#i don't normally make these kinds of posts

[jheselbraum]

Birth of a Nation revitalized the KKK in America and is perhaps the only piece of "irredeemable media" I can think of that's actually like. You know, a story, and I don't know of anything else off the top of my head that had that kind of lasting, palpably harmful impact that isn't like, direct state mandated propaganda like Mein Kampf. In 1915 the KKK was effectively dead, they'd slowly dissolved around the 1870s (particularly after the introduction of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871) and Birth of a Nation led to the most notorious American terrorist group reforming. As far as I'm concerned, DW Griffith has actual blood on his hands, for murders committed at the very least through the 40s (they disbanded temporarily in 1944 after America's most effective violent crime task force, the IRS, got involved, though it could be argued he's only responsible for murders committed by the KKK through the 20s, as membership declined rapidly after that once people saw that being part of a terrorist organization wasn't like how it was in the movie).

And like, look I generally don't think the word "irredeemable" can really be applied to art in any form, but there is something viscerally reprehensible about Birth of a Nation that makes us not want to watch it. Like it (arguably) pioneered a lot of film techniques but that's more of the science side of film than the art side, I'm completely certain that people would have figured out that contrasting long shots with close-ups made movies more interesting if Birth of a Nation was left on the cutting room floor. (In fact, several of the techniques 'pioneered' by Birth of a Nation were actually from earlier films, it's just that DW Griffith was more popular and his films are the ones that were remembered). But like we don't screen this movie publicly, we don't like it, we don't like the what DW Griffith had to say. Birth of a Nation just... repels people away from it. Its in person screenings are relegated to a few film classes and maybe some klan meetings, though I'm certain there are some racists on 4chan who've downloaded a copy. If you ask normal people to pick one movie to stop existing, there's no way out of it you have to pick one, chances are they'll pick Birth of a Nation, assuming they've even heard of it (my first exposure to it was in high school, some people might not get to it until college, or even later, that's just kind of what happens with something like this. It's not like you can learn about something through cultural osmosis when the culture is trying like hell to osmosis that thing out of itself). It's an acceptable loss.

Meanwhile, from what I've read, I'd say the decision to use A Serbian Film alongside Birth of a Nation is actually a reasonable one, not because of the graphic nature of it's content, but rather its themes and message and how flat it can feel because of who's saying it (DISCLAIMER: I haven't watched it, I'm not going to watch it, take this with a grain of salt). It's about a man who's forced to commit horrific crimes to survive (economically, though he may be directly threatened with death I'm not sure, he's doing it as a job basically). If you'll recall, Serbia committed genocide during the Bosnian War in the 90s, the targets being primarily Bosniaks but also including anyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina that wasn't Serbian.

The director of the film, Srđan Spasojević, had this to say when asked if the acts depicted in the film were related in any way to crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars:

A Serbian Film does not touch upon war themes, but in a metaphorical way deals with the consequences of post-war society and a man that is exploited to the extreme in the name of securing the survival of his family.

Additionally, he described the film as "a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government ... It's about the monolithic power of leaders who hypnotize you to do things you don't want to do. You have to feel the violence to know what it's about."

A Serbian Film is an exploitation film that's apparently considered one of the most disturbing of all time, but the film is not a snuff film as many people have claimed. A snuff film is the filming of actual gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape, committed for the purpose of selling the resulting film and making money. It's not "a movie that depicts gruesome crimes like murder, torture, and rape through the use of special or practical effects."

Based on the quick read-through of the Wikipedia article I did, it seems like most of what the film is trying to say is through the lens of the aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars, or at least that's how the audience largely interpreted it. The script writer, Aleksandar Radivojević, said this about the process of securing funding for the film and the state of the Serbian film industry in general.

you had this EU arts council funded production using Serbia for EU's political agitprop agenda of 'promoting tolerance and reconciliation in the post-war Balkans' by boosting sappy local projects of no aesthetic value whose sole reason for receiving EU financing was their respective authors' willingness to amplify the EU-approved message, i.e. to express 'Serb contrition over what happened in the Yugoslav Wars' via essentially making victim porn, showing small miserable Serb people who are struggling mightily while nevertheless simultaneously 'doing their part in search of collective redemption' by being extremely remorseful

Now, I'm a white American who does not experience racism of any kind, let alone the violently dehumanizing prejudice necessary to convince a group of people to commit an ethnic cleansing, but if my people had been the victims of a genocide, and I heard someone from the group of people that committed that genocide complain about media depicting his people's remorse, and saw that that guy also wrote a movie where the plot is a man is forced to commit gruesome rapes, and again, my people were gruesomely raped as a part of that guy's country's plan to wipe my people from existence, I'd be fucking pissed. Like again, I haven't seen A Serbian Film, and Radivojević wasn't the only person in the writer's room, so maybe in practice it reads less as "our government was controlling us we did nothing wrong" and more "our government is controlling us and we're monsters for listening." And we can argue the merits of the latter another time, but at least the latter acknowledges that genocide doesn't happen in a vacuum because some schmucks at the top said so, that the people bear as much responsibility as their government.

