#i've seen some very awesome examples

[mistress-light]

Aaaight, my 3D wand panels finally arrived. Time to pimp my (game) office soon. I'm still looking for some good RGB lights to spice things up. Any recommendations are welcome!

[hobiebrownismygod]

Why Spiderman-India/Pavitr Prabhakar is one of the best examples of Indian representation I've seen in a long time

Mumbattan

Lets talk about Earth-50101, Mumbattan, Pavitr's home dimension. Mumbattan is displayed as a beautiful, colorful dimension with lots of traffic, lots of people, and lots of culture. When we see Gwen, Miles and Pav swinging through Mumbattan, we see people wearing saris, people driving scootys, Indian-style billboards and even temples in the surroundings. This is an extremely accurate depiction of large Indian cities.

Mumbattan on the left, Mumbai on the right

See how similar these look?

Now compare this to how Hollywood's Slumdog Millionaire movie depicts India.

Every single movie depicting India made by Hollywood portrays India as a country full of slums and dirty people. I have never seen Hollywood portray India as the beautiful, culture-filled country it is, and I have never seen one of the many beautiful temples, or the advanced cities represented in western media until now. Slumdog Millionaire is a fantastic movie, but India isn't only made up of slums.

Hollywood tends to romanticize struggle and when depicting India, makes it seem like a very depressing country. Yes, there are slums in India. Yes, there are people struggling in India. But that doesn't mean that India isn't beautiful. It doesn't mean India is behind. Mumbattan is the first depiction of India I've seen that I feel portrays the beauty and culture of India well. It is a fantastic representation.

2. Pavitr's personality

One of the most recent and most popular Indian representation series right now is the show, Never Have I Ever. In my opinion, this show is terrible. The main character, Devi Vishwakumar, is the stereotype of all stereotypes and doesn't accurately portray most Desi girls. She is rude, selfish, and extremely narcissistic. Her entire personality is being Indian and I find that extremely hard to watch. They make fun of her by addressing stereotypes like an excess of body hair, fashion, and even accents but instead of shutting down these stereotypes, they amplified them by making fun of them.

In western media, Indians are either portrayed as IT workers, scammers, grocery store owners, or nerdy, try-hard teenagers. Every show with an Indian teenager in it portrays them as cheap, unhygienic or unattractive which I, as an Indian, find extremely offensive.

Pavitr is portrayed as an optimistic Indian teenager who's smart and strong, without bragging about it, proud of being Indian without making it his whole personality and genuinely funny. He isn't portrayed as some skinny, nerdy guy with glasses. In fact, he's literally shown flexing his muscles, and performing well in class without going overboard about it. He's so full of culture, I can't even begin to explain it because I'll never stop. His suit, his mask, his webs, the way he moves, the way he fights, its all beautiful and I could watch for days on end without getting bored.

We were finally served an attractive, funny Indian character who isn't a walking stereotype, who loves and embraces his culture and just seems like an awesome guy to be around. Seeing him on screen made me feel so proud, of my religion and my culture. I hope Hollywood takes notes on this and continues providing the media with proper Indian representation and strong Indian role models for characters!

This article explains everything I said a little better, because I know my writing style can be confusing sometimes. It really goes into depth on how impactful it is on Indians to see this kind of representation for the first time in western media and how important this is.

He's so pretty <3 I'm so proud that I look like him

Might go even more in-depth eventually, I just really wanted to get this off my chest because I love him so much 😭

[not-magdi]

Period

Summary: Well it‘s that time of the month again 😑 Luckily this time you‘re not alone 😁

Warnings: None

Words: 1.1k

A/N

As someone who currently is experiencing the same thing I would like to say that I also want to be babied at some point, but who is there for me? Nobody 😑

(A short moment to appreciate how frigging cute that boy looks!❤️)

Since Y/N woke up today she knew something was off, everything in her body ached and her head hurt like crazy. She had no clue what was going on, but whatever it was it should better stop sooner than later because she some things to do, her boyfriend Pablo for example.

Y/N and Pablo have been boyfriend and girlfriend for about a month now, everything was going great, the chemistry between them was awesome, and they were still really deep in their honeymoon phase.

Still, they need to get used to each other, not wanting to scare the other one off they try to do everything that involves the other as perfectly as possible.

Now Y/N was about to get out of bed when she felt a stabbing pain in her lower abdomen, rushing to the bathroom her fear was confirmed, she got her period.

"Oh come on ... you're a week too soon" complained Y/N cleaning herself up and reaching for a tampon.

Coming out of the bathroom she felt horrible, her abdomen was punishing her with the worst cramps she felt in a while and her head was killing her. Going into the kitchen she starts to boil water for her heating pad as she turns around to open the fridge she sees the red circle on her calendar.

Today her and Pablo were supposed to go to this new nightclub that opened last week, he wanted her to meet a few of his friends today, but knowing her body she was going to feel horrible for the rest of the day.

Feeling really guilty she thought about what she should do, calling Pablo and telling him how horrible she felt and him probably being very disappointed, or her still going but most likely not enjoying the evening and making a bad impression on his friends, which then again leads to Pablo being disappointed in her.

Sighing she presses Pablo's contact calling him.

"Hola amor what's up" Pablo answers after two rings.

"Hola bebé I think I need to cancel today, I'm feeling really sick today and I don't want to ruin everyone's evening," she says while sitting down on the couch rubbing her abdomen.

"Oh no ... you want me to come over? I could look after you", Pablo asks with genuine concern.

Wanting nothing more than be cuddled up in Pablo's arms while he looks after her she still declines, "No baby you don't have to it's not that bad" She winces at the end of her sentence as a really bad cramp surges through her.

"Are you sure, you do not sound good ... are you in pain?" not convinced by her statement he asks her.

"No! ... well yes, kind of. It's just ... I'm on my period and everything kind of hurts" Convinced he is going to be disgusted she mumbles the last part.

"Oh poor thing, I'm definitely coming over ... I've seen how much my sister suffers from that. I'm not leaving you alone in your misery ." He exclaims with an affectionate tone.

Touched by his statement she cuddles herself deeper into the couch hearing him say he is going to be there in thirty minutes, as he has to do a few things before he can come.

Unbeknownst to Y/N Pablo called his sister asking her what he should do now because, to be honest, he had no clue where he should even start.

Being utterly confused why her brother was calling her out of nowhere asking what girls like on her period she tells him a few basic things everybody enjoys, chocolate, heated blankets, ...

After getting a few ideas from his sister he drove to the nearest store and bought a few snacks for her and a pair of fluffy socks he knows she loves so much.

He bought everything he thought she might need, and nearly emptied the whole sweets section. He drove to her house gently knocking on the front door.

"It's open!", he hears Y/N yell, and as he opens the door he sees a pale-looking Y/N cuddled under her favourite blanket all in all looking pretty sick. The sight breaks his heart, placing the bags from his shopping trip beside the couch. He kneels before her kissing her head.

"Oh amor ... you really don't feel good, do you?" stroking her head he sees her shaking her head groaning as another cramp hits.

Lifting the shopping bags he exclaims softly, "I brought you some snacks, I didn't know what to get you so I just grabbed a few of my favorite comfort snacks"

Smiling softly Y/N looks into the bag seeing lots of different types of food from sweet to sour everything was there.

"Thank you that's perfect" being really touched by his actions tears start to form in her eyes.

„Hey Bebé ... it's ok no need to cry" wiping the tears away with his thumb Pablo kisses her nose earning himself a teary giggle.

„I'm sorry it's just that ... you're like the sweetest person I've ever met. Nobody ever brought me snacks while I'm on my period or cared for me like that"

„Well then it's time we change that ... scooch over I want some cuddles."

Scooching over Pablo climbs behind her so he's sitting up and she has her back to his chest, hearing her groan in pain again he asks;" Is there anything I can do to help you with the pain?"

Thinking for a short while Y/N answers, " Yes there actually is." Taking his hands she brings them to her abdomen, "Just hold your hands there please, your warmth will ease the cramps."

Nodding Pablo holds her abdomen with his hands starting to massage it after some time, hearing Y/N sigh he smiles to himself looking down and seeing her cuddle herself deeper into him.

"You comfy?" he asks her with a smile. Looking up at him with an adorable little smile she nods wrapping her arms around his.

"Don't you have to go soon, otherwise you'll be late to meet up with your friends." looking up at him Y/N  asks Pablo.

"I said they can go without me, I'd rather be with my girl anyways." kissing her head he answers.

"Really? ... Awww you're so sweet when you want to" she exclaims, gasping Pablo looks at her. "What's that supposed to mean!?"

Giggling Y/n gives Pablo a kiss before cuddling herself into him again, falling asleep not much later, in the safety of her boyfriends' arms who she grows to love more and more every day.

[slackerlifewhere]

The female characters

As usual, this post might have SPOILERS about the first volume of TCF so if you don't want to see this, please don't continue. Thanks!

