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essayofthoughts · 10 months

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So I had a terrible terrible thought.

Oh Wise Friend of Paleopathology... what do you think you would be able to learn from Percy's tomb, whenever he kicks the bucket and ends up buried? Assuming a language barrier + at least a few thousand years (and Kiki can't just chime in if still alive).

What strains of his life would still be on his bones? What about the teeth? What do you think Whitestone’s burial customs would be like (and how would his status/history be conveyed in that context)? Would any fabrics used in funeral dress be likely to survive, or only his wedding ring + buttons + whatever that shiny thing is in his ascot?

What would you, future archeologist, make of that earring in just one ear???!

I would note that it has been several years since I properly studied the subject, but Palaeopathology and Skeletal Analysis were some of my favourite classes and I do remember a fair bit. But for any currently practicing Archaeologists - forgive my oversights. It has been Too Long.

Now. Before I get to anything else in this scenario, we have to think about the likely context. This word means different things in Archaeology and Anthropology but for our purposes here today the short definition is "What is he found with? Where do we find the body? Is there a tomb, a grave, grave goods? What is there here that is not the body, that can tell us about how the body got here?"

I don't know how to explain to you that this is one of my favourite parts of archaeological thought - everything matters, everything plays a part, everything is context enabling us to better understand a site or an artefact. Every new thing we discover is another datapoint to weave into a greater whole until the web resolves into something greater than the sum of it's parts.

So in this instance we're going to have to start with the following questions:

Where is his body interred?

What kind of inhumation is it? (graveyard, cemetery grave, wooden coffin or vault casket or leaded sealed, mausoleum, crypt, ossuary?)

How well preserved/damaged is it?

What are the burial customs of Whitestone nobility and how will that affect things?

Why am I exhuming it?

Now, we know a few things from canon, most namely that the de Rolos had a family mausoleum beneath their castle. This suggests a formal burial in a family crypt. We do not however know if the bodies were placed in coffins, or niches or even if they were cremated! From the transcript of Reunions Pt2:

MATT All right, so. You progress through the undercroft as quietly as possible. You notice as you get past the first section, you look to your right and left and the inside of these small like cubby offshoots that contain these separate ten by ten stone tombs. The walls have shelves burrowed into it, in which there are urns and small gems and offerings-- things that were buried alongside the family members as part of a remembrance. →

So it seems like some may have been cremated! Being adherents of Pelor, this doesn't actually surprise me - the sun burns, after all. But then again, neither would traditional burial - Pelor is also associated with agriculture and standard decomposition returns you to the earth that fed you.

Though... that would be a bit complicated in a sealed stone tomb.

Given also how I'd equate to modern time periods and technology levels... I'm inclined to say embalming hasn't taken off in Exandria at the time Percy dies. And... even if it was possible, I rather feel it'd be associated with Necromancy more than standard burial, plus Whitestone is predominantly Pelorian and Percy's wife is Champion of Pelor, and Pelor is god of agriculture. Embalming chemicals seep into the soil and are catastrophically bad for the environment - there's a reason American cemeteries expect caskets to be fully sealed and in a concrete vault - to prevent exactly that. I can't see Pelor being down with that kind of embalming, so most likely a body is neatened up, shown for funeral, and buried, with minimal messing about. Even nobles being buried in crypts where they won't immediately return to the soil, I imagine they'd want to stay true to the general idea.

Further, from Matt in that same episode:

#MATT Continuing down, a long set of whitestone-constructed stairs descend for about 45 feet before they level off into the de Rolo mausoleum. A long hallway continues forward that contains two ten-by-ten stone structures that contain the entombed bodies of previous generations of de Rolos, with six passages-- three on each side-- that split off of this main hallway that contain their own stone-encapsulated corpses. → This is a place of silent prayer and showing appreciation for the previous families. Not all of them are full, and there were extensions planned as the family grew, but the first thing you notice is all of the tomb doors are open. →

So the idea is that the graves stay in use! This isn't a case like Sedlec where bodies are periodically disinterred to be reinterred in an ossuary, these are meant to be lasting burials.

So... why am I excavating here?

Given Keyleth's lengthy lifespan I would assume that Whitestone likely survives quite well (yes, even with the Apogee, shush, I've only watched C1 so far). It's also a source of, well, whitestone and residuum, meaning it's likely to remain inhabited. Even given the significant shifts a thousand plus years bring - castles and keeps and forts are pretty good at lasting in some form! We have a lot of remnants of old castles (In Britain alone: Tintagel, Colchester Castle, Tower of London, the Roman Forts at Hadrian's Wall, various Caers throughout Wales), and they frequently get built on or rebuilt over time. In a case like Whitestone, with valuable resources and economic links, even if it were, say, invaded, colonised, etc. - the castle would be a good seat of administration or even just a tourist hotspot. And crypts are well down in the foundations: even if the castle was damaged or destroyed, it actually has good odds of staying intact. The Alabaster Sierras are mountainous, but given the ziggurat survived from the Calamity to when we see it well enough it only took the Briarwoods and Ripley a few years (minus the time excavating down to it) to restore it, it seems that they're not terribly tectonically active.

So... this is likely a very stable site, with good odds of at least 500 or so years of protection (Pike and Scanlan are set to have long lifespans, JB too seems set to live there, all would have reason to see it protected) even before we get to Keyleth's likely thousand-odd year protection. Given that much time to build itself stronger, I see Whitestone as most likely still existing, and the castle a significant historical site and cultural heritage.

I can see some degree of linguistic drift, but if the area has remained inhabited then there's good odds there'd be scholars of the area able to translate Pre-Apogee-Era Tal'Doreian Common. And, likewise, if the area has had so long protected then there's good odds the Chamber is still around, and so there's probably a good library and even recorded genealogy of the founding de Rolos, even if the family itself had died out. (Factual accuracy of these records might be suspect, but I'll get to that.) This kind of persistence of a culture would not be without IRL historical precedent - Ancient Egypt lasted for thousands of years using largely the same Hieroglyphics, even as Dynasties rose and fell. The culture absolutely changed, but good chunks of records were still around.

