high ambient background football levels reminded me to actually finish this Personal Lore That Caused My Books comic

titsay

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Sweet Seals For You, Always
Sade Olutola
The Stonewall Inn
Game of Thrones Daily
Noah Kahan
taylor price
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Origami Around

pixel skylines
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Doug Jones
NASA
$LAYYYTER

bliss lane

PR's Tumblrdome
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸

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@esmeiolanthe
high ambient background football levels reminded me to actually finish this Personal Lore That Caused My Books comic
someone made a song about That One Staircase that's in every guzhuang drama ever so i translated it LOL
it's very rushed and i haven't watched all of these shows so idk how the official subs translated certain place names but i did my best
all errors are mine <3
source
That’s it, that’s all I got. Happy Valentine’s Day, tumblr, thank you for tolerating me.
campy melodramatic dragon who is trying so so hard to be an evil conqueror but everything she does has objectively good consequences
spends two hours trying to burn a village down riiiiiight after heavy snow before getting sick of it taking a spite shit and flying away. villagers spend years telling the tale of how a dragon came in after a blizzard and flamethrowered all the streets clear before fertilizing their fields and disappearing back over the horizon.
they build a shrine to her. they have no idea how to model dragon expressions so to people it looks great but to a dragon its like a cross eyed drooling idiot. and the tail is raised waaaaaay too high so its like having someone make a shrine to you where you’re cross eyed and have stink lines coming off you and a huge arrow pointing at you that says SLUT. the other dragons make visits just to laugh at the shrine and the villagers just keep thinking its her because they can’t tell dragons apart.
she spends so long hiding in her cave that her scales turn white before deciding enough is enough and finally burning the shrine down. the villagers make an elaborate backstory about the Kind Green Dragon that clears streets and fertilizes fields and visits the shrine twice yearly vs. her nemesis the Wicked White Dragon that hates her and hates the village and is always trying to burn the village down. the other dragons tease her mercilessly for this. no dragon has ever suffered as much indignity as her. she eventually pays to get a statue of the town mayor made where he’s a drooling idiot with stink lines coming off and a huge arrow is pointing at him that says SLUT but unfortunately the villagers think this is the best thing ever and he never loses another election for the rest of his life. he actually demands to be buried underneath it.
Reading AITA sometimes is like,
AITA for refusing to cancel our family's Thanksgiving tradition?
So, we do a regular, totally traditional Thanksgiving--the family gets together, we have all the traditional Thanksgiving foods at dinner, we watch football, and of course we do the Thanksgiving Mole Hunt.
So, my daughter (27F) lost her husband about five years ago. She was understandably really upset by this, and moved away for a while and met a lovely young man (30M) who she's getting married to next year. We're all happy for her and excited to meet this new family member. But when I emailed her inviting her and her fiancé to Thanksgiving, of course I said, "don't forget to pack your gloves and your mole hammer!" and her reaction was, well. She asked if maybe we could not do the mole hunt this year. Because her fiancé wasn't used to it.
But, I mean, the mole hunt is really important to my family! And to my husband's family and honestly lots of people around here are really into it. I told her no, we're doing the mole hunt, and now she's saying she's not coming to Thanksgiving. I don't understand it.
EDIT: Look, all you people in the comments saying "just draw pictures of moles, that's what my family does" are you kidding? You're going to appease the gods of the Underworld with a picture of a mole? And if you don't dig up moles, where do you get the worms for the worm roast? And don't tell me "buy them at the bait store" because bait store worms on your pumpkin pie is just, ew.
