#if you cannot tell i am rooting for the latter

[buriedabitdeeperthanshallow]

i need to know more about this weird sex paige and hayward were having, was it emotionally/socially weird or were there trees involved

[scientia-rex]

Long ask. I didn't see that you had answered anything similar.

How do I do activism? Yes, I could Google it, but I would rather learn from a stranger with claimed yet unverifiable experience on Tumblr than from a stranger with claimed yet unverifiable experience anywhere else, and I'm here and so are you and we can talk and have a [para]social interaction. I won't bore you with a condensed autobiography, but I have a lot of experience fixing mistakes, not unlike being a physician, but far less noble, what David Graber would call a "duct-taper". It's partly what led me to socialism. I fixed mistakes but could not fix the root causes and, when I investigated those causes, I ran into structure. I couldn't explain the human behavior I witnessed as human nature, because it wasn't my nature and, as far as I know, I'm human, so the only explanation I could come up with was that the structure of the company I worked for created the problems I was trying to solve, and I had no power to change that structure, and no desire to join the psychopaths failing up the corporate ladder. I expanded my thinking outward and saw the problem inherent in capitalism and all the associated -isms and -archies, all the while trying to figure out what I could do that could possibly change any of it. I dove into progressive politics, read theory, consumed all the lefty content I could find, and thought, and keep running into the same problems. But even if the root causes cannot be addressed, the effects still need to be, because the effects are people, hence activism.

How do I talk to congresspeople? I email them about issues, but am frankly afraid to call them. Shall I get voice mail, or does a person pick up? If the latter, I'm assuming it will be a secretary. I don't want to be mean to a person answering phones. I've been one of those people getting yelled at or threatened because of events I did not cause and could not possibly prevent or change and, maybe I'm oversensitive or have PTSD or just a hyperactive amygdala, but I cannot overstate the damage those negative experiences cause. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, the lives that can be saved or improved outweigh a few people's hurt feelings or possible psychological trauma, but I would prefer not to turn this into a trolley problem if at all possible. Maybe it's a stupid question. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I can be charming and I have no lack of empathy; I can politely disagree. Shall I have to argue with anyone? Or is it a thank-you-for-your-participation-I-will-tell-the-congressperson-have-a-nice-day situation?

How do I get a job doing good things for people? This is somewhat pressing as I quit my corporate job five years ago, to have what turned out to be a midlife crisis, and have been living off savings (that are running out) ever since. I want to help and don't want to be ashamed of what I do for a living. I've always been able to do anything I've ever tried to do, but I'm 45 with little formal education or qualifications, and am thinking it's maybe too late to go back to school. Most of the non-profits I see seem like little more than scams. And perhaps the most serious complication: I'm a loner, more out of habit than inclination. I'll spare you the background, but I have no connections and no idea how to make them, and I don't believe I have any particular skills so valuable that should confer an immediate advantage or demand for my labor, but then again I don't know what is in demand.

It's OK if you can't answer some of these things. I simply have no one to talk to about them who can give any actual advice and figured you might. Thanks.

How to do activism: The first thing you need to know is your axe to grind. It was easy for me. I've been out since I was 13, nobody ever believes a girl is bisexual, it's always "you want attention" or "you're secretly a lesbian." That was in 1997. I went through hell and I'm bitter about it. So when I realized I liked medicine, I realized I could turn my life into an extended revenge arc by moving home and telling everybody it's OK to be gay. Two birds, one stone. I work with a woman who didn't get her axe to grind until about three years ago. She realized she was fed up with people abandoning dogs. She's one of the most active volunteers at the local shelter now. She's saved a lot of dogs' lives. She didn't start out knowing anything about it, but she told the shelter she wanted to volunteer, and they've helped her grow through the rest of it. My husband works with the local food bank, because his mom's neighbor (who is a family friend and sweetheart) wrangled him in to serving on the board, so now in addition to board meetings once a month he goes in sometimes to do things like help his mom's friend unload trucks. Sometimes the cause picks you, sometimes you pick the cause, sometimes you are the cause. And no matter what the cause is, someone else is already working on it. Someone else already cares deeply and if you show up ready to be hands on and help out, with humility because you know that you don't know everything, they will help you learn how to be effective. I started out in medicine by volunteering at the emergency room near where I lived. I pushed a linen cart around and restocked gowns in rooms, and when I couldn't fit any more washcloths into drawers I cleaned doorknobs. One of the nurses once told me she really appreciated that I cleaned all the doorknobs, because it wasn't getting regularly done. I am in medicine now because of many, many people I asked for help and who helped me because they wanted to contribute to justice and equity in medicine, whether for queers or rural people or women. This is, and has always been, a combined effort. Alone we beg, together we bargain.

Calling elected representatives: Oh god I know, me too, calling strangers is the LITERAL WORST. I'm 40 and I'd rather pepper-spray myself than argue with a human on the phone. Wait until after hours and you'll get a voicemail. I like to leave voicemails that start with "My name is Dr. Rex, I'm a constituent of yours, and I VOTE, and I'm calling about ____." That's honestly about all it takes--when I was hanging out with the lobbyist she told me they keep lists with tick-marks for how many calls, emails, etc., they get on a topic. Calls count for more. The more effort you have to put in, the more engaged they know you are. So call, but if people scare you (and the people who pick up are almost always nice, if you do get a person, and they will 99/100 times say "thank you for your call, we will pass your concerns along to so-and-so"), call at night.

Going back to school is probably unnecessary. Spin your past experience aggressively and start applying to nonprofits. (You "took time off from the working world in order to sharpen your focus on what matters most to you," which will be whatever this particular group does.) It's OK if you pick a bad one to start with; most of them are shit-shows, and lots of them still accomplish good things. Nonprofits are a bloodbath when it comes to actually being an employee--they know that part of the compensation is the sense of living ethically and they will use your altruism against you--so keep your resume updated and be prepared to bail if grant funding doesn't come through, but most areas have food banks and pet shelters and human shelters and jails and medical clinics and hospitals (for every doctor who works at the local hospital there are at least 10 support staff by the numbers, and they are utterly critical and always under-staffed). Sometimes if you start by volunteering somewhere, once they realize you're dependable, you can get a job there. I am zero percent kidding about working for a hospital, clinic, or jail, by the way. Those are places I know well, and there are always civilian jobs available. You want to make a patient's day better? Be the front desk, front line staff who use the right pronouns and cheer them up.

I think it's completely reasonable to have procedural questions about how all of this works, and I am grateful to you for giving me a chance to talk about it a bit. Please feel free to ask any follow-up questions. And for reference, when I was just starting out in research at a time when the market for research-trained people frankly sucked, I applied well over 300 times and got well over 300 rejections (I was counting) before I ended up with a job that I loved (even though it was hellishly stressful and I made just barely more than minimum wage for working well over my alleged, salaried "hours") and felt like I was making a positive difference for the world with. And from there, I kept making changes as I realized what I wanted and needed. Just keep doing it. You don't have to feel good about every step, you don't have to know what you're doing, just keep putting one foot in front of the other as you try to figure out what will make you happy. Because nothing else is a good proxy for happiness, and happiness, for a whole lot of humans, means finding something meaningful to do in life. Helping others. Be okay with changing, be okay with sacrificing who you are right now for the sake of who you can become. You've survived four decades on this bizarre and cruel planet, and you have inherent, intrinsic worth as a human being. You deserve your own kindness.

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.

[evergreen-dryad]

I don't know how to feel over all these strange fantasy names when it's supposed to be fantasy china (and Japan nearby). I would like annotations

it does directly copy and paste some stuff from China's history / Sun Tzu / strategist stuff

you can tell someone's important if they have a name from myth: eg Nezha, Jiang Ziya, Su Daji (femme fatale) There are some references to Journey to the West in some of the Cike/Bizarre Children but not direct borrowings- Baji (Zhu Bajie), Aratsha (Sha Wujing), Suni (Sun Wukong)

It's very readable (as YA tends to be). It's a more fast paced harry potter so far. I'm speeding through it a lot ngl.

Highlights: (wait there's no underline here still??)

- Rin beating Nezha (it's 2-1 so far but just Rin beating everyone up in the Tournament despite being excluded discriminatorily from class)

(And then them both working together like a well-oiled machine in the war!)

