#i always have a chart

[solarsavoy]

My World Monday, Theran Attributes

Considering that Thera is on the northern most part of the planet at all times, I had to consider different physical attributes than Earth. Interesting fact, roughly 70-79% of Earthlings have brown eyes and it's estimated that 85% of Earthlings have black hair. Yeah. Turns out that while there are many different kinds of people, most of us actually share similar traits, but I wanted Thera to be different.

I considered where the highest concentration of redheads, blondes, blue eyes, hazel eyes, green eyes, and any other "rare" attribute is on Earth and most are concentrated near or north of the arctic circle, where Thera would be. Another interesting fact, people don't have the red pigment capability to have red eyes and albinos have the appearance of red eyes because they lack any pigmentation at all and what you're really seeing are the blood vessels in their eyes.

So, I decided to make Thera different, naturally, by swapping what we consider rare with what we consider common. I'll post a picture of my chart. Yes, I have a chart. You should know this about me by now, I'm a little eccentric when it comes to worldbuilding.

The most common attributes which cover at least half of Therans are: blonde or reddish orange hair with hazel, red amber or silver/grey eyes. Oh, unlike Earthlings, Therans do have the red pigment in their genes.

There is a correlation between red heads and the amount of vitamin D in their system when it comes to Earthlings and since Thera has two suns, I figured it wasn't unreasonable to say they simply developed the color red for other attributes. Another thing I considered was skin tone. While a lot of Therans are pale due to living under a thick forest surrounded by mountains which creates constant coverage, those native to Marka tend to have a more golden tan color similar to Eskimos on Earth, because of the perpetual sunset they live under.

Then there are royal only attributes which are the rarest and automatically mean someone is a royal. This includes green eyes, purple eyes, black hair, and dark brown hair. So naturally, if a Theran came to Earth, they'd think just about everyone was a royal. 😅

Here's the chart.

So no one thinks twice about Deshi's hair and eye color, because while it's somewhat unique, 4% of Thera shares those traits with him. Compared to Earth where the same traits are much less common to be seen together. 10% of Earth has blue eyes and only 2% of Earthlings are natural blonds. Even if blonds often come with blue eyes as well, it's not even half of Thera's percentage. :/ Meanwhile, Stag is Thera's rough equivalent of Earth's blond hair and blue eyes.

Sidenote: This always trips me up. Whenever I try to visualize what people look like, I tend to fall under what I call an "Earth bias" where I automatically imagine them with more Earth standard attributes. This often happens with Rom and Meck. In my head, Rom will have light brown hair and blue eyes where Meck will have dark brown hair and brown eyes, but not only are those both rare, but I've always hated the cliche of people always having rare features in stories when there's all kinds of people, which only got worse when I saw just how many people have black hair and brown eyes on Earth and I feel there aren't near as many people with those features in stories in comparison.

It's grown a lot better the last decade, but a lot of 90's stuff featured the blond hair blue eyed protagonist with the blond hair blue eyed antagonist (thinking the popular girl in school as there's a lot of high school drama stuff during the 90's-00's) and the handsomely blue eyed love interest OR the girl with red hair and stunning blue eyes like the sky. 🙄 This was a big factor in me really thinking about the attributes of Therans. Like, if everyone's going to have blond hair and blue eyes and no one has brown/black hair and brown eyes, there's going to be a reason, okay?

Anyway, Rom actually has blond hair and hazel eyes and Meck has light brown hair with hazel eyes. I always saw Meck with a darker hair color and neither had red. I do this automatically though. I often forget that King Solara has blond and not medium brown hair like in my head and Astor has dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, but he can't because he's not a royal, so I often have to alter the color scale in my head so it's not Earth biased. Let's see if I remember this for all the people in the background when I make the comic for Krystar. 😅 Hence the chart. I'll probably be using it a lot.

Possible future My World Monday topics: -The Council of Marka -Economics of Thera -Dynamic of Hummes (the city) -Dynamic of Kares -Dynamic of Marka -Dynamic of Estes -Dynamic of Solara -Education system of Solara - including Earth age comparisons -Fighter types among the kingdoms -Traditional vs non-traditional children -Hummes/Solara conflict -Magic system

Thanks for reading.

[landwriter]

Hi! I hope you feel better soon!

This is a great prompt by @academicblorbo about Hob Gadling being the landlord of the Dead Boys. It has a wonderful fill already by @omgcinnamoncakes but I’d love to see what you come up with for it!

