#lots of symbolism in this one lads | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

effen-draws · 1 year

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It's my turn to do some dramatic dhmis art!!

Also have the sketch and a singular alt this time:

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vargaslovinghours · 2 years

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It’s all fun and games until you get a bad ending

#💟#Doodles #Art #Scriabin #Edgar #Dating Sim #A solid mix of dialogue and UI this time lol #This time with the actual Affection symbol! Heart heart heart ♥ ♥ ♥ Haha #I didn't mention it in the UI sketchdump but one thing I've been thinking about A Lot is how the yarn in the text box might change over time #The more the affection grows the more the yarn stitches itself into a pretty pattern - visual evidence of you being laced nicely ♪#And though not shown here the inverse also being the case - not necessarily in losing stitches but if you grow a negative relationship...♪#Anyway!#Scriabin's was meant to look more like a spiderweb but I kinda like it looking like his bonewings more :D Self-expression and confidence!#I considered adding little gemstones or pieces of mirror as well - little facets of his personhood ♥#Edgar needed a flowery reaction as well so there he goes happy lad ♥#I like the contrast of him being more open and smiley if the interaction could be read as positive and platonic #As soon as love hearts are involved he gets more shy and nervous hehe #And then the last set ♪ Scriabin gets the ❌s this time hehe #Depending on how the player approaches Edgar as a topic to Scriabin he could take it well or poorly #The player trying to step into Edgar’s place is a losing battle and Scriabin is not into it #Even at high levels the player comparing themself to Edgar is not taken well only Scriabin is allowed to be clingy lol #It’s actually a soft rejection compared to what he could say #Coded language that basically says ''You're not nearly important enough to be acting like that to me so don't even think about it''#It'd be fun to see him go all out on the player if they weren't even at a point to be slightly polite to hehe ♪

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smol-tired-binch-blog · 1 year

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I need to go scream in a field or just scream along to some death metal right this minute

#smol has a vent #seriously like i was doing FINE i was in my normal state of Complete Lack Of Any Feeling #and I try to draw a lil something and BOOM i want to rip my own throat out of my mouth #yknow tomorrow is Monday ppl should be at work including neighbours maybe i can get a little screamin done #but if im not as good as the singers ill feel bad too :) i think i might actually be in a depressive state lads #unfortunately its not good enough to write poetry about FUCK i shoulda just published those poems shoudlnt i #i never could figure how to format the fuckin things but maybe i should!!#just self publish two small (and i mean SMALL) poetry collections on Amazon and make like 2 quid every 3 months #would yall like that? i say yall like more than one of you looks at my blog (hi Sky!!)#all my poems are like themed on flowers and either girls or murder or both :) i had a kild fixation on murder ballads and flower symbolism #half of my shit aint publishable but the ones that are? ooh i went OFF on em #i have like 3 really good ones i still love a lot #HOOO BOY I LOVE BEING MENTALLY STABLE

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beauspot · 9 months

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Thoughts on my second watch of Good Omens 2

i heard the fly buzzing in my first watch but didn’t know why and now i know

Maggie my sweet darling angel baby i love you

Aziraphale turning their car yellow

crowleys “no more dying” in extreme scottish.

Disposable Demon i’ll save you from these awful people i promise 😭

Aziraphale’s little smile when he says “smitten” to Crowley

i wonder if crowley was especially hurt because aziraphale seemed to be able to forgive gabriel who tried to kill him but can’t seem to forgive him being a demon.(still seeing all of this as a metaphor for internalized homophobia, like aziraphale knows he’s not the perfect angel he wants to be and he’s projecting his feelings about that onto crowley)

I can’t believe we got an actual ball. like pride and prejudice, bridgerton ball.

the beautiful score that started playing when aziraphale brought the chandelier down

i didn’t even realize that when they walked in the outfits changed. mrs sandwich made me realize(also i love her)

Nina being the only one to question the weird magical shit Aziraphale and Crowley do sends me so bad.

Season 2 took everything i liked about the first season (aziracrow, queer subtext, gay people, archangels, and beelzebub) and expanded on it

The adorable smile on Aziraphales face when he asked Crowley to dance 😭 he’s so pure(i should have known something was up, everything was going too well)

Crowley saying i won’t leave you on your own and Aziraphale saying i know 🤒

why isn’t aziraphale able to miracle nina and maggie??

crowley and mrs sandwich flirting. too cute

crowley saying he’s neither nice nor a lad.

crowleys little run in heaven when he’s following muriel

maggie giving the middle finger to the demons and laughing in their face when they tried to belittle her. queen

defensive aziraphale is so badass. just because he’s soft doesn’t mean he can’t stand up for himself or the people he loves

the random guitar solo in the final episode theme is so bizarre to me. why is it there?

ahh the raining hearts symbolizing crowleys vavoom plan!

crowley’s heavenly outfit not being white but “light grey”

the relief in aziraphale’s voice when crowley came back 😀

also him mumbling about the halo like he did with the sword 😭 but he sure loves to boast about the things he’s done right to crowley

aziraphale and crowley doing magic together has the power to set off alarm bells in heaven and they barely tried, they’re just in sync

saraqael was such a good addition to the cast.

crowley smiling at aziraphale going off on the angels and demons

“where beelzebub is, is my Heaven.” 🥹

the little knowing look after crowley mentions alpha centauri

the way they just interrupted michael’s speech by leaving 😭

i think that aziraphale was about to ask crowley to move in but that’s my opinion

the look the metatron gave crowley is so strange. i don’t like that

“JUST US. NOT YOU.”

“You’re not helping, angel.”

the softness in aziraphale’s voice when he talked about making crowley an angel again? how can you hate him! he thought he was doing the right thing!

also the miscommunication these two have is completely out of hand because crowley asked aziraphale if he said no and aziraphale hadn’t given an answer AT ALL to the metatron. the metatron told him to take his time. he went back to tell crowley the news first.

crowleys confession makes my stomach hurt. the way his voice broke when he said “we’ve spent our existence pretending that we aren’t.”. the way he had to force himself past his anxiety to tell aziraphale he wanted to spend eternity with him? fuck.

the way aziraphale tells crowley to come with him. like and through all of this they are losing each other, oh my god.