___

There's this problem I've noticed as a reader of several novels. It's the reason why I skipped or dropped a lot of novels that disappointed me despite their good plot.

The female characters are either barely in the story, they suck, or turned into a harem member.

Most authors don't know how to write women unless they're the same gender. And while I have no problems with male characters, it's sad that if you see a movie, anime, manga, or novel, the results are either of the three mentioned above☝️.

But TCF managed to surprise me yet again.

Like I said in my previous post,

I did not have high expectations for this novel when I first started reading it. I just wanted to read something because I was bored.

So imagine my surprise when a lot of female characters started appearing everywhere in this novel. While some have minor roles like Amiru, Violan, and Lily, most of them are relevant to the plot. Something that is lacking in most novels. They're not one-dimensional characters but are instead given depth by the author.

Violan and Lily

Violan and Lily, who barely show up in the story because we're focused on Cale's point of view, have their own backstories and goals. Their roles are simple but it's enough that you'll be able to remember their names unlike those characters that are easily forgettable.

You'll be able to remember that Violan loves art and wants to help her husband and family as a wife, mother, and countess. She's very intelligent and even appears to be in equal footing with her husband. She's just as important as Deruth in their territory. If you remember how she appeared when Clopeh attacked them, you can see that despite her worry and anger for Cale's poor state, she appeared calm and was willing to stand by his side despite the danger she faces.

Lily on the other hand wants to be a swordsman to help her brothers protect their territory. I find her small interactions with Cale so adorable because of how much Cale respects her and her dream. She is brave and hard-working, unwilling to stay behind while her brothers do everything. She even grew stronger later in the novel. The fact that she was raised to be confident about her skills and herself is a good sign that Deruth and Violan did not care about gender roles and I just find this awesome.

Witira

Another example is the manhwa.

Let me first mention that I don't read the manhwa. I like it but I prefer the novel. I feel like their thoughts and opinions aren't always shown properly compared to when you read the novel.

But when I first saw Witira illustrated in the manhwa, my first thought was "she looks strong". The fact that I noticed how strong she is just by how she exudes confidence and power amazed me. Her personality is already obvious just by how she talks and moves.

In the novel, Cale likens himself to a shrimp while standing next to them, Raon, and Toonka. He knows that he's the weakest in the group and was quick to hide when Toonka jumped into a fight with Witira. He also thought that Toonka is stupid for trying to fight with Witira.

But what I appreciate about Witira is her care for her brother. She was so ready to interrogate Cale about Paseton and her brother had to calm her to calm down.

Before I wax poetry about how cool Witira is, here is the summary of the women that made an impact in the story.

There's Rosalyn who left her position as a princess to be a powerful mage. There's Mary, an innocent necromancer with a tragic background and Tasha who is a dark elf that wants to support her nephew despite the disgust and fear aimed at their race.

The others, while not often seen, are just as important because of their connection to other characters. Cage wants to be excommunicated and protect Taylor (something she failed to do in the original story) and is connected to the God of Death. Litana is a queen who wants to protect her Jungle from Adin and Arm. And Jopis wants her family and kingdom back from Elisneh.

There's also Cotton but to be honest, she's the one of the few female characters that I barely know about aside from her actions in Endable and connection to the God of War. I'm wondering if she'll show up more in the second volume.

Mary

She's a quiet character but she's my favorite among all the characters. When she first appeared in the novel, she didn't have much presence. It was only when she was brought above the City of Death/Life that she became more than a pitiful necromancer who was hated and feared just because she wanted to survive, like her parents wanted her to do before they died.

She may look naive at first because she spent most of her life in the underground city, but she later proves how powerful and kind she is.

Instead of hating the world that hated her, she moved past that and just wanted to protect the people she sees as her family and friends. Her backstory is sad but it didn't stop her from seeking happiness even if she became a necromancer.

She's one of the strongest characters in my eyes and I'm happy to see her slowly gain confidence in herself.

Hannah and Elisneh

But out of all the women, Hannah and Elisneh are the ones who surprised me the most.

Hannah was originally an antagonist. She fought against Cale and his group before she was betrayed by Arm. And she was about to die if Cale, Litana, Cage, and Mary did not save her. Instead of completely changing her character, she still remains bloodthirsty but has a softer side because of her brother and Cale.

She develops in a way that I did not expect. I actually thought she would be another Redika because of her obsession with blood and would later die as an extra character but she proved me wrong. She instead fights Arm with her brother and the group. I believe she's as strong as Rosalyn but I don't remember (I have to re-read the novel).

She doesn't care about the scars left on her by the dead mana and keeps it as a reminder of the betrayal she and her twin faced, proving she doesn't care how people who fear dead mana look at her.

Elisneh on the other hand, remains an antagonist against Jopis. She was originally supposed to "save" the Jungle but judging on how her kingdom turned out (like a storage for dead mana and stuck in an illusion), I can make a guess that she would've done the same with the Jungle had Cale not helped Litana before.

She's an antagonist that left a deep impression on me because of how static she is as a character. She remains focused on her greed and thirst for power and it's nice to see that not all antagonists in the story are turned into allies or kind people. She's strong enough that it took a whole group to defeat her.

On

And last but not the least is On.

She is not as vocal as Hong and Raon but she is the most mature out of all the kids. She is very sharp and knows what Cale thinks of himself and the people around him. She didn't initially trust Cale and I like that. She notices how stupid Cale can be at times and seems exasperated by him. She can still be childish just like her siblings from time to time but her determination to become stronger against the Fog Cat Tribe and Arm shows how much she and Hong had faced before arriving in the Henituse territory.

I understand some readers don't like the involvement of children in TCF because it's bad for the kids to be in war against a strong organization. BUT readers forget that this is a different world with different ways of thinking. These kids are from the Fog Cat Tribe, beastmen who can fight and are prepared for it. They have abilities that normal humans don't and they need to train those abilities if they want to survive in a world full of strong people and wars.

Her being involved in battles makes her feel proud of how strong she became, something she didn't feel when she was in her tribe. Because she's a mutant, her tribe made her feel bad about herself and was ready to kill her and Hong. She needs encouragement and praises that they're not useless or weak. She doesn't need to be coddled and she knows this.

She's smart enough to know that she and her siblings will only be safe with Cale and his group. Even in the war, their only involvement was spreading a poisonous fog so they could hide their presence from the enemy and Cale could hide his ancient powers from the greedy nobles. Aside from that, they weren't fighting in the war. They entered, used their abilities, and left.

Their tribe is good at being stealthy and it's why Ron wants to train these kids. They're good as potential assassins if they want to become one.

I might make a different post about the kids but this is all I have to say about On for now.

Respect

Another reason why I love this novel is because Cale treats these people with respect, regardless of their race, history, and gender.

He doesn't stop them from becoming stronger and instead encourages them to be what they want to be. He respects their failures and strengths. He doesn't coddle them nor does he find them weaker because they're women.

That's why I respect the author. Instead of writing them as side characters existing to make men stronger, the author made me feel amazed at all these strong women, regardless if they're normal or a fighter.

___

I can write more about these characters like Rosalyn and Tasha but I'll just end it here because I might just summarize the whole novel at this point 😅

[stardustto-dust]

Why you should vote Abed Nadir in the 2023 autism swag summit

I've seen people do this for other polls and it is vital that Abed Nadir from the 2009-2015 NBC comedy Community wins this one.

Vote him round one here.

Does he fit the first part of the statement? Yes, Abed is canonically autistic.

When he realised autistic fans related to him, creator Dan Harmon did as much research as he possibly could into autism as to not let those fans down.

While doing said research, Harmon realised himself was likely on the spectrum. Meaning that Abed is a canon autistic character created by an autistic person. How often does that happen?

Due to the above facts, he is a very well researched and developed autistic character, with both traits more commonly shown in the media, such as blunted affect and difficulties reading faces and less commonly shown traits, such as hyperempathy and sensory issues.

From the time Abed first appeared on screen to the present day, there have been many blog posts, magazine articles and even scholarly articles written about how good rep he is. I have seen him on many a neurodiversity advocacy Instagram account. (If you want me to link some I will!)

OK, we have established the autism. What about the swag? Well, first of all, as Donald Glover summarised it "Abed fucks". There is a whole episode dedicated to his friends trying to get him a girlfriend and worrying about his self-esteem and in the end it turns out he gets plenty of girls and, as he says, he has "self-esteem falling out (his) butthole." He also gets guys hitting on him. And how can we mention Abed without his boyfriend soulmate best friend Troy. who canonically wants to have his "gentle and mysterious" "other half"'s children. In short, bisexual king.

Of course, swag is not limited to just sexual and romantic prowess, as the amount of aroace people I know with limitless swag testifies to. Swag can also be measured by commitment to the bit, for example. And, boy, is Abed known for his commitment to the bit.

Abed is Batman, Han Solo and Jesus. He is a mafia boss. He is a cartoon man discovering the meaning of Christmas. He is the narrator and the cameraman. Like, not metaphorically or in archetype. He realises a need for these characters in the story and becomes them.

