#( and more frequently in general than the average person would )

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello!

I am an aspiring author who struggles with accurately portraying historical clothing, and I stumbled across your blog while searching for photographs and information on late 19th century/USA Gilded Age fashion. From the research I've seen compiled across books/the internet, the clothing of the upper class from that area is very well documented in paintings, garment catalogues, photographs, museums, etc....but finding information on what the day-to-day wear of normal people was like is proving much more difficult. Since you seem to be knowledgeable in the subject of historical clothing in this approximate time period, I was wondering if you knew about any good resources to learn more about what people who couldn't afford to follow upper class trends were wearing in the general era as well as any general information around these items.

If it helps, I'm focused on eastern and southeastern United States farming/small railroad town/mountain mining/gulf coast wetland communities, but even just more general resources about what sort of clothing that the average poor person during the Gilded Age wore would be greatly helpful. I've been able to find a few photographs here and there, but these probably aren't an accurate depiction of a persons' 'day-to-day' wear, and I also haven't found much on how women learned to sew homemade clothes, what garments if any would have been bought, where people in rural areas would have sourced their cloth, what undergarments were like, how work shoes were made & aquired, ect.

Please feel free to ignore this if it isn't something you're interested in answering as I'm sure you get a lot of asks, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you have any pointers!

So here's the thing about 19th-century clothing:

in many ways, it's the same all the way down

now, that's a serious generalization. is a farm wife in Colorado going to be wearing the same thing as a Vanderbilt re: materials, fit, and up-to-the-minute trendiness? obviously not. but because so much of what people wore back then has only survived to the present day in our formalwear- long skirts, suits, etc. -we tend to have difficulty recognizing ordinary or "casual" clothing from that period. I also sometimes call this Ballgownification, from the tendency to label literally every pretty Victorian dress a Ball Gown (even on museum websites, at times). Even work clothing can consist of things you wouldn't expect to be work clothing- yes, they sometimes worked in skirts that are long by modern standards, or starched shirts and suspenders. Occupational "crap job clothes" existed, but sometimes we can't recognize even that because of modern conventions.

A wealthy lady wore a lot of two-piece dresses. Her maid wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The trailblazing lady doctor working at the hospital down the road from her house wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The factory worker who made the machine lace the maid used to trim her church dress wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The teenage daughter of the farm family that raised the cows that supplied the city where all those people lived wore a lot of- you get the idea. The FORMAT was very similar across most of American and British society; the variations tended to come in fabrics, trims, fit precision, and how frequently styles would be updated.

Having fewer outfits would be common the further down the social ladder you went, but people still tried to have as much underwear as possible- undergarments wicked up sweat and having clean ones every day was considered crucial for cleanliness. You also would see things changing more slowly- not at a snail's pace, but it might end up being a few years behind the sort of thing you'd see at Newport in the summer, so to speak. Underwear was easier to make oneself than precisely cut and fitted outer garments for adults (usually professionally made for all but the poorest of the poor for a long time- dressmakers and tailors catering to working-class clientele did exist), but that also began to be mass-produced sooner than outer clothing. So depending on the specific location, social status, and era, you might see that sort of thing and children's clothing homemade more often than anything else. Around the 1890s it became more common to purchase dresses and suits ready-made from catalogues like Sears-Roebuck, in the States, though it still hadn't outpaced professional tailoring and dressmaking yet. Work shoes came from dedicated cobblers, and even if you lived in isolated areas, VERY few people in the US and UK wove their own fabric. Most got it from the nearest store on trips to town, or took apart older garments they already had to hand and reused the cloth for that.

I guess the biggest thing I want to emphasize is that, to modern eyes, it can be very hard to tell who is rich and who is anywhere from upper-working-class to middling in Gilded Age photographs. Because just like nowadays a custodial worker and Kim Kardashian might both wear jeans and a t-shirt, the outfit format was the same for much of society.

Candid photography can be great for this sort of thing:

Flower-sellers in London's Covent Garden, 1877. Note that the hat on the far right woman is only a few years out-of-date; she may have gotten it new at the time or from a secondhand clothing market, which were quite popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

Also London, turn of the 20th century.

A family in Denver, Colorado, c. early 1890s.

Train passengers, Atlanta, Georgia, probably 1890s.

Hope this helps!

[akuzeisms]

@pessimistics cont'd ;;

Hinting? Her? No, never. She shook her head, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. He looked awfully comfortable sitting on her bed; she was glad he was at least reaping the benefits of her rank. She leaned against the wall, datapad in hand as she swiped through a few reports, glancing up at him briefly as she did. There was no such thing as 'good' news, no matter which reports she looked through.

With almost every ounce of her willpower, she set the datapad down, mentally telling herself: twenty minutes. If she didn't at least take one break, then she'd stress herself out, and with the way things were going... it was going to be a lot of work--on her plate--for them to have a chance at winning this. Everything was riding on her. If she failed, they were all doomed.

Taking a seat next to him, that soft smile was back as she let one hand gently run up the length of his arm. "I said... there's a lot of advantages to being on an advanced warship," she repeated, a small smile coming across her features. "Something I... haven't always been able to take advantage of." At least, not the way she was implying. There wasn't much she could do; unless something came in that was an emergency, they had nothing to do but remain in transit. Of course, that could be at any given time... no matter where they happened to be.

One of those advantages, she had no problem demonstrating: stretching up just a little to close the distance, she pressed her lips against his, her kiss soft and gentle as one hand traced his jaw, the other lightly tangling itself in his curly hair. She held the kiss for a while before pulling back, leaning her forehead against his as she closed her eyes.

"I'm glad you're here," she whispered, wishing she could mask the undertone of worry in her voice. "I can't imagine having left you back on Earth..." The chaos. Death. Destruction. It was bad enough Anderson was there; she couldn't imagine having two of the most important people to her down there. At least here, even if he came groundside with them... she knew he was safe. She had people she could trust with his safety, whether it was in the hands of their skilled pilot, or under the guidance of her trusted comrades in a firefight.

[erose-this-name]

Kabru is such a brilliantly written character, one of the best in Dungeon Meshi (which is a high bar as it is, most of the main cast are similarly genius). 

His thing is that he is very friendly and nice confident and maxed out his charisma stat, but is also kinda ambitious and manipulative. But not in an overtly malicious way. Which kinda scares me.

The most impressive thing about him, writing wise, is that it’s all show-don’t-tell. He very frequently uses his charm and empathy and understanding of how people think in really clever ways.

We’re often walked through his thought process of how he does these social deductions. We’re never told he’s scarily charismatic, besides other characters reacting to him being scarily charismatic.

Kabru is a natural-born leader and social engineer with superlative skills in both, which makes him the perfect foil for Laios, who’s too autistic and unambitious that he’s not even the de facto leader of his own party that he’s the official leader of. He’s so bad at leadership that his party just, sort of, doesn’t have a leader. They just kinda argue and do stuff.

What’s also neat, and perfectly inline with Meshi’s general theme of clever and logical subversions of fantasy tropes, is that Kabru’s character design in no way clues us in on this fundamental character trait of his.

He’s sort of a human fighter / knight archetype, which in the language of fantasy RPGs is a class most would associate with being a white bread jock, chivalrousness optional.

(Laios subverts the same trope in the same way. It’s really funny that the walking exposition dump of the group looks like the character creator default preset spec’d as the most generic class available.)

