#like first of all we dont even know if thats the case in this specific instance but also the way its none of my business

[luckyshouse]

im sorry if you don't want people traumadumping in your askbox over that post and you dont have to answer if thats the case but i just thought you should know it really really resonated.

i'm 19, as a little kid i was a victim of interfamilial COCSA (of course), but my response to that as a kid was to do it to others tenfold. i only had two instances of being 'the victim' but those two experiences gave me questions and curiosities & i would continue to regularly repeat it to other kids for years because i was smart enough to hide my actions and nobody noticed. i stopped once i grew enough to realize that it was wrong (10 years old) but by that point all the damage was done and there's nothing i can do.

i feel like people say 'the cycle of abuse' all the time but they never genuinely think about what it entails. they want to comfort victims by demonizing the people that hurt them. but the internet as a general collective cannot hold two conflicting truths at the same time, you cannot support victims and also support people who create victims, you have to pick a side. like it's dicourse. but like you said it's victims all the way down. the siblings that touched me first were absolutely just recreating their own experiences, we were family, i know their home life.

so when people want to show support for victims of CSA and they want to prove theyre not predator apologists or whatever, they'll default to saying they wish they could kill all abusers and anyone whos ever crossed a boundary deserves to have their rights stripped and be tortured and all this shit. and it lets me know that if i were to be honest about my own CSA they would see it as a sort of trolley problem and decide that im not worth the risk. so ive never told anyone. there is no neutral support for victims like me, only death threats or fetishization(? is that the right word). other victims who would seek me out because i'm capable of playing predator for their own scenarios. and if anything goes wrong with our relationship then they have the '___ is an actual child abuser' card to play for their callout post.

i don't have a good way to conclude this i guess. i don't even know if my points are relevant with your motivations for writing that post. but it helped me feel like out there somewhere there's a space for people with my specific sexual trauma, that isn't crazy biased in one direction or the other. thank you for seeing the pattern and actually fucking trying to stop it. it gives me hope.

i hope you are ok with me posting this, if not, lmk if you want it deleted.

this is exactly what im talking about and something i think about frequently. while i am not personally someone who did that, i carry a lot of guilt for being overly sexual and inappropriate in a lot of situations, and i care a lot about people who did bad things as a kid who didn't know better. its one of the reasons i bring up the fact that i parented multiple kids- when you help protect kids in very very bad and abusive situations, you see them start developing extremely negative and unhealthy behaviors REALLY early. one of the biggest reasons i delved so deeply into child psychology wasn't for myself but because i needed to know the right things to say to the kids in my family because i was seen as the one to go to for help. this meant dealing with kids who HAVE done bad things, and learning why that happened. they were just kids, man, all of them were, and i had to understand the idea of what youre describing very early.

and this is the problem with the way we treat predators exactly. because it literally leaves no room for anybody, including children, to get better, to recover, to learn better, etc. because everyone is so fucking excited to like you said talk about how much they hate and how much they want to kill predators, both to have some sort of power against people they view as oppressive but also to signal that they are good and not connected to these predators. and it leaves a very weird space for people who have done bad things in the past due to their trauma. because the thing is, theyre going to exist. theyre going to keep living. you can't kill them. im very against the death penalty, i'm also anti prison. i hate both of them. the only thing forced isolation in a violent hostile area does is make things worse. ive been hospitalized enough to know that. my father is a correctional officer, my mother is a felon. it doesn't help anyone. and creating these ideas that we just push everyone to the side whos ever done anything bad is equally as bad as never reacting at all, because it's a black and white solution to a very complex and gray problem. you, people like you, people worse than you, etc, all need help. whether or not something happened doesnt change the fact that you deserve help too, and you deserve to recover and find people who will love you and support you through it all.

[judeiscariot]

to be quite honest john mulaney they could never make me hate you

[thetangibleghost]

I gotta confess it is so much more fun talking to Sal as if he is a separate person like he wants and not a member of the system. He's super creative like. Its just fun.

[k3n-dyll]

maybe because not everyone has to cater to black and brown readers? if i feel excluded then talk to ur black and brown writers bc why tf would (for ex.) white writers write black readers when…when they aren’t?? yall aren’t victims write ur own shit if u care so much like idk what to tell u but not everyone has to bow down and write the way you want them too.

The fact that this is what you got from me saying that POC feel excluded from fandom is...insane.

I hesitate to even answer this because you sound stupid as hell, but since I think other people need to get this shit through their skulls as well:

If you are a writer, and you claim to be writing an "x reader" fanfic for a character you like, the general consensus is that "reader" in this situation should be neutral for the most part. Sure, there's different versions of that ( "x fem reader", "x masc reader", etc.") , but generally, the idea is that "reader" in this situation could be anyone, yes? A lot of writers on this app and others, write "reader" as if tiny white women are the default.

And you know what?

If you wanna write that way, fine, but say that. If you so desprately want to write about Abby Anderson fucking a 5ft nothing white girl with blonde hair and green eyes - write that. But don't call that shit an "x reader" when you know its a self insert meant to exclude everybody that doesnt look like you. Dont claim to be a safe place for all readers if when POC say they feel excluded from the things you write, you say stupid shit like what this anon just did. If your shit is labeled "x reader" with no other warnings, one should be able to assume that they arent going to see any specifics about body type, hair textures, skin color or eye color - but no. Thats not the case.

I swear, every time we bring this shit up you bitches act like we killed your fucking grandma. If you dont wanna write in a way that everyone can consume, fine, but dont make it seem as if petite white girls are just the default human in every scenario. Theres a content warning over every fic, if you dont want to see how problematic it is to write as if whiteness is the default then the least you could do it leave a big fat warning in that little "CW" section to let us know that you didnt write this with the existence of people that dont look like you in mind.

Oh, and I do write my own stuff btw. Don't ever come in my inbox with this bullshit again. Pissing me off first thing in the morning😒

[munv]

Savanaclaw 011: Jack being unused to his new form gets stuck in one of Ramshackle’s cabinets. We help get him out and cuddle him.

HIP HOP!

First one!! I was trying to figure out a layout for this and just settled for this instead..

bunny! Jack howl x reader

The morning had been rather hectic capturing little critter after another. The students have had enough, Grim has had enough, and you have had enough.

So when you retired for the day and went back to the dorm and slumped onto your couch, you didnt expect what would happen next. The dorm’s kitchen had been rattling, quite a lot actually.

“Grim?” You called out with eyes closed. “Are you in there getting food again..? Bring me something too please”

“What are ya talkin’ bout? Im right here!” He huffed. You paused.

“What?”

“What?” He echoed back in the same realization.

There were two possibilities, one you werent ready the face, the other a reoccurring one you would much rather take over whatever could be thrashing around in your kitchen at the moment.

“Another ghost?” Grim grumbled, ears flickering violently at the very thought of it. “Better be, or we’re burning this joint down.”

You cautiously got up from the couch, and made way into the kitchen. Grim following not too far behind before jumping on to your shoulder in case.

Reaching out to open the kitchen cabinet, you felt the rattling increase. Grim gave you a concerned look, “nyah! If another bunny jumps out im smoking it for dinner!”

“Lets not do that??”

You took a deep breath before you both trained your eyes onto the concern in front. “One the count of 3..”

“1”

“2” Grims paws on your shoulder tightened

“thr-“ Something busted the cabinet open

“AGHHHGHHHGGH” “OUH FUCK!” “KILL IT!!” “THATS NOT DINNER??!”

A bunny.

You stared down on the bunny that had overpowered you and Grim combined a few minutes prior. “…this has got to be Jack”

The small critter fixed you with its intense golden eyes, the silver white fur standing on edge. Was he scowling?

The bunny huffed at you both. “Real question is WHAT he was doing in our cabinet?” Grim poked him with a paw before the bunny chittered at him in refusal.

It seems like he was trying his best to express himself. Though struggled. The rest of his body held way too much fur which was probably weighing him down from moving around freely. “Alright, ill help, dont struggle too much.”

“Henchman, you take care of this. I need my beauty rest.”

“..what?”

Before you could retort back, Grim was already making his way up the stairs. Mumbling something along the lines on how he doesnt get paid enough tuna for this or how hes charging the headmaster interest for this ordeal.

‘Does he even know what interest is?’ You sweatdropped.

You reached down carefully, trying your best not to startle the bunny you plotted to kill just earlier. The second you touched his back(??) he squeaked and kicked his little legs upwards.

“Bro, stand still??” You wrestled a bit with him so he could get comfortable within your arms. Another chitter came from him, this one higher than the last.

He twitched his nose with what you could only assume to be annoyance. You fixed yourself properly and cradled him. He looked disturbed, which was a funny look for someone like him. Yet, it was cute.

“You might as well chill here until we fix this.” You said, brushing your fingers through his fur gently. The bunny melted further into you, if that was even possible with all the fur that was lumped against you already.

He nuzzled against your shirt. “Even the big bad wolf can use something sweet every once in a while, huh?”

He stared at you

“Not a knee-slapper?”

He shook his head and leaned in closer to you, tiny paws pressed against your arm as his tail a specifically happy flick.

“Right, we’ll figure out the details later.” That night, you fell asleep with him in your arms. When you woke, it seemed as if Grim also made himself comfortable against you.

Ranting in the morning about how much you ��spoiled Jack” too much.

TAG-LIST: @1abi @tabbycake

[iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife]

10+ hours of tom scott approved europop for your listening pleasure. bonus commentary under the cut.

everything above "shelter me from the rain" (the hyperpop beardyman song they made for that colab video) is songs he mentioned on europlop with tim. they range from songs and artists he LOVES (mika, aqua, kim petras etc etc etc) to songs he liked, enjoyed or was at least a bit positive towards. a lot of songs are there because he brought them up just to compare them with the song of the day (usually to say that they were better. examples include marina's savages & primadonna, radiohead's creep, gwen stefanni's what you waiting for, M.I.A.'s paper planes and more). everything AFTER shelter me from the rain is songs he mentioned once on random videos, his newsletter, lateral, on a random podcast episode he appeared in, park bench episodes etc etc etc. at first i wanted to write a complete analysis on all of those songs, cite my sources and everything but im afraid that i cant really be bothered to do all that. sorry. still u can ask me if u want a source for a specific one? there is about a 70% chance that i will remember where it got mentioned.

nonetheless, here are some honourable mentions, commentary and final conclusions:

i believe in a thing called love was apparently quote "his university anthem" end quote. thats why its sitting honourably at the top of the playlist.

basically at the top of the playlist ive put emphasis at entire albums he mentioned liking. kim petras' turn off the light, mika's life in cartoon motion and the boy who knew too much, aqua's aquarium, alphabeat's this is alphabeat, bwo's big science, justice's justice. in the cases of mika and alphabeat he didnt mention the albums by name, he just said that he was listening to these artists during his college days and since we know when he went to college its not hard at all to understand which albums he was listening to back then.

i didnt include most of these albums in their entirety, i either picked songs based on vibes, or especially in the case of mika the ones *I* like the most (i love mika).

while they talk a lot about aqua on europlop tom doesnt specifically mention their first album (aquarium). he does however mention it here. i put it on the top of the playlist anyway to be with the rest of the fave albums.

awkward by jens he specifically mentioned hating the start and he is 100% right. i dont like it either. but he seemed more positive about the rest of the song and i like it too so i put it in. why am i specifically mentioning this song? because it perfectly showcases how this playlist operates. tom was negative enough about this song that i wouldnt have included it if i didnt like it. so yeah, ive brought my own biases and taste into this mess. similarly if tom liked a song i hated i wouldn't have put it in. at the end of the day i made this playlist so i can listen to it.

he likes a lot of what i can only describe as girlypop. common tom scott w.

he also loves intentionally cheesy german schlager. clearly, theres no saving him.

also a lot of eurovision because of course.

yes, the last song in the playlist is the infamous rickroll, because of course it is. so in a sense this playlist can also work as a pretty low stakes game of russian roullete if you are listening on shuffle.

what does the fox say is also in there somewhere because he brought it up as an example of "song that is obviously intentionally stupid but also kinda fun".

david bowie's space oddity is there because 1) i love it and i cant listen to it withouth thinking about him, 2) i had already put it in the playlist but then i remembered that one instagram post of his where he used one of its lyrics as the caption. i probably would have left it in the playlist anyway (because again, i made this playlist for me) even if he hadnt mentioned it anywhere publicly but this made me very happy :]

if u are curious to see what he and tim had to say about a specific song or artist you can just type (song of your choice) site:https://www.europlop.co.uk on google search or simply use your browsers advanced search.

we have old man river. we have william shatner's common people. we have vengaboys. YMCA. chappel roan's good luck babe. bring me to life (thank you evanescence !). we have everything.

at the time of posting editing this ive gone through 60 70 82/140 pages on europlop. the playlist will keep getting updated as i make my way through the earlier years.

thats all <3

[wackywatchdotcom]

RANDOM TADC DISCUSSION ASK UPON YE!!!!!! i hope it's alright to pop in with this! i have some thoughts on Bubble.

there's something very interesting, i think, about how bubble acts. all things considered, isn't it weird that he's so dirty mouthed? (ironic for, ostensibly, a soap bubble.) bubble does a lot of gross things and, independently of that, makes a lot of inappropriate jokes and innuendoes. this coming from an npc created by a A.I ringleader who tries really hard to make sure everything is family friendly!

caine keeps popping and chastising bubble, and it happens so often we don't actually get too much dialogue from him. bubble steps out of line so far so as to have to be CENSORED! like, straight up bleeped out. one would figure that an npc like him would follow the profanity guidelines (loose as they seem to be) automatically, or at least *care* about them, and therefore not need to be censored, but he does need to be censored! he's literally made to be a character in a game, a MAIN character, at that, and he keeps breaking the rules! what's up with that?

something tells me that i'm maybe not the first person to ever say that there's something weird about bubble, but there's something weird about bubble!!! it's one thing for caine to not even try to reign in other npcs, but why can't he reign in bubble even though he wants to and tries to? and why IS bubble so weird in the first place? much to think about...

