#Zodiac Key

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #28: Double-Crossed!

January, 1988

Happy New Year, West Coast Avengers!

Zero Hour for Zodiac!

Hal Jordan is going to try to reboot the universe on them?

Good.

Anyway, Zodiac. They’re still happening.

Last times in West Coast Avengers: the Zodiac comprised entirely of Life Model Decoys that aren’t decoying anyone killed the Zodiac that was comprised entirely of the Venn Diagram between crime lords and astrology nerds. Except human Zodiac Libra who faked his death by taking a nap. And human Zodiac Taurus who ran off to go get the (West Coast) Avengers to fight the LMDs for him.

The West Coast Avengers, on Taurus’ advice, interrupts LMD Zodiac’s robbery of a cattle auction. Hawkeye accidentally shot LMD Sagittarius in an archery duel because someone jostled his arm. Zodiac ran away and their leader Scorpio made a new Sagittarius that was identical to Hawkeye.

Zodiac ambushed Hawkeye when he was on his way back from seeing Wonder Man’s movie. He dunked on them for a while but he got coldcocked and LMD Sagittarius Hawkeye went back to the West Coast Avengers’ Compound to infiltrate the team.

Sagittarius Hawkeye learns that Taurus is working with the Avengers and passes the information onto Scorpio. But then he runs afoul of a subplot. Mockingbird killed Phantom Rider in the past times and lied to husband Hawkeye about it. But Sagittarius Hawkeye being cold to her (because he doesn’t want to have to pass as a devoted husband) has her convinced that Hawkeye suspects. She gets some advice from Nick Fury and decides to confess to Hawkeye. The LMD undersells the confession so Mockingbird slaps him - DISCOVERING HE’S MADE OF METAL!

Mockingbird and Tigra who shows up destroy the LMD Hawkeye but unbeknowst to Mockingbird, Tigra is ALSO an LMD, the new Zodiac Leo.

Hah, I like that Double is written over Star-Crossed.

Not knowing that Zodiac knows that the Avengers know their crime plan, the West Coast Avengers bust into the Denver Mint.

Bust in through the ceiling.

Iiiiiiii’m sort of wondering whether the cost to repair that giant hole in the ceiling is more or less than how much money the Avengers are going to prevent Zodiac from stealing.

Hank Pym even thinks that they’re going to have to pony up the rest of their operating budget for the year for the damages.

Leo (not Tigra, the dude Leo) crows that Zodiac outnumbers the Avengers two to one. But. C’mon man. You have twelve man team and get consistently stomped by smaller groups because you all suck so bad.

Iron Man flies right on ahead and tries to zap the Zodiac Key out of Scorpio’s hands before Scorpio can block the zap. But again fails.

And Mockingbird swoops right on ahead and demands Zodiac tell her where Hawkeye is.

Scorpio: “You mean Hawkeye’s missing, Mockingbird? What a shame!”

Mockingbird: “Don’t give me that! You kidnapped him and substituted one of your lousy LMD’s!”

Virgo: “Hey! We’re LMD’s!”

Mockingbird: “Yeah! And I’ll trash you the way I trashed your ringer unless you talk!”

Hah.

Fun interaction.

Virgo wishes people wouldn’t be so vitalist at her. Anti-vitalist? What do you call being racist but against robots?

Leo tells Scorpio to just admit that he kidnapped Hawkeye so Scorpio does but refuses to say where Hawkeye is now.

Mockingbird gets real angry at that but Scorpio don’t give a care and doesn’t scare... that easily. He’s been dead before so, like, whatever, lady.

And now that Zodiac has enough silver from the mint piled on their escape... ship? Scorpio decides to use the Zodiac Key to transport Zodiac away.

It. It, uh. It has a slow start up.

But it does kick in and Zodiac teleports out, leaving the Avengers to bemoan that they had been kicking ass.

Leo Tigra jumps in to say yes, she was kicking ass too, you bet!

