#which is where all the research comes in

[not-poignant]

hearing you do research into singaporean culture for m&m makes me so excited! i have heritage there and almost never see southeast asia represented in things i read/watch

Hi anon!

I've been to Singapore! It's a beautiful country, and one of the best places to celebrate Lunar New Year :D I don't know if I'll ever be able to travel like that again with Covid, but if I can, Singapore is actually really high on the list of places we have to get back to soon.

Perth, Western Australia is actually closer to Bali, Indonesia than it is to Sydney, Australia (and it's about the same distance to Singapore as it is to Sydney), and as a result, we actually have a huge proportion of SE Asian folk who live here, and a lot of SE cuisine and culture we can access that folks have brought over with them. So the foods that Kadek mentions in Falling Falling Stars are all foods I'm familiar with. Likewise, it's very common for many Perth folk to fly to Bali and nearby regions for holidays and work, because it's a closer flight than, well, other places in our own country. I have a friend who's working in Singapore right now, and I'm not sure if he's coming back! He loves it too much. (Though not the driving, so much dsalkjfsa).

Due to a combination of having some great friends who have SE Asian heritage and being able to share dinner with their families and hobbies and stay over as a kid etc, and just finding other places and foods interesting, and enjoying learning new things, it's been fun to include more of that in my writing in ways that are hopefully respectful. It also just feels natural in the sense that... for me, in my part of the world, we have more to do with say, Southeast Asia than we do many other cultures, and it's annoying that when people represent, god, 'eastern cultures' in fantasy, it's always like... idk, samey, if it's done by white authors. I'm hoping to avoid that, and not do it terribly. I'm definitely more focusing on Indonesia, and then aspects of Singapore as well, including how cosmopolitan and multicultural it is, while still having a strong sense of identity and place.

Fun fact, I share a timezone with Singapore, but I don't share a timezone with any other state in Australia.

Australia is big and weird.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

i wanna know more about svsss menopause

They synced their periods together too well. Now they are synced through their perimenopause years.

[breitzbachbea]

"Where is my historically accurate hetalia representation of this and that!!!" Babe, I am so sorry to tell you, but history is very complicated and nuanced and layered and you cannot cram every facet and faction of a fraction of time that a population experienced into the cartoon men. Choose one viewpoint, write an essay and be done with it.

[azathothweirdo]

I like, wish Western aoex fans would take some time and research about how religion is in Japan. Especially how christianity is viewed and practiced there. Because it's a very different thing both culturally and base level than how things go in the west. Shintoism and Buddhism is an incredibly big part of Japan's culture, but it's not in the same way as how Christianity and other western religions are for the USA or other countries.

I mean it's cool to see people want to do things, but I don't think they realize that it's going to be a very different interpretation. I personally don't even think Shiro raised the twins christian. There's nothing in canon other than they grew up in the monastery to imply it. It felt more to me they started the place to have a good cover for the twins than it actually being a legit thing.

Heck it even looked like Shiro took the boys to shrines for new years. That's kind of a important part of Japanese culture and a big tradition. I personally don't think a catholic priest raising two kids would be taking them to a Shinto Shrine to do the New Years tradition.

It's also funny whenever this comes up because no one mentions Yukio in this. It's always Rin lol

[oatbugs]

pls i need to provide updates

[chiropteracupola]

just a couple of creepy 18th-century innkeepers talking shop!

[featuring @borisyvain's lazarus mcclure and my own james webster]

[anendoandfriendo]

"Fuck your online discourse" actually, no, we do think the halloween DID flag shouldn't be used but it's not because of some bullshit like "waah it's just a recolor" it's because the system that created that flag is a huge fucking racist and ableist last we checked, and we never saw ant kind of apology for being racist and ableist to endogenic systems. We never saw them stop being anti-endogenic or anti-Black (because let's be honest, Black endogenic systems specifically would be the ones most affected and hurt by this).

