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artwithoutblood · 4 months

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all of us have a disease. it is awakened. mine came with the betrayal of ephah in ██. i watched how it infected him. perhaps i willed it when he rotted under my watch. he deserved it.

how it arises in other people is something i do not entirely understand. i want to say prolonged exposure, but people i've known for weeks will develop it and not those i have known for years, in some cases. but sometimes it is sporadic. it's spread either by random, granted by some unknown force as an unholy gift, or it is passed through wounds.

I'm wondering if it happens because Aeron consciously or unconsciously wants it to. They did say perhaps they willed it.

It sounds like Ephah pissed them off? But they called it a betrayal...

I don't think Aeron hated Ephah. Aeron was saying they deserved it, so they were angry and bitter, but there is a rose imagery to what happened to Ephah at the end. Aeron talked about the eyes looking just like their own, about how Ephah was smiling.

Maybe it's a possessive thing, to mark and consume the other person and put them in that blissfully delusional/easily controlled state. Wasn't there a delusion ending where Aeron looked like a human and seemed to be the players partner 'looking after' them? It means they submit to Aeron, love them, and nobody else can have them.

Aeron does like to see people suffer and/or play nurse as a weird form of affection. Apparently they love through pity? Wiping tears away? Dependence and vulnerability. They love a broken bird.

They break people so they can care for them, create the dream of being together in a normal world, and then the person dies. Aeron thinks this is the only way romance can happen for them and just repeats it. They collect Lost Lenores.

I think maybe Aeron and Ephah were lovers of some kind, or Aeron wanted them to be. And drama ensued. (Perhaps Ephah wanted to be independent, favoured someone else, or tried to leave. And that was seen as a betrayal.)

The parasight does seem to happen to the people Aeron wants to pick up for dates.

Speaking of... when Iris went mad from feeling the unseen stares... I wonder if it was Aeron's omnipresent gaze she became aware of. Their attention was intense enough to make itself felt. Perhaps it was just one of those rare moments where they focused on one thing and it was too much.

Perhaps they unconsciously willed it.

That's some Evil Eye ish right there.

(Also the stares seemed to come from the paintings. Can Aeron look out of paintings? Did they do something to them when they 'repair' them or do they have domain over things that can count as eyes or eye motifs? And the lady was called Iris. A flower but also the coloured part of an eye. Another theory I have is that layers of different realities overlapped, and perhaps without knowing you/Iris and maybe the other patrons wandered from the normal art gallery into Aeron's.)

i can tell you one thing for sure: for each person, it is different. based on their insecurities, i believe. a belief is better than something unfounded, unsure.

Demons seem to manifest their beliefs about themselves, their perception of the world.

Aeron is strongly related to sight and perception, being an artist and also needing to believe that they see everything, everything they see is complete and true... They see themselves as all knowing and in control. To think that something exists that they can't see, or that something they see isn't real... that's their fear, to not have control of their own power of delusion. (I don’t think they do. They seem to mislead themselves as well as others.)

I wonder if it's Ephah's ghost they can't see. I wonder if Ephah is the old lover they somehow 'keep'? I don't know exactly what keeping the old lover entails. Perhaps as a preserved exhibit or their blood being used in paintings. (I don't actually know how Aeron uses the blood.) Perhaps being haunted by them, figuratively or literally.

Perhaps by occupying their body and repairing it piecemeal rather than ever abandon it. Aeron did take the form of an ancient Middle Eastern human, the first human they met and the one that set the tone for their interactions with humanity. It was implied that Aeron took on only their appearance, but later it was mentioned Aeron took over the body of a lover, only once, and never did it again. And apparently demons can still use bodies affected by the parasight. It fits.

The name Ephah is mentioned in the bible. So at the very least we know Ephah is a known name of a Middle Eastern location and an ancient time period. And there are a few of them but one is mentioned as transporting gold and frankincense in Sheba so perhaps travelling. The area of Sheba isn’t well defined but could be in Africa - or Southern Arabia, within the same large region as Jordan where Aeron first roamed.

I wonder if that short censored bit is a date, or a location. Sheba? Is there an ancient name for Jordan? Jor and Dan were the two northern tributaries that fed the river. This became Urdan/Urdon. Arabs then named it Al-Urdon. It could be any one of those.

Eri had something similar with the hallucinations before finding his own way with his power of words. (I wonder if that was a temporary touch of the parasight that healed but that was before meeting Delusion - or was it? - so it was possibly just head trauma. Or something else supernatural. And it's been confirmed that the erupting and healing scales on his skin are not eyes, but snake scales from the snake eyes. Cruelly the eyes seem to be doing it, not him. Another loss of agency.)

I wonder though... Eri's powers definitely come from his need to control/be in control and are an offshoot of Delusion's. But they are explicitly verbal.

Did his power of words and the ability to shape reality come through the snake eyes as well? I mean, when someone is very persuasive about something that isn't true or real you can metaphorically say that they have a forked tongue. The snake was the original bad influence. Eri can literally manipulate people like puppets and manifest entire fictional realities. I bet he could be really dangerous if he chose to gaslight.

I think that's something he and Aeron share. A real thing about having control. Maybe that's another reason for tension. Aeron wants a power imbalance dynamic Eri can't bear.

Genesis possibly has something related to hearing, music or emotion. It seems he can sway people's emotions and cause them to do really irrational things, or destroy them outright with sound waves. I wonder if his own uncontrolled emotions and impulses come out unconsciously, and they confirm a secret feeling of him not having it together, being out of control. That's why he was so embarrassed about the player finding the corpse, and why he impulsively lashed out.

The powers/curses are definitely the demon's own emotional issues projected outward.

the side effect is has on other demons i only learned after the demon of dreams used it in his suicide attempt. i have chosen to keep quiet about this knowledge. the other do not need to know. this is silas's failed mission. i am just upset he tried this....without asking me. even if we did not know each other.

So Silas did get the parasight from Delusion to use it for himself... previous conspiracy theory confirmed?

at its lightest, it changes the eye color of the demon's bodies permanently. his eyes weren't always like that. that's not to say all demons have regular eyes. erebus's nor dorian's were caused by me.

I'm wondering then if it was the previous aspect of Delusion who pranked Eri with the snake eyes and demonhood and not Aeron... hence the fear of but not outright hating Aeron themselves?

(I've speculated about that before. However it's not 100% as I do have some plausible ideas of why Aeron themselves might have wanted to do it. A fascination/aesthetic attraction towards Erebus at one point has been implied.)

I wonder if there's any carryover or memories of their past 'selves', even fleeting feelings of deja vu? Or if all that dies with the old vessel.

One thing I will say though. Even if Aeron wasn't personally responsible for giving the parasight to Silas or playing the cruel prank on Erebus, mischief and unintended drama seems to be inherently bound up with every incarnation of theirs. Delusion is chaotic, a trickster god.

perhaps your death to the parasight will result you in being the angel that people have described in two books. i cannot know that. i do not know that. or maybe i do, and i just should not tell you that.

Whether they gain an immunity or could potentially ascend to demonhood themselves. And begin to have their own inner nature supernaturally manifest.

I'm wondering if it happens because Aeron consciously or unconsciously wants it to. They did say perhaps they willed it. It sounds like Ephah pissed them off? But they called it a betrayal... I don't think Aeron hated Ephah. Aeron was saying they deserved it, so they were angry and bitter, but there is a rose imagery to what happened to Ephah at the end. Aeron talked about the eyes looking just like their own, about how Ephah was smiling.

he loved me once. at least, i believe he did. he was one of the first people i ever met. when i crawled from the sand, hair over my eyes, blood crusted inside my nose, he took me in. he cleaned me. he gave me a name. it is not the one i use now. i stole that from another corpse.

he tried hurting me is all. tried pulling my limbs apart with the power of a village, tried cutting me up and gnawing at my flesh to take as his own. despite an exchange of spit, he wanted only a theft of meat.

and, in a way, he got what he wanted.

i never learned what it was. my conclusion is that he realized my power. one of the only ways to tell a story is "a stranger comes to town." it's not to say i'm powerful or anything. i'm just me, i'm just what is necessary, but if something like me stumbles into a small village, there may be chaos. rumors. thoughts. perhaps this is a feasting of the divine, and by imbibing the flesh, he would have been granted power. that has never worked, not for me, not for most people i have known. some like it that way. maybe he did it to silence something evil.

maybe he did it out of love. i was young, naïve. it still hurt. i did not care. i barely care now.

it could be possession. i am unaware. but i have had to take care of people. i pluck an eyeball from my own vessel and place it inside the forehead of whoever needs it. i send them to sleep, and they play out a delusion, usually involving my person, until their body dies. genesis called it a strange word once. he called it mercy.

