#these don't have illustrations inside though btw

[xitty]

Here's my "trying to desperately find books that scratch the same itch as The Case Files of Jeweler Richard" collection. And I have to say, none of these can top it but two I really like. Three out of four are from Yen Press and one (Onmyoji) from Cross Infinite World. Jeweler Richard is from Seven Seas. So Yen Press is aggressively targeting the same crowd and look at me, it's working. All four have supernatural elements unlike Jeweler and so far I've read only the first books of these series. Noting the BL vibes too because I like handsome men together. ;)

****

Mikage Sawamura: Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki's Conjecture This is the the best of these four and closest to Jeweler Richard in feel and setting. It's about titular university professor who's a folklore expert and a student called Naoya who hears people's voices distorted when they lie because he stumbled across festival of the dead as a kid and things happened there. Takatsuki is eccentric and harbors a few secrets of his own. They solve cases relating to urban legends and cursed objects etc. There doesn't seem to be any BL vibes even though Naoya notes how handsome and charming Akira is. Enjoyed the book a lot and I like the characters and the urban legends!

Yoshiko Utamine: Onmyoji and Tengu Eyes I like this one a lot too! Misato is an onmyoji who takes a job in a small town of Tomoe, joining a government management unit who deals with abnormal crises. Ryouji is doing a freelance monk work and claims to be . Their paths cross, they end up living together and solving the mysteries together. And their family backgrounds play roles too. Inspiration from mythology, Shinto, Buddhism, Onmyodo etc. Not actual BL but it's very easy to ship them. Liked that the paranormal investigation was a government job, it's not unique setting of course but between these four books it's a different to the others.

Michiru Fushino: The Contract Between a Specter and a Servant A lot of promise here and only marred by unnecessary threats of sexual violence at certain points. Masamichi has failed his university exams, lost his job and then is hit by a car to top it all, about to die. A handsome specter called Shino appears and wants to eat Masamichi but he offers to fix him and eat him only later. Masamichi agrees and they began living together in Shino's antique shop. There are demons and curses and tsukumogami etc. This is BL! First book very slow on that though but it's BL, writer says so. This is actually rewrite of their earlier work.

Yoru Michio: Hell Is Dark with No Flowers Great setup but writing is the weakest of these. Seiji is 20-something NEET who gets lost in the city one day and finds a mansion. The owner, Shiroshi, invites him to tea and offers a place for him as his assistant. Shiroshi sends people who have sinned to Hell and Seiji sees people who have sinned as yokai. Shiroshi doesn't seem to need Seiji's skills though and Seiji feels more like a pet. The links to yokai and the mysteries are interesting but exploring characters' thoughts and reason is a bit lacking and pacing is jumpy. No BL vibes.

****

So, the first two I absolutely recommend, third with that one content warning attached and fourth not really. I already have more volumes from each except Hell because there's only that first one out. And I don't know yet if I will get the second one.

[chalkrub]

more svanhildr - trying new things, like a brave boy

[an-actual-attack-helicopter]

i can't get over this. i have to analyze it.

if ya didn't notice, uh...massive fucking parallel here. there is no way it wasn't on purpose bro. tdp loves to use parallels to make points to the audience.

then...what was the point here? well, it does illustrate that viren and aaravos are similar in that they are both fathers. aaravos even states that he understood viren's love for claudia because of his experience with leola.

so, i wonder if perhaps this parallel does not serve to make a point, but to pose a question to the audience: why would aaravos kill someone just like him? and why would he manipulate viren's daughter even though if someone did that to leola he would be furious? how can aaravos be so heartless, despite being able to relate so much to viren?

those are good questions, so much so that they are difficult to answer. it is hard to imagine someone having such a lack of shits to give about someone like themself. but i am going to try.

maybe aaravos suffers from a sort of tunnel-vision, for lack of a better term. ever since leola's passing, his entire purpose has been revenge. he doesn't care what happens, he just wants to show the cosmic council that they fucked around and found out.

BUT I HAVE A COUNTERPOINT FOR MYSELF: how the hell would someone who lives for so long to manage to avoid considering his impact on people like viren and claudia?

GUESS WHAT? I HAVE A COUNTERPOINT-COUNTERPOINT: that is honestly sometimes what trauma can do to you. i mean, it's a really extreme case but like. the depression just gets so bad that you just don't give a fuck about the world anymore. you are in too much pain yourself to care that you're hurting people. you choose to feel nothing over feeling your pain and still being a good person. i'm not justifying this by any means, btw. it's just how the ball rolls, sometimes. dont ask how i know all this lmfao

but all that is just my guess of what is going on inside his head. i think this is one of the few times that my history of depression actually gives my arguments more credibility lol

[sanctus-ingenium]

i answer your asks vol... 6?

This one made me actually consider how they balance the humours beyond just a simply "they scour it out". Because sometimes a holy beast gets 'sick' and it's not necessarily related to any sort of tissue growth, it's more often a mechanical fault and because the beast is considered to be alive, he is then therefore 'sick'. So how do we deal with this? An enginesmith will make the necessary repairs, but sometimes the sickness is related to environmental conditions. The four humours are arranged on a scale like this:

A mechanical fault associated with being too hot and dry could be something like a lack of lubrication on moving machine parts. So this would be considered the reason for a production of yellow bile (excess of yellow bile, btw, was what Pantera was diagnosed with on his last outing). Whether or not the bile is literal or more symbolic depends on the case. Anyway this was the reason Pantera is associated with fire (originally, when I was designing them all) and Leun, diametrically opposite, is associated with phlegm, water, acid, etc.

