#if anyone has any other references i'll add later on

[forbeswho]

them using/referencing Snart's coat is everything to me

[ambrosiagourmet]

Rin Masterpost

Rin! Rinsha Fana! Beloved side character I think about far too much (or maybe not enough?)

I decided that it might be nice to put together an informational post about Rin, since she has some of my favorite background details of any character in Dungeon Meshi. This is partly as reference for myself, and partly for anyone else who might be interested in her but not know where to chase down the tidbits we we get of her, both in canon & extra materials. There’s also a little bit of theorizing and analysis sprinkled in for fun.

If anyone spots something I missed, please let me know and I will add it in!

Alright. Time for ultimate #rinposting

History and Timeline:

We don't have an official timeline for Rin (even in the expanded Adventurer's Bible, sadly), but we can put a lot of pieces together based on Kabru's timeline & their respective ages.

Rin is 2 years older than Kabru, and they met when he was 9. Assuming that he met her soon after she was taken to the elven capital, that means that the elves took her when she was 11.

Before that, she lived on the Northern Continent. Interestingly, when Mickbell asks about Shuro, Rin says she was born "here."

Since "here" doesn't mean the actual Island itself, it must mean simply "not the east." She is described in the Adventurer's Bible as having "no real knowledge of or attachment to the East," so maybe that's why she draws a "there" verses "here" line.

I'd also like to add a note here that the elves don't seem uh... they don't seem great about respecting the value of other cultures, especially those of short-life species. Milsiril seems to have discouraged Kabru from eating or remembering food from his hometown, at least, and that's even as an adoptive parent who cares (at least in some way) for her child. As I will touch on later, the "care" that Rin was under probably had even less respect for her history or ties to either Eastern or Northern culture.

That is all to say, considering that Rin spent many years with the elves, I'd take her having "[no] attachment to the East" as more of a comment on how she feels now, and less as a definite choice she made. She may genuinely have chosen that approach and opinion for herself, she may have been pushed towards it by the elves, and she may have had little choice at all in the matter - all are valid interpretations, though I personally lean towards the thought that it's unlikely the elves didn't have at least some hand in it.

Anyway, Rin does seem to know at least a bit about her heritage - she can presumably name and identify the specific island her parents are from, and she recognizes that "Shuro" isn't a name used there. She also knows that different places from the Eastern archipelago speak different languages, so she knows at least a little about the other islands as well.

Some additional extrapolations I'll make based on these facts: she never mentions, and probably isn't in contact with, any family from her island. This may be because her extended family died, because her parents didn't (or weren't able to) maintain contact, or because she lost contact when she was taken by the elves. Somewhat relatedly, she also prooobably doesn't speak the language, at least not fluently, though her being able to comment on the state of language in the archipelago makes me think that she at least learned a little as a kid.

Anyway, Rin's parents were refugees from the archipelago, though we don't know what specifically caused them to leave. There is this little tidbit of info we get (from the cover of chapter 48, of all places), though:

So yeah, that seems like it would be the backdrop of Rin's parents fleeing. As I said earlier, it's unclear if Rin might have any living family left back on her island. The listing she has for “family” in the Adventurer's Bible is just a dash, but so is Izutsumi's, for instance, and we know that she was taken from her family with no knowledge of who might still be out there. It's possible everyone else was killed, it's possible they were separated... it's possible that Rin's parents didn't even know.

As an additional note, and this is speculation on my part, but I think there is an argument to be made, with this tidbit from the cover as well as the Nakamoto clan's specialty in espionage and use of ninjas, that the politics of the archipelago are partially based on Sengoku era Japan. Not necessarily super relevant here, but I think it's interesting context for all... of the archipelago characters, honestly.

(Especially considering it seems like the Nakamoto clan is in a relatively comfortable position, and yet clearly are involved, or at least prepared to be involved in larger conflict. How stable is their position, really? How is Shuro's father viewed by the wider region and archipelago as a whole? What about his lord? NOT THE POINT THIS IS A POST ABOUT RIN. BUT IT'S VERY INTERESTING TO THINK ABOUT.)

Okay, back to Rin's parents.

Whatever caused them to leave, they made their way to the north, where they made their living with their magic for a time. There are no specifics about what kind of magic they used, but we know at least some examples of jobs that magic can get you, based on the flashback to Laios and Falin's childhood in chapter 26. Laios proposes that Fain could use her magic to be a priest, gravekeeper, or wandering exorcist. Though these are specific to Falin's affinity with spirits, they give some idea of the shape of the work that might be available. It's important, but it is also on the outskirts of society - not necessarily admired or appreciated by the average person.

And Rin’s parents were killed by vigilantes for that magic. It's not entirely news that superstitious villages in the area would sometimes kill magic users - we see a small drawing of people being burned at the stake in a panel towards the end of the manga:

Nonetheless, Rin is the only person in the main cast who has experienced this brutality firsthand. And she did experience it firsthand, having been found by the elves as the sole survivor within the burnt ruins of her home.

It is unknown exactly how she survived, or what happened to her parents before and during the fire. Rin lived, and they did not.

The elves came some time after the fire, intending to investigate reports of ancient magic. They (and we) don't know if Rin's parents actually did use ancient magic, or if the reports and murders were simply spurred by general fear and superstition. Rin was the only piece of "evidence" that remained, and so she was taken back to the west with the elves when they left.

We don't know much about her time on the Northern Central Continent (where the elves/Canaries are based), but it doesn't seem like she was adopted or taken in by anyone the way that Kabru was. According to the Adventurer's Bible, after being taken into custody, "under their care she was treated as a captive animal would be." I would guess that means very basic food and shelter, little to no education. Probably the most social contact she got was from Kabru, as well as maybe, occasionally, from elves treating her as a curiosity, such as in this bit in the Adventurer’s Bible:

Assuming she left with Kabru (which seems like it is the case, there's no info about them having separated during that time), she spent 9 years with the elves, and has been with Kabru on the Island in the 4 years since then.

She also stays in the Golden Country after the end of the story, apparently working as an apothecary.

Additional Details (& Speculation):

What does she remember of her family and home?

I'd like to take a moment here to explore a little of what Rin might remember of her parents and home.

For reference, we can look at Kabru. The canaries came to Utaya when Kabru was 6, and he arrived in the capital when he was 7. He remembers the events of the tragedy in his home, and has some memories of his mother and life in Utaya, including memories of local dishes.

Rin lost her parents and home at 11, so she presumably has much clearer memories of the events that lead to her being taken by the elves... or she might, assuming that they haven't been completely blocked by her trauma from the event.

Yeah, I am fairly damn sure that she's got some memory issues from trauma and PTSD. For one, this is the state she was found in:

As already mentioned, she was also treated like something of an animal by the elves. She probably didn't have a lot of contact with other people, which would further perpetuate that sense of isolation and dehumanization. What I'm getting at here is that Rin probably didn't have much to help pull her out of this place, or heal these wounds. She had Kabru, who was also a kid and even younger than her, and she had herself.

Obviously trauma leaves different scars on everyone, and everyone responds and copes in different ways. But I do think it is interesting that we never hear anything about Rin's parents or life before the elves, and there are no real details about it given in the Adventurer's Bible the way we have for Kabru. What's presented is more surface level facts: they were refugees, they made a living with magic, they were killed.

I'm inclined to believe that things are laid out this way because that's how Rin holds on to these things. She knows things about them, but possibly remembers them more as things she was told/knows to be true, rather than actual memories she can picture herself experiencing.

Rin's Magic

In an interesting counterpoint to her potentially spotty memory, I do actually think Rin may have learned magic from her parents (or started learning, and was self-taught from there). She never attended a magic academy, and actually has a bit of grudge against people who did - owing to the social protection afforded to "upper-class mages," which her parents did not have. She also almost certainly wouldn't have been taught by the elves, who not only treated her as an animal but also knew her parents may have been involved with ancient magic.

Falin began to show signs of magical talent at 8, and was sent to the Magic Academy at 10, and that was as someone who had absolutely no guidance about or exposure to magic in her home town. Raised by two mage parents, I think Rin absolutely could have been learning some things by the time she was 11.

In terms of continued learning, I'll add that Rin is able to identify Marcille's magic as being A) from an Academy student, and B) cast by an elf:

This makes me think that she continued to study magic on her own while held by the elves, and probably even more so after leaving with Kabru. They didn't form the party until two years after they left the elves, which would give Rin plenty of time to try and learn from other adventurers on the Island, or to study up on her own. She'd probably be able to pick up some dungeon-crawling basics (like the water walk spell), as well as become familiar with the skill level and expression of skill common in different people with different backgrounds (hence why she is able to comment on the "textbook" academy wards).

Much like Marcille, Rin also seems to rely on a 'one size fits all' Big Boom method of dealing with monsters: lightning. We see the best example of its power in the fight with Chimera Falin:

But we also see her cast it pretty recklessly in a few other places, including the end credits of the new anime ED, which I think provides a good example of the downsides to such an approach...

Yeah, it is very much a 'get out of the way or get zapped' spell.

Especially since Marcille's offensive magic is self-taught and works very similarly, this definitely reinforces the idea that Rin figured most of this stuff out herself.

Outfit and Character Design

Dear sweet Rin of the Red And Black... how I love her design.

First of all, her clothes are damaged. Despite the fact that Rin looks relatively well put together overall, her outfit is worn out. I have some theories on why this is that I'll get to in a bit, but for now I'll just touch on what this design communicates in general about it.

I think, just like with Kabru's horribly messy room, it creates a sense that there is something more complicated underneath the surface. Something that isn't being addressed or seen to, just as the dress hasn't been mended or replaced.

It also reflects her not caring a ton about her appearance. She's neat, but she's not concerned about being pretty, so she doesn't bother with fixing up her outfit after her dungeon crawls. This also fits with her perpetual scowl (which I will talk more about in a bit), and slightly disheveled hair.

Next: the gloves. At first I thought they might be a sort of uncomfortable-with-touch thing, but after skimming through the manga and some bonus content, I have another theory. Rin takes the gloves off to eat, as well as a few other instances, such as when working on a spell with Holm and Marcille in chapter 36

This one is especially interesting because she has them on in the next chapter, during the fight with Falin. Since she also isn't wearing gloves during some of the Daydream Hour art of her outside of the dungeon, that leads me to believe that they are specifically for combat.

What does she need them for, though? Most other casters we see don't wear gloves. Well... just look at the other half of the page where she attacks Falin with lightning:

She is enveloped by this spell. I said it before was pretty reckless magic, but maybe its not just a problem for her teammates, but for her as well.

So here's my theory: maybe the gloves are rubber, or some other electricity-resistant material? They might help protect her from her own magic. I don't know why a caster would need gloves for combat otherwise.

I also think this might be why her dress is tattered at the bottom, by the way. Especially since the Daydream Hour genderswap design doesn't have a similar problem with his outfit, since the tunic isn't as long.

I will admit this is a bit of stretch/guess, but I think it's a fun one, and I wanted to share. I do think I'm right about the gloves being for dungeons/fighting specifically, at least. That seems pretty consistent throughout all of her appearances.

I also mentioned her scowl, so I'll touch on that briefly as well. The (fairly confirmed) explanation for Rin's expression is that she intentionally wears a frown to prevent her other expressions from showing through. I think it's important to emphasize that it's not just smiling that she is trying to suppress here - it's any strong emotion:

Anyway, because I can, here is the art of Rin smiling.

Rin and Kabru

I have talked a bit about Rin and Kabru's history, but I think it deserves its own section.

I think it's very interesting that Rin is pretty much the ONLY character in all of Dungeon Meshi that has explicit canonical romantic interesting in someone. It's literally part of the main summary sentence in her character profile.

This could be sort of reductive as a way to describe a female character (and in some ways it still is), but I think in part the simplicity and directness of it actually is part of what makes it so interesting. Especially when on the very next page we see the comic about her backstory. "This mage is in love with Kabru" -> one page of a horribly traumatic event and a child frozen in shock with no one to comfort her. What does that do?

Well, in my opinion, it shows how much Rin focuses on Kabru as something to keep her in the present. In contrast with the immense loss she has experienced, her love for Kabru is current and alive. He has presumably been her anchor for years, and I think that her love is part of that anchor.

Adding to this, in contrast with how explicit her feelings are, she never seems to actively pursue Kabru. She complains about his potential interest in other women, but she doesn't really flirt. She doesn't let herself smile around him any more than anyone else, and she doesn't hide her bitterness or anger from him to present a more appealing persona.

