#at least that's the reasoning from the oldest source of it I found

[echosbento]

It's especially silly because most LLM's, don't actually use them with much frequency. A couple of them do, but the run on sentences are a much more obvious tell. Remember how we used to all love doing that silly thing, where we write a random word and then click the first suggestion until it makes a complete sentence? And we would usually wind out with something obnoxiously long or repeating like "Hello miss Librarian and you think they're the problem is in how they were raised is because they're an autistic boy at best and a girl in pants at worst." Well that's what a lot of LLM's text looks like if you actually take in the whole sentence instead of just reading the three words you were taught in highschool and guessing the rest. Because that's pretty much how LLM's work, they're just guess what the next part of the sentence should be based on what the last part of the sentence was. So you wind out with sentences that could have been five words, instead using fifty. In a tone that likely doesn't really match the situation (much harder to recognize). It'll be vague, no real information on the topic at hand, flowery in a way that doesn't actually seem to say anything. It'll use emdashes sure, but it doesn't usually use them the way people who use them do. For some reason, they get used for list formatting by AI?

—like this

—indicating the next point on a list.

Or like this — with a weird amount of spacing between the dash and the word. But mostly, they don't tend to use them any more frequently than regular people do. Because what kind of machine trained on the writing of people, would write in a way people never have?

Current writing advice I'm seeing on TikTok and Insta is telling authors to stop using em dashes in their work because, "AI uses em dashes so people will think you've used AI."

Y'know, the AI that was trained on the stolen work of real authors?

Anyway, I will not be doing that. What I will be doing, however, is adding a note at the start of all my books that no AI was used in the creation of my work because I, the author, did not go to university for four fucking years to study English literature and linguistics only to be told I can't use proper grammar because someone might think a robot wrote it.

Fucking, insane.

[book-of-forbidden-knowledge]

Magic in Ancient Greece: An Introduction

I have seen some people claim that magic or witchcraft did not exist in Ancient Greece. This is not the case. So, I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce you all to the strange and wonderful world of Ancient Greek magic!

First, what do we mean by "magic"? Radcliffe Edmonds, one of the leading scholars on Ancient Greek magic, defines "magic" as "non-normative ritual behavior." In short, what makes something magic, and not just normal religion, is that people in a given culture think it's weird. The word "magic" itself refers to the magi, Zoroastrian priests — the Ancient Greeks thought they did magic because to them, Zoroastrianism was foreign and weird. They also thought that Ancient Egyptians could do magic for the same reason — what the Greeks thought was spooky magic was just normal religion in Egypt. Within their own culture, magic was basically heteropraxic religion. Magic was not considered hubristic, at least not inherently.

There are multiple Ancient Greek words that refer to magic. The word μάγος, magos, itself means "magician" or "charlatan." There's also γοητεία, goetia, usually translated as "sorcery." The word most often translated as "witchcraft" is φαρμακεία, pharmakeia, the use of drugs or herbs to transform or influence people. This is what Medea and Circe do.

One of our best sources on Ancient Greek magic is the Greek Magical Papyri, or PGM, a set of magical texts from Hellenistic Egypt. When I first learned about it, I thought it was too good to be true, but here it is: uncorrupted ancient pagan magic! Essentially, the PGM is one of the oldest known grimoires, and the ancestor of the entire Western magical tradition. The papyri contain spells and rituals for almost every purpose: curses, love spells, divination, dream oracles, summoning daimones, necromancy, even full mystical rites. Most of them include invocations to various gods, which are heavily syncretic. Helios/Apollo (treated interchangeably) is invoked the most often. Aphrodite appears pretty often, too. Hekate-Artemis-Selene-Persephone (conflated with a whole bunch of other chthonic goddesses, including Ereshkigal) has her own set of spells. You'll even find the names of Egyptian gods and Hebrew angels in there.

One of the most common features in PGM spells is voces magicae or barbarous names, nonsense words that are supposed to be the secret names of the gods, which give you the authority to call them up. They act almost like a written form of glossolalia. Most are supposed to be spoken or chanted aloud. Some sound like actual names, or are well-known magical epithets like ABRASAX. Some are just strings of Greek vowels. Some of them are palindromic; there's lots of spells that use the "abracadabra" disappearing-letter-triangle format. There's also charakteres, apparently-meaningless magical symbols, the distant ancestor of modern sigils.

Another major source for Ancient Greek magic are defixiones or katadesmoi, curse tablets. They're little lead leafs called lamellae, which are inscribed with curses and then deposited in wells, graves, and other chthonic places. Thousands of them have been found.

Here's the text of a curse tablet that invokes Hekate and Hermes Kthonios (copied from Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World by John G. Gager):

Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia Let Pherenikos be bound before Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia. I bind Pherenikos’ [girl] Galene to Hermes Khthonios and to Hekate Khthonia I bind [her]. And just as this lead is worthless and cold, so let that man and his property be worthless and cold, and those who are with him who have spoken and counseled concerning me. Let Thersilochos, Oinophilos, Philotios, and any other supporter of Pherenikos be bound before Hermes Khthonios and Hekate Khthonia. Also Pherenikos’ soul and mind and tongue and plans and the things that he is doing and the things that he is planning concerning me. May everything be contrary for him and for those counseling and acting with…

Another curse tablet, which invokes Hekate to punish thieves, includes a drawing of her and charakteres. This is how she's depicted:

From Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in the Ancient World by John G. Gager

It's supposed to be a woman with three heads and six raised arms, but to me it looks like Cthulhu, which is honestly appropriate.

There was a very fine line between love spells and curses in Ancient Greece. Some love spells in the PGM call upon the spirits of the dead and chthonic gods to torture a poor girl until she submits to the magician. Just as many defixiones attempt to forcefully bind a lover. But there's another, gentler kind of love spell described by Theocritus in Idylls, in which a witch named Simaetha invokes the Moon and Hekate and uses an iynx wheel to make a man love her.

If you want to know how to apply all of this in modern practice, I'm still working that one out. I've found the PGM very hard to adapt, because a lot of its requirements are dangerous or impractical. Many of its spells require gross ingredients worthy of the Scottish play, or plants that scholars can't identify, or procedures that I don't plan on attempting. And if you haven't noticed by now, most of them fly in the face of modern magical ethics. (Don't let anyone tell you that the gods will punish you for doing baneful magic, because that's clearly bullshit.) On the other hand, Crowley adapted his Bornless Ritual almost word-for-word from PGM V. 96—172. So far, the best resource I've found on modernizing Ancient Greek magic is The Hekataeon by Jack Grayle. Its material is clearly historically-inspired, but still doable, and spiritually relevant. I really recommend getting it if you have the means, especially if you have an interest in Hekate specifically. I'm happy to have it as a model for how to adapt ancient magic for myself in the future. To me, it strikes the perfect balance between historically-informed and witchy, which is right where I want to be.

If you can't access that one, here's some other books I recommend:

Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: An introduction to Ancient Greek magic, both scholarly and accessible. It covers the definitions and contexts of magic, curses, love spells, divination, theurgy, philosophy, basically everything you need to know.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation by Hans Dieter Betz: The definitive English edition of the PGM. A must if you plan to study ancient magic in-depth, especially as a practitioner.

Curse Tablets and Binding Spells in the Ancient World by John G. Gager: An English edition of the texts of many curse tablets.

Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden: a sourcebook of ancient literature concerning magic.

The Golden Ass by Apuleius: A Roman novel about a man who is turned into a donkey by a witch. A very entertaining story, also our source for "Cupid and Psyche" and one of the best sources on the Mysteries of Isis that we have.

Ancient Magic: A Practitioners Guide to the Supernatural in Ancient Greece and Rome by Philip Matyszak: A simple and straightforward introduction to Ancient Greek magic, less scholarly but very easy to follow and directed at practitioners.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

I found old wips of the milk comic I had a while ago with a much younger Ratchet and Bumblebee getting stranded on a barren planet, back then I kept losing the files for some reason, which is a shame because I gave up before it got to the meat of the story haha

Im posting what would have happened here in case I never finish this up

(Cw: cannibalism, character death in the bad ending, dead dove I think)

Essentially drinking the energon from dead bots is affecting his processor, but the bots they drank from first were the ones who were killed full. (those bots snuck in and drank most of the energon rations, the others immediately shot them dead and then each other when they fought over the last of the energon.) Now all they have were the starving bots energon, where most of the nutrients have been used up already

Bad ending:

I like ending things off on a good note so here’s the bad ending first

|| I was thinking about this idea before Optiratch took over my brain so originally it was just going to be Ratchet and Bee, so no one would notice something had went wrong before it was too late. Ratchet’s system couldn’t handle some of the oldest energon, confused, because he was somehow full of energon but getting no energy, his processors could not function normally.

He became obsessed with purifying the energon. In this craze, he rationalized that Bumblebee is the only thing he hasn’t purified yet. And eats him. By the time help arrives, there is barely anything left, Ratchet is unresponsive, but clinging onto life, and there is no trace of Bumblebee. They assumed he died in the crash somehow and brought Ratchet back for treatment. Ratchet finds someone to knock him up and he gives birth to Bumblebee, now purified. (or so he believes)||

Good ending:

OP finds them eventually because he realized that they were gone and never came back, something definitely went wrong so he went out searching by himself before the signals were received. This saved their lives, if he left when he got the signals it would be too late. OP is horrified but leaves out the most fucked up parts in the reports and tries to get Ratchet and Bumblebee some help

Bumblebee gets most of his eyesight back, it’s still better then average at least, he always keeps some sort of light source on him, whenever there is sudden darkness he will grip something and freeze, he has a bad habit of biting his hands and fingers, when he does learn of the full story eventually, hes old enough to understand, but avoided Rachet for a bit

Ratchet is paranoid about energon and going off planet, radiates guilt whenever he sees Bumblebee, became super religious for a bit?? OP adopts Bumblebee soon after since Ratchet probably is too unstable to adopt Bee himself and they still have that bond.

Bumblebee has his many friends, but Ratchet becomes super reclusive and shuts himself off from everyone, except for OP, who he eventually starts to date, then gets unhealthily attached too. He eventually starts working to become better when he realizes that he’s hurting the ones he loves

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

I found a post with quotes and sources on the whole Cassandra thing on reddit ( I mostly just brows for questions-)

I'm really curious if I'm missing something or if these are even true, I don't know the gall your were speaking about so-😭

Regardless if they have any validity imo the play and oath version is still far more creditable and the one with most details

The oath version also fits in with Greek mythology and culture in general, the gods don't go around punishing people without a reason, there would at least be a metaphorical reason ( like Daphne turning into a tree, it isn't a punishment but I mean it has outside myth reasons)

The snakes thing just doesn't fit with the pattern I'm familiar with-

I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this! Hope I'm making sense

forget "i'll probably answer in a few days" we're gonna do this NOW

*faint wails of my wip in the distance*

So the person I mentioned was Louise Bogan. She's a very accomplished writer, especially considering the era she lived in, but when I first did my research on Cassandra and the variations of her myths, she was the only source I could find of the "snake licking their ears" version.