And oh, she turned out to be the last speerly! I think it works and also does introduce more tension over where to put her in terms of politics and all that, but I am also praying Altan doesn't die (I feel like he WILL) (and HE DID)

From what I remember of Babel (same author) -- well, there's the historical accuracy that doesn't deviate much, there's also the nostalgic romanticism of school (a safe and beautiful place with towers and pagodas, but also bittersweet with its bullies and racism) and having to work hard af (what a chinese thing tbh), wanting to excel There's the all-important teacher-student relationship and what knowledge does

Foreshadowing: where Runin was burning herself to study more for the Keju Exam, it ends up being foreshadowing for the god she'll call down -- the Phoenix. You watch her determined to go through anything to get stronger:

'How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.' 'Who couldn't she kill?'

After she kills a creature wearing Altan's face. Well, spoiler: she does do genocide

Themes/Symbolism: knowledge, the danger of adhering to just one branch/extremity of thought (esp reflected in the elitism of Sinegard and the north and south; in the way the other Sinegard students treat Runin; in the way Kitay is convinced of his rationalism over Runin questioning if shamanism exists; even in the military where military arts and shamanism are separated and hidden (for the latter); and how Nikara separated itself from Speer (the analogue for smth like Ainu people in Japan.))

Of what is the purpose of knowledge, if it cannot be 'utilised' for in present context, war?

Is 'an eye for an eye' right? What would you do to win or to get revenge? That there are difficult choices to make in such horrors like war -- do horrifying things done to you and your people justify genocide? What if your god that was your only hope was also cruel to you? Between gods and humans, who is really using who?

Also subtly feminist. I mean, it really delivers on the promise of female rage, and there are a couple important female figures

Characters: of course Runin is easy to like and easy to root for! She's way more determined than me bcs she's that unhinged/unhealthy 'do-or-die' when it comes to academics and martial arts!

Everyone else for students is a bit, hm, unelaborated on so far which is fair

Rin has 2 foils: 1) Kitay, and 2) Nezha. And prob also Altan -- how he seems so perfect and later on how they seem alike -- but are ultimately different

Tearza in the past who refused to sacrifice the world for her people, so the god killed her in retribution. But Rin did do so in vengeance and is thus still alive.

Nezha funnily keeps getting 'off-screen death scenes' which means he's definitely not dead

Character relationships: interesting to see how Altan is a 'better' teacher to Rin as they understand each other better in needs to war, but also gets abusive towards her with the pressure and needing her to summon their god, as he is a soldier first.

Jiang was the 'wiser' teacher as a peaceful scholar but wasn't there, sealing himself away in stone

Descriptions: lightly sketched so you don't get drowned in it

Tone: easy, simple, direct, not very literary/purple prose, often short sentences

Use of language: Past tense. Purely in Rin's POV, with one exception in Tyr's/and then omniscient narrator (to show the betrayal of the empress). Lots of dialogue/some worldbuilding descriptions. (R F Kuang seems to begin/end/spin with dialogue a lot which makes it snappy?)

Figurative techniques sparse. Shows the extreme cruelty of the world (even before the war). Also does not hesitate to say fuck.

What works for it?

-want to see what happens to rin as it's very action-heavy and you're rooting for the underdog (fast-paced, inexorable marching to war)

[caesarflickermans]

What do you think about the way character appearance being portrayed or narrated in THG novels?

What's your opinion about THG movies casting? Especially Katniss' and The Seam residents casting?

Is it important that Seam and Merchant residents of District 12 have different appearance in the screen? Yes/No? Why?

What do you think about division /dynamics between Seam and Merchants in District 12?

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

This has been sitting in my ask box for months rip but the stage play has been announced so now I want to indulge despite the shame

What do you think about the way character appearance being portrayed or narrated in THG novels?

I liked the implications Collins left us with. The dynamic between the Seam and Merchants is our first introduction to the class markers in the story. Many people, me included, perceive those markers to denote race as well, that with Katniss describing a consistent "Seam look" which consists of black hair, grey eyes, and an olive skin tone. In contrast, Prim and Mrs. Everdeen look like they come from the Merchant class due to their light hair and blue eyes (THG, 1).

This reflects dynamics we have seen all throughout the world, but especially in the United States. Racial tensions leading to people living in separated areas, with the wealthier people being white, and those ostracised being people of colour.

I like the implication of Katniss having Indigenous roots. This ties to the oppression Indigenous peoples still face, with many having been shoved aside to make room for settlers to live prosperous lives on their lands. The Seam is exactly such a place all while it sits close to nature itself.

Katniss even mentions how people have become so distanced from nature that "a few brave souls sneak into the woods to harvest apples" (THG, 1). People who might otherwise have had a different relationship with nature have been entirely severed from it, taught to fear it and rather remain in the confined bounds of the place that does not grow anything.

Katniss ties to nature are, albeit common tropes, nonetheless an important symbol for her connection with nature: "I can feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my pace quickening as I climb the hills to our place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley [...] Gale says I never smile except in the woods." (THG, 1).

Nature is where Katniss turns to when she needs to survive. When her father dies in January, Katniss is left with weeks of starvation before she finds hope in Peeta's bread and the dandelion (THG, 2). The former symbolises heat, warmth, and most importantly: fire, while the latter is a sign of survival. Katniss can only survive in nature, with nature, living off of nature. I cannot help but think of the trail of tears and the reservations that have separated Indigenous peoples of America from their usual resources and brought them in environments that did not yield harvest nor where proper hunting grounds.

What's your opinion about THG movies casting? Especially Katniss' and The Seam residents casting?

All the racial tensions were gone in the movie, which is an immense pity. At the same time, this was 2011-or-so, where casting even a white female lead seemed revolutionary. I am looking forward to their stage play to see if we will get a brown Seam!

That said, I find it strange that the movies don't stick to at least all brown hair for the Seam. Woody is bald, so a brown wig would have been fine as well. Alas, that means that the Merchant-Seam divide is lost in book to movie transition.

Is it important that Seam and Merchant residents of District 12 have different appearance in the screen? Yes/No? Why?

It sure is. I find it an important means of showing how racisms will always exist in this world, and there's no way to deliver this better than actually having them look different enough to tell there is some kind of divide. Book to movie adaptions have always something lost in translation, so I'm interested if they will be more accurate in the stage play!

I don't buy that hair colour and green undertone is a markedly important enough factor to be able to differentiate between people. It only needs one brown-hair dominant gene hitting hard to ruin that logic for a large enough Merchant population to make it a redundant means of telling people apart.

I will also say this: There was a time in history where a certain demographic hated another demographic, but they looked very close in appearance that without a specific symbolism, you couldn't tell them apart. I'm saying, the Nazis needed specific symbols, be it the yellow star, the J in the passport or the name changes to accurately tell who is and who isn't Jewish. Coincidentally, you didn't have that "problem" in the United States where appearances were different enough. I wonder which one Collins was implying here, cause last I recall Katniss only ever referred to the appearance, not being called Seamniss Seamerdeen.

Now, I don't care for debates around this topic anymore, but let's just quickly go through them:

"Olive skin tone means tanned". It's literally a green undertone, that which everyone of any race can have, see the Wikipedia article denoting that this can range to brownish skin as well as the info graph in there.

"They put a white girl on the cover". And the girl has brown-to-black eyes, so it's clearly not an accurate representation anyhow. Beside the fact that I doubt Collins was talking with Scholastic on how their cover artist should do the cover.

"Collins said Katniss and Gale weren't intended to be biracial". A sentence later she also said there was a lot of ethnic mixing. Further down they mention it is a multi-racial society and that Collins did not see a specific ethnicity when she wrote Katniss and Gale. This includes white.

"The casting call only called for caucasian people so that means she was perceived as white by Collins". This was 2011-or-so where Hollywood was worried about white female lead movies underperforming. Clearly, this isn't the same case anymore today—see TBOSAS.

"But Collins said Jennifer Lawrence was the perfect Katniss (or something I don't remember the quote)". She said that Jennifer Lawrence can act well and that the way she acts embodies Katniss. She never specifically said "this is how I've pictured Katniss".

I read Katniss as brown and that's all I need for my own perception, no matter what some ignorant people are yelling at the top of their lungs, because no argument that I can bring forward is going to convince them. If someone's day is ruined because they see someone draw a brown Katniss, then that's on them.

What do you think about division /dynamics between Seam and Merchants in District 12?

I've already partially answered this one, but it is very important to understanding the way Katniss perceives herself and the world around her. The merchants are the first "enemy" we have who Katniss feels opposed to, only to learn that they aren't her enemy.

