#when i search up my own name on google these articles come up

[andromedasummer]

im so fucking glad my dad doesnt work where he used to work anymore because articles about the places direction would always bring him into conversations into the directorial intent and in turn make things a fucking nightmare for my family

[khaire-traveler]

Sniffing Out The Bullshit: Spotting Misinformation

Ah, misinformation - the bane of any pagan or polytheist's existence. With information in general spreading faster than the speed of light these days, we must be able to discern when something isn't as true as it claims to be. This post delves into different methods of verifying sources and noticing misinformation. It's, by no means, exhaustive; it's simply meant to serve as a guide for those who may not know how to do discern falsities otherwise.

Spreading misinformation is ahistorical at best and immensely harmful - hell, even deadly - at worst, especially when it comes to physical/mental health and marginalized groups. Misinformation is how conspiracies about "drinking bleach to cure XYZ illness" start (among many other factors, of course). When people listen to the loudest voice rather than the most credible, they are easily misled into believing falsities and spreading those harmful lies to others. It's best to stay accurately informed about topics so that you both know what you're talking about and can't be easily misled by someone with potentially malicious intentions.

-

Now onto how to actually discern misinformation online. Here is my guide on sniffing out misinformation (numbered for your convenience, but you don't have to go in order):

Are there any logical fallacies in the person's claims? Here is a website that explains each individual logical fallacy. People will often use logical fallacies to twist an argument in their favor, despite having no real evidence of their own. You'll see this a lot within online discourse. I've noticed "appeal to emotion", "strawman", and "tu quoque" are quite prevalent online, especially on this website.

2. Is this fact, opinion, belief, or prejudice? This website offers a good explanation of how to distinguish each. I see people often confusing these with one another, and it contributes greatly to how misinformation is spread. Someone will share an opinion on something historical or historical-sounding, and others will take it as fact. Not being able to differentiate fact from opinion, belief, etc. can lead us to assume someone knows a lot about a topic that they actually know nothing about or are simply not qualified to speak on. Someone who is not a doctor diagnosing people with certainty and conviction is a great example of this and something I see, unfortunately, quite often.

3. Is the source emotionally manipulative? Although WebMD is admittedly not the best source of information, this website discusses emotional manipulation in detail and what to look out for. Believe it or not, people do use emotional manipulation to spread their ideologies and misinformation online. This is actually a form of control often employed by cults. Be on the lookout for anyone who seems to be emotionally manipulating their audience.

4. Is the information claiming to be historically accurate? If so, are they providing any sources? If you're unsure whether or not something has any historical accuracy, I recommend looking it up on Google Scholar. Run the information through a general search as well to see if you can find other sources claiming similar things. Remember that just because the same information appears in an online article does not make it accurate, as some websites are more trustworthy than others. Honestly, I'd recommend reading books by credible authors over looking things up online, but for looking up a random fact, that's not exactly always helpful.

5. Does the source seem credible? Here is a website that provides a guideline for distinguishing credibility. This is probably the hardest question for people to answer when looking into a topic. Websites that have ".org" or ".gov" tend to appear more trustworthy, but keep the website name and the other content present on the site in mind. For example, if a site claims to be historically accurate but also advertises articles about "top ten celebrities who turned their lives around", it is not a trustworthy source. Also, keep in mind the date of the article or website. Is it over ten years old? Five years old? If it seems dated, try to find information on the topic that is a bit fresher. It can be difficult to find newer sources on certain topics, however, as some topics are just not discussed often, even within their field.

6. Are the claims being made UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis)? Wikipedia defines UPG here. Not everyone will state when something is their UPG or not. A good way to immediately verify a claim is to search it up. Does have any root in the actual history of the deity? If not, do many people still have the same or similar experiences? If yes to the second question, it may be considered an SPG (Shared Personal Gnosis) which is a belief or experience shared between several or many people but is still historically absent overall. Just because something is a UPG also doesn't automatically make it misinformation; it's simply a part of that person's individual practice and belief system. It only becomes an issue when the person with the UPG is masquerading it as full-fledged fact. It's still important to be able to tell the difference between concrete fact and UPG - fact or belief. I feel earlier information covers this topic better, but I figured I'd at least address it more directly.

7. Keep yourself educated. As much as it would be great to not ever have to research things or read more about them, the fact of the matter is that paganism, of any sort, kind of requires some level of research. Even if you are only looking up who a specific deity is and what their domains are, you're still doing research on that deity. For some pagan religions, information is also rather hard to come by. Norse paganism, for example, doesn't have much information on it, mostly due to the fact that it was more oral-based. That's why it's crucial to educate ourselves, at least to some extent, by reading educational books and articles or even researching ancient art, ensuring that we don't fall into the traps of misinformation by, hopefully, already knowing the answer ourselves. If we already have the base knowledge required to debunk something, then we're less likely to be tricked. However, we can't know everything about every pagan religions, and some religions, such as Greek/Hellenic paganism, have A LOT of information about them, to the point where it can be overwhelming. Regardless, knowledge is power, and the more you know, the more power you have over misinformation when it rears its ugly head.

-

I hope that fellow pagans and polytheists alike are able to find use in this post. It took a lot of work to make, but my goal is to hopefully help people stay educated and avoid misinformation. I'm sure it's not perfect, but nothing is. I wish the best for you all. Take care, and thank you for reading. <3

[acethatlovesdinos]

The Seven Deadly Sins of Helluva Boss, Named.

My friend and I just made a discovery.

Or perhaps an observation.

In Helluva Boss we know that Stolas is a prince of hell. This is discussed, this is spoken, we all know it.

But we kept asking, what exactly is he the prince of?

And I think we found the answer.

This is a chart of all of Hell's royal sigils, according to Google image search. And as you can see, the names are as follows:

Lucifer, Satan, Belzebub, Mammon, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Belphegor, Stolas.

But that's 8.

Now we can make a list, from what is already confirmed in the show,

Lucifer: pride

Satan: ???

Belzebub: gluttony

Mammon: greed

Asmodeus: lust

Leviathan: ???

Belphegor: ???

Stolas: gay? Probably??

That's all we got so far. Satan, Leviathan, Belphegor, and Stolas are all left unanswered.

But a simple Google search provided us with one of them:

And with that found we move on.

Wrath and Sloth are all that we have left.

Considering the biblical implications, it seemed that Satan would best fit the title of Wrath, but there was little evidence for it, and google only took us to christian articles that were largely unhelpful.

So I looked up Belphegor, to see if we could find anything on their character.

The way I interpreted it, at least, suggested that this being tells others what they want done, and refuse to take action on their own. Seems like Sloth if you ask me.

Plus, Bee's side comment in episode 8 about "Belphegor's party drugs" lends to the idea that Bel might be a total stoner, which is also fitting for the title i think.

And that leaves us with Stolas.

What could he possibly be?

What sin might he represent?

In our confusion, my friend found an article (which she didn't tell me the name of or link to I'm so sorry) and sent me this screenshot:

Despond.

The literal definition is, as a verb, "to become dejected and lose confidence." The noun is described as "a state of unhappiness and low spirits."

Stolas is seen taking antidepressants every morning when he wakes up. He is constantly pushed into places and situations in which he has no choice. He is berated on a near daily basis by the wife he did not choose.

If that's not proof I'm not sure what is.

