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oathofoaksart · 3 years

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YOUNG JUSTICE OC: KITSUNE

bio under the cut!

BASICS Name: Leiko Ara A.K.A: Kitsune; Lei, Kit, L.A [only by Charlie] Age: 16 [S1 Era], 21 [S2 Era] Gender: Cisgender Female Orientation: Grayromantic Bisexual

Skin: Fair Hair: Plum-Black Eyes: Black, fully golden and slit-pupiled as Kitsune Height: 5'6”, 6’1” in platforms Build: Lithe, built like a dancer Distinctions: Distinctly pretty. Sharpened canines and nails. A sharp dresser, obviously wealthy, rarely seen without some type of heel.

RELATIONS Parents: Ryuu Ara and Cho Miyamotou [estranged] Siblings: N/A Friends: Wally “Kid Flash” West, Zatanna Zatara, M’gann “Miss Martian” M’orzz, Raquel “Rocket” Irving, Kaldur’ahm “Aqualad”, Dick “Robin” Grayson, Conner ��Superboy” Kent, Artemis Crock, Haley Overbea [OC] Partner/s: Wally “Kid Flash/Flash III” West (ev. post-S3) Misc.: Charles “Scribe” Jenson [OC], Penelope “Poppet” Caskett [@PoltergeistPrincessa] Affiliations: The Spiral, The Team

PERSONALITY Personality Type: ENTP-A [Assertive Debater] Temperament: Choleric-Sanguine Alignment: Chaotic Good Clever | Self-Assured | Driven | Arrogant | Spiteful

Aristocratic in both upbringing and nature, Leiko likes to carry herself with regality. Her confidence and well-honed charm makes her a popular figure among her school peers, even though she keeps everyone at a cool arm's length. Her social aloofness leaves her with little to no close friends, which she figures is just as well, since she finds friends to be a waste of time.

Around others in the heroic scene, Leiko allows herself to show off. She’s known for her theatrical and flamboyant attitude, topped with a haughtiness she cares little to subdue. She’s assertive, witty, and adores a challenge. She lets this completely unfurl as the vain and dramatic Kitsune, who views the world as her stage and anyone watching her audience.

Leiko struggles with unlearning a deep-seated cynicism against others and is often skeptical of actions claimed to be done out of good will, which clashes with the ethics of heroism. Her grasp on empathy leaves much to be desired as well; she can be condescending, sharp, and impatient when the situation calls for exactly the opposite.

Still, steadily Leiko finds herself learning humility, trust, and care from her teammates, along the way forming friendships no Swiss bank account could buy.

ABILITIES AND WEAKNESSES

Powers and Abilities:

Physiology:

Lei doesn’t possess a human soul, but of that of her namesake, a kitsune. Her “soul” is instead a Hoshi no Tama, usually referred to as her soul bead. It is a fist-sized pearl that resides within her body. This is the source of her magic as well as her heightened physical attributes.

Enhanced Senses: Lei demonstrates fox-like senses. She sees just as well at night as she does during the day, hears better than a normal human, and has a better sense of smell. This doubles in the supernatural side, she can see, hear, and smell beyond the mortal plane.

Enhanced Physiology: Lei exhibits above-average speed, strength, endurance and rarely if ever comes down with diseases, viruses and the like.

Onmyodo: A traditional Japanese occultism

Illusion Magic: Lei’s strongest suit is her hold over illusion spells. Using a variety of paper charms, mirrors, physical cues, written and verbal spells, she's able to create confusion over her opponent. These illusions range from visual to audial, making it difficult to rely on one's own senses. Her illusions are often grandiose, jarringly colorful, with nods to the overall aesthetic influence of traditional Japanese art forms. In turn makes her relatively immune to similar tactics.

Barriers: Can alternately use barriers as a sort of defense or a barring mechanism. Barriers set up by paper charms are stronger and more durable than barriers set by simple verbal spells, however combining both techniques grants the best results.

Pyrokinesis: Lei’s kitsunebi is a mystic fire she can conjure in the form of pillars and spheres. Notably different to “mortal” flame, as it burns exclusively supernatural/otherworldly beings, but brings the sensation of weakness and illness to the human body.

Weapons and Inventory:

Enchanted Parasol:

Kit’s go-to weapon. By reaching over her shoulder, the same way one would unsheath a sword, her oil paper parasol materializes into her hand in a burst of flame. It serves both as a defensive and offensive tool.

Closed: While in her hands it doesn’t appear to weigh any more than a regular parasol, in combat it carries an inexplicable weight, able to break concrete. She uses it as a melee weapon, much like a bat or a club. Kit also uses it as a makeshift wand/staff, for bigger and more complex spells. And a favorite stun tactic of hers is to mimic pumping the action to a shotgun, aiming her parasol and “firing” it. It creates a momentary illusion of being “shot” to whomever her target may have been.

Open: Popping it open creates a quick-time personal shield, able to deflect various attacks and withstand a fair amount of explosive power. Ducking behind it obscures her from her opponent and she uses this window of time to work up a spell. Spinning the canopy of her parasol causes momentary dizziness. When jumping off of highland, the parasol allows Kit to glide for long distances (the amount of time and smoothness of the glide suffers when another person is in tow).

Ofuda: These paper charms can be used as delayed “bombs” affected by sticking them into walls, either simply timed or activated by touch. They also serve for warding spells. Gohei: A summoned short wand with a decorative paper trail, the length of the trail stretches during use. Lei uses it as a sort of weaponized gymnast ribbon, or a whip. Most effective against intaginable objects or enemies. Balance Charm: With Scribe's help and after many mishaps, Kit wears a beaded charm around her ankle which enables her limited enhanced movement. She appears to glide along, unweighted, making her movements seem feather light. It helps slow or cushion short distance falls and balance on unprobable surfaces. May also explain how she manages to fight in heels. Spellbook: Kit carries a small notebook with variant spells written herself for safe-keeping and for a quick reference check. Mirrors: Kit holds a small, two-faced mirror. The mirror serves to see through glamour illusions or create more intricate illusions of her own; more often than not, she uses it to admire a makeup job well done. Purification Salt: Ghosts in particular are vulnerable to salt, circles of it makes areas inaccessible to them. Calligraphy Set: A horse-hair brush, inkwell and a small stash of paper for written spells

Limitations and Weaknesses:

Water and Aquatic Environments: As host of a fire kitsune, Kitsune’s main and biggest weakness is water. Being around areas with large amounts of water dampens the potency of her magic, being doused in it cuts off completely until she dries off. While her parasol helps repel rain and small splashes, it can only do so much. The water effect includes any type, Lei incapacitaed by things such as baths and showers as well until she properly dries herself off.

Cynophobia: Lei’s “unprompted” fear of dogs, or really any sort of canine that aren’t foxes, can be traced back to Japanese folklore. Dogs were considered enemies of foxes, being used to hunt them down. People accused of being possessed by, or being kitsune, were sometimes forced to be licked head to toe by dogs in order to expel the demon to it’s true form. Dogs make Lei largely uncomfortable at best, aggressive dogs will either send her into a state of frozen terror or at worst, unabashed panic.

HISTORY [TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL HARASSMENT]

The only child of Ryuu Ara, a successful luxury hotel chain owner and president, Leiko grew up with the world served to her on a silver platter. She enrolled in the best schools, excelling in academics, popularity, and was starting to make headway as a teen model. Leiko formed into a pretty, precocious, if pretentious, girl.

At age 14, after wrapping up a student council meeting afterschool, the student body president forced her into a corner when she’d turned him down for a date. The boy grew increasingly aggressive, but was stopped from going beyond grasping at her blazer when a brilliant white flame unfurled from Leiko’s hands. She fled the second she found an opening, calling for help until she caught the attention of school security. The boy was found unconscious, but physically unharmed. (She would later find out, he complained of sudden illness and a downslide of rotten luck, with little to no memory on how he’d been knocked cold.)

Ryuu spared no expense on making sure justice was properly handed out, although that was simple when compared to the news Leiko gave him about her new ability to conjure flame. But he’d taken the revelation far easier than Leiko thought he would. Ryuu admitted it was something he’d been somewhat expecting, even dreading.

Leiko’s mother was something of a taboo subject. Outside of knowing her name was Cho (Ryuu never mentioned her maiden name) and that there had been an ugly divorce shortly after Leiko was born, she didn’t know much else. Even then, her father didn’t go into specifics beyond blaming Cho for Leiko’s newly discovered “peculiarity.” Ryuu ultimately decided it was best for Leiko to pretend she hadn’t discovered it. She had a bright future ahead of her as his heir and it wouldn’t be marred by her mother’s blood. Leiko obeyed despite her protests. They’d both come to realize, however, fire was just the beginning.

Over the following weeks, more abilities came to emerge, from heightened senses to supernatural awareness. She struggled under the pressure of maintaining the semblance of being normal. The weight of stress and desperation finally proved too much for Leiko, leading to a discussion gone sour, ending only when she noticed Ryuu backing away from the looming shadow of a four-tailed fox she cast on the wall. She would miss the following days of school when her eyes refused to revert back from their completely golden, slit-pupiled appearance.

Resigned, Ryuu took to looking into someone who could help Leiko with her magic troubles as this was beyond his reach.

That someone came to be a man by the name Scribe, a semi-public mystic who operated within New York. Scribe’s interest piqued at the mention of Leiko’s transformation and to the Ara’s slight relief, Scribe proved himself to be a sorcerer of true magic instead of a con-man looking for a quick buck. He’d confirmed their suspicions of Leiko being tied to the kitsune, fox spirits of Japanese lore, although he admitted he had little to no experience with said creatures.

Scribe refused to leave Leiko to sort things out on her own, however, and offered her a proposition. Scribe’s lifelong work dealt with a massive, mystical library he dubbed the Spiral, which housed knowledge from across space and time. Despite his years slaving away at discovering and archiving its secrets, progress was going at a crawl. He’d take Leiko under his wing, giving her access to whatever she could get her hands on and import what they couldn’t find from his various connections. In return, she’d take up being his personal assistant. Ryuu had been reluctant to let Leiko have a hands on approach and had made his dislike for Scribe apparent, but relented.

The world of magic was a far cry from the straight-laced, business-oriented life Leiko had grown in; it both terrified and fascinated her. Scribe, real name: Charles Mordichai Jenson (Charlie for short), proved to be an eccentric, but well-meaning guide where he could. As the two dove into research, Leiko let loose a sense of freedom and expression she stifled to fit her father’s expectations. Charlie was quick to help enable this. They were polar opposites in many ways, but Charlie saw a passion and potential in Leiko that mirrored his own at her age, and he fully intended to see it shine. It wasn’t long before Leiko wasn’t just checking inventory and jotting notes for both The Spiral and Jenson’s Comics (Charlie’s civilian pop culture store), but followed him out on relic retrievals and even the occasional “mystic field trip”. Charlie had been adamant on one thing when she stepped out of the safety of The Spiral however, much as he’d taken Scribe as his mantle, Leiko would have to make one of her own for the sake of her identity. It wasn’t a hard choice for her as it was practically staring her in the face, Kitsune took life. Over the next two years, Kitsune proved herself to be a capable magician despite being self-taught. Juggling her home, school and magic life was busy, but thrilling. Perhaps a little too thrilling. During an outing, Scribe and Kitsune were ambushed by a sorcerer named Felix Faust, who ultimately took Scribe prisoner. Well-aware of just how over her head she was, Kitsune went on a one-girl rescue mission to save her mentor anyway and was beyond relieved to find a young group of supers on the same trail.

The group, known simply as “The Team”, had been alerted of Scribe’s abduction through their resident mystic, Zatanna. Scribe had managed to send a distress signal before all communication cut off. Shoving down the twinge of jealousy that came with that revelation and of being out of the loop, Kitsune allied herself with the Team until Scribe was rescued. She was offered a permanent position on the Team, which she said she’d think over even though she had no interest in becoming a hero. She was more persuaded by the opposition placed by Scribe and the oddly genuine endearment shown by the Team’s speedster, Kid Flash.

Less than a few days later, an argument between Leiko and Charlie sparked by his confession of thinking she wasn’t right for the Team just yet sent her right to them out of spite.

Now taking a crash course in heroics, Kitsune tackles supercrime, training, self-reflection, team building and the frustrating, but integral importance of friendship.

NOTES

Kit has alternate versions of her Kitsune outfit and will switch between them mid-battle, either because she wasn’t feeling the one she was wearing, it got dirty, or a specific attack called for a wardrobe change

Because Lei’s brand of Onmyodo is largely “home-brew” given she’s self-taught, she incorporates other types of magic and styles to compensate

Lei has the passive ability of being ridiculously lucky, she never loses games of chance such as coin flips and dice rolls

The nickname ‘Lei’ was originally coined by Wally West and it’s a nickname she only allows within the perimeter of the Cave

Lei is proud of her musical skill, it’s not uncommon to hear her singing to herself and will shred an electric guitar when given the chance

She has a pet Bearded Dragon named Prince. Prince was a at-Death’s-door rescue surrendered to Charlie, who gave him to her after she helped nurse Prince back to health and she wound up attached to him

Lei’s father is unaware she’s taken up heroism, as far as Ryuu knows, she’s studying under Charlie to get her curiosity of magic out of her system

#young justice oc #dc oc #gar's oc #gar's art #oathofoaks #leiko ara #meet the OCs

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ot3 · 4 years

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your last post made me think about how I loooove how you use color in your art, it's so vibrant and full of life and movement and expression! I was wondering if you had any advice on how to do color studies? perhaps doing drawings with limited palettes? or anything similar?

First things first, thank you, I really do appreciate comments like these! this post now also has a follow up for finish limited palette pieces

I'm obviously very fond of limited palette art and color studies/color thumbnailing are great ways to get that done. When people think limited palette there's often the association of unrealistic and fantastical color palettes, but learning to limit your color use absolutely applies to semirealism and just builds stronger color theory in general. I was planning to talk about limited palettes in more realistic color use in this post, but this already ended up way too long. If that's something people want to hear about I can talk about it later.

Color theory basics crash-course! I'm sure almost anyone who has colored anything is familiar with this, so I'll be SUPER brief, but I want everyone to be on the same page for this. Color has three qualities you need to take into account: Hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is what we think of as the 'color'. Saturation is the vibrancy of this color; how bold or dull it is. Brightness is how light or dark the color is. Here's this all labeled on a color picker I stole from google.

As a rule of thumb, things that look good in color should look good in grayscale. Having a strong range of values (brightness) makes for a strong image. Keep this in mind when you're picking colors – knowing what areas need to be light and what areas need to be dark before you start coloring will make your life easier. I'm going to teach you when and how to break this rule later, but for now let's just talk about picking a palette. I've found five to seven different colors to be a really nice sweet spot for working with limited palettes.

There are three main types of color palettes ill work with and ill provide examples each of them. I expect you to all politely refrain commenting on the amount of homestuck fanart that's here.