“i need you!” god aziraphale punch me in the face next time why don’t you?

i feel like in all this anger towards aziraphale a lot of people are ignoring that he put himself out there too. he was telling crowley he needed him just like crowley was

“no nightingales.” FUCK YOU GAIMAN

the way aziraphale touched his lips after. dear GOD. someone get michael sheen an emmy

seeing aziraphale struggle against his wanting to kiss crowley back and his fear and wanting him to come back to heaven further supports my internalized homophobia analogy

also even knowing the kiss was going to happen because of the spoiler it still didn’t quell my shock. nor did it ruin the scene, i think it actually surprised me more because it did not happen how i thought it would.

side note i saw some people saying they thought the kiss was going to be a cop out in some way. like a body swap or as a joke and i don’t really know why?

it just occurred to me that both aziraphale and crowley thought the other one was just doing that thing they do where they say they won’t help, or they’re on their own but they eventually come back not knowing that the other was completely set on these plans they had. this wasn’t like armageddon or saving gabriel.

the second coming…of jesus…

crowley cutting off “a nightingale sang in berkeley square”...i’m gonna jump

this being the ending for the next 3-4 years. oh.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens season 2 #good omens spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #muriel good omens #nina good omens #maggie good omens #good omens beelzebub #aziraphale #a z fell #crowley #anthony j crowley #aziracrow #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #archangel fucking gabriel #archangel gabriel

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 6 months

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Am I the asshole for exposing strangers to danger out of awkwardness? I know it sounds bad but hear me out.

About a month ago, I (M30s) was at the local pub having some pints when these two guys (M20s) come in. It's obvious from their accents that they're foreigners, and they are a lot younger than most other customers (various, 40s-60s). At a guess they were probably university students on holiday. I also found out later that they were Jewish but I cannot stress enough that nobody knew that, it's not an antisemitism thing, so please do not make it about that. Just, full disclosure.

Anyway, they tried to order food (this isn't a restaurant) and then hot chocolate (no chance). The bartender, "Ruth" (F50s) was actually pretty rude to them, like she was trying right away to get them to leave (more on that later). Everyone sees this happening and it's really uncomfortable. I mean, all conversations have stopped (it's not a very big place). But it's cold outside, so they decide to stay for a while.

Fortunately, one of them makes a reference to a movie and it gets picked up by a couple of other people, which really breaks the tension. Everyone relaxes and people are laughing and joking around until out of nowhere that same guy points at one of the wall decorations and very loudly goes "What's that doing here?" It's actually a locally significant symbol, but the way he asked seemed somehow confrontational, and we're not gonna try to explain it to someone we just met, especially since it's more like he expects us to justify it or something. It sucks all the air out of the room immediately, and the guy's friend decides they should leave.

This is where maybe I/we were the assholes. The thing is, this is actually a pretty dangerous area, but these guys are clearly young and clueless. There's no Uber here and no transit that late, so they're going to be on foot, easy prey should anything happen. Now Ruth has done a 180 and she wants to stop them leaving. We're all like, lady, you were the one trying to get rid of them as soon as they arrived. No one wanted them to stick around making everything so awkward. We did warn them, but it really seemed like they weren't taking it very seriously. They leave. Ruth and one or two others are upset with everyone. Nobody really felt great about it, but they were really killing the vibe, you know?

Well, now I really really feel like shit about it, because it turns out that they did get jumped. They had no idea how serious the danger was, and we let them go like lambs to the slaughter. One of them landed in the hospital and the other ended up undead and walking the earth in limbo until the Curse of the Werewolf is lifted—when his friend dies!

So, was I the asshole for letting a couple of Americans go walking over the moors on the night of a full moon? 🚶‍♂️🌕🐺😵💀

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #fandom aita #unreality #good enough to post on purpose #an american werewolf in london

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sassylittlecanary · 2 months

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Rating Smallville superhero costumes based on how much they Commit To The Bit™️

(Not including Clark’s outfits because those deserve their own post)

Impulse/The Flash — Bart Allen

Initially he was an amalgam of various Flashes before he became Impulse, so his costume takes a bit of inspiration from everyone in the flashfam. Love the running shoes! Appreciate the lightning bolt striping! Unfortunately it’s literally just a cool hoodie and he never upgrades. Also why are those like, dress pants on a runner.

3/10

Aquaman — Arthur Curry

I like that it’s the same basic color scheme!! Bonus points that it’s basically a wetsuit. Practical but clearly comic inspired. Unfortunately also follows the mid-show trend of “my superhero outfit is a color-coded hoodie.”

6/10

Cyborg — Victor Stone

There’s lots of ways to do Cyborg’s look, but unfortunately “he has no visible cybernetic body parts” isn’t a great one. I get that budget was a factor, but also. Lame. At least they stuck to the color scheme.

2/10

Green Arrow — Oliver Queen

Points for the bright colors. Also, I love the attention to detail with the gauntlets and the little bicep bands! And the “G” on his belt! The codpiece looks clunky and I laugh every time I see the sunglasses, but this is a fun one.

8/10

Martian Manhunter — J’onn J’onzz

They should have let him be green!! Since they didn’t and instead showed him in his police detective identity, I understand his outfit being more subdued. Eventually he got a look that’s very clearly based on the comics, which for a plainclothes detective, I appreciate. Still, I hesitate to call it any kind of costume.

5/10

Black Canary — Dinah Lance

The short hair still throws me off (she does grow it out in later seasons), but otherwise this is pretty spot-on! I do not care about practicality. She has her fishnets! Her black bodysuit! The yellow accents!! I love.

9/10

Wonder Twins — Zan and Jayna

I like that they’re all in purple, and these looks worked, especially since they weren’t supposed to be superheroes yet. Still, a little underwhelming.

5/10

The Legion of Superheroes — Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy

So, they’re more or less in their comic book colors with a few symbols here and there to show who they are. Otherwise, it’s just color-coded leather jackets with very little effort. What happened to futuristic characters having fun and unique clothes?

3/10

Zatanna Zatara

THE look of all time. Absolutely flawless. No notes.

10/10

See first reblog for part two!

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kiragecko · 5 days

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Trying to learn phonology as a Canadian is HARD.

Phonology is the study of how languages organize sounds. And most of it involves matching the sounds of whatever you're studying to this mental framework of possible sounds that you learn. But since most western teaching methods involve written texts, you have to be able to map those texts to your own dialect, so that the symbols used actually have MEANING.

There isn't a lot of guidelines for mapping things to Canadian English. Most sources tell you it's similar to American English. Sometimes, one or two exceptions will be highlighted.

But, in 15 years, NOBODY HAS EXPLAINED CANADIAN 'A' TO ME.

You see, Canadian English doesn't really HAVE an 'a' sound. We have a spectrum.

'a' before an 'n, m, ng' is pronounced almost the same as the 'e' in 'beg'. [ɛː]

'a' before 'g' is pronounced SLIGHTLY lower [æ̞ə]

'a' in words like 'bat' or 'rack' are even lower, and also farther back. But they can vary wildly between speakers and individual words. [æ~ä¹]

'a' in words like 'palm, father' are pronounced near the back of the mouth, in many speakers identically to the 'o' in 'rock, bot.' (I pronounce them SLIGHTLY differently) [ɑ~ɒ]

and up to 50% of loanword 'a's (like 'façade, lasagna, lava, plaza') are pronounced IN BETWEEN 'bat' and 'palm' (and 'bun') [ä~ɑ~ʌ]

General American has three sounds here, nicely grouped. Charts of English dialects split up 'ham', 'bad', 'lad', 'pass', and 'father'. (Most dialects group these into either 2 or 3 distinct phonemes.)

