might still be a better avenue to pursue.

If you want to be a movie star or an olympic gymnast, you should have started already. If you want to be an author, you can be 80. I was not ready to write at 20. Most people aren't.

[asahipleaseloveme]

Elephant Love Medley ~ Hinata

Hinata x reader

Warnings: alcohol consumption (but not drunk), blind date; please let me know if I missed something

Word Count: 1.9k

Author's Note: I've had this idea since May and I'm only not getting around to it. Not edited. Part of my Karasuno/Broadway project. Feedback is appreciated :)

Based on Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge

In the name of love, one night in the name of love

You crazy fool, I won't give in to you

Don't leave me this way

I can't survive without your sweet love, oh baby

Don't leave me this way

We could steal time

Just for one day

We could be heroes, forever and ever

We could be heroes, forever and ever

“It’ll be fine, ______. You’ll have fun, I promise,” your friend pulled on your arm.

Going on a first date was one thing, but going on a first blind date was another. You weren’t really keen on the idea of dating anymore. You’d been burned enough times to make you want to swear off dating for a lifetime. Never let anyone get too close again, bound to lead a life of loneliness. Well you would, if your friend didn’t find the need to intervene.

“C’monnnnnn! You’ll like this guy, I promise!”

“Okay, okay! I’ll give it a shot,” you chuckled nervously as the two of you entered the bar.

The place was loud and crowded; not the ideal location for a date. You had to fight your way through a sea of people to get to the bar top. When you finally caught the attention of the bartender, you had to repeat yourself a couple of times, the last attempt successful even though you had to shout your order. Hopefully, a little taste of alcohol would help calm your nerves.

“Okay, so where is he?” you asked as you turned toward your friend.

“He said he’d be waiting at a table,” she said as her eyes darted across the room.

You soon joined her in searching, even though you didn’t know who you were looking for. All of the tables were occupied with multiple people. A group of women laughing loudly, a man listening intently to the woman next to him, a group of three men looking bored as hell slowly sipping on their beers. But your gaze fixated on a group of four men, all smiling, laughing, preparing to take the shots that had just arrived at their table.

“He’s over there somewhere, I think,” a slap to your arm snapped your eyes back to your friend. She was pointing in the general direction of the men.

“Mm, yeah. He’s over there,” she continued pointing and you tried to follow her finger. You looked up to see that one of the four was looking right at you and your friend. You tried to put her arm down.

“D-don’t point like that!” you panicked. The red-headed stranger was still staring at you. You gave a half hearted wave, and he perked up. Words were exchanged between him and his friends, and soon the whole group was staring in your direction. Uneasiness overtook you and you quickly turned around at the bar and gulped down the rest of your drink.

“I think I just blew my only chance with this blind date you set up,” you sighed. You looked at your friend with remorse, only for it to turn into utter embarrassment. The man you had waved at was now standing in the spot next to you. Fire flooded your face, and you weren’t sure if it was the absolute embarrassment of it all or if it was the alcohol you had so quickly consumed.

“Hi,” he smiled from ear to ear.

“Hi,” you managed to squeak out.

“I saw you wave, and I thought I would come say hi! What are you drinking? Next round’s on me!” He waved for the bartender who took both of your drink orders. The drinks arrived almost as quickly as you ordered them.

“Hey, you want to go somewhere a little quieter? I don’t want to have to shout at you the whole time,” you asked.

The question seemed to catch him off guard, but he nodded and his free hand moved to the small of your back. The heat in your face lingered and began to spread to your stomach.

“I know a quiet spot,” he leaned in, his breath warm against your ear.

He led you through the crowd, his hand never leaving yours. Near the back of the bar was a staircase that he proceeded to pull you up. You’d never known that this place had a second floor. It was everything the first floor wasn’t; quiet music, empty tables, well-lit, and tidy. It even had a balcony that overlooked the busy street.

“Oh wow, this is so much better than downstairs!” you exclaimed, the heat in your face finally subsiding. “Now, on to formalities,” you smiled. “I’m ______.”

“Ah, that’s a lovely name. I’m Hinata Shoyo.”

“Hinata Shoyo…” you repeated as you tapped your chin. “That name sounds familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” he laughed. It was light and inviting; a laugh that could get stuck in your head. “But you can just call me Shoyo.”

His smile was contagious and you couldn’t help but reciprocate one back. He stared at you, and the longer you stared at him the warmth in your face came back in full force. You tore your eyes from his and focused on your drink.

“So, ______. I gotta ask. How does someone like you end up on a blind date?” His question caught you off guard, but you were able to recover fast.

