#Its also nice to have different sources of the text

[abyss-idiot]

The fandom Wiki for the game should also have them under the upgrade material tab. It should be constantly updated to the new global patches.

every time i pull on r1999 and get portraits, i start sweating bullets bc the second i upgrade a character's portraits to the max, im never fucking seeing their artifice description ever again. WHERE IS IT. WHY CANT WE SEE THEM AGAIN....

[an-spideog]

Don't Use Duolingo if You Really Want to Learn Irish

That title is a bit dramatic, but I really don't think that duolingo is a useful tool for Irish, especially in its current state, so I want to talk a bit about why, and I'll also talk about some alternatives.

Pronunciation

The first and most egregious issue is that at some point recently-ish, duo decided to start using Text-To-Speech for their Irish course, rather than recordings of a native speaker. The problem here is that their TTS is not trained on native speakers of Irish and pronounces words incorrectly. It doesn't make consistent distinctions between broad and slender consonants for example.

Irish has no standard pronunciation, so I understand how it can feel weird to choose just one dialect for the purposes of pronunciation (the old recordings were from a speaker of Galway Irish), but having just one dialect is much better than TTS which sounds like a learner, imagine if they had TTS for the French course which sounded like an anglophone schoolkid trying to pronounce french, and claimed they were teaching you how to speak french!

Grammar

Duo tends to be correct on grammar at least, which is a start. But often people using it get very confused about the grammar because duo doesn't explain any of it. I think there's a place for immersion in language learning, and I don't think everything has to be explained like that, but within duo's system of sentence testing and exercises like that, not having any explanation for why it's "mo chóta" and not "mo cóta" can be really confusing. Duo used to have more grammar information, it's a shame that they removed it, I wonder why they did it.

Money and Motivation

Duolingo is a business, and their motivation is not to help you learn a language 'fully', but to keep you using their app and hopefully have a higher chance of sharing it with others, competing with others, buying or causing others to buy memberships or lingots or any other in-app purchases.

I don't want to make it out like duo is some big conspiracy and they're tricking people, I don't think that's the case, but it's good to remember that their primary motivation is to keep people using the app, rather than help people move to a level in a language where they don't need the app anymore.

Keep this in mind whenever you see people trying to sell you stuff for language learning.

Why do people use Duolingo

I do get it, and I don't want to make anyone feel bad for using duo, there's a ton of reasons people tend towards it at first 1. It's really well known, so especially if you're learning a language and haven't heard of other resources for it, you'll check duolingo 2. It's very motivating for a lot of people, checking in every day and forming that habit is a really good way of sticking with a language 3. It's fun, people enjoy it

If you use it for reason 3. and you still like it, then don't worry about this post, I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yums, keep having fun!

If you use it for reasons 1. or 2. you can still keep using it if you like, but I want to suggest some other things which you might find helpful in trying to get to a higher level in Irish.

Other Resources

To address the pronunciation issue, I'd heavily recommend you disregard the pronunciation in duolingo, if you're looking for more reliable sources of pronunciation, I'd look towards recordings of native speakers, you can find that on:

Teanglann and Foclóir (they use the same recordings)

Fuaimeanna

and a really useful and underused one: https://davissandefur.github.io/minimal-pairs/ where you can hear the difference between similar sounds that English speakers often mix up in Irish.

A lot of people like duolingo because it's nice to have a clear path forward, a progression that you can get into without too much decision-making. For this I recommend getting a good textbook or course and working through it, the ones I'll recommend also have native speaker audio on them.

Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail, this book teaches Galway Irish, not just in pronunciation but in grammar too. It's quite dense but it's well thought out and well explained.

Teach Yourself Irish (1961) this book is available for free online, and is a really good option if you're interested in Cork Irish (Munster), and have some experience with grammatical terminology. I used this book myself and really liked it, but it's very intense and not for everyone. (If you do end up using it, feel free to skip the appendices at the start, they're more of a reference and sometimes put people off from actually getting to the first chapter. Also if you have any questions about it or need any help just let me know.)

If you want a video course, there's a great course called "Now You're Talking" which is available for free online, along with audio files and worksheets here. It features Donegal Irish and leads into the more intermediate level course called Céim ar Aghaidh also available online.

There's other textbooks that I have less experience with (Buntús na Gaeilge, Gaeilge/Gramadach Gan Stró, etc.) but if they work for you, stick with them, there's nothing worse than not making progress because you keep switching resources trying to find the "perfect one"

Whether or not you continue to use Duolingo, I would really really encourage you to try engaging with media in Irish. People often shy away from this when they're learning because they don't feel like they're "ready" yet. But you basically never feel like you're ready, you just have to try and find something near your level and try to get comfortable with not understanding everything. This is where you learn a huge portion of the language, you hear how things are pronounced you see what words mean in what contexts, getting input in your target language is so important!

I know content can be kind of hard to find, so I'll make a few recommendations here: There's a wealth of content available for free online (more if you're in ireland but some internationally) on TG4 If you're still starting out, I'd recommend trying to watch some kids shows since they'll have simpler language and will be easier to follow. I wouldn't recommend using English subtitles when you watch them. Some good options include:

Dónall Dána: an Irish dub of Horrid Henry, silly and childish but the actors have good Irish and importantly the show has Irish language subtitles, they don't always match but if you're still beginning and can't necessarily get everything by ear, they're really useful. (Mostly Galway Irish)

Curious George: another dub, again with Irish language subtitles (I can't remember what dialects were in it off the top of my head but I'd assume mostly galway again)

Seó Luna: No subtitles, but a good option if you're aiming for Munster Irish, the lead character has Kerry Irish

Miraculous: No subtitles but a better show than most of the other kids' ones and more bearable to watch as an adult (Mostly Galway Irish)

Ros na Rún: Moving away from kids shows, a long running soap opera, this has Irish subtitles and a really good mix of dialects within the show. If you're finding the kids shows boring or too easy I'd really recommend it, but it can be complex because of the amount of characters, dialects, and plotlines. I'd recommend starting at the beginning of a newer season and just trying to catch on to what's happening as you go.

There are a lot of books, if you live in Ireland you can get nearly any Irish book for free from a library, so please check out your local library or request some of these from other libraries in the system:

There's a series of fairytales (Rápúnzell, Luaithríona etc.) by Máiréad Ní Ghráda which are illustrated and for children, which are a really good option for when you're just starting out reading

There's kids books about Fionn and the Fianna by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin

There's a cute little kids' book in Kerry Irish about a cat named Mábúis

Leabhar Breac has a lot of graphic novels, some of them based on Irish mythology, some on other stuff. The fact that they're illustrated can make it a lot easier to follow even if you don't understand all the words at first.

Gliadar has just released their Scott Pilgrim translation

If you're looking for something a bit more advanced you can look at some of the books for adult learners by Comhar, they contain simplified language and glossaries but have full original adult stories.

And if you're wanting full, natural, native-level Irish there's a load of books by those same groups, and others like An Gúm, Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, Éabhlóid, Coiscéim, and more.

And don't shy away from older books written in Seanchló either, they can be more challenging but it's a whole extra world of books

If you're trying to improve your listening comprehension, I definitely recommend listening to shows on Raidió na Gaeltachta, hearing native Irish speakers talk at full speed is really good practice. But I get that it can be overwhelming at first. Here are some things you can do as you build up to that:

Watching those same TV shows I mentioned without subtitles is a good way to build up listening skills.

Vifax is a website where you can practice listening to short news segments and answer questions on them, then getting to look at the transcript with notes afterwards.

Snas is kind of the evolution of vifax, now using clips from both the news and Ros na Rún.

I really hope that this post can help people move away from duolingo if they're looking to take their Irish learning to the next level, if you've got any questions, just let me know!

[hoodedjelly]

Nicktoons unite main 4 in their respected styles ( minus jimmy neutron i'll explain more below)

i feel very mixed about these but it was still fun either way studying all of these cartoons respected styles. the final does make me happy, seeing all of them together ^__^ 💞

below i will explain my thought process working with each style so get ready for a wall of text:

first before anything you may be asking: why no jimmy neutron style!? it's because i tried and gave up! i was starting the rendering process for timmy and i hated it so i just didn't continue! no point of making myself miserable for something thats harmless fun style studies. but have these as a little treat:

Fairly Oddparents style: the easiest style to work on and research for, fop style is not that complex. i should also add i didn't draw each style in one sitting i drew each character together and then edited them all, so that might be the reason why some look better then others, i just got good. but i'm saying that because the character i started with was spongebob! specifically because i was tired of ppl thinking dp style and fop style are the same and how spongebob would look the same in both styles, just a flat square. which is wrong! fop style is very different! i would prob describe it as a flat paper style. has sharp and rounded thick lines. the main source of research i used for it was the designer for fop was Ernie Gilbert. he has designed a lot of iconic characters for the show and i highly would check out his work, this is his website

Danny phantom style: now this one was tricky, prob the hardest one to figure out and i honestly don't think i really DID figure it out. the possible reason is i am still trying to go through the show atm myself, but i'd doubt it. they all just look off to me, just a little. which no need for me to work myself in a circle trying to make it "perfect". im no professional character designer! especially not Stephen Silver.

Spongebob Squarepants style: this one was tricky but in the opposite way to dp style, where i didn't know what to reference! to start off the show is mainly nonhuman characters, so finding character refs were hard. the refs i did use were the mermaids and the superheros, so i used that for timmy. but in the middle of working on jimmys i was watching a video of someone ranking every single spongebob ep and TURNS OUT in the later seasons, i think season 13, there were human designs! (technically elfs but whatever).

and weirder thing is how they draw patchy but im not going to get into that. i am assuming that style is for characters that are supposed to be real life humans up on land in that universe (but why not just use real life humans? idk, maybe tom kenny is getting to old for the role). BUT ANYWAY, i used the elfs for a main source for jimmy and danny, they turned out a lot better then the timmy in my eyes. i wanted at least one of them to have the black eyes but they all have bright blue eyes and the show usually always colors blue eyes. i get ahead of myself cause there was a lot more factors i still had to figure out. like the line art. the show doesn't have a clear line style like dp or fop, its just relatively consistent medium lines. so i just went with more recent show stuff then older stuff since it's HD.

ok but thats basically it, i can prob go on more but i'd feel no one gaf. i made these for fun and it was fun making them! i love all of these shows a ton so it was nice looking up the designers and artist for these shows. support the artists!!! fuck bitch fartman!!!!!

[dootznbootz]

Odysseus was afraid the entire year on Aeaea in the Odyssey.

Content warnings: Rape, Sexual Coercion, Sexual assault, Sex Work, power dynamics, this will also be long as fuck as I talk too much. This is NOT a "Circe the Goddess Hate Post". I call her out but that's it. I tried to keep this neutral but still making a point (Let me know if I gotta put more)

Lots of lovely folks on here have written great essays on what Calypso did to Odysseus as it's soooo blatantly obvious there. It literally states how he cried every day and how he flinched from Calypso, very straightforward on how he was explicitly raped.

But I've noticed that a lot of people are always iffy about Circe's situation (understandably so, it's not so in your face.) She's usually always mentioned in the "Odysseus never cheated! He was raped!" posts but then the evidence is only ever given against Calypso, and then mentioning how you can't say no or disobey the orders of an immortal and how it was in exchange for freeing his men.

WHICH IS ALL CORRECT!!! But!!!

There ARE immortal/mortal couples who genuinely love each other. Dionysus and Ariadne, and Eros and Psyche are examples. Apollo and Hyacinthus. Psyche indeed becomes immortal eventually and in some versions, both Hyacinthus and Ariadne do too. But even while mortal themselves, their immortal lovers still remained respectful and loving towards them and definitely doted on them. There are definitely power dynamics at play here but there's some nuance.

Odysseus and Circe's relationship, however, is very different. We all know he slept with her at the very least once. And that was in exchange for his men being returned to humans. That was the only time it was explicitly stated. With Calypso, it tells you every night he was enchanted and slept beside her. It was the narrator speaking but Odysseus is the narrator now and it's his story. If you think he lied, this probably won't change your mind anyway.

But even if it was a one-time thing, (which isn't the only interpretation and I will have points that talk about others) then why did he stay a year? What was he doing?

I'm doing a deep dive into the year he spent on Aeaea based on evidence in Book 10 and then the beginning of Book 12. Step by step, and honestly I'm writing this for Tumblr, not as a thesis so I will be a bit more casual but still using sources. To me, it's very obvious that he was uncomfortable throughout the text simply based on the language that is used. But it's very subtle and not an outright statement of "He's been crying every day."

BTW, just so we're clear, this is not a "Circe is the root of all evil, etc." type of post.

This isn't meant to villainize her. She's an immortal being and in mythology that changes things. Everybody is morally gray. I genuinely think if we were to ask her feelings on it, she'd probably be like "Oh, yeah! Turned his men into pigs! Strange little man he was." I don't think she gave a flying fuck.

I just simply get pissed tf off when people think Odysseus was fine. It honestly disturbs me how often I'll go on other websites YouTube and see everyone call him a whore and a womanizer. It's sexism at its finest because 1.) "MaN AlwAyS wAnTs sEx" and 2.) women can't rape/coerce. THIS IS SIMPLY TO LOOK INTO HIS FEELINGS ABOUT IT.

This is also only for Homer's Odyssey, using different translations. If you want to discuss this, (I'd be happy to! Just be nice!) DON'T BRING UP ANY OTHER WORKS.

With all that out of the way, come yell with me 🤗

I've read multiple translations, as I know there's going to be bias depending on who's translating. And having done so, each one has basically the same situations described the same so that's nice for consistency. Also, there are some parts in the story that are vague and that we'll never have answers to.

Odysseus first simply sees the smoke from her chimney and then sends his men in, after drawing lots Eurylochus leads half of the men to check out the house. I mentioned here vaguely how the 2 immortals he sleeps with are both introduced while singing and weaving, which could be seen as an enchantment (which to me is most likely. They both possess magic and are goddesses). So I'm just gonna move past that. Just take a peek and come back or just know that enchantment was likely.

Next, I'll see people often joke on Tumblr about how

"Odysseus says that Polites is his best friend yet only mentions him once!"

I think Odysseus mentions his best friend, the one to jubilantly go in first, to show WHY he would go through with this. How much these comrades mean to him. That's his best friend, and there are approximately 20 others who are now pigs as well. Could you knowingly leave one of your best friends to live a life like that knowing you could've done something?

[...]Circe—and deep inside they heard her singing, lifting her spellbinding voice as she glided back and forth at her great immortal loom, her enchanting web a shimmering glory only goddesses can weave. Polites, captain of armies, took command, the closest, most devoted man I had: ‘Friends, there’s someone inside, plying a great loom, and how she sings—enthralling! The whole house is echoing to her song. Goddess or woman—let’s call out to her now!’ So he urged and the men called out and hailed her. She opened her gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting them all in, and in they went, all innocence.

(Fagles, Book 10)

In the Odyssey, it's never mentioned why she turns people into animals. I think they were turned into pigs because, throughout the Iliad and Odyssey, Odysseus is often associated with boars. His men are associated with him, therefore: 🐖 Piggy. From what we know, the lads were just eating her food. With how much Xenia and hospitality are a large part of the story, they probably thought they were safe. They were GUESTS. This is especially welcome after the Cyclops and the Laestrygonians. And it literally says "All innocence". They were simply naive.

Then Eurylochus runs back, so terrified that he couldn't speak at first. He then begs Odysseus to just leave the men behind. Odysseus has shown that he does TRY to save his men when it is truly not reckless to do so.

But I shot back, ‘Eurylochus, stay right here, eating, drinking, safe by the black ship. I must be off. Necessity drives me on.’

(Fagles, Book 10)

Then the famous warning from Hermes. I've seen folks bring this up when talking about this. YES, he is literally commanded by Hermes to not refuse her if he wants his men back in basically every translation. It sounds like Circe was warned as well. When? We don't know, but it sounds like Hermes didn't pick "sides" here.

Strange that he was still like, "Sleep with each other" to both, because he could've been like, "Circe, there's this guy named Odysseus. When he comes to this island, change his men back." But who knows, maybe it was Circe's idea from the beginning and Hermes went along with it. Just food for thought.

Now here’s your plan of action, step by step. The moment Circe strikes with her long thin wand, you draw your sharp sword sheathed at your hip and rush her fast as if to run her through! She’ll cower in fear and coax you to her bed— but don’t refuse the goddess’ bed, not then, not if she’s to release your friends and treat you well yourself. But have her swear the binding oath of the blessed gods she’ll never plot some new intrigue to harm you, once you lie there naked— never unman you, strip away your courage!’

(Fagles, Book 10)

But that doesn't explain why he was there for a year afterward! Nor if he himself was okay with it, which is what I'm trying to delve into as he wasn't.

Also the knife thing? She's still immortal. It was meant to startle her. Her dad is Helios. Odysseus would've been toast, literally.

Also note this exchange wasn't a "Yippee! Hermes says I'm going to get laid!".

...just approaching the halls of Circe, my heart a heaving storm at every step, paused at her doors, the nymph with lovely braids— I stood and shouted to her there. She heard my voice, she opened the gleaming doors at once and stepped forth, inviting me in, and in I went, all anguish now …

(Fagles, Book 10)

Another translation by Ian Johnston, (they all say the same thing essentially but trying to make a point.)

I continued on to Circe’s home. As I moved on, my heart was turning over many gloomy thoughts. After I had walked up to the gateway                                                of fair-haired Circe’s house, I just stood there and gave a shout. The goddess heard my voice.                      She came out at once, opened her bright doors, and invited me inside. I entered, heart full of misgivings.

HE👏WAS👏SCARED! The tone is solemn and suspenseful. He was just told that without Hermes' help with the root, he wouldn't be able to survive and bring back his men. Circe was dangerous.

