#i cycle between this one

[sea-jello]

i keep imagining spinjitzu brothers wu doing this face and its so fucking funny to me

[riseupriseupandcomealong]

hi more ulster cycle art based on this passage: “From the Monday after the feast of Samain at summer’s end to the Wednesday after the feast of Imbolc at spring’s beginning, Cúchulainn never slept — unless against his spear for an instant after the middle of the day, with head on fist and fist on spear and the spear against his knee” - táin bó cúailnge tr. thomas kinsella

[currentlyonstandbi]

[obstinaterixatrix]

here are all the recs I posted for femslash february 2024...! each individual rec post can be found in my femslash feb recs tag. I actually thought I wasn't going to be able to do this because work got super chaotic, but in the end I couldn't bear to skip out on a leap year. that's a whole extra day for yuri.

last year I focused on official releases, so this year I wanted to focus on series that aren't technically officially available (plus a french-japanese film). fan translations are always a dicey for artists/translators/publishers/etc because obviously they need to get paid... but yuri's already such an overlooked genre that—in an official capacity—we end up with a couple drops from what's already a pretty small pool. I read hana to hoshi about a decade ago, and I keep submitting it to the seven seas survey for licensure! and yet!! no dice. and even when there are official releases, sometimes they just... disappear!? wish you were gone was licensed and then taken down, so for a while the only way to read it (if you missed out on buying it) was the fan translation. I think it's important to support artists and official releases, and also, to appreciate the thankless endeavor(/crime) of scanlation.

hope yall find something you like!

[brother-emperors]

WHAT DOOM FOR YOU?

back again with my Please Read The Thebaid Agenda! I adapted the ending of Book VII into a comic because oh boy. thoughts thoughts thoughts.

There is a horror in having yourself altered to such a degree where you are unrecognizable in your own self, to know that it is happening, to know that you should be dead and yet you are not. You have already seen the moment of your death!!!! (Stat. Theb. 3.537 – 47) There's a horror in knowing, and in it being treated as an act of love when it's really more like a violation. Amphiaraus is spared Creon's decree, but by falling into the underworld, it makes things worse on a cosmic scale.

Statius' Thebaid Book VII, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce

Statius and Virgil: The Thebaid and the Reinterpretation of the Aeneid, Randall T. Ganiban

Statius' Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War, Charles McNelis

The Perils of Prophecy: Statius' Amphiaraus and His Literary Antecedents, E. Fantham

society6 | ko-fi | twitter (pillowfort, cohost) | deviantart

[batsplat]

random throwback to fabio's response to casey saying he should've been black flagged for the whole open leathers situation

[a-s-levynn]

I have traveled far beyond the path of reason, take me back to Eden

edit: more context in the tags of the root post

[waitineedaname]

tbh it is incredible how compelling bingge and shen jiu are considering they're characters who ceased to exist as soon as the novel began

[hamofjustice]

nemona feels like an obscure blorbo instead of the main rival character from the latest pokemon game because to get to her really good content from people who really get it, you first have to wade through the ocean of yandere pervert obsessive stalker annoying punchable bimbo amazon goddess interpretations of...

... a neurodivergent and possibly disabled high schooler who's desperately trying to make any friends or get any support from her rich neglectful family - while everyone in her school is jealous of their own imagined version of a privileged asshole version of her they made up - who deeply and platonically loves and supports the one new kid who agreed to take the time to get to know and respect her and her special interest without having to hold back her true self

unlike her, it's not great!

kinda feels like she has the same problem in our world that she does in hers.

[tranakin-skywalker]

The spirit that follows Anakin around doesn’t talk much, but he’s very good at letting off Bad Vibes

[finnlongman]

Working theories about the processes at work in the Babyfication of Cú Chulainn in the 17th-19th century Ulster Cycle tales:

All of these late stories position themselves as taking place before Táin Bó Cúailnge. This is obvious from the fact that Fer Diad is present in lots of them, but is also just narratively convenient for them, I think.

Cú Chulainn is 17 in TBC, so our starting point is that he must be younger than that.

Generally these stories position themselves as occurring after Tochmarc Emire/Foglaim Con Culainn. Again, this is partly evident from the presence of Fer Diad. Some of them overlap slightly with it.

