#serious travel story about Germany

[alpaca-clouds]

The Canonicity of the Digimon Wonderswan Games

I am right now a bit back into my old Digimon hyperfixation I am afraid. So let me nerd out a bit more about it, or in this case rant about another thing.

See, I am in a bit of a weird position in regards of this fandom. I am from Germany, where we got the dub names and stuff, but the Japanese cut of the anime. But also, I switched to watching the sub already by the time Digimon Tamers was starting to air in Japan, and had fairly easy access to most of the Japanese media for the franchise through the magic of the internet.

As such I grew up with the Japanese stuff for Digimon in the most part. Including the Wonderswan games, that are kinda legendary in the west. And man, let me tell you: I love those games. They are not really good games, I would argue. Like the game mechanics are just not very polished, and like in a lot of Japanese games at the time you needed to grind quite a lot. But I loved the story and the way it was portrayed. And I adore the game version of Ryou. He is my cute baby boy, who needs a serious hug.

However... Something that I have already been annoyed with was the fact that a lot of western fandom has always seen these games as canon. And I kinda get why - at least in regards to Adventure/02 - given that Ryou gets referenced in the canon a lot. It is canon that Ryou exists in this universe, as well as Millenniumon. And it is canon that Ken and Ryou travelled through the digital world. However... The game as it is, is in fact not canon and never was meant to be. This is because games very much contradict several aspects of the primary canon (the show). Let us go through those things, okay?

Anode/Cathode Tamer

This game takes place on New Years Eve 1999, so about 4 (or really 5) months after Digimon Adventure. Millenniumon, a Digimon that has been formed when the data of the defeated Machinedramon fused with a Chimeramon, messed up the digital world and brought back the villains the Chosen Children had already defeated. Being brought back, they kidnap the Chosen children. Agumon turns to a human child - Ryou Akiyama - as he needs a human to evolve. So, Ryou on his own has to fight through the villains of Digimon Adventure to free the chosen children. He is not a Chosen Child himself, though, being made to borrow Taichi's Digivice.

Now, this game is clearly not canon - the villains being brought back is never mentioned again, and it is explicitly said that spring 2000 was the first time that the Chosen Children returned back to the Digital World after their original adventure.

Other than that... I kinda love how vile the villains are in this game. I really adore it. But yeah, definitely not canon.

Tag Tamers

Tag Tamers starts during the events of the second movie. Diaboromon is defeated and just as this happens, Ryou and Ken get contacted by V-mon and Piccolomon. Millenniumon is back, and it is up to Ryou to defeat it. This time he has to partner up with V-mon, who is already destined to be Daisuke's partner. So Ryou and Ken go visit the digital world together - only to find out, that it was all a trap set up by Millenniumon to lure Ryou back.

This game at once is the one most directly referenced in the Show (with Ken's flashback to getting infected with the Dark Spore) and also the more most directly contradicted by the show. Because while the game takes place in March 2000, the series explicitly names the time of Ken and hence Ryou travelling to the digital world as August 2000, exactly a year post-Adventure. More interestingly we do not see any partner with Ryou in the flashback either, and it is pretty clear that if V-mon ever met Ken or Ryou before, he does most certainly not remember.

It should also be noted that in this game Ken and Ryou both get D-3 Digivices, while in the primary canon Ken obviously received a normal Digivice at this point, that only later turned into the D-3 at the Dark Ocean.

D-1 Tamers

D-1 Tamers takes place not too long after Tag Tamers. While watching over Ken, who is sick from the Dark Spore, Ryou finds an online quiz about Digimon and upon answering it gets once more summoned to the Digital World. Here, he is made to participate in the D-1 Tournament against other Children and their Digimon partners, including both characters from the anime and some original characters. However, soon enough it turns out, that the tournament was just something created by the Holy Beasts to train Ryou up to once more fight against Millenniumon.

Basically, the same from before applies. The kids in this game all have D-3 Digivices, that did not yet exist in this universe. Nowhere in canon is it ever mentioned that Taichi and Co. have travelled back to the Digital World at this point - and mind you, the entire thing with the Holy Beasts also does not make a whole lot of sense considering the canon of the show (with the Holy Beasts just being brought back).

As someone who tends to latch onto minor characters very easily, I loved the original characters in this game, even though they have very few lines.

Mind you, if you have been in Digimon fandom spaces for a longer time, you might have come across the picture underneath before and thought to yourself: "Oh, this looks official." However... It is actually Fanart. To be exact this picture seems to originate with a fan-book on the games called Digimon Crusader. (I have been trying to get my hands on that one before. But I have only seen it two times up for auction and never could get manage to set up a proxy in time - as the sellers were never shipping to Europe.)

This is the book by the way:

Brave Tamer

Lastly there is Brave Tamer, a game that is rather hard to describe, because it involves a ton of time travel. Hurray, because this plot was not already convoluted enough. lol

Basically, it starts with Ryou at the very beginning of the Digital World, meeting Monodramon and then timehopping a whole lot to help both the Chosen Children and Tamers (who also show up here, because the game released by the time Tamers was out), and also get some closure. Please note, at this point in time the digital world has fucked up Ryou's mental health for good. lol

The game ends with Monodramon forcing a fusion between himself and Millenniumon, defeating the villain like this and leaving Ryou out of time with a single Digitama.

The plot of this game, due to the time travel, is a whole mess. I adore the game for the worldbuilding it does for the Adventure digital world, even though this, too, is doubtful in terms of canonicity. There is no real harm to take this as canon for the Adventure-world, though obviously the show itself contradicts this in terms of canon for the Tamers-world.

The crossover stuff between Tamers and Adventure verse is also very confusing to say the least. But yeah, given that none of the interactions here ever get referenced anywhere: This is also very certainly not canon. (Also, for some reason Ryou aged 2 years between D-1 Tamers and Brave Tamer, even though Brave Tamer starts up very shortly after D-1 Tamers ends.)

So, what is canon?

