#I will see how this post does and maybe I will post later

[brehaaorgana]

In this case when I originally made the post I considered if I wanted to talk about American politics specifically, or a more general problem that I was concerned about with Gen Z, and I went with the latter to be intentionally broad.

The enshittification of the internet isn't uniquely american. And the impacts aren't just about ignorance vs knowledge.

For example, another thing I frequently consider (my younger brother is Gen z, born in 2001) about technology and the internet: how many pictures have you taken that weren't automatically filtered? How many pictures have you seen online of your peers that weren't filtered at least to a default level? I don't know what it does to your generation to have photos of yourselves primarily from phones and social media apps that by default alter your face.

And maybe your family still was taking lots of film photos when you were a kid and teenager. I don't really know. And my generation did have *some* basic filters in high school. But like...they weren't built in the way they are now, and the primary way you see anyone else's face online. They weren't ubiquitous the same way.

My friend's flip phones didn't have auto blemish filters and smoothers that changed what our faces looked like. They were pixelated. Sometimes we could take webcam laptop photos. I remember opening Photoshop to manually try to cover blemishes lol. I saw photos of my friends online with acne. With their natural faces (most distortion was "comical" warping, not AI contouring changing the structure of someone's chin, cheekbones, nose... Or it was manually done).

Your generation and gen alpha like...some of you have always had *some* auto filters built in changing your faces, which shows up in social media, which changes what it's like to see and be seen. And some of you might not remember or have experience with what it was like to get a disposable Kodak camera from Walgreens and take pictures with friends that you got developed later and that weren't edited. Or a Polaroid izone. Something that looked more like the person in the mirror because an AI software didn't smooth, color correct, and enhance and auto-soften blemishes. Some of you probably didn't experience shitty low res myspace selfies where any editing was often extremely obvious. The algorithm on social networking sites wasn't going to be showing you almost solely heavily filtered photos and videos of people's faces. It's basically background noise now - it's so prevalent because it's now a default.

That also works as a metaphor. The world is now heavily filtered online in ways that are no longer transparent, in ways we don't always know the specifics of anymore, and which inherently shifts what we see. And even if you logically know this to be true, you also didn't really experience "before."

Also like, generationally, globally, gen z grew up with online influencers. When I say the internet algorithms have made your generation miserable without as much sense of how warped this experience has become, I also mean that, in addition to politics. In addition to images and body image. I mean it broadly.

It's not as simple as "lol gen z is dumb" because enshittification makes it exponentially more difficult to learn anything online, and algorithms no longer prioritize accuracy or information - they prioritize advertisements and interaction/engagement. How many gen z kids were taught a boolean search? And if they were, did they notice when those started to be less and less effective on various search engines? What engines were people using back in 2000 where you live? In 2005? How many of them still exist? Did they vanish? Get bought, or pushed out by a bigger company?

Forum culture used to be a wealth of knowledge on various topics on a global scale, but forums have become a smaller and smaller part of the internet over time. The internet used to be....bigger and weirder and more accessible.

Hell, moving beyond just "omg the internet" because our technology has obfuscated more and more of how it fucking *works.* Things are app-ified in a way that I can't really explain how fucking infuriating it really is lol.

Anyways yeah I was vague because I wanted to apply this thought to many things, not just one particular American thing.

....also someone gen z told me seriously that reddit was a liberal leaning website and my soul evaporated from my body a little.

I am concerned for gen z. Like I don't think they're doing okay. I think algorithms and a systematic denial of easy access to facts because of Internet enshittification has made them unbelievably miserable with very little sense of how warped their online experience is. Idk how to fix it.

[merrycrisis-if]

So is merry crisis not gonna be an if anymore but rather a vn? What does that mean for its progress? I'm a bit worried tbh...

Also i thought you were working alone on it but you keep saying "we" in your new monsoon games posts? I'm genuinely confused about everything. Maybe i missed smth...

Heya! Super fair question, and I get where you're coming from. I love Merry Crisis as it is right now, and I know how concerning it may be to see me spending time "fixing something that ain't broke".

I just want to emphasise two things that I think might reassure you somewhat:

I'm very much still focusing on writing Merry Crisis above all else, and that's always going to be my priority. (I love writing first and foremost!)

That said, I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I do truly believe that my vision for Merry Crisis leans more toward visual novel than it is fully text-based; the reason why I started with COG/HG is simply that it was the thing that got me into Interactive Fiction, and the only language I knew 2 years ago. Now, 2 years later, I can genuinely say that my coding/programming skills have improved, and discovering Ren'py really clicked. Like, I feel in my bones that this is the form of the story that I want to tell, and I'm glad to have it in my arsenal/as one of my options now.

On the second point, I hope it at least counts for something that I am not making the decision lightly, and I genuinely think that when you guys see it in the form I'm imagining, you'll love it too/be as excited as I am. More details / answers to the rest of your questions below the cut.

I'm still going to be focusing on writing merry crisis while I find artists- and even when I do settle on artists, since I won't be the one doing the art (thankfully), writing progress should still be made at the same(ish) speed.

That said, porting to a visual novel format does require a fair amount of editing, and yes, I will need to balance that with writing new content.

As for the actual details of implementation and what language/format I will be updating in, I am currently writing the new chapter in choicescript, and it will be updated in that format for 1 more chapter at least (possibly more). Hope that answers things!

