#link off topic magazine

[jasmines-library]

Hi there! I absolutely adore the way you write and how you approach heavier topics. If it doesn’t bother you, could I request a Batfamily fic with reader who has an ED? I know a lot of people struggle with it and I feel like we all need a little affirmation sometimes. <3

Just The Way You Are

Warnings: Eating Disorders - please read with caution.

Word Count: 1.1k

Note: This one hit home hard. As someone who has struggled with and ED, I think it is important to raise awareness about them. Please note that this is based off off my personal experiences and from research. EDs present themselves in many different ways that vary for everyone. Please remember to be kind to yourself and others and if you are struggling and are able to, to reach out. I have linked some helplines below for those who are in need. Please remember that you are loved and you are perfect just the way you are. You are special. You are loved. You are unique. never let anyone take that away from you.

⛤ BATFAM MASTERLIST ⛤

You hadn’t touched most of your food. It sat there getting cold as you pushed it around the porcelain listening to the way your fork scraped gratingly against the shiny surface. You had taken a few bites, longing to savour the taste of Alfred’s cooking as it melted on your tongue, but it didn’t seem to have the same effect anymore. You couldn’t bring yourself to bring anymore of the food to your lips. Even the smell began to make your stomach churn. And you felt so stupid as you sat there staring at the plate as everyone else delved in. In some ways that made you feel worse. But eating had begun to feel like a crime. 

When it first started, you never thought it would go this far. You just wanted to lose a little weight, to tone your stomach and your muscles just a little bit more. You weren’t even entirely sure why. Perhaps a cruel comment made in passing? It didn’t matter. But what did was the way that your mind seemed to wrack with cruel thoughts every time you looked in the mirror. Pointing out everything that seemed to be wrong. Or didn’t look like the models in the photos in Jason's magazines. 

So, you started cutting back. Just a little at first. Snacks in between meals. And you started working out more, trying to burn off calories faster. But when you checked the scales it felt like it wasn’t enough. When you looked in the mirror, your mind still screamed at you, replaying comments and thoughts in your mind like a broken record. They scratched away at you until soon you began to cut back on meals. Breakfast. Smaller portions at lunch and just a few bites here or there at dinner, so that your family wouldn’t suspect a thing. And still even that didn’t seem to be enough. You still felt wrong every time you glanced in the mirror. You still felt like your body wasn’t good enough. 

Soon they noticed. You were becoming more withdrawn, often slipping away into the bathrooms after meals. Often not at meals at all. You were sluggish too and seemed to lack the spark that you used to hold. They would ask you tenderly if you were okay, but most days you would scatter or pretend not to have heard them. And other days you would just tell them that you had already had something to eat. That you weren’t hungry.

And somehow lying to them made the situation feel so much worse. Like you were harming them as well as yourself. Your mind was a blur. Days seemed to pass by in some strange mess of time and the only thing that consumed thoughts were the lingering, cruel jests of your inner monologue. Sometimes, you begged for it to stop. You wanted to stop. But you couldn’t. Because you felt as though if you did you would feel disgusting. You would feel as though everything you had done had been for nothing. 

“Not hungry?” Tim asked from across beside you. You had zoned out, not sparing the rest of them aside as your mind wandered off on a tangent. 

“Hmm?” You frowned. “No. I had a big lunch not too long ago. It was stupid of me really, I should know better than to eat too close to dinner.”

Jason frowned. “You’ve been doing that a lot. Are you okay?”

“Mhm.” You hummed, keeping your eyes plastered on the table cloth, not daring to meet his gaze.

“I didn’t see you at breakfast either today Y/N.” Damian added. “Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?”

“Yeah.” You nodded, swallowing down the anxiety that rose within you quickly. “I’ve already said I’m just not hungry.”

“You’re looking a little pale kiddo.” Dick said “I don’t want you getting sick. Why don’t you try and take a few more bites. It’ll help.”

And soon it all became too much. Everything seemed too much. Too bright, too loud, too hot. And a tear that had been threatening to spill from your eyes for weeks now finally slipped free of its cage. 

“I can’t.” 

It was a simple phrase, but your voice trembled. 

“Why not, kid? What’s the matter kiddo?” Jason asked calmly. 

“I just… I just can’t.” you sobbed. “Because if I eat then I feel like my body isn’t good enough! I don’t look like a model. Everytime I look in the mirror I see a body staring back at me that is mine, but it doesn’t feel like me. It doesn’t look like how I want it too. How it’s supposed to.”

They fell silent for a moment. But then Damian spoke up. 

“Oh Y/N/N… your body is beautiful.”

“Is that why you haven’t been eating?” Dick tilted his head.

You nodded meekly.

“Oh kid…you’re so perfect. You don’t need to change for anyone ever. Who cares what you look like?”

“Me! Everyone! I don’t know!” 

“We don’t care. We think you are beautiful just the way you are. You are perfect y/n, and we wouldn’t want you any different.” Tim told you gently, placing his hand atop of yours. 

“We love every inch of you. You are beautiful.”

You sniffled, wiping away your tears. 

“We’re sorry you couldn’t tell us how you feel. But we are here for you. Always.” Damian told you.

“We’re always going to be here kiddo. We’re here to help you. Here to love you.” Jason added. 

“We don’t know what we would do without you. It’s so important that you take care of yourself, beautiful.” Dick said. “And it will take time, as recovery does, but we’re going to be here to help you every step of the way.”

And they were true to their words. The four of them began to help you on your recovery journey. Often they would sit with you, taking small bites of food with you or offering you your favourite treats, reassuring you that it was okay. 

If you ever felt overwhelmed, they would wait with you, allowing you to take your time. 

Everyday they reminded you of how proud they were of you, even if you felt your progress had gone backward that day.  Because they truly were.

Often they would slip you notes. Sometimes they came under your door or were left by your bathroom mirror. You had quite the collection. Each one was different. A different reason why they loved you, or a reminder of how proud they were of you. Reminders that you are loved and you are beautiful just the way you are.

HELPLINES

BATFAM TAGLIST:

@aestheticdaisies

@hell-o-kittys

@xxrougefangxx

@mamapucket

@hearts4robs

@harleycao

[angstics]

so. ive been working on this for 6 months. a mastersheet of every thing my chem and those behind the scenes have said from 2001 to current day -- that i can find (ik there's a fair amount missing / unsorted). magazines, interviews, blog posts, videos, podcasts, books. current exclusions: social media, pure promo, non-interview essays/reviews.

i wanted to share when i completed it, but entering the third trimester, i realized this'll be completed when everyone's fucked off. so here she is!!!!!!!! i work on it when i want. which is not often. thank you to the resources found in the notes sheet 🙏 onwards and upwards!

[adachimoe]

hey has atlus ever commented about naoto being transgender?

I assume you're asking this because of the remark I made in the tags about the magazine?

To be honest, I don't see this topic as being as straightforward as many in the western fandom want people to believe. Like I have absolutely read garbage where people go, "You have poor media literacy if you think Naoto is trans". I used to see this crap every other day on Reddit until I quit browsing the Persona subs regularly.

To answer your question: To my knowledge, no, Atlus has never >said< anything about this. But here is what they >did< in their own game and the lore / setting book:

We all know about "show, not tell". Naoto says her struggle is about "being a woman in a male dominated field", but this feels largely like "tell, not show" since the story suggests Naoto's struggle is actually with age both internally and externally -- to the extent that gender feels very irrelevant. Naoto is never shown struggling as a detective due to gender and the only time it comes up really is in the dungeon dialogue, Naoto never brings up mom or reflects on how mom might have had the same issues and how mom might have dealt with them (Naoto's mom was also a detective), Naoto seemingly continues presenting as a male detective outside of school even after people at school find out (c'mon, Adachi somehow never says anything before or after the reveal, or even in Ultimax), the writing never takes any opportunities to compare/contrast Naoto with other characters regarding gender and work (e.g. Naoto wants to be in a male-dominated profession versus Yukiko who was born into a role passed from mom to daughter but starts off the story on the fence about it), and the other detective characters in the story only ever comment on Naoto's age / youth. When gender finally does come up in Naoto's Social Link, choosing "Your gender doesn't matter" is the option that earns the most brownie points (20 points, per the P4G guide) even though it locks the player out from the romance scenes. The "I'm glad you're a girl" option is what gets you Naoto's romance which I feel like is a roundabout way of Atlus admitting the audience they care about are straight men who would get insecure about someone they're dating being anything other than "girl".

