on the limits of mahou tsukai

mahou tsukai is the player character in the minigame of the same name, the first game of set three of rhythm tengoku. he is an apprentice wizard who uses the power of waltz to make flowers bloom and make children happy (character album, stage 3). this much is canon, this much we know. but how far can this “waltz magic” go?

we know that when an input is slightly offbeat, mahou makes a mistake and summons a monster, presumably made of plant matter, which eats the budded plant. while the head of the monsters may be interpreted as a globular flower, such as an allium, a fruit or berry, such as the false strawberry, or a predatory plant, such as a flytrap, any plant matter interpretation suggests that our wizard friend has power over more than just the flowers we see in-game.

the question is, what are the limits of his power?

now, this explanation is basically entirely my own headcanon, as there’s not much canon to go off of (as with any non-returning character from tengoku) so, just keep in mind that this is from the deep caverns of my mind and said caverns alone.

i believe that mahou can create and control any living, organic matter in the taxonomic kingdom Plantae.

or, has the potential to. he is, canonically, an apprentice.

well, what do i mean by this?

let’s start from the back. “living, organic matter in the taxonomic kingdom Plantae,” any organism classified under kingdom Plantae is affected by his magic. this includes moss, ferns, angiosperms, and gymnosperms— basically anything you’d identify as a plant. algae are an edge case, but i personally exclude it as i was taught that algae are classified under Protista, not Plantae. but, i would understand if one were to count algae, as they do perform photosynthesis and were classified as plants until just recently. living organic matter, now, any matter that already fits the set criteria would be organic by definition. however, i choose to make a point to only include living matter. i do not think that he can control dead plant matter— he can’t revive dead plants or make them grow regardless. dead plants are dead organisms— dead and buried, they are dead. mahou knows phytokinesis, not necromancy. going on from that, he has no ability on processed plant matter, like paper or planks. those are dead, and processed far beyond recognition, so they’re out.

ok, we’ve got our definition of what’s within his domain, now what about “create and control”?

“control,” easy enough, he can make plants germinate, grow, flower (if a flowering plant), produce fruit, cones, spores, etc (if applicable), and he can make them do so in most any possible manner, such as grabbing, wrapping, decorating, whatever you can think of.

“create” does break a few laws of physics, but it’s magic and i think it’d be more fun if he could make a little flower in his hand so sue me.

so, he can summon and manipulate any taxonomic-plants that are alive. he has the potential to, at least, he’s not a professional. and, being a non-professional, he doesn’t have 100% complete control over his powers

time to talk emotions!

i think him as a very sentimental person, very emotional. and as we all should know, emotions can be difficult to control. you know what this results in?

use your imagination.

i actually have this little headcanon that the plant monsters when you hit a “barely” are because of a loss of composure from the wizard, from being off-beat. a sudden panic, i see it as.

i sure hope you imagined something cute and silly and wholesome and not something absolutely monstrous and terrifying! that’s my job!

so, that’s my take on the limits of mahou tsukai. in theory, he’d be quite the powerful person— plantae is a large kingdom. with some honing he’d be quite intimidating. but, he’s not quite there yet, i believe. he can’t just create a whole tree from the ground, for instance, and he still spawns those plant monsters when he makes a mistake. big oversight plz patch

great news everyone!!! upon my millionth-and-some rewatch, i can confirm that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is still a perfect 10/10 movie, and still the best MCU film. 👑🥇🏆

i really should post stuff that isnt finished more often <- wont do that

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT (1955)

For the Halsin "don't deserve to see the sun again" theme, if the player fails to break the Shadow Curse before starting act 3, when they say goodbye to Halsin in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, he says, "I will miss you, my friend. Perhaps our paths will cross again some day, if the sun ever shines on this place once more." So... more of Halsin viewing the sun as a reward of sorts, or at least the absence of light as the ultimate punishment

It's about...the cyclical balance of the Sun being the most powerful of lifebringers, as well as the most dangerous of killers. It's about wishing for nothing more than to see the light after eons of darkness, but it blinds and burns you as it's primary reward; and your body sings for it - it has sung for it since the dawn of all times. No matter the hardship to bask in its presence, it is still, in the end, a symbol of hope. And isn't it - for those brief moments of happiness it brings the spirit - worth the hardship for a chance to have it look upon you again?

Purple prose aside, as the Sun is a life bringer, and there were entire druidian rituals and worship surrounding the Sun, I'm not surprised many of Halsin's tidings of bad fortune in his mind is an absence of being able to reap its benefits - whether that be figuratively or literally is up to interpretation (I think it's a bit of both).

It's also worth noting how one of his main wishes is that *everyone* can see the Sun, at all levels and walks of life, and that it is something that should never be limited to one's "worth" in society. It is a right, not a privilege.

Which does make Orin's mocking: "I do not deserve to see the sun again." twist the knife a little deeper in the gut.

