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lechevaliermalfet · 5 years ago

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In the Name of the Moon – A Look at Lunar Legend Tsukihime

There’s a popular joke in the Type-Moon fandom that there is no Tsukihime anime, but boy it sure would be great if there was one.

I had only ever been dimly aware of this attitude toward the Tsukihime anime myself. Watching it fansubbed for the first time in the early 00s, I wasn’t really plugged into the fandom, and the joke seemed like a minor thing to me. I had all but forgotten it by the time I was with my wife at Otakon in 2012, and we went to a panel about Type-Moon for fandom newcomers.

The panel was pretty salty about the Tsukihime anime, taking the joke about there being no such thing so far as to refuse to acknowledge it or discuss it. If I recall, they insisted on this refusal even when directly asked about it by someone in the audience. I also don’t recall them being all that complimentary about the Fate/Stay Night anime (the original 2006 series) for that matter. We had a long drive home after the convention – fourteen hours, give or take – and our discussion about the convention kept circling back to that panel.

She’d gone mostly to accompany me, I think, and because she didn’t have anything she wanted to do that conflicted with it. She had some minor interest herself, as she’d seen this supposedly nonexistent Tsukihime anime, and like me, she enjoyed it. So it was pretty irritating for her to go to this panel ostensibly for newcomers and then have them trash the one thing she’d experienced in the fandom. It was all the more irritating when you stopped to consider that at that point that it was, in all probability, one of the handful of things real newcomers might have experience with.

In its way, though, the panelists’ hostile and disdainful attitude toward the most accessible works in the general Type-Moon oeuvre did make for a suitable introduction. If not to Type-Moon and their work, then to the fandom, and the high levels of toxicity most of its assholes could and would display given the opportunity.

But I’m not here to talk about the Type-Moon fandom, except as it amuses me, or is relevant to the subject at hand.

The subject being this supposedly non-existent anime: Lunar Legend Tsukihime.

My own relation to the Western Type-Moon fan community is tangential at best. A couple of guys I know (one a good friend, the other an acquaintance), back in the early to mid-aughts, were moderators for the Beast’s Lair forum, basically the center of the English-language fandom community at the time. Of course, at the time, the fandom was almost brand-new. Tsukihime was all the rage then, because Tsukihime was almost all there was. Fate/Stay Night was new enough that there hadn’t really been time for the discourse around it to even form, let alone evolve much. And in those days, Beast’s Lair was basically the forum owner and a few of his online friends, and I feel like half the reason it existed was because at that point, it was more convenient to just have a forum than it was to get a bunch of guys together on an AIM group chat with that level of frequency. This was before Mirror Moon created a translation patch for any of these games. These were guys who bought the game direct from Japan, paid the outrageous import fees, referred constantly to a GameFAQs walkthrough, and died like men. It was that, or learn Japanese. Most of them opted for the walkthrough. Thank Whoever you believe in that the game runs windowed, I guess.

Fate, which has been the bread and butter of Type-Moon’s success for well over a decade now, was a commercial game. But it was one built with on the base of the huge support Tsukihime had garnered following its launch. Tsukihime itself was a doujin game, made when the guys at Type-Moon were a bunch of nobodies and had no real money to speak of.

Because they were nobodies, and because they needed the game to sell big if they were going to make the kind of money they needed to make, they did what a lot of Japanese doujin developers have done and continue to do, and will probably do until the end of time, and put porn in the game.

This is not unknown in Western development circles either, just for the record. But Japanese culture is in some ways more permissive when it comes to depictions of sex or sex-adjacent topics and material in their mainstream entertainment. Porn can net you a decent career, or at least a halfway-decent living, and it’s generally easier over there for porn artists in any field of endeavor to “go legit” and make the jump to the non-porn version of their field.

That doesn’t happen in the West, or at any rate not in America. Or very rarely. We have (for better or worse; there’s a whole separate debate there) a much sharper division between the porn and non-porn sides of the entertainment industry, and that barrier’s much less porous. But porn fans will support you. If the success ceiling is far lower than in the legitimate side of the industry, it’s also true that the floor is likewise lower.

So here we have Tsukihime. Not “porn with plot”, or even “plot with porn”, but “plot (…with porn)”. It’s there because they were worried the game wouldn’t sell without it, and so there’s not much of it in the first place. What I’m saying is that if you’re wanting to get your rocks off, you’re going to be a while.

Which is not to say that Tsukihime as a game is inherently like… progressive, or woke, or anything like that. Oh no. Nonononono. It’s horror (-ish, depending on your route), for starters – a genre that thrives on objectification and exploitation. And then it’s Japanese, which gives it an extra few layers of seeming weird to American sensibilities. So this is less like going down the rabbit hole and potentially more like falling into a snake pit.

I say all this to lend some context. When we think of Type-Moon today, we tend to think of this highly successful production house with a star franchise that’s rapidly hitting the market saturation point. If it hasn’t already (and I have a friend who maintains that it has). And that is absolutely not Tsukihime. Not the game, and certainly not the anime. No ufotable animating, no Yuki Kajiura composing, no Gen Urobuchi directing the critically acclaimed and popularly loved (and irritatingly overpriced) prequel.

This is Tsukihime. This isn’t the property that launched Type-Moon to stardom. That would, again, be Fate. This is the property that let them make Fate the way they did. Tsukihime is the visual novel world’s equivalent of some garage band you never heard of releasing their demo tape as their debut album, and the demo tape is actually pretty good, even as it suffers from having basically rock-bottom production values. It’s one of those things where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. You have to look at what it tries to be and tries to do, and like it for that. In that much at least, even as they differ in many other ways, that much is true of both the anime and the visual novel.

It’s worth it, though.

Phantasmal Fantasy

If we’re being honest (and why wouldn’t we be honest?), Tsukihime, at least going through the main route, is a little bit less straight horror and a little more what I think of as horror-fantasy. It isn’t horror because it’s rarely if ever actually frightening. But it uses horror aesthetics in a fantasy setting (urban fantasy, in this case), which may lend things a generally eerie and unsettling sense of ambiance and a particular feeling of threat to the main characters without ever quite getting your pulse up. It’s a hybrid genre I happen to have a huge soft spot for (I’ve been reliably informed that this is sort of My Thing). The entire Legacy of Kain series falls under that banner for me, as do most of the Castlevania games. The Dark Souls games all have it to some extent, and Bloodborne leans into it hard enough that it actually is kind of legitimately scary at various points. And then there are movies like Vampire Hunter D.

Lunar Legend Tsukihime, the anime based on the visual novel Tsukihime, was released in the early to mid 2000s. On a technical level, it’s very middle-of-the-road, with a bit of a generic visual style and workmanlike animation. But we’re talking about an anime based on a doujin hentai game. More mainstream visual novels’ adaptations tend to get better treatment. Tsukihime is well-regarded, but probably not really “popular” in the same sense as something like, say, Da Capo or Little Busters or Air, or... Look, Type-Moon’s getting the star treatment was pretty much going to be impossible at that stage. It took Tsukihime and the first Fate adaptation before we got to that point. That the Tsukihime anime happened at all is honestly kind of remarkable, and a testament to how much of an impact the game made.

Tsukihime takes place in the modern day (well, modern for the date of its release, which for the game was 2000, and for the anime would be 2003 or so). It’s a vampire story, of sorts, though the only creatures we’d recognize as traditional vampires are a minor threat at best.

Our main character, or at any rate, our viewpoint character, is Shiki Tohno. He’s part of a large, wealthy, and presumably powerful family, though he lives with an aunt and uncle whose ways and means are much more middle-class than his father, the head of the family. He was banished from the main estate eight years ago, shipped off to live with his aunt and uncle after an accident when he was about eight.

He doesn’t remember much about the accident. He (and therefore we) are initially told it was a car accident, and that it damaged his heart. He has fainting spells occasionally if he over-exerts himself, and otherwise generally anemic symptoms. Something to do with damage to his heart after the accident; it’s not really clear. The weakness makes him an unfit heir to be head of the family, hence his being put aside.

The real change in him is far stranger, and far harder to understand.

While recovering in the hospital, he begins to see odd lines running through everything, making the world look fractured. He discovers that if he cuts along those lines with a blade or other edged implement, the object will simply fall apart along those lines. It takes little to no force to do this. He could cut down a tree simply by dragging the edge of a knife along a particular line on its trunk, a line invisible to anyone but him. His attempts to convince others that these lines exist fall on deaf ears, and only cause concern for his mental state.

One day during his recovery, while wandering around outside, he runs across a woman named Aoko Aozaki who not only believes him, but understands what’s happening. She explains to him that he has a rare ability – perhaps the only one in the world with it – known as the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. What he is seeing is the inevitable destruction and dissolution, the “death”, of every person and object around him. The lines are the only way his brain can make sense of it, as this is something the human mind doesn’t readily grasp. She gives him a pair of glasses which make the lines go away while he wears them, and which therefore allow him to go on with his life as normal. She tells him that he mustn’t use this power of his unless absolutely necessary.