[GIF- Abed as Batman, applying lip balm, possessing undeniable amounts of swag]

9. "How does he realise the need for the these things in the story?" you may ask. Well, his special interest is film and TV. He is a filmmaker. Thus, he frames his life in terms of genre, often seeming aware of the fact he is in a sitcom. However, this often changes, and, the show branches off into completely different genres, which Abed points out. These shifts in genre explore character dynamics and also are super awesome. Abed is so genre-aware, he changes the entire genre of the show. That is swag.

10. The Community fandom here on Tumblr.com, and throughout the web, is quite small. It will make us very happy. Plus, for the first time in 8 years, there likely will be new Abed content this year, due to the release of the movie. (Due to one of Abed's many catchphrases "Six seasons and a movie!")

11. Please please please please I love him so much and i am very cool you should listen to me please please please.

So yeah, that's it! If you have anything to add, please do!

Click below for some Abed gifs.

[GIF- "Evil Abed" (Abed with a goatee and sunglasses) walking through his college being evil. He hangs up someone's payphone call, pops a girls balloon with his cigarette and then dumps said cigarette into a woman's coffee]

[GIF- Two gifs. One is of Troy, topless, leaning out of an airvent. He looks down and says "I love you". Next is of Abed, looking up at him. He says "I know", before being grabbed by a zombie in a kilt]

[GIF- Abed, wearing sunglasses, saying "movie reference". Jeff is there too and also wearing sunglasses]

[GIF- Abed saying "Cool. Cool cool cool"]

Ok there are so many more GIFs I want to put but I kinda have work soon lol. You get the gist, he is amazing. Vote Abed!

[miapcain]

I feel like you've probably read a lot of medieval history stuff. So have you, and if you have how do you think it impacts your work on vesna? p.s. I'm reading a Medieval Life by Judith Bennett and its an awesome read so far can't recommend it enough

Hello! Thank you for the ask!

I read a lot and have for a while. Vesna is the composite of a LOT of interests of mine, many of them specifically historic and regional. I've always been interested in the medieval period, and I loved Pillars of the Earth when I read it as a teen (still like it, the second book especially, though I take issue with some of Follett's character work). Name of the Rose too, naturally. Recently I've enjoyed Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, and the game Pentiment. I like the ASOIAF books, which are obviously less interested in intricate medievalism than tone and complex political and personal interplay, but imo aren't any worse for it.

In terms of non-fiction, currently reading "Felix Austria" by Stephan Vajda on that front. I love The Once and Future Sex by Dr. Eleanor Janega too. A lot of my process for Vesna involves researching specific points, though- I was trying to find out how exactly rushes worked, and stumbled on a 19th c. text which documents rush-bearing in certain parts of england and goes into the history, for example. I try to read as much of this stuff as I can. The region Vesna is set in doesn't get much materialist history done to it. It's very hard to find out what sort of agriculture was practiced in the hills at the time, for example. Even Felix Austria, a pretty hefty book, mostly brushes over it and says "life was on the whole easier and fruits and crops more abundant than in other parts of europe at the time," which is a bit meagre.

Visually, it's influenced by whatever visual art I consumed recently. I read Dungeon Meshi and fell in love with Ryoko Kui's solid figure drawing and character designs. I read Berserk and fell in love with Miura's landscapes and shading. I played Dark Souls and fell in love with the intricate architecture and tranquil emptiness. I visit ruins and castles here in Austria whenever I can, ideally one a week, and forests and rivers even more. I already mentioned Pentiment, but I have a huge reference folder of 13th century art on my pc. My biggest artistic influence is probably Socar Myles, who does better hatching work and dark fantasy illustration than anyone I've ever seen.

For the character work I would have to point to my best friend Digital Poppy's work. I liked her games before I knew her, and actually getting to talk to her about them (and helping make them!) opened my eyes to what you can have characters do in a story.

I hope this answered your question! Sorry i don't have a specific text to point to!

bonus: Vesna appearing in one of Digital Poppy's games

[evablueblanket]

Will you tell me about an LU character you love and why you love them? Please please please ramble on and on! It's my favorite! I get so many fun ideas when people gush about their favorites.

I (think) I've said this before, but I am not the most analytical/observ person ever so most of what I say is probably kinda shallow :') BUT THIS IS MY RAMBLE SO OH WELL

Okay so recently, I've been on a Warriors kick. I just super love how like, everyone portrays him! Most see him as big brother shaped, which I super love. His background is just so vastly different than every other Link, which serves as a very cool contrast imo

The way @somer-writes makes Twi and Wars idiodic brothers is like, my favorite ever. I love love love LOVE how he writes Wars and Twi it's so insane the comedy that unfolds when they're just messing around xD

Warriors has this air, this *vibe* which I'm just super drawn too, I think it's just how my personality vs his works (you could theoretically draw *some* parallels with Sokka from ATLA, at least the way they each hold themselves I'd say. Also big bro stuff) (ALSO how both of them are portrayed as 'smart', which is a trait I typically relate too in characters)

When I like a character though, it's more based on the different types of relationships everyone writes them as though, I'd say. Wars and Time and Wind have this super intriguing bond that I think is cool to see how everyone interprets it! For the most part people write them as they're all aware of the War of Ages and whatnot, which lead to some nice fluff and/or angst. But when there's some time paradoxes, it makes it every so more tragic and it's really interesting to see how that can get written. I recall a fic (I FORGOT THE TITLE AND THE AUTHOR NOO) where Wars was teaching Wind medic stuff, but it was like a year before Wind meets Wars in the war. So Wars is all "sob this is why Wind is such a good medic? *Bc I taught him?*" THIS IS SO COOL AND INTERESTING

Also when there's War of Ages fics that have Time/Mask being a stupid child (/aff) they're just super hilarious. There's a series out there that has the Fierce Deity (sorry forgot the author again xD) act as Wars parent figure/older brother figure and it's just really funny to me bc ofc Wars would be a stupid overworking idiot. Loser smh

Four is also another one of the sillies that live in my brain, and I kinda wish there were more fics on how they interact. Though, if I'm being real idk how they really would cause they don't really have the same synergy as any other Links. I just like my favorites to interact, but I super understand how they wouldn't ^^

Small side bit on serious Wars (the biggest example is "Call Them Brothers" by wutheringmights which I'm almost 100% certain you've read that already cause it's soooo long and it's SO GOOD AHH) and ugh I wish I could pay attention more to get every complexity that this Wars has but the brain kinda hates me. I think it makes a lot of sense for Wars to have a grittier characterization, war does that to people. The entire fic is so visceral to me, I just vividly remember reading the flashback section about the long winter, and I don't even know how to really describe it xD

Wars has such a broad range of emotion, if one were to put him under and microscope and study him there would be SO MUCH.

HAVE I TALKED ABOUT THE AESTHETIC

HES THE FUCKING PRETTY BOY OF THE GROUP AND THAT'S SO VALUBLE TO ME FOR NO REAL REASON

Ik Wild is seen as the one with like, outfits and Legend has his jewlery, BUT WARS HAS HIS FUCKING SCARF. THERES SO MANY POSTS ABOUT WARS AND HIS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SCARF AND I AM SO FUCKING FOR IT YOU HAVE NO IDEA

THE SHADE OF BLUE IS AWESOME, ITS SO COOL, ITS SO COOL HES SO COOL RAHHHH

*oops tehe I rambled like a lot* ty for this opportunity :D I'm super glad I decided to type this on my laptop and not my phone xD

[amorisastrum]

How to use tone tags! :D

Because @flaming-green asked and also neurodivergence !!

Long post woah

Commonly used tone tags:

/j = joke

/hj = half joke

/ly or /lyr = lyrics

/pos = positive

/neg = negative

/lh = light hearted

/nm = not mad

/s or /sarc = sarcastic

/nbh = no body here (this is used alongside a rant/vent that has not named a specific person- people may think you are talking about them and spiral)

/genq = genuine question

/nf = not forced

/plat = platonic

/r = romantic

/srs = serious

/t = teasing

Why use tone tags?:

Tone can be a very difficult thing to pick up, especially through text. Use of punctuation and capital letters and certain word choices can make a sentence seem completely different. For example, if I received a text saying "Come see me right now." I would instantly think I was in trouble and would panic. However, if I received that same message with a "/nm" I would feel much better about the situation. People use punctuation in different ways as well! I personally use exclamation marks to show how excited I am !! While for others, a multitude of exclamation marks could indicate sarcasm. Same with the use of emojis. I personally use some emojis to indicate sarcasm, but I know people who use those same emojis to indicate... Well, what the emoji is showing. So, to use a tone tag avoids any sort of miscommunication.

When to use tone tags?:

Deciding when to use tone tags can be difficult. I personally use tone tags when I reread a message and realise it is ambiguous in tone, or when I reread it, it sounds more aggressive or rude than I intended it to be.