(Mini theory time)

He was pushed into his title, his whole life was set up for him, and perhaps he is seen as a "disgrace" not just because he is a royal who had an affair, but a Sin who rejected their title.

When Blitzø came along he felt, for the first time, that he had a choice. That he was able to do something different, to be something different.

We saw the impact that it had on Asmodeus when he came out about him and Fizz, and the potential damage it may do to his reputation because he, as a Sin, doesn't fully embody what he represents.

Perhaps Stolas, by refusing to nihilistically accept the life he was forced into, truly is a "disgrace" like Stella had said, but not for the affair. A disgrace for refusing fate. For choosing a new path. For wanting to be happy.

Anyway sorry that was long thanks for coming to my Ted talk

[queer-ragnelle]

the arthuriana essays you share on here are always so interesting and well-researched! are there specific places you go to look for them or do they just kind of find you over time?

Hi anon! This is a complex answer. Research is never simple lol obligatory disclaimer I'm just some random enthusiast and in no way an academic, this is just how I go about it.

I find essays in a variety of places. JSTOR is where most of the stand-alone essays came from (IE; not otherwise published in a book, sometimes in journals I cannot find). I’ve been very fortunate to have friends lend me their college bypass so I could download from there, as I would be unable to access them otherwise.

Sometimes, while reading books, like The Friend by Alan Bray, there will be a reference to an influential essay or article, such as Faithful Unto Death, which describes the joint tomb of Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville. For that paper, a friend had to request it from their own institution, wait for it, and then give it to me. I'd been staring longingly at it for literally years but couldn't justify paying the $30+ asking price for a PDF. I was lucky, once again, to have help.

Another way to find these academic resources is by reading the footnotes or bibliography in the back of books and tracing the source of individual essays or articles back to a bigger collection contributed by a variety of authors contained in a single volume (like A Companion to Malory I shared a few days ago). I learned about Alan Bray specifically because other essayists kept referencing his work! From there, I sought him out. The same has happened as I delved into Zoroastrian studies. The literature there is limited (at least in the English language, as I cannot read Persian or Hindi). So I found myself researching in a circle, following the trail of names until I ran out of scholars and they just referenced each other's work back and forth. I had consumed the entire body of [English] literature on the subject, so I knew I had come to collect the same resources as these essayists and historians had! Once you start going, "Hey, it's my friend [scholar] again!" you know you're in deep haha!

Much the same has happened with Arthurian legend. Norris J Lacy, known for his work as head editor of the translation team that tackled the Vulgate, is everywhere. He's the editor of countless textbooks, translator of medieval poems and prose, and even wrote his own retelling, A Camelot Triptych. Once you find someone in a field of interest that pops up a lot, you can begin searching for relevant resources through their name, rather than relying on blindly sifting through thousands of papers tagged "King Arthur".

Essayists don't make any money on this stuff. Institutions even charge people to publish their work. It's perfectly acceptable to obtain that knowledge however necessary. If you don't have college access yourself nor a friend who can help, there are websites to pirate from. (Please use a VPN to protect yourself.) Some websites are specific to the field, like science, which isn't my expertise, so I can't offer guidance there. But I've had luck on annas-archive.

It can be easy to assume everyone has the same opportunities, that a screenshot or link to JSTOR is sufficient for someone to access the same information mentioned in a post. It's tough when tumblr doesn't let you upload a PDF! It makes sharing resources difficult. One could dedicate money and cloud space to it (like I do with Google and MEGA drive) or upload it to a discord server where it can't breach containment and reaches only a limited audience. It's not ideal! And it's no individual's responsibility to tackle the problems with academia and gatekeeping, of course, but my goal is to source as much of what I discuss as I possibly can, as well as share those resources with anyone who could benefit from them. A librarian basically lol so I'm glad the essays I've shared have been beneficial to you!

[redpanther23]

second autobiographical essay below

The first sixteen years of my life I spent with my mom, and they were honestly the motherfucking worst.

My mom met my step dad larping when I was about 2, he was 16, and she was 26. She got pregnant, they got married, and he started sexually abusing me right away. When my brother was born, I couldn't stand him and was a complete cunt to him (sorry dude, I was a kid and I didn't know better.)

When I started school, I struggled to focus and did very poorly, and my mom and step dad would beat me and take all my things out of my room except for furniture, and lock me in there except to use the bathroom, for months on end, until they thought my grades were good enough. My step dad would come into my room at night and touch me. He would also jump out at me around corners and "wrestle" with me (pretending to wrestle for fun so he could squeeze my tits.) I would struggle and yell, and bite him as hard as I could, and my mom would punish me for hurting him. Sometimes he would do it in front of her, and when I complained to her, she would call me a liar. (His name again: Rigel Cameron Freeman.)

We moved pretty much every year because my parents struggled to maintain jobs. Mainly we lived in different parts of Gainesville, Florida, but we also briefly lived in Raleigh, North Carolina. At school I was usually the only non Christian kid, and I was a complete asshole because my family life was so horrible, so no one liked me and I was bullied constantly. I spent a lot of time in class, and all my time at recess, drawing and making up imaginary friends, or reading books about talking cats (I was very misanthropic, something I still struggle with.) When I was in late elementary to middle school, I made a few friends I still talk to. That was also the same time as my first suicide attempt (5th grade), and when I started self harming.

When I was 12 I dyed my hair red, and my friend's dad named me Red (their family were Irish and Cherokee.) I had been called lots of other names before that, basically something different by each relative, and the only thing everyone could agree on was that none of them suited me (and no one ever called me my government name.) After I was named Red, I dyed my hair every other color you can think of, but my name has stayed the same.

The same year, I moved to Miami, and that began a new isolated phase in my life that led to me becoming interested in magick. My mom had never lived in a major city before, and we ended up moving to a pretty sketchy neighborhood (gunshots almost every night, drive bys, etc.) In our home country (Mississippi) kids are simply expected to fend for themselves outdoors until supper. Now that I was trapped inside with my incredibly abusive family, I had nothing to turn to but the internet (something I'm sure many of us here can relate to.)

I became interested in magic through mythology. I had always found other pre-Christian cultures fascinating, since I wasn't allowed to learn anything about my own, and I discovered through Wikipedia and Google searches that people still practiced the pagan European religions of my ancestors. Through neopaganism, I began to learn about ceremonial magic extremely quickly, feeling as though it was the one piece of my life I'd been missing, finding that I had an innate understanding of something other than visual art for the first time. It wasn't long before I was ready to try my first invocation. I had always wondered if I had a "spirit animal," or a guide, which I knew must be part of my subconscious, and recognizing immediately that I could use ritual meditation to access this, I crafted my first ritual based on some uninitiated wiccan articles I had been reading, and what implements I had laying around. I set out a circle of stones, invoked the four quadrants with a candle at each cardinal direction, laid out offerings of oil, salt, and water, lit an incense cone, and two additional candles for the Mother and Father. My practice is very different now, but my results at the time were extraordinarily intense. When I closed my eyes, this is what I saw:

Dense forest, high on the mountain. It's foggy and overcast, but it's summertime. The rocks are covered with moss, thick and green. I look down at my sandy brown forepaws and know that I am a panther. I begin to stroll, and I can feel the power in my muscles. I'm strong and free.

