#and their source so I can check their wiki/tumblr page

[beloved-boterbloem]

Reblog game! Reblog with your f/o and their source and I’ll assign them a flower!

> closed! <

[katyspersonal]

The best Bloodborne Wiki is a passion project of a single person, is about to get even better + how it can be sustained for years to come!

Hello guys! So like many of you've learned from the post with super good model view of Winter Lantern, recently, on Twitter, Meph announced ( x ) the plan to fill the wiki with very useful, very comprehensive screenshots of the models for bosses, enemies, NPCs and even cut content! The wiki has already been a huge help for lorediggers and artists, but THIS is what we will get:

This page is for Lady Maria and you can check it yourself here: ( x )! It is broken down in the categories of general close-ups of her model, then very high-quality screenshots of every attack during her boss battle and walking, and then raw model!

(I never was able to capture a good look at her using Arcane too like here, for example!)

Winter Lantern page ( x ) is using similar principle!

This is not a secret that very often in Fromsoft games, additional information can be obtained not through descriptions but through visual hints! For example, some people only learned that Winter Lantern's head is made of melted Messengers only now, after a proper look at her model! So, of course getting a proper look at every single character and creature from the game could always be helpful!

This, however, is just a recent highlight for this Bloodborne Wiki! Even prior that, it has been providing invaluable help for the fans! Examples off the top of my head: comprehensive data on what character has what items used or not, great and comprehensive hints and tutorials on upgrades and farming and builds for the players, making every bit of information on Chalice Dungeons and glyphs easily accessible, making datamined NPC sliders of all characters way more accessible and easy to grab and repeat, access to much more obscure models (like Gratia's model), full list of internal filenames and patches progress, making information from physical Bloodborne tutorial book accessible...

There are probably more things to cover that me and others found a great help in, and sometimes we might not even notice! I am sure many people could name at least one way where this wiki has been very helpful, offering raw facts and 100% valid information (and properly sourced whenever someone else helped!) without any speculating, in the most elaborate manner! We should not take it for granted because all this information, found or reshared, was compiled by just one guy out of raw passion for the game! And although this project is not profit-based and Meph is willing to commit to it and pay as much as needed to keep it living, I really still wanted to share the Ko-fi link that exists for anyone who is willing to help sponsoring it!

This is not necessary, and Meph has stated the same, but this project is not only helpful but also really hefty to sustain. The monthly support is only $3 per month, but every little bit not only helps the sustenance, but also knowing how much fans care and simply feeling their support is very significant and sometimes you don't even know how much. Heck, when Meph learned how excited people on Tumblr were about Wiki improving with full compilation of models from every angle.. the reaction was "I am so glad that people still care"! I think everyone who does their best to be useful for the fellow fans needs confirmation that they ARE, for sure, helping!

I just really wanted to get the word out anyways because honestly, none of my super elaborate theories and detailed fanart would've been possible without Meph's Wiki. and also because I am trapped in a clown country where I can't send any international money transfer so the feeling of 'do what I can't' got to me too fsdhfdhs There is no pressure or necessity, but here is the link to anyone who can help and feels the wish to! You've noticed I didn't tag Meph.... since there is no Tumblr account to tag, but again, the Twitter link is also here: ( x )!

[thefalloutwiki]

Say hello to the new and independent Fallout Wiki!

Greetings to all of you lovely wastelanders, mutants and robots alike! We come bearing an important announcement, one which might even pique the curiosity of all you nosy prospectors out there.

We’d like to introduce you to the shiny and brand spanking new, Independent Fallout Wiki.

Now, I know, you may be asking to yourself, “Wait, there’s already a Fallout Wiki out there! Why’s this one so dang special?” 

Well, if you’d bear with me for a moment, I’ll tell you why!

What is the Independent Fallout Wiki?

Well, the Independent Fallout Wiki is just about as straightforward as it sounds! We all used to be members of another wiki dedicated to Fallout, which is hosted by a company that shall remain nameless. Now, if there’s one thing you should know about this company, it’s that they have very little regard for the community, introducing changes that no one likes, hosting tons of ads and even buying out wiki editors to work for them. We find this (among other things) to be antithetical to our beliefs. We feel that wikis should be in the hands of the community, not a company that refuses to listen to us!

This reached a breaking point earlier this year, along with some events out of our control, which led to the bright idea of forking into independence and starting a new wiki! A wiki that’s truly in the hands of the community. A wiki that is self-hosted and safe from harmful, corporate interests. We don’t have shareholders to please and we don’t answer to anyone. We don’t have ads and we don’t need them, hopefully ever. Content is created by fans, for fans

We are simply wanting to provide the most reliable and accurate source of all things Fallout. We’ve even broke bread with some of the other fantastic independent wikis out there, such as Doom Wiki and Combine Overwiki whom we recommend you check out too!

What kinds of new features are we offering?

We’re glad you asked! As well as offering a trove of accurate, well sourced content about the Fallout franchise (with strict guidelines to ensure the best possible content quality, as all wikis should), we’re offering a new Community space. This will be a place for the community to host all kinds of fan works, such as fanfiction, fan art, creations, roleplaying and tabletop games, pen and paper games, Fallout 76 player CAMPs and, much, much more.

As mentioned before, we have affiliated with many other independent wiki projects, including the Doom Wiki, Combine OverWiki, JoJo’s Bizarre Encyclopedia, StrategyWiki, Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages, and even Halopedia! We’re also proud members of the Gaming Wiki Network, and soon, we’ll even be affiliated with NIWA, the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. These affiliations will offer mutual aid and support that will help every wiki in the short-term and long-term. We are looking forward to working with them, for we all share the same goals!

How can we help and how can we be apart of the community?

We welcome anyone who wishes to join our community. It doesn’t matter if you’re an editor or reader. We are all fans of Fallout and we encourage you to join our community! If you are a non-editor and are only looking for information about something from the Fallout franchise, click this here link! https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Fallout_Wiki/

If you are interested in becoming an editor and want to fight the good fight to help rewrite content and smashing misinformation and head-canon, click this other here link! https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Special:UserLogin

While you’re there, check out our LGBTQ representation page. It was written by the lovely robot, C0NN1E here on Tumblr!: 

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/LGBTQ_representation_in_Fallout

We welcome all members of the LGBTQ+, MOGAI, GSRM, Plural and Otherkin communities with open arms!

Last, but not least, if you’d like to be apart of our wider social community, you can follow us here on Tumblr, on Twitter, check out our Instagram or join our Discord, right here below, right now! We even got a fresh, custom invite link!

https://discord.gg/falloutwiki

https://twitter.com/thefalloutwiki

https://www.instagram.com/thefalloutwiki/

Well, that about wraps up this little segment of ours. We hope you enjoy this project as much as we do. We put a lot of time, effort and care into it and we want to give back to the people that we love the most, the community. Have safe travels out there, and we hope to see you around!

END OF BROADCAST

[noxiatoxia]

So, when Danganronpa S was released (and V3's UTDP but I'll get to that later...) Hinata and Komaeda were given noticeably different versions of their pre-existing sprites for their swimsuit versions:

If you struggle to see a difference, note Hinata's wider mouth in the swimsuit ver., and Komaeda's narrower eyes and more outlined smirk in his swimsuit ver.

I, along with many people, always wondered, why? Why change these already perfectly fine sprites and, honestly, make them worse? What gives?

Then, I stumbled across something. Back in 2012, before the Japanese release of Super Danganronpa 2, you could play an online monomono machine to win little goodies like desktop backgrounds and profile pictures. Please note these pre-release desktop backgrounds for Hinata and Komaeda:

...So, wait a minute. The sprites used in Danganronpa S aren't new edits, but beta sprites? Older than the ones featured in the original SDR2? Turns out, this website features desktop backgrounds using beta sprites for nearly every character that otherwise never saw the light of day.*

I'm going to go through them one by one, gif comparisons included. This won't be the only post, either! UTDP also has some very interesting likely beta art used in it, too. As well, some of the other sprites featured in Danganronpa S may also be reused beta sprites!

As such, this log will be broken into three parts. This is part 1.

[Part 2 - UTDP (not made yet!)] [Part 3 - DRS (not made yet!)] [Part 4 - Dangan Island (not made yet!)]

*with the exception of UTDP in some cases, as well as some other things I will get to in Part 4.

As said, semi-flashing gifs will be included in this post. They are meant to swap between the beta and final sprites at a fast pace to illustrate the differences (2 frame, half a second each). Be cautious if you have epilepsy.

Also, because of Tumblr's stupid image limit, this post will have a reblog with the rest of the sprites! So please check this post's reblogs, it should be the first one!

Firstly, how do we know these are actually beta sprites? These images are sourced from the Danganronpa fandom wiki, and while I generally trust the wiki's credibility, it's always imperative to fact-check. So, I went ahead and searched Danganronpa's old website on the Wayback Machine and uncovered this:

A character intro page for Hinata, using this same beta sprite. Now, granted, the only capture of this page is from 2015. Still a year before V3 and a few more before S, but still, it's not the 2012 original. That said, a character intro page for Mioda circa early 2014 looks exactly the same, including the usage of her beta sprite.

