#this is not referencing anything in particular btw

[spectralpluto]

It truly is fascinating how Ashton Greymoore's mere existence within these last 3 to 4 years exposed so many diet t/erfs and diet gender essentialists in this fandom

[oarf1sh]

OK I know I make this post like, once a year. But I do not believe that N being a zorua/zoroark and N being autistic cancel each other out. If we can say that cats are autistic, then I think we can with foxes too. He can be both at the same time. We can explore his personality and make up dumb (probably not canon anyway) theories together. It's ok

Pokemon is a fantasy world with its own rules where anything can happen. Let's all hold hands and frolic in a field together. ❤️

[asksonicverse]

You dont need to answer but I just wanted to tell you I adore Paradox being like "I hate all of them except" and then listing everyone except like 2 guys, honey you don't hate *all* of them you expressly don't hate *most of them*

Extremely charming characterization i adore it

[Creator Special number 2!]

So glad someone noticed that, I was originally going to have him name EVERYONE except Boost but then I was like “nah, Mania is just too annoying for Paradox to tolerate him”

And thanks! I’m trying to be… consistent with my characterization of each of them and stay in line with canon but like… URGH sometimes I want to deviate so bad just to indulge but I resist!

Needless to say tho, prism is probably going to get more affectionate later on. Rewatched Sonic Prime again and bro is a cutie patootie!

Headcanons… headcanons… hmm

Well, starting with the obvious, Paradox goes to therapy as I’ve mentioned which I think is hilarious. He and Lance are the only Shadows who really have their shit together which is why I think Sonadow works well for them? (we stan healthy relationships guys)

I do head canon that Eight doesn’t like being touched really at all anymore. After the metal virus, he grew so used to the fact that he couldn’t touch anyone that it sorta just stuck. He does it to save people, but not anything more. :(

And while I’m a sucker for the Trans Sonic HC I decided not to implement it in this particular AU!

I really want to include Captain Sonic and Shadow, but I haven’t played nor watched a serious play through of the game. (I’ve only really listened to a bit of the Snapcube dub..)

can someone tell me if Shadow is a Barista or a Mechanic in that game btw?? I google it, nothing pops up. I could’ve sworn there was something about a mechanic.

Uhh I LOVE Sonic Frontiers, fire game. If I include that one, it’ll ALSO be Sonamy since I’m pretty sure that game takes place before SA2 in canon?

I’m trying to keep the Sonics and Shadows balanced but I’d love to add Generations Shadow and Sonic. Just thinking of names already I get “Doom” for Shadow and “Emerald” for Sonic. (Referencing the fake emerald from their interaction in the shadow story)

Unfortunately I haven’t seen the Archie comics or Sonic Underground so I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Someone also asked about if I’d ever include different AU’s: maybe if those AU creators gave me permission I’d be down to do a collab for a few asks or something!

Nope!

I dunno I just..! … how do I do? I’m fast. And you’re slow. That’s how I did it. /ref

Ahahah just kidding! But I am very fast. A few years ago I convinced myself I was a “slow drawer” because I was in a discord server with someone I looked up to (and holy cheese they could draw out fully articulate sketches in like 30 seconds!)

So I got insecure and taught myself to draw really fast. So now I just.. zoom! This does have a terrible draw back where I will very frequently forget smaller details.

Like if you look at half the posts, Shadow is missing his eyeliner and other markings frequently.

THIS IS JUST HILARIOUS TO ME YOU GUYS. PLEASE—

I’ve gotten SO many asks in my box about using Maria to calm the Shadows down or trying to give Shadows “Maria plushies”

Imagine you’re having a bad day and you get a plushie of your dead sibling thrown at you??? LMFAOOOO

I CANT I CANT I CANT PUT THEM THROUGH THAT 💔 Also I see every single ask.

“Do you all like Latinas” and “sonic which shadow is the hottest/shadow which sonic is the hottest” have all been engraved in my brain

Was joking with a friend on how that second question would come out LMFAOO

Previous | Next

[dexterkronos]

Slime Rancher x TMA?

Okay but seriously, imagine if Jon and Martin commit MAG 200 and just end up on Slime Rancher's Far Far Range. What then?

(Welcome to your lecture on why my abilities to cook have been restrained by divine ordainment [irl responsibilities])

How It Would Work

Mistaken Identity as their alt selves or assuming the lives of their alt selves as they have completely replaced them

They both have separate farms on the Far, Far Range on opposite ends, and don't know where the other exactly is (they both think they're on distant islands to each other lol).

Martin becomes very adept with Slime wrangling in particular, but still remains an effective slime rancher in the ways of taking care of them. He adopts a particular Tabby (unbeknownst to him an escapee from Jon's ranch) and calls it 'Merry', and Merry stays by his side at all times.

Jon is very particular about only owning docile slimes like Pinks, Tabbies and Puddles, with a lot of his slimes being mixes with Tabbies because cats. He makes a sole exception for ONE Crystal-Tabby that he calls 'Calcite', who becomes a bit of a ranch defender Largo. It is so picky about what it eats or absorbs that there is zero risk for him to become a Tarr.

Jmart end up finding each other when Jon goes chasing after a Tabby-Phosphor with Calcite in an attempt to get it somewhere dark before daylight. Both are overjoyed to see each other obviously and immediately work together.