I opened my eyes, and was back in my bedroom, surrounded by rocks and candles. Shortly afterward, my mom mentioned Scott Panther to me for the first time (I didn't remember meeting him as a baby.) I'm sure it will confuse some that my first experience with a native archetype, my family animal, was through a European style ritual. Hey, think how I feel! I should have been able to take peyote and meet a mountain lion face to face to earn my name, like any decent person. Unfortunately, since I was so isolated, I didn't have the privilage. My connection to the panther is extremely deep - some of my first dreams were of being a cat, and the first time I prayed (age 8) it was to "StarClan," which, for the uninitiated, is the clan of dead cats who live in the sky in the children's book series Warrior Cats (I still like to think my cat ancestors are up there watching.) I've always studied cat behavior and embodied cat energy, even before I had any vision, but in my life that was treated as something annoying and strange by the people around me, rather than the sacred mystical practice it was. When I had cats in my life, I prioritized them, often over my own health and safety. Even though I only have a dog now, I still consider cats to be my teachers. I can't say whether my conceptualization of reality and my experiences is native, or European, but I would guess it's a mix of both, like me.

I started high school at MAST Academy in Miami, a school for "future scientists." My family always discouraged me from drawing or playing music, often my instruments would be taken away or sold, or I would have nothing but lined notebook paper to draw on (I would only get things I needed for school.) Since all I had to decide a "career" on was my passion for non-human animals, I thought I might be a zoologist. It was a lot less horrible than most other high schools in a lot of ways, and a few of the teachers even treated me like a person (cheers.) I started visiting my dad a little during this period, he began teaching me about Jewish mysticism and Kaballah, what little I could understand, and I began to read from his collection of books on magick and the occult.

During my second year of high school, my mom and step dad moved to the Netherlands, and brought me with them. I was too young and shy (scared) to have any fun, and I just thought about suicide constantly. My mom would never stop yelling at me about everything, telling me how l worthless I am. I caught my step dad taking pictures of me as I got out of the shower, and my little brother told me he caught him watching me sleep through the window over my bedroom door (you could stand at the top of the stairs and look right through it.) I became paranoid he was going to start raping me again, like he did when I was younger, and slept with a knife beside me, when I could sleep. (Again, his name is Rigel Cameron Freeman, and he is a computer programmer who works in the video game industry.)

The only positive part of my life during this period was an online death cult I joined, called Les Fleurs de la Mort. I can't talk about our practices in detail, but it lead me to get really into gardening, which was probably the healthiest possible pastime for me. I don't think I've spoken to any of my fellow Fleurists in years, but if any y'all are reading this, meow.

After I turned 16, I got the chance to visit my dad back in Miami (court ordered), and I refused to return to my mom. I haven't heard from my mom or step dad since then, except for a handful of extremely rude emails from my mom before covid, and I hope that's the end of it.

Rigel Cameron Freeman, the pedophile who made my life hell and molested me constantly throughout my childhood, currently has sole custody of my youngest sibling, who's 9. (He was born after I left, and we've never met.)

[ipso-faculty]

Today's rabbithole: the origins of "dyadic" as opposite of intersex/h-word

TLDR: "dyadic" seems to come from 1970s radical feminism and seems to have entered intersex vocabulary via gender studies. This implies it is NOT a term coined from within the intersex community.

I've been reading Cripping Intersex since it's this month's pick for @intersexbookclub (and it's not too late for you to pick it up yourself! 💜). One thing that caught my attention is Orr spends a bunch of time presenting the origins of "endosex" and "perisex" as disputed for whether these terms were coined by intersex people or not.

Orr does this because they clearly prefer "dyadic" and are trying to justify why they're talking about "compulsory dyadism" rather than "compulsory endonormativity/perinormativity" etc. 🤨

Interestingly enough, Orr makes absolutely zero attempt in the book to find an origin for the word "dyadic". 🧐 Orr also never questions whether the term "dyadic" actually came from the intersex community. 🧐 So..... rabbit hole time!

Before I get into what I found on dyadic, I wanna quickly fact check Orr on the origin of endosex. Best as I can tell, the term was first used in German in 2000 by Heike Bödeker. Bödeker is controversial for supporting autogynephilia 😬, but I've never seen anybody doubt Bödeker having mixed gonadal dysgenesis. If anybody knows of an older use of endosex, please send it my way! But as far as I can tell, "endosex" was coined by an intersex person.

Okay, onto the origin of dyadic. Orr presents this word as though its only detractors come from its implication there is a sex binary, even though as @intersex-ionality discusses here there are other reasons people don't like it. One reason is that the term is considered to originate from outside the intersex community.

Orr never questions the origins of dyadic. But intersex-ionality's post got me wondering if I could track down an textual origin.

So I went to Google Scholar, searched for "dyad" or "dyadic" plus "intersex" or the h-word and kept changing the time period increasingly far back in time. (Initially I just used intersex until I remembered the h-word slur would be more common in older articles 😬.)

I went into this thinking maybe dyadic would be related to how in early intersex studies literature like Critical Intersex (2009) you can see authors trying out terms like "dimorphic" and "dimorphous" that reference sexual dimorphism. (Neither "dyadic" nor "endosex" show up in the book.)

But the earliest works by intersex scholars that invoke dyadic tend to use it in a way that implies to me it has its own origin - e.g. Malatino (2010) talks about "at one pole, the dyad of the dimorphic heterosexual couple and, at the other, the hermaphroditic body" and "the heteronormative promised land of proper dyadic, dimorphic sex" which gives me the impression dyadic has a more sociological origin rather than the biology origin of dimorphic.

This 2010 gender studies article by Mandy Merck that talks about the intersex rights movement was my first solid lead. Merck draws a direct connection between the intersex rights movement and the 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex by Shulamith Firestone. 😯

In the book, Firestone explicitly talks about the "male-female dyad". This book had a fairly big impact when it came out. Firestone was a big-name second-wave radical feminist. And as Merck puts it: "[Firestone's] aim is to release women and men from the culturally gendered[5] dyad of the “subjective, intuitive, introverted, wishful, dreamy or fantastic” and the “objective, logical, extroverted, realistic”[6] into a society undivided by genital differences. This she calls “integration.”" (emphasis mine)

Pushing the search terms to before the 00s, I found I there were some 1980s botanists kinda using "dyad" as an opposite to "hermaphrodite" (example). I don't know how standard this was though, and with Google Scholar it is important to remember that digitization becomes less common the further back you go. 🤷‍♀️

Judith Butler used "dyadic" in a 1985 article about Foucault's Herculine Barbin.

The Butler article got me searching for more generally - "dyad" or "dyadic" plus "sex-roles male female". I found lots of results using dyadic to talk about female/male sex roles from the 1970s.... and a rather sudden paucity of such articles in the 1960s. 🤔

When I restricted the search to anything before 1970, I get results from symbolic interactionist sociology. I.e. the sociology use of "dyadic" (i.e. any social interaction happening between a pair of individuals).

So looks like dyadic as a sex role thing entered the academic lexicon in the early 70s. Which lines up pretty damn well with The Dialectic of Sex coming out in 1970. 👍️ And indeed, many of the 70s uses of "dyadic" explicitly cite Firestone.

I'm guessing Firestone was probably influenced by the interactionist term. Lots of sociologists were talking about dyadic relationships and/or interactions such as teacher-student, parent-child, husband-wife, etc. In this context, it's not surprising that Firestone would pick dyad as a term to talk about male-female sex roles and interactions.