“Hey, you’re in the same boat as me buddy,” you scoffed as you playfully swatted his arm. “But if you MUST know, it’s more of a favor. I’m not really looking to date. Love is stupid,” you scoffed.

He giggled, “love isn’t stupid. Love is a..uh..oh, love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts you up where you belong. All you need is love!”

“All I need is for there to be less love songs,” you chuckled.

“What’s wrong with love songs? There are so many good ones!” he exclaimed as he hopped up onto the ledge of the balcony.

“Agh! Shoyo, be careful!”

“Love lifts us up where we belong! Where eagles fly, on a mountain high! Wisemen say only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you! How wonderful life is while you’re in the world!” he shouted and the people below looked up. You could hear someone cheering him on in the far off distance.

“Love makes people act like fools! Let me help you down, loverboy,” you extended your hand out to help. He accepted your offer and hopped down.

“Love can make people act like fools, but you won’t care how foolish you look if you’re with the right person,” his infectious smile took hold of you again.

“Yeah,” you grinned, “you’re right.”

The two of you finished your drinks and were able to grab a waiter who brought you another round. You both agreed on a round of twenty questions. He would get ten and you would get ten. You asked him if he had any brothers or sisters, and he asked you if you had any pets. You asked him his favorite subject in school, and he asked you your favorite movie. You asked him what he thought was one of his greatest accomplishments. He paused to think it over and then he explained how he was really proud of everything he and his teammates accomplished in his first year of high school volleyball. As he went on and on about his favorite memories, he could see the excitement in your face and how absorbed you were in his stories.

He looked at you, a mischievous glint in his eyes, “you know anything about volleyball?”

“I used to play in high school. But I don’t follow any teams now. I only know what my friend tells me,” you shook your head. “The MSBY Jackals is the team she talks about all the time. She’s tried to get me to go to a game, but I’m usually busy. She really only ever talks about someone named Botoku and how cute and strong he is,” you chuckled at the thought of exposing your friend.

Hinata pouted a little before he started snickering. “Atsumu’s gonna lose it when I tell him that Bokuto has another fangirl. And Bokuto’s head is gonna grow by like three sizes.”

“Wait,” you were beginning to connect the dots, “th-that was them you were with at the table downstairs?” Your friend had shown you pictures of the team, and now those men were starting to look familiar. And how could you forget the red-headed player, Hinata Shoyo, always smack dab in the middle.

Professional volleyball players. Of course your friend didn’t know any professional volleyball players, so she wouldn’t have been pointing to Hinata as your date. Which meant that your real blind date was still waiting for you down there.

“Oh, no. There’s been a misunderstanding, a-and I don’t think you are my date. I’m sorry,” you began to rush inside.

“Wait, wait! I could be your blind date,” he hurried next to you, stopping you in your tracks.

“You? My blind date?” you gave a stern look. “I don’t think you’re the type of person who has to go on blind dates, Hinata Shoyo. Don’t take pity on me.”

“I’m not!” he paused. “I mean I’m not taking pity on you. We only just started talking! And I’d like to continue talking. We have a connection, I feel it!”

He stared at you rather intently. Fierce determination combined with soft brown irises made it hard for you to avert your gaze.

“Besides, who has a blind date in a bar?! How are you supposed to get to know someone in a dark, crowded, noisy place?”

“I-” your phone buzzed. “It’s my friend. She’s, uh, looking for me. I guess my date stood me up,” you snorted air through your nose.

He smiled at you, “so, what you’re saying is that you’re free right now?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m saying,” you laughed.

“Perfect!”

“I didn’t take you for the type of person to revel in someone else’s misfortune,” you teased.

“I only revel in being able to scoop up someone as lovely as you,” he grabbed your hand and pulled your back to the balcony.

The two of you talked and laughed for hours. When you finally checked your phone, it was extremely late.

“Well, Hinata. Thank you for this. I had a really good time.”

“We could do this again,” he rubbed the back of his head.

“Really? I would like that,” you smiled.

“Good, me too.”

He stared at you and you stared back. He leaned in when you put your hand on his chest.

“Ah, I don’t really kiss on the first date,” you stated sheepishly.

“Hm, well this is a blind date backup. I think it’s a little different.”

“I think…you’re right,” you said as you leaned into him and your lips connected.

The kiss was warm and refreshing, you didn’t want to break it off. But you were distracted by a loud voice coming from atop the steps.

“Hey! Hinata, you’ve been gone for hours! Don’t tell me you’ve been up here this whole time!” Bokuto shouted.

Atsumu and Sakusa soon joined, concerned for the well being of their friend.