Hah, if you look through the pages between the Avengers arriving and Zodiac leaving, Tigra is never really fighting anyone. Good touch.

As the narration reminds, Tigra has been replaced by a Leo LMD and the Avengers have no idea.

Leo Tigra suggests that the Avengers go consult human Taurus Cornelius van Lunt since he keeps predicting what Zodiac will do.

As the Avengers leave the mint, Iron Man complains that the problem is the Zodiac Key. And then makes the baffling comparison that when the team was lost in space-time, finding a second (working) time machine was how they won. But there’s no second Zodiac Key that will counter Scorpio’s.

Because. TWO DIFFERENT SITUATIONS, TONY.

The whole problem in the lost in space-time arc was that the Avengers were lost in space-time! Like it says on the tin!

If you’re bringing this up like this, then this story better end with there being an inexplicable second Zodiac Key, that’s all I’m saying!

Leo Tigra asks Iron Man to exposition dump about the Zodiac Key to her. Which Tony is happy to do!

I assume Tony is happy to explain a variety of things.

So he explains how once he, Daredevil, Madame Masque, and Nick Fury (what an odd collection) were sent to another dimension by the Zodiac Key, a dimension ruled by a group called the Brotherhood who created the Key.

And this is wild. The Zodiac Key thrives on conflict but their dimension became too peaceful so they yeeted it to Earth where there’s conflict to spare.

While the Avengers West Coast go into the Quinjet where Taurus is chained to a chair that’s just a little too small for him, Moon Knight hangs back.

He wants to use his own astrology knowledge to see if he comes up with the same answer.

And... yes! Both of them predict Zodiac went to Death Valley because of “the positions of the Moon and Pluto.”

Meanwhile in Death Valley, Zodiac teleports in.

Scorpio crows that he’s got the West Coast Avengers chasing his tail without their leader but non-Tigra Leo decides that its time to get on Scorpio’s case again. He decides that Scorpio sucks butts because his secret substitute Hawkeye was discovered.

Since Scorpio isn’t telling the other Zodiac about his also secret substitute Tigra, he tells Leo to stfu.

Leo: “That’s easy to say! But even though Scorpios like places called Death Valley -- death comes here through the power of the Sun, which is my orb!”

Virgo: “And it’s a Virgo sun, which empowers me -- and puts me on Leo’s side in this!”

These astrology nerds make me so mad.

Scorpio actually agrees, regretting that he made them all “so responsive to [their] particular astral influences” which means ‘base every thing they do on astrology. Every thing. EVERY THING.’

But just as he’s winding up to the ‘I brought you into this world, I can take you out’ the Avengers’ Quinjet shows up overhead.

Scorpio prepares to shoot down the Quinjet with the Zodiac Key... but Iron Man hopped out of the Quinjet on approach so he could fly in from the back while the Quinjet made an obvious appearance.

He finally traps the Zodiac Key in a grape-flavored magnetic beam before Scorpio can counter it.

The Quinjet lands and the West Coast Avengers rush out to start punching.

Non-Tigra Leo goes to fight Wonder Man, saying he’s been wanting a one-on-one with him. Scorpio, Virgo, Aquarius, and Capricorn attack Iron Man to try to free the Key. Libra and Gemini go to fight Mockingbird. Aries attacks Hank Pym and his amazing pockets of holding. LMD Taurus and Cancer attack Moon Knight. And Leo Tigra pretends to fight Pisces.

Despite being outnumbered four to one, Iron Man is Iron Man. In contention for strongest guy on team. Wonder Man can punch harder but Iron Man has a lot more variety. And with the Zodiac Key neutralized, he doesn’t have to be watching his back for it.

So he punches Capricorn into robo-goat chunks. Aquarius accuses Iron Man of being robo-racist and tries to short out his armor but Iron Man just throws him at Scorpio. And Virgo tries to sneak up on Iron Man with her energy siphon like she did when she was working for Quicksilver but he was expecting that.

Truly, Iron Man rocks.

