MajoraZ

Mesoamerican history enthusiast/consulting; Pokken, Gash/Zatch Bell, Halo, Digimon, DBZ, Sonic Adventure 2, Asura's Wrath, JJBA & G Gundam, Copyright reformist

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@FlorTrezena Fantastic

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@LateNightHalo As you know I have said I am mostly fine with the Halo Infinite elite models being used for Campaign Evolved, but man the second image here really does a good job showing the differences and what a more CE influenced model could look like

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

Also, the piece(s) were previously on display at the "Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed" exhibit in Texas and is, as far as I know, now on held in the Museum of Belize

Image credits:

Pic 1: exotic.shore.excursions on tiktok
Pic 2: Witte museum's Youtube account
Pic 3: Witte Museum's Facebook account
Pic 4: Museum of Belize's Facebook account

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

Haha, there's posts here from months ago I still want to reply to, so I wouldn't consider a post of mine from a week ago to be that old 😅

Anyways, here, this is from "Maya: Divine Kings of the Rain Forest", it identifies the earspools as being from structure 216 at Santa Rita Corozal

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@jewelryduelist Thanks, I'll try to give it a closer look when I have time!

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@SpaceKoala I'd argue current North America is actually even cooler if you focus in on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean:

https://t.co/m20xgMAzxT

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

The Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies / Caribbean Sea is also pretty rad

It's begging for an alt-history scenario with a big maritime Maya, Taino, or Calusa empire

Historically the Maya did actually have a coastal trading network up into Veracruz and down into Honduras, but the evidence of them trading with Caribbean groups (who DID trade with groups like the Calusa in Florida) is pretty circumstantial and suspect, sadly

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@justahaloguy The non-combat dialog only mission on Meridian is at least over quickly, and some of the dialog is interesting

Cortana is a slog

However, I'd rather play Cortana then the other Meridian missions with combat in Halo 5, probably. Maybe not individually, but def Cortana over both

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@N8CoxPolymath @MichaelButtonX I think most people already know this.

In fact, I would say it's likely more people know that the Maya did cannibalism, then the amount of people who know they had books, or toilets, or pressurized water fountains and aqueducts, or that they had bronze tools

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

Depends on how you define the start of the Aztec Empire and the start of Oxford

Oxford claims to be founded in 1096, but it didn't really exist as a university as we think of it till the 1200s

What would go on to be the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325, but the "Aztec Empire" arguably didn't form till 1428, when it alongside Tlacopan and Texcoco overthrew their then capital of Azcapotzalco, but you could argue by extension that Tenochtitlan was just inheriting Azcapotzalco's empire, which would have been founded itself arguably centuries earlier.

In fact, some sources claim Azcapotzalco itself was founded as early as the 900s, plus there were earlier settlements in the same area going back centuries before that

Which is the broader problem with this comparison between the Aztec and Oxford:

The "Aztec Empire" may have been a recent specific political network, but the various cities that composed it had been around for many, many centuries, arguably thousands of years for some, and earlier civilizations and empires in the same area also existed for thousands of years.

So it's a bit like saying that Oxford is older then the nation of Germany: It's technically correct, but there are cities in Germany and earlier kingdoms/empires in the same area as Germany that are all much older then Oxford. Same deal with the Aztec

See: https://t.co/GQxEmM212s

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@immavsmom As someone who does posts about Aztec history, I don't think it's a good one:

https://t.co/iJFKu1fSaX

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

True but misleading

The Aztec Empire formed late, but there were earlier civilizations in the area for thousands of years (pic)

It's like how Germany only formed in the 1800s or Spain the 1400s (like the Aztec), but earlier kingdoms preceded both

It's just people aren't taught the rise & fall of different civilizations and the broader historical timeline of Mesoamerica like they are for Europe or Asia, so they don't realize the Aztec were just the latest of many kingdoms/empires

So it's "true", but is only surprising due to people knowing less about Mesoamerica then they should, and those same people are likely to misinterpret the fact as meaning "Mesoamerica didn't get civilizations/empires till after Oxford was founded", which is incorrect

My favorite fact like this comparing Meso. vs Western historical events, instead, is that the last Maya states only fell to the Spanish after Salem Witch Trials in & the founding of the 13 American colonies that became the USA!