Given all of this, most likely I can see the reason being some kind of refurbishment of the castle prompting archaeologists to be called in for the safe disinterrment of the tombs and then some kind of funded study by the Chamber of Whitestone of the bodies in those tombs to help inform on who Whitestone's forebears were. This, again, is not without precedent - if I'm recalling my Sixth Form case studies correctly, Christ Church in Spitalfields had a massive crypt of lead caskets that were disinterred, catalogued, studied and, wherever possible, returned to relatives.

Let's return to those questions, yeah?

Where is his body interred?

Most likely in the de Rolo crypt under the castle.

What kind of inhumation is it? (graveyard, cemetery grave, wooden coffin or vault casket or leaded sealed, mausoleum, crypt, ossuary?)

Stone tomb burial - likely dry but not anaerobic. Reasonable odds of non-human disturbances (rats, flies, bugs, etc.)

How well preserved/damaged is it?

Good odds of reasonable preservation. Depending on how well and consistently the crypt is tended it could be best case for the scenario or somewhat less.

What are the burial customs of Whitestone nobility and how will that affect things?

Given Taliesin has said that the de Rolos took a bit from Prussian nobility in etiquette and manners, I'd be inclined to say probably similarly, with an eye towards our 1800s funerary practices simply because that's when the Pepperbox was prominent in our world.

So most likely, Sunday best, plush coffin, but - unless royalty - left to rot. Royals (in the UK at least) have historically been prone to leadlined caskets but that tends to lead to a specific kind of anaerobic putrefaction that results in something called corpse liquor.

Ick.

So let's hope that's not the case. Given Whitestone is primarily Pelorian in devotion, at least in Percy's day, I'd be inclined to say they're not completely sealed - possibly even just interred as bodies, but unlikely - plus the crypt is in the family castle and it seems that the crypts were visited periodically by family prior to the Briarwoods' attack - the odds of someone breaking in to try to steal royal relics is pretty low, unlike the public royal burials in Westminster Abbey.

Why am I exhuming it?

Castle refurbishments prompting a Chamber-sponsored study on the historic remains in the pre-Chamber de Rolo crypt.

OKAY. Now that's all out of the way, let's get into what I might discover, yes?

So most likely I've gone through several other bodies before I get to Percy. During exhumation the details of the tomb would have been recorded - it's placement in the tomb, which tombs it was next to. Now, I would imagine his tomb would be between Cassandra's and Vex's, but while working I likely wouldn't know that! Assuming linguistic drift and font changes, most likely the burials and tombs are labelled in the database something like T6E2 - Tomb 6 of the 2nd East Section. I would then have to find a scholar working on recording and identifying any inscriptions and translating them - so names, dates, quotes, etc.. And, most likely, I would be kept in the dark until I was done! Archaeology is best done without recorded human history to bias one and huge amounts of history have no contemporaneous record to speak of.

Now, if I'm just doing the Palaeopath then likely with a specialist in coffins, caskets and funerary fittings, I would record the state of the coffin and body inside, as well as the positioning of the body inside. Is the body extended (laid out flat as we tend to bury bodies now) or contracted (foetal position, very common prehistorically)? How intact are the remains?

And then, recording everything as I go, I would extract the body from the coffin, bit by bit. I would want to ensure that no bones were left inside the coffin, no tiny tatters of cloth - assuming any remained, cloth disintegrates shockingly quickly and if it wasn't fully sealed it's likely the moths got to it, let alone any rats - and that I didn't misplace any bones as I laid them out per diagram.

Jewellery, buckles - any metal grave goods would also be extracted here and recorded. Also, given Exandria - Detect Magic. Make sure anything enchanted is Identified so we know what it did (hello Earring of Whisper!). Again, I'd probably end up giving them over to someone who knows how to compare them to similar items to properly study them.

Now... Percy's fleshy bits would most likely be gone. Unless he mummified which is not impossible with a dry stone internment but between two thousand years, one's own gut bacteria (remember, modern embalming is unlikely), rats and bugs... yeah I can't see much remaining beyond fragments of cloth and bones.

Oh, and his glasses.

That would have been noted during removing the body from the coffin - this person wore glasses. From my colleague examining them, we'd be able to see if they were prescription (or as historically close as you could get) or if they were a stylistic choice - so we'd know this person had bad eyesight.

Now, the first step after checking every bone is present would be to sex it and to look for damage or signs of wear and tear. Given this is Exandria 1. Gender equality for ages and 2. Magical with options to trans one's gender. This is also a high-status burial so there's good odds this person was living as their chosen gender; and sexing the body could tell us what that was. Even if there's a mismatch - grave goods can also tell us. Is the jewellery more commonly seen on men or women of the era? Percy would likely have a pocket watch (he does make a clocktower! I'd be shocked if he didn't make himself a pocketwatch) which is often a more masculine item, and an ascot pin - ascots are a masculine fashion - and his Earring of Whisper, which is a bit more complicated. Any remnants of clothes could also tell us. And of course - the coffin furniture. Any plaque with inscription, or inscription on the tomb panel. After drawing my own conclusions I would ask my scholarly colleague if their findings lined up with my own.

Given also that this is Exandria, it'd probably also be very important to identify which (DnD) race he was. Elves seem to be more gracile than humans, half-elves likewise albeit to a lesser degree, genasi would likely have magical influences, likewise aasimar, tieflings having horns, tails, hooves, claws, dwarves being short and stocky, while halflings are short and comparatively gracile and gnomes are smaller still. Goblins would be ruled out by size alone, goliaths would be massive and probably have big muscle attachment marks and dragonborn would have very obvious conformation compared to a human.

I don't think identifying Percy as "Most likely human" would be hard - but we can confirm it later.

Now... damage.

