#<-just bc of it’s adjacent source

[nyandela-catalogue]

after a little over 2 and a half hours, i finally finished my portrait of the Actor. i opted to go for its stringless form, since that made the most sense for a general reference image.

i decided i’d post the versions with and without the wood grain:

[If you want it to move, be patient and earn its trust. It doesn’t have much to spare, so be very kind if you wish for it to let you into its little world.]

-Adam📹

p.s. my hands hurt so bad from working on this dawg, holy crap xD

[volfoss]

like i think it is baffling to me how ive only seen one person ever discussing the immense amount of racism in this book because this is like. shes been powering up her racism in her writing to blast out with this bullshit. like this is so fucking gross.

[aeide-thea]

Left: "Mars, the Bringer of War" (2003) by Toshiyuki Enoki, cropped to remove the artist's stamp. Right: "Head of a Lady in Medieval Costume" (1900) by Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola, antisemitic painter and pioneer of military camouflage, cropped and reversed.

[timdrakesstaff]

imagine confusing lore for a show bc u pull from multiple sources/iterations

it happened! just... not in this version..

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

I've been messaging with a 17yo kid from Gaza, named Nader.

When I asked what he wanted people to know about his family's situation, he immediately answered "the bitter cold".

His other answer was about how incredibly expensive everything is in Gaza right now. Here's context: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/16/how-much-does-food-cost-in-gaza

Can you imagine being in this situation? Made homeless where the stores are no longer getting consistent deliveries and might be bombed, the government is barely operating cuz it keeps getting bombed, there's not even charity getting into your besieged area, and most people's jobs—including your big brother's—have been bombed beyond repair?

Where it's getting so cold and you CAN'T get warm because you're relying on strangers to help you get that coat or blanket, or bc you need the little money that trickles in to just survive??

And can you imagine living this way for OVER A YEAR as a normal teenager who has a little brother and a baby niece with malnutrition to stress about too?

I know people are tired of hearing about Gaza. It's upsetting that this genocide has continued so long with so few powerful people even trying to stop it. But we have a responsibility to our fellow humans, to help them survive persecution.

Nader is seventeen. None of this should be on his shoulders. Please help his family be safe so he can stop feeling like it's his job to make sure his family has what they need.

This campaign was verified as authentic by gazavetters (#4 on this spreadsheet), which I have seen Palestinians I trust cite as a trusted source.

Can you give up one treat this week to help Nader's family have the basics?

If you donate at least $10 and comment on this post with proof, I'll record a silly voice message for you or draw you a post it note doodle!

Please also consider following @abdalsalam1990, the tumblr account this family is using to try to raise funds, as a reminder to yourself to share the campaign or contribute in the future.

Tagging usernames off the top of my head in hopes you'll share this fundraiser; please message me if you don't want to be tagged in things like this, or if I didn't tag you but you DO want to be tagged in posts like this.

Edit edit: thank you @transmutationisms for teaching me how tagging works 😅 i've only been on this site 10 years lmao

@wizardarchetypes @herpsandbirds @brattylikestoeat @tearsofrefugees @milf--adjacent

@vampiricvenus @mostly-funnytwittertweets @sweatermuppet @mostlysignssomeportents @probablyasocialecologist

@timequangle @repotting @robertreich @antifainternational @dlxxv-vetted-donations

[contraryclock]

stupid ass Don Quixote ramblings

hi this is my first tumblr post but i really wanted a good place to put this

spoilers for all of current limbus company, including Murder on the warp Express, the Don Quixote book (( kinda )), and a musical (( i'll get there ))

please humor this deranged rant about a character i havent read the source book of

so basically ive had a theory since Don was even teased that she's less so based on book Don Quixote and moreso based on the Man of La Mancha musical which is. an insane thing to suggest but hear me out here (( ive since changed how i word my stance to the much more mild "it will most likely delve into the themes of both works and reference both" because suggesting they would discount the book entirely is TRUE insanity ))

her quote (( from teaser tweets that i cannot find anymore? they seem like they were deleted which sucks )) was "To reach the unreachable star!" or something which is notably not a quote from the original book ((as far as im aware at least?)), and suggests. a lot i think!