RANDOM TADC DISCUSSION ASK END.

itss absolutely alright!!!! i love when ppl send discussion asks :D!!!!!

i think about this sometimes.... i havent given it TOO much thought but sometimes i am very confused by bubbles whole deal. he lives in caines hat. caine doesnt understand him (or at least, caine implies as much)

ive seen the interpretation that caine and bubble are like. deliberately doing bits. which i REALLY like the idea of but thats not really certain, and even still, why WOULD bubble be so profane??? caine seems adamantly opposed to anything not immediately family-friendly so i cannot fathom why they wouldve done that. even w that interpretation it implies that bubble is STILL sometimes just doing things caine doesnt want him to

in general bubble confuses me. i dont think about him often because i cannot comprehend why hes like that. when caine mentions the new immersive ai in ep 2, its unclear to me just how much more immersive "57% more" is. especially since like. he says hes 'testing out a new ai,' so its ambiguous if hes saying everyone in the adventure is using that new ai or if gummigoo WAS the ai (if so, why would caine only implement the ai thats supposed to be appealing to ONE character in the adventure?). so then it gets confusing how alive npcs in the game are

is the gloink queen alive? is martha mildenhall alive??? were the souls in ep 3 alive, did caine code them to know about queenie???????? how much can they act on their own?? it SEEMS like a lot

were all npcs upgraded with this ai or was it truly just gummigoo? was caine able to give everyone that much complexity off the bat and just didnt until episode 2? is bubble more less or just as complex as the gloink queen in ep 1, before caine was testing out the new ai?

all the ais in the game ALSO generally seem to have knowledge of mature subjects, which is an incredibly bold move on caines part. i mean, we dont know this for sure, but given the joke between gummigoo and chad in ep 4, or whatever it is the gloink queen tells pomni, and all the things bubble says, they just... know about these subjects. why did caine give the npcs in this game that knowledge?

(i mean, it could be a case of caine has ALL that knowledge himself. specifically given to him so he can curb it. but then why would he bother giving the npcs that knowledge? and on that note, its so unclear how much knowledge caine has... he knows intricate details about the inside of a mcdonalds. why does he know that? how much knowledge does he have of everything outside of the circus? id imagine hes out of date... but its still incredibly in-depth conceptually and visually. WHY does he know what a pacifist route is. not that thats a new concept but afaik that term for it has specific contexts for why itd be used)

AND THEN. aside from gummigoo theres like. dr football and that weird background mannequin in ep 3. which like yeah theyre there as jokes but considering caines hesitance to allow npcs to stay in the circus entirely, it implies that caine genuinely cannot control all of them, which is weird. and extends to bubble

in general bubble is like. he READS as important. during the character intro teasers, bubble was one of them. why was BUBBLE important enough to have a whole teaser dedicated to him? AND to appear in two of them???

imo, its important to note like. the first sections of any piece of media- whats said, what characters are present, what information its given. and tadc throws me off so hard, because one of the VERY first things the show establishes is that bubble is.... there. caine is your ringmaster and heres bubble too. is he comic relief or is there a reason hes being presented as important? is he just an extension of caine?

despite this, gooseworx has mentioned that bubble doesnt even interact with anyone but caine throughout the whole show…

^ post that Haunts Me. gooseworx is known to lie sometimes but . i jsut dont understand. what is his deal. he lives in caines hat. is he even important. is he his OWN rogue ai thats just kinda silly. i dont understand him. hes scary

[fionasangster]

You don't have to share any fanfics or anything but WHAT do you write and HOW??

Bc my brain is just "mm.... Shane...." which is great and all, but that's not really a *story* y'know.

Pls help

Thanks :)

ok i love writing about writing so

there r a few different ways u can go about it. there are oneshots which can be smut or just like a scene from a life - eg if you're interested in shane taking care of chickens u could just write a scene of him looking after chickens. maybe with his internal pov, how it links to the rest of his life. basically u can find a part of the character ur interested in/fixated on and just like, explore it. thats my fav part about fanfiction is just EXPLORING!!!!!

which brings me to my next point that there are 2 diff types of writers (probs an overgeneralisation but this came from george rr martin so blame him) - architects and gardeners.

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”

idk how to make something a quote on tumblr i havent been on here in like 10 years lol

so like im a gardener i love just sitting down in front of a blank document being like whats gonna happen!!!! and figuring it out as i go. writing a line, then thinking, then writing the next line, then thinking. i get a lot of feedback about my dialogue feeling natural and i think its bc of this, because they respond to each other, bc im not trying to get to a specific goal point

so that might be your vibe too! could just sit down and start noodling around with the keyboard and something just kinda comes out! i love writing a good first sentence and then just letting it go from there e.g. the first sentence in my fanfic that's not on AO3 is 'the pleasantries were overwhelming when you got to town'. and then its like oooh ok where do we go now hehehe

but if ur more of an architect then i guess it would be more of a case of what i said earlier, find something you're interested in. like when u think about him what do u think about? any scenarios? any pairings you think are good? if so, what might be the situation that led to them meeting or making out? then you can plan plan plan and write write write

i hope thats helpful! ive been talking abuot this kind of thing with my friend who wants to start writing fic and honestly i find it so fun, i dont get to talk about writing much lol

i would also add to set your word count goal low if its your first time writing fic!! if you enjoy reading 60k epics then you might want to write that but i cut my teeth on years of 5k-15k fics, much much much easier to start off with, much easier to finish!!

ok bye

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Elisabeth: das Musical (1992) [Elisabeth: the Musical]

Ayyyyyyyyy its been several months but Im BACK BABEY!!! Im not gonna be back for long though because Im not unemployed yet so I dont have the time to watch movies and write reviews about them all the time, but I do have the time to sit down every once in a while and write a little bit of this. which has been taking me several months now

Anyway, if you thought I wouldnt use this project as an excuse to rewatch my favorite musical, you would be very wrong >:)

Now, since this is my favorite musical you would probably think that writing a review would be easy, but because Ive basically been thinking about it nonstop for a few months, its caused me to have this giant buildup of thoughts, its kind of like theres a clogged faucet in my brain right now, to the point where I struggle to properly articulate any of them, especially if Im not being prompted somehow. Like it goes beyond vampire-autism at this point, its not enough to just invite me to talk about Elisabeth, you need to ask me specific questions (on that note, my askbox is always open <3)

So yeah, Im not going to go into a lot of detail but to make up for that, I will be talking about all different productions Ive seen so far in the order that I watched them in (all proshots because Im unfortunately very picky when it comes to my musical-recordings looking and sounding good lol)

The Vienna Production(s)

Thats referring to the original 1992 version, the 1998 version and the 2005 revival.

oughhhhhhh its so good, they really put everything into this one: beautiful songs, strong artistic direction, incredible social commentary, a portrayal of death that serves mad cunt, gay sex etc etc

My first experience with this musical went as follows: my mother bought me the 2001 Essen cd and just kinda put it (and a few other musical cds that dont matter) in my room while I wasnt there without telling me, because we were arguing and our relationship was pretty bad at the time, and it took me a while to listen to it, in part because I was mad at her and wanted to spite her (?) but also I didnt look at the cd cover very closely and for the longest time I thought it was about one of the british Elizabeths and I was like "tch. i dont care about some british queen, im not listening to that". And then one day I actually looked at it and saw that it was a Sissi-musical, which, I also didnt care about her at the time so that didnt really pique my interest either. A few days later I decided to look at the back of the cd cover which had all the song titles, and then I just kinda did that again every few days until I finally took the little booklet with the lyrics out of the case, read through them, and then at last listened to the songs. I do not know why I was doing like, regency-era courting rituals with this random cd, I have never done this before or since, but I did it this one time. And I really liked it so I would listen to it atleast once every day, usually in the mornings because I always wake up at 5am and I needed something to kill time before I had to leave at 7 lol

Theres only 16 songs on this cd and I think they do a decent job at 'summarizing' the story, but I could tell I was missing a lot (although I thought it was just dialogue at the time), and I was really curious about that but I didnt even try to find a proshot or a bootleg or look further into it because I didnt think I was going to find it because I thought it was super obscure because its. german. Idk, does anyone else kindof instinctually assume that every piece of media from your native country is some obscure bullshit that no one cares about (including other people from your native country) or is that just me? Whatever, despite me not looking further into it, I did eventually get the 2005 proshot recommended to me on youtube which is great, i love that google knows my every move and I love that I cant do anything about it. But for some reason I still needed that push to get me to actually watch it, and that push came in the form of a Diana: The Musical review. I watched it and then I read some of the comments and then I left my very own, very long comment where I compared it to Elisabeth: das Musical. Since I obviously hadnt seen either musical in full it was honestly probably pretty incoherent, but my main point was that it looks like Diana couldve really used some satire and social commentary elements similar to the ones present in Elisabeth, which I knew were there because the cd had Milch and Kitsch. Those songs are actually one of the things that I initially found very intriguing because they seemed so out of place among most of the other songs that are these very emotional and earnest ballads and duets, like Wie Du, Ich gehör nur mir, Elisabeth mach auf mein Engel, Ich will dir nur sagen, and Boote in der Nacht are more or less what I would expect from a Sissi-musical, and then Der letzte Tanz is more or less what I would expect from a Sissi-musical where death is a love interest, but Kitsch especially was such a wildcard in there.

Anyway, after I wrote that comment under the Diana: The Musical review, it occurred to me that I should probably watch Elisabeth: das Musical before I start writing needlessly long analyses in random comments sections. And then I thought to myself "oh! since these are both musicals about generally beloved royal women, it would be interesting if I watched both of them for the first time back to back and then maybe made a video essay comparing them" I decided to watch Diana first because what little I heard of the songs in that review sounded pretty bad so I wanted to get that out of the way first, and it was indeed bad, but I was still sure that there was enough there to make a video essay about, especially if Im comparing it to something else. And then I watched Elisabeth and it was so good that I was like "you know, I dont think i want to compare this to that other piece of shit" so I didnt write the video essay I wanted to write originally and started on something that was just about Elisabeth das Musical, which I also didnt end up writing because I usually have a low attentionspan and I struggle with writing alot, thats a big part of why these posts take me so long, along with the fact that I have a job now thats been sucking all the time and energy out of me like a cruel vampire

So yeah, the 2005 proshot was my first time properly experiencing this musical and I do think its a good introduction because things are explained a bit more and it feels like more of a cohesive story compared to the original one which feels more loose with less connective tissue; like, you can tell this musical was made the assumption that the aufience already knew about Elisabeth as a historical figure to some extent, which is fair enough but I missed out on three years of highschool history so I knew literally nothing, like Rudolf's suicide was a huge surprise to me. And it spared me the disappointment of watching the full musical for the first time without getting to hear my second favorite song, Wenn ich tanzen will. That being said, I do vastly prefer the 1992 version simply because the cast is the definition of perfection. I have yet to see or hear an actor that managed to do a better with Lucheni than Ethan Freeman, and ohhhhh you shouldve seen how insane I was about Uwe Kröger's Tod after I first watched that proshot

Of course I also loved Pia Douwes, Andreas Bieber and Else Ludwig but I just feel a little less strongly about them because I think they usually do a pretty good job casting Elisabeth, Rudolf and Sophie, whereas I feel like they struggle to cast actors for Lucheni and Tod that manage to live up to the original cast even a little. Its definitely less bad with Lucheni, the main issue I have with most of his actors besides Ethan Freeman is that none of them ever even try to do an italian accent (probably because they cant do a good one which is good, no accent is definitely better than a bad one in this case, but still) so all the italian bits of dialogue sound really unnatural imo. But with Tod its like, straightup i dont even know what on earth theyre trying to do most of the time, but it very rarely works for me.

