#I do think over the past four years some of my opinions have changed a lot

[jeysbvck]

it always leads to you (in my hometown)

oh hi, im back after almost a year of not posting fics, and of course it's my main man who pulls me back in! this is my first jey uso fic, so pls comment & reblog & let me know what you think!! i tried to make it angsty, to fit the song more, but i guess that's not the direction my brain wanted to go!!

jey uso x afab!reader

smut, 18+, minors dni!!

word count: 2,420

some people i thought might like this (if you don't wanna be tagged, just let me know!): @southerngirl41 @bebesobrielo @harmshake @afterdarkprincess @rollinsland @wrestlezaynia @crxssjae

summary: when you're in town for the holidays, it always ends up with you in jey usos bed for the weekend. this time, it isn't enough, and jey shows you why you can't leave him behind.

You stared out the window, feeling content as you watched the snow fall outside, frost gathering on the glass. You and Jey had spent all weekend in bed, sleeping half the day away and sharing body heat in more ways than one; which is how you spent all the fleeting weekends together. You had so much to do before you left in two days, but you couldn't bring yourself to leave the warm bed, especially when Jey was sleeping beside you, looking like a literal angel.

This had been happening for the last four years and you remembered it all too well; the bewildered, haunted look when Jey locked eyes with you for the first time in years, like he'd seen a ghost. You remembered the ice that ran through every vein in your body when he walked past you without acknowledging you, making you consider whether you were a ghost. You remember lying in your childhood bedroom, old photographs of you and Jey still on your walls, staring down at you, judging you. You knew you'd hurt him when you left, he didn't think your reasons were good enough; but it never crossed your mind that he'd pretend you were a stranger. But as you stared at the posters and photographs on your walls, you realised that you were a stranger now, you didn't recognise the girl in the photographs anymore.

A few days later, you bumped into Jey again, this time you were both alone, walking past the school you used to share, and things seemed different. He opened a dialogue, asked you how you'd been, asked about your life, and before you knew it, you'd been standing in the cold for half an hour. Jey offered you a ride, and you weren't ready for this to end; it felt familiar, but also new. So you accepted and you drove around the small town, commenting on how things hadn't changed. Four hours later, you were in his bed, doing things you had only dreamed about.

You thought it would be a one-off, that maybe the universe was giving you a better goodbye than the first time, a better reunion than the one in the bar. But the next holiday you were in town, he text you, and you ended up in his bed again. Then Jey started surprising you at the airport -sometimes you hadn't even told him what time your flight was- and although he dropped you off at your parents house, it wasn't long before you were spending most of the time with Jey. It was essentially a weekend-long holiday hook up, a way to make you feel less lonely during the holidays and a way to have what could've been -what should've been- if you had just stayed.

Jey stirred in his slumber, retracting his arm that was stretched over you, taking away the warmth and leaving a chill behind, as you pulled the quilt up further, you couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor for how you would feel in a couple of days when you left. You turned your back on the beautiful view outside the window to the -in your totally, unbiased opinion- the more beautiful view next to you. Even after all the years of knowing Jey, he still took your breath away, he still set your heart ablaze. Every time you were here, you took every opportunity to mentally record every detail of him to take back with you. Every new grey hair, every tattoo, every laughter line, every perfect imperfections, you took it all in. You basked in the warmth, the comfort, the happiness that you felt in this bed, knowing it would all be over in a flash.

"Mornin' babe," Jey said, with a sleepy smile, "you're watchin' me sleep, forgot you were a creep."

You hummed in response as you leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his pillow-like lips. "And I forgot you snore." You teased, and Jey scoffed, his hand wrapping around the back of your neck, pulling you in for another kiss.

"Such a liar." He mumbled against your lips and you smiled, pulling away and finding your place on his chest. Your fingertips traced the lines of his intricate tattoo on his chest, as his stroked your back, soothingly.

The time you spent with Jey, in this bed, the room, the house; felt like a different world. Like reality as you know it didn't exist here, it was just you and Jey, and nothing else mattered. You hated leaving, you hated getting on the plane, going back to your life like you hadn't just left the warmest place you'd ever known.

"So..." Jey started, and you knew what was coming. The dreaded question that he asked every time. "How long we got? Until you-"

You cut him off, not wanting the words to be said, as if it somehow wouldn't happen if Jey didn't speak it into the universe. "I know what you mean, Jey." You sighed. "Can't we just stay in this bubble for a little longer?"

"How much longer? Like, you wanna talk later, over dinner? Or how about the mornin' of your flight so we barely get to say goodbye?" He snapped, and you scoffed at the outburst. "Ay, you're the one who-"

"Okay," you cut him off before he finished the sentence, sitting up and throwing your legs over the edge of the bed, grabbing the robe that had been thrown on the floor the night before as you stood up and pulled it over your body. "You really wanna spend the time arguing?"

"No! I jus'-" Jey groaned and turned on his side, his elbow resting on the mattress. "Okay listen, I know our whole thing; no stayin', no waitin', but-"

"No Jey, this works!" You lied. You knew you were trying to convince him more than yourself, because you knew it wasn't working. If it did, leaving him wouldn't break your heart, you wouldn't spend the year counting down to the next holiday. Nobody in your life knew you like Jey. They didn't know which smiles you were faking, or which laughs were genuine. They didn't even know your coffee order, or your favourite film.

"This works for you? This is enough for you?" Jey asked. "Because it isn't for me."

You bit your lips, you'd expected this every time, you knew it would happen eventually. Jey was always going to find someone who could give him more than you could offer.

"What are you saying?" You asked. "You don't-you wanna end this?"

Jey got his knees and shuffled towards you, leaning up and cupping your face with his hands, his eyes level with yours. "I don't wanna end this." He said. "I wanna be with you."

"Jey," you whispered, hoping he could see in your eyes how much love you have for him. "I can't- We can't-"

"Ay, just listen." Jey said. "What if I came wit' you?"

You stared at him, speechless, your face still in his hands. "That's not funny."

"It ain't supposed to be funny."

"Stop it. You can't just say stuff like this, not in here, not like this when we're all caught up in the bubble!" You said, throwing your hands around. "You have your family here, a life here, you're just gonna leave it all behind?!"

"Didn't stop you." Jey retorted, and you rolled your eyes.

"That was different! I didn't pack up my life to follow someone across the country!" He smirked at you, making you roll your eyes a second time.

"Ay, you think highly of yourself, don't ya?" He joked, but you groaned and pulled his hands away from your face, putting your own over your face. "What if I ain't doin' it for you? What if I'm doin' it for me?" He asked. He pulled your hands from your face and held them. "I know you tell me not to, but I wait, babe. I wait for you to call, to text, I ask your parents when you're comin', so I can wait at the airport for you. I don't wanna wait anymore, I wanna be wit' you, for real, and you can't stay."

You bit the inside of your cheek, refusing to let yourself smile, and you turned your back on him, sitting back down on the bed. He was saying all the right things, wearing your favourite smile, and it was hard to be logical right now. This was never an option, because what if he ended up resenting you? Having Jey sporadically in your life through the year was better than the alternative.

Jey ran his hands up and down your arms, planting little kisses on your shoulder and neck. "Jus' think about it, babe." He whispered in your ear as he kissed your neck. "We can have more than jus' weekends." His hands slid over your skin, grazing your breasts as he followed a path down to your stomach, sending shivers through your whole body. "We can do this-" His hand slipped into your underwear, teasing you. "-whenever we want."

You tilted your head back, leaning it against his shoulder as he nibbled your neck, and you hummed, bucking your hips in an attempt to get his fingers exactly where you needed them. He clicked his tongue before he dug his teeth into your neck, a moan escaping your mouth as his fingers teased your entrance.

His hard cock was pressed against your back, and as he played and teased you, you reached around and grabbed his cock. He rutted against your hand, moaning into your neck as you stroked the long length, the action making him push two fingers inside you. They moved inside you, matching the pace of your hand on his cock; when you slowed down, he did, and when you quickened the pace, he did too.

Jey upped the ante, his thumb flicking over your clit, making your hips buck, your grip on his cock tightening, making it twitch. Jey groaned into your shoulder, and when you ran your thumb over his tip, he pulled away from your hand. "Nah, you're gonna make me cum." He mumbled into your shoulder. He kissed your skin again, before pulling his fingers out of your cunt, making you whimper pathetically. You watched as he slipped off the bed and pushed you backwards on the bed before getting on his knees. "Gotta remind you what you'll be missin' if you leave without me." He smirked, burying his head in between your legs.

You moaned loudly as he flattened his tongue against your cunt, slowly licking every part of you. He quickened the pace, and just as you arched your hips, he pinned them against the bed, while pushing two fingers inside you, his tongue flicking and sucking your clit. This was euphoric, you writhed underneath him as he drove you wild. Jey knew exactly what he was doing and his plan was working, you knew that he could ask you for anything right now -doing that thing with his tongue- you'd say yes to anything and everything.

"So wet for me." He muttered against you, nibbling the inside of your thigh as he fucked you with his fingers. All you could do was gasp and moan as he didn't give you a moment to breathe, sucking your clit and fucking you with his tongue. You tried to hold out, to delay your orgasm, but it wasn't long before you let yourself go, bundling the sheets in your hands as your thighs gripped his head.

Jey pulled back and crawled up your body, his thick, hard cock grazing your cunt, making your body twitch. He grinned down at you, his beard glistening with your juices, his dark eyes full of lust and you pulled him down by the chain around his neck for a kiss, your tongues dancing with each other as you ran your hands down his toned back. He rubbed his cock against your cunt, and you bucked your hips against him. "Fuck me, Jey." You managed to gasp, and he grinned at you, his eyes darkening more. He grabbed your wrists with one hand and pinned them above your head, forcing you to maintain eye contact as he pushed his cock inside you, moaning with you as your cunt tightened around him.

Your moans were lost in Jeys mouth as your bodies rocked together, your kisses getting rougher and more passionate. His free hand playing with your breasts, switching between them, refusing to let your hands free. "Such a good girl, takin' my cock like this." He grunted and you threw your head back as he attacked your neck once again. Your orgasm was bubbling up inside you, your legs beginning to shake as he fucked you harder and deeper, his own orgasm imminent. He brought his lips back to yours, the kiss slower, but not less passionate, and when he let go of your hands to grip your hips, you wrapped your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.

"Shit, baby, I'm so close." He groaned, burying his head into the crook of your neck, his thrusts getting harder. You rolled your hips making his cock twitch inside you, and in all the bliss and passion as your orgasm washed over you like a tsunami, three words slipped out of your mouth.

"Come with me." You whispered, nibbling his earlobe. "So close." He repeated, and you grabbed his head, making him look at you.

"No Jey, come with me." You said, and he looked in your eyes, he flashed you that beautiful smile -one that could light up a starless night sky. You nodded, and he kissed you, just as his own orgasm hit, and he thrusted into you a few more times, his moans being caught by your mouth.

He dropped onto you; his body like a welcome weighted blanket, and you wrapped your arms around him as he lay on your chest. "Did ya mean it?" He asked quietly. You ran your fingers through his hair, and thought about what you said. You hadn't meant to say it, especially in that moment, it had just slipped out. You also hadn't meant to confirm it was in fact, what you meant. But you meant it with your whole heart, and you knew as soon as Jey voiced it as an option, you knew you couldn't leave him behind again.

"I mean it, Jey. I've never meant anything more."

[contemplatingoutlander]

Apocalyptic rhetoric is just as dangerous as the violent kind

Paul Waldman is absolutely correct about how the Republican's "apocalyptic rhetoric" about the Democrats could ultimately lead to violence just as much as the violent rhetoric. The GOP frames Democrats now as deliberately wanting to "destroy" America. (Ironically, it is the GOP who have turned toward autocracy and seem determined on establishing one party rule at all costs. This suggests that once again, Republicans are projecting onto Democrats.)

“I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to a crowd of Donald Trump’s supporters at the Iowa State Fair this past weekend while the former president looked on approvingly. Gaetz then added: “Only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.” The second part of that statement made headlines, as it’s not every day that a member of Congress advocates “force” to achieve political goals. But the first part ought to be just as troubling, because the two parts operate together. The idea that our opponents are purposely attempting to lay waste to America is often the justification for all kinds of radical action — violence very much included. Barely a day goes by without prominent Republicans repeating that claim. Trump regularly says his political opponents will “destroy the country,” or have already nearly destroyed it. It’s a staple of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s rhetoric. “If woke ideology takes over, it will destroy this country,” DeSantis says. If President Biden is reelected, the governor insists, “the left is gonna absolutely destroy this country.” [...] Yes, liberals have made dire warnings about a second Trump presidency. But that’s unique to Trump, who actually tried to overturn a lawful election and retain power, and last year called for the “termination” of the Constitution. So the assertion that if he became president it could mean the end of democracy is at least not too far-fetched.* The talk of the United States ending its run some time in the next few years because Democrats passed some modest expansion of health coverage or kept pushing for a transition to green energy, on the other hand, is bonkers. Yet, unlike other kinds of rhetorical calls to extremism, we don’t police it at all. Journalists tend to be very attuned to hints of political violence. When a candidate says he wants to start “slitting throats” in the federal government, as DeSantis recently did, we condemn it and explore its troubling implications. We press Republican contenders to admit that Biden fairly won the 2020 election and to repudiate the violent insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. In contrast, we treat partisan apocalyptic rhetoric as mere hyperbole. But it’s the premise that turns anger into action. If you actually believed your opponents were literally trying to destroy your country, what wouldn’t be justified? Threatening election officials? Storming the Capitol? Assassinations? You might protest that Republican politicians don’t really believe this talk. But clearly, many of their supporters do. Which is no surprise given how often they’re told that it’s true. [...] Any rational Republican knows the truth about the next election: If Biden wins, it will mean nothing more than four years of policies they don’t like. That will be deeply unpleasant for them. But it won’t mean the end of America, and they shouldn’t be allowed to say so without challenge. We ought to treat apocalyptic rhetoric just like we treat violent rhetoric: Take note of it, condemn it, challenge candidates to defend it, and explain the threat it poses. Why? Because many of the voters who are listening think the Republicans spinning out wild tales of America’s imminent destruction mean what they say. [emphasis added]

____________ *In my opinion it isn't just Trump, many on the left have legitimate concerns about extreme right-wing Republicans like DeSantis and white Christian nationalists who seem to want autocracy/ one-party rule because they have either said and/or shown that they do.