People will be like 'oh you go to uni, you must be smart!' mate, I've never met people with less common sense than uni students. Though what else would you expect when you stick a load of sleep deprived, overwhelmed, young adults together

Did you know gaming: panne is the funniest woman in the world and I love her

It's just so discouranging that, with every statement Q makes, it ends up being worded in a way that ends up with the admins and ex-admins taking the blow and blame of everything. As much good intentions any statement has, the lack of aknowledgement for them (that as you said before, it CAN BE worded in a way that does not get him in trouble, the US law force is fucking horrible with inmigrants after all) can lead to these horrible results.

I am genuinely so sorry that anyone in this situation had their information leaked. Everyone deserves their privacy and not be at risk of the actions of dangerous people, it's common internet safety.

Now with that said, I will share an experience, that while I personally did not go through myself, the director of one of the big projects I participate in did, while I also read a lot of testimonies about it. This is to put some perspective for the ex-admins who are, rightfully so, upset for the abuse and mistreatment they went through.

In the animation community, there is a thing called Multi Animator Project, where a host (aka the director) makes a call for multiple animators to join in to animate designated parts of a project. This is non-profit, aka volunteer, work, that animators (specially beginners) take either to have fun work on the side of their actual jobs or to gain experience on the field and with working alongside a team + with deadlines involved. These projects should not go as hard as to exploit people and their time, since it's free labor they are doing for the sake of fun or for experience.

Except that one time it did. There was a big project of multiple of these videos directed by one person, in a way that they were expecting industry standard labor and high quality industry standard results (no, the normativity for Multi Animator Projects it's not this at all).

Several animators claimed not being aknowledged for their efforts at all, how they were kicked out without any warnings if they were not 'active enough' and that 'enough' never was specified, sometimes they were even kicked out of nowhere without any specified reason, and how the absolute short deadlines they received for high quality results + the pressure from the director's expectations greatly affected their stress and overall health. There were higher ups of the project sick of defending this director's actions while knowing full well that these working conditions for free volunteer labor were absolutely terrible and unacceptable, so they were some of the few to finally speak out.

Since then, the director has left the animation community field and everyone involved posted their unfinished work on their socials and went their own ways. Something yet to mention, this director was a young inexperienced person who made these incredibly awful demands and mistakes, and still received the consequences of these actions once the testimonies were out. Not in the form of legal consequences, but in the form of never being trusted by this community again.

Now, you might see why I brought this story up: No matter the field, if you're doing volunteer work or a straight up paid job, the bare minimum to expect is respect, the higher ups being mindful of your time and availability and aknowledgement of your efforts.

Nobody likes to be exploited, be from a big business or not, or be an experienced head of the project or not at all. Nobody likes to risk their mental and physical health, and their time, for a project that it's not supposed to demand much more out of you than it should be. And if you experience any of this kind of mistreatment, of course you will be upset, of course you will be angry and of course you would not trust the higher ups or the head of the project again.

It's a valid and more than fair point of view when you're the victim. When you're the one who have gone through this work abuse.

And both Q, the higher ups and this director can learn the error of their ways and do better in the future, for sure, they're still humans. But nobody expect every single person who worked under their names to trust them again or to be as forgiving as people could ask of them. It just makes sense.

Not gonna add anything to this anon, just publishing it because it’s a great example of how these kinds of wrongdoings can happen within any contexts and to anyone !

Me> [struggling to unravel a very annoying UI bug]

My brain, entirely unprompted> H E Y. IF JAHEIRA HAD USED SOME MORE MINOR VERSION OF THAT RITE OF THE TIMELESS BODY ON RASAAD TO EXTEND HIS LIFESPAN, IT WOULD RESOLVE THE MORE FINICKY TIMELINE ISSUES ABOUT RION BEING THEIR KID.

Me> ...ok? I didn't ask right now but thank you for working that out I guess.

so. context here and reference image by sally von kügelgen under the cut!!

My professor, expecting a normal and informative final exam (written)

Me:

Have you heard about our lord and saviour

Roman Concrete?

Please god, can someone give me the strength to write ANOTHER 900 word essay in German, I DON'T WANNA I DONT WANNA PLEASE NO

I Wonder what you think of people fishing (in general). I personally would love to learn how to fish and learn how to catch specific fish with bait and even mount some cool catches, but sometimes, I ask myself if this aligns with my moral standings. I’m personally pescatarian and love eating fish, but can’t help feel sorry for them while eating them.