But in central Canada,where I live, (and which is most likely to use weird in-between sounds), there's no real GROUPS. Everything blends into everything else. Trying to figure out the difference between /ɛ, æ, a, ä, ɐ, ɑ/ was SO HARD.

Anyways, I am very grateful to Charles Boberg for ACTUALLY RESEARCHING CANADIAN ENGLISH. Things make a lot more sense now.

¹ 'ä' is the greyed out 'a' in the picture.

#linguistics #phonology #canadian english

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rottenraccoons · 8 months

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I had a thought ruminating in my mind for a while after playing the demo (probably too many times)

But as long as its not potentially spoilers (or if its been asked already), I wanted to ask whether there was any intended meaning/intention in regards to how much of someone's face is covered by their mask? Just cause as things are, Cirrus and Fran's masks are quite open compared to Vesper/Kier/Oleanders. Since hiding ones face is reasonably important/expected underground, it seemed to me like showing off even just your lower face is quite a surprisingly direct/honest action, for a city where everyone's hiding who they are/what they want.

I don't have any definite answers for you, but I can confirm that Mugi put a lot of thought into the designs of the mask in terms of symbolism! The obvious ones to point to are sunshine lad Francesco vs. lunar priest Cirrus having similar masks that "point" in different directions, and Mr. Always-In-The-Limelight Oleander having a mask that evokes theatre masks.

I don't think there's a 1:1 relationship to how honest a character is based on mask coverage, seeing how everyone is hiding things at the end of Chapter 1. There's a lot of things going into mask design (Vesper's full face coverage is necessary, for example, to let players imagine their appearance however they like) but symbolism from us or the characters is definitely part of it! Cirrus wants to be seen as a trustworthy authority figure in his community so leaving his mouth exposed might be trying to suggest people trust what he has to say. Keir is surprisingly open and honest for the most part, but he does need to cover his full face as a survival strategy.

So yeah, there's definitely some symbolism involved! It's not just symbolism, there's plenty of characterisation and pragmatic considerations involved, too, but Mugi is a terrific artist who translates our characterisation ideas into visuals with lots of care!

#obscura vn #rotten raccoons #asks #about us #(by which i mean our process)

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creamyavocadosoup · 2 years

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𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞, 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟

a/n: HI HI. I know I've been writing a lot of Genshin stuff lately but I've had this particular scenario I've wanted to write out surrounding HTTYD characters: f!reader x Hiccup tags: Tiny tiny bit of angst at the start but I swear its mostly fluff! prompt: reader can travel between worlds and has come back to Berk after going to her original world for over a year. Reader left at the end of RTTE and comes back at the end of HTTYD 2

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

The familiar rippling feeling glided across my skin as I pass through the random-shaped portal. Smelling the salty breeze and feeling the soft grass under my shoes felt comforting as I laid eyes onto the well-known structures of Berk.

That feeling however didn't last long as I realized that the village had fallen eerily silent. Where is everyone? There were no signs if anyone and most of the village had been covered in blue ice.

A few dragons had flown over my head to the direction of the other side of the village and I followed, hoping this foreboding feeling in my chest was entirely wrong.

But I couldn't help my senses slowly disappearing as I could only see what was in front of me, not my ragged breathing nor my footsteps were heard by my ears.

There was a huge wall of bodies blocking me from any sort of indication as to what was going on. Mumbling out apologies and excuses, I weave my way through the crowd and end up at the front, finally able to see what was going on.

They all focused their attention on the people in the middle, which happened to be Gothi and Hiccup.

The foreboding feeling left me as I heaved a huge sigh of relief, my arms falling slack beside me. Scanning the area, I realized everyone was safe with a familiar face missing and a new woman blending in with the gang.

Gothi swiped her thumb on a nearby plank of burnt wood, rubbing the charcoal between her fingers. Hiccup kneeled before her and I gasped as I realized what was happening.

She drew the symbol on his forehead. No words were spoken between the two as Gothi slowly stepped away as Gobber walked closer, the tears in his eyes apparent.

"The chief has come home!" Gobber yelled as the crowd erupted into loud cheers of "Long live the chief!", me included as I approached the beloved dragon riders.

Tapping on Snotlout and Ruffnut's shoulders, their gazes swivel to me as both fall into shock, but quickly recovering and pulling me into a group hug.

"[Name]! You're back!"

The mention of my name surely turned a few heads as the rest of the dragon riders piled in on the hug and shouts of excitement at my return.

As I basked in the comfort of my best friends, the newly crowned chief waited patiently for the group hug to finish. Hiccup's heart pounded against his chest as the euphoria and adrenaline of today swirled through his veins.

A hand laid on his shoulder as he turned to see his mothers face, "Is that her?" she asked and he nodded in response. The toothy smile on his face was bright and his eyes sparkled, his mother taking note of the absolute joy on his features.

Soon the rest of the group detangled from the hug as Astrid nudged them to let Hiccup have his turn. Your eyes fell on the auburn haired lad, and I felt as if I could breath again. A year had surely done him so right as he looked even more handsome than when you last saw him but his alluring green eyes were as comforting as ever.

"Hiccup," I almost whispered, tears pricking at the corner of my eyes as I waited patiently. Waited for him to approach me first.

The overwhelming joy hit me in waves as he wasted no time to wrap me up in a hug, one arm around my waist and the other on my back. My lips trembled as I silently cried into his shoulder, surely wetting his armor but it was the least of both our worries.

"You came back." He murmured into my ear, in disbelief that I actually returned. He hugged me tighter, afraid I would slip out of his arms once more.

His nose buried deeper into my hair as I barely heard him whisper, "Feels like home." The sentiment had me blushing wildly but also giddy with excitement.

I didn't pull away from him, just letting the man soak in his emotions, but I reached up to weave my fingers through his hair, his body relaxing against mine at the gesture.

My lips moved to his ear, "Welcome home, chief." I responded, giggling slightly as he fell silent knowing that he felt embarrassed that I heard him.

Our reunion however was short lived as the twins tried to push Hiccup away, "Alright, that's enough it's our turn."

"Tuff, you already had your turn."

"That was a group hug so it didn't count."

I laughed as I watched the group bicker amongst themselves. It was something you didn't think you would miss when you went back to your world but it only meant that you were right where you were supposed to be.

Hiccup kept his arm around my waist as a blissful expression graced his features, his lips tugged into a lopsided smile.