Monochromatic, where the piece is all within one color family with slight variations in hue, and larger variations in brightness and saturation

Accent, which is essentially the same as a monochromatic type with the addition of a strong, contrasting secondary color in one or two variants. Normally the accent color is lighter and serves as a highlight. This is not any kind of a hard rule, but is instead just what I like.

Split. There are two (or more) main colors at play, each with a couple of different shades.

Cool. Now lets see how we'd go about making one of these palettes.

I'm grabbing an inconsequential sketch i've already got and we're gonna slap some color on it. Let's start monochromatic – I've gone and just tossed six pretty random shades of green on it, picking what goes where based on what I want to be light and what I want to be darker.

Keep in mind, by monochromatic, I don't mean just picking one color and making it lighter or darker! Adjust your hue within the same color family – some of these are very blue, definitely more blue than green, and some are much warmer and yellower. Play around. In this stage I like to have every color on a distinct layer, so I can just recolor the entire layer at once as I tweak the palette.

On the right, I have each color lined up in order of lightest to darkest just so I can get a sense of what I'm working with. Lets go ahead and call this one thumbnail. Now I'm gonna group the layers, duplicate them, and flatten the copy. I'll shrink it down and shove it off to the side so I can compare it to the other ones I make later.

Okay, I did a few more almost completely arbitrary monochromatic palettes. Here they are compared with their grayscale counterparts.

All of them have the same number of colors, and lights stay lights, darks stay dark, midtones stay mid consistent between all of them, but the range of values is different between them all. The difference in light or dark between each tone is different and it gives a different mood that you can see even in black and white. None of them is more 'correct' than any other, and it's all about establishing the tone and atmosphere you want. Experimentation is key.

Now lets try making this a complimentary palette. With a strong accent color, your accent should be placed at areas of importance. People are naturally drawn to contrast and when using an accent color in a piece it'll make that area stick out, so make sure you're placing your colors with intent. For this I went back to that first set of greens I had because it was my favorite. Since this palette is over all very dark, I am going to make my accent the lightest color, because that'll stand out more. In a lighter palette, try making your accent the darkest color. Once again I must stress these are not hard rules – there are very few hard rules in art at all – but these are very useful tips for getting emphasis in the right place. This is just an example piece so I'm not being huuugely thoughtful with how I'm placing the color.

Here's the same image but with the lightest green just swapped out for a far more vibrant accent of yellow. Looks pretty terrible. I don't want all of the papers and blinds to seem so prominent. So let's scrap this and try a different approach. We're gonna instead add our accent as a sixth color to our palette.

By adding another color, I've added another level of detail. Figuring out how to manage detail isn't just dependent on how many colors you have, but this is already going to be ridiculously long so I'll spare you that spiel. This is another one of those things I'll talk about more later if people want to hear my #thots. Using the new yellow accent, I emphasized the eyes, the mug, and added some interior detailing to the objects on the table. I also decided to place yellow in some of the windows of the outside buildings, to add a bit more interest in that area, and to justify giving yellow back lighting to our little goblin lad here, which makes him stand out nicely.

A split palette makes things a whole lot more complicated. Now that you're gonna be working with two different base colors you don't just only have to worry about which one is lighter or darker, you have to worry about how the hues look next to each other. Lets work with an orange on top of our original green here. I picked two of the greens and replaced the darker one with a darker orange, and the lighter one with a lighter orange. Now our palette is six colors split 50/50 between orange+yellow, and green.

But now something interesting is happening. Let's take a look. If you're particularly keen eyed, you might have noticed that there's a third set of colors here, using a greyish brown in place of the oranges. What's up with that?

Well, what's up with that is, they are orange. The palette on the far right is what happens if, instead of choosing my own oranges, I simply hue-shifted the bluegreens until they were technically orange in hue.

The oranges I chose just based on how they looked without actually checking the value and saturation of actually changed the value hierarchy of the whole piece. The table, instead of being in between the objects stacked upon it in terms of brightness, is lighter than either. This isnt bad at all – there's absolutely nothing wrong here. It's just important to be aware of things like this! This is why I said a split palette is the most complicated of the three I'm talking about here – in many occasions, the hue hierarchy can top the value hierarchy. Keep that in mind for slightly later.

I think split palettes work really well for comics, and I like to make my comics with split palettes. Whereas with a single illustration, you can just putz around with your color thumbnails until you get something good, for a comic you're locked into your palette once you've done the first page. Unless you're some sort of insanely meticulous person, in which case I envy you, you probably don't have every single page of your comic blocked out with respective values and can't apply your palette to the whole thing at once to test it. This means you'll need a palette that's pretty versatile. Having a split palette where one of the hue sets is lighter than the other overall allows you to decide whether you're going to create an overall light panel with dark accents, or vice versa. I'm gonna compare two palettes I'm using for comics to make this point.

Here's a sampling of the comic pages in full color, at 0% saturation, and adjusted for grayscale respectively. You'll notice a slight difference between the desaturated colors and the grayscale colors – grayscale seems to hold truer to the full color version, doesn't it?

Now, here are the palettes themselves, and some grids showing the relationship between every pair of colors. When you don't know exactly what you're going to be using any given palette for, the relationship between any two colors becomes more important than ever. The bottom palette is split three ways, red yellow and blue each with a light and a dark, and then a completely neutral dark gray color. I'm using it for a long ongoing ace attorney comic I'm drawing. The top one has 4 shades of blue that go from darker and cooler to lighter and warmer, then 3 shades of orange that get yellower as they get lighter. Underneath is just the values – you'll notice that the top palette has a larger value range, with its lightest color being lighter than that of the bottom palette, and it's mid tones spaced further apart.

What you'll also notice about the bottom palette is that instead of the reds being lighter than the blues and darker than the yellows, the value alternates dark red dark yellow light red light yellow. Take a look at the color grids. You'll notice that for the most part, every color in the palette on the right looks good with every other color. That's not nearly as true for the palette on the left. The light blue has a weird vibration where it meets either of the reds, and a few of the pairings just aren't particularly pleasant. Honestly, from any objective ideas of color theory, this palette kind of sucks shit. Lets make some adjustments to it.

I've changed the dark yellow and light red hues so now the light red is slightly darker than the dark yellow. That's the palette that's on top now. Looks better, doesn't it? But so now the question becomes why am I using a palette that looks awkward, disharmonious, and visually strained when I know exactly how to fix it? The simple answer is because I wanted a color palette that's awkward. I wanted that visual strain. I have trouble working on comics and general, especially anything as long as this one, and I wanted a color palette that already meant things would come out looking a little bit wonky, so I wouldn't be as concerned with nitpicking all the details and making everything pretty. I think the sort of visual upset also fits the tone I'm keeping with a lot of the comic.

Remember earlier when I said I'd talk about breaking the rule of stuff looking good in gray scale and in color? That's now. Take a look at this image.

Which of the three colors is darker: the red, blue, or yellow? The stupid truth of it is that there's not really a proper way to tell. All three are technically the same 'brightness' but our brain tells us that the blue is the darkest, and the yellow is the lightest. Why do our brains do this? Let’s make em gray now.

On the bottom you can see what the colors look like when they are set to 0% saturation; as you'd expect it's a homogeneous gray blob. So then what the fuck is going on with the grayscale one? The grayscale one is closer to the way our brains interpret the colors, but we know this to be an improper rendering of their respective values. Which is the correct version, then – the grayscale or the desaturation? Luckily, we're using a computer, so we can have photoshop tell us the exact balance of hue, saturation, and brightness of any given pixel. Let's take a look now.

Wait, huh? We can plainly see that all three of the colors are at 49% brightness. But neither the desaturated value or any of the 3 grayscale values have a brightness of 49%. So what does a brightness of 49% look like?

Okay. Sure. Why not.

All of what I've just shown you regarding grayscale is to emphasize the point that your best judgment for which colors look good is a far better measuring stick for a good color palette than any technicalities. Even if the value is the same, the hue can differ enough that you can still get a beautiful finished drawing. Color and our perception of it is so, so vastly technically complex. You can not allow yourself to be bogged down by this. Simply practice, and color will become intuitive to you over time. I have a lot more I could say on the subject of picking and using your colors, but this is already insanely long. Feel free to ask any follow up questions, I hope this was of literally any use!

#long post #uhhhhh.#color theory #i guess #i drew this #Anonymous

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grumpygreenwitch · 4 years

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Summer Gardening.

So it’s been a while, and for that I apologize to the... 200+ people who follow me. I’m sure y’all are here for the cat pics and the nekked men, but TOO BAD. Today you get to suffer through pics of my green children. Also, I do share seed. My seed list link will be up later in the year. To begin with, the summer flowers are out en force:

Echinacea Purpurea, the original echinacea. I do save yearly seed from these guys, although it’s an incredibly pointy, stabby and bleed-y job.

Mountain Phlox. Unfortunately, all of it around the house is afflicted with powdery mildew, so I will not share seed. But it’s still pretty to look at, and the clearwings (hummingbird moths) love it. Not pictured is the white variant, who grows on the other side of the house. Look, it was hot and I was already melting.

Peppermint Balsam. This thing is basically indestructible, for an annual. It will reseed freely (to truly Lovecraftian levels) and blooms continuously from late spring until mid-fall, when the seed-pods set. There is a dormant genetic in it for double flowers, but when it pops up it’s always been sterile. It just pops up occasionally from the peppermint seed.

I may give the roommate hell over the hostas (I hate them. They’re so useful to protect toads and control weeds, but I hate them), but they do put out pretty flowers. There are several variants around the house - white-edged, blue and green, but hostas in general are very, very hard to start from seed. I will save it on request, only. We were also incredibly lucky to have a Moth Mullein sprout in our porch bed, along with some Variegated Solomon’s Seal.The SS doesn’t put out seeds, and I don’t have enough to share bulbs (yet), but the mullein has been exceptionally generous with seed pods, and it repels bugs. It repels ROACHES. It’s going everywhere. And I may be convinced to part with some seed.

Onward!

A view from a hill. Can you see the garden? That’s OK, I can’t either. Those are peach trees, on the side of the orchard closest to the house. Unfortunately a freak storm during early spring killed all the blossoms. Also, don’t mistake ‘orchard’ for ‘organized’. There’s a pear, some apples, a plum, some nectarines? And front and center are two walnuts. I’ll probably be plunking my laurel there to see if it survives winter. And someday when I have a job and money again, I would like to drop a few Chicago Hardy figs, and maybe a kiwi trellis.

This is the big garden (and fortunately not my responsibility, or I would cry). The guys are ‘handling’ it. The weeds say otherwise.

The jasmine tree and the roommate’s garden. Because of a bad back injury that refuses to heal, I’ve been helping them on and off with it. And if you thought jasmine was supposed to stay a delightful little bush, AHAHAHAHAH. Yes, that’s a light-post next to it. For size comparison.

MY CHILDREN. Please ignore the dead soccer ball. That’d be a dog toy.

Lemon balm, amaranth, and a new bed that I’ll be finishing off during fall, for use next year. The lemon balm is a permanent row - it will overwinter just fine, and it will even keep growing through the mildest part of December. Mine didn’t die back until a few solid days of sleet in January. Unfortunately the weed fabric under the amaranth turned out to be an old roll, and fell apart on me (no big, the whole point is for it to fall apart eventually), so the weeds have kinda eaten it alive.

Unfortunately, both cucumber beetles and blister beetles love the amaranth. Fortunately, it does not seem to give a damn. It’s an incredibly resilient plant, not minding weeds, bugs, flood or drought. We’ll see what the grain actually tastes like, but so far it’s looking like a good candidate for continuous growing.

The lemon balm is lemon-balming. Planted on a lark, it’s proven to be a fantastic wind-breaker - because it grows so early and so quick, it keeps the colder winds that come down through the hollow from my more fragile seedlings, like the lettuce, dill and cilantro. You can see here where the spent flower-heads are dying but there’s new growth underneath; I really have to get in there and behead it. It makes nice hot tea, meh cold tea, and hanging fresh bunches of it around the balcony keeps the skeeters off. It also seems to be a decoy for cabbage moths.

Canary Zinnia. The seed was sent to me as a gift with one of my seed orders, and this is my first year growing it. -If- I can save some, I’ll definitely be sharing and growing again. It’s a lovely plant, very sturdy, and the bees love it.

Dwarf Castor Oil. I don’t think there’s anything dwarf about it, but then I’m a short green witch myself, so maybe it’s all about perspective. Don’t let the pods lie to you, until they dry the spikes are relatively soft. However, it being castor oil, I don’t recommend it to anyone with ducks, chickens, goats, or anything that might accidentally try talking a nibble or pecking at the beans. I do, however, recommend them from jewelry if you know how to pierce things and so on. They are a gorgeous tiger-stripe pattern.

Say hello to the chard! Say goodbye to the chard! Nothing else, absolutely nothing else since the limas, has given me so much trouble. The deer love getting into my chard bed and destroying it (ergo all the forks). And once I managed to chase those off, the blister beetles showed up in force. This will be the last year I grow it - we just don’t eat enough of it to make it worth my while, and it only occasionally sold at the Farmers’ Market.

Red lettuce - Merlot and Lollo Vino, a combination of bought and saved seed. I planted a red romaine of some sort, too, but unsurprisingly it bolted in the heat. The darker reds of my favorites, though, keep bugs off them, keep deer from noticing them, and keep them from bolting. It’s just now threatening to, and at this point its kind of allowed. I need more seed for next year. Seed for this will likely be shared by the teaspoon-ful.

Calendula! I searched for a long time to find the plain ol’ calendula officinalis ancestor, rather than a cultivar where I would have no way of knowing if the medicinal principles would have been sacrificed for looks. It’s supposed to work well as poor man’s saffron (color, no taste), and I’m going to be soaking the heck outta my feet on it during winter. The plant is... not pretty. It gets leggy and the leaves get grotty very quickly. But it’s very sturdy and as long as you cut the flowerheads off as fast as you can, it’ll keep blooming until well into winter. I usually leave it to go to seed around late September.

Green cilantro seeds. You pick ‘em when they’re brown, but before they drop off the plant. Or you pick ‘em when they’re brown-ing, and put them in a paper bag so they’ll finish ripening there and you don’t end up with fifty wild cilantro plants in your garden >_> Most of the row is already gone, and I’ll be putting in a late dill crop in its place. No such thing as too much dill!

Don’t let lemongrass lie to you. Unless you tie it up, it will not grow up neat and tidy, as most grass does. Instead it will sprawl like a dramatic wilting Elizabethan lady and do its best to end up under your feet so you’ll feel bad about it. I just tie it up with a half-blade of grass; it dries up and withers away before it can hurt the plant.