[snowy-equinox]

Revisiting Rahdue's Wheel

Rahdue’s Wheel is a much-larger-than-average tarot spread that originated from Eileen Connolly’s 1987 book, Tarot: The Handbook for the Journeyman. It’s difficult to find detailed information outside of the book, as its size makes it unpopular among most tarot readers. Hell, Connolly herself needs 28 pages to explain it all. Rahdue’s Wheel shows up occasionally on Tumblr or Reddit, but its reputation has mostly become a kind of “Eat the Pig Trough and Get Your Picture on the Wall” for diviners. 

It’s when you get past the size that you start to realize the spread itself has some problems. 

Tackling the ‘Size’ Premise

Let’s get the premise out of the way: Rahdue’s Wheel does not use all 78 cards. When you look at the spread in detail, it’s broken down into 7 sections: 

Inner Wheel - Present

Center Wheel - Future

Outer Wheel - Past

Dagim Block - Past life

Taleh Pillar (right side) - Past life relationships

Shor Pillar (left side) - Past life memories/experiences

Malkuth Block - Answers the 9 questions you are supposed to have asked before the reading

The last section, the Malkuth Block, is optional. Even if you choose to use it, you may not pull the rest of your deck. Connolly says “Any cards that have not been used are left face down and are not to be read. They do not pertain to the reading and leaving them face down retains the original energy of the spread. If you turn them over, you break the esoteric structure of the entire spread.” At most, this spread requires 69 cards, not 78. 

The Popular Criticisms

While its gimmick is an exaggeration, it is still a behemoth of a spread. Many believe it is unwieldy and bogged down with too much information. This is a common criticism of larger spreads; the more information you pull, the easier it is to get lost. The continual energy drain of pulling, followed by the mental drain of interpreting, can leave you with inaccurate results.

However, this is assuming that you have to do your tarot readings in one sitting. I don’t hold with that idea. You can take on the Wheel in parts, doing a section a day for a week. Or, you can pull all the cards one day, write down what you got, and then do the interpreting the next day. Personally, I think if you have the time, dedication, and skill to parse through all the information, you should be able to get good information out of a large reading. 

The Information

In my opinion, Rahdue’s Wheel’s failure is not due to its size, but the quality of information it gives you.

While I approached this spread with the assumption that most people will read it for themselves, Connolly goes back and forth on the role of her readers. In most of the section dedicated to Rahdue’s Wheel, she talks exclusively about “the client”, implying she is writing for a professional tarot reader and the reading is meant to be between two people (reader & querent). However, at one point, she advises the reader to do the Rahdue’s Wheel for themself four times a year, and there are a couple of “for yourself or the client”’s sprinkled throughout the section. 

I bring this up because this spread is not very good if you’re reading for yourself. The three wheels are the exact same questions; the only thing that changes is the tense. I know what my current health concerns are, and likely I know what my past ones were. The entire past wheel is redundant, as you’re just reliving everything without added context or commentary. Pulling a Three of Swords for past relationships tells me a break-up really hurt me, but it doesn’t tell me how that’s still affecting me. There’s no new information given to the querent beyond “this is how your life and philosophies have changed”. 

The redundancy cuts both ways in the reader/querent question. If you read for yourself, you’re wasting time and energy on things you already know. On the other hand, if you’re reading for someone else, you’re not giving the querent new information that can solve their problems. If anything, it’s spiritual junk food; the reader gets to come off as intuitive and knowledgeable (assuming the cards are all accurate), while not giving any real advice. The querent will leave feeling fulfilled from their amazing connection with the reader without any new ideas on how to fix their situation. 

The Past Life Issue

The other issue that becomes apparent right away is the focus on past lives. The wheels total 39 cards, while the past life sections total 30. This makes the past lives sections nearly half of the spread. Connolly believes that our actions and mindsets are influenced by the hidden memories and traumas of our past lives. She rationalizes that knowing about these lives is a good way to look deeper into the querent’s psychology. This gives us context for the previous problem: The reason we’re looking at every aspect of a person’s life is to find patterns stemming from the past lives. If we find your past life was betrayed by a lover, we know the root cause of your commitment issues. The wheels and the past lives sections work together to illuminate the overarching themes of the querent’s karmic life. 

This creates multiple barriers in order to make this spread work: 

You must believe in past lives as a concept

You must believe you personally have at least one past life

You must believe that issues from your past life can affect your current life

If you have all three beliefs, then this spread can do amazing things for you! But many people don’t have all three. I can’t get past the third one myself; I think it’s possible to connect with and learn from your past lives, but I don’t think their traumas become ours. For many, they don’t have the necessary beliefs to bridge the gap between the two halves of the spread. 

Even if you do believe past lives can affect our current lives, this spread still runs into the problem we discussed earlier: there is no advice given. At best, the reader will probably say to do “past life work” before sending you on your way. Knowing where your issues stem from can be helpful, but the knowledge itself won’t change anything. Ultimately, to see change you need a direction to go in. This spread will not give that to you. 

Finally Answering the Questions

Let’s revisit the Malkuth Block, the tarot reading within the tarot reading. Once the diviner has exhausted themselves sorting through every facet of your lives (present and past), it’s time to actually answer those questions you had that brought you to a reader in the first place. Connolly leaves it up to the reader to determine how many cards should be pulled per question. As I mentioned earlier, she says not every card will be flipped over and read, but then she goes on to say that if the querent only has one question, you must read all 9 cards in the Block. She does not give an explanation for this; I assume something to do with the “esoteric structure” but who knows. 

At this point, you’re doing a basic tarot reading. Surprisingly, many tarot readers are able to do “here’s the answer to your question” readings without knowing every single thing about you. If you’re just trying to get questions answered, the majority of this spread is unnecessary. It’s also incredibly damaging; by putting the questions at the end of the marathon spread, you get to the important part of the reading when the diviner is exhausted. 

Conclusion

Rahdue’s Wheel works well for very specific situations, like when you want to do past life work and don’t know what to focus on. But for the average reader this spread is too bloated. Not only is the size too large for most people to read accurately in one sitting, but the information it gives you is useless. You’re better off finding a smaller spread. 

While some use Rahdue’s Wheel as practice, I think most people bookmark it purely as a challenge spread to do “some day”. But this spread does work if you use it within the beliefs and framework Connolly created it for. I would bet there are a lot of people out there looking for just this kind of spread to help them with their past lives. They’ve probably heard the name before, but pass over it because no one talks about it as a past life spread or a karmic spread. They only talk about it as “The Ultimate Spread”. It’s become clickbait, in tarot form.

[davenweenie]

The Umbrella Academy S4 Spoilers Ahead

I have just finished TUA season four and I have some thoughts. Firstly, I thought most of the main characters personalities were stripped and changed completely. I think we’re all in agreement that Five and Lila would never and should never have happened. I don’t care that Five is supposed to be physically twenty five in this season, Aidan Gallagher was still too young to be kissing a 35 year old woman on camera imo. If the roles were reversed, people would be in total uproar. An 18-19 year old should not be kissing a 30 something year old. Yes, it’s legal but it’s just icky. I can kind of understand where the storyline came from, being trapped with someone for seven years with nobody else around you is sure to cause certain feelings but there are boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

I just thought it seemed rushed overall. Like they wanted to get the show over and done with as quickly as possible. This is probably Netflix’s doing as I’ve noticed they’re finishing off a lot of their big shows as of late (Stranger Things, Sweet Tooth etc) so I can understand that they were on a time crunch. There just seems to be a lot of plot holes but again, time crunches. Like how did Jennifer end up in the squid? What is that subway station? Why are Viktor’s powers more like Harlan’s this season? Why does Luther turn back into the half-gorilla when he consumes the marigold? Surely that would just restore his powers, not the treatment he received to save his life.

The only good thing was the ending. I can also understand why people were upset about the ending but in my opinion, this has been the obvious ending for a long time. Sacrificing themselves was the only way to end all of the apocalypse timelines and as sad as it was, it was the inevitable outcome. I also loved seeing the past characters just living their lives normally at the end. The Swedish brothers, Hazel, the Handler etc, it was just nice to watch. TUA did get a mostly happy ending imo. They saved the world, they stopped the apocalypse. In my books, that’s a happy ending. The team knew they had to die, they accepted that and they died together like they were always supposed to.

[dreamonminecraft]

I mean, George’s been showing an attraction for men (fictional and real) for ages, not just Dream. Those thirst traps he used to watch.. his fascination (not just jokes) with dicks over the years. Also he went from being very awkward/careful about any gay mention (remember how upset he got over the ’bottom’ comment?) to fully embracing that now. He even got upset when the sidemen thought he would be bad at head like? For me, in the past two years, he (seemed to at least) fully accept himself. That obviously doesn’t mean you’re ready to be out about it. But going out to gay clubs with Larray, being in their ’twink’ tiktok thing they did and all other moments.. they bonded over *something* surely. So yeah, I was shocked about this whole thing, not gonna lie. It’s the first time ever we’ve heard about him in connection with women, in a non-platonic way. Like remember when he went on that girl trip with the Botez sisters in 2022? Just him and the girls and them talking about that ’Zaddy’ waitress or whatever it was 😂 And all the moments of him seeming uncomfortable about talking of girlfriends and boobs and yeah, I don’t know. He’s always been just gay in my eyes (based on the things he’s done/said and not stereotypes or looks just to be clear.) Or even about just dnf either. Like take Dream out of the equation and I would still think that. Now sexuality can be fluid of course. Maybe he realised he could feel something for women too? Maybe it was an exception to the rule? Or maybe, he experimented a bit and what do we know what he really felt about it? People try things sometimes, for many different reasons. Maybe he had a little crisis or something. Maybe he was heartbroken over Dream flirting with someone else in the same room like? Or maybe he is bi/pan ( not trying to deny the possibility, I’m bi myself so.) But yeah, just my opinion, not some actual truth here ofc ❤️

I think that's a really fair assessment. From what we knew of his private life (up until a few weeks ago) he was attracted to men (real and fictional) and never shared details of any prior real life experiences with anybody (women or otherwise - first kiss, past partners, etc)

He's fine with the perception that people have of him being gay (obviously it doesn't hurt his career. not saying he's queer baiting) but Dream was very 'im straight. I kiss girls. I date girls' before he knew he wasn't straight, and when he started to realize that he wasn't, he still acknowledged that he liked girls while recognizing his changing feelings. George is just very private in general.

There's a clip from one of the very first dsmp streams where Dream calls George gay "he's like that one closeted friend who doesn't say I love you because he doesn't want to out himself" (my least favorite Dream joke ever, thanks) and you know how he justifies it to the (rightfully) uncomfortable chat? "I wouldn't say that if I wasn't 100% sure George was straight."

George's response: "Straight outta Compton"

I mean this guy has been actively denying any sort of public labeling of his sexuality by anyone for almost four years. Maybe he's in the same position as Dream and he just doesn't want a label (doesn't know/doesn't like the pressure/whatever) or maybe the public perception is something that he doesn't want. Whatever he is, I think it's pretty clear he's some sort of queer.

[darilarostarg]

Why do you think Aemond is actually only 15? It's pretty established in the show he is 16 or older

I agree that in the show as we currently stand he is meant to be at least sixteen, if not older (I believe Ewan has stated Aemond is 18?). I'm fine with going with whatever they want, as a lot of the ages in the show do not make sense, for various reasons (aging up/down of characters, the changing/not changing of actors etc).

But if you actually sit down and look at it, with the baseline we have been given, you have to be very generous with the timeline to make him even be sixteen - I tried to make him sixteen logically, but couldn't without warping the timeline or making a tonne of assumptions and liberties.

Here is how I broke it down and got fifteen:

Episode 1

Takes place anytime between 109 or 112 AC. Depending on who you ask it can change, I went with 112 AC for my timeline!

Episode 2

We know at least six months have past between episode one and two. Daemon has occupied Dragonstone for six months. Whether Daemon went straight there after exile we are not told, so jump could technically be longer. But for simplicity, I think we all agree there is a six month gap between one and two.

Making episode two take place in late 112 AC or early 113 AC. We will stick with mid 112 AC to make things a little easier.

Episode 3

It's been three years, making it mid 115 AC. Alicent is heavily pregnant with Helaena- we can assume Heleana was born within a month or so of this episode due to the size of Alicent's bump.

Episode 4

One year later, making it mid 116 AC - Alicent is not pregnant, or possibly is in the very early stages of her pregnancy with Aemond. I believe episode five confirms she is not in early stages.

Episode 5

Pretty much continues on from episode four to some degree. Again you have to assume that the year does not change over still making it mid 116 AC, even though some of these events in this episode and in between the two episodes would span over months, and we would now be into the next year or late 116 AC by the end of the episode, in my opinion!

Towards the end of the episode we see baby Helena, who is at least a year and a half (just based on how old I think the baby looks lol) confirming to me that some months (at least six??) have also passed, on top of the year stated in the previous episode.

So again by the end of the episode, if we are being generous it's late 116 AC and Alicent is not yet pregnant, or is now in the very early stages of her pregnancy with Aemond - meaning at the earliest Aemond can be born in this timeline is mid to late 117 AC.

Episode 6

Set ten years after episode five, which we have stated was late 116 AC, now making it late 126 AC.

We established the earliest Aemond could be born is sometime mid to late 117 AC, making him nine during episode six.

Episode 7

Episode seven picks up in the same year as six, mostly likely weeks after the death of Laena - also making Aemond nine in this episode. (Update: Confirmed in season 2 that it was only a couple of weeks)

Episode 8 , 9 and 10

It's been six years since Driftmark, so it is now late 132 AC - making Aemond fifteen.

The only way you can make Aemond sixteen, is by placing a larger time gap between episode six and seven - but if you do it for one, you would have to do if for others where it makes more even more sense, like episode four and five, which would most likely make him even younger than fifteen.

[linklethehistorian]

So…as a new FNAF player — and by that I mean, a person who has loved this series for four years and counting, but only just got started with actually being able to firsthand play the games — having binged nearly the entire series by now (with just 5-7AM of Security Breach and Help Wanted 2 remaining…until Into the Pit comes out, at least), y’all were actually not cooking with all of the Security Breach hate.

Like seriously, y’all were not cooking.

“Oh, they kiddie-fied it, they took out all of the horror”

…Have you actually fucking played this game? Have you felt the atmosphere? Have you stood in the basement of the Pizzaplex and stared into the old, largely abandoned, rubble and possessed staff bot and trash-ridden, somehow supernaturally still vaguely smoldering tunnels deep underground after taking apart Chica, and for even a single moment in time, looked around and felt the weight of the emotion and the turmoil and the suffering and death that has canonically occurred over the past half a century or more and just…ruminated in it awhile?