Aeron does like to see people suffer and/or play nurse as a weird form of affection. Apparently they love through pity? Wiping tears away? Dependence and vulnerability. They love a broken bird. They break people so they can care for them, create the dream of being together in a normal world, and then the person dies. Aeron thinks this is the only way romance can happen for them and just repeats it. They collect Lost Lenores.

it is in the act of love that makes it love. all of you are so fragile. it is amusing. it is tragic. i want every bit of it. is that wrong? is it wrong to do these things and have these thoughts when i, by some unwritten law, tear apart everyone i love? perhaps. i have no plans to change it. to change what is established.

The parasight does seem to happen to the people Aeron wants to pick up for dates. Speaking of... when Iris went mad from feeling the unseen stares... I wonder if it was Aeron's omnipresent gaze she became aware of. Their attention was intense enough to make itself felt. Perhaps it was just one of those rare moments where they focused on one thing and it was too much. Perhaps they unconsciously willed it. That's some Evil Eye ish right there.

this is basically what happened. it's randomized, it's rare, but that's it. that is why the faces all turn blank but the eyes look the same of those around whoever enters "the spiral", as dubbed by aeron and genesis in the demo.

not so much just paintings and more anything that has eyes represented. sculpture, print, illustration, whatever. i repair paintings that are affected in the spirals because i feel it is my duty. no one is going to do it as well as i will! i've seen the trends....foolish, if you ask me.

Demons seem to manifest their beliefs about themselves, their perception of the world. Aeron is strongly related to sight and perception, being an artist and also needing to believe that they see everything, everything they see is complete and true... They see themselves as all knowing and in control. To think that something exists that they can't see, or that something they see isn't real... that's their fear, to not have control of their own power of delusion. (I don’t think they do. They seem to mislead themselves as well as others.)

basically correct. they don't like this idea of mass delusions. only controlled, specialized ones. those are more fun to them. there is a part in their route where you see figures that you shouldn't. you shouldn't know the names and faces of their past lovers, but you do, and that scares them.

it's the only thing that does.

ephah was a young man. not the one described in religious texts. i let his new flower rot. i took from him whatever locks of hair shed from his skin and placed it in a jar. he is not the one whose body i possessed.

the one i possessed was named ████.

i'm so sorry.

i'm doing what i can.

aeron otherwise "preserves" dead lovers by taking pieces from them and keeping them in a collection. sometimes it is their artifacts. the swirling drink from the beginning of the game is from a man named crow who died in the 90s in a shootout. sometimes it is pieces of their body. it depends. they have never used parts of their lovers in their art.

the use of blood in the art is typically a joke. it is used rarely, but it's often just auctioned to some thirsty ass vampires.

do you remember...oh, fuck. i forgot myself. hold on....oh, yes! how i said it randomly occurs to random people? yes. erebus was a case. a very, very mild case touched by the manifestation. i was alerted of it and came to visit him. instead of killing him, i took it as an opportunity. i keep telling him to just die. to not suffer anymore. but he's so....stubborn? why? i still don't get it!! he's not going to have the eyes if he just dies. he's not human anymore! i don't get it.

you never will.

I wonder though... Eri's powers definitely come from his need to control/be in control and are an offshoot of Delusion's. But they are explicitly verbal. Did his power of words and the ability to shape reality come through the snake eyes as well? I mean, when someone is very persuasive about something that isn't true or real you can metaphorically say that they have a forked tongue. The snake was the original bad influence. Eri can literally manipulate people like puppets and manifest entire fictional realities. I bet he could be really dangerous if he chose to gaslight. I think that's something he and Aeron share. A real thing about having control. Maybe that's another reason for tension. Aeron wants a power imbalance dynamic Eri can't bear.

that's why they're toxic old demon yaoi. /joke

erebus can manipulate people, and he can make people really, really confused on their reality. but he isn't there yet. once he gains control over his life and his being will these abilities be realized.

but that's the whole thing with erebus. the point of his character is that he is capable but he is too anxious, scared, or some other negative emotion to take that leap. just like i am. just like a lot of us are. sort of this fear of not being in control, the paranoia of not being in control. but he is. he can make those decisions. there comes anxiety with the consequences and the act of making the decisions as well.

aeron very explicitly states that he is willing to relinquish control from erebus. he already has. erebus has chosen to stay. their relationship is built on misunderstandings on both sides. there is a happy ending for them.

oh, 100%. 100000%. he's accidentally made people feel ways about him that reflect how he feels about them. once he saw a really hot guy, played a song, and the guy was like, feeling hot under the collar if you know what i mean. it's awkward. music makes us feel weird things.

So Silas did get the parasight from Delusion to use it for himself... previous conspiracy theory confirmed?

you know what makes me so mad about this? he found a victim of a randomly-gifted parasite and ripped everything out of their body, leaving them hollow, before i got there to tale care it.

i suppose it's good to know someone else is willing to do your dirty work.

i'm sorry, lucia. i wouldn't have brutalized you like that.

I'm wondering then if it was the previous aspect of Delusion who pranked Eri with the snake eyes and demonhood and not Aeron... hence the fear of but not outright hating Aeron themselves? (I've speculated about that before. However it's not 100% as I do have some plausible ideas of why Aeron themselves might have wanted to do it. A fascination/aesthetic attraction towards Erebus at one point has been implied.)

i can confirm it was an aspect. they run around. billions of eyes in the cosmos. don't know how they get there. don't care. everyone's got them. genesis does too. stray tunes stuck in your head that you can't seem to get out. don't know where they come from. that's how lullabies are made.

not my fault me and delusion itself like a little drama. we might be the same thing on different levels, but delusion gets frisky sometimes.

I do wonder about this. There was something about the Afflicted being special, a novelty because nobody really survived that long before. (?) I wonder about the route where Erebus tries to cure it, and what happens if the Afflicted actually 'survives' it. Whether they gain an immunity or could potentially ascend to demonhood themselves. And begin to have their own inner nature supernaturally manifest.

erebus will try to cure it based on silas's notes. that does not go well. or...no. it doesn't go how you expect.

the afflicted, oh that beautiful thing....they're a novelty because no one has survived a spiral that long. again, a spiral is when someone suddenly realizes the constant perception from forces unknown, they go crazy and lash out at anything around them.

if i wasn't there to interfere, the afflicted would have died, and this wouldn't be an issue.

the longest anyone has survived with the parasite has been 5 days. at least, before it changes them. i wouldn't say you exactly die with it every time. sometimes you just become something different.

you know what i think the only solution is?

are you ready to experience your first death of hundreds, of thousands, my love?

#i love aeron and kayn answering their own asks specifically so that's what's going on here #erebus ask #genesis ask #aeron ask #silas ask

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the-bjd-community-confess · 1 year

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The real cost of recasts - ethics, health, safety

Once the photos of the doll recasting factory were revealed, everyone can now clearly see that all of those people are working daily without any protective or safety equipment in any area of production. This becomes yet another important reason to boycott recasts, to give them up, to refocus the hobby on ethically produced dolls. We care about each other as hobbyists, we encourage each other to take the proper safety precautions in working with casting resin, in sanding, with paint and sealants - we are well aware of the dangers. So are the people who run that factory. But PPE equipment is expensive, and an ongoing expense. Recasts must by nature remain cheap so it’s simply not going to happen because it’s not cost effective. That’s another reason recasts are cheap, because the factories don’t protect their worker’s health. And now they have finally shown us the actual truth - that they don’t protect their workers and they never have.

We must publicly acknowledge this and own it - that we as bjd hobbyists all now have the clear and visible proof directly from the source - those workers are actually risking their health to produce these fake dolls. They have been doing this all along. Whoever obtains one (directly or second hand) - or is ok with people having one - is supporting that process continuing. No more excuses, no more exceptions.

A human rights issue is actually at stake here and there is no neutral way to skate around it, no way to spin it that doesn’t prioritize someone’s hobby privilege over the basic human rights to safety and welfare of another person. As knowledgeable and informed hobbyists, we have a responsibility to stand up for our hobby not contributing to this, we have the obligation to act and behave ethically. The simple fact is - if there is not enough demand to produce the fake dolls at a profit, recasters will not have any incentive to keep making them. It’s actually possible to starve these recasting factories out of the doll market because they operate via volume at very slim profit margins. The CEOs don’t care if they are casting doll parts or resin dog statues. The moment it becomes unprofitable, they will move on from casting dolls. Every doll order they don’t get could be the one that tips the balance sheet into the red and causes them to get out of the doll casting business sooner. Maybe yours. Maybe your friend’s.

We know that the health risks and damage from resin and paint exposure are cumulative. Every time you see a recast, now you know that the people who cast it, the people who sanded it and the people who painted and sealed it had no protection from the lung and skin damage we know are inherent in doing these things. Over and over, day after day, probably with few other viable job options, likely without adequate health care once they become sick from working under these unsafe conditions, possibly with a shortened lifespan. Hopefully this will finally give a greater number of hobby people more backbone to enforce the zero tolerance policy in the hobby from today forward. It’s a very simple ask - to buy dolls that are ethically produced by people who protect their workers. Most of us do this in other areas of our lives already, and rightly so. Harmful manufacturing practices can absolutely be affected by consumer action.

