#i linked the wikipedia article in this piece

[letters-to-rosie]

The Silco Essay

Long post ahead, TDLR included.

Let's do a little thought experiment. We're trying to institute socialism, worker control and ownership of the means of production. This is currently far from our reality, so we have a lot of work to do. We get together and talk and strategize, but it's difficult with all the surveillance we're under as we work. Not only would seizing the means of production be met with a harsh backlash but even unionization, which doesn't automatically lead to worker control or ownership, is suppressed even though that suppression is illegal in certain countries like the US.

How does that suppression happen? There are a lot more workers than owners. If we worked together, we could take them, right? Well, the owners have the law and access to call upon the state to enact violence on us. We can't exactly own the means of production if we get killed. Even if we overcome other hierarchies keeping us from solidarity, such as miners in West Virginia did by organizing across racial divisions, we can still be beaten. Those miner had bombs dropped on them.

Okay, thought experiment over. What does this have to do with Silco? It's taken me ages to think about how to explain it, but my beef with him is that he has what are essentially perfect conditions for creating a mass movement and does not use them. He is uniquely in a position to protect any burgeoning mass revolt until it would be too late for Piltover to stop it. This is why his comments to Sevika that they can buy another police chief ring hollow. They both know how good they had it.

This is not to say that I think Silco is poorly written or a "bad character." Silco being the way he is all comes down to the entire conceit of the show: two cities against each other, with a sister on each side. However, this does lead me to want to critique some things about the show's premise that lead to my critiques about Silco.

For the cities to be meaningfully opposed, Zaun can't just be oppressed. It has to be "bad" to counter Piltover's bad. This, I think, causes the majority of things that make me sad about the show overall. While I still enjoy it, much of what I enjoyed was a fantasy setting that dealt with real-world issues in its own way. However, for all the realism in the setting, there are some distinctly "not real" parts that seem to blunt discussions of the depth of the oppression Zaunites are suffering. There's only fleeting mentions of labor oppression, even though it must have been key to organizing their society. The way Piltovans like Heimerdinger and great house members like the Kirammans must've had an active hand in organizing and benefiting from this oppression is mostly skipped over. Much of Piltover's evil is shown to us in the form of police brutality, but under any system of police brutality is one of hierarchy that is actively maintained and serves more of a purpose than just violence for its own sake. Even so, the police brutality we're shown is more than enough to have us sympathize with Zaunite characters if they were to have a massive rebellion and change the shape of Piltover forever. But Piltover's shape can only change so much. That's the conceit of the show. We can't completely root for Zaun and have them be entirely sympathetic because it would break the world. This is why I think Silco has to be the face of Zaun instead of Ekko and the Firelights, why Ekko has to befriend Heimerdinger to soften that antagonism, and why the Firelights never gain enough power to challenge Piltover at a systemic level. Even when Ekko wants to, he's thwarted and unable to cross the bridge.

We have a lot more fantasy imagination than political imagination. Silco is very realistic. Authoritarians do tend to rise up and stop movements that are closer in practice to socialism. If there were a mass movement in Zaun, as there seems to be potential for around episode 3, Silco would want to redirect that energy so he can control it, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is, in some form or fashion, what he did while consolidating power in the wake of Vander's death. While I appreciate the realism, it does make me sad that many times we put so much more energy into imagining magic systems and mystical creatures than we do imagining ways people could live freely with each other. It's like we have to keep capitalist realism alive even if we have hoverboards (also, if it wasn't already clear, I think the greatest potential for socialism/other lefty schools of thought is seen in the Firelights; so we could totally have political imagination AND hoverboards if Riot weren't cowards).

Silco's strong individualism works well for his relationship with Jinx and allows him to serve and Vi's primary antagonist. Even as Vi goes on a path that leads her to become more and more morally questionable as the plot goes on (like her sister lol), the sheer horror of what Silco inflicted on her makes Vi's story easy to digest. For Silco and Jinx, Silco's individualist outlook allows him to see her separated from the conditions that he is exacerbating outside. There are probably at least a hundred kids who could be as smart if given the right conditions (which makes Jinx and Ekko foils, for instance), but Silco doesn't care because he doesn't have a personal connection with them. He sees Jinx not as a child among many but as the child. I think this is part of why it's so hard for him to even think of giving her up and why he really never would have. However, I think it would be wrong to suggest that we'd have to sacrifice a great storyline for Silco to be more class conscious. It's possible to hold the tension between seeing greatness in individuals you love and knowing there is similar greatness in every individual that is being stomped on by the various oppressions we face, including the ones we share.

Because of these factors (Piltover being written to be the oppressor but Zaun needing to be equally bad so the show can "both sides" the conflict; a general lack of political imagination, which is also hemmed in by the source material and keeps us from fun fictional socialism except in small doses; and the general individualism baked into Silco's character that leads him to not even consider that a mass movement is the best way to achieve his aim of independence), I find Silco's politics very boring, lol. If we're to think about what his revolution might bring about, I'd find it much easier to compare to a bourgeois revolution (such as the US one) than to a socialist revolution that devolved into state capitalism (such as the USSR). One thing that characterized the US revolution was its unwillingness to include all the potential actors who might've fought in the war, particularly enslaved people. More enslaved people actually fought on the British side, as they were promised independence (even though Britain had not abolished slavery, so this was probably a scam). By desiring to maintain the system of chattel slavery and the hierarchies it created, the US revolutionaries missed out on the possibility to create a mass movement and jeopardized the success of their movement in the process.

This all reminds me of the distinction Kwame Ture (formerly known as Stokely Carmichael) draws between the Black Revolutionary and the Black Militant:

Now, there are a number of groups functioning in the black liberation movement in this country. I will not give the philosophy of those groups. I will not speak for them because I wouldn’t want their representatives to speak for us. There are, of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress for Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Black Panther Party. Most of these groups have basically been fighting for a share of the American pie, at least until recently. That is to say, they were kept out of the American dream, and many of them thought that if they were to adopt the manners, the mode, the culture of the oppressor, they would be accepted and they too could enjoy the fruits of American imperialism. But today, among the young generation of blacks in this country, an ideology is developing that says we cannot, in fact, accept the system. This differentiates the black militant from the black revolutionary. The black militant is one who yells and screams about the evils of the American system, himself trying to become a part of that system. The black revolutionary’s cry is not that he is excluded, but that he wants to destroy, overturn, and completely demolish the American system and start with a new one that allows humanity to flow. I stand, then, on the side of the black revolutionary and not on the side of the black militant. (From Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism)

Silco's demands to Jayce, along with his exclusion of most of the people from Zaun in the process of transforming society and his exploitation of them via shimmer, place him firmly on the side of the militant in this equation. Silco wants access to the fruits of Piltover's progress while only upsetting the structure where it negatively affects him. Again, while there's a lot I can enjoy in his character, I get frustrated with his insistence at being counter-revolutionary at every turn. I have a long reading list for him, and since he's in the afterlife now, he'll have time to get to it.

TLDR: Silco says he doesn't have to beat Piltover, just scare them. You know what's really scary, Silco? The masses of the people standing up and demanding that their oppression end, for fuck's sake.

[ask-the-prose]

Do Your Research

This phrase is regularly thrown around writeblr and for good reason. It's important to research what you are writing about to know what to include, what can be fudged, and how to depict whatever you're writing. I see "do your research" most thrown around by well-meaning and highly traditionally educated writers. It's solid advice, after all!

But how do you research?

For those writers who don't already have the research skills necessary to write something comfortably already downloaded into your brain, I put this guide together for you.

Where do I even start?

It's a daunting task, research. But the best place to start is with the most basic, stupidest question you can think of. I'm going to talk about something that I already know a lot about: fighting.

When researching fight scenes, a great way to start is to look up what different weapons are. There are tons out there! So ask the stupid questions. What is a sword? What is a gun? How heavy are they?