He made her swear not to harm him.

Straightaway she began to swear the oath that I required—never, she’d never do me harm—and when she’d finished, then, at last, I mounted Circe’s gorgeous bed …

(Fagles, Book 10)

Please note that she NEVER promised that to his men. His comrades did NOT have moli in their systems. He had no way of truly ensuring their safety in any way from Circe.

He then refuses to eat or speak, literally "lost in grim forebodings". If he "just got laid", then why isn't he happy? Not many men can say that a goddess CHOSE to have sex with them. He did it to get his men turned back. It was an exchange. I don't think Circe is "Evil" so maybe it slipped her mind. Or yes, she could've thought, "Hey, I got what I wanted. He's handsome enough. Homer never shuts up about how hot this guy is He hasn't brought up the pigs yet. I'll just let this play out. Maybe HE forgot. I don't have to do anything." We don't know. But Odysseus probably felt like he got deceived.

"Hey, I did my part of the deal. I slept with you. Now do yours."

She pressed me to eat. I had no taste for food. I just sat there, mind wandering, far away … lost in grim forebodings. As soon as Circe saw me, huddled, not touching my food, immersed in sorrow, she sidled near with a coaxing, winged word: ‘Odysseus, why just sit there, struck dumb, eating your heart out, not touching food or drink? Suspect me of still more treachery? Nothing to fear. Haven’t I just sworn my solemn, binding oath?’

So she asked, but I protested, ‘Circe— how could any man in his right mind endure the taste of food and drink before he’d freed his comrades-in-arms and looked them in the eyes? If you, you really want me to eat and drink, set them free, all my beloved comrades— let me feast my eyes.’ So I demanded.

(Fagles, Book 10)

He doesn't trust her despite what she had told him that he should when they sleep together. He has figured out that while she will not hurt him, his men were not a part of that oath, the men he was trying to protect in the first place.

She is then moved by how they rejoice when they see one another again. While turning people into animals for funsies isn't cool and coercion is fucked up, I think she comes to see this group as not quite friends but I think she did find them entertaining in a way.

This is very strange but I've seen some folks say that since Odysseus was pissed at Eurylochus for still not believing him about Circe is proof that "Oh he was trying to defend her!". Which??? Uh, Eurylochus was literally questioning his leadership as a whole. Calling him reckless and shit. He is captain and he's the King, he can't let that shit slide. The text literally says "Mutinous". Also if I had to sleep with someone I did not want to especially if it was to save my friends and I got called names afterward I'd get fucking pissed too.

Only Eurylochus tried to hold my shipmates back, his mutinous outburst aimed at one and all: ‘Poor fools, where are we running now? Why are we tempting fate?— why stumble blindly down to Circe’s halls? She’ll turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions made to guard that palace of hers—by force, I tell you— just as the Cyclops trapped our comrades in his lair with hotheaded Odysseus right beside them all— thanks to this man’s rashness they died too!

They stay a year. Again it's never stated that Odysseus slept with her that whole time. You could interpret that. (Honestly, I feel Circe would get bored with him? She's a goddess, she's got more important matters than mortal men. And she definitely doesn't love him.)

His men DO have to bring it up that "Odysseus has forgotten his native land." Maybe they thought they could sneak out without her knowing??? I am fucking REACHING but hold on as Telemachus did because he knew Nestor would well, be Nestor and try to coax him with "Have a meal with us! Let me tell you about how badass I used to be in my youth." But to sneak away from a goddess? Without her permission? That won't end too well. Aeolus in the beginning kicked out Odysseus when he tried to ask for another bag of wind. If she didn't want him around, she could literally boot him out. While she didn't force him to stay like Calypso did, she didn't "release" him either.

We don't know if they've been asking for a long time. Odysseus does say to Circe that they have been begging him nonstop, but he could also be saying that to try and convince her. He's good at persuasion. I think while he knew he could rely on her for food, shelter, and good advice, he still didn't feel...SAFE with her. I think he was possibly avoiding her personally.

I think HOW he asks her to leave is important to know as well.

...but I went up to that luxurious bed of Circe’s, hugged her by the knees and the goddess heard my winging supplication: ‘Circe, now make good a promise you gave me once— it’s time to help me home. My heart longs to be home, my comrades’ hearts as well. They wear me down, pleading with me whenever you’re away.’

(Fagles, Book 10)

Throughout all of Homer's works, the characters grasp another's knees when they are desperate and are literally at the other person's mercy. Priam did when begging Achilles for Hector's body back. The man who literally killed his son and was defiling his body by dragging it around. Leodes grabs Odysseus' knees to beg for his life before Ody kills him. If he saw her as a friend, and not a captor, WHY DID HE FEEL THE NEED TO BEG IN ORDER TO LEAVE?! No one, who is in a healthy relationship, has to BEG for permission to leave. Or to "Break up", if you interpret them as still sleeping together.

And even Circe acknowledges that he is there against his will!

‘Royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, old campaigner, stay on no more in my house against your will.

(Fagles, Book 10)

[...]Odysseus, man of many resources, scion of Zeus, son of Laertes, don’t stay here a moment longer against your will

(A.S. Kline, Book 10)

This is probably another reach that you can ignore but the whole "they wear me down", could be trying to appease her. "Look, you're REALLY cool, it's actually my crew that wants to leave hahahah please don't kill them"

I mentioned before how Telemachus snuck away from Nestor but that was simply out of necessity because he needed to go home now. Not rest for the night. NOW. Nestor is just everyone's grandpa. Menelaus kind of talked more but Telemachus is very straight up in "Please I have to go now" and Menelaus immediately got things ready for him. He never has to beg and clasp his knees. Telemachus was never afraid. Menelaus is a fun uncle and Helen is your cool auntie.

Back to Circe! She tells him instructions for the underworld, they were in her bedroom. But that might've been the only way to speak with her. As even Penelope is usually away from the suitors when they are in her halls, Circe may have done the same. The text never states she played hostess physically. If she was hosting in the halls during the day, why did Odysseus wait until night to talk to her? He could've just asked her while she was on her throne in front of everyone. (He did so with the Phaeacians)

Or maybe he went alone because she only swore an oath to not harm him and so he didn't want his men near if she decided she didn't want to let them go. I could be missing something here so feel free to say something. Idk if this was a pride thing on how "I don't want others to see me beg".

She has info he needs in order to go home as well. She tells him to go to the Underworld.

She gave him new fine clothes and put on pretty clothes herself but that doesn't mean they had sex. Nausicaa gave him nice clothes as well but he never slept with her.

Then he leaves. Immediately. Not even doing a headcount as he didn't realize one of his men had died. (That was negligence on his part but he wanted out) He booked it, to the UNDERWORLD BY THE WAY. Circe even had to sneak the animals he needed for the sacrifice. Odysseus even basically said "She's a goddess. She can do things mortals can't" at the end of the book. And it almost feels...Numb? Solemn? Neutral? Gives a "It is what it is" vibe.

But Circe got to the dark hull before us, tethered a ram and black ewe close by— slipping past unseen. Who can glimpse a god who wants to be invisible gliding here and there?

(Fagles, Book 10)

She’d slipped past us with ease, for who can see a god move back and forth, if she has no desire to be observed?

(Johnston, Book 10)

She's a goddess. She has magic. She can do whatever the fuck she wants.

NOW ON TO BOOK 12!!! That was long! GET A SNACK AND WATER! LUCKILY THIS'LL BE SHORTER!

In Book 11, Odysseus swears, upon all his loved ones in Ithaca, to Elpenor that he'd give him a proper burial as he's been "unwept, unburied". So in Book 12, he sails back to Aeaea to fulfill his promise.

But you know what's funny to me?

He didn't tell Circe he was there.

He didn't even go to greet Circe himself. He sent his men to go get Elpenor's body.

The biggest clue that he didn't love/trust her is that if she was his "Affair partner" then why not go see her for "one last night together"?

SHE came out herself and pulled him aside to know what happened and then gave more advice.

I dispatched some men to Circe’s halls to bring the dead Elpenor’s body. [...]

Nor did our coming back from Death escape Circe— she hurried toward us, decked in rich regalia, handmaids following close with trays of bread and meats galore and glinting ruddy wine. [...]

But Circe, taking me by the hand, drew me away from all my shipmates there and sat me down and lying beside me probed me for details

(Fagles, Book 12)

In every translation, it talks about how he sits, and she lounges/lies down. That's not sex 🙃 In some translations, it even says he tried to be with his shipmates but she pulled him away!

So we lay down and slept beside our ship’s stern cables. But Circe took me by the hand and led me away, some distance from the crew. She made me sit, while she stretched out beside me on the ground. 

(Johnston, Book 12)

Then, she gives advice about the sirens, Charybdis, Scylla, and her father's Cattle. He tries to ask if he could save all his men. She scolds him for even thinking he could try. He again books it out of there.

I think we all know it wasn't "love". But I think a lot of people think Odysseus was willing and happy with whatever this was. "Friends with Benefits", if you will. I guess you could see it that way but I will say that makes me feel itchy with the whole power dynamic and fear. I don't think folks who have that arrangement have to beg on their knees to ask if they can leave though.

I mean the entirety of Book 10 gives me the vibes of "Laughing uncomfortably because you don't want to upset the other person". To just grin and bear it.

A lot of this was just putting the text here and picking it apart step by step. What you do with this is up to you. It's rambling while banging pots and pans together.

Maybe you see him as drugged the entire year and still sleeping together, as the moli "wore off". Even then, just because her magic can't affect him, there are plenty of natural concoctions that can be created that can affect mortals.

Maybe you see the entire year as sex work in exchange for shelter and food.

Maybe he was just alongside his men the whole time under her roof and was avoiding her after the exchange. After he got asked by his men to finally leave, he would start to walk up to that room only to freeze and turn around, thinking "One more day won't hurt. Should wait until I know she's in a sympathetic mood".

I beg of you, however, PLEASE understand that there was fear and coercion throughout his entirety on Aeaea. He wasn't staying to get laid. While there is so much going on and too many things that are left vague to really know exactly what happened, it is consistent that he was scared/numb. Lots of people go through with things they don't really want to do just to appease others. There are plenty of situations of sexual trauma where one person goes through something and the other has no idea the other person isn't okay. ESPECIALLY WHEN SOMEONE CAN HARM THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT AT ANY MOMENT!

Sexual trauma is a very complicated thing and while he was scared, he definitely wasn't as traumatized by her as he was by Calypso. Calypso was a torturous hell while Circe was a year of walking on eggshells. Not comparable but I still think it should be acknowledged. It's wild because I read the Odyssey and kept thinking "Y'all are calling the sex slave a cheater? The guy who slept with a goddess to get his men back? The ultimate simp apparently doesn't love his wife??"

Things I'm adding that shouldn't affect the argument as it is not in the Odyssey but I want to mention as it's a "fun fact": Odysseus' dad was an Argonaut. Laertes probably met Circe as well, (or knew of her) with the whole purifying thing and maybe Odysseus heard his dad tell stories of her. Later myths also have Circe with the habit of turning her crushes (or their lovers) into something with Scylla and Picus.

In conclusion, Yeah, he was afraid of her. At least to an extent. And don't pull the whole "Ancient men didn't get raped". Male victims exist and deserve compassion for what was done to them and women are capable of sexual abuse. If you think otherwise, you are not a true feminist and Fuck you. I said in the beginning this'll be casual and I don't wanna write a fancy ending. You can still think Circe is neat but you have to know that this was fucked up.

If you think a lot of this is bullshit or wanna give more context or wish to yell with me but still know he wasn't alright on Aeaea, cool. If you want to point out mistakes or something I should keep in mind with interpretations then feel free to say so but give text evidence. If you try and bring up the Telegony and/or Madeline Miller's Circe, fuck clean off. This is Homer. If you call Odysseus a whore and not the malewife he canonically is I'll start biting. 😤

[singsweetmelodies]

a little while ago, i got this ask asking me if i could make some sort of introduction to the pierre/charles ship and all its lore. and since they are, without question, my f1 rpf OTP, my answer was oh my god yes of course. it's taken me a little while to compile all that lore - because boy, is there a lot - but it's been one of the happiest research projects of my life, without question. and i think it's finally ready to go!! so, with no further ado...

ABOUT PIARLES: a (not-so-brief) introduction to f1 rpf's french friends to lovers ship

so the first thing you need to know about piarles is that they're childhood best friends. not that uncommon in a sport like f1, to be fair - most of the drivers grew up together, racing against each other in karting. but pierre and charles are a little different in that they aren't just karting acquaintances: the two of them (and their entire families) are genuinely good friends.

in fact, if you ask either pierre or charles about the other (and interviewers often do) one of the first things they'll probably say is "we've known each other for a long time," quickly followed by "we used to go on holiday together when we were kids." and they ALWAYS say this with the fondest expressions 🥰 even if you take shipping completely out of the equation, it's clear that these two have a very long-standing and very close friendship, with many fond memories which both of them seem to treasure very much.

in charles' own words:

"Pierre! We know each other since... a long, long time. We used to go on holidays together when we were children with our parents, and uh... we did quite a bit of mess together when we were children, but (laughs) very good memories. And the relationship never really changed throughout the years, even though we have taken different paths, because he was a bit older, so we weren't always in the same categories. But we would always call each other, text each other, go on holidays together... and yeah, I just have so many memories." (source - watch from timestamp 2:06)

pierre tells a very similar story:

"He's definitely one of my best friends. Charles is a very nice person and an incredible driver. We met when we were 9 years old and created a very strong bond. Our parents are very close, and we went on vacations from when we were 10, so we created lots of memories. We were teammates in karting when we were 12, and today we find ourselves in Formula 1. It's a pretty incredible story. But for me the most important part is to see the person he's become, and he hasn't changed since he was young." (source)

i think it's important to note that these aren't the only times pierre and charles have spoken about each other in glowing terms like this - no, it happens quite frequently. pretty much every time they're asked about each other, tbh. (i'm not going to add quotes from every single time here, though, because we would be here for the rest of the month if i tried. 😅) the point is, piarles are pretty damn close, and think very highly of each other.

but it's not just them that are close: like i mentioned in the first paragraphs of this post, their families are close, too. they really are childhood friends in that "your family is practically my second family" sense, which i think is something really special.

here, for example, is pierre's father jean-jacques talking about charles:

Charles is part of the family. We've known him since he was nine and when he started in karting with Pierre. (...) When the races were in England Charles was sleeping at our place, and when the races were in Italy, Pierre was sleeping at Charles's place. Then Pierre moved to F4. I don't think there have ever been a big rivalry between them even though their careers were similar. Charles is part of the family probably even more since Hervé passed away. Our door will always be open for him and he knows.” (source)

🥹

what's more, charles has also said numerous times that it's hard to maintain true friendships in f1 - but his bond with pierre is one of those rare exceptions:

It’s rare I think, it’s very rare to have a sincere friendship in F1, because there’s a lot of competition. So yes there’s friendship, but it’s not always entirely sincere - but with Pierre it really is, and it has always been. (source)

they're friends. they really are friends, not just friendly coworkers, like many of the other f1 drivers are. pierre and charles genuinely like and appreciate each other's company very much - which, even if you put shipping completely aside, is just such a wonderful thing, and always makes me smile so much.

one of my personal favourite moments was when pierre talked about charles on the beyond the grid podcast in 2023:

"That's why I really like these chats that I can have with Charles, because I know with Charles, discussing about both our lives, we won't judge each other... because we know what it's like and we just speak very openly about various things. And I know it's almost like a happy place or a comfortable place where you really feel you can open up. He'll understand, I'll understand him..." (source - listen from timestamp 32:01)

if that doesn't make your heart melt at least a little bit, then i don't know what to say to you.

... no, actually, i do. if this kind of sentimentality won't do it for you, how about a bit of silliness and humour?

that's right. like any good childhood friends, pierre and charles also have an embarrassing nickname for each other: "calamar," which is french for "squid." (we know that they call each other that courtesy of charles' insta).

what on earth is the origin of this nickname, you may be wondering? well, according to pierre...

"It goes back to a long time ago when we were kids, like... nine, ten years old. We would go on holidays together and spend more time. I don't know. It just came, like one day we decided to call each other calamar, which is not really such a beautiful nickname, but yeah it was just for fun. We were kids and we were laughing. And actually, we have many other nicknames because we were teammates also in karting and we spent a lot, a lot of time together. So, a lot of nicknames came alongside all this time. And this kind of stayed with us." (source)

as pierre said in this quote, "calamar" is not even the only nickname they have - pierre sometimes calls charles "charlito" and also "charlo," while charles calls pierre "mon petit."

and as if that's not enough, they're also that pair of boyfriends friends who always have to bring each other up in conversation. if there's ever an interview question along the lines of "which f1 driver would you...." then you can pretty much bet pierre will answer "charles," and charles will answer "pierre."

for example, here is pierre choosing charles as the one f1 driver he'd take for a drink. and here is charles naming pierre as his best friend in the paddock. oh, and here is pierre saying he'd choose charles as one driver to take with him to a desert island. there's more, but i think you get the idea 😆❤️

so yeah! that's a quick(ish) overview of the background/context of piarles - AKA the french (yes, i know charles is monégasque, but he SPEAKS french) friends/boyfriends on the grid.