At the same time, of course, they inform the class struggles we know. The lack of interest in aiding those below you, and the ways poorer white people have abandoned their black/brown counterparts to advance their own standing in society. It shows the complicity one can have in racist structures without themselves being well off in comparison to higher classes.

[oh-my-damn]

One thing about me is that I don't form opinions without looking into topics thoroughly

So when I didn't like Donald Trump as President of the United States

I went: Okay, why do I not like him? Is it because of how he's portrayed in the media where I'm from? Is it because of rumors I'd heard?

The answer was yes. Yes, that was why I initially didn't like Donald Trump.

I was okay with that. I didn't actually feel like I needed to defend that.

But then, the morons came.

They came like a tsunami. They surrounded the world, and the United States, and even my country.

And so that left me with two choices.

Argue with these people but get thrown off whenever they'd say something even remotely factual that you couldn't properly refute because you hadn't looked into it properly...

Or do proper research on the matter.

I chose the latter, because, as anyone who has ever met me in their entire life even for a brief, agonizing second would know, that is who I am.

So I did my research. I did a ton of research.

I read interviews. I watched The Apprentice (all seasons and spinoffs). I watched the debates. And eventually, I watched his documentary, too.

I sat back, having retained all of this information with a sour look on my face, my glass of red wine in hand, and thought....

Well. I was right.

Because I was. I was right. I was right from the moment I first heard him speak, that he was an entire fucking idiot. A cheetoh in an expensive suit. A racist. A misogynist. A liar. A cheat. A poor business man.

However.

One thing researching all of that taught me, was something that has benefitted me ever since. Every time I go out drinking. Every time I meet someone with different opinions than my own.

And that was the fact that I, the person who hates Donald Trump more than fucking anything in the world, knows Donald Trump better than his supporters do.

And that is the most amazing feeling.

Because you can argue until the end of time with someone less intelligent than you (Donald Trump supporters) but nothing shuts them up more than when you can throw out facts and moments that they do not know because they did not do the research but it's believable enough for them to realize it's true.

Even a simple question like "Oh, so did you watch his documentary?"

Most of them will say NO. They didn't.

And then you get to smile condescendingly, and say, "Well I did. And did you know he got off paying taxes for forty years in New York City to build the Trump Tower? Did you know he got money from his dad to build it? Did you know he's never even experienced an average way of living and so he cannot relate even for a second to what your life is like because he's never had a normal job because he was born rich? And did you know he used to sexually harrass women all around him and even said his own daughter was sexy? And did you know that he pretended to be someone else while talking about himself for an interview where he was quoted to be absolutely fantastic in every aspect of the word and that Madonna wanted to hook up with him? And did you know that back in the 90's he did an interview where he said if he was ever to run for President, he would run as a Republican, because they believe everything you'll tell them? Because I do. Because I cared enough to research him. Is this who you're rooting for?"

And so, the story is never ending.

Because every single privileged, power hungry man that I encounter, that I am absolutely disgusted with, I must research.

I need to know. I want the facts. I want the receipts. I want the words out of their god damn mouths so I can use them against anyone who thinks they know fucking shit all about the topic.

It goes for Jeffrey Epstein too. And Harvey Weinstein. And Woody Allen.

And it goes for others, less devastating but equally as disappointing men, too.

Because you should not speak on a topic you have not delved into, researched, and gotten a thorough understanding of.

Because if you do not do your research on a topic... Then you're just not smart enough to be included in the conversation.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2023 Movie Journey #5: Ant-Man

ant-man. i loved this movie! it’s just an all-around good time, one of the best franchises in the whole mcu (for me, it’s now my second-favorite, after black panther). 

and the story of me watching this is a fun one: i bought my ticket to see  quantumania before i had ever seen this one or its sequel, presuming based on the cast and everybody i know liking these movies that i had really zero chance of regretting that choice. i just barely squeezed in these movies after buying the ticket--i watched this the night before going to the theater and then i got up early to squeeze the sequel into my morning before i left to see ant-man 3.

because of that time crunch, though, i didn’t fully review these after watching them. i took notes that look more like stream of consciousness bullet points, and now it’s like a year later and i have to make those make sense! lol. here goes.

first off, the action sequences in this movie were way more dynamic because of how it played with the size shifting, and as somebody who desperately needs a reason to care about action sequences, i enjoyed that. they kept it interesting. on top of that, it had so much heist and warmth and fantasy science that this movie balanced the (for me, excessive) action.

i got a full-blown anxiety stomachache during the big heist, because i liked all of the characters and didn’t want any of them to get hurt. special mention here goes out to ant-thony the flying ant: i loved him as soon as we met him, and i also had an instant fear that he wouldn’t survive. thanks, honey i shrunk the kids, for permanently scarring me emotionally as a child. now i am an adult who is terrified of bugs but also has to let them live in my spaces because i cannot kill them. 

scott lang is probably the most sympathetic superhero, though of course that’s subjective. but even though he’s not my favorite (that’s been shuri since black panther), the fact that he only cares about two things in the world when we meet him--and that’s his daughter, and punishing greedy evil rich people and helping those they hurt? just, excellent. this is marvel doing leverage, and i have no complaints.

the graphics of the ants are done really well in this, the cgi wasn’t annoying at all...but they still squick me out. i just don’t like bugs. ant-thony deserved a memorial from scott, though. i didn’t like the feeling that he was replaced by a giant ant pet at the end like all ants are interchangeable. scott had bonded with him! i get that during the action he couldn’t exactly stop and reflect or anything, but either you named your ant friend and you’re genuinely bummed he died, or it’s a punchline and you’ll never think about him again. i prefer the latter.

and like i said, i loved all the characters, but luis’s monologues in the form of attempting to relay important information are the literal best. he is me anytime i try to tell a story. ”i just get excited and stuff.”

my one character exception is the guy played by bobby cannavale, because i just had no use for him, lol. in fact, i didn’t even realize it was him! i kept thinking bobby cannavale’s character looked kind of like bobby cannavale, but not actually like him, through most of the movie--until i was looking something else up and saw his name in the cast. scott’s daughter was great for lots of reasons but her total unimpressedness with bobby cannavale delighted me because i felt the same way.

i thought they handled making scott and hope romantic very well. the actors have good chemistry so i was rooting for them, but the push/pull between  antagonistic and flirty is difficult to do successfully, and they could only move things along so much from her open resentment towards him in the beginning to them being a team by the end. this was too lighthearted a movie to spend much time on Them, so just nodding to it and then making jokes and moving along felt right. 

also i loved that anthony mackie was in this. i’m really not familiar with his character, i saw age of ultron but barely remember it, and i double checked--i’ve never seen any other mcu movie sam is in. BUT i do know the actor, from the hate u give and elsewhere and he’s excellent. so he was a cool choice of character to include and it gave me a nice way to see a little more sam.

the end bits were neat, too. i really love that in hope, they created a genuinely strong female character--not always nice, in fact sometimes an asshole...aka a real person just like male characters are allowed to be. so it felt earned when she realized her father was finally going to work with her at the end. 

and while i find it annoying, as a mostly non-viewer of mcu movies, to have bits with totally other characters and worlds shoved in after the film is over to weave the worlds together and try and make you care about it all...i adore anytime a movie is like ‘X will return’ because when i enjoyed the movie, it’s like a little concluding gift to promise me more--i was really happy when shang chi did the same. 

in the end, my biggest takeaway from this movie is that it is a rare crowd-pleaser. this is one of those movies that, when you’ve managed to avoid watching it for eight years and everybody is eager to tell you how great it is, you can feel a little suspicious of the hype. but it IS that good! as soon as i saw it, i showed it to the one person i knew who hadn’t already seen it, and despite her doubts going in, she also loved it. 

so i can recommend this one to almost anybody, and i wish more movies like this still got made, that are lovable for broad audiences. (i get that marvel movies in general make obscene amounts of money, but i certainly don’t care about most of them, so that’s not what i mean. i want more action movies that make an effort to appeal to people besides action fans. clearly it’s possible!) 

if you have a serious aversion to ants, i would probably advise you to steer clear. but if you like thievery or dads and daughters or michael douglas or a brisk romp with science, this is a really great movie.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Release Dates

Still clearing out the demo folder. I feel this need to be careful about what I say on these, however, as if I seem to very much enjoy something and mention that I intend to purchase it but have not purchased it yet, there’s even odds someone’s going to throw it at my head. I mean, not that I mind my bestie throwing Lake at me, but that largely because it was on sale so we’re not talking sticker shock guilt like when some basically-brothers threw Total War III at me.

