Cooking Advenshars? Oh boy!!

If you want to follow me, please let me know you're not a robot so I don't block you by accident.

[xaveria]

noticed my coworker was on tumblr so i told them “i like your shoelaces” and they said “never say that out loud to me”

[xaveria]

this is the correct response btw

[silvershoelaces]

On some level I feel obligated to take this post personally.

[cryptotheism]

Man. The flagrant lack of critical reading skills and basic reading comprehension just makes me sad. There's a lot of joy in reading the English language that these people are missing out on. There's a clear INTEREST in reading and I feel like if we could just get people off this anti-intellectual streak everyone would be having much more fun reading Metamorphosis AND Twilight.

[cryptotheism]

I genuinely hate this attitude that getting better reading comprehension skills will somehow keep you from enjoying your pulp romance or comic books or fanfiction. All a literature education does is give you more tools to analyze writing. It will only increase the joy of reading.

[boosify]

Happy birthday Zhongli!

[adhesion]

[sacred-portal]

[applesauce42069-deactivated2024]

I saw a tiktok about someone decorating for a Jewish wedding. All the comments were about money (standard dog whistle) including how much it cost and how rich they must be. and I wanted to test a theory. I went to another video where they decorated for a goyishe wedding and there was not a single comment about the cost. It was just as extravagant if not more.

I learn every single day from social media, specifically tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, how people will be as antisemitic as possible as soon as they can. From subtle comments about money to straight up slurs and holocaust jokes. It is everywhere. In every comment section. It is exhausting. I know I shouldn’t look but I do anyways knowing it will hurt. It’s awful.

[sonfliny]

🪷

[unclefather]

he took a bath 3 times

[ampervadasz]

[iiping]

a rare occasion 🥹🗝✨

[starcurtain]

One of my favorite things about the game's writing of Alhaitham and Kaveh:

The basic game text goes out of its way to convince us that the house is Alhaitham's--it is literally called "Alhaitham's Home" even during Kaveh's hangout.

But in-universe, we never see Alhaitham in his house unless Kaveh is there.

Throughout Sumeru's archon quests, we run into Alhaitham practically everywhere: in Port Ormos, in Aaru Village, in the Akademiya, at the Grand Bazaar. But never, despite the fact that the story wants to sell him as a homebody, in his own home. In fact, the only references we have to Alhaitham's house at all throughout the entire lead up of the archon quests are mentions of Kaveh.

Alhaitham doesn't suggest going there, doesn't ever go home himself (at least that we're explicitly told about) until the end of the archon quests, and has no cutscenes in his own house until Kaveh returns from the desert.

Then, all the sudden, Alhaitham literally can't wait to go home and walks off in the middle of a conversation.

From that point on, every time we're permitted to enter Alhaitham's house, in story quests, the hangout, and the event, it's either when he and Kaveh are together or with Kaveh alone.

Even during Alhaitham's birthday skit of all things, they went out of their way to tell us that Alhaitham's home, so of course Kaveh is there:

The map tag tells us the building is Alhaitham's Home, but the story reinforces a different idea:

It's Alhaitham's home when Kaveh is in it.

[mollyjames]

The point shouldn't be to identify for sure 100% what is ai art and what isn't. I keep seeing posts advising one to look out for wonky perspective (as if perspective doesn't routinely trip up even the most experienced artists) or to pay attention to fudged detailing (as if impressionism wasn't one of the most influential artistic movements in history), and I think that's coming from a good place but frankly it's a losing battle. Remember when everyone was on about counting the fingers or counting the teeth, and a week later they had that shit ironed out completely? All you're really doing is giving these people more data points to work with to refine their algorithm. It's just going to be constantly shifting goalposts, and at a certain point real artists are going to get exhausted trying to make their art look as not algorithmically generated as possible. It'll be impossible to keep up.

So what should we do? Honestly, I think old practices are still best practices. Find real artists and follow them. Don't repost art, and dont spread reposted art. If something doesn't have a source, skip it. Support artists you like, either by sharing their work directly or donating. And if someone's work looks suspicious? Maybe give them a second look. See some of their other art before jumping to conclusions.

And yes, that means sometimes, you're gonna be tricked. Some people are going to fly under the radar and pass off ai art as their own. And that sucks, and they're liars, but you can't let the obsession with bad actors police real artists out of their communities, or discourage new artists from entering the scene.

[blemgoid]

love david and goliath being like one of the main bible stories for kids. like yeah you might be small but with god on your side you can kill someone with a rock

[shenzi-hemlock]

Oh so when golden boy David does it, he’s heroic and a man after God’s own heart, but when I, CAIN-

[silvershoelaces]

Maybe I'll become active here again. But I think for a while, I'm not going to tag any reblogs because tagging takes more spoons than reblogging and the reason I stopped using Tumblr to begin with was that it was a higher amount of effort than the other platforms I used.