(if you'd like to know more details about their friendship, especially about their pre-f1 years, then i recommend this post and its follow-up compiled by the incredible @vegasgrandprix. these posts really are a treasure trove for piarles history & lore!)

but now that i've painted a pretty clear picture of their friendship, let's move on to some more shippy moments, shall we? the "lovers" part of friends to lovers <3333

believe it or not, eveything up till now was just the background information about piarles. it's more than enough to build an OTP on already, i'd say - but wait, there's more!

the thing with pierre and charles is that along with being friends, they are also french (or....french-adjacent. close enough) which means that they have absolutely zero problem with being very openly affectionate with each other.

this has given us some very delicious shipping moments, which i will now try and give an overview of. (my fellow piarlies: if i've left out one of your favourite moments, please forgive me - they have so many moments with each other, and tumblr has a post character limit, so there was just no way for me to include everything, much as i wanted to. but i do think this is a good introduction!)

let's start with perhaps the most iconic piarles moment of them all: monza 2020, aka pierre gasly's first win in f1.

that was a crazy, wonderful day in so many ways - first of all, the race itself was insane. pierre started 10th on the grid, and with a lot of luck + a safety car that really worked out for him, ended up leading the race and defended from carlos sainz with DRS to get his maiden win. this was almost exactly a year after he'd been dropped from red bull, so the win was pretty much the biggest fuck-you to everyone @ RBR and comeback moment for pierre that was possible. it was also a dream come true (every f1 driver dreams about winning a race!) and you only need to look at any interview pierre did afterwards to see how much it meant to him.

what makes it even more insane, though, is that charles was right there to congratulate him and watch his podium. keep in mind that, in the same race, charles crashed out - both ferraris did, in monza of all places. i don't think anyone would've been surprised, or held it against him at all, if charles just kept his head down for the rest of that day.

but no. even though he wasn't medically cleared after the crash yet (!!) charles went to parc fermé anyway to congratulate pierre. remember that thing i said about them being french and very open with affection? well:

here are some pictures of the monza piarles congratulations hug. (am i the only one who thinks it looks like charles wants to kiss pierre in that second pic?! god....) here and here are some more angles of the hug to go insane over, if you like.

you can also watch it in video format here - and yes, charles really did pull pierre out of his hug with romain so that he could congratulate him himself. i know. (also, yes, pierre does pat charles' ass just before they go their separate ways. what can i say? french.)

as if that's not already insane enough, charles also stayed to watch pierre's podium despite not being medically cleared yet after his crash. (we have to thank netflix FOREVER for providing us with that specific behind-the-scenes shot 🙏 drive to survive - you did well that time, you really did.)

and afterwards, charles said:

It was just a dream for one of us to get into F1 one day. In the end we’re both in F1, we’ve both won a GP, both of us in Monza. (...) I was really happy that day, even if my race went wrong, his win made it a good day. (source)

your honour. who says that about another driver's win, especially on a day where you yourself had an awful race? if that's not love in a sport like f1, i don't know what is!

i really could talk about monza 2020 and how much it means for a very long time, but i will rein myself in to just one final comment: isn't it rather beautiful to think that pierre & charles' names will always be next to each other in the monza winners list? charles won there in 2019, and then pierre won there in 2020. talk about soulmatism ❤️💙

now, moving on to another absolutely iconic (and delightfully gay) piarles moment: baku 2021, aka that time pierre and charles had an awesome last-lap battle for the P3 podium spot.

it was very close racing, with them swapping positions several times down the straight - but they kept it clean. in fact, they kept it so clean that someone remarked it's like they know each other by heart. yup. totally a normal thing to say about two men racing.

equally normal was charles' comments after the race:

"The last lap was my favourite part of the race. It was crazy and had a lot of actions. With Pierre it was hot. I'm happy for him for his podium." (source)

and as if that's not enough, he also GRABBED pierre into a hug in parc fermé, and then held him incredibly close while congratulating him.

you can watch this hug in video format here and gif format here, if you want - and i really recommend doing so, because it's insane to see how charles quite literally crashes into pierre's personal space and yanks him into a hug. (here is a close-up of their helmets during said hug - and you can just say it with me. GAY.)

that's still not all, though: charles congratulated pierre twice after the race. once on the outlap (with a thumbs-up and a middle finger as pierre's car drove past his, LMAO) and then on social media as well (with a nickname and a kiss emoji).

he ALSO commented on pierre's instagram post about the race with another kiss emoji:

so, apparently, charles was thinking about kissing pierre quite a lot in baku 2021. 🤭 an iconic day all around!

and as it happens, 2021 brought us another iconic piarles moment - though this one is a whole less happy. i'm talking about styria 2021, aka that time pierre and charles had contact in a race, and pierre had to retire from that grand prix.

here is the official f1 news article about the incident - the long and the short of it is that charles misjudged on lap 1 and crashed into the side of pierre's car, ending pierre's race. naturally, pierre was furious and upset, especially because the alphatauri was actually a good car in 2021, and he'd stood to score really good points that sunday.

now, for most f1 girlies, an incident like this between childhood friends immediately brings up vivid brocedes flashbacks. and, to be honest, it wouldn't have been that much of a surprise if this had indeed soured pierre and charles' friendship - we saw exactly this happen with pierre and esteban, after all.

but no. charles went to see pierre post-race to clear the air between them, and although pierre was furious with him, he didn't let it ruin their friendship. in fact, when he was asked how the incident affected their friendship, pierre had the following to say:

"Yeah... I was really sad to end 15 years of friendship. He is no more my friend (laughs). No, no, it's... honestly, it was really painful, you know, you work so hard the whole weekend for Sunday to score points, and then after literally like 20 seconds, the whole race was over. So, quite a difficult one to swallow, but, you know, we know each other, with Charles, we have a lot of respect for each other. He came to see me after the race - I was still pretty pissed off with him, but, uh, we knew before last Sunday, nothing ever happened between us on the race-track, and we knew one day it would happen. Unfortunately I paid the price more than him, but yeah, it's racing, unfortunately. (...) It's painful, it's racing, it happens sometimes - I just told him to make sure it doesn't happen another time, and... we're fine." (source - watch from 17:01)

i think that styria 2021 is vital piarles lore not because it's a fun shippy moment, but rather because it shows the strength of their connection. an incident like this could easily have destroyed their friendship, but they didn't let it. they mean enough to each other that they let what happens on-track stay on-track and not affect their closeness off-track. and that, i think, is something truly special - they were tested in a way which has destroyed f1 friendships before, and yet they still came out stronger.

iconic indeed.

on a happier note again, now, there is also montreal 2022, which many piarles fans consider one of THE seminal piarles moments. the race itself was not so memorable for our boys this time, but what they did off-track is.

that is to say: pierre and charles went on a dinner date. then, they were spotted driving around the streets of montreal in a white ferrari. and THEN, as if that's not mind-blowing enough already... charles posted, to his public instagram story, a video of pierre wearing his charles-leclerc-16 branded ferrari hat.

these screenshots are peanut quality, i'm sorry, lmao... but all of montreal 2022 feels a bit like a fever dream in the best way, so i think the blurriness just captures the vibes, tbh.

we're not quite done with montreal 2022 yet, though - earlier on the same day, charles also had a very sweet hello with pierre's parents. you can just SEE how much pierre's parents love charles, and isn't that just the most heartwarming thing 😭❤️

now, one final thing about montreal 2022: pierre never posted his infamous photo dump after that race. that might not seem particularly important, but... this is the only race of 2022 for which pierre DIDN'T post a photo dump.

there are a thousand and one theories about why he didn't - maybe he just forgot, maybe he had a busy weekend, maybe he didn't have any photos he wanted to share. or, in a more shippy interpretation... maybe he does have photos, especially photos of charles, but he doesn't want to share them/wants to keep them all to himself. we don't know!

one lucky piarlie got to meet pierre in london in 2022 at an alphatauri event, and actually asked him about the montreal photo dump thing. here is what he said (courtesy of the lovely @they-call-it-traffic 💞)

the descriptions there... you can just picture pierre's expressions & smirks SO perfectly, right? he is insane. they are insane. #investigatemontreal !!

anyways. moving on one year again: 2023 brought us pierre and charles' basketball date:

as well as two tennis dates:

(i call them "dates" because pierre and charles spent a significant time together during them, hanging out & enjoying each other's company and looking at each other with major heart-eyes. obviously, irl, they aren't officially dates - in fact, both pierre and charles had their irl girlfriends along with them when they attended wimbledon. but who cares too much about irl -- this is a rpf post 😉)

i'm not going to spend too long explaining the lore behind these, because i'm already flirting with the tumblr post character limit 🙈 but basically, what happened is that on all 3 these occasions, pierre and charles chose to hang out together at events completely unrelated to f1, simply because they are friends and like each other's company. (that, to me, is always a measure of how much f1 drivers actually like each other - whether or not they choose to spend time with each other when they're not forced into proximity by f1. pierre and charles pass this test with flying colours.)

the basketball date is particularly insane, because that day was actually an event which charles, pierre and esteban attended. but you wouldn't know THAT from charles' post about it. charles fully cropped esteban out of his post - he really said "esteban who? i only spent time with my friend pierre 😌" and he said it with his whole chest.

ALSO, while we're on the subject of the basketball date and social media - pierre and charles co-posted a reel about it on instagram. yes. CO-POSTED. you know, like a couple co-posting about their date.

piarles basketball date, you will always be famous!!

(P.S. - a lot of piarles fans refer to this 2023 basketball date as "basketball date 2.0" - and this is because pierre and charles have actually done this before, in 2021. i really can't talk too much about that date - character limit, my beloathed - but let me just say that pierre draping his arm round the back of charles' chair is something that lives rent free in my mind. rent free.)

another thing that lives in my mind rent-free is charles being interviewed at their first tennis date, and calling pierre his best friend <3333 love is friendship set on fire, etc etc!

... so, okay, when i said i wasn't going to talk too much about the lore behind the tennis & basketball dates, i lied a little bit. but in my defence - they were insane for these, they really were!

anyways. now, let's skip back in time a little - because i would be very remiss if i didn't include pierre and charles' 2016 joint championship celebrations.

in the year 2016, pierre was the GP2 champion and charles the GP3 champion (GP2 and GP3 are the old names for F2 and F3). in a very pretty twist of fate, they both clinched their respective titles at the same circuit, in the final race of their respective series - and then, of course, they celebrated together.

here is an adorable gifset of them celebrating together after the final GP2 race. and here are some more pictures from the official Prema photoshoot for the GP2 & GP3 champions (yes, they did a joint photoshoot together. even Prema ships it, apparently!)

actually, while we're on the subject of celebrating together: pierre and charles almost always congratulate each other for their significant achievements in f1. see: charles making a point to congratulate pierre on his podium in baku, as i discussed earlier in this post, and again in zandvoort 2023. (both times with a kiss emoji, mind you). similarly, check out pierre seeking charles out in parc fermé to congratulate him for his bahrain 2022 season-opener pole, and then congratulating him for his win twice over on social media. (and these are just a few examples out of many!)

this is one of those things that sets them apart from many other f1 rpf pairings: they both seem genuinely happy when the other does well. and like. they are COMPETITORS - but they're good enough friends that they can still celebrate each other's achievements genuinely and happily. that is insane!!

yes, sure, it's good sportsmanship to congratulate other drivers for wins/podiums - but that is usually done with a handshake in person or a copy-paste "congrats to XYZ" in the post-race interview, or something like that. one rarely gets the sense that it comes from a place of genuine, deep happiness for the other driver being congratulated.

pierre and charles are just on a whole different level. they specifically seek each other out in parc fermé, hug each other with so much enthusiasm that it looks suspiciously gay, and also post about each other's achievements very fondly on social media.

again, this is something you might see a driver do for their teammate - for example, charles congratulating "carlos and the team" for a win in singapore - but almost never with a freaking KISS EMOJI. and a pet name. and so much genuine joy.

just... yeah. they care about each other so much, and are each other's biggest supporters ❤️

it's not just in good times that they're there for each other, either: 2019 was a truly difficult year for both pierre and charles (pierre especially) but they were still there for each other when it mattered.

the prime example of this is monza 2019, which was one race after pierre's demotion from red bull, and also one race after anthoine hubert's death. because the fia has no sense of basic kindness or decency, naturally they put pierre into a press conference that very weekend.

the video of that press conference is very hard to watch - every time pierre is asked a question, you can hear how much he is struggling to hold it together. honestly, the sole good thing from this presscon is that at least pierre had charles beside him.

here is a post i made where i discuss this in a bit more detail, but essentially: charles sat as close as possible to pierre for the entirety of that conference - close enough that their shoulders were practically touching - as a non-verbal gesture of support. you can see the difference in space between charles & pierre vs all the other drivers, and there's no way that was accidental. charles might not have been able to voice his support for pierre out loud right then, but it's there in every part of his body language.

another very meaningful moment is also from 2019, when pierre went up to charles pre-race in spa:

"I told Charles before the race, please win this race for Anthoine." (source)

and charles did. 💙

then later in 2019, when pierre got his first podium in brazil, guess who was right there to hug and congratulate him? that's right.

this was another case where charles' own race fell apart - he had a crash with his teammate, in fact - but he still made a point of going to hug pierre after his P2, and going on social media to tell pierre and also the whole world that pierre deserved that podium. that's what i call supporting your best friend.

now, at this point, you might be thinking... well, pierre and charles have it all. whether you're looking for happy moments or deep emotional moments or suspiciously gay moments to fuel your shipping fire, it's all there.

and you'd be right! they do have it all. though i will say this - one of the complaints i've heard whispered around this fandom is that piarles is a fun ship, but they don't have any content videos together like teammates do. so it's harder to ship them, because you don't get to see them actually interact with each other aside from like 5-second video clips...

to that i say: well. they might not have any teammate videos together, but oh boy. as of 2023, they do have something else: the squeezie video.

i could talk about the squeezie video for MONTHS, i really could - but let me try and keep it brief. so, squeezie is this french youtuber who has this "who's the impostor?" video series in which he gets a couple of celebrities to join him on the show, plus some people from a certain profession, and then they have to guess who actually does that profession and who's the impostor.

the day that pierre and charles were guests on the show, the professions were "firefighter," "midwife," "flight attendant" and "school counselor." this resulted in absolute chaos of the best kind - ah, man, i cannot even begin to describe to you what a glorious mess it was. that video had everything from charles & pierre cradling fake babies, to charles & pierre extremely dramatically accusing each other of lying, to pierre making dirty hand gestures while charles blushes profusely, to charles & pierre play-acting being naughty schoolkids (feat. charles saying he fell asleep in class and woke up from a nightmare screaming "box box" 😭)

here are some screenshots of some of my favourite moments:

the way they LOOK at each other... GOD.

anyways! you can watch the video here. my recommendation is to watch it with the original french sound track - there is an english dub available, but it sounds incredibly strange to hear american accents coming out of pierre & charles' mouths, off-sync with what they're actually saying. it's a MUCH better experience to watch in french, so you can hear what they actually said, and enjoy how they interact with each other. (english subtitles are available!) alternatively, you can find some translated highlights here, courtesy of the incredible @sedicii <3333

aside from all the still-can't-believe-they-actually-did-this-on-camera content, one of the things that makes me feel the most insane is that pierre and charles both chose to appear on this video. there was no contractual PR requirement saying they both had to participate in it, like with teammate challenges - no, they did it in their free time, because they wanted to.

i mean, sure, that video was definitely good for PR for both of them, but the point stands that they didn't have to do it, and they certainly didn't have to do it together. they CHOSE to - and what's more, they said at the end of the video that they'd do it again.

that's so central to pierre and charles, i think: they choose each other, time and time again. they freely choose to spend time with each other, because they genuinely like each other and enjoy each other's company. so much so that you will find them together at least once on almost every race weekend.

no, seriously. it's a very unusual race weekend if pierre and charles aren't spotted together at least one time. whether it's being glued to each other's sides on driver's parades, or chatting in the background of some or other interview, or just walking through the paddock together... they will find each other.

there are SO many instances where this happens that i would be here for over a month if i tried to list them all - and i'd still probably miss some. but here are some of my personal highlights!

pierre and charles finding each other pre-race in jeddah

pierre and charles chatting in the media pen in the background of one of alex's interviews

pierre and charles walking together in vegas (feat. fond smiles)

pierre and charles being baby gossip girls in 2018

more baby piarles in 2018

even more baby pierre and charles chatting in 2017

and just to round things off: most recently, pierre and charles walking together in jeddah 2024

and many, many more... including a whole bunch of moments we'll probably never know about.

that's another thing that makes me more than a little insane about these two: pierre has actually said, in so many words, that they'll never share everything about their friendship.

In the end we have the same life, we grew up together. We've done many things together, but you won't hear about all of it. (source)

all these moments that we see, that we go insane over... that's probably not even the half of what they've actually done together. and that makes me feel some type of way. if this is just the small pieces of their lives & interactions that they choose to share with the public, then just imagine what else there could be...

....buuuuut that'll start becoming a fanfic if i let myself carry on with that line of thinking too long. (can i just say one thing about that, though? the piarles fanfic community is absolutely INCREDIBLE. such talented writers, such wonderful people... just, chef's kiss all around!!) but, yeah! i think this post has gone on for more than long enough now, haha.

so, to conclude: pierre and charles really are the epitome of a friends to lovers ship: they get along famously, they genuinely seem to love each other's company and are always laughing together - and they can very often be found giving each other the heart-eyes/looking at each other like they're in love. if it's warmth, joy and friends to lovers feels that you're after, then look no further <3333

thank you so much for reading! and i do hope that after all this, you're at least a little bit in love with piarles, too ❤️

[srngrque]

try me . .

you had your arms wide open, to a far away distance toward the big boy wearing a sleeveless top, and cargo pants who was speeding to you. 

mingyu took his steps, his hair flowing through the wind. your eyes went in awe as your boyfriend quite resembled a little puppy making its way to its owner. you also couldn't help but admire how similar the sequence was just like how you were about to meet him for the first time. 

you bolted as soon as you landed your feet on the ground to the address your best friend texted you a few weeks ago to meet her, her boyfriend that she has been dating for six months and all his other friends; sharing acquaintances, how fun. 

the hanok restaurant was . . close by, your best friend swore yet here you are finding the correct restaurant after rampaging the streets of seoul for maximum ten minutes. 

it concludes: you are being late for one hour and forty-five minutes. oh, you are dead. 