They have a teleporter between their ranches and help each other out with random tasks. They obvs can't combine ranches now, but they do lots of sleepovers at each other's ranches lmao,

Jon ends up going into Slime Sciences because duh of course he would lmao. He's the reason both farms have cannons to repel Tarr slimes.

They get therapy before even so much as thinking about advancing their relationship further because holy hell these dudes need it. (Therapy is already in swing at the start btw, I'm not delaying their roads to mental stability)

Other Info below the keep reading tag so we don't flood your feed lolol.

Relationships with Canon Slime Rancher Characters

Martin is the one who usually deals with Slime Market stuff because people like BOb exist.

Martin befriends Thora easier than anyone else due to her kindly nature. Let's give the man a nice older lady figure in his life to be a mentor.

Jon become notably friendly with Viktor Humphries, and they collaborate often since Jon has Martin and his own interest in slime collection to help him.

Both find Mochi a bit like Melanie at first, but warm up to her when they start to learn more about her (both can relate to strained relationships w/parental figures, especially Martin).

Both find BOb complexing and typically try to keep conversations curt lol.

Obvs because I'm not replacing Beatrix, they do meet her and are pretty neutral to her. Nothing extraordinary and nothing unextraordinary since Beatrix is more a proxy for the player so I can't gauge much on how she'd be without our interference.

Ogden & Hobson are also a neutral relationship but that's just because I can't think on how either of them and Jmart would work lol.

Likely Queries

Fears When?: No Fears in the Slime Rancher universe because I say so. The Fears just don't have influence here anymore haha. That means Jonah Magnus stays deceased.

How is Jon not like, barely sane or whatever (referencing the 'how much of me is the Eye stuff')?: Well, they did merge/overwrite their Slime universe counterpart so like... e.

Does Jmart retain Fear powers?: No. Maybe. I'm not sure tbh I think if anything it'd be subtle things. EG: Jon being able to identify certain things changed in an area or have a better grip on understanding body language. EG2: Martin being less noticeable when he wants to be or just having a bit of cold resistance.

Why can't they move in together?: Because I doubt the 7Zee Corp would be able to find a buyer for either ranch too quickly, but I could be wrong. Idk I like the idea of them having space of their own separate from the other since those dudes need therapy and time to work on themselves.

Do they look like themselves or their alternates?: Alts with the exception of MAG 200 injuries. The Alts just look like their S1 selves lmao.

SlimeRancher!Sasha, SlimeRancher!Georgie & SlimeRancher!Tim? Yes. None would properly notice a difference in Jon because he's more just their Jon with some weird ass baggage attached. Martin would DEFINITELY be something they'd note as 'unusual' but ultimately set it down to 'omg he's matured so fast having to deal with Jon lolol'. Sasha and Tim would be fellow Ranchers on another area nearby and Georgie either stayed on Earth or is a Tarr Wrangler with SlRa!Melanie.

What about the other Magnus people? Not sure, defs think SlRa!Melanie would exist as a Tarr Wrangler w/Georgie. SlRa!Elias would likely be on Earth still and just living his Pre-Eye life lolol. Sl!Ra Gertrude should be a rancher elsewhere that's just died but other than that idk.

Do any other Slime Rancher alts get their other worlds memories? Maybe Georgie and Melanie but only via 'oh wow that was a funky dream haha' since they were in the Panopticon. Elias doesn't count towards this since there was no more Elias by the time of the series' beginning (source: MAG 193).

[centrally-unplanned]

I was listening to this cast by The Weeb Crew, with SteveM as a guest, going through some other Evangelion video and dissecting the mythical memetic tropes it buys into. Which was a lot of fun, I recommend the cast, and the video they are critiquing is a bit of a grad-bag of zombie memes about Evangelion from the 2000's, which yeah have aged poorly.

One of the ones they get into is the idea that Evangelion's TV ending was "intensely unpopular", and Anno & crew were getting like bombarded with death threats and stuff. Which happened at some level sure, but certainly wasn't the median response. The video actually sites the "emails" shown on screen in End of Evangelion as evidence:

And like, bro those emails are fake! The staff wrote them for the movie, they didn't use real death threats or fan mail, that would be a huge legal liability. Not saying they are analytically useless or anything but, you know, you need to know that.

Anyway, SteveM mentions that of course there was pushback against Eva's ending, but actually the big wave wasn't interior to the fandom - instead it was sparked by Eva "going mainstream" discourse-wise. In particular a review essay by social critic Eiji Otuska (who is also a former lolicon creator ding ding ding) that was published after the finale aired sparked a widespread discussion in the media by other critics. He links to the essay in their discussion....except he doesn't. He thinks he did, and then when they look, its just someone else mentioning it in an article in 2003:

Bitter disputes broke out on online bulletin boards, with some critical of the producers for failing to provide a clear-cut end to the story, and others who praised the finish for being "typically Evangelion-like." But when commentator Eiji Otsuka sent a letter to the Yomiuri Shimbun, complaining about the end of the Evangelion series, the debate went nationwide. "The debate that erupted over the ending went way beyond our calculations," Gainax's Sato chuckles. "Anno probably knew what was going on. He realized that media other than anime had taken notice of Evangelion."

