#WE NEED MORE OLD SPIRIT THAT ARE OLD PEOPLE. NOT. NOT AN MIDDLE AGED OR WHATEVER AGE THEY STARTED OUT ITH. IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE

[tikki-wikki]

hi welcome to clouds pet peeves. erm. when it comes to certain characters that grow old and die of old age. when it comes to their spirit or whatever entity. it doesnt make sense that their spirits look like the characters design that started off with. are you saying that old people arent good enough for you</333

[lakefu]

A Perfect Warmth 🕯️

Summary: Astarion and Tav take a well deserved break away form the chaos of their adventures at an inn inside Baldur's Gate. They need to clean up and get back on the road but they keep getting distracted. Perhaps plans could be delayed for a night of passion...

Pairing: Astarion x female!Tav

Tags: 18+, Explicit, fluffy smut, brief Astarion trauma response, PIV, erogenous elf ears, scent kink, blood + biting, a bit of praise, a bit of edging... a sprinkle of cockwarming...., these guys are in love...

Word count: 3.5k Note: This was my first fic originally uploaded on Ao3 on 11/27/23, inspired by the patch #4 dev note mentioning adding sponges to clean your companions. I've made edits from the Ao3 post.

“Remind me to sell this junk next time we pass by a merchant, would you dear?” Astarion was seated at the edge of the bed and rummaging through his traveler’s pack, placing various items on the nightstand for further examination. Two silver forks, an old necklace, and a handful of various polished stones ended up on the table before he plucked out an intricate sapphire ring and held it up to the sunlight peeking through the window.

“Good taste,” he muttered to himself. He placed the ring on his pinky finger in amusement and resumed the scavenge. 

“It’s going to get difficult sneaking up on people if I have to lug this heavy thing around you know.” He threw over a glance at Tav, who was preoccupied with gathering laundry together in preparation for the next day.

“It wouldn’t be so heavy if you didn’t pocket nearly every shiny thing we came across,” she teased, without even looking over at him.

He gasped dramatically. “Framed by my own lover? Quite the scandal. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the near dozen times you’ve asked me to hold onto your things because your own pack was too full.”

“Hmm. Maybe. I guess that might sound sort of familiar…” She giggled to herself and walked into the bedroom to catch his eye, meeting him with a mischievous grin. 

“Why are you such a- oh! Now, what’s this you’re wearing?” Astarion blinked and scanned her up and down, clearly enthralled by the wardrobe change. She stood there in an old linen robe that was yellowed with age, definitely unlike anything he had ever seen her in before.

“Just some old thing I found in the dresser here, isn’t it just fabulous?” Tav's words were dripping in sarcasm and yet she smiled, performing a grandiose little spin in the middle of the room as if she was wearing the most beautiful ball gown in the world.

“I… it’s just so different from your usual armor or that drow nightwear you fancy so much. You look so… domestic.” His eyes were locked onto Tav intensely, with brow furrowed as he seemed to be confused by his own words.

She felt her heart skip a beat and a flush run to her face.

“And you think that’s a good look for me?”

His eyes softened and he paused a moment before quietly answering.

“Yes… I do.”

Tav watched as his smile faded and the gaze of his eyes became increasingly more distant. The atmosphere seemed to shift and a slight panic ran through her body. Did she do something wrong? No... and it didn’t require a tadpole connection to get an understanding for what had brought down his spirits.

Astarion hadn’t considered a comfortable domestic life was possible for someone like him. Even the slightest concept of such a thing had been buried for over a hundred years, and he never expected it to resurface. Was he worthy of such a thing, and was it even possible? 

Oh, it was possible. The evidence was standing right in front of him, spinning circles in an ugly bathrobe. He could see glimpses of a happy future that was so close to being a reality he nearly felt nauseous. Not because he was unsure of himself, but because there were still too many unresolved matters they had a duty to attend to. Too many missions and stupid little quests that could now go wrong and threaten this idea of a happy ending he never even knew was possible.

Everything was different now that he realized what was possible, and he suddenly felt an unknown and uncomfortable pressure. All he knew was that he couldn’t afford to lose in the upcoming battles. Battles that some would say were impossible, suicidal even. The thought of loss at this point was beyond unbearable. It was sickening just to think about.

“Hey!!” Tav ran up to where he was sitting on the bed and took his head in her hands. She placed a delicate kiss on his forehead, knowing she had to get him focused on something else.

“Why don’t we go to the shop right now and get rid of that stuff,” she motioned to the collection of items that had been gathered on the nightstand.

“Wouldn’t hurt to get some more coin in our pockets, right?” She looked at him expectantly and felt a huge relief as a light seemed to return to his eye and meet her view.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to wear that horrid robe to see the merchant,” he sighed and looked up at her pleadingly.

“Of course not!! I’ll change and- oh gods!!! We’ve got to get this blood off your face, the merchant is going to think we are trying to kill him!” Tav exclaimed as she lightly shook his shoulders, and quickly began examining his body to see how much cleaning would have to get done before they could leave.

“Blood… on my face?” He raised an eyebrow and brought a finger to his cheek.

“Yeah!! Well, it’s all over you really, dontcha remember earlier today, fighting those cultists?? You sneaked up behind one of ‘em and BAM!!! Just obliterated with a single strike, it was amazing!! You’re so strong…you know.” Her pulse was racing at the mere memory of the event as she delicately traced the side of his face with her fingers and ventured down to his chest. 

“Ah of course. That was all so terribly easy I’d nearly forgotten,” he said proudly, adjusting his posture and keeping his eyes on Tav’s hand movements sliding across his chest. Her soft touch was becoming more firm as her fingers made their way toward his arms, giving his biceps a teasing squeeze before leaning her face into his and teasing a kiss.

Before their lips could touch, Astarion wags a finger in between their faces as if to remind Tav of the task at hand.

“Alright my sweet, let’s clean up shall we? You’re my mirror after all. So, go on then.” He took her hands into his own and gave them a kiss before placing them back at her side, encouraging her to go and gather whatever it was she needed to get him cleaned up.

Right, the supplies. It was nearly impossible to remain focused after moments of intimacy with him, no matter how brief they were. She quickly moved into the other room to acquire the washcloths and bucket of soapy water that she was using for herself not too long ago. Hands full, she scurried back to the bedroom to meet her lover, who hadn’t moved an inch.

As she approached him, Tav could feel the tie on her robe becoming increasingly more loose with each step that was taken across the floor. The embarrassment hit her as she realized she didn't have any hands free to do anything about it. She quickly tried to put the bucket down by the bedside, but the bending movement only resulted in the robe slipping off one of her shoulders, exposing a bare breast.

“Oh? You haven’t got anything on underneath?” Astarion cocked his head in amusement, eyes unmoving from the newly exposed skin.

“Ye-yeah that’s the whole point of robes isn’t it? I was doing laundry earlier ya know and umm,” She laughed nervously and started to fix the wardrobe malfunction but was quickly stopped by a hand over her own. Astarion reached out toward her until both hands were around her waist and pulled her in close to his body. Fangs were peeking through his devious smile while determined eyes looked her up and down. With a singular finger he crept over to the loose knot of the robe’s tie and flicked it completely undone with one swift movement.

Tav shuddered and felt her body starting to run warm despite now being suddenly exposed to the cool air of the inn. She was completely revealed to him now, the robe only just clinging to her arms and draped across her backside.

“Gods, you’re beautiful,” he sighed and began kissing her stomach and caressing the curves of her waist. “Come here.”

Tav gasped as she felt his cold grip around her waist tighten as he expertly lifted her up onto his lap with ease. Pleased at the new angle, Astarion shifted his attention to kissing the crook of her neck and started moving down her chest. He delightfully found her nipple with his mouth in no time, and teased it in circles with his tongue just as he knew she liked it. His gentle sucking continued for only a few brief moments before he suddenly withdrew and cleared his throat.

“Ah, well. You can reach my face better up here I’m sure. For the cleaning of course,” he said smugly. The elf leaned back and admired the view of his lover, nude and flustered, perched oh-so perfectly on top of him.

“The cleaning…” Tav nodded and remembered she still had a warm and soapy washcloth in her hand. The urge to throw the stupid cloth into some unknown corner of the room was nearly undeniable. All she wanted in this moment was for him to take her completely, in any way he wanted, it didn’t matter as long as she ended up getting fucked into oblivion. So fine. On with the cleaning.

She raised the washcloth to his temple and slowly began to wipe away the dried blood by working down his face. His cheeks were a bit sunken as usual but flushed adorably in this moment, clearly enjoying the tender rubs of cloth on his skin. She continued rubbing down toward his chiseled jawline, across to his lips, and back up the other side to repeat the process once more. She ran her fingers through his silver curls and noticed his ears would need cleaning too. 

One hand caressed the pointy ear to keep it in place and the other brought the washcloth in for a gentle scrub. A quiet moan suddenly escaped the vampire’s lips.

Oh? She had seemingly discovered a sensitive spot and noted that she would have to continue her work carefully. The scrubbing continued but Tav couldn’t keep her eyes off his face now. His eyes were closed but still noticeably moving behind their lids, and his lips were slightly parted with his breathing becoming increasingly heavier and more noticeable. 

Astarion was in his own world of pleasure. What in the hells had he been doing these past weeks, aimlessly scrubbing himself clean alone in the river when they could have been doing this the whole time instead?

He opened his eyes just to make sure it wasn’t all a dream. She was still there of course, diligently and lovingly taking such good care of his body. A wave of maddening lust rushed through his core and he needed her closer. He needed her as close as physically possible and even more so after that.

Their eyes met, revealing intense desires. Tav lowered her hands and she spoke slowly, “Can you take your shirt off? There’s a spot I can’t get to with it on…” 

She wasn’t fooling anybody, but he obeyed without hesitation. The shirt was gone in seconds, revealing his pale and perfectly sculpted chest. It was a sight that Tav never tired of admiring, and was in fact the subject of distracting daydreams on the daily. She shifted her body closer to his and continued scrubbing his neck and chest, despite it becoming increasingly more difficult to focus. Deep breaths.

She had always been fond of his cologne that he was quite proud of concocting himself. The scent of aged brandy, bergamot, and rosemary was now forever an Astarion specialty that she could never forget. Even during times of battle or travel, a gust of wind could carry his essence to her and bring along with it a sense of reassuring familiarity. As she continued to wipe him down, however, a different scent began to come to the forefront.

It was something that did not seem completely foreign, but it wasn't immediately identifiable either. There was something about taking it all in that felt forbidden. Tav tried to pinpoint what she was experiencing. He smelled earthy… raw… unnatural… it was without a doubt, the undeath.

An undeniable heat rose through her body as she engulfed herself with this pure scent from her lover. The washcloth, the bed, the entire room seemed miles away, and nothing felt coherent except for a craving to be even closer to him. Nothing else existed except their bodies and her overwhelming desire to-

“Eager, are we?” A sultry voice snapped her back into reality, where piercing red eyes amusingly greeted her return. She suddenly became aware of a presence between her thighs and glanced down, realizing she was sitting atop a clothed bulge. His hands had a firm grip on her backside and his encouraging movements made it clear she had been absentmindedly grinding on him during her trance. 

“Shit, I got carried away…” She hadn’t taken her eyes off his crotch and began to notice that her excitement had left a dampness on his clothes. Embarrassment nearly overtook her, but a gentle yet confident hand grabbed her chin and brought it up to meet his gaze. He leaned into her with a grinning open mouth and kissed her passionately, tongues intertwining.

She felt his fangs briefly scrape against her tongue every so often until a metallic taste became increasingly noticeable. She didn't mind the blood, especially since it seemed to enhance his arousal as noted by his hips continuously jolting faster up into her exposed crotch. Tav was soon pleasantly overwhelmed between his deep kisses and desperate hands groping her at every curve of her body. She longed to give him everything; her blood for his hunger, her body for his pleasure. 

Tav released herself from the kiss they had been locked into and tilted her head so that her neck became exposed as an undeniable gift. His mouth lunged at the presented spot as soon as it was noticed, fangs immediately sinking in deep. Tav cried out at the initial impact but soon was reveling in the experience. It was a perfect mixture of pain and pleasure that she was only capable of experiencing from him.

He remained on her neck for a while, still tightly holding on to her body and keeping one hand free to reassuringly caress the back of her head. It was only after the blood flow slowed to a near stop did he cease his medley of licking and sucking at the wound. Blood dripped down his chin and onto his exposed chest, but he was ultimately unfazed. He leaned back, clearly happy and mostly satisfied, but there was still a different type of satisfaction he had left to chase.

Astarion's throbbing erection was begging to be released from its clothed restraints. He quickly untied his pants and shifted his underwear to finally free it. He moaned a few incomprehensible words of relief and stroked himself a few times before looking up at Tav for approval.

Tav had been staring at his length from the moment it was exposed, an impressive size for an elf, no doubt. Her eyes fixated on his perfectly pink tip, glistening with precum just for her. She immediately fantasized of shoving him down her throat until she choked and cried, but that was a fantasy for another day. In their current position, they both knew there was only one simple way of how to continue.

“Astarion,” she whimpered. “Fuck me.”

Tav sat up on her knees and positioned herself so that her entrance was just nearly grazing the head of his dick, ready to take him in completely at any moment. She grabbed ahold of his shaft and guided the tip back and forth through her folds until he was covered in her slick. The new sensation of the friction between them left them both gasping and desperate for more.

