#source is google images lol

[which-item-poll]

[skrunksthatwunk]

the debate continues (pt 1) but kurama gets called in

bonus under the cut (ft hiei):

gay people

[vasfasan]

ouat characters as screenshots pt.2

(part one here)

[backformores]

@kpopcreators event one: favourites favourite artist's title tracks + favourite bias → le sserafim's sakura

sources.

[sxaymz217]

Huh, its like reverse Apollo.

So I guess its Epimetheus.

Hindsight but still just as devastating, if a little lamer lol.

I think whoever named worcestershire sauce that should have the worst tummy hurty ever

[freshydip]

some quick "thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com" PSA's because we're just going in circles now lol

notawebsite.com is not related to gravity falls in any way! it's a 20+ year old site full of unrelated weirdness. do not pursue

the analog horror videos are fanmade! super cool but not official

this image is fake, the text is not in the source code of the site. do not pursue

people are saying the name of this episode on disney plus just changed, that's not true. it's been this way for years

the random capitalization in the PDF of great gatsby are not a code, they're just weird formatting! everything caps in that version was italicized in the original. do not pursue unless you really wanna get gatsby'd

check out this google doc if you want to get caught up!

[mortalityplays]

Forgive me if I'm mistaking you for another person, but I remember you speaking at multiple points on the unsustainability of free social media services (I think especially in response to the cohost collapse?), and I'm curious on what your thoughts on bluesky are so far. I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I've read previously it seemed like they were on track to be financially sustainable, but I don't know if the recent floods of users has thrown those projections off. Sorry if I'm mixing you up with someone else on my timeline, in that case just ignore me.

bluesky will almost certainly follow the same trajectory of monetisation => bloat => enshittification => decline as every other major platform built on venture capital and user hoarding. it's a terrible model that only works in the short term as a mirage for attracting funding and making founders look good for a year or two before they sell.

you can see the same effect in the decline of all the subscription box services that came into vogue just before covid: they feel great to use for as long as the initial injection of venture funding lasts, because the purpose of that funding at that stage is to attract users and impress the next round of funders with how pleasant/intuitive/efficient/ethical/good value the service is. that's the stage where they're handing out freebies and bowling over influencers, and every ingredient in the box is fresh and high quality and locally sourced. wow what a good deal, what a great system!!! why hasn't anyone done this before? the answer is because it's unsustainable by design. they rack up good reviews, sign on a billion new users, attract new funding from a bunch of much more credulous investors, and then gut all of the expensive parts. portions get smaller, ingredients get worse, packaging gets flimsier, prices go up, freebies turn into "5% off your first 9 boxes when you invite 3 friends", and customer service vanishes.

with social media (and platforms like discord) the logic is the same, it's just a little less glaringly obvious to the end user because they're not coming home to leaking packages of rancid chicken on the doorstep. bluesky has an advantage over tiny operations like cohost because it was founded by a billionaire making a point for the sake of his own image. it got a really significant chunk of startup funding, and the owner had existing connections and rep in the space to attract more. That's why it has survived the goldrush period, why it still feels good to use, and why users who have been burned so many times before are finally accepting it as a stable, reliable option. It's still in its venture capital honeymoon phase where the only thing worth spending money on is making the service attractive to users.

What I expect we will see next, with another mass influx of users from twitter and new funding from a rogue's gallery of tech venture sickos led by Blockchain Capital is a strong ramp up into monetising that userbase. They've already been pretty forthright about how they plan to do this, and I think it's a solid roadmap of how Bluesky will bloat and decay over the next few years:

this is a huge lol. don't worry, we're not going to hyperfinancialize the social experience through NFTs. the thing even crypto freaks started feigning amnesia about a year ago. real "our health conscious sodas are 100% arsenic free" messaging here. They know perfectly well that rubes users are suspicious of their typical 5 dimensional tech finance chess games and are patting our hands about last week's bogeymen so nobody worries too hard about whatever 'decentralised developer ecosystem' just happens to be helmed by a bunch of crypto guys. this definitely means something good and based and not a google-like single sign on user data harvesting operation.

