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haru-chi · 6 months

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Manga spoilers ahead

It just hit me now, is the manga taking a break for 3 weeks on purpose to be a poetic timing with the anime episode at the time, or is it pure coincidence ???

By three weeks from now in anime :

1st week we have Himmel and the sword of hero

2nd week Sein first appearance

3rd week we have the mirrored lotus story !!!! I repeat the mirrored lotus story!!!!

in the same week or the week after we'd have the upcoming manga chapter !!

so, you wanna tell me, we're gonna see Himmel's indirect confession of love to Frieren followed by Himmel realizing the impossibility of his dream of marrying Frieren yet again in whatever tragic and evil way the author had in store for us next chapter .. all at the same time or back-to-back !!!!

STOP BULLYING MY HIMMEL LIKE THAT !!! WHATEVER DID HE DO TO DESERVE THIS HELL !!!!! AUTHOR-SAN !!!!

are they torturing Himmel or are they torturing us ?? they're doing this on purpose, aren't they ?? or is this just our destiny to bear ??

I'm not okay at all ><

#sousou no frieren #frieren: beyond journey's end #frieren spoilers #himmel #frieren #I'm so not okay ....#is this the authors plan to get to people for denying that Himmel loved Frieren in the mirrored lotus story ??#and why must I see Himmel suffer like this ???#what ever did he do to deserve this ??#why crush him in such an evil tragic way ???#and you want me to remember how much he loved Frieren and confess to her in the anime #before you crush me him waking up and realizing him marrying Frieren is impossible and never gonna happen EVER #why are you doing this ???#I can't deal with this .....#I waited for the ring episode which felt like ages #for you to let me watch it with that painful knowledge followed by the manga chapter ....#I hate you so much .... why make him suffer this much ....#asdbwhdcbweubcwjbroch

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hanhan156 · 5 years

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Hanhan’s short stories: Rammstein Halloween pt.#16

Well, October went already but weird short stories suit the dark season in general, despite the month. 8-)

Happy Halloween everyone!

The prompt: After the death of a friend or family member, the character (and possibly one or a few others) finds a hidden trap door in their home while cleaning out their belongings. Inside, they uncover secrets the deceased was hiding.

#16: Welcome to the Catland

Furball’s sudden death had been hard to admit for Flake. Even after months, he was still deeply in his sorrow and couldn’t have cleaned up all the cat-related stuff around the house. Everything was still like when Furball had been there - the only difference was that the food bowl was empty. Flake knew it wasn’t healthy trying desperately to hold on from the old things - those just kept reminding how lonely he was now when his pet had left this world. Till had been supportive all the way and had gently suggested that maybe it was time to get rid of the things - time to move on with tiny steps forward.

Flake laid on a sofa which had become too familiar in the last months - the kingdom of his grief, with plushie toys and a worn-out blanket that still had cat fur on it.

He blinked his watery eyes when the sweet memories of his beloved pet came back again. It can’t go on forever like this, verdammt…an adult man, weeping for a cat, how embarrassing. Till is always right, I should listen to him.

He stood up and with a sigh, decided that this was the day: he had to start cleaning the cat stuff away, even though how painful it felt. All the broken mouse toys, yarn, and catmint spread around the house - everything should go now.

Okay, this is then. He put melancholic classical music on and started his work.

After way too many hours the cleaning was finally done - Flake had broken the promise just a tiny bit and saved some of Furball’s favorite toys, including a rustling Grumpy Cat -plushie, as memories.

But, his eyes caught something unusual in the darkest corner of a wardrobe where he had hidden the cardboard box full of cat things which were meant to go to the trash. “Wait a minute, I never installed a cat door,” he muttered, “and why on earth would I even need a door here in the first place?” Or maybe this has something to do with that night when we tested Paul’s homemade moonshine and got the worst diarrhea ever and almost got blind…

But even more bizarre than just the door was a small bottle on the floor next to it.

Gott im Himmel, what is going on? Does somebody want to poison me or did Furball have a secret tavern here?

Flake took the tiny bottle in his hand and tried to read the gibberish written on it: “Ämät ouj.”

“Ämät ouj…” he kept repeating. Is this even any real language?

He left the door and the bottle there and tried to think about something else but as the evening went on, it was impossible to get the weird things in his wardrobe out of the head. Flake shut the tv down and took his laptop. Just for fun, he tried to type the text on a translator, but like he assumed, with no results.