Google and Wikipedia can help you a lot with these basic-level questions. They aren't great sources for academic articles, but remember, this is fiction. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to be 100% accurate if you don't want it to be. But knowing what is true to life will help you write well. Just like knowing the rules of writing will help you break them.

You may find in your basic research sweep that you have a lot more specific questions. Write them all down. It doesn't matter if they seem obvious. Write them down because they will be useful later.

How To Use Wikipedia Correctly

Wikipedia is a testament to cooperative human knowledge. It's also easy to edit by anonymous users, which means there is a lot of room for inaccuracies and misleading information. Wikipedia is usually pretty good about flagging when a source is needed or when misleading language is obvious, but Wikipedia itself isn't always the most accurate or in-depth source.

Wikipedia is, however, an excellent collection of sources. When I'm researching a subject that I know nothing about, say Norse mythology, a good starting point is the Wikipedia page for Odin. You'll get a little background on Odin's name and Germanic roots, a little backstory on some of the stories, where they appear, and how they are told.

When you read one of the sentences, and it sparks a new question, write the question down, and then click on the superscript number. This will take you directly to the linked source for the stated fact. Click through to that source. Now you have the source where the claim was made. This source may not be a primary source, but a secondary source can still lead you to new discoveries and details that will help you.

By "source-hopping," you can find your way across the internet to different pieces of information more reliably. This information may repeat itself, but you will also find new sources and new avenues of information that can be just as useful.

You mean I don't need a library?

Use your library. Libraries in many parts of the US are free to join, and they have a wealth of information that can be easily downloaded online or accessed via hardcopy books.

You don't, however, need to read every source in the library for any given topic, and you certainly don't need to read the whole book. Academic books are different from fiction. Often their chapters are divided by topic and concept and not by chronological events like a history textbook.

For example, one of my favorite academic books about legislative policy and how policy is passed in the US, by John Kingdon, discusses multiple concepts. These concepts build off one another, but ultimately if you want to know about one specific concept, you can skip to that chapter. This is common in sociological academic books as well.

Going off of my Norse Mythology example in the last section, a book detailing the Norse deities and the stories connected to them will include chapters on each member of the major pantheon. But if I only care about Odin, I can focus on just the chapters about Odin.

Academic Articles and How To Read Them

I know you all know how to read. But learning how to read academic articles and books is a skill unto itself. It's one I didn't quite fully grasp until grad school. Learn to skim. When looking at articles published in journals that include original research, they tend to follow a set structure, and the order in which you read them is not obvious. At all.

Start with the abstract. This is a summary of the paper that will include, in about half a page to a page, the research question, hypothesis, methods/analysis, and conclusions. This abstract will help you determine if the answer to your question is even in this article. Are they asking the right question?

Next, read the research question and hypothesis. The hypothesis will include details about the theory and why the researcher thinks what they think. The literature review will go into much more depth about theories, what other people have done and said, and how that ties into the research of the present article. You don't need to read that just yet.

Skim the methods and analysis section. Look at every data table and graph included and try to find patterns yourself. You don't need to read every word of this section, especially if you don't understand a lot of the words and jargon used. Some key points to consider are: qualitative vs. quantitative data, sample size, confounding factors, and results.

(Some definitions for those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms. Qualitative data is data that cannot be quantified into a number. These are usually stories and anecdotes. Quantitative data is data that can be transferred into a numerical representation. You can't graph qualitative data (directly), but you can graph quantitative data. Sample size is the number of people or things counted (n when used in academic articles). Your sample size can indicate how generalizable your conclusions are. So pay attention. Did the author interview 300 subjects? Or 30? There will be a difference. A confounding factor is a factor that may affect the working theory. An example of a theory would be "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would decrease LGBTQ hate crimes in that area." A confounding factor would be "increased reporting of hate crimes in the area." The theory, including the confounding factor, would look like "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would increase the reporting of hate crimes in the area, which increases the number of hate crimes measured in that area." The confounding factor changes the outcome because it is a factor not considered in the original theory. When looking at research, see if you can think of anything that may change the theory based on how that factor interacts with the broader concept. Finally, the results are different from the conclusions. The results tell you what the methods spit out. Analysis tells you what the results say, and conclusions tell you what generalizations can be made based on the analysis.)

Next, read the conclusion section. This section will tell you what general conclusions can be made from the information found in the paper. This will tell you what the author found in their research.

Finally, once you've done all that, go back to the literature review section. You don't have to read it necessarily, but reading it will give you an idea of what is in each sourced paper. Take note of the authors and papers sourced in the literature review and repeat the process on those papers. You will get a wide variety of expert opinions on whatever concept or niche you're researching.

Starting to notice a pattern?

My research methods may not necessarily work for everybody, but they are pretty standard practice. You may notice that throughout this guide, I've told you to "source-hop" or follow the sources cited in whatever source you find first. This is incredibly important. You need to know who people are citing when they make claims.

This guide focused on secondary sources for most of the guide. Primary sources are slightly different. Primary sources require understanding the person who created the source, who they were, and their motivations. You also may need to do a little digging into what certain words or phrases meant at the time it was written based on what you are researching. The Prose Edda, for example, is a telling of the Norse mythology stories written by an Icelandic historian in the 13th century. If you do not speak the language spoken in Iceland in 1232, you probably won't be able to read anything close to the original document. In fact, the document was lost for about 300 years. Now there are translations, and those translations are as close to the primary source you can get on Norse Mythology. But even then, you are reading through several veils of translation. Take these things into account when analyzing primary documents.

Research Takes Practice

You won't get everything you need to know immediately. And researching subjects you have no background knowledge of can be daunting, confusing, and frustrating. It takes practice. I learned how to research through higher formal education. But you don't need a degree to write, so why should you need a degree to collect information? I genuinely hope this guide helps others peel away some of the confusion and frustration so they can collect knowledge as voraciously as I do.

– Indy

[honoura]

Shaaloani: The Land of Enchantment Part One

Hello again! It's another lore-adjacent post from me about a niche special interest of mine. This time it's Shaaloani, the American Southwest/Northern Mexico inspired zone in FFXIV's Dawntrail.

I want to disclose a few things right at the start just to temper people's expectations: I will not be definitively ID'ing any of the indigenous-inspired structures or visuals as inspired by any specific tribe. That's not my lane! I'm going to link to things that they remind me of, for sure. But otherwise my hyperfocus is going to be on the physical environment, some animals, and the ceruleum as petroleum industry. It's what I recognize best! And what I know best, truthfully.

"Hon why are you doing this?" A variety of reasons honestly. After DT dropped I saw a lot of folks who did at least one of the following:

Commented on the Old West theme park aspect

Called it "miqo'te Texas"

Generally just called the whole map "Texas"

And if I'm honest... it bugged me! Not because I thought anyone was being malicious about it (it's mostly pop culture saturation I'd suspect), but to me it stung a bit that this zone, which I grew up on the fringe of, was... kind of flattened by a lot of people?

I don't know, the response to me just felt like people assumed they knew everything about it because they'd seen it already in movies or TV or Red Dead Redemption rather than the same open-mindedness about what was presented in places like Urqopacha.

This zone isn't just Texas -- yes there are some bits and pieces here (because it's pulling from the Chihuahuan Desert and the Sonoran Desert), but so much of it reminds me of New Mexico, Mexico, and Arizona. There's some Colorado, Utah, and Nevada there too! And the background story going on there is something that still happens in a lot of those states, by both the government and corporations alike.

That variety deserves to be celebrated! So come learn with me about the inspiration for Shaaloani!

Shaaloani Geography

Shaaloani has three major regions in the zone -- Eshceyaani Wilds, Pyariyoanaan Plain, and Yawtanane Grasslands. To get this out of the way, I'm going to tell you the one that reminds me most of Texas.

Ready?