As much as she craves Kabru's attention, and has stayed by his side for years, I don't know that she really wants to possess him. He seems to know about her feelings, more or less, and she seems to know that he knows. Maybe she believes he doesn't reciprocate and is respecting that, maybe she's afraid of what she could lose if she tried to change things, or maybe the change itself frightens her. In any case, though she's not exactly happy with the way things are between them, she doesn't seem to be trying to change that status quo.

A specific thing I'd also like to talk about with their relationship, beyond Rin's love for him, is her fear for him. As the Adventurer's Bible puts it, "she worries that his knack for dealing with whatever life throws at him might lead him to get too full of himself and end up in serious trouble."

Rin is an interesting mix of restrained and explosive, herself. Her magic is destructive, her temper seems to run hot (she gets annoyed easily, at least), and her feelings for Kabru are apparent. At the same time, she doesn't let her emotions show on her face, she is the one who bluntly states that the group has hit the limit of their abilities, and she doesn't act on those obvious feelings for Kabru. It's interesting, then, that what she fears for Kabru is that he won't restrain himself.

And a small personal idea about that as well: I wonder if she somewhat blames her parents for getting killed. Again, this is very speculative, but I think it's interesting that her fear for Kabru is that he will get too full of himself. Take up too much space. It's never really stated what Rin thinks of her parents, but it can be easy in grief to search for control, and control often means blame. If they hadn't been so confident, so flashy, would they still be alive...?

I don't know if she's ever thought like that, and it could well be that her fears for Kabru come from a totally different place. But it's an interesting connective thread between her past and present - the idea of "getting in trouble" for taking up too much space and being too confident in one's own abilities.

Miscellaneous Tidbits:

On that note, I'd like to wrap up the main part of this post, and move on to a few extra things that I couldn't find another place for.

Rin plays with her hair when she's stressed

Using stressed as a pretty big umbrella here, because I think it's hard to perfectly pin down all the emotions at play, but it is a habit of hers. Best displayed in chapter 32, but it shows up in other places, too.

Her design contrasts with Marcille

This is a small thing, but I just love how much they are visual opposites.

Rin wears red and black and has dark hair, Marcille wears blue and white and has light hair. Marcille cares a great deal for her hair and puts it up in elaborate hairstyles, and Rin's is mostly loose and a bit messy. Marcille was even educated at the Magic Academy, which Rin dislikes. They both have little capelets. Also they both look very cute in each other's clothes.

Rin knows Flamela (and they meet again in canon)

Nothing much is done with this in canon, but I think it’s super interesting that Flamela's squad are the ones that find Rin as a child and take her away to the west, and then they end up stuck in the dungeon together for a bit.

Two days??? I'm so very curious what things were like between these three.

Aaaand I think that's all I have to say about Rin! For the time being at least. There's a lot more analysis that could be done about her and Kabru especially, but for this post I wanted to keep things at least somewhat anchored to canon facts, with only a layer or two of speculation on top.

If it isn't already obvious, I think Rin is a super interesting character with a ton of potential depth to explore. She mostly interacts with Kabru in canon, but has ties to a bunch of other characters: she and Marcille fill similar roles in their parties but have differing personalities and histories, she and Falin (and Laios) have been tremendously shaped by xenophobia and fear of magic common in the Northern Continent, her parents fled from conflict in the same region Shuro and his retainers are from, and she has history with Flamela and some of the second canary squad.

Her temper, her fear, her love... her repression and passion - they all inform her character, even in small ways, even with as little time as she spends on the page.

[blueinsomnia]

Ekko and Jinx's History: A Simple Comment

So I read something the other day talking about how fans are making Ekko and Jinx's relationship romantic and not all male and female characters HAVE to be romantically involved. I agree with this. I'll go so far as to say that this is true for any character of any gender. In my own writing (with my original characters) I rarely have romantic undertones. Mostly just friends being friends. While I get the allure of the romantic chase, of most people we deal with in life we aren't connecting to them romantically. Friends are friends.

That said, this is not the case with Ekko and Jinx. From Ekko's release in 2015 there has always been some romantic undertones with Jinx. Riot has always been a bit mysterious about what his relationship is with Jinx. Ekko even has a line in the game where he says:

The foundation had been laid long before Arcane was released in 2021.

Between 2015 and 2021 (when Arcane was released), a lot of official art and such dropped hints about SOMETHING going on between them. Much like Jinx being Vi's sister. You have to remember that this was originally a secret. It was Ghostcrawler who finally confirmed fan theories, even though he tried to walk it back later. Oops! Ha, ha!

(An image from 2015)

To add to the mystery, on both of their official pages, Ekko is listed as connected to Jinx and Jinx is listed as connected to Ekko. However, at no point does Riot explain how they're connected. Their stories don't mention the other at all. So this means that some things were planned, but they weren't ready to reveal. I'm still of a mind that they were waiting to use Arcane as a vehicle to get into Jinx's history and how that intersected with Ekko and Vi. Before Arcane, we knew very little about Jinx and how she ends up the way she does.

Then, before Arcane came out we got this little nugget in Legends of Runeterra:

Remember, this is 100% from Riot themselves. Not the fans. Riot laid the seeds down and it was the fans who picked up on it and ran. I doubt anyone would have ever thought there was something between Ekko and Jinx without Riot dropping hints. By the time we got to Arcane Season 1, the train was already in motion.

Let's not even forget the insane number of Jinx references in the True Damage video they released in 2020. Generally it wasn't odd to see Ekko and there would be some sort of Jinx reference somewhere. That wasn't true for Jinx until recently.

After Arcane, Riot themselves has been dropping hints like crazy. Jinx has been putting Ekko's hourglass symbol on stuff. League Brazil did a huge Twitter AMA with Star Guardian Ekko and Jinx. Jinx goes to the Grammys with Ekko.

Another official Ekko and Jinx moment. Check out her shirt!

And let's not forget this one for the Billboard Music Awards:

They went to the event together!

So...while I see people saying that the fans were to blame for Jinx and Ekko being romantically involved, it should be pointed out that this is all Riot's doing. The best part is that the fans have been largely receptive to their efforts in promoting the couple. Riot has waited a long time to be able to say what they want to say about them.

And if there is any doubt about where they're going with them as a couple, let's just remember this cover for the art book for Arcane:

Another official piece done by Riot and Fortiche themselves.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought it was important to point out that it's not the fans who set this up. It'll be interesting to see where this all goes, but based on their track record so far, it should be clear where the end game is headed.

Thanks for reading!

[gold-pavilion]

Toman and Buddhism + Tenjiku and Taoism

Another post to cover references in Tokyo Revengers! 

This time, I'll be covering the links to two religions to be found in two gangs in the series, reference by reference, with the according explanation of each. 

Some of these may be already known, I know one of them sure is (the whole buddhist manji confusion thing yeah yeah) but still, for the sake of a tidy compilation and of providing more detail, I'll go through them too. Some others are a lot less noticed, like Tenjiku's lean towards Tao, so it'll be best to lay down eeeeeeverything I've caught during my time enjoying this series. Plus, I'm pretty excited to get some of those less-known facts out here!!

Warning though, it's lengthy.

Let's start with Tokyo Manji Gang:

- Firstly, the gang's name and how it's written.

Despite Mikey suggesting the name as a short form of Tokyo Manjiro Gang, putting himself front and center, the kanji that ended up forming the name of Tokyo Manji Gang show that it went in a different direction of meaning. The manji used for the middle part ended up not being the same one from the name Manjiro, but a manji written as 卍. Aloud it's read the same way (many, many, many kanji are homophones), but has a different meaning.

卍 (manji) is an extremely common buddhist symbol (not even limited to japanese buddhism, but in hinduism and other aligned east-asian religions too), which represents the path of Buddha and the endless cycle of rebirth through samsara; the pursuit of leading a more spiritually balanced existence until the soul can reach enlightenment. In other words, it's nothing but deeply buddhist.

(To answer a common question around it: can it be called a swastika? Yes. The symbol in general, with each of the million variations that have popped up in different cultures, can be called a swastika as a broad term. There are a fuckton of swastikas. They mean a fuckton of different things. The tilt and the direction in which this one "spins" makes it different from other swastikas though, and it's always best to be precise and call this one manji.)

Moving on,

- Reunion spot.

The Musashi Shrine (based, but not exactly taken from any of the real-life shrines and temples of similar name in Tokyo, as far as I know) is a shinto-buddhist temple. And, apparently, a place where the founders hung out from time to time, but I'll add to that later!!

It's cute to me that the Toman members seem to use the temple very respectfully. They always meet in it at night waaay after it's closed (daytime meetings have always taken place in different locations, never the temple during visiting hours), they've never once set foot even near the oratory/sanctum/other buildings, never been seen bringing the motorcycles anywhere they shouldn't, and the one time a character was seen using the public temizuya (the little stone fountain where visitors purify their hands and mouth), he was proper about it in terms of pouring water into his hand to rinse his mouth with, not getting the ladle or the rest of the water dirty, as one should always do. 

A fun fact: in Google Maps, buddhist temples are marked with the manji symbol!

- Gang's manifesto.

Embroidered on the chest of the gang uniform, you can see the text  天上天下唯我独尊 ("Above the earth and below the heavens, I alone shall be honored"), which is the gang's manifesto or motto. Sounds just like something Mikey would choose, yeah.

That phrase is also of buddhist origin; famously, the words spoken by Buddha Gautama Siddharta (bear in mind that buddhism isn't a religion with one god or anything like that, anyone enlightened can become a Buddha and many figures have been granted that status, but Gautama is the first and main one, the creator of the doctrine) when he was born. To be honest, this is very much interpretative, but I've come to get the impression that it's not so much a power or ego statement, but rather an expression of cultivating and honoring yourself…? It's absolutely up to personal reading and I'm absolutely not an expert. But those are certainly THE Buddha's words.

- Ceremonial sash.

Another part of their uniform that bears a slight reference: the sash worn by the commander, vice-commander, captains and vice-captains during important fights.

These are tasuki, sashes originally worn by shinto-buddhist priests during ceremonies, in order to keep long sleeves and such in place. However, eventually, they also began being worn by samurai and all sorts of warriors, 'cause of their convenience. In modern times, they even started being used by just about anybody who wears traditional clothing but also does manual work and needs the sleeves out of the way. So it can be concluded that, over time, they stopped being strongly linked to religious practicers. In fact, even biker gangs in general ended up adopting the use of tasuki! Not for their religious origins, but for the warrior part; a bōsōzoku gang member wearing one would look very prepared and determined for a fight.

That's why overall, Tokyo Manji Gang having them is only a relative reference; they could be paying homage to their reference religion, as they could be only honoring gang traditions.

- Additional notes about the leader.

I feel it's important to add up all these little factors of Mikey's choosing, with other little details about him as a person that kinda make it all make sense.

If I say "Mikey seems to be religious, to an extent", I understand this can carry a bunch of tricky connotations. Japanese religion isn't exercised the same way it is in other places, someone being religious SURE AS HECK doesn't mean the same things it means in the christian west. Shinto-buddhism is so commonplace in Japan, most people partake in all kinds of religious practices without even thinking of them as strictly religious, such as new year's celebrations, casual prayer during shrine visits, purchasing and giving charms and such. Religion is integrated in life in a lot of extremely chill ways.

And we can observe a lot of things about Mikey that put him quite above the average in terms of his relationship with local tradition and religion. His house is a huge traditional-style family home, his family is hinted to be active in religious practice (remember Emma's appearances during the Christmas Showdown arc? How she mentioned that their family does a lot of temple visits, and even she considered it weird at that time of the year?), he's much more prone to wearing traditional clothing than his peers, his motif in extra clothing designs is the lion-dog (temple guardians; statues of these can often be found in them), his personal beliefs around death and relationship to the dead run deeper than others' to the point they find him disturbing when he talks about Shinichiro or Baji still being with him... many little things that aren't that deep on their own, of course, but when added up they paint a pretty coherent picture of the guy.

And so, it does make a lot of sense that, even from childhood, a temple was a regular place for Mikey to hang out with his friends, leading to the birth of Toman in one. And it makes a lot of sense that he made all those little choices about the way the gang would be styled. In my opinion, it's likely that those things just all came natural to him because they're a part of his background and worldview. Of course, how actively religious he is, how much he believes in the things he happens to know and how much exactly he might know about buddhism are all up to headcanoning and interpretation. Personally, I'm just a roleplayer that takes it as a relevant part of his character.

