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corrupted-nightshade · 5 months

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List of things that point towards Gojo Satoru & Geto Suguru being kissers of boys with connections to eachother

(If they did kiss though is another story)

Note: the list will be divided into different sections with space in between. So don't go speed scrolling through if you don't want spoilers. :"3

Some of these are less serious, but are still included because all the more content for these two sillies.

--- Last updated: April 26th, 2024 Note: Make sure to check the original post if viewing a reblog version in case Tumblr does not update things under the "read more" like it used to be able to.

Various

572. This number is used frequently as a ship number for the two as "GoGe" the ship name can also be produced as "GoNatsu". Go means 5 and the rest sound similar to 72. These numbers ironically show up accross the series a few times and also in official merch. (Some examples being a clock in season 2 episode 1 stopped at 5 hours 7 minutes 20 seconds or a Gojo teddy bear priced at ¥57,200)

JJK official fanbook

"Q: Please tell us his first impression when he first met Geto. A: Bangs."

"Q: He seems to be aware that he is handsome, but doesn't he want a lover? A: I can't imagine Gojo being faithful to a particular woman."

"Q: Is there anything you are particular about Geto's character design? A: Bangs"

One of Gojo's songs & one of Geto's songs given to them. "Shame on you" by "Avicii" (a break up song) for Gojo and "Come back Home" by "Two door cinema club" for Geto. Stated in volume 3 chapter 24.

The sheer amount of times Geto shows up in MMVs for Gojo and how they display the impact Geto had on Gojo (For example, the latest MMV for volume 26's release)

Their birthday's solar terms tying in with parts. (Geto being "Risshun" beginning of spring & Gojo being "Taisetsu" heavy snow.)

Rings for them that were released on August 8th, which is "Pairing day" in Japan

Jujutsu Kaisen 0

Geto's kesa is specifically a Gojo kesa

Gojo stating in 0 that

"I've always believed... ...Love manifests the most distorted curses." / "This is my personal theory, but there's no curse more twisted than love."

Even after 10 years, Gojo recognized Geto's smell. (The mall scene after Yuta & Toge fought the curse)

Geto renaming someone to "Sato" because

"That's what I've decided, so Sato is better."

This sunset scene

Gojo's veil is black & Geto's veil is white. Gojo's veil causes darkness, Geto's does not. [Peep who reminded me]

The song "This is pure love" not only plays over Yuta & Rika vs Geto, but also plays over Geto & Gojo's conversation

The way that Geto looks at Gojo & says his name, and how Gojo looks at Geto & says his name

Geto's blushing face at Gojo that we were robbed of in the anime

Some of the lines from the JJK 0 light novel lines

"Yet Gojo's bandage-covered eyes kept watching, kept following the shape of Geto's soul."

"But to Gojo Satoru, he was —— '————, ————' '...ha.' When he heard the words Gojo blurted out, Geto couldn't help but laugh. Such embarrassing [...] words. Even why they were students, those words had never been said before. 'You should've at least cursed me a little before the end.' December 24, 2017. The curse called Geto had been well and truly exorcised."

Season 1

JJK Juju stroll

"Q: What kind of person is your type?" Gojo: "[...]The one who seemed nice. With the notable bangs."

yes, i know who he stated but the way he answered was so half arsed as he struggled to come up with an answer as an example of his type. 💀

Season 2

Again, the way they look at each other and say each other's names (There's another picture with Gojo looking at Geto, but I'm missing it right now)

THE HECKIN GOJO & GETO VALENTINES CAKE??

They literally even have a themed honeymoon place???

Geto makes sure Gojo has his favorite soda. :3

Part 1 / volume 8 - 9

The intro for season 2 part 1

"Even after I got to know the smell of you, different from mine"

"In such a color as if it were a silent love"

"I've got a curse word for you stuck in the back of my throat"

The outro for season 2 part 1:

"Even trivial conversations are fine Show me your blushing face once more"

"It only exists here I want to touch you"

The fish in the outro

The flowers in the intro & outro. [Peep who reminded me]

The purple ones (Located on table in the part where older Gojo is sitting in a chair by a window) are possibly Primula/Primrose flowers. They can represent young love, beauty, desire, desperate, and can be a symbol of spring and renewal/new beginnings. etc.

The yellow ones (Located in the part where Gojo & Geto are sitting together with their hands & cans of soda surrounded by the flowers) are possibly osmanthus flowers. They can represent love, passion, happiness, beauty, etc.

[See here , here, here , here , here , here ]

Geto not answering Tsukumo Yuki's question of what kind of woman is his type more than once

When Geto is asked by Haibara if he would like a sweet or savory souvenir, Geto says

"Satoru will probably have some too, so maybe something sweet."

Part 2 / volume 11

This whole image (Geto in the glasses on the left, and Kenjaku's silhouette on Gojo's face on the right)

Season 2 part 2's "Specialz" intro hidden meaning

Despite the following about Geto's state, Geto's body still instinctively reacted to stop Kenjaku from hurting Gojo.

"Q: Fake Geto's arm was moving during the Shibuya Incident, but how much of Geto's consciousness remains in the body? A: Not much. He was moving like how a dragonfly whose neck was torn off can move."

Fun fact: Some owls pair/bond for life (Whether the owl is supposed to be Geto's because Kenjaku is using Geto at the time or it's not Geto's animal because that is Kenjaku is up to you)

Volume 26

The Camilla flowers with snow. Not only do they represent Gojo well with their meaning, including one meaning being unchanging/strong love alongside modest love / beauty for pink, but flowers are given to different dates. The birth flower of February is this flower, said to bloom on the 3rd of this month. Aka Geto's birthday.

Chapter 236

Gojo actively chose to fight on December 24th (a day considered romantic for Japan) which is now the day both Geto and him have died on. Even Kenjaku acknowledges the days significance with

"Ha ha! How romantic. Isn't it gross to make plans with each other on Christmas eve?"