Which triggered in me the thought - why doesn't he have it? He references it in his own work after all. As you can guess, after some searching I am pretty sure I know why; no one has it. Its never been scanned or reprinted in an accessible format! It definitely is important in the history of Evangelion - I have seen this claim in other contexts, the essay that sparked a discourse, and you can find many works about Evangelion citing Otsuki (generally later works, like an article published in September of 1996 which you can buy) But what the article article said is only discernable via the clues dropped from second-hand accounts.

So can we find it?

First of all I need to figure out what is even being referenced. Searching through contemporary Japanese sources, I dug up an extremely handy find:

A somehow-still-existing 1997 fan page by a Japanese otaku (I'm giving you this stuff auto-translated btw, what would you do with a wall of kanji?) who extensively catalogued every media mention of Evangelion. I am sure they missed some, but they didn't miss a big one like the Otsuki letter - which we know from the above interview appeared in gigantic newspaper Yoimiuri Shimbun:

This gives us three candidates; given that we know it was written after the finale aired, and that was March 27th, 1996, our most likely candidate is the April 1st essay; I was able to find a secondary source mentioning the review was "immediately" after the finale, so I think that nails it.

Which alas does not bring up anything! Try as I might I cannot find any extant blog post, or scanned image, or long quoted form. But after trying the usual methods I did realize something - unlike my average document hunt, this is Yoimiuri Shimbum, a newspaper, a big newspaper. Which means they probably have their own archive, which I might be able to access. and low and behold, they do! And my university research services actually have an account!!

Incredibly blessed by this stroke of luck, I went digging for everything containing "Evangelion" and "Eiji Otsuka" in 1996, and found it:

And it's fucking blank. If the article is scanned or anything it will have that "Japanese Text" you see on the first result, or "Scanned Image" tag or something. I swear its like the only ones not scanned, all the random ads and list of best sellers are all there, but the entire cultural essays section is just an archival void. Shot in the skull right at the finish line.

Alas I am out of ideas of this one - its a newspaper, no one is selling this on Yahoo Auctions. Though hey, at least now we know the title:

"オウム」を超えるはずが... / It should surpass Aum...", 876 characters long.

"Aum" by the way is Aum Shinrikyo, the cult terrorist group that conducted the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack. Which you can imagine really took the chattering classes by storm; it was the culmination of a series of "extremist" actions that began in the 1980's that built up a narrative of societal decay and alarm. It really isn't surprising that Otsuka linked Evangelion to Aum Shinrikyo; the apocalyptic connections were obvious, there was even an episode of the show that had to be changed due to the attacks as the production team thought the events were too similar. And additionally, if this essay was gonna spark a "societal backlash", it has to say something controversial right? I have definitely seen other critics like Hiroki Azuma discussing Eva in relation to Aum as a "social phenomenon" - I am betting Otsuka is the source of that comparison being so ubiquitous.

From other sources like people on twitter and other articles, I can pick up a few other details on what it contained; apparently he referred to Evangelion's finale as a "self-help seminar" for otaku and lambasted the idea of airing one of those on TV. And from his other writings I think you can certainly piece it together - essentially seeing Evangelion's self-involvement and hyper-introspection as a product of the same societal malaise that birthed Aum Shinrikyo, while failing to deliver a solution that could "go beyond" that. Which, the shit you said about media in the 90's, I want a hit of what he's having! But while today its quite obvious that groups like Aum were, sure, saying something about society but turned out overwhelmingly to be fringe weirdos as opposed to canaries in the mental institute coal mine, at the time this was very much the zeitgeist.

Still, I don't really care all that much what it says - its an important artifact! It started the "Eva discourse boom" that broke out of otaku circles and launched Evangelion into a cross-societal phenomenon! We should have a record of it, it should be preserved. I will ruminate on it, and see if any other ideas pop up. And meanwhile if anyone out there happens to see what I missed definitely let me know.

[masochnik]

What are your thoughts on your fan calamities designs? Would you like to denote anything in particular about them?

Oh uuuuuuh sooooo

We have 5 Calamities and 5 Ports. Both of them have Marlin, so possibly Ports Stingray and Port Kraken referencing on Stingray and Kraken Calamities. So probably All-withering Crimson Whale from Captain Ishmael story could be not a just a replacement of Pallid Whale.

And what guys associated with end of the earth, they're 5-4 and have Pallid and Crimson (Red) dudes? Horsemen of Apocalypse!! So other Calamities could have White and Black colors.

Marlin could represent a Conquer aka half-canon Horseman. I had make him White because of it but I added read elements for contrast with Indigo Elder. This dude going to just pierce with nose and split anything with his fin :P

Other White Calamity aka Pestilence i made a Sea Serpent because why not xd. In PM games nothing going to tell what exactly is last of Calamities. Btw, this dude just blowing his toxin bubbles that makes death mist that could kill ship's crew.

Crimson Kraken is War. He's just sucking blood from creatures with his tentacles.

Black Stingray is Famine. I made him Manta Ray because looks cool 😎😎. Btw this guy just opens his mouth and like an actual whale sucking ships and lesser Whales.