Lake Taori of the Pyariyoanaan Plain.

It's river-fed, with canyons on both ends of the Niikwerepi. The trees crowding around it are cypress trees, as you can tell by the little nubby off-shoots called knees. To compare, here is a photo of cypress trees along the Frio River:

This is also reminiscent of places along the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers, two significant water sources in West Texas. I also would not call them bayous! Bayous typically have brackish water, are slow-moving, and are way too far east.

However, it could be partly considered a ciénega -- which according to its wikipedia article:

"Ciénagas are usually associated with seeps or springs, found in canyon headwaters or along margins of streams. Ciénagas often occur because the geomorphology forces water to the surface, over large areas, not merely through a single pool or channel."

As a caveat, ciénegas generally don't have trees around them, but I also know that you can't really drown a cypress and they love sunshine. Regardless -- if you see trees in the desert they are typically growing along a water source. Balmorhea State Park has some cottonwood trees native to the area that are going strong.

Yawtanane Grasslands reads as a mix of the Chihuahuan Desert and the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Both are rather arid and home to a variety of grasses that can thrive in such a climate -- which has historically made both areas home to large cattle industries (whether or not this was ever a good idea is debatable, since cattle are very thirsty animals).

Meanwhile the Eshceyaani Wilds looks similar to the Sonoran Desert -- the red-hued soil and rocks, the abundance of cacti with the scrub brush and some drought-tolerant grasses. Here's a shot of the Sonoran within Saguaro National Park in Arizona:

Saguaros also only grow in Arizona in the States! As well as the organ-pipe cactus, which you see in Tender Valley. And prickly pears grow just about anywhere they can get a chance -- as well as barrel cacti, both of which we see in Tender Valley (along with what could be agave!).

You could probably make a case for it being a piñon-juniper scrubland -- everything's very short compared to those cypress trees, including the juniper trees! Piñon-juniper scrubland's found throughout the Southwest. There are also piñon-juniper savannahs and persistent woodlands intermixed in the same places. The difference lay in what plants you find with the piñon pines and junipers.

Visually, aside from the Sonoran Desert, I can also see a lot of New Mexico, like the Ghost Ranch in Rio Arriba:

It matches up with the mountains you can see, and both Yowekwa Canyon and Tender Valley. And of course, Tender Valley is likely a Grand Canyon reference, going by the sheer height of the cliffs. But you could also make a case for Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

There's a shot from Grand View Point Overlook within the park -- the closeness of the canyon walls and the warm earth tones also evoke Tender Valley!

There's also a lot of these sandstone formations in Utah that better fit Shaaloani -- like here in the Valley of the Gods:

Shaaloani Structures

I also at this point want to call attention to one of the two sites with cliff dwellings & adobe structures. We just saw Tender Valley above, which is confirmed to be old Yok Huy structures. But check out these Tonawawta buildings below.

As I stated before, I don't want to state which tribe these two styles remind me of. But I do want to say this again strikes me as another New Mexico and Arizona callback; both the Gila Cliff Dwellings and the Puye Cliff Dwellings are found in two different areas of New Mexico. And the Gíusewa Pueblo, also in New Mexico! Montezuma Castle is found in Arizona, and is pictured below! Look at that rich reddish earth color.

I also want to call attention to the place of worship for the Tonawawta in Yowekwa Canyon:

When I saw it my kneejerk response was to call it an ofrenda. But that's ultimately an incomplete response -- that was just the vibe I felt after seeing them during my life! What it also reminds me of are pictographs and petroglyphs. You find these all over the Southwest (the climate helps preserve them!), but I'm going to link some really great examples. I won't provide images to all though!

Crow Canyon Petroglyphs:

Piedras Madras Canyon at Petroglyph National Monument (New Mexico) Petroglyph Point Trail at Mesa Verde National Park (Colorado) Petroglyph Panel at Canyon Reef National Park (Utah) Nampaweap at Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument (Arizona) Horseshoe Canyon at Canyonlands National Park (Utah) and the Hueco Tanks State Park (Texas)

In contrast, I don't want to spend a ton of time on the boom town structures in this zone; they are pretty straightforward references to mining towns during the different resource booms (gold, silver, copper, oil).

Similar blocky shapes, built out of wood. One thing I noticed as a neat addition are the decorative patterns painted on it -- again, I don't want to presume if there's a specific tribe tied to this. But I do think it's a neat touch and I want to think that's a design choice to convey the underlying theme that this is a zone at odds with advancing technology and wanting to keep hold of important traditions.

I WILL talk about the ceruleum wells and pumping though. Mostly because I'm impressed that they went with structures that so closely resemble early 20th century oil derricks. Those were also predominately made of wood (including the barrels, yikes!). The pump part of what's called a pumpjack were covered in the old days -- the ones we're most used to seeing now are made of metal and are thus left uncovered.

However, as you can see from this century old rig, even the wheel's made of wood:

I don't think ceruleum gushes the same way oil did -- it seems to behave more like natural gas. However, most natural gas pipelines do burn off excess, which can be seen as a little spout of flame atop.

Oil's occupied an awkward spot in the Southwest, and still does. Aside from the heinous crimes committed in Killers of the Flower Moon (where members of the Osage tribe were murdered for their oil shares in Oklahoma) and the Teapot Dome Scandal, oil is just... well.

Bear with me, I'm about to rag on Koana a moment.

The people who make the most money and have the most power over the average roughneck's life never live in the Southwest. They work in the c-suite and have more money than sense.

I find it very fascinating that DT chose to recreate this dynamic, this uncomfortable push-pull of a region rich in a resource, and it's being harvested at the suggestion and behest of a power that is physically removed from the area. And to some NPCs it's with a certain level of disregard to traditions and practices in place before, with the focus on the nebulous quantifier of 'progress'. Progress how? It depends!

But the folks at the highest seat of power never have to grapple with those questions, because to them it's a fairly cut and dry answer. This is the way to proceed, and if they want to take this nation into the "future", then this is the clear way to do it. It speaks to Koana's fixation on foreign technology to the point he de-values his own (partly due to his childhood trauma, which kind of prepped him to be susceptible to it).

Meanwhile the locals are the ones grappling the most with this change -- how it affects their plants and animals. Sometimes pits open up in the earth and ceruleum burns (which, Santa Rita New Mexico sank multiple times into the earth thanks to copper mining). On the map there's even discolored plants -- and they only occur in the vicinity OF the bulk of the ceruleum pumps.

This is at odds with core beliefs, keeping up with traditional practices. It puts people in the place of 'do I participate in this system, which promises work and the means to take care of my family, even as it pits me against my cultural heritage?'.

Growing up in West Texas, one of the weirdest things to me (to this day) is how many people will claim they love the land. They do! They love the outdoors, they worry over how certain species of animals have become scarcer. But they also work in the single most damaging industry because it pays the most money. It lets them cover bills and give their kids what they never had.

That same push-pull is in Shaaloani narratively; when progress has been thrust upon you, how do you survive it? How do you make sure what's dearest to you comes along with you?

In Conclusion

I want to call it here for Part One -- Part Two after this will cover more observations I had regarding flora and fauna in the Shaaloani zone, and how that also shows the attention to detail given this zone! It's a good time! There will be dinosaurs!

[valdevia]

Hi, I love your works!! I was wondering where you find the original, unedited pictures you use for your art? Do you take them yourself or find them online?

Hey there! I get them from many different sources! Whenever I can I use my own, and sometimes my followers send me cool pics to use (or put them up in the Sacrificial Altar channel in my Discord), but I find most of what I use through public domain sources online!

For the online part, I put this little list together with some of the common resources I use! Feel free to share it around and copy it:

For an easier experience, I'll copy the relevant part below:

STOCK SITES

- Unsplash: Usually the best quality out of the free stock sites. They’ll try to sell you a subscription plan but you can ignore that.