If somebody asks you what you mean by a message, this is probably a sign that you need a tone tag of sorts. Not all people are going to interpret things the way you intend them to be, so tone tags as a whole are helpful to avoid miscommunication. Sometimes the context of the message being sent can change someone's perception so tone tags are not always needed e.g. "omg I love you so much! You're so awesome!" This may be seen as genuine, while "omg you're so awesome." Can be seen as sarcastic. It depends on how that person's brain works.

If you are talking directly with one person, or a small group of people, and you know their typing habits (such as using emojis for sarcasm or use of punctuation) then tone tags may be needed less! But if you are talking to a group of people, such as on Tumblr, it may be easier to use tone tags as more people will see what you've said and... Well people may not understand what you meant!

Some words may have different connotations through different contexts, such as the word "silly". But sometimes people may not understand that context. I typically use Silly in a positive way, but at one point I referred to a character I didn't like as a "silly man" with my friend who had no clue who this character was. To them, this meant I liked this character, which left them confused when I started talking about them in a bad way. So, I started adding "/neg" anytime I meant silly in a negative way to avoid confusion.

Other tone tag things:

Try and avoid piling of tone tags at the end of a message/post as this can be confusing. Id say try to use no more than 2, 3 at a maximum.

If you're cutting into the middle of a message with a tone tag, you can use brackets, but you don't have to! Do what makes you comfortable.

Use punctuation where you see fit.

You don't have to use tone tags for every message you send/everything you post! Use them when YOU think the tone could be ambiguous or if someone has directly asked you what you mean.

You don't have to know every tone tag ever. I've been using tone tags for a good 2 maybe 3 years now and I mainly use /nm, /j, /srs, /sarc and /pos.

I also use /silly, which I'm not sure is an actual tone tag. I use this if something I say seems passive aggressive or if I am in fact just being silly.

I hope this has helped! Tone tags are something that help me communicate with people and make me more comfortable! And I hope they can make it easier for you to communicate as well :]

Also sorry if this makes little sense it is 2am. Feel free to add any more information in reblogs or replies!!

[olderthannetfic]

I've just read an article (in Gazeta Wyborcza) about a very popular series of books among young teens in my country, Poland, called "Rodzina Monet" (Family Monet). The author gained popularity while publishing on Wattpad lol. The article basically said that it's problematic because these books are read by young girls, even 10 years old, and it glorifies violence. Plus it just isn't well written - there were some fragments in the article and yeah it's not well written lmao. A woman in the comments said that her daughter is reading this book and asked if she should forbid it. Since no one answered her, I replied that I don't think forbidding the book is a good solution and suggested talking to her daughter about it, showing her the article and asking what she thinks about it. But I don't know anything more about that situation, for example how old the daughter is. I don't think I'd worry if my child were to read this book, I read trashy stuff too. But I started wondering if maybe there should be some control in such a case? The thing with the books from what I gathered (I haven't read them) is that they are about a 14yo girl, who suddenly lost her mother and grandmother, is sent away to US from Britain where she starts living with her 28yo (handsome) stepbrother and his 3 (also handsome) brothers. She lives in a beautiful villa since the stepbrother is super rich. He's also cold and distant and doesn't understand that she has issues with food (she has some kind of eating disorder). Some of the things he and his 3 brothers do can be described as domestic violence but they apologize, buy her expensive stuff and are all adult handsome men. Yeah it's a young adult fiction. The thing is that it's just not well written so none of the bad behaviours is commented upon.

--

Sounds like typical godawful id trash that people eat up. Making a rule against it will just make it more tantalizing.

It would be far more valuable to kick any worthless partners out of one's life and demonstrate not putting up with shit to a tween girl than to ban her from reading trashy books.

One could always try buying her something better, but IME, people who try that always do it wrong: they buy books that are better written, yes, but the vocabulary and sentence structure are a thousand times harder, there's zero iddy wish fulfillment, and the plot is something fucking depressing and supposedly edifying.

Readers can smell a tryhard "your taste is bad" gift a mile away.

I think it's also important when trying to find replacement trash to understand what the kink actually is. Why is it age gap? Well, have you seen 14-year-olds? They're awkward and covered in zits. Of course the protagonist is young like the readers and the hotties are older.

More importantly, why is it abusive? Absolute idiots will be like "Because society taught girls wah wah wah wah wah", but the actual reason is obvious if you've read trash romance for adults:

It's so the love interest(s) can be in the wrong.

The self inserty protagonist of this type of story has very little power. Not only is she usually younger, but she's poorer, a fish out of water in a new situation, etc. The way she gets power is by the love interest doing something absolutely horrible, realizing they have erred, and then groveling forever. Their guilt is an effective way to manipulate them. And yes, retail therapy is usually the next step from this particular trash classic all the way back to The Flame and the Flower.

You can try giving a teen girl a book about a teen girl action hero who is awesome and whose love interest likes her because of that... But if the reader doesn't feel awesome, she's still going to prefer a book about a loser with a destined, fated love or a misunderstood woobie whom other characters have to grovel to after not initially realizing she was special.

You can't fix self esteem by handing someone a book they don't identify with and telling them their id is wrong. And if self esteem does improve, that doesn't mean the lizard brain is going to switch trash fiction tastes anyway.

One can try leaving other fun books around, but that's about the most that could be helpful.

[studies-in-the-art-of-deduction]

Stop practicing with pictures!

Alright this is gonna be one of the posts that people seem to like, probably because of the dramatic title and the "hot take" as the kids are calling it these days. This time we're talking about practice, specifically about one of the biggest mistakes i've seen people make with their practice habits

Now from the title you can already tell what i'm talking about, you have got to stop practicing with pictures, at least as much as you probably do compared to practice with irl subjects, this is for one simple reason: pictures are not real life!

Now, the argument of "anyone who posts a picture being very aware of at least vaguely what they're posting and hence your deductions are already being at least partially conditioned" is a very old one, and while actually a good one and one to keep in mind, that's not where i'm going with this

When i say pictures aren't real life i'm talking about the fact that pictures dictate the information we can get, not because of the people posting these pictures, but rather because of the nature of the pictures themselves. Any photos we find have the disadvantage of not allowing for deductions that would be useful or relevant at all in real life

Think about the following situation: you find a picture of someone's hand posted in r/deduction or somewhere similar, and you think "awesome! a fun, challenging picture that doesn't seem too stressful to deduce!" and you start going at it:

You see hairbands on the wrist, so they have long hair

You see nail polish and signs of manicure, so statistically they're probably female presenting

You see the hand is actually quite small, so they're short

You see the skin suggests they're young, maybe late teens/early 20s

You see they're wearing expensive jewlery, so well off economically

You see they're wearing an apple watch, so they have an iphone and potentially other apple devices

These are all good deductions, actually some of them could lead you to some deeper, more interesting conclussions, so all good right? Well let's now say you see this same person (with the same hand, hopefully) walking down the street, how many of those deductions are now just observations at most? The hair being long you can just see, same thing with the height and probably gender they present as, the age isn't much of a deduction either anymore, at most you could maybe narrow it down as a deduction but you can just see the range they probably fall in. You're left with maybe 2 deductions that are actually worth anything

Now yes, this is just an example, and yes i made it up, of course not all practice with pictures is useless, and not all ways of practicing with pictures are unproductive. But my point is this: a lot of people, most people i've met in this community actually, realize that it's a lot easier to just pull up your computer, find some pictures to deduce, and boom practice, not realising that most of their time an effort is probably going down the drain. And then those same people go out into the world, ready to deduce, ready to sit in a public setting and put all their practice to good use, and find that they can't actually deduce anything, or worse, they don't realise (and have no one to tell them) that hey, that deduction about that girl that just walked by having long hair because of the hairband on her wrist, yeah that's not really much of a deduction, everyone can see she has long hair.

So my advice is this: for the love of god, no matter how much you practice online, with pictures of people, keys, phones, daily carry, and rooms (jesus please don't practice only with rooms, when's the last time you actually saw someone's bedroom irl?). Do not make that your primary form of practice, go out, practice in real life scenarios, in coffee shops, and classrooms, and restaurants, watch real people exist in their natural habitat, and try to maximize your deduction abilities there, this is where most of your life is gonna be spent, and where most of your deductive abilities will matter

And apart from all of this, i'll throw in some extra advice: Practice mindfully, know why you're doing the exercises you're doing, know why and how certain types of practice work and if they're actually helping you. If you're gonna practice with pictures be aware that your goal is not to be able to use all of the types of deductions you manage to pull off with a picture in real life, but rather to strengthen your reasoning capabilities to then use those in real life, and reach different, more complex conclusions with them. Pictures are not a supplement for real life, they're a training range to make you sharper, but if you only ever go to a shooting range that doesn't mean you can suddenly join the army with no other training

That's all for this post, see you next weekend... or maybe sooner? ;)

Happy Observing!