"she and her brother Helenus were left overnight in the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo. No reason has been advanced for this night in the temple; perhaps it was a ritual routinely performed by everyone. When their parents looked in on them the next morning, the children were entwined with serpents, which flicked their tongues into the children's ears. This enabled Cassandra and Helenus to divine the future."

This is the quote that Cassandra's wiki gives, but the thing is, even when I search up the quote, there aren't really any sources that come up, so I can't actually say whether or not this is actually from her - plus, the wiki doesn't have a source linked for the quote either, and the only Cassandra-related work I can find from Bogan is her short poem "Cassandra" (very pretty btw).

So actually I'm now baffled about where this quote came from. Huh.

Well, in any case, I am now aware of these two fragments that do, in fact, support the myth having an older basis! I am more ambivalent to this version now lol, but also I agree with you - it doesn't hold as much weight as Aeschylus's plays, which imo, are The sources on Cassandra, since Agamemnon does focus on her, her thoughts, her fears, ect! The Trojan Women by Euripides also expands on her, as well as hints at her relationship with Apollo POST-curse (spoiler: it's positive).

Plus -does some quick math- 1st-2nd Century AD would be 1-200 AD, or CE, which -pulls up historical timeline (yes i am THAT nerd)- means Anticlides's fragment was from juuuuuust before Ovid's Metamorphoses (written in 8 AD) UP TO a whiiiiiile after it.

And despite the scholia's connection to Homer, one of the oldest sources we have, it's a commentary on the myth itself, not necessarily part of it. An example of another such commentary would be Apollo's involvement in the rebellion - there was huge debate over whether Athena or Apollo would even do such a thing, and Apollo's sources mainly come from scholia - and of course, I'm not saying to toss it because it's "just notes", but again, Cassandra's main sources are The Oresteia, Trojan Woman, and The Iliad. I consider the Roman era myths supplemental material, as well as this fragment and scholia. Interesting stuff! Just not very essential to what Cassandra's story is actually about.

Because here's the thing - if we go with the snake version, we completely obliterate Apollo and Cassandra's oath, a core point in their myth and a central characteristic of Greek culture that is tied in with another part of it - marriage.

Yes. Marriage. Their myth is an example of how Ancient Greek courtship worked. The man offers a gift - such as a dowry - and the woman (through her father, usually) either accepts or rejects it.

We must also remember that marriage also equaled sexual intercourse in this sense (as much as my asexual nose wrinkles at the thought). The two go hand-in-hand here.

"But Alder!!" I hear you say. "Apollo doesn't get married!!"

Correct! But he has symbolic ones! Hence the nine Muses. Also Cyrene.

And here's the thing! Cassandra and Apollo both 100% are aware of the terms of the oath. A symbolic marriage (and everything that comes with it) for a dowry of the gift of prophecy.

And Cassandra accepts! SHE is the one who accepts! Not through her father, who by old-time custom, would be the chattel of her father. SHE accepts! SHE makes the decision! SHE is given autonomy! (proof women in the ancient myths are more complex than their modern "retellings" give them credit for.)

She is, in fact, in love with Apollo! He is the "god most dear" to her (source: The Trojan Women) and even calls out for him upon her death (source: The Oresteia)!

The question is...why does she back out?

I think it's simple. She's ASEXUAL- I'm joking lol (or am I? 👀 It DOES make sense...and I'm not the only one who thinks it's a fitting interpretation, because we have NO solid reason for why she backs out. She's down for it! She loves him! He loves her! It's there on the page! So why does she back out?

Because wtf is sex lol)

It could also be because Apollo's presence is very, very strong for a god - he straight-up made the other gods (minus his parents) tremble the first time he steps onto Olympus. She could have gotten overwhelmed!

I would also just like to briefly point out that if Apollo's as horrible and awful as the haters say he is why didn't he just go through with it himself. why didn't he, i dunno, take what he wanted and punish her anyway? why did he let her back out? he's the one with the power here. yet, he hands her the reigns. this is literally a woman's autonomy being respected here, why do people frame it as coercive when it's anything but smh

and as for the gift of prophecy? well, culturally-speaking, if the marriage falls through, the dowry is returned, is it not? but here's the kicker.

Apollo can't take it back. Not even the gods can remove a gift.

So it must be nullified somehow. Hence, the curse.

I'm going to go off on my own tangent now about this rq - Cassandra is often presented as this girl who was driven mad by her visions, visions she can't convince anybody of and which therefore are the source of why she's mad.

But...from what I've read...she doesn't seem that mad? Like she's frantic at times, and ofc dramatic because everyone in Greek mythology is (lol), but I've never come across a point where she's absolutely unhinged? Like, lost her mind crazy? Batshit insane levels she has to be locked up?

I WILL admit I haven't read everything about her quite yet, but I have read snippets of her in Agamemnon and The Trojan Woman, the former of which where she's the aforementioned dramatic and resigned, and the latter where she's joyful!

That doesn't match up with her stereotypical representation!

So...my two cents is that I don't think she's legitimately mad. I don't think the visions drove her mad. Did they depress her? Hell yeah. But not enough to keep her from staying positive through the whole war.

Maybe her family thought she was mad, and because of that, it just trickled into everyone's consciousness that she was?

Or could it be because of modern (and perhaps. sexist.) interpretation that gave her the image of being mad? Because I do not see a crazy girl plagued by the Voices.

I see a complex, discouraged woman who, despite the hardships she's come to know and foresee, finds it in herself to remain steadfast in her people, and her faith, so much so that even after being taken from her family, her city, and her homeland, she still believes he will avenge her.

And yes, it's never officially confirmed that Apollo had Orestes kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus for murdering Cassandra, I know I know, but I don't think it's that much of a stretch to believe.

If any of my myth moots would like to add on/make corrections on things I may have gotten wrong, feel free to do so! This is a blog for all of us to LEARN on, and we can't do that without first making discussion lol also I am only human and therefore prone to mistakes rip

[mask131]

The gods of Gaul: Introduction, or why it is so hard to find anything

As I announced, I open today a series of post covering what some can call the "Gaulish mythology": the gods and deities of Ancient Gaul. (Personal decision, I will try avoiding using the English adjective "Gaulish" because... I just do not like it. It sounds wrong. In French we have the adjectif "Gaulois" but "Gaulish"... sounds like ghoulish or garrish, no thank you. I'll use "of Gaul", much more poetic)

[EDIT: I have just found out one can use "Gallic" as a legitimate adjective in English and I am so happy because I much prefer this word to "Gaulish", so I'll be using Gallic from now on!]

If you are French, you are bound to have heard of them one way or another. Sure, we got the Greek and Roman gods coming from the South and covering up the land in temples and statues ; and sure we had some Germanic deities walking over the rivers and mountains from the North-East to leave holiday traditions and folk-beliefs... But the oldest gods of France, the true Antiquity of France, was Gaul. And then the Roman Gaul, and that's already where the problems start.

The mythology of Gaul is one of the various branches of the wide group known as Celtic mythology or Celtic gods. When it comes to Celtic deities, the most famous are those of the British Isles, due to being much more preserved (though heavily Christianized) - the gods of Ireland and the Welsh gods are typically the gods every know about when talking about Celtic deities. But there were Celts on the mainland, continental Celts - and Gaul was one of the most important group of continental Celts. So were their gods.

Then... why does nobody know anything about them?

This is what this introduction is about: how hard it actually is to reconstruct the religion of Gaul and understand its gods. Heck we can't ACTUALLY speak of a Gaulish mythology because... we have no myth! We have not preserved any full myth or complete legend from Ancient Gaul. The pantheon of Gaul is the Celtic pantheon we probably know the least about...

Why? A few reasons.

Reason number one, and the most important: We have no record of what the Gauls believed. Or almost none. Because the people of Gaul did not write their religion.

This is the biggest obstacle in the research for the gods of Gaul. It was known that the art of writing was, in the society of Gaul, an elite art that was not for the common folks and used only for very important occasions. The druids were the ones who knew how to read and write, and they kept this prerogative - it was something the upper-class (nobility, rulers) could know, but not always. Writing was considered something powerful, sacred and magical not to be used recklessly or carelessly. As a result, the culture of Gaul was a heavily oral one, and their religion and myths were preserved in an oral fashion. Resulting in a great lack of written sources comng directly from the Gallic tribes... We do have written and engraved fragments, but they are pieces of a puzzle we need to reconstruct. We have votive offerings with prayers and demands inscribed on it - and while they can give us the names of some deities, they don't explain much about them. We have sculptures and visual representations of the deities on pillars and cups and jewels and cauldrons - but they are just visuals and symbols without names. We have calendars - but again, these are just fragments. We have names and images, and we need to make sense out of it all.

To try to find the explanations behind these fragments, comparisons to other Celtic religions and mythologies are of course needed - since they are all branches of a same tree. The same way Germanic mythology can be understood by looking at the Norse one, the same way Etruscan, Greek and Roman mythologies answer each other, the mythology and religion of Gaul has echoes with the Celtic deities of the Isles (though staying quite different from each other). The other comparison needed to put things back into context is reason number 2...

Reason number two: The Romans were there.

Everybody knows that the death of Ancient Gaul was the Roman Empire. Every French student learns the date of Alesia, the battle that symbolized the Roman victory over the Gallic forces. Gaul was conquered by the Romans and became one of the most famous and important provinces of the Roman Empire: it was the Gallo-Roman era.

The Romans were FASCINATED by Gaul. Really. They couldn't stop writing about them, in either admiration or hate. As a result, since we lack direct Gallic sources, most of what we know about Ancient Gaul comes from the Romans. And you can guess why it is a problem. Some records of their religion were written in hatred - after all, they were the barbarian ennemies that Romans were fighting against and needed to dominate. As such, they contain several elements that can be put in doubt (notably numerous references to brutal and violent human sacrifices - real depictions of blood-cults, or exaggeratons and inventions to depict the gods of Gaul as demonic monstrosities?) But even the positive and admirative, or neutral, records are biased because Romans kept comparing the religion of the Gauls to their own, and using the names of Roman deities to designate the gods of Gaul...