Suddenly, finally, his arms wrapped around her body as he pulled her down onto him with one firm motion. Astarion grunted through his teeth while Tav moaned unapologetically, focusing on relaxing enough to allow her body to adjust to his length inside of her. 

The temperature differences between their bodies only heightened the feelings of pleasure whenever they became one. Her warmness was intoxicating to him, granting a sense of safety and bliss that was impossible to achieve anywhere else. He was already so close to the edge in this moment, but was not ready to give in just yet. He wanted this moment of heaven to last as long as possible.

Meanwhile, Tav was having the time of her life riding her man like there was no tomorrow. She had no intent to slow down until a pair of large hands suddenly gripped her hips in a way that prevented any further movement.

“I’m not done with you yet, love. Didn’t you notice the mess I’ve made after feasting on you?” Astarion took a finger to his chin and smeared a bit of Tav’s fresh blood down his neck.

It was true, he had made a mess. Quite uncharacteristically of him in fact. Tav had assumed he had simply gotten careless in his horny and feral craze but no- it was clearly all calculated. 

“Just be still and sit nice and pretty on my cock. Finish the cleaning, then I’ll take care of you myself. How does that sound?” 

How does that sound? His words echoed in her head, which was already spinning plenty enough as it was. She was unsure if it was from the blood loss or her seemingly never ending carnal desires, but perhaps it was both. One thing was certain, however, he could convince her to do damn near anything speaking in that low and lustful tone of his. Without uttering a word she slowly brought the washcloth up to his chest. 

“Good girl,” he whispered. He felt her body twitch around him in response to the praise, and he leaned back to relax and enjoy these final few moments of intimacy. 

It had taken everything in Tav's power to remain still while she worked. It wasn't exactly easy to focus- she was being split in half by a whimpering vampire beneath her after all. Astarion’s skilled fingers had been dancing around her swollen clit the whole time, just enough to keep her stimulated but never enough to let her come.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the blood was all cleaned up. She hadn't even realized when it happened or how he did it, but his pants were completely gone now. She reached over to place the cloth down and awaited her reward of sweet release.

Astarion’s hands moved to the knees that were straddling him and slowly pushed them farther apart, spreading Tav’s legs open bit by bit. She inhaled sharply as she took him in deeper. He opened her up more and more until she lost her balance and fell backwards onto his expectant embrace. 

“Relax darling, I’ve got you,” He purred in reassurance. 

Astarion took her entire weight in his arms with ease and laid her down amongst the soft pillows of the bed. He nestled himself comfortably between her legs, making sure their bodies were flush with one another. Nearly smothered by his body now, all Tav could do was claw at his back and arch her hips into his powerful thrusts. His mouth frantically traveled across her lips and neck with desperately wet kisses until he settled near her ear with a playful nibble.

“You’re so beautiful…” He whispered tenderly, while the rhythm of his lovemaking became increasingly sporadic. “So fucking perfect… Gods…just for me… I love you… so much...”

“Star, I- ah!” Her words cut short as she felt something snap within her. Pure ecstasy- she was falling and flying somewhere a million galaxies away and never wanted to come back. Obscene noises and curses filled the room as they rode out each other’s high in tight embrace. The smell of sex lingered in the air as their bodies heaved with labored breaths, finally collapsing on each other in exhaustion. 

They laid together a while longer, exchanging soft kisses and enjoying the short moment in time where nothing else in the world mattered. Eventually, Astarion rolled out of the bed and stood up to stretch. 

“Tsk, looks like it’s my turn to clean you up my dear,” He said with an accomplished grin, eying how her thighs were dripping with his sticky mess.

“I’ll be right back, don’t move an inch. Actually, I doubt you can move at all after that, ahaha!” He laughed and leaned over to brush aside a strand of Tav’s sweaty hair that was stuck to her forehead before walking over to the other room. 

“Shut up… dummy…” she smiled to herself and rolled over, feeling at ease enough that the weight of sleep was starting to overtake her.

“I love you too, Astarion.” Her eyes closed as she drifted off into a peaceful slumber, knowing that her lover would soon come back to her side like he always did, and always would.

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — As we mark the grim second anniversary of the Ukraine conflict this Shabbat, I’m reminded of a haunting melody I heard in the city of Poltava last month.

I was standing before Sonia Bunina, a plucky 17-year-old, when she opened her mouth to sing when an air raid siren rang out.

I flinched. Not Sonia — she didn’t miss a beat.

“Kol haolam kulo gesher t’zar meod, veha’ikar lo lifached k’lal,” she belted out before seeking shelter. “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is to have no fear at all.”

Sonia, like so many Jews I know in Ukraine, is many things — determined, grieving, focused — but she’s certainly not cowering.

As she sang those words by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov — the Ukrainian Jewish sage whose followers continue to come by the tens of thousands to his grave in Uman annually — she embodied the prayer’s indomitable spirit.

Sonia and I met outside Poltava’s Hesed, part of the network of Jewish humanitarian hubs founded by my organization — the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC — more than three decades ago. Today they’re a lifeline to tens of thousands of Jews facing loss and strife. Since she was a toddler, Sonia has been attending activities at Hesed — her mother coordinates cultural programs for the elderly, and she connects teen volunteers like herself with isolated seniors, a critical source of comfort these last two years.

These days, traveling to Ukraine feels like a pilgrimage — there’s a pull in my soul to visit family near Lviv, to bear witness to Ukrainian Jewish resilience, and to be inspired by the clarity of purpose that is so palpable there. Since my first trip in 2011, I’ve been eight times. Last year, I wrote about how a year of crisis had transformed the ordinary into the sacred in Ukraine. Now, visiting feels even more essential with the worsening humanitarian situation.

Ukrainian Jews aren’t blasé about these challenges — far from it. Just take the delicate ballet of emotions on their faces when checking their phones during an air alert — contacting loved ones, scrolling through photos of devastation, and analyzing Telegram chats speculating on a given rocket’s make and trajectory.

But life goes on — there’s work to do — and though they’ve lost so much, they refuse to give any more away.

Showing up for each other, whatever it takes, is now baked into their very essence as Jews, and in Ukraine, there are tens of thousands to serve — hungry old women and displaced young families, disabled Holocaust survivors and stunned middle-aged professionals, shocked to now need help when they were once donors and volunteers.

They act fearlessly to ensure their communities make it through this crisis, body and soul intact. Can we expect anything less than boundless creativity from the people who birthed Sholem Aleichem and the Baal Shem Tov?

“These bombings, all these things that are killing people, destroying houses, leaving children homeless … it’s very scary,” Galina Limarenko, an 82-year-old retired nurse, told me in her small bedroom in Berezivka, taking note of the warm blanket, firewood, and other winter supplies my colleagues provided. “Thank God for the Jewish community, which never gives up and always shares even their very last piece of bread.”

I saw that irrepressible spirit again at our Beit Dan JCC in battered Kharkiv — a shapeshifting wellspring of strength just a few dozen kilometers from the eastern border. Shortly after Feb. 24, 2022, the center became a staging ground for truckloads of emergency aid — part of the 800 tons of humanitarian assistance we’ve delivered so far.

A few blocks from missile strikes, it now hosts children’s camps and soulful Shabbat services and operates a “kids hub,” offering academic enrichment to children who haven’t had in-person school for years — robbed of normal childhood by the pandemic and now the ongoing crisis.

And amidst blizzards and blackouts, Beit Dan has also become a “warm hub,” a safe place for beleaguered Jewish Kharkivites to charge their devices and obtain a hot drink and warm meal.

“If you share in our pain, and provide support where it’s needed, I’m forever grateful,” said Nika Simonova, Beit Dan’s program director. “The ability to remain human is the main thing. Done right, I believe that can save the world.”

That’s why we at JDC, aided by a coalition of partners including the Jewish Federations, Claims Conference, and International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, deployed a historic response to this conflict and remain committed to the Jewish future here.

We’re focused on ongoing humanitarian support for more than 41,000 Ukrainian Jews, expanding trauma relief, closing children’s educational gaps, and getting unemployed Jewish community members, among millions of Ukrainians plunged into poverty, back to work.

There is no doubt that the Jewish world is now responding to crises on multiple fronts, including this one, but we have been here so many times before. We must draw strength from our history and from the sure knowledge that this is what we’re built for. Our compassion and commitment, when leveraged with that timeless sense of mutual Jewish responsibility, means we can tackle the challenges we face — and come out on the other side even stronger.

As I walked through Lviv on my last day in Ukraine, I asked my cousin Anna Saprun, a 25-year-old business analyst, how this period has changed her.

“I hate what’s brought me here, but I love who I’ve become,” she said with a fierce and feisty smile. “Nothing scares me anymore. I feel powerful.”

Two years after the conflict began, Ukraine’s Jews are inspired anew each day, resolute in the sure knowledge that they know exactly who they’re working for — each other.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

What do you think of Grrm's portrayal of religion?

Hi anon, this is a really interesting question, and it took me awhile to put together what I hope is a coherent answer.

For context, I think GRRM's background is important to keep in mind. George is almost exactly my parents' age and belongs to the same demographic of American anti-war ex hippies who aged into broadly liberal baby-boomers. Their radicalism has largely mellowed over the years, they may not be the most up to date on the appropriate terminology, and they tend to prioritize nonviolent solutions to systemic problems (my mom often tells me the younger generation needs to do another March on Washington). One thing liberal boomers also tend have in common is that often they grew up religious but, as they entered their 20s and went to college, broke away from the churches of their childhood. My family is full of ex-Catholic liberal boomers like George. They might have dabbled in Buddhism or Hinduism in the 70s, New Age mysticism in the 80s or 90s, and ended up settling into statements like, "I'm spiritual, but not religious." Almost invariably, they have a sort of disdain for organized religion, which they associate with a kind of yokel mentality, a place for anti-Choice anti-LGBTQ traditionalists. Although they will profess "to each his own," to the average liberal boomer, the church represents regressive values and they cannot imagine why anyone would willingly return to it. Even those who did remain religious take great pains to make it known they are not like those Christians. And to be fair, liberal boomers have a good reason to feel this way. The churches of their childhoods were not fun places for people whose own ideas and values went against post-WW2 broadly white middle class values. Unsurprisingly, SFF authors tend to fit into this category.

And this sort of bleeds into a lot of 90s SFF. You see a lot of worlds that have religion, but rarely do you have characters that are religious, and even more rarely do you have sympathetic young protagonists who are religious. You might have the occasional kindly priest or nun type, but far more often these characters will be abusive, mean spirited, or narrow minded (think of Brienne's childhood septas). Religion is often treated with the same disdain by in-world characters as it is by the authors themselves. You might even have worlds that are almost entirely secular, with vague references to "The Gods," but without any real religious traditions constructed around them (Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series, which features two vague dieties, Eda and El, who seem to have no religious traditions surrounding them whatsoever). You might have cultish religions that are actively dangerous and must be stopped, or you might have Catholic church analogues, existing in opposition to everything cool and fun. Protagonists tend to be cynical non-believer types, or they might start off as true believers and lose their religion along the way. Rarely are they allowed to have sincere and abiding faith.

And you can see a lot of this in George's writing, in the way he portrays the Faith of the Seven and other religions, and the way the fandom receives them. The Faith of the Seven is Westeros' answer to the Catholic church, but there are also the Old Gods, the faith of R'hllor, and others, often presented in opposition to each other. George himself sees religion as a divisive force, and in ASOIAF, we see religions in conflict with each other, we see them weaponized to fuel vendettas, we see them used to drive prophesies and start wars. There's a clip somewhere, of George at a panel, where he's talking about religious conflict and his take is very reminiscent of George Carlin's-- you can tell he knows the bit. "Are you really going to kill all of these people because a giant invisible guy in the sky told you too? And your giant guy in the sky is different?" George asks, receiving a round of applause from the crowd. It's a very modern view on religion, which is fair, I think. He's writing for a modern audience who have modern conceptions of the church, and he is making a deliberate point about the harm religion can do. .

What I do think is missing, or at least downplayed, are the ways in which the medieval church was really a driving cultural and social force in medieval Europe. We live in a secular society, so we have the luxury of disregarding the church in a way that medieval people did not. This is one major way in which the worldbuilding of ASOIAF departs from the real world middle ages. To portray the medieval church as a primarily regressive institution that mostly drove conflict is too simplistic. The Catholic church is what culturally unified most of western Europe into what was known as "Christendom." The clergy served political functions, such as providing an important check upon the power of medieval kings, and when the power of the church declined, despotism grew. Socially, for most western Europeans, the church was also the center of day to day life. Insofar as medieval peasants had any opportunities for leisure time and celebrations, most of these revolved around the church. The church was for centuries a driving force behind art, music, literature, and architecture, and it also performed important social functions, such as operating poorhouses and leper-houses, and providing educations for children.

