Kunugigaoka's Garden Of Eve Podcast: The Introduction

uh racing au??

Meilin of Zhong [Spirit Animals] Doodles

A doodle session of Meilin from Fall of the Beasts in really inconsistent art styles. (And an unnecessary story below about her clothes)

According to Google, Zhong (Meilin's country if you're unfamiliar) is based primarily on China and a few other Asian influences. While looking at the cover art on some of the Spirit Animal books, I've determined what Meilin is wearing kinda resembles a white cheongsam under a blue puffy parka looking thing.

(I'm not an expert on clothes, just a rabbit hole diver)

Looking up what dynasty would have their women wear cheongsams and blue parkas, Google says that women apparently wore cheongsams in the Ming Dynasty. So I said great, I'll base off her clothes off of the hanfu (Chinese historical clothing) from the Ming dynasty.

But then I got deeper into the rabbit hole and thought, "Wait... The Tang Dynasty looks pretty cool and pretty accurate to her outfit in the beginning"

You know the fancy ceremony outfit that Meilin wore for her Nectar ceremony? According to the book, she applied gold flakes, rouge, and white face paint among other things to her face. Tang Dynasty women wore gold flakes on their faces too (I looked up Ming Dynasty and their makeup seems totally different)

Tang Dynasty is also more accurate to what I imagine Zhong was at the time, open to the other three countries and flourishing in trade. It reflects in the fashion, as women's fashion became more diverse with so many different influences. I've also read articles that the fashion was seen as more aggressive, which suits Meilin.

However, I cannot ignore that the cover art Meilin's fashion was most likely made in the likeness of Ming Dynasty clothing. (As it turns out, the not-cheongsam is actually an ao)

And that's how I ended up deciding that (headcanon) Zhong's fashion is mainly inspired from the Tang Dynasty, especially the outfits popular in the imperial court, but there's Ming-esque athleisure I guess. (Conveniently ignoring that women wore pleated skirts and preferred pastel colors)

For her court outfit, I decided on a qixiong ruqun, which uniquely has the waistband above the chest paired with a scarf. As for her casual Hero of Erdas outfit I have her wear a double layered top called an ao (well, ao is the shirt in aoqun the word, so I'm assuming it's just called so), which is worn untucked above the waist over a skirt or in this case a pair of pants.

Obviously I took artistic liberty in literally everything, so please forgive me if I am inaccurate in anyway in the explanation. Just looked up a bunch of stuff and tried to piece everything together, so don't take this explanation too seriously.

Note: @ziseviolet is a good source for those who want to learn more; I simply browsed through their stuff this time, but I plan on reading more cuz it's super fascinating

New York City ballet production of Midsummer Nights Dream

Wild horses crossing a river in Iran Photo: Eydi Heydari

Pay Attention to Palestine

I really don’t mean to guilt trip anyone, but the word needs to be spread about Palestine and no major news outlets are covering it. Hundreds of Palestinians are being injured by the Israeli Occupation forces trying to defend their homes from settler violence and ethnic cleansing.

For the past month lynch mobs and anti-Palestinian pogroms have filled the streets of Jerusalem, this is an extension of over 70 years of ethnic cleansing, dispossession, occupation, settler colonialism, and murder that has effected Palestinians, and Israeli courts have ordered the eviction of 12 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and to hand over their land to Israeli settlers. If you are American, this is what your tax dollars are going to, the least you can do is spread the word and voice your support for us. 

If you are able to donate, here are some donation links for Palestinians in need: 

Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) 

Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association 

Save the Children 

US Campaign for Palestinian Human Rights

Project Rozana USA 

Adalah Justice Project

Medical Aid for Palestine (UK)

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Palestinian Policy Network

Electronic Intifada 

Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)

International Medical Corps (GAZA) 

Human Concern International (Gaza) 

Playgrounds for Palestine

Watch to Donate: 

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Happy four days late Valentine's Day from Rollan and Meilin!

PS: You ever have that moment where you realize that you messed up in your drawing but you already lined the part you messed up? Doing traditional art sucks when you don't have a back button...

How Nathaniel got his job at the smoothie bar: Part 1

It all started with a tradition

Every week, without fail, since seventh grade Nathaniel and Doug have been coming to the same smoothie bar down the street.

Always the same routine; sit down at the counter, wait for the other to come back from whatever club activity kept them, order a smoothie, and dive into fandoms, school, the latest middle school drama, and in general just hang out.