And Pallid Whale is Death but ya know about him

[cat-with-a-keyboard]

so @blunderbussin gave me an excuse to write an essay about hirasawa and im going to do that instead of anything impactful with my life and it's going to probably get stupid long. oopsie

So the aspect of Hirasawa that intrigues me the most is the lore surrounding the interactive live shows, a form of storytelling he's more or less pioneered. While there seems to be no particular overarching story (anymore. but thats a story for another day), all the stories that are told by the different shows are loosely connected, sharing characters or referencing events in previous shows; as well as being supplemented by sporadic stories that Hirasawa writes about some of the characters.

And listen. When i say 'loosely connected' i mean i have spent hours and hours and hours with my closest friends (who are also hirasawa fans) trying to stitch these events into a semi-cohesive whole because this old man does not give two brass coins for any kind of continuity (and he's really loosey-goosey on any kind of details), which drives me absolutely insane because goddamnit i will make this stupid thing make sense all together.

Also there's really some pretty banger concepts in these lives: machines that enforce the reality of the world based on collective perception, totalitarian government ruled by an alien fern, the green nerve network (its really hard to explain), Sim City as a place, an echo of modern cities in a virtual universe, Layer-Green/Communo Hybridia, the digital sea, timeline hopping cyborgs with terminal self-loathing

im talking about HIM my beloved good times girl, my rotten cheese man btw ↆↆↆↆ

anyway. this is a topic i could literally talk for hours about And I Have. i've spent so much time lovingly crafting theories only for them to have about a million holes shot through them because of some silly detail i completely forgot. oops. but im going to shut up for now before i get into the really deep/silly shit because if i speak about the ascii dragon or luuk sathwan khondiaw i will literally never ever shut up. i am a dork

[bioethicists]

Your post about unfollowing people who’re really combative online made me think about someone in particular. Apologies if this is out of nowhere so feel free to ignore.

If somebody (with thousands of followers) who isn’t a part of a specific marginalised group habitually seeks out bad takes regarding them to dunk on, isn’t that a little weird? I’m not talking about defending your friends when they’re facing discrimination or dunking on the main bigot character of the day, but regularly seeking out bad takes from small accounts that’d otherwise never seen the light of day.

It’s nobody on here I’m referencing. I feel a little crazy because this person gets heralded as a huge ally and has a lot of people in this marginalised group who’re really devoted to and defensive of them but it just really rubs me the wrong way because they seem really discourse-brained more than anything else.

yeah haha ironically i think some of the ppl on that post are seriously missing the point (which i probably could have made clearer) in terms of some of them are like. people who clearly think being told they're racist is the same as the type of behavior i'm talking about.

but also yes! this is more what i meant- people who are seeking out fights with those who would otherwise never get any attention! especially when it's takes that are NOT popular or the response is just totally disproportionate. or just building a social media brand off of over-exaggerated hatred/meanness towards people who "deserve it". it reminds me of all the cis people on here who constantly reblog shit about like... putting terfs in meat grinders but then never even lift a finger (or, more likely, are part of the mob) when trans women are sexually harassed or viciously bullied.

i don't think joking about harming bigots is some grand moral wrong, but it's often just gratuitous in a way where... are you actually expressing outrage or are you using the performance of outrage to get followers? what if that outrage is directly putting people in danger (e.g, if you find a terf with 45 followers + start sending her death threats, is that helping anyone or is it potentially provoking more violence, which you know full well you will NOT be the primary target of). i can see how this behavior can result in members of certain groups defending you, because if nobody has shown their willingness to defend you, isn't it refreshing to see someone who will? it's not so simple, either, cuz i do think ppl who do this do CARE, but i'm not sure the way that they care is sustainable or would hold up to a real, complex situation where allyship is needed.

it's so contextual + i'm not arrogant enough to pretend like i'm the one who can see the context right 100% of the time. this is a little sappy but i feel like the difference is whether the root of the anger is love/hope or if its fulfilling your own desire to lash out/release tension/look good. like "i'm pissed because i care about my trans siblings + it hurts me to see them treated this way + nobody else is saying shit for them so i'm stepping up" vs "raging online meets a need in me that i'm not willing to acknowledge + here's the perfect target". not exactly that simple but sometimes u can tell someone would be a kiwifarms bro if they didn't need social capital from a different crowd, ykwim (which btw we regularly learn that certain leftists will comb through + disseminate kiwifarms shit if it fits their vibe, which is an automatic red flag to me that you only care about drama, not morals)

it reminds me of how some "callouts" are clearly written with the intention of preventing harmful people from maintaining the power to do more harm (e.g x popular artist sexts underage fans) while many others are clearly written with glee about someone turning out to be Bad (e.g x popular artist has a private twitter that i, op, SCROUNGED to find, where they say horny things about genshin impact characters)

[ladyluscinia]

Oh so they're doubling down on saying that enjoying a character they don't like and being defensive (and, admittedly, a bit petty) in what's effectively a Flame War is a red flag for demonstrating cult-like fandom behavior, while clarifying that no one is actually calling Izzy fans a cult. Yet. Just saying we need to nip this in the bud, you know?

(This being... what exactly? Arguing about S2 predictions on tumblr? Vaguing people? - Hi! 🫡 Having "bad" takes that may or may not be problematic? Bitching about tagged character crit / hate about your fave, sometimes on the posts in question? Dedicating blogs to wank? Welcome to every-fandom-ever-including-BlackBonnet, I guess.)