And, when you click on the button that says スクリーンショット(Screenshot)...

You're offered a very obviously beta trial shot. As is common with Danganronpa trials, in development, the actual character portraits are not put in until later, and to substitute, their art reference photos are used, as seen on the left.

With that out of the way, I think it's safe to say these sprite we are about to look at are indeed betas.

It's only fair, then, we focus on Hinata first.

(Please note for all the comparison gifs I had to manually size the final sprites to get them as close as possible in aspect ratio. Very minor size difference between sprites is likely a result of this and not an actual detail change.)

A lot is revealed with a simple gif. Hinata's entire face shape was changed (including ears), not just his mouth. In fact, not just the shape of his face, but the face itself is drawn very differently in the end. The neck of his shirt was raised, as well as tie being redrawn (you can actually see where the new part begins somewhat sloppily). Less notable but still apparent are his bangs being redrawn and shaded differently.

Keeping with consistency, let's check out Komaeda next.

Yet again, the differences are striking when flipped back and forth. Komaeda's face shape and ear was redone much like Hinata, but not to nearly the same dramatic extent. As well, his entire face was redrawn, notably erasing the black shading under his chin and shortening his eyelashes. Less noticeable, the hair touching his neck is shortened a bit, and the crease line on his hood is more well-defined. They also slightly changed the line art for the first fold in his shirt, the neck at the back of his shirt, as well as his leftmost bang. Interestingly, they either forgot or didn't care to fix the shading to reflect the new placement of these lines. His jacket also has some changes in line art weight.

With Hinata and Komaeda out of the way, let's touch on Kuzuryuu.

This one honestly shocked me. Besides the added detail of him spitting, I didn't notice any difference right off the bat until I overlayed the images, but the differences are night and day. His eyes are made to be less mean and more skeptical. His mole was shrunk and his nose is more 3-dimensional. Extra detail is added to his ear while his hair is redrawn in whole, including it being slightly shorter. What's most interesting is the fact the body was sized up and moved down several pixels, I imagine to change the perspective. Some minor line changes are made to the white undershirt of his suit.

It would be improper not to do Pekoyama next.

Again, just like Kuzuryuu, I didn't notice half of these changes at first. Pekoyama's whole face is slimmed. The outer outline of her hair remains the same, but almost every outline inside of it, including her bangs, changes. (Although, her right twin-tail has a slightly longer end to it.) Her outfit receives minor touch-ups, including a clothes fold on her breast and darker shading by her collarbone. Speaking of, her neck muscles and such have been redrawn. Most interesting to me is the fact Pekoyama's outline is noticeably thicker with action lines in the original beta sprite, but lack them in the final sprite as if somebody used the magic wand tool to edit the background out, editing away some of the jagged black lines in the process. She is the only character where this happens.

Since she is a major character, let's do Nanami now.

I wasn't surprised to find Nanami has virtually no difference about her. Her design was pretty much set in stone early on. That said, it's not entirely the same. Though very minor, the thickness of her left eye was increased at the top. As well, shading across her pinky finger was removed. There is also a chance her body is slightly bigger, but that's more likely to be a result of me failing to perfectly match up the two images.

I want to focus on Souda now as he was the first one I did this test with.

You know, when I first played SDR2, I thought Souda looked kind of scary. His beta is even scarier looking! I can see why they changed it...Every detail on his face is redrawn including his chin, notably his pupil was enlarged and his eyebrows were quirked. Funnily, it seems the clip on his beanie was redrawn, but like Komaeda, they didn't edit the color layer to match the new outline. Some minor line art changes were made to his back hair. The lines for his neck and collarbone were lessened, and the jacket zipper is made more three dimensional. His thumb was fixed too, as well as the lines on his hand.

Also, here's a fun little thing I noticed while replaying SDR2 just a few days ago!

The sprite used for Souda in the Dangan Island opening is the exact same as the beta sprite! This would be the only time Westerners would catch a glimpse of some beta sprites until UTDP, as keep in mind, these wallpapers were exclusive to the Japanese Danganronpa website.

In fact, Souda isn't the only one with a beta sprite in the Dangan Island opening. I will also be covering that in part 4.

Moving on...

I guess it's only natural we look at Sonia's sprite next.

Changes like these ones are very interesting to me, because if you did not do a side-by-side like this, you may never see how many minor details were changed. A lot of Sonia's line art was redrawn to be more detailed, such as more lines in her hair, thinner outlines for her braid, and redrawn creases in her shoulders and bow (as well as a redrawn button). Her face is interesting as some very minor changes were made. Some detail is added to both ears (thicker outline on the right, changed line art on the left) and her left eyebrow is slightly edited. She was also given extra eyelashes on both sides. When it comes to such minor changes, it makes you wonder why they bothered at all. I wonder what the development looked like.

Anyways, please check the reblog for the second part! That's where the rest of the characters will be!

[bracketsoffear]

Welcome to the Brackets of Fear!

Yes, it's time for another tumblr poll about TMA Fear Avatars -- with a twist. There will be no characters from The Magnus Archives. Instead, I ask that you submit your favorite characters from other media who you think would best serve as a manifestation of a Fear's power.

Rules for all polls

1. No real people.

2. No TMA characters, not even ones who serve Fears other than the one the bracket is for. We're going for a crossover here.

3. Feel free to submit as many characters as you’d like, but please do not submit the same one more than once.

4. Propaganda is allowed. However, please be sure to focus on the characters and NOT the source material, actors, authors, or fans. Propaganda violating this rule will not be posted.

FAQ

Q: "I think this character fits another entity better, can I submit them for that tournament when it comes up?"

A: If they went out in the first two rounds, they can be resubmitted. If they went out in round three, they can be resubmitted, but will likely take a penalty during consideration of the tournament's construction. Characters making it to the semifinal round or beyond will not be considered in future polls.

Q: "I think this character fits this entity's aesthetics, but I'm not sure how well they fit their meaning/I'm having trouble expressing why I think this character deserves to be in the tournament."

A: Check the relevant Entity's wiki page here and consider drawing parallels to events or avatars in the show itself.

Q: "Are submissions chosen based on how many times they were submitted?"

A: That's one factor. I also look at how well their description fits the actual entity and what I personally think would make for an interesting match-up.

Links to submission forms and masterposts

Eye - Results - Redemption Results

Lonely - Results - Redemption Results

Vast - Results - Redemption Results

Buried - Results - Redemption Results

Dark - Results - Redemption Results

Stranger - Results - Redemption Results

Doctor Who Stranger Poll - Results

Spiral - Results - Redemption Results

Slaughter - Results - Redemption Results

16th Competitor - Results

Hunt - Results - Redemption Results

Flesh - Results - Redemption Results

End - Results - Redemption Results

Extinction - Results - Redemption Results

Desolation - Results - Redemption Results

Corruption - Results - Redemption Results

Web - Results - Redemption Results

Fear-Adjacent Non-Avatars - Results - Redemption Results

Eye Take 2 - Results

Lonely Take 2 - Results

Vast Take 2 - Masterpost

WINNER'S BRACKET - Results - Redemption Results

Fast Food Flesh Poll - Masterpost

Finally, tags so folks can find this: @besttship @bisexual-monarch-tournament @asexual-swag-competition @clown-poll @theshipwars

[teenagemutantninjatrauma]

Actually y'know, while I'm at this - didn't wanna make that anon's innocent ask all about this, but please ninja turtle fandom, do NOT take the 2003 tmnt Fandom.com wiki as gospel. Most of the information there is questionable at best and I am still not over hummerhouse, who's written like hundreds of tcest fics, being a moderator there. I suspect with how long they in particular have been around that there's just, a whole older generation where tcest was a lot more tolerated and seen as normal, and, you know, personally I'd like to find out about cool extra stuff about a show I like from people who don't ship siblings together. So, question the sources, check things for yourself.

Here's where else you can go look for stuff! (gonna write out the links in case Tumblr fucks up so you can just copy paste them for yourselves <3)

🐢 Peter Laird's blog! (https://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot.com) Plus, specifically all the blog posts about 03! (https://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot.com/search/label/TMNT%204Kids%20TV%20show)

🐢 The Technodrome Forums (http://forums.thetechnodrome.com) - an internet forum for discussion about all the iterations, but also stuff like roleplaying :D It might seem old-fashioned but at least you get to ask around for anything you might need.

🐢 @tmntkiseki here on tumblr! Collecting a metric fuckton of character sheets, vehicle sheets, concept art, gadget art, and background art. Bonus - everything very neatly organized in their pinned post!

🐢 Similarly we also have @tmntbackgrounds (I think that's just 03?), and @tmnt-background-screenshots (more than just 03, more than just backgrounds)!