These lines

Both Gojo & Geto's volumes' numbers can have bad meanings in Japan. 4 can mean death & 9 can mean to suffer/agony. (I put this under volume 26's section because of the spoiler)

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There's likely more, but this is what we could think of right now. XD If you have anything you want to add on, feel free to send it my way because the more help the better & easier this is. (^w^ ) Same for any corrections to the list (as it's just me writing up this post and I may make slip ups)

#jujutsu kaisen #gojo #gojo satoru #geto #geto suguru #goge #satosugu #corrupted nightshade's talks

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yurimother · 2 years

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Yuri of Absence and The Chair of Yuri: Combining Lesbian Manga and Science Fiction - The Secret Garden

This article was originally written in 2021 as part of The Secret Garden, YuriMother's exclusive series of articles, available only for Patrons. If you want to access other articles and help support Yuri and LGBTQ+ content, subscribe to the YuriMother Patreon.

In the “olden days” of Yuri, which is really to say anything in the ‘00s or earlier, there was not much variety in the mainstream Yuri market. If you wanted to read a manga about the romance between two women or watch an anime with clear lesbian elements, choices were between a sweet school story or a classic tragic school Yuri story. As I have mentioned many times recently, one of the most significant advancements in the recent Yuri genre is the advent of sub-genres. Once considered an element or subgenre itself, Yuri hosts various works from isekai to feminist literature. However, one of the most curious and certainly most well-known subgenres is science fiction.

Yuri science fiction is in the spotlight right now, with everything from visual novels like Synergia to webcomics like Ratana Satis’s Soul Drifters. However, one of the most prolific and rightly celebrated titles is Iori Miyazawa’s Otherside Picnic. The series began publishing under Hayakawa’s Bunko JA imprint in 2017, and over the past few years, it exploded onto the scene. It has an upcoming sixth book, a manga adaptation serialized in Monthly Shounen Gangan, healthy overseas publishing, and of course, an anime adaptation helmed by Kase-san and Stiens;Gate director Takuya Sato. It has garnered praise from critics CBR, Anime News Network, and Erica Friedman of Okazu. I wrote glowing reviews for the first few books, complimenting its worldbuilding, pacing, and characters. However, Otherside Picnic did not spring out of anywhere. Indeed, it is the product of gradual shifts in Yuri and sci-fi storytelling and Miyazawa’s genius theories and knowledge of the genres.

The mixture of Yuri and science fiction is not anything new; it predates most other forms of Yuri save Class S school romances. You may not picture many of these when you think of modern Yuri sci-fi, but as early as 1975, we had Yuri stories like Boku no Shotaiken that included small sci-fi elements, in this case, transferring the mind to another body. Over the next two decades or so, a time during which so few Yuri titles surfaced, it is occasionally referred to as Yuri’s “era of Darkness,” multiple titles sci-fi titles including Dirty Pair, Project A-Ko, Bubblegum Crisis, and Iczer featured science fiction settings and Yuri elements. At this time, Yuri was not much of a genre as we think of it today, but more of a factor inserted into a larger narrative. Think of Yayoi and Shion from Psycho-Pass for a more contemporary example. In fact, except for Iczer, none of these titles feature any outright lesbian characters, just female casts with “Yuri-ish” moments of women standing close together and being companions.

These titles feature two key elements that many current series have shifted further away from, soft sci-fi and Weak Yuri. Soft, as opposed to hard science fiction, is the more established of these two scales. Science fiction can be separated between outlandish and impossible ideas, sometimes known as science fantasy, and those based in reality, research, and the hard sciences such as physics, astronomy, and mathematics. Sorting works between these two labels is, ironically, not an exact science, and fans and critics alike argue about their precise definitions. However, let us consider soft and hard science as a spectrum, with outlandish premises like Dragonball on the soft end and the reality-based concepts of Space Brothers at the other. One can sort most titles along this continuum. M Alan Kazlev does an excellent job dissecting this scale in further detail. Many of the titles we enjoy today, including Otherside Picnic, inhabit this transitory space, as it is not fantasy. Still, its reliance on anthropology and psychology’s soft sciences may put it a small step below more grounded hard sci-fi. Still, it is far above the aliens and superpowered robots in ‘80s anime, so we shall consider it hard sci-fi for the sake of this argument.

*Note: Many science fiction circles use the abbreviation sci-fi for soft science fiction and SF for hard science fiction. For ease of readability and common vernacular, this article uses “sci-fi” for both instances.*

Sci-fi Yuri did not break out of soft science fiction territory until very recently. In the 1990s, Yuri underwent dramatic changes thanks to Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena, which helped reform it as a genre rather than a feature. Maria Watches Over Us revived S Yuri traditions, and new titles were set in schools and focused on modern girls’ lives. In the 2000s, Yuri magazines began serialization and featured stories such as Kisses, Sighs, and Cheery Blossom Pink and Strawberry Shake Sweet (both serialized under different names). Despite being primarily aimed at adult women, the magazine found success with male audiences, prompting new stories appealing to men and boys. These works reintroduced action and science fiction into the genre with pieces like Kannazuki no Miko: Destiny of the Shrine Maiden, Blue Drop, and Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl (Yuriboke does a better job breaking all these down). However, all these were still vehemently in soft sci-fi territory, with Kashimashi’s only surreal element being an alien because the author was, to simplify grossly, unable to fathom the existence of transgender people (coming full circle from Boku no Shotaiken). Possibly the only contemporary mainstream hard sci-fi title to include Yuri and enjoy a modicum of success was Qualia The Purple. However, this series did not have the genre-defining power that later works would.

However, what changes between these series and those mentioned earlier is the Yuri itself. The relationships become much more explicit and central to the plot. You can deliberate whether or not Bubblegum Crisis is sapphic, but just try sitting someone down and arguing that Kannazuki no Miko is not built around the crux of two women holding romantic interest in each other. Yuri science fiction author Gengen Kusano proposes a dichotomy similar to soft and hard sci-fi to analyze these titles, Weak and Strong Yuri. He explains it in his own brilliantly convoluted and philosophical way, but in short, Weak Yuri relies on using logic and the mind to make the real imaginary, while strong Yuri is about emotionalism and realism, making fiction into reality.