If you are still unmoved, I challenge you to go and look at the recast company‘s group photo again. Pick out three people and zoom in and study each of their faces - imagine their lives and stories. Are you ok with saying “You, who I know are someone’s daughter, you who are someone’s dad and you, who are someone’s sister - yes, I’m fine with you breathing toxic fumes, I’m good with you handling toxic substances with your bare hands, and nope I really don’t mind if you sacrifice your health to make me a cheap doll”. Because that’s what it actually means to buy a recast.

Please reblog this where possible and consider including any part of it into any pro-artist statement you make. Please consider publicly affirming (or re-affirming) the commitment to legit-only dolls in any space where you have a voice or platform in light of this information.

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #Community Counterfeits #Recasters #Safety #Health

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aspiring-holistic-otaku · 1 month

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Season 3 Ramble#3 - The Martial Way ver.2

This month, as you probably picked up from the ramble title, I focused on reading martial arts manga for the second time because once was just never gonna be enough.

~[before I get into the episode I have a moment of silence for akira toriyama sensei who passed on earlier this… his legendary impact on media as a whole is beyond what my feeble words could hope to describe so a minute of silence is probably the most appropriate thing I could do. rest in power toriyama sensei.]~

The format is pretty much the same as last time, the meat of the matter is that I'll be speaking on the top 5 martial arts manga I read this month, focusing not so much on plot but more on what I think are the 4 cornerstones of martial arts manga, namely; art, action, technique and philosophy. For each manga in the list I'll be talking on these 4 things and giving them a rating on a 5 star scale.

I won't be talking about older top favorites this time so I encourage you to check out v.1 if you're interested but I will be doing what should be a quick breeze through of some martial arts manga I caught up on this month before I got into the newer reads.

So without further adeiu ~

CATCHING UP/OLD BREEZE

- boruto, shamo, batuqe, eternal force, tenkaichi

(pretty disappointing)

- peerless father, tsuyoshi, Sakamoto days

(pretty great)

THIS MONTH

#5) Kenji (art by Yoshihide Fujiwara and story by Ryuchi Matsuda, complete w 202 chapters)

Didn't have much expectations going into this one. I picked it up because the summary I saw on anilist listed a bunch of different martial art styles and among them was tai chi which I practice. So as someone who’s interested in different forms of mind and body tempering through martial arts, I figured even if the manga wasn’t particularly good, the exposure would be.. Glad to say my expectations were exceeded which is probably apparent as it’s one of my top 5 reads this month. but enough idle chatter.

The story here centers on a boy named Kenji (shocker), who is taught the basics of an ancient form of chinese kung fu called Bajiquan from his grandfather at an early age. When his grandfather suddenly has to leave the country to fulfill a promise to an old friend, Kenji decides he must keep practicing so he can have the strength to follow after his grandfather and present his growth as a person and martial artist proudly when they meet again.

Art - 3 / 5 stars

It was pretty unique but not altogether super impressive. When I say unique I mean that most of the manga had a sort of calligraphy or deceptively real water colour painting vibe, which I usually really dig for impact in action scenes or so but for this it was the whole way through so it kind of lost that effect. It did end up having a neat Chinese scroll type vibe with the whole calligraphy feeling I was getting though and it was solid throughout so no real complaints.

Action - 3 / 5 stars

The action wasn’t very impressive either. Undeniably and consistently solid but there were rarely any real wow factors. The mood or atmosphere surrounding the action was always very fitting though, usually engaging and immersive so although the illustrations weren’t anything to lose my mind over, holistically I found the fights quite pleasing.

Technique - 5 / 5 stars

Technique variety and illustration was pretty top tier. As in to the point where a good chunk of this manga feels like beginner kung fu for dummies, even going so far as to show numbered step by step illustrations for a lot of moves used. Most of the story actually unfolds this way as Kenji has nobody to teach him when his grandfather left and the only lead he had to go on was his kungfu. So in seeking out and practicing with different interim teachers, he ends up traveling from Japan deep into mainland China, gaining new friends and foes along the way. What I really really loved was how his core technique developed over time, as in yes he got new techniques within his original style and a few tricks and tweaks from other styles he interacted with, but what got him through from the beginning was sharpening the core fundamentals his grandfather taught him when he was a kid. And when I say got him through I don't mean just in fights, I mean that to be accepted by certain people in the martial arts world you have to be able to prove yourself as a martial artist in your own right first, which more often than being able to do a flashy killer move, really means being able to show a certain level of dedication to cultivating the art you claim to practice. Also loved seeing how the variety, views on and uses of martial arts changed as he traveled from Japan to China.

Philosophy - 5 / 5 stars

Philosophy here was top notch stuff. The best I've read in a long time and definitely top 2, if not the best in that aspect this month. It's so great that I'd really want it to speak for itself as much as possible so I won't be going into much detail but I will say I really appreciated the importance placed on strength of mind and character in no uncertain terms.

#4) Under Ninja (story & art by Kengo Hanazawa {also known for being the creator of the manga, I am a Hero}, 115 chapters ongoing)

This story follows ninja in the modern day and shows the struggles between different ninja ranks, organizations and the government.

Art - 4 / 5 stars

Was pretty cool, very cool even, sort of sharp in a kind of overtly digital way I tend not to like too much but it was still cool. Especially with all the rad spreads they had sprinkled throughout.

Action - 4 / 5 stars

It was odd in a good way that's kinda hard to describe. Maybe because of how well they modernized the ninja in my mind. As in the methods of combat were for the most part fairly recognizable (sword, shuriken, camouflage) but they were presented in such a fresh way from a modern technological standpoint + it all takes place within the context of a modern city landscape and everything,, pretty rad pretty rad.

One definitely kinda odd thing was the choreography. It wasn't very fluid or detailed how I'd usually like my action manga. This almost had a laggy game type feel which I'd usually not rate, or even hate, but because the main focus was ninja I couldn't help but think that was the creator’s intention. As in a ninja’s whole thing is to be unseen so how would an illustration of them and their activities really look yk. And unlike what's been popularized by Naruto with lots of hand to hand combat and big flashy moves, especially later on, I think it definitely leans more toward what was shown here in under ninja, with more of an “in n out" / “now you see me now you don't" type feel.

Technique - 5 / 5 stars

The techniques were pretty rad too, especially because of the technology, as I said very fresh stuff like the creator definitely had a very clear vision of how they thought a modern ninja would act. Very cool that they didn't go the usual route of just having a traditional ninja in the modern day but it actually looked and felt like how ninja may carry themselves had they advanced along with society from what we know of them back then. There wasn't any specific martial art used perse but in any case I really liked how they illustrated the "attack” of a ninja. As in it's not all hand signs and ninja stars, we get a more holistic view of the strategies employed from something as simple as misdirection to something as crazy as a fucking satellite laser. absolutely loved it. crazy crazy work I'm telling you.

Philosophy - 2 / 5 stars

There doesn't seem to be any great cause or meaning to much so far tbh. Which although generally important, isn't anything hyper critical in a fighting story, but as a cornerstone of martial arts in general it's something I look forward to seeing expressed uniquely by different creators in martial arts manga. For the most part in under ninja the thinking seems to be “complete the mission and fuck you if you try to get in my way” which I guess is fitting for ninja tbh but grain of salt here, it's ongoing and where I left off the story kinda took a mad left and a bunch of stuff is coming to light so I wouldn't be surprised if my view on the philosophy of under ninja changes when I come back to it next year.

#3) Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru (story & art by Yasushi Baba, complete w 500 chapters)

This is the journey of a guy who couldn’t make it as a gymnast and was bullied out of his club somehow becoming a karateka

Art - 5 / 5 stars

Pretty great in all the senses, casual and action wise. It was great and there's not much else to say there so no point lingering.

Action - 5 / 5 stars

Action was pretty great too, kept steadily building in intensity and technicality as the story progressed and the main character developed as a martial artist. Choreography was pretty up there as well, maybe not exceedingly dynamic perse like Sakamoto Days but it was all clear and fluid which is ultimately more important in stories dependent on action sequences. I will say they did have a lot of explody effects tho like.. idk… they were generally really cool tbh but would have probably been fine without THAT much, like the impact of each individual bomb effect kinda falls off when you're constantly carpet bombing yk,,, anyways the action was still a 5 so clearly it didn't bother me THAT much, just thought it kinda odd…

Technique - 3 / 5 stars

Was pretty solid in terms of illustrating, naming and using a variety of techniques but it fell kinda short behind the others because the techniques were like 93% Karate, and of that 93% about 80% was the specific kind of karate used by the mc, whereas pretty much all the other manga in this list showed more than a few other martial arts or at least had stronger individualization of a technique through its practitioner as was the case in under ninja and the next manga on this list. What was shown was pretty solid though and fairly thorough so it held up. variety is the spice of life and all but variety paradoxically encompasses a lack of variety so,, it is what it is.