One of the most notable differences between Man of La Mancha and the original Don Quixote is their tone and attitude towards Quixote. In the original text, he's shown to be a fool who is ignorant to the vastly more interesting world around him, and prefers to instead sink deeper into his delusions of reality equating to chivalric literature. This makes sense as Don Quixote was written as a parody and mockery of the genre

La Mancha is, notably, much more forgiving on Quixote's character, showing that while still a fool, and his insanity often detrimental to those around him, he is still a good person at heart and that he truly wishes to pursue this justice he posits

I usually say it as "Don Quixote is about how reality is beautiful, and La Mancha is about how sometimes one should strive to make reality a little more fantastical" although i dont know if that. is the most accurate comparison. both Don Quixote and La Mancha have a lot of themes and stuff going on

one of the things that made me scream was learning about "Miguel" being written on don's LCB combat spritesheet instead of her listed name

which if you've seen or read a summary of la mancha is a huge alarm bell

In La Mancha, the whole thing is shown as a Play within a Play

Miguel de Cerventes is sent to prison, awaiting trial by the inquisition, and is tasked with defending himself in a mock trial with the other prisoners so they dont take his belongings. His defense is Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha! With the prisoners acting out the various roles he assigns them, and him acting as the leading man, Don Quixote himself!

that was most of the things that made me think "Oh, maybe it'll be La Mancha!" and then this happened

and i sort of lost my god damned mind

because like what if this is miguel... what if shes simultaneously playing out her life as don quixote as a her delusion, and as her dream, but also as a statement...

idk but this isnt JUST about Man of La Mancha bc i think this has a few implications for how don's canto is going to go

In both don quixote and la mancha, they send someone to cure quixote of his delusions

The final thing they try is setting up an act where a "Knight of Mirrors" duels with Quixote, which ends up working.

The Knight forces Quixote to see how he is perceived by others, to see the truth that he is no knight.

ignoring the stuff with vampires and mirrors for a second, i feel like this could be more mirror world shenanigans, where either the knight IS a mirror world don quixote, or is someone who will show her mirror worlds. Whatever that will imply!!! i dont know its exciting!!!!!

Her being absurdly old and powerful, plus bloodfiends having a whole familial adjacent hierarchy makes me think theres a LOT of bloodfiends out there that would want her back

I dunno!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im insane!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! i just wanted to get my thoughts out before her canto actually happened so i can say that i did indeed have an opinion on this

-limbus assets taken form Lunartique's asset google drive go look at it -text written by me and not proofread

ok thanks bye dont follow me byeee byeeeeee

[somerabbitholes]

i'd log in but i fully forgot my username and password since i left for college lol, but the first semester of college ended and i'm finally back home for my break. i'm doing a degree in history in a liberal arts university which has been my absolute dream since i was a child; everyone else in my class was an engineer/doctor aspirant and i was the labelled Humanities Child. so college was supposed to be The Dream for me and, in many ways, i have. HOWEVER, the issue is that i am now surrounded by The Humanities Child(ren) of every school, and now i have no personality? i also feel hopelessly out of place because im surrounded by people who seem to know sooo much more than me (i know this sounds like a very much grass is greener on the other side situation but i assure you i am hopelessly out of my depth here). i'm genuinely having a little bit of a crisis bc i used to be the child that Knew Things and Read, but now, so is everybody im surrounded by. i originally meant to send this ask to ask you for recs/resources on knowing more, but i'm not fully sure as to what exactly i need to know more of, so do you have any tips on how to inculcate a habit of learning more generally (subscribe to newspapers? listen to podcasts? but like, when, where, which ones, how do i find the right ones?). i desperately need to be the smart kid again, i don't know who i am without it lol

hello. i think you should be patient with yourself. college is disorienting because you go from being with people who didn't really choose to be in school and study what school makes them study to people who definitely chose the sciences or humanities or whatever. it's only logical that you feel out of depth, i know i did too. but trust me, however much it feels like people know more already, it's also that college is a leveller: you will be taught things, you will be taught how to think and much of what's coming in terms of academia is a fresh start for everyone.

i don't think the way out is to know everything and to always be up to date on everything under the sun. i also can't recommend what you should be reading or listening to, other than just standard news, which will then lead you to more finer material that's about the things you care about. the easiest way really is to be on the lookout for sources: your professors will tell you, ask your classmates if something they mention sounds interesting, find what you like in the library and so on.

also lastly, i don't think you're supposed to know who you are when you're in college. college exists for you to figure that out. don't worry about not knowing what your thing is (i'm 24 and i don't know what my thing is), but start small with things that are adjacent to either what you're studying or what you've conventionally liked. then you build on that and the next and so on.

hope this helps :)

[apiratefellinlovewithastar]

https://www.tumblr.com/darlingjunebug/728466035752271872?source=share

it's skull, skull is the third party who gets involved bc he's the only who has the emotional intelligence to notice the problem and the lack of self preservation to put himself in the line of fire

There are some pros and cons to being a civilian suddenly thrust into not only the cursed mafia world, but also the cursed mafia world.

Pros: he gets paid to do what he loves—to play out his stunts in a setting where he doesn’t have to hold back so as to not to raise civilian suspicions about his condition, while also getting all of the acclaim when his subordinates genuinely shower him with it.