Strong Yuri is Yuri that focuses on realism through feelings and emotions. Kusano describes it as fiction characters having real emotions. They have strong connections and affection for each other that are real and powerful. The audience experiences the feelings between the characters as they are felt and portrayed. Think of how emotional the exclamations and love, sorrow, confusion, and affection are in titles like Bloom Into You and Citrus. In a sense, they can be so strong that they transcend their fictional confines and become real, as they are experienced by considers, a stage called “radically Strong Yuri.” Most explicit Yuri, which is not subtext or suggestive content but in-your-face lesbianism, is Strong Yuri, although not all Strong Yuri is outright depictions of lesbianism; it is a square rectangle situation, not all rectangles are squares, but all squares are rectangles.

Weak Yuri is cemented in the areas of thought, logic, and epistemology. It deals with the theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states to others or ourselves. For example, when we see someone smiling or laughing, we may not feel their emotion ourselves, as we do not have direct access to their mind, but we recognize that they are happy. In Weak Yuri, one uses their theory of mind to observe facts and deduce the existence of a Yuri relationship, even if one is not present. So-called “Yuri-ish” titles like Yuru Camp or K-ON! do not outright state or depict romantic or sexual attractions, but is attributed by the viewers onto characters. Said observer witnesses the interactions between girls and, using that factual and observable data, puzzles out a lesbian attraction they prescribe to the subjects, whether real. Shipping culture relies on Weak Yuri’s logic Kusano’s most extreme, “Radical Weak Yuri,” the relationships of real people, like idols, become imaginary through these projections.

Blue Drop and Kashimashi may have been soft Sci-fi, but unlike the soft sci-fi, Weak Yuri series of the twentieth century, they featured Strong Yuri and placed it more as a central aspect of the work with other elements built around, rather than as a side element. The next revolution in sci-fi Yuri came when hard sci-fi titles began production. A few of the principal players here are Kusano himself, Otherside Picnic Creator Iori Miyazawa, and editor Rikimura Mizoguichi, all of whom feature in the viral Yuri Made Me Human interview of Miyazawa. Most of the theories and ideas discussed in this article, including Kusano’s Weak and Strong Yuri arguments, came from these seminars.

It all started with Kusano’s existential widescreen Yuri baroque proletariat hard sci-fi Love Live AU fanfic of the popular ship NicoMaki, consisting of Nico Yazawa and Maki Nishikino. The revised edition of this story, Last and First Idol, was published in 2016 and became the first debut title to win the prestigious Seiun Award in 42 years. Satoshi Maejima’s post-script essay at the end of the Last and First Idol collection gives far more detail into these works’ history. However, Idol was the first prominent story to feature Yuri in a hard sci-fi narrative. It was not perfect. In fact, in its push to feature gruesome content and insane hard sci-fi that Yuri is pushed to the wayside during most of the story.

*Author’s note: The first time I read Last and First Idol, I was completely unaware of its contents, which was a shocking experience; the story comes with a severe content warning).

Last and First Idol did not create a woven hard sci-fi, Strong Yuri narrative. However, it was a definite proof of the concept, a testament that the sprawling details and imagery of hard Sci-Fi could work with Yuri relationships. Kusano’s next short story, Evolution Girls, which would appear alongside Last and First Idol in the collection of the same name, saw the author focus more on emotionalism and create a Strong Yuri work. Nevertheless, Last and First Idol was a massive success. Future hard proof that Yuri hard sci-fi was coming in force came in December 2018, when Hayakawa Shobo ran a special edition of its long-running S-F Magazine featuring Yuri stories. The issue, planned by Rikimura Mizoguchi, proved so popular for the second time in its then 59-year history, the magazine had to reprint before release.

While Kusano was developing theories on Yuri and Hayakawa Shobo worked to push the public eye onto Yuri sci-fi, author Iori Miyazawa was refining his own Yuri premises, ones that, though he did not know it at the time, would not only see Strong Yuri and Hard sci-fi standing side by side in the same story but would synthesis the two into a unique product that could attract new fans and expand the borders of science fiction and Yuri. The work in question, of course, is Otherside Picnic. This light novel series about girls journeying to another world to hunt creatures from occult internet lore is to date Yuri science fiction’s best execution.

As Miyazawa admits, he strives to create Strong Yuri by focusing on emotionalism and realistic characters. However, such character-driven narratives are often at odds with hard science fiction, which requires dense walls of text to explain the complicated science behind its concepts and world. Miyazawa avoids this trap by utilizing Yuri tropes, specifically scenic Yuri and “Yuri of absence,” and integrating Yuri relationship into these explanatory literary lectures. Examining the latter first, rather than using narrative or exposition dialogue to unravel the intelligence behind the world or elements of science fiction, Miyazawa uses the relationship between Sorawo and Toriko.

In Otherside Picnic, explanations of the mysterious Otherside come primarily from two sources, dialogue and Sorawo’s inner monologue. When Sorawo and Torikko discuss a nuance of the paranormal creatures they investigate, it no longer becomes a large infodump but a Yuri scene about their relationship through their interactions and responses. According to both the strong Yuri theory and Yuri’s traditional definition, these emotions and discussions are the crux of the genre – stories about females’ relationships. Similar emotionalism fills Sorawo’s inner monologues, specifically in the frequent romantic admirations of Toriko. Thus, an explanation existing in that same space becomes Yuri, as it mirrors the same emotions and attraction. Merely by placing the usual exposition into interactions and relationships, Miyazawa was able to open hard science fiction to new readers, who may have been apprehensive before because of these text walls.

Miyazawa’s other secret weapon is, as he describes it, “Yuri of absence.” Relying on the principles of Strong Yuri, that Yuri is fiction made real through emotions, Yuri of absence extends these parameters outside of characters. As Strong Yuri relies on feeling, not observable data like characters, anything that invokes two women’s feelings together is Yuri. It could be a song, or an empty bench, as one can imagine two women on it and feel emotions tied to that. Of course, taken to its extreme, nearly anything can then be Yuri, as I have joked before, gesturing to an empty chair proclaiming, “Behold, a Yuri!” However, Miyazawa uses this Yuri of absence sparingly, rendering it closer to scenic Yuri’s intimacy.