Shiki lives his life normally from that point forward, until one day while he’s in high school, he receives notice that his father has passed away, and Shiki is to move back into the main estate. Said estate is in the same town, so much of his day-to-day should remain the same – same friends, same school, same daily routine.

But a strange thing happens on his way to the manor after school. While resting in the park, he sees a young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a white sweater. From out of nowhere, he is overcome with a furious, murderous impulse. His body seems to move on its own, with no input or control from him. Off come the glasses, out comes the knife he carries with him, and he’s off chasing her. Bad things happen.

He wakes up in the Tohno mansion, having blacked out and been retrieved by Hisui, one of the two maids of the home. She dresses as a Western maid, while her twin sister, Kohaku, also a maid, prefers a kimono.

But his arrival at the manor comes with significant culture shock. In the wake of his father’s passing, possession of the manor and the position of head of family have both fallen to his younger sister, Akiha, whom he hasn’t seen since his accident some eight years ago. His memory of her is a little hazy, but he seems taken aback by the polite but stern young lady she’s grown into. Altogether, the four of them – Akiha, Shiki, Kohaku, and Hisui – are the only inhabitants of the house.

Shiki finds its size and sense of isolation intimidating, all the more because his daily life in and around the house is in for a massive shake-up. For starters, there’s a strict curfew, and also no television. When Shiki objects, Akiha puts her foot down, and seems determined that he will live according to the family’s ways and rules, or… Well, there is no “or else”. He just will, end of story.

So he sneaks out to go buy some snacks and magazines. On his way, he is accosted by one of his classmates, Ciel. But here, she’s dressed in an odd outfit, carrying a set of deadly-sharp swords, and seems intent on killing him until she satisfies herself that he poses no threat.

The next day, further weirdness ensues. He encounters the blonde lady, the one he thought he killed, very much alive and well. His initial relief that he didn’t actually kill her is quickly undone by her assertion that actually, he did, and with rare skill and gusto. She then goes on to describe the exact cuts he used to slice her into seventeen separate pieces.

Then it gets stranger.

She is, she tells him, a vampire, albeit not all that much like what you’d think of when the word comes to mind. And no, she doesn’t sparkle. Her name is Arcueid Brunestud, and she’s hunting an enemy of hers who’s in the area, and is responsible for a string of murders and mysterious deaths that have been occurring lately. She was doing well enough until Shiki came along murdered her. While she was able to recover from this inconvenience, their encounter has left her in a weakened state. Now she needs help, and who better than the one who put her in this position in the first place?

Twists, Turns, and Dead Ends

I’m a little conflicted about the problem with the Tsukihime anime. I can’t decide whether its creators overestimated what they could do in twelve episodes, or underestimated the material and the time it needed. I supposed it really doesn’t make much difference. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Bad news first.

There are some technical issues with the show, which are probably the least of its problems. The art style is kind of lackluster and workmanlike, and the animation is overall pretty by-the-numbers. There are numerous moments where you can see drawing or animation shortcuts were taken, and there are lots of long shots where the camera lingers on one place or on one person well beyond what’s necessary for drama. On the other hand, the more important action scenes do see a slight jump in quality, so maybe the producers were keeping something up their sleeve for when it counted.

The English voice work is serviceable. The actors’ voices are by and large a good fit for the roles, but the acting is occasionally a little wooden. The writing is somewhat off as well. Shiki disappears from his normal life for a while in the third and fourth episodes, and his friends’ and family’s discussions of it once he resurfaces don’t seem to agree on the times he was gone – at one point, even within the same conversation. This may be a translation or dub writing error, though. There are other weird gaffes (this time in the original script), such as that Shiki doesn’t notice that Kohaku and Hisui are identical twins. This despite the fact that their only notable differences are eye color and wardrobe.

But these are mostly technical troubles, and they’re things I can overlook pretty easily. The writing errors are never so serious that I get confused about what’s going on, and the artwork issues aren’t too out of line, either. Certainly I’ve seen other shows from the time that did worse and more often.

The real issues \with Tsukihime, and the problem most of the original game’s fans have, stem from the way it’s adapted from the game.

Like a lot of visual novels, Tsukihime has multiple routes, and many if not all of them are mutually exclusive. In fact, some don’t even involve Arcueid, who you’ll remember is one of the main characters. This presents some difficulties when making a TV series. On the one hand, there is a canon route, and you could probably make a decent twelve-episode TV series out of just that. On the other hand, there are lots of fans who prefer the alternate routes, who would be pissed if their favorite characters showcased in those routes weren’t given some screen time, and so you want to give them something. And, too, one of the intriguing things about a game like Tsukihime is all the lore and world-building that makes these divergent plotlines possible and interesting. Even when not pursued, elements of those routes may come up one way or another, and lend a certain richness and depth to the story. It would be a shame to leave that on the cutting room floor.

Another possibility the show’s creators could take is to craft their own continuity, essentially creating a story hybridized from multiple routes from the game while not adhering strictly to any one of them, and create a single story that way. This hypothetical hybrid story would then be better able to explore more of the background and lore, and incorporate that richness into its own new canon. But that would take probably more than twelve episodes, and twelve was all Tsukihime got. For anyone who’s curious about what this approach might look like, there’s a manga adaptation that incorporates elements of the other routes into the main story. It’s out of print now, sadly. Originally published by ComicsOne, it was taken over by DrMaster after ComicsOne went out of business. Then DrMaster themselves went out...

Anyway, the compromise measure that the show’s creators eventually decided on was to largely tell one story (the Near Side routes, particularly the Arcueid route), while throwing in bits and pieces from other routes… and then never following up on them. There wind up being a few non sequiturs and narrative dead ends or red herrings, almost as a kind of wink and nod to say that the show’s makers at least know those possibilities exist. But this results in the show being unfocused. For instance, a couple of episodes build up the Problem With the Tohno Bloodline, but this ultimately doesn’t figure into the story. This material comes from what the game refers to as the Far Side routes, and those developments largely go unnoticed during the Near Side routes which the anime’s plot focuses on. The problem is, again, that these are mutually exclusive as the presented in the original game. Weaving them together in the “new continuity” approach would be fine – maybe ideal for the anime, even – but it would take an amount of alteration to the continuity that the anime never makes. It winds up being less of a problem than it sounds like, but it does manage to be frustrating.

The main story, meanwhile, hints at interesting elements from the broader cosmological background that the game establishes (and which later Type-Moon games borrow and build upon), but many of those elements never quite leave the background. This leaves a frustrating sense of massive, powerful forces and entities moving in the background, that there is something far larger happening that we are not even quite glimpsing, but only being given hints of.

But if it sometimes seems that Tsukihime only scratches the surface of the greater and deeper lore of its setting, that lore and setting are still compelling. There’s an almost Lovecraftian sense of cosmic scale to the supernatural as it’s presented in Tsukihime. Arcueid, Nvrnqsr Chaos (no, that’s not a typo; it’s the real name of an adversary in the game, though the anime presents it as Nero Chaos instead), and her ultimate enemy, Roa – all of them are connected to higher forces and entities. The murders occurring in Shiki’s city are the most minor of problems in the grand scheme of things. This is what makes the anime both fascinating and frustrating. It shows us this conflict, but refuses to give the full context for it. So much seems to be held back; the full natures of these characters goes unexplored.

I like a little mystery. I like it when some things are unexplained, or when the answers are there to be found rather than to be given. It’s one of the things I love about Dark Souls and Bloodborne. But the story of Tsukihime fails to explore these mysteries in a way I find really satisfying.

I feel like this is the root of why a certain overly vocal segment of the fandom chooses not to acknowledge the anime. Coming to it from the game, I can see where it might seem a little disappointing. Many of these hooks can seem like teases to those who understand their significance enough to be upset that they ultimately don’t deliver.

But that’s not the experience that either I or my wife had watching the anime. We both came to it before we ever knew anything of the game. For us, those odd hooks were just moments where we went, “Huh. Weird,” and carried on watching the show. Sure, there was clear and unaddressed significance, but it wasn’t a problem. If anything, it made me more curious about the game.

The show may seem meandering to some, but to me, I just tend to think of its pace as sedate. It doesn’t really dig into the characters’ backstories, but it does help to develop them and give them room to breathe.

In particular, the anime spends a lot of time developing Arcueid. We see that despite her power, and her potential for wrath and violence, she’s surprisingly cute and innocent-seeming at times, and actually innocent when it comes to some things. You can see her interest in Shiki grow, but she seems unable to express it. Her attempts at being normal can come across as almost mocking, when they are instead sincere and well-meant, but hopelessly clueless.