Like, we know people have forgotten by now, but we were THERE just before TPA became a thing, when systems like The Entropy System were fully mask-off in their bigotry (we call anti-endogenics facsists because of the personal experience of having the not-pleasure of seeing shit like the above link lmao), and such other things. We used to be very visible on Twitter as an endogenic system who's seen this shit but it was kind of taking over 99% of our focus when we were working retail instead of working at home, so we ended up tapering it away.

[monards]

i know hoyo is setting up rhine to have good intent and whatever in her trying to 'save' khaneri'ah or whatever; but i REALLY hope they stay with the cruel persona thats been built up for her. because it would be so wonderful to see a character who had good intent in the beginning just get absolutely corrupted; with the inability to ever go back to that prior state purely because of what had happened. also because there is NO way in her turning back after all that shit

[toaster-selfships]

i of course HAVE to ask for number 6 on the ask game with mcqueen and anyone else you think would be fun to answer for. i would also love to ask 1 and 5!

~zale (@zaletham)

Thank you so very much Zale!!! Didn't realize how lengthy I was gonna talk about this here in the post and in the tags, but it was very nice to get out my system!! 😊

I'm actually so excited that you asked number 6 for M.cQueen, it hadn't even crossed my mind at first, and technically isn't zoo or aquarium, moreso museum, but I think that still qualifies- but! L.ightning actually loovesss dinosaurs! I don't know if you've ever heard of C.ars On The Road, it's like this little series that came out in 2023, each episode is about 5 minutes long(they say like 7 minutes but it's just 2+ minutes of credits, no extra credit scenes except for a 5 second one in one episode) and L.ightning and M.ater, to make a long story short, go on a roadtrip together and they go on stops along the way and the first stop they go to is like a dinosaur museum!

And L.ightning like full swing goes into hyperfixation mode and just babbles about dinosaurs and I love it. He says he did "hours of intensive research" and it just cuts to him watching documentaries in M.ack's trailer and it makes me giggle. M.ack is so sweet, I can only imagine how much second-hand dino knowledge he has cause of L.ightning or overhearing his documentaries! There's also been some jokes that what if the main reason L.ightning wanted to be D.inoco's team in the first movie is just cause he likes dinosaurs and I love it.

I explain a bit more in the tags but tumblr has a one video limit per post that I didn't know about?? So I'm just doing one of the clips here!

They're so silly I love it.

But basically to make a long story short! L.ightning has a massive hyperfixation on dinosaur stuff and would thrive in a dinosaur related musuem. Though, I'd imagine he'd be bored in an aquarium or zoo until he realized that he could make connections here, and he'd go around to all the bird-type species or sharks and talk about how they're related to dinosaurs or have dinosaur ancestors and such!

1) what does their alarm ringtone sound like

It took me some pondering at first who to answer this for and then an idea immediately hit me, and I'd figure I'd answer this for F.rancesco

Basically, to put it in a nutshell, F.1 is a bunch of international racers on international race courses, and whoever wins at the end of each race gets their national anthem played! And I'm giggling over the thought of F.rancesco setting his alarm that he wakes up to in the morning to ltaly's national anthem.

Ringtone wise though, he'd definitely set it to a specific song, or something someone would ask questions about so he could go on this entire spiel about how it relates to him or something he likes. I'd probably rub off on him at some point and he'd make his ringtone(or the ringtone specifically for when I call) S.mooth Operator by Sade.

5) how do they bookmark their book pages

I'll answer this one for F.inn, just cause I think he's the one that's mostly likely to read full books fairly frequently. He'd probably just have a simple bookmark. something small and fairly thin cause he likes taking care of his books and wouldn't want to bend any pages or mess up the spine of the book too badly, probably something like this:

Maybe not the particular design that's on it, but definitely just the rectangle with the little tassels on it. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a bookmark with the UK flag on it as a design, he's quite patriotic and I think it's adorable. Though due to my recent knitting escapades he'd 100% ask me to knit one like one of these:

Though this has also given me the brilliant enlightenment idea of F.inn having one of those book lights or book lamps that clamp onto the book and shines a light on it and you can kinda adjust it and l'1l be having brainrot over that for a bit. May or may not have cultivated a fic idea around it already.