Scenic Yuri, a particular type of Yuri of absence, focuses exclusively on setting and imagery, a feature that works particularly well in science fiction as according to Masahiro Noda’s “sci-fi is all about images.” Traditional Yuri uses character interaction and supplements it with images and sights that help communicate characters’ emotions and intimacy, like fleeting shots or descriptions of the sky. Take the shot from Kase-san and Morning Girls where Yamada stands by the bus stop. The distance between the girls, the tree in the foreground on Yamada’s side, and the pole on the right all invoke emotion and help tell the girls’ story, distanced by their differences and upcoming life paths. Now remove the girls, the scene remains, as does its meaning and emotions, whether the characters are present or not.

Scenic Yuri is employed vigorously in more male-targeted S Yuri (a minority of the Class S genre). Here, the imagery provides intimacy so that the voyeuristic viewer could look into the characters’ private and forbidden lives, specifically the girls in all-girls schools. Take the shot from Strawberry “Mo Man May Enter Here” Panic. The sweeping view of the Strawberry Dorms atop Astraea Hill, a place where men are forbidden, gives the consumer an exclusive inside look at the private home of its subjects. Otherside Picnic uses these same scenic Yuri principles in its descriptions. In this case, the intimacy does not come from a place where men are prohibited or a shot describing women’s relationships. Instead, the reports of abandoned ruins and deserted open fields where only Toriko and Sorawo exist provide extreme intimacy. It is an emotional view of two of the few women in this world with nothing but each other; thus, Yuri.

Yuri science fiction is easily the most exciting place in the genre right now. Its creators are experimenting with new theories and storytelling methods to expand the boundaries of what science fiction or Yuri alone could never do. The subgenre has undoubtedly come a long way from its Weak Yuri roots and continues to grow. Industry leaders like Miyazawa and Mizoguichi will continue to push into this excited and uncharted territory, using tactics new and old to bring together Yuri’s emotional and romantic core with science fiction’s epic and provoking imagery. I have few doubts that we have seen all these pioneers have to offer and that Last and First Idol and Otherside Picnic are just the beginning.

Sources

Friedman, Erica, and Kishiji Bando. “Shoujo Yuri Manga Guide.” Yuricon, 29 Mar. 2011, https://www.yuricon.com/oldessays/shoujo-yuri-manga-guide/.

Hanson, Katherine. Yuri No Boke 百合のボケ〜百合が好きだ〜: Sci-Fi Yuri Anime and Manga. 17 Feb. 2012, http://yurinoboke.blogspot.com/2012/02/sci-fi-yuri-anime-and-manga.html.

Kit, et al. Tomo Choco Podcast Episode 58: A Trip to the Otherside. https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/tomochoco5287491142565609/id/14974343. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Komatsu, Mikikazu. “S-F Magazine’s Yuri-Themed Issue Gets Reprints Before Release.” Crunchyroll, https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2018/12/18/s-f-magazines-yuri-themed-issue-gets-reprints-before-release. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Kusano, Gengen. “[R-18] #SF #矢澤にこ【SF合同サンプル】最後にして最初の矢澤 - 節足原々（セッソクハラハラ）の小説.” Pixiv, https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=4992326. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

M Alan Kazlev. “The Scale of Hardness in Science Fiction.” Futurism, https://vocal.media/futurism/the-scale-of-hardness-in-science-fiction. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Masayuki Sakoi. Strawberry Panic S01:E21 - Like a Flower. Madhouse, 2006. tubitv.com, https://tubitv.com/tv-shows/558933/s01-e21-like-a-flower.

Maser, Verena. Beautiful and Innocent: Female Same-Sex Intimacy in the Japanese Yuri Genre. ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de, https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/695. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Miyazawa, Iori, et al. Yuri Made Me Human, Part 2. Translated by Kati_lilian, 24 Aug. 2018, https://teletype.in/@kati_lilian/S1yjBCJgH.

Miyazawa, Iori, and Rikimaru Mizoguchi. Yuri Made Me Human — Interview with Iori Miyazawa. Translated by kati_lilian, May 2018, https://teletype.in/@kati_lilian/SJA8KwjjN.

Moore, Caitlin, et al. “The Winter 2021 Preview Guide - Otherside Picnic.” Anime News Network, https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/preview-guide/2021/winter/otherside-picnic/.167892. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Nicki “YuriMother” Bauman. The History and Future of Transgender Representation in Yuri - The Secret Garden, January 2021 | YuriMother on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/posts/45495024. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

---. “Yuri Is for Everyone: An Analysis of Yuri Demographics and Readership.” Anime Feminist, 12 Feb. 2020, https://www.animefeminist.com/yuri-is-for-everyone-an-analysis-of-yuri-demographics-and-readership/.

Pinansky, Sam. Interview with J-Novel Club’s Sam Pinansky. Interview by Erica Friedman, 1 Oct. 2019, https://okazu.yuricon.com/2019/10/01/interview-with-j-novel-clubs-sam-pinansky/.

Sarantos, Constance. “How Otherside Picnic Breaks the Yuri Genre Mold.” CBR, 10 Jan. 2021, https://www.cbr.com/otherside-picnic-breaks-yuri-genre-mold/.

“「SF冬の時代」は雪解けを迎えた早川書房・溝口力丸 Vol.1.” KAI-YOU Premium, https://premium.kai-you.net/article/201. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Snapshot. https://www.cbr.com/otherside-picnic-breaks-yuri-genre-mold/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2021.

Takuya Satou. Watch Kase-San and Morning Glories. Sentai Filmworks, 2018. vrv.co, https://vrv.co/series/GYQWD1X1Y/Kase-san-and-Morning-Glories.