I do wonder. These dudes are robots. Why do some of them have innate powers and others have external tools they need to work with? Fine and fair enough for the Zodiac Key. That’s a special case. But why does Virgo have a big blocky energy siphon she has to carry around? Why does Aquarius have a gun attached to a tube on his back?

Scorpio sucks at making Zodiac-themed Life Model Decoys.

Meanwhile, Wonder Man has no trouble fighting with Leo. Mockingbird beats Libra and Gemini by jumping out of the way so they run into each other... I swear, these guys suck so badly. Do these two even have any superpowers?

Leo Tigra shows up with a ‘defeated’ Pisces in tow and tells Mockingbird she’ll watch the defeated LMDs. Dr Pym kicks another one over - Aries in a big clear hamster ball. And Leo Tigra tells Iron Man she’ll grab the ones he beat as well.

But instead, she grabs Virgo’s energy siphon and connects it to Iron Man.

TREACHERY! Also, perfidy!

With Iron Man being drained, the magnetic beam holding the Zodiac Key dissipates and Scorpio is able to grab it and send the Avengers sprawling.

Since he loves a good gloat (and since the literal cat is out of the bag?), Scorpio gloats that Tigra is actually the new LMD Leo!

The old Leo isn’t thrilled to learn that he’s been obsoleted though.

Scorpio: “That’s right! I don’t have to take your abuse any longer! You’re finished!”

Abuse meaning any second-guessing whatsoever.

Also, this was a really stupid move of Scorpio, telling one of his allies he was going to betray him before he was actually ready to betray him.

But Leo isn’t going to sit back and just accept being replaced. He tackles Scorpio and wrestles over the Zodiac Key. And then Wonder Man jumps in too and now all three of them are wrestling over the key.

(Fucks sake Wondy, you’re supposed to be able to punch as hard as Mjolnir hits and you can’t win a tug of war?)

Scorpio keeps hold of the Key and tries to use it... but once again, the Key has performance issues and nothing happens.

Not-Tigra Leo: “Replace me, will you? Replace your backside!!”

Wonder Man: “Replace -- EVERYTHING!!”

And Leo and Wonder Man do a one-two combo, which voids Scorpio’s warranty.

Also, kills him. ‘Kills’ him?

Good thing we’ve already established that it doesn’t really count if you kill an LMD because they’re not Real People.

I love that Aries is still stuck in the hamster ball. That’s great. You’re doing an amazing job, Hank.

But the Zodiac Key suddenly floats into the air and resurrects Scorpio and the other LMDs that have been deactivated.

Dammit, Zodiac Key! People die when they’re killed!

Scorpio gloats that the Avengers can’t kill what isn’t alive. Which is more of a self-own, really. But the Avengers are ready to just never stop punching these dudes.

But Scorpio has a slightly different and much dumber plan in mind. He commands the Zodiac Key to transport them all to the Zodiac Key’s original realm.

The Key does not do this so Scoprio yells at it to get with the program.

The Zodiac Key: “It would not be a good idea, Scorpio!”

Scorpio: “What do you mean? You love conflict and you’ve taught me to love it! If we stay here, we’ll kill the Avengers eventually because we can’t be stopped, but it’ll just be the same fight over and over! Let’s make their murders interesting!”

The Zodiac Key: “Scorpio --”

Scorpio: “Listen, I’m tired of your balking! I know you saved my life, but I’m not your lackey! If you want some conflict with me, you’re going to get it!”

Never before have I seen a hoisted petard so laboriously foreshadowed and also earned by the one about to be hoisted.

There’s a special kind of hubris to talking over the magical reality-altering vaguely-Ankh shaped ‘key’ that gave you life.

They Zodiac Key does give into Scorpio’s whining and Zodiac and the Avengers both disappear from Death Valley.

Leaving human Taurus Cornelius van Lunt alone, unsupervised, and immediately ready to misbehave. The chain the Avengers chained him up with is long enough that he can reach the radio, so he uses it to call some of his old mob flunkies to come set him free.