I'll return to tagging things eventually but in the meantime, any insight into tools to make it easier would be appreciated. Is there a decent third party app or extension that can handle it?

[silvershoelaces]

Save the date for December 24th.

[silvershoelaces]

Sometimes, coming out happens just like this.

[theanimeview]

Theory: Now Entering the Demon King, Iruma!

By: Peggy Sue Wood | @pswediting​

If you’ve ever studied Japanese you know that some things get dropped based on the context. For example, in English we pretty much always say, “my name is ___” or “I am ___.” However, in Japanese you can basically just respond “___desu” (desu acting like a verb “.”) and be fine. Outside of a context, you would probably state the “I am” part as “watashi wa” or “boku no namae wa” or some variation (BTW, I’m just writing out the phonetics of the sound for that rather than the romaji or hiragana/kanji). 

It’s just the way the language is, and it makes sense because shorthand is–linguistically speaking–normal. It just changes depending on the language, context, and area.  The reason I note this is that I’ve been thinking a lot about translations lately after catching up on Mairimashita! Iruma-kun. 

In the middle of reading, I zoned out and found myself staring at the Japanese title for a few minutes when it hit me that there is absolutely no mention of high school in said title (clarification: the Japanese title, not the English one). This matters because the official English title for the series is Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun.

Well, she says it matters, but why does it matter? You may ask. Well, in Japanese, the title is Mairimashita! Iruma-kun, and specifically the characters are written “魔入りました! 入間くん”

If we look at the kanji/hiragana be translated, a more literal translation would be something like, “The demon entered! Iruma-kun” or “Entered the demon! Iruma-kun!” because 魔 is the character for “demon” while 入 is the character for enter. And, more specifically, mairu is the formal word for entering (to go to/to come). (Also, when standing alone, the two characters together mean “magic” or “enchant” – not necessarily important to this discussion, just thought I’d add the note here.)

Now, Iruma is not a demon despite currently living in Hell and attending a demon high school. So, what demon is entering? 

At first I thought it was his adoptive grandfather, Lord Sullivan. However, Sullivan is a supporting character not seen as regularly with Iruma as characters like Alice or Clara. Which brought me to my current theory that Iruma is the demon referred to in the title. 

But, again. He’s currently human, right? How can he be the demon referred to in the title?

I’ve seen some say that the translation should be similar to “the demon [king] is entering” and thereby hints to Iruma becoming the next Demon King but that creates the same issue for me as the high school problem. The title doesn’t say Demon King, it just says demon. 

Now, I can agree that Iruma has already been set up to become the next Demon King via the prophecy. And because I’m lazy I’ll just share the wiki info here to explain how that is: 

The prophecy is as follows: 

“He shall make one and all of his servants. He shall form blood pacts and heal all demonkind. He shall descend from a foreign realm, And wear the golden ring of Solomon on his right hand.”

And in relation to said prophecy: 

But that info isn’t enough for me to right Iruma off as the titled demon. 

Instead, I think the title is hinting at Iruma turning into a demon and thereby he is “entering” demonhood. By extension, this leads to his rise to as a Demon King. 

One of the first thing tipping me off to this is that the opening of the story paints humans as “instatable creature[s] with greedy hands,” their “desire is no different from a bottomless pit.” It’s something fitting to a demon, particularly matching with the idea of “returning to origin” discussed in the work. The continued opening points to Iruma’s parents as being such humans, while Iruma is just the kind-hearted sufferer of their misdeeds. He is a fairly virtuous character overall as he always lends a helping hand, is gentle and kind, and so on. Even during his “evil” cycle, he’s not particularly bad–though he does break rules to get things done. The statement, therefore, is not pointing specifically to Iruma yet but does hint at the potential and sinful qualities inherited in human nature. (And if you’ve ever studied religion, you’d probably be thinking of the Christian doctrine of “Original Sin” right about now.)

Then next hint to me is that Iruma has been undergoing triggered physical changes. For example, in chapter one Sullivan covers him in a demon perfume but after that he never needs it again. When he paints his nails black, they remain so indefinitely to this day–no reapplication and no removal. 

And, though it is through the help of Arikured, Iruma is now semi-regularly experiencing an evil-cycle. I think that the more this cycle continues, the more bonded Iruma and Arikured become. This appears to be supported as the higher in rank Iruma gets, the more he and Arikured become inseparable. For example, when Iruma reaches Rank Hé (5), Arikured tells Iruma they won’t survive without one another.