“Yeah, I’ll catch up with you guys later,” he inconspicuously nudged his head in your direction. Sakusa was the first to get the hint and headed back downstairs. Atsumu and Bokuto soon followed, but you could hear the men mumbling about “how did Hinata find a date at the bar and they couldn’t”. It made you giggle.

“You should see them during game time. They’re even louder,” Hinata chuckled.

“Hm, maybe I do need to see you guys in action. When’s your next game?”

“Friday. And then maybe I can take you out afterwards?”

“It’s a date!” you kissed his cheek.

He smiled at you and a warmth spread all throughout your body. Maybe there was a reason to sing silly love songs. Maybe it was foolish to fall in love, but maybe Hinata would be foolish with you.

[trulyhumblenarcissist]

Abourt Rei Himura and BNHA Chapter 301

Now that I've read the official release of chapter 301 I can finally try to gather my thoughts. I think this time the particular rendition of dialogues and inflections provided by Caleb Cook is more crisp and clear than usual, especially in throwing "shade" upon Endeavor as a father figure. But let's do things in order...

Title: THE WRONG WAY TO PUT OUT A FIRE - a simple, but stark message that doesn't leave space for ambiguity. There was a fire, an imminent tragedy that could and should have been avoided, but whoever tried to fix it, did it all wrong and now we have to deal with a huge arson.

CARLESS HANDLING OF FIRE, on the other hand, doesn't quite cut it for me, because it seems like everything was caused by a foolish mistake. "I was carless and now I'm in a pinch"- type of situation, while it's perfectly clear that Endeavor and Rei decided purposefully which "strategy" to use with Touya. A BAD one to say it lightly. Rei's contribution and complicity is debatable, of course, and I'll touch on this later.

Let me get this clear though: I'm not trying in any way to critique the hard work of unofficial translators. I can't say anything relevant because I'm not a translator in the first place (I can barely understand English and my native language on a good day) and also because I am so grateful for everything they do in order to give us really good material FREE OF CHARGE basically a second after the release in Japan. I'm just interested about the different shades of subtext we can catch if we read the story through multiple filters. Every translation is unique because it carries the personal spin of the author even if the bias should be inexistent or ideally undetectable...

However, back to the chapter

REI'S CAGE

The first scene opens on a luxurious classic Japanese villa, with Enji, Rei and her parents discussing the motivation behind Enji's proposal. Or at least we initially think that's what's going on... Because in reality Rei's family couldn't care less about the motivation. Everything these people see is a wealthy, famous guy the next number one hero ready to take their daughter in marriage. I guess the Himuras are pretty broke, thight on cash, their old prestige is definitely gone and all they can do to save themselves from shame and poverty is "to sell" their only remaining asset.

During the whole ordeal, Rei is standing still, silent, cold as ice. She knows she doesn't really have a choice. How mortifying and sad is this? An adult, capable woman has no agency whatsoever, she is used again and again and she stoically accepts this treatment from every single dominant figure in her life until she can't be stoic anymore. I really hope Horikoshi's going to give her a much more proactive role in saving her family and it seems the narrative wants us to expect this type of character development.

I'd like to point out 2 panels in particular:

First one

In this scene the Todorokis are back from their trip to the doc, who clearly said they shouldn't try to conceive a child with a perfect quirk mix because it is dangerous (and morally questionable too). Rei understands this fact and tries to dissuade Enji, but he doesn't listen, because he's projecting all his pent-up resentment and frustration onto Touya. He knows how it feels to crush against an unbreakable wall, since he can't surpass All might and his son can't too. He had to learn this truth the hard way, so Touya needs to do the same. Enji is purposefully throwing upon his son years of failures, self consciousness and despair, just because the boy has to get it into his thick skull that he is a dud, just like his father. This is not a hopeless dad making a mistake bona fide, this is a broken man trying to destroy his self reflection by proxy, annihilating everything Touya is, swiping the kid's identity under the rug. He describes his son's dreams and sadness as something birthed from stubbornness. He is auto-convincing himself however (because Endeavor is not stupid). A little bit later he's basically saying: "Touya let's play make believe! We can go on like everything I had engulfed in your psyche never existed, you're a failed attempt so you don't exist. Your needs and wants are silly and useless, nothing worth dealing with now that I can't make you my prodigy. Why don't you go play with the other failures so that I don't have to look at myself while taking actually care of you. I don't want to see you, because it's too painful, because you're a remainder of my own inadequacy."

Note: If you want to read an incredibly well done analysis about Endeavor's motives and psyche, you can get it on @thyandrawrites , she's dwelt on everything extensively and way better than me.

