#it's literal history this is 100% accurate

[definitely-not-an-alb]

I tried to do the read-along podcast thing with my Berserk reread/ending-catchup but dear god these dudes are embarrassing

[madwomanxx]

Thoughts on Storie from Styx musical

I want to start this off with a disclaimer

I'm going to be mostly talking about Persephone, Hades, and Demeter

This is just Act 1, and these three will take up most of my discussion

Don't tell me this is just inspired by ____it doesn't need to be accurate, because I agree with you!

It doesn't mean I can't compare or explain my thoughts on what works or doesn't work for me in comparison to the original myths

I mean NO hate, nor do I want to shame people, and I'm not saying you have to write anything a certain way

I change many things in my own writing of the gods, which I know a lot of people would hate

I talk about art out love for it or the vision, not out of malice

I also need everyone to know I LOVE these gods and the relationship between Hades and Persphone, so I'm not biased against any of them

Thoughts:

Praise:

1- I'll admit, I was skeptical of Casper's singing prior to the musical. I just didn't like the covers I heard from him, but here? Gorgeous! Amazing vocals that complement the music very well

2- Everyone's vocals are amazing and filled with emotions, the music chosen matches the tone perfectly

3- Hera joining Zeus was good characterization of her, the fact they only duet with each other is a nice touch

These two have a complicated relationship in the myths, and I'm glad to see Casper didn't make them hostile from the start. It's such a simple decision that I adore!

4- I like using the Muses to tell the story, it reminds me of the Iliad beginning with a call for them to tell/sing the story of Achilles' rage

Again, very nice attention to detail!

5- The sound effect on the Muse's voice was explained to bridge between modern times and the mythic times- I believe Casper explained this previously??I love the idea!

I imagine the Muses in a pub singing this into a cheap mic to very lucky mortals

6- I'll get to Demeter later, but if you take her song without the Persephone verse and all the musical context, it's SO PERFECT

Like, I AGREE WITH YOU GIRL!! It just captures her and hell MY feelings too XD!

Everything else:

I'll get this out of the way before anyone comes at me—no, there's not a single version in myths, no Greek or Roman myth EVER says or even implies that Persephone went to Hades willingly, that she knew him in any capacity before he kidnapped her, or that there were any complications between her and Demeter

These are 100% fully modern changes with no basis in myths

Mythology is culture and history, our writings on it don't suddenly become mythology

It's literally a field of study, in college, do they study Madeline Miller's Circe? Or write academic papers on Circe as a source for that ancient civilization? No

The original myth is literally the most feminist thing a society that old ever made

I don't think people fully realize how empowering that myth is

Nor do they bother to think that many women in thirdworld countries still live that reality to an extent

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone is not feeling trapped or bothered by living on the surface with her mother

literally the opposite:

"She [Persephone] was having a good time, along with the daughters of Okeanos."

I FEEL LIKE I'M TRAPPED OH, I FEEL LIKE I'M FROZEN I FEEL LIKE I’LL NEVER BE THE CHOSEN I’LL NEVER BE THE ONE TO TAKE A STAND

More examples:

I’LL BE YOUR QUEEN, NOT SOME IDEAL FOR BEAUTY SHACKLED ME ABOVE, DOWN HERE, I’D LIKE TO BUILD A LOVE I’M ASKING YOU, DO YOU TRULY SEE ME?

"He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot And drove away as she wept. She cried with a piercing voice, calling upon her father [Zeus], the son of Kronos, the highest and the best. But not one of the immortal ones, or of human mortals, heard her voice."

The musical is slightly better than other adaptations of Demeter

she at least seems to be unaware of Persephone's unhappiness

Persephone even says:

MY INNOCENCE IS GUARDED YET MY DAD HAS ME DISCARDED THAT’S WHY A MOTHER’S LOVE’S MY SWORD AND SHIELD

The issue is that Demeter and Persephone don't have any of that. Persephone wasn't happy with Hades at first:

"He (Hermes) found the Lord inside his palace, seated on a funeral couch, along with his duly acquired bedmate, the one who was much under duress, yearning for her mother, and suffering from the unbearable things inflicted on her by the will of the blessed ones."

Then Hades gives a very sweet speech that he'll treat her well (recommend reading it), and you know what Persephone's reaction to it ?

"So he spoke. And high-minded Persephone rejoiced. Swiftly she set out, with joy, but he [Hādēs] gave her, stealthily, the honey-sweet berry of the pomegranate to eat, peering around him. He did not want her to stay for all time over there."

And this is Persephone retelling what happened herself to Demeter:

“So then, Mother, I shall tell you everything, without error. When the messenger came to me, the swift Argos-killer, with the news from my father, the son of Kronos, and from the other dwellers in the sky, that I should come from Erebos, so that you may see me with your own eyes and let go of your wrath and terrifying mēnis against the immortals, then I sprang up for joy, but he, stealthily, put into my hand the berry of the pomegranate, that honey-sweet food, and he compelled me by biē to eat of it."

I don't think I can make it clearer how close and loving they are, so instead :

Why it matters to keep their loving relationship and how it's empowering both

It is an arranged marriage, but both weren't made aware of it.

They were happy together

Persephone is taken

She screams for help

She screams so loud for her father or anyone to help

Nobody hears, and those who do, don't interfere

Her voice gets so loud her mom from far away finally hears

She comes running, Is her daughter going to get raped like she was?

Not many things can hurt gods, after all

She asks and walks the earth calling for Persephone, until finally, Hecate tells her she was taken, but she doesn't know who

They search together aimlessly until Helios, the sun itself, feels pity

He tells her who took Persephone, but he also tells her to give up... basically, suck it up.

Hades is powerful, and he makes for a far better husband than most others

Persephone could do worse

Worse could happen to Persephone

Really, this isn't that bad of an outcome

She won't accept it. The whole world will suffer the same grief the gods have caused her

If her daughter won't be free, then she'll hold the world hostage instead

And it works

Her daughter is back, safely in her arms again

Yet, she's bound to the Underworld for some time of the year

That's not so bad, is it? She won. THEY won

Persephone is free, even if it's only part of the year

But she's not fully trapped down there. She makes her own place. She embraces her darkness and title.

Hades treats her with respect and kindness

Sure, the marriage isn't ideal, but he doesn't just love her—he respects her

And maybe, she can learn to love him too

Gods have different standards, after all

One last thing

I didn't know where to add this so, here

in the musical, Persphone calls out Zeus for disregarding her before Hades even came to the picutre, I actually like this addition

It doesn't really have any basis in myths but it's a clever way of interpreting the lack of myths regarding her and Zeus ( or even her siblings you can argue )

That being why Demeter became her sword and shield

Everything about that verse's implications and set up I love and never saw anyone make something similar to it!

Which adds to my sadness that we're still painting Demeter as unreaonsable or at least doesn't hear her daughter out, Demeter seems like a none abusive version of Mother Gothel ?? this is best way I can describe my feelings

[riddlemearose]

Linked Universe Combat Guide (part 2)

This is Part 2 of my attempt to make my fight scene notes into a coherent and understandable guide. Lord only knows if I'm being successful on that.

Part 1 can be found here.

General Notes once again:

The additional weapons/equipment is anything outside of the literal sword and shield you get in-game that could be used as a weapon, but does not include bombs, bows + arrows, or boomerangs bc I'm not writing that every time.