This is the same shit that's currently rotting the floorboards of discord. Bluntly, there is no way to run a platform on this scale without gating functionality behind paid services. Discord has been squeezing free-tier file uploads and call quality etc. down steadily and cranking up subscription costs over the last year or two, throwing in chaff like animated avatar frames to try and justify the user cost. They're also doing the same misdirection thing again here, pointing to Thing We All Hate to deflect from thing we might not like very much when they do it. Booo elon booo we all hate elon!!! wait how do we feel about subscription models again,

watch out for this to kill porn on bsky like it has killed porn on every other social platform 👍 boooo we hate elon boooo stupid idiot and his 'everything app' booooo wait why do you need my tax information, what's that about mastercard,

Look, we are all aware social media is a money pit. Let's not forget dorsey was looking to sell twitter in the first place, long before elon's very public plunge into total online derangement. Subscription services are not going to plug the hole, so we are gradually going to see more and more spaghetti thrown at the wall while early funders shuffle cards and do their pyramid scheme bit bringing in stupider and stupider investments. this is the window in which bluesky will be temporarily worth using for us, for the idiot public, the poorly rendered crowd jpegs in the background of their venture capital MOBA. it's in their interests to slow and pad the decline as much as possible, because that is how they get maximally paid.

Given the scale of the money involved, and dorsey's weird ego investment, I think bluesky will probably manage a controlled drift for a good few years before it gets really bloated and painful. and by then we will all be so used to the *checks notes* decentralised developer ecosystem that we'll just be posting through it, watching another generation of columnists call another collapsing platform 'their beloved hellsite' and passing around that meme about not getting out of our chairs no sir until idk we all get on a fediverse neurolink alternative to stick it to the elongated muskrat and our brains pop peacefully in our sleep. which I guess is the closest thing to viability any social media platform can achieve.

anyway diogenes the cynic is also on bluesky

[alectothinker]

the unwanted guest reference compilation (revised, thank u tltblr!) (scroll down for additions)

every day i thank tamsyn muir for her planet sized brain (and the new short story). will be quoting heavily from TUG so spoilers under the cut!

woo this is a long one. (will probably miss stuff, im a non-western zoomer) 

References are in the order that they appear in TUG ->

Pal’s mask being a reference to his shattered and glued-back-together skull:

“This is PALAMEDES SEXTUS, whose mask is distinguished by being plain, of shattered wood clumsily taped or glued back together.” (page 480)

Pain (slight pain) (jk. pretty good amount of pain)

2. An Inspector Calls by JB Priestly: 

“IANTHE Oh — Inspector. How terribly good of you to call so late.” (page 483)

Ok there are so many other parallels to AIC in this story (the setting, the stage play format, overall message) and I’ve written briefly about it here

3. This better not awaken anything in me [original clip from community thank u @what3ver]

“[Ianthe gayly describing infinite strip poker with harrow] Yuck. I hope that hasn’t awakened anything in me.” (p492) 

(she’s tucking the image away in her mind palace as we speak)

4. Ace attorney (i LAUGHED)

"Palamedes slams both hands down flat on the lid of the upper coffin, then thrusts his arm out to point an accusing finger at Ianthe. PALAMEDES you're avoiding the question!” (p493) 

Insert ace attorney OBJECTION dot gif here 

5. and right after ace attorney, Monty Python:

“IANTHE No. It's a fair cop, guv'nor. But, in this instance, society really is to blame.” (p493)

Probably a reference to Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Church Police". Quote taken from tvtropes: 

Man: All right, it's a fair cop, but society's to blame. Church Policeman: Right, we'll arrest them instead.