Now, is A Serbian Film actually trying to say anything about the Yugoslav Wars at all? I don't know. I haven't seen it. Maybe it isn't about the Bosnian genocide at all. But then what is it saying about Serbia? Serbian actor Dragan Bjelogrlić said this about the film and its director, a year after its release:

I have a problem with A Serbian Film. Its director in particular. I've got a serious problem with this boy whose father got wealthy during the 1990s—nothing against making money, but I know how money was made [in Serbia] during the '90s—and then pays for his son's education abroad and eventually the kid comes back to Serbia to film his view of the country using his dad's money and even calls the whole thing A Serbian Film. To me that's a metaphor for something unacceptable. The second generation comes back to the country and using the money that had been robbed from the people of Serbia, smears the very same people by portraying them as the worst scum of the earth.

OP was right, it's fucking insane that this site only uses words like irredeemable media to talk about cartoons for children. Like, no, Steven Universe or The Owl House or My Hero Academia or whatever TV-Y7 cartoon you're hyper focused on that week isn't irredeemable media. Your bar for even discussing it as a possibility is "did this story's public existence revitalize a terrorist organization and lead to several murders," a qualification which A Serbian Film, despite its content, themes, and possible interpretations, does not meet. It's offensive, and disturbing, it possibly excuses genocide, but as far as I've read, no one has gotten physically hurt because it exists.

A Serbian Film is more violently graphic than Birth of a Nation. Birth of a Nation did more to physically harm real people than A Serbian Film ever could.

It's fucking wild that the above reaction to A Serbian Film mentions next to nothing about what it's trying to say, how well it works, who's saying it and in what context, but focuses purely on the graphic and violent scenes depicted in the film. It's probably why they slapped Salo on at the end even though a cursory glance through Wikipedia (I don't care enough to read thoroughly on the plot and themes you get the point graphic exploitation films aren't inherently evil for depicting murder or rape or whatever I don't want to read about more graphic shit it's not something I personally enjoy doing) reveals that that film is strictly antifascist, though several actors were actually injured during filming. Notably, the director of Salo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was gruesomely abducted, tortured, and murdered in 1975 shortly before Salo's release at the Paris Film Festival. He was openly gay, and a Marxist, and while his death was initially contributed to one Giuseppe Pelosi (17 at the time of the murder) after he confessed, he later retracted his confession claiming that he made it under the threat of violence to his family (which unfortunately tracks, Americans may recall the more recent case of Amanda Knox, who was arrested in 2007 for the murder of her friend and forced by Italian police to confess to a crime she didn't commit and was later exonerated from). The case was reopened after Giuseppe's retraction in 2005 and other evidence that had come to light, and as of 2023 the Italian authorities are looking at the far right group Banda della Magliana as possible suspects. While I agree that "I hear it's kind of. nasty" is frankly an understatement when attempting to discuss the graphic content of Salo, and really fucking hilarious in the context of trying to argue that Salo shouldn't exist at all, I don't know that that's really a fair criticism to make, considering the other two examples are if not directly far right (using the term because of the changing political landscape between 1915 and 2010, like I can't really call Birth of a Nation fascist because it was made before fascism was a fully congealed political ideology, even if it upholds the ideology of fascism) then at least debatably so. As previously established, the actual content of the film, as in, the acts depicted, don't immediately make a work reprehensible. Remember, A Serbian Film is more graphic and disturbing to watch than Birth of a Nation, but Birth of a Nation is worse than A Serbian Film.

Tldr; op is right, and the person whose tags have been drowned is exactly the kind of person op was talking about

'Irredeemable media' is such a funny concept to me because it's never used for stuff like Birth of a Nation or A Serbian Film. It's always The Owl House or My Hero Academia because these people only watch things for children and can't stand any conflict more complex than Super Mario Brothers.

[ms-demeanor]

Hi, this is maybe a pointless question where the answer is just "that's how life works," but how do you have energy for all the things you do? You seem to be constantly juggling 50 different projects and juggling them well. You create so many community resources, do deep scientific dives on your own time, excel at work, plus maintain social and familial relationships. I was able to maintain good work performance, a hobby, and social life for maybe six months last year before I burned out

The thing is I'm juggling it badly, it's just that you see the curated version here on tumblr! I've got probably five times as many stalled and unfinished resources/projects as I have completed ones, I am in a constant state of numbness/anxiety at work (since the new company bought us I'm really, really overworked and have been putting in 10-12 hour days pretty regularly - it's why my posting and writing here has dropped off and my fiction writing is basically not happening), and I'm actually a pretty shit friend because it's difficult for me to make time to communicate with people and leave the house.

My two tricks to make it seem like I've got it together are:

Just do a lot of shit. Some of it will get finished even if you end up with a ton of abandoned projects and if you do this at a high enough volume you can still get a lot done

Join some kind of club or regular hangout event; once a month I go hang out with the same group of people i've been hanging out with for twenty years and sometimes we'll plan things outside of that group and that's most of my social life.

I am also exhausted at all times but I've got the shark version of ADHD where I feel like if I'm not doing something I'll die.

I am probably deeply in danger of burning out but I've had the same "maybe if I get hit by a car I could take a couple weeks off of school without it destroying my life" feeling since i was 10 so it's hard for me to gauge if there's a collapse of any kind coming.

Have you ever tried to get yourself to sprint by falling forward and just putting your feet in front of yourself? It's like that, but I've managed to keep my feet under me so far. I'd say "if I had to deal with any obstacles it would make me fall flat on my face" but I'm actually more productive in catastrophes so. Who knows!

