#You know the thing when you Google for a specific reference and it doesn't show up

[screwpinecaprice]

While venturing an ancient gem temple, they stumbled upon a modified light that can corrupt humans! Connie was able to fully move Steven out of the beam's range by pushing him off the stairs.

Commissioned by TheTinman1996! Thank you for commissioning!! 😁

[project-sekai-facts]

Project SEKAI 4th anniversary: Brand New Your World - recap post

Much like last year, I thought it would be useful to make one long post recapping all of the information about the 4th anniversary updates. Even if there won't be as many major updates and changes as last year, we still will be receiving news about other related projects like the movie during the anniversary thanksgiving festival, so I'll be recapping that too.

Note that all of this applies to the JP server only.

Official site link

Before we start, the next Broadcast Station episode will be held on the 27th, featuring Isobe-san, Jiena, Imai-san, and Daichan. It will be broadcast live from the Thanksgiving Festival. Related event speculation will be done in a separate post, and the stream itself can be found here.

Section 1 - Game Updates

Most game updates will be announced during the aforementioned Broadcast Station stream, but some things have already been announced, such as:

Virtual lives (after lives/holiday lives) will now be held every hour, cutting the long wait times between some showings.

You will now be able to collect character rank XP for an entire unit in one go, rather than going to each member's page individually.

Calendars for songs and events will be released in advance, so we finally will actually know in advance what days songs are being added and what days events will run (though by the sounds of things, event lineups will be kept a secret outside of the unit).

Broadcast Station News

A new game mode has been added, called MYSEKAI. It's an Animal Crossing-esque side game that will be available through the main app. More details on this will be in section 6.

A story completion progress tracker will be added. You can earn crystals and gacha tickets based on your progress

You can now earn gacha tickets through Clearing and Full Comboing songs on different difficulty levels. These can only be claimed on the first time you clear/FC a song of each difficulty from 15 to 37. Autoplay doesn't count and you can earn up to 140 tickets.

All Kizuna ranks will be added! All of them! However, the new ones will not have specific titles or unlockables for levelling up the rank. Instead you will be given a title that says "X & Y Fan". The unlockables will be implemented when relevant.

You can now autoplay during Challenge Show. You will also be able to get CH show rewards up to a score of 2.5 million, as well as increase CH rank up to level 150

Project SEKAI is opening a store on their official website. You will be able to buy gems and get some freebies by using it. You will have to use your apple/google account to sign in. By the sounds of things this will replace the in-game crystal shop

Max character rank has been increased to 160, and as always new titles for max player rank and daily login will be added

As per the norm, character rank missions will be increased

Live bonus has been reworked. You will now be able to recover up to 15 bonus energy naturally (the limit is currently 10), and you will be able to overfill the meter to 999 instead of 99. Bonus energy's effect on event pts will also be reworked, refer to the chart below for the new bonuses

It will now be easier to obtain another vocal tickets. Their cost has been reduced in the event exchange and wish piece exchange, and two tickets will be given out from character rank and birthday lives. However, to balance this, the cost of a solo alt vocal has been changed to two tickets. The amount of another vocal tickets you own will be adjusted accordingly in the update.

Fes cards will now count as event bonus towards the event they were released alongside. E.g, the Rui and Rin Bloom Fes cards will count as event bonus for the upcoming Nene event.

The rewards earned from completing the tutorial will be increased. Existing users will be compensated accordingly.

You will now be able to exchange limited gacha tickets for wish pieces

All stories will now be fully voiced, even for faceless NPCs. Currently unconfirmed if this will apply retroactively

Starting from October, the number of random rerun limited gachas will decrease to one. This is because they ran out of gachas to rerun.

Birthday gacha reruns have been reworked. Rather than rerunning all past birthday cards separately, they will now be lumped into one gacha.

Kizuna rank for Honami/Mafuyu, Saki/Mizuki, and Haruka/Len implemented

Section 2 - Campaigns

Here's a list of all the campaigns and gachas that will be running over the next few weeks.

Fortune Flower Parade

This campaign will be held from September 30th for one month

You will be able to collect Fortune Flowers and Petals from event exchange, live missions, and stamp missions.

You will be able to exchange those items for some other special items, such as costumes, skill up scores that will instantly max out your skill, Character Rank XP vials, and some special wish jewels (i'm not exactly sure of their purpose but they have a unique design)

There are six different colours of petals and each can be obtained through different methods and be exchanged for different items. Refer to the chart below

Present 4 You

To celebrate the fourth anniversary, four presents will be given out to players

Present 1: Five 4* guaranteed gacha tickets will be given out to all players. These will also replace the 3* tickets for any new players.

Present 2: All another vocals will be released on youtube for two weeks. You will also receive two another vocal tickets for every character.

Present 3: There will be an in-game survey asking players to pick their three most wanted prizes from a list for the next couple days. The three most picked prizes will be awarded at a later date.

Present 4: There will be a prize giveaway on twitter. For following their twitter and retweeting the campaign post, there's a chance to win some prizes (they're really random like a gopro and a coffee machine lol).

Other campaigns and gachas

Login campaign: Earn up to 5000 gems and 7 10-pull tickets from logging in for a week after the anniversary.

Operation Welcome to SEKAI will run again

Special Prize gacha: a gacha where you can earn prizes the more you pull in it. This will run between the 28th and 30th of September. It will also have doubled 4* rates.

Stamp missions and paid costume gachas as per the usual

Happiness Package gacha

Limited edition select list and memorial select list (same as last year)

Section 3 - Songs

Anniversary Song

The fourth anniversary song has been announced! The title is Neppu and it was produced by kemu! Below is kemu’s comment on the song (via @/pjsekai_eng on Twitter).

Song Campaign

The song campaign hint sheet has been revealed, and actually has hints again for the first time in a while. The answers will be revealed during broadcast station on the 27th.

Note: blank tiles include special characters

Answers

Mozaik Role -Reloaded- by DECO*27 (L/n cover + 3DMV)

Mesmerizer by 32ki

Kisaragi Attention by JIN (MMJ cover)

Main Character by *Luna

Call Boy by syudou (BAD DOGS cover)

Kimi to Boku no Resonance by nanameueP

Tensei Ringo by PinocchioP (WxS cover)

Blackjack by YuchaP

Shadow Shadow by Azari (N25 cover + 3DMV)

Outside of the campaign, we also have Cat Food by doriko covered by MMJ + Miku.

This year's high-difficulty commission has also been announced. The song is called Seimeisei Syndrome and was produced by Camellia. It will have a master difficulty of 33 and an append difficulty of 36. A preview can be viewed in the livestream archive (for some reason it was not uploaded to Twitter).

Section 3 - Lives

4th live

Project SEKAI's 4th live was announced last month, titled Unison!! The live will be held in two locations: Osaka on December 13th-15th, and Tokyo on January 24th-26th!

A PV can be found here!

The official account for all information about the live is, as always, @/pjsekai_live on Twitter.

Here are some close-ups of the group artwork above, as well as some chibi artworks. The costumes used as the ones that will be available from the Fortune Flower exchange.

A video teaching player the glowstick movements and chants for I'm Mine has also been posted to Youtube!

Connect live

A connect live to celebrate the fourth anniversary has been announced. It is titled Brilliant Stage and will be held on the 6th of October! There will also be a "meet and greet" session after the two performances of the live, similar to Resonance Beats. A short login story to commemorate the live will be available on October 5th & 6th.

A medley of previously unperformed songs will be performed during this connect live. The songs were given as Aioi, Hug, Hitsuji ga Ippiki, CYBERPUNK DEAD BOY, and I nandesu.

Section 4 - Event and gacha

The next event will be Carry These Feelings! Dream Stage, a Nene-focused event. Shiho, Airi, and Toya will be the other rateups! The 3* is Ena based on the event logo. Rui and Rin will be featured as the Bloom Fes cards.

The bfes gacha will be Dream Pick, utilising the same system as last year (you get two extra slots to fill). You will also be able to get Fortune Flowers as a reward for pulling on this gacha.

As mentioned earlier, there will also be paid costume gachas. You will be able to earn Fortune Flowers from pulling in these gachas. Here's a preview of the costumes.

Section 5 - Project SEKAI: The Movie

A Project SEKAI movie animated by P.A.WORKS was announced back in July. More information on that can be found here. A new trailer was shown during Broadcast Station, which can be found linked above. Some new character visuals will be posted below, but aside from that, please refer to the linked post which will go into the new information in further detail.

Section 6 - MY SEKAI

MY SEKAI is a new gameplay feature that will be added during the 4th anniversary. It's an Animal Crossing-esque farming/life sim game that you can play using your Virtual Live avatar. You can build you own SEKAI and house and decorate it however you like! You will also be able to talk to chibi versions of the main characters and interact with them, as well as visit your friends' SEKAIs!

Your MY SEKAI will also have a new feature called the transformation machine! This is where you can exchange some of your excess resources into things that are more useful to you (that's right they finally made the materials exchange).

I do not know how much storage or power this will take to run. I am very sorry for your devices.

Section 7 - Misc News

A livestream leading up to the 4th anniversary has been scheduled for 29th September at 11:30pm JST (2:30pm UTC). The stream will feature Chiruriin, Honchan, Akina, Daichan, and Ruirui.

A digest video of the previous Colorful Lives will be shown on Youtube on the 5th of October at 6pm JST (9am UTC). This stream will not be archived, so make sure to catch it!

[flightyalrighty]

Hey you got an advices for a newbie who thinks about doing commissions? :>

And did you have any bad experiences? (You don't have to answer if it is too private)

I won't go into detail for any bad commission experiences, but I can at least tell you what I learned from em in the form of the advice you asked for:

PRICING! When figuring out pricing, ask yourself the following:

What is an hour of my work worth? This question helps you avoid underselling yourself aka selling under minimum wage. You're definitely worth more than that. $20 is a pretty good starting point for folks who aren't too confident in their own stuff.

