#it has been a horrible week

[brokenbutunbowed]

We've already gotten over half a foot of heavy wet snow the last few days, and every single one of our birds pens has been damaged.

The inner dividing walls of the pheasant pens caved in, and my yellow golden rooster was crushed to death.

The chicken and duck pen (which are next to each other and use the same fencing/ roof netting) had a complete failure of their netting and the netting actually ripped off the walls and collapse into the pens. Had to lock up the chickens in their coop and move the ducks over to the second duck pen.

The turkey pen was still partly under construction, but the netting on one side collapsed so much it was on the ground and the t-posts holding the doorframe caved in and is leaning at a 45 degree angle. It took so long to clear the snow off the net yesterday that I kept having to take breaks to lay face down in the snow because I thought I was gonna black out. Got the turkeys safely locked in their coop as well for safety.

All that to say.... we have another 10-15 inches in the forecast for tomorrow morning through Saturday and I'm legit terrified of what's going to happen. It's already difficult navigating the yard and I know the nets are all gonna cave in again if I'm not out there constantly clearing them off (they never used to be this bad, I'm not sure why they do this so much now but I'm already brainstorming modifications to add to the pens in the spring to prevent this stuff from happening next year). It's supposedly going to start snowing at like 9 or 10am and I'll be off work at 7am, so hopefully I don't have to drive in it. Might have to switch my sleep around and stay up throughout the day is I can so I can keep an eye on everything.

If work actually cares about us, they'll at least call off first and second shift tomorrow. I doubt we'll get called off because work starts in 2.5 hours for us and we'll hopefully be done before the storm, but still.... if I was still on first shift I'd be using my one singular allowed unpaid sick day to call in tomorrow.

[ellie-says-nop]

On the eve of my 29th birthday, and the start of my last year in my 20s, I look back on the past year and see how much I've grown. My goal last year was to be my most authentic self.

And this past year I came out to some of my friends, to my brother and his fiancé, I've gone on one date, bought a girl a drink at a bar, went to a gay bar, talked to my friend about girls, talked about my fear of putting myself put there, openly say when i find girls attractive in front of my family, got teased by my friends about the girl I am infatuated with.

I am growing more comfortable in who I am. So much that I started processing and questioning my gender and gender in general. I was able to openly change my pronouns to some that felt more right, I am wearing clothes that I like and not copying what I think a fat straight girl should wear.

I am expresa my gender and sexuality in my own way and I am learning new things about me everyday.

So despite healing not being linear, despite the lows being very low and the highs not lasting, I made it through another year.

Thanks to a wonderful therapist that helped me feel a comfortable to tell the people I love who I am.

Thanks to a group of 19-20yos who took a chance in befriending a 27yo going back to chool and making me not only know that they loved me but that they would still love me no matter what.

Thanks to my struggling best friend who at times can not be relied on bc of her mental health still makes time to always show me her love and acceptance.

Thanks to Queer Theology, the reformation project, and other programs that helped me see myself the way God sees me, to accept my self the way God does. For helping me fix my relationship with God that was damaged by my self hatred and people on the outside telling me I couldn't be both a Christian and queer.

Thanks to the forgiving and accepting God for supporting me and helping me find the resources I needed to help me on my journey.

I even have twt and Tumblr people to thank by helping me understand that what I feel is valid and I am not alone. For helping me realize that I was not crazy or wrong. That I don't exist on a binary.

And a last thanks to me. For hanging on. For giving me a chance. For not giving up even when it felt like it wouldn't matter. For opening myself to being loved. For starting to love myself

[humans-are-tasty]

crochawk exchange for a crochawker

[kkoct-ik]

recent doodle dump

[dykedvonte]

I just realized some people are confused about events in the alluded to past in Mouthwashing, particularly about how long the crew has been working together.

The only person who is truly new is Daisuke and it’s why his dynamic with the crew and role in the story is very unique and somewhat distant. Curly didn’t just get Jimmy this job on the Tulpar, he got him the job with the Pony Express. He’s been his copilot for probably a couple of years but still not as long as they’ve been friends. None of them are new with the freight industry, Anya and Swansea especially have been doing this for years, together.

Jimmy is the newest on the regular crew, maybe just a few assignments, but it’s not his first time working with them. I think it’s just something important because this isn’t just one bad mistake that snowballed with giving Jimmy the job. None of them thought Jimmy would do anything, no matter how off-put by him they could’ve been, since he hadn’t done a thing since being there. Generally unpleasantness isn’t a crime and he’d be aware of that.