Have you felt the experience of weaving between staff bots and murderous animatronics and hiding for dear life while watching the cameras for an opening to escape?

Have you been chased in the claustrophobic vents by something you can hear right behind you, knowing that if you slow down too long or if your sprint meter runs out, it will get you?

No, the horror elements in terms of dialogue aren’t quite as overt as the past titles. No, until you take them apart, most of the animatronics aren’t visually as overtly uncanny in design. But do they need to be for it to be terrifying? Isn’t there more to horror than being overt? Isn’t there something just as unsettling about the subtlety of sugar-coated implications, the liminality of wandering a massive closed mall after dark knowing that you are not meant to be there and no one from the outside world is coming to save you, or would even notice you’re gone?

Hasn’t a lot of that always been a major part of the charm of the FNAF series? Wasn’t the liminality and the suspense of knowing something is coming to get you at any moment — really even more than the actual moment of your death — one of the greatest things the series had to offer in terms of horror?

Is Security Breach as a game — all bugs aside, most of which I should add have been largely fixed by now anyway — really all that bad and “not in the spirit of FNAF”, or are you just judging it based solely upon its color palettes and character design, and putting on your nostalgia-tinted glasses instead of actually looking at things objectively?

Because I think it’s the latter.

Is Security Breach a perfect game? No, far from it — it has flaws and imperfections and yes, glitches, and there are some aspects that I think could have been done better, or that suffered due to wanting to not let the rating go above T. But it is a good FNAF game; I’d even go so far as to say it’s a great FNAF game. It’s probably even somewhere near the very top of the list for me in my binging of the series so far.

Don’t judge a book by its cover — or by the opinions of people who are still stuck back in the earlier days of the fandom and refuse to accept that anything happened after 2017.

There is no “old fandom vs. new fandom”. FNAF is not any less FNAF than it was during the Pizzeria Simulator era. There is no divide except for the one born from a change in the attitudes of a certain portion of older fans, who have developed a sense of entitlement to look down on newer fans/fans who are into the newer games as being “fake” fans or a “different audience”, because they refuse to accept that a “true” older fan could like anything that came out after a certain year.

Your beloved series is still alive and well.

And Security Breach deserves a whole lot more love than it gets.

[dalooneylass]

A personal tweak to the Zelda Timeline

So basically I’ve been thinking about LinkedUniverse and been doing some sorta LU fanart and THAT had me thinking about the Zelda Timeline, and more specifically how it would make more sense if Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures swapped Timeline placements. And that’s what this post is about.

Why I feel FS would work better if it came after FSA in the Timeline and vice versa.

So reason number one is how Vaati is characterised in FSA & MC vs how he’s characterised in FS. In the former games, Vaati is shown to be power hungry and Cunning, like when he imprisoned and then impersonated the king in order to both find the Light Force, and stop Link in MC. And while he’s not the MAIN villain and is being manipulated by Ganon in FSA, I think it’s save to say that he’s still in control of his own actions, and was likely scheming up his own plans independently of Ganon, and I might add that in never of theses games has he ever shown interest in Zelda, never even called her pretty. Then we get to FS and suddenly Vaati has gone insane and is suddenly girl crazy and wants to marry Zelda, like, do I need to say more? He goes from Intelligent & Power Hungry, to Insane & Girl Crazy, and then back to Intelligent & Power Hungry. This Sudden change in character makes a lot more sense if FS came after FSA, as then he would be going from Intelligent & Power Hungry in MC, then staying that way in FSA, only to go mad from being sealed in the Four Sword for so long that he can’t even remember who he used to be in FS. Plus the new Timeline placement means that the fairytale mentioned at the beginning of FS suddenly becomes a reference to FSA, in which Vaati is partially implicit in Zelda’s and the Shrine Maidens kidnappings.

Reason number two is how the Gerudo are characterised in FSA vs OoT & BotW/TotK. Again It’s the issue of them going from Fierce Warrior Women in OoT, to Peaceful Desert Dwellers in FSA, and then back to being Warrior Women in BotW / the ancient past of TotK. This would, again, make more sense if FSA swapped Timeline placements with FS, because then the Gerudo are going from Peaceful Desert Dwellers, to Warrior Women, and then staying like that for all their later appearances in the Timeline, and since Twinrova is at least 360 year old, they very well may be the reason for this shift, as they have been manipulating the Gerudo tribe for a long time. This would also mean that FSA is now the game in which Ganon gets his Trident weapon that he uses in most of his future appearances.

And speaking of Ganon the third reason is Ganon’s reasoning for invading Hyrule + Shadow Link’s actions in FSA. In the Hyrule Encyclopaedia, the reason given for Ganon’s invasion of the kingdom of Hyrule is that he’s bitter over his defeat at the hands of the Hero of Twilight at the end of TP, and that Shadow Link, is a being born from that bitterness and brought into the world using the Dark Mirror. Now this is, in my opinion, kinda stupid. Cuz not only is the Ganon from FSA a different incarnation of Ganondorf than the Ganondorf that appears in TP and therefore shouldn’t be able to recall those events, but Shadow Link, (a being born from Ganon’s resentment) actions in FSA don’t really lend themselves to this explanation ever. Shadow Link, or I should say the Shadow Links in Four Swords Adventures only attack Link in certain stages, and when they aren’t doing that, their off harassing the citizens of Hyrule, smearing Link’s good reputation in the process. To me, if Shadow Link was born from Ganon’s resentment of being defeated in TP, then Shadow Link should be more focused on defeating the Colours, and not off tormenting the rest of Hyrule. Shadow Link’s actions DO however make a lot more sense if Ganon is invading Hyrule for similar reasons as to WW Ganondorf. That being he resents how the people of Hyrule get to live in a fertile, prosperous land, while the Gerudo have to endure living in the harsh, unforgiving Gerudo Desert, and want the kingdom for himself, this makes Shadow Link’s actions in FSA make more sense, since in this instance, Shadow Link is born from Ganon’s resentment of how easy Hyrule’s citizens have it, thus Shadow Link spends most of his time giving the people of Hyrule a hard time. And making FSA come before FS makes this explanation make more sense.

I feel like there’s probably more I could go into, but these are the 3 main points I wanted to talk about. I hope I’ve explained my reasoning well enough and that you have a nice day/night.

[centrally-unplanned]

Somewhat unrelated (so in ask instead of additional reblog but) - have an opinion on the sentiment I see sometimes that the Warren people basically 'won the peace' in terms of getting all the day-to-day influential mid-level appointments post-inauguration?

Yeah, I have heard that, and I don't think it is crazy! Biden's admin is definitely more progressive than any admin so far (as much as one can say such a thing over time), and a lot of that reality is downstream of staffing picks like Lina Khan to the FTC. To get at the "implications" of this I definitely don't think the progressive faction were like suckers or anything, my point was that the parties work differently; this is the way someone like Warren exerted influence, and it was a win for that side.

To dig in more I think this was less political dealmaking than people make it out to be - Biden and his team authentically believed in a more active, aggressive place for the government in economic regulation & industrial policy. So while they were "Warren picks" it is more that Biden and Warren just agreed here, and these topics are low-level enough that Biden didn't have to worry about like optics and stuff, he could do what he wanted (relatively ofc) And hey, the entire electorate is just more "statist" in this regard, left and right, so the optics weren't even much of an issue.

The second point I would make is back to exactly that "squashing" of factions - the Warren Camp "winning the peace" is very explicitly on a relatively narrow range of economic regulatory issues. If you take the "racial justice" angle that Kamala was meant to appease, I think Biden has been perfectly fine on this topic, but a mainstream Dem; all of the causes of that movement have been virtually dropped at the federal level. They lost, and they lost big, as a political faction. Did Warren ever care about these issues? In my opinion, no, not really! She has always been an economic crusader. So while it isn't a ding on her specifically, for the Warren-equivalent on these kinds of issues, I don't think you can say they won the peace.

The third point I want to make is the limits of this kind of win - Lina Khan has not set herself up for a run for the Senate. Pete Buttegieg did, and he has done it being a centrist. Mid-level department appointees don't build political capital, they don't win races. They don't decide the future of the party, not directly at least. JD Vance has very, very good odds of being the President of the United States some day - a role that his own party has engineered to have expanding policy authority and growing immunity from checks and balances. What did Warren get? Policy for this 4 years, sure, that isn't small. But I think the current political climate, where the trendlines are imo starkly pivoting back to centrism, show the limits of that.

I'll also add a bit of a tangent point: has Lina Khan been good? Was student debt relief a good idea? Did Julie Siegel as Treasury Deputy Sec or Anne Reid as Deputy Chief of Staff at HHS really change the game? I don't think they were bad or anything, they have their wins (good action on drug prices for example). But I don't think the past four years have been transformational for anti-trust or financial regulation in the "actually making things better" department. This is more subjective of course, I obviously personally don't think Warren is right in her critique of the US economy. But my point is that if your influence is going to be through explicit policy and not sitting congressmen, then that policy being good and winning converts is crucial for it to have longevity. I don't know if that case has been won for Warren & co.

[shrinkthisviolet]

I would love to hear your opinion on what you think/hope will happen in the tournament!

The karate kid universe is built on a kid who trained for like 3 months beating someone who trained for years, so I don't think that can be used as a determining factor when making predictions. Otherwise, literally every American character would get beaten by new characters we've never met before, lol.

I think the show did a good job setting Sam up so that no matter the outcome, she'll be okay. She's the character who has been solidly Miyagi-Do from the beginning, so it's possible that if she doesn't win, she will embody that philosophy in some other way. Mr. Miyagi didn't like tournaments, so her finding a way to embody his teachings outside of fighting may be satisfying. But her winning could also be a way to leave a legacy of Miyagi's teachings for future students.

Tory obviously has a very compelling reason to want to win, but I think if she does, her philosophy will have to change. Someone on here pointed out that in her fight with Sam to decide the captain, she went into the bouncy cobra kai stance rather than the solid Miyagi-Do stance. Cobra kai for her has always been about externalizing her anger or sadness, stating that she uses her anger as power while fighting. If that philosophy is rewarded, then she will continue doing that for the rest of her life and have no need to change. If she wins, I think it'll be because she embraces some Miyagi-Do teachings and becomes balanced.

Miguel obviously wants to win to get into Stanford, and he could use the prize money for his family. Some people have theorized that Robby will get injured and Miguel will take over for him, which I think doesn't really serve any purpose for Miguel or Robby's character journeys. Miguel wildly succeeded in the past, it might be interesting for his character to experience a "golden child syndrome" arc, where he feels pressured by his past successes, but the resolution to that would need to be him losing and accepting it.

Robby obviously touched on the fact that he is always second place and that motivation is compelling. I also think that if Robby wins, he has to find balance within himself rather than relying on Tory or Kenny or Johnny or someone else. If he's always relying on an external source there's never going to be a conclusion for his story because there's no guarantee that whatever source he's relying on at the end of season 6 will stay around forever. If he wins, it has to be because he found strength in himself.

Some bonus thoughts: Robby and Tory's promise to stand on the podium together could be fulfilled in a twisted way, with Robby winning for Miyagi-Do and Tory winning for Cobra Kai. Whichever teens don't win the individual tournaments will probably have a big win in part 3. If there's a tie between the two dojos, whichever teens don't win the first time, could win if there's a rematch fight. If there's no rematch or second tournament in part 3, Robby and Miguel's Sekai Taikai performance might mirror Daniel fighting Silver while Johnny fights 5 people at once to do justice to both characters abilities.

I would love to hear your thoughts and if you have different opinions on what might happen or what you think should happen!

So I’m gonna evaluate the core four teens first from my POV in terms of feats, and then answer (taking narrative into consideration too, because both matter in a show like this). Under a cut for spoilers (and because it’s a bit on the long side):

Feats

Starting with Miguel: won his first All-Valley, was beating Robby in the 2x10 fight until Robby kicked him over the railing, multiple characters have commented on his fighting prowess (even more than any other character). He did lose the captaincy, but he was also emotionally fraught at the time…but also Robby has been improving, so maybe they really are on an even field now. Hard to say when they haven’t had a fight without emotions running high. Compared to Sam and Tory…he’s only really fought Tory, managing to pick her up and restrain her, and she tries unsuccessfully to escape. But once they’re on the ground, she probably could’ve gotten out of it. Hard to say

On to Robby: he has been runner-up in both tournaments. This is notable, because none of the teens have scored highly in a tournament more than once—Miguel won his first AVT but didn’t place highly in his second, Sam and Tory have both only fought in one tournament (more on them later), Eli/Hawk only won his second tournament and didn’t place highly in his first. So I feel like that should be commended. He’s accomplished something no other character has. He also beat Miguel to the captaincy fair and square…though as mentioned, this could be due to emotions running high for Miguel in particular. Hard to say…but in every fight, Robby has become more skilled, so it could be that he is truly the better fighter between them now. Hard to say for sure, but regardless, I feel people are counting him out unfairly. Although, also notable to say that between the girls, he’s only fought Sam, and that was for like…2 seconds. She restrained him, but he could’ve escaped that easily if he wanted to.

Sam: she was runner-up in her only AVT. However, those results were skewed, and it’s shown that if not for the cheating ref, she would’ve won the whole thing—she does earn three points in her fight against Tory, they’re just not counted fairly. So there’s that. There’s also the fact that she also beats Tory in 2x10* and 3x10…and the latter is while she’s still dealing with residual PTSD

*Tory cuts her arm with the bracelet, but Sam then kicks her away, therefore winning the fight

If she’s put up against Tory, I’d say she should win. Compared to Miguel and Robby though…well, she does fight Robby during the prom fight briefly and manages to subdue him, but Robby could get out of that if he tried. She’s a quicker fighter than him, but a better fighter overall…hard to say. And we also never see a proper fight between her and Miguel.

Tory: she is a fierce fighter, there’s no denying this. Won her first AVT, but that was due to Silver’s cheating, and as mentioned in Sam’s section, it’s likely Tory would’ve lost that fight if it had been fair. Tory herself even admits this:”you didn’t lose the All-Valley.” Sam also wins every fight they have (and no, 3x5 doesn’t count because Sam ran from that fight due to a trauma response)

Despite this, there’s no denying that Tory is an incredibly effective fighter—getting to even runner-up position is no easy feat, and she fights no-holds-barred and is recognized for it (you can tell by how people react when she goes in to fight them). She’s never seriously fought either of the boys—Miguel did manage to restrain her during the prom fight, and she couldn’t escape at first, but she might’ve been able to on the ground. It’s hard to say.