Anyways this got a bit long and I realized that the older iterations' fandoms don't have many reliable sources of info (although I am forever frickin grateful for the character sheet and background blogs at least) so anybody is free to reblog this with resources or leave them on this post in comments or reblog this onto their own info-collecting blogs. Just uh, y'know, remember to cite your sources and don't be a stickler about randomass character information. As far as I can tell the newer iterations - '12 and Rise and MM - don't have this big of a problem with a lack of sources, but I'm not that active in those sides of the fandom, so feel free to add on with other iterations as well if you want to!

immediate edit: a strategy wiki page for the 03 game! (https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(2003))

another edit: you can also, of course, find the whole 03 series on youtube!

yet another edit: thank you Human for a Kiddle link (https://kids.kiddle.co/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(2003_TV_series)) about the 03 show, the descriptions are p brief but the website does get into all the other iterations as well so it's great for comparison!

[cynthiav06]

I'm really pleasantly surprised that you answered :)

Of course, here are some materials from where I got information about Zagreus and Peitho!

For Peitho:

https://mirrorpalace.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/an-exploration-of-peitho/ - her research, which I really love.

And here is the stream of consciousness about her - https://mirrorpalace.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/thoughts-on-peitho/

They both don't belong to me.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3093410 -the fanfiction in which she appears, just keep in mind that it can be very difficult and dark there - Nico Di Angelo becomes a victim. This fanfiction also doesn't belong to me.

Zagreus:

https://hades.fandom.com/wiki/Zagreus - his wiki page, though I can't judge how good it is, because mostly I just read fanfiction/posts on tumblr and get information from there.

and - https://www.tumblr.com/happyk44/tagged/Zagreus - there is also a lot of good material about Zagreus.

And here's one fanfiction - https://archiveofourown.org/works/47538967/chapters/119808652 - from there I draw the creepy and dark part of Zagreus. It doesn't belong to me.

I'm sorry if you get a little confused. I "collect" Character images from various sources, reinforcing them with my own thoughts. For example, Peitho in my understanding is basically the same as in "An Abyss for Atonement" with some additions and my changes. And if you were wondering why I see Percy as a legacy of goddess of charm and a chthonic god - the answer is simple - Percy is beautiful and charming,He is most likely one of the most beautiful demigods of his generation and he can convince you to do what he wants. And I think Percy has some kind of connection with the underworld, it's a subtle dark atmosphere and the fact that he likes to travel through the shadows. His connection to the underworld is subtle and not too noticeable, as if, funny to say, ghostly.

I think this was the hardest of asks, but somehow, I liked it entirely too much. It's a bit out of box take, but I have already done one where I wrote Percy as a Legacy of Odysseus, so I think this fits too. Why do I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring theme for asks?

I am so terribly sorry for the delay but I didn't want to make the post without reading up on most of your suggestions; as I have said I was really unfamiliar with both Zagreus and Peitho.

As per anon's request Percy is a Legacy of Zagreus and Peitho through his grandparents. Percy Jackson as the Legacy of Zagreus and Peitho. [His grandmother Estelle was the daughter of Zagreus, and his grandfather James - son of Peitho].

Peitho is a very interesting deity. I suggest all readers check out at least one of anon's references. She is the deity of seduction, of persuasion , of divine charm and thrall. A force of passion and abstract power.

In certain versions, she is also an alternate representation of one of the Moraie. Lachesis, to be precise. She also used to represent the concept of everything that has happened before or has been till now.

Zagreus, though intriguing, is a bit more straightforward. I know I know I just called a chthonic god straight forward, but he is. Now, the wiki states that he is the God of Blood, but in one of the codex entries, Achilles says he is also a God of life.

He has connections with Styx and has traversed through Tartarus and here's a fun fact in the orignal myths Zagreus and Dinosyus are actually the same gods or at least father and son which would kind of create an extremely strange and entertaining dynamic but let's stick to game wiki. Not to mention the very newly layered dynamic now painted between Percy, Hades, and Nico.

Now think, Percy, eloquent and charming, words dripping with unspoken power. People think it's the tongue of the sea, of sirens, alluring and hypnotic, but it's far older, far more primordial, of Peithos, of divine eloquence, of persuasion.

Perseus Jackson, who none, not god nor mortal, can deny. Persuasion by words, persuasion by war , is it not all the same? Both reflect passion and thus reflect Peitho.

Perseus Jackson, beautiful and alluring, yet dangerous. Too sharp edged. Not a gentle beauty. A sharp, passionate, bloody beauty ,whether of sea or underworld we know not yet.

Percy Jackson, with midnight black hair, so vivid, so deep, that even the Lord of the Underworld balks at the resemblance, to his own line and that of Poseidon's.

Percy Jackson, who dreams and dreams yet again of things that have been, ages before or just now, it does not matter. He has my sight drawls Peitho , lips red with blood and rose, from somewhere far away, but perhaps Sally hears it all the same for she has it too, the gift of her line.

Perseus, whom Styx spares the fatal curse of Achilles not out of Roman interference but out of familial bonds, of primordial connections. The Underworld looks after its own, does it not? And Perseus Jackson is most certainly of the Underworld, will always be.

Percy, whose mind bends blood as easily as it would water sees not the gift of Zagreus, but a horror of Tartarus but he will come to see, after all blood is life and life is blood. Of blood and over blood child, that is your power declares Zagreus from the deepest caverns if the Underworld and Percy thinks he's heard the whispers of the pit but perhaps, just perhaps blood will serve him well, better than sea, better than water.

Perseus, whose call the rivers obey, the rivers of the Underworld. They recognize the blood of their own, do they not? They do, and they answer. They always will, and so will the dead if he dares call upon them. One day, one day whispers Achilles to Zagreus as they watch, the rise and triumph of the favored child of the sea and the Underworld.

Percy, who puts all in his thrall just with the green of his eyes and the smile at his lips. He sees not the divine Peitho in himself, but Aphrodite does not miss, neither do the Olympians.

Perseus, who teeters on the edge of mortal and divine as does Zagreus between living and death. Both, neither, one more than the other. Which one? We may yet see, but Peitho knows, and so does Zagreus. They do not say it, but the Olympians feel it. The wave of change.

Percy, who finds his way in and out of his uncle's, once and again, and then always. New ways and old ones, even forgotten ones. Perhaps Zagreus will be out of a job soon, thinks Persephone fondly. Not even the Lord of the Dead finds it in himself the words of chagrin.

That's all the thoughts I can think up at the moment but I will reblog with more I am sure cause this will stay with me.

I wrote it a bit too dramatically, but I think it fits well. All things considered. Also, anon, let me know if this was to your liking.

Also, I think Zagreus's dynamic with Nico could be super interesting, and maybe just maybe it deserves it own post.

[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.

[where-i-overanalyze]

the significant lack of parents in Soul Eater and how the DWMA combats that

obviously, there are some parents present throughout the entirety of Soul Eater, but they truly are not amongst the greatest: Medusa, Spirit, Lord Death (he's okay in comparison to everyone else, but still not dad of the year). i started this just wanting to talk about how there are almost no parents and then ended up realizing some sorta nice things about the DWMA by the end of it. manga spoilers, so beware.

characters who have living parents

let's start with Maka since she's the only one who has one parent present and one parent mentioned in somewhat detail. Spirit certainly is quite the character; he has almost no redeemable qualities except for the fact that he does actually love and support his child. that's all good, and yet he cannot correct his behavior to actually make himself a person that his daughter will respect. he cares so much and yet he does nothing to try and be a better father for her and what she actually needs from a parent.

but then we have Maka's "wonderful" unnamed mother. great mom, great meister, never given an example as to what this woman could really be like. i haven't been into Soul Eater for super long and i'm sure there are definitely people who have been shitting on Maka's mom, but it's interesting to me purely because even though there aren't many parents in Soul Eater to begin with, there is an even more extreme lack of mothers. i'm going to get nebulous with the definition throughout this post, but it really just seems like the "idea" of a good mother is all the characters get. Maka only gets memories of how great her mother was, maybe because she truly wasn't that great in the first place. a meister who made a death scythe is never to be seen throughout the greatest threat of all time within the past 800 years, not even to check on her one daughter? maybe she's busy? sure. idc what she's doing, but that's a strike out for me.

moving away from Maka's dubious parents, let's look at Kid and Lord Death. in truth, he's not nearly as bad as the other parents in terms of actual parenting, but he is clearly much different in relation to the other parents. he's not human, he's in charge of seemingly their entire world, and Kid is essentially just a chunk of Lord Death that was given sentience. with that, we have to think of exactly what is it that death gods even need in order to be raised. since Asura was a failed attempt, Kid was specifically "born with a childish nature so he [could] learn fear, much like humans" (DTK Soul Eater Wiki page). am i really citing a source in my Tumblr post, is this who i am. SO, thinking about what death gods are meant to do with their power and the fact that they are meant to keep balance in the world, i'd say that Lord Death did a pretty good job of getting Kid to become the best death god he could be. when it comes to actual "normal" parenting standards, idek if we can hold Lord Death up to those since they both are very much not normal. keeping Kid in the dark about some insanely important details about the academy (the Kishin in the basement) and letting Kid know that Lord Death would die when he awoke his true powers, maybe not the best choice, but i'll admit that i'm an extremist when it comes to people keeping important secrets that could have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble.

