#sorry for the way this post is worded

[monstertsunami]

THE PAFL CHARACTER NOBODY'S HEARD OF

there are a LOT of niche side characters and background characters in pafl: bg gang, nadya, lilya, kolya... but I've been posting about one lately that I realize nobody really knows about.

INTRODUCING...

Dr. Smirnov!

this old man has like no appearances in official pafl media. less than even Nadya, the most underrated queen. it makes sense that the tumblr audience (paflblr? we're not big or fandom-y enough to be called paflblr) isn't aware of him though, because his only official art was posted exclusively on ferry's twitter.

his first (and only) ""appearance"" is some off-screen dialogue in a temnova-centric minicomic where he insults and accuses her over DT's escape.

His dialogue is the black text in the above images, from which we can discern a few character traits of his: he's brash, impulsive, a bit rude, misogynistic, and hates temnova. it's likely that he holds the work done at the facility in high regard, a fact inferred by his outrage over DT's escape.

After ferry released this comic, someone in their discord server asked for a "smirnov reveal".

And in response, they sent back a stock photo of an angry cartoon scientist.

Later on twitter, they replied to the original comic's tweet with screenshots of these messages along with the ONLY public* character art of smirnov, referenced from the joke stock image. The art depicts him with a head injury and his arm in a sling, injuries likely sustained from his presence during DT's breakout. The tweet's caption references the fandom's tendency to overanalyze background characters, as Smrinov is irrefutably unimportant and completely disconnected from the main events of the series.

...And thus concludes the canonical saga of my babygirl, my blorbo, my favorite old man. Two posts. No lore. The MOST niche and unimportant side character in PAFL. He's important to me though. I never fully grasped the term blorbo until I discovered Smirnov and crafted an entire personality for him out of 3 lines of dialogue and a single image. Even if no one else cares about Smirnov, I will always cherish him. Godspeed, you yaoiful old man..

*if anyone in ferry's discord server knows of any more doodles of him or messages regarding him, CONTACT ME CONTACT ME CONTACT ME PLEASE!! IM DESPERATE FOR MORE SMIRNOV. PLEASE.

[qiinamii]

races and naps

[suiheisen]

you think YOU had a bad day at work?

bonus: sid shrieking "no!!!! NO!!!!!" loud enough to be heard in the stands and on camera

[naturecalls111]

[inkskinned]

it is hard to explain without sounding vain or stupid - but the more attractive others find you, the more you're allowed to do. the easier your life is.

i have been on both sides of this. i am queer and cuban. i grew up poor. for a long time i didn't know "how" to dress - and i still don't. i make my sister pick out any important outfits. i have adhd in spades: i was never "cool and quiet", i was the weird kid who didn't understand how "normal" people behave. i was bullied so hard that the "social outcasts" wouldn't even talk to me.

i got my teeth straightened. i cut my hair and learned how to style it. i got into makeup. it didn't matter, at first, if i actually liked what i was doing - it mattered how people responded to it. like a magic trick; the right dress and winged eyeliner and suddenly i was no longer too weird for all of it. i could wear the ugly pokemon shirt and it was just "ironic" or a "cute interest."

when i am seen as pretty, people listen. they laugh at my jokes. they allow me to be weird and a little spacey. i can trust that if i need something, people will generally help me. privilege suddenly rushes in: pretty does buy things. pretty people get treated more gently.

i am the same ugly little girl, is the thing. still odd. still not-quite-fitting-in. still scrambling. still angry and afraid and full of bad things. of course it became my obsession. of course i stopped eating. i had seen, in real time, the exact way it could change my life - simply always be perfect, and things can be easy. people will "overlook" all the other things. i used to have panic attacks at the idea others would see me without makeup - what would they think? even for a simple friend hangout, i'd spend a few hours getting ready. after all, it seemed so obvious to me: these people liked me because i was pretty.

i worry about how much i'm being a bad activist: i understand that "pretty" is determined by white, het, cis, able-bodied hegemonies. if i was really an ally, wouldn't i rally against all of this? recently there's been a "clean girl" trend which copies latinx aesthetics: dark slicked-back hair, hoop earrings. i almost never wear my hair like that; i can hear the middle school guidance counsellor advising me that i might fare better if i toned it down on the culture.