Walter, Damien. “Science Fiction vs SciFi vs SF: What Is the True Definition?” Damien Walter, 7 Aug. 2018, https://damiengwalter.com/2018/08/07/science-fiction-vs-scifi-vs-sf-what-is-the-true-definition/.

YuriMother. “LGBTQ Light Novel Review - Otherside Picnic Vol. 1.” The Holy Mother of Yuri, 12 Dec. 2019, https://yurimother.com/post/189635367305.

#Yuri #otherside picnic #the secret garden #miyazawa yuri #yuri of absence #scenic yuri #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtq+#queer #gay #lesbian

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rikeijo · 3 months

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Today's translation #663

Pash! 2017/3, Pash! arts history

2017/02 Artist: Aizawa Kagetz

This art depicts a beautiful beach on the Samet Island located in Rayong province of Thailand. The scenery that Yuuri and the others are admiring is the crystal clear, transparent sea, stretching ahead to the horizon! That's the view that is on the opposite side, that is not drawn in this art, but I think it's fun to imagine that scenery, to feel as if we were watching the view together with them. It would be nice to go on a beach!

2017/03 Artist: Seki Minami

In this art, I wanted to capture the feeling of a warm day in Spring, that naturally makes your spirits high. The request from the Editor was 'The three of them close together', but I thought that Yurio would most likely act shy in such a situation... etc. - drawing them in-character was very fun, but also difficult. Victor is ruffling Yurio's hair, and I remember that I was trying very hard to find a way to make this gesture look soft and full of love... I'm happy that I get to draw Yurio and Makkachin, because I didn't draw them for the anime.

2017 Pash! Illustration file Artist: Yamada Ayumi

To make the props laying around the characters in this art 'Yuri!!!'-like, I added katsudons etc. as key-straps and stickers! What was difficult for me was to get distance between the three characters just right. I adjusted the composition to make Yurio not too far away from Yuuri and Victor, but at the same time not too close, too. I think that thanks to Makkachin and the cats around Yurio the distance between them appears closer! Personally, I very like Makkachin's face catching the wind, because it looks like a very pleasant experience.

#yuri on ice #yoi translations #yuri on ice translation

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mariacallous · 1 month

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On May 16, the gaming and entertainment news site Dexerto tweeted an image from the forthcoming game Assassin’s Creed Shadows featuring one of its protagonists, the Black samurai Yasuke, in a fighting pose. Across scores of replies, some voiced optimism, others fatigue with Assassin’s Creed’s now 14-game-long run, and a very vocal few expressed frustration and anger that a Black person was at the center of the narrative.

“Gonna pass on the DEI games,” wrote one blue-check X user, referencing the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Why Wokeism?” asked another. Comments full of racist and sexist language filled the thread.

A more articulate undercurrent of these reactionaries, across many online forums, had a more specific set of complaints. Some alleged the race of the real Yasuke was never known, others that he wasn’t a samurai but a retainer, and another claimed he was never in combat.

These were all fairly elaborate conclusions to draw about a guy from 1581 who’s been depicted as a samurai in Japanese media many times, including in the 2017 video game Nioh and Samurai Warriors 5 in 2021, as well as his own animated series on Netflix.

They also may have been the last bit of armchair history we got on Yasuke if the conversation hadn’t been sustained by a set of accounts looking to build yet another front in the online culture war, fueling what some have been calling Gamergate 2.0. Whereas the Gamergate of 2014 focused on trying to drown out feminist voices, and the voices of women of color, in gaming culture, this second incarnation seems focused on pushing back against diversity in games of all kinds. Yasuke just stepped in their path.

The resurgence of the Gamergate moniker came earlier this year in reaction to the work of Sweet Baby. Staff at the small consultancy received a wave of harassment this spring stemming from misinformation and conspiracy theories claiming the company was a BlackRock-backed outfit trying to force diversity into games. (It’s not affiliated with BlackRock and merely advises on characters and storylines.) As the controversy around Assassin’s Creed Shadows intensified, several posts mentioned Sweet Baby, even though company CEO Kim Belair says the firm didn’t work on the game.

“I think it just comes with the post-Gamergate (late-Gamergate?) territory,” Belair wrote in an email to WIRED. “To a certain kind of person, largely trolls, we're synonymous with their idea of ‘wokeness in games’ or a vague idea of ‘DEI,’ but it's ultimately reflective of the overall misinformation that fuels this campaign.”

Gamergate was not the first harassment campaign conceived in the bowels of 4chan and its affiliate websites, but it was perhaps their crowning achievement. The attacks against developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media critic Anita Sarkeesian, among others, ranged from doxing to rape and death threats. Its tenets and tactics eventually proved valuable in bringing people into the burgeoning alt-right movement. Even Pizzagate and QAnon can, in some ways, be traced back to what was happening with gamers online in 2014.

“Gamergate was a recruiting ground, a pipeline to leverage the loneliness, discontentment, and alienation of young men—often white young men—into alt-right politics, extremist misogyny, and outright white supremacy and Nazism,” Thirsty Suitors narrative lead Meghna Jayanth told WIRED.

If the early days of social media incubated a cultural cold war, Gamergate turned it hot. Frustrated that they were no longer the sole demographic being catered to, Gamergaters saw “the growing visibility of women, not to mention their incomprehensible insistence that games cater to their perspectives as well, as an unwelcome intrusion in a space that does not belong to them,” Laura Hudson wrote in WIRED at the time. As a result, they wanted more than debate, they wanted blood—and nothing really stopped them from going after it.

Ten years later, aggrieved gamers are focusing on other forms of diversity and inclusion, which is how Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Yasuke has become the latest point of contention.

While only so much can be truly known when it comes to history, accounts suggest Yasuke (the real one, not the video game character) was a man presumed to be from west Africa who served the Italian missionary Alessandro Valignano. He accompanied Valignano to Japan where he served Oda Nobunaga at the daimyo’s demand. Yasuke was presented with the trappings of a samurai: a house, servants, a sword. He would go on to be with Nobunaga, or near him, at the time of his death, before seeking his heir Nobutada and joining him in battling those responsible for Nobunga’s death, though unsuccessfully.