7 out of 9 Links are left-handed and this will have an affect on combat if they're fighting against human enemies.

-> any ambidextrous fighters in the group is largely a headcanon but go nuts w/ it.

This is looking at lore-accurate fighting ability bc you can scale down to however you headcanon they fight. Any additional arguments are logical conclusions/presumptions I'm making off of their in-game skills and/or character history.

Once again, researched to the best of my ability but I'm not claiming this has everything in every game. Fact checking is welcomed!

Also here's an article discussing the pros and cons of chainmail vs plate armour, since this group is the more armoured lot of the Chain

Minor update 9 March 2025: added a link to a reblog explaining a note on Warriors' section in better depth.

Upadte 3 May 2025: added more info to Warriors' section, provided by @interlink-au, as well as amended & added to other sections with more info they gave me in their reblog.

Sky

The most important thing in Skyward Sword’s combat is that you are fast. You Are Speed. That is Sky’s greatest advantage.

Feint. Always, always feint; then, when the enemy goes to block the feint, quickly attack from the opposite direction.

Sword techniques*: -> Shield Bash: reflects projectiles and knocks enemies off balance. Requires perfect timing but leaves an opening to take advantage of. -> front-flip slash -> back-flip slash -> jump attack -> fatal blow -> Skyward Strike/Sword Beams *Certain techniques cost stamina.

Unlike Warriors and Wild, Sky is near the start of the timeline, meaning he doesn’t have the same type of modern military-esque knighthood structure that future versions of Hyrule have. Consequently, we don’t see anyone in Skyward Sword really use any weapons outside of short swords, leading me to believe Sky’s main proficiency is really in them alone.

Sky is highly adaptable in a fight. He learns very quickly when enemies will block and when they will go to attack, which means he can deal with them extremely quickly. Arguably this means that he is not exactly built for long-term fights, but he can get through them if he must. I’d almost call him as a Glass Cannon, but he’s sturdier than that, so he gets the Lightning Bruiser name tag instead.

Happily arguing that Sky would be very good at mounted archery, even if it's obviously different to horseback. I know Loftwings can be taught that corkscrew manoeuvre that acts as an attack, but given sword-based combat wouldn't be feasible when you're riding a giant bird so I'm dying on this hill.

Additional Equipment/Weapons: -> whip (pls use this, whip fighting is great. They can deal a lot of damage if you hit someone with the end.) -> clawshots -> slingshot/scatter-shot -> gust bellows -> guardian potion+ (invulnerability, baby!)

Time

Time is fun bc he’s about 20 years older than he was during his adventures, which means you can kinda go ham with what he does and doesn’t know.

To kick things off, Time gets the honour of being the first Link (on this list) to have canonical multiple sword proficiencies: longsword, and short sword + shield. I will very happily argue and die on the hill that Time 100% has some staff proficiency given how Deku sticks can be used in OOT. If you go with this, use European-style quarterstaff techniques instead of Chinese-style bō/gun staffs.

The Biggoron sword isn’t any specific type of longsword, given the sheer weirdness of its blade shape. I think most people seem to agree that it’s a great sword, which at the extreme basics is essentially a longer longsword. I use claymore combat videos to get a feel for writing the Biggoron sword, and have used this specific video a few times.

Given Time’s +20 years from his adventures, we all pretty much believe he's mastered the Hidden Skills he passes onto Twilight, both with a short sword and the Biggoron sword. These are still gonna be listed in Twilight’s segment however, given they feature in his game.

Time also has a magical aspect to his combat, both in terms of literal magic items and then his two combat-focused spells.

Potentially Combat-Focused Masks: -> Transformative Masks: Deku Mask, Zora Mask, Goron Mask, Fierce Deity Mask, Giant’s Mask -> Other Masks: Blast Mask, Bunny Hood, Stone Mask

Spells: -> Din’s Fire -> Nayru’s Love

Important note: as stupid as this reminder is going to sound, Time only has one eye. He has a decreased field of view and decreased depth perception. He probably has a way to compensate for this, but it is a disability that shouldn't be forgotten. My mother is visually impaired in one eye and it affects how she reads things, how she drives, how she uses footpaths etc etc. It's not ableist to remark on Time's partial lack of sight. If anything, how he compensates for it is something I've been meaning to explore - I just haven't been able to get my head to world build it coherently.

Thanks to interlink-au for reminding me I didn't add this, but Time is good at mounted combat. I'm hesitant to say he's able to do mounted archery with his vision impairment though as, if I use my mother's experience (legally blind in one eye but has some vision), his depth perception is probably crap.

Additional Equipment/Weapons: -> powder keg (yes, Time carries TNT) -> hookshots -> longshot -> Deku nut -> Deku stick -> slingshot -> golden gauntlets -> megaton hammer -> Great Fairy Sword (according to info found by interlink-au, this is now likely an arming sword, which is just a fancy word for a broadsword tbh) -> Gilded Sword

Twilight

The Tank™

Most adept at horseback combat. An FYI but the fact that Twi defaults to using a one-handed sword on horseback is extremely telling of this point. For the most part, light cavalry were equipped with polearms/lances and bows with a sabre on the side. I know it's partially an animation thing but Twi being confident enough to get close to an enemy on horseback to use a one-handed sword is huge sign of his skill and proficiency.

Hidden Skills: -> Ending blow -> Shield attack -> Back slice -> Helm Splitter -> Mortal Draw (my beloved <3) -> Jump Strike -> Great Spin

Extremely important to remember how stupidly strong Twilight is. Dude can yeet a charging Goron, only needing his iron boots to stay where he is. This can be showcased in multiple ways: fist-fighting, emphasis of the strength of his shield bash, etc etc. He's likely capable of hand-to-hand combat as well, given his strength and knowledge of sumo wrestling.

Most tanks are slow, but Twi is actually rather speedy, even as a hylian.

(Btw if Twi places a bomb on the ground in front of him and holds his shield up, he will take no damage when the bomb explodes. Fantastic way to kill stalfos and annoy Darknuts.)

Additional Weapons/Equipment: -> slingshot -> ball and chain -> clawshots -> dominion rod (if you're feeling experimental) -> spinner (?????? Somehow????) -> crossbow -> Twi’s weird magic armour (note: crossbows don't actually replace bows; they have their own pros and cons. See this YouTube short for some context)

As a wolf:

This is where Twilight becomes less of a Tank and more of a Glass Cannon. Wolves are very fast and, depending on how much Twili magic you headcanon Twilight has access to, he can get in and out of combat easily.

But most importantly, Twilight has very little defence as a wolf so he can't tank hits nearly as well as he can as a hylian (as the comic has already shown).

Main threat is obviously his jaw strength; Twilight is able to latch onto enemies, usually by biting down on their throats or shoulders. Pls be aware that ordinary wolves can bite through bone if they get the angle right.

Normal wolves don’t attack with their claws bc they’re not cats, but Twilight has human-level intelligence and can do whatever he wants within the confines of his body.

Twi also has a charge spin attack as a wolf. Do with this knowledge what you will.

Warriors

Proficient in multiple weapons and has adaptable fighting styles.

A few of his canonical fighting styles are listed at the end but depending on which era of knighthood you want to take inspiration from, he can also be proficient in lances and pole-arms, long-swords and sabres, and hand-to-hand combat (predominately Greco-Roman style wrestling but don’t let that stop you).

