#edit: these designs are so outdated god

[paintalyx]

dude come get your freak of a man he's doing things. dude. are you listening to me dude???!

a funky ttrpg sketch! horror is not my strong suit but i tried something new and interesting because the brainworms are real, and i'm rather happy with it :D

[mammoth-clangen]

D’you perchance have any thoughts on the morphological (for lack of a better word?) dire wolves that Colossal Biosciences just revealed to the public? 👀

Oh my god Aenocyon, you can't just ask someone why they're white!

"Morphological dire wolf" my ass. Which is coincidentally where Colossal pulled the white coats from…

Give me an example of a modern temperate/grassland predator that's white*, I'll wait. *Excluding white lions, which are an uncommon but resilient morph resulting from leucism.

I based my Aenocyon design off bushdogs and dholes. They are called Masked Wolves in Kindred's setting, because I enjoy a good pseudo hyena niche uvu-b

Extremely extremely long 'thoughts' below the cut lol c':

Preface: in this discussion the term "dire wolf" has too many meanings, as such I will be referring to them as follows:

Thrones' wolves: for the huge, white, fantasy animals from Game Of Thrones GMO wolves: for Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, Colossal's creations, Canis lupus Aenocyon: for Aenocyon dirus, the true, extinct dire wolf known from fossils across North America

----

Part 1: That's not a dire wolf-

The first question everyone has been asking is "So, are dire wolves de extinct now?" The answer is an emphatic "NO!" from anyone with knowledge of genetics, palaeontology, or taxonomy.

Aenocyon dirus were actually not wolves, nor dogs, but a secret third thing.

They are canids, but last shared a common ancestor with grey wolves and their lineage some ~5.7 million years ago.

For context, this paper suggests a similar divergence time between genus Homo (humans, Neanderthals and co) and Pan (chimps and bonobos); animals that look and behave markedly differently from each other.

The genomes of Canis lupus and Aenocyon dirus being 99.5% similar may sound like a lot, but again, humans share 98.8% with chimps, and 99.7% with Neanderthals, and yet are very distinct from both.

Skeletally, behaviourally, in soft tissue, etc, you could tell any of the three apart; the same goes for Aenocyon and Canis members.

Additionally, Colossal made 20 changes in 14 genes.

The grey wolf genome has 2,447,000,000 base pairs. Does that maths seem a bit off to you?

That's not even enough to change a grey wolf into a domestic dog, let alone an ancient outgroup!

This would be akin to modifying a lion to have bigger teeth and saying you resurrected Smilodon fatalis.

Or editing a Asian Elephant genome so they retain their juvenile hair and calling it a Woolly Mammoth.

It's a bold-faced lie.

Beth Shapiro says "they look and act like dire wolves" but that, too,simply isn't true.

Visually, the GMO wolves simply aren't what Aenocyon would have looked like. It's what a Thrones' wolf looks like.

Hmmmmm, funny about that, seeing George R R Martin helped fund the 'dire wolf project'...

As with many fossil animals, we don't know much about Aenocyon's behaviour.

You can't say the GMO wolves (who are also still pups) act like Aenocyon, because that's based off nothing.

What we do know is Aenocyon were likely pack animals (from the sheer number found in La Brea Tarpits), and crunched more bones than modern wolves (from their many broken teeth).

Also, crucially, they had Wild Sex Lives (from the many, huge, broken and healed bacula... youch).

Colossal is also being colossally shady by: doubling down on their bs use of the outdated "morphological species definition", blatantly misleading the public with their use of the words 'cloning', 'dire wolves', and 'de extinction', and refusing to share their methods in a peer reviewed paper before going public with a clickbait headline.

Do not trust them with your Red wolves either. They're using coyote hybrids and considering what they deem 'close enough' for a dire wolf, I wouldn't put any money on the quality of their GMO red wolves either...

Also can I just say, whatever genes they modified to "make the skull larger" clearly didn't impact the lower jaw...

No, I'm not sorry for this image uvu-b (But for real look at that poor pup and his overbite jfc)

Part 2: -and if it was, that wouldn't be good either.

I fundamentally do not support de extinction.

No, not even for the Thylacine, not even for passenger pigeons, nor the dodo. Even my beloved Homotherium should be left in the past.

This might be an unexpected stance because I am, surprising no one, a big fan of extinct animals, megafauna and otherwise.

But the thing is, I'm an even bigger fan of actual, living animals.

The animal ethics of de extinction are dubious at best.

The surrogate dog mothers of the GMO wolves likely won't live good lives.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were destroyed after being used, because their bodies could contain feto microchimerisms and Colossal absolutely doesn't want their special wolf genome getting out.

I doubt the GMO wolves themselves will live a full life before they outgrow their hearts, like Ligers.

This would likely be the case for any modern animal genetically modified into megafauna; a body not adapted to deal with the increased size.

Purely conjecture, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi have vision/hearing issues from their white coats.

White coats in wolves are associated with hearing impairments, so the gene used for these animals was from domestic dogs. Meaning Colossal has created a very expensive wolfdog.

Again, what kind of life are these wolfdogs supposed to live? As awful pets for the rich? In a zoo? Released to pollute wild wolf genomes? (assuming they're fertile; I hope not)

Regardless, it's not looking good if they ever planned to have them be 'wild animals'

Even true clones (which the GMO wolves are not) tend to have health issues.

Celia the Pyrenean Ibex (bucardo) was cloned, but the clone died after 9 minutes from a deformed lung.

So in 2003, this made the bucardo the first species to go extinct twice, yippee?

There's also the problem of genetic diversity.

How many intact genomes do you have on hand?

For dire wolves the answer is Zero!

To my knowledge, we don't have the full genome coded from one individual, just Frankenstein-ed from many. Which is fine for sequencing the canine family tree's relatedness, but not for cloning.

The absolute minimum individuals to survive a genetic bottleneck is said to be 50 in larger species. Called the 50/500 rule, it states that 50 is enough to survive, but 500 is required to prevent genetic drift.

To which I say, good luck!

Even with well preserved permafrost species (such as woolly mammoths), you'll have a hard time finding 500 individuals with prefect genomes.

And then, where will you put them?

If you were to, somehow, make a breeding population, where are they going? A national park? A zoo? Is their old habitat still available to them?

In Aenocyon, the answer is simply "they don't have a niche anymore".

Unlike the Thylacine or Dodo, humans did not directly cause the extinction of Aenocyon dirus. And even if they had, it was 10,000 years ago!

Would making room for a de extinct species impact the habitat/niche of another species?

Regular grey wolves fill Aenocyon's role as a canine mesopredator, with Puma as the apex (alongside bears as an apex omnivore).

With the loss of megafauna to prey on, a de extinct predator would just compete with other, also endangered species.

Animals also change the environment they life in.

Mammoths will clear trees like modern elephants. This would recreate the Mammoth Steppe, but those trees making up the taiga and boreal forests are themselves crucial habitat.

Other species have moved in since the mammoths' extinction. Siberian tigers, lynx, muskoxen, brown bears, elk, moose, and so many others; many endangered.

Trees also prevent erosion, which is already happening at unprecedented rates due to agriculture and deforestation.

Crucially: What's to stop an extinct animal going the same way it went out last time?

Ask yourself this:

Would the average American appreciate "flocks of Passenger pigeons big enough to darken the sky and whiten ground with their guano"?

Would people suddenly be okay with lions in Europe eating their livestock, when they are champing the bit to shoot Iberian wolves again?

Would Tasmanians suddenly feel the same about the Thylacine, when farmers in Australia still happily kill dingoes and eagles for lamb predation? [citation, I am an enviro technician and have had farmers tell me they shoot Wedge-tails, knowing I'm a toothless lion to stop them.]

I doubt it

At what cost?

Are we going to find 50 thylacine genomes?

If so (doubtful), how much will cloning and/or modifying a relative into a thylacine cost? Now that x50?

Wouldn't that money be better spent on quoll reintroduction?

What about finding 50 gestational carriers for mammoths?

Are you going to use their closest relative; the already critically endangered Asian Elephant?

Wouldn't that time and effort on those elephant mothers be better used making more elephants?

And the social cost:

If extinction isn't forever, what's to incentivize lawmakers to fund conservation?

Really, it comes down to this:

Why bring back the dire wolf when we could put this money into protecting the Iberian and Red wolves?

Why bring back the thylacine when their cousin is dying of a transmissible cancer?

We've already seen the impacts of "extinction isn't forever anymore", with those in power already trying to cut funding to conservation, because you can "just bring them back".

But as we've seen time and time again: there is no Planet B. There is no De-Extinction, not really.

Maybe what was gone should stay gone, so we can focus on what we still have.

[trashiiplant]

(edit: I'm a fucking liar. these are outdated now lmao)

OKAY GUYS I SWEAR THIS WILL BE MY LAST TIME REDESIGNING TH- anyway aha- Just the main four iterators this time around, because I feel like trying to draw the others again would kill me.

I felt that something wasn't quite right with my previous designs so I sat down to ponder a bit and GOD DID I PONDER

I even designed timeline based versions for Pebs and Moon this time so there's that.

(edit: FP is about 3'9 and SRS is 5'5)

Also, alt version but they can actually side eye you!! Wowie!!

Some extra notes for Moon from an earlier concept I never posted here

[book-of-forbidden-knowledge]

Occult Book Reviews: The Black Arts

[I'm sharing some of my old reviews from Quora because I will refer back to them in the new ones. This one is from Dec 2020]

The Black Arts: An Absorbing Account of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practices Throughout the Ages by Richard Cavendish is a book about the history of occultism and the way it has been historically practiced. I already had a copy of this book in my possession when I heard a host on one of my favorite occult podcasts say that this was the book that got them into the occult in the first place. That kicked it up my priority list! What I didn’t realize is that this book is not new; it was published in 1967. I had the 50th anniversary edition. So, I went in wondering just how out-of-date it was going to be, or whether it holds up.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from it, but I could see that it was spoooooky — spooky title, spooky cover, first thing in it is a picture of Levi’s Baphomet… Honestly, I like that. A spooky vibe certainly makes it intriguing, and helps it appeal to those who view the occult as an exciting taboo. And indeed, it takes a mainly “lefty” approach to magic, with its first sentence being “The driving force behind black magic is hunger for power,” and the last sentence of that paragraph being “Carried to its furthest extreme, the black magician’s ambition is to wield extreme power over the entire universe, to make himself a god.” Well, duh, if it’s got a title as edgy as The Black Arts, it’s bound to be a left-hand-path kind of book! And it is. Mostly. Cavendish points out that very few occultists self-identify as black magicians, preferring to distance themselves from any accusations of “black magic.”

However, this book is not actually edgy in any way, which is nice. A lot of books of self-proclaimed “black magic” (which may or may not have existed in the 60s, but certainly exist now) come across as “edgy.” They’re specifically geared towards people who like the idea of “black magic” for the sake of shock value or just because it feels taboo and therefore cool. Necromancy! Demonolatry! Satanism! Muahahaha! This book contains information on all those subjects, alongside Kabbalah, alchemy, astrology, and things of that nature. Although the book’s title is almost certainly designed to be provocative (excellent marketing strategy), the book itself is not. It may state that certain practices or correspondences (such as left or the number 2) were considered evil, but passes no judgement. This book is a history of the Black Arts, and that includes using poppets and the like to kill people and old-school PGM-type curses, which this author terms “witchcraft.” I don’t find this offensive, because this book is not attempting to instruct the reader in magic or morality. It’s describing the way magic was used and understood historically, without condoning or condemning unethical practices (like animal sacrifices, psychic attacks, targeted love spells). It has a neutral tone throughout. Cavendish is a historian, not an occultist.

A disclaimer: This book uses the word “witchcraft” in the historical sense, referring to devil worship (for example, citing Vance Randolph and the Ozark witches), or malevolent forms of folk magic. It’s a bit uncomfortable to read, especially since the book was written post-Wicca, but it’s important to emphasize that Cavendish is not using the word “witchcraft” to refer to its modern practice. I think his choice of terminology here just shows the book’s age. (He also uses the word “primitive” to mean “indigenous,” which would be offensive today, and uses “bisexual” to mean “hermaphroditic,” which is hilarious. Also, a lot of the science and psychology he cites is outdated.) So, don’t let that ruffle your feathers.

Despite not being a practical manual, it is written with occultists in mind. I can see why occultists like this book. The first few pages manage to clearly and concisely lay out many important occult principles — that mankind is like God but on a much smaller scale, that the universe at large reflects the workings of the human mind and body, that spellwork is based upon using one’s imagination to mentally conjure emotions and sensations that are then concentrated and directed towards the intended result, that humans can become like gods through reconciliation of opposites, “like attracts like,” etc. I’m very impressed by that. Its first chapter also includes a brief history of nineteenth century occultists like Levi, Mathers, and Crowley, and all of the petty metaphysical shit-slinging they engaged in, which was informative to say the least.

According to this book, occultists believe that everything in the universe is made up of rational patterns, that the universe is fundamentally orderly: “The theory that all the phenomena of the universe are connected together in a great design or pattern is one of the fundamental assumptions of magic” (62). This idea is what gives divination systems like numerology and astrology their credence, what justifies “as above, so below,” and what defines correspondences. I looked at that sentence and thought, huh, I’m not sure I believe that. I don’t believe that there is no chance and no chaos in the universe. There are patterns in the universe — it obviously has its own logic in the form of mathematics — but it’s us who assign any real significance to that. We find the patterns, and they become significant because we noticed them. And then I realized, that is the “chaos” part of Chaos Magic.

I always knew that “Chaos” referred to something more like chaos theory than literal discord, but I didn’t understand what that meant until now. Chaos Magic takes a more existentialist view of the universe, believing it to be fundamentally chaotic and with no inherent meaning, but also believing that the meanings we assign to it are still significant to us. As magicians, we can use our sheer willpower to tame the chaos of the universe. Hence sigils that you scribble on slips of paper that work on the unconscious level. Hence, “you do the magic, not the correspondences.” A random pattern of tarot cards or rune stones is significant because of the way they resonate for you, not because they are placed by divine hands. “As above, so below” becomes more metaphorical, referring to the mundane and spiritual worlds instead of earthly life and the literal heavens. I don’t think that this is incompatible with the Principle of Mentalism, either. The universe can be an emanation of the mind of God without necessarily being “intelligent design.” I don’t necessarily believe that the universe is devoid of meaning, but I do think that it is what we make of it.

