#for reference: page 121

[missrosiewolf]

(Left to right: the gods Labelas Enoreth (top), Rillifane Rallathil, Corellon Larethian, Solonor Thelandira, and Malar (foe, foreground))

LOOKY WHAT I FOUND!!! :D

I’ve gone through Demihuman Deities a lot so I don’t know how I’ve missed / kept missing this! It’s a pretty cool piece of art honestly. I like it a lot, especially the fact that Rillifane looks like a TREE (plus this artisitc rendition is kind of giving me Tin Man vibes with how he looks) :D

Lolth’s ex kind of has style. Although I have no idea what’s going on with Corellon’s neck. Is it a brace? turtle neck? One of those medieval times styled neck ruffles? Who knows! Not me~

Corellon’s eyes are staring into my soul

[cowboyinternist]

was in a big art mood today!! yay!!!

i love spring i love when i start feeling more like drawing again :)

click them for better quality pleasepleaseplease

[gardenvarietygay]

Book Review* - On Guerilla Gardening by Richard Reynolds

I don’t read many books, I prefer audiobooks, and I don’t read many nonfiction books in any format. I’m a person who prefers to listen to a fictional story or at least something narrative. However, my husband very sweetly got me this book for Christmas since he knows I’ve been curious about the topic.

The subtitle to this book is “a handbook for gardening without boundaries” but I think that the title alone, which suggests an academic treatise on the broad strokes of a subject ie “On Medieval Chivalric Codes of Honor” or “On Governance” is more fitting. (I believe the actual title Reynolds is referencing is the manual On Guerilla Warfare by Mao Zedong, make of that what you will.) The first 117 pages of this book are pure tedium. If someone needed to be convinced that planting flowers by roadsides was worthwhile, I think the author might talk them into it and back out by the end. Reynolds spends his time detailing real guerilla movements, chastising people for making gorilla/guerrilla gardening jokes, and explaining that flowers are prettier than concrete. I found it muddled, condescending and boring but when I looked up reviews of this book people seemed to think it was refreshing or something.

From page 121 onward, we have the practical advice. Actually, we have some very impractical advice surrounded by way more introduction than necessary. Even though Reynolds has spent 117 pages bashing you over the head with war metaphors, he still feels the need to include yet more war imagery before every bit of advice. I wasn’t offended by the WMD jokes or the frequent references to guns, it was certainly and odd choice but whatever, I was just annoyed that he kept this stupid gimmick up for all 247 pages. Sometimes jokes aren’t bad because they’re offensive, they’re simply not funny.

Writing style aside, the advice is pretty middling. The plants recommended are just based on the author’s personal experience growing plants on medians in London. Gardening is like politics, extremely local. I’m not begrudging the man his foxgloves and daffodils but they’re just not a good choice for an internationally-distributed book. He actually recommends planting invasive plants (as in plants that he knows are invasive in most places including the UK) so that they take over. He includes the barest of caveats about making sure you keep them in check, however the gordian knot of finding that balance will not be untied for us. Since specific gardening advice becomes useless before it even crosses a time zone, it strikes me that rather than spending 12 pages on plant recommendations, they should’ve simply cut this section or suggested broad categories for the international release.

We are told that seed bombs are the preferred method to scatter seeds and that some people put them in eggshells, some people mould them into guns (just like in war!!), some people put industrial binding agents into them, and some people use a device that somehow uses laughing gas. There are no recipes or real instructions, just anecdotes. There is no explanation of how laughing gas aids in seed spreading, that one might be a joke. On subjects such as water, tools, choosing locations, etc. the advice is very basic but solid enough.

To be frank, once I got into the anecdotes without advice section I started skimming and never stopped. There’s every possibility that on page 240 of this book he really turns things around and makes this mess into a manifesto but I don’t think that would save it for me.

This book left me generally unimpressed. The concept was cute until it was aggravating, the writing was such a repetitive slog that I ended up skimming over paragraphs, and the advice seemed either so specific that it couldn’t be generalized or so basic that it needn’t be printed and sold. The cover is cute, that’s a good thing because it will be staying closed on my bookshelf for a long time. I believe the first edition of this book came out in the early 2000s and it shows. Maybe if I read this book in 2008 I’d have been charmed but in 2024 I’m just annoyed and confused.

*Inspired by @plantyhamchuk’s gardening book reviews.

[exhausted-archivist]

Art Used in the Dragon Age: Official Cookbook: Tastes of Thedas

While there was some new art, previously seen concept art, there was also the use of ending credit slides. Some possibly denoting certain world states that I briefly referred to in the master post here.

I've split it into sections of:

New Art

Previously Shown Art

Character Art and Slides

General World State Ending Slides

Everything is going below the cut because this will be long. I will also note which page and recipe each image accompanies in the book for easy reference. (Here's to hoping tumblr doesn't mess with the image layout.)

Edit 10/30/2023: Added the page numbers that were missed because it glitched out and deleted things when I tried to go over 30 images and didn't notice till now.

New Art

Page numbers from top left to right going down:

Orlesian Woman: Sour Cherries in Cream, p. 121, Tevinter Pumpkin Bread, p. 151

Building Etching: Crow Feed, p. 43, Antivan Sip-Sip, p. 161

Spider Design: Posion Stings, p. 115

Sea Creature: Lamprey Cake, p. 147

Smoking Meat Racks: Smoked Ham from the Anderfels, p. 95

Antaam Spearman: Unidentified Meat, p. 37

Admiral Isabela: The Hissing Drake, p. 157

Etching of Bowl: Rivaini Couscous Salad, p. 19

Etching of Platter: Nevarran Blood Orange Salad, p. 13

Table Setting: Goat Custard, p. 127

Red Bear: Conversion Charts, p. 172

Giant: Lamprey Cake, p. 149

Blue Building: About the Authors and Photoghraphers, p. 175

Mabari and Army: Roasted Turkey with Sides, p. 99

These are all new images with three of these looking to be concept art: the presumably Orlesian woman looking at Andrastian themed items, the antaam spearman preparing to throw a spear, and the table setting of what looks like it might be for Rivain or Tevinter based on the aesthetic. Though I lean more Tevinter due to the snake on the basket.

The bowl and platter look to maybe be prop designs, and they are distinctly bird themed with what looks like feathers around the base of the bowl and then mirrored crows on either side of the platter with a dagger etched in the center.

The red bear shown here is new, though it is similar to a mural in Dragon Age: Inquisition in the barn where there is a green-ish bear with stars on its muzzle breathing what might be fire, while holding the white silhouette of a figure with antlers. (Couldn't attach it due to there being a photo limit.)

Then to further note that the dark blue building image looks similar to some concept art/Development images from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf (DA4)

Previously Shown Art

The piece below have been shown elsewhere before, but there are some new additions so I am showing it here separately from the new art.

Ferelden Spread: Roasted Wyvern, p. 85

This is was first shown in The Art of Dragon Age: Inquisition and is labeled as "Fereldan Fineries". It was coloured and lacked the two figures in the back left of this image. (Below)

Character Art

Cole and Maryden: The Emerald Valley, p. 169

Sera: Sera's Yummy Corn, p. 103

The Iron Bull and Krem: Hot Chocolate, p. 159

Varric and Aveline: Varric's Favorite Pastries, p. 143

Josephine and Inquisitor: Fish Chowder, p. 59

Leliana: Grilled Poussin, p. 77

Cullen: Croissants, p. 137

Morrigan and Keiran: Nettle Soup, p. 65

King Alistair: King Alistair's Lamb and Pea Stew, p. 67

These were mostly character specific ending slides you could get in DAI, going from the top left to right they are slides for: Trespasser: Human Cole ending up with Maryden. Trespasser: Partial image of a slide for an Inquisitor who agrees to become a red jenny with Sera and the Inquisition is disbanded. Trespasser: Iron Bull and the Chargers are alive and taking jobs throughout Orlais and Ferelden. Trespasser: Varric is Viscount Trespasser: Josephine, her personal quest completed. This is the romanced Josephine version. Trespasser: Leliana, not Divine Trespasser: Cullen, having not taken lyrium during Inquisition Inquisition: Morrigan and Keiran leaving Skyhold World of Thedas vol 2: King Alistair

Ending Slides

Antaam Slide: Lentil Soup, p. 63

Halamshiral Slide: The Hanged Man's Mystery Meat Stew, p. 57

Grey Warden Slide: Sweet and Sour Cabbage, p. 61

Disbanded Inquisition Slide: Sugar Cake, p. 145

These were all ending slides you could get at some point in Inquisition, from the top left to right: Trespasser: The Qunari threat Inquisition: Kicked out of Halamshiral with low approval Inquisition: Grey Wardens were kept in southern Thedas to rebuild, they are estranged from the Wardens in Weishaupt Trespasser: The Inquisition was disbanded

Final Thoughts and Implied World State

Overall the world state makes a lot of sense I think, they went with the one that would be less quantum - so no one is dead or could be dead and is in an important role; hence Cassandra being Divine,

Summary

Inquisition is disbanded

Grey Wardens are divided; though as of the comics and Tevinter Nights we know regardless all Wardens have been called back to Weisshaupt. Unclear if the civil war mentioned in DAI is actually happening.