Mental illness. I think the answer is mental illness. I am not a healthy example to follow and I don't want people to think that the way that I act is A) Normal B) Healthy C) Effortless D) Sustainable.

I am just obsessive and weird and I don't sleep very much and I don't leave the house very frequently. I think things were better before the pandemic, when I was doing things with the band and could go to shows because Large Bastard wasn't immune compromised, but a lot has changed in the last five years.

[laprasboat]

sometimes i read posts about dan and phil's relationship and all i can think about is how it feels like the person who wrote the post has 0 examples of loving, healthy relationships around them

don't get me wrong, certain aspects of their lives/relationship are special and unique

but often people point out stuff that should be normal in relationships, i don't mean this in a "their relationship is nothing special" kind of way, but it makes me sad to hear so many people say they don't think they'll ever have something like that in their lives

having a partner who loves you, cares about you and genuinely enjoys spending time with you, someone who looks at you like you're the greatest thing since sliced bread is not an unachievable feat, a privilege reserved only for the most special people

sure, you're probably not gonna meet them as a teenager and build a career together (and not everybody wants that either) but i don't think that dan and phil's relationship would be less meaningful or beautiful if they met when they were 30 or if they never made it on youtube

i think there are just so few examples of couples (especially queer couples) both online and in media in general, that have healthy relationships, not to mention that so many of us were never taught to communicate effectively (speaking about people in general, not a specific demographic of people)

and all of this just reminds me of the numerous dating coaches on the internet (this specific rant was triggered by one of them) especially the people who treat romantic relationships like a really complicated game

i saw a video one of those "dating and love coaches" made about how your partner should not be your friend and how you shouldn't feel comfortable enough to talk to them about anything and everything, that's what your "girl friends" are for

and maybe im a bit biased, growing up i watched my parents who were (and still are) very much in love with one another and absolutely are each others best friends, but i cannot imagine anything more sad than dating being nothing more than a transactional relationship

i know im just ranting at this point and can't even tell how coherent this is, but if you're still reading this, i need you to understand

and i cannot stress this enough

you absolutely can (if you want) have a relationship that makes you as happy as dan and phil's relationship makes them

no you cannot have a relationship just like theirs, because you aren't them, what they have works for them and you need to figure out what works for you, what makes you happy

but don't let anyone convince you that you're supposed to be unhappy and that you should just settle for the relationship that makes you the least miserable

[thehelltingvilleclub]

Josh Levy - Teddy Bear with a Lightsaber

He's not fat.. okay he's fat AND he's big boned.

Joshua “Josh” Aaron Levy [05/04/80] Secretary of Science Fiction AOL / Online Users: [JediJunkies_80] Theme Songs: Science Fiction Double Feature - Me First and Gimmie Gimmies | Ghost - Mystery Skulls | Aliens Exist - blink-182

Favorite Shit: Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, Twilight Zone, Kaiju, Stargate SG-1 Battlestar Galactica, Klingon, Alternate Earths, Firefly, Planet of the Apes, 12” Action Figures, Torrent Sites, The X-Files, Babylon 5, Akira, Farscape, Boba Fett

Despite his (well earned) grievances, he still hangs around these fuckers cause he can't really seem to find solace anywhere else, even online spaces. He didn't expect to find any enjoyment out of going to tournaments with Jerry, but an excuse to get good city food and walk around the comic shops they were held in were enough in his book to keep him coming back. He even managed to find a space themed tabletop he likes to play, and... y'know.. maybe other reasons..

But we don't talk about him shit uh IT UH--

Never tell me the odds.

Oh Joshybear my beloved you poor antagonistic shitsmear.

His mom is in the hospital a lot more often or just straight up bed bound, which makes him kind of never want to leave his room out of guilt.

Yes, this dingus still blames himself for it, though it's not like his father helps with that.

Whenever he isn't holed up in his room, he's trying to drag somebody anybody out of the house to do something. Anything to get his mind off of stupid emotional shit--

He often goes with Jerry into the inner city when he has tournaments, especially when nobody else really wants to go. Sometimes he even covers Jerry bus fair or just borrows his mom's car.

However, this fucker HATES driving. It makes him the most anxious he's ever been his entire life. It is nothing like video games and it is nothing like the Millennium Falcon, that's for damn certain.

He also hates trying to park because he is deathly afraid of hitting the side of someone's car with the door.

Josh actually doesn't meet Matt at the same time as Jerry, surprisingly enough. Jerry introduces them when they bump into each other at the shop for a non-tournament related reason.

Josh nearly had a panic attack on the spot but it's fine

The moment he heard Matt had never seen the Star Wars films he nearly lost his mind.

This became the entire basis of Josh's attachment to the dude: "I have to show him the cinematic masterpiece that is this damn franchise."

And that's all it is. Mhmm. Totally. Don't ask why his hands are clammy and he's even more show-offy than normal whenever he's around. Don't.

please?

He works with his dad at their Synagogue as essentially a secretary and sound technician, but hey, it lets him write his fanfictions Reimaginings and scroll through blogs in peace, right?

And it keeps him out of his dad's hair and the house, so it's kind of a win-win-win.. win?

I love him

I want to eat him.