6. Looney tunes: 

“IANTHE (Brightly) That’s all, folks! Back after the break.” (p495)

Here’s a clip of porky pig saying it bc why not: That's All Folks HD

7. Hamlet

“VOICE ‘Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?’” (p500)

Original quote:

“Use every man according to his desert and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity, the less they deserve ... the more merit in your bounty.”

notes: very hot of dulcie to know shakespeare

8. Haters meme (?)

does this even count as a meme at this point. Idk but i love that dulcie said it. 

“VOICE Truly, wonderful news for my haters.” (p501)

9. The bible (ofc)

“PALAMEDES (as if reciting) ‘And her body was like the chrysolite, and her face as the appearance of lighting, and her eyes as a burning lamp; and her arms, and all downward to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass.’” (p502)

Palamedes quotes Daniel 10:6 when Dulcie reveals (?) herself to him. I'm not super familiar with the bible, but depending on dif sources from google (lol), the original quote describes either Christ or the angel Gabriel appearing to Daniel:

"And his body was like the chrysolite, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as a burning lamp: and his arms, and all downward even to the feet, like in appearance to glittering brass: and the voice of his word like the voice of a multitude." (from the Douay-Rheims Bible)

ok finally stuff that might be a reference but I havent been able to figure out a lot has been figured out! additions from tltblr here:

p481 

> probably nothing, but any significance re pal’s calling card being the skeleton hand?  probably a reference to the skele hand harrow made him in htn (via @guyrunsbackwards)

p482

The Almond Room?? Is this anything. It seems so weirdly specific lol

 “IANTHE the master will see you in the Almond Room, sir.”

crowdsourced possibilities:

the almond room representing babs' borrowed amygdala, which is involved in processing memory, decision making, and emotional response; would make sense for the investigation/interrogation to take place here (via @confusedbyinterface)

may be a reference to the game Clue, where the individual rooms in which the mystery happens have specific names (via @the-light-of-stars);

a reference to cyanide, which smells like almonds (@the-light-of-stars, @satans-poptarts); + @winged mentioned that in a lot of early 20th century whodunnits, someone has a revelation about the real conclusion when they smell almond somewhere it shouldn't be (vs pal and ianthe having their revelations about babs' soul in the almond room)

p487

"IANTHE False things have a piquancy which the real can never match.  PALAMEDES     is that from something? IANTHE      Everything's from something.”

• ianthe is this actually from something. google yielded no straightforward results :(

p503

"IANTHE You look to me like a small boy holding a tail when he doesn’t even know where the donkey is.”

Nothing in particular just the image of tiny pal playing pin the tail on the donkey is so. He’s baby. Also he probably found a way to be very good at it via psychometry lol

@mayasaura: Under the circumstances, the donkey thing also reminded me of Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant, about the limits of perception in understanding the true nature of being. Or, to quote Wikipedia: "The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience" <- ianthe turbo roasting pal, love to see it

Miscellaneous / theatre techniques:

> What's up with the coffins?

@tangelotime: the coffins might be a black box theater technique, using boxes to represent certain settings rather than faithfully recreating them on the stage; @the-light-of-stars mentioned that the arrangement of the coffins depends on Pal's questions:

first he asks a philosophical question thus the arrangement in the style of a greek symposion - their style of dialogue also is in reference to Plato's work 'Symposion', as well as Ianthe offering Pal wine and the servants placing velvet cushions. The next question is about Babs' murder thus arrangement in style of a courtroom. Then a question about Gideon, the cavalier, thus arrangement in the style of a fencing ring. The last arrangement follow a question about Ianthe's motives for Corona and they are playing cards- both a classic trope symbolizing a battle of wits and a metaphor for Ianthe holding secrets (cards) that she has to reveal one by one (via @the-light-of-stars)

@transbutchbluess, @gwydionmisha also ID'd the greek symposium scene as a parody of a socratic/platonic dialogue, which "presents a discussion of moral and philosophical problems between two or more individuals illustrating the application of the Socratic method." (via wikipedia)

