#Based on: English Folklore

[ineachretelling]

As a wise, Australian bunny once said "Easter is new beginnings, new life..." and so to celebrate we discussed the Tumblr darling, Rise of the Guardians, in which Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman formed a superhero team... and this movie is a lot better than that suggests. Join us in screaming about the gendery feelings Jack Frost brings many of us, about how the Sandman might be Jesus, and, in all seriousness, why we tell these stories to our kids as a culture. Merry Christmas, Happy Easter, and don't forget to floss.

[hellcifrogs]

Okay. alright, I needed a separate post to go in detail, because now I'm pumped! BTW I only quickly looked up the bijuus’ references to have some guidance, so they might not be all exact, I also went a bit by their appearaces alone.

Unfortunately I can’t fit the number of tails, but this is a great excuse for me to ramble about these lovely myths to anyone interested.

Ichibi Shukaku, the shapeshifting tanuki - I might be probably forgeting some, but I decided to go with an animal I like. It kinda matches how bloodthirsty Shukaku was in the begining, but it’s a bird instead. Matinta Pereira is a little owl (sometimes mistaken or also described as a potoo) that brings the news of death. Sometimes it takes the shape of a witch, other times is an old man seeking petty regenge. Another nice detail: since both tanukis and kitsunes are somewhat tricksters, the Matinta is actually sometimes related to the creature I chose for Kyuubi too.

Nibi Matatabi, the cat ghost - The obvious here would be to go with the Alma-de-gato (Cat soul) which is literally a shadow or spectral cat that appears to haunt children who misbehave, silently staring into their souls with (literal) burning eyes. Totally fits and I’d be happy with it. BUT if we take what looks the most like the beast in the series and just overall vibe, I’d have to go with Boitatá. Nothing to do with cats, just a giant fire snake with its body covered in eyes. This myth is actually closely related to the will-o'-wisp so many times the fire is made blue

Anon says “Boitatá would make a fucking awesome bijuu let’s be honest” and that is true! Boitatá IS one of my favorite myths for a reason! Not only it looks badass the legend says the snake protects fields and forests from anyone trying to set illegal fires by blinding them, or driving them into madness or just straight up killing them.

Sanbi Isobu, the sea demon - Here I picked the Ipupiará who’s basically another sea demon, though more humanoid, kind of resembling a mermaid, but more of a walrus shaped one. There are multiple stories and creatures similar to this one, but I like the older and more murderous version for this. Option TWO is another one of my favorites (another giant snake, of course it’s another snake): Boiúna, the black snake. A huge, river long, pitch black snake with flame red eyes, that just scares anyone living by the rivers by sinking ships or straight up swallowing them. Neither of these has any moral or motivation, they’re just beasts.

Yonbi Son Goku, the monkey king - For this one I went with the idea of an “Imposing monkey-like creature” and got: Mapinguari, this huge, smelly, man devouring monster. These monsters, mostly known in the amazon region, easily stand at over 2 meters tall, sometimes depicted with a single eye in the forehead and with a huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth stretching all the way to the bellybutton. They attract the prey by screaming like desperate humans and deceiving people to go help. To have this one as a source of power is nice, but wouldn’t be nearly as respectable as the original.

Gobi Kokuou, Hanging horse head and ghost whale - Okay so a horse. that’s easy: Mula sem cabeça, literally a Headless horse, with fire coming out of its neck. This one is widely known in the country so it has many MANY variations, but the shape is what matters here, so ‘only head horse’ for ‘no head horse’. Not sure how to fit the whale ghost part :(

Rokubi Saiken, the shellfish ogre - Alamoa! I’ve been told not many people know about this one?? But searching for this shellfish ogre, the wiki description fits quite perfectly with the Alamoa. She is a storm (thunder? lightning?) ghost, who appears on stormy nights dancing naked in the beaches of Fernando de Noronha. She is very pale and with near white blonde hair and attracts fishermen with her beauty and treasures, only to trap them and turn into an skeleton before killing them.

Nanabi Choumei, a rhinoceros beetle - This one was surprisingly hard, but let’s go with a simple one: Minhocão (literally big worm). Huge worm like creature living in rivers or underground that also goes around sinking ships. I would also take the ‘lucky seven’ joke and turn it around by using Caapora (out of the numerous names, this is the one I’m most familiar with), who is said to bring bad luck! Caapora can be an angry little girl, a creature with red skin and hair or even a cyclops, they ride a boar (queixada) and cause depression and bad luck to whoever meets them.

Hachibi Gyuki, the cow demon - Immediate choice: Boi Bumbá (with many name variations). It’s an annual performance/celebration telling the story of death and ressucitation of an ox. There’s a lot of dance and colorful outfits involved so it makes for a nice visual for a magical beast. BUT I also remembered a more regional one called Boi Vaquim: a winged bull with golden horns and diamonds for eyes that spits fire. How badass is that?