And lastly, when you get into the meta stuff, In Naoto's Persona Club P4 profile, she fills out [sex/gender] as "no comment". And the same book writes that Naoto's dungeon comes from Naoto's own desire to "become an adult man" (an important distinction as for the other dungeons the book specifies when the public of Inaba played a role in the design and whatnot of the dungeon and what it represents).

Some of this feels intentional to me, yet some of it also feels like incompetence on Atlus's part because of how Naoto's character was made...

Naoto's character was originally a cisgender boy and Teddie was originally a girl under the mascot outfit. Then Naoto became a girl, and as a result, they swapped Teddie to a guy (so it's 3 girl pt members, 3 boy pt members). I find it plausible that this whole arc about Naoto-F's age was originally something that belonged to Naoto-M, and they just copy/pasted it and added on the sentence, "Oh and also I'm a girl in a dude dominated field!!!" and just, uh, did not expand on that at all.

[sweetmariihs2]

🪄Cedric The Sorcerer merch, art and official stuff - Masterlist (incomplete)🌌

That's the new version of the post. The previous one was (accidentally) deleted by me, and this one here is more updated and organized.

I wrote a complete part two post about this post here (searching for Cedric stuff), and it was all very genuine because I was writing down my opinions while looking for more content, so there were my reactions for having found incredible content, art that I had been looking for for a long time, books games and more. I did this research the whole day (of course, taking some breaks and also doing my personal tasks) and finished the post at midnight, but when I posted it, Tumblr deleted the post for no reason. I think maybe it's because there was a bug on the post, because I only had two drafts (this post and one more) and in quantity it said it had 5. Even though I tried to contact Tumblr support, they didn't solve my problem :( so I decided to redo the blog just with the data I found, more organized and also a masterlist of the illustrations I found on Tumblr. (I still want to share the things I found but I don't want to rewrite my reactions, because it won't be genuine anymore)

I did this research myself, so it's likely there are still items off the list that I didn't include. Or there is media that Cedric is in, but that has not been published on the internet and I didn't found anywhere. The content of the magazines for example is so damn hard to find.

After that day, I continued searching all over the internet. I would say this research took around a week or two. And I decided to put everything I found into a big masterlist to share with other people too, so I made this post.

As over time I will continue editing this post and adding more links, you need to remember that when a post is reblogged, the version it was in when it was reblogged will be the version present on the profile of the person who reblogged it. If there are updates, the most recent versions will not appear on that person's profile, so it's a good idea to always check if I have added any more links. Here I will leave the link to the post on my blog, so you can know if there have been any changes.

As always, I will be very grateful to those who have access to this material and can share it with me, so that I can add it to the list, or who have found a link with content that was left out of the post. I'll be very grateful to add it to the list and I'll give you credit. You can send it to me through comments, asks or messages. I will add the link and @ of your blog :)

If you only have images please put them in a post and send the link to me, because we can only add 10 images per post and I have already added too many images in the masterlist :)

You can access the links to the products/media/stuff by clicking on the colored texts (not on the titles, as the titles are just decorative). I'll divide the links into topics so they don't get mixed up.

Sometimes the same book or the same product has multiple links because in one link there are some images and in the other there are others. It could be due to the difference in quality of images from one site to another or because one link has images that the other does not have, about the same product. I will list these links in yellow.

Let me know in the comments if any link doesn't work.

~This version of the post is a REPOST. I accidentally deleted the other post, but fortunately I had a backup in my notes app. I knew that if I lost this post all my hard work would be destroyed too, so at each update, I also did the same update here. I got so mad because I deleted when I was trying to add a new link. What makes me pissed is having to organize in the Tumblr format (with the colored text and everything), but at least the links and the text are still saved. I also added new links.~

~If you want, you can delete the old post from your profile if you reblogged it before I deleted it. It is no longer useful and is the outdated version, plus I may end up getting confused with the two posts. Forget about the old post and focus on this new one ;) ~

23/may/2024 edit: I was going to edit the post and add more concept art links and I was notified that I have reached the link limit per post (100). I don't know what I'm gonna do anymore, since this masterlist is incomplete and CAN'T be completed because Tumblr doesn't allow me to. I'm thinking about making a post for each one of these topics and get their links to make a masterlist of them. But oh God this will be extremely exhausting to do. This post is reblogged in a lot of people's blogs already, I'll make a mess. Let me see what I can do. For now I'll keep the post the way it is.

21/july/2024 edit: I'm gonna be removing some dead links (links that don't work anymore and brings us nowhere) to add some concept arts/storyboards and the stf magazine masterlist I did some days ago.

Let's go to the list.

✨️Concept Art:

This section is incomplete since new concept art is always being discovered.

Model sheets by Connor Flynn (and more artists in the other drawings, I believe)(my favorite concept art)

Model sheets by Connor Flynn (Cedric and Wormwood concept arts)

Carol S. Berkeley Concept/Official art

Cedric and Wormwood Character Descriptions

‼️ Sofia The First series bible (pitch bible) (I was afraid of it turning into lost media so I also uploaded this in my blog, in two parts. Since we have a link limit per post I won't add them here, but if in the future this turns into a dead link, you can find it pretty easily by searching for "bible" or other keywords in my blog)

🪻Storyboards:

Once Upon A Princess third/fourth Cedric scene storyboard (+Goodwyn was there for some reason. He got scraped and added to "Cedric's Apprentice" later on)

Holiday In Enchancia - deleted scene storyboards (Cedric in his undies lmao)

Holiday In Enchancia - deleted scene storyboards (same as the above, but more content and in the original artist's website)

The Amulet Of Avalor - Get That/My Amulet storyboard (this specific link can only be accessed through the Wayback Machine website. It works for me, but some people said that it didn't worked for them. I also uploaded these in my blog in case you can't access this link.)

The Floating Palace storyboard (sea monster Cedric)

The Winter’s Gift episode storyboards (Cedric and Sofia's hug)

The Leafsong Festival storyboard (Cedric's design it's different, which is weird... maybe it was made before Once Upon A Princess)

Through the Looking Back Glass - Magic Touch storyboard (Cedric's hair looks so cute! This whole artstyle is so sweet)

The Enchanted Feast - All You Desire storyboards (originally called "Anything You Want")

🪄Storybooks (introduction):

The content of the books can be easily found on YouTube by searching for "Sofia The First read-along book", as many people record videos of themselves reading the books to children. Although we can see the arts, they are usually not in the best quality, so I found some scanned illustrations on Tumblr.

Usually the storybooks have the same stories as the episodes, so Cedric will be present in the books corresponding to each episode he's in. Except for the book Royal Sleepover (He's not there) and Holiday In Enchancia (He's present on a page, but not present in the episode). When You Wish Upon A Well is not posted on YouTube, so it was not found with all the pages and is difficult to find.

—

💫Sofia The First Storybook Theater App:

It's an interactive reading mode that existed inside the Disney Junior app. We don't know if there are more interactive books besides these recorded and posted on YouTube.

Sofia The First (introduction book)

The Floating Palace

🌙Storybook scanned pages:

(I won't include the YouTube videos because then can be found easily)

There are variations from the Cedric's Apprentice book: Sofia's Magic Lesson, Cedric Gets Help, "Aprendiendo a Hacer Magia" and Magic Class (He's not in this one). There's also the japanese version of this same story.