Alternative prompt from me if that doesn’t work for your brain: remember the date between Jenny and Maxine? How about one between Jenny and Esther? Poor Jenny is going to really question her taste in beautiful blonde women 😭

Thank you! I saw ‘landlord’ and ‘decades’ and blacked out. I love Hob having them as tenants. Maybe even before the modern day meeting in Sandman.

The Sandman/Dead Boy Detectives, 2.4k, G Dream/Hob, pre-slash, alternating/outsider POV, found family, a reunion and revelations etc.

---

Hob did not, strictly speaking, have tenants. It was more of a minor haunting. Pun intended.

The small room above the pub and below his flat wasn’t worth charging anyone rent for; when he first bought the building he had put a handsome oak desk in there and some bookshelves before wondering who he was possibly keeping up appearances for. Who was he going to take back upstairs that would stop and say, Wait, can I see your office? So he’d left it as more or less an abandoned room.

When he realized a pair of boys were using it as their clubhouse, he didn’t do anything at first. He saw them quietly coming and going a couple times, disappearing around the corner of the first landing. Brazen things. He meant to call after them, but the shout had died in his throat. He’d been young once. He still remembered the need to get away from it all. It was only when he went to check if they’d been making a mess of the room that he discovered it was still locked.

He’d crouched down and inspected the latch and found no marks at all. Huh, he’d said, and jiggled it again, and been a little more interested in whatever clever way they were getting into it after they disappeared up his stairs. Then he didn’t see them for weeks, and assumed they had gotten bored and stopped.

Until they came back. In the middle of an argument, striding through the pub like they owned it. Hob straightened up as they passed him.

“I cannot believe you broke the mirror.”

“I was in a rush! It’s not my fault you forgot you needed Arcana Incantatum after we arrived at the church. And found the demon.”

“I hardly forgot, I only made the mistake of assuming you would know to pack it by now.”

Hob raised his eyebrows. The boys disappeared into the back hallway. He followed them as they went upstairs, too preoccupied with their drama to notice Hob. They turned onto the landing, still carrying on. Even as they walked through the door. The locked, closed door.

Hob blinked. Then he drew his keys from his pocket and opened the door. The boys were still inside. One of them was pulling a mirror out of a backpack that was several times too small for it. They didn’t even look up, and Hob wondered how he couldn’t possibly have put it together earlier. He cleared his throat.

“Hello, boys.” That caught their attention. Hob grinned. “Seems we’re neighbours.”

---

Edwin abhorred getting involved with the living. He and Charles got along perfectly well on their own. They were a duo. An intrepid pair. Best mates, like Charles often stressed whenever he was about to ask something particularly ridiculous of Edwin. They were solid together. As solid as two ghost boys could be. The living, though, were messy and unpredictable.

Perhaps the most salient fact at present: Charles invariably became attached to them.

“He’s sad, mate. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You said those exact words in ‘94 about a dog. At least ask Hob himself.”

Before you decide to adopt him too.

Hob Gadling, irritatingly, was unobjectionable on every ground Edwin could think of. He had made no imposition upon them. When he found them, he only asked them their business, and then told them he was usually downstairs, or upstairs, if they needed anything they couldn’t procure themselves. He had an interest in rare and old books, as it happened. In explaining this, he had also hinted at being far older than his looks would suggest, which vexed Edwin twice over. He knew his curiosity would not be slaked until he talked to Hob, but then he would be the one getting involved with the living, and Charles would hardly let him forget it.

“Do you think he’s really immortal? Mate’s far too calm. Last week I saw him stop a fight downstairs by stepping right between these huge blokes. He just said something and smiled and they backed right off.” Charles lit up. “Do you reckon he’d teach me how to do that? Conflict de-escalation, innit? I could show him some moves with the cricket bat, I bet. Oh, do you think he’s a cricket fan?”

It was obviously a hopeless case, and since the Dead Boy Detectives never took on hopeless cases, there was only one course of action that remained. Edwin had long since disabused himself of the notion he needed to breathe. He had no beating heart, yet when he was startled, he would find himself clutching his chest. Now, he exhaled slowly through his nose in an entirely superfluous sigh of resignation. “Well, Charles, shall we go talk to him?”

---

When the millennium came around, Hob found himself celebrating it with his accidental tenants. There was something gloriously satisfying about being able to make a toast to the next one and have it taken seriously. He’d asked them if they had something better to do - spectral trouble to get into et cetera - and they both looked at him with almost identical put-upon and incredulous expressions.

Hob had a terrible suspicion they thought they were taking care of him as much as he thought he was taking care of them.