Now, the eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that ive talked about the 1992 proshot and the 2005 proshot but not the 1998 proshot, even though I mentioned it at the very start of this section. Thats because i FUCKING HATE IT!!!!! No just kidding, its mostly the same as the 1992 production except it has the longer version of Nichts, nichts, gar nichts and the cast is a bit worse. Its actually kind of impressive because thinking back on it, I feel like literally every actor was just the slightly worse knockoff version, with the exception of Maya Harkvoort as Elisabeth. And thats not to say that theyre bad, I just like them less than the original cast and I dont think they make any interesting acting choices to make up for it. And then theres the guy who played der Tod, whose name I am not looking up because Im about to get mean and I'll feel less bad about that if I dont use his actual name. He just sounds so bad. Hes like Uwe Kröger from an alternate universe where he cant sing. And to be fair, Im pretty sure this is the same guy as the one who played Tod on the 1996 cd and hes literally unbearable on that one, so he has improved quite a bit, but it just wasnt enough.

I remember a while ago when all my Elisabeth-mutuals reblogged this gifset of 1998!Tod and I dont remember if I only liked it or if I reblogged it as well but whatever I did, I did it with gritted teeth because I had recently watched that proshot and hated his performance. Everyone was going #woa mama hes serving cunt and in my head I was just like "yeah, but hes not serving a good performance thoughhhhhhhh". Also, he literally looks and has a lot of the same mannerisms as uwe!Tod, I'd be gravely disappointed if he didnt serve cunt

So yeah, its not like, awful or anything but I think the 1998 proshot is really only worth watching if you wanna see Maya Harkvoort as Elisabeth but in a pre-2001-changes production

The 1999 Schevening Production

Now THIS is an awful Elisabeth production! I hated this fucker so much I didnt even bother rewatching it for this post. Fortunately I did write a little review of it immediately after watching it, so if you care about my fresh 1999 Schevening Production Thoughts, feel free to scrawl through the bog that is my blog to find it

The first (and pretty much only) thing that you need to know about this one is that they cut all of the political songs. So theres no Hass, no Jedem gibt er das Seine, no Milch im pretty sure, and definitely no Die Schatten werden länger Reprise. Honestly I might be missing a cut song or two here because they somehow managed to shave a whole half an hour off this thing. I would be impressed by how they managed to do that without rendering the story completely incomprehensible if I wasnt so busy being angry at the way they just completely gutted this musical. I dont even understand why they did it, the musical is SO MUCH obviously worse for it! Like, okay, I could kinda get it if they had just cut Hass since thats obviously the most uncomfortable song (i would think less of them for it, but I would get it, the takarazuka version does it too) but them cutting the other political songs is just baffling to me because its like. bro. its politics from the 1800s, how is that upsetting or discomforting nowadays?

Whatever, lets talk about some other stuff. The cast was mostly not remarkable enough for me to remember ~1 year later. Pia Douwes is here as Elisabeth and shes very good as always, thats kindof it. This version of Der Tod is the most aggressive and overtly antagonistic Ive seen, which was kinda interesting in the sense that Death is usually personified as a straightfoward villain and vienna!Tod was kind of a subversion of that and a little more complex and now this production is basically subverting the subversion, but I untimately wasnt all that into it

I remember initially quite enjoying the sets and overall style of this production, Im pretty sure in my original review I said something along the lines of "I like the symbolism and abstractness of the original production, but its neat seeing a more literal take on it" and now Im just like. chuckles nervously, Okay guys, its been fun, can we go back to the symbolism. please.

So yeah, I really dont think this one is worth watching unless youre a hardcore Pia-stan or youre just really committed to watching every version of Elisabeth: das Musical you can get your hands on, like meeeeee <3

The 2004 Budapest Production

This is a really good one! I actually rewatched it for this post and I was excited to do so. I dont have too much to say about it though, in terms of story its fairly similar to the Vienna productions except that it has Kein Kommen ohne Gehen and the conspiracy song and der Tod has a bit more of a romantic vibe. Actually, i think a better way of describing it is, its like the takarazuka production but un-takarazukafied, which might not make that much sense if you havent seen both of these especially considering I havent talked about the takarazuka production yet. But what I mean is, both of these productions focus a lot more on the hungarian revolution-side of things and make it into more of a proper subplot, and the way they do it is mostly structurally the same (as in, new scenes/songs are inserted at mostly the same points in the narrative) but takarazuka version is a lot more glitzy and overdramatic where this production is a lot more grounded. I dont really prefer one over the other because the approaches are so different that I feel like they cant really be compared. I do like that they do that overall and I really like the conspiracy song for drawing additional parallels between Rudolf and Elisabeth, even though I know its not historically accurate, although I will say that it feels a little bit off in this production which otherwise does seem to be going for historical accuracy. Like, it doesnt bother me at all in the takarazuka production just because i feel like that one takes so many liberties that it doesn't really stick out, but even here, its not the biggest deal to me

Anyway, other stuff. The stage feels weirdly small, but I really like the sets, they lean a bit more towards being literal rather than symbolic but they do some really cool stuff with them, I especially like the way they'll spin essentially the whole set sometimes, it makes for some very interesting and dynamic staging. The performances were great, obviously Szabó P Szilveszter as der Tod was amazing, he has such a beautiful and powerful voice, and I also loved Janza Kata as Elisabeth. I feel like she played it a bit angrier than Im used to, like you can really feel her her frustration at the world around her even early on during Wie Du, and its so good. mwah

This production is the first one that Ive ever liked Franz Joseph in even a little. With him Im usually like "goddddd he sucks so much, i literally cant believe they got married" from the very start, but with this guy I was like "oh..... hes kinda cute, I get what Elisabeth sees in him" during So wie man plant und denkt and Nichts ist schwer. And I was initially worried that I only thought that because they didnt give him that historically acurrate haircut that the Vienna productions give that looks really bad and stupid, however I have since seen the takarazuka productions where they also give him a better haircut, and out of all the performers Ive seen Ive only liked two, so. yay! Im not shallow as fuck! Although I will reiterate that that era was truly a dark age for men's hair, I have such a viscerally negative reaction to most of those styles. And ugh, dont even get me started on the facial hair...... So yeah, while the haircut is not my only reason for liking him so much, it does help quite a bit

I will say, I noticed quite a few lyrics that I didnt really like. Or rather, because I dont speak hungarian so i dont actually know what the lyrics are and have to go off the subtitles and other translations, I dont like the sentiment behind them regardless of whether the lyrics sound good when you can properly understand them, if that makes sense. Like, the last line of Kein Kommen ohne Gehen was something like "You will be my queen of the night forever" and I just dont like that idea fundamentally, like my opinion of what this line is communicating wouldnt change if it was communicating it in a different way. But there werent too many lines that bothered me like that and most of them are not particularly (negatively) memorable, they just made me frown a lil as I was watching and then I basically immediately forgot about them.

So yeah, its really good and I'd definitely recommend watching it if you havent already

The Takarazuka Production(s)

That's referring to. all of them. I have seen all the normal proshots from 1996 to 2018, all the concert proshots and I have seen a few of the shinjinkoen ones as well (not all or even a lot of them bc theyre very hard to find unfortunately). Fortunately, theyre fundamentally all the same, the only big change that they ever made was adding Wenn ich tanzen will in 2002, and they change the costumes sometimes but thats it, so I dont have to get into every single individual production. Atleast not right now, I might at least compare the different Tod-performances because there are some striking differences, but that would be for a different post

I went on a bit of a journey watching all these different proshots, the first one I saw was the 1996 Star one and I absolutely loved it, then I watched a few more and I started noticing some issues which caused me to start disliking it, but then I watched some more and came around to liking it again. Its like, I have all these criticisms and complaints but I dont really think about those as Im watching it, Im just kinda along for the ride and having a good time and then when Im like, on a walk and I randomly start thinking about Elisabeth: Ai to Shi no Rondo I go "man, theres a bunch of shit here that sucks"

So yeah, lets talk about the shit that sucks, from Bothers Me Most to Bothers Me Least

It feels like they tried to make der Tod the protagonist instead of Elisabeth by giving him more stagetime and also giving him like three reprises of Ai to Shi No Rondo, effectively replacing the Ich gehör nur mir melody as the most important one, which I dislike on principle, but it also just plain doesnt work. Like, theyre trying to make this guy a protagonist with a rich inner world but first of all, hes supposed to be a personification of aspects of Elisabeth's (and Rudolf's) inner world and second of all, even as a more straightforward and human-seeming romantic character, his whole appeal is that you cant really know his inner world because hes mysterious like that and ultimately nonhuman, so all you can get out of him here is shallow little songs about his feelings for Elisabeth that are really bland and boring. Also, him singing about his love for Elisabeth so many times (and at such inappropriate moments like directly after she considered killing herself and at her sons funeral) makes him seem unbearably pathetic, but that actually doesnt bother me that much because I think its very funny

This version is definitely a lot more sanitized with there being no Hass, Kitsch and Kitsch Reprise being heavily altered to be less poignant, the bigger focus on Tod's romantic nature and Elisabeth's rougher edges being sanded down. The colorful costumes and sets also just make it feel like more of a silly fun time which contributes to the sanitized-ness imo. In a way, its kinda like the Scheveningen prod except this one went about its sanitization with surgical precision, where that one just started senselessly chopping off limbs

This version is very sillygoofy, thats the best word for it. This is my last complaint because if you catch me in the right mood this isnt even a complaint, this is just an aspect of the show that I think is fun and that I like a lot, but if you catch me in a different mood then boy will I complain. I dont really know how to properly explain this one in a concise way to someone who hasnt seen it. Instead of that little scene of some hungarians gossiping about little Sophie after Stationen einer Ehe, we get a scene of some hungarians being upset at the austrian empire and planning to stage a protest next time Elisabeth and Franz Joseph come to do some kind of assembly (? i guess) and then the assembly happens and they do the protest and the imperial guards shoot up into the air to intimidate them into stopping and then Franz Joseph turns to Elisabeth like "cmon, we gotta leave" but shes like "no wait" and she takes of her cloak (shes been wearing a cloak that hides her whole body basically this entire time btw), revealing her dress which is hungarian flag-colored and then she says "Éljen, Hungary!" and the crowd goes wild!!!

That scene is the sillygoofiest thing that happens in this production, nothing tops it, all the other sillygoofy bits are more subdued in their sillygoofiness, but still, I feel like its a good scene to use as an example of this show's sillygoofiness. Also, whenever I think about scenes in this show that are sillygoofy I always think of the scenes that are part of the whole hungarian revolution-subplot. Theyre actually not that tonally different from any of the other parts of this show, like obviously they would be absolutely hilarious if you just inserted them into the original austrian production or the hungarian production as they are, but they dont stick out within the takarazuka production itself, yknow what I mean? They've made enough subtle changes to the original material that the things that they added (which would otherwise seem incongruous with that material) dont immediately stick out.