Narrative/Story

Taking narrative into consideration, I can see them leaning more towards a Robby and Tory win, for the reasons you mentioned—“both of us up on that podium”, Miguel already ceded the crown to Robby anyway so let’s keep that up**, and Tory should really get a win after all the bs she’s been through***

**however, I do think if they do this, they give Miguel another path to go to Stanford. Maybe the LaRussos pay for it or something, some kind of narrative “good karma” as this story often has—the whole moral of “do good and good will return to you”

***that said, I think her winning the tournament with Cobra Kai isn’t the best idea. That’s letting Kreese win, in a sense. If she does win, I want her to do it in a Miyagi-Do gi, smiling and proud with her supportive friends beside her, knowing she won the right way with people who truly care about her (ofc that means they’d have to apologize for letting her just walk away in the midst of her grief, but that’s an easy fix)

And also as mentioned, Sam doesn’t need a win narratively right now. No matter what happens, she’s set. She’s beaten Tory in a fight every time though, so flipping that now would be strange.

All that considered:

I think Robby is definitely a strong contender to win Sekai Taikai, and he’s my pick (I did think Miguel is the stronger fighter, but having evaluated all of this, I think they’re at least on an even playing field, if not skewed towards Robby).

If there are gender divisions, my girl champion pick would be Sam, but Tory is a strong narrative option (however, I’d like her to win for Miyagi-Do, not Cobra Kai, because that would complete her arc more satisfyingly imo)

[i-am-baechu]

♡ Summary: Y/N and Jin are planning to have another child but Jungkook (Y/N’s ex-husband) has some opinions 

♡ Paring: Established relationship; Doctor! Jin x Doctor! Y/N; CEO Jungkook x Doctor! Y/N

♡ Rating: Pg-14

♡ Genre: Established relationship, child from another marriage, one mention of a sexual experience, swearing, exes, angst, and fluff

♡ Based on the one-shot; In The Lonely Hour

Y/N has been through a lot in the past four years. Jisoo is four years old, Jin asked her to marry her, Y/N was promoted and they finally bought the house of their dreams. The one thing that didn’t change was how much she hated Jungkook. Yes, he was her first love but that doesn’t give him leeway. He cheated on her and treated her like shit, something she will never forgive. Jin is better with Jungkook, he at least can be in the same room with him. Y/N only does it because of Jisoo. As the little girl grew up, she fell in love with Jungkook and even called him dad from time to time. She mostly just calls him kook. Jisoo knows Jin is her father, no matter what her DNA. 

Today Jisoo was staying at Jungkook’s house for the weekend. Y/N didn’t want that to happen but everyone else was busy and Jin told her to trust Jungkook for once. She was being stubborn about it so Jin had to change her mind. After three sessions, Y/N changed her mind. They stood in front of the door waiting for Jungkook. 

Y/N kneeled down and kissed Jisoo’s head, “You be good, okay?”

“Okay, mommy. Why do you have to leave?” 

Y/N glanced at Jin who nodded his head. She looked back at her with a small smile, “You remember how you said you wanted a brother or a sister? 

“Yes?”

“Well, your father and I have to make plans with doctors to make sure that happens.” 

Jisoo dropped her bag and clapped her hands, “I’m getting a brother!?” 

Jin let out a small laugh and leaned down kissing the top of her head, “Or a sister.” 

“What?” 

The couple looked up to see Jungkook glaring down at them. Y/N rolled her eyes and stood back up with an annoyed look, “Hello, Jungkook.” 

“You guys are having another kid?” 

“Trying, Jisoo baby go say hi to kook.”

Jisoo nodded her head at Jin and hugged Jungkook’s legs. His hard glare changed into a soft one when he glanced down at her, “Hey baby. Go inside okay, I have to talk to mommy.” 

“Okay, kook.”

Y/N smiled at Jisoo as she ran inside with her pigtails bouncing with each step. Y/N looked at Jungkook with a raised eyebrow, “You need to talk to me?” 

“Both of you.” 

Jin and Y/N glanced at each other with raised eyebrows but looked back at Jungkook, “About?”

“You guys can’t have another kid.”

Y/N glared at him and crossed her arms over her chest, “How dare you think you have the right to stop us.” 

Jungkook rolled his eyes at her and crossed his arms over his chest, “You're just doing this to get back at me.” 

“Excuse-”

“Why would you say that?”

Y/N glanced at Jin who was glaring at him, something she didn’t like seeing on her future husband, “Because...It’s Y/N.”

She scoffed at this, “I want to have a baby with my future husband. This has nothing to do with you.” 

“It does because Jisoo is mine.”

“What does she have anything to do with this?”  

Jungkook leaned against the door frame and looked at them with an annoyed look, “You’ll forget about her because she's mine. You just want another kid that has nothing to do with me.” 

Jin let out a sigh and shook his head, “Jungkook, this has nothing to do with you. Y/N and I want a child. We have to go to a hospital because Y/N had a lot of complications with Jisoo. We could care less what you think about this. We're going to have a child. I need you to support us through this because it's going to be hard, do this for Jisoo.” 

Y/N smiled smugly and wrapped her arms around Jin’s arm, “Yeah, what he said.”

“You had complications?”

Y/N nodded her head and leaned her head against Jin’s arm with a sad look, “She was born prematurely...I also had diabetes with her. There was a lot wrong...but I would go through it all again.” 

Jungkook's face softened and looked down at the ground, “You never told me that...”

“You never asked.” 

Jin kissed the top of her head and looked at Jungkook with a determined look, “We want a child. We won't forget Jisoo. This isn’t a plan to get back at you or anything like that, we just felt like it was time. Jisoo was also asking for a brother or a sister.” 

“Why does she want a sister or a brother?” 

“Because she's probably lonely.” 

Jungkook glanced at Jisoo in the living room, “She could’ve asked me.” 

Y/N let out a small laugh causing Jungkook to whip his head to glare at her, “You don’t have anyone.” 

“Don’t rub it in my face, I can easily get someone.” 

“Then do it. Anyways, we have to go. We need to drive to the hospital.”

They waved goodbye and walked back to the car. Y/N glanced back at the house and shook her head, “He always thinks it's about him...” 

“You can’t force someone to change love. It’s annoying but we can’t do much with that.” 

They got into the car and Y/N leaned forward placing a kiss on Jin’s cheek, “I can't wait to have a baby with you.” 

“I can’t wait for the future with you, Kim Y/N.” 

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 7 Minagoroshi pt. Final

“Read the entire series over again.” I wonder how many people actually did that between chapters as they were coming out?

So, since there was that one spoiler I saw from the manga version of events, and this is otherworldly voice is in fact Frederica Bernkastel I guess that does a serious number on the theory that Rika and Bernkastel are the same character. Or so it would seem to me, there’s still all of Matsuribayashi to go through to confirm or kill that particular theory. I admit that I may be operating from a faulty premise. After all, the manga came out how long after the visual novels?

This is kind of an unrelated thought, but I don’t know if I ever shared aloud the way I thought you were meant to read Umineko. Before I started that series I had the thought in my head that you were meant to read the first chapter, then jump to the first chapter of the Answer Arcs. And then proceed that way through the rest of the series, 2 then 6, and so on. Now I know this is a very silly way to think the series was meant to be done, and I admit that this particular line of reasoning didn’t live past its formation for very long. But at the time I thought that’s how it was meant to be read. I am curious though to wonder how long he had originally wanted the mystery to hang until this one came out. Ha, could you imagine if he did that? Release the first game in a series and then not release the second part for four years, despite it apparently being done a while ago?

Where's literally any information on Silent Hill F Konami?

It’s the journey not the destination. He said sarcastically. Also this reminds me of something I had read somewhere along the way that Ryukishi07 was saddened by the less than positive reception that Tsumihoroboshi received. I kind of wonder how different angry Japanese gamers are in comparison to American ones, same shit, different language?

Yeah, you didn’t exactly paint them in the most flattering light there Ryukishi. I don’t know where I read it, but I do recall reading somewhere along the line that at one point he had considered releasing this as just one singular story. Which makes me wonder what that would’ve been like. Would people have been willing to sit through the entire hundred plus hour long storyline for the entire length of it? Or was splitting it up the smarter option? For whatever my opinion’s worth on the matter of this visual novel series that was written twenty years ago, I think splitting it up was the better option. Although a part of me does wonder what the story would’ve been like as one continuous narrative. Just going from one chapter to the next, how would that have played out?

I’ve mentioned it elsewhere but there was an entirely new Higurashi storyline released about four months after Matsuribayashi. Higurashi Hou Rei. I’m given to understand that one’s not exactly the best around. Then again from what little I’ve heard, apparently chapter eight didn’t exactly delight the fan base either.

Just for funsies, around the time I was writing this part I looked at some of the later events of Minagoroshi in the manga version.

I didn’t read the whole thing, but here are some pages of Hanyuu that I thought were interesting. Primarily because I thought it was a nice change of pace seeing her with facial expressions that aren’t just sad creature.

I thought it was interesting how the manga just spells it out plainly that Ooishi had found out that Takano was alive. Whereas the visual novel kept Rika in the dark about what Ooishi had found out in Gifu. It hinted at her fate, but it never just said point blank “yeah she’s alive” like it does here in the manga.

I don’t wish to drag this out for much longer (I have over fifty screencaps from the manga saved in a folder on my desktop), but there are a couple of ones I think are worth sharing.

Kumagai still gets taken out by the Mountain Dogs sniper, but I thought this was an interesting variation, however slight, of Ooishi’s death scene.

I didn’t know this little mini-comic existed, but I’m delighted it does.

It’s canon.

Also canon.

I hope I don’t seem too hyperbolic in my praise of Minagoroshi. But this is genuinely the best written, and so far the absolute best chapter of this entire series so far. Even though I mentioned that I found the section regarding Satoko’s life with her uncle to be an absolute slog to go through. With a mention that the segments regarding this pretty firmly slammed on the brakes grinding the story to a halt I’m willing to tolerate that because the sheer strength of writing for the rest of the chapter more than makes up for it. Much as I disliked that entire section I don’t know what I would cut from it to make it a more palatable read, because despite my complaining it is rather vital to the overall narrative.

I enjoyed this chapter a lot more than I did any of the others because this chapter more than the rest started giving me what I want from the narrative. It started explaining some of the more mystical elements of the overarching plot. Much as it started doubling down on the parasites explanation it started doing so in a way that is better than just a handwave of “alien magic.” The explanation of Oyashiro, Rika in the timeloop (even though I have the theory it’s actually Hanyuu in the timeloop, and Rika’s just an unfortunate passenger to this fate), the very existence of Hanyuu herself. It handles it all extremely better than it did during the entirety of Tsumihoroboshi.

This chapter was a much-needed shot in the arm to improve the trajectory of the entire series. It’s all too easy to imagine a hypothetical scenario where it just continued its downward spiral, and just kept being worse than Tsumihoroboshi. But despite the odds it completely averted that, and came out much stronger for it. You could probably argue that my high opinion of the chapter is only because I went into it with such low expectations. I don’t think that’s the case however. I grant you that I didn’t go in to Minagoroshi with high hopes, but I don’t think I went in expecting it to be an actively miserable time.

In terms of it as a mystery I don’t know if it’s an exceptionally good one. Despite my enjoyment of mystery novels, games, and so on, I don’t feel that I have a good handle on what makes one good or not. Maybe it would’ve been a better mystery if it didn’t immediately cut to Takano injecting Tomitake with H173 and setting up all the stuff for Operation Doomsday. If we just stuck with Rika up until the reveal about Ooishi’s investigation in Gifu, or hell even later with Keiichi’s death.

As it is, however I think that Minagoroshi is far and away the absolute strongest of all of the chapters so far in the Answer Arcs. Possibly even the series as a whole. There was such a wide variety of interesting things happening that except for the plotline about Satoko it kept the story moving at a very brisk pace. I’m very excited to see if the final chapter* Matsuribayashi can keep the streak going.

I love these silly comics.

[stardustshelb]

"Strawberry" Part Two

TW: Language and sexual content

Word count: 7,468

Chapter Four

“No! No, absolutely not,” Riley said with a concerned look on her face. I FaceTimed her as soon as I got settled in the Airbnb. Since I was the first one to arrive, I felt as though I should get first pick out of the four-bedroom house. This place was twice the size and so much nicer than my own home; no wonder the bill for the weekend was twice my monthly mortgage payment. I saved the master bedroom for Riley, but I decided to claim the room across the hall from the guest bathroom. While it wasn’t the biggest room in the house, it was definitely the most beautiful, in my opinion. I sat on the bed rubbing my hands across the satin sheets as I stared at my best friend’s worried face. 

I pleaded, “Why not?” 

She exclaimed, “Because he’s a stranger! Because you’re engaged! Because you’re alone! Need I say more?” 

“He’s just coming over to cook for me. Nothing more… I haven’t even texted him yet,” I said.

“Look, you know Kenneth is literally my least favorite person on the planet, but you have to be smart about this. You’re normally so level-headed,” she said with a sigh.

“I wish I could explain the way Josh makes me feel. He made me feel better about myself in the hour and a half I sat next to him than anyone has in the past five years,” I said with a lump in my throat. It was true and I realized now more than ever why staying in his company was vital. I needed to be reminded of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be. Josh somehow had the ability to elicit that feeling with his endearing words and beautiful smile.

“Ouch,” Riley said with a disappointed look on her face.

“Riley, you know that wasn’t directed at you,” I said, realizing I should have chosen my words better.

“Listen. I love you. I am not letting your lapse in judgment impact this weekend. Please don’t text him. You have never had to endure the dating world because you’ve been with the same guy your whole life. Men will say anything you want to hear just to get inside you,” she said. 

I knew she was probably right. I had zero experience dating anyone because Kenneth and I have been together since we were kids. I always thought marrying my high school sweetheart was bragworthy, but I feel the opposite now. I have had a secret longing inside me for so long, but change is scary. 

“And what if I do text him? Will you still love me?” I asked honestly.

“Of course, but I can’t say I would support your decision. What’s his last name? Does he live in Nashville? What’s this guy’s deal? What power does he have over you?” she asked like she was interrogating me for a crime I had not yet committed.

“Ok, so I can’t answer the last name part but–” I began.

“Are you serious? You don’t even know his last name?” she interrupted.

“He said he would send me all of his personal information once I texted him. And I will send everything to you. I won’t give him the Airbnb address without receiving what I asked for first,” I explained.

“Text him right now while you’re on FaceTime with me,” she demanded.

“Riley, it’s only been one hour since I left the airport. I don’t want to look desperate,” I replied. I stared at her face while I could see she was thinking of what to say next. Was I really making a mistake by wanting to hangout with him some more?

