#but i'm sure their depictions there influenced me anyway

[the-meat-machine]

Any thoughts on how the Alpha and Beta kids would handle parenthood compared to their adult counterparts?

Predictably, the character I have thought about most in this regard is Dirk. So, let's start with him.

Dirk

Dirk does not want children. He does not think he is capable of being a good parent. But if forced into a position where he had to take in a child, I think he would do a much better job than he thinks he would. He'd still be a pretty intense parent, but he'd be way better than Bro.

I think Dirk's instinct would be to micromanage every aspect of the child's life to ensure they have the Optimal Childhood. Like, after taking this kid in, he becomes an expert in childhood nutrition overnight, throws out all his own crappy food, and from there on out makes nothing for either of them except mediocre-but-nutritious Optimal Childhood Meals. Until the kid gets old enough to express that actually they don't like the Optimal Childhood Meals, at which point Dirk overcorrects and abruptly decides to let the kid eat anything they want. Except now he keeps trying to sneak vitamin powder into their ice cream and shit. Look, he's trying. He's trying so hard.

Because the thing is, Dirk knows that his controlling tendencies are his worst trait, so at the same time that he's trying to micromanage the kid's upbringing, he's also trying to micromanage himself into being the Chill Parent who can Roll With Anything. He is going to get a good grade in Chill, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve. Please do not let him know how not chill he actually is; I'm not sure his heart can take it.

The overall result is that of a parent who is trying to anticipate his child's every need while also desperately trying not to pressure the kid into anything. In the end, I think it'll balance out into him being a weird-but-okay parent who maybe accidentally gives the kid a complex about expressing themself... because every time the kid takes so much as a passing interest in anything, Dirk takes it upon himself to secretly learn everything there is to know about the thing so that he can Support His Child. And once the kid catches on that this is happening, that reaction in itself feels like kind of a lot of pressure! So Dirk's efforts not to pressure the kid ironically backfire. Whoops.

(Woe betide Dirk if the kid ever decides they want to learn swordfighting. The part of him that would be thrilled to have a protege to teach would be overshadowed by the part of him that would now be convinced that he's two seconds away from becoming an abuser every time he helps the kid train.)

Everyone Else

My thoughts on the rest of the kids are all halfbaked in comparison to my thoughts on Dirk, but I do think they pretty much all have the capacity to be decent, if flawed, parents. Though I'm going to start with the two I think might be the most flawed, haha.

Jane

I'm about to be kinda harsh on Jane here. We see in canon that she wants to have children, but I don't think she's really considered what the reality of that would be like. I think she would find parenting harder than she expects, and frankly I'm not sure she'd even like kids that much? Like, she could grin and bear it and go through all the motions and provide the kid with all the right things. But somewhere under there, I think there'd be this simmering resentment that this isn't how she wants to spend her life, and I think the kid would eventually pick up on it.

Jane also has a lot of baggage around reproduction that has been brainwashed into her (CEASE REPRODUCTION), so that's fun. All in all, she's perhaps the only one of the kids who I think has the potential to be a significantly worse guardian than their alt-universe counterpart.

But! Maybe I'm being too harsh on her and she'd be a great parent. Definitely fun to bake with, if nothing else.

Jake

If Jake can grow up enough to accept the responsibility of raising a child, I think he could be an okay, if way overly permissive, parent. That said… there's no evidence as of the end of the comic that he's prepared to do that growing up, so he could equally end up just as flighty and irresponsible as Grandpa Harley was. I know that most of the stuff about Grandpa Harley fathering a bunch of children and then ducking out of their lives to go off adventuring some more is dubiously canon at best, but really, I absolutely believe that was the kind of man he was. And frankly, I'm not sure that Jake will ever be ready for the responsibility of having children. But who knows! Maybe I'm underestimating him.

Roxy

A doting mother if there ever was one. Genuinely would love being a mom; even the hard parts I think she'd take on eagerly because she is just that into being a mom. Hopefully she can avoid relapsing into alcoholism, thus avoiding Beta Mom's biggest flaw. And unlike Mom, Roxy has friends around to help and support her with this, so I think she can manage it. That said, she may have a bit too much of her self-image wrapped up in Being A Mother, and her kid might find her a bit smothering at times. But overall, I think she'd be a pretty good parent.

Rose

I'm trying to evaluate each of the kids as parents on their own merits, without regard for their potential partners. So I'll do the same for Rose and speculate on what kind of parent she'd be without Kanaya in the picture (who, if they were together, I think would probably take on a greater proportion of the parenting duties than Rose would).

Anyway, I think Rose would be a good, thoughtful parent overall. Perhaps a bit too distant and may come off as cold sometimes. But though she's not that demonstrative with her love, she would love her child deeply and I think it would show through her actions if not always her words.

Dave

I think he'd be a pretty good parent, if a bit overly permissive. This kid is gonna get spoiled rotten. ...I should probably have more to say about this, but alas, I don't.

Jade

The Fun Mom! Honestly, I think she'd be a great parent. …Jade really deserves a better analysis than this, but unfortunately I apparently am not equipped to provide it. Sorry, Jade!

John

I almost forgot to put John on this list, whoops. I think John's biggest pitfall as a parent would be emotional distance. Again, I don't have much to say about this other than that Candy!John's relationship with Harry Anderson seems plausible to me.

[captainmera]

My God I love your depiction of the Wittebane brother ❤️

Do you think there might have been a chance that your Pip wouldn't kill his brother when Calec goes to Demon Realm? He seems way more tolerable of weirdness and is actually curious about the taboo things. That it makes me wonder if other steps were taken by people around him, maybe he would make different choices and not turned into a brother-killing genocide goop man. Obviously, the blame is still his for what he did, but I can't stop wondering what if.

And him getting along with Evelyn instead of hating her right of the bat is really cute.

Thank you! :D <333

He grew up with this theatrical bisexual of a brother. Pretty sure the reason Belos didn't give a hoot on the Boiling Isles about queer stuff is because he kinda knew, and accepted, that Caleb was kinda queer. In some cases, people can ignore or bend certain rules for people they love. Even disregard them or pretend they don't apply or exist.

(long rant about writing and narrative foils and blah blah under the cut)

Unlike Caleb, I think Philip is the sort that only picks-and-chooses whatever rules he feels will supports his personal wants/thoughts and tosses the rest.

Caleb was not hiding it as well as he thought he did. lol.

I think that, sure, there was probably a turning point for Philip.

And absolutely, people around him influenced him. He's just a kid, a vulnerable one at that, in a protestant Christian cult.

I kinda like to think of it as a corruption arc. Mostly because it seems (to me) that the whole reason Luz was meant to have a depression-arc and Philip getting all "YoUrE JuSt LiKe Me!" thing was because.. There was supposed, I think, to be similar beginnings for them.

But Luz, in season 3, got depressed and felt a lot of guilt, so her arc is going from this happy-go-lucky kid interested in different things, to a depression arc where she questions herself. While Philip has a corruption arc, where he gradually goes from a well-meaning kid interested in different things, to evil and delusional.

I am also combining Luz, King, and the Collector into Kid-Philip's themes.

King is fascinating as a pre-narrative foil for kid-Philip. I think. As King was very clingy to Luz and didn't want her to leave, he too had a delusion about his own importance (disregard that it was kinda true in the end there). King tried to dictate (in that book episode) about what his and Luz' book should be about, how it should go, and it really hurt Luz' feelings. In the end, they solved it. But as a narrative foil, I think for the Wittebanes, they probably had a similar struggle on a larger scale, and it didn't get resolved.

