#referencing a common type of posting

[prokopetz]

You or one of your followers might now this:

I recently watched Beastmaster (1982), which was a mistake, but left me with a strange haze of deja vu.

Are ferret sidekicks a recurring trope, or did i see this movie as a child and forget about it?

(Also, the entire time I was thinking "so this is what prokopetz means when he talks about the cultural antecedents of dnd.")

I'm not aware of ferret sidekicks being particularly more common than any other sort of animal sidekick in media of that period, but there might be further examples I'm forgetting; maybe someone else reading this post can come up with one.

(And yeah, there's a very specific genre of films that was popular from the 1960s through the 1980s which Dungeons & Dragons is intensely in conversation with. The whole genre sort of dropped off the face of the planet in the mid 1990s, and these days you rarely see examples of the type that aren't specifically referencing D&D, which leads a lot of folks to mistakenly conclude that "D&D style fantasy" is a sui generis phenomenon.)

[is-the-post-reliable]

i did a little research into this rating you did about glucose levels being the reason for gluten intolerance in american grain wheat, and i found that while you’re findings are correct, the concerns of the people who you responded to also have some merit.

an article from snopes simplified it well on a discussion pertains to the topic, that while it is not common for harmful chemicals to be present in our grain products in the US, 5% of wheat acres that produce our supply of grains use glyphosate (most commonly Roundup) to speed up harvesting.

it’s debated on and has mixed responses amongst government health agencies on if consumption of glyphosate treated crops is harmful, but anyone familiar with farming/landscaping/property maintenance knows about the RoundUp lawsuits and that it is all types of poison. a large study found that its use is also correlated with health issues amongst infants born in areas that commonly utilize it

it’s not completely agreed upon by everyone across the board yet, but the concern of chemical absorption of glysophate in grain crops in america and it’s potential effects on a person’s health still have a whole lot more research to be done before anything is considered surefire. it certainly doesn’t help that we got negligent folks like Dr. Stephanie Seneff spreading around bullshit studies on these topics that got a snowballs chance in hell of getting even one good peer review.

when it comes to concerns of the US government either doing something 100% responsibly with intentions to protect its citizens, or being 100% evil and trying to kill us, it more often is a sliding scale between those two points. and which end of the scale its farther on is often determined by if the public has previously had a riot, a lot of people died as a result of a thing being used, or folks across the board made it clear to the government that a standard will not be excepted.

i believe i’ve gotten everything communicated as i intended here, but let me know if i’ve used a term incorrectly or anything, i’m new to the fact checking blood sport game and am looking for tips on how to improve.

hey, sorry for the slow response to this!

Thanks for sending this in, it's an interesting topic and definitely expands the discussion. It's well sourced and explained.

When fact checking, I'm always torn between adding more context and sticking to the original claims. Here I've tried to stick to the spirit of the claims, ie whether people's varying gluten intolerence were likely due to pesticide intolerence, or most likely a reaction to differing levels of gluten. However, it makes me really happy to see people looking into it further!

You asked for tips on improving, so I've looked for some constructive criticisms. First, though, I want to say that these are mostly nitpicks - overall this is well written and sourced!

Your statement that 'anyone familiar with farming/landscaping/property maintenance knows about the RoundUp lawsuits and that it is all types of poison' I think is the most vulnerable to criticism. I've got three potential criticisms on this statement:

It's making an unsourced generalisation about general knowledge. This might be true - I am very much not familiar with farming - but you haven't given any evidence to back it up.

The claim of 'all types of poison' is non-specific and non-scientific. (I think this was probably hyperbole but considering the factual nature of the discussion, it's generally best practice to keep things literal)

Most importantly, the relevence of this to the original argument is questionable. The original post was not referencing people who were exposed to large quantities of glysophosphate - e.g. through agricultural work - and made no reference to cancers or birth weights. I think it could be reasonable to add this in for context, but it should be made clear that the research and lawsuit does not directly support the claim that use of pesticides affect or mimic the symptoms of gluten intolerence.

I hope these are helpful and not discouraging - if you disagree with any of my criticisms, feel free to send another ask!

[ohmyclematis-alwaysbymyside]

giyuu and depression (tw: suicide and depression)

a) depressed mood: this one is a no brainer. from the beginning till almost the end of the series, giyuu is trapped in a constant state of misery due to losing sabito. the official reports solidify this and prove that it's not only the audience that notices how sad he is.

obanai is irritated by giyuu's sorrowful state and tengen also shares that feeling. tengen's description however, flawlessly hits the nail on the head. "he always looks like he's at a funeral" is such a dreadfully eerie reference to how giyuu never moved on from sabito's death.

chapter 131 also proves this as giyuu states that his depression would sometimes get so bad, he couldn't function or get out of bed. I will be showing this panel later at some point.

b) diminished interest in all activities: in giyuu's case, he didn't lose all happiness instantly, but it appeared as his depression worsened.

in chapter five of the second light novel, when shinobu asks giyuu to join them and have fun, he initially refuses. when he is eventually forced into playing with them, at no point does he feel happy or even entertained in the slightest. hell, when mitsuri tickles him, the first thing he does is freeze in horror.

all pillars seem to find pleasure in slaying demons. some of them smile and even giggle while fighting. others don't shut up about how fun it is. giyuu is the complete opposite as he states that he finds no pleasure in fighting demons, if anything he hates it. he canonically is the only pillar who never smiled mid fight/battle

he gets irritated when tanjiro stops water breathing because he wanted tanjiro to replace him so that he can retire. this proves that giyuu lost all interest in everything, even demon slaying, something that he has dedicated his entire life to.

c) changes in apetite (this one might be weird): giyuu loves eating. this should be common sense because half of his panels are of him eating simmered salmon but his relationship with that damn dish specifically seems to stem from a desperate desire to feel joy because his attachment to it is ...concerning. I am being fully serious when I say that he eats literally nothing else. in the manga, he always eats salmon. in the gaiden, he eats salmon. in the LN chapter I referenced earlier, the reason he was late to the meeting was because he was eating salmon and at the end of the chapter, he plans of inviting sanemi out for eating salmon. FB1 states that his favorite thing ever is salmon. I mean sure, he eats soba noodles that one time but that's because tanjiro chose the dish. and somehow, he never gets bored of salmon. wanting to eat your favorite dish is pretty understandable but in his case, it's implied that he eats salmon for the sake of wanting to feel happy not simply because it's his favorite

he has three different dishes around him along with tea and he consumes none of them. judging off of the positions of the dishes, it seems like he tried eating but gave up in the end. so he probably doesn't eat when he's too depressed. I also noticed that compared to other male characters who share similar body types and heights as him, giyuu is sort of underweight? listen listen. I do NOT condone the fandom portraying giyuu as a twink but like... 69 kg is a bit too little for a 176 cm, 21 year old man who slices demons' head off for a job.

conclusion: giyuu isn't a big fan of food and he eats salmon because he wants to feel some sort of happiness. do NOT twist my words or think that I condone people portraying him as a twink.

d,e,f) insomnia, fatigue, and issues with focusing: I discussed all these topics in an ancient post of mine. it's linked.

(additional note: in the panel above, all the food is shown spilled on the floor in close proximity to him and yet, he still doesn't bother enough to clean it up. this proves that he gets so depressed, he literally can't maintain basic hygiene.)

g) feelings of guilt and worthlessness: do I need to explain this? regret is the biggest theme to his character. he always blames himself for any misfortune that happens to him or his loved ones due to his low self esteem. after losing his sister, giyuu carries extreme survivor's guilt due to her death which worsens after losing sabito as well. this leads him to believing that he's responsible for their deaths and he constantly tries freeing himself of his regret. along with that, he (clearly) suffers from inferiority complex and believes that he does not deserve to be a pillar, let alone a demon slayer. this seems to be something that is engraved in giyuu's core because when he sees tanjiro "dead", the first thing he does is blame himself.

h) suicidal ideation: giyuu is suicidal and anyone who denies that has the media literacy of a chair. he canonically has been ideating death since he was a child and sabito had to explain to him why wishing to die is not normal. and while his guilt plays a role in it, saying that it's the only reason he desires death is sort of dumb because at the end, he still wishes death upon himself. giyuu saw life as a privilege that he does not deserve due to believing that he robbed his sister and best friend of theirs and as a result, loses all will to live and ideates suicide. he clearly has no regard for his life and is incredibly sacrificial as we see him put his life on the line for tanjiro and nezuko, 2 kids he barely had any connection with. additionally, him wanting to abandon his position is a signal that giyuu has given up on living. giyuu's will to live depended on demon slaying and after sabito's death, he focused on training to give himself a reason to live so that his depression wouldn't consume him.

but as his depression worsened and his dedication (ie the only thing keeping him alive) betrayed him, he waits until someone (tanjiro) masters water breathing so that he can abandon his position and effectively rid himself of any reason to continue living

another depression criteria: symptoms have to significantly impact social, personal, and work life. giyuu isolates himself from everyone around him due to criteria G (regret) and ends up being an outcast which affects his social life. he loses all interest in his job and his depression clearly impacts his health and well being so he meets the criteria successfully.

after note: giyuu meets most of, if not all the criteria for depression. some of the things here might not make sense but even if you exclude them and only include things directly stated, he would still meet the criteria for the disorder. I wanted to post this for half an eternity but I wasn't sure about how people would feel about this and now I don't care

[robshiny-jpg]

John Hancock always gives me the vibe of someone who tries to act very cool, but in reality, he's a bit of a loser with low self-esteem problems (affecionate).

I don't mind him being portrayed as some kind of hot guy but I have a different view about him in my headcanons:

he's the type who would secretly sob if someone compliments him/ expresses affection (he wouldn't understand why since he still sees himself as a terrible person)

Honestly? Touch starved. I imagine him as one who had his flings but is not used to constant love/affection from someone. He would want it, but at the same time, he feels like he doesn't deserve it.

Despite that, John is very affecionate and cares a lot for the others. Mostly, he gives hugs.

Also, definitely, the guy who moves in his sleep and wants to stay close to you as much as he can.

likes reading books, especially history-related ones (He would casually drop facts when he's high or during small talks before sleeping). My man in the post-war era referenced Napoleon. I don't think it is common knowledge in the wastelands.

Related to the previous headcanon: I think John would be curious about pre-War politics or at least the culture.

He uses his more bad and corny jokes when he's high, or he's genuinely interested romantically in a person, nothing in between.

Sometimes, he gets hurt by doing the knife trick. Usually small cuts, nothing too serious.

