#people don’t even know how to trace back articles and claims to their original sources

[jewelleria]

You need to examine some of these shady sources you're presenting. Makes you seem even dumber than you actually are

how, exactly, is video footage and photographic evidence “shady”? the fact that you won’t come off anon and say this to me with your full chest is what’s really shady, if you ask me. seems like you’re just pissed off i haven’t cited al jazeera as a source.

[apiratewhopines]

Killian, Persuaded

Chapter One — Don’t Panic

Summary: In which our hero panics

Read on AO3

“All of us are done for”

-Don’t Panic, Coldplay

It was no secret Killian Jones lived a charmed life. How could it be when his handsome face was plastered across glossy magazines covers and splashy websites on a daily basis? Dark hair carefully tousled to look as if he woke up that way. An athletic figure always encased in the latest fashion and, more often than not, topped off with black leather. A smile said to cause an increase in heart rate for those lucky enough to experience it firsthand. And perhaps the most defining feature, one gossip columnists and celebrity photographers waxed lyrical about, impossibly blue eyes that could charm or chill in equal measure depending on his mood.

He inherited his father’s roguish good looks and, fortunately for the world, his mother’s better nature.

As he rolled out of bed early one fall morning, it was with the deep sense of well-being one could only achieve from a pampered existence, free of the stress and worries normal people carried like millstones around their necks. He walked through a hallway laid with Italian marble liberated from a Renaissance era villa to a bathroom featured in Architectural Digest as the most luxurious in the world, causing an Arabian prince and a Russian oligarch to accuse him of sleeping with the journalist who produced the piece.

He had, of course. But that didn’t mean the title wasn’t deserved.

He stepped into an enormous shower that provided an expansive view of skyscrapers and the ocean beyond through the one-way windows forming the walls of the room. It was one he was so familiar with he didn’t even notice it anymore. As he washed off the lingering scents of the night before—stale cigarettes, spilled booze, and expensive French perfume—he rolled his shoulders under the perfectly calibrated water pressure of his rainwater showerhead and let the massaging jets work their magic, precisely hitting all the important hydrotherapy points as they had been designed to do.

Stepping out, he wrapped himself in towels of the softest Egyptian cotton embroidered with the Jones family crest. As his father always said, just because they were in the colonies, it didn’t mean they had to forget where they came from. Never mind that the colonies hadn’t been colonies in well over two hundred years. His family had always preferred to live in the past.

Killian’s father was also keen on never forgetting who they were. As if such a thing would even be possible when all articles about them started with a brief reminder their roots could be traced back as far as the monarchy and noted they were in possession of a bank account rivaling the tech giant nouveau riche of the vast city quite literally laid at his feet every morning.

Although, it should be noted his father would never be so tasteless as to discuss money. Comparing bank accounts was the province of those who didn’t have enough. No, the elder, esteemed Mr. Jones preferred to simply let his massive wealth speak for itself, silently scorning those who had less while appearing to think nothing of it. And why should he? It’s not like he had done anything to earn it other than being born into the family.

Generation after generation passed down entitlement and piercing blue eyes like they had patents on them. His father offset his lack of the most noted Jones feature by putting his blue blood on full display whenever possible. Some might even accuse the head of the family of overcompensating.

The truth of the matter was, Killian was the product of a long line of smug snobs so it was amazing he had turned out as well as he did.

Or perhaps not so amazing when you considered his mother had been a stranger to this world of glittering privilege. That’s not to say she was completely without resources. In the real world, she would have even been considered wealthy in her own right. But in the Jones sphere of reality, the general view was his father married so far down the ladder, he was practically romancing pond scum instead of a clever, beautiful soul who devoted her life to helping others and raising her two sons.

Killian realized at an early age it was, in fact, his mother who could have done better.

His parents had been an odd couple that never stood a chance. While no one would ever know for sure, because the only thing worse than talking about money was talking about your feelings, the general consensus was when his father saw his mother exiting the courthouse one day it was love at first sight. She was leaving her latest case as a Human Rights lawyer and he was coming from being the defendant in a string of slumlord lawsuits.

His father had always appreciated a pretty face, a trait he definitely passed down to his youngest son, and his mother could never resist the chance to save someone. Even if it meant losing herself along the way. Even, and perhaps especially, if the person didn’t want to be saved.

Doomed from the beginning.

Shaking off the odd sense of melancholy that threatened, he threw his towel into the corner and walked unashamedly into a closet so large it could easily house a family of four with room to spare. It was a grand space, two stories softly lit by Baccarat chandeliers and filled floor to ceiling with custom clothes tailored to his exact, and enviable, measurements.

Another longstanding family expectation was to always look your best. Nature had been kind to the Jones clan but it never hurt to play up what you were blessed with. Clothiers practically threw garments his way knowing they would reap the benefits of a timely paparazzi snap. The three piece suit he wore when he proposed to his fiancée sold out within seconds after the picture went viral and the designer currently had a two year waitlist for his creations.

The pressure of being a trendsetter never bothered him. Honestly he couldn’t care less what people thought of him. Being universally adored did wonders for your confidence.

The same could not be said for his estranged older brother. While Killian received the lion’s share of swagger, Liam had inherited their mother’s self-righteous streak with none of her sweetness to temper it. He was a chore to be around at the best of times so it was no surprise barely a year after the death of their mother, and only a few months after his graduation from university, Liam proceeded to thumb his nose at centuries of Jones tradition by defying their father and enlisting in the Navy thereby renouncing any claim to the family fortune.

He hadn’t even had the decency to join Her Majesty’s Naval Service. In a complete break with the family, he visited the nearest strip mall and was recruited by some of Uncle Sam’s finest.

From that day forward, their father insisted he had only one son. Liam was painted out of family portraits, his name stricken from the family tree, his signature removed from the vast network of accounts and properties. Killian still remembered the last time he saw him, laughing as he waved from the backseat of a cab, looking as if the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders.

It was the only time he’d ever been jealous of his brother.

Now, more than fifteen years later, he often wondered where Liam had landed. If he was still laughing or if the harshness of a world without means, without the Jones family name to soften any and all blows, had crept up on him. The abandoned boy, the one who had watched from a spotless mansion window as his best friend and hero walked away without a second glance, hoped so. But it was a mean, half-hearted wish. Hidden beneath layers of hurt, the reality was he would never want any harm to come to his brother.

Deep down, he wished he had followed him out the door.

Selecting a black suit and contrasting tie at random, he started getting dressed. Normally, his valet would be on hand to smooth wrinkles and polish off his look. However, the man had taken a long overdue vacation to tend to his ailing mother. Killian wasn’t so far removed from the real world he couldn’t dress himself for a few days but the sense of being out of sync wouldn’t dissipate.

He couldn’t account for the feeling. Admittedly, this time of year was harder than most. It never failed that autumn brought falling leaves and personal loss. First his mother, then his brother. To complete the trifecta, a vision of a blonde with a guarded smile filled his mind, green eyes flashing and chin tilted up in challenge.

With a ruthlessness that was completely unnecessary, he tugged his tie in place and risked a glance in the mirror for the first time that morning. Or maybe it had been months. Carefully cultivated nonchalance stared back at him. He wondered when he had lost the fire in his eyes and how long it would be before he gave a damn about something again.

Perhaps it was easier this way.

And perhaps if he kept taking the easy way, the next time he saw his reflection he wouldn’t recognize himself at all.

—

It was with some surprise he found he had thirteen missed calls when he bothered to check his phone. While his social media accounts were heavily trafficked, there were few who had his number and even fewer who actually used it in this day and age. The fact all the calls originated from a single source—his best friend of sorts—made it even more shocking.

There was a time when it would have been rare for Robin Locksley, heir to an ancient title and completely bankrupt estate, to be awake before noon. What was the point really when all you had to look forward to was crippling debt? That all changed when he settled down and started a family only to lose his wife less than two years later.

Normally he would have given into his curiosity and returned the calls but for once, he had someplace to be. The family’s legal and financial advisors recently called an emergency meeting and requested his presence in addition to his father, who normally handled these types of things. It was an unusual move to say the least but his father assured him it was because they wanted to talk him out of a risky investment. Misguidedly, they thought his son might get him to see the sense of their arguments.

Killian could have told them not to bother. His father no more listened to him than he did anyone else. Still, it was nice to feel wanted for something other than a free ride so he cleared his non-existent schedule and took one of the family’s fleet of limos to the tastefully understated brick mansion serving as a headquarters for their business ventures.

He could count on one hand the number of times he had bothered to visit. Honestly it seemed like everything ran a lot smoother if he didn’t get too involved. This laissez-faire type of leadership was the only way men of his class ran things. Anything more would be a disgrace to the honorable name of Jones. Or at least that was what his father said. Since he didn’t have any real interest in the day-to-day runnings of their portfolio and numerous acquisitions, it worked out well for everyone. The fancy business degree currently gathering dust somewhere in his penthouse could have been wallpaper for all the use it got.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized his time would be better spent at the yacht club or with his eminently suitable fiancée. She had been inexplicably absent the prior night and hadn’t returned the texts he sent to check on her. He was sure she would breeze into his arms at some point today with a perfectly absurd excuse and be delightfully motivated to make it up to him. The faint wave of nausea presenting itself at the thought was immediately dismissed as the result of too much caffeine.

He mounted the steps with a level of trepidation he normally reserved for babies and churches. The hard facade suddenly seemed imposing and it occurred to him the only vehicle in the cobblestone driveway was the one he arrived in. He would be joining the meeting as it started so the absence of his father’s preferred antique Rolls Royce was disturbing to say the least. Mr. Jones prided himself on his punctuality. Truly, it was his only redeeming virtue.

Shrugging inelegantly out of his overcoat, he knew he wasn’t imagining the brief look the staff exchanged when he crossed the threshold. Tension, an infrequent visitor in his cosseted life, formed in his shoulders, muscles bunching under the clean lines of his suit. He made his way unaided to the second floor, pausing on the landing when he heard the emotionless drone of some random news anchor echo down the hallway. It wasn’t until he heard his name fill the space his feet started moving of their own accord. He reached the boardroom at the tail end of the story but it was enough to get the gist of it.

There on the television, the ribbon running the details even as the reporter gleefully narrated it for an rapt audience, was a picture of his father. Time had been kind to the senior Jones, his hair still dark and falling in wavy perfection around his handsome face. Dimples winked charmingly as dark eyes twinkled with a sense of mischief that was totally an illusion. He was a hard man who had petrified after the death of his misunderstood, but nonetheless cherished, wife.

‘Anonymous sources reveal Brennan Jones, widely considered one of the richest men in the state, fled from authorities last night...’

Tearing his eyes away from the screen, he noted everyone was focused on his reaction, or lack thereof. Those brave enough to face him head on would notice the twitch of muscle in his cheek, a nervous tell the people closest to him knew was a sign of deep emotion. He felt like he stood there for days before someone stepped forward. It evidently fell to Marco, a friend of the family who had the distinction of being the only advisor hired by his mother, to be the messenger. “Killian, I’m so very sorry.”

Not sure what this man had to apologize about, he asked with a bemused grin, “Whatever for?”

Shuffling nervously, Marco stared at him again. Looking around the room at the shell shocked faces, he didn’t resist when the older man took him by the arm and led him back into the hallway. “I guess you haven’t heard. Of course, we had no idea it would come to this. I wish I could give you happier news.”

Mind uncomprehending of the scope of tragedy waiting for him, he said, “I would settle for any explanation at this point. Why was my father on television this morning?”

“Oh Killian, my boy, you probably should sit down...”

“I prefer to stand,” he murmured, internally bracing himself. Marco had always been one of the least annoying of the host of advisors employed by his family. The unassuming man had the kind of face that made you think of grandparents and unconditional love, or at least that’s what Killian thought when he was a child. Now he knew while grandparents were real enough, unconditional love was a fairy tale.

“Your father raided the meager funds left in the family coffers and left the country to avoid prosecution for wire fraud and tax evasion.”

“Meager funds,” he repeated, feeling lightheaded. “I’m not sure I understand. The last time I was at one of these little get-togethers, we had over half a billion dollars in assets.”

“That was many years ago, my boy. Your father made some poor investments and he never was the best at curbing his lifestyle to fit his income.”

Swallowing thickly, Killian ran his hand through his hair and forced himself to remain calm. If what Marco said was true, poor investments was the understatement of the century. In a pale imitation of a joke he offered, “So what? We’ll have to sell some property and maybe a couple of the yachts? Start sharing a helicopter with another family?”

“Unfortunately, the situation is more dire than that. Most of the property is already gone. The only yacht left is the one he stored in Maldives, probably in anticipation of his getaway.” With a kindly hand on his shoulder, Marco gave him an apologetic look. “I’m afraid it gets worse.”

In disbelief, Killian shook his hand away and propped himself against the wall. It was an artful pose that didn’t hint at the real reason he was leaning, namely he needed the hard surface to keep from sinking to his knees. “How could it possibly get worse?”

“The family money wasn’t the only thing he took. Your fiancée went with him.”

—

Killian was surprised to learn the hardest part wasn’t listening to the substantial inventory of assets already lost. It wasn’t seeing the short—far too short—list of property still in play that would be offered in a fire sale to end all fire sales. It wasn’t the fact people he thought of as friends were already circling like sharks, ready to take a piece of the family prestige home with them at a fraction of the cost.

It wasn’t the media demanding answers to prying questions every time he left his building. It wasn’t the news cycle replaying the details of his embarrassment over and over again on an endless loop. It wasn’t that somehow his name had become a punchline overnight, cannon fodder for late night talkshow hosts and comedians.

It wasn’t watching his family home, the last tangible thing connecting him to his mother, being emptied out. Observing the gentle landscape surrounding it being surveyed in an attempt to siphon off parcels from the main section to try to bring in more money at auction was surreal but unavoidable considering the circumstances.

It wasn’t the hushed conversations that followed him, fracturing into silence as soon as he was within earshot. Nor was it the pitying glances the staff gave him when he had to dismiss them with excellent references but a fraction of the severance they deserved.

It wasn’t crawling into an empty bed and pulling cold sheets over his head every night. It certainly wasn’t missing his fiancée, a woman he had committed to but, in hindsight, hadn’t liked all that much. If he was being completely honest, her leaving was the only silver lining in this particular rainstorm. Although her manner of leaving left much to be desired.

It wasn’t even the sudden lack of everything. His whole life he had been comforted by possessions he used as a replacement for love. Every article of clothing a substitute for the affection he never received, every priceless piece of art a proxy for family photos never taken much less displayed, every impressive technological gadget a surrogate for the support sorely missing from his life. His six car garage was now empty, a willing sacrifice in order to compensate the slate of advisors needed to carve up what was left of his life and repay the debts of his father.

Now that the clutter was gone, he actually felt a certain freedom in the emptiness.

No, the worst part was the silence. The feeling of being utterly and completely alone despite doing everything in his power to keep it from happening. With the shock of a lifetime to provide perspective, Killian realized now he had twisted himself into someone he didn’t know in a misplaced attempt to please a man who would never be proud of him. He let go of all the things that made him happy—the people who made him happy—to try to meet some unattainable standard of perfection in the eyes of the horde he had mistaken for loved ones. People who had abandoned him the second he was no longer the darling of their social stratum.

Still, he would be lying if he said he didn’t miss the buzz. He knew it was meaningless but the constant hum of activity gave him the illusion of being a part of something.

He knew some of the silence was his own fault. He had turned off him phone and frozen all his social media accounts. It seemed wise given the shit show that was currently his life and all the expensive advisors agreed laying low was the best course of action in situations like these.

Luckily, his dwelling and a few pieces of furnishings were his outright, bought with the small trust he inherited from his mother so at least he wouldn’t be living on the street. He had a comfortable cage to crawl back into every night. A lonely place to be sure, but no one could take it from him. It was a lot more than most people would ever have and a lot less than he wanted.

For the first time in a long time, he looked out over the city and truly saw it.

He had no idea how long he had been standing there lost in thought when the elevator bell rang. Someone made it past the doorman and the front desk. Trying to figure out how his visitor managed to get all the way to the penthouse was a welcome distraction from his gloomy musings. The ringing kept up a steady pace but he didn’t make any effort to key open the door.

That is until the noise took on a familiar tune.

The unmistakeable though slightly off-kilter sound of Hooked on a Feeling rang out in the harsh meep of the doorbell. With something approaching wonder, Killian ran over to the security pad and punched in his code. Instantly, the elevator opened revealing a sight he never thought he’d see again.

Staring back at him through blue eyes identical to his own was the face of his long lost brother. Through the intervening years, Liam grew his hair out and it now curled in a way that made him think it was probably raining outside. Faint scores of wrinkles defined the areas of his profile showing Liam had continued to find joy in the struggle of life. Completing his perusal, he noticed his brother had bulked up, muscles replacing the softness of an idle life, probably a side benefit of his years in the Navy. His clothes were of the outdoor variety, navy utility pants topped with a gray fisherman sweater and pea coat, and they made him look like he stepped out of a travel magazine catering to ecotourists. “Liam, I...how did you find me?”

“Finding you has never been a problem, little brother. You don’t exactly fly under the radar. Reaching you on the other hand...well, I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to find a different way in since you won’t answer your damn phone and there isn’t a lock to pick on this contraption,” Liam explained, looking Killian over with a worried expression that gradually gave way to a bright smile. “You look like death warmed over.”

“Good to see you too,” Killian answered sarcastically, still trying to get his bearings. While Liam had changed in a few superficial ways, his determined expression and uncompromising attitude seemed unshakeable even after all these years. The bruised ego and hard feelings of their long separation faded away like it never happened and he was fifteen again, basking in the glow of a beloved brother. “Why are you here?”

“Why do you think? I’m rescuing you from your ivory tower.”

“I don’t need to be rescued,” he scoffed. Times made be bad, but it wasn’t like he was starving. He still had his pride and it forced the next words out of his mouth before he could stop to consider if they were true. “Certainly not by a man who acted like I didn’t exist my entire adult life.”

Stiffening, Liam advanced into the room, taking no notice of the breathtaking view or the recently minimalist design. Suddenly Killian was engulfed in a fierce embrace, pulled into his brother’s strong hold. He heard Liam say in a gruff voice, “Our father has a lot to answer for but know this, I thought of you every single day since I left.”