The Collector, too! They're desperate to be close with someone, anyone, who gets them and wants to play on their terms. Kinda like Belos wanting him and Caleb to be witch hunters. Not accounting that Caleb is his own person outside of him-- Which, if you think about it, Caleb made his whole life (in my version anyway) about taking care of Philip. So I'm sure Philip felt like he really was Caleb's entire world. And then suddenly he wasn't. Because of a witch. The Collector, despite having this incredible power (just like Pip having his brilliant brain) is still a child and using their power in selfish ways. Not intentionally, I think, just out of a fear of abandonment or isolation.

I personally am in favour of nobody-is-born-evil-but-anyone-can-become-evil kinda thing.

I would like to explore how Philip gets corrupted.

I am slowly influencing Philip in my fanfic with little things that will, eventually, boil down to not so great moments.

The thing about delusions is that the person truly believes in it. Philip believing he's a hero has to make sense and feel believable.

Belos is a jerk. Philip isn't, yet. He becomes that jerk. But I don't want to write a sociopath. I also don't like using less-favourable mental illnesses as an "easy way out" to write why Philip became Belos and a genocidal maniac.

I have strong feelings about de-stigmatizing mental illnesses in writing, without romanticizing them or leaving out the really awful and less discussed sides of it. This includes diagnoses within all the clusters of the DSM5. I will not sit here and say I only support a diagnosis like Autism or GAD, and not things like Histrionic or Borderline.

And including people with MH issues and personality disorders is important, too, as well as not trying to downplay them.

People throw around Belos with things like Narcissism and Psychopath, without actually understanding what those means or what the different types there are. For example, is he a grandiose, oblivious or a fragile narcissist?

Yes, these disorders are looked down upon. A lot of people who have them aren't very nice people. But that doesn't mean they're evil or have no heart.

Lots of children can display early signs of these, and in a rough time like the colonial 1630s of America, it is not unthinkable that those rough times bred some dysfunctional people. I'm sure Philip has his own slices of pie as far as mental health goes, just like Caleb and many other struggling people.

But, I will not write from an angle that implies Philip just has darkness from the start in him.

There's a reason why I had Caleb go on a rant about being born evil in chapter 5. Because puritans, and Christians alike, at the time - truly did believe bastards were just... Half people. Did you know that if an orphanage found out a baby was a bastard, they wouldn't let it suckle the nursery goat's udders. Because they were afraid it would soil the milk and, in turn, might give the non-bastard babies bad influence. Somehow.

With that kind of logic in your culture, it's no rocket science that people would put nonsense together and think it made sense.

I'm much more interested in how puritanism and witch hunting culture influenced and corrupted Philip into becoming who he became, and why he refuses to budge on his beliefs to the point of murder.

As the owl house, the show, has commentary on systems influencing cultures in a bad and positive way. But in particular, the one Belos tries to influence the Demon Realm with; being a not-so-great way. So! With that as a clue: what made Philip turn bad, most likely, was partially the puritanism and its extremist ways. I think TOH is also a bit of a nudge at the HAYS-code of Hollywood and how it has trickled into most all the American culture-core. As it's both trickled into schools, morality, politics and other things outside cinema.

Just pointing at him and going "He's a sociopath because he became a genocidal tyrant" is, to me, cheap. Not only does it further stigmatising mental illnesses by implying only a disorder can make someone do such evil things. But it also disregards the most horrific truth of all; that the true monsters are people not at all unlike yourself. And that they, too, were children once.

[natalyarose]

𝓈𝒶𝒷𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒶 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓅𝑒𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇 (𝓋𝑒𝒹𝒾𝒸 𝒶𝓈𝓉𝓇𝑜) ♡

My little sister introduced me to Sabrina Carpenter and I gotta say I loove her!! Not necessarily my type of music, but the older I get, the more I realise how every genre has something so beautiful to offer and it just makes me so happy to see ART and joy in this world of any kind :')

My first thought is she's gottaaa be Sun influenced- the pastel, literally sunny visuals, the bubbly smile & attitude, the 'lightness'. I find Solar women possibly the easiest to spot- even Sun women I've met who have 'darker' personalities & aesthetics still offer this light energy. I checked, and she is Krittika Sun! (I know she's getting very popular now so this is all probably old news to a lot of people lol but just thought I'd share).

ALSO, I've noticed people remarking on how she is bringing the element of dance and full 'performance style' back into music. Krittika is intimately connected to the art of dance.

Then she has Moon conjunct ascendant in Purvabhadrapada, in the 1st house! Classic Jupiterian sass & vocals (Jupiterians often have gorgeous and or very powerful voices since Jupiter traditionally rules the throat) + Purvabhadrapadas position as the archetypal 'femme fatale' is referenced in her song 'Feather'. Religious imagery is common to see with Purvabhadrapda natives too given the bhadrapada Nakshatras relation to sacrifice.

Since she has Purvabhadrapada Moon; this makes her yoni animal the lion- glamorous, proud, strong.

I noticed someone comparing her energy/demeanour/look in her music video for her song 'Espresso' to Sharpay in Highschool Musical, who is played by Krittika Ascendant, Ashley Tidsdale. Definitely a nice depiction of Krittika energy- being in Taurus, we see Venus (beauty, pleasure, luxury, art) combined with Sun (joy, warmth, self love, authority). Edit - y'all I think I got confused between different birth time sources, but Ashley is in fact mostly Bharani ascendant HOWEVER, with Venus in Krittika ruling her chart.

As well as Sun & Jupiter Nakshatras' abundant qualities, I think Sabrina having Moon in the 1st definitely helps to garner likability & widespread appeal. Moon reflects whatever is around it, so she's going to be somebody who as an artist, is naturally attuned to public opinion. Moon in the 1st can have a knack for identifying what is popular, and reflecting it back through their persona or art in their own way.

With Sabrina's Sun, Moon & Asc consisting entirely of Purvabhadrapada & Krittika, this makes the energies of the 'brahmin caste' extremely relevant to her. Brahmin Nakshatras tend to be associated with spirituality, knowledge, education, prestige or a 'priestly' quality. Of course, not always especially since the ways in which each Nakshatra works is very unique; but heavily Brahmin influenced people tend to find themselves in very privileged positions in life- even if they're in a rough spot, they carry themselves with an aura of importance and therefore tend to easily attract what they desire.

As I talked about in my Vishakha women post, especially Vishakha but honestly strong Jupiter influence in general is often somewhere in the charts of those who have the type of fame where they are ever expanding & deeply influencing the masses.

Anyway, I'm eating up her music videos lol, the solar energy is so uplifting- sorta makes me nostalgic for the 2010s, when mainstream music & trends was a lot more solar inclined in that way. Some may have considered it shallow (my edgy 12 year old self sure did lmao) but honestly I think there can be something very spiritual about artists making music that's just fun, joyful and silly.

Thankyou for reading & I definitely want to do more small observational/analysis posts like this! ♡

[tacoma-narrows]

Between the Sea and the Sky!