How long does it take to complete an art piece? Create one sample of every type of commission you want to sell. Time yourself when you make them. Whatever amount of time it takes to create each piece multiplied by the hourly wage you've set for yourself is going to be your base price for each thing ($20 x 2 hours for a full body sketch = $40). You can also use the samples you've made to help advertise in your commission post and show your potential clients what it is they can expect from you!

How should I charge for add-ons? Once again, figure how long something takes, and shoot for something that seems both fair for you and the client. For extra characters or something like a background, for example, I charge an extra 50% of the base price.

PROBLEMATIC CLIENTS! Got a client that doesn't know what they actually want? Too wishy washy? Too nitpicky? There's a solution! Offer a limited amount of revisions. I offer two free ones, personally. Once the client is out of revisions, I charge them 20% for each additional revision, and I MAKE SURE THEY CAN SEE THAT ON THE FORM THEY FILL OUT. That way, clients are encouraged to get their WHOLE idea in order before going to you. No one wants to be charged extra for a mistake they made, after all -- And it's definitely their mistake if they leave out any details they later deem important and want you to fix.

THE AFOREMENTIONED FORM TO BE FILLED! I used Google Forms, personally. It makes your little business look a bit more professional AND it helps you keep track of multiple projects at once, while prompting the clients to give you the info you specifically need (like reference images). It's good!

BE PROFESSIONAL! You're more likely to get repeat customers if you maintain a professional customer service attitude while handling clients, and deliver your work as promptly as you can. Delivering work PROMPTLY is definitely something you need to imagine me circling and underlining. Please do your best to not take, like, a year? To complete a commission? It's a really bad look. Treat it like homework. Give yourself your own little due date to work with.

While we're on that! DEFINITELY send your clients WIPs while you work! Showing that you're making progress is a great way to get feedback from the client before it's too late to change anything, PLUS it keeps their mind at ease about the possibility of you potentially taking their money and running.

KEEP YOURSELF SAFE! Speaking of taking money and running, set up a system that works when it comes to charging clients and delivering the goods. I have been burned in the past and have learned from this. Some artists charge their clients upfront before delivering anything at all. Personally, I'm not a fan of this, because then it leaves the client open to feeling uneasy about possibly getting scammed. Obviously I'm not a scammer, but to lift the weight of that possibility on the minds of my clients, I charge half upfront and half upon completion. This way, I already have SOME money so the client isn't gonna "dine-and-dash" me, and the client, likewise, is holding the other half of the pay in a friendly self-imposed hostage situation. I do recommend this!

I also use Paypal to INVOICE my clients. This way, I have full control over the nature of what I'm charging and can avoid the client accidentally (or maliciously) sending a payment with something in there meant to get my Paypal account shut down. DO NOT WRITE JOKES ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE CHARGING YOUR CLIENT FOR. DO NOT GET YOURSELF IN TROUBLE FOR SOMETHING STUPID.

And this is all the advice I currently have on me! I hope it helps!

[fandom-susceptible]

Moonshadow Culture and Values

So, I've seen a few posts going around that made me wanna do this to sort of explain my interpretation of the choices made by the Moonfam in the context of their culture. I'm just making my own post to avoid starting drama with the people who dislike or hate Ruthari as a result of their behavior, or think that they're poorly written.

Buckle up, because this is a whole essay I should probably clean up and put in a google doc.

(also, while a lot of this is pulled from canon, I've also extrapolated quite a bit. I've tried to make it clear where the line is, and my sources will be at the end to check if you're unsure. If you dislike or disagree with any of the extrapolation, that's your prerogative - it's a fictional show! Have fun with it however you have fun! But I do ask that you have the same courtesy as I've had in making this post, and either keep it to your own blog or respond constructively. Let's keep this a safe space, yeah?)

(Now with important map edit!)

First of all, the thing I see overlooked the most in every post, positive or negative, about the Moonfam is that they aren't human. They are not human and are not coming into this situation with human values or viewpoints. We as a fandom need to stop applying human standards of behavior to non human characters (this is a problem in a lot of fandoms with non humans, honestly). It's something that even comes up in the show, with Callum and Ezran (as they're the ones most often with Rayla) forgetting her cultural background is wildly different from theirs.

So to address some of those cultural values I think it's important to take a look at what we know about Moonshadow elves' history. Some of the furthest history back that we know about is from the Mage Wars, when the continent was split. Humans weren't the only ones displaced by that breach. Moonshadow elves specifically were also forced to leave their native lands, to the point of actively destroying their own settlements and holy places to keep their magic from being tapped and twisted by the humans who would take the land. We don't really talk about it in the show because it's a kids' show (or it was when they introduced this information), but realistically, a shit ton of both humans and Moonshadow elves died in these forced migrations.

Then, looking at a map of Xadia leads us to another point. See where Moonshadow Forest is?

It's right there next to the border with the human kingdoms.

They barely made it into Xadia. Plus look at the geography and ecology of the land they left compared to where they settled. This doesn't seem like an ideal location given where they lived before. Plus, Bloodmoon Huntress informs us that Moonshadow Forest is dangerous even to those who live there. It's not a safe place to live, and yet all of them live there.

There's also something to be said about how the Moonshadow elves have a whole path through lava called the Moonstone Path from their ancestral lands to the Silvergrove, when the military focus of both sides of the Mage Wars are focused further north up the Breach. My guess is that the Moonstone path isn't for assassins sneaking back over the border, especially given how the narrative talks about the violence between the human kingdoms and Xadia until recently. It's mostly been open battles. I'm guessing the Moonstone Path was for the refugees fleeing the Moon Nexus and their old home in the mountains, south of the worst of the fighting, and that's why most elves don't know about it now either.

Also, look at the sheer scale of the other elves' range in comparison to theirs.

Dark blue: Tidebound, which is every coastline in Xadia and out into the ocean

Edit: I'm slightly color blind and just looked at this map on a screen with different color settings. The "gold" I refer to in a minute is the darker of the two yellows. The other yellow appeared green to me. Sorry about that 😅 you can also just look for Lux Aurea in the north and Umber Tor/the Drakewood in the east for context of which is which.

Gold: Sunfire Empire minimum boundaries, they seem to imply its reaches are very large

Green: Earthblood elves that we know of; there's also a population of crystal-connected ones that we don't even know where they live for sure, though my guess would be the mountains beside the Uncharted Forest and the Tidebound Archipelago.

Light blue: Skywing, who have at least two distinct cultures (the Celestials in the north and the nomads who range everywhere) in Xadia

White: Moonshadow, whose society is comprised of a scattered group of villages inside the smallest forest in Xadia.

In addition, Bloodmoon Huntress tells us that those stories that humans tell about elves being blood drinking monsters that eat people are also told in Xadia about Moonshadow elves. Moonshadow elves tell them about The Bloodmoon Huntress. All of this is rooted back to Kim'dael and her Cult of the Blood Moon, a sect of Moonshadow elves from about 300 years ago who did absolutely do that.

(300 years ago is a guess because she was eventually captured by Queen Aditi, but we don't actually have a date that I know of, and Aditi reigned for over a century)

When we think about that in context, it gets a bit dark, doesn't it? To this day, other elves believe that all Moonshadow elves are like that, or at least tell stories about it. Do we really think that they were making exceptions when there actually was substance behind the stories, on a larger scale? Or do we think that when the Sunfire Empire and the dragons hunted down the Cult, they were just hunting whatever Moonshadow elves they could find, because they didn't know or didn't care that there was a difference? And that's not even touching on the decades or perhaps centuries of predation by the Cult on their own kind before they turned towards the rest of Xadia and caught Aditi and Avizandum's attention.

There was also the Shadow-Eater incident, which we only know about through Zubeia's recollection, which consisted of a creature called a Shadow-Eater hunting down the Moonshadow elves of the southern forest and their being unable to protect themselves from it. Avizandum was the one who eventually eliminated it. In the same short story where Zubeia remembers it, though, she refers to the Moonshadow elves as tribes, which is only really interesting because it's not a word we really see used elsewhere in the franchise, even for the nomadic Skywing or the similarly brutal Riders of the Drakewood.

So, the political situation on Xadia's side of the border amongst the elves seems to be as follows:

The mighty Sunfire Empire, which sprawls across much of Xadia and is widely considered to be the most powerful military force on their side of the border. They have multiple cities, though Lux Aurea was the main one and the only one we see on the map (we also only see the Silvergrove on the map because it's the only Moonshadow settlement that matters to the narrative, it's not because others don't exist). They also have outlying villages and variance within their cultures, and are known for their advanced engineering.

The Tidebound, who don't seem to have a unifying government, but do have a couple of overlying cultures. They have several coastline cities and settlements and a thriving maritime civilization, including some who live entirely underwater, and may have been the most chill with humans during the war (they are the source of humans' stories about mermaids and sirens, implying a mix of benevolent and malevolent ones). A significant portion of their population lives entirely out at sea, similarly to their Archdragon Domina Profundis.

The Earthblood elves, who have not one, not two, but at least three different populations. There are the more violently-dispositioned Riders of the Drakewood, another less-explored forest Earthblood population (Terry may be from that one, as he mentions being from the Uncharted Forest but lacks some characteristics typical of the Riders, but we don't know for sure), and the crystal-based Earthblood whose location we haven't been shown yet. They're also said to have the largest population of any type of elf, even more than Sunfire elves, and range the farthest other than the Skywing.

The Skywing nomads can be found anywhere in Xadia at different times, and they have a subculture of the Celestial elves that live in a singular place. The Skywing also are known for some of the most impressive architectural feats in all of Xadia, ranging from the stairs of the Storm Spire, to the Celestial Spire, to the floating city of Innea.