But anyway, the way to fix these imbalances in hot/cold/wet/dry is to simply reduce whichever one is excessive. In practice, keeping holy beasts maintained even when they're not out on a crusade is a full time job for an army of workers, where the atmospheric conditions need to be as neutral as possible. Too wet and you've got rust, too dry and the metal fatigues, to hot and it might warp and break, too cold and the joints won't fit properly, etc etc. Although the enginesmiths view this through a lens of The Four Humours, it's also just good practice to try to keep things balanced.

Btw while they do cure an excess of blood by bleeding the holy beast, they don't make leeches big enough :'(

-

There are illustrated representations of dragons that are pretty traditionally dragony (typically a winged serpent with many tails representing the stinging tendrils). These are added to drawings and art as a catch-all symbol for a conscious and targeted Evil. The laity, which is very devout, is unlikely to associate dragons with resistance - dragons cause a lot of damage too, and those stinging barbs will kill you just from the trauma of the impalement before the venom even has a chance to (unless you just get grazed, in which case.. the venom will paralyse you. then kill you)

So active rebellions/civil wars/wars of succession have occurred many times. The subjugated Midaean nation/territory (depending on who you ask) rallies around their beloved Saint Lycaon, a wolf. Flags and signs depicting a wolf devouring a crocodile/a lion/whatever holy beast currently tops the hierarchy of the church would be more likely. Rebellion itself is rarely black and white and as neat as picking a symbol the church hates. It is more likely people would pick a symbol that they love. Outside of Midea, the Mezian empire might not be at its peak but it also has not given its own citizens and laity a reason to take up arms against it.

at the start of the story, at least

-

awesome questions thank you @curious-sootball !

So the nerve cords inside the vertebrae are artificial, but they still perform the same physiological function as a real spinal column. They interface with a knight's dialogue. This produces an incredible amount of heat - this is why the spines are often exposed, even though that might be a point of vulnerability. The spinous processes in particular are very effective heat sinks.

But the tail? In most cases we don't need the tail, really. The spinal column ends at the base of the pelvis. The tail is cropped for most beasts on purpose - we don't need this thing dangling around and becoming entangled, and it has no machinery around it to act as replacement muscles so it couldn't move even if they wanted it to. Krokodilos's tail is the exception and it's just extremely heavy for not much pay off. That's a lot of additional engines we gotta maintain.

So the tail tends to be abandoned. The bones are kept of course but not mounted on the chassis where they're not needed. With no nerve cord running through them they don't run hot either so they won't disperse heat all that well.

Now for replacing bones... they don't. The bones that exist in the chassis are the bare minimum needed to perform the required functions - basic movement. They don't have ribs, they often don't have phalanges. A skull is there to complete the nerve cord - but all you need of that skull is the occipital bone. Nothing more.

If they break a leg, it might be repaired using screw and plate fixation. The bone may deign to knit together (enginesmiths swear that they don't allow tissue growth ever.. but sometimes you need some periosteum. Don't tell the bishops). But if it gets crushed? That's the holy beast done, scrap heap time. The majority of all holy beasts that have ever existed have already broken down and been decommissioned at the start of this story - we only have seven left (eight if you count krokodilos). Krokodilos is an unusual case because he is not dead, so they can't just hold a state funeral and add his heart engine block to the big hall of old hearts in the cathedral. He's sleeping.

But he's the exception. Take Saint Guinefort - dead as a doornail. He had a full funeral, his heart was put in the hall and his body was [redacted] like they do with all dead holy beasts. And then he was [redacted] and now our pal "Sir Victory" with the metal arm uses him as Nosewyse. Circle of life.

I think sidecar motorcycle is a pretty apt way of looking at him lmao. You don't wanna know how many people he's cooked.

-

Hey there! So I know I've mentioned they are similar to pterosaurs but they are not related to them at all. In fact they are cetaceans :) Later art I did of them plays up the mammal traits a bit more. Check out these nipples

However it is a fact that they are not closely related to modern cetaceans - as in, they did not evolve from modern whales and dolphins, but belong to a side branch that diverged relatively early, around the same time dragons were leaving the water for the skies. That art is quite old too, from before I kind of nailed it all down, so if I drew them now I would remove the more derived traits (i.e the single blowhole, the tail flukes, etc) and tidy it up a little. They diverged from the lineage that would become modern whales before the pelvic limbs were lost. I originally depict them having the crowbar-like claws on their feet to lever skin parasites off the dragon, but i think they are more likely to not use their feet much at all, and are more likely to use their single huge beak-like tooth to do the job instead. They cannot walk on flat surfaces.

-

Only insects and, specifically, winged insects :) I know it would be really cool to have various other giant arthropods but milennia ago, when they crossed into Thera for the first time, insects were the only fliers. And there is no other way to get over the mountain range quickly enough for it not to kill you. The mountain range in which the endless city sits is completely and 100% devoid of life. A journey on foot for a tiny bug would be next to impossible - they are more likely to starve or simply turn around and go back to where the food is.

The winged insects, otoh, can cross the range in a day or less, if the breeze is flowing right. And they would find plants already there in Thera - also solely wind-dispersed species from the previous time the mountains arrived and linked the world with Earth. The insects didn't really come by choice, sometimes the wind just blows the wrong way, but they definitely got lucky.

There are wingless insects in Thera today but only because they lost that trait over time (like ants or larviform female beetles). They have managed to colonise every reasonable habitat, including the sea (though the sea is not very salty) and have developed into a lot of very strange forms which might be unrecognisable to us. But a lot of them just got bigger and smarter.

This time round, in the period of time the story is set (early 1900s on earth), the mountains appeared and new animals crossed over who were not insects. Birds have become invasive in Thera, happily taking advantage of the smaller insect species who are completely unprepared for this new threat. There are also some wind-dispersed spiders hanging out now.