-DV

[romandaandromeda]

How Azumanga Daioh tells the difference between the "Old Web" and "Modern Internet"

a content warning for mentions of rape, pedophilia, and ableism (well, better safe than sorry!)

i had an entire thing written before this, but i decided to scrap it for when spacehey comes back online

so, the old web. we know what it is, we know how we see it, geocities, crunchy gifs, flashes and whatever. but have you ever seen the difference between its societies scattered across websites whether it be an imageboard, geocity, or forum against our discorded societies on major social media platforms?

a while back, i had begun watching azumanga daioh as a result of a sudden reinterest in the anime in this decade. this reminded me of how prevalent anime was on the internet as a whole 2 decades ago (and more or less, azumanga's iron grip on anons and lurkers alike), which led me to searching for how different this era was with memes.

memes, or a fad, wasn't very accessible as they are today, while some could be laughed at as an outsider (think awesome face, shoop da whoop, nyan cat, impact font memes), memes outside of the public conscious were mostly inside jokes spawned from forums like something awful or imageboards like 2chan or 4chan.

out of those many, azumanga was one of the more popular ones. think about it, funny teenagers do funny things and combine that with a major love from anime communities, you get things like these:

now what i've noticed about these memes from pre-2010 is their inside joke nature. ask the modern user what a sticky is or why they think osaka is pretending to be a nazi, they wouldn't know or be a bit offput. plus using kaorin's little lesbian crushing on sakaki to project their straight love for sakaki would probably be looked down upon now but that was just normal. if you couldn't handle it then it was either hit the road or deal with it.

you can probably guess that kimura was probably the most relatable character ever in those days, don't even get me started on the normalization of pedophile/rape jokes back then.

now that's fun and all, but how about nowadays? we no longer have a scattered culture, everyone is using one single site for entertainment and posting, and all of the forums and imageboards have been designated a hazard zone as their users have mutated into despicable folks that have been shunned away to the point where they seem more depraved than their past. AKA, they no longer care for relating over a character or talking about a show, they'd rather argue about their nitpicks of a specific character or show and just skulk on what used to be a thriving community. well, nowadays it seems you don't need to be part of a specific community anymore, just see a meme and laugh without any context. with azumanga's revival in interest, this has sort of spawned what i like to call "azumanga autism memes" (TO CLARIFY: I AM AUTISTIC, FEEL FREE TO MAKE UP YOUR OWN NAME IF MINE DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT!). as they've mostly just become the most nonsensical and silly images ever, you practically don't need to watch the show to understand because its so disconnected from the source material it's like a cup of coffee, just pick it up and have a taste.

some examples:

notice anything? suddenly, osaka takes the center stage! with exception to the one chiyo image, osaka has become the face of azumanga as the modern internet knows it. compare that to how every character had about the same love through different edits in the old web, and it seems that most people would think that osaka is the main character of azumanga instead of the multiple characters' stories spread through the series. this has seemed to piss off many a gatekeeper, who are mad that this series is only gaining interest because of one character and her vague memes. to which i believe gatekeeping such a building block of the internet like azumanga is like trying to defend an unstable shack, it's useless.

so, what can we tell from the differences between ye olde and the new? to cut to the chase, the old web's fad culture was built from inside jokes outside of the "webcore/y2k-integrated" memes used for aesthetics. and nowadays people have publicized memes to a point where context is thrown from the picture and anyone can enjoy a meme instead of enjoying its source.

which is better? i can't tell you, you don't see much enjoyability and genuine appreciation in editing in today's memes than you did with old fads (you have to make people laugh, lest you be banished to the "reddit" label hell) but the normalization of taboo topics like racism, rape, and ableism should definitely be left behind in the old. it's just personal preference, really.

that's the end of this post, please enjoy kasuga.swf:

[thelostgirl21]

I'm late to the party like you wouldn't believe, but I've got to say something, because I'm so upset!

Okay, unpopular opinion, I actually loved Jaskier's Season 3 hair!

Was it always perfectly styled? No. There were a few scenes where I personally thought it could have used a bit more volume, or a bit more volume in some places while a bit less in others; but, most or the time, I was more than fine with it, and thought it suited Jaskier well!

At times, I literally adored it!

Ex:

To me, those are moments where I thought Jaskier looked his best in the series! Loved the hair!

Then again, personally, I tend to prefer Joey's looks with his forehead cleared and his hair longer.

Like, this is I think one of the most gorgeous non-feral hairstyles I've ever seen on him:

(X)

This is an absolutely gorgeous man, and I personally prefer his hair styled like this than short.

(Note: I'm not saying he's not beautiful with short hair, too, simply stating personal preferences. Certain aesthetic choices are based on comfort, too, and he can 100% afford to sacrifice the "long haired look" for something that makes him feel more comfortable. He can rock plenty of different looks!)

Then, of course, there's the feral look that is just in its own category...

So why am I upset?

I've just found out that he didn't wear a wig in Season 3!

That Jaskier's Season 3 hair were simply Joey's own hair that he had decided to grow out.

And look, I'm fine with everyone having preferences!

That's not my issue. Having your own tastes and not being a fan of Joey's Season 3 hairstyle is not the issue at all!

There were posts simply mentioning that they hated that it looked so flat, when we could have been graced with something a bit more like this:

And I do get preferences when it comes to styling.

It's just that I recall how - since people assumed it was "an ugly wig" that had been forced on his head by the wig department, rather than what they considered "a bad hairstyle" - the comments on "Jaskier's hair" were at times downright nasty!

And I just gotta get out of my system that those of you that have been literally making fun of his "sudden 4-inches receeding hairline" (first I'll have you know I find receeding hairline pretty hot!), when it's kinda remained the same for 3 seasons (it's called BANGS people. Joey tends to wear those with his shorter haircuts! Look it up!), for example, really suck!

His hairline has always gone pretty far up on each side, even in some of his earlier work... Ex: Gopher in "Mount Pleasant" (2016):

Like he's got very thick hair that form a "V" shape at the top (my mom had that, but I didn't inherit it... And we've got tons of hair... Like, a lot! * ) and a pretty large forehead.

*

(That's me at 18, and then at 28 - before I brought them back to a lower back length - but my mom is the same in terms of thickness, she just has that V in the front I lack, and it never receeded any further in her life.)

And there would be no shame in having thin hair, or any form of baldness anyway!

So yeah! I remember sort of heavily ignoring all those "ugly wig" comments because I, too, had assumed it was a wig (turns out Joey's hair seem to be a bit like mine, and grow pretty fast), and at some point you choose your battles.

Did I think a bunch of you were immature assholes for needing to hate on that "ugly wig" so much? Yes. But you find those in any fandom!

Personally, I thought "the wig" was awesome!

But now, I kinda regret not having taken the time to be more supportive of Jaskier's Season's 3 hair given I actually like it...

Because that's just a (very sweet) human being's hair, that was styled in a way that a number of people didn't like.

Again, zero problem for those that thought it was badly styled, and that the look didn't suit Jaskier!

Critiquing what you find a "bad hairstyle" is no cause for shame!

But, for those of you that took it to the next level with all those "ugly wig" comments, you fucking suck, I sure hope you've since found out that you'd been openly ridiculing a fellow human being's real hair, that it makes you feel like complete pieces of shit, and that feeling like complete pieces of shit is going to help you learn from your mistakes, before you start attacking other people's personal physical features in the future!

"Well, I didn't know!"

Here's today's lesson:

When you don't know, please kindly shut up and assume the hair you see is the real thing!

Or critique the wig like you would a real hairstyle, asking yourself "Hmm... Is describing someone's real hair the way I do going to make me sound like a bully?"

Like I said, I'm aware I'm pretty late to the party, but the the kid in me that got heavily bullied in school over her own hair really needed to get it out of her system!

[marley-manson]

Do you have any petpeaves regarding the M*A*S*H fandom?

lol sure i'll take the opportunity provided to express a few, ty for the ask!

Overall Mash fandom is pretty awesome imo, and I actually don't have many compared to a lot of fandoms I've been in, and the ones I do have tend to apply to most fandoms anyway lol, they're staples of fandom in general.

-- The biggest one is probably the common take that Hawkeye is insecure, self-loathing, emotionally repressed, thinks he doesn't deserve love, yadda yadda yadda. This isn't really Mash specific because the bad-self-esteem-ray hits every bottom in fandom at some point lol, but it's extra grating in Mash fandom for me because to me it feels more blatantly OOC than most versions of this.

Now to be fair to fandom there are a few scattered lines throughout the series you can take out of context to justify this take, and one bad episode that provably contradicts the rest of the show (Who Knew), but I feel like you have to stretch like a gymnast to justify it and ignore 99% of the rest of the show and Hawkeye's behaviour.

And it's boring and flattens Hawkeye to a caricature of someone else imho.