- Following a Buddha?

A little out-of-TR-universe element that I love to bring up, 'cause it's just hilarious and cool as hell, is the creation of this statue:

This part of the 2022 Tokyo Revengers exhibition straight up imitates the famous Reclining Buddha in the Wat Pho temple, Thailand. 

The ENORMOUS statue depicts the moment Buddha reaches nirvana, and his enlightened soul is at rest. The golden Mikey statue that imitates it very much intentionally likens him to a Buddha; funny to note that the exhibition staff even prayed to the statue, as you can read in the tweet itself.

What does this mean about Mikey's character? Well, this isn't within text in Tokyo Revengers, just a little outside factor, so I wouldn't take it too literally or too seriously, but it's interesting nonetheless. Personally, I see it as a hint that Mikey was supposed to be on his own little quest to enlightenment, or had the potential to be. Grappling with morality without having a natural sense of what's right, wrong, too much or enough is a major thing with his character. I can also imagine it might just be meant to represent the godlike view others have of him, the guidance they sought from him. Take it as you will! 

The important thing is just that it exists, to confirm that there is an intentional connection of some type between the Buddha and Mikey.

Thaaaaat concludes the Toman and Buddhism section of this post.

Whew!! That was a whole lot.

The Tenjiku and Taoism section coming now is shorter, but I'm sure it contains interesting and less-known things (at least, I've never seen anybody talk about these)!

So let's see, Tao references in Tenjiku:

- Gang name.

Tenjiku is a now-obsolete word that translated directly to "heaven", while simultaneously being the japanese word for the country India (as taken from the chinese pronunciation, Tianzhu).

In modern times, it can be found mostly in ancient literature, the most prominent example being Journey to the West. Given that Kakucho and Izana mentioned this book and seemed to have knowledge of it as kids, we can conclude that's where they got the name of their gang from.

Why would they use the word for India to name their kingdom? What does this have to do with Tao? I'll get into that properly now:

- Kakucho, Izana & Journey to the West.

Journey to the West is one of the four great chinese classic novels (along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Dream of the Red Chamber) which are enormous, ENORMOUS influences on east-asian literature and fiction in general. Journey to the West, itself, is considered the most popular east-asian literary work overall; of course, being super well-known in Japan, too. (To give my favorite funny example of just how omnipresent it is, y'know Dragon Ball? Hit anime series Dragon Ball? Unabashedly based on Journey to the West, which was to thank for most of its initial local popularity.)

It's the story of the buddhist monk Tang Sanzang, who travels to Tenjiku, to India, to that certain heavenly kingdom, to obtain sacred texts for Buddha Gautama Siddharta (the guy I described as THE Buddha in the Tokyo Manji Gang section above). The quest doubles as a search and exercise of enlightenment, as Tang Sanzang is aided by three protectors that are atoning for their sins and learning from him. The main guardian and arguably the true protagonist of the book is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, a fighter "so strong he could carry a mountain on each shoulder, and still dash as fast as a meteor". It's a huge, epic, 100-chapter monster of a book, in which each chapter is already a fantastic and entertaining anecdote about the characters or what happens in their travels, but also a long spiritual journey that pretty much serves to subtly teach the principles of Tao (term that can be translated to "the path", chinese religion and philosophy). 

A tangent: let me just show you how large it is (and why I haven't been able to finish it, 'cause I cannot take this brick of a book anywhere lmaoooo).

(Cover says Journey to the West: The Adventures of the Monkey King. It's in spanish.)

My guess is that Izana and Kakucho studied about it or read some chapters in school, 'cause dang, there's no way they read all of this at that age?!?! BUT ANYWAY.

While there's obviously quite some buddhist influence in the story, most of what it works with throughout is rooted in chinese folklore and Taoism. The edition of the book I have even begins with extensive notes and introductory explanations about Tao, as its themes of harmony with the universe, self-cultivation, internal alchemy, its main ethics and values, etc etc etc are the basis from which the book is built up. The characters very actively engage with Tao. Sun Wukong is an ardent student of Tao who obtains a bunch of powers through it, for one.

I've gone into this much into detail because Kakucho and Izana make it pretty explicit that, to them, Izana is like monk Tang Sanzang leading to Tenjiku, and Kakucho is like his guardian of unmatched strength, Sun Wukong.

In the end of Journey to the West, it's both Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong that accomplish their goal and also obtain enlightenment, finally ascending to buddhahood. Had Izana and Kakucho's journey with Tenjiku reached their original destination (not "to become a criminal syndicate that controls Japan" but "to build a kingdom where everyone without a home could exist"), had it been like Tang Sanzang and Sun Wukong's pilgrimage… they would've learned true balance and they would've found the necessary enlightenment.

Again, I find this little connection with characters that could've been on a quest towards buddhahood, but as far as things went in the main TR timelines, all failed.

- Uniform & logo.

Finally, something lighter and quicker to add, haha.

There are symbols and references that are so so so widespread that they become more of an aesthetic detail than a symbol with meaning, in the eyes of the general public. The yin-yang is one of those symbols that just… appears in a lot of places, fashionably, and one kinda gets used to seeing it without thinking much about it. Sometimes it's not meant to stand for much more than a decorative detail, yes, that definitely happens, but sometimes it's very much a thoughtful choice. With Tenjiku, given its connection to Taoism, I'm gonna treat the yin-yang as a meaningful choice.

So! On the back of the uniform we have a yin-yang, Taoist symbol that represents the balance of the two complementary and opposing forces of the universe (note: it's not a good vs evil type of thing, as tends to happen with western black-white dualism, but rather… the fact that reality needs to be composed of push and pull to get anywhere, hard and soft things with their own function, sun and shade. A common comparison is how a mountain will have a sunny side and a shady side when looked at in a certain moment, but the sun and shade will switch over at another time of day, in a needed cycle). Other features of the uniform are a mao collar instead of a more common style for gang jackets, and an intense red color, the main auspicious and prosperous color in chinese culture. These last two little features could easily be coincidental, but when paired with the yin-yang, I feel like it's intended to lean towards chinese aesthetics.

And with that, 

I end this reference post!

Did you learn anything you didn't know? Did you enjoy learning it? Any thoughts? I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT THESE THINGS, SO FEEL FREE TO DROP BY MY ASKBOX with any comments or questions or such!!

[faithtrickedhope]

hi! do you have any thoughts on athena's dynamics with telemachus and odysseus? because i have We'll Be Fine playing on loop in my head. and i think the differences and similarities between those two friendships are really interesting, so i'd love to hear any thoughts you have on them! :)

bee hii !! thank you for the ask !!

i definitely agree - athena’s dynamics with odysseus and telemachus are super interesting, especially in the ways that they parallel and contrast each other - i’ll try my best to unpack all my feelings coherently.   

so, okay, looking at athena-odysseus first. odysseus clearly looks up to athena. i mean, he’s a mortal man and she’s a goddess. that’s a pretty big deal. but right forn the start we see that odysseus is very causal around gods? i mean, he tricks athena into revealing herself to him, he’s obviously comfortable with mingling with the gods - or at least he’s comfortable with her.

(we see this reflected in telemachus, who almost immediately refers to athena as his friend when they meet, but i’ll get to that more later. already a similarity, though).   

to add to to this, we can see odysseus relatively relaxed and causal nature around athena best encapsulated when he says: 

Sounds like a plan Goddess and man Bestest of friends

this furthers the idea that he is very comfortable around her, while also showing that he doesacknowledge the divide between god and mortal, but seems to see it as something to bridge, rather than fear. odysseus has a very positive outlook about their relationship going forwards, and is quick to follow along with athena’s teachings, as signified in the musical by him joining in with her on the second chorus. 

athena, though, she doesn’t share this same view of their dynamic. before odysseus’ above line she says:

If you're looking for a mentor, I'll make sure your time's well spent

this is a mentor-protege dynamic to her, much more than it is a friendship. she also remakes how they’ll “see how it ends” when he suggests them becoming friends. friendship is not a priority for her, not a too priority at least. but, i don’t think that means she doesn’t care about odysseus. quite the contrary, honestly. being his mentor is very important to her. she wants to “change the world” with him. that’s something. that’s not a thing you do with just anyone. 

(putting the rest under the cut because, oops, this got quite long).

i think she did care about odysseus, right from when they met. it’s just that her way of expressing that was a sort of “tough love” approach, which doesn’t always bode well for friendships. but with the release of god games and the revelation of what athena’s relationship with zeus, her father, is like, i think it becomes more apparent why she holds the opinion that a healthy dynamic between two people (be it god and god, or god and mortal) revolves around pride and strength. she wants to shape odysseus into a great warrior, because she saw potential within him when he fought the bore. she wants to reach into his soul and pull out all the parts that make him a great man. all the parts that will keep him alive. 

if the god games are zeus’ attempt to set his daughter on the “right” path, athena’s goodbye to odysseus is her attempt at doing that with him. and, okay, it’s hard not to look at my goodbye when talking about these two. so, odysseus says—

I’ll remind you, I saw you as a friend

where athena laments that—

You’re not looking for a mentor I’m not looking for a friend 

and this sort of encapsulates the whole dynamics that i’ve being trying to capture. odysseus saw this as a friendship, athena saw it as mentorship. and the thing is, the fact that they did get on so well up until this point - the fact they managed to build such a tight bond as a goddess and a mortal- it shows their separate detentions of what their relationship is are kind of the same. i mean, okay, not literally, friendship and mentorship aren’t the same thing. but they clearly both wanted something from the other, and wanted to give something to the other, and they were achieving that. they had a bond. they cared. 

it’s just, athena is a goddess. and just as she warned, they couldn’t be “the bestest of friends”. because, as stated, her definition of what should come out of a meaningful relationship with someone (relationship in the platonic sense here) is heavily swayed by her father and the other gods. she is trying to make odysseus strong, she sees him leaving the cyclops alive (and then revealing his name) as a show of weakness. she cannot help him, then, because he has just damned himself, and in a way has just turned his back on her by ignoring her advice. gods are prideful, after all. it is a deep blow for someone to go against their will (cough cough. see zeus in god games.  cough). 

so they go their separate ways, they end things on pretty sour terms. and then a lot of years go by and a lot of things change. i’m going to leave these two for now, because i think a big aspect of their dynamic post-cyclops saga is best described in reference to athena and telemachus. 

speaking of which! let’s look at athena and telemachus. okay, so, like i mentioned before, a big similarly between their dynamic and athena-odysseus’ right off the bat is how comfortable telemachus is which athena almost immediately. you mentioned we’ll be fine, and i think that has the perfect example of this. because telemachus says:

You're my friend, I couldn't ask for more

there has been no verbal agreement between the two before this that their is any sort of friendship between them; but telemachus clearly believe strongly enough that they are friends, and - more pressingly - athena does not correct him. this shows then that while telemachus is so much like his father, athena has changed since meeting (and then leaving) odysseus. personally, i think part of this is because of odysseus. some of his last words to her were a staunch reminder that she is “alone”, and i think that hit her hard. i think that made her realise that they had been friends, she just hasn’t realised. and then she let that friendship crumble 

(athena also outright refers to odysseus as her friend when she’s lamenting about his to telemachus, which furthers the notion that she has had a change of heart and realises now - albeit too late - that they were friends. more on this in a bit). 

although athena is more accepting of her friendship with telemachus, she hasn’t fully lost her desire to be a mentor. little wolf is her helping telemachus to find his strength, helping him to fight. like odysseus with the boar, she sees his potential and she wants him to realise it. and like odysseus, telemachus takes this as a sign they they are (or could be, in odysseus case) friends. one difference here though is that the boar fight was orchestrated so athena could find a warrior worth her time. her helping telemachus is just that - she’s helping him. he asked for a sign and she showed up to show him his true strength. she wanted to help, rather than evaluate, i suppose. 

also, athena is generally very open with telemachus, and he responds with kindness. i imagine that she may had been a lot more reserved with odysseus, and maybe now has realised the detriments of that. it is also much more akin to a friendship dynamic that she is being so open, rather than sticking with the formalities of a strictly mentor-protege dynamic.  

but, okay, now we need to look at what athena tells telemachus about odysseus. this verse is especially telling:

Maybe if I'd made a different call Maybe if I hadn't missed it all Maybe he'd be fine Maybe we'd unwind Maybe if I help another soul Maybe if I helped you reach your goal Life could be that bright I could sleep at night

there is so much to say about this, but this post is already ridiculously long (sorry) so to sum it up - athena has had seven years to reflect on her time with odysseus, to reflect on their partings words to one another. we can see hear she’s clearly haunted by how things went, clearly wonders if it could have gone differently if she’d only treated him differently. and i think, her interaction with telemachus almost confirms that things could have gone better? because he’s so much like odysseus when she first met him, and it just reminds her how that relationship had started. comparing that to how things ended - how it haunts her now - as she laments to telemachus, it’s just a stark revelation that things could have, should have been handled better. i also believe that her whole interaction with telemachus and how he responds to it after as a sort of switch in her mind that she can still try to repair her relationship with odysseus. or, at the very least, she should see where he is

i think the line that sticks out to me most in relation to both dynamics is when athena tells telemachus:

You’re a good kid 

she does definitely mean it, but also i think in this moment this is something she’s saying to his son what she wishes she had told odysseus. he was her protege, her champion, but at his core he was just a kid. and he was a good kid, and a good friend would have let him know that. this is the biggest difference, then, between odysseus-athena and telemachus-athena - athena is letting telemachus know from the start that she appreciates him as more than just her student. 

athena’s arc in terms of her shifting mindset about friendship is best shown in god games. as mentioned before, the god games are like zeus way of testing his daughter and trying to force her back into the “right” (his) path. if athena was still the athena we see at the start of the musical, who values strength and pride over love, she would have been convinced by the other gods and given up. but she isn’t that same person anymore. 

she has been haunted by odysseus and changed by telemachus and now she is ready to fight for odysseus, not as a mentor but as a friend. she tells her father she is here for the sake of a friend, for the sake of a friendship. and even when the god king himself smites her, even when he tries to use brute force to get her to stand down, she still fights for odysseus.  

because he is her friend. 

i don’t know how well i actually answered this in regards to the similarities and differences - i sort of just went off on a ramble about the general dynamics between them - but i hope this at least answered your question somewhat! i love athena (shocker) and i think having her character progression shown through her friendships with a father and his son is so, so interesting. the three of them mean a lot to me 

[i-love-tall-women-with-big-hats]

The Yanderes of the Autumn Court

(Fall has finally 'fallen' haha, and I couldn't resist writing this. I'd say this is based on fairies, but I love cosmic horror too much to not add a wee bit of it...so I named them Alterkinder or Alterkind for singular (lit just German for 'Older Children' smh 😞) because this is my bastardized version of them.

To avoid the overuse of this made up word, I also call them the Fallen, the Autumn Court, autumn fae, or the Wither. If I say 'Yandere' specifically, I'm referring to the Yandere. Though it might seem like it, not all fair folk are lovesick in this world of mine, so the yanderes are one of a kind even compared to their fellow eldritch abominations.

Enjoy this cosmic fairy shit, loves.)

Content: original worldbuilding, stalking as courtship, unintentional cannibalism, kidnapping, necrophilia, eldritch monsters and their own version of love. Took inspirations from Hades and Persephone, but besides the kidnapping scene, nothing else.

༺═─────────────────═༻

The Autumn Court.

Once the greatest of the Alterkinder, they bear scars from wars of ages past.

Nowadays, they are merely remembered as the Fallen, the Shadows of What Was. They were left to rot in the realm of ambers and russets, where the earth is too coarse and barren to grow much of anything.

As a result, the Fallen pride themselves on being resilient, persistent even at the face of hardship and humiliation.

Which is why for you, their mortal pet, it means rejection will never be an option.

Harvest Season

As patron deities of harvests and hunts, the Fallen treat courtship the same way a hunter would a promising prey. It's all a game to some of them. Whereas we mortals have dating rituals, the Autumn Court have what they call 'the Harvesting'.

Elder Fallen will know the season is coming before it even hits them. They will feel it in the breeze flowing through their hair, feel it in the slightest drop in temperature, or in the smallest change to their physiology.

The younger, inexperienced Fallen tend to fall victim to their basest instincts.

Should you find yourself the target of a Fallen's affection, and a Yandere one at that, just know that you will have until winter to dissuade them. Before the first snowfall, they can court you without interference from any other spirits besides those from their own court, so take advantage of it.

I wouldn't get your hopes up though. You'll realize the further more you read this what I mean by 'persistent'.

Finders, Keepers

It is a tradition in the Autumn Court that a fae must brand their chosen prey to prevent any conflict.

At this point, they will not show themselves to their chosen mortal just yet. Reasons vary, but for a Yandere, it's typically because their first priority is to let all the others know that you are theirs and theirs alone. They know just how heated territorial disputes within their court can get, and they'd rather keep you out of it as much as possible.

Though this tradition was founded to prevent any two autumn fae from fighting over the same prey, it isn't always respected. If the Yandere themselves haven't disregarded the brand of their fellow kin, then they are ensuring that nobody else would do the same. Realistically, that is impossible, but some of the more powerful members of the court could absolutely decimate anyone they think covets their pet.

From death by a thousand thorns to being mauled to shreds by their most vicious familiars, but I'll speak of their cruelties later.

How a Fallen chooses to brand their Darling is up to individual preferences.

Among the Headless Riders, their favourite method is to douse their target with their blood. Their human can scrub themselves clean, but little do they know, enough of it will still linger for any fae to notice.

Some are less dramatic and opt for something simpler, like runes and insignias.

I don't know about you, but the lack of blood make it a little less romantic...but that's just my opinion.

Pumpkin Spice and Apple Pies

After they have secured their ownership, this is when the true courtship begins.

Some Elder Fallen may still remember the magic of the Old Summers. They cannot stop the inevitable march of winter, but the chill won't drop any lower than is comfortable for a while just so they could see you wearing your favourite sweaters. Anythig to prevent you from wearing too many layers.

Some could even bless your lands with fertility to ensure a plentiful harvest for the local farmers in your area, or make it drizzle everyday should they see how much you like how it sounds against your windows.

But what can a young Fallen do when he doesn't have much power or prestige to his name?

A feast.

It isn't official, but any Fallen worth their salt must show they are capable providers. The Autumn Court as a whole not only finds pride in being survivors, but in thriving where their enemies thought they will perish.

Roast meat, your favourite desserts, and fruits you cannot name will all be beautifully arranged on your table regardless of how small it is.

But never ask what the meat is from. Don't ask what these fruits are either. The apples' flesh is red, bleeding, for a reason. You wouldn't want to know why.

The feast is simply a symbol of their dedication to you. The Yandere hopes that by showing you the fruits of their labour, you will believe them when they promise that you will never feel fear or hunger ever again.

Just let them take care of you.

The Reaping

At last, fall is coming to an end, and the Fallen are beginning to feel the approach of winter. The time has come for them to choose whether or not they want to keep you.

The Reaping is the last stage, and it is perhaps the most scariest thing the Yandere can do to you during the Harvesting.

This is because for many mortals, they wouldn't even see their suitor until this stage in the Harvesting. It's not like they could have known that the owl, falcon, cat, mountain lion, and fox that they have been encountering was just their secret admirer in disguise.

And as the wise of old said: "The longer the wait, the sweeter the fruit."

Knowing this, the Yandere would certainly abstain from talking to you just to keep the Reaping special.

It would be the first time they'll hear your voice directly being spoken to them, and only them.

It would be the first they'll feel the warmth of your skin and supple flesh, take in your scent and taste.

At last, they have you all entirely to themselves.

It all seems romantic...for the Alterkind. But for you, the first meeting is nothing less than a kidnapping.

Imagine the earth shaking out of nowhere. When you thought it was only an earthquake, the ground quite literally parts in half, and a great hole forms before you. Just as you try to even make sense of it, a great black steed leaps out. Its rider--of course it has a rider. It won't be able to wear the most noblest of accruements otherwise--simply whisks you away, back to which he came from. Your screams of terror will be ignored.

Every Fallen has their own unique love story, but if there is one thing common in all of them, it is that none of the brides were willing.

Zealous Protectors

Their defeat at the hands of the Summer Court and Spring Court had heightened something that every Alterkind has: possessiveness.

For one thing, having their home realm taken from them has made them deeply paranoid. Being stripped of all their wealth and power was like rubbing salt on their wounds.

As such, the Alterkind of the Autumn Court learned to be wary of anyone who so much as look at their possessions wrong.

The average Fallen are zealous in their guardian duties. Elder Fallen especially are known for taking their vows of protection seriously. After all, the memory of what they've lost is still fresh in their mind.

So optimistically, your devoted Alterkind was born several generations after that fateful war, but don't expect much improvement.

One of the most cruelest deaths whispered within the Court came from someone even they least expected.

There was once a prince of a quiet nature. Though far from a pacifist, his temper was not as tempestuous as the winter blizzard or thunderstorms of spring. He planted thorn berries within the belly of a spring fae, nurtured it until they grew out of her bleeding mouth and tore her stomach open.

All of this because she regarded his beloved mortal for longer than what he allowed.

Possessiveness runs deep in the veins of the Alterkinder, be they of autumn, winter, spring, or summer.

But you must know, the culture of the Fallen was built from humiliation, the detritus of their golden age act as its foundation. It nurtured them to become what they are now:

Jealous.

Possessive.

Vindictive.

Like Leaves in Fall

Ironically, the court that finds virtue in change and transition have some of the most...'inflexible' members.

You might think concepts often associated with autumn like decay and inevitability would make them more accepting of death, but alas. Once in a blue moon, you will hear tragic tales exemplifying just how much lower the Fallen Kinder could fall.

The Lovesick of the Autumn Court are just that; patron spirits of rot and inevitable death, unable to accept that even something immaterial and abstract like love can be taken from them.

They themselves can decay. It isn't unheard of for an autumn kind to slowly devolve into the very thing they are masters of. Their skin dries and peels like dried bark as their joints and bones go brittle.

They can grow lonesome.

It may hold onto the rotting corpse, too broken to acknowledge the maggots infesting its sludgy flesh, and imagine movements. In desperate hope, their decayed heart will jump as they think, "They're alive! They're waking up! I don't have to be cold and alone anymore!"

But once the Kind realize they were wrong, the grieving process starts anew, and they hurt all over again.

Their entirety withers. Their thoughts and memories may drift away. Their grasp on reality becomes just as lost as fluttering leaves.

'Reality.'

Where you truly ever theirs to begin with?

.

.

.

The Fallen Fae becomes bitter. Cold.

This cold bitterness grows and grows until it turns into something all-consuming. It will destroying whatever kindle was left in their heart, making it impossible for them to feel the warmth of love or hope ever again.

And so...they hold onto their Darling. A hollow shell of what their love once was.

In the shadows of the past.

Mind scattered in the wind like fallen leaves.

.

.

.

Ivies grow here.

In this cold dungeon of old.

Hush, for you will miss it.

The crying of the Withered.

[starlightscarsyt]

Why I Adore Charuko - A Ramble/Essay from the Charuko CEO

In this...ramble...essay, I want to break down one of my biggest OTPs I've ever had in a fandom. And that pairing? Teruko Tawaki x Charles Cuevas from Danganronpa: Despair. Commonly known as either Charuko or Lucky Chemistry. It's time I talk about why I love them & what makes them click for me!

Before I get into this, I want to remind everyone that the purpose of this is not to try and convince people to like the ship or to belittle another ship. It's purely me wanting to connect with fellow Charuko fans & have fun as I just gush about this pairing. That being said, I would appreciate if you guys please be respectful & not send hate towards this post, myself, or any other people who like Charuko. This post isn't an excuse for you to be hateful.

With that being said, let's get onto why I personally love Charuko / Lucky Chemistry!

Dynamic & Current Relationship

The dynamic between Teruko & Charles is one that I find the most fun, regardless if it's in a platonic or romantic view. I'll be skimming over the prologue since it doesn't say a whole lot about their dynamic in the beginning, and I'll dive into Ch1. In Ch1 Episode 1, Teruko is assigned to explore with Charles as a means of safety, and right off the bat, there's a few scenes that give us as viewers an idea of their dynamic. And that dynamic is blunt x snark. They make constant jabs at eachother, but also sort of think alike in some areas. Neither of them wants to be with the other, but they both know that they have no choice but to tag along eachother. Shown in the screen shots below is just a few examples of their dynamic from the episode.