“please, can i know where room six is?” you asked the receptionist, putting your hand on your waist to calm your breathing softly. there were drums beating on your chest as you closed your eyes, breathing through your nose. the receptionist nodded, signing the direction that is: straight turn right. 

before entering the room, you fixed your pants that were about to slip down from your waist and the strap of your top that kept slipping. “i’m here.” you announced, slamming the door open not knowing how loud the ‘bang’ would actually sound, startling yourself. 

sitting down on the floor were four men, and your best friend. the atmosphere seemed to tighten, nobody greeted, or spoke a word. “hi, my love.” you dropped your tote bag, launching yourself on your best friend who had her eyebrows raised, with an unimpressed expression on her face. 

“you forgot about the dinner, didn’t you? i swear to god, why do i ev-” your best friend scolded, narrowing her eyebrows. 

you quickly shook your head, “the meeting with my groupmate ran late. i promise i did not forget.” you blurted out in her ears while giving her a side-hug, she did not respond back. you retreated back, pouting with a puppy expression. “i will do the laundry for one whole month.” you gave in, your best friend rolled her eyes, pushing your embrace away from her. 

just that meant; you knew you were forgiven. 

happily you sat next to her, completely forgetting the presence of four men. “sorry, can i know who the boyfriend is here?” you asked, waving among the men, the pale skinned, sharp jawline and a soft smile raised his hand. “my name is dongmin.” he forward his hand out to shake, you reciprocated, “oh, yes. im y/n.” 

it was not creepy for sure, since you trust your best friend’s choice and you will trust her boyfriend’s friend but there was a certain piercing gaze that kept itching to look at. you glanced at the end to see a dark-haired man covering his eyes partly, his little mole of the tip of his nose, and the light smile ghosting on his lips to greet you. 

you smiled back, not breaking any conversation. 

“aren’t you guys super famous?” you asked, purely out of curiosity. a few chuckles came, you twisted your neck to see your best friend shaking her head in complete disgust. it was not your fault that you were majoring in law, attending three different lectures every three days, and taking part in hearing some cases done in university while she was modeling with top actors, idols, walking on runways and spending days in paris because it is 'sponsored.'

a blonde haired man nodded, “i mean i would say i sing as my source of income.” you laughed at the humour presenting to cut the tension. “oh, i’m jaehyun. nice to meet you, i have heard quite a bit about you while waiting.” he continued, introducing himself and enlightening you with an amusing fact. 

“nothing bad.” the puppy-like-looking man added, taking your attention from jaehyun. “i’m mingyu.” he leaned forward to shake your hand. you stared, not believing much words coming from him. “i guess, i will believe you.” 

you noticed his hands were rough, calluses around his palm yet they were large enough that urged you to rest your hand for awhile but you slipped your hand away, meeting for the first time should not conclude to you becoming into a pervert in his burn book, especially since he is best friend’s with your best friend’s boyfriend. 

there was one last guy that had not introduced himself to you, his doe eyes shining brightly, you gasped, “oh, wait. i know you. you are literally everywhere in seoul.” you frantically pointed at the man, “i literally rode a bus with your face plastered on the bus.” you excitedly mentioned about the banner wishing him birthday wishes. 

“jungkook? right?” you snapped your fingers, waiting for the man to respond to you back. he giggled, his eyes shrinking, nodding his head. you had a shit-eating grin on your face, side-glancing your best friend to show how cultured you still are. 

the tension was slowly vanishing away as everyone went back to making conversation about work schedule, next meet-up and moments that were eventful. you felt out of place amid people whose job is to entertain people, and be in the limelight while you are surviving over an internship that barely pays minimum wage, and by the time you return back to your apartment today, it is time to review all the papers of cases that were given to you. you were practically envying the group sharing advice with each other, and exchanging words of comfort that are reachable, understandable to each other.

"do you not like law?"

you flinched, shaking you from the daydreaming you were doing within the loud environment. you looked at mingyu, like, looked. 

"how did you know?" you questioned, confused on how he knows as you did not mention your degree. his eyes widen, in realization. "she told all of us. sorry, i did not mean to scare you." he scratched his neck.

yet there was still that smile he gave before, but his eyes twinkled in interest toward you. the rush crawled in your body, all over and you could not help it, you cleared your throat. “yes. my older sister and my mom do law. so, i decided to follow the given footsteps.” you replied, smiling hence looking down at your feet. 

feeling small under his gaze, “i think that is pretty cool of you.” he softly said, grasping onto his beer glass. the hue on the tip of his ears bubbled a laughter out from you. “i think you are cool too.” you replied, “this job, you do, it’s not easy.” you sighed. 

he did not reply, as if he was recollecting his thoughts about you, or of you. “tough day?” he lowered his head, wanting you to look up to meet his gaze. you quickly glanced at his action before lifting your head up. 

“no, no. thank you for asking.” you smiled cheerfully, breaking the gaze away from him. “i still feel terrible for coming late, please let me treat you guys to coffee or anything.” you pleaded, you long realized all of them have eaten dinner that you were supposed to eat with the whole group together. 

“good, please feel guilty while you are reflecting too.” your best friend pitched in. dongmin waved her comment, “i would gladly accept your offer.” he smiled, his eyes disappearing. 

you simply understood your best friend there. 

with all the orders you received, as you wrote down on your note app, you wore back your shoes heading to the cafe jaehyun suggested that is a few distance away from the restaurant. you hummed onto random tunes till you heard the door sliding open to mingyu wearing his mask, and his shoes. “i will help you.” he volunteered.

you might be nonchalant about your surroundings that do not concern you. you knew what mingyu was doing; quick glances, shy smiles, starting conversation; you refused a distraction, especially a distraction that belongs to half of the world. 

mingyu, you exchanged a few words with, is a complete heartbreaker. with that sweet smile, honey dripping gaze every time he met your eyes. 

you refuse to become a victim.

“are you crazy?” you rushed toward him, poking his chest as he walked backward toward the room. “you are famous, aren’t you?” you questioned the obvious. 

he nodded. 

you gave him a forced smile, “exactly.”  

he shook his head, “i got myself covered.” he ducked down to whisper in your ears. 

you shivered, looked up to a smirk playing on his face. “then, walk five steps away from me.” 

he whined, “i can simply walk with you.” 

you sighed, giving in. “mingyu, we better not land on dispatch.” 

he giggled, with his long legs, he was already next to you. 

the breeze of autumn was chilling and that was the best part. the yellow leaves are falling down on the ground, observing people either still wearing shorts or some wearing long jackets to fight the windy weather. It kept you . . humanely sane. 

“do you struggle with studying law that much?” he asked, staring with the same pinning interest in his eyes. you gave a sad smile, still gazing at the buildings looking small from where you were walking from with mingyu. 

he hummed with no response, “what do you want to be?” he pestered further. you thought about that, kept thinking, but nothing appeared. 

“lawyer?” you answered; more like questioned. question to yourself on will you be capable enough to become a good lawyer that helps the society, and get your mother off your back.

the aroma of coffee hit your nose as you entered the cafe, immediately workers greeting you. as you lined up to order, “it’s funny how much i want to know about you yet you do not seem that curious about me.” he whispered into your ear, ducking down to match your height. 

you crossed your arm on your chest, “maybe you find my life interesting?” you clicked onto the note app on your phone to check the order just in case, you forget. 

“no, it’s just you.” he flirted. 

he was flirting, you wanted to throw yourself out from the window and let a car drive you over on how much you were begging your cheeks to not heat up. instead, you ignored the man, thanking you were next in line.

“here is the order. thank you.” you gave your phone to the worker, begging them to be quick. walking with mingyu itself was a ringing alarm in your head. 

“you can try me.” he offered. 

“try . . you for what, good god.” you covered your mouth, not wanting to laugh out loud. 

mingyu shrugged his shoulders, “ just . . i would love to know more about you.” 

siren rang in your head, everything after this would be completely dangerous. you know that you are attracted to the man in front of you. 

“do not think much, just follow what your heart desires.” he said as the order arrived. 

the silence this time was filled with the same tension that was in the restaurant when you entered breathlessly. you breathed out, a few steps ahead of him. you turned around, facing him while walking backward. he stared at you confused at your action. 

“are you trying to court me?” you asked. 

a smile broke out on his face, “if you let me.” 

one step forward, one step backward. 

“i don’t know if i should let you.” you playfully said. 

he raised his eyebrows, “you hurt me.” 

you shook your head, waving your hand. “how dare i wound you.” 

he pouted, nodding. “do not worry, princess. one date will heal the wound in no time.” 

one step forward, one step backward. 

“i don’t know, i don't know . . you at all. ” 

one step forward, you paused. 

“and you are a celebrity, i don’t know if you are a good idea for my mental health.” 

his eyes twinkled, with the same amount of interest filled, and the new hint of anticipation roaming around his eyes that danced on your skin.

“like i said, try me.” 

there were no words exchanged as he attacked you with a warm hug, causing you to take a few steps back on how forceful his hug was. 

you smiled into his hug, sighing at the embrace. he lightly patted your back in comfort; reminding you know that he is there for you, he is there. so lean on him, let him carry a few burdens of yours. 

“how was class today, my lady?” 

“i am telling you the chef hates me.” you groaned.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

Ostrichmonkey Hack: Layout Behind the Scenes

Been procrastinating on this enough! So here is a look at some of the process and decisions that went into doing the layout for the Ostrichmonkey Hack.

Let's start with the goals I had in mind:

Keep it simple.

Keep it easy to make.

With those goals set, next step is gathering materials and resources (not all of this was done as cleanly as I'm making it out to be, but this is the gist).

Materials used:

Classic Explorer Template

Affinity Publisher and Photo

Fonts

Art

The text itself

The Classic Explorer Template was critical in getting this layout done efficiently, since it does a lot of the work for you. It's not a replacement for having a rough idea on how to do layout, but it can serve as a nice tutorial/explainer on different elements of layout and typesetting, and honestly, is worth its (digital) weight in gold. There's a free version available if you want to check out what it offers.

I use the Affinity Suite for my layout work. It's a nice set of programs with a manageable learning curve, but there are plenty of other alternatives so go with whatever works for you (one of my favorite elements of using multiple Affinity programs is that within Publisher, you can access both Designer (vector illustration) and Photo (photo editing, illustration etc) functions, which is just a nice workflow).

Here's what my setup looks like, with all the guidelines/base grid stuff turned on;

Normally I start with some style tests and “sketches” to get a feel for what I want the layout to look like, but the Classic Explorer’s does a lot of that heavy lifting for me already so I get to skip this step for this project. Speed and efficiency is one of the main reasons I wanted to use the template - this was envisioned as a “I just need to get something done” kind of project.

So next up on getting it done, fonts!

There are lots of great places to get fonts from, just make sure you're getting them from legitimate sources. Do your homework and make sure that "free" font is actually free to use in commercial projects.

I pulled three fonts from the depths of my collection.

One for the title and main headers (Wallau Deutsch)

One for the second header (Rakkas)

One for the body text (PT Serif)

Technically a secret fourth font for some "bullet points" (1651 Alchemy)

I picked these fonts out because they work together well and are readable. The title/main header fonts are comparatively less readable, but you can get away with that since headers are Big and used less frequently. The second header (Rakkas) is a nice middle ground between a full on blackletter font like the main header, and the classic-y serif of the body text. It creates a transition between the two fonts.

I used PT Serif since it was already in the template, but it also had the bold/italics versions I knew I would need, is readable at a variety of sizes, and had all the special glyphs I would need (it actually did not, but whoops, we'll get to that later).

Normally when I start layout, I do a quick "sketch page" where I try out different fonts and style tests that can look something like this;

But that wasn't necessary for this project (another advantage of the using the template).

Now, let's get to some choices in formatting the text itself.

Each time a key term came up, it was highlighted by bolding and italicizing it. Any time after that, it was just normal text. I went back and forth on highlighting it every single time, but the current format just looked cleaner so it won out.

Additionally, in several places in the text, rather than introducing a third header (which just broke up the page too much, disrupting the flow and clean look), I instead put what would have been the new third header (HP or WOUNDS in the above example) in all caps and behind a colon. This ended up not disrupting the text too much, and was only necessary a handful of times. But when it was necessary, I made sure to stay consistent. Consistent and organized formatting is one of the key ways to make your layout look nice and clean.

Aside from changing some font choices, one of the other ways I tweaked the template was with some spacing (between "sections", like in the above text, introducing an extra line break between the Attributes and Staying Alive sections) and the "bullet points".

The large bullet points that accompany the second headers are actually a glyph pulled from a different font. I picked that one out specifically because its just a little irregular and handwritten looking (1651 Alchemy is a handwritten styled font), and it also helped pull you to the start of new sections, further enhancing the second header. It helps make each section discrete and more "modular".

Back to extra spacing for a second now. So each "chapter" of the text uses the main header to designate it as a full "chapter".

"Characters" up top there is one of those chapter headers. It's nice and big and special, and also takes up a good chunk of space. One a full spread, this also means that the second page of text begins higher up than the text on the first page (compare where Attributes starts vs where Dying starts).

I played around with the format of spreads that did not have a main chapter header on them, starting the first page text up toward the top to have it line up with the second page. Which, probably would have been totally fine, but I preferred the look when each spread had the same kind of spacing. But repeating the main header on each spread was too clunky. So the solution;

Bam! A line!

Blank empty space looked too empty, but slapping a quick line there took up just enough visual space for it to work. Then, I carried that line-design-language to other places (to separate footnotes from the body text, within the tables, and sort of on the cover). This then made the line choice feel even more cohesive and purposeful.

And speaking of footnotes, that was another extra tweak/flourish I added not present in the template (the sidebars are part of the template, but sidebars rule so they would have happened regardless). The footnotes served as a way to share specific references as an informal "works cited". A lot of NSR/OSR design is super iterative, so I thought it would be cool to shout out some of the more direct inspirations and references I used when making my game.

But the footnotes were also kind of not really my downfall. Turns out PT Serif didn't seem to have all the necessary footnote glyphs, nor did it want to make proper superscripts of integers past 3. So, rather than trying to find a new body font (or deal with the headache of using a font solely for superscript notation), I just fudged the formatting some and stuck to asterisks, and restarting "numbering" on each spread. Oh well.

Let's now briefly touch on laying out tables.

It sucks.

My advice is find an example of a really nice looking table and then try and figure out what makes it look nice, and then doing that forever. Luckily, the template saves me again by including multiple examples of tables, ripe for tweaking. Which ended up looking like this;

Nice and clean! Hooray!

Okay, there's a lot of small decisions that goes into making text properly formatted and look nice, but I skipped some of those decisions and didn't go ham on typesetting, but whatever. That all about covers the important parts regarding the text. Now let's talk about art.

Public domain art is your best friend.

I went and trawled through a bunch of art I've saved from the Met's Open Access collection (there's plenty of great open access collections out there, just happened to have some from the Met handy), and settled on this piece;

Which I then dropped into Affinity Photo and played around until I ended up with this;

Nothing too wild, but it Felt Right, so it's done.

I then immediately dropped that onto the cover page, slapped the title on, added a quick border (and also spent some time trying to fix some weird issues that ended up being solved by just rasterizing it, whoops) and bam;

And that's the only art piece used throughout the zine! But I made the most out of it. Between each chapter, I had a single splash page and dropped in different zoomed/cropped versions of the art. Like so (and even on the back cover!);

The original image was high resolution, so zooming in worked, plus the effects/distortions I created hid any imperfections.

So that's the art sorted and the zine finished!

Now, this is getting pretty long, so if there's anything anyone reading this is interested that I didn't touch on, shout in the notes!

[multifunctionalnitroglycerin]

Poe’s Annabel Lee in TLT #1

“Annabel Lee” is the last poem E. A. Poe composed, and arguably one of his most famous ones. It is in many ways, typical of one would consider a Poe poem, featuring thematics such as the death of a beautiful young woman, love, and grief. Thematics and subjects that are ever-present in the tlt book series, and I will do my best to dissect in this post.

With a superficial read of the books, most would garner the rather obvious parallel between John Gaius and Alecto on the one hand, and the hero of the poem and Annabel Lee, on the other. John himself is not particularly mindful or discreet of the analogy he himself creates. And he has no need to, seeing as he is the only one that remembers the world from before. And I think it is terribly beautiful and utterly devastating, in a poetic irony sort of way, that a comparison so obvious as this, a hallmark of American poetry would go completely unnoticed in the new world that John has built in his image, for he is the only one who truly knows, the only one who remembers.

Another more subtle parallel, I feel could be drawn between Gideon and Harrow, and the poem’s heroes. Though, I must admit it is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I might make another post abt that. But for now, let’s dive in the magical world of Annabel Lee, and dissect the poem, bit by bit.

For all our literature geeks out there, I will just point out that the poem is a narrative poem, and it uses a few different rhyme schemes, and meters, with both anapests and iambs being present (Shout out to all the lovely people who are familiar with iambic fifteen-syllable lines and have been haunted by them).

I will now start with a general feeling of the poem before jumping into the details. From the start, Annabel Lee feels like a fairytale, with a hopeful start that alludes to the fairytale opening of Once upon a time… However, as the poem progresses this hopeful emotion slowly devolves to something eerie, ominous, and desperate. Something dark, cynical, and terrifying. And this is where we will draw our first parallel.