Cedric Gets Help read-along video (because it's hard to find)

Japanese Cedric's Apprentice

Princesita Sofia - Aprendiendo a Hacer Magia

Princesita Sofia - Aprendiendo a Ser Princesa

From the book Sofia The Second

From the book Amulet Of Avalor

From the book The Enchanted Feast

Only one from the book Two Princesses And A Baby (little golden book edition)

One small illustration from Two Princesses And A Baby

From the book Royal Mouse In The House + Two Princesses And A Baby

Mix from Enchanted Science Fair and When You Wish Upon A Well

Mix from The Perfect Tea Party, Magical Match and Amulet And The Anthem

Welcome to Royal Prep (MUSHROOM CEDRIC AAaa)

🌠Merch/Activity Books:

Sofia The First - Annual 2015 (Insta)

Sofia The First - Annual 2015 (Pin)

This book "Annual 2015" along with a magazine confused me a lot. I found illustrations from this book, but they matched illustrations from a magazine comic, which left me very confused because I didn't know what was from which book. After finding a video on YouTube with pictures of the whole magazine, I was able to separate which illustration was from which book. You can find this specific magazine in the magazines section below. Let's go on with the book list.

Sofia The First - Sparkling - Sticker Dress Up (dress Sofia and her royal friends)

Same book, but dress up Cedric

Same book, but Cedric is in a dress

Same book, but dress up Cedric + Baileywick and Roland

— Okay, now we can go on with the rest of the books :)

Sofia The First Magic Sticker Book (Korea)

Sofia The First Deluxe Sticker Book (we have Wormwood here, and both Cedric and Wormwood have heart stickers! And Cedric wears a green robe!)

Sofia The First look and find book

Sofia The First Clay Buddies

S Is For Sofia (ABC book)

Personalized book (you can add your kid's name)

Sticker book "treasury" (NEW CEDRIC STICKER - there's still content from this book that Cedric is featured but I couldn't find it anywhere)

Compilation of Cedric in the coloring books

Unknown source (Cedric with his concept art teeth)

🌟JAPANESE Merch/Activity books:

Japan needs a whole separate topic because they have their own producs, magazines, even the aesthetics change

Found a lot of romantic c*dfia traumatizing content...

And at least a good thing: a japanese sofia the first cookbook (for...children?)

I know that not everyone is just part of the "Cedric fandom" like me. I know that there are people who genuinely wants to search for STF content and not only Cedric, and the advice I give to find these things is to write "princess sofia magazine" in Google Translate and translate to Japanese, and then you copy it to the clipboard and search on Google. You will find a lot of interesting stuff.

You can understand what is written in these books by downloading the image and putting it in Google Translate, image translation mode. Select Japanese language translating to English, and translate by image. The app will write in English on top of the Japanese texts so that you can read them. You need to download the image to do this, as it needs to be in your gallery! Or it's an image on Google images and you click on the camera symbol below it -> translate. I use my cellphone, so I don't know how it works in desktop mode. There must be tutorials on the internet about it.

In the Amazon links, sometimes the website don't always shows all the pics that the seller put to sell the product. To see them, don't just swip to the right when you enter the website, click on the image FIRST and then look through the pics. I think that counts for all the Amazon links.

(This one is a storybook) Sofia The First - once upon a princess story (you can read the preview on that big button and there's a Cedric illustration)

Sofia The First + Frozen Sticker Book

Sticker dress up magnetic bag

Sticker dress up book

Another sticker book

"Kisekae collection", japanese mini portable dress up bag

Did you notice that the photo of Sofia and Cedric on the cover has the ruby ​​heart sticker? <3

Another japanese sticker book

Same japanese sticker book but more images

Lessons for becoming a princess (Disney picture book)

Flora painting Cedric's robe pink 😭😭

Little Princess Sofia Perfect Guide All stories published! (Gakken Disney Mook) *I just translated* Cedric is in the stickers (click on the image to see all)

Japanese learning english book? With a reading pen

Japanese learning words with little princess Sofia [NEW CEDRIC ILLUSTRATIONS]

Activity book (Cedric is in the stickers)

Activity book (Cedric is in a number card)

Japanese character encyclopedia (new pics) (click on the image to see all)

Japanese character encyclopedia (high quality images- not complete)

Magazine/book with new Cedric content, BUT there are new pics of the last "character encyclopedia" and bless this person on amazon, they did so much for us, thank you, thank you (click on the image to see all)

(That's all the same link I just played a little with the colors lol)

Magazine/book with game of fiding the seven errors with Cedric (click on the image to see all)

MAGAZINE WHERE WE CAN LEARN MAGIC TRICKS WITH CEDRIC!!!! (click on the image to see all)

Magazine/book with stickers (click on the image to see all)

Magazine that comes with pens and a small bag

10 stories (there's a part for describing the characters... but it's just a preview so you have to buy it)(that gray button is for reading the preview)

10 stories 2 (same thing as the last one)(that small button below the pic is for reading the preview)

"Princess Lession", probably an activity book

Another sticker+activity book

Unknown book (it's described as a comic, but I don't believe it is)

I found a website full of high quality images of japanese merch and books, some scanned pages and everything. But it redirected to adult sites. The site full of STF merch appears for a second and then several betting sites and mature content open, so to be able to get these images, I turned off my Wi-Fi before the adult site appeared and kept scrolling the page to see the images, then to go to the second part I would turn it on for a moment and turn it off again before the ads appeared 😭 it was very difficult but I got everything interesting that was there. Here are some:

🌌Magazines:

Some time ago I started to buy the STF magazines in my country to scan them and prevent them to be turned into lost media. I only own some of them but I was capable to upload them here on tumblr. Here is the post where you can access them:

The Day Of The Sorcerers magazine:

Random images + part of the comic

The Day Of The Sorcerers comic version

Snowman Cedric pic

"A Bit Of Magic" (name of the comic) magazine:

WHOLE MAGAZINE VIDEO: Activities and full comic

"A Bit Of Magic" comic (Once Upon A Princess/Cedric's Apprentice inspired story)

"A Bit Of Magic" comic scenes (finally- that's not an "unknown source" anymore)

A Bit Of Magic" comic scenes (previously nicknamed "Once Upon A Princess comic-like illustrations by me)

Another part of the "A Bit Of Magic" comic (that's the reused artwork I mentioned at the "annual 2015" book)

This is the comic I mentioned in the "Annual 2015" book part. The illustrations in this magazine are similar to those in the book and because I didn't have access to either of the two complete books, I couldn't understand which was which. Today I know because I found the video of the whole magazine.

Other magazines content (activities):

Intituled "Sofia The First Official Comic Issue 13 with free gift", but it can be called "Magic Helpers"

Sofia The First Royal Adventures - Join Sofia's Party!

"Another chance"/"Perfect spell"/"Magical Mishaps" (unknown source)

"A successful spell" (unknown source)

"A magic celebration" (unknown source)

"Secret Path" (unknown source)

"Pet swap" (unknown source)

"Our special talents" (unknown source)

Magazines' comics:

"Welcome to Royal Prep Academy!" Magazine (comic)

Same comic but different pics (previously an unknown source)

I had a screenshot here before I mentioned that I lost the source. But not that I found out it's source I discovered that it's not from a magazine! It's a sticker book that I already mentioned but I thought those were two different books!! The book I'm talking about is "Sticker Play - Royal Activities". // 21/july/2024 edit: now the link that bring us to that sticker book is a dead link. Lost media unfortunately :( I removed it from the masterlist

—

🪞Magazine covers:

Sofia The First - Leading The Way (True Friendship/Cedric Takes Charge) [Day Of The Sorcerers Comic]

Sofia The First - Royal Adventures (New Exciting Adventures!/The Power Of Being Nice)

Sofia The First - Leading The Way (Surprising Friends!/Visit Hexley Hall with Cedric!)