- Adobe Stock: Select “Free” on the dropdown menu next to the search bar. The free image selection here is big and high-quality, though they feel more like stock pictures than natural photos. Note: They limit how many pictures you can download per account per day, but you can make several accounts to circumvent this if you use it a lot.

- Texturelabs: lots of free, very high-quality textures!

- Pexels: Similar to Unsplash, but it has more pictures with people. If you need a photo with models, this is usually the best place.

- Pixabay: Widest selection, but worst quality control. Go here if you haven’t found anything in other sites and don’t mind sifting through a bunch of garbage pics and occasional AI images.

PUBLIC DOMAIN SOURCES

- Wikimedia Commons: an enormous selection of CC and public domain pictures. Super useful, especially for the really specific images that you'd expect to find on a Wikipedia article. Always check the copyright conditions! To filter by license, search something and then click on the License dropdown under the search bar. Select “No restrictions” for public domain images.

- Picryl: A repository of public domain sources, ranging from ancient historical books and artifacts to fairly modern pictures. If you're looking for something old/historical, chances are it's here! This website is probably one of the most complicated ones to use, so here are three important tips before you use it:

This site added a paywall that appears after the 3rd page of search results. To remove it, install uBlock Origin, go to the “My Filters” page (clicking on the gear icon after opening the extension), and paste this filter: picryl.com##._9oJ0c2

After searching, use the timeline on the top right to narrow down the result by year.

It won’t let you download the full picture without paying, but it always has a link to the source site below the description. Click on that, then copy-paste the image’s name to find it in the original source. That way you can get it for free, and often in better quality than Picryl offers.

National Archives Catalog, The Library of Congress, NASA, and Europeana have wide selections, but they are included in Picryl so it’s usually better to search there and then download them in the source as mentioned above!

- Flickr Search: a ton of usable pictures with a generally more amateur feel, just remember to filter by license using the “Any license” dropdown menu. When you find an image, make sure to check its specific license (you can find it below the image, on the right side).

- Openverse: The official Creative Commons archive, has many sources! Includes other sites on this list, but has a lot of clutter if you don’t filter.

- iNaturalist: a repository of user-submitted images of animals, plants, and fungi. Look for a genus or species, then navigate to the photo list and filter by license.

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

- The Met: An amazing selection of artifacts from all over the world, with top quality photographs of most of them (usually with several angles for each). You can filter images by material, location, and era.

- Getty Museum: Another smaller selection of museum pieces, but this one includes old photos as well as artifacts. You can also filter by dates, materials and cultures. Make sure you include the “Open Content” filter to only see public domain things!

- Smithsonian: Big selection of around 5 million museum pieces, with some 3D scans of museum pieces. Most pieces just have a single picture that can sometimes be low quality, but pieces with 3D models sometimes also include a lot of high quality photos from multiple angles. This collection also includes things from museums of natural history, so you can also use it to search for bones and specimens.

- Artvee: public domain classical art. They make you pay to download high-quality images.

If you guys got any others, please let me know and I'll add them to the collection!

[ziseviolet]

Thank you so much for gathering this information, you are providing a valuable resource for hanfu enthusiasts! I love the sumptuous cuts and fabrics, but as someone often involved in physical labor, it isn't realistic for me. Are there any examples of clothing that might be worn by country folk who have to work in the fields and tend animals?

Hi! Thanks for the question, and sorry for taking ages to reply! (image via)

Yes, there is hanfu suitable for country folk who have to work in the fields and tend animals. Historically, such people would have worn a type of unisex hanfu called 裋褐/shuhe. Shuhe goes by a few other names, including 短打/duanda, 短褐/duanhe, and 竖褐/shuhe. They all refer to a two-piece set of attire composed of a cross-collar top that extends to the knees, coupled with tied trousers. Both pieces were typically made out of coarse cloth. It is the basis of almost all underclothing, usually the clothing worn under armor, and the casual outfit of commoners and laborers (x). This outfit was generally worn by people doing manual labor, such as farm work, and by martial artists (x).

I wrote about shuhe in my post on casual/adventurer-type hanfu here. For more information on shuhe, I recommend checking out the following links:

Wikipedia article on 衫裤/shanku

Patterns for shuhe-making

Shuhe-making tutorial

A few images of shuhe in historical art & modern day (1, 2, 3, 4):

Shuhe understandably isn't as popular as other "fancier" hanfu styles, but there are still some available on Taobao, including the following:

Farmer-style shuhe for spring & autumn from ���夏节奏 (x):

2. Ming-style ramie shuhe from 淮边筱竹 (x):

3. Tailor-made Ming-style shuhe from 淮边筱竹 (x):

4. Ming-style quilted cotton winter shuhe from 淮边筱竹 (x):

For more references, please see my shuhe and commoners hanfu tags.

If anyone has more info/recs, please share! ^^

Hope this helps!

[vashtijoy]

shido's conspiracy is big: koenkai (supporters associations) in japanese politics

How do you take over Japan, if you're a corrupt piece of shit?

On 11/25, when the Shido's Palace mission starts and you're finally released from captivity in Leblanc, the Modest Housewife in the Shibuya underground mall suddenly becomes the Not-So-Modest Housewife. And what does she tell us?

shido has a what now

What's the "supporters association"? In Japanese, it's a 後援会 kouenkai. From Wikipedia:

Koenkai (後援会, lit. "local support groups") are an invaluable tool of Japanese Diet members, especially of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). (note: in P5, this is the "Liberal Co-Prosperity Party" or LCP, Shido's original party and the original ruling party.) These groups serve as pipelines through which funds and other support are conveyed to legislators and through which the legislators can distribute favors to constituents in return.

The article is fascinating; do give it a read, as I can't possibly do it justice here. These are massive organisations, and relay vast amounts of cash to their members. They organise endless activities for their members—that meeting at the Wilton Hotel on 5/5 is one. They often require a personal connection to be invited, which is why the Housewife says this to her friend:

... she knows she wasn't invited.

Though koenkai are weaker in modern times, there are many examples of them being involved with corruption; here are a couple.

"The Asahi reported in the mid-1970s that the [koenkai of former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei] "virtually controls… agricultural committees, popular welfare committees, election management committees". This thorough penetration of Tanaka's koenkai into all important facets of Niigata's people's lives propelled him into becoming the father figure of the district. After his arrest in 1976 on corruption charges, many of Niigata's residents still expressed deep respect towards him."

"Due to the huge support [former Prime Minister] Takeshita Noboru enjoyed as a result of his koenkai, his electoral district in Shimane came to be known as ‘Takeshita Kingdom'. Despite being embroiled in many political scandals, related to insider trading and corruption (for which he was never charged), Takeshita's immense local support never waned."

so what does this tell us

In short, Shido's conspiracy is not a few corrupt high-level officials. It's not just Shido, Akechi, the SIU Director and those people on the ship. It is a vast organisation.

It recruits people by reputation (remember those five recommendations in the Palace?) from all levels of society—and those recruits then operate as a bloc, networking, doing favours for each other, advancing their mutual interests, connected via a hierarchy to Shido at the top. This is why Shido can control everything.

It also explains why everyone seems to be linked to the conspiracy—including the hapless Principal Kobayakawa. Did you think it was unrealistic for him to be involved? It seems likely that he was just a low-level member of Shido's koenkai.

When Shido needed someone at Shujin to investigate the Phantom Thieves, Kobayakawa was there—because they have people everywhere. A quick phone call from a higher-up in the organisation—the SIU Director, most likely, who we know Kobayakawa speaks to—and he's eating out of Shido's hand. And will do anything he wants....

So Kobayakawa wasn't anybody at all. He wasn't important. He wasn't somehow part of the deep state. He was just one of likely hundreds of thousands of paid-up Shido supporters looking to advance themselves, getting the vote out, and funding the cause.