Finally, the Moonshadow tribes, which are isolated to a handful of villages in the smallest forest in Xadia, all of which share an overarching culture and are mere days apart on foot.

So let's think about this for a second.

Moonshadow elves were forced to emigrate from their homeland during the Mage Wars, and likely lost a significant percentage of their population then.

They arrive in Xadia, and they barely make it past the border and they stop. All the other land in Xadia appears to be already largely taken up by other elven civilizations or is somehow inhospitable (i.e. the Midnight Desert), but this particular forest is so afflicted with the dark side of their own arcanum that the Earthblood elves have said "fuck it" and left it alone. It's dangerous. One night every year it's so dangerous even their most skilled warriors could be lost if they make one mistake - and that's in the modern day, with well established villages and safe zones (per Runaan's warning in Bloodmoon Huntress). It was likely worse before they had those.

At some point after this, the Cult of the Blood Moon was founded and began preying on others to extend their own lives. My personal pet theory is that Kim'dael did this because she realized their people were dying out, and she turned to immortality rather than mixing with other elves or just encouraging new generations, but we don't have canon for her reasons really.

The Cult's activities eventually catch the attention of Queen Aditi's Sunfire Empire and the dragons, who turn on the Cult. Stories pin the blame on all of the Moonshadow elves, so it's likely that they were all blamed even then, and the war was launched on the entire Moonshadow Forest until Kim'dael turned herself over to Aditi in hopes of tricking her (and was herself tricked).

And in the modern day, Moonshadow elves are by far the fewest and most isolated elven society, comprised of a few tribes whose settlements are all described as villages - they don't have cities or towns or an overarching government. They're villages that operate on democracy.

After that history, it starts to make perfect sense why abandoning their duty or their companions is the gravest sin they can commit culturally, doesn't it? Especially for a people so deeply connected to the afterlife. They told us in season 1 that Moonshadow elves do not fear death; by season 7, they've elaborated on that to explain that they don't fear death because they know for a fact that death isn't an end. Spirits move on to the next phase of existence, and their magic is so connected to that afterlife that they can summon those spirits back temporarily to conclude unfinished business (such as the Ritual of the New Moon, but Lujanne mentions it used to be done far more commonly when they had access to the Moonhenge). So they'd have no reason to be afraid of dying individually.

But with their numbers so drastically decimated, sacrificing other lives in favor of yours, forcing their families to live with a loss because you were a coward about facing the death that you already know isn't an end for you -

Yeah, it makes sense that's worse in their eyes than personally dying.

It's also likely that Kim'dael surrendering to Aditi didn't fully cool tensions between other elves and the Moonshadow. Assassins came into existence at some point between the Mage Wars and the modern day, and my hunch is that they were the remaining Moonshadow's attempt at containing the Cult. So after Aditi captured Kim'dael, the rest of the Moonshadow were left in a position where everyone considers them bloodthirsty savages and the only warriors they have left are built for precision violence against much stronger enemies that they cannot fight outright. Hence, later service to the dragons and other elves' leaders as assassins. If they don't go along with the more powerful elves and dragons' instructions, if they abandon their obligations to Aditi or Avizandum or Zubeia, what happens to the rest of them? They can't afford to betray or fail their much more powerful neighbors. There's nowhere left for them to retreat to. The humans would kill them, the Earthblood could kill them, the Sunfire or dragons could burn their entire forest to the ground and kill them all too. So they commit. The rest of Xadia believes them to be killers, so they send their killers to serve the rest of Xadia - on pain of death to save the rest of them.

To be very clear, I'm not saying that Moonshadow culture is just okay and we shouldn't criticize it. Their focus on duty and family and the good of the many prioritizes those things to such a degree that suicide is culturally preferable to making mistakes sometimes. That's fucked up! It's harsh! It's flawed! However, given the history we have of them, I can follow the logic of how they got there.

Now thinking about this in the context of the show -

Tiadrin and Lain appeared to abandon their duty, sacrificing a child that isn't their own and not even coming back home to explain themselves (they never show a lotus being connected to the Dragonguard, I'm inclined to believe that's an assassin-specific tradition and they just got the news from Zubeia about what happened). They didn't get a choice about becoming Dragonguard; they were selected by the dragons. So they've left their own child in the care of someone else, only to abandon the other child they were sent to protect, and it wasn't even to come back for their own.

Now we know as viewers that's not what happened, but within the world and their cultural context, that's what their community knows. So they've committed the gravest sin in their culture twice - they've left their child behind, but that was forgivable because they didn't have a choice. But then, they sacrifice another's child, and they didn't even do it for the sake of their own. So they get Ghosted. (I have a whole other post about my theories on Ghosting, but this is getting too long to get into it here).

Runaan and Ethari, who they entrusted their daughter to, take Rayla further into their home as a result. Rayla has already asked to train with Runaan because he's rescued her from her first brush with death, and she's got a bit of hero worship going on. Runaan cautions her about it, and visibly has doubts about his own path in life, but he commits to it because it's what she wants, and his husband reassures him. When Zubeia calls on him as leader of the assassins to take vengeance for her mate and son, he's left with a choice of bringing Rayla along even though he doubts if she's mentally and emotionally ready (he knows she physically is), in order to restore her honor that was stained by her parents' cowardice, or forcing her to stay behind and suffer with their shame for the rest of her life. This is a no-win scenario. Either he brings her on a mission he knows she isn't ready for, and risks her failing and suffering with that, or he forcibly condemns her to living with failures that aren't her own. So either she suffers from Tiadrin and Lain's failures, or from his. So he chooses to bring her, against his husband's advice, and to take on responsibility for it.

And then he fucks up. He tests her by sending her after the guard that witnesses them, and he doesn't follow her. He doesn't make sure she gets the job done. When she comes back and lies about it, and they discover the truth, the rest of their team - their whole cultural view, really - demands that he kill her for this failure, for condemning them all, and he doesn't. They respect him enough not to kill her without his permission, either, even though by lying to them and dooming the mission she has committed the worst crime she possibly could. And I think this choice on Runaan's part is partially the fact that he cares about her as a daughter, but also guilt, because he knows he's the one who backed her into that corner. He put her in that position knowing she wasn't ready for it. It's his fault she failed, not hers. So he just tells her to sit it out, sacrifice her hand if they fail but survive, because she doesn't deserve to die for his sins. She may have to live with the guilt of their deaths, but if he succeeds in this, she will at least get to live longer and go home.

Rayla throws a wrench in this by showing up anyway, and she betrays the mission again by not only holding him up, but insisting on rescuing one of their targets. He still doesn't kill her. He threatens to, but when it comes down to it, he's the one that turns away from the fight, not her, to focus on the mission - which again, if he succeeds in it, means she can go home, she can live with his honor and not her parents' shame, even if he can't.

It doesn't happen that way, obviously, but here's where things get interesting - and complicated - with Ethari.

So from Ethari's perspective, all he knows in the end of season 1 is that the mission isn't done, the other assassins are dead, and Rayla is alive. I think it's a disservice to his character and the rest of the Silvergrove to assume they just didn't notice that Runaan's lotus didn't fully sink; more likely is that a sunk lotus means the assassin is as good as dead. They're in a position like Runaan's where they've been captured and declared themselves dead because they know there's no other way out, there will be no rescue and they're not likely to escape on their own. So Runaan's been captured and will die there, and Rayla escaped but has not completed the mission or gone back for him, nor does he expect her to.

So what is Ethari supposed to believe? That she's somehow done the impossible, and found a third way out that will lead to a new era of peace for all of Xadia?

Or, is he to believe that he was right the whole time, she wasn't ready, but instead of committing like she swore she would, she fled, like her other parents did? She sacrificed everyone, including her other father, and ran?

Which one of those seems like the more likely option from his perspective?

Then she comes home, and he learns the truth, but there's nothing he can do about it, because the Ghost spell is permanent. He doesn't even know it can be broken - Runaan has to tell them that's a thing three years later in season 7. So he's left with this horrible knowledge that while on a small scale, it looks like Rayla sacrificed five lives for one (or three, her own with Ez and Zym), with a wider perspective, she was actually doing the most Moonshadow thing possible and focusing on saving more lives than anyone knew could be saved. And there's nothing he can do to reverse his vote, to make up for what he's done to her, so he gives her what he can and lives with that guilt for two years.

The moment she comes back and he sees her again, and finds out there is something he can do, he's willing to throw his entire life away to mitigate the harm their community caused her. I don't think that was demonstrative of his solidarity with Runaan; I think it was driven by spending the last two years knowing that their society is flawed and living with the harm their community did to Rayla.

Also, backing up a bit to season 3 to touch on an example of humans applying their cultural context to Moonshadow things, is Callum accusing Rayla of staying at the Storm Spire out of pride.

He's misunderstanding her dedication here. It's not about personal pride for her. At this point, from her perspective, her parents have committed the gravest sin in their native culture in abandoning Zym's egg. She's been living in the shadow of that shame for a year. She's also abandoned her original duty - sure it was for a good reason, but it doesn't change the fact that she sacrificed the lives of her friends and father. She made a choice for them that ended their lives. The only thing she can do now, culturally, to make up for those crimes is to sacrifice herself in the name of duty and saving who she can; and there's still a chance her spirit won't be welcomed into their afterlife when it's over.

That's why this moment matters. "Just - remember me, okay?" It's not about personal pride, it's about deeply ingrained cultural values. Her name is banned at home. She's asking him to remember her because no one else will (or in Ethari's case, will be permitted to acknowledge they do). I'm not trying to bash Callum here, because he genuinely does not understand this and in the end he works with her and ends up staying just as she does. It's just an example of how even characters in the narrative make the mistake of forgetting that there's cultural divides here.