Hi everybody! Meet the TWO new guys I made between last night and today! Their names are Tarmac (an Aeromorph dog) and Soda (a pooltoy fox), and they've filled a desire for these two specific kinds of OCs I've had in mind for MONTHS lol. They were super fun to design and draw and I'm super excited to do more with them soon!! This piece is relatively simple but more so serves as their introduction hehe

See more about them, including refs and some additional pieces/information below the cut :] (it kind of turns into a huge braindump lmao)

Tarmac is an aeromorph, although a bit more towards the furry side of things rather than the plane side lol. His design is influenced primarily by the Concorde and the Space Shuttle! I couldn't decide for the life of me which of those two things I wanted to use so I thought "why not use both?" and here we are lol. I'm super happy with his design, with the black/dark gray markings mean to emulate the look of the Space Shuttle's thermal insulation tiles and then I really like how the red and blue stand out against the gray. I really like his icon too! I wanted to make it look like a stylized depiction of a plane (mainly a Concorde hehe) breaking through the sound barrier with a sonic boon! In terms of personality, I don't have a whole lot in mind yet. Mostly that he'd be the brave, adventurous type and since he can fly both in the air and through space, he's gonna be friends with Astro too :3

Soda is a pooltoy fox! I have wanted to make a pooltoy OC FOREVER (blame my mutuals for always posting/reblogging so many cool pooltoy OCs hehe). I finally got brave enough to actually give it a shot, and I love how he came out! I was mainly just thinking about summery themes and as I was just trying out different colors and stuff, I thought about orange soda, and that's the direction I ended up going! He's got a big stupid tail [affectionate] and can have either rounded bappy hands or have actual fingers, you're free to stylize that either way! I've only ever drawn a pooltoy character once ever before, so this was something way out of my realm of familiarity, but I'm so happy with how he came out! He's so shaped I love him so much already <33

So those are my two new guys! Making two new OCs at the same time is already a rarity for me lol. The only time it's happened before was when I made Rye and Pumpernickel back in August of 2021. And then making these guys when I had only gotten Astro about two and a half weeks ago means this is an exceedingly rare event for me lmao. My friends know how infrequently I make/get new OCs, so this just goes to show how much these guys have been bouncing around in my brain lately lol.

They are definitely gonna have some sort of connection to each other, but I'm not sure how I wanna go about that yet. Since I made them back to back, they are already connected in my brain, but I'm not sure how I wanna express that in a meaningful way. I don't wanna make them siblings bc, well, they're obv very different from each other lol, but they're kinda parallels (with one being in the sky and the other being in the water yknow), so as of right now they're definitely good friends with each other. I might upgrade that to bfs at some point in the future, but we'll see how things go hehe.

Anyways huge braindump of a post lmao, thank u for reading if u did! I'd love to hear your thoughts on these guys since they're so different from all my other characters! Also if anyone may wanna do an art trade of either of these guys (or Astro as well! I'd like to get more art of him too!) let me know hehe

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Haesorog

Welcome to this week's bestiaryposting results! This is an unusual one in that the entry is short, but we have plenty of physical details. We're also following up two obvious ones with a description I genuinely think nobody can identify unless they're familiar with the bestiary tradition itself, or the sources thereof.

If any of that was confusing to you, please consult past posts on this matter at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. You can also keep up with the current beast of the week -- and participate -- by checking out the tag "maniculum bestiaryposting". The entry that our artists are working from this week can be found here:

Anyway, art below the cut in roughly chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) took this in a rhinoceros kind of direction, drawing something that reminds me of paleoart depicting prehistoric rhino relatives that I have seen & enjoyed. I was going to say something like "I'm not sure if that was the vibe they were going for", but the linked post cites Brontotherium as an inspiration for the horn, so that's probably what I'm picking up on. The depiction of it defending its young makes this a really interesting image, I think; I like it a lot. Also, the design decisions explained in the linked post are genuinely pretty interesting, so I encourage you to check that out.

@moonygryffin (link to post here) ran with the "ibis feet, deer head" thing to produce something kind of like a flightless peryton, which I think is pretty cool. What's really clever here, I think, is how the body effectively blends elements of both animals so that it looks like a natural transition between the two. It's kind of bird-shaped, but you can see some deer-shaped elements at the top, and it's got this furry kiwi kind of vibe that's plausibly both "deer" and "bird".

Moonygryffin also suggests that the thing with the feet is the result of our favorite game, Manuscript Telephone, and it was originally the footprint of an ibex, which I think is probably correct. From some quick searching, it looks like Pliny just described this beast as having "cloven hooves". I think it's plausible that a later author changed it for purposes of parallelism -- "size of an ox, fur of a bear, head of a deer, feet of an ibex" -- and then someone else misread it and gave it bird feet. (Do ibexes/ibices* have cloven hooves? I'm going to assume they do, they're goats, right?)

*I checked the OED; both plural forms are attested, though the first is the more common. Which is probably why Tumblr is giving the second one the red underline.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) went for a similar concept as the above, but in a different medium and interpretation. Genuinely impressed by the realistic detail on the legs and head here -- CheapSweets has mentioned seeking out some reference material and art books recently, so I'm inclined to assume those are really paying off. Look at that thing. There's a lot of interesting material in the linked post, speaking to influences, research, and design decisions, which I think is definitely worth checking out. One thing I want to point out specifically because I missed it the first time I saw this drawing: take a look at the people & dog in the background at the top left. Now look at the trees next to them. One of them is a Haesorog cleverly disguising itself. Excellent.

(Also thank you for providing alt text.)

@pomrania (link to post here) has collaborated with @theforceisstronginthegirl on this one, which is a delight! Pleased to see you back, Theforceisstronginthegirl. Anyway, they've also clocked the error with the ibis thing: while they don't suggest it's an error for ibex, they do suggest that it refers to cloven hooves, which as previously mentioned is indeed what Pliny says about it. And then they also decided to give it bird feet anyway because that's more fun, which is very much in the spirit of the thing, excellent call. Anyway, the focus of this design is on the camouflage aspect. They've interpreted it as simply having stellar natural camouflage, which is why it's shown next to a tree here -- we can see that the pattern of its fur lets it blend in with the coloration of the trees around it, and that leaves tangled in its antlers along with its ability to stand on two legs enhances the effect.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) went with a similar quadrupedal design, shaggy deer-like thing with bird legs, but went the opposite direction with the camouflage. Her post indicates it's shown here "shedding some leaves from the last time it turned into a bush," which means this version of the Haesorog is suggested to have actively supernatural camouflage that allows it to shapeshift. (Which is definitely suggested by the text.) There's something very evocative about the eyes here, which I like. (Also, thank you for including alt text.)

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) continues to deliver beautifully stylized art. I'm really delighted by the the pose the second Haesorog is taking in order to blend in with the very pretty Stylized Plants around it -- I think this is maybe not the environment where color-shifting is hugely useful, as I have no doubt the first Haesorog is fully aware of its presence. Something that makes this particular design interesting is that between the default coloration displayed on the left and the shape of the feet, you get a kind of "this thing is a step too human for a quadruped" feeling that makes it a little more unique-looking than it might be otherwise. (Also, thanks for including alt text.)

Over all of these entries, I'm noting that one effect of the clear physical description is that it does provide a more restricted space in which artists can play -- it's much more obvious than in other weeks that all of these are the same animal. Whether that's an upside or a downside is, I think, wholly subjective. Now let's look at the Aberdeen Bestiary.

...

Okay, we can't do that actually. The page with the illustration is missing from the Aberdeen Bestiary. So we're looking over to its sister manuscript, the Bodley Bestiary. (MS. Bodl. 764, also digitized online.)

So this beast is of course the Parander.

Yep, bet everyone feels foolish for not recognizing such a common and well-known animal as the parander.

Also, of course, known as the Tarand or Tarander, of course. Or parandrus / tarandrus in Latin.

Right, so the reason that I was so confident nobody without a thorough background in the bestiary tradition (or Pliny the Elder) would recognize this one is because it's not a real animal. And it's not even one of the mythical ones that managed to get a foothold in the modern consciousness.

I might be overstating the "not a real animal" line, actually; odds are good it's based on one. Let's talk about that.

There have been some guesses as to the parander's identity in scholarship. The Bostock translation of Pliny has a footnote that cites two competing theories: "reindeer" and "elk [aka 'moose']". The reindeer one gets an explanation -- differently-colored summer and winter coats -- but the elk one is just kind of tossed out there as a proposed alternative. My guess (based on it already being past 10:30pm here and not wanting to put in the time to track down a source that's cited only by a last name with no other identifying information) is that that one's about the parander's size being emphasized.