EDIT: oh i forgor the parasites on the flying insects that first colonised thera... yes they would have mites and horsehair worms and things of that nature

[borninwinter81]

Collage box collection

After discovering that I had a reasonably big stash of interesting flyers, greetings cards, guidebooks and other bits of ephemera, and seeing this tutorial, I was really inspired to use it all for something.

This was helped by the fact that recently I've found a lot of really nice wooden boxes in charity shops for very cheap - all the ones pictured here were £2. Either I've been extremely lucky, or these things turn up very often and I just haven't been looking for them.

I've posted about some of these previously (here and here), but they were only half done and these pictures are better! Plus there is one new one.

First was this wooden chocolate box. Before...

And after!

You can tell this is my first one as I oversatured the paper with Mod Podge, leading to it bubbling and creasing, but for a first attempt I don't think it's bad at all.

All the pictures I used were taken from an exhibition guide for an event I went to called "Exploring the Gothic" which contained a lot of beautiful pictures. The floral parts were from a pad of scrapbooking paper, which I also used to make the individual compartments (they are origami boxes, see a tutorial for how to make them here) and I then filled them with pieces from my collection of beads, charms, and broken jewellery.

I also had a guide to a William Blake exhibition I'd been to, and since there was an entire plate from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" I had to make it into a miniature wall plaque.

I did this one at the same time as the first, and again you can kind of see that I oversatured the paper which caused it to tear slightly, however thankfully it wasn't in an area where there was any writing.

(BTW, if anyone is interested in the meaning of this section, Blake is describing his creative process, albeit in a fantastical way. This blog post gives a good analysis)

The next one was a beautiful little cabinet with a broken handle.

And here is what I did with it. I kept the collaging to a minimum, only on the inside, though I might add something to the outside in the future. The replacement "handles" are a pair of my earrings!

I used some more of the gothic exhibition guide and scrapbook paper, and also a flyer for a ballet version of Dracula. I need to find some more interesting things to fill it as it currently only contains my resin crow's skull and a miniature book of Tennyson poems. Also my Cthulhu candle gets to sit on top and be worshipped by the skeleton on the right door.

I did much better with the collaging process on this one. I was a lot more patient, used less Mod Podge for each layer and allowed them to dry fully in between, resulting in no tears, bubbles or creasing.

The final and most recent is this plain box. I noticed it originally came from somewhere called "Palmyra Hardware" which instantly made me think of the Palmyra Wolves (I'm a fan of MrBallen and saw him tell the story on his YouTube channel) which gives a pleasantly creepy angle to this one before I even did anything to it!

After collaging

The central image on the outside is another William Blake painting, an illustration to Dante's Inferno, which includes the famous quote "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here". The writing saying "The way, the truth, the life" came from a religious leaflet that a friend of mine was forcibly given, and which he ripped to shreds, but I saved this part because for some reason I liked it.

Inside we've got a very famous Blake painting called "The Ancient of Days", the praying skeleton again as this image was reproduced several times in that guidebook, and a block printed demon from a handmade birthday card that a friend gave me several years ago. I'm very pleased to have finally been able to use him for something!

I've enjoyed making all of these immensely and no doubt I will do more in the future as I collect more papers and find more nice boxes 😊

[m1d-45]

(i wanted to do one last one im sorry (/_;))

Dear Razor,

I hope this finds you well in the lands of Wolvendom. How have you been, dear? And how is Bennett? Not in any more cuts and bruises, I hope.

I know you always take care of Bennett whenever you adventure together but don't forget to take care of yourself, too! Both of you are like little brothers to me and I would hate to see you two injured. We are lupical, as you would always say.

I will return to Mondstadt soon, rest assured bringing gifts of course. Until then, I wish you bountiful hunts for you and the rest of your lupical. Can't wait to see you soon, dear. And pass this along to Bennett will you?

signed,

avo

(A tiny keychain crocheted version of him and Bennett lay inside the letter. Along with a small illustration of you and him)

(I love Razor sm btw. He's best boy and I will protect him at all costs)

razor sat among his pack, absentmindedly picking leaves or shedding pieces of fur from their coats whenever he got bored. night watch was quiet, peaceful, an easy time to think when opposed to the busy bustle of daytime. though it wasn’t good for him to take every watch, he did volunteer for them more often than the other wolves.

the night was calm, the trees thin enough to allow enough light through that he could see, but thick enough that no enemies should see him sitting up in the cave. occasionally a wind would sweep through, a chill creeping up his arms, but he would simply sink them into whoever’s fur was closest and wait for the wind to pass. it always did, even in mondstat.

razor stood up, carefully picking his way out of the cave. at the mouth, he stretched, feeling his gloves brush the stone at the top. one downside of night watch was the tension that came with constantly being on alert. it was a necessary evil, as a sleeping pack was a vulnerable one, and he was always sure to rid of any excess. the last thing he needed was a cramp or a strained muscle when an enemy-

leaves rustled, and he barely had to think before reaching for his claymore, already on the handle and ready to pull.

the bushes were still. it could be a squirrel, or a bird. something harmless. small. it was rare, but it had happened before, and that detail alone kept him from waking the others.

when the intruder appeared, it was not a clear threat. but, it was no squirrel either. it came from above, a second sun falling from the branches in slow motion. it spun in midair as he watched, ridding itself of the leaf that had landed on top of it.