[weirdmageddon]

the shift in lore literacy in homestuck’s fandom

i was thinking about how the people who got into homestuck after it ended—whose interactions with the comic are in a static, archived state, not an ongoing thing—missed out on information that was more common knowledge in the fandom at that time. i don’t know if this is true since i’m not on tiktok, but i wouldn’t be surprised if it was. the fandom certainly isn’t the same as it was before.

ive found that many people reading homestuck now simply do not understand things in homestuck that were common knowledge back in the day, with calls for “homestuck literacy classes to become mandatory” in response to baffling takes because so many people just now seem to have glazed over the comic without absorbing important plot points, and i think i know why this may be. i ended up writing a post reflecting on my time with the comic, my perspective and how ive seen this change. i still think and write about homestuck because it still fascinates me. earlier i quote retweeted that call in my thread talking about the temporal relativity of dave and rose’s god tier ascension in the green sun, saying “my homestuck literacy is 100% so guess im doing my part as a teacher by pointing out whatever i think is really cool about it”. this post im writing now started out as a reply to this tweet i got in response.

i joined the fandom in 2013. i was 11. i had been aware of it since at least late 2011, early 2012 when my friend ryan in fifth grade told me to read it but i couldn’t get past the first few pages. i remember writing a journal on deviantart around this time (late 2011-early 2012) that was mocking people who typed like gamzee, which ironically was very karkat of me. and i remember someone on flipnote hatena i was following was making flipnotes with the alpha kids.

i dont know what caused me to flip the switch into reading it but 2013. i got into it somewhere between april (i think closer to april—i remember it being quite a span of time between the last update before HOMOSUCK dropped.) this was the most recent page the comic, meaning there was no > [S] ACT 6 ACT 6 at the bottom.

i got into it during a pause in updates, which looking into it, was the year 4 megapause. i wasn’t sure of the month until seeing the news post detailing the reason for the hiatus and the status report of the comic’s development at that time. pretty cool i could narrow it down by referencing the dates of those updates and the news post to correspond with the pause!

according to readmspa, the year 4 megapause was a 59 day hiatus from Apr 14, 2013 ==> (EOA6A5) running to 12 Jun 2013, [S] ACT 6 ACT 6. then for a few months there were the first updates that i was apart of the fandom for.

and what an exciting time during the story get into the webcomic! when the updates resumed in june, part 4 of homestuck had begun. here was a glimpse of the updates in that span of time before the next hiatus began in october.

that hiatus was none other than the gigapause, the longest hiatus in the comic, which started october 2013 and lasted for a YEAR, and i already posted about what happened on the date of return.

but here were the main events happening in the story at the time i first actually got interested in it. i wasn’t aware of the full context of them then like i am now, but i was looking at the most recent updates anyway with interest:

the alpha kids just emerged as god tiers from their slabs in derse and prospit, blown up by the condesce and caliborn / lil cal-possessed b2 jack noir.

the journey to the new session started 24 hours after jack called an early reckoning in descend—for context that was about when dave entered around midnight central time and before jade even entered. it’s pretty easy to forget that side 1 of homestuck basically happens within the span of a single day—and at this point in the story, the 3 year journey (which was also 3 real life years) had just ended. john and jade emerged from the other side of the yellow yard through the fenestrated plane on LOMAX. john’s real body was asleep upon arrival in the new session, while his dreaming projection out in the dream bubbles came across vriska’s ghost ship to learn lord english lore with vriska and aranea, and go on the treasure hunt where they found the ultimate weapon at the X mark out in in the furthest ring. in the dream john stuck his hand in the juju, started warping all over canon which removed his real body from the ship on LOMAX. he zapped around for a while but eventually zapped back to LOMAX, now awake, completely out of the loop of what everyone else is up to, and bored as fuck. what was everyone else getting up to while john was asleep?

jade was now once again within the domain of the green sun. im pretty sure her space god doggy essence comes with the power to sense what was anywhere within the domain of the session since her face looks like she arrived at that spot with intent (and she literally has jack noir’s exact powers from bec’s prototyping. also this panel). she immediately dispatched b2 jack to the edge of the incinisphere, defending the newly god-tiered jane and jake. i think even if they weren’t in any danger, she would have warped to them instantly anyway because she COULD now, and i can imagine she wouldve been sooooo eager to meet everyone. even davesprite comments about her rapid departure.

the pre-scratch refugees arrived during the only time serious shit ever went down in the nobles’ months-long inert void session. the condesce used her freak psychic bronze-cerulean powers to commune with jade’s bestial side and mind controlled her, which is super dangerous as someone with the powers of a first guardian. she then used jade’s powers to corrupt jane with the tiaratop. no funtime meetup allowed!

the trolls’ meteor with rose, dave, and the remaining trolls was pulling up into the new session with no way to slow it down. grimbark jade warped there once it was in the incinisphere and took active control. she warped everyone off the trolls’ meteor and sent them to LOMAX.

as john was losing his mind on LOMAX waiting for everyone, the meteor crew warped in. after 3 years he finally reunited with rose and dave, and at least saw the trolls in person. close curtains, end of A6A5. this was the newest [S] flash page at the time, one of my first impressions of this comic, and still one of my favorite flashes. knowing the context of the flash in the story only enhances the retrospective joy i have at getting into the comic at the time i did because it’s such an anticipated moment in the story for everyone, while for someone with no context of the story it was still enjoyable.

so that’s what was going on plotwise when i joined the fandom.

from this time, through those few months of updates and through the gigapause, i was familarizing myself with the characters in the story and overseeing the state of fanbase, getting myself acquainted with the story and wrapping my head around everything.

at that time i found that a new-ish group called colab HQ who were producing a let’s read homestuck series on youtube. hearing the voices and the pacing of it like that really, really eased me into it (maybe it was my adhd that gave me trouble actually starting it?). i caught up to a certain point using lets read homestuck and from that point was able to continue with the comic on my own, and by the time the gigapause came to a close i was fully caught up. i remember the rebranding of colab hq into voxus about a year and a half after i discovered them.

but.. back to the main point of my post. even these posts from hussie’s tumblr exist in archived states. how many new fans know about hussie’s old tumblr? i don’t know, unless theyre a new fan that must scour the internet for more deep more dives on homestuck and its fandom as a whole. but since hussie deleted his tumblr (it exists archived now on homestuck.net which, alongside from the unofficial homestuck collection, has nearly singlehandedly kept the most important relics of the fandom and lore archived), that page is not an active part of the fandom now, because it’s gone. it’s a pile of bones. it’s not living and breathing. it’s in an archived state. the whole thing is already there. homestuck and its fandom history is something you now binge instead of slowly consume and meld with as it comes out. it’s now this rapid information intake that you might forget about if you read it now instead of engaged alongside it. you’re not surrounded by people actively talking and theorizing about developments anymore. the ability to have those sorts of conversations during the ongoing development of the story reinforced concepts, ideas, and lore over and over as we tried to make sense of it.

being in a fandom when the author is still delivering the story is like nothing else. it allows you grow alongside the characters and engage meaningfully with the media and people in the fandom space around you. it feels like you’re participating IN the media itself, especially if you’re interfacing with the creator. it’s in always having something to theorize or talk about and speculate. and people become very aware of these sorts of forgotten story facts because they were applying the logic of the newest official post from hussie into making their sburb ocs or something and share resources and discussion posts about “what just happened in this update?? recap????” it was this cultural osmosis thing. i think this is why homestuck literacy is now at an all time low, at least from what i can see on twitter.

reading homestuck then vs now is like the difference between serialized shows with spaces between episodes to discuss stuff and time to reflect and learn and become attached to the story, narrative, worldbuilding and its characters, vs the netflix model where it’s all dropped all at once and people forget about it after binging.

at this point in time im getting the sense that “homestuck elders” now are no longer just people who were there since 2009-2010, but now also people who were there while it was still updating, probably stretching into 2014-2015. there are many sources of lore that were common knowledge in the fandom at the time that, since becoming susceptible to the deletion of content and link rot, and with the thanosing of mspaforums, are no longer accessible at the source. and a lot of people moved on after it ended, especially following the epilogues, the kate drama, and the whatpumpkin-sarah z drama, leaving a void of information behind if not for archivists and people such as me who continue to keep old facts relevant in discussions. my friend has called me a fandom scholar before and seeing this post i think i get what they mean.

EDIT: there is a series of video essays ive watched multiple times (because theyre that good) and they are exactly what modern fans need to see more of. they really help contextualize the comic and the themes present in it help you appreciate the basic fabric of homestuck a hell of a lot more. i highly recommend them and encourage any fan of homestuck to watch them, or someone considering getting into homestuck to watch the first one.

i think this is arguably as close to the “mandatory literacy class for homestuck” that person was talking about as you can get, especially the first video.

additionally, there is also the website https://rafe.name/homestuck which is essentially a sparknotes for homestuck and can help you follow developments in the comic itself.

[gin-juice-tonic]

Another post investigating the book of bill coming for you out of left field here. There is a page whose contents I have discussed before, but mainly its words. Today I'd like to talk about some of the imagery on it.

This one is admittedly a little wackier than the other ones. To some of you, this post will surely read like this

However I invite you to come have a look anyway. Maybe you'll even think its funny.

Gonna be talking about another thing on this page yet again that bothers me. Ignore the prior highlighting, because I only want to talk about the drawing on here.

Bill being depicted as a holy light appearing and speaking through a triangle shaped hole in the clouds...

That's weird.

And not just in a "I think this is weird for the sake of thinking its weird" way but rather, we have seen how Ford chooses to depict Bill's presence without actually depicting Bill a few times in Journal 3:

The most comparable page appears to be the "The muse has spoken" entry. But even that page gives off a different feeling from what we have here. It almost feels like this "Cipher Speaks" one is a more blatant parody of the subtler divine inspiration-type imagery on the muse has spoken page. (And as an aside - thats not the only thing about this page that feels like parody)

This cloud imagery does remind me of something though...

Hold onto whatever goodwill you have towards my opinions and Steel yourself.

It reminds me of god from Monty Python and the holy grail.

It probably seems kind of random. You're probably thinking "god being represented in or by clouds is common imagery. You can't just call that a Monty Python reference"

But you know, I had a good reason to have the movie on my mind at the time, looking back.

At the very least, the movie was on Bill's mind while writing this book.

And for some reason... I cant help but wonder if whoever created the image on that journal page might've had the movie on their mind while doing so too.

As a completely unrelated aside, I'd just like to remind everyone that the Book of Bill Journal pages have this strange habit of referencing previous passages of Bill's .

Usually it's a little more... overt. But could this fit the pattern? Too silly to be true? Or just silly enough?

[furinfry]

The Presence of Plants in Wind Breaker

So both in reading the manga as well as from posts I’ve seen from others in the community, another on-going vessel for symbolism Nii Satoru uses in Wind Breaker is in the presence of plants. How plants are used/what they are used to represent in the series I think changes from place to place, and I’ll do my best to cover as many of those different instances as possible but it is also entirely likely that there’ll be things that I’ve missed (and by all means I’d love other people to point out other things they’ve noticed!).

