absolutely reprehensible behavior

You can go on estrogen and hide it, you don’t have to come out in order to go on estrogen. It’s easy to diy and most of the effects are subtle, if you’re particularly gifted with boobs that might be a concern but you’d be surprised how much a sports bra can hide.

Feeding myself ship art by handful

Caine enjoying the perks of his new update.

(just doodling today)

Pomni not having anything resembling a life outside of the Circus (at least from her perspective) is probably the reason she became so resigned to her fate so quickly compared to the others.

There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with her life. She had a stable job, enough freedom to indulge in personal enjoyment, but it’s clear from how she talks about it that she wasn’t exactly happy about it.

“If it has to be my home…”

This line from Pomni from ep 2 was always so telling to me because just the way she casually describes what’s essentially her imprisonment gave me the impression that she really didn’t have anything she was striving to go back to.

Yes, she was desperate to leave in the Pilot, but I think that’s a very natural reaction. Especially if the place she suddenly found herself in is incredibly overwhelming and existentially horrifying.

But after all of that panic wears off, when the confirmation of no escape sinks in, what’s left is just…resignation. Because what exactly was there for her to mourn?

No friends and no family to wonder or worry about her. All she truly lost was her reality, her identity, and her name.

Pomni also doesn’t strike me as someone with actual life goals like Gangle or Zooble. Or someone aiming for a chance to get out of a bad situation like Ragatha. Or part of a career she’s genuinely passionate about like Kinger. Hell it doesn’t seem like she has general passion for anything outside of…documenting places that have been abandoned.

And that’s why I think her mood improves upon realizing she can still try and be someone to someone else. Why just having a friend would be enough to help her endure this new kind of monotonous horror she has to live in. Why she’s so keen on building some kind of community with people she has no choice but to be stuck with.

And her lack of meaningful connections in the real world explains why she’s honestly kind of bad at it.

And Y’know what? I genuinely love that about her.

I love that we get to see how Pomni is not that great of a friend in the series, because of course she would be. I love that she struggles with doing the right thing, doesn’t think things through enough, makes the wrong choices, is late with apologies, has awkward interactions, and bets on losing dogs.

Her social life was practically nonexistent, you really think this girl knows how to be a therapist of all things? She’s just trying her best, and her best is not always gonna look good.

But the important thing is that she keeps trying. Keeps trying to be a better friend, even to people who feel like they don’t deserve her friendship. Pomni’s fear of being forgotten has always aligned with her inherent desire to create connections. It’s why she’s so adamant about getting these people to just talk to her, because how else is she gonna understand them better? How else can she figure out the best way to connect to them?

Idk maybe I just like the fact that Pomni isn’t a perfect protagonist. Her being very passive most of the time feels on brand for an adult who’s so bored with life but not actively doing anything to improve it. And when she does try to do something to improve it, and it ends up not working out the way she was hoping for, she would take it incredibly personally. Hence her breakdown in the finale after her plan to help everyone failed. She wasn’t crying for herself, she was crying for them.

Employers liked offering this structure because then they didn't have to like, try to guess how long the invasion of spain will take and then carry 800 coins per soldier around the battlefield where it could be captured. It also gives them the chance to budget around the assumption that they take an enemy city and *find* vast sums of treasure even if they don't have the full value at the beginning of the war.

The main flaw of this system is that it's very easy to end up in a scenario where if you have, say, 50,000 guys that have been fighting for 800 days, you now owe 40 million silver to your army, and if the budget has not worked out to a 40 million surplus, you literally can't afford to end the war, but you can probably afford to pay them for a couple more weeks. So then you have to start thinking creatively.