Leading to the other big problem when studying the gods of Gaul: the Roman syncretism. The Gallo-Roman era saw a boom in the depictions and representations of the Gallic gods... But in their syncretized form, fused with and assimilated to the Roman gods. As such we have lots of representations and descriptions of the "Jupiter of Gaul", of the "Mercury of Gaul", of the "Gallic Mars" or "Gallic Minerva". But it is extremely hard to identify what was imported Roman elements, what was a pure Gallic element under a Roman name, and what was born of the fusion of Gallic and Roman traditions...

Finally, reason number three: Gaul itself had a very complicated approach to its own gods.

We know there are "pan-gallic" gods, as in gods that were respected and honored by ALL the people of Gaul, forming the cohesion of the nation. But... Gaul wasn't actually a nation. It was very much like the many city-states of Greece: Ancient Gaul was unified by common traditions, a common society, a common religion and a common language... But Gaul was a tribal area divided into tribes, clans and villages, each with their own variations on the laws, each with their own customs and each with their own spin on religion. As a result, while there are a handful of "great gods" common to all the communities of Gaul, there are hundreds and hundreds of local gods that only existed in a specific area or around a specific town ; and given there were also many local twists and spins on the "great gods", it becomes extremely hard to know which divine name is a local deity, a great-common god, a local variation on a deity, or just a common nickname shared by different deities... If you find a local god, it can be indeed a local, unique deity ; or it can be an alternate identity of a shared divine archetype ; or it can be a god we know elsewhere but that goes by a different name here.

To tell you how fragmented Gaul was: Gaul was never a unified nation with one king or ruler. The greatest and largest division you can make identifies three Gauls. Cisalpine Gaul, the Gaul located in Northern Italy, conquered by the Romans in the second century BCE, and thus known as "the Gaul in toga" for being the most Roman of the three. Then there was the "Gaul in breeches" (la Gaule en braies), which borders the Mediterranean sea, spanning between the Alps and the Pyrenean mountains, and which was conquered in the 117 BCE (becoming the province of Narbonne). And finally the "Hairy Gaul", which stayed an independant territory until Cesar conquered it. And the Hairy Gaul itself was divided into three great areas each very different from each other: the Aquitaine Gaul, located south of the Garonne ; the Celtic Gaul located between the Garonne and the Marne (became the Gaul of Lyon after the Roman conquest) ; and finally the Belgian Gaul, located between the Marne and the Rhine. And this all is the largest division you can make, not counting all the smaller clans and tribes in which each area was divided. And all offering just as many local gods or local facets of a god...

And if it wasn't hard enough: given all the sculptures and visuals depictions of the gods of Gaul are very "late" in the context of the history of Gaul... It seems that the gods of Gaul were originally "abstract" or at least not depicted in any concrete form, and that it was only in a late development, shortly before the Roman invasions, that people of Gaul decided to offer engravings and statues to their gods, alternating between humanoid and animal forms.

All of this put together explains why the gods of Gaul are so mysterious today.

[zethsdumpster]

au where Sora is a nature spirit that Judge tricked and shackled to himself

With her last breath she hid her children from Judge, sending them away but unintentionally locking them where they landed

Sanji ends up in a somewhat populated place

Yonji and Reiju end up close by populated places

And Ichiji and Niji ending up pretty isolated

(Ofc Judge is looking for them)

Sanji is on a beach, the area they can move around isn't small, but Sanji isn't able to reach any food source, fortunately, Zeff ends up there and ends up taking care of him. Sanji doesn't tell him but Zeff isn't stupid, he realizes that 1 - this kid isn't completely human, and 2 - he is locked in place, so he has their house and restaurant built there. Ofc it becomes popular and the nearest city slowly grows its way closer and closer to the area Sanji is sealed in. Zeff is also looking for a way to free Sanji from his curse.

Both Reiju and Yonji end up in borders, able to reach the outskirts of the nearest cities.

Reiju becomes a bit of a local deity, since she's the oldest (hence the one that was able to spend more time with Sora) she has better control/understanding of her powers and is able to make deals and help people (as well as defend herself)

Yonji becomes more of an urban legend, sometimes interacting with people (mostly those who seem to be his age, but sometimes others too, as long as they seem interesting) and using his long reach to steal stuff whenever he wants/needs.

Niji ended up high in a mountain while Ichiji ended up in the deepest parts of a forest, both almost completely isolated, the only reason they didn't go completely feral was because of their mother's blood in their veins. Niji is the one with the least amount of control over his powers so the mountain top is in an almost eternal electric storm, It ends up attracting some other spirits that end up settling in his general area, but Niji doesn't like them very much (they're Kaido and his gang). there’s a small village at the base of the mountain Niji is trapped on and they sincerely believe he controls the weather so they send offerings to him, Niji doesn't learn about them until later but the citizens are sure that the mountain is cursed (cuz of Niji)

Ichiji, when he first gets trapped, loses control and ends up torching a good chunk of the forest early on and has to live with the fact that his permanent new home is a charred wasteland unless he can get himself under control, And then overcompensated and the new grown plants barely let any light pass through But it's fine, Ichiji is his own source of light He's so deep in the forest he's only ever found by people who get lost, at first he tried to keep them there, but there's no way for mortals to survive the way he lives, so they ended up dying which only caused him distress, so he ended up deciding to completely avoid people or sth, he ended up learning how to use his ability to create firefly lights to guide people to their paths the anxiety that consumed him when Ace ends up there and decides to stay with him (he's in hiding, if he leaves he'll be captured and killed)

Ichiji, always shrouded in darkness, people are usually only able to see his bright eyes and whatever lil else his lights illuminate (he's terrifying, but he also guides the innocent back home) Sora's powers mainly had to do with the wind and all her kids also have some minor wind abilities which are also what have allowed them to at least keep each other somewhat updated (i picture it more like the wind telling them random stuff that them actually controlling that) so maybe the wind sometimes tells Ichiji about what the people who end up there have done (since he needs the wind to tell him where he should guide them to) so he decides whether he wants to help them or kill them uwu

Niji doesn't like Kaido and his men, they keep pestering him about joining (submitting to) Kaido. Kaido can't enter Niji's sealed area because the same magic that keeps him in place also keeps overly dangerous beings like Kaido out. But others like Yamato, Ulti and Page 1 can (yes, he does end up at least making out with each one of those three at least once)

In this au the Marines are kind of a "Fae hunting" organization, they "take care" of "dangerous and malicious" spirits, while MADs study them (and experiments on them)

While the revolutionaries rescue and protect all the spirits that actually aren't malicious & dangerous.

Which is how Sabo ends up looking for (and finding) the Long Arm Man, his "legend" has outgrown his small city by a lot and the Marines will arrive at any moment for it, so the Revolutionaries will beat them to it.

This is also the reason Ace ended up on the run and hiding in Ichiji's forest.

His father was an incredibly powerful fire spirit and the Marines found and caught Ace, he was fortunately rescued but it was a close call and he's still very much in danger.

Neither Luffy nor Sabo are spirits, but Luffy is the chosen vessel of the Sun God Nika (something only a few people know about him) and Sabo has a spirit deal with Ace which allows him to use his fire abilities (to no to the same extent or as powerful as Ace specially when they're far away from each other and also lets them be somewhat aware of each other's safety and location)

the town Reiju ended up near by being the one where Mihawk and/or Gecko Moria live so she and Perona can have a childhood sweethearts/friends to lovers and that part of the reason of Perona's obsession with the occult is 1 - the fact that she can see ghosts and 2 - find a way to free Reiju

when Sabo finally learns that this super weird guy is the Long Arm Man he's gonna be like: we have to leave Yonji: lmao, good luck with that

now we have 4 different people trying to free these morons (cuz ofc Kaido wants to drag Niji out of there) 3 of those 4 will definitely end up joining forces

meanwhile, Acechiji is chilling in the dark

there's a problem with freeing them tho

the only reason Judge was unable to find them was because of the same spell that kept them in place

Judge will probably find them rather easy once they're free

Luffy, unintentionally, frees Sanji (cuz being Nika's vessel grants him that kinda power) Sanji and Zeff are super confused but happy and ofc Luffy takes Sanji on his quest for adventure

Ichiji who hasn't seen sunlight in literal years so he needs to keep his eyes covered and Ace helps him move around

I'm thinking that freeing Sanji should also have an effect on the others' seals, like, maybe now Kaido can reach Niji and Judge can find them (even if he can't take them away)

[solshii]

Some Jiyan Fun Facts

SPOILERS: Chapter 1 Act V and Act VI, Jiyan's Companion Quest and pretty much everything in Jiyan's profile

I got the source of Jiyan's character stories from his profile in the Wuthering Waves fandom wiki, and his voicelines in game.

- As I mentioned in one of my posts, Jiyan is around 23 years old.

From what Yangyang retold in the beginning of Ch1 Act V, we know that Jiyan became General after the "Battle Beneath the Crescent".

Taoqi explains Battle Beneath the Crescent in the beginning of Act VI as a gruelsome fight that occured 3 years prior to the game's events against TDs that were native to the norfall barrens and produced by Retroact Rain.

In Jiyan's character story 2, "The Reason To Fight", Jiyan was said to have taken the role of General at 20.

In summary, 3 years have passed since the Battle Beneath the Crescent, the event that led to Jiyan becoming the General at 20. Hence, Jiyan is 23 years old during the game's events.

I would like to clarify though that it's not clear how soon after the battle Jiyan became appointed as General, and I'm going under the assumption that he got the position within the same year as the battle. At the very least, he is 20 at the youngest and 24 at the oldest.

- He is the youngest General in the Midnight Ranger's history, as described in his character story 2 : "The Reason to Fight".

This also means that Geshu Lin is older than Jiyan.

- Jiyan joined the Midnight Rangers as a medic around the age of 13.

According to Jiyan's Companion Quest, Jiyan was part of the temporary team that set the record of the Gulpuff Relay 10 years ago. One of the illusions of the audience members from that decade-old relay also describes Jiyan as a "new recruit".

Knowing that Jiyan is around 23 as of the game's events, this means that Jiyan was 13 when he joined the Midnight Rangers.

If I stick with the idea that Jiyan was 20 at youngest by the time of the game's events, this would mean Jiyan joined at the age of 10.

- Jiyan was born into a medical family, becoming his mother's assistant at age 10.

As described in character story 4: "What's inside his gourd?". As a little bonus, he stores common medicine inside his gourd.

- The scales on his left jaw appeared after his forte-awakening/when he got his powers. It seems like that's the only place where the scales are.

As described by Jiyan's Forte Examination Report: Resonance Evaluation Report.