And all of this was just extremely normal. Most people prayed multiple times each day, and sincerely believed in heaven a hell. The state of one's soul after death was such a real concern that the sale of indulgences-- a way that you could pay to get your dead loved ones whose souls were in purgatory into heaven more quickly-- became a major racket for the Church. I've seen the HotD fandom react to Alicent Hightower's level of devotion calling her a religious "fanatic" and I cannot stress enough how absolutely normal Alicent would have been in medieval times. This is where I blame the framing of the show more than George, because it does set Alicent's faith in opposition to Rhaenyra's seemingly more modern values, but does it in a selective way. For instance, Alicent comes off as prudish, and modern audiences hate a prude, but we never see how her faith would have certainly inspired her, as queen, to take other more progressive actions such as giving alms to the poor or bestowing her patronage upon motherhouses. In another post about the fandom perception of Valyrian culture, I talked about how this modern view of devout belief, particularly Catholicism, tends to cast anything that is presented in opposition to it as an unequivocal good, and I see this sort of rhetoric slung around the fandom a lot, "why would you defend the pseudo-Catholics who hate women??" But the pseudo-Catholics are really just normal medieval people, and they didn't hate women, they simply lived in a patriarchal society and the material conditions did not yet exist which would allow them to challenge that in any meaningful way.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

W5: Oral histories are bad

For an edition focusing on being more aware of different cultures, W5 sure does spend a lot of time hating on oral histories; NOTE: LONG post and critical of W5, don't read if you like it.

"A history of the Garou is both impossible and reductive. The stories of the past that werewolves tell are oral histories, part legend and part reality, revised, reinterpreted, and redone, according to the needs of the generation doing the telling. They contain multiple narratives that are all considered to be true. The finer details, locations, and players in these grand dramas may shift with the times, and with the storytellers spinning the tale for those listening to them. " - W5 core, p.22 "The Garou Nation, as it was known, existed for a brief period of relative success, but even there, its actual duration is unknown and varies by who’s reciting the history. Was it decades? Centuries? Millennia? Because the historical events involved in it date to various times across myriad locations, to say with any certainty is impossible, and even spirits speak of it in terms unsuited to the physical world. " -W5 core, p.37 "Much of the Garou’s history is oral, more within the realm of legend and even self-mythology than a true history. Given the animistic perspective of Garou, when one says, “the mighty Silver Fang rode upon Falcon’s back,” that might literally mean a werewolf rode an enormous falcon in a legendary time, or it may mean that a falcon-spirit carried the werewolf, or even that Falcon himself transported the werewolf through the Umbra.

So it goes with the Litany, a code of Garou custom that’s equally as impressionistic and open to interpretation as the animistic lens through which werewolves see the world." -W5 core,p.46 "The Litany is an imperfect set of rules by which to wage a guerilla war of resistance during an ongoing Apocalypse. Those rules mean different things at different times to different werewolves, and the oral tradition of the Garou is rife with the Litany being used to justify self-dealing or even atrocity. " -W5 core, p.47 "Above and beyond the tribes and the septs, there used to be something called the Garou Nation. It was understood that all Garou were united in their war against the forces of the Wyrm.

Some dispute whether this was ever really true. Were the Garou of old really united in a global nation in the mythical prehistory of Garou legend at a time when humans had barely managed to get from one continent to another" -Shattered Nation, p.37

"The Garou are creatures of the present, their traditions built on oral storytelling. This means that factual accuracy is often not considered particularly important as long as the broad outlines fit what the crowd at the moot wants to hear. The stories of Garou from the '80s and '90s are already ancient history, having happened before most Garou today were even born.

Garou legends are notoriously difficult to date accurately. When was the War of Rage or the Impergium? In the Middle Ages? In the Stone Age? Who knows, and the spirits are no help either. Their sense of time is so different that it’s impossible to translate into human reckoning."

-Shattered Nation, p.40

I apologize for the paste spam, but I wanted to show you that this is not a one-time thing. This is constant. This is not that the books are saying that the garou specifically are bad at keeping histories straight, it is saying that with oral storytelling, it is impossible to tell when things happened. Which doesn't pass the smell test even if we focus solely on Europe. People have, for generations, kept information up through oral histories. Minor things might change, but the core details are there.

Think about it, how many of your family histories are written down? Most likely they are told orally a put into memory. And the time these events happened is usually a big part of it. Those of you with immigrant backgrounds will know why your family left, what kind of journey it was and when they arrived. It gets even less acceptable once we get to Indigenous people. Australian Blaks are very strict about accuracy and so there is no drift in stories over the centuries. Most Native American nations told their histories orally, maybe using metaphor but still recalling exact details over the centuries. W5 says that garou don't know when the Garou Nation existed. Given the former silver fang king is alive, it is clear it was within living memory. Yet the book still paints the garou as ignorant of their own history, the origins of their laws and so on. What is worse, is that this is often contrasted with written history being accurate. Essentially implying that the correct history is only found in books. A VERY Western European take if I ever heard one. Let's remember that, according to W5, any tribe can be found anywhere. So those garou found in mostly oral cultures just failed to record their own history? Writing like this, in a work with heavy animistic inspirations from Native American cultures and other animistic cultures, is insulting because it suggests only the western method is accurate.

[tobiasdrake]

Great, now I have my old unwritten and extremely derivative novels on the brain and the construction outside is making work on Digimon impossible so I'm just going to ramble about things I came up with when I was about 10-15 years old and never wrote here.

So, the basic idea I had was that this wouldn't be the story of any one particular character but rather the story of a world. Like Marvel, one of my many many inspirations, I wanted it to feel like a sandbox that countless interesting lives could exist within.

The basic idea of the world was this. Eons ago, there was a great red dragon and a great white dragon. I don't know why I picked those colors. The two dragons fought each other for control over the Earth. Whichever dragon won, the races they governed would supremely rule the entire world.

The red dragon won and banished the white dragon and its chosen races from the Earth, condemning them to live in a dying world with scarce resources.

This was supposed to be a perspective thing. The people who know the ancient lore would describe it as the red dragon saving us from wicked creatures, but in the world of the "demons" as we call them, they describe it as a great evil that was done to them by a cruel usurper. Neither dragon is actually good; This was just politics. Two feudal kings wanting to claim each other's land, with a winning and losing side writing their own histories.

The red dragon, upon banishing the white dragon and the demons from the Earth, fell into a great slumber in its domain outside of reality. The humans built a great temple there accessible from a thousand secret doors in a thousand places across the planet. There a secret society worships the red dragon to this day and keeps the red dragon's idea of peace by hunting and slaying demons who cross the barrier into our world.

I originally conceived of the "Hunters" running around using swords and axes but later redesigned them to be a modernized military force with tactical gear and guns. This is because I realized it'd be silly for a secret society of monster fighters to not update their arsenals as weapons technology evolved.

There are also vampires, who are basically the middle ground between human and demon. Too human to fit in among demons and too demon to be accepted by the "Hunters".

My vampire rules were that vampires are super strong and fast, they regenerate from injuries, they never age, and also they each have special powers. They drink blood because of a biological need; They'll waste away without it. Any kind of water burns them, the sun takes away their powers but doesn't directly harm them, and being impaled through the heart paralyzes but doesn't kill them. They can be killed by decapitation, fire, or by being completely submerged in water.

There were also four eight Elemental spirits because I wanted there to be more than four so I made up four extra elements. The eight "Guardians" are the protectors of the Dragon Temple and have a sacred duty, but it's been eons since they were called to that duty and they've all just sort of flitted off.

Each of the Guardians has a Final Fantasy crystal embedded in their heart, basically parasitizing the human it's implanted in and merging their identity with the persistent ongoing identity of the Guardian. You take in the crystal of "Blaze", the Fire Guardian, and basically merge with the Blaze lineage, acquiring eons of memories and knowledge from everyone who's ever been Blaze before.

The idea was that the eight Guardians would rarely show up together in a story but any one of them might crop up somewhere. The Lightning Guardian is a mercenary who does paid jobs for demons. The Water Guardian is literally the Lady in the Lake and safeguards the holy sword Excalibur, forged from a fang of the red dragon. The Fire Crystal gets experimented on by Not Umbrella Corporation "Biodyne". Etc. etc.

To open the door to the inner sanctum of the temple where the red dragon sleeps, the eight of them must come together and combine their powers. But there hasn't been a reason to do that in over a thousand years and they aren't just gonna hang around the temple forever. They have lives to lead.

Over on the other side of the barrier, there are many races under the white dragon who are colloquially called "demons" by humans. They have their own societies in a decaying and dying world, though much of their culture is simply built around survival.

Over time, the barrier between worlds grew weaker, and the demons have started to cross over more and more. Though many are refugees just looking for a better world to live in or to escape political persecution, whether the Hunters distinguish between them and genuinely dangerous demons is a crapshoot, often up to the individual.

The demons are governed by meritocratic aristocracies united under the guidance of a Lord. The aristocracies have wealth and privileges above the common serfs, but also a culture that allows leaders to be directly challenged by their underlings. If one of your workers can prove that they can do your job better than you can then they can lay legal claim to your throne.

On paper, anyway. But they're also a rigid society whose current leadership polices their followers through dogma. The Demon Lord throne is presently occupied by a medieval human warrior king banished from his lands by Plot whose policies discourage his followers from independent thought.

Under the present Demon Lord's dominion, groupthink is rigidly enforced, and individuals who speak against the common good - as he defines it - receive Outcast brands over their left eye to identify them as having lost all citizenship rights and protections.

This is pretty much a complete violation of the spirit of the meritocratic culture that he usurped. A fact that has not been lost on recurring character and Token Friendly Demon Leminice (pronounced Leh-minn-iss), who was the prince of a noble house until he was branded Outcast for educating himself on forbidden ideologies.

Leminice and his human bestie, a Hunter named Electra, were basically going to be set up to be the Agent Coulson of the series. They would appear in supporting roles for many of the stories, not as the main characters but as part of the overarching mythos being built from one seemingly unrelated story to the next.

There were a lot of complicated ideas swirling in my head for this universe and the many, many characters I created to live in it. But it was all hamstrung by the fact that I grew up on action cartoons and battle anime, and didn't know of any way to tell a story other than "And then they FIGHT."

So the actual story wound up full of stuff like "And then the Demon King personally comes to San Francisco to invade it, and the hero beats him in a swordfight and saves the world! And everyone immediately stops fighting when he dies because I guess he was a loadbearing boss."

I never could figure out how to make it work as a series of novels, especially since my brain is more configured to think in terms of TV and film than in text anyway so a lot of my ideas had specific camera angles and stuff that I couldn't figure out how to translate into words.

Multiple attempts to start were made, but they all inevitably petered out. I'm just not equipped to be a writer. So eventually it was all just left behind.

[fantasyquests]

Rewatching Season 1: Some thoughts on episode 7

1. Friendship. This episode feels very true to the spirit of Tolkien's works because of the strong emphasis it places on friendship: Durin and Elrond, Nori and the Stranger, and an interesting new friendship that is forged between Galadriel and Theo. It's also important that in all of these cases it is a friendship between members of different races of Middle Earth. Durin and Nori find themselves in almost identical situations, going off-trail to help their friend who is an outsider, except that this time Nori's community is more sympathetic and supports her decision.

The exchange between Theo and Galadriel is wonderful, and reveals so much about both of them. I frankly don't understand people who complain that the pacing is too slow - as far as I'm concerned, the entire episode could have been just Theo and Galadriel walking and talking! It's also interesting to juxtapose the image of Theo holding the hilt of a real sword (the one that Galadriel gives him), to the previous episodes where he held the hilt key, and was tempted by the forces of darkness. A part of Theo's desire for empowerment is quite understandable for a boy his age, who wants to be recognized as a grown-up individual, and I'm glad that Galadriel gives him this recognition. Unlike Bronwyn, who asked him to stay in the tavern with children and old men during the orcs' attack, Galadriel calls him a soldier. Not because war is a good thing (she says explicitly that it is not), but because she recognizes his need to fight for himself.

I don't understand why Galadriel believes that she is to blame for losing the war against the orcs? Even if she hadn't convinced the Numenoreans to come to the Southlands, the outcome would have still been the same, Mordor would have been created the same way, and probably many more people would have died. At least the Numenoreans were there to save some lives, help evacuate villages and take care of the survivors.

2. Ashes, destiny and faith. In this episode we have two communities struggling to rise from the ashes and come to terms with what they have lost: the Southlanders after the eruption of the volcano, and Harfoots after the Mystics have burned their caravan. Interestingly, ashes are also mentioned in the speech that King Durin gives to his son. He says that fire is that aspect of the dwarven nature which tells them that everything is eventually consumed and "fades to ashes". The speech is meant to convince prince Durin that the Elves' destiny is already determined, that they either have to fade and die in Middle Earth or sail back to Valinor. He talks about believing in the design of the Valar, and it's quite similar to what Galadriel tells Theo: "We have little choice but to trust their designs, and surrender our own." "My home is gone", says Theo. "Where is the design in that?" This question is relatable for anyone in our world who has wondered the same thing - how do you keep faith in some benevolent higher power when terrible things happen to you and your community?

Galadriel replies, "I cannot yet see it", which I think is a better and more humble attitude than that of King Durin, who believes he understands clearly the will of gods. The motif of sight, foresight, or insight, is another one which permeates the entire episode, which is called "The Eye", which begins with Galadriel opening her eye after the volcano explosion, and in which Miriel goes blind. "The Eye" also makes us think about the Eye of Sauron: what if he is overseeing everything and it is his design, and not the design of the Valar?

Links to the previous analyses: ep 1 ep 2 ep 3 ep 4 ep 5 ep 6

[lya-dustin]

I Sang of Leaves of Gold

Summary:Erinti of the Maiar knew their brother would come back and that the time of the elves would come to an end.

