#is that I was taking the JET Translation and Interpretation Course | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

earliebirb · 4 years ago

Text

nosedive

steve/tony, fluff, (newly) established relationship, 3250 words

Tony stares absentmindedly out the airplane window as he puts his phone up to his ear, watching people run back and forth, performing last-minute engine checks. Some of the guys look sweaty and out of breath.

From the comfort of the air-conditioned Stark Industries private jet, he feels a slight twinge of sympathy for the people having to suffer in the humid summer heat.

He loosens his tie and sinks deeply into his seat, closing his eyes with a massive yawn as he listens to the ringing tone. He hadn’t been able to sleep very well throughout his five-day stay in Tokyo, too anxious about the contract to rest properly.

The ringing tone goes on for a few more seconds before ending with a click, replaced by an achingly familiar voice greeting him in his ear.

“Hello?”

Tony’s eyes spring open. Outside, an aircraft marshaller walks by, speaking rapidly into his walkie-talkie.

“I had a blueberry muffin for lunch today. One single blueberry muffin.”

“...What?”

“It didn’t even taste that good. I couldn’t finish it. Too dry.”

“Tony, that’s not good. Is that all you had for lunch? You should really eat—”

“The meeting went well, by the way. Mr. Watanabe finally signed the contract, everything went as planned. My ride to the airport, however…”

“I told you things would go smoothly, you had nothing to worry about. You’re a brilliant negotiator—”

“The traffic? Fuck. I had to keep shifting in my seat to avoid pins and needles.”

“That sounds awful, are your legs okay—”

“Did you know that Tokyo is number nineteen on the list of cities with the worst traffic congestion in the world? I know that, because I looked it up on the way to the airport. But boy, did it feel like it deserved the number one spot. I think I lost feeling in my ass.”

“I did not know that. And, uh, is your ass okay—”

“Thank God for my private jet. These plush seats are the best things I’ve ever spent my money on.”

“That’s objectively not true, and you know it—”

“Then again, I think these seats in particular were Pepper’s choice? We remodeled the airplane’s interior like… two years ago. I couldn’t be bothered to meet with the airplane seat people and I just told her to pick whichever looked best. I had much more important things to tend to, like sewing up the holes in JARVIS’s Christmas stocking.”

“I am concerned about how you sort your list of priorities—”

“Hm, that’s right. I think it was around two, three weeks before Christmas and I didn’t want JARVIS to be upset about the whole stocking thing, you know?”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have—”

“Also, you’re right, the single blueberry muffin was a bad idea because now my stomach won’t shut up. So I’ve ordered some pasta for my in-flight meal. Robbie’s making it, you’ve met Robbie—”

“I’ve met Robbie, yes, he’s—”

“Larry’s replacement after he resigned. Gotta say, I was sad to see Larry go. Guy worked for me for seven years. But then there was that thing with his grandma, and he had to leave, so… But! Robbie makes a mean carbonara, maybe even better than Larry, don’t tell Larry I said that—”

“I don’t even know Larry like that, how would I—”

“Mr. Stark, we’re ready to go.” The pilot—Paul—emerges from the cockpit, staring at him in anticipation.

Tony nods and makes a few rapid gestures with his free hand that he supposes Paul is only able to interpret perfectly after years and years of working for Tony. The gestures roughly translate to something like “Copy, I hear you, just let me wrap this up and then I’ll let you know when I’m done. Capiche?”

Paul—bless him—just gives him a curt nod and retreats back into the cockpit.

“Anyway,” Tony takes a deep breath and puffs his cheeks out with the exertion of his exhale, “I called because… I got a feeling, Steve.”

“A… feeling?”

“Just— A gut feeling. A feeling in your gut. Inside of me. Like a hunch?”

“Okay,” Steve says patiently, his voice low and warm, “what are you feeling?”

“I… got a bad feeling. Today. A few hours ago. The feeling came to me when I was sitting in traffic, and I just— I feel like something bad’s gonna happen today, Steve. I can feel it in the air. In my heart. In my gut. In my joints.”

“Your joints? Like… the feeling old people get when it’s about to rain?”

“Okay, maybe not in my joints. Also, are you calling me old, grandpa?”

“I did not, you told me you felt something in your—”

“Anyway, so yeah. Where was I? Oh, right. Feeling. Bad feeling. Like, like, I don’t know, something bad’s gonna happen. Like an accident. Like a plane crash.”

“God, please don’t say that. You’re scaring me, Tony.”

“And I guess, I just called because I… I feel like I need to do this before the plane crashes and I die a violent and fiery death.”

“Nothing bad’s going to happen, Tony—”

“Like, if I didn’t do this today, maybe I��d never get to do it, you know? And, uh, okay, I’ve honestly been ranting to stall for time, but the longer I keep it in the more nauseous I feel, so maybe I’m just gonna do it now so I can die in peace—”

“Do what? And stop saying that—”

“Look, I’m trying to be brave and honest here and— Wait, actually? Maybe I’m being a coward because if the plane actually does go down, I won’t have to face the consequences of my actions, so I guess I’m just going to say fuck it, and say that I love you.”

“The plane is not going to— Wait, what?”

“I, uh. Love you. I’ve known it for a while now. And, uh, I know we’ve only been dating for like, a week, but—” Tony blinks. They’ve only been dating for a week.

“...Fuck.” Tony can feel his own pulse starting to race. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Tony?”

They’ve only been dating for a week. What is he doing? What the hell is wrong with him? Normal people don’t do this.

“Fuck. Shit, I mean— Uh, I’m sorry. That was super weird, huh?” Tony laughs nervously. He closes his eyes, gritting his teeth and cursing his stupid brain. Of course it’s weird. He always gets too attached to people way too quickly. No wonder Pepper was his only long term relationship. She was the only person who could put up with him—everyone else just got weirded out. “Uh, see you tomorrow? Or not. Fuck, sorry, I’m just gonna hang up before this gets—”

“Tony, wait.”

“...Yeah?” Tony says, hyper-aware of how breathless he sounds. His heartbeat is ringing in his ears. Everything is going to be fine. Right? Right. The worst thing Steve could do is… break up with him.

Oh, God, that is the worst case scenario. He really should’ve just kept his stupid mouth shut.

“Tony, are you freaking out? I feel like I can hear you freaking out from all the way over here.”

“No, I’m not, of course I’m not. Who says I’m freaking out? You have no proof. I am calm, I’m calm as a clam, is that the saying? Did I get it right? Or was it happy— Anyway, I am absolutely calm, I’m the calmest I could possibly be. Any calmer and I’d be asleep. I’m—”

“Tony. Breathe.”

Tony forces himself to drag in a slow breath as he grips the arm of his seat with his free hand, focusing on the soothing hum of the airplane’s engine.

“Look, Tony, I—”

“No, listen. I’m sorry I jumped the gun, I hope I haven’t weirded you out or anything. You really, really don’t have to say it back to me. I mean it.”

“Tony—”

“No, in fact— Please don’t say anything. It’s fine. Let’s just pretend this never happened, okay?”

“But—”

“Drop it, Steve. Please?” Tony pleads. Clearly, his brain hadn’t been firing on all cylinders. That is the only reason that could explain his temporary lapse of judgment. “Look, I feel like talking about it more right now is going to send me spiraling into a panic attack.”

“...Okay. Fine.”

“Thank you. Uh, I’ll see you when I get home. If I get home. If the plane doesn’t crash. Haha.”

“Would you please stop saying that? It’s not funny.”

Tony latches onto the change in topic like a lifeline. “It is objectively true, you know. In order for me to be able to see you tomorrow, the plane has to land safely, and unfortunately, some things are just beyond my control. Like, who’s to say the plane won’t explode mid-air and—”

“The plane is going to land safely and you’re going to come back home to me in one piece. This is non-negotiable, Tony. You hear me?” Steve demands, his voice all hard authority and no-nonsense, like there will be Consequences should Tony fail to comply.

As if he could ensure Tony’s safety with the force of his willpower alone.

Come back home to me.

That sounds good. Really good. Tony closes his eyes and pictures Steve’s baby blues in his mind’s eye. Warmth flowers in his chest.

“I hear you.”

“Great.”

“Awesome. I, uh, I gotta go now.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

Tony hangs up and lets Paul know that he is done with his phone call. The jittery feeling left over from his call with Steve refuses to leave him, however, so he pulls up the drawing application on his phone and begins sketching something just to give his brain something else to fixate on.

He tends to lose track of time when he is hyperfocused on a project, so he isn’t exactly surprised that the next time he becomes aware of his surroundings, the plane is already well up in the air, his sketch of what looks like a flying coffee pot is almost finished, and Robbie is placing a plate of spaghetti carbonara on the table in front of him.

“Spaghetti carbonara. With extra cheese.”

Tony’s mouth waters as he eyes the mountain of grated Pecorino Romano sitting atop the pasta. He sighs dreamily and smiles up at Robbie.

“You’re a lifesaver.”

“Enjoy, Boss.” Robbie grins and slips back into the kitchen.

He only realizes just how truly famished he is after taking his first bite, and proceeds to finish the rest of his meal with gusto. Afterward, he spends the majority of the remaining flight time sleeping, the result of post-carbonara food coma and his sleep-deprivation finally catching up to him.

It’s well past two in the morning when Tony finally makes it to his floor in the Tower, which is why he is surprised to see Steve sitting on his couch, one of Tony’s fantasy novels open in hand.

“Steve, what are you doing here?”

Steve’s head snaps up at the sound of his voice. Tony frowns. “Actually, why are you awake at all?” He is usually an early sleeper, unless—

“Nightmare?” Tony gives him a sympathetic smile. It wouldn’t be the first time. In the early days of their friendship, Tony and Steve would sit together in the living room whenever they had trouble sleeping, talking to each other until the sun came up.

Steve shakes his head, closing the book with his eyes still trained on Tony. “No, I was just… waiting for you.” Tony blinks.

“It’s…” Tony glances at his watch. “Half past two. In the morning.”

“I know, I just…” Steve stands up, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. He ambles over before coming to a stop right in front of Tony. “I wanted to see you.”

Tony stares at him uncomprehendingly. “You’ll see me later anyway.”

“I couldn’t wait any longer. I didn’t want to go to sleep without seeing you first,” Steve says, low and earnest. His gaze wanders around Tony’s face, as if he were cataloguing each and every facial feature and trying to locate any changes he might’ve missed during his absence.

“Oh.”

Steve steps closer, arms snaking around Tony’s waist and pulling him close. His next words are whispered against Tony’s shoulder.

“I knew you’d make it home safely.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“You were wrong.”

“I was… wrong.” Tony swallows. “Uh, turns out the bad feeling completely disappeared after I woke up from my nap on the plane, so I suspect that perhaps the bad feeling I got was due to my severe hunger and sleep deprivation. I mean, I’ve heard about hallucinations caused by hunger or exhaustion, but this was—”

Steve presses a soft kiss to the column of Tony’s neck, effectively cutting off Tony’s ramblings.

“Tony,” Steve whispers against his skin.

“Yeah?” Tony squeaks.

“Please don’t call me before a flight and say that you think the plane is going to crash, ever again.”

“Right. Noted. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Steve says, pulling away slightly and loosening his hold around Tony.

Tony allows himself to relax, letting out a quiet sigh. This thing with Steve is so new and delicate that every single physical contact still sends his heart fluttering, butterflies going crazy in his stomach.

Which makes, in retrospect, his abrupt love confession—as truthful as it was—that much more insane. God, Stark. Never do that again.

Except, it turns out that Steve only pulled away to slide his hands down the back of Tony’s thighs, wrapping his hands around them, and then lifting him up without warning.

Tony yelps, and in his alarm, promptly locks his ankles around Steve’s waist. When Steve begins moving, Tony quickly wraps his arms around Steve, resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder.

“Uh, Steve?”

“Hm?” Steve says, calm and nonchalant, as he begins walking away from the elevator.

“Um— Wait— My suitcase—”

“Leave it. It’ll still be there in the morning.”

Tony blinks, staring dumbfoundedly at his lonely suitcase, abandoned by the elevator. It becomes smaller and smaller with every step Steve takes.

“Where are we going?”

“Your bedroom.”

“Why are you carrying me there?”

“Because I want to.”

“You know it’ll be faster if you just let me walk, right?”

“Maybe. But you won’t be in my arms.”

“Um.”

“Bear with me, will you? I missed you.”

“I, uh, missed you too.”

Steve hums, satisfied. Tony lets himself settle more comfortably in Steve’s arms.

When Steve has successfully carried him to his bedroom, Tony fully expects Steve to deposit him on the bed.

That is not, in fact, what happens.

Instead, Steve turns around and begins walking backwards towards the bed before sitting down on it. Tony, still seated on his lap, swallows and pulls back slightly to look at Steve.

“Look, Steve, as much as I’ve missed you, I’m kind of tired right now. I mean, don’t get me wrong. This whole carrying thing? Great. Very romantic. Ten out of ten. But I’m just not in the mood for sex, you know? Like, I’m not even sure I would be able to get it up if—”

“We’re not going to have sex.”

Tony blinks.

“We’re not?”

“We’re not. I’m just here to tuck you in.”

“Oh.”

Steve reaches up and begins undoing his tie. After setting it aside on the bed, he begins to unbutton Tony’s shirt. He takes his time, one button at a time.

“So…” Steve begins with a deep breath as he unbuttons the final button. “Did you mean, uh, what you said to me? On the phone?”

Tony closes his eyes, feels his own cheeks heating up. “Steve—”

“I’m sorry, Tony, I know you told me to drop it. But— I feel like if you did mean what you said, I owe it to you to… set the records straight.” When Tony opens his eyes again, Steve is looking up at him, blue eyes solemn.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… We have only been together for a week. Well, eight days. In fact, we’ve only been on one date. And it was interrupted. By giant lizards.” Steve chuckles incredulously.

Tony remembers that day very well. They were in the middle of dessert at Tony’s favorite Italian place when they received the call to assemble—something about giant lizards wreaking havoc in Central Park.

The lizards had green, gunky blood that got into the nooks and crannies of the suit. It had taken forever to clean.

“But Tony…” Steve gathers the material of Tony’s unbuttoned shirt in both of his fists, pulling him closer until their noses are only inches apart.

The second their eyes meet, Steve smiles the sweet, lopsided smile that never fails to make Tony’s stomach flip.

“I need you to know that… I didn’t have to date you to know that I loved you. I figured that a long time ago.”

Tony stills, breath frozen in his lungs.

“I guess, what I’m saying is… I love you too. I’ve loved you for a very long time, Tony. Even way before—” Steve breaks eye contact, looks down as he clears his throat. When he speaks again, his voice is tight. “Way before we got together. I’m talking… years before.”

Tony still finds it hard to breathe. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, the word more breath than sound. He meets Tony’s dazed gaze. “So you don’t have to worry about… jumping the gun. Not with me. I’m in it for the long haul.”

“...Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” Tony feels a lightness growing inside of him, spreading outwards to his extremities.

“Good.” Steve smiles, warm and impossibly fond.

“...Glad we’re on the same page.” Tony’s gaze drops down to Steve’s lips.

“We are.” Steve inches closer, nose brushing Tony’s. He then tilts his head ever so slightly and takes Tony’s lower lip between his, kissing him so tenderly Tony’s heart feels like it’s about to burst with it.

Steve’s warm hands slide up Tony’s naked back under his open shirt, sending goosebumps breaking across his skin. Tony buries his hands in Steve’s hair and relishes the feeling of the soft strands caught between his fingers. They stay caught up in each other for a few moments, capturing and releasing each other’s lips until the need for breath becomes too unbearable.

They break apart eventually, accompanied by soft chuckles. Steve smiles up at him, lips slick and cherry red, courtesy of Tony. He reaches up to caress Tony’s right eyebrow with the pad of his thumb, fleeting and affectionate.

“Get some rest, okay? You must be really tired. I should probably go to bed, too.”

Tony looks down at his lap, clearing his throat. “Uh, I know that we haven’t done this before, but…”

Steve waits patiently for Tony to gather his thoughts, hands stroking up and down Tony’s sides.

“Do you want to stay with me tonight?” Tony finds the courage to meet Steve’s eyes, holding his breath.

Steve’s blue eyes are gazing at him intently, looking at him like he’s the only person in the world worth his sole, undivided attention.

Tony swallows. “No sex. Just to sleep. If you—”

“Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“I would like that very much.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” Tony feels his own lips slowly curve up into a smile, wide and unbridled.

“Good.” Steve nods, lips twitching, his eyes never leaving Tony’s.

Tony grins, feeling near giddy with delight. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“We are, sweetheart.” Steve looks up at him, blue eyes fond and smile radiant. “We definitely are.”

#stevetony #stevetony fic #stony #stony fic #superhusbands #steve/tony #steve x tony #mine #earl wrote something

179 notes · View notes

chiaki-translation · 5 years ago

Text

Blooming Squadron Mankai Ranger: Event Translation Ch6-10

Back with the last few chapters of Chuuni Tasuku event. I said that but I actually like him in this event, definitely will join the bully-Tasuku squad if I live in Mankai universe~

AH, I just realized that the character’s name are their VA’s name written in different Kanji...

Blooming Squadron Mankai Ranger Ch1-5 / / Ch6-10 / / Epilogue

Disclaimer:

A3! is owned by Liber Entertainment

Translator’s Note: I translate Meka-Hakase as Mecha Doctor. It can actually be translated as mechanics, but there’s an otaku/childish connotation behind the word which is not translated properly if I use mechanics, thus I chose to translate it as Mecha Doctor instead.

