~help your local rat get stable housing~
edit post nov 2023: I GOT THE HELP I NEEDED THANK YOU SOSOOSO MUCH
dramatically sprawled out on the floor
so i gotta move for the third time in that many years. unfortunately between health problems and the General State of The Economy, I have been unable to find work to be able to save any money. i have no choice but to leave the entire state. i thankfully have somewhere to go, however I need help getting there. i've been trying to do the math to get what I need to its lowest amount possible, but even that is still at least $2.5k.
after this move, i should be able to get things more stable and I might even have a couple job prospects lined up in that area, but right now I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel funds wise and desperately need help.
if you're able to spare anything, i've set up a goal through kofi so i can track it publicly. i have trouble asking for help but i really need what help i can get. thank you, so so so much.
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The internet: You must never machine wash your knits. Never. Ever. They will be destroyed the moment they are touched by the caress of a machine's heated water supply. Hand wash only, or You Shall Be Sorry.
Me:
That photo contains ~13 pairs of 70/30 wool/nylon socks, a 100% wool shawl, an acrylic shawl, an acrylic kid's jumper, an acrylic beanie, a vest knit of "handwash only" wool, and a few other things I've forgotten.
This is one of the reasons to swatch, people. Knit a swatch. A big one. Even better, knit a hat out of the thing you want to use. Chuck it in the wash. See how it comes out. Make decisions from there.
I've knitted somewhere above 50 non-sock things in the decade or so since my first kid came along. I have machine washed them all. Only two - TWO - things have gotten eaten by the wash in that time. (a purple toddler dress and half a sock). And both of those were accidentally put through with the regular clothes wash.
Obligatory caveats: Probably don't do this if your machine doesn't have a gentle/delicate setting. I made sure mine came with a wool cycle when I had to buy a new one. It takes 38 minutes, spins at 800 RPM, and refuses to go hotter than 30ºC.
Also if you tend to use loosely spun yarns or very large gauges (both seem to be popular nowadays), or like to knit Extremely Delicate Lace, use caution. (My knitting preferences are basically the opposite of those things - I like things that last.)
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i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:
Restore Ford Cruller's memory
Find Maligula
???
Profit
but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.
[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]
like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.
...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:
[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]
and that's kind of interesting, right?
to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:
"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"
my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.
so what is going on here?
in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:
"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."
other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.
the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.
[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]
i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!
we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.
like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.
i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.
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More thoughts on the Hetty plotline of “Holes are Bad”, put below the cut for spoilers/sensitive content:
Feeling so grateful that the writers didn’t just make Hetty’s death a ‘I was a woman trapped by my circumstances and killing myself to protect my child was So Noble And Brave Of Me’ thing like they hit on how she hoped to protect her son and how she was trapped but then still also made sure to go a step further and have Hetty acknowledge that regardless of if that had actually protected Thomas, she still knows now that she made a bad choice, and that a big part of it was not just her son but that she was so fucking unhappy in life and had no one and did not have the tools to deal with that and made a panicked, desperate decision that has haunted her ever since.
They don’t let it just be a single or easily digestible reason; they don’t give her an easy explanation or out for her choice, they treat it with nuance and such attention to her as a character in a way that I really can’t imagine any other show doing.
Basically, once again our writers are the best.
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Zack: if I have to listen to Genesis talk about his one night stand and how it was obviously love one more time I’m going to lose my shit. Please tell me what you did over the weekend so I can have none normal conversation
Cloud, visibly sweating trying not to admit to his own one night stand or the fact he definitely has one of Genesis’ shirts stashed under all of his things: D-Drugs. I did drugs.
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