"Post-Awakening observations found some growths that resemble Loong scale on his left jaw. No indications of progressive expansion have been detected."

- Jiyan first got his resonance power in Yuanwang camp in Desorock Highland.

As described by Jiyan's Forte Examination Report: Resonance Evaluation Report.

"Resonator Jiyan's Forte-Awakening was observed at the Yuanwang Camp located in Desorock Highland." It was recognised when Jiyan accumulated air currents to form a lance.

- Jiyan has not yet Overclocked. Apparently his frequency is highly stable, hence his low risk of Overclocking.

Described by Forte Examination Report: Overclock Diagnostic Report.

For those who forgot (bcs me too tbh), Overclocking is just essentially where a resonator's powers are overused, and can cause disasters. Other characters, such as Mortefi and Sanhua, are more prone to Overclocking.

Side Mortefi fun fact: his scale growth increased after Overclocking, meaning that Overclocking can change a resonator's appearance.

I would really love to go more into the lore information about Jiyan's power in the Forte Examination Report but a lot of things in it are unclear right now, though they do look interesting.

- The death of his last patient and friend, a Midnight Ranger named Beiwang, was what finally pushed him to join the battlefield. His spear is fashioned after Beiwang's own.

A summarisation of character story 4: "What's inside his gourd?" and voiceline: "Chat I: This spear was modelled after the weapon of Captain Beiwang."

- Jiyan doesn't like Bittberry, though claims to have grown accustomed to it.

Essentially his mother believed that enduring bitterness meant you will become better, and she always put it in his food. He didn't find it very pleasant but got used to it since supplies are scarce.

As described by voiceline: "Disliked Food"

Side fun fact: I bring this up because you can see that he looks a bit nervous to receive Bittberry tea relative to the other characters in the Bottoms Up! Bittberry Tea Web Event lol

[yamayuandadu]

I've been reading through many of your Inanna related articles and thoroughly enjoyed them so far. In one, you mentioned that Inanna had an extensive retinue/court of attendent deities other than the wonderful Ninshubur, I did a bit of looking but haven't found much information, who were these other deities or where can I find out more about them? Thank you regardless of reply 💜.

On my wiki profile, under "Articles I worked on", in the "courtiers" subsection:

A brief (relatively speaking) summary of the development of Inanna's court across the different time periods under the cut.

The oldest direct reference to another deity acting as a courtier of Inanna occurs in the Zame Hymns from Abu Salabikh (Manfred Krebernik, Jan J. W. Lisman, The Sumerian Zame Hymns from Tell Abū Ṣalābīḫ, p. 41):

While the reading of the name is not entirely secure, it’s generally accepted that Nin-AB.KID.KID is supposed to be Ninshubur under the secondary name Ninakkil, which refers to her cult center near Uruk, Akkil. The references to deities designated as SAL+ḪUB2 are quite rare, and only Ninshubur ever bears this title wrt Inanna, so I see no reason to seek alternative interpretations (this is essentially the conclusion of the hymn’s translators; see The Sumerian…, p. 129-130). Additionally, in a roughly contemporary riddle from Lagash the somewhat elusive god Mes-sanga-Unug is labeled as an official of Inanna. However, in contrast with Ninshubur he generally doesn’t appear in the proximity of Inanna later on (Walther Sallaberger, Uruk in der Frühen Bronzezeit: Zu dessen Königen und Göttern und zur Lage von Kulaba, p. 358).

The sources from Uruk from the Ur III period reflect a more elaborate circle encompassing, among others, the likes of Nanaya (who, while a newcomer, was there to stay and eventually eclipse Inanna), Kanisurra, Ningizibara (a deified harp or a harpist goddess), the pair Annunitum and Ulmašitum, and a few elusive oddities (Uruk in der…,  p. 361-362). It’s worth noting that while Inanna of Zabalam was effectively a distinct deity, with her own unique connection with Shara, both Ninshubur and Nanaya appear in association with her in Umma alongside the afaik otherwise unknown Apiriĝmaḫ (Hartmut Waetzoldt, Umma A. Philologisch in RlA vol. 14, p. 322) Nanaya’s newfound Ur III status is at least implicitly reaffirmed in the Old Babylonian Weidner god list, which preserves the sequence Ninshubur-Nanaya-Bizilla-Kanisurra (Marten Stol, Nanaja in RlA vol. 9, p. 146).

However, there’s a strong case to be made that Bizilla, Kanisurra, as well as a further deity not listed there but frequently found in the company of Nanaya and Kanisurra, namely Gazbaba, are really Nanaya-adjacent, not Inanna-adjacent (Gioele Zisa, The Loss of Male Sexual Desire in Ancient Mesopotamia, Nīš Libbi Therapies, p. 141-142). Nanaya, Kanisurra and Gazbaba effectively form a recurring group with Inanna and Ishara (an Eblaite import associated with marriages) in love incantations, though, so I think they count (The Loss…, p. 138). Old Babylonian literary texts might add further deities to the court; some examples include Lulal (literally “syrup man”) in Inanna’s Descent (Anna Glenn, Jeremiah Peterson, The Lulal širgida Composition CBS 12590 (HAV 5, pl. 7, VIII), p. 169) and Ninmeurur in the lament Uru-Ama'irabi (Antoine Cavigneaux, Manfred Krebernik,  Nin-me-urur in RlA vol. 9, p. 471).

The single most extensive expanded court can be found in the god list An = Anum from the Kassite period (newest edition: Wilfred G. Lambert, Ryan D. Winters, An = Anum and Related Lists; all references in the next paragraph use it as a point of reference). It’s easy to find bold claims online that An = Anum and other lists were meant to simplify the pantheon because there were too many gods for theologians to keep track of. To put it very bluntly, it’s a conclusion you can only reach if you haven’t looked at the actual text. An = Anum doesn’t simplify anything; quite the opposite, its compilers evidently revelled in bringing up otherwise unattested or sparsely attested courtiers or family members. And for the most part no major deities are equated with each other - not even Ninurta and Ningirsu. The Inanna section is a pretty good example. It lists two “advisors” (gu-balag; Ninigizibara and Ninsigaranna; lines 73-74, p. 164), possibly around 20 miscellaneous courtiers whose names are lost, two “attendants” (AN-gub-ba; Uru-AN.TUR and Enmeuranna, lines 96-97, p. 166), five “interpreters” (inim balbal, p. 168; Šilabat is the only one who has any other attestations afaik), 18 messengers (lukingia; p. 168-170; at least three - Abbašušu, Kilili and Abtagigi - occur elsewhere) and 8 outdoor shrines (sic; ublilla, p. 170) of Inanna. Those are for the most part figures of utterly minuscule importance, though. We know Nanaya had her own sub-section, and Gazbaba apparently appears on her own, so it’s not like the mainstays were neglected, but the poor state of preservation of all surviving copies of tablet IV makes it hard to say much beyond that.

Neo-Assyrian sources provide some information about the entourages of local northern Inannas; these don’t necessarily overlap with the “standard” lists discussed above, but they’re nonetheless pretty interesting. The best example I can think of deals with the city of Arbela. Some interesting inclusions are Ninatta and Kulitta (musician goddesses actually “borrowed” from  the court of Inanna’s Hurrian counterpart Shaushka); Umbidaki (a mangled spelling of the Hurrian god Nupatik); and unspecified “Daughters of Arbail”, apparently generic divine maidservants (John MacGinnis, The Gods of Arbail, p. 109).

The next well documented version of Inanna’s court is known from Uruk from the Neo-Babylonian period. The pantheon of the city was headed by a pentad including Inanna, Nanaya and three relative newcomers: Usur-amassu (a particular favorite; I plan to cover her in a separate article later this year), Urkayitu (more or less the deification of the city) and Bēltu-ša-Rēš. However, it’s quite likely that a host of minor deities - possibly referred to simply as “the ladies” (belētu) - was grouped with them. Potential members of this larger grouping include both well attested Inanna and/or Nanaya orbiters like Kanisurra and some newcomers, like Ahlamayitu, Belet-balati or Kurunnitu (Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk in the Neo-Babylonian Period, p. 179). Kilili and Abbašušu from An = Anum, as well as a further closely related (or even identical) deity, Nunnirdudu, also pop up, though mostly in uncertain contexts (The Pantheon…, p. 320). It’s also possible that Nanaya’s stunt double Bizilla was worshipped in Uruk in association with her under the variant name Ninzizli, though this is uncertain (The Pantheon…, p. 322).

The developments in Uruk didn’t stop in the Neo-Babylonian period, and yet another version of Inanna’s court is preserved in instructions for her akītu (new year festival). In addition to some names you’ve already seen multiple times in this reply - Ninigizibarra, Kanisurra, Ninmeurur, Urkayitu and Annunitu - it also involved a group only designated as the “Daughters of Eanna” (cf. the “Daughters of Arbail” above); Ninsianna (the distinctly genderfluid personification of the planet Venus); Išartu (personified legal order); Šagepada; Abeturra; Šarrat-parakki; the mythical sage Adapa; Bēlet-Eanna (confusingly not Inanna as the “lady of Eanna”, but rather a local goddess of the nearby settlement Udannu); and a few others. Notably, a whole host of deities sourced from the An = Anum court appear - Kilili and Bariritu come as no surprise, but the presence of all five “translators”, Ninsigaranna, Ninḫenunna, En(me)uranna and ŠEŠ.AN.TUR (reading uncertain) is unexpected (Julia Krul, The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk, p. 67-69). Seemingly An = Anum - by then a venerable classic, over a thousand years old - was seen as authoritative to the point that deities mentioned in it were brought back (or introduced for the first time!) for what was essentially a last huzzah of Uruk as a religious center. This phenomenon has been aptly described as “antiquarian theology” (The Revival…, p. 79-80).

[transformers0]

10 / 06 / 2025 The Weekenders Headcanons about Lor (also starring Tino)

Thanks to a recent post by @disneystheweekenders, I have made yet another post with more headcanons about the character of Lor MacQuarrie from The Weekenders.

(The respective post that inspired me to create this one can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/disneystheweekenders/785807746060664832/one-of-the-things-about-the-show-was-that-none-of?source=share)

First up off the top of my mind, if Lor cannot pursue sports as a dedicated career, and if being a Yoga Instructor isn't sufficient enough to pay the bills (see my last post on headcanons about Lor here: https://www.tumblr.com/transformers0/785796889541050368/09-06-2025-the-weekenders-headcanons-about?source=share), then I can also see Lor working a second job as a car mechanic.