It was a festering thing and a sort of forced trust they had to give him that he knowingly took advantage of. He was the black sheep and still a wolf under the wool. He expected when he lashed out, that he had been there long enough for it to be looked over completely. Got too comfortable in the space he inserted into and did a lot of damage with his claws when he felt he was going to get shaken out.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[paradoxbeta]

I'm curious, how would your Suns design look during more serious situations, such as one of the Spearmaster broadcasts?

something like this

and now for a (slightly long) addendum: i know i depict SRS as jokey and kooky, but when it comes to not shitposting and actual characterization, i have Thoughts and Feelings about them. the entire story, they just want to do what they hope will help the people around them, even though it all ends up horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. that's tragic, and it has my interest. considering the heaviness (and intrigue) of SRS’s storyline, for me to only ever depict them as a goofball be way too shallow of me, and unfaithful to their canon characterization.

so to answer your question: they hold themselves together, of course, but the shame, regret, and embarrassment is still evident.

[greekmythcomix]

How I teach the Iliad in highschool:

I’ve taught the Iliad for over a decade, I’m literally a teacher, and I can even spell ‘Iliad’, and yet my first instinct when reading someone’s opinions about it is not to drop a comment explaining what it is, who ‘wrote’ it, and what that person’s intention truly was.

Agh. <the state of Twitter>

The first thing I do when I am teaching the Iliad is talk about what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know about Homer:

We know -

- 0

We think we know -

- the name Homer is a person, possibly male, possibly blind, possibly from Ionia, c.8th/9th C BCE.

- composed the Iliad and Odyssey and Hymns

We don’t know -

- if ‘Homer’ was a real person or a word meaning singer/teller of these stories

- which poem came first

- whether the more historical-sounding events of these stories actually happened, though there is evidence for a similar, much shorter, siege at Troy.

And then I get out a timeline, with suggested dates for the ‘Trojan war’ and Iliad and Odyssey’s estimated composition date and point out the 500ish years between those dates. And then I ask my class to name an event that happened 500 years ago.

They normally can’t or they say ‘Camelot’, because my students are 13-15yo and I’ve sprung this on them. Then I point out the Spanish Armada and Qu. Elizabeth I and Shakespeare were around then. And then I ask how they know about these things, and we talk about historical record.

And how if you don’t have historical record to know the past, you’re relying on shared memory, and how that’s communicated through oral tradition, and how oral tradition can serve a second purpose of entertainment, and how entertainment needs exciting characteristics.

And we list the features of the epic poems of the Iliad and Odyssey: gods, monsters, heroes, massive wars, duels to the death, detailed descriptions of what armour everyone is wearing as they put it on. (Kind of like a Marvel movie in fact.)

And then we look at how long the poems are and think about how they might have been communicated: over several days, when people would have had time to listen, so at a long festival perhaps, when they’re not working. As a diversion.

And then I tell them my old and possibly a bit tortured simile of ‘The Pearl of Myth’:

(Here’s a video of The Pearl of Myth with me talking it through in a calming voice: https://youtu.be/YEqFIibMEyo?sub_confirmation=1

And after all that, I hand a student at the front a secret sentence written on a piece of paper, and ask them to whisper it to the person next to them, and for that person to whisper it to the next, and so on. You’ve all played that game.

And of course the sentence is always rather different at the end than it was at the start, especially if it had Proper nouns in it (which tend to come out mangled). And someone’s often purposely changed it, ‘to be funny’.

And we talk about how this is a very loose metaphor for how stories and memory can change over time, and even historical record if it’s not copied correctly (I used to sidebar them about how and why Boudicca used to be known as ‘Boadicea’ but they just know the former now, because Horrible Histories exists and is awesome)

And after all that, I remind them that what we’re about to read has been translated from Ancient Greek, which was not exactly the language it was first written down in, and now we’re reading it in English.

And that’s how my teenaged students know NOT TO TAKE THE ILIAD AS FACT.

(And then we read the Iliad)

[zylphiacrowley]

Erenwol week Day 7

I would go anywhere in existence with him. Travel the entire star and beyond. Meet old friends, and make new ones. I want to be there to see him smile on his happiest days, or to hold him on the ones that aren't. But oh, to be able to spend these quiet moments with him… this is what home must feel like.

And with that, I have for the first time successfully finished an entire prompt list! A thousand thank yous once again to @zeloinator for creating a fun and engaging prompt list!

[michsmeesh]

quick jovier posting before i go to bed :3 did these for avi and lucas because......... yeah................................................

[howdoyousleep3]

never in my life have i wanted a Daddy more than i do rn 😭

[badgopher]

Friday(ish)

Whoever decided humans didn't need a nice lil winter hibernation really screwed that one up.

My new hobby is spite voting.

Live music is life.

They've almost got the botanical garden put back together.

The book's fine. Enjoyable enough.

