singlebraincelledgoat

[singlebraincelledgoat]

So this was suppose to be some quick expression/style tests.. I only got slightly carried away

Btw 7n7, 8o8, and 6w6’s glasses match the head shape of their respective kids (it’s the main reason why I gave 6w6 glasses knowing they don’t canonically have any. Just thought I’d continue the theme)

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A few lmk au doodles

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Lighting/Artstyle practice ITS THEM <3

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ITS HERE ITS FINALLY DONE My first fully animated music video!! Ive worked tirelessly on this for the past 6 months so please give it some love!!

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That Rift that’s Metamorphic

I finally drew Metamorphic Rift stuff for the 5 MR fans out there

I’ll just rapid fire some fun facts:

In MR, Nuwa is very much still alive and active. So the whole self sacrifice plot is not happening in MR (at least from what we’ve planned)

Instead, Sky is a celestial primate made in replacement of Macaque. Since there were suppose to be four

We made an observation that only celestial primates had the power to kill each other. So Sky could’ve also been used as leverage against WuKong

If WuKong didn’t discover her existence, mess it all up, and get her to live a normal mortal life instead

So most of the late season plot lines revolve around people trying to take advantage of the fact Sky is a young naive celestial primate in disguise who has the power to kill his mentor

Also unlike Mei, River can turn into a dragon. It’s a rare to see it though since her family keep their dragon ancestry a secret

I’d love to do a more in depth (pun unintended) chapter where they visit Ao Guang and River has a more heart to heart with her great great x1000 grand uncle.

Please ignore how I was convinced for a while “yam” was a type of sheep for a hot minute. Wdym it’s not 💔

And ofc, I can’t forget to credit @starstrvckfool for designing MR Wukong and helping brainstorm some of this stuff

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Art dump of sorts :3

1. Past wukong

2. M.R Lore doodle

3. Macaque design

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It’s about time I show this here too but! I’m working on a Roblox game!

It s survival mascot horror game ( yes I know haha) that has Style and Gameplay inspiration off of Cuphead, Bendy, Poppy’s Playtime and the classic Roblox game: Minus elevation,

With a BUNCH of other game inspos like FNAF, Welcome home and Dandy’s world

We have a kickstarter that thankfully hit the goal, a tiktok and a twitter page. We also have a discord and wiki page! If this seems like something that would interest you, check it out :3

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Big 3 in Chinese Mythology (in popularity).

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Wow okay

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When visit Nezha's Ancestral Temple, make sure to offer him sweet and snack.

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HELLO LMK / JTTW / ART COMMUNITY!

I dont usually do this, but @mutebisworld is a human rights activist who needs all the help she can get!

Howen is a transwoman in a refugee camp as she had to flee her home country Uganda and seek asylum in a more hostile country in South Sudan (Gorom settlement camp). She is currently seeking for any form of help,as she lacks BASIC NEEDS and SHELTER in the camp she resides in.

Please donate to the Gofundme so she can survive and go to a much more safer country where she can express herself without any discrimination,and live the life she deserves!

Reblogs appreciated!!

[singlebraincelledgoat]

So guess where I’ve been

Yeah I watched the second COTG movie and it’s taken over my life. If I had a nickel for every time I got violently fixated on a sequel media about Chinese mythology that received a lot of mixed reviews because of certain animation styles and possible budget cuts mainly because it had NeZha I’d have 2 nickels

*looks at LMK s5*

Anyways, I guess we doing art dumps now

You know I got a bit worried if I was deviating too much with my design of Yin Jiao’s 3 head 6 arm form, but given what he looked like in the actual movie I think I can implore a little self indulgence (every time I draw him I think of sharks and I think it shows a little lol)

Also Yin Jiao and NeZha have a lot of parallels that I’ve been absolutely eating up (NeZha stop taking other people’s backstories and looks in mythology challenge /j). Also would love to see NeZha and Lei Zhenzi interact more as the only kids on the immortal team. Also the only guys on the team who can fly, you can't tell me they wouldn't have taken advantage of that

I’m definitely not qualified to do any sort of rewrite of these movies, but I’m all for ending the trend of cutting the Huang family out of FSYY media when they’re so pivotal to the original novel. TianHua come back, they loosing it without you...

