#TOA Fan Spotlight
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2023-12-05
Science
Rare gene variants can change your height by up to 7cm
Dementia may be transmissible - misfolded proteins, which are involved in dementia & other neurodegenerative diseases, may be spread through blood transfusions & tissue transplants, causing the recipient's own proteins to misfold as well!!!
Light can travel backwards in time - it's not really what it sounds like tho'
Technology
Donate your voice to Mozilla
Amazon's latest "Amazon Q" chatbot apparently sucks - well, it's Amazon, so we shouldn't be too surprised!
Travel
Now Malaysia says Singaporeans are exempt from digital arrival card that applies to foreigners from 1 Jan - so what was with the fiasco the other day in Penang, if the digital arrival card is only due to apply starting next year?! 🙄
Singaporean family wakes up in Bali villa to find cash & valuables gone - 1 of the sliding doors to the bungalow was faulty & couldn't lock
Australian passenger on Scoot flight removed in Manila after slapping man - he was denied entry into Philippines & sent back to Perth 👏👏👏
Education
Singapore students rank top in maths, science & reading in OECD study
Singapore
Man in SCDF shirt caught on camera stealing e-bike left outside Toa Payoh flat
Former drug traffickers share how death penalty here remains a deterrent
2 GLS sites launched in Zion Road & Upper Thomson Road to pilot long-stay service apartments
Some banks run out of commemorative LKY100 coin within 30 mins as walk-in exchange begins
Government to triple AI talent pool to 15K as part of national strategy update - will that mean paying lots of staff to do nothing again, as per the Indeed incident some time ago?! 😠
Retail sales dipped last month, breaking 8-month streak
HDB launches over 6K BTO flats & raises subsidies for 2 prime location projects
^ Work starts on pedestrian-friendly streets in Bukit Batok West; 4 other towns to follow
Food
Grouper in short supply due to monsoon season - weather affecting fishermen
Entertainment
JJ Lin not pleased with fans mocking him by superimposing other music over his concert footage - Well, tbh, this is just 1 of the things you have to deal with being in the spotlight... maybe it's time to retire?! Just sayin'!
Maritime
44-year-old woman mauled to death by shark while paddleboarding in Bahamas
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This week’s Rise of the Titans Fan Spotlight shines on Feri @ferisae, an incredible artist from Mexico and a huge admirer of Guillermo del Toro’s work. This lovely piece of Jim and Claire can be found here with more on Twitter! Thanks for being an amazing fan, Feri!
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In this week’s Rise of the Titans Fan Spotlight, we’re showing off Mel @ USER—an incredibly talented artist and Tales of Arcadia fan from Australia! You can find more of Mel’s artwork here on Tumblr and on Twitter/Instagram @Gwibart!
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I think what has become, or possibly has always been, a big problem in regards to criticisms directed towards creators and works is that perfectly legitimate and understandable complaints get mixed in with things that are really not their fault or not worth criticising or it’s sometimes actual hate and abuse for things not deserving.
A couple examples from fandoms I am in/have been in (these are by no means the only critiques that these things get, I’m just not going to list every single thing):
It’s perfectly understandable to critique Horikoshi Kohei/My Hero Academia for how he writes his protagonist, as he pretty much keeps giving him power ups every time he needs a new development (deus ex machina) or have issues with him describing Momo’s costume as sexy. However, sending abuse to him about something like a character’s birthday, when there’s only so many birthdays in the world that someone could have and some of them are going to share dates with bad people from history, is really weird and unnecessary.
