#the man who disappeared

[book51ut]

Review of Amerika by Kafka

This book is also called The Man Who Disappeared. it’s about a 16 year old german boy who gets disowned and shipped to america by his parents and his various fortunes and misfortunes. He keeps getting lucky and then extremely unlucky. He is far too trusting and calm / hot-headed at all the wrong times. He makes quick judgments on people without knowing any information about them, and then shifting his opinion back and forth at a rapid pace based on small actions or mere whims. what i’m most impressed by, and what i’ve noticed as kinda a motif between some recent books i’ve read with male main characters is that fundamentally they truly don’t have a care in the world. they move from one thing to the next. when one door closes another opens. there is no big to do in learning how to be poor as a man who was once rich, it’s easy as can be for these men, Karl Rossman (the main character in Amerika) included. They are quick to anger and just as quick to change their minds. there are truly no thoughts just vibes. it’s to some extent a life that i wish i lived, it’s quite simple. but also gets them into a world of trouble again and again. and can’t seem to understand it’s their own actions that cause it. Yes yes it’s a philosophical nihilistic kafka book and purely fictional of course but every man / boy i’ve ever met has not thought through their actions in the same way any non- man has. it’s honestly making me a little concerned about the possibility of ever remaining friends with men after any type of disagreement or argument, they are too quick to judgement.

Some other important things of note! Kafka didn’t finish the book so it gets a little wonky and fragmented at the end. Also, the translation i read decided to include some of the more nonsensical / incorrect translations (not correcting different spellings of the same name, saying there’s a bridge that connects New York and Boston, that Oklahoma is a 3 hour walk from New York). Honestly that was kinda amusing to me, to read a novel set in the US written by someone who has never been there. I’m currently living abroad now, and hearing all the things that Europeans think of the US is both funny and concerning.

[egbluh]

holding onto the remains of my innocence.

[doydoune]

Hazakura Temple, February

[truly-sincerely]

Obsessively reading everything in game by and about Gortash and the dude is

On a philosophical trajectory that ends in immortality thru technology / the machine

Doesn't have an original bone in his body, but he can backwards engineer anything

Halfway to being a decent scientist but doesn't have the education and is deeply impatient

Overconfident in the veracity of his own results and conclusions

Accurately predicted that the brain would metamorphose and become more difficult to control and then did nothing about it

Outsources his propaganda / arts and humanities

Charming, but he got there in a Pavlovian way (learned from trial and error and probably doesn't consciously know how he does it)

Vindictive af (learned / reinforced)

Darwinian (in the worst way)

Sociopathic, obviously, but extremely Rationalist about it

Never asks questions he doesn't know the answer to and probably thinks this makes him sound more authoritative

Completely incompetent as a strategist (but doesn't know it)

Not nearly as narcissistic / full of himself as he pretends to be

Thinks what he wants is praise but it's never enough because it's not actually what he wants (he wants to be wanted)

Bane makes him feel wanted (conditionally)

Durge made him feel wanted (unconditionally)

Understands intellectually that Durge got ambushed, but he feels abandoned

See also: thematic parallels between Gortash and

Silouv Yali (the Adamantine Forge & the construct Grym)

Oliver (in the shadow-cursed lands)

Astarion and Gale, obviously

[takatul]

Twisted Wonderland self-aware!Yuu except they’re empathic.

When I say self-aware!Yuu I don’t mean a scenario where Yuu transmigrated into Twisted Wonderland with memories intact.

When I say self-aware!Yuu I mean someone who knows themselves better than anyone else.

They know they have flaws. They know that, sometimes, their flaws will get in the way. Whether it’s shutting down emotionally, not being able to express themselves properly, or something to do with a physical ability. Their flaws will always follow them around. Even in Twisted Wonderland.

And yet, self-aware!Yuu is still kind. Still loving all of their strengths and flaws.

Ace needing a place to stay after Riddle off’d-his-head? “Yes, of course you can sleepover.”

Deuce breaking down after letting his delinquent side out? “No, you’re not a bad guy— you just protected me and Grim from those bullies!”

Riddle having a crisis after his overblot? “I don’t accept your apology. Not yet at least. But I can understand why acted this way… you’re allowed to feel angry about your past. You didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

No matter how wrong the opponent is, self-aware!Yuu always empathizes with them in the end.

Maybe one day, someone confronts them about it. I can see Leona or Azul or Rollo and maybe Jamil. They’re people who have experienced and or seen how terrible people can be.

“Why are you so nice all the time? You’re too thought. Too kind. Good people like you always end up last.”

Perhaps self-aware!Yuu will look at them with a stoic face. Perhaps a shocked expression, accompanied by a frantic gasp. Perhaps even small laugh at their question. And just as the confronting student was about to retort again, self-aware!Yuu will smile.

“Well, I’m not a good person. I just do what I think is right.”

