#need knowledge irl

[emil1863]

The most illegal thing Koby has done is learn a divine language... Which is only a little bit more illegal than dating a God

So.

Thoughts on language/religion in regards to this au. They aren't fully fleshed out but I'll clean it up as I go.

Learning a divine language is kinda taboo, like, you can learn them, and it's certainly less frowned upon than poneglyph, but outward practice isn't really accepted. Many people who are religious or follow religious practices are well versed in divine languages, in order to feel closer to their respective Gods.

Besides, religion makes people feel at ease and the world government is pretty relaxed when it comes to punishing those for worshiping or following their Gods. With how many there are, and how deeply a lot of it is ingrained into so many cultures, it'd also be a pain in the ass to control both that and pirates.

Koby learns through the people he meets while traveling. A lot of them think it's odd but fascinating that a young, wide-eyed marine wants to learn something like that. They indulge him anyways.

He did get better at understanding the language but his pronunciation isn't great, kinda hard to make some of the sounds Luffy makes too. Especially when he isn't used to talking like that, nor are most people. Demigods have an easier time picking up on speaking the actual... Words?

Robin understands the language of the Gods, and the rest of the Straw Hats do pick up on it a little bit just through exposure to Luffy. Luffy isn't the greatest teacher, but having people who want to understand him is always exciting. He is thrilled when he meets up with Koby on Water 7 and Koby can understand him.

[comikadraws]

Was the curse of hatred actually a real thing? or did danzo just demonize the uchiha;s anger? idk, being murderously angry or just angry in general is a reasonable and human response to oppression and genocide.

The "Curse of Hatred" Analysis

An interesting question. The Curse of Hatred looks dumb at first glance but there are also many misconceptions surrounding it.

Since it is such a hot mess to begin with, I will try to focus mostly on the in-universe canon and lore rather than making it even more complicated by bringing in too much real-world logic and criticizing Kishimoto.

There's a bunch of rambling in the tags though.

Kishimoto's Intentions

Whenever we talk about the "Curse of Hatred" the fandom will usually apply terms such as "racism", "bigotry" and "pseudoscience" - particularly in reference to Tobirama.

Again, I don't want to bring too much irl logic into this but I feel like we need to make a clear distinction between intention and interpretation over here. "[insert character] was a racist" and "the Uchiha were justified" is a valid interpretation of the story. But at the same time, I doubt that this was ever intended by Kishimoto.

I have talked about this at length in another post of mine, in which I analyzed Kishimoto's most likely intent and how exactly this information is relevant to us with a look at authorial intent in fiction. But the TL;DR version is that Japan is not exactly very sensitized to themes of racism and the "Curse of Hatred" is never framed as racist propaganda but exposition only. The lore also lines up with Kishimoto's personal views on how grudges are responsible for war (instead of corruption or racism) and the Uchiha's curse might be a metaphor for that.

In other words, the Curse of Hatred is real in canon. Even if it's a massive red flag and deserves to be criticized.

What Is The "Curse of Hatred" Even?

I have to admit, it's been a while since the last time I watched Naruto from start to finish, so I had to use the sources listed by the wiki rather than relying on my own findings and I might be biased. Because of that, I'd prefer everybody to regard my findings as headcanon or interpretation (especially further toward the end) rather than undisputed fact.

As far as I remember, the exact wording "Curse of Hatred" is only ever used by Obito. While not using the same wording, the curse is also referenced by Itachi, Hagoromo, and Tobirama who each have their own understanding of it. Unfortunately, we have no idea where exactly this wording or concept originated and we have no idea what exactly causes the Curse of Hatred that Obito refers to.

Hiruzen, Koharu, Homura, and even Danzo, while potentially influenced by Tobirama's teachings, do not reference the Curse of Hatred at all, at least not in relation to the Uchiha Clan itself.

Now here's the first one of my findings: The Curse of Hatred is supposed to be some sort of involuntary biological or cultural inclination causing Uchihas to become consumed by hatred but it is also something voluntary - a Nindo. While the former could be considered a "curse" in the traditional sense, the latter is definitely not.