Criticising and having issues with the way Rick Riordan has written some minority characters is legit and valid and understandable and if someone misrepresents characters, even if it’s not out of malice, it is something that’s more than okay to comment on. I have heard from people about mistakes made regarding Piper quite a bit, and I fully understand that there does need to be work done to not incorrectly portray people of marginalized communities, I have no issues there. It’s also more than okay to discuss the issues you feel the story had in regards to the plot. But before Tower of Nero came out (I won’t spoil anything that happens in it, don’t worry) I saw a lot of hate and abuse, and I do mean actual abuse not just disagreements, because people believed that Will was going to die, and saying that he was doing the bury your gays trope. Whether that happened or not doesn’t change the fact that a) it was prior to the books release when nothing was really known, b) it was based entirely on fan theories, and c) he’s had several LGBT characters in ToA alone (Apollo himself is bi, Jo, Emmie, Lavinia, Nico, Will) and none of them had died before, so there was no basis for this. Even if he did kill one of them, out of the main 5 in ToN who we spent a lot of time with throughout the story, 3 were LGBTQ+, and if people believed someone would die before the book got published, then the only possible reason to think that is if they thought it made narrative sense, in which case hating on it is really strange and incredibly unneeded.
There’s a lot to criticise Supernatural for, and I recognise that. The ratio of white people to people of colour (in the shows run, I believe they went through 6, maybe 7, actors who were billed as main characters and all of them white), the lack of main LGBT characters, aside from the representation perspective there’s the story’s lack of commitment when it comes to keeping characters dead, and some kind of weird and subpar plots throughout the years being a few. But hating it purely for running long is just kind of like hating something for being successful. It’s fine to say that you think it should have ended earlier because it’s gone downhill in your opinion, but I’ve seen a lot of complaints purely about the fact that it’s gone on too long, when just the act of something running a long time is not bad in any way.
The issue with this is that not only does it give unnecessary stress to people (some of whom are trying to be better) but it also dilutes the perfectly legitimate critique that is directed at these creators and their creations. It’s very serious to say someone has poorly represented certain people, and it’s constructive to say a story is badly structured, but it gets confusing what to take seriously if both things like “this ___ keeps killing off every minority character that exists and misrepresenting and treating them poorly” and “one character who was LGBT/a person of colour died among several other important ones who didn’t, so that means they’re homophobic/racist” are treated as the same level of problematic.
It very much isn’t “this thing has never done anything wrong ever” but rather “let’s hate this for the things it has actually done”. Even with someone like JKR (who I do not like, I need to state this right away), saying that her stories are inherently badly written because she’s a crappy person is not going to achieve what was intended. What that is going to do is make people who have similar writing styles feel bad, make people who enjoyed the stories, even well before being aware of her beliefs, feel bad, and it’s also taking to spotlight away from what’s so serious about her attitudes to certain communities.
#my hero academia#kohei horikoshi#rick riordan#percy jackon and the olympians#heroes of olympus#trials of apollo#supernatural#I need to stop being so wordy with my statements
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APOSIMZ Offers Deadly Action in a Grand Post-Apocalyptic Setting
APOSIMZ is the latest work by one of my all-time favorite mangaka, Tsutomu Nihei, so I was extremely excited to see it added to our catalog of SimulPub manga Premium members with the volumes available for purchase on the Crunchyroll Manga app. Nihei’s first work BLAME! had a cult following in Japan and Europe for its amazing environmental art and brutal violence, taking place in a setting that was a nightmarish synthesis of post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk aesthetics. His subsequent works have raised his visibility and now two of his manga have been adapted into anime by Polygon Pictures, with whom he is now embarking on a mysterious joint venture looking into merchandise and VR experiences leveraging his works and visual aesthetic. Let’s just say his manga are excellent.
APOSIMZ follows Etherow, a sharpshooter for a small community living on the surface of an artificial planet. During an expedition, his group encounters an automaton named Titania being pursued by the dominant military force on the surface, the Empire. After helping her, their city is attacked and Etherow is fatally wounded. Titania gives him the option of turning him into a Frame, an inorganic being, to exact his revenge in exchange for aiding her on her quest. Able to generate armor and equipped with an ancient artifact weapon, the two wage a guerrilla war against the Frame generals of the Empire and seek out a way to breach the surface of the superstructure.
This story is something of a return to form for Nihei, following a lonely journey through an indescribably massive structure where pockets of humanity seem to be living out their twilight years trying to avoid the notice of immensely powerful beings. Limited dialogue and minimalist storytelling told primarily through visuals. His imaginative environments and the brutality of his fights drive home the insignificance of humanity. The entire world is deadly and the frailty of human life is shown through characters ability to both enter and leave the story in the blink of an eye. No one and nowhere is safe. Although Nihei has begun to tell stories with larger casts and more recognizable narrative tropes, the sense of scale and mortality are always present.