Anyway.

Grim Tides: This is the most basic RPG of RPGs, wtih some fairly interesting customisation options. I mean, it basically works where you have a token that represents your character, very basic skills and perks, click around a very basic square map to ‘explore a dungeon’ and a turn-based combat system that at its root is just “click the thing”. Except that it’s actually a lot more complex than that. Your skills and perks can be customised basically however you want; there’s no restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your build. The options screen lets you decide how big you want the dungeons to be allowed to get, whether you want permadeath or not, exactly how the turn-based system works (whether it’s one or two actions per round, with the latter allowing for more tactics and the former being more for simplicity), how tough you want the enemies to be ... all of that on top of the base difficulty setting. You want to plough through this thing easily while you figure out what build you like? No problem. You want a tactical bloodbath? They’ve got you covered there too. It’s not epic graphics (there are in fact hardly any graphics), but one thing you can do with this that you can’t do with most games is upload your own character token. You want your D&D character to run through this thing? Your Warden? Your Hawke? No problem; make a token (if you don’t already have one), load it in, and off you go. So yeah, this one’s cheap and cheerful and the only reason it is not in my library right now is because I am waiting until... Oh. They pushed back Cook, Serve, Forever’s release date until next week so I either wait until Pan’Orama comes out tomorrow to buy it and risk it also getting its release date pushed back or I buy it once I’m done clearing out my demo folder a little more. It will be mine, anyway. It and its predecessor, Grim Quest. The bundle together’s basically negligible cost and given I just spent two hours poking at the demo of Grim Tides even though I was restricted to one zone the whole time? Worth it.

Kitsune: The Journey of Adashino: This is another one I’ll come back to at some stage, if only because right now, it’s ... a bit of a mess. It doesn’t tell you what the keybinds are, it doesn’t tell you how to use them very clearly when they do tell you what the keybinds are, and it’s wnother one of those ones where the camera angle is at fixed points rather than following the character. That last I could live with if the rest wasn’t ... well, what it is. The demo itself needs some fixing,which I guess is fair given that the game isn’t supposed to be out until next year so the demo must be more sort of beta testing than anything else. Still looks interesting, though frankly I’ve got no idea what it’s about from the brief time I played it before it forced me into the grip of an enemy and then gave me some contradicting information about how to get out again. So it stays on the wishlist but I’m going to want to look at the demo again in a few months.

Pneumata: Another one of those ones where the demo is only temporary.and it ran out before I got a chance to play it, even though I only downloaded it a few days ago. Well, fuck a bunch of that, frankly.

Imagined Leviathans: This one’s a kind of really artsy looking walking simulator but also has a fair few bugs. When everything is literally black and white (mostly white), it can be hard to see any kind of path, and walking off the path can get you clipping into a mountain you can’t even see. So an interesting game, but not something I really want to poke at in the demo overmuch because ... well, bugs. This one’s only got “Coming Soon” as a release date, but that’s probably fine - it needs time anyway, Besides, Steam release dates can change with zero warning (see also two changes of release date for Pan’Orama and one really aggravating one for Cook, Serve, Forever, as it said a little while ago that release was today, literally giving the time in hours, and then changed to “next week” without so much as a note as to why) so I can’t really trust them anyway.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie: This is an interactive novel on a whole other level. The mechanics involved are fascinating - imagine you took the various emotional / character type responses in a Dragon Age game, polished and refined them so that they actually make all the difference in the world instead of just some flavour, and then gave them centre stage. That’s what we’re dealing with. Also the kind of story that puts us in Neil Gaiman / Kieron Gillen territory. I had to stop playing this one because I didn’t know how far I could get in the demo without it cutting me off and didn’t want to get that “But I want more game NOW!” feeling when it’s not coming out until June (well, at least that’s what the store page says, but ... y’know, changeable release dates - I will stop bitching about that eventually, I swear).

That should do it for the time being. I swear, I need to stop doing this. My wish list is getting insane. Then again, so many of them don’t even come out until gods-know-when so I guess it’s not so bad.

[arjunasearth]

What I would like to tell so many people (including myself). Yet, only if one is ready , he / she will really internalize this insight. Numbing is nothing but pure escapism frome one(’s)self. And to this day, nothing has ever hurt me more that seeing someone I love (including myself...) numb himself all the time, escaping from feelings and thoughts and numbing every emotion. It feels like self-sabotage that only generates more pain and anxiety. Breaking out of this pattern, stopping to numb my emotions is actually returning to myself and feeling into the roots of my emotion and to actually become healthy again. And also realizing that just because I am realizing that numbing myself really hurts me and who I am and blocks my soul- doesn’t mean that everybody who is numbing hisself is feeling the same way or is willing to break out of it. This realization alone can hurt so much,especially when these people are your friends / family /partner ( experiencing all of the mentioned recently). The biggest lesson is to let go. You cannot change people. You can show them. But when you transform your own point of view and way of living, it is not only your inner change that matters. It is your environment, primarily. Is it mirroring this transformation? Or is rather deconsctructing your own transformation? Latter is definitely my case. And realizing this, breaking out of this, hurts so so much. Letting go hurts so much. But I feel through this pain, knowing that it is essential right now. I cannot save everyone. I should stop trying to do so. Because in the process of trying to save others, I am actually losing myself. And this is not who I am.

by tajaroraa

[pwblogarchive]

January 2008

January 3, 2008

“notes on change.”

i hate explaining my own interpretations to people. id rather you come up with your own- but this one seems to be pretty glaring....

there is a distinct difference between the idea "seasons change, but people dont" and the idea "everyone changes". this difference is simply the connotations of the two. in the former: the idea is brought forth that there are certain parts of you that are inherently there. forever. whether they are a part of your DNA or how you were raised- they are so deep and solidly rooted they cannot change. to me these are your ideals, your morality, your internal monologue. they remain constant though are defined differently as your mind and heart mature. to simplify, people who are kind have something switched on within them that will not change. on the other extreme malicious people will always be malicious. not to say there isnt gray area between the two- where someone who is kind can act maliciously and vice versa. obviously there are more rare examples where something can impact someone in such a tremendous way that it will cause a deep change in them. these remain constant through celebrity, through tragedy, through happiness, through loss. i can feel certain things in myself and ways that i know i will always feel- no matter what else changes around me. if you read my actual diary entries from when i was 12 to now, while the language and subject matter has changed- and hopefully has gotten a bit better. my subconscious impacting me and my decisions seems to remain faithful. however, what was meant by the latter "everyone changes, i used to be tiny", is the idea of growing up. honestly, i am not who i was a year ago or 3 years ago or 10 years ago. i think i would hate myself if i never changed. this is an experiment more than anything. if new cultures, people, and art didnt impact me and change me than this would be fraudulent. i hope most of these changes are for the better, though i know i am human and make mistakes. sometimes i turn right when i should have turned left. but anything you loved or hated about me from the beginning have not changed- these are the things that make us each different from each other and either magnetize or polarize from others.

Posted by xoat 1:12 AM

January 3, 2008

“cantsleepcantsleepcantsleep”

nothing lasts forever, except the earth and sky.

i should have become a farmer.

Posted by xoat 4:07 AM

January 3, 2008

“its easy to get older not so much wiser”

the light splashes in and out. its almost violent. everything rational inside of me tells me that its the dull white of a voicemail. but my eyes are playing tricks on me. i see it purple textured velvet. the tv is blaring whatever. i can see light is sneaking in the cracks everywhere of this house. like vermin. take a vote, the eyes have it. there is too much space here. between me and everything else in this room. i wish i had a habit bad or not just to pass the time.

Posted by xoat 5:13 AM

January 14, 2008 9:53 PM"

im reading what you have to say. following your links. sitting on your front lawn.

Posted by a boy's lifeat 3:12 AM219 comments:

January 18, 2008

“a sidenote”

i guess some people got the idea that the companies who created many of the products on here are paying me to advertise for them. well as much as id like a years supply of lawrys or steve jobs to send me that insane ass macbook touch prototype- i have a feeling i wont be getting either. honestly, im not that important. though if someone wants to put a word in id love to get this sick versace interior design on my private jet (oh yeah i dont have a jet either so if you could throw that in too). anyway, this blog is for fun. it is pretty shallow. its about design and wishes and pictures. not so much words, grammar or any deeper sense of understanding. this is the shit i think is cool some of it i have most of it i cant find or afford.