See: https://t.co/t1kUBDA39m

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

True but misleading

The Aztec Empire formed late, but there were earlier civilizations in the area for thousands of years (pic)

It's like how Germany only formed in the 1800s or Spain the 1400s (like the Aztec), but earlier kingdoms preceded both

It's just people aren't taught the rise & fall of different civilizations and the broader historical timeline of Mesoamerica like they are for Europe or Asia, so they don't realize the Aztec were just the latest of many kingdoms/empires

So it's "true", but is only surprising due to people knowing less about Mesoamerica then they should, and those same people are likely to misinterpret the fact as meaning "Mesoamerica didn't get civilizations/empires till after Oxford was founded", which is incorrect

My favorite fact like this comparing Meso. vs Western historical events, instead, is that the last Maya states only fell to the Spanish after Salem Witch Trials in & the founding of the 13 American colonies that became the USA!

See: https://t.co/t1kUBDA39m

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@MichaelButtonX People always say "Oxford predates the Aztec Empire" but that's misleading (see https://t.co/WBqcTbbgG4)

A better fact:

The Spanish only conquered the last Maya city-states in 1697, AFTER the Salem Witch trials & the founding of the 13 American colonies:
https://t.co/3CZQp9s6vC

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

"Oxford predates the Aztec Empire"
Not meaningful, there were older civilizations in the area ~3000 years before the Aztec, who were just the most recent (pic 1)

Real wild fact:
The last Maya kingdom(s) only fell to Spain in 1697, after the Salem Witch trials in Colonial America / the 13 colonies that became the United States.

What's usually described as the last city-state Nojpeten, today the town of Flores, was located on an island in Lake Petén Itza (pic 2, from "The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom"). But apparently there were other towns and villages in the area on other islands and around the lake, which also to some degree had their own kings and lords.

I need to do more reading on this so I might be off slightly, but it does seem like Nojpeten was a head polity they were subservient to, though those officials also acted as councilmen in Nojpeten itself, perhaps representing their communities. Not really sure if it'd be more accurate to call it a City-state with just dependent adjacent hamlets, or a kingdom?

There were also some rival Maya polities/groups that were conquered in the same year like the Kowoj Maya, but I guess they fell earlier in 1697 then Nojpeten did?

Sorry for so much uncertainty, I know way less about colonial period stuff then pre-contact Mesoamerica, and I haven't done much reading on these super late conquests.

(Also technically there were still rebel Maya communities well after this, a Neo-Maya state, Chan Santa Cruz, that got British recognition in the 19th century, and even today there's Maya revolutionaries in Mexico etc, so arguably Nojpeten still was not the final city-state/kingdom

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

My area is more Prehispanic Mesoamerica tbh, but obviously the Spanish empire is a tangential topic: I was mostly interested in the exhibit due to that box and the feather mosaics on display (see pic)

But yeah, the early colonial period in Mexico and in the Philippines is a wild intersection of Mesoamerican, other Indigenous American regions, Spanish/European, and Asian cultural and artistic influences

As I said in the quoted retweet, you plausibly had Aztec nobles, Conquistadors, Knights, Samurai, Chinese pirates, Filipino fighters etc all in the same areas at once

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

The Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies / Caribbean Sea is also pretty rad

It's begging for an alt-history scenario with a big maritime Maya, Taino, or Calusa empire

Historically the Maya did actually have a coastal trading network up into Veracruz and down into Honduras, but the evidence of them trading with Caribbean groups (who DID trade with groups like the Calusa in Florida) is pretty circumstantial and suspect, sadly

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@threadworm13b @justahaloguy Mind explaining why you disagree?