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[ofpd]

1st century roman siege of jerusalem dashboard simulator

🐮 barkamtza

why does this shit always happen to me

#oh my goddd the ONE time it seems like people actually wanna hang out with me. #turns out they meant to invite kamtza instead #everyone hates me and i was SO fucking nice i offered to pay for the party #god i'm so pathetic. kms kms kms #they're gonna pay for this i swear #delete later

0 notes

📜 zekharya-ben-avkolas

Ok so obv it's not ok to sacrifice a blemished calf but the blemish is just on the eyelid? So maybe it's ok? But also and i don't want people to start going around thinking that it's ok to sacrifice blemished animals. But the thing is that if i don't bar Kamtza will tell the Romans we insulted them and that will be bad probably. And like no one likes bar Kamtza anyway will people really miss him..... but ugh neither of these seem like good things to do i don't feel like it's my place to make a decision about this :/

32 notes

🏛 vespasian reblogged

🏺neronero

off to war wish me luck! 🇲🇪🏹

🏺neronero

nvm guys. ✡️✡️

🏛 vespasian

my turn lol

53 notes

🧑🏽‍🦳 not-an-airport reblogged

🧑🏽‍🦳 not-an-airport

Hey everyone! These are difficult times, and some friends and I have put together some mutual aid resources for our community to have access to wheat, barley, wine, salt, oil, and wood! More info below the cut. Take care of yourselves! 🫶

Read more

🧑🏽‍🦳 not-an-airport

fuck

7,235 notes

⚔️ biryonei-yerushalayim

anonymous asked:

Hey, I'm trying to ask this in good faith, and I hope you can take it that way. how can you possibly defend burning our grain stores. I understand that you want to radicalize more people but you're taking things too far. Jerusalem's blood is on your hands.

anon, what you need to understand is that the blame for the carnage in jerusalem lies primarily in the hands of the roman invaders and secondarily in the hands of the rabbis for refusing to resist. would you have told the hashmonaim not to resist their oppressors by any means necessary? just because this is getting inconvenient for you doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it. it's frankly offensive that you'd imply that we, the defenders of jerusalem, should incur any blame for her current state.

#biryonim.answer #grain storage discourse

231 notes

🛡 goel-yisrael

did anyone else see the "zealot blocklist" going around lmaooo

#how do these liberals expect anyone to take them seriously #do they not have anything better to do.

7 notes

📚 stammaim reblogged

stopbeingpoor-deactivated3830102

ughh why is my servant so incompetent! i deserve the best flour why doesn't he get it...

stopbeingpoor

ykw i'll go get some myself. i'm desperate at this point i gotta do something

stopbeingpoor

EWWWW update: i stepped in something NASTY. this is why i don't fucking go out oh my god im gonna die

stopbeingpoor

gonna throw my gold & silver away for the good of the peasants or whatever it's not like it's any use to me when im literally dying -_-

📚 stammaim

lmao look at this it's exactly what yehezkel was talking about! ur gold won't save you!

#yehezkel #marta b. baitos

162 notes

🕎 yalla-hapoel

🌿 amicus-iudaeorum asked:

Hey, love your posts! They're very informative about the Jewish perspective on this war. I'm just wondering whether you condemn the actions of the zealots? I don't really feel comfortable following someone who supports that.

are you fr.

#if youre seriously concerned about this idt this is the blog for you i fear

28 notes

🛡 goel-yisrael reblogged

📖 ben-zakkai

⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️ lol

🛡 goel-yisrael

? what does this mean

🗡 abbasikkara

dw about it bestie

🛡 goel-yisrael

ok 💗 yay 💗

6 notes

👩🏽‍🌾 discoursedumpblog

I've compiled a list of some of the most rabid zealots on this website. Remember, don't engage, just block and move on.

Read more

152 notes

🏛 vespasian reblogged

🏛 vespasian

some jew got an audience with me & called me king (im literally not lol thats so disrespectful to the actual king + if i was king then he shouldve met w me much earlier??), i think i should kill him

🏛 vespasian

AND my shoe is being so annoying. horrible day 👎

📖 ben-zakkai

omg just came across this old post

🏛 vespasian

OMG sorry i don't mean it anymore 🙏

14 notes

🫒 a-simple-yid

yirmiyahu tzadak...

#not to pretentiously quote tanakh but literally like. #hashiveinu hashem eilekha venashuva hadeish yameinu kekedem.

3 notes

[moonshynecybin]

been thinking abt your post on the intertwined narratives of marc’s arm/rosquez divorce and how the same is true for vale re: marco sic/rosquez divorce (don’t mean to be disrespectful but um it’s difficult not to perceive)

also just sepang as a whole. like wdym marc’s first bout of diplopia happened at sepang 2011. is this track frfr cursed for them.

it is like. so obviously we as a fan community relate to motogp through the lens of these narratives and then sorta extrapolate them into rpf so it can be a little sticky in a sport like motogp where part of the understanding underpinning the entire sport is that people can and have died tragically, and people can and have gotten horrifically injured.... but i dont think it does the sport or those people a service to ignore it, in FACT i think its a pretty vital and essential and awful element of the entire thing, and of course it impacts the athletes themselves who are so enmeshed in it because in many ways it defines their lives, their social circles, their health, and their community. so if we want accurate characterization of these guys we do have to consider it, the trick is just figuring out how to do that respectfully.

so yeah. you can look at sepang 2011 and see that vale lost his best friend in an accident he was directly involved in, and marc nearly ended his career at age 18 because he got a head injury that required surgery in the same weekend only a couple of hours before. and then you can think about sic being on a factory spec honda. and being known as a reckless and controversial rider. and an aquarius. and training with vale. and then think about vale maybe allowing himself to become friends with marc a couple of years later, who is all of those things and maybe faster than him. and then inviting him to the ranch and it maybe hits him in the face. and then add on a high probability of him losing his last chance at winning a tenth title, and send him straight to the trauma track with a little voice named uccio in his ear telling him that he has the chance to blow it all up and maybe get some distance from the possibility of history repeating itself. and suddenly the emotional picture of their breakup makes a lot of sense.

[genderchrisisspeaks]

Victor as The Machine Herald has changed in meaning significantly thanks to Arcane season 2 episode 2. He has gone from a character of desperation, anger, a want to get rid of all things human, to a savior, a liberator, and a healer. An almost messiah like figure.