You may say, "excuse me Maniculum, neither of those animals lives anywhere near Ethiopia. What are you playing at? Are you going to try and convince me that the pre-modern definition of 'Ethiopia' was so broad it encompassed the Arctic Circle?" The solution is that the parander wasn't originally described as being from Ethiopia -- Pliny says it's from Scythia. Which... also seems a bit too far south. But it's entirely reasonable that the Scythians were reporting on something seen on a trip north or something they heard about from northern neighbors, which would put "reindeer" and "elk/moose" both back in as options. Scythia is close enough to the range of both of those animals that it's plausible they would be familiar with them.

Someone you may have heard of took a stance on this issue, interestingly. An 18th-century biologist named...

... Linnaeus. Yep, it's codified right into the scientific name for "reindeer" now, and has been for as long as binomial nomenclature has been a thing. Anyone who wants to make the "elk/moose" argument is going to have a bit of an uphill battle.

All that out of the way, now take a moment and scroll back up to that medieval illustration. Mentally compare it to the description and the art shared in this post. There's something different, right?

You may notice that the artist has given it cloven hooves rather than bird's feet, having not been confused at all by the "footprints of an ibis" thing. Now, often this is the result of the art not actually being directly based on the text, but copied from art in a previous manuscript, so a scribe can write down the wrong word and it won't affect the art at all because the artist may or may not even be reading the text as they work.

Often, but not always. In this case, I would like to float an alternate explanation.

On the left is the translation of the Bodley Bestiary I have on my shelf, to which I referred when filling in material from missing pages in the Aberdeen Bestiary. On the right is the Bodley Bestiary digitized manuscript.

Now. I am not trained in Latin paleography, so it's possible that I'm misinterpreting an abbreviation. But that word on the right... the penultimate letter certainly looks like a C, doesn't it? Not, e.g., an S? (It would be a long s here, but that doesn't actually help.)

Which means that the manuscript says ibex. The ibex -> ibis confusion is a case of Manuscript Telephone, but it was telephoned in the 1990s.

Again, like I said, I'm not an expert. I've never translated a single page of a Latin manuscript, much less had a book-length translation published in a handsome slipcover edition. So it's very possible I'm missing something. But right now I'm pretty sure that everyone's been drawing bird feet not because of an error made by a medieval scribe, but by the modern translator.

Anyway, that was exciting, right? I hope that makes up for me posting this a few hours later than usual.

[levshany]

What's your favorite thing about Belos? Do you have any headcanons about him? Also, I love your art and how you draw him!

My favorite thing... Should I pick just one? Well, if we're talking about the look, it's his hair. If we're talking about the temper, it's his hardworking

And here are my headings about him. I'll start with the most common ones, and end with personal ones that I haven't seen from anyone yet:

1. Belos is a retrained left-hander. He holds all the instruments with his left hand, but writes with his right, since it was previously believed that left-handers subject to devilish influence.

2. Phillip's mother was burned on charges of witchcraft. Perhaps little Philip even had to witness this terrible scene.

3. Belos was often ill at the beginning of his journey through BI. And I'm not talking about a curse, but about local infections, to which he had no immunity. Over time, his body adapted, and later the curse itself began to neutralize all poisons and infections.

4. Belos really had fun while communicating with the Collector. These two have the dynamics of a king and a jester, and the jester is allowed to interact with the king as equals, making fun of him, giving advices, and generally talking to him as a friend. Thanks to this feature, a trusting relationship was often built between the king and the jester. With Collector Belos could afford himself to forget he was an emperor and just chat about whatever came to mind.

Perhaps Belos could even tell Collie details of his life that he could not discuss with anyone else. He was going to get rid of the kid anyway and didn't allow them to have contact with the outside world, so there was no need to worry about spilling something to anyone.

5. It was Belos who built the portal door. This headcanon even has confirmation in Philip's diary, where one of the pages depicted scheme of this very door

6. The picture of the witches dancing around the campfire is based on one of Belos' real memories. I'm sure witches have such parties/rituals, and Belos was a witness to them. I like this massive wall of fire and it seems to me that it is somehow connected with the fire that occurred during the battle of the brothers

7. Some people think that Belos doesn't eat anything other than palismen, but I headcanon that he still eats normal food, it's just that his diet is severely limited due to his inability to digest most of the foods of the demon realm

8. Little Philip didn't allow anyone except his brother to touch his head and hair. This is the intimate area

9. Belos wrote a huge number of magic books. It is unlikely that this person was limited to only one diary. To keep order in the covens and teach witches the "correct" use of magic, books and guides were needed. So Belos wrote at least a book for each coven, but I'm sure there are many more. Maybe even Belos signed some of them with pseudonyms.

It is possible that some of his works have survived and are still used to this days for an in-depth study of a certain type of magic.

Wooooo, so far these are all the heads that I remembered for now! I hope you enjoy it :3

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Hello how are you doing? What is your opinion about Tomura, Toga and Dabi?

Hello, I'm going good! Sorry this took me a second to respond to.

Dabi: I actually like Dabi as he is in the manga but I really don't like how the story around him has formed. I think a lot of people lost sympathy for Dabi when it was revealed that he wasn't the perfectly sad victim with torture porn people envisioned, which is disappointing. Horikoshi did this weird thing where he tried to make the LoV sympathetic by doing things such as have them kill a bunch of bigots and show them having genuine bonds and reasons for their actions, but then abruptly changed his tune and did something like depicting them as unhinged mass murderers, mainly to reestablish the whole black and white morality of the series when he was getting a bit too lose to implying there were serious flaws in hero society and the villains gasp had a point?! Anyway, I like him, but now that Endeavour is basically heading the Todoroki family plot, he's been kinda cast aside and made to take the blame for a lot of the issues they're facing rn when it's... literally all Endeavour lmao. Like I don't think he really had to be portrayed as particularly caring or nice for the narrative to acknowledge that he did have a point, and that similar patterns in the Todoroki family are being repeated again, with condemning him for being obvious about and exposing their dysfunction, instead of Endeavour for causing it. Also literally why did he need an ice Quirk as well the whole fucking point was he was an 'imperfect creation' why did he need that what was the point-

Toga: She's cool, kind of boring. Her character is pretty clearly based on some of Horikoshi's weird fetishes, but she's far from the only one, so whatever. I'm really not a fan of hers and Ochako's arc honestly - it feels like they're trying to queerbait without putting in any of the narrative work as to why Toga and Ochako would connect beyond girl and sure, Ochako might feel sympathetic towards Toga, but like her specifically? Villain hero relationships are cool because usually, the villain reveals a new side to the hero, maybe a foil that causes them to question their morality or the person they could have been (ex: Shigaraki for Izuku and Dabi for Shouto). Toga is... not this for Ochako, and Ochako is not this for Toga. Her implied backstory is interesting but I all in all think she's one of the least interesting League members and it's a pity, because we're not really given enough about her.

Shigaraki: I fucking loved his arc for a while there, then they ruined it. Seeing a villain who actually grows from an immature, whiny kid to a legitimate leader who even seems to care about his subordinates was fantastic, and his backstory builds up very well to who he is as a person now. Though, then they regressed him, bought in the inner child that's crying or whatever, and I lost interest. Shigaraki has a compelling character design, was a main villain who grew into the position which is rare, and his Quirk is awesome, and his motivation? Has merit! He had the potential to be a great main villain had they just let him actually grow past AFOs influence, like a mirror to Izuku growing past All Might. But well. They didn't do that. Imo they wasted Shigaraki - for a while there his writing was great and he was one of the best parts of the manga for me.

[taffywabbit]

im also anti proship but calling rugrats porn drawings "child porn" really dilutes the severity of actual child porn. we shouldnt be confusing actual cp that hurts real children with just weirdos drawing porn of cartoon characters that happen to be kids, the two things are not at all on the same level

ok i suppose this was inevitable, i may as well get into it.