Not a new accusation, but since people are once again making ominous statements about the "concerning" potential of a Snapewives situation... maybe we should pass around a reminder of who, exactly, they're referencing?

The Snapewives (Fanlore Link, Reddit Synopsis) were an extremely small niche forum in a really huge fandom that are pretty much only known for infamous levels of cringe that got them mocked relentlessly when discovered by Fan Wank. We are talking a tiny subsection of a subsection of a subsection of the massive HP fandom that got really earnest with their self-insert fanfic / roleplaying (and really didn't like the canon ending of Snape's arc). There's actually a really interesting paper on analyzing "Snapism" as a religion that alludes to their particular issues with Christian faith and erotic fantasies, and can kinda sketch in how they might have gotten to where they did. It's weird, no doubt, but honestly sounds pretty harmless?

Like, I'm not sure if we're using the BITE model that they would even count as a real cult - "Snape" seems very controlling and makes them do things (cook specific dinners, stop biting nails, go on diets, etc.) but, like, there's no cult leader being "Snape". These are all self-assigned "tasks" via "channeling" (which is again weird but not super unique - read the paper) and then the women themselves disagree on things and could just come across as a really intense roleplaying forum having disputes over ratings for self-insert fic, among other things.

The situation is different when there's an obvious cult leader - see the extensive documented history of Andy "thanfiction" compiled here. Trigger warnings for sexual assault, abuse, manipulation... all the stuff you expect from cults. And really getting into reading the supplementary info will take you many hours, btw.

Anyway... having looked extensively at our "fandom cult" examples, I don't think I'm remotely "concerned" that we're veering toward cult behavior. Or Snapewives behavior. The Izzy section of fandom - and, for that matter, the Izzy Anti section of fandom - haven't really done anything that hasn't been done in countless flame wars before? Like we as a collective haven't even gotten to the levels of targeted character hate that I can glimpse by searching "Teen Wolf" right now, and frankly OFMD still isn't big enough to dream of replicating 2010s fandom's biggest hits. There's some cutting edge weaponization of social justice that's a more modern development, but that's still fundamentally just fighting about the fiction. Even the one doxxing incident is unfortunately not unique.

Sheesh, "Izzy Canyon" isn't even demonstrating a unified meta or consistent S2 desires / shipping preferences / etc. We're just better at not being dicks about it by necessity?

[laurajameskinney]

btw for those that were wondering. heres the pages i was referencing in the tags of that post. first 9 pages of x-force 2008 #4. under a cut because its Rough

cw for (in order) discussion of near-fatal forced heroin overdose, logan physically attacking laura (no claws) (jimmy had to fucking pull him off), self harm, and laura allowing rahne to inflict lethal wounds to her (as a result of something logan said).

these pages make me feel like im trapped in a dark pit and not going to make it. like i have so many thoughts about x-force and laura and how bad that was for her and also how she won't allow herself to conceptualize it as anything approaching how bad it actually was.

also this is definitely what i mean when i say logan was not a good dad to her. obviously the above scene is not representative of the sum of their relationship, and x-force in general/this scene in particular is probably like, the worst of it.

there are moments where logan is actually very good with her. however those moments are always going to be weighed down by "that time Logan choked Laura against a tree and told her that she is expected to die for someone she barely knows."

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

does jesus christ mean anything to you/in your worldview/cosmology? curious since, you talk a lot lately about going to church, and draw on the bible ofc, but never mentioned christ in particular, that ive seen.

your work has meant a lot to me btw, thank you. wishing you well.

hi anonymous; i:ve mentioned christ plenty -- in my church notes, in my religious writing, in these asks;

sometimes more subtly than others, because part of christian ideal is son=father=ghost, and it:s hard to reference one of those parts without also needing an unsaid inclusion of the other two; sometimes more overtly: i do not consider myself a christian because i do not believe christ offers salvation for left-handed persons, or that any biblical reference to christ and salvation offered to those righteous at That hand of Lord God has any-thing to do with the left-handed; that when-ever mention in bible covers those heavenly peoples it is explicitly referencing those peoples who are "the word made flesh," mixed here in earthy mistakes--these are the righteous that are saved, and in the shadow of this mentioned group, are those of the earthy origin made spirited by a mistaken spirit: these of the unmentioned hand; secrets of buried earth; the kingdoms of earth; the children of herod; the shadows crept up in the great manse of herod and those who choked in baptism Gerasene at a minor second deluge offered by Christ to that flock of pigs;

these earthy things will be baptised in truth by fire in second death and their customs and mysteries are bespoke to them by earth, and spoken-to by earthy thing Underground: the left-over of hot kiln leaving bone-dry and clean ash to be used as baptism for these people, dry in solemn acknowledgment of the waters of Gerasene that Christ offers these children; solemn acknowledgment of the kiln of earth from which they were cast and the fires outside that will smoke their spirits in second, final, death: Annihilation;

christ as figure, to communication, is variable here in name and inclusion; for greater explanation: christ is a created context by the abstract intelligences; true as any, and illusory as any, but the creating pattern through which christ were Exist are exact what Christ is; a promise of subsumation for the hand righteous and how-ever many splinters fell from that hand; and in the shadow of that Christly pattern: a promise of annihilation for the hand invisible and how-ever many fewer splinters fell from that hand; the lord body god from which both hands connect loves these equal as the body shan't hate its parts, but the pattern and abstraction is biased in its creation of Context and the Word, the Bible, are all of the context bias; take care.