All in all, within what we know for sure and can extrapolate about Moonshadow elves' culture and history, I think our three main Moonshadows' choices do all make sense. It also makes sense how they're all willing to forgive each other in the end, because while they've all fucked each other up, it was heavily influenced by a culture that, while attempting to preserve as much as they can, has turned harsh and unforgiving about it. It's not as simple as "Runaan and Ethari are abusive fathers because Runaan took a child to a murder and Ethari ghosted her after". (On that point it's also worth noting that no one questions Rayla being on a high-profile assassination anyways. She's treated as an adult within her own society, just as Soren was at only a year older than her. This one's a spot where we're applying modern day values about adulthood to a medieval world in which being treated as an adult at 15-16 was not unusual.) Runaan and Rayla both fucked up, culturally, and fucked each other up doing so. Ethari did everything right, culturally, and harmed both Rayla and himself in doing so, and then was just alone with that for three years. He couldn't even lean on the rest of the Silvergrove for support because of the Ghost spell and its rules (Lyrennus refuses to even say Rayla's name until she's restored, and Rayla never mentions her parents' names; it's likely all discussion of them is banned).

Anyway, I really hope we get Arc 3 and I hope they expand upon how this experience has challenged the Moonfam's cultural views, and what ripple effects that will have on Moonshadow society as a whole. Runaan and Ethari are both well-respected members of the community, and Rayla is very likely to become a significant figure in their histories too now that she's returned.

TL;DR we need to stop putting human values on inhuman characters. Stop putting inappropriate cultural values onto characters in general.

Sources:

Contents of the show

Through The Moon (graphic novel)

Book One (referenced via This Page on the official wiki)

Bloodmoon Huntress (graphic novel)

The Queen's Mercy short story (found here)

All Storms End short story (found here)

Hot Brown Morning Potion podcast interview with creators (here)

[pegglesai]

some part of me has a morbid curiosity about what part of incestcare is exactly "healing"? aside from the same arguments of "because KC's therapist said it was okay!", "because it brings her comfort!", "because it's for mental health!" like it doesn't give me much of a clear answer other than "I have no argument so i'm just gonna tantrum at you until you block me so I automatically win". what exactly is healing about a 19 year old who is grooming her 17 year old sister, leading up to them being in a "relationship", and using the argument "well, she WANTED it" as if it doesn't make alarm bells go off in someones head when the argument is used, and have the exact situation that kittycorn lived through and is traumatized by be played out? in fact, what exactly is "healing" about two 15 year old sisters being implied to have had sex? what's "healing" about a father grooming and preying on his daughter because she happened to remind him of his sister who he's also dating? what's healing about reinforcing abuse under flowery language like "kindred" "age gap relationships"?? I'm not sure this is so much "healing" but more so kittycorn genuinely getting off on underage siblings and parental or general adult grooming, as much as she denies it this is just her fetish material what's most concerning is her ideas of "all that matters is that they're in love" and "not all consent needs to be verbal/shown", as much as she likes to act like shes small and doesn't know what shes doing shes fully aware (ex: the " their dynamic becoming semi-public is so funny " screenshot referring to several pieces of fan art made by several teenagers). shes not stupid, she knows how to guilt trip and guilt trip subtly in her whiny outbursts (phrases such as "its healing", "its comforting", "its good for me", "its healthy", "my therapist says its okay", etc.) and as a reminder, kittycorn is a 24 going on 25 year old she isn't in the 17-19 range where its more "understandable" if she messes up, shes fully grown and she knows how to use her victim complex well (such as her google drive of her showing how she was grooming her victims so she can be in the "right") at this point, none of this is comforting. its just her indulging in her harmful fetishes and kinks, if she was into petplay or vomit or whatever who gives a shit if it was with another consenting adult who isn't related to her or made them act like they were a family member, she repeatedly hurts people and runs away to others who will never say "no" to her and she knows she can take advantage of and her mentality of "i'm the victim, so i'm right" is so ass backwards, yes she can be a victim of something so sickeningly awful but she can also be the abuser used this in a different ask but rainn is very useful in a situation like this I think, both for her and the people she's affected (some specific links I think would be useful for this ask too, same as before, just get rid of the spaces) https : / / rainn . org / articles / what - is - consent https : / / rainn . org / news / grooming - know - warning - signs https : / / rainn . org / articles / incest https : / / rainn . org / articles / intimate - partner - sexual - violence remember, there is no such thing as "ethical incest"

✨

[skaruresonic]

Once more I must cite sources because folks assume you'll take their "nuh-uh" as a sufficient counterargument.

While there's no "official" count, the general consensus is that there are roughly 50 or more errors within the Encyclospeedia. Greeny has documented some of them, as well as CrystalMaiden77:

Sonic Encyclospeedia Errors: by CrystalMaiden77 on DeviantArt

These are purely factual errors. That's not counting the various formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors:

---

"The other writers don't currently have any way to ask for questions reliably" - Sonic Team regularly answer fan questions on Twitter, including Shiro Maekawa.

Dr. Crusher, Did you saw Shiro Maekawa response to someone... (tumblr.com)

"Silver has always been polite" - That is Flynn's own personal interpretation. And it's wrong.

Writings From A Field of Roses — Our monthly live show on YouTube, usually on the... (tumblr.com)

---

We've been having this long, drawn-out debate for years because there are many, many layers of inaccuracy, strawman, and ego-flexing going on, but I'll just drop this link to give you a crash-course on the broad strokes:

Encyclopedia Sonnica, ✂️ "Go read something else" (tumblr.com)

---

"ST have been using mandated material to govern Shadow as this edgelord over every writer in the past 14 fucking years" - Sonic Reddit invented the concept of Shadow mandates in response to Shadow's poor portrayal in IDW 19, which spread through fandom-wide games of telephone. There's no concrete proof they exist. Nor did Shadow-specific mandates seem to exist before issue 19.

The reason why IDW Shadow acts weird : r/SonicTheHedgehog (reddit.com) Behold, the reason everyone believes the fictitious... – @skaruresonic on Tumblr

The likelier explanation for why IDW!Shadow is a poor portrayal but Dark Beginnings is not is that Flynn receives more feedback on Shadow because he doesn't understand the character.

IDW Sonic "FAQ" - Google Docs

---

"Claimed games aren't strong enough when?"

Here:

---

If "98%" of references are "impossible to find," why are players complaining about the reference overload in Frontiers' message boards?

The constant attempts to reference past lore is kinda obnoxious. - Sonic Frontiers (gamespot.com)

Not to mention he straight-up plagiarized entire lyrics to a song from a fan band and did not credit them, just as a "reference":

Just in case you thought Ian Flynn putting song lyrics in dialogue was just a Sonic thing. : r/TwoBestFriendsPlay (reddit.com)

But you’re still standing here — Man, Flynn really hates #Playthegames, huh? What... (tumblr.com)

---

You're right, he doesn't hate Amy; he simply described her as "all over the place" and not-so-subtly put her and several other prominent girl characters down, calling Blaze the "singular kick-butt female character" among them, in order to imply his OC Tangle was going to fulfill a role none of them could.

His words. Not mine.

Game Informer Interview With Ian Flynn (lastminutecontinue.com)

---

“This is how Sonic is, by SEGA, and this is me basically spelling it out, for anyone who hasn’t quite figured it out to this point.” - Flynn

But you’re still standing here — “This is how Sonic is, by SEGA, and this is me... (tumblr.com)

---

Encyclopedia Sonnica, I was looking at some posts about Archie sonic,... (tumblr.com)

---

"He likes Team Hooligan? That's a problem now?"

It is if he's heavily implying his own fanon is games canon in a lore book that people pay for when it's not.

---

---

Lol the projection is strong in this one.

If he is a credible source on the basis that he, quote, is a "fan" of the series, then he should know something as basic how Chaos Control works within the context of the game in which the move debuted. You can't pick and choose. Either he's a credible source or he's not.

How Chaos Control works is not particularly obscure knowledge that only The Elitest of Sonic fans have.

The whole "Ian isn't an encyclopedia of perfect knowledge guys, come on" thing becomes especially ironic considering how vehemently you insisted the Encyclospeedia has no errors in it just because You Said So(tm).

Sure, Jan. Whatever you say.

---

"There are completely fair and respectful critiques of Ian Flynn out there that deserve to be heard and taken in. I am not saying his works are perfect and cannot be critiqued. This is just not how you do it lol."

I don't believe you.

Considering you lot go absolutely bananas whenever people contradict Flynn in any way, shape, or form, no matter how neutral the delivery or how heavily it comes attached with sources and screenshots...

...No. I don't believe you when you say you'll allow for "fair criticism," if there even is such a thing to you guys. Everything is considered "disgusting" and "mindless" hate to you, and this entire counterthread is proof of that. You literally opened your thread describing Greeny's points as evidence of a "disgusting" bias. Well, here I am, shoving the sources in your face. Look at them.

Oh, you'll "allow" the existence of opinions you hate, but only if you personally deem them acceptable enough? How very authoritarian gracious of you.

I have seen, with my own two eyes, someone complain that it's our fault that no one can bring up "reasonable criticism" without getting hounded anyway, as if the conclusion one ought to draw from that is Haters Suck(tm) and not that the call has always come from inside the house.

The harsh truth of the matter is this: people are not going to want to bring up any flavor of criticism around you. Ever. Especially not when you descend like a pack of hellhounds and stalk, threaten, and harass over the slightest disagreement.

People hide behind anons and have decided to confine Sonic discussion to private Discords because of the overreactions of people like you, who cannot grapple with reality and instead choose to project all that hate onto someone stating facts.