What we learn of her story is somewhat sparse, but we know that she spends most of her time asleep, awakening only to deal with threats like Roa. The reasons for this are complicated, at least enough so as to be beyond the scope of this writing. Suffice it to say that there’s a wiki if you’re after more information. Just be warned: The writing there is pretty iffy. Anyway, Arcueid is capable of getting by just fine on her own (when some inconsiderate dick doesn’t just up and murder her, anyway), but it’s also clear that, thanks to spending most of her time asleep, she doesn’t really understand a lot of what’s going on around her. There’s a kind of obliviousness to her that might be frustrating in another character in a different show, but is somehow just endearing here. Like my wife said at one point: You just want to hug her. Which is not, you know, the normal reaction you have with vampires. “Aloof”, “compelling”, “seductive”… These are the words we tend to think of when it comes to vampiric “affection” in fiction. “Huggable” doesn’t really show up on the list. And yet, here we are.

There’s a certain cat-like quality to her. Elegant, graceful, mysterious, sometimes selfish, frequently endearing, and occasionally ridiculous. There’s comedy in her situation. Shiki, despite his powers, is otherwise kind of a dork who could not be more clearly in over his head, at least at the start. He spends most of the series bewildered, confused, scared, and very occasionally snapping and completely losing his shit against some eldritch horror. And yet he’s the one who has to keep Arcueid grounded (to the extent that this is really even possible) and basically explain to her how the world works. In some ways, it’s really Arcueid’s story.

The pace of the series helps it build a sense of brooding mystery as it explores the twin dilemmas of finding a way to stop Roa and figuring out Shiki’s uncertain place in and relation to the rest of the Tohno family. And as you might suspect, these two problems aren’t as separate as they first seem.

If nothing else, the opening theme is just about perfect. Subdued, mysterious, haunting; it sets the mood of the show almost perfectly, in a way that comes close to over-promising on what the anime actually delivers. It definitely sets a mood.

That mood is one I tend to get into around this time of year. I’m normally a night person in the first place. No amount of working mostly first-shift jobs over the last two decades has changed the fact that there’s some part of me that wakes up when the sun goes down, and wants to stay up until the sunrise. I like to be out and about in the dark. I can remember back when I was in college, I would be out with friends trying to find any reason at all to stay out as late as possible. Later in life, I’d duck out long after everyone else was asleep and go for roaming walks at night (at least, back when I lived in a reasonable neighborhood). With fall here, the urge just gets stronger.

There’s something of that feeling I get from Tsukihime, large portions of which involve that same nocturnal roaming, and take place in the nighttime times of life. And I enjoy stories about monsters and the supernatural – I went through something of a vampire fascination phase when I was younger, and still maintain a certain amount of interest – and so those things alone might have gotten my attention.

Fuck the haters; the Tsukihime anime exists, and it’s good. Not great, and not as good as it might have been, but it’s fine. If it’s not exactly gripping, edge-of-your-seat suspense, it’s still an entertaining way to spend the better part of five or six hours. Certainly worth a watch if you can track it down.

Tsukihime tells an odd, interesting story – moody, dark, weird, mysterious, fantastical – all things I like. A story of supernatural threats, monsters, mystery, and marauders in the night. It’s hard to think of anything more appropriate for fall – for October – for Halloween.

Availability

The DVD release for Lunar Legend Tsukihime was originally handled by Geneon in both Japan and the U.S., since they were part of the original production committee. After they folded, it was picked up by Sentai Filmworks, one of the several splinter companies that rose from the ashes of ADV’s implosion in the late aughts.

Geneon’s release was evidently a multi-volume affair. Which seems ludicrous today, when you typically buy an entire season of twelve episodes or so all at once these days, in a single set. But Geneon (which had previously been Pioneer) had been around since the VHS days, and a lot of those companies in some sense inherited the mindset that had governed the VHS release schedule, which was to release a volume every couple of months or so, with three or four episodes on each one, and that was that.

Sentai Filmworks’ version is a two-disc, single-volume set, so that would probably be the way to go. Especially if shelf space is a concern.

There is no Blu-ray release, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine what Blu-ray would really do for the show. At any rate, it seems to be out of print currently. Geneon, of course, folded about a decade or so ago. And although Sentai Filmworks lists it in their catalog, there’s no option to buy. And it doesn’t appear to be available for legal streaming anywhere. Like a lot of older (and I hate to think of this as “older” – I remember being an adult when it was new) – maybe I should say somewhat older anime – Amazon and eBay are your best bet if you’re interested.

Postscript the First – The Anime versus the Game

Tsukihime, as a visual novel with multiple routes, contains far more material than the TV series. HOWEVER, please consider this paragraph your giant, flashing, neon-lit trigger warning for content potentially involving sex, assault, sexual assault (of various kinds), incest, violation of consent, and more violence than the anime producers could show even with the series airing at otaku o’clock.

Just to be up-front for a moment, I haven’t played much of the game. Much of my information comes secondhand, or else is the result of reading the Type-Moon wiki and talking with friends who’ve played through it. I’ve yet to finish a single route. I’d like to, and I occasionally chip away at it here and there, but the problems are twofold.

The first problem – probably the main problem – is the low level of engagement. I get curious about visual novels from time to time, but they’re always a little too easy to put down, and a little too hard to pick up. And that may seem strange, since there’s so little to do in one. The amount of effort involved is nil. But that’s just the thing. I often wrestle with whether or not I even consider them to be games at all. And, look: It’s not like I think visual novels are unworthy of anyone’s time. They’re fine. Largely not my cup of tea, but fine. But what you do in a visual novel could hardly be called playing, any more than you “play” a Choose Your Own Adventure book. There are no mechanics, no maneuvering through the world, no use of skills. Just decisions to make, and those not very often. The thing about an actual game is that I’m mentally engaged, fully occupied and firing on all (or most) cylinders. When I want to play a game, that’s what I’m after. And visual novels just don’t offer that.

Of course, I do love to read, and so it would seem like they should be right up my alley for that reason at least. But no. The writing is actually my second problem.

So far as I’ve observed, which admittedly isn’t much, most Japanese visual novels translated into English are pretty awkward, and this is probably a combination of factors. One is that what constitutes good writing (in terms of how the language is deployed) in Japanese differs considerably from what constitutes good writing in English. It’s not just visual novels, mind you. The couple Haruki Murakami books I’ve read have both also seemed off to some degree as well. I think it’s just something in the translation, some difference between English and Japanese in the matters of word choice, rhythm, and flow, and the sense for how these things work in each. I sincerely think that making a Japanese work really sing in English would involve a level of change that most translators (and visual novel fans in particular, given their greater likelihood of being total Japanophiles) are deeply uncomfortable with.

But beyond the general problem of Japanese-to-English writing, there’s the problem of Kinoko Nasu in particular, who is Type-Moon’s writer.

Nasu is, I think, something of a Lovecraft disciple, with his cosmic-scale sense for horror. But he’s also like Lovecraft in another very important and distinct way, which is that despite having really interesting ideas that set my imagination on fire, he actually can not fucking write.

I’m sorry, Lovecraft fans, I really am, but it’s true. Deep down, you all know it. Lovecraft, for his part, was a man who at some point earlier in his life swallowed a thesaurus, and was then hell-bent on vomiting it out over every page he wrote ever afterward. He never used one word if he could find a way to use five or six to say the same thing, never used a simple, elegant, and concise word when he knew a more complex one, and his style has so little flow you’d need an electron microscope to find it. You could make a workout of running back and forth to the dictionary while reading his work. Or you could make it a drinking game. And then die, of alcohol poisoning.

He had some great ideas, once you got past the writing, and the multiple onion-like layers of intense racism. And he was intensely racist; let’s not forget that. Not just “racist because it’s the 1920s or ‘30s and basically everyone white is racist right now,” I mean racist even for those times. People back then were a little weirded out by how much he hated the Jews, and black people, and anyone else who wasn’t the right shade of paper-white. But even just focusing on his writing, the feeling remains that he was not the best vehicle for his stories, and that’s just how it is. The most aching, taxing, fucking grueling reading I have ever done on stories I still actually liked is mostly found between the covers of the various Lovecraft compendia I have lying around the house. I like his stories; I just don’t like reading them much.

Nasu may well be his reincarnation (and oh, would it ever have horrified Lovecraft to be reincarnated as a Japanese person). A common complaint I’ve heard about Nasu’s writing (from people who’ve read it in Japanese) is that he has good ideas, but just isn’t a skilled writer. Now, I’m not qualified to really dissect how he comes across in his own culture, but when translated into English, he’s a painful read. Maybe it’s the fault of the group responsible for the translation (Mirror Moon), but at the very least, I can confidently state that he should stay out of porn. His sex scenes have some of the least sexy and most unintentionally hilarious writing I’ve seen in my life. It’s why I think that even Fate didn’t really take off to become the absolute phenomenon it is until after we started to get anime adaptations of it. Those adaptations would all have been written by other people, or at least had some amount of editing or collaboration to dilute the worst of his influence, letting the good ideas shine through without Nasu’s own writing griming everything up.

I don’t have a lot of basis for comparison, but I feel like on a technical level, Tsukihime is pretty basic. The character artwork is nice enough, with a distinct style. The backgrounds, though, are in most cases very clearly photographs that have been filtered or otherwise manipulated so as not to clash too badly with the character art. This was probably a shortcut to save time or money, or both.