For the Nindo, it is supposed to be some sort of antithesis to the Will of Fire. Because of that, it is not limited to the Uchiha but, according to Tobirama and Obito, closely associated. As explained later on in this post, most Uchihas do not follow this Nindo.

Core aspects of the Curse of Hatred as a Nindo:

Valuing a precious few above the many

Directing your hatred at those who took away your precious few

Growing stronger from those feelings of hatred (for the Uchiha, reflected in the form of the Sharingan)

A Biological Inclination?

Now back to Tobirama's theory, due to the narrative framing, we will assume his words to be truthful for the sake of this analysis. However, I will provide links to other people's posts delving into the fantasy racism discussion.

Tobirama is racist and his theories cannot be trusted.

Tobirama is not racist and there is validity to his theories.

I myself do not completely agree with either of these, but they might be interesting reads for you. If you do not agree with either of them, please keep it to yourself and do not bother the original creators.

Tobirama's theory goes as follows:

The Uchiha feel love and hate more strongly than other individuals

The strength of the Sharingan and the Uchihas' hatred are correlated

In a fit of hatred, odds are an Uchiha will commit evil

It is nowhere mentioned that the Uchiha are more likely to feel hate - only that their hatred is worse than the average person's and puts them at risk of being swayed by hateful ideologies.

A Cultural Inclination?

Aside from Tobirama's theory, multiple characters comment on the historical origin behind the Curse of Hatred.

We are talking, of course, about Indra. Obito explains that Indra's values and his hatred (particularly what later became the Nindo of the Curse of Hatred) were passed down to his descendants - the Uchiha clan. Tobirama's exposition implies the same thing.

Tobirama states that there "used to be a thought that [...] the basis of the Uchiha clan's strength was the power of their jutsu". It is very similar to Hagorormo's description of his son.

If this is correct, that would mean that the importance placed on powerful jutsu by the Uchiha Clan does inadvertently promote hatred due to the close correlation between hatred and the Sharingan.

But then again, in the story, it is shown that many Uchiha were not particularly fond of perpetuating hate and it is also implied that to avoid hatred, they sealed their emotions away. My interpretation is that they recognized the pain that hate could cause and then took steps to avoid it.

The Reincarnation Cycle

Sticking with Indra, another explanation that is frequently brought up is Indra's and Ashura's reincarnation cycle, which has also been described as curse-like or haunting and neverending. A fate seemingly set in stone.

There is not much more to say, other than that this theory suggests that Indra's reincarnates are just naturally inclined towards lusting for power.

The True Origin

Now, here's another thing that's constantly being overlooked. Aside from Obito's exposition in chapter 462 on the Curse of Hatred Nindo, Tobirama's exposition in chapter 619 on the Uchiha's tendency to follow said Nindo, and even Hagoromo's exposition on the reincarnation cycle in chapter 670, we get a vital piece of exposition in chapter 681.

Ladies, gentlemen, and anything in between. May I introduce to you...

...the real Curse of Hatred.

Or at the very least what I believe is the real reason why the "Curse of Hatred" exists in the world of Naruto.

From the very beginning, Zetsu approached Indra to take advantage of his hatred and turn it into a tool for his own purposes. He then did that again and again. He focused on the Uchiha in particular - Either because of the previously mentioned reasons (i.e. the Uchiha / incarnates have a tendency to become obsessed with hatred and power) or because the Uchiha were otherwise easy to take advantage of / manipulate (through Hagoromo's stone tablet that was left in the Uchihas' possession, an ill reputation thanks to Indra's / their ancestors' actions, etc).

In order to achieve his goal (awakening a Rinnegan), he had to somehow combine both Indra's and Ashura's power. It is implied that for this purpose, he instigated, perpetuated, and escalated wars and conflicts between Senju and Uchiha by pitting their reincarnates against each other. But unlike the wars he caused, Zetsu went unnoticed by the history books. Basically, he kept haunting the clans like a curse.