razor hesitated. did he call it? it… seemed harmless, drifting towards him at a lazy pace. the wind picked up, from the star towards him, carrying a familiar smell. so it was from someone he knew…

carefully, he let the ball fall into his cupped hands, looking up at where it came from. the leaves would occasionally part, but he didn’t see anybody or anything up there. just the night sky, with a few falling stars streaking across the thin patches he could see.

stars…

he looked back down at his hands, but the ‘star’ was gone. two small doll-like plushes rested in his hands, attached to hooks and laying on a bed of paper, with lettering for sheets. the figures looked familiar, but he quickly turned his attention to the words themselves.

your letter wasn’t long, but with the amount of times he reread it it might have been. he knew you—just because he lived with the wolves didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of the one who made them, boreas would have his hide otherwise—but not why you would send him a letter. he did not need your writing to know he was one of your favored. he did not need a star to tell him he was cared for. you had done that on your own, with your kind words when bringing him and bennett on your journey, when you blessed him with claws of iron and teeth of thunder.

still, he held your gifts close, smiling slightly at your drawing. maybe, you would come visit him in wolvendom, and his lupical would be complete.

[iamgoodtobeart]

UR ARTS SUPER PRETTY I LOVE IT :((((((((( THE USE OF GEOMETRICAL SHAPES IN EVERYTHING,,,, YOUR CHARACTER DESING IS SO FLUID AND SMOOTH AND IT ALL WORS TOGETHER TO MAKE A PERFECT VISUAL PIE/ CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE LITTLE DETAILS LIKE THIN LINES EVERYWHERE OR YOUR USE OF CLORORS AND BRUSHES AND AHGFSYUIJBVFTYUIJBVFTYUJBGVCFDTDUIKMNBVFYSUJHUIKJGBV

YOU SHOULD DEFO GET MORE ATTENTION like usea million art related tags like #illustration or #digital art please if you dont get popular im going to have a brain anyrisim out of the imposability of someone with so much talent nottt getting sufficient attention holy shart

WOOH THANK YOU SO MUCH you haven't an idea of how much i appreciate it 😭. YEAH LOVE MAKE ALL WITHOUT CONTOURN LINES but just with some lines inside of the draws just cause i love colors and i love to make them bright and shyne. I love working with contrast in the art and in the stories. Also well, yes and thanks for the advice! I wanna to be discover by lots of people but not for popularity, it's just cause i love people and i love sharing thoughs and stories, so i hope that just cause i wanna discover million of different point of view (hope also in getting critique and learn something new obv!)

Also for that i'm loving Tumblr, cause i see lots of people sharing arts but with like, lots of text describing it or talking about something else, or just sharing thoughs. And that what i love, when people share ideas, it's like. Art is cool when connects different minds and lifes.

ps. DON'T HAVE A BRAIN ANEURYSM PLEASE AHHA AH ,also more than talent is more the time working on something and i see like million of artist that are actually incredible (even just for posting something, even if it's not perfect,if it's not cool the art itself, it's just cool the fact it's been shared), also just here on tumblr, and i'm honored to be here with all of you and the person that appreciate art (and also the ones that don't appreciate art, like i said before, i love people in general :3)

THANK YOU AGAIN BTW AHDJDJSJDFHFFHSK ✨😭

[tehuti88-heritage]

After My Dad, Part 1

(October 28, 2024)

OK…I'm starting to get errors again (it happens every time I come here, post a one-off, & think, hm, site seems to be working, let me try a multipart thread I've been wanting to start for months yet refrained because of the errors), but let me try to start this thread. It's a loose spinoff of the one about my dad's passing--very loose, though directly connected, it goes in a different direction. There's some genealogical stuff but it should get into topics some might consider a little "woo-woo" so there's that warning. It's been my way of trying to make sense of things.

Patchy & out of order due to my scattered brain. I'll add to this off and on, I can't guarantee when due to errors & anxiety. There's a Tumblr link on my main page where I will post all this at a later point in case of Universeodon malfunction, which happens when I write long threads. I'm jinxed.

The original thread: https://tehuti88-heritage.tumblr.com/post/763115474996330496/my-dad-part-1

The other day I went out to this little apple tree at the woods' edge to look at the exactly 4 apples it had. 1 nice big one, 1 ugly warped one, 2 tiny stunted ones. I'd planned to pick one, I chose the nice one, at a slightly later date, & bring it inside for a while, something I'd done last year when there were only 3 apples.

To my dismay…the nice big apple & its stunted companion were gone. They weren't on the ground. I finally spotted the remains of the nice apple shoved in a branch crook, half eaten. I pondered, should I take that apple still, or one of the 2 remaining? I finally decided on a new apple. Just seemed to me this half-eaten one had already been used as an "offering." I needed an untouched apple. The other 2 were too high to pick so I used a stick. Tried to knock down the tiny one, couldn't, so knocked down the ugly one. Figured maybe it's a sign that I'm meant to have the ugly apple & not the nice one.

I brought the ugly apple inside. Set it on my Irminsul where I'd once had the original apple. (The design of this Irminsul, I'm aware BTW, is highly problematic. Check Wikipedia to see why. I keep it only because I feel drawn to the Irminsul (rather than this symbol) itself, having found both Charlemagne & Widukind among my ancestors (I expected the 1st…was surprised by the 2nd), & so far nobody has created a new design. I'd like to create one myself, though 1. I suck at design, & 2. even if I do, it'll never catch on as this one has. So for now, this problematic Irminsul stays.)

You see some recent additions since the last time I photographed this. A set of charms & 2 statues of an old woman with goose feathers. Her name is Frau Holle or Holda. I set this up, wondering--though not quite sure yet--if she's the one sending signs, like the apples.

Firstly, some context:

Frau Holle.