Meanwhile, the Avengers (and also Zodiac) have a crazy-ass journey through the pink dimension.

The narration tries to sell it on being more trippy than that but, look, this isn’t the kind of wacky scenery that Kirby used to do on Fantastic Four. It’s a pink void with some debris.

Anyway, upon arriving in the Zodiac Key dimension, all the Zodiac LMDs immediately drop dead, like the Zodiac Key was trying to tell Scorpio.

The Zodiac LMDs can’t function in this dimension because they’re all so obsessively themed after the Zodiac, they can’t function in a universe without those same stars.

And nothing of value was lost.

God, Scorpio was an idiot.

The Zodiac Key goes on to say that the reason why it didn’t seem to work sometimes is that Scorpio was trying to get it to do something that would end conflict. And that the Key was not inclined to do.

(Makes you realize how shitty an ultimate weapon the Zodiac Key is. It won’t let you beat your opponent.)

But with the Zodiac stupided into nonfunctioning, there needs to be some new conflict. So the Zodiac Key blasts a mountain and reveals Hawkeye and Tigra fighting the Brotherhood!

So that’s where those two wound up!

Convenient that they were right nearby!

Dr Pym realizes that if they go to help the two Avengers, the Zodiac Key will assist the Brotherhood and decide to take out the Key first.

Leading to the embarrassing fight sequence of the West Coast Avengers failing to stop an inanimate object.

Wonder Man tries to grab it, it just zaps him. Mockingbird catches it through the hole with her stave and Dr Pym with an unshrunk net but it drags them into the sky. Iron Man tries to catch them but it CLANG!s into him hard. It dodges Moon Knight, who attributes his distance from the Moon as the reason he sucks.

After this whole page of embarrassment, the Zodiac Key flies over to the Brotherhood who immediately forfeit the fight.

The Key actually tips the scales too much. Hawkeye and Tigra gave them a good fight but the Brotherhood were better and had numbers. They let Hawkeye and Tigra live to get as much fight as they could.

As we just saw, the Key by itself just wiped the floor with most of the team. With the Key and the Brotherhood, they’d easily wipe out the team.

But then they wouldn’t have conflict again.

Mockingbird: “Only the Whackos could end up in a war where we win because we’re sure to lose!”

Iron Man: “I don’t accept that we’d lose -- !”

So salty, Tony.

The Brotherhood says they’ll return the West Coast Avengers to Earth. Annnnnd then sometime later, they’ll send another Zodiac Key to fuck with them.

Iron Man: “I don’t like that at all -- !”

Hawkeye offers to do some more fighting here if they can get a better deal than ‘someday we’ll fuck you over’ but no dice. The Brotherhood have made up their minds.

The Brotherhood: “Then let this Key open the door betwixt dimensions one final time -- and let the Avengers begone!”

The Zodiac Key: “And let them wonder -- ‘when and where will Scorpio return?’”

Hopefully never and nowhere!

Why can’t the Zodiac be interesting???

Which is to say, this is not the Zodiac story that finally wowed me. Its funny that Scorpio basically seized defeat from the jaws of victory and stupided himself to death. But there were twelve of the fuckers and they only got interesting when they started be imposter Avengers.

Anyway.

The West Coast Avengers return to Death Valley.

Mockingbird tries to tell him about the murder or manslaughter she did do to Phantom Rider but loses her nerve when Hawkeye praises her as “too good an Avenger” to be fooled by a fake him and that he knew she’d never let him down.

Oof.

Inadvertent guilt trip.

So she tells Hawkeye never mind about the thing she wanted to tell him.

Annnd. Yeah. Van Lunt Taurus bailed while they were gone, just like he said on panel that he would.

Moon Knight: “He swore his vow -- to the Moon -- ! The Fist of Khonshu must now show him his mistake...!”

The Zodiac drama continues... this time with the last meat Zodiac.

Except Libra, who faked his death by taking a nap.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because it’d be a nice, encouraging thing to do. Like and reblog this post too. It’d be a nice, encouraging thing to do.