He was in the right place at the right time. After all, the koenkai got Kobayakawa his job at Shujin. All his hopes for advancement are centred on it:

Because just like the two housewives in the underground mall, and probably like everyone else in the koenkai, Kobayakawa is a desperate social climber, impressed by wealth and fame and power and flashy titles.

I hope he thought it was worth it.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2023/10/31)—first posted.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

What you'll find here (refreshed Intro post, 8 October, 2024)

I generally post whatever is on my mind, especially contemplative and/or silly. Disability rights, queer rights, literature and the arts are perennial subjects.

Rest Assured: I will never make a “Reblog, or else you’re a bad person,” or “Reblog, or else bad things will happen.” post.

(Though I may ask for signal boosts, if someone is asking for specific help / advice, and needs to get their message out)

What counts as "Good Manners" around here:

Don't be mean. There's no need to be mean. Remember, wherever you go, there you are.

Praise what you enjoy before criticizing what you don't.

When you do give criticism, let it be reasoned ("It sucks!" isn’t reasoning).

Don't belittle, or mock, people for the things they enjoy (or what they don’t enjoy, either, respect people’s squicks, even if they seem odd to you).

If you must post provocative things, aim for provoking laughter, and provoking thought.

Remember that anger can splash onto innocent bystanders, and people "reading over your shoulder." If you must have an argument with someone in particular--rather than an argument for or against an idea--take it somewhere else (Send a private message or ask to the person)

When in doubt: Puns!

My blocking policy: When I get a notification that I have a new follower, I check, and I will block

Blogs I suspect of being a bot.

Ableists . (Link to the American Wikipedia article on Ableism). This includes anyone who supports for Autism Speaks; I see a blue puzzle piece, I block immediately. I will also block people who repost images, and remove the Image Descriptions.

TERFs, as flagged by the app Shinigami Eyes.

Self-appointed LGBTQ+ Gatekeepers: Those who want to exclude Asexual, Aromantic, and Bi- (or Pan-) folk in M/F relationships, from the Queer Community.

Speaking of the Queer Community: Any user that tags my posts with “q-slur." Since "Queer" is widely accepted through academic consensus, I use it freely. If that word makes you uncomfortable, you would not be happy here.

Any blog (or Anon who sends a message to my Inbox) that discourages voting in United States elections.

And Finally:

With help and suggestions from many others (some of whom wished to remain anonymous) I designed the Disability Pride Flag (Which is different from the Disability Rights Flag of the U.N.). Here is the flag as designed for computer monitors, mobile phones, and other backlit screens:

To the extent possible under law, Ann Magill has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Visually Safe Disability Pride Flag. This work is published from: United States.

I also designed a version in fully saturated colors, which I recommend for physical media, such as actual flags, tee-shirts, print materials, etc. (Since physical media is more likely to be viewed at a distance, and atmospheric haze naturally filters bright colors).

I've put the full saturation version behind the cut (But please use the version above for online art):

[traincat]

i was trying to explain to my mom how the harry potter game is antisemitic (we are not jewish) and she didnt really seem to get it. she was like "i mean if they were wearing yarmulkes i would be like yeah, the goblins are supposed to be jewish". do you know of a good source that i could send her that would break down the jewish stereotypes and how they arent just coincidence? if you dont have a good source dont worry about it but i saw you reblog stuff about it so i thought you might. thank you for your time!

I have a few resources I'm linking in my reply here, but I'm probably not going to be answering other questions about this because, to be honest, as a Jewish person in fandom, it's stressful. I'm reblogging stuff about Hogwarts Legacy because I'm Jewish and the antisemitism in the game is vile to the point where it feels irresponsible for me not to address it in some way, and because it ties into a lot of the other antisemitism I've personally faced in fandom when speaking about anything Jewish. I feel like your mother may have some trouble grasping the antisemitism because she seems to be viewing Judaism solely as a faith, when Judaism is an ethnoreligion -- a religion, an ethnic group, and wide and varied culture, and so stereotypes about Jewish people don't have to involve religious symbols and very often involve specific physical features, ie, big noses. The goblins in Harry Potter are short, ugly, and they have huge noses -- these are all features commonly associated in antisemitic caricature with Ashkenazi Jewish men. The idea that the goblins would only be valid caricatures of Jewish people if they were wearing a specific piece of clothing is troubling because it invokes the yellow stars Jews were made to wear by the Nazis. (For the record, my uncle wears a yarmulke full time, but the other men on my mother's side of the family do not. This does not make them less Jewish.)

But if your mother needs a symbol associated with the Jewish faith to help her understand, it's been noted that the game features a "goblin horn" that is very clearly a shofar, an important piece of Judaica which is used for religious purposes. (There's also a link between the date the horn is given in the game and a very brutal pogrom; more info in the twitter thread linked. If you want to get an idea of how virulent antisemitism is in fandom, the response to this thread and others like it are A Lot.) Like I can't say enough how blatant this is, and the reason it's getting by so many people are 1) a lot of non-Jewish people are at least on a base level, if not actively antisemitic themselves, basically okay with antisemitism, because antisemitism is so present in our culture and 2) uneducated on Jewish matters.

It's also important to note that in the Harry Potter world, goblins are specifically bankers. This is how they are first introduced to readers and this is their primary association in world: the goblins are literally guarding the gates on huge piles of wizard gold. This is an antisemitic stereotype, as Jews are often perceived as being money grubbing and greedy, as well as "secretly controlling" the greater world's wealth. More info in this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism. This thread by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg also breaks down the connection between the "greedy Jew" stereotype and the historical precedent for Jewish moneylenders, a profession that was foisted on them because it was distasteful to Christians: https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/1057333224538624001. Harry Potter is not unique in these depictions. There is an example of this in, say, Star Trek, where the Ferengi are a race of greedy, money-obsessed aliens who have exaggerated "ugly" features and who are often depicted as oversexed, especially when it comes to women of other, more classically attractive alien races (this is another antisemitic stereotype of Jewish men). But the Ferengi are also all played by Jewish actors, and in the show where they feature most, Deep Space 9, they're protagonists. So while the Ferengi are rooted in antisemitic stereotypes, the involvement of Jewish creatives and their role in the story makes it a more complicated, nuanced situation. This is not what is happening in Hogwarts Legacy.

It's not a coincidence that the goblins in Harry Potter have always been depicted as bankers right from book one. While you can theoretically separate the series from Rowling's transphobia (although, y'know, you shouldn't), the antisemitism is baked into the series. Hogwarts Legacy just takes it to a whole other incredibly overt level. The point of the game is violence against Jews, and we see that because it's revealing just how many people out there are fine with demonizing Jews specifically and the level of violence Jewish people often face in fandom when they speak out about antisemitism.

[pillarsalt]

hi there!!! love your art first of all!! :)

i came across a rb of your cotton cieling/peaking comic (which i also love!) and saw in the notes how tims have scrubbed the tag since then. it made me curious how widespread the knowledge of their rape rhetoric actually is (since we know how happy they are to spew it when they know only lesbians are reading/listening, but we also know how hard they try to pretend to everyone else that they're tooootally not homophobic and toooootally don't have an incel meltdown at the mere thought of a lesbian saying "no" to them)

so i decided to see if wikipedia had an article on the ""cotton cieling"" (god i could go off on one about how these misogynists think "women are not given equal positions/mobility in the workforce" and "men get told 'no' by women they want to have sex with realllllly badly :-(" are at ALL comparable but this ask is long enough already) and guess what!? they DO but it has been NUKED to all hell.

right now? it's got zero citations/links, zero name drops of any Brave And Stunning men who promote it and write theory about it let alone naming the POS who coined it, barely even says what the definition even is... it's THE shortest article i've ever seen on there.

but look at the history tab!!! it used to be a fleshed out piece that was out and proud about claiming "lesbians not wanting to sleep with men is both oppressive and misogynistic" until at some point they realized saying the quiet part out loud where "normies" might see it was not a good idea and quietly scrubbed the article. (but they still keep it up!! as opposed to that female mod who made literal thousands of helpful factual edits, maintaining their site for free: she got banned the moment they found out she wasn't a handmaiden and all her work is theirs now i guess). and all the while, in the background, they've kept on coercing and pressuring lesbians to sleep with them nonstop with zero guilt or shame.

please for the love of god explain to me how they've convinced anyone who pays attention they're ""the most oppressed minority group who ever lived""???

holy shit anon you're right, that edits tab is crazyyy. They have definitely done a 180° on this subject, at least out loud where the average person can read it. The discussion page is another good read, LauraRichards1981 if you ever read this, you are a star and I love you.