ANOTHER EDIT: So, I didn't put this in the post originally because I didn't want it to be too long, but people are asking if there's any reason my daughter is particularly adamant about not doing the mole hunt. The thing is, her first husband drew the short straw after pie one year and nobody thought it was any big deal but it turned out he didn't have a mole. He said he "wasn't feeling it" and so he just stood around drinking beer while we all dug up our moles. My daughter offered to give him her mole but I mean, when you're appeasing the gods of the Underworld you don't want to mess around. I do a traditional Thanksgiving, that's all there is to it. Really, it's not asking much for people to just dig up a mole to sacrifice in their stead in case they get the short straw! But my daughter was really upset, and I have to admit I wanted to say Oh come on who hasn't lost a spouse in the Thanksgiving mole hunt, but I realized that wouldn't be helpful.
AND ANOTHER EDIT: Look, I don't appreciate being called a "fucking bloodthirsty loon." I don't know how you all do Thanksgiving but these are important traditions to my family! And yes, I did lose my first two husbands on Thanksgiving but if they couldn't get up and stun a damn mole on Thanksgiving that's not my fault, is it?
LAST EDIT: I'm not replying to any more comments or messages. My daughter has said she's never talking to me again and has blocked me on everything. I'm heartbroken. On the other hand, that's more moles for the rest of us.
Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you caught your mole!
The first time she learned of the ghost was from the realtor. They had been very upfront about it, just like they had made it very clear that it being haunted was the only reason this stately Victorian home was anywhere near her budget. So she had taken it, of course she had. It was a sweet house, a family home. No manor or mansion by any definition of the word, but built before the time that people were concerned with saving space. It was stately, but in disrepair, and most definitely, absolutely, undoubtedly haunted.
It shouldn't really have surprised anyone that he did not move on when he died. He had been the butler of the house when the family had lived there, had become its custodian during their absence, and what was the purpose of a custodian if not to wait with the house for the return of its owners? Except they never returned.
The first time she felt the ghost was when she went to clean the place up. Which is why she came back with a sensible supply of ibuprofen the next time. It was very hard to get anything done with impending migraines stabbing at her temples. The bone chilling cold that seemed to seep from the walls was harder to keep at bay, but she did not hold it against him. If she had been trapped in this place she would be kicking up more fuss than the occasional cold spot. Besides, it was a good incentive to keep busy. It's impossible to be cold while scrubbing a floor. By the time she had gotten around to restoring the fireplaces to their original marble with paint stripper and a scraper, she didn’t even feel chilly anymore.
They might have abandoned the house, but he hadn't. He had kept it tidy, well aired out, and in good repair, decade after decade. Over half a century. What was a century more? It was a good house, a fine house. It did not need “developing”, it did not need these people with grey paint and eggshell paper. They should have left the finials and weathervane in place.
The first time she heard the ghost was while looking for the kitchen door. There were bits and pieces missing of the house, her house. Someone, at some point, must have taken that door off its hinges, in a vain attempt to approach open-plan living. It was nowhere to be found, but she would find it, if only that terrible rattling and wailing would stop. It did stop, once she found the ladder that had dropped down from the attic. The attic the realtor had told her was completely inaccessible. The attic filled with ornaments and antique doorknobs, a battered weathervane, and a panelled kitchen door.
Restore... That was a quaint word. Not at all like “remodel” or “modernise”. There were a lot of words he had never heard before, he had not bothered to listen for a long time. Such a cheerful, appreciative voice.
The first time she saw the ghost was while poring over a sample book, fretting over the few scraps off wallpaper she had found behind a patched-up baseboard. The colours were too faded to make out and she did not want to get it wrong. Victorian reproductions were expensive, and the leaves and the feathers looked so much alike. She had nothing but a corner of paper to go on and she stared and stared and stared, until a hand reached out of nowhere, and turned the page to the maroon one. She barely breathed, she put the scrap of paper on the page, a perfect corner of the pattern, and smiled.
It was a fine house, a beloved house. And people came there again, not to buy and destroy it, to visit. There were people who said they wanted to buy it, people with broad smiles and greedy eyes. But that would not happen now. They were always sent away.