Also, Tenma and Tasuku’s character name seems to be the same. I translated it to different name but Homare mentioned that those 2 has the same name so I guess they really do. I wrote their actual name as well in the play for clarity purpose because of this.

Mother:

Thank you so much, really.

Shouta:

Big brother, big sister, bye bye!

Banri:

But, I can’t believe you still try to advertise in that kind of situation.

Director:

Ahaha, I just happened to remember about the flyers.

Tenma:

Your commercial spirit is too strong.

Masumi:

I like that side of you too…

Director:

But the advertisement was perfect, now we have to practice hard too, so we can show a cool performance to Shouta-kun!

Omi:

I guess, that’s true.

???

…

Director:

(Today will be another practice session with Hiro-san, it’s been a while.)

Masumi:

Eat this! Ha!

Banri:

Ora! Hyaa!

Hiro:

The movement over here, you should try to increase the speed a bit more.

The surrounded Silver will flinch once and from here, Gold will…

Homare:

Hmm, I see.

Director:

(Hiro-san’s instruction on the action scenes, I should really learn from him.)

Tasuku:

Fuh, don’t take me lightly.

Ha!!

Hiro:

Following the flow, you should try to look cool here so it’s okay to stand out more.

Director:

(As I thought, Tasuku-san’s acting is amazing, even in a Sentai play…)

Hiro:

Let’s stop here for today.

Starting from next week, let’s assemble with the ensemble cast too, we will start practicing outdoor on a wider area.

Until then, just crammed whatever you have into practice.

Omi:

Yes.

Masumi:

Understood.

Tasuku:

(I’ll practice one more paragraph, after that I should take a bath…)

Hmm?

Tenma:

…

Tasuku:

(He’s watching a video on his smartphone. I can’t see properly, but I think that’s…)

…

Tenma:

Fuh…

Tasuku:

Good work today.

Tenma:

Ah, Tasuku-san.

Tasuku:

Would you like some drink?

Tenma:

Thank you.

…Uh, were you doing muscle training after practice?

Tasuku:

I guess.

Tenma:

If you gain more muscle your costume size will change, Yuki’s going to get mad at you again.

Tasuku:

I’ll try to be careful about that.

…More or less.

…You were watching some Sentai series earlier right.

Are you doing well for the preparation?

Tenma:

Yeah, thanks for your support.

By actually watching the hero show, I could directly feel the atmosphere of the performance. The action was great and impactful too.

But, there’re still a lot of things to learn.

Tasuku:

…You’re right.

Tenma:

Tasuku-san, you role-played hero before, so you carry yourself very well as expected.

Tasuku:

I told you, that’s just a story when I was a kid.

Tenma:

By the way, which series does Tasuku-san like?

Tasuku:

…Robot Ranger.

Tenma:

Hee, it’s a Sentai with a robot theme?

Tasuku:

Yeah. I’ve always liked robots and machines.

…At that time, let’s just say I wanted to become a Mecha Doctor.

Tenma:

Tasuku-san… So you wanted to become a Mecha Doctor…

Tasuku:

…

Tenma:

My bad, I just can’t imagine it from the current Tasuku-san.

Robot Ranger, I’ll try to watch that one next.

Do tell me if you have any other recommendation. I want to use it as reference.

Tasuku:

…Me too, I don’t have such detailed memories about those anymore. I’ll try to look into it.

Hiro:

It’s going to be the real thing soon. Are you guys ready.

Omi:

Yes.

Tenma:

The rehearsal went well too, let’s do our best into this production.

Banri:

Of course.

Director:

It seems a lot of the audiences are coming in now.

Staff:

Everyone from MANKAI company, please get ready!

Homare:

Understood.

Director:

Then, I’ll watch from the audience seats.

Everyone, do your best!

Masumi:

Make sure you watch over me properly.

Tasuku:

Ah, we’ll go first.

Staff:

Everyone from the ensemble cast, please get ready.

Ensemble Guy:

…

Takuya (Tenma):

Yo! Good afternoon!

Takuya (Tasuku):

Geez, you’re as noisy as usual…

Can you be a little bit quieter when you enter the place.

Takuya (Tenma):

Hah? You too, always pretending to be cool like that. Really, it’s just lame.

Takuya (Tasuku):

That’s such a coincidence. I don’t like you as well.

Takuya (Tenma):

What!

Toshiyuki (Homare):

Even thought they have the same name, it will be great if they can get along well today.

Chiharu (Banri):

I can’t see them getting along no matter how you want to interpret it.

Ah… As Sentai Hereos, don’t we need at least one girl?

Why does our organization only have men…

If there’s a cute girl, I’m sure I will be more motivated.

Takuya (Tasuku):

! The transformation brace is reacting.

Takuya (Tenma):

Let’s head out quickly!

Daisuke (Hiro):

…

Takuya (Tenma):

Daisuke-san!? What are you here…

Chiharu (Banri):

Oi oi, I thought you’re already retired?

I mean you’re already at that age.

Daisuke (Hiro):

You really don’t hold back at all.

…The situation has changed.

The monster that I supposed to have defeated before, Bear… It seems that his revival has been completed.

Takuya (Tasuku):

What…!? Bear and his underlings, I thought we already beat them that time…!

Underlings:

Ki-ki-!!

Toshiyuki (Homare):

--!

Look, the enemy’s over there!

Moreover, on the battlefield is…

Fry (Masumi):

…

Takuya (Tenma):

That’s Bear’s right-hand man, Fry…

So even he make a full recovery!

Fry:

We’ve been resurrected…

All of you, I won’t let you reach Bear-sama even just a bit.

Chiharu (Banri):

Wha…

Fry:

Go, you evil beings!

Underlings:

Ki-! Ki- ki-!!

Takuya (Tenma):

If it’s like this, there’s no other choice.

Daisuke-san, please lend us your power too.

Daisuke (Hiro):

Of course.

Takuya (Tenma):

Everyone, let’s go!

Chiharu (Banri):

Ou!

Takuya (Tenma):

The sun’s blazing fire, Mankai Red!

Takuya (Tasuku):

The jet-black wind, Mankai Black!

Chiharu (Banri):

The golden great earth, Mankai Gold!

Toshiyuki (Homare):

The glittering breath, Mankai Silver!

Daisuke (Hiro):

The pure white light, Mankai White!

Rangers:

Assembled! Kaika Sentai Mankai Ranger!

Child A:

Woah! So cool!

Child B:

Go! Mankai Ranger!

Underlings:

Ki-! Ki-!

Black:

Ha! Hyaa!

Gold:

Oops… Take this!

Silver:

You can’t run away!

Red:

Ora ora ora~!

Bear:

…It’s been a while, Mankai Ranger.

Red:

You’re late… Bear!

Bear:

Kukuku… Humanity will be overthrown and we’ll rule this world!

Fry:

Behold, Bear-sama’s power!

Bear:

Take this…!

Silver:

Wha…!

Gold:

Ugh…!?

Black:

Su, such power…

Red:

Everyone…!

Fry:

What a stupid group of people! Go!

Underlings:

Ki-ki-!!

White:

Ugh…

Calm down!

Your power is not limited to just this!

Red:

You’re right… I won’t lose!

Everyone let’s show them our power!

Blach:

Yeah…!

Gold:

Leave it to me!

Silver:

Right…!

White:

Let’s go!

Red:

I’ll show you the power of our bond!

Rangers:

Mankai Flowering Arrow!!

Fry:

Ugh…!?

Bear:

It can’t be…!?

We’re supposed to win…

…Arrrghhhh!

Child A:

They did it! Mankai Ranger!

Child B:

Amazing! So cool!

*audience clapping*

Director:

Good work everyone!

It was so exciting even from the audience’s seat.

Hiro:

It ended up great.

The sharpness of the action scene too, it was a good decision.

Tenma:

The children’s cheers were great too.

Tasuku:

Yeah. It was an experience I never had before.

Hiro:

But Omi can really portray a villain.

Omi:

Haha… There’re a lot of opportunity for that.

Masumi:

Hey, how about me? What do you think?

Director:

Masumi-kun also plays an enemy role, it really suits you!

It leaves behind a good feeling, use it to your advantage.

Masumi:

I’m glad.

Homare:

But as a I thought, with this much action scene, it ended up very exhausting.

I guess it’s fine for those actors and ensemble cast who does this regularly, but it’s harsh for a first timer.

Hiro:

They’re also a pro after all.

Staff:

Excuse me, Hyuuga-san.

The theatre manager is calling you.

Hiro:

Ah, understood.

I’ll be off for a while. They have bento for lunch, so please eat properly.

Homare:

By the way, that child…

I wonder if Shouta-kun came?

Director:

Right!

I haven’t seen him though.

Tasuku:

I see.

Tenma:

Maybe he will come for the next performance.

Director:

By the way after the show ends, please refrain from pushing yourself too much during the handshake event, you have to make sure to reserve your power after all.

Masumi:

Understood.

Omi:

In the meantime, let’s fill our stomach before the 2nd performance.

Banri:

Then, I’ll take this bento~

Tenma:

Uh… This hamburger bento has carrot in it.

Homare:

Oh, then let me take it from you!

Masumi:

I’ll eat curry with you.

Director:

No, you don’t need to mind me.

Tasuku:

…

Tenma:

Tasuku-san? What happened.

Tasuku:

It’s nothing, I just felt like someone was looking at us…

…Maybe it’s just my imagination.

Banri:

Right, they’re coming in for the next performance now.

Omi:

It seems to be another full house, that’s great.

Director:

When I look at this again, the customer base is really extensive.

Tasuku:

You’re right.

Homare:

From children to a long term Sentai Hero fan…

A lot of people really come to watch this show.

Tenma:

…Hmm?

Banri:

What is it, Tenma.

Tenma:

Nothing…

Masumi:

…Hey.

Tasuku:

What is it?

Masumi:

…Over there.

Director:

Ah… It’s Shouta-kun and his mother!

Banri:

They did come after all.

Homare:

They’re in the front row some more!

Tasuku:

…

Omi:

You’re glad aren’t you, Tasuku-san.

Tasuku:

��Well, I guess I can’t make a mistake now.

Banri:

You said that, but you look so happy.

Masumi:

You’re not honest.

Tasuku:

Shut up.

Tenma:

Let’s show a cool performance to Shouta and the others too.

Takuya (Tenma):

If it’s like this, there’s no other choice.

Daisuke-san, please lend us your power too.

Daisuke (Hiro):

Of course.

Takuya (Tenma):

Everyone, let’s go!

Chiharu (Banri):

Ou!

Child A:

Red, do your best!

Child B:

Black, go for it!

Director:

(Yeah, it’s great. If we just continue with this flow…)

Ensemble Guy:

…Do, don’t move!

Homare:

Tasuku:

Director:

(Eh? Was there this kind of line before…?)

Ensemble Guy:

…Don’t move!

Director:

(He’s one of the ensemble cast who played the enemy role right?

Why is he restraining one of the audiences from the audience seat--

Woman:

Director:

(That’s… Shouta-kun’s mother!?)

Banri:

--!

Ensemble Guy:

If you want this woman to return safely…

Stop this show immediately!

Otherwise… I’ll…!

Director:

(A weapon!? I can’t see it clearly, but isn’t that a knife…?)

Audience A:

Eh? What what?

Audience B:

This is a performance right?

Shouta:

Mom…?

Tasuku:

…

Director:

(What to do… I don’t expect this kind of thing to happen.)

Ensemble Guy:

Come… Stop this show right now!

Hiro:

…

Masumi:

…

Omi:

Ugh…

Tasuku:

(What should we do. How to get out of this situation.)

Tenma:

…Tasuku-san.

Tasuku:

Sumeragi?

Tenma:

…I’ll show you the way.

Make sure you continue it.

Tasuku:

What did you say…

Red:

To take a good citizen as a hostage…

I’ll never forgive you!

Tasuku:

Red:

You think so too right, Black!

Black:

It’s irritating to hear that from you, but…

It’s not the time to say such thing.

Ensemble Guy:

Do, don’t come near me! Otherwise I’ll--!

Red:

…Let’s go, Black!

Haa!

Ensemble Guy:

Ugh…!?

Mother:

Ah…!

Black:

Are you alright?

Mother:

Ye, yeah.

Gold:

Nice combination!

Silver:

The hostage… seems to be safe now.

Black:

…It’s alright now. You can go back to his side.

Mother:

Th, thank you so much…!

Ensemble Guy:

Da, damn it…!

White:

…Oi oi, do you have the time to look away?

Ensemble Guy:

White:

Punishment must be given to the coward.

Haa!

Ensemble Guy:

Ugh…!!

Red:

As expected of White!

Ensemble Guy:

Damn it…

Gold:

Let’s do it, we can’t lose to them.

Let’s go! Hyaa!

Silver:

Ha! Take that!

Bear:

That’s a blunder…!

Fry:

Damn it… You guys, go!

Underlings:

Ki-ki-!!

Announcer:

Those who are holding the hand holding event ticket, please proceed to the stage~

Child A:

Silver, you were so cool!

Homare:

Fufu, thank you.

Child B:

Gold’s technique is so sparkly!

Banri:

Ou, thank you.

Child C:

White, I like you so much!

Hiro:

Thank you.

Child D:

Black, you look like a scary person, but you’re actually not!

Tasuku:

Thank you.

Child E:

Red’s so strong! You’re so cool!

Tenma:

Thank you!

Shouta:

…Big brother Tasuku!

Tasuku:

Shouta.

Shouta:

So big brothers are all hero!

Tasuku:

Yeah… We actually are.

Shouta:

Red too, Black too, thank you for saving my mom.

Tenma:

No need to thank us.

Of course, we’ll do the right thing without anyone asking!

Shouta:

When I grow older… I also want to become a strong and cool looking ranger like the two of you!

Tasuku:

…Yeah, I’ll look forward to it.

Tenma:

Yep, make sure you become strong like me!

Director:

Everyone!

Tenma:

Oh, Director.

Tasuku:

Good work.

Director:

Eh…

(Somehow these 2, they’re behaving as if nothing happened…)

Director:

How’s that guy…?

Masumi:

They brought him to the management.

Banri:

Hiro-san went there to accompany him as well.

Director:

I see…

Ha… I’m glad everyone is safe.

Anyway, how can you all be so relaxed even after all those things happened!?

Banri:

Well, it was unexpected, but we managed to go through it right.

Omi:

The handshake event was conducted safely too, I’m glad that no one ended up with any injury.

Director:

That’s true but… Tenma-kun!

Tenma:

Wha, what.

Director:

To face off against an armed criminal with no weapon…

If something happened to you, to Igawa-san… No, to all Sumeragi Tenma’s fan, I won’t be able to face them you know!?

Tenma:

Ah… I know that was a fake weapon.

Masumi:

What do you mean?

Tenma:

Actually…

Tenma:

…Hmm?

Banri:

What is it, Tenma.

Tenma:

Nothing…

Masumi:

…Hey.

Tasuku:

What is it?

Tenma:

(…This prop, I don’t remember seeing it in the first performance?

It’s a strange design for a knife…

But it’s really well done. It looks like the real thing.)

Tenma:

I saw the sleeve from the stage, the design is very unique that’s why I remember it.

Director:

I see…

Omi:

That’s some good observation.

Tenma:

Also… We couldn’t stop the show at that time, we can’s possibly snatch away the children’s dreams right.

Tasuku:

…Yeah, you’re right.

Banri:

That’s an unexpected hero-like statement from you.

Masumi:

That’s quite cool.

Tenma:

Shu, shut up!

Director:

I’m glad that nothing happened this time, but…

I prohibit everyone from anymore reckless behaviour.

Tenma:

…Understood.

Hiro:

…

Omi:

Hiro-san.

Hiro:

I’ve heard the story from the criminal.

Director:

…What did he say?

Hiro:

The criminal was a guy who went to the audition for the hero show every year.

However, there was no sign of acceptance, he’s been in ensemble cast for years…

Regardless, he still continue to practice fervently in hope of becoming the main one day.

At that time, he heard that MANKAI company will be making an appearance on the show.

Actors who don’t have much experience will take a role in his beloved Sentai Hero show, he couldn’t take that thought…

Apparently, he planned to make a mess during the show, and he did so by committing a criminal act.

Tenma:

…

Hiro:

The weapon is just a fake though, he said he wasn’t planning to hurt any member of the general public and he’s regretting it deeply now.

Well, what has happened has happened. Just in case, I already called the police.

Director:

I see…

Tenma:

…

Omi:

I can’t forgive him for what happened, but… There are some people who won’t see the light of the day, and they won’t get to experience the joy of standing on stage.

Tasuku:

…You’re right.

Banri:

But the police… Do we need to share our stories to them too?

Homare:

Hmm… This one and that one, everything is a new experience.

Fuyuki:

Excuse me.

Tasuku:

…Big brother!?

Fuyuki:

Tasuku? Why are you here…

Fuyuki:

I see… I don’t expect you to appear in this show.

And you’re co-starring with Hyuuga Hiro too… I wished I could have seen it.

Banri:

Us too, no one expected Fuyuki-san to be among the policemen who came here.

Fuyuki:

Anyway, everyone seems to be doing great.

Tenma:

So, it’s Tasuku-san’s big brother…

Hiro:

You’re pretty similar huh.

Fuyuki:

Nice to meet you, thank you for always taking care of my little brother.