Morrigan has Kieran and he doesn't have the old god soul anymore

Cole is human

Josephine had her personal quest done.

Leliana wasn't killed in Origins, she is fully human and now retired.

Alistair is king

Cassandra is Divine, no clear answer on the state of the Seekers.

Cullen is retired and established the sanctuary for former templars.

[comikadraws]

Utakata and Fu were the ones that were captured and killed by Akatsuki before Gaara in the manga. Thanks to the anime, we know that one of the eyes of the Gedou Mazou that were filled before Shukaku was sealed represented Saiken.

(Chapter 256, Page 16 and Naruto: Shippūden #152)

And we also know that Fu was intercepted by Kakuzu and Hidan while she was coming back to her village after the Chunin Exams that happened one year before Naruto return from his training trip with Jiraiya.

(Naruto: Shippūden #413)

So, Han is the one who was captured by Akatsuki after they extracted Shukaku from Gaara, but before they captured Yugito and Isobu. Hope I helped! :D

Hello! Thank you for your addition.

Please don't take this in a negative way, but the exclusion of anime content was purposeful on my part. I am not the biggest fan of utilizing information from the anime in my analyses and I mostly don't for two reasons:

Sometimes, although not always, the anime filler content not only fills in the blanks of the manga but also directly contradicts the manga. And even when it doesn't, it is written with the intention of accommodating filler lore and does not necessarily reflect Kishimoto's own intention for the world (as we can see in the case of anime retcons).

There are manga purists on this platform who will come to gut me if I so much as insinuate that the manga is not our only source for canon information. Even then when the additional content (ie. databooks, novels, movies, and anime filler) does not conflict with the source material. Although, they seem rather tolerant of the databooks (as those, while being faulty as well, were written by Kishimoto and his assistants).

Gedo Mazo's Eyes and the Biju

Now, onto the actual ask because you did bring up something very interesting which is the connection between Gedo Mazo's eyes and the different biju. As we can see in both anime and manga, each time a biju is sealed, the Gedo Mazo opens a new eye. (also thank you to @zeto1304 for catching the chapter 331 panel in DMs)

In the screenshots below, we see the corresponding eyes for Ichibi, Sanbi, Nibi, and Yonbi.

But how are those eyes chosen? We have three hypotheses for this:

1. The corresponding eye is determined by the number of tails of the Biju. (ie. no matter when Ichibi is sealed, it will always take the 1st row, 2nd collum place)

2. The eyes correspond to the chronological sealing order of the Biju. (ie. no matter which biju is sealed, the 3rd biju will always take the 1st row, 2nd collum space)

3. The eyes are distributed at random and there is no inner logic to their Biju assignment.

The Sealing Order Retcons

In the manga (which I have further elaborated on in this post), the sealing order goes as follows:

[N/A] -> [N/A] -> Ichibi -> [N/A] -> Sanbi -> Nibi -> Yonbi -> Hachibi -> Kyubi

In the anime, the Biju sealing order is not just elaborated on but retconned. Aside from filling in the blanks (that I have referred to here as "[N/A]") Sanbi is no longer sealed before Nibi but before Yonbi instead (a swap between Nibi and Sanbi, basically), due to the introduction of the Three Tail's Appearance Arc. This is why Pain changes the amount of remaining Biju after Nibi from three to four before we see them starting to seal Sanbi in episode 121.

Then, after Nibi, Sanbi, and Yonbi have been sealed, the Akatsuki begin their hunt for Rokubi in the Six Tails Unleashed Arc.

The anime also retcons itself in that regard to accommodate the Six Tails Unleashed Arc.

First, Pain states in Shippuden episode 83 that there are four Biju left. The Akatsuki then seal two Biju (meaning there should also only be two left) before Kisame claims there are three left instead in Shippuden episode 142.

Second, "Saiken's eye" (2nd row, 2nd column) has been open since before Ichibi was sealed in Shippude episode 17 and then remains open until Shippuden episode 121 before suddenly having to re-open in episode 152 as shown in the screenshots above.

Here are the sealing orders in comparison:

Manga: [N/A] -> [N/A] -> Ichibi -> [N/A] -> Sanbi -> Nibi -> Yonbi -> Hachibi -> Kyubi

Anime (before Rokubi retcon): [N/A] -> [N/A] -> Ichibi -> [N/A] -> Nibi -> Sanbi -> Yonbi -> Hachibi -> Kyubi

Anime (after Rokubi retcon): [N/A] -> Ichibi -> [N/A] -> Nibi -> Sanbi -> Yonbi -> Rokubi -> Hachibi -> Kyubi

Anime (final): Nanabi -> Ichibi -> Gobi -> Nibi -> Sanbi -> Yonbi -> Rokubi -> Hachibi -> Kyubi

When the anime retconned the Biju sealing order, it chose these eyes to represent Rokubi, possibly implying that this eye would, regardless of sealing order, always belong to Rokubi.

What should be mentioned, however, is that the introduction of the Six Tails Unleashed Arc (Shippuden episodes 144-151) was introduced quite hastily. The retcon doesn't exist at least until Shippuden episode 121 (23 episodes before the arc). The viewers are only made aware of the change in Shippuden episode 142 (2 episodes before the arc).

The problem is that all of this does not exactly evoke a feeling of reliability. Aside from the hasty retcon, I could not find any evidence as to why this eye was selected specifically. Did they consult Kishimoto first? Did this pick have any deeper meaning? Or did they just select at random because they suddenly realized they had run out of eyes (and didn't feel like Kishimoto had any specific vision for this matter)?

Patterns

A personal nitpick of mine is that neither assigning eyes by tail number nor chronological sealing order will give us a particularly good pattern.

For the tail-number-pattern, you'd expect the eyes to get opened one column/row after the other to represent their numerical order. To make it feel like this is where each Biju would logically belong and was meant to belong.

For the chronological pattern, you'd expect the eyes to either get filled to represent a numerical order OR get opened somewhat symmetrically to represent the "balance" of the statue slowly getting filled up with Biju chakra.

Neither of which is the case. The closest we get is a nearly symmetrical 2-step distribution for the tail-number-order. Which, of course, doesn't make much sense because the Biju can be sealed in any order (as seen with the chronological pattern). So why would balance matter?

Tail-Number-Pattern: Each number reflects the number of tails as depicted in the anime.

Chronological Pattern: Each number reflects the chronological placement of the sealed Biju as depicted in the manga.

This means that the patterns are seemingly not following a reasonable logic, making them look rather randomized.

But now, let's go back a bit and look at the sealing order. As previously explained, we know that the number of tails is irrelevant to the order in which the Biju are sealed. The only exception is Kyubi.

It is entirely possible that, due to the irrelevance of the exact sealing order, the corresponding eye is just as irrelevant, making it randomized. The only exception is the Kyubi, which likely has to be sealed into the middle to maintain Gedo Mazo's "balance".

In the end, either theory could be true. I just think we don't have enough information either way to come to any definitive conclusions about what Kishimoto intended when he wrote the manga (if he intended anything at all). Hence I personally prefer to look at these as headcanons :)

Take care!

[todaysdocument]

Discharge Petition for H.R. 7152, the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Record Group 233: Records of the U.S. House of RepresentativesSeries: General Records

This item, H.R. 7152, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, faced strong opposition in the House Rules Committee. Howard Smith, Chairman of the committee, refused to schedule hearings for the bill. Emanuel Celler, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, attempted to use this discharge petition to move the bill out of committee without holding hearings. The petition failed to gain the required majority of Congress (218 signatures), but forced Chairman Smith to schedule hearings.