Then, out of nowhere, he remembered how in detective novels the letters had to be arranged in a different order to solve a riddle. He tried the classic: putting the text backward.

“Heureka!” Flake yelled accidentally out loud - even though how impossible, it had worked.

It was a command. “In Finnish: Juo tämä - in English: drink this.”

No way, this must be some kind of stupid prank…maybe it’s just Reesh’s hidden flask from our last party.

Flake hesitated for a while and thought what could be the worst that could happen. He could go blind or even worse, suffer a slow and painful death. But still, curiosity was too strong - he had to give it a try.

He went back to the wardrobe and just in case, typed the emergency number ready to his phone.

“Okay, here goes for nothing…”

He gulped the whole bottle and expected to have a bitter and burning taste in his mouth but surprisingly, the drink was neutral, with a hint of sweetness in it.

At first, nothing seemed to happen and Flake was assured it had to be just a prank. He decided to go to sleep - how stupid he had been to think this might lead to something interesting. What was he expecting?

But when he started walking it ended up being difficult - he was shrinking.

The whole wardrobe looked enormous from a different angle.

“No fucking way!” Flake exclaimed in disbelief as he noticed he had suddenly paws instead of hands.

And in front of the cat door, he saw a tiny text he was unable to see before.

ENTER

~**~

Two cats were sleeping in a basket: another one was completely black, with a red ribbon in his neck and the other one, tinier, was red and striped. They were curled tightly together in a ball when the black one opened his eye - he was sure he had heard steps. That was unusual.

“Somebody’s coming here.”

“Who could it be?” the red one mumbled and didn’t even bother to open his eyes when he had been just dreaming of a sweet mouse hunting trip with his companion.

“I have no idea, but I should have a look.”

The black cat left his comfortable place, swearing himself for the pleasant moment been interrupted ruthlessly. He licked his friend’s ear. “I’ll be back soon, Paulchen.”

“Be careful, Liebling.”

The intruder got more and more visible as he approached. It seemed to be a slender and completely naked cat.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the black cat hissed.

The newcomer stopped. “You have no idea how much I’d like to have answers to those questions as well. But who are you?”

“My name is Richard,” the other cat answered proudly.

The naked cat’s pupils widened in his new yellow eyes. “No fucking way…”

“What?”

He took a step forward and scrutinized the other cat. “Holy shit, it is really you, Reesh. This is unbelievable!”

Richard started to get uneasy. “H-how do you know that name?”

“Because we are in the same band, silly.”

Okay, is this naked guy high on catmint or what is this shit he’s talking about? “What is…a band?”

The newcomer sighed - so it seemed like he had entered a world without even music. How great. “We play music together, in umm…humanforms.”

Richard now looked like he was going to throw up. “…human?” The thought of being a relative for smelling monkeys made him nauseous. It was almost like an insult to be even mentioned in the same sentence with those creatures. “Don’t say things like that or I assure you I’m gonna scratch your eyes out!”

“Yes, we both were humans in my…universe or whatever it was, believe it or not.”

Universe? What is he talking about? “But why in the hell are you here?” Richard asked and didn’t want to believe anything he had just heard.

“That’s another story.” The naked cat stared at the ground, embarrassed, and tried to change the subject. “But do you happen to know a cat named Furball? White one, with grey stripes.”

Richard licked his lips and answered vaguely: “I might know him. Why?”

“Can you lead me to him, please. I need answers for this whole mess.”

“Perhaps, perhaps…but first, it would be nice to know with whom I’ve been talking to.”

“My name is Flake,” the naked cat finally revealed and offered his paw for Richard. When the other feline kept staring at it in confusion, Flake immediately withdrew it. He could have blushed if it would have been possible.

“Sorry, I’m not just used to…your species’ culture yet.”

“It seems like we have a lot of things to teach you then,” Richard said slyly and stretched, ready to leave. “C’mon, let’s go. We have to find your Furball and also meet Till and Schneider if they could help you in…whatever it is you need.”

#rammstein #flake lorenz #richard kruspe #paul landers #31horrificdays #halloween fic #cats #weird short story #fanfiction #my fics #october challenge failed #but oh well

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theliterateape · 5 years

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Humans are Inherently Good

By Lauren Reed

The following was originally written and performed for BUGHOUSE! on August 5, 2019. Lauren went up against Dave Belden on the topic“People: Inherently Good or Scum?” Dave’s argument won over Lauren’s. You can listen to the live event on our podcast here.

