#selene talks

[dykehimejoshi]

ever since i was a little girl i knew i always wanted to violate intellectual property and copyright law

[variagirl]

I really wish I could physically shift between genders. Sometimes I am okay with being male. Other times, I desperately want to be female. And at some points, I feel completely disconnected from it all. It's frustrating, depressing, and honestly scary being pulled in so many different directions. Especially in my own head. I'm several different people, sharing one body, afraid to make any serious choices out of fear of being the wrong on. And yet time moves on, and doing nothing is a choice in itself. When will it be okay to be me, and what form will I be?

[cyborgcourt]

YOU CANNOT SKIP THIS.

I know I tend to post all the cutsie kaider bits, but I also believe that moments like these show the complexity and depth of their relationship just as much as their lovebird scenes. Both of them are clearly very distressed with the conflict between the state of the world and their relationship. Kai is upset because he felt that Cinder wasn’t completely honest with him about herself, and her genuineness and honesty was a significant part for the liking he had taken towards her. But Cinder makes a good point in her own defence that, yeah, his character at the time probably wouldn’t have handled the news very well. Then Kai revisits his concern about her hiding this information from him “forever”, obviously implying he saw something in their relationship, which is why when she shuts it down with a reminder of their differences and that “there was never going to be a forever” it stings for him (and most likely her as well). A thing I like though, is how in this moment, their relationship between an emperor and a cyborg is labeled as an “absurdity”. This is so amazing because they literally go on to defy adversity, this being part of it. And now for the awesome part, MORE EMOTIONAL CINDER! I REPEAT! MORE EMOTIONAL CINDER! (This part breaks my heart a little though). When Kai asks her how many times she manipulated him, she’s clearly taken aback by this because she never did. Then it says “a fire stoked behind her eyes” when she asks him if he was worried that he “may have had actual feelings for a lowly cyborg”…

MY POOR BABY FELT LIKE CRYING. BUT SHE CANT. You can’t tell me she wasn’t upset and hurt by that. A lowly cyborg. And this ladies and gentlemen is why Kaider is all around beautiful. Because they had THIS. This hurt and conflict that makes all their love. That. Much. Better.

[beasttrash]

#reguriweek2024 day 6: halloween

a little early, drew this on scrap paper at work lol. but i love the idea of them celebrating their first halloween together on alola.

[themuseumofwitchcraftandpaganism]

Did Christianity Steal From Paganism? Yes... No... It's Complicated. Part 1: Rome

Tis the season so I figured I'd talk about the topic that's been the subject of debate for a long time, most recently with the 2024 Olympics. I will be discussing the visual aspect of these religions, not the theological aspects.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: No

Let's get into it: It took about a hundred years after the death of Christ for Christianity to start gaining popularity in the Roman Empire. At around 100 AD the first congregations secretly started meeting in basements and had to be very subtle with their worship. Being Christian at this time was a crime; they refused to pay the federal taxes that exalted the emperor as a god. At this point, after the Roman Emperor died, the Senate would vote to either add them to the pantheon or erase their legacy from public consciousness. Some emperors weren't very lucky but most of them got deified. The Christian citizens of Rome refused to offer sacrifices to the emperor because it broke the first of the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not have no other gods before me." There isn't much Christian art from this time, and they were definitely the religious minority.

Skip forward to 306 AD, there's yet another civil war over the throne of the Empire. The two men fighting for it were Constantine I and Maxentius. In addition to battles, the two of them funded public projects to gain the approval of the people. They both built baths, aqueducts, and basilicas. Basilicas were the Roman equivalent of city halls: the local government operated out of them, trials and town meetings were held there, and there were small niches in the walls dedicated to different gods. Maxentius built the basilica on the left (below) and Constantine built the one on the right (below). Constatine's basilica, Aula Palatina, is still the largest remaining Roman structure that's a single room.

Maxentius' basilica was bigger but in 310 AD Constatine beat him and took the throne, partly because of the support he got from the Christian citizens. In 312 AD, Constatine converted to Christianity and enacted the Edict of Milan which made Christianity legal.

But look at Aula Palatina. It looks like our modern idea of a church. It has rows of benches, which would've been used for town meetings, and a semicircular niche at the end called an apse. In a Christian church, the apse is where the altar goes just like the niches in the Roman Pagan basilicas where different gods would be worshiped. Constantine didn't change the design from a Pagan basilica at all --because why fix what isn't broken? -- and just placed it into a Christian context.

For the next hundred years, Roman citizens started to mix Christian and Pagan imagery.