Coincidentally, Lor having some prowess at mechanic's work is yet another thing that she has in common with Mrs Tonitini.

Cue married life headcanons of Tino teasing Lor about automotive repair being her main strong suit, and Lor pretending to be salty about that.

Though the show's art style doesn't give much attention to the characters' eyes besides the standard black dots on white eyeballs, if we were to give the characters specific eye colours, I see Lor as having light blue eyes. And Tino would have dark blue eyes.

I also stan fellow fans who see freckles as being a part of Lor.

(Original art post here: https://www.tumblr.com/rub-a-dubb/55141411620?source=share)

Lastly, though I've mentioned this particular headcanon before in its own dedicated post (https://www.tumblr.com/transformers0/766485623382114304/did-you-have-a-personal-age-order-for-the?source=share), I view Lor and Tino as being the younger half of their friend group, with Tino being the youngest, and Lor being the 2nd youngest.

(For those wondering about Carver and Tish, I put Carver as the oldest, and Tish as the 2nd oldest.)

Reason 1 for that being that Lor and Tino are overall the least mature and least worldly kids out of the four main children.

And Reason 2 being a meta one here: their voice actors were among the youngest members of the cast (with Tino's VA, Jason Marsden, being younger than Lor's VA, Grey DeLisle).

As to why I brought this particular headcanon up again?

I just adore scenes in the show where Lor or Tino act out like a little sibling (sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both at the same time) and Carver or Tish has to play big brother or sister.

And also, Lor and Tino being the two youngest friends of the group (at least in my mind) is yet another reason for me to ship them.

Funnily enough, Doug Langdale in the 25th Anniversary QnA video (link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qCSPL8AaA8) stated that he and his crew never envisioned an official age order for the kids, as they wanted to leave it up to each individual viewer to decide for themselves.

Well, all I can say to that is: "This is where the fun begins!"

And that concludes my newest and latest post on headcanons about Lor MacQuarrie.

Later days!

[partywithoutsmiling]

So wait if Branch is actually Barb's cousin... do the two ever find out about each other being related? How would they each react? Barb, I bet, would be absolutely pissed but also kinda, secretly also glad to have another member of the family since she is very family oriented herself if the frankly adorable dynamic she has with her dad is to believed. Then raging mad when she learns about how Branch came to be alone because, bro, family don't do that shit.

Thorn I can imagine being extremely conflicted since, on one hand, he now has confirmation that Thorn is dead and has been for over 20 years, but also he finally gets to meet one of his nephews for the first time. And while the kid is somewhat soft for Rock Troll tastes, he isn't a total wimp either and has actually made quite a good life for himself.

Branch, I think, would be mainly confused? Like at some point in his travels, he probably figured out he was mixed genre, and he picks up a bunch of other little quirks from every genre he travels through as well. He's complicated and doesn't just fit into one genre anymore, a simple wamderer who just travels around seeing the world and learning what is there to be learned. Then suddenly, he's royalty.

Oh boy pff, okay, from the top:

Do they ever find out they are related? In Moonlit AU (as that one follows canon basically) and in Rock Beast AU, yes- they do find out they are related. In my headcanon, Barb had always knew that her uncle Thorn had a family somewhere and even children (as Thrash alluded that much to her), but it never occured to her that her Aunt and cousins would be Pop. She always just assumed he found someone from the far reaches of the territory, not that he found someone outside their Kingdom altogether. The reason why she realizes they are related is because of the skull tattoo that appears on Branch's chest after he got hit with the Power Chord, as I headcanon that tattoo appears only to those of royal Rock blood. In Moonlit AU, since the events are basically almost exact like in the movies, she approaches Branch after everything is done and over and things calm down to talk about it (as in this case, the skull tattoo would stay even after he returns to normal), and they have a serious talk about family. At this point, she is trying not to let her biases impact her opinions- but also, she is respecting the law of her people, in that the oldest always have greater right to the throne, and Branch is clearly the oldest. (He kinda blows her mind when he blurts out he is not the oldest) In Rock Beast AU, she finds out about their relation in much the same way, by the skull tattoo, but since it is right after the disastrous concert and Branch had just in his bestial rage injured at least ten trolls, she is not exactly in the mood to entertain their relation at all, because the idea of Branch being her cousin and her accidentally harming him/imprisoning him doesn't sit well with her. So better she just pretends otherwise.

(I dabbled a bit into this topic in my oneshot Cut Rattler on AO3, if you are curious enough to read it)

In Wanderer AU, it's trickier. Since Branch is sporting the Strings in his hair, the Power Chord has no effect on him, so his 'mark' never awakens. Barb haven't actually seen her uncle at all except in bad photos, so any family connection of their hinges on whatever Branch's brothers remember; JD and perhaps Floyd are the only ones who, thanks to their own traveling, starts to suspect there might have been more to their Father than him just being a flighty Rock Troll.

Would Barb be pissed or glad? Definitelly both pff, as mentioned above. Her anger would have many sources; the fact she was never supposed to be Queen- and she had been aware of it- yet was forced to take up the mantle, because the real Heir never showed up. So part of her sees it as her cousin's shirking his duties to the Rock Troll Tribe, but another is irritated that he never knew he was doing so. (And she is assuming Branch is the only Heir, while we know otherwise) She is definitelly glad to have more family. I haven't mentioned this headcanon anywhere, but Thorn's commited relationship to Mulberry has been bit of an oddity in the Rock Troll culture, where the norm is to be more polyamorous; like, Thorn and Thrash are brothers only through their father, at the time King Belabor, but had different mothers. There is no concept of a Royal Spouse or Consort, and once they were old enough, Belabor took over in raising them, so they could be proper Rock Royals.

It was actually rarity by itself there were more than one Heir, as the Rock Royals weren't in habit of having more than just one child; both Thorn and Thrash were hatched just few months apart though, as they have been conceived roughly around the same time, so for a while it has been unsure which one would be the Heir. (The goal was to limit bloodline ties to as little as possible, so the Heir would be focused on making close relationships with other trolls) Thrash followed that tradition, and once Barb was hatched, that was it really (She has only vague memories of her mother, as any relationship Thrash had with her was mostly friends with benefits and the Troll didn't want to be saddled with a child to begin with)

Barb definitelly feels lonely in her role, especially with the silent judgment from her subjects around her, and because her Dad is no longer all there. Growing up, she sort of daydreamed her Uncle coming back one day and their family growing up in numbers, because she did envy some of her friends' families, where they had multitude of siblings each.

She would be very pissed that Branch got abandoned as a baby, yes- and especially when she realizes that Floyd lived most of his life in her Kingdom without her being aware of him all. Honestly, for a long time, Branch would be the only one not on her shitlist.

And what about Thrash? Well, he wouldn't be as conflicted as you would imagine, not about the fact that Branch is half Pop. In the moments of lucidity, he would be grieving; yes, he suspected his brother was dead, but it was a different matter altogether to have it confirmed. He'd also grieve for the way the Pop Trolls ended up- it hardly takes a genius to realize what had happened when they talk about deadly giants (and unknown to Barb's generation, there had been some stragglers who were banished from Bergen town that had wandered into their territory and had to be dealt with) He had suspected that Thorn found a mate in a Pop Troll, but over the years said nothing to Barb, even if she asked about it. He wonders if things would have gone differently, if he told her about it from the beginning- if she wouldn't have grow up as prejudiced. Being able to interact with Branch, he actually sees lots of Thorn in him, and that fills him with longing. He is glad to have meet him- though as I said, his moments of lucidity are few and far between, so there is not really that many moments where they can bond.

And then there is Branch. In both Rock Beast AU and Moonlit AU, I dont think he really wants to entertain the possibility of being a mixed genre troll; he always believed that his physical differences are from him growing up grey and roughing it in the wild, outside the comforts of the Pop Village. It takes a lot of effort for Barb to convince him that he is not just Pop- especially as the Branch from these AUs would be afraid to be different. After all, he had already spent chunk of his life being ostracized for his differences, he doesn't want to feel like an outsider again. In Wanderer AU, he would be far more open to the idea. Following his departure, he would be definitelly more curious, especially when he had been mistaken for a Rock Troll far easily than for Pop, and getting closer and closer to the Rock Territory and meeting anyone with even sliver of a resemblance- and most importanly given time to think about it- he can admit that that it is most likely the truth. It makes him wonder if that's why JD had been so obsessed with Perfection, their looks and roles; it makes him wonder about lot of things he had never been privy to, in accord to him being either a baby or not born yet. He remembers his first year of greyness, where he had been treated like a lepper- remembers the intolerance that ran rampart through the Troll Tree, and yet know it was mild at best. How intolerant the Pop Trolls must have been back in the day, before the Bergens, before they could afford to be exclusive? So in Wanderer AU, he is more accepting of him being half rock, but as I said it would take a while for him to learn he was actually royalty.

[treepan0]

this is me Aya.. ‏🇵🇸

suddenly you wake up with nothing left.That's exactly what happened with us .we moved from having everything to having nothing.In a blink of an eye ,we lost everything, our house ,dreams,

memories belongings and our works. We are starting from zero and need your help to climb the leader step by step from scratch.

All the positive words cannot express how generous you are, especially in sharing my posts to inform other donors about the people of Gaza who are still suffering from the terrible conditions caused by the unjust war on Gaza!

Please continue to support us by donating directly or by sharing the link to let others know. Don't hesitate to help people in difficult and miserable times until the dark days are over. 🙏🏻🍉

https://gofund.me/c4c2cf82

Hey Aya, if that really is your name...

alright because I've had enough of people like you in my inbox, your blog was not that old with no traces of activity before hand. (an early warning sign of a scam mind you) So I copy and pasted one paragraph of your words into my search bar, in search of the original source. You know what I found?

a tumblr post and gofundme belonging to a woman named Doaa Ayyad with two daughters asking for money to help evacuate from Gaza, the gofundme was posted on april 27th of this year, the tumblr post was created over two months later on July 31st. the account's name is malakandmasa.

your words match Doaa's word for word, as if copied and pasted from her post. with their oldest post being about this gofundme back on July 18th, additionally this user has been vetted by multiple sources adding onto this. (ty to the people who reblogged Doaa's post and kept it up)

to say the least people like you disgust me, there's a reason why I've been watching out for leeches like you. I'm linking the actual go fund me, and then I'm going back to writing this was disgusting to uncover

[ilovebeingaturtle]

I'd love to know what you think the birth order is of the 87 turtles

Oh man I think my age order headcanons change for them by the minute AHA, I love all interpretations! The popular idea of quadruplets that change the order/take turns on it whenever they feel like it is so fun. I think in regards for canon? My stance is the turtles both don’t know and never even thought to know. We barely get them to acknowledge they’re siblings, let along establish an age hierarchy. I don’t think the topic has ever come up AHA that feels the most in character

But like-delving into fanon?