At first, I was pissed at David [Himmel] for making me argue that people are inherently good. I didn’t think that people were good. People are garbage. But then I started diving into research to prove this argument that people are good. Genuinely, fucking good. It wasn’t easy, but after some compelling research, I have actually changed my mind. For all the fucked up stupidness that people like to put each other through, I truly believe now that we are all inherently good and are trying our best. We may fail a lot. But we really are good.

Exhibit A: Love. Love, actually, is all around. With few exceptions, we inherently love our families and our friends. Exhibit B: Look around you. Look how many people are currently not murdering someone.

That’s good. High five, all of you.

We need to cover a few things first. We live in a world full of complicated problems that can make it seem like we’re all evil. We will go to bat for our own circles first, which we are supposed to do, because it’s good to protect our communities. But of course, this can cause conflict, and on a large scale, lead to war. So who is good and who is evil? It just depends on what side you’re on. No one person will ever be perceived as entirely good or evil. It’s impossible.

Because there is no good without evil. And there is no good or evil without people.

So, evil is what makes arguing for the existence of good so easy. If everything were good, it wouldn’t be good, it would just be. Good has to have an opponent or it wouldn’t be anything at all. It’s why Satan gets a seat at the table. If there is a God and there is a heaven, without Satan and hell, what’s the fucking point? Heaven without Hell would just be purgatory. Evil is what makes good good. Good is what makes evil evil.

Now, without people, nothing you do matters. You could be isolated on an island and do everything you can think of to be “good” or “bad” but it won’t matter. It won’t make any difference at all if it can’t affect someone else. Good and evil are dependent on the effects they cause to people because good and evil are made up human constructs. Therefore we must be present to determine if an action is good or evil. And the line is thin. And the line changes constantly. And one person’s idea of good is someone else’s idea of evil. The grey area is practically the entire spectrum of good and evil.

An easy example: I can buy a pair of shoes for a homeless man walking barefoot in the rain. But if I haven’t even considered the child laborer that made the shoes- that work in terrible conditions for very little pay, am I good or evil? Some would say I’m good because it’s all about the intent behind the action. Others would say I’m evil because I should’ve thought about the child laborer.

But what does it really mean to be inherently good? What does that look like? Is it as simple as not murdering? Well, after a lot of reading, I’ve discovered that according to science, “good” consists primarily of two traits: empathy and cooperation.

So, empathy. Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish philosopher and economist, describes empathy as “Changing places in fancy with the sufferer.” Empathy is a shared experience. It creates a bond and it is inherent in humans and many other mammals. We are all born with empathy. There are many studies suggesting that at six–eight months, infants begin to show emotional and cognitive reactions — suggesting early signs of empathy, when presented with situations to elicit an empathetic response. It’s how any of us can truly care for another person. Empathy is how babies survive. It’s why your mother didn’t throw you in the garbage the thousands of times she probably wanted to. In fact, empathy is so ingrained, that the natural response to a person who lacks empathy is to assume they are dangerous or mentally ill. And people that lack empathy probably are.

Okay, so cooperation. Cooperation is so deeply ingrained and inherent in animals that almost all species rely on it for survival. Humans are highly social animals and have to cooperate in a society to maintain security, health, income, and connection. Our cooperation begins with family, friends, and coworkers, and branches out from there. This is good, as it ensures ease of survival and the knowledge that people have your back and you have theirs. It’s a great win-win support system. It also plays very well, surprisingly, with a human’s innate self-interest. Cooperation and self-interest go hand in hand because cooperation protects our self-interests of survival and success. Of course, our self-interest is still there, waiting to come out, but if we weren’t largely cooperative within our many circles we would be left behind in solitude to fend for ourselves. So cooperation works very well for us, even more so than being selfish assholes. And we inherently know this.

To prove my point: A group of researchers from Harvard and Yale performed a large study where they had people play ten different economic games where cooperation led to a greater group outcome but less personal gain and selfishness led to greater personal gains, but a less ideal group outcome. They wanted to see if people’s automatic impulse was to act selfishly or cooperatively. Whatever a person’s automatic response was, it would point towards the inherent response in that person. What they learned was that when people were given as much time as they wanted, those that acted the fastest were the most generous and cooperative and those that gave themselves time to reflect were less generous. When people weren’t given time to reflect and had to decide quickly, they were far more generous overall. This shows evidence that the inherent reaction in humans is to work for the greater good of the group. It’s when we have a chance to sit and think about it, that our self-interest starts to take over.