actually, i take some of my positive statements back when thinking about how Lord Death handled Asura. i know Asura was all powerful and just sort of super insane, but given the fact that Asura was a failed attempt of a fragment and Kid was Lord Death's way of trying again, it feels kind of wrong to give him a title of Decent Dad when his first attempt at making a young death god ended up so so so messed up. also, making a second one just in the hopes of solving your first mess up, kinda fucked up.

anyways, Tsubaki! she's honestly very interesting because we know that both of her parents are alive, but we see almost NOTHING about them. the only time we actually see her dad is in chapter 49 and that's basically it. her mom is mentioned, but we never even get to see her or get her name, so once again there is just no mother present at all and just the "idea" of her. given the fact that they pretty much neglected their other child to the point that he became a serial killer because he wasn't treated the same as Tsubaki, i can't give them much credit for good parenting. maybe Tsubaki came out okay and mild-mannered, but Masamune straight up just got neglected and went bonkers because of it.

and now we reach the grand finale of horrible present parents, Crona and Medusa. debated about putting her in the "dead parents" category, but Medusa is alive for the majority of Soul Eater, so she can stay here. obviously, Medusa's the absolute worst. she literally never has any good intentions for anything she does with Crona, she's extremely manipulative, blatantly abusive, etc. she literally dangles the concept of being a good mother in front of Crona to get them to obey her and in the end that gets her killed (and yet that STILL was part of her plan. she's literally insane). she also tricks other people into helping her by pretending she's worried about Crona. she contributes the mother "idea" again, though this time she is very present, just not as a good mother. i won't go into all the shit that Medusa did, we all know she was horrible. i go into more of Medusa's manipulation in this post.

characters who have dead parents

Black☆Star, i think, is the only character of the main cast that has confirmed dead parents. he never knew any of his clan and sort of renounces them (maybe renounce isn't the right word, but his whole character arc about choosing his own path and defeating Mifune makes it somewhat clear that he doesn't want to end up like his parents). we know about his father, White☆Star, but once again, the mother is never mentioned. from what we're shown . . . yeah, the Star clan sucked and were obsessed with power and whatnot. it's an interesting contrast with Tsubaki: they both come from very well known family lines with very different connotations surrounding them. to an outsider who knows about both of their families, it probably seems a bit sacrilegious for Black☆Star to be partnered with her in the first place.

characters whose parents are MIA

Liz and Patty at least have an "unnamed woman" shown as their mother for a single panel in chapter 78. the "prettiest prostitute in New York" obviously didn't do much to raise them since they were the Brooklyn Devils for a while. no mention of a father and an evidently absent mother, we are once again hit with the "idea" of a mother that isn't there. Liz literally says she hates her mother, thanks her for bringing her and Patty into existence, and nothing else is said about her. it's only after they get sorta "drafted" by Kid that they get to live a pleasant life. there's obviously also some things to say about economic status and being dealt a bad hand in life and whatnot, but i can get into that another time i think.

now, Soul. homie has got NO PARENTS EVER MENTIONED. the closest we get is Wes and unnamed grandma who is never shown. he's literally the only character we don't get shit for who his parents are, where they are, if they're even living and i think that speaks volumes. going off of assumptions, the fact that Soul literally renounced his family name, ran away to go to weapon school, and didn't play the piano for years until he was able to do it, sort of, on his own terms most likely means that his parents were some kind of horrible. also, being forced to play into a family legacy has got to be unhealthy. always feeling overshadowed by your older sibling who, obviously, has more experience is upsetting, but the fact that Soul was seemingly never reassured about his skills is dubious at best. i have strong feelings about forcing children into family legacies, maybe that can be its own post some day as well, and if your kid feels like they actually have to run away to escape it, well then i don't think it works out very well. it's incredibly important that we don't get any parental information from Soul and that we never hear anything about anyone from his family looking for him. maybe he told them he was leaving, but maybe he just slipped away and nobody bothered to look for him.

actual parental figures

while writing this, i realized that everyone in this category is a DWMA professor. DWMA as a whole seems to provide all of the main cast with a place to be that was much better than where they came from. Black☆Star and Maka sort of grew up in and around the DWMA, Soul, Liz, and Patty all came from much worse places before enrolling, Tsubaki and Kid kinda seem like they were chilling tbh, and of course Crona literally experiences positive emotions for the first time during their short time there. schools, ideally, should give their students the opportunity to grow in their skills and find a community with the students and teachers so that they can have an overall positive experience.

Marie is definitely the best example of this and despite the fact that she isn't even a mother (i refuse to acknowledge the unborn baby in chapter 113, most of that chapter is a black stain in my memory that even bleach couldn't remove), she is easily the healthiest mother figure in the entire series. she actually cares about the students even though she was initially reluctant to be a teacher. she worries about their wellbeing, she talks to them about their problems, and overall she is the closest to that "idea" of a mother that keeps showing up. i think part of this is because she sort of realizes that she has this power of being a teacher and a death scythe, but also there are points where she realizes she can't be reckless because she has to be there for the students (thinking specifically about the tempest and how she knows she can't go back in there to save them). she leaves an impression on Crona and she's one of the few people they actually remember Medusa's second wave of experiments she does on them. Crona saw her as a good, supportive person and it continually haunts them that they betrayed her. it's the exact opposite relationship they have with Medusa; Marie is only kind and understanding to Crona when they expect betrayal and hatred, and Medusa is only cruel when all Crona needed was some sort of . . . well, anything healthy.

Stein is interesting to me because he's more of a fun uncle than a "father" in my eyes. he doesn't coddle his students and sometimes he's a bit harsh with them, but this is purely because he knows they can achieve things they don't realize they're capable of. by the end of the manga, he fully acknowledges that, wow, these kids are pretty good at all of this!!! and i taught them this shit!!! go kids!!! now, all of this being said, i do not think he could be a real, healthy father unless someone sucked out all the madness in his brain out with a straw. even with no madness, i doubt he'd want kids because he's got all these spunky students to supervise. this is also why i refuse to acknowledge the chapter 113 unborn baby, i think Stein would know he couldn't be a father and gave himself a vasectomy.

finally, i want to talk a bit about Sid. i wish so badly that the manga went into some more detail about him practically raising Black☆Star after the DWMA eliminated the Star clan. they don't treat each other like father and son, but it's clear that Sid at least cared enough to make sure he was raised and trained well. it makes the mission where Sid and Naigus go into the Arachnophobia lab to destroy the machine and Black☆Star shows up kind of more interesting since Sid's like "Whoever that student is, thank god they're here" and then he's like "Wait a damn minute, that's MY student." it's also nice to see when Sid's proud of him and whatnot. i just like this dynamic they have where it's like not fully familial, but they're more than just a mentor and mentee.

in an attempt to come to a final point, i that the DWMA really gives something to all these characters that they needed and lacked in their familial situations. sounds cheesy and it is, but i find it so nice that such a pleasant and supportive school structure is found in a universe in which people turn into weapons and fight horrors and the school is training all these kids to fight horrors. Maka gets to chase after these legendary stories she's heard about her mother, and becomes arguably more successful than her mother. Soul gets the chance to make his own path outside of the family name he's abandoned and also gets to reclaim his music along the way. Black☆Star and Tsubaki get to be this duo that allows them to kind of get out of these super old expectations of their bloodlines and by working together they get to subvert these expectations and prove people wrong about the type of people they want to be. Liz and Patty got to escape the shitty holes they'd been born into and actually be people they were proud of. Kid was able to actually understand other people, to an extent, and it made him capable of becoming the next death god. The actual human kindness that Crona was shown there is eventually what lets them sacrifice themself for everyone else since they know that it will bring good in the end. the students in Soul Eater may have some real shit parents, but the DWMA is apparently there to fill in the void of those parents.

thank you for joining me for another long af Soul Eater post. i think my next endeavor will be tackling how the manga timeline works, b/c it's pretty fucked up imo

[underthehedge]

CTVT and a weird niche theory I fell down the rabbit hole about - giant transforming retroviruses???

This is a story about how a single line on a wikipedia page sent me down a rabbit hole of finding one scientist's fringe theory that's juuuust plausible enough to make me question everything while almost certainly being absolute fucking bunk.