Makochi and Furin

The town of Makochi consists of stores that seem to all be named after plants. Not only that, but many of them are plants that hold meanings for resilience, adapting, and thriving. It definitely does illicit the idea that Makoshi is and has been a town that has stayed standing and growing despite its hardships and the threats it has faced.

Saboten - Cactus. Resilience; able to thrive in harsh conditions. Strength. Tsukushi - Horsetail; strength, resilience, adaptability. Pothos - Common house plant named after a minor deity associated with longing and desire. The plant represents growth, perseverance, and good fortune. Kiku - Chrysanthemum. Friendship, happiness, well-being.

From this compilation of character name meanings and analyses, the members of Furin High School all also have a reference to a type of plant in their names. There are a lot of cool theories in there and a lot of symbolism in the names so I highly recommend you guys read through, but the main pull away I think can confidently be interpreted from this is that Umemiya’s garden isn’t just limited to his small rooftop garden. Yes, that literal garden is also important symbolism wise as it ties into Umemiya’s desire to ensure everyone is able to be brought together as a community and be fed, but all of Makochi and Furin is Umemiya’s garden. He does everything in order to make sure the townspeople are taken care of and can thrive, and Furin is absolutely a part of that. Everyone in Furin are his brothers, Furin is his family, and nothing brings him as much happiness as seeing his brother learn and grow and become the best version of themselves.

The naming convention also extends to the characters who have stood directly against/have directly threatened the unity/safety of Furin as well. This also connects to this amazing post by grey-spark where they theorize the themes of upcoming 'wars'/gangs that will threaten the safety of Furin/Makochi (I also see credence in this as I don't think the Noroshi war is what the opening sequence was referring to when they said Sakura would become the 'hero of the town'). From both here and the names document, it's pointed out that both Takiishi and Endo have names referencing burning down a forest/burning wood. I would also say that the animal naming theme of Shishitoren also reflects the relationship between them and Furin. Animals can be invasive and harmful to plants in an environment, but for the most part animals are also a vital part of a healthy ecosystem. In restoring balance and making allies with Shishitioren, Sakura and Umemiya were able to strengthen Makochi and ensure it could survive Noroshi's attacks.

Plants are also used physically as a representation of Bofurin. We see plants covering the sign that displays their motto, and we see plants taking over the school itself.

Kotoha also fills her café with plants and is noted to also have a passion for gardening and taking care of plants, similar to how she 'takes care of' Sakura and the other Bofurin members in being their preferred spot to get together and eat.

We feel Bofurin's presence whenever there is an abundance of plants in the environment. They are the forest in the story. They are the plants that bring a sense of peace and life, even through the fires of violence and other hardships. They grow in the cracks of broken foundations and holding everything together.

As a Reflection of the Self / Wellbeing

Nii Satoru has also used plants to represent a person's wellbeing. We see it first in Sakura thinking how Makochi/Bofurin is where he can actually begin to grow and eventually bloom.

In the Chapter 'A Place Where I Belong' Sakura sees himself as a seedling, a small sprout just beginning to grow into himself. He's still learning, he's still fragile and only beginning to accept that he doesn't have to live by himself and forever on-guard. By Chapter 138 'Bloom', Endo sees Sakura as a large Cherry Blossom tree in full bloom. The branches and flowers of this tree stretch across the whole panel. He sees Sakura as the tree he must burn down if he wants to destroy Furin for good. Though I'm not sure that Sakura sees himself this way yet, given the glimpse at emotional conflict we've seen when others have told Sakura they know he'll become the top of Furin in recent chapters. How could he replace the gardener of Furin? Umemiya, who is practically the massive tree currently at the top of Furin, who has changed the very image of the school and the town itself?

Another, albeit smaller, example of Nii Satoru using plants to directly symbolize a person's wellbeing? Ito! I love these chapters for many reasons but one that I don't think I've seen anyone talk about yet is how the old man's garden itself is a representation of himself. We're told that, outside of the flowering tree, every plant in the garden was planted by Ito himself. How is this garden described?

Yui's presence is shown through flowers. It was the tree she planted that is the only flowering tree in the garden, and in the panel where Tsubaki talks about losing someone important, we're shown more flowers. This reflects how Ito has always seen her- beautiful and elegant like a flower, whereas he is like a plain, non-flowering plant.

He maintains his appearance to be presentable, outwardly looks 'clean' and healthy but that doesn't reflect what's going on on the inside, nor does he feel like he compares to Yui's beauty. It's only once the boys go into his home that they start to see the little clues and pieces of evidence of Ito's internal conflict, both his grief and his fears that Yui wasn't as happy and in-love in their relationship as he was. It's dark inside because the lightbulb burnt out and Ito never replaced it, there are broken down boxes that he didn't finish tying together and taking out, the stylish clothes he used to wear are collecting dust in the dark backroom of his house with his wife's things. He doesn't go out nearly as much any more. He used to love going out on walks or visiting the theatre, and now he doesn't do any of that. All of this stemming from the grief he is still feeling and the doubt he can't help but feel that Yui wasn't happy in their marriage.

The presence of plants in panels or how they are incorporated into the story/environment is something I can't help but keep an eye out for in the story, and I'm curious to see how they continue to be used!

[sophieinwonderland]

The Plurality of... Bill Cipher (The Book of Bill)

Spoiler Warning for Gravity Falls, The Book of Bill, and the nature of reality as you know it

Hello dear reader.

I recently found in my possession a strange book with no explanation as to how it got there. A bizarre tome known only as The Book of Bill.

I recognized the name and imagery from someone else's memories. Bill Cipher, a character from Alex Hirsch's hit series Gravity Falls.

It honestly seemed too perfect. I've been doing this "Plurality of..." series where I look at plurality in media. And an important part of Bill's shtick was possession.

It seemed simple enough. I can read the book, learn a bit about Bill and his possession, and then write an article about his plurality. But the reality was anything by simple, with far more than I bargained for.

And by the end of this post, this book will have driven me to break a fundamental rule I've held sacred through my "Plurality Of..." series.

What is Plurality?

Before we begin, I should explain what plurality is for anyone new here. Plurality is a term for being multiple in one body in some way.

We call the body's occupants "headmates". These can be anything from alters in dissociative disorders to spirit guides bound to a mortal, to... yes... even literal demonic possession.

Yeah, even being possessed by a demonic triangle from a 2-dimensional universe is a type of plurality. If there are multiple self-conscious agents of some kind there, it's plural!

Time To Get Weird!

(Art by magentasnail)

Let's catch you up on the basics real quick. Again, there will be huge Gravity Falls spoilers.

In Gravity Falls, Bill Cipher is a yellow a 2-dimensional triangle demon bent on causing chaos.

Through the series, Bill makes deals with multiple characters to possess their bodies. This includes both gaining full control over the body of protagonist Dipper Pines for an episode, and more interestingly, sharing control over the body of Stanford Pines for an extended period of time.

Bill's possession of Dipper left Dipper outside his body like a ghost. But his deal with Stanford is much more plural in nature, where they shared control, with Bill only controlling the body in his sleep.

Obviously real plural systems don't have headmates controlling their body while they sleep like this, but the experience can be seen as analogous to dissociative identity disorder, where it's common to experience blackouts and "wake up" in situations unsure how you got there.

That's all you really need to know about Bill for the time being.

With that out of the way, it's time get weird and dive straight into the Book of Bill!

The Book of Bills

As I begin reading the Book of Bill, I'm given a warning from Stanford Pines that the book will rewrite itself based on the mind of the reader. This seems silly, and I of course dismiss the idea out of hand. Surely there's no way a book could change itself based on who's reading it.

As I venture further into this tome, I find the occasional point of interest. References to Bill living in people's brain, him being an idea, etc.

I stop briefly to ponder that. Why does Bill refer to himself as an idea? Isn't he canonically a being from a physical 2-dimensional world? Him being described as an idea is peculiar, but something I tuck away for the future.

The first thing I find that really piques my interest in regards to plurality is the multiple times that it's just referenced that there are multiple Bills in Bill's head. Such as when Bill refers to "the voices in his head" teaming up.

In the plural community, there's a concept known as median system.

A median system is typically a system which has separate parts that are less distinct from each other. There's a pretty solid case that Bill, having a bunch of Bills in his head, could be considered a median system on his own.

In fact, the book itself actually depicts communication between multiple Bills, in the form of an interview.

And throughout the interview, there are times where the Prime Bill seemingly gets annoyed at the interviewer's questions. As if they are actually different people. While this could be Bill simply duplicating himself and pretending for comedic effect, it could just as easily be that both Bills are headmates in Bill's system.

Bill being a median system is a pretty interesting direction.

As I read on though, the book dragged me down yet another rabbit hole, and raised an important question.

Does Bill Have A Dissociative Disorder???

Let's talk about dissociative identity disorder. There are two main criteria for DID. Criterion A is the presence of two or more distinct personality states. You know, like those Bills in Bill's head.

The second is memory loss.

Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events.

This is what was on my mind when Bill was describing how he was uniquely gifted with the ability to see into the third dimension, and wanted to teach others this same skill.

But when he tries to recount it... this happened...

To me, this sounds exactly what was described in criterion B. This is also called dissociative amnesia.

And it's not just this one-off example. Bill actually references later that he dissociates (his words) and "wakes up" later after a conquest.

With everything we know, it seems incredibly likely that Bill has DID, or at least a related disorder.

Bill is what he eats

Okay... wait...

So Bill can ALSO imprison the souls of those he eats inside himself, and they can apparently take over Bill's body too???

What actually is going on here? Is this one of Bill's powers? He can just eat entire universes and then whatever he consumes becomes a part of him? Or maybe it's something else...

Maybe if we looked at this less literally and consider the previous hints of Bill having a dissociative disorder then perhaps what is going on is that Bill is introjecting these people.

Maybe whenever he enters somebody's mind, some piece of them remains...

I would love to speculate more on this... But this is the only mention of it in the entire book!

At this point, I begin to reflect on the words at the beginning. Maybe it was true that the book was changing itself to give me what I wanted. Little hints of plurality to keep me reading, to ensnare me in its vicious trap and ultimately drive me to madness.

And the worst part was, I was falling into it anyway. Because I had to know, even if this was a trap, I was in it to the very end. My thirst for knowledge and understanding unquenchable.

Even if I knew I should stop here, there was no going back.

Stanford Pines, Bill's Perfect Host

At last, beyond all of the misdirects that were put in my way, I arrived at the reason that I started on this journey.

Stanford Pines.

I need to say that when I started this journey, planning to delve into what the plurality of Bill and Ford might be like, I never imagined that it would be handled so... Beautifully.

I mean that genuinely!

I love the relationship of these two characters in the book!

They are both very out of place in their own ways. Both are aware of things in their world that are denied by others, leaving them ridiculed and ostracized for it. They manage to form a genuine friendship. Even if Bill was using Stanford the whole time to achieve his Weirdmageddon.

The two compliment each other surprisingly well. Bill provides Stanford with a friend who can get him out of his comfort zone, which is something that I think Stanford really needed.