She had not known the time would come so soon. A millennium and a half of peace comes to an end no matter how much she tries to stop it.

Chapter 1

Gil Galad x Maia!oc

Cw: pregnancy, magic, visions

A repost of my fic that i had in my lotr/rings of power blog when s1 came out

The great tree had been a gift.

A symbol of Ilúvatar's blessings and their hard earned peace.

And yet it had begun to wilt. Its vitality had begun to decrease little by little. Drip by drip, little by little until it bleeds out with every leaf and the trunk rots away.

It wasn’t noticeable yet, only to Erinti who was made with the purpose of caring for all the beautiful things Yavanna had created it was. The Maia had chosen to stay in Middle Earth, to heal the lands after so much devastation and live with the elf king whom she fell in love with a millennium ago. Her destiny was to nurture life and now she finally had the privilege of nurturing a life inside her womb.

She is soon to give birth and now ill omens appear all around her.

“When the Tree loses it’s life then you will know the time of the elves will be done.” Eönwë’s pronouncement echoes in her ears as it did when she chose to stay instead of returning to the Undying Lands where no pain nor sorrows could ever touch her.

But Eönwë had said Elves would have one more age in Middle Earth before they are all called back to Valinor. Erinti, Lady of the Flowers and Queen of the Noldor, would not leave until the babe in her womb flourishes and becomes the flaming beacon of Lindon.

Why was it coming so soon?

Why now? Why now when their happiness would finally be complete?

“What ails you, Erinti?” Her husband asks as she felt the tree for signs of blight.

Melkor had been defeated, and Sauron too weak to come out of hiding, but evil remains and it will resurface again just as it had been shown in the Music at the beginning of the world.

There is something in the Music, something that will ruin the melody and only Erinti alone could hear it. She is one of the few here, Tom Bombadil and the wizard in Rhûn lived too far, and, in her condition, travel was out of the question. There was no way for her to consult with them without causing great alarm everywhere.

“Something in the earth is sapping the life of the Great Tree. I cannot find why or how it is happening; I tend to it personally every day, yet the blight returns.” Something terrible is coming, the queen feels a black chill in her bones as she finds the blight in the roots.

Erinti sings the old songs she was taught as she seeks to heal the tree, but the spirit of it rejects her help. As if it were incompatible with her even when Erinti was made to care for it and all the other plants in the world.

It has never happened before.

“It has rejected me?” she gasped as she felt it dissipate into the world instead of feeding the tree.

“Perhaps the tree refuses to take the feä of a pregnant woman. You need all your strength now that you are nearing your time, meleth nîn.” Gil-galad had a tendency to hover over her this past year.

The last child of Maiar and Eldar blood had been Lúthien Tinúviel, and Melian had refused to beget another after laboring days and nights to bring her into this world. The difference in power and kind made unions like there’s almost impossible.

But Erinti Lotheriel has long desired to nurture life inside of her, and after so many centuries they had finally conceived their only child. The Maia had taken every precaution to keep her state from affecting her abilities and the safety she provided for her people, it was not that.

“It has never refused me, even when we conceived our son almost a year ago. It makes no sense for the tree to reject me for carrying a child of my own blood now when it did not do so then.” The red-haired woman shook her head and kept her focus on the silver trunk and golden leaves that still appeared full of life and yet on the precipice of dying. “Something is wrong, I can feel it in my feä, and the tree can feel it in the earth. It is an evil that feeds off hatred, fear, and blood thirst.”

The maia gasps as she sees it in the just beyond the trees. They have never been one to see the future beyond that which relates to her purpose, but she does.

Galadriel paving the way for the Dark Lord to rise and Sauron laughing as the huntress becomes the hunted.

Galadriel giving into Mairon’s seduction as he stokes all that angers and hurts her and becoming what they feared most.

“Galadriel.” It is barely a whisper, as if the queen feared making the vision true just by speaking it out loud.

“Galadriel! She will awaken him, she will not mean to, but she will!” Erinti clutches to her husband in fear of what will come if they cannot put a stop to it.

For the sake of the world. For the sake of all that live in the All-Father’s light, Galadriel cannot be allowed to reach wherever Erinti’s fallen brother has been imprisoned.

For the sake of Middle Earth, she must leave it.

[aurumacadicus]

There are still a couple weeks left to read Iron Widow, but we’re voting for our next book now so we have plenty of time to get it for the first day of reading on October thirtieth! Book summaries are under the cut! Each new title is in bold for clarity.

If you’d like to join the book club, now or for the next book, feel free to send me an ask and I’ll give you the link to our Discord!

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

Nathaniel is a boy magician-in-training, sold to the government by his birth parents at the age of five and sent to live as an apprentice to a master. Powerful magicians rule Britain, and its empire, and Nathaniel is told his is the “ultimate sacrifice” for a “noble destiny.”

If leaving his parents and erasing his past life isn’t tough enough, Nathaniel’s master, Arthur Underwood, is a cold, condescending, and cruel middle-ranking magician in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The boy’s only saving grace is the master’s wife, Martha Underwood, who shows him genuine affection that he rewards with fierce devotion. Nathaniel gets along tolerably well over the years in the Underwood household until the summer before his eleventh birthday. Everything changes when he is publicly humiliated by the ruthless magician Simon Lovelace and betrayed by his cowardly master who does not defend him.

Nathaniel vows revenge. In a Faustian fever, he devours magical texts and hones his magic skills, all the while trying to appear subservient to his master. When he musters the strength to summon the 5,000-year-old djinni Bartimaeus to avenge Lovelace by stealing the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, the boy magician plunges into a situation more dangerous and deadly than anything he could ever imagine.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.

But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club finds themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories – she’s come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there.

Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back, and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?

There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them, and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.

The Girl in the Letter by Emily Gunnis

A heartbreaking letter. A girl locked away. A mystery to be solved.

1956. When Ivy Jenkins falls pregnant she is sent in disgrace to St Margaret’s, a dark, brooding house for unmarried mothers. Her baby is adopted against her will. Ivy will never leave.

Present day. Samantha Harper is a journalist desperate for a break. When she stumbles on a letter from the past, the contents shock and move her. The letter is from a young mother, begging to be rescued from St Margaret’s. Before it is too late.

Sam is pulled into the tragic story and discovers a spate of unexplained deaths surrounding the woman and her child. With St Margaret’s set for demolition, Sam has only hours to piece together a sixty-year-old mystery before the truth, which lies disturbingly close to home, is lost forever…

Read her letter. Remember her story…

Cinder by Melissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless Lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

[systastic]

Our headmate is a moth, he'd love a dim, but cottagecore aesthetic headspace, if that's possible! something with a library for our archivist, though!

möth… we have a moth shifter too!! :] needed a bit of a brain break from alters ghsjfhs, so many level threes to do and yet so little progress… -🌳

Dark Cottagecore Headspace

Cabin in the Woods

Those who reside in the house have an acute awareness of the outside world and what is happening in the body’s day to day life beyond the bounds of their imagined realm. Any others who live in spaces beyond the house are NPCs and nothing more. The cabin itself is an expansive place; hallways twist and turn, wood creaking under your feet, as the house itself guides people where they want to be. Each headmate has a room of their own within the cabin that they can decorate and alter to their heart’s content.

Gated Greenhouse

A large greenhouse that sits next to the cabin in the woods. It feels out of place at first sight: what is a large and ornate building doing here? Stepping inside reveals the truth: this is the fronting room used to control the body. Here, they may control the body, passively view the world around them, or offer commentary on what is occurring at the moment. Current fronters see what the body sees through the glass windows of the greenhouse.

Blackwood Pond

Deep, still waters sit nestled a few yards away from the house. The pond is used as a communal memory pool; anyone who dips into its waters can wade through the depths and dredge up memories that the body keeps hold of. It is surprisingly cool in the pond, and better still, no leeches in sight. Clusters of fireflies flock to the banks of the pond come nighttime, depositing new memories from the day and milling about in peace.

Unattended Tea Party

A dirt path winds through the trees to the left of the cabin. Situated at the end in the middle of a clearing is a round table with chairs pulled up next to it. This place, though odd, is always stacked with snacks, refreshments, and other odds and ends for the residents of the Cabin to use. It used to be governed by the Mad Hatter — maybe that’s why the tea tastes so strange?

Wooden Hollow

Darkness surrounds you. Rot and dead leaves squelch under your feet. Things that are better off not remembered or repressed are all shoved into the hollow, far out of sight. Delving into the depths can earn pearls of wisdom or long-forgotten snippets that can be essential for the body to know. Beware, cavern-dwellers: not all of the things found within the hollow are as simple to handle as stray memories. Rumors speak of repressed alters and irredeemable persecutors trapped at the bottom for their crimes… Let’s hope those rumors aren’t true.

Fairy Ring

Wishing upon a star is good in theory, but it won’t get you very far in an imaginary world. A seemingly ordinary ring of mushrooms solves that problem in a snap thanks to the help of fae magic. Unlike most fairy rings, this one doesn’t spirit the person away never to be seen again. Instead it serves as a quick and easy teleportation device to take alters from the Cabin and its surroundings to either the Mirelands or Briarwood. How very convenient! Some say it can take you to other realms, too - but no one quite knows if that’s true or not.

Archivist’s Spire

What is a librarian without their library? Bored, that’s what. Fortunately for the occupants, the Archivist’s Spire is crammed full of all sorts of knowledge. Need to know about what the body did in fourth grade? It’s in here. Childhood memories? That’s here, too. All of the non-communal memories are stored away in here with a sorting system that only archivists and other memory-keepers can understand. To everyone else, it’s merely a strange library that they can’t seem to unlock.

Briarwood

Some ways away from the cabin is a sleepy little town chock full of NPCs. People of all sorts live here: an aging old woman and her spry adult son, a new family with redhead twins, those who spin rumors and tales alike, and a handful of shopkeepers that always seem to know just what people need. It’s more of a distraction than anything; since the people here are not alters, it’s a nice place to go if you want to get away from real life.

image source here

The Mirelands

At the far edges of the headspace, beyond the lush forests and rolling hills, lays a dark and swampy area known as the Mirelands. This place is the center of all myths and rumors that the NPCs spread: vicious monsters, ghostly apparitions, tricky little fae, and more. It’s not recommended to visit the Mirelands unless you’ve got a serious thirst for a fight. Stay here for too long and you may get “gloom rom” - a mysterious affliction that saps a headmate’s energy, leaving them sluggish and blurry.

[legitimatesatanspawn]

Could you please tell me where Morgoth is during The Lord Of The Rings? (Is he alive?)

I'm gonna answer this one first because it's the easiest:

Morgoth is alive and not on the world although his evil power still is infused in the world and his malicious lies still plague countless minds.

The First Age ended when he was tossed into space and cast out, far from the world he coveted and the Flame of Creation he sought. Beyond Time as well. He's unable to return as long as the Valar and the Sun and Moon and the Evening Star continue to sail around the world. What Morgoth is up to we don't know - or at least it is not written by any being living in the world. The Valar believe existence beyond Ea - the universe beyond the world Arda - is empty and lifeless but it is suggested that the original Song of Creation echoed out and created more than just the world. And Eru- who is God - saw that it was good even as twisted as the Song was by Morgoth - then Melkor - in his attempts to change the Song into something he thought was better.

(There's always That One Person in band practice who thinks they're funny, I swear.)

The world being made with song but still needing to be shaped by hand is an incredibly fascinating image. Because the Song wasn't just Making the world but the instructions of the world itself. In a way it was a prophecy that every angel that existed then took part in shaping.

The changes, the imperfections, the clashes... it made the Song better even if it wasn't perfect anymore. But because he kept trying to claim the world and make it his, Morgoth was The Enemy and all his works were cruelty and corruptions of good things.

There's a prophecy of what is functionally Ragnarok where the Final Battle will be fought, the ships of the Sun and Moon crash to the planet, and the Silmarils will break open and whatever Feanor made of them will become known. (Personally it always sounded like they're talking about nuclear detonation as part of the Doomsday Apocalypse.)

But part of that prophecy is that Morgoth will return.

Sauron's dead. Saruman is either sort-of dead or cursed to wander the world as a spirit forever. The orcs all retreated into dark unseen places, likely deep within the mountains - which funny enough is also where the Dwarves are implied to be hiding out at. If there's any Elves still alive in the world they don't make themselves known and same with the Hobbits but they are implied to be still around… just hard to see. Maybe Hobbits have become folklore takes of Brownies or Leprechauns or other fae things, much in the same way that the meta lore suggest that stories of Elves gradually became tales of the Fairies Courts.

Our world, by the lore of the Red Book of Westmarch from which the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were "translated" from, is the modern version of Middle Earth. We live in what is likely still the Fourth Age. Sauron's defeat heralded the end of the Third Age two/three years later. The World began an untold length of time before the First Age, which lasted about 590 years (by their calendar). The Second lasted 3441 years, and the Third ended after 3021 when Bilbo and Frodo sailed to Valinor.

Whether they survived the sailing (remember: Bilbo was Old AF when they set sail with the Elves and Gandalf) and lived there in some place on Aman or on the small island of Tol Eressea isn't clear. While people who were neither Ainur (Valar/Maiar) or Elves were no longer allowed there after Numenor's Biggest Screwup, exceptions can be made and Bilbo had no idea he bore the One Ring and it was through him and Frodo (and Sam but he stayed in the Shire) who were able to keep the Ring from Sauron's hands.