Other than the 1980s botany articles I didn't actually find much from the pre-2000 biology world, and no leads from the medical literature. This doesn't mean "dyadic" wasn't being used by physicans, just that it isn't showing up in my searches on Google Scholar.

I'm coming out of this with the impression that Merck's got it right to be connecting the intersex-related use of dyadic as originating from the writing of Shulamith Firestone. If anybody knows of competing evidence for an origin, *please* do send it my way as I'd be super interested. But in the absence of other evidence, I'd tentatively say that the term dyadic came out of second wave radical feminism and *not* the intersex community.

[jess-moloney]

The reason Jess can't shut you down is because she doesn't have enough money. If she has enough money like she used to before getting herself trap in a dept trap. She's definitely going to hire press article to wipe herself clean. I also think the reason why Jess decides to do nothing is probably she was hiring tech companies to bury her trashs in the past but didn't work out well as she expected so I guess what's going on in her mind lately could be keeping her only personal information (Instagram) private thinking this way would keep her safe. But let's face it Jess is not a smart bitch. She's fuck shit stupid pretending to be a super clever perfectionist.

I think you're right. I think she wasted all of her money not only on this useless venture that was Ice Studios (the alleged agency and fashion brand) but also on getting her name out of Google results and getting her image buried. On top of that, she clearly spent a lot of time, money, and effort to get the common (and only) search results to be that she is dating Jamie Bower.

What she forgot to take into account is that over time that was going to stop if she couldn't:

Afford to keep paying for more articles

Keep tipping off the paparazzi to where she and Jamie were to get some sort of headlines

Keep coming up with new/interesting stuff she was doing with Jamie to get her mentioned in an article

I would assume that she thought that this was a forever deal. That she would always be with him at conventions. That she would always be traveling with him to film. That she would go to any party, event, or premiere that he went to. That she would always be seen with him, at everything, and that would organically generate new content about her and how great she was.

Except, that didn't happen. So, foolishly, she invested a bunch of money and effort to flood the market with her name and image for a year or two and it didn't last. Now that Jamie won't take her anywhere, tag her in anything, repost anything that she does, or even use her name when he does refer to her (it's always my girlfriend, never Jess) she's kind of screwed.

Maybe had she not been such a terrible person who had to bury a mountain of evidence that made her look shady, she'd be in a better position. Maybe if she had an actual job, maybe if she had a personality, maybe if she had any talent other than pretending to be an agent to hunt down celebrities on the rebound to hook up with them, she'd have had a chance. Unfortunately, for her, the trail she tried to cover up wasn't going to stay hidden forever. She relied way too much on Jamie's reputation covering her own and it didn't.

Besides, this is all just the truth. She couldn't pay me enough to get rid of the truth or pretend this didn't happen. The only way I'd ever take down this blog is if she (or someone officially associated with her) could prove that I'm wrong. Until that day comes, and I'm thinking it never will since this blog has been up almost a year now with little to no consequences to myself, I don't think it ever will. If she were any level of decent she'd either come clean or at least try to present information that contradicts the sources I have found.

I really hope she's kicking herself for thinking that relying entirely on Jamie's image, reputation, and hard work was going to save her when karma came knocking.

[sapphyreopal5]

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you're all ready for this year to end already. I'm pretty sure given what's happened in Jensen's life, he sure is ready for 2023 to go out the door. Big Sky and The Winchesters getting cancelled, FBBC having 2 brewers quit in 1 week, firing several other employees according to some posts that were here on Tumblr and on Instagram, and let's not forget The Winchesters lawsuit that was filed earlier this year. I'm aware some people here have been speculating on what is to come of Jensen's brewery FBBC, so I thought I'd share a little bit of some interesting history with regards to the Ackles and Graul families in business.

In a previous post, I talked about some of the history of FBBC itself being tied to a brewery called County Coast Brewing Company that was in the Malibu, California area back in 2013. The former address was 29201 Heathercliff Road #116 in Malibu, CA. Gino was the listed owner of this brewery that was incorporated 10/4/2013 and became inactive 10/9/2017, 4 years and 5 days after this company was formed. Its current inactive status is listed as Suspended Ftb/Sos. One noteworthy mention here, I couldn't find this County Coast Brewing Company anywhere as being say "permanently closed" as you would other businesses. No Google reviews or searches are available either for this company. Hmm, it's just like it never existed unless you know to look up Gino's name and affiliated LLCs or remember the name of this company...

According to this website, it says under the Why is My Business Suspended section: "Generally, businesses are suspended when they fail to:

File a return

Pay

Taxes

Penalties

Fees

Interest

You may be able to find out the reason for suspension using MyFTB. Business entities registered with Secretary of State (SOS) must file and pay at least $800 franchise or annual tax from their registration date to current, regardless of business activity. Visit due dates for businesses for more information on when to file and pay."

After doing some further research thanks to this Tumblr post, it does seem that after Jensen filed for the incorporation of Family Business Beer Company back on 11/5/2014 in Dallas Texas, 1 year, 1 month and 1 day after County Coast Brewing Company was filed in California under Gino's name. Interestingly enough, a couples post that were seemingly tied to the County Coast Brewing Company dated prior to FBBC opening doors in January 2018 are still on the Facebook page. This post dated 4/8/2014 BEFORE FBBC was incorporated but is on the FBBC Facebook page states "On our way to Denver for the 2014 Craft brewer's Conference!!!" This photo dated 12/8/2013 has a caption stating "looking forward to trying out our newest batch of Pale Ale!" Again, no comments on it date past 3/17/2017 just like the other post that predates the official opening of FBBC in Austin on 1/10/2018 by several years.

The other Tumblr post I mentioned here even has a screenshot (along with several others) of posts that have been deleted including one that was posted on 1/24/2015 at 6:56pm saying "County Coast is moving location and names!!!!!! WTF?! Haha, relocating to the South. #AustinTexas get ready!!!!" Given the Graul and Ackles family histories of deleting comments they deemed unsavory on the FBBC Instagram page, it doesn't surprise me that they cleaned up shop on the internet and Facebook pages to try eliminating the existence of the failed County Coast Brewing Company and rebranding their Facebook page to become Family Business Beer Company's. According to this article, it states "While living in California, Jensen and Gino often brewed their own beers at home. The family moved to Austin and decided to finally open their own place. They found the Dripping Springs property in 2014, hooked up with now-head brewer Nate Seale, and got started from there." Guess they forgot to mention the former location the had in California that got suspended due to noncompliance with state tax regulations. Hmm....

Now, this is where things start to get interesting regarding the history of both the Ackles and Graul families and business. I mentioned the suspended ftb status that was put on the County Coast Brewing Company before. I also took the liberty of researching LLCs affiliated with Jensen and Danneel and found some similar statuses on previous companies they had incorporated in the past. I elected to put some notes to summarize things like when these companies were voluntarily dissolved (or straight up suspended) in the screenshots below. The Ackles Talent Services, Inc. California branch that was incorporated 6/22/2010 was suspended on 4/2/2013 and also has a forfeited ftb status which translates to the same status that is on the other brewing company that was in Gino Graul's name.