The Earth is dying. That much we can garner. There is however a man, that loves her more than anything else. That desperately, with his clumsy, human, imperfect, selfish way wants to save her. And thus, she bestows him with a gift, hoping that he would indeed help. It does make for a nice fairytale start of the story does it not? Unfortunately, however, this is not how it evolves, for John inevitably fails to do what he has been tasked with, despite all his love for her. And he kills her. She is now trapped in a human-like body of John’s design, a body that in its design is proof he could not escape the industrialism he so loathed, and she feels like a monstrosity. And the story only gets worse from then on, with her inevitable banishment in the Tomb for what seems to be an eternal sleep at the behest of John’s Lyctors.

Both takes I feel follow the same pattern of emotional development, regarding both their content of the text and the emotional rollercoaster they inspire in the reader.  

It was many and many a year ago

In a kingdom by the sea

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

by the name of Annabel Lee

10.000 years ago, to be precise, in a water-filled planet called Earth. See that fairytale tone? Also, I would like to point out once more, that saltwater references. Salt water, the sea, Θάλασσα as a source of life and energy is a strong thematic that repeats itself multiple times in Muir’s books, and this is no exception. And the fact that Earth is a planet with a lot of saltwater, and in this instance serve both the kingdom and the personification of the maiden is an apt usage of the theme. Moreover, in these introductory lines, we are immediately presented with what will be the central figure of the poem, Annabel Lee, an alleged maiden. A noun that alludes to a young, beautiful woman. (Alecto is arguably in the form that John gives her, also a beautiful woman, despite the Lyctors finding her monstrous. I am of the opinion that what unsettled them was that Alecto was both too bizarre, too other, too immense to be fully understood and contained within so plain a physical vessel, and way too human to be clearly marked as different and other. One look at John’s creation and they would immediately see that alien strange cavalier, and their closest friends in her quirks and mannerisms, all at once.)

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

than to love and be loved by me

I was a child and she was a child

In this Kingdom by the Sea

I need not point out I feel the thematic of an impossibly powerful love that is introduced in these lines, the desperate love that John harbored for his dying home planet, and the equally desperate love Alecto harbors for the man she thought would save her. Even when he betrays her, one of the things she says to John immediately after he confines her in the human form is I love you. (“What else...” “I love you”, “…You said that too.”) And of course, the notion that they were both “children”, inexperienced with little idea of what they were doing in their despair– most certainly not untrue. A line that heavily points to one of Pyrrha’s most iconic lines in Nona the Ninth “We were children - playing in the reflections of stars in a pool of water... Thinking it was space.” And they were children in comparison to what they are now. Inexperienced and stumbling through their first steps in the chaos that love is.

But we loved with a love that was more than love— 

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven  

Coveted her and me.

Now these lines tie a bit more loosely to tlt. The love that these children so to speak harbor is not any less real because of their youth and inexperience. On the contrary the aftereffects of Alecto’s and John’s love are very much real and rather disastrous for the solar system. And such love, apparently inspired jealously. In the poem in the usually benign and protective guardians that angels are, and in the books, in the Lyctors. And I think that it is at this point that the thematics might or might not deviate from the books. Because one might say, that the Lyctors, that I feel are in these lines represented by the angelical figures, could not possibly be jealous of Alecto, and her relationship with John, could they? They find her monstrous and wrong, a hindrance, so what could they be jealous about? A lot of things, I believe. For we do see in the books the extends of the affections that John harbors for Alecto, even though his little man not responsible for the consequences of his actions, behavior. In the beginning John explains everything to Alecto through his eyes, takes her everywhere, and does not part with her. He harbors this love and kinship for his strange cavalier, or the soul of the Earth that chose him to save her, that it seems to overshadow even the depth of emotion he feels for his Lyctors. For he cares for and loves Augustine and Mercy and Gideon and Cassiopeia, Ulesses and Titania, but I feel that the love he has for them is but a speck in the ocean of the emotional turmoil that Alecto inspires in him. So they cover them for a love they themselves cannot feel.

               And what would you do, how would you feel, if the man you gave everything up for, the man you uprooted your life for, the man you condemned the planet and the billions of lives on it for, barely had eyes for you? If despite all you had done for him and all you did on a daily basis to keep this impossible empire intact, all he ever did was parade his monstrous, weird, wrong, guard dog around? And no matter what you did you could never get rid of her, for she was everywhere, and she was his, and he never could care for you as his friend, as a companion, an advisor, a pillar of the empire, his hand and gesture and manifestation of his will with nearly as much love and devotion he showed her? What if you felt that she was a distraction keeping him from building the empire he was meant to build?  

And this was the reason that, long ago,    In this kingdom by the sea,  A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling    My beautiful Annabel Lee;  So that her highborn kinsman came     And bore her away from me,  To shut her up in a sepulchre    In this kingdom by the sea.   The angels, not half so happy in heaven,    Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,   In this kingdom by the sea)  That the wind came out of the cloud by night,    Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

Given my ramble above I will not expand anymore on how the Lyctors would see Alecto at least as a hindrance to the empire, and at most would loathe her, for despite never having sacrificed as much as they had – in their eyes at least - she had John’s attention, devotion, respect and -frankly obsessive- love. What follows now, is an abrupt change of tone (gone are the fairytale notions) and an allusion to the Tomb, even though we know that John himself put her in there and not the other Lyctors. But we also know that the other Lyctors were on a surface level, the driving force of that decision. He sealed her away to appease them. And at least in John’s little man mentality he could insist that it was for them and their insistence that he sealed her away. And he feels the loss of Alecto, his Annabel Lee. Furthermore, Annabel Lee has been chilled, and while the interpretation in the poem can be a bit vague, we know that Alecto is held in a freezing ice coffin practically. Frozen in time in the subzero temperatures of the Ninth.

 But our love it was stronger by far than the love  

Of those who were older than we—  

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in heaven above, 

 Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

Lyctorhood ala John. Binding your soul to the soul of a planet, to the soul of Earth. It doesn’t get any stronger and up and personal than that. A love and bond that is stronger than all he knows I don’t think there is much of anything anyone can do to sever Alecto’s connection from John. It is presented as one of the big issues in the book. How to kill God when he has bound his life force to a bloody planet, who seems to be rather murderous on the best of days. I quite look forward to seeing how that moves forward. For the hero of our poem, don’t know about John I must admit, seems to be certain nothing can tear their souls apart from each other.

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams 

 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes  

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, 

 In her sepulchre there by the sea, 

 In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The first two lines are pretty familiar, aren’t they? They should be because they are featured in the books. And they point that our hero meets Annabel Lee in his dreams. Aka the whole premise of Nona the Ninth, where Nona dreams of Alecto’s memories. As for the second set of lines, it seems to be an allusion to both John’s original bright  golden eyes and the bottomless black pits of Alecto’s in which the stars never rise. As for the next line, my presumptive butt would like to take it as a bit of a foreshadowing. And a symbol. Yes, it does bring to mind John’s ascension in a sense with the lying on the ground theme, but the imagery here is much more serene, peaceful. So, I would like to believe it alludes to the end, where John will finally find peace and will lie besides Alecto for what could be their final rest. I do not remember if he lay beside her every night before, so correct me if I am wrong. But I would find it awfully poetic for them to do that as they set off Resurrection Vol2 or they reverse what they have done. And the last lines again allude to the Tomb and the sea. So, a random crazy idea is that they would both lie together in the Tomb and reset everything. And that the Tomb, their place of final rest or not, will be surrounded by water, so I have this crazy imagery that perhaps the Tomb containing Alecto’s and John’s lifeforce will be the center, the core, of the new planet that would resemble earth. And thus, an ocean shall rise surrounding the two, and they will eternally lay beside each other in the depths of a planet surrounded by saltwater.

All in all, both stories are stories of love in its all-consuming nature, that can be romantic and all encompassing, or take a darker turn and become obsessive and destructive. Of Love that can transcend the mortal realm and alter the laws of the world as we know it, inspiring dark feelings in what should be benevolent characters. And still that love transcends the obstacles that are set, for better or worse. Is it really as beautiful as it appears? The stories also are stories of grief and loss that defines the one that gets left behind, grief that attaches itself to the person and doesn’t let go, overpowering sense and sensibility. That becomes the past present and future of our hero. That has no outlet and suffocates its bearer. (We have seen John’s darker days, where he is drunk and barely functional.)

Okay it is probably way too late, and I am way too tired, but it makes sense in my head. Next part of this one we will be analyzing possible comparisons between this lovely poem and Gideon and Harrow’s relationship.  

Take care of yourselves.

[wip]

Hello! Would you ever consider bringing back different post types, especially audio? I appreciate that audio posts now display the artist, song title, and album name, but unfortunately newer audio posts don’t play in Tumblr-based music players like egoisticalgoat.de or robinpx.github.io/boombox because they’re read as text posts. Thank you for reading!

Answer: Hey there, @stepintomusic!

Sadly, the answer here is no. We’ve been moving away from legacy post types and towards the Neue Post Format—a format that allows multiple types of media in the same post—for many years. The new features available in NPF basically guarantee that we won’t ever switch back to the legacy format.

(If you’re interested in peeking behind the scenes here, there are a few posts about NPF over at @engineering.)

Now, to get into the meat of the issue. While it would be amazing if we could support every third-party tool forever, the reality is that we can’t. We’re a surprisingly small team to begin with, and even if we weren’t, that support would come at a cost.

To start, there’s the development tax. Now, would it have been cool to ensure all third-party tools (and all custom themes) worked 100% perfectly with posts stored as NPF before releasing NPF to the public? Yeah, it would have been… for third-party tools and custom themes. For us, it would have meant delaying NPF (and all the features it brings with it) for months, possibly years. Imagine a 2023 where Tumblr still doesn’t have polls: that’s the alternate future we’re talking about here.

And then, there’s our maintenance tax. The engine that powers Tumblr themes is already incredibly complicated—complicated to the point that we’re already finding it difficult to maintain and add things like, as you mentioned, NPF audio metadata. If, every time we found some third-party tool that doesn’t play nice with the latest changes, we tried to make an affordance for it… the engine would just become even more complex. And it would do so quickly, and complex to the point of being impossible to keep up with as a maintainer.

There’s a great article here by a former Mozilla developer about the pitfalls of prioritizing a third-party ecosystem over your own software. Did you know that Firefox was essentially a single-threaded application until 2018? This meant it would still visually lock up when saving files to disk, or collecting crash data. Chrome launched in 2008 and was multiprocess from the start. But it took Firefox ten years to catch up because supporting all existing third-party add-ons was seen as necessary. (Spoiler alert: in the end, they had to drop support for those add-ons anyway.)

My own recommendation around third-party software like this is: get in contact with its developer! If something in their software isn’t working, there’s nobody more qualified to update it. (Or, if they’ve abandoned the project but had made it open-source, maybe someone else could step up to maintain it. Maybe you! You never know until you try.)

I talked about the maintenance tax from the first-party side, but let’s talk about it from the third-party side, too. As a theme author and add-on developer myself, I have long accepted that the cost of maintaining these things can never be zero. When your software interacts with an online service, and that online service is being actively maintained, your software also needs to be maintained.

I hope all this has been enlightening! Thanks for your question, and please, have a great day.

—April

[applesauce42069]

Genuinely talk about cultural christianity, while I 100% acknowledge that I'm one there are still different forms of it like for example I was raised as a catholic in Latin America so lots of our traditions are very different from other cristians because they were mixed with the native population traditions and I do like those traditions because they are part of our cultural identity. I acknowledge the colonial source of them and I now all the christian denominations are build in antisemitism but those traditions are rooted so deep into me I don't think I will ever not be a cultural catholic.

Hello. My girlfriend was raised Catholic in Brazil, and her family is Catholic. I've learned how much Catholicism has influenced Brazilian culture and learned a lot about the traditions and I think it's so cool!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being culturally Christian. It is completely neutral. and Christianity has definitely had a massive impact on a wide variety of beautiful and interesting cultures.

Christianity is built on supersessionism and that sucks! At the same time, that doesn't mean that every Christian is bad or that Christianity needs to be destroyed. What would be nice if:

more people recognized that Cultural Christianity is a thing

many people deny this, especially in North America, because Christianity and its traditions are SO "neutral" to people. then, when we try to describe our experiences in the society we live in, to describe our oppression, they shut us down because in their mind: if they don't go to church, they have nothing to do with christianity. but the reality is that religion is so deeply ingrained in our cultures.

2. more christians recognized that supersessionism is a problem and learned to recognize Jews as worth of respect, not for any reason but that we're human and we deserve to be respected and considered in our own right

it would also be nice if more christians recognized that some of their texts are literally just appropriated. but i feel like that creates a deeper theological problem, idk.

my point is: cultural christianity isn't bad. it just is. but people have to decide how they are going to approach this dimension of privilege that most don't even recognize yet.

[dailydemonspotlight]

I'm so so so in love with the content you make on this blog, thank you so much for all the effort you put into researching each demon!

Is it possibile to ask for some insights on muu shuwuu?

Have a nice day!

Muu Shuwuu - Day 85

Race: Raptor

Arcana: Temperance

Alignment: Dark-Law

August 2nd, 2024

The obscurity of several demons throughout the SMT series isn't often a point of contention- most demons, barring a few (cough, cough, Arahabaki,) have rather open-and-shut cases, and their origins are easily able to be traced, as are their stories. However, sometimes, it's not that easy, and sometimes the source mythology itself is so obscure it's hard to get a grasp on. We've already seen this with poor ol' Porewit, but another case of this lies in the somewhat off-kilter religion of Tengrism, and, more specifically, a rather bizarre spirit from said religion. Today's Demon of the Day is that creature, one created out of a dead woman who never got to experience love, Muu Shuwuu.

Sources and stories relating to this demon are scant, even for this series- as an obscure monster from an already obscure religion, Mu Shuvuu (also referred to as Moh Shuvuu, Maγu Sibaγu, Moshobo, or Muu Shubuu in several different sources) is a tough nut to crack. Almost all sources about this bird are in different languages, whether it be Japanese, German, or Russian, and as such it'll be hard to get direct quotes for a lot of sources. Given the hellish mixture of a lack of primary/secondary sources, Google Translate having to try its damndest to translate the few articles I can track down, but I've managed to get a general idea of what it's going for thanks to the Internet Archive.

Mentioned within the text 'Demonology, Ritual Principles, and Worship Grimoires,' Muu Shuvuu makes an appearance concretely in English. Thank YHVH. In the text, the Tengri demonness appears listed as an example of an evil spirit from another culture. Her name literally meaning 'evil bird,' the spirit is noted as being dangerous to entire groups of people, though especially so to lonesome travelers or those with soft hearts. Appearing as a kind, lonely young girl, she'd always be hiding her mouth out of fear of revealing her beak...

According to the text, Mongolian principles state that a person has two or three types of souls within them, and Moh Shuvuu is made up of that third kind of soul- the type that can form into a spirit after death. A Muu Shuwuu specifically seems to form from a combination of factors, namely being a young girl who either died without ever experiencing love, died and had their father place a flint into her hand posthumously, or experienced a violent death. This would eventually lead to their spirit growing restless and rising from their corpse, forming into, what else, but a Muu Shuwuu itself. The bird would then go around seeking vengeance for its lack of love, proceeding to seduce men who would approach, or pretend to be a lost little girl in order to get the man to let his guard down. Then, after bringing the man to a safe location, she would proceed to kill him and suck his brain out of his head with her sharp beak. Again, a lot of this is hard to prove confidently, given that I'm mostly working off of wikipedia articles and spotty translations- most sources are exclusively either Japanese or use Cyrillic, which I can't translate due to not having a keyboard for either alphabet- but for the most part, I can glean that she sucks out the brain for sustenance.

I think, and this is based mostly off of speculation from the articles referenced above, that Muu Shuwuu actually isn't a mix of a bird and girl like in SMT- no, apparently she is able to shift between the two forms, the young girl's form being a disguise so she can then slaughter the man later on as a bird. This seems to make Muu Shuwuu less of a harpy and more of, well, a bird! That aside, though, I do have to admit that the design in SMT works very well- to an extent, this is what I wish Hua Po actually looked like, given the bird theming throughout her original story, but I might be asking for a bit much here. Still, if any of you can find any further sources on this demon, I'd happily take them, as I'm not quite satisfied with this simple of a rundown. Regardless, though, I have to thank SMT for making a demon from such an obscure concept, even if that would eventually down the line lead me to a strange, bottomless spiral of research.

Tengrism is fucking weird, man.

[that-ari-blogger]

Win, Lose, Take, Fail (Remember)

Discussion of stories and historical research are very similar practices. A ton of history is source based, and is, in a very real way, media analysis. A historian will look at a text written centuries ago and deduce not only linguistics, but also the themes prevalent in the day-to-day life.

I will eternally be impressed by some of the ideas that people find written between the lines of even the most well known about pieces, and its humbling to know that the stories that we tell in the modern day might be time capsules in their own right.

If you’d indulge me for a moment, I would like to briefly address those future historians who may be reading this: Coral reefs are magical, you guys really missed out on that, sorry.

Anyway, this is a post about She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, so what am I going on about?

Well, there are a few sources in both media analysis and historical reconstruction that are more valuable than an almost objective source. I say almost, because every narrator is biased, and that impacts even what they decide to include. No source is perfect.

So what about a think piece that lays out its biases for your convenience? How about a look directly into the mind of your characters to see what they perceive about the world and what they wish it could be? How interesting would that be?

This intro is getting a bit long.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Stray Gods: The Role Playing Musical)

My analysis of this episode can be summed up in one sentence. Catra’s worldview and desires are fundamentally opposed to her reality, and so when she forces the real world to fit it, things fall apart.

This is nice and all, but it fails to take into account the nuance of her perspective, and the fallacies inherent in this desire. But its also important to understand that this is where Catra’s redemption arc fails, or… where this redemption arc fails.