But, a hero show huh…

Tasuku used to like hero role-play so much.

I was invited to do it together with him every single day.

Tenma:

Hee.

Director:

I see!

Tasuku:

…Oi.

Fuyuki:

Tasuku at that time was so cute.

Everytime we role-play as heroes, he always went for the robot role…

Tasuku:

That’s enough, just do your work!

#a3! event #a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#a3! translation #tasuku takato #masumi usui #hyuuga hiro #fushimi omi #arisugawa homare #banri settsu #sumeragi tenma

21 notes · View notes

gofancyninjaworld · 4 years ago

Note

Bad new about the latest chapter: in the final panel, Atomic Samurai almost said "They are... cooperating?" But actually, he said "It is cooperation... *or is it*?" (Renkei... ka?). In other words, first, he sees Genos helping Drive Knight, he interprets it as such... and suddenly he has a doubt. This Genos... is he really aiming at the jet plane monster? What if he's trying to shot Drive Knight down? Looks like CE's doubts has contaminated the rest of the crew... Bad times incoming for Genos !

(Of course, the other interpretation, which is that Atomic is discovering the concept of cooperation for the first time, something he and the other S-class knew the theoretical existence of but had never seen in practice, and that they may grow up from this experience, is also right! There is no way to be certain for now. But the next update should clear the uncertainty. Oh boy, it would be so terrible if Genos's true demise in this arc proved not to be the cadres but the other S heroes... :(

You know me: I love sauce! Where did you get that other translation from? :) The possibility of Genos being done in by friendly fire is something I’ve been worrying about from the point where Child Emperor asked Genos to be excluded. My fears were allayed since he’s been very publicly working with Tatsumaki (then again, a lot of the other S-Class heroes missed it).

And with Genos shooting at the lead of two jets whizzing by in close proximity to one another, the possibility that he might accidentally hit Drive Knight isn’t zero. In which case, he’s unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt from the other heroes.

I guess we’ll have to see what happens, but yeah, the monsters might be the lesser of Genos’s problems.

Edit: Thinking it over, no actual friendly fire incident need occur. All it would take is Drive Knight going ‘hey, were you trying to kill me back there?’ and all hell will break loose.

#Anonymous #OPM #asks #meta #Genos #it's true that give a dog a bad name and hang him still applies

11 notes · View notes

loadventure321 · 4 years ago

Text

Statue Of Liberty End Times

1884- Cornerstone laid for Statue of Liberty on Bedloe’s Island, NY. The Masons laid the cornerstone. Since its beginning, the Statue of Liberty has been associated, not only with its profane symbolism of liberty, but with the occult as well. Is the Statue of Liberty pagan? 1914- First traffic light installed in Cleveland OH. Franco-American Friendship. The first symbol of the Statue of Liberty is a little forgotten today. For the purpose of the erection of this statue was to seal the friendship between France and the United States, at a time when the first country again became just a Republican for the 2nd time in its history, and the second already foresaw her future world power.

Statue Of Liberty End Times Square

Statue Of Liberty Library

Statue Of Liberty Meaning

Statue Of Liberty End Times New York

Based on the latest high-precision orbit measurements conducted by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), it has been reported that Asteroid 2020 VC7 will not impact Earth in the near future.

However, it is still classified as a Near-Earth Object (NEO), i.e., an asteroid whose orbit is close to the Earth's orbit. These asteroids are closely watched, and due to high-precision location measurements and celestial mechanic calculations, their orbit is generally known with a high degree of precision.

The Statue of Liberty was intended to symbolize the end of slavery in the USA. Of these claims, the first three are demonstrably untrue; the final one may have some small element of truth to it. The Statue of Liberty Museum is an experience unto itself. Full of incredible exhibits, the Museum gives color and context to the Statue and houses her original torch. Before you depart, be sure to visit the Liberty Vista atop the Museum for breathtaking view of the Statue and New York Harbor. No additional ticket is needed to visit the museum.

According to NASA, the nearest approach of Asteroid (NEO) 2020 VC7 to Earth occurs on Friday. Dec. 11, at a distance of 0,037542 Astronomical Units, or 5,616,211 kilometers. To add some context, the average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,400km, while the nearest planet Mars, is 107.99 million km distant. Hence, there is no cause for concern, as this space rock will travel peacefully past our planet in the coming hours.

Incredibly, astronomers have been able to accurately calculate this ludicrous space rock as being up to 320ft (96m) across at its widest. Again for context, the 2020 VC7 is the rough height of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

The asteroid is now estimated to be hurtling into the inky blackness of space at 6.96 km/s, which translates to an astounding 38,000 mph. While not as fast compared to other asteroids, it's still about twenty times quicker than a speed bullet.

Statue Of Liberty End Times Square

Combining those speed and daunting scales means that this asteroid is capable of creating apocalyptic havoc if it crashes into a city - something that neither this nor any other known asteroid of comparable dimensions is known to do anytime soon.

2020 VC7 is not the only asteroid to make its appearance known on Friday. NASA also stated that the significantly smaller and quicker space rock named 2020 XQ1 would surface at 9.56 am GMT 4.56 am ET on Dec. 11.

In recent months, asteroids have been making headlines around the world.

Japan's space agency JAXA made headlines this week when its daring asteroid samples landed on the Australian outback last Sunday. The space rock sample came from the near-earth asteroid Ryugu.

And just weeks before that, NASA's OSIRIS-Rex mission team announced that their spacecraft had collected at least 60 grams of Bennu asteroid surface dust. Scientists expect that Bennu's asteroid would also open a window into the early solar system when it started to take shape.

Following the success of the October Touch-And-Go mission, NASA has now directed the spacecraft to begin its journey back to Earth, with the return date set for March next year.

(OPINION) ETH – Pastor Dana Coverstone has had quite a few very troubling prophetic dreams about America’s future, but this latest dream shook him up emotionally more than any of the others. In the dream, he saw the Statue of Liberty under attack, and he interpreted that to mean that our nation as a whole is under attack.

Statue Of Liberty Library

And of course, that is definitely what we are seeing here in 2020. Those that reject our history, our culture, and our Constitution have launched a relentless assault against our most cherished traditions, and it is only going to get worse.

The goal is to reshape America into something that is fundamentally different from what our founders intended, and to a large degree, they are succeeding. For better or worse, if there is one national symbol that has come to represent the U.S. as a nation it is the Statue of Liberty.

Whenever that symbol is used, people instantly recognize that it is a metaphor for America. Personally, I wish that our most recognizable national symbol was a Christian symbol, but that is not the case. Over the decades, there have been numerous prophetic dreams and visions in which the Statue of Liberty has been used to represent our country, and at the end of this article, I will share an example of this.

Statue Of Liberty Meaning

Statue Of Liberty End Times New York

Many are comparing Pastor Coverstone’s latest dream to what A.A. Allen was shown all the way back in 1954, and I agree that there seem to be quite a few parallels. One of the things that I really appreciate about Pastor Coverstone is that he shares exactly what he was shown without any filter.

That way we can come to our own conclusions about what his dreams may mean. In his latest video, Pastor Coverstone becomes quite emotional as he describes this new dream. He obviously has a great love for this country, and it was not easy for him to see what he saw. READ MORE

1 note · View note

efurutravel · 5 years ago

Text

Update: Hiatus over~!

Okay. Some things may be repeated.

This is my main blog and is of various things, but usually will be language resources, Japanese studies, and Japanese related things still. But I invite anyone interested to follow me or my other side blogs! I do live in Japan, so if you have any questions about that, let me know!

I have officially made my French studyblr and have had three successful days of studying French completely. Hopefully a habit is born. 4 years of my French knowledge is all gone. I’m so sad!

I don’t know if I posted about it, but I did pass the N2 and have been studying N1 material for a little while now. I kind of took a break from studying and just focused on speaking. My confidence in speaking has went up tremendously and I’m so happy for that. I am on JET, for those that don’t know, and I was able to take the Translation and Interpretation course offered by CLAIR. It was an amazing, humbling experience and so intense. I will probably do a separate post about it. Please feel free to message if you have questions about it.

I will be studying two languages primarily now, so I need to make a study schedule, but for now I’m just going to outline my main goals for Japanese.

New Goals

Review N1 Grammar (Used 新完全マスター)

Level up N1 vocabulary via Memrise (I’m starting with 総まとめ)

Read a Japanese article weekly

Possibly take JLPT in December 2020

#efurutravel #japanese langblr #japanese study #update #personal #langblr #studyblr #japanese goals #language goals

10 notes · View notes

forlackofabettersound · 5 years ago

Text

Ochungulo Family is a More Ethical Ethic

Yeah I said it.

I was initially afraid this statement might be a bit classist coming from me, a middle class suburb bred 20-something year old. But the genre has risen from its gritty hood predecessor, ‘genge’ and moved up the street into the Boiler Room co-signed Jason Dunford aka Samaki Mkuu spitting ‘gengetone’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4jko8AHWIU

Did Ethic walk so that Ochungulo Family could fly?

If so, then the Kansoul crawled so that Ethic could take it’s stumbling baby steps into the receiving arms of the Nairobi mass market. Meaning Jua Cali and Jimwaat swam like sperm to egg so that the Kansoul, 2 lads from the cabro streets of Ridgeways with the sole exception of Mtoto wa Khadija, Mejja who gives the Kansoul it’s much needed mtaa edge, would be accepted by both the clipped english accents of Capital FM and the tongue chewing sheng of Ghetto Radio.

Now that the scene has burst open like the ripe fruit it is, there’s so many of them: Boondocks Gang, Zero Sufuri, Sailors. The question I’m not going to answer today is “When did Gengetone stop being snubbed by Naija-blaring establishments and became the flag-waving sound of the nation it is today?

The question I WILL answer today is: What’s the difference between Ochungulo Family and Ethic that makes the former a boy band of insinuating heart throbs, and the latter cancelled by KoT?

Perhaps a brief history of both camps is in order. Let’s start with Ethic.

These kids broke out of the precinct of Umoja and into the scene with the finger-licking club banger, ‘Lamba Lolo’ back in 2018, stirring a country-wide frenzy. The beat is a simple repetitive stock synth melody backed by the easiest bassline. The low-budget music video shot in their neighbourhood features REKLES, SWAT, SESKA and ZILLA on what seems like a regular weekend dusk, where they called their friends out to come jam- the bottles and cups ubiquitous in hip hop music videos swapped for Big Boms and Pin Pops.

Analogy: If Ethic is Pin Pop. Ochungulo is Chupa Chup.

It’s clear from the jump that REKLES is the most lyrically adept, with SWAT’s notoriety stemming from being the cutest face. The track isn’t so much a wine and dine as it is a ‘let’s skip to the good bits’ as it’s opening line states, “Piga Goti (eeh) Panua Domo basi (eeh)” with a chorus that repeats the question, “Ushailamba lolo?”

Browsing through their discography, their second single ‘Postion’ was a smash hit with the co-sign of the Kansoul, providing us listeners with beloved catch phrases such as ‘Geuka Nikubeng’ ‘Ganja Farmer ni wale wajanja’ ‘Ushaiguswa uskie tu kunyora ushaiguswa uskie tu kuoga’ and of course, ‘shuglibagli shugblibagli nden nden nden nden.” One of the laziest verses of Okonkwo’s career in my opinion but I digress.

So now let’s jump to their 3 most controversial tracks, ‘Pandana’ ‘Tarimbo’ and ‘Soko’.

In ‘Pandana’, the phrase that came under fire was Rekles’ use of the word ‘Tunabakana’ ; Baka meaning rape in kiswahili. However with Rekless use, ‘tunabakana’ translates to ‘we are raping each other,’ a double non-consent which cancels each other out and alludes to consent. While rape in any construct or form should not be encouraged, this line may have been taken out of context by KoT. Rekles probably meant no harm in its use, simply suggesting that they are aggressively in each other’s body business. However from this faux pas, Rekles should have learned. He did not.

In Tarimbo, less innocently, he raps, “Mi huchapa mi humwaga hata bila permission” One thing should be clear, doing anything to anyone’s body bila permission is non-consent aka sexual assault. This lyric can not be as easily forgiven.

It gets harder and harder to defend these guys with ‘Soko’, which Rekles opens with the line, ‘Kuna toto na ameiva iza’ ‘There’s a child and she’s ripe sorry’ bringing to our moral imagination the fact that the object of this rhyme is a minor. Contrast this with SWAT’s badly interpreted line in ‘Pandana’ where he says ‘Toto yako iyeke fiti nitaikulala’ and you can see that the use of the word ‘toto’ in each of these songs is different. In ‘Pandana’, SWAT uses toto as a euphemism for lady parts. In ‘Soko’. Rekles’ toto is an underaged girl. While both are lewd, Pandana is suggestive whereas Soko is criminal.

Speaking of criminal, let’s dive into Ochungulo family and compare see whether they’re anymore saintlike or if we’re a public who ignore dirty things if they’re dressed clean.

https://twitter.com/ethicofficial/status/1270784205308526593

This is the tweet that started this whole investigation. Ochungulo broke out with the Nelly the goon led track, “Bora Uhai’ an ode to life and all it’s sweetness. Followed shortly thereafter by ‘Krimino’ and a rain of smash hit singles following the likes of ‘Na Iwake’ ‘Aluta’ ‘Kaa Na Mamayako’ where Alejandro Chief Inspekta compared thee’s nipples to a nectarine blossoming flower’s in the less shakespearean format. “Nipple zako nazinyonya kama nectar’

Alejandro Chief Inspekta aka Benzema, formerly EDM producer with the electronic collective Lectronica Circle has found more success and notoriety and ease in the world of gengetone than in Dance Music. Already, gritty grimy gengetone and synthesized programmed European Dance Music are contrasted by a class divide. You won’t hear Martin Garrix being introduced by Mbonoko on the radio during your work day commute. Only the middle classed suburb youth had fantasies of jet setting to Tomorrowland with their pocket money savings.

More specifically diving into the track in question, ‘Ngwatiology’. ‘Ngwati’ being sheng for porn hence ngwatiology meaning ‘a deep analysis of the effects of pornography on the human psyche through a thorough hand-genital exploration’ Masturbation folks.

While hilariously lewd, there’s no foul play in ‘Ngwatiology’ just a play by play of the natural phenomenon that is ngwatiology.

“Did you know porn hub awards, hu-happen once, ile time ya cramps?”

“Did you know arsenal fans? Hao hukuwa ass-anal fans?”

In conclusion, yes. Ochungulo Family are the more ethical ethic. While both teams are explicit, straight-to-the-point, no-beat-around -the-bush-just-beat-this-meat when it comes to the content of their lyrics, there’s a line in the distant horizon that cannot be crossed. And the name of that line is consent. Ethic have crossed that line whereas Ochungulo Family have not. This does not make any better or worse than the other. In today’s morally policed jungle, both bands are prey and Ezekiel ‘Pornstache’ Mutua is the predator sending cringe emails to Youtube like an uncle who still doesn’t understand how the internet works.

#kenyan music #kenya #kenyan #music blogging #music blog #play ke music #ochungulo family #ethic entertainment #genge #gengetone #jason dunford #samaki mkuu #kansoul #the kansoul

1 note · View note

seyaryminamoto · 5 years ago

Note

Hello and first of all thank you for your great fanfiction work, I really enjoy reading what you write. Now there is a question, that bugs me for a while now. Would you say Sozin just got up one morning and decided to conquer the world, or has there actually been a reason for this? I imagine that the decentralized Earth Kingdom may have caused some trouble to the Fire Nation in the past or the islands simply had trouble to grow enough food for a growing population. What are your thoughts on it?

Yeah, your last idea is part of my interpretation. I think I had Gladiator’s Azula explaining her take on it once, back in the very beginnings of the story. Sozin, in my opinion, had two motivations: the first was the need for more territory. The way he talks to Roku about the prosperity of the Fire Nation in “The Avatar and the Fire Lord” implies things are thriving in the Fire Nation. The problem with such prosperity is that sustaining it can lead to different kinds of problems: a happier nation, with better survival rates and proper living conditions, will eventually translate into a growing population. If the population grows faster than the economy that sustains it, the prosperity will decrease: new problems arise, and there won’t be easy solutions for them.

I think Sozin’s Fire Nation was already on the verge of new problems arising. He didn’t reveal it, didn’t admit it, but that he acted on his plans regardless of Roku’s disapproval meant that, at first, he wasn’t scared enough of the Avatar’s threats. He considered Roku’s negative wasn’t a true deterrent for his ambitious plans. But when Roku tears his palace halfway to the ground and Sozin sees his friend’s threat is SERIOUS, he actually heeds it. I think it’s implied he doesn’t act on his conquest urges until Roku is dead. He makes the decision to let him die in the volcano for his own personal gain, and to see his dreams of extending the Fire Nation across the whole world coming true.

The direct attack on the Air Temples came from Sozin’s second motivation, directly related to Roku’s rejection of his plan: Sozin knows the Avatar will get in his way. Destroying the culture that the next Avatar will be born to would mean the Avatar would die before mastering all elements, and even if the Avatar is reborn to a Water Tribe later, a new Avatar would only be able to master three elements if the airbenders are all dead. This decreases the threat an Avatar can pose to his plan. Obviously, Aang escapes and he’s already an airbending master, so Sozin’s plan ends up backfiring despite it seemed so iron-clad.