(CW for some discussion of CSA and child pornography, obviously)

first off, "i'm also anti proship but" is a terrifying way to start your message, and to go and follow it up with some extremely common proship copypasta i've heard a million times about "taking attention/resources/severity/etc away from real CSA victims" or whatever kinda makes me wonder how "anti proship" you actually are...?

kind of the point of this whole debate is typically that "proship" folks insist that fiction, or in this case "porn of cartoon characters that happen to be kids" as you put it, has no effect on reality or people's mindsets. and so-called "antis" like myself generally respond to this idea with something along the lines of "well it sure seems to affect the reality of your cock and balls", and point out how repeatedly consuming media with a particular focus or message has been shown time and time again to quantifiably influence the way people view the world around them, in ways that subsequently affect how they act, or desensitize them to things that might otherwise upset/offend them. y'know, like political propaganda! or blockbuster movies about killer sharks! obviously some people are going to be more resilient against that sort of influence when the real-world equivalent of "porn of cartoon characters that happen to be kids" is something so blatantly unacceptable, and nobody is really claiming that the impact of fictional CP is "on the same level" as its IRL counterpart.

but at the very least, most people who would be considered "anti proship" WILL tell you "hey, i'm not trying to say that you jerking it to twitter porn of Gwen Tennyson or Tails or whatever is LITERALLY THE SAME as committing CSA, but it's still really fucking concerning and creepy that the majority of your sexual fixations are all specifically cutesy vulnerable cartoon characters under the age of 12, many of whom also have canonical adult designs that you conveniently avoid in favor of sexualizing the ones that are barely old enough to learn long division. you should maybe do some introspection and figure out why that is and whether or not you're really comfortable with what it implies about you. personally i know I'M not comfortable with that shit and i'm not going to keep hanging around you unless you make some serious changes." except usually in my experience the conversation ends up being a lot shorter and ends in a block pretty quickly. like i'm not a psychologist and i don't keep a bunch of studies on hand to throw at you about how fictional CP is often a factor in grooming, but i DO have a brain and can pretty clearly see when someone is rationalizing behavior that will lead them to places i'm not willing to follow.

ANYWAYS to focus more specifically on the actual reason we're talking about this (which was, to be clear, a mobile ad Tumblr served me that depicted one of the dads from Rugrats having sex with his 3yo daughter): yes, actually, that shit IS illegal to create or distribute. it's not the SAME as literal photographs of real children, OBVIOUSLY, but it's still also extremely fucked up in its own right, and any reasonable person in your life would probably stop talking to you if you told them you got off to it.

don't believe me about the legality part? check this out:

so like, I GUESS you might get some legal leeway with cub furry art or sonic porn or stuff that isn't always obvious in how much it's intended to parallel real children? if you really care? but this ad was literally multiple illustrations of a human adult man having intercourse with a human toddler. it's pornography centered around openly fetishizing the sexual assault of a child by a parent. i fail to see how referring to that in shorthand as "child porn" is inaccurate in any way that matters.

and Tumblr is a US-based company, beholden to the laws shown above, so they are at least somewhat responsible when illustrated pedophilic incest porn gets shown to thousands of their mobile app users in an ad they got paid to display. THAT was the original point i was making in my post. but thank you for trying to derail it to interrogate my "anti proship" views or whatever, i have had multiple people send me fairly nasty asks about it in the past year and you finally caught me in a moment when i was already pissed enough about something else that i felt like going off about this stuff. sorry if you actually agreed with most of this and i came off as overly rude/harsh, but if that's the case then this response is for all the other anon asks and replies i've gotten too, i guess.

now we're all clear about where i stand and i hopefully don't need to talk about this again - it's kind of a fucking bummer to think about this stuff and i've been avoiding the subject intentionally. you are always welcome to just block me if you have a problem

[bonesandthebees]

hello Bee!

I’m not sending asks and comments often, but I read almost all of your works and just wanted to say that I, as many others, will keep reading them no matter what characters you will write because you are incredible author and your works are so much much much more than fandom they are based on <3

I’ve read some of your recent answers to asks and whether you will continue writing Wilbur’s character or not I wanted to say that for me, (and I am sure for many others) it will not be weird or smth to read those works because your depiction of character is always so much more than original roleplay. You add a lot of new layers to the character and make him kind of original one, and that’s the thing I love a lot about your works. I can change all the names in my mind, and I will be still interested in reading because it’s not work of cc!Wilbur, it’s work of Bonesandthebees and her amazing ideas. And, keeping in mind that as far as I see you really love your ongoing works and character dynamics, it will suck to throw them away just because one man turned to be shitty person, right? cc!Wilbur kind of just don’t deserve to be the one ruin such a beautiful thing. Regarding to this situation, I also remembered the J. K. Rowling case. (I hope you don’t mind those parallels because I feel like this can be helpful) Rowling is very questionable person and was canceled a lot, but the Harry Potter world keeps living and fans keep creating their works not because they support Rowling, but because they love the characters and want to create. Because it’s about the emotions of fans and their desire to create and share their art and not about her. And your works are too about your art, not CCs.

Anyway, I don’t want to pressure you into continuing and I just wanted to give you another point of view. Once again it’s a question of what’s comfortable to you and I will be happy to be able to read your works no matter what.

stay safe ❤️❤️

this means a lot thank you. I'm very glad it won't be weird reading my past works with him in it because yeah, let's be real at this point I've done a lot of the legwork with fleshing out his character in my stories. though I will say I did always take care to keep my characterization as accurate as possible, but either way I don't want this to take my work away from me. I'm proud of everything I've created since joining this fandom and I'm not letting it be ruined because of this.

I will say, I wouldn't exactly compare this situation to JKR and harry potter for many reasons that I really don't feel like getting into (JKR's influence in transphobic politics being a major point) but I get the gist of what you're going for.

it's about what we as a community have built. it's about the love and passion we have for these characters. it's about our shared creativity that's flourished over the years. we don't have to lose that just because the guy turned out to be shitty. we're so far past him at this point.

regarding the future of my own ongoing wips, as I've said I'm just taking time to think it over and see where my own comfort level is. but it's reassuring to hear so many of you are going to be supporting me no matter what.

[punsmaster69]

7/OCT/20XX

visiting tori today to apologize for.. probably being annoying while drunk.

pretty sure i wrote in my journal that day, but i can't bring myself to read it.

"Good morning, Sans!"

"...nice shirt."

"I was in need of another Halloween-y shirt, so it is just perfect!"

"..Is it depicting what I think is?"

"unfortunately."

"Hehehe! I like it anyways."

"Maybe even more?"

[Aggressive scribbling blocks out a line of text.]

"oh, uh, papyrus wanted me to bring you these as thanks for taking care of me. and, as an apology of sorts."

i handed her a plastic wrapped plate of cookies.

"What for? I am enjoying the shirt, if that's-"

"being all up in your fur yesterday."

[The next sentence had a question mark written then scribbled out next to it.]

"That was an intentional choice I made. Do not apologize-"

"figuratively."

"Oh!"

"...Why do you think you were a bother?"

"honestly ...the last thing i remember was you taking me home. no idea what i was like."

"How.. how much longer were you conscious for? I thought you had passed out in my arms.."

"is that look on your face related to the purple i woke up with on mine?"

"I did not expect it to stick.."

"must've been drunker than you thought."

"..Would you have attested, were you awake?"

"huh? you'd kiss a skeleton while 𝘴𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘳?"

"But would you kiss a goat?"

"you're a real freak, kissin' bones."

"Yet you do not deny any goat-kissing."

"Do you only kiss goats while under the influence?"

[Starts of sentences are written beside the quote, but scribbled out to the point of being intelligible.]