I ordered pennyroyal seed because... Well, because it’s something one should have on hand, considering the way the world is going. What I got was Creeping Pennyroyal, which doesn’t care if you step on it (mint family), smells absolutely delightful, and has the most adorable, tiny purple flowers. I plan on harvesting, drying and sprinkling it everywhere in the crawlspace under the house. Making war on cave crickets, wood roaches, and other such sundries, me.

The thyme and Spicy Oregano took a beating in the heat, but they’re slowly bouncing back. The bed behind them is more pennyroyal, desperately in need of weeding, but there’s only one of me, y’know.

SIGH. Just. You absolute, ill-mannered monster of a creature. That would be horseradish, gloriously happy to be alive, as horseradish should be. Also, NOT IN ITS BASKET. Because never mind the rules, I guess.

I don’t even know how I’m gonna dig that up come winter. With some construction equipment, I GUESS.

Decorative gourd! It’s the only one producing so far, but being the seed was 10+ years old, I’m very pleased.

And an apple gourd (I think?), from a mixture of drying gourds that was only slightly less ancient. Snake, apple and birdhouse gourds. There’s a bunch of them competing in the basket at this point, we’ll see what we will see.

And this, I think, is a great use of a dead canopy frame (the dogs ate the canopy. No, I’m not making it up.) I hope to coax the gourds to grow me a lil’ roof so I can sit in shade, surrounded by pennyroyal anti-skeeter barriers, eating my maters.

My Peter Peppers (nrehehehehe) aren’t producing yet - it takes them a while. But my Chinese 5-Color are getting started. It’s a lovely pepper, both edible and ornamental, with (so I’m told) about four times the heat of a Jalapeno. They’re tiny, with deep purple undertones to the plant. They’ll go purple-white-yellow-orange-red.

The bullhorns, on the other hand, are fairly sizable SWEET peppers on very tiny plants, and I honestly suggest staking them while they’re young so they grow a sturdy trunk, else you might end up with all of them growing at a slant.They’re just now beginning to turn colors. Keeping in mind I’m virulently allergic to peppers (less so sweet than hot, but allergic to all of them), the roommate loves ‘em.

It’s a small pepper bed - mainly to refresh my seed on the hots, and to grow sweets for the roommate. Pardon the nekked bed, the autumn lettuce hasn’t sprouted yet. And yes, that’s a mixed basil/dill bed next to it. My basil grew in patchy holes (NEVER buying from those seed people again), so I filled the holes with dill. Unfortunately, dill seed heads are so fine that they’re hard to photograph well.

The tomato row. After arguing with them for this long, I went the extra mile. Every plant has a metal stake. There’s also a double line growing at the top supporting the stakes so they don’t fall over. And they still fell over. Because why not, you unruly children, why not.

Green, white, pink and brown cherry tomatoes. Delicious!

Two kinds of cucumbers, some of the only decent shots of the dill seed-heads, and a special guest hiding in the shade. I usually plant dill as soon as the cucumber sprouts, to keep cucumber beetles off it. Otherwise I’d have no cucumbers and a lot of fat beetles.

The Muncher is a small cucumber, somewhat delicate. It’s very sensitive to temperature changes, and it’s candy to cucumber beetles - basically, it’s impossible to grow it without a heavy curtain of dill, or a heavy duty decoy. This year I got lucky enough to have both. It’s also delicious pickled, keeping its crunch and getting a good ooomph in flavor.

The Japanese Long is, as the name implies, long. It’s also incredibly bitey, and absolutely scrumptious. It’s sweet! And unlike the average cucumber, it does not go metallic when salted.

And now for the SPECIAL CHILD OF MY HEART. Seriously. I have been lusting after Blue Tea Peas since I first saw them offered, and every single time they’d be sold out pretty much the day of. This year I finally got some and... remember me mentioning that freak freeze that killed the peach blossoms? Yeah. Guess what it also killed. But two plants soldiered on. I have them heavily shielded by the cucumbers, dill and chamomile, and really I have no words for the blue. Pics don’t do it justice. I won’t have the tea this year, I’m saving as much seed as I can, but I am so pleased to have it at all!

Last, but not least, and it’s a poor shot of it, the chamomile. I cannot drink chamomile to sleep - it does put me to sleep, but it also gives me bad dreams. I plan on using it as a skin wash for all the bug bites, along with the calendula, and to give me some respite from dry skin during winter.

Stay green! See you in fall! Now back to our normal schedule of frogs, cats and nekked men!

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breakingbadfics · 3 years

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Death of the author

CW: Light discussion of politics, mentions of the Alt-Right, and White Supremacists.

Consider this a “Change of Pace” entry. I’m trying to figure out what the next essay is to be about as well as the eventual long term for this blog.

I wrote this essay back in mid 2019, long before the idea of this blog would come to mind, it’s been lightly edited prior to posting and added to. and I think this essay shows some of my influences much more heavily than my other writings.

What does My Little Pony and The Matrix have in common? Death of the Author.

Death of the Author is not to be confused with “Separating the Artist from the Art,” a self explanatory concept to distance a work from a creator who’s beliefs are more than a little unpleasant, easiest example is acknowledging that, yes, H.P. Lovecraft was a Mega-racist, however, his contributions to the horror genre have created a base that is nearly ubiquitous with the genre to this day, like wise with Orson Scott Card. this concept in itself is an especially controversial subject, but is not the focus of this piece.

Death of the Author is what allowed The Matrix, a movie with a collection of metaphors about being an lgbt person, and an activist for the rights of yourself and your allies to be grossly misinterpreted as a way to justify being a bigot, the most egregious misinterpretation being that of “The Red Pill Scene.”

In the context of the film, The Red Pill Scene is the part of the traditional heroes story where the hero “accepts the call”, Neo is quite literally making the choice to leave the safe world he’s been living in behind and embark on his adventure that will result in a death and rebirth into being The One who will save humanity. In the now very much understood to be the direct metaphor, it’s a scene in which Neo, the stand-in for a lgbt person, specifically a trans person, is being told by a much older lgbt person “You are trans, you have the choice to embrace it, but regardless of what choice you make from here on out the road ahead is going to be bumpy and rough on you, because the system around you is designed to make sure people like us aren’t able to prosper, and if you join us, you won’t be able to opt out.”

That is the very understood metaphor that most people accept with the modern understanding after The Wachowski’s came out as Lily and Lana in the “post-matrix trilogy” reality of the real world.

However due to the Moral Neutrality of Death of the Author in other circles the Red Pill(and all the other metaphors in the film) takes on an alternative meaning. And I can be “polite” in my explaing the bad take on how this scene plays out, but just to hammer the point home we’ll get dirty so you can know where the take is coming from, The Red Pill Scene for White supremeacists, and The alt-right (but I repeat myself) is such. Neo, a disgruntled white person is being told that the world is controlled by soulless machines. Jews, people of color, etx. Everyone around him is mind controlled and can and will attempt to stop him from saving the people smart enough to also realise they’re being held captive by non-whites and save them all. This of course, all being told to him by Morpheus, a black man. So have fun working your head around that.

This of course the most extreme example being the most ubiquitous, poke around on chan sites and sooner or later you’ll see the phrase “red pill” having been memetically adjusted to mean “hey tell me about this thing” or even more specifically “I already had an opinion about this but either way I want you to confirm my choice.” But I digress.

These two interpretations are so wildly on the opposite ends of the spectrum that the only commonalities between them is “You will likely need to be violent at some point”

I’m naturally only covering the two interpretations, the matrix itself has been picked apart by an untold number of people and people interpret it in as many ways as possible in terms of philosophical meaning. That is the nature of Death of The Author.

Death of the Author also covers in a round-a-bout fashion, selective canon, a subjective acknowledgement of canon elements throughout a long lived franchise- see; Star Wars, Star Trek, the belief that there was never any sequels to The Matrix. This variant of the philosophy allows one to be able to continue interactions with a text, specifically a text that consists of multiple volumes (or contributions, each one made by an individual author) but also deny interactions with parts that they personally dislike.

More often than not, you can attribute the death of the author to a bad take in a case of fiction, another primary example being Fight Club, often missed for the scathing critique of unhealthy male behaviour and propped up as some sort of moral guideline for how to live your life. Which is again, not to say this is the fault of Death of The Author as a philosophy, it is morally neutral, these bad takes can more often be attribued to the simple fact that unless directly stating it most attempts at satire or parody will have a contingent of people who agree with what is said, not what is meant, and death of the author unfortunately does make that..very easy, for good, or ill.

Where does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fit in with all this? Well there are certainly alt-right members of the brony fandom who are painfully missing the point, but we’ve already dwelled on the negative enough, so let’s get happy.

In Episode 1 of Season 1, the first part of a two part pilot, in the background of a shot during a party scene; a pony with a grey coat and blonde mane and tail is seen in the background. This particular pony stood out the most amongst other background characters due to a mistake caused by the animation staff. According to the supervising director at the time, this particular error was spotted after hasbro greenlit the episode for air, and because it amused him he chose not to order a correction so it was left in as a nice little easter egg.

The nameless background pony would eventually be caught by 4chan among other places and very rapidly developed a following of fans and given a nickname, Derpy Hooves. This particular following and new nickname would echo back to shows staff becoming the name internally referred to by the show’s staff.

Friendship is magic creator Lauren Faust, who also enjoyed the popularity of the character when asked in an interview would state that a character named Ditzy Doo existed in an unaired episode, that would be implied to be this particular background pony, So naturally now depending on the fan this particular character would be reffered to as either Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo.

Ditzy Doo would go on to become a recurring easter egg with in the show, something similar to that of “where’s waldo” but with horses. This practice would continue until episode 14 of season 2 where the character would have a set of spoken lines and would be addressed by name. This however resulted in a degree of controversy in which some people expressed concern that the presentation of the character was an offensive attempt at portraying people with mental or physical disabilities. This event resulted in the episode being altered in future airings and the character disappearing from the show for the vast majority of Season 3. Beyond Season 3 the character would continue to appear until season 5 where they would finally have a voiced role in the 100th episode of the show, and then eventually having another speaking role in the christmas special “The best gift ever.” It is also worth noting that Hasbro never gave her an “official name” with almost all of Ditzy’s merchandise either having no name present, or more often than not a singular image of a muffin in place of a name, even going so far as to have “Muffins” be the credited name she was given in all voiced instances of the show.

Muffins, Ditzy Doo, or Derpy Hooves isn’t the only case of background characters growing a large following of fans with in the show; a variety of characters have been swept up by the fans, given names and personalities built entirely out of bit gags. Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and who knows how many more have all been seen in background moments which would be built on by fans and then echo back into the staff to be integrated into the show further. One would say this is fanon but at the end of the day, the writers and show staff had very little more intent with the characters beyond “does this background character look good?” and “Does this bit part character stand out enough to automatically be recognizable for the bit they need to be doing” it is still what I believe to be an example of Death of The Author, an act of choosing to ignore the intended meaning,and giving what amounts to window dressings a full life as fleshed out characters in fan content and in small instances of the show; an interpretation separate from the writers original intent.

Now the question is does someone need to actively defy the author to participate in The Death There-of? No. I don’t believe so. In much the same fashion no one need actually be a clan member to inadvertently say or do something that's passive aggressively racist(yes a bit of an extreme, I know) one need not actively defy the author, merely ascribe to an alternate interpretation of a work of fiction. Refer to Fight Club, the film does everything it can with out directly stating “most of the people in Fight Club and later Project Mayhem are bad people, because they were already doing the things Tyler Durden was ascribing to” and almost unilaterally all the bad takes are built around this idea that they’ve achieved the perfect ideal masculine because they’re the “living in the moment, violent psychopath” nihilist the movie is actively condemning.

The simple fact is that death of the author ultimately, in a grand scale amounts to this; did a writers intent show through hard enough for their intent to be heard? And Subjectively, how much does a person believe in the meaning that they, or the writer themself have imparted into the story?

#change of pace

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tokupedia · 5 years

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Halloween 2019 costume ideas: Power Rangers pt. 2

Jason Bischoff’s Beast Morpher Rangers

Jason Bischoff was the former global marketing guy for Hasbro and is an artist.

He is a genuine fan of tokusatsu (mentioned Kamen Rider on his Twitter and his love of Ex-Aid and several Heisei Rider shows) and it shows. In his final months with Hasbro, he and a buddy of his named Micheal O’ Hare came up with art for concepts of new Rangers not original to the Go-Busters source material.

The first is a Green Ranger based on the Frog Buddyroid from the Go-Busters Summer Film, “what if she had a Ranger companion”? The next is a gray Polar Bear Ranger and an Orange female scorpion Ranger based on Jason’s viewings of Kyuranger and Sasori Orange.

A Bat Ranger based on Blaze, a “what if the bad guy reformed and got a new suit” kind of thing. (though given its Batman’s 80th, you could also use it as an excuse to go around saying in a gravely voice “I’m Bat-Ranger!”)

Lastly, a Magenta Sea Urchin Ranger and Hammerhead Beast Bot for you and a buddy to dress up as.

X-Men/Power Rangers Amalgam

A while ago at the Edmonton Expo in Alberta, Canada, Jason David Frank discovered a cosplay that had to be seen to be believed. A Canadian fan mixed the White Ranger with Wolverine. Mr. JDF then posted this to instagram

Now, this isn’t the first time that X-Men and Power Rangers have crossed paths as both shared the Fox Kids block on Saturday Mornings in the 1990s and a SDCC gatefold variant cover paid tribute to X-Men #1. Not to mention MMPR’s comic rights were once with Marvel and the whole Marvel/Super Sentai connection. The idea of X-Men Rangers is an interesting one, why not complete it?

Cyclops Red, Jubilee Yellow, Beast Blue, Pink Phoenix (if considering season 2 MMPR), Gambit Black and Rouge Green. As an alternative to Wolvie, Storm can be the White Ranger or added as the 7th Ranger team member of any color you choose. Add a Professor Z (a tube head in a hover wheelchair or a blue bald guy) and you have the complete set! Or go wild and make a Brotherhood of Mutants version of a Ranger Team!

Lord “Zackkon”

Submitted for your approval, one Zachary Taylor, a virtuous teen who was offered a deal with the devil to be something greater, but refused. What if the youth, resentful of the choice of his team’s leadership, accepted the path that Rita Repulsa offered?

I envision a Black Ranger who fuses his power first with the Dragon Coin, but then with powers of Green and Black Rangers after him. The core idea is to combine the Mastodon motif with a Dragon in a way that aesthetically looks good.

Remi, the Orange Solar Ranger

(Ari’s Legacy Wars Bio confirms it!)

Last year, I pitched to the fandom to option dressing up as newest kid on the block, Ari aka the (Purple) Solar Ranger. This year, I’m submitting her life partner and love Remi who became the most recent addition to the Solar Rangers and another of a growing number of representatives of LGBTQ+ heroes. For those looking to cosplay with the person they love or for a fun cosmic night of Halloween, here is a Ranger couple that we hope to see more of in the future.