(Was it a mindfuck when some clown just showed up in his living room trying to reclute him? Yes. Is it dangerous? Yes. But if there’s anything the great Skull-sama loves, it’s a good challenge!)

Cons: once in a while he has to spend time in the vicinity of some less-than-desirable individuals, who consider him—him!—to be the less-than-desirable individual. The nerve!

(He’s not factoring Kawahira’s little misadventure, specifically, into this; getting turned into a toddler isn’t any weirder than being able to regenerate his body and coming back to life in his books.

Now that they’re out of the woods and he can laugh about it, he can begrudgingly admit—in the safety of his mind—that Checker Face did it for a noble cause, despite going about it in a not-so-hot fashion. If Skull were a millennia old being, he would play Russian roulette with some douchebags and give them body dysmorphia just for shits and giggles.

Skull will, however, complain about the acquaintances it left him with, as much as he wants, for as long as they’re assholes—which is shaping up to be for a very, very long time.)

The delightful but ultimately exasperating shit show that are one Sawada Tsunayoshi and Reborn-senpai does not fall into either of those categories, but in a secret, third, second-option-adjacent thing: idiots in love who, despite being more in sync with each other’s emotions than anyone could ever wish to be with their partner’s, couldn’t be more out of touch with their feelings if they tried. (And Skull has seen some paradoxes in his time, okay?)

All of this is relevant because, ultimately, despairingly, he’s gonna have to intervene. Jesus fucking Christ.

None of Tsuna’s little Elements, let alone any of Skull’s former colleagues—or anyone else who could, for that matter—is gonna do jack shit about it. They’re all either too emotionally constipated themselves, too scared of Reborn to dare going against him, or too willing to let them ‘go at their own pace’ (as if that will ever lead anywhere!).

So. It all falls into his hands to do something about it.

Does Skull win anything by meddling? Not in the slightest. On the contrary—

“I do not get paid enough for this shit,” Skull groans. “I do not get paid at all for this shit.”

If anything, he’s risking death by Reborn-senpai!

But he owes it to Tsuna, because despite being obviously influenced by Reborn in more ways than anyone would like, he has never, not even once, been unkind to Skull. Even before the whole Representative Battles happened—and that’s a whole other debt he needs to repay.

Unlike anybody else who has ever interacted with both Skull and Reborn, Tsuna has never once lacked basic human decency. (Skull wishes he had lacked basic human decency; he wouldn’t feel so morally obligated to protect the kid’s heart then.)

Enma pats his back in comfort when Skull hides his face in the other’s shoulder. Earnestly, he says, “I think you’re doing something truly honorable, senpai,” because he’s seen those two and knows what Skull has to deal with; more so than Skull, actually, because while Skull can just fuck-off whenever they get unbearable, Enma lives here and still has to interact with them on a daily basis.

What the fuck.

Skull raises his head long enough to look at him. “How do you deal with it, Enma-kun?”

Like the true child soldier he is—and he’s not gonna open that can of worms at the moment; Jesus, why did he even have to think about it?! One emotional crisis at a time, please!—Enma stares off into space before solemnly saying, “I grew up with Adel and Julie,” like that answers anything.

It kinda does, funnily enough.

“Ne, ne, Enma-kun,” Skull wheedles, getting an idea.

But Enma shakes his head, smiling apologetically before he can even say anything else. “I can���t help you with this,” he says, soothing the sting of his betrayal by running gentle fingers through Skull’s nape. “I grew up with Adel and Julie,” he reiterates meaningfully.

It takes Skull a moment.

“That bitch,” he says with an offended gasp. “She told you not to get involved, didn’t she?!”

Enma tugs gently at a lock in reproach. “Be nice to my sister.”

Skull pouts. Enma’s eyes soften. The fond amusement in his expression makes Skull’s stomach flutter.

(Maybe he has indigestion or something? He’ll have to pick up some Otha’s Isan on his way back.)

“If it makes you feel better, I will cheer you on every step of the way, okay? So hang in there, senpai.”

That does make him feel better.

If nothing else, Skull will at least have a cute little kouhai to come back to and be comforted by when this inevitably blows up on his face.

“Well,” Skull says, revisiting his earlier thoughts. He leans into Enma’s touch, feeling rejuvenated. “If there’s anything the great Skull-sama loves, it’s a good challenge!”