" catharsis20 said...

woah..

kind of snuck out of my body for a moment.

kind of cool.

lack of sleep is wonderful.

you should try it sometime.

i don't think he cares if the world agrees with him.

i don't count this as cynism

but i wish everyone would get over their materialism..

as stupid or as useless as that might be.

'go to sleep, kid. no one's listening.'

i doubt he reads your comments.

January 19, 2008

rarely do i do anything that involves me getting up from a computer keyboard. in this case trav has been staying at my house for a week and we decided to do a collection of visual art. each piece in a 100 percent collaboration between trav and i. i doubt anyone will ever see these.

Posted by a boy's lifeat 4:50 AM219 comments:

January 21, 2008

things have changed for me...

but thats ok.

Posted by a boy's lifeat 4:20 PM

January 21, 2008

how insane would it have been to be here

(Broken link to a Michael Jackson performance on YouTube)

like does this dude breathe oxygen? listen to the applause after he busts out the moonwalk for the first time.

Posted by a boy's lifeat 4:24 PM164 comments:

January 23, 2008

“i guess the news has me off level. rest in peace. honestly, afraid. i cant ever sleep either.”

Put the the planets in swing

Make jupiter sing

The afternoon light

Ignites

The back of my head

Spend years trying to cloud our head and not feel a thing

Just to turn around and erase the clouds so we can remember everything

Throw handcuffs on that boy

When the check comes he never pays

His cheekbones carve my moods

He shakes like a leaf

He's clicking like an old answering machine

He howls at the moon

He's breathes wet thru insect eyes

Canyon lights at night chase away the boring days

Talk you sober

Did yr husband pick that gold band

And I don't worry about death becayse I've seen the date I'm gonna die and its so far away.

From my blackberry: thanks for coming out to the obama event. Very special night for us.

[god-whispers]

apr 19

don't believe your lying eyes

"those also who seek my life lay snares for me; those who seek my hurt speak of destruction, and plan deception all the day long." psa 38:12

i feel the Lord wants me to issue a warning to everyone out there.  there is coming a great deception.  it is already here.  i don't know how many of you have heard or read about the false abduction scheme the other day.  i'll briefly relate it here.

"then a man gets on the line and claims he's kidnapped her 15-year-old daughter, brie.  he says: 'listen here, i have your daughter.  you're not going to call anyone, you are not going to call the cops' - 'and i just, i put the phone on mute and started screaming for help,'" she tells inside edition.  the kidnappers demand $1 million before reducing it to $50,000.

but here's the thing — her daughter had not been kidnapped and it was not her begging her mom for help.  her voice had been duplicated by a scammer using artificial intelligence.  even her own mother could not tell the difference.  "'i did not for a second doubt her voice,' brie's mom tells inside edition."

i don't know how many of you have been watching tucker carlson's interview with elon musk recently, but elon is worried about artificial intelligence.  he says it has the potential of civilizational destruction.  i, for one, don't doubt it in the least.

in like manner, on america's got talent last year, a contestant on the show actually managed to reproduce actual video showing the four hosts singing and performing - doing something they had not actually done.  but there it was for all to see - them actually appearing to sing and dance.  then they even managed to resurrect elvis presley for a "live" performance.

i know this daily might not appear on the surface to be spiritual and enlightening, but i feel the Lord wants me to bring it forth as a warning to all who would heed it.  the deception is growing so strong in these times, one cannot believe what they are actually hearing with their ears or even seeing with their own eyes.  Jesus warned us of these times.  "then if anyone says to you, ‘look, here is the christ!’ or, ‘look, he is there!’ do not believe it." mark 13:21

"for false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect." matt 24:24  we cannot depend on our fleshly senses alone.  the Holy Spirit and the written word must be our only guide in these terrible times.  it is only those who are rooted and grounded in truth that can escape the deception coming - and believe me, it is coming in greater ways than we can even imagine.

one must be able to say - i know, that i know, that i know.  my Lord would not do that.  my Lord would not say that.  "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own." john 10:14

i can still hear the voice of my friend and mentor, who started this ministry and just kind of drug me along with her.  those of you who have listened to me for awhile know that i never considered myself as anyone of significance; like i was just a passenger on the bus - not the driver or even a tour guide.  boy, did i decide to hitch a ride with the wrong person - or as God would say, "the right person."  all i can say is we all grow into whatever God has purposed for us.  the only options are to quit, to remain stagnate, or to go with the flow; the latter being the only fruitful response.  we must all get in agreement with God.

anyway, she used to say, "i know my Father's voice and anothers' i will not follow."  we too must now know our Father's voice just like she did.  know it and follow it.  it is obedience and not sacrifice our Lord requires.  it is obedience and strict adherence to the truth we know that will deliver us to a safe harbor and a full deliverance.

"that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life." 1 john 1:1  have you heard?  have you seen?  have you yet handled the Word of life for yourself?  i would entice you to taste and see for yourself that the Lord is good.

don't believe your lying eyes.  don't allow yourself to be deceived by our fleshly senses and comely desires which are subject to deception.  know your God and where you stand.  "for satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light." 2 cor 11:14  to be forewarned is to be forearmed.  evil exists and it's desire is to rule over us.  stay tuned tomorrow for "the armor of God;"  what it is, it's use, and how to apply it.  He has not left us defenseless.

[perpetual-fool]

‘Understanding’

Stupid fucking piece of shit.

   I'm mostly plagued by two thoughts, thinking I'm stupid and thinking I'm evil. For the latter I have a rebuttal, I guess would be the term. If I really were just evil I wouldn't feel this way about it, it wouldn't bother me. And there should be some analogous response the former as well. If I was actually just stupid I wouldn't be wracking my brain trying to figure out why I didn't put things together.

   I think if I were actually stupid I'd have an answer for it. Like, the example I was able to come up with was, when I tried flattening the back of some blade on a sharpening stone that wasn't flat. Someone could say 'from your experience with waterstones, you know stones aren't necessarily flat. You should've known to check'. The answer being, I thought stones of decent quality came flat and just got out of flat with use. They look flat to the eye, and I didn't notice anything that would lead me to question it before this problem happened. And someone might say that it's stupid I would assume that products for which I pay a premium for wouldn't come with all the same problems of the cheaper ones. In which case, sure, that's how stupid I am. I did have to get burned on a kitchen knife that cost ~$100 before realizing that you have to spend at least ~$300 to get a knife any better than the ones that cost ~$50. And I should've known that, because you have to spend at least ~$50 to get a knife any better than the ones that cost ~$10. Unless you move up to an entirely different category of thing, they're basically all the same. Anyway.

   I guess that leaves open the question, if I'm not just stupid, what's going on? Or for that matter, the same thing if I'm not just evil. I know from less heated conversations that people take pretty much everything I say to mean something else. I'm not satisfied just assuming that's the reason with some way of confirming it. I suppose I do know I don't have all the pieces I need to put things together. Like the above, the reason I was stupid is that I'd made a false assumption and didn't yet have sufficient reason to question it. Being, I thought things which cost more do so for good reason, when actually it's for stupid reasons. And that maybe being rooted in some innate bias, some kind of illusion of fairness. I ask people for that sort of explanation and they won't tell me. Or, there was an exchange I had the other day. My mom was looking for painted rocks she'd made with my sister's kids. "Here's the one I made, here's the one by Girl 1, and here's the one by Boy, but where's the one Girl 2 made?" I asked, "When did Boy make one?" and she says, "..You're right, this one was done by Girl 2." And in this case, yes I did think that Boy's rock was actually Girl 2's. But usually I don't. Usually when I ask things it's because I have no fucking idea what's going on. And I have gotten "you're right" before with no fucking idea what it was I was supposed to be right about. That does correlate with the idea that I'm blindly running afoul of people's insecurities.

Tangent: but then what is there to be insecure about? Like, take the thing with guitar's intonation being off. So fucking what? The fact that it bothers me doesn't mean anything beyond its bothering of me. What is the point of denying the existence of the phenomenon if not just to fuck with me? to convince me I'm fucking crazy?

I presume this has to be related to the 'deaf to the knife' thing, but I'm not sure how to frame that going both ways. If they're not listening to me then what is it they're hearing? Why do they take offense any time I try to listen to them? Though I guess I'm still framing that as if their 'understanding' is essentially the same as mine, which cannot possibly be the case.