“Ok, fine.But I want his full name, phone number, picture, social security number, a copy of his birth certificate, and a vehicle description within the next two hours, or I will catch the next flight to Nashville and come kick your ass,” she said with a scowl on her face.

“Within the next two hours…Yes ma’am,” I said with a salute. I ended the FaceTime so I could start to unpack my suitcase. I brought outfits for all of the activities on Riley’s weekend itinerary, something I had no say in creating, but I’ve always been willing to go with the flow. I didn’t bring any extra cute outfits because I expected to stay in tonight. And while that’s still the case, I especially didn’t expect to have company. Would Josh change his clothes before coming? Would it be weird if I didn’t? Why did I care so much?

My phone started to ring which brought me back to planet earth. Kenneth’s name was on my phone screen. He was the last person I wanted to talk to, but I figured if I didn’t answer his call, he would only continue to call me.

“Hey,” I said once I picked up my phone.

“Are you at the Airbnb, yet?” he asked.

“Yes, I’ve been here for an hour talking to Riley on FaceTime,” I said.

“Why didn’t you let me know you made it?” he questioned me.

“I honestly had so much on my mind that I intended to, but–” I started.

“Glad to know I’m not on your mind,” he said in an accusatory tone. 

“Kenneth, I don’t want to argue right now. I’m at the Airbnb. I’m unpacking. I need to start decorating the house here soon before everyone gets here tomorrow,” I sighed into the phone.

“What are you doing about dinner?” he asked. Shit.

“I’ll probably DoorDash something local. I’m staying in, you know that,” I reminded him. “Can you send me a picture of Sassy?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Yeah, I will here in a bit,” he responded. “I think the guys and I are gonna go grab a beer after we get off work tonight,” he said.

“Didn’t you guys just go out last night?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’re still celebrating our big win for the company. Are you seriously questioning me when you’re the one in Nashville on my dime?” he asked.

“Just be safe. Don’t forget to send me a picture of Sassy, please,” I said in an attempt to end the phone call. 

“Yeah, I will. Have a good night, I guess,” he said with the least amount of enthusiasm a human could have.

“Thanks, you too,” I said, returning the disinterested tone. I hung up the phone and stared at myself in the reflection of the full-length mirror near the side of the bed. How can someone who says he loves me make me feel so bad about myself? How can someone who I once loved more than anyone in the world make me feel like I am the unworthiest person on earth?

This feeling of despair solidified my decision. I opened my contacts app and scrolled until I found the name Plagiarism; as soon as I saw it, I let out a laugh. It felt good to laugh again..

Me: “Hey, it’s the girl who has no name.” I hit send without overthinking the text. What if he’s never watched Game of Thrones? What if he doesn’t get it? What if I look like a total idiot?

Plagiarism: “The smart, beautiful, arrogant one?”

Me: “I’ve heard that a couple times today.”

Plagiarism: “I was wondering if you were actually going to text me. I’m glad you did. What would you like me to cook tonight?”

Me: “Chef’s choice. Surprise me.”

Plagiarism: “Any food allergies? Likes? Dislikes?” 

Me: “I’m easy to please.”

Plagiarism: “Noted. I’m going to run to the store because I’m low on groceries. I haven’t been home in a while. I’ll text you when I’m about to check out so you can send me your address.”

Me: “Remember I’m not sending you my address until you send me the safety precautions first.”

Plagiarism: “Right. As you wish…”

I stared at my phone screen waiting for the text bubble to pop up to show he’s sending me the information I’ve asked for. As I wish? What the hell does that even mean? I couldn’t stand waiting on his response a second longer, so I left my phone on the nightstand and began hanging up my clothes for the weekend. I opted to change into the comfy clothes that I brought to lounge in tonight after all. I inspected my hair and makeup in the mirror; I could definitely use a refresh. I carried my toiletries bag to the bathroom and began freshening up. Should I wear perfume? I wasn’t wearing any today on the plane. Would he think I was weird for wearing perfume in pajamas? God I hope he’s wearing that cologne again. Suddenly I heard my phone buzz. I ran to check the screen when I saw it was a text from Riley.

Riley: “Did you text him?”

Me: “Maybe…”

Riley: “Send me his number.”

I knew Riley wouldn’t try to contact him. She just wanted to have his information on hand in case anything were to happen to me. I copied the number I had saved for Plagiarism and forwarded it to her. I put my phone back down on the nightstand to continue freshening up in the bathroom when I heard my phone ringing. Who the hell is calling me?

“Yes?” I asked questionably.

“That’s not even his real phone number!” Riley exclaimed.

“What do you mean it’s not real? I have already texted him… Of course it’s real,” I explained.

“No, I just Googled that number and it’s a Google Voice number. That means he gave you a fake number connected to an app. I don’t like this one bit,” she said.

“Riley, you’re overthinking this–” I tried to respond.

“You’re not thinking at all!” she yelled. I sat in silence as I realized she may be right. All I knew about this stranger was that his name is Josh, he’s a concert photographer, he lives in Nashville, and he listens to a band named Greta Van Fleet. Oh, and he loves his mom. That’s it. 

“Please be smart about this,” Riley pleaded, breaking the awkward silence.

“He just responded!” I yelled into the phone while I put her on speaker. I opened his message to find a selfie that I swear was taken by an angel. I stared at his photo for so long I wanted it burned into my memory. I could tell that he changed clothes too. Those sunglasses from earlier now hung around his sweatshirt collar. I zoomed into the background trying to find details but all I could see was that he was in the driver’s seat of a nice vehicle. His hat from earlier was gone unleashing curls styled into… Is that a mullet? 

“Well what does it say?” Riley yelled to knock me out of my trance.

 I read aloud his text to Riley, “My name is Joshua Michael. You already have my phone number. Here is a picture of what I currently look like. I just pulled into Whole Foods, so I’m heading inside to pick up some groceries for dinner.”

“He has two first names?” Riley questioned.

“You would focus on that,” I said with a laugh. I was too busy staring at the selfie he sent me. His soft smile hid the perfect teeth behind his full lips. His eyes were soft and inviting. I wonder if those are natural curls.

“What did you say he did for a living?” Riley asked.

“He’s a concert photographer,” I replied.

“Well, there’s a country music artist named Joshua Michael. He’s old. Let me search for his photography business–” Riley said.

“I don’t know if he has his own business. He could work for a company,” I said with an annoyed tone that she was still in her investigative mood.

“True. Send me his picture,” Riley commanded. I went back to my messages and saved the selfie he sent me. I texted it to Riley and waited for her commentary.

“Ohhhh, ok Joshua,” she said in a high-pitch tone. She got it.

“I’m telling you, his conversation alone is more enticing than his looks,” I said.

“I understand why you are willing to risk your life for a stranger now,” Riley said.

“He texted me again!” I yelped not acknowledging her dig. 

“Read it to me!” Riley exclaimed.

“Ok, I am grabbing two bottles of wine. One red, one white. Unless you think I should get something else?” I read aloud.

“You don’t even drink,” Riley said.

“I drink!” I defended myself.

“Oh yeah, once in a blue moon doesn’t mean you drink. You better limit yourself to one glass. You know you’re kind of a lightweight,” Riley said. 

“Oh, so now you’re ok with him coming over?” I said with a matter-of-fact tone. Riley had been so against the idea of Josh coming over for dinner until this moment. It’s the first time she sounded like she was in on the idea, so I knew I had to take advantage of it.

“He’s coming over regardless of what I say, so I might as well embrace it. Send me a picture of his vehicle when he pulls into the Airbnb,” she commanded.

“Yes, ma’am. Anything else?” I asked sarcastically.

“I want you to text me periodically through the night to check in, ok?” she instructed.

“Yes, ma’am,” I responded.

“Alright, well have fun. Be safe. I love you more than anything. Use your head. Drink no more than one glass of wine. Text me often and–” she tried to say.

“Ok, ok. I got it. I need to get off the phone to freshen up my makeup,” I interrupted. I said goodbye to Riley and hung up the phone. I went back to my text messages to reply to Josh; I wondered if he was annoyed that I hadn’t responded yet.

Me: “One bottle of white wine would be fine.”

Plagiarism: “I’m buying two just in case.”

Me: “It won’t be necessary.”

Plagiarism: “Then I’ll leave the unopened bottle there for you and your friends to drink later this weekend.”

Me: “How thoughtful.”

Plagiarism: “Always. I’m almost finished here. Can I have your address now or is my background check still processing?” I let out a laugh. Against my own better judgment, I sent him the address to the Airbnb. I couldn’t believe I was about to spend the evening with one of the most interesting, attractive men I have ever met. They don’t have guys like him in my small Oklahoma town. 

Plagiarism: “My GPS says I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Chapter Five

With 20 minutes to spare, I took what my mother always called a “whore’s bath” in the bathtub. I continued to inspect my hair and makeup in the mirror. Why did I care so much about what I looked like? I brushed my teeth and reapplied my lipstick. I decided on a soft shade of pink to give my lips some color but not too much color. I stood back and examined my lounge set: I got this matching cropped short sleeve sweatshirt and pants on sale at Walmart, and this guy shops at Whole Foods. And he flies in Group A. And he has an assistant. I am so not his type. He is going to be bored of me within the first 10 minutes. 

I put on another layer of deodorant because my nerves were starting to make me sweat. What am I doing? This was a bad idea. This was a stupid idea. I needed to text him right now and tell him I changed my mind. My anxiety was starting to get the best of me, so I started to remember my coping skills. I left the bathroom and sat on the couch in the spacious living room. Breathe. I opened my Spotify app and rather than listening to a familiar song to help calm my nerves, I hit a random song on the Greta Van Fleet playlist that Josh had downloaded to my phone. I closed my eyes and listened to music as I concentrated on my breathing.

“A beauty lives in every soul. The more you love, the more you know. They pass the torch, and it still burns. Once children then, it’s now our turn.”

This song was just what I needed to hear. Did Josh introduce me to my new favorite band? I continued to breathe and take in the beautiful lyrics when I heard a door shut. My eyes shot open and I jumped up from the couch. I glanced over the living room once more to make sure everything looked perfect. I peaked out the window to see him getting the bags of groceries out of the back of his Jeep. I quickly snapped a picture to text to Riley before he saw me. I continued to watch him from the window as he grabbed his final bag. Did he buy the whole damn store? I moved away from the window and waited by the door to let him in. I felt like I was going to pass out.

“Come on in,” I said as I opened the door. Somehow he looked even better than he did earlier. I glanced at his matching tan sweatsuit that complemented mine. His sweatshirt had a tiny triangular symbol with rhinestones, a symbol I did not recognize, sewn into it. He definitely did not get that from Walmart. I closed the door behind him as he carried what looked like seven bags of groceries to the kitchen. I followed him trying to appear calm, cool, and collected. I sat at one of the barstools behind the counter to watch him as he unpacked his purchases.

“Mrs–” he began.

“Miss,” I corrected him. He looked confused as he glanced at my engagement ring still on my hand. Why didn’t I take this off?

“Miss, I hope you like Polish food,” he said as he pulled out the two bottles of wine.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever had Polish food,” I said in a curious tone.

“I’m about to rock your world,” he said with a smile that displayed the gap that I will dream about tonight. I examined his hairstyle while he unpacked bell peppers, onions, carrots, mushrooms, various spices, and a package of beef. His hair was definitely styled in a way that Kenneth would die before wearing. It was a mullet alright, but not like any mullet you would see in Oklahoma. 

“This is my grandmother’s recipe. Normally it simmers on the stove for several hours, but we don’t have that luxury. It will still be good. It’s my favorite comfort soup. It’s called gulasz,” he explained.

“Like goulash?” I asked.

“Similar, but this is the Polish version. Where are the knives?” he asked as he started to wash the vegetables.

“This is my first time using the kitchen too, so your guess is as good as mine,” I said with a nervous laugh. I got up from the barstool to start opening the plethora of drawers until I found the utensils he would need.

“So you’re Polish?” I asked as I handed him a cutting board.

“Yes,” he said with a sense of pride.

 “Have you ever been to Poland?” I asked as I searched for two wine glasses in the cabinets. “One drink” I practically heard Riley’s voice in my ears.

“No, not yet. It’s definitely on my travel list when I go to Europe later this year,” he said as he stirred the beef inside the pot he found. 

“I’ve never been outside of the United States. Hell, I’ve barely been outside of Oklahoma. By the way, why were you and your assistant in Oklahoma City anyways?” I asked.

“My who–Oh, yeah, he and I had a business meeting yesterday afternoon, so we flew back this morning. Our flight last night was canceled. We showed up to the airport this morning and asked for the earliest flight to Nashville, so we were limited to Southwest. But hey, no complaints now,” he said. Although his back was to me, I could hear the smile in his voice.

“A business meeting for your photography?” I asked as I watched him sprinkle paprika into the pot.

“Yes, something like that,” he said with a smirk as he glanced over his shoulder. “Do you live in Oklahoma City?” he asked.

“Oh, God no. I had to drive an hour and a half to get to the airport. My hometown is tiny. We don’t even have a stoplight,” I said.

“You still live in your hometown?” he asked. I watched him chop the vegetables with great focus. His knife work demonstrated that he was skilled. I gazed at the veins in his hands protruding with every motion. He dumped the sliced vegetables into the pot and covered it with a lid. I realized I had been watching him for too long and almost forgot what he had asked me.

“Yes, everyone left except me,” I said with a laugh to hide the pain in my voice.

Josh immediately stopped what he was doing and turned to face me. I could feel him studying my face as if he were trying to read me like a novel. He slowly walked over to me. I felt my cheeks get warm as he stood so close I could smell his cologne over the aromatic dinner on the stove.

“Are you lonely?” he asked with a look in his eyes I couldn’t quite place. Pity? 

“Most of the time, yes. But it’s a feeling I’ve grown accustomed to,” I said with a shrug.

“I could sense that about you. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want you to spend your first evening in Nashville alone,” he said looking at my mouth. Did I have lipstick on my teeth? 

“Yes, I definitely appreciate the company. How long until the–what was it called again?” I asked.

“Repeat after me…” he said slowly. “Gulasz.” I watched his mouth closely as his tongue flicked between the syllables. 

“Gulasz…” I repeated back to him.

“Good girl,” he said with a wink. I felt myself forming into a puddle on the floor. “It should be finished in about an hour and a half.”

 I needed to distract myself from him. I moved around him to walk toward the counter where I had left the two empty wine glasses. “Sure, alcohol will help” I could hear Riley again. I realized the wine he had bought needed a corkscrew. The only wine I have ever had only had a twist top.