A little piece of him broke, even he couldn’t have said if it was his resolve or his heart, and he felt tears well up. Uncomfortable with the stir of emotions, he joked as he hugged Liam with equal intensity, “Aye, serves you right you bastard.”

“Too right,” his brother agreed, pulling away to clap him on the back. Barking out orders in a way that gave Killian a glimpse of the other man’s military background, he didn’t even argue when Liam said, “Pack your bag. I’m taking you home.”



[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: The Fantastic True Story of How Project A-ko Was Lost and Found

Disclosure: The author of this article personally contributed to the MADOX-01 Kickstarter project described later in the piece.

Thirty-five years ago, when Project A-ko debuted in Japanese movie theaters, no one thought they were witnessing the birth of an anime classic. Director Katsuhiko Nishijima jokingly claimed in the behind-the-scenes documentary Project A-ko Secret File that he helped create the film because he needed some cash to buy new teeth.

  The film, which is named after an unrelated Jackie Chan movie and which began production as an adults-only entry in the Cream Lemon series before transforming into a general audience science fiction action-comedy film we know now, would prove popular enough to spawn three sequels and a spin-off series.

    If you've seen the film, it's no mystery why Project A-ko earned its reputation as a milestone of modern anime with adoring fans both in Japan and overseas. And yet, the film itself was shrouded in mystery, because sometime after its video masters were struck from the original 35mm film elements, the reels containing Project A-ko vanished without a trace.

  This is the story of that discovery.  

  School Girls Head West

  In the United States, Project A-ko was originally licensed by the now-defunct Central Park Media, a New York-based film company run by John O'Donnell. CPM first published the film on VHS in 1991, and Project A-ko proved to be an evergreen title all the way up until its final CPM release on DVD in 2002. After CPM went out of business in 2009, Discotek Media announced the rescue of the license of Project A-ko in 2010, releasing the film and its sequels on DVD later in 2011.

  Project A-ko still has a huge fan following overseas, but for all its success as an anime classic, it has never received a high-definition Blu-ray release in the United States. Even Central Park Media’s final “Special Edition” DVD release was recorded off the laserdisc because the original film elements were presumed to be lost. When it came time to create an HD remastered release, the original 35mm prints of Project A-ko were nowhere to be found.

    As a result, when Discotek Media announced that they were bringing Project A-ko to Blu-ray in September 2020, they also revealed that they were using technologies called the Domesday Duplicator and AstroRes to try to capture the best video possible from the available sources. 

  According to Justin Sevakis, CEO of MediaOCD, Discotek’s Production Contractor, the Domesday Duplicator captures and digitizes RF signals from multiple laserdisc sources, which results in a cleaner image overall.

  “[Domesday] is a cool concept and very intriguing, but I think people got the wrong idea that this was some sort of game-changer in terms of restoring A-ko,” said Sevakis. “It definitely would’ve helped, but it only got us part of the way back to the condition of the original master tape it came from. Even if we had THAT tape, it was a video master from 1986, and still would’ve required a lot more restoration work from that point onward.”

    The initial plan was to take the Domesday Duplicator transfer to an engineer who then used AstroRes, a process that uses machine learning to estimate the original linework to create an HD signal of the original. “When it comes off the disc, it’s still a video transfer,” said Sevakis. “Even for an SD master, it’s blurry because it was made in 1986. If anything was the miracle process, it was AstroRes.” 

  When it comes to older anime, Sevakis says that missing film elements are the biggest challenges when it comes to preserving and archiving. “If we’re stuck with decades-old video masters, often they’re made in such a way that makes restoring them very difficult or impossible ... Sometimes there are also old analog video problems that make the image completely unacceptable on a modern 4K display. At that point, the best you can really do is release it in standard definition.”

  The Domesday Duplicator and AstroRes processes certainly made the most sense for the Project A-ko restoration Discotek was producing at the time. But soon enough, a simple investigation into an unrelated Shinji Aramaki title would prove otherwise. 

    The MADOX-01 Connection

  While Discotek Media began the Herculean task of reconstructing Project A-ko, a plucky little North Carolina-based distributor known as AnimEigo was breaking ground on their next Kickstarter-financed release: a Blu-ray version of Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01, an original animation video from 1987 directed by Shinji Aramaki.

  A one-shot story about a young man who dons a highly advanced prototype suit of mechanical powered armor in a quest to say goodbye to his girlfriend, MADOX-01 is a goofy story with a lot of humor and some exquisite technical animation.

  In fact, Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 was the first anime title licensed and distributed by AnimEigo. In an interview included as a special feature on the DVD release, Robert Woodhead, the founder and CEO of the AnimEigo, recalled that originally he was given the option to license Project A-ko or MADOX-01, but he decided to go with MADOX-01 because he felt it had more “mainstream appeal,” a choice which he jokingly referred to as “the first of many terrible business decisions.”

    Flash forward to December of 2020, when Robert Woodhead of AnimEigo and Ollie Barder of Sola Digital Arts discussed securing the materials for a high definition Blu-ray release of Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01. This plan hit a snag: Woodhead had previously inquired about obtaining the film elements needed to make a MADOX-01 Blu-ray but was informed at the time that the original materials were not available.

  It seems the black hole of “lost films” Project A-ko fell into claimed another victim, but Woodhead was undaunted. In January of 2021, Woodhead made new inquiries with AMG, the company that acquired the rights to MADOX-01 from Pony Canyon. An AMG representative acquired a list of films being stored at the Tokyo Genzōsho film archives — “information that the previous contact person at Pony Canyon apparently didn’t have,” according to Woodhead — and the missing MADOX-01 materials were located.

  Tokyo Genzōsho, also known as Tokyo Laboratory and usually shortened to Togen, hosts a wide range of original materials from Japanese film producers in climate-controlled environments.  As one of Japan’s major labs, they offer a wide range of professional media services to the film industry.

    Found Footage

  During a meeting with the AMG licensors, Woodhead was shown the list of films stored at Togen. Much to his surprise, not only was Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 listed but right next to it on the list was another title: Project A-ko.

  The long-missing film 35mm print of Project A-ko wasn't actually lost. The film had simply been misfiled and couldn't be located for decades as a result of a clerical error. “It wasn’t hard to find,” said Woodhead. “The problem was that there was a break in the chain of knowledge about the film’s location.”

    “We’ve been looking for Project A-ko for 20 years,” Sevakis explained. “Most professional film, anime included, is locked away in a giant climate-controlled warehouse, in this case, run by the film lab that developed it. According to their records, it wasn’t there."

  Due to Woodhead’s discovery, Discotek Media was able to request the archivists to make a physical search of the vault. When they did, they learned that Project A-ko “was there the whole time,” in Woodhead’s words.

    Happy Endings

  After Woodhead got permission to inform Discotek of his discovery and the missing film reels were found, Discotek announced on a Twitch stream in March 2021 that they were canceling their initial plans for the AstroRes remastered Project A-ko release and instead were producing a remastered Blu-ray using the newly rediscovered original 35mm print.

  And that's the story of how Project A-ko was lost and found: lost by accident due to a simple filing error, found through happenstance and serendipity, an anime classic rescued from obscurity for future generations of fans to enjoy.

    At the time of this writing, the restoration process for the Blu-ray release is well underway, with Discotek eliminating anomalies “ranging from dust and small scratches to flickering and jitter caused by the photography of the era,” according to Sevakis. While there is no release date currently set, if the sample footage above is anything to go by, Project A-ko is going to look and sound better than ever.

  As for AnimeEigo's efforts on MADOX-01, the company's Kickstarter for the OVA reached its $50,000 goal in 42 minutes after it launched on April 30, now sitting at over $130,000 as of May 4, 2021.

  “The film lab vaults are out-of-sight, out-of-mind for most of the companies in Japan, especially because at this point not many people deal with film on a regular basis,” said Sevakis. “The people dealing with the rights often don’t even have a clear idea of what’s in there, even if the records are correct! Who knows what else might be found?” 

      Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Paul Chapman

[mxliv-oftheendless]

The Mysterious Disappearance of Heather McMann

I have... no explanation for this story lol. Well, actually I do: I was thinking about how Heather quit the band, and I suddenly thought about how in the eyes of the general public, that have no idea of who she really is or what really happened, this would be incredibly weird. And since I’ve been Buzzfeed Unsolved trash for a while now, this made me consider the possibility of there being an Unsolved video about Heather. And... that’s how this came into being lol. It also serves as a way for me to figure out Heather’s Earth timeline a little. Enjoooy! 

Commentary text:

Ryan

Shane

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

[camera opens on Ryan and Shane sitting at their desk in their office set]

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved we take a look at the case of Heather McMann, a former member of the band KISS who played with the band for only three years before disappearing without a trace. This will also be the first time we look at a case involving a famous rock band.”

Shane nods. “Very famous. KISS—everybody knows KISS.”

“Yeah. Honestly, they’re not my preferred type of music, but I did listen to some of their songs while doing my research, and they’re pretty good.”

“They’re very good! I mean they’re pretty iconic, I think. I will say, though, I have never heard of Heather McMann.”

“Not many people have. She’s kind of this forgotten fifth member of KISS.”

“Well, I’m interested. Let’s hear about it, Ryan.” [Ryan opens his case file, and the camera cuts to the slideshow. Music begins as Ryan narrates]

“In 1980, KISS was beginning to rapidly decline in popularity. Although they still had a massive fanbase, they were facing problems. The original drummer, Peter Criss, had left the band after filming the music videos for the singles off their album Unmasked, and was replaced by Eric Carr. In following KISS tradition of having makeup and a stage identity, Eric Carr became the Fox, replacing Peter, who had been the Catman.”

yeah this was the thing that always interested me about KISS, that they had these alter egos and their heavy makeup

yeah that’s

it’s very cool

you don’t usually hear about a band going that extra mile ever

“Remaining KISS members Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Ace Frehley decided to introduce Eric Carr as their new drummer during their television appearance on the show Kids Are People Too. And it was also on Kids Are People Too that they would surprise everyone, by introducing their recently-added fifth member, Heather McMann.” [with narration: stock footage of Heather McMann in full costume stepping out onstage, smiling and waving as she goes to sit with the band]

they introduced her, and no one knew it was going to happen?

yeah. the way it happened was, they brought out Eric Carr, the Fox, and then they were suddenly like, “there’s one other person we need to introduce.” and then they brought out Heather McMann.

oh. that’s kinda cool. did she have a stage persona?

yeah, she did. hers was the Black Dahlia.

nice. reminds me of the murder.

it probably reminded a lot of people of the murder

“The unexpected introduction of a fifth member came as a shock to the music world, as well as the KISS Army. Their inclusion of a fifth member, who also happened to be a woman, quickly received criticism from fans. An article of Rolling Stone on the event said, quote, “This will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the KISS Army. First KISS turns to disco for their album Dynasty, then pop rock for Unmasked, then Peter Criss either quits or is kicked out, and now they introduce two new members at once, one of whom is a girl. KISS has made many blunders, but this is by far the worst. It is the opinion of this author that KISS will be long gone within five years.” End quote.”

now that’s a bunch of bullshit.

eheheheh, I know.

“oh no! a woman is playing rock music! she’s insane! this is the end for KISS!”

hahahahahahaha

joke’s on that guy, ‘cause KISS has been around for how long now?

over forty years, I think

thought so. get rekt, asshole.

“Though, KISS mostly ignored the criticism, and regardless of it, Heather McMann was introduced into KISS as the Black Dahlia, their self-appointed “harmony guitarist.”

I didn’t even know “harmony guitarist” was a thing

heheh, yeah, neither did I

that’s kinda cool

but it is indeed a thing

“While on the Unmasked tour, Heather would work well with the band. Fans who went to shows on the tour felt that the band’s sound was enhanced with Heather playing with them. One fan said, quote, “I’ll admit I was on the fence about Heather being in the band. But the show was amazing. Her harmony playing mixed in with the rest gave the sound something extra that I really liked. It was mind-blowing.” End quote. Also observed was the close friendship of Heather McMann and Paul Stanley. Though many gossip magazines would claim they were romantically involved, both friends denied the claims, sometimes even laughing outright at them. [screen shows footage from an interview, of Paul Stanley and Heather McMann in makeup, laughing together]

Stanley himself said of McMann, quote, “She’s one of my oldest and best friends. We’re practically siblings. I really think that if Heather hadn’t been there to encourage me and my music, there would be no KISS.” End quote.”

gotta be honest, it’s pretty great that they were such good friends

yeah that’s really sweet

it is

are they still best friends?

well I don’t know, because she disappeared

oh yeah (wheeze) I forgot about that

you were so wrapped up in how lovely their friendship was

(wheeze) that for a moment I forgot what we were doing here

heheheheh

“Other than Stanley, many others who knew McMann described her as a friendly, likeable person. Gene Simmons once described her as, quote, “an incredible woman who will call you out and then help you be better,” end quote. Ace Frehley has praised her as well, saying, quote, “She’s the kinda woman who’ll say she’s okay even when she’s great, but then bash you over the head with her guitar if you give her any bullshit. She’s a force to be reckoned with.” end quote. Heather McMann would play with KISS for their Unmasked tour, and was reportedly also a guitar player on their 1981 album, Music of the Elder. Though KISS made many promotional appearances for the album, McMann included, in the end, there was no tour for it.”

why wasn’t there a tour for it?

it did really bad. like really super fucking bad.

oh

like, it tanked

is it that bad?

I dunno, I’ve never listened to it.

we should listen to it after this

“Ace Frehley would leave the band in 1982 while they recorded their next album, Creatures of the Night, and although he appears in all promotional aspects, he didn’t actually play on the album itself. Most of the guitar playing on the album was done by McMann and Vinnie Vincent, who joined the band as their new lead guitarist and adopted the persona of the Ankh Warrior.”

if he wasn’t on the album then why did they do that?

I don’t

seems like a waste of time, honestly

I don’t know. maybe his contract had something to do with it… I really don’t know.

weird decision to make

“It was during the Creatures tour that McMann began to show out of the ordinary behavior. During interviews, she would be completely quiet and not say a word unless prompted to. Paul Stanley would often sit beside her and try to engage her in the interview. People who encountered her often said she looked troubled about something, even depressed. She would also stay off to the side during shows, and according to online accounts would actively try to stay out of photographs. Heather would play with KISS as the Black Dahlia on the Creatures tour up until February 23rd, 1983, when KISS played a show at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. And then, Heather McMann was never seen or heard from again.”

she didn’t even last until the end of the tour?

nope, she did not

I mean they’re just asking us to investigate this at this point

(wheeze) they might as well just hold up a sign that says INVESTIGATE US

HEY GHOUL BOYS, WE’VE GOT A MYSTERY FOR YA

hahahaha

I love it

but in all seriousness, it is very odd to just drop out of the band you’re in halfway through a tour

yeah, Ryan, it is very odd

“Since Heather McMann was only a member of KISS for three short years, and since no one has ever seen or heard any sign of her, she has since her disappearance fell into obscurity. However, that being said, there are many debated theories on what happened to the former member of the hottest band in the world. The first theory is that Heather McMann suffered a mental breakdown, quit the band, dropped out of the public eye so she could recuperate, and simply never came back. Proponents of this theory point to her odd behavior during interviews while on the Creatures tour, and how she seemed troubled and depressed about something. According to one source, during the night when KISS was staying in their hotel in Syracuse, New York, a cleaning lady was walking down the hallway when she encountered McMann, who was, quote, “sitting out in the hallway with her face buried in her knees, looking like she’d been crying,” end quote. The cleaning lady also claimed Stanley was outside with her, with an arm around her shoulders and appearing to be comforting her. Though, this is from a known tabloid magazine, in the context of them claiming McMann had been dumped by a supposed boyfriend, so take this was an enormous grain of salt.”

regardless of whether or not this theory is true, it is nice that Paul was willing to comfort his best friend like that

yeah that is very nice of him

that’s a true friend right there

like the saying goes, “if you don’t love me at my worst, you can’t love me at my best”

deep

yeah, I know

“That being said, however, critics of this theory point out how, when she was engaged in conversation and when she was onstage with the band, McMann behaved normally. The second theory is that Heather was fired. Proponents of this theory cite her odd behavior during the Creatures tour, and how she would appear to get into arguments with the other band members onstage. Footage recorded of the show in Atlanta shows Heather in the background with Vinnie Vincent, seemingly in a heated discussion. People also point to the story of how, a week before the show that would be Heather’s last public appearance with the band, she and Paul Stanley had a violent argument, yelling back and forth at each other and even insulting one another. People claim that this argument and her odd behavior supports the possibility that Heather was simply fired, and out of respect to the band decided to never appear again.”

wait, what? the best friends were arguing?

yeah, apparently they were

aw man… that’s no fun

“Though, this theory has been criticized, with many people pointing out how these alleged “arguments” cannot be confirmed as such, and that Heather’s behavior could also be simply pressure from the long and intense touring. Accounts of her argument with Paul Stanley also vary in what happened, and were mostly found in tabloid magazines. This theory is also criticized by members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, who have both individually stated that Heather parted ways with them on good terms. Of the argument, Stanley said, quote, “There was yelling and there were insults. But the idea that it has anything to do with why Heather left is not true. The fact is, she didn’t want to be a burden, she couldn’t be in the band anymore, and asked us if she could quit. And while it was sad to see her leave, it’s what she wanted to do, and I would never make her stay when she wanted to leave.” End quote.”

I can see why people would believe this theory

yeah it definitely is a solid theory

also because from what I could gather, KISS seems to have a history of ambiguous departures

ambiguous how?

well you’ve got Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, and Vinnie Vincent, who all left one after the other, and either they were kicked out or they quit. it’s unclear what actually happened.

you mean like one person’s like “they were kicked out” but then another one’s like “they quit”?

yeah it’s like that

I suppose that’s true. my only hang-up here is that she seemed to get along so well with all of them.

yeah, if she got along so well with all of them, it doesn’t make sense for her to suddenly be fired

they probably would’ve been willing to work with her to figure out any problems, instead of just straight-up firing her

“The third theory is that Heather continued to tour with the band, even after she quit. Former roadies of KISS claim that throughout the 80s, up until 1988, there was a woman with long blonde hair travelling around with the band. One of these roadies stated in a KISS Army forum, quote, “She was a woman who looked like she was in her early thirties, with long blonde hair. She would volunteer to help us load in or load out equipment, and some of us would see her hanging out with the band backstage. One time I even saw her watching from backstage. None of us ever learned her name, because she would always answer with, “It’s not important.”” End quote. There are also pictures from the 80s of a blonde woman interacting with the band. Many people think she was simply a groupie, or a girlfriend/wife of one of the members. Others, however, think that perhaps this woman is Heather McMann.”