   What else could 'understanding' be? I guess broadly it could be any process which determines how people respond to stimuli. Or more precisely, how people interpret stimuli. And the logic would have to be the same, I'd think. Like, logic is logic, essentially. So the difference would have to be in how input gets turned into meaning. I mean, input could be different too, but generally the problem is not that people heard or read different words. And 'meaning' is what? Pattern matching? So say we have inputs A, B, and C, which form pattern Thing. You could look for any fit, so if A matches Thing then it's Thing. Or majority fit, if A and B match Thing then it's Thing. Or perfect fit, if A and B and C don't all match then it can't be Thing. I'll call that: U1, U2, and U3. At a glance, this would seem to explain why some people seem to be perfectly reasonable but 'deliberately' misunderstand me, while others seem like they shouldn't have the mental capacity to feed themselves. Though aside, I suppose that's not a problem if the world accommodates you. I guess in this case it would mostly be a matter of priming people with certain stories. This sounds like one of my insane ramblings from before I wiped everything, but I feel like this actually makes a lot of sense. Not that I know what to do with it.

   I guess, back on the topic of 'how am I not just stupid?'; I really do need things other people aren't giving me. But since they act like they've given me enough, that would disprove the idea that I don't have enough pieces. It must be true, but it can't be true, therefore I must be stupid. That sounds right. And people chronically misunderstand me because I'm a fucking freak, and they're always going to run into some other plausible or probable story before they reach mine. And since they're not working on U3, the fact that I tell them they don't understand is negligible. And I'm inclined to believe they're right, and that I'm lying or stupid or crazy, because their belief is disproof of the alternative. More or less. The "you're right" that I wasn't thinking, there were other possibilities and I hadn't ruled anything out yet. The things people won't explain to me, it always seems like they must be assuming I know what the pattern is. Sometimes it's because what I have clearly doesn't fit the pattern, and other times I really have no idea at all. Like, 'insult' is still something I have no understanding of. The stuff people make that doesn't make sense, like a game having pointless items, those things are they because they might fit, and the designer never considered whether they actually do. Aside, not that doing things that way would never make sense, like supposedly the ~70 weapons in SotN weren't actually balanced at all because they just did not have the time to do that. But it's different if it's a decision rather than 'neglect'.

   And recognizing them: U1: Telling you something, 'this is the way it is'; telling them something, 'I do/don't agree'. U2: Telling you, 'this the way it is because reasons'; telling them, 'that makes sense/doesn't make sense'. U3: Telling you, 'this is what I've observed, which looks this way'; telling them, 'are you saying..? for instance..?'. I guess I've been conditioned to defend this, me being different. The short version being that verifying meaning is absolutely not optional for me. But people keep insisting they understand anyway, and that what I'm saying sounds normal. The searing wrongness and inability to make any connections be damned. Effectively, arguing that my problems just aren't happening. It's something I'm inclined to not believe myself about. An example, someone actually read the thing where I mentioned I'd been having nightmares. They responded in a way that implied I was having trouble getting to sleep, recommending something for that. Problem being that's just a completely different issue. And when I voiced objection to that, they stated they "didn't mean to imply that that the nightmares aren't happening or don't matter". Which is also just not what the issue is. I know from past experience that if I continue trying to clarify this pattern would just repeat, until they take offense or give up. This isn't comprehensive, and I haven't always reacted like that. Trying to think and behave how I'm supposed to really fucked me up. And that's from people directly telling me things are bad/wrong, but also from being forced to conform to others to make any U3 sense of things.

Tangent: is that what I'm sorry for? being unable to be what I'm supposed to? It's not like I deliberately chose to do something that caused harm and feel bad about it. I either was doing my best to do what I'm supposed to or was so overwhelmed that I had no control over my actions. And in both cases it was 'wrong' because it wasn't what I was supposed to do. What else would make things right or wrong? In abstract I can say 'causing or preventing joy and harm' but it sure doesn't feel like it. It feels like the approval or condemnation of others is the only thing that matters. Which is broken, since due to not understanding their approval is also condemnation. Maybe the most insidious lesson has been that I don't matter. How do other people decide right and wrong anyway? Lots of people seem to just have rules that are to be followed for no intrinsic reason other than that's what the rules are. But those would have to come from somewhere. Is there any possible reason beyond people just wanting things? divine intervention aside. Even then I suppose, if some supernatural entity did give you a set of rules to follow, why should you? punishment or reward? Wouldn't that also be because you want the reward or don't want the punishment? I guess it must be.

[dxncingxnmyown]

There is showing and there is telling. He is determined to do the latter; to put words to emotional intention, to instill belief in hearts too hard to beat. It is a worthwhile attempt. Many a political change and battle begins that way. Yet she's lived in this cynical world for too long, to put faith in humanity's ability to listen without bias. And for all that Midori cannot claim prowess in politics or war... She knows one thing, and one thing certainly.

The power of a well-crafted mythos.

"I would ask you to give our families something to believe in." She interjects with a tempered gaze. "Lovestruck fools. It lends to a fairytale better than a thief and a soldier, lost in the woods." And is that not what all royal dynasties are made of? The golden halo of something special, something unique. There is a reason why Japan put Midori on a pedestal. An innocent, fragile Princess recovered from great tragedy? Even if evidence suggests caution, the nation is quick to believe. If she and Tina Feng play it right - their nations will believe it, as well.

"So it was for my honor." She's gathered piecemeal from the Japanese contingent. A bevy of threats exchanged, some about the nation and others about those involved. She cannot feel the expression on her face, but she sense it is almost... Flattered. How many men waged war for a thief with no honor? "Thank you." Midori musters, treasonous in her words. As if she is not already committing treason, by committing to this experiment.

She ought to know better than to trust in men's proclamations. Faith is rooted out of her before she is ten years of age. She ought to, but she finds herself in a gradual nod. Trust, she's coming to realize, is only trust when it is given without proof. And so, she chooses trust. "Maybe it is I that will protect you." Midori marvels through tight lips. An eye to the side, watching as the two children briefly stalk away from the bed - and towards the growing brood of kids entertained by trinkets from the French nursery.

"I am surprised by the question." She approaches even closer, words made just for him. "I would not make a plan to come this far, only to come this far." A breath, and a small graze of the lips. "You made me feel royal long before they did."

There was fire in his dark eyes as she spoke - it was plain as day, if one cared to look deep, how much Tian Feng desired to watch the world aflame, to burn down the old && forge ahead with a better new. He needed rounding; stability, some sense of realism to his spark. Enough war had turned parts of him wild, in a way that would be hard to tame. Where she shuddered at the idea of discovery, he hoped for it, deep down - to blow everything wide open, and move on from there.

It was not a safe way of life. Tian Feng had never conducted himself safely. He listened to her, and saw the hesitation in her eyes - it bordered desperate. The destruction that flowed in his veins would not be her downfall; he wouldn't let himself be her undoing. " It is only valuable if we give it value. I could make them listen, make them understand. "

From the moment her plan began at conception, Tian Feng was unagreeable, giving a low tsk clicking from his tongue at her first few words. Would anyone believe they were not aware of the other? " You would ask for me to play the fool? " Tian Feng quipped, rubbed raw by it slightly - her demands, while somehow appealing && quite telling of her station && how she desired to claim it, were enough to give him pause. There was no qualm with authority ; Tian Feng was a soldier, but it was not a solid plan, and it included a lot of things he'd really rather not do. " I am to play the love struck fool, then. I see... Alright. I will do as you ask - but I will not apologize to him. Not unless he apologies to you to discredit your name with such loose conviction, to shame his family. And for doing this to my face. " He grimaced, a finger to his cheek - but it was not out of pain, just disappointment to have such an ugly bruise coloring half of his beauty purple.

In their families, trust was not a gift lightly given. Tian Feng understood this even at a young age, and had learned how to lie to earn praise - which truth to live, and which to hide. Even now, he lived his life in this way, plucking things and arranging them in a tale that would fit him best, in the moment. Maybe Tian Feng did not know what it truly meant to give his trust, nor to be given it in return. " You have my word that I will do all in my power to protect you through this. It is not I, Midori, who wishes to see you fail. Quite the opposite. " How he wished to reach out. " If I am granted permission to court you... would you agree? There would be talk. "

[southernmermaidsgrotto]

Hi! I read your blog post about the term bruja and I wanted to ask a question. I am Nicaraguan of heritage (my abuela is from Nicaragua and still believes a lot of the folklore etc which she has taught me). But I also have heritage from Scandinavia, Spain, and Ireland. I was wondering if I should or should not call myself a bruja (because according to your post my practice fits that definition), but I’m worried people will think I’d be appropriating because I am a light skinned Latina (I look latina but my skin is pale is what I mean), and because I’m not purely of 100% Nicaraguan heritage. So what are your thoughts on me using the term bruja in regards to myself?