None of this analysis is meant to take away the horror of Sozin’s actions, no military strategy could ever validate something as gruesome as the genocide of an entire nation, but I do believe there are possible interpretations that can point us towards why Sozin chose to wipe out Air Nomads instead of choosing the Water Tribes or the Earth Kingdom. Technically, as far as our idea of “overpopulation = need more territory and resources” goes, the Air Nomads are by far the least convenient option to destroy. There’s no Fire Nation colony in any Air Temple, for obvious reasons: they’re in remote locations that surely have very little to offer, as far as resources are concerned. The only new settlement there is in an Air Temple is that of the Mechanist and his people, who are Earth Kingdom refugees from the last years of the war, not descendants of early Fire Nation settlers who might take advantage of those temples. Therefore, Sozin’s attempt to exterminate the Air Nomads definitely obeys his fear of Roku’s power and the knowledge that a fully-developed Avatar could easily end his quest for expansion.

Now, looking at the actions of Azulon and Ozai, I think both of Sozin’s motivations carry on to his progeny. Azulon certainly wages war on the Earth Kingdom... but he takes all Southern Water Tribe waterbenders as captives, torturing them in the worst possible conditions he can conjure. Why the south, and not the north? Partly, the north is shown as a stronger, unified nation, which means it should be protected better. But as far as the cycle of the Avatars is concerned, it stands to reason that the Water Tribe Avatar alternates between North and South per cycle: the last Water Tribe Avatar was Kuruk, a northerner. The next Water Tribe Avatar should be a southerner... and as far as canon is concerned, Korra birth in the Southern Water Tribe proves that’s the case. Ergo, Azulon follows his father’s footsteps by trying to kill a potential, waterbending Avatar before they can learn new bending arts. With a war split in two fronts, Azulon has to take charge of battling in the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe without any Sozin’s Comet bonus to aid him. He can’t afford massacring the Southern Water Tribe completely without sacrificing other aspects of the war, but he can afford doing away with all the waterbenders to further hinder the Avatar’s potential growth: if the airbending Avatar did die during Sozin’s wipe-out of the Air Temples or some time afterwards, then the next one would be born in the south. Take all waterbenders captive and if one of them was supposed to be the Avatar, they’ll be annulled and restrained: one less threat to worry about.

As for Ozai, I suspect half of what’s going on during his tenure got started during Azulon’s (he’s depicted in his portrait as the Fire Lord of the technological advancements, seen by the many factories depicted around him, but the factory in Jang Hui actually has been in place since Azulon’s time, if I recall correctly...). But even then, the Fire Lord’s rule we see most clearly in the show is obviously Ozai’s. One village we see Ozai’s army has taken over is Haru’s: the soldiers tax the villagers, and as it’s a mining village (even if the mines are abandoned), it stands to reason that the village was singled out because of its potential usefulness for mining. There are several other villages in the Earth Kingdom that haven’t been touched by the Fire Nation (at least not yet), so why Haru’s and not the Fortuneteller’s or Kyoshi Island? Why would Gaipan village (the one in Jet) be taken too? Well, Gaipan is close to a big forest, and the wikia describes it as a “quiet town of woodsmen and loggers”. Again, resources! As for Senlin Village, from “Winter Solstice Part 1″? Again, as written in the wikia: “Due to a lack of strategical advantage, the Fire Nation did not occupy this former Earth Kingdom village during the Hundred Year War.” There was no plausible logging advantage here after they literally burned down the whole forest, so...

Now then, why do we mostly see Fire Nation soldiers instead of actual, full-blown occupation in every village? Because, irony of ironies, war is a pretty effective means for population control. Send out an army to conquer and unless you’re some sort of miracle strategist or you have a weapon of wonders, you will sustain losses. As large as the Fire Nation army had to be to achieve all it did, they absolutely didn’t have the manpower to occupy the entire world all along, and all the other nations certainly fought back, meaning that the huge army didn’t wipe out everything with no opposition. While the comics establish that there have been colonies around for ages, for longer than Aang has been alive, even (which, um, undermines the whole matter of “Sozin stayed put for as long as Roku was alive because he was afraid of repercussions” thing established in the show, but that’s none of my business...), the show offers us a different, perhaps more realistic take on the subject: there are Earth Kingdom towns untouched by the war, there are some merely occupied by soldiers, and there are others that are fully conquered colonies.

I believe most of what Ozai and Azulon could afford to send into the Earth Kingdom were soldiers who occupied towns and forced the native population to work for them, to pay taxes and whatnot, until the Fire Nation population had been restored to its previous, excessive numbers. By then, they’d have enough towns and cities in the Earth Kingdom under their control, and it would be possible to send groups of people to live and take advantage of those occupied lands.

In the end, ideology is of course an important element in Sozin’s decision to conquer the world, for there’s no doubt in my mind he was a Fire Nation supremacist and thought himself better than everyone else. But I believe the ideology angle was emphasized and overblown just to masquerade some far more mundane motivations, which included his deep fear of the Avatar and the repercussions he’d face if a fully-fledged, four-element bending Avatar like Roku ever rose again to put a stop to his project of Fire Nation world-wide expansion.

#jaredstrout #granted there's so much mixed information about all this #that sometimes it's two steps forward one step back with any interpretation #like Sozin allegedly establishing lots of colonies without Roku's awareness #or else it means Roku did know #and simply didn't do crap #I had been willing to give him some credit honestly #because it looked like his threat worked and Sozin waited for Roku to be dead...#... now I'm not so sure #o_O #oh well #me and my many complaints about the Avatars and their procedures (?)#it never ends

6 notes · View notes

leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst · 5 years ago

Text

ENGLISH TRANSLATION ( Jeannette Nobbe)

VOLSKRANT.NL 31/01/20

by Mennon Pot

https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/conchita-wurst-sorry-dat-ik-zo-n-wandelend-cliche-ben~b0477817/

(Conchita) Wurst: 'I'm sorry I'm a walking cliché'.

Above all we know Conchita Wurst as the bearded 'female 'singer who won the ESC in 2014. But we've moved on and are a bit wiser. It´s just Wurst now, but the beard is still there.

With light feathered steps, Thomas Neuwirth (31) enters the conference room of the hotel in Groningen where he is staying: black combat boots, black leather pants, tight black T-shirt, the black beard and the perfect short trimmed jet black hair..

He introduces himself as Tom. It's not difficult to recognise the bearded drag queen Conchita in him. (Kopenhagen, 2014, remember?) but the dress and wig are stowed away for a while. Conchita has a sort of sabbatical, so to speak.

Neuwirth is on tour as a man. Stage name: Wurst. Yesterday evening he performed in Groningen; the next concert will be 7 february at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. His new album 'Truth over Magnitude' also carries the artist´s name Wurst.

Let's get this straight: when the subject is Conchita Wurst, the word 'transgender' sometimes comes a long. Wrongly. Neuwirth is a man, ('but incredibly gay, of course'), who has a choice from now on: being on tour as a drag queen (Conchita) or as a man (Wurst) .

´a lot of fun, being a masculine stage persona', he says. Conchita will turn up again somewhere else.

Holland appreciated Conchita's 'Rise like a Phoenix' with the highest score, almost 6 years ago.

Neuwirth didn't forget: twelve points, douze points from Holland for the bearded diva from Austria.

Then hectic years followed. 'After the Song Contest I thought, I have to make the most of it now, build my fame and cash it in. So I surrounded myself with all kinds of experts, managers, stylists, make/up artists, the whole circus. After 3 years I was exhausted. I couldn´t do it anymore. I told my audience every nigh, be yourself, believe in yourself. But along the way, I forgot myself.´

He got rid of the experts’ circus and is having a relaxed tour now, with a small entourage. He feels good again, although in 2018 he had to announce he is infected with the HIV virus. His manager politely asks, almost in an humble manner, not to talk about that.

Tom doesn´t appear to be very worried about that. There has seldom been a star who starts an interview so cheerfully. ´A great photo shoot and after that talk about things I find beautiful and fun.

Terrific, I was already looking forward to it when I came out of bed.´

´Curriculum Vitae'

1988 – Born as Thomas Neuwirth in Gmunden, Austria

2007 – Candidate at the talentshow Starmania, and boyband Jetzt anders!

2011 – Debut as female persona Conchita Wurst, the debut single `I´ll be there´

2012 - Second place at the Austrian Songfestival

2014 – ESC winner with ´Rise like a Phoenix

2015 – First album ´Conchita´, co-presenter ESC

2018 – Second album ´From Vienna with Love´

2019 – Debut as male stage persona ´Wurst´, third album ´Truth over Magnitude´

2020 – Wurst ´Trust over Magnitude´ Sony Music

Wurst will be performing in the Melkweg in Amsterdam on February 7

SOUNDTRACK

Music from the Motion Picture Titanic ...1997

´My first CD. I was 9 years old when I bought it. `My heart will go on´’changed my life´. As it were, Céline Dion gave me permission to be utterly dramatic and to be over the top. When I came out of the closet, I heard that song in my head.

It was also a liberation for me as a singer. My mom always sang with a thin, high falsetto voice. I thought that was how it should be. Dion taught me, you may yell as hard as you can, with all the power you have in you. When you sing so loud, you can’t fake it. The sound you push out of your body, is the sound of your body, unique and by definition authentic. Céline Dion taught me that singing is something really physical.´

SERIES

The Crown ..Netflix..., 2016 until 2019

´For me it´s getting difficult to watch a movie to the end. I guess that´s because of all the series on Netflix and HBO. My favorite is `The Crown´.. ´the intro alone is so beautiful, that liquid gold that forms a crown, such art. I used to watch it twice. Ít says something about the fact that I can´t choose between the two women who play Elizabeth and the two men who play prince Philip. All the actors are great. The costumes, the stories, the palaces, it´s so delightful. The history also intrigues me, after every episode I checked on Wikipedia if it was really what had happened.

PARTIES

´At Christmas I always come back to Vienna. I love the lights, glitters and decorations, my inner Mariah Carey is looking forward to it every year. Christmas 2019 was extra special because it had been a long time since the whole family came together at my grandmother´s house.´

I would love it to be like that every year... A couple of days being together in one home. Talking, getting to really know my family. Maybe now you think, days on and on with uncles and aunts, such horror! It is easy to say that I don´t really have much in common with these people. But I do, Really. They all have a story and similarities with your stories. Ask them about your life and tell them about yours.´

That´s what Christmas is all about to me. To me, the birth of Jesus has not that much to do with it.´

ISLAND..

I have an agreement with my best friends to go on vacation at least once every two years. We have been to Mykonos a couple of times, THE especially gay island. I´m sorry I sound like a walking cliché.´

The sun, the sea, the beaches, the small streets, so cosy. We rent a house with a pool and for a week or two we live in our own little paradise, actually being a bit tipsy the whole time. Go shopping and cook.´

`What´s also very important, on Mykomos, the wind is always blowing the right way. I love to watch the women, because their dresses and their hair flutter so beautifully.´

STYLE ICON

Victoria Beckham

I was and still am a big Spice Girls fan and I especially admire Victoria Beckham, because she lives her life the way she wants. She appears in tabloids every day, but has survived a crisis in her relationship and has stayed happy with the love of her life and her family. I think that it´s really strong.´

In regard to her style, she can go from very classy to very trashy, I like that. One day she´s wearing a designer dress, the next she and David Beckham are walking in identical jogging suits. She couldn’t care less. I think that it´s inspiring.´

´I think she is utterly authentic, raging through the glamour. Although I have never met her, I´m sure that I could have a lot of fun with her. I´d love to drink some tequila with her for an afternoon or so.´

AGE

´I thought becoming 30 was really special, I lost my wild behaviour, came to be more restful. Some way or another I think a lot about some things my mother said: in my twenties, I ignored those lessons, but now I´m 30, I suddenly realised she was right for example how important family and friends are.

I´m 31 now, I have inner peace and my life in order, but I still feel young. I´m convinced that this the best period of my life´. My advise to everybody... be 30.´

ALBUM

Recomposed by Max Richter / The Four Seasons ..2012

I don´t play any instruments and until not too long ago, I didn´t really know much about music. I really found that a pity sometimes. Fortunately, my good friend Martin studies at the School of Musical Arts... !! He´s studying the history of music intensely and tells me about a lot of great composers. I learn a lot from that.´´I never understood classical music and didn´t really know anything about it, but thanks to the listening sessions with Martin I fell in love with Vivaldi..

The pop artist of the classical artists.

´Max Richter interpreted Vivaldi´s Four Seasons and composed it in a modern fashion. It´s a modern, post minimalistic piece, completely different from the original one, but you still recognise it. Greatly done, at the moment it´s my favorite album.´

BOOK

Friedrich Schiller « Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen ». About the aesthetic upbringing of the people..´

´A good friend advised me to read the philosophical letters from Friedrich Schiller ..Letters, 1794-1795)

That´s a hard job to do. Because of the old fashioned German I had to read some sentences 5 times. You always have to wrestle yourself through a thick layer of 18th century sexism.

´But further on you´ll find something beautiful. Schiller writes a lot about finding your inner beauty and your own truth. Dare to be yourself. Embrace your darker sides. Those are important as well.´

´At the same time he preaches self-perspective.. don´t take yourself too seriously, you´re not the center of the universe. That is very worthy to me. Namely because I DO think I´m the center of the universe, haha.

`Still it´s very wise of him, to send a message from 1795 to a 21st century queen with a Mariah Carey complex.´

CLUB

Circus in Vienna

´The Arena is a huge complex in Vienna, a concert building with a mega discotheque. A couple of times a year they organize Circus, my favorite gay club night. I always go there with my group of closest friends, but it´s actually a bit of a rule that we lose each other and disappear into the crowd.´

´I roam around all night- Every room, every floor has its own musical theme and decoration. I love the types of people I meet there, their clothes, their fetishisms, everything.´

….Arena Vienna, Baumgasse 80, Vienna

CITY

Amsterdam

´I live in Vienna, I love Vienna and I will always come back there, but the greatest city I´ve been to is Amsterdam – since then I traveled all over the world so I know what I´m talking about.

´Of all the cities I visited, Amsterdam is the only one where I would want to live a period of time. So that´s what I´m gonna do, this summer, for a few months to begin with.´

´I can see that Amsterdam also has the flagship stores from all known store chains. And a lot of tourists, like every special city. But I see all these small jewelry shops where they sell their self-made jewelry. Little bakeries. Cosy streets. And a lot of water. I love water. I love cities with lots of water.´

#conchitawurst #wurst #tomneuwirth #artist #singer #esc2014 #escwinner #music #performer #lgbt #celebrity #interview #translation

1 note · View note

howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 6 years ago

Text

Young Oon Kim hinted that Moon was not the messiah, but only in the line of the messiah.

▲ Allen Tate Wood with Miss Young Oon Kim in about 1971.

Moonstruck: A memoir of my life in a cult

by Allen Tate Wood (published in 1979)

extracts from pages 82-84 and pages 134-138

National headquarters was at 1611 Upshur Street, N.W., a big, funny old house with a double-pointed roof in a nice upper-middle-class black neighborhood with lots of big, shady maple trees. The building had once been the Libyan embassy. I was shown to a small room among the many on the second floor. There I would sleep on the blue close-cropped rug, because everyone in the Unified Family slept on the floor except Miss Kim, who did not either because she was a saint or because she was older or because she was rather frail.

▲ 1611 Upshur St NW, Washington, DC.

I had arrived during the dinner hour, and after I had brought my stuff to the room I joined the group of twenty-five or thirty seated at the two long cafeteria-style tables down in the linoleum-floored basement. Miss Kim sat at the end of one table and I was seated next to her. I was somewhat awed by Miss Kim. I knew her from the photograph that appeared on the back of the early editions of the Divine Principle, which she had translated. That picture showed a Korean maiden of about thirty-two in Oriental dress. She had an oval face, even features, lovely dark eyes and a mouth full and yet disciplined.

Now I saw her some eighteen years later and she was still pretty. Her hair was still long and jet black and she wore it pinned up. What her movements and posture now showed especially, and what the portrait had not been able to convey entirely, was how feminine and graceful she was.

I don’t remember what I ate that first meal, but I do remember Miss Kim’s quiet, gentle exploration of my personality. She asked me many questions about myself, but never in a rude stand-and-deliver manner that I might have expected from someone who so obviously held the respect of everyone in the room. She asked about the trip and observed that I must be exhausted, wanted to know about my education, my religious background, my hopes for the future, about my family and where I was from.

“Princeton,” I answered.

“I thought that was a university.” Her English was precise, pronounced delicately.

“It is. It is also a nice town. Many people are confused by that.”

“It is not so far from here?”

“No, not at all.”

“Will you visit your parents?”

“Yes, of course. We are a close family. I have not seen them for four months.”

“You have not seen them since you joined us?”

“No.”

“Have you written them?”

“Yes.”

“What do they say?”

“They don’t really seem to understand. But this has been a rather confusing time for us. They will.”

“They may not. I would not be surprised, Allen, if they never do. Most of us here are not old like me, but young. Many times families are the enemies of religious experience. Jesus said: ‘For I am come to set man at variance against his father. A man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.’ Be prepared for the worst. Your family will oppose you in this. They will try to take you from us.”

This was not the first time nor the last time I would hear such sentiments. I had heard them many times already at Berkeley. We had been a young group, nearly all in our way dropouts, some of us deeply hurt, even maimed by the conflict with our society, and tales of ferocious fights with parents were commonplace.