All of this might leave you wondering: What is canon for Ryou? Well, it is kinda hard to say. What we can assume is something like this:

In the universe of Digimon Adventure there is or was a boy named Akiyama Ryou. We do not know a whole lot about him, but based on his design he was probably 10 or 11 years old in August of 2000. When Ken first got called into the Digital World, he met Ryou there, and the two of them defeated Millenniumon, getting Ken infected with the Dark Spore. We do not know what happened to Ryou after this, but it seems unlikely that he and Ken stayed in contact, given Ken never brings him up. It is not impossible that he has died, though this is never confirmed, or contradicted by the canon.

In the universe of Digimon Tamers, there also exists a boy named Akiyama Ryou. Other than the boy from the games, he is not from Tokyo, but from a fishing village near Kitakyushu. We do not know whether he has a mother, but he has a father, as well as an uncle who lives in Tokyo. Whenever Ryou participated in the Digimon tournaments, he stayed with his uncle, apparently. In December 2000, Ryou meets Cyberdramon in Tokyo, and realized that Cyberdramon cannot stay in the real world because it is too aggressive. So he decides to travel to the Digital World together with it. Now, technically you can argue whether Cyberdramon is the Digimon resulting from the fusion of Monodramon and Millenniumon, but Ryou is very much a different character with a different backstory.

(And mind you: No, that US Comic that marries the Digimon Tamers story with some of the game story, is very much not canon, like all US-only material.)

[alexbkrieger13]

Double vision

Partners on and off the pitch, Bayern pair Pernille Harder and Magdalena Eriksson have firm convictions on all the big topics facing women’s football in an era of exciting growth and mounting pressures

In a room at Bayern München’s training ground, Magdalena Eriksson and Pernille Harder are talking bicycles. One of their favourite things about Munich, the place they have both called home since making the switch last summer from Chelsea to Bayern, is the ease of travel for cyclists in the Bavarian capital.

Eriksson: “Now we live quite centrally so we can use our bikes to get anywhere.”

Harder: “It is a bit easier to bike here in Munich than in London.”

Magda: “We even took our bikes to Oktoberfest once.” 

Pernille (laughs): “We were biking straight!”

This is the beauty of an interview with the pair (even one conducted over Zoom, as this one is): you raise a subject and they bounce it around between them, their insights and reflections interspersed with lighter moments and laughter. And, as arguably their sport’s highest-profile couple – Harder is a two-time UEFA Women’s Player of the Year, Eriksson a Sweden stalwart – they have plenty to say. 

Both care deeply about matters on and off the football pitch. They are members of UEFA’s Football Board (of which more later), they support the Common Goal project – pledging one per cent of their salaries to support football charities – and on top of that they are advocates for the LGBTQ+ community. 

But, first, back to finding their feet in Munich, where the duo bring serious know-how to a Bayern side with big ambitions, despite an early exit from the Champions League in January. In Harder’s case, the Denmark forward knew German football already from her three years with Wolfsburg between 2017 and 2020. For Eriksson, after six seasons in England with Chelsea, this is an entirely new experience – which is exactly what she was hoping for.

“I think that’s how we are as people,” says the former Blues captain. “A reason why we moved is I am really curious about a new culture and a new environment.” From the sounds of things, that decision is paying off too. Away from the pitch, she is enamoured of the local coffee shops; on it, she has been impressed by the way “a lot of the girls take responsibility around the dressing room and with how things should work around the team. There’s quite a clear structure of different responsibilities, and the players take ownership of that. That’s something more like how it was in Sweden, and not at all in England. It makes us take responsibility and it’s something I appreciate.”

As for Harder, she elaborates on the unique culture of Germany’s biggest football club – one which attempts to marry sustained success with humility. “It really is a club where you have to work hard, be humble but also know your worth,” she says. “It’s a bit weird. There is no arrogance: we know we’re good, we know we are a big club, but we know we also have to work hard. There’s a lot of respect for each other, and it’s not only in our team. When we go to the campus and meet the academy boys or some of the other staff, you have the respect. You treat others the way you want to be treated, and that’s a really good value which aligns with my values.”

Now both in their thirties – Eriksson is 30, Harder 31 – they knew the women’s game before its lift-off moments of recent years. Thus, they bring a helpful sense of perspective to any discussion of its development, and how it might evolve in years to come.

If female footballers today have opportunities beyond the dreams of previous generations, they face pressures unknown by their predecessors too, as Eriksson explains. “I think there are two sides to every story. Maybe, when we grew up, there wasn’t that much pressure, but with a growing platform [and how] the women’s game is growing, there is also growing pressure. The fans are growing, social media is growing, so there are two sides to it.

“We can really help the younger generation of today to deal with that kind of pressure, which you have to be able to manage as a footballer,” she adds. “You have to find what you need to focus on and what you should really just shut off and not focus on. You need to find the people that you talk football with and the people’s opinions you shouldn’t care about.”

Harder picks up the thread: “When we were younger, there was only one focus and that was football – to get better and to win. It was just football: that was the thing we played for. Now, there is so much more and, with social media, it’s also about a lot of individual awards, individual recognition, when the focus should be on the team. And I think it’s easier to be distracted [from] having that right focus. That’s something important to think about…”

“And to remind yourself about on a daily basis,” Eriksson cuts in. “And also to spread that within the team – that it’s a team sport and the team wins, the team loses, the team scores, the team concedes. All of those things.”

“Except when Magda scores!” adds Harder with a laugh, teasing her partner over a goal she scored in the week of this interview.

Jokes aside, the pair obviously think a lot about the game, which makes them natural choices to sit on UEFA’s Football Board, the body set up last year to draw on the knowledge of current and former players and elite coaches in the shaping of women’s football. For Eriksson, it’s “inspiring to know you get a direct line to some really big decision-makers”, and the welfare of players – “the football calendar and making football sustainable” – is something both women are keen to highlight.

“We all want a long career, but sometimes if you have to play all the time and have no break, that will shorten it,” says Harder. “Often, we have tournaments in the middle of summer or late summer, so we have four or five weeks before the tournament for our summer holiday, but then we don’t really have that time off because you train to prepare for the World Cup. And then, after the World Cup, [Magda] had ten days and I had two weeks off, and then you just go straight back into it. So, you have to put the tournaments earlier so you have at least four weeks after when you can really, medically, relax and be ready for the new season. Everything else is just too hard mentally and for the body.”