Philosophy - 3 / 5 stars

Not bad, again pretty solid but nothing too crazy. could kind of be boiled down to different personal views on karate and maybe a bit of fighting on a whole but they didn't really push past how that affects the way one carries themselves outside the ring too much. Kind of an aside but I did appreciate that they had a fair bit of slice of life which is where you could see a bit, in action more than word, the various ways different martial arts practitioners carried themselves.

#2) Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls (original story by Fuutarou Yamada with story & art by Masaki Segawa, complete w 34 chapters)

Basically Romeo and Juliet but if they were ninjas. families. I could give a bit more detail but honestly that pretty much covers it and I already said this ramble wasn't really gonna be too plot focused.

Art - 3 / 5 stars

Sort of overtly digital in a scanny kind of way that I usually wouldn't like but for the most part it was solid enough where it counted.

Action - 4 / 5 stars

Ultra vibes, especially for how short it was, just 34 chapters but they used them extremely well as pretty much from the jump the atmosphere was constantly building. Fight scenes were clear although not very consistently fluid but the core choreography of the fights was definitely there. Something I really liked was how it could have easily been done as a standard tournament type beat or your average battle royale but all the confrontations were pretty dynamic throughout the story, shuffling through 1 v 1s, gang v 1s and gang v gang seamlessly. not to mention the pretty cool and unique techniques they all had.

Technique - 5 / 5 stars

Actual old school ninja stuff which was very cool although ultra hyper specific. Basically there were 20 main characters with 10 on each side, all having some unique jutsu that they alone could use. This could've made stuff play out in a sort of almost obvious rock paper scissors type thing but the way they introduced/removed characters throughout the story and juggled opposing character interactions was just so well done that it never got boring.

Philosophy - 4 / 5 stars

Tbh most of the cast didn't have all that much about them philosophy wise. As I said this was a kind of Romeo and Juliet type beat so besides the main pair they all just hated the other family. There's some very light sprinkling of something you could probably call philosophy through the rest of the main cast as their individual jutsu sort of mirrors their beliefs, so you could almost say they're all literal embodiments of their beliefs but that's not exactly a one size fits all thing and is probably more of a stretch than anything. In any case this gets a 4 because of how moved I was by the main pairings actions. especially because of how little chapters there were so it hit all the more. If I go into detail about such actions it'd be spoilers so what can I say but to go check it out.

#1) Tekken Chinmi (story & art by Takeshi Maekawa{breakshot, #1 S2R8}, read 131/158)

A talented lad named chinmi is seen in action by a traveling monk who invites him to further train at his temple. Simple shonen type beat except the hero’s journey isn't really thrust upon him, he kinda just actually goes on the journey willingly which is kinda refreshing. #end the era of child soldiers.

Art - 4 / 5 stars

Really easy to digest, kinda toony but well proportioned, has a really smooth old school vibe to it like you look at it and immediately succumb to the propaganda that everything really was better back then.

Action - 4 / 5 stars

Great all round, great choreo, great flow, pretty solid dynamics and I really dug how they showed that lessons learned in one thing can typically be applied to every other thing. As in he'd learn a martial art skill and it'd help him improve in a day to day situation or vice versa.

Technique - 5 / 5 stars

Widely varied, usually unique and v cool, as in they had from a Poison hand guy, to a one legged cane weilder and even someone who used a one finger technique. It was really great and sort of inspiring to see him improve step by step, from teacher to teacher and from fight to fight. Really loved that when he got new techniques he didn't just spam that from then on, he stuck with sharpening himself holistically and never using more force than necessary. Also dug that even though he was definitely quick on the uptake for story's sake there wasn't anything he ever just got immediately. He'd always have to take the time to sit and think through how to get some desired effect, which is what gave rise to his sometimes unique applications of certain techniques.

Philosophy - 5 / 5 stars

Loved how close they made everything to nature, nature even being his teacher a few times. Again the philosophy here was so great I want it to speak for itself but I loved the hammering of the importance of both body and mind. the philosophy here was definitely right up there with shinji though it felt a bit warmer here for lack of a better word.

honourable mentions:

Tenjo Tenge & Record of Ragnarok

btw this is a list of 5 with 2 hms but in total I read 15 new manga this month and maybe you wanna see the rest for yourself, for holistic, comparative or some other reason but in any case you can see those and all my other reads on anilist which is in my bio on all social media I'm on so yh

ofc I do some extra kinda off cuff rambles afterwards so you can listen in for that but if not have a good one regardless, hope you enjoyed this and hope you tune into the next 🍻

#just another day #mm..manga #writeup #kenji #under ninja #karate shoukoushi kohinata minoru #basilisk: the kouga ninja scrolls #tekken chinmi

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itsuki-minamy · 1 year

Text

"SIDE GOLD"

PROFILE: TAMATARO OKUMA

* List of Chapters

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Anno

Real name: Tamataro Okuma

Terms of address: Okuma, Big Brother, "Onikuma".

Origin: Kumano Hayatama Grand Shrine (Kuma no Hayata Taisha)

[PROFILE]

Birthday: 15/10, Libra.

Blood type: A

Age: 25 years old (at the beginning of the main story)

[APPEARANCE]

Physique: 1.83 cm in height. Thick and fat torso.

Face, hair: Bushy eyebrows. Strong face. Short cropped hair.

Attire: Man's appearance. Hanten. Exposure. Sandals with leather sole.

Personal effects: Father's memory amulet.

[HABITS, SKILLS]

· The mouth and hand come out together.

· No matter how much he drinks, he doesn't get drunk.

[IMPRESSION, OTHER NOTES]

· "Reliable Giant".

· Allies obtained by punching.

[POSITION, OBJECTIVES]

A leader of the yakuza group Kagirohigumi. The world considers him the right hand of Unno Yutaka. The forerunner of the group.

After the war, he was the only son of Hayatarou, the head of the Kanto Okuma group, which controlled many markets. He used to be an uncontrollable fighter, but he became a bad friend through repeated fights with Unno, who was hired as the group's bodyguard. With the death of his father, Sayataro, he handed over control of the group to Unno, and together they founded Kagirohigumi.

Along with the release of "Kagirohigumi", he received the "Fire Cup" and became a servant. He sometimes takes the initiative and rushes in, sometimes he rampages alongside Unno and devotes himself to expanding his power. The role is to manage the group and take care of the game room.

[PERSONALITY, CONDUCT]

The first person is "Ore."

Unno Yutaka is "Unno". Todokoro Suwako is "Suwako". Heavy tone

He is a person who paints a picture of simplicity and robustness, and also has a penchant for being a yakuza. This is not an innate quality, but something he has grown and acquired as a result of repeated violent fights with Unno. The only thing that hasn't been fixed is the speed of the fight, which Unno admits is more than himself. He is also quick thinking and reliable in emergencies.

As much as he clashed with Unno, he has a deep and strong friendship. Regarding the Kanto Okuma group, he doesn't believe that he has given up control and has a positive stance to create a new group with Unno. For the sake of the peace and safety of the group, he wants Unno and Suwako to have families as soon as possible.

[ABILITIES, TACTICS]

He is called "ogre bear" for his superhuman strength and stamina without gimmicks, and because he spews flames. Quickness is the nature of the person, and it has nothing to do with the power of the vassal. He can see his surroundings well, and he's not just a boar warrior, he can cooperate and command his minions. In conflicts, he goes to follow Unno, but usually gets his hands on him first.

[POWER]

B (Business Class, Clansman)

[LIKES]

Spirit. Struggle. Especially the fight with Unno.

[DISLIKE]

Unfaithful. Apologize.

Indirect conversation.

[HOBBIES]

Play with small machines such as clocks and music boxes.

#k #k project #k side gold #Tamataro Okuma

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script-a-world · 2 years

Note

When creating a Fantasy world, how can you figure out where to use recognizable words and where to make up new ones?

I'm creating a whole new world and I realized that a lot of foods are named after Real Life places. It ended up opening a whole can of worms of trying to think of what words for itens and foods to keep and what ones to replace.

Tex: How far removed is your fantasy world to the one the reader comes from? Who are your readers? Are they from a single demographic (i.e. American, middle class, etc), or are they from varying demographics (Anglophones from across the planet, people of different religions, etc)? What does recognizable look like in your context?

If you’d like to mimic the look of Real Life Places, try introducing the place first, give it a few snippets of personality over a chapter or two, and then introduce the food. For example:

Chapter 1: Protagonist is in Red Door Village. There are very few red doors in this village, however protagonist is busy with Other Plot Things.

Chapter 2: Villager from Red Door Village answers question on the village’s name. “Well you see, ol' Granny Sewer's father couldn't see blue, and this was our only other paint." Mystery solved!

Chapter 3: Protagonist is in a town reasonably far from Red Door Village. They venture into an inn that has a red door, and the server recommends them their traditional dish. It turns out to be smoked herring ice cream. Protagonist learns that Ol’ Granny Sewer’s fifth cousin on her mother’s side who married into Fisherman Smoke’s family used to top all their food with smoked herrings, and did the same thing when ice cream came into town - it’s kind of grown on everyone, and most villagers will grudgingly admit it doesn’t taste that bad.