[saintbleeding]

do you have any advice for writing image descriptions? I’ve been wanting to add some to my art but I don’t know how to go about it

hello anon!!! that’s a wonderful thing to want to do and im happy to offer whatever help i can :3

so because image descriptions are very much a community effort, that does also mean there isn’t really a style guide or anything, which can be freeing but also quite intimidating! here are some kinda off the top of my head suggestions:

If ur comfier putting the ID in alt text than the post body, that is still much MUCH better than no ID at all (and side note, if someone copy+pastes ur id into a reblog, it’s not a suggestion that you did anything wrong, they’re just trying to make them maximally accessible. while a lot of ppl who need IDs will use screenreaders and will prefer alt text, there are ppl whose preference is plain text in the body of the post (i personally fall into this category))

similarly, if you are struggling to write an ID/don’t have the energy/etc, i cannot recommend People’s Accessibility on discord highly enough. there are some wonderful folks in there who can give you pointers or even write IDs for you! likewise, i can’t speak on others’ behalf but i’ve gladly written IDs for ppl’s posts before they’ve put them up before, and i’m happy to do so, even if we havent interacted before! you can shoot me a DM with the image you need described and i’m glad to assist

more specifically:

it’s good practice to include the name of the fandom and the characters, assuming it’s fanart. altho it’s likely that fanart will stay broadly within a circle where people are familiar with the source material, there may be ppl who encounter the post and wouldn’t know this detail without it being laid out explicitly

you’re welcome to mention whichever details you like, especially if you are the artist, because you know what’s important to the image as a whole. it’s also perfectly acceptable not to get super detailed on things like clothing/hairstyles, especially if they aren’t relevant to what’s going on

a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, if you didn’t have the image in front of you and just had the description, would it be a true representation of what the image looks like/portrays? would your mental image be accurate? that’s what you’re shooting for.

the best advice i can give is to just dive in and start, bc it gets a lot less intimidating once you’ve done a few, and it also gets easier the more you do it :3

also, i think trying to follow ppl who describe images helps a lot, because you will get more passive exposure to descriptions and what you think works/doesn’t, which can improve your own ID writing! on that note, highly recommend @princess-of-purple-prose/@pathos-logical (kay is a pillar of this and every community tbqh), @ryutarotakedown, @lucky-numberme, @fox-guardian, @squeeneyart, @hotdrinks, @samwise1548, and @rq-described (a breadth of interests represented here, but also if you’re asking me i presume you have at least a passing interest in audio drama and adjacent :3 )

thanks so much for asking and as i said i’m always happy to help however i can!!! happy describing, i believe in you!!!

[sageisntamathperson]

(intro post) I am many things, but I am not a math person.

And when I say “many things,” I mean MANY things. Art. Creative writing. Journalism. Acting. Theology. Philosophy. Urban planning, Disabled self-advocacy. Environmentalism. You name it — if it’s humanities or a biology-adjacent science, I’ve got it.

But while an unimaginably nerdy fourth-grade me was founding a school newspaper or making an unprompted presentation about pharmacogenomics (yes, I was extremely a bit pretentious), there is one subject I have hated since I had the capacity to hate:

Math.

I qualified for Advanced Math testing every year of elementary school. EVERY YEAR! And did I ever get in?! NooOOOoOOO!

Every year, I was good enough to get tested but never enough to actually ace that test — and every year, I watched the smug little faces of my peers as they moved to another classroom to learn the arcane, esoteric, staggeringly difficult art of fourth/fifth grade math. For a little kid whose entire identity was built on being the “smartest kid in the class,” it was agony in its purest form.

This continued into middle school and is still a problem in high school today. I’m in honors math — but not the highest honors math. My math scores are always notably lower than my scores in, well… everything else. In fact, I’ve gotten two Bs in my entire life as of now (sophomore year), and they were both in — shocker — math. I’m in a math class with freshmen, and when I went to my school’s resource center to ask for help on matrices, I ended up getting tutored by someone my own age.

(Are these stupid problems? Of course! There are people dealing with math [and grades in general] who have it a lot harder than I do. Intellectually, I know that a B isn’t a bad grade, it’s okay to be in a class with people younger than you, and a lot of people have a tutor the same age as them. Don’t feel bad if any of that applies to you! I’m just a perfectionist who uses academic validation a source of self-worth, and for me, this is the equivalent of a rock that never seems to get out of my shoe.)

All this was tolerable, but when I found out that the highest math class in my high school — the one I would be on track for if I got into Advanced Math in elementary or middle school — had barely any girls in it, that was the last straw. I am not perpetuating the myth that girls are bad at math!

So I’ve decided that even though I’ve been told my entire life that “everyone has different talents” and I’m “just not a math person,” I will be working hard to skip the equivalent of a grade in math and get into AP Calc BC junior year. I will find out what it takes to be good at math (and why some of my friends like it so much).

(Plus, math is an extremely inconvenient subject to be mediocre in. Intellectually, I understand the appeal. It’s built into the fabric of the universe, for crying out loud!)