“It was the same last year with the EURO and the amount of injuries we saw after,” says Eriksson, who, ironically, just days after our interview, suffered a metatarsal fracture in her left foot. “Again, [it was] a couple of weeks off for a few, even less for others, and then you are straight back into a high-performance environment where you immediately have to play games. Finding a balance in the calendar where you get the breaks at the right time and don’t have too many games in short spaces of time is the most important thing.

“The fact we are starting now to do research on women’s bodies and women’s players is the first step. With the way we train, the way we train conditioning, everything is based on research on men’s football players, men’s athletes. We don’t know if it’s the same for us. Should we train more or less, or in a different way?”

From Harder comes further food for thought. “When you think about it, we use the same football as the men. It isn’t that I want to change it, but it’s also the same size of pitch and we don’t have the same body; we don’t have the same strength in the muscles. I don’t know the impact from every time I shoot or make a pass, if that’s actually a bigger impact on my muscles than it is on a man’s. That’s something I think it would be quite interesting to look at. I don’t know if it’s something we want to change and have a lighter ball. Maybe it’s just small percentages of how heavy the ball is that could change it.”

“There is rivalry in women’s football, but respect, love and joy always come first”

It’s fascinating to hear this to and fro on the physical side of the game they love, and it’s not the only challenge they see. We talk too about misogyny and what Harder describes as “a mindset of some people who don’t want to change [and see] that women can also play football, women can also be commentating on men’s football, that they also have knowledge about football. They have their mindset and their values about it and it’s really difficult for them to change.”

What is not in question is that women’s football has taken giant steps already in terms of status and recognition. As the commercial opportunities grow, however, neither woman wants to lose the things that make it different from the men’s game. Eriksson recalls the celebratory atmosphere in Australia and New Zealand during the last Women’s World Cup; she cites too the friendly fan dynamics in the club realm.

“We are coming off the back of a fantastic World Cup where there were only positive emotions connected to the games. Of course, some teams win, some teams lose – that’s part of football – but the way the tournament was held and the fan culture, that was amazing. So much positivity, so much joy, and that’s everywhere in women’s football fan culture right at the moment. That is what we want to keep. In women’s football, that rivalry is still there, but the respect, the love and the joy is always what comes first.”

The last word comes from Harder, ever the finisher. “It won’t be easy to keep it like that, but that at least is the aim.” 

[drconstellation]

When Crowley met Jesus, and the other demon at Golgotha

You know the scene. 33AD. Aziraphale is watching the crucifixion take place and certain fem-presenting demon sidles up to him.

Aziraphale greets them, and finds out they have changed their name.

"What is it now?" he asks them. " Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?"

I know most you have learnt by now that Asmodeus is the demon of lust, and this is obviously Aziraphale's idea of a flirty little joke (perhaps the first we see? because he's the one who's really as "mad as bag of frogs" after all and that's why Crowley's made an appearance, because he was probably just in the area, you know...), but I haven't seen or come across much meta about the first suggested name, which is a GO "lead balloon" moment.

Mephistopheles, Aziraphale? That's the name you thought of here? Of all places? jfc...you bad, bad angel! lmoa! This is a serious, sombre situation you are witnessing!

Mephistopheles is the name of the fictional demon sent to do a deal with the character Faust in a story that dates back to Germany in the early 1500s. Faust was a like a scientist in his day, well educated in things like alchemy and astrology and other mystical arts, maybe even having wizard powers (why not?) But he was hungry for more power so he did a deal with the devil for 24 years of assistance to achieve and gain anything he desired, and at the end of that time he would be claimed by Hell. Needless to say, despite starting off well it didn't have a happy ending. (I wont go into details as there are lots of variants, and its not that short, and they aren't all that relevant to the point of the post.)

It has been a hugely influential story ever since, appearing in many forms over the years; in opera, theater, movies, novels, adaptations such as Oscar Wilde's The Portrait of Dorian Grey, and Queen's famous song Bohemian Rhapsody. Terry Pratchett also did a parody of it in his 1990 book Eric, and readers have often noted the similarity to the Hell depicted there to the Hell in GO.

Its the origin of the idiom "to do a deal with the devil" and a Faustian bargain. The mortals that enter into the deal with a powerful supernatural entity are usually set up to fail, and we go along with it because we are so used to the trope, its one we've come to expect the bargainer to fail in some spectacular fashion. It's one that keeps being repeated again and again because it so interesting to explore - often the protagonist is looking for some form of happiness, sometimes revenge, and hopes the deal will deliver, but find out the hard way that they should be careful what they wish for because the delivery is a two-edged sword. They may find out that they don't actually want what they thought they wanted, or they get what they want in an very unexpected way.

Back to Golgotha, and our demon and angel. We learn the demon has merely modified their name to Crowley. And yes, they met Jesus.

C: "Seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world."

A: "Why?"

C: "He's a carpenter from Galilee, his travel opportunities are limited."

This is a reference to one of the the tests of faith Jesus was put through before his crucifixion, from the Book of Matthew.

I like this modern version I found:

For the third test, the Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, “They’re yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.” Jesus’ refusal was curt: “Beat it, Satan!” He backed his rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.” The Test was over. The Devil left. And in his place, angels! Angels came and took care of Jesus’ needs. Matthew 4:8-11 The Message

Or, you could say: Crowley showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and offered the bargain that he could rule them all if he would renounce God and worship Satan instead, but Jesus just turned to the demonic messenger and simply told him to "fuck off!"

And there we have it, folks. Mephistopheles, and Asmodeus. Touche, Aziraphale, you sly little shit stirrer.

[grim-girlying-ghost]

Do you have any headcanons for the organist?

Or Madame Leota perhaps?

Ooo Victor! Yes, I have a few actually!