Fun fact: ‘boi’ is the actual portuguese word for bull/ox, but in native tupí language ‘boi’ stands for snake so we have the snakes boitatá and boiúna.

Kyuubi Kurama, the kitsune - Absolutely NOTHING to do with foxes, but I’m going to pick Saci! Simply for the trickster nature. Sacis are probably the most famous supernatural creature in brazilian mythology. They vary in shape (can be human or have goat horns and beard or bird foot), size (from tiny little fairies living in flowers to 2m tall with scales and claws), power (can create small tornadoes, grant wishes, spoil food), nature (they go from harmless and inconvenient pranks to kidnapping children and beating up animals to death), but the base look is of a pitch black humanoid creature - most times a black boy - with a single leg and red pointy hat. Option two for visuals: Maned wolf.

[wesley-de-cornualles]

Matthew Gregory Lewis, from 'The Water-King: A Danish Ballad', The Monk

[demonfox38]

So, this was the weird thing I had a poll about a few weeks back. I managed to find it cheaper than $40, though!

Like, I'd seen Michelangelo and Raphael's Universal Monster Movie variants at the local Wal-Mart, and I was baffled on who would buy them. And then I found out that Splinter's variant is based on Van Helsing. Pride obliterated.

Try not to think too hard about how this interpretation of Dracula would work. Although, I guess the comic version of Shredder is kind of undead already, if you count being resuscitated by a supernatural worm colony as necromancy.

[glacierruler]

Everyone should get $5000 for college each semester after all the fees have been paid. No matter what.

[ao3org]

Updates to AO3 "Mythology" Fandoms

Hi AO3 users! You may have noticed that recently, fandoms previously canonized as "Mythology" are being updated to "Religion & Lore". This renaming project is part of a wider ongoing process on AO3 about respectful treatment and naming of various religions, spiritual beliefs, faiths, and collections of folklores belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. This includes both major and minor religions, as well as reconstructionist, ancient, and modern religions.

In the coming months, the term "Mythology" is being phased out of canonical fandom names. This is because of its potential for use as a disparaging term, and the way in which it is used primarily for religions which are already under-represented. Since "mythology" has connotations of being fictional or inferior to the religious beliefs of the speaker or writer, and is unfortunately used in this way by some, the decision has been made to replace this term with something that the Wrangling Committee believes is more inclusive and less derogatory.

After extensive discussion between individuals from varying religious backgrounds and beliefs, including wranglers representing the various fandoms which were being covered, it was felt that "Religion & Lore" was an appropriate and neutral way to describe the bodies of faith, belief, knowledge, and tradition associated with many of these religions which were ancestrally imparted and regional in nature. It is also hoped that this will decrease ambiguous or confused use, allowing people to more accurately describe their works and find works in which they are interested moving forward.

The use of "Ancient" in many of these fandoms' names reflects that these countries still exist but now have different predominant religions or spiritual beliefs. For example, Ancient Greek Religion & Lore (as Greece is now a predominantly Christian country) or Ancient Egyptian Religion (as Egypt is now a predominantly Muslim country). Because "Norse" does not refer to an extant country, region, or culture, it is not necessary to specify that it is historical or ancient in nature.

The names of these fandoms will also have the native language piped, if the English-language demonym is significantly different from the native-language demonym or if there is a culturally specific term based on consultation with individuals who speak these languages as a first language. We hope to give representation to the language of the source culture by doing so.

Each of these changes has been and will continue to be carefully researched and discussed with traditional knowledge keepers and researchers from the cultures represented in the fandoms under discussion.

Many religions face the issue of texts being written long after their events occurred. Unfortunately this is something which is shared across many religious fandoms; AO3 seeks to treat these religious fandoms equally. Care has been taken in researching characters relating to these fandoms, and character tags will be canonized or made a synonym on a case-by-case basis. Fandom tags that are currently synned to the Ancient religious fandoms have been checked as thoroughly as possible to ensure that they are not referring to modern folk tales, and where possible such relatively modern folk tales are canonized as their own fandoms.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)

[runawaycarouselhorse]

I don't want to act like a snob, but, y'all... really don't read old fairy tales or mythology, do you...? You only know the sanitized, bloodless Disney versions? People get cut to pieces (Cinderella/Ashputtel, The Red Shoes), women are abducted to be wives (an upsetting practice that continued until very recently, still practiced in some countries today—horrible, but part of life that found its way into stories, like The Seal's Skin), and magical talking animal husbands / wives (The Crane's Return of a Favour; East of the Sun, West of the Moon, etc.) abound in old mythology. Kids have been raised hearing these stories and not thinking about sex for centuries...