[softergloom]

this guide is specifically for my friend mel <3 but of course anyone is free to reference it x

𖡡 you've downloaded the game, played around a little bit, and now you're looking to add mods and custom content (cc) into your game

────୨ৎ────

this game is basically nothing without mod and cc creators, so all credit and love to them ♡

step 01: setting up your mods folder

open file explorer, go to documents, and find the folder labeled electronic arts. then click on the sims 4.

you'll see a folder labeled mods - pin it to quick access [this will make accessing it easier]

step 02: downloading mods and cc

you can find cc and mods so many ways!! tumblr, youtube, pinterest, instagram, etc. there are a lot of blogs on tumblr specifically for cc finds too

make sure you're downloading things from a reliable source. for example - a creator's patreon/tumblr or website, simfileshare.net [often linked as sfs], google docs, curseforge, itch.io, and *unanimously hated* thesimsresource.com → the sims resource is hated because of all of the fucking ads lmaooo

you'll be downloading package files and zip files. you'll find them in your downloads in file explorer

step 03: installing mods and cc

navigate to downloads in file explorer

package files can be simply dragged into the mods folder

zip files need to be extracted, then you can drag and drop the unzipped folder into your mods folder → whatever you put into your mods folder can only be one extra folder deep or it won't show up in your game

when it comes to mods [not cc], creators will often have instructions for you. follow those exactly

step 04: mods + game updates

sometimes mods break when there's a game update. it's just a very annoying part of the game at this point lol

some mods will have a pop-up in the game letting you know it needs to be updated. but if it doesn't and you notice something is fucked up, you can google 'broken mods' and usually someone else will be having the same problem and can let you know to update it

if a mod is broken, remove it from your mods folder and go download the new version from the creator → a lot of mod creators update very quickly [like the same day or within a couple days] but sometimes they don't. just be patient and check for updates periodically

recommended: the sims 4 mod manager // dl here → the mod manager will allow you to see and deactivate or remove mods and cc from your game [it's automatically connected to your mods folder and can be helpful when you can't find broken mods or cc]

gameplay mods i recommend

mccc by @deaderpoolmc // dl here ✧ gives a you a lot of control of your game

tool by @twistedmexi // dl here ✧ place and size things however you want

better build/buy by @twistedmexi // dl here ✧ gives you easier access to things in build/buy that you'd normally have to use cheats for

relationship and pregnancy overhaul by lumpinou // dl here ✧ more realistic gameplay [this one is essential!!]

lgbtqia+ by lumpinou // dl here ✧ gender identity, gender affirmation and transition, self-discovery, coming out, dating apps and lot traits [i love this mod so much!!]

healthcare redux by adeepindigo // dl here ✧ adds illness, injury, chronic conditions, allergies, medical emergencies, etc

childbirth mod by @pandasamacc // dl here ✧ good for family gameplay

snbills by @simrealist // dl here ✧ bank accounts

also want to mention milk thistle & sunblind by @softerhaze ✧ the lighting with these mods is *essential* pls check them out!!

create-a-sim [cas] mods i recommend

cas backgrounds // you can download mine here but i also love vyxated ✧ these are just extra fun!! you can find a lot on tumblr or youtube to download. it's a super easy drag and drop into your mods folder. but when you want to change it, make sure you remove the current one or it won't work!!

gentle cas lighting by northerin siberia winds // dl here ✧ replaces the ea lighting in cas with a softer glow and shadows

any cas lighting by helgatisha // dl here ✧ i like the colors they have!!

custom content [let's make your sims hot!!]

cc creators i love: @kumikya @dogsill @aladdin-the-simmer @arethabee @imvikai @jius-sims @northernsiberiawinds @oakiyo @its-adrienpastel @daylifesims @twisted-cat @madlensims @miikocc @obscurus-sims @evoxyr @powluna @pralinesims @simandy @sentate @simstrouble @christopher067 @aharris00finds @bluecravingcc @crypticsim @gorillax3-cc @gegesimmer @frzrbunny @greenllamas @lisatrait @joshseoh @liyahsim @thatonegreenleaf @trillyke @waterlily0210 @clumsyalienn @johnnysimmer @lamatisse

you can also check out my very organized cc finds blog: softergloom-finds ♡

────୨ৎ────

anyways mel, i really enjoyed making this for you and i hope you enjoy the game!! <3

[jimpagne]

Are You Sure?! (이게 맞아?!): Youth and Romance

Now, I've been seeing a lot of people circulate this article that describes (in an English translation) the show as reflecting both youth and romance. A lot of jikookers were super excited to hear the word "romance", thinking oh my god, are they actually soft launching their relationship?

Well, let's not get too ahead of ourselves here.

The article specifically uses the word 낭만, which in its most basic form translates to "romance" in Korean. HOWEVER, this word is actually pretty complicated to explain, and it doesn't always point to the lovey-dovey context that English speakers attach to romance.

낭만 can refer to something that's whimsical, almost fantasy like, idyllic, sentimental, poetic, outside the reaches of reality, etc... Koreans use the word 낭만 in various different contexts, especially outside the realms of traditional love. It doesn't mean that this word can't be used for romantic contexts, but in this specific title, I don't really think that's what it's pointing to.

I guess the best way to try to explain this to an English speaker would like, wearing rose-tinted glasses or romanticizing something. Those things are not directly tied to love, but to the image or perception of something in almost a dreamlike and cathartic way.

Just thought I'd clear that up since Google Translate and Papago do not provide contextual meanings to a lot of their translations! I don't want people to be entirely misinformed about linguistic differences, especially when it targets a certain pairing that many people are rooting for. Again, I am not a fluent Korean speaker nor am I a Korean, I'm simply someone who is currently being educated in the language and can understand it to a pretty significant degree.

Anyways, we haven't watched the show yet, so even if this isn't a confirmation of anything, I never know what's going to happen between these two.

Until next time!

[verdantwyrm]

YOU SAID TO GIVE U HEADCANNONS SO HERE IT GOES!!

Curly is a youngest sibling, and a bit of a Mama's boy. He also seems like the kind of freak to prefer diet soda BECAUSE of the weird aftertaste (he canonically doesn't like sweets very much so this is not too much of a stretch). I've also seen others headcannon him as Australian and i feel like it fits although tbf I'm definitely not Australian and i don't have any Australian friends so idk if I'm the one to judge how accurate it is lol.

Daisuke is a gyaruo (this one seems pretty popular actually but i keep seeing people say gyaru instead and it bugs me so much because gyaru is specifically referring to girls like it literally translates to "gal" in English, and gyaruo is a modified version with a masculine suffix added to include guys into the subculture. I've been a gyaru for around two years now, so I'm not like an expert but like come on it takes ten seconds of googling. Ok gyaru rant over.) he also loves stupid sitcoms and has the most random music taste. His playlist will go straight from like Britney Spears to MCR to Lana Del Rey. It doesn't bug him at all though he loves the genre whiplash.

Anya is from Minnesota (YES GIRL REPRESENT!!) and she loves Culver's. She canonically loves junk food, and Culver's is like the signature Midwest fast food restaurant so yeah. She also cuts her own hair.

swansea and his wife love the Great British Baking Show, and lots of other baking shows too. He says he only watches them because she likes him, but is secretly WAY more invested than she is.

Jimmy both kins AND has a crush on bojack horseman. He also was definitely that one person at your school who was always like "nobody wants to be my friend I'm so lonely 😔" and then when you get to know them you're like "WOW I FUCKING WONDER WHY" (the initial sympathy is what caused curly to become his friend, but since he's curly, he didn't have the heart to ditch him once he figured out why jimmy was so unpopular. Even though he definitely should have.)

Ok uhh i think that's it. Ur awesome btw. I hope this doesn't sound weird but i want to platonically shower you in delicate flowers and fine lace and chiffon and silks because you have a gorgeous mind. Sorry if that's weird. You're so cool.

Haha yes! Send the headcanons!! All of them!

Curly being the younger one in a family is honestly so cute, he reeks of perfect little mama's boy who gets his cheeks pinched by all the older ladies for being such a gentleman and so kind and so sweet. The diet soda thing is so true and as an Australian I absolutely give you permission and acknowledge your headcanon because he absolutely is.

Daisuke is definitely gyaruo! And I love love love all the art I see of him!! The playlist I have for him here is very much like that, he has alot of songs that varies in genre! And hes very much like me fr

Anya absolutely cuts her own hair and doesn't care if its slightly lopsided. To me she loves any kind of fast food especially cheeseburgers.

Swansea is also just like me, I feel like he has a guilty pleasure of watching nature documentaries too, he finds them relaxing and informative, a break fron machinery and electronics and just relax in the calmness of nature.

I also headcanon Jimmy to actually sound like bojack horseman too! They're so similar its kind of scary.... I feel like he and Curly absolutely became friends because one of them felt bad and was doing it partially because he's just to sweet for his own good.

Also thank you so much!! I've never recieved such positive responses before over something like my dumb little analyses. Your love and kind words are very much appreciated!! It's not weird at all and it makes me very happy ⊂(´･◡･⊂ )∘˚˳°

[autisticandroids]

14,19,23 :>

14. where do you get your inspiration?

so i get my inspiration all the usual ways but i will tell you about a big one for me, which most people don't normally cite because it feels a little rude: the urge to correct other people's work with a red pen. i *read* fanfic, and i will have a number of thoughts that could lead to wanting to write my own that run from the mostly charitable to the wildly uncharitable: "what about x? x could interact really well with the premise of this fic you should include it/give it more focus" "no one is writing about z in a way i like, i should write about z" "this fic about y is terrible, i could write a better fic about y" "no one acknowledges the specifics of w in their fics about v i should write my own" etc.