All of this to say, I think the people who have tried to adapt this musical into the 'takarazuka style' have done an excellent job at it, but I could definitely see people who are fans of Elisabeth das Musical not really enjoying it because of that, unless theyre like me, and can be momentarily distracted from its flaws by virtue of featuring a bunch of beautiful women singing beautifully for 2 and a half hours. But if that sounds good to you, I would 100% recommend it because its a fun and very well-made time. I dont have a specific proshot that I would recommend over the others, but I will say that I have a huge soft spot for the 1996 Star one because its the first one i saw and I absolutely adore Asaji Saki's Tod, and for the 2009 Moon one because thats the one I spent a bunch of time making german subtitles for to show my parents

Okay, before I move on to talking about the next production, I just have one more thing to say, or rather ask: why are the takarazuka and hungarian productions so similar? They both premiered in the year 1996 (and there was no pre-takarazuka japanese prod to my knowledge) so it seems impossible to me for one to have taken from the other, and from what I can tell, the changes that are specific to both of these productions and that dont really appear in any others (except for the toho production but we'll get to that) have existed in both of them from the start, so like, how did that happen, what overlap was there between their creative teams because there must have been something or else they wouldnt have turned out so similar? So yeah, if anyone reading this knows more about the behind the scenes history of these productions, please tell me about it, Im very curious

The 2016 Toho Production (White Cast)

Its kinda funny going from the Takarazuka section where I had seen literally as many of them as I could physically get my hands on, to this one where Im just like "yeah, Ive just seen the one that Im pretty sure is the most popular one, its atleast the one I see people post gifs of the most". To be fair, I think theyve only released 6 or 7 proshots even though theyve been putting it on since 2001, god knows why

Whatever, this production is really good and I like it a lot. The songs are overwhelmingly the same as they were in the takarazuka production, although theyve made some changes to the ones that were the most different to make them more like they were originally. Thats honestly a good way of describing this production as a whole; if the Budapest one felt like the takarazuka one but completely un-takarazukafied, this one was like, 50% un-takarazukafied. I was really debating with myself what percentage I would say there, because while the changes are for the most part subtle and the overall sillygoofiness remains intact for the most part, they did keep Kitsch the same and they kept Hass the same which was honestly shocking to me, I was kind of expecting them to censor it somehow or atleast tone it down or something, which is why I was actually looking at the screen during this version for once (Hass usually gives me horrible intrusive thoughts and I usually watch musicals on my tv so I cant just skip ahead, so if Im watching it and its a language I dont speak I just look away for a bit, and if Im watching it in german I'll just leave the room for a bit) but uh. they dont, and not only that but they put a gigantic swastika flag on the stage that takes up basically the entire screen and just gives me the worst intrusive thoughts. And honestly, even though this caused my brain to torment me for like two weeks, Im glad they did it because Hass really isnt a song you should try to censor or downplay, you either do it or you just dont even try. Anyway, my point here is, because that alone was SO un-takarazukalike, I was originally going to say that this production was 80% un-takarazukafied, but then I thought about it some more and I was like "well yes, but then they also added that bit to that already-sillygoofy scene where Elisabeth reveals that her dress is hungary-colored to the crowd where Batthany tried to assassinate her at Tod's behest, so. i gotta lower that percentage I think" and thats how I ended up with that number

Anyway, time to talk about some stuff that isnt the tone and how it compares to other productions. I really liked the sets, theyre leaning more towards being symbolic, although I will say that the symbolism felt a bit more simplistic compared to the Vienna productions. Still, how can i deny the sheer effect of just having like half of the stage taken up by three gigantic coffins? I feel like there are so many scenes that were kindof elevated for me because I was just like "ohhhh theyre singing about this thing while standing on this gigantic coffin and it symbolises that death is all around them and the monarchy is built on death and theyre in the midst of this dying era". One example of this is in the Jedem gibt er das Seine scene, they do it exactly like you would expect, they dont do a carousel-thing like the Vienna production, but they put Franz Joseph and his desk and his whole entourage on those coffins and then the mother comes in below them on the stage, and its just so good, I dont know what to say

I dont have too much to say about the cast, it was pretty good all around, the only thing that I can remember rn is that I thought Hanafusa Mari as Elisabeth was a bit off. Specifically whenever she had to be sad, I just never quite bought it, but I did like her whenever she was happy or glad or during Wenn ich tanzen will when she was all spiteful, and obviously her voice was absolutely beautiful. Shirota Yu as der Tod was also great, he plays it like a real freak, he actually reminded me a lot of Matè Kamaras except I like this guy more because I feel like hes not constantly hissing and growling

So yeah, it's a good production that I would definitely recommend checking out if you can

The 2009 Antwerpen Production

I never thought I'd see a version of Elisabeth: das Musical that I would consider to be basically completely uninteresting, but those freaks over in belgium somehow managed to make it

But before I get into that, I want to tell you something about my experience watching this one (and also the Scheveningen one). So, the only languages I can speak and understand fluently are german and english, so I need subtitles in order to understand all of the non-austrian productions. However, I couldnt immediately find subtitles for the Scheveningen prod and I didnt even really try to look for them that hard because I thought "eh, it doesnt matter, i know this musical inside and out and I'll probably be able to atleast kindof of understand the lyrics without subtitles anyway" because in my head I just kinda think of german and dutch as being very similar because germany and the netherlands are geographically close, even though they really arent, so I ended up watching it just not understanding the vast majority of the words. But again, I know this musical very well so it really didnt matter, although I was a bit disappointed because I was expecting to have an interesting experience listening to this musical in a language that I can somewhat understand but that is also clearly not a language that I can actually speak, do you know what I mean? Anyway, smash cut to like a year later and Im on vk.ru looking for musical proshots to download and I stumble upon this one. Because antwerpen sounds kinda german to me I assume its a german-language proshot I hadnt heard of before so I dont look for subtitles and I just watch it as is, and Im very surprised when it is not in fact german. But I feel like I can kinda understand it, so I just keep watching and I end up having that I expected to have with the dutch proshot with this one which I think is flemish (?). I'm not sure, I dont recognize this language and when I looked it up to see if anyone online knew what it was, all I got was someone on reddit being like "idk, its probably flemish" so

Anyway, back to the actual review part of this whole thing. Why do I find this to be the most uninteresting version of this musical? In a lot of ways, its basically just the 2005 Vienna production except flatter; a lot of the physical sets have been replaced by screens, the performances are all good albeit pretty unremarkable otherwise, the few times they deviate from the Vienna production are fine but also unremarkable to the point that I dont feel like going into detail about them, and the costumes felt worse somehow? Like, theyre not trying to have any kind of symbolism, theyre just historical clothes, which, to be fair, none of the non-Vienna productions that Ive seen so far really try that hard for symbolism with the costumes, I think the reason it stuck out to me here is that its otherwise so similar to the Vienna ones. They dont have a mayerling dress which is immensely disappointing for the same reason, and also now that Ive written that out, Im fully realizing for the first time that literally no production other than the Vienna ones has it and Im getting pretty upset. sighhhhh. when will men-crossdressing enjoyers win

Moving on, while I find the cast mostly unremarkable, I do have a little bit to say about them. I really enjoyed the pathetic wet cat vibes that Jan Schepens brought to Lucheni, especially in the prologue where he has that very brief interaction with Tod, although I will say that I dont like how they made him so unaware of the main plot of the musical. Like, during his little narration bit before Jedem gibt er das Seine he has a newspaper and he has to read it in order to remember that its 1854, I know they do this in some Vienna prods as well and I hate it every time. Because the whole point is, hes just been stuck in this endless loop of retelling this whole story since he died 1898 so by the time youre watching this musical in 2009 or 1992 or whenever, he knows it in and out, thats why he seems so goddamn tired in the 1992 version!!! But other than that hes fine 👍

The other person I have something to say about is der Tod, although its not relly about his performance. His performance is like. in the nicest way possible, the reason i would say hes not literally the worst in terms of singing or cuntserving is that 1998Vienna!Tod and Scheveningen!Tod respectively exist. But while I was watching I was really distracted because I keept thinking "this guy looks so familiar but Im 100% sure Ive never seen him before, he just looks like someone else i know, but who is it that he reminds me of" and then when i got to Mama wo bist du, I realized: he looks so much like one of the guys who played Sebastian in some of the black butler musicals, or atleast my memory of what that guy looks like. And I felt kind of embarassed because I was like "ohhhhhhhh ive enjoyed the concept of Young Boy And Fucked Up Non-Human Have A Relationship Which Is Oddly Soft While Also Being Nothing But Red Flags for way longer than I realized huh" And also, OF COURSE i noticed the similarity in that exact scene, good god

Whatever, theres only one last thing that bothers me and that I wanted to talk about and its Wenn ich tanzen will. I dont like how Tod grabs Elisabeth and manouvers her around like that, which, the choreography here is the same as in the 2005 Vienna production, but I didnt fully realize just how much it bothered me until watching this one so Im talking about it here. I was originally going to do a whole analysis about how I dont think it fits the song very well and thats the reason I dont like it, but upon thinking about it, I think it works well enough. Yknow the contrast between Elisabeth being so defiant and refusing to give into him even though its clear that she knows hes right about all the stuff hes saying and her compromising physical position, and also how it lays bare that der Tod has no real power because hes ultimately a manifestation of her wants, thats all pretty good tbh

No, the reason I dont like this choreography for Wenn ich tanzen will is that its sexual in a way that I dont appreciate because the woman is in the submissive position. Its like. okay so, you know those dark romance/romantasy books about a 17-20 year old girl falling for a ~500 year old guy with overpowered shadow magic and having a bunch of sex with him that are really popular right now and also really popular to make fun of? Well, I used to really like hanging out in the making-fun-of spaces until I realized that people were getting really puratanitical about what people are 'allowed' to write and the extent to which authors are 'responsible' for imparting 'good messages' to their 'impressionable audience' which, these books are not usually categorized as YA, theyre pretty clearly aimed at women who are 18 and up and even if they are, teenagers are not that impressionable but Im not getting into that rn which bothered me, not just because I fundamentally dont agree with that, but also because my issue with them is not that theyre presenting relationship dynamics that are problematic in the sense that the age gap is too big or the power gap is too big or that theyre abusive or whatever, but that theyre presenting relationship dynamics that are problematic in the sense that theyre extremely sexist

And like, to an extend this is just an issue with mainstream romance books as a whole which is why I dont really read them, and Im not saying that anyone who enjoys them is sexist or bad, its just that it personally discomforts me to the point of killing my enjoyment in things like large age gaps or crazy power dynamics, which, for the record, I do genuinely really enjoy! I just dont like it when its like "oh the virginal teeny tiny girl whos barely legal gets with the biggest most bigdicked most powerful ancient MALE to ever exist and whos lowkey highkey abusive", but if a book like that came out where the genders were reversed and it was a cute barely legal ingenue boy and an ancient powerful evil woman, I would not only not have an issue with that, I would find it extremely hot. or if it was gay in some capacity which, books that are exactly like typical romantasy books but gay probably do exist, but I dont really see people discuss them as much, so. My point here is, the typical romance/romantasy relationship dynamic just feels like a model of the patriarchy except its two people instead of like, all of society, and I dont like that and I feel similarly about this Wenn ich tanzen will choreography. Like, its not quite the same feeling but I have trouble articulating my exact discomfort with it, so Im comparing it to a different kind of discomfort that I have with something else that I am capable of articulating.

So yeah, its a fine enough Elisabeth production. watch it if you want, dont watch it if you dont want

Aaaaaaaand thats it. I know Im still missing a couple of korean proshots that I havent seen yet because I havent been able to find subtitles for them, so if theres any korean-speakers in the audience who would be willing to make and share them, I would appreciate it. If no one wants to share them, there is a website called lyricstranslate where people can submit translations of any song into any language, and the korean lyrics are on there so if Im really lucky, someone has translated all of them into a language i know and i can make my own subtitles with those. But Im still working on making a subtitle file for the 2004 Budapest proshot (the version thats available with subtitles on the internet archive is hardsubbed and I'd like the option of having softsubs), so thatll have to wait. I also downloaded a video of the 2001 Essen production, I dont know if thats a proshot or a complete bootleg but I'll watch that one eventually too and if I can muster up the motivation, maybe I'll even write reviews for those as well

Anyway, how many of these have you seen and what did you think of them? Please tell me in excruciating detail, I love reading other peoples Elisabeth-thoughts

[obsob]

Now when the GTN case is closed, can you please write about how much you hate tj klune? 👁👄👁 My reason is that this author just is not talented enough to write good prose, but I want to read what you think about it!