Talking to other feminists and others who used to support genderism but "peaked", I would say at least half of them brought up the phenomenon of trans-identified men insisting lesbians have sex with them or be labeled bigots as at least one factor in their new outlook. It's so blatantly homophobic and I think a lot of influential figures in trans activism have realized how bad it looks for them, and have actively tried to memory hole it. I have even seen some claiming that "terfs" invented the term, which is hilarious because, as portrayed in my comic, I saw it with my own eyes being touted absolutely everywhere online as a way to vilify lesbians who wouldn't go along with every desire of the male trans individuals who had parasitized their communities. The DARVO is real.

[montecarloedexistence]

Driving myself Crazy for three hours trying to make an incomplete Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics Simulation in Python

The following post is a rant. I try my best to explain and dumb things down, but I'm writing it with too much frustration at my code so I apologize in advance.

For those who wanna go oooh colors changing pretty here's a short clip of the animation I generated. There's a longer simulation linked at the bottom of the post.

Read on about how I made the simulation under the cut.

Okay, so, Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics. It's one method of Simulating Fluids (gases and liquids and plasmas basically) with computers. It's mainly got applications in two places, from what I know. One is in Science Research, and another is in Game Development.

There are two major methods of representing a fluid for a computer, one is with Particles, and another is with grids. I tried to make a grid-based simulation but that has a lot more math, and I can't do math without some meth so here I am.

Okay, so Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics. How does it work? Well, like it says, it's basically simulating the constituent and then smoothing them out to sorta get the hydrodynamic behavior. [3]

The Ancient Indian natural scientist Maharshi Kanada [1] postulated that everything in the world was made of tiny little things indivisible things called Paramanu. Democritus proposed a similar theory, that all matter was composed of small indivisible particles which they called "atoms" [2]. The idea of smooth particle hydrodynamics builds on top of that. If everything is made up of these constituent particles, then so must fluids as well.

These constituent particles (particles henceforth) are nice. They don't break further, and they undergo elastic collisions. (ACTUALLY, the actual molecules that make up a fluid are not like this, we're just assuming that they are cuz this whole mess is complicated enough without having to simulate intra-intermolecular interactions). Elastic Collisions, basically mean that the particles, when they hit each other, they don't lose the energy of motion (kinetic energy). [4]

An actual Liquid is going to have MILLIONS OF BILLIONS of particles. Actually, we have a name for something that big, it's called a Mole. [5] One mole is like 10^23 particles. (10 times 10 times 10... twenty three times). But my computer is a useless piece of potato that can't even be used to make a goddam french fry, unless you wanna heat up the oil with how hot this thing gets doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Okay sorry for the tangent. It's like almost 2 in the night and I'm hungry. My point is that my computer can't keep track of one mole of particles. It's too many particles. So, what I say is, okay, out of the one mole of particles, I'm going to keep track of only like say, 1000 particles. And then whatever results I get, I multiply it with a big number and scale it up to approximate the results of one mole of particles.

So, I just put a bunch of particles, and then I have to keep track of their positions, velocities, accelerations, and all that jazz. So if you remember 8th grade there were these equations of motion, where you'd change the values of position, velocity, and acceleration using some formulae. [6] Those formulae are continuous, which means for fancy sphancy reasons (Remind me to write another post about this when I'm in a better mood about this one it's super cool) I can't use. I need to do something called Discritize the equations. [7].

For that, I used something called the Explicit Euler Method first. [8] That's basically a method that Euler came up with I guess so it's got his name. Why does the Wikipedia article on this thing not have a history section but a section on "In Popular Culture" wth. Someone pls edit it if you know the history of this thing anyways.

The problem with Discretization is that, the way you're implementing it in computers, it's not going to be accurate. There's going to be some errors and they build up. So normally when you drop a ball from a certain height, and ignore the fact that heat and air and friction exists, then the ball hits the ground, and bounces back, it should go back to the height it started at. But because of the errors from Discretization adding up, the ball kept losing height. That's not good. So I moved over and implemented this thing called the Runge Kutta Method. [9] These methods were developed around 1900 by the German mathematicians Carl Runge and Wilhelm Kutta. If you're looking at the wikipedia page for this and wondering what the heck is this, same gurl same. I just asked chatgpt to implement this method into my code and it gave out something that I think is correct I'm not sure. But the point is that this is better and doesn't throw that much errors in calculation.

Okay now that that's done, I threw like a 1000 balls onto the screen, gave them random velocities, put them under an arbitrary downward gravity, and hooray. That covers the particle part of the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics.

(YES I know particles don't go through each other like they do in this simulation. I'm supposed to include some collision logic, and I could not be bothered to implement it yet, because it is 2 AM and I AM GOING CRAZY with just this much.)

Now, for the Smooth part of Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics. If only I could use this as an excuse to pull out my smooth pickup lines but I'll stick to the physics for now. Basically, one way of calculating density is, suppose I have a box, I can toss in say 100 balls, and then the density of the box is 100 balls / box. The box has some volume, so I divide this unit I've got with the volume of the box. And each ball has some mass, so I multiply the unit with the mass of each ball. And that's basically what I do here.

Suppose, I take a point and then around it, I draw a circle. I first count the number of particles in this circle, and then divide it with the volume of the circle. (There's a few more steps here but i'm not bothering. I'm giving more importance to the particles closer to the point and less to the particles more far away but that's a mess to explain and I can't think of a way to explain it.). And then I multiply and divide by the mass of particle and volume of the circle respectively, I end up with the density at the given point.

But that's just for one point. If you sit and plot it for as many points as possible, then you get something resembling the density function of the system. What I've done here is basically divide my domain into a 25 by 25 grid, and I calculated the density at the center of each of the grid boxes. The more particles and the More Grid boxes you have, the more smoother your function will be. Here, not so much. It's a pixelated mess, but the same logic applies. I calculated the density grid for each instant of time, and then let the simulation run for like 1000 frames.

FINALLY the plotting. I just plotted the points where they are with a scatterplot, and then the background I put the heatmap of the density. And of course I didn't bother naming my axes, because that's the standard practice for plotting graphs. (When you're lazy like I am right now. Always label your axes in a serious graph)

So here's the GIF I finally generated after the trials and tribulations going for like 1000 frames. Let's hope Tumblr can render it pls.

I cited my references in the order of the paragraphs I wrote so deal with the non-linear citations. This ain't a research paper and it's way too late in the night for me to be bothered about this sorry. Why did I even bother with the citations if I was going to half-arse this thing anyways this is why you don't write stuff when half asleep.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%E1%B9%87%C4%81da

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoothed-particle_hydrodynamics

[4] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elastic_collision

[5] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(unit)

[6] https://byjus.com/physics/equations-of-motion/

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discretization

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_method

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runge%E2%80%93Kutta_methods

Okay yeah that's about it time to sleep for me. I just wanted to finish writing this post before I could sleep, cuz I know for a fact I ain't goina be in a mood to write it once I wake up. 100% gurantee I'll lose the motivation to write it once i wake up lol.