“This is one of my favorites despite it coming from a grocery store. If I had more time to prepare, I would have brought some bottles from my favorite winery,” he said as he began searching the kitchen drawers for a corkscrew. 

“I’m honestly not a wine connoisseur. I rarely drink,” I said timidly.

“We don’t have to open a bottle if you don’t want to. I’m perfectly fine drinking water,” he said, putting the newly found corkscrew back in the drawer.

“No, no, I would like a glass,” I said with a smile. 

“Are you sure? I would never ask you to do anything you didn’t feel comfortable doing,” he said. His face looked so genuine that I wanted to take a picture to remember it. 

“I’m sure,” I said, holding the glasses out to him. He took them from my hands but never broke eye contact. I couldn’t stand the tension any longer, so I walked into the living room and waited for him to bring us the glasses of wine. I glanced at my phone to see two notifications from Riley and 49 from Nashville Babes. I cleared the group text notification and opened Riley’s messages.

Riley: “Ok, so he drives a nice ass Jeep. Slay.”

Riley: “I need a check-in soon or I’m booking a flight.”

Me: “All is good. Dinner is cooking. I haven’t even had a sip of wine yet.”

I put my phone away as Josh sauntered into the room carrying two glasses of white wine. I placed two coasters on the living room table for him. He took a seat on the couch next to me while handing me my glass.

“Cheers, darling,” he said, holding his glass out.

“Cheers,” I said with a nervous laugh. We clinked glasses and took a sip of the wine. I could feel Josh’s eyes on me but I refused to look at him. I scanned the room looking for something to initiate a conversation.

“Have you always lived in Nashville?” I asked him.

“No, I’m actually from Michigan. I moved here about five-ish years ago,” he said, not breaking his gaze off of me.

“I’ve never been to Michigan either. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you,” I said timidly.

“I bet there is a lot about you that would surprise me,” he said with a wink. I took another drink of my wine to hide my smile. 

“Tell me about that ring on your finger,” he said candidly. Ah, the elephant in the room.

“This is my engagement ring,” I said looking down at my hand. I used to love this ring. I hate that I don’t anymore.

“When is the big day?” he asked.

“There isn’t one,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Marriage isn’t for me,” he said with a sigh.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I just don’t see the purpose. I can love someone, or multiple people in my lifetime, and I don’t need a piece of paper from the government to signify that love. I think society has a twisted expectation with matrimony. If I find someone with whom I want to share a connection with, I will focus my time and energy on that person for as long as I can,” he said finishing his wine. He placed his empty glass on the table next to mine that was still nearly full. 

“To each his own,” I said, eyeing our wine glasses.

“I don’t mean to offend you,” he said.

“You didn’t. I think you have some interesting ways of looking at the world. I’m sure that comes with traveling so much with touring,” I said. Josh looked at me like I had just said the raunchiest curse word he could think of. His shocked expression quickly faded.

“Yes, photography. Touring. Right,” he said as he stood up and made his way into the kitchen. That was weird.

I watched him check the gulasz on the stove before grabbing the opened wine bottle and bringing it back into the living room. “You need to catch up. I’m starting to look like a lush,” he said while pouring himself a second glass. 

“I told you I’m not much of a drinker,” I said, grabbing my glass from his peer pressure. I took another drink as he sat back down on the couch. 

“One more glass and I’ll show you that exotic dance routine,” he said, wiggling his hips. I busted out laughing. 

“Hold on, I’ll need to go get some dollar bills out of my purse!” I said jumping up. Going along with the joke, I polished off my wine and placed the now empty glass back on the table. I scurried into the bedroom in which I claimed earlier to find my purse. I was looking through my wallet when I heard Josh enter the room.

“So this is your bedroom for the weekend?” he asked, looking around. He walked over to the nightstand and placed two full glasses of wine on it.

“I’m not drinking another glass of wine,” I said.

“That’s fine. I’ll drink both,” he said with a smile.

“Joshua Michael, you are a lush,” I said with a giggle. He walked over to where I was standing with the dollar bills in my hand. 

“Are you going to tell me your name?” he asked.

“Do you normally go over to strange women’s houses when you don’t even know their name?” I asked.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” he said with a wink. He moved closer to me. My breathing became short and I found it hard to stay standing. “Honestly, it’s probably best if I don't know your name.”

“Really?” I asked.

“This right here,” he said, reaching out for my hand and toying with my ring. “This right here tells me I don’t need to know your name,” he said. “You will only be here for the weekend and I’m just here for the moment,” he said, still holding my hand in his. “No name… No strings attached,” he said before letting go of my hand. I watched him walk over to the night stand and grab his glass of wine. He was no longer looking at me but I couldn’t stop looking at him. He was waiting for me to make the next move.

Chapter Six

I walked back into the living room, leaving Josh and the wine glasses alone in my bedroom. I could feel the effect of the wine starting to take its toll on me. My lips were tingling with a numbness that was always the first sign of feeling buzzed. I grabbed my phone and texted Riley:

Me: “I’m still good.”

Riley: “What was for dinner?”

“You know you don’t have to go to another room to text him,” Josh said as he walked into the living room with his now empty glass in his hand.

“I’m actually texting Riley to assure her that I am still alive, thank you very much,” I said with a hint of annoyance. 

“Tell her I’ll put the leftovers in the fridge for her tomorrow,” he called out as he walked into the kitchen. I looked up from my phone to watch him stirring the contents inside the pot. 

“It smells amazing,” I said.

“It will taste even better. It probably needs another 45 minutes. Can you wait that long?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” I lied. I hadn’t eaten since I left the house this morning. The aroma was making my stomach growl in anticipation. I walked back into my bedroom to grab the new glass of wine that Josh had poured me. I took a few sips to try to trick my brain into thinking I was eating something. Alcohol on an empty stomach. That’s a good idea.

“I thought you weren’t drinking anymore?” Josh asked from the doorway.

“I changed my mind,” I said, taking another sip.

“The bottle is almost empty,” he said with a laugh. 

“Well, that’s not because of me,” I said, sticking my tongue out.

“It’s rude to stick your tongue out at people,” he said walking into the room. I tried to think of something witty to say back. The alcohol was definitely in my system now. I wasn’t drunk but the buzz was nice. 

“I’m not sure how much longer I can wait before dinner,” I said honestly.

“How about I take your mind off of dinner for a bit?” he said, closing the space between us. I gasped when he stood so close to me I could smell the wine on his breath. He took the wine glass out of my hand and placed it on the nightstand. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asked me while staring deep into my eyes like he could glimpse into my soul.

“I–I don’t know,” I said nervously.

“I’ll wait until you say yes,” he said, giving me a light kiss on the cheek. At that moment, I felt every nerve in my body combust. I was no longer solid matter; I was a liquid. Without hesitation, I grabbed Josh by the waist and pulled him into a kiss. His full lips kissed mine back and I felt his tongue make its way into my mouth. I pulled him tighter and felt his hands move up my back and into my hair. Every part of me was in this kiss. I lightly bit his bottom lip with my teeth and heard him let out a slight moan. I felt his hand grab the back of my head as he gently guided my body to the bed. 

I began kissing his neck, the same neck I had admired so much on the plane. I tasted his scent and licked the mixture of  cologne and sweat off of his neck. He began to remove his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. I inhaled suddenly when I saw his perfect chest. I moved my lips down from his neck and began kissing his pecs. I continued to make my way down to his stomach until the peach fuzz below his belly button tickled my chin. I looked up at Josh and saw him smiling as he watched me work my way back up to his lips. He pulled me in for another kiss and I whimpered as he moved his hands all over my body.

“Can I kiss you all over?” he asked me as I tried to hide my grin.

“Where did you have in mind?” I asked playfully. He moved his fingers across my collarbone.

“Here,” he said. Then he moved his fingers lower to my breasts. “Here,” he said again. His fingers began to move slowly downward until they stopped between my legs. “And here,” he said with finality. I removed my sweatshirt over my head and threw it to the floor. I began to unbutton my jeans when Josh’s hands stopped me.

“Let me,” he said in a seductive whisper. I moved my hands to allow him to remove them for me. He pulled my jeans down so slowly I thought I was going to melt into the bed. I could feel my panties sticking to me. He worked his way back up to my upper body and toyed with the clasp of my bra. With only one hand, he swiftly undid it and exposed my bare breasts. He’s definitely a pro at this.

“Wow,” he said while admiring my body. I moved my hands over my face to hide my embarrassment. 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, still covering my face. 

“Move your hands. I want to see you smile when I kiss you…all over,” he said gently. He moved his face back to my neck and I could feel his tongue swirl against my skin. His facial hair tickled my neck as his mouth moved to kiss my collarbone. Per his request, I moved my hands away from my face and placed them in his hair. I twirled my fingers through his curls as he brought his lips to my breasts. He took my nipple into his mouth and I let out a moan against my will. This noise that escaped me made him even more eager as he sucked and swirled his tongue against me. His free hand grasped my other breast and he moved his mouth to show it the same attention. I looked down to see him to find him staring at me as he moved his mouth even lower down my stomach.

“Can I remove your panties?” he asked.

“Yes,” I sighed. Just then, I felt his hands gently pull the sides of my lace underwear down my legs. He moved his body to the floor and pulled me to the edge of the bed. He went to place his mouth against my entrance when I squeezed my legs together and pushed him back with my hands.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

“It’s just… I don’t…” I said embarrassed.

“You don’t want me to go down on you?” he asked.

“I…I’ve never had anyone do that to me before,” I admitted.

“I want to show you what you’re missing,” he said, teasing my thighs with his hands. 

It’s not that Kenneth and I aren’t sexually active. Well, scratch that. I wouldn’t say we’re even active anymore, but we’ve had sex. We’ve had the same sex since we were teenagers. In the ten years we’ve been together, he has never gone down on me; I guess I’m too embarrassed to ask him. 

While he was still kneeling on the floor, I looked into Josh’s eyes as his head was positioned between my thighs. I gave him a nod and laid my head back to stare at the ceiling. Before I knew it, his tongue began licking my entrance. Oh my God. I felt his tongue work its way up to my clit where he took his time. With each movement of his tongue, I felt my legs twitch out of my control. He continued to grasp my legs with his hands as my body writhed on the mattress. “Oh my God,” I moaned aloud. My thoughts were escaping me as I felt like I had lost total control of my mind, body, and soul. It felt like he was consuming me with every stroke of his tongue.

“Oh my God,” I practically screamed as I felt myself cum. I tried to squeeze my thighs together but he held them firm with his hands and continued to lick my clit. This feeling was nearly leaving me no longer conscious. “Fuck. Josh,” I moaned as I pulled his hair into my clenched fists. He continued to lick me until I could no longer stand it. I let out another scream and squeezed my thighs together so hard I thought I may kill him. He slowly pulled back and I could see his facial hair was dripping wet. Was that from me?

He kissed the top of my entrance one last time before sitting back on his hands and feet. I laid still on top of the bed, nearly unable to move as I tried to process what just happened. 

“I’m going to clean up in the bathroom,” he said, waiting for me to respond before jumping up. I still couldn’t formulate a single word so I laid there waiting for my senses to come back to me. I heard him laugh as he left the room. I scrambled to find my bra and panties while he was gone. I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe what I’ve been missing. 

I went to find my phone on the nightstand to see Riley had sent me a series of texts. I skimmed through them and tried to hide my laughter as I sent another check-in text:

Me: So. Much. To. Tell. You. Still alive and very well.

I hit send and put my phone back as Josh entered the bedroom. He found his sweatshirt and began to pull it over his head. He climbed into bed to lay next to me.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly as I could feel his gaze on me. 

“What are you thinking about?” I returned his question with a question. 

“I’m wondering how someone could be engaged to be married, yet they’ve never experienced one of God’s greatest creations,” Josh said with a laugh.

“Ken–He just never has,” I said as I stared into his eyes.

“He’s a moron. You deserve to feel that every day. I love providing that service,” he said with a smirk.

“I can tell you know what you’re doing, but I don’t want to know about your history,” I said, biting my lip.

 “Your taste in particular…” he began to say.

“My taste?” I asked as my cheeks began to redden.

“You taste bitter and sweet… like a strawberry,” he said. “It’s incredible.”

“A strawberry?” I nearly squeaked.

“It’s now my favorite fruit,” he said as he kissed my forehead. He got up from the bed and handed me my clothes from the floor. “Dinner should be ready now,” he said with a laugh.

After freshening up in the bathroom, I made my way into the dining room to find Josh had already made us plates. The room smelled amazing. He opened the second bottle of wine and was pouring us new glasses when I took my seat at the table.

“This looks incredible, thank you,” I said as I waited for him to join me.

“It’s been simmering for a while,” he said with a wink as he placed my wine glass in front of me. He took the seat next to mine and handed me a spoon. I took a bite of the gulasz and fought the urge to moan again this evening. 

“Oh my God,” I said.

“I’ve heard that before,” he said with a smirk. I reached out and pinched him on the arm as he playfully pulled away.

“This may be one of the best things I’ve ever tasted,” I said as I went for a second bite.

“I used to think that too before, well,” he said, raising his eyebrow at me.

“Shut the hell up,” I said laughing.

“So I saved your number in my phone as Strawberry,” he said with a wink. Should I ask him about the Google Voice thing? No, I don’t want to look crazy.

“You think you’ll need my number after tonight?” I said a little too bluntly. 

“You’re still here for a few nights. Maybe we can do this again,” he said with a wink.

“I’m going to be too busy with bars, karaoke, dancing, and strippers,” I said with a smug look on my face. “I won’t be thinking about you.” He can tell I’m lying.

“Thank you again for dinner and for keeping me company,” I said as I collected our dishes to take them to the sink. Josh was searching the cabinets for plastic containers to package the leftover gulasz in. 

“It was an honor,” he said with that brilliant smile of his. It was getting late and I had yet to decorate the Airbnb before the girls’ arrival tomorrow. I was in so much bliss that I had forgotten why I was in Nashville in the first place. I needed to clear his lips, eyes, smile, voice–everything about him from my mind. This was supposed to be Riley’s weekend but thoughts of his tongue consumed me. I walked Josh to the door as he moved in to kiss me goodbye. 

“If I texted you, would you respond?” he asked with one foot literally out the door.

“I might,” I said as I bit my lip.

“I’ll take my chances,” he said as he walked out into the dark driveway. I watched him from the porch as he jumped into his Jeep to leave. I heard my phone ringing from the bedroom. I closed and locked the front door and then took off in a sprint hoping to see the name Plagiarism across my phone screen. Nope.

“Hey,” I said as I answered the phone with a heavy sigh.

