#but like those living conditions are what everyone is stuck with if they aren't lucky enough to have someone who can be on a mortgage

[xythlia]

it still boggles my mind that if I had applied solo for this mortgage I would've been rejected, even though I have good credit & stuff. I could "afford" a $1700 apartment smacking of landlord special & mold & a giant fucking hole in my ceiling they never fixed & two broken kitchen lights they never fixed & a balloon of paint in a different spot on the ceiling that was full of water because the apartment was water damaged n run down anyway before I moved in but I apparently couldn't afford a $560 mortgage payment for a decent, kinda old ish house but clean & not hazardous. okay silly ass

[somanyfuckedupiftruebooks]

Mag 29

This serves as a correction to one of my previous comments from the statement about the Dark roomate who kept unscrewing lightbulbs: apparently the written statements are sometimes dictated and transcribed in the moment. I stand corrected! That seems like a wild way to take statements to me, but who am I to criticise the workings of the Magnus Institute?

Okay let's start with some basic thoughts in the End. It's cool that as the original Fear, basically all of the other Entities began in the End. The fear of death is both the root of all other fears, and as far as we know, the only Entity capable of killing/consuming the others, which makes it unique amongst the Entities. It's the most passive of all the other Entities by far, because it can afford to be, and we're lucky this is the case. If the End was actively invested in killing everything, all life would basically be screwed (which I guess is the idea behind the Extinction).

I think we can see that in the episode here, where the battleground is a mix of many different possible fears (Slaughter, Desolation, Lonely, Corruption) but the only thing that makes the soldier run is dying. The core of every other fear is that he doesn't want to die; all roads lead to the End.

Yes, everyone does fear death. Even people who desire or have made peace with their own death must still have some level of apprehension over it. No one knows what happens after we die and we all have to face it eventually. Of course we're afraid; of course a thing capable of surviving off that fear would be basically the ultimate power in all of creation.

That said, I did find it strange that the way this is phrased in the episode immediately spoke to the opposite fear for me. The episode talks about death being fearful even to those with faith in an afterlife, because existing for eternity is horrifying. I kind of agree? But for me the idea of immortality is horrifying for this reason. I don't want to exist forever! Time is the cruelest thing in the universe; it strips all meaning from everything. Death would be preferable to living forever, which is why I really hope there isn't an afterlife.

I'm definitely not like the soldier, panicking over the idea of death and trying to avoid it at any cost. I want to die someday (just hopefully not any time soon) because otherwise what is the point of anything?

Anyway this rambling is getting way more incoherent than usual, I will try to keep the existentialism to a minimum from here on out.

I originally took the age of the bones to be an indication that this version of Death has been stuck in his role for an incredibly long time (maybe millennia), before realising that he probably wouldn't be a monk if that was the case. I googled 'when did monks start' and apparently they've been around since the third century, so the oldest he could be is 1500 years. Which is very old obviously, but hardly 'older than you could possibly dream', and also if his clothes are instantly recognisable as monk's robes to this uneducated soldier, than he is probably much more recent than that.

So I think the real clue is in the phrase 'Death was no more a skeleton than you are a woolen suit'. These aren't the monk's actual bones that we're seeing, it's more like an outfit that he is wearing. He's dressed up as the embodiment of Death.

Poor idiot. Don't you know the cardinal rule of making a deal with any kind of supernatural power is to make sure you get the wording exactly right? It's basic stuff. Demon deals, fey bargains and genie wishes all operate by the same premise as a game with Death. Don't just agree without negotiating your terms! Get it in writing and make sure you understand all the terms and conditions before you enter into a formal agreement. You probably shouldn't even be discussing this without your attorney present.

Love that he's like 'Well, obviously Death's games are all rigged, so instead I'll get him to play my rigged game.' And it works!

Adding the Eye to the list of Entities that the End can embody.

Cheat Death! Cheat Death! Cheat Death!

There's no possible way this could turn out badly!

So... Death let him win, right? It would be against whatever rules bind him to outright throw a game and lose on purpose, but if the other player attempts to win by cheating, I think he can just allow it to happen. He's probably been waiting for centuries for someone to pick a game they can cheat at in such a way that he can pretend not to notice.