"...did i?"

toriel watched my face carefully, but i couldn't tell what she was looking for.

"If I said didn't mind.. would you still be so worried?"

"why wouldn't 𝘆𝗼𝘂 be?"

"What do you-"

"nevermind."

"what're you up to today?"

"I have yet to plan anything. Would you like to come inside?"

".. where's the kiddo?"

"They are out with Flowey at the moment, so it is just us."

she clapped her hands together.

"Ah! Perhaps you would like to watch a movie with me?"

"sure. what've you got?"

movie boxes clacked softly against as toriel sorted through a drawer on the tv stand. the drawer was dusty, but the movies looked like new.

"Papyrus told me you are into old horror flicks. Do you have a favorite?"

"i'm the guest, so you can just pick whatever you want."

"Is it not the opposite, usually?"

"which one's your favorite?"

Tori looked at the movies for a second, then grabbed one with a cat on the cover.

"..This movie!"

"that's a dark one. kinda shocked you like it."

curious to see what else she had, i started poking around in the drawer as well.

"good pick though."

"...Oh! Sans, what are you going as for Halloween?"

"dunno. why do you ask all of a sudden?"

"I did not see you do anything but write in your journal the whole time everyone was making their costumes."

"probably not going as anything. don't think asgore's dressing up either."

"... Let's find you a costume."

——

"Hehehe! Do a twirl!"

"...not sure this is helping."

"What, you would not like to go as a pretty princess?"

"it doesn't even latch in the back. totally uncouth for a princess."

instead of watching movies, i somehow ended up being dressed like a doll.

"i'm gonna snap this thing in half."

"This one seems like it would fit better!"

she held up an even frillier dress, this time in yellow.

"You would be the 𝘉𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦 of the ball!"

her excitement made it impossible to refuse.

"definitely feeling like a dress-up doll."

"You are pretty like one!"

"can't say i've ever been called pretty before."

"You are pretty to me."

"jeez, this zipper-"

"..Are you alright?"

with a loud snap, suddenly i had a zipper pull in my hand.

i could hear her try and cover her laughter.

"A- Are you stuck?"

"welp. the zip broke right off,"

toriel tried not to laugh as i opened the door, still stuffed into a cheap yellow costume dress.

"so i guess i'm just a princess now."

"I'm sure there's 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 way to get it off. Let me see the back."

"how old are these?"

"I think we have had them since our first Halloween on the surface. I bought so many out of excitement, but Frisk has grown too quickly to put many to use."

"no wonder the thing's fallin' apart on me."

"It's... quite stuck. I'm not sure I will be able to get the zipper back open without tearing."

"I could lift it over your head?"

"..yeah, ok."

holding my arms up, tori grabbed the bottom of the dress.

"Ready?"

"go for it."

nearly toppled from the force, but it definitely came off.

"...I like the stripes!"

"staring's not very nice."

i covered her eyes with my hands.

"these bones n boxers are viewed for a price."

"And what would that price be?"

"a marital ceremony."

"..or twenty bucks. maybe just a few drinks."

"Your standards are awful!"

tori keeping her eyes closed this time, i closed myself in her bathroom to put on 𝘮𝘺 clothes this time.

"This dress has quite the tear now."

"sorry. big-boned, y'know?"

"More likely was that I may have pulled too hard."

"just that eager to get my clothes off, huh?"

"It is sounding like you want to get stuck in another dress."

"might as well just run 'em straight into the shredder at that point; pretty sure that wasn't the first one to end up with a hole in it."

"Frisk would probably not mind either way; they were never a dress person."

"But now there is someone I can buy all sorts of cute ones for!"

"at least a size up next time, ok?"

[southernwolf16]

After coming across SVSSS-related stuff on the blogs I follow/stalk, I finally gave in to my curiosity and checked the donghua.

I tried reading the novel a while back, but it didn't entice me that much so I didn't finish it. I think seeing the donghua helped spark my interest again.

Then I held back from watching Ep 10 for the past week and started reading the novel. I'm almost finished with it.

It's so different from MDZS. I find myself laughing most of the time. Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan edition) are such disasters. I'm sure the more senior fans have already written eloquent posts about how codependent they are, Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan's relationship, why Cucumber Bro and Airplane Bro transmigrated to the novel they read/wrote, why the System exists in the first place, writing what you're passionate about vs writing what'll bring in money, and who is Jiang Cheng's counterpart in SVSSS, among other things. I think I read a post suggesting it's Liu Qingge? Or is it Shen Jiu?

Anyway, back to the donghua. I hope I'm not alone in saying I like the character design. At first it was a little jarring---maybe because I'm not used to watching CGI---and the donghua isn't actually 100% polished a la FFVII remake (on a side note, someone joked that Yue Qingyuan seems to be from the PS2 era). Regardless, I appreciate the design since it gave me an idea how the characters look like.

Which is why I'm a bit surprised when I started trawling the SVSSS tags here at Tumblr and saw art depicting Luo Binghe as a curly-haired, big-muscled mountain of a man. Perhaps this is influenced by Western taste? I'm not an expert in Chinese literature or culture, but in some pics I've seen from Cdramas those of demon blood who play major roles don't have the physique of someone who can crack walnuts with their biceps. Think Wang Yue (Wang Zhuocheng) from Legend of Chongzi and that actor from Love Between Fairy and Devil. Furthermore, Luo Binghe is described as a pretty boy in the novel so at this point, I'm of the humble opinion that the donghua got his body type right. And I subscribe to the standards of beauty from the source culture.

Okay, going back to the donghua Ep 10. As we say here in my country, papunta na tayo sa exciting part---I'm going to see Luo Binghe get pushed down the Endless Abyss by his beloved Shizun. Oh, the angst, the drama.

Nope. Nothing of the sort happened.

Oh, so they saved it for Season 2 [Tries to find Season 2]

[Season 2 not yet released] 😨

What. The. Hell.

I held off finishing Season 1 because I thought Season 2's already available. The site where I watched the donghua said Season 2's release is 2022.

Dude, we're two months' shy of closing 2023. 😱

Season 2, where art thou? 😭

[junotter]

Hi I absolutely love how much thought and research you put into your ATLA designs! Especially when it comes to Japanese imperialism and it's portrayal in ATLA world building. I saw you were discussing whether or not to keep the Thai influences and since I'm from Thailand and Burma I just wanted to let you know that I absolutely encourage you to keep them! As you've obviously already mentioned, Thailand was somewhat allied with Japan during ww2, but also from what I've read before Japan went into seclusion they were on pretty good terms with Thailand and there was even a small Japanese population in Thailand. This next part is just a suggestion you're totally fine to discard but I also think it would be really interesting to bring in more Burmese influences (they're already somewhat there but are pretty ambiguous on whether or not they're just Thai or not, but the angular shoulder pads have always read as more Burmese then Thai to me). I understand why you might be uncomfortable due to Japanese imperialism in Myanmar, but as someone from there I always drew connections between how historically Burmese kingdoms have (and the modern Burmese junta continues to) oppress all the many other ethnic groups in the region, wether that's through cultural assimilation, slavery, or outright genocide. I'm specifically Karen/Kayin and father's birth village has a church bell made out of a defected Japanese bomb dropped on them during WW2 since Karen people were majority British aligned then, but when I've watched ATLA it's always been the Burmese oppression that my mind thinks of after the obvious Japanese imperialism. Anyways, sorry for the long ask but I love your work and hope this made you more comfortable using Thai elements for you designs <33

Anon I could kiss you. Thank you so much for this I actually really appreciate it!! My area of expertise really only is in Japan and is why I want to be so careful in these depictions.