No specific sword techniques shown outside of the spin attack and jump slash. -> Updated info from interlink-au, which I'm just going to copy and paste for ease of access, with minor edits so this doesn't get bogged down: "First off, he is very fast. He needs to get around that battlefield quickly to help struggling allies. Even without the Master Sword, he can do something similar to a sword beam (a disc-shaped air slash). With the Master Sword, his swords beams are ridiculous. He can spam those things left and right and in the air, and send 3 at the same time. He can also do a vertical spin and spin attack into the air, where he can get some normal slashes in while he’s aerial. He can juggle enemies in the air for a second. He has a move where he dodges and immediately follows with a thrust. Its use reminds me of Wind’s parry attack. He also has a shield bash (more like a charge) followed by a sword thrust. Wars' magic rod doubles as a fire rod. The magic rod portion shoots laser beams and controls orbs. The fire portion can send out fire pillars/tornados. He can even send out a stream of fire that flies around like a dragon. He can even transform it into a battle axe for some reason."

Also proficient in combat on horseback but I’m not listing his Epona as a weapon lmao. -> interlink-au added that Wars is good at mounted archery too!

Has an innate passive (potentially magic?) ability to tag enemies with a ‘Light Mark’, which causes them to take increased damage from every attack for as long as his Triforce mark is glowing. This is triggered after a certain amount of enemies are killed and ends a few seconds after he stops dealing damage. Best used in his era but still viable in others.

Also, Wars’ lil inverse-grip upward slash finisher for one of his Master Sword combos? *chef’s kiss emoji* we love to see it -> (reverse grips are technically not great bc of the increased chance of literally breaking your wrist, among other things. However it looks cool as hell) -> Update: for more info on this bc I hadn't explained it well, I've covered it in more depth in this reblog here.

A lot of Wars’ fighting style is best copied from visual mediums, but given that search results generally like to give you Age of Calamity videos, this video is a good one to focus on. interlink-au also points out that his other fighting styles in-game are very useful to study visually, but I'm not going to list them here in-depth. Here are some links to videos for them. -> Ball and Chain (note: power/silver gauntlets should be thought of as separate too and would be very good for intense hand-to-hand combat - think Vi from Arcane). -> Spinner -> Magic/Fire Rod

Full disclaimer I tried to play Hyrule Warriors in December. I got through 5 hours and the game gave me such wicked eye strain I couldn't look at a screen for 2 days straight so I had to stop. But what I did pick up is Wars is not someone to fold quickly under pressure. You do a lot of that game with very few PCs on the map while a LOT of emergencies come at you full-speed. Wars is fantastic at balancing out who needs help literally right this second and who he unfortunately has to delay assisting. These are not easy decisions to make, but they are extremely critical ones that must be made in war or any combat zone.

Additional Weapons/Equipment: -> fire rod -> power gauntlets (from interlink-au, this is used w/ the ball and chain and also separately. -> spinner (again, potentially??? Somehow. I will put this Beyblade into a fight scene one day) -> hookshots -> hammer

Wild

The Ultimate Dodge Tank

BOTW’s entire combat system is literally "Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Get Hit", to the point where the game actively rewards you for dodging and parrying. This means that Wild’s entire fighting style is based around memorising everyone else’s fighting styles.

Proficient in multiple weapons and weapon-types (i.e. short swords, slashing swords, longswords and spears) and good at using bows in close combat, though he does not get to utilise his champion ability while dodging if he’s holding a bow.

Pls be aware I do actually mean it when I say ‘multiple weapon types’. You DO NOT use a scimitar the same way you use a broadsword, nor a battle axe the same way you do with a claymore. Me @ BOTW’s animations: CHANGE THE FIGHTING STYLES UP YOU COWARDS.

No specialised sword techniques outside of the basic spin attack and downwards slash.

Proficient with all weapon-types while in mounted combat (either on a horse or the Master Cycle Zero), and great at mounted archery too obviously.

Has arguably the strongest Champion Ability next to Urbosa’s Fury, as it’s automatically triggered if the conditions are met and is very hard to block or defend against. And on that topic, let’s begin.

Flurry Rush: -> damage output adjusted for weapon type used (short swords attack x7 times, long swords attack x4 and spears attack x7-10) -> bypasses enemy shields and invincibility frames -> Wild can be knocked out of this (either by being damaged by an enemy or by mistiming the start of his flurry rush – i.e. landing on a sloped surface will cancel a flurry rush before it begins.) -> flurry rushes still affect weapon durability

Bullet Time: -> requires falling from height obviously. -> Your Stamina! It Goes Down! -> also this is the only thing that really changed in TOTK’s combat: stamina is used when firing arrows, not just by entering bullet time itself.

Perfect Guard: -> you can perfect parry literally almost anything, including a bokoblin being thrown at you by a moblin, wolves, and apparently bees. -> negates explosive damage (i.e. remote bombs, bomb arrows, that one Lynel attack) if you manage to consistently get the timing right. I have not, so take this with a grain of salt <3 -> generally only used for Guardians (as far as I've seen from fellow players) and kinda falls to the wayside in TOTK bc there’s no real incentive to use it. -> does not give Wild any actual chance to utilise his champion ability even tho I like writing that it does bc then it would be a useful thing to learn in totk, Nintendo! Shocker!

Additional Weapons/Equipment: -> literally whatever he can get his goddamn hands on -> “You’ve heard of set bonuses, right?” -> Sheikah Slate

[star-anise]

The thing about "parents' rights" and "protect the children [from hearing that other ways of life than ours are possible and okay]" is that it is literally, in the purest sense of the word, patriarchy.

The word literally means "rule by the fathers". We're generally used to hearing it describe how adult women can be dominated by adult men. However, that's not where patriarchy ends; feminists have been less eager to address how within that system, women can exercise power and domination of their own through the traditional gender roles of motherhood. Their maternal rights to power and dominance may have traditionally been lesser than paternal ones, but they were never less than their minor children's. Even single-mother or female-only families can be, in this sense, patriarchal.

Patriarchal families are a complex system that grants parents complete legal and practical control over nearly every aspect of their children's lives. The patriarchal family controls where the child lives, who takes care of them, what rules they have to follow, how they are educated, who they associate with, what healthcare they receive, what religion they practice, and whether they can work or control any money they earn or that is given to or for them.

Normally discussions of patriarchy are a lot more abstract. But right now it's very concrete and real: we are fighting to limit the family's control over children on issues where we can observe that families sometimes tend to make decisions that are bad for the children's welfare or that disrespect their human rights.

Whether a minor child can get an abortion. Whether they can receive gender-affirming care. Whether it's okay to lie or coerce your child to ensure they follow your religion. Whether they deserve to be educated about factual histories or scientific theories that are necessary to understanding the world around them. Whether they deserve to learn accurate, age-appropriate information about consent, setting boundaries, how their bodies and the bodies of other people work, what a normal range of gender and sexual identities look like, what healthy or unhealthy relationships look like, and what sex is, how it works, what its positives and negatives are, and how they might navigate the world, whether or not they ever want to have it.

Hell, on some levels we're still arguing about whether it's okay to hit your kids, or whether children have the right, similar to the rights adults have, not to be assaulted or abused.

Because there are a LOT of people who say: No. Parents should have 100% control over any or all of those issues. If the parent says no, the child is not allowed to do or have any of those things, and nobody else should be allowed to interfere and provide them to the child without their parents' consent.