This post will contain spoilers for Arcane you have been warned. I go in-depth about victors character below the cut <3

Since arcane season one I have wondered how we were going to go from this version of Viktor, an innocent inventor trying to do the best for humanity, best friends(👀) with Jayce, only wanting to improve and save lives. To The Machine Herald we know in LOL. Now it is clear they are truly recreating his character entirely. Evolving him some could say.

Viktor in game is a character who wants to bring in the evolution of machines and technology in the human race by force. He is unlikeable and brilliant. He gets along with almost no one and has gotten rid of his own emotions by operating on himself. I am very much paraphrasing all of this so forgive me if I miss some things.

"To solve this, he operated on himself to remove those parts of his flesh and psyche that relied upon or were inhibited by emotion."- LOL fandom wiki

"Currently, he is still dedicatedly working on bringing the Glorious Evolution to the people, and saving them from themselves." - LOL fandom wiki

“Viktor has shown little regard for free will and autonomy when dealing in matters of life and death.” -LOL fandom Wiki

In the game he augments himself purely with machines, technology, and his own wit. No arcane, no magic, no help from Jayce (to a degree he spurs on some of the change). But in the show oh in the show, he connects directly to the arcane!

Throughout season one we see Viktor struggling with his disability and chronic illness, his smallness and lack of, I don’t want say respect, maybe acknowledgement, compare to Jayce. He progressively gets sicker and sicker as time goes on causing him to look more and more into the hex core. Exploring its possibilities, pushing its limits, experimenting on himself. A trait they have kept the same between the version of the characters. Until it kills someone he cares about and he forbids himself from continuing his research, despite his declining health, and despite his very clear connecting to the hex core and by extension the arcane.

Going into season two it shows us who survives and who doesn’t. Viktor was not going to survive, but our boy Jayce, always a fire under him with no flame retardants, takes Viktor straight to the hex core. Jayce fuses Viktor and the hex core, irreversibly changing him forever. Viktor sits in this pool of wild runes(this is all information only with act one of arcane s2). Changing his body and healing and improving him. When he awakens he is different, disconnected, the air around him is different, a visible haze there, he has become one with the arcane. Jayce does not realize this, all he sees is his friend, who he would do anything for, alive, changed but alive and he just leaves him.

GIF credit to @ludinusdaleth

Viktor goes to the undercity in a very Jesus fashion, drawn by a pull and the voice of Sky, to the shimmer slums. He feels a purpose here. In the game lore he retreats after his credit for making Blitzcrank is stolen and he has been looked at with prejudice from those in piltover for his rather unethical ideas.

"Viktor devised a helmet that would allow an operator on the surface to bypass the wearer's fear-response and effectively control the diver... Jayce later reported the incident to the college masters, who then expelled Viktor for work that violated basic human dignity- work that, in Viktor's eyes, would have saved lives." -LOL Fandom Wiki

As the shimmer slum residents circle around him with intent to attack him and take his cane (now more of a staff) for its gold hardware to sell for my shimmer Viktor sees something, senses something. He doesn’t look at them with indignation or disgust, he looks at them with understanding, he sees their pain and their suffering and he walks close to the man who is holding a knife at him with no fear.

You can actually see him start to affect the man, in his eyes they change color from pale yellow to more blue, into dropping the knife. Only then when the knife is dropped does he take the final steps closure to him and heals him from the mutations of shimmer.

He has finally become what he set out to be in LOL. He is saving people, he is helping and healing humanity. Just now not through unethical(we will see how this part plays out) and more mechanical means, instead through the arcane and the abilities it has given him. Which I find very interesting seeing Viktor wield the arcane is something Jayce has always wanted and what began their friendship.

I am genuinely so excited to see where Arcane s2 takes his character. I can see why he wasn’t in any promotional material at all now, it would have given too much away. There is a scene in the trailer towards the end though that actually shows the people of the shimmer slums healed and floating when the trailer says "The Arcane is waking up" which i find super cool.

ngl does look a little questionable but I'm here for it.

I do want to say that I do not believe he is being “controlled” or “possessed” by the hex core. He was fused with and became one with the arcane and hex core. Throughout episode two/three we see parallels with the wild runes and magics to Viktor that Jayce Echo and Heimendinger discover in the hex cage(?).

I will not be surprised if this becomes very outdated by the end of season two but they are my current feelings/observations immediately after my watch of act one.

[nam-the-nacho]

Mit2uba's Trauma: An Analogy

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Tw: I will be discussing the abuse Mitsuba has suffered from his environment, nothing that isn't in the manga, but I want to give a heads up. Additionally, I'm fortunate to have not gone though any severe traumatic experience myself, and am instead using my general knowledge, meaning if anything is incorrect here, please point it out!

(Also manga spoilers obviously)

I'm not pretending this hasn't ever been discussed, however I have yet to see an analogy of the consequences of Mitsuba's creation and (practically nonexistent) upbringing.

I'm going to divide this post into sections, but they won't really be organized, maybe chapters is a better definition. This thing is l o n g, so without further ado:

1: Mitsuba being paralleled to a puppet:

This is done quite often, although not in the same ways. Besides the psychological aspects of being Tsukasa's "puppet", as in being forced to do as he says and overall being under his control, but there are physical correlations too.

Tsukasa referring to Mitsuba as a "Thing"

Mitsuba lets Tsukasa hold him. This is much more then a surface-level fact considering Mitsuba usually rejects contact/uses it as an excuse to blame others. This is easily explained by "Mitsuba is simply scared of Tsukasa, he can't tell him no", except Mitsuba doesn't look scared when being held, he just looks, expressionless.

More then that, he completely trusts Tsukasa with his body weight, leaning into his touch and allowing himself to be comforted by it. This obviously occasionally backfires horribly

While Mitsuba being punched is framed in a humorous manner, the implications and weight of it are very heavy. It's all fun and games until you remember this is how Mitsuba is being raised, and it's all he's ever known. If Mitsuba doesn't want to do what Tsukasa tells him too, he gets punched. If he talks back, he gets kicked out of the broadcasting room (we'll get back to this later). If he asks to be Tsukasa's friend, he gets fireworks shoved down his mouth.