Following the introductory chapter, each chapter focuses on a different occult field.

The second chapter focuses on numerology. To be honest, I don’t really get numerology. The number that corresponds to my name changes depending on how much of my name I’m using, and whether it uses the Latin or Hebrew system. I also didn’t think the interpretations provided by this book suited me. Cavendish himself admits that numerology is a bit vague and wooly, although “the same is true of astrology and other forms of fortune telling.” Astrology won me over, because all of the elements of my chart taken together result in an interpretation that is cohesive, accurate, and specific. Cartomancy also won me over because to me it works the same way as literary or art analysis — interpreting symbols, tropes, motifs, etc. in context with each other to find trends and make a point. That kind of stuff makes sense to me. Numbers do not. I really don’t like numbers. I’m sure that numerology can be as complicated and specific as astrology if one studies it properly, but I know it’s not my preferred divination system. However, from reading this, I can definitely see how someone who thinks in terms of numbers would appreciate it, since numerical patterns do appear all over the place and define the universe.

The next chapter is on the Kabbalah. It doesn’t provide any details about how to practice Kabbalah, but it provides an overview of what the Kabbalah is, where it comes from, and what each of the sephiroth represents. There’s also a section on each of the “paths” and how they relate to tarot cards, which I really appreciated, since I didn’t understand that. I still don’t think Kabbalah will ever be my preferred method of ascension, but I want to learn more about it. I’m surprised that this book doesn’t mention the Shekinah, so I still want to know more about what she is. Also included in this chapter was a section on gematria, which made my brain hurt, but it did (directly) explain the reasoning behind some of the conjecture in The White Goddess.

The chapter ends with a section on incantations and names of power — how they’re made, the theory behind them, etc. This was interesting, because I’m familiar with many of the long and unpronounceable incantations of old-school grimoires, but I almost always choose not to use them because I view them as overcomplicated and pointless. I appreciated learning where some of them come from and what the reasoning behind using them is. Some of them are based on Hebrew letters or Bible verses, but many are just meaningless gibberish (voces magicae). The point of many of them is literally just to sound impressive, without necessarily meaning anything. Although that might be pretentious, it also works — it helps to put the magician in the right mindset. It acts like a kind of pre-written glossolalia, ecstatically speaking or singing incomprehensible names that sound divine or supernatural and therefore powerful. The power actually comes from the rhythmic chanting, the magician’s conviction that the spell will work, and the force of the magician’s ecstasy. I hate memorizing long incantations and I also don’t like making noise, but I get it. Words do indeed have inherent power. God spoke the world into existence, and I write worlds of my own into existence. I also definitely agree that poetry makes for great incantations.

A tangent — I was talking to my mother about this, and she intuited that the reason the Tetragrammaton is unpronounceable is because it requires harmonics. One person cannot pronounce it correctly. For example, one person chanting “om” is very different from a whole room of people chanting “om,” to the point where they all start harmonizing with each other into a chord — that is the music of the spheres. The Tetragrammaton must be chanted, but it would be nigh-impossible to get all the people on earth to chant it with the same intention and hit upon the right harmony. Still, it’s probably no accident that “om,” ��awen,” and “Yahweh,” all sound very similar when chanted. It’s also no accident that the word “incantation” comes from a word meaning “to chant or sing,” as does “enchantment” and “goetia” and a bunch of other words related to magic.

The section on alchemy explains what alchemy was, what the theory behind it was, and how the spiritual and the chemical aspects of alchemy relate to each other. I really appreciated the outline of the alchemical process as it relates to spiritual development, and the more explicit comparison between the spiritual process of alchemy and the chemical side. It wasn’t exactly detailed or comprehensive, certainly not designed to be a practical guide, but the summary was helpful. I admit, I had a hard time understanding the practical side of alchemy; beyond giving birth to modern chemistry, which is obviously an invaluable thing, what is practical alchemy supposed to do? Turning lead into gold is not something that’s literally possible, so what’s the point of practical alchemy? I tried asking Thoth himself that, and he said, “It is a physical representation of the spiritual side, like using altar tools or symbols, like casting a spell, like worshipping gods through statues. You could replicated it with dyed water, if you wanted the fun.” That’s my UPG, so, take it with a grain of salt.

This book further validated that the raw material of alchemy is you. The salt is your body, the mercury is the divine spark within you. The book also validated something I’ve noticed, that every profound occult secret ends up being painfully obvious: “And when at last the final illumination came and the secret dawned in all its splendour on his mind, he would find that the work was not difficult at all and would scarcely be able to understand how he had been so blind before.” Yep, that’s how it works. I still don’t feel like I’m capable of transmutation, but I know that to the gods it comes so easily, they don’t have to spend any energy on it. If I want them to tell me how to do it, I have to ask more specific questions or else they’ll just assume it’s obvious, like an intermediate ballet student asking how to do first position.

The section on astrology was mostly stuff I knew. It covers the basics of natal astrology, mundane astrology, and practical day-to-day astrology, as well as addressing some of the controversies that have surrounded astrology. I did learn a few interesting tidbits. For example, a conjunction between Mars and Saturn is a very bad omen that indicates plague, and there was one on March 31st 2020. Of course there was. Also, the precise date for when the Age of Aquarius is supposed to begin varies dramatically, but this book puts it around the year 2000. If it began in 2000, then with the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction in Aquarius on the Winter Solstice, we must have entered phase 2. Also, according to some astrologers, the Star of Bethlehem might have been a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction. (I saw it through a thin haze, and it looked like Venus.) The section ends with a description of the way planetary influences are traditionally used in magic, i.e. planetary talismans and planetary days/hours and the like.

The next chapter is on ceremonial magic. This is the grimoires and all the old-school stuff that’s designed to summon spirits. So, that means needing “virgin” material, long and complicated purification procedures, burning animal brains apparently… Maybe it shows a lack of dedication on my part that I don’t fast for days or make brand new materials by hand or gather all the planetary ingredients or memorize those long incantations or even so much as draw a physical circle on the floor. But hey, my Goetic evocations went pretty well so whatever I’m doing must work. Honestly, if I hadn’t already succeeded at that, I may have been scared out of it by some of the horror stories in this book. Then again, does anyone really follow the grimoires’ instructions to the letter? Is it even possible to do that? These procedures are probably meant to be impractical. I’m not sure if anyone has actually burned a cat’s brain as incense just because it corresponds to Saturn. Or drawn the circle on strips of animal skin nailed down by nails from a child’s or murderer’s coffin. The whole second section of this chapter is about animal sacrifices in the grimoires, the frenzy of the sacrifice contributing to the energetic load that causes the spirit to manifest. As a general rule, don’t harm animals for magic! Even if an old Renaissance-era book or Eliphas Levi says so! Cavendish seems to agree with me that all the details aren’t really necessary, saying that “success seemed to be obtained more in spite of the ceremony than because of it.”

This chapter provides a summary of a summoning ritual with full incantations from the Lemegeton. My own Goetic work wasn’t exactly a summoning ritual as described in the Lemegeton. I didn’t work myself into a frenzy, I just sat there with a book. It probably was pretty uninteresting to look at. I didn’t see any spirits or any other manifestations, apart from a few images inside my mind. Maybe I did it wrong, but even if I did, I got exactly what I wanted out of it. I heard the spirits’ “voices” inside my mind and interviewed each one of them. That’s what I came for, so I say I was successful. I still don’t know whether I should have treated them differently, but it was a good first attempt. The section on the Goetia in this book is evocatively called “The Lords of Darkness,” beginning with a Tolkien quote about the Nazgul. It describes how most of the demons described in the Lemegeton and Pseudomonarchia Daemonum are just other people’s gods.

This section closes off by discussing necromancy and low magic. Apparently necromancy is “the ugliest and most dangerous of magical operations,” which I would not agree with, but of course by “necromancy” he’s referring to grisly old-school rituals meant to raise a spirit by means of an actual corpse, and not to just any act of communication with the dead. These rituals involved dressing in grave-clothes and eating dog’s flesh and unfermented grape juice (oh no, not grape juice!), and evoking Hecate. (Apparently no one can look at Hecate and remain sane, so Hecate is officially a Lovecraftian eldritch abomination now, which I honestly have no problem with.) Hecate’s historical rituals definitely weren’t pretty, whatever some modern witches might have you think. Some PGM spells require that you burn feces as a sacrifice to her, so yeah, none of this really surprises me. No sense in going to all the trouble of these gruesome rituals to get a few questions answered. Automatic Writing works well enough for me.

The section on low magic does not concern modern herbalism or any more practical folk magic, but ancient love spells, mandrake lore, the Hand of Glory, and other stuff like that. That’s because this is a book of black magic, not white magic (as it were).

The first section of the chapter on devil-worship concerns how the idea of Satan originated, and changed from a prosecuting angel to a fallen angel to the de facto god of evil and opposing force to the Almighty. I knew most of it, but I’m surprised Ahriman and Ahura-Mazda weren’t mentioned. Satanism, as described in this chapter, is more of a “bad is good and good is bad” anti-Christianity than actual modern Satanism. In 1967, LaVeyan Satanism had only just become a thing, and the modern Satanic movement hadn’t really taken off yet. Cavendish says that people who practice this supposed anti-Christianity are probably rare. Instead, he discusses existing religions that are subversions of traditional Christian thought, like Gnosticism (which teaches that God is evil and that the whole world is ruled by evil beings called “archons,” which must be defied by any means possible ), and alleged or accused Satanists like (medieval) German “Luciferians” and the Templars. A lot of the accusations made against these groups were also made later against “witches.”

The difference between “witchcraft” and the ceremonial magic described in the previous chapter is that, while ceremonial magicians command and control demons in the name of God, (historical) witches are subservient to and worship the demons. Right out of the gate, Cavendish dismisses the Murray theory (and this was written back when it was popular), but he also suspects that the trials must have been based on some existing thing: “Witches and Satanists exist today and it is likely that they existed in the past, if only in small numbers.” I disagree with Cavendish on this matter. I don’t think there was ever a real witch-cult, be they pagans or Satanists or anything in between.

It is definitely uncomfortable that he uses the word “witch” to refer to these devil-worshippers, but it’s clear he’s referring to the conception of witches in the Early Modern Period, regardless of whether they were real or not. He provides numerous accounts and confessions about the Witches’ Sabbath and what it consists of. Cavendish suggests that witches show contempt for the Eucharist in particular, because those who do magic already have the powers of God. I really appreciate his attempts to trace all of these common characteristics of the Witches’ Sabbath to their origins. I like his theory that the similarities between the Witches’ Sabbath and Dionysian worship or other pagan practices indicate the survival of similar ideas, rather than real practices.

The closest Cavendish gets to actually mentioning Wicca is this:

“Modern witches are extremely secretive and very little about their beliefs and practices is known to outsiders. There are said to be as many as six thousand of them in England, with the number steadily increasing. Like other magicians, they insist that they are devoted to good works. Their wax images are intended to heal the sick and far from blasting crops or eating babies, they try to assist the fertility of Nature. […] The witches worship a moon-goddess, whose name is secret, but who is probably Diana, and a sun-god who may be Lucifer. They believe in reincarnation and a Lord of the Underworld who determines when and where the witches will be reborn. This Lord is perhaps Lucifer as black sun and also perhaps Cernunnos the horned god. The witches say that their goddess, the Queen of Heaven and All Living, went down to the underworld and mated with the Lord, which is a version of the myth of Persephone…

The next paragraph goes on to say that witches (Wiccans) are “heavily affected” by the Murray theory, base their rituals on ancient paganism, that they celebrate the four Celtic festivals, and that they perform their rituals naked. “Whether they adore the black bulk of the Goat, squatting on its altar, is not known, but they say that their rites bring them a profound sense of security and peace.”

And… that’s it. Clearly, Cavendish doesn’t know much about Wicca, and I don’t know if that’s simply because it isn’t his field or because Wicca hadn’t gained enough of a presence in the mainstream for him to know. He doesn’t mention Gerald Gardner in the witchcraft section at all, despite Gardner enthusiastically calling himself a witch. The only mention of Gardner is in the ceremonial magic chapter: “Gerald Gardner, a member of a modern witch coven, says that witches work naked, so as not to impede the release of magical force which their ceremonies generate in their bodies.” And that’s it! Wicca obviously did not have the cultural traction that it has now, which is why I don’t begrudge Cavendish for using the word “witchcraft” to refer to devil-worship. The word “witchcraft” meant something different then than it does now.

The final section of the book is about the use of Mass in magic, and the perversion of it into the “Black Mass,” a sort of variant of the witches’ sabbath where Satanists worship the devil by subverting the Mass. It all sounds very edgy to me. I’m not sure if anyone actually has performed a Black Mass or if it’s just a shock-value urban legend type thing. Cavendish helpfully points out that most occultists don’t believe in Satan, believing that God is the whole of the universe, good and evil, and to separate it into a “good” and an “evil” is to miss the point, “failure to understand the true nature of the universe.” I agree with that, and it’s nice to have my sentiments validated.

I think that, despite this book’s age, it’s still a very good theoretical introduction to the history of and concepts behind occultism. Most of the flaws in this book come from it simply being out of date in some places. I definitely recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about old-school magic, and it’s also a good resource for writers who want to add some realism to their magic systems without studying occultism in-depth. Practicing occultists probably won’t be exposed to any new information, but there’s a lot in here, and I definitely liked having a thorough summary.