Some background

So, on parts of tumblr at least we all know about Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumour, aka The Immortal Cancer Dog. For those who don't know, it's a cancer dogs get, usually on their junk, that unlike most other cancers, isn't made up of their own cells. The cells are actually all descended from this one dog or wolf that lived like 11,000 years ago and are, arguably, all technically that one dog. A dog that became a single-celled infectious disease.

We have a wealth of genetic, histological and observational evidence for this. As in, we know it what population of canids it came from, we know it's got a weird chromosomal structure compared to normal dogs, we know it's genetically distinct from the hosts. We also know it's not the only one out there: There's a similar thing in Syrian hamsters and also the famous Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD).

Which made me pause when I was reading something on wikipedia about the devil facial tumour and saw a line mentioning that it was now known to be caused by a giant virus, much like CTVT. Which...huh? Oh I hadn't heard that afore.

Giant viruses

Ok so giant viruses are a thing and they're fuckin cool. They're a relatively recent discovery and comparatively huge, i.e. bigger than a bunch of bacteria. They were only discovered in 1981 and we still don't know an enormous amount about them but they're big and have large genomes and because of the way viruses are they're not easy to detect unless you're specifically looking for them.

They show up under microscopy (sometimes) and you can find them with genetic probes but you gotta already be looking for them to see that really. Current research though basically says they're more common than we think, just overlooked, and there's software out there that scans through genomic data to find sequences that might indicate their presence. There's even a possibility that one group might be involved in some cases of pneumonia in humans, though I need to stress that that's extremely not confirmed right now.

The "wait, what?" moment

So I mentioned that it was a line in the wiki article for DFTD that had me going "wait, really?", the line in question was this:

A study found evidence for an infectious agent resembling a giant virus that was capable of turning heathy cells into cancer cells. It was found to be a huge retrovirus with similar viruses being found in human and canine cancer cells.

Big If True.

So of course I check the source, which was a 2020 paper by Lusi et al. titled "A transforming giant virus discovered in Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumour: Stray dogs and Tasmanian devils opening the door to a preventive cancer vaccine".

Hang on, CTVT not DFTD? This is where some alarm bells went off because uh, as mentioned at the start, we know a shit ton about CTVT. Including the fact that it's all one specific dog. Which doesn't fit at all with the idea that it's caused by a virus transforming host cells into cancer cells.

So what fucking gives? What is this research that fully overturns decades of pretty conclusive research to the contrary?

Is this another case of Dr Barbara McClintock? Who spent decades being ridiculed by the scientific community over her wild theory that was, in fact, 100% right even if it seemed to fly in the fact of all prior evidence?

Or is this a Dr Donald I. Williamson situation wherein a scientist with appropriate training is just wildly but extremely vehemently wrong?

[musicalmoritz]

Uhh kinda stupid question from someone who's technically new to the fandom despite following the manga for a while, where do ya'll find the official au's and their art? Like the Monster nursery one, I've seen them a lot but where does one find the originals?

There are many places to find the AUs!! Fair warning, some of them like Monster Nursery and Ghost Hotel have multiple parts but they’re still easy to find

The easiest place to find them is through the wiki page. Just google the name of the au + “wiki” like I did in the image above, and the first link should take you to a page with the full au.

There’s dialogue and images that will take you through a Choose Your Own Adventure type story, only the options have already been chosen for you. This is probably my favorite place to read them just because it’s all very easy to follow

The next place to check is the @dbs-scans account here on Tumblr! They post all the official art and aus, and I think they might even post the chapters. To find the au you want you could simply Google the name of it and their account should pop up, or you could search their account directly through Tumblr by clicking on their archive or using the search bar feature on their blog

They include all the images from the au with the text that correlates with them translated below. I believe they usually do the aus in full, which is very helpful if you’re trying to find an au like Ghost Hotel with multiple parts. If they don’t have all the parts tho, you can always refer back to the wiki or go to the next source I’m about to show you

Our next resource is the hanakokun.officialarts account on TikTok. Beware, I don’t think they have all the aus, but I know they’ve posted some of them. They get their translations from the aforementioned dbs-scans account which kind of brings this response full circle lol, it’s a small fandom. They’ll post the images with the dialogue in the captions, and you should be able to find them in order all grouped together. You might have to scroll a bit to find some of the older aus. This is one of my favorite resources for keeping up with official TBHK content tho bcuz they post the new chapters in full and it’s an easy way to find official art

You might also be able to read the aus on Twitter if they’re still up but I don’t have Twitter so I couldn’t tell you for sure. At one point I was trying to find the last part of Ghost Hotel and I deadass had to refer to Google Images, sometimes you gotta scrounge around for yourself. But that shouldn’t happen too often because the resources I gave are very reliable!!

Thank you for this ask, and it’s not stupid at all!! I had to ask my TikTok followers where to find the HKOTO au a few months ago when I got a fic request for it. It took me a minute to figure out where to find all the content, which is standard for joining any fandom that has as wide a range for content as TBHK does. I’ve seen BSD fans have similar issues. And by asking that you probably saved a lot of people’s asses who were too embarrassed to ask the same question

[sporesgalaxy]

Tumblr keeps crashing each time I send this so I gotta be quick: do have any tips on how to study biology (college is not an option atm)

Oh boy! I will do my best!

I've listed the basic irl resources for biological information first, followed by some online resources.

I've got a strong Animalia bias, so apologies that I don't have any botany-specific sites for you. 😔

I'm sure there's some stuff I'm forgetting. I'll add on to this if I think of anything!

If there's anything specific you need help finding a reliable biological resource for, let me know and I will try my best to help find you something!

•••

Finding primary sources (stuff written by the scientists who did the research [i.e. a journal article]) is always very good, but reliable secondary resources (someone else summarizing other people's research [i.e. Wikipedia page, book]) can be very valuable as well.

•••

Meatspace Resources

-

I would highly recommend checking to see if there is a Nature Park in your area! Nature parks often have volunteer programs and/or free educational opportunities. In my experience, naturalists are always very excited to meet new people interested in learning about local ecology!

-

There's also Zoos and Aquariums of course, although I know they cost money and are typically geared more towards kids. I'm lucky to live near some nice ones. Maybe check if there are any special programs happening at Zoos/Aquariums in your area (by checking their website[s]), where you might learn more than you would on a normal day trip.

-

Plus natural history museums, which usually have rotating exhibits so that you can keep learning new things when you come back! They also have more of an all-ages vibe than Zoos in my experience. Once again dependant on if there's one near you, and not free.

-

Last but not least: the local library, although obviously not every published book is a flawless resource. Still, might be interesting to poke around! There's usually some sort of digital search catalogue to make finding things easier. Libraries are fun :)

•••

Online Resources

-

Jstor is GREAT. Not all jstor articles are open access/free, but some are! And you can set a search filter to show you only things you can access.

One good way to find out what experts have written for other experts about biology: search a species name or biological concept or type of experimental study, etc. etc., in jstor's journal articles. I've linked a search for journal articles "I can access" containing the word "biology" as an example.

The website layout can feel a little obtuse at first but I think if you fiddle around with it a bit, it's not too bad to figure out? Feel free to kick my ass if I'm wrong djgjkeg

-

Wikipedia is actually a very good place to introduce yourself to a lot of biological concepts. I would recommend checking out some of the sources yourself if you can-- usually at least some of them are free, and that can introduce you to new free resources for learning more (today I discovered bugguide.net!). Often they will link you to jstor.

But biology-focused wiki pages have a pretty good track record for Correct Information in my experience. The only issue I've run into is there being too little information sometimes.

-

Pubmed is a really good resource to read biomedical scientific papers for free if that interests you at all! Reading scientific papers is a really important skill and I think you can pick up a lot just by diving in and googling words you don't know.

A well-designed experiment is replicable (that is, you can understand from the paper how they set things up to the point that you could do it yourself, given the resources). It's also important to pay attention to sample size. The more times you replicate any process in an experiment, the more likely you will be able to identify what the most common result really is, and why.

-

Fishbase is a website I was introduced to in my icthyology class to find info about different fish species :) It kind of just dumps all the info on you in a big text wall, but many pages include great details about life cycle and diet that might go unmentioned on wiki pages.

-

I've never used bugguide.net before today, but so far it seems solid and like it has a lot of good info. I assume it is similar to fishbase but for bugs

-

EDIT: FREE ONLINE TEXTBOOKS I FORGOT ABOUT!!!

I used both of these for university classes at some point. I didn't use them much, so there may be issues I don't know about.

In my experience though they were solid resources, if a little confusingly worded at times. Bouncing between the textbooks and wikipedia tended to help me.

[jayessar]

Instead of fully being an annoying boomer loser who isn't happy about the new things, I'll make some sort of a masterpost about cool JSR and JSRF information sources and other neat thingies. Probably will be updated if i find anything else worth including.

So, first of all:

•Official websites for JSR and JSRF. JSRF website has an English version, but it's barely archived and doesn't have much information on it anyway. JSR one is really awesome though, a lot of cool tidbits, character bios(they include one new trivia for some characters ) and game tips!!