A Morphing Master

The Morphing Masters are the mysterious all powerful beings who protected the Morphin Grid and dedicated their lives to studying it. The Boom! Studios comics dedicated some time to explaining them a bit more in Beyond the Grid, including a new look.

Why be a mere three dimensional linear being on All Hallow’s Eve or at a con when you can wear a look that says “I am a supreme being beyond your trivialities and I look fabulous doing it.”

Warbunny

Aka my new favorite Power Rangers monster. Warbunny is a ‘roided up anthropomorphic rabbit whom, if his Conan inspired garb hasn’t telegraphed, talks like a certain former Governator and wields a large Warhammer that fires energy blasts. Cosplayers who do Warcraft costumes and other fantasy cosplay might gravitate towards this one since it parodies Arnie and Conan.

The Soul Era MMPR Rangers

In the comics, we learn there was a ill fated team in 1969 which fought Psycho Green. Pitch: What if there were a MMPR Rangers team 5 years later in 1975, the year Gorenger was created? The era of disco and soul, big cars, afro hair kung fu movies and Watergate. The challenge I present is combining the Gorenger suits with the MMPR suits.

Disco collar capes, platform heel variants of the boots, flashy brighter neon colors with glitter and woodgrain on the weapons because products in the 1970s had woodgrain even if it didn’t make any aesthetic sense to do so. Civilian forms would be based on 1970s fashion, at least one Ranger should have a real or fake Burt Reynolds-sized mustache and/or afro for period accuracy.

Dark Super Megaforce Yellow

For Ranger fans who wanna let out their inner bad girl, I present another Dark Ranger redesign of a Power Ranger from Battle For the Grid. The Gokaiger suit decked out in black and pants and a gold trim “coat” is just so good, really makes the yellow pop and looks more “piratey” than the standard suit. As you can see you can opt for an all black undershirt and yellow gloves or vice versa.

A new standard Lord Drakkon created for evil Rangers is that unlike their heroic counterparts, all of them have blood red visors instead of the standard black tint. (This also recently extends to Sentai, but we’ll get to that later.)

Houou Ranger (Chun-Li ver.)

While Ryu got to play Power Ranger, the devs of Legacy Wars decided to let none of the other characters participate in the fun. Many fans who love and respect Chun-Li were naturally outraged that she got shafted and began speculating what kind of Blue Ranger she would be. There was artistic debate as to what motif she would have with most gravitating towards a tiger, a peacock or her totem of fighting style, the crane.

I on the other hand think if Ryu lifted a Dairanger’s name for his Ranger form, it only makes sense the developers would do the same for Chun Li and give her a Chinese Phoenix motif.

The common consensus all fans share is that such a form has parts of Miss Li’s costume as part of her Ranger outfit much like with Ryu Ranger with his boxing gloves, bandanna and black belt. Whatever you choose, you are sure to be a knockout!

Supersonic Green

The first Green gone bad chronologically in the comics, Trek was a bitter Xybiran who got sick of being benched while his team went on missions and soon that bitterness turned into hate as he empathically read the feelings of his teammates about him. He murdered his entire team and then pledged allegiance to Dark Specter to become Psycho Green.

The Fiveman team these Supersonic Rangers are based on never had a sixth ranger, since sixth Rangers were not really a thing until Zyuranger. This bring up one conundrum for this Ranger in terms of those wishing to design a full costume...what exactly is Trek’s helmet motif?

For those who have never seen Fiveman, the theme was about types of school education each Ranger was part of. Red was a science teacher, Blue was a physical education teacher, Black was a language teacher, Pink was a math teacher and Yellow was a music teacher.

I suppose a history book on the helmet for social studies would be appropriate as would be an apple or money symbols for home economics. It should be noted if one commits to making a helmet, the Fiveman/Supersonic Ranger helmet visors each have lines running through them to signify their numerical designation (Red has 1, Blue has 2 etc.) so Green would have six.

That’s all I’ve got!

Happy Halloween Ranger Nation!

#power rangers #halloween #costumes #cosplay #costume ideas #comics #video games

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walaw717 · 5 years

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The dialect spoken by Appalachian people has been given a variety of names, the majority of them somewhat less than complimentary. Educated people who look with disfavor on this particular form of speech are perfectly honest in their belief that something called The English Language, which they conceive of as a completed work - unchanging and fixed for all time - has been taken and, through ignorance, shamefully distorted by the mountain folk.

The fact is that this is completely untrue. The folk speech of Appalachia instead of being called corrupt ought to be classified as archaic. Many of the expressions heard throughout the region today can be found in the centuries-old works of some of the greatest English authors: Alfred, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the men who contributed to the King James version of the Bible, to cite but a few.

Most editors who work with older materials have long assumed the role of officious busy bodies: never so happy, apparently, as when engaged in tidying up spelling, modernizing grammar, and generally rendering whatever was written by various Britons in ages past into a colorless conformity with today's Standard English.

To this single characteristic of the editorial mind must be ascribed the almost total lack of knowledge on the part of most Americans that the language they speak was ever any different than it is right now. How many people know, for example, that when the poet Gray composed his famous "Elegy" his title for it was "An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard?"

Southern mountain dialect (as the folk speech of Appalachia is called by linguists) is certainly archaic, but the general historical period it represents can be narrowed down to the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, and can be further particularized by saying that what is heard today is actually a sort of Scottish-flavored Elizabethan English. This is not to say that Chaucerian forms will not be heard in everyday use, and even an occasional Anglo-Saxon one as well. When we remember that the first white settlers in what is today Appalachia were the so-called Scotch-Irish along with some Palatine Germans, there is small wonder that the language has a Scottish tinge; the remarkable thing is that the Germans seem to have influenced it so little. About the only locally used dialect word that can be ascribed to them is briggity. The Scots appear to have had it all their own way.

When I first came to Lincoln County as a bride it used to seem to me that everything that did not pooch out, hooved up.

Pooch is a Scottish variant of the word pouch and was in use in the 1600's. Numerous objects can pooch out including pregnant women and gentlemen with "bay windows." Hoove is a very old past participle of the verb to heave and was apparently in use on both sides of the border by 1601. The top of an old-fashioned trunk may be said to hoove up. Another word heard occasionally in the back country is ingerns. Ingems are onions. In Scottish dialect the word is inguns; however, if our people are permitted the intrusive r in potaters, tomaters, tobaccer, and so on, there seems to be no reason why they should not use it in ingems as well.

It is possible to compile a very long list of these Scots words and phrases. I will give only a few more illustrations, and will wait to mention some points on Scottish pronunciation and grammar a little further on.

Fornenst is a word that has many variants. It can mean either "next to" or "opposite from." "Look at that big rattler quiled up fornenst the fence post!" (Quiled is an Elizabethan pronunciation of coiled.) "When I woke up this morning there was a little skift of snow on the ground." "I was getting better, but now I've took a backset with this flu." "He dropped the dish and busted it all to flinders." "Law, I hope how soon we get some rain!" (How soon is supposed to be obsolete, but it enjoys excellent health in Lincoln County.) "That trifling old fixin ain't worth a haet!" Haet means the smallest thing that can be conceived of, and comes from Deil hae't (Devil have it.) Fixin is the Old English or Anglo-Saxon word for she-fox as used in the northern dialect. In the south of England you would have heard vixen, the word used today in Standard English. It is interesting to note that it has been primarily the linguistic historians who have pointed out the predominately Scottish heritage of the Southern mountain people. Perhaps I may be allowed to digress for a moment to trace these people back to their beginnings.

Early in his English reign, James I decided to try to control the Irish by putting a Protestant population into Ireland. To do this he confiscated the lands of the earls of Ulster and bestowed them upon Scottish and English lords on the condition that they settle the territory with tenants from Scotland and England. This was known as the "Great Settlement" or the "King's Plantation," and was begun in 1610.

Most of the Scots who moved into Ulster came from the lowlands1 and thus they would have spoken the Scots variety of the Northumbrian or Northern English dialect. (Most highland Scots at that time still spoke Gaelic.) This particular dialect would have been kept intact if the Scots had had no dealings with the Irish, and this, according to records, was the case.

While in Ulster the Scots multiplied, but after roughly 100 years they became dissatisfied with the trade and religious restrictions imposed by England, and numbers of them began emigrating to the English colonies in America. Many of these Scots who now called themselves the "Scotch-Irish" came into Pennsylvania where, finding the better lands already settled by the English, they began to move south and west. "Their enterprise and pioneering spirit made them the most important element in the vigorous frontiersmen who opened up this part of the South and later other territories farther west into which they pushed."2

Besides the Scots who arrived from Ireland, more came directly from Scotland to America, particularly after "the '45", the final Jacobite uprising in support of "Bonnie Prince Charlie," the Young Pretender, which ended disastrously for the Scottish clans that supported him. By the time of the American Revolution there were about 50,000 Scots in this country.

But to get back to the dialect, let me quote two more linguistic authorities to prove my point about the Scottish influence on the local speech. Raven I. McDavid notes, "The speech of the hill people is quite different from both dialects of the Southern lowlands for it is basically derived from the Scotch-Irish of Western Pennsylvania."3 H. L. Mencken said of Appalachian folk speech, "The persons who speak it undiluted are often called by the Southern publicists, 'the purest Anglo-Saxons in the United States,' but less romantic ethnologists describe them as predominately Celtic in blood; though there has been a large infiltration of English and even German strains."4The reason our people still speak as they do is that when these early Scots and English and Germans (and some Irish and Welsh too) came into the Appalachian area and settled, they virtually isolated themselves from the mainstream of American life for generations to come because of the hills and mountains, and so they kept the old speech forms that have long since fallen out of fashion elsewhere. Things in our area are not always what they seem, linguistically speaking. Someone may tell you that "Cindy ain't got sense enough to come in outen the rain, but she sure is clever." Clever, you see, back in the 1600's meant "neighborly or accommodating." Also if you ask someone how he is, and he replies that he is "very well", you are not necessarily to rejoice with him on the state of his health. Our people are accustomed to use a speech so vividly colorful and virile that his "very well" only means that he is feeling "so-so." If you are informed that "several" people came to a meeting, your informant does not mean what you do by several - he is using it in its older sense of anywhere from about 20 to 100 people. If you hear a person or an animal referred to as ill, that person or animal is not sick but bad-tempered, and this adjective has been so used since the 1300's. (Incidentally, good English used sick to refer to bad health long, long before our forebearers ever started saying ill for the same connotation.)

Many of our people refer to sour milk as blinked milk. This usage goes back at least to the early 1600's when people still believed in witches and the power of the evil eye. One of the meanings of the word blink back in those days was "to glance at;" if you glanced at something, you blinked at it, and thus sour milk came to be called blinked due to the evil machinations of the witch. There is another phrase that occurs from time to time, "Man, did he ever feather into him!" This used to carry a fairly murderous connotation, having gotten its start back in the days when the English long bow was the ultimate word in destructive power. Back then if you drew your bow with sufficient strength to cause your arrow to penetrate your enemy up to the feathers on its shaft, you had feathered into him. Nowadays, the expression has weakened in meaning until it merely indicates a bit of fisticuffs.

One of the most baffling expressions our people use (baffling to "furriners," at least) is "I don't care to. . . ." To outlanders this seems to mean a definite "no," whereas in truth it actually means, "thank you so much, I'd love to." One is forevermore hearing a tale of mutual bewilderment in which a gentleman driving an out-of-state car sees a young fellow standing alongside the road, thumbing. When the gentleman stops and asks if he wants a lift, the boy very properly replies, "I don't keer to," using care in the Elizabethan sense of the word. On hearing this, the man drives off considerably puzzled leaving an equally baffled young man behind. (Even the word foreigner itself is used here in its Elizabethan sense of someone who is the same nationality as the speaker, but not from the speaker's immediate home area.

Reverend is generally used to address preachers, but it is a pretty versatile word, and full-strength whisky, or even the full-strength scent of skunk, are also called reverend. In these latter instances, its meaning has nothing to do with reverence, but with the fact that their strength is as the strength of ten because they are undiluted.

In the dialect, the word allow more often means "think, say, or suppose" than "permit." "He 'lowed he'd git it done tomorrow."A neighbor may take you into her confidence and announce that she has heard that the preacher's daughter should have been running after the mailman. These are deep waters to the uninitiated. What she really means is that she has heard a juicy bit of gossip: the preacher's daughter is chasing the local mail carrier. However, she takes the precaution of using the phrase should have been to show that this statement is not vouched for by the speaker. The same phrase is used in the same way in the Paston Letters in the 1400's.

Almost all the so-called "bad English" used by natives of Appalachia was once employed by the highest ranking nobles of the realms of England and Scotland. Few humans are really passionately interested in grammar so I'll skim as lightly over this section as possible, but let's consider the following bit of dialogue briefly: "I've been a-studying about how to say this, till I've nigh wearried myself to death. I reckon hit don't never do nobody no good to beat about the bush, so I'll just tell ye. Your man's hippoed. There's nothing ails him, but he spends more time using around the doctor's office than he does a-working."The only criticism that even a linguistic purist might offer here is that, in the eighteenth century, hippoed was considered by some, Jonathan Swift among others, to be slangy even though it was used by the English society of the day. (To say someone is hippoed is to say he is a hypochondriac.)

Words like a-studying and a-working are verbal nouns and go back to Anglo-Saxon times; and from the 1300's on, people who studied about something, deliberated or reflected on it. Nigh is the old word for near, and weary was the pronunciation of worry in the 1300's and 1400's. The Scots also used this pronunciation. Reckon was current in Tudor England in the sense of consider or suppose. Hit is the Old English third person singular neuter pronoun for it and has come ringing down through the centuries for over a thousand years. All those multiple negatives were perfectly proper until some English mathematician in the eighteenth century decided that two negatives make a positive instead of simply intensifying the negative quality of some statement. Shakespeare loved to use them. Ye was once used accusatively, and man has been employed since early times to mean husband. And finally, to use means to frequent or loiter. Certain grammatical forms occurring in the dialect have caused it to be regarded with pious horror by school marms. Prominent among the offenders, they would be almost sure to list these: "Bring them books over here." In the 1500's this was good English. "I found three bird's nestes on the way to school." This disyllabic ending for the plural goes back to the Middle Ages. "That pencil's not mine, it her'n." Possessive forms like his'n, our'n, your'n evolved in the Middle Ages on the model of mine and thine. In the revision of the Wycliffe Bible, which appeared shortly after 1380, we find phrases such as ". . .restore to hir alle things that ben hern," and "some of ourn went in to the grave." "He don't scare me none." In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries do was used with he, she, and it. Don't is simply do not, of course. "You wasn't scared, was you?" During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many people were careful to distinguish between singular you was and plural you were. It became unfashionable in the early nineteenth century although Noah Webster stoutly defended it. "My brother come in from the army last night." This usage goes back to late Anglo-Saxon times. You find it in the Paston Letters and in Scottish poetry. "I done finished my lessons," also has many echoes in the Pastons' correspondence and the Scots poets. From the late Middle Ages on up the Northern dialect of English used formations like this: "guiltless persons is condemned," and so do our people. And finally, in times past, participial forms like these abounded: has beat, has bore with it, has chose. Preterite forms were as varied: blowed, growed, catched, and for climbed you can find clum, clome, clim! all of which are locally used.