Ch1 Episode 1 really sets down the dynamic. Two individuals who are completely honest to eachother & have no problem taking jabs, but can easily come to agreements when it comes down to it. This is essentially their dynamic for most of Ch1, but there's a few more things to add that I hadn't mentioned yet.

• Teruko finds Charles fun to tease due to his flustered reactions. She refers to him as "cactus lover" and even makes a few witty marks at him that cause him to get embarrassed.

• Charles, while thinking Teruko is quite dumb, does acknowledge that she does have few bits of smartness in her, just not in the way that he does.

Moving on, their dynamic changes quite a bit in Ch2, which makes sense considering that in this point of time, Teruko closes herself off from everyone in order to not trust anyone again. Ch2 Episode ends off like this. Charles asks Teruko if she's heading to the second floor, following that if she needs a partner to explore with, then he'd do it, which she soon rejects.

This is later explored when Whit tells Teruko that Charles wants to talk to her in the infirmary. Teruko, while hesitant at first, does decide to go & see what he wants out of pure curiousity. When she arrives, she immediately gives herself a bad papercut from a book. Once Charles shows up, Teruko quickly hides her hand because of his fear of blood. While talking, Teruko drops a bit of her life story to Charles, telling him about how difficult her life has been up until this point, and Charles stands there and listens quite intently.

Moving on, Charles explains that he wanted give the secret he recieved from the secrets motive to her. He explains that this is because he acknowledges that Teruko is the type to reveal the truth when necessary. He knows she'd say something when it's called for. Teruko grabs the secret from Charles, and before she leaves, we get this:

CHARLES. WITH A BLUSH ON HIS FACE. STATES THAT HE LIKES TALKING TO TERUKO & TELLS HER NOT TO TAKE IT THE WRONG WAY.

While he explains that it's because she doesn't pity him like everyone else, there is still some genuine feelings about what he said.

He straights points on their dynamic, with A GODDAMN SMILE ON HIS FACE. Charles may not be the type to be all mushy with his emotions, but the fact that he smiles while thinking of his dynamic with Teruko is very sweet. After this whole ordeal, Teruko leaves with Charles going after her due to him trying to call her out on how her behavior right now is only going to hurt her like it hurt him, with it leading to beautiful gem of MonoTV pouncing on Charles.

As the chapter progresses, there isn't too much to say about Charles & Teruko's relationship until the trial. In Ch2 Episode 11, during Teruko's fight with David, she finds herself knocked in a corner. Charles notices this, and immediately slashes down David's words.

While we don't know what was discovered due to the hiatus & the rest of Ch2 being worked on, it can be said that Charles noticed something Teruko didn't, and thinks they'll be in for a big mess.

So, what is their current relationship? Overall, it's a mixture of two snarks who are always being snide to eachother, but also individuals who are foils, thinking similarly in more ways than one.

Aesthetics & Cuteness

On top of me jusy adoring their dynamic, I'm also in love with the aesthetic & overall cuteness this ship brings.

The color palettes.

I'M A SUCKER FOR PURPLE & GREEN COLOR PALETTES, SO THESE TWO HAVING THOSE PALETTES IS SO LOVELY TO ME! Their palettes together can make for some beautiful art, especially if it's themed around nature. On top of that, you could put them in eachother's signature color, and it'd look really pretty! It's so aesthetically pleasing, and it gets me all giddy!

Also, they really are just so cute together! I adore ships where the pairing feels like an old married couple, and they def feel like it! Just a pairing who make fun of eachother & are just kinda silly!

THEY ARE ALSO SOSOSOSO AESTHETIC OUTSIDE OF THEIR COLORS! Like, I could put them in settings like a cottage or a forest, and they'd look so pleasing together! It'd just be so beautiful, EEEEE!

Headcanons + Conclusion

To end off this lil' ramble / essay, I'mma just drop a buncha Charuko hcs! I hope you had fun reading this! NOW ENJOY THE HEADCANONS, WEEE!

• They usually go on picnic dates, indoor dates, or baking dates!

• Charles loves to style Teruko's hair in different ways. He thinks almost any style would look pretty on her.

• Teruko tries to get into things Charles likes, such as gardening or reading. She'd just want to try and connect with him more!

• On their shopping dates, Teruko always asks Charles for his opinion on any outfit she chooses to buy / wear. He gives his honest opinions, but also reminds her that he thinks anything could look good on her.

• They're very much touch-starved, so they cuddle a lot when nobody's looking.

• GIRLFAILBOSS X MALEWIFE VIBES!

• Cottagecore softies on a nice day...Let Teruko be more girly & Charles embrace a softer side.../pos

[moonpool-system]

Plural Coining: Fronting Spoons

[pt: Plural Coining: Fronting Spoons]

There's a subset of spoon theory that specifies "types of spoons". This is the concept that different categories of activities can take different types of spoons, meaning that you could have spoons for one activity, say, going to the post office, but not the spoons for another activity, like doing the dishes. This is equivalent to how you, of course, couldn't eat soup with a grapefruit spoon- I mean you could try, but it sure would be slow and painful.

What I'm presenting is an expansion of that concept, for plurals trying to learn to hold front intentionally/on their own. Fronting spoons refer to the amount of energy you have to hold onto front, before the body/brain puts in whomever it deems "correct". For us, that's almost always me & my frontstuck subsystem, but it could be anyone for the individual system at any time. With examples though, I'll be using the same "default" headmate for simplicity. It takes energy to use the body and to stay co-conscious when you're trying to stop switching/coconning uncontrollably, and that's what fronting spoons are all about.

Let's go over some specifics and examples!

🥄 Fronting spoons work similarly to regular spoons, in that if you push past your limit, you'll likely end up burnt out later and regenerate your spoons more slowly while you recover. For example, Headmate A is the brain's default, and Headmate B is used to fronting a little bit daily. One day, B gets caught up in a long event, and stays in front the whole time. This exhausts B's fronting spoons - A stays in front for the next three days brcause B isn't able to access front due to needing to recover.

🥄 Fronting spoons are likely to be affected by any other differences and sways you find normal in the fronting schedule of your system. For example, the system is inside deciding on a video game to play. Headmates C and D like video games and indoor activities, so they might find they have a larger pool of fronting spoons at the moment than Headmates E and F, whom like outdoor activities and socialization.

🥄 Your system may find that being co-conscious and fronting take up a similar pool of spoons, with simply being conscious taking up less and using the body taking up more. This is how we experience it as the coiners and how systems we've observed do as well, but every plural is different, so please let us know if you find co-consciousness and fronting to have separate spoon pools! We would find it very interesting. As an example for this one, Headmate A has been in front all day, with Headmate B in co-con. Headmate B now wants to front for a short time, but B is exhausted from spending all day aware of front in co-con, and will have to wait until tomorrow.

🥄 Many guides for various types of created systems stress practicing switching little by little and building up skill over time. This is a possible way to build up your pool of fronting spoons so you can do more with the body in time. For example, Headmate G struggles with fronting and instead usually watches Headmate H. With Headmate H's permission, G tries to control only the body's voice for a short time, and finds that takes less spoons. G works on controlling the voice for slightly longer and longer periods, until G can now control limbs of the body as well. Now, G fronts for very short periods and slowly is able to stay for longer each time. Like exercise, G goes to the limit but doesn't push past it, and is able to strengthen G's personal pool of fronting spoons over time.

Feel free to add your own experiences or even contrast the details we've outlined here - we want this to be a concept that's community-built, and we're only one system's perspective. We hope everyone finds this useful!

[edalynn]

hii hope you don't mind me asking but why do you hate huntlow?? (genuinely curious) I personaly love the owlhouse and kin hunter and it's one if my favorite ships :0

I was just going to not answer this ask as I feel like I've repeated the many reasons I hate hunt/low in the past, but I realize I've never put it all in one place. I'm going to start by linking some asks or posts of mine that are a smorgasbord of things I or others have pointed out regarding what's wrong with the ship itself for some reference points.

X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X

And I'll add my "Hunt/low Trope Bingo Card" that gives us a fun diagram of multiple problematic tropes that Hunt/low falls under

Let me start of with the ship itself. Hunt/low quite literally makes both characters' arcs irrelevant. Willow's entire arc about learning to be confident in herself, overcome her bullying, and be strong for herself and her friends is basically entirely erased when you put her with Hunter. Her whole arc is that for a lack of better words, she saved herself and is her own person. Yes, she had the help of Luz and Gus, and later Amity after they began mending their friendship, but her whole thing was being strong and confident on her own. In concept, giving Willow a pretty boy boyfriend immediately makes her arc less impactful than if she's never paired with anyone in the story, because her story is about her own self growth. Not being saved by having a conventionally attractive boyfriend. And in practice, we actually see it happen. Willow is dumbed down and made insanely out of character in almost the entirety of the third season, particularly in FtF. She's shown multiple times throughout the end of the season (Actually, in S2 as well) needing to be physically saved by Hunter specifically when she's always been shown she can stand up for herself before. And, yes, you could argue that "Willow doesn't always need to be the strong one!", and you'd be right! But the fact that the second she becomes friends with Hunter, the way her character is written changes dramatically. We see her need to be saved over and over, and it is literally only by Hunter. If this wasn't the case, I would agree with that, but unfortunately it's not. Her growth and "revolutionary" strong-on-her-own arc is entirely negated if she is put in a relationship with Hunter.

On the flipside, Hunter's arc is just as equally, if not more, irrelevant. Hunter's arc is also about finding himself and finding a group of people that are his pseudo-family. His growth is his journey to becoming his own person, away from his abusive parental figure. In concept, Hunt/low makes all of Hunter's trauma, abuse, and loss meaningless by falling into the trope of "romantic love heals all", which is both dangerous for young fans who will believe that and a slap in the face for every abuse victim that relate to Hunter. It's like saying that nothing bad he experienced mattered or had any lasting impact, because you give him a strong girlfriend and poof! All the problems go away and are solved! And I shouldn't have to explain why that message is insanely harmful. As with Willow, we see this happen in action as well. Any time there's a nod to Hunt/low in the show, Hunter's trauma immediately doesn't seem to matter. This is shown the clearest when he is literally not allowed to grieve Flapjack's death because it "upsets" Willow and he has to run after her to comfort- and later save- her. The writers actually made it so that Hunter is made to feel guilty for showing sadness about Flap because it made Willow feel like she "can't do anything right", making the entire scene about how he had to save her and put his grieving of Flapjack to the side. I think as an abuse victim, this is the one thing about Hunt/low that makes me the angriest. And to dip my toes into a later point- fan creators that ship Hunt/low also do this in their fanworks. Moringmark is a BIG perpetrator of the Hunter abuse denial rhetoric.

The way they are intended to be written, these two arcs contrast each other, not complement them. It makes no sense for them to be shipped. And further, the context & content we get in the actual show has a staggering lack of depth or intention. Every interaction they have feels out of character and as if their personalities have to be entirely re-worked for them to even interact- and those are just the miniscule amount of times they actually interact. There's almost no actual content for Hunt/low in the show, it's never acknowledged by other characters how they do with Lumity and Raeda, and they literally almost never interact in the show until FtF. There is no logical reason that anyone should assume they were even interested in each other (aside from Hunter's blink-and-you-miss-it blushes) and you could probably count on both hands how many times they actually interacted with each other on screen both before the Day of Unity, and until FtF. And I'd go as far as to say that when they do interact, they barely even act like friends. Willow spends almost the entirety of TtT ignoring Hunter (assumably unintentionally, but they almost never interact and the episode was literally based around Hunter as one of the main characters in it) aside from the hair cutting scene- which contextually made no sense to be done by Willow- and the after-possession scene- also made no sense contextually for him to have his head on Willow's lap. She literally makes fun of him at one point, with Amity being the one to basically say "guys that's mean, Hunter I don't want you to get made fun of by others please change". How does any of that read as a healthy or loving ship? Much less even a friendship. By the time they get to the Human Realm, Willow and Hunter have interacted, what, maybe three times? Once during ASIAS (Where Willow forgives him way faster than she should have for her character, when she literally took months to fully forgive Amity- and Ami didn't kidnap her), Once during LR (Where Willow literally is shown as not caring, liking, or trusting Hunter until he says something that proves he was with Gus), and then on the mission with Luz & co. to rescue Amity leading to the Day of Unity. The ship both in context & in practice completely obliterate not only both characters' arcs as stated above, but also wreck their personalities, making them every other generic girl and boy in a generic m/f ship.