Percy's torture would almost certainly show on his bones. Given it was torture, I highly doubt Ripley wasted magical healing on him. It was only a week or two, so likely no broken bones - unless she only wasted enough healing on him to keep him alive, in which case... yeah absolutely some wear and tear. Signs of partial healing, mixed damage. Scarring on the bones, evidence of dislocations, etc.. Likewise, injuries from his time with Vox Machina would show - him leaving his hand in a bulette's mouth probably left marks on those bones, his death at Ripley's hands probably is extremely interesting in the skeletal record - most of his pre-mortem injuries only partially healed if that, while the actual cause of death being healed up completely, a lacuna in the record. Likewise - Percy's cane. If he was buried with it we would probably look for some kind of leg injury. Was the cane an affectation or was there an injury it was compensating for? What injury might that be, what could have caused it? Or even... was he not buried with it? Would we see a leg injury that implies a need for a cane, but no cane to go with it? If so, we could assume that presentation in death had significance, and they were presenting a "perfect" "whole" version of him at death. Again, there's cultural precedent for this! Ancient Egyptians would provide wooden prosthetics and false eyes during mummification because of a belief that how one was interred was how one would arrive to the afterlife - they could be given limbs they had lost or even never had in life.

Just due to all of this I'd probably also take a close look for any evidence of malnutrition - though this might be significantly faded after his many comfortable years retired. That said, Percy was tortured and then washed up on a fishing boat and dissociated for two years. Given this was at the tail end of his puberty, I'd be shocked to find no sign at all of lasting physical trauma at that.

I'd also find he had one arm that was just. Fine. Factory reset perfect. Nothing wrong at all. What the hell. Did someone cast Regenerate on him? (If they did cast Regenerate: did that have an accelaratory effect on any bone remodelling his healing bones were going through after the Vecna fight?

Assuming I've studied some of the other crypt bodies before Percy's this would be very interesting! Most of those would be de Rolos who likely went through little to no hardship - Percy stands out.

I'd also want to check to see his teeth - what kind of teeth care is he getting? Any cavities, calculus build up, abscesses, missing teeth? How worn down are they? Are there any fake teeth? Given Vex would probably chivvy Percy to take care of himself (and wouldn't care for stinky breath) and they have Pike on hand for healing, I imagine he has very good teeth for his age.

This is a good thing.

You see, assuming this is a very thorough study and all of that time between Percy's era and know gives me access to modern technology or some equivalent I would want to a few destructive tests. Namely - carbon dating, isotope analysis and DNA testing.

And these are often best done with Teeth. Teeth are fun! They are growing bones which live in our bones! And we lose our milk teeth and gain our adult teeth on the same reliable time frame as we use to age infant skeletons (sealing of skull sutures in that case) which makes them really useful. Like. Unspeakably useful. Teeth are fantastic. Take care of your damn teeth.

Carbon dating would, obviously, give us a rough idea of how old the body was. This is easier the more recent it is, and much more exact. We can then cross-reference this with the scholar translating inscriptions and checking historical records to see how well the carbon date matches up with the historical record!

DNA testing is the thing that would tell us if he was human, and, depending on how advanced it is, might even be able to tell us a few phenotypic genes! Melanin levels for skin and hair, eye pigmentation - possibly if he was genetically predisposed towards a few diseases. It would also allow us to compare him to other bodies in the data set! We would find out that the female body interred on one side of him was most likely his sister, and while the woman interred on his other side shares no meaningful DNA with him, there are other nearby bodies which share DNA with both of them, being their children! And from those children we'd know that there was a tiefling in the family, which would allow us to infer that somewhere in this family there was some kind of infernal influence.

Isotope analysis - if I'm recalling correctly, you can use isotope analysis to both identify some part of a person's diet in life (carbon and nitrogen analysis, usually) and where they came from (strontium and oxygen analysis).

So we'd have some idea of Percy's general diet, and also know he was local! I imagine given, you know, Exandria, magic - we'd have not just strontium analysis to place him as a Whitestone native, but also likely some lingering magic from the local whitestone rock to further establish that. Now, if I recall rightly, strontium analysis only really works for childhood, but based on the injury and malnutrition pattern, the idea that he either went through hell locally or left in some relation to that is not an unlikely one - just hard to prove.

CONCLUSIONS

We would see from his grave goods and the circumstances of his burial that he was high born and likely associated with the de Rolo family. From DNA analysis we'd know he was related to a good number of people in the crypt and that his apparent spouse was not, meaning he is most likely the de Rolo of the pair. Plus the strontium analysis we'd know he was local and his likely spouse was not, again furthering the idea that he was the de Rolo.

We might also have some idea of how he'd look, and if we decided to try to do a digital or artistic facial reconstruction we'd likely have some pigmentation pointers. Also, we know he wore glasses and that he needed them - that they weren't a stylistic choice.

We'd know he'd been badly injured at various points in his life, and, depending on how severe his various post-Glintshore and post-Raishan injuries were, we might still be able to see the gap of the resurrections in his bones, which would further suggest he was someone of means to have afforded such a resurrection. A lot of his injuries could probably be put down to an adventuring lifestyle, which the resurrections and any evidence of magical healing would probably attest to, and without the kind of surface scarring torture leaves, while we'd know he was injured badly over the course of his life, I don't know if we'd be able to easily conclude it was all at once. Certainly some marks on the bones would seem older than others but bones remodel over time! Some of it might be damn near invisible, while others would remain obvious. He also has a mysteriously perfect arm for Some Fucking Reason.

We'd likely have his wedding ring (I'd be shocked if it didn't have some inscription on the inside; this was very common historically and Percy is a complete sap), an ascot pin, a belt buckle and some buttons or fasteners for his clothing, a pocketwatch and chain (and again, I'd be surprised if the pocketwatch didn't have an inscription or a hidden flap with a miniature of his family or something). We'd have his glasses and possibly even his cane. We'd likely have the Earring of Whisper and based on how well Purvan Suul's two magical items lasted - one of which was not a Vestige! - I'd be inclined to say an Identify would let us know what that was once Detect Magic turned up that it was enchanted.