And some final miscellaneous doodles

I saw Yang Jian, Ji Fa, and Yin Jiao all get shipped together frequently and honestly I heavily fw the poly version of them. Yin Jiao has 3 heads to kiss after all /j (what would their poly ship name be? JianJiaoFa???)

Also please ignore how bad my Ji Fa design is, I'm still trying to figure out how to draw him

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Trivia collection: Nezha in the Tang-Song period

Quick primer: Nezha originates from an Indian deity that gets incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon and imported into China via the spread of Buddhism, then becomes progressively more sinicized + Daoist-ized as a popular folk deity.

Neither his iconography nor backstories stay the same throughout this long process of localization and syncretism, and the vernacular novels that define his modern popular image come relatively late in Nezha's evolution.

This post focuses on Nezha in the Tang-Song period——when he first appeared in translated ritual texts + when the "returning his flesh and blood" thing showed up in written sources.

...

-Before we get to the defining early ritual texts, we must start with the brief mentions of Nezha/Nalakuvara in translated Buddhist scriptures.

-The earliest mention of Nalakuvara as the son of Pishamen, a.k.a. Vaisravana, appeared in the Northern-Southern dynasty translation of Buddhacharita (佛所行赞). Here, he is not refered to using transliterations that have "Na/Nezha" as its first two characters, but as Naluo Jiupo.

-In Bhaiṣajya-vastu, one section of Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinayapiṭaka (根本说一切有部毗奈耶药事), Nezha is brought up in a conversation between Sakyamuni and Ananda. Sakyamuni basically pointed at a mountain and said "100 years after my death, two brothers——Nezha and Pozha——will come along and build a temple here".

-Other scriptures described him as a Yaksha general (in 不空羂索神变真言经), a Devaraja (in 大佛顶陀罗尼), or a "ghost/demon king" (in 吽迦陀野仪轨).

I suppose you can find reasoning for all these readings in the Indo-Buddhist deity he's based on:

1)Nalakuvara the original is the son of Kubera. Vaisravana is either Kubera's epithet or his father.

2) In the Atharva Veda and Satapatha Brahmana, Kubera/Vaisravana rules over either evil spirits or Rakshas.

3) Yaksha/Raksha being among his subjects kinda carried over to the Mahabharata and Ramayana too, in which he's a wealth god who ruled over the city of Lanka, before his half-brother, Ravana, comes along and forced him to move out.

(Nalakuvara also had a wife in Ramayana. Ravana assaulted her, and he put a curse onto Ravana in response.)

4) Buddhism incorporated Kubera into their pantheon as a guardian deity under the name Vaisravana: here, he is the Devaraja of the North and lord of the Yakshas.

5) Because the Indian sources don't have a consensus on whether Nalakuvara's father is a Yaksha/Raksha or a god either, the translated scriptures also can't agree on the specific details of Nezha other than him being a guardian deity.

-It is in Tang Buddhist texts about Pishamen worship that Nezha's status as Pishamen's third son becomes more firmly established.

-However, there are actually 2 different variants of his relation to Pishamen: one said he was Pishamen's grandson, while the other said he was Pishamen's third son.

-The first variant is from Amoghavajra's translation of a ritual text, 北方毗沙门天王随军护法仪轨. In this text, he wields a halberd, "sees all four directions with his fierce eye" (尔时哪吒太子，手捧戟，以恶眼见四方), and will bonk monks and nuns over the head with his vajra club for harboring wicked and murderous thoughts.

-In this text, he is also described as a protector of kings and officials, a subduer of the wicked, and has a mantra one can recite.

-The second variant is found in two other Pishamen-related texts translated by Amoghavajra, 北方毗沙门天王随军护法真言 and 毗沙门仪轨.

-Apart from being Pishamen's third son, both texts also give him the role of pagoda-carrier. In the latter text, it is mentioned that the 21th day of every month is when he hands the pagoda back to his father.