[winterbirb]

So. I've talked previously about ZA possibly being set in the future, but I then decided it would probably be set in the late 19th century (around when Paris went through an actual urban restoration project AND when the Eiffel Tower was built).

Well, what do I see but an article about the possible era it's in!

https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/pokemon-legends-z-a-leak-time-period-setting/

.......

..............

Guys.

Legends Arceus wasn't set in the "distant past." It was set in MID-LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY JAPAN. GUYS. LAVENTON HAD A CAMERA!

I....

This article writer is a Eurocentric moron and/or just ignoring of history in general (if they're an American, they clearly don't know what the frontier looked like 150 years ago), and the leaker isn't adding anything new. It isn't the distant past. PL:A also wasn't the distant past.

Look, I know Japanese history isn't taught in US schools. But there's a very easy thing to do, right now: Google "Japan Hokkaido history," click the Wikipedia article for Hokkaido, and scroll down to the history section. Sinnoh is based on Hokkaido. You do not need to recognize all the names. Or any of the names. You will still come away knowing much more than, apparently, 99% of Americans writing about PL:A.

If you want to know about Paris's urban redevelopment (the plot point of ZA), Google "Paris urban redevelopment" and click the Wikipedia link titled "Haussman's renovation of Paris." And maybe "Eiffel tower" because I'm pretty sure that's going to come into play, but Haussman is more important.

And no, even if you didn't do well at school you're not "too stupid" to learn this stuff. If you care about pokemon lore, and are able to put pieces of lore into context with each other, then you've already shown you're able to do this sort of thing.

[mollish-art]

If anyone was wondering, the Vagabond's equipment is based off of the WW2 Soviet uniform. I tried to be as historically accurate as possible in the setting - I've linked a wikipedia article below that shows some of the individual uniform pieces if you're curious!

The gulag mentioned in chapter 2 (minus the building where Charlie encounters the Lamprey Anathemas) was also based upon a real place: Perm-36.

Just some fun facts for ya! I did my research for this story hehe

[tortiefrancis]

"Coligay": brazilian soccer and homosexuality in the 70s and 80s

i wanted to find a piece of queer history outside of the USA to tell people this pride month, and i remembered this one, so i decided to look it up again and sum it up for you guys. links with more information are at the end of the post

-> what was "Coligay"?

Coligay was a group of fans of the soccer club Grêmio, from Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, made up entirely by queer people. It was created in 1977 by Volmar Santos, Grêmio fan and owner of a gay bar, named "Coliseu", coliseum in portuguese. That's where the name of the group comes from, a mix of "Coliseu" and "gay"- Coligay! The members were, in turn, called "coliboys", as "boy" is a common slang in Brazil.

In a very sexist and homophobic environment, during the military dictatorship, Coligay members were scared of possible aggressions and repression from fellow soccer fans and the military, so they trained karate. Yup! A group of gay soccer fans who fought karate, in the late 70s, can this get any more badass?

It sure can!

With the birth of Coligay, Grêmio finally started to win games and titles again, being the champion of the "Gaúcho Championship" that year, and winning other championships after that. they basically became a lucky amulet to the team, and wherever the team went, the coliboys were there, just like the Grêmio anthem says ("Mas o certo é que nós estaremos onde o Grêmio, onde o Grêmio estiver").

-> what caused "Coligay" to end?

the leader and creator, Volmar Santos, had to go back to his hometown in the 80s, causing the group to lose strength and to finally dismantle in 1983.

the group also suffered a lot of aggressions and threats from other soccer fans, even within Grêmio, and was watched closely by the government at the time, due to, again, existing during the military dictatorship, a time of intense repression of leftist views and anyone or anything that didn't follow the strict, conservative social norms.

regarding aggressions, Volmar Santos says there was only one instance of direct physical aggression against the coliboys, but nonetheless, the group didn't feel safe, which was still a strain for the members.

-> does "Coligay" exist nowadays?

sadly, no. there were attempts made to bring it back, with the help of other queer soccer fan groups, but the amount of aggression faced online lead them to back down. Brazil is an incredibly bigoted country, and soccer is, unfortunately, a place where that is extremely clear.

other gay and queer groups were created for other teams, however, inspired by Coligay, and though it's taken a while, Grêmio has recognised its existence years after it ended and there are even books written on its history now. there's also a piece of their history in the Grêmio museum.

-> conclusion:

I hope this short summary of this incredible piece of Brazilian queer history makes some of y'all happy today, specially for fellow Brazilians and gaúchos who may have been unaware that it even existed. Happy pride month, and have a queer-tastic day.

links:

-> coligay wikipedia page

-> UOL web article on coligay

-> El Pais article on coligay

-> UFRGS, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, article on coligay

[valdevia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_jelly

Wikipedia article on a phenomenon known as “star jelly” that you might find interesting! Your artwork’s BRILLIANT, I love it!!!!

(Just realized the irony(?) of me sending you a link about that particular thing, considering my blog’s name. Lol)

Yess I love star jelly, it's a great bit of folklore!

It was partially the inspiration behind this piece!

It was a commission for @0ce4n-m4n! The character (star baby) looks kinda like a bit of star jelly, so I decided to lean into that :)

[tweedlestrove]

Part 6 of A Treatise of Embroidery, crochet, and knitting with illustrations

By George C. Perkins, Anna Grayson Ford, and M. Heminway & Sons Silk co circa 1899.

Please note, this book was written in 1899, and as such uses a racist term to refer to the dyes that were used for the thread. If you'd like to read more about this period in time, the term, and the stereotypes that the Victorians had, I've actually linked the wikipedia article here that goes more in depth. It's not the end all be all of it, but it's a good starting place for anyone wanting to educate themselves on the topic.

Since the alt text was too long to fit in the actual pop up, I'm writing it down here!

Page 29. Lessons In Embroidery.

This page has the pattern for the strawberry and blossoms embroidery on it. It resembles a paint by numbers/letters image with a table showing the corresponding colours. I will try my best to explain the image, but first the colour charts.

Berries-Ripe.

Red: 655 shade number 1, 655 shade number 2, 656 shade number 3, 657 shade number 4, 658 shade number 5, 659 shade number 6, 660 shade number 7, 661 shade number 8.

Blossoms: 691 shade number 9.

Centre: 647 shade number 10, 409 1/2 shade number 11, 410 shade number 12.

Unripe Berries: 682 shade number 13, 683 shade number 14, 684 shade number 15.

Leaves and Stems.

Green: 0428 shade letter A, 428 shade letter B, 429 Shade letter C, 429 1/2 shade letter D, 430 shade letter E, 431 Shade letter F, 372 shade letter K, 373 shade letter M.

Brown: 300 shade letter O, 301 Shade letter R.

Strawberry Design. Materials. — M. Heminway & Sons' Oriental Dyes, Japan and Spanish Floss.

Berries. — Ripe and unripe; Red — "Sharpless variety" — 0655, 655, 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661. Unripe — 0655, 655, 656, 682, 683, 684. Blossoms.— 691, 682, 683, 0655. Centres. — 647, 409 1/2, 410. Leaves. — 0428, 428, 429, 429 1/2, 430, 431 ; or 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 300, 301. Scallop. — 581 or 691. —Spanish Floss.

Design No. 153 — Strawberry. 18 inch. See Colored Plate C1.

Description.— Fill in berry crosswise, shortstitch on the wrong side, not much filling. For filling to raise the berry use M. Heminway & Sons' white Persian Floss. Start at the point of berry with two strands of red, 655, shading with one strand as dark red as 661. For an unripe berry start with light green, 682 and 683, shading into the green the light pink, 655, making the berry as ripe in color as 660. The seeds on the red berries put on with small stitches, gold, 409 1/2. On those that are not ripe use green, 428.

Blossoms. — White, 691, shadow of green, 682 on lower petals, touching a few of the new blossoms with light pink, 0655; pollen of 647, 409 1/2, 410.