Looking over Danneel's companies, there is a Talking Poodle Productions, Inc. that holds the status "Inactive action by Secretary of State" that used to read as "Active not in good standing for failure to file annual report". According to this website for 2006 Louisiana laws titled 2006 Louisiana Laws - RS 12:163 — Failure to file annual reports; revocation and reinstatement of articles and limitation on authority to do business with the state, it states the following interesting tidbits of information: "§163.  Failure to file annual reports; revocation and reinstatement of articles and limitation on authority to do business with the state

A.  Where a corporation has failed to designate and maintain a registered office, or to designate and maintain a registered agent pursuant to the provisions of R.S. 12:104, for a period of ninety consecutive days, or where a corporation has failed to file an annual report for three consecutive years, according to the records of the secretary of state, the secretary of state shall revoke the articles of incorporation and franchise of such corporation."

Also, "F.(1)  As used in this Subsection the phrase "not in good standing" means any corporation which is delinquent in filing an annual report.

(2)  Each corporation, domestic and foreign, which is not in good standing is prohibited from engaging in commercial business operation with the state or its boards, agencies, departments, or commissions.  Any contract between a corporation which is not in good standing and the state or its boards, agencies, departments, or commissions is subject to be declared null and void, by said board, agency, department, or commission or by the Division of Administration."

There are of course other parts I didn't put in here for the sake of keeping this post a reasonable length but it seems that the bottom line message is the same here: The Grauls and Ackles have a history of not complying with tax laws and is unlikely they simply forgot to file taxes or annual reports as necessary. Was this to hide questionable financial practices? Are both families hiding unethical behaviors? Are they unable to afford accountants who can properly file all reports with state and federal tax governmental branches appropriately, so they can stay in business? Are these simple, honest mistakes on behalf of the Graul and Ackles' families? Not sure what you all think of this but it is entirely possible with this information here that there are some questionable business practices going on here and that the speculations here about FBBC not doing so good just might have some factual basis.

[sinha-ri]

House of Leaves easter eggs I've found in Ch II by Zampano

1. "The labours of men are genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind"

the beginning quote is actually from Frankenstein (I can't tell if its by the guy himself or someone else) to finally let the reader know he will go through with his creation. Because as horrific as it might be, his research will do nothing but benefit mankind in the end. I haven't read enough to fully know how this fits in, but it can be a reference to how the House is the creation of Frankenstein here.

2. The 10th footnote, footnoting a guy criticizing Navidson for being a fraud and jeopardizing his career over this film. The publisher of said article has "Eddie Hapax Press"

Hapax, if searched up, is actually Hapax Legomenon. The definition is "a word/expression that occurs only once within a context" usually referring to language or text. Essentially a word only exists in one single text, used one time. Its unsure what this can be a reference to yet, but my leading theory is it could be the house itself. The only thing is house is consistently used throughout the text, but there only exists 1 House and the Navidson Record doesn't exist outside of Zampano's essay. Not even his references. Hence this is Zampano's Hapax, something that only occurs in his text (again, i could be wrong but this is my leading theory so far)

3. Footnote 16, footnoting what Navidson is trying to preserve of Karen through film and that he truly didn't mean to be mean, references an article titled "Omens & Signs" which is published by Taema Essay Publications"

Taema is actually a god figure used in Samoan mythology and folklore. Taema was originally a conjoint twin, but while swimming away from their birth home, they were split in two. They soon learned tattooing. When coming home, Taema stayed with tattooing while her sister became the god of war. However, Taema's name originally belonged to a god who was the Goddess of War instead and seen as an omen for war. While there's no war going on here, it's still important to see Taema's name was seen as an omen. Furthermore, the tale of them being conjoint twins that went their separate paths is interesting and can be seen as reflecting Karen and Navidson. They're married, joint together, yet they are so separate as people and paths.

4. Footnote 18, aka Traunt's long ass rant, on page 16 has a major reveal, but I'm here to talk about when he's breaking down talking about Birds of Paradise, stating, "I mean we'd all be so lucky to wind up a punching bag and still found our creates full of Birds of Paradise. No such luck with this crate."

While birds of paradise can be taken literally to the actual birds, it also references a flower titled Bird of Paradise. You've most likely seen them if you're american (idk about other countries lol). they're those orange flowers that look like the head of a bird.

The meaning behind this bird, is actually "Joy". While Traunt was most likely talking about exotic birds to make him rich, it's a double meaning to joy. He wishes to find joy, something he believes is luck or to come sooner or later. But it's a great admission he isn't doing well.

5. Footnote 22, referencing how Navidson puts himself in a bad light in his own film of life, is shown to be published by "Ascencion Gerson"

Gerson is actually the name of a french school (? its only in french but i assume so) while Ascension is a reference to a painting of Jesus ascending, this being one of the top results when you google Ascension Gerson

It's almost comparing Navidson with Jesus, a humble person who doesn't belong in a negative light even if its of his own saying. Although this could be a stretch and complete coincidence LOL

There may have been more, but this all i found my first read through!! gonna be doing these for every chapter :3

[astrophysicist-guitar-god]

Calling all Freddie-philes, and in particular anyone familiar with pre-Queen/verrry early Queen Freddie...

So! This comes from Part 5 of the fabulously information-packed Queen Before Queen series transcribed and posted by @melisa-may-taylor72. 

From Queen Before Queen, The 1960’s Recordings - Part Five: Ibex, Wreckage, and Sour Milk Sea, here. I’ve included the entire section for context, but the last paragraph is what has me...curious. Pertinent bits bolded by me.

Why did Freddie ask another guitarist to come play with Queen, specifically to “jam a bit” with Roger and John? 

This guy didn’t have his own guitar, so he tried to play the Red Special (and couldn’t). Were they (Freddie) thinking of adding another guitarist? And if so...why? 

The group was set by that point, so...why? 

I am unendingly curious about this, and I’ve never seen it mentioned outside of this article. I think I did a few half-hearted Google searches, but nothing came up. If you know, hit me up with that sweet, sweet, knowledge. Thanks!

SCHEMER

“When Sour Milk Sea broke up it was a terrible shock,” admits Chris. “It was fairly acrimonious. Rubber had basically bankrolled the band by buying all the equipment, so he took back his Gibson SG Standard that I’d been playing and my Marshall stack, and I was pretty fucked. I was just eighteen. Our drummer, Rob Tyrell, went off with Rubber in another band, and I went off to work in Huntley & Palmer’s bakery in Reading for months on end to get the money to buy my own guitar.” And, as Chris revealed to Mark Hodkinson, “I was planning to form another band with Freddie, but not having a guitar and not having much money put the kibosh on the idea”.

“We liked Freddie,” admits Rob Tyrell. “He was fun. But he was quite a schemer in a way. He had other things cooking. I could feel it in my bones he wasn’t really interested in us. He knew he was good. He kind of used us as a stepping stone.”

Freddie had been through three different groups in less than seven months. What next? “He finally persauded Brian and Roger to form that band,” recalls Mike Bersin. Having known and observed each other for a while, Freddie, Brian and Roger were more compatible than Freddie had been with relative strangers like Chris Chesney and Jeremy Gallop. All the new band needed now was a name.

The previous summer, members of Ibex, Mike Bersin in particular, had began to refer to Freddie, and indeed to Roger Taylor, as “queens” or “old queens” — as Freddie’s letter to Celine Daley shows. And Freddie was obvi­ously far from averse to the term. Brian and Roger put forward the Grand Dance (from C.S. Lewis’ ‘Out Of The Silent Planet’ trilogy) as a suggestion for their new outfit. “But they decided on Queen as being more direct,” adds Mike Bersin. It had, of course, been Freddie’s choice. By this time, Freddie had changed his own name, too. Bulsara was too exotic, too Zanzibar. The explanation of his replacement comes from Chris Chesney. “Freddie was a Virgo,” he reveals, “and Mercury was his ruling planet.”