If Kabru was a bard or noble and Laios a wizard, their character traits would be far less interesting

Even better is that we would expect someone who looks like Laios to have Kabru’s personality, and vice versa. Their character designs are flipped; the confident super charismatic leader is a short wide-eyed twink, while the slightly naive and very autistic monster enthusiast is a tall conventionally attractive Aryan lookin’ mf.

(see what I mean by Kabru being such a good foil for Laios?? No wonder everyone ships them, they’re perfect for each other!)

Yet, their designs also work for them. Kabru just has a face that’s easy to talk to, his piercing blue eyes and curly hair gives him a false sense of naïveté, while his iconic 👁️👁️ expression hints that there’s actually quite a bit going on inside his head. Meanwhile, Laios believably looks like someone who doesn’t know what hair conditioner is. His armor’s collar gorget thing is also pretty dorky.

You can’t trust people like that (I mean overly charismatic people with a manipulative streak, not blue-eyed twinks) because you can’t know what their real motives are. You can’t know they aren’t pretending, you can’t know they aren’t trying to or haven’t already manipulated you. How could you? When he has so much more social intelligence than you do, average socially awkward Tumblr user? He’s touched all the grass!

In episode 16 (spoilers, btw) Kabru finally meets Laios’s party, who he’s been trying to find and fight for the better part of the season, and he just decides that no confrontation is necessary. Like, immediately upon meeting the guy. Just from how Laios looked at him. He figures that since Laios didn’t seem to recognize him, they either have never met meaning he has the wrong guy, or Laios forgot meaning he didn’t think it’d be a big deal, meaning the treasure was a trap or something. Which is pretty in line with Kabru’s established ability to always roll nat 20s for every charisma and deductive reasoning check, so cool.

But he doesn’t even seem curious about which of those cases is true. (He might be interested to find out some of the treasure wasn’t dangerous, but accidentally got thrown off a bridge). Much to Rin’s dismay, he’d rather just not bring it up because that could upset the leader of the party he might be working with for the foreseeable future.

Actions speak louder than words. So, all we really learn in this scene is that Kabru’s goals and M.O. can change on a dime, and that he values reputation and political capital more than money and vengeance. More than his own party’s desire for those things. Not only is he someone with a silver tongue, but he knows its value and is determined to use it at every opportunity.

Kabru and his party might not be very good at fighting or surviving in the dungeon, in fact their frequent TPKs are a running gag. But, he also doesn’t need to be when he can just manipulate Laios’ and Shuro’s much more proficient parties into helping him.

So far, Kabru seems like the most likely one to become king of the dungeon or whatever the mcguffin is. He is the only protagonist so far who has said that’s an actual goal of his. He’s said that he doesn’t think someone like Laios who isn’t a born leader should get it.

In fact, Kabru seems to have very strong opinions on what kinds of people should be allowed to adventure in the dungeon, evidenced by the fact that he murdered an entire party over it, justified or not. Kabru seems to think that Kabru is such a leader, and he’s probably right about that, but what kind of leader? 

What would Kabru do with that kind of power if he gets it? Because I’m not sure. All I know is that he is the kind of person with the ability to use real political power to its full potential. For good, or for very, very bad.

I’m not saying that Kabru is evil or that he’s secretly gonna be the surprise villain. I dunno, I haven’t read the manga. He could just be a nice guy that’s just, like, is like that. Everything he’s done could be justified by the explanations he’s given. He actually reminds me a lot of one of my IRL friends, and I’d trust him with my life.

But, I can’t help but feel a distinct sense of unease whenever he’s on-screen. I try not to trust confident natural-born leaders like him right out of the gate. I don’t like that our instinct as humans is to blindly follow them without thinking about it.

Tyrants and psychopaths also use confidence and charm and a friendly demeanor to make people think they’re a good guy, while manipulating everyone into thinking their self-serving actions are altruistic. Benevolent, confident, skilled leaders do exist. But there exists many more snakes wearing their skin. Wolves rarely bother with sheep’s clothing, they dress as shepherds and sheepdogs.

Anyway, my point is that I think it’s kinda neat that it’s possible to overthink this much about a character whose probably just a nice guy that is the mirror opposite of an autistic person. Writing that kind of ambiguity is hard, and employing it in this way is inspired.

[four-loose-screws]

Hi! I’ve seen people people say that Dimitri speaks in an informal rude manner in Japanese so him being super polite in English is weird changes his character a lot, but I’ve also seen people say the localization is just fine. Could you clear up please? Thank you!

This ask has been in my inbox forever, and I know other ENG/JP bilingual FE fans have weighed in on this topic before. But exploring the nuances of Japanese formal vs. casual speech is always super fun, so I want to share my own thoughts too. There's always a chance there will be more to learn with each new person's input on the same topic. Plus, I discovered some things even I didn't expect! So, I'll still offer everything I have to say!

First, I'll explain the full background this ask is referring to. Japanese has 2 major distinct speaking styles - casual and formal. I was taught to call the formal style "distal" - because it is more about respecting distance in social standing than being formal specifically. But formal is the more common term, so I tend to stick with saying formal most of the time.

The distinction between casual and formal is made with pronoun choice, word choice, and other factors as well, but the fastest way to differentiate the two is to look/ listen for the use of desu and masu at the end of someone's sentences. Formal uses them. Casual drops them. This concept is entirely foreign to English speakers!

Dimitri drops desu and masu most of the time. His "I pronoun" is also ore, and his "you pronoun" is omae - both casual, blunt, and masculine choices. But does speaking casually to most of the cast make him rude?

Short answer is... no, not at all! There's 2 major reasons for this.

Reason #1 - the rules for casual vs. formal speech are a bit different in reality vs. fiction:

Partially, Dimitri speaks casually because he is showing his personality. He's got all those traits most standard FE protagonists share - he's strong, straightforward, and wants to connect directly on a personal level with everyone he meets. He tries to convince several characters that they can speak casually with him, because he sees people as people, and doesn't want social status putting distance between them.

Fictional characters generally speak more in-line with their personality more often, rather than following the socially acceptable speaking rules of the real world. (Though don't get me wrong - casual real Japanese people will speak casually in more circumstances than the average Japanese person.) This is simply the style that Japanese writers largely choose. And I think it is one of the great benefits of Japanese - anyone can start to pick up on a character's personality archetype almost instantly, thanks to their speaking style!

Reason #2 - Dimitri is a prince, making him of high social rank:

Here's the second nuance to this - it is absolutely standard for a superior to talk to their subordinates in casual style.

In modern times, this is shown in the workplace. Bosses and those in other leadership positions will frequently speak casually with the staff in a lower-ranking position than them. The president of the office I now work at is Japanese, and he speaks very casually with me - I have to be formal in response though, because he's at the top!!

But in the past, this would have been a distinction made between lord/ royalty, and those beneath them. Which is the case that is relevant in Fire Emblem's setting.

Dimitri can also speak casually without coming off as rude, because he is one of the highest ranking people across all of Fodlan.

-

Okay, so that's the answer in broad strokes - but let's get a bit more nuanced, go down Dimitri's support partner list, and confirm whether or not he always speaks casually!

Group #1 - Dimitri and the other citizens of Faerghus (8 other Blue Lions + Gilbert)

Dimitri has a multi-layered relationship with all of the other 8 Blue Lions. They are citizens of the country he is a prince of, therefore he is ranked very highly in social standing above them. But they are also his friends, classmates, and later, war allies; placing them on the same social level in that regard. So the way they speak to him comes down to a little bit of column A - personality, and a little bit of column B - which aspect of their relationship with Dimitri they feel is the "main" one.