> continuing with the theme of theatre, @valence-positive also mentioned that the servants thumping the coffins at the same time after each question may be a theatre technique to underscore Pal's question; @winged made the connection to bells/gavels/gongs, which are often used for judgement (which occurs during the discussion of Babs' murder and Ianthe's intent/endgame.)

the coffin thumping might also be a reference to the bell toll in A Christmas Carol (via @winged again, you have a huge brain); it's also implied that Pal's visits parallel the three ghosts who visit Scrooge and induce a moral awakening:

"IANTHE Five minutes to midnight, I'd say. You can't last much longer, and we both know it. PAL You said that three visits ago." (p483)

vs the original novella by Charles Dickens (taken from sparknotes again):

“You (scrooge) will be haunted… by Three Spirits… Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One…. “Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”

Pal makes Ianthe realise that Babs' soul has been slowly fusing with hers all along, which is similar what the third ghost does in ACC:

"The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come leads Scrooge through a sequence of mysterious scenes relating to an unnamed man's recent death...Scrooge, anxious to learn the lesson of his latest visitor, begs to know the name of the dead man. After pleading with the ghost, Scrooge finds himself in a churchyard, the spirit pointing to a grave. Scrooge looks at the headstone and is shocked to read his own name."

Finally, like other references in TUG (An Inspector Calls, Dulcie's Hamlet quote), A Christmas Carol criticises the treatment of a disadvantaged class. AIC and ACC both end with the characters faced with the morality of their actions. (intertextuality! delicious)

I also thought the thumping was similar to the synchronisation thing we see in ntn:

"[Ianthe] flounced up the dais, threw herself back into her chair—the dead bodies jerked their left hips convulsively, all in unison" (Nona the Ninth, p335)

Ok that’s it thank u for reading the whole thing ???? And thank you so much for contributing guys! Feel free to leave a reply or dm me if you have any additions <3

[r41nbowrumpusp4rty]

I more or less agree with the idea that it's good to be honest about an artwork’s production, but i also think it can get more complicated than is it or is it not ai art.

Is a watercolor recreation of an ai piece ai art? Every brushstroke thanks to a fleshy hand, but the colors composition & the like are all the machine's.

Is digitally painting on top meaningfully different from projecting the same image on a canvas or using the grid method to copy a reference? 

What amount of post genoration transformation makes it no longer ai art? Is there one?

in my experience you typically only state a collages source images if it matters to the works statement, so to always specify only one type of collage fodder any time it rears it's head feels weird & counter intuitive to me & my goals (computer generation eventually being as pearl clutch worthy as using a photoshop type program is now). 

Is a collage made up of 50% “organic images” and 50% computer generated ai art in the end? 

70% “organic”? 90% computer generated?

One ai image that is most of the final piece but with a dozen smaller “organic” images incorporated throughout?

It is of equal difficulty to collect pictures from a museum archive or pexels as it is to find neat stuff scrolling through midjourney, thus my process as a collager can be unchanged between the two sources, nary a prompt typed by me.

Is it still ai art if the process/final product is basically indistinguishable from regular digital collage?

Is making ai art the prompting or the choice to incorporate these tools at all?

Does it matter whether you found a source image or asked for it?

in conkclusion: imo it's probably good to be cautious of broad brushes and rigid boxes, especially when it comes to stuff like art.

Honestly I’d just prefer it if people simply tagged AI images and the like, as AI so I could filter it and not deal with it. Yet I see a lot of people post AI images and not bother with doing the bare minimum of tagging it :/

100% with you. AI art is a different medium and should be tagged / sorted / catalogued / curated as such

[corneliushickey]

@ilynpilled

ppl being more interested in Fandom than the actual source text is so real like they do have their own nonexistent text thats just a recycled concoction of the same bland fandom incorrect quotes tropes over and over again which deviates so much from the canon and they prefer to the actual thing lol

my favorite example of sourcecreep is the fact that if you go on reddit, pinterest, or facebook, or google image search 7 years ago, or flickr and photobucket if you're properly fandom old, you will find image edits of disney's jack sparrow with the quote overlay "the problem is not the problem. the problem is your attitude about the problem."