On the balance, I’d say it’s worth looking into, with the major caveat that there’s a lot of stuff in it that didn’t (and couldn’t) make it into the anime, that makes the story overall much darker and more sinister than the anime could manage. Unfortunately, it’s going to be hard to find. There’s only the original version released in 2000. There’s talk of a sequel and a remake, but the amount of time that’s passed for no more attention or work than the project has received, to the extent that these things have become running gags in the fandom. They probably are things that the higher-ups at Type-Moon really do mean to create at some point, but which aren’t a huge priority for them, and so are very, very back-burner projects.

As I mentioned above, the anime and the game are both similar in that their quality persists despite somewhat lacking production values. But the anime’s middle-of-the-road budget and somewhat generic style was never the problem. The game, meanwhile, was pretty clearly made on a close-to-shoestring budget, but this actually doesn’t matter nearly as much. Visuals novels live and die on their writing, ideas, and artwork, I think. Rarely if ever do they rely on really cutting-edge graphics for their impact. And in truth, Tsukihime the game was always going to be marred far more by Nasu’s writing than anything technical.

A nice upside is that, since we’re privy to Shiki’s internal monologue, he comes across as a more interesting character. He seems to sometimes just float through the story in the anime, with bouts of intensity here and there when things go wrong or he’s totally lost it. But the game gives us his thoughts, and we get a better handle on why he does the things he does.

For English-speaking fans, there are walkthroughs, of course. But if that understandably sounds like too much of a pain in the ass, there’s also a fan translation (unauthorized) by Mirror Moon. In addition to rendering the game into English, I believe it also introduces an option for removing the sex scenes. So for those who are uncomfortable with those, this will answer that concern, at least.

Postscript the Second – Alternate Takes: Kara no Kyoukai

Frequently referred to in English-speaking circles by its subtitle, The Garden of Sinners, Kara no Kyoukai (which Wikipedia tells us means something like “Boundary of Emptiness”) is an interesting story from Kinoko Nasu’s early days. It began publication (independently) in August of 1998, and is set in that timeframe. Originally a series of novels, it’s primarily known in the U.S. as a boxed set of seven movies (plus a stand-alone eighth) priced exorbitantly by Aniplex USA (the Blu-ray boxed set for the first seven will set you back a cool $400). These movies tell the story of a different Shiki, this time a young woman who wears a kimono, boots, and red leather jacket, named Shiki Ryogi.

There are pretty clear linkages between it and Tsukihime, though these are thematic rather than narrative, and the result of ideas being reused. Nasu began writing Kara no Kyoukai first, and seems to have cannibalized some of its concepts for Tsukihime. The two stories take place in alternate universes. As with Tsukihime, this version of Shiki also has the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, although Kara no Kyoukai’s Shiki does actually come by them after an automobile accident. There’s also a redheaded sorceress with the last name Aozaki (Touko instead of Aoko), and I want to say that I’ve read somewhere that they’re sisters, and that Touko traveled to this alternate reality from the “main” one where Tsukihime and Fate take place. She was initially envisioned with sort of pixie-cut blue hair, but was converted for the movies into a redhead like her sister Aoko, and Nasu decided he liked the change so much that it became canon.

But although it features a Shiki with the Mystic Eyes, she shares the spotlight with Mikiya Kokuto, who’s a dead ringer for the Shiki of Tsukihime. His personality’s different – he lacks Shiki Tohno’s deeply buried killer instinct, for a start. Mikiya has no special abilities beyond a knack for information-gathering and a better-than-average capacity for deductive reasoning. Moreover, even without any special powers of his own, he seems to move with relative comfort in a world full of sorcerers and mystical murderers, in part by keeping an open mind, taking nothing for granted, keeping his assumptions in check, and taking everything as it comes. He works as an investigator for Touko’s paranormal detective agency, Garan-no-Dou. Shiki is mostly the muscle.

Mikiya has a younger sister, Azaka, who in her turn looks an awful lot like Shiki Tohno’s sister Akiha. Except for in flashbacks, where she looks like a young Rin Tohsaka from Fate instead. As with Tsukihime, she is attracted to her brother. Unlike Tsukihime, the two of them are actually blood siblings, so... At least with Kara no Kyoukai, this profound failure of the Westermarck Effect is entirely one-sided; Mikiya has eyes only for Shiki. TV Tropes would undoubtedly describe it as Single-Target Sexuality.

There are any number of other parallels between the two, but these are the most obvious. Much of the background lore seems to be similar between the two series, although Kara no Kyoukai doesn’t use the same parts of it, and doesn’t dig into the parts it does use quite as much. It’s much less concerned with cosmic entities like Arcueid or Roa or Nvrnqsr Chaos, and more concerned with its characters as individuals, and how they relate to each other. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t dive into the sort of metaphysical strangeness on display in Tsukihime and Fate – Kara no Kyoukai is aggressively weird – but its metaphysical struggles are more self-contained, connected more directly to the characters and less tied to the cosmological backdrop.

The movies were released in Japan beginning in 2007, almost a decade after the novels began publication, and well after the successes of Tsukihime and the first Fate series. They’re animated by ufotable, and feature Yuki Kajiura as the composer. I’d encourage anyone interested to track them down, though I know the price tag can be offputting. Aside from high-quality video and sound, the set is pretty bare-bones. There’s no English audio track; in fact, the impression I get is that this is basically just the Japanese Blu-ray release, re-encoded for Region 1. This includes the movies’ proper titles not being displayed in English anywhere on the discs or cases, so you have to do a little sleuthing to figure out which movies are which. This is doubly aggravating considering that the intended viewing order isn’t chronological, so it’s not immediately apparent if you’ve started with the wrong movie. If you feel totally lost and like you’ve just come into the middle of things, then it’s highly likely you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Thankfully, the menus are in English, and the subtitles are serviceable.

There’s a DVD version of the boxed set that costs less – I want to say the whole boxed set went for something like $200 – which is still a decent chunk of change, but more reasonable for a set of seven movies. Unfortunately, a quick browse of Amazon makes it seem even harder to find than the Blu-ray set. And, sadly, there are no legal streaming options for this series.

#type-moon #tsukihime #shingetsutan tsukihime #visual novel #anime #halloween #vampires #lunar legend tsukihime #arcueid #arcueid brunestud #shiki tohno

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sadiiomane10 · 5 years ago

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tagged by @whatyouliefor @germanynts

Nickname: ze

Zodiac: capricorn

Height: 5 ft 5 maybe who knows

Hogwarts House: dont kno, my sis made do a buzzfeed quiz but it was longer than a novel and i honestly dont care that much

Last thing I googled: eygpt nt, wanted to kno if mo scored, cus priorities

Songs Stuck in My Head: calma pedro capo

Following: 1,041

Followers: 3008

Do You Get Asks: yeah i few,used to get alot and then i went awol, but yh thanks for talking to me

Amount of Sleep: i need 9 hrs + or i cant function, i get ill , idk im dumb

Lucky Number: idk about lucky but i like 4

What Are You Wearing: whenever i do these im in tracks and a pyjama top

Dream Job: fashion designer, not happening i kno

Dream Trip: round the world, really wanna go to germany and barcelona, everywhere warm

Instruments: learnt the recorder once, had to learn the keyboard in school but most of that time was spent wandering the corridors cus who gives a shit

Languages: english,however u spell my mother tongue, its not my fault ok the language is so rare like 50 people speak it

10 Favourite Songs Currently:

lil t jay- ruthless

stormzy- vossi bop

mehrad jam- ghambet nabashe

mya- 4 meses

pedro capo- calma

alec benjamen- let me down slowly

j balvin- contra la pared

rosalia- con altura

somo- back to the start

somo- oh nah

Random Facts:

i love the beach

ive been to disneyland twice

i have two cats

Aesthetic: bad bitch whos a sad bitch

Clubs I Support/Teams I Post About: liverpool, liverpool, more liverpool, bayern, ajax, barca, random players i deem worthy enough to reblog

i tag @skarchaouis @nahikaris @capitanogiorgio @trentalexanders @thomasmxller @thomas-mvller @trentsreds @trentthelittleduckling @frecklednando @calypsus

#i have two cats i only ever talk about one #the other one is never here ok #went to disney land when i was 6 and 15 #remember both times #thanks for the tag

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nadziejastar · 6 years ago

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KH3 Plot Holes and Analyzing the Weapon Names of Organization XIII (Part 1)

After beating KH3, I was immensely disappointed. All I could think of was how poor the story was, how many plot holes there were, how many questions I had that should have been answered, how unsatisfying so many character arcs felt, and how little closure we got on so many topics Nomura previously promised answers to. Almost all the issues that felt unsatisfying or poorly explained are now being tied to the next game, when by all rights they should have been resolved in this one. And most of these subplots are now being tied to Union X, when they had no foreshadowing that they involved that game’s lore or original characters ever before.