•A whole bunch of guidebooks, meaning JSR Perfect Guide, JSRF Perfect Guidebook and the JGR Sybex's Official Strategies & Secrets . Only one of them is in English, but they're still useful for maps and Graffiti Soul collecting. If you can read these then even better lol. Keep in mind, that the JSR Perfect Guide only covers the original Japanese release, which is different from the later one's.

• Sexy as hell manuals for JGR, De La JSR, JSR for GBA and JSRF. Always good to know about these.

•The JSR and JSRF articles on Sega Retro. You probably noticed me linking them for the manuals and whatnot. If you want to find out stuff about these games, this is second best source for it (first one is playing the games lol). But it has some weird statements like saying that Beat is the leader of the GGs, even though it doesn't make any logical sense, and claiming that JSRF is a sequel game, but then also saying that it's not in the actual JSRF article.

It's probably the obvious thing that could've been noted, so now to less obvious one's.

• Jet Set Radio Wiki. Okay, this website had a bad reputation and all and was filled with creepy comments and lies, now it's all good. I swear. New admin didn't just remove all the misinformation, but also regularly writes new articles! Like how we have Ollie King related pages there now(while it's a different game, making a separate wiki for it would be kind of an overkill so it's there). Anyways yeah, it's good now. But still always check the sources! It's good to do no matter where you are.

While these little things suck, they're completely overshadowed by the sheer amount of fucking information included. Scans, art, documentation of which magazine had articles regarding the games and on which page AND EVERYTHING IS WITH SOURCES AND IMAGES. This is really strong and you'll be there for hours just staring in wonder at all this compiled info.

• JSR Archives. This is a community dedicated for archiving and categorising all the stuff JSR related. One of their members was the one who posted the Sybex guide on the internet.(whoahaaa they got a tumblr FOLLOW THEM!!)

• TCRF article on JGR. While this article wasn't updated in quite some time and is missing a whole bunch of stuff (like the leaked prototypes), it's still a very nice read.

• A whole bunch of prototypes. I included only those i consider noteworthy, if you wanna get the other's, they're there as well.

• JSRF Inside. A certified hood classic if we're talking about JSRF modding.

• Best source for JSRF speedrunning information.

• An extremely really detailed playthrough/guide of JSR. Includes cool trivia like regional differences and instructions for character unlocking.

• Less detailed, but still very useful video guide for unlocking all of the secret JSRF characters.

• Playlist of JSR/JSRF music, and anything related to them, like different remixes and stuff. Read the description for more details. It also has a link to a text document containing a lot of cool trivia about the artist featured in the games and other JSR related media.

• Video with all the dialogue and special interactions in JSRF.

• Kind of a joke entry, but also Hideki Naganuma's twitter account is worth checking out. Not his new tweets, but really old one's. In the past he was more involved with the fanbase and shared some neat trivia. Not related to him but one of the Castle Logical ppl confirmed that the lyrics in Mischievous Boy say "chameleon machine" and it fucks me up so much.

• This goofy ass official IGN guide for JSR. Why i didn't put it with the rest of the official guides? Well, the reason is that the writer for this thing, Aki, is a real silly goose and they decided to spice up some of the character descriptions. While these are probably based on some legitimate information, like Beat being from Fukuoka(which was confirmed by a Beat TUBBZ figurine of all things), you can't trust these due to its silliness. Like they gave DJ K a backstory, which just ruins his whole deal AND contradicts the game manual. They also consistently get the names for locations wrong. As a game guide it's pretty good?? You can use it. Just don't go around calling Gum a "brownface girl" after reading it.

That's everything i can remember so far, hope this helps.

[karlachismylife]

I'm absolutely obsessed with your writing dude and I'm really excited to see all those ideas you talked about, your writing is so detailed and accurate to character, I struggle to stay in character. Like learning how a character acts so I can make what I'm writing about believable lol, I'm not sure how to practice either, do you have any tips?

You comrades really decided to blow up my brain with positive validation today, I'm literally feeling like an overly excited pup who got all the treats and bellyrubs and praise. Or maybe it's all that chocolate I ate, not sure. In other words THANK YOU??? *cue me crying every time I see someone on tumblr complain about people making characters OOC cuz I think it's about me*

So, as you can see, I am most definitely not someone who's confident in my capabilities of staying in character. Also, I have never, NEVER studied writing in any shape or form - I enjoyed my literature classes a lot, sure, but there is zero grams of purposeful theory studying in my gorilla head and I'm pretty damn sure it shows. Everything I write is super intuitive, and I can count on one hand how many times I made conscious desicions to adopt something for my writing style or smth. And it still was just "oh hey I like that thingy, want that in my text", no theory behind it.

So here are some

Juju's Tips on How To Maybe Stay In Character (Based On Guesses And Prayers To Gorilla Totem)

Simplify. Before everyone starts rightfully throwing rotten tomatoes at me, lemme explain: of course you won't go far if you actually take a character and shrink him down to a single trait. This is actually a very dangerous advice if applied half-assed, because this is how we get Bucky Barnes and those fucking plums (I hope this wasn't a Russian-fandom thing only). While it is good for memes and fandom to take one such thing and exaggerate, it's hurtful to the overall character image in fandom and your writing. Characters, while not fully-fledged people, are still multidimensional!

Why would I give such a shitty tip then, you ask? Well because it's a tip for your start. Take your character and try to put him in a few main boxes. Is he an unapologetically Scottish ADHD puppy with a sprinkle of violent tendencies? Is she a ruthless Mexican mastermind with ambitions that are worth more than any loyalty or morals to her? Or maybe a kind-hearted slightly shy talented tiefling blacksmith with a huge nerdy streak? An awkward Liverpool drummer guy who gets teased for his big nose and constantly gets in some kind of trouble? I bet you recognized at least some of them. This is the wrapper of your character (along with their appearance), this is what will almost always signal people that it's this lil guy. If you can at least keep inside that broad border, then you're already doing not that bad. Some stories don't even require more! Especially if it's comedy: comedy will want you to push into these things (as well as some smaller traits you can exaggerate to an absurd size), use them to paint a caricature or maybe play off of them with something opposite. But then again, maybe don't ask how to write comedy a person who cackles from pee jokes.

Next step is: know your character factually. As in, research their backstory, read their wiki, try to get and memorize as much information from their mother media as possible. Information can come from miscellaneous sources too! For example, I still beat myself up about the fact that in one of my earlier posts about domestic fluffy headcanons on Karlach x Soap I managed to make TWO factual mistakes just because I didn't check out Neil's tiktok first. If I did, I would've never said that Soap prefers showers and tea to baths and coffee. Luckily, I fixed it quickly, but yeah, it does help to see maybe what the actor/director/writer/creator mentioned in interviews or something. Fan pages are good too, but they might get flooded with popular headcanons (Soap's ADHD as an example) or lean too hard into that simplified image from previous step.

THEN is one of my favourite parts: learn your character like an artist would. Note their little mannerisms (Price's little hip movement? Iconic. Price is honestly STUFFED with Nik's cock these little mannerisms, courtesy one bery talented and well-versed in his craft actor. this shit makes characters alive, immediately recognizable, easy to parody. Or - Karlach's nose wrinkle that I love so much. Or - Bradd Pitt's character constant snacking on fastfood in Ocean's Eleven.), their habits, their quirks. If it's a character without visual, from a book, it might be even easier cuz such things would be brought up at least several times by the author. Sorry for a self plug, but my head is too empty for any other thing, but one of my characters in a biopunk story was constantly scratching her head.

This leads up to a thing you can finally write yourself: change them. Not just willy-nilly of course, but once you gather these three supporting beams (simplified wrapper, trivia knowledge and personal mannerisms/quirks), you can change them purposefully. That constant head scratching? Actually used it to show that woman's transition from hostile environment where she was oppressed to somewhere she felt accepted (people were forcing her to stop it and it worsened the habit VS no one chastised her for it and it became tame and unharmful to her). If Price constantly shoulder slaps his found family, what would it mean if he doesn't? Karlach wrinkling her nose out of anger in battle VS because she's laughing her tail off with friends? More obvious would be of course putting the characters against something like their important biography things (anything from the LONG list of abuse and torture Ghost went through, Karlach's past in Zariel army, Nikolai's Soviet upbringing etc). This is how you use already ready to go information to make a character look organic in any situation you put them in, be it bubble bath fluff or sci-fi porn au with snail tentacle aliens or fandom crossover or the most glass-chewing angst ever. Take something recognizable in hat character and either double down on it or change it - depending on whether you wanna show that they're in their element or the opposite.