“Why do you sound like you are out of breath?” Kenneth asked.

“I just had to run to the bedroom to catch my phone,” I said. “Why are you still up?”

“What did you have for dinner?” he asked instead of answering my question.

“I DoorDashed some pasta from a local Italian place nearby,” I lied into the phone.

“Really?” he asked.

“Mhm,” I said wondering why I felt like I was being interrogated.

“Then why is there no history of any orders from tonight on our DoorDash account?” he asked. Shit.

“I mean I called the restaurant and ordered over the phone. They delivered it,” I quickly added.

“Oh, and thanks for not leaving me anything to eat in the house,” he said. 

“I went grocery shopping before I left. There are plenty of things in the fridge–” I began.

“Yeah, it would have been nice to have some leftovers, but instead I have to cook for myself,” he interrupted. He sounded drunk.

“Look, it’s late. I’m heading to bed. I’m tired from traveling and decorating the house, so if there’s nothing else you have to say to me,” I stated. Kenneth immediately hung up; my brief moment of boldness must have pissed him off even more. I shot Riley a quick text to let her know that I was alone, alive, and going to bed so she wouldn’t be worried before I left my phone on the charger.

I was desperately tired but I needed to decorate the Airbnb for Riley’s bachelorette weekend. I carried the packages of penis and hot pink cowgirl-themed decorations to the living room to begin. To stay awake, I turned on the TV to pull up YouTube to play some background music while I got busy. With the remote, I searched for my possible new favorite band, Greta Van Fleet. I scrolled through the first couple videos until I recognized the face on the thumbnails.

“What the fuck?” I yelled.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

So I had my dad talking to me about cars today, telling me how I should basically avoid getting any cars except those made by Japanese companies because of how shitty other countries manufacture their cars (mileage and life span)

Do you have any thoughts on this? I don’t know much about cars and I thought of this blog while I was having this conversation so that’s why I send here

Do I have thoughts on this. Do I have thoughts on this. Babygirl (gender neutral) I have thoughts on aspects of cars you wouldn't even conceive of. I have thoughts on aspects of cars that aren't even real. Up the ante, folks! Ask me which cars are most bisexual!

That aside, for my opinion: Italian food is good. But of course, when I eat out in Italy, I don't go to any random place because "this country does this well", because I'm not ordering from a country, or a region, or a city, but from a specific joint - and some of them suck, some dropped or rose in quality, some are exceptionally good/bad with certain things, hell, some serve foreign food and then what's the adage matter now! That's why Yelp doesn't have country reviews.

Much the same, Japanese cars are usually pretty reliable, but Nissan spent the last two decades making a case against that claim (especially with their CVT transmission, a known ticking time bomb they've done fuck all about for years) with the help of whatever's left of the shell of Mitsubishi, and Infiniti is just the luxury brand of Nissan so ditto for it... indeed, another point to make, some cars are just based on, or outright are, cars from other brands. Infinitis are built by Nissan, and usually based on the equivalent Nissans. Except the QX30, which is just a Mercedes GLA - which probably was part of the same deal through which Mercedes got to sell the Nissan Navara as the X Class.

And there's a lot of cross-nationality brand partnerships like that, past and present, like the four-decade-long Mazda/Ford one, or the time Saturn had such a crappy engine they had to get Honda to give them a proper one. And by the way, the guy who posted that? He owns a different Saturn which took 360k miles of bare minimum care like a champ, because reliability can vary wildly within a lineup, and also a Volkswagen that's been a thorn in his side, which definitely wasn't the experience I had with mine, because mine is over twice as old, and a brand can completely change over time too! (You'd think they were run by people or something.)

In fact, reliability changing over time and models is the norm - not as drastically as, say, "older German cars were unstoppable tanks and now they're overly fit-prone electronics messes where everything is costly to buy and dastardly to replace" (which, however, is actually a notable trend), but usually in terms of "in this model, through these production years, this component was overly keen on failing" (as per my Accord post). Part of how Toyota (and by extension its luxury brand Lexus) rightfully earned its reputation of King Reliability is such cases in their production being especially few and far between, and none notable enough to become an automotive meme like Subaru head gasket failures (and no, the Camry dent doesn't count). So, say, Hondas may not be less reliable, just a bit less consistently so (but even there, Honda interiors tend to hold up much better than Toyotas', yadda yadda yay for nuance).

So if you are buying a used car (as you should) it's always important to research for potential common problems (for instance, pre-90s Toyota frames are to rust what the letter X is to Elon Musk) and thoroughly inspect the car, to check that nothing is broken and that it's been properly serviced.

That last part is very important, because reliability is not a tickbox, it's a spectrum, and a function of how a car was built and how it was maintained. Carelessness will kill any car sooner or later. Every car has fluids that will at some point need changing, wear items that will at some point need replacing, and the occasional part failure. Even yours. So even when it comes to your car, keep up with that stuff, or it will eventually catch up to you. (And if regular services would tax your finances, look into how to perform them yourself - you'll find it's a lot easier than you thought, you'll give it a shot and it will be very rewarding and save you a lot of money!)

And also, if a hinge starts squeaking, if something starts sagging, if some trim breaks, if you get a dent or scratch, take care of those too. Not because they make your car work less or worth less, but because they foster an indifference that snowballs into neglect. Working on those little things will keep you feeling like your car is nice and your loving effort is going to keep it nice, dammit - in much the same way as it's important to take care of yourself and your environment for your mental health, to keep yourself feeling like you are making it and with your loving effort you are going to keep making it, dammit.

Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[mari-lair]

Could you do an analysis on what Hanako’s life was like when he was human? And his relationship with the “fake” Tsukasa

As in the time gap between Tsukasa jumping in the hole and until he killed Tsukasa because in the 4pm book stacks, when spider face was cleaning up his wounds I see handprints on his wrists which kind of imply Tsukasa (or someone else) did…things

Also do you feel that the manga implies that sort of thing between Amane and Tsukasa too?

I am not very interested in Hanako’s relationship with Tsukasa, so I can't do a 'proper' analysis. But I’ll share some thoughts.

I personally don’t believe there is a ‘fake’ Tsukasa, he has always been weird, he never told anyone that the ‘god’ under the house copied his speech and he didn't show any hesitation or remorse about sacrificing animals to get his wishes.

Which was all to grant Amane's wishes, a brother he decided he would die for since four. He has been obsessed with Amane since way before learning Amane would kill him.

The only thing the “God” inside Tsukasa seems to have truly done is stunt his growth (he still acts like a child) and give him knowledge a normal human shouldn’t know.

Still, the horror child framing of this change is in the mom's point of view: Amane seems happy.

And Amane’s joy remains for years.

When Nene travels to the past and meets Amane, who appears to be at the very least eight years old, it is heavily implied he didn’t come with his parents, just Tsukasa.

At this point in the story, I don’t think he was being abused, physically or emotionally: He is eager to trust and help Nene, who is a stranger, and he displays a lot of confidence, honesty, and joy. Not being scared even when Nene try to steal his wishing paper.

He doesn’t seem particularly troubled with his family either. He ever implies a member of his family is crazy, or shows intentions of wanting to use his slip to ‘heal’ them, as a kid as sweet as him would likely be inclined to do. He seems a bit lonely cause his bro was focusing on something else that he can't interrupt instead of keeping him company, but that's about it.

And in Shijima's world they are buddies, which would be... weird... if Tsukasa had hurt him.

But I’ll be honest, considering how old this plot point is, Amane’s injuries are extremely vague. It could be anyone.

Maybe something happened, and Tsukasa got violent, and clingy to the point of being hurtful, maybe his parents snapped and Amane couldn't blame family, maybe is a third party, maybe is a curse, I don’t know, I don't plan to re-read the entire manga to get a better feel on it, but since you asked for my opinion, I personally think this turn for the worst in his life is partially the red house fault, and partially Amane’s own actions.

Let’s rewind a bit.

Tsuchigamori, or spider face, said the only person to alter their own fate was Amane. Not Tsukasa, who was influenced by future Kou, or Nene, who is always seeing the past: Just Amane.

Changing the future is such a big deal it became Tsuchi’s yorishiro, the spider can’t get over it. So I would say it is important to consider Amane's ‘normal’ future.

What changed Amane’s wish? What made him give up?

It wasn’t Tsukasa’s disappearance or reappearance. It was his meeting with Nene.

These slips are a big deal.

We are told they are rumored to make your wish come true in a land of supernaturals where every rumor so far was true. And that it is so hard to get all the five colors, that Yako was never able to, and she is an old spirit.

And the wording Amane used is... Concerning.

As the astronomy teacher he was fated to be, Amane would have never met Nene again, and even in the case he was still teaching by the time she was a student, she would have not been an ‘onee-san’ anymore: He needed to die before 14 for her to stay an onee-san when they met again all those decades later.

I do think the red house and Tsukasa and so on plays a big part in Amane’s fucked up life, but it is strange he only got injured and “gave up going anywhere” after meeting Nene and putting his wish on the Tanabata tree.

We have no info on this part of his life though so it’s anyone’s guess.

[karamazovposting]

On Ivan and bipolar disorder (part four)

Since this is (finally) the last part of this essay and I've already previously mentioned what it will be about, I don't have an introduction to make, but I do think I need to give a couple disclaimers before getting right into this mess. First one: I have a lot of explaining to do because this gets medical again and I can't just assume you all know exactly what I'm talking about and/or to what extent; I hope I won't overexplain or sound condescending. On this same note, I forgot to open part one by explaining that bipolar disorder is a chronic mental illness that is treatable through lifelong medication and not necessarily lifelong therapy but not curable because to me that's a given, so sorry if you didn't have much knowledge on the topic and had to read my yapping with little or even no context. Second one: I will be using some words (such as "delusional") that are to be taken literally, in the medical sense. I'm not saying this because I think you are all stupid of course, but to highlight the seriousness of what I've been talking about these past months; it seems to me that lately medical terminology regarding mental health has been watered down a lot by Internet culture to the point of it losing its meaning, with memes about being "delulu 🤪" or reducing mania to dyeing your hair by yourself at 2 AM leading people to not take these things seriously. I don't mean to be a spoilsport or anything, I like and share those memes too but I've actually been (hypo)manic and delusional in the past so I guess I have the right to joke about it at least. Maybe it's not that serious but I want it to be serious at least here, which is also why I've never referred to episodes as "mood swings". I don't do that in real life either, even when talking to people who don't know much about bipolar disorder, because I've always found the term reductive and misleading: everyone has mood swings, it came free with being a human being. In my opinion it contributes to the misunderstanding of this disorder and the people who have it; no, we are not moody by default and no, we don't change our minds every five minutes or are happy one moment and then suddenly sad the next (seriously, who came up with these stereotypes and how?), but I digress.

This said, let's get down to business. I want to start with one detail that is either one of the most absurd coincidences in the entire history of literature or proof that Dostoevsky was somewhat somehow familiar with bipolar disorder and decided to integrate some things he witnessed in Ivan's character (I guess without knowing, as at the time there was very little understanding of it to the point it wasn't really considered an illness and was referred to as circular insanity and later as manic-depression, which are both cooler names than bipolar disorder but again I digress) because I swear I can't find any other explanation for it: the timeline of The Brothers Karamazov. It might seem like a very small detail, but as soon as I figured out the timeline I thought of fucking course. Now, we all know the timeline of this novel is a little confusing at first as there are almost no indicators of how much time has passed between Alyosha running from one house to another first and shit going down second, but in the first half of the novel we know it all starts in late August and honestly I didn't make anything of it, but then the timeline becomes clearer after Dmitri's arrest and we end up in early November for the trial and I mean, nothing particularly interesting or peculiar about a book covering the events of a (little over) two-month timespan, right? Technically yes, because it's not the amount of time that has passed that matters, but the time of the year: if it all had, for example, taken place from late June to early August or from late December to early February I wouldn't even be talking about it, because there's no seasonal change taking place in those months. August to November, however, is another story. I also find it interesting that it's the change from warm to cold weather, as it's the one that's the hardest for most people (for me personally it's the opposite, the shift from Winter to Spring is a nightmare, but I'm a rare case when it comes to that); I don't really know why, but the seasonal changes are always delicate periods for people with bipolar disorder as they can trigger episodes, I guess it's pretty much the same mechanism that occurs in seasonal depression. So, let me lay the timeline out for you: the Karamazovs reunite in late August, Ivan leaves a few days after, Fyodor is murdered shortly after, so probably in early September and Dmitri is arrested the same night, then Ivan comes back five days later, the trial takes place in early November the day after Pavel hangs himself, and Dmitri is sentenced five days before the story ends with Ilyusha's funeral. This timeline detail seriously drives me insane because all the other puzzle pieces I've been putting together for a while could be related to other disorders/conditions as well, such as schizophrenia (schizoaffective bipolar disorder is a thing too but I don't have it so I can't really say anything about it) and autism (autism and bipolar disorder have a lot in common), or even to just personality, but this? It's a little too oddly specific in my opinion, but I'll just keep assuming it's a coincidence for the sake of my own mental health.

Anyway, this means the story starts when a seasonal change is approaching, which is already a delicate time on its own, and Ivan has to put himself in an unpleasant situation that has a high chance of turning into a shitshow (and it does): going somewhere he wants to leave as soon as possible to discuss things he doesn't want to discuss surrounded by people he doesn't want to deal with. That's not a good start at all and it would be enough to put me, someone who has been medicated for seven years, on edge (and it has in the past); no wonder he's pissed off all the time. And it's only the start since, as we all know, the worst is yet to come. I love that the reader only gets bits and pieces of the build-up of Ivan's episode through the other characters' points of view and I particularly love how said build-up reaches its climax; it doesn't happen when Ivan hallucinates the devil (as it's mentioned he's seen him before and has also had other similar experiences in the past, I'll get into that later), but exactly a moment before that. But first, let's focus on the main build-up moments we see bits and pieces of before that. I was impressed by how realistically the whole thing was portrayed, especially considering that at the time almost everyting about this disorder was unknown; still to this day, in 2024, many people think bipolar disorder is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation, with the person being "normal" one day and waking up "crazy" the next like some sort of magic happening overnight, but that's straight up not true, it doesn't happen. Bipolar disorder is way more rational than one would think (very fitting for Ivan, isn't it?) and at times you do have an awful amount of self-awareness but can do nothing with it, it's kind of like being stuck in the passenger seat of a car with a broken steering wheel and broken breaks that's speeding straight against a wall; you know what's happening but can do nothing but watch and hope the crash won't be that painful. And that's how I felt reading too, every time I saw those bits and pieces of Ivan's story I thought oh no it's happening. And Ivan knows it's happening too, as we see in Book Eleven.