I really want to talk about Rei though. In the panel I showed above, her expression is a bit tricky to analyse. At first she is very vocal about her position. She doesn't want to put Touya through useless suffering, especially since they have a scientific reason not to. They have no guarantee of success with other children, besides, they could possibly have to deal with other health related issues. However, all it takes to convince her in the end is Enji's half assed attempt at the "It's for Touya's sake" shtick. Is it really? Why doesn't she question her husband anymore?

Well... I think before Natsuo, she was probably hoping Touya would let go "naturally", with time and growth, maybe by taking interest in his other siblings. Rei said she wanted to have more children because in her mind they would have supported and loved each other. Maybe she was naive enough to think that a big family full of kids few years apart from each other was all Touya needed to distract himself from his purposes... BUT and here is the point I want to get across: She was deluding herself too, much like Enji. The ugly truth, in my opinion, is that Rei is a person prone to protect herself by going with everything other people want, especially if said people are capable of hurting her. Yes, she was hurt time and time again, but what would have happened if she really tried to stop Enji?

What I am trying to say is that Rei is the kind of person who endures to survive. She holds a "captive" mentality in which, by indulging her captor's desires, she can continue living with less possibile damage. If I stay still and silent, if I don't make a scene, I can go on, I can hold onto the few things I have that actually make me happy.

Let's think about it... Enji was so obsessed with his psychotic, power-hungry quest that he would have probably disown Rei. She would have been thrown away for a more compliant woman with an ice quirk, or something similar, this resulting in her probably losing everything, the respect and love of her family (the Himuras) and also her own children. Because we know Endeavor can definitely hold a grudge and is vendicative.

So, clarifying, Rei doesn't put up a fight because she is scared for herself in a way... She is scared to be hurt in the worst possible way (by losing her little bit of serenity), so her strategy is to endure and to keep up a facade of control and purpose.

Rei, ironically just like Touya and other characters in mha, doesn't really get what unconditional love is. Her family loves her until she can be useful to the Himura name and status, her husband loves her for her quirk. Her children, however, love her for who she is and she wants to stay with them... Only to be forced to leave them later anyway.

The few times Rei actually smiles are when she is with her babies. She is a deeply loving mother in her core, but her declining mental health makes her a very lacking caregiver.

This panel, in my opinion, shows the point of no return for Rei. She can't keep the glacial facade forever...

After Natsuo's turn to be deemed a failure, Endeavor is crazier than ever, because All Might is as popular and loved as ever and he hasn't make any progress into his eugenetic games. The last two images of Rei are very telling. She is exhausted, but she knows what her husband wants from her this time too. She looks like a lifeless doll and honestly I can easily see Shouto's conception as... Non consensual and I will stop here.

Then Shouto is born, the last, perfect specimen... And Rei isn't doing much for Touya, we can see she's apparently blind towards her eldest son's distress already after Natsuo's birth... But why?

Because she is actively avoiding to face the Touya's problems too.

If Touya is still suffering, is still feeling stressed and worthless, then everything Rei has endured, everything she pretended not to feel for the sake of her family has been completely useless. What Rei cannot look at is her own parental failure, is the concrete proof that while protecting herself and her peace she did not protect her children too, because the two interests were never really aligned, even if she really believed so. She never had a functional family to preserve in the first place and everything she accepted to do was all for the sake of a false sense of belonging.

However is too easy to say she should've rebelled against Enji and dumped his sorry ass. Abuse traps you and your abuser too in a cage tricky to escape.

What I imagine will happen next chapter is one of two things:

Enji stops Touya by using brute force, probably also saying something really scarring to reinforce the notion that Shouto is the only child he cares about.

Rei stops Touya by using her quirk. This act could be considered by Touya another confirmation that even his mother actually does something by her own accord only when Shouto's safety is at risk

Necessary conclusions

I don't blame Rei for her actions too much. She is a victim turned abuser by circumstances, but more importantly she's actually taken mesures to prevent herself from hurting her children again. She's trying to heal for her family's sake, really this time. Ten years spent dealing with guilt and having actual therapy seem a good plan to me. And now she's the one ready to snap Enji back to reality.

Enji, on the other hand, is trying too. It's too little too late, but if he stops avoiding reality and hardly works on understanding his family's point of view I don't think he is completely unredeemable. I don't see him surviving his last confrontation with Touya, thought... But I could be totally wrong.

Obviously everything I've said it's my personal analysis on Rei's character, as I interpret her actions and words, so feel free to contradict me and/or to add anything you might see fit.

[linkspooky]

What do you think of Mahito, his role in the story's future, and what he might represent? I can't stop thinking of how he literally acts as an antithesis to Yuji (besides being his primary foil), humanity and the narrative itself and how that might mean that he is the main antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen.