I'm home.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

a/n: in shambles bc i absolutely love httyd my comfort movies. hope you enjoyed it! reblogs are much much appreciated ilysm if u reblog the post istg i will smother u with love

#ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ books #ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ sugar #httyd #hiccuphaddock #hiccup #httyd 2 #fanfic #fanfiction #fluff #httyd fluff #hiccup x reader

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ultraviolet-cello · 4 months

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Alright since the @tristampparty is Well under way now I'm gonna do a little day by day analysis or details I like about the episode of the day, along with my usual art hustle :3!

Because this is going to end up being Super long we'll put this under a cut! [Spoiler warning for All of Trigun, primarily Tristamp and Trimax]

Tl;dr? I'm normal about how Knives is in Tristamp

So I'll be going point by point in chronological notes that I kept while writing abt this episode :] thank u to Mal for putting up with my rambles hehehe.

So the Seeds ships specifically are reminiscent, to me at least, of the Angel Arm (probably moreso the tristamp version which, can you believe, is incredibly difficult to get a screenshot of lmao)

That's interesting to me because it could be just a design choice but if it is an in-universe thing, it does,... imply some things about Plants. Granted, Independents probably weren't known abt when the Seeds ships launched, but is there another aspect of Plants that takes that form? And is that impactful enough for a human fleet to design their ships after that? Much to think about for something that's probably just symbolic lmao

Now for Knives! So a little bit of context that I will elaborate on as we watch, but I think the narrative is heavily biased against Knives when he was a child, and that we will get some recontextualization next season that's more in line with how we know him in Trimax.

In particular, I think the beginning flashback is possibly theeee most unbiased depiction of events because all the rest are specifically memories being told to others by Vash or Knives, or the whole memory thing in July. Granted it's still very Vash-focused but it gives us two major things.

Knives seemingly wanting to take Rem along with him. In Trimax, it's semi-implied that Knives would have initially wanted Rem to live and spirals very hard into telling Vash he hates Rem as a coping mechanism (which I will elaborate on if anyone's interested in my reading of those scenes), and it seems to be even more overt here.

He doesn't stop reaching out either until Rem shuts the escape pod/pulls the lever (Unclear on when that is)

2. From that scene, the only time we see Knives' face/expression again is when the escape pod is being like. Slung out of the ship. The rest of it always blocks his face and expression in favour of seeing Vash's far louder and emotional reactions.

and we just straight up do not see knives again until his big maniacal speech thing and that's,,, well we just don't know how long it's been since they crashed. could be minutes. could be hours. could be enough for knives to have had a breakdown and start laughing at the sky because he just doesn't know what else to do

i think (hope) season 2 might end up having a lot of the same flashbacks from knives' pov/an unbiased pov :]

Moving on with the episode: Roberto! I love Roberto a lot actually, he definitely grows on you. Something I did notice is that throughout this ep he says that Meryl and Vash would not last long on this planet which. That's interesting, considering he doesn't say that to Wolfwood, and yet Wolfwood and Roberto are the ones doomed by the (sometimes meta) narrative.

So when Vash is found he's been strung up by the Bad Lads gang (who have far more presence in episode one than I originally thought lmao), and he looks... a little dehydrated maybe, but overall fine.

The guys next to him, though? not doing remotely as well. Now while there is the possibility that he just got tied up later there's also the possibility that. While he does need to eat he doesn't need to eat as much as the average human. Which. is a lovely thought for the two dead guys. [Also a possibility that if Vash does need to consume less than a human, it could be another justification to himself for his eating issues]

The bounty! So it's technically Knives' bounty but whatever. [Sidenote: the idea that Vash and Knives look very similar is hilarious to me because they do not and never have to me] The particular notes are that Knives definitely had a hand in this - Vash is the only person specified alive, the bounty is obscenely high (compared to the other wanted posters), and it's specifically stamped with July Military, which. Well Knives and Conrad operate in July, and Conrad (by extension Knives) very clearly has a Lot of power in that City because he has the tower, that massive lab, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they were the ones who initially created the bounty/wanted poster.

This Thomas carrying co... coffins? Are they coffins??

Background wanted posters for B.D.N, Marilyn Nebraska, Rai-Dei, and some other characters from trimax/98. And also for Nightow. for 30 $$ you can bring in Nightow the Comix Artist dead or alive! Wanted for Couch Crimes

Roberto kinda fascinates me as a character, especially when he sticks up for Vash and suggests a duel. My friend Mal describes him as a tsundere for friendship and. yeah okay that works lmao. for all his,,, roberto-isms, roberto has a a bit of a moral streak (he gets maddddd when he learns that children have been experimented on, hesitates in defending himself against Elendira, and lies to the police to get information out of them). He's just a Lot jaded, and we're already primed to like Meryl because, well she's Meryl, but he tends to be right when it comes to Meryl's inexperience. i like him. It's also, come to think of it, possibly because Vash fascinates Roberto a little bit. Roberto really saw Vash and went "I gotta study this guy" lmao

Vash having absolutely Perfect trigger discipline lmao

OKAY SO THIS PART IS MY FAVOURITE. For reference I am a black belt in a couple different martial arts, and working to become a sensei in Goju Ryu Karate, so this sequence is delightful! Let's break it down :] The initial block is one we use to open up a person's body - if that arm is clear out of the way you can keep control of the gun arm in this case by just pushing outwards (And with Vash's additional strength in his prosthetic that's Pretty Dang Effective, especially because in gun situations you want to keep the gun barrel away from you, so you're taught to use two arms - Vash doesn't need to do that)

From there, he goes and grabs the guy's shoulder to pull him forward unexpectedly - this throws him off balance and shifts his weight onto Vash's, so Vash is taking all that bodyweight. From there, all Vash has to do is maintain his grip on the gun arm's wrist (keeping the gun away from both parties in case he accidentally fires or there's a misfire), then turn sharply and let the body follow through!

From there he keeps the grip on the wrist and twists, which sends the gun out of the guy's grip and out of danger. At the same time, he spins his own gun's grip and hits the back of the head with the barrel - Notably he lets go of the wrist, which, if he'd kept holding it, would break the arm. I'm not entirely sure which martial arts were referenced for Vash's style, but this is exactly the type of thing I teach! [For anyone interested, I practice Goju Ryu karate, aiki jiu jitsu, iado (sword), self defense, and general okinawan kobudo (weapons like the bo staff, sais, and nunchaku)]

okay i blacked out and am no longer in teaching mode. Vash's arm, when he picks up that rock, glows very very green

what does that mean? I have 0 idea, it could be that it's overstrained, or using more power than usual. I mean, he did rip a rock out of the ground.

Zaziecam birdworm heading to July from Jeneora Rock! Probably how Knives got word of where Vash was

This fucking scene. man y'all this scene HAUNTS me.

