And As It Is Such, So Also As Such Is It Unto You

Obviously, the honeymoon phase is 😚👌 giddy Jacob and superflirtatious Ferris with his double entendre jokes~~ I can't recall if Ferris coming out as an atheist has any effect on how Jacob sees him. I don't think he cares, but he sees, for a second, what it'd be like to live outside the cage he's built himself (and built by others) with religion. The freedom of there not being a Hell and to only be what one makes of oneself. But I think the way Jacob thinks is too ingrained, and was ingrained in ways that Jacob only alludes to, and maybe doesn't remember.

THEY MAKE SO ILL WITH THEIR SHENANIGANS!!!!

THE NOTES, THE MISCOMMUNICATION AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS, THE CUTTING HIS HAIR, THE OFFERING AND THE HAND-HOLDING, THE LETTER GDI THE LETTER😭

There's so much to talk about. The opening of the chapter, with Jacob thinking he's taken a beating from his dad for something as inconsequential as a little doodle in a book. Can you imagine the punishment for anything beyond a doodle? The man was petrified, and then relieved that he wasn't at home only to realize where he was and what he'd done. Shame and dread is what he runs on. He was also out of it for a bit after getting knocked out, and if his dad did similar things to him, it might explain why he doesn't remember certain things or misremembers them, like after him and Ferris reconcile he thinks "I had never before hurt Ferris; he now felt the possibility of my doing it again" and he probably means that he's never drawn blood before, but like, guy, c'mon, you pulled a knife on him, and didn't even know it, but I'm pretty sure Ferris thought it over plenty when it happened.

Jacob breaks my heart with the way he tries to rise above his love and adoration for Ferris. Constantly thinking he should leave, or that he was going to be asked to leave, and why wouldn't he leave, nothing's keeping him, but at the same time is like "Whatever he wanted, as long as I was there to share it," and "To the colony I should go, and give my best for it, and live kindly with my companions so that Ferris should see my worth." And Ferris too!😭 His falling out with his aunt, knowing exactly why she wanted Jacob to marry Becs. And then Jacob asking Ferris to decide!

Shoutout to Jacob and Ferris's passive aggressive bickering, and the callbacks of earlier dialogues in later ones like they both have their conversations on loop in their heads when they're not talking to each other.

That was how I first went to him.

What a day. Started with Halfman episode four. So really, I'd already had my fill of toxic, codependent, violent mlms, and now chapter 17 of As Meat Loves Salt, with all of its tension and build-up and explosion. Jacob biddable no more. I like how much Jacob dislikes Rowly. He makes such funny observations about people that rub him the wrong way. He kept it together for a fairly long time, but when he lost it---god, Jacob. "I was calm while I curb-stomped this fella smack in the middle of the living room" not an actual quote, just slightly rephrased. What I like about this chapter is how it feels like one of those events you know is gonna end with the cops at the door. You don't know how, or why you feel you gotta go even if you don't want to, you just know it's gonna go sideways. Could it be that when Jacob's self-loathing reaches its peak, that's when he's on the trigger? One word, and boom, disaster. He was already upset about biddable, about not being able to control his attraction to Ferris, then aunt reminds him he owns nothing, and would be happier in London, and him staying would make Ferris stay, then Ferris runs off with a piece of paper that concerns him but keeps it from him, gotta spend the evening with a man who's been cruising for a bruising for a long time---it's also interesting to me how Jacob puts Joanna on a pedestal, or to speak ill of her is to speak ill of Ferris, but like a bit worse. It's like Ferris's love for her deified her in Jacob's eyes. Although, when Philip called Ferris Mistress Lily, Jacob squared up, but Philip was smart enough to run.

[KICKS FEET] So much deliciousness in this chapter! First things first, the quest to understand what's going on with Jacob: maybe some sort of OCD? In that moment, where he almost tells Ferris what ails him, the Voice, he thinks of how it shows him foul pictures aside from speaking to him, and maybe that'd fall under intrusive thoughts? In Eng lit class, a prof told the class to not try to diagnose characters. This was in a class discussion about Kafka's The Hunger Artist, and we were talking about eating disorders and the like, but that lead us down paths that muddled the point of the story, which is part of why he told us not to diagnose, but idk, Jacob brings it out of me even if I'm underqualified to be diagnosing anybody with anything. I wanna tell Jacob to sit tight because we're gonna google his symptoms, draw conclusions for a diagnosis and get him the meds he needs😶

I wonder what Ferris could've done with that info though. Does he have a book on ailments of the mind hidden somewhere? He tried to help with the salvation thing by telling Jacob he was saved long ago. Maybe the Voice would've just confused him more. But damn, Jacob was so close to telling him, just the fact he even considered it is so huge.

Love when possessive Ferris makes an appearance, I'm sure I've said it before. The burning of the letter, Jacob recognizing something off about him, maybe a darkness he's already familiar with.

The descriptions of London are so gross. Bubbling animal carcasses on the streets, yu-uuck! Can only imagine the smell of the Thames to be that of the water in Venice in really rough summers, or you know what, also certain spots in Stockholm when the waters are unnaturally hot and it smells like a ginormous fish broil seasoned with all hellspawn that the ocean is contaminated with. It'll try to knock the breakfast clean out of your guts, lemme tell ya.

As a huge fan of voices, I love that Jacob describes Ferris's voice and braids Zeb's voice in there too. For you, me, when you inevitably come back to read this:

"He pronounced the words wonderingly, as if granted a vision of divine light and overpowered with its sweetness, even at times with a little catch in his throat, when, looking around, I would see a glitter in his eye that might be a tear. Zeb, I thought, had a softer way of speaking, more beguiling, but this halting, passionate way of Ferris's made it impossible for a friend to break in upon him. I had heard him only once before with this ache in his voice, and that was when he had told me how he rescued Joanna out of her bondage and brought her safe home."