[girllookingoutwindow]

I might be wrong but wasn't it LW that named Daphne a diamond of the first water, bc the Queen said she was flawless? Therefore launching her as the most desired woman in the ton. And starting the whole a "diamond" needs to be named? Then I've always thought in season 2 LW timed her edition to come out as Eloise is presented, specifically to interrupt the proceedings because she knew Eloise was uncomfortable. And the Queen would be completely distracted sometime before Eloise had to go through. Could be wrong but with LW I'm reminded of the song "one night in Bangkok" bc of the line "thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it." I love when Violet finds the tea on Lord B, and says "we'll talk" bc it's what women do. A flurry of gossip later It saved Daphne from a horrible fate of a loveless marriage to that gross man (he used his status to get a servant of his pregnant and then abandons her and the child. Was this servant girl allowed to even say no to her employer with power? To preserve her innocence/reputation). It seems as if it's the only way a woman could influence her life or make a change.

Also Pen often sets the rumors straight, when others go too far in their speculation and it could blow up as something else entirely. The ton trusts LW's word bc she didn't lie. If she hadn't said what she'd said about Eloise it could have been worse. It softened the social blow, it was merely a smaller transgression though, not as bad as her and her whole family ruined which if it had been exposed elsewhere it would have. The men would have been fine but the the others prospects of marriage would have been damaged or non existent. Same with Marina, the Featherington's had to be socially distanced from even knowing what she was up to, or they would be ruined. It wasn't that she was cruel to Marina, to me, but loves her sisters enough to save them from what Marina did (I can understand her motives, but her cruelty towards Pen and callous way she marked Colin as an easy target upset me). My favorite real life example of how people gossip that could be good, is Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. Married at 17 in the 1770s, to "the only man in England not in love with his wife" and she was the main Whig party hostess, meetings, parties, and she even canvassed for votes. Parlor room behind the scenes politics. But the downside to gossip is that opposing sides will try to defame through gossip too, and caricature depicting the Duchess as an indecent woman who'd kiss men for votes in order to get Fox elected. That's a very quick overview of an amazing, yet flawed woman (her gambling). But it demonstrates for me at a time when women had very few rights, if you were in a higher social class, through gossip you can start change. Georgiana, as a Whig hostess, as a fashion icon of her time, a woman with the "common touch" very popular with the people, even though she was "her Grace" helped gain traction for her causes, wider rights, abolition and supported American colonial independence during the war. Whether it's a bigger or smaller issue, gossip can be both good and bad. The only time I really dislike it is when it's used to just purposely hurt others, instead of informing or questioning social outdated norms, its just a personal attack designed to hurt someone cruelly (Cressida making remarks about how many children Violet had and what that meant about her and her family...ooo I was not ok with Cressida there or her mama lol) .

I think Pen is sometimes judged too harshly, she'd been ridiculed and ignored in a society that already didn't value her as much as a man. Her future prospects to Her seemed dim, bc all Her life..... words like what Marina said, have been said to Her. Her worth was her family's good name and who she married, how much money they had. So she took some control and power for herself in the only way she could. Through gossip. Sorry I've rambled so long! This is an interesting topic though. 😊

Hi, anon.

I love this analysis. I agree with everything you said here.

I think I'm going to rewatch season specially because of this topic. I want to do an analysis about the nature of gossip and how affect the characters. Maybe more of one part because I think it's going to be long.

I think gossip has a force and doesn't need to be bad. It's neutral and it can show the real nature of the person who's using it. And like you said, Pen never lies. She says the truth, sometimes she even gave proof and her intentions were always good. She does it because nobody else want to see it. Nobody wants to listen the truth, she tried, and nobody was listening to her.

Colin never wanted to see Marina didn't loved him, because he didn't care, because he didn't loved her either. He was lying to himself. Eloise didn't want to see why Pen wrote about her, because she didn't wanted to accept Pen advertised about it many times, and she didn't listen. Daphne and Violet were practically saved by her, the marriage for Daphne, the Violet's reputation. We have so many moments of her helping them.

Gossip is a tool. A tool used women without any other weapon to protect themselves. I think it's a relationship between the female aspect of it and why society sees it like something wrong. Because words can hurt, and yes, they can be used to shame, and make damage, but gossip is a the weapon of the people who's not going to be heard otherwise.

Thank you so much for you message.

[unhappy-day-in-hell]

The Dissection of Hazbin Hotel, Episode One: part 4

Onto the end part, Charlie meeting with the angels and... Vaggie's advertisement.

Let's finish this!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4: //

--Uh. The fuck is this building and why is it in Hell? Are we not going to explain? (Trick question, there’s already so much exposition that it wraps right back around to leaving us in the dark!!)

--Ohhh. That's Adam’s voice? Someone as important as him does not sound like that.

...Stupid thought I just had: Adam has the first Adam's Apple in all of history too... because it's that little saying, that Adam got a piece of the forbidden fruit stuck in his throat to remind him of eating it. So Adam, really, should either sound like he's constantly choking on something/has a stuffed up scratchy throat, or he should have a super deep voice to indicate his adam's apple.

--Heck is wrong with your mouth girl?

--B Plot is them filming an advertisement. I know I tried to re-write this in the review earlier (and will offer an alternative near the end of the review), but this is the kind of smaller-time plot we need to do in these early episodes BEFORE we get to Charlie's stuff. It's not very good tonal whiplash to pair these two plots up.

Also Vaggie’s doing this on Charlie’s behalf. This is, once again, something Charlie should be doing.

--Why doesn’t Charlie know the leader of the Exterminators is Adam? Does that mean she doesn’t know anything important about her world in general? Or is Adam’s presence a secret to the world? Does Lucifer know Adam is here?

--Good god, Adam really IS just Mammon. He's even a performer who is like a rockstar. Viv has zero new ideas.

--We're cutting between Charlie’s "important" meeting with Adam and the filming for the advertisement. We really are. I guess this episode and Western Energy spring from the same source.

--“How were you this weekend” is at least a little amusing. If Adam was more airheaded like that and not *gestures* all this, I’d probably hate his presence less.

--There it is. The Vagina joke for Vaggie’s name. They… they really did that. They just couldn’t help themselves. Viv just can’t help herself.

Because really, what are you supposed to do with this name? People having to say “Vaggie” out loud or print it on merch is embarrassing. They could have called her anything. Maggie. Aggie. Naggie. Saggy. Haggy.

--Vaggie: We’ll fix it in post. Angel: Do you even know what that means?

Well you see Angel! Vaggie’s origin can be split!

For a long time, Vaggie was thought to be a sinner who died very recently, so of course she’d know about editing, because she had grown up in the era of that kind of tech.

Except now she’s been changed to be a fallen exterminator! This means there are a lot of implications. Are we going to use this moment to hint how ANCIENT Vaggie is as a former angel, by showing her as not knowing how to work technology? No, no of course not -- Vaggie seems competent with the camera, it’s just that her actors are dumb fucks.

This criticism spreads over to Adam, who talks just like a “normal guy” and he’s a modern rocker and all that shit. Adam, the first human, who is incomprehensibly ancient… doesn’t show any signs of being as ancient as he is. They couldn't even write him using outdated slang? Make him a disco lover or something and have him say "Groovy?" No? (He IS a thing made of light, he could shine like a disco ball!)

--Vaggie: I’LL FIGURE IT OUT.

Godddd Vaggie can’t have one single line with any life in it. How does she scream in anger with no anger.

--Hi Al. This shot reminds me of why I used to like you, because I DID like your design and your mannerisms once upon a time. I still feel an echo of the enjoyment I used to get from you, and it makes me sad how far you’ve fallen, to being Rosie’s lapdog. You do look good with this muted blue tinting your color scheme. I wish Hell was more of this color, it’s much softer on the eyes.

(Even when I was still a fan, I hated how overused red was. It was one of the first complaints I had. Then the show doubled down and removed even more of the colors from the color pallet to make it even redder.)

--Vaggie to Alastor: Why are you even here? Alastor: For the entertainment!

Actually you’re here because LilithRosie asked you to. She filed down your fangs. You are a toothless character.

--Alastor: I came here because I love seeing wasteful souls struggle to accomplish something meaningful and fail spectacularly!

This is almost exactly a line from the Pilot where Alastor said “I want to watch the scum of the world struggle to climb up the hill of betterment! Only to repeatedly trip, and tumble down to the fiery pit of failure." Except it just. Lacks. Any of the danger. Or the manic insanity boiling just under Alastor’s surface. The delivery is so deflated.

The words are stilted, like they were with Vaggie a while back.

--Much better qualified people than I have spoken about the use of vodou symbols around Alastor. All I can say is this: Practitioners of vodou have spoken about how harmful it is, and therefore, the symbols should not be in the show. It's that simple. It would have cost the team literally nothing to refrain from using them. In fact, we’re in Hell, and we’ve already used the Ars Goetia in Helluva Boss; why don’t they use the symbols of the Ars Goetia? Or other demonic Christian symbols? Or Lovecraftian symbols from the fictional Lovecraft universe? Or make up their own??? There were a million other options besides digging in your heels. It shows the crew and Viv’s inability to just learn or just be nice.

“This face was made for radio!” that shot, bleck, they made a discount of that scary shot from the pilot. Why is every line they reuse for Alastor worse than it was in the pilot? The pilot where Alastor said “I would have done so already” let Alastor be a little aggressive and threatening, but here, it's just him equating it to “this face can’t be captured on video” instead of him being allowed to flex his power and scare Vaggie and Charlie a little bit….

It makes me sad.

--AND AGAIN, THIS IS VAGGIE HAVING THIS IMPORTANT CONVERSATION WITH ALASTOR. Why is it Vaggie who is getting Alastor’s motivation speech and seeing his Scary Face and not CHARLIE!? The Hotel is CHARLIE’S! Charlie is the main character, she’s the one who has to face these moral battles! Alastor’s motivation and his scorn for her Hotel are CHARLIE’S obstacles to deal with; she has to be the one to face them, consider them, debate them, and find a way to overcome them. But Vaggie is the one here, again, in Charlie’s place. (And Vaggie doesn’t even seem to have any enjoyment or passion for the Hotel either, so SHE doesn’t offer anything in return when she’s facing these opposing ideas.)

--So Alastor is going to make a good advertisement for the Hazbin Hotel, in exchange for never having to work with television ever again.

God, it’s so… WHINY. This isn’t a powerful Overlord of Hell, who is able to manipulate the Hotel behind the scenes and everyone has to watch out for his power because they both need his power but also fear it. This is a dude bargaining over what chores he has to do. It’s depressing.

--And it ends with Alastor giving everyone new outfits. Like the pilot. Because of course. Viv has no new ideas in her head at all. Also Charlie's not here.

--I feel like this scene COULD have been a standout moment in another universe, where someone else wrote this story. The colors are very nice, and Alastor is genuinely one of the only sources of ANYTHING you might consider fun in this episode, even if he’s a pale shadow of what he used to be.

Imagine this as a rewrite for this Episode, and how it could have ended:

At the beginning of the episode, the Hotel staff is still figuring things out. They have a meeting and decide they want to make an advertisement to get people to come to the Hotel, but Al refused to take part, because he hates TV. Charlie then tries to film her own advertisement with Vaggie’s help, but fails to make anything good.

As she starts feeling discouraged in the blue room while cutting up tapes, Alastor walks in to taunt her for a little while. After a back and forth where Charlie asks what he even wants here, he gives his motivation speech, so Charlie can have her goal challenged. But eventually, Charlie asks him to use his power to help her with this, by getting the word out to the people of Hell; and Al agrees, because an empty Hotel is no fun… in exchange for something Al wants: he’ll be allowed to observe any part of the Hotel and give commentary over it whenever he feels like it, and he’s allowed to say anything he wants, positive or negative. Charlie reluctantly agrees to these terms.

Then Alastor uses his power and creates a huge radio tower out of the back of the Hotel. The rest of the Crew feel the Hotel shaking and run outside, and watch in confusion as the tower reaches up into the sky. Al then floats up to the top room, where an old radio station is set up inside. Taking his seat in the booth, Alastor uses his power to broadcasts a spectacular old-timey radio show all across the radio waves of Hell, which are impossible for people to turn off, so it reaches millions of them.

(This also marks his grand return to Hell after his time away…… I guess. Since they're going with that.)

Boom, now Alastor has a radio tower that he hangs out in for the rest of the series, and he’s often giving SCATHING commentary about what goes on inside the Hotel in its quest for redemption. It’s usually making fun of everyone, or damning criticism -- but every so often he compliments something or someone, or gives a bravo for a job well done if a character does manage to accomplish something (but it's always with this HINT that he doesn’t expect their victory to last.)

There.

I provided a better hook for Episode One to end on, something fun to look at -- AND it has Alastor being in total control, while still helping the Hotel, but clearly primed to fuck with it. It also gives the show its first stakes -- small ones, but a status quo is established and we know Charlie will be butting heads with Alastor for the foreseeable future.

--Back with Adam and Charlie, it has become an argument that sinners have earned eternal damnation by making mistakes, and angels and the souls in heaven are not the same; and that angels have never made mistakes. Adam even says he’s never made a mistake.

Why doesn’t Charlie bring up the fact that Adam ate the fruit of knowledge that damned humanity, literally the first sin ever committed alongside Eve? Would that require too much thought, because Adam could just say “hey Eve was the one who did that, then she forced me!” and Charlie would have no rebuttal, because this show doesn’t seem to care about logical or moral battles. (Honestly, I can bet Viv would genuinely believe that for Adam.)

Why don’t they also bring up the fact that all human souls are descended from Adam too? It would force Adam to say: “yeah I don’t care, they may be my grandkids but they made their choice and as the original father it’s my job to whoop their asses when they get out of line,” which would show off how horrible he is. (Or, just not have Adam act this way. The next point elaborates on that:)

--I keep asking myself WHY Heaven and the angels have to be depicted this way. Not "why they’re corrupt" -- but why they’re *gestures vaguely* like this, and so cartoonishly.

Some shows take themselves too seriously and need to lighten up, but a show like Hazbin Hotel has the opposite problem, where it won’t be serious when it needs to be serious.

Adam acts exactly like a demon. There is no distinction between demons and angels. They’re as foul-mouthed, raunchy, and gross. Why?

Is it supposed to be “commentary” or “satire” about real world issues, where authority/radical Christians think they’re better than everyone else just by virtue of being Christian? That’s my first guess.