It's so. unreliable at best. this scene goes adult vash saying he has a brother into this flashback. knives says, in order, that "he finally did it", not to worry because the plants are fine, he got rem killed, and tells vash not to get mad because he's already his accomplice, and nothing else. now we Know that that's not the case because Knives directly adds in information in future renditions of this flashback (That Vash gave him the launch codes). Which. What else don't we know about this scene. Clearly it's been a little while, the fire is burning, and Knives had all this time to climb the tower while Vash was (unconscious?). I want to see it from Knives' pov.

Knives keeping a bunch of last run plant corpses as statues to.. remind himself of his goal I guess. I read Tristamp Knives as Trimax Knives taken to the extreme (will elaborate in one of the flashback episodes), so I think he's a touch uh. Extremely unhealthy.

And that's it for episode one! I hope if you read this you had fun and it wasn't too much of a slog to read lmao i'm just rambling. I hope you had fun if you made it this far :]

#trigun stampede #trigun #cli analysis #< i guess we'll use that tag :3 #tristampParty #uwuwuwuuwuwu im having fun #feel free to make me elaborate on things if y want :D

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redyrmes · 15 days

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hhh designing colourzas in the year of out lord 2024 and i have sO MUCH to say about them,, spent the last few days assigning each of them a wingless + winged animal and ended up with this (also! the not underlined animals are the ones not explicitly used in their designs)

ill put my notes about them all under the cut because theres a lot but the big ones are:

- blueza and redza twin propaganda cos theyre the only hooved animals here

- grayzas winged bird is the only flightless one because i thought that would be funny, also the name is just so ominous for no reason which i also thought would be funny

-yellowza is so difficult to find animals for but i settled on peacock pansy butterfly because peacocks are fancy n stuff and hes fancy n stuff, but peacocks are purple, so the yellow bug equivalent is the best i can do for him. I have yet to decide on a winged animal for him lol..also hes sucha bug to me, ik hes canonically a bird but hes such a bug. however if he was a bird he would be a birds of paradise bird, absolutely, no questions asked

anyway heres more notes i wrote down a few days ago

bugs- |||

bats- | (rip redza hes alone)

birds- |||| (counting phil)

sidenote purplezas, redzas and bluezas animals are the only ones that dont match their colours and are neutral colours instead

—Redza is the only bat because he’s the first one who existed i think. also because his vibes match bats and nobody else matches bats but i gotta make it Lore. also he’s one of the only two hoofed+wingless animals, along with blueza, because redza blueza twin propaganda..and hes an ibex instead of anything else because i think the long, straight horns suit him better than others. there was also like. the addax, eland, oryx, ect but i decided goat > antelope because goats are smaller and more gremliny + association with the devil or somthin?? also he gets a funny little goatee

—Orangeza is a red fox bcos fox = cunning n smart idk….and that species because of its orange fur, pretty simple not given much thought but thats okay, it matches him pretty well i think. also i hc that one of his front moth wings (the brown ones, they cover the orange wings) got damaged so he patched it up with orange something because more orange and haha inventor guy fixes things you know. its okay i don’t either

-Yellowza was gonna be a longhorn beetle but they’re too orange. then a bumblebee but he’s not. he’s not a bee. but i finally settled on peacock pansy because peacocks are like. fancy n shit but he cant be a peacock because they’re purple, so yellow butterfly version is the next best thing. ALSO ik hes like canonically a bird and stuff,but MAN. HES JUST A BUG TO ME. but if he was a bird he would absolutely be a birds of paradise bird because Yes. honorable mention to the great tailed grackle.

his wingless animal was a STRUGGLE and i have yet to pick it hahaskmb….also i characterize him as a material girl instead of cheery optimist because there are enough cheery optimists

—Blueza was the easiest to decide lmao, he’s just a deer. either that or a moose, but deer are more gentle also thats like canon so yeah..white tailed deer 🦌 oh holy shit deer emojiand redza blueza twin propaganda, he’s one of the only two hoofed wingless animals here yesyes

his winged animal had to be a bird, preferable a dove because symbolism and whatnot right? he got mourning dove because fluffy lad + theres no white doves in the wild so i cant make him a white dove. probably going to draw him with whiter wings though to match his colour pallet haha, i dunno i haven’t really given him much thought

—it was so difficult to decide if Purpleza was a bird or a bug but i ended up with bird, because he’s a fluffy guy not a bug guy? and then choosing a bird was pain because theres so many pretty purple birds i really like but he’s more of a black bird, emo ass mfer

couldn’t make him a crow, raven felt off, considered grackles bcos they have purple wing shine whatever its called but they’re too social skdhdkfgngcn..solitary caciques had a good chance because they’re black birds that are very antisocial, literally purpleza. BUT I eventually decided on purple honeycreeper because they’re dark purple with black wings, and hang out in small groups with other species of birds, i think that speaks for itself.

and cat because cat

-might change the wingless animal of Pinkza idk axolotl feels too easy? but the only other guys i have are like. naked mole rat and pink dolphin and i cant implement those in a way that makes sense in my head LOL

and he’s a butterfly right, the pink rose butterfly really suits him i think but not his light color pallet. the other pink butterflies don’t suit him really, and the pink moths all have yellow which no. but then i found the pink orchid mantis. who is so soft and gentle looking, but uses its soft and pretty appearance to kill. so yknow the second i saw it i was like yup. pinkza

—Grayza (greyza?? i forgot sob) is the only flightless colorza, i thought it would be funny cos he’s this eldritch horror but he’s the only land bound one haha, also ayem cemani is death omen chicken in my head. and for his flightless animal, he’s a snake he’s very much a snake what do you want from me he’s just a snake

anmd i don’t want to think about whiteza until im done with these dont make me think about whiteza

#colorzas #philza fanart #my art #sketch #this is so funny to me because theres just one single guy posting bout colorzas in the past while #tiny near nonexistent subfandom im coming for you im gonna fucking get uou

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codylabs · 1 year

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WAIT WAIT WAIT are you familiar with bionicle lore??? I need your help

Because when I was a kid I watched Bionicle: The Legend Reborn, and I fell in love with all the characters in it, and have been completely baffled in trying to find out what the hell the rest of bionicle lore is.

Can you help me understand?? Where did Mata Nui and his friends go after that movie??

Aight so first off, curse you.

Curse you and dang you and blast you and encase you in protodermis for all eternity, because this question is too difficult to answer. It's just too long. But since I love Bionicle lore more than any other lore (it is better than any other lore) and since you asked so earnestly, I will do my best.

I'm also not a real expert on this (there's a lot of tie-in novels for example that I haven't read), but I know enough that I can guarantee the rest of this will have only like 1 or 2 errors.

So.

The center and focal point of Bionicle lore (if you want the big picture and/or have already seen the big reveal (which I gather you have)) is that everything revolves around an enormous titanic robot.

This guy:

That guy.