[orcelito]

Let me talk about trigun plants and metaphysical theory I prommy prommy prommy I won't bring up the boichi chapter (lying) (lying) (lying)

[amtrak12]

Okay I still don't know what the pocket watches are in Pushing Daisies, but I learned grave robbers who stole bodies for anatomists to dissect were called 'resurrectionists' and um... I feel that's relevant to Ned and his powers.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[phynali]

One thing I don't see people talk about much in the context of anxiety is how freaking annoying it is.

Anxiety is borrowing energy from the future. There's this Thing, real or imagined, that's looming, or that could happen, so you gotta prepare and be ready, so you mobilize your energy resources toward it. "Very slow tigers are chasing me" and all that -- the tiger is somewhere out there and you gotta be Ready and not relax or else it might get you.

And I've been doing a lot to work with instead of against my anxiety, like "okay there is a Thing that's stressing me and all my energy is being mobilized worrying about that thing Now, so what can I do Now to put this energy to work? What steps can I take with all this anxious energy to get ready for that very slow tiger's arrival?"

Which is good and fine and can help dissipate the anxiety, yay, but -

But sometimes there's nothing more you can do to prep for that slow tiger. You've got everything ready and done everything you can do and the tiger is actually a cub like it's not even a threat, but you're still buzzing with energy waiting for it to show up.

Which itself is annoying because you wanna relax and you try your distractions and meditations and other tools and they help maybe but they don't necessarily change or fix the fact that the tiger is on its way, and your body and brain are demanding you Be Ready.

But far more annoying? That's a lot of energy mobilized, a lot of resources spent. So after long enough you feel spent, because you haven't hit a full state of relaxation or slept that well or truly recharged -- you're still using up that energy Staying Alert for the tiger.

And then you have no energy left for other shit! And the tiger is still on its way! And the other shit starts turning into little baby tigers because you didn't have the focus or lost the energy to direct toward it effectively.

Rinse and repeat. And it's annoying af.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Do you think Behemoth and Leviathan were actually real and happened to be dinosaurs? Behemoth was a huge and formidable land dinosaur while Leviathan was a pleisiosaur. Technically, plesiosaurs weren't dinosaurs, but you get my idea?

So I've been sitting on this ask for a little bit because I honestly didn't know what tone to take in answering it. I don't know your background, and thus don't know whether to be more blunt or delicate. Ultimately, I settled on blunt, simply because I could not figure out how to answer this question delicately. That said, I hope you take this in the gracious spirit in which I have written it.

SO. That's a hard no from me, friend. Let's discuss!

So typically when you hear people say that Behemoth and Leviathan were dinosaurs (or dinosaur adjacent), it's in the context of arguments in favor of young earth creationism. It's a fairly big talking point with the Answers in Genesis crowd. Basically, they make the argument that Biblical texts referencing creatures that superficially resemble dinosaurs are evidence that humans and dinosaurs could have lived at the same time.

This works out if the earth is only 6,000 years old, but not if we take paleontology, geology, or human evolution at all seriously. The writer of Job would have had no way of knowing that dinosaurs and plesiosaurs existed because they had already been extinct for many millions of years. Even if you want to argue that maybe God is describing creatures with which Job was unfamiliar, it still doesn't track. God's address to Job treats these creatures as something for which he has a point of reference. It also just doesn't make sense why God would choose this moment to reveal the existence of dinosaurs. Talk about a tangent!

I don't know where you fall on the spectrum of Christian beliefs regarding origins and the age of the earth, but I've written at length on this blog about the case for theistic (old earth) evolution, so I won't rehash that here. Check out my all truth is God's truth tag or shoot me an ask if you want more on that. Regarding Behemoth and Leviathan, however, I think some of the same exegetical skills involved in reading (or misreading) Genesis are involved in the relevant chapters of Job.