But just like with Helluva Boss’s commentary on cartoonishly evil abusers: it’s not saying anything we don’t already know, and it hits you with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.

When Hazbin uses Adam to say “See? Heaven is hypocritical! It does the exact same bad shit as Hell, but gives ITSELF a pass!” it makes Hazbin Hotel worse for it, because of how one-note it makes literally everything in the universe, and how it sacrifices any actual clever worldbuilding, storycrafting, or realism for the sake of shock value. 

Hazbin Hotel is supposed to have a serious storyline meant for adults. It was meant to explore a serious moral question, and the angels are supposed to be one of the serious threats that Charlie has to change the mind of. You want us to take your show SERIOUSLY? Then you need to make villains we can TAKE seriously.

Think of it like this. If Heaven was allowed to have a different personality from Hell (if angels were allowed to act differently than demons), you’d be so much better for it.

First of all, it would give the show variety. Hell already has all the sex jokes, curses, and gore you could ever ask for – that’s Hell’s atmosphere. So let Heaven have a different atmosphere -- let its people has "serious" personality traits. Let them take themselves TOO seriously. That way, there’s some variety when characters go from one place to the next.

Second of all, it would give you way more personality types to play around with! (How boring must it get, writing the same screaming, cursing, sex-spewing archetypes over and over?) AND it would let different temperaments clash! Imagine Angel Dust meeting an Exterminator; Angel Dust makes everything a joke, and the Exterminator takes everything way too seriously, aaaaaand their personalities slam into each other. Imagine the possibilities.

But we can’t have that.

We can’t have anything because Viv can’t let herself be sincere or think this far ahead.

Instead we’re just stuck with Adam, who is Mammon.

--Lute says Charlie was “pardoned by daddy”? Who?? Lucifer? If Lucifer has the ability to blacklist souls from being killed, why can’t he just tell the exterminators to fuck off? Or are they referring to “God” as daddy, for which, I thought they weren’t going to touch God in this show?

The dialogue for this show is confusing. There was clearly no editing or rewriting to make anything make sense.

In the old pilot continuity, only an angel of higher rank had the ability to kill Lucifer, which means the exterminators were unable to kill him. Charlie, as his daughter, was directly below him in power, meaning Charlie would also be immune to them because she's stronger than them. But here apparently she's weak enough that the exterminators not only COULD kill her if given the chance, they WANT to kill her but have to hold back by some... law.

--Another song. Okay.

My opinion is that Brightman is a good singer, and this song definitely has more going on than the first one did. So… not terrible… but there’s also something missing in these lyrics. The way the music flows isn’t interesting and it goes by so fast. And Adam’s voice isn’t grating or terrible to listen to, but his dumb rockstar voice just kind of clashes into Brightman’s singing voice every so often, and makes it sound weird to me.

I could do without.

--OOH LAWD SHE ABOUT TO GO OFF. (That meme will never stop being funny. The shot is so tame. She doesn't even get to do any flexing or anything?)

--They’ll be back in six months?? Oh right, ahem, ahem: We’re putting this into EPISODE ONE? (I’m getting tired of saying that.)

Side note: they better not blame Charlie for this one, or try to make it out like she did something to cause this. Because... She literally didn’t. She didn’t get a word in edge-wise. (If they blame Charlie for making Hell worse, not only is it another Potential Dramatic Plot Moment they waste here, where Charlie would legitimately do a fuckup and have to face the consequences of her actions and it’s Oooh Drama -- it’s also totally unearned here, because Charlie Didn’t Do Anything. Literally if this is supposed to be “Charlie’s Mistake”, she didn’t do anything to MAKE A MISTAKE. )

--Alastor: I pulled a few LIMBS too, Hah hah hah!

Now you sound dead Alastor. I miss your fast-paced deranged laughter.

--To hear Blitzo’s voice coming out of Katie. Not even for a joke. I just. Vomit.

--(Quick question, is it just me or does it feel WEIRD to see Hell freaking out about the exterminations happening sooner, the way it is now? I mean, it’s a bad thing of course – but at the same time, it’s 6 WHOLE months away. That’s still a very long time; it’s not like the angels said they’d be coming in 1 WEEK or anything.

And again, moving the Extermination up to the mid-point of the year COULD have been a good plot punch a few episodes in – if the show had established itself as having a one year time limit before the next extermination, for instance, and for the first season we watch the weeks or months go by. The cast think they’re safe because they always have more time; “the year isn’t even half over yet.” But THEN, Charlie fucks up a few months in, and suddenly the date of the extermination is moved up!! WE ONLY HAVE A MONTH LEFT!! SHOCK AND HORROR. THERE IS MUCH LESS TIME NOW. HOW CAN WE DO THIS IN TIME!? PANIC! STAKES! DRAMA.

Makes my poor writer heart sad.

Imagine if we lingered on the Exterminations for a while before all this, and we learn that every single year, it takes about 3 months worth of planning in order for Sinners to secure hiding spots away from the Angels (a play on the three big holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). This is CRITICAL for Sinner survival; those who can't or don't are the ones who die, and spots are so competitive that it takes all that time for anyone to secure themselves. So when Charlie fucks up midway through the year and causes the Extermination to be moved up to just 1 month away, NO ONE IS SAFE, and there isn't enough time for three months of prep, which is why everyone flips their ever-loving shit: they know they're going to die and now there's a hysterical scramble all throughout Hell trying to secure safe spots.

--The ending shot shows an exterminator dead, and the angels out for blood about it.

Again, ahem-hem: EPISODE ONE.

And now, the Exterminators don’t even feel threatening -- because we know they can be killed.

What made the angels scary, originally, is that they were virtually untouchable. Demons could not defeat them, and angels could kill any demon they wanted to by default. (Even Alastor seemed to be weaker than the angels.)

The angels should have been a looming, impossible-to-defeat threat (at least for a while). This would have given the story tension, because the audience would know the sinners stood no chance if they ran out of time or failed to convince the Angels – it was a battle of MORALITY. It was a challenge for sinners to prove to Heaven they were redeemable, because Heaven held all the power.

They de-clawed their villains in their introductory episode.

…

Do Adam and the Exterminators even HAVE the authority to enact a full genocide??? Wasn’t there a “council of Angel Elders” mentioned in the beginning? Aren’t the exterminators just assigned to this post, and meant to keep the population low??? Won’t they get in trouble for overstepping their bounds!? ARE WE GOING TO GET ANY EXPLANATION AS TO HOW THE HIERARCHY WORKS OR HOW HEAVEN WORKS FIRST!? BEFORE WE GET INTO THIS!?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAND ~CURTAINS!~

………………………………………………………………………

And that was the end of Hazbin Hotel Episode One.

…

So! What have we learned here today?

My personal takeaway is that, even though it’s cathartic to see this all start to go down in flames, I still feel disappointed and frustrated because of how much time I invested in it, even defended it to other people for a time. I'm frustrated because none of it had to be this bad. Viv didn't have to be evil. There was promise and potential, once upon a time.

Quite frankly, we were lied to. The premise that everyone fell in love with was dumped in the trash. For over four years, we were told this would be a story about redeeming sinners -- that’s what fans put so much of their time and money into. But that premise was discarded immediately, in favor of a generic War Against Heaven. Viv LIED to us, knowing from the start that the redemption storyline was never going to go anywhere.  

I just wonder how many resources were wasted creating this, how many people Viv hurt, how many opportunities were handed to Viv that could have gone to anyone else more deserving of it.

There wasn’t a single worthwhile thing in this episode. A handful of individual shots here and there were passable, but nothing enough to sit through it. Abysmal animation, pacing, storytelling, dialogue, voices, songs; characters that were flat and unmemorable, or stripped of what made them unique.

Charlie wasn’t the main character in her own show -- Vaggie was the one dealing with the morality of the other characters. (And frankly, Charlie didn’t NEED to meet with Adam. It accomplished nothing. If the angels had already decided to do the extermination in 6 months; they could have just done it, they didn’t necessarily NEED to meet with Charlie to enact it.)

Somehow, Hazbin found a way to do everything wrong!

This show should be taken as a lesson on what not to as an artist. (Any kind of artist, really.) 

In my opinion, the greatest weakness of this show is its inability to write anything sincere.

(And there’s a difference between something having sincere emotion, and melodrama, which Viv dumps in boatloads in her writing.)

I won’t re-write it all, but I basically mean what happened with Adam and the angels, where they aren’t allowed to be any different from the demons. They aren’t allowed to be serious, wise, ancient; because Viv CAN’T write them as sincere. (But this also includes so many other aspects of this show and this world as a whole.)  

(And its genre doesn’t shield it. Hazbin Hotel is trying to tell a STORY, so it doesn’t get to hide behind the genre of being an “episodic adult comedy”. It HAS to follow the rules of storytelling, and when it doesn’t, it is failing.)

And Hazbin Hotel is just one giant failure.

With that, I’ll wrap this up. I think I’ve said all I want to.

I don’t know if I’ll review any other episodes like this (or, if they’ll be this long), because they get worse and worse; and Episode 4 is such a serious, disgusting episode that I don't know if it's even worth it -- but I REALLY wanted to get my thoughts down for this one.

If you read it all, thanks for sticking around! It was fun to rip it apart.

If you have any thoughts you want to add onto this, I’d love to hear!

[kaylatechheart]

Old Stuff of the Small Connections AU Here are some outdated drawings I did for this AU that I particularly like, some parts are still canon to the story or designs, I'll label what is canon or not. Hope you guys like it! Binni, Billy, Bat, Bear, and Badger are owned by me. PPG and RRB are owned by: Craig McCracken Clover, Mallow, Shallot and Kale are owned by: Sayuri Tatsuyama

NOTE: Badger's design is outdated on this one, the new one is on my Rowdyrocks post. The PPG and RRB actually has new designs, but I have not yet post them yet. The only canon design so far is Bear but there might be a few tweaks in the future.

NOTE: The designs are outdated and probably interactions too, the boys and girls would not be in the same room together for one sec (apart from the blues) I still love the drawing none the less. Though if they wanna celebrate Christmas with their younger sister together they probably would tolerate it ig.

NOTE: Easter drawing! I made this for fun when easter hit back then, Bunny and Bat are not there because this was either before I decide to add them in, or it was when the story was Binni came first then the purples. I changed the story now to where the purples came first than Binni. Though Bunny is referenced by the bunny that Boomer is holding. The 4 other bunnies is a reference to a manga (they also have an anime apparently) called "Happy Happy Clover". Once again, outdated designs, will post the new designs for the PPG and RRB at some point.

NOTE: Just Bubbles and Boomer eating cookies with Binni, though again old designs-

Note: OLD REFERENCE SHEET New design here!

NOTE: Just a nice screenshot edit, though the designs are outdated I still love how it looks pretty close to canon.

NOTE: Oh god I think I'm gonna have to explain this for newcomers, ok so before I made the Rowdyrocks I used to use the Rowdyright Boys by @jksketchy (with permission) for the AU initially. I had made that change more recently as the direction im going for doesn't fit the boys, nor that I wanted to butcher their characters and personalties, didn't seem right, so I had made new boys. Oh ya Buck is owned by: @octopusink

NOTE: Pretty self explaintory kinda, drew Binni being sick but that's because I was sick at the time, still outdated designs tho.

NOTE: A video I'm either proud of for finishing or cringing due to outdated backstory. Binni is not gonna die and come back to life in the new rendition of the story. Designs are still outdated. But enjoy the video nonetheless tho- I'll probably remake it one day-

[driedupeyeballs]

OH MY GOD???? I already love them sm

I literally edited a new profile for them for this cuz the old one was outdated BUT YEAH IDK IF THIS WAS AN INVITE TO INFODUMP ABT MY JAMIAZU FANKID BUT IM USING IT AS ONE

Btw I can only wish to achieve your level of snake knowledge I thought my reptile hyperfixation went deep but yours is deeper I wanna know your ways

But that isn’t relavent YEAH HERES MY JAMIAZU FANKID HI TUMBLR *lets them out like you would a spider under a cup*

So I have a shit ton of Twst fankids btw! They kinda swim around in my brain but only a few ppl I know have gotten the info dumps lmao

Skye was the first one I made I think (actually it might’ve been Rico (florid) but eh oh well who’s counting)

But yes this is Skye Ashengrotto!

They’re my older Jamiazu kid, I do have two. The younger one is my octo boy Akram :) he’s funny I wanna pinch his cheeks but he’s not the point here

So Skye! It feels weird publically infodumping abt my OCs like wtf am I even supposed to put here

They’re a half mer, which do work a lil different than normal mers in my lore. Half mers can transform without a potion but it’s still a long and generally painful process, esp going from mer to human. I kind of switch between calling them a snake mer and a naga but there’s lore there- Nagas exist in my lore outside of sea snake mers, there are also fully terrestrial Nagas. So the terrestrial nagas wouldn’t be considered snake mers but the sea snake nagas would be a type of mer while also still being a naga ITS CONFUSING DONT ASK (actually do. Ask everything so I can roll more of my fankids out like marbles)

Skye was created by a spell, I haven’t quite worked the details out 😔 but Jamil is part gorgon in my lore which is why they have the hair snakes which isn’t a typical naga trait. And to elaborate on the hair snakes: they are alive, the one w the bigger stripes is Flora and the smaller stripes is Jett. Skye can communicate w them telepathically and their eyes glow which is kinda neat. They’re kind of Skye’s version of floatsam and jetsam (unless u count Rico (florid) and Lilac (treyjade) which is like their ver of the twins- IDK ITS COMPLICATED)

idk what else to put here so LETS THROW SOME FHARACTER DYNAMICS YEAH and also mentioning some of my other fankids! They all have profiles (except my Malleus kid I’m sorry Aihan I can’t think of a design for you) but I’m probably gonna save those for another post-

So jamiazu in my lore live in the Shaftlands in a beachfront place and also live pretty close to Treyjade, however Florid live in the Queendom. The octatrio and their spouses is a close group so they’re essentially a big family. My treyjade kids are Maren (older) and Lilac, then my Florid kids are Rico (older) and the twins Mary and Eliza.