I've focused on The brothers get acquainted, Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor already, but I have to mention them again because as I've already explained they're such a pivotal point; before that we don't really know what Ivan's deal is, but as soon as we get acquainted (sorry, I had to) with him we start to notice that something's definitely up, and there is one seemingly small detail that I just can't get out of my head: when Ivan gets up and starts walking after his talk with his brother, Aleksej points out to himself that he's swaying a little. Considering it's implied that Ivan has a problem with alcohol (it runs in the family after all) in other occasions too, that's probably an indicator that Ivan had been drinking during his stay. Not only is there a strong link between bipolar disorder and substance abuse (how could there not be? Shit's tough and sometimes you have to self medicate, especially in the 1800s), but alcohol and drugs can trigger episodes or make them worse; Ivan is also once again dealing with everything alone and trust me, that's recipe for disaster. And of course after that the aforementioned metaphorical car does nothing but gain speed and Ivan increasingly becomes angrier, restless and frantic: he has trouble sleeping, he starts isolating himself even more, he talks faster, his thoughts start racing, his speech pattern becomes more and more incoherent and he can't stay still as he's mentioned walking back and forth for seemingly no reason in different occasions; all textbook symptoms. He visibly looks sick too and bipolar episodes are known to take a toll on your physical appearance (I looked like a walking corpse for years) as well as having physical symptoms manifest along the psychological/psychiatric ones, such as headaches caused by stress, which Ivan frequently has, because stress is a major trigger for bipolar disorder (and Ivan is undeniably quite stressed). Sleep also plays a huge role when it comes to bipolar disorder as it can quite literally determine your faith: the the very first sign to watch out for if you feel something might be wrong is a change in sleeping habits; if they start changing significantly it means something's definitely up and you need to intervene as soon as possible (I have prevented episodes from either spiraling or happening at all like that but it takes years of practice). Ivan's sleep schedule, if we can even call it that, during his episode reminds me of my own during an insane (no pun intended?) mixed episode I've had and it makes sense since after every manic episode comes a "crash", and during mixed episodes you can crash back and forth for days; it happened to me. But what is a manic crash? It can be summed up with a simple phrase: what comes up must come down. It's like throwing a ball in the air, it reaches its peak up there and after that it's all downhill until it crashes down on the ground and the higher it goes, harder the crash: if you stay up all night while manic, you'll sleep all day while depressed, the more euphoric you are, the more dysphoric you'll be; so it makes sense for Ivan to sleep more and more as he "comes down". As for the fever, stress can do that. Brain fever is nothing but a 19th century literature thing because it's not a real diagnosis and at the time severe emotional and psychological upset was classified as either that or hysteria, which isn't a real diagnosis either.

Another puzzle piece that fits way too well is that little mention of him tidying his room himself despite having someone to do it for him; I know it's probably thrown in there to highlight his self-isolating independence, but cleaning and tidying are very common (to the point it's almost a cliché) activities to do when you're having a (hypo)manic or mixed episode because they help getting rid of all the extra energy and give you a sense of control over your life; for me it's almost compulsive (compulsions and obsessive thoughts are common in bipolar disorder because bipolar disorder is like three different conditions in a trenchcoat), I've found myself obsessively cleaning my bathroom every day for months and fighting the compulsion to do the dishes even when it wasn't necessary. It's mentioned that Ivan feels the increasing loss of control and is ashamed of it, which brings us to the very important topics, when it comes to him, of self-awareness and control.

I already mentioned it in part one but I want to say it again: control is crucial when it comes to bipolar disorder; something out of your control happening in your life or not having enough control over your symptoms and emotions is enough to send you down (or up) a dangerous path (sounds familiar?). It takes years of treatment to be able to deal with the unexpected and to let go of this control freak attitude, but Ivan is riding this rollercoaster with no seat belt so here we are. I think this reflects best in his attitude when visiting Pavel in the hospital after Dmitri's arrest, when Ivan says he came back from Moscow as soon as possible to fix the mess they all made in his absence. He's particularly keen on letting Pavel know he has no intention of playing games and it's clear he has a no bullshit allowed policy when it comes to his family, which checks out with what I went over in part three: Ivan's presence in the Karamazov household means quiet and order. Ivan definitely has a strong personality and to me it feels like that kind of strong personality one has to develop to stay afloat, and considering Ivan is not comfortable with showing "weakness"...well; I'll get to that later. I don't know if it's a middle child thing because I'm not a middle child but I'm the only diagnosed and medicated person in a family that feels more like an emotional minefield and let me tell you, I've been running that shit like it's the Navy for years and I'm pretty sure I'm the only case of a youngest son with eldest daughter syndrome in human history and yes, it's a bipolar thing. The need for control is so strong that it extends to your surroundings and therefore the people around you; I don't know how to explain it because it's not a manipulation thing, it's an I can't deal with my own emotions so having someone express theirs in an extreme way makes me uncomfortable and I also need a stable environment to not lose my mind so I need to de-escalate any situation that might trigger me thing; it's cleaning up after other people's mess for your own sake. And maybe a little savior complex, at least in my case. Anyway, if Ivan keeps his family stable he keeps himself stable as well, so he has to take matters into his own hands even when it's too late. Damage control is a very important skill if you have bipolar disorder.

I've already been over Ivan's visceral anger so I won't go over it again, but I want to spend a few words for that one part where he punches Pavel: been there done that, and normally I'm not even a violent person. It was a pretty similar situation too: someone had been tormenting me for months while I already wasn't doing good at all, took it too far one day and I just snapped; I didn't even mean to hit that person but it's not something you can gain control over when it gets to that point, so I get where Ivan was coming from and I'll defend him until the day I die.

Since I'm going in chronological order, as you might have already noticed, this means I've finally reached the fun part. Brace yourselves, this is going to be long. I don't have much to say about the whole devil ordeal that hasn't already been said, after all it's the most blatant manifestation of Ivan's mental health status, and I think it's more important to focus on what's around the hallucination rather than the hallucination itself. The first and most important thing I noticed is that Ivan is not scared, and it makes sense for him to not be because the narrator says that situation feels familiar to Ivan, making this the second time it's mentioned by the narrator that Ivan has a past history of both depressive and dysphoric manic (usually referred to as mixed) episodes, which alone qualifies for a formal bipolar disorder diagnosis; now that I think about it I could have just said this instead of making four posts about it, but where's the fun in that? Also I don't have enough information to armchair diagnose this 19th century fictional character with a specific type of bipolar disorder, so I laid out all the relevant information for you to interpet it however you want, if you're familiar with this stuff. I think he could be either bipolar I or bipolar II as there aren't many differences between those two types. For reference, I'm bipolar II (electric boogalo), which is usually mainly depressive and has less intense "ups" (mania when it's bipolar I and hypomania when it's bipolar II, but mania and manic are often used as umbrella terms and I've used them as such in this). Ivan's episode seems more mixed (having both manic and depressive symptoms at the same time, I should've explained it earlier, sorry) than purely manic and mixed episodes are more likely to happen in bipolar II and/or to those who start having symptoms in adolescence regardless of type and I think that checks out (go to part two for that). However, hallucinating a whole person and having conversations with them is a pretty big deal and my own hallucinations are nothing like that, usually hearing noises such as knocks on my door or seeing shadows or bugs at the corner of my eye and things looking slightly off and changing in shape and size; nothing big that I can interact with and I can easily ignore that the rare times it happens. Wikipedia says that any kind of hallucination classifies as mania, but my psychiatrists obviously know I've hallucinated in the past and still haven't changed my diagnosis so don't trust Wikipedia I guess, probably because my hypomanic episodes have never significantly impaired my ability to function (like they haven't significantly impaired Ivan's; trust me, he could be doing much worse). There is a lot of nuance that Internet articles lack in my opinion.

Anyway, let's go back to focusing on how Ivan feels: he's not scared, but he is exhausted and desperate. And it's heartbreaking. Not the hardest part of The Brothers Karamazov for me to read, not at all actually, but way too familiar. Ivan, who has a strong personality and a no bullshit allowed policy, who usually speaks in a firm voice and who refused to get help even if he knew his mental state was getting worse, breaks down (in private, of course) and begs and pleads; please leave me alone, shut up. He goes back and forth between desperation and rage (very mixed episode of him) and what struck me the most is how harsh his words are: almost every time the devil says something, Ivan replies with an insult or even more in a row. Yes, it's not that atypical of him considering how he talks and refers to Pavel or Dmitri, but it's, again, heartbreaking because he's never acted like that with them (or even with his father) and he knows the devil is actually himself. He's reserving his worst words, his worst attitude, his most burning and consuming rage and hatred, for himself. And he knows that. Worst thing of all to me is that at some point he covers his ears to not hear the devil, his own thoughts, and I've done that. Sometimes those thoughts are so loud that they seem to come from an outside source and covering your ears comes naturally. It obviously doesn't work. I have many other thoughts about Ivan's devil but they don't have much to do with bipolar disorder so maybe I'll write another post in the future if I feel like it. Also honorable mention to the thrown glass because apparently I've done something similar once even if I genuinely don't remember it at all (bipolar disorder also causes memory loss so you barely rememeber your episodes, it's kind of like trying to recall the events of a party you got drunk at, we're not getting into that though).

Maybe I see Ivan's story and character as less dark and tragic than the average reader does, because to most people constantly walking up and down restless with racing, out of control, incoherent thoughts and experiencing delusions and hallucinations is understandably a terrifying experience, but for me up until a couple years ago that was just a random Tuesday. I mean it is terrifying but you get used to it, after a while you understand the twisted logic bipolar disorder operates under and it becomes less scary (still is at times) and more annoying, you try to keep up with your meds and manage your symptoms as best as you can and just go on with your life while still trying to fight it when/if you can (it's less depressing than how I'm describing it I swear, I really don't know how to convey that feeling). I don't see myself as a walking tragedy or as doomed (anymore), mental illness is just mundane to me and so is to Ivan; I think Dostoevsky did a marvelous job at portraying just how uneventful it can feel from the inside and we see it the contrast between what's happening to Ivan and his reaction to it and also between the other characters' perception of him and his own perception of himself. There is nothing other than concern coming from his loved ones, no judgment, they acknowledge that he's unwell and they usually refer to him as such; Ivan on the other hand refuses to and therefore refuses to take care of himself or, God forbid, let others take care of him. He knew an episode was approaching, but as long as he was physically okay his mental state didn't matter to him. Ivan's biggest flaw is that he's independent and self-absorbed (for lack of a better word) in an unhealthy, negative, bipolar way and it only fuels his anger: the only valid judgment and opinion of himself is his own and he doesn't have a positive view of himself. The devil tells him the people at the trial will pity him and Ivan snaps; he doesn't want to be pitied, he doesn't want to be seen as "weak" because he has internalized refusal for "weakness" and "cowardice" (he asks himself if he's a coward in different occasions, sometimes straight up calling himself that). How could he not have internalized it? He was neglected growing up and as an adult he always seems to be held at an impossible standard due to the way his personality was forced to develop, from being expected to keep the peace between the Karamazovs to even after his father is brutally murdered; at the trial Ippolit Kirillovič says that if Ivan was so sure of his brother's innocence, why didn't go to the police after Smerdyakov's confession? To them that must mean said confession never happened and that Dmitri is the murderer, but in reality Ivan (poor thing) didn't go because he was delusional and thought the two of them were going to confess together the following day. People expect him to be able to think straight and fix his family's mess even when he can't. And still, he doesn't break down even at the trial: he's firm even in his delirium, he never falters, his voice never breaks, he's determined and strong like he's expected to be, even if the others can't see it. He does the right thing for himself, not caring about anyone else's opinion, and in a sense he's some sort of modern Cassandra, cursed to tell the truth without being believed by those who can save his family (and in some versions of Cassandra's myth she goes mad due to witnessing the fall of Troy). He never cries; there's only one mention of him crying in the whole novel and contrary to other characters crying, it's not something we are told by the narrator himself but it's thrown in a conversation between Katya and Alyosha by Katya. Ivan only cried in private, in front of the person who insisted to take care of him. This talk about his relationship with "weakness" and the (partial) act he puts up definitely makes more sense in relation to part three and I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

Speaking of the trial, I was struck by the attention brought to the Karamazovs', as a whole, ability to see and navigate through two opposite abysses. Dostoevsky, what the hell? Does it mean what I think it means? I don't know, but it sure is a familiar image to me and Dmitri does seem to walk the fine line between regular human behaviour and diagnostic criteria, but I don't have many thoughts about that, it could be anything really, mostly because none of them are actual real people. My own interpretation of those characters is more "literal" even if I know they're just tools to convey certain topics and messages and if you want to get more symbolic with them please do, I'd love to read it. Honestly I like the idea of a character with a heavily emotion-driven arc such as Ivan having a disorder that fucks with one's emotions so much; also seeing someone behaving like me being treated with tact and a particular kind of sensitivity by the other characters and the author himself is so special to me (at least considering the historical context, I mean they could've just thrown him in a madhouse and called it a day but nobody even thought about doing that) because uhm...I didn't receive such kindness growing up.

There are many characters from other books, movies, and shows that I love and relate to but have never seen as bipolar coded in any way, they were just relatable, but Ivan hits different as he's the first character I've seen that is so unapologetically bipolar. I've watched shows and movies with characters that canonically have bipolar disorder and even they can't hold a candle to him (let bipolar people or at least people who are familiar with them write bipolar characters I'm begging you). There isn't a single character from The Brothers Karamazov that I hate or even dislike (yes, not even Fyodor, he's not a good person but he's a good character) and all the brothers are special to me, but I just can't help having this soft spot for Ivan, I want to give him a hug and my meds.

I'm not really going to talk about Ivan's ending because while I do obviously have things to say, they don't belong here. I just want to say that him having an open and uncertain ending (I love open and uncertain endings) even more than the other characters do is very fitting.

And that's a wrap! Thanks for sticking with me and I hope this was an interesting and maybe even educational (there's a lot of ignorance regarding bipolar disorder and I try to raise awareness every time I can) read, but most of all I hope I managed to make sense. I like this part more than part three because I wrote it after surviving the seasonal change while during part three I was in the trenches but oh well, the past is past. No notes on part one and two, those are good I guess. Also I've said variations of been there done that a ridiculous amount of times in this whole thing but my Twitter display name is Ivan Karamazov kinnie for a reason. And I won't apologize for the shitty jokes by the way.

See you soon* with other literary analysis!

*= don't rely on my words too much, it could be tomorrow like it could be in ten years