In case THE OCEAN coming up to his ANKLES and the ATMOSPHERE ending at NIPPLE LEVEL wasn't enough of a giveaway, this lad is fairly large. Enough that he has entire civilizations and ecosystems of biomechanical people and animals living in chambers inside of him, to maintain and repair him, and fill him with life and beauty. All of the regular characters (the ones you read about in the comics and see in the movies and get toys of) are at this comparatively-microscopic scale. Most of the regular characters were actually part of this robot's original crew and passengers, and it's possible that most of them didn't even KNOW they were inside a robot. The robot was controlled by an AI called Mata Nui, aka The Great Spirit.

The robot had originally been constructed on the planet Spherus Magna. A cataclysm had split the planet apart into three pieces: the desert planet Bara Magna, and two moons, the oceanic Aqua Magna and forested Bota Magna. The robot's destiny was to remake the shattered world, but it first traveled the universe doing other tasks. Before it was able to accomplish its destiny, disaster struck:

One of the onboard crew, a Makuta named Terridax, was led astray by conceit and ambition, and sought to supplant the Great Spirit. He sabotaged his home, knocking the Great Spirit offline, and causing the robot to drift off-course and crash into Aqua Magna, where it remained dormant (though not broken) for thousands of years.

The majority of the Bionicle story (the first 8 of its 9 years) follows the adventures of the robot's inhabitants: the Matoran (workers), Turaga (elders), Rahi (drones), and especially the Toa (the warriors) as they worked to defeat the Makuta and his allies and reawaken the Great Spirit. The heart of the symbolism here is that Makuta is a brain cancer, and the Toa are the treatment.

After hundreds of years (8 IRL years) of struggle, the heroes finally accomplish their goal and reactivate Mata Nui, but Makuta Terridax had been ready for them, and managed to install himself into the mainframe instead of the rightful Great Spirit. The robot gets to its feet for the first time in thousands of years, but it's under Makuta's control. He begins to brutally oppress his body's inhabitants, and banishes Mata Nui's spirit to Bara Magna, trapped within the Mask of Life.

Since you saw the Legend Reborn movie I need not recount all the events of that story, but it follows the Great Spirit on an alien world, the same world where his body was first created, among the people descended from those who originally caused the disaster that necessitated his creation. During the events of the movie he joined the warrior caste of Glatorian, faced down a Skrall lord, and helped unify the planet's warring people.

From the moment he had reawakened, Mata Nui's priority had been to return to his body: to save his people and fulfill his destiny.

During and after the movie's end scene, he works with the planet's people to rebuild an second giant robot: the original prototype for his own body, which had been broken ages before. Mata Nui himself goes on a quest to retrieve an power source, and then uses that power source to reactive the prototype. Meanwhile Makuta, back up on the moon, senses this, looks down and sees him standing in defiance and challenge, and then COMES DOWN TO FACE HIM.

If you think you comprehend just how hype this image is, you do not. Comprehend again.

THEY THEN FIGHT

Makuta's minions swarm out of hatches in his feet, to make war with Bara Magna's people, while the titans duke it out above the cloud layer. When the land war seems to be turning against Makuta, he threatens to use a gravity beam to crush the whole planet to dust. Mata Nui grabs his arm and deflects it, forcing the gravity wave to hit the world's moons, and bring them drifting back toward the planet.

Mata Nui's prototype body is fast running out of power, and he knows he dares not harm Makuta, for Makuta's body is full of innocent lives, whom he loves.

But the story's main characters manage to win a sweeping victory on the ground, which distracts Makuta just long enough for Mata Nui to drive him back, right into one of the approaching moons AND WHAM

The cranial circuit that housed Makuta is smashed to bits, and the tyrant falls, never to rise. Mata Nui uses the prototype's last reserves of strength to finish remaking the world, and to fill it with life, before he too falls.

Mata Nui is very much the Jesus character in this whole saga. He had been a God, but defeating his enemy and bringing peace and happiness to the people he loved meant living among them a time, and sacrificing his power for their good. It's a really beautiful thing.

The series ends on a hopeful and open-ended note; the subjugation and annihilation that Makuta threatened will never come to pass, and all the other characters are free to make their own lives on a paradise planet: no longer warriors fighting blindly or refugees from disaster or cogwheel slaves in a grand design, but free people. To answer your original question about what happened to the specific characters of the movie, we get no answer. We know that Kina and Ackar and the others participated in the final battle, and we know that they lived, but of their lives and adventures after that, we do not.

If you want to get a more in-depth plunge into the lore, the Biomedia Project is pretty much your one-stop-shop. I'd recommend reading the comics. They don't give the entire story, but they're a good jumping-off point, and you can absolutely get enough of the story to make all but a few things make sense. In this explanation of mine I brushed over countless worldbuilding cornerstones and plot threads: the protodermis, the elemental powers, masks, the lost city Metru Nui with its eyelid suns, the jungle island which is confusingly but appropriately also called Mata Nui, the red star, the saga of Voya Nui, the masks of light and life, and Karda Nui, the center of the universe floating in the swamp beneath the thousand city pillars.

Bionicle is the greatest.

#bionicle #story #ahh #great spirit #robot

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amaiguri · 17 days

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Worldbuilding My Magic System FOR REAL

So Yssaia has HAD a pretty developed magic system for a while. And to recap it for you... I'm going to paste my half of me raving about this on Discord (thank you to @zebee-nyx and @galacticsand and @reaperofcrows for being so cool and letting me be an unhinged worldbuilding mad lad XD):

"What is Ysse?"

So the way Ysse works is its basically invisible dust floating in the air. And if it hits itself at certain velocities and in certain volumes, "spontaneous effects" happen -- like water materializing out of "nowhere" or fire exploding or wind gusts. You're limited a little by Avatar Last Airbender bending logic (you can't summon fully sapient creatures, you can't teleport, you can't control people's minds unless you're like... touching their nervous system, etc.)

So Mages invented the first writing as a way to record what patterns of movement did what. And eventually, used them to communicate these patterns as a shorthand for more generalized concepts...

So writing also got invented sometimes BEFORE agriculture...

"How precise do these movements/velocities need to be?"

It needs to be PRETTY precise. And this is why the average person CAN'T learn magic -- because Ysse in low amounts is invisible to the average person

But mages can see Ysse, which helps a lot. And they can see these shapes OCCURING in the natural world too -- when the wind blows, its because Ysse particles FORMED the Wind Rune/Sigil in the sky BUT this still doesn't guarantee that they cast any spells if they don't have the physical discipline too

So, in theory, "anyone" COULD move their hands PERFECTLY to spontaneously start a fire. But they PROBABLY won't

"How does this impact the natural world?"

This is also how animals and plants can do magic too. Tree roots in the north have roots that have specific patterns that warm up the soil, so snow can actually MELT and give them water and the tree doesn't die

And this is also my excuse for why so many things have bunny ears -- normally, long ears in colder-than-average climates (i.e. All of Yssaia) would be bad. But in Yssaia, these long ears are convergently evolving to channel Ysse. What they channel, exactly, I haven't decided (probably heat lol or something to increase air density so sound travels farther???)