But some day in our future, Morgoth will return. In what form we don't know nor when or how. He will be fought and finally be completely defeated, although there's some variations where it is said that if humans choose to side with him then all will be lost. But if defeated then the lost lands will rise back above the sea (Beleriand but maybe also Numenor). Humans and the angelic beings alike (the Maiar and the Valar as a whole) will sing a new Song of Creation before God Himself and remake the world anew.

If it's not super obvious, the series is a blending of various myths and cultural ideas as well as Catholic teachings. So there's a lot of heavy handed stuff regarding God and morality. And a lot of questions raised and worried over by not only the fans but Tolkien himself.

[kitttttchaos]

I’d like to explore the idea of this new generation of stories. A lot of people are bringing up the fact that stories nowadays don’t feel like they used to, in the sense that so many are not well developed, especially with the influence of social media. So what does this mean for the next generation of readers, writers, and filmmakers?

I’ve noticed that a lot of the new things coming out are written as if for children, but executed as if for adults. Mean Girls 2024 is like the Gen Alpha remix. The dialogue and the costuming is catered as if towards middle school girls, but it seems like writers are forgetting just how young middle schoolers are. I’m willing to bet that high schoolers would find the new mean girls very cringe, but middle schoolers wouldn’t. But the trailer makes it seem so sexual that it can’t possibly be written for an audience of twelve-year-olds. The same goes for the live action Avatar remake. The plot and dialogue is written like it’s for kids who can’t fully comprehend personal growth, but there’s so much violence that it can’t possibly be for kids. (To be fair, I haven’t watched either of these for myself, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think the people who have would agree; also no hate to the people involved in either production) But then you remember that some twelve year olds are full blown media influencers, who dress and speak about things inappropriate for their age, and in turn encourage their young viewers to do the same (ie. Sephora kids)

Eight graders are like armies for the media. Think about how One Direction exploded due to its audience. How the Sephora kids thing has been started by social media influencers. So, are filmmakers and writers trying to cater to the next generation of oddly mature consumers? If so, it seems like they’ve hit the mark. It’s a little too early to see how examples like Avatar will do in terms of money, but Mean Girls has grossed over $100mil in comparison with a $36mil budget, and if more things written like it do similarly in the box office, I can’t say I’d be surprised.

But even if art imitates life, life will also imitate art. The newer books and movies of today (when I say books I mean the mish mosh of tropes that get pushed around on TikTok, but that’s a whole other thing. Even so, they cater to a generation of readers who doesn’t seem to have grown up on reading) get the idea of kids that are so immature, even though they discuss and dress like they aren’t. But what those movies don’t get, in their haste to mirror Gen Alpha, is that kids are also complex human beings. The original Avatar got that, and so did the original Mean Girls. The reason I keep bringing up books is bc I was thinking about the Spirit Animals series, which is criminally underrated for its brilliant portrayal of character growth and redemption arcs, that I read when I was a kid. As Gen Z, do we want the next generation to grow up with horribly flat, oversexualized stories? We critique Gen Alpha’s inappropriate maturity, but we’re also the ones who are going to be writing for Gen Alpha in the future.

This idea is a little thrown together, and probably someone else has said it, but I think that we need to stop writing what sells. Stop the consumerist take on reading, of buying thousands of trashy romance novels to never pick up again. Stop writing cash grabs like Wish. Stop trying to mirror something about a generation that is not fully developed. I want Gen Alpha to have the feeling of being completely immersed in a story as a kid, and then growing up and thinking it was a story just for kids, but reading/watching it again and realizing just how good it was. But they won’t have that with this fast take on stories. What kid is going to enjoy the hell out of Wish, come back at 22, and think, “Wow, this is brilliant.”? But people do that all the time with the original ATLA.

I kinda hate myself writing this, but does anybody get what I mean? Why are stories getting so bad? Why are the things that make the most money absolute trash???

Anyway lol. Grain of salt, just my thoughts, yada yada yada. Lmk if u agree.

[lpsotd]

hopefully this isn't too weird to say but - i read the tags on your last post, and you said you were on your last year of childhood – don't worry about that!

im currently 25 and im starting to collect lps again, and ill tell you, even though there's more responsibilities, you still get to be a kid! no one ever truly grows up! my 67 year old grandma keeps one of her ragdolls from when she was a kid and always sews it new dresses. one of her favorite hobbies is watching anime with me! my 46 year old mother loves tv too, but one of the things she's crazy about is boardgames! we have a big collection and we all always play together. (she's got crazy competitive spirit btw. i never win). my 28 year old sister goes out with her friends just to wander around town and eat fast food like she did back when she was a teenager. you're never too old to have fun :) you just gotta let yourself have it. <3

thank you for this !! tbh it's kinda hard to let myself be a teenager when i seemingly have so much to do kgjdnbkjgb, and it doesn't help that i have less-than-supportive around me (not friends. i mean family) who are quick to belittle me or dismiss the things i'm interested in. i just can't stop thinking about the time my aunt saw my lps collection and started laughing, it hurt a lot especially since she's (usually) the more understanding one, and it may have been a "woah??" kind of surprised laugh instead of a "i'm making fun of you" laugh, but it felt that way kjgsnbkjgsfbn

i did have friends who actively made fun of me for what i was into (i no longer associate with them, so phew), and they're one of the main reasons i'm always so hesitant to share and infodump about the stuff i like kjgnbkjdbnkdfgjb

i feel like kids shouldn't be pressured to grow up fast. like, once you reach a certain age, you shouldn't have to stop playing with dolls or watching cartoons. you can stop doing those things when you aren't interested in them anymore, not when people tell you that you should stop, because they don't know anything.

in february i'm gonna be 18 and it's a tough concept for me to grab. i've always been told that i am ""mature for my age"" (i am not, by the way.), and i think that also kinda warped my perception of myself, because i've always felt like i Had to act a certain way, or else people are gonna see me as childish instead of this serious and mature person, but i was only like, what, 14, 15 ?? i should not have felt that way !! i should've been doing what young teenagers usually do, not feeling the need to impress middle aged adults.

it's only now that i feel like i have a sense of self because i'm trying to distance myself from certain people (ahem. family) who made me feel that way, and i'm trying to embrace who i really am: i am not mature or serious at all. i'm 17 years old who enjoys toys, cartoons, coloring, and playing video games with my friends. but i'm also ready to embrace my up and coming adulthood, and i'm serious when i need to be. i'm me and i think that's good enough.

very sorry i went on a bit of a mini tangent there. your ask made me very happy, so thank you !!

[heliosthegriffin]

Shadow Knight and Magic Girls XVI

Ao3 Link

Chapter Sixteen

----

Jaune sat down at his table, his grandfather sitting parallel to him, still cleaning the gun. "So, who taught ya how to clean a gun?"

"Self-taught," Jaune answered honestly. "Watched some scroll-videos."

"Should have watch them again."

"It's a backup, I don't use it regularly," Or at all, he had just snatched if off some-guy who had tried to stick him up awhile back, then just kinda of forgot about it, it was just a .22 pistol, it just wasn't going to go through Shadow-monster (Or Grimm, he supposed) bone plating, or not very far.

Jeremiah Arc stared at his grandson with icy sharp eyes. "I could tell," His grandpa shrugged. "Though, considering what you're up against, It doesn't surprise me."

Jaune thought about denying it for a second, but considering how his grandfather had already raided one of his caches, and had plenty of time to investigate his workshop, and his white-board with his notes on Grimm. Yeah, that'd be just stupid.

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Well, my only grandson comes in next best thing ta dawn, I hear rumors of a maniac running around saving people from 'wild animals' and criminals, and I happen upon a workshop full of dangerous gadgets and shit, and said grandson looks like he's had the shit beat out of him. What do you think I want to talk about?"

"Maybe, 'hey, Jaune, I know it's been over a year since we last talked, how's school going?' or perhaps, 'Jaune, what do you think about doing after you graduate? It's only a year off.' Something like that."

"Yeah, It'd be great to talk about that, if you weren't running around with a death wish."

"And how is that any of your business? I don't need your permission."

"You're my grandson, you're life is my business until one of us dies," He stared Jaune in the eyes, putting the gun in the middle of the table. " And, it won't be you."

They took each other's measure for a moment, neither willing to break eye contact first. In that moment of eye contact, they both say each's other unbending will, and the warrior spirit within.

Jaune saw that his grandfather was old, but he was weathered into shape, forged by experienced, and endured the whole of the world having thrown itself at him, yet he still stood strong. He had fought from one end of Sanus to the other during the Great War, and was still active now in his nineties, doing work men a quarter of his age would be terrified of.

Jeremiah saw in his grandson a young man, but he was carved by circumstances, ambushed by a situation beyond his understanding, but remained unbowed to destinies whims. Nor, was he anywhere close to being done. His will burned any bright, and his spirit burned hotter than anyone he met.

The younger Arc broke eye contact first. Having a firm understanding that his grandpa while was old, he was old in the same way a oak was old.

He may have lost much with age, but skill and experience was not one of them, and more than likely he was the more dangerous of the two in the room despite the massive age difference.

"Hehehe," Then his grandfather started laughing. "Good, good. The Arc spirit burns brightly within you." He breathed out. "So, why not start from the beginning?"

"What?" Jaune looked puzzeled. "You're not going to stop me?"

"Fook no, I've seen you're measure. Had I found you lacking, I'd have knocked you're punk-ass out and dragged you home, but you're a warrior, and I'll respect that." He gave a grandfatherly warm smile. "Now, why do you tell grandpa here a story."

Jaune relaxed. Then looked at the time. "I'd like to, but I have school today, and I need sleep."

His grandpa looked at him confused. "You do you're nightly business, and still go to school?" He shook his head, then typed a message into his scroll.

"What are you doing?"

"Tellin' my boy, something."

"Dad? What are you telling dad?"

"To call the school an tell'em you're having a family emergency. You're with me today, now." He smiled deviously. "Get to spinning that yarn!"

----

Deep in the mountains of Vale, in a valley secluded from the rest of the Kingdom, at the foot of a mountain there was a overhanging cliff three-hundred feet up, where icy runoff sped off the cliff into a pool of crystal clear-water.

At the top of this cliff, was a magnificent mustache attached to a glorious specimen of a man, along with his four proteges. "Boys, you've come far in the time I've known you." He turned around, his shadow falling over them as the sun-rose. "But, now is the time to put your mettle to the test!"

"Yes, teacher!" They stomped in unison, slightly shaking the cliff, voices echoing across the valley.

Peter Port proudly nods at them. "Follow me, boys!" Then charged off the cliff, taking the three-hundred foot dive with no hesitation.

His students looked in awe for a moment, then Cardin boldly stepped forth. "I shall follow!" Then took a swan dive off the cliff, as Sky, Dove, and Russel followed suit.

Up above them, a crow watched puzzled for several minutes, before then flying off, after they all resurfaced at the bottom, everyone but Port shivering and battered.

----

"So, what have you done with the Lien from the Xiong?"

"After everything I told you, you're curious about the money?"

"Well yes, as a matter of fact, I am."

"I stored it away, I wasn't sure what to do with it. It doesn't really feel right to use it, considering it's origins."

"But, you're fine with using the equipment they give you, and other such benefits?"

"Point taken."

Jeremiah shook his head. "See boy, they're criminals that for sure, but it's really not going to help anybody by sittin on it. Besides, if you want to get anywhere in life, you got to invest wisely, and if you want to get out from under the Xiong's thumb, doubly so." He paused. "Besides, not like the Kingdom's are much cleaner, and I raised your daddy on money from the Kingdoms."

"Ok, but what should I invest in?" Jaune didn't exactly have any ideas where to start.

"Hmm, good question, and I'm no money guru. Hmm, well you're daddy is pretty well off, you're sisters are all doing well. Vale's a big place, though. You could try reinvesting into the local economy to stimulate it, and it would be great PR for you, and by extension, the Xiong if you were to start investing in local businesses. Besides, even if you lose all you're money, that's just one month's allowances, and you gain some experience on what works and what doesn't. Kinda of like learning to fight, just in a different way."

"Huh, that doesn't sound too bad, I mean, not like keeping it stored away is helping anybody, if do use it, I might as well use it to help people."

"That ah boy!" His grandfather smiled, then got up. "Now come on, we got places to be."

Jaune yawned, but got up. "Ok, uh, where?"

"To the Arc Crypts."

-----

Ciel looked at the clock, he wasn't here yet. How curious. He usually arrived just on time for they're lessons. Was this an attempt to subvert her? So, that they were meeting on his terms, instead of hers? Was this his attempt at a power-play, to exert his desires over her?

How devious. Truly, his was a lecherous mind that could not be anticipated. But, she would not bow to his whims, Ciel was not that easily bowed, despite how casually he might overpower her.

She had seen the reserved strength he moved with, how his muscles bunched and stretched, nearly humming with a unseen intensity that was seconds away from being unleashed upon a unwitting fool.

Ciel was no fool, though. Even if, she knew that with one hand he could pin her to a desk, looming over her with scalding eyes, while his other hand roamed over her, knee falling between her legs as he pinned her down, hot breath on her face-

"Ciel." She saw Pyrrha in the doorway, truly a model student. "I thought I was the one to tutor Jaune today, why are you here?"