Pointing this out often results in parents saying, "Oh, so you want just ANYONE to be able to go up and talk sex with kids? You want kids to be able to decide to jump off cliffs with nobody stopping them???" As though parents are the single protective force in the universe, the only thing standing between their child and the ravages of absolute chaos.

On the contrary: most of the time the argument is for children to receive care and guidance from adults who are monitored to ensure they treat children in safe and appropriate ways, who have spent many years studying the best and most rigorously tested of our collective understanding of how to prepare children for happy, healthy lives.

And we are arguing against people who believe that the only important qualification needed to refuse children that kind of care is to be ranked above them in their family hierarchy.

In conclusion...

Fuck the patriarchy. Children have human rights too.

[sugar-petals]

Hi caro 🌹 I saw in your hyunjin kibbe post( which I loved brw) that you mentioned some luxury brands and their go to kibbe types . I was wondering what kind of brands would best suit pure romantic? There is so little about the subject of pure R s sadly . Have a nice day ❤

KIBBE'S PURE ROMANTIC IN FASHION & HISTORY (+ even architecture)

R is the opposite of the tall, non-curve dominant dramatic and flamboyant natural model body types, which is why it SEEMS juxtaposed to haute couture on paper, as if people thought:

"romantic = gentle flowing style of bygone eras on a small figure 8 body = not fashion just a past reference,

dramatic = severe modernity with ultra sharp lines on a statuesque body = yep, that's forward modern fashion for the runway".

...even if the opposite is easily true (e.g. damiano david often dressing fashionably romantic)!

and the strawberry R dress causing a real fashion ruckus.

sure, that polar opposite logic isn't 100% erroneous. dressing tall models in R will often feel retrospective and damiano is SD-ish so he can do both; plus yin garments are too cinched & short for 6'0+ models as no vertical is accommodated.

there's a reason why the 50s are THE romatic (+ SC) era, as is baroque, R feeling almost confined to these periods.

however, many brands actually do design innovative yin lines! romantic equals luxury, excess & abundance (= upper class), ornamentation and glamour itself, as kibbe wrote, after all. a dramatic body type does not exude abundance and ornamental detail at all.

(even if such garments can cost hundreds and it could be difficult to craft and accurately sew!)

D is spartan, brutalist, geometric, NOT copious. which is ironic and deceptive for a luxury brand, supposedly the opposite of austere and simple! wealth whispers would be a classic type motto. but money on display is always R, always redundant, almost always past-oriented, and once again ironically very feminine-coded even if wealth is and was mostly in men's hands worldwide.

as a pompous, infuriating and exaggerated example, look at the german castle neuschwanstein of bavarian king ludwig above, or (jump scare) mar-a-lago's wasteful wannabe versailles-style interiors below.

insanity how this can exist. note how "princess"-like it all is, the inverse of masculine, hard, dark, angular, strong yang. showing material affluence is confusingly yin? 😅 as if, a guy is so rich, he can quite literally afford to display femininity in his interiors. nothing about this alludes to D, FN, SD.

you wouldn't guess a guy like trump lives there. soft fabrics, candles, florals, ruffles, lace, pastels... everything we associate with hyperfemininity and the romantic type: the inverse of donald who is a flamboyant natural (tall + width), men's 'chad/archetype' of our time — paired with the SD trend — and fashion's towering ideal body ever since the 90s (claudia, gigi, candice, naomi, adriana etc, and all male models ever, like tyson beckford).

quite a political and aesthetic paradox, the world upside down. maybe - on top of trump dressing business pure classic, i.e. far off his type - that's why he looks out of place, as if you photoshopped it in.

PS: the stereotypical villain's castle in fiction is almost always gloomy and pure dramatic, immediately signalling its intent without hiding. (minas morgul in lotr, maleficent in disney)

talk about excess, anyway, and that's where i answer the question: the notoriously well-off catholic church is very SD/R in its aesthetic, too, similar to european aristocracy. that's probably why many italian fashion houses love a yin branding. rounded yin is catholic (st mark's basilica, venice). italy idolizes the yin body type.

^look how dolce & gabbana draws from this to make it TR. that's why i include architecture in this post. it intertwines.

if you look at many historic arabic garments/buildings or especially dynastic china, too, pure R is also prominent in noble dress and art. if you want to study the romantic type, study ottoman and chinese (fashion) culture. even the men wear waist emphasis, decorative fabric, dresses/skirts, rounded head gears and fine jewels.

all of this heavily influences luxury today, which is why i took some time diving into history.

so, finally: ROMANTIC BRANDS!

as mentioned, versace is very ornamental yin overall, even the logo. no sharp D lines to be seen. they do several kibbe types, but R is a huge focus.

dolce & gabbana is always between TR, SD, and pure R. chungha being soft gamine fits the brand. she always wears R and TR. this brand is the most yin in europe, IMO.

guo pei, the most wonderful and well-crafted of all. such details, pure R eye candy. my favorite. it's no surprise they successfully dressed rihanna (SD). guo pei is a genius. everything she does is yin.

she is one of the few designers who shares her own essence with her clothing creations. guo is also very yin.

robert wun is always going tumblr viral. those light reflective fabrics. it's the darker side of romantic, not soft and sweet. still, draped and translucent, only sometimes SD and TR. i think robert is the frontier to make romantic lines modern and gender-neutral. so good.

smaller/lesser-known/less pricey R brands:

innika choo

chi chi london

confete

loveshackfancy

sir the label

morning lavender

revolve

icy city co

jessa kae

shopbop

doen

steele

lacemade

chicwish

for love and lemons

miss patina

hope this helped! thank you for reading and sending such an interesting question.

[prettyoddfever]

I just wanted to say, I love your blog. You post so much information that’s not only interesting, but also validating, as someone who sees 24/7 misinterpretations of the band’s history on TikTok (I have an account where I post edits there). I first became active in the Panic fandom literally as the band was splitting up, which was just /amazing/ lol, but I took a huge step back from fandoms/online communities related to my interests when I started college. I recently came back around a year or so ago, because I enjoy making edits and wanted to indulge in my interests again, only to find out that 90% of Panic-related content online has just been overrun with misinformation/Brendon-haters etc. It was honestly jarring for me because so many of the things people claim as evidence of Brendon being horrible (That he assaulted and abused Ryan, that the band split up because Brendon forced Ryan out, that Ryan was basically forced out of the frontman role, etc…), are just so crazy to someone who knows that’s just not accurate! Your blog has reassured me that I am not crazy and the way I remember things is not a figment of my imagination lol. Even though I was very young when some of these things were happening, my older sister was OBSESSED with Panic and I was into whatever she was into, haha, we still reminisce to this day. I have been literally harassed on TikTok for commenting “in defense” of Brendon Urie underneath a post where someone insisted that every time he got near Ryan on stage, it was without Ryan’s consent. I knew that Brendon had “got cancelled” but I had no idea that people were that serious about it… When half of the things they claim aren’t even real. I know it’s not their fault that they’ve consumed misinformation, but there is no changing people’s minds, even with evidence, which is sad to me. It really sucks that newer fans of the band have such a bitter, twisted narrative around the band’s early eras and the split. But so many of the things they reference happened before they were probably born, yet they swear they’re more knowledgeable than someone who was kinda there…

Anyway, I’m sorry for the wall of text, I just needed to get that out and I really appreciate the time and effort you put into your blog! Not only is it just fun to read, but it really takes me back to my growing-up years, and it’s refreshing to see a take on PATD that’s more “normal” in my eyes.