What are your thoughts on the new JJK chapter? With what Mahito said to Yuji at the start of the chapter?

Answering these asks together. Thank you both for sending them!

I’m going to center this analysis around Mahito’s statement that you are me, and his role as antithesis to Yuji as the anon stated above. There are two big ways you can interpret Mahito’s statement. They are the same in the sense that they are character foils, that Mahito is the Jungian Shadow to Yuji and all of his actions. The second one is based around the idea that Jujutsu Kaisen at large plays with Budhism, and BUdhist ideas, it’s an argument that Mahito and Itadori are spiritually the same. Not contradictory forces but complimentary, the whole of them each containing parts of the other. I’m not the best at explaining japanese budhism, because I myself am not a japanese budhist, but I will try my best under the cut. 

1. Spiritually the Same

So, Mahito’s arguments are ones that require a certain amount of abstraction to make sense. 

For example, is saving people the same as killing people? No, obviously not.

Alright, there’s your answer. Let’s go home, give me notes please. To understand Mahito’s argument you have to understand how far away from other living people his perspective is. 

Mahito positions himself as a third party observing from afar. From his position everything has a tendency to look the same. Let me explain: if every living creature has a soul, then what gives weight to human souls?

Heart, weight, both of those are words that are essentially trying to give human lives “worth.” Are human lives “worth something?” Are they more worthy than the lives of animals, plants, curses, etc. The way Mahito sees it everything has a soul. Even plants have a soul. However, there’s nothing too different in the souls of humans, from the souls of say bugs. The only difference he himsel sees is that humans have a capacity for reason. 

“The so-called dignity obtained by human reason”, humans assume their lives are more worthwhile, more dignified then say, the life of your dog, because a human has the intellectual capacity for logical reasoning and a full range of emotions on display, and your dog has been barking at his reflection in the mirror for twenty minutes because he thinks it’s another dog. 

Ideas of good and evil are not natural laws of the universe. They are made up by human reason. They only exist because humans said they do, and give reasons to them. Mahito’s perspective is a natural one on the world. 

The reason that humans are different from monkeys is just a quirk of evolution that enabled them to gain more brain mass over millions of years, and then gained higher amounts of intelligence. Everything else was reasoned out, ex posto facto. Humans come up with reasons why things happen after the fact, but they just happened. Humans just happened to evolve. 

If the natural state of the universe is chaos, and there’s no foreseen hand guiding everything, then things that happen just happen. There is no particular meaning to them. You can make up a meaning, but who is to say one invented meaning is more important than the other? 

There’s life on this planet, because we just so happened to be a certain distance away from the sun to enable an ideal climate for liquid water on the surface. Therefore, life is not some necessarily some thing that needs to be protected. It’s just there. 

If both Mahito and Yuji are fighting up with their made up value of life, Mahito believing there is no value, and Yuji believing there’s value worth preserving, then Yuji needs to actually make an argument. If no objective right or wrong exists, Yuji needs to prove why he’s right, rather than insisting he’s doing the right thing without thought. 

Yuji and Mahito are each other, because they both embody an ideal in the way life should be treated. 

When Mahito is saying this, it’s because Yuji gives weight to human lives, but not weight to the light of curses. That is to say, Yuji is fixated on the idea of giving humans a “good death” because he believes they’re owed that dignity, but will absolutely brutalize and tear curses to pieces. This is something Gojou commented on in chapter three, HUH ISN’T IT WEIRD THAT YUJI DIDN’T REALLY GROW UP SURROUNDED BY CURSES AND ALL I NEEDED TO DO WAS GIVE HIM A KNIFE AND POINT AT THAT AND SAY GO KILL THAT THING AND HE DID IT. 

Let’s say it wasn’t a curse for a moment. Let’s say Yuji wrestled and killed a tiger with his bare hands and afterwards you saw him skinning it. From a certain perspective his actions might look brutal. You killed and skinned a cat. Well, yeah, but I wouldn’t do this to a human. From a certain perspective his actions might look justified. There was an old lady nearby and I didn’t want to maul her. However, if you believe spiritually that humans are nothing special and all living things have equal dignity, Yuji killing and skinning that tiger is a violation of that dignity. 

Yuji believes that humans have dignity and wants to perserve that dignity even in death. That’s not objective fact though, that’s his own personal belief that he’s fighting for. 

The official translation even has Yuji call it a natural death rather than a good death. However, is Yuji just imposing what he believes to be good and insisting it’s the natural order of the world instead? 