Firstly, I’m sticking to the general depiction in modern supplementary material of him being of German Origin. He was born into a family of musicians in Germany, where he learned to play several instruments, with the Organ being his favorite due to its ✨dramatic flair✨

He moved to America in his late 20s, jumping around from job to job over the course of several decades. Before becoming the organist of Gracey Manor, some of the jobs he held included teaching as a music professor for a few years, and he also worked as the organ player for a traveling circus (the same circus Sally would eventually join). This is actually the job he held for the longest before moving into the mansion.

MAJOR RBF! On top of that, his focused face when he performs is very intense so to a lot of people at first, he doesn’t seem all that approachable. Despite this, he’s very friendly and kind of eccentric when you get to know him and get on his good side. Think that uncle who’s kinda weird and not all there but overall very friendly and loving. Yeah thats him.

I also think he’s close with Sally Slater but not in the way some people view it. I know some people ship the two and thats a completely valid interpretation ofc, but I personally can’t see it that way because I’ve always seen Victor as a sixty-year-old man, meanwhile to me Sally is like 20. Also, in my version of the story, he’s known Sally since she was a child, so in here he’s a father figure to her, in fact, Victor practically raised Sally. 

Piggybacking off the last one, he’s actually the whole reason Sally joined the circus. However, I’m gonna need to provide some context for my version of Sally‘s backstory so bare with me. Basically, Sally was separated from her birth family when she was only around 9 years old due to her mother and older siblings being killed in an incident with someone who was targeting the whole family. She and her dad survived but in the process of escaping, the two were separated and Sally gained amnesia from falling off the running vehicle they were on (yes, this is very much inspired by the first 6 minutes of Anastasia (1997)). It was a few hours after that that Victor found her wondering around with no memory of who she was and offered her a home in the traveling circus he was working for, and thus becoming her unofficial adoptive father, and her eventually becoming the circus’ tightrope walker.

Despite his mainly chill personality, he has a very serious and protective side when it comes to the people he cares about. I’ve mentioned vaguely on this blog that Sally and Dorian are a thing romantically in my story. When the two started courting, Victor took Dorian aside and word by word said “I don’t care how rich you are…if you break her heart, I will kill you”. Luckily that never happened! Even so, safe to say Dorian was kinda scared of him for a while 😅

He knows every ghost by name, better than Master Dorian Gracey himself. This is because the ballroom is a general hangout spot for all the residents of the mansion, so he’s seen and familiarized himself all of the other 998 happy haunts. The only people who have the residents better memorized than him are the Ghost Host and Leota.

He really likes cats. This is a very random one and it honestly feels so irrelevant to everything else, but he just gives me the vibe of that old man who would own several cats at the same time. For the first two decades that he lived in America, he owned like 5 cats while he was living in one place. Eventually he stopped when he joined the circus because he knew working in a traveling environment while owning pets wouldn’t work out.

At one point in his life, he was very much married to the job. There were nights he would stay up composing forgetting to eat or sleep because of how engrossed he was into his work (not me projecting my adhd creative hyperfocus here). Stepping into the father role for Sally actually taught him to ease up on it.

Since you asked, I’ll do Leota on a separate post another day, but here it is for now :)

[darkmaga-returns]

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

It happens every year around December, a predictable flurry of pseudo-psychology articles from low-IQ progressives expounding on the negatives of Christmas. On top of that, there’s been a pipeline of anti-Christmas films coming out of Hollywood the past decade, including some real woke bombs depicting Santa as a corporatist, a racist and a woman hater.

It’s been going on so long that in the early 2000s conservatives dubbed the annual practice the “War on Christmas”. However, at that time people on the political right assumed the vitriol was aimed at Christianity in general. What many didn’t realize is that the hatred wasn’t only about religious differences.

Around 70% of atheists identify as Democrats according to surveys, with 15% identifying as Republican and another 15% having no party affiliation. It makes sense that the majority of Christmas critics are on the political left and that their distaste of the holiday season is driven by their anti-Christian views.

After all, the political left is so obsessed with destroying Christianity that they continue to repeat the false narrative that Christmas is a “pagan holiday” and that all the traditions are stolen and repurposed. This claim is debunked every year and yet every year they keep trying to bring it back.

The pagan celebration of “Yule” often associated with Christmas by ignorant academics has always been a completely separate tradition with separate practices. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, pagan groups would meld elements of their previous traditions with newly introduced Christian holidays. Every serious study of Yule admits the distinct separation between the pagan celebration and Christmas.

The Christmas tree is also a purely Christian idea, based on the stories surrounding Saint Boniface. Boniface sought to convert the pagan tribes of Germany in 725 AD and chopped down what was known as “Odin’s Sacred Oak”, a tree used by the pagans as a site for human sacrifice. A small fir tree grew in its place and was dubbed the “Tree of Christ”.

By extension Santa Claus is often wrongly associated with pagan characters; he is in fact based on the very real Saint Nicholas, a monk who traveled the known world around 280 AD, giving away his wealth and helping children in need. His good deeds became legendary and by the Renaissance he was the most popular saint in Europe. His feast day was celebrated on the day of his death (December 6th), and it was common practice to buy large gifts or get married around this time every year.

The name “Santa Claus” comes from the Dutch, who first brought the celebration of Nicholas over to the American colonies in the 1700s. They called him “Sinter Klaas”, short for Saint Nicholas. And, if you look at some of the very old fresco paintings of Saint Nicholas you’ll find he looks rather similar to the modern day folk character version of Santa Claus.

[shredsandpatches]

Before work this morning I read a book chapter about same-sex desire and the development of modernity in early modern Germany and, like you do if you're talking about capital-M modernity in Germany, it started off with the Faust legend, pointing out that homoeroticism has been part and parcel of the Faust corpus even back when Magister Georg Helmstetter, aka Sabellicus, aka Faustus junior was traveling across Germany causing problems on purpose, even without a Mephistopheles to fuck that old man.