Humans marrying Pokemon in the ancient past was frankly stated in the Japanese version of DPPt. The English version rightly assumed English-speaking fans won't take it and reworded it from used to marry to used to eat at the same table (some euphemism!)

The Typhlosion story is no different from western stories like East of the Sun, West of the Moon (the way she was advised not to look at him reminded me of that) or The Seal's Skin (selkies cannot transform and return to the sea without their pelts—the abducted wife leaves her half-human child on land, escaping with her pelt when she finds it... the half-human, half-Pokemon children are bullied by their pelts being thrown on them to transform them against their will for cruel human amusement..)

The bloody myth about the boy with the sword is Veilstone's myth, but told in detail, right down to the Pokemon exacting a toll from him for how he maimed and slew them for amusement.

A man unknowingly marries a transformed-into-human form Froslass he met once before in Pokemon Legends: Arceus and she flees when he finds out what she was... it's based on a tale about the yuki-onna, the folkloric snow woman Froslass is based on.

[music]

[transbookoftheday]

Trans Horror Podcasts

My post about trans horror books last year was much more popular than I expected, and since I've recently fallen in love with fiction podcasts and audio dramas, I thought I'd make a post about trans horror podcasts as well.

If you like trans horror, please give these a try - especially if you enjoy listening to audiobooks!

Hello From The Hallowoods:

Come walk between the black pines! In this award-winning queer fiction podcast, an eldritch narrator follows the increasingly connected residents of the forest at the end of the world. It's a bittersweet story that explores queer identity, horror genre tropes, and finding hope in humanity's last moments.

Hello From The Hallowoods is my absolute favorite podcast! If you only listen to one podcast from this list, please make it this one - it's so beautifully written and super queer! Also: season 4 starts today!

Trans main characters include:

our nonbinary eye-affiliated podcast host

a nonbinary "Frankenstein's creature"

a transmasc ghost

a genderfluid storm witch

a trans woman who can visit other people's dreams

multiple characters using neopronouns

Camp Here & There:

Good morning, campers! Camp Here & There is a weekly horror comedy podcast tuned in to the loudspeakers of a small midwestern sleepaway camp plagued by supernatural terrors and natural disasters. Sydney Sargent, resident camp nurse, cheerfully reports on all the terror we must face with a big smile. Let’s hope there’s nothing weird about that!

Sydney is a trans man.

Dos: After You:

Things have changed. Deck has fallen in love with someone who isn't human, and leaves a hungry house behind to see him again. Will he be waiting for you? The world has changed… but what about him? Dos: After You is a queer urban fantasy/horror audiodrama available in both English & Spanish

Deck is a trans man.

Jar of Rebuke:

Follow Dr. Jared Hel's journey as he works to re-discover his forgotten past and finds his place within the small Indiana farm town of Wichton and the cryptozoological organization he works for called 'The Enclosure'. These audio journals, and other recordings, dive deep into Midwestern US cryptids and folklore while also telling a mystery about identity, queerness, neurodivergence, and community.

Jared is nonbinary.

Spirit Box Radio:

Spirit Box Radio is an award winning, horror audio drama podcast about a radio show for enthusiasts of all things arcane. Follow Sam Enfield a former postboy with no experience in the arcane arts, who finds themselves forced to take over running the show, following the disappearance of the previous host. Sam soon discovers there are more than ghosts haunting the show, and finds himself amidst a mystery which threatens everything he knows about the world beyond his tiny basement broadcast studio, and maybe even himself.

Sam is a trans man.

The Silt Verses:

Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed god, travel up the length of their deity’s great black river, searching for holy revelations amongst the reeds and the wetlands. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories. This is a world where divine intervention takes place through prayer-markings scratched into stumping-posts, and offerings are left squirming to die in the flats of the delta. This is a world of ritual, and hidden language, and sacrifice. This is folk horror, and fantasy, and a dark road trip into the depths of unusual faith.

Faulkner is a trans man and Paige is a trans woman.

The Magnus Protocol:

The Magnus Archives 2: The Magnus Protocol is the prequel/sequel/”sidequel” to the internationally renowned Magnus Archives podcast. The Magnus Institute was an organisation dedicated to academic research into the esoteric and the paranormal, based out of Manchester, England. It burned to the ground in 1999. There were no survivors. Now, almost 25 years later, Alice and Sam, a pair of low-level civil service workers at the underfunded Office of Incident Assessment and Response, have stumbled across its legacy. A legacy that will put them in grave danger. If this intrigues you then it is our pleasure to welcome you to the Office of Incident, Assessment and Response. Make sure you pick up your badge at desk and report to your line manager before sitting down. Oh and stay away from I.T., seriously.

Alice is a trans woman.