And without a doubt, had Zetsu never been there, 99% of the Uchihas' problems would not exist - regardless of what ideals, genes, or history the Uchiha hold. Indra's declaration of war, centuries of conflict, Madara's defection, Obito losing Rin, the Kyubi attack, the Uchiha massacre, Sasuke's defection, the 4th Great Shinobi War. All of these were directly caused by Zetsu or set off by a resulting chain reaction.

You could even think this further. Assuming the Uchiha clan really came across as "cursed", perhaps Tobirama's, Obito's, Hagoromo's and everybody else's explanations were just desperate attempts to make sense of anything. They didn't know that Zetsu was pulling the strings, so perhaps they tried to explain the Uchiha Clan's history in some other way. One that made sense without that missing variable.

What is actually going on here is, of course, uncertain. There are basically no definitive explanations on the matter and right now it looks like all of the above could be true and at the same time none.

[simstationdance]

if i could change one and only one thing about the sims 2 it would be to remove the heavily implied supernatural racism in its entirety and make it impossible for sims to roll "turn supernatural neighbor into a fucking normie" wants

i hate it when there are multiple witches or plantsims or zombies or werewolves or vampires or whatever the fuck in the neighborhood and all of their normie bitch neighbors have entire wants panels dedicated to wanting to Cure them and it's the only fucking want they ever roll ever again so if you don't do it they'll never be happy as long as their neighbor is a fucking plant zombie vampire or whatever.

like this dumb shit makes me actually SO fucking angry every time i think about it. shout out to the people who play entirely supernatural hoods idk how yall put up with this shit and/or get 'no cure sim wants' mods to work because i refuse to accept the supernatural racism as a part of the gameplay and i have never been able to get mods like that to work.

[grumpycakes]

Anybody else been having the weird experience of realizing that you will die eventually and you will never know if we make it out of climate disaster? If we actually do space travel? If the world falls apart?

You realize that. That you’ll never see the year 2424. That your existence is so insignificant and you will never know the ending.

That you will have an ending and you have no idea what’s happening after. To humanity/earth. But also to you and your tiny little consciousness.

That there’s a time where you’ll cease to exist.

And then you can feel your teeth and taste metal and have to actively not let yourself hyperventilate?

CAUSE IVE BEEN HAVING THOSE FUN MOMENTS ABOUT 3-5 TIMES A WEEK. AND I FEEL LIKE IM LOSING MY MIND.

[kqluckity]

how some people can look at Zhongli and Venti's dialogue during this Lantern Rite and interpret it as beefing instead of, you know, flirting truly blows my mind? like it's not just what they're saying, but also the way they're saying it. it's flirting, they're flirting. and even if they aren't flirting, that's obviously an inside joke? look at Venti's face when Zhongli acts like they're strangers, does it look like someone who can't stand the other and isn't willing to play along with the other's dumb idea? please. I don't understand how people can still think they hate each other even tho it's established that they're friends, not only through items lore and their own character stories (I really doubt someone like Zhongli would let a guy he hates forge his sigil, let him destroy his precious vase, let him pour wine on his head, and then yearn for him for 500 years bffr), but also in the first Liyue Archon quest Zhongli talks about "a friend from Mondstadt" who used to bring him wine all the time, and Venti has a "refined gentleman friend from Liyue" he wishes he could spend more time with. a friend he still visits often, so much so that madame Ping commissioned Tubby to make a Mondstadt-inspired house for the teapot with good acoustics so he could play inside with no problem.

[robinsnest2111]

anyway sure do hope I can one day be struck by inspiration to write a nice little fic in which vince gets a good spanking <3

[mccoyquialisms]

trying to come up with a non-creepy way to convey to people “Hello, I am new to this whole possibly-being-queer thing and don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I know I’m old as fuck but please forgive me, I had a late start. I want to hang out in queer spaces and just Vibe. Absorb my surroundings. Observe and learn from people in a casual and fun way. I’m here to be a friend but also if anyone wants to casually kiss me I might be down for that. I am lacking so much knowledge about myself and I NEED to figure this out oh my god HELP”

[inkmage13]

Fox Mulder isn't weird because he's a UFO conspiracy theorist. He is like that because he's from Massachusetts.