88th CONGRESS. House of Representatives No. 5 Motion to Discharge a Committee from the Consideration of a RESOLUTION (State whether bill, joint resolution, or resolution) December 9, 1963 To the Clerk of the House of Representatives: Pursuant to Clause 4 of Rule XXVII (see rule on page 7), I EMANUEL CELLER (Name of Member), move to discharge to the Commitee on RULES (Committee) from the consideration of the RESOLUTION; H. Res. 574 entitled, a RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF THE BILL (H. R. 7152) which was referred to said committee November 27, 1963 in support of which motion the undersigned Members of the House of Representatives affix their signatures, to wit: 1. Emanuel Celler 2. John J. Rooney 3. Seymour Halpern 4. James G Fulton 5. Thomas W Pelly 6. Robt N. C. Nix 7. Jeffery Cohelan 8. W A Barrett 9. William S. Mailiard 10. 11. Augustus F. Hawkins 12. Otis G. Pike 13. Benjamin S Rosenthal 14. Spark M Matsunaga 15. Frank M. Clark 16. William L Dawson 17. Melvin Price 18. John C. Kluczynski 19. Barratt O'Hara 20. George E. Shipley 21. Dan Rostenkowski 22. Ralph J. Rivers[page] 2 23. Everett G. Burkhalter 24. Robert L. Leggett 25. William L St Onge 26. Edward P. Boland 27. Winfield K. Denton 28. David J. Flood 29. 30. Lucian N. Nedzi 31. James Roosevelt 32. Henry C Reuss 33. Charles S. Joelson 34. Samuel N. Friedel 35. George M. Rhodes 36. William F. Ryan 37. Clarence D. Long 38. Charles C. Diggs Jr 39. Morris K. Udall 40. Wm J. Randall 41. 42. Donald M. Fraser 43. Joseph G. Minish 44. Edith Green 45. Neil Staebler 46. 47. Ralph R. Harding 48. Frank M. Karsten 49. 50. John H. Dent 51. John Brademas 52. John E. Moss 53. Jacob H. Gilbert 54. Leonor K. Sullivan 55. John F. Shelley 56. 57. Lionel Van Deerlin 58. Carlton R. Sickles 59. 60. Edward R. Finnegan 61. Julia Butler Hansen 62. Richard Bolling 63. Ken Heckler 64. Herman Toll 65. Ray J Madden 66. J Edward Roush 67. James A. Burke 68. Frank C. Osmers Jr 69. Adam Powell 70. 71. Fred Schwengel 72. Philip J. Philiben 73. Byron G. Rogers 74. John F. Baldwin 75. Joseph Karth 76. 77. Roland V. Libonati 78. John V. Lindsay 79. Stanley R. Tupper 80. Joseph M. McDade 81. Wm Broomfield 82. 83. 84. Robert J Corbett 85. 86. Craig Hosmer87. Robert N. Giaimo 88. Claude Pepper 89. William T Murphy 90. George H. Fallon 91. Hugh L. Carey 92. Robert T. Secrest 93. Harley O. Staggers 94. Thor C. Tollefson 95. Edward J. Patten 96. 97. Al Ullman 98. Bernard F. Grabowski 99. John A. Blatnik 100. 101. Florence P. Dwyer 102. Thomas L. ? 103. 104. Peter W. Rodino 105. Milton W. Glenn 106. Harlan Hagen 107. James A. Byrne 108. John M. Murphy 109. Henry B. Gonzalez 110. Arnold Olson 111. Harold D Donahue 112. Kenneth J. Gray 113. James C. Healey 114. Michael A Feighan 115. Thomas R. O'Neill 116. Alphonzo Bell 117. George M. Wallhauser 118. Richard S. Schweiker 119. 120. Albert Thomas 121. 122. Graham Purcell 123. Homer Thornberry 124. 125. Leo W. O'Brien 126. Thomas E. Morgan 127. Joseph M. Montoya 128. Leonard Farbstein 129. John S. Monagan 130. Brad Morse 131. Neil Smith 132. Harry R. Sheppard 133. Don Edwards 134. James G. O'Hara 135. 136. Fred B. Rooney 137. George E. Brown Jr. 138. 139. Edward R. Roybal 140. Harris. B McDowell jr. 141. Torbert H. McDonall 142. Edward A. Garmatz 143. Richard E. Lankford 144. Richard Fulton 145. Elizabeth Kee 146. James J. Delaney 147. Frank Thompson Jr 148. 149. Lester R. Johnson 150. Charles A. Buckley4 151. Richard T. Hanna 152. James Corman 153. Paul A Fino 154. Harold M. Ryan 155. Martha W. Griffiths 156. Adam E. Konski 157. Chas W. Wilson 158. Michael J. Kewan 160. Alex Brooks 161. Clark W. Thompson 162. John D. Gringell [?] 163. Thomas P. Gill 164. Edna F. Kelly 165. Eugene J. Keogh 166 John. B. Duncan 167. Elmer J. Dolland 168. Joe Caul 169. Arnold Olsen 170. Monte B. Fascell [?] 171. [not deciphered] 172. J. Dulek 173. Joe W. [undeciphered] 174. J. J. Pickle [Numbers 175 through 214 are blank]

[hezekiahwakely]

As anticipated, here are my extensive red string notes from the pilot:

God knows how relevant any of this will turn out to be, but I'm nothing if not a collector of trivial information

Very long text beneath the cut:

Page 1

The Magnus Protocol Pilot 10/25/23

Characters (in order of appearance)

Alice Dyer -O.I.A.R. employee -Dated Sam in uni -Jokester -Training Sam -Gets along with Colin

Teddy Vaughn -Retiring from the O.I.A.R. after 4 (?) years -Going into insurance field

Colin Becher -O.I.A.R. IT Manager -Vegetarian 🥬 -On the hook of "his nibs" (boss, male) -Sensitive about FR3-d1 app development, communicates w/politicians, trying for 2 years -Only gets along w/Alice -Knows computers are listening -Jokes about being killed

Lena Kelley -O.I.A.R. Team/Department Manager -Authoritative, follows protocol -Doesn't think Gwen is qualified for management

Gwendolyn Bouchard -O.I.A.R. employee -Backlog of casework -Dislikes Lena, wants her job -Dedicated to detail -Accused of nepotism by Alice -Thinks current job is beneath her -"Not like most people." *static*

Samama Khalid (Sam) -New O.I.A.R. employee -Dated Alice in uni -Wanting to 'get back on his feet' -Familiar with TMI -Didn't know what the Incidents were before hire!!

Page 2

Pilot notes con. 10/25/23

Listening Tech - Turns on by itself 💡

Dated computers (O.I.A.R.)

"Manager's speakerphone" (Lena's)

CCTV (O.I.A.R. breakroom?)

Cell phone (Alice's)

*O.I.A.R. formed in 70s? Accor. to Alice*

*Response Department no longer exists*

Still in onboarding paperwork, "Response 121"

Sam ticked this box

Tech Specs

O.S. = Windows NT 4.0 (modified) -Extended support for this O.S. was ended Dec. 31, 2004 IRL -Runs on workstations connected by LAN -Similar GUI to 95; comes w/Internet Explorer

FR3-d1 -Custom research software circa mid-90s -Flags Incidents and creates a database -Can search private/protected sources (email) -Alice claims no one has understood its workings for 15 years -Written in German source code

*1 Year = Average Employee Stay*

Page 3

Pilot notes con. 10/25/23

Classification System

Used in FR3-d1's database

Structure: CATXRXXXXX-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX

CATXRX -> From reference table (CAT = Category?) First four digits -> Main subject of Incident DPHW (?) Next eight digits -> Date of Incident Last eight digits -> Current date

Example: CAT2RC1157-12052022-13012024* -First one we hear they file. "1157" is the "DPHW" for "dolls, watching."

*Jan. 13, 2024 is the date of Sam's onboarding/training (after Teddy's going-away party)

*as listed in transcript; in-show, it's quoted as 22102023, or Oct. 22, 2023

Page 4

Pilot notes (con.) 10/25/23

FR3-d1's Voice to Text/Text to Speech

Voices (named by Alice, which Gwen dislikes):

Neil = Alex

Chester = Jonny

(those two most common)

Augustus = ?

Neil's Incident

Occurs in "Cyberspace" via the transcript

"I'm so sorry. I should have listened. I just couldn't face the thought of the rest of my life never hearing him again, I had to try." First lines 😢

Email from Harriet Winstead to Darla Winstead, May 12, 2022

Recitations *can* be paused by pressing "space"!

Chester's Incident

Also occurs in "Cyberspace"

Topic: Magnus Institute Ruins.

On forum, user RedCanary, begins April 10, 2022. Explored 4/19-20/22.

Third floor gone. No old papers.

Suspicious, occult (?) graffiti, stains (!)

Took box with strange symbols (same as ones on walls/floors)

4/30/22 Posted image of gore/eyes, possibly of themself. Banned + did not return.

Page 5

Pilot notes con. 10/25/23

Early release video Case #: CAT1RA1353-03102023-22102024(listed as 202"3" on Patreon)

Video was posted 10/22/23.

Listed as "Incident" on Patreon.

According to transcript, the O.I.A.R. offices are located in Royal Mint Court.

Johson (sic) Smirke Building

Main building.

5 storeys, Grade 2 listed.