-- Generally, and again this applies to all fandoms lbr, I dislike the way a lot of people need to jump to accusations of bigotry to justify their personal preferences. One example I've seen a couple of times that's absolutely bizarre to me is the take that if Klinger gets dicked down and/or feminized in fic it's because of racist fetishization. That's Maxwell Q. Klinger, the dude who wears dresses throughout most of the show and canonically grows to genuinely enjoy it. And even if he was 100% masculine, that's what a lot of fandom does to every single dude they love ever lol, all it means is that Klinger has a fanbase, which is a good thing. imo attitudes like these help contribute to non-white characters getting less fanworks about them, and while I don't think it's prevalent enough in Mash fandom to have a negative effect, I've seen it destroy other ships featuring characters of colour.

Another example is the classic bad take that if you don't ship women in het or interpret a heterosexual relationship as doomed/not romantic/etc, it's because of misogyny lol. It's not hugely common in Mash fandom but I've seen it occasionally from BJ/Peg shippers and the very occasional Margaret enthusiast.

Oh and another example is that depicting Hawkeye as effeminate is homophobia. Again, this is Hawkeye, the dude who proudly calls himself unmanly in various ways every episode and makes 50 jokes about wanting to get fucked in the ass. Frankly it's a bigger stretch to me to assume he wouldn't easily and happily adopt actual effeminate body language/phrasing and tone if he's, say, at the bar and wants to pull a top. Or maybe even just if there are no straight people around, yk? Why not? The take that writing unmasculine men is offensive is a fandom classic and usually strikes me itself as homophobic, gender essentialist, and basically just someone's masc4masc kink masquerading as an issue.

Like to be clear there is certainly bigotry in the Mash fandom, as in every fandom, and it's worth discussing, and sometimes depending on context it can even apply in the above cases (eg if a fic about Klinger getting dicked down earnestly described him as idk exotic or something, or if people who 'feminize' male characters take it to silly extremes and start writing meta about how these men are woman-coded/victims of misogyny lol) but this ain't it chief, this is people repackaging their own pet peeves in social justice language to win perceived arguments, and it's a bad vibe.

-- This one IS fairly Mash specific lol, and to be clear it's 100% harmless and just something that makes me roll my eyes sometimes because I'm not into it myself and it strips away the things I do like about the ship: the way a lot of Hawk/BJ fans headcanon BJ as much more supportive and sensitive to Hawkeye than he actually is, by taking various things he does and assuming he does them for Hawkeye, like he's constantly aware of Hawkeye's unexpressed needs and catering to them.

Yk, he wears pink shirts for Hawkeye! He grew the moustache for Hawkeye (never mind that Hawkeye hates it)! He stole Hawkeye's joke to give Hawkeye enrichment because Hawkeye loves... being upset I guess. Joker Is Wild? All for Hawkeye because Hawkeye loves being paranoid and alienating people. (The reasoning I've actually seen is that Hawkeye loves having an excuse to throw a tantrum lol). He totally comforts Hawkeye when Hawkeye is upset, they just never show it. He is devoted to Hawkeye, he'd do anything for him, ignore the episodes where he calls him crazy and ditches him while he's facing adversity. He's Hawkeye's emotional support!

I've seen it in serious meta and casual headcanons and fic where BJ just falls into role of tender, emotionally intelligent emotional support like it's an assumed part of their dynamic despite not only never seeing that in canon, but Hawkeye actually pointing out multiple times that BJ is not very supportive.

It's also a misreading of Hawkeye who is actually the emotional support of their friendship, rather than vice versa, and tends to go hand in hand with my first pet peeve: Hawkeye as an emotionally insecure, repressed mess lol. BJ goes to him when he needs a shoulder to cry on, something consistent to the point of it being a way to manipulate Hawkeye in Picture This. Not vice versa. Hawkeye goes to Margaret or Mulcahy or Sidney. The only example I can think of where BJ provides emotional support (by which I mean listening to Hawkeye's emotional concerns and offering supportive input) to Hawkeye is the end of Comrades in Arms, and it's like the bare minimum of fulfilling the typical best friend on tv role.

(I like that BJ doesn't fulfill that role tbh! It's more interesting that way, it makes their dynamic feel more unique and intriguing.)

-- Also people who think Mash got more progressive in the later seasons. I think it demonstrates a shallow understanding of the political implications of the show. Getting rid of the character with a slur for a nickname doesn't automatically equal less racist, it's just an easy thing to point to that doesn't require much critical thought. And the growing feminist concerns go hand in hand with depicting republicans, patriots, and racist imperialistic military commanders as good people.

And to be fair I sympathize with this take, I've seen it everywhere from fandom to grumbling republicans complaining about mash getting preachier to professionally written retrospectives and academic analysis lol, so it's not like I hold fandom to higher standards. The ways Mash grows more regressive are more insidious, and the problems in the early seasons are much more obvious and in your face than in the later seasons. And there will always be some debate on whether eg rampant womanizing is worse than pro-imperialism messages, though I know what side I fall on there.

But imo it still sucks that it's such a popular opinion.

-- The emphasis on found family, especially in a 'the war brought them together' sense. Any hint of gratitude that the war let them meet people they love in fic, or whatever. This is something I can't completely blame on fandom because the show itself veered uncomfortably close to this a few times too in the later years, but yeah I'm not a fan. To me the most important aspect of Mash is the fact that they all hate it there, the war is worse than hell, they're virtually prisoners trapped in a nightmare, and any of the draftees would absolutely trade those relationships for an end to the war or just a ticket home. Their friendships are less a silver lining and more a painkiller that just barely takes the edge off. I think this vibe is clearer in the first half of the show, but that's yet another reason the first half is better and more progressive politically lol. And it doesn't disappear in the latter half either, just gets a bit more muddied.

-- This kind of goes hand in hand with the above points, but I feel like it's more of an older Mash fandom issue that I encounter when archive diving moreso than a thing currently (though I do occasionally still see it these days): fans who actively like the military stuff lol. I've read fic where dog tags are kinked on/romanticized, fic that depicts draft-dodging as bad, etc. These days it's more stuff in line with the worst parts of canon, like taking Potter at face value as a Good authority figure who deserves respect because of his military experience, but yeah. Don't like that.

-- Okay that's all I got off the top of my head. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to whine lol

[katyahina]

Who are Yahar'gul hunters? (compiled reference and observations on 7 obscure NPCs)

Like the title suggests, I decided to cover whatever could be said or speculated about a group of NPCs in Bloodborne in one post as despite suffering from not having unique names or at least titles (save for Antal), they are distinct enough to have the characters and lore nonetheless in Soulsborne's trademark nonverbal fashion! They are a valid part of overall Bloodborne cast and I've found out they offer plenty to work with!

Some shared observations

(Description are always taken from Last Protagonist's retranslation document ( x ) to not miss out any nuance)

1) Yahar'gul hunters are Healing Church hunters, rather than Old Hunters (the hunters of Gehrman's type) or Yharnam hunters (simple citizens who, albeit trained by Ludwig, don't count as Healing Church hunters)! Not only five out of seven of them use Healing Church weapons (six out of seven if you count Archibald's weapons as such) and not only School of Mensis is another faction of "nerds" of the Healing Church but also some visual hints can be seen:

^^^ For example, the metal helmets of Yahar'gul Hunters are the same as what Executioners (enemies) in Hunter's Nightmare are wearing! These Executioners are likewise staff of the Healing Church, or used to be in the times of the past. It is up to interpretation if their caged helmets were to contain those eldrich tentacles and School of Mensis simply took the design to honor their roots (like they honored their Byrgenwerth roots with uniforms), or if those Executioners were given to the Healing Church BY Micolash/Mensis to begin with, or the secret third/fouth/fifth thing! I just think the design implication being here to begin with is interesting

(The images of Church Giants are from this ( x ) page in Bloodborne Wiki (that awesome one created all by the same person))

^^^ Healing Church staff also seems to have a knack for ropes tied around (and the Madmen, former Tomb Prospectors, repeated the idea by tying long empty phantasms shells in a similar fashion)! Yahar'gul Hunters are said to use it as both restraint for kidnapping and... yeah, as 'lucky charms'.

2) It is rather interesting that they are, functionally, doing the same as what Snatchers (big Pthumerian guys with a sack) do - kidnap people for School of Mensis! My headcanon is that School of Mensis worked primarily with their hunters as kidnappers, and Snatchers were doing their own thing but simply shared living space with School of Mensis! Moreover, they do not aimlessly kidnap people long after Mensis Scholars "ascended", but need people for their own ritual of attempting to create an Amygdala, which is The One Reborn. It is a long rabbithole, but internal name of Amygdalae is 'evil god' and internal name of The One Reborn is 'failed evil god' ( x ). But alternatively, School of Mensis worked with the hunters and only afterwards was able to get Snatchers to help them! Regardless of interpretation, at least at some point in timeline, Yahar'gul Hunters were School of Mensis' tools for kidnapping.