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

No offence, but the series may be a tad too advanced for you if you get to the end and still assume house elves are a metaphor for human enslavement...

it's been sixteen years and I still can't believe that Harry Potter's official final word on slavery was that it's fine as long as you treat them nicely. Like Harry's very last action in Deathly Hallows before the cut to the epilogue is to wonder if Kreacher, the SLAVE THAT HE OWNS, can bring him a sandwich. I need to lie down

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Halloween

REFERENCES (Banshee; Ghost; Ghoul; Goblin; Haunt; Specter; Vampire; Wraith; Origins of Halloween)

Banshee

A female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon die.

Banshee came from combining the Gaelic words meaning “woman of fairyland,” but any positive associations with fairies ends there.

Are female spirits that, if seen or heard wailing under the windows of a house, foretell of a death in the family that lives there.

Today, the word is most frequently heard in the idiom “scream like a banshee” or “wail like a banshee,” which shows the power of myth and the imaginative power of language, since probably no one has actually heard one.

Ghost

Most common meaning today is “a disembodied soul” or “the soul or specter of a deceased person”, which came next, a meaning based on the ancient folkloric notion that the spirit is separable from the body and can continue its existence after death. It originally meant “vital spark” or “the seat of life or intelligence,” which is still used in the phrase “give up the ghost.”

An older spelling of ghost, gast, is the root of aghast (“struck with terror, shocked”) and ghastly (“frightening”).

The German word for ghost, geist, is part of the word zeitgeist, which literally means “spirit of the time.”

Ghoul

A legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses.

Ghoul is a relatively recent English word, borrowed from Arabic in the 1700s.

Because it’s spelled with gh-, it looks vaguely like the Old English words ghost and ghastly (which share a common root in the Old English word gāst, meaning “spirit” or “ghost”).

In fact, it comes from the Arabic word ghūl, derived from the verb that means “to seize,” and originally meant “a legendary evil being held to rob graves and feed on corpses.” The word was introduced to western literature by the French translation of Arabian Nights.

Goblin

An ugly or grotesque sprite.

Usually mischievous and sometimes evil and malicious.

Haunt

To visit or inhabit as a ghost.

However, this is not the original sense of the word.

For centuries, it had a perfectly unfrightening set of meanings: “to visit often” and “to continually seek the company of.”

In the 1500s, it began to mean “to have a disquieting or harmful effect on,” as in “that problem may come back to haunt you.” The meaning here is simply the lingering presence of the problem, not the possibly scary nature of the problem itself; it is applied to thoughts, memories, and emotions.

The noun haunt retains this fright-neutral definition, “a place that you go to often,” as in “one of my favorite old haunts.”

A lingering idea, memory, or feeling may have led to the ghostly meaning of haunt, or one by a disembodied or imaginary spirit.

Specter

A visible disembodied spirit.

Specter originally meant “a visible disembodied spirit” in English—a good synonym for ghost. But, unlike ghost, the notion of being visible is paramount in specter, which came to English from the French word spectre, which developed directly from the Latin word spectrum, meaning “appearance” or “specter,” itself based on the verb specere, meaning “to look.”

Specere is also the root of many English words that have to do with appearance: aspect, conspicuous, inspect, perspective, and spectacle.

Vampire

The reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep.

Legends of bloodsucking creatures go back to Ancient Greece, with harrowing tales of them rising from burial places at night to drink peoples’ blood before hiding from dawn’s daylight. These stories were popular in eastern Europe.

Originally comes from the Serbian word vampir, which then passed from German to French, coming to English in the 1700s.

The extended senses of vampire, “one who lives by preying on others” and a synonym of vampire bat, were both in use within a few decades.

Wraith

The exact likeness of a living person seen usually just before death as an apparition. The distinguishing quality of a wraith, compared with other ghosts, is its specificity.

Originally, it referred to either the exact likeness of a living person seen as an apparition just before that person’s death as a kind of spectral premonition of bad news, or a visible apparition of a dead person.

When referring to a living person, it’s a synonym of doppelgänger, or the “spirit double” of a living person (as opposed to a ghost, which refers to the spirit of a dead person). Doppelgänger is now frequently used in a broader sense to mean simply “someone who looks like someone else.”

When referring to a dead person, wraith is a synonym of revenant, which originally referred to a ghost of a particular person and subsequently has been used for a person who returns after a long absence.

ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN

The traditions of Halloween have their origins in Samhain, a festival celebrated by the Celts of ancient Britain and Ireland.

Samhain marked the end of summer and the onset of winter, and occurred on a date that corresponds to our November 1st.

It was believed that during the Samhain festival, the world of the gods was visible to humans, and the gods took advantage of this fact by playing tricks on their mortal worshippers. Those worshippers in turn responded with bonfires on hilltops and sometimes masks and other varied disguises to keep ghosts from being able to recognize them. Things tended to get spooky and dangerous around Samhain, with bloody sacrifices and supernatural phenomena abounding.