Edwin, with his insatiable curiosity and, deep underneath it, something Hob thought he recognized from himself: a sharp animal ferocity and a refusal to go until he’s good and done, natural laws be damned. Charles, still brightly, painfully alive for a ghost - who should be alive still, by all rights, but nothing of this life was fair - who joked to cover up hurt in a way Hob knew too, and glowed any time Hob turned so much as a kind word to him.

He wondered what they saw when they looked at him.

The year ticked over, and technology kept working. Charles grinned innocently and said he could probably possess the telly and break it that way if Hob wanted?

Hob’s heart twinged. He knew they weren’t his, not to keep, but it seemed that teenagers didn’t change at all over the centuries, even if the boys were only sort of teenagers in the way Hob was only sort of in his thirties. It didn’t change that they’d been punted from the mortal coil before having a chance to grow up, and figure out the kind of men they were, and make their own choices and fuck up and try to be better than their fathers, and everything everyone deserved. Hob had made more than his share of mistakes. They hadn’t been given the chance to make nearly any at all.

So they made toasts to the new millennium, to the detective agency, to themselves, all stuck out of time in different ways and refusing to move on for different reasons, and Hob allowed himself to think of Robyn and privately pretend that they were his all the same.

---

A week later, Hob was reminded of the other universal traits of teenagers when he mentioned his stranger and both boys began to grill him with terrifying alacrity. Before turning to his dating life, like ravening bloody wolves. When Edwin had asked, in a specifically nineteenth century manner that Hob remembered all too well, if Hob had always been unmarried, he’d nearly put his head in his hands.

“It can be hard for me to associate with the living too, you know. For obvious reasons.”

Charles had turned to Edwin and hissed “See? I told you.”

Right in front of him. Nobody had taught them manners.

“Manners, Charles,” replied Edwin loftily. “We will, of course, respect your privacy. A man is entitled to his secrets.”

“You’ll go upstairs and rifle through my personal things, is what you’ll do,” said Hob.

Charles coughed to hide his laugh. Edwin flushed and looked away. Hob snorted, and told them about Eleanor and Robyn. Properly. It was a strange relief. He’d told the story wrong for plausibility’s sake so many times he had been worried he’d forget the truth of it one day.

They had listened, and been remarkably quiet until Charles piped up and offered to set him up with a ‘really fit’ ghost. Hob had roundly shut that down. Woefully, not all explanations were satisfying enough. Charles cornered him again the next morning while he was cleaning the bar.

“No, mate, I still don’t get it.” Hob was about to say he no more wanted to be with someone who couldn’t feel pleasure from his touch than someone who would grow old and be taken from him while he stayed the same, when Charles went on, bafflingly, to ask, “Why don’t you meet your mysterious friend more often than once a century?”

Hob sighed. “Adults are often busy, Charles.” Nevermind that he had begun to wonder the same since the eighteenth century. He’d always just assumed time passed differently for his stranger.

Charles just laughed and perched himself on the bar top. “Ooh, low blow. We’re busy too, you know. Plenty of cases to solve.”

“Really,” said Hob. “You’re busy. Right now.”

Charles waggled his eyebrows.

“Charles, I am not a case,” said Hob, sternly as possible. “I’m not even a ghost. He’s not a ghost. No ghosts.”

“We could investigate. Maybe ghosts are involved. What even is he? Why every hundred years? Is it some sort of Persephone situation?”

Hob bit his lip against shouting I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Instead, he tried to smile, and felt it come out as a wince instead. “He’s very private.”

Charles scowled. “Yeah, obviously. You don’t even know his name. He can’t be that good of a friend if he’s too busy to see you more than once a century.”

Hob couldn’t see the expression on his own face, but he saw Charles’ shocked reaction well enough. It was so long ago for him, and still Hob knew at once what Charles saw now: that first time you manage to visibly hurt a grown-up’s feelings, people who seemed too old and too stern to actually feel pain, when you’d been going around kicking at them like a new foal, just to stretch your legs.

“Sorry,” said Charles, instant regret chasing his surprise. He was a good kid.

“It’s alright,” said Hob. He meant it. He looked down at the shining bartop. His hands were restless with the urge to light a cigarette. He gave in. It wasn’t like Charles would be dying of lung cancer any time soon if he decided to follow Hob’s example. “I don’t think he would say he’s very good at being a friend either. Truth is, I’d love to see him more often. But we had an awful fight the last time we met. If he forgives me, I’ll have to ask.”

“Mates always make up,” said Charles earnestly. He was such a good kid.

“I suppose they do.” Charles still looked sorry, and Hob clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. Thanks for looking out for me, Charles.”