________________________________________

pages 134-138

… I was demoted even further. I would not be a lecturer in Level III. I was going back to being a student. I was aghast. I had been expecting to be reinstated, like Frank and Neil Salonen, but here I was getting pushed even further down.

I went to Miss Kim. She was the power behind the power. She was everyone’s confidante; she knew all that was going on behind the scenes. And she had always liked me, favored me.

I remember talking to her as the late afternoon light faded in the kitchen. She sat with her elbows on the plastic tablecloth. Behind her on the shelves our motley, tacky collection of dishes was stacked. In the background the refrigerator hummed.

I told her the whole story in a great state of agitation. As I spoke she pulled the pins from her hair, which I had never seen down. Her beautiful blue-black hair cascaded about her shoulders. It was thick and long. It reached down to the middle of her back. There was greater meaning in the gesture, I thought. I felt I was seeing the unveiling of a celestial being. What she said did not disappoint me.

Miss Kim had always been a critical follower of the Reverend Moon. Once she had told me that she believed he had some years ago lost his ability to read minds and travel in the astral world. That was why he had to employ the three mediums now. Once she had hinted that Moon was not the messiah, but only in the line of the messiah. He was an Abraham figure, and his son or his grandson would be the true messiah. This was utter heresy, of course, and this was in the back of my mind as Miss Kim spoke.

“Do not worry, young Allen. Frank has many problems and you must bear with him. All this will smooth out later. Meanwhile, I have powers myself. I will look after you. You are under my protection.”

I left the interview completely satisfied. I felt that I had the blessing of a real-life good witch of the East. I did not know exactly what she meant, but I had faith in her. I recalled what had happened the last time I had come to her discouraged. I did become a student in Level III, and I bore with it the best I could. I was a good follower, and by November came the news that made me determined to remain one. The Reverend Moon was coming here!

In December 1971, about a week before Christmas, Moon was present for our Level III graduation, which was held at a church we rented across the street. We had been renting its basement for our Sunday services for a long time. I got a small printed certificate saying that I had graduated from Level III. Presumably I was rehabilitated.

Moon stayed in the Upshur Street house, in the “parents’ room,” which was a room we kept in every center, specially furnished and waiting, should the day come for the visit of Our Leader. He lay low for about a week. He watched a lot and he conferred privately with many people. I was not one of them; I was no longer in the inner circle. Then, on the day before Christmas, he came out of his room and began to speak. And he kept on preaching all through Christmas and on to the beginning of the new year, for the greater part of seven consecutive days.

Moon talked for many hours each day, until people began to fall asleep, and he would awaken them with a shout or a shake or even a slap across the face.

He told us many things. He told us that the messiah was now in the new Rome, that as of now he had made far more progress than Jesus ever had, though he was also far short of completing his mission. But from now on, his mission was here. Moon would not perform miracles, by the way, because miracles were merely crowd pleasers, nothing serious. Jesus’ miracles were a sign of failure, Moon said.

Moon retold the parables of the Bible, adding his own interpretations. Mrs. Won-bok Choi, the medium, translated for him, as she continued to do when he was in the United States and speaking more or less privately, to his own followers. When he spoke publicly, as he was preparing to do, for his mission was taking outward shape, Colonel Pak was the translator.

Moon told us about the nature of sin. The main duality in God’s creation was between good and evil. To do evil was to sin, but since everyone thought of themselves as good, how did we know when we were sinning? The answer was that when we were working for ourselves, we were sinning. When we were working for others, we could be sure that we were doing good. Even if we did things that seemed good to others, if we did these things out of our own vanity and egoism, then we were doing evil. Motive counted very heavily in Moon’s system. Just as we could lie for good motives, and thus be doing God’s work, we could tell the truth for bad motives and be doing Satan’s will.

Such a psychology kept us at constant war with ourselves, and if it succeeded in its aims, our energy would be constantly projected outward. Moon’s was not a religion of introspection, of mysticism, of finding a oneness with God or Nature, nor even a religion of peace or beauty. It was rather a path of action. He would tell us what to think, and our duty was to obey him. His was the perfect religion for those who wished to escape from themselves.

In those seven days Moon mapped out a plan of action and told it to us. He would begin a One World Crusade and he would speak for three days in each of seven cities. A number of us would be formed into mobile bus teams, whose job would be to go into each city as an advance guard. These people would rent the hall for him to speak, sell tickets, do publicity, preach in the streets and then, when at last the Master arrived, move on to the next city on the list and do the same thing. About all this there was an atmosphere of breathless urgency. This was not something that was to happen in the far future or even the near future, but right now. It was to begin even before the month of January was out.

But that was only part of the beginning of his mission, merely the bringing of the word. After having gotten our followers, we wanted to hold them. For that we needed more centers, at least one in every state, including Hawaii and Alaska. Despite our best efforts so far, we had centers in only eight states. We would immediately send out missionaries to all the other states.

In those seven days Moon also prayed many times, and each prayer ended with him in tears. He pulled out his big white handkerchief, snapped it open with a flourish, wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He even sang to us at times; his voice was not pretty, but it was powerful. He sounded like a wounded water buffalo. Moon’s voice had great range, and sometimes, in contrast to the low ranges of his singing, it rose in passion to a mere mouse’s squeak. All in all he was a gigantic, an enveloping personality.

One of the sad things that happened for those of us who knew and loved Miss Kim—and particularly for me, since I was under her protection—was that Moon deposed her, abruptly, impatiently, bitterly, though privately. He was angry; he told her she had failed. We heard that he told her she must assume in regard to him the role of a child. She must learn everything all over again.

______________________________________________

Young-oon Kim – it all ended in flames and tears for the professor

Newsweek on the many Korean messiahs of the 1970s

Park Tae-seon – another Korean Pikareum Messiah

Kim Baek-moon talked about “sexual union with God”

#Young Oon Kim #Sun Myung Moon #Unification Church #FFWPU #Allen Tate Wood #Korean messiahs

2 notes · View notes

pamphletstoinspire · 7 years ago

Photo

Catholic Prophecy - Part 11

20 Catholic Prophecy

De Mediatate Lunae ("From the Midst of the Moon," often translated, "From the Half of the Moon"). The biblical symbolism of the "moon" is "the worldly kingdom" or the "temporal order." This Pope may therefore be elected from the midst of cardinals who are mainly influenced by worldly ideas (social gospel, etc.), or he may be elected at a time when the forces of Satan (the "Prince of this World") have virtual control of the entire earth via their secret government, possibly even influencing the papal election, so that an agent of the world antichrist government is elected Pope. Still another explanation is that he will be a bad Pope, himself influenced and dominated by worldly ideas, and thus do great havoc to the Church. Finally, this enigmatic formula may indicate that during his reign, the Moslem world (the crescent or "half moon") will gain ascendancy and possibly even attack Europe, as Monk Hilarion's prophecy, below, would indicate.

De Lahore Soils ("Of the Labour of the Sun"). This is the same symbol as that of Apocalype 12: 1-5, of a woman clothed with the sun in labor to give birth to a son, who subsequently rules the earth with "a rod of iron." H. B. Kramer, interpreting the Apocalypse in his Book of Destiny, maintains this figure represents a highly disputed papal election (dispute = labor; woman = Church; sun = the light of divine truth).

De Gloria Olivae ("Of the Glory of the Olive Tree"). May refer to the glorious period of peace under the Great King (wherein the Church is consoled and succored as with the balm of the olive), but it may also refer to the rising power of Israel (the Olive).

Petrus Romanus ("Peter the Roman"). The last Pope, whose name will probably be Peter II. This motto is accompanied by a description referring to the last persecutions and to the last judgment.

|j 19. Monk Hilarion (15th century). "Before the Christian churches are reunited and renovated, God will send the Eagle who will travel to Rome and bring much happiness and good.

The Holy Man will bring peace between the clergy and the Eagle, and his reign will last for four years. After his death God will send three men who are rich in wisdom and virtue. They will spread Christianity everywhere. There will be one flock, one shepherd, one faith, one law, one life, and one baptism throughout the world.

"The people of the peninsula of Europe will suffer by needless wars until the Holy Man comes. The Lion will come from

Paragraph 20 21

a high mountain in the enlightened nation. Then will the people of the half-moon of the tribe of Agar overrun many nations towards midnight and commit many atrocities. They will stay three years destroying everything. Yet, in the third year, will one of the unconquerable Eagles who reigns over the enlightened nation between the Rhine and the North sea, with a great army meet them by the mouth of the River Rhine and, in a fearful battle, almost entirely annihilate them."

Comment: This prophecy contains much symbolism and is anything but clear. A few details, however, stand out, and with correlations drawn from other prophecies, it is possible to suggest a tentative explanation: the Eagle, who is also often called the Lion, is the Great King, at first disliked by the Clergy, but who will be supported by the Pope. Of this Pope it is said elsewhere that he will be very holy (hence: "Holy Man"), yet very firm (will rule with u a rod of iron"). He will restore the former disciplines (apparently abolished by a previous Pope), and he will censure the bishops who refuse to submit to his rule. It is under his leadership that the Church will be reborn. He will reign only four years, and three more Popes are to follow him. Then, the scriptural prophecy "one flock, one pope, one faith" will be fulfilled.

Before the reign of the Holy Man, however, Europe — and Italy in particular — will suffer greatly through wars. The Mohammedans will take advantage of the complete anarchy in Europe and invade the land (a great many prophecies say so). But they will eventually be thrown back into the sea by the Great King who comes from the Ardennes, in Belgium (The Ardennes is the cradle of the Capetian Royal family).

|f 20.1 Old English Prophecy (On a tombstone at the Kirby cemetery, Essex).

When pictures look alive, with movements free,

(T.V. and movies)

When ships like fish swim beneath the sea,

(Submarines)

When men outstripping birds can soar the sky,

(Jets and rockets)

Then half the world deep drenched in blood shall die.

|f 20.2

In Germany begins a dance,

22 Catholic Prophecy

Which passeth through Italy, Spain and France.

But England shall pay the piper.

(A 20th-century German prophecy says exactly the same thing: strife will start in Germany, spread to Italy, France and Spain, but England will suffer most.)

fl20.3

When Our Lady shall lie on Our Lord's lap,

Then England will meet with a strange mishap.

(This seems to refer to a Feast of Our Lady occurring between two Feasts of Our Lord, perhaps a Feast of Mary on Easter Saturday by opposition to Good Friday when Our Lord rested on Mary's lap after the Crucifixion)

|f 21. St. Pius X (20th century). "I saw one of my successors taking to flight over the bodies of his brethren. He will take refuge in disguise somewhere; and after a short retirement he will die a cruel death. The present wickedness of the world is only the beginning of the sorrows which must take place before the end of the world."

|f 22. Pius XII (20th century). u We believe that the present hour is a dread phase of the events foretold by Christ. It seems that darkness is about to fall on the world. Humanity is in the grip of a supreme crisis."

Comment: After quoting St. Pius X and Pius XII, however, it is of some interest to contrast what John XXIII said at the opening of the Second Council of the Vatican:

"We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world was at hand.

'in the present order of things, Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by men's own efforts and even beyond their very expectations, are directed towards the fulfilment of God's superior and inscrutable designs. And everything, even human differences, leads to the greater good of the Church."

Comment: On the strength of this declaration we cannot but observe that John XXIII disagreed with St. Pius X and Pius XII, as well as with all the holy souls who have been granted

Paragraph 23 23

private revelations. Further, we are now to believe that men's efforts will, automatically so to speak, bring about the fulfilment of God's designs, even though men's efforts today are not conspicuously directed to the greater glory of God. I cannot help recalling one of the pet theses of Teilhard de Chardin (whose books were condemned by the Holy Office) which equated human progress (technological or otherwise) with spiritual development. The last sentence of the above passage further aggravates this piece of Teilhardian humanism by claiming that even differences lead to the greater good of the Church. May I suggest that since 1962, when this address was given, the growing differences within the Catholic Church do not appear to have done a lot of good! Karl Marx, to be sure, taught that conflicts and differences always work for the good of the cause concerned, but we were not quite prepared to hear this from the mouth of a Pope. In justice to good Pope John, however, I must add that this opening address was written for him by the then Cardinal Montini.

Let us go back to the safer ground of our prophecies. As you will see in due course, many tell us that men's present efforts will lead the world to chaos and destruction. Biblical prophecies, too, warn us that the end will be close when men worship the work of their own hands — which is precisely the case today when machines and motor-cars are more important than children, when higher production targets are boldly promoted along with abortion laws.

|| 23. Bishop Christianos Ageda ( 12th century). "In the 20th century there will be wars and fury which will last a long time; whole provinces shall be emptied of their inhabitants, and kingdoms shall be thrown into confusion. In many places the land shall be left untilled, and there shall be great slaughters of the upper class. The right hand of the world shall fear the left, and the north shall prevail over the south/'

jj 24. St. John of the Cleft Rock (14th century). "It is said that twenty centuries after the Incarnation of the Word, the Beast in its turn shall become man. About the year 2000 A.D., Antichrist will reveal himself to the world."

1f 25. Sister Bouquillion (19th century). "The beginning of the end shall not come in the 19th century, but in the 20th for sure."

|j 26. Old Saxon Prophecy. "The seven-headed city, now

24 Catholic Prophecy

more admirable than Jerusalem, shall be a place more desolate than Jerusalem. The Dog shall enter Germany but shall afterwards forsake his master and choose for himself a new man, whereby Scripture shall be fulfilled. This Dog shall signify the Turk which shall forsake his Mohammed and choose unto him the name Christian, which is a sign the day of doom is at hand, when all the earth is subject unto God, or that all people acknowledge one only God. The Fleur-de-Lys (lily) and France shall live long at variance, but at last agree. Then shall the clear Word spring forth and flourish throughout the world.

"But after all these things the end of the world shall approach, and there shall be heavy and pitiful days."

Comment: The seven-headed city is probably Rome (septicolis — seven hills). Other prophecies predict that it will be looted and destroyed by the Mohammedans, who will go as far as Germany where, as we have seen, they will be defeated by the Great King. The King will cross the seas and carry the war into Arab lands, which will eventually bring about the conversion of the Mohammedans. France will be without a monarchy for a long time, but it will be finally restored and, as a result, French thinkers will spread words of truth and wisdom (instead of errors and follies). All these things will take place during the reign of the Great European and Christian King, shortly before the coming of Antichrist and the end of the world (See previous prophecies in this respect).

|| 27. Old German Prophecy. "When the world becomes godless, revolutions will break out against kings. Fathers will fight their sons, and the sons their fathers. The doctrine will be perverted, and they will try to overthrow the Catholic Church.

Men will be pleasure-loving. A terrible war will find the North fighting the South. The South will be led by a Prince wearing a white coat with a cross on the front; he will be lame afoot.

He will gather his forces at Bremen for Mass. Then he will lead them into battle beyond Woerl near the birch-tree country (Westphalia). After a terrible battle at a brook running eastwards near Berdberg and Sondern, the South will be victorious.

Comment: This prophecy does not contradict Bishop Ageda's quoted earlier. For the North will be victorious at first (See St. Methodius and Pius IX above). Note, too, the

Paragraph 27 25

prediction about the perversion of doctrine in the Catholic Church, which is the case today, especially since the introduction of the New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) which has given official status to earlier anti-Catholic trends.

Again, the overthrow of the Catholic Church has now become a very real threat with the existence of IDO-C to which many priests belong.

This prophecy mentions also the Prince who will be "lame afoot." He is none other than the Great King to-be. His lameness is also referred to by Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich in a 19th-century prophecy which we shall see later. This Prince, or King, whose arrival is foretold in a large number of prophecies, will engage the enemy although his forces will be greatly outnumbered. He will first take his troops to Mass and, with the help of God, he will throw back the enemy. The battle described above is that of the "Birch-tree," well known by all students of private prophecies and described in many prophecies. It will be fought mainly against Russian and East German troops. The King's troops will be mainly made up of Spanish, Italian, Austrian and French soldiers. All these precisions may well seem incredible, but that is what the prophecies say. The reader may not believe it all (but, please, spare me the disgrace of thinking that I am making up stories, for I am only relating what I have read).

The American reader may wonder why American troops have nowhere been mentioned so far. Indeed, except for a few prophecies mentioning rather vaguely some overseas soldiers who may or may not be Americans, the presence of the U.S.A. in Western Europe is nowhere clearly indicated in the hagiographical prophecies that I know of. There is some reason to believe that the U.S.A. will have its hands full in the Far-East, and will also have to deal with serious civil strife at home. This may explain why the U.S.A. will not intervene in Western Europe at the beginning. It must also be borne in mind that the coming disaster (which I purposely do not call World War III) is not likely to start with a conventional foreign invasion, but rather internally through civil war and revolution. In this case, American intervention would be very unlikely indeed.

#catholic prophecy

2 notes · View notes

grapevynerendezvous · 4 years ago

Photo

The Byrds - Fifth Dimension

The album Fifth Dimension took flight following two ground-breaking albums that had melded the innovative essentials of the British Invasion with the burgeoning folk-pop music scene happening in the U.S. With the release of their first album The Byrds blended those styles into what came to be known as folk-rock. Although they may not have been the only ones to do this, nor the actual first to produce it, they became the most influential artists to do so. With Fifth Dimension, things took a left turn straight into the stratosphere of psychedelia and toward Raga as well, plus a bit of a right turn toward country music. The album contained all that, although it was perhaps not so well executed as their first record.