(The young lady with the pillow in the illustration is not Frau Holle, BTW. That's Goldmarie. She's shaking Frau Holle's pillow, though. Same as the small statue in my photo.)

Last year, the autumn after my dad died, the apple tree, which I'd never noticed before, had only 3 apples. I took one. Didn't know why. Didn't know even what to do with it. I kind of wanted to eat it, but it might have a worm in it for all I knew. So I placed it on my Irminsul. Considered it an informal sort of offering, though to whom, I wasn't sure.

The Irminsul is a symbol of Odin/Wotan. Yet I feel no connection to him. I don't feel that he's reached out to me. Indeed, the more I read about the different Germanic deities, the more discouraged I felt. They're all grand beings, gods & goddesses of love & war & fertility. Nothing that has to do with me. I'm not a homemaker or a fighter. I'm a coward, a nobody, a nothing. Why would any of these beings want anything to do with me? I feel bigheaded just entertaining the concept, as you may tell from my posts here. May, might, maybe, uncertain, unsure, I don't know. I don't want to presume I'm worthy at all.

I kept the apple on the Irminsul throughout that winter & spring. Hoped for it to mummify. It did darken & shrivel, though remained mostly intact. Didn't turn to mush or smell bad. We got an ant infestation in the summer & at that point I reluctantly wrapped the apple in a disposable glove but kept it there a while longer.

I knew by now what the apple's ultimate fate should be. I had to give it back to the tree. It was only a temporary offering I took, now I had to give it back. I just didn't know WHEN. Should I wait exactly a year? I believe I took it in November. I wasn't sure when to return it.

The anniversary of my dad's death, June 29, I had to go out to clean the cat box. (Glamorous, I know.) I decided this was the day, this should be when. That evening I took the apple outside with me, carried it to the woods' edge, & gave it back to the tree.

There's an element here I've forgotten to mention: Among the Germanic deities, the goddess Hel.

I'd briefly toyed with the thought that maybe SHE was the one. Not a deity of love, war, or fertility. The deity of death. Why her? Because suffering & death seem to follow me everywhere I go. I seem destined to keep witnessing this, without being able to do anything to help. Whether it be my cat dying of heart failure, or the raccoon on the porch succumbing to distemper, or my dad slowly dying at home despite my pleas for him to go back to the hospital, it just seems I can only watch the pain, & do nothing. Maybe that's the point, I wondered? Maybe my point isn't love or war or fertility but to witness something's last moments; not to save them (I couldn't save my dad 😞 ), just to be there to see it. Maybe so that something wouldn't die alone or forgotten. Was that my purpose? Was Hel the one?

Accordingly, I looked up & read all the stuff I could find about Hel online. Can't really find info about her in Continental Germanic belief, however; it's all Norse stuff, which I can't really connect to. I figured she has some equivalent somewhere. She's even equated with Holle in some sources, though most conclude they are not the same. I reached this conclusion myself; maybe they share a superficial connection, but I doubt they are the same being.

I decided to venture an offering to Hel. I made a drawing. Since I'm no good at anything & have nothing of value to offer, still I've heard it's the intent that matters most. The drawing isn't how I envision Hel (I think it's posted here somewhere) but I offered it anyway, with all best intentions, then waited for a sign that she accepted it.

I never got any such sign. 😞

I could only conclude that Hel was not the one. That left…nobody. I could think of literally nobody I'd read about that might accept me as theirs. This realization really hurt. I've been rejected by most people and groups already…to be rejected even by a spiritual being you're reaching out to, well, that's a special kind of hurt. Like being rejected by your own parents. By the universe itself.

After leaving the apple under the tree--an offering given back, to whom, I didn't know--I remembered this, how Hel hadn't acknowledged me. Nobody had. My eyes filled with tears. I started crying as I cleaned the cat box. I dared to ask directly: Okay then, if it's not you, then who is it? Is there anybody? Send me a sign. It doesn't have to be big, just something small, just something obvious enough that it's not a coincidence. Please, just send me a small sign.

Immediately after I thought this…I felt a tickle on my leg.

[mysticetus]

I know you’ve talked about this before on your old blog, but why do you believe Paul is trans? I don’t mean that in a “he’s cis ur making stuff up1!!1” way. More like..what are your reasons for believing he is trans. I love love love your Petscop analysis posts and just wanted to hear your take on it bc I saw an annoying post about how he is 1000% cis and like. I knew you’d be able to word it better than I could.

I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable btw! I remember your post about people making Petscop just about him being trans and that’s not what I’m trying to do here. It feels wrong to even word it like that. Sorry again!

hi there! no need to apologize i am very happy to answer this. thankyou for checking in though. sorry if this gets ranty/incoherent i just woke up

"paul is trans" really is a beast isnt it. the only reason i was talking about how i personally dislike when people focus too hard on him being trans is it tends to eclipse the things i read as the main themes of petscop. and those themes are very intense and difficult, and call for respect. while lgbt people absolutely can and should be included in these narratives the unfortunate nature of the internet is people tend to fixate on the fact theres lgbt people and then overlook anything else the art has to say.

its tough because in the case of petscop paul being trans has extreme importance to the effectiveness of the work. because its a series about abuse and trauma, and the lasting effects of those things. the main case study is care, and the narrator is paul. its heavily implied that paul and care are connected in some way, either being the same person or reflections of each other. the narrative that means the most to me, personally, and that i think is the most potent, is one that involves care and paul being the same person, full stop. how you decide to connect those dots also basically defines how grounded in reality you think the series is.