AND all this is ALSO why the Demons are such an abomination -- because their Blood Magic doesn't obey particle physics, they just fucking do whatever they want

"Why do you need to know all this?"

The question at this point, I guess, is basically "How do I make fantasy technology that looks whimsical but also looks at least hypothetically functional under closer scrutiny?"

Yeah, and the full Answer TM to that right now is just <insert the entire design philosophy I haven't discovered yet here>

"So how IS magic going to shape technology, when you design it for the Untitled Yssaia Video Game?"

...Yeah, okay, after brainstorming all this, I think here's my strategy for how I'm going to tackle technology:

Step 2) Create a master list of technologies I will worry about/actually visualize in the game I will want to keep an OPEN LIST so I can add more things to it as I do research/find really specific use cases (such as scrollcases or chopstick holders)

Step 1) Establish symbols for a handful of common things in both the North and the South that at least vaguely make sense with the concept of the particles. So things like: - Fire/Heat - Water/Melt - Ice/Slow - Wind/Quicken - Earth/Apply Force - Sun/Light - Moon/Closing/Locking (Thanks to @zebee-nyx for this one!)

Step 3) Design simple sprites for things that can later be shrunk down and used as set-dressing for maps BUT at a little bigger in scale so they can be shown to other people sensibly (maybe on the same sheet at the walking animations for scale?)

AND WITH THAT, after 5 years of only vaguely imagining all this, this is what I designed, using a combination of symbols I had already designed and dice that I pushed around on my desk to see what kind of patterns they'd make:

Are some of these a little funky and don't really work with real particle physics? Yeah, fair. I'll take notes, if you got 'em. I'm open to critique, if you wanna lol

Last comment that didn't make it into the big discussion with my buds tonight: Ysse particles are how temperature is distributed. So, hot areas have fewer, cold areas have more. I know that isn't how thermodynamics work but does anyone else really?

(Something something eldritch horror thermodynamics post... And my magic-god is an eldritch horror! See? It's perfect!)

Thank you for coming to my #WorldbuildingWednesday post! If you liked this, don't forget to REBLOG and follow the #Yssaia tag or something🥰 (Are calls-to-action cringe? Publicly shame me, if so)

#worldbuilding #world building #world building wednesday #fantasy world building #magic system #magic #game dev #writing #amaiguri #yssaia

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frostyyyroyalmilktea · 1 year

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Why Vesna’s “My sister’s crown” in no feminist anthem but a Trojan horse filled with pro-russian messaging

My thoughts as a Ukrainian with a poli-sci degree.

I was debating whether to write this post but as the discourse around this song grows, I want to give people from other countries some context on the messaging used in the song and why Ukrainians are grossed out by it.

While I was writing it this post grew a mind of its own and I even ended up adding pictures so I'll fold the post here in case you don't care and just want to scroll through quickly.

First of all, it’s worth mentioning that this song attracted so much attention from Ukrainians because they use UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE in the chorus. It’s an important detail seeing how one of the singers is russian. A lot of Ukrainians share the opinion that letting a russian woman sing in our language is a completely vile thing to do to our culture. I agree with it too. But the abuse of our culture doesn’t stop there.

See this shot? This is supposed to be Borsch, a traditional Ukrainian dish. It’s worth mentioning that russia tried to appropriate this dish and in 2022 we fought tooth and nail to have UNESCO protect it as part of Ukrainian heritage. But back to the shot. The letters around it are supposed to symbolize russian propaganda. Great start🙄

But it gets better, lads. They start “feeding the propaganda” to the girl that —judging by stylistic choices as well as matryoshka makeup— is supposed to represent russian people.

Right, so they *checks notes* use Ukrainian cultural dish —that russians almost succeeded in stealing from us— to show… what exactly? “Poor russians🥺 uwu” getting brainwashed? Oh, then let me grab my handkerchief. This is so so sad I think I’m about to cry😶😶😶

I mean, just a thought but if they wanted to show how shitty russian government treats its people, they could’ve recreated the historically accurate moment when russian tzar Ivan the Terrible shoved his underling’s face into a boiling soup. What does Ukraine and our long-suffering dish has to do with all this bs???

Now let’s talk about that “Crown”, that is supposed to belong to the sister (aka Ukraine). To me, as a poli-sci major, this is so stupid I don’t even know whether to laugh or cry. From the words of the band themself, where they explain —quite poorly might I say— the meaning of their song, we learn that “Crown” symbolizes the sovereignty of the 13 Eastern-European countries. Sounds perfectly valid. Here's a few random countries that I can remember from the top of my head in no particular order that have crowns in their symbols:

Coat of arms of the Czech Republic, Coat of arms of Serbia, Flag of Poland and Flag of Croatia

I actually decided that I don't want to have russian flag and emblem in this post because I don't want to look at it every time I scroll through, but you can go google it if you want, they have not one but two crowns on their emblem actually.

So what am I leading up to with all this flag-talk, you might ask. Well, the kicker is that THIS ⬇️ is Ukrainian emblem:

Not a crown in sight as you can see. I guess as a nation that was constantly fighting against imperial colonisation we’re not very fond of those. Who could’ve guessed🤷‍♀️

But the aforementioned two points are pretty circumstantial and in the grand scheme of things are not particularly significant. I felt compelled to point them out first to give people from other countries a bit of insight into the music video's visual. You are free to disagree with me on those. The main problem that triggers the majority of Ukrainians is the use of the word "sister". Listen, I know you don’t want to read a lecture on the nuance of Slav politics and I don’t really want to write it, I know you know how to google. So here’s the gist:

One of the BIGGEST narratives that russia is pushing in its export propaganda (aside from their go-to claim that all ukrainians are nazis) is that Slavs are all a family. Talk about shitty relatives, eh? But basically, it’s a lingering thing from USSR where russia exploited a bunch of neighboring countries and called this shit a “Union” (while convincing the rest of the world that those countries entered that union willingly and not under threats —or as a result of— hostile invasions, but I digress). So the way russia frames it is that russia is this big brother that "takes care of other little siblings”. Even writing it down made me want to barf🤢🤢🤢. This narrative was specifically very actively weaponized against Ukraine before the 2022 invasion. Its goal is to infantilize Ukraine as if we're not a whole-ass independent country, but a little sibling that doesn't know how to wipe their own ass. And that we just need good ol’ russia to come and save us from our own stupidity. I hope I shed some light on why this word specifically triggers us so much and why I think that this song has 0 to do with solidarity and overall is complete populistic bs with a generous dash of russian propaganda.

I want to emphasize that I didn’t make this post to fight or argue with anyone but to give people another perspective if you’re interested in it from my pov as a Ukrainian. If you have other takes on it, I’d love to read them in the comments. Just please be respectful or I won’t interact.