I imagine someone would also have catalogued any offerings left outside his grave - keepsakes, mementos, inscribed tablets of memorial, etc. which would help to let us know not just who he was but what he meant to the community in which he lived.

After all, the dead do not bury themselves - this is what I meant at the start by context. He was buried by people around him - his community. They chose his grave and his grave goods, they chose the inscription of his tomb (he may have requested it, they chose whether or not to honour that) and they left offerings and markers of what he meant to them.

And... from all of this? Assuming Scanlan really went ham telling the Legend of Vox Machina and bards keep telling it? I'd think an in-world archaeologist could make a good guess as to who this body was even before getting it confirmed by the scholar checking the inscriptions. And with the Cobalt Soul storing information - good odds they'd have a record of Scanlan's version of the tale and their own additions (see also Chronicles of Exandria books, intended as being from the Cobalt Soul). And, also, of course, Tary's version too! There's likely to be several different contemporaneous sources, not to mention later additions from the Voice of the Tempest.

So... I imagine this would probably help to fill out things that weren't covered by Scanlan's tale, refute things in Tary's and generally do as finding Richard III's body did for Britain - give us more information about the person behind all the stories and propaganda. Flesh out their life, give us hints of the hardship they went through - if there's inscriptions on his ring or pocketwatch, give us a hint of the heart he shared with his family.

It certainly wouldn't be everything, but it would be enough to let you touch another's humanity across a thousand years or more.

#percy de rolo #percival de rolo #vox machina #blorbologist #whitestone #ask #archaeology #god damn i love archaeology #you sent this in as enrichment BLORB DO YOU REALISE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE???#I AM SO ENRICHED #i'm sorry this got so long except also no what am I saying no i'm not #this was amazing thank you so much blorb #living up to my username #long post #such a long post #yes that's where i put the cut YOU WILL UNDERSTAND

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bsd-elle · 1 year

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Thoughts on Buddy Daddies Episode 11

Because damn, what a whiplash of an episode.

This episode, if nothing, is a direct parallel of the first two episodes of the series.

But let's start from the beginning.

The episode starts with Kazurei living their lives, but in a monotonous beat. Kazuki continues his same routine of domestic activities, but as seen by the state of the house and how Rei said, he's definitely not the best.

Rei dedicates his nights to playing video games and sleeping in the morning. And I wonder if it's because of the prior episodes, knowing that Miri was in danger, and now Kazuki would be the next threat, he doesn't allow himself to sleep at night, because he wants to be alert and ready for anything, for Kazuki.

The moment that stood out to me was when they both sat on the couch and watched Miri's favourite show while reading cup ramen.

From what we've seen of the show, every time they have food, they sit at the dining table, but this is one of the first times we've seen both of them on the couch, watching TV.

They probably set an alarm on their phones, to watch the show, because they know that somewhere, out there, Miri is watching the same thing, and they could be connected to her in that sense.

They also both have cereal, the same one that Kazuki was against, at the table with the high chair that they never could find in their hearts to move.

When Kazuki goes through Miri's room, which as we see, most of the stuff has been sent over to her, this is one of the few times we witness Kazuki crying and feeling genuine hurt over the loss of his daughter, and the loss of his family.

Going through the process of losing your family all over again, a concept that he just recently decided to accept and feel happy about, most have sent him reeling.

Kazuki took this as a sign, "yes, I can't be a father, I can't have a family, it's just not in the books for someone like me, so why should I feel bad? I can't feel bad, because it wasn't even possible, so why care now?".

Rei, on the other hand, misses her so desperately, probably to a level he didn't even think he was capable of, holding her rubber duck close to him while he sleeps, because she was his sleep buddy.

Their conversation in the balcony was a turning point for both of them. We see Rei smoking after a long time, which according to him, he stopped because of Miri.

And I love that Miri inspired this good habit, because throughout this conversation, he never actually smoked.

Rei winners if Miri is eating well, and he expresses genuine concern for her, and wishes her the best, whereas Kazuki doesn't even stop to consider the possibility that she isn't being treated well, because that would break his entire heart.

To know that they let her go but she's still not living a good life.

Rei says that he's planning on returning to his father's place, to which Kazuki replies that there's no point in them staying together. Which I'm just going to accept as another coping mechanism.

We've seen from past episodes that Kazuki was really concerned about Rei and the chance that he would return to his father's house, because he knows that it would be detrimental for Rei.

But now, we see him, pretty nonchalantly say that it wouldn't matter.

Kazuki, who just lost his daughter, is losing his partner, someone who has been by his side for so many years, and someone he thinks would be better off without him. Someone who wouldn't be considered his family without Miri.

He doesn't think that he can put up a fight, he doesn't think that he has any right to stop Rei, to stop their family from breaking apart.

Which is why, when Rei offers him his apartment, he declines because 'he'd like something smaller', I attribute to the fact that this apartment contains past memories of his family, one he was unable to keep.

From Rei's perspective, I just love that he offered Kazuki his apartment without a second thought, the same person who referred to Kazuki as 'couch-crasher' in the first episode, has had his apartment, his routine, his life be completely altered with a Kazuki shaped impression (and Miri shaped), with clean floors and full fridges.

I also think it was his way for Kazuki to always remember him. He knows that moving to his father's place would potentially mean that they would never see each other again, especially with Miri's absence. He knows that his father is aware of Kazuki's presence in his life, and it would be, on paper, better for him and safer for him to be away.

But he couldn't resist, throwing him his lighter, a constant reminder that Kazuki decided to take in a child, that both of them grew to love and care for, that both of them decided to give up for her safety, a child for whom Rei decided to stop smoking, and hasn't yet, to this date.

We then move to Kazuki and Kyuu's conversation at the cafe, Kyuu understanding that Kazuki isn't in the best state of mind, and would probably revert back to his old tendencies of gambling, to drown his thoughts. We also see Kazuki talk about how Rei and his father 'rub him the wrong way', and I'm sure that's due to the fact that Rei quite clearly has a strained relationship with his father, and the byproduct of the fierce creature that is Shigeki Suwa is Rei Suwa, who was the perfect assassin, until Kazuki and eventually Miri showed up.