the problem is that i can take pretty on and off. that i have seen how different my life is on a day where i try and a day where i don't. i told my therapist i want to believe the difference is confidence, but it's not. and when you have seen it, you can't unsee it. it lives inside your brain. it rots there; taunting. i get rewarded for following the rules. i am punished for breaking them. end of story.

pretty people can get what they want. pretty people can feel confident without others asking where they got their nerve from. pretty people can be weird and different. pretty people get to have emotions; it's different when they get aggressive, it's pretty when they cry with frustration.

of course people care about this. of course it has crawled into you. of course you want to be seen as attractive. it's not vanity: it's self-preservation.

[shakingparadigm]

they are sooooo cute

[inkly-heart]

please don’t be sad little sprout, you are loved 🌱 🖤

🌱

[ringosmistress]

[gimmethemprimals]

🌊 wavecrest-confessions  Follow

whenever I see someone making fun of the tidelords disappearance I get SO angry. Its just so insensitive to water dragons, and it ALWAYS comes from a wind, earth, or ice dragon. Like I don’t think you have any ground to stand on guys, your deities are still more neglectful than the tidelord and he’s not even here

❄️ ice-ice-baby  Follow

Dude your god has been gone for so long his long lost children came back before him

🪨 freshpebble-deactivated

Aren’t you the one who carved your fanart of femboy Icewarden into the side of the pillar.

❄️ ice-ice-baby  Follow

???? You’re literally a shade apologist

💫 see-the-stars  Follow

HOW ARE THERE SHADE APOLOGISTS ON DRUMBLR IN THIS DAY AND AGE I THOUGHT THEY WERE ONLY ON DRITTER

🍃 riding-high  Follow

are we gonna just brush over the femboy icewarden thing

🦅 talonafan2477  Follow

@ see-the-stars the Arcanist is the ORIGINAL shade apologist what are you talking about

🦅 talonafan2477  Follow

btw “ice ice baby” is apart of from clan froststep that has a history of supporting the gaolers during the freezeflash war and thus the destruction of the banescales

🌑 walkingshadows Follow

Yeah but what about the femboy icewarden thing

🔥 its-gettin-hot  Follow

you can excuse genocide but draw the line at femboy icewarden?

🌑 walkingshadows Follow

im not drawing the line i just wanna see it myself

🌺 bug-claws Follow

thats fair

[canisalbus]

Hey quick question,

What do you think is an acceptable amount of asks to post in a day?

They've become my primary way of delivering you art ramblings and oc lore and such, but I'm constantly worried I'm flooding people's dashboards with them.

[lover-of-mine]

[radiocity]

The L Word | S2E01

[strangerlittlethings]

Bitches be like: I homeschooled my kids and they're fine.

No, they're not. Look at shallan. She was and then she's flirting with kabsal because she never have seen a proper man.

[rxkuyo]

Pokémon Sun and Moon ▶ Guzma｛3/∞｝

[shakingparadigm]

what is the theory that ivan manipulated the event where till and mizi met the wagyein?

It's not a theory, actually! It's confirmed that Ivan orchestrated the whole event. The true reason as to why however is still unknown. The information provides more context to this scene, though:

During the earlier times of ALNST the most rational explanation for this scene was that Till ran after a flower crown (presumably Mizi's) and Ivan followed him in out of curiosity. Now we know that Ivan was conveniently just standing there because he was waiting.

Side note, I find it heartbreaking (and maybe a little funny, sorry) that Till most likely didn't notice Ivan in this scene. That's just like him, isn't it. Always too busy running after Mizi while Ivan trails behind, an ever-present shadow.

I'm not sure how Ivan manipulated the circumstances for both of them to end up there, but it is confirmed that everything was intentional. What strikes me most is how they describe this particular scene:

I can't copy down what they said word-for-word (Patreon info), but they described Ivan watching "creepily" as Till and Mizi are faced with danger. We know that Ivan was familiar with the Cerberus wagyein beforehand, enough to touch its teeth and even to rest himself inside its maw. To Ivan, the wagyein is not dangerous, but to Till and Mizi, it could be. Ivan prepared the wagyein, led them there, and watched "creepily" from afar as Till fell on his knees, seemingly injured.