Another very important thing (some might say it's actually more important than previous) is to build up off what we know. Since there's only so much a piece of media and even the creator themselve can tell us about a character, we should be ready to guess. It's rare that we're given some direct and extensive motivation for any character deeds unless we're in their head constantly (like in Dostoyevskiy's "Crime and Punishment" f.e.), and the less we're given, the more blank space we should try to fill in. If we know character's biography, we should try and draw conclusions on how their past influenced them. Ghost's trauma is the brightest example. OR the ADHD headcanon on Soap: we're given his actions, explosiveness and impulsiveness, his mannerisms and more or less type, and from that we build up that headcanon. It's not stated anywhere, but this is one of possible reasons behind him being portrayed the way he is.

In other ways, use logic, common sense and honestly - personal experience, I think it's one of the easiest things to make characters to feel alive, and alive characters always read as more "staying in character" than maybe very factually correct, but lifeless depictions - that's my lifehack btw (might be controversial). Try to deduct what lies underneath those mannerisms, think what consquencess would have character's past, simply imagine what reactions to a situation you could deem possible - one of them will be suitable for the character, I promise.

And it's already very loosely tied into all this, but since I mentioned personal experience and general believability - go do people watching. Notice their mannerisms, habits, quirks, reactions, experiences. Watch how shit's portrayed in movies, if anything; this will also help you to learn how to convey something deeper through small details (using allegories, metaphors, colour language and all that impressive shit).

Okay that's a whole load of yapping (probably more than you needed), but that's not all! Cuz there's also practice! And the only way to practice any writing is to write. Lemme give you homework :)

Grab those prompt/reactions lists and write away. What's their reaction to seeing a fat ol' spider right there on the toilet seat when they go for a midnight piss? Favourite dessert? Fill out the NSFW alphabet for them (dunno about y'all, but I always end up with some deep psychological portrait instead of masturbating material with those).

A little more advanced excersise in my opinion: try to write down a certain number of headcanons with no given theme. The trick is, you would have to justify them more or less (no, it's not oblgatory for headcanons in general, you can just have them for fun, but for this excersise you should). I say - Soap is SHIT at buying groceries. Why? Because he's easily distracted by flashy wrappers and shit. Why? Because he has ADHD. Why? Because [yada yada all the things I see in him from my own ADHD experience]. Unravel that chain, it doesn't have to be two-step thing, see, here I have sseveral steps between what we have (some of his traits like fidgeting, impatience, impulsiveness etc) and the headcanon (he's shit at buying groceries).

A couple more miscellaneous tips cuz I remembered them too late to build into the whole structure I have here (you can't see it but it's there):

The way characters speak is important, and it's not just accents. How much does this character swear? Do they mix languages? Do they prefer long or short sentences? Do they have a rich vocabulary, do they use slang, do they stutter, take long pauses, switch themes every five seconds? This is one of the "quirks" you should look into a lot.

Their relationships with other characters, the way your character views others and the way others view them are important. It might tell you a lot about how the character behaves with different people and in different situations.

All the other means of characterisation, including even the environment we see them, also will help to understand, dissect and thus adopt the character.

Use music, mate! I struggle with assigning exact songs to characters, I'm more of a "one song - one text" gorilla, but a lot of people have no such problems and you might very much benefit from it. Maybe the actor that plays the character has a playlist somewhere available?

Empathy and acting. These are my actual main instruments, but I put them in the very end, because I have no idea how to explain them or how to practise them. But the ability to put yourself in someone's shoes is everything. I am zero logic 100% emotions in my art, I will feel shit first, try to justify it second. I bet there are actually analyzing and logical processes going on inside my head when I do this, but it happens without my awareness. I just think "what if their partner gets horrible withdrawal after climax?" and then I'm like "well shit Ghost would freeze, and Soap would panic like a puppy, and SoapGaz would use humor, and Price would take extremely patronizing role on, and..." and then I'm like yeah that tracks cuz yada yada, good job Juju.

And my final advice is: you don't have to always stay in character. AND you don't always have to justify going OOC. It's art, it's fun, it's for your own enjoyment. These characters aren't real people, they cannot and never will have full-fledged personalities, that's not how media works, at some point complexity of a character stops making them deep and interesting and makes them bland and overly complicated. If you really wanna write Soap screaming like a girl at the sight of a caterpillar, or make all four of thesse guys into wearing frilly lacy panties, or say that Karlach is addicted to eucalyptus gum, or- I really don't know what to say here cuz all these don't seem too out there for me... OH OH HERE; if you wanna make Ghost bang a punk anarchist (and I do), you can. No one's gonna arrest you for going OOC and I promise, there still will be people who enjoy it. Some people won't care you went out of character, some people won't think you did. Some people will yell at you regardless (I think. luckily, I haven't been yelled at once yet, and I am very very happy about it. but I still take general and vague fandom-yelling posts personally so yeah).

Have fun. Do art. Enjoy yourself. Put love into it. Put strong emotions into it. But mainly love.

I have never encountered a fanfic that would be so horribly OOC that I couldn't read it. But I have seen works with so little love in them that nothing felt genuine and authentic, no matter how accurate it seemed. So yeah, love is all you need ✌🏼❤️🦍

[foxsketch6543]

Hey Fox! I'm currently working on a Venture Bros. Iceberg video that's inspired by your iceberg chart but includes several new entries. I'm reaching out because I'm quite curious about a few of the entries you've listed and would appreciate it if you could explain them or point me to some sources. I'd be more than happy to give you credit in the video. I just want to make sure I've got everything right. The entries that I'm curious about are:

-The Monarch Was Meant To Be A One Time Villain -Phantom Limb Fixed Brock's Chest -Almost Going To Be CGI -Almost Ended In Season 4 -Master Shake Cameo In Guild Council I believe I know the answer to some of these, but I just wanted to double check with you first. Hope to hear back soon!

Hey man! 👋

@zeroomens

That’s actually cool and it’s been such an honor and I’m actually subscribed to you BTW and I watch some of your videos.

I hardly get mail often LOL XD

The show itself was pretty niche and I tried scrounging what I can on some info on The Venture Bros Art Book, rewatching bits of the show for details and stuff, the Fandom Wiki Page, 107 Facts Videos by Channel Frederator. Lots of facts on VBros can be pretty scarce as hell so I had to dig deep on research and tried using what I have.

I’ll try my best to explain some of the entries that were on the list:

During development, I remembered Baron Ünderbheit was going to be set up as a major villain until they pushed him aside in the later seasons. As for The Monarch wasn’t going to be in the first episode. In the pilot, he was actually going to be a throwaway character, until they were planning which villain to add in Dia de los Dangerous:

I’ve sorta confused it with another event where Phantom Limb treated Brock’s wounds during an attack in the mall in Hate Floats S2E2, where the contents removed were: 4 bullets, a blowgun dart, two shark’s teeth, the tip of a mayonet, a twisted paperclip, and a meager handful of buckshot.

Back when Venture Bros was in the draft phases and pitching it to Comedy Central it was planned to be rendered in CGI but wouldn’t work, Jackson Publick wanted to make it 2D to give the cartoon a comic book vibe.

Production stuff going on behind the scenes during the episode, Operation PROM, according to the wiki it said it was the last episode to be animated in World Leaders entertainment. And it was one of the show’s biggest episodes. Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer during production of the final episode in season 4 thought about the show ending there but as just a turning point and not intended to be the finale but they both were taking a break from it. (It takes a long while to make the seasons and episodes of the series)

I thought I saw an Easter Egg of Master Shake somewhere and was a false memory I had and couldn’t find anything about it, but actually found better cameos of Venture Bros in other media to make up for my goof that were real such as Invincible #58 where we see characters that look like Brock and Dr. Venture which is somehow a bit cooler.

And you see Brock Samson in an episode of Henry Danger… no I’m ain’t joking, it was in S5E33, Rumblr and you even see a bootleg version of Molotov in the background somewhere.

So far The Venture Bros fandom is pretty strong on Tumblr and Reddit, some are willing help you out with some information about some of the stuff I mentioned in the iceberg too and some might actually explain things better than I can and might correct my mistakes. *cri* ToT

That was my first iceberg and there’s a ton of flaws with the chart, in the future I’m planning on making a remake at some point it’s outdated AF and was made before the movie came out, also I’m glad you are also adding some new entries in your video too and I can’t wait to see your new video and I hope it succeeds dude!💚🌟

[greengargouille]

A correction on Karasuma’s career

(...And Takaoka’s too I guess)

A fandom wiki can be a fickle thing. Sometimes helpful. Sometimes, straight up misinformation. Some time ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, pondering something about a character’s past that I immediately needed to check- as one is bound to do when they should be asleep. Said character? Karasuma Tadaomi of Assassination Classroom (as some mutuals will have cleverly guessed from the title). ...Except. Something was wrong. I’m not talking about his description as a ‘handsome young man’, because it’s supposed to be true within canon (despite visual evidence to the contrary). I’m talking about facts that are harder to disprove just by a glance- especially since the source isn’t written. “I’m... pretty sure Karasuma never was in the Air Force, that doesn’t sounds right.” “Warrant Officer? ‘According to the manga, Karasuma’s dress during his career-’ where. Which panel is it and where can I compare it to an actual uniform.” “Uh, Takaoka’s profile doesn’t help much more. ‘Takaoka and Karasuma were in the same squad in the military but were in different sections.’ That’s not possible, as a squad is part of a section. And unsourced too.”