You put this so well oh my goodness. 100% yes to everything you said. I've heard similar things from some other returning fans over the past couple years and I just relate to all of it so much. I mentioned at the bottom of this post how I drifted away from the Panic fandom for about a decade and coming back was so confusing at first. But trying to wrap my mind around everything also helped me understand modern politics in a way, though? Like now I can see how it's totally possible that a large crowd of people can literally invent their own reality, readily believe whatever they hear in their echo chamber, and then willfully ignore facts, evidence, and firsthand accounts if those contradict the narrative they'd prefer to believe.

Sometimes I'm sad for some newer P!ATD fans who could easily spare themselves a lot of stress & perceived injustice by simply learning about the real band & members. But they're free to focus on whatever they want, I suppose. I'd rather spend my time focusing on fun memories and organizing my little Special Interest mess lol. I’m also happy to clarify stuff or try to answer questions if people are genuinely curious... it’s fun to see others who are interested. Anyways, I'm so glad you're still a fan of the band! Sorry it took me months to reply. And I love your wall of text because it means you care. 🧡

[ganondoodle]

i might have already talked about this but i honestly cant remember if i did or if its one of my totk thoughts that keep haunting me in my head (and god knows how id find it on tumblr)

.. did they ever say how long link was gone for? like at the start? bc to me it feels like it must have been months or something given how some things are .. although others are the opposite

like the spypost alone is so weird to me, its a goddamn stupid place to put it, a SPYpost should either be concealed or in a hard to reach place with good look of the environment around it- which it doesnt have at all (despite higher up hills being right around the corner ...), who would put a spy post directly on flat ground at the castle doors?? (AND in a place where i think would have been the ONLY good place to put nothing there/dont change it- or have it bee a secret entrance into the castle you can find on your own .. if the castle was actually like a dungeon and inaccessible for the most time ...) makes even less sense if it was built before link disappeared bc wh- .. whats its purpose anyway? the calamity is gone and instead of rebuilding castle town or soemthing nearby you put the words least sensical spypost right at the front of the castle thats a dead dirty lump of rock (yes i know zelda mentions soemthing of the miasma being active or whatever but that changes nothing abotu how little sense thing darn thing makes to me .. ) (i will stand by my idea of rebuilding the ranch ruins into a little hub and tavern instead, a spypost can be a smaller thing higher up but that as a little new town and maybe with my personal little wish of having all your horses run around a ranch, of course its got little defense, this is a ranch and the calamity was gone and its not that close to the castle, its also rather in the middle of the map and a bigger wider area would be hard to miss, plus its using an old neat reference and making something meaningful out of it, soemthing this game is allergic to im- *breathes in* fine.)

death mountain, i assumed at least, cooled down with the cataclysm (.. way too serious sounding for .. largely just some pebbles falling from the sky) and it seems like theres alot of stuff built on there and even grass growing and everything, like its been that way for a long time, yunobo being dumbified by brainwash mask and the things he does also dont feel like they happen in a day or two

the other regions on the other hand ... ignoring how mcuh of a non issue the rito problem is (the oooooh blizzard doesnt even stop them from flying ..... its not freezing them either bc none of them wear any more clothes and just do business as usual .. but then food is supposed to be a problem? .... you .. you can fly ..... ... why wasnt the boss then a monster that eats everything of the region or soemthing ... a big ol worm razing entire forest, or .. you know, make the blizzard an actual problem, winds so strong you cant fly, temperature so low you freeze immediately without special armor), are just .. dealing with it themselves? and dont seem to even seek out the help of anyone else? like it literally just happend?

but then theres entire sonau research teams and people studying it but .. all the shit started to appear with the cataclysm ... so???? though zelda at the start talks about it like its been a well known every day life fact that the acnient stupid furry first king of gods holy lands was called rauru and he was a sonau (WHICH NO ONE KNEW ANYTHIGN ABOUT THE LITERAL ONYL THING KNOWN WAS THE ARMOR SET IN BOTW THAT ALSO DOESNT MATCH ANYTHING AT ALL TOTK SONAU) and his fridge wife was sonia like its just written in every history book and still somehow accurate (might i remind you its been MORE than TEN THOUSAND YEARS sicne then and nothign was known of them in botw) while no one remembers link from a 100 years ago, nor from 6 years ago, but then remembered the champions for the 100 year botw gap and then promptly forgot about them in totk (it really feels like that) BUT THEN you got kids in school that dont fking believe the calamity happend (which was defeated just like 6 years before that)

then again .... theres not a single soul on the sky islands, despite there, NOW more than ever, multiple ways to get up there, are you telling me everyones obsessed with the stupid sonau shit and then no one even tries to go up there??? arguing that it wasnt accessible until noodle zelda broke through the clouds at the end of the tutorial doesnt work bc those ruins already fell down, people must have known and no one even tried?? also they can go up there after it go opened up?? plus clearly the ruins were able to fall through also ... what even determines whether an island falls down or not? why do some fall when tHe dEmON kInG wakes up? you see it with those green sonau magic stuff but like .... who ... did that, both rauru and mineru were dead when zelda noodlefied herself and there everything was STILL on the ground? the only magical thing the constructs do is use fuse sometimes i dont think they can lift up all that shit .. clearly is wasnt rauru either bc he acts surprised about it being up here, but why does it falter when big il ganon man wakes up? mineru after the weird static non battle with ganondorf wasnt doing so hot and we have no idea how much time passed between that and the moment she goes into the purah pad (i could be annoying about that as well) either

in taburasa (tarrey town) they do all that shit with the sonau stuff, implying theres enough time that passed to make people tinker with it too so ?(though i still hate that bc its so .. shouldnt you of all people be scared of more techy bs materializing when the whole calamity is like back almost exactly like it was before? not even suspicious? no? you dont even know how it works yet everyone trying to work with it like there isnt anythign better to do??)

like with everything in this game it keeps contradicting itself, the inconsistency makes me want to rip my hair out anytime i try to make sense of it

[ihopeinevergetsoberr]

You say talk to me about Viktor and I am here to talk about Viktor. What films would this man watch? Would he have a favourite film? I'm such a film snob that I am so afraid to go there, but would he fucking cry on Star Wars? Is he truly a nerd as we paint them? Or he doesn't even bother with that and plays computer games instead? Or is he an utter man out of this era and just reads books? Does he love The Brief History of Time? Help. HELP WHAT ARE THEESE MAN'S HOBBIES he cannot just be into science, I do not accept this reality. My HC is that he loves Frank Herbert and hates the new adaptation of Dune :v He also probably likes Philip K. Dick. But that's BITCH BASIC I need MORE. And now a praise: your writing takes me to another dimension. It's amazing how I read your stuff and feel no negativity, no worry, just pure appreciation that I am able to interact with something so poetically hot. Loved Fornication, made me want to get drunk and low-key jealous of Reader's relationship with Viktor.

OKAY SO he’s either some niche videogames nerd or he’s that one annoying pretentious fuck who only ever plays chess (this has nothing to do with my fic /srs) it’s just a very tricky 50/50 cause he could easily be BOTH. he looks like could be… idk…. a fucking path of exile 2 nerd. or like he’s prejudiced towards people who game period point blank. bro’s steam account is either terrific or terrifically non-existent.