[2hoothoots]

Revisiting P2 since the docu epilogue dropped and your AMV (<3) popped up as a sign for me to ask something that hopefully you haven't already spoken about years ago: What did you think of the in-game psych explanation for Maligula, that she's the primitive savage part of the mind? P2 is a weird mix of sketchy Freud/Jung concepts that Tim likes meshed with modern psych, and Maligula's deal seems like something they probably wrote a lot of different versions of but never quite solved elegantly

yeah, i think you totally hit the nail on the head - it's always felt like one of the parts of the story that they couldn't quite give enough polish to before they had to finalize it and move on with development. like - i went to go get my artbook to see if it had any insight into the writing process, and did you know that Nona and Maligula being the same person was apparently added way later in development? that's wild! i didn't know that until literally right now! i may or may not have skipped straight to my favourite characters when my artbook arrived and then put it on my shelf without reading the whole thing

ANYWAY, retrospectively i think it being a twist that was added later actually makes a lot of sense in the context of everything you mentioned. the Maligula problem, to me, is the fact that they're trying to juggle a bunch of different things that she has to be in the story. there's Maligula, the ruthless big bad, and Nona, the beloved grandma, and if you suddenly have to also make them both the same person... well, it ends up being kind of a thorny writing problem to make that work, haha.

here's some art i made so this isn't just a wall of text, rest of the answer under the cut

i think one thing they could have done when they needed to rehabilitate a mass-murderer into a lovable old lady was pull back on either end of the spectrum. make your villain softer and more sympathetic, or give grandma a mean streak like she's one bad day away from a tragedy at the crochet club. and to give the story credit, i'm really glad they didn't. Nona is relentlessly sweet and endearing - and that's great! she needs to be in order to make the audience care about her, otherwise the emotional beats are never going to land. likewise, Maligula is a great villain, she's vicious and ruthless and at the culmination of her arc we see she simply does not give a shit about murdering hundreds of people. i love that for her, honestly, you go girl

but then, like - how do you connect the dots? how do you frame grandma having a violently murderous streak in a way that doesn't make the ending of "but she's over it now" feel kinda weird and hollow? and how do you do that while also being sympathetic to the game's themes around mental health? Maligula's informed by the traumatic things that happened to Lucrecia during the war, but she can't just be a manifestation of trauma, because the moral of the story being that trauma makes you a mass-murderer (until you beat up your trauma and shove it in a giant pit) would feel... really tonally dissonant!

so i think you're totally right that the sprinkling of pop-psych concepts we get ends up feeling a little bit like an awkward band-aid. Maligula's story is about how the horrors of war can shape you into a terrible person, who does terrible things - ...but there's also, like, special circumstances, so it doesn't feel weird that she goes back to being Raz's sweet grandma afterwards. special psychic circumstances! she's not just any war criminal, she's the fight or flight response gone out of control!

which - i dunno, i think that line in particular always stood out to me, because that's not really what the fight or flight (or freeze or fawn) response is, right? it's a temporary boost of adrenaline to the system to rev you up for getting out of a dangerous situation. an overactive fight or flight response is called chronic stress and anxiety. i know the games are pop-psych and not actual science, but it always stood out to me as a little awkward.

if it were me in the writer's seat - with the benefit of all the time in the world to workshop it, and no looming deadlines, and the hindsight of having a full completed game in front of me to think about - i might have tried to frame it around connection. i think you could swing the lens to instead focus on how violence, stress, trauma etc., make it harder to understand and empathise with the people around you. the tragedy of Lucrecia's story is that she came home to try and help her countrymen, the people she cared so dearly about. but the more time passed, the less she cared, the less she was able to see them as people. after Marona's death, the Maligula that remains is one who's unable to even care about killing her own sister. the alternative is too raw, too painful - instead, she sheds her last vestiges of remorse, and throws herself into the easy relief of violence. (we see this again, when Nona "awakens" as Maligula - when confronted with the baggage of her past, she chooses to wash it all away with force, unable and unwilling to care about the people she used to call friends.)

and i think shifting the focus like that ties it in thematically, too. a big theme (of both games, but especially the sequel) is how important connection is, how being able to understand and reach out to and rely on other people is a lifeline during hard times. PN2 touches on how there aren't really "good people" and "bad people" - everyone has the capacity to do wonderful or terrible things, and i think Raz's line to Maligula about how "everybody's got something like you" works. Lucrecia was never a monster, no matter how everyone tried to pretend she was. she was just a person, the same as everyone else - and just like everyone else, she could be pushed to extremes under the right circumstances. it just feels kind of odd when the implicit context is "everybody's got a mass-murderer hidden in the primal recesses of their brain", hahaha.

but like, again, that's the privilege of hindsight, right? i've definitely also been on the other side of the creative process, stuck with something i suddenly need to make work in a story and having to come up with a solution that feels like a band-aid. sometimes you just gotta call it good enough, and move on. and i think the game is overall much stronger for having Nona and Maligula be the same person - it plays into the wider themes, it sets up some great emotional beats, and i think it's overall well-executed, even if there are one or two hiccups in the writing.

anyway, great ask! thank you for the invitation to ramble, this is something that stuck out to me on my first playthrough of the game and it was fun to sit down and get my thoughts in order

[hagnanimous]

“Fix me, motherfucker, I’m standing right here.”