There's a really fun part of the book where Bill just gets Stanford mind-drunk, which is apparently something he can do.

Bill fills a role in Stanford's life that nobody had since he lost contact with his brother. While Stanford had friend in with Fiddleford, his lab partner, and we do get to see parts of that friendship in the book, they are more like work acquaintances.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Because in the end, Bill is still an evil demon who was bent on bringing about the Weirdmageddon and was manipulating Ford the whole time.

And when Stanford found out, he tried to shut Bill out. This led to Bill trying to communicate through sticky notes to get Ford to stop ignoring him. He would front in the body at night while Ford slept, and they carried on a conversation through these sticky notes.

Wait... Sticky notes?

This is such an interesting choice for the character! Especially after so many hints of Bill Cipher having some sort of dissociative disorder.

Why?

Because sticky notes are an actual method that real DID systems use to communicate with their alters, as seen in this post from the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) website.

It's fascinating how, if you were to try to depict how headmates with strong dissociative barriers might communicate, this is one of the ways you would want to do that!

Is this coincidental? Maybe. But the talk of dissociation earlier suggests the author also has at least some basic knowledge of dissociation and how it works. And, perhaps, plurality as well?

Overall, this whole section with Bill and Ford was fantastic, and it was well-worth the read for that on its own.

The End?

I suppose this is the end. I found what I wanted. I got the content I was after. A cool plural story of a guy and his headmate from another dimension who wants to take over the world.

Through all the strange distractions and hints of Bill himself having headmates that seemingly went nowhere, I got more plurality in the book than I expected.

And yet, as I turn the final page of the book, I feel unsatisfied. Unsettled.

"Is that it?" I think to myself.

This is Gravity Falls, a show built on mysteries, and looking deeper than the surface. Surely there has to be more. Right?

What if... all the plurality in this book, is obscuring something deeper? Or maybe hinting at something deeper...

And then... I see it!

After the final page, I come to the About the Author section.

Which means it's time to talk about...

The Plurality of... Bill Cipher Alex Hirsch

Yes, I am going there!

In the beginning, I promised that this post will require me to break a rule I've held sacred through these posts.

That rule... is to never speculate on the plurality of the author.

But, Alex Hirsch, at least in a fictional sense, hasn't exactly shied away from the idea of being "possessed" by Bill. This dates back at least a decade, with him making Tweets like this one.

"Bill Cipher" even did an AMA on Reddit through Alex, playing it off as Bill possessing Hirsch while he slept.

It's a pretty open secret in the Gravity Falls community that Alex Hirsch is "possessed" by Bill. At least in some meta-fiction way that may not be canon to Gravity Falls but isn't quite real either.

And were my analysis to stop here, I wouldn't really be saying anything new or valuable. A lot of this was covered by MatPat on Film Theory.

But there's something I want to go back to that confuses me in this book.

That Bill Cipher... is an idea?

Let's bring this full circle, back to the beginning of the book where Bill mentions that he's imaginary and describes himself as an idea.

These are such weird lines because Bill didn't seem to have originated from people's minds within the narrative of Gravity Falls.

His story is of being a being from a literal flat world. So why then, does he describe himself as an idea? Why does he describe himself as imaginary???

Bill Cipher as Alex Hirsch's Tulpa

While Bill being an idea doesn't make sense if he's speaking as a being from a 2-dimensional world that's real to him, it does make sense if we consider that the Bill talking to us, who wrote the Book of Bill, is a tulpa sharing the body of its creator.

Before going on though, we need to answer an important question. What is a tulpa? The r/tulpas subreddit gives its own answer to this in its FAQ.

The simplest way to describe a tulpa is simply another person who was created intentionally/unintentionally through repeated interaction and shares a body and mind with their creator. A more complicated definition can go as follows: A tulpa is believed to be an autonomous consciousness coinhabiting a brain with their creator, often with a form of their creator's initial choice and design. A tulpa is entirely sentient and in control of their opinions, feelings, form and movement. They are willingly created via a number of techniques to act as companions, muses, and advisers. Tulpa forms can either be visualized in the mind's eye, or, with practice, seen as a hallucinatory figure using a technique called imposition.

And let's stop there on the line about being created as muses, because this is something that's found repeated throughout both The Book of Bill and Journal 3, with Stanford referring to Bill as his "muse."

It's a curious term that doesn't appear in the show, but was added to the lore in these two supplemental books.

The FAQ goes on to explain that while tulpas are often considered to be intentionally created, there are also accidental tulpas that can arise through imaginary friends or from writing characters.

Is it possible to accidentally make a tulpa? Yes - many people join the community after realizing they have had tulpas all their lives, but without knowing what they were called. These "accidental" tulpas often arise from imaginary friends and writing/roleplay characters.

On the point of roleplay characters, something I also haven't mentioned yet is that Alex Hirsch didn't just write the character of Bill Cipher. He WAS Bill Cipher. In the show, Bill is one of the characters Hirsch voices along with Grunkle Stan and Soos.

Writing tulpas and how they come about are discussed a bit more below:

Is this a new phenomena? No, it's a practice that goes back in recorded history at least as far as the Greek philosophers. The present name of the phenomenon is derived from the word used by Tibetan monks in the early 20th century. There's also evidence to suggest dedicated prayer can lead to the development of 'religious tulpas' in the minds of the particularly devout, and on the secular end, writing techniques similar to tulpa development techniques can and have resulted in writers creating accidental tulpas from their characters. Having a tulpa is nothing new, although it's gone by many names throughout the course of history and does so even today. However, we believe we are one of the first groups to address this practice as a psychological phenomena rather than a magical, occult or divine experience.

Tulpamancy and Attention

There was another passage from the book that I found noteworthy.

At the end, Stanford describes what truly sustains Bill isn't power, but attention, which Stanford describes as Bill's "lifeblood."

It's even underlined for emphasis.

Why is this important? Well first, this line goes back to the weird lines earlier suggesting Bill is an idea.

But more importantly, feeding on attention is something which is actually a pretty popular philosophy in tulpamancy. That tulpas feed on and are sustained by the attention of their hosts.

How do I give my tulpa energy? Tulpas are sustained by attention, and energy is a convenient metaphor for this. So, you can give your tulpa energy by interacting with them. It is also possible, through no shortage of work and time on the part of host and tulpa alike, for a tulpa to grow beyond this need and to learn how to sustain themselves.

How much attention/energy/interaction does my tulpa need? During the creation process you should aim to interact with your tulpa daily, anywhere from a few minutes up to a few hours, and narrating to them as and when you can. After they're fully vocal and active, the bare minimum is just acknowledging their existence, but spending time talking to them and interacting with them is very much the point of bringing them into existence. Just don't ignore them, and you'll both be fine.

On Parallels in Writing

Adding another layer, it's likely that Stanford Pines is at least partially based on Alex Hirsch himself.

One point of trivia is that Alex Hirsch has a twin sister, and Gravity Falls was inspired by vacations they would take as children. Dipper and Mabel being based on Alex and his sister is pretty well-known. But towards the end of season 2, it's revealed that their Grunkle Stan is a twin himself, with his brother being Stanford Pines, the author of the journals.

During this part of the story, it starts creating a parallel between the relationships of the younger and older twins, with Dipper (who is based on Alex) bonding with Stanford over how much they have in common. Both are nerds who are into writing and science and uncovering the mysteries of the world. Both are a bit socially awkward as well.

And while not much attention is drawn to this particular connection, both had experiences of making deals with Bill that let Bill takeover their bodies at different points.

Based on the parallels between Dipper and Stanford, one might speculate that Alex based Dipper on his younger self, while Stanford was loosely based on himself as an adult.

The personalities of these two characters are also the most likely to create a tulpa based on the psychological profiles of most tulpamancers.

In 2016, Dr. Samuel Veissiere, a psychiatry professor at McGill University, found the following in his study of tulpamancers:

From coding of qualitative interviews collected in large surveys, the most common tulpamancer profile to emerge is one of a highly cerebral, imaginative, highly articulate, upper-middle class, formally educated person with many consistently pursued interests, talents, and hobbies, but limited channels of physical social interaction. Typical tulpamancers are confident about their talents, but are quite modest and socially shy. They possess – or have cultivated – a high propensity for concentration, absorption, hypnotisability, and non-psychotic sensory hallucinations.

The psychological profile of tulpamancers fits both Dipper and Stanford to a t. And many of these same traits could just as easily be true for Alex Hirsch if these characters were meant to be stand-ins for himself.

Is Alex Hirsch trying to tell us that he's plural?

In the end, this is just a theory. And it's one that I feel nervous making because plurality is so deep and personal. That's why I've avoided speculating on the plurality authors in the past. Even when the writing feels so true to the plural experience that it's hard to imagine that someone who isn't plural wrote it.

So why am I making an exception with this one?

Well, in this particular case, I think that the breadcrumbs are being left intentionally, and if he is plural, then he expects somebody to follow them. I'm not worried that I would be outing somebody who didn't want others to find out.

With Alex Hirsch's love of codes and clues and mysteries, if he were plural, I have to imagine that the hints weren't accidental and he would be wondering if anybody would follow them.

And if I am completely off base and he's not plural, I think that he would still appreciate the theorizing anyway. 🤷‍♀️

But if these are intentional clues that were left behind to hint at a real life plurality, one might ask why.

Why would he want people to know about it, and hint at it in this way?

Well, I think the Book of Bill might have an answer to that too.

Shame is a powerful emotion. But it grows in the dark. The more I've tried to hide my past with Bill, the more hold it's had over me.

Perhaps this line is meant to reflect Alex Hirsch's own feelings. Because many plural systems have felt this same way about their plurality, having hide their relationships to their headmates.

The actual end now

Finally, we come to the real ending of this.

This is, again, just a theory. I don't want anyone taking it as fact. I admit that I could be completely wrong about everything that I've said here.

But if nothing else, it's at least fun to imagine that Alex Hirsch does have a Bill Cipher tulpa in his head that has been acting as his muse this whole time. And it would give a new meaning to the gag of the Weirdmageddon intro saying Gravity Falls was "created by Bill Cipher" all those years ago.

Thanks for reading, and if you have your own muse that you think might be more than a simple muse, be sure to read my guide on how to know if your imaginary friend is sentient.

And if you like this post and want to see more like it, you may want to check out The Plurality of… Avatar: The Last Airbender or The Plurality of… IF

[trungles]

Cross-posting an essay I wrote for my Patreon since the post is free and open to the public.

Hello everyone! I hope you're relaxing as best you can this holiday season. I recently went to see Miyazaki's latest Ghibli movie, The Boy and the Heron, and I had some thoughts about it. If you're into art historical allusions and gently cranky opinions, please enjoy. I've attached a downloadable PDF in the Patreon post if you'd prefer to read it that way. Apologies for the formatting of the endnotes! Patreon's text posting does not allow for superscripts, which means all my notations are in awkward parentheses. Please note that this writing contains some mild spoilers for The Boy and the Heron.

