so my younger cousin is flying in to visit from brazil on sunday, and will be staying here for like, the entirety of july. which, don't get me wrong, is super cool! i love the kid! but it felt like a super weird move, considering his parents are the SUPER strict and borderline helicopter parents. even the smallest prank/roughousing with him/his little sister would lead to a strict talking to from his parents, he couldn't ever do anything without their clear permission, that sort of stuff. so letting him fly at alone at 16 to a whole different country and stay there for a whole month seemed WILDLY out of character. additionally, it just felt like a super last-minute trip. it's not like we have any plans to do when he gets here, and the flight itself and stuff only got booked like, midway through june.
and i was talking to my mom about it, kind of trying to nudge some answers out of her, and after a while she went, "yeah, i think they're sending him over here to get away for his boyfriend. see if the distance breaks them off." which, first of all, surprised me because last i checked, they didn't KNOW he had a boyfriend. literally everyone in the family did EXCEPT for them because while that entire side of the family being semi-conservative, his parents (mostly his dad) are EXTREMELY old-fashioned. so clearly something already went wrong. and considering the only reason the rest of the family knew is because one person found out and it spread like wildfire, i have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the one to tell them, either.
and second of all. they're sending him HERE. to try to make him forget his homosexuality. i couldn't do anything but just wordlessly gesture to the multiple pride flags scattered around my room, then to myself, because really? he has like two other cousins in the us and they're sending him to me? honey i am about to introduce this kid to queer scenes you have never even heard of. he'll be returning home with labels only shrimp can perceive
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She Who Became the Sun illustrations by Przemysław "Trust" Truściński
Okay I did some digging around and managed to find an ebook version of the illustrated Polish edition (Ta, która stała się słońcem) of She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan!! I got my copy from swiatksiazki.pl with the help of automatic translation.
Here are the illustrations I thought would be the most interesting to show here.
Chapters 1–4, Zhu at the monastery
Chapter 7, Ouyang
Chapter 10 - Ouyang and Esen
Chapter 16 - Zhu and Ma’s wedding
Chapter 19 - Zhu and Ma figuring out the business of rain and clouds
Had to censor this one OTL
Chapter 22 - Esen and Ouyang
Chapter 23, Zhu at the end of the book
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Digital Circus AMA Notes
Digital Circus is getting a season 1 at some point!!!!
#webcore aesthetic board for the series design
Pomni was going to be a frog originally. 🐸
90s toys Zooble inspo
Caine is an antagonist, but not by active choice, he doesn't know he's not helping. He doesn't feel a whole spectrum of human emotions (he's an AI).
"Caine canonically just lets things happen if he thinks it's funny."
Characters eat like Chao in Chao garden in Sonic. The characters can eat the food, but they can't digest it.
Jax's favorite food is spaghetti.
Pomni likes salmon.
Q "Was the ending a 'Last Supper' reference?" A "in a very superficial kinda way yeah." Religious stuff is sometimes just used for the funny.
Gooseworx tumblr sketches MAY or MAY NOT be canon to the series, so it's up in the air for every single one.
People can abstract from feeling too much pain if it breaks their mind from it being too much. Characters feel pain from things, but not as intensely as they would in real life.
Zooble is gonna swap parts every episode (implying they have spare parts) except their body & head.
Jax chose his own name & gooseworx likes to think he chose Gangle's name.
Ragatha was named "Emmy" originally.
They (the cast of characters trapped in the circus) can't change their clothes but Caine can. It's part of their skin sorta kinda.
There's empty space under Pomni's hat because video game model physics.
Spamton was partially inspo for Caine, Caine's VA did Spamton dubs.
Gangle only has 2 masks. Why's it (her hapiness mask) break all the time? Mental state, but the "real her" is "harder to break."
Kaumfo was gonna be part of the main cast originally before Jax.
Kaufmo's model has nothing below the waist at this time, but was made for that promotional image on twitter.
Q "What kinda person was Kaufmo?" A "He was the same as Ragatha in a sense, goofy & cheery, sometimes toxic levels of positivity."
I'm paraphrasing for the sake of note taking in real time, go watch the stream playback for more context & details if you want.
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the narrative of kaveh being an idiot is so baffling to me because he is, quite literally, canonically considered a genius…? why is the popular consensus “6000 IQ alhaitham and his lovably stupid roommate kaveh” when every npc commenting on kaveh refers to his intellect & talent, the literal god of wisdom says kaveh has an “almost-perfect grasp of what it truly means for sumeru to be a nation of wisdom” (whereas she questions alhaitham’s wisdom in her line about him), and alhaitham’s own story profile calls kaveh a genius multiple times??? like the whole point is that he’s alhaitham’s intellectual equal despite having entirely separate worldviews and demeanors, which frustrates alhaitham to no end — ‘how can someone so smart do all of these things that, to me, are so evidently stupid?’ the takeaway from their dynamic should NOT be kaveh is dumb, but rather that empathy and emotion aren’t actually the opposites of logic and intelligence, but sadly both alhaitham and the realm of academia as a whole are too blinded by their own definitions of logic to fully realize that.