if you've seen enough of these edits (there are many thousands of them), you might even read those two sentences in his trademark cadence.

the problem here, though, is not anyone's attitude about the problem. it's that this quote has never appeared in any of the five films in which jack sparrow appears. nor in any of the video games he stars or guest-stars on. nor in any of the tie-in young jack sparrow novels or the film novelizations. it is not from a deleted scene or an early draft of any script. it's not from any of the disney park parades or firework shows in which jack is included as a face character with recorded speaking lines. it's not from the original ride or the re-dress of the ride post-dead man's chest.

this is a quote from the YA series the sisterhood of the traveling pants. one of the characters' coaches says it to them in one of the books because they are children in high school. there is no reason for it to be attributed to this character or this franchise besides one patient zero at some point or another 20 years ago making an image with a text overlay on picnik photo editor and uploading it to their livejournal or whatever.

anyway this is how asoiaf fans on twitter absorb information about their favs from the series and then post about it. i believe there are many such cases across fandom at large.

[historical-fashion-polls]

hello lovely curator! i would love to know how you find your images? google has been abysmal for finding historical clothing these days

hi dear anon! 💕

thank you so much for this question! ☺️☺️ I'll begin my answer by saying that currently the blog is mostly running on submitted images, which come from lovely folks who have generously sent in images to be used as polls, so I won't be able to speak to those specific sources, but when I source my own images for the blog, here are some resources I use:

the Met has a great collection of digitized fashion plates! however, the search function is not great and they've grouped things into categories that aren't always accurate. so I guess the content is really good but I've found that browsing the collection isn't always super user friendly

the costumes from the 1890s that I've been posting a bit lately are all from the V&A's digitized collection of costume designs for pantomimes! the V&A is another great collection that I personally find easier to browse, although the search function still isn't great

so I guess I'll make this bullet point "museum collections in general" since there are also a bunch of other museums and library collections that have digitized fashion plate images. if you have a favorite museum or even a local one, I'd definitely recommend checking out their website to see if they might have anything!

wikimedia commons also has a pretty substantial collection of mostly 19th century fashion plates. they have a category titled "fashion plates by decade" that is really fun to browse! the one downside here though is that there's not always good provenance info, so if you wanted more details about the plate, they're not always as easy to get as they might be on a museum website

lastly (and a bit unfortunately), is pinterest. this is really not my favorite site to use since it really is a free-for-all out there and there is no verifiable provenance or even dating info, so it's extremely hit or miss. however, I do often have to trek into the wilds of pinterest for mid to late 20th century stuff, since most of that isn't old enough to be in museum collections. the nice thing about pinterest is that it will sometimes link out to other sites that actually are reputable and have good info, but it's still worth treading with caution there lol

I hope this was helpful! ☺️💕 the vast majority of my images come from these sources, so I hope these are useful for you as well! ☺️☺️ additionally, if anyone has other places they like to search for historical fashion images, feel free to drop them in the comments/notes! 💖💖

thank you again for this lovely question, and I hope you're able to find some cool new sites to browse through some fun historical fashion! 🥰🥰

[inbetweenhours]

Ah the miracle of making character references and then not using them at all... Literally what is wrong with me why did I do that? 

I was playing with a brush and line-art style and ended up just drawing a bunch of flower husbands based off some pose references I found on Pinterest. There’s technically a 6th one but I got too embarrassed to post it lol. 

Pose references under the read more I used with the few sources I could find :]

guys I was reverse google image searching for my life and only found the source for one, plus a friend found the other. If you happen to know the sources for these feel free to tell me.

credit is in the picture thankfully, but it was still hard to find for me lol. I do believe HERE is the creator though.

Again, credit in photo. A friend on discord is the one who tracked this one down for me though because it seems their Twitter was deleted. HERE is the assumed credit.