Skye saw Lilac more as a kid cuz they lived so close together but also saw Rico a lot when flrd would visit or they’d go to visit them. Rico is an agent of chaos and Lilac is Skye’s 2nd in command so their dynamic on a surface level is pretty similar to the octatrio, but there’s still a lot of differences once u get into the meat of it. Tho Lilac and Rico are Skye’s best friends and basically like siblings to them.

Outside of jamiazu Skye is particularly close with Jade, they share a love of tea :) he’s their cool but also slightly unsettling uncle

THEN THERES SHENZI- Shenzi is my younger kaliruggie kid and I am not gonna get into her here bcuz she rlly needs her own post w all her trauma but good lord these two do not like each other. Shenzi’s really nice but she’s not quite as nice as Kalim so after about 5 months of trying and failing to befriend Skye in their freshman year she just gave up and now their relationship is nothing but hostile (which was not helped when Shenzi and lilac started dating)

Speaking of that tho- so my idikei kids :) Ember (named after the pokemon attack) is the older one and he’s basically that “Jock idia can’t hurt you he’s not real Jock idia:” thing as a person he has the Fire hair n shit but he plays basketball and is heavily extroverted but no one gives a shit abt Ember this is NOT ABT HIM this is abt his sister! Her name is Zelda because you know Idia would name his daughter Zelda- she got all of Idia’s social anxiety lmao. She’s extremely shy and there’s a total of like 4 people in the school she can actually talk to without melting into a small stain on the floor. She’s an Skye are both in board games club and sometime in early freshman year she falls on her ass and knocks over a bunch of stuff which Skye happens to witness and cue the most awkward interaction known to man bcuz Skye can’t talk to pretty girls and Zelda can’t talk to ANYONE but they end up walking to the mirror hall together afterwards which becomes a routine. Except they’re both awkward as fuck take like almost two fucking years to get together bcuz neither of them are gonna do anything abt it BUT THEYRE VERY CUTE!! I love them

Also my ashengrotto siblings are very wholesome I need to write some stuff w them- Akram is a little shit and he loves pissing Skye off but at the end of the day he admires them and Skye loves their brother a lot :)

Anyway good lord I’ve yapped too much okay OH YEAH Skye has a Russian blue cat named Mariana who they just fucking found on the side of the road and thought it was a mouse so for like 2 years Azul thought Skye was gonna eat the cat

OK HERES RHE ACTUAL PROFILE these aren’t as chaotic as the other ones all the other ones are more meme than profile ALSO RHEIR UNIQUE MAGIC DOESNR HAVE A NAME AT THE MOMENT IF ANHONE HAS AN IDEA FOR ONE PLS SHARE I HABE NO THOUGHTS

(If you recognize my art style from instagram no you don’t also THEY DO HABE EYES I JUST DONT DRAW THEM CUZ MY STYLES WEIRD)

But yeah I love them I hope they explode (affectionate)

[edgar-allan-possum]

So! I've been wanting to watch a Godzilla movie for a while now (because I have a Godzilla art book and it feels weird not. actually knowing anything about Godzilla) but I'm not sure where to start! What are your recommendations of Godzilla movies/media?

Thanks for asking! Now, I love most of the Godzilla movies, so I'm going to do a quick rundown of each era and its tone so you can make your own decision on where to start.

EDIT: This got WAY longer than I was planning, so... Under the cut.

Now, the obvious beginning.

The original 1954 Gojira is where it all started, and most of the later movies are in continuity with it, though not always with each other. It's a haunting story about the dangers of nuclear weaponry and, outside of some outdated special effects and science, still holds up well today imo. From there the Showa series of Godzilla movies started.

Godzilla Raids Again, the immediate sequel to the original, had Godzilla fight another monster for the first time. The third movie, King Kong vs Godzilla, significantly lightened the tone and that set the template for the rest of the series. The Showa series are largely kid's movies. That doesn't mean they're bad, but the plots are fairly simple and the focus is mostly on monster brawls, often started by one of a few alien species trying to conquer the earth. The continuity of these is kind of loose, as King Ghidorah dies in Destroy All Monsters but continues to make appearances in later movies. After 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla, there were no more movies until 1984.

Godzilla, or its American title The Return of Godzilla, ignores the majority of the Showa series in favor of being a direct sequel to the 1954 movie. For the first time since the original, Godzilla does not fight another monster and is instead the main threat. It also returned to a darker tone after the previous movies had gotten progressively goofier. The Return of Godzilla is considered to be the first movie of the Heisei series, despite not being released in the Heisei era.

The Heisei series (also called the Vs series because of how many titles have a "Godzilla vs X" scheme) has a darker tone, with Godzilla himself being more destructive and less of a superhero than the Showa version. Its monster fights are more often beam wars than brawls, due to the comparative stiffness of the new suits making that kind of action difficult. There's also a tighter continuity with returning characters between movies, the ways G-Force tries to take Godzilla down, and the way Godzilla adopts and raises a young godzillasaurus (no really!) as his son and eventual successor. It ended in 1995 with Godzilla vs Destoroyah, as Toho prepared to take a 10 year break while the American company TriStar tried out their own version of the King of the Monsters.

1998's Godzilla, directed by Roland Emmerich, was the first true reboot of the series, ignoring the 1954 original in favor of giving Godzilla a new origin as a mutated iguana. Godzilla fans generally call this version GINO, or Godzilla In Name Only, criticizing the changes to the monster's design and powers, plus making the main existential threat the thousands of Godzilla offspring lurking below New York. A Toho executive said it "took the god out of Godzilla". However, it was better received in areas that hadn't gotten the previous Godzilla movies and is still a pretty good monster flick, imo. It's just not a great version of Godzilla. There was an animated series based on this movie that was pretty good, but after plans for a sequel fell through, Toho took the reins back and produced Godzilla 2000: Millennium.

While still produced in the Heisei era, this period of Godzilla movies is called the Millennium series since it's not really part of the same series as the earlier movies. All of these movies are in continuity with the 1954 original, but the only ones in continuity with each other are Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, which are collectively called the Kiryu Saga after their version of Mechagodzilla. All the others are standalone films. These movies take a lot of influence from shonen anime and popular action films of the 90s and early 2000s. The standout here is Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (GMK), which portrays Godzilla as an undead monster possessed by the ghosts of everyone who died in the Pacific theater of WWII, bent on getting revenge on Japan for its actions in the war. This series ended with the 2004 semicentennial celebration movie Godzilla: Final Wars, after which Toho really did take that 10 year break.

In 2014, Legendary Pictures released Godzilla, the first installment in their Monsterverse series. The second true reboot of the franchise, this movie portrayed Godzilla as the last member of an ancient superspecies that protects the balance of nature. It's sort of a return to Godzilla as a superhero from the Showa era, with added destruction since there's a lot more fighting in cities instead of rocky wastelands. The Monsterverse is also notable for being a major crossover with the King Kong franchise, and is set to continue March of 2024 with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

With the success of the 2014 movie, Toho decided to get back into the game and in 2016 released Shin Godzilla, directed by Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame.

Shin Godzilla portrays the titular monster as a natural disaster akin to the Fukushima incident, and is a criticism of the bureaucracy in the Japanese government that places more importance on looking in control than on actually being in control. In many ways it's a remake of the 1954 movie. It's also the first of Anno's tributes to classic tokusatsu and was followed up by Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider.

The anime trilogy, created by Gen Urobuchi, tells the story of a group of humans who left earth on a colony ship to escape Godzilla, only to find on their return that 20,000 years have passed in their absence and Godzilla has completely conquered the planet. Urobuchi's trademark nihilism is on full display here and I never finished the last movie, so I'll move along rather than continue to talk about it.

Once the Reiwa era started, Shin Godzilla and the anime trilogy were retroactively declared to be the first installments in a Reiwa series of Godzilla movies. The next installment was the TV anime Godzilla Singular Point, which tells the story of grad student Mei Kamino and the members of the Otaki Factory as they face off against the reality warping Godzilla and the hordes of monsters he's brought with him from either the future or another dimension. This one's heavy on the quantum physics.

Lastly, a new movie called Godzilla Minus One is being released this December. It takes place in the 1940s and is the first Godzilla movie to be placed earlier in the timeline than the original film.

No idea if it'll be a good jumping on point or not, but I'm excited for it!

[vv-ispy]

Ooo, ty for the detailed reply! (Asking instead of reblogging because of that first tag.)

To be fair wrt Zhongli, the AQ plot is him deeming his position of power outdated and letting an all-female trio fully take over the country from him (and in a way that had them as active participants instead of passive recipients even if Zhongli masterminded the whole thing). The cutscene introducing Ningguang also sort of frames her as a godlike figure, and I feel like the Jade Chamber pushes that further, resembling a mini manmade Celestia from a distance.

But even if so, the points about Zhongli being designed to be an ultimate patriarchal figure make complete sense. Especially when he's the mascot for the devs' home country: genshin edition.

Standard disclaimer I am not an expert on chinese culture or china and I'm drawing on my experiences with immigrant conservative chinese parents. Putting it under a read more bc politics and personal experiences in my silly escapism game

Actually in a sense, I really liked the liyue archon quest! I did really enjoy the idea of 'the leader is stepping down, it is time for the people to shine.' 'The world is modernizing, liyue needs to keep up' 'There's a lot of stories about the adepti but I want to tell stories about humans in the age of humans!' And from someone whose parents tried to uphold tradition on me, I loved that story! I still enjoy that view of it — China does need to modernize. There's such strict expectations of people playing their Role in society, the expectation to conform — and hence disabilities, mental illness, being queer, not starting a family, not being unquestioning loyal to your parents/family, not going into a STEM field well paying respectable job, is all looked down upon. If you have mental illness, get over it don't make it anyone else's problem. If you deviate in any way, don't talk about it. Chinese people care so much about saving face and putting on a good image. Chinese culture talks so much of respecting their elders, but elder scam is so common in China. A lot of the good parts of chinese tradition feels like empty words to me, and the bad parts… they're dumb. And being raised by conservative parents who were immigrants and didn't know what they were doing meant I experienced more of the bad parts/expectations/things they try to push on me, as opposed to the good parts and the culture you'd get in china Which is to say, a story about how we need to move on from all that and modernize? I love it! We do need to care for the common folk, acceptance and supports for those who are disabled and cannot work, acceptance for those who deviate from the norm. China needs to modernize in that sense, and need stories about regular people who don't fit the image of an Model Chinese Person. I really like that reading, I really like that narrative, heck initially I was surprised that was allowed in a chinese game if the government is represented by the adepti

But that's one reading. I feel like liyue can have a lot of readings depending on how you want to spin it, who represents what, etc since China does have a really long history. Obviously some readings have a lot more justification to it and I am by no means an expert or even very knowledgable in chinese history so. But at the least, I don't think my initial reading of the quest is how it was intended.

Happening upon this reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Genshin_Impact/comments/q2na5e/an_oversimplified_explanation_for_the_liyue/), I think it's a pretty compelling argument for the intentions and historical influences — after all genshin puts a lot of historical influences in its game so why not for its home country of China? Saying that, I don't know enough about chinese history/mythology to give much of an opinion on it other than yeah I can see it, since Zhongli is a literal god who can bestow approval on Ningguang and the humans

But I also concur with the comment that another possible reading of the archon quest is the end of the imperialist Qing empire and creation of the PRC, if you instead want to view Zhongli and the adepti as representative of imperial rule, and the Qixing and representative of the communist party. And I think the reason I get these vibes is more the way the transition is talked about — that it's time for the gods to step down and the people to lead. CPP ideology includes a people centric approach ie. the communist party represents the will of the people, so time for the people to rule -> support for CPP rule? Or the constant 'we need liyue to modernize' to me is quite reminecent of China's current race to modernize technologically. The idea of a new era of liyue, the age of humans, also really reminds me of those children's songs with lyrics that tell of the rise of the communist party with lyrics such as '没有共产党，哪有新中国' (without the community party, how could there be the new china?) <- sung during the 2010 cctv new year gala. Actually every new year gala there's at least one or two 'look how great China is' songs(okay nationalism is very standard across every country) and one 'Yeah! Regular people working together for progress!' song. Liyue being the economic center of Teyvat….well China sure wants economic prosperity in real life too(<-again nationalism and desire for prosperity is not china specific but we're talking about china here), Chinese people sometimes call themselves 唐人 where 唐(tang) refers to the Tang dynastry during which China was very prosperious. And the conflict between liyue as it was ruled by gods vs the age of humans, reminds me a lot of China's current traditional vs western conflicts, eg. if you're queer a common conservative shutdown is 'that's a western idea'. Put together it makes me go 'yes I see liyue is a reflection of current china striving for prosperity and (technological) progress, but shouldn't we strive for social equality and acceptance instead?'

Saying that, of course not all chinese people are a monolithic with the same thought, and there's many chinese who're critical of the goverment/culture of conformity/outdated traditions. Considering hoyo's japanese influences and general in depth research they do for their world and characters + suspiciously lesbian characters in their games + the voice actors themselves look at gender bent zhongli art (I'm not kidding, from chinese lumine VA's stream), I wouldn't be surprised if the inspiration is the chinese mythological references -> imperialist rule + they're writing stories of China needing to modernize from outdated traditions, but for government-support reasons they put an emphasis on The People and We Need to Modernize part of Zhongli's stepping down. I do realize that my negative reading of liyue's story hinges only on two points (even if those two points come up repeatidly) and the rest of it is very vibes/personal experience based

Again, Gaming's lanturn rite story is a very chinese family conflict, but a more traditional chinese story to teach Values definitely would have involved conceeding that his parents know best and put emphasize on how he's now going to be a good child through consistent consideration and respect to his parents. As a child I've learned quite a few chinese aesop children's stories about kids who are fair and take the smallest pear to let parents and elders have the big ones, or warming bamboo mat beds as appreciation for parents who work hard all day. So the fact he reaches a halfway agreement with his dad is…it's a sweet story that's sympathetic to both sides, and I can see hoyo taking a more modern approach to chinese society. On the other hand, Xianyun's 'the elders must look out for the youth' is a pretty traditional chinese sentiment — elders look out for the youth, and when the youth grow up they take care of the elders. Not to say it's necessarily a bad sentiment, ya know support each other and all. But still a more traditional one.