Pronunciation of many words has changed considerably, too. Deef for deaf, heered for heard, afeared for afraid, cowcumber for cucumber, bammy for balmy, holp for helped, are a very few. Several distinct characteristics of the language of Elizabeth's day are still preserved. Words that had oi in them were given a long i pronunciation: pizen, jine, bile, pint, and so on. Words with er were frequently pronounced as if the letters were ar: sarvice, sartin, narvous. It is from this time that we get our pronunciation of sergeant and the word varsity which is a clipping of the word university given the ar sound. Another Elizabethan characteristic was the substitution of an i sound for an e sound. You hear this tendency today when people say miny kittle, Chist, git, and so on. It has caused such confusion with the words pen and pin (which our people pronounce alike as pin) that they are regularly accompanied by a qualifying word - stick pin for the pin and pin and ink pin for the pen.You can hear many characteristic Scottish pronunciations. Whar, thar, dar (where, there, and dare) are typical. So also are poosh, boosh, eetch, deesh, (push, bush, itch, dish and fish.)

In some ways this vintage English reflects the outlook and spirit of the people who speak it; and, we find that not only is the language Elizabethan, but that some of the ways these people look at things are Elizabethan too. Many other superstitions still exist here. In some homes, when a death occurs all the mirrors and pictures are turned to the wall. Now I don't know if today the people still know why they do this, or if they just go through the actions because it's the thing to do, but this belief goes far back in history. It was once thought that the mirror reflected the soul of the person looking into it and if the soul of the dead person saw the soul of one of his beloved relatives reflected in the mirror, he might take it with him, so his relatives were taking no chances.

The belief that if a bird accidentally flies into a house, a member of the household will die, is also very old, and is still current in the region. Cedar trees are in a good deal of disfavor in Lincoln County, and the reason seems to stem from the conviction held by a number of people that if someone plants a cedar he will die when it grows large enough to shade his coffin.

Aside from its antiquity, the most outstanding feature of the dialect is its masculine flavor - robust and virile. This is a language spoken by a red-blooded people who have colorful phraseology born in their bones. They tend to call a spade a spade in no uncertain terms. "No, the baby didn't come early, the weddin' came late," remarked one proud grandpa. Such people have small patience with the pallid descriptive limitations of standard English. They are not about to be put off with the rather insipid remark, "My, it's hot!" or, "isn't it cold out today?" They want to know just how hot or cold: "It's hotter 'n the hinges of hell" or "Hit's blue cold out thar!" Other common descriptive phrases for cold are (freely) translated) "It's colder 'n a witch's bosom" or it's colder 'n a well-digger's backside."

Speakers of Southern mountain dialect are past masters of the art of coining vivid descriptions. Their everyday conversation is liberally sprinkled with such gems as: "That man is so contrary, if you throwed him in a river he'd float upstream!" "She walks so slow they have to set stakes to see if she's a-movin!" "Thet pore boy's an awkward size - too big for a man and not big enough for a horse." "Zeke, he come bustin' outta thar and hit it for the road quick as double-geared lightenin!"

Nudity is frowned upon in Appalachia, but for some reason there are numerous "nekkid as. ." phrases. Any casual sampling would probably contain these three: "Nekkid as a jaybird," "bare-nekkid as a hound dog's rump," and "start nekkid." Start-nekkid comes directly from the Anglo-Saxons, so it's been around for more than a thousand years. Originally "Start" was steort which meant "tail." Hence, if you were "start-nekkid," you were "nekkid to the tail." A similar phrase, "stark-naked" is a Johnny-come-lately, not even appearing in print until around 1530. If a lady tends to be gossipy, her friends may say that "her tongue's a mile long," or else that it "wags at both ends." Such ladies are a great trial to young dating couples. Incidentally, there is a formal terminology to indicate exactly how serious the intentions of these couples are, ranging from sparking which is simply dating, to courting which is dating with a more serious intent, on up to talking, which means the couple is seriously contemplating matrimony. Shakespeare uses talking in this sense in King Lear.

If a man has imbibed too much of who-shot-John, his neighbor may describe him as "so drunk he couldn't hit the ground with his hat," or, on the morning-after, the sufferer may admit that "I was so dang dizzy I had to hold on to the grass afore I could lean ag'in the ground."

One farmer was having a lot of trouble with a weasel killing his chickens. "He jest grabs 'em before they can git word to God," he complained.

Someone who has a disheveled or bedraggled appearance may be described in any one of several ways: "You look like you've been chewed up and spit out," or "you look like you've been a-sortin wildcats," or "you look like the hindquarters of hard luck," or, simply, "you look like somethin the cat drug in that the dog wouldn't eat!"

"My belly thinks my throat is cut" means "I'm hungry," and seems to have a venerable history of several hundred years. I found a citation for it dated in the early 1500's.A man may be "bad to drink" or "wicked to swear", but these descriptive adjectives are never reversed.

You ought not to be shocked if you hear a saintly looking grandmother admit she likes to hear a coarse-talking man; she means a man with a deep bass voice, (this can also refer to a singing voice, and in this case, if grandma prefers a tenor, she'd talk about someone who sings "Shallow.") Nor ought you to leap to the conclusion that a "Hard girl" is one who lacks the finer feminine sensibilities. "Hard" is the dialectal pronunciation of hired and seems to stem from the same source as do "far" engines that run on rubber "tars."

This language is vivid and virile, but so was Elizabethan English. However, some of the things you say may be shocking the folk as much as their combined lexicons may be shocking you. For instance, in the stratum of society in which I was raised, it was considered acceptable for a lady to say either "damn" or "hell" if strongly moved. Most Appalachian ladies would rather be caught dead than uttering either of these words, but they are pretty free with their use of a four letter word for manure which I don't use. I have heard it described as everything from bug _____ to bull ______. Some families employ another of these four letter words for manure as a pet name for the children, and seem to have no idea that it is considered indelicate in other areas of the country.Along with a propensity for calling a spade a spade, the dialect has a strange mid-victorian streak in it too. Until recently, it was considered brash to use either the word bull or stallion. If it was necessary to refer to a bull, he was known variously as a "father cow" or a "gentleman cow" or an "ox" or a "mas-cu-line," while a stallion was either a "stable horse" or else rather ominously, "The animal." Only waspers fly around Lincoln County, I don't think I've ever heard of a wasp there, and I've never been able to trace the reason for that usage, but I do know why cockleburrs are called cuckleburrs. The first part of the word cockleburr carries an objectionable connotation to the folk. However, if they are going to balk at that, it seems rather hilarious to me that they find nothing objectionable about cuckle.

A friend of mine who has a beauty parlor now, used to have a small store on the banks of the Guyan River. She told me about a little old lady who trotted into the store one day with a request for "some of the strumpet candy." My friend said she was very sorry, they didn't have any. But, she added gamely, what kind was it, and she would try to order some. The little lady glanced around to see if she could be overheard, lowered her voice and said, "well, it's horehound, but I don't like to use that word!"

The dialect today is a watered down thing compared to what it was a generation ago, but our people are still the best talkers in the world, and I think we should listen to them with more appreciation.

Notes1. Thomas Pyles, The Origins and Development of the English Language. (New York; Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964), 36. "It is not surprising that those lowland Scotsmen who colonized the 'King's Plantation' in Ulster and whose descendents crossed the Atlantic and settled the Blue Ridge, the Appalachians, and the Ozarks should have been so little affected by the classical culture of the Renaissance."

2. Albert C. Baugh, A History of the English Language, 2nd ed., (New York, 1957), 409

.3. H. L. Mencken, The American Language, ed. Raven I. McDavid, Jr., the 4th ed. and the two supplements abridged, with annotations and new material. (New York, 1963), 455.4. Ibid., 459.

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world-without-authors · 4 years

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A Look at Our Main Cast

The World without Authors features a rather big cast, and losing track of people between chapters is quite easy. That’s why I thought that it is the right time to toss in some more information about the main cast, to help follow who’s who in this huge thing where giving enough space to everyone is always a difficult balance.

As such, I will be using this post to write some “behind the scenes” of my characters, and Aelit’s, which I hope will be useful for understanding them, or at least get up to date with the things that are told in my previous works and are important to understand them now. And, why not, learn some of the odd details about their creation.

Sergio Turbo

Birthday: October 27th, 1991 HST Age: 22 years old as of Unravel Height: 180 cm Blood type: 0

Sergio has been one of the main characters since the very first chapter of Mai Dire Fine, released April 13th, 2006.

At 14 years old in 2006 HST, he was one of the oldest characters in the Mai Dire Fine core cast, with only Kathleen and Pyro being older by just a few months. This, combined with his leader-like attitude and me being one of the more prolific authors, not only led to him becoming the de facto leader of the “Kids of the War”, but also led to some of the other writers taking time off the development of their own characters to give it to the Sergio-Sakura-Syaoran love triangle.

Said love triangle, by the way, was born due to me writing one particular scene badly. “Sakura” (actually, Nikki) had just died on a cursed treasure, and I overstated his reaction to her death to the point the other authors convinced themselves he had a crush on her… and, once “Sakura” was brought back to life, ran with it.

Sergio, circa 2007 HST, with his trademark red jacket and bandana.

So, yes. One of the driving forces of of my following stories wasn’t my idea, and wasn’t planned on my part at all. It is also interesting to note that, as per PPC convention, Sakura’s death and resurrection was so out of what’s allowed in CLAMP canon that what came out simply had to be a Character Replacement at that point – so, contrary to what he believed, he had never made the actual Sakura fall in love with him (assuming she was ever present in Mai Dire Fine, and wasn’t Nikki all along).

Sergio, circa 2011 HST, as a PPC agent.

Another interesting fact is that he was supposed to have a weaker “copy” of Kathleen’s power, passed on by her when he was still in his test tube because… well, she thought it was a fun idea. He only ever used them once subconsciously, and so much time has passed that said “copy” likely has worn off or athrophized to the point of being no longer usable. As such, anything out of the ordinary he does is either a result of the genetic manipulation Marcus did on him, the result of his skills honed in years of fighting, or a combination of both.

Nikki Cherryflower

Birthday: April 1st, 1994 HST Age: 20 years old as of Unravel Height: 168 cm Blood type: A

Since she was originally meant to be Sakura Kinomoto in Mai Dire Fine (in which her first appearance was in Chapter 3), Nikki didn’t get her own name until Planes, Guns, Gun, Clones and other usual PPC stuff, originally released five years later in 2011.

As I’ve already mentioned in another post, Nikki wasn’t originally meant to be the same individual as the Sakura of Mai Dire Fine, and was created at first with the simple idea of “let’s toss another Sakura at Sergio and have fun at his awkward reactions”. This is quite noticeable in her first mission, A Very Awkward Exorcism, where I still didn’t have a clear direction on how to develop her character. But that’s OK, she didn’t know what to make of herself either at the time.

Nikki, circa 2011 HST, as a PPC agent.

It wasn’t until I was already planning Blank Sprite that I merged the characters, after realizing that my failed Sakura was actually quite close in characterization to Nikki. This gave her a development arc focused on regaining her lost memories, and fits with the overall theme of rediscovery and acceptance of the past.

A still from the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie, which gives a pretty good approximation on how Nikki looked during Mai Dire Fine. Just pretend she’s on a vaporetto in Venice instead of Hong Kong.

Perhaps one of the things that made Mai Dire Fine‘s “Sakura” and Nikki so similar is the fact that I deliberately avoided rewatching Cardcaptor Sakura while writing Nikki’s first few appearances. I wanted to make sure I was developing Nikki freely, without copying Sakura or deliberately doing the opposite, but this probably caused me to subconsciouly draw from my earlier “Sakura” iteration and from other sources – in fact, I believe Nikki ended up being more similar to Ran Mouri from Detective Conan than to Sakura.

Corolla

Birthday: May 25th, 2010 HST Age: 4 years old as of Unravel Height: 140 cm (full size form), 30 cm (Unison Device form), 15 cm (“Fun size” Unison Device form) Blood type: N/A

Corolla was created in 2010 specifically for my Protector of the Plot Continuum works, and to be the opposite of Sergio: ditzy, unfocused, and incapable of staying serious for more than a few seconds at a time.

Her name, as per Lyrical Nanoha naming scheme, comes from the 1983 Toyota Corolla GT, the US market version of the Toyota Sprinter Trueno Sergio drives. I’m a big fan of that car (oddly enough, not due to Initial D: I actually am quite angry at that series for making it too popular… and expensive to get), but I never decided if Corolla took her name on Sergio’s suggestion or if it was her own idea.

I was a huge Lyrical Nanoha fan a the time, and decided to make her an Unison Device to take full advantage of what her tiny size and tecnomagical nature would entail in term of funny situations.

I kept developing her throroughly during my PPC works, adding more facets to her personality and turning her into the ditzy, mischievious genius with a heart of gold and an undying loyalty towards her friends everyone knows and loves.

Corolla’s early appearance between 2010 and 2011 HST.

While everyone nowadays knows her with light blue hair in pigtails, she wasn’t like that when I originally created her but used to have brown hair in a ponytail. Her current appearance was only introduced in Planes, Guns, Clones and other usual PPC stuff, where it was the result of her getting zapped by Grace Leon’s failed hologram projector. She took a liking to the color, and so never had her hair pigmentation fixed.

She also switched to pigtails as a way of enhancing her “genius ditz” image, and she actually makes her “idiot hair” forelock herself by using hair gel on some strands every morning.

Corolla has been defined “Best Character” by more than one of my readers (though I’m mostly looking at you, Huinesoron) and I wholeheartedly agree: while she doesn’t have literally anything in the way of a character arc, that’s perhaps what makes her such a fresh supporting character alongside her free and wild personality.

Ami Tanegashima/Ami Cappuccino

Birthday: December 28th, 1993 HST Age: 19/20 years old as of Unravel (depending on whether Ami Cappuccino or Ami Tanegashima is considered) Height: 150 cm Blood type: A

Ami was introduced posthumously in I don’t like luxury cars, specifically to build up her later role in Blank Sprite.

Her background, in particular the death of her parents during the 2007 Organization War, was designed to make her into someone Sergio could relate to: they both lost the people they held dear, and kept fighting to make sure their sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

That, combined with her kind and honest personality, managed to somewhat break into the wall Sergio was already building around himself… only for her death to put back every brick and then some.

The “confession” outfit. Cute, but fails at making her look more mature… in fact, it does quite the opposite.