-Another Tang source, 开天传信记, features a story where Nezha protects Xuan Lv, disciple of Śubhakarasiṃha, from a fall, introduces himself as Pishamen's son, and presents a Buddha tooth relic to the Buddhist master.

-He's described as a "youth" here, but honestly, 少年 could refer to anything between a young teen and a young adult. This story has an earlier predecessor in Ennin's travel diary, where he also mentioned Nezha giving a tooth relic to a monk.

-Finally for the Tang dynasty, there is a specific genre of Dunhuang paintings called "Heavenly King Pishamen arrives at Nezha's banquet". Usually, the painting is located on the west wall of the painting cave's antechamber.

[Mogao Cave 146, main chamber ceiling, northwestern corner. Nezha is likely the small figure on the left, clasping his palms together over his head.]

One Dunhuang text, the P.3564 Mogao Cave Merit Records from 933 CE, gives some context on the aforementioned genre: Pishamen goes to Nezha's banquet, but he either arrives late or not a lot of people show up, and Nezha gets so angry that he's ready to stab Pishamen with a sword, until Pishamen reveals that Amitabha is inside his palm and he cheers up again.

-Based on other inscriptions in Cave 72 where the "Nezha Banquet" paintings are titled as "Amitabha Enters the Pagoda and Arrives at Nezha's Banquet" and "Heavenly Lord Pishamen Invites Amitabha into the Pagoda for Nezha's Banquet", we can make some guesses about the above story.

-Perhaps Pishamen promises Nezha that guests/Amitabha will come to his banquet, no one shows up, thus Nezha gets murderously mad at him until Pishamen reveals Amitabha sitting inside his pagoda like a surprise present?

(Sidenote: later, Pishamen gets syncretized with the historical Tang general, Li Jing, and becomes a separate character known as "Devaraja Li". It wasn't a thing in the Tang-Song sources yet, though.)

-Nezha returning his flesh and bone to his parents is a thing that first shows up in Buddhist compendiums of the Song dynasty (景德传灯录，五灯会元) as a Chan riddle. Being a riddle, it just states that he returns his bones to his father, his flesh to his mother, then sits atop a lotus and preached the Buddhist laws to his parents.

-The "return of flesh & bone" may have been a derivative of Nezha's quote in the aforementioned Tooth Relic story, where he's like "I'll even give up my head and eyes, why won't I offer up [the relic]?"

-The way this riddle has been used, though, is very much centered around identity, seeing through the emptiness of the Five Skandas, and the delusion of the false self.

-There's also this Southern Song quote from 如净和尚语录 that described an opera performance scene where Nezha appeared on stage, likely performing the above narrative of "returning his flesh and bones" because he's described as taking off his clothes.

"…十二峰前上戏棚,那咤赤脱点天强。"

-Su Zhe, brother of the famous poet Su Shi, has an entire poem dedicated to Nezha. Here's a translation of the relevant lines, from Meir Shahar's Oedipal God:

The Northern Heavenly King had a son who was mad: He only venerated the Buddha—not his dad. The Buddha, knowing he was crazy and hard to be told, Ordered the father a magic stupa in his left hand to hold. Approaching the Buddha, the child bowed his head, Not unlike revering his dad.

-Aside from that, he's also known in Song sayings and poems for his wrathful demeanor——to the point of often having the adjective "Wrathful" attached to his name (忿怒哪吒).

-Fun fact, the discrepancy between Nezha having 6 arms or 8 arms appears in this period too, though 8 arms are the more commonly accepted version in textual sources.

-Lastly, a story from the Southern Song compendium Yijian Zhi mentions Daoist Master Cheng from the Mt. Mao tradition using Nezha's Fireball Spell to defeat a stone demon. This may be the first appearance of a Daoist-ized Nezha.

TL;DR: Nezha in the Tang-Song period was very much a Buddhist guardian deity who miiiight also be a Yaksha general, most well-known for his wrathful demeanor and multi-headed, multi-armed form.

The earliest mentions of the "Returning of flesh and bones" also don't have its later association with filial piety/father-son conflict, and is mostly a Chan Buddhist riddle.