Leaves. — On the outer edge of the leaf use two strands, shading toward centre with one, use a little brown, 300 and 301, for faded part of leaf.

Scallop. — Button-hole stitch in pink, 581, Spanish Floss, or 691, with an outline above scallop of one strand filo, 310.

Now I will describe the first illustration which shows the embroidery by letters/numbers diagram. I will be describing the image from the bottom to top as the spray of strawberries and blossoms flow in a diagonal from the bottom left to the upper right.

We start with two parallel, diagonal stems that branch off in multiple directions to hold the entirety of the design. The two stems are done in shade letters D and E. The rightmost stem slips under two leaves, forking into a third tendril, before the left fork curves gracefully to the right and ending in a strawberry. The right fork goes downwards and forms the triple fork from where the three large strawberry leaves all come from in this piece. An upper one, a bottom one, and one off to the right that is slightly twisted so the underside of the leaf tip is visible.

Shade letters for the bottommost leaf, from base to tip, left to right. Starting at the top where the base joins the stem: 1st row: E, O, R. 2nd row: E. 3rd row: F, C. 4th row: D, E, E, D. 5th row: B, D, C. leaf tip: C.

For the twisted leaf at the right of the previous: 1st Row: C, D, C. 2nd Row: D, E, C. 3rd Row: C, D. 4th Row: E, D, B. 5th Row: F. Leaf tip: A.

For the Upper Leaf: 1st Row: D, E. 2nd Row: C. 3rd Row: B, D, E, D. 4th Row: D, C, D, C, D. 5th Row: A, B. 6th row: A, R. Leaf tip: A.

Back at the beginning, where the stems are parallel, the leftmost stem forks before the two separate bits slip under the upper large leaf that we described earlier. The right fork curves up and to the left into a strawberry while the left fork curves up behind it. It would seem a second strawberry also emerges from a stem coming from behind the same leaf, although it does not show a fork. This berry sits just under the other.

Higher Strawberry: 1st Row: 4, 6. 2nd Row: 3, 2, 5, 3, 3. 3rd Row: 2, 15, 4, 8, 3. 4th Row: 14, 2. Strawberry Tip: 13.

Lower Strawberry: 1st Row: 8. 2nd Row: 5, 6, 7, 5. 3rd Row: 4, 4, 5, 4. 4th Row: 2, 2, 2, 2. 5th row: 1, 1, 1.

Only two of the little strawberry leaf tops have any kind of letter indication, all of them combinations of C, D, and B, so your guess is as good as mine.

Emerging from the top strawberry is another series of three stems, two of which appear to have forked somewhere behind the berry unseen. The left stem goes up and then promptly forks before slipping under a fully bloomed strawberry blossom, and then emerging from the top with a single leaf gracing the end. Somewhere behind the flower another tendril has forked off this one and goes up to end in a tiny blossom not yet bloomed. Next to that is the stem that will be described in a few paragraphs, and then another stem leading to a small blossom, that is also not fully bloomed.

Big Blossom: This has 5 petals in total, and all the petals are tipped in shade number 9, and all excepting the leftmost petal gradiate to shade number 13. The leftmost petal gradiates to shade number 14, and then the center is shade number 10.

Small Blossom: 9 at the tip, 13 at the base, there are 3 petals showing.

Tiny Blossom: same, 9 tip, 13 base, also 3 petals showing.

Back to under the blossom, the right stem from the original fork leads up to an elegant waving stem that branches off into several tendrils mostly decorated with a pair of leaves each.

The left tendril from that fork extends up a ways, waving a bit and is done in shade letter B, and then forks one last time culminating in a pair of tiny leaves on the right fork and a waving tendril on the left that finishes in shade letter A.

Leaf 1: Base E, Tip D. Leaf 2: Base C, Tip B.

The right tendril from the fork that leads into the last also immediately forks again ending in a pair of tiny leaves coming from each tendril.

From lowest leaf to highest, base to tip:

Leaf 1 right tendril: E. Leaf 2 right tendril: D, C. Leaf 3 Left Tendril: D, E. Leaf 4 Left tendril: C, B.

all the tiny leaves leaves save one are done in two colours, one for the base and one for the tip. So wherever you decide to put a tiny leaf, you can keep the colour schemes in mind.

There is an image at the bottom captioned Design No 153- Strawberry. 18 inch. See Coloured Plate C1.

This has what appears to be a doily with an embroidered scalloped edge and the large strawberry image placed at the top and bottom of the doily, flowing with the circular edge. There is a small smattering of petals coming off of an extra pair of fallen blossoms that were added to one edge, and a small detached strawberry on the other.

All in all, thank you for your patience while I try to get these out. If anyone has any suggestions to make these easier to understand, my inbox is always open. I will be posting another pair of images sometime this week!

[arcanarubinaito]

Headcanon Post (1)

“Leech Barometer”

Okay so we all know about the Leech Barometer right? No? Okay well if you don’t, it’s a contraption that utilizes leeches to create a storm warning system. You heard me right: leeches.

The Leech Barometer—originally named the “Tempest Prognosticator”—used natural leech behavior as a warning system for incoming storms. When atmospheric pressure falls and the oxygen content in the water drops, the leeches instinctively try to move to the surface. It’s a neat little trick to predict bad weather, so George Merryweather (talk about names reflecting one’s job lmao) created a device that took advantage of that fun little fact. The Leech Barometer essentially consists of twelve bottles in a circle under a bell. Small hammers would strike the bell once the leech climbed high enough. I’ll link the Wikipedia article below, it goes into more detail about the mechanics.

The leeches used were presumably medicinal leeches since that’s what Merryweather refers to when talking about their sensitivity to weather conditions, and the device was more or less inspired by poetry. (“The leech, disturbed, is newly risen, / Quite to the summit of his prison.” Edward Jenner, Signs of Rain) It was fairly accurate but couldn’t actually tell you when the potential storm would hit. The more rings from the bell, however, the more likely it was for a storm to show up.

I have such a strong mental image of Julian kicking down Nadia’s door one evening, as a storm is brewing on the horizon, and aggressively pointing at a jar he’s holding. It takes Nadia a minute or so to realize what Julian is saying, but once she does he has her full attention. The leeches climb when a storm is approaching? What a fascinating concept.

The two of them immediately start discussing how they could create a storm warning system with the leeches. One could always look at the jar, but when you’re as prone to getting lost in one’s work or thoughts like Julian and Nadia are? They’d completely forget.

Julian is the one to suggest bells. The actual logistics on how to get the leeches to ring said bells, however, was Nadia’s idea. They spend an entire night working on a prototype, but by the time it’s finished the storm had passed and the leeches had settled. It isn’t until the next storm rolls along—they don’t have to wait long, it is a costal city after all—that they get the chance to test it out.

By the Gods, it worked! Only… well now there are pieces of whalebone floating in the water, and it is difficult to set back up again. Far more of a hassle than it needs to be. Once they fish out the whalebone and realign everything, Julian makes sure to tie the whalebone up with a string so that they can easily place it again after the next storm.

For areas like Nopal, it would make a great signal for when rain water would come. And Vesuvians in areas prone to flooding could use it as a signal to prepare. It was a brilliant invention!

Just, ah… perhaps not very streamlined. It takes up quite a bit of space and producing the prototype alone wasn’t cheap. They have the device moved into the new research laboratory Nadia had commissioned a while back, and now the question they both share was why the leeches behave this way.

(Asra and Portia frequently stop by to make sure they’re both eating, drinking, and taking breaks whenever they have the time to go on a research binge.)

Links & Inspiration

Wikipedia - Tempest Prognosticator

Australian Museum - Leeches

Atlas Obscura - The Rise and Fall of the Leeches Who Could Predict the Weather

Here’s the inspiration for this post. I couldn’t find the original, so here’s the crappy cropped version from Reddit. If you can find the original, please send me the link!