The back of their toys lists Leonardo as 16, Michelangelo as 15 1/2 and Donatello and Raphael as 15, so that’s a fun order if you want to go off established info! Even if the info from the toys can be taken with a grain of salt. Similarly, you could also go via height order? Raphael and Leonardo are 5’1, Michelangelo is 5’0 and Donatello is 4’10 (again according to the toys and Cowabunga Collection this time)

Oh also! I read once that apparently one of the books lists Leonardo and Donatello as 16 and the other two as 15, but I was never able to find a source on it plus that’s just even more of a reach in general. Leonardo and Donatello you can definitely read as the oldest two, however Donatello does give me like. Third oldest middle child energy a lot, he can a brat /pos plus chill second oldest Michelangelo is just something I’m biased to, in the least he’s not the youngest in my mind.

In fact I’ll always be a strong advocate for Raphael being the youngest, he’s just got such “baby of the family” energy AHA so I do love assigning him that at any opportunity

OH ALSO! If we go by the air dates of their birthday episodes, Michelangelo’s birthday is November 6 and Raphael’s is December 19. For whatever reason the turtle wiki lists Donatello’s birthday as November 8? Still can’t find out why, but that’s another semi canon order too! I haven’t found a date for Leonardo yet

I think my personal favourite interpretation for their ages though?

It’s gotta be Michelangelo as the oldest, Donatello as the second oldest, Raphael as the second youngest and Leonardo as the youngest. Something about it is just so amusing to me and secretly youngest Leonardo is adorable, so it’s probably the order I’m most fond of!

O also I said this on here one time? Which I also definitely still enjoy as an interpretation AHA

Oh, and! Last year I made this comic WIP about their ages, I never finished it and I was still new to the fandom but honestly I don’t think I’d change too much if I remade it today, so have it too!

So the uh. TLDR my answer on their age order is Yeeeees…..?

[gothhabiba]

More fun with Lazy Researcher Telephone leading to the circulation of completely false information:

A 1764 court document (re-discovered by Gwendolin Mildo Hall) is currently believed to be the oldest reference to gumbo (as in the okra-and-meat stew, not okra itself). Shane K. Bernard said in 2011 that Hall had mentioned the document in a lecture, but she presumably didn't give detailed information, since he ended up e-mailing her to get the actual citation.

She pointed him to the Louisiana Historical Center, who sent him a copy of the document in question, which he posted a small snippet from. You don't have to contact the LHC to get the full document--it's been digitised (look towards the bottom right of page 4/21 for the reference to "un gombeau"), along with other documents pertaining to the same court case.

That lecture wasn't the only place where Hall had elaborated. Earlier, in 2005, Hall had published Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links, which contains a passage talking about Comba / Julia, the woman whose testimony contains the reference to "gombeau" (Bernard didn't mention this book). She describes what led to the 1764 court proceedings--fugitive slave Louis dit Foy "had organized a cooperative network among slaves, runaways, thieves, seamstresses, and street vendors" and the group 'stole' food for their social gatherings. Hall says of two women who were members of this group:

Comba and Louison, both Mandingo women in their fifties, were vendors selling cakes and other goods along the streets of New Orleans. They maintained an active social life, organized feasts where they ate and drank very well, cooked gumbo filé and rice, roasted turkeys and chickens, barbecued pigs and fish, smoked tobacco and drank rum. (Slavery and African Ethnicities, University of North Carolina Press, 2005, p. 99)

Hall cites as the source of her information "Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, May 6 and May 10, 1768, contract between Evan Jones of Pensacola and Durand Brothers; declaration by Captain Peter Hill. Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 1768.05.10.02, Louisiana Historical Center, New Orleans" (FN 36, p. 187).

It is unclear from Hall's text whether "gumbo filé" is specifically named or described in these court documents (if it is, I have not yet found it--and it also seems strange that Hall wouldn't have pointed Bernard to that location), or what other reason Hall might have for asserting this. It may just be an assumption of her's. As written, it sounds like the "gombeau" mentioned isn't even sure to be modern "gumbo" (as Bernard points out, a dish of stewed okra with butter was called "gumbo" at this time and later). Hall's research interests do not centre around food.

From this point, someone must have found Bernard's reference to this court document, and also found the paraphrasing of the case proceedings in Hall's book. They must have mentioned the court document without quoting or citing it; and they must have quoted the passage from Hall that I quoted above, also without citing it, and made it seem as though the Hall passage was in the court document. Whoever this unforgiveable bumbling can be traced back to, whether him or someone else, Lolis Eric Elie at least recreated it. In 2005, he wrote in a letter to the New York Times:

The first known printed reference to gumbo was made in reference to food eaten not by French immigrants, but by African maroons who had escaped slavery in Louisiana. This passage, from a 1764 court document, was uncovered by Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, author of "Africans in Colonial Louisiana": "Comba and Louison, both Mandingo women in their 50's [sic], were vendors selling cakes and other goods along the streets of New Orleans. They maintained an active social life, organized feasts where they ate and drank very well, cooked gumbo filé and rice, roasted turkeys and chickens, barbecued pigs and fish, smoked tobacco and drank rum."

And then someone must have read that letter and believed Elie that that paragraph of Hall's was in the 1764 court document (it doesn't exactly sound like the kind of language I would expect to have been written as a summary of court proceedings in 1764, but I suppose they didn't think to check...)

So now, as a result of all of this jumbling of assumptions with evidence, and unwillingness to track down actual primary sources (even when someone has already digitised and quoted and translated them for you!), you have people confidently asserting that "gumbo filé" was specifically mentioned for the first time in 1764.

For example, Jonathan Olivier, writing for The Bitter Southerner in 2021, writes:

Looking back further at the historical record, there is more evidence of distinctions between types of gumbo. The first recorded mention of gumbo is from a 1764 court document involving escaped enslaved Africans, found by historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall [...]. “Comba and Louison, both Mandingo women in their 50s [sic], were vendors selling cakes and other goods along the streets of New Orleans. They maintained an active social life, organized feasts where they ate and drank very well, cooked gumbo filé and rice, roasted turkeys and chickens, barbecued pigs and fish, smoked tobacco and drank rum.” The entire term “gumbo filé” is mentioned, a deliberate effort to highlight a soup thickened with powdered sassafras, not okra.

Yes, Olivier, the term "gumbo filé" was mentioned... by Gwendolin Hall in 2005, not by Comba in 1764! What a mess! What an absolute disgrace of a mess. Lmao.

[gremoria411]

Just a little on the Gundam Asmoday/Asmodeus today (it apparently could’ve been called the Ashmodai, which is neat).

Okay, so the ASW-G-32 Gundam Asmoday is found by Wistario the Erda II crew (specifically Sinister) inside an Aridne Cocoon in the Debris zone. It’s specifically noted to be essentially brand new, with no records of it fighting in the calamity war, and a full complement of weapons ready to go. Based on this, and the fact that it seems to have its reactor hooked up to the cocoon, we can gauge one of two things. Either;

The Gundam wasn’t completed until either very late in the Calamity War, or just after, and thus didn’t have an opportunity to fight against the mobile armours.

This Cocoon relay station was apparently important enough to dedicate a Gundam frame just to keep it operational.

Based on the assumption that a bunch of regular ahab reactors would probably have done the job just fine, I think it’s more likely to be a case of it being completed late.

What makes this interesting is that we only know of one other Gundam frame that was completed late in the calamity war:

The ASW-G-71 Gundam Dantalion.

Now, because this is both at the end of the series (71/72) and because it’s stated that the Dantalion had been completed late, I had previously assumed that the Gundam Frames were completed sequentially. So, the ever-elusive ASW-G-70 Gundam Seere would have been completed just prior to the Dantalion, and the 72nd Gundam would have been completed after, possibly even being completed postwar (At a guess, either the Gundam Andromalius or Gundam Pruflas/Bufas - I’d be very interested in know what happened to it, since it’s be the most likely source as to any clue to the end of the calamity war and it’s immediate aftermath). But the Asmodeus implies something quite different. Unless its deployment was delayed for whatever reason, then it’s evidence that the Gundam frames may not have been built sequentially. (I’m not sure which it would be - it doesn’t seem to have any equipment that’d be too difficult to work with, being structured as a fairly direct combatant - gigant javelin as a sort of whip-sword to attack from a distance, smoke grenades and then grand tonfa’s up close, but then there’s plenty of other reasons for it to not have seen combat).

We do, however, know that Bael was the first. Add to that the seeming increase in complexity as the numbers climb (Dantalion appears simple but it has a bunch of add-on equipment not shown above, a lot of the 50’s and 60’s-series Gundams have fancy designs or systems, especially compared to the relative simplicity of the 00’s and 10’s), and we can guess that they were at least designed sequentially, with Asmoday’s presumed delay being an exception.

However, what I also think is interesting is where it was found. Inside an Ariadne Network Cocoon, big enough to be used as a harbour, administrative and let’s face it defensive point, in the network. Administered by the Falk Family (presumably headed by either Kalf Falk or his immediate successor), who already possess a Gundam Frame to their name - the Gundam Gamigin (shown above).

So what was the Asmodeus, for all intents and purposes a “phantom machine”, which exists on paper but was never actually deployed, doing there? Each Seven Stars Family or similar organisation within Gjallarhorn has precisely one Gundam Frame to their name, with no evidence of one family using multiple frames. I find it particularly interesting that it’s the Falk’s of all people that seem to have this frame - they’re one of the two families we know the absolute least about, the other being the Baklazan’s. Even then, most of the information we do know is what can be inferred from their Urdr Hunt point and their Gundam Frame. The only real supposition we can make is that they’re probably the oldest out of the Seven Stars - assuming no family got multiple Gundam Frames during the calamity war (which feels a fair assumption to make, given that we know absolutely nothing about any frames that were destroyed, implying no-ones really around to keep those records), then the ASW-G-04 Gamigin Gundam was likely deployed the earliest out of all the Seven Stars Gundam Frames, shortly after Bael (again, assuming sequential deployment). So it’s possible that the Falks were the longest surviving active participants in the Calamity war, besides Agnika Kaeru himself, of course. But it’s unclear why they would end up with another Gundam frame, and then not use it. A few possibilities:

The Intended Pilot for the Asmoday was killed before it could reach them, and the Falk’s didn’t have another pilot on hand to use it.