Bibliography:

付方彦，《哪吒形象流变研究》

郭俊叶，《托塔天王与哪吒——兼谈敦煌毗沙门天王赴哪吒会图》

李小荣, 《那吒故事起源补考》

刘文刚，《哪吒神形象演化考论》

罗俊，《符号学视角下中国古代哪吒形象的演变》

任婧,《从无名氏到大英雄：论哪吒形象的演变与东传》

Shahar, Meir. Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and His Indian Origins. University of Hawai'i Press, 2015.

王彦明，《哪吒话头的禅林传播与明清小说的多元互动》

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🐍✨The Year of the Snake slithers in!✨🐍

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The FSYY Body Count List

…Because when you are trying to procrastinate an assignment, you'll focus your attention on anything that isn't the assignment, no matter how strange the subject matter is.

So here is a list of the individual Chan juniors' body count during the course of the FSYY novel. Fantastic creatures (non-sapient, not yaoguais that have cultivated a human form, but aren't regular animals either) are listed separately.

Nezha: 15 characters

-Li Gen the Yaksha (Qiankun Ring to the head)

-Ao Bing (pulled off steed with sash, Qiankun Ring to the head, tendons pulled out)

-Verdant Cloud Boy (archery accident)

-Yao Shaosi (speared)

-Colored Cloud Immortal (speared)

-Deng Zhong (knocked off steed with Qiankun Ring, then speared)

-Ji Li (speared)

-Li Qi (knocked down with ring, speared)

-Pong Hong (knocked down with ring, speared)

-Wang Bao (knocked off steed with ring, speared)

-Ma Zhong (incinerated by the Nine Fire Dragon Bell Cover)

-Long Anji (knocked down by a ring better than his, speared)

-Gao Lanying (didn't get her needles out in time, knocked down, speared)

-Ding Ce (killed by the Qiankun Ring)

-Lu Renjie (knocked off his steed by the Qiankun Ring in a fatal blow)

Note: I didn't count the Colored Cloud Boy, Lady Shiji's other disciple that gets bonked by the Qiankun Ring, because his death is never confirmed, even though he was already "struggling for his life on the ground" when Shiji comes out of the cave.

Yang Jian: 13 characters, 2 creatures

-Chen Jiugong (speared)

-Zhou Xin (Skyhowler'ed, then chopped in half)

-Bi Huan (Skyhowler'ed, then speared)

-Wen Liang (tried to escape after being bricked by Nezha, got hit in the shoulder by Yang Jian's slingshot, fell off his horse, and died)

-Yu Hua (Leizhen Zi knocked him off his steed, Yang Jian finished him off with his polearm)

-Zhang Kui's mom (indirectly, he tricked Zhang Kui into killing her via transformation arts)

-Chang Hao (Yang Jian transformed into a flying centipede, snipped its head off, reverted to his true form, chopped up the snake, then incinerated it with Five Thunder Arts)

-Wu Long (Yang Jian turned into a golden rooster and pecked it to pieces)

-Yang Xian (tried to flee after seeing Yang Jian turn into a tiger, chopped in half)

-Dai Li (Skyhowler'ed, then speared)

-Guo Chen (speared)

-Lei Kun (speared)

-The Nine-headed Pheasant Demoness (indirectly: Skyhowler'ed, then decapitated by Zhou soldiers on the execution ground under Yang Jian's watch)

Creatures: 

The Flower Fox Ferret, Mo Lishou's monstrous pet (Yang Jian burst out of its body after being eaten, tearing it into two halves in the process)

The One-horned Black Smoke Beast, Zhang Kui's magical steed (indirectly, same as Zhang Kui's mom)

Huang Tianhua: 7 characters

Chen Tong (Fire Dragon Dart sucked into Tianhua's flower basket, then decapitated by the beam of the Moye Sword)

The Four Mo Brothers (killed by the Heart-piercing Nail)

Yu Qin (killed by the Fire Dragon Dart)

Chen Geng (knocked off steed by the Fire Dragon Dart, then decapitated)