Another study at Yale took a large group of infants and showed them all, individually, the same puppet show with three characters that were represented as shapes. One of the shapes is struggling to climb a hill. Another shape comes to help push from behind and the third shape arrives to push back from further up the hill. After the puppet show, the children were presented with the helper and hinderer shapes, and overwhelmingly the infants reached for the helper. The researchers believe that this suggests that even as infants, there is an expectation about how people should act and a preference for cooperation.

So look, in the end good doesn’t always win. And that’s okay. Because we need evil to remind us why we need good in the world- and why we need to be the good ones to combat the evil ones. It’s easy to see the evil, especially after this past weekend, but good IS everywhere. And I promise you, if you start looking around at everyone that’s just trying their best, trying to be empathetic and cooperative the best they know how, you’ll see good 1000s of times more than you will evil. Good just becomes mundane because it’s commonplace and evil gets more press because it isn’t as prevalent in our everyday boring lives. That’s because most everywhere you look, people are being inherently good.

#People are inherently good #BUGHOUSE!#Lauren Reed

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literateape · 7 years

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The Opening Campfire: An (alternative) Introduction to "A Camp Story" – Author's Cut

By David Himmel

My first book, A Camp Story was published five years ago. What you're about to read is a never published, hardly even considered but written anyway introduction to that book. I'm choosing to run it now because it's not terrible and it's the summer camp season and all decently written things deserve to see the light.

What's more is that in 1998, This American Life—then just a little Chicago public radio show—visited my camp while reporting for its episode, "Notes On Camp." That show has remained on the TAL Favorites list for years. It usually gets played once each summer. And, hey, they ran it again on July 7. If you give it a listen, you'll hear the voice of a young me during Act One: Mr. Popular. It's humbling. Always has been, always will be.

And what's more than that, this weekend, I'm at the camp with one of my best friends who I met at camp, Doug Bates, serving as counselors for the camp's Rookie Camper program where boys, ages 6–10 get to test out the overnight camp experience for three days and two nights. It's hardly enough time to really get into it, understand it, grow from it and completely appreciate it, and I've always been a vocal proponent for kids going the full summer, but it's something. And really, in many cases, it's more for the helicopter parents to see if they can stand having their little angel away from the warm, safe-space nest for more than an hour than it is about if the kid is ready to leave the backyard and be an individual. Because ususally, they are.

Doesn't matter. It's camp. And don't give me this crap about how summer camp is for the privileged and the white. It's not. It's more than that. You can read my book to learn more about it. You can also check out the non-profit SCOPE. But to further the book promotion... A Camp Story was written to be a love letter to those who had been there, a source of reference to those who are there now and just a good story for everyone else. I hope you do read it and enjoy it. At the very least, you'll read this post here and give this (previously unpublished) introduction the bit of attention it deserves.

Introduction The Opening Campfire

I didn’t want to go to overnight camp.

I tried it the summer before in 1989. Mom and Dad sent me along with my friend Scott Robinson to Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute for three weeks. And I hated it. Scott and I lived in the part of camp with large military tents instead of cabins. And that was cool. But everything else was a bore. There was no horseback riding for me, no building campfires or shooting guns or canoeing. Olin Sang is very Jewish camp and there was lots of praying. Then, one night there was an unbelievably violent thunderstorm.

Our tent was at the bottom of the hill and the area was flooded pretty quickly and quite high. The flooding caused the tent to collapse on top of us. There was no plumbing in our tents so Porta Potties were set up throughout our section of the camp. The high winds knocked over a dozen or so, which caused an enormous amount of human waste to rush directly toward our collapsed tent where 12, 10-year-old boys stood in floodwaters up to our knees. The roads became literal rivers of shit. People were screaming. Counselors ran about not knowing what to do. Kids cried. The camp was in a panic. It was apocalyptic.

And that was the most fun I had at Olin Sang.

So if overnight camp was only fun when there was a poop flood, I wanted no part of it. Besides, I had been perfectly happy at my JCC day camp. I had my friends, I had my afternoon TV; I was a perfectly happy boy living in Flossmoor, Illinois. And my parents were hell bent on ruining my happiness.