And the results of this... well:

This one in particular is interesting to me:

"It's just Mitsuba being surprised because Kou suddenly raised his voice". But that's not what's being illustrated. Upon hearing "brace yourself" even from someone like Kou, who wasn't planning on actively trying to hurt Mitsuba, he literally stiffens, pales, and begins to tremble and sweat, dropping the piece of chalk he was holding (those things break way to easily, yk he was serious). It's not shock or surprise being drawn, it's just genuine fear.

This could very well be me overthinking, but Mitsuba falls in what is almost a doll-like manner, arms and legs completely stiff.

2: Social rejection and trivial treatment:

The Mitsuba chapter (ch. 40) was worse then I remembered.

Mitsuba runs away from the broadcasting room in search of a better, safer place to stay. Only to understand he has none.

What's worse is that these are the characters we see being far kinder to the rest of the cast. We see Yako, Hanako and weirdo super-natural teacher together in his living quarters, watching tv together, but when Mitsuba approaches them...

(Tsuchigomori eventually does stay with him, but his opinion of him doesn't really change.)

"This guy's a pain, I'm out of here"

Tsuchigomori doesn't know Mitsuba, the only time we see them meet was when Tsuchigomori refers to him as emergency rations (above), and when he answered Mitsuba who asked him a question (answer starting with "You seriously don't know?" (YES SIR HOW WOULD HE KNOW HE'S LIKE ONE MONTH OLD)).

He probably heard he's a prankster from Hanako, which is why he wants nothing to do with him.

The point is despite Mitsuba needing to run from the closest thing he considers a "home", not a single supernatural actually understands his situation. Hanako borderline hates him, Nene barley understands he's a different Mitsuba, and Kou tends to accidently frame it as Mitsuba's CHOICE to stay with Tsukasa in the broadcasting room.

This is sadly something that can happen in reality, children trying to escape their less-desirable homes can often find themselves, sickeningly, returning after not finding somewhere or someone to take them seriously.

The most deranged part of this is that as a result of nobody properly digesting that he needs help, Mitsuba himself frequently convinces himself that everything is normal.

The implication that every time Mitsuba fights with Tsukasa he needs to just fend for himself until enough time has passed for Tsukasa to forget is sad. He's an outcast between the wonders for replacing the old No.3, despite his only other choice being death, which they don't know.

Sakura is probably the closest thing Mitsuba has to family, being in a similar situation to him, but it's incorrect to say she truly deeply cares about him. She's fond of Mitsuba, but never goes out of her way to help him when Tsukasa hurts him, and seems to have put her personal safety and goals as a higher priority then him (this isn't Sakura slander, I love my queen).

Natsuhiko treats him like a pet more then a human, and sometimes hits on him, which is just gross. Despite this Mitsuba genuinely appreciates him and sees him as an older brother. It's cruel to see this one-sided ordeal.

We don't actually know Mitsuba's true opinion of Tsukasa. In an almost realistic manner, his opinion is constantly contradictory. Mitsuba is scared of Tsukasa, but at the same time he only feels 'safe' when he's around.

Also, contrary to Sousuke, Mitsuba is more scared of Tsukasa then thunder, which could either mean that Sousuke's phobia of thunder was memory-correlated, or that Mitsuba is SO scared of Tsukasa that thunder is nothing in comparison.

Mitsuba freezing after hearing Tsukasa's voice

vs:

We know Mitsuba is aware that Tsukasa is not treating him okay, but by the time we learn this (pp arc), Mitsuba has half convinced himself that Tsukasa is doing everything he's doing to help him, and that "nobody else can help him anyways". Genuinely Mitsuba is one of the most subtle-yet-obvious victims portrayed in media I've even seen.

3: Ok-yeah-that's-not-okay moments

Do I really need to add anything.

I will anyways. Mitsuba is a dramatic by nature, unrelated to any of the emotional damage he's suffered. The fact that Tsukasa can make him stop crying just by demanding it really shows how bad he messed up Mitsuba. The ability to stop crying on command out of fear..... somebody save him.

Stay away!

Can't add to many pictures because of the tumbler limitations, but in every one of these scenes Mitsuba totally freezes, only regaining control and suddenly snapping once someone (aka Kou) does anything intimidating to him.

Going in-depth about the similarities between Kou and Tsukasa is an entirely different ordeal, but in short summery:

There's a carefully built connection between Tsukasa and Kou, that deserves a post of it's own.

4: Symptoms of trauma:

Trust issues are heavily associated with a problematic childhood, so it's not very surprising that Mitsuba struggles to trust anyone besides Tsukasa, even if he doesn't want to.

Very commonly appearing alongside trauma, self destructive behaviors are a tragically common coping habit. I don't think I need to add any pictures for this one, as practically every other sentence Mitsuba says have some 'Just let me pass away' coding to it.

Lack of memories is a symptom that appears in very severe cases, and while it isn't completely accurate to Mitsuba it's an interesting addition considering Mitsuba has no memories.

5: Character design:

Mitsuba has lots of chains and locks in his wonder form, a lock on his neck (which has multiple interpretations), one preventing his heart from beating, which could be a clever metaphor for Mitsuba further constricting his humanity by "choosing" to become a wonder, but most interesting:

What looks to be the remains of a leg shackle.

Mitsuba in a box labeled as fragile.

6: This definitely isn't symbolism for an eating disorder:

"I'm always hungry, no matter how much I eat" -M

"You starved yourself from all this moping around, just because you didn't want to eat something different?" -K

Can we talk about how the fandom collectively just skipped over the huge reveal that Mitsuba STARVES HIMSELF. Because I feel like that really wasn't talked about. As if this guy doesn't have enough going on, he now has to deal with constant starvation, dehumanization at new never-seen-before-pace, and the loss of his will to exist in the first place.