And he is the perfect assassin, because the second Miri is brought into the question, he's willing to become the person he was, to kill anyone just to ensure that Miri would be safe.

Skipping forward to Misaki's untimely death. Tbh, I really hated this plot point, at first. The fact that Kazuki and Rei seemingly had their paths cleared by the death of Miri's father and mother, irked me.

But I also completely understand, given there are only 12 episodes of content, they had to wrap things up quickly, I get why they decided to proceed the way they did.

And I'm glad they gave Misaki her moment to grieve and regret, because it's really unfortunate.

She went through so much throughout her life, finally had the chance to rewrite history and create a new future with her daughter, but her own past mistakes eventually hurt her.

Speaking of Misaki, even though it's clear that she's working really hard on trying to be a better mother, I also think that she's FAR from being a good mother, tbh.

The moment that really set me off, is even Miri is talking about her papas, to which Misaki completely turns the conversation around to be about how she should've never let Miri feel lonely. Which completely invalidates Miri's emotions considering the fact that she was happily talking about spending time with her papas, to hear her own mother say that she wouldn't let her feel lonely... Idk..

I think if Miri heard, 'oh, I'm so sorry I made you feel lonely, I'll try my best not to make you feel that way', she could internalize that as, 'Should I have felt lonely in that moment? Am I a bad person because I felt happy, even though my mom is telling me that I should've felt lonely?'.

And this same feeling is carried over to when Misaki says to Miri that she'll work hard to be a mother Miri can love, and we can see Miri in that moment look upset and cling to get and say that she does love her.

And again, it's very easy as a four year old, to internalised that as your mistake, that you aren't showing your love strong enough to the point that your mother doesn't recognise it.

Now, am I saying all this because I think Misaki deserves everything that happened to her?

Absolutely not.

She was genuinely trying her best to be a better parent, and was doing with what she had and the knowledge she possessed, and isn't that what both Kazuki and Rei are trying to do too?

Even with her dying breath, all she wanted was for Miri to be safe and be protected, that's all she ever wanted, and it's really unfortunate that her story had to the in this manner.

But, I do want to highlight that even though Misaki was trying her best, she's definitely not the perfect mother, and neither are Kazuki and Rei.

But what's interesting is that, the one time Kazuki teared up, he made sure to hide his face from Miri, and I think that comes from years of having to see pain upfront, that conditioned him like this, but it is interesting to point out, the contrast in the two.

Further along, we see that Misaki's dying wish was ingrained in Kazuki to the point that he's already formulated a plan to put Miri into an orphanage.

However, as my initial point at the start of this post, a parallel to the first few episodes, Rei is the one who wants to take care of Miri, Rei adamantly fights for them to take care of her.

When Kazuki, rightfully, asks him what he can do, we see Rei actually introspect, the decisions that had led to this moment, every single little thing, that brought his little girl into her life, and changed him inside and out.

He was comfortable with business transactions, cold bodies with no pulses, glove cladded, professional handshakes, but for the first time, he sees value in life, he sees value in people, he feels warmth.

He sees life in people, connections he's made and the impacts that they have had on him.

Both of them.

It's fascinating because I think Kazuki and Rei processes things in such different manners.

When Miri was in danger, Kazuki's reaction to shut down and logically try to distance himself from her, because he doesn't think that he deserves her, whereas Rei's reaction is to pull closer to her, to try and be there for her even more, to not let her out of his sight for a second (and how could he do that without his partner?).

And it's so interesting that he's the one who's thinking emotionally in this moment, wanting to preserve every essence of Miri, and recreate it.

Whereas, Kazuki, in his mind, is thinking in the most logical manner.

And I think Rei understood that, unfortunately Kazuki has closed off his walls, put up his mask again, and thinks that they can never be a family again.

So he switches strategies and asks Kazuki the most logical question, wouldn't it be unfair to leave Miri after killing both her parents and then abandoning her?

And I think Kazuki was able to see that point, which is why he got so angry, because it's painful.

It's painful to bring his family back up again, so he's trying every single thing to stop it from happening, because he thinks that Miri would be safer in orphanages, than without him, that he's just a curse for everything around him.

So when Rei adamantly tells him, we can change.

It hits him.

And UGGHH.. The writing is so flawless, because the first time Rei asked Kazuki if they could change in Episode 8, when they were in the car, Kazuki replies quite cheerfully, who knows.

Because he had hope, he had belief that they could change, and it would happen.

But in episode 10, when they're brought back to reality, out of the haze, he says to Rei that, guess they weren't able to change.

Because in that moment, they weren't able to keep their family together, HE wasn't able to protect all of them, and like last time, he lost them.

So, his immediate response is to go back to the start, back to 'normal', back to a reality where he didn't change, he didn't accept happiness, and he didn't think he COULD be happy.

So this time, seeing his partner, someone he's spent years with, someone who raised his child with him, someone who would never fight passionately or emotionally, someone who was the 'perfect assassin', tell him, point blank,

We can change.

He sees hope, he sees a future, he sees happiness, he sees SOMETHING in Rei and Miri, and their time together, and if his partner is telling him that he can change, well? Who's Kazuki to stop him.

And Kazuki confirms to Miri that they're back together again (looking so Godamn pretty, OMG).

And the episode ends with Kazuki and Rei declaring that they're both leaving the assassin world, to be an actual family, to be fathers for Miri.

A wonderful episode that I desperately wished could've been expanded even more, but sigh, we only have 12 episodes.

I hope the last episode either deals with them being a family on paper, with a timeskip to the future after they've successfully gotten away, OR, the better one, where we get badass kazurei beating everyone in the organization.

(I desperately hope for the second option, but tbh, since it's only one episode, I wouldn't mind either way♥️).