Samhain chugged along for centuries, until Christianity poked its nose in: in the 8th century CE, All Saints' Day, a somewhat new Christian holiday, got moved from May 13th to November 1st.

The evening before All Saints' Day became a holy—that is, a hallowed—eve. Within a few centuries, Samhain and the eve of All Saints' Day had been merged into a single holiday. Protestants of the Reformation and all that came after largely rejected the whole thing, but the holiday persisted among some communities.

19th-century immigrants to the U.S., including many from Ireland, brought their Halloween customs with them and deserve no small amount of credit for the holiday as it's celebrated in the U.S. today.

More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Word List: October

[draconesmundi]

Happy Dracones Monday! Firedrakes!

Happy Dracones Monday! This Monday we're looking at four dragon species at once, the firedrakes! Here they are, approximately to scale with eachother.

The glitterdrake is the smallest, the size of a large lizard or small cat. They live in laurel forests on Macaronesian Islands, in the Atlantic near Africa. Glitterdrakes aren't based on mythology; I put them on Macaronesia because I couldn't find Macaronesian dragon mythology but I am trying to put dragons EVERYWHERE on the map. Also, putting these dragons on an archipelago of islands means I can have a lot of island subspecies and colour morphs - glitterdrakes represent colourful fantasy dragons, so having them come in every colour (sapphire blue, ruby red, emerald green, royal purple, burning gold, shining silver etc.) was important to me.

The Welsh dragon is smaller than the other European firedrakes at 1.5 meters. They are no less fierce - there aren't any common firedrakes in Wales as a common firedrake cannot maintain a territory there for long. Originally I had the Welsh dragon as a subspecies of the common firedrake, but decided that this dragon had so much personality and folklore that it could get it's own chapter.

The common firedrake is found in Western Europe, 4m long. When designing these I noticed in a lot of heraldry dragons don't seem to have horns? Ears yes, but hornless? Also I noticed that dragons in heraldry tend to have the dorsal finlets from the back of the head to between their shoulders, but no further, which is something I have kept for all my firedrake species.

The viridian firedrake is the largest firedrake species, over 5m long. They are found in Eastern and Southern Europe, and in Russia. I based their appearance on old storybook illustrations to make them look very 'classic', which is why they have horns and cheek frills compared to the more heraldic and hornless common firedrake.

Rant about the term 'firedrake' under the cut! :)

In other creative works, these are called 'classic dragons', 'European dragons', 'true dragons' and 'Western dragons', but I am not a fan of these terms - 'true dragon' implies other dragons are untrue dragons, which is nonsense. 'Western dragon' or 'European dragon' is largely accurate (the 4 legged 2 winged dragon design is common in Europe and the West) but there are other Western and European dragons (wyrms and wyverns) and I find these terms confusing when other types of dragons are taken into account. Also, some Asian dragons also have 4 legs and 2 wings. 'Classic' dragons... serpentine and wyrmish dragons are more classic than 4 legged 2 winged firebreathers, etc.

I went with 'firedrake' as a term for these dragons because 'drake', 'drachen', 'ddraig', 'drac', 'drak' and 'dreki' are all words for dragons like this in European languages, and because firedrake is a word used in literature like some translations of Beowulf and, of course, Tolkien's Legendarium (firedrake comes from Old English fȳrdraca). I think it's a good word that easily conjures up fire breathing four legged, two winged dragons without making them more 'true' or 'classic' than other dragon types or tying them specifically to 'European' and 'Western' countries.

In Dracones Mundi I really try to get a huge diversity of dragons across to the readers. There are around 68 dragon species in this project, only 4 of which are firedrakes. I want to show readers there is more to dragon mythology than "here is a western dragon, they are evil and associated with fire, here is an eastern dragon, they are good and associated with water" - I want to dig deeper. I want people to know about azhdarha, about cuélebres, about coameh. So I'm shining the spotlight away from these firedrakes and trying to make them a small part of a much larger discussion. :)

[moiraimyths]

FEB 1, 2023: KICKSTARTER FOR THE GOOD PEOPLE (NA DAOINE MAITHE) HAS ENDED!

Thank you to our 776 backers for allowing us to bring this project to life, and reach our side stories stretch goal! We hope that you love what we have in store! Stay tuned, fateful friends!

The Good People (Na Daoine Maithe) is a lore-rich and choice-driven historical fantasy visual novel inspired by Irish mythology and Celtic folklore. Play as a tenant farmer from mid-19th century Ireland, whose path becomes inexplicably entwined in fairy affairs after getting robbed by the roadside and lured into the mythic and war-torn world of Tír na nÓg: A once unified land, now divided into the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Will you escape and return home with your stolen belongings? Or does fate have something else in mind?