But the first time she met the ghost was on a pale autumn morning, stumbling from the car to the front door with her arms full bolts of damask for the curtains. She had just begun to wonder how she'd reach her keys when the fine oak door swung open, all stately hospitality, and on its doorstep, standing respectfully aside, was the same tall, well groomed man, clad all in black. He bowed and stepped aside, speaking in a hollow voice warmed by respect and satisfaction:
“Welcome home, ma'am.”
The first spark of inspiration for this story was this by Christine McConnell about restoring the wallpaper in her Victorian home:
All time travelers must be vaccinated against smallpox, be up to date on their flu shots, and carry flea and mosquito repellant and water purifying tablets with them. Complete your yearly cultural sensitivity training for your particular time period.
Do NOT allow some street urchin to peer pressure you into eating moldy bread. We’ve lost too many agents to that one
Also again we do NOT authorize use of the company machines to get in more study time for the cultural sensitivity training. Taking risks with the fabric of space time is not permitted for personal use.
I have been instructed to not name names but you know who you are and you have two strikes already.
And why the FUCK do we suddenly all have two memories of our lives? One in a reality where Mussolini took over Europe and one where he didn’t? Carl you- I don’t know what the fuck you did Carl but I’m going to kick your ass myself. I don’t care if you fixed it I’m going to-
(Secretary’s note- the chairman stormed out as he was dictating and yelled back to “just send the damn memo as is”)
The new chairwoman would like to send apologies for her predecessor’s prior outburst. All offending parties have resigned.
This month the company will be providng a free voucher for a visit to the wellness coach for all those struggling to differentiate the difference between their two different sets of memories.
Regarding our current legal dispute with the United Nations, as many of you have inquired, our legal team has suggested that we don’t discuss further details at this time.
Reminder that a copy of your proof of vaccination cards and completion of the cultural sensitivity training certificate should be turned into Roxanne’s office by Monday.
Listen to his song
(via)
Holy shit who taught this bird to sing opera
video description: a small bird stood on wooden flooring, singing the iconic high staccato bit from the queen of the night aria. he doesn't perfectly hit all the notes but still does a pretty good job. there is a human hand shaking a container full of cotton buds next to the bird for some reason.
Cockatiel (Nymphicus hollandicus)
Couldn't stop thinking about that tweet, I love the idea of a god promoting his faith.
Noragami
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
Might I add:
The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed
The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child
The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship
The adventures of a space roomba
Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)
I don’t know a snappy description but the my nemesis cynthia story certainly lives in my head
hilariously, these are almost all in my fic tag. so, a compiled list from the notes (and some extras):
The God of Arepo (graphic novel 1 / 2 / 3) (ebook)
The Monster of Sentan
The Witch’s Cat
Raise Both Children
Stabby the Roomba (honorable mention)
Cinderella Marries the Prince (comic)
My Arch Nemesis Cynthia
Pirates and Mermaid
Eindred and the Witch
The Demon King
The Cornerwitch
Grandmother Beetroot
Apocalypse Daycare Worker
Grandmother Accidentally Summons a Demon
New Year Saga
A Story About Changelings
Ranger in the King’s Forest
The Difference Between a Hare and a Rabbit
Goblin Men (Canines)
I am in love with you /p
What about the one with the princess locked in a tower learning to become a wizard? That’s lived in my mind for years and I haven’t seen it in a long time
Oh, love that story, adding it to the list: 20. Princess Talia and adding a few more contenders 21. Thyme 22. The Monster under the Bed 23. A Meaningful Death 24. Humans are unstoppable…until they aren’t 25. The Monster under the Fridge 26. Antler Guy 27. Cleric slamming healing spells
Adding a few more I remembered: 28. The Frog and the Scorpion 29. HSTHETE 30. The First Witch in the World 31. Imagine that Oceans were replaced by Forests 32. A Faerie taking a Name 33. The Dragon on the Farm 34. Synovus & Menace 35. Raising the Anti-Christ 36. Aliens vs. Flora & Fauna of Earth (pretty sure there are even more additions to the original post but I had this one saved) 37. Doctors without Borders…in Space! 38. The Villain-Wrangler 39. The Last Contact 40. The 100 Parent-Point Children 41. And the Heavens Wept 42. The Night Gentleman 43. The Serpent God and their Priestess
44. No One Showed Up for the Last Storytime
Wow! @writing-prompt-s contributing to like half of these!