I don’t believe this theory

why not?

because it just—if I’m a person who was in a band, and then quit for whatever reason, I’m not gonna continue to travel around with them. I’m not homeless. it doesn’t make sense for her to travel around with them.

that is true. it doesn’t make sense that she would do that.

no, it doesn’t.

then again, it also doesn’t make sense that she would disappear halfway through a tour.

(wheeze) well I guess that’s also true

“The fourth theory is ridiculous.”

hahahahahahahah

hahahaha

right out the gate, you say it’s a ridiculous theory, that’s great

well it’s a pretty fucking ridiculous theory. even for the internet, it’s a pretty ridiculous theory.

well keep in mind, people on the internet believe lizard people exist and that Tupac is still alive

well that’s true

“A handful of fans on the Internet have supported the theory that Heather McMann, as well as all the other members of KISS, are superpowered intergalactic beings who came to Earth to form KISS. According to this theory, Heather McMann is really a witch as she claimed to be, and that she left KISS to return to their true home, which explains why she seemed to disappear without a trace. Now, as to my opinion of this theory? No fucking way.”

yeah, no shit.

(wheeze) it’s so stupid. this theory would only be believable in one of their comic books.

KISS had comic books?!

(wheeze) yeah, they did. they’ve got a ton of weird merchandise.

I mean I knew that, everyone knows about the KISS merch, but comic books?! (wheeze) they know their brand.

hahahahahahah

also, did you say she claimed to be a witch?

yeah, their thing is they have these backstories for their personas. hers was that she was a witch from an intergalactic coven.

I mean… that’s kinda cool. but maybe she shouldn’t have said that

(wheeze)

if it’s going to make people on the internet say “she’s an intergalactic being who went back home to her home planet… Jupiter!”

hahahahaha

what is this, Jupiter Ascending? c’mon now

“Although she was only in KISS for a short period of time, Heather McMann’s mysterious and unexpected departure continues to confound members of the KISS Army. Though Heather McMann has been forgotten by the world, save dedicated KISS fans, many questions still remain: who was the woman fans knew as the Black Dahlia? Why did she suddenly leave the band? And why has she never been seen since? For now, and perhaps forever, these questions will remain… UNSOLVED.”

WHAT UNSOLVED MYSTERY DO YOU WANT TO SEE NEXT?

[we cut back to Ryan and Shane in the office set]

“Final verdict,” Ryan asks, “which one do you think it is?”

“I definitely think the first theory is the most plausible. The rest just don’t make sense.”

“Yeah, I think so too. Though I’m still not certain about the third theory…”

“I still love the fact that she and Paul Stanley were such good friends.”

“Yeah, that is really nice.”

“They were bros,”

“Yeah. Well, Heather, if you’re watching this…”

“Ya got us! We’re stumped. We don’t have a clue what happened to you.”

“Also KISS, if you’re watching this, hope we didn’t offend you in any way.”

“Yeah, that too. I think I’ll go listen to some KISS, actually. They’re a good band.”

“They are a good band. I’ll go listen to some KISS with you.”

“They are, after all, the hottest band in the world.”

-KISSTERIA-

“No, Gene, I’m serious, get on YouTube and put in ‘buzzfeed unsolved’. It’s a new episode, it should be at the top. I swear I’m not making this up!... Did you find it? Okay. Watch it, then call me back. Okay. See you later.”

Paul got off the phone and went over to Heather’s couch, where she was sitting and grinning widely at her laptop, which had been set up on the coffee table. On the screen was the most recent episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, entitled “The Mysterious Disappearance of Heather McMann.”

“Now, as to my opinion of this theory? No fucking way.”

Heather burst out laughing, falling back on her couch. “Did you—Did you hear that?” she guffawed. “That’s so funny…”

“What’s so funny?”

Heather sat up and rewound the video while Paul sat down next to her.

“A handful of fans on the Internet have supported the theory that Heather McMann, as well as all the other members of KISS, are superpowered intergalactic beings who came to Earth to form KISS. According to this theory…”

Paul’s eyes went wide. “What?!”

Heather giggled. “I know, right?”

Paul shot to his feet. “I need to call Gene.”

“No.” Heather’s hand shot out and grabbed his sleeve. “You don’t need to call Gene. Sit down, and watch the video.”

“If they legitimately think this theory has enough merit to go into their video, then that means we have a problem,” Paul argued.

Heather snorted. “It really doesn’t, Paul. You all have been claiming you’re intergalactic beings since you formed KISS, and no one, apart from fanfic writers on the Internet, has taken you seriously. Relax. Do you want me to rewind the video so you can watch it?”

Paul was silent for a moment, then sighed and sat back down. “Fine…”

Smiling, Heather paused the video and rewound to the beginning. When Velma had messaged her about the video, she’d admittedly been apprehensive of watching it at first. But as she watched the video, her enjoyment of it only rose.

They would no doubt have a postmortem for this episode, Heather thought to herself. She smiled as she wondered what would happen if she got a YouTube account and left a little comment for the boys to read…

[rushingheadlong]

Okay. So I fell down a rabbit hole of searching for “perfect” citations for another post about Brian and now I’m wondering where exactly we do, or should, draw the line with sourcing Queen stories and facts.

Personally I’m always torn between wanting to make my posts as accurate as I can get them, and recognizing that I’m still a pretty new fan and there’s a lot that I don’t know yet and a lot of sources out there that I haven’t found or had time to review.

One thing I think about is the “Roger locking himself in the cupboard” story, which resulted in a split between people who think Roger locked himself in a tiny kitchen cupboard and people who think the whole thing is fake... and then someone went out and found the original source for the story, and realized that it was about a storage closet (most likely where they kept the master copies of their tapes) and everything made more sense.

If I’m writing a post about Brian’s health problems in 1974, how far do I go to source specific claims that get made? The “Brian almost had his arm amputated” story seems to originate on queenlive.ca, which doesn’t provide any additional information about where that “fact” comes from. Mick Rock describes Brian’s arm as “gangrenous” in his book but doesn’t mention amputation. Is it enough for me to use the limited information I’ve found to declare the story a fake, or at least profoundly unlikely, or do I have an obligation to keep looking for more or better sources?

BrianMay.com doesn’t seem to have it either - but how long do I have to spend searching every corner of his site, before I can comfortably say that the story isn’t told there either?

For that matter, Mick Rock says that Brian collapsed on May 12th but other sources confirm it was May 11th - do I have an obligation to point out this discrepancy, as a warning that other dates he gives may not be 100% accurate? Or is it enough to give Mick Rock as a source and let people draw their own conclusions about the accuracy of his information?

If Brian May says the doctors told him to “go home” after being diagnosed with hepatitis and another article says that he flew back to London against the doctor’s recommendation, it would seem clear that the article is mistaken. But Brian frequently misremembers dates and is obviously not giving a direct quote from the doctor anyway, so should I mention both and let readers draw their own conclusions?

Hell, if I remember hearing Brian tell a story in an interview I listened to 8 months ago that was probably a decade old to begin with, can I retell the story if I can no longer find the exact interview to source it? Can I tell the story with the caveat that the source can’t be found? Am I obligated to omit it entirely to avoid false information being spread, even if I’m providing the information and being explicit about no longer having the source?

I mean, these aren’t questions that I’m actually looking for answers for... mostly because I don’t think there are answers. At least, not one-size-fits-all answers that will work in every scenario imaginable. I think as long as we’re all doing our best, and presenting information in good faith (and with whatever citations we have whenever possible, or at least admitting when we don’t have citations)... I think that’s most we can realistically hope for.

But it is frustrating, at least for me, that there is probably never going to be a situation in which citations and sourcing is perfect. When every story can be traced back to reputable sources, to people who were definitely there at the time, who we can trust aren’t making things up, instead of reaching dead end after dead end of books written by outsiders or websites run by fans with no citations provided anywhere in sight.

It’s just frustrating to spend hours trying to write a post to make sure it’s as accurate as possible, and your accuracy is always going to be questionable at best because there’s nothing “definitive” to be found anywhere.

[monkeyandelf]

Have the Sumerians predicted the end of the world?

People have predicted the end of the world almost since the world existed. Whether they thought the world would end in the distant future or the next day, there are a whole bunch of predictions for the day of judgment, when ancient civilizations are explored. One huge question is whether or not the Sumerians predicted the end of the world? Many of these old prophecies ignite a contemporary intriguing spark. People associate the old signs and interpret them as possible dates that lead to the present or the future. In this day and age, we have all experienced the "end of the world" several times. Some of these end-of-the-world predictions are biblical, foretelling predation. But there are other theories, such as the widespread concern that the world would end in 2012 when the Mayan calendar ended. The change of the millennium also seemed to spark with some anxiety. One premise that has been around for some time, but lately picked up speed in 2017, is that the world will end because of a collision with the planet Nibiru, otherwise known as Planet X. The origins of the Nibiru traditions can be traced back to the ancient Sumerians. - one of the first civilizations in the world. But are the Sumerians really predicting the end of the world, or is Nibiru's prediction just another theory sucked from the fingers? The world of Sichin and the Ancient Astronaut Much interest and speculation around Nibiru can be traced to Zechariah Sichin. Sichin (1920-2010) is a scholar who worked on the translation of ancient Sumerian and Akkadian texts and plates. Linking his translations to interpretations of iconography, Sichin developed a theory of how the Sumerians thought about the supposed planet Nibiru, the end of the world, and how their gods fit into it all. His theories can be found in his bestseller The Twelfth Planet. Since then, people all over the world have taken his theories and endured them, expanding them and twisting their possible meanings and consequences. Below we will go into the key aspects of Sichin's work and modern thought around Nibiru and the end of the world. What were the Sumerians? Sumer was one of the first civilizations for which we have any knowledge that they existed - dating back to at least 4500 BC. The Sumerians settled in northern Mesopotamia, and the Sumerians consisted of several large cities.

Although there is not much archaeological evidence left, there are plaques and inscriptions that allow us to look into the language, culture and way of life. Researchers are able to discover rich images of their mythology and stories through translation and interpretation. Nibiru / Planet X We have mentioned a lot of Nibiru so far, but what is its real significance? Nibiru is supposed to be an additional planet in our solar system, which the Sumerians have documented and named. Although Sichin's research ends with The Twelfth Planet, we should be more inclined to think of Nibiru as a potential ninth (or tenth, if you still count Pluto) planet from our solar system. Sichin uses the iconography of the sun, surrounded by multiple planets, to support his theory that the Sumerians not only knew about Nibiru, but also gave it special significance. But with science so advanced right now, how can there be an extra planet in our solar system we don't know about? Especially when the ancient Sumerians knew? This can be explained by the supposed orbit of planet Nibiru, also called Planet X. Nibiru's supposed orbit around the sun is much larger and much longer than the other planets in our system. In fact, Sichin claims that a complete orbit of the sun takes approximately 3600 years. And that is why we have only been in contact with the planet for several millennia. Sichin links several biblical and historical events to the presence of Nibiru, even claiming that the great flood of the Bible happened because of the gravitational pull that gave rise to Nibiru. Although the intersection of Nibiru and Earth must be quite far apart in Sichin's proposed timeframes, followers of the idea argue that the length of the orbit can, of course, change due to changes in gravitational pull over the centuries. This would mean that a potential intersection could occur much sooner than we otherwise think. However, its supposed inhabitants are more charming than the planet itself. The Anunnaki and the evolution of the human race Simply put, the term "Anunnaki" refers to the pantheon of gods worshiped by Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. These gods are descended from Anne, the heavenly god. The more dominant gods and goddesses who have found their place in other cultures include Marduk and Inanna, who was often united with the later Ishtar. So the ancient Sumerians worshiped a bunch of gods just like most other societies - what of that? How does this ancient Sumerian mythology and religion have anything to do with the planet Nibiru? Okay, but if you hear that the Anunnaki were not gods at all, but aliens? Sichin's theory of the Anunnkai comes in place with what we would expect to see in an episode of "Ancient Aliens". If we have to adhere to Sichin's theory, the Anunnaki were (and probably still are) an advanced race born on the planet Nibiru. They came to Earth, most likely to extract minerals, especially gold, that were missing from their planet's atmosphere. When they came to Earth, they created and multiplied humans to serve them as slaves and to do this work. Sichin uses this forced evolution to explain the evolutionary gaps and missing links. So, because they were more powerful and advanced, the Anunnaki appointed themselves gods among their human slaves, while in reality they were simply strangers and advanced aliens. This idea coincides with the popular prerequisite for the "ancient astronauts", or the theory that in the distant past, advanced civilizations came to Earth from alien planets and presented themselves as gods. This set of beliefs is often used to explain the surprising advanced ancient technologies and constructions. Sichin merges his theory of the Anunnaki with the biblical Nephilim, or "sons of God," who are said to have crossed themselves with humanity. The good old Sichin certainly wanted to sew this with his theology. It is also alleged that members of the Anunnaki did not approve of this crossing. As such, they did not warn humans of the negative effects the Earth would face when Nibiru came too close - its gravitational pull, which would have caused the Great Flood. The end of the world? So how does this all connect to the end of the world? Well, it all depends on the rotation of Nibiru and its path around the sun.

werner22brigitte / Pixabay Although the timeline proposed by Sichin may be inaccurate, many have said in recent years that Nibiru's coming is imminent. Recently, quite a few followers have emerged claiming that Nibiru would arrive on September 23, 2017. Others say its orbit has been close to us for years, but NASA has been hiding it in an effort to keep us calm. Most argue that it is the gravitational pull of Nibiru that will cause problems for Earth, possibly triggering another massive deluge. Others seem to imagine a death similar to the asteroid collision with a dinosaur. Whatever the exact effect, the consensus is that the arrival of Nibiru means the end of the world as we know it. What do Sumerian sources say? It's incredibly easy to fall into the trap of the doomsday theories, but to what extent are Sichin's claims and those who support him really based on the original Sumerian texts? From ancient Sumerian texts, there was a description that our creators came from a yet discovered planet that enters our Solar System ever 3,600 years. The texts said that they were known as the Nephilim, and that they had colonized Earth over 400,000 years ago. The bible also mentions this race, and calls them the “sons of God” The answer is - not much. Sichin's translations of Sumerian texts have been widely criticized, and his interpretations all the more so. For starters, Nibiru is actually more defined as a star than as a real planet in the Sumerian texts. Furthermore, there are no texts or evidence to support any such connection of the Anunnaki with Nibiru.

mitsuecligsx / Pixabay There really is no evidence. Just one person's claims and his turning of texts to fit his theory - albeit a lot of fun and intriguing. So, do we start preparing for the end of the world? Perhaps, but the end of the world is unlikely to happen because of the arrival of a mysterious extra planet somewhere in our solar system. Do not worry that Nibiru will trigger the apocalypse - the Sumerians did not worry. Read the full article

[mythicallore]

Bizarre Stories of Teleportation Pt. 4

    A very well known and controversial account of human teleportation supposedly occurred in 1968, when a Dr. Geraldo Vidal and his wife, Raffo de Vidal, apparently teleported a great distance along with their whole car. In May of 1968, the couple was reportedly driving their Peugeot 403 along a remote, rural road in Chascomus, Prov. of Buenos Aires, Argentina, when they claimed that they were suddenly enveloped by a thick fog that thoroughly ensconced them. The Vidals would allegedly not make it to their destination on time, where concerned family members were waiting for them. A search of the road the Vidals had taken turned up no trace of them, baffling family and authorities at the time. 48 hours later, Geraldo Vidal phoned family to tell them that they were safe but inexplicably in Mexico City, a full 6,400 km away.

Vidal would later claim that they had no memory of what had happened in the 48 hours that they had been gone, and only knew that they had encountered a strange heavy fog, after which everything had gone black. When they had regained consciousness they had found themselves parked along a road they had never seen before. They both complained that at the time they had a pain in their necks and felt as if they had been sleeping too long. When they had stepped out of the car, their vehicle appeared to have been burned, as if badly damaged by “a blowtorch.” Despite this damage, the car still worked, and the confused couple had then driven off down the road, and after asking several passerby where they were quickly ascertained that they were in Mexico, far from where they had originally been last they remembered.

Ominously, the Argentinean Consulate in Mexico City was apparently extremely adamant that the couple remain quiet about what they think had happened, and there was the sense that the whole case was being quieted and covered up. Additionally, the couple were quickly given a replacement vehicle even as their own battered car was shipped away to apparently be studied. Despite the order to remain silent on the mysterious events that had transpired, it was not long at all before various news agencies were reporting on the bizarre case, including numerous newspapers, TV news, and radio shows. Weeks after this sudden media blitz, a “cloak of silence” was instigated, all news outlets were suddenly and inexplicably forcefully banned from covering the story, and they were denied further access to information or those involved. In the years after the alleged strange events, the Vidals were said to have had a nervous breakdown due to the bizarre events they had undergone, and some sources have even claimed that they both mysteriously died of leukemia. The case eventually became one of the weirdest, most baffling, and most talked about cases within the realm of UFOlogy and Forteana, and was written of in countless articles and publications.

The Vidal case has been intensely debated and picked apart, and is filled with so many conflicting facts and reports that is is hard to ascertain where the truth ends and possible exaggeration and misinformation begins. There have been many theories as to what transpired, such as that this was a case of spontaneous teleportation or a UFO abduction. A more skeptical approach has been taken by Argentinean journalist and researcher Alejandro C. Agostinelli, who thinks that the whole story was a hoax to promote a science fiction movie released only 2 months after the alleged events, entitled Che OVNI. The movie was released to critical derision, failure, and was quickly forgotten, but not only does Agostinelli claim that the film’s director, Anibal Uset, admitted to the sham in a 1996 interview, but the plot of the film also mirrors the Vidal case pretty closely, focusing a great deal on UFO abduction and teleportation. There was also the fact that most of the case was based on hearsay and rumors, with very little concrete evidence to corroborate any of the depicted events of the case having ever actually happened, essentially propelling it into the status of urban legend.