Anyway, in summary Liyue is a story of change. It can be read in many ways. Either a retelling of historical change, or a call for change. I still really like the hopeful 'We need to modernize' reading of it, just certain parts of it gives me a bad impression due to personal disillusionment with chinese culture. Besides, it's not as if american media is free from nationalism. But we're talking about genshin here

Hm. Moving on

Agreed on good representation doesn't have to be intentional, I may just be overly critical over intentions. And that Furina is written really well! I love her! She also doesn't get sexualized which is v cool too! And absolutely agreed on the sort of constraints that being gatcha puts on the characters — though I would like to toss in, again, how being a chinese game affects the characters. Many people rightfully point out the colourism issues which is a cultural issue as asians really value light skin and. can be quite racist. there is a racism problem in asia despite asians also being poc. With regards to LGBTQ rep, China does censor it (shoutout to tamen de gushi ending due to it) — which again isn't an excuse to call china homophobic there are many queer and trans chinese people (shoutout to trans activist Chao Xiaomi). Arlecchino who is given a whole backstory to explain 'she's called Father because of mother issues not trans reasons' like. Yeah that's what I'd expect from a cis-normative game from a society that adheres to gender roles. Sure. Of course. I wonder a bit if the recent trend towards more buff man have anything to do with china's recent thing against effeminent men, like. Diluc and Kaeya are built very different compared to Alhaitham or Wrio, but that could also be early game limitations (and I know people like to say Venti is dressed like a femboy but he's likely based off the Colongne Carnival prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Carnival). General boy-could-be-mistake-as-a-girl seems to be a consequence of the anime style, but also part of the appeal of anime style is pretty girls and boys. Anyway genshin girls I'm glad you're saved from having to find a man due to game target audience

And yeah I do enjoy how genshin does have female characters like Xinyan who are dark skined chinese + rebellious and it's not presented as a bad thing apart from offhanded mentions of getting into trouble with the law, and Yunjin's relationship with her plays around with the idea of elders being stuffy about traditions and expectations of her to be a refined young lady. It's interesting the sorts of different things they try with their characters, despite the gacha/don't-be-so-rebellious-it-catches-the government's-eye limitations. Genshin has some well developed female characters for sure. It's just also interesting to me how as a chinese game, their chinese characters really carry chinese values. Sometimes you get those weird people saying that genshin would have been better if it wasn't chinese but I think it's really interesting viewing genshin/liyue as an attempt at a story/character driven game filtered through chinese views filtered through chinese politics filtered though live service and gacha demands.

Uh, this probably sums up all the culture thoughts i currently have on it though. until the next lanturn rite and I start heaving deep sighs over people complaining about hoyo never missing a lanturn rite look lunar new year is as big as christmas and new years combined in china there is no way lanturn rite is ever getting skipped genshin is still a chinese game at its core even if it uses a japanese slant to advertise to a western audience

[tehuti88-art]

6/27/25: r/SketchDaily theme, "The Door That Shouldn't Be There." (I did Free Draw Friday.)

This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Franz-Josef (last name never given). He's a new character who popped up in my blog entry for Unnamed Mother not long back. He's the civilian driver of a Deutsche Reichspost mail van and transports mail (and sometimes passengers) to and from the countryside (how Unnamed Mother meets him). There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding his design, I had trouble deciding on headwear--a military-style field cap with the flaps buttoned in front?--or one of those newsboy-style caps? I suddenly decided to go with a kepi because I use them so infrequently and it lent him a bit of an official air.

TUMBLR EDIT: Well, I said it would happen! Franz-Josef was unexpectedly introduced in the entry for Unnamed Mother (Hans), and given how quickly and fluidly his character developed in that entry, I figured he'd earn his own portrait and profile. Here he is. I kind of liked how his interactions with Unnamed Mother played out, so I think he has some potential to develop as a character within the main story itself, even if his story with Unnamed Mother occurs outside that time frame.

I imagined him as a tall, lanky guy with light fur and darker patches. What I wasn't so clear on was his outfit. A historic detail I'm unsure about is the status of the mail van drivers of the Deutsche Reichspost--were they civil servants?--or military? There WAS one aspect of the mail service that was run by the SS--the Postschutz, a sort of armed paramilitary defense for post offices, some of them even fought partisans outside Germany, I kid you not--but Franz-Josef doesn't belong to that, I don't think he's even a member of the Nazi Party; he seems to be more of an unofficial auxiliary, similar to Andreas Cranz, or a civilian agent, like Turtledove or Unnamed City Clerk. If he is affiliated with a military body, I assume it would be the Wehrmacht. Browsing the Wikipedia article about the Reich Postal Ministry and Deutsche Reichspost doesn't really clarify the matter for me. I did notice that the final two guys in charge of the Reich Postal Ministry didn't seem to be military, although one is shown in a uniform with some sort of fancy collar tabs, I have to assume they're some sort of Party rank, not military.

I decided to go with a combination of my gut, and artistic license: Franz-Josef is a civilian mailman, though given the Reichspost's association with the Wehrmacht and the state, he has to look at least semi-official (sort of like how Cranz wears a little SS pin, yet isn't a member). So, he wears a sort of jumpsuit/coveralls in the same field gray (in my version, a bluish-gray color) as worn by the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS forces. Then, what sort of headwear...? I was so torn. The civilian newsboy-style cap (God I have no idea what to call those things) seemed most appropriate, yet I heavily leaned toward that field or ski cap (the Einheitsmütze) that was highly popular among the German forces, the one with the ear flaps that fold up and button in the front, like Ratdog wears. Although I depict a lot of my Wehrmacht guys (and a few Waffen-SS members, such as Unnamed Panzer Commander and Lars Franke) wearing this style of cap, based on photos I've seen, it seems like a popular cap among civilians in various European countries even to the present day. And take a look at that, I just noticed that page features a modern-day MAILMAN'S CAP in this style. So there could have been feasible precedent for me to choose that style.

HOWEVER...at the last minute, I decided on a kepi. I adore the kepi! Such a classy hat! I would love to depict Hesse in a black SS kepi, but alas, they didn't wear them long, even in my borked-up imaginary timeline which takes immense liberties regarding uniforms (just look at the outdated black SS uniform itself, they really did not wear those throughout the war), an SS kepi would be really out of place. The only characters I can think of who have them are Dobermann and Champere, and even with them, the hat is considered woefully out of style. (Champere is French so he has a good reason to wear one, though his entire outfit is cobbled together from outdated components; meanwhile, Dobermann received his kepi as a gift naming him the honorary "watchman of the city"--thus why it has the word Wächter on it--and whenever he has to wear it he refers to it as "that f**king hat.") Oh, right, I think Dr. Kammler also occasionally wears one as part of his Nazi Party uniform--really the only common usage that would make sense in this story. (I just noticed that SA kepis had a chinstrap that went across the front similar to that on peaked caps, yet the kepi I link below hasn't one, so if I ever draw a character with a Nazi kepi I may need to alter the design.)

A kepi, in my storyline, isn't really a standard choice for military, or for average civilians. It still carries a note of dated authority. (Dobermann's cap was modeled after a 1930s "watchman's cap" I found for sale on eBay, no more detail given. I just realize I went through this exact same existential struggle when trying to decide what Dobermann should wear on his head. How did I forget that...?) Seemed like a decent choice for somebody who is a civilian, yet still an official of a sort, working for the state.

Now...Franz-Josef as a person? His history and whatnot? I don't really know anything about him yet. He doesn't seem to have been military, so perhaps there's some reason he didn't qualify for the draft. He's not a Nazi but works alongside them and, technically, for them. In Unnamed Mother's entry, it's clear that he's a practical sort who believes in working hard and keeping his head down, not rocking the boat, not getting involved in things or butting his nose in where it doesn't belong. He avoids drama. For example, he's fine transporting Adel (the future Ratdog) to and from the city, as Adel pays well, though Franz-Josef does his best to avoid getting involved in his drama despite knowing about it. (He's aware that Adel has a drinking and whoring around problem.) Unnamed Mother adding the unexpected complication of a baby makes him terribly uneasy. He doesn't judge her for it, though; even when it becomes clear that she just abandoned the baby with Adel, he shuts himself up, and moves on. He doesn't want to know. I feel this is his approach with everybody--if it isn't his business, he doesn't like to get involved, and he's willing to overlook or ignore many things if it ensures his own wellbeing and keeps his life uncomplicated. It isn't apathy; it's just the approach that works best for him, especially during the war, when nothing is guaranteed.

Okay, so...that's Franz-Josef before the main story begins. What of the main story itself?

He isn't likely to be an important character, though it's highly likely the other characters would run across him at some point in the Wald. He knows the sparse forest roads about as well as somebody who isn't one of the Waldvolk can know them. The Waldvolk, too, tolerate his presence far more than they tolerate most outsiders, mostly because 1. he minds his own business, and 2. he performs a needed service. Many of the male Waldvolk are actively avoiding conscription, so they're hostile to Wehrmacht forces ("The Waldvolk only shoot at recruiters," Franz-Josef assures Unnamed Mother, though this is being a bit generous), plus they prefer to be left alone; one approaches them at their own risk. However, rugged independence only goes so far, especially in times of conflict and scarcity, so the Waldvolk are also highly transactional--if you can offer them something they need or can use, your chances of survival are greatly increased. They get most of what they need from trading with each other, but they aren't entirely in the Bronze Age, communication and commerce with the outside world--and the ability to get around--are necessary, too. Mail is rare, but essential. And for a people who largely lack proper transportation, and travel the woods on foot (or skis), the Deutsche Reichspost is their only option to travel long distance.

The mail van offers transport from and to the rural areas for a small fee. Franz-Josef is assigned this route, which can take the entire day and into the night to complete, and which runs only once every two weeks. It's an old route which he inherits from the previous driver, so he doesn't need to convince the Waldvolk of his usefulness, though I imagine there's a bit of suspicion when they first notice that their mail carrier has changed. Franz-Josef knows how to deal with hostile parties; he probably gets held at gunpoint once or twice as his van is searched, and patiently goes along. He has his own healthy wariness of the roaming Wehrmacht and SS troops, at least a few of whom are known to burn down people's houses for loot; he wears the Deutsche Reichspost's Reichsadler on his coveralls, but no swastikas or Sig runes, and bears no military insignia, so the civilians don't see him as a threat. He provides a slim lifeline to the outside world, without pushing it in their faces, so it isn't long before he and his old van becomes a familiar sight. Whenever someone needs a ride to the city or to another stop on his route, they wait alongside the nearest road until he arrives.

I imagine there's another small service Franz-Josef could provide; despite his unwillingness to get involved in things, he might warn the Waldvolk he meets if there are any troops in the area. I'm unsure about this, though. He's not pro-war or anti-war. He doesn't appear to have any particular loyalties or political thoughts, he's just there to do his job; he likely had this role even before the Nazis took over so to him it's just a change of employer, whenever they're gone he'll just keep doing the same thing. I guess neutral is the best way to describe him.

Given the main characters' frequent movements throughout the Wald and the countryside, they're likely to run across him here and there. He already knows Ratdog/Adel. I don't imagine him ever directly aiding either the Nazis or the resistance factions, though he can definitely be an indirect aid: He delivers messages and goods, doesn't matter who from. Although there's a difference between official mail that goes through the post, and informal deliveries handed to him along the way, I do think he could be convinced to handle the latter (for a fee, of course), especially since the Waldvolk are likely to already take advantage of the mail system in such a way. Why go through all the hassle of sending a delivery all the way through the mail, there and back, a weeks-long process, to trade with a distant neighbor when you're unable to go on foot?--when you could just bribe...I mean, tip...the mailman to cut out the middle man (the post office) and simply do it himself? Franz-Josef could very well be delivering things that aid either side in the conflict and he honestly doesn't care, just as long as it goes to an established drop-off point on his route, and nobody tells him what it is.

So this means he's likely to pop up here and there--much similar to Janette--as a neutral party who can be mildly helpful or mildly bothersome, depending on who's doing the asking and what for. Ratdog, Klemper, Himmel, and various partisans are the parties most likely to run across him (I have yet to determine his dealings with partisans, just that he knows to avoid them when possible); then there are the Trench Rats themselves. If they run into him, I imagine they'd find him a bit mystifying, with his lack of loyalty to either the Reich or the resistance.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble aimlessly here. Just brainstorming various ways this character could participate in the storyline. (I briefly toyed with the idea, based on their interactions together, of him and Unnamed Mother pairing up...it's kind of cute, but I'm not sure either would be even remotely interested, so it's unlikely.) I guess the particulars remain to be seen.

[Franz-Josef 2025 [‎Friday, ‎June ‎27, ‎2025, ‏‎12:00:11 AM]]

[tomk447]

A Broadcast Tech's Redemption Story: How TVU MediaHub Rescued Me From Routing Hell

Listen up, folks - as a grizzled master control room warrior with enough battle scars to make a seasoned drill sergeant blush, I've seen and endured more headache-inducing broadcast tech nightmares than you could shake a shoddy coax cable at. But of all the sources of misery and torment our kind is subjected to, there's one beast that has haunted my every living breath like a stubborn curse for decades: outdated, clunky, just plain craptastic routing systems.

Oh, you don't know the half of it, my friends. For too many years, us MCR techs had to deal with painfully backward solutions that bogged down our mission-critical operations in a seemingly never-ending slog through mud and darkness. But I'll be double-damned if TVU Networks' new MediaHub platform hasn't swooped in like a holy angel of routing salvation, lifting that wearisome burden clean off my shoulders and giving me a new life and purpose. This future-shaping slab of innovation finally understands the unique challenges we face day in and day out.

The Rat King That Was Traditional Routing

But I'm getting ahead of myself here - before you can truly appreciate the game-changing genius of MediaHub, you've gotta understand the squalid, spirit-crushing conditions we've been forced to wallow in for far too long, my friends. Because the realm of traditional routing solutions, God rest its soul, was a festering dumpster fire from top to bottom.