He is both metaphorically and physically falling apart, constantly in physical pain. When he isn't in physical pain it's because he's experiencing gut-wrenching psychological torment as he can't stop eating live beings. I don't blame this guy.

The only person who knew of this was Tsukasa, until he "told" Kou. Told is in quotation marks because it was never really Mitsuba trusting Kou enough to open up about the hell he's enduring, as mentioned before Mitsuba doesn't exactly know how to trust. The fact was forced out of him due to a dire situation, but Kou could not have reacted in a worse way:

Pro tip: If your reaction to learning that your best buddy is suffering from a complicated relationship with food, is shoving said food into their mouth violently, you might need therapy just as much as they do.

Kou is still unaware that Mitsuba's diet contains living things too, but if we're being honest that doesn't really put Kou in the right here. Like, man, I know you're freaking out because your friend just asked you to end him, but please take out your anger on something that isn't him.

And don't act surprised when this is his reaction:

This is arguably the a result of post traumatic stress disorder. Mitsuba didn't just escape, he hid in the nearest corner, making himself as small as possible, hid his head and trembled. The reason I'm calling this out as PTSD is because the only other time he panicked like this was right after Tsukasa shoved the bird heart down his throat.

So for both situations it's:

Tsukasa force feeds Mitsuba -> Mitsuba loses control (starts attacking everything)

Kou force feeds Mitsuba -> Mitsuba bites Kou

And the results are the same. He reacted the same way because mentally it was the same situation to him, It doesn't matter what the intentions were, Kou triggered an event(s (considering he's eaten multiple supernatural and is absolutely repulsed by it)) that Mitsuba had no intention of revisiting.

Summery:

Mitsuba's trauma is often overshadowed by more obvious displays of mental scarring, like with the Yugi twins and Kou, and is often represented with irony or humor, including by the creators themselves.

Even without everything he's gone though, Mitsuba was always a hopeless character. He just existed one day. He doesn't have anything, anyone. He's never been told he's loved, he's never felt sunlight, he never got to play, he's never had anyone tuck him into bed, or read him a story. He was robbed of his childhood, and any connections besides the few who remember him for someone that he isn't.

This entire post wasn't even scratching the tip of the iceberg in terms of how much grave emotional turmoil Mitsuba has faced. And will face. Yeah I don't know how well his trust issues will cope with Natsuhiko leaving him to die. If he lives.

The idea of this long rant was to point out that Mitsuba's trauma and mental struggles are just as, if not more, relevant then his physical ones. And they do affect him, and they do have consequences. And they will most certainly come back 20x worse later on in the plot. I would say to prepare mentally, but I know tbhk fans can handle just about anything.

Thank you for reading!

ヾ(≧▽≦*)

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[ranahan]

More palatalisations & how they could explain the problem of murmured sounds

Okay, so: Mando’a has these spellings ⟨dh⟩ (dha), ⟨gh⟩ (ghett), and ⟨mh⟩ (mhi) where the h seems to suggest aspiration. But the problem is that that is a very weird set of consonants to be aspirated: I know of no language that would only contrast between aspirated and unaspirated voiced stops and not make the same contrast for unvoiced stops as well. (Except for the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European, but there as well this exact issue is a problem that has bugged linguists forever.)

But then, while I was formulating my palatalisation theories, I found out that ⟨mh vh bh nh lh⟩ are spellings that actually have been used by natural languages to spell /mj vj bj nj lj/. And you know what? That spelling makes perfect sense: palatalised voiced stops don’t sound exactly like murmured (i.e. aspirated voiced) sounds… but they also don’t sound exactly unlike them. There’s a bit of a puff of air, more than with the unvoiced consonants. And this could explain why Mando’a has dh but not th, and ty but not dy.

So we have a bit of a mismatched set of spellings:

… but as you see, together they make a complimentary set.

(Okay, this set is a bit incomplete; I’ll have to leave the task of completing it to a later post because it got very long and very rambling.)

So how are dh, gh, mh pronounced then?

On the Republic Commando soundtrack, mhi is pronounced as /mi/ and dha as /da/. On Traviss’s recordings, neither word makes an appearance so we don’t know how she would pronounce them. Her pronunciation guide gives:

dha[dah]

mhi[mee]

It appears that the extra h does not affect pronunciation.

In Romance languages for example, /gj/ became /j/ or /dʒ/ (so that would be ⟨y⟩ or ⟨j⟩ in Mando’a orthography), and /dj/ became /dz/ or /j/. But maybe in Mando’a they did something else: instead of strengthening, they became weaker, first becoming aspirated, and then losing the aspiration too:

/dʲ/ > /dʰ/ > /d/

/ɡʲ/ > /ɡʰ > /g/

/mʲ/ > /mʰ/ > /m/

A range of these gradations might exist along the different dialects. Perhaps the spelling ⟨dh gh mh⟩ became standardised at a time when that was the prevailing pronunciation among whichever dialect was the most prestigious one at the time.

Conclusion

So there you have it: my best damn attempt to make the weirdness of Mando’a orthography make sense.

I can’t know whether this is what the original authors (Jesse Harlin and Karen Traviss) intended. But as always, my primary goal is to make sense of the corpus of Mando’a that exists in a way that is linguistically plausible. Authorial intent is secondary to me, although I do use that as guidance whenever there is an interview or some source to guide me and I can make it fit & make sense.

Out of Harlin’s inspirations, Russian, Hungarian and Romanian exhibit at least some palatalisation, so the words that were already present in the Repcomm soundtrack (e.g. dha, mhi, tracinya, dralshy’a) could have gotten their sounds from there. Neither of the additional inspirational languages (Romani and Nepali) Traviss has mentioned has palatalised consonants, but Nepali does have murmured ones. So the additional sounds (in e.g. entye, gedet’ye) that Traviss added are more likely inspired directly by Harlin’s Mando’a or the same inspirations he used. Ghett comes from The Bounty Hunter Code by different authors—so actually the problem of murmured sounds is not attributable to Traviss.