One of the main topics I felt NO closure on was Ansem’s six apprentices, as well as Lea and Isa’s connection to them. We know Nomura originally intended 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage to be a full-volume game, and that it would have made the characters “more complicated”. Given the scenes chosen in Blank Points, it seems we would have learned much more about the apprentices and their fall to darkness. Here are the things Nomura said in interviews that indicate how much more we were supposed to learn about the original Organization XIII:

What sort of people were Organization members 3-8 as humans?

We know now that they had ordinary lives in Radiant Garden. In BbS we’ve seen one part of Xigbar’s past, as well as members 3-8. 3-6 were apprentices under Ansem the Wise and did things like act as guardsmen, but Axel and Saïx were just young boys who were friends.

What happened to Ansem the Wise?

He is left wandering in the Realm of Darkness. Ansem the Wise, who had been banished to the Realm of Nothingness by his six apprentices, in KHII, wanted to release the Kingdom Hearts made from people’s hearts that the Nobodies of his apprentices had made. The machine that he used for that ended up exploding, taking him with it. It looked as though he died, but we know from the secret event in BbS that he was sent into the Realm of Darkness. Ansem tried to encode the heart’s form into data with his machine, but it didn’t go as planned and the machine went berserk. Ansem the Wise was thrust into the Realm of Darkness, forgetting all of his memories except those concerning Sora.

Did Apprentice Xehanort really lose his memories? Master Xehanort commandeered Terra’s body, and became Ansem the Wise’s apprentice. According to Secret Ansem Report 1 From KHII, the young man asked to become a test subject for Ansem’s research so he could get his memories back. After that they began the study of darkness, but did he really lose his memories? And are those memories Terra’s or Master Xehanort’s?

Why is Xemnas searching for The Chamber of Waking?

To find Ventus. The Chamber of Waking is the room where Aqua leaves Ventus sleeping in Last Episode, and is a part of Castle Oblivion. As you can see from Xemnas calling Aqua’s armor his “friend”, it seems Xemnas has Terra’s memories and he is searching for Ventus, making the other Organization members look for the Chamber of Waking. The only one who can solve the mysteries of Castle Oblivion is Aqua, though, so the Organization was never able to find it.

What are the details of Ansem’s apprentices fall into darkness? Most of what had happened with Ansem’s apprentices before their fall into darkness is unknown, aside from what was touched upon in Secret Ansem Reports. And the mystery of “the plan that was decided on after Axel and Saix entered the Organization” that was talked about in the Secret Reports in Days still remains. According to Nomura there is still much about the Organization’s humans that has yet to be said.

Where is Master Xehanort’s keyblade? As was stated in Secret Ansem Report 13 in KHII, while studying darkness the young Xehanort opened the door to the heart of Radiant Garden. This would have been possible if he had a keyblade, but according to the Ansem Reports 4-8 in KH, he did not yet know about the keyblade at the time. In Last Episode Master Xehanort used his keyblade up until going to the world of darkness, but what happened to it after that...?

Roxas, the "Sora + Ventus" Nobody, was able to use a Keyblade. In contrast Xemnas, the "Terra + Master Xehanort" Nobody, wasn't able to use a Keyblade. Why is this?

I'd rather that point remain a mystery. It's possible that he intentionally wasn't using one.

The King seems to come in contact with Kairi, the heroine from Kingdom Hearts I.

Because the story takes place before Kingdom Hearts I, the part about Kairi couldn’t be ignored. However, the cause for her going to Destiny Island and her detailed history are not revealed. It draws on the mysterious special existence.

Why did Kairi end up with Sora and Riku?

It has to do with Aqua’s “magic”. Nine years before KH, Kairi was thrust into the outside world, and found herself on Sora and Riku’s world. Ansem Seeker of Darkness thought that she had been able to search for a keyblade wielder, but what actually saved her was the magic spell Aqua had put on her.

Lea and Isa also lived in Radiant Garden apart from the Organization members up to No.6.

That’s right, however they are merely residents at this time. They’re just innocent Frisbee playing boys.

Where did the Organization’s coat and mark come from?

Xemnas remembering his human years. One year after BbS, Xehanort as well as five other apprentices toss aside their hearts. Then the Nobody Xemnas was born, and the Organization which he creates takes a lot of things from his memories as a human. But as Xemnas had two people who he was, Terra and Master Xehanort, he takes from both of their memories.

In KH BbS, Master Xehanort's goal behind opening Kingdom Hearts was to "create a new world." But in this game, he says it is to "reset the world." Why the difference? What was revealed in this game was another piece of the truth: his goal was "this world is no longer any good, and we have to recreate it from scratch."

We are interested in why Xehanort would come to such a conclusion. At first, I did want to use a next game to dig down into how Xehanort went from that simple boy playing the chess-like game to an admirer of the darkness. But, if I do that, then the Dark Seeker Chronicle wouldn't have ended with KH3 after all (laughs.) Some ideas had solidified to a degree, but it's shelved for now.

The Dark Seeker arc has concluded, but since when have you been thinking about the conclusion?

The Dark Seeker arc has been a concept ever since KH2. In those days, I just kind of threw together and decided an outline. I was often told by the manga artist that they felt "the characters come alive however they want", and some parts did change from their original conceptualization, but in the grand scheme of things not much changed.

Emphasis mine on the mention of things changing from their original conceptualization. There are many details I suspect were changed, while keeping the overall grand scheme the same. I believe there was supposed to be way more backstory to the Organization than what we actually got. So I decided to look for possible clues in the story. 358/2 Days revolves around Organization XIII and I noticed that the names of their weapons are very unique and interesting. They may very well shed light on what the members’ backstories could have been.

In Days, the weapons are sorted into specific Gear types. The are three types that are the most interesting and most defining for the character. The first is Pandora Gear, “a formidable weapon with exceptional capabilities.” For Organization members, this Gear grants them two of their most powerful weapons; the color scheme is the same for all of the Organization's weapons provided by the Pandora's Gear, consisting of black, gold, and blue or red.

The second is Zero Gear, “a powerful weapon that draws forth its wielder's true worth.” The Zero Gear is emblazoned with the Nobody insignia, signifying that for the Organization members, as well as others who wear the Black Coat, this gear produces that character's signature weapon.

And finally, perhaps the MOST interesting is Mystery Gear “a weapon that draws forth its wielder's personality.” When equipped, it transforms the user's weapon into one that "draws forth its wielder's true personality.” Were these weapons a hint at the mysteries of Organization XIII’s true personalities? I will analyze all of Organization XIII’s weapons, but not necessarily in order.

No. IX - Demyx (Melodious Nocturne)

Prefers to kick back with his sitar, and leave the dirty work to the water under his command.

Not all the Organization members have weapon names that are super interesting, possibly indicating a fleshed out backstory was not thought of for all of them during the creation of 358/2 Days.

Most of Demyx’s Sitars are named after musical or rock and roll terms. Basic Model, Tune-Up, Quartet, Overture, Old Hand, Da Capo, Power Chord, Fermata, Interlude, Serenade, Songbird, Rise to Fame, Rock Star, Eight-Finger, Concerto, Harmonics, Million Bucks, Fortissimo, Up to Eleven, Arpeggio, and Prince of Awesome (joke weapon). The joke weapon is a tennis racket and its name is a reference to the "Prince" brand of rackets, which have the general shape of Demyx's sitar. It may also refer to the anime and manga series, The Prince of Tennis.

Demyx’s Pandora Gear is Sanctuary, a reference to the English version of Utada Hikaru’s opening song. His Zero Gear is Arpeggio; musically, an arpeggio is the playing of notes from a single chord in rapid succession. Dance water, dance! His Mystery Gear is After School, a broom. It is probably a reference to after-school clean-up of a classroom, which is common in Japanese schools. For some, this assignment may have been given as punishment for getting caught sleeping in class. Because it brings out Demyx's true personality, it may be a reference to his tendency to "sweep things under the rug" or evidence that he was a rather ordinary person compared to the rest of the Organization.

No. XII - Larxene (The Savage Nymph)

Wields sharp knives and a sharper tongue. Her lightning strikes as quick as her temper.

All of Larxene’s knives have French names relating to storms and heavenly bodies. Her weapon names translate to Sharp Edge, Thunderstorm, Whirlwind, Tempest, Carmine, Meteor, Star, Irregular, Dissonance, Eruption, Setting Sun, Indigo, Wave, Flood, Squall, Typhoon, Eradicate, Southern Cross, Luminous, Moonlight, and Damselfly (joke weapon).

Some of her weapon names seem like a reference to Final Fantasy games. Squall, Lightning, Typhoon (summon) and Luminous (the engine). Other than that, they seem to describe a stormy femme fatale personality. The Tempest is a play that was written by William Shakespeare in the early 1600s. When the play begins, Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, and his teenage daughter, Miranda, live on a remote island where they have been stranded for the past twelve years. Unbeknownst to them, the storm is the work of Prospero, who aims to shipwreck them on his island. It is a tale of magic, deception, revenge, and marriage. The main political theme of the play is gaining power and control over others. A reference to her role in Castle Oblivion?

