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'oak trees in a graveyard,' albumen print from wet collodion negative, 1852-57.

collinsportmaine

Vampires by Mel Odom

animalids

Starburst anemone (Anthopleura sola)

Photo by Marlin Harms

Yunnan, 150 BCE

You want me to touch your butt and buy you pizza? Sure, why not. One last time, for the road.

hmcscolumbia

Archival work is so intimate. Here is the photograph of an 18 year old boy who would die aboard a Canadian ship in World War Two. Here is a series of telegrams between his family, sharing condolences and following his remains as they travel by train to Vancouver. Here are the patches cut from his uniform. Here is proof that he was born and he lived and he died, all lying here in this filing box. Yes, I’ll scan the photograph of you in your uniform. Yes, I’ll preserve it digitally forever so that you might be found again and again, over and over, until we all join you in the ground.

mosertone

Etruscan Votive Statuette, 300–200 B.C. - Unknown artist, Terracotta, 21.6 × 13.2 × 7.5 cm This statuette represents a male torso with an incision from the breast bone to the abdomen that exposes the internal organs. The dedicator perhaps suffered from stomach or intestinal problems. The model is a schematic version of the human anatomy rather than an exact replica, but the relative placement, size, and shape of organs is generally correct. Such medical knowledge of internal anatomy may have been gained from the observation of butchered animals or mortally wounded warriors on the battlefield.

elvensilk

march 21 2025, k'emk'emeláy

mythratica

if you're going to make a ttrpg that emulates genre tropes- particularly if it advertises itself as 'creating [genre] stories'- it behooves you to have at least a passing familiarity with the most important entries in the genre

mythratica

as in: if you make a magical girl ttrpg and you dont have the most influential work in the genre listed in your inspirations im not going to take your work very seriously

mythratica

thats just the thing: this is about almost every single english language magical girl game i have ever encountered. this is about princess: the hopeful, this is about girl by moonlight, this is about starlight burnout, etc etc etc. just look at these inspiration lists:

there are seven listed inspirations here. of them, two are magical girl shows, in a game purporting to replicate the dynamics of the genre.

nine listed inspirations; two magical girl shows, one magical girl 'deconstruction' fic.

nine inspirations, three magical girl shows. noticing a pattern with which two shows get featured every time?

glitter hearts is the first to finally list a season of precure as an inspiration, so congratulations are i suppose in order. and no madoka, shockingly! anyway, you see the pattern- its very hard to take these games' claims of genre emulation very seriously when the level of engagement with the genre is so shallow. its kind of impossible not to link this with a general contempt amongst a lot of western audiences for magical girls. there's a sort of arrogance at play here, an assumption that there's really nothing to investigate- what's to understand? they're just stupid girl shows (except, of course, madoka magica, which is a Real show). you can do it much better than they can. and of course, you can just fall back on your own favourite (often western) media to fill any gaps. everyone wants what magical girls have, no one wants to watch magical girls!

marchenshoujo

That's exactly the problem.

A lot of people are wistfully nostalgic about Sailor Moon but allergic to touching any other mahou shoujo... especially works actually geared at young girls.

I totally get disliking PreCure, I don't like it either! Only the very first Futari wa Pretty Cure looks appealing to me. But, it's really not the only magical girl anime out there. You loved 90's Sailor Moon? The same cast went on to make the only shoujo demographic adaptation of Cutey Honey, Cutey Honey Flash! It's even in the same art style as Supers and Stars. (The original Cutey Honey of the 70's, while concieved as a girl's show to sell clothes-changing dolls, wound up only securing a late night time slot and was reworked into more of an ecchi show for older male viewers, although some young girls still enjoyed the stories! Go Nagai would later go on to make another mahou shoujo series, Majokko Tickle, for a shoujo demographic.)

You like idol anime and magical girls? Creamy Mami! Magical idol anime are their own genre too.

You mostly liked the filler expanding on the characters in the 90's? You liked the slice of life scenes best of all? You like bittersweet anime with elements that make you cry your heart out? Full Moon o Sagashite, about a 12 year old with terminal cancer who gets to be older with the help of the reapers tasked with claiming her soul in one year, which she learns in the very first episode... the manga a little more than the anime, as it goes more into depth into their lives and the soul reapers' past lives, but the anime expands on her idol career and has a different ending from the original author, so it feels true to the characters and satisfying.