Sofia The First - Royal Adventures (Indonesian: Selamat Datang di Pesta Sihir)(translation: Welcome to Magic Party) (sassy Cedric)

🌔Merch:

Panini stickers (from the Sofia The First - Collectible Sticker Album)

Panini sticker album — High quality stickers (I FINALLY FOUND THE DAMN STICKER ALBUM CARDS)

Panini sticker album — here we can see all of the pages. The quality is low but in other videos people don't show them all

Panini sticker album — complete (lmao this video)

Board game - Surprise Slides (conceptart-like Cedric illustration)

🐦‍⬛Games:

I have great news for you: I found a website called Numuki that still supports flash games. On this website you can play ALL the games I have listed below (except for Sofia's Enchanted Adventure. I thought it wasn't possible to play The Mermaid Princess either, but it just doesn't show up when you search for "Cedric", it shows up in similar game recommendations when you're playing a STF game). Just search for Numuki on Google and in the website's search bar search for "Cedric", and voilá, have fun.

I'm having trouble with the link limit per post, because I already reached 100 and I need more space to add other ones, like concept arts and storyboards. So instead of adding a link to videos about every game, I'll just link a private playlist I made on YouTube with videos to all these games (in the order that I mention them in the post) for you to access it more easily. Those colored titles of the games aren't links, okay?

This is the playlist link ✨️

A Spell for Mr Cedric

Cedric needs ingredients to make a spell that makes fireworks, so Sofia needs to get them for him.

Keys To The Castle

Sofia needs to go to the royal ball and Cedric locked the door with his magic. Now she needs to get the keys to go back to the ball. Cedric has a new 3d pose and is an enemy/npc that can "game over" your game (his walk is so funny). Plus we have Wormwood here. "Game over" at 04:50 min.

Sofia's Enchanted Adventure

Cedric turns into a lizard (a very cute and funny one, that doesn't show inside the episodes) and Sofia needs to help him turn back to his normal self.

The Curse Of Princess Ivy

Cedric has a new 3d pose and a small animation. This game is about catching Ivy's butterflies and you can play with Amber or Sofia.

Sofia's Card Catch

Matching game with Cedric. There was a previous version where Cedric was the sea monster instead of his normal self.

The Mermaid Princess

The Floating Palace game version. I'm not that familiarized with the english dub so I don't know if they reused the same voicelines from the episodes or not.

A Day At Royal Prep

This game is basically a collection of minigames based on the classes at the royal prep. Ironically, there is a "potions class", and Cedric apparently is the teacher... let's take the episode Substitute Cedric into consideration lmao.

[determinate-negation]

I made it a new years resolution for 2024 to actually read history and theory and alladat so I can be confident and knowledgeable to educate people who are interested and answer questions to fight against anticommunist misinformation and defeatism. And other reasons but that's the gist. However I am still finding myself just reading excerpts, Posts, tweets and scrolling forever bc even after identifying what I'd like to read (incl specific authors) I don't know where to actually start. My knowledge is very shallow. I was wondering if you have any one or several recs for what to read first. I'm interested in Marxism Leninism Maoism, history of USSR, China and SWANA. Sorry if this comes off incurious or immature, it's just that you seem to have a lot of in-depth knowledge on theory and history.

no problem at all lol thank you 🫡 you can find a lot of theory on marxists.org, like mao and lenin. tbh i dont have a lot of full length books on those topics to recommend, ive mostly studied other stuff in school, but ive absorbed a lot of information from stuff on monthly review. its a socialist and anti imperialist magazine and they post a lot of news, political analysis, explanations of theory, book reviews, interviews etc

i have some lists of books and posts with links to theory in my tag resources, ill put this post in it

[logically-asexual]

Style Queen Magazine sends a request for an interview with Gabriel about whether he has gotten or might get inspiration from the miraculous users for his work. Gabriel figures it would be weird to reject them, mostly because it’s Audrey’s magazine, and it should be fine as long as he’s careful with his answers, so he accepts.

the interviewer does ask many of the expected questions like what he thinks about Ladybug and Cat Noir’s costumes setting trends with young people like wearing polka dots or black leather or whatever, as well as general unrelated questions. later they subtly bring up the topic of the peacock by asking him about how blue, one of the colors he uses for his most striking designs, along with red and green, has been seen often in his clothes that also seem to be inspired by birds. and also about how the incoming trend of feathers sparked by that one hat Adrien modeled seems to already be influencing gabriel’s current work.

he answers normally until they mention that someone found an archived design from back when the Gabriel brand had just been established for a few years and it was still growing, but the dress was “ahead of its time” and under-appreciated. turns out it was a blue and green dress inspired by Emilie’s appearance wearing the peacock miraculous, but only Gabriel knew that, of course. he gets nervous when they show it to him, and when the interviewer asks about his inspiration for it Gabriel gives a generic answer that applies to most of his work, pretending it’s just some other random piece.

but then the interviewer brings up pictures of his newer designs, which, they insist, use a lot of rich indigo or royal blue colors paired with resemblance to birds and feathers. they point out that they couldn’t find other designs lately that seem to be inspired by the rest of the miraculous users, unless Gabriel would like to point them out (and, before he can answer) if not then, is he trying to bring back that original design because it has personal meaning to him? they guess not, since he didn’t seem to be very attached to it, so why so much interest in the peacock miraculous?

or rather.. why so much interest in Mayura?

this leaves Gabriel speechless for a moment. Nathalie is standing on the other side of the room about to bite off a corner of her clipboard.

Gabriel is a little red with anger and goes “excuse me?”

the interviewer says they’re only seeking to confirm the rumors about his inspiration for all these new clothes, and Gabriel quickly shuts them down by saying that he accepted this interview because Style Queen is a reputable fashion magazine and not some tabloid for gossip. and then he just stands up and leaves, with Nathalie scampering to catch up behind him.

later Gabriel questions Nathalie about those “rumors” the interviewer mentioned, because, as he can now see after looking it up, it’s all over the internet that he has a crush on Mayura and that’s why he’s making all these clothes inspired by her. Gabriel was totally oblivious to this because he relies on his staff to update him about his public image and he hadn’t even noticed what he was doing with his designs. Nathalie, on the other hand, did know about it, but was too embarrassed to tell him and she had no idea how to bring it up.

now Nathalie is apologizing, swearing that she thought it was just unimportant gossip that would dissipate soon. Gabriel says that anything that could link him to Hawk Moth and Mayura is a huge risk for them, and that he’s even finding already some people who claim Mayura must be someone working at Gabriel. Nathalie’s eyes widen in shock and she walks up to stand on the podium next to Gabriel and look at the screen. he opens an article about that theory and scrolls through it until he stops on a picture of Nathalie and him. around it, the text says stuff like ..about how everyone knows these two have something going on, but that’s not the topic of this article because it’s just clear as day,, the important thing is who is Mayura. and then they put up a picture of Mayura next to one of Nathalie.

and both Nathalie and Gabriel are like.. fuck fuck fuck. specially Nathalie, since she should have known about this and now Gabriel is looking at the screen like he’s going to punch a hole through it.

the article doesn’t have many views or comments but still they now just realized the danger they’re in. and they don’t know what will happen after today’s interview gets published and what everyone will make of Gabriel storming out the room after being asked about Mayura.

and now they have to come up with a plan to ensure people think 1. Gabriel is definitely not attracted to Mayura, 2. Mayura and Nathalie are not the same person. (and Gabriel’s secret personal third objective which is to prove (??to himself??) that he is NOT attracted to Nathalie, not at all).

[destinyc1020]

That Interview magazine you just linked, made me wonder how would it look if tz interviewed eachother nowadays. Perhaps the vibes would be a bit different 😉

VEEEERRRRRYYYY DIFFERENT!! ROFL 🤣 😂

Could they even get through an entire interview together without flirting with each other and going off topic the entire time throughout? 😂 I think not lol.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Ecommerce News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has banned gift certificates/cards sold by individual shops, as of Sept 15. Only Etsy Gift Cards are now allowed. The second quarter report press release says they plan on selling Etsy Gift Cards through third parties, but no official word on how and when yet.

Many Amazon Handmade sellers were unable to list new items after a site update on July 31 [post by me on LinkedIn]. While Amazon told sellers to apply for an exemption from the Product ID requirement, some report that is not working, or that they do not have the option to apply for one. 