Families would bury both Christian and Pagan members in the same catacomb and decorated it accordingly. The fresco below (320-340 AD) is from the Catacombs of Priscilla (200-400 AD). It has an image of Christ as the Good Shepard in the middle, but the birds along the outside represent the four seasons; an image that featured commonly in Pagan catacomb frescos. Christ's clothing and contrapposto posing is also reminiscent of Pagan statues, particularly of the god Apollo.

The fresco on the left (below) from the Catacombs of Saints Marcellinus and Peter (~300 AD), is visually similar to the last one fresco we looked at. Christ is in the middle and around him are the four Evangelists and Bible stories like Jonah and the whale. In the four corners again, there are personifications of the four seasons. Elsewhere in the Catacomb, there's a depiction of Christ as Orpheus (right, below), again combining these Pagan and Christian icons. In the Bible, it says that Christ will tame all the wild animals, and the artist is likening that to the Roman Pagan story of Orpheus taming animals with his music.

If you look at the middle of this complex fresco on the left (below) from the Catacomb of Commodilla (100-800 AD), it has a depiction of Jesus and three of the apostles dressed like Roman senators (300-400 AD). On the right is a depiction of St. Paul as a Roman philosopher from the same Catacomb.

But this interest in combining artistic traditions extended to the sarcophagi that people were buried in too. Roman Pagans usually opted to be cremated rather than buried but when they did choose to be buried, they liked to carve scenes of their gods into their sarcophagi. Roman Christians, who almost always chose to be buried, did the same. The sarcophagus on the left (below) belonged to a woman named Arria (b.~350 -- d.~400 AD) and depicts a story about the Roman Pagan moon goddess Selene. The one on the right (below) belonged to a Senator named Junius Bassus (b. 317 -- d.359 AD) depicts difference scenes from the Bible like Adam and Eve and Jesus entering Jerusalem. Do you see the visual similarities? Both sarcophagi are also carved from marble.

The mosaic below is perhaps the best example of how Christian and Pagan imagery and theologies were mixed. It used to be the floor in a wealthy Roman's villa and was found in Hinton St Mary, Dorset, England; it's the furthest north Roman mosaic ever found. The bottom panel depicts a beardless Christ with a chi-rho behind his head. (The chi-rho, XP, came from the first two letters of Christ's name in Latin. It's a Christian symbol that's still used to denote that a figure is Christ.) On either side of him is a pomegranate. Pomegranates were sacred to the goddess Persephone; Roman Pagan religion taught that she went down to the Underworld for half the year and then up to the mortal world for half the year, fueling the changing seasons. Persephone and Christ are both gods that went to the afterlife and then came back to bring new life to humans; it's not hard to see how they got conflated on this mosaic. In the corners around Christ there are four men. Their imagery is reminiscent of both the four Evangelists and the gods of the four winds, again doubling Pagan and Christian imagery. In the upper panel, there's a scene portraying the Pagan story of Bellerophon spearing the Chimæra while flying on Pegasus. That story is frequently understood to be the "Good triumphing over Evil" story archetype, much like the story of Christ triumphing over death/sin is. Whoever owned this villa literally mixing both the visual and theological elements of both Paganism and Christianity.

In the late 300s, the Emperors (who were all Christian now) started introducing laws that made it harder for Pagans to practice. They banned animal sacrifices eventually Christianity was officially declared the religion of Rome in the late 400s. However, the enforcement of these laws wasn't applied very well and people continued to practice Roman Paganism until the fall of the Empire.

But even after the fall of Rome, Roman Pagan imagery persisted in a Christian context. In the West, Emperor Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire, which was Christian, purposely copied the imagery of the Roman Emperors. He used equestrian statues and coinage of him wearing a Roman laurel to demonstrate his power. The top two images below are of the Chrisitan Emperor Charlemagne and the bottom two are of the Pagan Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

In the East, the early Byzantine Empire were still interested in Roman drapery and architecture. Below is Archangel Michael (left) as well as Emperor Justinian and Theodora (right) preparing the Eucharist. Both images display Roman architecture and drapery. Byzantine would eventually move away from Roman influences but in its early days, they were definitely inspired by it.

So, the answer everyone is looking for is NO.

The Christians didn't steal anything from the Pagans, they made an association. They produced art in the style that was popular and followed the artistic trends of the time. Christian and Pagan imagery was produced in the same medium and combined until Paganism was phased out over hundreds of years. They saw similar gods and iconography and combined them to make a message that was understandable to all audiences.

Happy Yule! Happy Winter Solstice!