Her Pandora Gear is Vol de Nuit or Night Flight in English. Vol de Nuit is the name of a book from the French author Antoine de Saint Exupéry, in which a pilot is trapped in a storm. A major theme of the novel is whether doing what is necessary to meet a long-term goal is more important than an individual's life. Her Zero Gear is Lightning. Her Mystery Gear is Light Bulb. The light bulb is the symbol of invention, intelligence, and a great idea. Perhaps Larxene was a lot more complex and intelligent than we have gotten a chance to see.

No. XI - Marluxia (Graceful Assassin)

In the arc of his scythe, flowers grow and all else perishes. His pretty face hides ugly motives.

All of Marluxia’s weapons are named after flowers along with a typically negative adjective. The only exception is the Stirring Ladle, one of his joke weapons. His weapons allude to some tragic backstory, as well as his inner resolve.

The rest of his weapons are Fickle Erica, Jilted Anemone, Proud Amaryllis, Mad Safflower, Poor Melissa, Tragic Allium, Mournful Cineraria, Pseudo Silene, Faithless Digitalis, Grim Muscari, Docile Vallota, Quiet Belladonna, Parting Ipheion, Lofty Gerbera, Gallant Achillea, Noble Peony, Fearsome Anise, Vindictive Thistle, Fair Helianthus, and Solemn Magnolia.

His Pandora Gear is Hallowed Lotus.The lotus flower is regarded in many different cultures, especially in eastern religions, as a symbol of purity, enlightenment, self-regeneration and rebirth. His Zero Gear is Graceful Dahlia. The dahlia is known to represent one who stands strong in his/her sacred values. His Mystery Gear is Dainty Bellflowers or Dainty Liliies-of-the Valley in Japanese. Bellflowers symbolize unwavering love. The Lily of the valley means "return to happiness" and most often symbolizes chastity, purity, happiness, luck and humility. It does apparently indicate that Marluxia was not conceived as an evil character, even as early as 358/2 Days’ writing.

No. X - Luxord (Gambler of Fate)

Life, to him, is just a game to be won...and he has all the time in the world to do it.

Nearly all of Luxord’s weapons are named after tarot cards, with the exception of his joke weapon. His joke weapon is Finest Fantasy 13, which takes the appearance of many compact discs; an obvious reference to how the PS1 Final Fantasy games came on multiple discs.

The rest of his cards are named after the Major Arcana of the Tarot. The Fool, The Magician, The Star, The Moon, Justice, The Hierophant, The World, Temperance, The High Priestess, The Tower, The Hanged Man, Death, The Hermit, Strength, The Lovers, The Chariot, The Sun, The Devil, The Empress, and The Emperor.

His Zero Gear is Fair Game, his main weapon from Kingdom Hearts II and not related to the Tarot. His Mystery Gear is High Roller’s Secret. Instead of being related to the Tarot, its name and design is drawn from the superstition that four-leaf clovers are blessed with good luck. His Pandora’s Gear is The Joker. The Joker is often compared to The Fool in the Tarot deck. They share many similarities both in appearance and play function.

Nomura said that the “Wild Card” that Luxord gave Sora while he was fading away will come into play later and that perhaps it holds the key to Sora's revival. The Fool Arcana is often also called the Wild Card in Tarot decks. The Fool represents new beginnings, having faith in the future, being inexperienced, not knowing what to expect, having beginner's luck, improvisation and believing in the universe.

Luxord wrote a report in 358/2 Days indicating he admires children for some reason:

“I find myself envying the children. Perhaps some fundamental difference exists between those who become Nobodies as adults and otherwise. The longer you have lived, the more you are positioned to lose with such a gamble. But a child can look forward, unafraid even in the face of immeasurable odds. I doubt they even see life as a gamble the way we do.”

#anti kh3 #kh spoilers #kh meta #kingdom hearts meta #larxene #kh demyx #kh larxene #kh org #organization xiii #kh3 spoilers #marluxia #luxord #kh3 #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 358/2 days

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downunderdowntown · 6 years ago

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In campagna tutto bene. Ho visto i miei primi canguri. Camminavo in collina, al tramonto. Erano cinque. E si, saltavano. Hanno uno sguardo perennemente rincoglionito, si buttano addosso alle macchine. Tutto molto romantico ma credo si estingueranno presto anche loro. Di notte le stelle sono tante, tante, tantissime. Sembrano così vicine che le puoi toccare. Quando c’è un temporale a due ore di distanza, in cielo si fa luce a giorno, senza nessun rumore. L’apocalisse sopra di te, nel silenzio piú totale. Un’altro spettacolo della natura. Anche gli australiani sono uno spettacolo. Il mio capo mi porta in gita nei paesini il weekend. Si fa tranquilli 5 ore di strada per dare un’occhiata a un’evento e tornarsene a casa. Normalitá. Distanze very easy per loro. Amo follemente gli australiani perché sono gentili. Sono anche ignari. Anche ignoranti. Anche inconsapevoli. Non hanno la più pallida idea di cosa sia lo stile. Si vestono in maniera imbarazzante. Però li amo. Li amo perché sono anche delle creature semplici. Dai loro dai una sedia pieghevole e un frigo-bar pieno di birre, si metteranno sotto un albero (probabilmente a guardare il nulla) e saranno felicissimi di farlo. Anche io sto diventando una donna del Bush. Mi avevano avvisato di prepararmi alle ruote bucate da cambiare. Mi è già successo due volte. Non so cucinare ma so sostituire una gomma bucata. Che vita into the wild ragazzi. Continuo a fare la spugna. Il mio inglese non sta migliorando granché. Questa farm è una grandissima colonia italiana. Per quanto non aiuti con la lingua, ci si sente sempre a casa. In realtà mi sento più a Napoli che a casa, ma vabbè. Chissenefott! Non è così male essere circondati da chiassosi connazionali che si fanno riconoscere ovunque. L’altro giorno in piscina era scritto a caratteri cubitali: «Prohibited Diving» ed ecco che uno dopo l’altro tutti dentro la piscina, a momenti la svuotavano. A momenti ci cacciavano, alla fine pare che il bagnino ci abbia invitato tutti a casa sua. Com’è successo non lo so. Pare che chi sa cucinare e regalare gratuitamente ammmore sia irresistibile. C’è poco da fare. Alle feste serviamo lasagne, parmigiana, space cake e altri meravigliosi rimedi contro la noia. Strappo le foglie di eucalipto, le strofino e le annuso. Presto libri e mangio i libri degli altri. Scopro il significato di «I’m Keen» : «If you have a keen interest in something, you are really, really into it. Keen is an adjective that describes something that is intense, sharp, or focused. The adjective keen comes from the Old English word cene that translates to "bold and brave" and while the spelling is now really different, the sounds are similar.» Penso sia tutto meraviglioso. Dietro la meraviglia però ci sono anche le persone difficili. La settimana scorsa, per la prima volta in vita mia, mi è uscito un herpes sulle labbra. Gigante, tanto che l’ho ribattezzato “IL MOSTRO”. Il mostro è la somatizzazione di un qualcosa che ho covato per troppo. Che si tratti di negatività, crudeltà, vittimismo o semplice follia, le persone difficili attirano tutto quello che è sano e normale dentro le loro strutture deliranti, per imprigionarvelo. Non sono abituata ad avere a che fare con le persone cattive, o meglio con le pazze. Quando parlo di pazzi intendo quelli veramente pazzi, non per scherzare. Da brava empatica do sempre una chance o due a chiunque, ma non riesco a condividere la mia quotidianità con chi è tossico ed emana energia negativa. Non sono abituata ad abbracciare questo schifo nella vita, lo allontano. Ma quando il pezzo di terra da condividere è piccolo, non scappi. Chi sta male ti inghiotte nel suo delirio e rende nera qualsiasi cosa tocchi. Chi disprezza odia negli altri ció che non accetta e che giudica negativamente in sè. Comportamenti che non si concede e che irrita vedere in qualcun altro che è più permissivo con se stesso. Chi ha sempre una parola cattiva per tutti è il frutto di una base di amore incattivito (inacidito dalla mancata espressione) e non dalla sua assenza. Prigionieri frustrati di se stessi. Allo stesso modo, io, che mi lascio trascinare per un pezzo di strada dall’odio, glielo lascio fare perché tocca uno tasto fragile che mi fa scattare. Questa persona rispecchia esattamente ciò che mi fa più paura al mondo: è quello che non vorrei mai essere nè diventare nella vita. Delirio e frustrazione che cercano di attirare l’attenzione su di sè nell'unico modo in cui sono capaci: distruggendo e nutrendosi del nervosismo che creano. Sto lavorando molto su me stessa. Tanto egoisticamente che la cosa che mi preme di più è solo ed esclusivamente di diventare una persona migliore ai miei stessi occhi. Ecco perchè sono tanto sensibile a cotanto schifo. Ecco perché non lo devo permettere. Quant’è vero: se non ami te stesso non potrai mai amare nessun altro. Ciò che sei con te stesso, sei anche con gli altri. Quanta sofferenza bisogna sentire per avere il desiderio di infliggerla anche agli altri? L’herpes è passato. Spero non torni mai piú nel mio giardinetto zen. L’odio toglie energia, inaridisce. Ma io sono una ragazza di campagna, sono bene che dal letame nascono i fior. 🌸

#batlow #new south wales #nsw #sunset #pink sky #pink sunset #rural work #australia #bush #pink clouds #batlow apples #backpackers life

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willowbound-blog1 · 8 years ago

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so, you wanna write with me but you aren’t sure how our muses can meet?

look no further than the masterpost of plot ideas for all twelve of my muses featured here. take a peek if you’re interested in writing with me or if we’re writing, and you need inspiration/ideas!