Yang Ren: 6 characters

Fang Yizhen (incinerated by the Five Fire Fan)

Li Ping (caught in the fan's AOE while trying to persuade Lv Yue)

Chen Geng (incinerated by the fan)

Lv Yue (incinerated by the fan)

Yu Xian & Yu Zhao (incinerated together)

Leizhen Zi: 5 characters

Xin Huan (Skyhowler'ed, then finished off by Leizhen Zi with a staff to the head)

Zhou Xin (Staff to the head)

Peng Zun (knocked off his steed via a staff to the shoulder, then decapitated)

Yu Guang (staff to the head)

Lei Peng (KO'ed with staff)

Huang Tianxiang: 4 characters

Feng Lin (speared)

Tao Rong (speared)

Gou Zhang (speared)

Gao Gui (speared)

Wei Hu: 4 characters

Yang Wenhui (Demon-subduing Club to the head)

Yu Da (clubbed)

Zhang Kui (clubbed)

Jade Pipa Demoness (indirectly: decapitated by soldiers under his supervision)

Jinzha: 3 characters

Wang Mo (immobilized by the Dragon Stake, then killed with a sword)

Yang Sen (immobilized by Dragon Stake, killed with sword)

Dou Rong (indirectly: Jinzha immobilized him with the Dragon Stake, but Jiang Wenhuan made the killing blow)

Muzha: 2 characters

Li Xingba (killed with one of Muzha's twin flying swords)

Lady Chedi (killed with twin flying sword)

...

Final Thoughts

-If you count the creatures, Nezha and Yang Jian's kill counts will be equal, though several of Yang Jian's kills are indirect.

-Jiang Ziya: tfw your logistic guy, responsible for overseeing the supply line, has a body count as high as your designated army vanguard.

-Yeah, Yang Jian's official job in the Zhou army is the Grain Transport Officer. I think it really fits his personality——the clever, ruthless trickster who's also a mature, polite disciple.

-Though Leizhen Zi's kill counts can't match Nezha and Yang Jian, there are multiple descriptions of him knocking down whole sections of the city wall with a single staff strike. Maybe he's the anti-fortification specialist of the team or something. /lh

-Huang Tianhua: the ranged attacker who keeps trying to be a melee DPS. /j

-For real though, he seems to rely a lot more on the Fire Dragon Darts from a slain foe, and when the Heart-piercing Nail is used after the Mo brothers' demise, it only ends up going straight through Xin Huan's wing and the Winged Immortal's right arm.

-Yang Ren always gives me the impression of a soft-spoken bureaucrat who gradually discovered his inner pyromaniac after receiving the Five Fire Fan.

-My list is only counting the named characters, but everyone on this list who's still alive during the Ten Thousand Immortal Formation Arc are described as unleashing their might and treasures during the battle.

-Considering the AOE effects of some of these treasures, they probably send a lot more filler NPCs into the Investiture. 

-BTW, there are 152 names on the Investiture who are labelled as having died in the Ten Thousand Immortal Formation. 124, if you leave out the 28 Lunar Mansions, who are killed by the 4 Immortal Swords seized from Patriarch Tongtian's previous formation.

-How many percent of those 124 kills each Chan Sect participant is responsible for is up to your imagination.

-Forget about the Nezha age discourse——Huang Tianxiang was probably about 10 when he made his first kill, since the text described his head as "still bald". If I remember correctly, in the Ming dynasty, before 10, most children had their heads shaved completely bald, or leaving only a few patches of hair tied up in a braid/bun.

-He's also 14 when he made his third kill, and 17 when he was executed by Qiu Yin. Four chapters prior, Huang Tianhua died to Gao Jineng.

-Jinzha and Muzha: tfw your total kill counts combined is only a third of your little brother's.

-The one detail I've observed is that Jinzha ends up rescuing/attempting to rescue Nezha, Huang Tianhua, Jiang Ziya, and Tianhua again (together with Muzha) after they get knocked down.

-I feel kinda bad for Muzha when I look at the numbers. He does cut off one of Lv Yue's arms after recovering from his first plague attack, though.