Further readings:

The Deification of Roman Emperors (Chapter 4) - Invented History, Fabricated Power

BBC - History - Ancient History in depth: Roman Religion GalleryThe Paleochristian Art of the Roman Catacombs ~ Liturgical Arts Journal

Chi Rho - Wikipedia

History of Christianity - Wikipedia

Anglicanism: a Gift in Christ – Part 1: An Ancient Church

Constantine the Great - Wikipedia

Maxentius - Wikipedia

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus - Wikipedia

Marble sarcophagus with the myth of Selene and Endymion | Roman | Severan | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Smarthistory – Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius

Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire - Wikipedia

Equestrian statuette of Charlemagne - Wikipedia

Smarthistory – San Vitale and the Justinian and Theodora Mosaics

ARH1000 Early Christian & Byzantine Art.pdf | Free Download

The image of Christ in Late Antiquity | Semantic Scholar

mosaic floor | British Museum

[deersatdawn]

May Aphrodite bless you with courage to love yourself and to love others. 🌊

May Selene bless you with enough rest and less loneliness, knowing she is there when you look up into the sky. 🌙

May Apollo bless you with inspiration and creativity, so you can create to your hearts desire. ☀️

[boycigs]

Life is to be shared, so I wanted to share my altar for selene! the top of my bookshelf, which I use as space for my craft. but took these. I love seeing inspo so I wanted 2 share as well. I missed midday sun for these pics but I was sleepy :3

[wendeeesaucy]

Chaotic duo Shakarian bantering like there isn't a literal battle happening outside

[moghedien]

ok so i was genuinely unsure about how I felt about the way Lanfear was revealed in the moment, but there are three main things that are really selling it for me:

1: It immediately sets up the threat of going up against a Forsaken:

So far we haven't really gotten much of an indication from the show about what the Forsaken really are, who they are, and why they're any different that a regular darkfriend. Obviously there's still a ways to go in explaining it, but Lanfear provided an immediate visual explanation

Because for example, we've already seen one darkfriend innkeeper who had a thing for Rand (or pretended to) take a knife through the throat

We've even seen Rand stick around and linger by her body and its very clear that absolutely nothing happens.

We get a lingering shot on her bleeding out and she is very clearly actually dead in this moment. Its not even really a question.

But with Lanfear we kinda get the exact opposite of this moment. We see her take a knife to the throat and clearly go down, then there is no lingering by the characters.

The camera goes back to her and we see the saa very clearly moving in her eye, then she blinks and breaths in.

And by this being the opposite of Dana, I mean that with Dana there was no question that she was actually dead. With Lanfear, there is absolutely no question that she's still alive.

Dana was also a darkfriend, but this is very clearly showing non readers that Lanfear is something DIFFERENT. We're told she's a darkfriend of some kind, then we're seen that she actually apparently cannot die by normal means. This coming AFTER the reveal that she is definitely a channler of some kind, and if we now know she's a Forsaken, then we know that Moiraine clearly said the Forsaken are the most powerful channlers ever, more powerful than any Aes Sedai.

And now apparently they can't die.

2. Its foreshadowing.

Moiraine was able to take out Lanfear (if only temporarily) with a physical attack because Lanfear was so fixated on Rand.

The above is also a spoiler for the climax of a certain book.

I'm not gonna get into it, but its clearly like showing that there's a course of action and there is a playbook that works here.

3. NOW we have Lanfear

Before we had Selene. I'd argue there were even moments where we had Mierin, but the only time Lanfear has really come out before this was when she went into Rand's dream and threatened him in episode 3.

By this I mean that while Selene was always obviously an act Lanfear was putting on, it stopped us from really seeing how manipulative and obsessive Lanfear could be and was currently being. If we didn't know she was Lanfear (and non readers shouldn't) then there's no reason to realize the lengths to her manipulation. We still don't know that the man she was telling Rand about was Lews Therin. We still don't know that Lanfear even knew Lews Therin much less would want to rekindle any kind of lost romance with his reincarnation. Because even when Lanfear was being honest as Selene, she was keeping herself back. She wasn't latching onto Rand and telling him that he was hers. She was very clearly holding onto the memory of Lews Therin, but there has yet to be any clear indication that she 100% buys that Rand and Lews Therin are the same person rather than Rand just being his reincarnation.

So while Lanfear was definitely getting some joy out of sleeping with Lews Therin reborn, there is no real indication that that is what she wanted. She said she wants Lews Therin. She tells Rand she's more or less settling for him. Let's assume that was 100% honest for the moment (because I believe it mostly is to a point), I don't think that's the case after this episode. Because Mierin Eronaile suddenly got the one thing she'd always wanted:

If you watch the moments immediately before this scene and immediately after, there is a shift in how Lanfear is acting here.