They were there since during the cafe's early days, so the owner, a nice middle aged dude who just had his first kid (congrats!), and them are friends thanks to their long time patronage

And so, one day in freshman year of highschool, Nathaniel was complaining to Doug about how he doesn't have any money and that his mom had really been getting up in his business about college now that he's in highschool.

The owner overhears and tells Nathaniel that he's been thinking about hiring a new employee since his last one quit on him and says he could go for a trial run. Nathaniel of course jumps on the opportunity. How could he pass up the chance to work at one of his favorite place to be?

It was a disaster. Pineapple chunks spewed everywhere, strawberries mashed in the sink, mangoes tossed into the fan, and in the middle of it all was Nathaniel, on his phone, furiously questioning Google.

As it turns out, Nathaniel was terrible in the kitchen. Well, more like he's scared of everything in the kitchen. Ovens, knives, and, you guessed it, blenders. (A past trauma from one of his older, more rambunctious cousins.) The only kitchen appliance/tool Nathaniel wasn't scared of is a microwave and that's not very helpful in a smoothie bar.

As much as the owner would like to hire Nathan, the owner really doesn't want or have the money to hire someone who can only do cashier work.

The owner helps him clean up his mess and in his gentle tone, albeit with more then a hint of exhaustion, to maybe find a job as a cashier at a McDonald's instead.

Giving the newly fired Nathaniel a pity smoothie, the owner waves to the embarrassed Nathaniel goodbye. The man himself was too busy dreading his mother's response after he had bragged about the job to wave back.

Thinking that maybe he should run away to Hawaii, he walks by Doug's house. Wait.

Backtracking in an almost comedic fashion, Nathan finds himself just standing there in front of the house as he argued with his inner voices.

On one hand, if he goes in he'll have to tell his best friend that he's afraid of blenders. On the other, if he goes home then he'll have to tell his mom that he got fired on his first day. In the end Nathan chose the short term option.

Smiling as the door opened, his smile twitched when Doug's jaw dropped.

"Heyy Doug! Um, do you mind if I crash here for a bit until I figure out how to tell my mom about-"

"Holy shit dude what happened."

"I'm getting to that."

So starts the 4th longest weekend in Doug's entire life.

Caves are weirder and more varied than you think

So THAT'S where the twin Barbatos fanart came from! I knew he didn't have a secret twin.

if Gilbert Gottfried isn’t voicing this slamming power bottom then what are we even doing here

So, some facts to consider:

-> Katsuki Bakugou sweats nitroglycerin from his palms

-> He sweats a lot of it, particularly when in combat/excising (see: the giant bracers he can fill on his arms).

-> Quirks often have negative side effects on their users, usually related to not being immune to some element of the quirk ex: being able to create fire but not being fireproof.

-> Nitroglycerin is used medicinally as a strong vasodilator (lowers blood pressure).

-> Nitroglycerin can lower blood pressure dangerously even at low dosages.

-> While people can build up some immunity to it over time, high exposure like Katsuki would have would still be dangerous. Unless his body had some sort of counter.

-> There’s lots of ways a body could raise blood pressure. One of them? Stress.

-> Stress (adrenaline and cortisol) can significantly raise blood pressure and do so fairly quickly.

My conclusion? Katsuki having No Chill Ever is actually his body’s way of keeping his blood pressure even. He’s constantly at 99/100 stress level for everything because of this. It’s why he does everything so intensely, he’s got near max levels of Adrenaline in him at all times.

Now whether or not this is canon or what canon intended is up in the air, but it’s now my personal canon. Ideal results of this:

-> Katsuki’s stress levels are discovered when he and his classmates/maybe teachers are exposed to a fear/panic quirk that shoots your adrenaline and cortisol through the roof. His classmates are sent into a panicked frenzy, running around and hiding. His teachers are either also panicked or just barely holding on to rational thought through many years of practice. Katsuki…. is just fine? Mostly he’s confused as to what the hell is wrong with everyone else. Whoever they’re fighting isn’t actually that tough without their quirk, so Katsuki takes ‘em down. Everyone is put through medical to determine what happened and why Katsuki wasn’t effected. They discover the quirk didn’t work because like, the quirk is made to take someone from 5-10% stress to a sudden 90-95%. Katsuki has a resting 96.7% or something. The extra 3.3% doesn’t change much.

-> They try to put him on anti-anxiety meds or something to help. He starts to calm down for the first time in his life which lasts all of 5 minutes before he passes out and almost fucking dies from the blood pressure drop.

-> “So you’re telling me being calm for once in my life literally almost fucking killed me?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Hang on, I need to call my mom. I have an argument to win.”