You’ll have to judge for yourself whether this solution is plausible and satisfactory to you (and if it’s not, I’m always interested in hearing contradictory opinions even if it takes me a year to think through a reply). It’s satisfactory to me in its broad strokes, although I will have to think further on which sound changes make most sense in the light of the etymologies of the existing lexicon, which set of phonemes/pronunciations/spellings works best, etc (but that part got so long and rambly that I axed it until I have wrangled it into neater shape). But generally I feel pretty good about my chances of making something sensible out of these ingredients.

C, cy, yc—why are they pronounced like that?

I think I’ve mentioned before that the rule is very nearly regular, so here it is. I’ve reproduced Traviss’s original pronunciation guides here (so you can see whether what I’m saying holds true).

c (without y) is pronounced as /s/ before high front vowels /e i/

cerar [sair-ARR]

ceratir [sair-AH-teer]

ceryc [sair-EESH]

cetar [set-ARR]

cetare [set-ARE-ay]

cin [seen]

cinargaanar [see-NAHR-gah-nahr]

cinarin [see-NAH-reen]

cin'ciri [seen-SEE-ree]

cinyc [SEE-neesh]

ciryc [seer-EESH]

mircin [meer-SEEN]

mircir [meer-SEER]

mirci't [meer-SEET]

racin [ray-SEEN]

tom'urcir [tohm-OOR-seer]

ver'mircit [VAIR-meer-seet]

otherwise as /k/

That is, after other vowels:

ca [kah]

cabuor [kah-BOO- or]

cabur [KAH-boor]

ca'nara [KAH-nah-RAH]

can'gal [CAHN-gahl]

carud [kah-ROOD]

ca'tra[KAH-tra]

cuir [COO-eer]

copaanir [KOH-pan-EER]

copad [KOH-pad]

copikla [koh-PEEK-lah]

copyc [KOH-peesh]

cu'bikad [COO-bee-kahd]

cunak [COO-nahk]

cuun [koon]

cuyan [koo-YAHN]

cuyanir [coo-YAH-neer]

cuyete [coo-YAY-tay]

cuyir [KOO-yeer]

cuyla [COO-ee-lah]

du'car [DOO-kar]

du'caryc [doo-KAR-eesh]

ge'catra [geh-CAT-rah]

jorcu [JOR-koo]

ori'copaad [OH-ree-KOH-pahd]

vencuyanir [ven-COO-yah-neer]

vencuyot [vain-COO-ee-ot]

vercopa [vair-KOH-pa]

vercopaanir [VAIR-koh-PAH-neer]

…and in a word-final position:

balac [bah-LAHK]

bic [beek]

ibac [ee-BAK]

ibic [ee-BIK]

norac [noh-RAK]

tebec [TEH-bek]

yc is always pronounced as /iʃ/

aikiyc [ai-KEESH]

aruetyc [AH-roo-eh-TEESH]

balyc [BAH-leesh]

beskaryc [BES-kar-EESH]

burk'yc [BOOR-keesh]

chakaaryc [chah- KAR-eesh]

copyc [KOH-peesh]

dalyc [DAH-leesh]

daryc [DAR-eesh]

diryc [DEER-eesh]

duumyc [DOO-meesh]

etyc [ETT-eesh]

gaht'yc [GAH-teesh]

gehatyc [geh-HAHT-eesh]

haamyc [HAH-meesh]

haatyc [HAH-teesh]

haryc [HAR-eesh]

hayc [haysh]

hetikleyc [hay-TEEK-laysh]

hettyc [heh-TEESH]

hodayc [HOH-daysh]

hokan'yc [hoh-KAH-neesh]

iviin'yc [ee-VEEN-esh]

jagyc [JAH-geesh]

jaon'yc [jai-OHN-ish]

jari'eyc [JAR-ee-aysh

jatisyc [jah-TEE-seesh]

johayc [JO-haysh]

kotyc [koh-TEESH]

kyr'adyc [keer-AH-deesh]

kyrayc [keer-AYSH]

kyr'yc [KEER-eesh]

laamyc [LAH-meesh]

lararyc [lah-rah-eesh]

majyc [MAH-jeesh]

morut'yc [moh-ROO-teesh]

narseryc [nar-SAIR-eesh]

nayc [naysh]

neduumyc [nay-DOO-meesh]

nehutyc [neh-HOOT-eesh]

nu'amyc [noo-AHM-eesh]

nuhaatyc [noo-HAH-teesh]

ori'beskaryc [OH-ree-bes-KAR-eesh]

ori'jagyc [OH-ree-JAHG-eesh (or OH-ree-YAHG-eesh)]

ori'suumyc [OHR-ee-SOOM-eesh]

oyayc [oy-AYSH]

piryc [PEER-eesh]

ramikadyc [RAH-mee-KAHD-eesh]

ret'yc [RET-eesh]

ruusaanyc [roo-SAHN-eesh]

sapanyc [sah-PAHN-eesh]

shaap'yc [sha-PEESH]

shi'yayc [shee-YAYSH]

shuk'yc [shook-EESH]

shupur'yc [shoo-POOR-esh]

sol'yc [sohl-EESH]

talyc [tahl-EESH]

tomyc [TOH-meesh]

tranyc [TRAH-neesh]

tratyc [TRAH-teesh]

tug'yc [too-GEESH]

ulyc [OO-leesh]

urcir [oor-SEER]

utyc [OO-teesh]

verburyc [vair-BOOR-eesh]

verd'yc [VAIR-deesh]

vutyc [VOOT-eesh]

yaiyai'yc [yai-YAI-eesh]