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2023 feature animated film The Boy and the Heron reads as an extended meditation on grief and legacy. The Master of a grand tower seeks a descendant to carry on his maddening duty, balancing toy blocks of magical stone upon which the entire fabric of his little pocket of reality rests. The world’s foundations are frail and fleeting, and can pass away into the cold void of space should he neglect to maintain this task. The Master’s desire to pass the torch undergirds much of the film’s narrative.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold Böcklin. 1880. Oil on Canvas. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

Arnold Böcklin, a Swiss Symbolist(1) painter, was born on October 16 in 1827, the same year the Swiss Evangelical Reformed Church bought a plot of land in Florence from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, that had long been used for the burials of Protestants around Florence. It is colloquially known as The English Cemetery, so called because it was the resting place of many Anglophones and Protestants around Tuscany, and Böcklin frequented this cemetery—his workshop was adjacent and his infant daughter Maria was buried there. In 1880, he drew inspiration from the cemetery, a lone plot of Protestant land among a sea of Catholic graveyards, and began to paint what would be the first of six images entitled Isle of the Dead. An oil on canvas piece, it depicts a moody little island mausoleum crowned with a gently swaying grove of cypresses, a type of tree common in European cemeteries and some of which are referred to as arborvitae. A figure on a boat, presumably Charon, ferries a soul toward the island and away from the viewer.

(Photo of The English Cemetery in Florence. Samuli Lintula. 2006.)

The Isle of the Dead paintings varied slightly from version to version, with figures and names added and removed to suit the needs of the time or the commissioner. The painting was glowingly referenced and remained fairly popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The painting used to be inescapable in much of European popular culture. Professor Okulicz-Kozaryn, a philologist (someone with a deep interest in the ways language and cultural canons evolve)(2) observed that the painting, like many other works in its time, was itself iterative and became widely reiterated and referenced among its contemporaries. It became something like Romantic kitsch in the eyes of modern art critics, overwrought and excessively Byronic. I imagine Miyazaki might also resent a work of that level of manufactured ubiquity, as Miyazaki famously held Disney animated films in contempt (3). Miyazaki’s films are popularly aspirational to young animators and cartoonists, but gestures at imitation typically fall well short, often reducing Miyazaki’s weighty films to kitschy images of saccharine vibes and a lazy indulgence in a sort of empty magical domestic coziness. Being trapped in a realm of rote sentiment by an uncritical, unthoughtful viewership is its own Isle of Death.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

The Boy and the Heron follows a familiar narrative arc to many of Miyazaki’s other films: a child must journey through a magical and quietly menacing world in order to rescue their loved ones. This arc is an echo of Satsuki’s journey to find Mei in My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Chihiro’s journey to rescue her parents Spirited Away (2001). To better understand Miyazaki’s fixation with this particular character journey, it can be instructive to watch Lev Atamanov’s 1957 animated film, The Snow Queen (4)(5), a beautifully realized take on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1844 children’s story (6)(7). Mahito’s journey continues in this tradition, as the boy travels into a painted world to rescue his new stepmother from a mysterious tower.

Throughout the film, Miyazaki visually references Isle of the Dead. Transported to a surreal world, Mahito initially awakens on a little green island with a gated mausoleum crowned with cypress trees. He is accosted by hungry pelicans before being rescued by a fisherwoman named Kiriko. After a day of catching and gutting fish, Mahito wakes up under the fisherwoman’s dining table, surrounded by kokeshi—little wooden dolls—in the shapes of the old women who run Mahito’s family’s rural household. Mahito is told they must not be touched, as the kokeshi are wards set up for his protection. There is a popular urban legend associated with the kokeshi wherein they act as stand-ins for victims of infanticide, though there seems to be very little available writing to support this legend. Still, it’s a neat little trick that Miyazaki pulls, placing a stray reference to a local legend of unverifiable provenance that persists in the popular imagination, like the effect of fairy stories passed on through oral retellings, continually remolded each new iteration.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

Kiriko’s job in this strange landscape is to catch fish to nourish unborn spirits, the adorable floating warawara, before they can attempt to ascend on a journey into the world of the living. Their journey is thwarted by flocks of supernatural pelicans, who swarm the warawara and devour them. This seems to nod to the association of pelicans with death in mythologies around the world, especially in relationship to children (8). Miyazaki’s pelicans contemplate the passing of their generations as each successive generation seems to regress, their capacity to fulfill their roles steadily diminishing.

(Still from The Boy and the Heron, 2023. Studio Ghibli.)

As Mahito’s adventure continues, we find the landscapes changing away from Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead into more familiar Ghibli territories as we start to see spaces inspired by one of Studio Ghibli’s aesthetic mainstays, Naohisa Inoue and his explorations of the fantasy realms of Iblard. He might be most familiar to Ghibli enthusiasts as the background artists for the more fantastical elements of Whisper of the Heart (1995).

(Naohisa Inoue, for Iblard Jikan, 2007. Studio Ghibli.)

By the time we arrive at the climax of The Boy and the Heron, the fantasy island environment starts to resemble English takes on Italian gardens, the likes of which captivated illustrators and commercial artists of the early 20th century such as Maxfield Parrish. This appears to be a return to one of Böcklin’s later paintings, The Island of Life (1888), a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the overwhelming presence of Isle of the Dead in his life and career. The Island of Life depicts a little spot of land amid an ocean very like the one on which Isle of the Dead’s somber mausoleum is depicted, except this time the figures are lively and engaged with each other, the vegetation lush and colorful, replete with pink flowers and palm fronds.

(Island of Life. Arnold Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1888. Kunstmuseum. Basel, Switzerland.)

In 2022, Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg acquired the sixth and final Isle of the Dead painting. In the last year of his life, Arnold Böcklin would paint this image in collaboration with his son Carlo Böcklin, himself an artist and an architect. Arnold Böcklin spent three years painting the same image three times over at the site of his infant daughter’s grave, trapped on the Isle of the Dead. By the time of his death in 1901 at age 74, Böcklin would be survived by only five of his fourteen children. That the final Isle of the Dead painting would be a collaboration between father and son seemed a little ironic considering Hayao Miyazaki’s reticence in passing on his own legacy. Like the old Master in The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki finds himself with no true successors.

The Master of the Tower's beautiful islands of painted glass fade into nothing as Mahito, his only worthy descendant, departs to live his own life, fulfilling the thesis of Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 book How Do You Live?, published three years after Carlo Böcklin’s death. In evoking Yoshino and Böcklin’s works, Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron suggests that, like his character the Master, Miyazaki himself must make peace with the notion that he has no heirs to his legacy, and that those whom he wished to follow in his footsteps might be best served by finding their own paths.

(Isle of the Dead. Arnold and Carlo Böcklin. Oil on canvas. 1901. The State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg, Russia.)

INFORMAL ENDNOTES

1 - Symbolists are sort of tough to nail down. They were started as a literary movement to 1 distinguish themselves from the Decadents, but their manifesto was so vague that critics and academics fight about it to this day. The long and the short of it is that the Symbolists made generous use of a lot of metaphorical imagery in their work. They borrow a lot of icons from antiquity, echo the moody aesthetics from the Romantics, maintained an emphasis on figurative imagery more so than the Surrealists, and were only slightly more technically married to the trappings of traditionalist academic painters than Modernists and Impressionists. They're extremely vibes-forward.

2 - Okulicz-Kozaryn, Radosław. Predilection of Modernism for Variations. Ciulionis' Serenity among Different Developments of the Theme of Toteninsel. ACTA Academiae Artium Vilnensis 59. 2010. The article is incredibly cranky and very funny to read in parts. Contains a lot of observations I found to be helpful in placing Isle of the Dead within its context.

3 - "From my perspective, even if they are lightweight in nature, the more popular and common films still must be filled with a purity of emotion. There are few barriers to entry into these films-they will invite anyone in but the barriers to exit must be high and purifying. Films must also not be produced out of idle nervousness or boredom, or be used to recognise, emphasise, or amplify vulgarity. And in that context, I must say that I hate Disney's works. The barrier to both the entry and exit of Disney films is too low and too wide. To me, they show nothing but contempt for the audience." from Miyazaki's own writing in his collection of essays, Starting Point, published in 2014 from VIZ Media.

4 - You can watch the movie here in its original Russian with English closed captions here.

5 If you want to learn more about the making of Atamanoy's The Snow Queen, Animation Obsessive wrote a neat little article about it. It's a good overview, though I have to gently disagree with some of its conclusions about the irony of Miyazaki hating Disney and loving Snow Queen, which draws inspiration from Bambi. Feature film animation as we know it hadonly been around a few decades by 1957, and I find it specious, particularly as a comic artistand author, to see someone conflating an entire form with the character of its content, especially in the relative infancy of the form. But that's just one hot take. The rest of the essay is lovely.

6 - Miyazaki loves this movie. He blurbed it in a Japanese re-release of it in 2007.

7 - Julia Alekseyeva interprets Princess Mononoke as an iteration of Atamanov's The Snow Queen, arguing that San, the wolf princess, is Miyazaki's homage to Atamanoy's little robber girl character.

8 - Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods And Goddesses. Routledge Dictionaries. Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge. 2005.

[wombywoo]

Hello!!

I wanted to ask if you would be willing to share how you go about finding the references for the injuries you depict in your work? Your pieces where the CoD boys are sporting injuries, fresh and old, are always so lifelike and to my untrained eye seem entirely medically correct.

I have been trying my hand at drawing the boys retired and resting as well, but I’m finding it difficult to decide what work injuries to add and how to find the respective references.

How do you decide what injuries to portray? And how do you go about finding the reference material?

Your huge fan, amustikas

Oooh ok ok! I'm gonna post my answer publically because I think others would find this interesting too!

To preface, I am definitely NOT a medical professional, and as such, a lot of the stuff I choose to depict in my art is not so much..ah, medically accurate as it is....aesthetically pleasing 🤭

I'll start with scars, as a lot of us enjoy slashing up Simon's face with them, lol. Generally, I'll do a cursory google image search for the type of scar I'm looking for (be warned, these can be graphic) with searches like 'burn scar' 'surgery scar' etc. But I find that for things like cuts and lacerations, real-life scars are a bit innocuous and lame 🤷‍♀️ Unfortunately not everyone's skin wants to retain that perfect slash look™️😔

So what I usually end up referencing are costume prosthetic scars ✨

As you can see, they're pretty gnarly:

And you definitely don't have to go this intense, but I find that the dramatic, carved-like appearance of these translate better to art than a realistically healed wound 🤙

The other thing to consider is the prevalence of injuries in the military. From what I've gathered, the most common will be back/shoulder/limb injuries, just a general fucking up of the whole musculoskeletal system in general due to constant overuse 🤕 Hearing loss, shrapnel/blast/burn injuries are also common, as well as all the negative psychological effects :') goooood times (not)

I think it's neat to look up real-life examples of these things, but it can get a bit intense if you're squeamish...