Hello there!

First of all, latines come in all shades, there's no way to "look latina" that isn't fetishizing. Your ethnicity is between you and your family+ancestors and random people don't get to tell you who you are. I don't think anyone can be "100% nicaraguan" in this day and age either, maybe you should read a little more about colonial and neocolonial ideas of blood quantum, mestizaje, and how those ideas of being "100%" something actually come from colonizers & are a weapon used to separate people of color and take away our rights. For centuries, and even today, indigenous people are subject to tests to see if they're "indigenous enough" and saying they're "not 100%" is the colonizer's excuse to reject & deny our human rights and our rights to ancestral land. Being latine is not just about nationalities and percentages of anything, it's about the history of your people and the culture you were raised in.

Second, I think this is a very similar situation to the ask I just reblogged. Even if you're a hereditary practitioner of some sort, is your practice latine or is it just remnants of european practices brought over by colonizers or european immigrants? Because if it's the latter, it's not "brujería" in the latine magic sense of the word, it's hereditary witchcraft or hereditary folk magic. So, is your magic tied to the history of your latin american country? to the oppression of indigenous, black, POC in latam? You should research your personal family history to learn as much as you can about all this. Also, do you claim your identity or are you just trying to bypass boundaries by saying "I'm technically latina"? are you actively and loudly supporting latine/latinx people of color? do you support black latines, indigenous rights over land? or do you stay silent, hide it and deny it every time?

To me, people who don't claim being indigenous, afrolatine, brown or latine and don't have a connection to -& understand- the history of oppression from imperialist countries like Spain, England, France & even modern US imperialism, who stay silent and use lightskin or white presenting priviledges to stay out of discussions of race & ethnicity, those are the ones who don't get to claim brujería. Because our brujería is born of resistance against that oppresion.

If you're not that kind of person, then you're good to go, bottom line what I want you to understand is that brujería is rooted in that cultural & historical context and cannot be divorced from it.

I understand where you’re coming from and I hope my answer doesn’t come off as rude! But it’s very important that we approach all this with a decolonizing perspective, and always challenging and gettind rid of these colonial ideas of who “looks latine” or “is 100% latine” etc. 

Hope that answers your question!

[average-guy-reviews]

Elvis (2022)

Everybody knows who Elvis Presley is, and everyone knows his story...or do they? This film removed that certainty very quickly as it made me realise that I knew only the surface of the tale. The water below that surface is much deeper and darker than most people probably realise.

This is not a light telling of the glory of Elvis. This is a dark, gritty, look at the underbelly of the beast that was the life of the King of Rock and Roll.

Starring Austin Butler, as the eponymous star, and Tom Hanks, as 'Colonel' Tom Parker, the story is told of the rise of Elvis from his roots in the slums of Memphis to the highest of heights, and on.

Austin Butler's performance is flawless, riding the rollercoaster of joy and pain, nightmares and dreams, that was the life of the King. There are times in the film where it is easy to forget that it's a 'movie', and not a fly on the wall piece. To put it into perspective there is a section near the end when it switches from movie footage to actual footage of Elvis and, at first, I was hard pressed to notice the change. That is how perfectly Butler nails his role.

Tom Hanks is excellent as always, though I find it impossible to think of a role that he has done where he has been even the remotest bit a villain. And yet here he is just that. In his own words in the film he is "a conman out to empty the pockets of the rubes" who sees Elvis merely as a sideshow attraction. Something he can use to empty those pockets, and all the way through he lives by that mantra. Hanks plays the nuances of Parker with all the skills he has. Sometimes he's a good influence, other times he's the devil on the shoulder, yet all along he is only out for himself. Tom Hanks is a master of his craft, and this may be one of his greatest performances.

Baz Lurhmann has given us a masterpiece of movie making. The direction is on point at all times, the performances he gets out of the entire cast are believable and entrancing. His choices of shots, and setting, all of it is just absolutely spot on. If you knew who Lurhmann was, but didn't know he'd directed this you'd be able to tell quickly, and that is in no way a criticism.

The supporting cast is just excellent, particularly Olivia DeJonge, as Priscilla, and Dacre Montgomery and Luke Bracey. I cannot think of a single performance in the film that i could point to as 'not good', and certainly none that were bad.

Elvis has been in my life from the very day I was born. I knew going into this that it was either going to be the worst dross I had ever seen or a spectacle of epic proportions. I'm pleased to say it was very much the latter. I normally dislike biopics because they tend to soft soap the person, and give everything a rosy tint. This film shied away from that and is, for me, a much better watch for it.

Despite walking out with tears running down my cheeks, and a heavy heart, I am 100% going to see this again. As I rose from my seat I'm not ashamed to say that I touched my heart and said thank you to the King.

This is a film that tells the dark side of the story of, arguably, one of the most famous people of all time, certainly one of the biggest influences in music history, and it is a great, great, film. I'm not going to break my scoring system but if any film was going to do that it would be this. This is a straight 10/10, with a full recommendation to go watch it.

[celosiaa]

Hi! I am obsessed with your writing, it is so so endlessly good and you. Are so. Talented. Anyway, please feel free to ignore this, I won’t expect a reply, but prompt idea of someone (probably martin) giving jon a shoulder rub, and it giving jon flashbacks to his kidnapping and him very not being ok. Could take place either soon after the kidnapping, or like in post canon (maybe even with emma?) Again feel free not to reply, just wanted to share and tell you how much I love your work❤️❤️

hi friend!!! thank you so so much for this wonderful prompt!! and your sweet message <3 I apologize that this has taken so long, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! and I hope you’re having a wonderful day!

CW PTSD, flashback, panic attack

Quiet.

Peace of solitude, silence, loneliness has always been a bit of what Martin has missed from his life. He needs it as much as the sun, as much as the breath in his lungs. Sometimes the lingering ache of it all leaves him hurting—hurting over the fact that he shouldn’t want this; he should want to be, not to fade. He should be over this by now.

But, Jon. Jon understands. He understands that need for something you do not want better than just about anyone. So when Martin needs to disappear, or begs for quiet, or takes time to meditate and drift away, Jon always keeps his worry under what he surely thinks to be a careful façade. Martin sees right through it, of course. And loves him all the more for it every time.

Days like this should build up his reserve—the quiet days, where Jon is either gone, or busy, or engrossed in a novel Martin would never dream of picking up. But something about this is off, and Martin knows it.

He knows it by the way that Jon has barely shifted positions at his desk for many hours, other than to unfold and refold his legs under himself. Surely they must be aching—Martin knows they must. So many hours in one place tend to make Jon restless, his muscles cramping and his mind running wild. Sometimes in a good way—Martin is now accustomed to listening to very excited, lightning-fast monologues about whatever Jon had found himself fascinated by that day. But sometimes...sometimes, in other ways as well. Other ways not altogether pleasant.

Martin is certain this is one of the latter type.

From his vantage point in the kitchen, Martin can see the screensaver on Jon’s laptop running across it. Jon is working on nothing at all—has not been working on anything for nearly an hour now, and yet has not moved. It sets Martin’s teeth on edge, this sort of thing. When Jon appears as himself, is present as himself—and yet, not quite. Never quite there, not really. It reminds him of the early days after they had put the world back together, coming up on five years ago now. Days when Jon was drifting…and Martin had never been sure if he would come back.

Stop thinking stop stop

Don’t go there. Not now. Focus.

His head feels heavy with fog when he stands, as it often does—and he makes his way over to Jon, careful to step a bit heavier than usual so as to give some warning of his approach.

“Jon love?” he murmurs, keeping his tone as light as possible, much lighter than he feels. “You alright?”

The tiniest of jumps, barely noticeable. Jon freezes in place for a moment, before attempting to turn his head to look at Martin—and coming to a sudden stop with a groan, and a hand pressed into his shoulder.

“Hmm. Martin.”

His voice is rough from disuse, and he lets out a dry cough as Martin kneels slowly beside him.

“What are you working on?” he asks, trying the gentlest approach he can think of—and trying not to feel affronted when Jon flinches against the fingertips brushed against the back of his arm.

“I-I—erm—I was just…” He trails off as he realizes his laptop is asking him to enter the password again. “Ah. Well. Nothing at all, it seems.”