The following summer, after months of protesting, pleading and attempting to reason with them, Mom and Dad won the battle. I was going to some camp called Greenwoods where I didn’t know anyone. And I was going for eight weeks—the entire summer. A few days before camp started, I made one last effort to get out of it. Mom was stuffing my new, black duffle bag with clothes that were stained with my name written in Sharpie marker on the inside collars of shirts and inside waistbands of shorts, on the bottoms of socks. She even wrote my name on the Archie comics she was sending me with. Dad stood in the doorway of my room and regaled me with stories from his days at Camp Day-cho-la. He shot rifles and sailed and rode horses and went canoeing in rivers. I asked if he ever went canoeing in rivers of human excrement. He said no. I reminded him I almost had to.

My parents didn’t even have the decency to drive me to camp. Instead, they took me as far as the Chicago Southland Lincoln Oasis along I-294 to meet a large bus full of kids that was going to shuttle me to my wretched summer. As I boarded, I remember my mother crying and thinking, “Good. She should be sad for what she’s doing to me.”

The bus was loud. The kids were laughing and singing. One kid was eating Circus Peanuts candy, which disgusted me. I sat up front next to the counselor. I would come to know him as Brian 'Bo' Jackson. He was a huge man. We were both quiet. As we crossed the Michigan border, I turned to the hulking counselor and said, “Have you been to camp before?” He said, no. This was his first summer. I felt better. Maybe he and I could be friends and suffer through these dreadful eight weeks together.

When the bus pulled into camp, I looked behind me at every kid on the bus to one side pressing their faces against the window. Those who had already arrived chased the bus like wild dogs. I was surprised the bus didn’t tip over and squash the kids outside. That would have made the rivers of caca at Olin Sang look like holy water.

I stepped off the bus into a sea of unfamiliar revelry. Some lady with a clipboard looked at me and said, “You must be David. You’re in Chippewa Cabin.” I looked for the sign that said “Chippewa,” made my way through a few white benches set up in a circle and met one of my counselors, Greg Perkins. He was a tall, blonde guy who right away seemed pretty cool. He already knew who I was, where I was from and that it was my first year. It was his first summer, too.

“It’s the first year for the counselor I sat with on the bus,” I said, hoping to build an allegiance.

“Who, Brian? Bo? No it’s not. He’s been here for a couple of years. Come on, let’s get you a bunk.”

I was devastated. Not even three hours in and I was already being lied to. I never asked Bo, why he lied to me. I like to think it was to make me feel like less of an outsider. And it worked. And if that was Bo's intention, God fucking bless him.

My biggest concern, beyond not knowing anyone and just generally hating camp, was that I was going to spend a summer in the woods surrounded by swarms of big, disgusting, loud cicadas. It was 1990 and the 17-year cicadas had taken over Chicago. I had killed so many with such bloodlust that I convinced myself the winged beasts in Decatur had gotten word of me and were plotting their revenge for their brethren.

I was greatly relieved when I didn’t see a single cicada at that camp. Other than all of the laughter, the camp was quiet. “Maybe the summer won’t be so terrible after all,” I thought.

That summer I met people I still consider some of my closest friends. I learned to water ski and shoot a real gun, not just Dad’s bb gun. Thanks to a counselor named Dayna Glasson, I learned to ride a horse. And I fell in love with Rico, the best damn horse who ever lived. Danny Goldwin taught me to sail and I made fun of his afro. David Cuffy and I sat on the fishing dock for hours just talking. I never thought I’d find a better friend. I even learned to like Circus Peanut candy because that kid on the bus was Brett Katz and he was in my cabin.

Something happened to me that summer. Something deep and true but nothing tangible. I suppose, that something was… camp. Camp happened to me. And it would keep happening to me for the next 10 years. I continued to make friends—great friends. I found new ways to create fun and seek out adventure and laugh at new things and understand all sorts of people. And through all of that, through all of the Color Days and sneaking out and supper letters and songs in the Mess Hall and girlfriends and days off and nights out and showering naked with strangers of all ages and gaining an incredible appreciation for the sound of stories being shared and the high pitched laughter of kids... Through all of that, over all the years, I was slowly, surely, becoming me.

And what I always knew to be true, more than proved itself again and again with every word I wrote in this book. While camp happened to me, I also happened to camp. I happened to camp just like everyone who went before me happened to camp and everyone who has come before, and will go after me, they too, will happen to camp. And camp will happen to them. So it goes, on and on…. Our history is our story with every campfire that burns. Ever changing; ever staying the same.

#Lake of the Woods Camp #Summer Camp #A Camp Story #Overnight Camp #Michigan Summer Camps #David Himmel Author #Greenwoods Camp

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