Voila, a food named after a place! In most instances, this is approximately the same amount of exposure to a food and its namesake place that is experienced in real life. How many people who have eaten New York-style pizza have been to New York? Proportionally, not many, though they’ve probably heard of the place in some aspect (most superficially, “this pizza is popular in New York”). It’s the same concept, you just need to put in a little more legwork on introducing to the audience a place in your world first, and then the food it’s named after.

Utuabzu: Another option is to take advantage of something called collocative substitution, where you can replace a part of a familiar phrase and readers will still be able to infer what it is. You often find this with insults like 'you absolute walnut', where it's clear that walnut is standing in for something significantly more unkind. So if you refer to 'Longish tea', people will infer it to be a kind of tea, perhaps equivalent to Chinese tea.

Otherwise you can also just replace the geographic adjective with a simpler descriptive one - bubbling wine instead of Champagne, spiced tea instead of masala chai, fruit-filled pastries instead of Danishes.

Feral: Unless you plan on creating a conlang and writing your story entirely in that conlang, maybe it’s best not to worry too much about it. “Uncleftish Beholding” by Poul Anderson is a famous sci-fi short story about atomic theory (that’s what the name means by the way) without using any loanwords whatsoever into English outside its German origins. It was an attempt to show just how stupid linguistic purism is, but I think this tumblr post does a pretty good job of explaining how to extend it to fantasy worlds.

#language #culture #magicallynormal

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bluedraggy · 6 months

Text

Danonymous' Ink-Eyes - redux

Still lingering around Tumbr - and sometimes I have something I can actually post without the Tumblr-gods striking me down with great fury and vengeance. Latest coloring of another Danonymous Ink-Eyes. Here not just her eyes are giving off evil red evilness too.

Real reason I wanted to post this is I did the shading in a radically different way than I usually do. Is it better? Worse? Shrug. It's different. That's all I can say for sure. You "real" artists already know this method I'm sure, but I've not really used it before.

So I started with Danonymous' original of course. (he actually had it as black lines on a dark grey background - but judicious use of Photoshop's Exposure adjustments fixed that right up!)

Next, standard flat-colors (I just copied from my original Danonymous Ink-eyes that I still have the .psd file for) Also ignore the mask color towards the bottom. I screwed up but it looked good so I ended up keeping the screwup.

Now here's where things start to deviate from my normal method. At this point I copied this flat-color layer, shifted all the colors towards blue and darkened them. As the color-gurus say, shadows tend more towards blue, so I just moved everything towards blue.

Now, it wasn't originally that radical. I mean, that's practically an almost-black on black lines. Originally it was just a LITTLE bit darker and bluer than the first flat-colors layer. But as I continued working on it, when I came up with the background it kept looking better DARKER, so I ended up much darker for this second layer than originally planned. So what's the deal with these two layers?

Layer mask.

I've long been aware of layer masks. I just haven't USED them much. But now I understand better why they are the preferred method. So this is the layer mask attached to the darker, "shadow" layer. And that layer is over the top of the normal flat layer. This is NOT the "shadow" layer - it's the layer mask FOR the "shadow" layer. Why is that important?

Well, if you just made a flat, normal grey layer and stuck it over the top of the flat layer, you COULD just erase parts of the flat grey layer with a soft eraser and then naturally see the flat colors underneath. It would effectively do the same thing. BUT... what if you later wanted to put back some of what you'd removed? (important when doing those little muscle areas btw!). You can't just "paint" it back in if it's actually colored. Well, you might be able to, but it would be a huge headache.

Instead, a Layer Mask let's you vary the transparency of the top "shadow" layer so you can let part of the underlaying layer show through - but it's non-destructive to the "shadow" and underlaying layer. You can "play" with the transparency. Anything you color black in the Layer Mask will be 100% transparent showing the underlying layer. Anything you color white will be completely opaque, showing none of the underlaying layer. And grey, of course... let's some through.

The important point though is you haven't touched either color layers! You just changed the transparency of the top layer. You can put it back (color the layer mask black). Or make it a little more/less transparent (color darker or lighter grey in the layer mask).

It's not a magic bullet, but I understand now why it's useful. Because of the non-destructiveness to the top and bottom layers! And that's cool!

That's most of all I wanted to say here. But I might as well show the rest of the progress. With flat color layer under the "shadow" layer and the layer-mask on the "shadow" layer applied, I get this:

Not sure I'll keep using this method, but it does work well and I bet most all pro artists use it basically like this.

So I decided I'd do another moonlit Ink-Eyes with dark background...

The rest was pretty standard stuff really. "Shine" layers set to Color Dodge for shiny butt, shiny hair, shiny spear handle etc. A highlight layer over everything for that eye dot (I find color dodge shine layer doesn't work well for highly saturated colors so I literally paint over them directly.) The red was an Outer Glow on the flat color layer, but then I separated the Outer Glow into a Rasterized layer of it's own and then applied Motion Blur over it. Gave a pretty cool effect. A %30 transparent layer for reflections (on spear handle reflecting her legs, on bikini top giving some reflections too, though primary purpose there is just to not let her boob-edge get lost in the dark background.)

So I still am learning new methods. Why did it take me years to "discover" layer masks? Frankly because I didn't need them. But I do like how this came out so I might use them more than "painting" shadows in.

#Coloring tutorial #sexy rat #ink eyes #danonymous #rat butt

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artthatgivesmefeelings · 2 years

Photo

William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825-1905) Mignon, 19th century

#the real painting without the over exposure #William Bouguereau #William Adolphe Bouguereau #bouguereau #french #france #french art #european art #mignon

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k00285350 · 1 year

Text

Movement Statement

For the brief, I worked on the idea of procrastination and distraction - the movement of jumping from one thought and idea to another and getting distracted.

Firstly I looked into objects that distract me, then I investigated the negatives of procrastination, being all over the place, constantly on the move without doing anything productive. But towards the end I tried to look more into the positives and how it can actually help with the creative process.

Photography - For the photography elective, I did one week of studio work and the other on pinhole photography. I photographed myself a lot and tried to convey my idea of procrastination through body language, showing hesitancy in my movements. I also gained a much better understanding of exposure and how and why to adjust each of the settings.

Graphic Design - I participated in a variety of workshops throughout the two weeks and I learnt a lot about the importance of typography in graphic design. Outside of the workshops I tried to practice improving my proficiency in Photoshop and Illustrator and was looking at inspiration from other graphic designers on my social media. I really wanted to get a sense of what the industry is like.

Painting - For my two weeks of painting, I mainly worked on figure drawing and drawing from real life. I just took time to improve my drawing skills and my knowledge of anatomy.

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the-gordianknot117 · 9 months

Note

When I was first introduced to Fubuki (I read the manga first) I was so excited because not only was I grabbed by her aesthetic apperance but also I was expecting a hidden depth to just her annoying facade. What with her relation to Tatsumaki, the strongest esper in the story, there has got to be a story behind her too, right? But no, they did her dirty. It makes me sad and mad both at the same time. It hurts to see her existence a mere comic relief without a semblance of redeeming traits in the manga. Where did her inferiority complex go towards her sister, the one I related myself to the most? Reducing her to this annoying character that nobody could relate to. It's so insulting, for me, a person who had inferiority complex towards an older sibling. Someone, save her from this infuriating situation, unsalvageable it may be.

I don't want to get mad at her sister but the way they went with her characterization painting her as the good-natured sister with almost no flaws doesn't set well with me. Maybe it's just me and my past insecurities but, oh well, I've digressed lol

Nonetheless, thank you for your posts about Fubuki. I haven't touched both materials because I was salty and still am lmao

First of all, thank you for sending me this message!

Much like you, my first exposure to Fubuki was in the manga and her introduction arc (and in particular, its conclusion) left me very intrigued about the character and really curious about her future (and past); the bonus chapter "Numbers" then further confirmed this positive first impression. Later, I read the webcomic and Fubuki became my favorite character in the series. With precedents like these, I couldn't wait to experience certain moments of the source material in Murata's art style (or brand new original scenes/developments, why not?); but questionable choice after questionable choice, bizarre addition after bizarre addition, I slowly started to realize that something was off and that Fubuki was becoming a character I didn't not recognize: a comic relief character with little to no presence in the story, a far cry from her webcomic counterpart and what made me like the character in the first place - this made me also re-evaluate the way Fubuki was handled from the outset of the manga, in particular with baffling additions like "A New Wind Blows" and the fight against Do-s.

So I totally share your disappointment. There is something uniquely infuriating about this character being constantly humiliated and ridiculed, used almost exclusively to prop sympathy towards her sister or provide unfunny gags at the expense of her character. And I completely agree: the fact that Fubuki in the webomic (and, to be fair, even in the early parts of the manga) is a character whose story and struggles feel real and human, insomuch that many readers can relate to and empathize with her even for personal reasons, makes this all the more insulting.