[whitecatlegend]

Hi! Sorry for the bother… I’m rewatching season 1, and the subtitles are sometimes confusing. Season 1 also didn’t translate any text shown on screen, and I was wondering what this meant:

This is from Episode 3. It even zoomed in on this particular text:

I figured it was something important since they had to zoom in on it, and I don’t wanna miss out on that

Thanks for all the work you do here, btw!

Hi! It's not a bother at all, thank you for the question. This is indeed an important scene, and it's very true that not understanding what's written makes it confusing. Let's take a look!

The left page, the one that will be zoomed in, is rather mundane in its meanings, actually. It's imperial paperwork, essentially, referencing multiple governmental institutions.

Let's talk text first, then the red seals.

The text on the right essentially says something like "this had been reviewed and approved by the Chancellery". The Chancellery acted as both advisors to the rulers on various policy decisions and a channel for imperial edicts to be transmitted to other departments for implementation.

The text on the left says something like "Heavenly Empress of Wu Zhou". Wu Zhou is the title of the dynasty Empress Wu started. So this is essentially the closing lines of an imperial edict, I believe.

The seals are: on the left - Censorate, on the right - Ministry of Justice, on the bottom you might recognize that it's the Dali court.

The zoomed in part is the "Wu Zhou" text with the censorate seal over it.

Now, the right page provides context both for the document and for Li Bing's mental state in that scene. You might notice that several characters repeat in multiple lines - that's because the text on this page is names - and methods of punishment.

Many of the names start with the Li surname - Li Bing's surname - and are the names of his relatives. Most - and all on the screenshot above - were decapitated. A few were banished.

I looked up some of the names, but haven't been able to find anything, so I can't tell you for sure which names Li Bing is circling. There are at least five, only one with the Li surname.

I hope this helped provide the context! I'll be sure to include this in the translation if I ever get to doing season 1, but with my current schedule that's probably not happening until at least mid-summer...

[mtgpocketrealm]

Lotta nothing

Sorry about that, I'm gonna be editing Komas map 1 and ideally actually doing anything with Komas map 4.

But incase I don't, feel like I need to do something. So a few rules trivia I guess.

First things first, all of the realms are based upon cards within a color identity entirely, with only a few exceptions, artifact creatures were ignored for the purpose of Komas.

Until I write on the specific realm, most of the cards which I use for it are subject to changes, addition or subtraction. And even after, there will be some things I am fine adding to, primarily in the case of new lands which I feel like stuffing into the realm, though other such additions would be new Sliver cards, new Werewolf cards, new Licids (btw they exist, but only in a handful of realms), new Atog or Lhurgoyf cards (They exist, but have been integrated into the Eldrazi of the same color), new Nephilim cards (Mutated humans for the four color realms), new courts, virtues, or self-recuring vanishing or suspend cards. Potential additions include Eldrazi of a color identity that doesn't already have one, devoid spells of a color identity that doesn't already have one, lands of the three and four color identities, or humans that don't fill out the maximum allowed number of cards for the realm.

Werewolves! I used only werewolf cards that seemed to have some sort of magical something going on, except for Tolovar in RG, I used that for 'same mind'ness which will be referenced on that realm. Werewolf cards were seen as individuals much like the human cards were for this.

Vampires! I used multiple cards to reference a 'life-cycle' of a singular vampire, which ended up allowing me a lot of freedom in how they end up acting.

And those are the rules I feel like sharing at the moment...yea

Generally unrelated, feel free to comment (or ask) on things asking for either particular realms to be explored next, suggesting names for particular realms, asking questions, etc. I am cool with chatting about this.

[usaghinanami99]

how are you into devilman

Fine, thanks, how about you? Kidding, kidding. I know what you're asking (and I know I'm late answering...): I don't seem like the type of person that would post about something like Devilman, right? Well, the reason behind my getting into it is actually the simplest you can think of: as the most cursory glance at my blog can show, I am an animanga nerd (and for many other things too, but that's a story for another day). I've also been a literary nerd since my dad taught me to read, and now I'm a Literarure student, to boot. My burning passion for literary creation and, crucially, for acquiring knowledge about it (through reading it first-hand, of course) thus plays an enormous part in the way I read and/or watch non-literary texts, which I never choose to engage with any less seriously than I'd do with anything else. And, well, you know how there are some books that you can't not read if you want to understand the literary history of a particular country and/or language? When the medium we're concerning ourselves with is manga, then we can't not read Devilman the same way we can't not read Astro Boy, Attack no. 1, The roses of Versailles or dozens other milestones in the history of Japanese comic that I can't list here and now. I've known that Devilman was among these required readings for a long time, because its immense importance was always referenced in all the books and magazines about the history of manga that I devoured as a Gymnasium student. And my curiosity only grew with the years, because the comic book shop I was a regular at couldn't obviously sell me a series with such a high age rating before I turned 18. You can add to that the fact that I thought I was already well-acquainted with Gō Nagai, when in fact I was only familiar with family-friendly animated adaptations of his most famous works. This is because since around the age of 7 I had watched and rewatched the Robotic Trilogy anime (which consists of Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger and UFO Robot Grendizer), as well as the unrelated Jeeg Robot, be it via some of the very frequent TV reruns or via videotapes that my mum had recorded at the end of the last century. Grendizer, in particular, is very dear to my mum because she grew up on it during the late 70's, so to put is shortly she made it so it could become a part of my childhood too. (Off-topic side note: she was very excited when news of the upcoming Grendizer U reboot aired on TV, but I fear she'll be disappointed due to it being written by the same Ichirō Ōkōchi who's brought us Devilman Crybaby...) Putting it simply: I knew I liked these anime series so I thought I liked Gō Nagai, which fostered my desire to read this all-important but forbidden Gō Nagai manga that I kept on reading about. How things have changed... It may be repeated too much, but it's just because it's true: no one respects Gō Nagai more than those who only known him cursorily through Tōē Dōga's classic adaptations of his giant robot stories, but no one hates Gō Nagai more than those who have actually endured reading his manga.