Before she was very clearly putting on an act. She was playing up being afraid of Rand and didn't seem at all concerned about keeping him here. The most she does is ask him where he's going to go, and even that is said in a weird tone unless you know that she's probably going to use this information to keep tabs on him and report it/follow him herself.

But Rand does the one thing he absolutely shouldn't have done with Lanfear and told her that he loves her.

So now I think is the moment where Lanfear is willing to accept that Rand is Lews Therin. Because if Rand is Lews Therin, then Lews Therin just said that he loves her.

And her entire tone shifts here. You can see she's visibly shocked in the moment, and then smiles and flips the scene to her being afraid of him, to her reassuring him and telling him that he should have told her and telling him that he didn't do anything wrong and he was just acting in his nature. Before she was bringing up the inn and was clearly trying to make him feel bad. Now she's clearly trying to reassure him and keep him around. Absolutely manipulation but I think she didn't really need him to stay until he indicated that he loved her.

So what this means is that we now have Lanfear, who is established as being unkillable and one of the most powerful and oldest being in existence, NOW becoming obsessed with Rand al'Thor and thinking of him entirely as Lews Therin. And not only that, but now she's PISSED because he just left her and was taken away from her by Moiraine exactly when she finally had him back after thousands of years.

She finally got everything she's wanted and it was immediately taken away, and I think that's frankly terrifying, so yeah, I think I do like this reveal now actually.

[cure-whimsy]

official artwork from the Pretty Cure Pretty Store in 2023!

[dykehimejoshi]

if all the dollgirls unionized you would be fuuucked. who would make your tea? or do your laundry? you need us. here i propose a list of demands:

cuter dresses

[variagirl]

I know I don't post "original" content or even a lot of regular posts, and I apologize for being boring. And even a lot of what I do reblog is relatively PG-13. This is solely to keep my page from getting nuked. I do recommend checking out whoever I am reblogging from because I can say that 95% of them have some very nice spicy content.

[fistfightinganxietyandlosing]

I like to think that the extended family just hang around McDuck Manor. Sometimes, Drake chills in the living room, Selene does yoga in the hallways, Fenton and Manny casually build a Lego house on the steps of the stairs, Djinn has lunch with them etc. The actual residents all consider it completely normal.

But, as per usual when it comes to the Mcduck family, there's an equal chance that "hanging around" leads to chaos taking place.

Gyro could just as easily be trying to stop another evil invention from destroying everyone as he could be making coffee. Sure, Panchito and Jose might be grilling barbeque but they also might be engaging in a singing battle with a rival band who turn out to be nixies. It's possible that Fethry's there to borrow some books from Scrooge but it's also possible that he's come to warn the family about an old villain who's recently reappeared.

[akai-anna]

Apparently a new collab is happening, which means new illusts for merch, and I love how ShinRan went "trans rights".

[mildlylesbian]

The thing about the current DokiBird/nijisanji shitshow is that... in no world is having your talents host that livestream a good idea. Even if nijisanji was 100% in the right, that still would have been the worst PR move in the history of PR moves.

Not only did you basically confirm who the bullies were, but you also put a target on your two most subscribed to Vtubers because they simply existed in that video.

If they did that willingly, I have no fucking clue why nijisanji allowed it cause it was a stupid fucking move. If nijisanji forced them to do it, THAT'S EVEN WORSE, it's an even stupider fucking move.

I could go on for hours about this shitshow, oh my god. No one in that company knows what the word 'damage control' means.

[khattikeri]

I said it on twitter too but I'm actually beyond disgusted at some of the responses to Selen Tatsuki's termination & what she went through at Nijisanji EN. especially on the Japanese fan side

like even knowing about the bullying and suicide attempt, I've seen SO MANY Japanese comments and accounts prioritizing the copyright/permissions bullshit with her music video and her "breaking rules" by not going through her managers according to company protocol.

A lot of people were even bringing up racist arguments involving the fact that she's Chinese, saying it's obvious she would've "behaved improperly" and hurt the company.

it's actually revolting how willing people are to believe the company's termination notice at face value. "it's 4 pages long, so clearly something bad is going on and I trust the company". I've read those words over and over from many different people, and it's nauseating that they all mean it in earnest. Confused and baffled that EN/international fans are mad about the termination.

I haven't had a cultural gap hit me this hard in the face in a while. I hope Dokibird recovers and only experiences joys going forward, I'm sick and done w this company