Derkila, the previous Demon King, may have also been a human at one time. Out of speculation, if the Ring of Gluttony is a sign of the Demon King and if it is synonymous with Solumn’s ring from The Testament of Solomon (a pseudepigraphical work, purportedly written by King Solomon that describes enslaved demons), than I don’t think its a jump in logic to assume that Derkila may have, at one point, been a fiction representation of Solomon having turned into a demon. And I do firmly believe that the ring at one time belonged to Derkila, since Alikred is Derkila’s name backwards and fits the literary counterpart of Dracula and his half-human son Alicard. Although, with that said–maybe Iruma will only become a half-demon. Who knows? 

In relation to the ring, I think “Ring of Gluttony” may have another skill we don’t know about yet. The current skills we know about are:

Devil Mode - This is the lowest power output it has, able to make a small fire and allows Iruma to use basic low-level castings.

Demon Mode - Has a stronger output than Devil Mode

Ifrit Mode - The strongest mode available without special requirements able to make a large fire that is several times larger than Devil Mode’s fire

Pandora - The Final and most powerful mode of the ring that uses all the magic available in the ring leaving the host vulnerable to all attacks after. For it to be activated, it requires the host to say Pandora. (Pandoroola in the anime)

It works by consuming another demon’s magic and giving it to the wearer. We assume that the ring stores the power, but as it is a ring of “gluttony” (habitual greed or excess in eating), I don’t think it stores it. I think it acts like a second mouth for the wearer–one that consumes magic and helps focus it. One of the reasons I think this is that when the ring is “hungry” Iruma acts differently too.  

If Iruma is becoming a demon, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to think that Sullivan is the mastermind or working in tandem with someone else to do so. We don’t, after all, get to see the specifics of the contract that Iruma or his parents sign with Sullivan, so who really knows? 

Even if I’m entirely wrong in this, that’s my theory and I’m sticking with it until proven otherwise!

And if I’m wrong, we can–at the very least–see that the creator is leading us to see Iruma as the next Demon King. I mean, starting with the Royal One arc, we see Iruma taking the first throne (Chapter 60 & 61): 

[a king]. 

We also see a hint of the future in Chapter 198, as Iruma wishes to have a real drinking party with all his classmates in the future:

And, as we enter this new arc, we get the real rise of a king. Starting with Opera inviting Iruma to become his new master when Sullivan eventually dies (perhaps fortelling that Sullivan will die as Iruma consumes all of his power) (Chapter 199):

I mean, look at that evil smirk from Opera. How is this not part of a scheme?

As a final note for Iruma becoming a demon that I forgot to mention above, Iruma eats a LOT. Like, way more than humanly possible. In classical literature, eating food in Hell traps you there and Iruma eats an awfully large amount on a daily basis. In Chapter 203, we see how Iruma’s massive consumption can relate back to several points in the work. The first is the opening lines of the series, in which human’s are bottomless pits of greed and desire. The second is recurring themes of gluttony, without being harmful, scene basically every time he eats. And, finally, is the image of an adult Iruma eating demon food with a mountain of plates behind him as the demon council consider his future prospects as a Demon King Candidate:

If Iruma is going to become the Demon King, it will certainly be exciting. 

Going back to translations for a moment, I don’t mean to make this post seem like there has been a translation error. Last year, I attended the online panel, “Adventures in Translation with Industry Expert” hosted by Funimation Con (notes here). In the panel, it was made clear that translating is hard work because of the differences in linguistics, idiosyncrasies, culture and so on. The translations aren’t inaccurate, per say. They are simply the best that can be made based on the information the translators have and the context provided by either author or publisher. 

I guess as a final note: If the period of the story never leaves high school; if Iruma becomes the Demon King upon graduation as the story seems to be setting up in the latest chapters; than it is not inaccurate to use “Demon High School” in the title now is it?

[silvershoelaces]

I think the title holds a little more meaning than that.  Mairimashita is typically written 参りました rather than 魔入りました, and with that kanji, as you mentioned, it can mean “to enter”.  But it also has other meanings, which I think are a little more euphemistic? because it can also mean "to be defeated" or "to be madly in love".  In a recent episode, Asmodeus said 「参りました、入間くん！」 verbatim; I believe Crunchyroll’s translation of that line was, “You slay me, Iruma-kun!”

I also noticed that the character 「 魔 」 is also thrown into a whole lot of things for the sake of gratuitous puns.  The most obvious of which, of course, is 魔茶 (matcha, which is usually spelled 抹茶; translated by Crunchyroll as “hell gray tea”).  And even the protagonist’s name, 入間, looks very close to the word for human, 人間.

So I think the intention behind the title in particular was to be a pun.  Not only “a human has entered the demon world” (or entered into demonhood, as it were), but also “I’m smitten with Iruma-kun!”