you can start pulling things like alternate timelines converging or some sort of AI to explain why/how these two are the same person. the simple fact is that the trans reading is the most grounded in reality, because theres nothing supernatural going on there. and the reason i don't personally like reading things in petscop as literally reality breaking is it takes away from the potency of its metaphors. is petscop literally anachronistic? is rainer literally an entity inside the game? life can certainly feel this way if you've undergone something similar to what the characters experience.

petscop explores how someone can be completely changed and transformed over time. in the case of care/paul, its an illustration of the relationship with the child self. and if petscop is using more literal representations to illustrate metaphors anyway, i think paul being trans fits into this very neatly. theres obviously countless ways to "be" trans, theres countless trans experiences, but the one care/paul implies - an afab person who at some point began hrt to physically transition - thats one i have personal experience in, and one i feel comfortable talking about. and as someone who has undergone/is undergoing this its very powerful. because in the case of being transmasc and taking t you are literally transforming and becoming unrecognizable, and people will project meaning onto that, positive or negative. people will start mourning your past self as if they died, you start feeling a disconnect from yourself in your past. it is very much a form of rebirth. this is why i can't very much blame people for making petscop about being trans, or only seeing it that way, because the trans narrative fits inside something that is vaguely telling a trauma recovery story.

and this is where i feel a need to say, while everything i just said is true, and i experience these things, it is 100% by no means only because i'm trans/physically transitioning. in fact, it actively pisses me off when people try to project that meaning onto me. because things one can experience because they're trans are also things one can experience because of trauma. and when the cause is the latter, it's insulting to say "oh this is because you're trans right" .....and im not sure i can properly put into words why it pisses me off so much. probably something to do with agency, because physically transitioning is a wholly positive thing in my life that i am actively deciding to do, whereas an adverse experience is something inflicted upon you and is essentially life destroying. obviously polar opposite experiences. one of these is a very personal part of my identity, and the other isn’t supposed to be there and you’re implying it’s part of my identity!  aah!

so theres an obvious need to be delicate when discussing these things. but we will never know what tony's original intention was, so all we can really do is express what the art means to us, so thats what im doing here. as you can see i make petscop really personal, but that's not even the inherent nature of the work. i can sit here and tell you how its about someone slowly coming to terms with things that happened to them in their childhood and it wont change anything because its just my reading. basically, youre not killing orphans or whatever because you read it in a different way or treat it differently. but there is an objective truth that the series addresses child abuse and trauma, and calls for some degree of respect because of it. so maybe it makes sense why "paul says trans rights" makes me go :/

to try and answer this question, i think paul is trans because i think that paul and care being the same person in a context that's grounded in reality is essential to the work functioning in the way i take to be its intended way. if the work wants to explore dissociative amnesia, flashbacks, identity, and processing trauma, paul's story has to be care's story without any sort of supernatural "paul's memories are merging with someone else's memories and he's scared and confused because of it". otherwise it becomes disrespectful, because it paints these very real experiences as absurd and otherworldly, and surely they could never actually happen right? the trans reading just sits best with me.

thank you for asking me to talk about this!

[it-all-begins-with-a-dream]

Analysis Of The Cartomancy Scene From Bridget Collins' The Binding

Also Known As Something Nobody Asked Me To Write But I'll Just Do It Anyway For My Own Enjoyment.

I'm not going for a full-blown literary analysis here, but this post will contain a few spoilers and will probably end up a bit long despite my best attempts so I'm putting it under a "readmore" for your convenience.

EDIT: I finally met Bridget Collins at a book festival's signing event and she confirmed that the choice of cards in this scene was deliberate and the meaning I saw in the reading is actually there! (she's super sweet btw, I really hope I can meet her again in the future <3)

So, I'd like to preface this by stating that I am by no means an expert in cartomancy (more like an enthusiastic amateur) so if you believe me to be wrong or have something to add, please feel free to do it because I'm genuinely interested to see what other people make of this.

Now, the reason I wanted to do this is the unquestionable fact that the cartomancy scene in Chapter XIV is... how can I put this delicately? A little bit of bullshitting on Lucian's part. Afterwards, when Emmett confronts him about it, it is confirmed that he "told [Alta] exactly what she wants to hear", not to mention that out of four cards, he only shared the meaning of three, out of which he only got two right so I'm sure you'll forgive me for my curiosity regarding the actual meaning of the cards.

Even though in the book they use a simple French deck, I'm going to use my tarot deck, which should be okay because tarot cards basically developed from regular playing cards and the suits can be directly associated with each other. I have The Llewellyn Tarot and I'm going to use its cards as illustration (sorry about the quality btw) and its guidebook for explanation. I'm not familiar with a whole lot of other tarot guidebooks but this one deals mostly in keywords describing the "vibe" of a card instead of just one single meaning. I don't want to overanalyze this whole thing, all I'm going to do is highlight the keywords I believe to be relevant. With that being said, let's see the reading itself.

"'Let me tell your fortune. Let's have a look.' [...] Two of spades, two of hearts, knave of spades, ten of spades. Hmmm. Interesting.'" (p. 203.)

Two of Spades/Two of Swords

Armed peace. Uncertainty. Limited information. Impasse. Blind judgment. Sensing. Frail alliance but with potential. Invitation to friendship, collaboration, or union, but not being met halfway. Questioning whether friend or foe. Dual nature. Energized by a not yet decided situation, relationship, or path venturing into the unknown. Having to proceed while in the dark, using intuition or caution. Self-reliance. Having to make a blind choice to break a stalemate.

Two of Hearts/Two of Cups

Romance, love, attraction of opposites. Union. Magnetism. Dance of courtship. Entwining energies. Sparks. The flow and grace of a natural match. Forming emotional bonds. Sharing, stability in give and take. Balanced ebb and flow of emotions. Curiosity, affection, and excitement. Most often symbolizes a romantic partnership, but may refer to friendship or alliance with an emotional component and compatibility of kindred polarity. Engagement or marriage.