[sonofcoulson]

1948 Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series 1

Howard finally opens the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency and makes Peggy director. The SSR keep the Playground base and are absorbed into S.H.I.E.L.D. as their research division.

Howard's greater authority and larger amount of resources from the government (as well as his own) allow them to pull in more heroes.

S.H.I.E.L.D. will fight terrorist cells and non-state actors, investigate supernatural phenomena, also deal with and cover up powered people cos the general public "can't handle the truth". This is part of their mandate from the government and S.H.I.E.L.D. is threatened with closure or refusal of funding many times for trying to circumvent this aspect of their role within said government.

Director Carter is trying to maintain a long distance relationship with Sousa and has to investigate the "hit" on Agent Thomson.

Zodiac is the main story for this series.

Zodiac is behind the assassination attempt, with the council of 9 previously being under them. Vernon Masters returns to do their bidding (never saw a body right?). Peggy's brother has been alive all this time and it was his redacted file that Thomson was to smear Peggy with and not actually Peggy's (Michael's name and d.o.b. were redacted just leaving the surname Carter and informants that heavily implied that it was Peggy). With the smear failed, the Zodiac group want it back, for safe keeping. Thomson is the only one outside of the Zodiac or the council of 9 that has read it, so he was supposed to be killed, but they hired Dottie to do it and she was able to make it look like she was trying to kill him without killing him ("if I'd wanted to kill him he'd be dead"). She arranges a meet with Peggy in a subterfugey way, info dumps, insists she really was trying to be helpful by taking the hit job, and manages to wriggle away again.

Zodiac is led by Marcus Lassiter (A buff Milo Ventimiglia with a cool beard). Marcus has the codename Aries and wears ram horns at the meetings which seems silly at first till we realise they are functional and they all have silly costumes. Marcus has super-human strength, which we don't see initially.

All of the Zodiac members have themed powers/tech:

Taurus (Cornelius Van Lunt) has bought his seat on the board and isn't afraid to use that fact. He has a bull's head costume. He also has dangerous horns.

Gemini (Joshua and Damian Link) are identical twins have identical costumes and carry identical dual wielding pistols. They have an amazing synergy when they fight as a duo. They only get one vote between them. 

Cancer (Jack Kleveno) has a crab costume. That is all I have to say about that.

Leo (Daniel Radford) is a dude in a lion suit. It has a lion mask and an exoskeleton that gives the wearer enhanced strength, agility and durability. 

Virgo (Elaine McLaughlin) has an extraterrestrial material coating her suit which gives her great durability and shock absorption. It also allows her to heal/regenerate herself or others. In my head, crab man gets injured by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Elaine comes back and gets captured just to heal her secret crustacean lover.

Libra (Gustav Brandt) has a hi tec blindfold that allows him limited psychic abilities and a teleportation ring. Martial artist too.

Scorpio (Jake Fury) has a costume with venom blasts and neurotoxic sprays. Yes. That Fury. In the comics he is Nick's brother. Here he would have to be his dad. In the series he is only referred to as Jake initially to keep his identity a slight surprise.

Sagittarius (Harlan Vargas) has an eye mask that grants enhanced vision and tracking abilities. He is highly skilled with a bow and arrow.

Capricorn (Willard Weir) is green. I'm thinking they're an alien. This superpower ideas site says Capricorn might have shape shifting abilities so they could be a Skrull masquerading as a Willard Weir.

Aquarius (Michael Carter) has a water based costume and weapons. Michael was not happy with the smear on Peggy but went along with it for fear of repercussions.  But now her life is under threat, so he leaves warnings for her to help her avoid getting killed. Eventually Aries discovers the betrayal and beats Michael to death in his secret apartment. Peggy comes across the apartment as part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. investigation and discovers the body. She realises he was the one giving warnings (to help them avoid traps, ambushes etc) and finds a note he wrote for her when he knew Aries was coming for him. It's written in their shared childhood code. It explains his motivations (he was trying to change the world for the better) and gives some info about what Zodiac are going to do next. Zachary Drebb is the second Aquarius.