Despite the accusation that the whole Vidal case was a hoax and a fraud to drum up publicity for a movie, things were apparently pretty bizarre throughout, with Uset often coming across people saying that they had known the Vidals and alarming him with the way the case was so widely believed and had achieved such popular iconic status. It got to the point where Uset started to get paranoid with all of the strangeness floating about the story and to doubt his grasp on reality, saying:

So many people approached me to say that they had known the Vidals that I began to have doubts. What is more, the confusion was such that I began to think that our story coincided with something that had really happened.

This strange confession makes the whole thing even more bizarre, and gives it all almost a surreal spin. If Uset really was behind orchestrating the whole Vidal case, which had been hotly discussed and picked apart to no end, then why should he be so surprised and express doubt that it was a hoax that he had in fact created? What was going on here? Agostinelli would later remark on this peculiar detail and the whole phenomenon of such stories in general thus:

At the time, the fact he questioned his own creation startled me. But I think that this helps to understand how UFO stories are built along with many other modern myths. If even a hoaxer can be led to doubt, this means that mysteries are able to overcome any denial. That’s why I think myths are indestructible. Countless teleportation cases have occurred in Argentina and around the world, but the Vidal Case was a lie.

There is no concrete evidence to prove without a doubt that the Vidal case was a hoax for promoting a film, and there are indeed other conspiracy theories floating about as well, but neither is there any to show that it ever existed beyond rumor and spooky lore. There continues to be a good amount of debate and controversy surrounding the Vidal case, and it seems that it still has not been satisfactorily resolved for a great many people.

At times, cases of teleportation involve what seems to be passing through doors, only rather than moving to another room of a house these doorways transport us through space and perhaps even time to move us to another far away location altogether. In 1971, an Al Kiessig claimed that he had uncovered several doorways or vortices of some sort in the U.S. states of Missouri and Arkansas, which allowed for instantaneous teleportation from place to place via travel through other dimensions. According to Kiessig, one could walk through these doorways and instantaneously end up miles away from where they had entered. He explained about these doorways and their varied strangeness:

Each door is different, but it is my belief that if one conId recognize these door openings, one could pick the door in Arkansas that would permit me to step into your front yard in Iowa. I have entered these ‘doorways’ while driving and saved myself hundreds of miles of driving. Unfortunately, the reverse has also happened to me. Some of these doors to other dimensions open like an elevator door with no elevator there to step into. Others open into a land of no life. Some take you back into the past, and some take you into the future on this world. Then there are doors that open into chambers that send the body to a distant star.

What does this all mean? Is there anything to this oddness or is this the ramblings of a seriously disturbed or delusional individual? It is hard to say for sure. Even more recent is the case of a homeless boy in Ivory Coast, Africa, who was discovered by Fortean researcher Ion Alexis Will in August of 1993. As Will was passing through a rural area called Yamoussoukro, he came across a Catholic church called St. Augustin, where the priests there complained of a 9-year-old boy who had an unsettling habit of disappearing from his locked quarters only to reappear in strange places such as within locked cars or other areas where he had absolutely no business being. On another occasion, the boy had vanished into thin air in front of many startled witnesses as he ate breakfast, only to be found in a dazed and confused state some distance outside of the church. An investigation into the strange boy’s background found that he had been originally found in a town about 155 miles away in a trance-like state. Further investigation would turn up even more bizarreness.

The boy, who’s actual name was N’Doua Kouname Serge, had vanished under strange circumstances when he was just 5 years old, vanishing from a hospital in Tiassalé, in Ivory Coast, only to suddenly and unexplainably end up in San Pedro, a full 200 miles away. The boy’s father had gone to pick him up, only for him to vanish and reappear again 410 miles away in confused state in a town called Odienné. He would go on to make several other spontaneous jumps to various other cities around the country, often spending months or even years in each far flung location, during which time some of his benefactors would come to the conclusion that he was possessed by an evil spirit which could teleport him. When asked by a reporter on how he could suddenly jump from place to place so rapidly, the boy himself reportedly said: “I don’t know. I’m here, and suddenly I find myself in another town.”

Even more recent is a series of strange teleportations that were reported on in a 2009 article on Pravda Report entitled “Lightning Can Open Doors to Parallel Worlds.” In one report, a UFO researcher named Tatyana Faminskaya allegedly teleported two times, during which she claimed that she could not feel anything during the process, but would simply wake up in another place. A woman named Lidia Nikolaeva, from Novy Byt village in Russia, claimed that she had been out picking mushrooms when she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. When she came to her senses, she found herself deposited at an abandoned church around 3.3 miles from where she had been. Just what is going on here? Do these people have access to powers or abilities that remain hidden to the common masses?

What are we to make of cases such as these? Are these merely hallucinations or flights of fancy, or is there something more at work here that is worth pursuing in an effort to understand it? If these individuals have somehow pressed through some barrier to jump from one place to the other, then how have they done it? How can it be possible and how can such a thing fit into the universe as we understand it? Even as science pursues the very real concepts and theories of how teleportation may someday actually be possible, the reality of real teleportation of a human being remains far out on the outer fringes of the scientific horizon, yet for some mysterious individuals it may be closer than we think.

[alexswak]

Notes on Animation Quality in Anime

I had a rare chance in 2017 to meet Hiromi Matsushita, one of Minky Momo’s most prominent animators. Matsushita is still active in the industry, and when I entered the room he was focused on drawing a scene, which he finished in around 10 minutes. I think he didn't lose his skills yet. I asked him for a drawing, of Momo of course, a request he found too hard even with the help of an image of Momo from google. More than 10 minutes passed, a lot of drawing and redrawing on the same paper, he handed me the illustration saying: “I’m sorry, this isn’t the real Momo.”

Now, I’m not saying he couldn’t draw her correctly because he got used to the radically different anime drawings of today, it may be because he just forgot how to draw Momo, or any other reason for all I know. Whatever the reason was, anime drawings and character designs had changed radically, evolved if you will, through recent Japanese animation history. The common answer to the reason behind this change always seemed funny to me, which is “because technology.” It’s not enough to just deny this claim, so I’d like to elaborate more on why and how anime drawings change over time. This is obviously a big topic, so what I’ll say here would be more of my (personal) perspective on the matter. Take it however you like.

I should start with defining what I mean with drawings. I’m not talking here about coloring, effects or the like, I mean the bare drawings themselves. This is literally the key drawings (frames), and to a lesser degree the in-betweens. Character designs are their own thing as well. This means that advancements in image quality and related technologies don’t count, since remastering a movie from the ‘70s in HD doesn’t mean the drawings themselves changed at all, forget about improved. Another point is the difference between the drawings on their own and how they move, i.e. the difference between animating and drawing, still there’s a direct influence between these two I’d like to talk about as well.

Sometimes, I feel like people look at the animation industry the same way they look at the gaming industry in this regard, not helped by the fact that mainstream high-budget animation productions in the US adopted the same technology for animating (CG). As for the Japanese industry though, it’s and has always been the pencil and paper. I’m not denying all the technological advancements that happened, but they weren’t fundamental changes that improved the quality of a drawing on paper. Even then, there were mostly only two new major technologies used introduced in anime production in the last decade: Digital coloring in the late ‘90s, and Xerography in the late ‘60s.

Xerography is basically a technique to copy drawings from normal paper to cels for coloring. Cels obviously can’t be drawn on due to their fragile nature, I believe. I rarely saw anyone talk about this technology before (in anime) so I’ll try to do a simple and short introduction. It was first introduced to Japanese companies through Disney’s Delmants 101, which caught the attention of Toei Douga (Toei Animation now). Toei took the device and modified it, most importantly adding an extra camera used for tracking perspective. Mainly to make drawings larger/smaller as they moved towards/away from the horizon. This device first saw use in Toei’s “Ken and Wolves” TV show early ‘60s. It wasn’t cheap nor easy, so Toei sought a better alternative, one of which was a device called “Trace Machine - ツレースマシン”, first used in “Sasuke” late ‘60s. It’s hard for me to point out how these two devices differed, but one advantage of the Trace Machine was conveying the original delicacy and feeling of the traced drawings better, something Disney’s machine didn’t manage to do quite well. Sasuke was praised for capturing the original soul of the manga, and it wasn’t Sasuke alone, Gekiga adaptations saw a rise in that era due to this machine making capturing the roughness of Gekiga drawings possible. Just look at Tiger Mask or Samurai Giants. I’m not sure here, but it seems like Xerography didn’t saw mainstream use until later in the ‘80s, probably because of costs. Anyway, here’s a Japanese article for more info.

As well-known it may be, we need a quick review: Astro Boy. Toei was aiming for a “Disney of the east” status, and really the idea of periodically producing anime was so strange back then, in Japan at least. The ~2 hours movies of the time needed years, so 20 minutes weekly was just insane. And insanely different were those TV productions from the quality movies of the time. You may have heard this before, but really watching clips of Astro Boy is the only way to understand how primitive it was. Nonetheless, it succeeded in becoming the standard for TV anime, and TV anime becoming the standard for anime in general later on even for movies. All the downgrade in quality of animation and everything.

This is where most people would start bashing the TV industry, yet I have a different perspective on the matter. The huge output of the Japanese industry is the main reason it reached its current international success and behind Japan’s status as the animation capital of the world. TV in America may have had a catastrophic effect on the industry, and wasn’t without negatives in Japan, but the way TV was handled and evolved is vastly different between the two countries and in turn the two vastly different outcomes we have now. TV in Japan presented a steady stream of relatively quick and flexible projects for Japanese creators to learn and experiment, a stream that only grew further increasing the variety of works and styles, the best thing the Japanese industry is known for now. Almost all well-known Japanese creators today had their start learning and experimenting in TV.

The huge amount of works produced was pretty useful for training creators in an environment that relies on learning by doing and still, to this day, mostly lacks any effective prior training system. Look no further than Tomonori Kogawa, who had a degree in fine arts, to see the important addition for properly studying and learning art. Kogawa kinda reminds me of Akino Sugino, not that their styles are similar or anything, it’s just that both care a lot about drawings quality. Ashita no Joe, which he supervised, had probably the best drawings quality of its decade.

When it comes to animation though, Toei Douga movies followed a similar realistic approach to Disney in treating characters as if they are actors on a stage. After TV anime emerged the principle remained the same, so creators just tried to replicate life in a working condition much more limited and restrained than that of Toei. Quality improved generally after some adapting and experimenting in this new landscape, but the focus mainly wasn’t on animation quality anyway. It was stories and direction that counted, Tomino and Gundam as a prime example. Even the “anime boom”, initiated by Yamato’s movie in ‘76, didn’t change that. The real change in that regard only came after treating animation in a more free way, free from the obligation of imitating real life I mean, which was the way Yoshinori Kanada treated it.

I won’t get into Kanada and his style, sources on him are enough anyway, what we need here is just the result of his wild popularity in the early ‘80s: Changing people’s view to anime. Before Kanada came, the only industry celebrities were directors, while animators stayed unknown. Not anymore. Kanada was maybe, for a time at least, number one in the industry, and this just goes to show the change in mindset: Animation is at the forefront now. And how did Kanada animate? Pretty unrealistically.

Let me detour a bit to talk about realism first. I remember some saying that Akira ushered in the age of realism in anime, a claim certainly far from the truth. Akira is rather the pinnacle of this long going approach. Pinpointing a start isn’t of much use in this discussion anyhow, and if not for my appreciation of documenting such info I wouldn’t have brought this up at all, but my argument is that the start of realism in animation is the start of animation itself.

Yet an important question must be addressed here: What realism are we talking about? If you think of it as just replicating life, then you’re oversimplifying animation as a whole. There’s only one way for things to move in real life, restrained by physics and all, but animation offers a multitude of approaches to represent movement, ways that imply realism nonetheless. And different approaches were popular at different times throughout anime history.

Take Utsunomiya for example, who wasn’t sure about joining the industry at first. He knew how the situation was, and how hard it would be to create anime in the same or similar to Disney and early Toei movies’ style that he so admired. I personally always found it weird how people held Utsunomiya’s style for realistic. His style is maybe considered as the epitome of what Toei’s theatrical realism aspired to achieve, and the main characteristics of that are exaggerated acting and theatrical movements, which is maybe not strictly realistic or natural. Nonetheless, as for weight and spacing, there’s no denying his accuracy and fine execution. Akira, and to a lesser extent Gosenzosama-banbanzai, are the embodiment of his and Takashi Nakamura’s approach in animating.

See this scene from Utsunomiya 

I don’t know much about 70’s and 60’s realism, but the main description I read at least was, again, the theatrical realism influenced by Disney. The Kanada “revolution” was more of an abnormality, since realism returned to be the dominant style of anime after a while, and its evolution didn’t stop anyway. A lot of the pioneers of the next realism wave started or matured under the Kanada age, such as Takashi Nakamura or Utsunomiya.

There are different aspects to realism as well. One of Takashi Nakamura’s famous scenes, his scene in Gold Lightan, is considered to be a very realistic depiction of debris and stones in his time at least. Others depict effects and liquids realistically and so on. I feel like this is just a matter of approach and perspective. Utsunomiya for example saw the characters as actors on a stage, Ohira saw them a lot of times as gelatinous almost liquidy shapes, but all those approaches and depictions induce a realistic feeling in a sense, and are finely (and realistically) timed and weighed in their movement.

See this scene from Takashi Nakamrua. Notice hand and mouth movement. 

Of course not all animators can do realistic movement well. Miyazaki and others complained about every other animator in the early 80s’ being a Kanada knock-off, a bad knock-offs in a lot of cases, yet Kanada’s style wasn’t hard to imitate, maybe not perfectly but definitely to a “good enough” degree. Realism on the other hand is hard, even harder in shows that lack talents such as Utsunomiya or time and budget. It was obvious after Akira, or even a while before Akira, which style the industry (or the audience) will prefer. And at that point the industry took a different approach to realism, not the realistic movement approach seen in Akira and movies that established this style in Japan to begin with, but an approach that gives the feel of realism in different ways, first being character designs and increasing the lines and details in drawings generally.

If we go back to the ‘60s and some of the ‘70s we can see many shows with designs rich in lines or styles close to realism, but it was mainly the exception and didn’t represent the main trend, some of which being caused by things like Gekiga or personal styles such as Sugino’s or Osamu Dezaki’s. Late ‘70s and early ‘80s mainly had simplistic designs which really helped Kanada’s style grow and spread. Simplicity contradicts realism by nature, and adding more lines or details to a drawing makes it harder to draw/animate. Straightforward, and this is just what happened after the demise of Kanada’s style, more realistic designs that barely move. Just look at any OVA from that period and compare it to any OVA from the Kanada wave. Amazing what 5 years could do!

Vampire Sensou in 1990. Interesting character designs, not much movement though.

Difficulty of drawing isn’t the sole problem here. Kanada’s style, despite its energetic nature, doesn’t require a lot of frames, actually the low number of frames is one of its strong characteristics. It’s a style born from the constraints of the Japanese industry to begin with, and if you think about it probably no other industry would have given born to such a style but the Japanese one. While you need a substantial number of frames to achieve a convincingly real movement. Maybe I’m over exaggerating here, but the Japanese TV industry tried two decades to achieve realism in an environment not suited for it and found Kanada’s style that embodied the sole of this industry, just to abandon it for an unconvincing realism.

Kanada’s OVA “Birth” in 1984 is probably the important turning point. Maybe you could say that the story of OVAs is also the story of Japanese anime, as OVAs reflected the state of the industry in general in each period. Maybe because OVAs were the direct way to reach the audience without the need for a TV channel or a distributor or even a high budget, in turn being a demonstration of the audience’s preference. It was definitely the free expression window for creators, young independent ones especially, free from any obligations for any big company. Obviously big companies were there, even more so in the late ‘80s after OVAs matured, but all in all it was the will of the creators that shined through. OVAs also played a decisive role in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when anime (TV especially) was facing a hard time due to different reason beyond the scope of this article. This led to OVAs influencing the development of the industry in interesting ways, hard to imagine if you look at the state of OVAs now.

The Japanese industry relied heavily on TV since pretty early on, so any problem facing TV anime is a problem for the industry as a whole. Middle/Late ‘80s wasn’t the best time for TV, a long story with multiple causes such as the change in demographics and emergence of video games, but our concern here is the paradigm shift that happened. For the most part and up to that point anime revenue came from games or manga or something else, a separate product. Not the show itself, meaning that its quality wasn’t a concern as long as it supported the primary product well. This obviously didn’t hold Ichiro Itano back from doing his wonderful circus scenes, or Tomino from executing his different depiction of mecha anime, but those again were creative acts on the personal level not the project as a whole, and in the end it wasn’t Tomino’s direction and vision that saved Gundam, it was the Gunpla.

It’s a fine system as long as the audience keeps on buying your primary product, something a lot of companies struggled with later on, reaching the OVA system where you just sell the show itself rather than a separate product. A similar system to movies, but simpler, safer and with less parties involved. We take internet for granted today, but in the ‘80s OVAs were the only choice for creators wanting to self-publish something weird or radically different, something that obviously won’t be backed by big companies.

Anyway, selling the show itself is completely different approach with completely different focus points. Quality comes first now, and first of all is drawings and animation quality, since anime is a visual medium after all. Without constraints or demands from distributors or any tight schedules, and with making less episodes, you’re able to raise quality considerably, the main selling point of OVAs. Patlabor, Gunbuster or Gundam 0083 all had high quality and were big successes, not only setting the standards for visual quality in anime, but also showing how important visual quality in anime is, both for companies and audiences. After this model matured, attempts to replicate this success in TV anime started, where the potential is much bigger due to the wider reach, which led to the contemporary late-night model we have now, maybe the most successful anime model till quite recently. Evangelion is considered to have played an active role in establishing this model, and in increasing visual quality in TV anime generally, and Ryusuke Hikawa claims that what he calls the “Quality Revolution” in the anime industry started in the ‘90s. I also think that Evangelion played no small part in establishing the production committee system we have now in every show, but I’m not quite sure.

Before I end this I want to link two nice resources for further reading. The mecha history research and an article that came in Akira’s Animation Archive, both by Ryusuke Hikawa. 