In March 1966 the single Eight Miles High b/w Why was released for take off. It turned people, as the saying goes, on their ears. The band and their manager Jim Dickson recorded the two songs at RCA Studios in December 1965, and those songs were a creative leap for them. According to Columbia all recording had to take place at the label’s studios and, with their house producers. The re-recording took place in January. The bulk of the song was written by band member Gene Clark, who had become the band’s primary songwriter, but Roger (Jim) McGuinn and David Crosby were co-writers. By the time the song came out Clark had departed. The “official reason given for his departure was it was due to his fear of flying which prevented “him from fulfilling his obligations with the group”, according to Johnny Rogan in his book, The Byrds: Timeless Flight Revisited. The reality was that it also had something to do with general anxiety issues. Of course, there was that little affair with a certain “Mama” in another up and coming band as the year progressed.

The remaining quartet, McGuinn, Crosby, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke were left to complete the album which was recorded over the next three months and released in July. The other single that was released, 5D (Fifth Dimension) b/w the instrumental, Captain Soul, came out one month before the album. The two singles were victims of being banned due to alleged drug references by certain stations and markets. This, in part at least, helped prevent them from going higher on the charts than they did. Eight Miles High, which topped out at No.14 on Billboard and 24 on UK Singles, was also cited for being comparably noncommercial and complex for the average listener. 5D (Fifth Dimension) was another, perhaps even more psychedelic track, that only reached 44 on Billboard and never charted in the U.K. The composer, Jim McGuinn, was being cerebral and metaphysical in his approach to the song, trying to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity while also citing Don Landis’ book 1-2-3-4 More, More, More, More as inspiration. Yet a large amount of the audience was interpreting the abstract lyrics as relating to an LSD trip. The other songs written by McGuinn for the album were also eclectic. Mr. Spaceman, which got some radio airplay in some areas, was definitely a lean into country music with by no means typical country style lyrics. 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Lear Jet Song) was novelty song. The main characters of the song were a Lear jet and a pilot preparing to take off in it while the band sang a ten-word phrase repeatedly throughout the entire song. The next song on the album, I See You, co-written by McGuinn and David Crosby, has a jazzy feel and contains some effective 12-string guitar solos. What’s Happening!? is David Crosby’s lone solo composition on the album and presaged his hippie ethos rants to come. Crosby was also the catalyst for including his version of the garage rock song Hey Joe that The Leaves made into a Top 40 hit. The Leaves version came after hearing both The Byrds and Love play it at shows in the LA area. It is a song that is said to have been written by Billy Roberts. There are other claims to its’ authorship as well, but Roberts holds the copyright. Crosby brought it to the band in the first place and wanted to record it before they had gone into the studio. The rest of the band was not excited about it, but by the time they were in the Fifth Dimension session Crosby was was so angry because The Leaves already had a hit and Love had also recorded it, that they agreed to let him sing it on the album. Wild Mountain Thyme, credited as a traditional song, is more directly associated with the song adapted by Belfast musician Francis McPeake and first recorded by his family in the 1950s. The source was an Irish/Scottish folk song, the lyrics and melody being a variant of Robert Tannahill and Robert Archibald Smith’ The Braes of Balquhither. The McPeake basis of this was related to me by Belfast musician, and former band member with Van Morrison, Kevin Brennan, who had personally known the McPeakes. All four band members were responsible for the instrumental Captain Soul, and they are also credited for arranging the other traditional song on the album, John Riley, which is derived from Homer’s Odyssey and interpreted through 17th century English folk ballad tradition. It was recorded by Peter Seeger in 1950. I Come and Stand at Every Door is the closing song on the first side. It originated as a 1955 poem by Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet (Ran), called Kız Çocuğu (The Girl Child). It was a plea for peace from a seven-year old girl who had died in the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima and has, of course, an anti-war message. The only composer in the album credits is Çocuğu, but he was only responsible for the Turkish poem he had written. The roots of the American song version emanate from a non-traditional melody composed by Jim Waters in 1954 to fit the lyrics of Child 113 ballad The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry. Pete Seeger describes the story behind his version of the song in his Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (A Musical Autobiography) (1993):: “Jeanette Turner did a loose English "singable translation" of the poem under a different title, I Come And Stand At Every Door, and sent a note to Seeger asking "Do you think you could make a tune for it?" in the late 1950s. After a week of trial and failure, this English translation was used by Seeger in 1962 with an adaptation of "an extraordinary melody put together by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student James Waters, who had put a new tune to a mystical ballad The Great Silkie which he couldn't get out of his head, without permission." Seeger wrote in his Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Singer's Stories, Songs, Seeds, Robberies (A Musical Autobiography) (1993), ”It was wrong of me. I should have gotten his permission. But it worked. The Byrds made a good recording of it, electric guitars and all.” Tom Clark, a poet who had a blog called Beyond the Pale, posted the poem with photos referencing Hiroshima and further discussion. Per his response further down in the comments 7 August 2015 at 03:32, “…… rest assured the credit situation had long since been settled up fair and square by the time Pete Seeger, at 90, did that amazing a capella version for Democracy Now. The song is now and forever copy(r)ighted c: Nazim Hikmet/James W. Waters.”

Eight Miles High was the last piece in the puzzle which determined if I was finally going to accept rock and roll as my musical lord and savior. Well at least one of my musical saviors anyway, jazz was already in my head. It came on the heals of music I was listening to in 1966 from the Animals, Outsiders, Young Rascals, Troggs, Syndicate of Sound, Kinks, Paul Revere & The Raiders and particularly The Yardbirds, with Shapes of Things. When I first heard Shapes of Things I knew I was hooked, and Eight Miles High confirmed it. Looking back, it appears I was wide open to the ideas of psychedelic music because both these songs have been identified as pioneers in that genre. My true turning point came when a classmate of mine and I were hanging out at school and he started asking me about my musical likes. This was not long after I had started hearing Eight Miles High on the radio and I finally admitted that I was getting hooked on rock music. I had that undeniable "gotta have it" experience going on, but I wasn't into buying 45s at that point and frankly thought it surely must be on an album. It turned out that album took an another four months from the single release to be issued. It felt like an eternity, especially since it still took me a few more months to finally buy Fifth Dimension. It is generally recognized that the Yardbirds’ song, with Jeff Beck’s Asian/Indian-Raga feedback-laden guitar solo, and the anti-war/pro-environmental lyrics, was the first popular psychedelic song. Eight Miles High, is likewise considered the first American popular psychedelic song, with The Byrds next single, 5D (Fifth Dimension), following up a few months later. What followed was a two to three-year period in which the new psychedelic music scene was explored from top to bottom, and sideways. Psychedelic music incorporated new playing techniques, use of unusual or unexpected instruments, new ideas in thought and expression. It most certainly was influenced by the growing use of drugs, particularly those labeled as psychedelics such as LSD. As was mentioned, both Eight Miles High and 5D failed to reach higher chart plateaus, at least at part, because of what was alleged to be drug references in the songs. Eight Miles High approximates the height at which jet airliners fly and was a reference to that experience. Latently both Roger McGuinn and David Crosby admitted that their own drug use had influenced their contributions to the song. McGuinn however, who wrote 5D (Fifth Dimension) as a reference to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, was disappointed by much of the listening audience assuming it was about drugs. What did he expect? It was 1966 after all, and perhaps that’s what they wanted it to be. Despite the psychedelic feel and abstract lyrics of 5D, McQuinn still somehow managed to make it sound country as well. The album ended up being a continuation of the folk-rock sound that The Byrds had helped pioneer with their first two albums. It also found them exploring what came to be known as country-rock.

A notable difference between Fifth Dimension and The Byrds’ first albums is that the band had five original compositions with four by Bob Dylan in each of them while Fifth Dimension contained eight by The Byrds and none by Dylan. The reviews of the album have been mixed, with some, such as New Express Magazine calling it "faultless" and a work that "heralds a newly psychedelic Byrds hung up on the archetypal acid-fixation with the unknown”, while others were disparaging. The general direction of criticism of the album was that it fell below the standards set by their first two albums, that it lacked energy, that it was “wildly uneven” per Richie Unterberger, or as Barney Hoskins in Mojo put it, "can't quite decide what sort of album it is”. On the other hand Billboard Magazine, later called it “their most under-rated album”. I, for one, was quite happy to not be some jaded critic. My mind was being opened up by new music, new ideas, and I could not get enough. Since I hadn’t obtained the first two albums, Fifth Dimension became my compass point for the Byrds, even though I had heard and enjoyed their first two hit songs. Fifth Dimension, with its’ various styles, was perfect for me and I listened to it repeatedly for quite a long time. It still remains one of my favorite albums. I even found a way to enjoy 2-4-2 Foxtrot (The Lear Jet Song) when I finally listened to it from the perspective of someone sitting in the co-pilot seat. Must have been at LAX.

One cut on the album had a resounding affect on me, "I Come and Stand at Every Door". I was still developing my own perspective on what was going on in the world and this song helped me look at many things differently.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Dimension_(album)

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-byrds-mn0000631774/biography

https://www.allmusic.com/album/fifth-dimension-mw0000200612

https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-Byrds

https://www.discogs.com/artist/215471-The-Byrds

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

http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2015/08/nazm-hikmet-ran-i-come-and-stand-at.html?m=1

Pete Seeger Aug. 9, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9qzZ0-qkac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ql_ADlWoY

LP15

0 notes

foiblepnoteworthy · 4 years ago

Text

Preach!!

If you don't mind the additions I wanna clear up the odd misconception:

1. Okay so people often translate Jet being manipulative for the greater good to him being manipulative for his own gain which ??? Is not how he works and y'all have no evidence for that.

For example he is treated like a rapist a lot of the time (which is gross and unfair) bc people seem to assume he kissed/slept with Katara? He defo didn't - even putting aside the fact that we would have seen it on screen if they had kissed (or it would have at least been hinted), it would have come out I'm the final confrontation of it had happened. Katara was angry about her broken trust, not about him taking advantage of her physically, and Jet didn't try to use "their relationship" to convince her to let him go or to help him, citing only their shared desire to stop the fire nation.

Jet jad also been shown to care about the greater good and doing what's right (he just got confused about what that was) and trust me he does know not to rape people? Having fuckboi vibes does not make him a fuckboi and his vibes are not a valid criticism in a serious discussion.

2. Okay but was Jet wrong to treat Zuko that way?

He wasn't even on the Earth's side yet. And whether or not you interpret them as having a deeper relationship (which I'll allow bc it wouldn't have been onscreen and it makes their relationship more interesting without actually changing either of their characters) Jet trusted Zuko, going so far as to ask him to join the Freedom Fighters (literally the most important thing to him, obviously, he basically asked if he could adopt Zuko). Of course it hurt him when he realised Zuko was Fire.

It wasn't just about Zuko though - if someone he trusted and liked and cared about that much could be Fire, who else could be Fire? How could he not get terrified and paranoid as funk when the Fire Nation was in Ba Sing See and even he couldn't tell them apart from the Earth people he wanted to protect.

So basically Jet sees uncle firebending and he is both betrayed and terrified. He is also traumatised and had no healthy coping mechanisms (unless you count adopting war orphans? but that's not really an option either after he tried that with Zuko) so his reaction is to fall back into old habits.

Meanwhile Zuko actually is fire and is still trying to capture the avatar and will later help conquer bss. Just because we like Zuko and he redeemed himself doesn't make him less of a threat to the Earth Kingdom, or less someone that Jet was entirely justified in wanting dead.

(Plus, y'know, the Dai Li wouldn't have actually done anything about Zuko bc there is no war in bss so, even though he tried getting evidence so he could go the the authorities was his first plan, attacking Zuko directly was the closest anyone got to dealing with him.)

3. This is more of a nitpick but please just remember that Jet is constantly trying to do the right thing? The only way in which he acts in his own benefit is in taking out the fire nation to make him feel safer and to get revenge.

Y'all agree that Katara would be justified in killing the man who killed her mother, purely for the sake of revenge - Jet is that plus trauma plus nobody has ever questioned his decisions ("we do what Jet says, and everything always turns out okay") plus his entire family being war orphans plus the guy who killed his parents is in the village next door.

In every way Jet is trying to do what's right (or thinks he's trying to do what's right when he actually just wants to sleep at night). And even though his methods were terrible in Gaipan, he did recognise that and changed how he behaved? He was working on his redemption arc, he just needed to do the "make amends through action" bit and he would be done. And then he did that the first chance he got even tho the Dai Li had funking brainwashed him and stripped him of what made him who he was. Zero hesitation.

It's just something to bear in mind when discussing him.

4. This isn't really a fourth point but this structure helps separate out my words so I'm keeping it. I love Zuko's trash ex idiot boi jet screaming like a witch hunter as much as the next person. He's hilarious. But I think we all need to remember that he is a different person to canon Jet. Idk if I have ever seen anyone twist a character more than I have with Jet. Fanon Jet and Canon Jet are two very different characters and criticising Fanon Jet and claiming it's canon Jet just isn't fair.

TL;DR Jet didn't sleep with Katara (you idiots), he wasn't actually wrong to attack Zuko in bss, he always tries to do the right thing, trash wheat boi is a different character to Jet and that's okay as long as you remember that.

you know what. fuck it im sick and tired of tiptoeing around the jet topic so here’s my Two fucking Cents

yall are entitled to your own opinion. let’s get that outta the way.

but i will not stand for jet slander on this blog and heres the fuck why: yall will bend over backwards talking bout azulas trauma and how her psychology was a result of child neglect and grooming and how she deserves redemption because yall feel bad for her and everything and yknow what that’s fine. y’all are right and you should say it. but you do not get to sit here and tell me that azula, who threatened, terrorized and almost certainly killed to maintain power and perpetuated an imperialist agenda while exhibiting zero remorse or compassion for anyone ever, is more deserving of sympathy or redemption than jet.

because he’s what. a fuckboy? he’s sleazy? he was a traumatized, mentally ill 16 year old doing everything in his power to provide food and shelter and safety and a purpose to his family of equally traumatized war orphans with an enemy surrounding them on all sides. he was fucking terrified! yeah he was driven by hatred but yall don’t think he was equally driven by trauma-induced fear? yall don’t think that after years of making no progress in their efforts to free gaipan that jet — who has had no one else to guide him since his village was incinerated when he was eight years old, who has been the only thing standing in between the freedom fighters and the fire nation for as many years as they’ve been around, who is the leader that needs to have all the answers all the time in order not to lose everything — didn’t just finally decide to cut his losses and wipe out the town because hey, even if we kill some innocent people, at least the kids im supposed to look out for will be able to live in peace? guys im not saying he was justified or correct but come on! there’s a difference between an excuse and a reason and y’all are perfectly willing to make that distinction for all the other antagonists of the story! just because he’s not a hot girl who’s finna shoot you with lightning?

this is the guy that said eat the rich and stole food for refugees he had no reason to give half a shit about. this is the guy who tried to start over in ba sing se, the one place he thought he would have a shot at a life untouched by the fire nation, bc he knew that the only way he could get better was distancing himself from the war front. he tried to do right by smellerbee and longshot even in the midst of his neurosis by trying to get evidence instead of going vigilante mode. and y’all really just want to sit here and tell me that he’s garbage!! that he’s undeserving of sympathy!!! y’all im sorry but if you tell me he’s unforgivable trash i am not going to believe that you understand anything about narrative nuance beyond how much you personally liked a character and that’s really all i can say on the matter!!!!!!!!!

#jet #i love him so much #making fun of him is fun #but we're not even talking about the canon character anymore #and a lot of the jet tropes you see don't actually reflect the real character #the real interesting character #theres a lot to say about jet #pls stop talking about the vibes #cuz you end up talking about a different character #i still love trash boi jet #but im so tired of never seeing the real jet #yall keep burying him #how the fuck do you write meta #this isn't what I do #im artist

787 notes · View notes

tyrantisterror · 8 years ago

Text

THE ATOM Create A Kaiju Contest Masterpost

It’s done! After nearly two months, the ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest has finally come to a close! Now it’s time for the part of the contest that actually requires significant effort on my part: picking winners and giving out prizes. This will be an incredibly difficult task because they’re all so fucking good. You guys submitted dozens of original monsters to me, creating a bizarre and wonderful menagerie. I wish they could ALL be winners, but I don’t have time to make 79(!!!) different kaiju files in a timely manner, so we’re gonna have to narrow it down a bit.

Of course, if you remember the rules of the contest, you know that every entry gets a prize by default: a sketch of each kaiju by me, with a few sentences or so of commentary as well. So here, below the cut, are the 79 (!!!) different monsters made for the world of ATOM by viewers like you!

Two special notes before we begin:

First, for the written entries: I tried to interpret everything as faithfully as I could. All the descriptions were wonderfully detailed, but as we all know, two people can read the same description and get two entirely different images in their head. There are more than a few written entries where I wasn’t 100% certain my interpretation was correct - like, where I realized it could mean something very different than what I thought it meant. So apologies if I got your vision a teensy bit wrong - I am a fallible man.

Second, for the illustrated entries: while I mostly tried to preserve your designs as they were presented, every now and then I threw out modifications - whether it was about translating between one artistic style or another, or because the concept you pitched for your monster reminded me of some things I have planned in my little fictional and haven’t thought of yet. In short, any changes made were to make your monsters fit in the ATOM universe just a little better. Again, apologies - I am a fallible man.