A DOUBLE POST???? HJGDSAJKHDKSJALHDLK You're welcome

Also don't worry guys, you'll get a WHOLE lot more info on Matt soon. He's not an affiliated member of the club and I didn't have many drawings of him (despite my.. excessive notes...) so I'm cranking them out as I post this.

NOW LOVE THE BIG MAN ON CAMPUS DAMNIT.

also hi I know his pants look weird shut up nothing else looked better.

[vulpinesaint]

many people having a wonderful time engaging in the act of creation

quiz enjoyers! i am now inviting you to come create something in my workshop❕

[atricksterproblem]

I want to make one thing absolutely crystal clear as I start posting about a new-to-me bit of media.

I've seen a lot of people going on about how one of the creators of Blue Eye Samurai, Michael Green, is a "Zionist". Naturally they're all using the definition of Zionist that a lot of non-Jews have been trying to impose on it recently as opposed to the actual real definition that Jews have been using all this time prior to people losing their damn minds after Oct. 7.

From what I've been able to find, the posts of his that led to all of this whining amounted to "Release all the hostages" and "Maybe stop coming up with reasons why it's OK to kill Jews".

And somehow multitudes of people found those ideas OBJECTIONABLE.

I have gone way beyond my absolute limit of watching the world normalize antisemitism. Make no mistake, that's what is happening here. If you're someone who thinks its OK to boycott Blue Eye Samurai on the basis of what I've covered above, find a different blog to follow. We don't do that here. It's disgusting and I'm SICK of Jewish creators being treated like shit for no reason whatsoever.

This is not up for discussion or debate. I have found, after watching many many threads full of discourse, that people who object to "Zionists" are largely not acting in good faith. They don't want to listen to Jews on this topic at all.

I've already had to withdraw from fandoms and other online communities because I watched them descend into anti-Jewish mania recently. I don't think all of these people even realize that's what they're doing, but the vast majority of them don't want to hear it when it's pointed out and information is provided.

In any case, I'm done. If you are the kind of person who supports Hamas and other terrorist organizations, thinks it's OK to advocate for the destruction of Israel, thinks that it's OK if the hostages never go home, doesn't care that Jews worldwide are being harassed and attacked who have nothing to do with the Israeli government, and wants to change the definition of "Zionist" to "person who supports genocide/killing babies" or even just "Jew I don't agree with", this is not the blog for you. I'm not interested in arguing with anybody, just block me and go away.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled fanblogging, posts about crafts, and random bits of shiny things that interest me.

[sparkles-rule-4eva]

Idk if I'm gonna make a review post, exactly, but the things that went on with Sonic's character in movie 3 have left me reeling, and dying to analyze. I don't have many screenshots to share, and the ones I do aren't good quality bc the movie's not released digitally yet, but here goes.

For one, the theme of dealing with grief was so well handled. I was hoping they were going to use the parallel of this Sonic losing someone close to him, just like Shadow had, and that's just what they did. What made it even more painful, however, was how Sonic was faced with the possibility of losing a second parental figure.

Shadow saw him hunched over Tom, pleading with him to wake up, and remembered himself doing the same when Maria had died. That was where Shadow saw a bit of himself in Sonic.

Shadow took mental notes of it, but he didn't back off, though he didn't make any other attempts to hurt Tom. Heck, he wouldn't have attacked in the first place if Tom hadn't been disguised as Walters.

And just... watching the way Sonic just started spiraling after this scene was so heartbreaking. The way he looked so lost and broken as they were taking him away in the ambulance, when Maddie didn't say anything to them, and the camera just zoomed out for a few seconds, showing him and his brothers looking so small and so lost in the world as they were left alone, unsure if their dad would be okay.

Sonic didn't want comfort. After the initial fear and grief, the anger he'd felt earlier when he turned on Shadow came back with a vengeance, quite literally. Looking at their calmer, almost normal everyday life earlier in the movie, it seems everything's fine. Sonic seemed fine and perky. I was taken aback at how calm he was about finding his old cave. He seemed fine, all things considered from earlier in his life. The Before Times, as fanfics have dubbed them.

But the moment his found family was threatened, the moment he was faced with the possibility of losing the home and love he'd finally gotten after so many years of pain and isolation, he fell apart. He became aggressively protective of it. Of course he would want to defend those he loves, but not like this. Not the Sonic we know.

The way Shadow phrased it later, "What kind of hero abandons his friends to seek revenge? Abandons his family?"

That struck a nerve, but Sonic just snapped back, "Don't you dare talk about my family."

The expressions he had after he'd taken the Master Emerald and gone after Shadow were so complex. You can see the mix of emotions on his face. Most clearly, the anger. But mixed in, you see the pain, the grief, the paralyzing fear of losing someone else, and you see how emotionally fragile he really is.

Shadow scoffs about how he'd thought that Sonic cared for them. "Especially the one, what's his name again? Tom?"

And that pushed him over the edge.

The way he just let out that chilling scream of rage and grief and went on to punch Shadow so hard he quite literally sent him flying straight into the moon. He was enraged. He was distressed. He was spiraling. And he was, for a few minutes, completely out of control.

We know that this version of Sonic is not so reserved about killing people, like the game version. In the second movie, Sonic had every intention of killing Robotnik in the final battle, and he thought he succeeded. This marks the second time that if someone threatens Sonic's family, he's out for blood. In that vein, he's like his game counterpart; it's the safety of his loved ones, not himself, that he's concerned about. Passionate about.