#buddy daddies #rei buddy daddies #miri buddy daddies #kazuki buddy daddies #buddy daddy spoilers #bd #bsd anime #kazurei #kazuki kurusu #rei suwa #miri unasaka #misaki unasaka #buddy daddies miri #buddy daddies meta #buddy daddies kazuki #buddy daddies rei #such a long post #but I was thinking too much

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levoneh · 1 year

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books books

in 2021 i found reading again thru lots of romance novels

and in 2022 i would say i returned to eating a more hearty balanced diet

here’s my most favorite to talk about

semiosis by sue burke - {SFF} generational tale of exodus ship settlers on hostile alien planet and their relationship with the sentient plant life there. oooh baby. this was the first really juicy book i read this year, and the first sci-fi i had really loved in a while. i kept thinking i knew what this book was going to be about, and then it kept pulling out the rug from under me in really satisfying ways. ended up being thematically related to a lot of other SFF i read thru the rest of the year in an exciting, brain-using way.

culture war lords by tal lavin - {non-fiction} i think part of this was so resonant bc of how i listened to it as an audiobook (in snatches while watching my nanny kids play on the playground, or while heaving their stroller up hill through the streets of jerusalem.) i wanted to talk about it with my mom, but i don’t want my mom to hear the awful things in this book.

the just city by jo walton - {SFF} athena takes nerds through time and kidnapped children to build plato’s just city. okay, so this was *~*THE YEAR OF JO*~* i first read jo walton’s books the previous year, and then became obsessed by her and am on a quest to read everything she’s written. another book i didn’t expect, very thematically connected to semiosis. what if our children don’t want what we build for them? what if we were wrong? what will we they do with it after they decide that?

the bright ages by david m. perry + matthew gabriele - a really delightful,expansive, different kind of history book about the middle ages. set me on my obsessive medieval history streak this year (see below.) i listened to as an audiobook, but i’ll just have to reread in print to really absorb it

under the rainbow by celia laskey - {contemp fiction} members of gay rights advocacy group and their families settles in ‘the most homophobic small town in america.’ okay, i’m putting this on the list, bc i loved the premise, and there was something there!! critiques of liberal HRC gays, explorations of the relationships of children of queer parents with queerness, dark comedy potential galore. but i just felt like laskey kept pulling punches, kept going for the easy stereotype or cliché. i kept wanted it to be something it wasn’t, but i want someone else to read it so we can talk about how it could be better

matrix by lauren groff - {historical fic} bastard daughter of the king is given a nepotism appointment as the abbess of a failing convent as an awkward teen. this falls in my absolute fave category of book, where there’s no plot but just an interesting character in interesting circumstances. deliciously meandering. tough, brilliant, prickly protagonist.

agatha of little neon by claire luchette - {contemp fic} a nun finds herself questioning her life when she and her sisters are relocated and take up a new vocation at a halfway house. i read these two nun books close together, which was an interesting compare and contrast. this is such like a delicate book, like a crumbly, brown fall leaf. meditative, gentle and harsh all at once. really lovely.

eat your heart out by kelly devos - {YA/horror} zombies come to fat camp. i don’t really read YA anymore, but i’m glad i read this. not to be corny or on the nose but it was a YA book with bite. fun, sharp, by turns sweet and sincere when it needed to be, i spent a flight with this book and it was perfect.

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson - {SFF} in a world where tech exists to enter parallel universes - if you’ve already died in them - a woman makes a career out of it because she’s died in so many of them. WOW. really gorgeous SFF in the tradition of social commentary without resorting to cheap allegory, but in a full, fascinating world. twists and excitement, heart-racing suspense. johnson is a star.

we are watching eliza bright by a.e. osworth - {contemp fic.} female game programmer becomes the target of a gamergate-style mob. what a weird, cool book. lyrical, with interesting,unsual narrative choices and scary, i don’t think everyone would love this book, but i did.

a river of stars by vanessa hua - {contemp fic} two chinese women flee a secretive maternity home in california and have to eke out a life for themselves and their children together. loved this for a lot of the same reasons i loved matrix, women learning to live with and for each other, no plot just people living through their circumstances, tough, brilliant protagonist. the book starts, if not fantastically, then certainly with a lot of energy and sensational events, and then settles into a grim, gripping fight for survival, but imo never enters the depressing or nihilistic.

the monsters of templeton by lauren groff - {magical realism} a woman returns to her hometown and then the town sea monster dies and is found floating in the lake. i read this book while a only a small drive away from the town the town in this book is based off of, which was fun for me. because it really is a love letter to weird, small towns, and this weird small town in particular (cooperstown, ny) where groff grew up. it’s not an uncomplicated love letter either, there’s plenty to criticize. it was a dreamy, hold onto you kind of book.

essential labor: mothering as social change - {non-fiction} i appropriately read the in snatches here and there during naptime in daycare. lots of juicy ideas in here, and i think it’s one of those things which everyone should probably read. another one to re-read so i can absorb it better.

patricia wants to cuddle by samantha allen - {horror} contestants of a bachelor-type dating show get hunted by lesbian big foot. AHHH this was the most frustrasting book of the year. from the cover, to the plot summary, i wanted to read this book so bad i bought it in hardcover. the first half, which is mostly a satire of the bachelor is amazing, and i just couldn’t wait for patricia to show up. and then it all ends in a terrible rush. i remember so much the feeling of enjoying the book, and then thinking “i don’t know how this will get wrapped up satisfactorily in the amount of book she’s got left.” and she doesn’t, unforch. so close. i’m excited to read allen’s second book though.

doomsday book by connie willis - {SFF} due to academic red tape, a small scale pandemic, and the christmas season a graduate student is trapped in the black plague and her mentor desperate to bring her back. i just loved this book. i loved the vision of a future world of cozy, bumbling academic time travel interrupted by tragedy, i loved the technology (a tape recorder triggered by pressing the hands together so the time traveller can record her observations while seeming to pray.) i loved the catharsis and tragedy around sickness and confusion, and the way ultimately the villain of this book is pride, petty bureaucracy and a failure to care for people. so much love, noble sacrifice and care is in this book, so much friendship and charity in ways that feel special and uncheap and untrite. also somehow, for a lot of it, sort of a romp!