IM SO GLAD U ASKED (and the other like 50 people in my inbox haters unite)

so the first tjk books i read was his green creek series which are very different from his more recent books and honestly way better. now are they good ? no! but they are better and are like mostly tolerable. they were kinda annoying to read, the main reason that first book is like 800 pages is bc th paragraphs are like one three word sentence long, but i might try the audiobook at some point. also the age gap in that first book is like . ...... . . .. a little questionable but we move on

th next book of his i read was house on the cerulean sea which was fine at first but good lord. i think i checked about 3 times reading this if this book was suppose to be YA or even middle grade - that is the level of moral complexity that is in this book - the message of 'oh people are different and thats okay' is forced down your throat soooo many times like girl i GET ITTTTTTTT!!!!!!! i liked the idea - a lot of tjk's books sound rlly good which is what lures me in, but the execution is just dare i say cringe. also i dont know how many of u are aware but tjk himself said that what inspired this book was in fact RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS???????? HI HELLO??? MAYBE DONT DO THAT!!!!!!

people do not talk how they do in tjk books. its like he writes dialogue and narration specifically for it to be quotes, its all very superficial and just not immersive at all. do not get me STARTEDD on ' on the lives of puppets' . absolutely zero creative thoughts in regards to the world building. tell me why at the beginning of the book we meet a ROBOT who is buried in stuff and the mc immediately is like oh its male :) when all he could hear was th robots voice. girl its a ROBOTTTTTTTTTT RRIRYYGYGAWWWYGYGYRGYGW

i cannot believe people could read that book and think its good and deep. his writing has all the emotional complexity and depth of a marvel movie .

its interesting to me how he did show he could write a more mature and emotional story w the green creek books, and then just completely walked away from that style to write repetitive and superficial stories. loser

tldr: tjk's writing is immature and superficial and repetitive, and only legitimately enjoyable to people who don't have enough variety in their reading life to know a bad book when they read it. and i think hes lame

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I have some questions abt hellenic polytheism and how its practiced. I myself have been practicing it for a while, but something I noticed while researching about it is a distinct lack of actual greek people in online social media spaces. It was first brought to my attention after seeing a reddit post and youtube video explaining how using “hellenismos” is considered cultural appropriation. After that, Ive noticed how the main sources Ive used about hellenic polytheism isnt really from the people whos culture were trying to practice. AKA non greeks.

I would like to know your explanations on the basics of hellenic polytheism like altars/shrines, khernips, prayers, devotees, tarot/oracle cards, pendulums, kharis, and offerings. There might be some knowledge that I got wrong and need to change, like maybe the way I give offerings needs fixing and I need to give more perishable offerings like food than handmade crafts like art for apollo. And maybe theres a spicic way to do it and not just place it on the altar. Other than websites like hellenicfaith.com, r/hellenism is usually my main source with a grain of salt because of the strange lack of greeks in discussions, and although my friend who is also practicing hellenic polytheism gives me a lot of advice, their main sources are tiktok and. Well, I dont think I need to explain why thats a bad source. (Their main justification is “of course tiktok isnt that serious” and “it comes from the pagans themselves”)

Also, Im also curious on your thoughts about people who practice in secret.

I hope this isnt too long, I just wanna make sure Im using a better source than reddit because, well, its reddit. Not the most reliable source.

Hello! If you don't mind I will also address two more questions I got on the matter, since I feel they are related to yours. They are the following:

Hello all! You did very well to seek Greek sources because you are essentially dealing with a foreign culture and it's not right to assume it looks just like your local one. I will guide you as much as I can but I am very open to being corrected by knowledgeable Greeks and xenoi alike because I am not an infallible scholar. As always, my posts are open to additions in case I missed something.

Let me start by saying I believe it's important to focus on the living Greeks as well, in parallel to your studies of ancient religious texts. Not only were our ancient people diverse with various opinions but... they are also dead and cannot speak anymore. So, it's the alive Greeks who now handle and pass down the culture. If something gives the ick to modern Greeks, it probably goes against what the culture considers appropriate or strange.

Greeks will get "the ick" even if they are not well-read on ancient Greek customs, because the Greek culture largely holds its philosophy when it comes to worship. Disclaimer: This is not an unbroken rule, as some of our cultural elements have shifted or changed, as it happens to all cultures around the globe, and also because a Greek does not know everything. But it's good to keep that general statement in mind.

An example of a practice not seen favorably by Greeks nowadays is some Western women practitioners covering their heads because of Hellenic Polytheism. The ancient faith may demand it but the veil was forced a lot on Greek women and collectively we believe it doesn't make any sense to wear it, even in scenarios of faith tied to our culture. Now, that doesn't mean that it's any of our business if a Hellenic Polytheist wants to veil but it'd be good for this person to have knowledge of the history and rights of Greek women, and really evaluate why they want to veil beyond "the ancients did it", since Greek culture is largely disagreeable to that practice now. Find a larger discussion on veiling here.

Also please capitalize the first letter of Apollo's name because this shows proper respect ;)

Let's dive into specifics a little bit. Our culture was and is practical and anthropocentric. It takes into account reality and environment, as well as human nature.

For the anthropocentric aspect: Yes, there are general guidelines because we are talking about a tradition here but no one will take your head if you do it a bit differently. As for the practical aspect: if you give non-perishable items to the gods by putting them on their altar, in 10 years you won't have a space in your house to stand. If they are non-perishable you have no reason to remove them. Because if you remove them is like taking back offerings that were meant for the deity.

The offerings of Greeks in Polytheism and Christianity included perishable items such as food, candles/oil lamps, flowers, incense, libations, etc. And since they go bad you have a reason to remove them. But you also don't want any waste on the streets or in your house. Even the sacrificed animals were meant to be eaten, and the Greek communities believed that the smell of roasted meat made the gods rejoice. In some cases, offerings that were left outside were meant to be consumed by the homeless and travelers. Everything has a purpose and a reason within that specific community. (Flowers not so much, they are just ornamental)

It's not that you cannot or should not offer non-perishable items to the gods. I'm sure a few don't hurt anyone. Just keep in mind that if the offering is a non-perishable item it is/was usually offered to the temple, so the priests can sustain themselves and continue doing their religious service on behalf of the community. We are talking about coins, clothing, jugs, animals, or whatever else.

Continuing on the matter of offerings. A small rant on how clueless some people seem to be about offerings. It would be weird to knit a winter scarf for a god and then wear it yourself because that's not how dedication/devotion works in the Greek context. Also, leaving that winter scarf on the altar doesn't make sense either because it's just… impractical in the Greek sense. You are wasting a scarf, to put it plainly. But if you make something for one deity then give it to the deity, don't wear it yourself.

I'll tackle a few more specifics now. I think you already know what they mean so I will give my opinion on them rather than explaining them. I think my opinion is shared by many Greeks.

hellenismos -> I am not sure if it's appropriation but it's surely inaccurate. Here is why, for those who wonder, with some suggestions on how to call yourself. (hint: Hellenic Polytheist is fine)

on how to be respectful and accurate: I always recommend reading as many ancient Greek texts as possible the view of the gods directly from the ancient worshipers themselves. You can read whatever texts interest you, including plays. Plays are my favourite source, to be honest. Understand on your own what the text says. The Hymn to Demeter is focused on the pain of a mother, which is pretty obvious, you are under no obligation to hear Kate the TikToker who insists on something different. You don't have to hear YouTubers who tell you Zeus is an asshole when ancient texts show us the opposite, and give a good context on why he does what he does.

altars/shrines -> The altars I've seen are usually fine, so I think western polytheists have this down. The ancient ones would be more homogenous but in our era the religion is unorganized so it's up to the individual to create an altar. Greeks still have altars in their homes as a continuation of our polytheist practices and they also have some variation. Generally, all good here.

khernips -> χέρνιψ literally translates to "washer of hands". It's a Greek practice to have clean hands before touching any sacred objects, either in Dodekatheism or in Christianity. We do not always follow it but it's important. Our old custom is also to wash hands, face, and feet before entering our Christian temples (that's why there are κρήνες outside many of them) but that's not practiced anymore because our hygiene is overall better and we already visit the temple while clean.

The cleansing part will feel natural for most Greeks and not unfit for the whole procedure. You can also cleanse items with water if the purification ritual says so. Don't lose sleep over it. Remember practicality. Khernips is just water with which you wash your hands and you can do it before a meal, like we do today. It is meant to keep you clean but doesn't bear any spiritual force - it's not like the holy water of Christians which is imbued with divine power. It's just water included in a practice that helps the religious person get ready for spiritual time.

Also! Khernips doesn't mean that you wash the whole body! It's second part, νήβω / nivo = rub is connected to cleaning body parts. For the cleanliness of the whole body we used/use "λούω / λούζω". Fun fact, on of the greatest christian temples Hagia Sofia, had a reminder outside the gate with the same verb, and it was an anagram. "ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ", meaning "wash your sins, too, not just your face". This anagram is found in other Christian sites, as well.

prayers -> Any prayer is good. There are only a few ways a prayer can go "wrong", since there's not a subscription for that. For example a prayer has to usually praise the magnanimity of the deity, even if you are just doing it to ask something, but words from the heart are also fine. Zeus won't smite you if you include him in a phrase without praising him first.

devotees -> Afaik this was a rare phenomenon in antiquity and it's only nowadays that Westerners decided that everyone is a devotee, which looks weird to Greeks because being a devotee doesn't work exactly like Westerners do it. You don't get to pick one god, talk 99% of the time about that god, or worship just them and not recognize the whole pantheon, or just give little attention to them.

Ancient Greek towns and people had gods they were closer to, for sure, but from what I know they didn't have the same concept as modern foreign worshipers today. They were not "αφιερωμένοι"/devoted, unless they devoted their life to a deity by serving in their temple. The devoted/devotees were not everyday people.

The everyday people felt closer to some gods in the way someone can have a saint or a prophet that they align themselves with, that they feel like they can see themselves on them, or that these gods see them, or that they are related to their struggles, or have given them some sort of protection. A cultivator of vineyards will probably feel closer to Dionysus, while a fisherman to Poseidon, and a warrior to Ares. It's the same for Christian Greeks, since each of the saints has one domain and we call on them depending on our needs.

I mean, it's okay if modern people want to make new things, but we should also be clear on the nature of the ancient practice.

tarot/oracle cards, pendulums -> They are unrelated to the practice. They are just recent elements of western spiritual fascination, and the ancient Greek religion is already complete without them. If Apollo chooses to reveal himself through tarot he may as well reveal himself on a toaster xD A toaster is as related to the ancient Greek religion as much as tarot cards.

kharis -> Some Westerners overhype foreign words that are, in reality, very simple terms. Kharis is just "the grace of god" and the concept is similar to the grace spoken in Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Kharis is not lost if you forget to wash your hands once, or if you are afraid that the item you placed on the altar is not good enough. You don't have to tiptoe around it, it's not something incomprehensible and mystical.

miasma -> Nobody asked for it but I am delivering it anyways because I see many new people to the religion treat miasma like they are 5th-century Greeks who will be punished by the plague if they menstruate too close to the altar. I've seen endless discussions online about what miasma is and all the detailed ways that you can avoid it, and how to cleanse everything and... as a 21st-century practitioner you are not supposed to be that fearful. In the Πλυντήρια festival, the statue of Athena goddess was washed clean but also cleansed metaphorically by people's sins. And you can cleanse your statues as well of course but not with the mindset of considering yourself unclean. Do not follow every advice from ancient people who thought women unclean when menstruating. Ironically, this post and this post from r/hellenism have a good approach to this. As one user says:

people who practice in secret -> I don't have particular thoughts for them. If they must hide their spirituality for reasons beyond their control, it's natural for them to do so. I wish them the best in their spiritual journey.

Take a look at my F.A.Q. page, and more specifically on these questions:

Can I worship the Greek gods as a xenos (non-Greek)?

What do Greeks think of people outside of Greece worshiping the Greek gods?

Reading List / Book recommendations on Greek Mythology

Are the Greek gods assholes? // What’s up with gods coupling with mortal women?

Also, when it comes to the practices of the ancient Greek religion, Google Scholar is your friend. Read a variety of scholars and please include Greek ones on your reading list. Western academia focuses a lot on what the myth means to The West today, while Greek academia focuses on what the myths meant in their time. Some classical students report that studying classics in Greece VS in the US can be night and day, and they got a more authentic feeling from the knowledge they gained from the Greek classes.

For gods, festivals, and rituals in Greece, I have some recommendations below, if you’d like to take a look! (The links open directly to them so you can read them for free)

Let it rain’, or ‘rain, conceive’: Rituals of magical rain-making in Ancient Greece, a comparative approach. In Roca, Z. et al. (eds.): European Landscapes and Lifestyles: The Mediterranean and Beyond. Lisboa: Edições Universitárias Lusófonas 2007: 285-304.

Cosmos 17 (2001), 197-251 Rituals of Magical Rain-Making in Modern and Ancient Greece: A Comparative Approach by Evy Johanne Håland

http://en.arch.uoa.gr/fileadmin/arch.uoa.gr/uploads/images/evy_johanne_haland/cosmos_17-2_haland.pdf

p.s., I call Christian temples "temples" because that's how we call them. We use ναός very frequently for our religious buildings.

I hope I covered your questions so far 💙😊 See you around, and have a great day!

✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺✨🌺

If my posts have helped you in any way, consider buying me a coffee or giving a Paypal donation. I spend many hours per day on questions and posts, so that would support me a little.

[byjovewhataspend]

1A!shinsou and quirkless!deku who are just close friends, that start fooling around at UA specifically while fantasizing that the other one is aizawa and mic respectively. Like one closes their eyes while the other goes 'aizawa would be doign this and thinking this and saying this' and they take turns, they are both just obsessed with their prefferred one and the other is just helping them out, and when you spend every night sneaking into eachothers bed to do it you might as well spend the night too

naturally people end up assuming they are dating, which they dont like, but trying to say otherwise would just be weirder so they put up with it. they try for a bit to maybe seem flirty and sexy in public so that emic will be interested, but their heart isnt really in it and it gets no reaction the few times they manage to time it right, so they just give it up and continue on how things are. People might as well think we are dating, at least we have better reasons to always be with our best friend, right? and we dont have to sneak around as much anymore, which is nice.

this extends into adulthood where they work for the same underground agency and people ask about when they are going to get married and they are just like 'haha... no plans for that just yet...!'

(it gets nsfw and weird below the cut. dubcon, obsession, horror, etc)

"Ill never get used to people thinking we are dating." Shinsou says while sinking into Izukus ass, hissing at the too-tight drag. Izuku didnt like him to use much-- if any--lube, since hes sure mic is bigger than shinou. "Honestly I see you more as like, a brother?"

"Me too," izuku replies in Aizawas voice, Shinsous mask strapped tightly around his mouth as he tries his best to keep it upright because Eraserhead wouldnt push his face into the pillow the way Izuku wants to. "I just really dont see you that way at all.'

(notably, neither of them has any siblings)

they dont EXCLUSIVELY do things they think their 'target' would do, they are best friends who are mutually fulfilling the other ones fantasies. there are some things off limits-- (Izuku wont accept more than two fingers in the front, he wants to save it for mic-- just in case) and even though shinsou is sure that aizawa is a top, at best a switch, he isnt interestd in bottoming for izuku.

'hes special, you know? i wouldnt do it for just anyone' and izuku completely understands. he doesnt like shinsou to mimic mics voice because his voice is too SPECIFIC, too nuanced, but he DOES like to be called 'listener' as a pet name.

So this goes on, years of being comfortably obsessed and debased, honest only with eachother. theyve graduated from UA and hardly ever see Eraserhead or Mic anymore. Izuku still listens to his radio show and sometimes they catch sight of Eraserhead on a patrol, but thats about it.

and then one day their agencies call ALL OF THEM to some big case, all 4 of them in the room together for the first time in years, and they get to be alone together for the very furst time

and aizawa and mic are fun and casual with them. seeing them as fellow hereos now. they are 25ish, fully formed, independent and strong, theyve been pros longer than they were ever at UA. Hey, how about we all go hang out? how about we all catch up? lets go drinking-- lets go dancing-- lets go for a ride

and the last think they really remember being out of it and twisted up together in the back seat and maybe aizawa and mic were doign somethign in the front, its all unclear--

and they wake up at home. bruised and bitten, sore, leaking, full. They both feel like theyve been hit by a truck. they feel like got hit with a quirk. they feel like they partied for days without stopping.

But it was just one night, and they are in their own bed, and when they stumble to the shower there is blood--just a little between izukus thighs, where he can tell his puss got used, but mor importantly there is much more of it splattered along their hands and faces, washing down the sink

'we must have gotten into a fight' they think, and largely brush it off. they are heroes, those things happen. 'more importantly, did we finally have sex with them??' it seems liek they must have, they are excited, not upset at all. they are only upset they blacked out from drinking. they see emic again that evening at work but emic arent acting like they did anything at all last night. so not a fun consensual night of mutual fun.

thats.. more concerning. Were they roofied? they are both so obsessed with them that they dont even really mind if they were-- they HOPE that emic wanted them that bad in fact, they get off together fantasizing about it-- but then izuku gets panicked. why would they have needed to? we wouldve done it willingly in a second. Izuku panicking about what if after all this time it was shinsou that fucked him and not mic at all???

emic arent fessing up so they take to their hero resources. following security cameras to see where they ended up last night ,but losing sight of mics car in an area largely abandoned because of an old town-destroyign quirk effect. no cameras around there. no proof but they do find out that there was a murder there that night. something grizzly and violent, the likes of which the cops in that area have never seen before.

And Shinsou and Izukus stomachs drop as they realize... maybe they arent the crazy people in this scenario. maybe they arent the sickos. Maybe the objects of their obsession did something terrible to them-- or had them do something awful to other people-- and they are just too blind to see it

After all this time, could the people they are in love with actually be monsters?

and if its true, are the two of them good enough people to stop wanting them?

or is it too late for them?

Theyll have to investigate, have to get closer, have to repeat the circumstances and figure out what mic and aizawa are up to!!! (thats all i got in that TONE but below, some random things) something-something some instance during their investigation in which they accidentally end up fucking the WRONG partner. not being attracted to them personally but LOCKING IN and consenting so that they can memorize it all and bring it back to their boyfriend and do it more accurately-- and realizing they have been... wAY off base. that they are much scarier in person, in real life, in bed, and then when they try to repeat the perfomance with their partner they get too into it and its kind of scary for both of them, who have been so In Tune with eachother for so long

izuku and shinsou are willing to accept (and EAGER to accept) a CERTAIN level of evil from the object of their affection, but there is a LIMIT and the worry is they mightve crossed it. Story wise have thebig reveal turn outto be an evil thing that they CAN in fact accept. its bad but not as bad as they had built up in their heads, and the two of them have BIG imaginations and have imagined emic doing horrible things for so long that they are kind of immune to it. emic picked up on the slight sheen of madness in their eyes and finally went for it. a certain level of 'driving you insane on purpose' because they have spied on you and know youre obsessed with them. some mindfucky here to see how far they could push you and OH GOOD you sprang right towards them and into their bed! happy ending with 4 kind of bad very unhealthy people that are happy to just be obsessed with eachother.

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

SOME NAMEKIAN SPECULATIVE BIOLOGY FOR FUNZIES

or: why do namekians look like that? : the sequel to "why does namek look like that"

disclaimer: im no dragon ball expert, or biology expert, this is all just for fun and my own personal satisfaction because thinking about alien biology makes me very excited. what im doing is a little closer to hard sci-fi than the type of sci-fi generally present in the franchise, and i am straight up ignoring some aspects of canon here to make a version of namekian physiology that feels more realistic and interesting to me personally, so this is more of an au than an analysis (but i mean. this is an extremely retcon-able franchise anyway) also im of the opinion that namekians are in fact not ken dolls down there, and im gonna talk about what i think they might have going on so JUST A WARNING in case that sorta thing grosses u out or whatever. i can and will speculate about namekian junk 👍also this ended up running kinda long so... click at ur own risk!

CANON STUFF IM IGNORING (for now)

namekians getting bigger

this happens in db and super hero movie. but im ignoring it because it doesnt make sense and isnt interesting enough for me to magical hand-wave it away. like supposedly it gives piccolo no greater strength than at his normal size yet it gives him more leverage when pushing cell?? also if hes the exact same strength that kind of implies to me that he has like …. the same mass too… which unless piccolo is SUPER dense already (and i dont see him breaking any floor boards.. but maybe thats why hes outside all the time) then his super low density would make him kinda…. weak… kind like how its easier to blow away an open sheet of paper than a balled-up sheet of paper. im sure there are some ways you could make this fun but the franchise just doesn't do anything interesting enough with this for me personally so im ignoring it

eggs coming out the mouth

this is a controversial one SORRY it just makes absolutely zero sense to me… they obviously at minimum drink and breathe out of their mouths why on earth would their eggs exit from there too… im also going to argue that even though they dont need food they do in fact have a digestive system so unless their mouth is the most horrible cloaca in the world they have more than one major orifice anyway (can you imagine having a tongue and teeth down there..) if this is really important to you then maybe this could be something certain namekians CAN do but generally dont, or its something that like . king piccolo can do specifically (because hes like. an evil demon or whatever. i dunno im not super familiar with dragon ball demon lore tbh)

also like... even if you REALLY wanna stick to the idea of namekians as a species that doesn't require food and never did, they should still have liquid waste. even plants have liquid waste. and since namekians dont seem to be shedding off big outer layers of skin on the reg (though this could be a neat concept, i like the idea of someone encountering a piccolo-husk) it makes sense that they'd have an additional orifice for shedding waste anyway. so it just makes sense to give that orifice one more job. even as narrow as namekian hips are, the egg has a whole lot more space than it would if it went through their fucking throat

NOW THAT WE'VE GOT THAT COVERED:

🟢⭐DISPELLING COMMON NAMEKIAN BIOLOGY MYTHS⭐🟢

or, stuff that's commonly assumed to be canon that i think is not

FIRST MYTH: namekians cannot eat and digest food, and have always sustained themselves off of exclusively water

they CAN sustain themselves off of water, but i think of them as being able to eat and benefiting from food in certain ways. there's been some examples of them eating, but im not really concerned with the fringe examples of namekians eating from video games, rather we know namekians either have or used to have the capacity to consume food because they have teeth! (and a tongue, and a uvula!)

and from the looks of it, some serious canines too! they dont just eat, they eat meat! given their ability to fight and create weapons, i think of namekians as likely being or having at some point been omnivorous apex predators like homo-sapiens. if you wanna believe that they don't actively need to eat anymore, then id like to think that some dragon ball magic had to happen to accelerate namekian evolution, because there's just way too many vestigial structures otherwise - if you're hand-waving the amount of energy required for namekians to be able to move around as much as they do, and assume that they photosynthesize or something like plants, and don't mate (which im about to argue against but we'll get to that) then...why would they even evolve to walk around at all? what im thinking is that namekians do need to eat, just very infrequently as we see in canon, and just used to need to eat a lot more. im attributing this change in namekians need for food to the big ecological disaster that gets talked about in dbz, so you could think of them as having pre-disaster biology and post-disaster biology, which accounts for namekians being able to sustain themselves on so little while also being a species that has so many body parts just for eating, and that eventually farms and has advanced technology. pre-disaster namekians ate frequently, possibly requiring a calorie content comparable to humans, and post-disaster biology occurred so that namekians could survive the kind of ecological disasters that guru lives through - and that they likely have to live through quite frequently on a planet with the kind of tides namek would have, being a planet with three suns and all. lots of tsunamis, earth-quakes (namek-quakes?), etc. so maybe a sequence of these disasters caused them to evolve to need very little food. so, like i said, if you'd like to think of them as needing no food, then the dragon balls would have to be involved for me to find that believable that since a mouth full of parts clearly meant for eating is just too evolutionary expensive to stick around as vestigial structures for any other reason.

but assuming they aren't completely vestigial, then there's a few different options we can consider, like that post-disaster namekians can survive without food and under extreme circumstances for a very long time, but they still gotta eat, like, once in a while. my current favorite theory is that they're a bit like tardigrades, and post-disaster they've evolved (or magic'd) into extremeophiles. that is that, they can survive extreme circumstances, such as going almost indefinitely without eating, but they enter a sort of cryptobiosis-like state where some of their functions stop working, such as reproduction and development. in other words, not eating won't kill them, but if a namekian wants to grow or have children, then they're gonna have to eat. they'd also likely rarely experience a hunger or desire for food because of this.

this would explain why all the namekians who are stated or implied to have had children look like they're carrying body fat. they're the ones who eat food! it just doesnt really make sense for that to just be the results of them aging... the fats gotta come from somewhere. and even for humans, atrophying due to aging comes as often in the form of losing weight as it does gaining it, but we've yet to see an older looking namekian who's thin. rather it makes more sense to think that these namekians were eating since they were planning to produce offspring, and rather than eat too little and have their egg come out underdeveloped, they eat more than they need to develop the egg and the rest of the energy gets stored away as fat, possibly never to be used since their cryptobiosis-like state where they don't need food is sort of a default for them once they're fully developed.

it would also explain why dende ages so much differently from both piccolo and gohan (besides retconning) piccolo just kind of jumps to adult form - much faster than both humans and saiyans, while dende's development kind of seems to freeze for a few years. their development, rather than being stunted, can just be frozen indefinitely if needed. (why dende is choosing not to develop i have no explanation for... he's just in no hurry i guess? or just isnt hungry? maybe there's some cultural explanation there) this goes well with namekians being a long-lived species too. if there's no food or very little food available until they're 100 years old, then they can just wait until they're 100 to finish developing and reproduce.

there's also something to be said here about how namekians dont have separate sexes but there are still kind of two types: "warrior" and "dragon clan" namekians, and maybe they have differences in development too, like warrior namekians needing to eat more often than dragon clan namekians, who might only ever feel the need to eat while developing or while producing offspring. although, i'd personally rather think of that distinction as more cultural than it is biological, as it's just more interesting to me that way. like, the natural genetic diversity that makes some namekians more equipped for fighting would cause them to choose or be chosen to become battle-types.