19. the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

so my fics are not usually the research heavy sort? my inclination is towards interpersonal drama, most of my work involves characters sitting around and talking, and could just as easily happen in Featureless White Rooms. obviously it *doesn't* happen in Featureless White Rooms, because i want the work to have texture, but it doesn't usually happen against backdrops that matter, particularly. like, essentially, my fics take place on The Supernatural Set, whether that's a motal room, or the bunker, or Victim House #4.

occasionally i will give a quick google to check and see if there's a highway near x town from the show, or a certain type of attraction near where an episode is set, but that's not the kind of in depth stuff people talk about.

and i don't really write aus, not the kind that require researching a new setting. i do the occasional scifi but nothing hard. and again it remains highly character based, the thing that matters is the characters and what they say and the vibes.

and the occasional violence i write does require some quick googling for stuff like "name of [organ]" and "could you survive if you were stabbed in [organ]" but i'm not writing the violence in intense detail where it matters how the blood would spatter, and the more detailed gory stuff i do tends to live in a more cartoony world because it tends to have to do with angels and insta-healing and stuff.

the vast majority of research i do for my fics is about pop culture and pop culture references. i need dean to act and talk like a guy who watches a million movies and listens to dad rock, and i don't do either of those things. so i am actually often asking people with different media tastes to consult on stuff. which is fun but not usually what people think of when they talk about research.

i guess i did have a really fun time once for [redacted wip, maybe soon?] where i was like "hey i know that most forensic science is fake but How Fake is it" and i looked it up and bro it's crazy. this shit is so fake it's unreal, almost nothing except dna and fingerprinting is real even a little bit. and it still gets used all the time even though it's fake as fuck.

23. pick three keywords that describe your writing

compact, atmospheric, depressing

[batunatu]

Hi!! I know you as THE Radar fan and take everything you say as canon /j lol. I DO however, love your Radar headcanons and think you understand his character really well!! I wanted to ask if you have any really specific headcanons for Radar!! I also wanna know if you think Radar is nearsighted or farsighted!! ((ﾟ□ﾟ))

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII HOLAAAAA HELLOOOOOOOOO

WOAH, they haven't called me that for a while, since the end of 2021 my "obsession" or "hyperfixation" persists on the radar (idk if I should call it that because idk if i'm neurodivergent or neurotypical but i live overthinking about my nerves like that huhhh it's beside the point) BUT YES, i was in a big obsession with aidesse (ohno) and aiden and blaze rods in general, i think i started to get bored w aiden when i gave more attention to radar because i liked a little the concept of radesse so i started to get very fond of it , identify myself w him and draw him religiously lol(?, that's how i created the perfect formula for chaos and when i started to pay a lot of attention to radesse, BOOOMMM, brainrot.

from my abandoned channel on youtube to my now tragically paused tiktok account, they always recognized me as the radar fan and since i was very interested i was always very defensive with his hc being a minor EWWW, i was in several debates when there was a considerable amount people if it's not that EVERYONE hated radesse because of the popularization of that hc. so yeah lol i became the radesse/radar CEO or "that radesse artist" on tiktok, sorry for the infodumping lmfao

anyway, my mistake is that i never write down my hcs so I'll try to improvise a little HMMM

first of all, PRIDE MONTH, so radar is a bi boy, i always saw him preferring boys (and huhh how do i say this without sounding weird... older women-) and i had a couple of ideas of him only having ex-boyfriends. so radar would be like achillean if he wasn't with f!jesse i guess?

and i think this is self-projection but i like to believe that he falls under the enby umbrella so i like that he is boyflux with he/him pronouns because i am girlflux and there is not much visibility of this micro label. i love to think that he looks androgynous so he loves this thing of wearing and styilizing clothes, let's say that sometimes he looks like that softboy/dark academy mf you would see in a wattpad story and sometimes he experiments with fashion, although he doesn't seem like he is a boy who loves to show off branded clothes so he is a gucci boy ( or well, this brand reflects very well the type of clothing i see radar wearing)

REFERENCES!!!

and i like to think that sometimes he wears baggy clothes and then shows off his figure, he is very versatile and let's say that soft colors and color palettes are his thing, he is an organizing boy, perhaps a perfectionist.

WOAH, let's continue

well, before eric confirmed that radar was asian, i had a hc that he was peruvian or chilean or latino in general. at first i also had a hc of him being from malaysia but then it convinced me that he was filipino, i heard that the culture of that country is similar to that of latin america. that doesn't mean that i often draw radar being argentine or practicing the argentine gaucho culture, but nahh, he is 100% filipino.

Well, I LIKE THIS HC, IT IS VERY RECENT AND WAS MADE FOR THE LAPIS AU but i made up a last name for him because i don't like giving him yuri lowhental's last name lol, his last name is benitoite, it is a precious gem since i have the idea that in the universe of mcsm it is common for people to have last names by precious gems etc (? also, lapis lazuli and benitoite look similar so it is perfect for me.

i feel like ray sees jack as a father figure or well, jack sees radar as a son along with petra and they both got used to that type of relationship, aww

radar in terms of musical tastes, he is like emmett from lego movie, he listens to and loves commercial music, i think that google corporate music. although, he likes city pop, a bit of 2010's pop, shibuya kei: gorillaz, fantastic plastic machine, CAPSULE, miranda bc why not, pizzicato five, glass animals, patrick watson, tally hall, lemon demon, blur, lady gaga

yum here's the playlist

OHH AND THE NOW NOW IS HIS ALBUM, each song reminds me a lot of radar, especially humility, tranz, fireflies, kansas, souk eye, ALL OF THEM, EVERY SONG ON THAT DAMN ALBUM IS FOR RADAR.

ok soo tumblr hates so it wont let my copypaste augh

my poor guy

I WOULD LIKE TO KEEP WRITING HCS ITS SO FUNN

huh, and thanks to the headcanon of my dear mootie mksbigg3stfan ;33 radar would be farsighted for me, that scene when his glasses break and he asks Jesse if they were there when he is 1 meter away from them, lol, and well, i have problems- HE'S GOING TO HAVE HIS EXERCISE ROUTINES AND HE'S GOING TO BECOME AN ATHLETIC DAD dammnnn

yumyum see ya later YEEEEE I LOVE THIS

[crooked-wasteland]

How did you calculate the estimation of how much each Helluva Boss costs to make?

I should clarify that my estimation for the cost and income of the series is extremely generous. The pricing for YouTube views can be as high as $0.05 per view which would increase Medrano's income by 46%, though that is something reserved for only exceptional creators. It's less money for YouTube in that case, and her sporadic uploading schedule would make such a deal undesirable for Google.

If you were to ask me how much I actually think the episodes cost, it would be closer to $500k. However, there are multiple factors I considered when I came to my generous(?) estimate.

Firstly, I looked into how much it cost to make a professional animated episode such as Rick and Morty, which is between $1.2 and $1.5 million per episode. To be honest, I think there are some episodes of Helluva Boss, specifically Truth Seekers, that cost at least near that threshold.

Which it should be noted that Rick and Morty should actually cost less than Helluva Boss due to the style the shows are animated in. Rick and Morty reduces the labor needed for their animation and thus costs by utilizing rigging in their animation, save for select scenes. Medrano pushes her animators to draw nearly every frame by hand. At least she did for the earlier episodes.

The fact that the animation has been declining has not been lost on watchers. And this is the second factor I took into account: Medrano's attitude towards animators and the cost of animation. We saw this during the Hazbin debacle where they ran out of money for the series in the final episode. Which is something we really need to interrogate. A24 is not known for expensive advertising, in fact, they often rely on social media and word of mouth which keeps the budget for a project low.

For example, Elemental was a financial disaster for Disney despite making back the budget for the movie, that's because they spent another several million for their ad campaign which ironically turned audiences away from the film. That counts towards the performance of a movie and a series.

If A24 was unwilling to go over budget for the last episode of the series to be made, her niche form of advertising her streaming cartoon series on a historical theatre marquee in Hollywood was not something they would have shelled out the extra thousands for. Which means the money most likely came from the initial budget for the show. And between paying animators and having a marquee (which to mind you the theatre never had a showing of Hazbin in the building, it was solely for advertising), she chose the marquee. Paying cleanup artists the equivalent of $4 an hr to make her series.

And it needs to be said, that sort of advertising is a waste. Like crypto bros buying ad space in Time Square for their NFTs, this sort of advertising doesn't actually draw in new audiences, but, in the words of Dan Olsen:

"All it's good for is internal propaganda. Making insiders feel like the money that they've spent is buying credibility."- Chapter 5: The Unbearable Cringe of Crypto

We also know that Medrano has a penchant for hiring animators fresh out of college, self-taught with no professional experience or references, and fans. This means she finds people who don't know the value of their work and are easier to exploit, or are simply so sycophantic and blinded by social media clout that they agree to work for what amounts to exposure.

As such, I significantly low-balled the cost of every episode to show just how rough things are going financially. But there is an aspect I didn't touch: Patreon.

Medrano sees a daily rise to her Patreon of around 3k paying members with her monthly total being 11k. It's estimated she makes about $5k a day through her Patreon, which is $150k-$200k a month. It's also worth noting others have pointed out that she has significantly increased the cost of her Patreon tiers, and the massive drops at the start of the month with the gradual rise are members dropping said memberships and rejoining throughout the month, going up and down tiers. She's squeezing the Patreon crowd the most, as that is her actual fanbase.

Add to her income average of $375k from episodes and Medrano can absolutely afford to pay $500k per episode as I actually suspect she does. However it is still clear she is losing money in regards to merch and has had to change manufacturers and how she stocks her store.

The reason I low-balled the cost was to simplify the maths involved and highlight how the show itself is not cutting it to keep Medrano's business model afloat. Obviously when we expand the scope, numbers get larger and more moving pieces come to light. But the merch must first come from Medrano's own income, and we know she first cuts her animators before risking her own income. So she has decided to take the money from her audience in the form of merch quality rather than take a haircut from her lifestyle.

Ironically, she makes and keeps more money when she isn't pushing new merch.