This is all I have to say for today. Love, love, peace, peace, my dudes.

#eurovision #eurovision 2023 #czechia #vesna #ukraine #esc #esc 2023

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stfrancisprayer · 13 days

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TAG GAME! 🧀

thx for the tag @dontirrigateme + @hesbuckcompton-baby <3 LIST 5 THINGS YOU COULD TALK FOR AN HOUR ABOUT WITHOUT ANY PREPARATION. yapping under the cut...

🎥 MY FAVORITE SHOWS: when i get into a show, i get INTO a show (if you can't get out of it, get into it!!!!) if you ask me about my current or past favorite shows, then i will gab. at one point you will be like "did we even watch the same show?" because it WILL devolve into events/plotlines/scenes that i have purely conjured up in my brain, but i will speak about them to you like they are canon

🐛 FAV CHARACTERS: whenever i decide i like a character, i put them in a little jar with holes poked thru the top (like you would a firefly, perhaps) and every so often i will give the jar a little shake just to make sure they are still moving...i go through a favorite guy rotation every couple of weeks/months, so if you ask me who my favorite lad of the month is that month you will receive a dissertation.

😡 BEEF WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE: famous people plague me...i have a lot of one-sided beef with certain celebs for the stupidest most asinine reasons. believe me i have my qualms, and if you let me explain you will be like "oh. ok that makes sense". but i will never just GIVE you my reasons, you have to mention the celebrity in passing and then my brain will click like the manchurian candidate and i'll devolve into a rant

🟢 MY SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS: my privated spotify playlists are on par with complex mathematical formulas....i curate them based off of vibe, storyline, etc. each song represents a specific correlated moment/scene/feeling. my spotify playlists are more meticulously crafted than most modern rocketships probably actually

🫂 CHARACTER THEMES: in line with fav characters, if the character has an implicit theme i pick up on (or make up), i will become number one theme defender and explainer...PhD in picking apart storylines dare i say. doomed by the narrative? symbolic of something larger? punching bag for the writer??? let me tell you. let me tell you. sit down and get comfy

paging every single person who loves to yap as much as i do, or anybody who wants to do this but has yet to be tagged...i am calling upon you like the yapvengers. projecting a yapman signal onto the nighttime clouds over yaptham city.

#🧀 ; yapping

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thorraborinn · 1 year

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Hey, do you know of any paper or something examining the Baldr myth critically besides Anatoly Liberman's paper? Also, what do you think about Dr. Crawford's Loki misconceptions video or his collab video with ReligionForBreakfast?. I know you said in one of your posts that the question to whether or not Loki was worshiped historically has not been argued successfully either way, so that's why I'm asking if you've seen it since in one of them and others he says Loki wasn't worshiped bc no place names. Sorry if this is too hard of an ask. I decided to ask you since you're the only person who I know won't make up bullshit/give moral reasons to questions about Loki historically/mythically.

A lot of scholars have written about the myth, though not necessarily in the granular detail or from the same angle that Liberman did. I think that more has been written about Loki which touches on the Baldr myth than works which are specifically about the Baldr myth. Here are some that come to mind, and they all have references to others.

John Lindow has written a lot about it, including a book, Murder and Vengeance among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology (which I haven't read). His article "The Tears of the Gods: A Note on the Death of Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology" can be read for free on JSTOR, which is valuable if for no other reason than his very quick rapid-fire summary of the main threads in the history of research up to that point, which also constitutes a good reading list for exactly this question. Lindow also contributed the "Baldr" chapter to Brepols' The Pre-Christian Religions of the North series (which I have also not read).

Jens Peter Schjødt mentions it throughout his book Initiation Between Worlds: Structure and Symbolism in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religion. He's mostly concerned with looking at the relationship between the world of the living and the world of the dead, so those are the aspects of the myth he focuses on. Schjødt has more experience writing about Loki than about Baldr, but of course you can't write about one without the other.

Kevin Wanner, best known for writing Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia, wrote an article called "Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn, and the Limits of Sovereignty," which is mostly about the relationship between Óðinn and Loki (including the Baldr story), and the relationship of the pair to human people, especially poets. It takes a little while to get to the point, but I think it's worth it.

Though it hardly even mentions Baldr, one of the most influential recent works on Loki is "Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad: A Study Combining Old Scandinavian and Late Material” by Eldar Heide. I'm going to bring this up again soon.

Anyway, to the second part of the question, I'd rather get kicked in the solar plexus by a mule than watch a YouTube video so I'm not going to comment on what Crawford says there specifically, but the "Loki doesn't have any place-names" argument is old and usually comes in two varieties. If Crawford came up with a third, then I apologize for the oversight, but I imagine it's one of these:

(the good one): We know from the sagas that naming places for gods was a common way to show devotion, and from archaeology that many places named for gods were important ritual centers; furthermore places named for gods tend to concentrate near centers of social and political power. Therefore, if we're able to demonstrate that place-name evidence was passed down reliably from medieval or earlier times, it can be one of the strongest indicators available to us of cultic activity directed toward specific named gods and its presence allows us to make much more confident statements about worship than we can make in their absence. While this is inherently limited, because it necessarily privileges the beliefs of the people who had the social position to declare names of places and to direct the construction of ritual sites, it's one of the best pieces of evidence available to us.

(the bad one): oh yeah, no, if they don't have any places named for them they weren't worshiped. Yeah, they definitely would have named a place after him and it definitely would have been unchanged until modern times. No, there were no other forms of devotion, just naming stuff.

I don't recognize the statement "the evidence does not permit us to say that there was a cult of Loki" as equivalent to saying "we can say definitively that there was not a cult of Loki."

Moreover, I think it's a failure of imagination to think that all devotion would take the same form. I don't imagine that Loki's idol was ever on the highest platform in a major ritual site like Thor's was at Uppsala but that's also not a useful standard, and it seems to me that it's the standard that the place-name argument holds him to. If we look at the Baltic peoples for comparison, they had very different forms of worship for different gods, so the absence of evidence for worship of Žemyna in a context appropriate for the worship of Perkūnas does not mean that Žemyna was not worshiped.

Anyway these days everyone seems to be on the "Loki was just a regular house spirit for many generations before being assimilated into the gods" bandwagon, one that I have disagreements with, but one which is compatible with "Loki was worshiped but not in a way that would result in place-names." Liberman made a case for Loki being a very, very ancient god; and Riccardo Ginevra's etymology of Sígyn requires that Loki's wife already be thousands of years old by the Viking age. There's lots and lots and lots of ways to argue in favor of him having been worshiped, all of which require modification of the word "worship" from the one the place-name-arguers use, so that eventually everyone is talking past each other. At the end of the day, "We don't know" is the actual answer to most of our questions.

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