Our Full Game will Feature:

Six Character Routes: There will be six character routes in total, each one exploring the individual stories of our diverse cast of Love Interests (LIs)! There are two men, two women, and two non-binary folk to choose from. Half of our cast is aspec, as well!

Secret Story Route: If you play through all six character routes, you'll unlock the secret story route! It's designed to tie up the broader narrative aspects of the game, and you can choose which character route is "canon" to your play through!

Flexible MC: Choose your preferred name and pronouns (including neo pronouns) and romance whomever you please! (We even have a stretch goal to customize MC's sprite appearance, too!)

Platonic Options: Not into romance, or don't want to romance them all? Not to worry! All routes can be played platonically.

Multiple Endings: Each route has two endings based on the health of your relationship with the LI, regardless of whether it's romantic or platonic.

English-Gaeilge Lexicon: Our game features translatable Gaeilge (Irish) words and phrases, and in the full game, translations will be voiced for ease of pronunciation!

Voice Acting: The main cast will have limited voice acting in the full game. Check our Kickstarter page periodically for voice actor reveals and samples!

Other Features (Stretch Goals): Side stories in-between route releases.

While we develop the full game, be sure to try out our FREE DEMO out now on Steam and Itch.io! Make sure to Wishlist our game on Steam as well!

[cool-thymus]

idk how to tell you this but japanese people don't speak English. "obitover" isn't a thing when they aren't speaking english...? 💀

Anon is referring to this awesome comic by @dottixml to which i shamelessly contributed one tiny panel.

Hey anon! I had to consult a friend of mine @maireyart who does speak Japanese, and as it turns out, "obitover" IS possible in Japanese, isn't it great? 😁

Japanese has a lot of English loan words, including the word “over” (oobaa) which has the same meaning in expressions like ゲームオーバー (英: game over) etc. So in the Japanese version of this comic the pun could be:

オビトーバ ー!!!!!

Which is オビト + オーバー (obito + oobaa)

Obito’s name is a fav pun base in both English and Japanese fandoms 😎😋 Also, Naruto characters live in an original fictional world that is indeed heavily influenced by the Japanese folklore and culture; however, it is not real Japan. So we can fantasize and headcanon anything we want. Let's just be open-minded and supportive of each other's creative flow :3

P.S. "Fixobito-no-jutsu" from my panel could ALSO be translated into Jp as a pun! But we would need to ask @maireyart about that 👀📝

P.S.S. and who says Obito couldn't be studying English in his free time to look cool in front of his teammates? Kakashi would be jealous af, and Rin would be so impressed with Obito just dishing out puns IN ENGLISH here and there 🤭right?

[demonslayedher]

Nerdy cultural details about the word "Hashira"

Some details can be hard to pick up without context or in translation. I recently went over a few details about the Hashira's names, Breaths, or symbols, but today I want to focus on the word "Hashira."

To get this out of the way, I use "Pillar" all over this blog because I thought that's what they were called. I was astounded that phrase was not translated, as it is a (somewhat rare) case of a one-to-one translation equivalent. They are the pillars that support the Demon Slayer Corp, after all. The kanji for it (柱) very literally means "pillar" in any modern day Japanese to English dictionary. But since you all know the word "Hashira," let's climb up and see where it takes us! First, the kanji itself (brought over from China and given the Japanese pronunciation "hashira," based on the existing spoken Japanese language), is composed of 木 for "tree" and 主 for "master" or "main/principal," among other semi-literal or more widely applicable possible meanings in modern kanji dictionaries. However, Prof. Owada Tetsuo, a retired university professor who published an unofficial book of his own Kimetsu no Yaiba interpretations based on Japanese demon slaying folklore, points out that 主 can also be interpreted as a still flame atop a candlestick, and that 柱 (hashira) is a tree that cannot be moved. (I'll continue to use a lot of Prof. Owada's details in this explanation, as well as details I have picked up in other research.) That makes 柱 closely associated with holy trees found in, or treated as, Shinto shrines throughout Japan. As Shinto is a nature-based belief system, trees are often something that a kami (deity) will inhabit. Keep Shinto in mind, because we're going to focus on that a lot.

Before that, let's finish up with the kanji 柱. According to the first official fanbook, there is an upper limit of nine Hashira because there are nine strokes in the 柱 kanji. (See this dictionary entry for a breakdown of those nine strokes.)

Now that the easy official tidbit is out of the way, back to the Shinto fun stuff and conjecture! We need to dive a bit more into the spoken Japanese language, from which a lot of Shinto terms derive. For starters, the Japanese language uses counter words for when you say a certain number of beings or objects. You could think of this as "a sheet of paper" or "three rolls of tape." It is an annoying part of starting out your study of the language because there are a lot to memorize based on sizes, shapes, types of animals, etc. Deities also have their own counter word: 柱 (hashira). This goes to show how the Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corp are something more than human, what with how much power they possess.