So. Even though I don’t participate in the fandom. I had to do something. Edit the wiki? Well I don’t know if I need permission to do that, so no. But, there’s something much easier I can do, one thing I’m pretty used to. Complain about it on Tumblr! 

So, I looked up what I could. The official French translation, the English scans. His Graduation Album’s profile just in case, though it was unhelpful. Hunted down his tankobon’s profile, and, bingo, a career path! ...With a few differences from the French translation. Hmm. At this point I would need to look at the raws. Thankfully, I do have Roll Book Time, in paper format, a gift of years ago from my good friend and sweetheart. Unfortunately, I don’t actually read Japanese- but as if that stopped me in the past! By now I’m an expert at painfully looking over radicals to search for accurate kanji on jisho.org, one at a time. It’s long and tedious and in the end I still rely on Google Translate, but at least I’m going somewhere. So, without further ado! Let me show you what I’ve got!

[Alt: Photo of a half page from the Roll Book, describing Karasuma’s career. The text is in Japanese, and illustrated by two panels from the manga. One shows Karasuma in camo uniform training recruits, the other shows him at the start of the manga, presenting himself to the 3-E. ] For those of you who wants to read the Japanese text, but it is too small or the pic isn’t showing, here the transcription:

烏間先生の経歴ファイル 

自衛隊入隊

第一空挺団 配属

自衛隊の第一空挺団では、他者を寄せ付けない成績を収め、教官としての才能も目覚しかった。

統合情報部ヘ異動

諸外国の軍事、政治情情報などを収集し分析する諜報部員としても活躍。事務能力でも一流だ。

臨時特務部ヘ異動

これらの実績を買われて現在の特務部ヘ。迢破壊生物の暗殺・監視、E組ヘ技術提供に勤しむ。

As for some sort of translation, here’s a little something to get the gist of it, but don’t consider this as a totally accurate translation.

Karasuma-sensei’s background file Enrolled in the Self-defence Forces Assigned to the 1st Airborne Brigade In the SDF’s 1st Airborne Brigade, his talent was unmatched. His talent as an instructor was also remarkable. Transferred to the Defense Intelligence Office He had been active as an intelligence agent who collects and analyses military and political information in other countries. His office ability is also top notch. Temporary transferred to the Special Services Office Due to his past results, he was brought into the Special Affairs Department. He works with the monitoring / assassination of the “destructive creature”, and teaches his technique to Class E.

So, the first point of this. The Japanese Self-defence Force (which I will abbreviate in JSDF) is, like most if not all armies, divided into ground, air and naval forces. You would think the 1st Airborne Brigade is part of the Japan Air SDF, since there’s ‘airborne’ in the name. And you would be wrong! It is part of the Japan Ground SDF, and my, what a part it is. They’re considered among the toughest soldiers of the JGSDF, deserving of their “The Matchless Elite Second To None” motto. While the JSDF are supposedly defensive, as the name said, for legal reasons (they technically can’t call themselves an army because Japan can’t have one), this brigade is considered as one of the few with an offensive capability. Yeah, fitting for Karasuma! (And yes, this means Takaoka has been part of it too. Which... kinda explains why he underestimated Nagisa so much. If you’ve been in an elite troop for years, you can let a scrawny teenager with a knife get closer to you a few steps further, just to prove a point.) Then, we have what the tankobon profile’s translator chooses to translate as “Information Bureau”, but I choose Defense Intelligence Office. You see, the original text was 情報部. Now, Matsui has been known to slightly modify the name of actual places/schools rather than reference the actual thing (dunno if he’s required to do it or it’s a personal choice). And, if you take 部 (office, bureau, department- I prefer ‘office’ since it’s found in the translation for some Ministry of Defense’s extraordinary organs) and add 本 to make 本部 (headquarters), you get 情報本部, which is the Japanese name of the Defense Intelligence Headquarters! Which is still part of the Ministry of Defense, so it makes sense the transfer could be done. (As for Takaoka- The first page of chapter 38 shows us a shadowed Takaoka, with his chief going ‘It’s a hidden ball trick, courtesy of our Information Bureau’. So I guess it’s either a natural advancement career, either he followed Karasuma there, or this guy has the worst of luck.) Finally- Special Services Office- or Division, as per the English scans. But the tankobon profile translation talks about ‘Special Forces’? Well, I can disprove that. The Special Forces Group of JGSDF is 特殊作戦群 in Japanese. Meanwhile, 特務部 is... nowhere close from that, except there’s 特(special) in their names. Furthermore, we do have an 部 again at the end, which implies an office/department/division/etc. Given the explanation in Karasuma’s profile, I would assume this office was created specifically to deal with Korosensei, and various agents were transferred to it temporarily? Notably, Karasuma and Takaoka. --

Now, that solves it for the Air Force misunderstanding. What about Karasuma’s rank, though?The fandom wiki mentions his uniform in the manga. Which turns out to be one panel. It... makes sense, since Karasuma is no longer part of the JSDF, having transferred, and so wouldn’t be able to use a military uniform on important events ; the French translation of Karasuma’s chief’s words in his flashback from chapter 38 even says “After you abandoned your military uniform [...]”. What is this famous panel, then?

...Well, that’s going to be tricky. We don’t have a view of the arms themselves, though he doesn’t seem to have a patch. Then we have the notch lapel insignia, but those meant for rank are put on the upper notch- the lower notch is for the branch of service, from what I gathered in photos. (And I mean, it would be ridiculous as a rank insignia- it seems to have three dots in a triangle, so either a captain or a colonel, can you imagine this, a colonel? A guy in mid-twenties? Ridiculous) What about the shoulders, then? Well. Let me tell you a thing. ...Finding things about Japanese formal dress military uniforms is super annoying. US uniforms? Sure, no problem. French uniforms? If you type in French, sure. Japanese Uniforms? Oh, did you mean WWII Imperial Army uniform? No? You’re sure? Because this is what you will get. Oh, sure, Wikipedia has a page on the ranks and insignia of the JSDF. But it doesn’t seem to account for those formal epaulets, which are only used in ceremonies. But! There’s a silver lining! Typing 陸自 儀礼肩章 (JGSDF formal epaulets) in a pic search, we can then click on the ones that interest us and look for the grade. (Though, some of them seem to come from Yahoo Auction, and are unavailable to me). So, on our manga panel, we have three dots on the knot, plus a little one at the end to pin it to the uniform.

Something like this. Now those specific ceremonial shoulder insignia are for a 一等陸佐 (or 1等陸佐), which correspond in the US Army to... uh. Hm. Wait. Let me check. Gotta be a mistake. He can’t be a colonel.

...A bit smaller but that will do. Notice how the knots have one less... wire? Thread? Look, I’ve put way too much energy into this post to start worrying about words. Anyway, the number of stars might be the same, but the whole epaulet is different. And we even have the less formal insignias on the side! Those are for a 1等陸尉, which corresponds to... Captain. ...No, seriously. I mean, you can check on other sources if you want. Wikimedia even has this photo if you don’t believe me.) As for Takaoka (as well as every man present in the panel), it’s small but you can see two stars on his shoulders, so he has the grade just below- 2等陸尉, which corresponds to first lieutenant. But hey, maybe Matsui and his assistants took a random uniform as reference! You know, the anime tends to have interesting background details in the classroom, so maybe they would also have been careful with this!

...Ah, yeah, not really. What about Takaoka?

...Well. Not very helpful either. It does show us he has the service ribbon for the Medal with Blue Ribbon, a Japanese medal of honour awarded to individuals who have made significant achievements in the areas of public welfare or public service. As for the weird infinity sign- this pin badge is likely the same as Karasuma’s in the manga, which is not quite clear on the scan, but I can confirm on the tankobon that it’s the Ranger Courses pin badge. The fact it is golden means he specifically completed the Fuji School one, which is needed to be a course instructor or an officer. ...So, I have no idea where this Warrant Officer rank came from. It would make more sense, but it seems like somehow, Karasuma reached captain rank. Despite being in his mid-twenties (he’s 28 by the time of the manga, which is to say, after he spent time at the Defense Intelligence Office). Seriously, is it too much to ask for a bit of realism in my supersonic giant yellow octopus manga? ...One mystery remains, though. ...Where the hell did Karasuma find the time to get a valid teaching license? Because he does tell Gakuhô he has one early on, and being an instructor for military recruits certainly doesn’t require the same license as to teach middle-schoolers. Did he get a special rush training between the time Korosensei said he would be 3-E’s teacher and whenever chapter 3 happens? Or did he just happen to have one before? He probably entered the JSDF as soon as he got the minimum age, so I can’t see how. Matsui please show us your notes.