Gilbert is also here in this category, as another person from Faerghus.

Dedue: Dimitri speaks casually, Dedue speaks formally, as they have a lord/ servant relationship. Dimitri wants Dedue to be a very close friend to him though, and wants Dedue to speak casually with him - this is a major source of tension in their supports. In the end, being able to mutually speak casually with each other and be friends, is a place they may reach one day. With other characters, Dedue speaks casually.

Felix: As royalty above Felix's noble house, Dimitri speaks casually. Felix is Felix, so he speaks casually too. I imagine he sees Dimitri quite literally as more of a wild boar than a human being, much less royalty.

Ashe: Dimitri speaks casually, Ashe speaks formally. However, pretty much the whole point of their supports is Dimitri attempting to get Ashe to speak casually with him.. Ashe tries in earnest to switch, but in the end sticks with speaking formally, otherwise he feels too uncomfortable. His view of Dimitri as his prince is too strong for him to let go and speak casually.

Sylvain: Dimitri speaks casually, and Sylvain speaks casually more often, but actually switches to desu and masu more than once. When a relationship is "in-between" higher/lower social standing and friendship, it's not uncommon for at least one person to switch back and forth between casual and polite speech, depending on which side of the relationship they are appealing to more at the moment. This happens in real life too as people shift from strangers, coworkers, etc. to friends.

Mercedes: They both speak casually. In Mercedes' case, I think she's speaks more in-line with her personality rather than paying attention to social status.

Annette: Both speak casually, but Annette is well aware that there's something a little wrong with that - her father would never let her get away with it if he knew!

Ingrid: Dimitri speaks casually, Ingrid speaks formally. But I think Ingrid speaks formally with everyone.

Gilbert: As you can probably guess based on my comments in Dimitri and Annette's analysis, her father most certainly speaks formally with Dimitri! He is very formal and takes social heirarchy very seriously. Dimitri, as the prince above him in social status, speaks casually.

Group #2 - The other characters at the monastary:

Since the remaining characters are not from Faerghus, Dimitri is not their prince. They'll be more likely to view him through the lens of a different relationship than royalty/ subject.

Catherine is originally from Faerghus yes, but she has cut her ties from her homeland completely to serve Rhea, so she fits into this group now.

Raphael: Both speak casually. I think Raphael treats everyone like a life-long friend!! He at least attaches san or sensei (teacher) to the names of his instructors, but that's about it for formal language for him.

Marianne: Dimitri speaks casually. Marianne speaks formally, as she does with everyone. I think she even attaches san to everyone's name, conveying how much she keeps her distance from people, trying not to form close relationships.

Flayn: Dimitri speaks casually. Flayn speaks formally, as I think she does with everyone.

Hapi: Both speak casually. I think Hapi speaks casually with everyone.

Alois: Now *here's* where things get interesting! At this point, I really thought I would discover that Dimitri speaks casually with everyone. But alas, he does NOT! Dimitri speaks formally with Alois, while Alois speaks casually to him. Why? Well, while Dimitri is a prince, he's also a student at Garreg Mach (in Part 1 of course). In this way, he is below all Garreg Mach staff and professors in social standing. So it makes perfect sense that he'd speak formally and Alois would be casual in this case.

Catherine: Same situation as Dimitri and Alois - as someone who serves as an instructor at Garreg Mach, all students like Dimitri are below her in status at the monastary. So Dimitri speaks formally, and she speaks casually.

Byleth: I left Byleth for last, because while Byleth is a professor at the monastary... Dimitri speaks casually with them. I imagine this has more to do with Byleth being the self insert than anything. Everyone bonds to Byleth on a deep level faster than magnets stick together.

And that's all I can think of to say for now! This is a super fun example of how nuanced Japanese's casual vs. formal language can get, and showcases one of the many reasons why Japanese has such a high barrier of entry for anyone learning it - including young native speakers! You don't get all this desu and masu stuff, until finally you just do.

Let me know if I missed anything, or if anyone has any follow up comments to make!

I apologize it took me so long to respond to this one! Thank you anon, and all readers, for waiting! I hope it helped explain even more of the trickier nuances of Japanese.

[krispycreamcake]

Kanato Sakamaki bf headcanons𖤐𖤐

🧸- This is so random and probably not the best way to start things off, but he frequently dresses your hair

🧸- It literally doesn't matter if you're male or female or even a woolly mamoth, you're never seeing the inside of a salon/barber again

🧸- While it's generally fun for him to do his s/o hair, he also uses it to his advantage to essentially groom you to his likings and preferences (no not that kind of groom get out)

🧸- If you have a stuffed animal or a collection of the sort, they will be invited to his tea parties and he'll even teach you how to sew little outfits for them

🧸- Honestly as childish as Kanato is, I think the reason he acts like this is because he feels emotions very intensely

🧸- I have a similar issue and people will often undermine it as just having a "dramatic" or "childish" personality, when in reality the poor guy just feels things 10x more than your average Joe

🧸- And because of this, I think one of the main issues that'll present themselves in your relationship is that you might unknowingly hurt his feelings

🧸- Let me elaborate. Basically calling him "cute" for making a mistake, or let's say even just brushing off his tantrums by saying "that's just how he acts and I'll need to get used to it" is essentially babying him

🧸- The uh easiest way to fix this would be by letting him know you're there for him and ready to work at whatever the issue is, together

🧸- Ok I lied, it's not going to be easy when it comes to Kanato or any diaboy honestly, but I promise you it'll be worth it

🧸- Treat him like his own person while still retaining your compassion and sympathy for him and you'll be rewarded immensely in your relationship

🧸- In my opinion, Kanato seems like his love language is gift giving and quality time

🧸- Now I'm not saying you have to spend a pound and a crown to get him the fanciest Dubai chocolate or crumbl cookie box, I'm talking on a sentimental value level

🧸- So for example, he mentioned how he needed a new hat for teddy but couldn't find one that was right for him, what you would do in that scenario is go on YouTube, look up a tutorial on how to make shit with felt, fail like once or twice and THEN give him the gift of his lifetime

🧸- Now let's say you aren't the artsy type, pay attention to his wants and likes and even if it's a tiny cute little keychain from the dollar store, once he likes it, he'll cherish it forever

🧸- Ok I realized that I'm talking a loooot about the whole gift giving thing, so I'll just write a bit on quality time to even things out

🧸- Graveyard picnic dates, watching the stars on top the roof, 90s horror film night, you reading to him something from the Grimm Brothers, tea parties in the dungeon

🧸- When thinking Kanato, think "wow this is kinda fucked up but it strangely doesn't feel that way when I'm with this person"

🧸- I'm so dumb, I talked about his love language and didn't mention what he'd do for YOU💀

🧸- Well for starters, he's the type of guy to not say I love you a lot but instead write you songs and serenade you

🧸- Clothes galore with this guy. He's always making or buying some kind of outfit for you

🧸- If he knows you like a certain collection of an item (ie. Books, tea sets, stuffed animals, dolls) he'll get them for you, trust

🧸- He LOVES going bone hunting with you, literally loves it so much

🧸- Date night is a regular Friday night occurrence so do NOT miss it

🧸- Oh right, his favourite time of the year is Halloween and he LOOOOVES making you do creepy couple costumes, baking fall/halloween themed cookies with you, carving pumpkins. It's especially his favourite time of the year to take long strolls through the cemetery