I can hardly take any credit for these stories! But I love sharing them. Unfortunately I cannot read all the prompt responses so please tag me if you want me to reblog a story that resonated with you so I can give it a little boost :)
Reblogging this again so I can find it easier cause my god this is beautiful
I didn’t realise that I’d somehow accidentally unpinned this post until yesterday, and subsequently had to travel back through a couple months worth of reblogs to find it again. so now I’m gonna add more stories as I find them so that I can use this as an archive to find them all again.
Also, this post will be procedurally updated with new stories when I find them, so if you liked it, then maybe check up on it every month or so and I might have new stories to share
1. Standing beneath both Sola and Luna by @comicaurora and @izzbeingchaotic
2. The Future-giver by @shady-tavern
3. Hungry Babushka Ghosts by @thestuffedalligator
4. Nothing I didn’t already know also by @thestuffedalligator
5. The Night-Mother by @melgillman
6. Sherlock Pendragon also by @thestuffedalligator . They really are good at this, aren’t they.
7. The Deathless Sisters by @bixbythemartian
8. There’s a monster at the end of town… by @zakeno
9. A collection of glimpes into a child’s world by a lot of people
10. Underworld Duet by @officialleehadan
11. A benign existence compiled by @willinghands
12. Musings on a hand axe by @gallusrostromegalus
13. Agnodice. More people should know about this
14. Perhaps they shouldn’t have eaten the dragon… by @laurasimonsdaughter
15. Imitation Seawater by @derinthescarletpescatarian
16. What is the difference between a cathedral and a lab? By @letallthetrashraindown
17. The Must'Ain’t by @gallusrostromegalus
18. The Golden Record by @fennecshandgf
19. I turn to Ares by @kochei0
20. Sons of the Labyrinth by @golyadkin
21. The Sphinx’s love by @animentality & @fox-moblin
22. Under the Tracks written by Sio on Twitter, brought tumblr by @apelcini and illustrated by @texeoghea
23. Lots of good recipes started by @girlmuppet and @batmanisagatewaydrug
24. True love brought to tumblr by @kaijuno , @transgenidoqueen and @harbingermotel
25. The Need to Stay by @maddiesharafian
26. The Whale, The Tuna, and The Salmon by @bees-with-swords and illustrated twice over by @eldritchjackalope
27. The Moon asks a Question written by dirgewithoutmusic on Ao3 and illustrated by @purutsukid
28. What we can learn from a child by @notreewaits-deactivated20200806 , @yelnatszeroni, @Ilywela13 , @ladyofatraditionalkind , @banrions , @greedy-guts , @thegodsofkhaosinkarnate
29. Compiles of Japanese and European folklore/myths brought to tumblr by @walmart-the-official and @bleu-guacamole , sourced from yokai.com and the translation works of Prof. D. L. Ashliman of the University of Pittsburgh
30. Time by @welldrawnfish
31. Just so you curious types know where you totally shouldn’t go for your research by @draculasdaughter , @three-blogs-in-a-trenchcoat , and @whateverthebeeswant .