Charles beamed at him. “Always. We’ve got your back, me and Edwin.”

---

Charles couldn’t bloody believe it. Hob’s friend was here. There was nobody else it could be. He and Edwin were watching from a nearby table, pretending to be absorbed in their own conversation. Neither man noticed them. They were too busy looking at each other.

He couldn’t imagine spending more than a century apart from Edwin. The way Hob had talked about him and his stranger over the years, it sometimes seemed like they were best mates too, no matter how little they saw each other. He was dead sure that’s what had Hob looking so gutted when he thought nobody was looking. He had known they would make up, though. Maybe now Hob would be happier.

“Charles, we really ought not eavesdrop,” hissed Edwin. Right as he scooted his chair closer, the cheeky hypocrite. Hob and his friend were talking too quietly to properly hear, their heads bent together. Lots to catch up on, Charles reckoned. A hundred years. He couldn’t stop thinking about the number. It seemed impossible. Funny, he couldn’t imagine that long away from Edwin, but he could imagine spending that long being best mates. There was nobody he’d rather hide from Death with.

Hob’s face was doing something strange as his long-lost friend talked. Then Hob moved and grasped him by the shoulders, so tight that his knuckles stood out in relief. The man said something in low tones and Hob shook his head, and then pulled him in for a hug. The man stiffened and then relaxed, and his arms came up around Hob’s.

Their cheeks both looked wet.

Charles swallowed and it felt suddenly a little like he was choking. He should look away, only he couldn’t.

“They must be great friends,” said Edwin softly.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak. We won’t ever need to have a reunion like this because I’m never going to lose you, mate. I won’t let them take you. It was stuck behind the phantom lump in his phantom throat. His hand, without him telling it to, reached out and grabbed hold of Edwin’s. Edwin squeezed it hard, and Charles knew he didn’t have to make his voice work after all.

Then the man pushed Hob away, but only far enough to grab his face and pull him back again, thumbing over Hob’s cheeks, and beside him, Edwin honest-to-god gasped, and then Charles momentarily forgot how thoughts worked too.

---

It happens thus: in the New Inn, just next door to the White Horse, some 639 years after they first met, Hob Gadling and Dream of the Endless share their first kiss. Neither, if they had bothered to think about it, would have intended to have an audience, but it’s a well-known fact that some kisses cannot wait, and theirs was chief among them, being that it had so much to say, and was so very long overdue.

I missed you, it said, and I came back, it said, and Please don���t go away from me again, and I could not.

And atop them, like blankets, were laid invisible the daydreams of those who saw them, including two long-dead boys, whose dreams were woven from the fresh and unaccounted-for possibilities of Hob kissing his mysterious stranger. Another man, thought Edwin. His best friend, thought Charles. Dream was the only one who could have heeded this, but he did not, because Hob Gadling was holding him tight and daydreaming loudly of this kiss and more, of this today and tonight and tomorrow, ever greedy and ever easily pleased, and Dream could hear nothing at all over their clamouring and comingled joy; the bright gold daydream between the scant space of their bodies that sounded so much like at last.

[starheavenly]

hey just curious are meggs n op just REALLY big or are the seekers really that smoll?

[coquelicoq]

what i like especially about the pronouns in the goblin emperor is that this language doesn't just have the T-V distinction (aka informal vs. formal second-person pronouns, in this case 'thou' vs. 'you'), it also has informal and formal first-person pronouns. having BOTH of these distinctions in the same language lets you fine-tune your tone by mixing and matching. with only one axis of formality, when you use informal pronouns, are you being familiar in an intimate way, or in an insolent or dismissive way? when you use formal pronouns, are you being polite or standoffish? you can't tell just from the pronouns; there's ambiguity. but a language where you can use a formal first-person pronoun in the same sentence as an informal second-person pronoun allows you to distance yourself (via the formal first) while also being familiar (via the informal second), thereby achieving the conversational tenor known to linguists as Fuck Thee Specifically.

[rui-drawsbox]

Step 4 posting!

"I like sunflowers" "Yeah. Those are nice too. They're bright and awesome. You match with them." 8 years old Cove was smoother than step 2 and 3 Cove

Oh she did a little *more* than torment him

Random relatioship stuff, they're so embarrassing 🙄

[theslimeologist]

Something about the new slimes in SR2 always kind of bothered me.. they're all animal slimes that have been introduced so far, animal slimes with many possible appendages that can clip into or replace other slime's appendage traits. "How bad could it be?" I asked myself- and drew out this chart.

Most of the SR2 slimes have more traits and features than 85% of every other slime in SR1. It feels overwhelming to say the least.