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FSYY concept art

Wanna know what the definition of insanity is? Trying to figure out what over 350+ characters look like in an ancient Chinese novel cause oh my god why are there so many characters how did anyone keep track of them

Anyways, I’m slowly but surely making it down the roster

Starting with one of my niche favorites from this novel, Lei Zhenzi. That one guy who ate the apricots that happened to turn you into a thunder bird

In a lot of modern adaptations, he’s more monstrous in his looks and personality. I’ve watched a movie where he was basically China’s version of the Hulk (it’s called The First Myth Clash of Gods. Not the best movie but it’s a huge guilty pleasure to me I love it lol)

He’s not like that in the book at all, in fact he’s kinda a fail girl in my eyes. I wanted to lean towards an interpretation where he may be this huge bird person (I’d imagine he towers over most of the other generals. Maybe like 6’8-7ft tall), but he’s still a little self conscious about it all. He can’t get around without making at least one stranger panicked at the sight of him. He was a person at birth, but his circumstances have completely changed everything

Also, I think he has the most underrated power concepts. I wanted to base him off of paragon falcons because imagine this guy diving straight at you at 240 mph with a trail of lightning behind him. I think a lot of Shang soldiers have described him as a sentient lightning bolt with how quick he is

Next is the Huang family! Which have more people so this yap session is gonna be way longer. Buckle up lol

I always saw Huang Feihu as this serious and commanding general, but he’s also that sweet old guy who’d drop the hardest wisdom when you needed it. It’s what makes him really generally well liked

Like when NeZha rescues him and his family, he expresses a lot of subtle gratitude to this stranger that just saved his family’s lives. NeZha, a little unused to this kind of affection, brushes it off initially. But it leaves a lasting impression that eventually leads to him really connecting with the rest of the family

Feihu really be pulling his weight as a single dad of 4 + NeZha /j

I know Lady Jia narratively serves as motivation for the Huang family to rebel, but if there’s one thing I’m known for it’s giving female characters all my attention like they deserve

I think Lady Jia is a foil to her husband. Where he was serious but sweet, she was sweet but serious. Always polite and quiet, but was very stubborn and more prideful. You could not get her to do something she didn’t want to

All their kids got their mother’s pride, especially after her death. Imagine being TianXiang, about 7 at the time, suddenly being thrusted into rebellion and grieving the lost of his mom. TianXiang stronger than me, I would not have survived

I was listening to the Ithica saga when I made these concepts, so I may have had a few EPIC Telemechus thoughts put onto him lol. TianXiang mainly takes after his dad, carrying a much stronger empathy that stems from him. He was a kid, so he did kid shenanigans even in the Zhou camps and any neighboring villages. But he’s got his father’s charm, how could you say no to him? Especially with everything going on

As for TianHua, he takes after his mom mainly. A prideful hothead who wants to do great things. I got a little confused about his origin in the translation I read, but I think he was taken away from his family by his master when he was like 3. Which means he never got a chance to connect with his mom as when he joins the rebellion she was long dead (oough imagine how jarring it was for him to come back only to be the brother that most resembles their mom)

Ultimately, their pride and emotions were what lead to the Huang family’s downfall. TianHua, in his pride and stubbornness to fight, ignores his master’s warning of his fate. His father and brothers next, fighting both the Shang army and their own grief over loosing another family member. And finally TianXiang, his pride to his family making him unwilling to acknowledge the Shang dynasty. Plus, he’s the last living member of his family, what is there to loose?

God this bloodline is so doomed…

I was gonna yap more about them all but I think I’ve already written a lot lmao. Maybe I’ll save some of those thoughts for another post

[singlebraincelledgoat]

IM SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE

I learned an entire month later that the trailers for Creation of the Gods 2 were out… AND COME OUT THIS MONTH. WHAT

Hype was so sigh I was willing to power through a barely functioning half-banned CapCut to try editing again after half a year

also bonus doodle. I heard people were shipping COTG Deng Chanyu with YangJian. Not sure to where but whatever /j