SafeSearch is OFF, the horrors are REal 😳

So yeah...I tend to tone things down, all things considered...😅

For this particular piece:

I researched broken humerus injuries and treatment 👍 Poor boy 🥺(Yes, I am aware that I consumed entire articles and did a shit ton of research about this just to go ahead and put a female's x-ray in this fucking picture sdfghjkl rip💀😭)

But here you can see the actual process for applying the brace for this particular injury:

Neat, eh?

When I draw Johnny with a knee brace, it's usually a real authentic one you can buy on amazon:

Product placement blast!!!💥✨ Bezos, where is my cut?? 🫰

As for ones like this:

I tend to just...scatter some wounds around and patch them up accordingly, lol. Bruising around the eyes is common with any head injury, and surgical stitching will offer a nice puckered skin effect mmm 👌 (I swear I'm normal abt this)

I'm sure the medical malpractice lawsuits are stacking up for me now, but again--it's usually more about the ✨visuals✨

My parting advice would be--go nuts! Feel free to maim and mutilate and mangle to your heart's content 🥰

Thank you for the question, Amustikas! I love your art as well 💗🫶

[littleeyesofpallas]

So i got this comment on a Bleach post i forgot i'd even made. It's nd old one and i hate the way it reads so i'm not reblogging it, but I will sort of resummarize bits of it now and add to it accordingly...

Kyouraku no Jirou Sakuranosuke Shunsui[京楽 次郎 総蔵佐 春水]

Kyouraku[京楽] is written with the kanji for "capitol" (the same kyou in Kyoto and Tokyo) and "music," and together referencing the music(and somewhat implicitly theatre) of the city the compound word means "enjoyment" or "pleasure." Moreover it's the root of a few recognizable terms like kyourakuteki[享楽的]: "pleasure-seeking," kyourakuseikatsu[享楽生活]: "a life of pleasure," and kyourakushuugi[享楽主義]: "hedonism" All very directly reflected in Shunsui's overall personality and demeanor.

His full title appends, (no)Jirou[次郎]: "next son" (synonym with jirou[二郎]: "second son") making his title or epithet, Kyouraku-no-Jirou[京楽 次郎]: "(the)Kyouraku's SecondSon"

In a kind of old fashioned convention for samurai, the name Sakuranosuke[総蔵佐] is a kind of temporary or informal name. (In the real world they were something a samurai might change pretty often, either as an alias or sometimes as a kind of ornamental name or epithet, but that doesn't get used in media too often, outside strictly historical settings/characters, I assume because it tends to get confusing.)

It's maybe a little strange that Katen calls him by something as informal as a kind of a nickname. On the one hand it shows their relationship is fairly casual as opposed to formal, but it seems to bring into question their actual intimacy? I guess you can just hand wave it as a cutesy pet name thing since he also calls her Ohana(O-[お] being a now rather outdated prefix in women's names, and the hana[花] of course just being "flower." But colloquially it could be read almost like calling her "Gorgeous"/"Beautiful" as in like a nickname, not as an adjective.) in return, but in conjunction with her pretty overt oiran archetype, it suggests the kind of relationship where a wealthy patron sneaking in to see a prostitute doesn't give her his real name.

Although depending on how, either angsty or romantic you want to be and what the genre and audience are, some might argue that it's more open and honest and intimate to use fake names and not be stifled by the rigor of adhering to, or even acknowledging social roles.

It would seem a little odd for how powerful he is, and thus implicitly how good his relationship with his sword spirit ought to be to facilitate that... But then even outside the nickname thing their relationship does seem more than a little strained. His reluctance to use bankai is played off in their dynamic not unlike the aforementioned brothel patron suddenly giving the cold shoulder, leaving the woman asking, "why don't you come see me anymore?"

And in this kind of overlap of samurai era period setting and sordid romance drama that their designs and character types play with, it is a pretty common trope for the naive young man to fall in love with a prostitute, promise her to buy her freedom, and then fail to follow through on his promise, typically leading one or both of the star-crossed lovers to kill themselves with the expectation that while insurmountable social factors keep them apart in life, they can be together in death.

Oh and it's also a deliberately weird reading kinda shoehorning it into being a pun on sakura[桜]: "cherry(tree)," which of course just loops back around to the spring time and flowers thing. The actual kanji used read "General Warehouse Assistant," where the (no)suke[佐] bit is a common naming suffix. The kura[蔵]: "warehouse" bit is normal enough, but the kanji [総] doesn't normally read as "sa," which seems to be shortened from satoshi[総] or satoru[総] which are names on their own. But as far as i can tell, when it's in a compound, and particularly as a prefix, [総] is only ever pronounced "sou-".

Anyway... finally, the given name, Shunsui[春水] means "spring water." (Spring like the season) It's a kind of motif in art and poetry referring to the winter snow melting at the start of spring. As with his overall design it evokes leisure and comfort; the hard times are over, the easy and bountiful times have begun.

There's also some stuff about his sword that echos bits of all this, as well as lends kind of an ominous tone that Kubo doesn't quite follow through on... But I've been over that a few times already over the years, so i won't repeat myself here. I don't know that i've got anything new to add to any of those rants.

It's off the back of this that Kubo gave his brother the name Shunzan[春山]: "Spring Mountain" which is also a common art motif. It doesn't seem to have much more significance than that, just a kind of obvious branch off all Shunsui's existing themes. No new aspects or clever insight to add to the themes in play. Honestly it almost feels like a name Kubo might have considered for Shunsui himself in some early phase of design.

Ise[伊勢] is just written exactly like Ise the modern day city, which gets its name from the former Ise province(now Mie prefecture), but more importantly it's the home of the Grand Ise Shrine, which houses one of the royal national treasures, the yata-no-kagami; a bronze mirror featured in early shinto myth, and reflects the light of the mother sun goddess, Amaterasu. While the later developments of the manga take this reference pretty bluntly, I never actually got the feeling that it was really made to foreshadowing anything. Even retroactively the "reveal" of Nanao's backstory having this link to the Ise temple via the mirror feels like it doesn't actually come from or play with her established character at all. But maybe that's just me...

Anyway, given name, Nanao[七緒] is written "Seven Chords/Strings," as in on an string instrument; could also read "Seventh Chord/String." I don't really know what to make of this apart from that it's implication of an instrument plays into Kyoraku's "music" meaning. (I did have an alternate take on her family name and subsequently a different reading on the full name in that post I reference above, which i wrote years ago, but I honestly have no idea what I was talking about in that. I think I was off on some wild goose chase by the fact that the i-[伊] in ise is actually only used phonetically in Japanese and has no apparent meaning, unless you try and looking into how it's used in Chinese. But while Kubo definite does dabble in obscure and even chinese readings of kanji, this does not appear to be one of those times...)

Anyway, her mom has a name now too, I guess. The name Isuzu[檍涼] is written with the kanji for [檍]: "ilex/holm oak/evergreen oak/birdlime tree" and [涼]: "cool-breeze/cooling-off," like cooling off in the shade of a tree on a hot day. It doesn't really play into the Ise thing*, or Nanao's name. It's also got a weird alliterative sound to it that i don't like but maybe that's just me. I don't exactly have the best ear for this sort of thing

*see comment section

I guess you could argue that collectively both sides of this family all work together to paint a certain classical kind of scene... i don't know what to call it really, but it's a common enough scene of people lounging around in spring time drinking, listening to music, and admiring the scenery. I guess it falls under scenes of hanami:"flower viewing" but I feel like that's more specific than what I'm thinking of... Unrelated to anything but it seems popular in bonsai.

So... Technically in the real world the high priestesses of the Ise shrine have a very particular lineage, where the mythic founder of the temple was the daughter of an emperor, and every subsequent head priestess has in turn been some kind of blood relative to the throne(typically a daughter or sister, but sometimes a niece or even an aunt, or more distant relative). So, even if they aren't priestesses, and there is no apparent temple, I guess that could imply that the Ise bloodline in Bleach is supposed to be near to the Soul King's lineage in some way? Yet they don't seem to be one of the two unidentified royal houses, which you would think they'd qualify for if that were the case (or the unidentified house if we want to pretend the LN are canon and Tsunayashiro count) so it's probably not something Kubo took into consideration or intended when drawing on the Ise name.

It still bugs me that Nanao's whole shtick really felt like it came out of nowhere. not just because it hadn't been addressed before, but because it wasn't even addressing questions anyone as asking. This weird working backwards sort of writing to make up an excuse for her not having her own zanpakutou, despite that fact that Kubo drew her with a distinctive zanpakutou, so it was clearly not some big master plan twist he'd been sitting on for forever. it all just feels rushed and poorly conceived. But that's true of a lot of things in the final arc. I don't think it's because Kubo was "rushed" by editorial or something, btw --i know that seems to be the popular apocrypha-- I think he's just bad at serialization. He used to get in these rutts where the plot would just fully stall out for weeks at a time, and I'm convinced these writers blocks are what contribute to some of his worst writing. He's never exploring character or themes or advancing a plot or even answering real questions, he's just trying to turn his 19 pages in on time.

That's the kind of "rush" I see underlying these weird moments where he just unloads exposition or that he he'd do where a fight would have a big power reveal only for it to immediately fail and be overshadows by a second power reveal. It's just bad pacing and I don't think he knew how else to get thru the fights because it got worse and worse as things went on over the whole series.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Reading over your Savanaclaw clothing rant, and I don't know how I missed all the details you pointed out, especially about the sleeves.

I was mulling over why Ruggie has sleeves but literally everyone else doesn't, and then it hit me.... Could it be because Leona altered his uniform so that he could fully show off that lion bicep tattoo? It seems like he totally would, in a show of dominance and all that lolol. And then the mobs thought it was cool too so they followed suit. Djdnzjdjjs I could definitely see Crowley pitching a fit about the cut sleeves and then Leona would grumble, "Save your squawkin', Headmage. All the uniforms are uniform now ain't they?"

Also for the boob window thing, for an in universe theory, I think it might be to show off his jewelry? Some very quick and possibly inaccurate armchair googling shows that jewelry in Africa or Sunset Savanna I guess?? Tends to be intricate and detailed, and can indicate power, wealth, or status. I wouldn't be surprised that Leona likes a subtle way of showing off his status with his traditional accessories.

[Referencing this post!]