Moving onto the fandom in relation to Hunt/low. Let me set the scene. This show, The Owl House, in and of itself is for a Queer audience. That doesn't mean cishet people cannot enjoy it, but it is a silent "stay in your lane". TOH was REVOLUTIONARY for Queer mainstream media with the main character being the first main character on an animated show by Disney to be openly Queer. Luz is openly bisexual and has a girlfriend! She comes out to her mom! Her adoptive mother, one of the other 3 main characters, ends up in a canon relationship with her Highschool Sweetheart, a nonbinary person, and is ALSO openly bisexual! So why is Hunt/low treated as if it is the "third main ship" on TOH, when it ISN'T EVEN CANON. Why is it treated as if it's on the same level as Lumity and Raeda!? Why are there fanartists and other creators that ONLY draw or write Hunt/low!? It's insulting honestly! And I, as a queer person, am being so dead serious. it's fucking insulting. And the way Hunt/low shippers treat people that don't ship it is disgusting. Their go-to defense tends to be "Crying Wolf", or claiming any kind of "-phobia" they can to make their ship seem "more valid". You have no idea the amount of times I and my mutuals have been called "biphobic" or "fatphobic" or any number of other insults. When more often than not, It's Hunt/low shippers that I see ignoring Hunter's bisexuality, or worse, disparaging people for shipping Hunter in a mlm relationship. Or worse- saying certain ships (Huntric/Goldric) are inc/estuous because of Aladarius, which also is not even canon (And neither is "Dadrius" while I'm at it, but that's a totally different argument for a different day.). I see them use his bisexuality as fodder constantly. And I won't even mention the mischaracterization by every single Hunt/low fan I've ever seen, making Willow anywhere from Girlboss to Tradwife or Mom Girlfriend, and Hunter from Malewife to Wet Cat to Protector Boyfriend.

The crew also did not help the situation at all. Multiple Storyboard artists or other crew members have openly admitted to attempting to (or succeeding to) force Hunt/low into the storyline, always at the scolding of Dana who would make them remove it or tone it down as it didn't fit her vision of the show. I've seen multiple crewmembers say this- it's not just a one off thing. Or the crew member who once said she didn't care that the ship name "Winter" (the crew's ship name for Hunt/low) made it hard to block/tag because she liked how it sounded. It's just. I've seen so many instances of Dana's crew being that disrespectful to her and attempting to push their own personal feelings and ideas into the show against her wishes.

I could probably go on forever, so I'll stop here. But yeah. That's the basics of why Hunt/low is a shitty, harmful ship.

[chongoblog]

FUCK IT IM GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE PRESTIGE (2006) WHICH IS MY FAVORITE MOVIE EVER

Okay this was originally just gonna be a silly addition to a shitpost but I'm dedicating a whole ass post so I can gush about The Prestige (2006), which is my favorite movie of all time.

Before I go into it, here's what it's about. Some of you may be familiar with the plot of The Prestige, but for those of you who aren't, do not be alarmed, the summary that you're about to read is considered safe. And any spoilers are after the read more.

The Prestige is a movie directed by Christopher Nolan, who also did Memento, Inception, and Dark Knight, which are all also incredible, but I'll save rambles on those for a later day or for a white guy who makes film-based video essays on Youtube. The story revolves around two rival magicians played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, leading to it being called "Batman vs. Wolverine: Magic Edition ft. David Bowie". Oh yeah also David Bowie is in this as Nikola Tesla. The movie opens with a magic show that ends with the death of Wolverine, with Batman being the primary suspect. The story is framed as Batman reading through Wolverine's diary in jail as they attempt to learn one another's tricks.

Just like any magic show, learning the secret to the tricks reframes parts of the movie, so I'm putting the actual analysis behind this spoiler cut. If you haven't seen The Prestige yourself, PLEASE find a way to watch it. I can't recommend it enough.

Okay, now that the noobs are gone, I'm gonna refer to them by Angier and Borden instead of Wolverine and Batman. And now that you know the twist because you TOTALLY didn't open the read more without watching it, we'll call the surviving Borden twin "Fallon", since the difference between the two twins is a very big part of the movie.

Before I go into anything I'm gonna say this miscellaneous thing because I literally just realized it after loving this movie for YEARS. This story contains the feud of two visionaries who constantly sabotaged and stole from one another while they tried to do amazing things in their field, and such a feud led to some significant violence. But anyway, enough talking about Tesla and Edison, let's get onto the actual story of Angier and Borden. (As snarky as that comparison was, it really adds to the speeches Tesla gives Angier, along with the parallel between cats and birds but thats a whole other rant)

One thing I adore about the movie is that it addresses a theme of sacrifice in exchange for spectacle. Sacrifices had to be made in order to put on a show. Borden obviously knew this perfectly well, since he was actively playing out that sacrifice. But Angier was obsessed with discovering a way to bypass that sacrifice. You can see this with how Borden's far less bothered by killing birds while Angier has Cutter create contraptions to save the birds. Angier begins to understand the sacrifice while using a double, but even the sacrifice of being under the stage while the audience applauds is too much for him. In the end, Angier DOES sacrifice, but also doesn't. His sacrifice isn't half of his life in the way Borden/Fallon's is (with each one living half of a life), but living half of the life by way of Russian Roulette (with entering the machine either killing him or letting him live his full life). Ironically the "die or live a full life" thing comes back for the Borden/Fallon combo in the end.

And you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps since Angier is attempting to find a way to create spectacle without harm, he's in the right here. After all, in the end, the only thing he's truly sacrificing is himself. While Borden/Fallon's lifelong sacrifice had a dramatic impact on Sally and Olivia (the two main characters who truly did nothing wrong and did not deserve this), if Angier just did this trick and called it a day, it wouldn't hurt anyone except his own clones, which seemed to accept the coin flip. But the other aspect of Angier (and to a somewhat lesser extent Borden, and to an WAY LESSER extent Fallon) is obsession with being the best. And in terms of that particular theme, I think that the film says all it needs to about that.

I'm sure I could go on, but I've spent the last few days adding more and more to this draft so I figure I should just let it go into the world. I love this movie so so much you guys.....

[coreene]

The 5e Guide to Sex

I have been made aware of an unofficial guide for sex in dnd universe by my lovely friends over at the Zhentil Keep. And I would like to share some interesting stuff I found in said book with my dear followes.

Technical details before the fun part: book is called The 5e Guide to Sex. I couldn't find a writer. I couldn't find a publisher. When you search the name Google throws the pdf your way in case anyone of you would like to check it out yourselves. If you know more about the book, please let me know and I'll update/throw a link for credits. I am adding these to my que and in pieces so they will be dropping at the same time for the next couple of days/nights.

The Dirty Deed

Transcript is under the cut

You can have sex for a number of minutes equal to your Constitution score minus 5. Since most humans have a Constitution of 10, this means that on average they last 5 minutes in bed. This refers only to the act of sex itself, not to any foreplay (see below).

At the end of sex, you make a satisfaction check by rolling a d20 and adding the number of minutes that the sex lasted for above 5 minutes (+1 for six minutes, +2 for seven minutes, and so on). If the result is equal to or greater than your partner’s Constitution score, then your partner was satisfied. If not, then your partner was dissatisfied and may desire to continue having sex until brought to satisfaction.

If having sex with more than one NPC, you make a separate satisfaction check for each one.

Satisfied or Dissatisfied. An NPC who has been satisfied with sex is likely to be friendly to you in the future, though there is no mechanical benefit. Likewise, a partner who you fail to satisfy might be unfriendly, but again there is no mechanical distinction drawn.

Very Dissatisfied. If you fail a Satisfaction check by 5 or more, then the NPC was very dissatisfied. Their sexual partner has disadvantage on all Persuasion checks made against them for the next 1d4+1 days.

Very Satisfied. If you pass a Satisfaction check by 5 or more, then the NPC was very satisfied. Their sexual partner has advantage on all Persuasion checks against them for the next 1d4+1 days.

Marathon. At the end of an act of sex, you can choose to forgo making a satisfaction check. If you do, you have sex for another length of time equal to your Constitution score minus 5. You may repeat this any number of times. Once you decide to stop forgoing the satisfaction check, you add the total amount of minutes above 5 minutes for each act of sex and add that result to your d20 roll.

Keeping going like this is exhausting, however. Each character having sex must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw for each act of sex in an hour after the first; on a failure, the character gains a level of exhaustion.

Size Issues. If your sexual partner is two or more size categories larger or smaller than you, you have disadvantage on checks to satisfy them. Further, it is impossible for a male creature to physically penetrate a creature that is two size categories or more smaller than him without also causing great damage (1d4 bludgeoning damage per round of sex for each step of size category difference), and even creatures one size category smaller than them are at risk – for each minute of penetrative sex a larger male has with a smaller creature, that creature must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or gain 1 level of exhaustion.

Technical Details

The following applies to any creature while he or she is having sex:

You are grappled while having sex. Depending on how you are having sex, you may additionally be prone, restrained, or both. You can escape sex like you would any other grapple; your partner(s) can choose to not contest your escape attempt if they also wish to stop having sex.

You can’t concentrate on spells while having sex, unless the spell is being used directly for sex (such as the sexual application of Evard’s black tentacles, as described later in this document)

source: The 5e Guide to Sex (unofficial)

[slayerkitty]

Visual Effects in Only Friends MV part 2

The second song on the Only Friends OST dropped today; So What? by the amazing Ford Arun. Much like the first MV for Only Friends, this one is also has visual frameworks that made me stop and stare.

Just like my first post on this subject, where I talked about the late 90s/early 00s aesthetic of the show as well as controlled voyeurism (aka we only see what they want us to see), these themes show up again here, but a little differently. Unlike the Let's Try MV and the BTS vids which use multiple different effects and transitions as well as framing a lot of the scenes to look like (possibly) 90s camcorder footage, So What? has two visual effects (I think technically three, and I'll point out why I say it this way in a minute).

The first one is the camcorder footage effect. Except that it's even different from the Let's Try MV. While the Let's Try MV has the "play" prompt onscreen and time stamps, it now, to me, feels more like CCTV video than camcorder video. The video effect on So What? is definitely camcorder footage because it is time and date stamped.

Now, the time and date stamp is February 1st, 2020 at 6:06pm for every screen it appears on, which to me cannot be an accurate date/time for any of the scenes. Several of these scenes were from episodes 4, 5, 6, or potentially yet to air. Chuem drops info about Covid in episode one and in February of 2020, we were so early into the pandemic during that time that I'm not sure she would have referred to it so casually, plus with no Covid precautions being taken onscreen it does feel the show is set currently (aka 2023).

Why this date? Why 6:06pm? WHAT IS JOJO TRYING TO SAY HERE? Is this a specific reference to something upcoming on the show? Is this date famous in Thailand for something? Did he just pull a date and time out of a hat?

Onto the second effect: the yellow text on the screen is back! It was heavily used as a visual effect in episode one, and after a discussion with @ignoranaxed I did add it to my Narrative Frameworks post where I'm tracking visual effects on the show. We discussed whether or not this was an homage or reference to SKAM Norway, an extremely popular coming of age teen drama that had an amazingly done queer season (Season three. If nothing else, stop what you're doing and go watch SKAM Norway season three. You can thank me later). The show was so popular it has been remade in Spain, Italy, France, Germany (named Druck), Belgium (named WtFock), the United States and has even been announced as a Korean (BL?) drama for next year.

Is this an actual homage? I came down on the side of maybe. I can't swear it is, but I can't say it isn't. That yellow text on the screen is iconic due to SKAM Norway, and it is used in every single remake of the show (if Korea doesn't use it, I will cry. Also, if Korea doesn't release/air it in the same way, I will cry). Leaving that aside, the yellow text is in Thai, and as yet, I have no idea what it says because my subs only translated the song lyrics, not the onscreen words. If anyone who knows Thai can help me with this, I would love you forever because there's one other thing that shows up in yellow on the screen, and it's this:

WHY AN ELLIPSES, JOJO? WHAT DID IT SAY BEFORE THIS? I NEED TO KNOW WHY IT'S TRAILING OFF. IS IT TO BE CONTINUED? THE NOT KNOWING WILL DRIVE ME INSANE.

Onto the third , but maybe not really an effect: Is Ford photoshopped in here?