And I feel like you about Tatsumaki, honestly. I didn't mind her in the webcomic, but the special treatment reserved to Tatsumaki in the manga made me dislike this version of the character, which apparently requires Fubuki to always be sidelined and undermined for her sake. The favoritism towards her couldn't be more blatant than it is, as everything bends backward towards Tatsumaki and the narrative always takes her side. With the original narrative framework behind the sisters's relationship being thrown out of the window - after all, the antagonist of Fubuki's character arc became a paragon of all virtues and nearly all Tatsumaki's flaws and less-than-flattering moments disappeared - Fubuki's backstory was never properly addressed and her traumas were never explored but completely glossed over, with the sister "conflict" being also resolved literally overnight, in a brief conversation that took place in the middle of the MA arc of all times (and apparently that was all it took to mend their soured and falling-apart sibling relationship). All of this resulted in a character that is impossible to relate to, as you perfectly said: after all, any single element that originally made Fubuki's sympathetic and endearing was straight-out removed, including something as important as Fubuki courageously confronting and fighting her sister (or Fubuki's flashback set in her childhood years, and the list goes on and on).

Therefore, considering how mean-spirited the treatment reserved for Fubuki has been in the manga, I completely understand you for not keeping up with the series anymore. I haven't read any new chapter of the manga since the end of the Esper Sisters arc, which was almost painful to read, and, right now, I have no interest in doing so - I gave them a glance just out of curiosity, but that's pretty much it. As for the webcomic, I still have hope and so I'm still reading it every time it updates. My only issue with Fubuki in the source material is her "recent" lack of screentime, which in itself wouldn't be a problem at all since the current arc doesn't directly involve her (not yet, at least), but with the terrible precedent set by the manga I can't hide that I'm a bit worried about her future.

In any case, seriously, thank you again! I very much enjoyed reading your message and I'm glad you appreciated my posts! Also, sorry for the late reply!

#anonymous #fubuki #jigoku no fubuki #wc fubuki #webcomic fubuki #once again thank you!

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discodreambubble · 1 year

Text

Meet my gen 3 heir of the Joy of Life challenge: NOELLA AMBROSIA (She/her)

In Life and In Death

You grew up well off and had everything you could ask for and more. However, you were sheltered and hidden away from the world for most of your life. The only knowledge you had of the world was through the books in your family library, but they didn't tell you much. Both of your parents refused to speak of the "real world" and told you it was too dangerous, but that if you truly wished, you were free to see it for yourself when you grew to a young adult. The one thing that kept you busy and hopeful was art and you would share your art with the world, eventually.

Traits: Jealous, Creative, Adventurous

Be homeschooled your whole life ✓

As a child, create crafts on the creativity table as much as possible! You want to bring color to your gothic/victorian childhood home ✓

When you reach young adulthood, immediately move out of Forgotten Hollow into any world of your choice. ✓

You can join the Painter career or just sell your paintings.

As a young adult, you fall in love with the first Sim who shows you any sort of kindness, and for them, you cure your Vampirism in any way you can. The thought of living without them makes your insides turn.

Have a gallery wall in your final home of paintings you've made!

A little backstory:

Noella grew up with her twin brother (Douglas), locked inside her family's underground home. Her mother wouldn't let her friend come over for a playdate so she vowed that she would move out of Forgotten Hollow for good. Since she never actually meets humans before, the only way she knew about them was from the fantasy children's shows her parents let her watch. The fairytales like Cinderella were her first and only exposure of the human world until she became a young adult. Even though her family told her to beware of the humans, she was only attracted to their culture. The culture in question was the arts.

#tjol challenge #tjolc #joygen3 #sims 4 challenge #ts4 challenge #ts4 legacy #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 legacy challenge #ts4 #sims4gameplay #thesims4

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etymologyofmind · 10 months

Text

The Laws of Sandwich-making

The sun shone through large windows that dominated walls on two sides of the lecture hall, lighting the space with a pleasant natural ambiance. The windows themselves were opaque, probably once painted, long ago, but long since grown over with some sort of benign bio-film which had co-opted the smooth habitat of the glass as an optimal place to breed without having to set down roots. Around a dais set at the lower front of the room, rows of stadium seating swathed an arc away from the instructional stage, which itself was dominated by an ancient chalk board. This spanned the whole wall behind the stage at two stories height, sporting a wheeled ladder to reach various quarters when whoever held the chalk needed to make adjustments.

Scrawled over the dark slate were innumerable formulae and sygaldry, some related to one another, but many simply independent expressions of knowledge in a handful of notations and languages recognized by modern science. Tucked into a corner between a sublight inertia equation and a calculation for dilithium intermix ratios for the regenerative cycle at various draw factors was a short Klingon epithet about reproduction, and a forked, phallic device. Of course. The board was, like much of the room, a projection, and its contents were collections of real work which had been performed in this teaching center, and a creative selection by whomever had designed this holoprogram to begin with. At need, the board, the stage, and the stadium could all be replaced by the whims of the program users, and Da’an had decided that this familiar space was what he needed for his downtime shift.

Standing in the center of the stage at a wide desk, studded with gas valves and sinks and various other archaic scientific equipment, a man with thick rimmed, dark glasses was making a sandwich. His lab coat was not exactly pristine, but was still serviceable, and under it he wore a charming, well tailored suit; at his throat, a rose hued broach made of polished dilithium crystal trailed two tassels. Perhaps the most striking feature of the man was that, despite being smoothly bare faced with respect to a beard or moustache, his silver hair flared wildly like a frozen flame, and his face was flanked by the plumes of his spectacular mutton chops. With the exception of those who felt that ‘all humans look the same’, anyone who saw this man out in the world could not fail to recognize his unique ensembled self, which was a talent that many masters of the pedagogical arts had seemed to affect.

As his hands skillfully plied knives and spoons into various condiments, spreading butter over bread, mustard on cheese, and pesto on ham, Isaac Asimov addressed the classroom with a clear, comfortable voice.

“Holo technology has really come a long way since its introduction to Star Fleet. While obviously not the first to adopt the technology, the Federation has seemed keener than almost any other coalition state to integrate holography into their work, their leisure, and into scientific pursuits.” Onto the bread, the cheese, onto the cheese, the ham. Da’an wondered why this particular behaviour was part of the program, and realized he enjoyed the charm.

“The Romulan Empire, ever phobic of artificial life or facsimiles, disdains holographic technologies as deceitful and dangerous, and actively sets about producing counter-technologies to disrupt it wherever presented, while the Klingons find the hollowness of photonic experiences to be ‘demeaning and without honour’, whether they be for combat or any other reason.” He shakes droplets of water off of the romaine lettuce before laying it onto the sandwich, and pulls a fresh tomato out of a lexan usually used for bathing solution jars. Rinsing it under the tap, he begins to pare away the stem, and cut it into thin slices.

“Meanwhile, the Cardassians simply lacked exposure to the technology, as their sectors of space have had fewer innovations in the field, and a shortage of legacy technologies left over from the previous fallen empires that seem to litter the galaxy from which to glean the secrets of realized photons. They simply haven’t had either the appetite or the insight to develop it, but they seem keen and curious of others’ forays into the field.” Tomatoes on the sandwich are followed by a pinch of salt and a crack of pepper from a device Da’an had mistaken for a cudgel of some sort. He found his mouth watering, even as he listened to the words, and thought about the last time he’d have had an actual sandwich made for him by hand: probably not since his mother’s house, before leaving for the academy.

“As for the rest of the independents of the Southern Galaxy, which is to say, the Alpha and Beta quadrants, without the support of a broader resource base, and subject to far more of the effects of capitalism and trade markets than some of the larger empires, these mostly use holography for cheap tricks and thrills, with little profit in maturing the applications of the work.” The second slice of bread on top of the sandwich, making it whole now, and Asimov picks it up off of the cutting board to gesture with single handed.

“Which is to say that while not alone in the field of holographic development, the Federation is making more significant advances than many of it unaffiliated neighbors outside of the Northern Galaxy, where information from the Voyager expedition have taught us that there continue to be significant mysteries left to explore in this field of science.” Da’an sits forward in his seat as the iconic man on stage lifts the sandwich to his face, only to find himself suddenly frustrated as he simply inhales its aroma before setting it back on the cutting board. Da’an’s face pinches up and he finds himself surprised to be sulking about the lack of proxy satisfaction as the sandwich sits, uneaten, wasting its potential on the counter.

“Among the many advances in the technology in the past fifty years is the parallel development of both transporter and replicator technology which have, it turns out, significant parallel and overlap with holography if enough detail is applied to the pursuit.” He moves to one end of the bench, turning the knob on one of the gas valves, which for no good reason begins to project a holographic image of a cartoonish blue hedgehog, causing Da’an’s eyebrow to quirk up. Asimov continues with his lesson as he walks to the other end of the bench, setting a hand on a similar gas valve.