And thus, into the studying vortex I go.

For women in STEM everywhere!

For vindication for my elementary-school self!

And most of all, for my own fragile ego intellectual curiosity and an unquenchable thirst for learning!

[volfoss]

Doll posting below the cut etc 👍

This is going to be a wall of text because I need to really clearly write up the damage on this body. It's a Soom Gem girl body with modding to basically give the doll top surgery (by sanding the chest down and presumably reshaping it and adding nipples (they are sculpted on)) which is sick as hell. This would not be a problem if not for the 30 billion problems. So this doll is covered in paint bc it's like. Well very yellowed. And that paint is scratching really bad AND the seam lines on the doll are bad. That's personally something I always sand off and I'd heard Soom was bad at leaving sanding lines on so it's not too surprising 👍 With how the entire body is painted I am going to have to scrub ALL OF IT to get it clean. This will take hours. There's also pretty severe staining on the back that quite honestly I am unsure if it'll come off. If it doesn't I can obviously make a sick ass back tattoo out of it but I am also so incredibly scared guy that it will not budge. It's a beautiful body though and poses like a dream :) definitely hoping sueding will add to how nicely it poses esp for a single join body but I am also heavily unsure basically 👍. I'm gonna get the head for this guy tomorrow and that will HOPEFULLY. Require no extensive work at all but you also never know ❤️

Tldr body YUCKY and I'm gonna fix it 👍

^ also it is fucking HEAVY I haven't had a resin 1/3 bjd in a while and this guy is like so so heavy compared to my 1/4 guys and my vinyl dolls.

Bonus pic of the um. Very yellowed resin underneath

^ you can see it really bad in the arm area but I'm just hoping the paint comes off really niceys 🥺

[highways-are-liminal-spaces]

are there really that many bears in Alaska? asking bc you often include a very cute bear in your photo sets

It depends what part of Alaska you're in!

Juneau is absolutely overrun with Black Bears. They move around a bit, so sometimes you won't see any for days at a time, but also if you live there long enough, you're basically guaranteed to encounter a few "trash bears" just poking around garbage cans right in the downtown area. They're the hardest to see when they first start waking up because they can be anywhere, but then they get much more consistent with certain food sources. Driving past the dump, you often see them rolling around in the adjacent fields. Throughout late spring, they like to graze on the wildflowers along the roadsides, and you can often see the really little cubs with them. When the salmon run starts later in the summer, there are a few spots you can go where bears are basically a guarantee. Throughout the first 2 weeks of August and then again in the first week of September (i.e. the chum and then the pink runs), I could think to myself "I want to go see the bears today" and go see the bears. On my best day last summer, I had a total of 12-13 (with one that might have been the same bear twice).

We don't really get Brown Bears in Juneau—they show up every so often, but mostly if you want to see them in the area (and you should, because they're the really cool giant ABC Islands Bears, which are almost as big as Kodiak Bears), you need to head out to one of the islands like Admiralty, which has the world's highest bear: human population ratio (3:1!).

When I lived in Anchorage over a summer, I saw no bears around the city (though people often do!) and had to drive down the Kenai to see any Black Bears that whole year. They get Brown Bears down toward Seward and Homer too, but pretty rarely, and I've never seen one around there. On the other hand, I've never been to Denali and not seen multiple Brown Bears. And then any location you would go on trips specifically to see bears because of a seasonal food source like a salmon run (e.g. Katmai, Pack Creek by Juneau, Fish Creek in Hyder, Kodiak, Lake Clark, etc. (though I haven't done those last two yet)) will have dozens of bears around during the season.

And then there are some parts of the state (Interior and Far North) where bears are common but there is just so much space for them that you're less likely to encounter them. I have been hiking around Fairbanks a decent amount and, while you definitely have to take serious bear country precautions, I've never actually seen a bear around there. I've driven the whole Dalton Highway twice, where Brown Bears are very common, and I've only seen one over the course of a total of 8 days and almost 2000 miles covered. The Alcan route I drive on the other hand, which crosses Interior into Yukon, usually has bears—over the course of driving it three times, I've seen 5 Brown Bears and 3 Black Bears, and I've been told I had "pretty bad bear luck" on those trips (my friend Alex once had a single trip count of 9 Brown Bears and 7 Black Bears!).

I was trying to estimate the number of bears I have seen in Alaska, but it is essentially completely impossible. Definitely over 100 individuals of each species! Single days that stand out to me are that one 12 bear day in Juneau (that was at the Shrine during the end of the pink salmon run), one day driving the main road into Denali when we had a total of 22 Brown Bears and started having to drive right past them since we wanted to have time to look for other wildlife, and the only time I've been to Brooks Camp in Katmai, when we had a conservative estimate of 48 total Brown Bears.