I ask this because if he is (and I can't quite tell but I think maybe?) then does that mean this is future footage coming up on the show? Or, like Let's Try MV did with it's extra SandRay footage in the car, was this just shot for the MV? I'm curious to see what people think on this.

Now for the rest of the MV where I just melt down because WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DRAMA BETWEEN YO AND PLUG, JOJO? YOU CAN'T DO THIS. Also, is this Sand hugging Yo?

You can't do this to my girl. This will hurt.

Do we think this is Boston and Nick potentially going ice skating or roller skating? Because if it's roller skating, JOJO I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

In summary, the visual frameworks are back in play once again and what they're choosing to show and how feel important.

Tagging the ephemerality squad: @waitmyturtles, @wen-kexing-apologist, @ranchthoughts, @chickenstrangers, @lurkingshan, @twig-tea, @clara-maybe-ontheroad, @distant-screaming

Apologies to anyone I missed. If you would liked to be tagged in my OF posts/meta, please let me know and I will add you.

[bestworstcase]

This is very much a shot in the dark, but in your view of the show is there any chance of Penny somehow coming back? I've seen a couple signs, namely a) her literal last words are "I won't be gone, I'll be part of (Winter)" and b) the Blacksmith's... second words are, with reference to Penny's Maiden Array, "Nothing. No one is ever truly lost."

Factor that in with your belief that Oz's reincarnation curse must be broken, which necessitates at least a dip into the magical/supernatural somewhere down the line. Then add the fact this is the second time she's died under unusual circumstances (it's almost certainly not a mistake that the theoretically rebuildable android is one of the few major casualties of the Fall of Beacon, and given Oz's lack of complete understanding of Maiden physics leaves room for a similar backdoor), and I think there's at least a chance Penny returns in some form.

Really, I guess the question is if you believe this could fit into the story without any troublesome thematic wrangling, or if you think it's more important that Penny remain dead to emphasize the destructive cycle that relentelessly follows all Maidens not named Cinder Fall.

ough it’s been a while since we chewed on penny 3.0 here. the short version is i’m doubtful that it will happen and deeply skeptical of every theory i’ve read as to how she might be brought back, but in light of v9 i do think that penny returning in some form is not completely narratively non-viable if ambrosius did what i think he did.

the core problem with bringing penny back or rebuilding penny (as is oft speculated by the penny 3.0 crowd) is that it flies in the face of the story’s themes; bringing anyone back from the dead is wrong, not because of some bullshit arbitrary rule the brothers made up about death having to be permanent but because this is a world where the natural state of things is a perpetual cycle of life-death-rebirth where, crucially, death is the moment of rest and renewal where all bonds fall away and the soul has absolute freedom to choose what they will become. and anything that abrogates this freedom is wrong.

it’s wrong for the brothers to bar the immortal souls of their creations from ever returning to life, because that’s just a prison – but it’s also wrong for someone still living to pull a dead loved one backwards by resurrecting them, because that’s not the living person’s choice to make. ozma’s reincarnation curse is wrong because it changes him against his will into something he doesn’t want to be. making salem immortal in life was wrong because it’s no different from locking up every other immortal soul in the "afterlife" (which seems to be little more than endless oblivion).

it was wrong for pietro to rebuild penny after the fall of beacon and this is why her arc in v7-8 is a) tragic and b) so intensely focused on her lack of agency and the way she is dehumanized and denied choice by everyone in some way, except winter, from the most egregious extreme of watts’ virus to subtler things like pietro’s remote access or ruby’s initial perspective of “well it won’t matter if she has to be executed deactivated to appease the public because you can just reactivate her again later once this blows over!” – her arc in v7-8 is the narrative thesis against resurrection. penny didn’t choose this, pietro did, and the salt in the wound is that after bringing her back into this child super-soldier living weapon situation he also asked her not to help her friends when they needed all the help they could get, because it was dangerous and he didn’t want to lose her again. (this is not to knock pietro, he’s a great character and his motivations are eminently understandable and sympathetic – but penny is harmed nevertheless.)

thus if penny is to come back it must be by her own choice and her own power; as i discuss in the post linked above, i believe that the instructions ruby gave to ambrosius obliged him to in essence recreate ascension with his own magic in order to dismantle penny without destroying her. and then she died. theoretically this means that penny ended up neither in light’s stasis-afterlife nor in the tree but somewhere like the wellspring of ambrosius’ magic. ambrosius isn’t allowed to bring the dead to life (not can’t, not won’t, it’s “against the rules”), which may prohibit the completion of an ascension-like life-death-rebirth cycle until such time as he’s released from the staff, but the potential is at least—hypothetically—there. but in that case i’d expect her to follow the ascension pattern, and return without her memories; penny polendina died and her soul is reborn as someone new whose heart remembers.

generally i don’t place a lot of stock in “i’ll be a part of you” as foreshadowing – penny is echoing directly what winter told her about fria to comfort her when fria died, and the maidens demonstrably do not work this way and have been stated to not work this way. penny 3.0 theories that hinge on the maiden are honestly a pet peeve of mine, as are most theories of the sort that rely on “well this time it’s different Because Reasons” and of penny is intended to return in any form i am very confident that it will not involve winter or the winter maiden whatsoever except insofar as winter will be glad to see her.

similarly, the mysterious crystal sword haunting ruby in the ever after is not in fact a mystery, it is a physical manifestation of ruby’s grief, as is sundered rose. these manifestations take the form of weapons because ruby is the “weapons are an extension of our selves!” girl – these are representations, symbols for penny and summer in her mind, and the ever after reflects that. see also, ponderstorm. the point is that “nothing, no one, is ever truly lost” is a statement about grief and memory; the blacksmith has penny’s sword because ruby still carries her memories and her love and her devastation.

<- might this also be foreshadowing for penny to emerge from her bootleg ascension cocoon at the end of the story? certainly! it works for that purpose quite well because in that case she’ll emerge different and new yet the heart is always the same. on this, see alyx -> little -> somewhat.

in the event that penny does complete an ascension, i don’t think it can happen until the very end of the story when the god of light has been made to ascend (and darkness too if he’s still around, but i’m placing my bets on ‘dark ascended a long while ago’) and the spirits are all freed from their relics. this is because the journey to getting there quite literally is the journey to rejecting and defeating the divine mandate, you… cannot have penny coming back before the divine injunction against that sort of thing is ended. it’s also, like most everything in this story, an exercise in developing empathy for salem.

the reason i’m skeptical is that i don’t think the narrative is structured in a way that clearly presages penny returning again in some form. if it was in the cards i think there would have been anything at all in v9 specifically laying the foundations. (ascension—and for some reason the character of little*—got the penny 3.0 crowd very hyped, but the narrative does sweet fuck all to draw a connection between penny and ascension and the subtextual associations being made are actually with salem, thus the uncomfortable/nervous “that’s impossible! things have to die… right?” reaction to hearing about ascension, the plug into the storytelling themes via alyx and lewis, jaune’s paranoia, and the tree-is-death-vs-rebirth argument building up to revealing that yeah no salem was right about the brothers. penny’s role in this is restricted to being the sharpest pain ruby is feeling throughout the volume but also—this is the piece that really sinks it imo—being secondary to the deeper all-consuming wound of summer rose.)

*i still think it’s really bizarre that a group of fans who seem to almost universally be penny/ruby shippers latched onto “this mouse who is literally a small child is the reincarnation of ruby’s girlfriend” as enthusiastically as they did like. hello. hello?? i just think that if you infantilize half of your OTP to such an extreme degree that you can’t distinguish that character’s personality from that of an actual like, five year old you have maybe blorboed too close to the sun. at least the “penny fucked with jaune’s semblance to split her soul into various pieces to turn winter and ruby and perhaps this sword into soul jars like some sort of overeager lich” manages to say something interesting about her!

[magistralucis]

Observations on the French version of The Infinite and the Divine

1.. I always thought if English has to be translated into anything, French is one of the top 3 most straightforward languages to do it in. At first glimpse this is a direct translation of the English text. Good for cross-referencing, but I'm not anticipating a great deal of unusual localizations or woolseyisms, not that such things are usually at the translator's liberty with novels like these.

2. That said, the Trazyn vs. aeldari farseer encounter is excellent. The warning she gives him is the same (including the planet's demand for 'le sang de Trazyn'), but there's something special about watching him receiving this warning, immediately paying for it with his bodily death, then springing back up with a deadpan 'bon sang!'. Hits a lot better than 'this world sings for the blood of Trazyn' / 'damn!' imo. A nice little linguistical coincidence.

3. When I first read 'le tétrarque' I was thinking tetrarch of... what exactly??? But no that's just the French translation for a necron overlord. 😅 The term of address is 'messire', directly equivalent to 'my lord'

4. Sannet addresses Trazyn formally, while Trazyn tutoyers Sannet. I've yet to find out if Trazyn addresses anyone else in Solemnace this way.

5. Orikan and Trazyn, on the other hand, vousvoyer each other religiously. They don't even drop formality when they're insulting each other as the lowest of the low, and I'm not finding any instances of them doing so while skimming the pages. There's a great deal of coldness between them, but they don't deliberately talk down to each other either. I'll have to come back to this point later when I have a better grasp of French!T/O's dynamic

6. Not sure if I like 'factionnaires' as a translation for 'lychguard'. From what I can tell the French is simply the word for a sentinel or a guardsman, whereas the English is a pun on 'lych (lich)' + 'guard' = 'corpse/undead-guard' = 'body-guard'... just feels like they could've come up with a more clever translation, you know? Or am I missing something? Let me know if you can.

7. Wait Phillias is a svelte stunner? ('La femme élancée') She's definitely tall and stunning, but I always thought she was more on the side of 'built like a goddamned brick wall' or something

8. 'Salopard' 😩👎💢

9. I have emotions towards dream-pipes and wish Zuberkar could've gotten his back

10. Actually Orikan does tutoyer something: the Mysterios. And Trazyn referred to the aeldari gem earlier with a 'tu' as well. This is normal 'tu' usage in French, but it's notable that in the original English Trazyn and Orikan were both specifically addressing those objects as if they were persons. They're not that different, cooing softly at the objects they hold dear.

11. Trazyn is not on familiar terms with his chief librarian ('et apportez-moi tout ce que vous avez sur la Guerre Céleste…') or presumably his copyist crypteks, but he does use 'tu' consistently with his main crypteks (Khybur, Sannet, Tekk-Nev). 'Mes chers fidèles'!

12. Not a French-specific thing but oh my god the vicarious embarrassment Trazyn must've felt over seeing Orikan crowing his supposed victory over Vishani always gets me jghfhhdhshs

13. La tête 😳 ordonna Orikan💫 à l’Immortel 🔫 Prends ton temps 🤯🤪

That's it for Act 1. Will add more in further reblogs.

Disclaimer: not a native French speaker, also have not previously read French WH40K articles/wikis/literature/etc. I'm likely missing out on many linguistical curiosities, so if anyone else has this edition of I&D, I'd love to hear your thoughts ✨

[888xiicos]

Tomimi Ideal City Wig Process

As usual, I forgot to document most of this process, but I can at least draw out steps I didn't photograph.

This is probably one of the more complex wigs I've styled, tying for first place with Tsumiki Mikan, solely for the amount of wefts and chopping that wig took. This wig is the first wig I've used pigtail/ponytail clips for and the first time I've done an ahoge! I'm incredibly proud of how it turned out so I can't wait to show how it started and pieces of the progress.

This has been in my drafts for almost a year now, so I may as well post it.

Pics, process, and final photo can all be found under the cut!

The humble beginnings..

I grabbed the basic supplies I figured I'd need and laid them out in easy to reach places.

[Supplies in image: Sewing thread, pin cushion, sewing needles, sewing pins with colorful round heads, wide tooth/wet hair comb, 1 hair claw clip, craft scissors, thread snips, pen, reference images, wig(s), Styrofoam head.]

[Supplies not shown in image: Hair cutting scissors, Got2B hairspray, hair crimper/flat iron, 2 smaller hair claw clips, 3 alligator hair clips, , permanent marker, wire, clear packing tape, glue gun, Elmer's glue (white craft glue), and a make shift wig stand]

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To start, I ordered one Clair Classic in Silver (CL082) and a single Short Clip Classic in Silver (CL-082) from Arda Wigs. The Silver colorway is a little more gray and subdued than the Pure White (CL-083) color way. I like it because it looks a bit more natural. Stark white and heavily saturated colors wash me out pretty bad, so I try to go for a more natural color option whenever possible.