1. FOR VIX: Half-hellhound and half-human, she's the daughter of the underworld Goddess' most high-ranking member of the Queen's Guard and one of the oldest and originating hellhounds.

Plot ideas for her, especially for magical folk, include:

a summoning spell being cast which invokes Vix as your muse's familiar.

running into a giant black dog with red eyes that's the size of a dumpster.

bonding with other underworld creatures.

Vix, being a master of petty theft, stealing from your muse and dealing with the consequences.

2. FOR EDEN:

A cat sidhe (fairy cat or cat of the fae) whose profession is to act as a guide/guardian to new supernaturals or troublesome supernaturals in order to ensure their success as well as to preserve the secrecy of the supernatural community from humans.

Plot ideas for her include:

her becoming your muse's (who can be either a new supernatural or a trouble-causing one) sidhe.

binding her by oath in some way (as an oath-bound species, she can be tricked or talked into oaths of which she must carry out no matter what they are).

time period verses, as Eden is several millennia old.

3. FOR MY (4) PHOENIXES, GENERAL:

Save for Air (which, ... #soon), I have phoenixes for every species (Fire, Earth, Water, & Spirit). There’s a whole world, culture, and political climate for the phoenix race for us to explore!

General plot ideas for any of the phoenixes:

your muse obtaining a tail-feather of theirs which will bind the phoenix to your muse as guardian/protector/etc. as long as the phoenix remains in its current state.

your muse gets caught in the middle of a violent phoenix turf war.

your muse comes across an injured phoenix.

Plots for specific phoenixes:

Magdalena: using your muse as collateral damage for some petty gain; accidentally [on purpose] burning your muse’s home or city down in a rage; needing your muse’s help escaping her shadow, Glace. Glace: needing your muse’s help to track down Magdalena; returning a favor owed to your muse after your muse has helped her. Demetria: surprise! your weed dealer is a giant magical bird; your muse is stranded in the wilderness and Demetria comes to their aid. Cassiopeia: your muse takes Cass under their wing (ha) and teaches her about Earth and humans/society; Cassiopeia shows up on your muse’s doorstep and never leaves because she literally cannot take a hint + proceeds to follow your muse around like a puppy.

4. FOR BELLANTHE

A lower class English necromancer whose father’s notoriety is only outmatched by her mother’s has zero social skills and is composed of 99.9% sarcasm, .1% desperation for human affection.

Plot ideas for her include:

surprise! your muse’s formerly deceased pet is back from the dead, and it’s pissed. Bellanthe swears she didn’t do it, buuut.

your muse catches Bellanthe playing in some crypts in the middle of the goddamn day.

your muse needs a witch or necromancer for some purpose.

5. FOR KALANI

Sweet, human photographer who knows nothing about the supernatural and who just enjoys people-watching and minding her own business, thank you very much.

your muse is visiting Hawaii and Kalani can’t seem to take her camera off them while they’re on the beach.

your muse is a supernatural of some sort and Kalani might have just accidentally witnessed this proof of their non-human identity.

college au!

6. FOR PRUDENZIA

A tough, rich vigilante who’s adept at double swordplay and ensuring justice and safety for all. She’s got a heart of gold and a will of steel.

your muse is an antagonist which Pru is actively working against.

your muse and Pru spar/fight/train.

your muse is of a high rank and Pru is part of their personal guard.

7. FOR KALI

A werewolf from a long line of Guardians who protect royal werewolf packs all over the world, Kali is dedicated and stoic but good at what she does. She’s loyal to a fault and believes in a strict code of honor.

your muse is from a royal line of werewolves Kali was sent to guard.

your muse is a human or non-vampire supernatural who rescues Kali from a vampire.

your muse is from an enemy pack.

8. FOR VEN

The daughter of an esteemed Italian mafia family, Ven is one of her organization’s capos. She’s vicious, murderous and unforgiving yet values blood and loyal over all else.

your muse works under Ven for family’s organization.

your muse is sent to dismantle the Ve Valpolicella dynasty from the ground up as a double agent.

your muse becomes a hit target but they outsmart Ven which garners her respect.

9. FOR ELLA

A dragon who became a pop star through a stint on Britain’s Got Talent two years ago, she’s now masquerading as a human in a worldwide acclaimed girl group called FLUX.

your muse is a fan and they hit it off. bonus if your muse is supernatural!

your muse is in the entertainment industry as well and they collaborate.

your muse threatens to expose Ella’s non-human identity to the public.

#♔ masterpost.

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learnspanishfans · 7 years ago

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MosaLingua Review: A Faster Way to Learn a New Language?

MosaLingua is a mobile app that uses spaced repetition (SRS) to help language learners efficiently learn words and phrases in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. It’s suitable for absolute beginners and more advanced language students. For this MosaLingua review, I decided to use MosaLingua to study a language I had virtually no prior experience in: Italian. I say “virtually” because I knew a few Italian words, like Allegro! Crescendo! Fermata! Di capo al coda! I play a couple of musical instruments, so I’m used to seeing these terms on my sheet music. But that’s not too useful in the real world! I’ve wanted to study Italian for a while, so I jumped at the opportunity to study it with MosaLingua. As cool as any new app looks, it’s only good if it actually works. I wanted my review to be as in-depth as possible, so I tried out MosaLingua for 10 hours and then recorded myself speaking Italian with an advanced speaker. You can watch my video at the end of this review.

MosaLingua: More than “Just” a Flashcard App

Flashcard apps that use SRS are a really efficient way to learn difficult vocab in a new language. SRS is a proven technique, and you’ll find lots of advice here on Fi3M about how SRS works, and how to use it for language learning. In the past, I’ve used Anki as my SRS tool. If there’s one downside to using a really customisable app like Anki, it’s that you have to do all your own research and make your own flashcard decks, or else download decks from other users and hope they’re accurate - and relevant! I created an audio flashcard deck a few months ago during my Portuguese mission, but it took me two months to get around to doing it, and I only made the one deck. I found the process tedious, even though I knew it would be helpful in the end. Enter MosaLingua. I found it to have all the benefits of a general flashcard app like Anki, with a lot less work.

How to Get Started with MosaLingua

It’s easy to get up and running with MosaLingua. Just download the MosaLingua app to your iOS or Android device. I put links for the different languages at the end of this review so you can find the right one for the language you’re learning. When you first launch the app, you can take an assessment test to calculate your level in the language (or bypass this step if you’re an absolute beginner). Then, you select your reason for learning the language. Options include travel, socializing, exam prep, and more. After that, it’s time to get started learning flashcards. You can tap the ‘Learn’ tab to see which flashcards you’re about to learn. If you’ve already learned some, then the Learn tab becomes the ‘Practice’ tab (look at the bottom of these screenshots): When it comes to which flashcards to study, MosaLingua does the heavy lifting for you. It has a built-in directory of thousands of flashcards for you to choose from. Tap the ‘Explore’ tab to search for flashcards, and select ones that are relevant to you. You can browse cards by topic, level, or by typing in a keyword to find a specific card. Each flashcard contains a recording of a native speaker saying the word or phrase. You can also create your own cards, just like with generic flashcard apps. The Italian text on your homemade flashcards will be read by a computer voice. If you don’t create or search for your own flashcards to learn, MosaLingua will choose for you. It does a pretty good job of picking suitable cards, too. I LOVE this option, because if I’m too lazy to browse the directory, or am just not sure what to study next, it’s nice to let the decision be made for me. So I never have an excuse not to study with MosaLingua.

Studying Flashcards with MosaLingua

Learning New Cards

When it’s time to learn new flashcards (such as when you first launch the app, or when you’ve finished reviewing cards that you’re due to be tested on), you’ll see a ‘Learn’ tab at the bottom of the screen. MosaLingua gives you new flashcards to learn in groups of five. If you want to learn more, just tap the + sign below the list. The flashcards in the list will be ones that you’ve chosen by searching for cards in the ‘Explore’ tab. Or, if you haven’t picked any yourself, they will be chosen automatically for you by the app. There are four steps involved in learning new flashcards:

Listen and pronounce. You hear the word (or phrase) spoken by a native speaker, and repeat the sounds even though you won’t understand the meaning yet. If you want, you can tap the record button and record your voice saying the word, to compare your pronunciation to the native speaker’s.