[deviousdiesel]

Hey, wanna hear some unnecessary thoughts about Lemon from someone who’s watched Thomas?

Lemon mentions that the Momomon anime airs every Thursday at 9 AM after Thomas airs. But what specific Thomas show and season? I wonder. The short answer? Well, my closest guess is probably Thomas and Friends: Big World Big Adventures (aka “BWBA”) which is the 22nd - 24th seasons of Thomas. But more specifically, it may have been in its 23rd season airing in Japan during 2020.

From what I gather from the film’s adaptation of Lemon, he strikes me as someone who was a fan of the classic series of the model era (early season stuff, series 1-5) and grew up with it.  The CGI era however is complex with its history and he seems more of an on-and-off watcher of it, he still appreciates the Thomas series even if he doesn’t watch the newer series as much as he did as he was younger (and BWBA doesn’t have the same caliber and direction as the previous Thomas series)

In the novel, it’s very clear that Lemon has watched up until s7 of Thomas, which was in its model era in the 2000s. 

I think it tracks because even if it’s the CGI series, which is more modern and has a LOT of differences, I think Lemon would still be interested in watching it to some extent even if the newer stuff doesn’t hit as hard as the classic series he watched.

The long answer? If you’re a fuckin nerd and want to read I can indulge you.

A lot of this is just purely from my observation and my own take (and this is just silly so I really hope you know that).

Bullet Train started its production in October of 2020 - which I’m going to assume is when and where the movie takes place in because the majority was shot during that time - and incidentally, that same month Mattel had announced that Thomas was getting a brand new reboot called All Engines Go, which is a 2D animated production.

Thomas has a few distinctive mediums on television and it’s divided into the model series, CGI series and AEG, which is its own thing. Lemon obviously is shown to have grown up watching Thomas so he’s more versed in the model series and its characters.

Fun fact: In the novel, he mentions a few more characters who appear not only in early seasons but also season 7.

[nahidasgarden]

Dear Archon of Wisdom, please bless my research to yield new results. I may be a heretic, and a segment of The Doctor, but I am at the end of my rope

@thetruescholar

A few moments after the prayer you feel as if there is a unique pressure on you. Almost as if the eyes of the divine are measuring your worth.

A few more seconds pass. Then, there is the quiet whisper of a child in your mind. It seems the Goddess of Wisdom has given you her undivided attention in response to the request.

What specifically are you needing results for? You specialize in prosthetic medicine, correct?

I apologize that I may seem distrustful, I tend to be a bit wary of those related to Dottore. I do not harbor any ill will towards you or any segments that have not tried to hurt me or my people.

...

I may have the ability to lend you some knowledge, but I wish that what I share will not be used to damage others.

[sysig]

Everything falls into place so nicely when they’re together (Patreon)

[zrpants]

i wish there was a website or database of "common knowledge." one place that tells you "here's a list of what most people would know about world geography, history, pop culture, natural science, tech literacy, etc etc etc." it doesn't even need to explain everything -- it's just that i don't even know what it is that i don't know.

[sweetlesson]

{I haven't been here in a hot minute and I can't remember if I've explained to y'all why that is or not. Just in case, I'd like to briefly go over what's up with me right now.}

{I'm putting this under a cut because it's kinda a lot, but tldr is: there's a lot going on and I stay on mobile on another account rn. I do suggest reading the last paragraph for contact purposes tho!}

{My family is trying to get moved into a new house, and while we're now very close to closing on one, we still don't have anything secured. So I am at once nervous about something going sideways here and at the same time busy packing anyways.}

{In addition, I've been trying to experiment with a new diet and exercise plan and it has been a really rough ride of it. Any exercise for an extended period of time seems to leave me in more pain than is supposed to be there? And so I'm spending a lot of time and energy trying to find something that I can actually do consistently.}

