#what a weird winter

[kfedup]

It’s Sunday, yea?

1. Busy day yesterday with an early drive northwest to my friend’s father’s funeral, where the priest called him by another man’s name for most of the service. The plodding pace of sit, stand, kneel of the Catholic service sent me reeling back to my childhood. I remember being grateful when my family changed from a Roman Catholic Church to the one on campus that was less formal and I also remember how even there I rejected much of what I heard. I sat and stood there yesterday (I did not kneel) feeling like an alien interloper but grateful to be able to support my friends. I was one of 3 people wearing a mask and I sat in the back row by the open door. Lort the coughing coming from the full church was unholy. Fingers crossed the mask did the job.

2. Nothing prepares you for middle age and the precipice you teeter on trying not to slide into oblivion.

3. Visited with a good friend and her new mate last night for a few hours. So good to connect and remind each other of how far we have come since we first met 12 years ago. Her bf is a painter and gave me some pointers for how to approach my first acrylic self portrait. I’m excited to try.

4. I slept in and am on the couch in the quiet listening to the light rain and sipping my coffee. Read a chapter of the book Wintering by Katherine May and felt the urge to do a post. Will return to the book for a little longer after this while the house is still quiet.

5. There’s a chicken carcass in the instant pot becoming stock for something tonight. Perhaps the ginger chicken noodle soup I’ve been fantasizing about. Or perhaps a spicy white chili.

6. I need to do a few hours of work today and also grocery shop and do some basement clean out so I can move all the boxes of books out of the back of my car. Yeah, I know… they’ve been there for weeks. I’m struggling with getting certain kinds of things done around here.

7. I am ready for this year to be the year that I get to enjoy my own sexuality. It’s been six years since I have felt connected to that part of myself in a meaningful and fulfilling way. And that six years ago was only partially so… truly it’s been nine years since I felt truly turned on and tuned in for an extended period of time. Since I’ve looked in the mirror and seen my sensual self reflected there without having to talk myself into seeing her there.

8. Hey, a bonus… truth be told, I’m afraid that might not exist in me anymore. I’m aware that the fear is attached to the yoke of alcohol around my neck. But I remind myself that what I experienced all those years ago happened sober. Was the only time I’ve felt so richly in the deep water flow of my own being while connecting with another person in my entire life and I did not imbibe of anything but that energy. It’s just that the years that followed involved so much rye whiskey haze and these last two years sober the few times I tried to date… well… not great, Bob.

9. The extra bonus is that I’ve become quite satisfied with my life alone and am noodling around ideas for the next few years that might include solo travel and working truly remote for periods of time. Get to know some other places. Meet some new people. It will be good for me to crack open the habitual.

10. Hey, there’s more! I rebooted therapy last week after a four-year hiatus with a new practitioner. She’s much younger than me, which didn’t come across in her profile and my initial reaction when I met her was hesitation. She asked excellent questions and her areas of expertise include women in transition phases and addiction. I’ll give it a chance and am encouraging myself to remain open to different perspectives.

These are my more than seven Sunday thoughts. I hope your day is restful or productive or both if that’s what you need.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

daughter like father

[v1rginsu1cidal]

And if you call for me, you know I'll run

I'll run to you, I'll run to you⋆.ೃ࿔*:･.ೃ࿐

[juststuffshere]

this came to me in a dream

[bunniebi]

outfits for the infamous ROs ^-^ (except O, Seb, E and LA... </3 but maybe in the future)

[bubblegumbarbie33]

The pimp relationship between David and Marko as described by Alex Winter is so interesting because it implies not only that they've fucked raw nasty but ALSO that David uses Marko to fullfil services- meaning that Marko is probably often used as a lure for the boy's 'prey'- MEANING that the little guy is out slutting it up in the streets for the equivalent of a good meal in this essay I will-

[al-luviec]

I got so insanely mad while drawing this

+ closeup and normalness

[lemonsandwisdom]

This girls love life is just a long list of L’s. So why not give her one more.

[starghost-starjim]

“Who are you?” asked Konstantin, breathing fast.

“Did you never see my face before?” asked the creature. “Ah, no, at Midwinter you saw the beast and the shadow, but not the man.” He got slowly to his feet. He and Konstantin were nearly of a height. “Never mind. You know my voice.” He cast down his eyes like a girl.

“Do I please you, man of God?”

[wintersera]

throwback to one of my favourite minjeong pics ever taken

[emkini]

And finally, best boy

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

Charles is both an abuser and a victim, and I think this is important for reading the other characters.

I think sometimes when I talk about Francis and Charles as characters it comes across like I think Francis was the worst one and that Charles did nothing wrong, and that’s really not the case. It’s more that I feel that fandom tendencies make the discussions about them just inaccurate? And my thoughts here are not about memes and silly posts purposely woobifying characters. It’s like based on… legit theories and fanfics that weirdly depict the characters.