I fear it is gauchely anglocentric of me, but I did raise an eyebrow at the brief survey of sub- or super-textually gay Fausts skipping directly from Faustus Georg to Goethe to Mann (both Manns) without even a nod across the North Sea to the first serious dramatic treatment of the story, however. I mean, yes, it's a chapter focused on Germany but Marlowe was only a couple of steps removed from the German source material (the 1592 English Faustbuch is pretty close to the 1587 Spiers). Granted I don't think Doctor Faustus was much known on the continent, even much later--Goethe read it some time after he finished Faust I--but I think it probably supports the larger point that of all the playwrights working in early modern England it's Marlowe who gloms onto that particular subject matter, even without the German social context. Worth a footnote, anyway.

(NB. I am not seriously offended, just to be clear)

[canvas-madness-txc]

And I hope you hear me well and feel me because I am a human being like you, but I am tired and I want to ask for your help a little to relieve me, my dear. I am Hani a young man who has not seen my life yet. The occupation has destroyed me psychologically and physically, and my injury is very serious, I am unable to move from the impact of the war on Gaza, in short, I have a lot in my heart because of the crises of war that no human being feels, and a long and tired sigh from the heart. Read more about my story in the first post on my page knowing that my campaign has been confirmed via vetters gaza Please donate and don't skimp on me I need donations Please donate Donate Donate and don't be stingy my dear because I desperately need it, and if you can't share my story in the right places Please my friend help me as much as possible by spreading my story from Gaza to Germany Please help me publish my story from below Please thank you from Below my heart 😭😭💔💔

❤️❤️

[engshoujosei]

A Sign of Affection

6 volumes (in English as of 4/19/2023. Digital-first, now being published in print, as well.)

Licensed by Kodansha, also available on INKR Comics

Yuki is a college student who’s into friends and fashion. She’s also deaf. A chance meeting on a train leads to a serious crush… but can it grow into something more? A sweet and touching manga romance from the creator of Shortcake Cake!

Yuki, who’s always been deaf, is used to communicating with sign language and her phone. But she’s not used to English, so when a tourist from overseas asks for directions, she nearly panics…until a handsome stranger steps in to help. His name is Itsuomi, and it turns out he’s a friend of a friend. A charismatic globetrotter, Itsuomi speaks three languages, but he’s never had a deaf friend. The two feel drawn to each other and plan a date on a romantic winter’s night…but Yuki’s friend is afraid that she might be setting herself up to get hurt. Could this be something real? Or will these feelings melt away with the snow?

From the acclaimed author of Shortcake Cake, the hit shojo series with more than a million copies in print, this new work is full of real-life details about Japanese sign language and living without hearing, and it’s sure to please fans of romantic stories like A Silent Voice, Kimi ni Todoke, and Love in Focus!

Note: Nominated for the first Ebook Japan manga award in 2020. Nominated for the Kodansha Manga Award in the Shōjo category in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Won the grand prize at the eleventh An An manga award in 2021. Nominated for the 68th Shogakukan Manga Award in the Shōjo category in 2022.

Status in Country of Origin

8 Volumes (Ongoing)

Tags:

Affectionate Couple

Assertive Female Lead

Award-Winning Work

Bar/s

College

Couple Growth

Cute Female Lead

Deaf Protagonist

Disability/ies

Female Lead Falls in Love First

First Love

Friendship

Germany

Height Difference

Language Barrier

Multiple Couples

Part-Time Job

Post-Secondary School

Post-Secondary Student/s

Tattoo/s

Travel

Unrequited Love

World Travel

[themculibrary]

Missing Scenes Masterlist

Links Last Checked: May 11th, 2024

part two

A Short Interlude (ao3) - daisherz365 scott/wanda T, 2k

Summary: During their downtime during the battles between the Avengers Scott shares his sacred 80s mix with Wanda. It isn't the only thing he shares with her much to the amusement of the rest of Team Cap.

Better Angels (ao3) - sabrecmc steve/tony E, 8k

Summary: Chris Evans mentioned in an interview (jokingly, unfortunately) that there was a deleted scene from Civil War with him and RDJ showering together.

Welp. Headcanon accepted.

Billionaire's cake (ao3) - everythingispoetry phil/tony G, 16k

Summary: The first time Phil gets to eat something baked by Tony, it's purely accidental. The other times - not so much. Or: a story about a relationship that starts with donuts and doesn't end because of donuts.

Cap's Reinforcements (ao3) - rockmusicplays G, 2k

Summary: Clint rounds up the rest of Team Cap. Missing scene between the Avengers' compound and the airport meet-up.

course-correct without a map (ao3) - stark2ash G, 1k

Summary: This was his favorite hymn, the son next to Sam whispers, and Sam smiles sadly and nods like it’s an old memory rather than new information, and Bucky sits there in his black tie and jacket and tries to feel like he’s not crumbling back into dust.

(the six months between Endgame and Falcon and the Winter Soldier)

Dibs Not (ao3) - aloneintherain G, 1k

Summary: Inspired by anon: 'AU where the airport fight ends in a minor debate over who has to take Peter home b/c he's literally too young to fly unaccompanied without fuckloads of paperwork.'

Hold On Let Go (ao3) - gracerene steve/tony E, 2k

Summary: The barn smells of stale hay, and some kind of warm wood, and Tony knows that most people would find the scent comforting, but it just makes his skin prickle.

I’m Not Your Babysitter (ao3) - Mrs_N_Uzumaki G, 1k

Summary: “I can’t take this anymore, Tony.” The end of the rope that was Happy’s already little patience has been reached. “I am an asset manager, not a babysitter.”

(A “missing scene” in Homecoming.)

It'll All Come out in the Wash-ington (ao3) - AnonEhouse G, 1k

Summary: What if Tony had talked to Rogers right after SHIELD fell (was pushed), when Rogers was in the hospital and dopey enough to let down his guard and talk freely.

What if Tony got more than a hint of things to come?

Let’s Hear It For Captain America! (ao3) - Magnetism_bind steve/bucky E, 5k

Summary: A missing scene from Captain America: The First Avenger

On Your Right (ao3) - thingswithwings steve/sam T, 5k

Summary: Sam puts the Trouble Man soundtrack on repeat, like a talisman at first, when he thinks that Steve might die. The doctors are grim and serious, claiming that they did what they could for him, removing the bullets and stitching his insides back together. A few hours later, the doctors' faces get less grim, more confused, and a few hours after that, they're throwing their arms up in the air in frustration and grinning with triumph at the same time, because apparently the Super Soldier Serum is worth more than just the fastest mile in human history.