@raffleupagus‘s entries:

Engineered by a mad scientist to kill other kaiju with its single, enormous leg, Pogo Tomiyama is one of the weirdest concepts this contest threw out, and as you’ll soon see, that is saying something! Mixing a giant bug with one of the most iconic toys of the 1950′s is such a strange idea, but also totally in line with the aesthetic of ATOM - it’s all about that atom age nostalgia.

Pogo’s nemesis, the heroic Kaerugon, isn’t quite as bizarre, but the fact that a big toad with an even more preposterously long tongue is the “hero” of this tale is still pretty excellent (and fitting, given Pogo’s status as a great big gnat). Kareugon also reminds me, intentionally or not, of the heroic toad from The Magic Serpent, an obscure and weird little fantasy movie from Japan that ends in a pretty decent low budget kaiju battle, so props there.

@bugcthulhu‘s Entries:

Bloated and slimy, Bocagran is a prehistoric amphibian that floats because of his gassy innards. He’s got a nice Rat Fink vibe to him, mixing creepy, pathetic, and cute vibes in a way I absolutely love. His creator mentioned The Giant Claw as an inspiration, and despite one being a giant salamander and the other being a vulture, I can see it - both manage to blend “goofy” and “creepy” together into one lovable package.

A perfect companion to the Writhing Flesh and Pathogen, Dreg plays with the idea of nuclear strikes making kaiju more monstrous in an entirely new way. Having been hit by a nuclear bomb while still in his mother’s womb (well, technically still in the egg that was still in his mother but whateves), Dreg’s kaiju physiology is dangerously and uniquely unstable. He shifts between a pathetic fetal form and a mangy but dangerous fighting form depending on how well fed he is - which means he constantly has to devour flesh to maintain any semblance of power and security as a monster. Monstrous in appearance and deed, but not necessarily by nature, Dreg is as pitable as he is terrifying.

@takingturnsatrandom‘s Entries:

An enormous echinoderm even by kaiju standards (it towers over Tyrantis by 50 feet!), Blasteroid gets around in an ingenious way that would make Godzilla and Gamera proud: it flies via a pressurized jet of water! It’s one of the cooler kaiju powers I’ve ever heard of, and it’s made even cooler by the fact that Blasteroid is unambiguously heroic - continuing the ATOM tradition of non-humanoid monster being sympathetic despite their inhuman appearance.

Looking much like a modern day chupacabra sighting, Sibuan is the second (and far from the last) mangy monster in our list. As you may know, I’m slightly afraid of/repulsed by dogs, so I kinda love that the first canine monster entered into the contest is so scuzzy. Sibuan is definitely a tragic monster, though still a fearsome one with her toothy jaws and bristle-y fur.

Hammerbeak gives me a specific sort of Ultraman monster vibe - like, you can see the base animal (cassowary) in the design, but it goes down a lot of strange paths before it finishes its journey from beast to monster. The long tail tipped with a thagomizer is a particularly fun touch - it’s not often you see a bird monster take after an ankylosaur.

I tried my best not to make Vermamand’s moth look inappropriate, but Planarians work the way they work, you know? Since Planarians literally look like cheap, googly eyed monster toys, using one as a basis for an ATOM-verse monster is pretty ingenious - this fella would fit in well alongside Karamtor and Googora. The ribbon-like body also gives this worm a very distinct visual presence.

There are a lot of ways you could make an arboreal creature like a chameleon into a kaiju, but making their tree-climbing adaptations suited for an aquatic lifestyle has to be one of the nuttier ones. Turning those clasping oven mitts into flippers is such a weird idea, but it works so well!

@cerothenull‘s Entries:

A flying retrosaur that traded speed in flight for the ability to swim as well (and thus becoming triphibian), Aiguan ended up looking like the lovechild of Gamera and Gyaos. I’m not sure if that was intentional or just a lucky accident of how I read the description, but its a point in her favor regardless. I love how this takes retrosaurs - a fairly well explored monster type in ATOM - in an entirely different direction than we’ve seen in the canon monsters.

Osteogre is a strange blend of retrosaur, placoderm, and just a little bit of Creature of the Black Lagoon - ok, maybe more than a little in my rendering, but it couldn’t be helped. As soon as you say “humanoid fish” my brain goes pretty hard on the Gill Man imagery. I like that Osteogre’s chimeric build is left as a mystery - how did such different creatures get crossed together? The world may never know.

Centipedes are generally considered pretty ominous animals, so of course an ATOM-verse centipede monster would be a giant sweet heart. Scutlgor’s description had just enough specific details to set her apart from normal centipedes, allowing her to fit in with the other arthropod monsters in ATOM just fine. I also like that personality-wise she’s basically the experienced nanny to Bobo’s teenaged babysitter - those two would get along really welly.

One of the missed opportunities of ATOM was the inclusion of one Japanese mythology inspired monster in the Japan arc - a King Shisa/Manda equivalent, basically. I tried a couple of designs (both Kappa and Baku inspired kaiju were considered), but nothing gelled. So it’s kind of awesome to see a monster filling that niche pop up here in the contest, and the idea of blending an Oni’s features with a sasquatch’s is pretty inspired. Onigoro’s face was particularly fun to figure out - and yes, I worked just a little bit of Aku in there.

Cerothenull’s final entry also hits upon another monster I briefly considered but dropped from ATOM’s final lineup: the Jersey Devil. The Frankenstein-style origin for Ublen is pretty inspired, and the manic personality caused by his hybrid brain would make for some pretty awesome and scary scenes of kaiju havoc. He also maintains the idea that the scariest monsters in ATOM are also generally pitiable, which is important to me.

@skarmorysilver‘s Entries:

ATOM has been on the internet for over a decade now, albeit under different titles (from “Tyrantis’s Saga” to “The Second Age of Monsters” and on and on), and many kaiju have been added and cut from the story in that long stretch of time. Skarmorysilver chose to take a couple concepts that had been dropped and rework them a bit, and one of the monsters he rescued was this lovely blue sabre tooth cat. I’m surprised there aren’t more sabre tooth cat monsters, honestly - it’s such an iconic prehistoric predator, which you think would make it excellent kaiju fodder. Julkath here is a solid take on the concept, mixing in bits of snow leopard and a hulking, almost bear-like physique as well as a lovably grumpy disposition.

ATOM shares a universe with a few other stories that belong to somewhat different genres, and has made a few winking references to them throughout its 50 canon kaiju files. So it was to be expected that at least a few monsters entered in this contest would continue that idea. Bamutan here, while considered just a weird long fish in ATOM’s modern (well, 1950′s) world, is actually a leviathan, i.e. a big sea serpent that survived the purge of magic in the world (it’s a whole thing, don’t worry about it). Bamutan is specifically descended from the Jasconius breed of leviathans, and thus has a friendly disposition - which makes her sort of the “good” counterpart of Old Meg as far as ATOM’s sea monsters go.

Another monster saved from the scrapheap, Oz is reinvented here as a prehistoric flying marsupial - one with a whole litter of babies (not pictured here) at that! We got a lot of weird Australian kaiju from this contest, and Oz makes for a Aussie good counterpart/foil for Ahuul. Plus she adds another weird monster to the “prehistoric mammal” roster, which is always welcome.

While kaiju are defined as organic beings in ATOM, a lot of entrants tried to push the limits of that definition as much as possible, and Gnashphalt here is a pretty successful example of how far it could stretch. A rotting heap of tar and garbage animated by kaiju-fied bacteria, Gnashphalt is a grisly looking monstrosity driven by an insatiable hunger for both oil and the Yamaneon that powers its fellow kaiju. It is suitably revolting for a Hedorah/Blob expy, an archetype that ATOM doesn’t quite fill on its own.

@dinosaurana‘s Entries:

Karamtor used to have a lot of fellow Venusian monsters to keep her company, but their designs were a little redundant. Barusstrakk avoids that pitfall by being really fuckin’ weird looking, with a body described as looking like a meteor and tons of “craters” that hide little secret tentacles. Its most obvious physical trait, though are its hammer and sickle arms, which give it a sort of USSR vibe. This is particularly appropriate given Barusstrakk’s chief opponent is:

Yeah that’s a rock-robot made out of Mt. Rushmore. While not quite a kaiju per ATOM’s definition, it is powered by yamaneon, and also look at this crazy fucking thing. President Rushmore reminds me of that one episode of Dexter’s Lab where Dexter and Mandark turn the Washington and Lincoln heads into robots to battle it out, only for the Rushmore bots to realize they’re both super honest dudes and bond as friends over it. What a crazy show. What a crazy monster.

@theload‘s Entries:

ATOM’s world is an alternate universe for a lot of reasons, one of which is that its mesozoic era was a lot different than ours - instead of being ruled by prehistoric birds, it was dominated by weird crocodile descendants called retrosaurs. Birds still evolved during this period, but they didn’t dominate the world the way they did in our Mesozoic era. Pengku fleshes out that alternate evolutionary path for birds by presenting a very different sort of ancestral bird than the ones we know existed - specifically one based on very old and outdated ideas on what the ancestral bird may have looked like. Essentially a feathered, flying lizard, Pengku is as adorable as she is intriguing, and helps flesh out the alternate prehistory of ATOM.

Parakon isa Hoogah, i.e. a member of a group of dragon-like reptiles from the more fantasy-inspired part of ATOM’s universe. I hadn’t quite nailed the design philosphy of Hoogahs yet when Parakon was entered in the contest, so I took the liberty of tweaking his design just a tad to better fit with his peers. Like the magical monsters he’s related to, Parakon is sweet natured and friendly. His dimetrodon sail styled wings make him just plausible enough to fit within the sci-fi aesthetic of ATOM, too!

@connorricks‘s Entries:

Dangalar’s entry is absolutely hilarious, as his pitch is basically “what if a giant monster actually looked like a giant marionetter puppet that was poorly composited into reality?” He moves in a strange, jerky fashion, he’s held aloft by string connected to some invisible puppeteer, and no one knows what the hell he’s supposed to be. It’s absolutely eerie and yet also incredibly hilarious - and somehow manages to be even more meta than is usual for ATOM.

If nothing else, this contest made a lot of great friends fro The Writhing Flesh. Normus’s design was inspired by a picture of a half-dressed Godzilla suit actor - human above the waster, dinosaur below. In story, he’s basically what would happen if someone tried to fuse a human with three different retrosaur monsters and kaijufied the result - the kind of mad science that’s horrifyingly common in ATOM’s world. Normus is a pitable monster, but I like to think he’d eventually get used to his situation and find a way to enjoy being a giant freakish retrosaur-man.

@titleknown‘s Entries:

Our first monster designed to be ATOM’s equivalent of Ultraman, Malorel is also the strangest – and again, that’s pretty strange considering how this contest goes. Part of Malorel’s weirdness comes from the fact that she also homages The Monolith Monsters as well as characters from a couple of shows I haven’t watched yet. Like President Rushmore, Malorel isn’t a traditional kaiju, as she is mostly composed of inorganic matter. The bulk of Malorel’s body is made of Yamaneon crystals and a second substance that’s sort of the anti-Yamaneon (implied by titleknown to be Magic), while only the chewy center of the being is made of a flesh and blood human. Said human also directs Malorel’s actions, which is why she ends up fighting kaiju to defend mankind. I took a few liberties with Malorel’s design – Yamaneon crystals have a very distinct shape, and if ATOM-verse Magic were to manifest physically it would be as a gas instead of a solid – but I tried to keep the spirit in tact.

Jimmy Neutron was a pretty fun show. Panku is basically a kaiju-scaled version of the mech-suit wearing egg monsters from it, and since both Jimmy Neutron and ATOM are built on atom age sci-fi tropes, it meshes pretty well.

Based on a famous non-giant monster from the 1950’s, Jan in the Pan from The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, The Head is possibly the most explicitly villainous monster entered in the contest. A megalomaniacal supervillain whose machinations affect the storyline of every monster Titleknown entered in the contest, The Head is a force to be reckoned with even before she kaiju-fies herself. The visual of a big giant floating head battling giant monsters is pretty surreal, and the creepy neck tendrils make for a grisly visual that’s quite appropriate for such a sinister villain.

Javellaro forms an important bridge between the “humanity learns to live with monsters” story of ATOM and the “human hero kills monsters of the week” story of Titleknown’s entries. A pig whose artificial kaijufication was botched by The Head, Javellaro’s healing factor is degraded enough to not work fully, yet powerful enough to keep her going despite how painful her should-be-lethal wounds are. Her pitiable condition draws audience sympathy while still making us comfortable with Malorel putting her down – it’s honestly a mercy in this pig’s case. Tragic and haunting, Javellaro poignantly illustrates how a kaiju can invoke pathos.

A second pseudo-mecha, Playboy Rumble is similar to President Rushmore in that she’s neither a traditional mech nor a true kaiju. Instead, she’s a super powered human piloted a hard light construct (which would probably be called a hologram in ATOM’s time period) via mad science. Her human form was created to be a minion and eventual replacement body for the Head, but, in true mad science fashion, turned against her master and joined with Malorel. Playboy Rumble is also sort of our third Ultraman homage, being a human with a thing in her chest that lets her turn into a giant to fight monsters for a period of time. Also she’s a giant bunny bot, and you gotta love that.

@canadian-tuxedo-mask‘s Entries:

A hybrid of a giant ground sloth and literally the entire audience of a drive in movie theater (or their ghosts?), X-Nertha is another monster that I’m gonna label one of the weirdest ideas submitted to this contest - though, like Pogo, that weirdness is totally in line with ATOM’s aesthetic principles of mixing kaiju with 1950′s nostalgia. X-Nertha’s personality is as unique as its design, as it is a perennial spectator of other kaiju fights, rather than a combatant itself. I did my best to work in 1950′s car elements to the design, though I’m not particularly good at drawing cars in general.

Ok, nothing in Butch’s description said he was a Greaser, but nothing said he wasn’t a Greaser, and his name is Butch, so here we are. Captain Sensation’s supernatural elements aren’t apparent in an isolated black and white sketch - you need color to see the green parts of him and another monster to realize he’s kaiju-sized. I also didn’t realize until re-reading his entry that he’s got a superhero costume I could have drawn instead - look, some part of me just wanted to draw a giant Greaser, ok? Is that ok? I’m pretty fond of Butch. He’s a giant dude who shoots hot sauce (well if you want to get technical it’s just the acid from peppers but shush) out his eyes like a horned lizard and punches monsters to save the world. He’s our second or third (depending on how you count) Ultraman homage, and a damn good one at that.

An homage to the Wasp Woman (one of my favorite 1950′s monster concepts that sadly had a lackluster execution), Malzzang is an insidious Korean crime boss who uses kaiju-fied giant hornets to further her schemes, only to become one of them herself via a strange turn of events! She’s wicked and sinister even before she becomes a monster, and is an excellent “heel” kaiju. Also she gave me an excuse to draw a giant hornet with a woman’s head, and that’s always great.

Lance is another monster that takes its base animal in some weird directions, from his name-worthy pointy snoot to his slug-like eyestalks. He’s also got a dog’s brain, which somehow just makes everything weirder. He’s still got a lot of what makes an oppossum adorable though, and his personality is utterly charming.

This is one of the monsters where I felt I had a good feel of what they were going for until, like, the last sentence of the description that made me doubt the whole thing, but I liked how it turned out anyway. There should probably be a moray eel head in there somewhere - let's say it's hiding behind the seaweed. I love the idea of this giant heap of a sea monster made out of all these disparate parts - he's like the better aspects of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 rolled into one giant monster.

@highly-radioactive-nerd‘s Entries:

It’s a well-known fact that the original Baragon costume – one of the best monster suits ever made in the Showa movies – was used and reused to make so many different monsters that it was barely functional by the time Toho wanted to make Destroy All Monsters. There are so many pseudo-Baragons out there, so it’s only fitting that ATOM got one of its own. It already has a Baragon homage of course, but Blastra here is specifically designed to be a reused Baragon suit, complete with a new head and some extra doodads.

I love this guy because he does something fairly difficult: he makes me interested in duckbilled dinosaurs. Sibelisaurus takes the idea that hadrosaurs had musical horns and runs with it, making a dinosaur whose body is designed to resemble a variety of musical instruments and even has some markings that look like musical notes and rests. It’s a very clever idea that works way better than you’d think, and takes what could have been a plain retrosaur and instead makes it very interesting.

While there are lots of King Kong homages out there, surprisingly few use baboons as a base, which is shame because they’re utterly vicious and weird looking animals. King Solomon takes that savage inspiration and adds an interesting layer of greed to it – he’s not just called King because he’s big and strong, but because he hoards shiny objects. It’s like if King Kong was significantly more literal about his title.

Salagara captures the feel of a 1970’s Hanna Barbara monster perfectly, looking as if he just stepped out of the Godzilla Power Hour or The Herculoids. He’d have good company in that regard, as many of the Beyonders’ monsters were also designed to fit that vibe. His design is simple but effective, and I never tire of aliens with eyestalks.

A mummy, a landshark, AND a retrosaur, Tutandra blends three very different things into one well rounded whole. He pulls in the “archaeology adventure” story that’s also common in atom age sci-fi and mixes it with ATOM’s giant monster narrative, and the result is pretty great. Also, again, this is a giant mummified retrosaur that swims through sand like a shark. What’s not to love?

@glarnboudin‘s Entries:

Salikor is a loose homage to the primary monster of one of my favorite obscure kaiju movies, The Legendof Dinosaurs and Killer Birds. Like the plesiosaur in that film, Salikor emerges from a lake and proceeds to wreak bloody havoc upon the human populace, leaving a trail of blood and carnage in his wake until he finally has a fateful encounter with a flying retrosaur. His design is suitably vicious looking, with lipless crocodile-style exposed teeth and an armored hide.