tl;dr kaveh is not dumb by any standards and i will prove it
(under the cut: quotes/screenshots/etc proving this + more. please spread the gospel and dispel ignorance. amen)
some npc voicelines (there are more but i’m lazy):
these are pretty self-explanatory — kaveh is a widely-renowned scholar, architect, and engineer throughout sumeru. he graduated from the akademiya with flying colors, students were desperate to take his classes, etc.
nahida’s voicelines:
both are intelligent but only one is wise: kaveh. alhaitham is too restricted by his narrow definition of wisdom (read: what he deems ‘logical’) to look beyond himself and grasp that there’s more to intellect and knowledge than pure cold rationality. he can’t comprehend that empathy and intellect aren’t fundamentally incompatible — in fact, they’re best when put hand in hand. kaveh is one of the few scholars capable of valuing emotions, empathy, and artistic endeavors, while the rest of the akademiya closes themselves off to that entire realm of knowledge from the get-go. this is what makes kaveh uniquely wise, and what alhaitham lacks. until you understand that emotions and logic can and should coexist, you won’t be successful in the true pursuit of knowledge.
last but not least:
alhaitham’s profile (worth noting that profile stories are pretty much the most reliable source of information on characters’ true beliefs and opinions — their voicelines are still them putting on acts in front of the traveler, but these stories are told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator and are likely closer to the truth):
“two geniuses.” and even after their falling out, “neither of them will deny the other party’s exceptional brilliance” — meaning alhaitham considers kaveh to be exceptionally brilliant. point blank. in the text bro
hilarious line — it’s basically alhaitham saying he doesn’t understand how someone with kaveh’s talent and intellect could have a personality/worldview so different from haitham’s. ‘how can someone that smart be so annoying!!!!!’ and ofc by values we know it’s referring to kaveh’s idealism, empathy, and affinity for the arts
alhaitham considers kaveh to be “another genius,” someone who is so much his intellectual equal that he’s “an excellent mirror” for alhaitham. it’s like an experiment for him — the initial question is “how can someone as smart as me care about all of these things i’ve always believed to be worthless,” the subjects are kaveh and alhaitham, the controlled variable is their intellect. because their intellect is the same, alhaitham is able to study their differences (can’t attribute said differences to varying intellect). alhaitham would never say it out loud — and luckily he doesn’t need to bc his character story tells us — but he’s deeply fascinated by kaveh bc kaveh’s very existence is a threat to haitham’s worldview, & he’s letting kaveh stay with him bc through kaveh, alhaitham learns about not just himself but the outside world and humanity as a whole, and as a scholar, there’s nothing more valuable. (also because he feels comfortable with kaveh [“he’s a familiar face”] and they’re both lonely [“similarly lacks familial attachments”] lol these two are never beating the We Know You Don’t Actually Hate Each Other allegations but that’s a different point so i digress)
IN CONCLUSION:
this is all just the TEXTUAL evidence — people saying “kaveh is smart” — and doesn’t even include all of the obvious implicit signs of kaveh’s intellect (no one who graduates from the akademiya w honors and teaches classes there could be anything other than incredibly intelligent, al “i don’t do anything that i don’t want to do” “i’m not going to bother explaining it to you because you won’t understand” haitham not only puts up with but actively seeks out debates with kaveh which he absolutely would not do if he didn’t respect him or consider him to be of roughly equal intellect, look at the debates he has w alhaitham on sumeru messageboards and TELL ME those messages sound like they were written by an idiot or itto or something [you cant], etc etc etc).
and also this is all from 3.3 (+ 3.4 alhaitham leaks)! we don’t even know kaveh’s rarity yet, that’s how far he is from being playable, but there’s already this much information on just how smart he is! it’s the main thing we know about him — 1) he’s smart, 2) he’s passionate/driven by what he feels is right! why does that keep turning into “LOL HOTHEADED HIMBO”??!
okay look. this is all so extra i know. BUT. i must set the record straight now (god knows it’ll only get worse the closer we get to kaveh’s release) because this sudden-onset mass illiteracy within genshin players is going to send me to an early grave. feel free to use as a resource and educate the ignorant so kaveh does not end up reduced to a one-note meme dumb guy when literally that’s just… not even in the game. i mean at least other annoying OOC fandom interpretations have basis in the game but genshin literally tells u every time it gets the opportunity that Kaveh Is Just As Smart As Alhaitham Because Cold Rationality Does Not Equal Wisdom/Intelligence and losing that would be such a crime because it is by far the most interesting n promising thing hoyo has done with new characters in ages! like, not only are they funny and entertaining, not only are they fascinating incredible foils for one another, but they’re used to make a much-needed argument against the prevalent hegemony of mindless rationality and our “logical” society’s illogical fear of emotion/empathy. but yeah sure, theyre just itto & ayato 2.0, i guess. god. the lack of reading comprehension among genshin players is literally an epidemic
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