Note that this is still true when yc occurs in the middle of a word instead of the end:

barycir [bah-REE-shir]

besbe'trayce [BES-beh-TRAYSH-ay]

dirycir [DEER-ee-SHEER]

ke'gyce [keh-GHEE-shay]

majyce [mah-jEE-shay]

majycir [MAH-jeesh-eer]

mar'eyce [mah-RAY-shay]

mureyca [MOOR-aysh-ah]

cy is pronounced as /ʃ/

burc'ya [BOOR-sha]

burcyan [BOOR-shahn]

cyare [SHAH-ray]

cyare'se [shar-AY-say]

cyar'ika [shar-EE-kah]

cyar'tomade [SHAR-toe-MAH-day]

mirshmure'cya [meersh-moor-AY-shah]

murcyur [MOOR-shoor]

oyacyir [oy-YAH-sheer]

Ret'urcye mhi [ray-TOOR-shay-MEE]

sheb'urcyin [sheh-BOOR-shin]

sho'cye [SHOW-shay]

tracy'uur [trah-SHOOR]

Exceptions

The above holds true except for some exceptions:

The first is a group of words with a combination of u + yc:

buyca [BOO-shah]

buy'ce [BOO-shay]

buycika [BOO-she-kah]

This might be related to the status of /ui/ as a diphthong in Mando’a & could be a piece of evidence against it. What do I mean? Well, every instance of ⟨uy⟩ in the dictionary, Traviss breaks up in two syllables /u.i/. Could be there’s no diphthong /ui/ in Mando’a? However, I think it’s more likely this is because Traviss gives the pronunciations with an English orthography (i.e. how an English speaking reader would know to pronounce the words), and there’s no diphthong /ui/ in English, so in order to represent those sounds in English, they have to be broken up in separate syllables.

I also think the long /u:/ in buy’ce etc. is likely simply an elision: try going slowly from /u/ to /i/ to /ʃ/, and you’ll notice it’s easier to slip directly from /u/ to /ʃ/. I would generalise it as the diphthong /ʊɪ/ being realised as /uː/ before palatal consonants (at least; maybe others as well).

and:

buyacir [boo-ya-SHEER] /bʊ.ja.ˈʃiɾ/

Which has no excuse for being irregular except for influence on its spelling from buy’ce, so you could alternatively spell it as buyacyir or pronounce it as /bʊ.ja.ˈsiɾ/ (either would be regular).

The other exception to the rule is:

acyk [AH-seek]

The rule for this could be formulated as “y is the only vowel in a syllable, it’s pronounced as /i/ and the pronunciation of c follows that.” Except for…

tracyn [trah-SHEEN]

Which itself could be analysed as a combination of the above rules: y as an only vowel gets pronounced as /i/, but the consonant in cy is still pronounced as /ʃ/ (in which case it would be acyk that is irregular instead).

It’s the derivations that appear irregular:

tracinya [trah-SHEE-nah]

tracyaat [tra-SHEE-at]

tra'cyar [tra-SHEE-ar]

Tracinya is plainly a derivation of tracyn, just spelled with an i instead of y. Interestingly, in Harlin’s Mando’a tracyn is pronounced as /tra.ʃin/ and tracinya as /tra.sin.ja/. So perhaps it’s acyk which should be pronounced as /a.ʃik/?

I’ve chosen to adjust the pronunciation of the other two to conform to the rule of pronouncing cy as /ʃ/: /tɾa.ˈʃaːt/ & /tɾa.ˈʃaɾ/.

And then:

yacur [YAH-soor]

Idek? I have do idea where this one comes from.

And:

Coruscanta [KOH-roo-SAHN-ta]

which is a loanword and doesn’t count. Although I’d suspect that “Corusanta” might be a fairly common misspelling among native speakers.

Explanation

So why is it pronounced like that? The explanation is something called palatalisation, which is the same reason why c in Latinate words is sometimes pronounced as /k/ and sometimes as /s/.

In very simple terms, the high front vowels and the semivowel /j/ are pronounced such that the tongue is at or very nearly the palatal position. So they tend to pull the preceding consonants to the palatal place of articulation (instead of whichever place of articulation they used to be pronounced at).

So in Mando’a:

c → k

c + high front vowel /i e/ → /s/

c + semivowel /y/ → /ʃ/

Not sure if /k/ is the original value of ⟨c⟩ since this rule doesn’t seem to apply to ⟨k⟩. Maybe ⟨c⟩ had originally another value, which has later changed into /k/?

There will be a second part to this post later, but I’ll break this off here for now.

[elevant39]

Ace combat zero and Avalon

So.... I have decided to get into the myth of Arthur (just to get some references in ACZ). And while I am still not that far in I already see some nice connections. So I choose to look more at the AWWNB part, mostly because I feel like it´s sometimes overlooked do to the fact it was kinda rushed (and also because I found them really interesting). But even then there are some things that I think are worth posting here. But (for now) I choose to look at the irony that is the Avalon dam. So the most obvious reason why Avalon was chosen is because it´s the place where Arthur dies/falls into endless sleep (sorry for spoilers bro). But that is not where the connections end.

Nice adaptation detail in the game is the fact that in the original myth you need to set an a long voyage across the sea because Avalon is an island. This was adapted in the form of river that you need to "sail" accros in you jet (+ they could get a canyon run out of it).

Also the fact that in the myth Avalon is an island (one of the few places that have natural borders).... The irony that a AWWNB has it´s base of operation in Avalon is honestly kinda funny. It's almost like their ideas (and AWWNB as a whole) are build on contradictions. Which if you do look into the motives of the members they kinda are, Wizard 1, Gault 1 and Sorcerer 1 but even Pixy and Espada 2 all have different reasons for why they created/joined AWWNB. There is also the fact (on wiki) that ironically Gault 1 was really patriotic (that being said I was not able to find the source of this info so take it with a sight of salt). But I won´t get into this topic here. Speaking of Gault 1. He was a researcher in Avalon for something called Project Pendragon (V2). However there is also some implication in the Perfect guide that he might have worked on Excalibur (it´s mentioned that he worked on “chemical laser cannon”(this could be talking about both Morgan and Excalibur) and a “mass retaliation weapon” (this is about V2) among other things). If this is true this can also tie back into the myth. Since Excalibur (or Caledfwlch) was created in Avalon. (Speaking of perfect guide there are some interesting informations about aces in interviews, they do help with understanding some characters more + some more lore. Here is a translated link if you didn´t know about them: https://www.skywardfm.com/aczpg-ace-pilot-profiles) Now I will get into the more speculative side of my thought here. From what I could find Avalon is seen as a fairyland that is later in myth run by non other that Morgan le Fey (I might get to our fairy king some day, becuase the connections this guy has to fairies are pretty funny...). However and I do think this was a coincidence. But you could say that Avalon was a fairyland of AWWNB. A place where they (for the max of 6 months, before the attack on Lumin) were able to live together with other pilots no matter their place of origin or nationality (kinda fulfilling their goal in this one dam,it was basically an echo chamber for them)... A place without war that can´t exist in Stangereal, hence why it´s just a fairyland. And this is probably everything that I can think of now. So I hope you liked my thoughts (and that I don´t look insane from sharing them).