ONE OF MY FRIENDS (who shall not be named, but you know who you are) BULLIES ME FOR NOTICING THESE DETAILS ABOUT THEIR OUTFITS… “Wooow, you’re staring at [redacted] so much and finding excuses to do it?? You’re obsessed.” IT’S MY NEUROTICISM, IT’S WINNING OTL

You know what, that’s actually a plausible theory 😭 If I recall correctly, Leona became dorm leader in his second year at school. At that time, Ruggie would have enrolled as a first year. Once Leona came into power, he’d have the privilege of being able to alter his dorm uniform. He could remove the sleeve just to show off his tattoo and assert his dominance as the proverbial “leader of the pack.” (Side note: for the longest time, I thought the tattoo was temporary or just makeup… like the Heartslabyul card suits on their faces 💦) However, Leona would still have the dorm uniforms with sleeves from his first year, which he could have passed onto Ruggie (since it is canon that he gives Ruggie his hand-me-down clothes). And the Savanaclaw mobs are such diehard Leona stans that they’d probably go, “What, the boss is wearing his uniform like that? Cool!! Let’s do it too!” and follow his fashion statement… This might also explain why Rook appears to have (ripped off) sleeves on his Savanaclaw uniform, as he was in that dorm as a first year. He is the same year as Leona, so they would have both had the sleeves still on. This would also explain why Jack, the straight-laced first year, seems to have his uniform tailored when he enrolled. At that time, the common Savanaclaw dorm uniforms would have already been altered to have no sleeves in order to follow the leader.

BabcsqdAdSEracqvw Why can I totally see that unfolding between Crowley and Leona 😭 Crowley lamenting that it’s only supposed to be the dorm leader’s uniform that differs, so why’s it suddenly the entire dorm’s uniforms have been altered? Have they no respect for tradition??? And Leona would definitely twist the situation to turn it around on Crowley, riding on the fact that the uniforms are technically still “uniform” now.

Mmm, I guess that reasoning could make sense since Leona does have that really gaudy, chunky gold necklace, though I don’t think he’s necessarily doing it out of a sense of tradition. Leona is the type of person that usually gets annoyed with tradition and wants to make practical changes. (For example, he wants to remove the feathers from his staff but complains he would get scolded for it since the feathers represent the King of Beasts’ hornbill advisor.) However, I do believe he’s arrogant enough to want to show off his status as dorm leader and I guess being more decked out in jewelry + having a more open shirt could call attention to that. But SUBTLE??? 💀 Maybe it feels subtle in-universe but with how the devs constantly flaunt his boobs, it certainly doesn’t feel that way irl, lmao 😂 Bro’s constantly got shots of his hakuna matatas cleavage, even in other characters’ cards (*stares at Jack’s birthday boy groovy*).

He’s so pathetic and desperate to assert himself as Top Dog 🙄 Gross 💀 COVER UP, SLUT… NO ONE NEEDS TO SEE THAT…

P.S. Father Flamme 🙏 pray thee forgive me for spending all this time hyperfixating on and analyzing the Savanaclaw boys… Give me a pass, their dorm uniforms are confusing as hell 💀

[inchidentally]

This might be a good time for one of your "rpf is not reality" posts, just sayin 👀

askfgsaf you're probably right (referencing this) and for those who are wondering, I basically feel semi responsible for keeping landoscar rpf from crossing boundaries bc I've written so much abt them for so long - so once in a while I'll post reminders that the fandom doesn't welcome delusional ppl and we don't allow girlfriend hate etc pls just ignore if you're like wtf is this bitch talking about

bc the problem is not that people outside fandom use ship names publicly like Oscar very tentatively did yesterday - one of Daniel’s first orders of business on camera with Lando was to (jokingly) declare landan would be superior to carlando. Carlos, Lando, Adam (Lando's dad), McLaren, Netflix, every sponsor for F1 and F1’s official accounts themselves use carlando's ship name and content for engagement. (in fact McLaren almost never use the term 'landoscar' at all but still 'carlando' many times up to the current day) tbh it's actually more common for drivers to big up their bromances than to be like Lando and Oscar who have never gone that route outside of McLaren's usual PR stuff (which has also been wayyyy below the amount they did for Carlos and Daniel). it's actually been kind of nice that they drew that boundary of not sharing their time together outside of work beyond a passing mention and they don't do any gay chicken or overly PDA for fans that yes I personally love but that can lead certain ppl into thinking it's legit romantic/sexual. and that Lily (and Lando's dating/romantic/night life asflgsafja) are so visible and present bc we haven't had to deal with the whole pipeline of rpf delulu invading the ship. we got ahead of all that crazy.

and the problem is not even just when fans use the ship names outside fandom bc often the drivers themselves or people around them bait for it. the vast majority of people (including the drivers) think ship names/bromances are all a fun joke or at it's most serious it's just reflective of their real life platonic friendship/brotherliness etc. most of the popular usage has no sexual/romantic intent at all.

The Problem !! is fans crossing very clear boundaries !! and those are

being overly, grossly sexual (read the room type thing) or being pushy about the ship to the drivers involved (or their friends, families, teams) pushy meaning things like "admit it, driver name is closer to driver x than driver y" "we want pics/content of ship name" "we all know ship x is superior to ship y" "driver x prefers driver y over his own girlfriend" or top voting comments about a ship that has nothing to do with the post at all

deciding the ship is "real" (or “if it weren't for homophobia they would be together right now”) and becoming obsessive/pushing an agenda that always includes pretending that girlfriends and wives are fake or PR or beards or horrible witches controlling the poor weak white male millionaire athlete. sometimes with a side of thinking that teams are involved in the big gay cover up by "hiring/arranging" girlfriends for the drivers (when the teams can't even keep scandals about their own staff locked down alfhgsalfj trust me if a driver was closeted, he and his management alone would be taking care of that cover up and they'd NEVER risk telling teams who have rotating staff and who the driver will probably leave at some point anyway)

and the consequences of fans crossing those boundaries are

if you actively try to push a celebrity to come out then either way it will absolutely not happen, regardless of what their real sexuality is - and if you insinuate too heavily then they will probably double down on their heterosexuality to shut you up (again, regardless of their real sexuality so it doesn't matter either way!)

if you push a bromance ship too hard or publicly present it too seriously then it WILL backfire and at best your fandom is fucked until things calm down - at worst those two people might very possibly want to avoid each other because of the unwelcome insinuations and invasiveness. and if you abuse girlfriends/wives as part of it then you'll get an even angrier reaction (yes this is partly included in Lando's story about the breakup with Lu and the hate she got)

even drivers who play gay for jokes have certain limits - Daniel was at least partly genuinely concerned that people thought he was actually dating Max at one point. Carlos was openly disturbed by fans in a 2019/20? livestream who told him to kiss Lando and he pointedly told them they were very very weird in a not at all amused voice. and three of these men were in serious relationships with women at the time those things happened.

and the thing is with landoscar, Lando and Oscar don't do gay stuff as a joke at ALL and they genuinely take a gender neutral line in discussing theoretical dating and romance questions. that could easily be them just being progressive! it doesn’t mean anything that we as strangers can publicly claim about them and definitely not TO them! and specifically with Oscar, we really don’t know his feelings in terms of fans saying even jokey sexual stuff to him but I would personally say err on not doing it too hard. he's not a prude at all but he's absolutely not publicly raunchy or suggestive to a degree a lot of the drivers are. (I'd also like to say mayyyybe even back off of the Lily stuff directly to him, or at least don't get too comfy about it? idk it's been getting a bit much and he's clear about not wanting that part of his life discussed openly. getting weird how ppl keep demanding photos of her under his posts likeeee she's not a commodity ok!)

I usually say how we in landoscar fandom adore Lily - which we do! - but fuck it, even if Oscar or Lando were dating/seeing someone problematic or that we didn’t adore (!!hint!!) it is STILL not justification for pretending Lando and Oscar are in a secret gay relationship and that the woman they're with is just a cover-up/fake. like yes we all happen to love Lily but our respect for her as a human being and the boundaries between ourselves and her isn’t contingent on affection !! it's basic human respect and healthy boundaries !!

it's why I stick to tumblr and discord for really going off w rpf. even if someone tried to share any of it we know damn well none of the drivers will follow an unsolicited tumblr link (idk maybe Fernando might not know but I doubt he goes anywhere near social media DMs aslfgsalj)

but yea I think fandom overall can keep those people who cross boundaries mostly under control without getting into any fandom police bs. we can all go stupid in explicitly fandom spaces like tumblr ao3 etc but anywhere a driver or someone close to them could stumble upon easily it's worth a quick polite word of advice to ppl who are definitely going too far <3

[my-deer-friend]

Hey, I found your post about the historical meaning of the word ‘friend’ super interesting, and I was wondering, do you have any sources I could use to learn more? I’m trying to fact-check (not that i dont trust you, just that im trying to get in the habit 👍) and im having trouble finding results about the historical definition of friendship instead of, like, friendships between historical figures.

We love 🫶 and support 🙏 fact checking in this house.

It's worth starting by saying that the post you're referencing is about a broad, flexible, adapable and ever-changing social concept. So the works that include an analysis of how the term was used do tend to focus on concrete examples. You need the specificity (time, place, type of relationship).

There are also subtleties of meaning between the common noun "friend", and addressing someone directly as one's friend. The main point I wanted to make is that person A writing something like "my dear friend" to person B does not give you any specific extra information about their legal or personal relationship – are they spouses? lovers? siblings? parent and child? student and teacher? friend-friends? 🤷‍♀️

And the only thorough way to fact check that ^ is to read lots and lots and lots of primary-source historical letters and literary works, and pick up the trends (welcome to studying history).

That said! It's always helpful to look at evidence from the time period under investigation, so here are some selected primary sources to get you started:

Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1768 edition, since that's closest to my period of study) – have a look at the definitions for friend, friendship, etc.

Frederick II of Prussia's Temple of Friendship – a folly built in honour of Frederick's sister (sibling-friend), also incorporating homosexual imagery (homoromantic- or homosexual-friend)

Another German guy who was big on the friendship thing was Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, who devoted whole rooms of his house to portraits of his friends (friend-friends, mentor-friends, student-friends, did-they-have-a-little-something-queer-going-on-friends)

To borrow an example from my previous post, here's the search results page on Founders.gov for instances where John and Abigail Adams use the term "dear friend" – sometimes for each other (spouse-friend) and sometimes for other people in their lives (friend-friends, relative-friends, etc.)

One of the Guys From History whomst I study is a Swiss historian called Johannes von Müller, who was known to have homosexual inclinations even during his lifetime. He referred to all of his queer relationships, platonic or otherwise, as "friends", and he was obsessed by an essay called "On Friendship" by Michel de Montaigne. (I prefer the translation in the Penguin Classics edition, but the one linked is fine, and free.) This essay was a pretty central text for people of the 18th century who wanted to aspire to the highest echelons of friendship. Another was Cicero's "De Amicita".

Some longer secondary-source pieces that I recommend on the topic:

MacPhail, E. (2016). Montaigne on Friendship. In P. Desan (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Montaigne. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190215330.013.34

Stephanson, R. (1997). “Epicoene Friendship”: Understanding male friendship in the early eighteenth century, with some speculations about Pope. The Eighteenth Century, 38(2), 151–170.