The closest I can get to making sense of Ivan's "scheme" is that he wanted to see how other children would react in a dangerous situation. Ivan's always been an observer, after all, and he's learned to survive by copying the more "normal" behaviors of his peers. This situation occured when Ivan was still young and had not yet developed his more charming mask, so perhaps he staged this encounter to study a situational response, to learn and mimic the emotion of fear. And what better subjects for the experiment than two of the most expressive and reactive humans of their batch? It helps that he was already fixated on Till beforehand, too. I think Ivan became irreversibly obssessed after this incident, especially since it's framed as a turning point in Ivan's life, comparing Till to the stars.

This is just my attempt at an interpretation, though. It could very well be for another reason. He most likely chose Till and Mizi specifically for personal reasons, not just for reaction. I'm still not sure on the purpose behind the whole thing.

The team wanted to capture Ivan's "dark emotions" through the shot of his stalking, which could relate to his more sinister intentions. His gaze can be read in a few different ways, though. Curiosity, interest, fear, etc. Maybe that's why they decided to redraw the shot in ROUND 6.

I think this better sells the feeling they were trying to convey.

[ride-a-dromedary]

Since you know like 10000000x more about the elven language than me, what are your thoughts about the meaning of the name Halsin?

I like this question, because based in interpretation*, the name does suit him! We're going to use what we have access to in DnD elvish, as Tolkien elvish is a different language entirely and they don't have much overlap.

We'll have to break his name into pieces, and that can be done a variety of different ways, depends what you choose to do. I figured easiest ways are: Hal - sin

Very cut and dry.

or

Ha - l - sin

With the "l" being an adjoining tonal letter. In both cases, "sin" would likely be broken up into a combination of "sy"or "syy" + "-in"

Now the meaning of the pieces:

Hal/Hol: "pale, weak" OR "precious" (Side note: Astarion's "The Pale Elf" might be said "Hal'kesir/quessir" - very close to "Tel'quessir")

Ha: "free, freedom"

Sy: "wild"

Suffix -in: "brother, sister, sibling"

So, directly, it could mean:

Hal-sin = "Pale/weak or precious wild brother"

OR

Ha-l-syin = "Free wild brother" (Which I would phrase more like "Brother of the free wild" or just "Brother of the wilds")

I am inclined to lean towards the latter definition/meaning, as I believe it suits him very well, and aligns with the relationship between him and Thaniel. Naming himself as a sibling of the free wild indicates that his relationship with nature is the forefront of his personality (nature being his very first friend), and indicates a closer connection than others might have. Judging by how Halsin speaks of his connection with Thaniel shaping who he was as a person, this may imply he's named himself after how intertwined it all is to his being. Familial familiar and inseparable.)

(It also sounds more in line of what he would name himself than the alt. - I wouldn't really assign the words "pale" or "weak" as something Halsin would name himself...

...unless he is implying, as he was most likely at the point where he was the last of his kin and the only child left, that he was the "weaker" choice of sibling to be left of their line. So "weak brother of the wild". Pales in comparison. But I feel like that's a stretch.)

FUN BONUS, in elvish, Halsin could have written his name like this:

Or like this (A variant of Espruar, the alphabet of the moon elves that was used to transcribe elvish, used around 1372 DR - since retconned. And since Halsin would have likely learned to write between 1147 DR and 1152 DR, probably not used by him, but possible he learned as he would have been around 120 by then):

*Disclaimer that DnD elvish, at its core, has had a very contradictory lexicon over the many years, and most words are drawn from 2e and 3e materials - elven also has several words for singular things, single letters that can change the meaning of a word or sentence entirely/thrown in to make a word flow better and have no meaning otherwise, and is a very tonal based language in that you could physically be saying one thing, but another elf would hear something entirely different in the intonation. Therefore, everything I write here is interpretive based on the materials we have access to, with a little extra HCing and logical assumption.