[autisticandroids]

CASTIEL: Stop. What's the point if you don't mean it? You fear me - not love, not respect, just fear.

[youtube with closed captions]

a godstiel pity party. i'd like to thank an anon i got way back in february of 2021.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

keep it up!

[katerinaaqu]

That's what I mean. Technically speaking the actions of the characters are not "doric" they are "iron age onward" customs. That's what I mean. In fact one can potentially detect characteristic differences in some things even if we have a united culture in regards to hellenism. That's what I mean your mention of "doric" was a bit confusing. But I see now you meant "iron age" customs.

So yes I would say is not "doric culture" it is "iron age culture". Homer was not doric. He was ionian. But yeah culture that continues after the elleged doric coming.

Cremation does appear even in prehistoric times. True we discover some magnificent burial complexes that date from the Mycenean times and burial seems to be the most frequent form of funeral, oftentimes with common graves as well where we discover various sets of peope from different time marks and oftentimes with different decoposition rates. However burning the dead had occured before, it is just that we ususlaly do not see it as often and the burning is not perfect. Ironically Homer doesn't imply that people left behind were burnt. He seems to speak on burning of the dead such as soldiers in battlefield whose bodies cannot be buried and contaminate the ground (especially during the plague in the first rhapsody of Iliad) or soldiers and kings that needed to be taken back home (such as Achilles and Patroclus). There are two cases that I know seem to be insinuating that Homer speaks on burns in general; Hector and Elpenor. Both of these cases could have been buried in a tomb and instead they are given a burning funeral and set in a tmb later (Hector) or placed a sema at the beach post mortem (Elpenor). So yes it does seem possible that Homer mostly insinuates burial customs of his time. We also see the customs of the dead being placed on display and the funerary matches happening after. We do not know for absolutely certain that the same customs happened in Mycenaean times or at least if it happened the same way. We have more information from classical greece for example. I only vaguely touched the subject to my fanfiction about Odysseus's funeral

For the scepter I am not sure where that comes from to be honest. We do not know much on the myceneans to assume such a thing, to my knowledge at least (I would love to see more on that source). The scepter is the proof of power but it is also the scepter that allows people to speak. It is the symbol that shows someone is the one speaking publicly. Odysseus takes the scepter in various occasions to speak up (we see the same in Telemachus's case when he gathers the nobles of Ithaca). It is a symbol of power which has its meaning that Odysseus uses that specific scepter to beat Thersites up. It signifies that he proves his power over him.

I have to repeat for clarity's sakes that the use "doric" is not good here because "doric" implies Doriean greeks. Not all customs are from doric tribes. But I see now how you mean it. You mean "iron age practices" or practices of Homer's time. I don't deny that the Doric Greeks might as well have been influencing the new customs but by n large when I hear "doric" the first thing that comes to my mind is doric tribes (Maybe I am wrong though.)

I have mentioned this in many conversations and talks in here too. Homer is known for using anachronisms. To what extent sometimes is hard to pintpoint given how vague our information on mycenean culture. Some examples we know for sure is for example the extensive mention of iron in the poems for example Odysseus says to Penelope that she "has a heart of iron in her chest" or that he mentions how Achilles would "cut his throat with iron" mentioning the dagger or a sword. (I make a light mention to my translation:)

Ironically he does make a very good mention in bronze weapons all the time but he brings up iron which was not widedly used in that time. There are some examples where we see iron historically but it wasn't used widedly in the 1200 BC so it was probably anachronism. Other customs he mentions is the veiling of women and men. We do not have enough evidence in the depictions on the walls of mycenaean palaces, to my knowledge, to support the idea that veiling was occuring at that time so probably that is also an anachronism

So as I said before it depends on what you want to do. If you want to insinuate historical continuation you can use some of the iron age customs and imply that they are somehow continuing to the upcoming iron age. Otherwise I would say it is safer to use primarily mycenaean stuff.

I am genuinely impressed though You are very well informed!

I need some fanfic of Odysseus trying to impress Penelope by being brutal and she's like: oh. in Sparta my brothers did kind of like that when they were 15 lol 😭 please sometimes I remember she's Spartan

[morrigan-sims]

Learning how to make custom stuff for your OCs (skinblends, tattoo sets, poses, recolors, mesh edits, etc.) is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing bc now you can give your OC the thing exactly as you imagined, and a curse because once you start you will never turn back and never be able to just "make do with what you have" ever again.

[tenwhiteandalusians]

so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.

[szappan]

it wouldn't make a difference

[7roaches]

sorrry ppl who donr follow me for utmv dtuff & sorry canon-strict ppll but nm & killer r soo incredibly important to me can u imagine being the embodiment the literal proof that there is bad and pain in this world or being the loowest of the low & then you have a silly bestfriend who u loveclove love lovr love so mjch & ur so fucked up u dont know where u end & your reluctant life purpose begins but u have a silly bestrfriend who wraps your wounds and youure all he reallyneeds & hes all you really need do you get it. do you get it. do you get it.