There was a Cocoon was involved in transporting the Gundams to their pilots, and it was kept at the cocoon until it’s recipient could be sorted out.

The Falks wanted extra “insurance” of their position once the Calamity War was over, and arranged for a second Gundam frame to be assigned to them somehow.

The Asmoday had nothing to do with the Falks, and it was left at the Cocoon by N as prize for Urdr Hunt participants.

It was salvaged from its transport during the war, and restored by the Falks.

In short, I don’t know why it was there and we’re probably not going to find out anytime soon, but it’s fun to think about. I would also like to point out that the Asmoday was also just…. Left there, which feels like it must have been purposeful in some way, but also means that the Falk’s didn’t recover it in the intervening 300 years.

[asknarashikari]

Takeru: Welcome to the Baby heroes club.

Houtaro: Baby heroes? But we’re hardly babies?

Sougo: It doesn’t matter, once Emu-sensei or Shinnosuke-keibu has adopted you, you’re a baby Rider forever.

Kotaro: Tell me about it, well in my case, baby sentai.

Kotaro: Emu-sensei and Shinnosuke-keibu only knew of my circumstances from a secondary source but they somehow forced their way into my universe and adopted me.

Juuru: Emu-sensei gave everyone tongue lashing when he found out about my supposed death.

Houtaro: Eh? You died, Juuru-san?

Juuru: I didn’t, but my teammates didn’t know that.

Hikari: And to them that counts as a death.

Takeru: I feel like I should apologize, I am kind of the reason why Emu-sensei is angry when a hero who started as young as us dies in every sense of the word.

Mio: Right, you are Kamen Rider Ghost.

Takeru; Uhuh. And I almost died under Emu-sensei’s watch.

Tokacchi: That must be rough.

Houtaro: So who else is a part of this club?

Takeru: Well, there’s the ToQgers

Toqger: Hello.

Kotaro: They were sixth graders when they became a sentai team.

Houtaro: 6th graders?!

Takeru: There’s Yuzuru-kun, he’s the eldest among us, I believe, at least the one with the most experience.

Takeru: Never really was good at math.

Hikari: But he's not here at the moment, he's busy with his mentor.

Houtaro: So there are a lot of us.

Sougo: Technically, Geiz and Tsukuyomi are also a part of this, but they were never really saddled with the title like everyone else here.

Sougo: Same with Yuzuru

Houtaro: Huh.

Houtaro; To be honest, I don’t really know how to feel about this.

Takeru: Its fine, it took us all a certain amount of time to be comfortable with the title.

Takeru: Even Sougo hasn’t let some things go.

Sougo: Keiwa and I are literally of the same age, how come he’s not a baby rider and I am!

Takeru: See?

Honestly this reminds me of how my boss (my team head, not the bitchy one) calls us her children... even if the oldest of us is only ten or so years younger than her lol

But yeah, this is your life now Houtaro

[snoozydeer]

Cute Characters: Why Do We Like Them, and What Is Their History?

INTRODUCTION

Illustrated brands have been on the rise throughout the 20th century and continuing in growth into the 21st, with brands like Miffy trailblazing the way for others like Hello Kitty, the Moomins, and later Pusheen to take prominence in the cultural zeitgeist. It is not uncommon for a person to walk into a store and find at least one or two of these characters emblazoned on a shirt, mug, or product.

But how did it get to this point? What is the reason for these characters influencing popular culture so much? As an illustrator, it is important to understand and grasp the larger sphere that these characters have created — with cute illustrated figures taking prominence and becoming much-beloved by many households and people from all kinds of backgrounds.

To understand this is to better understand how to market and push my own work. Through this essay, I will be attempting to discover and explain why these characters grew to prominence, and the effects they’ve had over the last near-century. Additionally, it is a goal of mine to try and learn what makes these characters good — and how I might emulate this myself for a potential future in character-based marketing.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Miffy is one of the oldest characters that is present in the public consciousness and has grown to become one of the most profitable in the East Asian market, rivalled by Hello Kitty. Despite the popular belief that she is a character created in Japan, or that she’s part of the Hello Kitty and Friends lineup, she actually isn’t. She was created by Dutch artist Dick Bruna.

Miffy was created in 1955, a decade after the end of the Second World War. Although she wasn’t originally meant to be part of the “kawaii” genre that would later flourish in Japan, she eventually became one of its foundational figures. She was initially intended as a children’s book character. Bruna came up with her after telling bedtime stories to his son about a rabbit they had seen in the dunes. The decision to make Miffy female was entirely based on Bruna’s preference for drawing the character in a dress rather than trousers.

In the West, Miffy mostly appears in children's books and picture books aimed at young children. At the time of writing, there have been over 124 picture books and more than 32 titles published. However, in Japan, Miffy is a true icon — widely loved, heavily merchandised, and carefully marketed. It’s estimated that she has generated around $330 million in merchandise sales in Japan alone.

To say that she is more popular in Japan than in the West is an understatement. In her home country, she remains a known children’s book character — still appreciated by the target age group — but she’s far less prominent in the wider culture. In Japan, she has become a part of the national kawaii identity. It’s fair to say that Miffy has been absorbed into kawaii culture simply because of her success in the Japanese market.

Sanrio is a company that was founded in 1960 by Japanese entrepreneur Shintaro Tsuji. It originally began as a silk business but expanded a few years later by producing rubber sandals with hand-painted flowers. Eventually, the company moved into the licensing business, selling merchandise featuring popular American characters — most notably Snoopy, who was exclusively licensed to Sanrio in Japan.

In the 1970s, Tsuji made a pivotal decision: instead of relying solely on American licenses, he brought in designers to create original characters. The first of these was Coro Chan, introduced in 1973. The following year, Hello Kitty was born — a character that would go on to become the cornerstone of the Sanrio brand.

Hello Kitty has consistently been Sanrio’s top source of income. She was designed by artist Yuko Shimizu, who left the company in 1976 after getting married and later worked freelance. Despite Hello Kitty’s enormous popularity, Shimizu didn’t profit much from her creation. The character was originally designed for a child’s coin purse, but somehow found appeal among teens and adults, and gradually expanded far beyond her original audience.

Over the decades, Sanrio has introduced more than 450 characters, each with their own unique backstories, personalities, and merchandising strategies. Among the classic lineup, my personal favourites are Keroppi and Pompompurin.

Both characters were created through an internal competition within the Sanrio company, where employees could submit their own designs with the hope of having them developed into official characters. Interestingly, the creators of both Keroppi and Pompompurin chose to remain anonymous — their reasons aren’t public — but the characters still have deep, developed lore. In some cartoons and merchandise, the two are even shown interacting.

Keroppi was created during Japan’s rainy season in 1987 to promote Sanrio products. He reached peak popularity in the 1990s, when he won first place among Sanrio characters. Even today, he remains in the top 10 most popular. He’s also a member of a Sanrio-themed boy band.

Pompompurin, in contrast, had a rougher start. His original design didn’t perform well, and after his debut, his popularity dropped sharply due to questionable marketing decisions. Eventually, Sanrio gave him a slight redesign to make him more appealing — and, strangely enough, they added a butthole. That might sound odd, but in Japan, this kind of anatomical detail is often seen as cute, especially in animals. Amazingly, that small change helped revive Pompompurin’s popularity. It made him feel more dog-like and relatable to fans. He was even awarded first place in Sanrio’s popularity ranking in both 2015 and 2016.

In the 1970s, Sanrio had created a white rabbit character named Little Honey. However, the design ended up looking exceptionally close to Miffy, and later in the decade, she was reworked into a character named Cathy, whose design looked more like Hello Kitty. Even later, she was redesigned again — this time given a mouth — and renamed Daisy. This change coincided with the release of Sanrio-branded cartoons, and was likely also meant to give the character a refreshed look.

As Sanrio's presence outside Japan continued to grow, Dick Bruna felt he had grounds to challenge what he saw as plagiarism of his character, Miffy. In an interview with The Telegraph, he stated that he believed Hello Kitty was a copy of Miffy, and that it annoyed him — he wanted people to be more original with their designs. At that time, though, he had no legal grounds to pursue a lawsuit.

That changed when Miffy turned fifty and became more established as a brand. Bruna wanted to protect the intellectual property rights of his creation. The character of Cathy/Daisy was brought to court in Europe, and a legal order was issued to stop the production of merchandise featuring the character. If Sanrio failed to comply, they would face a daily fine. Naturally, Sanrio pushed back in court.

This legal battle stretched into the 2010s and continued until 2011. However, the devastating tsunami that struck Japan that year shifted the situation. Both Sanrio and Bruna decided to settle the case outside of court. Bruna created an illustration of Miffy with tears in her eyes and the message "My Best Wishes to Japan," and donated the compensation funds to the Holding Hands Foundation, a charity created jointly by the two companies to support Japan’s recovery.

Sanrio also contributed the money it had originally set aside for legal fees to the foundation. They halted all production of Cathy merchandise and retired the character permanently. In addition, a short video was produced for the foundation that featured many well-known characters — including Miffy, Thomas the Tank Engine, Pingu, the Powerpuff Girls, and more — all shown holding hands as a symbol of solidarity and support.

The Moomins are another strong example of a brand that developed global influence. Created by Finnish artist Tove Jansson, the Moomins are deeply personal characters. Tove based many of them on people in her life: Moominpappa and Moominmamma were inspired by her parents and their quirks, Snufkin was based on her ex-fiancé Atos Wirtanen, and Thingumy and Bob were drawn from her relationship with one of her girlfriends — in the Swedish version, they even use their real-life pet names for each other.

The Moomins had a rough start. Tove’s early books didn’t sell very well, likely because they focused more on building the world and exploring character personalities than on structured storytelling. Later books fixed this, and as time passed, her audience expanded far beyond Finland and Sweden — especially in England, Europe in general, and Japan, thanks to translations and various adaptations.

Some of the most significant adaptations were Japanese anime versions made specifically for Japanese audiences. Ironically, Tove didn’t always appreciate these — she felt the adaptations were too “Japanese” in tone, making the stories more violent or crude. This is somewhat ironic, as her original works were sometimes criticized by European reviewers for being too dark or strange themselves.

Regardless, her work eventually became a major commercial success. The anime series and other adaptations helped her universe grow and become more accessible. Her unique art style, the Moomins’ long-lasting charm, and their simple but expressive designs all contributed to their recognizability.

One of the more amusing origin stories in the Moomin universe comes from a disagreement Tove had with her brother about philosophy. After the argument, she stormed off to the family outhouse and drew what she jokingly called “the ugliest creature imaginable.” That sketch became Snork, a character who would appear across her stories as a kind of satire of her brother. The name "Moomin" itself came from a scary story told to her as a child by a relative — meant to stop her from sneaking food at night.