🧸- He loves tracing the veins on your wrist with his nails

🧸- Speaking of nails, I imagine he has medium length nails and keeps them rounded but just a tad bit sharp and he likes to pierce your flesh with them if he's in the mood

🧸- Do you know that whole "would you still love me if I was a worm?" Thing? Yeah, that's him but replace worm with decomposing corpse that has lost all its beauty

🧸- His favourite spots to bite you are your lips and your hips

[saintsenara]

would you want to elaborate more on your thoughts on Alan Rickman as Snape? I'd love to hear more of your take on it. I dislike him in the role so much and it's insanely difficult to actually have a conversation about it sometimes because of how much some people like movie!Snape in large parts of the fandom

I have so many gripes with what happened to Snape, from how movie!Alan!Snape is a completely separate character to book!Snape (and how less flawed movie Snape overshadows the much more interesting and gray book version), how much I dislike his acting choices in certain moments to how much I dislike how he sees and describes the character in interviews

I've never heard of the diaries you mentioned, what did he say in them? I'm honestly also just curious if he even read any of the books because some of the things I've heard him say really make me doubt it 😭

there are dozens of us!

and i have no issue with being a #hater on the public timeline. for fun and profit.

but i'm actually going to start with two bits of rickman defending [it's giving diplomat].

the fact that the adult cast of the films was massively aged up in comparison to their book versions makes perfect sense. each individual film not only needed to be accessible for people who’d never read the books, but for people who'd never seen another film in the sequence - and so having a visual distinction between harry and james’ generations is completely necessary. we - as people who are undeniably more invested in the series than the average person - know that the great tragedy of the later books is that james and lily died so young that harry looks virtually indistinguishable from his father as he walks into the forest. but that doesn’t always work on screen…

it also doesn't bother me unduly that rickman doesn't physically resemble the canon snape. plenty of actors don't look anything like the characters they give brilliant performances of [and not only fictional characters, but real people], and it doesn't matter in the slightest - being an exact physical match for a character says nothing about an actor's ability to portray what they're like.

which is where my beef with film!snape starts...

the thing that never hits for me is that rickman plays snape - regardless of the situation he finds himself in - as emotionally repressed, cold, and controlled.

[even down to the costume - he was behind the decision to have snape be, literally, buttoned up].

i simply don't know how anyone could read the books and come away with this impression of snape without having fundamentally misunderstood the character. snape is incredibly emotionally demonstrative! he’s the male character other than harry - the literal narrative perspective - whose emotional state is described the most frequently! and his emotional state is always described in terms which make clear that he’s someone who feels very deeply and who registers his emotions clearly on his face!

rickman's version of snape bears no resemblance to this - and it means that his portrayal of two key aspects of snape's canon character always feels flat to me.

the first is snape's main negative trait - his cruelty. something is really lost in the fact that film!snape's cruelty is reduced to something arch and precise - and that it doesn't have the petty, childish, vindictive tone that it does in the books.

and the second is - of course - the experience which defines snape's canon arc - his grief. this is so inextricably bound up in the state of arrested development - still living at school! still beefing with people he knew when he was fifteen! - that the absence of snape's childish side in rickman's performance means that the way he portrays snape's grief is always going to feel half-baked.

and - specifically - rickman's emphasis on emotional repression in every aspect of snape's character undermines the fact that - in canon - snape's mingled love, grief, and guilt for lily is the only emotion he goes out of his way to repress, which allows the revelation of his feelings for lily in deathly hallows to actually feel like a mystery being solved.

snape is an interesting character precisely because he's so... feral - and rickman’s buttoned-up, suave, nowhere-near-as-gratuitously-mean-as-he-should-be take on him is the cause of many of the least complex and least compelling fanon!snapes [in particular, the snape prominent in pairings with female partners in which he’s kind, sophisticated, romantic, and definitely not really ugly].

the snapewives phenomenon was incredible, though. fair play to him for inspiring that.

when it comes to the diaries... what's complicated is reconciling two particular truths.

on the one hand, a diary is inherently a space for a person to record their private thoughts [they were published with the consent of his family, but they weren't originally written with the intention that they'd be published] - and, therefore, to record impolite, unpleasant, or unadmirable thoughts which they wouldn't express in person. rickman's diaries are incredibly whiny - and often quite unkind - but it's clear that this isn't because he was particularly whiny or unkind in person. obviously, it's a good and healthy thing that, if someone was pissing him off at a dinner party, he was cordial to them in conversation and saved that he thought they were an idiot for his private diary!

but, on the other hand, there are several threads which run through these private thoughts which made it impossible for me not to feel considerably less fond of him.

[t-top-apologist]

At the end of the day the average civilian wishes to be catered to like an old money steel baron or perhaps one of those chaps from Downton Abbey. The entirety of modern society has come together to enable this, mass-producing cheap facsimiles of fortunes that should rightly either be built on child labor or perhaps serfdom.

Their lawns, taking up what could otherwise be used to grow crops or serve as "outdoor garage space," exist to ape the wide ranging estates meant for the nobility to chase down a fox while adorned in silly jackets. Their houses sport columns and stupid windows meant to imitate three different classical artforms at the same time because of something called "economies of scale." They even have male-centric social clubs meant for parlour games, discussing sports, and dining with friends, in this case franchised out under such names as "Buffalo Wild Wings."

This aping of the upper class continues to the hire of "artisans" to do relatively simple work deemed too complicated to warrant the time of the average citizen. It's not that the jobs are too taxing for your average person, but rather that the market has crystallized around the desire to live like budget royalty. Therefore they take their wafer-thin computers to artisans (now more commonly called "experts" or "Apple geniuses") for repair and have democratized the position of carriagemen to 22 year old dealership lube techs named Ryan who will turn a 15 minute job into a 30 minute endeavor thanks to frequent vape breaks and a brief brush with what the industry refers to as "a misplaced drain bolt."

The mid-40s project manager and mother of 3 is no less competent when changing oil than her grandfather before her who knew what "Valve Lash" is, but what separates the two is a series of wars in the 1900s that required an entire generation of men to become very familiar with operating and repairing machines better than the Germans and Japanese (an exercise that Chrysler would later abandon in favor of the phrase "if you can't beat em, join em").

This conflict ended with a surge of able-bodied men finding themselves returning to their project management jobs (like their granddaughters after them) but armed with captured German weapons and a comprehensive understanding of tubochargers. Just as a line can be drawn from troop drawdowns to political violence, there's a distinct correlations between GIs returning home and the violence with which Ford Flathead V8s were torn apart by inventive supercharging methods paired with landspeed record attempts.

Give a man a racecar and he'll crash it on the salt flats in a day. Teach a man to repair a racecar and it will sit in the garage of his suburban house for a few years in between complete engine rebuilds required by what can only be described as "vaporized piston rods."

Of course this hotrodder generation created the circumstances we live in today, as the market saw their fast cars cobbled together from old prewar hulks and simply stamped out new ones from factory, faster and more convenient for the next generation than building one from scratch. Now the project manager mother of 3 drives a 4wd barge with climate controlled seats boasting more computing power than the moon mission and an emissions-controlled powertrain with more horsepower than her grandfather's jalopy and her fathers factory muscle car combined. And she doesn't care at all.