"Oh. Is that so?" The poor girl, she hadn't the faintest idea the danger she barely kept from taking them. "I was not informed."

Pyrrha smiled. "That's not problem," The model student took a seat next to her, Pyrrha wasn't expecting anyone else this morning. Though, Ciel was fine company, and everyone knew that she was practically divorced from the ideas of romance and passion, so she was a perfect tutor for Jaune when Pyrrha herself wasn't able, Weiss was a close second, with her denial of her feelings, she'd never make any moves on her chosen rival.

Though, rival felt the wrong word to use against Jaune, Pyrrha thought. He was just a man, not like the Shadow Knight, who was clearly operating on a higher level than a man. But, he may just be a man, he was strong, and tall and broad-shoulder, even if Pyrrha could swat him down with her magic, he...

She could see him slapping a hand against the wall behind her, the hall echoing with the sound of his rough, strong hand against concrete. His eyes piercing into hers, blue eyes like the deepest, cleanest pools of water, no expectations, only pure want.

He wanted her, carnally, physically, skillfully, romantically, platonically. Jaune was a typhoon of desires, and Pyrrha knew she was the only one who could satisfy them all. His broad, stone-dense chest only inches away from her and she could feel the heat and power off his body, like it was crushing her underneath. His leg moving between her own, keeping her from escaping.

The blonde leaned forward his breath on her neck-

"Pyrrha, Ciel." Weiss greeted them. "What are you doing here?"

The two tutors looked at her in puzzlement. "Waiting for Jaune?"

"Waiting on Arc."

The Schnee looked at them confused. "Did you two not check your scrolls? Ms. Goodwitch sent us messages, He's having a family emergency, he's not going to be coming in today."

"Oh." Ciel said flatly.

Pyrrha bowed her head. "Well, I guess I'll go get ready for class, then."

Ciel nodded. "I shall do the same."

Leaving Weiss alone in the room.

In her mind, a blonde pushed a rough, calloused hand against her blouse and the other lifting up her chin -

Then snapped out of the day-dream, she did a scan with her mystical senses, but didn't find anything. She made a mental note to ward the room later, or at least check if they're was any enchantment in there.

Outside, a pair of mismatched eyes watched curiously, she hadn't done anything, yet. So why were they all spacing out?

----

It was noon now, Jaune had fallen asleep between getting in his grandpa's beat-up truck, and getting here. Wherever here is. He looked from side to side, but all he saw was a cave in a cliff-side and miles of dense lively forest.

"Where are the Crypts?" Every member of the Arc family knew about the family crypts, but it wasn't like Jaune himself had actually been there, the dead had already called dibs on it.

Granpa Jeremiah was holding a wooden torch, a sword on his hip that Jaune recognized as Crocea Mors, the family blade. He thrust the torch into Jaune's hands. "Here take it."

Holding the burning fire a safe distance away, Jaune nodded. "Ok, but-"

"You're going into that dark tunnel down there, don't worry, this is something every Arc Warrior has to do."

"My dad never-"

"I said every Arc Warrior."

"Ok, but-"

"I didn't fookin stutter, go into the cave!"

"Alright! I'm going," Jaune took a step back, surprised by the energy from the oldest Arc. Walking to the entrance. "What am I going to do down there?"

"Tested. Probably beaten to within a inch of yer life. Have a laugh with my pappy if he's still down there."

Jaune turned to look at Jeremiah. "What?"

"What?" The old man limped forward at surprising speed. "Not afraid of the dark are ya?"

"No, it's just. You're ancient, Great-Grandpa Arc is-"

"I know! He's long dead, now go and talk to him, before I push ya down to meet him!"

"Alright!" And, Jaune headed down into the caverns, a oppressive darkness swallowing him up and the light of the torch as well, soon the sound of his footsteps was gone, and it was like he had been eaten whole by a great and terrible beast.

Jeremiah pulled out a pipe and went to puffing smoke. He put his blade to the ground, and leaned on it like a walking stick, his leg having started to ache.

"AAAAHHHH!!" A blood-curdling scream echoed out of the cave. Jeremiah nodded. Looks like he met their family, now to see if their family let him leave.

----

[loveabledirtbag]

1.07 - The Review

the day has come. this episode. ufffffffff. this episode. it’s all been leading here. i always knew that it would end this way.

before we even begin, i just gotta say….this episode is so much. it’s so odd how much i love it, because i think it was one of the first times i’d ever felt seen in the service industry. something just happens when you work in the service industry long enough where every single thing that COULD go wrong, DOES go wrong. and for some reason there’s never a FUCKING MARKER THAT FUCKING WORKS.

i’m probably gonna say a lot that pisses people off, and i’m gonna do my best to make sure everyone is pissed off evenly. because i got some hot takes in my watch of this, but i hope you all find it nuanced and detailed enough that maybe there’s stuff in here for everyone to take something away from it. maybe the true traumatic working experience was the friends we made along the way…

LETS DIVE IN

that intro to the episode though! i remember watching for the first time and just being so thrown off guard. why are we getting this semi-old-school tv intro? we get opening credits, we’re seeing everyone coming into work. it’s just so GOOD! because we the audience are just as lost as the characters are. we’re sorta thrown for a loop, with an opening that honestly feels sort of familiar, just like them coming to work feels familiar. day in and day out, they do this. just like every other day. we’ve seen a million shows that show us an opening like this. but then tossing in little bits of chicago history, landmarks, and tidbits. breathing in and breathing out….chicago. all of it to signify that no one (not us, the audience. not the characters) are ready for what’s about to happen. no one knows when they’re going to experience the worst day of their life. if just happens.

uff. ebraheim’s reading of the review is so painfully good. because you can tell his enthusiasm for the review! but his less than perfect reading, on a topic that he doesn’t understand is actually creating tension, adds tension on top of tension! uff. so good.

also, what a pretentious review! my god! the dichotomy of the long haired bearded man who got syd’s dish last episode, and the privileged snobbery of a holier-than-thou reviewer makes his words even more pretentious. “oh, chicago’s changing so much, wahhh. how can we evolve and not change the core of who we are”. which, is a topic i really value, and a subject i think about a lot for my own city. but the way it comes off in this review makes me wanna go, “oh fuck off, you middle aged fuck!”

plus the fact that a lot is happening and ebra is just reading, and is told multiple times to stop, but he keeps going because he thinks he’s lifting spirits. ugh. heartbreaking.

uff. ebra won’t stop reading. tina is late. marcus is NOT doing cakes but is lost in donuts (AGAIN). they’re rolling out the new to-go systems today. a reviewer is praising syd’s dish that isn’t actually on the menu and was given to him instead of being tossed. it’s just a perfect cluster fuck of a day. and it hasn’t even began.

i’ve seen some back and forth on how weird it is that when tina introduces her son louie to the restaurant, after he got suspended, was to ask carmy to teach him how to work at a restaurant. which i don’t think is weird at all! i know a few people who’s parents worked in restaurants, or who knew of parents who worked in restaurants, and their kids basically worked lower down positions as a chore. most weren’t paid. is that illegal? yes. BUT, louie is suspended, his mom works all day, we never hear of a dad. he can’t be left home all day, and being left home all day without supervision probably wouldn’t be good for any kid, but definitely not a kid who just got suspended. there’s a tone in tina’s voice of….recognition that louie probably is going to need to learn restaurant skills because he’s most likely not going to go far in school. so it’s not the worst thing in the world. am i opposed to child labor? yes. do i think it’s the worst thing in the world that while louie is suspended he learns to work in a kitchen? no. do i think he deserves to be paid? yes. do i think he is going to be paid? really couldn’t tell ya. but i also think this is just true to a world of people in kitchens, and a real issue that parents and guardians have to deal with in regards to their kids. right or wrong isn’t really the thing to discuss here, but the authenticity of this moment in the lives of a lot of working class individuals.

i will say that carmy throwing training louie in on sydney is a little dickish. i understand there’s a lot going on, and carmy feels the weight of the lot that is going on. but syd also has a lot going on, and carmy just kind of tosses it at her. i think there’s a lot of moments people complain about carmy throwing stuff on syd’s plate. and i agree with some of it and don’t agree with others. but it could have been just a bit easier on everyone if carmy gave it to someone who had less going on than syd. give louie to sweeps and have louie do the odds and ends that need doing. you know?

UFF, that the moment we see the unhappiness on syd’s face as carmy passes louie off on her, ebra starts reading the review again. painful. just painful.

i love that tina has so quickly come to regard syd as a teacher. that she confides in syd about louie and believes in her so much that she is confident that syd can help louie the same way syd helped tina.

love the little moment of richie and carmy being on the same side on the review. just both of them going: who the fuck is this hack who thinks it’s endearing to call us shabby, as if we’re this quaint little hayseed restaurant. the little engine that could. fuck him! i love those small moments when carmy and richie are so clearly family and grew up together and even as they have the most intense fights together slip right into agreement. because the love is never in question. fight, don’t fight. eh, it’s family.

ufffff, but the fact that richie is just that little extra bit annoying to syd. all the bad things adding together, before the real horse-shit has even happened. it’s just all painful. but like, asking her if she’s blowing someone at the newspaper is a step above anything we’ve seen him say to syd. and syd is just fucking over it, because she’s got enough shit going on. and then his repeatedly calling her boss, subtly rubbing it in, poking at the idea that she’s trying to take over. FUCK. it hurts so good

especially watching it again and knowing it’s coming. because so far if you’re watching for the first time you don’t know what’s coming. you might have picked up the one take, you might notice that while the episode hasn’t been break-neck intensity like some of the first episodes, there’s just this….growing sense of unease. you can almost feel that something is coming, but you don’t know what it is yet.

i love as carmy is getting the count for the day: “richie, go fuck yourself”, “69 all day chef!” just these small moments of humor, even if the humor is people annoying each other and also adds to the tension.

oooof, and then marcus doesn’t have the count for cakes. i just…i want to be supportive of marcus. but this is the….third? fourth time? JUST IN THE SHOW that we’ve seen someone go “dude, come on. you can do donuts, but you HAVE to do your actual job.” like, he almost shut the shop down because he blew a fuse because he fucked up. like, that wasn’t a wake up call? i love his dream, and i want him to chase his dream, but being an adult, especially an adult who’s working a job to support his mom, at a restaurant that is trying to claw its way back from the brink of financial ruin….you can’t fuck around! or you find out.

i love the moment where sydney chooses NOT to get into it with richie. because she’s teaching louie the register. which is, arguably, the easiest thing to learn. the nuance and finesse of it is, without question, something not everyone can do. we see that as the show progresses, and we’ve seen it already. richie has a way with people that is his gift. but the actual act of being on register is extremely easy. and it’s obvious why syd would bring him to the register, but richie comes up and shoo’s them away acting like his job is too much for louie. and syd just bounces to the next thing, and chooses not to get into with him. it’s not worth starting a thing by telling richie his job is not that hard. AND she does the right thing of asking sweeps to take louie, keep working, while she goes over the new to-go system with richie. because she has a lot to do, and can’t be stuck watching a kid.

and then the fact that as richie pushes syd’s buttons about getting her dish in the paper, suddenly she snaps. richie is getting in her face about bringing in “the wrong kind of business”? as if the shop can afford to choose who’s money they take and who’s they don’t? as richie sells coke out of the back alley, and carmy is selling vintage denim just to make ends meet? and so, syd goes in for the jugular and pushes back. with a lot of bite.

i love that at some part as richie, syd, and carmy are talking, as tensions are beginning to rise as everyone is just getting mad at everyone, and BEFORE the shit hits the fan, Spiders (Kidsmoke) by Wilco starts playing. a live version that is so loud, and noisy, and ragged that it just adds to this unbelievable tension and anxiety before you even know why you should be anxious in the first place.