This turned into a very long answer (can you tell I love talking about bears!) but basically: tl;dr yes there are a metric fuckton of bears in Alaska.

[flea-palace]

Based on this post: https://www.tumblr.com/flea-palace/748059076352737280/just-had-the-horrifying-revelation-that-ive?source=share

I now have an insatiable curiosity about your opinions on Phantom of Manhattan. Would you please share them?

👀 👀 👀

i have SO many opinions on phantom of manhattan (disclaimer they are all derogatory), i've read it a few times over the years to try and give it a chance but i simply cannot enjoy it (thoughts under the cut)

i first read it when i was like 12 because i was looking for phantom-adjacent books at the library and i was so excited to find it, my hopes were really high and they got SO crushed when i did read it

for a book that's like less than 100 pages long, why does it feel like it goes on FOREVER oh my god it is the most boring, dry exposition and the dialogue is pretty bad too (such a drastically different tone than the og novel or the ALW musical that it doesn't fit as a sequel to either of them)

speaking of ALW, i hate that fredrick forsyth has to discredit the original book so much in his little foreword (like ok we know you are meatriding ALW hardcore but you don't have to badmouth the source material !!! especially all the madame giry commentary where he's like "ooooh she's not portrayed correctly in the leroux version" like huh? you mean the original???? make it make sense king)

the characterization is so bland. i liked the flashback at the very beginning (mainly bc i fixate on erik's backstory so i like getting my hands on any and all content about it) but aside from that it's such a snoozefest and none of the characters feel like they want to be there lol. They're so lackluster compared to their original selves and it makes me not care about what happens to them

i HATE the "let's kill christine" ending for both phantom of manhattan and LND. if anything, kill erik and let him have a hero moment or something idk but why kill christine??? it's dumb

i also hate the very end where he's like "hehehehe the phantom still lives among us today!!! but we don't know who he is although he's incredibly famous" it doesn't make sense and it feels again like a lackluster epilogue for erik's story.

too many side characters oh my god. i do not care about fredrick forsyth's ocs and they are written so blandly that i don't think anyone cares about them. they clog up the story so bad and make it lose any cohesive elements

in what universe would erik get a job as a clown. be SO serious

raoul's balls getting shot off was kinda funny i will admit

[thunderandsage]

genuinely makes me sad that youth orchestras aren’t exploited enough as settings in stories bc the grounds for drama there are, well, very fertile

so for some context, in my high school years, i was in the top ensemble of the orchestra organization i was in. mind you, we weren’t the most prestigious youth group in the city area and FAR from professionals, but we also played the unabridged versions of Stravinsky’s Firebird and Bernstein’s West Side Story Suites without crashing, so we were nothing to sneeze at either

first obvious source of conflict was just plain old fashioned perfectionism and jealousy. pick any orchestra and the first violins section will have the highest rates of vanity and it didn’t help that the hierarchy was clear-established: the closer the seat to the conductor’s podium, the better, and the player seated to the right is always above the player to the left (not just due to visibility for the audience but bc of page-turning delegation and who gets the higher melodies). and while the concertmaster undoubtedly held the most power, all the other assignments, while not up for change, were always up for commentary (during my brief stint as concertmaster, i was luckily mostly hanging out with a cello and two lovely viola players, so i didn’t have to deal with it as much)

second are the performances themselves. despite what the idea of what the average symphony-enjoyer is like and how ��high-brow” the affair must be, the truth is that backstage, you’ll get crowded rooms with not nearly enough seats and maybe one speaker to let you hear what the opening ensembles are doing. if you’re (un)lucky, there’s a small untuned piano in the corner and inevitably an impromptu performance of Bach’s double concerto begins (everyone knows Bach double, it’s the marker to show you’re moving from intermediate to beginning-advanced) with several violins and usually one flute and/or oboe thrown into the mix. inevitable too are the card games, giant circles with every conceivable game from BS to spoons (played with pens instead of spoons) that become borderline cut-throat as pre-concert tension rises. then stage call! and you’re crowded into brutalism-adjacent steel-and-concrete staircases so cold you start to feel condensation form on your (wooden!) instrument as you hang onto it for dear life for fear you won’t drop and shatter it. special mention goes to that one venue with seven flights of stairs and a mass of industrial-grade kitchens that look like the set of your newest goriest horror film. fun times!