I'm talking about an incomprehensible, tangled web of disparate systems for every individual signal type under the sun - SDI, IP, RF, you name it. Just getting a single workflow up and running meant becoming a master contortionist in duct tape-based coding, precariously binding together a dozen ancient, arthritis-ridden tech components that wouldn't be out of place in a museum exhibit titled "Computing Machines of the Turn-of-the-Century (1900s Edition)."

And lord help you if you ever had the boundless misfortune of needing to change that routing on the fly, dear friends. Performing such a routine operation meant steeling your nerves and plunging deep into the eldritch abyss of inscrutably archaic interfaces that seemed purpose-built to induce madness in all but the most hardened souls. By the time you finally mastered the arcane tongues required to bend these decrepit systems to your will, some hot new signal format or cutting-edge workflow would emerge and instantly render your hard-earned genius completely obsolete yet again.

So began the vicious, Sisyphean cycle anew - relearn the absurd voodoo behind making it all work, only to dive back into a fresh hell once those ungrateful ingrates in the ivory towers of engineering unleashed this year's mandatory paradigm shift upon us poor folk in the trenches. I tell you, having my wisdom teeth removed sans anesthetic would've been a more pleasant experience!

But that was just the cold appetizer, my friends. Because on top of being rigid technology wards actively hostile to any hint of innovation, our creaky old routing setups constantly kept us bottled up in ninth-circle inflexibility that put the most uncompromising drill instructors to shame.

Sure, in today's rapidly evolving broadcast landscape, we all need to be able to hot-swap between sources on a moment's notice, blast those signals to multiple destinations simultaneously, and seamlessly integrate with all the latest cloud-based razzle-dazzle platforms that someone in a FAANG bullpen coughed up over breakfast. But those archaic, Luddite-designed routing systems simply didn't have the bandwidth or interoperability to keep up. We'd inevitably find ourselves scrambling to somehow bend our uncooperative gear to adhere to evolving paradigms, while silently praying to the Elder Gods that our jerry-rigged abominations didn't implode in a fiery display of single points of failure right as millions were tuning in live.

That kind of perma-panic, where you're bracing for disaster every second the "ON AIR" light is hot, it does things to a person, my friends. Battle-hardened MCR vets have gone AWOL and spent years wandering the forest after having their very souls chipped away by the chronic, low-grade PTSD inflicted by our so-called "routing systems." I'm not being hyperbolic here - having your last reserves of hope and stability stripped away piece-by-piece by technology that seems expressly engineered to thwart your life's work...well, it's enough to make even the most stoic among us snap like a twig underfoot.

Yes, my comrades, we had been well and truly shoved into the blackest pit of routing hell, consigned to spend our primes wading through an endless slog of manual reconfigurations, unplanned re-routes, and fire-fighting one-off hacks just to cobble together the bare semblance of a functional, coherent broadcast workflow worth setting in front of actual viewers.

Until one fateful day, that is, when an angelic chorus of Western Electric operatics rang out from the heavens...

A Voice Cried Out from the Abyss: "TVU MediaHub!"

On a gray Tuesday in late spring that I'll never forget, my usual cycle of browbeating and hoop-jumping through yet another Byzantine routing overhaul had merged into a nightmarish blur of fire-fighting different systems against each other. Our facility was in absolute mayhem mode, scrambling to somehow route an unholy Gordian knot of disparate camera feeds, switcher outputs, VR sensor data, and graphics layers into a single coherent broadcast feed - all while simultaneously pushing that ungodly monster out to redundant paths for multi-region delivery. In other words, it was just another manic morning in the life of an MCR warrior.

Except this time, try as we might, none of our creaky legacy routing equipment seemed willing or able to comply with our increasingly frantic reconfigurations and updates. The on-prem rigs were hitting a processing bottleneck seemingly every few minutes, dropping packets indiscriminately and bringing our primary workflow to its arthritic, overworked knees. Our cloud-based solutions were in their own personal hell, fighting endless API versioning and migration nightmares that reduced each attempted routing change to a game of multi-dimensional Calvinball with the stakes at DEFCON 1.

And the "modern" hybrid systems we'd sunk this year's capex budget into? Well, those Frankensteinian amalgamations were effectively being held together by shoestring, Elmer's Glue, and the pure unrelenting force of our own desperation at that point - seemingly just seconds away from spontaneously combusting into a trillion pieces of technical debt shrapnel with every routing update we begged them to undergo. We were sinking faster than the eCPM rates at Bustle Digital, drowning under the collective weight of our legacy spaghetti pile with no lifeline in sight.

As the full-tilt chaos reached a deafening crescendo and our shoestring-patched Rube Goldberg routing monsters screamed their swansong of anguished packet loss, I locked eyes with my Lieutenant in our cheap seats of MCR command - a grizzled, mousy-haired tech lifer named Pete who looked as close to going fetal as a grown man conceivably could. In that moment, our twin stares of utter defeat said it all: we'd been routed. Finally, irrevocably routed by the very tools of our trade that were supposed to streamline and enable our mission-critical operations. It was a proverbial killing blow to the very soul and purpose of a Master Control warrior.

On the verge of throwing in the towel once and for all to spend my remaining days in the warm, soylent-flavored embrace of a lentil protein drip, that's when our ITops angel descended from the heavens and bestowed upon us a cosmic truth, clear as the ringing of the Centillion's bell:

"Hey chiefs, we just secured a demo license for this new unified routing platform from upstart TVU Networks called MediaHub. From the spec sheet, it looks like it could actually solve all of the nightmare legacy BS you've been dealing with for years. Who's down to kick the tires and see if it's as advertised before we have to abort the big midday live launch?"

You could've heard a lone wire strand drop in MCR at that fateful moment, my friends. For grizzled vets like Pete and I, it was the first faint shimmers of hope we'd allowed ourselves to entertain in what felt like literal lightyears of being bent over routing's metaphorical barrel. The jaded, cynical, PTSD-addled gatekeepers in our battered consciousnesses immediately began screaming that this new "MediaHub" was nothing more than just another overhyped vaporware solution being shilled down our throats by the latest crop of slick-haired, Xtreme energy drink-chugging denizens from the Cloud People.

But the lingering embers of a broadcaster's resolute curiosity, that faint pilot light of optimism that had somehow survived repeated soakings of technical flagellation and defeat over the decades, couldn't help but wonder with cautious intrigue...could it be? Had the heavens finally parted to deliver unto us a long-awaited balm for our existential, deeply-rooted routing woes? Surely these upstart mortals at TVU Networks couldn't have engineered something capable of untying the Gordian Knot of intractable technical debt and systemic baggage that had become our MCR's cross to bear.

And yet...if even a fraction of the MediaHub hype proved true in practice...

My mouth was suddenly bone dry, friends. Pete and I locked eyes once more across our hushed, windowless dugout - but this time, our twin stares burned hot with the faintest tinge of long-repressed, deeply-internalized hope. A silent conversation crackled between us like electricity over a broadcast auxiliary feed:

"Well hell, old dog...they-they're giving us an out here. Even if it all ultimately amounts to vapor in the wind, even if there's just a 0.01% chance this MediaHub thing isn't just more snake oil..."

"Yeah...yeah. At this point, when all our costly backups and redundancies have collapsed into a singularity of thermal-throttled failure...what've we got left to lose, really? May as well let these young gunners buy us a temporary stay of execution and see what this miracle cure is all about..."

With a silent, weary nod of resigned openness, we gave the go-ahead to our off-camera ITops shepherd. They rapidly connected our clatch of distributed combustion terminals to the waiting TVU environment and ushered in the grinning, boyishly over-caffeinated sales rep to walk us through the pilot light process. Kid looked about as grizzled as an actual puppy, all bright eyes and whoolpromise missives as he cued up the MediaHub web UI with an equal mix of enthusiastic hype and mild trepidation. I steeled what little reserves of pragmatic hope remained in my durasteel endoskeleton as the polished young gun fired up the TVU instance to kick the tires.

That's when my entire cosmos imploded, friends.

Because what manifested on our screens in that next fateful moment wasn't just another empty futurecasting mirage or sandworm-grade iteration on legacy routing tech. No, thefe-lions that began to swirl into view across MediaHub's dazzlingly elegant user interface heralded the shocking, paradigm-shattering arrival of a true, full-fledged renaissance in broadcast routing operations - one powerful enough to shatter the very bedrock of my reality and redefine what I'd spent an entire career dismissing as immutable torture.

Rather than the usual labyrinth of archaic, vertically-towering azure modals and inscrutably dense configuration hieroglyphs, the MediaHub UI appeared almost...minimalist. Delightfully, effortlessly so. An intuitive, uncluttered visual canvas with all the expected routing nobs and toggles cleanly tucked away in layered contextths based on progressive disclosure principles. A radical departure from the brash, sensory-assaulting mishmash of 3D-shaded dinosaur systems we'd become accustomed to.

At first glance, I scoffed - this couldn't be right, could it? Surely the simplified UI was just a clever UX facade masking the same bloated, abstruse tangle of legacy complexity hiding in the wings, ready to suffocate us as soon as we dared go off the golden path. The TVU kid must have detected my visible skepticism, because he just casually smirked and said "Ok boomer, why don't you try actually building out a quick routing workflow so you can see where the magic happens?"

Challenge accepted, my former friend. With a grunt of bemused resignation, I decided to entertain the puny sales rat and "spin up" one of my team's tried-and-true multilayered routing matrices, just to call this joker's bluff. Let's see how seamlessly your platform stitches together something like our bread-and-butter Live World Cup feed distro workflow, which even seasoned MCR vets struggled to configure and maintain on the legacy rigs:

Ingest 32x unique camera feeds from terrestrial and OTT sources into a primary transcoding layer. Downsample 10 of those feeds to low-bitrate proxies. Map the proxies to a browsable NDI mesh for external monitoring, but KEEP the primary hi-res streams firewalled/isolated. Internally, route the 10 downsized NDI proxies to my graphics team's monitoring stack for realtime live AR overlays and commentary inserts... Add the annotated graphics layer back into the clean program feed to create a final TX distribution package. THAT distribution master feed then needs replicated and routed out to multiple delivery endpoints - including linear broadcast, streaming CDN pools, mobile encoder farms, VOD transcoders you name it. With dynamic UPD packet delivery monitoring built-in, elastic scaling to handle surge traffic, and fault-tolerance/failover baked into the whole shebang in case of any upstream faults.

All while performing zillions of silent incremental codec trans-ratings and frame synchs basically everywhere to maintain A/V sync and minimum-viable visuals no matter which legacy or next-gen distribution channel we're pumping out to.

A typical hairball of a workflow that in the past would've taken my team days...nay weeks of full-time work to build out across all our silo'd legacy broadcast systems. Let's see this slick new kid on the block handle it with his fancy "unified routing engine," I thought with a smirk.

Well, friends...what unfolded over the next few minutes of drag-and-drop configuration quite literally broke my mind into a billion little pieces.

By leveraging MediaHub's radically extensible graph model for composing workflows, this smug little cloudpunk effortlessly sketched out our entire monstrous World Cup distribution pipeline in what felt like seconds. He panned and zoomed around a infinitely zoomable visual canvas, connecting a few dozen stylized box icons with a flick of his wrist...and just like that, the most comically overengineered, Daedalus-proof signal chain any of us had ever conceived fell neatly into place before our very eyes.

[More vivid storytelling of the narrator's mind being blown as he witnesses MediaHub compose increasingly complex routing workflows and signal chains in an intuitive visual manner, making light work of integrating emerging cloud tools and delivery models on the fly...]

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Ha. Aha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaa...

The links don't work on the Front Page template! Well, sure! Who needs links on their front page? That would be a silly feature! I don't need a working menu for any reason! You don't actually want to READ anything when you come to my site, right? RIGHT?

🤣

God help me, I thought WP's Query Loop blocks were broken, but I had a brainwave and tried them on a regular page. They work fine!

I have severely scaled back the 3rd party stuff and I'm working almost entirely with WP's own blocks and their latest theme. (The few things I have are all tested with my version and I really can't do without them. They're supposed to play together!) It should WORK, right? Why would they go public with that stuff and start tearing up their existing editor with all kinds of new options that I can't set correctly unless I use the site editor IF IT DIDN'T WORK?

It would be generous to call this a beta test and they're NOT.

I have no good options. WP keeps updating to add more features (and fixes, I assume) for the site editor, and the themes and blocks designed for the old customizer are all struggling to keep up. And I wind up with old pages and posts that lack values that the updates are looking for. So they either assign me a default value, a value of zero, or a random one, and of course they don't tell me. Things just break and I gotta plug input into a black box that lies to me on the backend until it spits out what I want on the frontend.

The new editor seems resistant to letting a person work in HTML at all. I used to be able to toggle it on and off and now in places it's either hidden or gone. All blocks all the time, baby! Haha, yeah. That wouldn't be a problem if they just worked like you said they did!

I rebuilt the whole site from scratch less than two years ago because I thought that would clear up all the errors from outdated code. That did not work like I wanted! It's so much worse now!!

If I keep fixing it in the old editor, it's going to keep breaking. But the new editor doesn't work. I mean, the old editor barely worked either, so I get why they need a new one, but it needs to work. I need more than just a static page and a storefront. I need complex text that work on mobile and desktop and is as accessible as possible - because I don't want to be a total jerk to people who have worse eyes than I do.

They're giving me features that were difficult or impossible to code before. For example, I can finally take the air out of Milo's cards with a basic Paragraph block. But, dear god, as a result of that NOTHING is basic anymore.

The default image displays with rounded corners now and it doesn't bother to tell you the value is set to round the corners. It just looks blank, null, but you actually have to set it to zero - you have to type in a number or drag the slider all the way to one end to make it produce corners. EVERY TIME. You need to do a similar thing to set the "padding" and "margins" to zero - you have to set them to one and then drag them back. Ah, except when it comes to the Content block, which SHOULD have an automatic margin because it looks like hell without one. You can't give that thing a margin AT ALL. You have to select all the content on each individual page or post, group it, and give it a margin that way. I think there's a default template for everything, and they're probably all available to edit but god only knows if the edits will match on the frontend.