Yet Amongst the average civilians there walks a rare breed: people who know how to change their own oil. We the chosen move among you silently, bucking the system, operating outside the cultural helplessness and trading in forbidden knowledge in almost-abandoned forum threads (flame wars over conventional vs synthetic).

While we do have a marked air of superiority about this, I can't say I haven't stooped to imitating the rich myself. I've been known to wear a silly jacket from time to time.

[xinamie]

💋 — dark red.

pairing: raiden x gn! reader

summary: after training with the shirai ryu, raiden seeks out the one person he could depend on for comfort. ♡

tags: fighting (training), fluff, raiden is feeling romantical but still sfw tbh

Ever since meeting his godly alternate self, Raiden took to training with Grandmaster Kuai Liang. He needed that extra push to fuel the flame within him and who better to ask than the pyromancer himself? He was aware of Lord Liu Kang's stories about how the god fell into rage; the reason for being made mortal this time was to prevent him from going through such anger and destruction.

There were so many factors to consider, but he was devoted to this path— to learn more about himself and his capabilities. If he figures out how to activate these feats and learn how to work with them, he could be of better use to Earthrealm's defense. Battles could rise on a whim and he wanted to get a grip on that potential rage rather than be afraid or to shun it.

In between his work with the Shaolin, Raiden made frequent trips over to Japan. The Shirai Ryu’s Grandmaster would hold sessions with him whenever he was available; other times he sparred with Smoke, helped young Hanzo or went over strategies with Harumi.

There were days he would catch you around the clan’s base of operations, indulging in small talk and peaceful walks around their garden. Little memories like those were cherished for someone who carried the weight of his title.

Lord Liu Kang told him that it was possible to train too much, and he was right.

Yet, here he was, circling around Kuai Liang as the two of them observed each other. They were waiting for the right opportunity to strike, focused on every breath falling from their chest.

You were watching on the side, entranced by their intricate dance. Raiden was the first to charge while the other man remained on defense. It was always a show with these two, a display of thunder and fire clashing together. Paired with Scorpion’s trusted kusarigama, it was as if nature’s elemental symphony reverberated through the metal and into the surrounding atmosphere.

At one point, the chain latched onto Raiden’s ankles and he moved to secure it down, not wanting to be pulled towards the warrior. When he lifted his head to look towards Kuai Liang, he noticed an intense, stern look in his opponent’s sharp gaze. In a split second, flames began to travel down the metal, spreading closer and closer to his very form.

He was going to be harmed if he wasn’t careful.

Raiden gripped the chain harder, digging his soles into the ground and allowed sparks to gather in his palms. Metal was a great conductor of electricity, thus the lightning he conjured bounced, shooting out towards Kuai Liang. This forced the Grandmaster to halt his embers in order to escape the wrath. Raiden took this chance to kick the kama away, only to forget how fast the trained warrior recovers.

He was pinned within seconds of letting his sight falter, groaning as his shoulders were pressed into the courtyard.

Upset at having let his guard down, his fingers clenched into the ground and began to generate heat. He should have known better, to always keep his eyes on his opponent…

Raiden’s attention was on his hand, watching as the light flickered around his skin. A new hue joined the display, faint and taunting, but it was unmistakably there. It was blurred and any average person would have trouble detecting it. Though, as someone who had studied his newfound powers the moment he was given the amulet, he knew what it was— it just had to be.

“Yield.” The order came from the masked opponent.

Taking a steady breath, willing his strength to compose himself, he placed his palm down. He relaxed his muscles, resting against the floor as he pondered. The brief disappointment in himself was replaced by curiosity and intrigue.

“I yield.”

-

After the session, Raiden decided to clean up since he had dust and dirt all over him. Training had always garnered sweat and he took pride in his ability to remain hygienic, especially in a home he was a guest of.

Fresh and clean, he goes about his usual routine and enters the garden. He knew he would find you here, but he was really hoping to see you even more after his latest discovery. He couldn't help the way his body buzzed, images of that light scarlet color replaying every other minute.

“Raiden?” Your voice called out to him, breaking him out of his trance as he offered a kind bow and then joined your side.

There was something different about him; it was as obvious as day and night. Whenever he would spar with the others and found himself losing, he would either ask to go again or thank them for their time. Now, he seemed… miles away.

“What's troubling you?” You had asked as he averted his gaze to the blooming plant in front of you.

“There's… well, I…”

It wasn’t unnatural for him to be at a loss for words, and he was truly grateful for your patience as he gathered himself. A few minutes passed and his gentle voice had a hint of shakiness to it, an effect of using the amulet as much as he had.

“May I hold you?”

His request sits in the air between you both, the inhale not going unnoticed by him as he tilted his head in a manner that was far too precious. He merely chuckled and began to explain himself further.

“I am quite energized still. I can feel it coursing within me.” He stated, hinting at his wish to find a way to ground himself back into reality. To think he would ask you rather than his usual meditation added a certain warmth to your cheeks.

The second you agree, his smile is nearly blinding. He was careful with his first touch, fingertips caressing the back of your hand and over your knuckles. They smoothed up towards your wrist and along your forearm when he was met with no resistance.

Raiden had visibly melted when he tugged you closer to his body, arms circled around your waist and head tucked on your shoulder. A content breath tickled your neck as he held you there, basking in the shared warmth and comfort.

“I've made progress today.” He hummed out, leaning into you further when you began brushing his hair back in a soothing motion. His chest was pressed against yours, every breath and exhale easily detected from such proximity.

He briefly removed himself to gaze at you, only inches apart from being able to rest his forehead on yours. His voice lingered on a lower tone, set on you and you alone. “Were you watching?”

You could only nod, mesmerized by the searing look behind those usually soft, brown eyes of his. A pleased thrum vibrated through him and into you, eyelashes fluttering as he locked his hands on the curve of your back.

It was just the two of you in the gardens, lost in each other’s presence with an unspoken heat rising. He watched you for what felt like forever, analyzing your features and committing them to his mind for safe keeping.

“Allow me…” He spoke up, your focus snapping back to him as he brought himself close enough to brush his nose along yours. “Please.”

His plea left you near breathless, eyes trying to search for answers. You could feel his breath tease your lips, making them quiver in anticipation. Gathering your courage, you finally respond with a command he has wanted to hear since entering the garden.

“Kiss me.”

He didn't need to be told twice, keeping one arm secure around your hips as the other slid up to cup your cheek. Raiden kept you there as his eager lips captured yours in a kiss he had only ever dreamed of.

It was exhilarating; both yours and his eyes closing shut to embrace the intimacy of it all. He tasted sweet like a divine treat that was immensely invigorating and rousing to your senses. Trying to part from him only lasted for two seconds as he chased after you, planting his lips upon yours and stealing your breath yet again.

Earthrealm’s Champion wanted— or more so needed you, in his arms and covered in his affection. He would ensure that you were treated to the highest degree that only someone like him could ever deliver to you.

Only you could keep him stable while he made you feel as if you were floating within all the realms.

[utilitycaster]

Hi there! Do you think the Bells - and in particular Ashton's focus and indist a bit too hard on the fact that Aeor orb vision will completely change people's perceptions of gods? I tend to think that lot of people who somewhat know history are aware of the fact that Primes and Betrayers joined hands to destroy the city. As for common folk - it would be at also hard to believe that for example they would completely denounce Wildmother who is nature (all good and all bad. Bad as in destructive). I can imagine some folks reaction to this would be to feel scared, but then again. Those are Gods we speak about, not your friendly neighbors. What do you think?