Mahito’s argument is essentially that there is no right or wrong, and therefore the two of them are just both presenting ideas. If the order of the world is one where creatures constantly consume each other in order to survive, then what is so wrong about the curses fighting it out with humans against who becomes top dog? Curses are shown to have sentience same as humans. They don’t have human kindness, or compassion but they’re capable of assigning thoughts, and reasons behind their actions the same way humans do. What makes one life more worthy for another? Mahito’s words are a challenge, to come up with some reason to defy him. 

However, there’s a flaw in Mahito’s argument. 

Mahito’s argument is one that states nothing is a reason. All life is equal therefore one life doesn’t matter or is worth more than the other. However, then he uses that to give himself moral permission to do whatever he want. 

What do I mean by he needs moral permission? 

Mahito is justifying his actions, excusing his actions, the same way that Yuji is.

The appearance of the black flash this chapter signifies that the universe is a neutral party to both Yuji and Mahito’s fight. The universe is indifferent to both of them. However, Mahito presents himself as someone who is also indifferent, and objective, when he’s not. 

Mahito isn’t doing what he does for no reason at all. Mahito does it because he loves humans, while Yuji does it because he hates humans. Mahito tries to give permission to Junpei, he tries to give permission to himself. His views are not that of a true nihilist, because a nhilist wouldn’t seek permission like that. Mahito’s are that of a moral nihilist. All life is worthless, therefore I can do whatever I want with it. That’s not an expression of nihilism, or the abstract idea that there are no set goals or values to life. That’s just Mahito giving an excuse to why he wants to toy around with human life. 

(Also, I don’t really understand japanese budhism from the perspective of a japanese person, so please feel free to correct me on any of this, I’m just trying to go off of what was presented in the story! I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives). 

But basically what I’m talking about is expressed here by Mr. Yoshimura if you read Tokyo Ghoul. 

If all life on this planet is just trying to survive, and in compettition with one another to survive, then the taking of all life is equally evil. A human killing a curse for survival, and a curse killing a human for survival is the same FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE. 

However, I would argue that this assertion that “Life is Evil” is being said by a PERSON and that person is making a VALUE JUDGEMENT. Evil is an idea same as good. Life is neutral, life is random, life is indifferent, life is just atoms smashing around in pure utter chaos but it’s not necessarily evil and definitely not in the way Mahito takes it to be. 

2. We’re like the Same Dude

The second is that Mahito and Yuji are character foils. They are characters in a narrative who are meant to reflect each other, specifically that of the protagonist, and their shadow. 

Jung stated the shadow to be the unknown dark side of the personality. According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.

If Yuji and Mahito were two parts of the same whole person, like two halves of the brain, Yuji would be the sensible, reasonable half, and Mahito would be the one acting on pure emotion and instinct. 

Mahito and Yuji are both curse/human hybrids. They are both individuals that blur the line between humans and curses. Mahito is specifically, a curse that was created from the human fear of one another which makes him the most human of the curses and the most adept to change or growth. Yuji is a normal kid (as far as we know) who swallowed a finger, and his entire body became curse energy. He is half curse, and half human, in the regard that he is Sukuna and he is Yuji at the same time. 

Yuji and Mahito are people who both embody a vague area between human and curse, a curse that acts like a human, a human that acts like a curse in vice versa, however they choose to cling onto different apsects of their being. It’s ambiguous whether or not Mahito is a humanlike curse, but Mahito himself defines himself as only ever being a curse. Just like Yuji sees himself as a human too, he sees himself as Yuji, and not Yuji and Ryomen Sukuna at the same time. 

It’s Mahito who encourages the others to act more like curses, to live on impulse than desire, instead of trying to restrain themselves for the sake of reason. However, this is ironic, because the reason that Mahito is getting raised up as the leader of the curse family is because he is the mirror to humans, and is the most humanlike of all the curses. 

Mahito wants to be a pure curse, but his path requires him to become more and more human. Yuji wants to be a pure human, but his path in ingesting fingers will require him to become more and more curselike as time progresses. He will over time become more Ryomen Sukuna and less Yuji Itadori until the time comes for him to be executed after ingesting all twenty fingers. They are like opposite reflections in the mirror, clinging onto opposite parts of themselves. 

It’s even shown in their foiling in the Junpei arc. They both encourage Junpei to do the opposite things. Mahito encourages Junpei to follow his baser instincts and curse other people, to resent them for what they have done to him. 

Yuji however, applies to Junpei’s sense of reasoning and higher thinking. He suggests there’s a better plan than Junpei’s simple acting on. He asks Junpei not to do what he thinks is best in the moment and lash out on those feelings alone like Mahito suggested, not to follow his instinct to curse, but rather try to follow reason to find who is really at fault and then punish the correct person. Yuji appeals to the fact that Junpei have both empathy for the people he’s randomly lashing out at over his own pain, and that he has the ability to separate himself from his pain and try to search for what’s right instead. 