I chose this specific wig because it had plenty of hair and plenty of layers near the front, which meant I had plenty to work with for Tomimi's bangs.

Arda Wigs, though a little pricey, has really thick wigs that feel like butter in your hands. I've worked with cheap Amazon wigs and other brands before, but Arda is still my favorite wig seller (even if it's by process of elimination since Match Wigs vanished into the void never to be seen again..... Match Wigs I miss you.....).

Because the wigs are so thick and have so many wefts, I knew I'd only need one Short Clip to use for both of Tomimi's pigtails. However, this is my first time using any form of wig clip, so it was a very new and puzzling experience for me! I'll explain more about wig clips further into the process below.

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When I start styling wigs, the first step is always to give it a good brush through with the wide tooth come to detangle it and get out any loose hair fibers. Once it's soft and tangle free, I strap it onto my foam head and pin it with colorful sewing pens that are impossible to lose in the wig (so I don't stab myself with them later on).

These styrofoam heads are usually smaller than an actual human head, so I don't recommend doing any head circumference reliant styling on them without adding padding to it! I mostly use mine when brushing it out, cutting the long parts of the wig, or fixing the part.

For this wig, I decided to try crimping for the first time. Arda wigs are great for crimping and the technique adds even more volume and makes the fibers more manageable in my opinion. Arda wig fibers are super silky and soft, so it makes holding them or maneuvering them sort of difficult. Crimping gave them more texture and allowed me to move the hair where I wanted it to go.

I crimped the bottom layers of the whole wig (bangs too!) and left the top layers un-crimped to retain a nice smooth texture on top.

Now, it's time to start trimming. Before I even thought about doing any cutting, I sat down and figured out the different sections of hair that make up the bangs. For anyone not familiar with sectioning off hair, drawing over the sections in different colors like this can really help!

Marking out the sections also helped me figure out where the part would go! Tomimi has one layer of a heavy sweeping bang and then a layer of hair that sort of fold over on top of them. One section of the lower layer actually tucks behind her ear, so I planned to leave that longer so I could easily pin it back under another layer of hair.

I also took this time to section off parts of her hair to pull back under the pigtail clips layer to make it look more natural. I've drawn over it in bright pink below to show what I mean.

Once things were held back with clips and sectioned off, I pulled that bad boy off the stand and put it on so I could start trimming the bangs. I did not realize they were as long as they were, but it was for the best in case I messed up. I gave a rough chop at around the bottom of my chin and slowly trimmed the lower bang layer up above my nose. I curled the hair with my flat iron as I went too avoid cutting off too much.

Sloppy before and after pic featuring the tendons in my bony little hand STRUGGLING to hold up this heavy monster of a wig. I admit, I'm not too skilled with teasing wigs, so I wasn't able to get the upper layer of the bangs to stick up like they do in the art, but I left the fibers loose enough that I could go back later and do it once I learned the Technique™. Silly anime hair vents will one day be possible for me.

As you can see, this wig is all silver, no black anywhere. I used the simplest method out there and flat out just added that black stripe with a permanent marker. Since it was in an area I didn't have to worry about coming in contact with my face or any bodily fluids like sweat, I did not seal it. If you use this method anywhere that may come in regular and frequent contact with your skin, fabric, or liquids, seal it or just use a weft to avoid staining anything.

I sectioned off a thin strip of hair from the upper layer of the bangs and pinned the rest of the hair back so the roots were visible. Then I just moved the marker up and down over thin layers of the hair until it was a solid black. You can also use alcohol markers, diluted acrylic paint, or acrylic ink for this, but a Sharpie easily does the trick for a section as small as this.

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Now it's ahoge time. Here's how I did it (Step by step diagram is under written instructions):

Step 1 This wig has a thick but soft top to it that allows things to be pinned or pushed through the top, so I used some thin jewelry wire to make the outline of the ahoge. Twist the bottom closed and curve it to the right shape. Don't trim off the excess wire at the bottom just yet, because you'll want it for stabilizing purposes later.

Step 2 Once you've made the outline and have it bent, you'll want to cover it in something clear you can attach hair to. I used clear packing tape, but it was honestly a little too stiff and sort of fussy to work with. You can probably use regular clear tape or even sticky plastic wrap. Whatever you use, be sure to trim the excess so you retain the same shape.

Step 3 Cover one side with hot glue and start adding your base layer of hair. I used the extra hair I trimmed off my bangs. They were closer to the length I needed and let me waste less hair! Once the first side is dry, do the same to the other. The hot glue sticks to plastic-y surfaces well enough to give you a base to build up off of. Be sure to pull/brush off any stray hairs.

Once you've finished your base layer, grab your white craft glue, a cup of water, and a brush you don't cherish too much to put glue on. What you're gonna do now is slowly build up the hair until you can't see the tape or the wire. The best way to do this is to put a thin coat of glue then a thin coat of hair and repeat until you get the result you like. Between layers, I recommend blasting it with a hair dryer to speed up the drying process. I sat mine a safe distance away in front of a small space heater while I worked on the pigtails to save time.

Step 4 Once you've built up as much hair as you want, it's time to stick the extra wire through the top of the wig. I stuck mine right into the middle of the center part. If your wig does not have a thick top or a skin top, you may want to sew in a thin piece of fabric to the inside of your wig before you do this step.

Step 5 Once you've stabbed your wire through the top of the wig, it's time to bend it! I like to make a little three-leaf clover shape since it's easy to tuck the ends of the wire back into the lace/fabric on the inside of the wig so it doesn't stab you while wearing it. I bend it to stat one leaf is pointing toward my forehead and the other two are pointing towards the back of my head.

To add extra stability, add a couple stitches at the very tips of the "leaves" with thread that matches your wig.

Here's the few pictures I remembered to take of this little guy, plus a bonus of him drying in front of the heater, just for fun.

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At this point, all that's left to do is curling the long part of the hair and adding the pigtails.

For anyone unfamiliar with wig clips, they're basically mini wigs wrapped around hair claw clips. The "claws" of the clips go through netting the wig wefts are attached to and then an elastic string sewn into the outer edge of that netting is tightened to hide the clip. I was dumb and did not take a pic of the pigtail before removing the clip b because it was a struggle to get it out. But I have pics of the finished versions below with the clip's inserted, so check further down for what it looks like finished.

For now, here's how I separated the pigtail into two:

First, I counted the wefts to ensure I'd have an even number in both halves (Spoiler alert, I counted right, but still marked and cut the wrong spot lmao). I decided to cut it horizontally (side to side) so the wefts wouldn't fray. From there, I pulled the elastic through so that I could find the middle of it and place it over where I marked the halfway point of the netting. I cut through the elastic strings first and clipped them out of the way before carefully cutting the netting.

I used my thread snips to cut the net since it allows for more precise cuts and helps me not make so many mistakes. The picture below shows the cut elastics and then the two separated halves.

What you can't see here, is that the bottom half of the pigtail's wefts were sewn the same direction as the top half, but I need to flip the bottom half upside down, meaning the hair is going up instead of down. For this reason, I wouldn't suggest this method, but also don't have a better one. Just know I struggled to get it looking close to the other one with lots of time spent flat ironing individual wefts and adding wefts.

I ended up folding over the bottom wefts to add to the tube the elastic was fed through around the edge of the netting so it would hold more tightly to the clip once I put them back in. I had two smaller clips from a long time ago I that fit perfectly into these smaller pigtails!

This is how they looked after I finished them:

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Now for the long part of the wig! All I'm going to do for this part is gently curl the ends inward. For this, I combed through in small sections and curled it with the flat iron. Because the wig fibers are plastic, they only hold their shape if they are in the desired shape when the plastic cools after being heated. Think of it like heating metal until it's flexible and it keeping the shape once it's cool.

To do this, I put the wig back on the head and attached it to my makeshift wig stand (I used a wreath stand you can buy in the floral section of a craft store because it's the best thing I had on hand, I don't recommend this, it's so wobbly...).

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The last step is to attach the pigtails!

I didn't photograph my progress, so please accept my diagram instead!

I didn't trim the part I pulled back simply out of fear of it coming undone and being unable to clip the pigtails back. Not shown here, but I used a thick weaving needle I've had for years to thread the black ribbon through the pigtails as the final touch.

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Aaaaaaaand here's the finished wig!

I'm super happy with how it turned out and can't wait to wear it. If I don't get good pics of me in this cosplay during the next con I wear it to I will cry.

[thepowerisyouth]

Eh mental health is annoying. Buying & cooking cheap low-FODMAP diet is annoying. My best top note for now is I'm using this blog to practice writing. I need more practice in it. I only know business, accounting & economics stuff. Its stupid stuff. Theres too much actual fraud everywhere that its annoying

Also I use mobile so formatting sucks cause Nvidia GPUs, or Arch dont like tumblr site. Or tumblr site dont like tumbkr site

Also also I 100,000% support all my fellow ones-and-zeros and their identity. Everyone is welcome here.

Except transphobes/zionist/long list of others but you get it. I'll help harrass any of those types endlessly if someone wants to tag me, and bring me in on an argument like that friend you call for backup with fights

Im unhinged so who's to say exactly what will end up here but this is also a completely public blog to me friends, family, hell, even acquaintances i dont give a fuc.

Blog should be expected to be roughly as child-friendly as simpsons or bobs burgers. But also boring like a civics/economics lesson sometimes. Yay

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I (and my husband) am ex mormon. Its a weird thing. Look into it if you havent recently. Realllllyyyy look into. Takes time to figure it all out in this fuckin fucked up world.

I just moved a year ago. Didnt watch the US stock market as much as I normally do. Had my first snowstorm 10 weeks ago, that was.. fun to handle while ill prepared. About 6 weeks ago I was hopping back on the market and notice its a huge tech bubble about to pop and all the conditions Ive been warned about my whole career imply this is not good. Just took a little more thinking & digging and I'm a little too confident to stop talking about it now.

(Oh I'm also care-free as fuc so I dont really read or desire to change past posts more than lil-nitpicks. More informative for the reader & myself-in-the-future-reading that way)

And I'm not kidding I do love feedback & questions. Its a very public blog tho so I get that part for sure.

If you search "life story" in my tags I had that pinned for a min Im just moving shit around rn

Being poor sucks. Will write more on that later.

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First of all-- the exact timeline of an "economic shock" is literal insanity. Dont worry about the exact timing of any of this-- just know its doomed to happen soon.

Here are some effects I predict of this upcoming economic downturn

If anyone comes across any sources for these events that support my arguments please feel free to add in comments, reblogs, etc.

This concise list is mainly for my own reference, but it would be great to add to it if any one has something to add!

0.5. US Stock market collapse-- I have no desire to try and predict this one exactly. Too many conspiracies are actually correct about this big guy. Lets just say 7 US Tech stocks are worth 25% of the entire worlds market, roughly. "Too big to fail"-- I believe is the phrase

1. Corporate (slightly later will be residential by extension) real estate crisis: currently way too overvalued. Most of the houses, land, & urban corporate property we see could stand to decrease by about 60-90% from its current price.

2. Bankruptcy crisis: similar to the after-effects of the 70s inflation-- we can expect to see a huge wave of bankruptcies affecting a variety of business: from the micro-self employed; to the small business with leased buildings; to the largest corporations who commit massive accounting fraud & hope to escape accountability in time

3. Bank runs-- there is an extremely high overreliance on the Federal Reserve, who does not have good control over this situation. Once it becomes clear that there is a crisis (we call this a catalyst event)-- bank runs for physical cash are a surety. Hard to say how long a crisis like this might last. I should ask my siblings who lived near the SVB bank crisis hotspot (but those were rich fucks they do their "bank runs" over the phone)

3.5. Global currency collapse, which takes effect in every single local, state, & national economy at slightly different times. This means prices lower. Much lower. But takes time

4. Whatever the fuck the geopolitics is gonna do???. Its weird. You got Russia wanting to invade Europe? (Look at global economic forum 2024) Trump wants to let them. Biden wants to be an establishment corporate ass. North Korea has changed its #1 public enemy to South Korea (dont remember my source but it was a couple months ago). USA is stationing more troops in Taiwan, but probably only because of semiconductor technology?

The scope of our global financial woes are larger than can be explained in any of our lifetimes. Its much, much closer to pre-revolution France or the late 1920s. Big change is coming. Itll be soon

5. More to come