Designed by James Johnson, but constructed between 1807-1812 by Robert Smirke after Johnson died. To be used for mint.

Entrance lodge also built by Smirke, in front of building.

Page 6

Pilot - Public Release -TMAGP#001

Changes:

Sam's first incident number - today's date

CAT2RC1157-12052022-13012024 -> CAT2RC1157-12052022-09012024

Voice (first incident)

Neil -> *Norris*

Minor word/date changes in incidents.

Minor line read differences.

Descriptions of Incidents in new transcript:

Norris': CAT1RBC5257-12052022-09012024 Reanimation (Partial) -/- Regret [Email]

Chester's: CAT23RAB2155-10042022-09012024 Transformation (Eyes) -/- Trespass [chat log]

[xxxkokin]

lolita is not a love story.

part I

the first thing i have to confess is that i started reading lolita because of lana del rey.

she wrote a song by the same name (utilizing the lines, “light of my life, fire of my loins” in the chorus) as well as including a more subtle version titled carmen in the same album. both of these songs were based on the events and imagery shown in the book.

the entire novel is narrated from the POV of humbert humbert, from prison, after he is caught having an illicit sexual affair with a child who he took in a cross-country trip. several times he makes commentary to his lawyer or quips about his own morality.

humbert humbert is terrifyingly charming in the first half of the book, with the gait of an abandoned man and the pale expression of a ghost. he’s educated, distinguished, even silly at times (referring to himself by several names, Humbert the Humble, Humbert the Brute) though this perception of an otherwise striking and eloquent European man falls apart at the seams as the book trails onward. he does not lie about being a pedophile, and being almost 3 times older than the objects of his affections. he is simply in a state of delusion—he sees certain children as “nymphets”, girls who are borderline demonic, seductresses who call to his heartstrings and attention (even unbeknownst to themselves, according to him). specifies ages 9-14. and though the reader knows what kind of advantage he holds over them, what kind of moral code he falls under, we want so badly to believe him. to think that some moments of his character are sweet or even likeably pathetic, that his love for dolores may even be somewhat genuine—alas, he is in love with her innocence. the idea of her. not for who she is. what claws at me the most is that i was unable to tell during some moments, whether he had professed true love or a dreadful perversion.

i experienced a betrayal in this book, almost as if i were in the shoes of dolores haze herself. so many of her traits feel kindred to how i was when i was younger: the brash stubbornness, the portrayal of flirtation based on her playful quips, tanned skin and freckles, her sharp humor, an even sharper mouth, and eventually, her sense of lost innocence. dolores (nicknamed “lo” by her mother, “lolita” by humbert) is initially affectionate with the protagonist, as the reader could be—teasing him, occasionally brushing up on him and comparing him to her british idol in the newspapers. however, as she realizes the deep and immense horror of her situation—the isolation, humbert’s calculated manipulation, the moral imperative of their age gap relationship—dolores haze finds her careless toying with a man becoming recklessly dangerous.

“Don’t do that. Don’t drool on me. You dirty man.”

she says this after a moment in the car where Humbert kisses her neck. page after page, the reader realizes that the very character of Lolita is told from the perspective of someone who wants to believe she was in control. Dolores Haze was a child. Dolores Haze has few lines and even fewer friends. She does not have a voice in the story, at least, not unless it is a “childish whine” to the protagonist. she is 12, later 13, later 14, capable of forming independent thought, and yet humbert treats her as an object of complete and untouched adorability. he throws out the fact that she has an IQ of 121 almost carelessly (again, she was in seventh grade?) and decides that she was ‘dumber than her quotient suggested’. humbert could not possibly interpret, or possibly, disclose, that dolores haze was terrified of being left alone after the death of her mother, financially and emotionally unable to sustain herself, and had forgone her logical thought for her safety.

[kaiowut99]

GX Finalized-Subs!111 and 121 (WIP): Drizzling Details - For Clicks

Reprising the edit I worked on here while finalizing my 106 subs, I wanted to go ahead and knock out adding this updated translation edit into 111 and 121 as I get ready to work on 110. This gets used in 111 as Manjoume tries to look Amon up, and in 121 as Amon looks to delete it while on that submarine, and while I did previously translate these in my last run through Season 3, as I'm going with "Garam Conglomerate" and not "Garam Finance," along with the other updates I made in the 106 version, I wanted to update this accordingly for consistency. And still having the Photoshop files handy from my 106 edit, this was a relatively smooth process all told. I also went ahead and made dub versions of these, since of course 4Kids not only removed the text (they amusingly just slapped a card back where his info is lol), but they also cut the one shot of the Garam Conglomerate article Manjoume clicks onto. (I may use it for reasons at some point hehe)

All in all, I think it just took me a day or two to do since I had a relatively calm weekend; final products in gif form below (to keep each gif at 35 frames, I split the second 111 clip into two gifs; sub-intended edit on the left, dub-intended on the right)--and a breakdown under the cut for the interested 🙂 I did choose to leave the HTTP 405 error screens Manjoume gets as-is like I did before, partly the English text already there works well enough (the Japanese message is more "This page cannot be loaded"), partly Manjoume's raging thunder later would make it a bit annoying, lol.

Effectively, for the 111 version, working off the full version of the bio I mocked up before, I first tweaked the bio text up top to color the originally-link-colored text accordingly, then saved that, cropped to what's shown in Manjoume's screen. Then, from there, I worked on the first clip it's used in, first cropping out the top portion of the text (from Amon's name to the "Goa Garam" line) and using the CC Power Pin effect in AfterEffects (also how I apply my card fixes) to pin that cropped image into place as the text expands outward for the first few frames; after that, I used Sony Vegas to keyframe the screen's scrolling for the rest of the shot, masking in the monitor's borders on top for blending.

For the second shot in 111, where we see a close-up of the text as Manjoume clicks into the Garam Conglomerate article, I first wiped the text in Photoshop, then copied over the needed text layers from the full bio, making sure to space the lines at roughly how they were spaced in the full bio. I then copied out the "C" in "CEO" on the second-to-last line to hold it in place, then duplicated the "Garam Conglomerate" line and recolored the copy to a clicked-link purple, recreating a purple outline around it--both the unclicked and clicked versions come into play once I throw them into Vegas, where I then masked in the cursor arrow and hand as Manjoume moves his mouse. For the Garam Conglomerate article, a simple text wipe and translation placement happened in Photoshop, then I took that and threw it into the footage in Vegas.

Finally, for the 121 version, since it uses the full no-link bio, I first recolored the blanking I did to the bio in Photoshop to match its color here, then used the CC Power Pin in AfterEffects to pin it as it expands for a few frames, masking in the edges of the bio box and the new Amon photo this screen uses. After I did that, I just did some positioning checks against the original, and then it was good to go without popping into Vegas.

For applying the dub edit to each instance, since I'd already done the video keyframing work for the sub-intended full bio image, once I adjusted the text layers with the dub references and saved that new dub-intended image, I just needed to copy/paste the keyframes and effects I applied to the sub-intended image in both AE and Vegas, so it was a pretty easy swap, lol.

[succubunsvent]

740972072741879808 is absolutely Yves or Luca (or someone close to them they've told about this) lashing out because they're the only ones beside myself who would know that the issue brought up to their server providers was the following thing which they reference in their rant: The idea that their business was not legally registered correctly- including the specific term "LLC" which has not previously been used on this blog at all. I hoped to keep this to myself until a complete resolution had been reached, but I see that they cannot refrain from outright lies, so I am here to set the record straight. The so called "griefing" was a single complaint as shown above by myself to their server host, DigitalStorm, and their web host, GoDaddy (a historically misogynistic company). This is publicly available and legal information to find: 

IP and Hosting source checker: https://hostingchecker.com/ WHOIS checker (domain info): https://lookup.icann.org/en/lookup This ONE complaint was valid enough that DigitalStorm took a look at their site and had them add an email that was not present before to the contact button (Succubuns@succubuns.com), and they noticeably changed the job descriptions to "freelance"- which means that they were not able to meet the standards to offer true employment, and were not complying with the laws regarding employment. DigitalStorm is a strong and reliable source of legal knowledge, and also frequently removes hate speech from the web/deals with false complaints, so they would not baselessly make Yves and Luca make these changes unless there was actually a real issue present.  Yves and Luca are lying by presenting this as a " an attempt to get the website taken down". That is straight up an entire lie- they did not take anything down for safety, they took it down because they were caught not complying with the law/standards.