In the end I did decide I would keep Thai influences because I think there's balance between being culturally aware and not removing what influence is already there but having someone with the actual background weigh in is really really useful. I'm not sure if you're super interested in how I'm applying it but I'm basically making the Thai influence far more apparent in the non-nobility while the Japanese influence is heavy in royalty, largely as a way to represent how the elite tried to separate themselves from those below, which once again ties back to Japan. I think there's actually a lot of really interesting ways to blend Thai and Japanese design aesthetics, especially with how things are worn, fabric types, and peating techniques. The Burmese influence is also such a great idea and truthfully not something I know a whole lot about but it gives me further research to do!! Thanks!!

[aquarius-cookie-jar]

What if we got Dark Cacao Cookies costumes based off of the 5 heavenly beasts that represent the 5 chinese cardinal directions?

The 2 dragons (the golden one is sometimes depicted as a qilin), the tiger, the tortoise (sometimes depicted as fighting with a snake), and the vermillion bird (or phoenix?).

I think that'd be fun.

And yes, I do know the Dark Cacao kingdom is based on Korea and korean influences. I just think it'd be a neat costume line.

Also, I'm very sure Korea has its own take on the chinese mythology, but I can't seem to find it atm, so bare with me.

Anyway, the 5 heavenly beasts are said to be associated with the 5 cardinal directions (Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, and Metal).

Idk. I wanna read more about these heavenly beasts, but as of now, I only have wikipedia and this article to base off on atm.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and who you'd associate with who.

[gawaincomic]

I was wondering and you seemed like a likely candidate to know, do you know when red-headed Gawain first became a thing? It seems to have become the standard for his character, but I've never come across a description in the original sources that mentioned his coloring whatsoever. Did this start with T.H. White's depiction? Or *is* there an earlier description in a source I haven't read yet? (I'd also be curious if there are any og sources which give him a different hair color entirely!)

@luanna801 Thank you for the question! As you have guessed, this is something that really interests me, and I have looked into it in the past.

To be sure, I haven't read *all* the sources (I'm still reading) and some of my reading happened ages ago, so - maybe someone can correct me on this. But here is what I have found:

I can't recall a single medieval source that mentions Gawain's hair colour. Not one. I assume that the colour of a knight's hair was of no interest to medieval authors and readers, as long as he had a 'noble countenance'. This fact is striking to me because today, we often like to describe characters' appearances in great detail, but - nope, I personally haven't found any descriptions of his appearance except in the most general terms. (His clothes, yes!)

As far as I have been able to ascertain, red-haired Gawains are indeed descendants of T. H. White's Gawaine. I'm not sure I'd call the red hair 'standard', really, because I've found blond and brown and black-haired Gawains in post-White books, but it's clear that White has had a very powerful influence. Then again, his Gawaine is a striking character. It's also White who made Gawain Scottish and Gaelic. Medieval sources don't touch upon that at all (indeed, some say Lot is the king of Norway, so that would make Gawain Norwegian, but whether he's British or Norwegian, none of it seems to have any real impact on his character). Also, I've noticed that when people write a red-haired Gawain, they often give him character traits that also come from White.

For me personally, red-haired Gawain was a no-brainer because I really only picked up on him as a character in The Once and Future King as a twelve-year-old, and next I read Rosemary Sutcliff and Anthony Mockler, both of whom write Gawains who are clearly influenced by White. So that's the image that got fixed in my mind. But clearly, there are also a number of post-White Gawains around who are not particularly White-inspired.

Off the top of my head: Phyllis Ann Karr's Gawain in The Idylls of the Queen is blond, and Gillian Bradshaw's Gwalchmei in the Hawk of May trilogy is dark. Bernard Cornwell's little Gawain is blond too. In Het Zwevende Schaakbord, a 1918 Dutch novel by Louis Couperus, Gawain / Walewein has brown hair and brown eyes (OK, this is clearly pre-White but I'm putting it out here anyway). I've also found blond and brown-haired Gawains (and, indeed, a Black Gawain) in comics - and of course, there isn't a single red-haired Gawain on screen, a fact I deeply deplore 😅.

[bigsoftmarshmallow]

Okay, so I'm pretty sure you liked one of the posts that partially talks about their backstory, but I don't think you've read anything about Karina specifically.

h/t/t/p/s://www.tumblr.com/aikoiya/721484702337351680/loz-karina-goddess-of-love-passion?source=share

This is pretty important to her as a character, but so it this:

h/t/t/p/s://www.tumblr.com/aikoiya/727413120124993536/loz-gerudo-pantheon?source=share

The thing about a lot of those scenes is that they would mostly only happen before Demise became Demise. Afterwards, he'd be more likely to actively try & r*pe her.

Like, yes. I always wanna give characters a chance, but the problem is that unless a character wants to change, then they won't.

Do not pass go & do not collect $200. The buck stops with you.

Yes, he could reform, but he doesn't want to. I see him as the type whose addicted to the chaos & the hate & the bloodshed & the carnage.

In some ways, he reminds me of the Joker. "Some people wanna watch the world burn."

As Demise, he is too far gone. However, Ganondorf, to me, acts like his Sword of Damocles.

Yes, Ganondorf is Demise's hatred reborn, his Ara Mitama, but that isn't all he is. He's also human. Meaning that he can change given the right influences.

Which means that Ganondorf is both Demise's hatred upon the world & Demise's best chance at any form of salvation.

In all honesty, I tend to take a degree of influence from Shintoism & Buddhism with him. While I don't believe in such philosophies IRL, they do give me new & interesting angles to look at characters from.

And my depiction of Demise takes a degree of influence from Susano-o. And, he's known for having been cast out of the heavens to live as a mortal (though, with the things he could pull, he must've been a mortal sorcerer).

But, the thing is, there is a shitton of evidence to suggest that the actual curse that Demise placed upon Link & Zelda isn't reincarnation. Because reincarnation already existed within their world &, according to Shinto & Buddhist philosophy, every living thing is subject to reincarnation.

It is only further proven by Demise's own words, he uses a very specific term in the original Japanese. Rin'ne, which is the Japanese term for the Hindu word Samsāra, which is the neverending cycle of life, death, & rebirth.

Now, in the English, he said was that, "my hatred will follow."

"Follow." You can't exactly follow something if it's not already in motion.

What I think is that, Demise isn't causing Link & Zelda to reincarnate. I think that that was already going to happen regardless.

I believe that Demise's actual curse isn't so much forcing them to reincarnate (which, how would he even do that; he was never stated to have power over souls), rather I believe he's attached his own hatred to their souls & essentially piggybacking off of a natural phenomenon that takes place on their earth. His curse makes it so that, whenever they are reborn, they'll experience misery in some form or fashion.

Which brings me to my next point. I think that Hylia gave up a whole lot more than what a bunch of fans believe she did.

Thing is, in a world where reincarnation is real, the only way to escape it is the give up on all worldly attachments. Which, I don't think even most deities can boast about themselves.

Especially not Hylia. She is VERY attached. So, when she became mortal, she sort of became subject to Rin'ne like any other mortal. Whether she knew or she didn't, that's a different story, but I still think it to be true.

Anyway, tangent, my bad. I see Ganondorf as being parallel to Susano-o time as a mortal.

And, you know what? He eventually makes amends. But he's only able to through living as a mortal. Or at least, that's the angle I'm going with.

And, in a way, Karina sort of represents Demise's, or Gàlondo's Kushinada-hime. Susano-o's eventual wife. (But only represent her. If she actually was Kushinada, then she'd be transformed into a comb most of the story. XD)

But, bottom line is that, according to Buddhism, it's actually not

Another interesting thing is that, while yes, the Triforce bears a surface-level resemblance to the concept of the Holy Trinity, I think it has more in common with the 3 Confucian Virtues.

And, do you know what those virtues are?

Courage

Wisdom

.

.

.

.