Haggerty, G. E. (2011). Horace Walpole’s Letters: Masculinity and Friendship in the Eighteenth Century. Bucknell University Press. (Especially chapter 1.)

[natalyarose]

𝓈𝒶𝒷𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒶 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓅𝑒𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇 (𝓋𝑒𝒹𝒾𝒸 𝒶𝓈𝓉𝓇𝑜) ♡

My little sister introduced me to Sabrina Carpenter and I gotta say I loove her!! Not necessarily my type of music, but the older I get, the more I realise how every genre has something so beautiful to offer and it just makes me so happy to see ART and joy in this world of any kind :')

My first thought is she's gottaaa be Sun influenced- the pastel, literally sunny visuals, the bubbly smile & attitude, the 'lightness'. I find Solar women possibly the easiest to spot- even Sun women I've met who have 'darker' personalities & aesthetics still offer this light energy. I checked, and she is Krittika Sun! (I know she's getting very popular now so this is all probably old news to a lot of people lol but just thought I'd share).

ALSO, I've noticed people remarking on how she is bringing the element of dance and full 'performance style' back into music. Krittika is intimately connected to the art of dance.

Then she has Moon conjunct ascendant in Purvabhadrapada, in the 1st house! Classic Jupiterian sass & vocals (Jupiterians often have gorgeous and or very powerful voices since Jupiter traditionally rules the throat) + Purvabhadrapadas position as the archetypal 'femme fatale' is referenced in her song 'Feather'. Religious imagery is common to see with Purvabhadrapda natives too given the bhadrapada Nakshatras relation to sacrifice.

Since she has Purvabhadrapada Moon; this makes her yoni animal the lion- glamorous, proud, strong.

I noticed someone comparing her energy/demeanour/look in her music video for her song 'Espresso' to Sharpay in Highschool Musical, who is played by Krittika Ascendant, Ashley Tidsdale. Definitely a nice depiction of Krittika energy- being in Taurus, we see Venus (beauty, pleasure, luxury, art) combined with Sun (joy, warmth, self love, authority). Edit - y'all I think I got confused between different birth time sources, but Ashley is in fact mostly Bharani ascendant HOWEVER, with Venus in Krittika ruling her chart.

As well as Sun & Jupiter Nakshatras' abundant qualities, I think Sabrina having Moon in the 1st definitely helps to garner likability & widespread appeal. Moon reflects whatever is around it, so she's going to be somebody who as an artist, is naturally attuned to public opinion. Moon in the 1st can have a knack for identifying what is popular, and reflecting it back through their persona or art in their own way.

With Sabrina's Sun, Moon & Asc consisting entirely of Purvabhadrapada & Krittika, this makes the energies of the 'brahmin caste' extremely relevant to her. Brahmin Nakshatras tend to be associated with spirituality, knowledge, education, prestige or a 'priestly' quality. Of course, not always especially since the ways in which each Nakshatra works is very unique; but heavily Brahmin influenced people tend to find themselves in very privileged positions in life- even if they're in a rough spot, they carry themselves with an aura of importance and therefore tend to easily attract what they desire.

As I talked about in my Vishakha women post, especially Vishakha but honestly strong Jupiter influence in general is often somewhere in the charts of those who have the type of fame where they are ever expanding & deeply influencing the masses.

Anyway, I'm eating up her music videos lol, the solar energy is so uplifting- sorta makes me nostalgic for the 2010s, when mainstream music & trends was a lot more solar inclined in that way. Some may have considered it shallow (my edgy 12 year old self sure did lmao) but honestly I think there can be something very spiritual about artists making music that's just fun, joyful and silly.

Thankyou for reading & I definitely want to do more small observational/analysis posts like this! ♡

[heavenlykira]

So awhile back I wrote this explanation of NALU’s relationship and how Natsu views and processes his feelings/expresses them to Lucy. In the original, I used a bunch of references from my own personal life and experiences, but I decided to remove those sections so I could post this publicly. So after rewriting this whole thing, I’m excited to give you my explanation on how I view Natsu as Aro/Ace and how it is represented in the show and why he acts certain ways. This is coming from a fellow Aro/Ace’s perspective :)

To start, I believe Natsu falls under the umbrella of Aro/Ace - Neutral or Positive, or even Demisexual.

Natsu growing up did not have any parental figures who ever showed any romantic affection to another being, since his parental figures were Igneel (single), Gramps (no spouse that is ever talked about or shown), and Gildarts (literally a play boy, but in his personal time, never around Natsu). He also never had anyone to properly help him process his emotions, because if you watch how he acted throughout his life, he processed all of his intense emotions through violence. Said violence even being encouraged by his new family (fairy tail). Overly excited? Brawl with the other kids, Angry? Brawl with the other kids. All of those intense emotions always lead to Natsu wanting to fight Gray, Erza, Gildarts, Laxus, etc etc…This was a common thing among all of the kids that Makarov took in though, which to me makes sense because the small bits we’ve seen of his past, he was always a very hot headed individual and wanting to fight. So of course that’s what those kids would adopt because their parental figure showed them that, even if that wasn't his intention.

I point to the parental figures so much because something I’ve learned through therapy is that kids will subconsciously learn and mimic the behaviors of their parents while their brains are developing. So what they see, hear, and taught are important at these times. This is why Natsu behaves the ways he does. He never saw any romantic interactions growing up and learned to fight when experiencing intense feelings. Because of this, any time someone would hug him or show their emotional weakness’s to him (referencing the scene at the tower of heaven when Erza broke down in front of him, as well as the times Lucy did like during the first Movie and at the end of the original show). Natsu looks really uncomfortable and unsure of himself on how he should handle them. Any physical contact experience ‘should’ be violent, so hugs don't make sense, and you never show your weakness to others. So when those two broke down in front of him, what was he supposed to do with that? You can tell by watching him that he is either shocked, uncomfortable, and/or confused.

For Erza, he solved it with violence (like he always has), for Lucy at the end of the series, he decided to drag her out to do something because he thought the best way to solve her emotions is going out and doing something productive, just like he did all the time as he processed the loss of Igneel and used that as a reason to hunt for him. So why stand around and let her cry when you can go do a mission that takes your mind off things? As for in the Phoenix Priestess movie, he did hug Lucy close to him, but that seemed more like he was mimicking what he’s seen others do when they were trying to comfort someone. I don't think he really knew what to do so he tried to do what he’s seen others do, by hugging her. But even then I don’t think he really understood why, just that it may work. Also at this point they JUST finished a long battle so there wouldn’t be anything to go do to distract them, so that was really his only option at the time.

At this point, when it comes to romance, you can argue that he’s seen others show that type of affection, like Bisca and Alzack being together, or anything that Macao or Wakaba would’ve said that he may of overheard. But at this point, he’s already matured, so those situations don’t help him now that his brain has finished developing. Therefore, that stuff can’t really be taken in account because he’s already learned his traits and habits on what to do when this stuff comes up. Even if he sees others do it, it’s not going to be processed through his mind anymore as a learning thing unless he’s actively making it something he should learn to do. And lets be honest, he isn’t going to do that unless it’s brought to his attention, because he doesn't KNOW he’s not doing it the ‘normal’ way.

Now that how his childhood has shaped him is out of the way, onto why he falls under the aro/ace spectrum for me.

Reasons why I think he has feelings for Lucy and why it’s so freaking obvious to me, whereas others, like Lucy, don’t see it.

To start, after Lisanna’s death, this kid cut himself off from EVERYONE but Happy. He never joined teams, he rarely hung around the guild anymore, he just kept to himself and worked all of the time (from what I’ve seen from the snippets they’ve shown us). When he meets Lucy, he has an instant BFF connection with her. I don’t think he quite understands why, but he knows that he actually enjoyed being around her, unlike everyone else from his guild that he cut himself out from. So what does he do? Brings her to the guild, spends time in her presence, convinces her to join his team, go on countless missions, MANY things he never did with anyone else after Lisanna’s death. However, over time I do believe he finally starts to make the connections on the difference in how he felt around Lucy vs others like Erza, Gray, Cana, Lisanna, etc etc… He loves them all, yes, but something was always different with Lucy. He finally connects the dots that Lucy IS special to him.

With that realization, the things he knows that couples do, just from observation or overhearing, he just starts doing with her, but not in the ‘normal’ ways. No, they don’t hold hands, because that doesn't make sense. Like what is the significance to it? It doesn't serve any purpose (remember, this wasn't something he was ever taught to do.) However, sleep in her bed? That DOES make sense. How? Because you’re presenting yourself in the most vulnerable way you can to someone, by exposing yourself and all vital arteries to someone while asleep. (This may sound weird but I briefly explain it later by how its an action an animal would take) It shows a level of trust so deep that you know they would never harm you, no matter what. And THAT is so much more important than holding hands, holding hands is superficial with no purpose, whereas sleeping in her bed shows a deep level of trust. And the bonus? Sleeping in her bed means he gets to spend even MORE time with her, as well as be surrounded by her scent (which is also important for some animals) and these seem to be some of his favorite things to do.

Eventually, Lucy stops pushing him away from the weird ways he shows his affection. Because of that, he sees that as her accepting his feelings and presence nearby her, in that close and deeply personal way. So with that, he thinks they are dating now, but that’s not needed to be stated, right? She lets him sleep in her bed, and she wouldn’t let ANYONE else do that (because he would know from previous experiences). So that obviously means something. He even goes on dates with her! (Which she sees as just regular hangouts with friends) One example being when they went to crocus for the GMG, they both immediately run off and go do fun things together. Thats a date to him, even if its not to her.

I also want to state, him pressing his forehead to hers is a sign of an emotionally deep bond, as well as understanding and trust. That is essentially a kiss, but on a deeper level. It’s an unspoken agreement that you trust them and view them as your equal and your partner. Remember, this guy was raised by a DRAGON. Dragon’s wouldn’t kiss, they would do other things, like brushing their sides or tails together, and nuzzling each other, it’s instinctual. What’s forehead pressing? A form of nuzzling you do with only those closest to you. Every way Natsu shows affection, is in the same vein you would think a dragon would, not a human. He is mentally more beast than human, both from being raised by one and being an Etherious demon.

Natsu clearly has deep emotional feelings, it’s obvious to an outsider, but because he doesn’t know how to express them the way a human would, or even know that he’s SUPPOSED to do it a different way, its not recognized by Lucy. You have to keep in mind as well, Lucy learned romance from novels, so her only knowledge/expectations of romance is based on fictional stories, which we all know isn’t the only way to show romance. So everything she knows as romance is the superficial stuff that’s shown in romance books, where as Natsu’s is all almost instinctual based. They are on complete opposite sides of the romance spectrum, so there’s bound to be SO many misunderstandings.

With all of that being said, if you have any questions or counter points please ask and I’ll happily explain and/or discuss further :)