[deadclockghost]

Have a Sunny Smile

Had no physical or mental energy for days but today I finally made something! Two since I couldn't choose. Now let's see how long this energy lasts :')

[bruhstation]

do you ever wonder what it's like to date the most mentally repressed bachelor of sodor but also want to prepare yourself for what's to come? for casa tidmouth's valentine's day special the author filled out this handy dandy chart so you can see if you're lucky for fitting all the criteria or for not fitting any of the criteria

(template by mythir on twitter)

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

u know wot im gonna talk about attack the block. its a movie made cause the director was fed up of seeing 'hoodie horror' and charecters like Moses[played by John Boyega in his first acting credit], black kids who got involved in bad stuff/expelled from school beeing shorthand for 'pure evil'

he went around interviewing kids to get the language right and meet people like moses. heres the full quote: "We did find some who were quite similar to Moses, who’d been excluded from school or got involved with bad stuff. And they’re not monsters. They’re very empathic, and when you spend a bit of time with them they’re normal and sweet, enthusiastic and bright. But they’ve just been cornered a bit by life, and I think that often the way they’re portrayed doesn’t help with that. Culturally, it makes the problem worse, not better." from an artical in the list

its fun its heartbreking its political its alien designs are awsome and it shows people and community with love that are so often treated like shit when portrayed.

[vixeneptune]

I just love how I always eventually end up manifesting my desires like it's guaranteed for me, I don't even care how long it takes bc I know I always end up getting what I want, like it's just a matter of time but I don't stress about timing, I just KNOW it'll come one way or another.

This makes manifesting so chill and natural for me like everything just falls into place at its own pace and comes to me at the right time

[channnel]

Idk who that guy is, nor how Jules managed to snatch him, all I know is that he is hot.

[sainamoonshine]

My unpopular opinion is that in languages with grammatical gender like french, it does make sense for Murderbot to be referred to by whatever pronoun is usually used for robots or constructs. (In french, therefore, grammatical masculine.) Because there are no traditional « it » pronouns in these languages for objects, and while there are neo-pronouns, they are things one must choose for themselves. Do you honestly think MB actually spent time thinking about its pronouns?! No it didn’t. On forms it picks « non-applicable ». When people ask it what pronouns they should use, its honest opinion is « why do you even need to talk about me. Just don’t fucking do that. Don’t think about me either. Just fucking stop perceiving me altogether! »

Thinking about what pronouns to use probably makes it way more uncomfortable than letting people call it what they’ve already been calling it. Making a conscious choice about its identity? And telling other people about it??? No thanks bye, it’s just gonna walk into the ocean now, see you never.

Lbr it probably thinks the only bots that get fancy pronouns are comfort units, and the pronouns are probably shoved into them by humans same as everything else. MB would meet a bot using a neopronoun and it would wish it could barf. Because in a language like french, he/him and she/her, when applied to objects, ARE fulfilling the function of the english « it ». Nobody is saying the table is a woman or related to feminity in any way outside of stand-up comedy; when it comes to objects grammatical gender really has fuckall to do with human gender even if we use the same words. Even animal species names have grammatical gender and everyone gets that there are male and female turtles even if the word « turtle » is a female word, it’s not that confusing.

(I know this is strange when your language has different pronouns for people and for objects, but understand that english uses the same word to indicate if I’m addressing one or many people, and that is confusing to me.)

TL;DR; stop harassing international fans for not getting the correct MB pronoun in english right off the bat. Yes in english calling it « he » or « her » or « them » is upsetting because it’s projecting an identity unto it. But same goes for trying to get a foreign language translation to use a pronoun intended to express or showcase an identity (or even a lack of one!). Murderbot has not thought about it this hard, refuses to think about it this hard -> and that is its only canon accurate gender identity.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

y'all!! i'm doing it!! i'm reading a charted pattern with NO TEXT BACKUP, and a baby shawl is being born!!

[axolotlclown]

remember when there was that post going around challenging terfs to define a chair? i have yet to watch a gender essentialist define a woman without excluding cis black women. and i want yall to watch them do it over and over again until you understand that transphobia is just repackaged white supremacy.

[applejongho]

honestly the y**ngi dui situation is one of the most interesting events that has unfolded in kpop... maybe it's bc he was my ult for ~3 years and my dad loves him (he has not spoken a word to me about The Situation tho so idk how he feels) but i do think the reaction that came out of fans is why it's so compelling for me to follow to a T

[thatuselesshuman]

I ddon't get post nut clarity, I get post yap my ass off clarity