3) Five out of seven of Yahar'gul hunters are not white. More specifically, one of these hunters (the Hunter's Nightmare one) is distinct, when other four are similar 'type' of model (not sure what to call it) with Henryk. Yeah, from game developing standpoint, devs probably just used Henryk as a base for creating Yahar'gul hunters, and naturally DLC hunter would look unique. But for all we know, it could also be an implication! Like how Heir Rune that Henryk drops is also found in Yahar'gul! At the same time, out of shown covenants of the characters, proportionally Yahar'gul hunters have the biggest amount of not white people. Yharnamites believe foreigners caused the plague of beasts, and Yharnam is very much Slavic: Czechia+Poland inspired, mostly with white people of course. Maybe people who were visibly foreigners had the hardest time whenever bias against foreigners began, and so these hunters had to turn to School of Mensis: a faction that takes in everyone, needing simply people willing to do crimes, and also provides opportunity to hide from the public eye.

4) Yahar'gul Hunters are the only type of Hunters in the game to use Archibald's weapons!

Archibald is not necessarily against the normal Healing Church; he is referred to as 変人 (a weirdo), unlike, say, Powder Kegs that are called 異端 (heretics). But, the items associated with him (Tonitrus, Tiny Tonitrus and Spark Hunter Badge) are all found in School of Mensis! One Yahar'gul hunter uses Tonitrus, one other uses Tiny Tonitrus, and Bolt Papers are dropped by one of the Yahar'gul Hunters and Snatchers, and also found on corpses all over School of Mensis! But maybe it was him being fascinated with "magic" of beasts instead of straight up denying all about them, or the fact that bolt harms Kin (who used to be an important deal for Healing Church) that earned him the weird looks. It further feels like Micolash was collecting various rejects by his side, sure that they'd do every mad thing he needed while having no choice, and Yahar'gul Hunters rather joined because of hard situation. Heck, there are two Yahar'gul hunters that defected from School of Mensis!

5) Back to Loran implications, because there are some!

Remember how Henryk is implied to relate to Loran? Further in cut content as his set used to be called Hunter of Gremia Set (Gremia used to be name for Loran ( x )) This is also the case with Suspicious Beggar, who straight up can turn into a unique beast that comes from Loran and isn't anything spawned by Healing Church's antics. Loran is very desert-inspired, so.. heck, appearance of Yahar'gul Hunters + Archibald exploring Loran electric beasts can also be useful for interpreting this cast of characters. Maybe Archibald specifically searched those with Loran heritage as part of his interest in Darkbeasts and School of Mensis had to comply for like... Archibald being to Micolash what Ludwig is to Laurence. Or maybe people with Loran roots were shunned not by Yharnamites in general, but by Healing Church itself, all over suspicion that they were more subjected for giving into beasthood than everyone else. :/ *insert 'This place is reserved for Whites' meme again*

6) In two out of three cases where you meet these Hunters, they fight as a group in which members also mutually balance each other with their skills. You'll see what I mean when I describe each hunter individually! But yeah, they group by compensating for each other's weak points, as opposed to, say, normie Church hunters that group by 'a cool person and their bodyguard' system (like the girls at Research Hall or Forgotten Madman and his escort for example). Really efficient.

Alright, I think I am done with overall review of the cast, and like I said, I am going to bring up each individually under Keep Reading! I just figured general observations were needed first! Will also be using screenshots of their face data that I recreated in game to have references, face sliders are datamined by Zullie the Witch! (( x ) ( x ) for videos and ( x ) for extremely handy compillation on the same cool Wiki)

The Defectors

I group these characters together as it is easier! They are Antal and a Yahar'gul Hunter that we meet in the Hunter's Nightmare, in Underground Cell! Both of them are using Church Pick, and both are actually against Healing Church by what we can conclude. I've heard that before Zullie datamined these hunters, people used to assume they were the same character 🤔

Antal

He is the only named Yahar'gul Hunter and is a summon against The One Reborn and Darkbeast Paarl! His weapons are Church Pick and Flamesprayer! He doesn't excell in any stats, nor there is anything remarkable about his build.... and I also used to think he had a tiny mustache because of that shadow just above his lip, but turns out he doesn't have facial hair fhdhfds Let's say he has it shaved or something.. Also, Antal is apparently young, both by feature sliders and actual age picked for him. I assume early balding working under Micolash is normal.. -_-"

With his summon locations, it is up to interpretation whether he is dead (since some summons do raise from the grave to hunt) or simply prefers to work against School of Mensis "from inside", helping the kidnapped if he crosses paths with them, rather than straight up leaving. At the very least, IF he died, he betrayed School of Mensis before his death, as the title suggests! Also according to internal files ( x ), Antal had an unknown occasion to appear in Hunter's Nightmare that was cancelled. It isn't clear whether it was as a hostile NPC or as a summon, but, having it cut is interesting because there IS another Yahar'gul Hunter there in the final game:

Yamamura's boyfriend Yahar'gul Hunter from Nightmare

OKAY OKAY but hear me out fdhfsdh This is the hunter we find in the Underground Cell in Hunter's Nightmare, where people that learned too much about the Healing Church's secrets are thrown to die!

It is quite a bold move for someone who worked for School of Mensis of all things to be considered someone that learned too much, right? I think that an intention to betray had to be the factor, then 🤔 Yamamura is a summon not only against Living Failures, but also in Yahar'gul for Darkbeast Paarl and The One Reborn! Summon locations indicate the characters' backstory, so Yamamura once was at Yahar'gul. I think it is a logical conclusion that this hunter had helped him to run away... or maybe was convinced BY Yamamura to consider his life choices and to run? Was Antal helping the two as well but didn't make it out alive, or he chickened out to run with them and did stay as "passive" rebel? What do you guys think?

Well, the potential backstory aside.. This guy has blond hair and blond (shaved) beard and eyebrows, which I like for an interesting design! He is shaved, not bald. His built sliders are quite big, especially arms at 245 and the chest area at maximal 255. Among other NPCs he excells at Strengtht with 45 (third place amongst NPCs shared with Brador and Yamamura) and Skill (second place, shared with Yamamura and Bestial Hunter). He uses Church Pick and Repeating Pistol; both are Church weapons, like Antal! He is also my favorite Yahar'gul NPC because he is totally forming Detective Gang with Yamamura, Gratia and Simon trust me guys my uncle works at Fromsoft fdhfdhshfd xD

But yes, I think if Antal's cut appearance in Hunter's Nightmare is of any indication, developers decided to make two characters instead of one in the end! Good for them!

Cathedral Ward Hunters

They are the two guys that you fight when approaching the 'normal' entrance to Yahar'gul - a chapel where Patches directs you towards! Just the outside guards of the Yahar'gul. If you also follow there with Henriett summoned, she will help fighting them.

CW Hunter with Tonitrus

He is really frail and old, as you can see. He uses Tonitrus and drops 4 Bolt Papers! I'd say he is the most 'electric' hunter out of everyone we meet, heheh; He is also the only NPC to use Wooden Shield, others who use it as Yharnam Huntsmen enemies!

As it is not an effective thing against the beasts, he maybe simply chosen it because his purpose is to fight people, not beasts. Maybe he also does originally come from regular citizens, and Tonitrus was simply something he took after starting working for Yahar'gul when normally we'd see him with a pitchfork or alike. Finally, he has one of the lowest Bloodtinge stats amongst all NPCs (9), as third weakest, so maybe using shield instead of a gun was a necessity from his blood being too weak to reliably use for the bullets (which are created from the user's blood!). I favour the latter version particularly and I'll also explain why soon!

CW Hunter with Rifle Spear

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER fdjfds

Okay, well, this Yahar'gul Hunter uses generic placeholder data, and this is what it looks like xd So his appearance is entirely up to interpretation. He uses Rifle Spear and Ludwig's Rifle, and drops 10 Quicksilver Bullets! I like the fact that both of his weapons are able to shoot! Furthermore his most excellent stat IS Bloodtinge: 35, that puts him on 6th place amongst NPCs (shared place with Brador and Simon). It is very clear what his specialization is, in contrary to his hunting partner! They're like opposites x)

The three Hunters ambush you in Yahar'gul

I guess anyone who had a Skill Issue (like me т.т) remembers THESE guys. I've found them challenging to kill, but at LEAST they do not respawn. Also, in the area where we fight them a previously accessible Lantern is completely smashed after Rom is defeated and can no longer be used! I think it should have been them who smashed it... Maybe after seeing the Moon turning red, they simply knew what was going to happen? Not sure whether they protect Micolash's secrets even past his disappearance or have their own motivation; like I said, it is also possible that after Mensis Ritual the remaining people in Yahar'gul were doing their own thing!

Beast Claw Yahar'gul Hunter

Uh... So yeah, he shares all sliders and stats with the Tonitrus Hunter from Cathedral Ward! I personally like to simply take this idea and make them be twins! But even this aside, his sliders make a lot of sense for me!

Amongst Yahar'gul Hunters, he is the only one wearing a variant of Yahar'gul Helmet without the hood. Moreover, it is the only piece of attire he is wearing, otherwise naked (if you don't count underwear lol)! He uses only Beast Claw and drops the Clawmark Rune (also dropped by Gilbert). What I like about simply reusing these stats is that his physical weakness might be either the result of continuously turning to beasthood or, better yet, the reason why he has to turn to beasthood! If him and Tonitrus Hunter are twins, there might be some physical weakness (or even sickness) shared genetically, and both have to compensate for it somehow!