32. The Midnight Cafe by @wizard-email
33. The Rules of the Hunt. A collaboration between @rysttle and @polistini
34. The Hand You Cannot See by @blackbearmagic, @nikniknikin, @the-tabularium, @draconym
35. Not what is expected by @dxactivatxdusxr , @its-just-a-phage , @flowernstt, @anotherdayforchaosfay , @anaalihelmisimpukka , and @stealthclaw1
36. A collection of mishaps and mindslips by @cafffine , @rumplefuckingstiltzkin , @fried-berries those whose comments they compiled, @heywriters , @ariconditioner , @modmad , and @lagomorpheme
37. The faceless angels by @cannibalcaprine-deactivated2024, @ancient-debris, @omnybus (the artist), @captain-acab
38. We will remember your shoes by @cooking-with-hailstones, @netherworldpost, and @vaspider. Found through @the-haiku-bot
39. The room where you can play scrabble forever by @exhaustedwerewolf
Continued…
The one by @inbabylontheywept about the girl being fated to marry the boy from the Nativity Village had me riveted on the edge of my seat until the last word
Uhhh. I have no idea what story that is. I’m flattered, but are you sure that was me? I get mixed up with @foldingfittedsheets pretty regularly. Just a guess .
Okay, this made me pause and literally write out every letter that 'fell' in order (‘oomngouuhhrsrtutpntnue’), then make sure they were all contained in 'turntomushuponthergroun'.
They are, and it's very satisfying.
Japanese Dramas:
Plot summary: My husband cheated on me, I got a divorce, my younger coworker confessed to me and after he chased me I gave in. Now we're in a secret office romance. I suddenly got amnesia halfway through and now my ex husband is confessing again? And what about the prophetic dragon's curse?!?! Episodes: 6 Episode length: 15 minutes, 3 minutes spent on the awkward dancing intro
Korean Dramas:
Plot Summary: An arrogant heir who suddenly took over his family's business and a hardworking employee overcome their differences and fall in love Episodes: 16 Episode length: 30 minutes
Chinese Dramas:
Plot Summary: Two childhood friends fall in love in college Episodes: 46 Episode length: 55 minutes with viewers complaining the storyline was rushed
A restaurant named You're Not Supposed To Be Here, where the whole point is that the vibes are unnerving. The lighting is weird, the whole place has a faint scent that's not a bad smell, but it's certainly not food smell and you can't quite identify what the hell it is. The music is weirdly janky and you can't quite tell what's wrong with it, the vocals aren't exactly garbled but sung in a language you swear you've never heard anywhere and couldn't name if you tried. Only hiring staff who have anxiety and they're 100% permitted to show how much your presence here stresses them out.
Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles, tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit space-magic countermeasures out of their arses - but they’re as likely as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.
So to everyone else in the galaxy, all humans are basically Doc Brown.
Aliens who have seen the Back to the Future movies literally don’t realise that Doc Brown is meant to be funny. They’re just like “yes, that is exactly what all human scientists are like in my experience”.
THE ONLY REASON SCOTTY IS CHIEF ENGINEER INSTEAD OF SOMEONE FROM A SPECIES WITH A HIGHER TECHNOLOGICAL APTITUDE IS BECAUSE EVERYONE FROM THOSE SPECIES TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE’S ENGINE ROOM AND RAN AWAY SCREAMING
vulcan science academy: why do you need another warp core
humans: we’re going to plug two of them together and see if we go twice as fast
vsa: last time we gave you a warp core you threw it into a sun to see if the sun would go twice as fast
humans: hahaha yeah
humans: it did tho
vsa: IT EXPLODED
humans: it exploded twice as fast
I love this. Especially because of how well it plays with my headcanon that the Federation does so much better against the Borg than anyone else because beating the Borg with military tactics is nigh-impossible, but beating them with wacky superscience shenanigans works as long as they’re unique wacky superscience shenanigans.
Yeah, I love this.
Reminds me of the thing I wrote a while back about Humans in high fantasy realms - they’re basically Team Fuck It Hold My Beer I Got This.
Impulsive, passionate to a fault, the social structures they build to try and regulate this hotheadedness ironically creates even greater levels of sheer bull-headedness. Even their “cooler” heads take action in months or weeks.