Her short (at 150 cm, she’s the shortest of the human girls in my main cast) and cute appearance is a leftover of her original “ill girl” concept I recycled from another story I never wrote, but I think I’ve managed to turn it into somewhing to give her more characterization. She’s quite self-conscious about her height, and does make an effort to look more mature by, for example, being the only girl in the new Strike Dove to go for the pencil skirt variant of the dress uniform. However, she also loves cute things, as exemplified by her collection of plushies and the single pigtail she wears with her Barrier Jacket and wore in chapter 12 of Blank Sprite during her failed confession attempt.

I grew so attached to the character that I decided to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Unravel to bring her back through Ami Cappuccino: her self-insert from a fanfiction she wrote some time before her death. During the Unravel, Tanegashima’s soul and memories crashed into Cappuccino’s body and merged with those already there.

As Tanegashima based Cappuccino off herself, it was a rather quick process which incapacitated her for just half a day as her brain tried to to deal with the sudden doubled amount of conflicting memories, but I still feel like it help set the theme of cross-fictionality that I’m using for building up the leftover world canon and original characters found themselves in.

Ami’s early concept.

Another oddity about her is that I took a lot of time to finalize some details of her appearance: while “short and cute” was set in stone since the beginning, I only finalized her hair and eye color while I was already writing Blank Sprite. In fact, for most of the time I spent working on the main plot synopsis before starting to write the first chapter and until around chapter 5 or 6 I was leaning more towards brown hair and reddish brown eyes, and only switched to the other style (black hair and purple eyes) as I was writing chapter 7 to make her resemble Homura that little bit more and cause a flashback to Sergio.

In hindsight, though, I do think the final combination suits her more, so I’m happy I switched.

Caterina “Kathleen” Leone

Birthday: July 31st, 1991 HST Age: 17 years old as of Unravel Height: 163 cm Blood type: 0

Kathleen, like her brother, was first introduced in Mai Dire Fine. However, due to her author, Aelit, only joining the writing group when the story was already ongoing Kathleen was introduced fairly later compared to the other main characters of Mai Dire Fine.

The subplot of her being Sergio’s sister was also developed well after her introduction, and Aelit and I came up with the idea of making our characters Marcus’ offsprings independently.

We can sum up the exchange roughly this way:

“Hey, SergioTurbo, I had this great idea about Kathleen but it involves Marcus so I want your opinion first: what if she’s his daughter?” “Aelit, I… actually was going to make the same thing for Sergio.” “So, they’re actually brother and sister but they don’t know it? Cool!”

With a bit of rework (namely, Kathleen actually knowing about Sergio but feigning ignorance) we dropped it in, but this hastily thought plot development we made while writing a terrible fanfiction is going to finally be developed properly now, ten years later, as the arc in which we were using it is also the one we never finished.

Aelit’s Notes:

Like Sergio, Kathleen began her life as a self-insert. Her personality was based partly on mine and partly on what I wished mine to be. That said, when I made her I was in middle school, and that’s why her personality never stood the same for more than two chapters: every time I tried a new style or saw something cool, she would change accordingly. Now Kathleen is only a little part of me and mostly her own person. This is part of the reason why I wanted this Kathleen to be from a timeline different than Mai Dire Fine‘s one, I wanted a sharp break between the two.

Federica “Faith” Leone

Birthday: February 13th, 1988 HST Age: 21 years old as of Unravel Height: 172 cm Blood type: A

Faith was one of the last characters created for Mai Dire Fine. She was introduced only during the last arc and had very few appareances as a result.

As such, we had never really developed her personality much past “kind, polite and refined girl from a wealthy background”, which however came with the fact she was also an almost completely white canvas we could work on without having to deal with our past sorry attempts at making characterization.

We do have something to work on – her refined background, her skills as a sniper and especially her relationship with her cousin and lover Kathleen (Don’t look at me that way, Aelit’s idea here. And CLAMP did it before us anyways, look at Tomoyo. And Tomoyo’s mother.)

Part of her planned development will be actually inspired by all of this: she will realize that, having spent most of her life keeping Kathleen safe both from outside danger and her own wild and reckless antics, she’s not sure about what she actually wants for herself.

Aelit’s Notes

I made Faith at the time I started questioning my sexuality and originally her only purpose was to be the starcrossed lover of Kathleen who’d die not long after being reunited. A clichéd romantic tragedy brought forth by the mind of a typical emo teen. The idea was that she was to stay dead, but later I felt sorry for her, since she didn’t have the opportunity to evolve as a character, and like Sergio’s anticipated I’d like for her to realize she literally only lived for Kathleen and start being independent. As for the cousins part, I honestly don’t remember much but knowing myself I probably did it for the shock value… at the time I was naïve and didn’t know most fandoms have their fair share of incest ships. If only, the fact that they’re cousins and not sisters makes for a much milder ship than most in the Web.

SergioTurbo’s Note on Aelit’s Notes

If you compare what Aelit just said to what I’ve said in the past, you’ll notice that we remember differently about how we were planning to play out Faith’s death: I actually remember that her death was to be undone by the main group coming back to the present after the “trip to the future”. This goes a long way to show how badly coordinated we were at the time, with people changing ideas or retconning things all the time.

Keiko Caterina Turbo

Birthday: April 13th, 2019 HST Age: 16 years old as of Unravel Height: 165 cm Blood type: 0

Sergio and Nikki’s daughter, Keiko was introduced in Youthful Indiscretion, a story I wrote with Desdendelle in 2016 which became the first of her own spinoff set in 2035 HST.

Of my characters, she’s the one who spent the most time in development limbo: a “daughter from the future” character was actually planned to be introduced in a later arc of Mai Dire Fine, though at the time it would’ve been another “serials filed off” character like Carol Liddell, with the stll unnamed daughter character being based off Nanoha Takamachi.

I think at the time I’ve briefly considered calling her Sara, being an Italian name that sounds pretty close to Sakura (as Nikki hadn’t “split off” from her at that point). As much as of a silly idea that is, it is actually the only Italian name I’ve ever considered for the character.

Keiko’s Magical Girl outfit. She wants it clear that it isn’t her design.

When I started working on her more seriously for a PPC context, I did briefly consider having her called after a canon character (Nanoha again), before scrapping that idea too. I wanted something more unique and used Akane as a placeholder, but I realized pretty soon that her parents would have chosen her name by looking at the meaning. And that’s where I found Keiko (“blessed/lucky child”) to be fitting: as her parents were the only survivors of the” Kids of the War”, and with everything they faced after, they believe Keiko is very lucky to have had the chance to exist.

Her second name, Caterina, is Kathleen’s legal first name. Sergio and Nikki decided to homage her as the “slap from behind the grave” she did to Sergio in Chapter 13 of Blank Sprite was one of the factors in Sergio regaining his lost confidence, and gaining the courage to finally face his past instead of running away from it.

Sergio and Nikki would’ve actually contemplated using Ami as a second name instead, if the actual Ami didn’t tell them not to. While I hadn’t come up with the idea for The World without Authors yet at the time, it would’ve indeed made things more awkward for her and Hajime.

Her parents wanted her to be able to live the normal childhood and teen years that they were denied themselves, but at the same time they let her make her own decisions. Even if they weren’t completely onboard with her becoming a Magical Girl first and a PPC agent later, they still supported her no matter what.

Which means that, somewhere in the multiverse, there was a world in which one of the top-ranking anime of 2032 was “Dream Guardian Wave Keiko”.

Hajime Irene Turbo

Birthday: April 13th, 2019 HST Age: 16 years old as of Unravel Height: 160 cm Blood type: A

Sergio and Ami’s daughter from an alternate timeline, Hajime was created specifically for The World withouth Authors, and is still somewhat work in progress as a character.

Despite being literally Keiko’s alternate timeline incarnation, they only really share a father: having different mothers and growing up in different continents made them into completely separate individuals.

Compared to Keiko, who had more of a “normal girl” life (Magical Girl shenanigans aside), Hajime grew up planning to become a Strike Dove operative like her parents – not unlike her mother herself did. As such, despite having a sweeter personality compared to Keiko, the more thorough survival training she had made her quicker to take practical decisions.

Like with Keiko, I decided that her name was to be a meaningful one for her parents: Hajime means “beginning”, symbolizing the beginning of a new life for the alternate universe versions of Sergio and Ami after all the fighting and losses caused by the 2007 Organization War.

Her second name, Irene, comes from Irene Johnson, Colonel Leroy Johnson’s daughter, Kathleen’s natural mother and Sergio’s genetical mother who disappeared in 1995 HST. It was mostly a thank you gesture by Sergio and Ami towards Leroy, who took care of Ami after her parents’ death and was the closest to a father figure Sergio ever had.

Ai Minase

Birthday: July 11th Age: 17 years old as of Unravel Height: 171 cm Blood type: 0

Ai is the only “proper” canon character in my core group, having been borrowed from Koikatu (the very same game I’m using to make illustrations due to my absolute lack of drawing skills).

I decided to use her as both her backstory as a troubled schoolgirl and origin in an H-game had a lot of storytelling potential in my setting, but a lot of it is spoilers so I’ll have to let you learn about her as the story proceeds.

One little interesting tidbit, though, is her height: as extrapolated from the game’s files, this cute, babyfaced girl is actually a lot taller than she looks. At 171 cm

Ai in her school uniform, the one she wears in Koikatu and in chapter 2 of The World without Authors.

she’s not only the tallest heroine in the game, she’s also the tallest of the Asian girls in my core cast (beating Nikki, who is already pretty tall for a Japanese girl, by three centimeters) and is the second tallest overall losing to Faith by only one centimeter. This actually led to some difficulties while making the “beach fanservice” illustration as she was the perfect victim for Corolla’s Super Soaker shenanigans, but with Corolla being the shortest at 140 cm it took a bit of fiddling to make the angle at which Corolla was firing her water gun look right.

#blank sprite #world without authors

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fatecaster · 7 years

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21 Wicca and Pagan Symbols in Everyday Life - Reblog

Find the original blog post at: http://ift.tt/2w9H3Qh

21 Wicca and Pagan Symbols in Everyday Life

As a proud practicing Wicca, I am often faced with misconceptions about my religion and its symbols. The truth is that Wicca and Pagan symbols are already heavily integrated into modern society, but many people are unaware of their deeper meaning. I've compiled this list to give anyone that's curious about Wicca symbols or Pagan symbols a comprehensive guide. Read on for examples of the 21 Wicca and Pagan symbols' usage followed by their greater significance.

A Peaceful History of Wicca and Pagan Traditions

Some people hear "Wicca" or "Pagan" and automatically think "Satanic." Pop culture has long perpetuated this misunderstanding of the peaceable religion of Wicca. While Wicca is a relatively new religion, it is based on a belief system that dates back to the Stone Ages. At the heart of the religion is a pair of gods, commonly called the Moon Goddess or Great Goddess and the Horned God or Great Horned God.

1. The Horned God Is Not Satan

The Horned God has spurred many comparisons between Wicca and Satanism. Horned gods predate Christianity, and the vilification of them likely started with that religion as it sought to separate early followers from their Pagan roots. You have no doubt seen a lot of horned gods in the fantasy genre (as minotaurs, satyrs, fauns, etc), but these are rarely representative of the Wicca Horned God. Our Horned God is a noble figure. His depiction as part beast and part man represents the unification of nature and humanity.

2. The Pentagram in Wicca Culture

The pentagram is another important Wicca symbol that is highly misunderstood. Five-pointed stars are strongly associated with Satanic rituals or with dark witchcraft. While many Wiccas do practice a craft of sorts, it is never with intent to harm. A Pagan pentagram represents the five elements of earth, air, water, fire and spirit. It may be used to channel energy, as demonstrated in the bookstore scene in The Craft. In the 1999 film Sleepy Hollow, Katrina Van Tassel draws a pentagram as a protective measure which is initially misinterpreted.

3. Witches and Cauldrons

Cauldrons have a long association with witches, though of course there was a time when virtually everyone cooked with one. This Wicca symbol is just one of many that J.K. Rowling appropriated for use in the Harry Potter universe. In Wicca culture, a cauldron symbol most often represents elements like fire and/or water. Old-fashioned practitioners may also use a literal cauldron in their preparations.

4. The Wicca Besom/Broom

You know that no witch costume is complete without a broom. The Wicked Witch of the West had one in The Wizard of Oz, and all three Sanderson Sisters had them in Hocus Pocus. Why do we associate witches with brooms? In Roman times, midwives used ceremonial brooms to symbolically clean a home of an evil presence before and after childbirth. As a Wicca symbol, the broom represents your ability to move beyond earthly limitations (or to fly, if you prefer).

5. Black Cats - Friends or Foes?

Black cats have gotten a bad rap outside the witching world. They are often used to represent bad luck in popular fiction. Cats represent something else entirely in Wicca culture. Their otherworldly nature makes cats of any color a popular companion. In the movie Constantine, the title character uses a cat to visit Hell.

6. Who Is the Greenman?

The Greenman, or Green Man, is a leafy face often seen in Medieval architecture and later in Victorian-era furniture and hardware. It is widely believed to be derivative of a Celtic Druid-era deity. In Pagan culture, the Greenman has been adopted as a symbol of indomitable nature or male virility.

7. Mano Cornuto vs Sign of the Beast

The mano cornuto symbol is also known as the "horned hand." This symbol was commonly used in Italy as a ward against the evil eye. In the 1980s, a variant of it was embraced by heavy metal music fans who copied the gesture from the artist Dio. It was through heavy metal that it came to be called "sign of the beast" or "throwing horns." In Wicca culture, this symbol has no association with Satan. Instead, it may be representative of either the Horned God or the Moon Goddess.

8. Boline vs Sickle

A boline is a small crescent-shaped knife, often mistaken for a sickle. The sickle is associated with Communism, and the related scythe is heavily symbolic of death. In Wicca culture, the boline has no political or spiritual meaning. It is a common tool, and its use during ceremonies is strictly tied to the physical realm.

9. Quoth the Raven

In pop culture, any mention of a raven is sure to be tied to the eponymous poem by Edgar Allen Poe. They are also featured heavily in Game of Thrones, where the seer Bran Stark has come to identify himself as the Three-eyed Raven. The raven is a powerful Wicca symbol because it represents your ability to move between the physical and spiritual realms.

10. More Than One Wand

Depending on your age, your first sight of a magic wand might have been in The Sword in the Stone, or it might (yet again) have been in Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone. In popular fiction, witches and wizards typically have only one wand. In Wicca culture, the "Book of Shadows" by Gerald Gardner identifies many different wands with many different purposes. As an everyday Wicca symbol, it may represent the element of air or transformative power.

11. Binding Spells vs Voodoo Dolls

Binding spells are sometimes mistaken for voodoo dolls. In movies like The Witches of Eastwick, the three witches create an effigy and use it to inflict pain upon Jack Nicholson's villainous character. While ancient binding spells may have some relationship to voodoo dolls, in modern Wicca binding spells are used strictly for protection.