“Later on,” concludes Chris, “when they auditioned John Deacon, Freddie made some overtures for me to come and play with Queen. I hadn’t played for a few months, but they wanted me to jam a bit with Roger and John. It was really awkward, because Brian’s gui­tar was unplayable if you’re used to playing a proper, commercial guitar. It wasn’t what I wanted to do. And anyway, by then, I felt they had the chemistry in Queen just right.”

[veenvss]

dawn court

the family , 2/7

1 , autumn 3 , day

The courts have always fascinated me but while reading and looking at the map I always thought that the worldbuilding was too rushed or too simplistic. So, I have decided to reimagine the courts in a way that makes more sense to me. Who knows? I may end up using these in the future for a book of my own.

As I stated in my post about the Autumn Court, I'm doing these alphabetically. So, the next court for a family discussion is Dawn.

Not much is known about Dawn in general. They focus on tinkering, as seen with Nuan in ACOWAR, and it could also be taken that Dawn has one of the highest number of immigrants:

“No,” Beron said, frowning, “but where did she come from? Who are you?” The last bit directed at Nuan. “I am the daughter of two High Fae from Xian, who moved here to give their children a better life, if that is what you are demanding to know,” Nuan answered tightly. Helion demanded of Beron, “What does this have to do with anything?” Beron shrugged. “If her family is from Xian—which I’ll have you remember fought for the Loyalists—then whose interests does she serve?” Helion’s amber eyes flashed. Thesan cut in sharply, “I will have you remember, Beron, that my own mother hailed from Xian. And a large majority of my court did as well. Be careful what you say.”

With a quick google search, I found that Xian is just a 'unapostrophed' version of Xi'an, a big and historically influential city in China. Heard of the terracotta army? Guess which city.

So I'm taking it as Xian is some version of China, and even Nuan is a Chinese name. So Thesan is half Xian/Chinese. Now for the other half.

With another quick google search and a quick scan of a wiki article, I found that Thesan is an Etruscan name. The Etruscan civilisation is an ancient civilisation which ruled over an area of ancient Italy known as Etruria (modern day Tuscany), which was taken over by Rome in the Roman-Etruscan wars quite a few years ago. Thesan was an Etruscan goddess, the goddess of dawn, divination and childbirth, compared to Eos and Aurora.

So with those, I'm gonna say what I would name Thesan's parents, his Dawn father and his Xian mother, and their characterisations. Bare in mind that I am English and all of these names are found from probably not trustworthy sites with basic meanings of names. I will also be writing these names like you would in English, so surname last.

YAWEN ZHU- "elegant, cloud patterns" "vermillion red" A very quiet lady, she spent most of her time in the libraries of Dawn, reading and studying. She was incredibly well-educated and she often tutored in the universities, teaching politics and her native language to students. Outside of her hobbies, she spent her time with her husband and son, never able to have any other kids outside of her one. She taught her son her native language, and raised him to be as kind and forgiving as she was. Her and her husband were rarely able to be away from each other, dying together after their time was through, even though a mating bond was never sensed.

ESPLACE ROIG- "asklepios" "red" A family man, he was publically very loving towards his wife and son, unusual for many High Lords. He spent a lot of his time growing up as a healer. He was never meant to be High Lord, it was his brothers instead, yet a plague spread through his court, and his healing background saved him then, when he was young and able. As an older man, with an even sicker wife, he appreciated their time together well, until they left for the heavens together.

Now, the next group of people mentioned in the Dawn Court is the Peregryns.

The Peregryns are distantly related to Drakon’s Seraphim people and provide Thesan with a small aerial legion, Rhys said to me of the muscular, golden-armoured males and females gathered. The male on his left is his captain and lover. Indeed, the handsome male stood just a tad closer to his High Lord, one hand on the fine sword at his side.

So the Peregryns are similar to the Illyrians but also vastly different. They're closer to Drakon's Seraphims but are also highly respected, enough to be a captain and the lover of the High Lord.

Unfortunately, we learn nothing else about them. No names to give me a lead, nothing. So, I'm going to create some random history about Dawn. Due to the seeming closeness of the Peregryns and Fae in Dawn, their names is going to have gotten more mixed over time, and although there aren't many Etruscan-y languages still around, Etruria was in Italy, some I'm basing them on Romance languages. I chose Galician, as I took Spanish as GCSE and Galicia is in northern Spain.

XURXO PUGA- "earthworker" "thorn" He chooses not to talk in public, especially around people he is unsure of or dislikes. In private, you can never get him to shut up. He talks about anything and everything he can get anyone to listen to. When he's not training his army or protecting his high lord, he spends his time farming his own little vegetable patch. For an airborne creature with wings, he loves to spend his time digging in the earth, cooking treats for him and his lover to share looking at the glowing sunsets.

[therebelcaptainnetwork]

Hi, I have two questions I thought y'all might be able to answer for me! First of all, how old is Cassian really? I know when Rogue One came out he was supposedly 26 but now with Andor I'm not so sure...

Second, what's the origin of the ship name Rebelcaptain? I think it's absolutely hilarious but I'd love to know from someone who was there when it was created and why! Also, I assume Rebel refers to Jyn and Captain to Cassian?

Thank you so much for taking to time to anwser my nerdy questions - it's really appreciated! And keep doing what y'all are doing - It's awesome :)



Thank you! Welcome to the fandom, and we're glad you're enjoying TRCN 🧡

Sadly, we're not able to give a definitive answer to either of these questions. The response still got very long, so the rest of it is below a cut...

1) The "RebelCaptain" ship name

The first teaser trailer for Rogue One was released in April 2016. Most fans assume that the "rebel" part came from Jyn's iconic line (which ironically didn't make it into the final cut of the movie): "This is a rebellion, isn't it? I rebel." However, Cassian isn't referred to by name or title in that trailer, so the "captain" part must have come from supplemental promotional materials. 

The earliest stories tagged "rebelcaptain" on AO3 are dated June 2016, but they're orphaned, so we don't know who wrote them. (It's also possible that they were edited sometime after posting to include that tag.) Tumblr's search feature is useless for this purpose, of course, and Google Trends isn't much help either; there's no obvious peak and a few outlier searches long before Rogue One was even in production which muddy the waters. Once the film itself was released in mid-December 2016, the term seems to have taken off immediately.

So if any fan remembers exactly where/when the ship name started or can take credit for coining it, they should step up!

2) Cassian's age

Short answer: it depends which source you choose; long answer: neither age makes perfect sense, so who the hell knows.

Although no ages are given onscreen, when Rogue One was released, Cassian was stated to be 26 and Jyn 21 in official tie-in sources like the Ultimate Visual Guide. (Even at the time, plenty of fans felt that was ridiculous given the actors' ages.) Cassian was also given a few scraps of backstory (born on Fest, Separatist family, etc); if you're curious, images of the relevant pages are at the end of the post.