You want to see a magical girl anime that's inspired by Sailor Moon, but Takeuchi Naoko also greatly enjoyed it and made fanart of it? Wedding Peach!

You want those early cute witch magical girls without any big enermies to face? Just dealing with everyday things? Marvelous Melmo (an orphaned girl gets the ability to change her age with the help of red and blue candies from Heaven given to her by her dead mother's spirit, but she also later learns she can shrink back into an undifferentiated zygote and turn into whatever creature she was thinking of beforehand! It's sex education for girls in the 70's, but with a lot of comedy and heart too), Sally the Witch (the original! .... I did not see this one, but it's inspired by the 60's show Bewitched!), Minky Momo (although, Minky Momo can get heavy sometimes, it's usually fun, about a princess from the land of dreams trying to bring her planet back in orbit because it's drifting away due to humans losing faith in their dreams... it's also the one where Shudo Takeshi, head writer of the Pokemon anime, famously gave a toy company that wanted to pull the plug on the successful anime that just wasn't selling toys, by having the first incarnation of Momo KILLED BY A TRUCK FULL OF TOYS... she revives in the same episode, but it sure was a loud and clear message... second Momo stars in her own season and is reborn as the biological daughter of the earth couple the first Momo brainwashed Chibiusa-style into believing they were her family.)

You like cute and colourful characters and care a lot about the environment and endangered animals? Tokyo Mew Mew! I didn't watch this one yet, but I really do wanna see the reboot and it was super popular back in the day. ^^ All the designs look so cute.

If you want more modern magical girl anime that are on the cute and chill side, but actually geared at girls and it's not just PreCure, Cocotama is full of magic and adventure, while being very cute... I caught some fun episodes with witches and dragons and quests, but also some Hamtaro-esque episodes where it's just the cute mascot characters navigating a much bigger world and interacting with each other, it's fun!

The sadly short Mewkledreamy (just two seasons, Mewkledreamy and Mewkledreamy Mix) from Sanrio is so sweet it'll give you cavities. A sleepy, kinda lazy, but good-hearted girl receives a sentient plush kitty from the land of dreams and must save people's dreams (so, in a way, kind of like Minky Momo!), while an equally adorable bunch of sentient plush kitties try to corrupt people's dreams and make them act more selfishly by exploiting their weaknesses (so, also kind of like Onegai My Melody--which is what Kuromi was created for!) The art is SO cute and this show seems popular with both male and female viewers, it has something for everyone! There is a magical boy too, later on. ;3;

prokopetz

The situation is so dire, I've bumped into multiple unconnected indie tabletop RPGs which purport to genre-blend magical girls with mecha whose authors had genuinely never heard of Magic Knight Rayearth.

2-beadyeyes-deactivated20251104

*sees your dead body * eewww lol *remembers we are mutuals* well idk :-) its cute i guess

chirasul

applying papier mache to the homie who fell asleep on the floor during the party and then using it as a mold to make a 1-to-1 perfect silicone sculpture of him which we place on the floor and gently interlace with him so it looks like he is sleeping restfully with the yin yang of his own somnolent form lol

snoopyoftheday

snoopy of the day

snoopyoftheday

this is my favorite 'snoopy of the day' i've ever posted

parkchanwoohoo

Once you start noticing how the incapacity to handle discomfort affects how people live their lives it's actually pretty shocking how it ruins pretty much every conceivable aspect of existence. Interpersonal relationships, romantic and platonic. Career and education opportunities. Your politics Your willingness to go anywhere. The kind of food you eat. The kind of art you expose yourself to and your ability to read it. It's never just one thing, it touches everything, and once you notice it it's like suddenly being able to see germs or something. Just this horrific catastrophe people look at you askance for screaming about. As I grow older and see what became of my friends and peers who could not learn to handle discomfort, the more I'm like. This is a genuine societal issue

parkchanwoohoo

When you can't handle discomfort, eventually discomfort itself starts to feel like you're under attack. Your body enters flight or fight mode, and your amygdala starts screaming at you that you are In Danger even when the "danger" in question is like, making an unpleasant phone call or like, you're reading a book about something gross.