12. The Moon

The moon has many occult associations. You've no doubt seen plenty of it in werewolf and vampire movies, but Wiccas take the moon very seriously. There are few symbols as sacred as the moon. To Wiccas, the moon is symbolic of the Moon Goddess. It is the beginning and end of all life.

13. The Meaning of the Candle Illuminated

TV shows like The Vampire Diaries like to romanticize common witches' tools but often get their significance wrong. For example, Wiccas do not draw on candles for power. Small candles represent our connection to the divine while large candles may represent the Moon Goddess. Candles also help us to focus our mind and energy on the desired outcome of a spell.

14. Witches and Crystals

Modern witches of all religions and associations acknowledge the power of crystals. Many New Agers that are otherwise unassociated with Paganism also use crystals. It's common to see a hippie in a movie wearing a big chunk of quartz. Wiccas also acknowledge the power of this mineral and often place it on their alters as a symbol of the element Earth.

15. Athames - Not Your Everyday Kitchen Knives

You may not be familiar with the word "athame," but you've no doubt seen this ceremonial knife in movies about witch hunters. The athame is one of the most important Wicca tools, and yet in movies it is more often depicted as a weapon to be used against witches. Usually the knife has a black handle. While it features in many Wicca ceremonies, it is never used to draw blood. In "Book of Shadows," Gardner uses an athame as a symbol of the element Fire, but other Pagan practices may use it as a symbol for the element of Air.

16. Book of Shadows

Now's as good a time as any to address the aforementioned "Book of Shadows." While Wicca traces most of its modern roots to the "Book of Shadows" written by Gerald Gardner, there are as many books of shadows as there are Wiccas. "Book of Shadows" is not one tome but any collection of writings and spells created by a Wicca. Many Wiccas use theirs as a sort of journal. Some people use the term "grimoire" as a synonym for a book of shadows. The show Charmed featured a family Book of Shadows in nearly every episode.

17. The Ubiquitous Evil Eye

The Evil Eye symbol is not limited to Wicca and Pagan symbols. In fact, it is one of the oldest known occult symbols in existence. It traces back to an all-seeing goddess but later became representative of any ill-wishing glare. In pop culture, witchy glares abound, and yet an all-seeing eye symbol is more frequently used in movies referencing Freemasonry and the Illuminati.

18. Why Wiccas Love Stars

Stars are one of the few Pagan symbols that are consistently well-received. You've probably wished on a star before. The act may be more innate than you realized. Wiccas view stars as a promise of their potential to reach divine heights. Five-pointed stars are also used synonymously with the pentagram.

19. The Friendly Spider

Spiders are often associated with witches, but you might be surprised to know that it's not for sinister reasons. Many Pagan religions view the spider as a symbol of creation. In Wicca, the spider also represents re-creation, or a Wicca's ability to redirect energy and even to change fate.

20. Light as a Feather?

The "light as a feather" chant from The Craft quickly became a cult classic at slumber parties. Does it have any basis in Wicca though? Yes and no. No one is using the symbol of a feather to attempt levitation (outside of the Harry Potter universe, that is). That said, feathers are frequently placed on altars to represent the element of Air. They also represent your ability to fly between realms.

21. Blood Magic

Shows like Supernatural have strengthened the association between witchcraft and blood magic. In truth, the only type of blood used in Wicca rituals is Moon Blood (aka menstrual blood).

Conclusion

Did you recognize some of the pop culture appropriations of Wicca symbols? I hope this list has been educational. Maybe it's even given you a new appreciation for the depth of Pagan and Wicca culture.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and feelings below and to pass this along to curious Wicca and non-Wicca friends alike.

But, actually, that's not all! Drop your email address and get the full article with extra 5 symbols in PDF for free!

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frogtownhobbies · 5 years

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Last weekend Frogtown Hobbies hosted a modern format Star City Games Invitational Qualifier and pulled in an exciting field of 62 players from all over Ohio and Michigan. Later this month (Saturday, August 24th to be specific) we are holding our first ever Mythic Championship Qualifier and the format will again be modern, so we thought a brief analysis of the decks played last Saturday would be informative for anyone coming out in a few weeks. Two notes before I begin; first, space will be limited for the MCQ and we are capping attendance at 132 so if you are planning on playing, sign up sooner rather than later. Second, while 62 players is a good turnout for an IQ, all analysis in this article still comes with a small sample size warning. This last point is accentuated by the disparity in player skill at local tournaments. That being said, on with the analysis.

The Field

Modern is, of course, a hugely diverse format with anywhere from 10 to 40 decks being competitive, depending on how strictly you define competitive. Using MTGTop8.com we see that 9 different modern archetypes have managed to top-8 at least 10 times in the last 2 weeks alone, 21 have at least 4 top-8s, 32 have at least 2 top-8s and a full 50 have managed to make at least 1 top-8. By this metric Dredge (which includes Hogvine decks on MTGTop8) leads the way with 53 top-8s (15%) followed by Phoenix variants (mostly UR or mono-R) with 37, UW Control (28), Eldrazi Tron (25), Urza’s Foundry (23), Classic Tron (23), Burn (22) and Jund (21). Mythic Championship IV in Barcelona had 11 different decks played by at least 10 players and 20 played by at least 3 led by Hogvine (98 players), UR Phoenix (48 players), Eldrazi Tron (42 players), Humans (38 players), UW Control (38 players) and Jund (36 players).

The Frogtown IQ was no less diverse, with 24 different archetypes being played by its 62 players and 13 being played by at least 2 players. Like the Mythic Championship the week before Hogvine was the most played deck with 8 intrepid pilots braving the seas of graveyard hate for the possibility of its explosive starts. All of the Hogvine decks played were pretty uniform in the maindeck with the only decision point seeming to be what removal suite to use in the last 3-5 slots between Lightning Axe (most popular), Assassin’s Trophy, Abrupt Decay and Fatal Push (least popular). Despite its heavy representation, Hogvine players were shut out of the top-8 with it’s best performance being put up by Michael Barabe in 9th place at 4-2.

The second most popular deck was Jund, right behind Hogvine with 7 players. Befitting of a midrange deck built around answering threats the Jund decklists were very diverse.Wrenn and Six was universally adopted with everyone running between 2 and 4. All 7 players also ran some number of Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, Lightning Bolt and Liliana of the Veil, and 6 of 7 players also ran some number of Bloodbraid Elf and Assassin’s Trophy. Raja Sulaiman managed the archetype’s only top-8 with one of the most unique lists, splashing white for 3 maindeck Path to Exile (with the 4th in the sideboard) to compliment a full boat of Assassin’s Trophies and fully tax his opponents’ basic land counts. The fourth color probably precluded Raja from playing a ghost quarter or two but modern’s basic land light decks are definitely ill-equipped to handle that many of that effect.

A trio of very disparate deck choices were brought by 5 players each in Monogreen Tron, Burn and Urza’s Foundry (sometimes called Grixis Urza or Whirza). Tron lists are obviously pretty stock at this point with the variety basically boiling down to whether to run the Karn-Lattice package or not. Notably, our five players all chose not to, led by Nick Moore who managed to top-8 despite leaving his trusty Celestial Colonnades at home. The burn decks were similarly uniform with all five players running nearly identical 75s. All five were RW (with one lightly touching green for some sideboard cards) and all 5 ran Skewer the Critics, Boros Charm and Lightning Helix on top of the usual suspects. One burn player made top-8 with the archetype, Peter Duhamel II. Urza’s Foundry was the final deck to be brought by 5 players and, despite the deck being fairly new to Modern, there was not a lot of variation in the lists. Teferi, Time Raveler was in the maindeck of 3 of the lists (and the SB of another), 4 of the players ran Goblin Engineer, 1 player ran a Time Sieve and another ran the Karn package but for the most part the decks were pretty uniform. Yours truly was the only player to top-8 with the archetype, running it back for my second straight top-8 with it.

The rest of the decks to be played by at least 2 players were Humans (4 players, 1 top-8), Mono-R Phoenix (4 players, 1 top-8), UW Control (3 players), UR Phoenix (2 players, 1 top-8), Affinity (2 players), Goblins (2 players), TitanShift (2 players) and Eldrazi Tron (2 players). For those of you counting at home thats 7 of the 8 Top-8 slots. With the last slot being taken by the eventual winner Jarad Carroll on RW Reckoner (!!) thats a full 8 distinct archetypes (depending on how you feel about UR vs mono-R Phoenix). Our 13 decks with multiple pilots were the same as the 13 decks with more than 10 players at the Mythic Championship with 2 exceptions (Goblins and Affinity at Frog Town vs 2 different Dredge variants in Barcelona).

Results

I mentioned the top-8 decks above but let’s look a little more in depth at how decks did during the IQ. Tracking all 13 2+ pilot decks, along with the “other” category, we saw three distinct tiers emerge from the tournament. Tier 1 (Humans, UR Phoenix, Affinity, Mono-R Phoenix and Tron) all saw their players post mean and median point totals of 9 or more and match win percentages greater than 54%. Humans had an especially good day in terms of number of standings points with its players managing 3, 12, 12 and 15 points led by Max Hersch’s top-8 appearance. UR Phoenix had only 2 players but one made top-8 (Joe Romeo) with a 4-0-2 record that buoys the match-win percentage for the archetype. Affinity also had two players (who finished on 12 and 6 points). Mono-Red Phoenix was all over the map with point totals for its four players of 3,6,12 and 15 (A top-8 for Aaron Miotke).

The second tier of decks (Burn, Whirza, Hogvine, Jund, Goblins and UW Control) all had mean and median point totals between 6 and 9 and match win percentages between 42% and 54%. It should be noted that the more players a deck has the harder it is to move into the top tier just based on there being a limited number of places available at the top of the standings. Accordingly we see most of our top played archetypes here in the middle tier.

The lowest tier of decks includes the 11 decks in the “other” category as well as Titan Shift and Eldrazi Tron. Besides Jarad Carroll’s Reckoner deck no singleton deck finished higher than 9 points. Titan Shift and Eldrazi Tron had especially bad days at the office with final point totals of 0, 9, 3 and 3 combined.

Conclusion

Overall, it looks like the best plan for the IQ was to be aggressive with a little bit of disruption as this adequately describes Humans, both Phoenix decks, Affinity, Burn and Hogvine. The little bit of flux caused by recent strong Modern sets like Modern Horizons and War of the Spark makes it hard to play control (where a settled field helps make sure you play the right answers). Of course, the deck that won took advantage of all of those aggressive decks (beating BR Elementals, Devoted Vizier, Affinity, Humans, Burn and Mono-R Phoenix while losing only to Whirza) by playing maindeck Auriok Champions, Worships, Blessed Alliance, Pyroclasm and Blasphemous Act to the top of the heap so there’s that.

Boros Reckoner Swans

Jarad Carroll

1st Place at Star City Games Invitational Qualifier on 8/3/2019

Creatures (19)

4 Auriok Champion

4 Boros Reckoner

2 Spiteful Sliver

2 Swans of Bryn Argoll

2 Volcano Hellion

4 Wall of Omens

1 Hazoret the Fervent

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Lands (21)

2 Mountain

6 Plains

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Clifftop Retreat

4 Inspiring Vantage

2 Marsh Flats

2 Sacred Foundry

3 Wooded Foothills

Spells (18)

2 Rest in Peace

2 Worship

1 Blessed Alliance

3 Lightning Bolt

3 Path to Exile

1 Blasphemous Act

4 Faithless Looting

2 Pyroclasm

Sideboard

1 Pithing Needle

3 Blood Moon

2 Leyline of Sanctity

1 Rest in Peace

2 Stony Silence

1 Boil

1 Wear

2 Anger of the Gods

My recommendation is the same as it always is in modern: either play something proactive with just enough disruption or win the matchup lottery and coast through without playing decks that beat you. Good luck to all of those coming to Frogtown’s Mythic Championship Qualifier, I’ll be there battling it out for fame and glory, stop and say hello.

-Stephen K Timmons

#articles #staff

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thats-a-real-mood · 3 years

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loki episode 1x01

Im loving the green/gold marvel logo.

mega spoilers under cut!

Ngl not sure why the tesserect threw him like that in mongolia. Is there a reason that thanos had better control? (Other than him being a giant grape) Is this what happened with red skull?

Tva introduced. Very mysterious

Aw loki is just done with the avengers and everything else

Why did they have loki’s lips do that for so long? And in 1/16 speed

Reset the timeline? What does that do?

Zooming in on the device on the ground assuming that is going to reset the timeline. Okay so but reseting does that mean that there is now another loki? Our loki we are watching and a different loki who is continuing one the timeline?

A variant skrull?

Loki trying to run and then getting timelooped back to the lady is slightly funny

Aw that poor guy is cheerful and shes all like no i have a job

Deadly consequences huh? Is that gonna come back later? I have a feeling they will never like each other

Aw happy robot

Aw fashionista drama queen loki. I love it

Okay i may be ace but loki looks good!

-honestly in the gray suit he doesnt look that muscular but he is. Its just hidden. It hints at it with his shoulders but he in fine!

I did a get picture of the end credits where it shows what he said

“if it’s all the same yo you know i’ll have that drink now.

“tva? friend i think there has been a mistake. I am Loki,- You will regret this. I am burddened with glororius purpose. I stand on the right side of thanos- pleased to learn you’ve- my father is-”

is all i could read from this

A cat and a cat mug. I like it. This dude must be so tired. And everyone gives him extra work with everything they say even in his room. -does it do this even after they leave? And honestly i thought lokis stack would be bigger

“Do alot of people not know if they are robots?”Hun im sorry but you didnt know you were frost giant..

Now at first glance the whole “what if i was a robot and didnt know it?” Line is funny but you gotta like deeper. Like i said right above he didnt know he was a frost giant for almost the whole time 2012! Loki has been alive.

Ok but why does it look like giant scratch marks in the red rectangle. I think it’s supposed to be like dried blood or whatever but more like scratch’s.

His temporal aura..lots of red,maybe purple and yellow followed by green and blue at the top. I wanna know what it mean. Do more colors get added with more temporal stuff?

That looks like the guy who died in the trailers

He was insistent that he take a ticket. Lokis staring contest with the guy. Passive aggressive loki

Is that PA sound activated by a specific phrase? I think it would be since it probably would have turned on sooner than when loki shouted otherwise

I dont like miss minutes.

Who are the timekeepers? How are they all knowing? Can we get some more lore on them?

Branching off the nexus? That showed in a scene in the trailer..

So do the tva not want a multiverse? But it was canonized in dr strange. And wandavision. Or do they just not want a multiverse war?

Created the TVA and its workers? What do they mean by creating the workers as well?

Wait what that the reset charge i saw in the cartoon? So does that mean that there is a loki that is continuing on the timeline?

Is that how we kept the “sacred timeline”? But how? The avengers dropped the cube and loki got it and left. So how did they fix the timeline to keep him from picking it up again?