Original Job Posting Page Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20240104030639/https://succubuns.com/news/120.guest-artist-announcement-and-moderator-applications

Discord Mod Application Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240104025941/https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdNAvenntM4NT3nIpwfZhg29lgqZGQnxoCHl946cYOsUH-KMA/viewform

Written Mod App Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20240104025957/https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdyOOqIhbxONZuqTOYxYhNy9iUhnlTh0TU6M-zlhZZJEqRgNA/viewform

Art Mod App Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20240104030436/https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFWlu9Q6UTNchU06F_hB8ZjvDW4x1iIXvBvshCA72l7rq2TQ/viewform

As an example of one of the many issues: the page for applications says 75+, actual form says 50+. This lie/inconsistency is illegal in disclosure required states. New Job Posting: was not able to grab archives of new forms, if anyone has screenshots that would be great, but they labelled it as a "freelance" job instead, which puts it in the category of contract work/"Content Moderation"- https://web.archive.org/web/20240130204654/https://succubuns.com/news/121.moderator-applications-re-open It is not harassment to keep track of what people have said when they put out outright lies like this. It is not harassment to expect business owners to comply with the law when offering jobs. It is not harassment to show that they are LYING about things that happen, and to show that they are purposefully twisting events. If you DO work for Yves and Luca, you should make yourself aware of the labor laws in your state, as those are what will protect you, regarding contract "freelance" work as well as "content moderation". You should expect to receive a form/information from them to report your income earned from them as taxable- in case of "freelance" it would be a 1099 form. Here's a great article on what kind of form you might get:  get- https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/a-freelancers-guide-to-taxes/L6ACNfKVW and here is the IRS page on requirements for the employer as well links to the forms:  https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/reporting-payments-to-independent-contractors

[journeytothewestresearch]

heya! i'm @digitalagepulao and i saw your post from a few days ago about Sun Wukong harnessing a spiritual baby during his cultivation years and, i gotta say i'm intrigued! (also i'm slowly going through your other posts which are, chef's kiss, your work is amazing!! :D)

i do have a few questions about the whole process, though. it's stated that the embryo is harnesses into an "immortal spirit body", yes? i know this is all in the realm of allegory and metaphor, but to put it narrative terms, is this body it's own individual or an extension of the "father"? i assume it only exists on a spirit realm or dimension, or could it be made manifest in some other way? could it possibly have a will of its own a la having an inner conversation with one self, or is that too much of an western view on this?

also i'd love to know if you have any good references and resources i can dig more into this topic, it's fascinating! :D

Thank you for the kind words.

Yes, the spirit embryo grows into the immortal spirit body.

Daoists believed that the immortal spirit body was the cultivator him or herself. It was trained over a three year period to exit through the top of the head and travel further and further afield. Finally, after the human body died, the immortal spirit body was free to enjoy eternity.

(I'm sure you could write an internal dialogue between the cultivator and the embryo/spirit body if you wanted to. It would be like introspection during the cultivation process.)

As I stated in my original post, all of this happens "off screen" in JTTW, [1] for the novel isn't really interested in the process, just the result. The strange thing is that Monkey's practice doesn't result in a spirit body but an adamantine physical one. So, the novel's version of the intended result doesn't exactly match the original Daoist belief.

As for sources on the subject, I only know what I've read in regards to my study of JTTW. I learned about the process from the book Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin (2008) by Dr. Livia Kohn. It gives a brief overview of the process on pages 178-180.

I've hosted a PDF of the book for you on my blog.

I highly recommend contacting Dr. Kohn, as well as Dr. Fabrizio Pregadio, in order to learn more about the process.

Note:

1) In fact, the moment that Monkey achieves immortality is completely skipped over. Instead, it's only alluded to in a paragraph shortly after Subodhi reveals the secret of eternal life in chapter two:

Three years went by swiftly, and the Patriarch again mounted his throne to lecture to the multitude. He discussed the scholastic deliberations and parables, and he discoursed on the integument of external conduct. Suddenly he asked, "Where's Wukong?" Wukong drew near and knelt down. "Your pupil's here," he said. "What sort of art have you been practicing lately?" the Patriarch asked. "Recently," Wukong said, "your pupil has begun to apprehend the nature of all things and my foundational knowledge has become firmly established." "If you have penetrated to the dharma nature to apprehend the origin," said the Patriarch, "you have, in fact, entered into the divine substance" (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 121).

Source:

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

[glngrbred]

Be me, just watched longlegs. It was mid. (srsly, religeouse guilt as the mechanism of horror? BEEN THERE) happy haloooowen

Going to bed, little brother is cleaning up from trick or treating.

Somehow we end up talking about rock music.

Little brother says that "I don't like rock"

Wtf? literally my most listened artist is beabadoobee, and objectively beabadoobee is rock n' roll (from the great Brittish rock tradition)

Little brother says "but You don't like 'rare americans.'" oh, yeah I don't...

Wait, Little brother's reference for what rock's like is fucking "RARE AMERICANS????"

NO? they like, break every convention of rock, besides maybe their instrumentations and even then they use fucking HORNS all the time. like, Ever single Rare americans song is a MEDIOCRE narrative song. and NOTHING else. like, normally rock songs are not 6 pages of MLA formatted mullings of "Brittle bones nicky" lore. like yeah technically you could argue that they write rock operas, but normally that would mean writing an album of ok songs that all combine to create one mega song that kinda tells a complete story. Not 1 single song trying to be a novel. (and no way is any song gonna be a successful narrative if you're trying to write like you're in english 121).

anyways, so rare americans, music genra wise is in the same category as those people who pretend that they can write a musical. You know, my least favorite genra, "Bad" .

[cisthoughtcrime]

Girl, so, I am also a lover of all things gay history and I saw your post talking about how Sappho was a lesbian. And while I totally agree, there is another poem of hers that people use to claim she is bisexual entitled "Of course I love you", what are your thoughts about it?

Ah, thank you for bringing this up! This requires a bit of a lengthy grammar dive, so I’m adding a cut:

It took me a while to find which poem you meant; I'm used to refering to them by number (the 'titles' in English are just the first line of the poem), and at first I could only find this one in English with no number. It turns out that the 'title' of this one is hard to connect to a numbered poem because it's actually two poems mushed together by a translator who thought they might be related (so the starting line/title 'Of course I love you' is a theory that many people reject):

^ This review provides the Edmonds translation as a contrast to Barnard's, and you can see one translates it as "I cannot submit to live with one that is younger than I" and the other translates it as "I couldn't stand it to live with a young man, I being older". For another conrasting example, Russell translates this part as “I will not suffer to live with you, as an old woman with a young man.” If you're trying to use this poem to talk about ancient Greek attitudes towards marriage, for example, it makes a big difference whether Sappho is saying "stand it" or "submit to it" or “suffer it” or something else, so it's necessary to go directly to the Greek text and understand Sappho's own word choice rather than interpreting the word choices of the modern translators. 

Part of the difficulty with ‘going directly to the Greek text’ for Sappho is that the text only survives in fragments, multiple versions of some of the poems survive, and she wrote in a very specific dialect of ancient Greek with lots of grammatical irregularities. 

This particular fragment of Sappho (numbered: Lobel-Page fr. 121; Cox 72) has all of these difficulties:

I know this is an eyeful, but bear with me. At the top in the two black boxes, there are two different versions of the Greek text (Cox 1924 on the left, Campbell 1982 on the right; the differences are underlined in red). Underneath each box, I’ve made the different Greek texts bigger and put the English meaning in red underneath each Greek word. Some words have multiple meanings; as an example, I underlined one in green and put its many meanings in the green box at the bottom left. On the bottom right, I’ve done four different English translations of the poem; when you compare them to the red word-by-word English vocab, you can see that all of these translations had to massage the Greek meaning to make it make sense in English, but fundamentally they’re all conveying the same thing. 

In both versions of the Greek, Sappho is talking to a male addressee (we can tell because the word φίλος, ‘friend’, is masculine). Typically, this poem is interpreted as Sappho rejecting this guy's marriage proposal and telling him it’s because he’s younger than her. Even just from that, it doesn’t make sense to use this as proof of Sappho’s bisexuality -- all she really says here is that she doesn’t want to marry this guy and she doesn’t want to marry anyone younger than her. She says nothing about who she would want to marry. Even if the Greek very clearly said 'young man' in the last line, it would still be describing someone she wouldn't marry. Some people infer Sappho's bisexuality from this because she says that his age is the reason for her rejection, not his sex. However, that's not the same as saying age was the only reason; age was just the justification she gave here in a short fragmentary poem. It looks like she's letting him down gently, calling him a friend, appealing to his fondness for her in order to convince him to pursue someone else, citing his youth (a positive trait that won't insult him and isn't criticism) as why she wouldn't marry anyone his age (so it's not personal). The core gist of the poem is Sappho saying politely that she's too old to be interested in a young man like him, or any young man for that matter, so he should go off and find some nice young woman to consummate his marriage with, because she herself could never suffer doing that with a man... because she's older, of course 👀.