Knave of Spades/Page of Swords

Secrets. Hidden matters. Need for caution. Plots. Sensing undercurrent of danger afoot. Being privy to confidential matters. Being given inside information and warnings. Spies. A slippery adversary. Infected environment. A philosophy that sanctions unfair practices so long as serving one's purpose. Enquiring mind finds lies. Reason to be suspect.

Ten of Spades/Ten of Swords

Conflict. Destruction. Loss. Breakdown of relationships. Slander. Hurt. Misfortune. Plans that seemed promising end in failure. Disillusion. Grief. Temporary alliances. Being forsaken. A sacrifice. Withdrawing from the world due to trauma. The apex and end of a matter. Does not represent violent death.

As I said, I don't want to make far-fetched conclusions but I do believe that it's not a coincidence that these exact cards showed up in the book, in the above order. To me it looks a lot like the entirety of the boys' reationship progressing through Part Two of the book shown in tarot format: first we have their uncertain, frail alliance, Emmett's whole "questioning whether friend or foe", then comes the "attraction of opposites", the magnetism, sparks flying and all the romance culminating in the engagement. And then it starts going downhill when the secret is revealed (the "philosophy that sancions unfair practices so long as serving one's purpose" just screams Piers Darnay to me and the word "spies" clearly refers to Alta). Finally the relationship is broken down, there's hurt, there's slander, there was a "plan that seemed promising" ending in failure and there's also a not-insignificant amount of grief going around as well.

If you're still reading then I might as well say one more thing: this is quite probably Lucian telling his own fortune because as far as the text goes, he's the only one who touched the cards before/while he laid them out like this. My guidebook says that the reader or the querent has to shuffle the cards and the querent has to cut it once, then the reader lays them out but I'm sure this is something that varies from reader to reader/from deck to deck.

Make of this what you will, I certainly had my fun for tonight :)

[anhed-nia]

NOTTING HILL

I bet there's five or six of you still out there who are wondering why I haven't written almost all year, and whether I'm still gonna do Blogtober this year. Well, I YAM! In fact, you'll get a double dose of autumn bullshit from me, since I'll be traveling to Fantastic Fest this September to find out what the fuss is all about. (Actually I already know and I'm STOKED!) Meanwhile, to prove I am still alive and able to string a run-on sentence together, please "enjoy" my review of a TRUE horror film: Roger Mitchell's 1999 romantic-comic mega hit, NOTTING HILL.

Even if you know me pretty well, you might not know that I have a ritual of becoming very stoned and watching popular romantic comedies to try to figure out what regular jagoffs want, like how the other half lives. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm observing evidence of an alien civilization, and sometimes I feel like I'm just watching the end of the world. I always try to stay open to the possibility that they might be better than I think they are, though, sort of the way I am strangely invested in whether there are truly good Christians out there and not just nominal celebrants who have a convenient justification for their bigotry...

Um where was I, anyway, with all that said: I am here to declare that NOTTING HILL is the stupidest fucking movie ever made by a human being. It is infinitely dumber than INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS or BLOOD FREAK or COLOR ME BLOOD RED, or whatever other garbage I excuse as secret art (but it is!), and that's just in terms of internal logic--I'm not even getting into matters of taste. What happens in this movie is, Hugh Grant spills orange juice all over perfect stranger and famous actress Julia Roberts, she agrees to go inside his house to change her clothes, and then they just start frenching. There's so little reason for it that Julia Roberts has to say out loud that it doesn't make any sense, just to try to make it "make sense" for the audience. Straight away she invites herself to dinner with his family, which is mostly represented by a montage of people laughing for no reason so you can tell how charming they all are. (N.B. This exact scene happens in SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS) Then they just seem to be on this endless date, punctuated by nauseating adult contemporary ballads about epic romance, that finally ends when it is revealed that Julia Roberts already has a boyfriend. I had been waiting and waiting to figure out what the actual plot of this was, and it finally arrives A FULL HOUR INTO THE MOVIE.

Hugh Grant is let down, but for some reason not at all put off that his perfect female is a cheat and a liar. I guess this is because her boyfriend is a lout, as illustrated by Alec Baldwin in exactly one startlingly brief appearance, suggesting that the fact that he's rude and dumb means he deserves just whatever. Anyway, in not too long, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts get back together because what else could happen--btw she will finally mention that she didn't know if she was still *In a Relationship* with Alec Baldwin at almost the end of the movie when it doesn't matter anymore. That plot point just goes away as soon as it arrives, and then the new plot is that potentially career-ruining old racy photos of Julia Roberts have emerged, the head-parts of which suggest to me that they are just stills from MYSTIC PIZZA. Then that plot point goes away. Then the new plot is that the paparazzi get pictures of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant slouching around his apartment in lounge wear, and even though Hugh Grant's mystifyingly dirty, crazy, rape-y roommate is in the mix, the whole world decides that this means Julia Roberts is cheating on Alec Baldwin and she is ruined once again. But, some time elapses, and then Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts just get married and have a baby. THE END!

The excuses for humor in this movie are bizarrely infantile, and eerily similar to especially bad, needy Avengers fan posts on tumblr, with saucy little quips and jabs and flirts that turn into inconvenient boners for our chronically aroused and embarrassed hero. One example involves a long exchange about whether Julia Roberts would eat out Mel Gibson's asshole--sorry, his "bottom". Another involves Hugh Grant saying "whoopsie-daisies", which Julia Roberts charges is an antiquated term that makes him sound like an old man, totally ignoring the fact that a) it's a timeless term used only with babies, and b) IT'S FUCKING "WHOOPSIE DAISY", I GODDAMN GOOGLED IT.