The guy doesnt have a ticket and is throwing a karen tantrum. Oop-

Okay now loki is scared.

Is it bad that i saw him hold up his ticket and found it funny? Like see boom i have it totally not gonna get destroyed now

Okay so i wrote the cool “runes” i put them in quotations because i dont know if that is what they are. Ill try to look them up later and post them.

Five dead in france..1549

Sombody got the jump? Its him? Who?

Stab wounds? Reset charge is gone. Sixth attack? That they know of?

Nice satan imagery in the background. First (assuming) micheal first with light shining in this guy and now satan..

I saw her eyes look to the satan and then upwards so assuming she means the horns but it could also be mephisto. But does mephisto stab people? Those horns look loki style

Afraid of them?

Kablooie? Blue gum? Blooeberrie?

-Why was it given away? Is it a sign? Do i need to look deeper into this? It does have that whole look that fits with the tva but im gonna hold on.

Devil bearing gifts?

-What happens when it hits the red line?

They have a FILE? On loki? Where did they get that photo? And HE IS GENDER FLUID

Judges room has the workers mural and the timekeeper mural. So the cut off the branchs to keep it in a orderly timeline?

Push t to those avengers! STEVE👏ROGERS👏IS👏A👏VARIANT

Hun..hun no thats not why they traveled.

Pffrt two tony starks! So he knew tony was there… did thor not smell him as well??

Gods to gods

Is..is this what it looks like when he tries to do magic??

Who are the people watching who isnt the guy from earlier?

So is this gonna be a show of freewill? Like wanda was grief and depression? Or the winter soldier was of —-

If my theory is right about loki being the guy killing the agents and that guy is investigating and has his file then it makes sense that he knows what loki is capable of. I would also like to point out that is it loki killing them, then they are greatly underestimating him. He should use that to his advantage

Chasing a hunch? Going sideways? Bad idea?

And this guy is flirting (i think) but also drinking his respecting woman juice.

Burn down his desk? Ok so ngl its cool outside the window but idk what it is but i can tell its greenscreen. The architecture is great. I love the scene.

A nightmare department??

I wanna know what the buttons in the elevator mean.

Created by the timekeepers? So possibly not human. Can they leave? are they aloud to? What do they mean created? Is there a process? Or are they just never kids?

Trust is for children and dogs? Oka i get the dos. But children? Does this mean that he hasnt trusted anyone since he was a kid? What happened that made him stop trusting people? Does he trust his mother?

Living in his set path? Okay i was part of the son fandom so im getting team free will vibes from loki insisting that he chooses what he does

Wooing someone powerful you intended to betray? Thanos? (Ew giant grape face guy) You, agent mobius? The Grandmaster?!

Are they flirting? I genuinely cant tell? Is this what flirting looks like?

Pursuit in Dangerous variants? So not loki. My theory holds strong for me but maybe its not?Hes a hissing cat? So born to be king?

A fan? Okay..i wanna saw how are you a fan? But you have the file.

Loki

The wrong path always taken…

“I am smart.” I know

What do u know mobius? Time passes differently…has loki been here before? Have u met him before? How do u know he his smart? Yes you have a file but that doesnt tell me why u are saying for certainty that u know he is smart. And he looks serious. Like he knew something. What are you hiding??

Okay so he heals fast. This couldnt have been hat long since then?

Okay so they bring in phil but they dont even acknowledge that he is still alive (as far as im aware)

The uncomfortable shifting and keeping his gaze away from the screen as new york was shown was kinda telling cause of what he said earlier…

Deflecting to keep from talking..

The FLASHBACK

Why does he need money?

Young..lost a bet to thor… what was the bet???

You just used reverse psychology on loki and it worked

Why do you wanna know about why he does what he does? Are you using him for your other case? (Assuming hat he is killing the guards somehow)

Did his voice crack when he saw his adventure in germany? Anyone else catch that? And the past tense after that. His masks are starting to fall. I think he is gonna lash out soon

Oh his mother

This is gonna get painful. Im crying already.

Oh frigga. He is tearing up. He is getting agitated now. Dude you just accused him of killing his mother

Okay stop. So others can achieve better versions of themself?

U mean when nat yeeted herself on vormir? Or when clint went around killing people during the blip? Or when cap stayed behind with peggy when he had bucky to come back to?

I can see him planning something but idk what yet

Ok so i already watched this earlier but now that i watch this part carefully i can see his hand pickpocket

Another unit? So thats six units now?

Loki escaped??

Prune? Is that what the stick thing is?

Ok he asked the guys name. I like that. Polite.

I saw him take a breath to get ready for another performance

U..u dont know what a fish is?

Lived entire life behind a desk? How old are you?

Okay thats practical to know what your being threatened with. Informed choices my dude.

Ok is this the room that loki has a desk at in the previews? Also i like casey. He is now my new fav

Whats is the desk? INFINITY STONES?? are you kidding me? So other people have tried to get them but werent aloud because of the timeline with thanos and the avengers???? Why do you have so many of the same stones? And the fact that the time stones as well means something attempted to happen to earth to get them..

They dont work at the tva? You USE INFINITY STONES? AS PAPER WEIGHTS? INGOT OF IMMENSE POWER THAT WERE CREATED SUPPOSEDLY AT THE BIG BANG??

This is giving me (another show that used something important as paperwieghts) vibes

Coming to the realization that this place is powerful? Ok so that is pruning.

His mother, he is crying i cant deal

Oh god im crying again

He just want his parents love and they are dead. He just wanted family to love him. He wanted to so much and didnt ever feel like he had it. But he did.

Oh no

Please dont make him watch his death

Please

The immediate falling of his face, his tormentor, i wanna know what he is thinking when he sees thanos

Oh the bone sound

And loki watched

Not making light of this but they speedrun his trauma and his redemption. He didnt get to see the good parts of what he has done. Just the bad.

Oh his laughing and the bitter glorious purpose

The fight was short but cool

He is being his petty self and i love it

See, don’t underestimate him

That nose scrunch

He looked emotionally drained

Wait why cant he go back? Cause he saw his future? Isnt that the reset? Oh wait if he goes back, he dies and he knows that but he couldnt be able to stop it without ending back up here

Hes opening up. The masks he had are falling around mobius. He sees himself as a villian.

Fugitive variant?

I KNEW IT IT WAS LOKI!

but hold on. If this fugitive is loki, then how? What part of the timeline is they from? Are they a future loki? So the future loki is a dangerous variant and this loki is a cat? What makes the future one more dangerous? We just heard him say he doesnt like to kill?

Okay now oklahoma 1858, if this is loki then how is he goin across time? And what for?

Wait third millenium? When is that?

Okay so we got a 1500 deaths and pieces of gum? And now third millennium thing in the 1800?

Oil? In a field…i get that u would think that but please think about where u are and the fact that other units have been killed in what i assume are regular calls like this as well.

Hooded figure? In a foggy night?with different background lights? I like it.

Told you oil plus field equals fire

Oh big spots of oil and oil leading places

Okay there is the reset charge? Is this important like i said earlier i thought it would be?

Ok if this is loki then what’s with the get up? Where is the drama? The showmanship? And why do you need the reset charges? Assuming this person took them from each scene that is at least six or seven? Or is this eight? Would this be the one that they said earlier with the captain lady interrupting or is this another one after that?

Ok so i took some pictures of the end credits that i think are important. I want to look closer at them before i post them.

#loki spoilers #loki series spoilers #loki marvel #loki series #loki #loki show #loki laufeyson #loki episodes #loki 1x1 #sorry its so long #im on mobile #and can’t make a cut on here #marvel spoilers #spoilers

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maxwellyjordan · 5 years

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Symposium: Let’s talk about sex: why Title VII must cover sexual orientation and gender identity

Vanita Gupta is President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Sharon McGowan is Chief Strategy Officer and Legal Director of Lambda Legal. The authors previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Gupta as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, and McGowan as Principal Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section.

After months of anticipation, on October 8, the Supreme Court will hear argument in one of the most closely watched legal disputes working its way through the lower courts: whether Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses claims of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it has been illegal to discriminate against an individual in employment on the basis of certain protected characteristics, including their sex. And yet, as is often the case with civil rights, the addition of these federal protections did not eradicate discrimination overnight. Rather, it instigated a conversation that has been playing out in the courts over the last 50 years about what it means to discriminate against someone because of their sex.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, since Title VII’s enactment, employers have tried to limit its protections with arguments that essentially hinged on the notion that Congress was really only trying to address certain forms of discrimination. Repeatedly, however, the Supreme Court has rejected these arguments by, among other things, acknowledging that: Male employees can invoke the protections against sex discrimination, even if they weren’t the primary intended beneficiaries; actions short of termination, including workplace harassment, constitute discrimination; and discrimination can occur even when the parties involved share the same protected characteristic, as in the case of same-sex sexual harassment.

One such important clarification occurred 30 years ago when the Supreme Court ruled that Ann Hopkins could bring a claim of discrimination against her employer, Price Waterhouse, for denying her partnership in the firm due to Hopkins’ failure to conform to sex stereotypes about how women should act and present themselves in the workplace. As has been explained in amicus briefs filed by C-suite executives and blue-collar workers, the significance of the Price Waterhouse decision for the ability of women to access jobs from which they had been historically excluded cannot be overstated. But it also reflected an understanding that discrimination “because of” a characteristic that has historically limited someone’s opportunity — whether their sex, their race or some other aspect of their identity — can take various forms.

Since the Price Waterhouse decision, courts have clarified in a variety of settings that a person’s failure to conform to sex stereotypes cannot be the basis for denying them equal employment opportunity — irrespective of the reason why a person fails to meet their employer’s sex-based expectations. Some of the first post-Price Waterhouse cases involved individuals in the process of gender transitions. In Smith v. City of Salem, for example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit made clear that a transgender person who lost their job due to their failure to conform to their employer’s sex-based stereotypes could bring a claim of sex discrimination under Title VII regardless of the fact that the reason for the employee’s nonconformity was their being transgender. A few years later, in Glenn v. Brumby, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit reached the same conclusion, noting that “all persons, whether transgender or not, are protected from discrimination on the basis of gender stereotypes.” The fact that transgender people, by definition, transgress sex stereotypes did not weigh against coverage. To the contrary, the “congruence between discriminating against transgender [people] and discrimination on the basis of gender-based norms” buttressed the court’s conclusion that “discrimination against a transgender individual because of her gender-nonconformity is sex discrimination.”

Although many courts have found it sufficient to ground their rulings in support of transgender employees in the sex-stereotyping analysis of Price Waterhouse, other courts have acknowledged that it is simply impossible to discriminate against an individual for being transgender without relying on impermissible sex-based considerations. As courts have better understood what it means for a person to be transgender (i.e., having an internal and deeply held sense of one’s sex that is different from the sex assigned at birth), it has not been difficult for them to conclude that an employer who is willing to work with someone whom they believed to be one sex, but who refuses to hire or retain an employee upon learning that they were wrong about that employee’s sex, has engaged in sex discrimination. There could be no more straightforward analysis: When the exact same person is a desirable employee if male, but not wanted if female, that is discrimination because of sex.

It is irrelevant that the employee in the above scenario has transitioned to living as the woman that she is. Nor is it a defense for an employer to say that they bear no ill will toward men or women, but only wish to assert a right not to hire transgender people. For this scenario is as much a form of sex discrimination as it would be religious discrimination for an employer to claim that they are comfortable hiring Christians and Jews, but not those who have converted from one religion to the other.

As Judge James Robertson noted in Schroer v. Billington, the analysis in any such case “must begin … with the language of the statute itself.” Whereas courts had previously “allowed their focus on the label ‘transsexual’ to blind them to the statutory language itself,” a faithful application of the words in the statute could leave no doubt that discrimination against a person for having transitioned is discrimination “because of sex.”

Likewise, courts have increasingly recognized that their historical emphasis on whether an employee is gay, lesbian or bisexual has resulted in the creation of a sweeping, judicially created exception that finds no basis in the language of Title VII. In Robertson’s words, courts’ undue focus on whether an employee can be described as gay, lesbian or bisexual blinded them to the fact that an employer who allows a male employee to have a female spouse while firing a female employee for having a wife presents one of the more straightforward cases of sex discrimination that could be crafted into a fact pattern.

Over the last 20 years, numerous courts have heeded Robertson’s admonition to pull off their analytical blinders and, having done so, they have recognized that discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual employees is merely one of the many variants of sex discrimination, as is discrimination against someone for being transgender. During this same period, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission removed its own blinders in a series of decisions, ultimately concluding that its prior interpretation of Title VII had inappropriately limited protections against these forms of sex discrimination, which would otherwise fit squarely within the four corners of the statute.

And yet, notwithstanding the clear text-based arguments supporting the view of these courts and the EEOC, the Trump Department of Justice has decided instead to join forces with those opposed to equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. In its briefs in the three LGBT Title VII cases that will be heard this term, DOJ has urged the Supreme Court to override the language of the statute by superimposing a judicially crafted exemption that would deny the LGBT community protections against employment discrimination that the law would otherwise provide by its plain terms. The position of the Justice Department in these cases is but the latest example of this administration’s pushing arguments that are detached from either law or fact, reverse-engineered to produce the desired result of rolling back existing legal protections for yet another marginalized group.

Fortunately, as a pure analytical matter, the employees in these cases have the better of the argument and should win the day. But even though the correct answer here is dictated by the words of the statute, it would be a gross oversight to ignore the devastating harm that would result from a decision retracting federal nondiscrimination protections. For example, LGBT people living in states like Georgia, Alabama and Florida would lose protections against discrimination based on gender identity and transgender status which have been in effect since 2011 as a result of the 11th Circuit’s decision in Glenn v. Brumby, noted above. Likewise, LGBT workers in Indiana would return to a world of fear and uncertainty should the court carve out an exception to the protections against sex discrimination that Title VII has been providing since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit’s 2017 decision in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, which held that Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

And for LGBT people of color, the loss of these protections will only exacerbate their already higher levels of vulnerability to workplace discrimination. There are nearly two million LGBT people of color in America’s workforce, and they are twice as likely to report discrimination as their white colleagues. Should the court carve out LGBT people from our federal employment discrimination statute, employers could much more easily avoid accountability for discrimination based on race by simply packaging their adverse actions as based on an employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

In light of Title VII’s clear language prohibiting discrimination because of sex, these cases should be quite easy for the court to resolve in the employees’ favor, which will avoid these direct and collateral harms. And yet we know that much ink will be spilled in an effort to make something simple appear to be rather complicated. To be sure, the resolution of these cases will have a profound effect on the ability of LGBT people to live with dignity and contribute fully to their communities. Ultimately, however, the true question presented in these cases will be whether the words of the statute will command the court’s fidelity.

The post Symposium: Let’s talk about sex: why Title VII must cover sexual orientation and gender identity appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

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