This was just the needlessly long story behind why, as you can see, I had the moral duty to read Devilman. Flash forward to early 2017, I turn 18, I go to the comic book shop, I buy Devilman, I return home, I read Devilman, I am traumatised, I begrudgingly recognise its genius, I am still disgusted, I develop a (probably unhealthy) love-hate relationship with this manga. Not with Gō Nagai though, that one is a pure hate relationship. BTW, you can imagine how shocked I was when I discovered that my childhood fave Tōkyō Mew Mew was secretly a Devilman retelling; I am just glad I hadn't yet watched stuff like, say, Neon genesis Evangelion before reading Devilman, but this just proved how right I was about there being some manga that should be required reading before passing on to... well, everything else.

I unfortunately suffer from a terminal form of completism syndrome, which is how I ended up searching Japanese blogs for info about those silly pachinko cutscenes that have sparked your question. But in fact, Devilman may very well be what is slowly curing me, since I was so horrified from some of the later official material I've read, not even mitigated by the redeeming virtues of the original manga, that more and more I'm starting to reconsider my stance about having to read and watch *everything* about any particular franchise I get into. I wish I didn't have to learn this the hard way, though... and that I had some brain bleach handy, sigh. Yes, I hate Gō Nagai. Yes, I hate almost all the non-70's Devilman stuff that I've read or watched so far (to the point that I don't know whether to go on or not). Yes, sometimes I wish I could warn my younger self. But historical knowledge is one of the things I value most and, if I hadn't read this foundational title, what sort of pseudo manga fan would I be today? And I love Ryō Asuka to death - don't we all? - along with many future characters and stories by different authors that he paved the way for. These are the two things that I reckon make it worth it to be into something as infuriating and terrifying as Devilman.

[littleeyesofpallas]

man im in a weird headspace recently... first The One headcanons, and now this... that's a lotta thoroughly dead content i'm giving brain space to

So, in the now tragically forgotten and buried jrpg franchise, Wild Arms, there was this whole fun gimmick where the wild west influence extended into other tangential americana as well. there's heavy borrowing from D&D, and horror films as well as westerns, and classic romanticized cowboy mythos and such... So in any case the games also had a few cross media spinoffs, including a TV anime and a shortlived manga.

There is a character in the manga named Jye-chi-ka[ジェチカ] which the brave, lone scanlator team, TurtleParadise --back in... what, 2010?-- romanized as Jessica. But I don't know if that's correct.

For context, the other two leads in the series are named Ma-ku-shi Re-mi-n'-to-n'[マキシ・レミントン] transliterated back into Maxi Remington, a clear reference to the Remington Arms Company, his sister, ko-ne-tto[コネット] taken to be something like Conette or Connett, and Gy[ギィ] who they called Guy, as in the French name, which I think was the correct choice. But as you can sort of see, apart from the Remington bit, the names don't appear to be overt references to anything else to help triangulate Jechika's name.

Jechika is btw a member of a minority group of native American analogs within the Wild Arms world, semi-consistent across different games, called the Baskar. Some other Baskar have been named things like...

Tim Rhymeless and Colette Mapleleaf in WA2; both rather innocuous names... And the family of Gallows, Shane, and Halle Carradine in WA3, much more overtly referencing the iconic scene of lawless frontier justice, Shane from the movie Shane, and Halley's comet plus actor David Carradine, probably tied to this thru the now infamous cult classic TV show, Kung Fu, where producer meddling outed Bruce Lee as lead in favor of having David Carradine play Kwai Chang Caine, a wandering shaolin monk in the wild west.

But this all, as you may be catching onto, also does not help establish clear patterns to help with...

Some random NPCs have names like Harold, Ellen, Cordell, and Laraina? Funny enough these I can sort of tie into references with a bit of guess work.

Cordell in particular stands out as a less common name to have picked here, and I want to assume it's a reference to Cordell Walker, Chuck Norris' star character in Walker Texas Ranger.

In the context of wild west icons, legendary outlaw, Ellen Liddy "Cattle Kate" Watson is the first to come to mind.