So here's the thing: I've felt some of the depictions of what the average person knows this campaign have been...inconsistent isn't the right word, because, for example, the norm in the Menagerie Coast might not be the norm in Gelvaan and certainly isn't the norm in central Issylra, but also the party not recognizing the symbol of Asmodeus (for example) is something that's always struck me as like. people in the United States not knowing what a crucifix is. Like yeah those people exist - I've met very religious Jews in the US who don't know what day Christmas is other than "generally in late December" - but either we never met many of those people in Campaigns 1 and 2 and met them all in Campaign 3, or there's been some retconning (which...that's a complex discussion as to canonicity between campaigns, since the answer is, ultimately, it depends on the specifics and the magnitude and the source of that information, ie, if High Bearer Vord's creation myth is wrong that's valid because he's providing a specific perspective with plenty of bias, or if orcs were NOT created during the Calamity that's valid because unfortunately myths born of stereotype and bigotry are extremely common; but if Matt's drastically changing previously established truths of the world without in-world explanation, rather than just quietly dropping no longer relevant references as one-offs a la Ladueger, yeah that is bad storytelling and anyone who tells you it isn't is an idiot).

But actually that doesn't matter because here's just a truth about people: a whole lot of people in, for example, the United States in 2024, where 95% of adults have regular internet access, are fairly uninvested in much outside their basic day to day life, just, in general. This is going to be even more true in a world without that degree of information and interconnectedness. I think a lot of people are going to be like "ok and this thousand year old city being destroyed affects me how?" Not to get too cynical about it but think about someone whose experience with the gods is rather like what Laudna describes her youth as being: harvest festivals and wishing for rain. Like, if it's a good harvest this year, will they care?

I don't personally agree with this mentality irl, but groups of people on the whole are frequently resistant to change, do not want trouble, and want to be left alone. I think no shortage of people's attitudes will simply be "why is this motherfucker downloading the Downfall of Aeor Album to everyone's iPod when I am trying to eat breakfast." It won't even get to the point of "are the gods good or bad"; it will literally just be "who the fuck is broadcasting something? the MOON is fucked up? we have real problems?" Like, if people do not know the story of the fall of Aeor, someone being like HEY THE GODS CRASHED THIS CITY BECAUSE THEY HAD MADE A GOD-KILLING WEAPON is probably going to elicit a response of, again, "and I should care about this because? a fucking phoenix is strafing us, why are you doing a test of the emergency broadcast system?"

[max1461]

dear mx Linguistics;

do you have any thoughts on that Thing where in some languages/cultures typical male and female speaking pitches are further apart than in others? (eg iirc German and Japanese are both more Like This than English)

personally i think it’s a bit melodramatic

Well I mean I don't have any thoughts on it exactly other than "yeah, that's a thing".

For those who don't know: the fundamental frequency (F0) of your speech (the pitch at which you speak) is the resonant frequency of your vocal folds. This is determined by the length of your vocal folds, which is of course correlated with body size, so men have on average a lower F0 than women. But the F0 can also by modulated by stretching and compressing the vocal folds, changing their length and thus their resonant frequency. We do this when singing, and also all the time during speech.

In most languages that have been described (I'm unsure if there are any known exceptions), the actual average difference between men's and women's F0 is greater than what would be expected from body size alone. In other words, men learn to speak in an actively lowered pitch while women learn to speak in an actively raised pitch.

This is, like other parts of language acquisition, not a conscious process. It's learned in the same way that other elements of pronunciation are: automatically, and in the general case without any conscious intervention by the speaker. Just as languages differ in other aspects of pronunciation, they differ in the average F0 difference between male and female speakers. Japanese, for instance, has a very high F0 difference, where English has a somewhat lower one.

As an aside: most languages have gendered difference in speech beyond just F0 (indeed both English and Japanese have more than just this), and these are part of how we communicate gender and related identities to others. Cf. the "gay lisp" in English, which is a speech phenomena that serves a similar communicatory effect (and which I believe has spread to other languages as well).

I've noticed that I communicate in a notably more "masculine" way when speaking Japanese than when speaking English, dropping my voice and opting for a number of male-coded phonetic features (e.g. k -> q /_a). As for why I do this... I don't know! I didn't really decide to! I think part of it has to do with the fact that one of my frequent speaking partners when I was first learning the language was a very masc dude, so I kind of picked up those affects. There's a stereotype about male gaijin in Japan that they all speak like women, which has its basis in the fact that most of them learned the language form female instructors and thus replicate a markedly feminine speech style. I think I just ended up in the opposite situation. It's a good lesson in the fact that these differences are learned and not innate.

[dare-to-dm]

Things D&D is Bad At

As a follow up to my post on things that D&D as a system does well and why I love it, here are some things that in my experience, D&D does not do well as a game.  I’m not saying it would be impossible to run and/or homebrew D&D in such a way to deliver some of these things, but you’d probably be better off finding a different game:

Horror: In general, D&D is too good at empowerment to really deliver well on horror.  I’m not saying you can’t do it, but it’s more of a challenge and certainly would take more thought on the DM’s part to pull off.

Low/No Prep Gaming: Even for DMs that are skillful at improv, D&D typically involves a lot of preparation.  And character creation is generally pretty evolved with most versions of D&D, so even the players have to do some preparation, not to mention the fact that learning to play the game usually take a fair amount of time.

Short form campaigns: Due to how much preparation is typically involved in D&D, it lends itself better to longer campaigns than one shots.  If you want to play a new character/story frequently, you can certainly find another system that’s better suited to it.

Combat-less Gaming: Like 90% of D&D’s mechanics are related to combat.  If you want a game without it you’re certainly barking up the wrong tree.

Robust Social Mechanics: I think skill checks work well enough for the kind of game that D&D is.  But if you want to play a game where seduction or debating someone or engaging in political intrigue is as tactical and nuanced as combat is, look elsewhere.

Survival Based Challenge: Depending on what version of D&D you’re looking at, there may actually be robust rules for things such as hunger, thirst, exhaustion, carrying capacity, illness, wilderness navigation and so on.  But in my personal opinion, D&D fails at making these challenges satisfying to overcome. 

Logical Economics: D&D has a really weird economy where your average adventurer spends the vast majority of their money on equipment, and yet can easily become comparatively wealthy in a short period of time.  There just isn’t much else for players to really do with their money unless the DM puts in the work to make something for them.

Life Sim Stuff: I think it’s logical that if you’re playing D&D you should want to be an adventurer.  But the game doesn’t really have much potential for following other pursuits, like if you want to open up a bakery or something.  Players technically can do stuff like that, but it will only be as rewarding as the DM is willing to build it up to be.

Anyway, I’d love to hear some suggestions on games that do each of these things well, since those would be good recommendations for if you ever want a game with these elements.  Feel free to let me know in the comments/replies!

[stellar-constellations]

Kokushibo headcanon of dating him? In general Nfsw and sfw? Or maybe just the headcanons with Muzan, Akaza, douma, Kokushibo

Kokushibo Dating Headcannons

Wordcount: 354 words

Kokushibo is a little on the quiet side, but you don't have to be quiet to date him. You can be loud or relaxed, it doesn't matter to him.

Kokushibo doesn't care about looks at all; he's into personality. He likes his partner's thought process and their values (whether they're different to his or not, he still finds it fascinating). 