GOD it really is a tough one. i feel like act 1 viktor could be the pretentious fuck. HOWEVER. act 2 viktor is an exhausted guy who just wants to go home and play some sekiro. do you see the vision…..

as for the books he reads…. he doesn’t read fiction. same goes for movies. like if we’re talking about modern aus i feel like he’s just SO out of touch with what young people even like these days. give him a documentary and he’ll eat it up. i feel like he’d be one of them annoyed mfs who went to see oppenheimer and proceeded to complain about it being not 100% historicaly accurate. and if you make him watch breaking bad he’ll be annoyed it had dubious chemistry here and there.

— viktor, they can’t give us a step-by-step guide on how to cook crystal meth. that’s literally ILLEGAL

— i couldn’t care less. science is a commitment. a flimsy law-suit is a small price to pay for maintaining accuracy

but anyways i feel like he would also be into history. documentaries, memoirs of various historical figures, everything tediously lovely and cool and ACCURATE. i don’t know. i like pulling him out of arcane and placing him into some 80-90s dark academia au. you will never catch me writing him in an ACTUALLY modern setting because i like painting him as this sickeningly charming, detached from the pop-culture sassy man. i love pretentious guys okay. they’re so annoying i want to eat them

i also have this random hc that viktor used to be REALLY into medical shit once but he never wanted to become a doctor…. why? that i don’t know. he’s just. such an erudite when it comes to all kinds of complex stuff. when he read some victorian classics in highschool (dracula, for instance) he was absolutely furious and declared it a horror book not because of all the tame vampire stuff, but because the blood-transfusions were conducted at random (blood types were discovered only in 1901, and before that victorian doctors would just. choose the donor based on whoever looked the least pale that day. i’m genuinely surprised we’ve made it this long. read all this in viktor’s voice, by the way, i feel like he knows all these cools random facts and overshares them A LOT)

your frank herbert hc is totally valid though. I CAN SEE THAT. YES ABSOLUTELY???

like i said — MODERN modern aus are not my jam to write but i love reading that when it’s done tastefully. and you never disappoint <3

—

AND THANK YOU FOR PRAISING ME QUITE SO HIGHLY WTF IM LITERALLY CRYING I DONT DESERVE U

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[tamaruaart]

Keep in mind this isn't me hating on Kirke, I love that fucked up goddess she's such a fun character. But goddamn I hate her fans.

It's all just people trying to push feminism where it wasn't 🙃 Yes, it's true ancient Greece was kinda shitty towards women. But goddamn that was 3000 years ago. We can enjoy these stories but it's important to not push modern perspectives and view points on these stories while also not condoning these actions. Not to mention we may very well experience this kind of thing with future generations that will come after us so it's important to simply stay humble. Civilizations and humans are constantly evolving and viewpoints are constantly changing so it's not exactly fair to history nor ourselves to take these ancient ideologies to heart. Grow up.

Anyways Circe/Kirke is not your hot little witch cutie 🥰 She's a goddess and the daughter of the Sun Titan. She's done terrible things and that's what makes her iconic. Istg if she wasn't so infamous no one would even know about her. She's morally gray and that's what makes her so neat >:D Now, is it unforgivable to paint jer in a good light? No, but I think if you remove ALL of her questionable morality she losses her charms. She isn't the same Kirke anymore. (Looking at you MM, your writing is good but holy shit.)

It's not unforgivable, but it's simply incorrect. If anyone wants to learn more about Kirke's original/actual character, I don't really recommend most modern interpretations- (MM's novel, Hades 2, DC, Odyssey Movies, my bbg Epic the Musical etc...) I'd say just read the Odyssey, reasurch some older mythos and read the Argonautica.

Can you still like these interpretations of Kirke? Yes. Of course. I love Epic's Kirke even though she is pretty inaccurate. You just have to acknowledge they aren't the real thing! :D That happeneds with most characters ngl, no adaptation nor interpretation is going to be 100% accurate to the original, but with Kirke it's always so... Apparent? So visible. They never make her at LEAST 50% accurate. Which 🤬

She was not a victim, she wasn't incredibly horny, she wasn't a girlboss, she wasn't love sick for Odysseus (it's hinted she only found him to be an 'interesting mortal' of sorts) she wasn't 100% cartoon villain of the week either. She's MORALLY GRAY 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

She holds Odysseus' men hostage, she turns Scylla into a monster out of jealousy, she turns a man into a woodpecker because he didn't want to sleep with her. But she ALSO helps out Medea and Jason (even though it's because Medea was her neice but STILL) and she gives Odysseus instructions on how to head home.

She does BAD things that shouldn't be forgiven and aren't at all justified, but she also does GOOD things that should be acknowledged. She's a goddess. She's a character. She's morally gray. WHAT THE FUCK IS NOT CLICKING???? 😀

I just don't like modern interpretations of Kirke and I'm a meanie so I made this ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

That's why I stick to my 3000 year old books instead of these puny ones that were written in my century 💪💪💪

Do not apply feministic messages or themes on Kirke. Nor any Greek mythology figure for that matter. This was 3000 years ago 😀 if you want to focus on feminism FOCUS ON WOMEN WHO ACTUALLY HAD TO STRUGGLE ABOUT THESE THINGS AND THAT EXISTED IN THE 19-21 CENTURY 😀😀😀😀 WHEN PEOPLE KNEW OR WELL WERE SUPPOSED TO KNOW FUCKING BETTER. OR JUST FOCUS ON MODERN FEMALE STRUGGLES THAT ARE RELATABLE??

Also, if I haven't already made it clear. LIKING A CHARACTER ≠ CONDONING THEIR ACTIONS. I'm just talking about all the people who either call her a girlboss, hate on other figures for being morally questionable but turn a blind eye when it comes to Kirke, and people who make fun of Odysseus and call him a man whore for sleeping with Circe and Calypso. (Despite the fact he's a literal victim)

And for the last time:

👏 THIS 👏 IS 👏 NOT👏 A 👏KIRKE 👏 THE GODDESS 👏 HATE 👏 POST. 👏 THIS 👏 IS 👏 ME 👏 SLANDERING 👏 SOME 👏 OF 👏 HER👏 FANS 👏 AND👏 MOST 👏MODERN 👏INTERPETATIONS👏 OF 👏THAT 👏TWISTED 👏MORALLY 👏GRAY👏 BITCH.

Also I made a typo in the meme. God damn it dyslexia. (It's should be 'transforming' not 'transformed')

[bforblitz]

the 36 Lessons are metaphorical and are not supposed to be taken literally. it was written by a poet, and most of Vivec’s other works are also metaphorical and/or poetic (ex: The Cantatas are songs, the crafting guide for Buoyant Arimger weapons and armor is a bit cryptic at times). some of the events might be true, but it’s a religious text, which usually aren’t 100% accurate representations of history

[spjohnv-blog]

If you're familiar with the South Park Archives, pretty much the only SP fansite still online - there's over eighteen years of history there, pages and renders for tons of characters and locations, thousands of screenshots, a pretty dedicated staff, transcripts of every episode, and so much more. When I made my start writing shitty fanfics, it was a super useful resource, and that was a small chunk of what it is today.