Sam spends that time beside Steve, in the position he's gotten used to after only a couple of days: on his right, waiting to see where he'll run next, ready to get his back.

Overseas Teambuilding Strategies (ao3) - OnMyShore T, 3k

Summary: "We’re three international fugitives, on foreign soil, with a whole lot of enemies and a clown car full of stolen tactical gear."

Or: The one where Steve, Bucky and Sam travel through Germany in a Volkswagen and bicker over who gets to join their team.

Self-Sustained Quantum Superposition (ao3) - rednihilist T, 1k

Summary: Character study masquerading as filler between Siberia & Raft-rescue.

Sympathetic Monsters (ao3) - miss_aphelion N/R, 3k

Summary: Tony doesn’t know what it is to be unmade. He still thinks that Bucky Barnes had a choice. Natasha tries to explain it to him, but Tony doesn’t want to care.

But when it comes to the things that really matter, he rarely gets what he wants.

(Civil War Missing Scene: Tony learns the truth about the Winter Soldier)

Three Men in a VW (ao3) - Brokenpitchpipe steve/bucky T, 3k

Summary: Steve steps back into the car and closes the door, lips still tingling.

“You don’t like blondes,” Bucky says.

Sam chokes.

turn your back on mother nature (ao3) - apocalyvse druig/makkari T, 10k

Summary: the drukkari scenes that were missing from the movie.

What Comes After (ao3) - Shadith G, 4k

Summary: Sam Wilson is the baby of the family. Everyone agrees, even his baby sister.

What do you call a guy who shrinks? (ao3) - Laimelde G, 1k

Summary: Missing scene fic from the end of Civil War. Set just after Steve & Bucky rescuing everyone from the Raft..

For Scott, working with ants was an everyday occurrence, but he sort of forgot that the Avengers didn't know about it. It just hadn't come up during the fight at Leipzig airport, y'know?

[rebelcourtesan]

My Recommendation for 'Serious' Anime

Below is a list of anime I love as they aren't just simple 'kids in school' or 'friendship will beat all odds' tropes. The characters are serious and tackle serious problems and themes.

TRIGGER WARNING: All of these anime have blood, violence, and death in them. Some even have sexual assault and torture. I'll mark the ones that do.

Gotta start with this gem. Humanity lives within walls, protected from Titans, giants with a hunger for human flesh. Eren's life is shattered when the walls is broken by the Colossal Titan and his village is overrun by Titans, eating his mother and ruining his childhood. He joins the cadets to learn how to take on these monstrosities to save humanity and uncover startling revelations within and outside of the walls.

I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but things aren't what they seem with the characters. They do come across as tropes with Eren being the hot headed protagonist, Armin the quiet brains, and Mikasa the cool beauty, but they each come into their own person through character development and events that mark their traumas and their response to it.

I do not understand why this anime isn't talked about more. It's an old anime from 1999, but it's themes still hold true today.

Shu is a carefree boy who meets a strange silent girl, Lala-Ru. While befriending her, they are captured by solders from another world and enlisted in their brutal army to fight a pointless war under the leadership of a deranged dictator who wants to use Lala-Ru special power over water for his own ends.

I'm going to go ahead and tell you this anime is brutal. Bad things happen to good people while villains who did atrocious things regret their actions. While I recommend this anime, it is a hard watch for anyone as there as children are forced to becoming soldiers, girls being raped by soldiers to be used as breeders, and torture.

I am more than happy to announce this gem has been rereleased on Netflix in its entirety of 70+ episodes. While this is an investment of time, (being frank here, far shorter than some more popular anime), this anime should be at the top of anyone's psychological thriller list.

Fed up with corrupt hospital politics of favoring celebrity or wealthy patients in emergency situations, Dr. Kenzo Tenma goes against the hospital director's orders and performs emergency brain surgery on a young boy shot in the head. He saves the lad's life, but 10 years later, realizes he made a terrible mistake as the boy has grown up to become a serial killer. On the run for a murder he didn't commit, Dr. Tenma travels across Europe looking for the monster whose life he should never have saved.

This anime mostly takes place in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall so there are a lot of political situations in this, but most of all it is a fugitive story of Tenma trying to hunt down a killer who is already a step ahead of him and deep conspiracy of his origins. Tough topics are corruption, addiction, and racism is a big thing in this show.

Seriously, one of the best ever written villains, Johann, is so terrifying, I still feel a shudder every time he comes on screen.

Hear me out. While is is technically a 'kids in school' anime, there are scarier things afoot than someone's crush rejecting them.

Koichi has transferred to a new school to class 3-3 and the students receive him with cold and suspicious looks. Also, there's a mysterious girl in his class everyone seems not to see or notice . . .

I can't give away too much without spoiling the plot which has a lot of twists and turns. This is one of my favorite horror anime with a mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat. I seriously wish I could hit my head and forget this anime so I can watch it for the first time again.

Think of someone created an anime version of Salem's Lot and you would get Shiki.

In the peaceful village of Sotoba, an mysterious illness afflicts the citizens. People suffering from a strange form of anemia puzzles the town's doctor. Also, a strange family moves into the village in the dead of night and local girl Megumi disappears only to be found in the woods cold and suffering from blood loss . . .

Another excellent horror anime which doesn't pull it's punches. It sports a large cast of characters from the town doctor, the priest of a village's temple, and the school kids who try to save the town, everyone doesn't come out of this with clean hands. The anime styles of the characters are a little funky and remind me of 60's anime, but in a good way.

Don't let the title card fool you.

Madoka and her best friend Sayaka discover a cat like creature named Kyubey who offers to transform them into Magical Girls to combat Witches who prey on innocent people's emotions. Yet, she's warned by a strange dark hair Magical Girl, Homura, not to accept Kyubey's offer.

This anime completely takes the Magical Girl tropes and flips it on its ear. Definitely worth a watch, if only to experience the shocking revelations this anime presents.

Anime Vikings . . .what more should I say? Currently on Netflix with the second season airing each week.