These are opposite ideas, and Mahito and Yuji clearly look at the world with completely opposite perspectives. However, these perspectives don’t contradict, they are complimentary. The existence of a shdaow doesn’t mean the conscious mind is right. The existence of the consious mind doesn’t mean the shadow isn’t there. In other words, light and shadow don’t negate each other, light cannot exist without shadow. 

In less poetic words. Whenever you make any action, your good intentions are equally as valid as your bad ones. There’s no such thing as a person without bad intentions. Anything can be seen from a both good and bad light. What Mahito argues to Yuji, is that Yuji was ignoring all along how dangerous an individual he was. Yuji uses his powers to save people, and he wants to become strong, but as has been pointed out in the manga before having all that strength collected in one person can be used oppressively and violently. 

This is what Getou says to Gojou. If he was Gojou he’d have the power to kill every last human being alive and spare only the sorcerers. Gojou is someone sitting on all that power. Power alone doesn’t justify itself. Equally as important is the choices and the reasoning behind wielding that power. What Mahito was pointing out, and what the plot is emphasizing is that Yuji was wielding that power, especially the power of Ryomen Sukuna in a way that was poorly thought out. 

Which is the point of this scene when Yuji realized the scope of Sukuna’s rampage. Yuji didn’t seriously think of the possibility that he was a walking bomb waiting to go off. This was brought up as an argument in the Kyoto arc, that it might be safer for everyone to just kill Yuji now so Sukuna doesn’t have the chance to get out. And then. Sukuna got out. And that’s what happened. 

Mahito isn’t saying that Yuji is good or bad, he’s saying Yuji hasn’t thought about what good or bad even is. Yuji only ever saw the good intention of his actions, he saw himself as a person saving others, and because of that he didn’t think properly about the risk he inherently carrying. He didn’t realize how dangerous of a person he was for carrying Sukuna around like that. Mahito is the unacknowledged shadow of Yuji’s actions, following him through the plot, and punishing him for his ignorance. 

Yuji is a good kid, but sadly the nature of the universe being true neutral good intentions don’t always lead to good results. It’s just a burden that Yuji has to think about, and carry with him as he moves on. Which I really, really want him to do. Yuji can think more, live on and live with his regrets, and still try to do the right thing even after enduring all of this because that’s what makes him human. 

Just like how all reasons for fighting are made up, humans are able to make up whatever reason they want to keep fighting. It goes both way. If all lives have equal weight. You don’t have to take it from Mahito’s perspective that they’re worth nothing. You can also take it from Yuji’s perspective, that every life is worth fighting for, worth living, because you and I are worth just as much as one another. 

[notable-law-music-tech-news]

The Chocolate Chip Cookies I Can't Eat Anymore, but Will Never Stop Making

I bake to feel like myself, especially when the outside world feels upside down.

In 2009, I was laid off from my first food media job out of culinary school. It had always been my dream to be a food editor, and I was crushed. Just after the cloud of self-pity lifted and the objects from my desk had been absorbed into my apartment with the disguise of belonging, I retreated to the kitchen with a new goal: to make the ideal chocolate chip cookie.

I had just created a food blog—following orders from the parting words of my mentor and former editor-in-chief—and it seemed like something a food blogger would do. Plus, a recipe by Jacques Torres had just appeared in The New York Times, and I thought that tinkering with his somewhat complicated iteration could help me find my own.

I was newly 25 and married to a first-year law student. My job had fallen victim to the recession and changing landscape of print media. I was as down and out as I’d ever been to that point, and somehow questing after the perfect chocolate chip cookie perked my spirits. It gave me purpose—a reason to orient my kitchen and efforts to produce something valuable, something worthy of putting out into the world.

After a few weeks and many batches of cookies, I finally arrived at what I felt was the perfect cookie: a crisp-yet-chewy classic bursting with layers of chocolate flavor, finished off with a sprinkle of sea salt. I loved the recipe so much that I began making it all the time, giving the cookies away to my friends whenever I had the excuse.

Soon the cookies began to take on a life and story of their own. I would trot them out every now and then to honor the often-overlooked small victories of life, such as a kind word from a usually grumpy boss or signing a new lease on an apartment. Over time, they developed a unique power.

Eventually, the cookies came along with me to every important meeting. I took them to a discussion about my first cookbook and credit them for earning my second. I made them to accompany the application for the offer on our house in 2015—the height of the housing boom here in Seattle—relying on their power of persuasion.