All their great heroes of the past were impossibly rash by galactic standards. Humans Just Go With It, which is their great flaw but also their greatest strength.
klingons: okay we don’t get it
vulcan science academy: get what
klingons: you vulcans are a bunch of stuffy prisses but you’re also tougher, stronger, and smarter than humans in every single way
klingons: why do you let them run your federation
vulcan science academy: look
vulcan science academy: this is a species where if you give them two warp cores they don’t do experiments on one and save the other for if the first one blows up
vulcan science academy: this is a species where if you give them two warp cores, they will ask for a third one, immediately plug all three into each other, punch a hole into an alternate universe where humans subscribe to an even more destructive ideological system, fight everyone in it because they’re offended by that, steal their warp cores, plug those together, punch their way back here, then try to turn a nearby sun into a torus because that was what their initial scientific experiment was for and they didn’t want to waste a trip.
vulcan science academy: they did that last week. we have the write-up right here. it’s getting published in about six hundred scientific journals across two hundred different disciplines because of how many established theories their ridiculous little expedition has just called into question. also, they did turn that sun into a torus, and no one actually knows how.
vulcan science academy: this is why we let them do whatever the hell they want.
klingons: …. can we be a part of your federation
Come to think of it, I mean. Look at the “first human warp drive” thing in the movie. That was… Not how Vulcans would have done it.
you know what the best evidence for this is? Deep Space 9 almost never broke down. minor malfunctions that irritated O’Brien to hell and back, sure, but almost none of the truly weird shit that befell Voyager and all the starships Enterprise. what was the weirdest malfunction DS9 ever had? the senior staff getting trapped as holosuite characters in Our Man Bashir, and that was because a human decided to just dump the transporter buffer into the station’s core memory and hope everything would work out somehow, which is a bit like swapping your computer’s hard drive out for a memory card from a PlayStation 2 and expecting to be able to play a game of Spyro the Dragon with your keyboard and mouse.
you know what, I’m not done with this post. let’s talk about the Pegasus. the USS Fucking Pegasus, testbed for the first Starfleet cloaking device. here we have a handful of humans working in secret to develop a cloaking device in violation of a treaty with the Romulans. they’re playing catchup trying to develop a technology other species have had for a century. and what do they do? do they decide to duplicate a Romulan cloaking device precisely, just see if they can match what other species have? nope. they decide, hey, while we’re at it, while we’re building our very first one of these things, just to find out if this is possible, let’s see if we can make this thing phase us out of normal space so we can fly through planets while we’re invisible.
“but why” said the one Vulcan in the room.
“because that would fucking rule” said the humans, high-fiving each other and slamming cans of 24th-century Red Bull.
there must be like twenty different counselling groups for non-human engineering students at Starfleet Academy, and every week in every single one of them someone walks in and starts up with a story like “our assignment was to repair a phaser emitter and my one human classmate built a chronometric-flux toaster that toasts bread after you’ve eaten it.”
Humans get mildly offended by the way they are presented in non-human media.
Like: “Guys, we totally wouldn’t do that!” But this always fails to get much traction, because the authors can always say: “You totally did.”
“That was ONE TIME.”
There’s that movie where humans invented vaccines by just testing them on people. Or the one about those two humans who invented powered flight by crashing a bunch of prototypes. Or the one about electricity.
And human historians go, “Oh, uh, this is historically accurate, but also kind of boring.” To which the producers respond: “How is doing THIS CRAZY THING boring????????”
There are entire serieses of horror movies where the premise is “We stopped paying attention to the human and ey found the technology.”
reblog for new meta. RE that last line: McGuyver.
“MacGuyver” is the equivalent of Vulcan vintage human horror television.
during orientation at a human college, vulcans are presented with a list of swear words.
“what is the word ‘fuck’ for,” the innocent young vulcans want to know. “surely there are more logical intensity modifiers.”
“yeah, you’d think so,” say the weary, jaded vulcan professors. “you’d really fucking think so.”
there is a phrase in vulcan for ‘the particular moment you understand what the word ‘fuck’ is for’.