As a young boy, Thorfinn admired his father, village leader Thors and stowed away on his boat when goes away to war. Alas, his fantasy of adventuring with his father is shattered when Thors is killed in a raid and Thorfinn is taken in by the same Vikings who killed his father. He is taught how to fight and survive in battle, grows up desiring a peaceful land where he doesn't have to fight, Vinland.

It's Vikings, so expect a lot of raiding and violence. Not to mention slavery.

This is a gem that came out of nowhere! I had first thought this was a cash grab from the franchise, but damn, if they didn't give this anime their best.

Set in Night City of Cyberpunk, street kid David tries to stand on his own while appeasing his hard working mother, until a tragedy leaves him on his own with a military grade implant he has installed into his body which gives him faster reflexes in combat. He gets taken in by a group of Edgerunners, mercenaries who take any job for money and falls in love with the cool and aloof Lucy.

This anime hits hard by making you care for characters who die violent deaths, not to mention the devastation of the mental illness Cyperpyschosis. In Night City, it's not how you live that makes you a legend, it's how you die.

I'm talking about the 1997 anime series and the movie trilogy. The animation for the 2016 series isn't that great with terrible animation. So I recommend just the 1997.

Set in a low fantasy medieval world, mercenary Guts joins the Band of the Hawk, a mercenary group of young warriors under the command of the beautiful Griffith whose ambition will lead to the group's downfall.

This is another anime with characters you will fall in love with the loyal Guts, determine Casca, and charismatic Griffith. There is multiple attempts of sexual assault on Casca, so be warned before watching.

Years ago, a group of men killed Angelo's family in cold blood. Seeking revenge, Angelo infiltrates the Vanetti Family and befriends the don's son Nero, one of the men responsible for his family's murder.

This is one of the few anime I will only watch dubbed. While I have nothing against the Japanese VAs, the atmosphere and story is so 1920's Prohibitions, hearing the characters speak Japanese breaks the immersion for me. The English cast does a great job with the Brooklyn accents.

This is a story about revenge and how far someone will go for it. Angelo is cold and determine to take down the killers, including Nero, who is a poor friendly soul who is guilt stricken over his actions that day. Not knowing Angelo's true identity, he takes him under his wing and forms a friendship based on lies and subterfuge. Being a mafia story, there will be blood and crime aplenty so be warn if are easily triggered by violence.

[randomnameless]

People don't know a lot of things are relatives; incest is relative (depends on what your culture labels as taboo) and pedophilia is relative too (since it'the sexual majority that determines which case are pedophilia or not, not the civilian majority). But if those critics comes from Americans, they are entitled to the rules of their states, there is others states in America which have marrying your cousin not incest and in which the sexual majority is 16-17, which is the age the most used to place it (iirl in Germany, it's 14 and France 15 so generally round puberty) under the caveat that id doesn't involve a person of power over said civilian minro (like for example not teacher relationship even if the student gave consent, it's only when they reach civilian majority that i'ts ok). However only in FE game zoophilia, something not relative AT ALL, can be more accepted but apparently marrying a dragon is fiction so it's ok but marrying a time travler despite being also fiction is not ok because ... ? sure i would not marry a time traveler irl but i would not be dating a dragon either !

I never meant a dragon irl, so idk if I wouldn't date them on basis of being one lol

And can it really be called zoophilia when Frederick isn't fucking his own horse, but a woman - human - who has magical powers and can change in a giant rabbit? We had lewd paintings and stories about people wanting to play with mermaids, and I don't think it falls under zoophilia if the other party isn't an animal - but that's way too serious for this blog lol

Also, yes, that's where you see some, uh, serious ethnocentrism from several takes online (and at times, can guess where that person is from, or what culture they grew in based on those takes alone!) but if you have to be technical, yes, incest is relative because in some places in the world cousins can marry, at times they could in other places but this was later banned, and the legal age of consent is a clusterfuck I don't want to approach here - re about being too serious - but in general, yes, in some places being 16 means you are of age, when in some other places, you have to be 18.

[cinematicnomad]

Hello I hope you have fun traveling!!

Can you tell me about your first crush?

thank you 😊😊 i hope i do too! it's a work trip but i know and like all the people i'm gonna be traveling with from other universities so it should be good.

i had lots of crushes as a kid. like, too many? so i don't really remember the first one (there was a little boy from my pre-school in mexico and all i remember is being very sad after we moved away)? but i can tell you about my first Serious Crush™ which happened in third grade.

there was a boy in my class named sam and, somehow, in that way little kids do, he and i became Best Friends. i was a v tomboyish kid and i spent a lot of time playing soccer at recess with the boys and when we played boy-girl tag i'd play on the boy's team etc etc. sam was a little troublemaker—definitely the kid who always got sent to the principal's office and got in trouble with the teacher, etc. he gave off major calvin and hobbes vibes.

there's not much to the story—at some point it developed into a crush but we just stayed friends and i never said anything. but i remember he called my house a few times to talk to me back when landlines were still a thing and one time he left a very cute voicemail that my whole family got to tease me about. the summer after third grade my family moved to germany, but before we left my big sister was the lifeguard at his local pool and she told me after the fact one day that he had confessed his little 9 year old undying love for me and begged her to give me his email address so we could keep in touch. i created my v first email account so we could keep in contact but if memory serves she copied the address down wrong or lost the piece of paper bc it didn't work out.

about...oh, 5 or 6 years later xanga was a big thing. and on xanga there were different public groups or communities or what have you that you could join and be a member of. and i remember during 8th grade i just became OBSESSED with reconnecting with him. i knew the local middle school he would have gone to so i started joining xanga groups associated to the school and just. randomly messaging any member who seemed to be my age and asking if they knew him 😅

eventually i totally forgot about it until!! several months later one random girl replied, explained that he moved away but she DID know him and gave me his email or phone number. i reached out, we reconnected, had a couple lengthy phone calls, and now we're just random facebook friends lol

sleepover asks

[gtccollectionstories]

A holiday present

This is the first in a series of Collection Stories about items donated by Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth to the Collection.