Memorize. You see the English side of the card and try to remember the translation.

Write. You see the English side and a jumble of letters. You arrange the letters in the right order to spell the word in your target language. For longer sentences, you arrange each word rather than individual letters.

Self-evaluation. Similar to the Memorize step, but now you get to rate how well you answered. More on the ratings below.

Reviewing Previously-seen Cards

Practising flashcards you’ve already seen is just like the self-evaluation step you do when you first learn a new card: you see the English on side one, and have to guess the translation before flipping over the card. Then you rate your answer with the tap of a button:

Perfect (you recalled the word almost as if it was your native language)

Good (the word was pretty easy to remember and you’re confident you got it right)

Difficult (the word took you a bit of time to remember)

Again (you forgot the word or guessed wrong. The card will be shown to you again during this review session.)

To make the MosaLingua SRS algorithm work correctly, it’s really important to be honest in your self-evaluation. The easier a card is for you to remember, the less often you’ll see it. The maximum possible time before seeing a card again is one year. Some SRS apps can’t show you a card any less often than every three months. I like that MosaLingua is in it for the long run.

My Experience with MosaLingua: The Good

There’s a lot to love about MosaLingua. The flashcards cover tons of different scenarios and can get pretty advanced if you want. Some of them contain individual words to help build your vocab, and others have entire sentences, which improves your conversation skills. Beyond just the flashcards, you can also study entire dialogues! I found this feature really useful, as it lets me see sentences in real-world contexts. Some days, I just don’t feel like studying a stack of flashcards. Dialogues are a great alternative because they tell a story. To study dialogues, just tap the ‘More’ tab, then the ‘Dialogues’ icon. Browse them by subject, select the one you want, and follow the steps to study the dialogue:

Audio only (just listen actively and look at the accompanying images, even if you don’t understand everything.)

Audio with foreign language subtitles (listen again, and read in your target language as you go)

Audio with English subtitles (listen again, and see the English translation)

Memorize (select which cards you’d like to add to your deck for your next learning session)

I also liked unlocking bonus material after completing a review session. A bonus item could be a joke, a fun fact about the language or culture, learning advice or a popular expression or quotation in your target language. You can add each of these items to your flashcard deck if you want. Another great aspect of MosaLingua is its incredible customer service. On virtually every screen in the app, you can tap the ? icon in the corner to get an explanation of what to do, followed by options to rate the page or send a suggestion. You can also report problems with individual flashcards. And the response time is fantastic. I left a lot of feedback on pages and flashcards, and I nearly always heard back from an actual person within 24 hours, to either confirm that there was an error that they will fix, or else to ask me more questions to better understand the issue. I’ve never had such good customer service on any app, ever. Kudos, MosaLingua. One of my favourite features about MosaLingua is how it doesn’t shove grammar down your throat. I don’t like to study grammar when I’m first learning a language. Often grammar rules just fall into place after I’ve learned a good number of phrases and their meanings. If you want to learn about grammar (and sometimes I do, too), you can go to the ‘Lessons’ category in the ‘Explore’ tab, and browse for specific grammar rules. Finally, I need to give a shout-out to MosaLingua’s non-spammy reminders. There are very few apps on my phone that I allow to send me push notifications. They always seem to abuse it with notifications like “Here are some tips to better use this app!” or “Looks like you haven’t logged in for a while. Why not see what your friends are up to?” Argh! I must admit, I only turned on MosaLingua notifications so I could comment on them for this review. But the developers were telling the truth: they don’t abuse the feature. You get one notification when you're approaching 24 hours since your last review session. Since the app works best when used daily, this is definitely not overkill at all. I left notifications turned on the entire time I was using the app for this review.

My Experience with MosaLingua: The Bad

As with any product that has a lot of functionality, MosaLingua has a few problem areas that could use some work. MosaLingua offers a hands-free function that lets you listen to your flashcards and try to remember the translation before the cards automatically flip over. This is great if you’re on the bus, going for a walk or just lying on the couch. But it has one flaw. You can’t lock your phone or navigate away from the app while you listen, or else the audio stops playing. This isn’t very useful when you’re not near a charger, because if your phone’s screen is constantly on while you listen to your flashcards, it will drain the battery pretty fast. I used the “suggestion” feature in the app to ask the developers about this, and they replied that they’re still perfecting this feature. So stay tuned. The search function I mentioned earlier, while useful, is not particularly “smart”. It only matches the exact search term you enter, spaces and punctuation included. I wanted to look up the word “software”, but I typed a space after the word, so MosaLingua filtered out every flashcard that contained the word “software” without a space after it. For example, one flashcard said on the Italian side, “il software, il programma”, but it didn’t match my search term because there’s a comma after “software”. Another flashcard said on the English side, “to run (software)”, and it didn’t match either because of the parenthesis after “software”. So some refinement is needed in the search function. My final comment only applies to the Italian version. I found that a small handful of native-speaker recordings were not of very good quality. They were muffled, or too quiet, or the speaker’s tone didn’t really match the “mood” of the phrase on the card. This didn’t happen too often, and I used the “report a problem” feature on the card to send a comment about it.

My Results with MosaLingua After 60 Days

You can see from my review so far that I’m a pretty big fan of learning with MosaLingua, even if it has a couple of flaws. I easily put in a bit of study time every day. Study sessions are really nice and manageable. If you learn ten new flashcards a day, then you’ll probably spend an average of 10-15 minutes per day in review. I defy anyone to assert that they don’t have 15 free minutes per day! In my case, I reviewed flashcards with MosaLingua right before bed for about ten minutes per day for nearly eight weeks - so a total of about ten hours. I learned an average of nine new cards per day. Obviously ten minutes of study per day isn’t a very well-rounded routine. But MosaLingua doesn’t pretend that it’s the only thing you’ll ever need. In fact, in addition to flashcards, dialogues, grammar and bonus items, the app also has a lot of advice for how to keep studying when you’re not using the app. For instance, it gives tips for starting a conversation with a stranger, and offers a list of movie and podcast suggestions in your target language. In my case, I chose to use only MosaLingua to study Italian, followed by three conversations with native speakers. I wanted to be absolutely clear about what MosaLingua can do, and what it can’t. If I watched Italian TV or went to frequent language meet-ups, I wouldn’t be sure if my improvement in Italian was really from MosaLingua. I did do three conversations with native speakers the week before recording my result video, to get a bit of speaking practice. I strongly feel that whether or not I use a single product like MosaLingua for my language studies, it’s still essential to occasionally use the language with native speakers.

The Video: Me Speaking Italian After 60 Days with MosaLingua

So, how was my Italian after using MosaLingua for 10 minutes a day for 60 days? I haven’t taken any placement tests, but I feel like I’m still an A1, though a strong A1. According to MosaLingua’s ‘Progress’ section, I have 264 cards stored in my long-term memory (out of 416 cards I’m currently learning). Many of these cards are complete phrases, not just single words. So I know quite a bit more than 247 Italian words. Although I’m still an A1, I know enough Italian to converse about a few basic topics, as you can see from my result video: httpvh://youtu.be/kswmF5ZaWi8 The video is only six minutes long, but Shannon and I actually talked for nearly 20 minutes, exclusively in Italian! Yes, I had to look up several words before I could say them, and Shannon had to repeat herself a few times, but our conversation was absolutely a success. I must admit I was a little worried at first! When I called Shannon on Skype and it was ringing, I felt minor panic when I tried to recall some Italian words and couldn’t think of a single one! But once we got talking, I gained some momentum and the words came to me as I needed them. Speaking the language with a real person is the only way I can overcome that mental block and start using the language naturally.

MosaLingua Review: The Bottom Line

Would I use MosaLingua again? Absolutely. Especially in the early stages of learning a new language. It’s a fast, efficient way of building up a nice foundation of vocab and phrases. No matter what your level is, I recommend including MosaLingua in your language studies. It requires a small enough time investment that you could even squeeze it into your existing routine without changing anything else. MosaLingua alone can’t make you fluent, but no single method can. But if you use MosaLingua correctly, you’ll store tons of useful material in your long-term memory, where it will be easily recalled when you need it. This recollection is the key to progressing in your target language toward fluency.

MosaLingua Links

To use MosaLingua to help you learn your target language, click the links below to find the app for the language you’re learning: Italian: MosaLingua Italian for iOS MosaLingua Italian for Android Spanish: MosaLingua Spanish for iOS MosaLingua Spanish for Android French: MosaLingua French for iOS MosaLingua French for Android German: MosaLingua German for iOS MosaLingua German for Android Brazilian Portuguese: MosaLingua Portuguese for iOS MosaLingua Portuguese for Android English: MosaLingua English for iOS MosaLingua English for Android

The post MosaLingua Review: A Faster Way to Learn a New Language? appeared first on Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips.

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