Then Andor Season 1 came out, and Cassian's backstory was completely altered. Now he's considerably older, likely to avoid (then) 39-year-old Diego Luna playing someone supposed to be in his early 20s. The current Wookieepedia article has a decent rundown of the cumulative evidence for his age in the film now being 33.

This was a controversial choice among longstanding fans, because it significantly delays Cassian's commitment to the Rebellion and makes his statement in Rogue One that he's "been in this fight since [he] was six" much more ambiguous.

Here are a couple of Tumblr posts with fandom reactions:

[southwarkfair]

So fortunately (or perhaps very very unfortunately) there has been a breakthrough in the "comprachico" mystery, which I am now apparently committed to investigating. 

I mentioned that the name/general description was brought up in some academic studies on jesters I was reading - one of these (the most recently published) actually does have a pretty exhaustive list of sources, though they're reproduced quite uncritically and with a lot of tortured speculation by the author. The only locatable english-language source the author used for their mention of "comprachicos" is a victorian book, "giants and dwarfs" by Edward Wood, published 1868. Not that impressive on its own, theres a lot of victorian pseudohistory out there. Interestingly though, it appears to have come out one year before l'homme qui rit, and cites a verifiably existant pre-victorian source. "Miscellanea curiosa, medica, psysica", a medical journal from 1670, published in Leipzig, Germany. This is also cited by the first book I mentioned.

This journal (as far as i can tell its the right one? the date is one year off) is available in full on Internet archive, along with Wood's book, both of which i will link at the end. Like many historical medical texts, it is written entirely in Latin. I, alas, due to my mere peasant's education, cannot read a word of it. I did briefly skim for the word 'comprachico', but since there is no mention of this word or of any specific individual or group carrying out the mutilations in Wood's book either, this seemed unlikely and I predictably did not find anything. I also looked out for diagrams that might seem to pertain to the folkloric "dwarfing" practice described by Wood. There were one or two that I thought might possibly be related but i won't share them here as i imagine many would rightfully find them upsetting.

However, I did wonder if the Leipzig journal might be the one referenced by Hugo in the actual in-universe action of l'homme qui rit, when ursus looks up gwynplaine's mutilation in an old Latin medical text. I double checked and the book owned by ursus is actually called "de denasatis" by "Dr John conquest". On the off-chance that this was anything resembling a real book, I searched for it and found a reddit thread linking another article, written in 1910, by John Boynton Kaiser. This article, from the Journal Of Criminal Law and Criminology, was pondering on the exact same question as I was - the origin of Hugo's comprachicos. On the topic of "artificial jesters", it again cites the same Leipzig journal as Wood.

It also goes into detail on Hugo's possible historical inspirations, for the story in general and specifically for the comprachicos. Kaiser claims, I think correctly, that even if the idea is not new, the word itself was made up by hugo. I used this tool, which scans for keywords in archived Google books going back to the year 1500, and there is no mention of comprachicos or any variation thereof until after the publication date of l'homme qui rit. The name is apparently a simple mashup of spanish words for "male child" and "purchase". or as google translate would have it, uh

Kaiser writes that in hugo's journals the author also considered other names for his "child-buying" group based on other languages, and he apparently wasn't sure what their ethnicity should be. This further points to the fact that the specific group itself is made up, though he apparently maintained among colleagues that it was real.

I should note that the English texts I have linked, if you are interested in reading them for yourself, are deeply disturbing in content as well as archaic and prejudiced in tone:

https://archive.org/details/b24887067

https://archive.org/details/s3id11855980/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol4/iss2/8/

None of this, of course, proves definitively that such "artificial jester" practices were ever carried out in real life, by an organized group or otherwise. It moreso just indicates, as I suspected, that they weren't fully invented by Hugo. Kaiser's article claims there is other evidence, but i really dont know at this point. Honestly I'm now very much hoping that all this shit is completely made up, because Jesus fucking christ.

Anyway, aside from that, the 1910 article maintains that hugo documented his research and writing process extensively in his journals and personal papers. I'm quite excited by this prospect, as it might provide answers to some other questions I've been wondering about, such as the origins of the many unique character names. I'll have to see if anyone has translated any of this background material into English. Or perhaps i could learn French. Its getting to the point where I might have to just learn French 

[infinitycutter]

i really like your posts about clothes and designers and fashion. i dont know much but i like learning things from you & think you have good taste. i wanted to ask you about buying from mercari japan. im in the USA and i use that version of mercari all the time but id love to shop mercari japan. however im intimidated by the language barrier and what shipping would entail. do you use a proxy shopping service? if so any recs? & do you have other tips in general for navigating / using mercari japan? i want to thank you very much if you choose to answer ^_^

hehe im happy you like my posts and aesthetic taste i just post what inspires + interests me ^_^

I’m also in the US, and I use a proxy! In fact, I literally just got my haul two days ago!! Most people go for buyee, but they’re overpriced so I go for Neokyo. I’ve used japanese shopping sites for almost a decade + I learned some japanese when I was like. an 11 year old weeaboo so I can easily navigate through these websites—BUT— what’s cool w/ neokyo and some other websites is that they p much have their own user interfaces in english, so having to go through the japanese websites isn’t really necessary(with some caveats). And worst comes to worst, you can use browser extensions /apps that directly translate the website for you, so everything is easier to navigate. im not sponsored by neokyo btw, but compared to other sites like japonica or buyee, they have the lowest rates, and often have promotions that take off the service fee in the first place. Most sites are pretty self explanatory and will have tutorials in case you get stuck.

ok so here’s some tips for shopping on japanese websites that im just gonna put just in case someone else asks me in the future so i can redirect them to this post lol

1) KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.

It will make your life INCREDIBLY helpful if you are looking for a specific brand or designer, as well as the article of clothing you want in the first place. Having this specificity in mind can help you buy less in general too, and will help you get something that you’ll really want and keep. That aside, each website will have different filters to sort through stuff and one of them will be brand name, so that can help you parse through junk posts of people posting old zara when you’re looking for old Helmut Lang.

2) DO YOUR RESEARCH.

If you are looking for a specific style in mind, such as mori kei, karasu zoku, jirai kei, etc. there will be specific brands that cater(ed) for that style alone. most of the time, the information will be available on google. for designers, doing some digging on their different sublabels and aliases will be really helpful for digging for hidden gems. for example, one of my favorite brands, Undercover, has multiple sublabels, diffusion lines, names, etc. that you can search it under, such as: JONIO, ZAMIANG, AFFA, etc. Sometimes, you’ll get people knowledgeable about the brand and will put the brand filter on the item, but sometimes, people will pick up an item and will not know anything about the garment’s source or designer. Having that precursory knowledge lets you take advantage of people selling insanely rare items for insanely cheap prices because they’re clueless about it lol.

3) IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR, BE LESS SPECIFIC.

The point that I made from earlier that certain brands will kind of spearhead a certain genre of clothing is very helpful if you’re looking for other brands/designers/clothes that go for the same aesthetic. For example, the brand Trove has become synonymous with the Mori Boy style, and many people use that for search visibility. It’s annoying for me when I was specifically looking to buy trove, but it helped me learn about some other designers like nonnative, yaeca, and margaret howell.

4) IGNORE SIZE LABELS, USE GARMENT MEASUREMENTS*.