[spark-hearts2]

QUESTION TWO:

SWITCH BOXES. you said that’s what monitors the connections between systems in the computer cluster, right? I assume it has software of its own but we don’t need to get into that, anyway, I am so curious about this— in really really large buildings full of servers, (like multiplayer game hosting servers, Google basically) how big would that switch box have to be? Do they even need one? Would taking out the switch box on a large system like that just completely crash it all?? While I���m on that note, when it’s really large professional server systems like that, how do THEY connect everything to power sources? Do they string it all together like fairy lights with one big cable, or??? …..the voices……..THE VOICES GRR

I’m acending (autism)

ALRIGHT! I'm starting with this one because the first question that should be answered is what the hell is a server rack?

Once again, long post under cut.

So! The first thing I should get out of the way is what is the difference between a computer and a server. Which, is like asking the difference between a gaming console and a computer. Or better yet, the difference between a gaming computer and a regular everyday PC. Which is... that they are pretty much the same thing! But if you game on a gaming computer, you'll get much better performance than on a standard PC. This is (mostly) because a gaming computer has a whole separate processor dedicated to processing graphics (GPU). A server is different from a PC in the same way, it's just a computer that is specifically built to handle the loads of running an online service. That's why you can run a server off a random PC in your closet, the core components are the same! (So good news about your other question. Short answer, yes! It would be possible to connect the hodgepodge of computers to the sexy server racks upstairs, but I'll get more into that in the next long post)

But if you want to cater to hundreds or thousands of customers, you need the professional stuff. So let's break down what's (most commonly) in a rack setup, starting with the individual units (sometimes referred to just as 'U').

Short version of someone setting one up!

18 fucking hard drives. 2 CPUs. How many sticks of ram???

Holy shit, that's a lot. Now depending on your priorities, the next question is, can we play video games on it? Not directly! This thing doesn't have a GPU so using it to render a video game works, but you won't have sparkly graphics with high frame rate. I'll put some video links at the bottom that goes more into the anatomy of the individual units themselves.

I pulled this screenshot from this video rewiring a server rack! As you can see, there are two switch boxes in this server rack! Each rack gets their own switch box to manage which unit in the rack gets what. So it's not like everything is connected to one massive switch box. You can add more capacity by making it bigger or you can just add another one! And if you take it out then shit is fucked. Communication has been broken, 404 website not found (<- not actually sure if this error will show).

So how do servers talk to one another? Again, I'll get more into that in my next essay response to your questions. But basically, they can talk over the internet the same way that your machine does (each server has their own address known as an IP and routers shoot you at one).

POWER SUPPLY FOR A SERVER RACK (finally back to shit I've learned in class) YOU ARE ASKING IF THEY ARE WIRED TOGETHER IN SERIES OR PARALLEL! The answer is parallel. Look back up at the image above, I've called out the power cables. In fact, watch the video of that guy wiring that rack back together very fast. Everything on the right is power. How are they able to plug everything together like that? Oh god I know too much about this topic do not talk to me about transformers (<- both the electrical type and the giant robots). BASICALLY, in a data center (place with WAY to many servers) the building is literally built with that kind of draw in mind (oh god the power demands of computing, I will write a long essay about that in your other question). Worrying about popping a fuse is only really a thing when plugging in a server into a plug in your house.

Links to useful youtube videos

How does a server work? (great guide in under 20 min)

Rackmount Server Anatomy 101 | A Beginner's Guide (more comprehensive breakdown but an hour long)

DATA CENTRE 101 | DISSECTING a SERVER and its COMPONENTS! (the guy is surrounded by screaming server racks and is close to incomprehensible)

What is a patch panel? (More stuff about switch boxes- HOLY SHIT there's more hardware just for managing the connection???)

Data Center Terminologies (basic breakdown of entire data center)

Networking Equipment Racks - How Do They Work? (very informative)

Funny

[101emo]

Hair: 101 What do I do with this mop??

So, you've decided to convert to the dark side. Or maybe you just want the hairstyle- who knows. But here's where to start.

In this post there step by step instructions on:

Haircuts and styles.

How to style your hair.

Guidance on dye.

Haircare.

There's more. You name it, its here. Lets get to it. ───────────────────────

Step 1: Haircut. For the love of whatever you believe in, do not cut it yourself if you don't know what you're doing.

Find a salon you trust. I always go to this one barber shop near my house, the girl who does my hair has good reviews, she's both a hairdresser and a barber- and overall just knows what the heck she's doing. Finding a salon/barber shop you trust is crucial about getting the results you're after. Good haircuts can range from $25-$60 depending on what you're looking to do and how drastic of a change you're making. How can I trust a shop?? Check for reviews, word of mouth or check if they have a social media page to see what they're about and what they've done in the past. Or find someone who specializes in certain styles.

Tip!: One of my red flags is that the place doesn't take card in this day and age.

Figure out which side you want your hair to cover. There's a little trick to figure out which side is the best to have covered; - Make a triangle with your fingers and hold it roughly half an arms length from your face. - With both eyes open, centre something across the room from you inside of that triangle. - Close one eye, then the other. - Which eye keeps that item inside of the triangle? That's your dominant eye. That's the one you'll keep uncovered. -

Reference images. Check out Pinterest, Google- the ways to get images are endless. Check around the web and gather yourself up a whole board of front, side and back images of what you want your hair to look like. I got an entire board before I trusted anyone to touch my hair. Keep in mind your hair length, type and maintenance it would take to keep that haircut as it is.

Tip!: Search for things like emo hair, emo haircut, emo hairstyles, 2000s hairstyles and whack your gender on the end of it.

Ask for specifics. You've found yourself a salon, gathered up a whole range of reference images- cool. What you're gonna do is show them your reference board, your camera roll- whatever you saved your images to. Verbally ask for things like choppy layers or just layers, side-swept bangs, 'emo/scene hair', the tellum cut, that kind of stuff. Show them how you part your hair and what side you sweep that mop to.

Fingers crossed you've gotten what you're looking for x

───────────────────────

HELP!1! You got a botched haircut? Don't stress it, I've had my fair share of those.

Worst comes to worst?

Step 1.5: Haircut, the DIY style. Let's try to fix this the best way we can- or just save cash cutting your hair yourself.

What you need: - Scissors, the hair cutting kind. - Thinning sheers. - Eyebrow or a face razor. - Spray bottle. - A towel. - Protection against angry parents.

Wet your hair. Never cut your hair dry, it always ends up choppy and never lays right- not in the good way. Plus, natural hair has some spring to it. Especially considering you're more than likely looking into straightening it later on. I'm not talking a little damp, I mean full on drenched- but not dripping. -

Grab your tools. Get everything ready and set out. Clip a towel over your shoulders to avoid the hair falling onto your clothing. Stand in front of the mirror and make sure you have one for the back of your head too.| You can buy hair cutting tools from places like Kmart, Target or even supermarkets and drugstores. -

Get your references. Make sure to grab up your wall of references- look at those as much as possible when cutting your hair. That means back, front, sides- bangs. -

Section your hair. Clip your sections off and get to cutting. Cut slow, don't take too much off. You can always cut more off but you can't exactly stick it back on when you fuck up.

Tip!: Use clips to section off hair to make it easier to see what you have and haven't done.

Snippy snippy. Use your scissors to cut off larger chunks of hair, thin out the ends using the sheers- light handed. Your razor is used to taper in the edges of your hair for those layers, make sure you stick to small sections. Even out the sides of your hair, the parts that lay before your ears. They're meant to have a tiered layer look to them that ends in a spike. Cut your ends by pulling them out to the side of your head so you can see them from the front, do the same as you did before with your sides. Bangs is up to you and how you style them. Chuck some layers throughout your hair, they don't have to be perfect, just to add a bit of texture and shag. -

Clean up. If all went well- clean up the evidence, use a hair dryer to blow off the hair onto the floor and vacuum/sweep it all up.

If you mess up, don't panic. Hair grows back- beanies were invented for a reason.

───────────────────────

Step 2: Dye time. Though optional, it's fun to explore. For this one, you don't need to go to a salon. You can do it at home and I prefer it that way to always get the results I'm looking for.

What you need: - Box dye. - A dark towel (black is best). - Vaseline. - Wipes. - Gloves.

Find some dye. Take a trip to your nearest supermarket or drugstore. Aim for cruelty free brands, avoid dyes with harsh chemicals to prevent hair damage and don't skimp out on the cost. Cheap dye can really damage your hair. I've learnt the hard way after dying my hair black for about two years now. -

Protect your skin (and your countertops). Slather some Vaseline over your ears, head, neck- wherever you think the dye may touch on your skin. It creates a barrier and trust me, black is super hard to get off of your skin. Opt for darker surfaces or sinks when dying your hair a vivid bright or pitch black- stay away from manic panic! That shit stains EVERYTHING. Most dye kits come with gloves, but it wouldn't hurt investing in some that actually fit you- or you could be chaotic and go in bare-handed. Do a patch test before dying your full head, trust me. As someone with sensitive skin- you don't want an allergic reaction on your scalp. -

Get to it. Follow the instructions on the packet. Dye your full head or just some- it's up to you. I would opt for cooler or even just cold water when you rinse your dye out, I've found it sets the colour better, makes it stick longer and fades less quickly. -

Aftercare. Make sure your hair is conditioned well and not brushed when wet to avoid damage. Some dyes come with aftercare conditioner- if not? Just slap some coconut oil on and call it a day.

Tip!: Grab a root cover spray in the same colour that you got your box dye in so you don't have to dye your hair as often- especially since black is a shit to maintain.

───────────────────────

Step 3: Wash and care. How do you take care of your hair and keep it nourished? Follow my routine as a guide below.

What you need: - Shampoo. - Conditioner. - Hair mask (optional). - Coconut oil. - Leave in conditioner/serum.