third are just the interpersonal connections—i’ve already mentioned the high-stress environment and density of neurotic perfectionists, and now imagine friendships and relationships thrown into the mix… yea. my sibling used to have this cute friendship with another violin L (a painfully shy kid but god he could play) and they made a nice power-duo. enter A. on first impression, A was an enthusiastic but harmless kid, being a violinist more as the side instrument to piano and composing, but as time went on it became clear he was a grade-A emotional manipulator and narcissistic jerk. so anyway by virtue of being the same age, my sibling, L and A form a trio now, and for a while, everything is good! at this point, they’re all one orchestra lower then me so i don’t get the full picture of how well they worked or didn’t together, but for a month or so it was good! then, unfortunately, sibling and A start dating, and it goes from “awww, how cute!” to “uhh, you sure this guy is it?” within a short while. long story short, sibling and A break up, but get this—A then goes on to date L. luckily that only lasted a short while before they broke up, but anyway, by the time these three get promoted to my group, i’m witnessing the fallout of two relationship breakups and the dissolution of what was once a power trio into separate pieces. L’s my assigned stand partner, but as he was the least culpable for this mess, we get along pretty good. in contrast to A, i reiterate that L is very shy but talented, so this makes it all the more surreal when he’s in the same orchestra as A, the guy who’s “darkest secret” was apparently that he thought he was a composer on par with mozart (he wasn’t. not by a long shot.). with all this context, you surely understand my mixed feelings when for a piano solo, i had to, as concertmaster, shake A’s hand (thank god it was just one of the opener pieces and not the highlight of the concert)

[cosmicmordecai]

I’ve said this before but just to expand what I was saying earlier regarding Zatanna’s not necessarily being “de-aged” to be with Dick Grayson in YJ. In comics, Zatanna was moreover aged up to be closer to Batman.

Dependening on the stories, Zee starts off her heroism at 18-21. Sometimes she joins the JL after years of searching for her father or around the same time.

[Secret Origins v2 #27 - Recounted through Dr. Mist, who reveals being the mastermind behind her father & her upheavals in life by force via Felix Faust. In the story, he does realize how fucking creepy and patronizing his actions were.]

[ Justice League of America #51 - This story places her at 20 years old when she finally reunited with her father and joins the JL a short time later. But this story makes it seem like she was an orphan rather than raised by her father for a chunk of her childhood.]

[ DCU Heroes Secret Files & Origins #1 - This timeline would imply that she joined the JL first at 21.]

All these sources came prior to her history with Batman, which would naturally move her timeline to make her adjacent with him prior.

[Compared that to Dick, whom she met alongside the Titans in Tales of the Teen Titans #4 in the 1980s. By then, Dick was already college bound with high school graduation [Batman #217]or a teenager depending on your context, placing him roughly 16-18 give or take. This same series in which the picture above has him retire the Robin name in #39, which modern stories typically have that done at 18 years old.]

I think it’s very important to note that Zatanna’s character has changed overtime and that there’s no definite “Justice League generation” vs other generations of heroes. There’s not this neat little box where every DCU character conveniently fits in.

The Titans might fit in the “heroes in their 20s” box and the Teen Titans feature heroes younger than 18 but even then, some TT reached 18+ [Red Devil] and there’s been a plethora of heroes in their 20s in the JL [Kyle Rayner, Khalid Nassour, Ronnie Raymond/Jason Rusch]. Just like the JSA has younger members & successors who join, the JL features membership of varying ages.

[I literally forgot the source of this.]

I understand the basis makes it seem like Zatanna is infantalized but that’s not necessarily true. The character wasn’t always Bruce’s childhood friend and at one point, only met significantly in the JL to Batman’s own recollection. & one other time where she was disguised as a witch unknown to Bruce himself long before the retcon that made them childhood friends came to be.

It’s also hard to say “Zatanna has to be around this age bc she hangs out with so-and-so” because characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman has had their histories altered in many ways. Barry Allen’s age has never been stated so using his interest in her as an age gauge is iffy and honestly, in real life, people have relationships, flirtations, and friendships with people older and younger than them. Part of adulthood is meshing with people & it’s not always convenient that you’ll be friends with people your own age. Interpersonal relationships are also multi-faceted and complex.

I also think it’s sets a bad precedent to not examine the character’s history and go off of the “idea” of where characters are instead of their history. Various DC characters already get this:

Billy Batson is always like 10 or 12 when people think of him but like he’s been 15 & 16 too. His relationship with Courtney Whitmore for example happened when he’s in high school himself. He is also chronologically older than Jon Kent regardless of space bullshit.

Raven & Beast Boy’s character get de-aged to the point they’ve been in Dick, Tim, and Damian’s version of the Teen Titans in media & comics.

Jaime Reyes remained eternally in high school until recently and it took a movie to budge him from that.

Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Caín are out here having Damian be closer to them in age because editorials, writers, and fanon completely forget both characters have been 18 far longer than anybody thinks.