With a long sigh, Jon tips his head against the back of his chair—or rather, he tries. The motion seems to pull something uncomfortably in his neck, and he hisses painfully as he replaces his hand over the angle between his neck and shoulder.

“Alright, love? Can I help?”

“Ah, it’s—it’s fine, I-I did this to myself, I—”

“Jon.”

“—should get back to work—”

“Jon.”

Something of it seems to cut through his downward spiral, and he manages to meet Martin’s eyes at last—the shadows beneath his eyes outlining the exhausted desperation bubbling just behind them. For what, or who, or when, Martin cannot be sure—but he is sure that he needs to coax Jon out of whatever space he’s found himself in today.

“Does your neck hurt?” he asks, creasing his brows together when Jon attempts to shake his head, and winces instead. “Right, stupid question—how bad is it?”

“It’s fine—it’s nothing, it’s my fault anyway.”

It drives Martin mad how much Jon still wants to blame himself for everything, even the mundane, even things that require none. Especially things that require none. But, instead of putting a voice to this unsolvable frustration, Martin softens for the moment, stretching out a hand to cover Jon’s own where it still rests on the side of his neck.

“Want to try a little massage?” he asks, pressing a small kiss to Jon’s temple. “Maybe it’ll loosen you up enough to turn your head, at least.”

“Hmm,” is the only reply Jon gives, eyes falling closed against the gentle warmth of Martin’s hands.

“I’ll take that as a yes then.” Chuckling lightly, Martin stands behind him and gets to work.

He rests his fingertips lightly on the sides of Jon’s neck at first, being sure to always remain toward the back and away from his scar. Slowly, he begins to work his fingers a bit deeper into the muscle, traveling from the nape of his neck and down, as Jon unbuttons just the top of his shirt and shrugs the material off his shoulders. It warms Martin’s heart immeasurably to see him beginning to relax under his hands. And more importantly, gives him a wonderful idea for how to make this even better.

“One moment, love,” he whispers next to Jon’s ear, pressing another quick kiss to his temple before stepping away to root through his desk for the massage oil he’d been given by a friend. Sure, maybe he’s never used it, but…lavender certainly sounds like a relaxing smell, and god knows that Jon needs as much assistance with that as he can get.

“Alright, here we are.” He uncaps the bottle and holds it in front of Jon for him to smell. “What do you think?”

Jon blinks in surprise at the new smell, then furrows his brows.

“Wh—what is this?”

“Massage oil. I’ve never used it but—well, now’s as good a time as any, right?”

“I-I…I suppose so.”

The hesitance in Jon’s voice sends up warning flags in Martin’s mind at once—and he steps to the side to get a better look at Jon’s face. A bit glazed, vacant, as he turns the bottle of massage oil over and over in his hands.

“Is something wrong?” Martin asks, cocking his head to one side in confusion. “If you don’t like the smell, I won’t use it.”

“No no, it’s not that,” he assures, closing his eyes as if to clear some picture displayed in front of them. “I don’t know. I—erm. You can try it.”

“Jon…”

“Try it, please try it. It—it should be nice.”

For all that he insists, something about this gives Martin pause. Something in his voice, his body language doesn’t sit right at all—

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, setting a gentle hand on his knee as he crouches to his eye level. “What’s going on?”

A few tense moments go by before Jon responds, the knee beneath Martin’s hand beginning to bounce with an all-too-familiar surge of anxiety. Face going ashen, he attempts a strained, awful sort of smile.

“S-sorry, I—sorry, it’s fine, just—ah.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, love—is it the smell that bothered you? Can you tell me what’s happening?

His leg bounces harder, the other one beginning to join it. As he meets Martin’s eyes again, it is with a particular brand of shock and horror that tells Martin he is barely hanging on to his surroundings. It twists as a knife in his gut, pulling at his insides as his new task shifts to keeping Jon with him.

“Alright, love. You’re here with me, okay? Here, take my hand—”

He extends his own trying to pull Jon’s away from the white-knuckle grip on the arm of his chair—and Jon takes a gasping inhale, clutching at his neck in panic.

“Woah woah, Jon—”

“STOP stop stop please stop—”

Reeling from the sudden shouting, Martin pulls his hands away from Jon as if they had been burned, falling backwards from his crouch and onto the floor in alarm. The lavender oil in Jon’s hand skitters away across the floor as it slips from his hold. Pounding, pounding, pounding is Martin’s heart in his chest, adrenaline overpowering his thoughts for a few moments before he can really take action. What had happened? What had he done to make Jon feel so unsafe?

“Mm—ha—ah—”

“Hold on love, hold on,” he soothes, reaching out a hand of comfort, before thinking better of it. “I’ll be back, just hold on.”

Lifting himself as quickly as possible from the floor, Martin strides quickly towards their refrigerator, yanking open the freezer door and grabbing an ice cube for Jon to ground himself with. Or at least, so he hopes.

What happened?

What did I do? Did I say something?

Did I—

Oh.

Oh god, no.

Heart twinging with guilt, he hurries back to his husband’s side, gently slipping the ice cube back into his palm with as little skin contact as possible. If he feels like he’s back there, back with the clown, with unfamiliar hands of plastic and metal touching him, preparing him, readying him for the harvest—then Martin knows even his own familiar hands will be lost among the noise of the others. Interpreted as a threat.

God, Jon. What have I done?

“Here, sweetheart. I’m right here. You’re here with me.”

The words seem unable to reach him in this state—he blinks rapidly, staring into something unseen, unheard—his entire body trembling with adrenaline, fear, anticipation…and god knows what else. Aching, aching is Martin’s chest as he watches it all unfold, knowing that there is nothing to do but wait for the flashback to end and hope his suffering is as brief as possible.

“N-no—Nikola—”

“You’re here with me, Jon. You’re safe.”

“S-stop, don’t—touch me!”

Oh, Jon.

A few more seconds of true unawareness—before a bit of movement from his right pulls Martin’s gaze down towards the hand which holds the ice cube. As he begins to roll it around, Martin prays the sensation of it will be enough of an anchor this time, that this will be the end of it. That nothing will launch him back into the panic, just as his breathing begins to slow.  As a precaution, Martin grabs the small vial of lavender oil from the carpet, shoving it into his pocket and out of sight.

“Jon? You back with me?”

“…mmm,” he hums, after a few moments’ delay. His eyes slip closed as he attempts to control his breathing, still running the ice between his fingers while his entire frame trembles.

“Alright,” Martin murmurs, coming to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of him. “I’m right here. I’m not gonna touch you, but I’m right here.”

Eerie stillness hangs heavy in the space between them, all silence save for the shuddering of Jon’s body against the chair and the scant air moving through his lungs. And oh, how Martin wants to reach for him—but knows of course he cannot, not until it’s passed a bit, not until Jon remembers where he is. When he is. It cracks in Martin’s chest, spidering through his heart and lungs the longer the silence holds.

Come back.

Come back.

Come back.

I’m not going to leave you.

“Mmm,” Jon echoes his earlier hum, leg beginning to bounce again, stocking feet curling into the carpet. “I’m—here. Here.”

“Yes, you’re here. Here with me,” Martin breathes, nearly crying with relief as tears begin to slip down Jon’s face. “Do you know where?”

“Home.”

His voice cracks in the middle, forcing a shuddering inhale; a broken sob of an exhale as at last he leans forward, bracing his head in his hands.

“Martin.”

“I’m here, love. Home with you.”

“I can’t—” He breaks off to inhale sharply. “Can’t feel my legs, Martin, please—”

“Okay, alright, love. Head between your knees—you’re gonna be alright.”

Jon obliges at once, sinking lower, deepening his breaths, following Martin’s careful pattern toward some semblance of calm. Not quite there, and will not be for some time. The knowledge of it sits heavy in the back of Martin’s throat, and he swallows angrily at it. This is his fault; he should have seen this coming, should have spared a single thought for the wellbeing of his husband and now he cannot even comfort him—

A trembling hand suddenly brushes against his arm, searching. Asking for him—searching for his anchor. After all this time…after everything.

Martin can no longer keep the tears back—and does not want to.

“Oh, darling,” he whispers, pulling Jon into his chest at once, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of his hair. “I’m here. I’m so sorry, love. So sorry.”

“Martin.”

“You’re safe. I’m here.”

Jon buries his face into the soft knit of Martin’s jumper at his shoulder, slackening so deeply into his hold that Martin nearly topples over.

“I’m safe,” he echoes, muffled. “You’re here.”