Piesces (Noah Perricone) is blue and looks like he'd be good in the water so I'm thinking Talokanil

S.H.I.E.L.D. discover there is an off-books SSR mole on the inside. They are furious with Flynn for not telling them straight away. Flynn thought it would compromise the mole's safety.

As the Zodiac members are arrested or killed during the S.H.I.E.L.D. investigation, Jake Fury is revealed as the SSR mole. He tries to escape with the actual Zodiac key but it corrupts him and he tries to incite rebellion within the remaining Zodiac council members to effect social change. This just causes everyone to squabble and fight. Aries finds this amusing, but comes for Jake nevertheless. Jake ends up losing the key back to Aries, but escapes with his life.

Aries reveals himself as an actual god at the end of the series. He was cast out by Zeus for causing too much trouble in Omnipotence City and bound to be peaceful. He has taken that to mean he can't fight personally and has been manipulating world events with extracts from the aforementioned Zodiac Key to cause as much conflict as possible. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team have been annoying him by thwarting his plans. He says he is tired of being subtle.

They need the whole team, including Dottie, Sousa, Thomson and the Howling commandos using Stark tech and the Human Torch (Jim), Union Jack II (Brian) and Spitfire (Jacqueline). Peggy also calls in a favour from California based Adam Brashear (aka Blue Marvel) to help take him down. As Adam was the love interest from the previous series, this risks embarrassment for Peggy and could possibly end her relationship with Sousa, but the stakes are too high not to.

Ultimately Jim is the only one not affected by the Zodiac key and has to go Supernova to knock him out. He knew he was becoming unstable and had been advised he might go supernova, he just decides to do it on purpose. Heroic sacrifice! The team is devastated at the loss.

A relationship between Jim and Jacqueline would be built up through the series so she would take this the hardest.

Zeus could come and actually bind Ares with power dampening bangles. This physically prevents him from conflict instead of just getting his word. He is captured and will not be seen again till Dark Avengers.

S.H.I.E.L.D. recommends Adam for a commendation and Jim for a posthumous one. The CIA intervene and say that not only will no one will be getting one but no one must hear of it. The existence of gods and aliens is very much covered up at the behest of the American government so as not to cause mass hysteria. No one outside of the President and the people who were at the final battle know anything about it.

Adam is told he cannot be publicly rewarded and is no longer allowed to fight crime (he has been fighting crime in a costume and mask to hide his identity) as the CIA believe the world is not ready for a black superhero. The President reluctantly confirms this. S.H.I.E.L.D. must assign him a handler (he is so going to fight crime).

As Jim was essentially a sentient weapon the CIA won't publicly acknowledge his existence and stipulate he must be buried in the desert in an indestructible airtight box. The President reluctantly confirms this too.

Dottie disappears after making a significant contribution and manages to stay off radar until the first Black Widow movie…

Peggy and Sousa decide to carry on with their long distance relationship.

Namor shows up when he finds out about Noah. He is not happy that his citizen was defeated and arrested and he vows never to return. He is also not happy with said citizen for acting without his consent and forces S.H.I.E.L.D. to release him into Talokanil custody. He is sorry about Jim Hammond's passing though and stays for the burial in a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. location in the desert.

Post credits:- Peggy calls Marlene Frazier and asks, as she has been with Adam this whole time anyway, if she'll be his handler. He comes home and gives her a kiss, they have developed a relationship while working together. She says she is happy to keep an eye on him.

[drewlyyours]

LOOK WHAT I FOUND

For those who don’t know, I’m a museum curator and I found this old box of chocolates in the archives (don’t worry, there was no chocolate in there. Oddly, they DID leave the wrappers when they donated it.