Reminder that Canadian Etsy shops will be charged a 1.15% Regulatory Operating fee on the item price and shipping cost as of August 15. [I’ve set a bunch of things to expire. If Etsy isn’t profitable enough to pay its taxes, maybe they should consider cutting executive pay instead of squeezing microbusinesses even more.]

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy has updated its Privacy Policy, to take effect August 31. Changes include mention of biometric data. Note that some parts of the policy are screenshots, and therefore not easily searchable nor accessible to screen readers - I am not sure how they can get away with that. I used the Wayback Machine to do a comparison of the parts that software can actually read.   There’s also a new US regional privacy policy, which currently covers laws in several states.  

Etsy is promoting a Labour Day sale August 21-September 2, and has already set up the "Cyber Savings Sale" (November 18-December 3) for Cyber Week. You can schedule the official sales through links in the announcement.

Forbes covered Etsy’s sex toy ban [soft paywall; not safe for work photos]. To no one's surprise, plenty of the banned items are still found on site, including toys and vintage Playboy magazines. 

Etsy is accused of allowing shops based in “illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory” and profiting off of them. Etsy’s response: "[W]e have shared this information internally with the appropriate teams for review."

Etsy's promised program for buyers - Etsy Insider - will be rolling out as invite-only beta in September. It's a paid membership for US buyers and includes:

Free US domestic shipping on millions of items

A birthday bonus

Limited edition annual gift, designed by an Etsy seller

First access to special discounts and select merchandise

While some of the "special discounts" are paid by sellers, that is a voluntary program shops can sign up for here. That form also allows you to sign up to offer new items to Etsy Insiders first - “drops” - which does not involve offering discounts. Etsy has done these sorts of "offers" in the past, and I believe they have already reached out to sellers for the first round of offers in September (based on some emails I have received from shop owners).

You can now sign up for “Etsy Up”, the virtual sellers conference scheduled for September 10. However, despite saying they have announced “our agenda”, all that is provided is a vague set of topics (other than the fact they will be announcing the Etsy Design Awards Finalists). It makes me wonder if there are official Etsy announcements coming soon that they don’t want to reveal too early by posting the real agenda. If yes, around August 15 is a good bet, given that  Etsy’s Search Analytics will end that day, and many new policies kick in on September 15, just one month later.

The Etsy app is showing rectangular listing images in search for some visitors, but it appears to be a test [Reddit thread with screenshot]. I wouldn’t change anything at this time. 

No, Etsy has not replaced your listing tags. I covered that topic here on LinkedIn. 

I wrote about the new Listing Image Requirement policy and the email Etsy sent to some sellers on Monday July 29. [post by me on Patreon] And not everyone is being fooled by Etsy’s new Creativity Standards, but some acknowledge it will be difficult for Etsy to turn away factory-made goods at this point. [Disclosure: I am quoted in that article]

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon’s second quarter revenue was below expectations, and the company predicts nothing better in the third quarter. 

In a surprising change, Amazon has decided to cancel overage fees for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory storage, retroactive to July 1. 

Canadian Amazon sellers will be subject to a new digital services fee as of October 1. This is due to Canada’s new digital services tax. 

In a case that may have an impact on other larger ecommerce sites, a court ruled that Amazon is responsible for recalls of products sold through Amazon, including through “Fulfilled By Amazon”. 

US Amazon shoppers can now link their Pinterest and TikTok accounts to Amazon to be able to buy directly from Amazon ads on social media. This is already available on Facebook, Instagram and Snap. 

Amazon is changing its refund policy for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) users: if sellers do not receive an automatic reimbursement for loss, damage and returns, they will now only have 60 days to apply for one.  A lot of ecommerce experts think Amazon is making a mistake in setting up a China to US section on the site.

eBay

eBay second quarter revenue and profit was higher than expected, but the third quarter projections are low.  

The eBay app has taken a lot of flack for inserting ads between each item in a purchase history. 

Poshmark

As marketplaces popular for pre-owned items compete for the best new stock, Poshmark is offering “rewards” for listing at least 1 item a week. 

Shopify

Shopify had a better-than-expected second quarter, and expects a decent third quarter as well. Getting larger businesses to use Shopify has helped the tech company, but I still wonder how that affects the small and micro businesses who used to be the target market.

Walmart

The Walmart Marketplace has added Chile as its fourth country, after the US, Canada and Mexico. 

All Other Marketplaces

Hundreds of business owners who sell on Temu held a protest at the marketplace headquarters on July 29. Fines for returns are one cited issue. 

Payment Processing

Credit cards issued by Chase in the US will no longer allow third-party buy-now-pay-later purchases, as of October 10. Conveniently, they offer their own option, Chase Pay Over Time. PayPal has expanded the quicker checkout solution Fastlane to all US businesses, which fills in customer information without a log in.

[babycharmander]

take me back to the days of having two or three different IM services running, an IRC window, and multiple firefox windows open to different forums.

the forums have unobtrusive banner ads at the top and bottom. your avatar on one forum is 200x200 and other people are amazed when you tell them the forum allows avatars that big. your forum signature has links to your dA, FFN, the java chat for your chatroom, your personal website, and some adoptable dragon. one user shows off the fact that they just got photoshop by making a newer, fancier signature banner. there's at least six active RP threads in the RP subforum, and a user has started a new sprite comic in the art subforum. there's multiple new threads in the other subforums to check out, and some new posts on that thread about That One Episode. you reply again, notice your forum rank has gone up, and take a screenshot to upload to iownjoo to show your friends later.

your friends have silly goofy animated avatars on AIM and one of them has one of those funky talking ones that reacts to whatever they type. one of your friends on MSN Messenger has sent you the giant laughing head animation again because it makes them laugh. you and your friends change your MSN Messenger names to matching Homestar Runner quotes.

you upload another 100x100 icon to your LiveJournal account, this one an "angry" one featuring another favorite character of yours. new posts from one of the fandom comms excitedly speculate about a new episode. one of the fanfic comms you follow is hosting a new challenge.

the IRC chat is somewhat active at the moment. someone uses a script to announce what music they are listening to on winamp. one person has changed their quit message to another goofy quote. a troll joins, and one of the mods jumps on the chance to use that funny new kick message they'd thought up. someone makes a dumb typo and the channel's topic is changed to incorporate the typo.

you check on some fansites to see if they've gathered any news on the upcoming games. one of them has scans they claim are from a Japanese magazine and are Totally Real. you get the feeling they're not, but you're amused anyway. there's new art on one of the oekaki boards on one site--someone spent three hours on an absolute masterpiece of a drawing, while some kid drew a stick figure and clearly left the window open for fifteen minutes to satisfy the "spend at least 15 minutes on a drawing" rule. another person posts a quick drawing of their persona sobbing because they accidentally refreshed the page and lost the image they'd been working on.

someone jumps on AIM and frantically tells you to check out one of your usual forums. when you refresh the page, you immediately crack up to find every instance of the letter "a" replaced with "BAD WROD" because a moderator accidentally messed up the swear filter. sadly, you and your friends are laughing too hard to think to take any screenshots to immortalize this moment before it's hastily corrected.

the internet at this time is not a perfect place, but you will not realize what you have until it is long, long gone.

[ch4p3lofbl00d]

Today's the day~Chris Motionless

Y/N Pov:

Today is the day, I'm going to get married to my true love, Christopher Cerulli or as most people know him by Chris Motionless. Yes, the Chris Motionless from metal band Motionless In White. Everyone found it shocking that Chris would date someone like me. I'm not a fashion model or a famous person. Like everyone wanted Chris to be with.

I'm just an ordinary goth, who works at Hot Topic. I'm into Halloween and all things dark and spooky. Not into pink and wearing uncomfortable outfits for magazines and trying to be someone else for people to like me. That's not who I am; I'm gonna be myself no matter what.

The amount of hate that I get from just being myself is fucking insane. Even from my own family, I get hate. They didn't like the idea of me dating a rockstar and me being goth, so they kicked me out. Then I moved in with Chris; we had already been dating for a few months, so we already had met each other parents.