The weirdest thing about this movie is that the director also made something called THE MOTHER, a sometimes unbearably intense drama about an elderly woman who gets horrifically exploited by her mentally ill adult daughter and the daughter's manipulative boyfriend. I guess NOTTING HILL is worth it if it means you can afford to make something actually good after.

Anyway, sorry about this long post about NOTTING HILL, which is probably not the kind of thing you're here for. But don't you dare suggest that I just "spoiled it" for you, I am PROTECTING YOU FROM IT.

PS The second weirdest thing about NOTTING HILL is the presence of Gina McKee, who looks so much like Hugh Grant that she might as well be a drag king of him--and even though a major character in this movie is supposed to be Hugh Grant's sister, they cast Gina McKee as his best friend. Go figure!!

[trickster-whim]

So, my sister and I had kind of an amazing trip to Goodwill!!

(Kind of long, so I'm gonna put it under a readmore. Also nothing at all explicit, but slightly adult for doujinshi and body pillow covers)

I'm going to go out of order but in the order I took pictures, so first up are these two Dungeon Tiles Master Set boxes! They're really cool, especially since we've been playing dungeons and dragons more lately. Also there were some people's printouts of dnd books, which is adorable. The only thing is that the sets were kinda mixed up, and they were the most expensive single items we got ($6.49, I think?), so we left one behind at the store and who knows what was in that one??

But I definitely want to try to use these sometime, and the boxes themselves are really cute, so ✅

The thing that drew us in and convinced us pretty quickly this was going to be a wild trip, though, was a stack of Japanese novels and doujinshi! This was the same goodwill that I once found a gay space furry retelling of Beauty and the Beast (which turned out to be v good, btw), so there's precedent for some choice smut, but I've never found doujinshi before!

Mostly it's things I'm not super familiar with, and it all appears to be in Japanese, so we can't completely read it (although my sister's kinda learning it in her free time), but it's still awesome.

The non-comic books were these three Gankutsuou novels. Of course I've never seen it, but I did read Count of Monte Cristo in high school! (I remember reading it during my welding class lmao. And I had the teacher who tested us when we got to school over minutia that wasn't in the abridged versions, so yes I read the whole book.)

Can't read it, still cool.

The doujinshi/fanbooks I'm having a harder time finding info about, despite the fact that most of them list an author/illustrator and date. Again, they're in Japanese, but these have (more) pictures 😎. And they're quite nice pictures too lmao.

Three of the books are fanbooks from Magi (I'm not sure if that's Magi the Labyrinth of Magic, but I've been reading that, so I guess I'll see within ~300 chapters), two are from Tiger and Bunny (which I wanted to watch but just haven't gotten around to it), and one from Heat Guy J (which I've never heard of, but it looks kind of great, but it's not available for streaming right now).

Again, I haven't seen any of the anime these are from, and they're in Japanese, so I've been using an online translator to translate (and the pictures help ngl), but I fucking love them. Some aren't 100% my style (I was literally talking the day before about how many fetish-y amputee mods there are for Fallout, and one book is about a character with amputated limbs in a way I'm not sure isn't fetish-y, but it's not, like, offensive I don't think), but I'm a big fan of smut idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Also! I forgot to add that the art is very good. I'm going to keep looking up the artists to see if they've done anything else I might also like :p )

(I do have to say: these books are mostly censored [that is, no explicit shots of genitals without censor bars], but they are very adult, and they were just sitting out there for anyone to stumble on. Like when I found a Torchwood book in the kids section of Bookmans. Idk.)

Anyway! The next stuff is not smutty (sadly): Daisuki Magazine!

I hadn't heard of this magazine, but it's a mid-2000s German-language manga mag, so almost exactly a one-to-one match for my interests lol. My German is rusty, and some of the words are specific, so it's slow going reading it, but look! Fruits Basket! Which we called Frubba when we were kids because we had a million inside jokes!

(I also went back later and got Juni 2007. Also heatstroke because it is hot as all hell here.)

And lastly was another impulse purchase but also amazing: a Nightwing body pillow cover by soltian!!

Sorry for the terrible shot lmao. I wanted to put it on my pillowcase-less pillow immediately, so I had to wash it quickly.

I love this art (༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ)

I don't follow comics, but I read almost every DC (especially Batman) comic in our city's library system when I was in high school, so yeah. Also I really do like the art; it's very cute.

(Side note, all of soltion's art is cute. They have charms, and the digidestined are absolutely perfect and I love them. They also have the pillowcases in stock right now so, you know, support the artists! I'm really eyeing those keychains honestly!)

A better(?) picture of the pillowcase which also shows off the last thing I got while we were out: new bedclothes!

We stopped at Walmart because my mom had a gift card, and they had a nine-piece sheets and stuff set for $9, and I've been looking for a new blanket and pillowcases, so score! It was full size, and my bed's a twin, so it's very large, but who cares? I get almost all my bedclothes at goodwill, so I'm pleased :p

Anyway back to the goodwill trip. It was expensive, ha. Everything we got cost between $2 and $7, which is amazing but adds up, and I am so, so grateful that goodwill has a 20% off $20+ coupon and also that my sister who has a job bought this lot UwU

So it cost about $37 for a stack of doujinshi, manga mags, light novels, dnd tile sets, and a body pillow cover. So, um. Yeah. My sister and I were freaking out lmao. I don't know if we'll find such a good haul again, but I'm super happy with all this. Now I just need to make room on my packed shelves.