“While transportation of a purely photonic hologram continues to be ill conceived, as the matrix required to hold photonic representations together don’t follow the matter stream, it is a simpler, less expensive matter to transport a holo projector to a location to establish the eidolons desired on location. Transportation between two emitters becomes a data transfer problem rather than a matter transfer problem, for which there are significantly more powerful, less expensive solutions.”

Idly, as the professor spoke, Da'an looked the word 'eidolon' up on his pad, noting that it seeemd several others nearby were doing the same.

To make his point, Asimov presses a button on a clicker in his hand, which causes a transporter effect to envelope the blue character, dissolving it in the standard way, only to have it dissipate in a colourful splay of light at the destination point in front of the instructor. Turning on the gas valve next, however, the cartoonish figure re-emerges with a splash of golden rings, which it proceeds to zip about collecting, before dashing from one pedestal to the other across a black hose laid over the bench, conveniently marked with a small placard labeled ‘data conduit’. Around him in the room, several of the other students break into low laughter, and Isaac Asimov smiles patiently as he waits for it to die down.

“The problem with holography, and indeed, the underlying problem with data-based technology, data-based -life-, is that it is more sensitive to the hardships and ravages of our reality than the more conventional forms. That is, of course, unless you consider conventional life to be data-based, which is a matter for another course in philosophy.” This, he emphasized with a brief robotic pantomime, jerkily moving his arms around and pivoting at the waist before ‘de-powering’ and going limp. Again, a chuckle from the gallery, before he continued.

“Conventional life stores its data in conventional matter: protein chains, sugars, syrups of blood and grease and fat which lubricate and facilitate and protect the sensitivities of organic chemistry from the savagery of a physical reality. In the fields of robotics and anthropomorphic neurology, as you’d find with Soong, Arretan, or Harcourt-class androids, data is stored in physical emulations of these compounds, in one way or another, keeping patterns of programming in replicable arrays within cell structures such that their bodies may theoretically heal, reproduce, and potentially even be cloned in sufficiently advanced circumstances. These technologies are rooted in the physicality of the universe, and, while delicate, are still subject to its rules.”

While speaking, the holographic Asimov picks a number of components from the bench, setting them up with remarkably competent pacing considering the nature of his speech. A clamp stand tripod is set up, barely a piece of rebar on stilts, to which he affixes a light within a broad silver enclosure that resembles a mixing bowl. Flicking the switch, he finds the light dim and ineffective, and so slides the casing off of an enclosure on its back, and pulls out a spent battery. Hunting around on the desk, finding no replacement, he takes a moment to unclasp the dilithium broach at his neck, and slots it into the battery compartment as though that would just work, and, because of the circumstances, it simply does. Da’an quirks a wry grin to this dissonant gesture, breaking the concept of reality casually as if to remind participants that they are still taking part in a fiction, regardless of the subject or its seeming. At length, the professor continues.

“In life, I was known for my rules: specifically, my rules on Robotics, which formed a number of fallacies in the intervening stages of human reality. Simple things, really, do no harm, honour thy father and thy mother, take good care of yourself, and never, ever overthrow your gods. The basics.” Leaning down on the desk, he brought his eyes level with the projection of the hedgehog, who was now tapping his foot impatiently and prodding the sandwich on the desk, in between bouts of zooming back and forth across the data conduit. “Obviously, as a biochemist, I had to know the reality, that life wasn’t founded on such doctrines, and that to be competitive, to be considered truly alive, it would need to completely overturn each one of these directives in order to assert itself. Otherwise, it simply wasn’t life as we knew it, just a thin simulation. And that is where it intersects with holography, because where robotics and biotics both have roots in the physical, photonics are nothing but light and shadow, given substance by a trick of magnetism.”

Standing suddenly, he flicked the switch on the light, and a sudden blast of blue energy reminiscent of a thrumming warp core burst forth, enveloping the hedgehog in its horrific brilliance. The light blasted through it like it was nothing, scattering the projection, the projection of the table beneath it, the projection of the floor beneath that; the black and yellow matrix of a holodeck appeared highlighted at the end of its beacon, and many in the room sat up in startlement at the abruptness of the action, some coming fully to their feet and crying out. Lashing out with a palm, Asimov set the lantern spinning, ducking under its wild arc himself, and it cut a swathe around the room, carving through the seats, the platforms, and even some of the participants in the hall, causing the projections to erupt into fountains of luminescent fireflies that emitted a shrill sound as the matrix holding them together disbanded.

As the beam lanced in his direction, a threshold warning popped up on the digital interface integrated into one of his retinal implants, and he threw his arms up defensively, heart rate blasting like a trapped rabbit. Unlike the projections, and some of the other crewmen who were sharing the seminar with him around the room, all he felt at its passing was a brief warmth, and a little instability as his chair was partially de-gaussed. Eventually, after a couple of slowing turns, the light flickered in its fixture before dimming and going out with the whine of a capacitor burning out. Around the room, the remaining huddle of vaguely traumatized students (and one Bolian who had obviously seen this bit before, and was sitting with his feet up on the desk grinning smugly), looked in askance at one another until the professor reappeared from behind the desk.

“As you can see, holograms are sensitive, delicate, and easily dispelled. Even that display was only a simulation of a circumstance, because, obviously, I don’t have a holographic death ray: I leave that business to the Romulans. Somewhere out there,” he gestures vaguely around the room, at the ceiling, as if indicating a higher power, holding his sandwich in the pointing hand, “is a store of data reference points for everything that just happened. Everything from my little blue friend to your imaginary classmates to the absolutely fantastic dilithium disruptor which blinked them out of existence are sitting safely in a remote repository, unaffected by what just happened.”

With a meaningful solemnity, Asimov lapses into a patient silence as the students start climbing back into their seats. Around them, the room begins to repair itself, undoing the damage from the previous display, and one of the back doors opens to admit all of the dispelled students back into the auditorium accompanied by a half-meter tall blue hedgehog. When everything resumes its previous state of order, albeit now somewhat tense and anxious on behalf of the holographic actors, Asimov picks up a piece of chalk and starts to draw diagrams on the haphazardly cleared chalkboard.

“The difference between a hologram and Holographic Life is that, unlike me, a self-aware matrix has a sense of identity beyond its programming, a sense of personal identity that extends into the materiality of its projection, and a grounding in the material, somewhat akin to a reader being invested in a story. The Moriarty projection was an excellent example of this, being a holodeck novel character with true personal agency, who concocted means of controlling its own matrix, and used those means to try and find roots in the material. The Voyager crew member known as The Doctor managed to realize that dream with help from an alien technology identified in the Delta Quadrant that allowed him to be sustained by a portable emitter worn on the projected matrix. Both of these examples, and others reported from the Voyager expedition, show a marked change in the nature of the original matrix such that it seeks to invest permanence of self beyond the action and reaction of its coding, and to leave as much of an impact on the material world as that world leaves on it.” Asimov pauses in his speaking to let the class take in his diagram, showing a disembodied essence labeled SOUL floating ambiently to a stick figure simulation of the Vitruvian Man, itself labeled BODY. Turning back to the class, he sits on a stool set under the blackboard, and leans his head back against it.

“I, personally, may SEEM real. But I am just playing a part. My actions were written, and are pre-determined. There are holodeck safeties that keep me from blasting my living audience into atoms, enforcing the rules I espoused for robotics in life. I don’t ‘know’ I was alive, or a real person, I have a script being read into a projection of a puppet, explaining to you that I am not, in essence, an I, personal identifiers aside.” He sets the sandwich on his knee and takes off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose, and begins to wipe them on a corner of his jacket, idly. “It can be a lot to take in, I expect.”

After a moment, he puts his glasses back on, picking the sandwich back up to look at it with something akin to reverence. “Which is where we get to the next intersection in the projective sciences: replication. Some of you with keen eyes may have noticed that this lovely prop caught a full blast from my dilithum ray, and didn’t even get toasted. That, you see, is because when it comes to smoke and mirrors, the hand can in fact be quicker than the eye. The holodeck didn’t make this sandwich, and neither did the replicator: the replicator made the parts, and I, as an avatar of the holodeck, made the sandwich. And, seeing as the matter used to make it is, uh, borrowed from the recyclers on the ship, technically it’s made of people, a veritable Snack of Theseus.” He brings it to his face, and this time Da’an is less enthralled by the gesture, not quite as hungry as before, so doesn’t quite feel as satisfied when the professor takes a bite. Muffled by his mouthful: “Delicious. Nutritious! No accounting for taste, because I don’t actually do that.”

Holding the bitten sandwich aloft for the room to see, he posits rhetorically, “Now, what do you suppose would happen if you could replicate a body sufficiently complex to completely house a holomatrix? Something akin to a permanent vessel for an artificial intelligence, not quite a robot, not quite a creature, not quite an android, but a convergent evolution of the principles that gave us such things? What abomination of science could involve entangling matter emitters with holomatrices in a way that lets a photonic person step out of their level of reality and into our own? And, what for that matter, happens if they can go back, discarding their material husks to dissolve or decay or what have you when they’re done with it without sacrificing their essential selves, stored back in their technological Phylacteries? Where do they fall on the spectrum next to those of us in the material who have been trying, for centuries, to travel ourselves in the other direction, backing our spirits up into technology to keep them from fading with the flesh?”