Cú Chulainn's age in TE isn't stated outright, but following the Boyhood Deeds, he might be as young as about 6.

He must therefore be aged between 6 and 17 when all these stories take place.

Tóruigheacht Gruaidhe Griansholus, the oldest of these stories (1679), states that he is 15 -- presumably with the primary intent of firmly locating the story before TBC. The Ulaid are concerned about the idea of him going off an international road trip alone because of his age, and express this concern, but he does it anyway. His youth is occasionally referenced, but on the whole he is much as he appears in earlier texts: a skilled and precocious warrior.

Eachtra na gCuradh and Coimheasgar na gCuradh come next (early 18th cent). They notice this detail in TGG and decide to elaborate on it further: Cú Chulainn is younger than 15, and is going on adventures only in the company of other warriors; it is occurring pre-TGG, making that his first solo adventure.

Because he is too young to go on adventures by himself, and because those responsible for him are frequently concerned for him, this gives the impression that Conall et al are babysitting him.

Eachtra na gCuradh appears to take place before Coimheasgar na gCuradh. CnC introduces Láeg and by the end of the story, he and Cú Chulainn have teamed up, ready for TGG. Conall appears slightly less protective of Cú Chulainn, so we can conclude he is slightly older than he was in EnC, when he is very baby (and when Láeg wasn't yet on the scene).

His age is not stated outright in any of these, but I would guess he's aged between 10 and 14. This is based purely on relative chronology and may not hold up to close scrutiny.

Sgéalta Rómánsuíochta are the latest stories (maybe 18th century but preserved in 19th century version). They're not super interested in Cú Chulainn, preferring to foreground other characters. His babyfication makes this easier, since he can appear as a child sidekick (to Ailill Fionn, in the first story), or in a similar capacity to EnC and CnC -- the youngest/most junior member of a group of warriors. Across the four stories, he could be anything from about 7 to about 14 again.

Theories about intertextuality:

Tóruigheacht Gruaidhe Griansholus and Coimheasgar na gCuradh both provably draw on the Stowe version of Táin Bó Cúailnge. There are details that can't have come from any other version of TBC (or any other text that survives). They are not the same details in both texts, so it's not that CnC drew on TGG: both drew on Stowe.

Since EnC is probably by the same author as CnC, we can assume he also had Stowe.

EnC's inclusion of Manannán mac Lir might suggest knowledge of Serglige Con Culainn.

CnC alone of the very late tales (i.e. EnC onwards) includes Láeg, with characterisation details that obviously come from Stowe TBC. Again, it doesn't seem to derive directly from TGG (there's a detail I'd expect to see there if it did); both go back to Stowe and so have similarities but have developed them differently.

All of them are probably drawing on Foglaim Con Culainn; in some places it seems like there might be some reliance on Oidheadh Con Culainn as well. There might be some evidence of drawing on Oidheadh Chonlaioch, particularly the attribution of teaching to Aífe rather than Scáthach, although I know there are also late verse versions of this that might be a source rather than the prose.

SR may be more distant from its source material with heavier reliance on these intervening texts -- there are lots of phrasal similarities between EnC/CnC and SR, but Ó hUiginn disputes the earlier proposal that they were all by the same author and thinks SR are definitely later.

That's what I've got so far. I doubt anyone has suggestions because I don't think anyone has cared about these texts for a couple of centuries, but if you do, hit me.

I am partly writing this post so I can keep track of these thoughts for later, although my PhD corpus ends with TGG, so I won't be talking at length about the others there. (They may come up in passing, though.)

[verysmallcyborg]

the smaller fun crimes i've missed:

taco bell bong and ragdoll animation on death (extremely funny in frontlines since i applied it to everyone, enemy players included. it's also how mare friends know when i have the occasional death LOL)

cunty little arms crossed cpose - fem... middie i think? and the default hroth idle (fornax has back problems ok. she canonically has a bit of a hunch. if i knew how to put this one on femroe cpose 2 or 6 i would u__u)

[dxxtruction]

Louis being compared to as a saint. Saints, who find their salvation and then give intercession from beyond that veil to move others towards it. A guide for life, where they no longer fall into their sins and trajectories towards a certain hell. "Listen to me as if I am the voice of god, or an angel." Louis being that saintly catalyst for the vampires to confront themselves in that such a way. A saintly Louis is very dear to me.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Madk's mangaka is one of the few people who truly understands the old adage

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin

[monkee-mobile]

do you think if any of the monkees tried to actually kiss in the 90s special, everything would like glitch out for a bit and a lizard sunning itself of a rock would snap them out of it or would they be able to break free and show the kiss to the people?