Kokushibo wants to show you affection, he's just clueless on how to. His hugs and kisses (even hand-holding) is a little awkward so he lets you take the lead). 

Kokushibo is surprisingly a jealous lover. He doesn't quite care about low-leveled demons or average humans, but any Demon Slayers or powerful demons you're friends with gets him jealous. He's afraid you'll leave him for someone stronger than him or someone who can better understand affectionate gestures. He might eat the demon(s) who got him jealous and absorb their strength.

Kokushibo likes it when you're both existing in each other's space doing your own separate things. The tranquility of the moment is unlike any other and it's one of his favorite memories to look back on in his hundreds of years of life. 

Kokushibo's love languages are spending time and buying gifts for you. He likes getting you hair ornaments and hand-held fans, sometimes a kimono if one catches his eye. 

Kokushibo might entertain the idea of training you to defend yourself (whether you're a human or demon, it doesn't matter). He decides that he won't and he'll just be around you all the time to protect you.

Kokushibo is the definition of scary dog privileges. His silence and appearance is intimidating to everyone, but he's very gentle and thoughtful towards you. 

Kokushibo remembers everything you say. Whether it's talking about your favorite food or what someone said, he'll remember it (he even remembers when you told him you tripped a few months ago). 

Kokushibo might give you a little light show with his Moon Breathing if you ask (beg) him enough.

Thank you for requesting! I do apologize for how long it took, I was waiting until I temporarily closed my inbox to see if there would be any repeating requests. I've also been busy in my life so it's been hard to find time to write, but I should be able to start writing more frequently in a few weeks.

Want more Kokushibo content? Check out the Kokushibo Masterlist!

        Have any other requests for these or other characters? Check my official masterlist to see the characters I write for: Masterlist

[cod-dump]

got any dragon!ghost and werewolf!soap headcanons? for fic research purposes, of course

I have very particular lore for dragons and werewolves (lycanthrope in general) so I don't know if you'll use them for your fic but I'll leave that up to you

___

A run down of my lore:

Dragons are incredibly powerful magic users. They use their magic to shapeshift into a mortal form (usually a human-like form but not always). Unlike any human magic users, dragons don't need a power source or a conductor (like a wand) to perform spells. There are two groups of dragons, the Mun and the Arcane.

The Mun are your classic giant, flying lizards while the Arcane are not what you would look at and immediately recognize them as a dragon. The Mun are are more adept in physical combat and destructive magic while the Arcane are more adept in spellwork (though they can be just as devastating in a fight like a Mun).

The Mun are the ones most commonly interacting with non dragons, going out into the mortal world. The Arcane are rarely seen out of their kingdom among floating islands and mountains in their home realm.

_

Lycan come in many shapes and forms. The gift of lycanthropy can be hereditary or given to someone through a short ritual (the lycan has the person drink their blood). Some bloodlines result in stronger lycan. The families in these bloodlines tend to be very proud of their heritage and big on staying true to one form. Wolf lycan with wolf lycan, bear lycan with bear lycan and so on.

Hybrids are possible and do exist. They're usually outcasts from lycan that share a true form. Anyone gifted lycanthropy from a hybrid are said to have unstable forms but no one really knows if that's true.

The matter of changing during a full moon is very real. All lycan are forced into their beastly forms during this time but this is not the only time they can change their forms. Lycan from long bloodlines have adept control of changing their forms while lycan outside of these bloodlines may not be able to change their forms as frequently as they would like.

(Lycan are not very strong magic users and are capable of doing basic spells with the aid of a conductor but outside of that they're not much good)

___

Ghost, like all dragons, is very adept in magic. Due to his mortal form being near identical to an average human, Ghost is able to hide amongst humans as a magic user rather than a dragon. Due to Ghost never changing into his true form, no one knows what he looks like. He can easily have two lives, one as a man and one as a dragon, and no one knows. Ghost doesn't really have a life outside of 141 due to dragons not being very welcomed into society. This has lead to him contemplating returning to his home realm (which he has almost done several times).

(I like the idea of him as a Arcane but Mun works too)

Soap is a lycan and is loud and proud about it. He's very in control of changing his form whenever (his mohawk stays when he changes) and uses that ability when on missions. He has a pack instinct and bonds with the members of his team and becomes very protective over them. After joining 141, Soap found himself lonely because those he pack bonded with aren't with him. After taking out Hassan, Soap bonds with Ghost, making him a part of his new pack.

(Personally, I like the idea of Soap not being a 'true form' lycan but either someone from a short bloodline, a hybrid, or someone who was changed into one)

___

[warden-melli]

I mean, Melli literally(if my personal headcanon that wardens live close to their ward is true, and if not then im not looking 😒) live what seems like at least halfway up the biggest mountain in Hisui. So my own personal headcanon is that he both isn't afraid of heights and is pretty good at like cardio and trekking, but he would also be more used to the cold since winds are really cold and harsh the more up you go up a mountain(to a certain point at least until theres no wind at all but then you have a different problem lmao). Like I think he would be more athletic than most in his clan, maybe he would even be a little smug about it hehe. I know I would be hehehe

You and I have extremely similar headcanons :)

It's technically not canon that all Wardens live close to their wards, but it's kind of implied, especially with Iscan's home being able to be visited on the coast. I’ve always assumed that we just didn’t get to see where their homes are because it wasn’t relevant to the plot, or that the devs just didn’t bother to add them in, or even that they’re just in locations that we can’t reach. I think with any sort of fictional world, especially in an rpg, that there’s an expectation that the audience will use their imagination to flesh out some of the experience, and I think given the canon details we have been given it’s a very easy conclusion to come to (that the Wardens keep homes close to their wards)

But yeah, I totally agree with absolutely everything. I’ve always imagined him to have extremely powerful legs due to all the hiking and climbing me must do, and it’s true that he’s frequently exposed to snow and freezing temperatures where he works. It completely makes sense that he would have a higher tolerance for the cold than most other members of the Diamond clan. While Hisui is a cold place in general, the swampy landscape where the Diamond clan settlement is located is likely to be one of the most humid places in the region. Also an observation. Of all the Wardens he’s the only one depicted with his hood up, which implies that he frequents colder locations. He’s also secretly shy, and the hood up could be a subtle nod to his true nature, but also two things can be true lol

One of my personal headcanons is that Melli also takes care of the Voltorbs as part of his duties looking after Lord Electrode, and that a major part of that job is ensuring that (as part grass types) Electrode and its colony of Voltorbs survive the harsh winter. I imagine that there’s a few weeks during the coldest part of winter that makes travel over the mountain impossible due to heavy snowfall and winds, and that it’s Melli’s duty every year to gather supplies, leave the Diamond clan and stay completely isolated in his home on the mountain for those few weeks, so that he can can ensure the colony are fed and kept safe during the most dangerous time of year. He has to be prepared before the bad weather sets in, because it’s virtually impossible for anyone to leave or reach that part of the mountain at all during that time, and that he has to endure extreme temperatures and ration accordingly so that he, his pokemon partners and his Lord can survive the harsh winter.

I also agree that he would be much more athletic than the average person, and yeah I could see him being a bit smug about it in the right situation lol. I kinda see him as someone who’s secretly ripped (not bulky, but toned) and it honestly that it shocks people when they’re able to see that for themselves. That due to his foppishness many people perceive him as more delicate than he is, and then they see him shirtless and they’re like where the fuck did those abs come from what???