Scalp oil. Once a week, if your hair gets dry, get some coconut oil and lather it on your scalp. Rosemary, almond and jojoba all work too, but I've found coconut works best for my hair. Leave the oil sitting from anywhere between 5-20 minutes. -

Shampoo. Get some shampoo, argan oil from Herbal Essences is my personal favourite, literally gets all the nasty from my hair and leaves it so shiny. I don't always double cleanse my hair since I tend to wash it every 2-3 days.

Tip!: Younger people (between 12-21) need to wash their hair more often because of their oil glands. - Oily hair? Wash every 1-3 days. - Dry scalp? You may be washing too much. cut back to 4-7 days. - Bleached hair? Wash once a week to avoid damage.

Shampoo again. The first lot of shampoo was to clean off any of the excess dirt and oils in your hair, this one is more of a deep cleanse. I would recommend getting a scalp scrubber and getting in there during this shampoo. -

Condition. I use the matching conditioner from Herbal Essences, it makes my hair suuuper soft and hydrated. I love it and recommend it to almost everyone. Plus, they're both really affordable. I don't use masks because of this conditioner, but if you want to mask your hair- don't condition on the same day! -

Leave in/serum. I use the Elvive brand, both for serum and leave in. Both because they hydrate my hair really well, leave it fluffy and have heat protectant in them. They don't run me much cost either.

───────────────────────

Step 4: Styling. Want that pin straight perfect hair? Here's how.

What you need: - Hair dryer. - Hair straightener. - Heat protectant. - A thin comb. - Your usual hairbrush. - Hair spray.

Wash and dry. Once you finish the routine above, or even have inspiration for your own- towel dry your hair or air dry it a little bit so its not dripping wet. I toss my hair up in a turban wrap and leave that on for a little while instead of towel drying my hair. -

Protect. Spray or slather some heat protectant on your damp hair to stop it from damaging due to constant heat usage. I like keratin products because they help with damage I might have caused by not protecting my hair earlier. Don't be like me. -

Blow dry. Blow dry your hair on the highest setting until its not so damp anymore, this also helps to straighten out your hair (or it does for me). Flick the heat down one and continue to dry as normal.

Tip!: Don't dry your hair upwards if you want it to lay flat! Dry from the top of your head down.

Straighten. Depending on your hair type, you may need to straighten on a higher setting. I whack mine on medium and run the iron across my bangs and sides mostly, the dryer straightens the back for my hair- though you may need to do your whole head. -

Spray. Cover a brush with some hairspray and comb it through your hair to keep the frizz to a minimum and to make sure it stays straight. For my bangs, I get a thin comb and repeat the process but going underneath it too.

───────────────────────

Follow for more x Updates every week, Tuesday and Thursday. 6:30pm GMT +11.

[dailydemonspotlight]

sorry, have you done Neko Shogun? always wondered if that one was just, made up

Neko Shogun - Day 38 (Request)

Race: Enigma

Alignment: Light-Neutral

May 14, 2024

Once upon a time, there was only one cat mascot of the SMT series. The time before Persona 5- the time of Neko Shogun. One of the most popular (and infamous) demons in the series is this warrior cat, whose appearances started all the way back in 1995 in the first Devil Summoner. Since then, this cat has been a recurring demon throughout several games in the series, specifically being spotlighted in the Persona games. Where it came about from, though, is not from folklore, nor did it originate from legendary stories as its lore in the series would leave you to believe. No, Neko Shogun is none of those things. It is a pun.

Now, this will need a bit of context- during the Jiajing dynasty, there was a general who was incredibly popular, to the point of being seen as a god- a man named Mao Bowen, read sometimes as Mao Shangshu. During a war wherein China conquered Vietnam, he was hailed as a hero and held on a pedestal that almost seemed to make him like a god amongst men. Unfortunately, I can't find many sources on this, as I can't speak Chinese? Frustratingly, the SMT wiki commonly doesn't cite its sources, and the wild goose chase this sent me on has only led to many poorly google translated articles regarding this man, so I might have my story mixed up here.

What makes this even worse is that those articles paint a completely different story, but I'm getting ahead of myself. According to the SMT wiki, due to Mao's name being pronounced very similarly to the chinese word for cat, when the chinese people decided to build a temple in his honor, the temple was misnamed into one reading "Temple of General Cat." Now then, what was that about different stories? When you input the word that the wiki uses as the name of the temple, 貓將軍, it grants you a result of a wikipedia page, one that is completely different. According to the page, albeit roughly translated from chinese, the word 貓將軍 actually means "General Cat," and was used to refer to a folkloric figure in Taiwan.

According to this article, General Cat was a mischief-causing monster responsible for ruining many a day of the villagers in Yilan Town, a Taiwanese city during the Chinese/Vietnamese conflict. After people began to become fed up with the little pest, it came down with an ultimatum that they accepted- they would make a temple for it. So this is where the name of 'Temple of General Cat' comes from, right? I think so? The story surrounding this ferocious feline is hard to grasp for someone like me who can't read a lick of simplified Chinese, but as far as I can tell, this seems to be the actual origin of Neko Shogun- a mix of a pun and a taiwanese monster. Where did the factoid on the SMT wiki come from, then, though? I have no idea! Again, frustratingly, it doesn't cite ANY sources most of the time, so it might just genuinely be made the hell up!

My frustration aside, though, the Neko Shogun, interestingly, isn't entirely made up by the Megaten series- I would highly recommend looking further into it and correcting me if you speak Chinese, as my knowledge of this story is heavily barred by my monolingualism. Overall, I don't really know how to feel about this demon, and my opinion has been somewhat soured by my experience with researching it, but damn do I love its design. Neko Shogun, predictably, shows as a shogun, the red fan a typically used weapon by Samurai at the time. It's a cat samurai! And I love it for that.

All in all, while the lore is confusing, I really do enjoy Neko Shogun as a whole. His design is cute, and that's all you really need at the end of the day! 8/10. Please cite your sources, SMT wiki.

[deletedeletedeletedele]

Hi! I might be late to this, but i'd really like to contribute a little bit to a certain situation happening around the analog horror community:

ALEX KISTER's allegations: the copying fetish

___________________________________________

This post refers to only that one aspect, since that's the one i can confidently talk about, and i'd like to spread awareness about the whole thing somehow.

___________________________________________

How did this come to be?

___________________________________________

On March 12, 2024, twitter user STIRRINGJUICE posted a google document, which consisted of mainly relationship problems and grooming allegations against Alex Kister, creator of The Mandela Catalogue, although there was another aspect of it which people were posting more and more about: Alex Kister made Mandela Catalogue around his fetish about impersonating people.

To be more clear, this meant that the creator got off to/felt aroused by the act or impersonating others and 'becoming' them.

However, this was mostly a misinterpretation from the community, since the only text on the og document i could find was this:

I think the first image is cropped, so i'll post the text: "Alex has a scent fetish and would specifically enjoy copying people’s poses because he wanted to pretend to be them. DB didn’t know at all."

We can point out two things about this:

- The only thing being called a fetish is the scent, only saying that he enjoys copying people's poses and pretend to be them.

- In the discord message, Alex only mentions that he would have loved taking pictures in those poses, which was only a vague example (A bad use and lack of evidence imo).

So far, this is the only text that addresses this at all, the rest are just: 60% accuser's shitty relationship, and 40% the grooming allegations.

Now, i'd like to imagine that users mixed scent fetish, with copying people, and got the "Copying fetish", like in these posts:

(Don't send hate to anyone here, i will erase names if asked!)

We can agree that this is a misinterpretation of the document, because of users assuming that, if Alex Kister has a copying fetish, then TMC must be a fantasy about it! (And i don't blame them, it's logical with the main themes being that demons copy people).

When i saw this, i immediately called bs, and this is the point of the post:

The Mandela Catalogue doesn't exhibit any trait of fetish work.

Why? Simple!

A very common thing in fetish work, are these two things.

Romanticize the fetish: especially for weird, and straight up illegal fetishes! They might downplay the severity, and play the scene as something normal, TMC never does this, it portrays the Alternates as terrifying because of their abilities to kill without even harming the victim physically, and their near-immortality.

In Made in Abyss, the weird scenes where the kids speak about sexual stuff is shown as a normal scene, like if it was something kids normally talk about.

Using the fetish as the main thing: this means focusing on the fetish itself and giving them too much screentime, to show them in a good light. The fetish specifically means copying another, and most of the alternates never quite copy other people perfectly, the most infamous ones are deformed, non-human appearing and most don't even copy a character we've already seen, and viceversa, we don't see much of the alternate version after we've know about the real person. (Caesar Torres and his alternate, Preacher, the scary hallway guy, and the archangel Gabriel and his Alternate, to name a few)

You might expect the fetish content focusing only on the act that involves the fetish, which leads me to my last point.

They never show an alternate actually changing into somebody else, morphing their features to look like the exact person, a fetish scene might be where the alternate is slowly morphing their features in front of the other person, to the exact same traits in front of them.

A few more points:

Mark Heathcliff, the character interpreted by Alex Kister himself, doesn't really have it's own Alternate, 'Caesar' only becoming him after Mark dies, and only like a frame, i feel like someone with that fetish would insert themselves more? I'm not sure how to explain.

If the story was about the fetish, i don't think the series would even have the biblical references.

To back up my previous point, the inspiration of Mandela Catalogue is about the creator's existential crisis with Christianity, Covid, Local58, and the Walten Files, cited by both Wikpedia and an interview.

(So sorry for taking a photo, i really struggle with my phone)

And that's all i have! If you have any more evidence or points, feel free to know and i'll add them! Any criticism is welcomed, since this is my first post and i'm not an english speaker! I know it might be weird since i'm never active and i don't post about TMC, but i just had to support this thing somehow, thank you!