While Yasuke’s history is fascinating and mysterious, much of the fuss over him has concerned whether he was officially a samurai, a depiction that has shown up in media several times in and outside of Japan. Some insist that he may have instead been a retainer, page, squire, or sword-bearer. Others decrying his inclusion in Shadows said he looked gay.

“There is no easy way to separate the many threads of what we are seeing within the Yasuke backlash,” says Paula Curtis, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies. “There are legitimate complaints about the developers’ decisions regarding representation and historical engagement … There are also many discriminatory responses to the game that have been anti-Black, misogynistic, and politically motivated.” It’s important to note, Curtis adds, that Shadows’ fans and commentators, and the issues they’re raising, aren’t uniform.

When Japanese historian Yu Hirayama tweeted there was “no doubt” as to Yasuke’s samurai status, he was treated to a tirade of abusive replies in English, including one claiming he brought “dishonor to [his] family and Japanese history.”

Amid the backlash to Yasuke’s inclusion in the game—and specifically to his role as a samurai—Ubisoft, the game’s developer, issued a statement saying that while the company “extensively collaborated with external consultants, historians, researchers, and internal teams at Ubisoft Japan” on the game, “some elements in our promotional materials have caused concern within the Japanese community.”

Without saying specifically which aspects caused concern, the company added that it was taking this “constructive criticism” into account as it prepared for the game’s November launch, and apologized. (Ubisoft did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)

Jayanth believes the apology was a case of misplaced appeasement.

“The alt-right's fundamental drive is hatred of the ‘other,’” she says. “Even if we cleansed our games of women, non-white people, queer people—which is their ask, and one we absolutely should not give in to—they would turn to insufficiently ‘masculine’ depictions of white men. This movement exists only in opposition to some polluting ‘other,’ an enemy that must be manufactured if a real enemy cannot be found.”

Revisionist approaches to history have seen a rise in recent years, especially in the interest of enshrining an idealist sense of a traditionalist past as an ahistorically conservative utopia.

“You see this in the false assertion of a purely white Middle Ages or the denial of war atrocities in World War II,” Curtis says. “Bad-faith actors may cherry-pick historical sources in order to craft specific narratives, completely ignore sources that do not support their views, or appropriate historical symbols as rallying cries to their causes.”

The proponents of Gamergate 2.0 have veiled their scorn for Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ inclusion of Yasuke within concerns for historical accuracy. Much Like the Gamergaters of old, who insisted they were defending ethics in gaming journalism and not harassing women they felt needed to be put in their place.

Gamergate then, and Gamergate now, are both ultimately about the sensitivities around who saw representation and how, made disproportionately important by how disempowered and alienated modern people feel. As games have made room for a wider array of characters, the gamers at the center of the backlash have seen this progress as a form of persecution. Games are changing, and as much as those upset over Yasuke’s inclusion in Shadows want to push back, they may not be able to stop that.

“It's certainly been strange to see us tied to a ton of games we've never worked on simply because people perceive ‘wokeness’ or progressive ideas in them,” Sweet Baby’s Belair says, “but maybe it's indicative of a greater truth that Gamergaters miss: No external consultancy is forcing studios to make their products more diverse or more progressive. The change, whatever you think of it, is coming from inside the house.”

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rabbitcruiser · 1 year

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World Elephant Day

These magnificent creatures are among the largest animals on earth, with incredible memories and emotional intelligence that astound researchers and animal lovers alike.

They’re intelligent. They’re family-oriented. They have great memories. They are capable of feeling a wide range of deep emotions, from intense grief to joy bordering on elation, as well as empathy and stunning self-awareness. They create complex, supportive societies much like our own.

Taking into consideration all of that and much, much more, what’s not to love about elephants? Still, countless elephants are brutally killed every year for their ivory by greedy poachers who then leave their carcasses to rot in the sun. As Graydon Carter, Editor of Vanity Fair put it:

We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits, but the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.

World Elephant Day is the perfect time to find out more about these amazing animals and what we can do to preserve and protect them so they do not go the way of the mammoth.

History of World Elephant Day

World Elephant Day was created in 2011 by two Canadian filmmaker Patricia Sims and Thailand’s Elephant Reintroduction Foundation and first celebrated on August 12, 2012. The initiative was greatly supported by film star and Star Trek legend William Shatner who narrated the documentary Return to the Forest, a fascinating 30-minute film about the reintroduction of captive Asian elephants to the wild.

The motivation for the first World Elephant Day was to draw attention to the plight of these majestic creatures to populations and cultures all over the world. Due to their pleasant and intelligent nature, the world’s largest land animals are loved worldwide. But, unfortunately, these magnificent creatures face multiple threats to their survival.

One major issue is the ivory trade. Currently, the demand for ivory is the biggest in China, with the price of ivory often exceeding the price of gold, something that makes elephants bigger targets than ever. The economics here work firmly against the humble elephant. Extreme levels of poverty in Africa mean that people can often make a month’s wages or more from the ivory of a single animal, selling it on the international market.

Furthermore, the parts of the world that demand ivory, such as China, are becoming increasingly wealthy, meaning that they can pay more for tusks. These dual factors are combining to make elephant poaching one of the most lucrative activities on the plant.

Habitation loss is also a danger to the world’s elephant population as it deprives elephants of the hundreds of pounds of food they need every day, making it more difficult for them to breed and making it easier for poachers to track them down. Unfortunately, researchers believe that loss of habitat is the primary driver for the loss of elephants in the wild. A century ago, they numbered more than 12 million in the wild. Today, that figure may be as low as 400,000, with as many as 20,000 per year killed by poachers.

Data suggest that the geographic range of elephants fell by around 30 percent between 2002 and 2011, with a similar loss of savannah for them to roam. The introduction of large parks throughout Africa has allowed habitat destruction to stabilize, but illegal poaching remains a dire threat. Circuses and tourism are also serious problems for the animals’ well-being.