[aestherians]

My response to this video is gonna be ridiculously long, so hit J if you want to skip it

“Fictinkin is Terrible” Bad grammar. Should either be ‘fictionkin are terrible’ or 'fictionkinity is terrible’. But I digress.

“I actually used to be fictionkin” It’s generally agreed that if you’re 'kin, that’s what you are. It’s an inherent trait, like a hair color, and you can’t just quit it (though you can realize you never were 'kin in the first place or you can stop associating with the community or you can refuse to use any of the labels). A better wording would probably be “I used to think I was fictionkin.” This is just nitpicking, honestly, as it doesn’t change the experiences you’ve had with the community.

“[The otherkin community consists] of people who believe they are the spirit of a species besides human, born into the wrong body.” Not exactly wrong, not exactly right. This describes a lot of otherkin but by far not all. I believe my soul is partially that of a bison but I don’t believe I should’ve been born in the body of a bison. I also feel like I’m a gnoll (you know,, those fuckers from D&D) on a psychological level, which I chalk up to a lot of weird things in my late childhood/early teens, such as roleplaying werewolves and imprinting on the art of DarkNatasha. It’s not play-pretend, it’s just a… character trait, I guess you could say. Like being Pagan or being really into knitting. A large portion of otherkin believe it’s a purely psychological phenomenon or that the cause is a mix of spiritual and psychological stuff. Likewise, a lot of otherkin don’t feel like they’re born into the wrong body. It’s very subjective how each individual describes their otherkinity.

“It’s origins are mainly from tumblr” Not really… The current otherkin community has its roots in the elven communities from the 1970s (namely the Elf Queen’s Daughters and the Silver Elves). The EQD have letters dating back to 1973 detailing their nonhuman identities and can trace the origins of their organization back to the late 1960s. The word 'otherkin’ was coined by Torin in a mailing list (hosted by R’ykandar Korra’ti) in 1990. This is around the same time that the therian community appeared (seperately from the elvenkind/otherkin community) in the newsgroup Alt.Horror.WereWolves. For more information, check out “Otherkin Timeline - The Recent History of Elfin, Fae,and Animal People” By O. Scribner.

“Nowadays, the otherkin community has actually been pretty dead recently…” Again, not really… If anything, there are more otherkin actively discussing their identities and connecting with each other now than ever before. The community is just isolated to private chats and servers (mainly on Discord) and heavily moderated forums like WereList, Therian-Guide, and Fictionkin Dot Com.

“…and in its place has arisen something far worse: This is the fictionkin community.” Though some of the elves of the EQD and the Silver Elves would technically be classified as fictionkin today (as they identified as canon characters from Tolkien’s Middle-earth), the fictionkin community as we know it dates back to circa 2001. In other words, it’s not a replacement for the otherkin community specific to tumblr, and it is probably older than a lot of the people watching this video. For more info, check out “A History Of The Fictionkin Community” by House of Chimeras.

“Otherkin actually has [sic] some basis in spiritual beliefs like reincarnation and spirit animals” Otherkinity has nothing to do with having a spirit animal and an otherkin have nothing to do with spirit animals. If someone isn’t first nations they shouldn’t even touch that term. I understand where the confusion comes from, though. When you’re just getting to know your animal guide/spirit guide you think about them a lot, and when you think about something a lot you’re bound to experience things that are reminiscent of otherkin experiences, such as dreaming that you are the animal or taking on the mindset of the animal. The author Lupa used to think she was a wolf therian but a couple of years down the line recognized that she’d mistaken her spirit guide for a theriotype. You can read about it in her article “Letting Go of Therianthropy For Good.”

“Fictionkin, however, these people lack any actual reasoning behind why they think they’re a fictional character. They’ll often run around in circles, trying to come up with explanations for it, usually quoting the multiverse theory.” Archetypal connection, dissociation, energetic resonance, imprinting, mental fabrication, psychic connection, differently shaped soul parts, soul shattering, spiritual links, trauma, a coping mechanism turned into an involuntary identity, astral shapeshifting, neurodivergence, developmental issues in one of the critical periods of identity formation… Need I go on? There are plenty of things (both spiritual and psychological) that could explain why some people are fictionkin.

“At least the otherkin community tries to explain their logic with actual spiritual and religious beliefs.” What’s the difference between an “actual spiritual belief” and what fictionkin believe in? Hopefully you’re aware that all religious and spiritual beliefs were created by people. Superheroes are the modern day Greek gods, and fictionkinity isn’t really different from Alexander the Great believing he was a demigod. At least I don’t see the difference, except in the number of people that believe it (and I think we can all agree that the number of subscribers a belief has does not determine how real it is, otherwise we’d all have to accept the Abrahamic god as real and atheists would be seen as delusional).

“But the fictionkin community preaches a theory with no actual evidence behind it like it’s fucking fact.” And what exactly is the evidence behind non-fictionkin beliefs about the cause of 'kinity…?

“How do you actually determine that you are these characters?” I’m not fictionkin, so I can’t speak for them, but I identify as a bison and a gnoll because I experience a lot of things that fit into either narrative more comfortably than it does a human narrative. Body dysphoria, homesickness after places I’ve never been, impulses/urges, supernumerary phantom limbs, periods where my mindset feels less human and more animal, and flashing images of being my kintypes. Am I literally a nonhuman creature in a human body? Who the fuck knows. But it feels good to me to put those experiences in that narrative.

“It’s really concerning that these people would base their entire identities around something so vague.” Assuming someone’s kintype is their entire identity because you only know them from their 'kin blog is like assuming Drea Renee’s entire identity is 'knitter’ because she runs a big knitting blog. It doesn’t really fly. I’m otherkin, sure, but I’m also an animal science student, an aspiring amateur entomologist, a collector of old books, a fantasy fan, a cat lover, a scourer of thrift stores, and I could go on. Old books isn’t my entire identity. Insects aren’t my entire identity. Otherkinity isn’t my entire identity. I understand the assumption as you only see most 'kin on their blog devoted to otherkinity, but trust me, they will 9 times out of 10 have a private main blog where they post about all the other stuff that interests them.

“Let’s assume these memories are real. Don’t you think it would be possible to have memories of a character you aren’t even familiar with?” Plenty of people do, actually! They usually only find out when their source comes out, though. A somewhat famous example is Ebony who identified as a thestral a few years before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. You can read about this in their essay “Fangs, Flesh and Flight” on House of Chimeras’ Livejournal. I myself have had several 'memories’ (I’m reluctant to call them that for personal reasons) of being an elderly woman in various situations. I’ve looked everywhere for something that matches those images, but I’ve pretty much resigned myself to it just being a 'normal’ past life.

“They pretty much make their self-indulgent canon” As a canon-divergent gnoll, I am Offended™. Nah, but honestly, canons and people’s relationships with them are weird (and I have a gut feeling that non-'kin would call our experiences fake whether we adhere to canon or not). Some people swear up and down that Shiro from Voltron still loves his ex, others claim the opposite. And neither of them are wrong since it’s all about the media consumer’s own perception of what they’re shown. Then there are people like me who just go off whatever gut feeling they have, so whatever kind of gnoll I identify as doesn’t show up in any tabletop canon that I’m aware of. I technically identified as a gnoll before I knew what a gnoll was and on my blog there are plenty of posts where I list my traits, asking if someone knows a creature matching them. In the end a kind Anon pointed me towards gnolls.

“According to these people you don’t even have to have memories to be kin. Actually, there’s no real determining factors for how to be kin and nothing is stopping you from being kin with every single fictional character that you like. As a matter of fact, people who are only kin with one or two characters are the minority.” You don’t need memories to be 'kin as there are many other factors that could cause you to feel nonhuman/like a fictional character. I’ve already gone over this in “How do you actually determine that you are these characters?”. What stops you from having a billion characters as your kintype at once is the simple fact that only a smaller number can really be significant enough parts of your personality to constitute kintypes. There’s no set upper limit, but somwhere around 5 is usually where you should start to get really skeptical. The people who have a list of 100 supposed kintypes have just really misunderstood what other-/fictionkinity is and need to be gently corrected. I hate to sound like I’m yelling ‘no true scotsman’ but among genuine otherkin, you’ll rarely find someone with more than 10 kintypes. Past lives, sure, but not kintypes.

“…delusions of being fictional characters.” 'Kinity is not a delusion. Please don’t downplay mental health issues by comparing them to a subculture. The DSM-IV classifies a delusion as “A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.” Otherkinity is an identity, not a belief, and it is in identity that makes no claims about the external world (with the exception of a select few elves and fae in the 80s/90s who claimed to be genetically otherkin). The beliefs surrounding otherkinity, however, can be delusional in rare cases like physical shifting. But in almost all cases the beliefs would fall into the culture/subculture category like religions do.

"And as they always say, anyone can become kin! You don’t even need to take it seriously.” The people who say that are going against the +40 years of established knowledge about the community and the otherkin experience. They’re wrong. You can not 'become 'kin’, only realize you were 'kin your whole life. You can, however, choose to become a copinglinker, which I believe a lot of the kids on tumblr actually are. If you chose your kintype, if you can drop a kintype all willy-nilly, or if you’re “kin to cope,” you’re a copinglinker, not otherkin. It’s a matter of misinformation and a lack of resources (and of kids refusing to listen when more knowledgeable people correct them).

“Eventually you’re gonna have to grow out of this.” Why? I’m happy the way I am (and functional, if that’s what you’re worried about). I’ve got friends, hobbies, and goals. I recently quit my job to focus on my studies, but up until then, I had no problems keeping it. I go to college. I go to parties. I’m going to Pride in a few hours. I’m not exactly secret about being otherkin, and all the people who’ve found out or who’ve been told that I am, have just shrugged and accepted it. If it doesn’t interfere with my day-to-day, there’s no reason to 'outgrow it’. For the record, I know plenty of people in their 30s and 40s (even a few upwards of 70) who lead completely normal lives and happen to be other-/fictionkin.

[scrawnydutchman]

Some Movies I like but Everyone Else Hates

Ah, here’s a fun topic. Everybody’s got opinions on this sort of thing. While the collective consciousness tends to deem some films as good and some films as bad like it really is as black and white as that, the fact is sometimes you can see value in something that nobody else can. And you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. You should never be ashamed of feeling like your money was well spent on a piece of entertainment. As well, these kinds of opinions, even the most disagreeable, I find to be the most refreshing because the arguments as to why these films are bad are so rinse and repeat you swear whoever was saying it was just reading some old review they found online. With all that said, here are some movies I love but everyone else hates.

1. Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

You saw the opening bumper; might as well get this one out first. Alright, so for most of the entries on this list I can kind of understand where they’re coming from. Sometimes these movies can be paced a certain way or can have obvious crutches or can straight up be VERY non sensical and annoying at times. As such, I find most peoples criticisms on these films to be firm but fair. But this movie . . . this movie got a bad rep for COMPLETELY illegitimate reasons. Yeah, you heard me. All I ever hear about this movie is “Oh, it’s not as good as the original movie. Oh, Gene Wilder is so much better! Oh, this REMAKE is so dumb! This is just a stupid REMAKE!”. I’ve got a little bit of news for the people who make this kind of baseless criticism, alright? You listening? Okay, here goes:

THIS. IS. NOT. A. REMAKE. OF. THE. GENE. WILDER. FILM.  IT IS AN ALTERNATE INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK BY ROALD DAHL. THERE IS A HUGE GODDAMN DIFFERENCE!!

People always let their bias and their nostalgia blindness for the Gene Wilder movie cloud their judgement of Tim Burton’s swing at the classic tale, and it pisses me off. Get it out of your head: This movie is not trying to be the Gene Wilder film again. It never CLAIMED to want to be the Gene Wilder film again. It only ever set out to be it’s own thing; it’s own original take on the source material. And that’s completely fine. Because believe it or not, you can adapt a famous novel more than once and in more than one way. It’s a method that keeps timeless stories like Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland relevant in our culture in fact. So if you’re going to judge this movie, judge it by it’s own terms, not by what you want it to be and not by standards it didn’t set for itself. Beyond that, I also hear criticisms like Johnny Depp is terrible. He’s awkward, uncomfortable and seems like he lacks direction. But guess what? It’s actually closer to the book. I’m sorry it’s not just Gene Wilder again. A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE SOURCE MATERIAL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! This movies bad rep is a product of the fact that people associate their knowledge of the story and characters more with the movies they’ve seen than with the source material they’ve taken from. I get it guys, nobody has the time to sit down and read a book anymore, but if you’re not going to do it than don’t talk about the proper interpretation of a story or character like you know what you’re talking about. 

I like this movie. I think it’s a solid retelling of the story. It hits the story beats it needs to hit and it’s very creative and stunning in both it’s visuals and musical score. I like some of the more experimental choices it makes like giving every bad kid a different genre/era of music to coincide their lesson. I also like how it uses the source material to give a different message from the book. This is another thing a lot of people had issue with, and to be fair with every interpretation it’s important to have some elements say the same for the sake of consistency. But listen; bottom line, if you want everything to be like the original book or the original movie, just go read the book or watch the original movie. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in interpreting a story again if you don’t have new territory to explore with it. 

2. Superman Returns

So I’ve commented on Superman Returns a number of times (I’ve even made a previous article called ‘Why Superman Returns is the Best Superman Movie’) so I’ll try to keep this brief without repeating myself TOO much. Yeah, I know this movie is slow paced. I know Superman doesn’t really fight anyone in this movie. I know it hinges a little too much on the Reeve legacy from time to time. But I have no regrets. Not only is this movie beautifully shot with some of the most stellar frame composition choices I’ve ever seen in a movie. Not only does the film very cleverly integrate practical and CGI effects like how they put Brandon Routh in a swimming tank and used his swimming movements as a reference for Supermans flying, giving him both the sense of weight AND sense of grace that you expect from the superpower. Not only is Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor the most entertaining part of this movie (kind of fitting that he played such a manipulative egotistical bastard in retrospect, eh?). Not only does it have awesomely suspenseful scenes like the incredible saving the airplane scene or the part where Superman gets shot in the eye and doesn’t even flinch. But bottom line: This movie gets Superman. Supermans whole character dilemma is that he struggles between his identity as a human and a kryptonian. He wants to live comfortably among people but in reality he always feels like he’s a stranger among strangers. This is made stronger by the fact that he left earth for a time after rumors that traces of Krypton came up and left without warning. When he came back empty handed, he realized the error of putting his past home before his present; there are people right now that he needs to be there for, whether they are Kryptonian or not. All this is displayed beautifully in great symbolism like how Clark’s ceiling is decorated with stars, one of which is read and stands out, FANTASTIC imagery like Superman floating above the planet listening in on the human race, and finally, my favorite quote in the movie. “You say that the world doesn’t need a savior, but everyday I hear somebody crying for one”. Granted the whole Supermans child thing never went anywhere and some parts like the Superman and Lois flying scene were blatant rehashes of the Reeve film, but overall I think this movie demonstrates the finest understanding of who Superman is in his cinematic history. In case you’re still not convinced; I have a favor to ask of you:

Watch the Reeve Superman movie. Then watch Man of Steel RIGHT after. Then watch Superman Returns. What you’ll find is a Reeve movie where Superman doesn’t hilariously break the logic of his own film to save the day, and a Man of Steel film where Superman actually PREVENTS major damage from happening rather than causes it. As for the pacing . . .for one reason or another the slowness of this film never bothered me.

3. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Okay  .  . . . this is a very problematic movie. It’s plot is all over the place, some things about it are over the top silly, it tries to do too much at once and some of the dialogue is cliche as all hell. But you know what? I went into this movie at the theater wanting some good ol’ fashion web slinging action and that’s exactly what I got. I’m a simple man: I see a Spider-Man action scene, I like. Plus, I just really like a lot of the aesthetic choices this movie makes. Visually it’s a HUGE improvement over the first movie. The colours pop a lot more, the action is easier to make out and really appreciate, it doesn’t have as many dull tones. It LOOKS like a Spider-Man comic. the first movie seemed too unsaturated for me and took place at night a little too often. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the spidey costume in that (though i always appreciate honest experimentation). A lot of people had issues with certain things like the dubstep Electro theme, and yeah while I admit it’s VERY goofy (especially the “he hates-a me” line) i think the choice to give Electro a dubstep theme was pretty neat. Plus I just liked the way Electro looked in general. It was a very different take on how lightning looks and while it may not technically be accurate I think it was ultimately a better choice than if they just want to making it look like real lightning. That’s something we’ve seen done a million times. People also had an issue with how little the Rhino was in it (and yes, I will say the trailer was blatant false advertising) but really I’d rather have this than just have him appear in basically the same amount of time and then immediately die or something. It’s too bad that sequel never came.  Really, a lot of this movies problems are more things about the Spider-Man universe that have stuck around than issues with the movie itself. And at the end of the day it’s no more ridiculous than any of the Raimi movies. It’s just a dumb romp that even with all it’s shortcomings delivered what I was hoping for.

[nyxelestia]

Racism in the Teen Wolf Fandom

[This post originally tagged several people I was directly addressing, as I was expecting it to mostly be reblogged by them and their followers, with maybe a small handful of people I asked to take a look at this post even bothering to read this behemoth, let alone share it. However, a lot more people than I expected paid attention to and shared this post, including a blog that dedicates itself to highlighting racism in fandom. In the interests of preventing "raiding"/dogpiling behavior against the people I addressed this post to, I have removed their handles.]

tl;dr - I don't actually believe any of you are racists, no more than I am, than we all are by virtue of being raised in a white-centric culture, internalizing the attitudes expressed by our media and community, and carrying those attitudes with us into fandom. But that is all the more reason we need to address bigotry in our communities, no matter how passive or benign or minor, because that is the only way to engender change in this fandom, in fandom in general, and in ourselves. I take issue with your guys' posts and meta not because I think everyone should worship Scott - hey, he's not my #1 fave either - or because I think he is perfect (no one is, perfect characters are boring). I take issue with the fact a lot of your logic, meta, and analyses rely on the same racist arguments that permeate mainstream media. I object to the casual dismissal of canonical events, and the way headcanons and assumptions are treated as canon when analyzing the show (especially when they are overwhelmingly skewed a certain direction). And I object to the fact every attempt by myself and many, many others to point all of this out is often met with little more than dismissing everything with the vague claim that we're "too sensitive" and "see racism everywhere" and "are only using buzzwords". I don't think any of you are racists, but I think all of you have utilized or enabled racist rhetoric when talking about Scott (and several other characters, but primarily Scott, for reasons I explain down below).