In my eyes, Catra has two main redemption arcs, one that stops in this episode, and one that starts up at the start of the next season. If you want to be granular, she has about a hundred different attempts, but that’s needlessly specific and way to close to exactly what I do on this blog for comfort.

But I think its easier for the purposes of analysis to divide Catra’s journey in two and discuss why the first fails and what the second would have to do to succeed.

Starting with something that threw me for a while. Catra isn’t conscious of this different world, at least not until the end of the episode. Which is a brutal trauma response. Catra doesn’t want to succeed in the life that gets better, she doesn’t care for healing, she wants to forget. Catra will burn the world down to keep a blindfold on and leave her memories behind. Blissful ignorance.

Let’s talk about Stray Gods: The Role Playing Musical.

Stray Gods is a Greek mythology, murder mystery, musical, video game, and conveniently, I have a series about it on this blog. (Link)

A slight quirk of Stray Gods is that the online argument I have seen about it has mostly focused on picking the second best song in the set list, because the most powerful is so obvious its almost funny.

Read my analysis of The Ritual for more information, but briefly, Aphrodite is a trauma survivor who repeatedly subjects herself to a form of amnesia in order to forget the horror she has experienced. Ring any bells?

Instead of trying to get better, Aphrodite slaps a band aid on the wound and tries to ignore it. This might help her eventually, but it directly harms those closest to her.

“Mother, I’ve stood by your side, now I no longer see, the purpose of love, when it tears at the centre of me. My arrows are rusty, forget the bow, and I won’t be begging you not to go, but when you’re away, you leave us a broken home, and you leave me alone. Lost in a moment, lost in a song.”

That was Eros singing. Cupid, the one with the arrows of love. This is someone who’s life has been wrecked by his mother’s trauma. Not in the same way as Catra lashing out at Adora, but with similar effects.

Both characters have tried to apply a quick and easy solution to a more difficult to solve problem, and the side effects of that are what perpetuate this cycle of trauma.

Hey, look at that, it’s the theme of cycles again. It’s almost as if I have a point here.

I could go on for hours about this one song, and I have, three times on this blog for a start, but I know I’ve annoyed people in my life with this obsession. But, I want this post to be vaguely on time, so I have to move on.

Before I do, though, the trauma in the idols (gods but fancier) of this story has a little quirk in its realisation that matches with Catra, linguistics of trust.

None of the idols in this musical use the word “friend” at all. Well, that’s not true, Pan says it once in a mocking way, but nobody uses in earnest. This exhibits itself more noticeably in The Ritual, where Aphrodite specifically says the following:

“He struck a deal with our enemy’s enemy.”

These characters can only conceptualise the world in terms of give and take, and of relationships in terms of allies or enemies.

Catra, meanwhile, can’t conceptualise the world in anything other than win, lose, take, and fail. Her ability to trust has been eroded so much that she will destroy the world to obtain something that has been attributed value for her.

That’s why she willingly forgets things, and its why her revelation is heartbreaking. Catra thinks the only way she can trust again is if she loses the memory of betrayal, but that’s not exactly how it works.

The moment in which Shadow Weaver is nice to Catra is a demonstration of why I don’t think genre exists. This is a comedic moment, right? It’s got the build-up, you think it’s going one way, then it undercuts itself with the unexpected. So why is it so devoid of humour?

Because the reaction of everyone in this, including the audience, is one of fear, and serves to validate the fact that Shadow Weaver is abusive. Even if someone is being kind in the moment, if you automatically flinch in their presence, there is a history there that you can’t escape from.

Catra doesn’t know why she is scared of Shadow Weaver here, she can only remember the good times, but the PTSD from her mother figure’s actions runs deeper than surface memory. It’s a wound that still hurts, even if you look away from it or cover it up.

This is actually why things keep breaking in this reality. The whole thing is based off people ignoring specific details. It’s centred on complacency, but it doesn’t understand its characters.

Which is where the hamartia and all of those complicated terms come in. Essentially, Catra wants to keep Adora with her, but part of Adora is the strengths and flaws that lead to her leaving Catra.

Adora is fundamentally kind, but she’s also an incredibly quick thinker. This doesn’t always lead her to the most reasonable solutions, but it means she can almost immediately recognise that things are wrong. In this case, the fact that people keep saying everything is perfect, and nobody says that this much unless they are hiding something. So, Adora looks inwards, and notices holes in her memory, glimpsing beyond and getting those flashes.

The world reacts in a similar way, things exist contrary to their nature, and collapse in on themselves. This world is a paradox, the story has turned cannibalistic and is eating itself alive. It can’t be supported by the fallacies that hold it together.

Those fallacies in question, are Catra’s desires, and now I get to talk about how the first arc ended up here. Because we can all agree, if a character’s developmental trajectory ends up with them willingly destroying the world out of spite, things haven’t gone so well.

Catra has been trying to achieve her own autonomy from the trauma and abuse that coloured her upbringing and guided her actions in the Horde. But she hasn’t been confronting how this has actually affected her biases. The band aid solution comes back, but here it takes the form of those four words. Win, lose, take, fail.

“I won’t let you win. I’d rather see the whole world end than let that happen.”

Things can only be one of these four things, everything is exclusionary. Catra either loses or wins, she either takes or is taken from. She can’t fail or bad things will happen.

But let me let you in on a secret. I don’t know why I’m talking directly to a fictional character here, but oh well. Life is about the moment, rather than the value you put on it. You don’t have to take, you can share, or be given. You don’t have to fear failure, because there are people in your life who care about you no matter what.

Also, this is entirely my opinion speaking, but I think I’m right here. You’re in a war story, there are no winners or losers in war. There are just survivors, profiteers, and poets.

Back to the line above, in searching through the transcript, I found that the word “won’t” is used thrice in this episode. It’s a word of commitment and resolution. It’s not vague, or noncommittal, it’s a promise, and it's used in the above line, but also earlier on, once by Scorpia, and once by Adora.

“If you get us out of this, I promise I won’t hate you. I will just dislike you a reasonable amount.” “I won’t leave you behind again.”

Characters resolving to be better. Scorpia deciding to improve upon a relationship, and Adora making it abundantly clear that she has no intention of repeating her mistake.

But Catra is falling back, she won’t lose, she can’t fail, att least in her mind. And its that promise that destroys the world that she wants. Catra wants happiness, but its her own need for the four words above that break it. Catra is self-destructive, not necessarily in a direct way, but in a sense that she is sabotaging her own happiness.

So, what would a redemption arc for Catra have to look like?

Well, she would have to learn to shift up her values a lot. She would have to be in a place where she can accept friendship in a controlled environment. Maybe just a friend who is willing to offer a hand of kindness.

She might also need a way to let out her emotions in a healthy way. Maybe a declaration of love, but that would be a little too on the nose for this story’s patterns. So I’m picturing a creature with some kind of emotional connection to her. Maybe it changes colour or something.

Also, Shadow Weaver needs to exit the story permanently. I don’t think she needs to die, I don’t believe in retributive justice, but she needs to be banished in some capacity. Shadow Weaver needs to go.

Now, I know how much of what I have said will come true, and if you have seen this show to the end, you probably do as well. But if you haven’t, leave your thoughts in the replies. How do you see a redemption arc for Catra working?

Ok, before I go, I need to discuss Madam Razz, because there is so much going on in her scenes.

Starting with, why is she here?

I don’t actually know the answer to that, and its one of my problems with the episode. She’s there because Adora needed a mentour and because the episode needed some levity, but why is she there in story?

“It’s been such a long time since we last saw each other, hasn’t it? That or it hasn’t happened yet. I always get those two things mixed up.”

You wanna say that again? Time is funky in this world, I guess So maybe she’s being generic?

“Because this has all happened before! I remember it like it was yesterday. For Madame Razz, it was yesterday.”

Nope, Razz is just displaced from time. That’s fun, but there is more to this line.

Madam Razz is a phenomenally well written character, purely because of the masterclass of tone. At no point is Razz either serious or humorous, she is both always. Razz is approachable morality, a la Philosophy Tube, but I’m sorry @theabigailthorn, you ain’t got nothing on Razz.

In one interaction, Razz explains the thesis of the entire show. That abuse and trauma are cycles, and that the only way to stop them is by confronting the trauma itself. Start at the beginning.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has some of the best single lines ever written for television, and Madam Razz gets them all.

There is one moment in the finale of the series that is a perfect example of what I mean. I’m avoiding spoilers for too far ahead, but if you know, you know.

Final Thoughts

This episode is such a well-made examination of Catra’s psychology and her lack of sanity. Catra doesn’t see the world the way it is, and what she wants is incompatible with how she wants it. She needs to work out what she needs and then go from there.

I actually think that this episode does something interesting by making Catra unredeemable. She fails, she had her chance, and she didn’t take it. Her attempt to connect with Adora involves physical abuse. Catra is irredeemable.

But this isn’t the last of the redemption arc, is it? Catra will try again and again, chance after chance, and gradually improve. The failures only serve to make the success hit harder. Catra’s life is a Dark Souls boss, essentially.

I often feel like the people who declare Catra's redemption as unsalvageable haven't got past this season, and don't take into account that she gets better, and I don't fault them for that. No show is for everyone, and what you do or don't find interesting in media says a lot less about you than how you express your like or dislike.

Anyway, next week, I will be examining The Portal and my thoughts on this season as a whole. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[elmaxlys]

could you look at the translation differences for "It's better to be hurt than to hurt people?" it's kind of basic, but i've always found it to be a heavy line, though imo it sounds kind of awkward and clunky in english

Good old classic!

After googling for hours I could not find a single source for that phrasing. Even when I checked the anime, the subs I got were (albeit extremely similar) not a word for word of this infamous quote that gets reposted along with extremely wrong quotes like "why should I apologize for being a monster". The dub is different as well - and the manga is another beast entirely.

For the sake of context - as it explains the phrasing - I kept the lines around it. When it comes to the manga, I took the entirety of what Mrs Kaneki says in that first page of ch61. As for the anime, I also grabbed the two lines that come before, spoken by Mrs Kaneki, as they're what comes in the middle of the two famous sentences in the manga, but right before in the anime.

Here are the different phrasings I found:

The Repost: It's better to be hurt than to hurt people. Nice people can be happy with just that.

The line in the manga:

Viz Media: Be somebody who knows pain instead of somebody who hurts others. You don't need to be rewarded if you have love and kindness in your heart, Ken. That's all kind people need to be happy.

Twisted Hel Scans: Instead of a person who hurts others, become the person who gets hurt. It is okay if you lose because of your love and kindness, Ken. A kind person only needs those things in order to be happy.

Leo Scans: Rather than a person who hurts others, become the person getting hurt. It's all right to lose out with love and warm feelings, Ken. A kind person finds happiness in just that.

Glénat: Au lieu de blesser ton prochain, essaie plutôt de comprendre sa douleur. Tu auras tout gagné si tu fais preuve d'amour et de gentillesse, Ken... même si cela semble aller contre tes intérêts. Car à elle seule, la gentillesse permet de connaître le bonheur. (Rather than harming your neighbour, try to understand their pain instead. You will have won everything if you show love and kindness, Ken... even if it seems to go against your own interests. Because kindness on its own makes you able to know happiness.)

The line in the anime:

English subs: (Mrs Kaneki) Ken, it's okay to feel loss. Nice boys like you can be happy with just that. (Ken) It's better to be hurt than hurt others. People who are nice can he happy with just that.

English dub: (Mrs Kaneki) Ken, it's okay to feel sadness from loss. As long as you remember to stay kind, you'll find joy again. (Ken) It's far better to feel pain yourself than to inflict it on others. As long as you remain kind, you will find joy again.

French subs: (Mme Kaneki) Ken, tu peux être perdant. Les gens gentils sont heureux comme ça. (Ken) Il vaut mieux être blessé que blessant. Les gens gentils sont heureux comme ça. (Ken, you can lose. Nice people are happy that way. || Being hurt is better than being hurtful. Nice people are happy that way.)

French dub: (Mme Kaneki) Ken, ce n'est pas grave de perdre. Les garçons gentils comme toi peuvent vivre avec et être heureux. (Ken) Il vaut bien mieux être le blessé que celui qui blesse. Les gens gentils l'acceptent et sont heureux comme ça. (Ken, losing is not a big deal. Nice boys like you can live with that and be happy. || It's way better to be the hurt one than the one who hurts. Nice people accept that and are happy that way.)

So as you could see, they all talk about loss, pain and their relation to happiness - but they do so in different ways. Sometimes the change is subtle, sometimes it's glaringly obvious and makes you wonder if they're translating the same text (looking at Glénat).

To hurt, or not to hurt, that is the question:

This is the main point. What drove Mrs Kaneki to overwork herself, what pushed Ken to accept abuse from her and everyone else. What if he hurts their feelings if he speaks up? Better to shut up and endure. Again. And again. Until he can't anymore (Shironeki). Until it's back (Haise). Until he can't anymore (Black Reaper). Until it's back (Kingneki). Until he can't anymore (Dragon). Until he doesn't care anymore.

The panel will be relevant in the analysis, you'll see! Because both this quote and this panel fuel my understanding of Kaneki's character journey: freeing himself from motherly teachings (all mothers)

[readmore because what the fuck did this become holy shit]

The repost, "It's better to be hurt than to hurt people.", is concise and straight to the point. This is, after all, what makes the best repostable quotes as they're easy to remember. I am unsure where this phrasing began but it's no wonder it's the one that took off and remains in the collective mind The Quote associated with Kaneki (other than made up quotes RIP). This conciseness is probably what makes it come across as clunky: no space for weaving words into something pretty. I want to say it's boring but there are the opposition between the passive and active voice and the comparative that are worth looking into.

For people who don't know anything about grammar or don't have that stuff in their language, in the active voice the subject acts the verb, while in the passive voice the subject undergoes the action of the verb. When transposing a line from active to passive, the subject of the passive is the object of the active.

Example: Donato kills children. -> active voice. Subject: Donato. Object: children. VS Children are killed by Donato. -> passive voice. Subject: the children. Donato? the agent (aka the one who actually does the action of the verb)

You get it? Now let's go back to our sheep goats:

What this sentence says is that, above the verb of "hurt", it's more advantageous to be passive in your own life. Action incurs risks beyond your direct control - but by being passive, you know exactly what's coming at any time.

The comparative is interesting too. It's better. It's a comparative of superiority. There are three forms of comparative: superiority, inferiority and equality. Here, equality wouldn't work anyway as a hierarchy is established between the action and the passivity. But what's interesting about the use of the comparative of superiority here is that it puts passivity on a pedestal, lifts it above the action. It paints it as good. And more than good, better. With a comparative of inferiority, "it's worse to hurt than being hurt", it says that both actions are bad but one is clearly under the other and therefore you should prioritize the 2nd, aka being hurt. It would acknowledge the bad parts of the passivity while saying that there are more bad parts in the other option so better choose that one. Here, it goes the other way around. Being hurt is pushed onto the reader and Kaneki, it's not a reluctant choice by deduction of what's the least bad option here.

Kaneki has no choice here. He didn't even actively choose passivity, it was pushed onto him: that's saying how passive he is.

I'm gonna jump straight at the English subs. Why? Because the phrasing is very, very similar. Probably where the quote originates. As a reminder, "It's better to be hurt than hurt others." What differences? 1) no "to" in front of hurt -> I admit I do not know enough about English grammar to comment this, but I'll still comment the effect it has aurally. 2) "others" and not "people".

Let's start with the first difference. I said I'd comment on the sounds so here goes: "to" is a word comprised of two letters, one vowel and one consonant. That consonant is "t", which is an occlusive (or plosive). An occlusive is a sudden, more or less brutal sound, that cannot be maintained. As a result, it sounds harsh. Consonants work by two: one voiced (using vocal cords), one voiceless (without using vocal cords). Voiceless consonants tend to sound harsher. Compare g and k. Compare t and d. Compare b and p. These are the plosives. K, T and P sound harsher. So let's look at the sentences. I'll put the plosives in red. Repost: It's better to be hurt than to hurt people. EN subs: It's better to be hurt than hurt others.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Removing a "to" and swapping "people" for "others" removes a brutal aspect. And see in what part of the sentence it happens? In the part about not being the one to hurt. Even the language adapts to that. Beautiful.

That overabundance of plosive in the repost probably contribute to the clunky feeling but can also be seen as alliteration to represent the hurt, like it definitely in the subs version, since they disappear when we move from the self onto others.

Speaking of which, what about "others"? The way I perceive it, "others" puts a distance between the enunciator and whom they're talking about, while "people" is just completely general. You mustn't hurt people: don't hurt anyone. You mustn't hurt others: don't hurt people who are not you. So of course, on top of going well with the softening of the sounds, it enhances the message wonderfully. It's okay to be hurt but people who aren't you better not be, you hear me? Don't retaliate.

Additionally, I can't help but think, when I seen "than to hurt people", about what Kaneki says when fighting Furuta: he'll save people, and ghouls too. In which case, people means humans - and that'd go for the repost as well. After all, Kaneki never had much trouble decimating ghouls!

Now we're moving onto... The French subs! as a reminder, "Il vaut mieux être blessé que blessant", aka "It's better to be hurt than hurting." We're starting with a complaint about the English language because hurt can both mean something and its opposite. For real this TG sentence could be "it's better to hurt than to hurt" and I hate that I love that it's a possibility. Language is amazing. Parenthesis closed, let's move on. The first part can be analyzed the same as before with the comparison. But there is more and there are subtleties that make my brain sparkle tho so let's dig!

Literally, "valoir" (conjugated here as "vaut") means being worth. We use it with the impersonal and comparative to mean basically the same thing as "it's better" but the literal translation of "it's better" is "c'est mieux". "ce" -> neutral demonstrative, "est" -> is, "mieux" -> comparative of superiority of bien (good). So why use "valoir", here? Because, unlike "c'est" which comes across as objective, "il vaut" introduces subjectivity. It is worth for the person talking.