the interior life by katherine blake - {SFF} sue, a homemaker is unhappy with her life. she begins imagining an elaborate fantasy world and is inspired by the heorines of that world to make small, but profound changes in her own. what a weird book! that i’m totally obsessed with! this book changed my brain in ways i can’t fully explain. this book is half generic but good high fantasy epic, and half watching sue join the PTA, paint her kitchen, budget for classical music records, make female friends, reinvest in her marriage. the fantasy is good, but sue’s story is un-put-downable and this book was not what you are expecting it to be. the way this book talks about women and their lives is so unusual in SFF that it’s unbelievable (but not yk) that i’ve barely heard of this book. it’s hard to explain what’s so great about this book without waggling my hands around and sighing a lot but this is a really special one.

the daughter of time by josephine tey - {mystery} a scotland yard detective laid up in a hospital bed solves the mystery of the princes in the tower. the character in another book i read read this book and then i found it on the free shelf! a funny little mystery with a classic rude detective. i don’t know if the historical research done in this book is true, but it really made me consider richard iii in a different light. so there’s that!

lent: a novel of many returns by jo walton - {historical/SFF} renaissance-era monk is not what he thinks he is, tries again and again and again. okay, of all the groundhog days that are so popular right now, this is a groundhog day really worth your time. historically rich and fascinating, sad, funny. what a blast!

tam lin by pamela dean - {SFF lite} janet goes to small liberal arts college in the 70s, makes friends, learns about herself, reads a lot, enrolls in classes and meets some hot, weird boys. the title kind of gives away the game here, but it really takes its time getting there. lots of talk of books and homework and class schedule and campus geography and roommate politics which feels atmospheric and fun and yk academic aesthetic in a way you all would probably like. the fantasy really lays dormant a lot of the book, but i didn’t mind. dean captures being 18 and on your own for the first time so brilliantly that even if you’re not a fantasy reader and were just a kind of pretentious college kid i think you’ll love it.

mystics, mavericks and merrymakers by stephanie wellen levine - {non-fiction} a sociological character study of some teenage girls in the lubavitch community in crown heights. i spent last shabbes reading the profiles aloud to my spouse on the couch and it was absolutely riveting. i’ve worked and socialized a lot alongside the chabad community, and so i felt like i really recognized some of the girls. at turns heartbreaking, hilarious, tender, tragic, adorable. if you (still) follow me, you’ll probably love this book.

#long post #such a long post #sorry #this year in books!

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whiteshipnightjar · 3 months

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Zoozve, my beloved

#i cannot tell you how much this made me smile just bc it's so full of love #moon #venus #zoozve #long post #sorry about that it's very long but it's very entertaining i hope you enjoy this lil zoozve gem haha #astronomy #astrophysics #space

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coffinwoodx · 5 months

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ok so for those of you who don’t know, there’s this twitter account of a japanese local hero mascot named dentman who went viral recently due to this tweet

but yeah he saw the tweet. and his response went viral as well (which is how i found his account)

and he just has like. hourly posts reminding you to brush your teeth

oh and his rival? his name is mr. mutans. whenever dentman posts he makes a post of his own, ofc

but THAT’S NOT ALL. literally while making this post i found a THIRD ACCOUNT that’s all about taking your meds

safe to say i’m losing my mind

anyway the point of all this was that people are ALREADY beginning to draw them ship art 😭

and the reactions are everything

I CANT ADD ANY MORE IMAGES BUT TRUST ME THIS IS SO FUNNY

toxic one-sided dentman yaoi wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card but it DEFINITELY IS NOW!

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great-and-small · 2 months

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Do y’all wanna hear about some absolutely crazy shit going down in the birding world right now

#it’s a whole thing #would be a long ass post

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powdermelonkeg · 3 months

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Important rules/tips I've learned as an adult that helped with anxiety

If people are mad at you, it's their responsibility to tell you, not your responsibility to guess

If they're mad at you in secret anyways, they're the ones in the wrong, not you

If people don't like what you're doing, it's their responsibility to tell you

If they say it's fine when it's really not, they're the ones in the wrong, not you

People are allowed to be wrong about you

If they are wrong about you, wait for them to bring it up, because if you try to, you will inevitably overcorrect

Some people are committed to misunderstanding you. You will not win arguments against them. Yes, even if you explain your point of view. They do not care. Drop it

The worst thing that will happen from a first-time offense is being told not to do it again. Maybe with a replacement if you broke something

You can improve relationships and gauge willingness to talk to you by giving compliments. It's like a daily log-in bonus and nobody thinks twice about it

Most things are better after you sleep on them

Most things are better after you have a meal

Most things are better after you shower

Your brain makes up consequences that are irrational. If the worst DOES come to pass and someone acts like they do in your head, they are overreacting, and you are entitled to say "what the fuck"

If your chest hurts after you feel like you've made a social error, that's called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. It means your anxiety is so bad that it's causing you physical pain, which is a good indicator that you're overreacting. Tense yourself, hold it for 20 seconds, let it go, then find a distraction

If you're suddenly angry at someone after you feel like you made a social error, that's also rejection-sensitive dysphoria. You are going to feel annoyed about it for awhile, but being genuinely pissed off is your anxiety trying to find something to blame to take the responsibility off your shoulders, and getting scared because it can't justify itself. Deep breaths, ask yourself how much you ACTUALLY want to be angry at that person, then find a distraction

"Sour grapes" is more healthy for you than stewing. Deciding you don't like someone who's perpetually annoyed with you, won't talk to you, etc. makes letting go of anxiety over them easier

If people don't like you, they will find reasons to be annoyed with you when they otherwise wouldn't. If people do like you, they will find reasons NOT to be annoyed with you when they otherwise would. People do not ping-pong between the two