[orlissa]

How Not to Commit a Crime Against Historical Fashion–A Basic Guide for Writers

I have been reading a lot (mostly YA) (pseudo)historical (fantasy) novels (and let’s not even get started on what’s going on TV), and I’m stunned and horrified by the complete lack of basic understanding of historical fashion most authors display (not you, Rebecca Ross, darling, you didn’t do anything wrong). So here is a little guide from a miffed little gremlin who knows just a tad bit more about what people wore in the ye olden days than the average person (really, I’m no expert), so YOU don’t commit these heinous crimes:

First and foremost, and I cannot stress this enough: clothing and fashion don’t exist in vacuum. They are intrinsically tied to culture, climate, and, maybe most importantly, technology.

For the most of history (and I’m primarily talking about Western history here, sorry), people wore a simple base layer under their clothing: chemises, shifts, undershirts, underpants, drawers, combinations. Women and men! These had a very important function: they protected the actual outer layers from sweat, and protected the skin from chafing (e.g. from a corset). In the time and day when you didn’t have sewing and washing machines, outer clothes were relatively super expensive, while doing laundry was an actual nightmare. You didn’t want to wash you gowns much, because it was hard on your hands and on the fabric as well. So instead you wore a chemise–made of, most likely, some inexpensive, white material, in an easy-to-sew shape–, and changed and washed that chemise frequently. So as long as your worldbuilding doesn’t include (basically) fast fashion and washing machines (washing spells?), you really, really wanna have your characters to wear an undershirt/chemise.

You also have to think about colors. Chemical dying had a great advancement in the 1860s, which brought on a plethora of new and bright shades that actually lasted. Women’s clothing thus became extra and blindingly colorful, while men’s clothing went… black. As before these chemical dies black dye was hard to make and it also faded fast. (So yeah, your medieval bad guy is actually not that likely to wear black.) Purple is extra tricky, as it was traditionally made from a little creature called the purple dye murex, and making such dye was a lot of work and thus super expensive–so for the longest time only the wealthiest wore purple: senators, cardinals, kings…

(I just read a scene today where in the late 1800s Sicily a male character exchanged a leather shirt for a black (linen?) one at the town market, which he put right on the skin. I was understandably upset and manifested the author stepping on a piece of Lego.)

Climate really determines what people wear: think not only about the temperatures, but what raw materials are available at the climate. (Like, can they wear silk? Are there silk worms in this world? If yes, where? How can the characters have access to it?) Also, do not be daunted by the layers and think that your characters would be sweating buckets in the summer: we are talking about natural materials here which breathe.

Also, I’m not happy to rain on your parade, but generally speaking your (pseudo)historical character wouldn’t be showing too much skin in public. They don’t have sun screen, so they’d be protecting their skin from the sun by covering up–no short sleeves and super low necklines for you! However, evening attire can be more daring (short sleeves! Uncovered shoulders! Décolletage!)

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: before the… say second third of the 19th century, you don’t have corsets. You have stays, that give the body a conical shape. Then at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries you have transitional stays, which might be closer to modern bras/bralettes than you’d think. The point of these is to push the boobs up (since the gown is loose around the stomach, there is no point in trying to shape the silhouette there). Then you have corsets. You cannot tightlace (drastically shrink the waist) until the mid-19th century, when metal eyelets in corsets are introduced (and so they can take more tension). Still, it was more like an exception than a rule.

“Whalebone” is not actual bone. It’s baleen, those thingies in the whales’ mouth they use to filter their food from the water. Baleen is made of keratin, the same substance that makes up your fingernails, making them flexible.

Also, it’s just my general advice: try not to conceptualize corsets as bras, but as shoes: they need to be broken in, but once they are molded to your body, they are rather comfortable.

Clothes also play a cultural function–they have a meaning, a function. E.g. the point of panniers (those wide hip-thingies in 18th century gowns) and crinolines was that the women who wore them took up a lot of physical space. Women might not really had much say in everyday life, but they used fashion to show that they are there (men hated it, btw).

General silhouette guide to the 19th century, very roughly:

1800-1820s: Regency (brr, I’m gonna say it… Bridgerton). Boobs up, waistline right under the boobs, skirt is light and loose, with not much volume (will end up looking like a nightgown if the costume designer is not careful enough)

1820s-1830s: waistlines are going down (but still kinda up), skirts are getting fuller, sleeves puffier

1840s-1860s: waistline down to the natural waist, skirts are getting really full with huge crinolines, sleeves slim down, pagoda sleeves (getting wider down from the elbow) later down the road

1870s: First bustle period. Skirts get flat in the front and the sides, stick out in the back.

Turn of the 1870s-1880s: Natural form era. The bustle shrinks.

1880s: Second bustle period. The bustle comes back, gets even bigger.

1890s: Skirts become more A-lined, sleeves get puffed up (till they are ridiculous), chest shaped like a dove’s

[omegaversetheory]

Assuming that the A/B/O labels are based in genetics, I Wonder if you have any headcannons for genetic disorders?

In my AU, I like to imagine that some people usually believe that persons who have an "extra alpha chromosome" or an "extra omega chromosome" are blessed because they would be like "super alphas" or "super omegas" due their increased capacities when it comes to strenght, size, fertilitie...when in reality they are only partially true.

Sure, those "super alphas and omegas" are more "powerful" when it comes to these característics, but overall, they arent sacred individuals nor super heroes or nothing like that, they are chronically ill people that usually present a lot of health complications that in most cases overcomplicates their daily lives or even can shorten their lifespans (for example, said "super omegas" would be way smaller than the average omega, which usualy leads to frequent bone pains due the incorrect development and consequent malformation of their bones) I also imagine said "super alphas and omegas" being very prone to suffer mental illnesses since the massive amount of hormones they segregate would make them turn into very problematic individuals in general (for example making omegas to be extremely volatile and emotionally irrational individuals, or alphas to have a weird mix between a higly stoic nature and maximized protection instincts, causing them to either become toxic/ manipulative or directly psychopats)

Hi!

What an interesting idea. In my au, well I've never thought about it, but I'd also say that they would be ill, if not extremely chronically ill, people. Depending which age you're writing in, I'd venture to guess there just may not be many of these people around - they would've died very young without the proper medication and constant treatment. That also leads into a larger scientific question about how many chromosomes people in omegaverse have and how exactly their genetics operate. A conversation I'd need a much better grasp of biology and genetics to answer! So I leave it "behind the curtain" in my au, and in fact it's never come up. But if it does, I'll be sure to post.

My notion that having extra chromosomes may result in chronic illness is based on the idea that they probably have more chromosomal pairs or some other genetic system - one that would make the extra material very unlike the human world. Here we see trisomy - which leads to conditions like Down Syndrome. People with DS can now live very fulfilling and rich lives, but it wasn't always that way and it still isn't smooth sailing for many.

I don't use the "super powered" "ultra alpha/omega" headcanons in my au but let's see what we can whip up for you.

It gives the bearer a stronger scent and a better ability to interpret other people's scents.

Decreases fertility and ability to reproduce

Longer heats/ruts that are more intense emotionally/mentally and may cause pain like cramping, migraines, and nose bleeds.

May cause allergic reactions to foods, natural products, etc... This is a common sign (besides infertility) of the condition. Common allergies include - dairy, wheat, some meat products, and nightshades. Some bearers may also have allergic reactions to biological fluids and substances that are not their own including saliva and other natural lubricants.

Have a slightly higher endurance.