FANDOM has today unveiled a new Offensive Terms Policy which continues a trend in the last few years been suggested in events like Community Connect, where it has previously been suggested wikis avoid references to canonical sex. The avoidance of slurs is something I would be super supportive of generally -- we don't need to see that kind of stuff on Wookiepedia or like, a wiki for Bluey. It'll keep people from vandalizing children's wikis with adult content for kicks. I am generally in favor of content filtering, especially for family-friendly-oriented content.

...but, this is going to cause a lot of problems for the South Park Archives, a show with a major character who frequently uses slurs and is firmly anti-censorship. You don't need to be an editor to think about that. If you're a fan, you know what kind of show we're talking about.

This is a show with episodes called "The Biggest Douche in the Universe", "Major Boobage", "Reverse Cowgirl" and "Titties and Dragons". There are songs like "Fuck the Police" and "Jacking it in San Diego". There is a character called 'Retarded Fish'. The names of these songs and episodes, bear in mind, are legally registered copyrights, not our choices -- how do you change that? Move an article to Episode 1601? What about "Fuck the Police", which isn't even a South Park original song?

You can clean up a synopsis, and formalize language on a character page, I've done both of those things when I was an editor, but you can't undo all of this. How do you?

That's not even getting into the transcripts pages, which are intended to be 100% accurate to the actual dialogue, continuing the tradition from the good ol' South Park Scriptorium...

Within the day of the policy change, FANDOM has already started to make changes to remove slurs from the transcript pages that are unable to be modified as it is directly related to global policy. I don't know that the staff were communicated with about this personally either, but I'm not in the know like I used to be.

No doubt some of this move is prompted by advertisers - FANDOM previously cited advertiser feedback as a motivation for inserting all sorts of videos on top of wiki pages (similar to their later push to include AI-generated content) and understandably many advertisers may not want their brand name mere inches from a discussion of cartoon eight-year-olds using slurs. I mean, shoot, I wouldn't if I were in charge of a major company, and I get someone needs to keep the lights on, but...

I don't know man, it's a shitty position to be in. It's a well-intended policy that I'd support in almost any other context but literally this narrow exception, and I definitely hate the thought of looking like I'd be defending use of offensive terms, but like, how do you cover "everything" about South Park, an explicitly adult show that is so firmly anti-censorship, that builds entire episodes around these kinds of jokes, or even analyze it from a critical perspective, in such a family-friendly, sanitized way, without betraying its spirit and creative intent?

You can imagine how many staff members there are probably scratching their heads or bashing them into lamp posts, trying to figure out what to do or how to move forward after this. They could apply for an exception, but would it even be granted? What would the alternative be? Are restrictions like this worth it or do they render the whole thing moot? How much responsibility lies with FANDOM? Are advertisers forcing the whole internet down this road? There are so many questions in the air on this. I certainly don't have answers.

[wistfulcynic]

rewatching Derry Girls and it's literally just occurred to me that Orla was born out of wedlock. Or more accurately it's only just occurred to me to think about that, since subconsciously i'm pretty sure i registered it but i didn't reflect on the implications of it until now.

the evidence is pretty clear: Orla has the same surname (McCool) as her maternal grandfather. Her father is never mentioned. Ergo...

but the great thing is her father is never mentioned. This is a Catholic family in Northern Ireland at a time when being Catholic in Northern Ireland was actively dangerous. They clearly have a strong religious identity. In the late 70s when Orla was born the Magdalene Laundries were still in operation. Yet it's clear from the relationship that both Orla and Sarah have with their family that they have always been fully accepted and supported. And not just by the family either. All their neighbours must know. Sister Michael must know. Jenny Joyce must know. Yet no one treats Orla or Sarah differently or shows any prejudice towards them. So much so that it's entirely possible to watch the whole series multiple times and not pick up on precisely what this means.

i am the same age as the Derry Girls and despite not being from Northern Ireland one of the things i love about the show is how very mid-90s it is. The music and the clothes and the vibe of it is all just right. Now i have absolutely no idea how likely it would have been at the time for a woman and her out-of-wedlock daughter to live in Derry with zero stigma but honestly i don't care. For all the accuracy of the rest of the show, if that part is inaccurate then keeping that inaccuracy was 100% the Right Call. It would be a good example of media portraying history not precisely as it was but how it should have been, even set as this show is against the backdrop of the Troubles, which it handles unflinchingly.

it's just very wholesome and i love it.

[especiallyhaytham]

The Mystery of Hope and Gist in Rogue

So, here's the backstory. I always thought it was odd how Hope Jensen's character design is so... Victorian. No, actually. As someone mildly versed in Georgian fashion, her clothes are quite literally from another time, and she looks nothing like the other characters in the game. It's such an anomaly, not to mention ugly (subjectively), and it's bothered me for years.

First of all, I happily recognize that Assassin's Creed is allowed to take liberties with fashion history. In any historical entertainment piece, there's usually a few good reasons why the clothing isn't 100% accurate. I also recognize that certain design choices might be made to convey a character's personality, which is a whole other kind of analysis that isn't going to be relevant here. We're purely talking about the physical style components from now on.

While Ubisoft can sometimes go a little crazy with character designs, they aren't in the habit of bouncing completely off-the-wall. They do know the rules, and they know how and when to break them. Many of the designs in Assassin's Creed are actually quite clever in how they play with fashion history. Connor's look seems inspired by military uniforms. Shay is clearly partial to greatcoats. If it was possible to be "sensibly Rococo", Haytham is.

But Hope is another story. Her dress isn't a well-researched artistic interpretation of the 1750s; her silhouette is from another century. Puffed sleeves absolutely do not belong here, and neither does that frilly brooch or layered nightmare skirt. Nothing about her evokes Colonial New England, except for her lace cuffed sleeves (it should be said, that's the only part of her outfit that I like). She looks far more like a Frankenstein amalgamation of the late 1800s.

At first I thought this might just be some weird one-off on the developers' part, since Assassin's Creed doesn't have the best track record visually designing female characters compared to male ones (Like Élise? Not as diabolically out-of-place as Hope, but still pretty bad). But then recently, I found myself taking a good look at Christopher Gist. "What in the world?" I thought. "There's another one?"

His design is also very oddly Victorian. The waistcoat is what tipped me off, since pinstripes and decorative lapels were very much not a thing during this time. Lapels hardly existed at all in the 1700s, and only ever functionally (essentially an extra piece of fabric on your coat that could be pinned back in summer and buttoned up when it got cold), and pinstripes didn't first appear until much later, during the Victorian era. Perhaps Gist stands out a bit less than Hope, since his hat, cravat, and overcoat are pretty ambiguous when he's standing next to other 18th-century characters, but alone he looks like he'd be more at home in Red Dead Redemption.

So now there are not one, but two Victorian characters in a game that takes place over a hundred years before. Now I'm thinking that it's likely that they both came from the same source. The funniest thought I had was that maybe there was a junior developer who was really into Victorian fashion, and with the time and budget constraints, no one bothered to revise the designs. A less entertaining explanation is that maybe they were scrapped characters from Syndicate, which would have been in early development stages at this time.

Syndicate is the most plausible explanation, but at the same time Gist and Hope don't strike me as "Victorian England". I really don't know enough about 19th-century fashion to say for sure, but after making the comparison to RDR, they certainly seem to be leaning more American Western. It is the same time period, but styles varied slightly across the continents.