APOSIMZ is unique among Nihei tales for including some elements not yet seen in his works. Where the antagonists of his stories are typically comparable to Lovecraftian beings in their scale of power and utterly alien nature, the Empire’s generals are essentially human despite having converted their bodies into artificial weapons. Additionally, the presence of the Frame disease has created an entire population that are subjugated and feared as contagious. There seem to be quite a bit of societal pressures at work and the presence of several warring factions which out of the ordinary for Nihei’s typical conflicts between humanity and a seemingly unbeatable existential threat.
One of the major draws of Nihei manga has always been the art and this manga shows yet another transformation of his signature style. Newcomers to his manga can expect a visual feast of intricately designed battle outfits, dizzyingly huge and complex environments, and horrific Geiger-esque silicon creatures. APOSIMZ is a new take on his typical heavily inked style, highly detailed style, showing a brighter and looser aesthetic appropriate for the arctic landscape of the superstructure’s surface where snow softens the edges of everything it falls upon and creates a pale environment. Nihei’s also taken on a few more mainstream visuals with characters faces, showing probably the greatest diversity in character designs yet.
Fans of Nihei’s other works may be happy to know that the series has already established a thread of connection to his greater universe. Although the ubiquitous TOA Heavy Industries hasn’t yet made its appearance, the name of the manga in itself is a clue to the connection. Aposimz was the name of another seed ship alongside the Sidonia from Knights of Sidonia, whose trajectory carried it away from its sister ship until communication becomes impossible. While the world has remained nameless to its characters, it’s likely this story is following the fate of that ship some untold period after the two were separated.
If the panels haven’t been any indication, APOSIMZ is an intense visual journey through a world utterly alien to the one we live in. Although only 12 chapters in, the manga has already laid the groundwork for a growing conflict and a number of mysteries ambitious for even an author who sets the majority of his stories in hand-designed superstructures. I can’t recommend his work highly enough and APOSIMZ may be one of the most approachable starting points for potential fans. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments below!
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Peter Fobian is Features and Reviews Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.
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In this week’s Rise of the Titans Fan Spotlight, we’re showing off Mel @trollhuntersimp—an incredibly talented artist and Tales of Arcadia fan from Australia! You can find more of Mel’s artwork here on Tumblr and on Twitter/Instagram @Gwibart!
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Only five days left until the premiere of Rise of the Titans… Until then, our weekly Fan Spotlight recognizes Paris @tales-of-hisirdoux, a wonderful artist who also enjoys singing and acting! You can find this lovely piece here, along with more artwork on her Tumblr page. Thanks for being part of the TOA family, Paris!
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Time for our Rise of the Titans Fan Spotlight! This week we’re excited to highlight Aly @aevykartandcosplay, a talented cosplayer and artist who loves Tales of Arcadia and Dreamworks and has crafted multiple impressive versions of Claire Nuñez and other characters. You can find more of her cosplay and artwork here on Tumblr and on Instagram. Keep up the incredible work, Aly!
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Imagine running into Douxie at the local coffee shop… Blue @blue-potatoo is a fantastic artist from Brazil who brought it to life and so much more! You can check out a whole gallery of her art on ArtStation as well as Instagram and Twitter. We adore all of your lovely pieces, Blue!
This marks the last feature in our weekly TOA Fan Spotlight. A huge thank you to everyone who participated and showed us your talent and your love for Tales of Arcadia. This fandom is truly unparalleled.
Keep it crispy!
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TROLLHUNTERS RISE! Attention TOA fans and creators—we want to see you! Show us your art or cosplay and a select few will get a custom trading card that celebrates you and your incredible fandom!
Tune in every Friday starting on 6/25 to see who gets the FAN SPOTLIGHT.
Submit here: https://forms.gle/eZgg6p7sc69KLuT3A
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