THE SHIT HITS: endless to-go orders. and here’s where i gotta get into this, because i think this is the precipice of a lot of dialogue and conversations and i want to weigh in. before i go ANY FURTHER i gotta just say that i LOVE carmy, and syd, and marcus a lot. i love them. and so when i criticize any of them, it’s not a black and white thing. i’m not trying to take sides and shit on one character completely (like so many people seem to do).

carmy owns the beef. he’s working to try and get the shop out of a hole and build it up to a place where it’s financially stable. he’s also working and trying to introduce his system to the social environment, replacing michael’s system. there has been a lot of chaos, a lot of pushback and a lot of work. he has hired sydney to be his number two. sydney has been the one pushing for to-go’s for EPISODES. and while it’s not like sydney doesn’t have a lot going on, to-go’s has been her fight for a while. even in a previous episode carmy said “we just got it to kind of a chill place, there’s more to do but this is nice and i want to keep it here for a bit” in response to syd pushing to-go’s. so it’s not unreasonable of him to have said to her at some point, “if you wanna do to-go’s, can you be in charge of it?”. i’ve seen so many people shitting on carmy for being a bad boss for not checking on syd’s work, and to me it’s like…he trusts her enough that if she says she’s going to do something, he trusts it’ll be done. how many of us like it when our boss hovers over our shoulder watching everything we do? none of us! i think it makes perfect sense that carmy gave to-go’s to sydney, who’s been asking for them for weeks, if not months, and if he gave her the freedom and the trust to do it herself, since she has continually proven herself as trustworthy, AND as someone who has continually asked for leadership roles. could he have checked in, or double checked that she did everything right, and made sure she didn’t accidentally leave to-go’s on overnight? of course, and i will fault him for that. but we’ve also seen that he’s incredibly busy, and he trusts syd, so that small mistake is not nearly as bad as the people calling carmy a horrible boss want to make him out to be.

plus, it’s weird that the people who seem to shit on carmy as a horrible boss for this moment seem to also think syd is perfect? like it’s carmy’s fault that syd didn’t double check if she turned off the to-go’s overnight? idk, there’s a logical fallacy in how so many people talk about this moment.

but the point of all of this is for me to say, neither of them are horrible! sydney made an innocent mistake! like, a mistake that FUCKED the restaurant, but an easy one to make. maybe she fully forgot to click the off button, maybe she clicked the screen and it didn’t register her finger and she didn’t notice and assumed it hit off? who knows. new technology is weird. it’s hard. and it doesn’t make sydney a shitty person for messing up, nor does it make carmy a shitty person for not catching the mistake himself.

and yes, the fact that as carmy is focusing on the mess of having HUNDREDS of orders (more than they have of any menu item in the shop), that he also stops and says: “i told you that dish wasn’t fuckin’ ready” shows that some of his anger is at syd for having a successful dish. so, yes, it’s misplaced anger, and he needs to work on that. and when syd asks “what does that have to do with this?” and he yells at her to stop talking so he can figure it out, it’s because he knows he was just caught being a baby, and being angry at the wrong thing and not wanting to be confronted with it. he has trouble processing his emotions, and dealing with them, and it comes out in anger and he needs to work on that!

because i think there’s a mix of things happening with carmy and that dish, and syd. i think he struggles not to see her as competition, even as her boss. he says in the next episode that even as the sou at his restaurant, when anyone new would come in he would have the desire and urge to “smoke that motherfucker” because they were the competition, even though he was their boss. and now he’s the owner, and syd is his sou, and even though she can’t get higher without his say so, he still feels that threat of “what if she’s a better cook? what if she deserves this more than i do?”. we see him work on a lemon chicken dish, as she works on a braised short ribs and risotto. his dish makes it to menu, hers doesn’t. but the critic breezes past all the work carmy has done on making the sandwiches better, and updating the menu by saying “some small improvements” only to get it out of the way so he can talk about syd’s dish. the dish carmy said wasn’t ready yet.

and i believe it wasn’t ready, i think i’ve talked about this in a previous post. it wasn’t ready. BUT i don’t think carmy knew what it needed. he comes off as an unhelpful asshole to syd because he doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t know what her dish needs. there’s too much pride on him being the best chef ever for him to work WITH sydney to make her dish perfect. and now it’s all biting him in the ass. he’s mad syd made the better dish, he’s mad he can’t figure out why it’s not perfect, he’s mad all the work he’s doing for the beef is not being recognized but syd’s imperfect dish is, but he’s also mad at the very real frustrations being presented with the to-go orders flying out at him endlessly, and i know, I KNOW (because of the next episode after this one) that he’s mad at himself for feeling all of this and not being able to process and handle it better. and all of that anger and frustration comes pouring out of him in a very unhealthy way.

i also think it’s lost a bit at how carmy takes a moment to think. it’s a hectic moment, and his mind is still on syd and everything else, but he takes a second and he on-the-fly creates a system to try and get everything done and help everyone accomplish the day and get through it. people are going into the walk in and pulling food, stations are being created and properly sectioned off, sweeps is organizing tickets, fak is helping, richie is helping, and carmy gives everyone a job to do. i think it’s mirrored (and mirrored in a healthy way) next season in the finale, but i want to point out that carmy is trying to get everything down and under control, he’s just doing it while screaming and letting his fury fly free on everyone around him.

OOOOOF, and syd asking marcus how he’s doing on cakes, as everyone, EVERYONE, is flying and scurrying and trying to figure out how to get on top of this cluster fuck. and marcus, in a distracted, uncaring voice says “uh, getting there”. because he’s still on donuts. i’m sorry. that’s just so fucking unbelievably not okay.

i’ve seen some people really trying to defend marcus. some even agree with him. it’s pointless to try, we’re fucked, why can’t i just keep working on donuts? BUT LIKE FOR FUCKS SAKE. as someone who used to work at mcdonald’s with no autonomy, who was hired to be some sort of drug addicts half-baked plan to have really good bread when buying bread was cheaper and easier, so your job is nearly useless and pointless. being given the freedom to focus on desserts, and spearheading a dessert on your own, AND THEN being given even more autonomy to research, and experiment, and play around to try and figure out how to make a donut, and all your bosses ask is that you do the job they’re paying you to do. you make cakes. your idea was to put cakes on the menu, we did that, so do it. do whatever else you want, but just make sure you’re doing your job. AND NOT ONLY THAT but at least four or five times in the last few weeks someone has had to say, “hey! do your job please!”, to the point where you even blew a fuse and almost shut your work down for good because you weren’t doing your job. AND NOW there’s a potentially shop ending crisis (AGAIN) and your response is “eh. it’s fucked. i’m gonna do me”. NO! i’m sorry. he doesn’t deserve carmy’s abuse, but he deserves syd’s anger and more. like, i love marcus, but that’s just not acceptable.

ok, and, here’s a place where i want to be really nuanced and try and explain something: sydney’s bouncing around trying to do a lot at once. clearly she’s stressed. BUT, carmy is also running around and trying to do a lot at once, and he’s the boss. he’s creating a system, on the fly, and when he comes to syd and sweeps organizing the tickets he tells her multiple times “step off the expo” because he’s going to do it. and she keeps arguing with him. not maliciously, but because she’s trying to explain HER system to him, but he’s already running HIS system and he doesn’t need to hear her system, he needs her to get in line and start working so they can get through the rush. every second counts and he doesn’t need to waste what precious time that they don’t even have to give to hear her reasoning for something that they’re not gonna do. i don’t want to blow past carmy’s abusive and bombastic anger, because it can’t be, nor should it be, ignored or blown past. but it’s easy to talk about it. carmy is in the wrong with HOW he reacts to the challenges of this day. he’s wrong in every single action, but i don’t think he’s wrong in the decisions he’s making to tackle it. sydney wants to break it down and try to systematically get through things, and carmy knows: we already have more to-go orders than we have food in our walk in. there is no way to systematically break it down. we just have to GO, fire everything, cook everything and see what shit we’re left with when we run out.

syd’s not in the wrong for trying to create a system to break things down and organize the chaos, but carmy is also not wrong for knowing the chaos is too big on this one and they just need to push and see where they land. and as the boss, i will say syd is in the wrong for just…not listening to him. yes, she’s trying to help, and she’s trying manage, but carmy asked her multiple times to do something and she kept not doing it. and yes, carmy is very in the wrong for how he treats EVERYONE. i’m not excusing that. it’s just wrong. but in a rush, especially one as fucked as this one is, you just gotta listen to who’s in charge and do what you can do until the rush is over. does that mean allowing yourself to be debased if your boss is being verbally abusive? FUCK NO. but in a crisis at work in the service industry, if your boss says to do something, you just gotta do it, and if it goes to shit you get the satisfaction of knowing it’s their fault. you were just following their orders. i hope this makes sense. i don’t think they should have just put up with carmy’s abuse, BUT syd’s attempt at trying to have a nuanced and reasonable discussion over how to best tackle the problem was not the time and place. in a crisis, the boss is the boss, and you just gotta go with what they say, and if possible talk about it later. but in the moment it’s do or die.

i also think there’s an interesting parallel between syd’s mistake here, and carmy’s mistake in the very first episode. both of them were trying to help the shop make more money. syd with the to-go’s, and carmy with the ballbreaker tournament. both of them are successful and bring a lot of people in. both of them realize that in the restaurant world, you can’t have explosive growth without proper preparation. because they’re not set up for it. richie tells carmy they’re not set up to deal with the influx of nerds playing games, so carm should make the spaghetti. in this episode, carm tells syd they weren’t ready for to-go’s, and it’s not helped by the good review in the newspaper that morning. more business might seem like a universal good thing, but in the restaurant biz, if too many people come than you overwork your staff, you might run out of food, wait times begin to go up as they’re working harder to accommodate for everything. and then every additional customer gets more and more upset as they have a bad time at this place. you risk losing every new customer, because they came in, and you weren’t ready for them, and they had a terrible time. and you risk losing old reliable customers because they came in and the place was crowded, and you were overwhelmed by the new influx, and they get so frustrated that they decide to never come in again. more than one restaurant has closed because they suddenly experienced an explosion they weren’t ready for, and it overwhelmed them, and then they crashed and burned.

BUT BACK TO THE SHOW: syd didn’t say corner. i’m not sure if saying it would have helped, but richie said corner, syd didn’t. but richie is also an asshole, and choosing to take that moment to push syd’s buttons more as the cakes that SO DESPERATELY need to be cut and prepped fall to the ground. fuck off richie.

tina’s moment to try and check in on syd is so sweet. mama bear gotta come in and mama bear. and that syd takes her anger out on her, and insults the beef (where tina has worked and the place tina loves) and questions what tina or louie is ever going to get out of “a shithole” like the beef is rough to watch. because it’s so clear how much tina has come to respect syd and her teaching her chef things, and for syd to just kind of spit on that, and take her anger she’s feeling at herself (for making the mistake with the to-go’s), and at carmy (for clearly being mad about the risotto and for yelling at her), and at richie (for….well, being richie. fuck richie) and to put it on tina who is only trying to make sure that syd is okay, is hard.

GET ME A FUCKING SHARPIE THAT FUCKING WORKS! FUCK! - the most relatable line i’ve ever heard to depict a shift that has turned into an absolute shit show. why can’t shop sharpies work the moment you desperately need them to?

i do love (and maybe love is the wrong word) the blink and you’ll miss it moment of tina telling carmy that they’re out of giardiniera, and him saying they’ll prep it fresh and (like always) he (without thinking) puts it on syd’s plate. which shows his trust of her. BUT also shows his willingness to brush off anything he doesn’t want to deal with on her. AND THEN, because everything is moving so fast, he calls richie into the kitchen to ask for a sharpie, and as his brain is still processing and flying through he asks him to prep the giardiniera. it’s a beautiful, and realistic, moment of television. because we’ve seen so many moments of “something i don’t want to deal with, ‘syd, you got this’”, and so carmy does that. but he doesn’t even realize he’s said it. and the problem is still on his brain, as he sees richie and asks him to fix this problem, because everyone else (including sydney) is probably dealing with the million other issues that are happening in the kitchen at that moment.

and i appreciate that as richie goes to the back to prep the giardiniera, and sydney questions what he’s doing he says “what does it look like? i’m helping you”, he honestly didn’t go back to fight. he recognizes that syd is doing something, and because he’s also been told to do something he’s hopping into “okay. so sydney’s already doing this, so then i’ll just help her.” which is, honestly, the right attitude. but sydney has already been so bashed around and is already feeling so much that she takes richie’s presence as a threat.

there’s something about the way syd lays into richie that…so supremely gets under my skin. i honestly can’t even fully explain it. she does such a good job in this moment acting out this onslaught of insults. the intense intake of breath, the bitter laughter, the just stabbing (intentional wordplay) of her words into him. ufff. i like….hate syd here, even as i think richie probably deserves it.

and i love that he takes everything she says, chooses not to engage until she insults his daughter. WHICH IS FAIR, syd went WAY TOO FUCKING FAR with that one. because we know he feels like a loser. his ex wife has him as richie bad news, his daughter wonders if that’s his real name, he brags about drunken nights and mornings at bars to dates and doesn’t realize why that doesn’t impress them, and then lies to his coworkers about it, blaming her. he knows that he’s a loser. but he knows that his daughter is the one good thing he ever did, and he doesn’t want his daughter to think of him as a loser.

and again, carmy comes in as they’re fighting, even as syd is brandishing a chefs night, literally TOUCHING it to richie’s stomach, as she says “maybe i will fucking stab you”, and he screams at them to shut up and get to work. which, once again, is the right call, just enacted terribly. because yes, they need to stop and just get the work done, but his screaming at them isn’t going to help calm them down. but also, like….when people are brandishing knives at other employees, maybe you got bigger fish to fry, carm.

uuuuuuuuuuufffffda. the fact that after all this time. ALL THIS TIME. as everyone is having the worst day in the kitchen they’ve ever had. arguably, the worst day in the kitchen anyone COULD HAVE, that marcus goes up to carmy with a DONUT and is smiling, like, “look! i did it!” FUCK OFF.