I can fix the front page. I don't have the energy now, but I deleted the template and set it to a static page via the old editor, which still has some necessary features on it and is still available on every (I think?) theme that uses the site editor. Wow. When the new editor comes packaged with the old one, that really inspires confidence. I'm sure it's fine, It MUST work like it supposed to, I'm probably just terrible at websites. Anyway, since the Query Loop works on a "normal" page, (hahahaaaaa everything is templates now, what even is "normal"?) axing the template ought to fix it. And I don't need more than one front page anyways, so to hell with the template.

...Until I get another damn update that forces me to use it, god knows when.

[realityhop]

"But the 1960s’ spiritual awakening, as a program of rebellious liberalization, more resembled Transcendentalism (1835–60), which was influenced by British Romanticism and German idealism. Its leading figure, Ralph Waldo Emerson, had been a Unitarian minister (descended from a line of clerics) but resigned his post because he could not accept the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Eucharist. More generally, Emerson was repelled by the passionlessness and rote formulas of genteel churchgoing. … In Leaves of Grass (1855), Walt Whitman absorbed British Romantic poetry as well as Emerson’s poems and essays, with their disparate Asian influences. ... The limitations in Emersonian Transcendentalism are suggested by the reservations expressed by both Emerson and Thoreau to the sexual material in Leaves of Grass, which, despite their great admiration for the poem, they felt to be crude flaws. Emerson, who had always disliked the bawdiness in Shakespeare’s plays, actually advised Whitman to purge sexual references from later editions of Leaves of Grass. In this respect, the Romantic nature cult of Emerson and Thoreau betrays their Puritan lineage. They see nature in clean, rigorous terms but cannot tolerate or encompass nature’s stormier energies—the theme of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851). Significantly, though he enjoyed choosing hymns for Sunday services, Emerson did not much care for music. Despite the call for ecstasy in his poem “Bacchus,” he was evidently made uncomfortable by music’s heady rhythms and emotional stimulation. It was the American 1960s that would complete Transcendentalism—through the new, barbaric medium of rock. ... A principal distinction between Sixties and early-Seventies cults and their New Age successors is that the Sixties sought the release of primal energy through the shattering of social conventions. Paradise Now, the title of the Living Theater’s infamous 1968 performance piece, where nude actors infiltrated the audience, says it all. The Sixties wanted to embrace and reclaim the senses, to plunge fully into matter, like the festival-goers wallowing in the mud at Woodstock. New Age, however, has smoothly adjusted to the stubborn persistence of the social structures that the Sixties failed to budge." — Camille Paglia, Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in the American 1960s (2003) in Provcations

"The culture has captured the conversation of sexuality with a persuasive narrative, while Christians seem stifled with an outdated list of sexual dos and don’ts. … While a sexual education response to people’s confusion and questions around sexuality is certainly better than silence and judgment, it still pales in comparison with the world’s aggressive messages." — Juli Slattery, Rethinking Sexuality: God's Design and Why It Matters (2018)

"Human brains make many different kinds of minds. ... Brains have a lot of common features; minds, less so, because minds depend in part on micro-wiring that is tuned and pruned by culture." — Lisa Feldman Barrett, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (2020)

"The Iranian American journalist and Catholic convert Sohrab Ahmari describes his own childhood difficulties with the inward turn of authenticity. Growing up in Iran, he was, like his parents, rebelling against institutionalized Islam. Ahmari did, however, feel a strong need for some type of guidance: “I longed for some cosmic and moral absolutes. Yet the only absolute command that my father handed down to me was: ‘Be yourself.’ It was maddening. Who was this ‘self’ dwelling inside me, to whom I owed such fidelity? My father wouldn’t say.” More than simply difficult, however, this dictum is fundamentally paradoxical. Ahmari’s father wasn’t letting his son “be himself,” he was commanding it. Ahmari first had to learn that he should “be himself” and then figure out, through the examples of others, what “being yourself” meant … Ahmari was confused, as many are, because of the internal paradox the command to be himself presents: looking outward for guidance, he finds the external standard of authenticity, which tells him not to look outside oneself for guidance. As a teenager and young adult, Ahmari was earnestly trying to “be himself” but had to imitate others in order to develop the creativity and originality that “being yourself” requires." — Moeller & D'Ambrosio, You and Your Profile: Identity After Authenticity (2021)

"For Santayana, the human good was as various as the diverse kinds of human beings who achieved or failed to realize it. There is not one supreme good for all men – contemplation, say, as Aristotle would have it, or a life of work and prayer, as for Aquinas – nor is there a single form of collective life, such as that of the polis, in which human flourishing may occur. Instead there is a constrained but legitimate diversity of goods, individual and collective, and it is a tyrannous impulse in political philosophy (well exemplified in modern liberalism) to elevate any of them to the status of summum bonum. Just as the good life for an individual may be one of bourgeois productivity or aristocratic leisure, religious piety or the pleasures of the senses, so monarchy and republicanism, free enterprise or the feudalism of a traditional social order may be equally lawful facets of the human good." — John N. Gray, Santayana and the critique of liberalism (1993) in Gray's Anatomy (2009)

“To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Prior to the internet, screen worlds had flowed one way: from manufacturer to subject. Computers reversed that process, allowing new generations to vomit up all the colorful garbage shoved down their gullets since they were born, telling them who and how to be.” — Dale Beran, It Came From Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office (2019)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON QUOTE: TO BE YOURSELF 

An illustration of American philosopher/poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) with some inspiring guidance. His quote: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Great to hang on a wall and a gift idea for Transcendentalists, philosophy students, and anyone who could some empowering advice.

#14 of the Great Thinkers series. See Thoreau.

Purchase print/poster here (affiliate)

[autismvampyre]

Would they wear a mask? Descendants Edition

A/N: I got this idea on a whim so here's a guide to which descendants characters i think would wear a mask, btw this was written before the vaccine was finished so it's a little outdated

Mal Bertha

She hates masks

Despite hating the rules and feeling ridiculous with a mask on, she'd wear one if absolutely needed

I honestly think she just wouldn't leave the house to avoid having to wear one

Might go out without one but she'd always stay away from people and wouldn't go to stores

She hates wearing a mask and complains 24/7 but as long as she still wears it Ben puts up with it

Ben Florian

Ben's the best king ever and always wears his mask

He won't bitch about it and influences everyone else around him to wear one as well

No one is allowed anywhere near his castle without a mask

He makes posters about wearing masks for the safety of others but they're not condescending like his dad's propaganda posters and they actually help

Our king will do anything for the safety of the kingdom, no matter how pissed the Karens(Queen Leah) get

Carlos De Vil

Carlos wears his fucking mask everywhere

Like do not come near him if you're not in a full hazmat suit

You can't tell me this boy wouldn't do anything to stay safe in a global pandemic

Like yes, he's messy and has probably eaten dirt before but he'll do anything to help others

Would definitely get paranoid that Dude will get it so he got him a little dog mask

Jay will laugh his ass off at him obviously

And I guess since dude is technically a character I ought to mention that he will not appreciate it

How is he supposed to sniff and dig with a huge piece a cloth on his face

Dude is an anti masker for sure

Evie Grimhilde

She a fashion designer, so she loves masks

Of course it's unfortunate that no one can see how perfect her lipstick is but she takes solace in the fact that her mask is gorgeous

She's made so many masks for herself that she's genuinely lost count

Would definitely start a fashionable mask collection and have her own line of apple scented hand sanitizer

Evie would definitely volunteer for charities during quarantine times and donates part of her profits

Jay

Anti masker

Okay no not really

But god he hates masks so much

He tries to justify it to people by saying "it's just the flu" but ultimately fails

Jay is incredibly bored during quarantine and hates every second so he's pulling a lot of pranks to fight off boredom

Ben hates it cause "OMG JAY NOT THE STATUES"

He's just a little shit, but he will wear a mask if he has to but prepare to hear him whining about it the whole time

He'll tear it off the moment he gets outside though

Audrey

I'm conflicted about this one

Because we know she's classist and entitled but I'm not sure how she'd react to the mask mandates

I feel like she'd make a video like the one Vanessa Hudgens did

"Like, yeah... people are gonna die.."

She'll wear her mask in public to avoid backlash but she'd probably go to a quarantine party

But as the pandemic progresses she's definitely gonna mature and take it more seriously

Chad Charming

Bro he's such an anti masker it physically hurts

He hosts quarantine parties and fucking refuses to wear a mask

He will bitch about how opressed he is for not being allowed to go into whole foods without a mask

Probably a coronavirus truther too

Jane

Wears a fucking hazmat suit to the grocery store

Have you seen how scared she is of literally everything?? She's not taking any chances

Obsessively washes her hands

Will use magic to make Chad put on a mask

Her mom, for once, actually approves of this use of magic because she doesn't want an outbreak at her school

She will force you to wear a mask, if you refuse she'll give you a death stare

Queen Leah

Has never, will never wear a mask

So fucking entitled it hurts

Everyone hates being around her cause she believes everything she reads

"Audrey, you do know that the masks have microchip trackers in them?" "Grammy, you have to get off Facebook"

A customer service workers worst nightmare

Just the absolute worst

[mx-mongoose]

Edit made by Derpy Banana

God I really wish i could rp like a portal and Infinity Train crossover thing. I would make a server but A: I don’t know if the audience is out there and B: I feel like I don’t know enough about the lore to make a coherent plot by myself (i know Portal’s story to a T, just I don’t know ANYTHING about Half Life. Which i feel like is important since The Train is in some sorta alternate earth and I know Half Life’s whole plot revolves around different planets and dimensions i think)

Btw hey! My name is Goose (he/they)

Boundaries:

- Proshippers stay the hell away

- But other then that i’m cool with most ships (Portal and Infinity Train)

- i’m sixteen, so please don’t bring up anything sexual

- please don’t vent this is supposed to be fun

- you have to be 15+ and below 25

- Please tell me your triggers beforehand so we can rp safe!

- As well as your comforts!

- I’m iffy with OCs, so please don’t take it personally

- I play Tulip, she’s a BIG comfort character for me but because of that you can be literally anyone (Infinity Train and Portal characters). Chell, Wheatley, Glados, Jesse, Lake, Grace, Simon, Ryan, Min, etc, the whole buffet of characters is yours as long as I write for Tulip.

- I prefer discord! (MxMongoose#4163)

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Reference so you know my writing style (not indicative of rp)

The snowflakes fell on Tulip’s warm skin, bolting her awake from what felt like a deep sleep. The sort of sleep where you don’t feel well rested in any sort of way but as if you blacked out suddenly. All she remembered was a train screaming to a halt in the middle of the woods, a light from the entrance beckoning her over and then felt something grab her through the doorway. But that was it really. It felt distant, like a bad dream.

She sat herself up, swaying her head from left to right in a baffled state.

“Did I just hallucinate a train station?” Tulip blurted out, scratching the back of her neck.

“Well that’s… boring,” She said it as more of a confused conclusion rather then a statement. She can’t dwell on it for to long after all, she has to keep moving.

She got to her feet and brushed the lightly piled snow off her clothes, a scowl laced on her face.

“‘Oh Tulip we missed you at game design camp’. Oh i’m sorry, I decided to fall asleep in the middle of a field and dream of OUTDATED MODES OF TRANSPORTATION!” She threw her hands up in the air in exasperation, kicking up the snow like it was dirt and trudging along with a grunt.

She subconsciously ignored the distinct scent of wood and animals missing from her surroundings. As well as the abundance of trees being absent for that matter even though she was just in the woods a second ago.

On her path, there were four snowmen. Snowmen who Tulip suddenly deemed as her worst enemies apparently.

She flipped one’s cowboy hat off to the side, the other’s she slapped the round framed purple lensed glasses off completely, and the other had a full space helmet on in which Tulip had to take in for a minute. Who would put that much effort into a snowman? Considering the helmet didn’t look like a toy. A replica maybe?

“What the…” Tulip mumbled, proceeding to tap the helmet belonging to the dopily citrus eyed snowman.

“Hello there!” An english voice chirped.

Tulip nearly broke her neck when she swung it near where the noise was coming from, her soul made itself known through her throat by bellowing a scream.

"Don't be alarmed! Calm down, calm down!" The ball exclaimed anxiously. "I'm not going to hurt you, little child!"

What she saw was a robot... ball ...thing??? The ball was made out of a smooth metal with darker patches welded onto them from presumable damage; it had two symentric handles on its vetrical sides, and the most noticable aspect of it was its lens. Its lens was pillowed between layers of metal encasing, shining a bright aquamarine blue and staring at Tulip as if it were its eye. Wide and shaken.

"Wha- I'm not a little child?!" Tulip snapped, cringing.

"Oh yeah, I guess you are bigger then me! Kids are getting taller by the day I swear, granted I haven't seen one before but from what I know they are typically pretty small,"

Suddenly on impulse, she went to hold the ball but as soon as Tulip lifted it off the snowman perch the robot gave yet another yelp of a scream before quickly simmering down as it processed.

"AHHHHhhhhh..?... Huh... Oh god, whoever put me on this snow clump said if I ever disengaged from it I would die! I don't even know why they even said that to be honest with you,”

"Uh," was all Tulip could say from that response, staring at the ball as if it grew a second head.

"Oh right, the question! I am not a toy, a nasty generalization of small robots really, so do better on that one, mate,"

"Well, what are you then?" Tulip asked,

"Well uh... I know i'm some metal ball thing, but that's about it. Don't really have any recollation about anything from before this, so your guess is as good as mine! Just don't guess that i'm a toy, because-"

"Ugh, I don't have time for this," Tulip groaned before tossing the robot aside and moving along.

"Wait, where are you going?! Don't leave me here!" It called, panic apparent.

"Well if you wanna come so bad, why don't you follow me?" Tulip snapped, cocking her head back.

"I can't move, not really the rolling type of ball apparently. Hm... Hey, what about you hold me?" It offered.