Item 18893, GTC

This is the back of a hand mirror which personally belonged to Rachel. The wooden frame has been covered in brown leather which is held in place by narrow leather thongs around the mirror itself and down the handle. The mirror glass is bevelled around its circumference. The back has an embossed peacock design and the handle has been tooled with a scrolling pattern. When it was new, the peacock would have been brightly painted in blue, green and gold; but now only some of the paint remains. Peacocks were a favourite motif for Rachel throughout her life.

Detail showing the leather thongs.

The mirror is dated 1900 and is described on her index card as:

From Nuremburg. Leatherwork on back with raised peacock cut and coloured. The glass is bevelled and beautifully lashed into place with thin leather thongs. The property of the Hon. R. B. Kay-Shuttleworth. Bought for her by her parents.

But how do we know exactly when the mirror was purchased?

In the Library at Gawthorpe Hall is a book titled ‘Nuremberg’ by Cecil Headlam (one of a series called ‘Medieval Towns’) published by J M Dent in 1899. On the flyleaf, in Rachel’s mother’s handwriting, is an inscription in black ink:

Blanche M Kay-Shuttleworth 25 April 1900 a present from Rachel, Laurie, Edward & Kitty in anticipation of a visit paid in June to Nuremberg, by U. B. & Nina

[‘U’ is Rachel’s father, Ughtred, and ‘B’ is her mother, Blanche]

Beneath this, in her familiar green ink, Rachel has added:“later U. R. & L. were there.” [ie. Ughtred, Rachel and Lawrence.]

Using that date, we found a paragraph in the Burnley Express, 2 June 1900 which provides some extra information about the upcoming visit to Nuremberg:

HOLIDAYS FOR SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, M.P. Sir Ughtred and Lady Kay-Shuttleworth have left London for Germany, where they are making a short tour during the Whitsuntide recess with Miss Kay-Shuttleworth. As their four younger children had measles, no holiday was possible at Easter.

Three weeks later, on 23 June 1900, the Express also announced that “Sir Ughtred, Lady, and Miss Kay-Shuttleworth have returned to London, after their visit to Germany”. The mirror for 14 year old Rachel would have been in their luggage, with other gifts as well for the three younger children, who had also been left at home.

It is not at all surprising to hear that the trip had been delayed from Easter, as measles could be a very serious illness. Ughtred and Blanche would have been particularly anxious, as just five years earlier, in 1895, their 16 year old nephew, Charles (the only son of Ughtred’s brother, Lionel) had died in a measles outbreak at Marlborough College. Luckily, Rachel and her siblings all recovered from their measles.

Thanks to one of Rachel's albums, we can also pinpoint exactly when Rachel and her brother, Lawrence, made that "later" trip to Nuremberg with their father. There is a photograph of Sir Ughtred and his sister, Janet, with the caption: “Homburg. Father & Aunt Janet show L & R the haunts of their childhood", and on the same page is this photograph of Nuremberg. Both can be dated to 1911. Rachel has also written: "Father, Lawrence & I tour in Germany & Bohemia: Cologne. Frankfurt. Dresden. Prague & Nurnberg":

Taken from P20, Album T100, GTC

Both Ughtred and Janet had accompanied their mother, Janet Kay-Shuttleworth (1817-1872), during the many years she spent abroad, travelling to the spa towns of Germany in search of a health cure. Although, this was usually undertaken by Janet, as she was the only daughter in the family.

Page of photographs of Nuremberg taken in 1911. (P24, Album T100, GTC)

In 1864, to benefit from the much warmer Mediterranean climate, Sir Ughtred's mother had a villa built for her in San Remo, Italy. She lived there with her daughter, Janet, but actually died in Bad Soden, Germany in 1872, where she is buried.

Jane H.

[grahhams]

And I hope you hear me well and feel me because I am a human being like you, but I am tired and I want to ask for your help a little to relieve me, my dear. I am Hani a young man who has not seen my life yet. The occupation has destroyed me psychologically and physically, and my injury is very serious, I am unable to move from the impact of the war on Gaza, in short, I have a lot in my heart because of the crises of war that no human being feels, and a long and tired sigh from the heart. Read more about my story in the first post on my page knowing that my campaign has been confirmed via vetters gaza Please donate and don't skimp on me I need donations Please donate Donate Donate and don't be stingy my dear because I desperately need it, and if you can't share my story in the right places Please my friend help me as much as possible by spreading my story from Gaza to Germany Please help me publish my story from below Please thank you from Below my heart 😭😭💔💔

[egg2k16]

And I hope you hear me well and feel me because I am a human being like you, but I am tired and I want to ask for your help a little to relieve me, my dear. I am Hani a young man who has not seen my life yet. The occupation has destroyed me psychologically and physically, and my injury is very serious, I am unable to move from the impact of the war on Gaza, in short, I have a lot in my heart because of the crises of war that no human being feels, and a long and tired sigh from the heart. Read more about my story in the first post on my page knowing that my campaign has been confirmed via vetters gaza Please donate and don't skimp on me I need donations Please donate Donate Donate and don't be stingy my dear because I desperately need it, and if you can't share my story in the right places Please my friend help me as much as possible by spreading my story from Gaza to Germany Please help me publish my story from below Please thank you from Below my heart 😭😭💔💔

They're at 7%

[liverpool-enjoyer]

And I hope you hear me well and feel me because I am a human being like you, but I am tired and I want to ask for your help a little to relieve me, my dear. I am Hani a young man who has not seen my life yet. The occupation has destroyed me psychologically and physically, and my injury is very serious, I am unable to move from the impact of the war on Gaza, in short, I have a lot in my heart because of the crises of war that no human being feels, and a long and tired sigh from the heart. Read more about my story in the first post on my page knowing that my campaign has been confirmed via vetters gaza Please donate and don't skimp on me I need donations Please donate Donate Donate and don't be stingy my dear because I desperately need it, and if you can't share my story in the right places Please my friend help me as much as possible by spreading my story from Gaza to Germany Please help me publish my story from below Please thank you from Below my heart 😭😭💔💔

please donate if you can 🙏