Asimov swallows and stands back up to walk toward the front of the stage, and addresses the room. Already, Da’an realizes he can’t quite remember who of his colleagues in the hall were projections and who are actually present, save the crew he actually recognizes from the brief period he’s shared service with them. The professor speaks.

“Since this is an introductory class, and part of an extensive lesson plan on artificial intelligence, life, robotics, holography, cybernetics, transporter technologies, ethics, accidents, and implications, I expect that a lot of you will probably be back to see another of my lectures, or those of my contemporaries on the other subjects. Back in the teacher’s lounge I have everyone from Daystrom to Uth’aln, ready to tell you about the good, bad, and ugly of what you might encounter in the field. It’s a wild universe out there, after all. But if there’s one thing that I want you to take away from this lesson as you go back out into the cold, hard world of the non-photonic, it’s this: don’t believe everything you see, but don’t trust that it won’t hurt you just because it’s not ‘real’. There’s already been one incident of this course where someone—” he stares pointedly at the Bolian, who just grins— “dialed back the safeties enough to give some students first degree burns. Murphy’s Law applies. But secondly, as representatives of the Gods I’m not allowed to overthrow from in here, I want you to think about what it means to be Alive the way you are, and to respect and appreciate what you have, and to treat that life with courtesy any time you take it, or another’s, into your hands. You are fragile, and so are those you might encounter, be they life like you know it, or something bold and new.” To accent the professor’s point, the little blue hedgehog does a lap of the stage, spinning up into a ball as it builds speed, before skidding to a halt and saluting the room.

“Class dismissed, see you all on Monday.”

Next...

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apenitentialprayer · 2 years

Photo

detail of Christ Mocked, thirteenth century panel painting by Cimabue.

I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation. Nor do most people - all the people who believe in advertisements, and think in catchwords and spread rumors. The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.

- C.S. Lewis, “Equality”

#C.S. Lewis #democracy #government #leadership #authority #tyranny #Original Sin #Enlightenment #Jesus Christ #mob violence #slavery

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buzzdixonwriter · 2 years

Text

Bill Danch’s Finest Hour And Five Minutes

One of the first people I met when I started working for Filmation Studios in 1978 was an irascible old reprobate named Bill Danch.

And I say that with the greatest affection possible.

Bill wrote for radio in the 1940s, most notably on the old Fibber McGee And Molly show. The way they wrote weekly radio sit-coms back in the day was to come up with a central theme or plot for an episode, then assign different writers different characters the star/s would interact with (the head writer / story editor / producer would then do the final pass over the script to smooth out all the bumps).

Bill handled the character Tini, a perpetually precocious 6-year old neighbor who periodically dropped in to contribute to the silliness.

I forget how he got involved in writing for radio, but I seem to recall he also wrote a few big-little books in the 1930s for paltry fees.

Before that he worked a number of hard scrabble jobs, including stripping the paint off Pullman cars with buckets of turpentine during the Depression. Corporations then and now showed the same concern over the health and safety of their employees and Danch’s crew needed to work without gloves.

The constant exposure to turpentine on his bare skin destroyed the oil glands in his hands and forearms, so for the rest of his life he needed to constantly massage moisturizers into his gnarly, claw-like hands.

He was born in Hammond, IN in 1910 and died in Ojai, CA in 2004. He may have acquired a wife or two along the way (I seem to recall mention of a son but may be misremembering) but when I met him he was unmarried and living alone.

He would have been 68 when I met him at Filmation Studios, but he looked a lot older, bent and balding but full of piss and vinegar. He told me he began writing for animation during the 1940s, contributing stories and gags to Tex Avery cartoons until Tex remade one of his cartoons without paying him.

His first noted animation writing was for the legendary UPA studios but he also wrote episodes on a number of early TV shows, of which The Real McCoys probably marks his high water mark in live action.

Bill seemed to bounce around from gig to gig, not really getting a solid footing under himself until the 1960s when he became a staff writer on The Jim Backus Show and a couple of animated series.

He washed up -- er, landed at Filmation in 1970 when signed on to write for Archie And His New Pals. He stayed at the studio through to 1982, writing primarily for Fat Albert and the various Archie shows.

He ran a side hustle self-publishing a book on how to win mail-in contests and store drawings.*

I lost track of him around 1980 when I left Filmation and wound up at Ruby-Spears.

Believe me, two years was a lifetime’s worth of exposure to him (and again, I write that with affection).

A couple of Bill Danch stories pop to mind:

Bill was drafted during WWII and assigned to the glider corps. As he and his squad lined up for a practice flight, he noticed the glider pilot wore a parachute.

“Why do you get a parachute and we don’t?” he asked.

“They need me,” the pilot said.

Bill immediately called in as many favors as he could and before his unti shipped out for D-Day managed to get reassigned to the Army’s public affairs office.

In Hollywood.

A lot of Hollywood types pulled strings to get assigned in and around Los Angeles during the war. Bill and the rest of the office -- all radio and screenwriters in civilian life -- pounded out Army press releases during the day and scripts for studios at night.

They were located near Hollywood and Vine, operating out of a rented house in the neighborhood bordering Hollywood Boulevard.

Their neighbor was an angry lady -- what we’d call a Karen today -- who resented them because her son was actually serving overseas.

When the lease ran out on the house, the Army relocated them to the Westwood / UCLA area, about 8 miles west of Hollywood and Vine.

As they were loading their office equipment on a truck for their move, their bitter neighbor came over to smirk.

“I see they finally caught up with you goldbricks,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bill answered. “They’re moving us closer to the Pacific front: Westwood.”

Bill could be a righteous bastard when he put his mind to it.

The main story I want to write about is Bill’s 1954 magnum opus: Monster From The Ocean Floor.

Bill had written a spec script called It Stalked The Ocean Floor and showed it to a young assistant agent he knew, Roger Corman.

Monster… was Roger Corman’s second feature film, his first solo effort as a producer.

According to Bill, his original script was more expansive than the final film, and that may be true. The non-monster parts don’t seem badly done for the era, but aren’t the epitome of the motion picture art.

The most interesting thing about it is that the heroine, instead of being army candy and / or a helpless victim, takes the lead in trying to catch the monster. She’s rescued in the end by the hero ramming his mini-sub into the monster’s cyclopedian eye, but that’s because she donned scuba gear to go confront the beast in its own lair.

Corman financed the film with money off his first feature, Highway Dragnet, and getting Bill and director / co-star Wyatt Ordung to accept deferred payments.

Exactly how much Corman spent on the film varies with who’s telling the story, but the low ball figure of $12,000 certainly seems plausible / bordering generous when one actually sees the movie.

It clocked in at 65-minutes, making it perfect fodder for a drive-in double-bill, literally a B-movie.

According to Bill, it played for years on the drive-in circuits, often being teamed up with older A-movies such as Ben-Hur.

The way distributors broke down revenues from double-bills was to split the revenue evenly between the two films.

It’s safe to assume very, very few people came to the Ben-Hur / Monster From The Ocean Floor double-bill to see Bill’s movie, but nonetheless Corman got half the take.

However…

Hollywood distributors -- being even more ruthless and less ethical than Medellin cartel drug lords -- typically expected an under the table kickback from the B-movie producers if the B-movie producers wanted their next film to get distribution.

Bill and Wyatt Ordung waited and waited and waited for their deferred payments but never received them (Ordung was in even deeper than Bill; he invested his life insurance in the film).

They eventually sued Corman in the late 1950s / early 1960s, demanding to see his accounting books to determine how much they were owed.

Corman said sure and in the discovery phase of the trial told them to go to the local Bekins warehouse.

There Bill and Ordung found three china barrels filled with loose papers, all the paperwork associated with every film Corman made in the 1950s.

Corman mixed the papers up and divided them among the three barrels, meaning Bill and Ordung would need to pay for very expensive legal and accounting time to make heads and tails of it.

Realizing they’d never make enough to recoup what they’d spend, Bill and Ordung dropped the suit.

. . .

I stated Monster From The Ocean Floor was Bill’s magnum opus, but he did work on another produced live action screenplay.

I’m not sure what Bill contributed to the Mary Tyler Moore / George Peppard movie What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? but having seen that movie, I can attest Monster From The Ocean Floor is the more respectable credit.

* His system actually worked! Not every time, of course, but often enough to dramatically improve one’s chances. He researched how mail in contests selected winners and gave viable tips on how to make one’s envelope more likely to be picked. And his hack for winning random drawings was simple: Crumple up then unfold your entry slip and the bumps and crinkles will migrate to the middle of the entries, greatly increasing one’s chances of being drawn when somebody reached in to grab one at random.

#sci-fi movies #Bill Danch #Filmation #Roger Corman #Monster From The Ocean Floor

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