The back says: “This tin is a replica of one in a series of original Salmagundi tins introduced by Whitman’s Candies in 1924. Salmagundi was the beautiful and mysterious woman, painted by Alphonse Mucha, who graced the center of each tin. The tin design captures the handwork of the Near East through its use of intricate recurring mosaic tiles and colors.”

(The painting itself is called Zodiac, 1896)

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[monoukotori]

There has been a lot of talk about how Andromeda Shun defies gender roles by being a soft kind man who hates fighting, but I think we should also talk how Saga, the big bad of the sanctuary arc, also defies gender expectations

He's the most powerful saint of sanctuary, he's a ruthless killer who murdered a lot of people, including the man who raised him and his best friend,pretended to be the Pope for 13 years and tried to assassinate a bunch of teenagers that opposed him

He is also a pretty bishounen man that has the most fanservice scenes in the entire anime, after being unmasked cried for like, 40 percent of his screentime and immediately submitted to Athena after losing.

He's a manly man who is also sensitive and emotionally fragile, who embodies the dichotomy of masculinity and feminity in the most extreme ways with his double personality

Not to mention the fact that before Seiya he effectively murdered everyone who saw him without his mask as if he was a female saint.

[bumblebeehug]

Fairy tail and zodiac spirits vs Chinese zodiac spirits

i don't really see any reason for them to go against each other, i just wish we could see some more celestial spirit lore in general. mashima created so much potential with those keys, i wish we could see more characters and maybe see some of their history - who "created" celestial keys? do they just spawn on earth randomly as per the Celestial king's wishes? Idk it's just uncharted territory

[teatitty]

Scorpio's sand abilities would've been so much fucking cooler if he'd been a Gaara type of character. Instead of doing sand tornadoes and then being done for a fight give me a dude who can turn the sand into armour, use it as a long distance weapon and crush you beneath the weight of it. It's like when a pokemon changes the weather to give themselves a boost while damaging the opponent, this is his terrain now motherfucker you're stuck in here with him

[saberamane]

Resin Zodiac keychains now for sale on my etsy!

For swirled colors, please choose custom colors and add a message with your order.

[sundrykitsch]

arent they a tough nut to crack

[smtown-tourist]

When you think it’ll be fun to make a post about which of the 5 elements each SHINee member represents but now you’re faced with the moral dilemma of who should represent Spirit

[juvian]

Not a lot of FT fandom members follows me, but I’m thinking about doing pokemon team for the characters again (did it once but more gen came out and never post it anyway) but i hesitating on going the vibe route (like anything I think they would like) or going by matching their types with their magic

[dailyfigures]

Aaah are we sharing collections? If I may?

(a lot of these are customs I sculpted, because figures of my faves just don't exist)

I would love to get the Myethos Sleeping Beauty figure one day... she's so beautiful but way beyond my budget right now ;-; *sighs* One day!

you have a really beautiful set up oh my god it's so unique! i can tell you put a lot of love and effort into it it's beautiful! thank you for sharing!!! <3

[bloomed2venus]

₊˚⊹♡ 𝙸'𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚔𝚎𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 - 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝙼𝚎 𝙱𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛.

[cozmiczodiacfriendz]

The power trio is finally here to stay! Via Virgo™, Jenny Gemini™ and Karol Kancer ™ are the first characters to welcome you to the startastic world of Cozmic Zodiac friendz. We can't wait for you to meet the rest of the crew, but we gotta do this one thing at the time hahaha.

.

(Cozmic Zodiac will soon stop the frequency of posts due to the upcoming holidays. New posts and characters will be coming soon next year in 2024. Love, Ms Milkyway.)

[moongirl29]

Who is your Prince? :3

Aries: Kamijo

Taurus: Kamijo

Gemini: Kamijo

Cancer: Kamijo

Leo: Kamijo

Virgo: Kamijo

Libra: Kamijo

Scorpio: Kamijo

Sagittarius: Kamijo

Capricorn: Kamijo

Aquarius: Kamijo

Pisces: Kamijo

[witchyfashion]

https://amzn.to/3XxBsAI