When God addresses Job out of the whirlwind, he uses poetic language. He's talking about a real thing (his sovereignty over the universe), but it's something that transcends human comprehension on an overwhelming scale. Much like we can't ever hope to wrap our heads around deep time, we're simply not capable of grasping the extent of God's sovereignty.

When God describes storehouses of hail reserved for the day of battle, are we supposed to literally think that there is a giant building in heaven where God keeps all his hail? Or is it a picture of God's might as both creator and judge of the universe? If we know our Bibles, we see that hail is frequently used as a tool of judgement against God's enemies: Egypt, the Canaanites, apostate Israel, and ultimately the rebellious earth. So when God describes his storehouses of hail, we see the reality of his total control over the arc of history, his ultimate justice, his orderliness.

Likewise, Behemoth and Leviathan use the established language and symbolism of Scripture to convey truths for which plain language wouldn't suffice. Behemoth's description isn't that of any real animal, living or extinct. God paints a picture of a creature that no man could ever hope to tame and expresses that he, God, can.

Leviathan is the longer and more interesting image; it's a mighty creature of the deep that breathes fire and cannot be controlled. We know that in Biblical parlance, water is frequently associated with chaos (too many places to enumerate, but Psalms, the Prophets, and Revelation are good starting places). Leviathan is a picture of this chaos: mighty, rearing, deadly, uncontrollable, terrifying. Then God says to Job, "Can you draw this creature out with a fishhook? Can you make a covenant with him? Will he serve you? Can you injure him? Do you have any means at all of controlling the chaos monster? I do." It's poetry used to express a truth that we humans cannot hope to grasp otherwise: We cannot control the chaos of the world around us. We can't even try. But God can, and he does it effortlessly.

So no. Not dinosaurs. And I think that arguing that they are, especially trying to pick through the text and figure out which ones they're supposed to be and using that to argue for literalistic interpretations of Genesis, really misses the point and the power of what God is saying here.

I think Job's words back to God at the end of the book actually give us a remarkably important principle when it comes to Biblical interpretation: "I have uttered what I do not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." The whole Bible is too wonderful for us. God condescended in order to give us his truth, and he had the magnificent grace to give it to us in ways that we can begin to grasp.

I think a lot of really literalistic reads on Scripture (Job, Genesis, Revelation, and elsewhere) are a kind of grasping at control. There's an assumption in it that God gave the ancients an exact accounting of things that humans just aren't equipped to fully comprehend.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try! But it does mean that when we read Scripture concerning the Big Things: the Sovereignty of God, the creation of the universe, the origin of life, eternity, infinity, even spiritual mysteries like the Trinity and the nature of the Incarnation, we have to approach it as something fundamentally beyond our comprehension which God is showing us the edges of. We can see other, different edges of many of those same things through scientific observation (or philosophy, or whatever other disciplines-- not all of the Big Things are scientific in nature.)

It's like Isaac Newton said: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

[designernishiki]

today on tumblr user designernishiki’s autistic-with-a-special-interest-in-psychology deep dives: dissecting the hell out of kiryu/nishiki’s childhoods and kazama’s parenting (or lack thereof) and how it all relates to their emotional development (or lack thereof). they will never be safe from my psychoanalyses

[oatbugs]

omg i FEEL you about the asd articles... i'm cuttently studying psychology and THIS makes me wanna go and pursue a job in research after graduating :')

yeah !! you should! i study a very interdisciplinary degree and out of all the fields I study in (ML/phil/psych/neuro) psychology has the most inconsistent, outright harmful, sometimes misinformed-at-best info sprinkled into publications and even lectures and it's a genuine source of frustration ! we need def need more researchers committed to accuracy and fairness and eliminating stigmas, biases, etc. :)