The hypothetical 'young man' (again, whom she says she wouldn't marry) only appears in the version of the Greek I've taken from Cox 1924. The important word here is νεῳ (literally '[with a] young [one]’). νέος/νέα/νέον (masculine/feminine/neuter) is an adjective meaning 'young' or 'new'. Adjectives can usually stand alone in Greek because their number and gender can imply a noun without having to say it; as an example in English, think about The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (you don't need to say 'the good [men, people, guys, characters, cowboys]' or whatever to know that they are using these adjectives to mean nouns). Greek adjectives and nouns change the way they look depending on their gender, number, and 'case' (what their role in the sentence is), so using adjectives to act as nouns is a bit clearer: for example, ἀνήρ καλός can mean 'handsome man' but just saying the masculine adjective καλός means 'handsome [male thing]', thus implying 'handsome [man]' on its own without needing ἀνήρ.

Here are all the singular forms for νέος:

As you can see, νεῳ could be either singular masculine dative or singular neuter dative; the forms of the word look the same in this case. In the previous image, I offered four translations of the poem; translations 2 and 3 of those four include the word νεῳ and show how it could be translated as 'young partner', 'young man (masculine)', 'young marriage-bed (neuter)', 'young one', or just generally vaguely 'young [thing]'. If Sappho had instead used νέᾳ here to specify that she didn't want to marry a young woman, it would screw up the connection between this clause and the first clause; it'd be like saying "I won't marry you (male) because I don't want to marry a younger woman".

Instead, she either says "I will not subject myself (οὐ τλάσομ) to joining housholds (ξυνοίκην) with a young [man] (νεῳ, masculine)" (the more likely version) or "I will not subject myself (οὐ τλάσομ) to joining households (ξυνοίκην) with a young/new [marriage-bed] (νεῳ, neuter)" (the less likely version). In the less likely version, the neuter νεῳ invokes the most recent neuter noun, which here is λέχος (marriage-bed); this would mean that she tells him to find a newer marriage bed (λέχος νεώτερον), then tells him she doesn't want a new one [marriage bed] (νεῳ [λέχει]). Either way, there's nothing here that indicates Sappho's romantic interest in men other than that she might have only said she would hate to marry a young man.

In the other version of the Greek, the Campbell 1982 one on the right side of the earlier image, you can see that the final line does not even have the word νεῳ; without that word, Sappho just says that she doesn't want to get married while being the older partner. I'm also more inclined to trust this version of the Greek text because it's the one the Loeb Library chose for its edition, but since the other version has νεῳ and that's relevant to your ask, I figured I'd just go through both like this. I'm sure there are also other versions of the Greek text with slight tweaks and variations, but νεῳ is the only variation I know about that could conceivably be used for a bisexuality argument.

Anyway, hope that answers your question enough. Happy to field follow-ups if you have 'em :)

[tessenpai]

Kono Oto Tomare! Chapter 121 Scans and Rough TL

Disclaimer: Please DO NOT use this translation to make your own TL of the chapter!! The KOT TL group works very hard to give you the most accurate translation, that does as much justice to the original script as possible. This is a ROUGH translation. That means is faulty and there must be mistakes in certain places. This is just for impatient people like myself to get a grasp on what is going on in the chapter! You can REFERENCE my TL if you want to discuss the chapter but never USE it as it was your own.

Scans:https://klmanga.com/jxsh-kono-oto-tomare-raw-chapter-121.html

Page 1

Central text: Summer in Japan, Summer at Eidai.

Chapter Title: Kobayakawa Akari

Page 2

Akari & Co.: Rock, Paper, Scissors, go!!!

Akari's friend 1: Gyahahaha this is just too funny, Akari. You are the only one who lost!!

Akari: Woaah, seriously---...

Akari's friend: The memorable Last Penalty Game of April goes to Akari--!!

Akari [thoughts]: Punishment Rock-Paper-Scissors became a popular game among my friends soon after I entered high school.

Side text: What is the secret behind the birth of the tall-small-tall Eidai Trio---!

Page 3

Akari[thoughts]: Most of the punishment games were impersonations and gags.

Akari[thoughts]: I had nothing in particular to do on a daily basis, so it was a good way for me to pass the time.

Akari: What do you wish for me to do?

Akari's friend 2: Hmmmm we are in a bit of a rut with the punishment games

Akari's friend 2: Let's do something different from usual!

Akari's friend 3: It's the last one of April, after all

Akari's friend 1: Ah, then lets--

Sign: Koto Club

Akari: ...

Friend [Memory]: How about submitting an application to the club with the least members!?

Akari: What is... this club...?

Akari's friend 1: Who knows? No clue!

Akari: I don't think... getting other people involved is a good...

Akari's friend 3: What are you saying!

Page 4

Akari's friend 3: They don't have any new club members, and if things continue as they are, the club is on the verge of being closed! Here, your application, we wrote it for you.

Akari's friend: You are pretty much helping people. Helping them!

Akari: You are gonna make me join a club just like that

Akari's friend 2: You are just in the going home club so it's fine!

Akari: No, but...

Akari's friend 2: Just lend them your name

Akari: This is not a funny joke!!

Akari: I don't want to play with other people's hearts!!!

Akari's friends: Crying...

Akari's friends: pffff

Akari's friend 4: Ahhahahahahaha don't cry, it was a joke!!

Akari's friend 1: Sorry sorry. Your reaction was so funny

Akari: Ueee...?

Akari's friend 2: We also think that making you join a clu--

Sentarou: Hey!!

Page 5

Sentarou: You are in the way

Akari: Ah So- Sorry

Akari[thoughts]: Is he a member of this club...?

Akari[thoughts]: Ah but

Akari[thoughts]: This guy, if I remember right---...

Sentarou: Hm?

Page 6

Sentarou: What's this?

Paper: Club application

Akari [thoughts]: !!!!

Akari's friend 3: Oh...

Akari: Ah- Weeell thattt

Akari[thoughts]: Hiiiiii

Sentarou: ...This. Is this yours...?

Akari[thoughts]: This is not good. I should just sincerely apologize

Akari: Ye- Yes. I'm sorry, that---...

Page 7

Sentarou: You wanna join!!??

Sentarou: Fo- For real!?

Akari: Ah, no

Sentarou: Who of you is Kobayakawa Akari!?

Akari's friends: He...

Akari's friend 1: He is Kobayakawa Akari. He is a good guy

Akari[thoughts] You traitorrrrsss

Sentarou: Nice to meet you, Kobayakawa. I'm Miya, the club president!!

Haru: Se- Sen-chan! What are you doing grabbing a kohai!?

Akari[thoughts]: Woah he is huge. Even for me and I'm 182cm tall

Sentarou: Idiot, is not that. Look at this

Haru: A new member!?

Sentarou: That's Kobayakawa! That's so long, can we call you Akari?

Akari:Ack-

Page 8

Haru: I- i- i- is that true!!? You really want to join the Koto club!?

Haru: For real!!?

Akari: YeAh

Akari[thoughts]: My high school life is over

Sentarou: This is our club room

Page 9

Sentarou: And this is the koto!

Akari[thoughts]: Koto...

Sentarou: The one beside it is the 17-stringed koto

Akari[thoughts]: Just as I thought, I have seen them before

Akari[thoughts]: If I remember correctly, in the club presentations---...

Haru: This year, we, the Koto Club will participate in the National competition

Haru: We believe even first-years can get to participate in Nationals

Akari[thoughts]: What an amazing height difference distracted---...

Haru: We realize this is a sudden chance to appear in a very big competition---

Sfx: Grabs

Sentarou: You will practice like crazy

Page 10

Sentarou: We are aiming for first place at Nationals. We don't need people who come just to play around!!

Sentarou: We are looking for freshmen who are motivated and determined!!!

Akari[thoughts]: Uwaaah no way...

Akari[thoughts]: Is what I thought of this club---...

Haru: Sen-chan was so full of himself in the club presentation, I thought no one would come and join us

Sentarou: Shut up!

Sentarou: Ah, but it took you some time to join the club, didn't it?

Akari: Eh!?

Page 11

Akari: Ahh, that's uh- because um- I was just making sure I met the requirements you Senpais mentioned in the presentation and...

Sentarou: Oohh...

Haru: Akari-kun you are so reliable!

Sentarou: ...Just out of curiosity, what did you think of the performance?

Akari: Eh?

Sentarou: Our performance

Akari: Aaaah---... distant memory

Akari[thoughts]: Oh that's right

Akari: It- it was really cool...

Akari[thoughts]: I think

Page 12

Sentarou: That's riight!! Of couurse!! You have a good eye!!!

Haru: Thank you, thank yooou

Akari: ...