Now onto my favorite part of that sentence: the polyptoton!! For people who don't know it's the repetition of the same word root but with a different ending/form/nature. Here? "blessé" and "blessant". They are both forms of the verb "blesser", which means "to hurt" (as in "inflict harm" and not "suffer"). Both are in the participle form: blessé is the past participle and blessant is the present participle. Used with the verbe être (be), they are verbal adjectives (basically adjectives but coming from a verb). And as verbal adjectives, the past participle expresses the action as passive while the present participle expresses the action as active. We already talked about the active and passive so it's the same thing here as before, really, but with a wonderful aural addition, the polyptoton.

Did you notice something with the French subs? There's no object to that second "hurt", blessant. Unlike with the conjugated verb blesser which takes a direct object, here, a complement would have to be introduced with "envers" (toward). There is none. The sentence ends here. So what effect does that have on our sentence? It makes it general. In general, it's worth more being hurt than hurting. No exception. No precision. It sounds like a proverb (which the polyptoton really helps btw lol).

Now that the anime subs are out of the way, let's look at... the anime dubs! French dub first because it's very similar to the subs. "Il vaut bien mieux être le blessé que celui qui blesse." So what differences? 1) the intensive adverb "bien"! 2) substantivated past participle 3) relative clause as a circumlocution of sorts.

We'll start with the intensive adverb "bien". Bien can mean a variety of things and can even be various natures. Most of the time, as an adverb, it tends to express the manner, and as such it can be translated as "well". But here, it's an intensive. It reinforces the adjective that follows it and can be translated by "far", "much" or "way" when followed by a comparative like is the case here (and as "very" when a positive, if you're curious). This sentence is strong. Not only does it use the verb valoir and its subjective lense but also it accentuates it with the intensive. We're not in the proverb category anymore, we're in the moral lessons.

Now for the next change. Remember past participle of blesser? "blessé"? Can be used as adjective and therefore becomes "verbal adjective"? Well this bad boy can also become a noun. This procedure is named substantiviation. It serves to designate a general category of people doing or undergoing the action of the verb. "le blessé" therefore means "the one who is hurt". Now why use that? See, with the definite article, we're reducing the range, we're saying there's only one. We know the conflict we're talking about, we know the kind of person we're talking about. It's no longer a state you're in at that precise moment like with the adjective: no, the noun reduces you to that specific state of being. If you are "le blessé", there's no getting out of that label. You are hurt and you forever will be because it is now your core qualificative.

This is particularly interesting when paired with what comes right after: the relative clause to designate "the one who hurts". A relative clause can be either descriptive or defining: here is clearly the second. But while it does put a label on "celui" (the one), it is not inescapable like a substantive, this is - albeit a defining one - an add on to who you are. You can stop hurting other people, but you can't stop being hurt by others.

This is interesting because "celui qui blesse" and "le blessé", both singular, one substantive, the other demonstrative pronoun, create a dichotomy, but the relative clause can make you question the legitimacy of this dichotomy.

Now, are you getting tired of the passive VS active opposition? Fear not, the English dub doesn't use that! "It's far better to feel pain yourself than to inflict it on others." Two active verbs, we love to see it!

We still find the usual comparative of superiority with the intensive "far", nothing new, so I'll be fast: comparative of superiority paints the action as positive, pushes it onto the viewer, doesn't acknowledge its negative aspects. The intensive pushes that three notches upward and basically paints it as the only viable option, pushing the sentence into the "moral lessons" category.

Okay now let's look at the novelty! "feel pain". There's nothing passive about this. Sure, it's not an "action" as we would ordinarily describe it but the voice isn't passive and that's important. You cannot "be hurt" without an outside force, that's the nature of the passive voice. Here, feelings can happen on its own. It is not necessarily something caused by outside factors, it can be sadness, it can be sickness, it can be twisting your ankle, it doesn't matter anyway: what's important is the resulting action: feeling.

Feeling is something personal, subjective. You can't physically share your feelings. Every individual will feel differently. Dumb example but I'm thinking about the "menstrual cramps simulators" where people who were used to them were like "whatever" while others were writhing on the floor in agony. This idea is reinforced with the pronoun "yourself".

Here's what's fun about "yourself": it implies that the pain you would have inflicted onto others is now inflicted on you and if you don't feel the pain yourself it gets thrown onto others, and not necessarily the people who've cause you this hurt (aka vengeance), no we're looking at the cycle of violence here.

And while "feeling" is a pretty neutral verb, "inflict" is very much not! It's not even trying to be subtle, especially paired with the comparative etc we talked about before. This is a strong sentence, every bit of itself reinforcing the others, this sentence is unshakable, I love it in its structure and the implications are lovely when it comes to characterization: if Mrs Kaneki isn't hurting, it's her sister who is - and the pain she gives Ken is her failure to feel that pain herself. It's the cog of the vicious circle expressed wonderfully in this sentence.

We're now done with the anime, which is the way most people saying that sentence experienced Tokyo Ghoul. But what about the original? By original I mean manga - and not Japanese, that I haven't learnt in the time between starting this post and writing these words.

We're starting with my favorite scan group: Twisted Hel Scans. Here is what they write: "Instead of a person who hurts others, become the person who gets hurt." Boom, we're entering something entirely new and all the manga translations follow that: "instead of/rather than" and not a comparative of superiority. Did the anime not use the line from the manga? I wonder. But this is not our topic. We're discussing the impact of each of them.

What does "instead" bring that the comparative doesn't and vice-versa? "instead" acknowledge the other option. It's redirecting. It sees the path laid in front and says "hey look at that other path over there". It's guiding but not forceful. It gives you a choice by putting the two options on the same level. No moral value put on one or the other.

It's guiding in the sense that it uses an imperative. "Instead" brings to the imperative the notion of tip or counsel, and not an order, especially when we look at the verb used. It's not a random imperative, no! It's "become". It's a stative verb, not an action. It's a change of being. You have the choice to change or not. You currently are either "a person who hurts others" or at the crossroads to decide which one you get to be.

Now here's what I love with this translation: the articles. "a person who hurts others", "the person who gets hurt". There are countless people hurting others, they are faceless, indefinite, we don't care. But there is only one person getting hurt. Implied here is the people who hurt inflict that hurt on The Person. Everyone is hurting the same person, who then becomes the victim, the recipient of everyone else's violence, like a scapegoat. Someone will have to suffer anyway: choose on what side of that suffering you want to be.

Leo Scans says almost the same thing: "Rather than a person who hurts others, become the person getting hurt." The differences are "rather than" and the gerund instead of the relative clause. As far as I could search I couldn't find any difference in meaning between the relative and participial clauses in such cases so that's that.

However, unlike THS, Leo says "rather than" and not "instead of". As I said, "instead" offers you the choice to change - "rather", on the other hand, expresses an opinion, and even more than that: a preference. Indeed, as you can see from the -er suffix, rather is originally a comparative. And what did we say about the comparative? That's right. Subjective. It doesn't behave like "better" we saw earlier, though. In fact, it does the opposite: it pushes one option down, puts it in negative light before elevating the other. Leo phrasing has contempt for the people who hurt others while THS phrasing sounds more neutral.

Are you ready for the official translations? I'm starting with Viz Media because Glénat is pretty different from all the translations until now. Viz Media's phrasing was as follow "Be somebody who knows pain instead of somebody who hurts others." Aah~ do you see it? Difference.

Starting with the first word, because that's how sentences work: "be"! Wonderful, wonderful "be"! Imperative! Stative verb! But not one that expresses a change, like "become" we saw earlier, no! no, it's the OG. It doesn't accept a previous state of being nor a state of becoming, no. This imperative is doesn't call for growth or change, it calls to be. Static, unchanging. Definite.

This time, no substantivation, no article: only indefinite pronoun + relative clause, both times. No difference of treatment grammatically between the two options. Both options are equally represented: there's no power imbalance, no change of meaning hinging on the smallest word, no. The frequency of both parts is the same. The parallel construction is gorgeous and the balance is completed with the somewhat neutral "instead of": giving a hint, maybe already placing you in the other basket and telling you to get out, but placing no preference grammatically.

Another big change is "knows pain" and not "gets hurt" and variations. This one is no passive action: on the contrary it's a call to reflection and knowledge, an invitation. Is the knowledge physical as implied in all the other phrasings we've encountered? Is it an academic kind of knowledge as Mrs Kaneki cultivates her son's love for reading? Is it a matter of empathy?

While Viz lets us ponder the meaning of that "know", Glénat is definite in its answer: "Au lieu de blesser ton prochain, essaie plutôt de comprendre sa douleur."

We immediately focus on the second part of the sentence "comprendre sa douleur" (understand [your neighbor]'s pain) because that's what we stopped on the previous one. Glénat doesn't give Mrs Kaneki the benefit of the doubt: it makes her completely reasonable. She insists on empathy. She doesn't mean "oh yeah go be bullied no problem", she says to try to understand people, what makes them the way they are, what is hurting them to cause them to act that way - and so Ken understands his mother's pain and therefore understands why she's so violent with him. This one is not a call to passivity at all. Interestingly, it doesn't actually say anything about action.

"au lieu de" is "instead" pretty much word for word, but it's paired with "plutôt" which is "rather" pretty much word for word again. So there is an insistance on the imperative.. And what does that imperative say? "be"? "become"? No. Not a stative verb this time. No passive either. We have "try". This is important as it allows failure. You can't always understand people who hurt you and that's okay but you should always try to understand what hurt them. Active and, I want to say, way more difficult than the passivity the other ones called for.

Then there's "ton prochain"... I translated as "your neighbour" as "ton prochain" is almost only ever found in religious context nowadays "aime ton prochain comme toi-même" for example and the way I keep finding that sentence in English is "love your neighbour as yourself". So Glénat's translation is loaded with religious subtext. And may I remind everyone what a religious "neighbour" is? The one who helps you in your time of need, the one that takes pity. This is no random "others" or "people" like the English translations, no this is very specific: don't hurt people who mean you well.

Glénat's translation is diametrically opposite to the others, as Glénat does: no notion of experiencing the hurt, no notion of not hurting anyone, no absolutism. Basically love your neighbour 2.0, with a added subtext that mommy is the neighbour and if she hurts you then you'd better try to understand why before you make it worse.

Glénat's translation is the one that made me add this picture of Kingneki talking to Furuta, dismissing his hurt, his reasons, to act the way he does: in that moment, Kaneki discards the motherly teachings and doesn't try to care anymore. He doesn't care to be hurt either. He doesn't care not to hurt others. He's already killed countless, what's one more. He takes priority on his "neighbor" indeed but he doesn't try to understand them and their pain either (leaving Touka on the sidelines again and again and over again for example).

This feels a tad jumbled for a conclusion but hey! this is a conclusion jumbling all 9 translations, give me a pass, will you?

[selfportrait27]

Ween fans of Tumblr. Come over to ween.wiki and help us build a new knowledge base for future fans.

I didn't start the wiki, I just got pissed off a couple of months ago and posted this on r/ween. To my surprise, people actually listened. We now have a few regular contributors, but it's time to start reaching out to the rest of the Ween web, and I'm starting here on Tumblr for a reason.

The fuck-you spirit of Ween and punk rock seems to have actually survived on this platform. Despite Tumblr's best efforts, this has mercifully not become a Nice Normal Place for Nice Normal People. There's a beautifully unhinged quality to all Ween fans that still circulates in the air supply here, that when you see it on reddit for example, you know that it's being allowed to happen.

Anyway, check out my original post on Reddit, or you can read the text below. Then saunter back to the Ween Wiki house and take a look around. If you see anything you think you can help with, go for it. You can find my user page here.

Full text of my post from r/ween:

If you didn't know, there is a Ween wiki just sitting there waiting for us to fill it in.

I know it isn’t very well maintained or reliable. That’s because we’re not using it. It’s a community database, not someone’s personal website. It’s supposed to be maintained by the fan base, that’s the point of a knowledge commons.

Let’s say, for example, if 50 of us make one quick, low-effort change to the wiki in the next month or so. That would already be a big improvement. If it’s the first and last time for you, you will have made a contribution.

Here are some little things you can do anonymously, without an account or a username: 

~Add lyrics to a song.~ 

Change lyrics that someone else added. (It updates instantly, this isn’t genius.com.)

Add a page that you think should be there - you can leave it blank for others to fill in if you don’t want to do it.

Delete something if you think it’s wrong -  you don’t need to have something to replace it with in order to do this. Removing something counts as a contribution. If it turns out to be right after all, it can be put back.

Ditto if you see a citation that you don’t trust - you can just remove the source. Now it’s a ‘citation needed’ situation, which gives others an opportunity to do something.

Correct a minor spelling error, it can literally be that small.

Don’t share private material without permission, but other than that, it can be just about anything at this point, as long as it keeps the ~recent changes page~ ~active.~ Even if you’re new and you don’t know much about Ween, you almost certainly know something that isn’t there yet. Remember you can edit anonymously, so nobody can give you shit if you get it wrong. What they can do is change it.

A few notes:

Why do we need this, when we can just ask someone more reliable? Because it’s too much pressure to expect any person to be reliable all of the time*.* It might sound counter-intuitive, but having a community database that “just anyone” can edit actually creates more accountability, because we’re all responsible for its content, rather than expecting a few people to do all the work and get everything right. This is an opportunity to make a contribution to the legacy of Ween and their fan base, one that’s at least a little better than the stew of info and misinfo that’s out there now. It’s also a chance to help ensure that the good work people are doing on projects like Ween Archived doesn’t just end up getting mixed in with all the bullshit~.~

You don’t need to know what you’re doing. I’m a tech-moron - seriously, my 80-year-old father probably knows how to use Media Wiki better than I do. Even I figured out how to make a few basic edits. We’re going for minimal effort here, so even if you think it won’t make a difference, it will only have cost you a minute of your life.  Do a sloppy, half-assed job. Make a tiny improvement to someone else’s sloppy, half-assed job. Do it now or later - a community database is a long term, ongoing project and there’s no deadline for anything.

But people will just use it to troll? Yeah, they might. They can already do that now. If that’s what you want to use it for, you’re going to anyway. Here’s a couple of things worth remembering:

Nobody needs to put in a ton of work only to risk having it spoiled. There’s enough of us that your individual contribution can be as tiny as you want, and it still counts.

Again, anybody can delete information, so dealing with troll entries doesn’t just fall to one person or a few people. It’s unlikely that we’re gonna have a troll problem that’s too big for the rest of us to handle.

Sorry to be cheesy, but if we’re too scared to do anything, then my friends, the trolls have already won.

One last thing. You can do this and still hate everybody and complain as much as you want, nobody can take that away from you. You can even feel better about complaining, knowing that at least you did something. And if you want to tell me to shut up, who the fuck do I think I am etc, then you’ll still have plenty of time to do that too.

Come on, people. Two children who couldn’t play their guitars yet started a band without a drummer, and we can’t build a better community wiki than this, with all the tools in front of us? Of course we fucking can.

[evilisk]

Insightful Aid Tier List V2 (Low Rarity)

Decided to revise my Tier List for Reverse 1999's Roguelike Mode (A Series of Dusks) specifically when you're playing the Insightful Aid Catalyst. I have decided to do two lists, one for low rarity characters, the other for high rarity characters.

Explanations (AKA a very long wall of text) below:

Busted:

La Source: I don't want to re-explain myself too much but tl;dr she has the best Ult for blocking enemy Ults. It's better than Control since most of the Roguelike bosses have full or partial Control Immunity, while only one boss (the alternate final boss) is actually immune to Moxie reduction (even then, only during its second phase). It's really busted on this Catalyst since Insightful Aid lets you spawn any of your party member's Ults for only 10 Stamina.

Strong Ult

Bunny Bunny: Her Incantations are mediocre but her Ult is still pretty unique for its Mass Heal + Purify effect (almost all the other 5* and 6* healers provide one effect or the other but not both). It's even more handy if you're a new account and don't have those top tier healers yet.

Good Ult, Strong Incantation

Twins Sleep: They have two really good Incantations that steal the thunder from other low rarity characters. They have the option of a Mental DEF Debuff (like Poltergeist) or a Critical DEF Debuff (like Erick). The Critical DEF debuff is honestly more valuable, it's as strong as Isolde's Crit debuff while also inflicting Weakness on all enemies. Twins Sleep also have a decent enough Ult. Not unique (Diggers and Baby Blue with debuffs can also inflict Nightmare) but it does give her an advantage over her low rarity contemporaries (who cannot use their Ults to block enemy turns)

ONiON / Leilani: I mentioned this in the earlier tier list, but these two (and Rabies) have the strongest Rank 3 Attack Incantations of any low rarity. At P5, they hit for 450% base damage + 160% if the target is debuffed in any way (making sure the enemy is debuffed first isn't super hard on this mode). That formula adds up to a 610% damage attack. Some low rarity characters can do 600% damage... with their Ults (Pavia, Twins Sleep, Erick, Mondlicht). Not only does the Insightful Aid Catalyst lets you cheat out these Rank 3 Incantations for only a bit of Stamina, but it also powers them up. Shamane or Six + Aid ONiON / Leilani is a legitimate strategy that will win you runs, just make sure you don't run out of Stamina (this isn't hard to do btw, with Insightful Aid you get refunded Stamina back if you kill enemies with Aid Incantations. Yes, this Catalyst rewards you for spamming these OP Rank 3 Incantations).

ONiON and Leilani are basically interchangeable here, the only difference is their Ults. ONiON can grant 2 stacks of Sturdiness while Leilani can grant 2 Moxie to allies. Leilani seems stronger overall but if you luck into certain Moxie increasing artefacts, like the Morale Pipe, then ONiON's Ult will have more utility.