For reference here are my mission rankings

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@larpatron800 Excited to see more, then!

(Mesoamerica is actually my specialty, I do posts and consulting on the topic, so if you ever want resources or input on anything for your region or fakemon, feel free to DM me!

I've worked with people on fan-region + fakemon concepts before, too!)

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

I don't think they're irrelevant, i'm making a comparison to demonstrate that just because users are willing to buy or spend money on something doesn't justify the anti-consumer or unsafe practices that product or service does

If you think the seat belt analogy is too strained, then compare it to anti-planned-obsolescence laws

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@panda_profesor Where did you find the first image here?

I know it's from Millon's Teotihuacan mapping project, but what web page did you find it on?

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@Abstriktion For anybody seeing this, read Gash/Zatch Bell, where Folgore comes from:

https://t.co/efgnr8yy6i

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

Konjiki no Gash, aka Gash Bell or Zatch Bell, just because it's one of the best battle shonen manga (and I do mean manga, sadly the anime diverges entirely from the manga's plot)

For those curious, here's an explanation of what makes it good + info about how you should read it:

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It's a partner-battle royale series, sort of like Shaman King or Fate, where 100 demon kids get partnered up with humans who can use their spellbooks to allow the demons to use spells, and if the book is burnt, they return to the demon world, the last one standing is crowned king.

"Demon" implies something sinister, but most of them are basically just kids, rather then your typical shonen protag teen, and that + the partnered premise sets up for a lot of character growth: Gash is a naive 6 year old who teaches Kiyo to open up to others and be optimistic, while Kiyo is a jaded teen that grounds Gash and forces him to mature and think about what being a king means, for example.

In turn it does power of friendship better then any other series i've seen, and uses that, great comedy, and Yotsuba style slice of life chapters to have a fun lighthearted vibe... but then as a contrast uses brutal emotional gut punches (the premise requires every character "die"), with the lighter moments helping the dark ones hit harder, and the darker ones helping the lighter moments feel genuine and earned instead of corny. It handles that contrast at least as good as One Piece.

Even unlocking new spells is tied to moments of character growth, with that specific growth fitting the new spell (spell names also have their own language), and each character's set of abilities is unique and allows for tactical fights, especially as Spells do specific things that forces strategic use without allowing the characters to do contrived solutions. Each spell also has a "manga" cost so even weaker spells stay useful due to their lower cost. Most fights are also TEAM battles where not just the humans get involved, but multiple demon-human pairs are working together to combine their powersets.

Finally, it's got some incredible 2 page spreads and art; and avoids common shonen issues like abandoning their side casts, having increasingly bloated pacing over time, or overdoing the escalation of stakes or abilities: In Gash Bell, the entire cast is well utilized till the end, the abilities and stakes also stay reasonable till the final arc, and the pacing only gets tighter the further in you get.

The one flaw the series has is, inversely, it starts off sort of weaker then some other shonen, as initially there's not enough spells for tactics in fights and it has a villain of the week format and only switches to full arcs later, but it's still good/fun early on, and only ever gets better

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As far as how to read it, you'll want to use the "NEW fan translation" by the Zatch Bell Makai scanalation group, led by @ZatchBellGamerX . As of the time of writing they are done through volume 10, but they should put a new volume out every few months

Once you read past where the Makai translation is currently at, you can switch back to the older scans by NULL. Depending on what Manga site you use it may do it for you automatically (DM me if you need help finding any of this)

Once you finish the main original manga, you'll want to read the Gash Cafe chapters, and the Gaiden: Friend chapter. Different sites label these differently, they may be titled as "Kanzenban extras" and "Kanzenban Special book" respectively. Again, DM me if you need help locating these

Once you read those, you're good to start reading the sequel manga!

[MajoraZ @Majora__Z]

@Abstriktion Me watching this at 3am and wondering if that's Parco Folgore