As none of us truly have the luxury of trying things online, knowing correct fit is hard. So save yourself the hassle and disappointment by literally just taking measurement of your body + clothes that you like, to get a gauge of whether or not the thing would fit you. Most sellers are kind enough to provide measurements, but sometimes, they don’t. This is where research and experience comes into play. For example, Takahiromiyashita theSoloist’s pants always goes a size down, meaning that a size 30 trouser will most likely be a size 27/28. This knowledge will only come after getting a general sense of the brand itself, so having a bit of brand loyalty and knowledge can pay off.

5) GO FOR JAPANESE DESIGNERS.

A lot of these brands tank in value, especially as they become forgotten and the trends have moved past. It’s sad for them, but it’s great for me. My mori kei wardrobe only cost around $300 ish, with the most expensive one being a $150 Yohji Yamamoto pour Homme runway cardigan. But mostly it was cheap clothes on mercari that I was able to buy for less than $30 max.

6)KNOW THAT THIS ISN’T LIKE SHOPPING ON SHEIN/ZARA/SSENSE/ETC. AND THIS WILL TAKE TIME.

Unlike regular websites where you can literally buy what you want at any time, it takes can take weeks, months, or even years to scope out what you want to buy. However, being more fluent in browsing thru these websites can help you score insane deals for things you’d see marked high in the west. I regularly buy rare undercover for insanely low prices, just because I toil in the mercari japan mines frequently.

7)THE MORE YOU BUY, THE BETTER IT GETS.

Your rates for shipping will get better the heavier your parcel is. Meaning that it’s better for you to buy more in one time, rather than buying only one garment. Yes, this spurs even more consumerism, but whatever lol

8) Saddest one of all, this entire thing will be easier the skinnier you are.

This isn’t fatphobia; it’s the fact that most of the clothes you’ll wanna buy are in Asian sizing, meaning that most of it will be incredibly small. Even I, as a US Men’s Small, can barely fit into a lot of Japanese clothes due to my big ass shoulders. Luckily, there are some ways to circumvent it, including going to styles/brands that incorporate a lot of oversized stuff, like Doublet, Yohji, or Balmung. Recently, some brands also offer plus size options available, but it requires you to buy new.

Okay it took longer than expected, but I hope this is helpful for the anon and anyone else who reads it! :D

[icology]

Not so much trivia this time as it is an open question about Yorda's language. If you go to the Team Ico Wiki and look to the Runic Language page, you'll see both the chart displaying each hieroglyph from A-Z and a table giving you a word association that helps show how the letter and image are related. The A-Z chart is easily verified by early pages of the Japanese ICO Guidebook. On page 2 you can see all 26 letters placed in an order, which is a very simple, effective way of informing us that each letter on the wiki's chart is correct. But now here's the thing that bugs me. The table. The symbol-to-English-word correspondence. It is very obvious what some of these symbols indicate. A = Ant is a great example of the plainly obvious. But as it goes on, I begin to wonder where these interpretations are sourced from. How did someone figure out the shape of the Runic F represents 'Fall' or H = Hide? Like, yeah, now that it's been said, I can squint at it and see what was meant, but... Who determined this? Is it from a fan or an official source? Doesn't say. But that table has been on the page since it was created in 2009. So I went down a rabbit hole. And for about 9 hours I have been google searching with both English and Japanese terms, trying my best to track down where this info may have originated. I used the Wayback Machine, I used Google Lens to help translate images, and most searches didn't touch a year above 2009. But the worst part is that I came back empty handed. The only thing I determined is that the user who published the wiki page has vanished off the face of the web, and that modern Japanese ICO fans also inquire about the word associatio. But when they do they either try to figure it out from scratch or turn to the Team Ico Wiki for their info. So if the info did come from a Japanese source, it's possible their side of the fandom lost sight of it too. This is something I feel is going to bug me for a while.

I've wondered about this before too!

For those who don't know, here's a video showcasing the Runic alphabet, as well as the word that corresponds to each symbol:

Like you said, every single article that you can possibly find on the language lists the Team Ico Wiki as their primary source for the information, but the symbol to word association is never explained in detail.

So, it was either explained to someone by Kei Kuwabara (the Team Ico member who created the language) or a fan out there had to struggle to come up with feasible words for those symbols that are harder to make out. In hindsight, it wouldn't surprise me because even the colossi names that most of us use (Valus, Quadratus, Gaius...) are actually not canon. They were created by an obscure user and spread like wildfire to the point of people not even knowing that the team had totally different names for them while in development. But we have proof of that, even if it's buried deeeeeep in old forums, so if that's the case we should be able to find who did it too, but we can't. Plus, and even though they're listed on the wiki, the fan given names for the colossi are clearly stated as such.

One thing that surprises me is the extensive use of mainly english words for each symbol, with the exception of J, X and Y, whose corresponding words are japanese (jiisan and yoke) and greek (xoanon. how would one even know this?). Although Team Ico uses english names and words here and there (heck, they named one of their protagonists Wander), I have the feeling that they rely on japanese terms more often. So to me, this had to come from someone who is either japanese or fluent in the language, because judging from the symbols, many fans could guess jiisan for J, but not everyone would guess yoke for Y.

Canon or not, each symbol is clearly meant to have a corresponding word, but there's zero sources for that one piece of information, plus the Team Ico Wiki doesn't list any source of its own for this so we're left in the dark. I doubt it came from the game files or something because people have investigated them in the past and no one mentioned this. For a fanbase that's an expert in finding things, it's surprising that seemingly no one can provide a source for this.

So as usual, I'm kindly summoning the help of each and every single of you out there who might know something about it!

[abysskeeper]

🎖😈💻🍰

Heyo, thanks friendo.

🎖What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

I just recently finished a ~20k three-shot, that was supposed to be a one-shot, in about 2 months. I haven't written legitimate fanfic in about 2 years, it felt good to do again, and it felt good to be possessed with an idea I wanted to see finished and actually see it through to the end.

It's a damn good short fic too, if my self-indulgent ass does say so myself.

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

I have a tendency to be a gen-ficcer in a shipper world. That alone is a crime in a lot of fandoms lol.

Seriously though? Slow-burner to end all slow-burns, when I do write ships. You thought those two characters were finally going to kiss in chapter 15? No, sorry, they got interrupted and are now going to compartmentalize how it wasn't what they thought and it's gonna take another 4 chapters to address that, and then another 2 after that to get back there.

There's a reason I relegate myself to gen fic and character studies. It's for everyone else's own good.

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

Generally no, if I'm writing fic it's in universe, and those universes are typically fantasy or sci-fi related so there's not a lot to look up besides a quick Google search of the name of something or a date or something like that. Quick and easy to look up. Before the aforementioned three-shot, I think the worst I did was look up episode transcripts for my ongoing Oscar character study.

This DGS three-shot though....I had a very, hyper-specific headcanon I wanted to execute. So for two months I was regularly consulting a Japanese translator, an article on the different forms of Japanese words for love, a Morse code chart, and a Wabun code chart. I was very normal about it.

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

Hm...I'm gonna out myself here. I don't read a lot of fic, I haven't since high school. I just like to write it from time to time.

I'm going to out myself again here, and say the one set of fics I do keep coming back to is the series of dreams, those frigid things by user Griftings over on Ao3 (do they have a tumblr? Idk). It's three Critical Role/Vox Machina works, specifically Perc'ahlia, and I should clarify I am...absolutely not in that fandom in any way, shape, or form.

But I read it at least once a year and it is by and away still some of the best writing I've ever encountered.