After working on it off-and-on for upwards of 6 years, this little project has finally drawn to a close.
I started compiling backgrounds from Xiaolin Showdown back in early 2016. At first, it was just a one-off post featuring a few scenes I thought were pretty; it then proceeded to become a (somewhat) serious attempt to document the show’s unique and enduringly delightful art style. I don’t think I ever really comprehended that I’d get through the whole series one day.
Hopefully you’ll enjoy going through these backgrounds as much as I enjoyed collecting and editing them.
To browse through all the background posts at once, check out my tag #a thousand mile journey! You can also check out this directory here to quickly search by episode or recurring location.
It is really intensely frustrating to see the softest, kindest, fairest criticisms by POC on here be characterised as attacks or aggression. If you care more about someone being called racist than actual racism, you are being racist.
Omg, it’s NOT cute that calling nonbinary people “they/thems” or “she/theys” ect has become like a default normalized thing even outside of trans people joking around.
It’s real weird and hackle-raising seeing presumably cis people (but honestly anyone) be like “some he/they I met” or what have you. That’s so dehumanizing and no one would say that about cis people. Just say nonbinary person you lunatics. Jfc
its crazy that megan thee stallion is not considered a queer artist by some people. the woman is not shy about the fact that she finds women attractive and likes having sex with them. she references it pretty frequently in her music, she made a whole song about enjoying having threesomes with a woman and a man, she made a Jennifer's Body-themed music video, she had Victoria Monét full riding her thigh on stage at a coachella, and there's literally a video of a lesbian interviewing glorilla at a party & asking who she would date if she was queer and her immediate response is "megan. megan like girls!" and then megan turns around and immediately starts flirting with the interviewer. i don't know what more you want. that woman is Bi Sexual and we should all be thankful every day for that. bi women are still bi when they wanna fuck men too you know. the fucking of men is also done bisexually.
someone PLEASE call the gay people police !!!!!!! a queer woman of color is talking about being horny for women guys please we NEED to stop this quick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
really good tags so far. also. just have to make this point:
meg's music in general is frequently very horny. when she includes her attraction to women in her music its sexual because when she includes her attraction to men in her music its sexual. she's a sexually explicit artist. you know. "your honor i'm a freak bitch handcuffs leashes" "hoes tryna get picked, i'm just tryna get dick" "mandatory that i get the head but no guarantees on the penetration" literally references pimping out men in her music all the time 1/2 of Wet Ass Pussy herself.
she very much depicts herself as a sexual subject and sexual actor in her music, someone who desires and chooses to act upon those desires with confidence and skill. and given how much intense misogynoiristic hate she gets from cishet men i think it should be very very obvious she's not faking being into women to get cis male approval!
so to assume that her talking about being sexually attracted to women and faking wanting a threesome with a man and a woman and faking having had and planning to continue having sex with women is her performing fake bisexuality to pander to straight men is laughable. and also disgustingly biphobic and racist. as with the original post, its very much an intersection of biphobia and anti-Blackness; there is no way for her to be a "good queer icon" to such people as shown above. this whole post could apply to Cardi B or any number of Black mspec artists, or just queer Black artists in general.
Hey. If people aren't aware, Microsoft admitted they know who you and where you are at all times and will give your info to the police.
They have a Global Device Identifier (GDID) Tracker that functions as a fingerprint for your PC that can surpass VPNs, proxy servers and countries. Although it can't survive a clean reinstall of Windows (it can survive updates), because Microsoft forces you to go to the internet and log in into a Microsoft account, they will be able to get to you.
Microsoft kept it secret and it was only found out when the FBI tracked a hacker thanks to the information Microsoft gave them.
You should be paying attention to this, and possibly consider moving away from Windows. If a government, especially the US government, doesn't like you for some reason, this could be seriously concerning.
This article specifically notes:
For journalism, activism, or domestic abuse situations, skip Windows and use Linux routed through Tor instead of a commercial VPN. A GDID doesn’t care which VPN you use, only that it’s still the same Windows installation.
GDID is the persistent Windows ID that helped FBI trace a Scattered Spider hacker despite VPNs. Here's how it works and how to limit it.
Other important quotes:
What has researchers uneasy is everything else the case reveals. Costin Raiu, a well-known malware researcher, asked on the Three Buddy Problem podcast how much of this exists on other platforms, and whether it is linked more permanently to hardware. Matthew Hickey, another security researcher, called Windows “surveillance software”.
Two things back that up:
There’s no consent screen. A GDID gets assigned when you sign into a Microsoft Account. Apple’s advertising identifier needs an App Tracking Transparency prompt and a visible reset; Android’s works the same way. GDID has neither, and a Windows reinstall only gets you a new number Microsoft can still get back to the same account.
Then there’s activation. Massgrave, the group behind Microsoft Activation Scripts, notes that Windows setup sends hardware info to Microsoft and gets identifiers back, the same tokens later used for Store access and licensing: “It’s impossible to prevent Windows from getting a GDID without breaking activation and UWP app[s].” Anyone who lost a license after swapping a motherboard has already met a smaller version of this.
Here's the complaint filed to the court, the primary source for the case mentioned in the article. You can find mentions of GDID on page 30 of the document or 34 of the PDF.
Nearly blocked someone for a vaguely annoying reply they made in 2017 then remembered 2017 was 9 years ago. They will live. We can change *opens their blog* nevermind they got worse. Guards
btw you guys ever think about Shedinja? i didn't know this before i raised one but Shedinja is created (separated??) from Nincada/Ninjask with the same moveset, same personality... i took it to have its friendship evaluated and the woman in Verdanturf confirmed: my Shedinja knows me. it loves me. though seemingly just created, it has memories of me, and maybe even memories of being a Nincada.
and yet, Nincada's evolved form is standing right there next to Shedinja. Ninjask is the completed form, the imago, with that exact same love, those exact same memories. until that moment of evolution, the two were one Pokémon.
i can't stop wondering. what must that be like? what must it feel like, being the ghost of a living being? finding yourself empty, outside your biological body, but your body is still there and the one inhabiting it is still you? and what does Ninjask feel, seeing eyes peering out from the shell of its old form, and then finding that those eyes are its own?
For the tenth anniversary of WHA, you can get volume 1 of the manga for free on kodansha.us! If you're anime-only and want to jump in, now's a good opportunity!
"You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore," 54" by 54" quilt by Robyn Gragg of Lee's Summit, MO
The artist's description of the piece:
In the language of flowers, many species relate to grief, sorrow, and remembrance. My husband enjoyed surprising me with fresh flowers, but he has gone to Glory and I am lost in my grief.
Hand pieced, machine appliqued, longarm machine quilted, original design.