Despite sharing face data, they have different stats, with this hunter having stronger stats in everything. Most of them could simply be because he is a later game NPC that must be stronger, but the one that stands out is Bloodtinge which is significantly bigger compared to Tonitrus Hunter: 38, that puts him in 5th place amongst other NPCs and is a place shared with other two from the same trio. Super sold on the idea that it is also because of beasthood; he'd need to consume a lot of blood to awaken it, so...

^^^ Interestingly, his weapon yet again is related to the Darkbeasts ('black beast' refers to them in this file)! Although not electric, but it is still fitting to use for someone from Yahar'gul since Paarl is there too!

That rat around the corner Yahar'gul Hunter with the Cane

I honestly remember this guy much more from how he sneaks up on you from behind when you approach the other two hunters from the trio and also spams Tiny Tonitrus attacks than from him using Threaded Cane (and Flamesprayer).. but Cane is what he is commonly referred to with. Also the second Yahar'gul Hunter, together with Antal, that isn't shaved. His built is average, but he has a very strong, visible stripe of a scar on his left cheek. Also rare case of Yahar'gul person that has eyebrows o_o Unacceptable!!!

There isn't much else to say about him, other than the scar is interesting. Also, this trio of hunters mostly shares the stats, with each of them being weaker than the other two at something, and this hunter's weakest stat is Strengtht (14)! Guess he doesn't need it much, since his weapons are long-distance combat! Or maybe he started being very careful after receiving this scar somehow... Or, maybe, he is the smartest one in the trio (he even drops Madman Knowledge) and the Beastclaw Hunter baiting the Paleblood Hunter while he ambushes from the corner was HIS idea. ...and maybe smashing the Lantern was his idea too? Yes, I like the idea that he is just the smartest amongst them and takes the lead as a strategist, and also the most careful.

Yahar'gul Hunter with the Cannon

Okay, this NPC I actually never forget for one minute because he has THE most buff buld amongst ALL NPCs! He is the only character that has chest, abdonmen, arms and legs all at 255! What, you guys thought that Alfred had the biggest tiddies? Compared to this Hunter, Alfred is just a pathetic twink!!!!!! Just look at HIS build for comparison:

(aww he got a belly tho :3 )

But yeah, anyways, this Hunter uses Cannon and Rifle Spear. Very, very powerful shooting force that drops 20 Quicksilver Bullets, and damn, that Cannon is heavy. I am supposed to say "interestingly how both of the weapons he uses are made by Powder Kegs", but....

..turns out that localization team made a MISTAKE, and for some reason attributed it to Powder Kegs! When even the original Japanese script says かつて医療教会の工房が試作した大型銃 ('a large gun that was once invented at the 'medical church' workshop'). Sighhh.... it even makes perfect sense because you do not get the ability to buy this weapon by obtaining Powder Keg hunter badge, you just find it! It makes EXTRA sense because there is a weapon CHURCH CANNON, that was remodelled FROM the original Cannon! AAAAAA WHAT WAS THE POINTTTTTTTTT-

Okay OKAY I am calm now

Yes, all in all, the guy is also very interesting! As an artist I also love that his hair is very dark, almost black, but his eyebrows and beard are brighter brown (darker blond?). I like small details like this! He is also amongst people with THE lowest Arcane stat from all NPCs (8, the last place) and has a very tiny mole on his left side of the nose that is invisible because of the color chosen for it. Awesome.

__________________

Yeah, I think I've covered whatever observations and ideas I've had on these guys. I just really wanted to because Bloodborne is still rich with easily-overlooked NPCs even ten years later! And honestly, not giving them the names is what made it so bad in my opinion... Like for example, imagine how easier it'd be to communicate about and ship the two female Hunters at Research Hall had they only been named internally? Someone could argue that Yurie is "loreless" character, but since she has a name it is easy to identify her, and thus pin down lore implications and make a story. @ Fromsoft please stop giving your obscure NPCs enough to work with and then not give any way to instantly tell them apart besides what weapons they use ;-;

In any case, these guys were kinda hard simply because there is many of them, but at this point I can easily distinguish them 🤔 Maybe someone else will find this post useful or interesting!

[anewp0tat0]

Hi!! I discovered your blog some days ago, your dadbastian art it's amazing I really loved it <333 it's so funny and sweet :') and I found coattails fic because of it too, do you have any other fic recs with that vibe?

Hi!!! omilord that's awesome of you to say thank you tons🥹 it means a lot, I'm happy to be a proud representative. and OHHH my art made you read Coattails??? that's awesome hahaha my propaganda WORKED!!! \(•[]•)/ read at your own pace and sucks it all up if you're still reading.

as for your question, I unfortunately find it hard to make time to sit down and read a lot nowadays, so I sadly have not been able to read a lot. I do hope to change that soon, but in the meantime, here's a short list of some that I've started/very much plan to read!

The Whole Being Dead Thing: by @milfhandholder - I was first introduced to it when Maia took inspiration from a reaper training fanart I did and showed me her fic, and I was really thrilled. the rest of the fic is amazing so far, I absolutely love looking at other people's interpretations of the reapers realm and how the facility works, and this is a stellar example. basically, world building💯 and the characters are cool.

Black and Baby Blue: by @blackbutler-sideblog - I unfortunately only got to read the teaser/prologue/first chapter(?) so far, but I love the concept so far and really look forward to cracking it. basically, its dadbastian, him having to raise a young o!ciel. and it looks like it will be very sweet and heavy:>

Ludo: by @pain-in-the-butler - same author as Coattails, so you'll like it. it was written during Bard's arc if I recall(it feels like so long ago), it's one of my favorite one shots. so if you feel like you don't see enough of Bardad and his relationship with o!ciel, go ahead.

The Story of Grelle the Reaper: by @eemoo1o-animoo - I also have not gotten the chance to read all of it, but I know I started it a little while ago and I remember really liking the writing(as someone who loves atmosphere and detail). it's a take I've never seen before on Grelle's backstory, and I'm here to see where it goes.

Vigil: by @house0fsugar - I'm incredibly happy they showed me this fic cause oh my god, I don't think I've ever felt so dreadful for the reapers. it's a beautiful story of the reaper gang going back to their graves.... what more can I say. I don't think I've ever loved the group dynamic more. the character building, 💯

Bloom: by @shinigami-dispatch-association - of course I have to mention the fanfic that is directly inspired by the reaper training artwork I mentioned above(its this), now only am I incredibly honored, but I think this fic took every idea I had and made it into exactly what I thought it would be. a wonderful imaginative piece, I hope to reread it soon.

The Little Lost Star: by @grelleswife wrote a while ago, but it was like, the first fanart I every posted here, so ofc I remember it still. it's the sweetest. there are so many other good fics of hers that I haven’t gotten around to yet ugh.

nice to meet another wheat in the dadbastian field☺️ have a good day!

[legacygirlingreen]

Giveaway!

Hey friends! So I recently just hit 200 followers, and borrowing the idea from @sophiver who also just did a giveaway for the same milestone (congrats again Love, it's well deserved!), I decided to do a giveaway...

Recently I have seen a growth in my blog, something I hardly expected and am so VERY grateful for. I almost didn't even rejoin Tumblr or actively post in a community, but I did in the midst of my masters thesis as an outlet. Since then I have gotten such a wild support system, made so many awesome friends, and just all around found such a fun group of people.

To thank you all I will be giving away the choice of either a short, one shot personalized fic with a character (I just request they be human because not writing for like the goblin, centaur or even ghosts sorry!) from HL of your choice (SFW or MILD NSFW depending on what it is but keep in mind I would like to be comfortable with the content) OR an brief personalized audio of your choice from a character if that's more your speed!

I don't really have a limit on each with words, I tend to just get inspired as I go, but if you have concept you'd like to explore either with your, your MC, etc I am open!

I have never really attempted this before but here's how to enter:

either

comment your username and which you would prefer (audio/fanfic) and what character you'd like it to include

or

repost with your username and which you prefer (audio/fanfic) and what character you'd like it to include

example:

LegacyGirlinGreen, Audio, Ominis

I will leave this open for a little over 10 days so the deadline is

September 13 at noon (eastern time)

Rules:

I simply would just like to reiterate while I am willing to try for some slightly spicer content, I would like to make sure I am comfortable so that I can give the winner a better result... That being said, just make sure I know you want in and I am open to discussing whatever!

Thank you all again and please feel free to join in on this! I am truly thankful so many of you have loved my fic on here and I've been able to enjoy this community. You all rock!

COMPLETED GIVEAWAY LINK HERE TO AUDIO: https://www.tumblr.com/legacygirlingreen/729011475533971456/sebastian-sallow-dad-audio?source=share