Khalid Nassour debuted in 2015 already 23 years old & a year older than DICK GRAYSON IN THE SAME YEARS. Nowadays, he’s drawn as a teen/college age guy and his timeline either implies he’s in his 30s now or in 2023, all his 100+ appearances took place in ONE YEAR so therefore, everyone he interacted with also progressed one year overtime?

Long story short, it’s really important in my opinion to consider a character’s history and not just go off of whose their friend is, what you think their idealized version is like, and do not use the characters whose timeline DC & Didio has outright played Russian Roulette with accommodate their idealized version of the characters as a placeholder.

[gemsofgreece]

Now stfu. Thanks :)

Oh wow. I kinda expected, you know, a page in an encyclopedia or any other page with educative content about Greece or geography in general, but you come proudly with a random Turkey vs Greece article by a David dude.

Honey. You will find anything spelled out on the Internet, including actual mistakes. That's why we check our sources. In fact, this article has many other mistakes as well.

False. Turkey gets more tourists than Greece.

False. The Turkish Republic is exactly 100 years old and the Ottoman Empire lasted about 600 years.

Where to start with this one... If Greece is famous for anything, that's not its urban locations.

Mistake #1: Aya Sofya is not famous because of its minarets and Mistake #2: Ephesus was built in the 10th Century BC, so its heyday or point in time it should be referred with was at least 900 years before the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. Although granted, a lot for its preservation was done in the Roman era.

OMG American mistake #18361986: Greece is NOT a tropical country and HAS ZERO tropical islands

Built by WHOM of WHAT? Perhaps David meant King Antiochus I Theos of Commagen, check an actual source for once

David is straight out pulling facts out of his ass, isn't he

"The major cities like Istanbul and Santorini" the guy is either trolling or hasn't stepped one foot in Greece ever. Santorini is a tiny island and its "major city" Fira has 1,600 residents LMAO my grandparents' godforsaken village has more than that

The guy does a super delicate trolling, I give him that. The guy says things like oceans and tropical and major city of Santorini but has also come across Slav-Macedonian. Amazing combo. David is a man of contrasts. For the record, I haven't come across it and I have lived all my life here. I mean, it exists but you have to struggle to find its speakers and they are all bilingual anyway.

Overall David, that international traveller, does not really mean bad... apart from this????

That was very professional there. But even though he says this, he proceeds to say equally good stuff about both countries, I 'd say. The article is a confusing text by a confused man. But that's not the point. The point is his myriad of inaccuracies and mistakes (as called out in several of the comments), some very typical of Americans, like mistaking Greece for a tropical destination or confusing oceans and seas.

Which brings us to you @libbyhaiku .

I believe, very politely, I added in the tags of that damn post this:

That really set you off. You sent me an ask, telling me to fact check in google... what... whether the country of which I am a native has seas or oceans?

And I did! Even though I don't need to fact check whether Greece has oceans. And once again every website of any actual integrity, apart from the David dude, repeats this over and over. Greece has seas. Which I told you.

Furthermore, @jamy-libations searched for it on their own accord, and to my understanding they are not Greek or native Greeks, they told you and you responded as you responded to me.

I wonder, did you tell them to shut the fuck up too in your message?

So, here's the answer. You and David are making a very typical American mistake, or maybe its not a mistake within your very own borders, which is that because the USA is surrounded by oceans, you think ocean is the standard generic term for sea.

In fact, the word ocean can be used in two ways: either as THE Ocean, which is the entire body of saltwater of the earth and derives as a concept from the Greek mythology, just like the very word derives from Greek so I know well what it means, or to describe the five major bodies of water: the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Southern ocean.

Greece, unlike the USA, is surrounded by neither. Greece is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and its adjacent smaller seas like the Ionian, the Aegean, the Libyan, the Cretan, the Myrtoan, the Ikarian, the Karpathian Seas. While the Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the very narrow strait of Gibraltar, it is so enclosed by land and it exchanges so little water with the Atlantic that it is both traditionally and scientifically considered its own body of water, a Sea, and not just a general area of the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's to explain to you the difference between an ocean and a sea by an actually serious source.

Here is a map of the Mediterranean Basin. As you see, it is almost entirely enclosed and it does not earn the status of being an ocean, let alone containing a multitude of them. Greece is also in the far end of the Mediterranean, as apart from the Atlantic as possible. None of the countries in the Mediterranean Basin have access to an ocean or oceanS, apart from Spain, France and Morocco, as evident here.

Now, I would honestly have not cared or written so much if you didn't throw a tandrum for a tiny tag in a post I reblogged in a positive manner. Unfortunately, you chose the asshole way.

And since we're at it that photo was actually taken in the Italian....... oceans

and it's edited... but whatever, we have this species too.