Your ability to make frank assessments about your situation becomes compromised, because, well, when you're under attack who's going to stay still and go "Let me think this through?" Of course you're going to panic. The phone call isn't just unpleasant, it's potentially life-ruining. Someone is going to think you're dumb and that's going to be TRUE and then I guess you die or something except dying would be better. The book isn't just gross, it's actively coming for you, tainting your mind with the memory of its contents, it has RUINED you.

Obviously, you want to try avoiding danger whenever possible. So you create a world in which you avoid all dangerous things. Traveling? Well that's scary, what if you get robbed or lost? Better to avoid it (plus there are so many things to read, rules to remember, forms to fill out... it's just too much, it makes you uncomfortable, which means YOU'RE IN DANGER, what if you FORGET SOMETHING CRITICAL? Better to avoid). A new job? Well what if it's worse than your current one? You at least know the rules here. The unknown is so much more uncomfortable, which is DANGEROUS, so better to stay where you are. A dark-skinned foreigner? Do they even speak English? You don't know how you'd communicate. They don't know the laws here, surely? Plus what if other people think you're racist? It's so uncomfortable which means THEY ARE A DANGER. Best to avoid at all costs, keeping your bag clutched tightly to your chest. Vaccines? You don't really know what's in them. The explanations have a lot of words you don't understand. That makes you feel suspicious and dumb, which is DANGEROUS. You said something that was kind of rude? UNCOMFORTABLE. THIS PERSON IS ATTACKING YOU. FIGHT OR FLIGHT. Someone says you were incorrect about something? DANGER. Someone says you reacted impulsively and seem to have misconstrued someone's words as a personal attack? YET ANOTHER ATTACK.

Eventually you lose yourself and become this. I don't even know. This totally reactive thing, unable to think analytically about anything (which is uncomfortable and a danger), unable to assess harms, unable to encounter anything new without having a meltdown. And none of it is a real escape because, well, you've created a life defined entirely by aversion to discomfort, which is the most uncomfortable life you can possibly imagine. Of course such people end up falling into fascist ideas about Why Your Life Sucks. When you build a life around trying to maintain as comfortable an equilibrium as possible, you cauterize the parts of you capable of growth, expansion, creativity, learning; at the same time, the knowledge of your own stuntedness is haunting so best not to think about that either. The world becomes this horrifying mirror maze where the only way to survive without offing yourself is by projecting your flaws onto others, bitterly externalizing your self-hatred (who could live like this and NOT hate themselves) just to avoid turning it inward. You end up living like a hollowed-out sea urchin

A lot of people I've met seem to think that mental healthiness is characterized by a lack of discomfort whatsoever, and are therefore justified in building a life where all discomforts can be avoided. On the one hand, I completely understand the impulse. Lord knows I have had colossally shitty times and wished I could just retreat into bed and fall asleep for as long as needed for everything to blow over. But like. You also have to understand that that's a fantasy, not a solution. When you have grown up living a crap life with nothing but discomfort, the ability to avoid it feels like exercising autonomy. But you really do have to be careful about making this your life ethos. I know so many people who have lapsed into total learned helplessness, so consumed by discomfort (mentally catastrophized into dangers) re: looking dumb, looking rude, looking X, looking Y that they just. Idk. Don't do anything except be bitter. You don't have to be that way. The solution isn't "tough it out" because that's also just a manifestation of your inability to handle discomfort. I also hesitate to say the solution is to focus on how much better your life will be when you do X and Y, because the entire point of the inability to handle discomfort is that it constantly manifests in precluding the possibility of even wanting X and Y in the first place since to want it and not be able to do it IS in itself another source of discomfort.

Idk what the solution is, exactly. I just think it's important to understand that sometimes things can feel awful and still not necessarily harm you

redstonedust

if vampires existed in real life i think there would be shady companies advertising "organic blood" sourced from "willing donors" who are coincidentally all poor people being paid like $5 per blood donation. and like haughty vegan vampires who only drink a synthetic blood drink thats brewed in a way thats actively worse for the enviroment. and radical traditionalist vampires who go on tiktok and claim that true alpha chads have to drain and kill people and anyone who leaves their victims alive is a liberal cuck. enter the world of hypothetical insufferable vampire politics with me.