Eagle: Another character with a pretty strong Rank 3 Attack. At Rank 3, her 1-target attack hits for 450% + 100% damage if debuffed. It's "only" 550% damage but it has a built in leech effect, meaning it's a 550% damage attack that can bring the caster back to full HP. Her Ult is pretty unique, it comes with a built in "excess Critical rate converted to Critical damage" and some characters can take advantage of this (Lilya, Blonney). This does require you to pick up certain artefacts that give Lucky though.

Decent Ult Or Incantation

AliEn T: I had them higher on my previous list but bumped them down. On paper they're quite nice. Two good Incantations (an Attack as strong as Eagle's, though without the leech effect, and a Counter with -60% Damage reduction and built in Taunt that Kakania and NewBabel will love). Their Ult can also block all non-Ult actions from enemies for a turn. The problem is that, besides their Counter (which is ultimately pretty niche), you may have better options. ONiON and Leilani are still the best Rank 3 Aid Attackers and Baby Blue has a similar Ult but she can also block enemy Ults. If you don't have Baby Blue, though, you may get some use out of AliEn T.

Darley: Between them and Apple (AKA the two low rarity characters that can heal after using their attack) I think Darley is the clear winner due to their Ult, which gives extra Moxie to all party members. Darley, however ranks much lower than Leilani who has a similar Ult, since they don't have an OP Rank 3 Attack to spam like she does.

Zima: La Source is better for blocking Ults in most situations but if your La Source isn't P5 yet, and you don't have other high rarity Ult blockers, Zima can be an okay alternate option. This is only if you have a really new account though.

Pavia: He's in a similar situation to ONiON and Leilani but for Mass Attacks instead of 1-target attacks. His high HP Rank 3 attacks hits for 300% + 155% damage. This outperforms a bunch of higher rarity characters (at P0, though even P5 Bkornblume's Mass Attack loses to P5 Pavia). The reason Pavia isn't as high as the others is because 455% isn't as huge as 610% damage. His Ult is also extremely mediocre. I would rather cop the slightly lower damage on Bkornblume's Mass Attack for Bkornblume's significantly better Ult vs. Pavia's bland Ult that only does damage.

Cristallo: The only reason she's here is for her Debuff. It's very easy for her to land her -40% Reality DEF with this Catalyst. Her other Incantation also exists. It's not the best buff but it is 1 stack of Sturdiness to all characters and not everyone has Medicine Pocket or Voyager on their accounts.

Niche

Poltergeist: Like I said before, Twins Sleep basically steals the one good thing about this character (the Mental DEF debuff). Her other Attack isn't worth mentioning. Her Ult is super niche. It does let her Taunt and avoid enemy attacks, but the dodge only works vs Reality (so you need to know the enemy damage type in advance). The only use I can think for her is if you need the Mental Debuff, but also need TS' Crit Debuff. Even then, you might have Baby Blue as an alternate Mental DEF Debuff option.

TTT: Basically the low rarity, low budget version of X. She can also Dispel and can also control when enemies use their Ults. The big difference is that TTT has to inflict Disconcert early, no blocking enemy Ults on the turn they're about to be used like with X. Very mediocre CC overall but if you don't have X or Baby Blue, she may be better than nothing.

Erick: Like I said before, Twins Sleep basically steals the one good thing about this character (the Crit DEF debuff). There is one silver lining to Erick, her Ult isn't too shabby on the Razor fight. It can remove Razor's buffs AND Disarm him, preventing him from using an Attack for a turn. It's not the best option but it is an option if you don't have specific characters (like Charlie).

Oliver Fog: Pretty similar to Cristallo except he doesn't have a useful debuff. He has a slightly better Ult than Cristallo, but you shouldn't be bringing Cristallo for her (awful) Ult anyway.

John Titor: She's similar to AliEn T. Nice skills on paper, but usually outdone by stronger options (Yenisei for the Shield + Purify Ult, ONiON and Leilani for the Rank 3 Attack). Not bad if you don't have Yenisei, though I do think Semmelweis + Aid John Titor is a fun combo if you run the self-Buff / Heal.

Ms. Moissan: Can be used if you don't have any Shielders at all (like Tennant, Ms. NewBabel or Ezra). She also has a CC Ult that's basically the reverse of Satsuki and Druvis' Petrify effect. Is fine at the start of the run, but I think you would be better looking for some auto-shield artefacts. The best recommendation, especially for Insightful Aid, is Rabbit Marionette. It gives a free shield after every turn if you use an Aid Incantation, it also increases the Max Stamina limit.

Mondlicht: Unlike the others in this tier, she really doesn't have much going for her, but I didn't think she was as niche as the characters below her. She's basically a worse Pavia in terms of Incantations. I guess her Ult gives her a mini-Eternity Ult effect? That's about it.

Apple: Another "not niche OR really niche" character. I guess you can spam his attacks for free Healing and this may be an okay strategy if you're running Kakania on your party. Would not really recommend in most other situations though, Darley has the same gimmick but with a better Ult.

Really Niche (aka they have obscure combos, but would not recommend in most situations)

Sputnik: Has an interesting combo with NewBabel since you can combine NewBabel's Ult with Sputnik's Counter to infinitely drain enemy Moxie while also maxing out NewBabel's Moxie. The problem is that this isn't really a win condition for your party, it's just a way to stall out the fight. Also has a combo with Kakania + the artefact that turns Slot 1 into a Taunt tank.

Nick Bottom: Has shenanigans with Kakania and Semmelweis due to the HP drain but is really obscure otherwise.

Ms. Radio and Door: The self-killing Ults are obviously a bad idea. There are ways to avoid the kill condition, with either artefacts or Necrologist, but similar to Sputnik, this doesn't get you closer to winning fights, you're better off actually using your Ults to target enemies than for pure support.

Bette: She's not as niche as you'd think, since Insightful Aid makes it easy to cheat out Rank 3 Aid Incantations but doesn't really let you upgrade the Incantations of your front characters. Her Ult can help with this, though the reason Bette isn't higher is because the final area and boss completely screws with her Ult's effect (your Incantations get shuffled around every turn, and Bette needs two turns for her Empower to work. RIP Bette).

The Fool: The most redundant character in this mode. Several artefacts have the ability to inflict Corrode without you using the Fool at all (e.g. Piglet Chain, Everheart). You might think "well I can use the Fool to stack Corrode" except I tested it and only 1 instance of Corrode can exist per enemy. Yes, there is no reason to ever actually bring the Fool if you have any of the Corrode inflicting artefacts.

Mesmer Jr: She technically has Dispel + CC on her Ults but you need to be spamming Mesmer's Ult every turn for the CC to work on every enemy. You can technically run Marcus + Aid Mesmer but there are also much easier ways to Mass CC, including running An-an Lee, Satsuki or Druvis as Aid and spamming their Rank 3 Debuffs, or just using Baby Blue's Ult.

Kit Not Working Properly

Rabies: So Rabies' deal is that he inflicts Poison right? The problem is that the Poison comes from his Insight effect. And Aid characters don't get to use their Insight effect. Which means that Rabies, the Poison Guy, doesn't inflict any Poison at all if he's an Aid character. Oops. Rabies isn't completely unusable, he actually has the same 610% damage formula as Leilani and ONiON. But he has a much worse Ult (with worse damage because the Ult is balanced around the Poison that no longer works). You can just NOT use Rabies' Ult of course, but I'm putting him here so people know that you can't bring him for Poison shenanigans. Unless you're running Rabies + Aid Lilya or Lucy. But this is an "Insightful Aid" Tier List, not an "Obscure Low Rarity + High Rarity Combo" List (I'm not gonna do that btw, too many potential combos to talk about).

Note: There are actually a whole bunch of low rarities that are affected by the "No Insight" thing, Rabies is just the most notable since a lot of low rarity characters' Incantations aren't affected by the lack of Insights. This is much more of a problem with the higher rarity characters though...

= = =

Whew, that's finally done. Not sure when the high rarity version of this list will be done. That one is a lot harder to judge, mostly because I don't have ALL the high rarities to play around with, meaning I can't play some of the more obscure combos.

Cannot stress enough how many weird interactions you get when running High Rarity + High Rarity Aid. Did you know that you can use Getian's Rank 3 Channel to instantly use Thirty Seven's FUA? There's lots of weird stuff that I can't test since I can only borrow 1 character from another player at a time.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Hey everyone, look what I made. It took me a completely normal amount of time and I definitely did not spent all weekend on it. All weekend just transcribing and collating. Not counting the time across the last couple of years I spent finding all this stuff. I wouldn't do that.

But if I had done that, it would have started as an Excel file, but some of the transcripts were too long to fit into even the maximum sizes of a cell. Exporting it as a PDF has page breaks and won't let it take up the whole screen, and turning it into an image destroyed the links.

So I ended up going back to the HTML that I learned at computer camp when I was 13 and then used to make Harry Potter websites when I was 14 and have hardly ever used since. Had to Google a bunch of stuff to remember how to do it, but I managed to rewrite the entire table in HTML code in Notepad, and then I found a website that let me upload it in exchange for that annoying little purple thing at the bottom. I would not like to admit how long I spent trying to work out how to just upload one HTML page without having to sign up for building an entire website. Because it was too long. There had to be an easier way to do this. But I don't know what it is.

Anyway, I made this:

So... does anyone want that? It's a spreadsheet where I've collected everything I've found that seems like it could be a direct reference to the Chocolate Milk Gang. It's got transcriptions of the relevant bits of video and audio, and links to PDFs of the text or mp3s or mp4s of the video and audio files, and overall, I spent way too much time on it.

I may have gone slightly Beautiful Mind about it this weekend, pinning links up to my metaphorical cork board, connecting them with bits of red string, and frantically declaring, "It doesn't add up! What, exactly, did Andrew Maxwell call them in 2002? Because I'm getting conflicting stories here!"

At least I now have an easy thing to link to when I want to tell people what the Chocolate Milk Gang is. I realize I throw that term around a lot on this blog, and I stop to explain it every few months or, but I'm also aware that sometimes people come across these posts without all that context and it's confusing. So there you go, if anyone's ever confused by what I mean when I say "Chocolate Milk Gang". It's that, the stuff at that link. It's all those things. It's an international crime syndicate that sometimes organizes soccer matches.

I realize there are a bunch of different sources at that link, making it look like information is easy to find about it. So for some further context, those 16 spreadsheet entries are the only references to it that I've been able to find, across many many hours of searching, across the last couple of years. If you're confused about what the Chocolate Milk Gang is and you want to know the real answer, it's that a few years ago I happened to hear one particular Daniel Kitson show too soon after I'd resigned as board president of my wrestling team, and I got a bit overly attached to the idea of simpler times when people were still building their dream, before it all got out of hand. So I decided to obsessively research this term that appeared on John Oliver's Wikipedia page. It made sense at the time.

Having one link I can point to and say "the stuff we know about the what the Chocolate Milk Gang was - it's all in there" is a nice bonus for that spreadsheet, but it wasn't the original point of it. I mainly wanted to make that spreadsheet so I could get some clear data on 1) its membership list, and 2) its actual name. Hence the spreadsheet columns for both those things.

I’d consider most name that appear in my column for the membership list to be a significant Chocolate Milk Gang member. Though one membership list included Jimmy Carr, as part of the “gang” of comedians who hung out with Demetri Martin in Edinburgh. I’ve already addressed that in another post, but the upshot is that obviously Jimmy Carr’s not in the Chocolate Milk Gang. He's just a guy Demetri Martin probably hung out with in Edinburgh once, so that article grouped him in with the others.

Oh, and there’s the Russell Howard documentary that describes his "golden generation" of comedians, which included some key CMG people, but then moved on to his other comedy friends, like his roommates from the famous Bristol house, and Wil Hodgson. I don’t think the other Bristol guys (Richardson, Robins, Olver) count as CMG, since they were younger and weren't doing comedy during those earlier days when the CMG was formed. But Wil Hodgson performed in Edinburgh in 2004.

This of course gets complicated, because if we’re being very literal about defining the CMG as “people who got milkshakes at the restaurant called Favorit after late-night shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002” – which was the original meaning of the name – then we’re leaving out some important people who turn up on most CMG membership lists, like Josie Long and Alun Cochrane. So I tend to use the term more broadly than that, to mean “people who were making a certain type of comedy in the 00s, a type that at the time was considered alternative because it was more gentle and indie-like than their more glamorous showbiz predecessors, and they crossed over with each other a lot, personally and professionally.” But that definition can make it difficult to get a clear list, as it basically boils down to: anyone who, while performing comedy from about 2002 to 2007, ever wore a t-shirt on stage, made a vaguely nerdy joke, and hung out with Daniel Kitson. And that can include quite a lot of people. It may well include Wil Hodgson. It could arguably include some of those Bristol guys (although I think “not being an alcoholic” was a fairly big part of the CMG ethos, which rules out Richardson and Robins). Pappy's Fun Club? Lots of people were around at the time.

I think of a few people as being CMG even if they’re mentioned in that spreadsheet list at all. I count Gavin Osborn as a bona fide central CMG member, even though he sure didn't perform in Edinburgh in 2002. He’s been involved in so many collaborations with other central CMG figures, and his work so embodies their ethos, that it doesn’t matter that he didn’t do all that stuff in Edinburgh. He was in the National Youth Theatre with John Oliver; his CMG connections pre-date Edinburgh 2002.

I think I’d count Isy Suttie as CMG, too. She was performing during prime CMG years, and doing that type of comedy that characterized the CMG (gentle, indie-like). She’s also collaborated with CMG people quite a bit. So she didn’t have to be literally drinking milkshakes with them in Edinburgh 2002 to count on their membership list (though it’s possible that she could have been drinking milkshakes with them in 2002, as she was definitely spending lots of time with at least one CMG member at the time, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in Edinburgh that year).

So I would say, probably, the main list of Chocolate Milk Gang members is: Daniel Kitson, David O'Doherty, John Oliver, Andy Zaltzman, Russell Howard, Josie Long, Gavin Osborn, Isy Suttie, Alun Cochrane, Bret McKenzie, Jermaine Clement, Demetri Martin. Maybe Taika Waititi? He got mentioned a couple of times but I'm not sure he did any actual CMG stuff, I think he was just a guy David O'Doherty liked.

So that's the membership list. Now I'd like to address the title, and issue with which is what prompted me to start on this spreadsheet in the first place. That issue being: Why has everyone let me spend nearly 2.5 years posting constantly about a British group called the Chocolate Milk Gang, without informing me that the term "chocolate milk" isn't used in Britain like it is in North America? That is an important piece of information for my research, which someone gave me for the first time last week, and it made me decide I should probably do a full-scale study into what this means.

I had wondered, before, why they got named after chocolate milk, when they were apparently drinking milkshakes. I assumed it was just other comedians making fun of them for immaturely not drinking alcohol, implying that they weren't just drinking milkshakes, they were drinking chocolate milk, the way children do.

Nope. It turns out that in Britain, when they say "chocolate milk", they're referring to a chocolate milkshake. When they say "chocolate milkshake", they are also referring to a chocolate milkshake. How do they refer to chocolate milk? Most of the time they don't, apparently it's not as common there. I think. Someone in England told me this, and I've tried looking it up further, but it's confusing. Chocolate milk definitely does exist over there, it just apparently isn't served in nearly every restaurant, the way I'm used to in Canada. So I guess they weren't using that term for the milk and started just using it to mean milkshakes? I don't know, Britain is a confusing place. They also refer to juices as smoothies.

That certainly explains why some comedians got named after chocolate milk, when they were drinking milkshakes. It also explains a bit of the occasional variation in the group's name - Russell Howard recently called them "The Milkshake Brigade", and in an interview in 2006, David O'Doherty said they were "The Milkshake Kids". If "chocolate milk" and "chocolate milkshakes" are interchangeable terms over there, then I guess they can be interchangeable in the gang's name, too.

But it's definitely supposed to be a gang. I don't know where this "brigade" stuff is coming from. David McSavage called them the "Chocolate Milk Brigade", as well. And, again, David O'Doherty once called them kids. What is that? I am not going to change my blog's tagline to saying I am preserving the legacy of the "Chocolate Milk Kids".

And then we have the differing stories about the name's origins. David O'Doherty claims that Glenn Wool coined the term "Chocolate Milk Gang". David McSavage claims that Andrew Maxwell coined it (though he also claims that the coined term is "Chocolate Milk Brigade). David O'Doherty does tell stories of Andrew Maxwell being one of those people who made fun of them for the general nerdiness that got them the CMG nickname, but in his story, Andrew Maxwell was mainly making fun of their bags, rather than their drinking habits.

The interesting thing about the above paragraph is that no one in it is British. I've tried to look up whether chocolate milk was a thing in Ireland in 2002, and whether Irish people said "chocolate milk" to mean "chocolate milkshake" like British people did. I can barely find information about British people doing it, so of course there wasn't anything on Irish differences. But they share a whole lot of cultural colloquialisms, so I'm going to assume it was probably similar.

Glenn Wool, however, is Canadian. And Canadians definitely do not conflate chocolate milk with chocolate milkshakes, even in 2002. So it's odd if he coined that term, calling them the Chocolate Milk Gang because they drank milkshakes. So maybe it did, in fact, originally come from Andrew Maxwell. I assume they both used that term, making it not too difficult to reconcile O'Doherty and McSavage's differing claims about whose term it was.

...I am tired. I think I probably have more to say about that spreadsheet, but I need to go to bed. I could save this as a draft and add more to it tomorrow, but I genuinely think I'll sleep better if I hit "post" on this now and feel like I've got something to share from an entire weekend spent on such a pointless project. I'll just make a new post later if I have more to say. It's all right. So that's what I've been up to. How's everyone else doing?