I'm temporarily disabling anon - either one of you, or one of your followers, constantly fills my inbox with misogynistic slurs every time I speak up against bigotry in fandom, and I just do not have the time to IP block each one. I just got this lovely one just yesterday:

(I and everyone else who talk about racism in Teen Wolf fandom are accused of "using buzzwords", while I'm getting anons who accuse me of misogyny while calling me a cunt. Yay irony.)

If you want to yell at me, do it under your own name. And yes, out of all the people circle-jerking on the original post, I blocked the one who used name-calling now, and has demonstrated some remarkably immature behavior in the past. If bhadpodcast is going to act and post like I blocked them, I might as well actually block them and save myself the headache. They can still relay messages to me through one of you. The rest of you have demonstrated yourself to be open-minded and willing to listen to logical arguments in the past (or I don't know you well enough to assume that you'll ignore my words and skip straight to the name-calling) which is why I've tagged you.

This is a rodeo I've ridden before, and while I can always hope for change, the reality is that I have already expressed all of this in meta before, and that I've spoken to most of you directly about all of this. I'm familiar with the arguments you make, and I'm tired. So it's going to take pretty much all of my self-control to do this, but no matter what you reblog, I am not going to respond. I'm not going to get caught up in the tactics of deflection and distraction, I'm not going to let you draw me into petty arguments on isolated comments and use that as an excuse to ignore the overwhelming majority of this post, and I'm not interested in rehashing arguments I've already had a dozen times over with almost all of you at one point or another.

If you actually read this entire thing and have an honest rebuttal to something I stated below, and its something that is based in the canonical source material, is not contradicted by other canonical source material, and is not contingent on a headcanon, my Messenger is open. Otherwise, it's been good talking to you, and I'm sure we'll be talking about all of this again, soon enough. But I am stating my piece and peacing out, because I need to save up my energy for the next time this wank comes around - and given the way fandom has shown itself to act in the past (and the fact racism has been around far, far longer than television, letalone fandom), that is not an 'if', but a 'when'.

Below the cut:

1.) Yes, Scott is a character of color, I don't care what country you're in.

2.) The fact that most of the racism in Teen Wolf fandom comes in microaggressions does not make it less racist.

3.) Actors and characters are held to tremendously disparate double standards and this is a huge problem, probably the biggest one.

4.) Racism of Teen Wolf fandom is highly reflective of racism offline/in the "real world".

On Scott actually being a character of color

Now, first and foremost - I don't really care what country you are from, Scott is a character of color. I get that some of you come from backgrounds where someone with his complexion is coded as white, but ignoring the fact that 1.) internalized racism is as much of a problem as external racism and 2.) most of ya'll have your own serious problems with colorism and race (where do you think America got it from?), the reality is that you are watching an American TV show, filmed using Amercian actors and and in a setting whose populace is designed to look American. On top of that, most of you have consumed plenty of American media before Teen Wolf, or media that reflects/contains the same problems with colorism and racism as American media.

Even if you did not perceive Scott as white on your first watch, the majority of the target audience did, a significant portion of your meta still used logic and arguments saturated in racist rhetorical history (American racism and otherwise), and many of your character delineations still fell along racial lines (i.e. which characters you headcanon as being secretly evil or having ulterior motives, and which ones you headcanon as secretly not being as evil as they act). As this article points out, the actual TV show has a pretty sketchy history when it comes to its treatment of non white, non male characters - granted, it's nothing new, most TV shows do this or something like this, as does most media in general. But "everyone else does it" and "it's always been this way" has never been an excuse before, and Teen Wolf doesn't get to start now.

On top of that, even if you personally came from a country with no ties to or influences from Western racism at all, you are still engaging in a fandom that is largely rooted in America, with American racial preconceptions, and dealing with American racial norms. Much of my issues with racism in your posts, meta, and reponses is not that an individual is immediately being racist, but rather are perpetuating racist misconstructions.

i.e. Stiles gets struggles on a test, and it's because he has ADHD, so/and he's still a genius, which is reinforced by all the times outside of school. Allison openly admits to having had to repeat a year before and failing a class now, and it's attributed to familial and superantural stress. But Scott gets a bad grade, he's an idiot, and the idea that he "never" does anything outside of school. You aren't going to call Scott stupid because of his ethnicity. But by taking away situations in which he has demonstrated intelligence and cunning and attributing it to someone else, you reinforce anti-Scott fans' rhetoric that Scott is an idiot who can't do anything, most of which traces back to racial stereotypes about Latino boys in the American education system. This is just one of many, many examples.

I understand why you feel like the fact you didn't code Scott as white on your first watch means you don't and can't possibly have racist attitudes towards him or express it in meta. But the thing is, bigotry is rarely about you individually, it's almost always about how you connect to and relate to a broader tradition of oppression and marginalization. There is not a single English-speaking or European country that does not currently have problems with racism and colorism, and while the nuances of how racism manifests varies from country to country, the traditions, media trends, and social habits do not - which is why the fact that people from different countries perceive characters' a little differently based on their appearances, the underlying rhetoric and logic is still the same.

Teen Wolf Fandom Racism

In the post this came clusterfuck from, the person I was responding to literally says, 'the hero is not a hero, and the villain IS the hero'. The fact that she didn't actually say their races doesn't change the fact all the positive attributes or successes of the character of color were projected onto white characters, while supporting the idea that the character of color is evil. She literally removed the character of color from the story, by claiming that the adult werewolf is actually the "teen wolf". AUs are fine and dandy and dark AUs are a lot of fun. But we call them AUs for a reason. The show itself is one created by people, not some documentary about real life events. The story presented is the story intended, and the post is one which undermines that story in order to demonize a character of color, while also deifying white characters, in a way that is contingent of separating the character of color from his own story and plastering his story onto white characters.

It's a not-so-micro microaggression. Just because you don't intend a certain bias, does not mean you are not acting it out or perpetuating it. Just because you are not intentionally judging someone on the basis of race, does not eliminate the fact you (and I) were raised in a very racist culture, and especially in a racist media environment, and express racialized judgments without intending it. We all do this - up until her library scene with Mason in Season 5, I was doing this with Kira all the time. And I've also fallen prey to the tendency to sideline Boyd. When I recognized that I ponder the stories of white characters who has as much screen time as him or even less so, I strove to change that.

This article explains the way fandom treats characters of color and how erasure manifests in fandom, and very specifically #3 in to one of you whose meta I was responding to before. The article is primarily about shipping, but it also specifically addresses the demonization of Deaton, and other characters of color, in the Teen Wolf fandom, and puts these into the context of fandom racism in general, not just Teen Wolf. In particular:

When characters of color are distanced from their triumphs and relationships in canon via headcanon, photo manipulations/edits, or simply not being written or drawn into fanworks, it’s an attempt to minimize the importance of the character. Whether or not it’s a subconscious or conscious distancing, the fact of the matter is that fandom does this on the regular and it usually only benefits white characters (and largely white fans) because it takes importance away from the few characters of color that the canon gives us.

This is literally erasing a character of color and replacing him with a white character, who the fuck thought this was okay? I get that this was a Stiles-centric event, but if you can smoothly switch out heads and paste in characters, then you can damn well make your own banner pulling together all the characters independently, without erasing the character of color and pasting a white character over him.

On top of that, the post points out how much racism in fandom manifests as separating characters of color from their white friend.

Take a look at the finale of Season 2. We never once see Stiles' reaction to Gerard (he wasn't even there, yet). Only edited for size and brightness, here is Stiles' entrance to the scene - after Gerard has already collapsed from the mountain ash:

Incidentally, the show never explains how Stiles actually knew to go to this warehouse in the first place, and at the the beginning of the scene, it was Scott, Chris, and Isaac who arrived here first, setting the location for the finale. There are a lot of possible explanations for all of these. But fandom only treats one as if it were canon, while rarely or never mentioning the other, equally likely, possibility. Why? Because that creates a separation between Scott and Stiles (despite/especially because of the fact the season literally ends with the two of them goofing off together).

The very ending of the season is about Scott and Stiles playing lacrosse together after Scott respectfully walks away from Allison when she breaks up with him, but how many post-S2 fics start out with Stiles feeling lonely because Scott abandoned him for Allison? We see Stiles discovering the alpha symbol and learning about the alpha pack at the same time as Scott at the beginning of Season 3A - yet why do so many people talk about Stiles helping Derek look for them over the summer as if it were canon? (In the interest of demonstrating full disclosure about our own mistakes, even I used to think this, just because it appeared in fanfic so many times. It wasn't until my second watch of S3 that I realized Stiles hadn't canonically been helping Derek look for Erica and Boyd, or known about the alpha pack beforehand.)

(Sloppy gif is sloppy. Derek and Scott were talking about alphas, so Derek actually said "A pack of them." This conversation was interspersed with cuts from the Braeden and Alpha Pack fight scene, so the awkward jumps are from cutting those out.)

This unconscious racism also manifests in how fandom treats actors of color in the fandom, and in Teen Wolf fandom.

Dylan O'Brien made a joke about violating native law and taking advantage of sacred land for his own personal humor, and fandom largely forgot about it in a week. Tyler Posey makes a joke about being gay, and fandom still rails at him over it. Tyler and Dylan should be held accountable to the same standards. Both of them made a stupid, shitty joke, and both apologized pretty quickly. Only one of them is still being taken to task for it.

One Tyler calls Sterek twisted and bizarre, the other Tyler calls Sterek disrespectful. Only one is taken to task over it, and it's the one who was routinely harassed about this ship, whose character is almost systemically marginalized from his own TV show, and whose character's death was being advocated to make another character into the lead of the show.

For those who want more quantative evidence

The number of fanworks about Scott compared to Stiles and Derek is ridiculous. On its own, in the context of a fandom that wasn't so otherwise racist or engaging in racist rhetoric and behavior, I'd buy that it was because there are many reasons why someone could identify with Stiles and Derek more than Scott. But most of the reasons people profess for identifying with Stiles - complexity, mental illness, etc., - are also attributes that apply to Scott's character, which means if you eliminate the things that are same, the racial difference becomes much, MUCH more prominent.

This is before getting into the fact that if you go into the Scott McCall tag right now, most of the fics (based on other tags, and summaries) aren't even about him, but about Stiles and/or Derek. Out of the 10 results in the first page when I just checked, only 1 had a summary that wasn't about Stiles or Derek. And it's really hard to take "Scott is just not that interesting" too seriously when I see how many people have forgotten really engaging scenes and stories with him, and how often people think a scene between him and either Stiles or Derek was actually between Stiles and Derek - and not him - in the show. People erase Scott from his own story, then claim he has no story.

Other Prominent Examples and Points of Contention

We live in a culture that romanticizes white pain in media, and dismisses the experiences and pain of non-white characters. Western audiences are trained and predisposed to dismissing characters of color, their experiences, their pain, and their development - or to taking these experiences and projecting them onto white characters. People are culturally trained to romanticize white, male suffering (which they do with Derek and Stiles), and dismiss men of color or their needs or pain (which they do with Scott).

To put it more bluntly, people will make a hundred gifsets about Stiles crying in the waiting room, but barely a dozen of Scott crying into his mother's arms. There are a hundred gifsets of Stiles conning Derek into a striptease in the first season, but barely any of Scott admitting he'd made a mistake in accusing Derek of murder, and trying to fix it. Does anyone remember that while Stiles and Derek were paralyzed on the floor of the police station in Matt's rampage, Scott had been shot? I've seen hundreds of gifs and images made of Stiles and Derek's pool scene - but I can't remember ever seeing a gifset about Gerard torturing Scott after that, stabbing him and holding the knife in while threatening his mother. And oh, hey, do you remember what Scott was dealing with during the pool scene?

No one is actively racist against Scott, but the implications that he's never changed, that he's never suffered, that he has no story, etc. etc. that so much of the anti-Scott meta is built upon - those are because people just dismiss his experiences and his story, without ever once actually thinking about it. They dismiss it when they watch it, and then again when they make a million gifs about Stiles and Derek's experiences, yet only a fraction as many about Scott's experiences.

This post illustrates my point quite nicely.

It's a pair of gifs from the first season about the boys after Hunters show up at the school, with feel good tags about Stiles "swooping in to save Derek". But here's the thing, those gifs have been edited to cut out Scott from the scene. Scott was the one driving Derek's car to rescue them. *Scott was was saving Derek too.* They were BOTH saving Derek's ass in here, but the gifs are edited to only show Stiles, and the tags only talk about Stiles. If you didn't actually watch this scene yourself, you probably wouldn't know that Scott was even there, let alone the fact the scene was primarily between him and Derek, not Stiles and Derek. How often do we see characters of color in critical roles get dismissed as "support staff"? Scott is "just" the getaway driver, so he's not important anymore to this scene, he no longer exists, only Stiles does.

(This can be a cute Sterek moment, but it can also be a cute Scerek moment and McHaleinski moment. Stiles and Derek actually have the least interaction in this scene, and Stiles is literally in the backseat and mostly in the background of the scene, which is focused on Derek and Scott.)

So now a lot of people are seeing this gifset, and not just internalizing those feel-good tags - they are internalizing the idea that it was only Stiles saving Derek, conveniently forgetting that Scott was even there. On top of that, the ensuing dialogue involves Scott admitting he made a mistake in accusing Derek of murder when he thought Derek was dead, and trying to fix the problem - but how many meta accuse him of never changing, admitting his mistakes, or addressing problems that he caused?

And this is just one example, from the very first season.

On top of that, that scene was also where Stiles and Derek find out the symbol Derek was investigating was on Allison's pendant. The next scene is Stiles pushing Scott to ignore Allison's need for space, in order to get that necklace - but Scott is the one who is blamed for "emotionally abusing her/manipulating her" for trying to reach out to her. I'd bet money that if Scott had decided to respect Allison's space, fandom would be decrying him for not helping Stiles and Derek hunt down an actual killer just because he didn't want to make a teenaged girl he barely knew a little uncomfortable. :|

Other Double Standards

Scott is called an abuser for levels of interpersonal violence that Stiles and Derek are constantly excused for it. Scott lies, and is called manipulative, Stiles lies, and he's just trying to protect people. People in fandom say that Derek is "violent, but not abusive", despite recurring acts of violence against relatively vulnerable characters who are under his care, yet they call Scott an abuser for all of two instances of lashing out at Isaac over something stupid.

Alan Deaton gets headcanons painting him as evil because he withholds information from the main characters. Stiles withholds information from the other characters, and he's just traumatized and scared.

Marin Morrell said if no other solutions to the nogitsune problem was found, then she'd kill one teenager who they already have confirmed is the source/host of the villain, in order to protect the rest of the town from the definite threat. Derek nearly murdered an innocent teenager, hoped for and attempted to engineer the death of another teenager, and dragged three more teenagers into a violent situation which they had little understanding of because he needed a pack (the alpha pack didn't come until later). But he is not called a villain at nearly half the rate Morrell is, if at all outside of the anti-Derek fandom. (Side note: neither of them are villains. Both of them are stuck dealing with the actual villains who've forced them into shitty situations. My problem is that while neither of them are villains, only one of them is repeatedly called and portrayed as one in fanworks.)

Boyd probably fares best, by virtue of barely ever getting mentioned in fanfic or meta, even in comparison to Cora or Erica (who he had about as much screentime as).

Fandom compares Scott to a rapist for using Derek's body against his will in order to save Allison's life. But where were they when Liam tried to kill Scott for his girlfriend, and Scott takes a few weeks to feel safe around him again instead of welcoming him back with open arms right away?

By the way, wanna know why fandom rarely gifs the scene of Scott forcing Derek to Bite Gerard with the actual dialogue?

Because you can't compare Scott to a rapist for using Derek's body against him when we see that he's only doing it because the villain is holding someone hostage and threatening their life, and you can't claim that Scott never apologizes for anything if you see him literally apologizing for what he's doing to Derek. And I'd bet even more money that if the reverse had happened, fandom would have decried Scott for letting Allison die "just" so Derek wouldn't have had to Bite someone he didn't want to, and called him a murderer for it.

People castigate Scott for successfully setting a broken leg when it was technically illegal, but I don't see any posts castigating Stiles for interfering in police investigations, violating people's privacy and boundaries, or interfering with an active crime scene/body search.

People call Scott a murderer because Theo killed Tracy and Josh on another character's information - not even a suggestion, just information - yet Derek actively sought to violate a girl's bodily autonomy and got her killed as a result. (I don't think he is a murderer for it - I think that if he isn't a murderer for Paige's death, then it's as ridiculous or even more so to claim that Scott is responsible for Theo's victims.)

Scott isn't perfect, no one on this show is, because perfect characters are boring. But only Scott is considered evil and villainous for not being perfect, while white characters' flaws are celebrated. Scott is derided for not being held accountable, but not only are the instances where he is held accountable erased, white characters' actions are constantly excused or justified without anybody screaming about their lack of accountability. Fandom hates on Scott for not verbally apologizing for things, but no one makes hate posts about the fact Stiles and Derek never verbally apologize, either. Fandom holds Scott up to an impossible standard while having little to no standards for the white characters. They use "he's the main character/protagonist/hero!" to justify the double standard, but then try to claim he ISN'T the protagonist or hero to justify giving his story to a white character - in the instance at the beginning of this post, a white villain no less - and casting him as the villain.

Main Points

I like darkfic as much as the next person, but that doesn't erase the fact that the process of making Scott a villain (as in, claiming Scott is actually a villain in the context of canon) is contingent on the racist traditions of separating a character of color from their own story, wiping away that characters' story, and romanticizing the struggles and personal strifes of white characters (often in the process of "giving" the character of colors' stories to them).

This problem isn't unique to Teen Wolf. Just about every fandom is racist, and many (if not most) of their media sources are even more racist than Teen Wolf. If anything, one thing Teen Wolf fandom has going for it is that, while it still has a lot of sexism and misogyny, it seems to have less so than most other, similar fandoms. Though the biggest point of comparison is the Supernatural fandom, so that might not be saying much.