Now if we think about the pronunciation of the spoken Japanese word from long before a Chinese written character was assigned to it, the "hashi" of "hashira" is a "bridge." Clever ones among you might know that "hashi" also means "chopsticks." But even chopsticks have the same effect as a bridge! They serve as a connection, bridging the gap between you and what was another living thing, that which will become a part of you as your sustenance. "Hashira," as pillars, are likewise something that serve as a connection, in this case, a vertical one. They are that which connect us with the heavens, or in the case of the Demon Slayer Corp, they bridge the gap between the limits of human strength and the inhuman strength of demons.

As another Shinto tie, one of the connections that Prof. Owada and I both made was that there are nine pillars that support the main sanctuary in shrine architecture like that of Izumo Taisha Grand Shrine. Or rather, in the case of at least one of the historical iterations of Izumo Taisha, there were nine groups of three massive tree trunks each, resulting in a shrine over 48 meters in height (see here for photos of how big the remains of those pillars are and how exciting the archaeology is). These pillars give you a sense of awe for just how powerful pillars can be, especially when you have a spread of nine to distribute the weight. Now, there's more that Prof. Owada and I would both say about how Izumo Taisha also ties in with the "Ubuyashiki" surname or the "yakata" title by which the Hashira address him, but that's a dose of nerdery for some other time.

[originalaccountname]

Sorry to bother you but I’ve been getting into BSD and Chuuya’s my fave, but I’ve been seeing some contradictory things in fanfic so…

Does Chuuya actually have a god sealed inside him? I thought it was just like his power without limitations and was dubious of those takes, but since eldritch beings can apparently be a thing (and not an ability), I think it could be plausible either way.

Though even if it’s not I can see why people would use that route for some good angst.

This is not a bother at all! This is something I very much like to talk about

if you're really new I do recommend you go read both "Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen Years Old" and "STORM BRINGER" light novels (but SB especially), not only are they great books with Chuuya as the focal point but they will help answer your question in depth (you can buy the English translations but I can help you find the translation online if that's what you need, just message me again)

The short version is that Arahabaki being an actual god, a separate entity from Chuuya that has a personality/a voice/desires, is a common fanon trope, but not a canon fact. The truth is more complex and much more fun, lore-wise, in my opinion

And now the long version, because I'm passionate about this and this is my excuse to deep dive into it (spoilers for Fifteen)

In Fifteen, Chuuya says this:

Chuuya himself presents "Arahabaki" as nothing more than pure power. No thoughts, no personality, but powerful for sure.

That phrasing in Fifteen created a lot of confusion I think, talking about gods as real but also not:

But I think it's more of a symbolic reference, talking about immense power that seem out of this world. Because in practice, as Chuuya said before, "Arahabaki" is simply raw power, not an entity. You can't pray to it, it can't understand you, it can't perform miracles (which is why he knew the Old Boss couldn't have been brought back by Arahabaki and it was all nonsense from the start)

I'm also putting part of the blame on the anime, where they decided (while not being exactly wrong either, out of context it's weird) to illustrate Chuuya "floating in a bluish-black darkness, surrounded by a transparent seal" and being pulled out by a hand:

like this:

When, if you actually reread that part in the novel with knowledge about Storm Bringer, it's actually this moment that was being referred to:

Which brings us to Storm Bringer! (heavy spoilers I'm serious)

"Project Arahabaki" was the Japanese government's attempt to create an ability weapon from an individual. They wanted to craft a singularity that could be used multiple times, thus granting them access to power that should not be accessible normally. They based their research on what France had discovered through Verlaine. The objective is to create a massive energy output through a self-contradicting ability, for which you need a vessel:

Chuuya is the device. "Arahabaki" is the massive energy. That massive energy can control gravity to the point of being able to create localized black holes! N implied that part of the lab's work for the Arahabaki Project was to modify Chuuya's body to be able to withstand the constant gravity effects on it so he doesn't just die. Chuuya's normal use of his ability doesn't seem to have any drastic effects on him, and his physical resilience (to getting hit, stabbed, poisoned, shot, electrocuted, to going through a black hole) does seem to imply they did succeed at least in part.

And this bit here explains why "Arahabaki" was the chosen name for the project; unexplained phenomena across History that can be linked to an ability going haywire, but were attributed to god-like interventions at the time. So you're a funny little mad scientist, you read research papers from another mad scientist that named their own creation after a mythological monster, and you decide to do the same with your own local folklore.

But!