Haru: Once more, we are in your care, Akari-kun

Page 13

Akari: This is the worst. I wanna die........

Akari's friend 1: Eh- You still haven't told them the truth, Akari?

Akari: How could I tell them, with those sparkly eyes!!! You traitors

Akari: I give up. I will just give my best in the club...

Akari's friend: Don't cry

Akari: There's nothing else I wanna do anyways...

Sentarou: Akari!!!

Haru: Akari-kun

Sentarou: Let's go to the club!!!

Page 14

Akari's friend: They came to pick you up

Haru: Today you will finally try to play the koto

Sentarou: Haru will lend you his nails for now

Akari: Ye- yeah

Sentarou: Right. You sit like that and try and pluck with your finger

Sentarou: What's with that meek sound?

Haru: Is ok if you put more strength into it

Akari: The string won't break?

Sentarou: Like it would break that easily!

Haru: Is ok, some more!

Sentarou: Not just your fingers, use your whole hand

Akari[thoughts]: Even if you say that, I don't understand--- Uugh

Page 15

Akari[thoughts]: Eh...

Akari: That sound just now, was it me?

Sentarou: If it wasn't you then who else?

Haru: It sounded pretty good!

Akari[thoughts]: Woah it echoes so much...

Akari: The koto makes such nice sounds...

Page 16

Sentarou: If you practice, you will be able to make even nicer sounds.

Sentarou: You will do one week of basic training and after that, you will start practicing the song we will play at Nationals

Akari: !!?

Akari[thoughts]: And just like that

Sentarou: Akari, let's go to the club!!

Sentarou: You will play the 17-stringed Koto

Akari: Eh, not the normal one!?

Akari: Wooaahh the sound is soo cool!

Page 17

Akari: The right hand... The left hand...

Sentarou: You just need to get some practice!

Haru: Ok, remember to tune it here

Akari: I have to do it while playing!?

Akari[thoughts]: I was swept into the daily club practice

Akari[thoughts]: I got delayed by the cleaning duty!

Akari[thoughts]: Oh no, the Senpais have already begun practicing---

Page 18

Akari[thoughts]: ---eh

Akari[thoughts]: Eh?

Page 19

Akari[thoughts]: ---This

Akari[thoughts]: It's the same song I've been practicing... Right...?

Akari[thoughts]: They've been meeting my pace until now

Akari[thougths]: When the senpais play together by themselves...

Akari[thpoughts]: Woah

Akari[thoughts]: Woah

Akari[thoughts]: So cool...!!!

Sentarou: !

Sentarou: Oh, Akari, you are here?

Akari: ---Would I...

Sentarou: Ah?

Page 20

Akari: If I practice, would I be able to play like you Senpais...?

Akari's friend 1: Man, who would've thought---

Page 21

Akari's friend 1: You would come to be a real member of the Koto Club, Akari

Akari: Yeah, well

Akari: You see, in here-- while my right-hand plays tereten toroton, is hard to change the tuning when my left-hand goes tontototon

Akari's friend: What are you even saying...?

Akari's friend 2: I don't really get it but, if you are gonna be like this, at least you could've joined a club that made use of your height

Akari's friend 1: Like the basketball, or volleyball club

Akari: Eh?

Akari: Ahh---... But I'm just not very athletic

Akari's friend 3: Oh, so it was like that

Akari's friend: What a waste of height--

Akari's friend: If you are not gonna use it, give some of it to me

Akari: Haha... -------------...

Page 22

Akari: Haru-senpai, why did you decide to play the koto?

Haru: Eh?

Akari: Ah, is just

Akari: You are the first person taller than me that I've met, Haru-senpai

Akari: When you are tall, people expect you to do something with it... Isn't that very common?

Haru: ...

Akari: It- it's not something that worries me or anything but

Akari: I don't have any hobbies or special skills. My only strong point is probably my height but, I haven't been able to make use of it at all... So... Um...

Page 23

Haru: Because I like it

Akari: Eh...

Haru: I simply play the koto because I like playing it

Haru: I haven't really used my height for anything but--

Sentarou: Who says you have to do something with it?

Sentarou: If you're big, you get a good view. It's easy to breathe the air even on a crowded train.

Sentarou: Isn't that more than enough?

Page 24

Sentarou: The things you were born with... the way you live with them is entirely up to you

Akari[thoughts]: ---Aaah I

Akari: Akari: I can't---!! No matter how many times I do it I can't---!!

Sentaoru: Is because you think you can't do it that you are not able to!! Believe that you can!!

Akari: That's so unreasonable...

Page 25

Sentarou: It's not unreasonable!!

Sentarou: You can do it!!!

Akari: I

Page 26

Akari: Want to keep doing my best alongside these people

Akari's friend 1: Wooow--- It has already been a month huh---

Akari's friend 1: You really committed to it, the koto club

Akari's friend 2: You are really going to Nationals

Akari: You bet

Sentarou: Ah, Akari

Page 27

Haru: You're right

Sentarou: Perfect timing, I have to tell him we can't use the club room today

Haru: Ah, that's right

Akari's friend 1: By the way, you never told the senpais, right? That you entered the club because of a penalty game

Akari: Of course I didn't!

Akari: More than that, don't talk about that at school! No, even outside of school, never mention it again!!

Akari's friend 2: Ok, ok

Akari's friend 1: Ahaha no need to get so...

Akari's friend 1: ---Ah...

Akari: Ah?

Page 28

Akari: -----Ah... Eh? Shiver...

Page 29

Haru: Sen-chan

Akari: Hold o- no- Wai-...

Akari: Wait, Senpai

Akari: Wait

Akari: Wait, please

Akari: I beg you

Akari: Wait...

Page 30

Akari: Is... Is not true

Akari: ...No, it is true but

Akari: I'm very sorry. It's true that at the beginning it was a penalty game and, it was the lowest and most terrible kind of prank but

Akari's friends: Woaaaaaah

Akari: Now, I

Akari: Re- really enjoy

Akari: The club

Akari: Together with you, Miya-senpai, Haru-senpai, I want to...

Page 31

Akari: Keep giving my best... in the koto...

Sentarou: Let go

Akari: ! I- I don't want to

Sentarou: I get your feelings so, let go!!

Akari: I will not let go!!

Page 32

Sentarou: For the love of---

Sentarou: You are pulling my pants down you damn idiot!!!

Akari: ... I'm sorry...

Haru: Sen-chan is thin so... Even with a belt, they fall down

Sentarou: Geez

Page 33

Sentarou: ...That thing about the penalty game. That truly is the worst so you should reflect on that

Akari: Yes

Sentarou: You guys over there too!!!

Akari's friends: We are sorry

Sentarou: ...But

Sentarou: During this month

Sentarou: That you gave your best is undeniable, Akari

Page 34

Sentarou: Man, and here I was just going to pretend I didn't hear any of that

Haru: You were also thinking of giving your best in the club, so that's why you never mentioned the penalty game, right?

Akari: Nod nod

Haru: We understand that you are taking the koto seriously, Akari.

Sentarou: Who would be stupid enough to take a punishment game that seriously?

Page 35

Sentarou: We are going to Nationals together, right?

Akari: Senpai

Akari: I will give my best

Akari: I will definitely give my all

Akari[thoughts]: Even if it's pathetic

Akari[thoughts]: Even if it's ungraceful

Akari[thoughts]: With all my might

Pamphlet: Eidai Prefectural High School. Song: Seoto by Michio Miyagi. Koto: Miya Sentarou. 17-stringed kotos: Kasugai Haru, Kobayakawa Akari

Side text: The music that can only be played by these 3 people, is now here!!

---Kono Oto Tomare! Continues in the next issue!!---

[mariacallous]

The first thing that struck me in reading the executive summary of the Jan. 6 select committee’s final report last month was footnote number 50. The text it supports in the main document is the following bald statement: “As the Committee’s hearings demonstrated, President Trump made a series of statements to White House staff and others during this time period indicating his understanding that he had lost” the 2020 election.

But wait a minute, I thought as I read this. I don’t recall from the hearings Trump’s making statements indicating that he acknowledged privately that he had lost. He had seemed to me, rather, quite delusionally confident of the fraud he was alleging. Willful blindness, definitely, but actual knowledge that he had lost? I didn’t remember that. 

Yet there, in footnote 50, were four different references to transcripts that the committee claimed supported the sentence:

See, e.g., Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of General Mark A. Milley (Nov. 17, 2021), p. 121; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alyssa Farah Griffin, (April 15, 2022), p. 62; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Continued Interview of Cassidy Hutchinson, (Sep. 14, 2022), p. 113; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Kellyanne Conway, (November 28, 2022), pp. 79-84.

One of them, with Kellyanne Conway, was even recent—having taken place after the hearings this summer. 