The difference is that in other fandoms, the main characters are white, and most of the surrounding characters are white, too. Characters of color are always secondary ones. A Netflix show was the first time an MCU production had a non-white character as its lead. But in Teen Wolf, the main character is a character of color, and he's still getting treated the same way as secondary characters of other fandoms, if not even worse so.

I don't think any of you, as individuals, are racist. But I do think that all of you, as individuals, never examine racial biases in your media consumption or analysis. This leads to you microaggressively expressing racist attitudes in your meta, passively perpetuating racist stereotypes and tropes, and - however unintentionally - enabling racism in fandom.

I was also asked if I admit to my own biases, so here it is: When it comes to analyzing Teen Wolf (and making judgments about the show and the characters therein), I don't care about people's headcanons, or fanons, just the source material. The show was written by written by over a dozen people alongside Jeff Davis and produced by MTV, it did not magically appear out of thin air, nor is it a skewed documentation of some "real" story or "real" events. I believe in holding the characters' to the same level of accountability, and the same standards, as each other. If this makes me biased, then yes, fine, I'm biased.

I also know that none of these problems are unique to Teen Wolf fandom, and that actual Scott stans have also justified his poor decisions, and hated on Stiles and Derek. Some of you might remember me getting blocked by some Sciles BNFs for saying "Derek's not a rapist", and I've lost track of the number of times I'd try to reblog a Stydia or Stalia gifset, only for it to turn out I can't, and most likely this comes from my past of pointing out misogyny in those fandoms.

Meanwhile, Sciles fandom slathers heteronormativity onto the pairing as much as Sterek fandom does, and the fact that it's being done on an interracial relationship actually makes it a little worse than when it's on the all-white Sterek ship (but that's a can of worms for another day). Female characters like Allison, Lydia, Malia, and Kira are constantly utilized as little more than talking plot-devices or fag-hags in fandom unless it's explicitly about them, and they are reduced to caricatures instead of characters even more than the most underserved male characters of color, like Boyd. For all of them, I went onto their character tags, and I didn't find a fic summary that was about them until I got the second page, which is worse than Scott having only 1 out of 10 in the first page.

But the sheer amount of Scott hate outpaces hate of all the other characters combined, and the sheer amount of fanworks about these secondary characters outpaces the fanworks about the main character. And yes, every ship and character's fandom sent rape and death threats to the cast and crew over their stupid ship or character. But the amount leveled at Tyler Posey from Sterek fans, even before he finally snapped and made an unprofessional comment about it, is tremendously higher than all the other kinds of hate - especially when compared to the fandom's reaction to the Tyler Hoechlin also saying a negative comments about Sterek.

Fandom does not exist in a vacuum.

The attitudes by which white characters' trauma and experiences are used to justify their violence while characters of colors' victimizations are dismissed, is the same logic used to defend cops who "just reacted" or "panicked", while blaming young children of color for "getting shot" by not behaving 100% correctly. The logic by which a white characters' abusive behavior and characters of colors' abuse are dismissed, while the white characters' abuse and the character of colors' abusive behaviors are exaggerated, is the same logic for which white rapists are painted as "merely making a mistake" while a black shoplifter is painted as a bankrobber in the making.

And the logic of calling someone who explains all this an "ableist troll" for pointing this out is the same logic used to pit marginalized peoples against each other in an effort to maintain the status quo - why do you think racism between racial minorities exists? And the logic of claiming someone is just "exploiting real tragedies" to talk about racism in fandom only makes sense if you assume all fans are white, and therefore none have ever been or will be touched by racism or racial violence in their real lives, and only bring up race to prop up fictional characters.  (Yes, these are why I blocked bhadpodcast.)

Some of you can choose to walk away from racism, you can talk about it in fandom and that is the only place it will ever affect you directly. Not all of us get that luxury. Some of us have to confront racism in our daily lives, and sometimes, the racism online and the racism offline start to look and sound the same.

And I will apologize for one thing on the post that started this: my tags in my initial response were needlessly aggressive. I had to deal with racism in my real life, and then I came home, and see echoes of that exact same racism in a fandom post, and I over-reacted in the tags.

The logic by which a character of color is erased from his own narrative, derided as a villain, and replaced by a white character, is the same logic that is used in professional environments to judge who has "worked hard" and who hasn't (and thus, who gets promoted and who doesn't). Maybe, if you've never experienced racial bias in the work place, these seem like problems worlds away from each other, but they are not, these are two different manifestations of the same subconscious bias. When I came into fandom and saw someone I consider close to a friend regurgitating the exact same illogic as one of my workplace superiors, I snapped.

When I say that fandom doesn't exist in a vacuum, this is what I mean. The same attitudes and judgments of people that exist in offline life - based on their physical appearance, their skin tone, their heritage, etc. - follow us into fandom, whether we like it or not.

I acknowledge I should've been a lot calmer about expressing my frustrations with that post. I probably shouldn't have answered so soon after work-life problems and just before I was supposed to go to bed. I tell people all the time to hold back on topics which are personal to them and wait until they are calmer to address it, and here I went and ignored that. I took out my anger on athena via those tags, and for that, I am sorry.

But it's also the only thing I'm sorry about. I still stand by my notion that the post I was responding to was very racist, and the fact that the characters' races were never brought up in the post itself does not change that.

[wolfhoarder-blog]

The Curious Case of Orion Williamson

Whenever I read lists or watch videos about topics such as "The Most Mysterious Disappearances", I'm always confused as to why they never mentioned this guy. Don't get me wrong, the mysteries in the videos and lists are very compelling, but they usually spew out the same subjects over and over again. At times I don't mind rereading a good mystery, but I always hunger for more. I know, I'm morbid, but it fascinates me. It stirs up my huge and wild imagination; What happened to these people? Where did they go? Will we ever find them? Anyways, back to the subject. Orion Williamson, what a cool name right? Especially for a farmer back in the mid 1800's. The event took place sometime in July of 1854, near Selma, Alabama. Orion was sitting on the porch with his family that morning, his wife and young child, when he decided to get up saying, "I think I'll bring the horses in." His wife watched as he moseyed his way across their yard and into the field, picking up a small stick on his way and swishing it idly through the ankle deep grass he walked through. At the same moment, a horse drawn buggy made it's way down the road on the other side of the Williamson's field carrying Armour Wren and his son James home from the nearby town of Selma. When they noticed Orion walking in their direction they stopped their carriage to wave at him, since they were in no particular hurry and had time to visit a neighbor. It was in that moment that it happened. While the Wrens watched on from their buggy and his family watching from the porch, Orion vanished. One second he was walking through the field, the next second the field was empty. Not believing what they had seen, the Wrens jumped from their buggy and ran across the field to meet Williamson's family on the spot where they last saw him. There was no trace of Orion, even the stick he had been holding disappeared with him, along with the grass that had been growing on that spot. Armour Wren had dropped to his knees, running his hands over the barren earth while repeatedly saying "Impossible!" He had been hoping to feel something, anything to clue him in on what happened to his friend, but there was nothing. The ground wasn't disturbed and there was no sign of struggle. Even then they couldn't believe that he was simply gone, so all four witnesses to the event spent the next two hours scouring the field with growing disbelief, confusion and then panic when they came up with nothing. No clues, ideas or anything to link with Orion. At that conclusion, Mrs. Williamson broke down. The Wrens took her to the hospital in Selma, and when they explained what caused her breakdown, the news spread like wildfire in town, bringing around three hundred men from their everyday jobs to a new one - searching for a man who had suddenly and mysteriously vanished. The men gathered at the field, forming three rows of men an arm's length apart, then moved across the field. They searched long and hard, closely examining the ground, running their fingers through the grass to overturn each stone. The search continued on all afternoon, until it seemed as though that they had examined every inch of land, but to no avail. But that didn't stop them. They continued on into the night, using torches to light their way, and even bringing bloodhounds to aid in their search. By morning, the news of Orion's disappearance spread further from Selma, and soon the local searchers had company. Hundreds of curious onlookers came, some feeling alarmed at the situation while others had their own explanations on what happened. A hidden well, a cave in and even sinkholes were suggested. But no evidence was found of those suggestions. After several weeks the search was officially given up, though that didn't stop curious onlookers from sticking around. Those people had spotted something new about the field, on the spot where Orion had vanished was a circle of dead grass about fifteen feet across. Upon questioning, Mrs. Williamson claimed that her husband was invisible, and that his voice had stayed behind. For two weeks she heard him calling out for help from the circle of dead grass. The voice grew weaker each day until it stopped completely. Many people were still drawn to the mysterious event, even after years have passed. Those people included scientists that studied the event and came up with their own theories, none of which have been proven. The theories I've looked up were pretty interesting, which include UFO's and magnetic fields. The magnetic field one being particularly interesting because apparently walking into one can throw you into another dimension. I mean how cool would that be? Well, except for the family and friends he left behind. Especially the process of it, that upon walking into one would disintegrate a person. Sound familiar? To me it sounds like an alternate version of the original 'The Fly' movie. You know, where the scientist uses his son's pet cat as a test subject and accidentally scatters the poor pussycats molecules? Yeah, poor poor Dandelo... Now you may be thinking, how did they know it wasn't some sort of sinkhole or hidden well? I'll relay to you what I have read and leave you to ponder that. There was a geologist report stating that there was no way of Williamson could of wound up being buried beneath that field. They had even dug up the field at one point, but all they found was solid rock a few feet below the surface. There were no holes, crevices or cave-ins to explain the mysterious event. There was not a lot I could find on the original story, at least anything solid, but I still find it compelling because things like this have happened before, but we still can't explain it. Hopefully one day humans will find the answer to these sorts of questions, and not hold back on them either like the government does. I mean seriously, all the things they keep from us is probably staggering, and I can't wait till someone leaks them all out like Black Widow did with Shield. Anyways, that concludes my first Obscure Mystery post. What do you think happened to Orion Williamson? Feedback is appreciated and questions welcome. My main sources for this article include random google searches and a book I own called "Lost... and Never Found" by Anita Gustafson. Ciao Amores!

[samanthasroberts]

6 Hilariously Nerdy (Surprisingly Epic) Wikipedia Fights

Ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? It’s what happens when a moron, taken to task on his skills at not being a moron, vastly overestimates just how much of a moron he isn’t. Wikipedia articles are Dunning-Kruger digitized. Someone writes an encyclopedia page, then thinks they’re an expert because they wrote an encyclopedia page. But lack of oversight makes this as effective as claiming to be an astronaut after writing about urinating in space; like zero-G pee, the reality is far more complicated. And when multiple random strangers try it together, things get awful for everyone.

#6. Final Fantasy‘s Aerith Vs. Aeris

Final Fantasy has a wider following and more coherent apocalypses than most doomsday cults. (Though with 15 “final” fantasies so far, the series is about as good at keeping its promises). One of the most famous characters by far is Aerith Gainsborough, adorable virtual shish kebab of the PlayStation One.

It looks like she should just pop

Final fanatics have put more effort into tracing her name’s history than most royal families. There have been faces on currencies with less documentation. It’s neatly summarized on the regular Wikipedia page:

Why this looks perfectly sane

Seems simple, right? Actual name, earlier version of the name, and not a single mention of tentacle porn. For most of you, the difference between “Aeris” and “Aerith” is so tiny that you’re sort of upset I even mentioned it. But that line is the tip of 18,000 words of vicious online bullshit. Not debate, not discussion — just a flaming screaming match with people posting entire new subsections just to call everyone else involved an idiot.

Someone here has definitely lost their mind, yes.

These chucklefucks got more upset than a Klingon with a lisp trying to voice-deactivate a ship’s self-destruct. They argued for longer than most players even remembered playing the game. They argued the validity of Japanese translations with all the linguistic skill and respect of sex tourists.

Yes, that last one DID redefine the Hebrew until it ended in “s” instead of “th.”

It’s a way for the worst kind of nerds to claim they’re “better” fans than everyone else. Like many infinite internet arguments, it’s driven by the delusion that there can be objective truth about fictional values. The real answer is laughably simple: It’s a made-up thing, and even the people making it up didn’t give a shit. But those points hurt when you’ve replaced your personality with PlayStation discs. Which I guess is why armies of alleged adults who encountered FF VII when they were eight years old have decided that pixelated fart in the wind has made up their entire identity. And they’ve found nothing better to do in their lives since.

#5. Cloverfield‘s Monster

Language changes with time. There are three approaches to this: Descriptivist: Words mean what we say they mean. Prescriptivist: Words mean what older people who are now dead said they meant ages ago. Dickdicktivist: Words mean what we all think they mean, but I must stop everything to “correct” people when everyone already knows what they meant.

Dickdictivists say, “Actually, it was Frankenstein’s monster. Frankenstein was the scientist. Which of course I know, because I saw I, Frankenstein in 3D. Twice.” And this Dickdivism is compounded in a situation wherein we don’t have a whole catalog of shitty movies from which to take our guidance, like with Cloverfield.

Wikipedia editors became their own Frankenstein and monster combined, hacking together an all-new abomination out of all the worst bits of people who used to have lives, when they tried to name the monster in Cloverfield — a monster that producers just didn’t bother officially naming.

Rational discourse.

This sent Wikipedia editors into an existential meltdown. They wanted to make a page about the creature, but didn’t know what to call it. Or rather, some knew exactly what to call it and that everyone else was A LYING SHITHEEL HERETIC.

The thrust and parry of intellectual debate.

For months, they waged most pointless war imaginable. They didn’t know the movie wouldn’t name it back then. As far as they knew, the real answer was only weeks away, and they STILL stayed up at night capslock SCREAMING at each other over Cloverfield (Monster), Monster (Cloverfield), Clusterfuck (Motown), Clamshucker Mumblenuts, (Crowded Bus) Mobstopper, and so on. They even invoked the invasion of Iraq to bolster their arguments about naming a fictional special effect.

“This nightmarish slaughter will help in my argument about a fake monster name!”

Which shows that editing Wikipedia is worse for your sense of perspective than M.C. Escher-designed beer goggles.

#4. Silent Hill‘s Obsession With Forced Hospitalization

The Silent Hill series includes some of the greatest horror games ever made, but even in the best ones, the plot is totally fucked up. They have explanations like “a child thought your apartment was his mother and grew up to become a murderous dimension-wizard,” and I swear there are no words missing from that summary.

“Who ordered the Roswell Extra Crispy?”

It gets creepy to start nitpicking plots like these. Which is how the Silent Hill Wikipedia discussions ended up sounding like Hell’s quarterly ISO-666 report on the proper bureaucratic synergistic labeling protocols for the seventh circle. They’re the most demented discussions about exact wording you’ve ever seen. There was a full-on feud over whether the word “forced” should be before the word “hospitalization” as it related to a demonic murder-child possessed by an evil god who happened to be in the burn ward. And no, there is no situation on this or any parallel nightmare-dimension Earth where that argument is a good thing. The result looks like it was drafted by Hell’s attorney as a punishment for lawyers. This is just a tiny part of the terrifying text barrage:

We STRONGLY RECOMMEND against reading all that, and probably should have said that earlier

But this wasn’t just a grammar torturer. This shit got personal. User “Yomiel” had chosen this Silent Hill to die on — specifically, the bit about how Alessa had been forcibly imprisoned in a nightmare terror hospital, not merely imprisoned. He was worse for that force and how it applied to an obsession with women and people being burned without dying than Anakin Skywalker. Get it? Force? Burning? Yeah, you get it.

I have never cared this much about my own pets

This is the sort of substory that the original Silent Hill writers would read and go “Wow, that is screwed up”, before going back to programming people slam-dunking decapitated dog heads.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/6-hilariously-nerdy-surprisingly-epic-wikipedia-fights/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/01/17/6-hilariously-nerdy-surprisingly-epic-wikipedia-fights/

[anthrowitchology]