I wrote my first children’s book, the confidence to self-publish stemming from the very kind of determination held within building my food blog from scratch. It felt natural, then, to offer my chocolate chip cookies as a reward on Kickstarter. The crowd-funding campaign took place during a week in mid-February 2017, and I’d planned a series of Instagram and Facebook posts to promote the hopeful project.

One was a picture from my very first professional website that featured a version of myself that felt unrecognizable: young, blonde, childless, and without the glasses I’d come to proudly wear once I’d moved to Brooklyn in 2009. In that photo, however, the one common quality that baker and I continued to share was our signature dessert: the chocolate chip cookies.

I had no idea that, at the very moment of writing that post, I had a brain tumor lurking in my frontal lobe, or that the routine MRI I was scheduled to have later that very day would reveal it. An odd coincidence happened in that post, though; looking back later on it made me feel like my body was trying to tell me something. I used the word “legacy” in the caption in reference to my cookie recipe, describing it as the baked good I’d probably be remembered for best. Immediately after posting I realized it sounded a bit morbid because, well, I was completely healthy—or so I thought.

That slight moment of textbook dramatic irony has haunted me for years.

Somehow, I made it past the year the doctors gave me to live. “Now what?” I wondered in an empty kitchen.

Once I was diagnosed with brain cancer, I chose to give up chocolate, gluten, and sugar, which were the fundamental elements of my magical cookies. It was heartbreaking at first, but the prospect of surviving—especially for my two young sons—offered a healthy perspective.

Somehow, I made it past the year the doctors gave me to live. “Now what?” I wondered in an empty kitchen.

I was faced with a totally different life in food that revolved around an “alternative” baking vocabulary—and a stack of medical bills. I felt like a cookbook author without a subject; the food choices that were necessary to my survival stood in opposition to the generalist, jack-of-all-trades food editor I’d become. Once again, my dream career fell away overnight. And once again, I turned to these cookies as a currency of hope.

During the early weeks when I was acclimating to life on the other side of my prognosis, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I had gone to sleep after a terrifying review of our finances with my husband, battling a kind of panic that felt as though I’d been diagnosed with cancer all over again. I rose from bed and slipped out to my desk in the darkness, throwing my robe over my shoulders and shuffling into my slippers.

It had hit me, my next big idea: I would take the foods that held deep meaning to me and figure out a way to make them as often as I could. See, soup had taken on a kind of magic in my life the same way my cookies had—it’s what people brought me when I was sick. Neighbors, friends, and even strangers would bring me batches of their favorite soul-nourishing recipes, like bowlfuls of lentils swimming with vegetables, in the months that followed my recovery from brain surgery. I fully believe that it was this display of community that shepherded me back to myself and possibly to the miracle of health I am living today.

I decided to thank the people who brought me soup by bringing them soup. And, of course, my cookies. Just because I couldn’t eat them, didn’t mean I couldn’t make them—or share their magic.

And so, Soup Club was born.

My healthful, vegan soups paired perfectly with my cookies, a balance of comfort and decadence—hallmarks of my diet I’d come to appreciate since my diagnosis.

I currently live a life where I make over a hundred of these cookies a week and leave them with love (and soup!) on friends’ porches.

The myth of these cookies grows each time I share them. They continue to reveal belonging, connection, and hope—just as they have ever since I created them in my Brooklyn kitchen. And even though I may never taste one again, I am certain they will nourish me always.

Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

View Recipe

Ingredients

For the cookies:

3 1/4 cups (445 g) homemade grain-free flour blend (see recipe below), or preferred gluten-free all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (35 g) cornstarch 1 1/4 teaspoons (5 g) baking powder 1 teaspoon (7 g) Kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling 1 teaspoon (6 g) baking soda 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 cup (212 grams) granulated sugar 1 cup packed (200 grams) light brown sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 pound best-quality bittersweet chocolate (50-75% cacao content), chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)

3 1/4 cups (445 g) homemade grain-free flour blend (see recipe below), or preferred gluten-free all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (35 g) cornstarch 1 1/4 teaspoons (5 g) baking powder 1 teaspoon (7 g) Kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling 1 teaspoon (6 g) baking soda 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup (212 grams) granulated sugar 1 cup packed (200 grams) light brown sugar 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 pound best-quality bittersweet chocolate (50-75% cacao content), chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)

For the homemade grain-free flour blend:

1 cup tapioca flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup arrowroot flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup coconut flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled

1 cup tapioca flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup arrowroot flour, spooned and leveled

1 cup coconut flour, spooned and leveled 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled

Which recipes bring you comfort? Tell us in the comments.

from Food52 https://ift.tt/3giq9Ws