This is why the Federation is the only organisation to ever stand a chance against the Borg
The Borg can adapt to the brilliant millitary strategies of the Romulan Star Empire, the Klingons and even the cold logical intellectual prowess of the vulcans
The Borg weren’t prepared for a starship captain to lure them into his 50′s noir detective holo-novel and then machine gun them to death with a weapon made out of hard light
star trek heritage post (September 14, 2016)
Happy Star Trek Day!!!
Not star trek but yes
Alakan pinched the bridge of his nose. On one hand, certain death. On the other hand, human bullshit. He weighed the options carefully. His
@inbabylontheywept
Janie Mork (2011)
guess who
come on. don’t just stand there. didn’t you miss me?
he’s letting me go
where are you going?
my love, did he tell you? we can be happy again. i’m coming home with you
my love
why won’t you look at me?
can you hear me? i’m right here
just turn around
please
he said i could go back. he said i could go with you
you can’t hear me, can you?
you don’t even know i’m here. i’m right behind you
wait!!! please wait
i need to think about this
stop!
won’t you stop walking please
this is some cruel trick, isn’t it?
just some. some specter dreamt up to torture me
my husband would never leave me behind so easily
you’re not him. i know you’re not
maybe it’s not a trick. maybe you really have forgotten me
please. please my love can you hear me
orpheus
look at me i beg you. what’s going on what’s happening
why won’t you turn around
please it’s been ages i thought i’d never see you again won’t you hold me for a moment
stop
orpheus
i can’t do this i can’t go with you
not if it’s going to be like this
i can’t haunt you. i need you to know i’m here i need you to love me back
don’t go please don’t
i can’t follow you out
i’m scared
wait!! please wait for me
orphe—
WIBTA for taking advantage of my boss’ possible manic episode?
I know this already sounds bad but hear me out.
So I (30M) am the sole employee of this guy (62M) who’s honestly just a miserable boss and an even more miserable person. It sucks so bad working for him—the pay is horrendous, he’s verbally abusive, and the working conditions are awful (in the winter I literally have to stay bundled up the whole work day because he refuses to put the heat on in the office). He wouldn’t even give me holidays off if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s basically nothing to do those days because everywhere else is closed. I’m almost positive he unironically thinks poor people should die if they can’t work. His nephew (aka his only living relative and just the nicest guy) came by yesterday to invite him to Christmas dinner and he told him he’d see him in hell.
I cannot stress this enough—it’s BAD. I’d quit, but it’s been hard finding a better job and I’ve got four kids at home, including one with special needs.
Anyway, so here’s where I’m wondering if I’d be the asshole. Today was Christmas Day and he showed up at my house out of nowhere (huge red flag, I know). At first I thought he’d forgotten I had the day off and he was here to chew me out, which was worrying enough, but then his whole demeanor changed and he was super happy and excited and talking about how he was going to raise my salary. He even mentioned possibly making me a partner in the firm.
Now if that was it, I’d feel a little weird about the suddenness of it but it’d be fine. I’m not going to complain about having more money to feed my family. But then he started talking about how he wanted to pay our mortgage off. He talked about wanting to pay for our son to get the very expensive medical care that’s probably going to save his life. He mentioned at one point that he was going to be donating a huge amount of money to charity too—I knew he was rich but it staggered me. All this from a guy who doesn’t (didn’t?) even want to turn on the heat or the lights because it costs too much money.
It was such a sudden and drastic change that happened very literally overnight and now I’m kind of concerned he’s having a manic episode or something. I really, really want to accept his sudden generosity (I probably will; my wife is all for it and thinks he owes it to us), and I would love to believe that he’s truly had a sudden change of heart (an actual Christmas miracle lol) but I’m just worried about the possible consequences of accepting huge financial gifts like this from someone who I believe might be experiencing some kind of break from reality. Even if there’s nothing legally wrong with it, I’m worried about the ethics of it.
TLDR, my asshole boss might be in the middle of a mental breakdown. WIBTA if I accepted his offer to pay off my mortgage and my son’s medical expenses?