Self-aware!Yuu will sit down, watching activities unfold around them— heart still bursting full of kindness. They’ll pat the empty space beside them. An invitation, but it’s up to the student to take the initiative.

“It’s everyone’s first time living after all. May as well make it kind.”

Soon enough, if the student plucks their courage, they’ll sit and slowly learn how to become self-aware too.

banner credit: @bunnysrph

[doctorwhommm]

I hsve an idea. Could u draw rose and ianto as besties

absOLUTELY I CAN

they’re chatting shit (lovingly) about their tall, long-coat-wearing, time-travelling, death-cheating, alien boyfriends who have spikey hair

[bumfuzzled-bee]

Frens !!

[iskander-tm]

Watch me disappear completely

[kagoutiss]

as if it was never there at all.

[mxtxfanatic]

Fandom Gripe #23: I know that fandom is in some deep denial about its treatment of female characters that are canonically involved with fan favorite m/m ships, but do y’all realize that when you disappear female characters from the narrative wholesale to push the idea that your canonically straight fav was “secretly gay all along!” you’re making several bad implications? That 1) bi men don’t exist, 2) bi men do exist, but those who have genuinely loved a woman before cannot genuinely love a man after that (therefore bi men don’t exist in practice), 3) women cannot inspire genuine love and devotion in men, therefore any relationship with a woman is “lesser” than the one they later have a man (see previous parenthesis), or 4) to acknowledge the existence of a lovable woman who isn’t a terrible person, where if a relationship previously existed, it did not end because of “incompatibility,” is enough to destabilize the present relationship between two queer men?

Because why is the tgcf fandom allergic to acknowledging that He Xuan had a whole ass fiancée that he loved? Why does no one ever seem to remember that the kidnappings and murders of He Xuan’s sister and fiancée were the final straws that sent him on his rampage, and he still keeps a shrine to them in the present-day of the story? Why is her entire existence and significance to He Xuan as a man, character, and to his character arc disappeared in favor of pushing Shi Qingxuan—the brother of the man responsible for his fiancée’s death—into that same role, as if to say that her impact on He Xuan is significant... just not when it's from her? Why does He Xuan’s life in fandom essentially begin not just after her death but because of it?

[red-moon-at-night]

I find it so SO interesting that as soon as Kazui's breaking their marriage vows and revealing his true feelings (literally tearing apart the dove), the wife is already falling off the balcony

Her hair is fluttering in the wind. The apple fucking splatters on the ground this whole sequence is so visceral I'm spinning it around in my mind. Kazui views his truth telling as a violent act, the killing blow.

[lelslizzylebs]

I have two (2) Chilchuck thoughts:

[rollforjackass]

look we all know that aziraphale is mr. fiddlesticks-not-fuck and dearie-me-good-gracious, but my favorite thing about him is that there is also, at all times, a fuck-shit little bastard inside of him just begging to be let loose. he's petty, he's passive aggressive, and the Second he decides that playing by heaven's rules isn't going to help anybody, it's all "i know who you are, you idiot!" and "you STUPID man" and "FUCK"

[crispys-records]

laurence will always be left behind.

garroth will follow aphmau and their friends to the end of the earth, having adventure after adventure, all in the hopes of supporting aphmau and the man she fell in love with, and come back and laurence is waiting for him, as if he never left that house. garroth will ask laurence where he's been, and laurence shrugs it off, saying he had to take care of the house. status quo restored, there'll be peace until garroth leaves again, and laurence doesn't leave with him.

garroth can't remember the last time he had been home. is laurence there? will he be waiting? or will he be gone, having finally gotten sick of waiting on an empty street for a best friend who hasn't thought of him during the most stressful moments, with not even a letter or a call.

but laurence is there when he opens the door. hes still there, resting on the couch, smiling when garroth comes home. and garroth doesn't believe it. he looks around, searches desperately for signs of life in the house hes been missing from for months. laurence hasn't even said a word about garroth's new ears and tail, only asking what hes looking for. and garroth doesnt reply, only running to his room and shutting the door. because laurence had gone missing months ago. because garroth had come back from love~love paradise, only to find laurence gone, without a note. all of his things left behind. laurence had vanished, and he couldn't even bring himself to call the police, not when he hadn't even thought of laurence in the months hed been gone.

there was no status quo. there was no peace. not when his house was empty. not when people had asked when laurence was going to come and hang out, and garroth couldn't bring himself to tell people that laurence was gone. he would make up some lie, like he was too tired from work lately, that he didn't want to go anywhere. people stop asking. and as the months go by, and a new status quo settles in, no one says anything about laurence. and life happens, and days go by. until garroth is the only one who remembers him.

until garroth is the one left behind by laurence.

[valgeristik]

so i played vampyr recently. I like the wet cat who gives you painkillers