The rest are uncreditted because google reverse image search and the like 3 different websites I was trying to find sources with just didn't help. Idk, once again if anyone can find them I’d like to credit them. Even if they were just references for the pose, they helped.

This one looks like it has a signature but I unfortunatly cannot read it 

[scam-alerts]

🚨Scammer Alert🚨 + 🔎Scam Exam(ination)🔍

Example account: @muralmagicsworld (banned)

Accounts also running this scam: @craftpatch, @shadyduckgladiator

(Note: There are probably a lot of scammers running this scam. This post is mainly talking about the blog that I managed to find and document with my own two eyes.)

1- Type of Scam this account is performing: Muse Scam

The muse scam is a variant of the fake check scam in which the scammer will contact the victim over social media and claim to want to use their image for an art project. The scammer will often use a stolen social media account to increase their credibility. They will offer a generous sum of money and offer to pay via check, and the victim is instructed to send money to the scammer for “materials” via an irreversible method. The victim is under the illusion that the funds cleared when the bank makes the money available thanks to current regulations. Usually the fake check deposit will be reversed in a few weeks, but it can also take several months.

If you do not have the funds to cover the amount, your balance will go negative. Your bank will usually charge a fee for depositing a bad check, and your account may be closed depending on the severity of the scam. source (reddit)

Additional info about the muse scam. (from malwarebytes)

2 - How I know this user is performing a scam.

Part 1: The request. (on a post made by a bot no less... lol)

Part 2: The blog an their posts.

The blog's earliest post was made on November 11th 2024

Using google lense (the photo icon you can use to look up an image on the internet) I was able to find these images linked to a youtube channel and an instagram account made by an artist known as Andreas Liss.

The woman in the first instagram post's name is credited, by the original artist, to be the lovely Anastasia Dmitrieva.

Where as the scammer... well.. They decided to call her... Jennifer.

-----

Final words: The muse scam is quite common and it's recently migrated from instagram to tumblr. If you are someone who posts pictures of yourself or your animals, always remember this: If someone tells you they're feeling 'inspired' and they'll draw you or your pet but you have to 'pay for art supplies' and they're willing to send you a $1000+ 'check/money order' and 'you can keep the rest' because they're feeling 'oh so generous'?

It is and always will be a scam.

Other helpful guides on spotting scams. (by @kyra45)

-----

Disclaimer: This post is only meant to serve as documentation and reference material so that others know: why this person is a scammer, and to provide more information about the scam they are running. I do not, in any way, endorse harassment or mass reporting these users. Only report posts related to asks, comments, or messages if you GET them or ones like them. Thank you.

[73ghosts]

I'm sure many of you are already aware of this, but in case I have any newer tumblr users, pet bill donation scams are very common on this site. If someone DMs or sends you an ask asking you to reblog some sort of donation post for a sick/injured pet, it is most likely a scam.

Below the cut, I have included tips to spotting a scam, and why I believe the post by 507-on-queue is a scam. @kyra45 runs an excellent tumblr scam awareness blog, and has more information and tips here about spotting pet scams. I have archived the scam post in question on my side blog here.

Here's some ways to spot these scams:

Age of the blog - most scam blogs are a week old or younger, they are often under a day old

Similar urls being used for multiple blogs - scam blogs are typically blocked/deleted rapidly, and the OP makes a new account with almost the same name

The blog bio/pfp are not unique

You can only access the dashboard view of the blog so the post archive cannot be accessed (for example, my dashboard view is this, but you can also visit my webpage view and see my 9 years of post history via /archive lol)

The blog has never interacted with you before

The blog follows you and immediately sends a DM/ask

The DM/ask is overly polite and guilt trips (they often ask you to reply privately to reduce digital footprint)

Images of pets can be found via reverse image search

OP's story is inconsistent or unrealistic

The Paypal link does not match the supposed country OP lives in

Most recently, a scam post has been going around about a sphynx cat named Draven. This has been done using multiple urls, including:

meer-lion (deactivated)

507-on-queue (deactivated)

507onqueue (deactivated)

507-onqueue (current as of Jan 13th, 2024)

Here's how this blog meets our scam watch criteria:

The current blog (507-onqueue) is less than a day old (19 hours at the time of this post). The oldest post:

As listed above, OP uses multiple, similar URLs.