To say that my parents didn't accept Chris was an understatement, they threw disgusting words and comments at him and that was the day that I snapped at them.

Flashback|

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!?!"

I heard my mom scoff and yell back "HE'S A FUCKING FAGGOT Y/N I'M NOT LETTING NY DAUGHTER GO AROUND HIM"

I rolled my eyes and quietly said "Yeah, like you actually care" that just made her even more pissed off.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU LITTLE BITCH AND TAKE YOUR DRUGGIE BOYFRIEND WITH YOU AND NEVER COME BACK"

I felt hot tears stream down my face as I turned and left her house.

Flashback over|

That was honestly the best decision that my mom had ever made if she didn't kick me out, then I wouldn't be getting married to my soulmate today.

I sighed happily, and looked at myself in the mirror. Chris had Angela Undead do mine and his makeup; he wanted me to feel special on our big day.

Angela did black smokey eyes with purple inner eyes. I loved it a lot! She was such a great makeup artist! Knowing Chris, he probably asked for his Cyberhex look. I laughed to myself and looked at myself one last time.

I looked beautiful; I never think that I look pretty, I actually feel and look pretty. I smiled to myself and heard Angela's voice "are you ready?" I nodded, and walked out to see Justin waiting on me.

Justin was gonna walk me down cuz I didn't have my dad to walk me down, so Justin offered to walk me down. I smiled and linked our arms together, and walked down the aisle.

As soon as I reached the end, I took Chris's hands and smiled at him. I didn't pay much attention to the ceremony. All I wanted to do was kiss him and be Y/N Cerulli.

Finally what seemed like forever, it was time. I felt soft lips smash onto mine, I wrapped my arms around Chris's neck and smash my lips into his. I could hear cheers from all our friends and Chris's family.

We both backed up, and quickly smiled at each other and walks down the aisle together. Hand in hand. I can't believe that I'm Y/N Cerulli Motionless now.

[aihoshiino]

I'm the one who sent you a question about the interview in Da Vinci magazine and the recent one about Kana. I enjoyed reading your opinion a lot, so I did a bit of scrolling back and reading everything.

I saw your post about how Akane and MEM were not supposed to stay after the Love Now arc some time ago, but I am 100% sure Akane and MEM were supposed to stick around after the main arc. MEM is another piece that is related to Aka's grand game of guessing the ending, so I will avoid talking about it for now (but I think you already knew about this since Nobuyuki did called MEM by the nickname of ME-san). I actually planned to discuss this with you, but laziness got to me until Sneaky pissed me off on 4chan, and I just kind of wrote about this topic (such impure motivation) there. I figured I should share this here as well. 

For Akane, it is actually even more straight-forward than for Kana or Ruby. I used to ponder a lot about why Aka gave Ruby the Amaterasu line and Kana the image of the sun, but nothing for Akane. It doesn't really make sense because Aka is not the type who would give an easy answer to those actively seeking things behind his lies and riddles. In the sense of competition for who will end up with Aqua, not being linked to the image of the sun is a big red flag. In the more meta sense of children who are neglected by adults in the entertainment industry trying their best to shine and help others shine, it also doesn't make sense to have Akane never being put into the position of Amaterasu, even if there is only one real sun by the end of the story. The message should be that everyone can shine if they get help and are put into the spotlight. But eventually I arrived at the evidence that linked Akane to this whole Amaterasu/Sun thingy.

We start off with the real couple in Love Now: Nobuyuki and Yuki.

Nobuyuki Kumano (熊野ノブユキ). Nobuyuki is a name often written as 信幸 or 信行. If you read them in Onyomi, they are read as shinkou. The kanji for shinkou is 信仰. Together with his family name, Nobuyuki is a reference to the Kumano faith (熊野信仰). 

Nobuyuki's lover is Sumi Yuki (鷲見ゆき). The action of visiting the three grand shrines at Kumano is called Kumano pilgrimage (熊野詣). This action has been taken successively by many Emperors of Japan throughout history. When this action is taken by the emperor, it is referred to as miyuki (御幸). So Kumano Nobuyuki x (Su)mi Yuki is a reference to the three grand shrines at Kumano. Among the three, there is Kumano Hongu Taisha, which enshrines Ketsumiko-no-okami, which is Susanoo in Shintoism and Amida Nyorai (Buddha of Infinite Light) in Buddhism. Susanoo is also linked to Yatagarasu.

The 'su' part in Yuki's name is also special. 鷲 means eagle. In the myth about Amaterasu hikikomori phase, there was a god who played a string instrument. When Amaterasu finally stepped out of the cave and light returned to the world, an eagle landed on the end of the string instrument and the god perceived that eagle as an image of a bird who brightened the world. The one who played the string instrument in Love Now was Kengo Morimoto, so it is not just a random setting. 

Morimoto is a shrine in Shiga Prefecture that enshrines Amano-Iwato-Wake-no-kami (天石門別神) the god who is said to have also participated in getting Amaterasu out of her hikikomori phase. Nobuyuki is also a dancer just like Ama-no-Uzume. So we can say that in this arc, Akane was in the position of Amaterasu. Akane was written to be special from the start. 

As for the part why the dancer is not playing the active part, I think it is because Aqua is not a dancer, but Aka wanted the protagonist to be the one to save the day. The same happened in Tokyo Blade, when Kana specifically monologued about whether Akane wanted to 'dance' with her. In this arc, the one who was put into the role of Amaterasu is Kana, while Akane is Ama-no-Uzume. Both times, Aqua was doing the heavy lifting instead of the 'dancers'.

This is outside of the scope of the discussion, but the colours of the glowsticks were also not random. In Japanese, there is a thing called 紅白文化 that treats red and white as contrast colours. Ai, who has a red glowstick; Ruby, who inherted the red glowstick; and Akane, who has (Aka: red) in her name, all share certain traits that contrast with Kana to some degree. Also, Aka gave Akane the surname Kurokawa, which means Akane has something in contrast with Kana but that something is also different from Ai and Ruby. 

Publishing this one largely without commentary because I think it's some really interesting analysis and stands on its own without me needing to add to it! and also because poor anon has waited so long for a response... whoof

That said, re: Akane and Memcho - for what it's worth, I'm pretty sure their being later additions to the cast as opposed to being intended to join the story from their inception is something confirmed by Akasaka and Mengo. At the very least, in Mem's case, Aka and Mengo confirmed in the same interview where they talk about Ai's death being a during serialization decision; Mengo jokes about characters how surprising it is when certain characters who were intended to be one-offs end up becoming part of the main cast and Akasaka confirms that Memcho was one of these characters and that her role grew in the telling because he ended up liking her so much. She was not originally intended to join B-Komachi but he liked her and wanted her to continue having a role in the story and so it happened.

While it's worth noting that there is no direct confirmation that the same is true of Akane, I do believe it to be the case just based on how rapidly and how extremely her character changes post LoveNow. It's actually kind of jarring just how many of the things that come to define Akane in the latter half of the series like her rivalry with Kana and her genius actress analyst skills are like, transparently and hastily sellotaped onto her in the aftermath of that arc rather than existing as part of her from the start.

That's obviously not to say that she can't have grown into a role of more vital importance - she very clearly has! - but I just don't believe she or Mem were planned as big movers and shakers in the story from the start.

[talesfrommedinastation]

The next few chapters are going to be ROUGH.

(massive trigger warnings regarding pregnancy and loss)

The Belt was a dangerous place for the living, to say nothing for the unborn. Changes in gravitation, heightened cortisol, volatile organic compounds, cosmic radiation–all of them caused miscarriages and stillbirths, and that was just in the environment. That did not include the bodies that grew them.....

.....Only the dead can truly find peace in the Belt , Lyse often said to her daughters, her Ceres accent harsh compared to the soft Ganymede tone of their father, so many choose to be born that way. To be born dead is a blessing, for it is to be born without knowing suffering. 

'The Missing and the Murdered, Part 2' , To Guard Against Titans

-------------------------------------------------

It's National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day in my country.