I also know that fishing does help with regulating/population-control of specific fish. 🧐

Anyways, I’d love to know how you feel about eating fish and fishing fish whilst also loving fish and appreciating fish. 🐟

(I’ve used the word fish multiple times haha, fish fish fish fish 🐠)

I get what you mean! It's a whole moral conundrum and a half, I'll say.. ^^' I used to enjoy fishing myself, my family and I would go to the local pond and do catch and release fishing; I liked it because it was the only time I could properly see and handle fish, as otherwise they were out of sight under the water. Some years back though, I became very conflicted about fishing just for enjoyment due to the inevitable stress it causes the fish to be pulled out of the water by their mouth and roughly handled on land. Sometimes fish don't recover from the shock and end up dying anyway. I felt awful thinking back on all the fish that must've suffered at my own hands. The last time I went fishing was probably about three years back, I haven't fished since. Although I haven't 100% decided that I'm never in my life fishing again, it's probably safe to assume I won't be fishing for a long, long while... @~@

That's how I feel about myself fishing, but when it comes to others fishing, I really don't mind. Everyone can decide for themselves what they wish to do, and where their stance on fishing lies. Even if I don't like eating most fish, it is a fact that fish can be more sustainable than other animal meat and eating local native fishes is a very good alternative to just buying from the store! Much like you said, fishing can be used to control populations of fish, like invasive species (lionfish come to mind immediately), which is also very good! Fishing is also just a fun hobby to have and brings a lot of enjoyment to many people, haha.

Much like commercial fishing, leisure fishing can have bad impact on fish and fish populations, but it doesn't have to be that way! One can take measures to fish in a way that doesn't harm the overall population and causes the fishes minimal stress, take for example my good friend! She has kept fish as pets and loves them much like I do, but she still fishes. She sands down the barbs on her hooks, and when she fishes with the intent of eating, she quickly puts the fish down. She holds the belief that if you're planning on having meat in your diet, you have to get comfortable with the idea that animals have to die for that diet, and also be sure that the animals didn't have to die in a more painful and stressful way than what was necessary. I pretty much agree with her.

So yeah! To make a long, rambly story short, I don't want to fish myself but I'm otherwise pretty neutral on the topic. Other people can go fish as much as they want to, but I only wish that people would make it easier on the fishes themselves! Their lives are valuable too and I think it is a fisher's responsibility to make sure they are treated with dignity and mercy.

Man, I ended up writing fish and fishing and fishes so many times myself, they don't even look like real words anymore! Fishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfishfish!

That scene between Tuvok and B'Elanna from 'Resistance' wrecks me actually... It's such a great moment for both characters (and actors, Tim Russ is SO underrated ugh) which highlights the differences between the two of them so well- yet, ultimately shows that under certain circumstances (in this case, torture) the distinctions between people... don't really matter. In an episode full of political violence, this moment is so significant, and I don't even really think I have the smarts to articulate why but I'll try lol.

TORRES: We told you already. We don't know anything about the Resistance.  AUGRIS: I've heard that many times, from many people. Take him.  (The forcefield is lowered, and Torres grabs the guard that steps through.)  TUVOK: Lieutenant, stop! That will not help either of us.  AUGRIS: He's right.

Everything about the way this scene (and the final shot where she's shoved back into her seat) is framed makes B'Elanna appear small, helpless- and embarrassed at her own helplessness- in that cell. We see her fidgeting, unable to sit down, constantly trying to break out or improvise her way out of the situation (she gets electrocuted earlier while trying to tamper with the circuitry)- it makes me wonder whether Tuvok was chosen to be tortured not because they believed he was more likely to have information, but because B'Elanna was more likely to be demoralised watching helplessly as he's dragged off. Augris's line implies that he's "broken" a great many people in the past; a tactic to instil fear and a helpless sense of inevitability in them both (torture doesn't work as a reliable way of extracting information; this is stated in dialogue in other Trek episodes such as 'Chain of Command' so the assertion here is at least not that- but what it does do is demoralise the public involved in resistances like this one.)

Later, B'Elanna is still trying to escape (do the guards know she's doing this? Are they just not intervening?) and she hears him screaming. Tuvok is someone who considers letting others witness him lose control over his exterior a huge (indecent, violating, humiliating) vulnerability, and the fact that he's the one being tortured is Not Insignificant in this context but like- it could've been the other way round. And B'Elanna knows that. It could've been her, and perhaps a small, scared part of her is relieved that it wasn't her, which is an awful way to feel (and if there's one thing B'Elanna hates, it's feeling like a coward). Also- the sheer violation of this, for B'Elanna to have witnessed him in this state, against her will- to later see him bloodied and weakened and flung in a cell, to have heard him screaming in pain- without his consent, knowing she can never un-witness it, knowing it wasn't her fault but still being put in such a situation where she has now played that role... Does this experience forcibly rewrite their respective conceptualisations of each other? Was Tuvok even thinking of her- somewhere outside, listening, worrying, blaming herself, fearing for herself, feeling ashamed, feeling so aware of him and her and the shared humiliation of this- when he was in there? Did seeing her upon coming back out change things? Could it ever change things? Did her presence, even as an outsider, whose memories of this event will always be (visually, at least) the constructs of her imagination- somehow make what happened in there real? Does her role as witness- and her memory thereby carrying some sort of legitimisation of what happened to him now, however warped and coloured by her own perspective and fears and embarrassment- make things better for Tuvok? Does it make things worse? Would he rather have endured this in secret? Would it have been better if she were a total stranger? Would it have been worse? And does any of this even matter when, for a moment, your life (your personhood, your goals, your presence) was completely reduced to what you "must endure"?