I couldn’t look up the transcripts at the time because neither the full report nor the underlying material was available publicly yet. But in the weeks since, the committee has released both. 

The release of the full report reveals that this remarkable claim exists only in the executive summary. The committee does not allege in the report itself that Trump acknowledged his loss in repeated conversations to staff. The underlying material, meanwhile, allows us to check up on this arresting statement allegedly made by President Trump. 

So did he really admit privately he had lost? The answer, as I’ll explain, is yes-ish. But the evidence isn’t all that strong, which explains why the committee did not focus on this in its hearings or in the body of the report itself. Only one of the transcripts cited clearly supports the claim. Two sort of do, but it’s a matter of interpretation. And one—at least in my view—really does not. 

It is a very rare thing for a government body to show its work to the extent the Jan. 6 committee has done in its final report. 

The select committee did not just release a narrative report. It also released a huge trove of material that underlies that report. That trove includes hundreds of deposition and interview transcripts and also untold numbers of documents. The notes also navigate the reader through a giant public record, consisting of court filings, newspaper articles, public statements, and, yes, a great many tweets. It’s hundreds of thousands of pages all told.

Normally, notes in an investigative report point to interviews the reader can’t access. They point to grand jury transcripts, internal memoranda of interviews, or other materials the reader cannot simply click on and search.

But the committee here has given not just its interpretation of events and not just the raw material from which it drew its judgments, but also thousands of connections between the two. Those connections are the report’s endnotes.  

It’s a powerful model for future investigative bodies, one that allows anyone to check up on the committee’s interpretation of its evidence and one that offers pointers to journalists as to where to find the good stuff in the pile of material the committee has released. 

Reading the notes carefully reveals a number of different themes. 

[thewinter22]

Item #: SCP-XXXX

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures:

SCP-XXXX is to be stored in an on-site anomalous item locker, with a specially fitted clamp placed on its active page, designed to act as a bookmark and prevent unintentional closing of the book.

Access to SCP-XXXX is restricted to personell with Level 3 clearance or higher. Any newly discovered page is to be scanned, backed up and submitted to Level 4 staff for review.

The preparation of recipes found in SCP-XXXX is to be conducted in a specialized test kitchen stocked with Foundation Standard cooking equipment, high-accuracy weighing and heating equipment, as well as any ingredients and special utensils specified by the current recipe. The process of preparing the recipe is to be recorded.

All recipes beyond page 122 must be approved by at least two Level 4 personnel before beginning the cooking process. Ingredients must be obtained through authorized channels, and any anomalous or potentially dangerous ingredients and tools require additional approval from the Site Director.

Description: SCP-XXXX is a hardcover cookbook titled "A Thousand Flavors: The Ultimate Culinary Journey." It contains 1,000 recipes, each recipe spanning two pages, with the recipe itself on the right, and a list of ingredients on the left, as well as info on how to obtain them. The book shows signs of heavy wear on the cover, but the pages remain in pristine condition.

The pages of SCP-XXXX may only be turned in order. Should it be closed at any point, it will only be possible to flip open the cover, which allows access to the first page, referred to at this point as the active page. To be considered closed, there must be less than 1 micrometer of space between the pages. An anomolous force prevents the opening of any page other than the active one.

Due to the immense resources required, and dangerous tasks involved with some of the recipes, it is of highest priority the book is never closed. The provided clamp marking the active page is designed to minimize the possibility of human error, and is transparent.

The only way to turn a page is by preparing the meal of the active page, following the exact specifications of the recipe. The accuracy of measurements required for the recipe to be considered "acceptable" by SCP-XXXX varies, and seems to depend on the type of dish being made.

Any meal prepared according to the specifications of SCP-XXXX will cause extreme positive reactions in whoever consumes it, which includes animals. Human subjects referring to the meals as "the best thing they have ever tasted", and cause various different reactions in animals, including consumption of vegetarian meals by carnivores.

This effect has been proven to be anomalous, rather than just being due to the quality of the food. It overrides any culinary preferences the subject has, and additionally, if the recipe is not followed perfectly (for example, omitting the tasteless gold sprinkles of recipe 49), the reaction of the subject has shown to be in line with what would be an expected reaction to the provided food.

The first 121 pages of SCP-XXXX contain standard recipes one would expect from a cookbook. Including Apple Pie and Fried Rice, with a tendency of becoming more difficult with each page. The ingredients becoming more exotic and preparation methods requiring higher skill to master.

Starting with page 122, the cooking methods, required tools, ingredients and notes become anomalous, and often unobtainable by standard means. A list of noteworthy pages can be found in Addendum XXXX-1

The Foundation's continued interest in SCP-XXXX is not due to the recipes themselves, but rather the info about the ingredients on the left page, which describe in detail how to obtain the exotic and anomulous ingredients, including dark matter and [REDACTED]

Discovery:

SCP-XXXX was discovered after a devastating explosion at a local restaurant in [], Finnland. The restaurant had recently come to the Foundation's attention due to making local news for serving "the best food known to man", though the claims were largely ignored, until the explosion. Foundation Agents investigated the scene and found SCP-XXXX on the floor, noting its undamaged pages, and recovering it without incident.

It is assumed the explosion was caused when the kitchen staff attempted to prepare recipe number 122 without the proper stabilizing agents. Cover-Up story used: Methlab explosion.

Addendum XXXX-1: Noteworthy Recipes

Below are noteworthy recipes, excluding exact measurements and specific instructions of preparation, which requires Level 3 access.

Recipe #1 - Soft Boiled Egg

Ingredients: egg, salt, pepper, water.

Notes: The simplicity of this recipe makes it possible for it to be completed unintentionally, or by someone unaware of it. Request of reclassification of SCP-XXXX to Euclid has been denied.

Recipe #9 - Chili

Ingredients: "Whatever you have in your fridge"

Notes: The ingredients do not seem to be meant in a literal fashion. Instead of an exact recipe, the preparation methods include many tips and tricks, insisting on "eyeballing it". There has been no consistant way found to recreate this recipe.

Recipe #49 - Dragonfruit Sorbet Ingredients: dragonfruit, milk, sugar, water, lemon juice, gin, gold sprinkles

Notes: Used commonly in tests, due to the ingredient of gold sprinkles being entirely tasteless. Tests revealed that once all ingredients are added, they may be freely removed, and each individual part of the meal will keep their anomalous properties. The gold sprinkles themselves, when eaten, will still create the same reaction of extreme satisfaction as the Sorbet itself. Similarly, the same is true for the sorbet itself if the sprinkles are removed, and even if it melts.

Recipe #121 - Chocolate Soufflé

Ingredients: butter, chocolate, eggs, vanilla, salt, sugar, cream of tartar

Notes: The specifications of this recipe call for measurements in the micrograms, and baking for even a second too long or short may cause the recipe to fail.

Recipe #122 - Banana Split

Ingredients: bananas, chocolate syrup, cherries, milk, sugar, potassium.

Notes: Below the ingredients, there is a detailed description of how to extract pure potassium from bananas. Doing so will create exceedingly larger amounts of Potassium than should be possible from a single banana.

Recipe #190 - Ramen

Ingredients: Storebought ramen noodles, eggs, garlic, scallion, Star Dust

Notes: Star Dust is described be ground from fallen asteroids, but only ones that have a large uranium content may be used, which have not been documented to have ever fallen on earth. The asteroid may not be taken using a probe or a shuttle, and must instead be launched to earth by pushing it.

Recipe #222 - Spaghetti with meatballs

Ingredients: Spaghetti, Ground Beef, Tomatoes, Basil, salt, Pepper, Stick of Dynamite

Notes: The Anomalous effects of this particular dish only take place while the stick of dynamite is wedged into the bowl of pasta, and ignited. It has lead to [REDACTED] deaths

Recipe #442 - Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients: Salt, Pepper, Milk, Dinosaur Egg

Notes: [REDACTED]

Recipe #799 - Space Cake

Ingredients: flour, water, eggs, vanilla, sugar, salt, coco powder, cardamom, blackberries, milk, vegetable oil, baking powder, white chocolate, gelatin, Dark Matter

Notes: Due to the extreme difficulty and danger in creating dark matter, this recipe has never been finished. Using dark matter for this dish instead of other resources is currently being debated, and there has not been an agreement as of yet, especially considering the possibility of a failed recipe.

Recipe #1000 - The Perfect Meal Ingredients: Unknown

Notes: The last recipe in the book is speculated to be known as "The perfect meal", as many references are made to it throughout the other pages.

You discovered an abandoned one thousand page cookbook one day, and strangely, you found that you can’t flip to the next recipe without making the current dish. Flipping the page, you see the next dish calls for a liter of star dust and gives a “simple” explanation of how to build a starship.