Except.

He could not bring himself to do it.

I think part of him was remembering what Walters had said about Shadow having experienced loss, the way he had.

He'd won here. He could've just killed Shadow right then and there. Shadow was even goading him into just doing it. Demanded what he was waiting for. Pointing to his own chest and yelling that he was right there. To just do it. (Another thing to analyze; Shadow was just done with everything and didn't even care if he died at this point, but that's for another post.)

But something was stopping him.

Even in those screenshots, you can see the pain and anger mixed on his face. I could be mistaken, but it looks like there's a tear in his eye. (If I'm right, the idea of him crying during this fight makes me break apart in sadness.)

And then came the flashback. This is what drives me insane.

In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow is out to destroy the world, and it's remembering Maria's true final wish that stopped him.

I never could've predicted that in this version, it was Sonic who was out to kill someone, kill Shadow, but remembering Tom's words to him about not letting his pain change who he is was what stopped him. Sonic was the one who needed to stop and remember. And that's just what he did. 🥺

And then, only then, was he able to calm down, remember himself, remember what Tom would want him to do. He wasn't handling this the same way he'd handled Longclaw's death. He was turning into exactly what Shadow had become. The horror at realizing what he'd nearly become, what he'd almost done, set in.

He made the right choice in the end because of that. Just like Shadow did in the games. Just like he later did here, too. But Shadow was able to have "redemption" of sorts in this version, not because of some talk, but because he saw the example in Sonic, right in front of him.

We know what happened next, I'm not gonna go much into it. But seeing this whole side of Sonic, the side that just barely slipped out in the last movie, was so, so fascinating. I love how each movie continues to explore him as the main character, in a different way. This one probably got me crying the most. I cried even as I wrote this post and put more pieces together. The more I think about it, the more I love it. 🥹😭💙💛❤️

[room-surprise]

(Otta also has tattoos, and when she sits on the ground and touches it with her hands, she's likely meditating in order to cast her spells.) I know in a previous post about magic I ended up writing a bunch about the many different "focuses" that spellcasters use in Dungeon Meshi, and how Kui consistently makes sure every caster in the story has SOMETHING that they are using/doing that could plausibly function as a focus... They just vary wildly in how they look and how they are used. An incomplete list of things we've seen are staves, wands, musical instruments, tattoos, books, pieces of paper, magic circles, blood, bottles of water/fire/earth/air, and bird skulls.

Chanting, physical gestures, movements, meditation and touching the target are all a type of "focus" as well, in the form of ritual behavior.

The exceptions to this are the time Marcille was forced to cast without her staff (and struggled mightily to do it), when Falin cast a spell after her resurrection and it's a hint that something is wrong with her, and some (but not all) of Mithrun's spellcasting.

So it seems spellcasters can cast without a focii, and without chanting, but it's shocking and not normally done, based on how Marcille and others react to seeing it happen.

Some spells don't require lengthy chants or the obvious use of a focus, and it's implied that's because they're easy to do, like the spell for walking on water, or the light spell. Things that are more difficult require more focus, and therefore more effort on the part of the caster. This also implies that the more skillful, talented or powerful a caster is, the less effort they need to make.

I think a good way to explain it would be comparing magic in Dungeon Meshi to spraying water out of a hose. Without a nozzle on the hose, the water comes out without much control. With a nozzle, you can control where the hose is aiming better, start and stop the flow, and focus the water into a more forceful stream.

I would also disagree with assuming that the magic system is "riffing on D&D" though lots of people assume that Dungeon Meshi's world is just a copy and paste of D&D. Kui has never played D&D, she only read the rule books after she'd already planned and started writing Dungeon Meshi, and D&D isn't really popular in Japan.

(The video game Wizardry is much more influential there, and Kui is a fan of Wizardry, but the specific things Kui borrowed from Wizardry don't really seem to tie into how magic is used in Dungeon Meshi.)

I say this because the way magic works in D&D is inspired by western fantasy fiction, real world history, mythology and folklore, and Kui has clearly read a ton about these things, and so her work is also based on the same source material... But probably not on D&D, which she only seems to have passing familiarity with.

Pretty much every element of Dungeon Meshi is riffing off of something from the real world... And the real world idea that some kind of ritual activity, physical focus object, or marking are required to do magic predates written history. It's very old, and very common across almost every culture on earth.

About the question on magic staves, one intresting note is that Elven magic is always, or very nearly always, shown to be used with a staff, while Gnomic magic is often done barehanded. In essence, the two types seem to roughly fall in line with the D&D Arcane/Divine (or Wizard/Cleric, appropriately) idea, and are likely riffing on it. As to why Elf magic always uses an implement, likely because it is by basic nature about exact control of spirits instead of just compelling them to take action?

Falin technically has studied gnome system magic and she uses a staff so perhaps it's a preference they have as a race of what type of magic to use rather than their system?

But yes you can notice that! They seem to use tools (like golem cores) but they don't seem to use staves like the others, Maizuru is the only one that also seems to use other tools too (A scroll and papers?) so it seems it's down to preference how to perform magic (Considering the characters that use staves I imagine they make it easier to aim)

Edit: oh yeah like @heattth mentioned in the replies lots of elves use magic without staves too (lycion and fleki use magic tattoos I imagine and otta just uses her hands on the floor) so probably it depends more on the type of magic being used more than race? Personal preference?