It took a long time for her work to gain momentum. As mentioned before, the anime, cartoons, and other international versions helped introduce the Moomins to broader audiences. Their popularity surged in the 1990s after the release of Tales from Moominvalley, a collaborative work between the Jansson family and producer Dennis Livson, who was connected to an international animation studio. Since then, the Moomins have reached an estimated yearly retail value of around 700 million euros.

More recently, Tove Jansson’s work has seen a revival thanks to increased online availability and the growth of a dedicated fanbase.

At the same time, a number of newer characters have gained popularity largely through the internet — for example, Pusheen during the 2010s, or Line Friends, which started as digital stickers on Korean messaging apps and then exploded into a full-blown merchandise phenomenon. The Moomins themselves also had a kind of internet renaissance in the 2010s and 2020s.

This trend reflects a larger shift: many illustrated characters today gain popularity online first, especially as younger generations are raised in digital spaces. Meme culture acts as a shared language, one that travels across cultures quickly. It’s common now for characters to grow beyond their original niche communities and gain fans internationally through social media.

There are even characters that don’t come from formal brands but have still achieved massive reach — like Biaoqingbao, a Chinese reaction-image format featuring a panda with real human facial expressions and Mandarin text, or Pepe the Frog, a once-simple comic character that’s now used in all kinds of internet subcultures, often with very different meanings.

It’s fair to say that in today’s world, if a character is visually striking or emotionally resonant, its popularity will likely grow through digital channels rather than traditional physical ones — especially with how fast everything spreads now and how globalized internet culture has become.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERCEPTION AND MARKETING

When creating a cute character, there are usually some rules that are followed and rarely deviated from. Often, you have to give the character more child-like features — like a larger forehead, bigger eyes, and smaller overall proportions. These traits are commonly associated with cuteness and are considered standard in character design.

However, cuteness isn’t a fixed or binary concept. It often depends on how the viewer perceives it. What one person finds cute, another might find unsettling or even repulsive. A good example of this from animation is the character Stitch. He’s not conventionally cute — with sharp teeth and chaotic behavior — but he still has an endearing quality. He plays pranks on the people around him, gets scolded by Lilo, and eventually becomes part of her family. All of that swings him back around into being considered cute and loveable, making him feel more well-rounded and memorable as a character.

Another example is Baby Yoda from the Disney+ series The Mandalorian. The character is perceived as cute by many fans, especially those already invested in the franchise. His small size, big eyes, and awkward behavior contribute to this, even though — technically — he looks like an elderly alien with wrinkles and grey hair. Despite that, his proportions follow the basic principles of "cute design." Still, some people find him unsettling or not cute at all. And that just reinforces how subjective this perception really is.

An example of a product line that tries to capitalize on cuteness is Funko Pops — a widely marketed brand of collectible figurines that all share the same general style. Most of them have beady black eyes, oversized square heads, and minimal detail. Aside from a few that resemble the original characters more closely, the majority of them look almost identical. Personally, I don’t find them appealing at all — I honestly don’t understand the hype.

But despite my own opinion, Funko Pops are massively popular in many fandom spaces. Some people dedicate entire walls of their rooms to displaying them. I’d argue that while they technically follow the standard “cute” proportions — big head, tiny body — they end up looking more soulless than anything else. They’re garish, flat, and barely even resemble the characters they’re based on. The dead black eyes only make that worse.

People are buying them not because they’re genuinely desirable, but because they’re cheap and accessible. High-quality statues or collectibles from favorite franchises are often expensive, especially in the current economy. Funko offers an affordable alternative — even if the end result looks nothing like the source material.

YouTooz is a brand similar to Funko, but it stands apart in a few key ways. They also sell licensed characters at an affordable price, but unlike Funko Pops, I can actually understand the appeal. The designs often resemble the original characters much more closely. While they use a distinct facial style for branding, it still fits the character most of the time. And with some figures, they even go out of their way to create unique facial expressions — which makes them look way better, especially for the price.

A comparable product in Japan would be Nendoroids. Funko has started licensing anime characters, but the result still looks awful due to the rigid "Funko face." Meanwhile, Nendoroids — at roughly the same price — capture the character designs much more accurately. They look good, they’re fun to pose, and they feel intentional.

Another example is Q Posket. Most of their figures look cute — though they also use a very uniform face style across the brand. Like YouTooz and Funkos, this makes them look a bit cheap sometimes, but many of them still come out looking really nice and are great additions to a collection. This just shows that while companies aim for cuteness, they don’t always hit the mark. Even when something looks a bit off or strange, it can still find a market — someone will always find it appealing.

One character I think nails this balance is Labubu, created by Hong Kong artist and designer Kasing Lung, and sold through the Chinese retailer Pop Mart. Labubu might be relatively unknown to the wider public, but the character has recently seen an explosive rise in popularity — largely because K-pop idols have been showing them off online. Naturally, their fans picked up on it and followed.

Labubu is a small monster from a fictional tribe of monsters. They come in a wide variety of colors and themes, often using pastel tones, fluffy textures, and cute proportions — usually small enough to carry on a bag or wear as a keychain. Pop Mart is known for selling them in blind boxes, a trend that’s become massive over the last two decades. Pop Mart especially is recognized for it both in China and internationally.

Labubu’s current design fits the general idea of cuteness — big eyes, round shapes, soft fur — but adds a slight “edge” through the sharp teeth and chaotic energy. They often play pranks on each other and behave mischievously, which makes them endearing. The original design was a bit less cute — taller, with a square-shaped head and smaller eyes. As the character gained popularity, the design evolved to better fit current trends.

This is another great example of "non-traditional" cuteness — characters that look weird, or even off-putting at first, but still manage to connect with audiences. It shows how flexible the idea of “cute” really is.

Often, when characters are created just to look cute — with no story, personality, or deeper traits — they end up feeling flat. They’re just one-dimensional cash grabs. Again, Funko Pops come to mind: licensed characters stripped of what made them interesting in the first place. It’s rare to find one that actually looks appealing.

But when a character has some sort of emotional grounding — a backstory, a personality, or even just a relatable trait — it makes them feel more alive. Take Gudetama, the lazy egg, or Rilakkuma, the bear who just wants to chill. They’re cute, yes, but they’re also deeply relatable. And that’s what makes people want to buy them.

The more human traits a character has, the easier it is for people to connect — and the more likely they are to invest in that character, whether that means a small plush toy or an entire themed room.

Japan, especially in the post-war era, has become something of a cultural anomaly. On the one hand, it’s quite isolated, with very specific traditions and values. But on the other hand, it acts like a megaphone, pushing its soft power — cultural influence — far beyond its borders. Their cultural exports, especially visual ones, reach even the most remote parts of both western and eastern countries.

This is especially true when it comes to character branding. When a character becomes popular in Japan or other countries with strong cultural presence — like South Korea with its K-Pop industry — it often triggers a ripple effect. Take Miffy for example. Without the Japanese market, she might have stayed just a well-loved children’s book character in her home country. But Japan picked her up, licensed her, more than a character from picture books — she became a brand, a symbol, and even a part of pop culture over there. And thanks to that boom in Japan, her recognition in other countries grew, too. She’s now seen as a foundational figure in "kawaii" culture, despite not being Japanese in origin.

The same thing happened with the Moomins. A Japanese animation executive once approached Tove Jansson, wanting to make her characters the basis of a new cartoon series. While it wasn't the first Moomin adaptation, she still agreed. Honestly, I think without those Japanese animations, the Moomins wouldn’t be nearly as huge as they are today. Visual media — especially animation — just has a wider and more immediate reach, especially for kids. And Japan understood this better than anyone.

Sanrio's characters, being homegrown in Japan, had the advantage from the start. But what’s interesting is how they took that domestic strength and turned it into global appeal. Japan has a kind of freedom with character branding that the West doesn’t seem to have anymore. They take creative risks. Sometimes they fail, but when they succeed, it’s massive. In the West, companies tend to play it safe. They don’t take the same level of risks or lean into characters as hard.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Japan’s soft power helps characters not just survive, but thrive globally. Anime fans in the West actively seek out Japanese culture, which naturally leads them to brands like Sanrio, or characters like Miffy and the Moomins — even if those weren’t originally Japanese. A character that gets big in Japan usually ends up getting big everywhere else too, or at the very least, stays relevant longer than expected.

Japan has cafés, themed stores, full-on brand universes for these characters. They take them seriously. Meanwhile, in the West, we often treat characters like sidekicks to products — just a tool to sell cereal or snacks. In Japan, the character is the brand. And maybe that’s the secret to their success.

Conclusion

In the end, cuteness is a matter of perspective. What one person finds adorable, someone else might think is ugly or off-putting. But when it comes to character branding, appearance alone isn't enough. What really matters is the personality, the backstory, and how relatable the character is. A cute design might grab attention, but it's the emotional connection that makes people stay.

We see this play out with things like Funko Pops. They’ve become easy targets for criticism lately — and I get it. I don’t find them appealing either. They all look the same, soulless, with those dead little eyes. But despite that, they still dominate the market. Not because they’re good — but because they’re cheap and accessible. People want to collect something tied to what they love, and most detailed figures are just way too expensive for the average fan.

Then you’ve got examples like Labubu. A weird little monster that somehow works. It’s strange, slightly creepy, but also adorable in its own way. And that’s the point — unconventional designs can work when they have personality and charm. Same with Gudetama, or Rilakkuma. They’re simple, cute, but they also reflect something real. People relate to Gudetama’s laziness or Rilakkuma’s chill attitude. That relatability sells.

What also can’t be ignored is how massively influential the Japanese market is. Characters like Miffy or the Moomins might’ve stayed small, local icons — but Japan embraced them, adapted them, and gave them a platform that pushed them into global consciousness. Japan's willingness to invest in characters — to build worlds around them, give them merch, shows, cafés — that’s what makes the difference.

Meanwhile, in the West, brands have started to feel hollow. It’s like the soul has been stripped out, replaced with generic logos and faceless mascots. Japan still sees characters as the heart of branding — not just a gimmick. And I think that’s something we seriously need to learn from. Their approach isn’t perfect, but it’s passionate, and most of all, it works.

Characters cross boundaries — language, culture, age. They speak to people in ways that ads and logos just can’t. That’s why they last. That’s why they’re powerful. It’s also why, as an illustrator, I’ve come to realize how important character design really is. This whole process — writing this, thinking it through — has helped me better understand what kind of work I want to create, and how I want to connect with others through it.

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