The bio of 507-onqueue is taken almost directly from another user (said user). Due to the same bio being used in previous scams, I suspect this is the same or related person to kappa-tundra/kappatundra (about this scam).

Scam blog:

Copied blog:

Only dashboard view is available.

The blog follows and immediately DMs/sends and ask. From my account:

The ask from the account is very polite, guilt trips, and asks me to answer to the post privately. The goal of being so polite is to win your trust and lower your defenses. This isn't the worst guilt trip I've been in a scam (that goes to the child support scam from several years ago). By asking me to reply privately, they're attempting to reduce their digital footprint (making them harder to google) and disguise how much they are spamming asks.

The information in that post was taken from a private Facebook account (source). I found the Facebook account in question and confirmed that the information was taken from there. I do not want to share the page because I view that as a further violation of the Facebook OP's privacy. For transparency, the images of Draven are not on Facebook OP's page any longer, but there are several other identifiable pieces of information that make it more than likely that the claims of her information being stolen are true.

The ask is inconsistent itself with the name of the cat (Draven vs Indie). This is also nearly identical to another scam ask from user captbridges. This user was using a real GoFundMe for a sick cat to scam.

The medical paperwork in OP's post is for a veterinary hospital in Wisconsin. However, OP's PayPal is based in the Philippines. The country.x= part of the url indicate the country of origin of the account; PH is the Philippines. The local.x= part of the url shows that the link was localized to the United States (making the donation currency USD). (PayPal's information page about country codes).

Stay safe out there and remain vigilant, everyone. If you don't already know them, try to pick up some boolean operators to refine your google searches when checking for scams. The tumblr search function sucks, so this is your best bet of finding information about scams like these online.

[noctuadora]

About the Japanese relationship charts circulating around RE Twitter…

I've been seeing these images used to spark discussion... and arguments. Shipping wars aside, I was more intrigued by this Japanese term used to describe Leon and Ada’s relationship.

I want to explain these words in more detail, so this post will be about that + answering questions that some might ask. I'm also including Leon and Claire's chart as well.

Note: I am currently studying Japanese. I made this post partly because I like to understand advanced terms that are unique to a specific language. Despite this, my explanation is not immune to errors.

Leon and Claire’s relationship chart in Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness (2021).

Explaining this first because this is fairly easy to understand.

信頼関係 (しんらいかんけい・shinraikankei) - A relationship of mutual trust.

Kanji breakdown:

信頼 > reliance, trust, faith, confidence // 関係 > relationship

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Leon and Claire trust and rely on each other.

Q. ‘Is the term exclusively used for them only?’

No. 信頼関係 was also used to describe Leon's relationship with President Graham (and Jason or Patrick).

Leon and Ada’s relationship chart in Resident Evil: 6 (2012).

This is the term that others can't seem to grasp well (I mean they kinda do, but they also misinterpret it weirdly). In the English version, their relationship is described as ‘fatal ties’, but I don't care about that - I'm focusing on the Japanese version.

腐れ縁 (くされえん・kusareen) - an undesirable but inseparable relationship.

Kanji breakdown:

腐れ > to rot // 縁 > relations

The highlight of this word is the kanji 腐る, which is a negative verb used to describe something rotting/decaying.

The "inseparable relationship" part may be interpreted as romantic to some; as some shippers say, 'they are fated' (more on that later). But first, we need to understand what 腐れ縁 means in more context. Here are some excerpts I've taken from multiple sources.