So I figured if the elephant in the room was going to be addressed, it should be on this date.

Now, I love The Expanse. But the challenges with reproduction were not especially covered, which I have mentioned before.

As someone who has experienced pregnancy loss herself, this is a heavy topic for me to research, but one that I wanted, if not needed, to explore.

I view it not only as a personal journey, but as an epistemological one as well. I want to think about it, because thinking and researching is soothing to me. I hope it is for the reader as well.

I have no doubt in my mind that not only a lack of gravity, but especially radiation, would play a horrific role in reproduction.

Pregnant individuals are not allowed on rollercoasters - now think about gravity fluctuations on a space shuttle.

They are not allowed to have x-rays - now think about the radiation you might experience on a moon walk.

We worry about diet for expecting parents - how can you get enough folate and iron when you are stranded thousands of miles away from the nearest human settlement?

And this is even before a lack of medical access is discussed. Not just from a scientific standpoint, but a cultural one, too.

If you're seen as sub-human, why should the medical field care about you and your unborn child? Or when your child is born?

These are heavy and tragic questions I found myself asking as I envision life for a pregnant Belter and her unborn child (ren). Add a father who has different physiological and cultural backgrounds and yeah. Yeah. Heavy shit.

Some links for the curious:

Can We Even Have Babies in Space? Why We're Not Ready for Life Off-Planet | Scientific American

Making Babies In Space May Be A Terrible Idea (vice.com)

Earth’s first space gynaecologist explains how humans will reproduce in future | BBC Science Focus Magazine

Long-Term Space Nutrition: A Scoping Review - PMC (nih.gov)

Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kid: ethical implications of pregnancy on missions to colonize other planets - PMC (nih.gov)

[still-a-morosexual-help]

if you don't mind (and you have time), could you explain a little bit about the story with solomon, asmo, and the ocean? or at least tell us where a good place to read about it is? I've tried to look into the actual stories of who the characters are based off of but it's honestly really hard to even know where to start because there's just so much to it 😭 but the stories seem so interesting especially the stuff between asmo and solomon

My original source is "I read this in a friend's religious text (?) when I was a teenager and it stuck with me" but here's some actual online places that cover the story of Solomon & Asmodeus.

*None of these stories are the ones I grew up with (i was raised buddhist) & none of these sites are ones I'm familiar with so I don't know how valid/reliable the sources are. If anyone has better sources feel free to drop a link in the replies

I'm only adding short parts from each site to this post and I'd highly recommend reading the whole thing if anyone is interested

"Confident of his own power, Solomon granted Ashmedai's wish. Instantly the demon seized the king's crown, and with a single flick of his powerful wing, hurled Solomon four hundred miles from Jerusalem.

Ashmedai then flung Solomon's magic ring into the sea, where it was swallowed by a fish. For Ashmedai thought, "If anyone should gain possession of the ring, he will know what I have done."

Then the Demon King disguised himself as Solomon and sat down upon his golden throne."

-Jewish Heritage Online Magazine

"Ashmedai remained with Solomon until the Temple was completed. One day the king told him that he did not understand wherein the greatness of the demons lay, if their king could be kept in bonds by a mortal. Ashmedai replied that if Solomon would remove his chains and lend him the magic ring, he (Ashmedai) would prove his own greatness. Solomon agreed. The demon then stood before him with one wing touching heaven, and the other reaching to the earth. Snatching up Solomon, who had parted with his protecting ring, he flung him four hundred parasangs away from Jerusalem, and then palmed himself off as the king."

-Jewish Encyclopedia

Another Talmudic legend has King Solomon tricking Asmodai into collaborating in the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem[4] (see: The Story of King Solomon and Ashmedai).

Another legend depicts Asmodai throwing King Solomon over 400 leagues away from the capital by putting one wing on the ground and the other stretched skyward.

-Wikipedia

Solomon - Britannica

*The original text I read as a teenager said Solomon himself was flung into the ocean? But none of these mention that. Then again I read that about a whole decade ago so it's highly probable I'm misremembering. But also (at least with Buddhism*) small details like that tend to differ depending on where you find the text and when you read it

eg: *did you know in some buddhist texts the horse no longer dies!!? Because apparently it makes children too sad!!?? You're telling me I had to sob my little 7yr old heart out in an art museum over this horse and kids nowadays don't get to experience that devastating heartbreak!?? That kick to the teeth!? The nerve! Why did my generation have to suffer like this!? Kids these days don't know how good they have it! Why I oughta-

anyway-

Honestly I think the easiest and most comprehensive way to digest these stories if you want to know more but are overwhelmed by how vast and interconnected they are is by finding a good reliable youtube channel that talks about them

Here are some channels that I've watched before & some I haven't (so I can't vouch for them) but are popular & cover those topics:

•ESOTERICA

• Mr. Mythos

• Mythology & Fiction Explained (subscribed/watched)

• Mythology- Folklore A-Z

• Overly Sarcastic Productions (subscribed/watched)

• See U in History / Mythology (subscribed/watched)

• Storied (subscribed/watched)

• The Legends of History

Hope this helps!

[saffronapplemanga]

Let’s Talk Manga Demographics!

Colleen from Colleen's Manga Recs asked me to weigh in when someone had questions regarding manga demographics, so I made a Twitter thread. I figured I'd make a post here too since this topic has many misconceptions. I am someone who frequents bookstores in Japan, works in the industry with manga demographics being my special interest, and this is a manga blog after all.

There’s a lot more to demographics than this but here goes nothing.

Links to my other manga posts here

Link to my thread on Twitter. I could talk about demographics for hours but I tried to keep the thread concise and just address the question. (A little more detail in this post). I'm going to compare Japan and America because that's what I'm most familiar with.

The tweet I replied to was this:

---

First off — and say it with me — demographics are very important. Beyond reaching your target audience, they create various platforms and spaces for a larger variety of titles to be published, including more marginalized voices. Erasing demographics would only hurt marginalized works, like shoujo manga, which would be the first to go. Male oriented media/perspectives would become the default since we live in a patriarchy amongst other things. Titles would become samey.

No, gendered demographics are not necessarily reductive, usually people’s ideas regarding gender are. Sure, society can be weird about it, but gender isn’t inherently bad or evil. You are not as progressive as you think you are if you believe erasing gendered demographics is a good idea. That’s honestly a Gender Studies 101 take.

Some people say they don’t care about demographics or don’t notice and just read “what’s good”. That’s great, but yes you do notice, if even on a subconscious level. This is not a brag, but I can tell the demographic of any manga just by looking at the cover or a few pages even if I know nothing about it. There are meaningful differences obvious to those with an eye for it. Again, not a brag, but it’s there.

Not to be crabby but I’m tired of people who don’t know how the industry works arguing with me about these things practically every week. I’ll leave it at that for now.

———

With that out of the way — there are various factors that go into why a publisher labels a manga a certain way (combination of art style, writing, etc). There’s also a difference between how publishers in Japan and abroad do things.

Shoujo/shounen/seinen categorization obviously is a Japanese thing. (Josei isn’t really used in Japan and is often grouped with shoujo, but that’s another convo right now). In America, there’s different but sometimes similar labels used in publishing (young adult, for example) but it’s not a one-to-one. And these labels only apply to manga. They’re not used for manhwa, webtoons, or even light novel manga adaptions. Those are all different subgroups under the umbrella of comics. Calling a webtoon a shoujo is like calling The Walking Dead comics (a western comic series) a seinen. I’m not saying one is better than the other, they just have different categorization labels.

Even the LN manga adaption of The Apothecary Diaries, for example, is not shelved with the rest of the seinen manga. It is labeled a seinen on many ebook sites (more on them later) but there’s a separate LN manga adaption shelf. Why? I can tell when something is a LN adaption without being told because they do have different vibes and appeals, and thus different audiences. For sure there’s a Venn Diagram of manga, LN adaptions, and webtoon readers etc. but the Venn Diagram is not a circle.