[rainbow-scarab]

Sly's Past in the Crossroads

I coulda sworn I put this on my blog but perhaps I mix it up with all those times I've told people on Discord so XD here we are. Theory post time.

Sly used to live in the Crossroads, in that little village where you first find him. I think this for a few reasons.

First, I must speak of Sly's age.

The stasis seems to have some odd effects on bugs, some of which seem to have lived a long time. I'm just assuming that aspect of stasis for this post. Sly trained the Nailmasters, and is almost certainly older than them. Some of Sheo's dialog has him speak of the Great Knights (and sculpt them). He seems quite familiar, at least for someone with an interest in the kingdom's warriors. But according to Lemm, "Both [the Great Knight's] names and appearance seem to have been expunged from history." So it seems Sheo, and by extension Sly, are old enough to have been around during Hallownest's heyday, perhaps centuries ago.

This raises an interesting contradiction. The game manual calls Elderbug "the oldest resident of Dirtmouth". Dirtmouth, it seems, has been living on the edge of the Kingdom, free of the stasis. Elderbug looks and acts old, but he's just....normal old, not supernaturally old like Sly. He doesn't know what Hallownest was like long ago except in stories. When you open the stag station in Dirtmouth, he says "That building lay silent since before even my time."

So, what to do with this discrepancy? Surely Team Cherry could never make a mistake, could they?? If Sly was originally from somewhere else, perhaps that could explain the wording that Elderbug is Dirtmouth's oldest.

(I've heard some say there are some mistakes in the game manual as compared to the game XD it could be for this but that's not all I have here for my theory)

We find Sly in that little village, the same one where we find Gruz Mother and Salubra, in a house that's falling apart. He's partially infected, though Ghost is able to break him out of his haze. Bugs become infected through their dreams. Bardoon says:

I resist the light's allure. Union it may offer, but also a mind bereft of thought… To instinct alone a bug is reduced…

We see reference to the instinctual state of bugs as well in a few entries of the Hunter's Journal, such as guards continuing to act as guards. Sly is not as far gone, but I had to wonder. Why does dream lead him there? To a village that's mostly dead? He thinks of Oro, his past pupil, and whoever Esmy is (I think another prior (and probably dead) pupil, but that's for another post). When Ghost breaks him out of his early state of infection, he says:

…I see. This old village. What a strange dream, to have led me down here! If you hadn't found me, I don't think I would've ever woken.

He seems to recognize it instantly, even from the inside of a broken house. I think he used to live there, in that same house. A place he knew well, ingrained in him deeper than his current house (and life) in Dirtmouth. Where even if half asleep his feet could carry him there on instinct.

...Lastly. I think. I think Sly and Salubra used to be dating XDDDDDD sorry I am subjecting you all to this. But I have reason to believe it. Or at least that they were flirty in the past.

I think Salubra talks to Ghost somewhat like she used to talk to Sly. She calls Ghost a "gadfly" a couple of times. And this word has a few meanings. One is literally a kind of fly, and Sly is a fly as well. Another is "social butterfly", which could be what Salubra is thinking of (especially with calling Ghost "stylish" and "dapper" alongside the word). BUT THE THIRD DEFINITION--

WHO'S MORE OF A BLOODSUCKER THAN SLY LOLLLLLLL

I rest my case, Salubra used to call Sly her dapper gadfly, Slylubra canon

.

.

(ahem, my primary evidence is mostly the dream instinct aspect as far as Sly's former home, but shhhh Sly/Salubra is clearly the most important outcome of the lore XD)

[directactionforhope]

Actually, making a bunch of assumptions about someone based on how/when they sleep is ableist, and also often classist, and I'm respectfully serious about this, as someone officially diagnosed with a severe sleep disorder (not that I'm anti self-dx in any way but yes, I do have an official diagnosis and am in the range classified as "severe")

Because of my sleep disorder (and more recently one of my jobs), I work nights. Night shift jobs are almost - if not actually - exclusively working class jobs (though I'm not going to go into class issues because I feel far less qualified to speak on them).

But sleep habits are so, so conflated with morality, work ethic, and even competence and intelligence in mainstream US culture.

(I blame in large part the Puritans. Having a culture founded by the remnants of a strict and fundamentalist religious sect will do that to you.)

Things that people (including my clients and my coworkers), have done or assumed about me because of my sleep disorder:

Went to HR and told them I was skiving off at least two hours of work every single day (I wasn't, I was staying two to three hours late every single day to make up the hours, because I had an accommodation from my boss. I was almost always the one to lock up the office. I ended up in a meeting with HR who didn't even bother to check with my boss first and ask anything related to the literally abundant proof I was working late)

I later learned multiple people were talking about it behind my back, so for all I know like half my coworkers believed/suspected that about me

That I'm lazy

That I'm not in control of my life

That I'm disorganized

Kept forgetting/Refused to believe me that I just wasn't trying hard enough to keep a normal sleep schedule, until I found studies showing that trying to keep a ""normal"" sleep schedule with my level of severity had a 100% long-term failure rate