I have no idea what to make of Harold... Harold Gould? Semi-famous character actor in TV and film of the 60s-70s? He hardly seems reference worthy, he didn't exactly have a lot of standout roles... Harold McCracken? Sort of famous painter of pseudo-historical wild west scenes? Are those names a random Japanese game dev would have really been able to stumble into in the 2000s? It's the name "Harold" it could be practicallyanyone...

And technically "Laraina"'s name is actually written ri-re-i-na[リレイナ] so that one could just be a localization flub. Actually, it appears to be how they japanized the name of Wynona Rider's character in the 1994 movie, Reality Bites; the character's name is Lelaina Pierce. It's far from being a western but it does take place in Texas, for a Japanese creator maybe that's cowboy adjacent enough?)

So I dunno... Maybe it is Jessica and it's just a weird choice of names because the manga author doesnt have access to the core creative team's specific sensibilities. Maybe it doesn't matter because the core team's sensibilities are also unstable. And if anything, it feels vaguely slavic to me? Like, the way those phonetics roll off the tongue to me sounds like it ought to be something like Tetscheka? Dzhetgya?? Czeschka(like the painter)??? But why would anyone have named a native american analog in some sort of pseudo-slovenian?

I realize this is a cold case. And one without any real answers. But it's one of those things that drives me nuts when I look up somethings simple like, "What were those characters' names again?" and then find myself having wasted the morning on a wild goose chase and now i'm late for work...

[archivedjuice]

i'm seeing so much backlash to the sun and the star: a nico di angelo adventure in which people are really upset that the book centered around the romantic relationship between nico and his boyfriend, will solace rather than the sibling relationship between nico and his sister, hazel levesque and while i do understand that it's saddening that we haven't gotten to see more of them since heroes of olympus, i genuinely really do dislike how much nico di angelo fans tether hazel's existence as a character to nico. this happens a lot in fandom (where people tether female characters who aren't canonically as close as fanon would like them to be to male character they think are better suited to be involved in their general existence because of past canon) and it's obviously as a result of misogyny. however, i came across a post just now in which someone referenced a post they made about 'how much they hated tsats' and how they'd found someone to do the art for their 'rewrite of the book' and when i'm going through this person's blog, reading their posts about what they wish the sun and the stat was about (hazel and nico's relationship instead of nico and will's), it's starting to feel like homophobia more than anything else. i highly doubt that they were intentionally being homophobic but christ, as someone who lives in a country where queer relationships are genuine criminalised both socially and in terms of the law, microaggressions and internalised homophobia become really easy to spot.

this kind of fanon mentality is so dangerous to queer literature like this because this person and the people that support them have no doubt been waiting and speculating about this book since it has been announced, but in the time since nico's appearance in heroes of olympus and trials of apollo, i've seen some of the weirdest characters transformations within the fandom to the point where characters are simply no longer recognisable; after tsats was announced, people took these fanon characters and speculated about the story that was going to be presented with these characters, not consulting the source material and not realising that what's important in nico's life right now, as someone who's life has generally lacked or has just been a perpetual process of loosing love, is his love life. his last appearance was with the other main character of tsats: his boyfriend, will solace.

anyway basically i think that the entitlement that a certain part of the older teen riordan fanbase has over nico's character in particular is especially strange and it kind of poisons the way they view his relationships and the characters involved in those relationships. over the years i've seen a kind of weird erasure of characters who don't interact with him much, the demonisation of characters (these characters are children btw) who have made mistakes from which he has, too, suffered and a really strange fandom-wide thought that rick riordan, the creator of these stories and character, has no idea what he's doing with these stories and characters and that he's doing it all wrong. i think it's also extremely funny that with the sun and the star, riordan specifically wrote the book with a queer writer in order to make sure he was doing his character justice; he admitted that he was not the perfect writer for this specific story, for this one specific character of his — he knows his character and he understood that he could not understand an experience he wanted his character to have so he got help about it — and yet people are still dismissing his work as being done wrong because of their own personal (fanon) opinions about the character.

specifically i think it's interesting to mention that this is the first time that we're getting an in-depth look at will's character, as well as an in-depth look at his relationship and chemistry with nico. coming across posts saying 'nico wouldn't do [this]!' or 'nico wouldn't do [that]' is interesting because we don't actually know what he would. we are, however, currently learning what he is doing. to say that will is out of character is even more interesting to me because what previous character are you talking about? the mere glimpses we've been shown throughout dramatically different circumstances over the years? this is a new, incredibly intimate (romantic, even) setting and it's the first we're seeing both will and nico here.

there are is so very little queer literature about 15 year olds, and there are even fewer that have been published by well known authors, guaranteed to be known, to be read and to dismiss it because it simply wasn't what you wanted — mind you, things like characterisation and story are excellent here so it's not like comics where a new writer comes in and fucks up years of character development with a few pages — is so tone deaf, it is simply outrageous. there are so many little boys out there that are going to get to read badass nico di angelo kiss his boyfriend, so many little boys that are going to finally feel understood and you want to dismiss it? rewrite it? for your little fandom validation? there is such a difference between doing that and writing fanfiction. one is significantly less offensive and yet you chose wrongly anyway. i hope your fingers break and you can never type a word again.