#i was possessed by the spirit of the shitpost this morning

[prismadreams]

happy pokemon day here's a stupid doodle i did this morning based on some tweets i saw going around that the new protags look like sycamore and the xy mom

[salmonandsoup]

do you ever accidentally spend three and a half hours dramatically reading and audio editing a shitpost?  no?  well, here’s what happens

i accidentally cut out a small sentence in the middle but hey it happens it still works

thank you @teaboot for letting me read this!

the post in question!

transcript and song list under the read-more!

Songs Used: 

“O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana composed by Karl Orff (sung by James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus)

“Killer” from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable OST (composed by Yugo Kanno)

Transcription:

God I fucking hate Olaf the snowman so fucking much holy shit. Holy shit, every frame he’s in, every scene, every gif, every jpeg, he’s got this painfully vacant, stupid as shit, fuckass look on his stupid lumpy face. Absolutely no part of his ugly as sin piece of shit character design is endearing. His stupid fucking legs? Who the hell makes a snowman with legs. His dumb flaily fucking twig arms? His shitty, lumpy bastard head? The three thousand percent unnecessary dumbass shitass fucking SNOW BUCK TOOTH that no snowman has EVER FUCKING HAD IN tHE HISTORY OF GOD’S GREEN FUCKING EARTH? God, I hate him. I hate him so much. So FUCKING much. Every time I see a stuffed toy Olaf or an Olaf gif or a shitty goddamn commercial, it ignites my primal rage response and I’m overcome by the need to punt this shitty little homunculus into the fucking sun. 

“Bhurr blur, I’m Olaf the fuckshit snow fucker, I like warm hugs”. Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. You look like Tow Mater summoned a patronus. Your dumb fucking twig hair makes your whole shitty head look like a hairy skin tag. I hate your dumb fucking lumpy carrot nose and your stupid, empty googly eyes and your over-the-top goofy ass upbeat asshole personality. Any scene he’s sad it invokes all the wrath and fury of a spoiled child having a meltdown over a chocolate bar in a w*lmart checkout line. 

And I know its irrational. That’s the worst part. I know he’s just a shitty fucking side character in a stupid fucking children’s movie, I know it doesn’t matter, I know I shouldn’t care. But that’s part of the problem. The part where no matter the might and fury of my hatred, the locus of my homicidal intent is altogether inconsequential. I find myself laying awake in the dark in the early hours of the morning consumed by the spirit of Wrath itself, all the force and might of a flaming hurricane directed at a bottle of piss in a ditch by the highway. The absurdity of it all burns me to my core. What better things could this energy be directed towards? And yet my disdain for this stupid, useless, insubstantial failure of endearing character design utterly eclipses the intrigue of all other pursuits. I hate him. I hate him on a level of my mind reserved for the worst of the world’s array of sinners, and I can’t even begin to justify it. Shitstick the snow dick is, for all intents and purposes, the animated corpse of all of humanity’s saccharine pretenses- every condescending, passive-aggressive statement of meaningless upper middle class suburban drama distilled into a single, hateable form. The fucking. Fuck. 

I have no words. There is no cuss or epithet in any language that can encapsulate the height of the emotions I am experiencing. God, I hate him so much. I hate him so, so fucking much. I want to light his ugly little dumpster body on fire. I want to graphically beat him to death with his own stupid fucking nose. I want to punch him to death. You know that weird feeling you get, when you see a picture of something so cute you find yourself overcome with the bizarre, inexplicable urge to squeeze it? It’s EXACTLY like that, except instead of cuteness it’s disgust. The wordless knowledge that his existence as a fictional work is evidence of all the failures of mankind. I find myself possessed by the will of a Holy Angel gone rogue with the belief that God has made a mistake, and I alone must correct it. This is the trial by which Samael himself fell from grace. This wild, meaningless rage. A thousand blades of shining steel cast with inhuman force in the direction of a plastic grocery bag floating on a breeze. What horrors must I have committed in a past life to be plagued by this torment now? I must Unmake this fictional snowman

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[hurricane-overseas]

WHO IS THIS NECROMANCY OC asking for a friend ;3c

😭😭 bless u for ur ask (also my oc is just what happened after I listened to hoziers album on repeat for 2 hours and had a long daydream) also I apologize in advance, I can’t tell whether I’ve told you who my oc is or if I’ve just talked about the dumbshit they’ve done (this is also my oc for When The Night Comes)

- So /their/ name is Tandim Nox, (I’m trying to draw them but goddamn I cannot get the face but the sigils they’ve got tattooed are subpar-they’ve got an aesthetic going) they have short grey hair that’s always tied back and messy, dark eyes and a tongue that doesn’t think before saying anything (it’s sometimes witty but usually just gets them in trouble)

- Had previously lived with their parents in a large city-life was fine if boring there and they studied herbalism/healing magick but has always lowkey pursued necromancy by working in a catacomb and telling their parents they’re just selling flowers to the catacomb for blessings or smth but really it’s more just learning how to prepare bodies so they can safely raise spirits and gain knowledge from the dead

- So they’re a young wannabe necromancer with minimal training, who has stumbled upon Lunaris, the tiny coastal town and once they heard the rumours of creatures killing in the night-well they wanted to offer their expertise

(deadass almost walked up to an enforcer like “where’s the body, lemme see, lemme talk to it for a few n see what happened”)

- (still working out how they’d help if they can’t physically say they’re a necromancer out loud and get first dibs on the corpses lmao)

- Maybe they check out the cemetery after hours and dig around until they find some answers & they leave written clues for the hunter/the gang (“Seamus Sea-Walker said he was murdered early morning on the 12th and although he didn’t see what killed him he’s glad he doesn’t have to pay the ridiculous shop prices anymore and also someone needs to water his plants-“)

- Is like a walking shitposter constantly saying dumb things that have almost gotten them caught ie. “we raise spirits, not bones-oh hi Augustus- because necromancy is illegal here haha”, just for the life of them cannot stop themselves from looking suspicious

(they desperately miss the kind necromancy folks from the city’s catacombs because they’d laugh at Tandims jokes)

- Grew up with a positive/it’s not evil outlook on necromancy and it wasn’t illegal in the city they lived in previously (other than the no-skeleton-armies rule or demon possession)

- Tandim Cannot Believe The Bullshittery™️- they’ve put guards up in the cemetery to watch for whoever has been digging up the corpses

- Some random tavern man: “can you believe someone has been digging up the cemetery? Leaving anonymous notes for the enforcers-“

- Tandim just “oh wow, really? Huh that’s weird who would-I’m just gonna take these breadsticks-I’ve gotta go-but that’s so strange wow”

- Sends not-so subtle letters to Augustus/lieutenant complaining about the bullshit that is the no necromancy law (“if someone can help figure out who is doing the killing, why prosecute them? Necromancers raise spirits not bones�� now where has Augustus heard that before? 👀)

- It’s very obvious there’s only one new person who has moved into town and all of a sudden the cemetery is being dug up and strange letters are being sent to enforcers- Tandim didn’t think that far ahead and is a nervous ball of energy after being questioned and followed by an enforcer for a few days

Anyways this was hilarious to write so thank you for asking ❤️ Tandim is a soft idiot who just wants to help (Augustus) the gang figure out the murders ahem ((also have y’all seen Lieutenant Harold cuz goddamn 👀, can the devs let us romance that man please??))