Required me to tell almost all of my repeat/regular clients details of my medical history to avoid them making a ton of assumptions when I send work messages/emails/project submissions at 4 in the morning (unfortunately several of the platforms I use professionally don't have any kind of message scheduling add-on or feature)

Lost out on jobs because I was unable to reply soon enough (this morning I may have literally missed out on an interview slot because I didn't reply to a message by the end of the workday)

Was unable to go to the bank/post office/grocery store/dmv/other time-sensitive errand for days at a time due to my sleep (and work) schedule during open hours

Real difficulty texting with new people because 2/3rds of my regular waking hours are considered a Loaded or Extremely Weird time to text someone, and sometimes spoons don't appear at convenient times of day

Constantly late to school when I was younger, sometimes in trouble for it

That I don't care about my family/family events when I struggle to do a whole week of vacation on 2-4 hours of sleep

A lot of this has gotten better since there's been more research on my sleep disorder (delayed sleep phase disorder) and I've been able to educate my family and explain things to my friends, and as disability/accessibility concerns/awareness have grown a lot over the last two decades

And I'm extremely rare and extremely lucky because I've had a sleep disorder diagnosis almost my whole life (since I was 11, I'm now 30ish). Most people with sleep disorders, especially severe sleep disorders, spend years and years exhausted and believing something is simply wrong with them, that they're some kind of a failure, because they just can't ""try"" hard enough to ""fix it""

Anyway if you struggle with sleep, especially if it's a sleep disorder, I believe you and I believe that it's real.

And if you find yourself relating to this post, or are tired all the time because you can never get enough sleep - or can only get enough if you sleep half/most of the day - I really recommend looking into sleep disorders, especially delayed sleep phase

Oh also working during a time that your circadian rhythm says you're supposed to sleep is so hard that for a person with a ""normal"" sleep schedule, working night shifts can literally give you a diagnosable sleep disorder. It's literally called "shift work disorder"

[ducklesmcfuckles]

Boys will be.. fucking idiots

I really don't see myself ever finishing this properly so I guess I'll just post the rough sketch. My absolute favorite genre of art from the Stardust Crusaders arc is "logistics" and "downtime" - how the fuck these dudes who were three feet wide at the shoulders even managed to make the damn trip, and the kind of stupid shit they must have gotten up to during downtime. Joot, Kak and Pol are just young idiots who deserve to goof off, and I can only imagine the kind of stupid shit they got up to at every opportunity - you know, like normal people their age.

Anyway, this is probably as good as it's ever gonna get

[3liza]

fed up with losing posts in Tumblr app crashes too, this is the second big post ive lost in two days. why is it always saying it's "saving a draft" when it never actually is saving a draft

anyway it occurs to me that the dumbest part of this is that I and every one of my doctors have failed a middle school level math problem in ignoring the anemia aspect of POTS. if the patient has less blood than normal, but their red blood count is also normal, then they by definition do not have enough red blood cells for an adult human body, and adding plasma volume by feeding them saltwater isn't going to fix that. they will have to be made to grow more red blood cells somehow or else they will continue to have cryptic anemia. i don't understand why no one has named POTS anemia specifically either, there are names for every other kind of anemia already. so I guess I'll just refer to it as POTS anemia, by which I mean "patient has normal ferritin, hematocrit and hemoglobin on testing, but not enough red blood cells".

followup questions:

1. there are POTS patients who do not have hypovolemia. do they also have POTS anemia?

2. if you continually maintain plasma volume on a saline drip, does the POTS patient eventually make an appropriate number of red blood cells to fill it up?

3. has anyone ever tried whole blood transfusion for POTS? I looked but couldnt find any record of this.

I'm figuratively and not literally pacing around like Columbo and muttering to myself about this red blood cell thing. i just can't believe it. but I need to go do night chores and go to bed. this is very difficult because I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGJ BLOOD

[dragonsdendoodles]

(From your angst hcs post)

You think that the library is still in operation during the kids’ time? How do you think it works now that the librarians aren’t there? (Well Jacob is there of course but he doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing) Did it never stop working?

I always thought the library stopped working after it was hidden by the librarians. That it was created by the giants and old peculiars when they started having normal children and wanted to give them peculiar souls because they thought that peculiarity was dying out.

(This isn’t supposed to be rude or anything Im just curious for your opinion :))

I don't think the library needs librarians to run, if that makes sense?

Peculiardom doesn't seem to have a religion of any kind, but the Library of Souls seems to function as their version of one, or the closest match. The library and the soul jars in it are presented as the peculiar afterlife, that is where you go and what happens to you when you die. (For the sake of argument we're disregarding that time Bentham was a ghost for some reason.) I do like the idea that it stopped working without them, I think that would be really interesting, but to me that brings up too many questions: how do soul jars work? Do the librarians make them? How would they engrave them if nothing but the librarians can touch them? Are the souls extracted like ambrosia? If so, why can all peculiars take ambrosia but not all peculiars can see and interact with the jars? Are all peculiars there, or are there multiple libraries and only one is well known? What happens to peculiars who never knew they were peculiar? What happens to peculiars who died after the library was hidden?