After doing some research, I found a game published by Ubisoft in 2013 titled Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, which is set in *drumroll* the Old American West. Considering Rogue was released only a year later, as well as Rogue being infamous for borrowing so much from Black Flag, I would not be surprised if assets from other projects also found their way into the game.

The thing though, is that Call of Juarez was not directly developed by Ubisoft, while Rogue was, and I don't know how feasible it is that they would share assets. Again, maybe they were stolen from Syndicate, since I can't pinpoint any part of their designs that would say otherwise (other than Gist generally looking like a cowboy). A third explanation is that perhaps Ubisoft was developing their own Assassin's Creed Western game which was scrapped early, though I haven't found anything solid on this.

It's a mystery that we can't really solve without directly speaking to someone who was on development (which believe me, I have so many questions about Rogue I would sell my soul to interview someone). But in lieu of that, even though I can't parse over every single detail, I think I've come up with some reasonable speculations. If you're like me and ever wondered why Hope and Gist look the way they do, hopefully now you know a little bit more.

[mclennonlgbt]

I'm watching a video essay about Mel B and Geri Halliwell's affair and it's so funny that the host's words can be quoted literally and we can just replace the names Mel B and Geri Halliwell with John Lennon and Paul McCartney and it will sound 100% accurate:

"So all of this is actually old news but apparently a lot of people had no idea that A: there was a gay love affair, and B: that this affair is the real reason that John left the Beatles. [...] And I think if we're being honest, neither of them have ever been subtle about the fact that they're fruity or subtle about their feelings for each other [...] Some of their music is quite literally about the gay love affair between John and Paul and I just find it fascinating because it went over people's heads for so many years. It's just a cool piece of gay and queer rock culture and history."

[iamthekaijuking]

As someone who has done significantly more research into animal physiology, evolution, and ecology, what have you find to be very correlated or acting as a prerequisite for higher cognition in animals. I have read of having a real brain instead of just ganglia being important, as well as a general brain-to-body size ratio correlating well (though it seems like encephalization quotient is better as a measurement). The fact that octopi are so darn weirdly smart, as well as being an entire Order (not just a Genus of even Family like I assumed before looking into it) makes me wonder about what makes their evolutionary history so distinct or gave sufficient prerequisite for their high intellect.

Obviously as someone who doesn’t actually have a degree in any of the fields I research and instead just have biology autism, I can’t say my answer would be 100% accurate, but I’ll try my best and if anyone wants to add to this they’re welcome to.

Higher intelligence is such a loaded and complex question that we just don’t have a definitive answer for yet, because there’s so much we don’t understand about intelligence itself! And it’s likely that higher intelligence itself doesn’t have a singular cause. There’s many different kinds of intelligence and traditionally “dumb” animals can be more intelligent than us in certain areas! But if I had to list things that could allow for sapience to evolve…

Endothermy or at least regional endothermy. In order for a brain to be very active and sapient it needs to have high cellular activity in its neurons, which a cold blooded creature usually has a hard time with (there are exceptions like octopus and tegu).

It needs to be a large somewhat long lived social animal that learns behaviors and can reproduce multiple times in its life, meaning that it can accumulate knowledge and has a method of transferring this to its young or young of the same species.

Obvious one but tool use (duh). A sapient species needs to recognize that it can use things separate from its being as extensions of itself to get what it wants. We can probably throw in the mirror test too.

Pattern recognition. ABSOLUTELY PATTERN RECOGNITION. A sapient creature has to be able to recognize things that are repeated and what they mean/are correlated to, and their brain needs to chemically reward them for picking up on it. Humans are the biggest example of this because recognizing patterns is so hard baked into us as a species that it’s literally everywhere in our society. Hell, one of the biggest theories for why we invented music is because we like recognizing patterns.

It essentially needs to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. It has to have selective pressure to think to survive. Maybe it has to contend with drastic seasonal changes and how to survive them, or maybe it needs to out-think predators.

High energy diet. A big brain needs lots of power and proteins. So a diet of meat, fruits, nuts, roots, sugars, etc. all of these have relatively high caloric value. Cooking food as well exponentially increases the amount of nutrients you can get out of it. Amino acids are curled up into different shapes because of their electrical charges and a lot of the energy that goes into digestion is spent just unraveling amino acids so that they can be transported and used. But if amino acids are exposed to high enough temperatures then they unravel on their own, so by using this little physics hack a sapient creature can get more bang for their buck.

Those are the things that I can hazard a guess can lead to sapience when all put together.

The reason why octopus are so smart is because they fall into that “rock and a hard place” category. They’re squishy, unarmored, and very tasty so they needed to outsmart their predators.

[gorillawithautism]

literally nobody asked but i'm extremely autistic so i feel compelled to explain that a baboon pelt would not be that large nor would its teeth or ears look like this. hell its mane wouldn't even have that shape.

it's autism time baby

based on color alone, the subspecies of baboon most likely being emulated here is the hamadryas. they live around the southern part of the red sea on both sides (and there's some super interesting stuff about how they used to be in egypt a long time ago but that's not relevant right now so i'll restrain myself)

the dominant males of this subspecies look like this. they come up to about 2-3 ft when standing on all fours as they do, so they're not nearly big enough to make a sweeping cloak like the one naraku has on

and its teeth look like this. on the left, either a threat display or a big yawn, i'm not that well-versed in baboon behavior and right now i don't feel like looking into it enough to figure out which. on the right, open mouth but with more relaxed facial muscles (so a pelt would look more like this one)

note that their mane comes out to the sides and their fur is much flatter on top. also, where naraku's pelt curves under the eyes along the cheekbones, a real baboon's mane would fan out along the entirety of the side of the face

i can't find any photos of a dominant male hamadryas baboon where it's ears are visible because their manes usually hide them but they sit at about the same height as human ears so the placement is clearly all wrong. the shape of their ears is pretty similar to ours too, just proportionally larger with more flat area. here's some photos of females and babies and males that haven't reached maturity so you can see more of the ears

the manga version feels slightly more accurate with a more faithful rendering of the ears and teeth, but it's still much too large and the mane is still the wrong shape entirely

the striking brow of the baboon is pretty much nonexistent in both versions. if i were being charitable i could say seems like it's almost being hinted at... but it's not really there at all. those are forehead wrinkles at best one thing i do think is interesting though is the fact that takahashi didn't choose to use the form of the only monkey endemic to japan (that would've been the japanese macaque which are also featured in the series a couple different times). instead she chose an african monkey which would have been an unknown beast to the japanese people of that time period. i don't know the history of japanese-african contact well enough to say it's 100% impossible that anyone in japan had ever heard of baboons but i do know enough to say it's very very unlikely that any of the people living in inuyasha's time had ever seen a baboon. anyone seeing naraku in his cloak is seeing this creature for the first time. it looks a little like them and it looks a little like the only other kind of primate they've ever seen but it's not quite like either one. it has huge teeth and an impressive mane and dark, hollow eye sockets. it's skin and fur have been preserved but it doesn't have the living creature beneath it to give it the shape it's supposed to have. instead it has naraku holding it up. the skin of an animal that on it's own is already just on the edge of what you know to be real is being worn by a creature that has been demon so long it's forgotten what it was like to be human. i think that choice is so interesting on takahashi's part as an author and on naraku's as a character and i deeply wish it could have been executed better