離れようとしても離れられない関係 - A relationship that you know you should let go of, but can't. (This is consistent with OG RE4 Leon's line of 'she's a part of me I can't let go'.)

Note: 離れ (はなれ・hanare) mostly means 'to let go (of something/someone)' and 'to separate/to give up/to part ways'.

離れよう、縁を切ろうとしても断ち切れない好ましくない関係 - An unfavorable relationship that you can't cut off no matter how much you try to.

Note: 好ましい (このましい・konomashii) means desirable. 好ましくない (このましくない・konomashikunai) is the negative conjugation of it. 好ましくない関係 - undesirable relationship.

Just from this alone, you can see that their dynamic is difficult to understand. And that's what 腐れ縁 is.

Q. ‘Is the word 'rotten relationship' an accurate translation of the term?’

Google Translate translates this word LITERALLY. I think there is no true English equivalent of 腐れ縁, but yeah, 'fatal ties' is the term closest to it.

Q. ‘Can Leon and Ada be described as 'fated'?’

The answer is yes... and no. Here is another excerpt I find to be interesting:

「運命の相手」 を思わせるようなニュアンス ですが、 実際には好ましくない関係に使われることが 多い言葉です。- The term 腐れ縁 does have a nuance that is reminiscent of "destined/fated partner (or in other words, 'the one')", but in reality, it is often used to refer to undesirable relationships.

Q. ‘So... Is their relationship that bad?'

The answer to this question will depend on your own interpretation of Leon and Ada's dynamic - and that's why people are quite divided when it comes to them. It is said that 腐れ縁 can be positive... in the sense that if you experienced it before, you can now have a better judgment of people (lol). But in some cases, a long-lasting rotting relationship (like theirs) could mean that they at least have some level of mutual trust only they understand. It can work... but even the article I've read wasn't so clear on how it can work, so.

If you made it this far, I hope you found this interesting. :)

[catwyk]

(notes and comments next, tumblr will not let me add a cut no matter how hard i try!!!!!!! killing and maiming!!!!)

silt verses wips, some will get finished and some wont :p which is which?? who knows !!! not me !!!!

1) thurrocks and faulkner on their quest to the endless drear, with jasp, tapper and wallace in the background (or at least thats the idea). most of my time on this one has been spent adjusting values on the hills in the background, and its absolutely too vibrant and green for how i imagine the scene lol theyre also really shitty hills if you look at them for less than a second so. dont do that please LMAO

2) faulkner in his katabasian garb, sat in a river for to maximise his solo slay. this one is kinda old atp but the design hasnt changed much. ive mentioned the open-mouthed epaulettes referencing the mouth delivering/returning before, but the green uhhh idk thing is dried and woven seaweed :) the rest of the robes will be more decorated with abstract woven patterns and embroidery if i ever start working on this one again

3) now THIS is the relgious faulkner that was giving me brain damage a couple days ago, that ive since realized wont be fixed with the ideas a couple people offered because of the perspectice. its pretty obviously mimicking a guillaume dufube sketch intended for a ceiling that i absolutely love. the parts ive produced, im really happy with, but i cant work out the composition fully so its gonna be abandoned at least for a while. not to mention the absolute misplacement of a sky motif. its one of those paintings i wish i had thicker/oil paint or gouache style brushes on medibang for

4) my mercer design!! heavily inspired by paleoart from various sources. everything she and gage have is organic, except a very few, like her sheath (oblong metal with a leather "cap" around the tip of the blade, a real ancient design i found references for on google) and her rifle. the original image also features gage playing their flute while squatting, but both of those things are hard poses to draw and hard to find refereces for, and im not willing to put in THAT much effort god lord i draw for FUN if its hard im giving up baby

5&6) snare dog!!!! i love these silly guys but i dont like this design, its too wolfish and i imagine them sorta borzoi/greyhound aligned. i also dont like the way the face opens, since i imagine that as more of a twist. i do like the flopping tongue though and i liked the half assed rendering