Terravia emerges around the same time as Salikor, but unlike the monsters that inspired them, the two end up becoming lovers despite being wildly different species. It’s a pretty weird turn for a kaiju story, but not an unheard of one (more than a few lost Godzilla movie projects have similar premises). Terravia mellows Salikor out a bit, and their story has a sort of sweet “make love, not war” theme that fits ATOM well enough.

A lot of people like the idea of making retrosaurs fill niches that dinosaurs eventually filled when they became full on birds, and Tabbaogen here is an answer to the question of what a retrosaur penguin might look like. The answer is “pretty ridiculous and fun.” As his name suggests, he uses his body as a sled, much as penguins do. He’s also a lot more dangerous than he appears, which is always fun – he’d make a good tag team partner for Gorale.

@akitymh‘s Entries:

A vampiric newt from another world, Kabold’s head gives me a nice Wayne Barlowe vibe. It also reminds me a bit of Irys from Gamera 3, which is pretty neat. Its six limbed body is simple while still distinctly alien, and it has a nice collection of little tuber-thingies on its body. I love those little tuber thingies.

King Horn reminds me of all the space gorillas from Silver Age comics despite not actually being a gorilla. He’s very definitely alien, yet also unmistakably ape-y, and that’s pretty cool. Also, like a certain Ultraman monster, his name is slightly misleading, as his horns aren’t particularly prominent. I don’t know if that was intentional, but I like it.

Going with the Ultraman vibe of the last entry, Rampart here feels like a monster who was designed for a specific fight scene. Those two enormous armored plates would make for some very unique battles, with the retrosaur in between them providing just enough normalcy to ground the design. I also like how the taxonomic placement of this guy is unclear in-universe – it’s a nice touch.

I figured I took Martian anatomy about as weird as it could go with Podritak, but Sevarahz here might top that. His phallic head section is wonderfully gross, and his pelvic section, while recognizably Martian, is distorted into a really weird shape. The “tail” should probably have more limited joints since it’s technically a third leg (and Martian legs have a distinct bone structure and all), but it looks better as a serpentine tail, so we’ll let that anatomy slide a bit.

Akitymh’s final entry is Awkwas, and he’s basically a what you see is what you get monster: a great big retrosaur with a bearded dragon style frill, ready to fight other monsters and have a fun rowdy time. He doesn’t have a lot of frills to him, but in a way that’s kind of refreshing – we’ve got a lot of weirdoes in this contest, so it’s nice to have a few simple monsters for contrast.

@quinnred‘s Entries:

The most Ultraman-looking of our Ultraman homages, Odinokiy Soldat still manages to be a very weird and unique take on the “human hero who fights kaiju” concept, with his jet black skin and bone-white armored plates. The turtle-like beak is a particularly wonderful and unsettling touch. I love that, despite his grotesque mad scientist origins, he’s unambiguously a heroic monster, protecting the USSR from kaiju threats just as Tyrantis protects the US. It’s important to me that ATOM doesn’t demonize the USSR, even though a lot of what they did with nuclear testing is great monster origin fuel. I feel Odinokiy Soldat tows that line really well – his origin is horrifying, but at heart he’s a good person who happens to be loyal to his mother country, Russia.

I love plant monsters even though they’re often frustratingly hard to make – it’s so hard not to just make a new flavor of Audrey II, y’know? Papaver Magnus here not only manages to feel entirely unique in design, but also brings an interesting story hook: she intoxicates other kaiju. Sometimes this puts them to sleep, while other times it drives them into a rage. She could be a useful tool for kaiju control, or manage to make a kaiju attack even more violent than normal. A great design with a great story concept!

I didn’t expect to see an homage to my favorite sandsverse vendor in this contest, but here we are. Even if you don’t get the joke, King Bekantan is a great spin on the giant ape monster archetype in his own right. Instead of being a rough and tumble warlord, King Bekantan is a peaceful farmer who cultivates the earth (fruits in particular) and basically tries to protect the environment. There’s something eerie and beautiful about the idea of some giant ape striding the land only to spend all its time farming – it’d be such a beautiful yet surreal sight.

A collection of massive crustaceans that pretend to be islands, the Humarr Petram take the medieval folktale of a living creature that’s mistaken for an island and give it a sinister atomic age spin. These would be one of the scariest kaiju to encounter, and could make for one kickass standalone story in the ATOM universe.

Finally, we come to the Slickener, an organic giant monster who may not technically be a kaiju, as its powers seem to have a negative effect on most Yamaneon-rich organisms. While you can identify the different terrestrial animals who inspired its design, the Slickener’s design nonetheless feels incredibly alien and off putting. It’s delightfully unsettling.

@godzillakiryu91‘s Entry:

Rayken takes a monster I’ve wanted to homage for a while - the titular beast from The Giant Gila Monster – and mixes it with the mythological amphisbaena to make a wonderfully lumpy monstrosity. The fact that you could also call this a “Beast with Two Heads” adds to the delightful B-Movie vibe, and that false second head could definitely produce a lot of fun scenes, both with human victims and fellow kaiju. Imagine a human shrieking as they think the monster’s about to eat them, only to realize they were looking at the wrong end! Hilarious.

@bowlofgabe‘s Entries:

A heroic pair of conjoined twin crabs. Hell. Fucking. Yes. Clawdia is the hero kaiju of Mexico, and as far as I’m concerned she’s just as fit for the job as Nastadyne and Tyrantis. Between her light psychic powers and love of luchadores, she has more than enough personality to carry her own series of adventures, and her sisterly bond with herself (Clawdia is technically two monsters in one) provides a nice emotional center for whatever those adventures may be.

Mixing a kaiju story with the darker sides of the space race, Eldritch Ed’s haunting origin story is paired with an oddly touching relationship between him and humankind. Despite being turned into a horrific monstrosity because of a botched experiment with Yamaneon and cosmic radiation, Ed devotes his life to protecting Earth from extraterrestrial threats, turning his accidental exile in earth’s orbit into guard duty. It’s hard to get more heroic than that.

@iamthekaijuking‘s Entries:

Plume is about as “realistic dinosaur”ish as an ATOM kaiju can get, exploiting the loophole within ATOM’s prehistory that states that a small lineage of dinosaurs who were direct ancestors of birds did exist alongside the Retrosaurs. She’s a pretty addition as well, a vibrant songbird of a monster who completes the trio of maternal monsters started by Bobo and Scutlgor.

Baby kaiju are adorable and I would have added more of them to ATOM if I wasn’t worried about their safety. Bubblor is basically an infant of a species very similar to Zillser, and takes everything cute about the later and amps it up a bit. That’s a lot of cute, even in such a big package.

Shēnghuó tǎ (my Godzilla font doesn’t have symbols with the little marks) hails from Ugugular’s planet and inexplicably resembles Chinese architecture, which is pretty rad. It’s the second of a trio of monsters that serve as “good” counterparts to the other Beyonder monsters. They probably defected almost immediately when the Invasion started.

Dhyandogen completes that trio, being a peaceful counterpart to The Great Beyonder and a stoic counterpart to Pleprah. His golden coloration gives him an almost angelic feel, and he makes for a good leader for this trio of extraterrestrial pacifists.

Essentially the Biollante to Tyrantis’s Godzilla, Unit 01 has one of the most tragic backstories of any kaiju submitted to the contest. Created to kill other monsters and then forced into stasis when not in use, her life is even more miserable and battle-heavy than those of the Beyonder’s kaiju, and her story culminates in a vicious rampage that humanity frankly deserves to suffer from.

@virovac’s Entries:

Themed around its power, Artileron is basically a wholly organic dinosaur tank. The heavily armored long necked goliath has head armor that coincidentally resembles a soldier’s helmet and shoots gastroliths at its enemies like tank shells, creating a pretty fun spin on the retrosaur concept. I imagine this guy talking like the Soldier from TF2 and it makes me happy.

A synapsid that evolved to coincidentally resemble paleo tyrant retrosaurs (which in turn are crocodiles that evolved to coincidentally resemble therapod dinosaurs), it’s my head canon that Bajingis is a member of the same species that Dreg’s mother belonged to. The idea of a big furry version of a retrosaur running around is cute, and could cause an interesting bit of confusion for the kaiju-ologists in ATOM’s world. Also, Bajingis is a fun name to say.

This is one where I’m pretty sure I misinterpreted the description, as a friend of mine pointed out that it was probably an homage to the ratbatcrabspider from Angry Red Planet, but I liked what I came up with so I’m sticking with it. Regardless of how off my drawing may be, Pomogitan is a crazy looking monstrosity of a kaiju, and definitely makes the extraterrestrial side of ATOM just a little crazier.

We’ve got more than a few apes in this contest already, but they’re kind of a male dominated archetype, aren’t they? It’s nice to have a lady or two to even things out, and Hagayag’s lumpy, hideous appearance definitely keeps things monstrous in the process. Since she’s described as being close to an orangutan, and since sasquatches are distant descendants of orangutans in ATOM’s world, I gave her a few sasquatch touches as well.

@plebeiantologist‘s Entries:

Mixing the vicious savagery of a hummingbird with the suave charm of a vampire, Nosferatu is an excellent solution to ATOM’s lack of bird monsters, as well as a clever and unexpected homage to Count Dracula. I love the serrated beak that evokes fangs without actually being them, and feel the same about how the interior markings of his wings resemble a scalloped opera cape without actually being one. He’s also not an evil monster – he needs to drink blood, sure, but that’s not lethal to most kaiju (just annoying), and he’s intelligent enough to smooth things over and even make deals with other monsters to get his sustenance. Overall, a cool and clever take on the idea of a kaiju Dracula.

We’ve got a lot of sad stories and a lot of silly stories in the contest so far, but none mix the two together as thoroughly as poor Dromeo here. A normal bee that was kaijufied, Dromeo wants nothing more than to find true love, mate, and die as a result of mating. However, as the only kaijufied bee of his species, he can’t find said mate, which means he lives in a perpetual state of longing. In addition to being extremely relatable, his situation is both hilarious and tragic.

I-Am-Fish-Mage’s Entries:

Another entry that plays with some of the more occult parts of ATOM’s universe, Gurt is what would happen if Pathogen used a dog instead of a retrosaur and the naturally occurring vampire virus instead of an artificial hybrid of different degraded strains of it. Or, more simply, a great big vampiric doggo. Gurt has the telltale signs of higher functioning vampirism, from the scar-like neck markings to the growth of bat wings. Very interestingly, Gurt’s kaiju physiology keeps him from fully exploiting the malleable nature of a strigoi vampire – instead of being able to turn into mist, Gurt can only become a sort of vampiric sludge, as his kaiju physiology refuses to transform into a gaseous state (Yamaneon can only exist as a mineral). It’s a really fun and well thought out cross of two very different monster types in ATOM’s universe.

While I haven’t made a file for them yet, between Promythigor’s file and various asks people have cleaned roughly how sasquatches work in ATOM. Ignorilla takes one of the weirder aspects of ATOMverse sasquatches – the fact that they’re mildly psychic and make people forget about them as a defense mechanism – and runs with it. The result is a giant monster that people have trouble seeing or remembering, which proves to be quite the hassle when it accidentally strolls on a collision course with mankind. It’s a great hook for a story, since it makes an otherwise fairly benign monster extremely dangerous through no fault of its own. Ignorilla also has plants growing in its fur, which is a nice nod to some other obscure sasquatch myths.

@bonelessnerd‘s Entries:

I couldn’t resist. Look, it was either this or drawing essentially the same pose as the original sketch – there are only so many ways to pose a hand that keep all of this glorious monstrosity’s anatomical quirks on display. Manoamano not only fills a niche ATOM didn’t manage to cover – i.e. the living body part monster – but does so in a unique and scary way, with the implication being that it’s merely a part of a much larger kaiju drifting out in the cosmos. It’s such a creepy plot that you almost forget it’s basically a giant hand with crab claw fingers and googly eyes. But you don’t, because a giant hand with crab claw fingers and googly eyes is awesome.

Like Humarr Petram, Nogad updates the “this island is secretly a monster” myth, although in this case the twist is a lot more sad than scary. Like the Writhing Flesh, Nogad’s bulk isn’t actually a positive, as the massive kaiju is stuck in a comatose state. It would die if its kaijufied parasites weren’t keeping it alive, and instead spends its life in a state of suspended animation, providing humans the rare opportunity to explore the internal workings of a kaiju without (too much) threat of harm. Nogad is spooky, sad, and intriguing, and would be a marvelously odd addition to ATOM’s kaiju ecosystem.

A size shifting dog with plastic skin, Rizablitz is basically Frankenweenie with an even bigger kaiju twist (and also less racism). The resurrected pupper can size shift from a normal sized dog to a kaiju-sized monster, and together with his owner he protects humanity. It’s a fun take on the “kid and their dog” story, and a nice light counterpoint to the previous two entries.

@polygonfighter‘s Entries:

A kaijufied personification of the La Brea Tar pits, Index is a mass of tar animated by kaijufied bacteria and wearing fossilized bones as armor. Its powers have a vaguely ghostly vibe, and it preys on its fellow kaiju with the aims of decorating its lair with their corpses even as they slowly turn into clusters of Yamaneon. Altogether it has a nice ghoulish vibe – the kind of monster that would make other monsters scared.

Another monster that has a great Hanna Barbara vibe, Volcanus’s bug-like appearance is mixed with some strangely human features to make it extra creepy (and also hard to place taxonomically). While he’s posed as a rival for Index, he definitely isn’t the heroic part of the duo, as Volcanus is noted to hate everyone, kaiju and human alike, with explosive intensity. Creepy and vicious, Volcanus is an excellent antagonist monster.

SirKaijuOfVaudeville’s Entry:

A great big subterranean monster, Torgong’s story is another one that brings in some Archaeological Adventure tropes to ATOM’s universe, providing a villainous contrast to the Reptodites with its society of subterranean mole people (mole in the “they live underground” sense, not the literal sense). Torgong’s owners are wicked race of rock eating cave dwellers who have enslaved another race of more peaceful, slightly insectoid cave dwellers. Torgong is of course their bestial god, and looks nice and freaky as a mole monster should.

@scatha5‘s Entry:

Being a mammal, Cervere brings some diversity to ATOM’s pantheon of monsters basically by default, but his powers are what truly make him shine. Cervere is designed to be a kaiju-repellant, with a scent designed to drive other kaiju away. That’s right: it weaponizes the odorous nature of mammals. Cervere releases this smell through a colored gas emitted by its mouth and ears, providing a nice visual for its power as well. Unfortunately for the lazy cat, the power can attract and repel in equal measure, and sometimes Cervere is forced to fight against monsters it was supposed to scare off. It’s a really clever power that makes ties this punk rock kitty together quite nicely.

@cstalli‘s Entry:

As beautiful as they are alien in appearance, the Trifitan Arum are a gorgeous entry in the contest (make sure to check out the original drawing, which is a lot prettier than anything I can manage). Though they appear humanoid, they’re entirely made of terrestrial (albeit hybridized and heavily mutated) plants. They’re also a swarming monster – weak individually, but strong when collected in a large group, making them sort of a benevolent counterpart to the Heisei Gyaos.

@profcene‘s Entry:

A prehistoric aquartic hyena, Gevlek is yet another monster that feels sort of like a Hanna Barbara design (and that is always a compliment here as far as monsters go). Contrary to stereotypes, Gevlek isn’t a malicious bully or a cowardly predator, but rather a social creature that wants a clan. Like most ATOM-verse monsters, though, he’s also kind of socially awkward, so finding that clan is harder than it seems – especially since he’s the only member of his species around. Still, he’s a clever creature, and, again like many of his peers, he proves a valuable ally once you get past his rough edges.

@ask-drakos‘s Entries:

There were far less birds than I was expecting in this contest, but on the plus side the ones we have are all varied and solid designs. Okhalee is a victim of quick kaijufication, much like the Myrmidants and Girtabane, which means he resembles a normal animal with some sudden and extreme mutations. Most notably, he takes the vocalizations that make songbirds so interesting and weaponizes them into a sonic scream – a power that’s strangely absent from ATOM’s lineup of kaiju given how prevalent it is in kaiju media. Kinda fills a couple missing niches at once, huh?

We end with Crab Voltron. Well, ok, technically Crustacean Voltron since they’re not all crabs, but Crab Voltron is more fun to write. It’s an appropriately weird idea to end with, I think, and like so many lunatic things in ATOM, this one is the fault of a mad scientist. And y’know what? It’s honestly not the weirdest thing mad scientists have done in this world. In fact, Crab Voltron is almost a logical response, and I love that.

And that’s it! That’s all 79 entries! I cannot overstate my satisfaction with the results of this contest. The amount of creativity on display her is astounding, and I absolutely adore how game you guys were for playing with my little monster story. Make sure to check out the originals, as linked to in this post, and stay tuned for the announcement of the winners and the presentation of prizes and all that! It should take me… oh, maybe a week or two?

“Why so long?” you ask. Well… look, this contest got roughly 4 times as many entries as I expected, and all of them are so high quality. I can’t limit myself to five winners - there have to be more, which means more work for me, which means I need some time to pull it off. So savor these sketches while you wait, because this might take a while.

#ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest #Atomic Time of Monsters #kaiju #giant monsters

109 notes · View notes