You DO have to make a conscious choice not to think about something. If you're having trouble circling back to it, say out loud that you're done thinking about it and why. Then find a distraction

When you're upset, part of you is going to want to make false bids for attention (suddenly texting differently, heavy sighs, etc. but when someone asks you about it, you tell them it's nothing). Do not listen to it. You gain nothing from it except more misery

People like to help people they care about. It makes them feel good about themselves

If you think you're insufferable for needing help, see above. Yes, really. They get a serotonin kick from it

If you think you're insufferable for mannerisms you have, you either have to consciously choose not to do them, or accept that they're part of the package that comes with you. Being apologetic about existing does nothing except make you more miserable

If you do things you don't like when you feel meh about it, it makes it easier to do them when you hate it

If you avoid things you don't like when you feel meh about it, it reinforces and magnifies how bad it feels when you hate it

Seriously. Read those last two points again. If you can make yourself make a phone call when you've got nothing to lose, you will slowly lose that panic you get when you have to make a phone call you haven't prepared for. You do have to CONSCIOUSLY take that step

Hobbies that make you care for something get rid of that nagging feeling that you're not doing enough. Go grow some rosemary

If you don't engage with your hobbies regularly, you will feel miserable, and anxiety will spike

Hobbies are things that give you a bit of happiness. They do not have to be organized or named to do that. Go be creative in something. Play with coins. Make up lists. Start a new WIP

No one cares what you look like

If people point out things they don't like about how you look unprompted, they are being rude. You are entitled to say "what the fuck"

People who like you will find you pretty to some degree. Minor things about your appearance go completely unnoticed. Literally, scars and dots and blemishes do not register to someone who likes your company

You looking at yourself in the mirror is 10x more closely than anyone is going to look at you

If you're anxious about your body type, and you're creatively inclined, make/write an oc with that same shape. Give them nice things and make other characters love them. Put them on adventures. You'll start to see yourself in the mirror more kindly

You care about wording and perfect lines/colors way more than anyone who views your work ever will

Sometimes when you're upset, you're going to feel like not eating. Do not do that. Not eating makes you more miserable

Same with things you normally enjoy. Denying yourself helps no one. You are punishing yourself for being sad. Stop it

Both of these will take conscious decision to break the habit of. Make yourself do it anyways, and it will slowly get easier

And again, to reiterate: If someone is mad at you, it is THEIR responsibility to tell you, not your responsibility to guess

#anxiety #long post #i have been an adult for the better part of a decade and it has gotten SO much easier as i internalized these #swearing tw

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secondlina · 1 year

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Check out my ongoing comic Crow Time. It has crows, and also neat pantheons of epic beasties.

#crow time #secondlina art #webcomic #webcomics #webtoon #webtoons #long post #comic #comics #goblincore #cottagecore

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adyophene · 2 months

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Husk's secret weapon

#hazbin hotel #husk #alastor #hazbin art #radiohusk #kinda #long post #i did not mean for it to get this long 'oh its a simple comic idea how many panels could it take?' too many

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kaftan · 8 months

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[ID: a screenshot of the “Bad Art” coloumn of the table shown in the original tweet.

The sections are: “makes you feel weird”, “saps energy”, “sets off a downward spiral”, “confuses the mind”, “produces stagnation”, “weed” (as a drug analogy), “unstructured and obsessively anti-rhythm”, “instinctively recognised as a scam”, “a malevolently bad map”, “obfuscation, lies, resentment”, “wises to destroy the canon”, “mocks the concept of values”, “enfeebles life”, “spits on beauty and actively celebrates ugliness”, and “bad art is whining, coping, seething, and a waste of time”.

End ID]

Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

#losing it over this.#if my art doesn’t make people feel weird i consider it a failure #long post

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suiheisen · 1 month

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"i would know her by reformed body alone... i would know her in death"

also... there's official art

#happy national lesbian necromancy day #studio trigger somehow made it even gayer #between this and senshi pantyshot... we were fed #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #spoilers #yes i needed to make my gifs huge #for... you know...#science #farcille #falin touden #marcille donato #long post #anime #art #autoplay warning

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sedgewick-gayble · 6 months

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1920s tumblr simulator

🎞 noirsuatoir Follow

Private detectives useless as hell all I do is sit behind a desk dramatically lit in black and white stripes by my half open blinds and smoke cigars. Living the dream

#privatedetective #detectivelife #i have 19 unsolved cases

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🎷 aceofspades Follow

prohibition hitting hard...making some bathtup gin tonight. DM for recipe

🎷aceofspades Follow

hopital

( 65 notes )

🔘 deactivated-341925 Follow

Clara Bow is 20??!!!

🔘 deactivated-341925 Follow

SHE SHOULD BE AT THE SPEAKEASY

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🎙 fancy-nancyboy Follow

Smuggling some moonshine in my coat oh boy I sure do hope no big scary prohibition officer comes andbpins me and handcuffs me hahha oh nooo that would suck

#wink wink

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🍸 gladragz Follow

my thirsty ass could NEVER be a bootlegger!!!!

( 7 notes )

🚬 runrummer Follow

Anyone else think some of those jc leyendecker drawings are kind of yaoi ....

#those arrow collar advertisments got me feelin smthn #jc leyendecker #jcleyendecker #jcl

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📻 flapperfanny-fan973 Follow

she speak on my easy till I jazz

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#first attempt at this genre of posts #i spent 30 minutes too long on this and it sucks. releasing it into the wild #unreality #fake posts #fake dashboard #1920s

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sayruq · 2 months

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#yemen #jerusalem #tel aviv #current events #palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #news on gaza #palestine news #news update #war news #war on gaza #Palestinian resilience #genocide #gaza genocide #palestinian joy #long post

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phantomrose96 · 2 months

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If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

#chrissy speaks #long post #-gestures broadly-

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weaselle · 2 months

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it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.

#long post #sorry #i just have a lot of DO PEOPLE UNDERSTAND feelings left over from all my years in restaurants #restaurants #line cook #service industry

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