World Elephant Day is an opportunity for everyone to get together to find ways to reduce conflict between humans and elephants. The solution probably lies in a combination of strategies. These could include land development that minimizes habitat destruction, electric fences to keep elephants away from farms, and changes in local attitudes.

Luckily, an increasing number of both celebrities and politicians have become interested in the cause, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashley Judd, and President Barack Obama.

World Elephant Day Timeline

50 million BC Elephants roam Africa

The elephant species is believed to have originated in Africa and then eventually spread across land bridges to Asia and Europe.

2012 World Elephant Day is founded

Canadian Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation of Thailand, which is a royal initiative in Thailand. The day continues to be led by Patricia Sims.

19th-20th Centuries Elephant populations are reduced

The number of elephants decreases, even with international efforts to protect them.

1976 African Elephants are placed on the Endangered Species list

The growing popularity of ivory leads to a severe decrease in populations and elephants are considered endangered as poachers continue to kill them for their tusks.

2015 World Elephant Society is started

Founded as a charitable organization, World Elephant Society was created to help support the World Elephant Day campaign.

How to Celebrate World Elephant Day

The best way to celebrate this day is to take the opportunity to educate yourself about these magnificent mammals and share your knowledge with others. As ever, simply spreading the word about the dangers these magnificent mammals face via social media can actually make a real change.

Thanks to your sharing a few of World Elephant Day’s Facebook posts, that old high school acquaintance of yours who is traveling to Thailand on her honeymoon this year may just decide to skip the elephant ride when she realizes that “training” elephants often involves tying and beating them daily for months on end.

Watching the aforementioned documentary will only take half an hour of your time but is sure to be a real eye-opener, not to mention the absolutely stunning landscapes shown in it. If you want to get a bit more involved, you could choose to make a donation to a foundation dedicated to protecting elephants from poachers or relocating them to locations better suited to their needs.

The organizers of World Elephant Day also provide plenty of ideas they encourage for helping these incredible creatures in the wild.

The first thing you can do is sign the World Elephant Day pledge. This document allows you to join with countless other people around the world to put pressure on governments to change their policies.

Organizers also want people to promote ethical elephant hashtags on their social media accounts, raising awareness of the abuse of animals worldwide, including in the tourism industry.

Clearly, buying any products containing ivory is a big no-no and should be avoided wherever possible. When buying pianos, antiques, or other products, always check to ensure that the manufacturer has not used elephant tusks in the production process.

You can also support organizations working hard to protect natural elephant habitats. Many of these areas are under threat right now because of population pressures in sub-Saharan African countries as well as India, where cities are sprawling and booming.

Finally, you can invest in projects that seek to provide sustainable and lucrative livelihoods to people who live alongside elephants. These programs improve economic circumstances so that locals don’t feel that they need to poach to make ends meet.

Whichever way suits you best, make sure that you spend this day in a way that helps elephants the world over so we, in turn, can continue to marvel at them and their uniquely fascinating way of life. By playing your part, you can make a big difference.

World Elephant Day FAQs

When is World Elephant Day?

World Elephant Day takes place on August 12 of each year. Other celebration days for elephants include Save the Elephant Day on April 16 and National Elephant Appreciation Day on September 22.

How is World Elephant Day celebrated?

One of the best ways to celebrate World Elephant Day is to help elephants by raising awareness, learning more about elephants, or signing the World Elephant Day Pledge.

Are elephants endangered?

The elephant species is classified as endangered, with only 40,000-50,000 left in the wild.

Why is World Elephant Day celebrated?

World Elephant Day is observed to bring attention to the plight of Asian and African elephants, conserving and protecting them from the numerous threats they face.

How much does an elephant weigh?

As the largest land animals on earth, a large male elephant can weigh up to 15,000 pounds.

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latvian-spider · 3 months

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Sleeping Duck

Originally Uploaded on DeviantArt as WinxPossible on May 31, 2017

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Original Description:

She just looked so cute, so I decided to take a pic. She was gone when I was leaving about an hour later, though.

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No comment.

#Animals #DUCKS #Park #Photo #Spiders Scribbles #Snapshots #2017 Spring Showroom

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vernal-equinox · 9 months

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#photography #nature #animals #details #flowers #bumblebee #green #violet #2017 #spring #insects #bee

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sirfrancisvarney · 8 months

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So as the show is halfway through, and before episode four drops, I've tried to put together and organize all the information I've gathered so far.

In 2005 (18 years ago), Anders Lund found Tsalal station. Raymond Clark joins. The shots of the website don't show when everyone else joins, but some of them join within the next few years. The source of Tsalal's funding is hidden by several shell companies that link back to Tuttle United.

Seven years ago (or possibly earlier), in 2016, Annie Kowtok insists on joining her friend on her visit to Tsalal station, and immediately starts a relationship with Clark. This behavior is apparently unusual for her. Did she go to Tsalal specifically to meet Clark? Why keep it a secret? Also in 2016, Clark bought a trailer. It's assumed this was used to meet Annie K in secret.

Next year, sometime in spring 2017, Oliver Tagaq left Tsalal for reasons unknown. In April, Annie is killed. She records herself, clearly frightened and afraid of getting caught, on her smartphone in what appears to be an ice cave, saying, "I found it. It's here. I found it, I found it. My name is Annie Kowtok. If anything happens to me please--" she's pulled away from the camera and she is heard screaming. The camera view at the end is on the skeleton of some marine animal encased in ice.

On April 18, Annie's body is found. She was stabbed 32 times with a star-shaped instrument, ribs and teeth broken. She was kicked after her death and her tongue was cut out. Four days later, on April 22, Clark gets a spiral tattoo that match's Annie's. I don't know how long it takes to arrange getting a tattoo, so I don't know if he already had plans to get it, or if he got it because of Annie's murder.

Time passes. At some point, Clark turns the trailer into a shrine of some sort for Annie. The mannequin in the bed is wearing her cardigan, and there are baby dolls and children's toys placed around it, possibly a reference to her role as a midwife.