Song - A Trophy Fathers Trophy Son (Sleeping with Sirens)

[satans-knitwear]

Biiiiiig stretch.

Treat me ~ Tip me ~ More of me

[password-door-lock]

My job has been putting me through hell lately, so I’ve been thinking a lot about how Saeran might comfort you after you’ve had a rough day at work.

There are two possible universes where you’d be around Ray and still be working. The first option is the prologue bad end timeline where you’re his assistant. In that case, if you start to get tired or frustrated with your workload, Ray will probably just take over for you and do the work himself. He doesn’t like to see you struggling, and he’s already accustomed to finishing his tasks without any help. He’ll make sure you have something good to eat and somewhere comfortable to rest while he takes care of everything. The other option is after V’s AE, in which case Ray would be a little bit unsure of how to comfort you after a long day. He’s worried about hurting you: he doesn’t want to be too overbearing, but he also doesn’t want to make you feel isolated by giving you too much distance. He’ll probably end up directly asking you what he can do to help you unwind, and then he’ll follow through with it as best he can. He wants to learn as much as he can about what makes you feel better. Please don’t hesitate to ask him for what you want! 

Similar to Ray, Suit would wind up in this situation in one of two ways. If you’re his assistant and you complain about the work, he’ll be quick to just send you away. Unlike Ray, he’s not a patient person, and he has no interest in taking the time to teach you something he could do twice as quickly on his own. Suit wouldn’t go out of his way to coddle you, but he probably wouldn’t stop you if you went to get a snack or something— after all, he’s not playing with you right now, so he doesn’t care where you are or what you’re doing. He has twice as much important work to do now, so you should stay out of his way and let him get it done. VAE Suit, on the other hand, might be at a loss for how to comfort you. He may assume that you’d rather be with Ray when you’ve had a bad day. But actually, Saeran is a great person to vent to. He likes seeing you get animated, and he's comfortable enough with you to offer his own snide remarks, as well. He’ll have a pretty good time listening to you complaining about your coworkers, especially if there’s a trip to the ice cream shop involved. You’ll both be cheered up by the experience, although you probably shouldn’t expect him to get all mushy about it.

GE Saeran is much more self assured in how he comforts you. He’ll make sure that there’s a nice bath waiting for you when you come home. Either he’d join you and order takeout after or he’d cook some dinner for you while you enjoy a nice, relaxing soak on your own. He won’t let you do any dishes or other chores around the house until you’ve had at least a little rest, and even then, he’ll be extra attentive to your needs. In the morning, he’ll get up early and make sure that you get a good breakfast before work. Saeran knows you very well by now, so he’s familiar with your favorite things— expect a few of them to come your way in the near future, especially if your troubles at work are prolonged. He’s here for you if you want to vent— Saeran is a very attentive listener— but if you just want to take your mind off things, he can handle that, too. If the extra attention ever makes you feel guilty for taking more than you give, he’ll be quick to remind you that you’ve done the same for him countless times, and right now it’s his turn to look after you. 

If you’re Unknown’s assistant, then he is your stressful day at work. He’s not going to comfort you and he’s not going to pick up your slack like Ray or Suit— he knows what you’re capable of and if he gives you an assignment to complete, then he expects you to complete it. If you’ve caught him in a particularly good mood, you might get a few patronizing words, a pat on the head, and a direct order to finish your work, now, prince(ss). If he’s having a bad day, Unknown might not even dignify your complaints with a response. You already know what his expectations are, after all. However, if you’re not his assistant yet, you might be able to get Unknown’s attention by texting him some RFA secrets or other quality information. In exchange, he’ll let you call him and complain about your job for a bit, and then he’ll coo at you and promise to save you before abruptly hanging up. The conversation will be a nice break for both of you, but eventually, you’ll both have to return to your respective work. 

SE Saeran has no idea how to help you when you complain about your job. He feels like it’s weird of you to come to him when you have the whole RFA at your disposal, but he won’t say anything about it. He’s glad that he can be someone you trust, even if he doesn’t understand why. Saeran will sit with you for as long as you need while you vent about your work if that’s what you’d like— but he won’t judge you if you just want to quietly relax for a while. He’ll put on some music or a nature documentary and the two of you can rest together for as long as you need. His method of giving comfort is very subtle, but that’s nice after a hectic day. He’s somebody you can take your mask off around, and he knows what it feels like to be overworked. He might be a little bit blunt about telling you what he thinks about the way your colleagues and clients/customers treat you, but he won’t press too much: after all, he knows that it’s not always easy or possible to immediately leave a difficult situation.