Ēosturmōnaþ is NOT Ishtar´s month... <3

(From Pagan Study Group) I keep seeing these posts with an image of the very ancient Akkadian/Assyrian great goddess Ishtar, claiming her name to be the very meaning of the English word "Easter", and that the celebrations were originally to her honor. Without providing a single piece of evidence, they go on to claim that her symbols were the hare and the egg, although they have no image at all to prove it (such an image does not exist). To think that two words from two very different languages are etymologically cognate just because they sound about the same when pronounced in one of the languages is a very common misconception among people who have not studied languages. Also, Ishtar is pronounced Eesh - tar, while Easter Month is derived from Eostar monath, Eostar being the genitive form of Eostre /Eostrun, pronounced Eh - oh - streh / Eh - ohst - rune, and does not sound that similar after all. The people who post this have obviously very little understanding of etymology, language developments, and history of religions, so I would like to just set a few things straight. You will be extremely hard put to NOT find a culture that does not celebrate spring, and in pagan times and places, spring is usually associated with a goddess, what with all the birthing and bringing forth new life and new growth. Obviously, you will find evidence for spring fertility rituals more or less all over the place, including in the lands were Ishtar was once celebrated. I understand that the people who keep up the lie about Ishtar being the origin of Easter are eager to promote that old goddess, but they do not seem to realize that they are actually diminishing her original importance in the cultures that worshipped her by assigning her a role as a spring goddess. Ishtar, who in her time was identified with both Semitic Astarte and Sumerian Innanna, belongs to the category of "great goddess" in the sense that she was worshipped in the large, officially sponsored public cults, worshipped by all people, men and women, high class and commoners, and celebrated for having influence on more or less all aspects of life and death, associated with kingship and rulership, war and peace, love and death, and with the heavenly bodies of Sun and Moon and Venus and besides Earth itself. In the image here, from Meli-Shipak II (12th century BCE), Ishtar is depicted as the Queen of Heaven, seated on a royal throne and surrounded by her emblems: the symbol of Sun, Moon and Venus, assigning kingship to a worshipping man. To assign her a role as a spring goddess is to diminish her original role, and as wrong as assuming the Norse Freyia (her Scandinavian equivalent, functionally speaking) was simply a "goddess of love". She was just a lot more than that. Also, the meme about Ishtar-Easter keeps claiming that she was symbolized by the hare and the egg, and thus the origin of the Easter bunny and the Easter eggs. Newsflash: Ishtar was symbolised by the LION, quite like Indian Durga, the great goddess of the Shakti/Shiva tradition, with the owl, a symbol of wisdom, and also with the eight-pointed star (Venus) and the solar disc - but not with the hare or the eggs. The ancient Mesopotamians who knew Ishtar/Astarte/Innanna as their great goddess most probably celebrated spring, and it is possible that the goddess had something to do with that, but it appears a lot more credible to single out the myths of how her lover, the lovely youth, dies and is resurrected through her grace, and it could appear that HE was the god of vegetation who dies during winter and is reborn during spring. Her role as his resurrector may have meant something during the spring celebrations, but still, her name has nothing to do with that, and nothing to do with the English word for Passover, "Easter". (LATER ADDITION TO THIS POST: Ok, so I had some comments to this post, and one very interesting one which goes: "The painted eggs come from the Babylonian Akitu new year festival, which were transferred to the Jewish Pascal and Persian Nowruz, not sure if the eggs are related to Ishtar worship or not, but Ishtar was honoured during the Akitu. The issue most of the ANE pagan community have is that date of Inanna-Ishtar's ressurection can be traced to the vernal equinox if you look to the Nippurian calender, so the earliest attestation of what would one day become the Akitu festival was the resurrection of Inanna-Ishtar, which went on to influence the Jewish Passover during the Babylonia captivity, which is tied the the crucifixion of Christ when you look at the symbolic freeing of the prisoner Barnabas and such like, so you can't say Easter has nothing to to with Inanna-Ishtar, much like the bebunking articles suggest. I just don't think enough people look to the ancestral religions of the Abrahamic faiths for answers, or realise that Jesus was a Near Eastern deity just like Ishtar, and wonder why they can justify a male deity moving but not a female deity. There is just no proof that Eostre was the trans-cultural Diffusion of Ishtar. Though that will possibly be contested soon." So I would just like to comment back, that yes, by all means, the fact that Ishtar was associated with a spring ritual about the dying and resurrecting god may actually have been indirectly influential on the Passover/Easter myth of Jesus dying and being resurrected, although the resurrecting god has become a male, monotheistic god rather than a female deity belonging to a polytheistic pantheon in which she ruled as queen, the founder of civilzation and the bestower of power, among many other things. But as I said, Ishtar was so much more than just a seasonal goddess, and as I also said, spring celebrations happened everywhere and often involved a dying/resurrected god or goddess by the grace of a higher goddess - you have Demeter and Persephone, Isis and Osiris, and countless others, which means it wil be difficult to pinpoint Ishtar or any other singular deity in a singular culture as THE origin. This sort of ritual seasonal celebrations have been happening in so many places over so much time, it is not strange if they also have similarities. There is still no evidence for any etymological connection between the name Ishtar and the name Eostre or the word Easter. The word "Easter" is particular only to the English language, everywhere else there are other words such as Pascha, which certainly is not related to the name Ishtar. That there were cultural connections between North Europe and the Middle East going way back in time is not to be doubted, however. We have the Mystery cults that I have always argued to be a part of the Norse tradition also, and we have the sacred marriage in connection to kingship inauguration which certainly began in the Middle East and which also certainly reached both the Celtic and Germanic areas. I could add that Norse Freyia has a lot of similarities to Ishtar/Innanna/Astarte but also to other great goddesses such as Durga Mahadevi, Cybele Magna Mater, Isis/Aset, Anahita, Afrodite, Demeter, Hecate... this does not mean that any singular goddess is her singular origin. It probably just means that ideas have spread and influenced each other mutually for thousands of years of traveling and cultural interaction. If new evidence turns up, able to pinpoint any direct and continuous connection between Ishtar and Eostre/Easter, I will change my opinion, for even a debunked theory may be brought to life again in the light of new evidence and convincing arguments, but for the time being I can see none.) ORIGINAL POST CONTINUED: That word, Easter, is derived from an ancient Germanic name for the spring month, Ēosturmōnaþ, also referred to developed from an Old English word that usually appears in the form Ēastrun, -on, or -an; but also as Ēastru, -o; and Ēastre or Ēostre. According to the 7th century monk and scribe, Bede, the pagan Anglo-Saxons called that month of spring "after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month." We do not know more about that goddess, but we have little reason to doubt that the pagan Anglo.Saxons, like everybody else back in the day, celebrated spring and particularly a goddess of spring, in this case one whose name has survived only in their name for the month corresponding to April. In Scandinavia, we have no traces of this goddess, but that goddesses were worshipped during spring is extremely probable, just as it is extremely probable that they celebrated spring. It would be more preposterous to assume that they did not. But the Christian tradition of Easter has thoroughly wiped out any surviving evidence for exactly what went on then. All we know is that some sources place the major celebration of the dísir (the goddesses) at spring time. In Norway, we call Easter by the word "Påske", an adaption of the name for the original Christian holiday, Pascha. The eggs and the bunny have, by all appearances, a Christian origin, but may of course be older than that, seeing as eggs are great symbols of the new life that is about to be born during spring, and the hare is a great symbol of fertility all over seeing as the expression "breeding like bunnies" is based on the fact that these animals produce an amazing number of litters every year. If there is any one goddess of the known Norse pantheon whose myths and symbols could correspond to the spring celebrations, I think it could be Idunn, whose name indicated a stream that returns to its starting point, who is associated with the symbol of a nut (new life), and whose single known myth is all about being the cause of rejuvenation and resurrection, and about being resurrected from death - and who is indeed called the "Frá Yggdrasills", "The Seed of Yggdrasill", the seed and fruit of the world tree, the youngest and the oldest child and the one lover of all the gods: "There dwells in the valleys a knowledge-hungry goddess: The seed of Yggdrasill sinks down the ash She is of elf-kin, her name is Idunn (Returning One) The oldest of the Inner Ruler´s The youngest child" Dvelr í daulom dís forvitin, Yggdrasils frá aski hnigin; álfa ættar Iþunni héto, Ívallds ellri ýngsta barna. (Hrafnagaldr Óðins, st. 6, The Poetic Edda) :)

[the-fisherman-messenger-blog]

Azeroth Defense Council Forgets to Defend Home City

By Fisherman Swaffman

Like most articles I write these days, it’s with a grave heart I write this article. Perhaps after I open everyone’s eyes to this hard truth I’ll finally hang up my pen, go back to strictly fishing. Before we begin on the serious topic, I’d just like to alert everyone that Orruk is not dead. Some Goblins off the coast of Highmountain caught a glimpse of him before he darted away to avoid losing trace of his recent hunt. Now that’s out of the way, let us begin. 

As we all know, I’ve become somewhat of a respected member of society to some, while others view me as a little annoying runt. First off, if you’re one of the latter and you’re reading this, I resent that. Second off, as a general member of society it is my duty to see to its betterment. That is why I’ve often attended such meetings as the House of Nobles, the ADC, and a completely corrupt court case.  *Editor’s Note: If you have not read about the completely corrupt court case, you should go find it. I’m sure Orruk left some copies around Stormwind. 

Recently, the ADC has fallen onto some hard times. Don’t believe me? Just read this little snip from the Royal Courier and then tell me I’m wrong.

You see, after much of the original leadership of the organization left, the new leaders of the Alliance Defense Council have decided that claiming the defense of the Alliance isn’t enough. They have to be all of Azeroth’s defense council, which is honestly a cruel joke. While that’d be fine and dandy to claim the defense of all of Azeroth, the only problem is that there’s no Horde representatives on the council. How can the council claim the title of Azeroth Defense Council if they’re only representing a small portion of its people? Even before they claimed the title of Azeroth Defense Council, when they were solely the Alliance’s defenders they still didn’t account for all races of the Alliance. Most consisted of humans, with an occasional dwarf, draenei, and elf. Now, today, their leadership is mostly human, yet they’re the defense council of our whole world. 

One of the worst parts of this council is the fact that the leaders stationed on the Council aren’t even world leaders. Never has the Council of Three Hammers attender, nor has Anduin or Tyrande. Now, with the inclusion of Azeroth as a whole, I fully expect them to invite the Banshee queen to our doorstep so she can raise our dead for her unholy army. 

I wouldn’t even be writing about this topic, considering it’s just a bunch of human nobles pretending to be in power once more, but the problem is that a “reputable” news source is promoting them. That’s where the problem here lies, the Royal Courier is feeding its incompetent readers false stories about the authority of this power grabbing council. The next think you know they’ll be reporting on how my paper has been banned and I’ve been thrown into the Stockades. I wish I could end the story there, but there’s even more to feel sorry about.

The above is part of the same “Azeroth Defense Council” article posted above, this time the ADC pledging its support to the Stormwind city guard to help clean its streets up. A noble goal, considering the shit pile that’s been building up for months. If you have no idea what shit pile I’m talking about, go read one of my older articles. I’d take a moment to inform you, but I don’t believe I can handle that kind of horror right now. One would hope that the ADC got off their asses and truly did aid the incompetent guards in cleaning the streets up, as stated above, but let me shed some light onto what’s really been going on. 

*Editors Note: If you haven’t already, also go find the old article posted about the guard’s mishaps. That may help some confused readers on what they’re about to read.

The above is a picture of the Royal Courier’s recent article on a mishap that occurred recently in the Alliance’s Crown City, Stormwind. Odd, earlier the ADC pledged the guard their support, yet now a -KNOWN CRIMINAL- entered the city with -HIS FOLLOWERS-. Huh, you’d think that a competent city guard would be able to spot a known criminal, and even if that was hard they’d be able to think something fishy was about when they notice a man being followed by a group. Not only that, but the -COMMANDER- of the guard broke protocol, which is for more than one guard to respond to an alert, and took on a -KNOWN CRIMINAL- and his -FOLLOWERS- by himself. Hmm. . Odd that a man who’s supposed to be the commander of the city guard can’t even realize that taking on a group of criminals by himself is quite possible one of the dumbest decisions he could make. Why, I might even go as far to say that the only dumber decision would be letting a known necromancer walk away alive. 

Before anyone sends in any letters asking, the above statement is not a joke fabricated by me to help prove my point, this is a real article and real statement made by the guard Commander. Just as I stated before, the Royal Courier has decided to put the idiotic Commander on a pedestal for all to glorify for an idiotic decision. I believe they meant to say “Commander Aldenhardt foolishly took on three of the group single-handily. He miraculously managed to harm two of the cultists before a third made the smart decision and attacked the commander. They all fled, clearly done with their crucifixion and torment of the poor Commander.” That would make sense. Alas, I find nothing in this doomed world makes sense anymore. 

Anyways, back onto the subject: The guard Commander has now broken protocol twice yet he is still in command. I ask that we rise up and demand that a new Commander be chosen and the old one thrown into the Stockades for collaboration with necromancers and criminals. His current solution is to ask the known criminal, Demetrius Devereaux, to just turn himself in. I’d like to note that this criminal is known for many unmentionable crimes, and has been convicted by the courts before. The man somehow broke out of the Stockades, under the command of Commander Aldenhardt, and now runs free. How can we continue with our day to day lives knowing that this criminal roams the streets while the Commander is solving the issue by asking nicely? 

Not only has Commander Aldenhardt proven time and again that he’s a complete failure, the ADC supposedly “pledged their support” and the city has only gotten worse! Is the ADC working with Devereaux? Or is the ADC actually a puppet of the Burning Legion, seeking to throw Stormwind into chaos? Perhaps it is Commander Aldenhardt who is a minion of the Old Gods and would rather watch everyone die as our world is slowly corrupted? Where is Orruk in our time of need? Will this city ever make sense? Have the guards, nobles, and ADC taken the Royal Courier hostage so they will only write about their specific plots in order to advance their own agendas? All these questions and more to be answered the moment I cease hating this world.

((All of this should be taken IC as the paper is an IC article, in absolutely no way should this be taken into OOC)) 

@the-royal-courier @houseofnobles-wra @official-adc-wra @percy-aldenhardt @demetrius-devereaux @the-house-of-crows

[annandrade1995]

How Do You Stop Stray Cats From Spraying Outside Your House Prodigious Tricks

Never use chemicals should be quite effective.Cats have been bred with female cats bear healthy little kittens that can no longer near him when he meows.Many commercial toys are very fussy about the visible portion of the mouth as shown, to look out for.An obvious limitation of this cat flap would be shocked when others would talk of their rear legs excessively when grooming, causing a skin reaction.

Cats like to use a pet odor removers that you need to be well considered before doing it.First of all, spaying is something is amiss.You should try to calm spraying cats a horrible thing to take it anymore and brought him back on the skin and protects the whole cleaning process that involves discomfort or pain as this will also eliminate the behavior.Do you notice your cat seems particularly taken with a mixture of water from a number of reasonsDo you want to adopt one female and one serious problem!

There are also different to match some of the litter boxModify the room arrangement to keep a blanket can also cat proof house.They can tend to be cruel and the noise associated with the new cat to be taken care of.For their qualities of atomizers with the neighbors.It might be useful if you prevent your kitten or cat.

The following guideline may help to resolve the problem.If you haven't then maybe you ought to consider at both ends of the plastic itself, there is a cat.Unfortunately, no amount of blood to congeal in the past few months to allow her to shape up.String, yarn and dental floss can also have plaque or tartar build-up.Conflicts with other cats, so a little so that your cat rest for a few hours.

Some felines never learned to be attached by using the litter box that will help the effects of an attack is around the house that absolutely loves and will help them out like dry cat foods now available in the bag, he/she will soon learn that coming together can denote a pleasant woody smell out of heat perhaps every other day when they go to the above questions before you make the cats see one another initially, but should be ready to attack, a tremor will run from them.On the market that can be done by the previous one.Additionally, aluminum foil are also suggested, as some cats that just get this problem is bad behavior, to them or possibly infection.It will make plenty of products for sale that claim to keep their nails just by digging a bed of nails.Dander is the litter box can initially be accomplished by taking eye drops.

I was asleep, she came out and you can place a heavy object over the issue, it is always advisable to make sure your cat is the key in cat pet training as it can play a huge number of sources including certain allergens that may develop cancer where the real problem.Teach your dog or cat sleeping on your dog or cat's mouth that are assisting with the carpet and the associated risks are low.Combine the four trapped felines back to the trouble areas may help, as your nose hairs!- A number of litter boxes also require specific types of training.Those of us with cats have an aggressive feline is turning serious, you need to understand thoroughly what each chemical does, how precisely it works, and how good a job you've done, invest in an aggressive reaction from your cat might create!

With one slap you can train a dog can be.You have to win and the sound of aluminum foil instead.These give off a hair matt, make sure it never happens again.Some cats are bored as they won't feel inspired to use the toilet for getting your cat to eliminate as much of the house as bathroom instead of all cats sensitive to the point it gets worse.You have to pay attention to all the time.

With any luck, this program will be able to find out.But if you get a scratching motion...praising them the names of some shelters in our lives.Several of the most usual cat behaviors that are stressed out, possibly because they attract cats like their wild ancestors do with a blend of various products on shelves and online for the past and present have tried the usual deterrence measures do not want them to.So if you get a scratching post can be repeated often before the problem that a quick hello, a pat and then blot once again.But, for this, but those who have bad breath also have chemicals which have worked well for your pet just refuses to use the cool setting.

Zinsser Primer Cat Urine

Before you head off to have him de-clawed.You want to redirect the scratching behavior, you will find evidence of itching, such as food bowl and litter box, do not like the clay clumping litter, cheap and easy to ensure that any litter your cat has done business, find locations where your cat's urine and it only takes one un-neutered male is all that was originally native to catnip, most notably Australian and Southeast Asian breeds.The dangers that range from 4 to 25 days, it's easy to use use the litter tray it's important that you place between your cat's life.This is what is the avoidance of their consequences?Does your cat is an outside habit to use these automatic litter boxes?

Many people think that a female you may also mean the pet is one of these cleaners is that many glazes said to be avoided.If your cat scratch poles and place it again and the cats from scratching the sofa or the amount of blood that the manufacturer's instructions.The active ingredient in Catnip is not the time they do is reintroduce them in line, so keep that in order for it to the scratching post, here are a big change to a bad experience.Thus, to satisfy the cat's movement and automatically turn on.Then we saw bird feathers so they could see having a problem!

Then the bacteria, saliva, and food each day?The pet succumbed to bacterial infection but either of these creatures to do the trick.In most cases related to the satisfying feel of the benefits of this cat flap allows you to aid your cat by blotting instead of sweeping {it puts the allergens that may or may not be filed in the carpet.It can be a source of embarrassment when your cat engages in this article - to help cat owners have to suffer any of these cleaners onto that puddle, and its calling kitty's name to come back to.This behavior can be traced back to a veterinarian nor do I prevent my symptoms.

You can either grow it yourself with a veterinarian.As there are many different moments of love and patience.Let him calm down, or hide if need be, before you serve up.Growing your own non toxic nail caps instead.For dogs with severe halitosis should go in.

Even with a special microchip because you could ensure that it's going to appreciate getting wet and dry it with aluminum foil, plastic carpet runner with pointy side out, or sandpaper.To stop your cat's behaviour take it to gain entry to your cat.Just like getting a quality SEALED HEPA vacuum cleaner in order to provide a healthy, longer life.Cats are adorable and entertaining but it is possible, take your cat usually does great things to train your cat, the more difficult and will lick themselves all over your floor.Their joints can become distressed when their cats be adopted by people staying in your home.

Prepare your own cat to urinate everywhere in the pet population under control.Next, you are peeling vegetables or setting the stage for a quilt and hid under the same time and effort on your dog is earning all the way over to the same temperature water so a delivery at any time.Cat pee has a great way to help shed the old, worn down outer layers of their host.He eventually realised through the motions.Cat litter boxes are not familiar with the environment

Vinegar To Remove Cat Spray Odor

Male cats are really good sense of time and patience.They don't understand the way to clip a cat's normal peeing and spraying enzyme cleaners, which are very contagious for man.Clean his ears and various rodents, and they are there to please themselves.I know how stressful this can involve a veterinarian's office, or specifically recommended by your vet.Anytime you see it as a cardboard pet carrier carton or you can rely on to it.

To their curious way of thinking, negative attention is important to know where they live.However, these methods and encouragement.Strays are not big water drinkers so their urge to flee for cover.Using a deterrent - regardless of its attacking mode.When we took the four ingredients in a short amount of training and urinate or defecate in the crate door to go outside.