I think my issue with the Charles discourse is how much Charles is seemingly held up as a scapegoat so people can safely adore other characters in the book. And it’s all just inaccurate to what happened. For example, the concept that Henry was benevolently trying to swoop in to rescue Camilla from Charles is something I see framed a lot. And that phrasing of it seems more intended to be ship fodder than anything because that’s honestly a really watered concept of what happened, in my reading. Charles did wrong, but that doesn’t mean Henry was just the good guy in the situation. He definitely had selfish motives; he wanted Camilla, and it wasn’t pure saviorhood. If it were, he wouldn’t have antagonized/pressured Charles into insanity and kept him drunk on purpose. Camilla wanted Charles to get better— she said so. But Henry convinced Francis and Richard to keep Charles intoxicated. And he didn’t tell Camilla that Charles was still drinking.

(Side thing, this also indicates Francis could be wrong that Charles is faking memory loss— either by genuine mistake or because he’s wants Richard to feel sorry for him. I guess we can’t know for sure, but we have it presented as valid by Camilla and not by Francis).

Anyway, this isn’t exactly honest, helpful behavior on Henry’s part. And Camilla definitely wasn’t ok with everything he was doing. He lied, at least by omission, to her.

It’s very likely Henry intimidated Francis when he visited Camilla (Francis seemed rattled and said Henry wouldn’t leave the room), and I suspect he said things to Francis when they were alone before Richard called about finding Charles in the snail. This is why Francis echoed Henry’s bullshittery about detoxing being bad. I do think Camilla wanted to date Henry and that she asked him for help— their relationship had been going on the whole book— but it’s also highly implied she was wary of some of his behaviors and that she wouldn’t have wanted her brother to get murdered. I think Henry did help Camilla. But I also think his manipulative actions show that his motives were self-serving and that, by the end of the book, he’s using violence as his modus operandi. Henry is a pretty horrible guy. He has a sort of joking coldness about Bunny’s death as well as the death of the dog he killed, and he openly admits to not caring much for others. He’s a super incredible character, and I do find him charming and fascinating. But I feel like I’ve seen this whole situation with Charles become about how Henry just adored Camilla so much and was willing to protect her from evil. I’ve even seen it insinuated that everything Henry did from the start of the novel was really just to liberate Camilla. As if he isn’t a selfish bastard who did the bacchanal as means to rid himself of his conscience so he can do what he wants (again, from his own mouth).

Henry himself was clearly— and by his own intention, I argue— a factor in Charles’s insanity and using Charles’s sins to his advantage. Just because Charles was rotten doesn’t mean he’s at fault for the entirety of what happened. It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t used too. He was bad but also really sick. Henry and Francis both knew this and manipulated it. Again, it’s not that he’s innocent, it’s more that the conversation around him often becomes about acquitting other, more beloved characters by invoking the name of Charles for everything. But Henry’s motives for the bacchanal were selfish and Francis was a spineless manipulator at points.

(Hopefully I’m not strawmanning people here!!! I think it’s easy to find fake groups of people to argue with in posts like these. And I admit fault if I’ve been taking theories and posts I see too seriously, but this is my issue with a few specific theories I have seen that seem to depict Francis as too inculpable and Henry as too selflessly in love)

[why-the-heck-not]

The yearly phenomenon where u get the first rays of sunshine and ppl (me included) act like it’s summer even tho it’s still just +1 degrees out; all I can think abt is making an icey coffee treat and I saw a person casually walking outside in shorts

[princescar]

I 1000% prefer this over how she got mikan to fall for despair in Dr3 (honestly it feels like this was what was supposed to be how it went)

(Extra context: it's Junko's (and by extension Mukuro's, which is why she has an option in the first pic) birthday.)

[buriedinmyfantasy]

Shoes like this>>>>

They make the cold season much more durable 🩷🩷🩷

[mkstrigidae]

The writing on hotd is inconsistent and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the source material's themes that's genuinely going to lead them to a metaphorical dead end pretty quickly. Like it absolutely sucks but by god am I also enjoying the hell out of this mess (and getting to complain about it).

That being said, the visuals this season are fucking incredible- I am so glad we're getting actual good costuming this season because s1 was an inconsistent mess and this season we're actually seeing consistent silhouettes/styles for each of the characters and actual EMBROIDERY instead of the gaudy mismatched mess of trims and fantasy rick rack that we got in s1. Like the construction alone of the gowns this season is 8000 times better already, and that's not even taking into account the better quality of s2's fabrics.

Also someone on the production team has finally figured out that Eve Best is the hottest person on the show and are FINALLY outfitting her accordingly. God fucking bless whoever got them to get rid of that damn hair bump-it.