and no, carmy freaking out, grabbing marcus’ face, grabbing his donut and throwing it on the floor is not okay. that is abuse. it just is. arguably, actionable abuse. marcus was…partially right for leaving after carmy did that to him. that was absolutely, unequivocally, not okay for carmy to do. but….marcus…..the fuck dude. this is like the fifth or sixth time someone has had to do say to you “the fuck? do your fucking job.” in this episode alone this would have been like a “third warning” in a day. marcus deserves to be fired, or sent home for the day, or written up, or some form of punished for this. because in a 20 minute, in real time, no cuts scene, this is literally the third time marcus has chosen not to do his job, not to get back to work, but not even to help anyone else out around the kitchen as they all are struggling and hustling and just trying to make it work. like, it’s not only disrespectful to the restaurant that it trying desperately not to close, it’s not only disrespectful to carmy who has literally given you every opportunity to chase after your dreams and been way more than understanding when your dreams have gotten in the way of your duties in the kitchen, but it’s so fucking disrespectful to every single person in that kitchen who is struggling and fighting tooth and nail to get things in order and make it work so that they still have jobs next week. like, marcus, your mom is sick (spoilers), tina has a son, richie has a daughter, you all need to pay rent, buy food. you’re threatening seven people’s livelihoods because you want to make a “perfect donut”? no, i’m sorry, get the fuck out of the kitchen and come back when you’re ready to be an adult who can multitask and prioritize doing his job, and doing the fun stuff only after everything else is done. (again, carmy’s reaction is fully wrong and i do not support it, though! toxic, angry, abusive. not okay).

but because of carmy’s abuse, marcus chooses to leave during the middle of the shift, and again, kind of leaves everyone in the lurch to try and figure the shit out and pick up the pieces. and….im not fully sure how i feel. i believe in removing yourself from abusive situations. and carmy is being abusive. and i also don’t believe in staying in an abusive situation for the sake of other people, because you have to take care of yourself first. but….carmy is not normally abusive like this. i know a lot of people like to say that he is, but so far in the series, he has only ever raised his voice to speak over others, and has almost never (if ever) been confrontationally abusive to anyone. other than maybe richie, and that’s giving as good as he’s getting, to someone who is in his family. i’m not trying to excuse abuse to a family member, but it’s much more of a feel of “richie is my cousin, i can speak differently than i would to the others who are my employees”. his meanness to richie is more of a informal familiarity, more than it’s abusive. this is really the first time we’ve seen carmy choosing to be loud, angry, AND attack others directly with his words. he has been confrontational, he has been loud, he has been angry, but he’s never been all of them, as he’s attacked those around him. so, all of that to say….the fact that carmy is like this for the first time is shocking, and it adds more believability for why marcus (and eventually syd) leave. it’s shocking. but i also can’t help but think of everyone else that marcus is fucking over by leaving the very first time carmy does something wrong to him. you know? and maybe i’m wrong! maybe i’m not reading past experiences and conversations and interactions correctly! if i am, let me know! but, every time i see marcus throw his tray of donuts on the table and take off his apron and walk out, i can’t help but think “really? you fucked up so many times, you were told to do your jobs so many times, and now you’re choosing to pack up and go home??? you’re fucking people over and forcing syd to do your job for you, while she does a million other things, and you think you get to go home as the morally superior one? fuck off”.

and again, i love marcus. i think he’s got so much heart and is arguably the heartfelt anchor of this shows. but he’s human and the writers do a great job of writing him as a human, and he does a great job acting as a fully fledged human. but as a human, he has made a lot of mistakes the last few episodes.

AND THEN SYD STABS RICHIE IN THE ASS!!!! quasi-on purpose, quasi-accidental. i mean. watch in slow-mo as richie backs up into syd’s knife. its so quick, and syd was looking over at carmy shouting, and richie was backing up. like…it WAS an accident. buttttttttt…..was it?

the fact that richie immediately upon getting stabbed walks it off, and is like “ebra, come on. i got stabbed.” and ebra also immediately follows richie to sew up his ass. what friendship. and what history does it spell out for richie and ebra, both? like richie is just like “ope. stabbed. okay, i’ll deal with this now.” and ebra is like “you’re stabbed? okay, let me get my stuff.”

“not right now, i got stabbed” “you probably fucking deserved it” “mm….m-maybe, maybe.” is such a good back and forth between carmy and richie.

i also think it’s interesting that as carmy walks out to the front of the shop to check on louie and sweeps, while richie is at the front of the bar for ebra to check out his ass wound, carmy asks louie and sweeps how their job is going, and they respond that they’re working on it, and carmy says “thank you, chef. keep going please.” very calm. very collected. i wonder if this was voice over, and just sort of overlooked, or if it was a conscious decision of carmy being calm and responsive in a moment during the chaos? because since shit has hit the fan he’s been shouting and calling people names, but louie and sweeps respond to him with just “we’re doing what you asked” and his response is a very appropriate “ok. thank you.”

i love that as ebra tells richie his story of samalia and the “factions”, as he describes the helicopters coming in, we hear helicopters in the background, mixing with the music. and then richie goes “is this shit black hawk down!?” such a genius moment of humor during such a tense episode. and for that exchange to end with “fuckin’ piven” “piven”.

i fully believe the two seconds carmy spends in the walk in cooler he’s taking two seconds to just breathe.

tina opens the doors, even as they’re out of food, for the very first customer of the day. and he says “do you guys have risotto?” and tina just barks “no!”. ugh. so painful. so good.

once again, syd leaving right as the doors are opening is….i have mixed feelings. she just stabbed a guy, i get it (well….i don’t get it, i’ve never stabbed a guy). but she’s clearly in a bit of shock, and should prioritize her mental health over the shop. but….AGAIN, there are so many people who have no other options in their life, who need the beef to survive, and to abandon them all in the middle of a crisis just sucks. and i think it’s saying something that it’s syd and marcus. they have been sort of focal points and main characters in the show, yes. so them leaving is the most dramatic to the tension and narrative. BUT they’re also young. syd has an impressive resume and can find another job. arguably, marcus has a better resume now than he did when he got the job. they’ll be okay. but as it’s been stated so many times….where is richie gonna go? where is tina gonna go? sweeps has a history of drugs that is probably going to make it difficult to get another job (maybe. idk. he could have been kicked out of the mlb for weed or something, but still). the beef is full of people who have no where else to go, and the people who can afford to get out to at the worst possible moment, at the expense of the people who can’t afford to leave.

i was talking to my sister about this, she’s a psychologist. because i want syd and marcus to be emotionally, and psychologically healthy, and part of that is by removing yourself from toxic situations. but i can’t help but see the class dynamics of two people who have way more opportunities and privilege leaving the shop at the expense of the people around them. and i don’t know fully where to land.

but syd basically leaving and putting all of the blame on carmy is still….not fully right in my eyes? carmy is being abusive, carmy has created an atmosphere in the kitchen that was so overwhelming and bombastic that syd got distracted and accidentally stabbed richie. but for her to say “well, it’s all carmy’s fault” isn’t right. yes, when she calls him a piece of shit, she’s saying it for his actions today; for his actions with not having the humility to admit he doesn’t know what’s missing from her dish, and a lot. but almost every episode they’ve had a back and forth and a chance to talk and he’s continually apologized for his wrong moves, and she really hasn’t. so, to be right in the middle of a shitshow, and to say “this is all on you, this isn’t my fault”…like….ehhhhh, you asked to have more responsibility, you pushed for to gos and then you didn’t set it up properly. easy/honest mistake, but you still made it. that’s on you. you also picked fights (even with assholes who deserved them) and tried to argue with your boss about something in the middle of a rush. like, all understandable, none of it evil. but to turn all of that over to carmy and go, “100% of this is your fault.” like…no it’s not? syd definitely has a right to leave to try and process the traumatic event of stabbing someone, she has a right to leave to escape the toxic environment carmy has created, even if i have mixed feelings on making everyone’s lives harder by leaving. but i don’t think she can say it’s all his fault. it’s not ALL his fault, even if A LOT, if not MOST, of it is his fault.

i also wonder if syd calling him a piece of shit has anything to do with their “i don’t want to be shitty” “then don’t” conversation in season two? (but we’ll talk about that when we get there)

carmy realizing the weight of his actions, as the shit continues to crash and burn around him, only to crouch down and eat the smushed donut off the floor, and then have a sick, twisted, grim smile as he realizes that the donut is actually really fucking amazing, is such beautiful poetry. it hurts.

and also, people really are disgusted by carmy doing that, and like, yeah, it IS disgusting. but that shit happens every day at your favorite restaurant. shit fall. people pick it up and eat it. it’s not great, but it’s so true.

carmy smacking the ticket printer off the shelf and (hopefully) breaking it is the only outburst of anger i am in full support of. the ticket printer deserves to die.

aaaaaaaand that’s the episode. wilco plays their final note, a crowd erupts in cheers and we’re all left just…emotionally wrecked. i have probably watched this episode (along with the whole season) a dozen times, and im still conflicted on how i feel about the whole thing. because obviously carmy is in the wrong. it’s barely worth discussing how carmy is in the wrong. anyone trying to defend carmy is also in the wrong. but i don’t think he deserves 100% of the blame. a bad thing happened that wasn’t his fault, and he took his frustrations out on everybody around him, instead dealing with them in a healthy and non-toxic way. but everyone in this episode was at their worst, and that’s THE POINT OF THIS EPISODE. EVERYONE. tina’s mama bear-ing only caused frustration, marcus was lost in donuts and made things harder, syd made a i little mistake with huge consequences and then also attacked everyone around her (except much less intensely than carmy), richie is on fine form with being his annoying self, ebra reading the newspaper after being told to stop, and carmy’s abusive, explosive anger. they’re all at fault. not just carmy. carmy is just the loudest, most bombastic, and the main character, so we notice it more.

but that’s the episode! next is episode eight! season finale! in what is arguably one of the most subtle, nuanced, often overlooked and not talked about episodes….with one of the biggest, over the top endings ever that everyone LOVES talking about. but, we’ll talk about it when we get there!

season one: episode one | episode two | episode three | episode four | episode five | episode six | episode eight

season two: episode one | episode two | episode three | episode four | episode five | episode six | episode seven | episode eight | episode nine | episode ten

[fvriva]

🐗Whole hog Naomi‼️🐈‍⬛

finally i can talk about my beloved. the sweetie

Autumn & Vernon | Cy & Newton | Winter | Yule

send an emoji + an oc (or order the WHOLE HOG)

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Naomi (and Ruth) I came up with at the same time during Inktober. I was doing a prompt where basically Naomi was left alive while Ruth bravely went off to fight to defend her, and the names came from vaguely parallel names from the Bible story. Rozwell was a bit pulled out of a hat, though, partly as a reference to my friend Roz and partly as just a small but significant small town in the middle of nowhere.

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Same age as Autumn, 15.

Yes! At the beginning of the story she is in a relationship with Olivia Hart. I've never really given her another love interest but I think she would be the kind of person to have lots of girls crushing on her without her aware of it. And boys as well, they exist.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

Fruit! Naomi loves oranges, peaches, strawberries, and making all these things into pies. Huge sweet tooth.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

💼 - What do they do for a living?

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

Currently she's a magic student, a general healer/support type. She feels pretty pressured into taking up adventuring because of all the cool women in her life, and because she doesn't want to just farm her whole life. But she also doesn't really have the temperament for it. Outside of her setting and given several years to find herself postgrad I think she would bounce between a few trades before settling eventually as a stylist/influencer/counselor.

She is in every club at school because she feels bad for the little ones having to close because they don't have enough members. She's semi-active in all of them, so she's always got some meeting she has to get to.

🎯 -What do they do best?

Overworking herself. But also she's very good at bouncing off ideas and listening to others, making them feel welcome and cared for, that sort of thing.

She loves cheering people on! She loves being cheered on! She also is kind of uncomfortable with direct praise. She also gets very anxious when she has nothing to do or if nobody needs her.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

When Olivia asked her to be her girlfriend, which was the first time she felt so loved as an individual.

Watching her sister die, extremely selflessly, and because of the Circumstances and where her mind was at and Ozymandias's manipulation, thinking "Thank God". And then feeling awful about feeling like that.

It's pretty close, like all my designs lol. Her clothes are decidedly way more fantasy than they were originally.

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

The Inktober prompt mostly, but I was taking in a lot of twin-oriented media at the time and wanted to try and do some interesting things with it. Kind of my take on the Lup/Taako dynamic or a story where there's clearly a greater/lesser twin and the favored sibling is the one that dies first. Heroes and fools both die young ect.

Fantasy is solid. Like everyone else in Animus Vitrum she's got a lot of family issues but in another world she would be the main character of it by virtue of me coming up with her first as opposed to like 4th in this cast. She also kind of lends herself to a more grounded realistic world with magic, like High Spirits Neoma or Muted, but we take what we can.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?

Cis lesbian, she/her

Quite a few! She's a middle child in a big pseudo-Christian family. The most notable of her siblings though is her twin sister Ruth. I came up with a list at one point but I lost track of it.

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

It's distant but generally caring. Her father is busy running the farm with her brothers and her mother is always away at the edge of the Feywild maintaining the border. She admires them greatly but often feels like they don't know she exists.

I like how she's got these two very conflicting sides to her, the sweet and the corrupt, the supportive and the jealous, the dependant sidekick and the yearning for self-actualization. It's great. I love duality.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

Not very frequently honestly. She's the kind of character I really want to get right but both she and Olivia I more just daydream about.

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

I'd considered it and in kind of a roundabout way she does kind of kill the old her. But that's not the same thing.

She's deathly afraid of failure and of accidentally making someone upset to the point that she keeps everyone at arm's length.

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Ruth is her ultimate rival, even though she loves her dearly, but she's always going to be in her shadow. Ozymandias is somewhat of an arch-nemesis in that he preys on this feeling in her to keep her dependant. Cy is kind of a foil for her in this way.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

Since October 2019! So a little over 4 years.

🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?

I would've been 19.