Overseas publishers probably have more leeway on how they market things because of this. It’s a different market from Japan. EN publishers use imprints and this is meant to replace JP publishers using magazines (also printed on vols). In America, bookstores arrange manga by alphabetical order, no regard for demographics. That was so weird to me the first time I saw it.

Normally EN manga have imprints, but in Japan it's based on the magazine it's published in since each magazine has a “publishing house style”.

Even EN novels are organized in categories and then alphabetical order (by title or author). In Japan, it’s organized by demographic > magazine/imprint/publisher > then alphabetical order. Same for ebooks.

You’ll have the shounen section, but Jump titles are labeled on the shelf, and Square Enix titles are grouped together, then arranged by alphabetical order. This goes for both new and used. Even when there’s a separate area for new releases, they tend to group them this way.

To the left, I can see signs that say “seinen comics”, and the publishers “Shueisha”, “Shogakukan”, and “Kodansha” in the back. New releases are usually end-caps. The blue sign says “New Release Comics”. They tend to keep the demos together for these too.

Selling bundles of used series is common, so you can see in these pictures, the one on the left has signs on the shelves that say “Kodansha seinen comics”. Right pic is my local bookoff. It’s not explicitly labeled, but they grouped all the shoujo bundles on the same shelf.

Left: “shoujo comics/lady’s comics” (Josei is often referred to as “lady’s comics” in Japan). “BL-lady’s comics”. Right: the shelves are labeled “Champion”, “Sunday”, “Magazine”, “Jump” which are all shounen magazines.

Colleen had asked me about this for their video (my comment at the 32:04 mark, but watch the whole vid because it’s good!) I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing with Renta JP in the vid was similar to physical bookstores too, because of it’s part of marketing their “brand”.

We stan Colleen🫡

Since the magazines are sold in Japan and not just the tankobon volumes, readers there are likely more familiar with what series are published together under what demographic and what makes them fall under that demographic. Plus you HAVE to know the demographic to even be in the right section of a bookstore when looking for a specific title.

If they switched up what a manga is labeled as in the bookstore versus the magazine, that would muddle things and confuse readers. I can imagine they’d want readers shopping for one title to see their other titles next to it so they buy it. It’s all a part of their brand. But since the magazines aren’t sold outside Japan and the market is different, foreign publishers take liberties. Sometimes I wonder if they should’ve even used JP demos tbh.

Then the same Twitter user asked a follow up that led to more relevant stuff that I hadn't initially mentioned in the thread:

I picked up the Japanese tankobon of Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu (The Summer Hikaru Died) from my local bookstore back when vol.1 first came out and it was in the seinen section. Renta JP has it under “lady’s comics” (usually what they call josei, since josei is not commonly used there).

I’m not 100% if this is the reason or not, but if I had to say, BL and horror have a lot of history with shoujosei so they labeled it as such. And in brick and mortar shops, like I said, the publisher would want their titles together so people buy more of their stuff. Online, ebooks don’t have a physical shelf they’re on so the way you’re searching for it is different so they changed the label for online searches for what gets the most hits.

Horimiya is labeled shoujo on Renta, but I it is in fact a shounen. It’s not in the shoujo section at bookstores.

It's from a shounen magazine and I still consider it a shounen because of multiple reasons (like art, story style, etc.)

Again, they are playing around with the labels to optimize marketing for digital versus brick and mortar.

I call this ✨gerrymandering but for comics✨ LOL and there's a reason I used the word "gerrymandering" as it's basically the bullshitting of demographics and it's not a word that has a positive connotation.

But yeah, I hope this was informative!

[cityofdreamsrp]

Hello Dreamers, and Happy May!

We wanted to come here and say thank you, first and foremost, for sticking with us throughout our first year here at City of Dreams. We really enjoyed getting everyone involved for the superlatives, and we hope you enjoyed getting involved in voting for them! While we’re here, we wanted to make some announcements and address some changes that we will be implementing starting today, May 1st.

New Activity Guidelines 

Starting May 1st, we will be implementing some new activity guidelines to hopefully make things a little easier on you all, activity-wise. Our new activity guidelines are that we are now only requiring a minimum of 6-8 replies once a week, instead of twice a week. This now means that you are able to do your required set of replies once a week and any other time after that, you’re free to do however many replies you wish. The rules for consistent activity, including going three or more days without doing replies, however, will not be changing. Please also note that if the admin team discovers that the group is taking advantage of the new guidelines, that we reserve the right to revert back to our old guidelines. We don’t want to have to resort to that because we all deserve a break from roleplaying when needed, but in order for a group roleplay to thrive, we need to have active members. We hope this new change takes a little weight off of everyone’s shoulders!

Member Survey 

Next, we want to hear from you! We’re linking here a survey for our members. In it, you will find questions about a range of topics pertaining to the group, from suggestions for events, to things that you would like to see within the group. This is an optional survey, but we would like to see as many responses as possible, so that we can make this group the best it can possibly be for everyone here.

Interviews 

If you were around for the previous iteration of this group, you will know that we conducted monthly interviews of celebs in magazine form, so that their fellow celebs could get to know them a little bit better. We are happy to announce that we are bringing these back! Starting today, we will be reaching out to members on the first of each month. Chosen members have between four and five days to respond with which celeb they wish to be interviewed. If a member doesn’t answer or turns it down, we will move on to the next. The chosen member/celeb will have until the 12th of each month to answer the questions given to them, and on the 15th, we will be publishing the interview. This is a fun way for our celebs to share a little more about themselves, and for our celebs to get to know one another!

Task Blog 

We will also be bringing back our task blog! We took a few months off for the holidays and while we adjusted to going from six admins on our team to five. But we are bringing it back starting today! Please follow the link here to our first new task, where we ask you to create mood boards based on your connections! Tasks will continue to remain optional.

Contests 

We have loved implementing contests into events like our summer and winter trips, and we’ve loved getting to see everyone’s creativity when it comes to these contests. That being said, we have decided to make these contests a permanent part of the City of Dreams on a monthly basis, both during events and outside of events. Our first contest that we are going to introduce is Guess Who! Please read our post here on the gossip blog for more information, but essentially, it’s like this: on the first of each month, we will be giving you five questions to answer about five different celebs, one celeb for each question. These questions will not be easy! We want to challenge everyone to compete to be the best of the best. When you submit your answers, please send in an ask to the gossip blog. The person with the most correct guesses/submits their guesses first will be the winner of the month, in which they will be given one free day on the gossip blog to do anything they want: games, post blind items, etc. The winner will be anonymous to everyone except the admins. We will contact the winner to set up the day they want to run the gossip blog. We would also like to remind all of our members that should you win, any plot drops you want to make when you take over the gossip blog must be done with the approval of the admins. We want to make sure that no one is releasing any information they’re not supposed to know. This will be the first of many contests that we hope to introduce to the group as we head into the summer months and the rest of the year.

Gossip Blog 

That brings us to the Gossip Blog. We will be bringing back our TMZ articles for member use, as well as blind items. If you want your celebrity to be in the news or have not-so-savory rumors spread about them, please fill out this form to have a TMZ article posted for your celeb, and please submit any blind items you want to share through the submit box. Remember that you can do this at any time, and not just when prompted by the Gossip Blog. If there’s ever some tea you want to spill, feel free to do so at any time!

Events

 Finally, we are going to start implementing more 1-3 day events in the group. We know that the dash can be more exciting when there is an event compared to when there isn’t, so in-between our bigger events, we are going to start introducing some smaller events. Not only that, but our first one will be this month! So, please look for a post relating to that in the coming days. We worked together with member, MK, who won the opportunity to host an event after winning the Super Bowl betting contest to create an event that we are looking forward to that we think everyone will enjoy!

We know this was quite the lengthy notice and we appreciate everyone taking the time to read it! We just wanted to be sure we got everything across to our members in a timely manner. We hope that these changes and the results of our member survey will allow us to continue to make this group the best it can possibly be, and hopefully bring us all the way into year two of this group!

PLEASE LIKE THIS NOTICE TO SHOW THAT YOU HAVE READ IT AND UNDERSTAND.