AUGRIS: We don't have to ask your friend any more questions, if you give us the answers.  TORRES: I told you I don't.  (Torres stops herself from hitting Augris, who leaves.)  TORRES: I'm sorry. I guess I always assumed that Vulcans didn't feel pain like the rest of us. That you were able to block it out somehow. Until I heard. Was that you I heard?

And the way B'Elanna's voice breaks when she asks this, as if she was still somehow hoping the answer would be no... There are complexities to this which again I don't feel like I'm smart enough to articulate, but like- yes, B'Elanna would like to hear that it wasn't him because that would mean her friend wasn't tortured "that badly", he wasn't put through "enough pain" to scream that way, and it's easier and more comfortable to think of violence (and violation) as something you can rank on a scale, and the lower on it Tuvok's experience ranks, the better! the more easy it will be for them to "move past" this! - but also, there's this element of "I want the answer to be no because that would mean I would not have been a participant in your humiliation, just some stranger's whose voice I don't have a face to put to, which is much better than having to know what you (my friend, my colleague, my respected senior officer, someone I will have to see every day on the bridge, someone I know prefers to keep vulnerabilities hidden even deeper than anyone else I know) sound like when you scream. But also... it doesn't really matter, does it...? Whatever he says, there always was still a moment- however brief- where B'Elanna heard a man screaming in agony, and thought it could've been Tuvok. And in that moment, that possibility was created. Now, it will always exist. That moment will always have happened. It will always have done something to her. It will always exist between them; an ugly, uncomfortable bond.

And this is getting into even more things I'm not smart enough to articulate, but like- it's pretty significant to me that B'Elanna is one of the few characters who never actually tries to poke Tuvok into Doing An Emotion, even normally. She doesn't consider trying to get him to crack an entertaining pastime, unlike others (and I'm sure her experiences of feeling like an outsider- always- feeling Very Visible As Klingon, play a role in this- "all they ever saw was my forehead" does not lend itself so kindly to "let's see if we can get Mr. Vulcan to smile", "why, Tuvok, it seems you've been corrupted by Human (read: default) rituals after all!"- it's a light-hearted joke for many, sure, but what if Tuvok genuinely considers the idea of smiling in the presence of others reflective of a humiliating loss of control and deeply debasing?) I think it's pretty clear from canon that he's just being himself; he's not trying to be a killjoy or trying to be mean, he's just Vulcan. And this is one of the few moments in Trek I can think of when a Vulcan's perceived "control" over their emotions is not connected with their reluctance to laugh or cry or say something sentimental, but... this. B'Elanna is shocked, she's horrified, she demands an explanation as to how he can possibly go through something like this and not feel the desire to "fight back" in a way she understands- and the way she cannot grant him the pretence of not having witnessed, here, the way she can't just shove this in a box, pretend she never heard, because she's just so fundamentally honest- and Tuvok (who is also so fundamentally honest), in a painful moment of openness, tells her exactly what his reasoning is. He lets her see. He lets her hear; on his own terms. He wants for her to understand (for her to witness?) his (very Vulcan) distinction between resistance and endurance; his understanding of endurance as its own form of resistance. Idk it's such a quietly powerful and like- devastating- moment for me... So many people try, over and over, thoughout the show, to get Tuvok to break his Vulcansona- try to make him smile, make him say tender things, make him get irritated- just to see if they can do it. Just to see if he'll ever crack. I bet B'Elanna wishes she never had.

friendly reminder that reinhard is approximately the same age as his parents when they had him

Spoilers for visuals from the tutorial level of Tears of the Kingdom. But I just gotta know if anyone else had thoughts about this door design:

Because with the way that it looks like the sefirot / tree of life from the kabbalah ... I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think aside from nintendo sure does like to appropriate things from a closed culture. I understand that in Japanese the little robots are called golems while the English translation has them as the preferred constructs. So, am I supposed to think that the Zonai were Jewish? Or is it just cause our stuff is ~mystical and ~cool and they needed things to make the Zonai seem more ~otherworldly since they decided to veer away from the aesthetic they chose to hint toward the Zonai with the barbarian set in Breath of the Wild. I mean, this design is just there, I've beaten the game and saw all the memories, though I haven't 100%'d it yet -- the design is never shown to be of any importance or do anything. So, what's the point of it? Why is it there?