SECOND MYTH: namekians reproduce exclusively asexually

a lot of people assume this since asexual reproduction is the only type of namekian reproduction we see or hear about, BUT I DONT THINK ITS TRUE! they CAN reproduce asexually, but they have a LOT of genetic diversity, even more than most sexually reproducing species. so WAY to much to be an exclusively asexually reproducing species. just look at any picture of a group of namekians, they're clearly not all clones of each other.

toriyama said in an interview that they "may be hermaphrodites" and i like that! being a species of simultaneous hermaphrodites that can also self-fertilize goes well with the whole slug thing too, so thats the reproduction method that i think makes the most sense.

some species produce a small number of offspring at a time and invest more heavily into their offspring, and some species produce a large number of offspring at a time and don't invest very much into each individual, using the larger number as their reproductive strategy since the majority of their offspring will die off (think elephants on one end of the extreme, and spiders being the other end). given that namekians appear to only be able to have one child at a time, and seem to have tight-knit social groups that seem to care a lot for their children indicates a lot of investment into each child, so it just doesn't make sense to me that they would only be able to reproduce asexually anyway, as that tends to fit better with the reproductive strategy of having a large number of offspring who mostly die off. i think of sexual reproduction as being their preferred method, and asexual reproduction as being the alternative method they've evolved as extremeophiles, only choosing this method when there aren't any other namekians around to get genetic material from.

🟢⭐WHAT IM EXTRAPOLATING FROM THESE THINGS⭐🟢

knowing that namekians reproduce sexually means we can do some fun extrapolation about how they do about that ! (or, fun to me at least. are we not all excited about namekian junk??)

SO namekians obviously have to breathe, we see piccolo breathing all the time - android 17 even points it out at some point - and like i said i think of them as having digestive tracts (again, whether you'd like to think of them as vestigial or otherwise is up to you) so it kind of just makes more sense for their internal stuff to be structured like us primates in the same way so much of their external stuff is. seeing the way piccolo breathes (and like. has a nose on his face) indicates that their respiratory systems are in their chests too, and their clothes seem to cover all the same bits we cover, so they probably have at least one other major orifice down there. either they have just one orifice for both expelling waste and mating like a cloaca, as amphibians and reptiles do, or they have more than one like we and most other mammals do. you could pretty much justify any genital situation you want, hermaphroditic slugs have penises*, and so do primates of course, so if you like the idea of piccolo having a dick there's justification for it 👍there's honestly ways to justify all kinds of genital situations. its the only external part of namekian bodies we never actually see, so if this sorta thing interests you like it does me, get creative! use ur imagination! the only thing that i feel would have to be pretty set it stone for me to believe it would be at least one orifice for expelling waste and eggs and for in-taking sperm (or sperm packages...yknow how it is with slugs) and this same orifice could also expel sperm as cloacae do if you wanna go no-penis route, it just doesnt have to. they could be mostly internal or mostly external, or internal until they're about to be used, or internal until a certain stage in development, whatever boats your float. again, many options here. i encourage you to imagine the version of namekian genitals that pleases you the most.

im also imagining that namekians can store sperm for later fertilization too (like slugs!), since it kind of doesn't make sense to me that such a small population would have so much genetic diversity after all descending from a single member otherwise. so im imagining that guru had sperm stored up from various other namekians before the big extinction, and that guru's first batch of sons had two genetic parents - that is, guru himself and whatever namekian's sperm he had stored. and possibly even more than two! some species can have three or more genetic parents, which would do a lot to help increase the genetic diversity of a population after a huge population wipe-out like the one referenced in the namek saga of dbz.

also, sexual reproduction means sexual selection! since we're assuming all namekians are the same sex, any primary or secondary sex characteristics would apply to all namekians, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be any selection. whether an individual in a breeding pair would choose to take on the male or female role would depend on a LOT of factors, for example being the male would be less costly, but if sperm can be stored it wouldn't guarantee it would be used, and in circumstances where few breeding partners are available, taking on the female role would be more advantageous (which, as we've established, is a situation namekians would be frequently subjected to). not to mention all the cultural circumstances that would influence which role is more advantageous at any given time. im thinking that most namekians would probably experience being both roles at some point in their lives, depending on these circumstances.

anyway, i find it fun to think about the traits that namekians would consider desirable in a mate. for a species like namekians, a lot of those traits would probably be cultural, which id like to tackle later in another post, but in the mean time i wanna talk about what physical traits that namekians might register as secondary sex characteristics. like i said their primary sex characteristics, like genitals and internal organs, are a bit of a mystery, BUT there's one trait that namekians have that i don't think can be explained any other way than as a secondary sex characteristic!

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE PINK MARKINGS!! there isn't really any reason for their skin texture to be different in these sections, and it's obviously not providing any sort of camouflage. they're super bright, and contrast directly with the rest of their skin.

also, it looks like its absent on babies! so... LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE A SECONDARY SEX CHARACTERISTIC! im thinking that these markings are a sign of sexual maturity and health, like pubic and armpit hair in humans, or like peacock plumage. they also look kind of... muscle accentuating? the horizontal stripes serve to emphasize these curves a bit. which means that this is a trait that at least some namekians are selecting for. apparently some namekians find big muscles sexy... NEAT!! though given their variety, and given the fact that "warrior" namekians are in the minority, it's certainly not the only thing they're selecting for. as a long-lived species with no gestation period (because of the eggs), namekians would probably benefit from mating with a diverse variety of partners over the course of their lives. lots of fun material for cultural worldbuilding here!

🟢⭐OTHER MISCELLANEOUS IDEAS⭐🟢

~another fun reproduction option~

so... namekians dont actually have to be simultaneous hermaphrodites. dende doesn't seem to have any concept of sex, but it might just be because his concept of sex is inextricably linked to his concept of age, so the "two types" of namekian may just be old and young. namekians are hierarchical, and their hierarchy isn't linked to any sex they have at birth or assigned gender role from that sex, but it is based on age. this hierarchy could easily just be cultural, possibly a cultural consequence of the oldest namekian being responsible for preventing extinction of the species, but if it isn't just cultural, then their hierarchy actually kind of resembles clownfish hierarchy, and clownfish are sequential hermaphrodites. they're all born male, and then whenever the dominant female in a group dies, the largest and strongest (and generally, oldest) male becomes female and takes over. fish are also pretty much the only hermaphroditic vertebrates, so it makes sense to model namekians after them, too.

other people have pointed out that older namekians are colored a bit differently than younger namekians, but we never really see this happen gradually. that is, we never see a middle-aged namekian with a skin tone between these two tones, so there isn't really any reason to think that it's a gradual consequence of them aging. you can kind of assume from this then that the color change comes from a sort of second puberty, as a result of their sex change - or rather, sex addition, as they still have the ability to self-fertilize after this. so before they change their sex, namekians only have the ability to fertilize other namekians, and can't produce their own off-spring asexually, whereas after changing their sex namekians can produce their own offspring, and can self-fertilize but can't fertilize other namekians. also for some namekians, it also looks like the pink and red part turns yellow and orange, so that could be indicative of a part of their sex change too? we do see the pink on king piccolo, but it seems strange to me that it would "fade" to that color as a result of atrophy due to aging, so im thinking it might be something that triggers when they change their sex too.

~alternatative explanation for the canine thing~

if you don't like the idea of a species as peaceful as namekians being meat-eaters, i have another explanation for you! having teeth at all definitely indicates a species that consumes food, however those sharp-looking canines don't have to have evolved as a consequence of eating meat. there's at least one herbivore with big sharp fangs too!

CHECK THIS FREAK OUT !! water deers have fangs for the same reason other hooves animals have antlers! so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think of namekians as having their sharp canines for the same reasons. it could be a fun secondary sex characteristic!

ALRIGHT THATS ALL I GOT FOR NOW THANKS FOR READING!! I HAD A LOTTA FUN WRITING THIS feel free to argue abt any points made here btw!! if anyone's got any ideas about namekian biology id love to hear em!

[walnutcookie]

What have you been thinking about lately? (:

HI THANK U SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK . SMILES SO BIG!!!!!

i have been thinking about walnut so much lately.. more specifically her character development as well as her relationship to both roguefort and her mother. ill focus on her and roguefort more in this post though :] im gonna try to be comprehensible in this one but thisll be a doozy

reblogs ok!

what i find interesting is that in every case we've seen walnut and roguefort BESIDES their release event, walnut has always defended them. In the butter painting affair she knew that they would have left a calling card, in the lost holiday she knew that they wouldnt have done any harm to eggnog cookie, and in face the trial she knew they wouldnt have stolen something with such little value. Theres a big contrast between her first interaction with them in their release event and how she treats them from that point on, and its clear that they dont have quite the rivalry that was shown in that first event. Walnut isnt nipping at their heels every chance she gets lol

i think that from the start, roguefort has always been fond of her,, in a mentor or parental way almost; they see her potential. they see her skill. they want to watch her grow, to see her learn from her mistakes and become a better detective and a better person. in the lost holiday the calling card was a gift itself - they know how much she loves doing detective work and they want to encourage her, though if they break character then the game isnt fun anymore and it feels less genuine ,, so they observe her from a distance. I do think that they wish they could care for her more but they have to be discreet about it since theyre. yknow. A thief and supposed to be her most hated rival (be weird abt these two btw and i will eat your fingers)(dont ship them)

i dont know if this was intended to be canon or not, but thinking about how roguefort left in their release event feels,,, strange? If the boat was far enough from the docks that nobody was trying to stop them, then surely they couldve escaped with the jewel still in their hands. sure, they threw to distract everyone and allow them to escape, but there was a Whole crowd of people there ? if walnut had caught the gem, someone else could have jumped onto the boat and caught them. i like to interpret it as them trying to reward walnut. While they werent going to turn themself over just like that, they wanted to give her a prize for being smart enough to solve their puzzle. They wanted to encourage her by giving her back the gem, even if Cheesecake had a spare and nothing would have really changed if they had kept it :]c

heres my interpretation of them, and its mainly based off of the lines "One logical answer always exists!" "One logical answer? Sounds rather... dull."

in the start, walnut did consider them rivals. She was pretty young at the time and still figuring the world out so she saw them basically as a supervillain, basically just a person filled with pure evil intent and thats... Obviously not who they are. but little wawer just saw someone stealing and went Ah evil!! Evil!!!!! you are WRONG and you must be STOPPED!!! And thus their rivalry began. Also why she was so bitter towards them in the first event :]

in the events of search for lost time/pursuit of lost time, though - and keep in mind, this is completely based on my own headcanons since we hardly know anything abt these costumes - walnut realizes a shift in their behavior. At some point, they even put their own life on the line just to save her... would an evil, cruel person really do something like that? Why would they risk themself to save her when all shes ever done is try to have them arrested?

this is when she starts to realize that not everything in the world is black and white. Not everything has one logical answer. What is rogueforts motive? that is one messy question with multiple answers and none of them are logical. This also goes into my headcanons with her relationship with almond but thats for another ask heehee... Walnut starts to realize other things, too. Roguefort always leaves a calling card, and theyre always incredibly polite to everyone, even the authorities,, of course thats just phantom thief stuff but she realizes that they really arent just some villain. Theres much more to them than some urge to cause mischief and steal from others. in my timeline, all of the other events take place after search for lost time/pursuit of lost time, and this is where walnut starts to defend them rather than just try to chase them.