Clark covers his research notes with writing, including repeated phrases and words such as "her eyes her face," "I can hear her coming/moving outside," "cold," "dark," and "her fingers." It's unknown when this behavior started.

Fast forward to the end of 2023. A few weeks before the show starts, Clark's behavior becomes noticeably stranger. At some point before December 17, he obtains Annie's smartphone, which appears to have video of her last moments, and he is assumed to have acquired her tongue. He could have gotten these at the time of Annie's death, or at any point since. If he didn't take Annie's tongue himself, maybe getting them caused his mental instability to get worse?

On December 17, the last sunset of the year, a hunter watches as a herd of caribou get spooked from an unknown stimulus, and flee. It's unknown if this is connected to the events of the series, or merely meant to be symbolic. On the same day, the water in the villages goes bad, for reasons unknown. The mine is blamed. Also on December 17, the scientists at Tsalal are living their lives, relaxing in the evening, doing chores. Anders Lund is going over old data on a whiteboard (no spiral is visible on his forehead). Molina is filming himself making a sandwich, when he sees Clark, shaking or shivering. Part of Clark's hair is dyed blue, and where his hair touched the parka, the dye has transferred. He has clearly been outside in the snow. When Molina asks if he's ok, Clark turns and says "she's awake," which is immediately followed by a power outage that also affects Molina's smartphone.

On December 22, the delivery guy arrives and finds the place empty. A figure moves inhumanly fast through one corridor, but no other sign of life is present. The TV is playing "Twist and Shout" in repeat. He finds Annie's tongue on the floor underneath a table (several feet away from where Clark had been standing) and calls the police.

The next day, Rose finds the bodies of the scientists. They are frozen together, almost completely buried in the ice, bodies twisted in agony. They are naked, with burnt corneas and blood from their ears. Some have scratched their eyes out or bit themselves. Lund has Annie's spiral drawn on his forehead. Somehow, he is also still alive. (I don't know if this is important, but Danvers had to brush snow away to see the spiral, but Rose knew about it and told Navarro. Maybe it was more visible when she found the bodies and snow covered it before the police arrived, maybe Travis told her.) The scientists's clothes were found folded neatly near the corpsicle. The shoes look like indoor slippers, and it's likely that the clothes match what they were all wearing the night of December 17. A single handprint was taken from one shoe. It appears to be missing part of the ring and pinky fingers on the right hand (or they just couldn't get the print of those fingers).

Lund wakes briefly. He tells Danvers and Navarro, and I quote, "we woke her. She's awake. And now she's out. She's out there in the ice. She came for us in the dark."

Those are all the relevant facts concerning the main murder case (to my knowledge) as of episode three. I suppose I could have included a picture of Annie's stab wounds, but I couldn't make any kind of pattern out of them, or take a guess at what the weapon was. There's also the snow Navarro hit in the first episode, but I couldn't tell what it is, or if it's anything more than dirt and snow piled on the road. Personally, they do not suggest a microbial origin or cause. Diseases take time to infect, and they don't progress in everyone at exactly the same rate. The scientists were found together, practically climbing over each other. They died at almost exactly the same time, apparently in abject panic. I don't think a disease can kill that precisely. How did Clark avoid getting infected, since he lived with them all? Plus, whatever happened to them happened shortly after the power outage, since Molina' left his sandwich behind. One would assume he meant to eat it, since he went through the trouble to make it. The death of the scientists, the power outage, and the water going bad are all too closely linked in time to be unrelated. I wish I had a map of Ennis. I'd like to see how close these are in physical distance.

I also don't think there are any real clues to be found in the website. Their bios look about like what you'd get if you asked someone to come up with backgrounds for people studying ancient microorganisms in glacial ice. Plus, I think most of the scientists are ultimately going to be unimportant as individuals. Out of all eight men, Lund and Clark are the only ones focused on by the narrative. When interviewed, the cleaning ladies only mentioned Lund (yelled at them for touching his stuff) and Clark (his crying, probably over the brutal unsolved murder of his girlfriend kept them from being able to clean his room) by name. Lund survived (for a while, at least). Clark is missing and is closely connected with Annie's case. Oliver Tagaq mentioned Lund by name when he learned the scientists were dead. (On a side note, I really wish Danvers and Navarro (mostly Danvers) hadn't been so hostile when questioning him. They might have gotten more information from him if they hadn't gone at it like assholes. Granted, that's practically an impossible task for Danvers.) The rest, sadly, don't seem to be important. They are effectively ignored and dismissed, much like how they ignored the cleaning ladies.

So what could have happened on December 17, and how is it tied to Annie's murder? Honestly, I don't know yet. I'm not sure there's enough information given to answer those questions. Lund's speech and the way the scientists died suggest a supernatural explanation, but other details surrounding their murder seem to suggest more prosaic, human causes. There's no sign of a struggle at the station, but maybe someone cleaned up after themselves. The way part of the note at the bottom of the whiteboard is erased looks unusual, like it could have happened accidentally. Maybe someone got knocked against it, or their coat brushed against the board when they were writing the message. It's also possible the murderer was able to make them all leave without a fight. The power had just gone out, so maybe they all gathered together to put it back on? Where's the circuit breaker or generator for the station? Maybe that's where the actual crime scene is. The folded clothes feel like something you'd make a person do right before you execute them, sort of like making your victim dig their own grave. It could also have the opposite motivation: I could see a person not in full possession of their faculties (like Clark, or maybe one of the cleaning ladies in a fugue state) instinctively trying to straighten things up. Both feel like very human actions.

Finally, who is "she"? Is that even the right question? When did "she" wake up? The scientists didn't seem to be doing anything that would trigger her awakening on the 17th, so it must have happened before. I wish I knew more about what made Clark's mental illness ramp up in the weeks before sunset. It feels like there could be an important clue there. Too bad Clark is missing and anyone else who could answer the question is dead.

#true detective #true detective night country #spoilers #long post #hope all of that makes some kind of sense #i still don't know how the polar bear fits in #i need to stop obsessing over this show #i have other stuff i need to do

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