I've always believed the library functioned supernaturally, without human input. We already know this can happen by knowing that history is on a set course and can actively fix itself--if you go back and kill Hitler, you're not gonna stop WWII. I think when a peculiar dies, a jar is created/recreated and appears in a certain place with at least the peculiarity housed inside it, but I'd like to think it also includes names and dates of the people who have "checked out" that second soul. I think they're ordered by peculiarity, but within that organization they could also be sorted by name or by most recent use, which feels more likely to me as by name would get confusing since the implication of a library-like system implies if not outright states that multiple people can use one second soul. Some spots are permanently vacant due to extraction for ambrosia, some jars are damaged due to people like Caul, but that's what happens to libraries sometimes. Books get lost or damaged, and that little piece of history is lost. When a soul is checked out, it disappears. When that peculiar dies, it's returned with a new entry on the check-out card. Just like a library book.

Because the librarians, at least to some ymrbynes, could qualify as an offshoot of deadrisers, I think they would function less like they're in charge of the place and more like the assistants to the natural function of the library itself. Their purpose is to handle the souls for whatever is needed, be it visiting a loved one or like you said, allocating peculiarities to those who don't have their own. Perhaps that was linked to the downfall of Old Peculiardom and why librarians are even more scarce than they presumably already were.

In all honesty, I don't think any living peculiar truly knows how the library works, and maybe no peculiar has ever fully known. Jacob is, to everyone else's knowledge, the last librarian. He may be the only one whose soul is still checked out. (He doesn't know, and you can't convince him to go check.) He has a completely unique access to peculiar history, at least as soon as he actually learns to read Old Peculiar.

Plus, if the library does need librarians, Jacob has one hell of a backlog to sort through all by himself.

But those might be fanfics for another day.

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[sabbathbloodysabbeth]

Pretend just for a second that's me bursting through the walls from pure excitement.

Honestly, so many people are putting in so many great points on this post that I can’t respond to each individually. (I wish I could) If you are a writer that has a lot of anxiety I definitely recommend going through the responses of this post! It might help!

I believe that everyone here has great points and honestly, it's helping me a lot. Though I do kind of want to brush up on an area that I know I've been suffering with as a writer and someone who is disabled. Which is partially why I'm making this post now. (I'm in a constant battle with OCD and my ass is normally being handed to me)

Though there is definitely no "Perfect" word length, I know some (such as myself) have problems with fitting in or working without the cursed idea of having the perfect word count. For me, I find myself unable to post a chapter unless it's over 10k words because in my head that is the perfect length. This thought is false but also true at the same time. Apart of me knows that whatever length the chapter is, is perfect. But the other part (let's call it the word goblin) wants to meet a specific goal that is sometimes unachievable.

I'm chronically ill and this bastard (the goblin) wants me to sit down and write a 10k chapter in one sitting and when I don't, he (they/she/it/gob gob? I'm not on a first name or pronoun basis with this thing) begins to jump around in my skull like that DVD logo that never reaches the corner of the tv.

And that's something I'm struggling with right now. I used to be able to write a chapter (over 10k words) and feel proud of it within two days. Now I can barely make it to 4k words in a week but strangely I find that I'm still just as proud, if not more, of the things I'm writing. Even though sometimes I would love for Gregory House to just appear in front of me and bonk me on the head with his silly flamed cane and cure every little problem I have in my head. (Technically Foreman, the neurologist, would be the one who would have to help me but that's beside the point.) I know that without my silly little demon (Tourette's) and his little minions (other disabilities) that I probably would be stuck in the never-ending cycle of burning myself out.

As I write this, I realize that I've kind of lost the point I was making. What I was trying to say before my thoughts went wild was that if you are someone who can't escape the concept of "perfect" or need it to function (because lets be honest, some of us really need to be told what to do, me and decisions are constantly in a boxing ring dodging each other) just know that if you can't meet those standards its ok. It probably doesn't feel ok in the moment but that feeling won't last forever. You'll get back up whether you do it by yourself or someone manhandles you to your feet and smacks some sense back into you. (Or hugs you, what that someone does depends on the person you are. I'm a stubborn and spiteful little bitch so I need to get "smacked around" by someone to realize I don't have to do everything by myself.)

And as someone who needs to visually see that people really don't care that much about word lengths, I'm going to leave some screenshots below and I highly recommend any struggling writers who have OCD, chronic illnesses or are simply just a perfectionist to read them. And maybe it can help :)

Also sorry for the long post, I've been having these thoughts for days now and kind of wanted to release them into the world. But quick conclusion, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PERFECT WHEN IT COMES TO WORD COUNT OR IN WRITING. WRITE WHATEVER YOU WANT. WRITE PORN, WRITE FLUFF, WRITE LITERALLY ANYTHING, THE WORLD IS YOURS BABY (the word baby is not being targeted at you as a person or as a reader but is just a word that sounded like it would fit and I felt that it belonged there you know?)

I'm currently writing and trying to figure out what could be a possible middle ground for chapter lengths and just want some general feedback on what the (heavy on quotation) "perfect" length is. But I kind of want to hear why some of these lengths are better than others, or if you're someone who doesn't pay attention to length but the quality what are some things that normally keep you interested in longer chapters (or even shorter chapters) I have my own opinions as a reader but as a writer I'm very interested in what the 'general' opinion is. (I don't think I'll personally cater to the majority, but I really enjoy conversations that revolve around topics like this and its been a while since Ive had a deep conversation with other readers/writers and wanted to start one if anyone wants to discuss :)

[kaiserouo]

let them use social media