At this point, i dont think walnut wants to see them behind bars anymore. that was pretty clear when she was distraught at the sentence cappuccino gave them. i think shes conflicted about them. She wants to know the truth about who they are, and why theyre doing everything. She wants to see them change - for them to start doing good. but at the same time, she doesnt. at the same time,,, roguefort is one of the only ones who takes her seriously

Almond is the most guilty of this, and ill elaborate on that in another post, but oh Boy does he make walnut feel worthless and dumb. walnut is always trying to act more mature, more professional and less child-like despite Very much being a child, first example off the top of my head being her not wanting to decorate her office for the holidays and also the way that she always calls almond by his name instead of mom/mother(or dad/father if we're not talking about my hcs lol). She doesnt want to be treated like a child. and to some extent, yeah, people baby her!! almond told cappuccino he was scared that shed eat a Rotten jelly are you fucking kidding me ? (dont even get me started on the one twitter art where hes worried that roguefort kidnapped walnut i do Not consider that canon because from what weve seen abt how he acts towards roguefort?? No the fuck he wouldnt????) he didnt want her to be involved in the butter painting affair because it was "dangerous" despite it basically being identical to other theft cases shes dealt with and there wasnt any violence to begin with. in her story even, people usually let her investigate just because shes cute which.. works in her favor but also FRUSTRATING because its only because shes a kid. almond is always talking about how worried he is that she'll get into trouble and YES she is a child she does need some sort of supervision but shes also so much smarter than people give her credit for. she has so much potential thats being wasted purely because people think shes too young, though at the same time, i think walnut overestimates herself. i think that because of the lack of support she gets from almond and other adults in her life she tries to go above and beyond to Prove that shes better than she actually is and that shes worthy of being a detective and taking on more cases and ends up getting hurt because of it (cough sflt). she tries to act more mature because she wants people to take her seriously but she is a Child and thus people will just look at her and go "Aww! what a cute little detective :)"

i think that the reason why shes so involved with rogueforts cases is because theyre the only one who takes her seriously. They do tease her about it - this is seen throughout all of the events but most specifically in the first one when she gets upset at them calling her "little detective." though they still take her seriously. They see the skill she has now, and they dont just see what she could be in the future. theyre more focused on supporting her now and giving her encouragment and more puzzles to solve rather than babying her and telling her she'll be a great detective someday like everyone else. thats especially important to walnut considering almond does Not show her the same support and is more often restricting her and trying to get her to stop

if roguefort were to stop, to be arrested or to decide that their life of crime was over, walnut wouldnt have that support anymore. Thats terrifying to her. while she does want what is best, there is also a part of her thats a little selfish and just wants things to stay the same forever.

idk where to put this but im elaborating more on her wanting to learn more about them. because really she shows a much deeper understanding and respect than most other characters despite them being her supposed rival ? Lost holiday in specific was so funny because she was so chill with them like "yeah i know you probably didnt do it lol i just needed to have u here just in case" ANYWAYS just the fact that she keeps standing up for them is enough to show how much respect she has for them. The general public is SO cruel and dehumanizing towards them through either idolization or vilification or both at the same time and shes one of the few who actually treat them like a person. she doesnt like it when people are unnecessarily cruel to them, like almond insisting that she stays out of the butter painting affair despite them not committing the crime or her reaction to the harsh jail sentence cappuccino gave them. Both almond and cappuccino are characters who are very close and friendly with her, might i add, and yet she still wants to protect roguefort. She knows that they deserve so much more than how the public and how authorities treat them, thief or not.

anywasy yeah um. In summary. i think that the two lines "One logical answer always exists!" "One logical answer? Sounds rather... dull." symbolize them quite nicely ... roguefort is a motivation for her, a mentor disguised as a rival. they teach her more about the world and detective work. they made her realize that not everything is black and white and taught her to people and situations in more complicated shades of gray. and i think that it goes the other way, too - in a world where roguefort is so Deeply misunderstood and misjudged, walnut tries to stand up for them and does understand them, to a degree. better than anyone else at least. she gives them hope.

[echoes-of-mia]

okay this is a long ramble and kinda personal, so bear with me, but i want to talk about being aspec in the joker out fandom bc I'm full of emotions and i need to share them somewhere

(just a short warning for internalised aphobia before i go on)

for context, i identify as aspec, more specifically asexual and some flavour of aromantic. I've known about the ace part for about 3-4 years now, the aro part is more recent and I'd say that before, lets say, a couple of months ago, I'd always seen that as something negative, something that makes me miserable, a deficit that will always be there and that others will never understand

and then i joined the (tumblr) joker out fandom around... june of last year, probably? and at first i thought "theres no way there are many queer people in this fandom, its essentially a boyband, and other aspec people? no way"

well, oh boy was i wrong

because not only is this fandom, like what, 90% queer? (i know someone made a poll at some point but i dont remember the percentages) but it's also around 50% aspec. and there's just this general positivity and support surrounding the a-spectrum in the fandom. like, some days ago there was an aphobic comment somewhere and before i even saw it my dash was FLOODED with people defending aspec people and i was just sitting in the kitchen reading through the posts and crying.

and yes, this is tumblr, i could have seen this coming and it's probably different on other platforms, but so many aspec people in one place, in one fandom, is still something that I've never experienced before.

so why are so many aspec people drawn to a slovenian indie/shagadelic rock band that, at first glance, is just 5 very good-looking probably-straight guys making music? that doesnt really make sense, right?

and then you see how much more they are. how they interact with each other. how comfortable they are in their sexualities, in their masculinity, in being themselves. you see a group of friends that love each other so unashamedly it's a bit unbearable to watch sometimes. you don't see them holding back because "thats not their partner!" or "that's reserved for romantic relationships!", you just see love. you see them supporting each other, being physically affectionate, looking out for each other, laughing together, even living together. vse kar vem could easily be a romantic song, but it's about their friendship!!

and what is all of that, if not THE dream of many aspec people? to be okay with not feeling sexual or romantic attraction because you have your group of friends that you love the same amount as allosexual/-romantic people love their partner(s) and to show it, and to know that they love you the same (and won't replace you with romantic partners) because they also show it, without thinking twice about it, without thinking about how others might interpret your relationship because it just doesn't matter as long as you love each other.

so of course aspec people see themselves in joker out. we see hope for ourselves in them, we are probably a little (or in my case very) jealous of their friendship, we want what they have or we just love to finally see real people live with the sort of affection we would like to have. (just to clarify, this is based mostly on what i feel, so other aspecs might feel completely different about this, idk why I'm trying to generalise this)

and this is about all five of them, but to take jan and nace as an obvious example: they love each other so much that the fans start to speculate, and they know about it. but instead of hiding their affection, they just keep on doing what they're doing. because they know how they feel for each other, and it's no one else's business, and they won't be stopping their love just because of "conspiracy theories". and to me it doesn't matter how they love each other (platonic, romantic, whatever), it matters that they do and that you can't help but notice it, because they show it in every interaction we see of them. the damon baker photoshoot just confirmed that, they look at each other and the amount of love makes me cry, it's so incredibly beautiful.

(just some other things i want to mention: them probably cooking mostly potatoes because nace is glutenfree. nace calming down bojan after his panic attack in summer. jan and bojan casually kissing on the lips during a concert. the jure and bojan getting married photoshoot. bojan touching kris's hair during concerts. kris being carried around during a photoshooting. jure and jan drawing a heart together. them gathering around jure's drumset during concerts. i could go on but for my sanity and yours i won't, there are so many moments that just make me soft)

I'd love to be more physically affectionate with my friends, but every time there's this voice in the back of my head saying what society has conditioned it to say, which is that that kind of affection is reserved for romantic relationships, and this voice stops me every time. i feel like bojan, jan, jure, kris and nace either don't have that voice (anymore?) or they've just managed to ignore it, they don't hold back and i admire that as much as i wish i could be like that.

and while i still have a long way to go until i can be affectionate with my friends without worrying about it or holding myself back, joker out have shown me that it's possible, because of them i finally have days on which i think that i can be aspec and actually happy about it. being aspec finally feels as freeing as it should feel and I'm just grateful

joker out has allowed so much queer joy into my life without intending to and although i don't think anyone i know irl will ever understand this, i hope that some of you can relate to this in some way.

I've said this a lot during the past two weeks but i can never say it enough: all the love to my fellow aspecs, and also to all the non-aspec people who support us <3

feel free to add to this if you want to; my dms are always open if you want to talk about it without posting about it, i love hearing other people's thoughts about stuff like this ^^

[ganondoodle]

some destiny (zelda comic) lore

i really have absolutely no problem with AUs, but in the case of my zelda comic i kinda dont like it being called that bc i made it specifically around the idea of offering an origin story to .. everything really that could be true and put the entire series in an entirely different light

like most things in the series around the creation of the world and the godesses etc are told to us, and i always ask questions when sth is just told to you especially in this black and white kind of way

idk if i ever talked about it, probably not bc its somewhat of a big reveal in the comic (though its at the very end) and given how slow i am thats years away so:

the three gods (gods as a neutral term here) exists outside the physical realm in a sort of void like darkness with an endless completely calm ocean they created the world we know as hyrules world, in fact they created two more, each of them filled with life, at some point choosing a mortal to kill and make into a deity as their right hand since the gods cant go into these worlds themselves

they want to enact the plan we see in skyward sword, they want a monster to invade the land, their chosen deity to seal it, die and be reincarnated and start the whole zelda cycle as we know it; why?maybe purely as entertainment, which is why each cycle is so widely different, they are gods and treating life and worlds like their little toys feels kinda right- and they really dont like when their toys act against them, thats not what toys are supposed to do after all

so, courage as i like to call them, was a deity they created using a mortal, but they failed to even make their mortals believe in them, instead they were seen as the monster, the gods lost their patience and drowned their world leaving only courage to survive, while they failed their orders and were hated, they still cared about their world, seeing it slowly drown and abandoned by the gods made them filled with despair, in an outburst they destroy the spring of the gods (an ancient spring that is the first to exist in a world when its created) and it opens up a gate into the realm of the gods, that dark calm ocean of nothing- they go into it and wander into the closest source of light and it brings them into demise's world

demise is the deity of his world, and when courage arrives there they start to attack it, filled with desperation and rage that their world was drowned while this one thrived- demise hasnt failed the gods yet, and he fights and seals away courage with easy, but it lets him doubt the gods words, courage was supposed to be some evil monster, yet they were similar to him and he defeated them so easily, why would he chose to die and be reincarnated as a mortal? he wanted to stay a deity and protect his world forever- he started to stall for time, halting the building of the temples for the hero in the future, and at some point courage broke out of its seal, nothing of it was like before it was a strange and now truly, a monster, and demise killed it to protect his lands, thus making the gods prophecy unable to be furfilled and so the gods abandon his world too, they let mortals turn against him as his world slowly dries out, until there is nothing left alive but him and ghirahim, trying to drive him to madness so he becomes the monster for the the next world in the row, but fail just barely- he too destroys the ancient spring and discovers the gate it creates

so demise travels to hylias world, and hylia, hesitates to seal him right away bc she notices he is not a mindless monster like she was told, despite the gods effort to raise her in isolation and make her into the perfect vassal, hylias curiousity is too much, so she lets demise live, over and over as they battle- which is the story of the comic, at the end they fall in love and uncover the gods plans, that demise was in the same position as hylia is, and he killed a deity jsut like them, that the reincarnation thing might be a lie to get rid of the biggest threat to the gods (the deities needed to be gotten rid of before they realized anything) and replace it with a more controllable mortal once the set up for the play was done, this too has been a cycle in the end the gods make sure this time it ends up how they want, more or less (im leaving out the details for now) and demise gets sealed and hylia dies, both of them taken by the gods but as both resisted them it is not perfect, demise still did not turn into the monster they needed so what you fight in skyward sword is an apparition of him, not him truly, and ghirahim knew he would never be himself again but his desperation and devotion made him try anyway only to end up playing right into the gods hands

and that is how the series started, a scheme of the gods to create their little play, inventing new little adversaries and eviil beings but short lived so easily to reinvent over and over, but its all based on lies, zelda isnt special, she was jsut a mortal that happened to be chosen by the gods to take the role she has now, shes no reincarnation of hylia, none of the things they tell you about hylia are true, its the gods lying to you, and the trio is stuck in this cycle not realizing they are merely being played with

(being sealed or dying as a deity send you to the realms of the gods, where they pin them down on a pillar like bugs (unconcious) and occasional borrow their magic for some tricks and schemes to play with in the world of hyrule, the deities are still there, and will be until the gods decide to kill them fully- and at the end of destiny as demise is take by them, in the last few moments before he is hung up like a trophy he not only sees that courage, who he thought he had fully killed, was already there, but in the darkness were countless remains of abandoned deities hanging dead on pillars, how many times have the gods done this before?)

(possibly not as interesting as i hope it is, but this is what im going for, and it only really works if the rest of the series exists just the same, otherwise the whole point of putting everything in this context would become kinda meaningless? at least thats how i feel about it so i dont like calling it an AU, but im not mad about it bc i guess if you take all the lore at face value it is completely different and doesnt work with canon at all? idk )