There's still something to be said about how "Arahabaki" is a singularity, and therefore, has its own set of rules. Chuuya does loose control, Chuuya does regress to a sort of destructive instinct while under Corruption. But "Arahabaki" is still no more than an ability singularity. Here's what is said about Guivre and Arahabaki:

They are both singularity life-forms. They exist because they are singularities; outside of it, they are nothing. The inner workings of abilities are still mysterious, but most of them have a link to their wielder's desires. For example, Atsushi's Tiger is there to protect him, a mirror to his will to live no matter what. Verlaine's Guivre is similar:

Guivre was a beast born out of Verlaine's loneliness and resulting hatred. He felt deeply alone in not feeling/being human, and through Pan's (his "creator") special "programming" of Verlaine's ability, N was able to trigger the true form of his singularity with that flare gun and metal powder, which took the form of Guivre. It's what the hat was supposed to prevent, but Verlaine had already lost it by then.

Chuuya's Arahabaki is probably similar. Its first apparition was when Rimbaud tried to absorb him and use his ability for himself, and any subsequent use is linked to grief and survival. Basically, if they're their own entities, they are still born in a specific context and deeply linked to the original ability user's character. And Arahabaki? Only exists if Chuuya uses his activation phrase to get rid of the limitations put into place to prevent him from exploding:

More about about Corruption: SB is kind enough to give us an explanation on how the nullification process works, right here:

Chuuya's self-contradicting ability makes him able to control gravity through the sheer amount of energy it creates by permanently interacting with itself. It is kept under control through the use of an activation phrase, O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again, which, after being either said or thought by Chuuya, will open his "Gate" (which I'm interpreting as a blocker put in place by the lab so the singularity doesn't just kill him, like those poor people they mentioned existed through History), and by opening it, "free Arahabaki's true power" (aka Corruption). When Dazai uses his ability on him, the base self-contradicting ability is nullified, which cancels out the singularity taking place, which stops Corruption and allows that "Gate" to close again. The red markings are there because they're cool and fun.

To conclude, I'll let Dazai do the honors:

bonus: what does that mean for Chuuya's ability?

bons 2: Perceived timeline of Chuuya's past and what happened to to create confusion around his humanity

[blueiscoool]

Britain's Oldest Gold Coin Hoard Discovered

The oldest hoard of gold coins in Britain, dating back 2,173 years, was discovered by a metal detectorist.

The 12 Iron Age artifacts were discovered by Stephen Eldridge while scouring fields in Buckinghamshire.

They were built in 150 BC by a tribe in what is now Picardy, France, according to experts at the British Museum.

According to speculation, the coins were likely transferred to Britain in return for Celtic mercenaries who were sent to Gaul in western Europe to fight the Romans.

A hoard from this date is extremely uncommon, even though individual gold coins from this era have been discovered before.

The coins will now likely sell for £30,000 when they are put up for auction at London's Spink & Son.

In November 2019, Mr. Eldridge, 68, discovered the coins in the Buckinghamshire community of Ashley Green.

The Catuvellauni tribe first settled in the region about 150 BC, and during the ensuing century they grew to become the most dominant tribe in Britain.

Mr. Eldridge has put the coins up for auction with London-based coin specialists Spink after going through the treasure process.

The coins' roughly 75% gold content with an alloy of silver and copper was validated by scientific x-ray fluorescence analysis, indicating the economy in which Britain's first gold coinage were circulating.

The coins are now expected to sell for £30,000 when they go under the hammer at London auctioneers Spink & Son

Gregory Edmund, of Spink & Son, said: “Whilst individual gold coins of this period have been recorded across south east England, it is incredibly rare for a trove of this size or date to be uncovered. Contemporary local coinage was simply cast base metal issues called 'potins'. Whoever successfully imported this trove of gold coins would have undoubtedly wielded influence in the region.

They would have been exported, probably in exchange for mercenaries, equipment and hunting dogs to fight the Romans or other tribes in Belgium. Twenty or thirty years after they were deposited we started to get the first British coins in the same style. These coins were in the wealthiest part of the English kingdom. A hoard of this size and period is unprecedented in the archaeological record. There was one other hoard from this period of three coins found. These coins have been well used, it is very clear they are not fresh when they are put in the ground, but still retain remarkable details of a seldom-seen Iron Age art form.

It is often speculated that the portraiture of this coinage was deliberately androgynous despite being modelled on the classical male god Apollo. The feminine styling is probably a reflection of the political significance of women in Iron Age society, that enabled such historical figures as Cartimandua and Boudicca to rise to prominence and our now national folklore. It is incredibly satisfying to assist in the proper recording, academic analysis and now sale of these prestigious prehistoric relics.”

Following the coroner's inquest, the British Museum made the decision to disclaim the coins, which means they now belong to the finder.

The landowner will receive a portion of Mr. Eldridge's earnings.