{And in addition to all of these things, we are also getting close to the holidays so we're starting to plan for our usual paries and events that we hold for all of these holidays. So while most of those won't be for a while yet, I might be spending time experimenting with cooking (Saguaro would be so proud haha).}

{Needless to say most of this has given me next to no time to be on my computer, so I've been popping in on mobile and just. Getting to stuff as it pops up. Haven't had many notifications for this account (or for Cyrano) so I just haven't been coming onto this account. And it'll probably stay that way for a good bit.}

{If you need me, DMing me here probably isn't the way to do it, just because Discord will not notify me if I get a DM. If you have a Discord, that's going to be the easiest way to get in touch with me. Alternatively, you can send an ask or reply to something which will get notified, or you can DM Hanekoma's account at @strawberry-barista which is the current default account I stay on when I'm not here. Here's my discord, but please only mututals add me!}

{If you made it through all of that, thank you for sticking with me snskak. I'll see you guys as soon as I can. XD}

[nomairuins]

dw is such a funny show to watch while high bc there r 3 experiences you can have and its 1. Terrified out of your mind scariest experience in the world 2. sobbing crying very emotional 3. So insanely confused not following a single thing thats occuring

[thunderboltfire]

Random info about Daen!

Design:

This one may be on the more obvious side, but Daen's clothing is one of the least original among my main Isaldian cast. Daen's somewhere between 180 and 300 years older than the rest of them, and if the general inspiration for most of Isaldi is roughly mid-to-high medieval, his clothes are also 200 years off, but in the wrong direction. He wears what is essentially a standard 17th century Polish-Lithuanian nobleman garb (it could be Hungarian too), only less ostentatiously decorative than some real-life examples of it.

In fact, the only thing in his looks that is notably different from the fashion of the times is his hairstyle and the fact that he's clean shaven (or an approximation of it). That, and the fact he doesn't wear a hat. If I was to give him an undercut, a mustache and a fox fur cap, bam! Polish-Lithuanian jumpscare.

And the thing is even more evident if I'd give him a fur-lined coat with sleeves cut open.

The reason why I've chosen this look for him was because it looks just a bit different than the rest, and where the action takes place he is a foreigner, though it's not really clear where he hails from. The second reason is that I really like this style and I think it's unterutilised in fantasy. The unintended result of sticking to it, however, is that I've loosened the white-knuckled grip I've had on keeping Isaldi in a strictly typical medieval high-fantasy aestetics.

It helped a lot when for a pretty long time I couldn't quite fit Argo to a specific role on the battlefield, because he slipped through most of the usual RPG archer archetypes. That's why Argo also ended up wielding a sabre, and why he has a much subtler, but still somewhat early modern influences in the way he is both armed for melee combat and for mounted archery.

Lore trivia:

Daen's native language is Moer, but he speaks Illiraian (language of the territory in which most of the action is going on) without a discernible accent. He is fluent in Andaran (neighboring country's language), and communicative in at least one dialect of elvish. He knows, or at least understands a pretty terrifying number of languages - a feature he picked up throughout his unnaturally long life. He has a rather pleasant, low voice, he's probably a bass, but it isn't easy to get him to sing.

The first thing people usually notice when looking at him is his unusual pallor. He's got permanent dark circles under his eyes, almost looking like bruises. He looks at best unslept, and at worst like he's anemic or straight-up dead (and the fact that he's able to just sit unmoving for a very long time and not sleep for days at end doesn't help the unnerving impression). One way or another it's pretty clear at a glance that something's not right with him. And that's before someone sees him eating.

The Bloodless have an in-born magical affliction - similarly to the shapeshifters, they are descended from humans, but the generational exposure to ambient magic resulted in them having many aspects of their physiology vastly different from regular humans. In their case, they are able to absorb live magic from living (or maybe, recently living) sentient creatures to perform impressive magical feats, but such opportunity comes at a cost of an inevitable, and irreversible corruption. The side effect however, is that they live incredibly long and heal extraordinarily fast.

[projectdivaar]

newly acquired