[blackjackkent]

The Hellraisers - Chapter 1

Pairing: Karlach/Male Custom Tav, Tav & Wyll, Karlach & Wyll Characters: OC Male Tav (Hector Carlisle), Karlach, Wyll Rating: E (Fic), T (Chapter) Warnings: None Descriptors: Post-Game, Action/Adventure/Romance, Eventual Happy Ending Chapter Word Count: 4.5k Chapter Setting: Avernus, immediately after the end of BG3 Summary: Hector Carlisle, a Selunite monk turned adventuring warrior, follows his lover Karlach and his friend Wyll into the depths of hell after the fall of the Netherbrain. Together, they take on an even greater foe - Zariel, the Archdevil of Avernus. The Hells won't know what hit them. Chapter Summary: Hector, Karlach, and Wyll arrive in the Hells after a panicked flight from Baldur's Gate - and the weight of what they've decided to do starts to sink in.

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Hector Carlisle’s journals of the Absolutist crisis provide one of the most comprehensive summaries available to modern historians of the events leading up to what is now called the High Hall Shattering. There is not a single day for which Carlisle does not account in detail between Alturiak 10 1492 DR (when he first obtained pen and ink after the crash of the nautiloid which kidnapped him) and Uktar 24 (the night before the Netherbrain’s public attack on Baldur’s Gate’s Upper City). However, after the defeat of the Netherbrain, his own records of his activities abruptly become much more intermittent and rather staccato in nature, lacking the level of detail common to his so-called “Tadpole Chronicles.”

There are multiple theories regarding this sharp change in Carlisle’s record-keeping tendencies. Some of these theories incline towards the conspiratorial - suggesting that the monk’s disappearance into Avernus was associated with some sort of nefarious activity which he was unwilling to commit to paper. Some even go so far as to accuse him of sacrilegious behavior, though this is rendered unlikely by records of both Carlisle’s own Selunite convictions and opinions from all who knew him.

A far more probable explanation is that Carlisle’s thorough record-keeping in his pre-Shattering travels emerged from a sense of obligation. As a monk at the Silverlight Monastery, he had primarily occupied himself with transcription and scholarship of historical texts, and his training placed considerable emphasis on self-reliance and emotional reserve. As such, he considered his own journals to be necessary documentation in the same vein, and he prided himself on impartial and factual chronicling. 

His departure to Avernus with Wyll Ravengard and Karlach Cliffgate would ultimately prove no less impactful to the world at large. However, it is clear that he considered it a far more personal endeavor, as evidenced by the remarkably succinct entry from Uktar 25 1492, his first entry after his departure from the Material Plane:

Uktar 25 1492

She’s alive. She’s going to live. Thank the gods.

~ Excerpt from “Raising Hell: A History of Zariel’s Fall” by Harlow et. al., Blackstaff Academy Press

-----

"Hec, look out! On your left!"

Hector dodges to the side just in time to avoid the imp diving towards him; its claws skim the side of his head and score a painful line along his temple. Pivoting onto his heel, he spins, bringing his right fist around to slam heavily into the imp's thick torso. The evil little creature’s spine snaps and it screeches with pain. He takes no satisfaction in it, but watches with blank exhaustion as the imp falls to the rust-red dirt and is still. 

"Nice one!" Wyll calls. He withdraws his rapier from the body of another imp and points past Hector’s shoulder. "Looks like another wave coming in - off to the west." Hector follows his gaze and groans; sure enough, another band of the imps is closing in on them, surging over the horizon like a swarm of bees.

It’s been like this ever since they arrived. They’ve had no chance to orient themselves, no time to get a foothold after their panicked flight from the Material Plane. Avernus rose up to meet them like a body driving out an infection; the first wave of defenders appeared within minutes, closing on this raw strip of hellish wasteland to which they brought Karlach to save her life.

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