Benevolence.

And, do you know what Conficius believed of benevolence? It is humaneness. Or love for others.

That it starts at the home, but shouldn't stop there.

One could even argue that it is an extension of Aristole's idea that one's relationship with others reflects the relationship that we have with ourselves. In other words, how you view or treat yourself can affects how you view or treat others.

Which makes self-compassion (philautia) rather than narcissism (narcissis) very important. Because arrogance is often times a sign of someone who is secretly insecure.

And, interestingly enough, Karina is a goddess of all types of love & of healthy relationships (among other things), meaning she likely knows what she's talking about.

Anyway, back to where I was. Confucian benevolence is described as a moral sense that begins with one's own family & that strong foundation allows for such feelings to flow outward to one's community & beyond.

So, what happens when one's family or home is not strong. If the filial love isn't allowed to flourish?

Now, that by no means indicates that one can't be benevolent without a good home life or relationship with one's family. But just like how one can still learn how to read later in life, if it's nurtured early in life, it's comes easier.

But yeah, that's my logic.

Sorry for the infodumping.

Is Demise a terrible being? Yes. Do I love him?

... yes...

I really wish I could like me a hero for once. Alas, my heart is forever tormented by villains and antiheroes!

I am always here for your Universe's lore, my dear. You have incredible storytelling and information to give on WHY something should be the way it is in your version of Hyrule! I cannot wait to see more about it!

I actually have all the links you give me saved on my notes app to be able to pull them up whenever I am able to read... AKA when my brain lets me actually sit down to read.

[jakowskis]

@buffetpallascat doing a good ol' days reply because i had enough thoughts on this to warrant some meta, in my typical rambling fashion. hope you don't regret engaging by the time im done dfhkdsf

for starters, you're very welcome, i'm glad you enjoy the post :D

as for your question - i meant moreso that it was typical of the fandom, although it was also very much influenced by societal trends of the time, too. fandom's always had a rocky history with women, especially women who supposedly 'get in the way of "slash" couples', but the way fandom misogyny is performed has changed; i see more willful erasure of female characters these days than flat out blatant misogyny. in tw fan content from the 00s, i've seen gwen hatefully AND casually called some pretty horrible things that i rarely see fictional or real women called nowadays, simply because standards have changed. hell, one of the comms i linked, the twgenre finders one, there was several entries requesting fic where gwen experiences, like, bodily harm? not in a whump-y way, they actually wanted to recreationally read fic about her getting physically injured and suffering, out of some bizarre sense of malice towards her. simply because she 'gets in the way of janto'. and i can't even fathom that existing nowadays. pretty much everyone outside of weird little 12 year olds knows that's not acceptable. not to mention it's just weird.

interestingly i've also noticed a lottttt of change in how the fandom... reacted to and treated janto as a couple back in the day, versus now. people in 2006 were not normal about gay people. we know fandom's history with fetishizing gay men, and it was even worse in 2006 with an exceptionally rare canon gay couple being received by a jarringly hetero-but-'slash'-obsessed fanbase.

i mean, i don't wanna generalize. i saw a poll recently about how fandom is not mainly composed of straight women, contrary to popular belief, at least anymore, and i guess the question is, was it ever? i have seen a lot of the people involved in fandom in the 00s identify themselves as straight, but was that partially because of the culture of that era? have any of those people since come out as some type of queer? maybe, for some of them, that was them exploring their queerness in a safe environment, when the culture around being gay in real life was a lot different.... the same way modern fandom culture continues to be for those of us who aren't in accepting homes. if they were 20smth year olds in the 2010s/2020s, rather than the 2000s, would they still identify as straight?

not sure. but i've made a habit of going on the profiles of old lj accounts, and i'll sometimes wind up going through the journals and the personal posts of authors i respect, etc etc. a significant amount of mid 00s fic writers were straight women in their 30s - 40s, many married, some with kids. very different demographic to modern fandom. very different climate they lived in vs the one we're in.

(although, bonus note, i also once found a thread of bisexuals in 2006 praising torchwood's depiction of bisexuality, and that made me exceptionally happy. but also maybe a little sad, because torchwood's my personal fav bi rep, too, in 2023, and the fact that we've had nothing better in seventeen years is a bit of a bummer. but i digress.)

anyway, this is all to say, i've seen some insanely fetishy shit about jack and ianto that rubbed me exceptionally wrong. that gross dehumanizing, severely homophobic place where it's like... ahh, ok, so you don't see them as people, you see them as sexy dolls you can mash together. but, ofc, that's how i view it as a bisexual person in 2023 who's been on tumblr far too long. they didn't see any problem with it. they might've even seen it as progressive. how can you be homophobic when you're obsessed with the little gay people on ur screen? but it's the opposite end of the 'homophobes reducing gay ppl down to what they do in their beds' trope, and it comes across as dated and icky now.

i mean, i consume a lot of older media, i know how to turn off my 21st century sensibilities and remind myself things used to be different, but it's honestly an impressive difference. there's some fantastic fics from that era of the fandom, in fact most of my favorite fics are from that era, but i often get quite a bit of culture shock reading things. particularly, i'm always impressed by people in the 2000s, an extremely biphobic era, applying their impressive period-typical 'bisexuals aren't real' beliefs to The Bisexual Show. torchwood's rep's not perfect (again, a product of its era), but i've seen a fantastic amount of gay!ianto and straight!owen, because bisexual men don't exist, obviously, and jack's not bisexual, he's the amazing slutty space man, except he's mostly gay because all that matters is janto. and i don't even really see explorations of gwen or tosh's bisexuality at all, because, again, women who?

i found a comm a while back, i didn't include it on my list because it wasn't torchwood-exclusive and didn't have much content in the tw tag, but it was a lgbtfest, and contained fics about the team and their relationships with their bisexuality, and it was really intriguing to me to see queerness as understood by regular people in 2007/2008, y'know, not by gay writers or activists or films. i have no way of knowing if any of them were speaking from any personal place, but it was just interesting, because none of the fics i read in that comm had that same brand of tone-deaf sex-focused homophobia to them, they were progressive for the time, but it was still apparent to me that they were written by people with a mid to late 00s understanding of being gay, and i do think it's interesting, that substantial difference.

got a bit off topic, but now that i mentioned the initial fandom being overwhelmingly composed of women, i can also add that i think internalized misogyny factored hugely into the fandom's disdain for gwen. the 'strong female' trope doesn't just annoy straight men, it also annoys a lot of women (though not consciously) - not because they're opposed to well-written women, but because society tells us certain things that'd be admirable and complex and sympathetic out of a male hero are unacceptable out of a female one. it's the double standard. jack does some awful shit, but i rarely see him criticized. i've straight up seen fans go "jack's kind of a bastard, but it's ok because he's hot", which is fine in jest, i've joked about shit like that with characters, but it's not so cute when those same people turn around and condemn gwen for her actions. hell, or owen. i've literally seen someone say they'd like owen more if he was more conventionally attractive. like, ok, you're clearly just here for the janto eye candy. you haven't brought any substantial critical thinking skills. pls take ur shallow ass and leave. but back to gwen - she was held to a standard none of the other characters are held to. they picked on her for the stupidest shit. and her worse sin, the infidelity, it's bad, sure, but i've seen countless male characters who cheat on their partners who are beloved by their fandoms. it's just fucking gross. i fucking hate hypocrites.

dude, yknow what?? i've even seen fucking tosh bashing. WHO THE FUCK HATES TOSH????

ok im done. sorry for my babbling. but yeah, i think it's a fascinating thing. i love how humans change and develop with the times and how we can map the changes and how they affect media, and it's fun to observe in fandom because it's there, too, but no one's looking so i get to feel like a little scientist fdskjfds. ok i will cease with the excessive babbling now